alloftheimagines

[alloftheimagines]

The Art of Dying [pt. I]

: ̗̀➛ 𝐧𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢��𝐧 / 𝐭𝐥𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 / 𝐢𝐧𝐛𝐨𝐱

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: abby anderson x fem!reader 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1.5k 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: She loves you, and that, in itself, has always been a death sentence. 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: hurt / no comfort, just pure fucking angst I was in a mood

𝐚/𝐧: already working on the next part; my mood is not yet over sry

For a moment—just one fractured, breathless moment—the world goes quiet.

The kind of quiet that comes before a storm, before a bullet finds its mark. The kind that settles in the hollow of Abby’s ribs like a promise of ruin, whispering too late, too late, too late between the hammering beats of her pulse.

Then she hears it.

Your voice.

Her name—her name—ripped from your throat like a prayer turned into a war cry. It tears through the air sharper than a gunshot, ragged and broken, carving itself into her skull with the jagged edge of a serrated blade. It isn’t just sound. It’s a wound. Fresh. Raw. Splitting her ribs open to expose the frantic, hammering mess of her heart, pounding against bone like a caged thing begging to break free.

And then—

She rounds the corner.

And her heart stops.

There you are—knees grinding into the dirt, fingers clawing for purchase, bloody crescents gouged beneath your nails where you’d fought, where you’d tried. Your arms are streaked in violent, gleaming ribbons, the kind that catch the fading light and mock her with their brightness. The raiders have you, their hands like iron, dragging you backward, and the world has decided, again, that it isn’t done taking from her.

Your gun lies just out of reach.

A lifetime away. A taunt. A fucking joke.

Abby’s muscles coil, her vision narrowing to a single, searing point: you. The air tastes like copper and gunpowder, her breath sawing through her lungs as she counts the seconds—too slow, too slow—between your struggle and their grip. One of them laughs, low and cruel, and it’s the sound of a match struck against the tinder of her rage.

She doesn’t think.

Her body moves before her mind catches up—muscle memory, instinct, terror—and suddenly she’s running, boots slamming against concrete, her own pulse roaring in her ears like a war drum. Too slow. Always too fucking slow.

She fires.

A bullet rips through the air—crack—and for a heartbeat, the world narrows to the space between the muzzle flash and the spray of blood. One of them drops. A perfect shot. A hollow victory.

Another takes his place. Then another. Then another, surging forward like a tide of gnashing teeth and grasping hands. They’re everywhere, a flood of bodies and gunfire, and every second she spends fighting them is a second you slip further away.

She can see it—your fingers straining, your mouth shaping her name again—but the sound is lost beneath the gunfire, beneath the animal snarl tearing from her own throat.

Like she could tear the universe apart with her bare hands and stitch it back together the way it should be—with you safe, with you hers, with no space left between you but the press of your body against hers in the quiet dark.

She remembers.

The way you sighed into her neck last night, half-asleep, your fingers curled loose in her shirt like an anchor. The stupid, breathless laugh you let out when she rolled over and pinned you to the mattress at dawn, your hips arching against hers, the sunlight catching in your lashes. God, you were warm.

Now your skin is streaked with dirt and blood. Now your voice is raw from screaming. Now the raider’s grip on your arm is tight enough to bruise, and Abby’s vision splinters—

Because she knew this world was dangerous. She’s carved that lesson into flesh, hers and others’, a thousand times over. But knowing isn’t the same as seeing.

Not like this.

Not you.

Her lungs burn, her muscles scream, but she pushes harder, faster—just a little more—

One more second.

That’s all she needs.

Just a sliver of time. A single, stolen breath.

To reach you.

To drag you back.

To dig her fingers into your skin and hold on so tight the world can’t take you from her again.

(She should’ve been closer. Should’ve known, should’ve been there—should’ve listened when you joked last week, "If we die, I’m haunting your ass forever," and she’d rolled her eyes and tugged you into her lap, "Yeah, yeah, dramatic much—" but her hands had lingered on your waist like a silent prayer: Not you. Never you.)

Now the guilt is a knife between her ribs, twisting deeper with every choked gasp you make.

The distance between you stretches like an open grave.

She’s so close.

Close enough to see the wild terror in your eyes—wide, reflecting her own desperation back at her like a shattered mirror. Close enough to see your lips shape her name like a prayer—a litany, a plea, a last hope. Close enough to see the blood smeared across your cheek, the way your fingers scrabble against the cracked concrete, nails splitting as they haul you back.

No.

Not when she’s so close—

A gunshot cracks the air like God’s own judgment.

The bullet tears through her side—white-hot, blinding—but she doesn’t stop. Can’t. Not when your voice still claws through the chaos, ragged and desperate. Not when she can still taste the ghost of your lips from last night’s kisses, still feel the way you’d sighed into her mouth, "Y’know, I’d follow you anywhere."

She couldn’t fix it before. Couldn’t save them. But you—

You she was supposed to protect.

She staggers forward, vision swimming in and out of focus, each breath a wet, rattling gasp that floods her mouth with copper. The world tilts—spins—but she grits her teeth until they creak and moves.

Your hand stretches toward her, fingers trembling.

Hers reaches back, blood-slick and shaking.

Almost—

(Just a little more—)

(Just—)

Another gunshot.

This one punches through her abdomen like a fucking sledgehammer, the impact sending her stumbling back. Her legs—God, her legs won’t obey—but she still tries to run, still tries to reach, even as her knees buckle, even as she collapses onto her back with a wet thud that knocks what little air remains from her lungs.

For a single, dizzying second—she swears she touches you.

Your fingers brush hers, warm and alive, just like that morning when you’d laced them together under the sheets, whispering "Five more minutes" against her pulse. But then the world snaps back—blood, gunpowder, screaming—and her hand closes on nothing.

Your scream shreds the air—not fear this time, but grief, pure and terrible. Hers. The sound of a heart breaking in real time.

She always said she wanted to go out fighting, guns blazing. But not like this. Never like this—

Not before saving you.

Not before earning redemption.

Not with the bitter knowledge that in the end, she still wasn’t good enough.

Another memory flickers, unbidden:

Your laugh—bright, startled—the first time she kissed you properly, pressed against the grimy wall of some storage closet, her calloused hands trembling for once not from violence but from want, from the terrifying, exhilarating truth of it: you wanted her back. The way your breath had hitched, how you’d nipped at her lower lip just to feel her groan. How for one stupid, perfect moment, the world had narrowed to the heat of your mouth and the desperate, clumsy drag of her fingers down your sides—

Now the absence is everything.

This morning—

You’d been warm in her arms, sleep-soft and stubborn, burying your face in the hollow of her neck with a groan that vibrated against her pulse. "Five more minutes," you’d mumbled, voice thick with dreams, and she’d laughed—low, fond, yours—pressing kisses to your temple, your cheek, the corner of your mouth until you relented with that little wrinkle between your brows she loved. "Fine, fine—but only 'cause you're cute."

She should’ve let you stay.

Should’ve tangled her fingers in the sheets instead of her gear.

Should’ve memorised the exact weight of your body curled against hers, the way your breath hitched when she traced your spine with her knuckles—like you were something fragile, something sacred.

Should’ve held on tighter.

Should’ve kept you there in that sunlit patch of mattress until the mission clock ran out, until the world stopped demanding things, until your protests turned to sighs turned to that breathless laugh she’d kill to hear one more time.

Should’ve let you pin her down until she forgot why you were supposed to get up at all. Until the only orders that mattered were the ones whispered against her skin. 

Now the only thing pinning her down is gravity.

Now the warmth spreading beneath her isn’t your body but her own blood.

Now the last taste of you is reminiscence and violence.

And Abby Anderson—soldier, killer, failure—closes her eyes.

[alloftheimagines]

whats that kink called that you get from reading too much fantasy lit as a child that makes you want to be tortured in front of someone who loves you so you can see the pleading desperation in their eyes and hear how much they love you in between the cracks of their voice and really truly believe they would do anything to save you. also you get to look so cool and brave and covered in blood and soooo able to withstand pain haha no just me? ok

[alloftheimagines]

Hiii could I request Sevika x reader but reader says safe word during freaky time because Sevika started getting a little too rough and reader already has struggled with sexual trauma and it made reader freak out ? Like everything was going good but maybe Sevika started getting rough with choking or maybe spanking and reader just freaks out and yells the safe word. Sevika feels guilty after because that’s literally her baby and she never wants to hurt reader.

Everything had been fine at first. Wayy better than fine, even. Sevika had you spread out beneath her, her mouth on your skin, her weight keeping you grounded. She knew exactly how to draw those trembling sounds out of you, that low rumble of her chest turning your nerves molten.

You trusted her. You really did. That was why you’d given her your safe word in the first place— just in case. Sevika was very strong, and sometimes she got carried away, but she always made sure to check in with you.

Tonight though, something slipped.

Her hand wrapped around your throat, firm and commanding. Normally you liked it, that pressure, that reminder that she could hold you down and keep you safe in her own rough way. But when her grip tightened a little too far, a little too fast, it was like your body stopped listening to the present.

Your chest went tight, panic clawing its way up your throat. Old memories flickered where they weren’t welcome, making your heart pound in terror instead of excitement. You couldn’t breathe,

“R-Red! Red!” Your voice cracked, raw and panicked as you forced the word out.

Sevika froze instantly. The change in her was immediate, like icewater doused over fire. Her hand vanished from your throat, her weight shifting off you as she pulled back, eyes wide, lips parting like she wasn’t sure if she should speak or just stay quiet.

“Baby, fuck, baby I’m sorry.” Her voice broke in a way you’d never heard before, rough with panic. “I’m sorry, I didn’t- I didn’t realise —”

You scrambled upright, pulling the sheets to your chest as your breath came in uneven gasps. Sevika’s hands hovered in the air, not touching, like she was afraid she might make it worse if she laid a finger on you.

“Hey. Look at me. You’re safe. You’re here, with me.” Her voice softened, but her eyes were stormy with guilt.

It took a moment, but you forced yourself to meet her gaze. She looked wrecked. Not just concerned, but gutted— like she’d just watched herself hurt the person she swore she’d protect above anyone else.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, even though you had nothing to be sorry for.

“No. Don’t-don’t you dare apologise.” Sevika shook her head hard, reaching for you but pausing, her hand trembling in the space between you. “That’s what the safe word’s for, sweetheart. You did exactly right.”

Your throat burned, tears pricking hot at the corners of your eyes. “I just… I couldn’t. I thought I’d be okay but then —”

“I know.” Her voice cracked, low and careful as she finally eased close enough to wrap her arms around you. She moved slow, giving you every chance to pull away. When you didn’t, she gathered you to her chest, her warmth swallowing you up. “I pushed too far. That’s on me. You don’t ever have to explain. You just say the word, and I stop. Always.”

You pressed your face against her, trembling. She smelled like smoke and leather and home. Her metal arm rubbed slow, steady circles on your back, the motion oddly soothing.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, baby. Never. You’re my everything. I’ll never let anything happen to you.”

It wasn’t just words— Sevika meant it with every ounce of herself. You could hear it in her tone, could feel it in the way she held you like you were the only fragile thing in her rough, jagged world.

Sevika didn’t just stop when you said the word. She stayed. She held you, rocked you, whispered how much she loved you until your heartbeat calmed against hers.

Later, she kissed your forehead and muttered, almost shamefully, “We don’t have to do anything like that again. Not unless you want it. I just want you. However you’ll have me.”

And for the first time since the memories had flared, you felt safe enough to breathe again.

[alloftheimagines]

straight tlou fans need to stay out of abby anderson’s business

[alloftheimagines]

STRANGER THINGS S04E08 | Chapter Eight: Papa

[alloftheimagines]

Pinterest in your email: you stupid fat fucking cunt. It’s you again huh. We literally just deleted another disgustingly vile and heinous post that YOU pinned. Doesn’t matter that it’s not originally yours. You interacted with it didn’t you? Didn’t you fatty? We don’t allow this despicable behavior. You’re sick. Please take some of your precious fucking jobless time to go through your tacky Pins and remove any that may conflict with our pristine policies or we may take further action against your flop account. God I wanna fucking kill you.

Thanks,

The Pinterest Team

[alloftheimagines]

i love this character so much......i hope they get seriously injured and almost die

[alloftheimagines]

what if I wrote a fic where abby is drunk this time mostly bc reader broke up with her what then

[alloftheimagines]

finished watching one day (the netflix show) and y’know what…….. just kill me. murder me. drown me. whatever

[alloftheimagines]

Just Abby kicking a chair

[alloftheimagines]

Im gonna be so real can yall actually talk about ways we can support trans women in the UK instead of giving all the attention to fucking JKR. I already know that Harry Poter sucks, I wanna know how to actually HELP people. Something something you have to love the oppressed more than you hate the oppressor

[alloftheimagines]

Abby Anderson - Seattle Day One - On Foot

[alloftheimagines]

this writing is absolutely phenomenal holy shit

What Remains After

[SUMMARY: Joel lies about your father’s death to protect you and your already high risk pregnancy at 9 months; when the truth comes out, the fallout threatens everything you’ve built.]

Again, protective Joel. Angst. Mention of death. Birth.

You wake to the sound of your own breath—shallow, too quick—pressed under the weight of nine months and a ribcage that feels two sizes too small. The baby shifts low and stubborn, a round, insistent comet that has turned every position into a negotiation. Your lower back throbs. Your ankles look like you’ve borrowed them from someone sturdier. You stare at the ceiling long enough that the knots in the wood start to look like faces.

Joel is lacing his boots at the edge of the bed. Dawn hasn’t made up its mind yet; the light at the window is a pale smear, cold as dishwater. He notices you watching and slows the knot with a deliberate calm you recognize—his “don’t spook the mare” calm.

“I don’t like this,” you say, and your voice surprises you, hoarse with sleep and worry. “That route is bad. You said yourself—”

“I did.” He straightens, shoulders creaking. He’s already got his flannel and the new vest someone patched for him—extra pockets, extra quiet. “And that’s why we’re going. Because it’s bad. Better we find out than someone who can’t handle it.”

“You and my dad,” you say. The words press on your sternum. “What if—”

Joel steps closer. He cups your face, thumbs soft at your temples, then slides one palm to the top of your belly where the baby answers with a lazy push. He grimaces at that, faint and fond. “Hey,” he says. “Look at me.” You do. “I’ll keep him safe. I’ll keep both of you safe. Nothin’ touches your dad while he’s with me.”

“I—Joel, I can’t… if something happened and I wasn’t there—”

“Something isn’t gonna happen.” His jaw ticks. That stubborn streak that first made you argue with him, then trust him, then love him—well, whatever you’re allowed to call what sits between you—sets like concrete. “You don’t need to carry this and the world at the same time.” His eyes flick to your belly. “You’re carryin’ enough.”

It lands wrong, even though you know he’s trying. “So now I’m a busted radio? Too much static?”

He exhales through his nose, a strained almost-laugh. “No. You’re a person I…” He stops, re-routes. “You’re a person I care about. And you’re tired. Let me do the ugly run. Let your dad do what he’s good at. You—” His hand squeezes your shoulder. “You just breathe. Breathe for three.”

You close your eyes and count with him—one, two, three—and when you open them he’s kissing your forehead, quick and clean. “Two days,” he says. “Back before you can miss me proper.”

You roll your eyes to hide the crack in your voice. “As if.”

He leaves with your father, both of them outlines in that not-quite-morning: your father whistling something you can’t place, Joel tilting his head to listen and pretend it’s not off-key. You wave from the porch until they turn the last corner of Jackson and are gone.

The first day bites at you with little teeth. Every creak of the house feels like a step outside your door. You make tea. You fold the same three burp cloths four times.

By the second day your hips feel like they’re hinges on a gate that’s been left open in a windstorm. You wake from a nap with the taste of iron in your mouth and your heart barrelling. Evening hangs low, heavy with cloud. You set the porch light on out of superstition, hands braced in your back to ease the ache as you waddle to the door.

He comes at full dark. You hear him before you see him—the measured, unhurried tread that means he’s forcing himself to look normal. When the door opens, cool air slides in with him; the smell of pine, damp fabric, old gun oil. He’s spattered with the day in streaks and smudges: mud, maybe. Maybe not. His hair is flat against his head, and his eyes go straight to you like he’s checking a marker on a map.

“Hey,” he says, softer than you deserve, and you’re already doing the math—one person, one silhouette. No whistle on the steps. No second shadow.

“Where’s my dad?” It comes out thinner than you wanted, like spun sugar left in the rain.

Joel sets his pack down carefully, like it might break if he’s not gentle. He doesn’t meet your eyes. “He’s fine,” he says. “He’s… worn out. He stayed at the outpost near the old water tower—safer to bed down and let his ankle rest.” He leans into the lie like it might hold his weight. “I told him I’d come let you know so you wouldn’t worry.”

“His ankle?” Your heart slows and spikes and slows again. “He didn’t say anything before he left.”

“Twisted on some loose rock.” Joel’s mouth does that almost-smile that never quite gets there. “You know your dad. Pretend he’s twenty-five until the bill comes due.”

You should swallow it. You want to. The ocean of relief he’s offering is right there, lapping at your toes. But the tide is wrong. Something about his voice is pitched half a note low, and his right hand won’t stop flexing like it’s remembering.

“Let me see,” you say, and you reach for his sleeve. He flinches—small, but it’s there. You push the cuff back anyway. There are faint crescents on his forearm where a strap bit him, and a smear that could be anything. Your breath stutters. “Joel.”

He finally meets your eyes. For a second you see it—the fissure, the thing he’s holding at arm’s length. He blinks it out. “Eat something,” he says, too quickly. “I can make you something. You look pale.”

“Joel.” The name means a dozen versions of please.

He inhales like the air hurts. His fingers hover over your shoulder, then drop. “Later,” he says. “Let me… let me just get you settled.”

You let him fuss because it feels like movement, like time might obey if you keep it busy. He takes your boots off even though you protest, sets a bowl of thick soup in your hands, finds the pillow that actually helps your back instead of just pretending to. He kneels to rub the ache from your calves until your eyes sting, and when the baby kicks, he lays his palm over the spot and closes his eyes like he’s listening to a sermon.

After, the house is too quiet. The soup coats your tongue but doesn’t make it to your stomach. Joel stands at the sink, washing a spoon with unnecessary focus. You watch his shoulders.

“What happened?” you ask, because not asking will eat you from the inside out. “Don’t tell me nothing. Don’t—please don’t do that to me.”

He sets the spoon down carefully. His hands brace on the counter. He looks older than he did two days ago.

“We ran into a nest,” he says, and the truth slips around the edges of the lie before he clamps it down. “Old building collapsed in on itself. We had to go wide. It was louder than we planned. We—” He swallows, and the muscles in his throat jump. “We got out.”

“Both of you.” You shape the words like a barrier.

He nods once. “He’s okay,” he says. “He’s… tired.” He pushes off the counter and turns, drying his hands on a towel that doesn’t need it. “He said you should rest too.”

Something loosens at the word loves and then tightens again so hard you almost gasp. “He sent you to tell me to rest?” It’s half laugh, half sob. “That sounds like him.”

“That sounds like him,” Joel echoes, and his voice rasps like a match along a rough edge.

Later, when you fall into a shallow, uncomfortable sleep, Joel sits in the chair by the window, elbows on his knees, face in his hands. He lets the night bleed in through the curtain crack. Outside, Jackson settles and sighs; somewhere a dog barks, unhappy, then gives up.

He thinks of the old department store, how the mannequins looked like ghosts in the dark. How your father had laughed at something stupid he said just before the wrong sound came from the wrong corner. How Joel had turned and fired and counted and moved, moved, moved, and still—too many, too fast, too close. How your father’s voice had steadied in the middle of it all, as if the chaos made a clean space to speak.

“You promise me, son,” your father had said, breath snagging, eyes bright—not scared, just blazing with that stubborn heat you carry in your bones. “You take care of my girl. You take care of that baby. You make sure they don’t want for nothin’. You hear me?”

Joel had pressed his palm over your father’s hand, feeling the tremor there and pretending it was his own. “I hear you,” he’d said. “I promise.”

The promise sits in him like a lit coal now, eating a hollow on the inside where it can glow. He thinks of you on the porch with one hand in your back, light haloing the edges of your hair. He thinks of the way your voice sounded when you said his name tonight and how much he wanted to deserve it.

He rises and checks the door again. Checks the windows, the locks, the rifle, the extra water by the bed, the batteries in the lantern, the folded blanket on the chair, the little bundle of clothes you’ve already washed twice because it calms you to make something ready. He makes a list out of the things he can do and sets it against the thing he can’t undo.

When you stir, he’s there before you speak, palm on your shoulder, grounding. “Bathroom?” he offers, not asking anything else. He helps you up, waits outside the door while you curse the indignities of the third trimester, smiles at the familiar cadence of it because it means you’re here and talking.

Back in bed, you watch his face in the dim light, how careful it is. “Will you stay?” you ask, voice small with the hour.

“Yeah,” he says. It’s the easiest truth he’s got. He drags the chair closer and sits where he can see the door and your face at the same time. “Ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

You nod, as if that answers a different question. Your eyes slide closed, lashes skimming your cheek. The baby shifts again, and his hand goes there without thinking, a quiet sentry.

He will tell you. He knows he will have to, because grief is a debt that comes due whether you open the door or not. But not now.

Not tonight. Not when your breath is finally even and the house has unclenched its fists. In the narrow, borrowed peace of this night, he keeps the promise he can keep: he watches. He listens. He stays until you sleep.

~~

The room over Tommy’s bar office smells like dust and old liquor—a place for hard talks, not tender ones. Joel stands with his hands on his hips, head bowed, jaw set like he’s holding a bit between his teeth.

Tommy leans against the desk, arms folded. “It’s a bad idea,” he says, low enough to make it sound kind. “You don’t keep this from her, Joel. You let her have it, and you carry her through it. That’s the job.”

“She can’t handle it,” Joel says, clipped. “Not like this. She’s barely sleepin’, can’t catch her breath, she’s in pain all day. I tell her now, I put that weight on her, and it’ll—” He shakes his head, searching for a word that doesn’t exist. “It’ll crack her.”

“Or you think it’ll crack you,” Tommy says quietly.

Joel goes still.

A floorboard creaks in the hall. Neither of them notice the door is ajar until a voice pipes up—rough with grief, a few drinks poured over its edges.

“You’re out of your damn mind, Miller.”

John steps in, hat in his hands. John: your dad’s fishing buddy and dominoes rival, the one who sneaked you fresh peaches last summer and told you they fell off a truck. His eyes are red, and the skin around them is raw like he’s been scrubbing at his face. “She ain’t a child. She’s his daughter. She gets to know.”

Joel straightens, that cold, flat quiet sliding over him like a coat. “This ain’t your business.”

“It is when you use my friend as an excuse to lie.” John’s voice breaks on friend; he barrels through it. “You don’t get to decide how she grieves. You don’t get to—”

“John,” Tommy warns. “Not the time.”

“It’s exactly the time,” John snaps. “He’s gone. She’s got hours before the world shifts under her feet forever and you’re standin’ here tryin’ to keep the ground fake-steady.” He steps closer. “He asked you to take care of her, not babysit her pain away.”

The door clicks. Everyone turns.

You’re in the doorway, one hand braced under your belly, the other white-knuckled on the frame. You look tired in that deep, marrow way—swollen eyes, hair shoved back, living on the edge of a breath that won’t come. “What are you talking about?” you ask, and your voice is so careful it scares the room.

Joel rushes to you wondering if you needed something, wondering what got you out of bed.

“I woke up and saw you weren’t there, then I saw your note that you’d be with Tommy. I just..I don’t know…I have this odd feeling” you admit, Joel’s eyes reading your every feature.

“What were you guys talking about?”

“Uh-“

“Actually, I’m glad you came by” John spoke making Joel turn back to him.

His gaze was a warning hard enough to bruise. Don’t. He doesn’t speak it. He doesn’t have to.

John flinches at the look—then sets his jaw. “She deserves the truth.”

“John,” Joel says, the name a threat.

John takes a breath like he’s stepping into cold water. He looks at you, not away, and it’s the tenderness in his face that starts the tearing. “Honey,” he says, soft and wrecked. “Your daddy… he didn’t make it back.”

Everything in you goes quiet, like the house after the generator dies.

You blink. The room doesn’t move. The clock ticks like it’s across a field. Somewhere you feel the baby turn, lazy, indifferent to catastrophe.

Joel doesn’t move either. He watches the light leave your face a millimeter at a time.

You sway. Joel is already stepping in, hands up like he’s approaching a skittish horse. “Hey—”

You don’t let him touch you. You look up at him, eyes wide and glossy with disbelief that’s sharpening into something hotter. Your mouth opens, closes. “You told me he was fine,” you breathe, and the break on fine is a knife.

Guilt hits him so hard his knees want to quit. “I—listen to me. You were—he asked me to look after you and the baby, and you were scared and I thought—”

“You thought lying was care?” Your voice rises, ragged. “You let me sit there thinking he was sleeping while he was—” You can’t say the word. It hangs in the room anyway, heavy and absolute. “You let me—” Your hands find his chest and you shove. He rocks back, lets it happen.

Tommy comes toward you palms up. “Hey, hey, easy now—”

“Don’t tell me to be easy!” you snap, and something feral jumps out of you. You snatch the first thing your hand finds—the pen jar off the desk—and fling it. Plastic clatters off Joel’s shoulder; pens burst like a spooked flock. He doesn’t flinch. He stands there and takes it because some part of him knows he deserves to be pelted with small, stupid hurts when he couldn’t stop the big one.

“Get away from me!” You’re not choosing targets anymore; grief has all the aim. A ledger, a rolled map, a ceramic mug with the bar’s old logo—Tommy catches your wrists, gentle but firm, murmuring your name. John adds his hands, clumsy with his own shaking. “Don’t touch me—don’t—Joel, don’t you come near me—”

“I’m sorry,” Joel says, hoarse, useless. “I’m so—”

You wrench free of Tommy’s grip, reach for another thing that isn’t heavy enough to say what you feel—and stop.

The room shifts underfoot, you lean forward, your hands falls to your belly. Heat unspools down your spine. A wet pop like a jar unsealing. Your breath catches.

“Wait,” you say, but not to anyone in particular—more to your own body, to time, to everything that should have had the decency to space itself out.

A warm flood rushes down your legs.

Tommy’s eyes go wide. “Oh, hell.”

Joel is moving before he’s thinking, crossing the room in two strides, all the air sucked out of his chest. “It’s okay,” he says, voice steady because he forces it to be. “It’s okay, I got you.” His hands hover, then land at your elbows, anchoring.

You flinch like he burned you. “Don’t touch me,” you whisper, and then louder, raw, “Don’t touch me!”

He pulls back like you shot him. Every cell in him still wants to hold you up. He arrests his reach midair and makes it into a gesture to Tommy. Go. Go now.

Tommy steps in, calm snapped into place like a tourniquet. “I’m takin’ you to the clinic,” he tells you, voice going soft and precise. “We’re goin’ nice and slow. You can squeeze my arm if it helps.” He shoots Joel a look that says don’t make this about you. “Give us space a second.”

John’s already at the door, shouting down the stairs for someone to run and get Maria, for Ellie to fetch the midwife, for hot water because that’s what people say even if it’s a myth that fixes anything.

You’re breathing too fast. Pain is stacking like waves: manageable, then not. Tommy talks you through one—“in through your nose, out like you’re blowin’ out a candle, there you go”—and when it passes you’re crying and angry and terrified in one tangled sound. “I don’t want him,” you say, and you mean Joel. “I don’t—he lied—”

“I know,” Tommy says, and his eyes flick once to Joel like a blade. “We’ll sort the talk later. Right now we move.”

Joel stands there shaking, hands empty, because keeping the promise means stepping back when you don’t want him and that feels like treason to every instinct he has. “I’ll—” He can’t finish the sentence. I’ll follow. I’ll wait outside. I’ll burn the town down if they don’t help you.

Tommy eases you out, your arm hooked through his, John clearing the hall and cursing at anyone who doesn’t move fast enough. You disappear down the stairs, your breath skipping, your voice calling for your dad once, a sound that slices Joel open clean.

The office is suddenly too small for all the heat in Joel’s blood. John turns back, chest heaving, eyes wet and furious. Something explodes in Joel’s vision—the world whites out at the edges. He closes the distance and slams John into the wall with a flat thud, forearm across his chest. The hat hits the floor and rolls.

“You had no right,” Joel grinds out, breath hot, forehead nearly touching John’s. “Not there. Not like that.”

John doesn’t shove back. He doesn’t even raise his hands. He looks at Joel with sorrow and contempt mixed like oil and water. “She had every right,” he says, voice calm now that the worst has been spoken. “And you know it.”

Joel’s grip tightens, then loosens. He staggers back a step, horror catching up to anger. John rubs at his shoulder, winces, doesn’t look away.

“You’re scared,” John says, gentler. “So am I. But you don’t get to turn that into lies and fists. Not with her.”

The words land where the promise is burning a hole. Joel swallows, looks at his hands like they belong to somebody else. He drags a palm down his face, claws some breath into his chest.

“I’m goin’ to the clinic,” he says finally, voice raw as a skinned knee. “I ain’t goin’ in unless she lets me. But I’m goin’.”

John nods. “Good.”

They leave the office in a hurry that’s careful, both of them bleeding in ways that don’t show. Down the stairs, out into the corridor where Jackson has already begun to move the way it does when one of its own is in need—doors opening, boots scuffing, someone running with blankets, someone else with a battered medical bag.

Outside, the night air is cool and damp. The porch light over the clinic is a small moon. Through the window Joel can see Tommy’s profile at your shoulder, your head bent, your hand crushing his forearm as another contraction takes you. He stops just shy of the door, throat thick, eyes on you like he could steady you by force of will alone.

He stands where you can see him if you look up and where you can pretend you can’t if that’s what you need. He makes himself small and solid. He makes himself a post to tie the world to. He keeps the only piece of the promise he can keep, right this second, with nothing but patience and fear and love to hold it together: he stays.

The hallway outside the clinic is a tunnel of footsteps and whispers. Joel paces grooves into the floorboards, palms rubbed raw from nothing. Every time your scream knifes through the door he stops breathing; every silence afterward is worse. Joel can’t take hearing you in pain.

“Easy,” Maria tells him once, passing with clean towels. “Breathe with her from out here if you have to.”

He tries. Counts with the wall. Fails.

Tommy slips out twice—once to say you’re progressing, once to say “she’s strong, brother,” with a look that begs Joel not to break in half before this is over.

Then—thin through the door, wet and furious—the baby cries.

Joel’s knees go out from under him so fast he has to catch the wall. The sound is small and huge at the same time, like a bird and a bell. He laughs, then chokes, then presses his fist to his mouth to stay quiet because this isn’t his moment to be loud.

“Everybody’s stable,” Maria says, appearing in the doorway, brisk but bright-eyed. “Let us settle them.” She softens. “He’s perfect.”

“He” Joel calls out in shock.

“He. Let me help them get comfortable” Maria repeats with a smile.

He nods, nods, nods, like he can make time move faster by agreeing with it.

—

Inside, they put your son on your chest and the world reorders itself. He’s hot and damp and outraged, then suddenly heavy and quiet, cheek stuck to your skin. You touch the wet comma of his ear, count the tiny ridges in his fingers, say your dad’s name in your head and feel the ache open like a hatch.

Maria and the midwife move around you. Tommy holds a cup to your lips. When the room finally thins and your boy is wrapped and sleeping, you lean back and stare at the ceiling until the tears find you without asking.

A soft knock. John slips in, hat twisted in both hands like it’s misbehaved.

“I can go,” he says, voice careful. “I just—Joel’s out there. He’s, uh… he’s not doin’ so hot.”

You stare past him. Your face feels made of glass. “I don’t want to hear about him.”

“I know.” John edges closer, stops well outside the gravity of your bed. “He did you wrong. No excuse for it.” He swallows. “But he was scared for you. It don’t make it right, but it makes it love. Ugly kind. Real kind.”

You look at your son. Your throat works. “He told me my dad was fine.”

“I heard him,” John says. “I told him he was wrong. I’ll tell him again.” A beat. “Let him see the boy, at least. Not for him, even. For the kid. First minutes matter.” He shrugs, eyes shining. “And maybe it’ll keep Joel from puttin’ his head through a wall.”

You breathe in, out. The tide inside you argues both ways. Finally: “He doesn’t come near me.”

“Scout’s honor,” John says, relief making his shoulders drop. He backs out to fetch Tommy.

—

Tommy finds Joel near the doorway like a shadow someone forgot to move. “She’ll let you see him,” he says. “Just the baby. You give her space.”

Joel nods so hard it hurts. “Yes, sir.”

They don’t take him to you. Tommy brings the bundle out, small and swaddled, and the hall goes silent like a church. Joel’s hands hover, then take—careful, terrified. The baby is light and heavy at once, solid and impossibly new. His face pinches, then relaxes; his mouth makes a soft, surprised O.

“Hey, little man,” Joel whispers, voice breaking on man. “Hey there, son.”

The word son knocks something loose in him. His eyes flood. He presses his cheek to the baby’s cap, breathes in that newborn heat that smells like milk and rain, and a sound he’s never made before falls out of him—half laugh, half sob. “You’re here,” he says, as if the baby might argue. “You’re real.”

Tommy watches, quiet, giving him a minute. Joel’s fingers shake; he tucks the blanket tighter, checks nothing and everything—nose, fingers, the steady rise of a chest the size of his palm. He can’t stop glancing at the closed door down the hall.

“I shouldn’t be holdin’ him ‘fore I fix things with her,” he whispers.

“Then fix them,” Tommy says. “Slow.”

Joel nods, kisses his son’s forehead, and hands him back like he’s returning a crown he hasn’t earned yet. “Tell her… tell her I’ll be right here. However long.”

Tommy’s mouth twitches. “She knows.”

—

You’re alone again, the room humming with the soft machines of a sleepy town at midnight. Your son stirs, huffs, resettles against you. The anger sits hot under your ribs; the want sits right beside it, stubborn as a second heartbeat.

You picture Joel in the hall with your boy in his arms, that raw look he gets when something good scares him. You want him here to see how your son’s mouth purses when he dreams. You want to keep him on the other side of every door forever. Both wants rise and crash until you can’t tell which is which.

It breaks you open. The tears come fast, messy, unstoppable. You fold over your baby and cry for your dad, for the lie, for the truth, for the way love turns you inside out and still asks for more.

When it ebbs, you wipe your face with the heel of your hand. You kiss the top of your son’s head. “We’ll figure it out,” you whisper to him, and maybe to yourself. “Just… not tonight.”

Out in the hall, Joel sits on a hard chair with his head bowed, elbows on his knees, watching the line of light under your door like a tide he’ll learn, minute by minute, to read. He doesn’t knock. He doesn’t beg. He lets the weight of the promise keep him in the chair, steady as a post.

He waits.

Morning comes in on the wrong side of the window, thin and accusatory. It feels like it’s chosen a team. You wake with your jaw clenched and the weight in your chest still raw, like something inside you is bruised and you can’t rub it away. Joel is out in the hall somewhere—somewhere too close—but when the door cracks at all you don’t look up.

“Joel go home, get home sleep. She’s gonna go home today”

“She ain’t gonna want me there” Joel responds.

“Just promise me you’ll help her, don’t let her do much by herself, she’s stubborn that way” Tommy nodded.

~~

They let you out of the clinic with a stack of blankets than sense. Maria fusses in that precise way that says she won’t be leaving your side until she’s satisfied you can stand on two feet, and Tommy mans the spare bags like he might have to physically carry you if you get any ideas about walking too fast. They speak in soft, practical sentences—get rest, keep hydrated, call if anything—like they expect you to listen even if you don’t mean to.

Joel is out front when you come out, the same immovable shape he’s been since last night—only now the sun makes the lines on his face sharper, like someone carved them while you were sleeping. He stands too close to the gate and too far from you at the same time, hands jammed in his pockets, jaw working. Every time you glance at him he turns like he’s been caught doing something small and secret. He asks about you, the questions soft and constant: “She okay? She need anything? He eatin’ okay?” Each one lands like a careful footstep, intended to be gentle but still leaving a print.

You don’t want him to help carry you home. You don’t want him to bring the world back around to “normal.” Tommy and Maria practically form an escort—a human buffer between you and whatever Joel thinks he can fix with his presence. You accept their help because it’s simple to bite the easiest hand when your throat is raw.

At home, they make sure you have a chair that doesn’t hurt your back, that the house isn’t too cold, that the baby’s bag is in reach. Joel stays close by, hovering where you can see him if you look: on the porch until he steps in the door way. Tommy grunts something about giving you time and tips Joel with an elbow. Maria’s glare does the rest.

“I can leave, stay somewhere else as long as I know someone is here with you” Joel’s voice makes your heart sink. You can’t find it in you to look up.

“You can stay” you say dryly.

“I just-“ you blink away a tear.

“I don’t wanna talk” Joel nods desperately, willing to do anything you wanted that could still keep him close. Maria and Tommy both say it the same way—tired, loving, impossible to argue with as Joel is walking them to the door. “Give her time,” Tommy tells him quietly as they leave. “She’s… hormones, grief. She’s not okay right now. Patience.”

They leave with half-joking orders to take turns bringing warm soup and to call if anything is off. Joel watches them go like a man watching a tide recede; when the door shuts, he stays.

The first few hours are a careful choreography of small necessities: feeding the baby, changing him, doing the tiny, repetitive tasks that feel like a rosary against the panic. Joel helps—he always helps. He lifts the baby when your arms tingle, fetches the blanket you tucked away, asks whether you’ve eaten. “You need anything else?” he asks in the middle of a bite you force down, voice hope-threaded and brittle.

The baby sleeps in the crib Joel built—sturdy, hand-sanded, a thing that smells faintly of sawdust and promise—upstairs. You like that he built it; the sight of it makes your heart ache in a new way. You cut your fork through your food and the fork slips from your anger more than your hand. It clatters on the plate and you throw it, not aiming, not caring. The sound is louder than you expect in the little kitchen. Joel stands up heading your way.

“Get away,” you tell him without preface, every syllable cold enough to flinch from. Your voice is small but it holds iron, he respects it and takes a step back.

You try to push yourself up from the chair to walk away—get out of the same room with the man who lied that your father died—but pain spikes behind your ribs like someone’s thumb pressing in. It’s the old, honest pain of a body that’s done something impossible and wants a minute to remember its own limits. Your body falls back into the chair.

Joel is there before the doubt finishes.

“Don’t!” You slam your hands down on the table. He’s desperate but he remains still, hands up. The sight of you in pain stubbornly trying to get yourself up kills him.

“Please” he whispers.

And you give in. Not cause you want to but because your body couldn’t handle it, and you knew that. Not yet at least. He move towards and steadies your elbow with a hand that’s all apology and habit. For a beat you fight the instinct to snatch away. You’re furious at him for the way he tried to protect you by keeping you from the truth; furious at yourself for needing him. But you’re also angry at the world for making you need anyone at all.

He keeps his hand gentle at your elbow and helps you up like it’s the only thing he knows how to do right now. There’s a tremor in his jaw. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he says, low. “I’m here to take care of you.” It’s a small, raw thing—no grand speeches, just the one thing you both agreed on the night your world stretched smaller.

You give in because your knees won’t argue with the math of pain, because the baby needs feeding and because you’ve always been stubborn in ways that don’t include ignoring a body that’s just made a human. You let him walk you up the stairs, his hand a steady anchor at the small of your back as he surrounds you with his body frame incase you fall. You find yourself leaning on him more than the banister. He moved slowly, patiently, letting you take each step. The house smells like the baby and old coffee —ordinary smells that insist life keeps happening.

You pause by the crib and look at the sleeping boy. He’s folded against himself, a fist pressed to his mouth. You check his chest rises like a metronome and feel something like an apology melt in your gut that isn’t meant for Joel at all but for all the things you can’t control. You sit slowly in the chair by the window, unsure what to say because the words that might fix anything are still buried under anger and grief.

Joel stands a few feet away, the distance deliberate. Then, as if something inside him resolves and he can’t carry the quiet any longer, he steps forward. The apology he gives is the kind that’s been living in his chest all night—raw, stripped of any guard. “I was wrong, just let me say this and I won’t bring it up again,” he begins, voice breaking, he knew you didn’t want to hear it but he needed to say it at least once. “I thought I was doin’ right. I thought I was protectin’ you. I lied, and I made it about what I thought you could handle instead of what you deserved. I—God, I’m sorry. You have every right to be angry. You have every right to never forgive me. But I swear to you, I’ll be as patient as you need. I’ll do whatever it takes. I’ll take however you act with me and I’ll keep at it. I want to be here for you. For him. If you want me gone I’ll go, but I… I don’t want to miss this. I don’t want to miss you.”

There’s a sincerity in his face that’s almost painful to look at—the way his eyes shine, the way his shoulders drop as if he’s let down a sack and found nothing but truth in it. You want to hate him for how he lied, and you want to hate him for how he’s holding himself like a man who’s been skinned raw, but the two things can live in you at once. You are allowed to be both.

You fold over your son and whisper something to him that’s half a promise and half a prayer. You lift your head and look at Joel, and the sight of him—broken and earnest—starts something slow under your sternum. “I love you,” you say, because it’s true in a way that doesn’t fix anything but can’t be held down.

He breathes like a man who’s been given something close to heaven and hell at once. “I love you,” he answers. “I’ll wait. I’ll be patient. I’ll do it right this time.”

You don’t say you forgive him. You don’t say you don’t. You simply say what you know to be honest and small: “I just don’t know how to right now.” Your voice is steady. “It’s going to take time.”

He nods. He accepts it like a sentence and a task both. He doesn’t try to convince you otherwise. He settles into the chair across the room, close enough that you can see him without looking, far enough that you have room to breathe. He watches you and the boy with a quiet that’s finally learned how to be humble.

You curl around your son and let the silence sit between you��not empty, but full of the work to come. You love him, you tell yourself, and you mean it, but love doesn’t erase the night that took your father or the lie that kept you from saying goodbye. It will take time to fold that into something you can carry.

That night Ellie finds Joel sitting up by himself on the couch, she usually stays in the garage but after hearing all that happened, she decided to surprise him with a visit.

Joel looks up with his brows raised, but careful not to say anything that might scare her off.

“How are they?”

“Good. Sleeping”

“Looks like you should get some sleep too” Ellie responds seeing the exhaustion around his eyes.

“I’m sure she’ll come around” Ellie suddenly speaks hesitantly.

“Sometimes,” she admits, quieter, “I get mad and I let it sit. I think about the stuff you kept from me and it stings. It really does. But I’ve been doin’ this long enough to know that holdin’ onto it’ll only make me bitter. So I’m tryin’ not to. For me.” She shrugs. “And for you, I guess.”

Joel’s lips twitch. It’s almost a smile, but it’s too tired for that. “You’re a hell of a kid,” he says.

“You’re an idiot,” she shoots back, but there’s heat in her voice that isn’t anger. “And you’re not allowed to keep goin’ around playin’ God.”

Silence settles again, but this time it feels different — not empty, but full of something like possibility. The distance between them, measured in lies and secrets and all the things left unsaid, has narrowed by an inch.

Joel silently nods in agreement, Ellie looks around the room awkwardly unsure of what to say.

“Can I come see them tomorrow?”

“You don’t gotta ask, Ellie.” She responds with a soft smile before telling him goodnight and leaving back to the garage.

~~

Outside, Jackson hums its small, stubborn life. Inside, you and Joel begin the long, slow repair—one careful day at a time.. The days continue with Joel being patient and helpful at once, making sure you have all you need. Your heart grows hearing him sing to your son, hormones-life, making you silently cry to yourself at night. Till one night he walks in to see you sitting on the edge of the bed sobbing with your son asleep in the crib. It’s the first time he’s seen you cry this way since all that happened. Always managing to wait till he’s busy with something to cry but for some reason you couldn’t hold it this time. He immediately falls to his knees before you as you quickly wipe away your tears but your eyes are red and raw as if you’ve been crying for hours.

“I’m here, baby. I mean, if you want me to be” he suddenly finds himself creating a small distance between you and him until you unexpectedly take his hand and pull him close. You can’t speak, he feels you shaking and lets you hold him as tight as you need to, as long as you need to. His body fighting his automatic instinct to pull you in but something in your eyes tells him it’s what you need. Carefully and slowly he puts his arms around you till you practically throw yourself into his chest and begin to sob.

“I know baby, I know” he whispers, comforting you as his heart aches at the sound of your cries. Tears of grief, hurt, frustration all in one pouring out of you, his arms tighten around you. He lets you cry until you can’t no more and then you hear the softest purr from your son. You immediately turn to check with him Joel by your side. He helps you to your feet although you’re much stronger now to lift yourself and walks with you to look over your son. You’re still panting, trying to catch your breath when your son looks at you with the softest eyes, like his father. You smile and feel Joel’s hand on your back. Slowly you look back up at him and for the first time there’s a slight softness he hadn’t seen towards him in a long time.

“I love you but I’m still so mad…but I don’t wanna be” you whisper with a soft frustrated cry. Joel nods with tears welling up in his eyes, it’s all he could do.

“I ain’t goin’ anywhere, take your time” he assures you when your son makes another sound, making you both turn to him and get lost in the pure love that he is…

[alloftheimagines]

abby anderson | positive part iii

masterlist | part i | part ii

words: 2k warnings: 18+, reader gives birth, labour, pain, blood, strong language, icky child birth stuff which is probably incorrect, fluff, angst, abby becomes a mom synopsis: when you can't get home in time, abby helps reader give birth in the middle of stormy seattle, where she finally gets the family she always wanted.

tags: @hakandnsjoqmsn @abbyily

“Abby, I can’t… I can’t go any further.” You’re sobbing through the rain, Abby the only thing keeping you upright as another contraction wracks through you. It’s the worst one yet, stealing your breath and jolting through your legs, and you feel it, somehow: this baby is coming now, not in an hour or two. Not when you get back to base. Right here, in the middle of storm-devastated Seattle. 

“We’re almost there, baby. Just a few blocks more,” Abby says, pulling you along. 

“No.” You rip back from her because the jostling is making it worse. Everything is making it worse. You use the wall for support as you pant through the pain, mumbling pleas you know won’t be answered. “Oh, god. Oh, god.” 

Abby says your name, but you barely hear it. “Please. Just a little further. You can do it.”

“I fucking can’t!” you scream out, and you’re not just talking about the journey back. You’re talking about this fear, and what comes after. You aren’t ready. All you have waiting for this baby is a fucking crib and the books in Abby’s pack. No toys, no blankets, no clothes. 

Abby's look of terror lasts only a second, and then she’s nodding, hand returning to your aching lower back. “Okay. Okay. What if I carry you?”

“You can’t fucking carry me.” Your spit and tears mingle with the rain, shudders clawing over your shoulders; you don’t know if you’re cold or just in pure agony. “The baby is coming now, Abby. I…” You swear. “I can feel it. I need to start pushing.”

“Okay,” she whispers, but she’s pale. Afraid. And then she reassembles herself again, because somehow, she always does. She looks around, braid flicking over one shoulder, every part of her shiny and soaked. 

“The apartment block on the corner. You think you can make it?”

You don’t have a choice. She supports you as much as you’ll let her as the two of you hobble over the uneven sidewalk, over broken glass and weeds and sinking flagstones. She helps you climb into a low, broken window, and you cross a hallway into a shoebox apartment crawling with grime, ivy, and likely pests you’d rather not think about. As long as it's not Scars or Infected, it'll do.

Abby clears the couch of debris and forces you to sit. You’re in no position to argue this time, teeth clenched with your next contraction. Your body wants to push now, and you can only lower to your knees, using the coffee table to take the pressure off your lower half. 

The crackle of the radio tells you Abby is trying to contact base again, voice frantic as she begs for a response. 

Finally, she gets one, Manny's faint voice fighting through the white noise.

“Manny,” Abby chokes out. “It’s Abby. I need you to send someone out for us: Nora or Mel, a medic. We’re sort of having a baby over here.”

Manny swears in Spanish and asks for the address. Her voice, and his, is growing further away as direction, advice, and instructions are offered, Abby asking questions about what to do. About how to deliver your baby, and what to do when it’s here. 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, and you sob harder. 

Suddenly, she’s at your side, all softness and calm. You don’t know how she does it. 

“All right, baby. Found blankets for you. Need you to take your pants off if you're ready."

“Here I was thinking you’d buy me dinner first,” you whisper hoarsely.

She laughs, even though you both know it isn’t fucking funny. “I’ll get you anything you want when this is done. Promise.”

You kick off your boots and then unbutton your cargos with trembling fingers, breaths coming out in shallow rasps.

"Keep breathing deep, sweetheart,” Abby said. “You’re okay. I’ve got you, okay? Gonna take care of you both.”

With anyone else, you’d at least try to maintain some stoic act, but with her, it’s impossible not to crumple into tears again, because you’re so fucking scared. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes you can.” She puts her hands on your shoulders, forehead resting against yours. She smiles. “Hey. We get to meet Squirt today.”

Like in the bookshop, your fingers trace the damp wisps of her hair, love flaring through your chest. Almost enough to cancel out the utter terror and agony ravaging through you.

And then another contraction hits, and nothing is enough. You grasp her shoulders so tightly that your nails dig into her flesh, but she doesn't complain, doesn't back down. She whispers reassurances in your ear and massages your lower back with strong, unwavering palms. “That’s right. You’re okay. Doing so good.”

You know that next time, you will have to push, and it only has you gripping harder. Not even Abby Anderson can save you from this. 

***

“You want to stay like this?” Abby asks when your face smooths just slightly with the passing contraction. 

You nod, your eyes remaining closed with your head on her shoulder. Staying on your knees isn’t really ideal, considering she can’t see what’s going on down there, but she trusts you and your body, so she prepares blankets between your legs, first aid kit and cleaned shoelaces on standby for the umbilical cord, as advised by the medic over the radio.

“Abby,” you whisper in her ear, brows pinched together.

“Yeah?”

“If you can’t get me home and safe like you promised, it’s okay.”

“Don’t. Don’t start talking like that.” She doesn’t want to hear it. Doesn’t want to hear that she could lose you today, even if she knew it to be true the moment the first contraction hit, because it happened too quickly and too soon. 

“I know you,” you continue anyway. “You’d blame yourself. You’d hold onto it. I don’t want you to.”

“Stop,” she begs. 

You do, but only because you’re tensing with the beginnings of the next contraction. Abby sucks in a deep breath. “Are you ready to push?”

A nod as you pull away. Braced against her shoulders, you puff out your cheeks and bear down. The scream you let out rips through every fibre of her, and she wants so badly to take all this pain away. All she can do is keep holding you, keep talking you through it even if she has nothing useful to say. 

“Just like that. That’s my girl.” And then, into the radio, “Manny, what’s the fucking ETA?”

“We’re still mapping a route. Half the city’s under water right now.”

“Yeah, no fucking shit.” She throws the walkie onto the couch beside her in frustration. The one time she needs somebody else, nobody is there. 

It’s just the two of you, and she’ll have to get you through this alone. 

You gasp, swaying against her, a sign it’s over for now. 

“How’s it feel?”

“Like I’m being ripped apart and possibly on the brink of shitting my pants. Why, you want to give it a go?”

Abby snorts. Still got your humour, even now. “I think I’m good. You’re doing great. So great.”

“No, I’m not." Your voice cracks. "I shouldn't be here. I should have been more careful. If I can’t even bring this baby into this shitty world safely, how the hell am I going to take care of them?”

The rough pad of Abby’s thumb grazes your cheeks. “I have a feeling you’ll figure it out.”

Another contraction. She presses her mouth against your forehead as you come undone against her, scream more guttural than ever, and she prays there’s nothing and nobody out there to hear. She should be glad for the thunder disguising the noise, but she still has to listen as the woman she loves goes through hell, and it makes her sick. 

“I think… I think I feel the head,” you rasp out. “Will you check?”

Abby does, because she refuses to start being fazed by this shit now, and you’re right. A head. She gets the blanket ready, doing all she can to get you through the next few pushes.

You're almost there, baby. I know it hurts but it's almost over.

You're so fucking strong. So close, now.

That's my good girl.

It feels like the baby might never come, until, all at once, it's emerging. Abby is waiting with bated breath, wrapping them — her — in blankets immediately with complete, narrowed focus. She won't screw this up. She will make sure this baby is okay, and then you.

“You did it, baby. It’s a girl,” Abby says, cleaning her off. “We have a girl.”

Later, she’ll realise what she said. We. As though it's instinct. As though she's hers.

You sit back, shaking, gasping, waiting. Both of you, waiting for a cry.

"Why... Why isn't she making a noise?"

"She will. Give her a moment." Abby rubs the baby's sternum gently, desperately, and there, the baby gulps down a huge breath and rightly shrieks at her abrupt entrance into the world.

Relieved laughter bubbles from Abby, and she holds her out to place her on your chest. She wishes she could drink it in, the moment she becomes yours, the moment you become a mother, but there’s blood and she hasn’t tied off the umbilical cord yet, and god, she needs to make sure you’re okay, too. 

“Hi, Squirt,” you whisper as Abby takes care of you. “I’m your mom.” 

And then, when all that is done, she can pause. Then, she can let her world narrow into just this: you, cradling your pink newborn in your arms, drenched with tears and rain and sweat and rosy with love. You lock eyes with Abby. “We did it. She’s here.”

“You did it,” Abby replies. She delicately strokes the baby’s hair, and then your cheek. “You feel okay? Other than the being ripped apart thing?”

“I’m okay, I think.” You take a deep breath and sit to lean your back against the couch, wincing on a sharp inhale. “We’re okay.”

She’s in shock, and in love, and a little lost because she doesn’t know where she fits in this picture, despite what you said at the bookstore. You were scared then, and the baby was still tucked away safely. A later, not a now.

But then you tip your head and whisper, “C’mere, Abs.”

She does, sitting beside you on the floor and brushing the curling hair from your face as she admires everything you are and everything you’ve given to the little life in your arms. She once said she’d be glad to have a tiny version of you to love, and she was right, but it isn’t just that that takes her aback. It’s how deeply, completely, catastrophically, she is falling for you all over again. Her best friend, the love of her life, safe even if Abby couldn’t get you home in time. 

You rest your head against her neck, and she places a kiss in your hair as she smiles down at the babbling, wrinkly little baby she has loved since the moment she felt the first kick. “Got a bone to pick with you, Squirt." She tickles the baby gently on her little cleft chin. "Not even a day old, and you’re already causing trouble.”

“Just like you,” you mumble tiredly. “She’s definitely yours.”

Abby’s heart somersaults. She pauses warily. “Is she?” 

“We’re yours,” you repeat, just like in the bookstore, only now your eyes glisten with hope instead of fear. “We might not be home, but we’re safe, so I’ll say it again. I’m in love with you, Abby.”

She’d forgotten, for a moment, what it feels like to have a family. Now, she can’t believe she ever lived without. Abby tucks you into her chest, chin wobbling as she looks down and sees what she’d only hoped for before, through all those months of watching your bump grow and move and become more real: a daughter. 

***

You pass the baby into Abby's arms, knowing she’s safer there than anywhere else in the world. Abby is all dimples and freckles as she meets Squirt properly, and you think maybe it was always supposed to be this way, despite the struggle. 

“Shit,” you say after moments of peaceful quiet. 

Abby looks at you, concern piercing her features. 

“We need to give her an actual name.”

“What’s wrong with Squirt? It’s cute.”

You roll your eyes. “We’re not calling her Squirt.”

Squirt is already falling asleep in Abby’s arms. She doesn’t care what she’s called, only that she’s at home with the people who have loved her since she was just a tiny blot of fear inside you.

You relax deeper against Abby’s chest, pain twinging through you. You can’t wait to go home, too. 

“You have no idea how much I love you,” Abby whispers into your hair. 

You think that maybe, after today, you have an inkling.

[alloftheimagines]

fluff

the door creaks open at 2:47 a.m., and the second you hear the familiar weight of her boots dragging along the wooden floor, you’re already off the couch.

“baby?”

you round the corner, catching her mid-stumble, eyes red, lip busted, and the faintest crack in her armor. her coat is half off one shoulder, cigarette smoke clinging to her like a second skin.

“‘m fine,” she mumbles, like it’s a greeting. she’s not.

you help her shrug the coat off completely and it hits the ground with a wet thump. “you reek like whiskey and trouble.”

“‘cause i am trouble,” she slurs, eyes fluttering closed as she leans against the wall, swaying. “but i still came home, didn’t i?”

you smile softly, cupping her cheek with one hand, thumb brushing the bruising under her eye.

“yeah, you did.”

you run a warm bath first — not too hot, not too much steam. she hates that. you know all her little things, her tells, her preferences. the way she relaxes when the water smells like lavender. the way she winces when she moves too fast on a bad day.

she sits on the edge of the tub while you help peel her shirt off, muscles tight, grumbling low curses under her breath.

“how’d i get so fuckin’ lucky,” she mutters, as your fingers skim her ribs. “you takin’ care of me like this.”

you smile, brushing her hair back. “you’re lucky i like grumpy older women who pick fights at bars.”

she chuckles. winces. then sinks into the tub with a sigh that rattles out of her bones.

“jesus,” she breathes. “you’re magic.”

you kneel behind her. get your hands wet. slowly, carefully, you start to wash her hair, nails gentle, fingers dragging across her scalp until she melts beneath your touch like warm wax. she leans her head back against your chest, eyes closed.

“keep doin’ that,” she murmurs.

so you do. soft circles. kisses to her temple. quiet hums in your throat. the bath goes quiet except for the little sighs she lets slip when she thinks you’re not listening.

afterwards, you dry her off with a towel that smells like fresh cotton. she’s limp in your arms, barely coherent, mumbling sleepy nonsense. she points toward the closet with one finger and whispers, “snoopy boxers.”

you find them. faded and soft with age. they’re her favorite. you pull them up her thighs while she giggles sleepily and flicks water at you.

“stop moving,” you scold gently, “you’re impossible when you’re drunk.”

“and sexy,” she adds, lopsided grin plastered on.

you help her sit on the bed. press a kiss to the top of her head.

“you want a shirt?” she shakes her head, slurring, “nahh... jus’ you.”

you straddle her thighs and press your hands to her back. you feel her shudder.

“easy,” you whisper. “just me.”

her muscles are tight, knotted up like she’s been clenching her whole life. so you take your time. fingers digging deep into her shoulders, working out the stress inch by inch. she’s quiet at first, but after a while she lets out a little moan.

“f-fuck,” she groans. “how’re you so good at this?”

“because i love you.”

she turns her head a little at that. just enough to catch your eyes.

“…say it again.”

you lean in. kiss her cheek, her jaw, her shoulder.

“i love you.”

you trail kisses down her back. she hums. she’s so soft now, nearly asleep.

you press a kiss to the middle of her spine, then another one on her mechanical arm. “i love all of you, even the parts you think are too heavy to carry.”

[alloftheimagines]

sevika fluff idea!!!! watching a movie while she gently pets and scratches your head and back, and youre tuning in and out of the movie half asleep, eventually she just picks u up and takes u to bed and she strokes her fingers up and down ur back til ur both asleep <3

a/n: thank you anon for this request 💗 keep them coming. to the other anon requesting for more shane fics… it’ll take awhile 😭😭 be patient honey. this will be pretty short 😐. masterlist

Quiet Hours

It’s late. Some hour that doesn’t matter anymore because the only light in the apartment is the soft blue glow of the TV screen, flickering shadows against the wall. You’re curled up against Sevika’s side on the couch, half under a blanket, head resting on her chest. Some old noir movie hums in the background, low volume, washed-out dialogue, you’ve barely caught a word of it.

Her hand’s in your hair. Slow strokes. Fingernails dragging just lightly enough along your scalp to send a ripple of calm through your spine. She’s doing it absentmindedly, like it’s second nature to comfort you. Her thumb occasionally brushes your temple, her other hand resting heavy and warm on your hip beneath the blanket.

You’re blinking slower. The soft sound of rain outside, the rise and fall of her breathing, the lazy scratch of her nails down the back of your head, to your neck, to the top of your spine, it’s lulling you in and out of consciousness.

“Still awake?” she murmurs.

You hum. Sort of. Not really.

She chuckles, low and warm in her chest. “Didn’t think so.”

You feel her shift, then strong arms slip under your back and behind your knees. She lifts you like you weigh nothing, like it’s just a habit now, carrying you to bed. You let your head fall into the crook of her neck, fingers lazily fisting in the collar of her worn tank top.

The bedroom’s dark and quiet, just the soft creak of the bed frame as she lays you down and climbs in behind you. She spoons in close, one leg hooked around yours, her chest to your back. You feel her palm settle flat between your shoulder blades.

Then she starts again. Those slow, rhythmic strokes. Fingertips dragging gently up and down your spine. Barely there, just enough to make you melt into the mattress. She does it over and over and over, her breath steady against your neck, her touch soft and constant, like she’s drawing invisible lines that only the two of you understand.

“Mmm,” you mumble, so close to sleep it doesn’t feel real anymore. “Don’t stop.”

“Not gonna,” she murmurs. “Just sleep, baby.”

And you do. Somewhere in the middle of her touch and the quiet warmth of her arms, you drift off, with Sevika still drawing lazy patterns on your back.

She stays awake just a little longer, just enough to keep tracing you like she’s memorizing every inch.

Then she lets herself fall too.

[alloftheimagines]

sevika x reader who keeps all her pain inside and literally never cries but then they get into an argument and reader finally breaks down

I'M CRAVING FOR ANGST PLS 😔😔

you never cried. not when you scraped your knee as a kid, not when you got your heart broken for the first time, not even when the world turned its back on you. it was something sevika admired about you at first— how steady you seemed, how you always held yourself together when everyone else around you fell apart.

but tonight, it didn’t feel admirable. tonight, it felt like a wall she couldn’t get through.

“do you ever plan on actually telling me how you feel?” sevika’s voice was sharp, her jaw tight as she leaned against the kitchen counter.

you crossed your arms, avoiding her eyes. “there’s nothing to tell.”

“bullshit,” she snapped. “you shut down every time something’s wrong. you act like you’re fine until i have to drag it out of you, and even then you don’t say anything. you think that doesn’t drive me insane?”

the sting of her words sat heavy in your chest, but you swallowed it down like always. “i don’t want to bother you with my crap.”

sevika laughed bitterly, running a hand through her hair. “bother me? you’re supposed to be my partner. that’s not a bother, that’s what i want. but you don’t trust me enough to even let me in.”

your throat tightened, hot pressure building behind your eyes. you tried to breathe it away, tried to force it down like always, but it was no use.

“i can’t—” your voice broke, and then suddenly, you were crying. messy, ugly, unstoppable crying.

sevika froze, every ounce of anger draining from her face. “oh… baby.”

before you could turn away, she was there, arms pulling you in, big hand cradling the back of your head as you buried yourself in her chest. her shirt dampened immediately under your tears, and for once, you didn’t care.

“i’m sorry,” you choked. “i didn’t want you to see me like this. i didn’t want you to think i’m weak.”

her grip tightened, like she could physically hold the pieces of you together. “weak? you’ve been holding all this in for so long it’s eating you alive. that’s not weak, that’s… fuck, that’s killing yourself.” she pressed her lips against your hair, voice low and trembling. “you don’t ever have to hide from me. you hear me? not ever.”

you sobbed harder, clinging to her like she was the only solid thing left in the world.

and maybe she was.