#Camping World Truck Series

[zikbitume]

Talladega sees a nail-biting finish after final lap wreck | Truck Serie...  @NASCAR_Trucks & @NASCAR

[dcxdpdabbles]

God, I love the Cave Boy series. Will the batfam manage to find him after he dips. Will they ever find out about his powers. So many questions

Danny stays underground for days.

He doesn't know the exact time frame because he only goes to the surface to grab supplies. He makes sure to only fully emerge when there is no light out.

It was a bigger risk to be caught by the Waynes, who only operated in the dark, but it ensured fewer eyewitnesses were around. Danny Kane was still a very hot celebrity for taking down the Joker- he would be surrounded by a mob of fans if he walked down the street.

He moved his ship into a deeper cave by phasing the large metal and all his equipment through solid rock, which was not easy. It was a miracle he found a little pocket to set up shop.

Danny thinks the little pocket- surrounded by stone with no opening at all, was formed after a cave-in at one point. It was large enough to work on his ship and had just enough space to set up a sleeping bag and a tent for rest.

He rarely uses that space nowadays.

Danny had stolen from a camping store- taking with him an entire box of lanterns that he placed strategically around his space. They threw light to the large four walls of stone- making him feel trapped inside a midevil dungeon, and somehow, it also made him think incredulity alone.

That was the worst part of this whole change of scenery. He doesn't want to admit it, but he got used to Wayne Manor and the colorful characters there.

He hadn't even done anything besides lay around but he missed the sound of people. Even before Bruce had found him, Danny would see people often as he wandered around gathering a sense of the city.

Now, he was genuinely suffocating alone. He didn't feel the loss often, but there were times when it felt like being hit by a truck.

It's when his own ice powers reach into his bones, causing his teeth to clatter and curl up into a smaller ball on the cave ground, that Danny misses the Manor the most. He stole food from the stores- but without any way to cook or heat it up, it's limited to the packed food.

Sometimes, while eating packs of dried fruit, he thinks longingly of Alfred's warm meals. Then he remembers how they looked at him when his lies got so out of hand that they believed Bruce's parents lived in his world and he could suppress the longing to return.

Danny has made leaps and bounds on building his ship since he no longer pretends to be Brucie. He no longer filled the hours with nonsense, only being awake to work or stealing what he needed to continue working.

Unlike before, Danny had developed a tunnel version of finishing his project. He no longer wanted to give himself time to ensure everything was fine.

He just wanted to go home.

He's gotten better at wielding using his own ghost laser, and now his ship had its full body. It was missing seats, a window, and even a steering program that actually turned when he wanted- but he was getting closer and closer every day.

All the small technology pieces he stole from the Waynes were on one side- ripped apart for the needed parts. He would spend hours carefully opening everything to check what he could use and what he could melt down to repurpose.

Danny carefully pulls out some small wires from the electric candle he took from the Wayne Dinner table when his vision blurs. He takes a moment to blink rapidly, trying to let the sudden burst of lightheadedness pass him.

Sadly, it was only a few seconds before he crumbled to the hard ground. He gasps, the cold coming back tenfold, and he can do nothing but lay there and pray the pain passes.

Danny hadn't felt this weak since his ice core first developed. Even the first Ghostly Wail hadn't made his limbs feel this heavy.

He knows he has been pushing himself too far lately- barely eating or sleeping- but Danny can't risk any wasted second. He saw the resources the Bats have.

It was only a matter of time before they found him- even if they would need to drill through the solid stone for hours to reach him- and he didn't want to face them after the guilt of lying to them was slowly eating him alive.

He had kept the Wayne at arm's length the entire time, living under the pretense of being Bruce Wayne's counterpart. He told himself he wanted nothing to do with their nightly battle against evil- and he didn't!- and that he could care less if they treated him as family.

He took everything they gave him without hesitation, telling himself they were fools for letting anyone in and stealing from them. Danny thought it would not matter as he would finish his ship and be flying home long before they realized he wasn't Bruce.

Until they stop treating him so warmly after killing the Joker. Danny wasn't sorry about it, but suddenly, he was a stranger in a crowd to them.

Danny had no right to be upset. He lied. He didn't want to be Brucie to them and had actively made Tim look bad by being as Unproactive as possible, going along with changed narratives of his world.

Danny had used the Waynes.

Yes, he did so, believing they were a cult or an evil madman, but he learned that wasn't the case early on. He could have ended the lie at any moment, but he didn't because he figured it would be harmless.

Then he realized that Bruce's parents were killed in front of him- the story wasn't hard to find when he actually bothered to look into the Waynes at a local high school library after hours.

Not only did he find the horrific story, but he found out that almost all the Waynes had a tragic story. Dick's parents were murdered in an accident that wasn't an accident at all.

Tim's parents were killed by a madman with boomerangs. Jason's father died in prison, and his mother overdosed before Bruce took him in. Duke's parents were patients with no working mind because of the Joker (Danny should have made his death last longer).

The only ones that didn't seem to be Cass and Damian, but he knew it was likely due to Bruce not wanting the public to learn that they came from abusive households- he figured that much out by their reactions.

Even Alfred had a history of PTSD from his time in the army. There was an article about a scandal when Bruce had actually been a child- apparently, someone had thought to release firecrackers under the servant's table, and Alfred had panicked. People had mocked him about it for months.

Everyone had a reason to be a villain, yet they all had opened their home to him and been nothing but kind. They were good, and they treated him like family.

Danny felt sick with himself, for being so self-centered he never bothered to really get to know them. And now he never could.

A few tears rolled down his face as his vision started to blur out more and more.

No use crying over it now, Fenton. Though the haze of exhaustion doesn't let him get up from the floor, he thinks bitterly.

He'll rest for a little bit, then get back to work. Only for a few minutes/

Danny doesn't notice his body has shifted in his Ghist side, slowly redirecting his energy to his core, so that his healing could help overcome the unknown days.

He is not aware his heartbeat stops at the same time.

_____________________________________________________________

"I can't hear him anymore!" A young boy screams, pressing his ear against a stone. Horror clouds his voice as he turns to stare at another boy. "His heartbeat....it's not...."

"We must make haste! Breakthrough now!" The other boy snaps.

"But that might cause the cave to fall on top of him." The other rubs his hands together nervously. "I think we may be too late to save-"

"Every second we waste is a second that Brucie gets closer to death!" His company growls savagely, though the tears in his eyes make him less scary. "We have to at least bring his body home- we-I can't- he needs to be buried properly."

Not even a second passed before the other boy threw his shoulders back, yanking out his phone and pressing a speed dial two.

His father picks up two rings. "Jon?"

"Dad! We found Brucie! He was stuck in a cave underneath the tunnels leading to Gotham Cemetry. Can you come help me get him out?"

"I'll be right there."

[dixons-sunshine]

The Archer's Girl | Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader

Summary: When the world ended, you and Daryl narrowly escaped the clutches of the dead and found yourselves in a quarry camp with Merle and some other people. Unwanted, someone in the camp takes a weird liking and disliking to you, and it made you extremely uncomfortable. Luckily, Daryl was there to stand up for you.

Genre: Fluff, some angst.

Era: Outbreak day; The Quarry.

Part of the Shopping Spree, Hangout Dreams AU but can be read as a standalone.

Warnings: Swearing, mentions of morning sickness.

Word count: 4.4k.

A/n: Damn, I love when two requests correspond with each other and I can get them both into one fic. It's my favourite thing in the whole world. However, I feel like Daryl is kinda ooc in this, but I tried to imagine how he'd be with a woman he just met at the quarry and started forming a relationship with vs how he'd be with someone he's been with since he was a teenager, and in my mind, he'd totally be softer regarding someone he already knows and loves vs one he's just getting to know. So soft!Daryl in this, it is! Also, Carol is being a supportive queen in this because @celtic-crossbow's Blood Ties series has made me appreciate Carol more and made me realize that she would always be so supportive of someone who's pregnant. Anyways, I hope you like this!

(specially dedicated to @mydearestdaryl because we planned this fic in my comment section a while ago and I'm only getting to it now.)

➳༻❀✿❀༺➳

“Daryl!” you called out, trying to push past the stampede of people trying to hurriedly evacuate the store you were in. You were abruptly shoved into one of the shelves, a sharp pain shooting up your side. A loud curse escaped your lips as you clutched your side.

Barely one minute ago, you had strayed from Daryl's side to go grab some milk. You had told him that you would be right back, but with all the chaos that suddenly unfolded in front of you, you highly regretted leaving him at all. With everything going to hell, you could be separated from the man you loved. That thought terrified you.

However, as you turned around, nothing terrified you more than the sight that beheld you.

On the floor, a woman was screaming in pure, unadulterated agony. On top of her was a man who's body appeared to be decaying, and he ripped a huge chunk of her flesh from her chest. His grimy hands were clawing at her stomach, and with little to no effort, he tore her stomach open. The sight was truly mortifying, and it would never be erased from your mind.

A hand grabbed your wrist from behind. You flinched and tried to rip your hand from the person's grip, but the familiar voice of your husband calmed you down. However, when you looked at him, you were surprised to note the splatter of dark blood all over his clothes and face.

“S'me! S'jus' me!” he hurriedly explained. He cast one glance to the horrific sight before you before dragging you along with him, the two of you moving quickly. He stopped momentarily in front of one of the shelves to grab two knives, carefully pushing one of them into your hold. “Ya see one'a these dead motherfuckers, ya stab 'em in the head, alrigh'? S'the only way they drop dead.”

“What? I don't—”

“Dun' think 'bout it, peach!” he cut you off, pulling you with him out of the store again. “They ain't alive. The news weren't lyin' to us 'bout the dead risin'. We got a real fucking problem on our hands now.”

Choosing to trust his judgement, you nodded and hurried next to him. The two of you ran down the sidewalk, heading in the direction of your apartment. As you continued onward, you highly regretted deciding to walk to the store instead of taking Daryl's truck. It would've been a whole lot easier to escape the mess surrounding you if you had a vehicle.

Just as the two of you arrived at your apartment building, about a dozen of the undead people were stumbling out of the door. Daryl quickly pulled you with him to the parking area instead, making a beeline for his truck. However, more of those things flooded the area and a couple of them were heading straight towards you, and it was clear that the two of you weren't escaping without a fight.

“Ya got yer knife?” Daryl questioned, shooting a glance at you over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” you told him, gripping the knife so tightly, your knuckles started turning white.

“Good,” he replied, stepping forward to plunge his knife into the skull of one of the monsters. He withdrew the knife, holding it ready to use at a moment's notice. “Ya gotta stab 'em in the head as hard as ya can, alrigh'? Dun' think 'bout 'em bein' alive. These assholes ain't alive.”

“Don't worry about me trying to talk them out of eating me or something,” you scoffed, replicating the way he was holding his knife with your own. “I'm not that stupid. All these fuckers are getting from me is a fatal blow to the head. They're not touching me.”

“Atta girl,” he praised with a small smile. However, his attention soon got diverted back towards the flood of the undead stumbling around the parking area.

As the two of you continued onwards, Daryl repeatedly stabbed the heads of the monsters. By some miracle, the two of you made it to his truck without you having to do anything. However, just as Daryl was getting into the driver's seat and you were opening the door to the passenger seat, a slimy, blood covered hand gripped your arm tightly in its clutches.

You let out a small cry of terror, instantly alerting Daryl to your horrifying predicament. However, as you struggled against the literal death grip of the monster, its teeth trying desperately to take a chunk of your flesh, you realized that you couldn't wait for Daryl to come to your rescue. By the time he managed to make it towards the other side of the truck, you would already be doomed. You had to take matters into your own hands.

Shakily, you drew your hand that held the knife back and plunged it deep into the thing's skull with a sickening force. The monster miraculously fell limp with the first blow, its hand falling from your arm. However, before you could fully process that you had just killed something that was once human, Daryl took your face in his hands and checked you over, his eyes filled with fear. You had never seen him with as much terror in his eyes ever before.

“Are ya okay?” he asked in a hurried manner, his voice shaky. “Please tell me the prick didn't get ya. No bites, scratches, nothin'.”

“I'm okay,” you assured him, watching him calm down somewhat. “But we have to leave. Right now.”

“Yeah, let's g—”

The deafening sound of a gunshot echoed through the area, followed closely by the rumble of a motorcycle. When the motorcycle came into view, you were both simultaneously relieved and disappointed to see none other than Merle Dixon. He stopped his motorcycle once he saw you, an exasperated look on his face.

“Y'all jus' gon' stand there and get eaten or get in the fuckin' truck? I did not risk my life gettin' here jus' to watch y'all get eaten alive.”

Daryl opened the door to the passenger side and quickly ushered you in, shouting over his shoulder at Merle. “Wha' the fuck are ya even doin' here?!”

“Helpin' yer sorry ass!” Merle exclaimed, shooting at another oncoming monster. “C'mon, let's go!”

Daryl didn't need to be told twice. He rushed to the driver's side and hurriedly got in, starting up his truck and speeding out of the parking area, following behind Merle's motorcycle. With all the chaos that unfolded, the two of you hadn't even managed to go grab some clothes from your apartment. However, by some stroke of luck, as you glanced towards the back of the truck, you noted that two duffel bags were resting there, as well as a bag with everything needed to construct a tent and Daryl's crossbow. You thanked your lucky stars that the two of you had gone camping for his hunting trip two days prior, and forgot to remove everything from his truck. The clothes were dirty, sure, but once you found a body of water, you'd be able to wash them. And Daryl's crossbow would more than likely come in handy.

“Are ya okay?” Daryl asked, snapping you out of your thoughts. He was nervously chewing on his thumbnail, his eyes darting between you and the road.

You nodded at him, trying to calm your racing thoughts. In a matter of thirty minutes, your life had flipped upside down. You had killed someone, whether they were dead or not. The blood from the kill coated your skin and made you feel sick at your actions, but you tried to remind yourself that the thing you killed wasn't human anymore. If you didn't kill it, it would've killed you. It would've killed—

Gasping, you sat upright and clutched at your stomach. Daryl looked at you worriedly, his eyes trailing to your stomach. His eyes widened in terror, his grip on the steering wheel tightening even more, if possible.

“Wha's wrong?” he questioned. “Oh, god. S'somethin' wrong with Peanut? Did those pricks—”

“No! No, nothing's wrong,” you reassured him, your hand resting on your stomach. “It's just... With everything going on, I forgot about the baby. I forgot about my own child, Daryl. What kind of future mother does that make me?”

Daryl moved one of his hands to rest on your thigh, his thumb rubbing reassuring circles on the fabric of your jeans. He sent you a small smile, hoping to bring you some comfort.

“S'okay,” he told you. “Yer not gon' be a bad mom. With everythin' goin' on, yer body went into fight or flight mode. S'cause of it tha' ya managed to keep the baby in yer belly safe. And once they're here, I know yer gon' do yer absolute best to protect 'em.”

“I hope so,” you mumbled, resting your hand that wasn't on your stomach over his hand. “I really hope so.”

➳༻❀✿❀༺➳

One month had passed. One month since the dead started walking. One month since everything you knew got destroyed. One month since you had stumbled upon a quarry camp filled with other survivors with your husband and brother-in-law. One month since your life turned upside down.

You sighed as you washed one of Daryl's jeans, subtly listening to the other women's conversation, the other women sitting quite a distance from you. Most of the women in the small camp you were in tended to keep their distance from you, deeming you damaged goods because of the people you were with. Well, more so because Merle was your brother in law. You and Daryl tended to keep to yourselves, with Daryl only speaking to others when absolutely necessary, but the same couldn't be said for his hotheaded older brother. Merle had made quite the impression, and not a good one. And automatically, by mere association, they had deemed you and Daryl the same. Most of the women simply referred to you as the archer's girl, and you were pretty sure they didn't even know your actual name.

Most of the women didn't even bother acknowledging your existence most of the time. The only exception was a sweet woman named Carol Peletier, who offered you her kindness whenever she talked to you. She offered you tips on how to properly scrub stains from jeans, on how to fix up the holes in your husband's socks, and so much more. She was the only one who you'd felt comfortable enough sharing the secret of your pregnancy with, so even though she promised not to tell anyone, she silently offered you her support, and gave you advice regarding your pregnancy by telling you stories about her own pregnancy with little Sophia. Carol was your only true friend there, and you deeply appreciated her.

Without her, you probably would've snapped at the other women there for the judgemental looks they threw your way, so you cherished the friendship you had formed with her.

The touch of a calloused yet gentle hand drew you from your thoughts. You looked up and locked eyes with your husband, his blue eyes staring down at you with a softness only reserved for you. You sent him a smile and dropped the pair of jeans you were washing on the ground, standing up to face him better.

“Ya know all'a tha' washin' s'now ruined 'cause ya dropped it in mud, righ'?” he told you playfully, sending you a small smile.

You smiled and shrugged. “It's your jeans. I've never heard you complain about a little mud on them before, considering those kills you have to skin that stained these jeans in the first place.”

Daryl chuckled and shook his head. “Yeah, yer righ',” he replied, before his smile fell and he adapted a more serious tone. “I have to go huntin'.”

“Again?” you asked incredulously, your mood visibly deflating. “You went on a hunt not even two days ago.”

“Yeah, I know,” Daryl sighed, fidgeting with his hands. “But tha' Shane prick demanded tha' I go on another hunt again fer some reason. I dun' know why, 'cause we have 'nough meat to last us another week or so, but he threatened to throw us out of the camp if I didn't go now. We can't leave. 'Specially not now.”

Your lips formed into a small smile as Daryl's eyes trailed down to your stomach, his eyes softening slightly as he thought about the life that fluttered there, the life that he had helped create. His very own son or daughter. A small being that he would go to great lengths to protect, even if they weren't born yet. His little Peanut.

You stepped forward and pressed a chaste kiss against his cheek, before withdrawing again. You giggled at the blush that spread across his face, and didn't miss the way his lips twitched up into a small smile. He could say whatever he wanted, but he secretly loved your little public displays of affection. It was never something big, like some passionate kiss or a full-blown make out session. It was always something small and sweet, something quick to show your affection without drawing too much attention to the two of you. A subtle graze of your hand against his, quick pecks on the cheek, a gentle squeeze on his shoulder, you name it. You knew how to show him love in public without making him uncomfortable, and he loved you for it.

“How long will you be gone?” you asked, nervously fidgeting with your fingers.

Daryl noticed and subtly took your hands in his, giving them a reassuring squeeze. “Ain't no tellin'. Walsh demanded tha' I find some venison, and tha' might take me a while. Dun' even know if there are any deer here.”

You pursed your lips and nodded. “Stay safe, okay? I love you.”

Daryl nodded. Stepping out of his own comfort zone, he leaned down and pressed a feathery light kiss to your lips. When he pulled back, he gently caressed your cheek. “Always am. And I love ya more, sunshine.”

With that, he turned around and left, leaving you standing alone with the unfinished laundry. Watching his retreating figure, you smiled fondly, completely missing the envious looks the other women were sending your way.

They hadn't heard your conversation, the two of you being too far away to overhear anything, but they did see the way the archer interacted with you. It was so vastly different from the way he talked to anyone, including his own brother, his own flesh and blood. It was clear there was a lot of history between the two of you, good and bad, and it made the two of you a strong couple. From what Merle had let slip in his high state once, the two of you had been together since you were both merely seventeen years old, and by the looks of it, the two of you were still going strong. The two of you radiated love for one another, and that's more than most could say about their own past relationships.

It was clear the two of you shared something special, and it was unfair to them that they couldn't find love like that. And with the world ending, they doubted that they ever would.

➳༻❀✿❀༺➳

Three days had passed. Three days where Daryl was nowhere to be found. Three days where you had to deal with Merle's disgusting attitude on your own. Three days where you had to sleep alone in your shared tent, wishing he was there.

It seemed like baby Dixon noticed their father's absence, and they weren't happy about it. For the past three days, you hadn't managed to keep anything down in the depths of your stomach. Any and all food you ate came right back up again a few hours later, and it wasn't exactly pleasant. Thankfully, nobody saw you whenever you rushed to the bushes behind the RV to spew the contents of your stomach out, so nobody knew of your pregnancy yet.

And you had Carol by your side whenever your stomach rebelled against you, so that was a major plus.

“God, I hate this so much,” you groaned in frustration, eliciting a laugh from the woman gently rubbing your back.

“It's what comes with the joys of pregnancy,” she laughed lightly, continuing the circular motion on your back until you felt better. Once you stood upright, she handed you a bottle of water, encouraging you to drink as much as you needed to. “Drink up. You need to stay hydrated.”

Once you had enough to drink, you handed her the bottle again. “Thank you,” you thanked her, giving her a small smile. “How'd you handle it? The morning sickness, I mean.”

“I was lucky enough to only experience a mild case of morning sickness,” Carol explained, wrapping her arm around you and starting to walk with you back to the main campsite. “You know, and I'm not saying this to pressure you at all, but maybe you should tell everyone about your pregnancy. It would be good for Glenn to be on the lookout for prenatal vitamins.”

“I can't,” you denied. “Then everyone will look at me like I'm carrying the plague and see me as just another liability. I can't have that. Daryl and I can handle things on our own until we absolutely have to tell everyone.”

“Okay,” Carol replied, before shifting the conversation away from something that quite obviously stressed you out. “I drank a lot of herbal teas when I was pregnant. That seemed to really work for the nausea.”

“Just great,” you sighed, shaking your head. “Where the fuck are we supposed to find that?”

Carol smiled and gently rubbed your shoulder. “I'll see if Dale has some. I remember him mentioning something about ginger tea.”

“What if he asks why you need it?” you asked hurriedly, worry lacing your tone.

“Don't worry, I won't tell him,” she reassured you. “I'll just tell him I'm feeling nauseous. That something I ate isn't corresponding with my stomach. Trust me, he'll believe it.”

You sent her a smile. “Thanks, Carol. I mean it.”

She smiled at you before disappearing into the RV, on a search for Dale. You stood waiting outside, staring ahead at the treeline. You hoped that by continuously looking at it, your husband would appear from the trees with a deer over his shoulders, dirty but unharmed. Alas, as you had learned over the last few days, that didn't work, and you wished you could go out there and look for him yourself, but you knew he'd be extremely mad if you did.

No, your main priority was your baby at that moment. Your husband had shown time and time again that he could take care of himself, so you chose to believe that he'd be fine. You had to believe that, otherwise you'd spiral into an abyss you didn't want to go down.

The feeling of somebody standing next to you startled you. You stumbled and nearly fell, but the hands of the mystery person caught you. Looking up, you locked eyes with the self-appointed leader of the group, Shane Walsh. His brown eyes were staring down at you, a small grin on his face.

“Sorry, girl. Didn't mean to startle you,” he apologized, slightly rubbing your arms.

Feeling extremely uncomfortable, you shrugged his hands from your arms and took a step back, putting some distance between the two of you. You sent him a tight-lipped smile.

“It's okay,” you replied, hoping that he would end the conversation with that. However, the man had other plans.

“What's your story, lady?” he asked curiosly, leaning back against the metal of the RV, his eyes trailing over you in a way you didn't like.

“My story?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “What's a pretty girl like yourself doing with a lowlife nothing like Daryl Dixon? I mean, you could have anyone you want, but you chose him, the redneck. Why?”

“Because I love him,” you stated matter-of-factly, sending him a harsh glare that only seemed to spur him on even more.

“Bullshit. There's gotta be something to it,” he disagreed, chuckling at the glare on your face. “There's no way that a guy like that managed to pull someone like you. It goes against all the laws of the universe. So tell me, what's he got to offer? Is he paying you? Are you some prostitute he keeps around for his own pleasure or something? You certainly look pretty enough to have a guy pay you for something like that.”

Before you could stutter out an angry reply to Shane's deprecating accusation, a hand gently gripped your shoulder and pulled you aside. Looking up, you saw Daryl, an angry look in his eyes. Without a word, he stepped forward and viciously connected his fist with Shane's nose, hearing the satisfying crack of the bone there.

“Son of a bitch!” Shane exclaimed, bending over to clutch his nose in his hands. “What the fuck, Dixon?!”

Daryl gripped Shane by the collar of his shirt and shoved him against the side of the RV, a threatening glare on his face. Terror filled Shane's eyes, something unusual for the for the man. Everyone started gathering around the fighting pair, and Carol, who had rushed from the RV once she heard the commotion, pulled you back from the battle ground, holding you firmly against her side.

“Listen'a me real fuckin' close, Walsh,” Daryl spat angrily, his voice dangerously low. “I dun' care wha' ya say 'bout me, but if ya ever talk 'bout my pregnant wife like tha' again, I'll do so much worse than jus' break yer nose. Ya dun' talk to her, ya dun' look at her, ya dun' even breathe the same fuckin' air as her. If ya do, I'll skin ya alive and feed the remainin' pieces of ya to the walkers. Do I make myself clear?”

“Fuck you,” Shane groaned out.

“Yer venison's on the table. Next time, go hunt fer it yer fuckin' self.”

Without waiting for a response, Daryl shoved Shane harshly and turned around, meeting your eyes. Instead of finding fear in your eyes from his actions, he found adoration instead. You stepped out of Carol's hold and took Daryl's hand in your own, dragging him to your shared tent. You didn't even spare a glance at the people, so you missed the way all of their eyes widened at the realization that you were pregnant, that they had been unnecessarily rude to a pregnant lady that had done absolutely nothing wrong. They had been harsh to an expecting mother and father, for no reason at all. Everyone felt guilty, but the groan that Shane emitted caught their attention once again.

Back in your shared tent with Daryl, you were stood busy gently cleaning the blood from his split knuckles while the man sat on the cot. Daryl was avoiding your eyes, feeling ashamed of his actions. In all the years that you had been together, you had only seen him lash out like that once—one time when you were drinking together in a bar when you were twenty-four, a guy had grabbed your breast without your consent, and Daryl had completely lost it. After that, he swore he'd never act like that around you ever again, but Shane made him break that promise.

“I'm not mad, you know,” you finally broke the silence, watching the way his ocean coloured eyes flickered over to you, the confusion evident in them. “Shane got what he deserved. Quite honestly, I planned on punching him, too. You just beat me to it.”

“M'sorry,” Daryl mumbled, ducking his gaze to the floor. “I know ya can fight yer own battles. S'jus'... Hearin' the way he talked 'bout ya, like ya were some object who's worth he could judge... I dun' know. It made me pissed. Ya dun' deserve to be treated like tha'. 'Specially not when yer carryin' a baby in yer belly. Speakin' of, m'sorry I revealed yer pregnant. I know ya wanted to keep tha' hidden.”

You smiled and gently lifted his chin with your finger, gazing deeply into his eyes. “It's okay. They would've found out eventually,” you told him, gently cupping his cheek. “Look at you, always so considerate about everyone else except yourself. You're amazing, Daryl Dixon.”

Daryl blushed. “Yer the amazin' one,” he countered, leaning forward to rest his forehead on your stomach. He placed a small kiss to the clothed skin. “Peanut's gon' have one hell of a mama.”

“And one hell of a daddy,” you replied, bringing one of your hands to thread through his hair. “I love you, Daryl.”

“Love ya more, peach,” Daryl murmured, closing his eyes at the comforting feeling. “Love ya too, Peanut.”

The serene moment was soon interrupted. The soft calling from Carol grabbed your attention, and you giggled at the groan Daryl let out.

“Y/n?” she called out. “I've got that ginger tea I promised you.”

“Ginger tea?” Daryl questioned, looking up at you.

“Yeah. I got a bunch of morning sickness without you around for some reason. Seems like Baby Dixon doesn't like when their daddy's not here.”

“Good,” Daryl chuckled, rubbing your stomach affectionately. “Then I guess ya won't mind if I stick 'round.”

“Hm,” you hummed, pretending to think about it before letting out a slight giggle. “I guess I'll keep you around.”

“Tha's real good to hear.”

Before you could respond, you heard the bellowing voice of your brother in law. You groaned in frustration, praying that Carol had gotten out of the line of fire, because your tent was about to become a war ground.

“When the fuck were ya plannin' on tellin' me ya got yer whore pregnant?”

Daryl visibly tensed up at his brother's words, anger flaring up in his eyes, and you knew that another beating was about to commence. “The fuck did ya jus' say, Merle?!”

“Ya heard me, boy.”

God, you hated Merle with a fiery passion, and you doubted that would ever change. But you loved Daryl, and you knew that as long as you had him by your side, you could face anything.

Yeah, your little Peanut was gonna have the best father ever.

©dixons-sunshine 2024. I do not give permission for my works to be copied, modified, adapted or translated to any other site or platform without evidence of my given consent.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 13: The Regrets Are Useless] [Series Finale]

A/N: Below are your final predictions. Let's see how you did... 🥰

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon™️, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Whatsername” by Green Day.

Word count: 6.1k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Rain pours outside the cabin, mist-shrouded pine trees and still dark water, a place in southern Oregon called Lake of the Woods. The twin-sized bed with a thin foam mattress was once used by kids attending summer camp, capture the flag and s’mores, hikes and scary stories, but now the children are ghosts and the monsters are real, stumbling down streets and lurking in dark places, licking blood from what’s left of their lips.

Aemond is here but he’s also not, a castaway on an island where the world never ended, his hands in your hair as you straddle him, your hips moving tentatively, his lips and teeth at your throat, the sharp points of his canines like fangs.

“Am I doing this right?” you murmur doubtfully. “I feel like I’m definitely not doing this right…”

“Shh, you’re great, you’re incredible.”

“I’m sorry I don’t know how to do everything already, I’m sorry you have to teach me—”

“Stop,” Aemond commands, a sharp sigh through your hair. “I love this. I love you. I want to teach you things until the day I die.”

The nervous tension in your muscles unravels—peddles thrown into water, campfire smoke vanishing into indigo night—and now his hands are on your hips, steadying you, guiding you. You link your fingers around the back of his neck and try to find a cadence that isn’t uncomfortable, ungainly, effortful. You wanted to try this. You want to experience everything with him.

“Take your time,” Aemond is saying like it’s difficult for him to keep a train of thought, his eye closed, his cheeks flushed, blood-colored blooms like a dusk sky. “I’m fine down here, don’t worry about me…”

Rain drums against the windows; lightning flashes in the sky and thunder growls. From the front porch of one of the other cabins, you can hear the indistinct droning of conversations and Aegon strumming the acoustic guitar he brought from the beach house. It’s something you’ve overheard him singing before, one of his strange midcentury darlings, a song that should be too old for him to know the words to.

“All you big and burly men who roll the trucks along

Better listen, you’ll be thankful when you hear my song

You have really got it made if you’re haulin’ goods

Any place on earth but those Haynesville Woods…”

Your skin gleams with a cool sheen of sweat; there is a draft through the cabin walls that makes you shiver as you cling to Aemond. You roll your hips a certain way and he moans—suddenly, involuntarily—and you know you’ve found the right rhythm.

“It’s a stretch of road up north in Maine

That’s never ever ever seen a smile

If they’d buried all them truckers lost in them woods

There’d be a tombstone every mile

Count ‘em off, there’d be a tombstone every mile…”

Aemond is kissing you deeply, desperately, trembling hands and gasping shallow breaths. And there is not just euphoria written into the lines of his face; there is disorientation, there is wonder. He barely manages: “Alright…um…if you want me to last longer than about thirty more seconds, you should probably slow down…”

“No,” you tease, grinning as you bite at his full lips.

“When you’re loaded with potatoes and you’re headed down

You’ve got to drive the woods to get to Boston town

When it’s winter up in Maine, better check it over twice

That Haynesville road is just a ribbon of ice…”

Aemond cries out, louder than you’ve ever heard him before—you’ve never had privacy, you’ve never truly been alone—and then again, a helpless ecstatic sound, pleasure so overwhelming it almost starts to feel like pain.

“Quiet!” you whisper, giggling, touching two fingers to his mouth. “Everyone’s going to hear you.”

“Oh my God,” Aemond says. He falls back onto the mattress and brings you with him, his arms wrapped around you, kissing your cheeks and your forehead as the two of you lie there panting and entangled, his blue eye astonished. “Okay, okay, I need a minute. I think I just burst an aneurysm.”

“I killed you?” you purr with feigned distress, basking in your conquest.

“You can kill me whenever you want. You can kill me five times a day.”

“When you’re talking to a trucker that’s been haulin’ goods

Down that stretch of road in Maine they call the Haynesville Woods

He’ll tell you that dying and going down below

Won’t be half as bad as driving on that road of ice and snow…”

Aemond stares up at the ceiling—a steep gable roof, a motionless fan—and now you can tell he’s thinking about his family again, discorporate screams, misplaced trust. Otto Hightower’s bones were found in the shower, meaning he likely died before or not long after their power failed and water would have run out in the municipal system. They were probably killed before you and Aemond ever met, distant galaxies lightyears away, remote long-dead stars. And so all the blood you paid to get to California was wasted.

“Do you ever think about the people you have saved?” you ask gently as your fingertips trace the ridge of his scar. “You stitched yourself back together. You healed Aegon’s burns. You sutured Cregan’s arm. You got me and Rio down from that transmission tower.”

“I guess I did,” Aemond says, but his voice is ambivalent, as if none of these things count. He has not found someplace safe for you yet. His job is not finished; his triumphs may only be temporary.

“Aemond…back in Pennsylvania…why did you decide to help us?”

“Luke spotted you guys, and we all talked it over. If it had just been Rio, honestly, I wouldn’t have taken the chance. A man his size, and possibly armed…could be trouble, you know? But I figured since he was traveling with a woman and you seemed to be with him by choice, he was probably okay. And then when we first met, he was so protective of you…didn’t want me touching you, didn’t leave you alone…I realized he had to be a good guy.”

“He was,” you say solemnly. I was supposed to remind him about the racks. I was supposed to warn him. But you didn’t warn Rio about what was waiting to kill him in that sand-swept grocery store in Winnemucca, just like you didn’t warn Jace about radiation or Baela about the way the rungs of the ladder that ran up the side of the grain bin were rusted and creaking, and maybe there is more than enough blame to go around.

“And then after Battle Mountain, as soon as we found the gasoline and ammo, I knew we had to go back for you. It hit me all at once. I couldn’t protect you by leaving you with Rio and Cregan. And I couldn’t let you go. I’ve never had something like this before. I didn’t know it existed. I told the others we were turning around, and Aegon said: Thank fucking God. Rhaena took off sprinting towards the car.” Then Aemond kisses you again, but tenderly this time, slowly, like you’ll have forever and there’s no need to rush. “I’m going to get you to Odessa. I’m going to take you somewhere safe.”

The rain is stopping; there are still a few hours of daylight left.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey, Chip Skylark. Check it out,” Aegon says, grinning at you from where he’s sprawled on the wet dock and smoking a cigarette, wearing his neon green plastic sunglasses, his left leg finally freed from its bandages and on full display. You’re all wearing the same things, stolen t-shirts and shorts, sweatshirts at night when it gets cold, sneakers you can walk hundreds of miles in; but Aegon won’t give up his Sperry Bahamas. “It’s nature’s tattoo.”

You sit down beside him and admire the scar tissue, red knots and white cords, jagged terrain like a mountain range, organic highways and bridges and trails. “It’s a roadmap.”

“That’s appropriate.”

You’ve been traveling on foot for two weeks since Criston’s white Tahoe ran out of gas and was abandoned in the town of Mad River, California. Now you are only about ten miles from Odessa, close enough to reach in half a day but too far to get into town before nightfall. This time tomorrow you’ll be there, and it will either be a haven or a wasteland, and if Rio’s parents’ community in Odessa has disappeared then so has your last idea for where to go. Absentmindedly, you skate your fingerprints over the bumps and grooves of Aegon’s leg like a blind man reading braille. He shifts and clears his throat; you’ve made him uncomfortable somehow. You lift your hand away.

“I’m sorry, does that hurt?”

“Nah. I can’t really feel anything besides pressure. The nerve endings got fried.”

“Oh.” But now you don’t know what you did to upset him. Aegon doesn’t provide an explanation. Down the dock a ways towards the shore, Rhaena is reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and listening to the pink Sony Walkman formerly owned by a little girl named Ava. Inside whirls Green Day’s 2004 album American Idiot, which Aegon took from his bedroom at the beach house to add to his CD collection, a cultural archive, a gift for posterity. Cregan is teaching Daeron to fish with poles he found in one of the cabins; Helaena is bringing them worms. Aemond and Luke are gathering things dry enough to burn—books and wooden chairs from inside the cabins—and piling them up so Cregan can cook dinner once it’s caught.

“So,” Aegon says, changing the subject, scrutinizing you as he puffs on a Marlboro Gold. “Everything going okay?”

You know what he means; he must have heard Aemond earlier. “Yup.”

“Got it all figured out?”

“Sure did.”

“Great. I’m happy for you,” Aegon says, and yet there’s a twinge of melancholy he’s trying to hide. It must be hard for him; he and Daeron are the only single ones.

“We’ll find you some suitable candidates for your harem when we get to Odessa.”

He chuckles. “Oh, come on.”

“Guys, girls? Do you have a preference?”

He’s smiling wistfully down into the water, a dark rippling mirror. “I have too specific a preference, that’s the problem.”

“Yacht girls in bikinis. Golf cheerleaders.”

“There are no cheerleaders in golf, you yokel.”

“Okay, well…I’m sure you’ll be very popular with the lonely, traumatized, widowed women of the apocalypse.”

Aegon gazes morosely out over the lake. He pitches the end of his cigarette into the water, and your eyes catch briefly on the black ink of the tattoo on his forearm: It’s not over ‘til you’re underground. “I don’t know. I’ve been sober for two weeks and now everything is annoyingly clear.”

“What’s bothering you?”

He waits a while before he answers, evasive. “I’ve never been good at anything.”

“Everyone feels that way sometimes. Luke thinks he’s not good at anything either.”

“But Luke’s nice. I’m a rat bastard.”

You laugh. “You’re kind of nice, Aegon.”

“Yeah right.”

“No, seriously. I like being around you. You make me feel better. You’re like…” You ponder how to word it. “I feel like I could tell you whatever and not worry about being judged for it.”

He snorts. “As if you’ve ever done anything judgeable.”

You shrug, peering out over the lake. “I abandoned my family. I stopped sending them money, I stopped calling. And when everything happened…the zombies, the world ending…I didn’t even consider going back to Kentucky to try to help them. I went west with Rio instead. And now they’re probably all dead and it’s my fault. That’s evil. I couldn’t have gotten away with that level of betrayal. I must be cursed.”

Aegon is watching you, eyebrows raised. He has never heard this before. “But your family sucked, right?”

“Yeah,” you admit. “I think it would be hard to argue they didn’t.”

“So fuck ‘em,” Aegon says simply.

You smile at him, touched, grateful. “Okay. Fuck ‘em.”

“I’m relieved my family’s gone,” Aegon confesses, something so brutal he’d never tell anyone else. “I mean…I feel kind of bad about my mom and Criston. But as long as they were alive, I’d always be the person they raised. And if I could bring someone back, it wouldn’t be any of them. I’d pick Rio.”

“I would too,” you say softly, staring down at the faint burn marks on your palms from when you were stranded on that transmission tower with him, talking him out of suicide, so adamant that both of you were going to make it to Oregon. And you were wrong.

“So if you’re cursed, Pita Chips, sign me up because I’m right there with you.”

Rhaena pulls out an earbud and says to Aegon: “I don’t get this album.”

“What?!” he exclaims.

“It’s so good!” you concur. On the shore, Cregan is spearing several gutted rainbow trout on sticks so they can be roasted over the fire. Ice is gleefully gulping down fish organs.

Aegon continues: “Whatsername! St. Jimmy! Jesus of Suburbia!”

Rhaena blinks, glancing between you and Aegon. “But neither of you grew up in the suburbs.”

“It’s not about the suburbs, Rhaena!” Aegon replies with frenetic hand gestures. “It’s about being disillusioned and angry and failed by all the adults in your life, and self-medicating, and losing love every time you get a taste of it, and wanting to burn everything down and start over. It’s about hating the world and the world hating you back.”

“Okay, sure. I still don’t get it.”

You say: “You might have had too happy a childhood.” And you and Aegon burst out laughing.

“You guys are so weird,” Rhaena says, but she’s smiling. She stands up, gives Aegon back his Walkman, and walks to the end of the dock where Cregan is cooking the rainbow trout. Aemond and Daeron are gathering up the aluminum buckets found at the campground and set outside earlier today to collect rainwater. There is one five-pound bag of trail mix left to share, and then all the food is gone. If Cregan doesn’t kill something, you won’t eat.

“We should go help them with dinner,” you tell Aegon.

He groans. “Should we really?”

“Yeah. We should.”

“Fine.” He takes your hand when you offer it and struggles to his feet. Then you inhale a lungful of the scent of roasting trout, and startlingly powerful nausea punches through your stomach, so repellant you have to clamp a hand over your mouth to stop yourself from retching.

There has to be something wrong with the fish. It’s never smelled like that before.

Aegon seems baffled. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Does the trout smell right to you?”

Aegon sniffs the air like a labrador. “I guess…? I barely smell anything.”

“Well you probably destroyed your nose cells with all the coke.”

“That’s discriminatory. Addiction is a disease.” But his brow is furrowed with concern. “Seriously, are you okay? You look awful. Not like that. You know what I mean.”

“I’m fine.” You don’t feel fine; but everyone down by the fire is chatting and joking around nonchalantly, and surely if there actually was something wrong they would have noticed. “I’ll be back in a second.”

“Sure,” Aegon says, perplexed.

You hurry past the others and take refuge in the cabin you’re sharing with Aemond. Inside the trout smell isn’t so strong. You sit at the edge of the bed and suck in several deep breaths, trying to calm down, willing the confounding wave of nausea to pass.

Did I eat something bad, did I get bit by a spider or something…?

You are checking your arms and legs for little raised bitemarks when Helaena enters the cabin and shuts the door behind her. When she opens her burlap messenger bag to root around inside, you glimpse photographs she must have taken from the beach house, the frames left empty on the mantle of the fireplace. Then Helaena pulls out a pregnancy test, just one, Clearblue.

You gawk at it. “What are you doing?”

“You look sick,” Helaena says matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s that.”

She is puzzled, wide innocent blue eyes. “Why not?”

“Well…I mean…that would be freakishly quick, wouldn’t it? Like…quick as in immediately. People can’t get pregnant the first time they have sex, right?”

“Huh. They really don’t have sex ed in Kentucky,” Helaena says, and leaves you alone with your pregnancy test. You don’t feel so nauseous anymore, but you sneak around the back of the cabin to take it anyway, because now you’re thinking about the possibility with a vividness you’ve never experienced before: a round blossoming belly and tiny handprints and Aemond cradling his child in his arms. And by the time you get the result, you aren’t even shocked. It feels like something that’s supposed to happen.

You and Aemond don’t have a moment alone together until after dark, sitting on the porch swing outside your cabin for first watch, everyone else asleep, Ice dozing serenely by your feet. The only sounds are the breeze through the pine trees, cool and damp, and the hoots of owls, and the chirping of crickets and cicadas.

“So guess what,” you say casually as moonbeams float rippling and fractured on the surface of the black-glass lake.

Aemond smiles drowsily, not expecting anything. “What?”

“In approximately eight months, I might be having your baby.”

At first, he doesn’t speak; he only studies the test when you hand it to him, and then looks at you like he’s not convinced you aren’t angry, like he can’t quite bring himself to believe that you’d want this with someone like him. “Are you afraid?”

“No,” you answer honestly. Maybe you should be, but you aren’t. “I’m hopeful. I feel like as soon as I realized it, everything got brighter. And now I’m thinking about the future instead of the past.” They’re not going to grow up like I did. They’re never going to think they aren’t loved. “What should we name it?”

“Not Otter.”

You laugh, trying to muffle it so you don’t wake anyone. Ice lifts her head and stares at you curiously, her shaggy grey ears straight up.

“I don’t know, I’m terrible with names,” Aemond says; and now he’s smiling again, a wide radiant smile, and you know he’s thinking about the future too. “Hope or Peace or something. Something happy. Something about starting over.”

You take his hand. “I can’t wait to start over with you.”

“Just one more day,” Aemond says.

One more day.

~~~~~~~~~~

“So what am I going to do in Odessa?” Luke asks as the eight of you—nine, if you count Ice—trek eastbound on Route 140. You are about five miles from Lake of the Woods and halfway to your destination. It’s only 80 degrees and overcast, good walking weather, although there is a looming threat of rain, occasional rogue drops and far-off rumbles of thunder. “Everyone has valuable skills except me. Chips has great aim and can build things, Daeron has his compound bow, Aemond is basically a doctor, Rhaena is learning how to shoot guns and treat injuries…”

“Aegon has skills?” Cregan jokes, casting him a good-natured grin. Aegon acts like he’s going to whack Cregan with his golf club, which he’s spinning around haphazardly. Both his Marlin .22 and acoustic guitar are slung across his back. There aren’t many bullets left, but everyone has a few.

“Aegon can navigate,” Luke says. “And probably impregnate ten women a day. Very useful during a population crisis.”

“We don’t need that in the gene pool,” Rhaena notes.

“You wrote stories in college, right?” you ask Luke.

“Screenplays, yeah,” he says hesitantly. “But I wouldn’t say I was super talented or anything.”

Aegon claps him on the shoulder “Well I’ve got good news for you, kid. A big chunk of the world’s screenwriters are probably dead now. So you’ll look so much better in comparison!”

“Thanks…?” Luke says.

“What I mean is,” you continue. “You could write books for people to read, since there aren’t really libraries or Barnes & Nobles anymore. And you could interview people to get their life stories and then record them so they aren’t lost forever. The next generation should know what the world was like before the zombies.”

“Yeah,” Aegon says as he pets Ice. “Someone has to tell them about blue raspberry Icees, right Blue Raspberry Icee?”

“Maybe,” Luke says thoughtfully, and you notice that he’s smiling a little.

Ice begins whining, and there is a rustling in the woods to the north, low-hanging branches of bigleaf maple and dogwood and Douglas fir trees being forced aside. “Zombie!” Aegon announces, pointing. Immediately, Daeron nocks an arrow and then releases it, and the figure draped in the shifting shadows of foliage drops to the ground.

“Hey Aegon,” Daeron says after a few seconds.

“Yeah?”

“That was actually a zombie, right?”

“Totally,” Aegon replies, but he doesn’t sound certain.

Aemond turns to his older brother accusingly. “How sure are you?”

“Like…50%.”

“Aegon!” Rhaena cries, petrified, and everyone rushes off the road to investigate.

Blessedly, the felled creature is long-dead, a former park ranger whose tan uniform hangs in gore-stained tatters. The nametag reads: Underwood. The arrow pierced its soft rotting skull and remains lodged there until Daeron pulls it out to be used again, giving Aegon an impatient scowl as he does.

“Close call,” Aegon tells him. “Think they would have charged you as an adult?”

“Lord almighty, that gave me a scare,” Cregan says, chuckling. Helaena spies a blackberry bush and begins picking a handful, and Cregan goes over to join her. Rhaena and Luke are telling Aegon that he needs to be more responsible and should have waited for Luke to confirm it was a zombie with his binoculars. You exchange a glance with Aegon: he rolls his eyes, you offer a smirk of commiseration. Ice is already trotting back towards Oregon Route 140.

You haven’t told anyone else that you’re pregnant yet, but eventually they’re going to notice that Aemond won’t leave your side. He sighs and asks you: “Have you had enough of this little field trip?”

“Definitely.” You head for the road. Aemond walks with you, placing you not on his left side but on his right where he can see you. You ask, smiling: “You don’t trust me to watch your blind side anymore, huh?”

“I prefer the view the way it is.”

You are only a few steps from the black artery of pavement that cuts through the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, a 114,000-acre preserve of wilderness that somehow—although it is 2,500 miles away—reminds you a bit of eastern Kentucky, endless emerald forests, the omnipotent shadows of mountains. And because you are on Aemond’s right side, he can look down and see something just in front of you on the earth strewn with knobby roots and pine needles and dead leaves.

“Don’t!” he shouts, snatching your forearm and yanking you backwards, and he’s never touched you like this before—so forcefully, so violently—and you stumble and almost fall, and your arm burns and aches where he grabbed you, and people are asking what’s going on, and you peer up at Aemond with confusion, fear, mistrust.

“Why…?”

And then you hear it rustling from the same place where you were standing a moment ago. The others yelp and dash out of the way as the snake escapes into the woods, a drab spotted olive green, a rattling tail, an angular skull like an arrowhead.

“Aemond?” you say, because he hasn’t moved, hasn’t made a sound. He looks down, and your gaze follows his. On his right calf, just a few inches above his ankle, are two small puncture wounds from the snake’s fangs, each dribbling a thin river of blood.

“Northern Pacific rattlesnake,” Helaena says, her voice shaking, tears welling up in her horrified eyes. “Venomous.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Aemond has one arm draped across Cregan’s shoulders, the other over Aegon’s. He’s moving slower, or is that just your imagination? His steps are less steady, his breathing more labored. His leg is swelling, a deep blue phantom of a bruise spreading beneath his skin, so tight it looks like it might split open.

“We’re almost there,” you say; you keep saying it, because hopefully that will make it true. “We’re only a few miles from Odessa, and we’ll find people who can help us.”

“Aemond, you’re a doctor,” Luke says.

Aemond’s voice is weak, pained, hazy. “I’m not a doctor.”

“You know what I mean!” Luke yells, frantic. “How do we fix you? What can we do?”

“Nothing,” Aemond says listlessly. “There’s nothing you can do without a hospital. I’ll either get better or I won’t.”

“People in Odessa will know how to help,” you insist. “They’re outside all the time, they hike, they hunt, they fish, they’ve seen snakebites before. They must have. They’ll have treatments.”

“Aemond,” Rhaena breathes, and you turn to see there is blood running from his nostrils. You scream, and Aemond touches his fingers to his face and then watches as they come away bloody.

“Put me down,” he tells Cregan and Aegon.

“No—” you begin, but then his knees buckle and he’s on the pavement anyway, blood pouring from his nose and his lips, blood filling up his right eye. Cregan walks to the shoulder of the highway, his head in his hands. Aegon stays beside Aemond, and you’re kneeling there with him, both of you using anything you have to clean the blood from Aemond’s face: the corners of your shirts, your bare hands.

He’s covered in blood, you think. Just like Jace, Baela, Rio.

“Can’t clot,” Aemond is murmuring. “The venom causes coagulotoxicity. Internal bleeding too. I feel like…like there’s all this pressure inside…”

Rhaena is taking Aemond’s pulse like he taught her to, fingers on the underside of his wrist. “It’s really faint,” she says quietly.

You grab a plastic Gatorade bottle filled with rainwater out of your backpack and tilt it against Aemond’s crimson-stained lips. He manages to swallow some of it. “Aemond, listen to me,” you say as calmly as you can. “You’re so close. We’re almost there. I need you to hang on a little longer.”

He shakes his head, slow dizzy motions. “It doesn’t matter.”

“They might have doctors in Odessa.” This is a fantasy, but you can’t resist it.

“Even if they do, there won’t be any antivenom. And it’s too late anyway.”

“No,” you say savagely, a sob ripping through your throat. “We didn’t cross 3,000 miles so you could die here. I won’t let you. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not fair.”

“Aegon,” Aemond says, reaching for him, drained and fumbling.

Aegon catches his hand. “I’m here.”

His eye—crystalline blue corrupted with red, blood in clear water—drifts to his brother. “You have to get her to Odessa. You have to help take care of everyone.”

Aegon is weeping. “Man, it’s supposed to be you. How can I still be here if you aren’t?”

“You can do this,” Aemond says.

“I’ll try.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, Aemond,” Aegon says, then crawls away on his hands and knees and collapses on the pavement, gutted, inconsolable, hemorrhaging grief instead of gore.

Everyone is crying and touching Aemond—his face, his hands—saying goodbye, accepting tasks, and they come away stained with red, and rain has begun to fall from a dark sky growling with thunder. Rhaena takes his medical kit. Helaena takes his Glock and stows it away in her messenger mag. Then Aemond looks for you, and now you are alone with him here in the middle of the highway, two golden lines on black asphalt, and with your thumbprint you whisk away the rivulet of blood that is spilling from his eye.

“You’re going to be okay,” he whispers as his heart fails, as his lungs fill with blood instead of air, as his pores leak rust and ruin. “Odessa will be everything we hoped for. I just won’t be there with you.”

“You can’t leave me,” you’re saying as rain patters against the road. I left my family and now my family is leaving me.

“Love,” he sighs, almost too softly to hear. “I don’t want to.”

You lie down on the pavement with him and rest your head on his chest, feel it rise and fall beneath you as the rain descends in sheets. And then Aemond exhales, deep and rattling, and he never tastes oxygen again, never speaks, never touches you. You don’t move from where you’re lying. You’re there until you’re drenched to the bones with rain and the world is a cold mist of pine trees, of wilderness, and you can never go back to any of the places you’ve been before, you can never get back the people you’ve left there.

Aegon is shaking you. “We have to keep moving,” he chokes out through tears.

You reply without looking at him. “I’m giving up now.”

“No you’re fucking not. We have to walk to Odessa.”

“Everyone’s dead in Odessa. Everyone’s dead everywhere. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to stay in a world like this.”

On the periphery of your vision, you can see Aegon glancing at the others, standing just off the highway and under the canopy of the pine trees. He seems defeated, he seems lost.

Then suddenly Aegon turns back to you. “Hey!” he screams, so loudly you jolt upright, your palms on wet pavement, rain dripping from your hair. “I’m still alive. You’re still alive. This isn’t over yet. I said I would get you to Odessa, so that’s where we’re going. Stand up. Right now.”

Aegon holds out his hand. Thunder booms, lightning strobes, and then you take it. He pulls you to your feet and hesitates, as if he didn’t think he would get this far. Then he throws his arms around you, a crushing desperate embrace, a wordless devotion, a silent vow, sobbing into the curve of your neck, tasting the copper and iron of his brother’s blood on your skin.

“We have to keep moving,” he says again, like an apology, like he understands how impossible it feels. “The storm’s getting worse. It’ll be too dark to see soon.”

“We can’t leave him alone like this.”

“That’s not Aemond anymore,” Aegon pleads. “Aemond’s gone. And he would want us to live.”

Now the others are here on the road too: Daeron, Helaena, Cregan, Rhaena, Luke, Ice whimpering and licking scarlet stains of blood off your hands. You’re all holding each other; you’re all any of you have left. Cregan carries Aemond off the pavement and on a patch of grass alongside Route 140, the seven of you cover his body with branches of pine needles and white petals from dogwood trees. Rhaena is the first person to begin walking again, heading east. One by one you follow her. The downpour is torrential; if you are attacked now, you are nearly blind. Aegon stays beside you no matter how slow your steps are. You think if he disappears, you will too; the strings that tie you to the earth will fray and unweave and your bones will turn to mist, your voice will only be the wind howling down mountainsides. You have no way of knowing how long you’ve been walking or how many miles are left. You wonder what will happen to Aemond’s child if there is nothing for you in Odessa.

The rain is stopping. Now you can hear crows, woodpeckers, formations of geese honking in a foggy sky and squirrels scrabbling up tree trunks. Falcons perch watchfully on dead power lines. Rare aisles of sunlight are breaking through dissipating clouds.

They rise up out of the verdant jungle, a tangle of Pacific ninebark and blue elderberry: four figures in green camouflage, two men and two women, all wearing tactical sunglasses and wielding assault rifles, M16s you’re fairly sure, automatic and with 20-round magazines. Daeron moves to nock an arrow and then stops when he sees you’ve put up your hands. The others follow your lead: palms empty, willingly surrendering.

It’s them, you think dazedly. The people in Odessa. They’re alive, they’re real.

“Please cooperate and hand over all your weapons,” one of the women says, fifties, muscular, alert hawkish eyes.

No one moves. Then you unholster your Beretta M9—received from the U.S. Navy almost exactly five years ago, a different lifetime, a different world—and hold it out to the woman in your open palm. And now everybody else is giving their weapons over too: Aegon and Luke’s .22s, Rhaena’s Ruger, the spare Ruger and Aemond’s Glock hidden in Helaena’s burlap messenger bag, Daeron’s compound bow, Cregan’s axe. Ice peers up at Cregan anxiously, her yellowish eyes wide, but she wags her tail when he runs one of his large, calloused hands over her rain-soaked fur.

Aegon is still clutching his golf club. One of the men stares at him, incredulous. “You can keep that, son,” he says.

The woman nods to the men. “Nick and Glen will escort you five miles up the road, and then return your weapons. We ask that you keep moving and do not turn around. We don’t want trouble, but we can defend ourselves. Don’t think you can double back tomorrow and try to loot us or anything. This is your only warning. Do you understand?”

Aegon nudges your hand with his knuckles, then taps you harder when at first you’re too shellshocked to notice. You have to explain. You have to tell them why you’re here.

“I…I…” You begin, unable to make the words leave your lips, rats from a sinking ship, plummeting bodies from a burning building. Here you stand on a precipice, and with so many other people to save. “I served in the Navy with Bryan Osorio. We left Saratoga Springs together. He told me it would be safe here.”

Now they are interested. Slowly, the woman lowers her M16. “You know the Osorios?”

“I do.” I’ve known them for half a decade.

“Could any of them identify you and verify what you’re saying?”

“His wife, Sophie. She’s blonde, and she likes elephants, and she had a baby recently.”

The woman is scanning the faces behind you. “And where’s Bryan?”

“He’s not here anymore,” you say, and now you’re sobbing again. Aegon is squeezing your shoulder, his head bowed. “I’m sorry. I wanted to help him get home. I was supposed to warn him, I was supposed to stop it from biting him, but I didn’t and now he’s gone—”

“Okay, okay.” The woman motions for you to calm down, but her voice is kind. “Who are these guys? Your colleagues, your friends?”

“They’re my family.”

“You can vouch for them?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll all submit to searches for bitemarks?”

“Yes.”

The woman turns to the men she called Nick and Glen. “Take them inside, will you? Get the ID verified and then we’ll process everyone.”

“Got it,” the older man says. And then, to you and your companions: “Follow me.”

Nick and Glen lead you into the forest, the canopy of pine needles so thick the daylight turns to dusk, and you think of lightning bugs, of firelight, of drinking Guinness on the beach with Rio on Diego Garcia. There are several patrols, groups of four or five, that approach to stop you until they see Nick and Glen and wave you through. Then the trees open into a meadow of buttercups and daisies and pink fawn lilies, and beyond that an immense village, some houses decades old, others currently being constructed with logs from pine trees. There are hundreds of people tending to livestock, hanging up laundry to dry on clotheslines, digging in gardens, making candles and soap and butter. There are children playing without fear, giggling as they chase after scampering dogs, challenging each other to games of kickball and Uno.

In front of one of the houses that predates the apocalypse, brick with a screened-in porch, there is a small blonde woman standing in a garden, smiling and chatting with a middle-aged couple. The baby she carries against her chest in a blue sling has dark curly hair like Rio’s.

Sophie and the baby are here. They’ve been alive the whole time.

You rest a palm on your belly without realizing you’re doing it. “What happens now?” you ask Aegon.

“The rest of our lives.”

It is unimaginable, it is impossible, it is so full of luminous potential you feel like the light will spill out of your pores like blood, it’s an oasis, it’s a second chance, it’s an island in the vast lethal untamed blue of the Indian Ocean.

“Let’s go,” Aegon says softly, taking your hand and leading you across the field of wildflowers, kaleidoscopic blooms in the last days of summer.

[lambtotheslaughterr]

Rise -- Part Four

A Rafe Cameron Series

WC: 4.8k

Dividers provided by @firefly-graphics

PART THREE | MASTERLIST | PART FIVE

note*: a reminder that you must be following me & interacting with the work you want to be tagged in regularly to remain on a taglist. this will be my final warning about it. thank you.

            It was decided that you would move north. Adrianna had shared with the group that Tobias told her that before the virus completely wiped out communication, that there was possible word of a fortified community where the virus hadn’t struck yet. Of course, it couldn’t be guaranteed. That’s what Adrianna was told. But it was more than you all had before arriving at the base.

            The car was quiet as Sayyed led the way in the dark. Taking the back roads was necessary again as all the highways were overtaken by abandoned vehicles. There were a few stops to collect more gas but other than that, the focus was to get as far north in the next 24 hours. You were on the brink of falling asleep, soothed by the sounds of your friends combined soft breathing in the back seat. Though the drive was tense at the beginning, no thanks to the brewing fight between Sayyed & Rafe, everyone had calmed down enough to focus on what mattered.

            You weren’t sure how long you slept for when the sound of a door slamming shook you awake. You leaned forward in your seat, rubbing the sleep from your eyes as you blearily looked around. The headlights were still on. In front of the wrangler was a forestry. You looked over your shoulder & watched as the others in Rafe’s truck began to climb out. Nuha, Millie, & Micah were still asleep.

            Sayyed returned to the car, opening hid door to nod at you, “We’re staying here for the night.”

            “Where’s here?”

            “If I followed the directions of Adrianna’s map well enough we’re somewhere north of Charleston.”

            You sighed to yourself when he turned off the car. It was the middle of the night & you were in the middle of nowhere. This wasn’t exactly the best time to set up camp, especially when everyone was tense & sleepy. And grieving. Severson’s gun going off flashed through your mind. You winced, blocking out the image of Luka.

            “Guys, wake up.” You shook Millie. She groaned but opened her eyes. It was Micah who shot you a heated glare.

            “Guess we’re camping out here for the night.” You informed them before slipping out. Before you shut the door, you heard Micah mutter a complaint to Millie.

            You began helping the others as they started gathering camping gear. Fortunately, the vehicles were parked in a clearing so there would be no hiking in the dark. After fifteen minutes, tents, a canopy with the food & dry goods underneath it, & a fire was all set up. Rafe disappeared quickly, crawling into his tent at the edge of the clearing, furthest away from the rest of you.

            Millie & Micah were heating up a large batch of soup, Nuha was talking quietly to Kai near the fire, Adrianna was writing in a leatherbound journal, & Bear was taking a piss behind the cars. You were about to head to your own tent, wanting to catch up on the sleep you had reluctantly woken up from. But Sayyed approached you.

            “I need to talk to you.” His voice was low, secretive.

            You frowned. Sayyed rarely ever sounded like so, even when the world was ending.

            He lead you back to the wrangler, opening up your door for you to hop in. He climbed in the other side.

            “What’s going on?” You tangled your fingers together in your lap.

            “It’s Rafe.”

            Oh. You fluttered your eyes closed, too tired to listen to Sayyed rant about Rafe.

            “Sayyed…”

            But he cut you off, sensing what you were already going to say, “He can’t be trusted, _____.”

            You sighed, rubbing your eyes, “Can we not jump to conclusions please? I know you think he was trying to leave.”

            “He was!” He raised his voice, but not nearly enough to garner the attention of your friends outside the car. You tossed him a narrowed look, warning him to calm down.

            “I’m sorry.” He inhaled sharply before letting out a slow breath, “But you can’t tell me that he wasn’t up to something.”

            “I think he was scared.” You reasoned, though you did recall Rafe suggesting the two of you leave back at the base, right before his predictions came true. Even though he was willing to leave behind all your friends, you clung to the possibility that Rafe didn’t know what he was talking about. He was high after all.

            “Psh. Yeah. You ever seen Rafe Cameron scared of anything?” Sayyed shook his head in disbelief, leaning onto the center console to move closer to you, “He doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”

            “Sayyed, I really don’t want to do this right now.” You told him exasperated. “Can we talk about this as a group in the morning?”

            “What? No. _____, I need you to hear what I’m saying.” Sayyed dismissed your pleas & continued opening his mouth, “If Tobias hadn’t led us out of there Rafe would’ve been long gone by the time we made it out ourselves.”

            “If we made it out…” You muttered.

            “Why should we keep him around? He’ll save his own skin before he saves any of us.”

            You rolled your eyes. You knew well enough that Sayyed, like every single one of your friends, had experienced a lifetime of trauma in just the last couple days. He wasn’t thinking straight. But you were too tired to help him get there.

            “Sayyed!” You finally yelled, “Jesus. Fucking stop.”

            Sayyed pressed his lips together, collapsing into his seat.

            “I said I don’t want to talk about this, okay?” You hissed, “And I don’t appreciate you trying to sneak behind everyone’s back to get me to listen to you. We’ll talk about it tomorrow, with everyone.” You began opening your door before you added with finality, “Including Rafe.”

            Hopping out, not wanting to wait around for Sayyed to say more, you slammed the door shut. The others were around the fire at this point, a couple paper bowls in their hands.

            “Hey, everything okay?” Millie asked softly when you sat down next to her. Behind you, you heard as Sayyed slammed his own door shut before crossing the clearing to the tent you shared.

            “Things haven’t been okay for a while now, Mills.” You sighed but mustered a sad smile.

            She nodded in knowing, reaching out to grab your hand. You were thankful she was here. Millie always kept you feeling grounded, even as the world fell apart.

            Nuha brought you a bowl of soup, which you surprised yourself with how hungry you were by practically downing it in four sloppy spoonsful. It dawned on you as you stared at the empty bowl in your lap that there may be a day where food becomes scarce. You’d have to remind yourself to eat slower & ration more.

            The six of you ate in silence. Sayyed & Rafe never emerging from their tents. After a while you made each of them a bowl to bring them. It had been a long day & you couldn’t remember either of them eating. You were about to head towards your shared tent with Sayyed first when Nuha stopped you.

            “I’ll take it.” She insisted.

            “Oh, are you sure?”

            “He’s my brother, _____. I think it’d be good for him to talk to me instead right now.” There was a protective undertone in her voice, but you couldn’t fault her for it. You had always admired their relationship, never having had siblings yourself.

            You handed her the bowl, thanking her once as she walked towards his tent. You turned on your heel, feeling apprehensive about facing Rafe. Though you mildly understood Sayyed’s concerns, especially since you knew Rafe was willing to leave everyone behind, you still wanted to give Rafe the benefit of the doubt. As you were just in front of his tent, you desperately hoped he was asleep. In which case, you’d leave his bowl back at the table under the canopy. But when you called out his name, you heard ruffling within.

            Rafe unzipped the tent, his eyes red & squinted as he looked up at you, “What’s up?”

            “Here.” You lowered the bowl of soup to him, “I didn’t want you to go to bed without eating first.”

            He eyed you suspiciously for a short second before accepting it, “Thanks.”

            “Yup. See you in the morning.”

            “Hey, can we talk for a minute?” You were glad your back was facing him so he couldn’t see you roll your eyes. You just wanted to fucking sleep.

            But you released a breath of air before facing him, “Sure.”

            Rafe unzipped his tent, opening it wider. You were expecting him to come out but was surprised when he instead gestured for you to come inside.

            “Uh.” You looked over your shoulder. Mostly everyone was in the process of going to bed. Only Kai remained by the fair, staring emotionlessly into it. “Just really quick, Rafe. I’m tired.”

            “Yeah, sure.”

            You crawled into Rafe’s tent. It was tall enough to stand up in, but you’d have to hunch your back to do so. It would be more comfortable to stay sitting.

            You watched & waited as he turned on a small battery-operated lamp, illuminating the small tent in a dim glow.

            “How are you doing? You okay?”

            What? You knew his questions were coming from a good place, but you couldn’t help to feel frustrated. Did he expect you to forget about the fact that he was doing coke while Luka was dying or that he had pushed for you two to leave together or that yeah, Sayyed was onto something when he pointed out how Rafe was already in his truck when everyone got out of the base? There was too many emotions running through your mind & you were barely hanging onto consciousness.

            “Rafe…”

            “Sorry.” He lowered his head, “I just wanted to check.”

            You narrowed your eyes at him but sighed, shaking your head, “I’m as fine as I can be. Just a lot has happened, ya know…”

            He nodded in agreement but said nothing more. It was silent for a while. His soup remained untouched behind his sleeping bag.

            “You should eat. Get some rest.” You told him before getting ready to crawl back out.

            “Hey, _____.” Rafe’s voice was nearly inaudible but just loud enough to make you pause, “I am sorry.”

            “For what, Rafe?” You knew what he could be sorry for but wanted to hear him say it.

            “For being right.”

            Shock flooded your body, followed by unbridled rage. For being right? Right about what? Luka getting killed?    

            You were about to unleash your lack of sleep & frustration on him when he shrugged his shoulders.

            “I shouldn’t have been out in the hallway avoiding it all. I should’ve said something. To all of you. Stopped it…somehow.”

            Confusion came for you next. Rafe’s voice was soft, his tone remorseful. It was a side of him you had never seen before. For now, it kept the fire inside you at bay.

            “I feel like shit about it. And I know Sayyed doesn’t trust me, the others, too.” His eyes met yours, “Maybe you too. And now Luka…”

            You opened your mouth, wanting to assure him that wasn’t the case but stopped yourself.

            “I get it. It looks bad. I don’t have an excuse for it.” Rafe pressed his lips together before he hung his head.

            “But I wouldn’t have left you.”

            It was your turn to lower your head. You didn’t know what to say, or think for that matter. You needed sleep, everyone needed to sleep.

            “It’s been a really shitty day, Rafe. Right now, we just need to sleep. Tomorrow, we’ll figure it out.”

            He raised his head to look at you but didn’t appear convinced.

            “Unless I’m gone by the time you all wake up.”

            At that, you shot him the same warning glare you had given Sayyed in the car. Rafe chuckled. It was short-lived but it was… nice.

            You ignored his morbid joke, shaking your head, “Eat your soup & get some sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”

            “Okay.” Rafe nodded, finally reaching for his soup, “And thanks for this.”

            “It was Millie & Micah who made it.”

            The two of you traded looks once more before you unzipped his tent, climbing out. You were reaching for the zipper to close his tent for the night when his hand accidentally touched yours. You hissed at the brief electric shock, bringing your fingers to your lips.

            “Oops. I still got it, I guess.” He half-smiled through his pitiful flirtatious comment.

            For a split second, it was like it had been before. All your friends hanging out, talking, having fun, bitching about finals. The boys & Adrianna wrestling, Millie & Nuha watching on in horror. You & Sayyed happily laughing along.  

It was the first time you had smiled all day, “Just go to sleep.”

“Night, _____.”

“Mhmm.”

You crossed back to yours & Sayyed’s tent, but not before you noticed Kai was still alone at the fire. You were tempted to go sit with him. Though you had all lost a friend, Kai lost his best friend. He needed all the support right now. But sleep was nicking at you, desperate to take a hold.

You promised yourself you’d spend some time with him in the morning.

Crawling into the tent, Millie, Micah, & Sayyed were already fast asleep. You were relieved you wouldn’t have to talk to anyone for the rest of the night. All you wanted was to go to sleep & hope the world you woke up to was the one with your friends alive & smiling.

Sayyed was staring at Rafe. His face hardened, brows furrowed. He was the only one, too.

“So what, you guys trust him then?”

You all had been talking about the Rafe situation for the last ten minutes now. And it was not going how you knew Sayyed wanted it to.

“We’re not abandoning him, dude.” Bear added, siding with Rafe.

“No one’s saying that, Bear.” Nuha jumped to Sayyed’s defense, “But he’s right. Rafe was going to leave us.”

“I wasn’t.” Rafe said. He had been saying it the whole time. You still weren’t sure what to believe. You honestly wish you could just turn back time, make it so none of this happened.

“You were just in the truck waiting for us, yeah you said.” Sayyed replied sarcastically. “You weren’t even there when Luka died! We could have all been dead.”

“But you’re not.” Rafe replied swiftly.

“Rafe…” It was Millie. She was practically standing between the guys as you all stood in the clearing, “What were you doing? Honestly?”

He looked at her. Millie’s face was calm, the opposite of accusatory that of which Sayyed reeked of. Rafe sighed heavily, shaking his head. He shrugged his shoulders, slapping his hands against his legs, “I knew what they were going to do to Luka.”

You felt your chest tighten.

“What the hell do you mean?” It was Kai this time, his voice pitched with anger.

“I told _____.” Before he could give any context, everyone’s eyes flashed to where you stood. “I told her that telling Severson was a bad idea, that they were going to kill him. It wasn’t like I knew for sure, but you guys heard from him yourself the night before. What he did shouldn’t have come as a surprise! You guys are the ones who voted to have Severson be told, you guys are the one who followed in Sayyed’s lead. Luka was murdered because you guys let it happen. I wasn’t going to be next.”

You felt Sayyed staring at you wide-eyed, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Me?” You asked incredulously, “Did you not hear Rafe?” Your eyes bounced around your friends, “We all heard what Severson said. Rafe’s right. We did this to Luka. We made the wrong decision, we trusted the wrong people. It was our fault. But Luka would still be dead right now, & you all know that. I can’t even believe were talking about this.”

How the conversation shifted from talking about Rafe’s possible expulsion to how you were getting partially blamed for Luka’s death was ridiculous. Nothing was normal anymore. No one knew how to respond the ‘right’ way.

“She’s right.” Micah spoke. His eyes meet Sayyed’s, “Luka would still be dead. And Rafe was… surviving.”

Rafe nodded thanks to Micah who sided with him next.

“I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same as him.” Micah finally added, “There’s only so much one person can do, Sayyed. And if you think you could’ve saved all of us… well, you’re just wrong.”

Sayyed was silent. His face wasn’t as hard, but he was still distrustful of Rafe, that much was obvious.

Adrianna jumped in then, her voice even, “As much as we have to look out for each other, we also have to look out for ourselves. That’s a hard truth we all have to accept. You especially, Sayyed.”

One by one, it was clear that everyone was beginning to see the fault in Sayyed’s push to remove Rafe. You couldn’t help but agree.

“You won’t be able to protect all of us.” You said softly, looping your fingers with Sayyed’s.

He looked down at you, his eyes sad. You knew he was scared. All of you were. He was just trying to protect everyone. Sayyed always put a lot of pressure on himself to be the altruistic leader.

“Okay.” He nodded once, his voice low.

“We good, man?” It was Rafe. You looked between them as Rafe stepped forward, holding out his hand.

Sayyed cocked his head, his eyes staring at Rafe’s extended hand. You almost thought that for a second he wasn’t going to meet him half-way. But to your relief, he finally reached his own hand out.

“We’re fine.”

They traded silent looks, not fully trusting the other. But it was the start of something. And it was necessary for the whole group to survive.

It was late evening. The decision was made as a group to camp out in the clearing for one more night. There was no need to rush. A plan was loosely in place: look out for each other’s symptoms (Adrianna would be keeping track in her journal), & slowly you all would move north. Adrianna had said the community Tobias mentioned was somewhere in Massachusetts.

You had walked away from the campsite, finding a small murky pond a few yards away. Sitting on a rock three times your size, you pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lighting one. You hadn’t had a cigarette since you took a shit ton from the convenience store. It was relaxing. Tobacco wasn’t really your flavor, but at this point, you’d be happy with any sort of vice to relax in the hell world you & your friends found themselves in.

You were in the middle of your second cigarette when a twig snapped behind you. You spun around, gasping.

“Jesus.” Your hand was on your chest in surprise.

“Sorry.” Rafe chuckled lightly as he walked towards you. You watched warily as he joined you on the rock, his shoulder brushing against your own.

“So,” You began, “you weren’t voted off the island.”

“Yay.” He replied unenthusiastically. “Do you think I should’ve been?”

You stared at him. Of course you wouldn’t have supported kicking him out & leaving him behind. It was inhumane. He was also your friend. But it was always hard to tell what the truth was & what was a lie when it came to Rafe.

“No.” You looked away, taking another drag, “I wouldn’t have let anyone leave you.”

Rafe was silent, but you could see a subtle smile on his face in your peripheral.

“You mean that?”

Inhaling sharply, you adjusted yourself, so you were sitting straighter, “Yeah. Promise.”

“You’re better than me, than most of them back there.”

You frowned but said nothing.

“Sayyed was ready to pick a fight with anyone who disagreed with him.”

“He’s scared.” You defended, “He thought he was acting in the best interest of everyone. That’s more than you can say.”

The energy between you shifted, the air growing slightly tense.

“I told you last night I wouldn’t have left you.”

He had, but now that he was saying it again, you felt your gut turn. It felt like he wasn’t referring to you as a group, as a whole, but you as in…you. You didn’t want to know which he meant, scared of the answer.

“I know.” You lied. Unable to stand the tension, desperate for just a bit of normalcy, you did something bold. Something you might regret.

“Do you still have it?” You glanced at his jacket pocket.

Rafe looked confused for a moment, but when your eyes met his, he knew what you were asking for.

Reaching into his jean pocket, he pulled out the small baggie from when you all had been camping. He must’ve added to it from the sandwich sized baggie he carried.

“That’s more like it.” He commented as he poured some out on the fatty part of his hand. You ignored him, leaning forward to take the bump.

Immediately, you felt the effects. You knew it was likely because of the surreal circumstances of your life now, but you wouldn’t have had it any other way. Rafe smiled & watched as you grinned widely.

He made another one for you that you happily took.

Rafe did a couple himself, & after what felt like twenty minutes & three more bumps later, you were leaning into Rafe, enjoying his warmth. He was talking but you weren’t making out his words, just feeling the vibrations of his chest as he spoke, staring at the reflection of the trees in the water ahead of you.

You could’ve stayed like that for hours. Just sitting there, blissfully unaware of the world, feeling better than you had in a long time. Imagining yourself just out on a hike with a friend, talking aimlessly about nothing & everything. It was just out of reach, but you could feel it.

“Hey, hey.” Rafe bumped your shoulder. You looked at each other & smiled.

“I know what would make this even better.” He shared. You bit your lip in excitement, nodding in anticipation.

“Beer.”

“Yes!” You gleamed.

Rafe hopped off the rock, offering you his hand for you to do the same. You took it, jumping down jovially & skipping ahead. Rafe laughed lightly behind you as he followed. You were almost to the clearing, nearly forgetting the way of the world when Adrianna appeared, her arms crossed as she cut you two off.

“Wow.” She shook her head, judgement rolling off her, “You guys are coked out of your minds.”

“Oh, shh!” Rafe responded playfully, “No one needs to know.”

“They do actually.” Adrianna bit, “Because we’re having a group meeting. Now.”

Your high was slightly dampened, knowing you’d have to face the others, Sayyed especially. But your high kept you from caring too much.

“Fine.” You shrugged, glancing back at Rafe. He mirrored you, barely bothered.

Adrianna lead you two back to the clearing where everyone else was waiting. Their stares were obvious. Sayyed was fuming once he got a good look at you. You stayed across the clearing from him, choosing to stand beside Rafe. At least you weren’t alone in their collective upset.

“We’ll talk about that later.” He gave a pointed look towards you & Rafe. You forced yourself not to smile.

“But we’ve made a decision about what we’re doing next. We won’t be moving north.” Sayyed shared with the group, gesturing between himself & Adrianna.

“What? Why?” Micah questioned. Ever since the world ended, he had a never-ending sour look on his face.

“Because the community that Tobias told me about isn’t a community at all.” Adrianna added, “It’s not small or in the middle of nowhere like I thought it would be. It’s a city. Like two hundred thousand plus population. I either heard Tobias wrong or he didn’t know what he was talking about."

"How do you know that?" Bear asked next. Adrianna raised a map in her hand, “Maps don’t lie.”

“That & it’s close to Boston. So, regardless of Worcester’s size, it’s still a dense area. The chances of a safe, virus free community living there is low. Adrianna & I agreed it’s not worth the trek north. We should stay where we’re familiar, settle down & ride this out.”

“’Ride this out’?” Micah scoffed, “Like this is temporary?”

“It’s the best thing we can do.” Adrianna responded, her tone matching Micah’s, “We have the temporary cures. We just keep doing what we’ve been doing. We check for symptoms daily, we look out for one another, & we find a place to stay. Either until help comes or until we can sustain ourselves for when it never does.”

“And you two made this decision?” Bear jumped in a second time.

“Yes.” Sayyed nodded, “It’s what’s best for all of us.”

“What about our say?” Micah threw out, “This isn’t a dictatorship, we should be making these decisions as a group.”

“And we are.” Sayyed said, “Right now.”

Sayyed’s eyes passed over everyone, his eyes briefly lingering on yours before moving on, “We’re not going to have a repeat from earlier. No one will be getting kicked out. I was… wrong for that. I know that now.”

There was silence so Sayyed continued, “But we don’t want to tell you what to do. We’re all in charge of ourselves & what we want to do. So, if you want to find a place to lay low at, stay. If you want to continue north, then do it. But I’ve made my decision.”

The group was quiet.

You were honestly too high to fully grasp what was happening.

“I’m gonna go sit by the fire.” You said, unsure if your voice was even loud enough.

Bypassing your friends, you sat in a chair by the fire, pulling your knees to your chest. The sun would set soon. It’d be dark in no time & you were looking forward to going to lie down like the sun.

You were staring blatantly into the fire when someone came to stand next to your chair. You glanced up. Sayyed. Though he looked unhappy, you couldn’t help but smile up at him.

“Hey.” You said softly, your voice almost melodic.

“Hey.” He crouched so he was more eye-level with you. You knew what was coming. He was going to give you shit for getting high, especially with Rafe, but you didn’t care. You might care tomorrow when you’ve sobered up but right then, you couldn’t.

“Sayyed, I know what you’re going to say, & I’m begging you to please not.” You looked away from him, “Just don’t.”

He sighed beside you but said nothing. Then he grabbed your hand gently, “I’m sorry, _____.”

You turned to him, wide-eyed.

“I’ve been so concerned about the group as a whole that I haven’t been there for you.”

You frowned. You didn’t fault Sayyed at all for that. You were raised to be tough & independent, thanks to absent parents, but you didn’t want Sayyed to pressure himself to take care of you. You could take care of yourself.

“I’m not mad that you did coke, let alone with Rafe.” Sayyed added, “I was just shocked. But I am sorry for not being there for you.”

“Sayyed, don’t.” You shook your head, tangling your fingers with his, “I’m okay. I mean, I’m not okay, but I’m… surviving, ya know. That’s all we can do at this point.”

He nodded in agreement, but said nothing more.

“Thank you for looking out for all of us. I know some of them don’t see it that way, but I know your heart. And they do, too. Whatever they decide is up to them, like you said.”

“What about you?” He asked, “What are you going to do?”

You hadn’t realized that he thought it was actually possible you’d leave him. There was no way in hell you’d leave him. You loved him.

“Where you go, I go.” You told him, pressing your forehead to his, “Always.”

Sayyed smiled at that, leaning forward to kiss you. The kiss sent you to the heavens. It felt like you hadn’t kissed him in ages. When you two pulled away, you traded smiles.

“I love you, _____.”

“You.”

What was coming next was unknown. The world would never be the same again. But as long as Sayyed was by your side, & your friends were there all together, you thought to yourself that maybe the new world wouldn’t be so bad…

kind of a filler chapter before a brief time jump in the story. the next chapter will also be a filler chapter but after that, shit will start happening for real. this is a slow burn series however so dark rafe will not appear until later, but he's definitely got his focus on reader.

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a fragile line - chapter 23

read on ao3! (111k words) | previous chapter | next chapter | masterlist

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female OC

Tags: extreme slow burn, age gap, older man/younger woman, protective joel, jealous joel, hurt/comfort, pov third person, mutual pining, angst, sexual tension, friends to lovers, canon-typical violence, feral joel, parental abuse, eventual smut.

Series synopsis: three years ago, Juliet escaped her father's religious survivor camp, ending up in the Boston QZ. Juliet created a life for herself in Boston, desperate to forget the trauma of her upbringing. One day, Juliet arrives home to find a mysterious letter which forces her to return to her home town. Juliet can't travel the harsh post-apocalyptic landscape alone, so she enlists the help of the grumpy and, at times, frightening man she works alongside: Joel Miller.

Chapter warning: references to suicide/suicidal thoughts

Word count: 4.7k

Chapter 23: 'My Tears Ricochet'

One week later

Juliet’s POV:

It took three days to find a way out of Cody. 

The entire city was overrun; the infected lingered in every corner, round every bend. Terror had wrapped its cold hand around each of their necks, squeezing tighter and tighter as they fought their way out of the city. Juliet imagined that the fear caught Joel a little harder than herself. She could see it in the rigidness of his shoulders. He was terrified. But not for himself, never for himself. He was terrified for Tommy. 

Tommy was supposed to be in Cody, he was supposed to be somewhere safe, he was supposed to be okay. But there was no sign of any living being other than those who were more fungus than person. As they clawed their way out of the city, Joel’s steps were harder, his instructions were harsher, and his eyes grew colder and colder.

They had to leave the truck behind. There was no way they would make their way back to it with infected crawling around the vehicle. It was almost as though they knew how important the truck was to them and how devastating a loss it would be. 

Two days had passed since they left Cody. Both days were spent walking almost non-stop. There were multiple times where Juliet felt her steps stumbling and her legs giving out, but she didn’t let herself crumble. She kept going, kept moving, despite the worsening pain in her body. Juliet had one goal: get Joel to Tommy. Her guilt fueled every action, every thought in her mind. Juliet believed that if she got Joel to his brother, if they were reunited, that it would ease her guilt over lying to him, forcing him to save her on multiple accounts, kissing him…

Ethan walked a couple steps behind her as they travelled across the vast stretch of forestland. Wyoming was stunning. Even in her detached state, Juliet struggled not to appreciate its beauty. The autumn sun illuminated the world in browns and reds and oranges. Juliet made a point of only looking ahead, because she couldn’t bring herself to look at Ethan, to meet his eyes. She had lost herself after the clicker attack, the rational part of her brain had escaped her. Juliet had allowed her emotions to fuel her actions and every part of her had screamed Joel’s name. She had thrown herself as him and he caught her in his strong hands without a second thought. Despite the chilled air, sweat broke out across her back at the memory of his feral touch. 

She liked it, a little too much probably. But Juliet knew that the feeling was mutual. When Joel wrapped his hands around her waist and she’d raked her nails down his back, Juliet knew, without a doubt, that he felt the same surge of desire. It wasn’t like the last time, on the floor in that dark house when Joel’s blood still stained her hands and their kiss was confused and unsure. This time, Juliet didn’t have to wonder if Joel had meant it. The press of his rough fingers against her burning skin had told her more than enough. 

She was growing more and more desperate to stop Joel and demand access to the thoughts inside his head. Juliet was becoming an expert in the nuances of his expressions and the language of his hands. But it wasn’t enough. The tension between them was reaching an unbearable stage and she knew that one day, probably soon, it would snap. The dark looks, the devastating kisses, and the whispered words were addictive and Juliet had to know when her next fix would be.

Joel walked in front and Juliet couldn’t help but stare at the imprint of his muscles through his dark shirt. She had begged him to take his jacket from her, but he’d refused. When the wind hit them, blowing through the curls on his head, Juliet knew he must be freezing. 

It only added to her forever growing dept towards him. 

If they could find Tommy, maybe the twisting feeling in her gut would ease, maybe she’d be able to take a real, deep breath again. Joel deserved something good, something to live for. 

Juliet only wished that, eventually, she’d be able to find something similar. 

…………………………………..

When night fell, they stopped walking. 

Juliet’s legs nearly buckled when Joel announced it was time to set up camp for the night. They didn’t have much, only what was left in their bags when they abandoned the truck. There was some food and they’d managed to fill up their water canisters at a river the day before. However, they had no sleeping bags. 

The night before had been hell. There was an old cabin that they huddled in, but without any heat, Juliet struggled to sleep at all. Sleep was an old memory, something she desperately tried to cling to but it always fell through her fingers. She lay on the cold wooden floor, Ethan by her side, and stared at the broken roof for hours. Joel had kept watch most of the night, she wasn’t sure when he last slept. Juliet could hear him breathing and she felt his eyes scorch her skin. All she had to do was turn her head, to meet his eyes. But she was scared, terrified that she might meet his dark gaze and they would continue what they had started in the office building back in Cody. 

Her fingers curled at the thought. 

They all dropped their backpacks behind a large rock formation on the outskirts of the nearest forest. Juliet sighed when the weight left her back and she rolled her shoulders. Her stomach was healing, Ethan had told her when he had changed her bandage yesterday. She could feel it, too. Every movement didn’t come with the same scorching pain anymore, rather more of a dull ache.

The bruises on her wrists and ankles refused to shift, however. Juliet was thankful for Joel’s jacket and its long sleeves to cover the reminder of what happened to her. 

When she had blinked away the memory, Juliet noticed Joel crouched on the ground with his lighter gripped tight in his hands. Surely Joel wasn’t breaking his own rules…

“A fire?” Juliet muttered as she stepped closer, transfixed on Joel’s movements. 

He looked up at her from his position on the ground, scanning her entire body before meeting her eyes. Joel always did that, like he was examining her. Juliet shifted on her feet, but she didn’t back down. Juliet let Joel pin her with that same fierce look which softened the longer he held her gaze.

Then, he nodded, sudden and sharp. 

“We’re far enough out,” he explained before resuming his task.

Seconds later, a flame appeared, roaming over the sticks he had gathered before engulfing them entirely. 

Ethan pushed past her, his hands wide, reaching towards the fire. Juliet stumbled out of the way, almost tripping on a rock by her feet. She blinked in annoyance, but she couldn’t blame Ethan for his urgency. She edged closer towards the fire, bending down to sit at a close distance to the flames. The heat was glorious and the permanent numbness in her stiff fingers began to ease. 

Juliet tore her eyes from the red flames to find Joel sat across from them, but his eyes weren’t on the fire. He was focusing intensely on the man beside her. His glare was deadly. He looked utterly menacing as the light from the flames painted his face in shades of red. Her eyes dropped lower, and she watched as Joel tightened his grip on his lighter. His knuckles as white as the moon above their heads. Juliet swallowed and subtly shifted away from Ethan, not wanting to intensify the situation. Was it Ethan’s inexperience, his rash decision making, which angered Joel? Or was it something different, something stronger? Was Joel jealous? 

No, of course he wasn’t. 

Joel didn’t have those kinds of feelings. He was a closed book. He existed for himself and his family, he didn’t care for anything else. It’s the reason he was so dangerous, so adept at surviving in this world. He wasn’t jealous of Ethan. He couldn’t be. Because there was nothing between her and Ethan, only a ghostly presence of what once was. Joel was attracted to her, it was difficult to deny. But there were no feelings beyond that. She was a burden, the cargo he was forced to save and now had to keep alive for a little longer. 

Juliet bit her lip, using the sharp pain to distract herself from the mess inside her head. She couldn’t get a firm grip on her thoughts. Her mind was still fuzzy, there were still things that she struggled to remember. Everytime she closed her eyes she was back in that basement, reliving every moment of her father’s torture. But some part of her brain was protecting her from something, there was more from the basement that she couldn’t remember. Juliet wasn’t sure if she wanted to remember. But recently, self-destruction had been her only goal, so her mind kicked and screamed at that brick wall. So far, she hadn’t even made a dent. Maybe it was better that way. 

Juliet’s hand had absentmindedly reached into her boot and pulled her knife into her grip. It was an instinctual move, which puzzled Juliet even more. 

“You still have it,” Ethan said, amazed. 

Juliet’s head shot up, her fingers curled around the knife as she blinked away the fog that had surrounded her mind. With the fire, Juliet had begun to heat up and found her cheeks warming with the attention of the two men.

Turning her head towards Ethan, Juliet nodded as her thumb brushed over the rose carving. Then, she noticed his waiting hand and settled the knife in his warm palm.

“Thought I’d never see it again,” Ethan breathed as he examined the knife, then his eyes flickered to Juliet’s face. “Thought I’d never see youagain.” 

Juliet wanted to smile, she wanted to return his words and bathe in the relief of their reunion. But she couldn’t focus on Ethan, she couldn’t focus on anything other than that knife. 

When she was trapped in that basement, her ankles bound to that chair… she’d had that knife. It had always been in her boot, the entire time. A sharp ringing sound began to build in Juliet’s ears as the realisation poured over her. Surely some part of her must have known that her knife was still with her. Why didn’t she use it? Why did she allow her father to trap her, slap her, brandher…

She could have escaped, or at least tried. 

But why would she?

For months, Juliet was determined that she would most likely die in that basement. In her mind, her fate had been sealed from the moment she found that letter, from the moment she appeared at Joel’s door with a plan and a death wish. It was all for Ethan, she was living for Ethan. 

Saving herself was never an option. 

But she could have. 

Juliet just didn’t care enough. 

A sharp gasp released from Juliet’s throat. The ringing in her ears grew louder and louder. 

She had wantedto die that day. 

Juliet strumbled to her feet, pushing off Ethan’s hands which had settled on her lap. She needed space, she needed air. She couldn’t breathe. 

When she stood, Juliet turned as tears blurred her vision and her body staggered over to the nearest rock. Gasping for breath, her hand gripped the cold, rough surface. She could hear Ethan’s voice, calling her name, over and over. But the ringing was too loud and she couldn’t think of anything other than the sound of her own breathing. 

A gentle hand touched her shoulder and she whirled around. “Don’t touch me,” she demanded. Her own voice was unfamiliar to her. It was as frigid as the air around them. 

Ethan stood behind her, his mouth open in shock as he held his hands in a defensive stance. “Juliet, what’s wrong? Did I do something?” he asked slowly, as though approaching a wild beast.

Juliet’s eyes shot to the sky as a sharp laugh escaped her mouth. She just wanted a moment alone to herself, why couldn’t he give her that?

“I just need a minute,” she ground out before she turned and walked further away, deeper into the night. 

“Juliet!” Ethan called. 

She couldn’t think. She needed space to breathe. This was too much. 

Juliet had wanted to die that day.

Why didn’t they let her die? 

This wasn’t a life. She didn’t want any part of it. 

Her mind was screaming. Juliet wasn’t sure if it was just inside her head. She kept stumbling, tripping on rocks but managed to steady herself as she fought her way through the horror in her head. 

“Juliet, please!” Ethan shouted, more forcefully this time as he caught up to her. Juliet had stopped beside a tree, using the damp bark to steady herself. She was breathing heavy and tears poured down her face. 

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Ethan insisted, moving forward while Juliet began to press her back against the tree behind her. 

Juliet was sobbing now, she couldn’t answer him. She couldn’t even gather enough air to take a proper breath. Everything was moving too fast, she couldn’t keep up with anything. 

“Please,” she murmured, begging him to leave her as he stepped closer. 

“Shhhh,” Ethan whispered as he cradled her face in his hands. Juliet was trapped, entirely trapped against the tree. 

Then his forehead met hers as he continued to whisper soothing words but all Juliet could hear was her father’s voice screaming in her head. She could feel her father’s breath against her face, she could feel the force of his slap against her skin, she could feel herself slipping away into that same darkness. 

Another sob worked its way up her throat and, without warning, Ethan was ripped from his hold on her. Juliet blinked open her eyes, struggling to see through the tears. 

“She told you to leave her,” growled Joel as he gripped the back of Ethan’s shirt, whirling him around until he was pinned against a tree himself. In the fading light, Juliet watched as Ethan’s face transformed from shock to an intense, unbridled rage. 

Ethan barked out a cold laugh and Joel eased his grip, letting him slump against the tree. “You don’t think I know what this is about?” Ethan seethed, pointing between Joel and Juliet. 

Her breathing stopped entirely. 

“You think I haven’t seen the way he looks at you?” he accused, focusing on Juliet. 

Who was this man? This wasn’t Ethan. Ethan wasn’t cruel and threatening. 

He laughed again, this time harsher and he took another step towards Juliet. She caught sight of his hands - they were shaking with anger.

He didn’t manage to get any closer though, Joel caught him with a firm press of his hand against Ethan’s chest, pushing him backwards. Juliet flinched when he hit the ground. 

“There he is. Coming to save you again,” Ethan snarled from his position on the ground. 

“Ethan, stop,” she demanded. The ringing in her ears had grown louder. 

“No,” he said as he pushed himself off the ground, putting his palms in the air when Joel took a warning step towards him. “Juliet, who even is this guy?” he continued, nodding his head towards Joel. “He’s dangerous. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, like you’re a meal he’s waiting to devour. It’s sick,” Ethan spat. 

Juliet flinched again. She didn’t dare look at Joel. Her tears still flowed freely down her cheeks, only now, anger was her most prominent emotion.

“Ethan, you have no idea what you're talking about. You need to stop,” Juliet warned in a slow, icy tone. 

He scoffed. “I saved you, Juliet. Me.I gave you this knife,” he pulled the switchblade from his pocket, the rose carving illuminated by the moonlight. “I gave you your life back.” 

Something snapped inside Juliet. 

“And I wish you fucking hadn’t!” she yelled back. 

Her hands were curled at her sides, what was left of her fingernails pressed against her palms. Relief was sudden and intense as the words left her mouth.

“I wish you’d left me to rot in that basement years ago, so I wouldn’t have to live with this guilt,” Juliet seethed, her voice cracking on the last word. “So I wouldn’t have to find out everything the world had to offer and know that I could never have it,” she quietened, her words becoming softer but more brutal as she forced herself not to look at Joel. 

“You might have helped me run from my father, but he never really left me. Even now that he’s dead, I can’t escape him,” her words were pouring out from the deepest part of her soul. 

“So don’t fucking tell me that you saved me, because I gave up everythingfor you. I had a life in the QZ, I had a job, I had friends but I gave it all up to come back here, to sacrifice myself for you.”

Every selfish feeling she hadn’t dared vocalise was thrown out into the dark, sharpened with the bite of her words. 

“I was ready to die in that basement again. I wantedto die in that basement. Why couldn’t you have just let me die?” Juliet cried, her eyes finally moving from Ethan to Joel. She covered her mouth with her hands when she realised what she had said. Juliet didn’t recognise the look on Joel’s face. 

“Juliet, I’m -” Ethan started, but Juliet just shook her head, turned around and started running deeper into the forest. 

No footsteps followed her. 

……………………………………..

It could have been minutes later, or hours, but eventually Juliet slowed to a jog and found herself slumbled against a tree deep in the forest. 

Her hands shook so badly that she couldn’t even brush the hair from her face. 

God, what was wrong with her? Why did she say all of that? She had acted like a teenager, kicking off a temper tantrum then running away. 

Juliet reached her trembling fingers up to wipe her tears, then pressed the heel of her palm into her eyes, pushing deeper and deeper until she saw stars. 

When she opened them, Juliet caught sight of a torchlight in the distance. She froze, positioning her hands on the ground to push herself up. But then the movement stopped, the torch pointed downwards and then remained where it was.

Juliet let out a shaky breath. 

It was just Joel. 

He would never let her run into the woods alone, but he was still keeping his distance, giving Juliet her space. The realisation forced tears into her eyes again, burning her cheeks as they fell. 

Maybe she could just stay against this tree forever. Let nature take her. There was something poetic in that, she thought. 

As the minutes passed her by, embarrassment stung deeper than the cold in her fingers. Ethan was wrong, he shouldn’t have said what he said. But Juliet was wrong too. It wasn’t his fault she went back. It was her decision. It was bound to happen. And he hadsaved her, he had given her another shot at life. Juliet was just too deep in her grief to remember that. 

When she looked up again, the torchlight was closer. Juliet pushed herself to her feet, ready to face Joel. He must have noticed the movement because, seconds later, he stood in front of her. The bright light poured over her and she blinked, blinded by it. 

When her eyesight returned, Juliet finally dared to meet Joel’s eyes. 

She gasped. His eyes were black, but there was no anger lingering in them. They blazed with something different, something that frightened her. In the dull light, Juliet watched his throat move before one single word rushed from his lips. 

“Juliet” 

It was quiet and restrained, but Juliet gasped at the huskiness of his voice. It wasn’t a command, or a warning, but a plea…

Her vision blurred again and Juliet watched the crease between Joel’s eyebrows deepen in response. 

Without thinking, Juliet moved. Her body crashed against his like two ships finding each other after a brutal storm. Her arms instantly wrapped around his back, her fingers gripping the material of his shirt, pulling him closer. 

Joel responded immediately, as though he had predicted her movements. His hand raised to cradle the back of her head as her face pressed against the front of his shirt, his other hand reached her back, his fingers still curled around the torch. 

For the first time that day, Juliet inhaled a deep breath and allowed it to flow out of her without restraint. Joel held her tight, adjusting his arms to pull her closer. He smelled just as he always had, and Juliet had never felt so safe. 

Tears stained his shirt, but he didn’t seem to mind. 

“Shhh,” he murmured when his chin met the top of her head, Juliet could feel the sharp scruff of his beard scratch her skull. “You’re safe,” he continued, his deep voice somehow even lower than it usually was. 

After an eternity in his arms, Juliet pulled away from Joel’s hold. His hands didn’t leave her though, they dropped to her arms, forming a light grip on her. Juliet’s cheeks warmed at his desperate need to touch her at all times. 

“I’m sorry for what I said,” she croaked, licking the tears off of her lips. 

Joel followed her movement with his sharp gaze, then drifted back up to meet her eyes. 

“Nothin’ to apologise for,” he affirmed, shifting his stance. 

“I didn’t mean any of it, I -” 

“You did mean it,” he interrupted. 

Juliet's denial died on her tongue. 

In the dim torchlight, Juliet watched Joel work his jaw and let his eyes drift to the trees behind before they returned to her face. 

“Saw it on your face when that clicker had you cornered in Cody,” he started, pausing to let go of her arm and run his hand over the bottom of his face. Juliet felt cold without his touch. She feared where this conversation would take them. “Looked like you were givin’ up.” 

Juliet’s breath caught in her throat. She wanted to shake her head, deny every bit of dread in the pit of her stomach, deny every terrible, selfish thought in her head… But she couldn’t, she couldn’t lie to Joel. Not after everything. 

Juliet looked away, asking the trees for help as she whispered her next words. “What’s left for me Joel? I was supposed to die. I was ready to die -” 

Joel’s rough fingers found her cheek and tilted her face back up to his. “Don’t” he ordered, his pupils flaring. “If you’d died…” he trailed off, closing his eyes for a moment. 

Juliet held her breath. 

“When we found you, I thought you were dead,” Joel breathed, his words a whisper in the wind. Juliet thought she had imagined them, until he continued. “Your head was turned at this sick angle and you were so still. There was so much blood.”

Juliet’s hands started shaking again. 

Joel held her gaze as he worked his jaw, gritting his teeth hard. “You’ve no idea what that did to me,” he ground out, his words slow and heavy. 

“I lost it. Saw red. Just started punchin’” 

She flinched, imagining her father’s face at the mercy of his fist. Juliet glanced down at his knuckles, still cracked and red. 

“I’d brought you there. I’d got you killed,” he announced, his voice clear and steady. 

“No -” Juliet tried to interrupt. Juliet had orchestrated her return home entirely herself, Joel had no part in her fate. 

He squeezed her arm firmer for a moment before easing his grip entirely. Juliet’s mouth hung open, desperate to deny his claims. 

“You were my responsibility. Mine to protect, and I failed you,” he said, his voice cracking on the last words. 

He paused, letting the moment stretch out between them. 

“There was a time I thought I’d lost everythin’, when I thought it was the end for me,” Joel said quietly. Then he swallowed rough, as though the words were choking him. His voice was a candle in the dark, an anchor in a storm, and she was caught in it. 

“I couldn’t see the point anymore, simple as that,” he continued with a slight shake of his head. “And I wasn’t scared either. I was ready.”

“Couldn’t have been more ready,” he insisted. 

Juliet’s hand found his wrist, and she squeezed, desperately reminding her that he was still there with her. 

“When I pulled the trigger, I flinched.”

Juliet froze, every muscle in her body locked up. She struggled to see Joel’s face through the pool of tears in her eyes threatening to spill down her cheeks at any moment. 

“Still don’t know why,” he clarified, with a shrug. Then his fingers found her chin again, and he soothed small circles into her skin. 

“The reason I’m tellin’ you all this -”

“I know why,” Juliet insisted with a whisper. And she did. Joel could read her mind, could understand her deepest fears better than herself. Of course he saw where her mind was heading. Of course he took her words seriously. 

She leaned into his touch, closing her eyes. “I just don’t know if I have the energy anymore, Joel,” she admitted as the tears finally fell. 

A muscle jumped in his jaw, and he titled his head down towards her. “You gotta find it. You gotta find somethin’ to live for’” he said, his voice dark and husky. 

“Stay with me,” he murmured into her hair after a long moment. 

Juliet let Joel’s confession wash over her. Her mind was still filled with monsters and gripped by a terror she didn’t think she’d ever escape. It would be so easy to sit against that tree again, let the roots sink in, allow the moss to cover her and fade away into nothing but a memory. 

It would be so easy to die.

This world wasn’t made for the living anymore, it was designed to hurt and maim and kill. Juliet could so easily let it. 

Yet at every turn in the road, fate had saved her. She had been forced back onto the path which eventually led her to this moment, to this decision. In the back of her mind, she recalled an old poem she’d found tucked into one of her father’s bibles.

Juliet could no longer just exist, she had to make a decision. Choose a path. Choose to live. Choose to hope for something better, something worth living for. 

She inhaled a breath, her head still cradled by the feeling of Joel’s chin against her hair. 

Juliet didn’t have a home anymore. But maybe she could make a new one. 

As she released the air trapped in her lungs, her head tipped downwards and Joel followed her movement. 

She nodded. 

Juliet had chosen her path. 

……………………………………………..

The next day, Juliet’s steps were quicker, more urgent. 

She hadn’t spoken to Ethan, she still needed time. But the three of them crossed rivers and fields, and Juliet, for the first time in a long while, felt that seed of hope plant itself within her. 

Juliet walked side by side with Joel, their arms occasionally brushing against each other, but he didn’t move away, and neither did she. Whatever was between them was still unspoken, but Juliet found she enjoyed the unacknowledged whispers of their accidental touches. 

So, when morning shifted into the afternoon and they spotted something moving in the distance, Juliet didn’t hesitate to grab Joel’s arm, to wrap her hand around his wrist. 

But as the figures moved closer, Juliet was more confused than frightened. 

With a gasp, she realised what was headed towards them. 

“Horses.” 

________________________________

@amyispxnk @shotgun-shelby @http-paprika

[ifuckinglovedinosaurssomuchjesus]

Chaos Theory Thoughts:

Episode 1

I like the intro, a recreation of a deleted Dominion scene where Rexy disrupts traffic. Surely she'll appear in the show proper at some point? Wouldn't be surprised if they're contractually obligated to put her in every Jurassic World product.

I cannot stress enough that this is just the ideal aesthetic. Dinosaur footprints creating potholes in an asphalt road that a truck has to avoid. This kind of casual urban anachronistic prehistory is my entire jam, I want to live in a world where Sauropods block traffic.

I like that Pachyrhinosaurus gets the obligatory "wow" moment this time around. It's a fine if unremarkable design, but it's really nice to see in the flesh after the little screen in Fallen Kingdom name dropped it as one of the species taken off the island.

One thing I already prefer about Chaos Theory over Camp Cretaceous is that everyone is a fully fledged adult. It tugs on the heart strings to see them grow and I always just feel a bit more comfortable connecting with characters around my age. Darius worked with the DPW in that four year gap between the end of CC and now. Is it bad that I wish we got to see that instead? The "getting wrapped up in illegal trafficking" plot is nice and all but I desperately just want an episodic series of the DPW dealing with dinos.

Kinda hate this scene, not gonna lie. The franchise's dead-set insistence on treating every herbivore as a harmless cow is a teeth grinding pet peeve. Yeah, go up to a wild agitated elephant and pull a thorn out of its foot, you absolutely won't get popped like a grape.

Allosaurus vs Pachyrhinosaurus. I like that the Allo is pretty outmatched, and it runs away after taking a couple smacks to the ribs. The franchise can forget that carnivores have survival instincts at times. Plus we get to up the score to 3-0 for Ceratopsians against Theropods!

A fun twist on a franchise trope, now it's the car chasing the dinosaur!

I like the themes of drifting away from old friends and the loss of relationships over time. The writers understood that it's a big time jump, the characters have grown up, to use that to drive the emotion is... surprisingly mature.

I adore this scene, as Ben's antics and rant in the dead of the night begin to illuminate the danger they're in before he's vindicated by an ominous shadow in the window, gives me chills.

Enter the Atrociraptor. Unfortunately they don't quite live up to the tension, the attack in the cabin is just a bit too contrived. They're loud and smash into everything like they're half blind, victims of falling bookshelves and railing on stairs. Very clumsy assassins.

[uchihakeimei]

Yes, thank you, I hate it. I'm just gonna pretend I didn't read any of that, lmao.

So, what are your thoughts abt the Kaiser flashback? I mean, we obviously already knew something bad had gone down in his past, but this is a whole another level of evil from Kaneshiro's part. It's really interesting how every little thing that's part of his character now clicks in place. I like the direction the series is taking with him! Although I'm not really a big fan of the little-lost-puppy treatment he's now getting from the fandom. Abused people can still be shitty people, and no, he's not suddenly becoming a pure angel. If anything, the abuse he got explains his actions, but doesn't excuse them (did everybody forget the way he treats Ness and Isagi?). Just another day of wishing people could understand Kaiser a bit more than just on the surface level… Btw, I absolutely loved him rocking the shit out of his father and the cops. And the reference to the bruised ball that we got in that official art? The roses? Now everything makes sense, and I'm living for it!

Heyyy!! I am sorry for replying so late, I had exams on thursday and saturday, sorry sorry :<

Ahh, Ch 260.

Ngl, it hit me like truck-kun does (and I didn't even get isekai'd into a fantasy world with cute boys to make up for it :<<)

Yes, we all knew Kaiser didn't have the best past, the hints were all there after all, but I believe none of us were prepared for how graphic it would be.

A lot of things about his character that I found charming (and still do) are now also heartbreaking, though. The theatre metaphors (that come from abusive parents), the rose tattoo, the dramatics, the milk (god, I thought he was being dramatic and it was just a cute quirk, I was not prepared for the actual reason).

A thing that I noticed though, is that Kaiser is not the type to give up either.

A lot of people in the fandom seem to think that Kaiser intending to avoid fighting Noa for the throne of BM is a sign that he avoids conflict, but I disagree (and always have).

It's not that simple, imo. For BM, Noa is the tried and tested strategy. They know it works. BM wants a successor, not an usurper. Isagi has such an high offer from BM right now precisely because he's being evaluated as a Midfielder who can also play Striker in a pinch. It was mentioned outright that they want him to be the Ness to Noa's Kaiser.

If Kaiser chooses to take on Noa in an already established set up that's biased for Noa, well, the logical conclusion is that he will fail. Everything, from the team, to the coach, to the management, he will not have any support.

(Before, someone mentions it, it is, in fact, a different situation from Isagi's. Isagi is not playing on senior level. Isagi also has other blue lockers who will support him. He also has Noa on his side.)

So, Kaiser choosing to switch teams doesn't actually prove anything to me, except the fact that Kaiser is simply changing the mode and method of engagement. After all, even in another team, he will still have to contend with (and win against) Noa as an opponent.

But anyway, I digress. The point I was trying to make is that Kaiser does not give up either.

"I'll... start over again..."

The sheer grit and mental strength it takes to even consider starting over again after having your chance of escaping an abusive situation being taken away is enormous.

That Kaiser could even react like that, that he could keep himself, even a little bit, from losing hope... it's anything but a sign of him being mentally weak. He's damaged, and cracked, but he's still held together, even if it's with tape.

.

.

.

Please do not get not get me started on the 180 the fandom has done on Kaiser. Like, I knew it was gonna happen (See: Itachi, Madara, Obito) but it's annoying anyway.

His past explains his actions, it does not excuse them.

(Though personally, I was in the camp of, "He's a piece of work and I love him for it, not despite it". There are few things I would not let a fictional character get away with (especially if I like them), and Kaiser has not crossed those lines yet.)

What really grinds my gears about the fandom reaction is the thinking that, "oh he had a shitty childhood, so it's okay".

Ugh. No.

He's still damaged, he's still traumatized, and he's still harming Ness with this codependent toxic situationship they have got going on.

(I wonder though, what was it that ruined them?? Was it Kaiser emulating the only thing he has known? It can't be. Kaiser hasn't been treated well by anyone before Ness, from what we can tell so far. And he does treat Ness well in his own way. So... is that what he assumes kindness is? A servant who's treated well? Is that what he sees, when he imagines an alternate reality where his father is not what he became in this universe?

Others have also made the connection, when they noticed that Ness is the soccer ball. It is the highest regard Kaiser can hold for someone and the most kindness Kaiser can offer. He will cherish it in the only way he knows, and protect it with what power he has, the way he fought his father for the ball.)

.

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I truly adored the last few scenes of the chapter; idgaf over however 'unrealistic' it is. Who the fuck cares?

The scenes conveyed what they were meant to convey, they made their point. Kaiser's rage and heartbreak were potent and well drawn. No one needed the translations to even understand exactly what Kaiser was feeling, simply seeing was enough.

I don't care what anyone else says, the backstory was well done, and I cannot wait for the next chapter to drop.

(And yes. I loved the fact that Kaiser beat up his dad and the cops too. They were all assholes and deserved it. Kaiser rocked their shit and I am living for it.)

Ps: Sorry, It's longer than I thought would be 😅

[cattapz037]

Jurassic World Chaos Theory Spoiler part 2 because I suck at remembering to put all spoiler thoughts in one post

I knew Bumpy was pregnant the moment she started moving her tail around in the truck

Also I have a theory that Ben’s girlfriend from Europe might actually be important and might be revealed to be working with the bad guys…or maybe she’ll help the Camp Fam idk you don’t just mention Ben having a girlfriend twice just for her to not be relevant…but that’s just a theory. A GAME THEORY! (A series theory doesn’t sound as cool)

[rickmymanrick]

one rule | chapter eight

[rick grimes x original fem character slowburn]

series masterlist! prev. chapter • next chapter

summary: in a rush to deescalate what they presumed was merle's fury on camp, daphne and the crew arrive to something terrifyingly different.

notes: my apologies for the overall slow pacing of the story. i promise it's gonna get exciting after we wrap up the first season. and also sorry for the rushing at the end there's not much i can change about the CDC without fucking up the whole storyline after so i'm just trying to get through it fast.

Screams echoed from the rock quarry and every step we took felt like two steps back.

Maybe it was our desperation to get there but it felt like the journey only got longer and longer. I gripped my knife tightly, pistol locked and loaded in my right hand. I led the group through the darkness, my speed being the fastest, but Rick was right on my heels.

"SHANE!" I yelled as soon as we made it over the big hill where we would've parked the truck. Had Merle not stolen it.

What I saw was the opposite of what I thought it was gonna be.

Instead of Merle taking vengeance on the camp, it was a herd of walkers. Biting into members of the group, tearing chunks of flesh clean off the bone as they screamed. Gunshots were flying from every angle.

I spotted Dale with his rifle firing rounds. I rushed over, dodging walkers as they reached out at any living thing.

"Dale! Where's Shane?!" I hollered, shooting off rounds of my own.

The camp was a complete mess, guts and blood all over our sacred place.

"He was with Lori and Carl last I saw 'em," he said over the blasts of his rifle. "By his tent."

I rushed out a 'thank you' before fighting my way to his side of camp, glancing around to make sure Glenn was okay. He stayed by Dale, shooting at every walker in radius.

A pair of hands suddenly grabbed onto my sleeves, roughly shaking me as a growl reached my ears. The smell of death penetrated my nostrils. Swinging my left hand back, my knife went straight into the walker's forehead. I looked back to make sure and then kicked the body away.

I marched forward, a gasp of relief leaving me as I finally spotted Shane. He had Lori and Carl behind him as he shot down countless walkers, a scowl etched on his face.

The scowl eased away as soon as his eyes found mine. His lips parted in shock. "DAPHNE!" He hollered, jerking his head.

I followed suit, sprinting over fallen walkers until I got to them.

"Morales!" Shane was yelling. "Work up here!"

"Get behind me! Come on!" Lori yelled at me, reaching her hand out so I could grip onto it. She hauled me over one of the dead walkers, bringing me next to her and Carl.

I immediately began shooting, wondering how the hell it had gone south so quick. We had the rest of the guns back in camp; there was enough weapons to defend the group against this attack. What the hell happened?

I had no time to think about it. All I could see in front of me were the walkers, stumbling with teeth bared, ready to bite into any one of us.

My arms began to ache the more I shot bullets but I couldn't let up. Beside me, Shane had his back against mine, covering all bases.

"Make your way to the winnebago!" Shane commanded. Carol came breaking through the dead, her daughter clutched against her side. Then Rick and the rest suddenly broke through to our side of camp, where the last of the walkers were attacking.

"CARL!" Rick hollered. "LORI!"

"DAD!" Carl broke free from his mother's grip, sprinting straight into Rick's arms, sobbing in terror.

I set my sights on the last walker standing, sending two bullets. One into its chest, the other into its head. I watched as two more bullets entered its forehead and looked beside me to see Shane lowering his own rifle.

As soon as everything died down, my arms dropped. And my legs suddenly felt weak. I stumbled despite my best efforts, my temples pounding. "Hey," Shane rushed over, grabbing my waist firmly. I tried to look at him but the world was spinning too fast.

"Goddamn concussion," I mumbled as I held back the urge to vomit. It seemed like the hours-long jog and the fight hit me like a truck.

"She got knocked in the temple earlier!" Glenn came running over, his face twisted in concern. I gave him a look, not willing to open my mouth in case I threw up everywhere.

Thankfully, he understood, grabbing my arms and pulling me away from Shane. Instantly, the bout of weakness took over and the world turned into pitch black darkness.

When I woke up, it had evidently been more than a few hours. It was daytime, the sun beating down on us harder than it had in a while.

I was covered in a thin layer of sweat, shielded by the security of mine and Glenn's tent. It was surprisingly spared from last night's attack. I pushed my body up as everything came rushing back to me, ready to run out of the tent.

"Hey—"

My hand found the knife that was still strapped to my side, swinging on impulse. I was frightened, traumatized from what I'd seen last night.

"Hey, you're okay!"

The voice registered in my head at once and I dropped the weapon like I'd gotten burnt. "I'm sorry," I gasped, trying to calm my racing heart.

"It's okay, Daph. It's okay." A hand grabbed my shoulder, giving me a gentle shake as our breathing filled the tent. I closed my eyes, willing myself to calm down and listening to all the outside noises.

Nothing but soft murmurs and birds chirping.

I cleared my throat. "How many did we lose?"

Silence was my only response and I dared to open my eyes, meeting Shane's downcast gaze.

"It's hard to tell."

"You're lying," I said instantly. Shane would be the first to know. We were both assumed leaders of our group.

"Ten or so... Amy..."

My head turned in shock. "Andrea?"

Shane shook his head. "Unresponsive."

I figured. There was no one in this entire world she cared about more than her little sister. We sat in silence, remembering Amy and all the others that fell last night. Except Ed.

I spared Shane a glance in my peripheral, trying to see if he was looking too affected. One look at his face and I was reminded of what had transpired yesterday morning.

I clenched my jaw in irritation, wondering whether I should confront him about his shifty behaviors. It was probably the worst time for this but I needed to know why he was still pursuing me so intensely if he had a thing going with Lori this whole time.

I refused to be anyone's side piece.

"We don't burn them!" I suddenly heard someone yell. Glenn. I scrambled to my feet and stepped over Shane, concussion be damned.

Outside there was a complete and utter mess. Walkers and our people scattered in dried pools of blood, random clumps of guts on the ground. My stomach twisted uncomfortably but I marched on, determined to figure out what had made Glenn uncharacteristically lash out.

"You reap what you sow!" Daryl called back at Glenn, helping Morales drag one of our dead to a separate pile they'd created for them.

"You know what?" Morales snapped. "Shut up, man."

"Y'all left my brother for dead! You had this coming!" Daryl spat, storming away.

I walked over to Glenn and he seemed disappointed to see me up and about. "I told Shane to make sure you got enough rest."

"I did. Now I want to help."

Glenn rolled his eyes at Daryl's back. "Pretty sure Daryl and Morales got it covered for now. You shouldn't be doing heavy lifting."

"A walker got him," said Jacqui loudly. We all turned to find her backing away from Jim, who was sweating profusely. His shirt was saturated with blood. "A walker bit him!"

"I'm okay," Jim insisted weakly as he backed away from the forming circle. We caged him in, each wondering what the hell we were gonna do now. Of course Shane, Glenn and I had talked about this type of situation before. But this was Jim. A survivor like us.

"Show it to us," demanded Daryl, approaching dangerously with an axe.

Jim startled, grabbing the nearest weapon in defense.

Shane came marching from my tent. "Easy, Jim."

"Grab him!"

"Put it down, Jim!"

"Grab him!"

We all began to yell over each other, one side trying to diffuse the situation, the other (Daryl) demanding to grab him. T-Dog took initiative, seizing Jim's arms from the back so Daryl could pull up his shirt.

"Jesus," I said under my breath. The teeth marks were as clear as day, a clean bite near the middle of his abdomen.

"I'm okay, I'm okay," repeated Jim nervously. He was clearly in denial and I felt horrible for him. There was no way around this-- he'd die a gruesome death and become a walker if we didn't put him down.

"I say we put a pickaxe in his head and the dead girl's and be done with it," said Daryl as we stood around in an impromptu meeting. We'd directed Jim to sit away from the uninfected.

"Is that what you'd want if it were you?" Shane asked.

"Yeah, and I'd thank you while you did it," Daryl sneered.

Dale shook his head. "I hate to say it-- I never thought I would-- but maybe Daryl's right."

I looked at him in surprise. Dale was the last person I would expect to agree with Dixon. Still, I stayed silent, trying to gather everyone's opinions before putting in my own.

"Jim's not a monster, Dale, or some rabid dog." Rick said.

"I'm not suggesting--"

"He's sick. A sick man. We start down that road, where do we draw the line?"

"The line's pretty clear. Zero tolerance for walkers, or them to be."

I hate to admit it, but Daryl's got a point. I could see where Rick was coming from, but it was pretty damn clear to me that this world wasn't gonna get any better. It would only get worse from here and eventually, we'd have to get our hands dirty.

"I will admit, it feels inhumane to kill Jim but we aren't going to be able to keep him alive. That's a fact. Point, blank, period," I cut everyone off. "It simply isn't in our power. He's gonna die no matter what at the end of the day and keeping him around will guarantee that any number of us will too."

Daryl motioned to me gratefully, looking like he thought I was the only one with common sense.

"Well, what if we can get him help?" Rick turned to me first, focusing his full attention on me. I suddenly felt the heavy weight of leadership within seconds. Everyone looked to me and Rick.

"What?"

What the hell kind of help were we going to be able to get him?

"I heard the CDC was working on a cure."

"I heard that too. Heard a lot of things before the world went to hell," interjected Shane.

"What if the CDC is still up and running?" Rick ignored Shane.

"Unlikely--" "Man, that is a stretch right there." Shane and I spoke at the same time. I gave him a side-eye, wondering how he had the nerve to even speak to Rick right now.

Rick seemed to have the same thoughts as me, giving Shane a hard glare before pointedly speaking to me again. "Why? If there's any government left, any structure at all, they'd protect the CDC at all costs, wouldn't they? I think it's our best shot. Shelter, protection, food."

I waited for him to finish. Shane seemed to be on the verge of exploding next to me so I held a subtle hand up in his direction.

"If there was any government at all, don't you think we would've heard or seen something?" I wanted to be optimistic but it had been too long without a sign.

"You know there's a chance, Daphne," Rick bent lower to meet my eyes full-on. "I know you do. And if there's a possibility that we can stop this from happening again, don't you think we should try?"

I hated the way he was looking at me, as if he knew the exact way to get me to agree. Half of it was the words he was saying, the other half was the way the sun was hitting his pale blue eyes just right.

My lips parted as I struggled to find an argument.

On another hand, I did owe it to everyone I'd welcomed to camp to try. I left yesterday and this happened. It wasn't entirely my fault- I couldn't stop a herd of walkers by myself if I tried- and Shane had stayed behind but like it or not, the both of us started this thing together. We set up camp, we found other survivors, we invited them in.

In a way, this was on me.

I looked between Rick and Shane, who were both staring at me expectingly. Rick with that naive hope in his eyes; Shane with utter and complete disapproval, waiting for me to take his side.

I was trapped. I spluttered slightly, trying to figure out who to fucking choose—

Shane's face dropped in disappointment and disbelief, turning to his former partner instead. "Okay, Rick, you want those things, all right? We do, too, okay? Now if they exist, they're at the army base, Fort Benning."

"That's a hundred miles in the opposite direction," noted Lori.

"That is right, but it's away from the hot zone. If that place is operational, it'll be heavily armed. We'll be safe there."

"We'd still have the same problem," I hissed quietly so Jim wouldn't hear. "Jim would still be sick and I know for a fact Fort Benning doesn't have the same medical capabilities as the CDC."

"You're agreeing with him?" Shane asked incredulously. He obviously didn't give a damn about airing out our drama in front of the whole group.

"Look, what you're saying makes perfect sense, Shane." I quickly tried to diffuse, grabbing onto his forearm without thinking it through. "But so does Rick. The CDC is the only chance this world has at beating this thing. What's happening to Jim and all these people, it's a disease. We'd be running in the opposite direction away from that."

"The military were on the front lines of this thing. They got overrun. We've all seen that," Rick argued with a glare finally directed at Shane. His eyes traveled between his former partner, my hand on his forearm, and me. I realized with a jolt that I was still hanging onto him and let go as if I'd been burnt. Rick's look alone reminded me of all the goddamn lies Shane fed me.

"The military's first response was to try to kill us. Was it not?" I added, glancing at Lori so I could avoid Shane's stare. I know she remembered the day I saved them well, how the army pointed their guns at her and her son. "What do you think they're gonna do when we try to roll up there with an infected person?"

"The CDC is our best choice and Jim's only chance." Rick finished as soon as I did and gave me a grateful nod. I don't even know how we ended up teaming against Shane but I could tell he felt ganged up on.

"You go grab that aspirin you brought," Daryl said to me suddenly. "Do what you need to do. Someone needs to have some balls to take care of this damn problem!" He hollered as he turned around and rushed toward Jim with the pickaxe aiming for his head.

"HEY!" I grabbed the shovel Jim had dropped and sprinted to stop Daryl. Rick pointed a gun at his head and clicked the safety off. Immediately, Daryl froze, weapon raised in the air. Jim heaved in terror, staring up at him like an animal prepped for slaughter.

"We don't kill the living." Rick said firmly. Shane wedged himself in front of Jim as Daryl slowly lowered the pickaxe and turned to eye Rick distastefully.

"That's funny coming from a man who just put a gun to my head."

"We may disagree on some things, not on this. You put it down. Go on," insisted Shane. I could see Rick breathing heavily from my spot next to him, gun still pointed. Daryl threw the pickaxe down and stormed away.

Rick grabbed Jim and began to lead him away from camp so I followed. Shane lingered behind, keeping a suspicious eye on Andrea who was still hovering over Amy's corpse.

I watched as Rick sat Jim down far away. He joined me after, standing by the cars.

We stared at each other in silence.

I was the first one to break it. "You okay?"

His lip curled in frustration, glaring at the sun. He rested his hands on his hips and looked at the ground.

I wanted to ask if he had confronted Lori, but it truly wasn't any of my business. And the answer was pretty obvious.

"Thanks ...for backing me up," Rick changed the subject.

"You're right. The CDC is our best option. If they're not operational, then at least we'll know."

"Yeah, while putting the rest of the group in danger."

What kind of hypocritical back and forth was this?

"We owe it to everyone to try. Especially Jim. Look, Shane's plan would've probably gotten us all killed. You didn't get to see it but when this whole thing started, the military pointed their guns at us first. The living. If the base is operational, there's no way we would've made it past the front gates alive." When did I start defending this plan? "Besides, if it all goes sideways, we'll have our getaway car and more than enough weapons to protect the kids."

Rick gave me a sideways smile, looking a lot less tense. "You're right. He just got me overthinking."

"Well, it's always good to run your ideas by others."

Rick stared at me for a long moment and I started to feel like a bug under a magnifying glass. "What?"

"Nothin', this just suits you."

I snorted. "What does? Putting Shane in his place?"

"Being a leader." He clarified.

"Yeah? Well, I didn't choose to be," I sighed, looking back at the state of our group. Half dead and the other half mingling about, no doubt discussing our two options.

Rick smiled tightly and clasped a hand over my shoulder as he walked past me, heading straight over to Carl. His little face lit up as he noticed his father, cheeks chewing on the multivitamin gummy Carol had handed out to each of the children.

I swallowed thickly. Whether the group agreed or not, we had no other option but the CDC or wandering from one place to the next. Fort Benning just couldn't happen.

Mostly everyone agreed that heading to Atlanta was the way to go. Only Morales and his family had opted out, taking one of the cars and a pistol and heading their separate way.

On the journey, we'd ended up dropping Jim off by the edge of the woods after hours of him pleading and begging.

It wasn't easy. In fact, it was one of the hardest things we'd ever had to do, but it was for the best. Jim knew he wouldn't survive the trip to Atlanta and he thankfully warned us of such. The last thing we needed was for him to die and reanimate on the road.

After, we weren't exactly sure whether we should've kept heading in the same direction but Lori brought up a good point. We were already more than half way there. It would be a waste of gas to turn around now.

We had to cling onto the little hope that ahead of us waited our salvation.

But of course, the world played us for fools.

We found the CDC in the same state as everything else. Deprecated and destroyed, crawling with flies and maggots. The dead scattered by the hundreds and thankfully at the very least, completely dead.

But when the reanimated ones did start showing up, probably from Shane and Rick having a rather loud go, I wasn't sure what would kill us first— the smell or the walkers.

"Shut up! Shut up, you're attracting more of them!" I pleaded as quietly as I could, grabbing a pistol from my belt and holding it anxiously.

Some of the others had began running back to the cars but Lori and I were incessantly pleading with the two men to just give up and run before it was too late.

I could understand Rick's desperation. His family was here, his wife and his boy were counting on him to keep them safe and he'd led them to a dead end. But if he didn't stop screaming at the broken surveillance camera, he would get us all killed.

"Rick, please!" I gripped his arm, trying to pull him away but Shane pushed me back, trying to tackle Rick angrily.

"If you don't let us in, you're killing us, you hear me?!" Rick continued. "YOU'RE KILLING US!"

Shane finally got a good grip on Rick's shirt and began to drag him away forcefully.

"YOU'RE KILLING US!" He kept repeating.

I backed away from the CDC with my heart in my throat, a sense of impending doom as I realized this was it.

Just as we finally turned around, as Rick yelled out in frustration once more, as the numerous walkers began to appear—

A miracle happened.

I could've fallen to my knees if it wasn't for Shane grabbing onto me in shock. Glenn ran to my side, snatching his red hat off and staring at the shutters as they opened and blinded us immediately.

Inside— our salvation.

I wasted no time, grabbing onto Carl and Lori and dragging us into the building with Glenn.

There was a chorus of voices as we all rushed in but my attention was stolen by the stranger who stood pointing a rifle at us. I found it hard to believe a doctor would be handling a gun within this fortress.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked loudly, causing everyone to fall silent.

The man stared at us in disbelief.

Feeling my heart plummet, I shared a weary glance with Glenn. This can't be good.

taglist:

@lovelyygirl8 @aleemendoza2425-blog @catlalice @ho3forchr1sevans

[phr0gg13]

A Manticore Crashed My 14th Birthday Party.

(Part 2)

Luke Castellan x Daughter of Hecate! Reader

(Series Masterlist)

Heres part two of the first chapter! (Part One)

Eventually, he started to slow down. I saw a small shack in the distance that we were approaching. “I knew I should have brought you here sooner; they all warned me I should have,” he was muttering to himself, and I could barely make out what he was saying. We reached the shack as he parked the car and turned it off. I saw near the doorway an older-looking woman with goat legs?! My dad got out of the truck and swiftly came to open my door; he helped me get out of the truck. He led me to the shack and started to talk to the goat woman. “I know I should have brought her here years ago, but I just couldn't,” the woman shook her head and ushered us inside. “Mr. Cain, it is okay; luckily, this location is not far from camp, and we should be able to get there safely,” the woman smiled at me. She was beautiful; her horns were curled by her ears, and she had a nice long braid going down her shoulder; there were even flowers scattered here and there in it. “Hello (Y/N), I am Hazel. I know you don't know much about your heritage, but once we get to camp, there will be plenty of time to ask questions.” I nodded my head and looked down at my feet.

My father handed me a backpack, and I put it on my shoulders. “Here's some of your things from home, along with your present. I'm sorry this happened so soon.” He seemed like he was almost crying; I had never seen my dad like this before. I grabbed his hand and hugged him; I couldn’t speak; this was all too much for me to process. During our hug, I could hear some more lightning and a deafening roar. It was back; my dad let go of me and looked at Hazel. She nodded and started to gather a flashlight and some other things.

My dad grabbed my hand, and we started to make our way out of the shack. We quickly walked into the forest. The rain had picked up quite a bit, and it was very muddy. My shoes were going to be extremely dirty after this. Eventually, we heard a tree fall behind us; there was the lion. I looked behind and felt fear coursing through me. I froze, and my dad had to continue to drag me. “Kiddo, we have to go! Don't look back!” He shouted to me, trying to overpower the sound of the storm. As we started to run, I tripped over a branch. I was on the muddy ground with a scratch on my arm now. I heard my dad yell my name, and he had come to get me. I was propped up, and soon I felt a warm hand grip me. I looked up to see Hazel holding onto me. My father and her were talking, but I couldn't hear; my ears were ringing, and I felt myself shaking. I felt myself get pulled away by Hazel; she continued to go in the direction that we were headed.

Yet when I looked around, I didn't see my dad; I quickly whipped my head around to see him waving his arms at the Lion. Hazel continued to pull me and tried to make me look forward, but before she could, I caught a glimpse of the scorpion tail hitting my dad. I felt the world stop as he fell to the ground. I looked forward and saw a giant hill coming into the distance; there was a big tree there. Faintly I heard Hazel say “Don't worry (Y/N) we are almost safe at camp.” Her ears twitched, and she looked behind her; she pushed me forward and yelled something at me. I caught a glimpse of the Lion again; I felt my body move before I could even think. I was running up the hill; I didn't see anyone around. Were we in the right place? Was I going to die?

I made it to the tree and looked back for Hazel; she was under the Lion. I could make out what happened, but I saw red pooling around her. I was utterly alone. I felt everything change in me; I was no longer this shy teen girl. I felt something coursing through my veins as the images of my dad getting attacked went through my head. This stupid lion, it ruined everything… It made me alone and scared; I would make it pay. Make it feel the pain I felt. I let out an ear-shattering scream as I felt energy flow through my arms. I threw them out towards the lion, and a beam of green energy flew towards it. I was immediately exhausted and drained after this. I felt myself fall to the ground, unconscious…

[apollo-enthusiast]

The world must know

The atrocities committed by hamas are too horrible to imagine, and certainly for me to put into words. So instead, here's a translation of a report containing a testimony of a Zaka man. Zaka is the organisation taking care of people's dead bodies.

Shipping containers, one by the other, 44 bodies of murdered and fallen in each one of them. They're laid one on the other in silver shelves, partially piling on one another - these are the sights in the military base Shura, to which the bodies from the massacre in the Gaza Envelope communities arrive. The bodies get to the shipping containers after a series of identification tests of the teeth, as well as DNA tests.

According to lieutenant colonel Richard Hecht, an IDF spokesman:

"We brought the international community here. We've spent three days with the foreign press so the scope of the ISIS massacre that was here will be understood. Starting tomorrow we'll be accused of being war criminals. The IDF hurts only Hamas, not civilian population. The whole world needs to see. Hamas is ISIS. This is not what we usually do. We don't attack children. Hamas uses children as human shields. We don't do that. The world must see that."

In the camp there are currently 900 bodies of civilians and hundreds more of soldiers and members of the security system. Trucks keep coming, and unload more and more bodies that have been through the identification process wrapped in bags. The smells here are extremely harsh, but the people in charge of the craft of identification and the care of bodies are, among others, the people of Zaka. One of them is Levy Wilhelm.

"I was recruited to the north, but for this purpose we got here for the weekend." He tells. In his words, "My job is to transport bodies from cooling containers that passed teeth and DNA tests. Due to the large amount we couldn't transport them one by one, so we put them in cooling containers. The bodies pile on top of each other and evacuated to certain shipping containers. Sometimes the situation is so bad that we have to put the bodies on top of each other. We got preparation on the mental level, but the situation is really catastrophic because sometimes the bag might rip and sometimes cloth of body parts peek out. We're in a completely crazy atmosphere and we really hope it won't affect us. When you see it with your own eyes you understand to what a despicable and humiliating situation we got, when tiny little kids are in bags. Right now I feel bolstered and I'm willing to continue and work hard because the situation calls for us all. We learned to dissociate for them, for us and for the people to do the job. Sometimes we'll discover a mortifying sight, but we must get strong immediately and if someone feels weakness you talk to him and get the situation under control so we're ready to work. We're happy that we got to put a hand under those sacred stretchers."

Benny Shechter, another volunteer for identifying bodies:

"Since yesterday night I'm here. A whole night you transport bodies, pick up a burnt child. There are 51 children without heads here. We pick up a child. The bag is big and the body is small. Sometimes you pick up a leg on it's own. Rockets were shot at houses and they took down bodies from trees. They found 20 men in one house. I'm a 60 year old person, and I'm falling apart. You pick up a body and see it's a child. There are people here that picked up a child and next to them put their heads."

Source: Ynet article by Adir Yanko

[footprintsinthesxnd]

The Good Die Young

Previous Chapter Masterlist Next Chapter

Warnings: mentions of graphic themes, war, injury, weapons, sexual images, language, 18+. Pairings: Jake Seresin x f!reader Disclaimer: This is a series reflecting on the true events of the US Marines in WW2. All of the characters are fictional and not based off are original characters (except for Jake Seresin) and they are not representations of the real, brave men who fought in WW2. I have tried to make all the events in this series as accurate as possible but please bare in mind this is fanfiction and i have added/ changed certain things to fit with this. Special thanks to the lovely Fern @desert-fern for proofreading this chapter for me.

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Melbourne, January 1943

Jovial music filled the air, dancing over the way of American soldiers as the ship docked in Melbourne. The local band was playing music standing, their big bass drum booming loudly over the noise of the crowd. Women, children and boys too young to fight and men too old to fight lined the streets, cheering, flags waving frantically as the soldiers disembarked. Jake had never seen such a welcome. It was a welcome sight after the horrors of Guadalcanal.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Johnny barked, letting out a loud shout as he joined in, waving to a group of young boys on their bikes following behind the trucks.

The trucks lurched and groaned under the weight of the troops as the convoy pulled to a stop outside the large red cricket stadium. The men were ordered to disembark, collecting the few possessions they had and their kit bags before forming orderly queues and following the Commanding Officer up the steps towards the light. The men bumped and shoved each other, each one vying for first in a race unknown to them all. Jake was slammed into one of the metal railings, hissing as his ribs made contact with the cold, rigid bar, sending sparks through his chest

Jake shielded his eyes from the bright sunshine as he entered the vomitorium, his eyes landing on his fellow Marines, all taking their seats on small beds on the bleachers.

“Welcome to Camp Murphy,” the CO began, talking through the megaphone that he’d somehow acquired. “Stay with your Company, pick a bed and drop your belongings. Chow is in an hour. You are not permitted to leave the stadium without a pass or unless you are instructed to do so by a senior officer.”

Jake found an empty bed and threw down his kit bag, sighing loudly and stretching his aching back. George sat down on the bed next to him while Frank, Johnny and Edward all followed suit. Johnny fell face-first onto his cot with a loud groan, pulling the pillow over his head to block out the wall of noise that surrounded them all. “I could sleep for a year.”

Frank let out a muffled laugh, pulling the cigarette from the corner of his mouth. “So you’re telling me that later when we all disperse into town in the cover of darkness, you won’t come with us.”

Johnny peeked out from behind his pillow. “Will there be alcohol?” He asked, his voice small and filled with a childlike wonder.

“Obviously,” Frank retorted, causing the others to laugh as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Then count me in.” Johnny sat up, rubbing his eyes as if he’d woken from a long sleep.

Once the MPs had cleared out of the main cricket ground, the Marines flooded the streets of Melbourne, most headed to the local bars, some went into shops and a few even went down to the movie theatre. The boys of How Company found the nearest pub and vowed to drink to their heart's content. Jake joined in watching as Johnny and Frank poured every possible alcohol into a glass and downed it in one, their faces contorting comically at the bitter taste. George sat in the corner nursing his beer while Edward was talking to the pretty young barmaid. Jake finished his beer and stood slowly, “I’m going to have a wander around, see what’s about?” The comrades barely acknowledged him, too consumed in their next round of alcohol.

“I’d go with you but I think someone needs to make sure that none of them die.” George joked, motioning to Johnny and Frank as they continued sampling the spirits.

“That’s probably for the best,” Jake agreed, nodding at his friend before turning to make his way outside.

Jake took a deep breath as he stepped out of the stuffy, smokey bar, the clean air filling his lungs and the warm afternoon sun on his face caused a smile to grace his lips. It had been warm in Guadalcanal, hot even with a humid sticky feeling that caused you to sweat buckets, even at night and the incessant buzzing of the mosquitoes ever-present, but here the warmth was different. Somehow it reminded him of home, the sunshine filling his body with vigour and warmth that it hadn’t had since the day he shipped out to the Pacific. He began walking aimlessly down Main Street, his feet carrying him along the line of shops, passing fruit stalls, clothing shops, and the hardware store. Jake almost felt like he was at home, he’d often give his mother a lift to town, helping her carry the groceries back to the car. As Jake rounded the corner, he came face to face with a young woman on a bike, the brakes screeched to a halt and the young woman fell forward off her bike. Jake lunged forward, catching her before she collided with the pavement.

“East there ma’am, you should watch where you're going.” Jake smiled down at her as she glared up at him. Easing herself quickly from his arms, she huffed and straightened her dress. “Get your hands off me, Yank!” She exclaimed, her accent British and her mannerisms causing Jake to laugh at the light blush that formed on her already rosy cheeks.

“You’re very welcome, ma’am, anytime.” Jake gave her a mock salute and his sarcastic tone infuriated her more when she groaned. Jake hadn’t noticed the papers that litter the street until she bent down, scooping them up quickly as the wind began to flutter them away.

“Here let me help you,” Jake bent down helping gather up the loose papers. Looking down at the paper he noticed the familiar layout and fonts.

“You work for a newspaper?” He asked a crooked smile forming on his lips as he handed the papers back to her.

“And what is it to you?” She glared at him again. Jake couldn’t help but notice that despite her aggravation towards him that she was very striking.

“Well I used to work for a newspaper back home before I joined the Marine Corps,” Jake explained, noticing a small flicker of a smile gracing her lips before it disappeared again.

“Well good for you but you’ve made me late. Good day, Soldier.”

“It’s Corporal ma’am, I recently got promoted actually.” She squinted at him, her forehead wrinkling in confusion as if the information was meant to mean something to her. Jake watched helplessly as she climbed back onto her bicycle, securing the papers in the basket before peddling away without a second glance.

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The bar was crowded, smoke filling the air as the ambient glow cast shadows over the men in uniform who filled tables and chairs throughout the vicinity. A bartender with rolled-up sleeves moved from one end of the counter to the other, sliding drinks along the wooden top. Some of the men occupied the wooden stools along the counter, while others crowded around the darts board. A cacophony of laughter filled the dark corners of the room. Jake smiled jovially, balancing the beers on the wooden tray as he approached the group.

Several of the men were singing loudly and out of tune to ‘An Angel in Disguise’ while one of them played the piano. Each man had his arm around a pretty girl, all smiling enthusiastically up at the soldiers.

“This rounds on me,” he called out, earning a cheer from his fellow Marines.

“I knew I like this guy,” Johnny spoke up, taking a sip of the golden liquid and wiping the foam moustache away with the back of his hand.

“Alright Short Ass, stop being such an ass kisser,” Johnny called out, puffing up his chest in a desperate attempt to make himself taller. Frank just shook his head, a crooked smile gracing his lips.

“Hey Cowboy, did you see those girls at the bar, they keep looking our way?” George mused, coming to stand beside his friend. Jake turned casually, his eyes raking over the many figures until he made eye contact with her.

“Shit!” Jake hissed under his breath, averting his gaze in a desperate attempt to avoid further conflict.

“What?” George asked, standing on his tiptoes to try and see what Jake had.

“It’s the girl from earlier, the one I bumped into and know she wants to murder me.”

George threw his head back in a fit of laughter. “You’re fuckin’ with me right? You’re scared of her! Jake, you’re a fucking Marine and she’s just a woman.”

“Exactly!” Jake exclaimed, “They are very dangerous if you get on the wrong side of them.”

“Alright, that’s it. I’m not having you being terrified of a girl.” George stood up, abandoning the beautiful woman beside him who looked rather put out and strolled towards the woman at the bar. Jake couldn’t bear to watch, turning away from his friend to try and preserve what little dignity he had left.

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(Y/n) grinned through red lips at her friends, Fern and Johanna, who were desperately trying to recount the US Marines arrival from that morning. Fern’s lips moved a million miles an hour while (Y/n) humoured her, sipping her whiskey neat as she kept up with the story. Fern, Johanna, and (Y/n) had been friends since she first moved to Melbourne and couldn’t find her way to the local newspaper. They had been willing to volunteer and the rest was history.

“Have you noticed that group of Marines over there, they keep looking at us,” Fern whispered, trying to point towards the group of soldiers without making it too obvious. “That blond one certainly has eyes for you.”

“I like the dark-haired tall one,” Johanna mused, biting her lip seductively.

(Y/n) turned round to look and let out a small groan, burying her face in her palm as she spotted the blond Marine. “Not him, anyone but him.”

“Come on, stop being so picky. There is a bar full of extremely attractive Marines and you're still being picky.” Fern protested, placing her glass on the bar to grip her friend's shoulders. “Just give them a chance. Please.”

“Fine,” (Y/n) signed, throwing her head back and downing the rest of her drink.

“Good because one of them is coming our way.”

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It turned out that George was quite charming and although he informed them he was off the market, he did encourage the three girls to join their group for the evening. Everything was going smoothly so Jake took it upon himself to try and talk to the mystery girl that had been occupying his thoughts.

“So… how are you feeling, Sweetheart?” Now even Jake would admit that he was probably coming on a little strong but with the amount of alcohol he’d consumed he honestly wasn’t surprised.

“I was doing just fine until you appeared,” she retorted, glaring at him. Jake nodded slowly letting out an amused chuckle as he watched her friend elbow her and hiss something in her ear.

“I'm doing just fine, thank you,” she corrected herself and sent Jake a pleasant smile.

Jake nodded, “I'm pleased to hear that.”

As the evening progressed, the longing looks and fleeting touches between the pair grew to an unbearable tension. Jake could feel the sweat trickling down his back and began to pull at the collar of his uniform, desperate for the feeling of the soft evening breeze hitting his sweat-drenched flesh. He let out a soft huff as he felt a hand tapping his shoulder, he was pleasantly surprised when he came face to face with his mystery lady.

“Do you play?” She cocked her head to the side, letting her hair fall gracefully from her shoulder as she thrust several darts towards him, cocking her eyebrow as she waited for a response.

“Sure,” Jake replied, puffing up his chest. “As long as you don't mind losing.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“If I win, the next round for the entire bar is on you.”

Jake’s eyebrows furrowed slightly but his poker face remained stoic.

“Alright, but if I win I get to take you on a date,” a mischievous smirk sprung across his lips as he looked down at her. She blushed, averting her gaze to her shoes.

“You want to take me on a date? Why?” (Y/n) couldn’t understand why he of all people wanted her, why did he find her so interesting.

“Well, aren’t you just the most beautiful woman in all of Melbourne.”

She blushed furiously, “Well I don’t know about that,” her voice shook and she struggled to meet his eyes.

“To me you are.”

He was shamelessly flirting with you, all the Marines flirted with the women, you also knew that a lot of them just wanted sex and nothing more but Jake seemed different. Yes, he was charismatic, handsome and charming but he had a sort of edge to him that others didn’t. He was different and there was something behind those blue eyes that she couldn’t quite pinpoint.

She nodded her head slowly, “Okay, you’ve got yourself a deal, Corporal.” He took her hand in his, running his thumb over her knuckles.

“Well then little lady, you got yourself a deal,” Jake stood slightly taller now, eyes shining brightly as he grinned at you as if he’d already won the bet.

Luckily for you, Jake did win. The more you thought about his offer of a date throughout the evening the more you realised you were rooting for him to win, throwing the darts with little force, using your left hand instead of your right, you’d never been one to let others win but Jake had awoken something in you, even when you felt like he was the worst man on earth.

To say Jake was feeling smug that he won would be the understatement of the century, his face erupted into a wide grin, eyes shining brightly. He slung his arm around her shoulder, “Well Little Lady, looks like you owe me a date.”

“It looks like I do,” (Y/n) stood up swiftly, “but I must be going now, I have an early start tomorrow.” (Y/n) found herself hurrying quickly to the door, desperate to get away from Jake before she did something she might regret. She felt him running after her, hearing the odd complaint as he pushed past other Marines to get through the crowd to her. (Y/n) reached the door, hurrying out into the cool, evening air, she let out a breath she didn’t even know she had been holding, feeling her hands begin to shake a little at the restraint she had shown. (Y/n) didn’t know what to do, she had never felt this way about anyone before.

“HEY! HEY!” The all too familiar voice called from behind her, loud footsteps echoing on the quiet street. “Hey wait up.”

(Y/n) stopped abruptly, turning herself round and hurrying towards Jake. She grabbed hold of his shirt, yanking him harshly towards her and cashing their lips together. Jake let out a surprised squeak that caused her to smile into the kiss before he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her impossibly close. (Y/n) had always thought it was ridiculous to think people saw fireworks when they kissed but the fireworks that erupted inside her stomach provided the theory right. Her hand wove its way into Jake’s short hair, tugging it gently.

When they eventually pulled apart Jake’s lips were swollen and smudged with red lipstick, his chest heaving from his effort.

“Goodnight, Corporal,” (Y/n) whispered, her lips brushing against his once more before she pulled away, her legs carrying her quickly down the now-silent Main Street.

“Hey, when can I see you again?” Jake hollered after her, his voice echoing down the dimly lit street. “You promised to go on a date with me.”

She turned sharply on her heels, her red lips creeping into a wicked smirk. “I said I’d go on a date with you, I never said when though.” She laughed as she turned back around, continuing the short walk to her house. Jake groaned in frustration. How could one woman have such an effect on him?

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[username599]

Everyones talking about the changes they don't like about the Percy Jackson show, but personally there are only a few changes that I didn't like.

I wish they would have done the spiders in the theme park, because it does show Annabeth's character and really shouldn't have been taken out. I did really like the changes to that scene though I just wish they included the spiders.

Everyone is talking about Gabe not being that bad but they have to realize that this is a show for children and it is censorship and there have been signs of abuse just not "textbook" abuse.

I wish they included the hellhound because it kind of upped the stakes in the books. It showed that the thief was someone at camp because hellhounds can only be let in by a camper. Also sword fighting with Luke was something I wish they kept in.

The 1st 2 episodes were rushed and I wish they were either spread out more into 3 episodes or the episodes were like an hour long rather than 30-45 minutes. I understand that it is a kids show so shorter episodes are what is typical, but for a season that is so reliant on the 1st episodes they rushed It all so much and could have added an extra episode.

Last thing that I think really should have been added was the zoo truck. We didn't get the discussion with Percy and Annabeth which make since because they already have similar talks in other episodes, but Percy didn't talk to the zebra. It's so funny and weird in the books and I think it would have been a really fun addition to the show. I hope we do get that in later seasons though because it is a funny, unimportant (yet still kind of important) part of Percy's character as a son of Poseidon. I've haven't seen anyone talk about this at all but I think it was a weird thing to take out.

Although there are a lot of changes that I don't like I agree with a lot of the changes. They seem to be including more mythology into the series that what is in the books. The Medusa episode was SO good I love everything about. The gold throne was really good and I absolutely loved the speech that Annabeth gave to Hephaestus. What happened in the books at the amusement park, I'm pretty sure, didn't really relate to mythology so adding the throne added something that would make more sense in the Greek world. I love that they are giving Grover more plot, the lotus casino with Augustus was just so good and really added depth to who Grover is. A lot of people didn't seem to like the addition of Luke's moms story being so early in the series, but I think it will ultimately make the betrayal hit a lot harder.

I love the change of the timing of seaweed brain and wise girl. In the books they starts as insults to one another before they become friends, but they don't call each other that until after they become friends in the show. In the books it is used repeatedly as an insult and changes to an endearing teasing, but I like that it never was really an insult in the show rather it's just like a fun nickname that didn't start as an insult.

For the next episode, episode 7, I'm interested to see what they do for it because the sneak peek includes so many different things that I think will be hard to squeeze into 1 45 minute episode.

Personally I think this show is what Rick would have done now. When he wrote the lightning thief he was an inexperienced author and now he had written so many books and probably has done so much more research on Greek mythology.

[bestcoastcustoms]

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series

Indianapolis Raceway Park | July 2022

[lillie98]

I’m watching the Percy Jackson series and I just…. I needed this so badly. My inner, undiagnosed autistic child needed this story. I spent the first twenty years of my life feeling like Percy. Wondering what was wrong with me, not understanding why the world felt so foreign and strange when everyone around me functioned fine. I saw Chimeras and Pegasi where others saw dump trucks. Little by little, that light was dimmed until it almost extinguished completely. It wasn’t until one very special person finally connected with me and understood how I see the world. She told me I was autistic and the world was beautiful again. Ever since then, I’ve been on a mission to find more people like me and bring them to camp, so to speak. I want every autistic person to know they are not broken, they are singular, and they are a miracle.

SPOILER FOR EPISODE 7!!!!

Sally and Poseidon’s conversation in the restaurant brought me to tears. I’ve been there. My own parents struggled through twenty years of wondering how to help me, what the best treatment would be, and wondering if I could lead a normal, happy life. Unlike Sally and Poseidon, we didn’t have an answer. My parents weren’t keeping my autism from me, we didn’t know it existed. I wish we’d had somewhere like Camp Half-Blood where I could learn about my identity and own it before my light came dangerously close to going out. Identity is so vitally important to Neurodivergent young people. It does not limit us, shame us, or hold us back. It does not render us to a life of solitude or “otherness.” It binds us to a community of people who see the Chimeras and Pegasi. It’s our ticket to Camp, and it sets us free.

(This is also my long way of saying diagnosis saves lives and should be more accessible to everyone)