#Cruise insurance | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

xo100 · 26 days ago

Note

hii i have this idea. yn and lando dont know each other yet. yn is driving back from work crashes into lando and his mclaren (small accident nothing big) and lando is mad until he sees her and love at first sight haha and offers to help her with insurance and tries to get her number and shes just confused and doesnt know who he is.

Thank youu in advance.

A Minor Collision, A Major Connection - LN4

*:･ﾟ Summary/request: request by anon as you can read above this!

*:･ﾟ Word count: 2796

masterlist / community / request

౨ৎ

The Friday afternoon sky was draped in golden hues as Y/N tiredly made her way back home after a long, grueling day at work. The office had been a madhouse—endless meetings, deadlines creeping up, and not enough coffee to power through it all. The only thing keeping her going was the thought of collapsing onto her couch and losing herself in a Netflix binge.

Her car, a reliable little sedan, buzzed softly as she cruised down the quiet city streets. She sighed, tuning out the low hum of traffic around her. It was just another day, nothing special. That is, until—

BANG!

Y/N’s heart lurched as her car jerked to the side. She slammed on the brakes, gripping the steering wheel tightly. Her mind raced through what just happened. Did she hit something? Or worse… someone?

Her pulse spiked as she fumbled to unbuckle her seatbelt and threw open the door. But when she stepped out to inspect the damage, the first thing she saw wasn’t a crumpled bumper or a mangled fender. No, it was a sleek, dark blue sports car, glossy and absurdly out of place against the backdrop of regular vehicles. Her little sedan had smacked into the rear of it.

“Great,” she muttered, pushing a hand through her hair. Her car had bumped into what was probably one of the most expensive cars in the city, if not the country.

And standing beside it, inspecting the minor damage with a furrowed brow and an expression that was a blend of frustration and disbelief, was none other than Lando Norris. Though Y/N had no clue who he was. To her, he was just some annoyed guy standing next to his ruined car.

“What were you even doing?!” the man exclaimed, turning towards her with his arms outstretched in exasperation. His voice held a British lilt, his tone more incredulous than angry.

Y/N froze. “I—I didn’t see you! You came out of nowhere!”

“Out of nowhere?” he echoed, shaking his head as he knelt to inspect his McLaren’s bumper. There was a tiny dent, barely noticeable, but to him, it was as if the whole car had been wrecked. He took a deep breath, clearly trying to calm himself.

Y/N bit her lip, anxiety creeping up her spine. Her mind was a mess—how much was this going to cost her? Could insurance even cover damages on a car that expensive? This whole situation was unreal.

But then something strange happened.

The man, still crouched by the car, lifted his head to look at her properly for the first time. His eyes met hers, and his expression softened. He blinked, standing slowly as if he was trying to process something. His initial frustration seemed to melt away, replaced by a bemused sort of interest.

“Uh… Are you okay?” he asked, his tone much gentler now, his earlier irritation completely gone.

Y/N blinked. Wasn’t he supposed to be mad at her? She had just hit his expensive car, after all. Why was he suddenly acting so… concerned?

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied, folding her arms across her chest. “I’m just… sorry about your car.”

Lando, however, waved her apology away like it was nothing. “Don’t worry about the car. It’s really not that bad.”

Y/N gave him a skeptical look. “Really? Because it looks like I did a number on it.”

He glanced back at the car, then at her, before letting out a soft chuckle. “Yeah, well, it’s just a car. What matters is that you’re alright.”

Her brows furrowed in confusion. This guy was acting way too nice for someone whose luxury car had just been rear-ended. She couldn’t help but feel like there was something off about his sudden shift in mood.

“Okay…” she trailed off awkwardly, unsure of how to respond. “But still, we should probably exchange insurance info. I don’t know how much this is going to cost to fix.”

Lando’s expression brightened at the mention of exchanging information, and for a split second, Y/N swore she saw a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“Yeah, sure, insurance,” he replied, reaching for his phone, “but honestly, it’s not that big of a deal. I can handle it on my own. Maybe we can just forget about it? I could… help you out.”

Y/N’s confusion deepened. Help her out? Wasn’t it her fault in the first place? Why was he acting like this was no big deal? And why was he looking at her like that, like he was trying to keep her there longer than necessary?

Lando shifted his weight, running a hand through his hair. “Look, I don’t mean to sound weird, but… do you, uh, live around here?”

“Why?” Y/N asked cautiously, narrowing her eyes at him.

Lando chuckled, scratching the back of his neck. He suddenly felt like a nervous schoolboy, which was ridiculous because he was Lando Norris, F1 driver and world-class athlete, yet here he was fumbling over his words.

“Well, I just thought maybe we could grab a coffee or something. You know, after we sort all this out.”

Y/N blinked at him, utterly bewildered. “Wait. You want to get coffee? With me? After I just hit your car?”

Lando shrugged, trying to play it cool. “Yeah. Why not? Accidents happen. And… I guess I think you’re kind of cute.”

Her eyes widened. Was this guy for real? She’d just crashed into his sports car and now he was trying to flirt with her?

“Uh… I don’t even know your name,” she said slowly, still trying to wrap her head around the situation.

He grinned, sticking out his hand. “I’m Lando. Lando Norris.”

She stared at his outstretched hand for a moment before taking it hesitantly. “Y/N. And, um… nice to meet you?”

Lando’s smile widened, his earlier frustration completely forgotten as he focused entirely on her. “Nice to meet you too, Y/N. So, about that coffee…”

“I’m sorry, are you seriously asking me out right now?” she asked, a slight laugh escaping her lips. “After I hit your car?”

Lando shrugged again, that mischievous glint back in his eyes. “What can I say? I’m a pretty forgiving guy.”

Y/N shook her head, still half-expecting this whole thing to be some sort of bizarre dream. “Okay, but… you didn’t even get my insurance information yet. Isn’t that why we’re still standing here?”

Lando waved a dismissive hand. “Like I said, it’s really no big deal. I’ll take care of it. Just… let me get your number, and we’ll figure it out from there.”

Now she was really suspicious. “My number?”

He grinned sheepishly. “For the insurance, of course.”

Y/N stared at him, trying to figure out if he was messing with her or if he was actually being serious. She wasn’t sure what was stranger—the fact that he was acting like the accident was nothing or the fact that he seemed more interested in getting her number than fixing his expensive car.

But there was something about him, something oddly charming, even though the whole situation was insane. Maybe it was his easygoing nature or the way he didn’t seem to care about the damage at all. Or maybe it was the way he kept looking at her, like she was the most interesting person he’d met all day.

With a sigh, she reached for her phone. “Fine. But I’m giving you my number strictly for insurance purposes.”

Lando’s grin grew wider, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “Strictly insurance purposes. Got it.”

As she handed him her number, Y/N couldn’t help but shake her head in disbelief. What had started as a minor accident was quickly turning into the weirdest encounter of her life.

“Alright,” she said, putting her phone away, “I’ve gotta go. But, um, thanks for not being too mad about the car.”

Lando chuckled, leaning casually against his McLaren. “Like I said, it’s just a car. But you… well, you’re worth more than any car.”

Y/N stared at him, unsure whether to laugh or be weirded out by the line. “Uh, okay. Well… take care.”

As she got back into her car, Lando watched her with a grin still on his face. Maybe the accident wasn’t so bad after all. After all, he’d managed to meet someone who had caught his attention in a way no one else had.

And as Y/N drove away, still shaking her head at the absurdity of it all, she couldn’t help but wonder just what she’d gotten herself into.

The weekend had finally arrived, and despite the awkward car crash, Y/N had managed to put it out of her mind. She wasn’t expecting to hear from Lando again. After all, rich guys like him probably had people to take care of things like insurance claims. She figured she’d given him her number for nothing more than a courtesy exchange.

That was, until her phone buzzed the next morning.

She glanced at the screen, eyebrows shooting up at the unknown number. Hesitating for a second, she finally opened the message.

Lando: Hey, it’s Lando. The guy whose car you hit? Not sure if you remember me, but I’ve got some paperwork for insurance and stuff. Thought we could meet up and go over it?

Y/N rolled her eyes, half-amused. It was still weird to her that someone so nonchalant about the accident was bothering to text her. She tapped out a quick response.

Y/N: Yeah, I remember. Where and when?

He replied almost immediately.

Lando: How about that coffee I mentioned? There’s a café in the city, small, chill. We can talk there?

Coffee again? He really wasn’t subtle. Y/N bit her lip, debating. She didn’t have anything to do that afternoon anyway, and she supposed she owed him at least a meeting about the insurance.

So, reluctantly, she agreed.

The café Lando had suggested was tucked away on a quiet street corner, its large windows letting in the warm afternoon sun. Y/N pushed open the door, immediately greeted by the rich scent of roasted coffee beans. She scanned the room, expecting Lando to be hidden away somewhere.

Instead, she saw him immediately.

Sitting casually at a table near the window, dressed in a simple hoodie and jeans, he waved when he saw her. His face lit up with a boyish grin that made him seem far less intimidating than the guy she’d crashed into just days before.

“Hey,” he greeted as she approached, standing to pull out a chair for her. “You made it.”

“Yeah, well, I figured we should get this insurance stuff sorted,” she replied, sitting down. She couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes lingered on her just a bit longer than necessary.

Lando chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, the insurance thing…”

Y/N raised an eyebrow, folding her arms over her chest. “You did bring the paperwork, right? That’s why we’re here?”

He looked slightly sheepish, then reached into his bag and pulled out a few documents. “Of course. Got everything right here.”

She eyed him suspiciously, but nodded. “Okay, good. Let’s get it over with.”

Lando handed her the papers, but as she scanned them, he leaned back in his chair, watching her with an amused expression. He wasn’t saying anything, but Y/N could practically feel his eyes on her.

Finally, she looked up. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said, a smirk tugging at his lips. “Just… you’re very focused. Kind of cute.”

Y/N groaned, shaking her head. “Are you seriously flirting with me right now? This is the second time you’ve done that.”

Lando shrugged, his grin widening. “Can’t help it. You kind of walked into my life by crashing into my car. Feels like fate, doesn’t it?”

She rolled her eyes. “Or just bad driving.”

“Or that,” he agreed with a laugh.

Y/N couldn’t help but smile at his easygoing attitude. There was something about him that made it hard to stay annoyed. He had this infectious charm, the kind that made you forget about everything else. She didn’t know much about him, other than his name and the fact that he clearly had a lot of money, but there was something undeniably likable about him.

Still, she wasn’t about to let him off the hook that easily.

“So, Lando,” she began, setting the papers down, “what exactly do you do? Because you’ve got a really fancy car, and you act like a guy who’s used to getting what he wants.”

His grin didn’t falter. “You don’t know?”

She shook her head. “No clue. Should I?”

Lando leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Well, I’m a Formula 1 driver. Kind of a big deal in motorsport.”

Y/N stared at him for a moment, processing his words. Then she blinked, completely unfazed. “Okay, so… you’re like a racecar driver?”

He laughed at how nonchalantly she said it. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Huh.” She sat back in her chair, crossing her arms. “That explains the car.”

“Explains a lot of things,” he teased, his eyes twinkling. “Still, I’m surprised you didn’t recognize me. It’s kind of refreshing, actually.”

Y/N raised an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”

“Most people know who I am,” he admitted. “It’s nice to meet someone who doesn’t immediately treat me like I’m… you know, famous.”

“Well, lucky for you, I don’t follow racing,” she said with a small smile. “I’m just trying to figure out why a guy like you is wasting time flirting with a girl who wrecked his car.”

Lando leaned forward, his playful expression softening slightly. “Because maybe I like that girl who wrecked my car.”

Her heart skipped a beat at the sudden sincerity in his tone. She wasn’t sure what to make of this whole situation. The flirty banter was one thing, but now it felt like there was something more behind his words. Something genuine.

“I don’t get it,” Y/N said, shaking her head. “We’ve barely talked. You don’t even know me.”

“I know enough,” Lando replied, his gaze locking with hers. “And I want to get to know more.”

Y/N swallowed, feeling a strange mix of nerves and curiosity. This wasn’t what she’d expected when she agreed to meet him. She thought it would be a quick, awkward conversation about insurance, not… this.

“Lando, I don’t even know if I want to date someone right now,” she admitted, unsure of what else to say.

He nodded, his expression serious. “That’s fair. I’m not asking for anything big. Just… let me take you out sometime. No pressure. If you don’t like it, we’ll call it even, and you never have to see me again.”

Y/N hesitated, searching his face for any sign that he was messing with her. But all she saw was sincerity. He wasn’t being pushy or demanding, just… hopeful.

After a long pause, she finally sighed. “Fine. One date. But if you turn out to be some crazy celebrity playboy, I’m out.”

Lando’s grin returned, brighter than ever. “Deal.”

A week later, Y/N found herself walking into a small, intimate restaurant Lando had chosen for their first date. She was nervous, still unsure about the whole thing, but when she saw him waiting at the entrance with that same goofy grin, her nerves eased a little.

The night went better than she could’ve imagined. Lando wasn’t just some cocky racecar driver—he was funny, down-to-earth, and surprisingly sweet. He asked about her job, her hobbies, her favorite books, and genuinely seemed interested in everything she said. By the end of the night, Y/N realized she was actually having fun.

As they left the restaurant, Lando walked her to her car, the same little sedan that had started this whole mess. He turned to her, hands in his pockets, a slightly shy smile on his face.

“So,” he began, “how was it? Am I still in your good books, or are you planning to never see me again?”

Y/N smiled, shaking her head. “You’re still in the good books.”

“Good to know,” Lando replied, relief evident in his voice. “I guess that means I can ask for another date?”

Y/N bit her lip, pretending to think about it. “Yeah, I guess you can.”

Lando’s grin was contagious, and before Y/N knew it, she was smiling too.

And just like that, a minor collision had turned into something unexpected. Something more.

౨ৎ

*:･ﾟ Notes; thank you for reading, love’s! Hope you all enjoyed it! If there is something wrong or need to be edited, let me know! Also hey anon! If you read this, I hope that this is what you had in mind!

1K notes · View notes

inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 3 months ago

Text

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 10: Nobody Likes You, Everyone Left You]

A/N: I sincerely apologize for the delay, but Maggie Sundays are back, besties!!! And we have a new poll! Be sure to check it out AFTER you finish Chapter 10 🥰

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 and chapter title are lyrics from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Word count: 6.8k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

Here’s how it happens.

Let’s say you’re on a subway, or at a bus stop, or walking in or out of a grocery store, maybe fumbling with your purse or corralling small children, or talking on the phone, or wondering how you’re going to make rent, or trying not to drop one of your shopping bags, and out of nowhere some stranger lurches over and grabs you. They are filthy and noxious and moaning, and you assume they are insane, or on hard drugs, or maybe both. Your fellow upstanding citizens rush to your aid and the assailant is apprehended and carted off, unbeknownst to you surely to infect many more blithely unaware victims.

Maybe you notice that you were bitten, even just barely, even just a scrape of the teeth hard enough to scratch the skin; maybe you don’t. If you do notice and you seek medical attention, the best a doctor will offer you is disinfectant and antibiotics, maybe a rabies shot if they’re extra ambitions. Perhaps you have too much on your plate already without a detour to the doctor’s office (or perhaps you don’t have medical insurance), and you opt for at-home remedies, a vigorous scrub with hydrogen peroxide and a large rectangular Band-Aid slapped on top. Of course, none of this will do you any good. It was over the moment a drop of zombie saliva slipped painlessly into your bloodstream and began to replicate there like an invasive species, like an insurgent force. It only takes once.

You go home, and maybe when you start to feel really bad you call an ambulance and go to the hospital, and when you turn you bite anyone you can get your claws on there. Maybe you die at home and then attack your partner, your children, your parents, your roommates; maybe this new version of yourself ends up chewing bits of gristle off the bones of your dog or cat or ferret. And if any of your victims manage to escape once you’ve gotten a taste of them—no matter how fleetingly, no matter how trivially—they are sure to die in agony and reanimate too, and to pass along this plague you’ve gifted them, the bloodiest game of telephone.

Now millions are getting sick, fevers, headaches, purging, bleeding, but where do people go when they need a doctor? The hospitals are overrun, the clinics are swarmed, and doctors and nurses are falling ill too. There are unimaginable reports of the carnage. There is censorship to smother the panic. There are public figures vanishing from sight. There are zombies-in-progress boarding planes, checking into hotels, tottering onto cruise ships with armfuls of luggage, sweating through their bedsheets in crowded military barracks, silently ticking timebombs as the world as everyone knows it hurtles towards its end.

You would be amazed what people can refuse to believe. Once you believe something, that makes it real.

~~~~~~~~~~

There are no shovels, so Cregan tills the earth with his axe and then you dig with your hands. There are no headstones, so Rhaena finds a large sand-colored rock and writes on it with a jagged piece of slate: Baela and Briar, Summer 2024. Then she hesitates, the slate hovering in afternoon air, amber sunlight and eighty degrees, dust thick in the wind. She wants to say more. There needs to be more. How can two lives end with five words? At last Rhaena adds: Mother and child who perished en route to California. They were loved. They mattered.

“That’s good, Rhaena,” Luke tells her, voice gentle, hands on her shoulders. She stares at the grave for a while, and you don’t have time to waste; the bear could return, there might be wolves or mountain lions, eventually the sun will set and you will be stranded in an infinite darkness like the ocean at night. But Aemond waits until Rhaena is ready. She tucks the shard of shale into her backpack, and then you are fleeing once again: from this day, from this world.

You hike back to I-80 and walk west towards the next ranch. All of you are here in south-central Wyoming, and yet none of you are: you are in the earth with Baela, you are back in Nebraska where Jace died, you are in Ohio where he was swept away by a river, you are in Pennsylvania where you and Rio climbed down from a transmission tower, you are in your lives before the world ended: Saratoga Springs, Boston, cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, a part of Kentucky called the Wildlands. Aegon is limping along on his own and shoving Rio away each time he tries to pick him up.

“Stop,” Aegon says, wincing and exhausted, his bandages coated with dust.

“Come on, Honey Bun. You’re going to rip your foot open—”

“Stop it!” Aegon demands. “I’m not going to slow you down anymore! I’m not going to be a burden!”

There is a sound you don’t immediately recognize: a rumbling, a squealing. A car is pulling up alongside you. Instinctively, you unholster one of your M9s and raise it as you turn.

“No, no, no, we’re cool!” a woman says, showing you both of her hands. She is around fifty and driving a Subaru Outback; there is a man in the passenger’s seat, perhaps her husband, and two wide-eyed, hoodie-swathed teenagers in the backseat. “Are you…are you guys okay?”

All of you stare blankly at her: shellshocked, distraught, covered in dirt and blood. “Yeah,” Daeron says eventually.

The woman peers around, east, west. “Do you have a car or something?”

“We have a Tahoe,” Cregan says. “It’s out of gas.”

“We have a few cans in the trunk,” the Subaru woman replies. “I can give you one, five gallons. That will get you to Rock Springs, and you should be able to find more supplies there. We came through that way, it wasn’t too bad.” And then, before anybody can ask if she’s serious, the woman steps out of the car and opens the hatchback. She lifts out a red can and hands it to Rio, who is standing the closest.

“Thank you, lady,” he says, astonished.

“I’m sorry about that,” you tell the woman, meaning the fact that you were prepared to shoot her.

Rhaena adds: “We’ve had some…bad experiences.”

The Subaru woman smiles. “Haven’t we all. Where are you headed?”

“West Coast,” Aemond answers quickly: vague, guarded, inviting no further disclosures.

She nods; she can’t trust you, and you can’t trust her, and everyone agrees, an unspoken acknowledgement of what the world is like now. “Well, you don’t want to go anywhere near Salt Lake City.”

“But that’s the only direct route,” Aegon says, crestfallen.

“I know.” The Subaru woman is sympathetic. “And it’s going to burn a hell of a lot of gas and time to drive all the way around, but you have to. There are tens of thousands of zombies, and a lot of people are trapped there without fuel. I’m telling you, if someone sees you driving by in a working vehicle, they’ll try to put a bullet in your head so they can take it. So don’t give them the opportunity.”

“Okay,” Aegon says glumly, already pulling his map out of the pocket of his khaki shorts to plot a new course.

“Stay far away from Chicago,” Rio offers the Subaru woman in return. “And any nuclear power plants.”

“We’re headed south,” she says, then grins. “I’ve got a sister in eastern Tennessee. We’re going to learn how to fish and cook moonshine and make clothes out of deer hide, and live up in the mountains where nobody will ever bother us.”

People glance at you, the resident Appalachian; and you remember the crackling of woodstoves, flecks of ice in the creek, kicking up snow as you ran through the woods, following tracks of deer and opossums and raccoons. “It’s a beautiful place. I think you’ll like it.”

Rhaena asks the Subaru woman: “Is there anything we can do for you? To thank you for the gas?”

“Oh, I couldn’t take from a bunch of bloodied people who are stranded on the side of the interstate.” But her eyes catch on the pistol in your hand and stay there, envious, longing. You have another, so you give it to her.

“The safety is on. There are only nine bullets left, unfortunately.”

“That’s nine more than I had before,” the Subaru woman says as she takes the U.S. Navy’s standard-issue Beretta. Then she says to everyone: “Good luck.”

“Same to you, ma’am,” Cregan replies. The Subaru woman gets back into her car and disappears eastbound with her family. The nine of you that are left—ten, if you count Ice—trek back to the Tahoe, where Rio pours five gallons of combustible liquid gold into the gas tank.

Rhaena climbs into the driver’s seat and turns the key in the ignition. The rust-red Tahoe growls to life, the engine idling. Then she rests her arms on the steering wheel and breaks down sobbing. In the passenger’s seat, Aegon looks up from his map—which he is annotating with a glittery green gel pen—to gaze at her with shining, wounded eyes. After some hesitation, he extends a hand to hold one of hers. From the seat behind Rhaena, Luke is rubbing her shoulders and murmuring words you can’t hear.

Aemond says softly: “Rhaena, you can take some time if you need it.”

“No,” she insists, her voice quivering but determined. “We can’t wait. We have to get as far as we can before dark.” She shifts the Tahoe into drive, guides it onto I-80, and speeds west towards Rock Springs and the Utah border.

Rio is saying something to you, but at first you can’t grasp it. Helaena is scratching Ice’s ears as the massive grey wolfdog lies sprawled across her lap. Daeron is sniffling and wiping his eyes with the sleeves of his orange t-shirt. Cregan is talking to Aemond about needing to find an auto shop so he can get supplies to change the Tahoe’s oil and filter. One of Aegon’s mixtapes whirls in the CD player:

“My face above the water

My feet can’t touch the ground, touch the ground

And it feels like I can see the sands on the horizon

Every time you are not around…”

You are watching Aemond, your heartbeat growing loud in your ears. He won’t look at you at all.

~~~~~~~~~~

As the sun begins to set, you find a vacant house on the outskirts of Coalville, Utah overlooking the Echo Reservoir. You wash away the remnants of Wyoming in the cool blue water, dried blood and caked-on dirt, hopes eclipsed by horror. Dinner is soup spooned out of cans from the pantry—Dinty Moore beef stew, Campbell’s condensed chicken noodle—and caffeine-free sodas, Sprite and Fanta and Seagram’s Ginger Ale. Then Rhaena and Luke go straight to bed, and Helaena scuttles through the house with a flashlight to search for clothes, making each person a separate pile on the dining room table: large flannel shirts for Cregan, pastel-colored polos for Aegon. Aemond and Cregan are outside on the front porch, Daeron is carving sticks into arrows on the kitchen floor, Aegon has been passed out in one of the children’s bedrooms since Aemond debrided his burns again and dosed him with the last of the Vicodin. Fortunately, Helaena found a translucent orange prescription bottle of Tramadol in the upstairs bathroom, so Aegon won’t have to suffer too much tomorrow.

Rio tosses and turns on the living room couch. You know what’s wrong, but you have to wait for him to say it. You stay with him, kneeling on the beige carpet in the murky artificial luminance of Rio’s Moonbeam flashlight, threading your fingertips through his dark curls. And then at last Rio asks something that you know must have crossed his mind a thousand times since you left Saratoga Springs, but he’s never voiced aloud: “What if Sophie and the baby are dead?”

“They’re not.”

“But you don’t know, nobody knows—”

“Bryan, they’re not dead,” you say, and he is listening.

“I joined the Navy for Sophie.” And of course, you’ve heard this before. “I was just a stupid kid who couldn’t commit to anything, not work, not school, not a future with her, so she dumped me. And I decided I was going to get her back by proving I could make commitments after all. I could sign my life away for five years, and come out of it as someone who would be a good husband and father. And now…what if by enlisting and being so far away when everything happened, I abandoned her? What if…what if she’s gone, and she died terrified and in pain and alone, and I’m the reason why?”

“Sophie and the baby are waiting for you in Odessa. You have to believe that until we get there.”

“Because if they’re not, my life is over?” he asks bitterly, this man you have never known to be wrathful, defeated, weak, hopeless. But these are beasts that live inside all of us, waiting to be shaken awake by the perfect string of calamities.

“I believe they’re still alive.”

And Rio looks at you, wanting desperately to be convinced. “Why?”

You’ve never believed that you are someone who knows the right things to say; but you have to try. “If your parents’ community in Odessa is like you’ve always described it to me, I can’t think of a better place for someone to hide from all the disorder and the violence. It’s remote, but there’s support from other families who are living the same way. People have gardens, cows, goats, pigs, chickens, enough canned food to live on for years, homemade clothes and systems to collect rainwater. There are women who’ve had five homebirths and men who’ve built houses with their own hands. And the people in Odessa have guns and know how to use them. I think when you told Sophie to go there, you saved her life. And now she and the baby are both waiting for you to come home.”

“We’ve crossed this country by raiding dead people’s homes.”

“Yes. And we’ve seen plenty of living ones too.”

Rio takes a deep breath, staring up at the ceiling; and now he is calmer. “Okay,” he says, grabbing your hand where it rests on his head and smacking a noisy kiss onto your knuckles. “I’m sorry. Thank you. I think I’m done freaking out for tonight.”

“You good?”

“I’m good.”

“Try to sleep.”

Obediently, Rio closes his eyes, and within five minutes he’s snoring.

You rise and open the door to the front porch, thinking of what you’re going to tell Aemond when he is low, distracted, wary: You did everything you could, Aemond. It’s not your fault. It’s this world, it’s poison, it’s cursed, and you can’t turn back the clock to when it wasn’t. You’re just one man. But you can try to save the people who are left.

Yet Aemond does not speak to you, doesn’t even notice you; when you peek outside you are on his blind side, and he is deep in conversation with Cregan as they keep watch in the moonlight.

“I mean, yeah, I’ve been thinking about that too, man,” Cregan is saying. “A mansion by the ocean sounds nice and all, don’t get me wrong, but that ain’t me. I don’t see myself somewhere like that forever. Hell, I’ve never even seen the ocean, and to be honest I never really cared to. But a community of folks who are living off the land out in the woods? Those are my kind of people, that’s a place I could be useful…”

You retreat back inside the house, flashlights and shadows, doubts and fears. You stand there in the quiet for a while, then go to Aegon’s bedroom, where he is awake now and snuggling with Ice in a child’s bed shaped like a red racecar, listening to his pink Sony Walkman—Ava, the gleaming rhinestones proclaim—through one earbud.

Aegon coos as he ruffles the dog’s shaggy grey coat: “You’re so sweet, Blue Raspberry Icee. You were always my favorite flavor. Do you miss 7-Elevens too? Wrinkled old hot dogs and taquitos on rollers, drenching tortilla chips with the nacho cheese and chili dispenser? Did you guys even have 7-Elevens in Iowa? No offense, but your home state kind of sucks. It’s just fields and barns and whatever. You would have loved Boston. You could have fetched my golf balls when they rolled into ponds.”

Then he sings along to the song he’s listening to, effortlessly melodic but so softly you can barely hear him:

“You really had me going, wishing on a star

But the black holes that surround you are heavier by far

I believed in your confusion, you were so completely torn…”

Aegon spots you in the doorway. He smiles, then turns serious when he gets a good look at your face. “You okay, Mint Chocolate Chip?”

He feels like the only person you can say this to. You confess in a weak, hoarse whisper: “I hate this world.”

Aegon offers you the other earbud. “Then let’s go somewhere else.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Come on,” you say to Rhaena as Rio and Luke rummage around inside the Shell gas station for food, drinks, batteries, medicine. You know they’re fine; you’ve already cleared the store, and you can hear them in there laughing. Rio is telling Luke about the bizarre Thanksgiving dinner you once had in Chinhae, South Korea: duck instead of turkey, fried rice with pears and squash instead of stuffing, candied sweet potatoes for dessert, a choir of solemn schoolchildren brought in to sing—for reasons you will never understand—Africa by Toto. You take your remaining M9 out of its holster. “Target practice.”

“Really?” Rhaena asks excitedly. She volunteered to stay back at the little blue mobile home with Aegon, Daeron, and Helaena—only a mile away—but you knew she needed a distraction. Truthfully, you do too. Aemond is in the Tahoe somewhere searching for gas with Cregan, a strange new alliance. He still hasn’t really spoken to you. You are trying to give him what he needs, but you don’t understand what that is.

It took all of yesterday to navigate around Salt Lake City, stopping every few hours to scrounge for gas, gallons siphoned piecemeal from cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats on trailers, four-wheelers left forgotten in garages and backyards. It was after nightfall when you rolled into Battle Mountain, Nevada, a gold mining town in what is known as the Cowboy Corridor, beginning at West Wendover just over the Utah border and ending in Reno. Today supplies must be replenished; tomorrow I-80 will take you to Winnemucca, where U.S. Route 95 branches off north towards Oregon while remaining on I-80 leads southwest through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and into the Bay Area of California. A decision needs to be made, which means Aemond will have to talk to you tonight. You’re relieved. You don’t want to have to be nervous and watchful with him, studying every inflection of his voice, reading some dire premonition in each line that creases his face. You’ve spent enough of your life that way already.

Battle Mountain is cloudless and hot and sandy, dry shrubs and gnarled mesquite trees, flat secretless earth. Staggering towards the Shell are three zombies, all dressed in faded blue uniforms like a mechanic’s or a miner’s. You hand Rhaena your M9.

“How many bullets do you have left?” she says, still a bit giddy.

“Fifteen. And you can have five of them.”

She raises the pistol and closes one eye. “I’m going to miss.”

“Well you’re not going to hit anything if you don’t turn off the safety.”

Rhaena giggles. “Oh, right. Whoops.” She clicks the tiny lever, then takes aim again.

“Line up your sights. Front looks like an I, back looks like a U. Put the I in the center of the U, and keep looking at that front sight. That’s where your bullet is going. Don’t blink when you fire. Don’t be scared of the recoil, that’s not your problem, your priority is getting the shot. Your arms are a little stiff…yeah, perfect, nice and limber. The recoil won’t hurt so much that way. Don’t try to fight it, just accept that it’s going to happen. If you’re all tensed up because you’re anxious about the recoil, it’ll throw off your aim, so forget about it.”

“Okay,” Rhaena says. “I am actively attempting to forget.”

“Remember, try not to blink.”

“Don’t tense up. Don’t blink.” A few seconds pass, and she pulls the trigger. There is a spray of dark curdled blood from one of the zombie’s collarbone, but it’s still stumbling towards the Shell. “Damn,” Rhaena says defeatedly, then tries to pass the M9 back to you.

“What are you doing? You have four more shots.”

“But I’m going to miss. I’m going to waste them.”

“Practice isn’t wasteful. You have to know how to do this in case something happens to me.”

“You do it,” Rhaena insists. “I’m terrible.”

“Is it alright if I help you?”

“Yeah,” she says, her doe-like eyes brightening. “Okay. Totally.”

“Go ahead and aim.”

She raises the pistol and peers through the sights. You stand behind Rhaena, place your hands lightly over hers, adjust her angle just barely. When she fires—she’s still tensing up just before she pulls the trigger, a common mistake—you hold the M9 steady. The bullet explodes through the same zombie’s rot-soft skull and the corpse tumbles facedown into the dust.

Rhaena gasps, exhilarated, triumphant.

“No celebrating yet. There are two more.”

“Right.” Very businesslike, she lines up the next shot. You provide your slight adjustments; a second zombie receives a lethal dose of lead.

“Want to do the last one on your own?” The third zombie is quite close now, maybe ten yards. It should be an easy kill.

“Okay…but if I miss, you have to save me.”

“Obviously.”

All on her own, Rhaena aims and pulls the trigger. She hits the zombie near the top of its head; an inch higher, and it would be functionally unharmed. But the corpse’s skull snaps back and its blood and brains spill out onto the asphalt of the parking lot, and it is of no further danger to anyone. It is carrion for the scavengers: raccoons, foxes, condors, vultures, crows.

“And with one of your allocated bullets to spare,” you say with a smile, accepting the M9 when Rhaena surrenders it. “Good progress.”

“That felt great,” she admits, perhaps a little dazed.

You know what she means. “It’s nice to have some control over what happens in your life.”

Luke is saying to Rio as they reappear from inside the Shell: “Maybe those Korean children were singing Africa because they knew your unit had been in Djibouti. Maybe they thought you were homesick for it or something.”

“Oh my God, you know what, kid? You might be right. I never even thought of that.”

“Find anything?” you ask.

Rio shrugs, adjusting the straps of his backpack. “A few bags of trail mix, a box of Band-Aids, some Life Savers, cans of Arizona tea. Oh, and Marlboro Golds for Honey Bun.”

“You shouldn’t be encouraging Aegon to smoke. It’s bad for him.”

“Give him a break, he’s sad and crispy.”

You can’t think of a rebuttal. The four of you walk back to the mobile home.

In the small patch of parched dirt that serves as the driveway, Cregan is—with great difficulty—shimmying out from beneath the Tahoe. Then he reaches back under to grab a pan of old motor oil. “Just about done here,” he announces. “Gotta put the fresh oil in and then we’re set for another 5,000 miles.”

You glance around. Ice is panting in the narrow aisle of shade of a mesquite tree. Aegon is napping on the tiny front porch, sprawled on his back and snoring, his plastic neon green sunglasses shielding his eyes; Helaena is surrounded by a jumble of empty cans and stirring a pot of Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs as she heats it over a fire. She begins dishing out bowlfuls of it. Rio, Rhaena, and Luke all graciously accept their dinner.

“Did you guys find gas?” you say to Cregan.

“Not much. A few gallons.”

“Where’s Aemond?”

“Said he’d be back soon.”

“What?” You are incredulous. “You left him? He can’t be alone out there, Cregan. Someone has to watch his blind side.”

“He ain’t alone. He took Daeron.”

“What’s Aemond looking for?”

“He didn’t say. I didn’t ask.” Now Cregan is pouring a bottle of Pennzoil into the Tahoe, and Rio is prodding you with a bowl of Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs, and Aegon is waking up and yawning loudly.

“What’d you bring me?” he says, lazy and grinning; and when he receives his pack of Marlboro Golds, he immediately sticks one between his teeth and lights it. Luke goes to sit by a shrub and then jumps up when he hears a rattling noise. Almost too swiftly for you to process it, a streak of red-gold scales slithers across the earth and vanishes into the desert.

“Western diamondback rattlesnake,” Helaena notes. “Venomous. Potentially fatal.”

“Great,” Luke says, carrying his bowl towards the front door of the mobile home. “I think I’ll eat inside.”

Aemond and Daeron don’t return until shortly before dusk, the sky turning to rust, lavender, gold, fire, blood. When they walk in, Rhaena is curled up on the floral couch—shredded in spots by a cat, though there are no signs of it now��and reading Mockingjay. Luke is sitting with her and keeping watch with periodic peeks out the window. Ice is resting with her muzzle propped on her large front paws. You, Rio, Cregan, Helaena, and Aegon are playing Uno on the floor.

“What color?” Aegon asks Helaena when she puts down a wild card.

“Blue.”

He groans. “How do you always know what I don’t have?!”

“Rhaena,” Aemond says, and then tosses something to her that glints in the artificial, sickly yellow radiance of the flashlights. She catches them in midair: a set of keys. She is mystified.

“What are these for?”

“The Ford Expedition that’s parked outside.”

“What?!” Luke says, twisting around in his seat to snatch the curtain aside and peer through the window. “Oh wow. Yeah, it’s out there.”

Rhaena is staring confoundedly at Aemond. “Why do we need a Ford Expedition?”

“Because that’s what you’ll be driving tomorrow.”

“What’s wrong with the Tahoe?”

“They will be driving the Tahoe to Oregon,” Aemond says, pointing to you, Rio, and Cregan. “We are taking Expedition to California.”

Everyone is too stunned to speak at first; even Daeron looks at Aemond doubtfully, as if this is the first time he’s learning of it. Aegon’s hand hovers frozen in the air above the draw pile of Uno cards. Ice whimpers.

Rio chuckles uncertainly. “You’re…you’re joking, right?”

“No, I’m not,” Aemond says. “When we leave Battle Mountain tomorrow, you’ll take I-80 to Winnemucca. We’ll take Route 305 south to Austin and then head west so we can get off the interstate and avoid the Reno area.”

Your voice comes out dark and poisonous. You can feel your eyes glaring, searing; Aemond won’t look at you. “What are you talking about?”

“We can’t stay together?” Luke asks.

“No,” Aemond says again, and now he’s getting impatient. “We have two different destinations. That’s been the situation since the day we met, and now it’s time to split up.”

“Why can’t we all travel to one place and then the other?” Rhaena says. “We could drive to the Bay Area, see what’s going on at the beach house, and after—”

“I can’t wait,” Rio interrupts. “My wife and baby are in Oregon, I’m going straight there even if no one else is.” As distracted as you are, you touch your palm to one of his broad shoulders. You’re going too. You promised.

“So we’ll drive to Oregon first,” Aegon says agreeably. “Right? We could do that. Go north and then swing by the Bay Area later.”

Aemond shakes his head. “It’s almost impossible to find gas now. There is just enough in the Tahoe to last it until Winnemucca, and just enough in the Expedition to get it down to Austin. There is no guarantee we’ll be able to find more. Every day there’s less gas and food and bullets, because there are less places that haven’t already been looted. There are 400 miles between where we are right now and either Odessa or San Franscisco. There are another 400 miles that separate those two destinations from each other. So let’s say we drive all the way to Oregon and then can’t find any gas to go south to the Bay. How long do you think we’d last like this on foot? A month? Because that’s how long it would take us, assuming not a single rest day. So if we travel to one location together, there’s a good possibility we’ll all be trapped there.”

“Maybe I’m okay with getting trapped in Oregon,” Aegon mumbles.

Aemond lashes out fiercely. “Are you serious? What about Criston, what about Mom?!”

“Maybe there are some things about home that I don’t miss!”

“Then go the fuck to Oregon!”

“You know I have to stay with you!”

Aemond scoffs. “Because you’re so capable of protecting anyone.”

Aegon rubs his sunburned face with both hands. He murmurs softly, miserably: “I’m trying, Aemond.”

“So that’s it?” Rhaena says, staring at you and Rio and Cregan, stunned and mournful. “We’ll just never see each other again?”

Aemond shrugs and averts his gaze. He doesn’t have an answer; maybe he doesn’t care.

Aegon turns to Cregan accusingly. “You helped plan this?”

“Nah,” Cregan says, avoidant and downcast, which is unusual for him. “I mean…I said I didn’t really see myself spending the rest of my life with a bunch of millionaires in a California mansion on the seashore, and that’s still true. I’d rather live in Oregon with people who are more like me. But that’s different than wanting to split up forever. I could always try to find y’all later for a visit, I guess…”

“Sure,” Aemond replies briskly. “Whatever you decide to do afterwards isn’t my problem. But you get them to Odessa first.”

Rhaena bursts out with sudden urgency: “This feels wrong. Don’t you see how this is wrong?! We’ve been through so much together, and now we’re just going to wave goodbye and disappear? Leave them to fend for themselves?”

“You want to add 400 miles to our trip?” Aemond asks her, and Rhaena falls silent.

“You know,” Luke begins. “We…we’ve already lost people. Maybe Aemond’s right. Maybe we’re forgetting how dangerous the world is now. It would be great if we could stay in contact, but the most important thing is to get everyone safely to where they need to be.”

“Exactly,” Aemond says, and something jolts awake in you as you remember what he told you in Nebraska, and in Wyoming, and in so many quiet moments that you’ve shared since you met, each an oasis in the desert. He said we would figure it out. He said he wasn’t going anywhere.

“So you were lying when you pretended not to know what we were going to do when we got to Nevada.”

Aemond nods towards the front door. “Can I talk to you outside for a minute?”

You stand up; Rio watches you apprehensively, wondering if he should follow. Your eyes flick to his. I’m fine. He relents, redirecting his attention. Aegon is slumped and despondent; Helaena is starting to cry, and Cregan tries to console her. She’s saying that something bad is going to happen, but she doesn’t know what.

On the porch of the mobile home, beneath a lilac sky pierced with stars, Aemond does not attempt to hold your hands or kiss you goodbye or give any other indication that you have ever been someone who mattered to him. “This isn’t personal. This is what gives everyone the best chance of survival.”

“You’re afraid of making a mistake and getting hurt,” you tell him. “And I understand, I know what that feels like, but Aemond…with the way the world is now…you can’t afford to wait for things to happen or cut them loose to see if they’ll come back to you. You might not get another chance.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Aemond says flatly. “Your route is safer than ours. Less cities, less zombies.”

“You’re honestly going to act like you are completely unbothered by the thought of never seeing me again?”

��I don’t know what you expected. I’m just some guy who helped get you off a transmission tower back in Pennsylvania.”

“Really? That’s all you are?”

And then Aemond smirks to himself, a cynical, mocking twist of his lips, something so dismissive and so cruel you almost believe for a razor-thin second that you could hate him. “Look, I’m not the one for you. Go to Oregon. Fuck Cregan.”

“There is nothing romantic between me and Cregan!”

Now Aemond seems annoyed. “Well, you two seem exceptionally suited for each other.”

“Because we both grew up shopping at Dollar General and know what it’s like to have an alcoholic parent?! That makes us soulmates, that’s the end of the calculation?!”

“Then find a man like him!” Aemond flares. “That’s what you really wanted, right? That’s what you were after this whole time. Some hero to convince you he’s worth it. Someone to break you in.”

You are seething, thunderstruck. “And you just said that in the most hurtful way possible to…what, prove how little you care about me?”

“I didn’t say I don’t care about you.”

“Then why are you doing this?”

“We were never going to end up in the same place.”

“Except we were, you told me that, you told me we’d figure something out, I mean, you…you…you said you’d be there if I wanted kids someday, what was that if not some kind of commitment?!”

“You don’t trust me,” Aemond says, so sharply and so abruptly it startles you.

“I do,” you object softly.

“No, you don’t. And I don’t blame you. But there’s nowhere for us to go from here.”

You can feel yourself becoming young and powerless and desperately afraid. “Please don’t do this, Aemond. It won’t bring Jace or Baela back. If we don’t have a plan before we split up, this is over. We’ll never find each other again. We’ll never have another chance.”

And he shakes his head like this was such a needless mistake. “I knew you’d fall in love with me.”

He’s leaving, you think, hazy and omnipotent like a nightmare, the present inseparable from the past and the future. I left my family and now my family is leaving me. “I’m not in love with you,” you reply as ruthlessly as you can. “I think you’re right. Cregan is a better man.”

“Yeah,” Aemond snaps.

“And I need someone like him.”

“Yeah,” Aemond says again, staring into the west where the last rays of the sun are sinking below the horizon, you erased as you stand where his left eye would once have seen you.

“And you need someone who’s going to fuck with your head so much you can’t possibly mistake it for something real.”

You walk back inside the mobile home and leave him speechless in the dying light.

~~~~~~~~~~

“I drew this for you,” Aegon says, handing Rio a folded piece of paper torn from Helaena’s spider notebook. It’s a map, illustrated in forest green gel pen ink. “Your route is actually really straightforward, it’s impossible to get lost. You’ll follow I-80 northwest to Winnemucca, then Route 95 north until it intersects with Route 140, and you stay on 140 all the way to Odessa. The only real city you’ll go near is Klamath Falls in Oregon, and I’ve marked that. Route 140 mostly stays along the outside, but you can cut it wider if things look dicey. The whole trip is just a couple days by car, assuming you don’t have to spend too long hunting for gas. But listen…” He points to the green dot labelled Winnemucca. “Between here and Denio Junction up by the Oregon border, there’s 100 miles of nothing, just desert. So make sure you have more than enough supplies to last you in case something happens. Then from Denio Junction to Adel is another 85 miles with no towns in between. So just…be careful, okay? You’re not back east anymore. Things are a lot farther apart, and it’s harder to find everything. If you run out of gas or bust a tire, you can’t just call AAA to come pick you up.”

“We got it,” Rio says, touched but trying not to dissolve into too much sentimentality. The three of you are standing in the short dirt driveway the next morning, Aegon putting most of his weight on his good leg. Cregan is waiting behind the wheel of the Chevy Tahoe that once belonged to his parents. Ice is peering out at you through one of the rolled-down windows. “Thank you, Honey Bun.”

“No problem. Now flip it over.”

Rio does; on the back of the first map is another, this one from Odessa south to the Bay Area, a place just north of San Francisco called Bolinas.

“Go all the way to the coast and follow it down,” Aegon says. “You don’t want to bump into Santa Rosa, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, San Jose, any of those places. Too many people.” Then he smiles, kind and warm. “I’m going to see you guys again, one way or the other. But first I have to make sure Aemond is safe. And Rio has to meet baby Otter.”

Rio laughs. “Man, don’t even joke about it. I’m seriously concerned that’s my firstborn’s name.”

“If you end up not staying in Odessa, leave me a note carved into a tree trunk or something so I can track you down.”

“You do the same at the beach mansion.”

“Totally.” Then Aegon turns to you; and although he’s still smiling, his eyes—those pools of murky, melancholy blue that remind you of the Gulf of Tadjoura, Corpus Christi Bay, the East China Sea, the Indian Ocean—are catastrophically sad. “Tortilla Chip, it’s been real. Don’t forget about me.”

“I don’t think I could even if I wanted to.”

He pats your backpack and winks, and you don’t understand why until ten hours later when you’re lying on the rooftop of an abandoned RV in Winnemucca, Nevada, gazing up at the stars as Rio and Cregan swap stories to weave affinity until it’s thick like a braid: Rio hiding a dead lemon shark in the Jeep of an officer he hated when you were stationed at Key West, Cregan’s fiancé leaving him after she got a field hockey scholarship to the University of Iowa. You haven’t found any gas for the Tahoe yet. You’ll have to search again tomorrow. You reach into your backpack for a pack of Life Savers and instead are surprised to discover Aegon’s pink Sony Walkman. The rhinestones spelling out a doomed little girl’s name glint in the moonlight.

You slip in both earbuds and press play. Aegon left it paused at an Enrique Iglesias song; you assume he must have been thinking of Rio.

“You look at me and, girl, you take me to another place

Got me feelin’ like I’m flyin’, like I’m out of space

Something ‘bout your body says, come and take me

Got me begging, got me hoping that the night don’t stop…”

You try to see constellations in the night sky instead of random, indifferent distant suns. You try not to remember the way Aemond was when you thought his mark on you was permanent.

“Girl, I like the way you move, come and show me what to do

You can tell me that you want me, girl, you got nothing to lose

I can’t wait no more

I can’t wait no more…”

You spot a glimmer of light among the stars and choose to believe it is a comet rather than a fighter jet, or a forgotten satellite, or the refracted remnants of a solar storm, or something you only imagined and that never existed at all.

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen #aemond x you #aemond x reader #aemond x y/n #aemond targaryen x y/n

225 notes · View notes