#HaruWrites

[haruhey]

Wish I Never Met You

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Word count: 4k

Fluff | Angst | Thank you @weretheones and @normanplusdaryl for betaing <3

You’re part of Daryl’s past, but you could also be his future.

or

A bad day leads the two of you to each other.

or

Whoever said it’s better to love and lose Never loved and lost you

Daryl barely made it through sophomore year.

In all honesty, he was impressed he even got to junior year. When Merle left at the tail end of spring, he - in all of his younger brother naïveté - thought he would come back before the semester ended, taking him from the dump they called a house and from that asshole they had the unfortunate pleasure of calling their old man.

But July came and went, then August, and by the time the new school year rolled around, Daryl stopped waiting for him - just shouldered his backpack and went to school because where the fuck else was he supposed to go?

He gave the whole school thing two weeks. It was enough time to mark off attendance - to lay low before he traded his backpack for his crossbow and started hunting for that weird butcher shop three blocks down to make some money - and he had intended on following it.

Intended, being the right word, because the plan went to shit the second Mr. American History started pairing people up for those dumb, mandatory, biweekly collaborative projects.

Intended, because it just had to be you he was paired with, didn't it? His stupid classroom crush he tried so hard to stop thinking about?

He remembers seeing you for the first time in some math class in sophomore year, and he’d, in his hormone-ruled, bored-out-of-his-mind teenage brain, spent the better half of the period just looking at you. He never worked up the courage to say anything about it to anyone, but you were the prettiest thing he’d seen in his 16 years on Earth, and he hated the way you made his hands all clammy.

Even years later, he looks back on the months he spent being your friend, and he still feels that crushingly familiar clench of his chest.

Maybe it wormed its way almost permanently into him those weeks he first sat next to you in American History. It was a compulory course and both you and he hated it. The teacher - Durand, but Daryl took to calling him Dickhead and Deranged just to see which would make you roll your eyes the hardest - was a notorious douchebag, round glasses over a nose that was entirely too big to stay on his face and three strands of gray hair that seemed to be holding onto his head by spite alone.

He never seemed to take Daryl seriously, even though Daryl knew more than double the amount of history you did. You could pick his brain for hours about the pirates and the Sumerians and the Cherokee and their legends, and he’d let you, despite the glare that marked over his face for anyone else.

In exchange, you let him pick your brain, too. Over the piece of apple pie the two of you would share on the rare occasion you’d both scraped together enough to figure it would be worth buying, he asked about your future. He tried picturing himself with you through it all despite knowing there was nothing for him outside of this shithole town, and he listened to you talk.

He could listen to you talk for hours.

You had big dreams, considering you came from the same place he did, but he had faith you could do it. He knew you could, and even looped his pinky with yours, your thumb pressed up against his while he promised to make it to graduation. He had to watch you toss your cap and flip the bird at 4 years of hell, didn’t he?

But then winter came, and with the Christmas break rounding the corner, Merle came back too, peeling into the dirt road in front of the Dixon dump and taking Daryl along with him. You remember coming back when the second semester started, the same room that had once been used for History now a Government class, and you had hoped to suffer through it together.

You made it through one school week until you’d started asking around.

Nobody got themselves involved with the Dixons - with their surly tempers and their permanent scowls, but you’d gotten into the habit of ignoring those words when you were with Daryl - so when no answers turned up, you weren’t really surprised.

You figured he must have finally gotten his out from his old man.

It was only at graduation that you’d found out what happened to him, overhearing one of the principals talking about how both of Will Dixon’s sons had run away from home and how he’d drunkenly bragged about finally beating sense into them, and, though you knew it was selfish, as the ceremony ticked on, you still hoped Daryl would come back in time to watch your cap toss.

He never did.

When he finally did come back to Georgia, it was a little over a full year later. The old lady that ran the diner the two of you hung around after school had told him that you got a scholarship offer in May - some bigshot school out west - and that you’d packed your bags and left in August.

You weren’t set to come back until the year ended in April, and he wasn’t planning on staying.

He wasn’t planning on making staying anywhere a habit, and, in the blink of an eye, twenty years passed.

A second blink and the world fell.

Everything changed so quickly that it truly did feel like an instant as minuscule as a blink - the dinosaurs had the meteor, and life before them had the ice age - and he couldn’t help but wonder if this was just a breath before a new age flooded in.

It seems like everything he thought about was about the future. Some of it he would have considered trivial before - when the next meal would come, when the next time he’s going to fill his canteen is and where the next source of freshwater is - but, in this blip of time, he hesitates to call it that.

Sometimes, when he went out on his bike or shouldered his crossbow and slipped his knives into his holsters, he thought about how Li’l Asskicker and Carl would grow up - how they would never really get to be kids in the same way Rick probably wanted them to be - and almost nothing he did felt trivial anymore.

It scared him, he guesses - how much he cared about those kids and how much everyone else did, too.

He wished someone cared about him like that when he was younger.

It was good, though, this pressure. Daryl was never really one to half-ass anything in the first place, but with the intake of Woodbury and the Council’s decision to start bringing people in, there was a new drive to care. It rippled through the prison, and he liked it, being a part of something bigger than himself.

He felt like someone new.

Someone that mattered - that did good - instead of being some asshole with a bigger asshole for a brother.

At least, he did until he saw you.

Two weeks after taking in the people of Woodbury - with one week spent out recruiting and another spent in the infirmary because they’d met some less than friendly people who definitely did not fit the recruitment criteria - he saw you from around the corner, an all too familiar face helping Carol with meal prep in the courtyard.

He didn’t eat lunch that day, and to say he avoided you was an understatement.

There was something about you that brought back feelings he would have rather left in the past. You reminded him of when he was a teenager, stuck in his shitty hometown with his piece of shit old man and no way out. But at the same time, you reminded him of those nights spent down at the creek, skipping stones and staring at the stars, that comforting lack of second-guessing because he knew he was, for the first time in his life, in the company of someone who actually wanted to spend time with him.

You reminded him of that diner with the warm apple pie, and he never could forget the first time his heart ever beat against his ribs like it was too big for his chest.

But, most of all, you reminded him of first love and his broken promise - of a future he could never have had.

Daryl hated it, being confronted with his past like that.

So yeah, maybe he did revert back to his old ways of hiding and just trying not to think about his problems, and yeah, maybe he did take one too many runs back to back so he wouldn’t have to keep fighting the urge to look for you despite simultaneously being scared shitless at the thought of talking to you, but it was successful in staying away from you, and that’s all he cared about.

Or, well, he thought it was.

Because, though it’s been nearly two decades since you’d thought about high school - with it long since becoming college, and college into adulthood - it’s crossed your mind more than you’d liked to admit lately. It’s an odd feeling, an ill-fitting nostalgia creeping through the holes of your blanket-covered cell bars, but it was oddly comforting. You never thought you’d ever think of that place as comforting, but maybe it wasn’t high school that you found yourself chasing in the dead of night.

It was him.

Daryl never really knew how popular he was - here, and back then, when those minutes before and after gym class divulged into shushed remarks about his looks and half-serious confessions of crushes muttered to the secrecy of the changeroom’s four walls - but you did. You were always on the other side of it, silent in your agreement.

Woodbury - or, well, ex-Woodbury - was no different.

He’s a far cry from that scrawny little kid you split your lunch with all those years ago, but there's still the linger of boyish handsomeness to him that made your cheeks heat when you thought about him too long. There was no mistaking him for anyone else, but that subdued, ultraviolet warmth you’d grown familiar with was gone from his eyes.

He’s not seventeen anymore, flipping his uncut hair from his face as he taught you how to skip stones and catch fireflies, but you wanted to talk to him all the same. There’s not much left from the old world - let alone much that you could have considered good, or wanted to remember - but he’s one of the few things you’d cared enough about to keep safe from the pulling tide that faded your memories.

He made that shitty town more bearable, even if it was for those few months. Gritting your teeth and enduring had become tiring until he’d grimaced at that first History Inquiry project and made you laugh with the annoyed upturn of his lip. 

You’d planned on thanking him at graduation, but he’d left months before then. 

You’d planned on a lot of things to be frank, but there’s no reason to linger in the past when now is a shell of what then was.

There’s even less of a reason when now feels heavier than then ever was.

Today would have marked ten days without incident, a first foray into the monumental double digits until the sun had set behind the return of the run crew’s RV and Beth was forced to flip the number back to zero.

It’s been four hours since they came back - a quarter of the group gone from the unfriendlies they’d met, another dealing with the aftermaths of the encounter and one more made up from those the crew’s recruited - and it’s the first time in those four hours that you’ve left the dingy wing of the infirmary.

You didn’t hate it in there. Far from it, actually, with Hershel and the others being half-decent company and seeing the work you did benefiting people, but the infirmary, especially on days when the crews rounded back, meant the stinging smell of blood and death lingered no matter how much you scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. It stuck to every crevice on your body, and it permeated. Guilted you for not trying hard enough and not knowing enough.

On days like this, everywhere you went seemed too small and too unforgiving, and you’re not sure if you can stand tossing and turning in your bunk. The night sky is a friendlier sight than your ceiling, and the view from the abandoned watchtower is a hell of a lot better than the tiny, barred-up window at the corner of your cell.

If you’re lucky enough, maybe sleep will steal you for a couple of hours before the sun comes up. At least enough to make it through the next day.

You have faith it will - you can already feel the first wave of exhaustion pull at your bones.

Taking a breath, you press your hands into your pockets after pushing the door to the Prison open and slipping out. Autumn is beginning to seep through the cracks of summer and the nights are starting to get colder, but your jacket should be enough until you climb up and find sanctuary in the sleeping bag you’d left there three days ago.

It doesn’t take long to reach the door - if you jig the knob to the right before twisting and skip the third step from the top, the trek upwards is close to silent - but when you open it, the creak yields, at first, an expletive before the annoyed voice tears through the quiet.

“I already told ya I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout-”

The volume of him makes you take a step back, the sound of a man making your body lock up for just a second before you recognize the mess of hair atop his head and the wings stitched on the back of his vest, and you make quick work getting to him, crossing the platform in a single stride.

“Daryl?”

And he’s quick to realize the person speaking to him isn’t Carol like he’d thought. Though he really really really hopes it’s not you, the familiarity of your voice leaves little room for speculation, even before he turns his head and - for the first time in a long time - really, really looks at you.

“Oh.”

His heart beats in his ears and locks his throat before he can muster up anything else to say, and for a second, you wonder if you should introduce yourself to him. 

“Sorry, I, uh, wasn’t expectin’ no one to be here.”

But the knowing upturn of his eyebrows - his apology, and the way he scoots himself over to make room for you the same way he did in those library reading nooks - tells you you don’t need to, and your shoes slide against the concrete as you drop down to a sit.

He remembers you, too, the sweat of his hands too obvious with the fact, even though he wishes he didn’t.

He wishes there wasn’t a familiarity in the way you sidle your body against his, swinging your legs underneath the railing and over the balcony, and he wishes he couldn’t feel the heat coming off of you.

He wishes it didn’t wrap him up like the warm rays of sun, and he fights down a smile at the fact that you always were so bright. He wishes he didn’t remember you like that - glossed over in a blinding, yellow hue.

Daryl wishes he never remembered you like sunshine - he wishes he didn’t still.

Picking up the glass next to him - just to occupy himself and bide the time until his nervousness hopefully washes away into general apathy - he takes a sip before setting it down and taking a pull of the cigarette in his other hand.

The smoke is slow to fill his lungs, but he welcomes it anyways, holding it there as the nicotine-drawn buzz settles in his brain, and then he breathes it out, angling his head up and away from you.

You never liked it, the Malboros he’d swiped from his old man that he’d keep tucked in the smallest pocket of his worn-down backpack, but you’d told him one night, not unlike the one you’re both trying to find solace in right now, that you were scared of what his father might do if he found out.

Then you slipped in the obviousness of his health, just to break the tension of vulnerability, but it hit Daryl like a truck, the fact that he’d never had someone think about him like that before - like they actually cared.

“Heard your brain cells can rot if you do that.”

He raises an eyebrow at you only to be met with a small smile playing at your lips and the slightest bit of a sparkle in your eye, and the taste still lingering on his tongue reminds him of what he’s been doing. The glass is half full with the room-temperature whiskey he’d tried to make himself feel better with after stitching up his own wounds, and there’s ash from his smoking gathered beside one of the railing's poles, and despite the knowing you’re probably right, he sighs, waving your concern away.

“Ain’t worried. Don’t got a lotta them anyways.”

The cigarette between his fingers is lit still, and he takes another drag before the grayed end of it crumbles to the floor, fighting the upward tug of his cheeks at the sound of your amused huff and your quick response.

“That’s why you gotta take care of the ones you still have, Daryl.”

Scoffing, he tilts the edge of the glass towards you, holding it out for you until you take it from him, and he tries not to think about how the tips of his fingers burn when they brush up against yours. It’s not as sweet, the innocence of a teenage crush long since faded into the dull pang of expired love and loss, but it rushes through him all the same.

He would have offered you a cigarette, too, but you’ve never been one to pick up habits that bad.

A comfortable silence falls over the two of you then, the sky offering a serenity the two of you are less than strangers to, and you wince from the liquor when you finally take a sip. It’s nothing like the moonshine he’d smuggled from his dad’s stash - it went down a hell of a lot smoother than you remember that shit going - but your tolerance has taken a nosedive since weekends unwinding and inter-departmental parties had ended.

Besides, the only places you could get alcohol back in Woodbury were way above your paygrade.

Placing the cup back onto the concrete, you steal a glance at Daryl, spending just a second studying the curve of his nose and the jut of his cheekbone. He’s more handsome than he’s ever been, and you can feel the heat rush up your neck before you blink away the thought.

Get a hold of yourself.

But you can’t, not when he’s so close, and you’re not sure if it’s wholly unselfish, what makes you drop your eyes down from his face, but you do, and you realize why he was so on edge when he heard the door open.

He’s fidgeting. Ever since he put out his cigarette, he’s restless and can’t quite figure out what to do with his hands in the same way he was when you’d asked him why he never wanted to go home back in the school library, and it sends you back, too, a familiar pit growing in your stomach. It’s like he’s that kid again, scared of telling you - or, well, people - things that hurt because his stupid brother and dad drilled into him that he’s less of a man for even feeling hurt in the first place, and it’s equal parts infuriating and concerning.

You can tell that the gears are turning in your head as you try to piece him together; a run crew came back just today, and you haven't seen him in a little while. It doesn’t take a genius to make the connection - especially with everyone’s propensity to talk about how Daryl brought them in - and though you might regret it, you decide to pry.

Not pry, just ask.

Conversation used to flow so easily between the two of you. Were you naïve to hope it would again?

“Bad day?”

It’s small, your voice, teetering in the air with its uncertainty, but Daryl doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, he glances down at the space between you, wrapping his fingers around the highball before meeting your gaze, and he bites the inside of his cheek, weighing the option of telling you or not.

“Jus’ tired is all.”

And though he hesitates those first few words, your eyes are so kind - so genuinely caring - that he can’t stop himself from saying more.

That was what he was scared of.

Why hasn’t he let you go? 

“Sick’a fuckin’ losin’ people.”

The frustration when he speaks is palpable, and you’re not sure if it’s bravery or stupidity that makes you move - maybe it’s both, culminating in your own desire that someone would finally see through your crippling bravado and offer you a hug or something - but your hand snakes out to grab his before you even think, shaking it slightly in the strength of your squeeze.

Then he freezes, and for a second, you think you must have overstepped - that he’s going to push you away and yell at you and leave - but he doesn’t. He just takes a breath, the heft of it rising his shoulders then dropping it as he squeezes your hand back harder, a silent thank you in the press of his fingers against yours.

But still, he lets go, afraid the warmth in his chest might make him do something he regrets, and you chew at the dried skin of your lip, thinking about the right thing to say.

Fuck, you could never navigate things like this - it got better as you got older, sure, but words always seemed to fall short when it came to you and him - and when you finally settle on something, half of you wonders if it was just because you thought it better than nothing.

“I feel you.”

Because what else are you supposed to say? That it’s going to be alright and that he shouldn’t blame himself because it's so blatant he is? It’s thin ice you’re walking on, the fear of sounding patronizing drowning out the spark of hope you want to light him with, because you remember the man he was. He’s never had anyone fighting in his corner, and you’re not callow enough to think he thinks of you as something - someone - different.

But he does. He does think of you as someone different, and he wants to say more, but he doesn't know where he stands with you, or with himself. If he says what he’s thinking - that he feels like it is his fault and that he’s not sure if he could ever stop feeling like that. That he’s scared shitless and like it’s some big joke that people actually look up to him for things - wouldn’t that make it feel too real?

So he doesn’t. He just tips the lip of the glass against his and takes another sip to make sure his mouth is occupied, staring down at the bottom ridge of it until you speak again, and he’s helpless to do anything but look at you.

“At least it’s beautiful out tonight.”

He’s sent back to twenty years ago then - the scrawny redneck you’d somehow deemed good enough to be your friend forcing his old habits back to the him of the present - and he can’t help the squeaked little noise of a response. Words have always been hard for him, too. They’re hard for him to think of and even harder for him to form, and it’s made worse by the fact it’s almost like he’s back at 16, convinced that you’re too pretty to talk to.

“Yeah.”

And though you hear his hum of agreement, he never looks away from you, admiring the curve of your familiar smile and the rise of your cheekbones.

The lurch of his heart comes back then - the same beat against his ribs that he hated all those decades ago - and it’s stark then, the realization you’ve never really left him.

“Ain’t never seen nothin’ like it.”

Pressing his lip to the edge of the glass once more, he welcomes the burn of whiskey when you smile at the moonlit horizon, and he watches as you lean your chin against your arms.

You’re beautiful - more beautiful than all the colours in the star-speckled sky - and he could stare for hours.

[daryldixonluv]

just beta read the reunion fic that @haruhey finished writing... when i tell you that this one is good, i mean that this one is GOOD. i think you'll all really enjoy it :]

small sneak peak that i like >:)

[lightheadedmask]

Sneak Peek 😉 ✨

The girl in the yellow dress. That’s what Dean called her. He had only ever seen her in his dreams, comforting him, whispering sweet nothings in his ears, and he didn’t understand how he could yearn for someone that his mind had probably created in an attempt to help him experience a little bit of relief. It made no sense. His life was that of a hunter, filled with pain, anguish, blood, and wounds that never seemed to fully heal before he had another. He had accepted that a long time ago. And yet, here he was, looking forward to crawling into bed once more. If he could chase the thought of her in his dreams, then that was enough, right?

It was only after seeing her for the fifth night in a row that Dean started to realize that maybe she was more than someone that only lived in his head.

And he finally asked a question he’d been avoiding, “What’s your name, sweetheart?”

She smiled, hand going to cup the side of his face. “Y/N,” she hummed.

[ichoriism]

   – jin steps into the cute bakery kyungmin told him about last night. his nose is invaded by the sweet smell of sweet treats just being out of the oven paired with fresh bread and cinnamon. one minute in here and he can tell the owner is experienced in his business contrary to what his brother had said. jin allows himself to snigger a bit, all too knowing that kyungmin was just bad-mouthing this place as an attempt to support jin’s business. ❛ ah, it must have been hard for him. they even have these chocolate cupcakes he likes so much, ❜ he muses out loud as he crouches down to take a good look of the desserts displayed. 

with jonghyun ( @haruwrites​​ )

[bvtterfliies]

     ( based on this. ) ☾ ˚⊹ *・゚countless nights were spent like this, the two tangled up in each other. callie knew that it was wrong, that she should quit whatever the two were doing, but she was too head over heels with them. there was so many factors that told her to leave them, to end it once and for all, but callie couldn’t do it. sure, they were dating her best friend, but wasn’t callie with them first ? she saw the good, the bad and the ugly with them so how was it fair that her best friend got the best ? she would never quite figure that out. “ tell me you can stay here all day, ” she whispered, her head upon their chest. ( @haruwrites​ )

[brucelees-a]

@haruwrites​ liked this for a short starter !

"oh, you had a bit too much to drink last night, so i put you to bed before you got into trouble.”

[goldhhearts]

▲ for brooklyn and seonghan hhhhh

[pencilmoon-a2]

♥　♡　♥ ・・・・ “  after  a  certain hour,  byeol  is  uninterested  in  social  interaction. so  when  a  knock  comes  to  her  door  when  she’s  well  into  a  bag  of  nutter  butters and  the  fourth episode  of  unsolved mysteries  on  netflix, she’s  tempted  to  simply  the  visitor  who  dares  to  impede  on  the  witch’s alone  time.  but  then  she  hears  the  click  of  the  door  unlocking  and  she  throws her  head  back  on  the  couch.  the neighbor.  the  one  she’d  passed a  key  along  to  with  a  kind  ‘  just  come  by  if  you  need  anything ‘ earlier  in  the  week.  she’s  placed  enough wards  and  proective spells  on  her  place  to  keep  her  and  her  belongings  safe,  so  the  idea  of  having  them  pop  in  of  their  own  accord doesn’t  bother  her.  it’s  more  the  ‘coming in  after  12  at  night’ bit  that  gets  to  her, “ I  feel  like  I  said  12pm  was  the  cut  off  for  that  offer. “  she  calls  out,  pressing pause  on  the  remote  and shuffles on slippered feet  meet  them  in  the  foyer, “  what’s  up  ??  “

〈 @haruwrites​ | feat. soo byeol. plot [ x ] (9th bullet) !! 〉

[haruhey]

and if i posted a fic i finished in september 2021 what would y’all do

[pcrscphone]

so in all fairness.. it was dumb. he was dumb. minnie knew this and well he definitely had a tendency to let his body run off with an idea before his mind caught up to that-- and that was where the drinking and anything else that came with it came from. he was angry though, and upset. maybe more upset but the drink brought out the anger and the pain and he had definitely no doubt embarrassed himself probably in the process, but waking up the next morning he couldn’t seem to think that far ahead yet. the issue of how much of a mess he was wasn’t catching up yet when he felt like he’d been ran over by a train then throw off a cliff. or that’s what his head was telling him as he groaned loudly, half rolling out the bed and not taking much notice of anything expect the smell of food hitting him now as he padded out brokenly. he couldn’t tell if it smelled good or made him want to throw up yet, though the more important question really should be about.. how there was the smell of food and-- oh.

minnie’s eyes widen a little as he takes in the sight of a stranger-- no. not a stranger. he definitely recognises them from the bar and oh that’s sending gears turning in his head. was he the type to have a one night stand after finding out his boyfriend was cheating? was he like that? maybe he had to reevaluate himself.. or just think about the fact he’s openly staring at the other now in silence because he’s a fucking idiot that doesn’t know how his mouth works apparently. 

muse: ryu minnie  plot: this for: @haruwrites

[wewritethings]

RULES

FOR SHIPS:

• If you ask for a ship, focus more on your personality traits and interests rather than your looks!

• Feel free to send in lengthy descriptions!

• If you anonymously ask for a ship and it is lengthy or requires multiple asks, please add an emoji, nickname, etc. so that we can identify which ask belongs to whom. It will also be easier to identify which ship is yours later on!

• All ships will be tagged under #ship

• Please don’t be upset if we pair you with someone you dislike, this is simply our opinion!

FOR REQUESTS:

• We will NOT write anything involving bestiality, pedophilia, or incest.

• We will however be writing smut!

• All requests/non-requests will be tagged #writings and requests specifically will be under #requests

FOR HEADCANNONS:

• Same rules for requests apply to headcannons

• All headcannons will be tagged #headcannon

OVERALL:

Hello and welcome! We are fairly new to writing so please be patient. We accept constructive criticism and can’t wait to write for you. Feel free to ask anything or even just chat. Anything written by Rose will be under #rosewrites while anything by Haru will be under #haruwrites

- Haru and Rose

[ichoriism]

–   proud and all too direct when it came to confrontations and making himself heard, kyungmin was often feared and labeled simply as a ‘ bitch ’. it’s not that he didn’t care for other people’s feelings, it's just that after years of seeing his brothers being mistreated worse than bags of garbage, he took it upon himself to stand up for all of them. the habit had stuck –and it also helped he liked to make rude people regret their attitude when they crossed ways, it was a petty satisfaction he liked indulging it. so when tall, dark, and handsome stepped into his little boutique in hongdae, kyungmin didn’t make a fool of himself like his personal did. he rolled his eyes at them and pointed for the girls to go behind the counter. ❛ good afternoon, ❜ he greeted, shooting him a smile no different from others. ❛ can i help you look for anything in particular or would you rather just look around? ❜

with jinhwan ( @haruwrites​ )

[brucelees-a]

* – —  riley  &  vannes    ♡     a starter for @haruwrites​​

“um, okay, s-so about that thing i just blurted out...” riley stammers awkwardly, silently wishing the ground would just swallow him whole. even after all the dumb things he has done in his life, he actually can’t believe he is stupid enough to moan out ‘i love you’ whilst cumming inside of his friend. the worst part of all is that he truly means what he said, but judging by the look on the other’s face, that feeling isn’t mutual. he can’t blame him, because their little arrangement is supposed to be purely sexual, a way for riley to explore his sexuality and for vannes to get off without any strings attached. after his messy break up with his previous boyfriend, riley felt like this was exactly what he needed in his life, just some casual fun and no complicated feelings, but of course riley couldn’t just keep that promise to himself. “i guess i do feel that way about you, yeah,” he mumbles, avoiding eye-contact with the other. “i’m sorry for messing this up...” 

[ichoriism]

   ahn sara was a woman of few words and great expectations. her only son was her most treasured gift and the moment her eyes laid on that tiny face as she held him close for the first time, she decided there’s nothing she wouldn’t do to keep her son safe. she stared at the door before her for a good moment, black channel glasses on her face. a long, slender finger reached for the doorbell button and she pressed on it. her pretty bow-shaped lips –identical to her son’s–, pressed together into a tight line as she waited.

with – @haruwrites​ .

[decendingfromgrace]

HARU I CAN NEVER GET ENOUGH OF YOUR WRITING STYLE. I’m so excited for the angry reader arc. I remember watching this scene but you made me experience with a brand new life. Just- the way you wrote about it brought the unspoken dread and fear I felt while watching the scene, but with a new charged energy that makes what you’ve written here all the more potent

It’s Not Enough Anymore

check out my masterlist!

Word count: 3.3k

Angst | Follows the events of Season 7, episode 1: A Day Will Come When You Won’t Be | Thank you to @belatalbotgf and @dxrylswalker for betaing

Everything that could go wrong goes wrong.

or

A full-throttle dive into the Negan plotline after avoiding it forever. 

It wasn’t supposed to end up like this.

When you went out, the only goal in mind to get Maggie to a doctor because she looked so sick and so fucking pale, it wasn’t supposed to end up like this.

Abraham wasn't-

Gravel digs into the knees of your sweatpants, the blaring lights blinding you into deafness, and the throbbing in your head is accompanied by a scorching numbness down your cheeks. You look a mess. You feel it, too - a mess of tears, of sweat, of shaking limbs and bloodshot eyes - but everyone does. Knelt here, in front of these people, everyone you care about and have cared about is a mess.

The only ones who don’t are too familiar with the warfare hung at the tip of this asshole’s bat. 

You can barely hear Sasha whimpering to your left as you watch each swing - your own sobs threatening to bubble up from your throat and rip past the quiver of your lips. The rush and deflate of adrenaline making your head feel like cotton - and even though you want to, you can’t look away. Abraham’s head is pulp battered into the ground, some of his blood running almost black against the shine of headlights as streams of it map down whatever is left of his neck, and you hate the gait of the man in front of you.

Negan twirls his bat then, too carefree and too jovial, and in a second, something hits you. It’s warm, the streak of it marking across your forehead and gathering where your eyebrows furrow, and it takes a second before you realize what it is.

It’s Abraham.

It’s his fucking blood.

You can’t even will yourself to move and wipe it off. The second Negan opens his mouth, you freeze, each neuron in your body refusing to fire as your chest tightens up again. Hands balled up against the middle of your thighs, you think you can feel your fingernails through the layer of fabric you’re clenching, Your head drops, the shock holding your eyes open finally slinking away, and fat teardrops wet your knuckles, blurring your vision.

Maybe it’s for the best, the fact you can’t see through the haze of your own torment.

But you can hear him. You can hear him move. He walks away from you, the crunch of gravel sounding with each step, and you whip your head in his direction when it stops.

No.

Rosita.

It’s frantic, the way you wipe away your tears, liquid coating the flesh of your thumb, and when they come into your view, they’re red, a sick mixture with Abraham’s blood painting wet on them. Bile rises from your stomach to replace your swallowed-down scream, and the mortified look on Rosita’s face haunts you from across the lineup.

He just took one or six or seven for the team, Negan taunts, so take a damn look.

His voice sounds like scratching, like rope burn against an open cut and the twist of a dull knife.

So take a damn look.

Then it all happens so fast; the spring of a bulky figure rising to his feet, the hard right hook he lands on Negan, and the only person you could think of with enough courage and stupidity to be that fucking headstrong is-

“Daryl-“

Your throat is dry, the length of it feeling cracked from breathing in the miserable midnight air, and his name barely even comes out above a whisper. Your body surprises you with the way it moves - an inch, maybe, your knees driving your upper body forward - but you know you can’t get to him.

Even if you could, what would you do?

It’s not the forest he knows like the back of his hand. It’s not some abandoned warehouse or apartment building you and Daryl were assigned to scavenge. It’s not digging out a bullet he took a little too close to the femoral artery. You know this. After all that’s happened, how could you not?

The two of you against the world, it just isn’t enough.

Not anymore.

But it doesn’t stop you from moving, your shoulders sitting past your knees as the skin on your palms rip from the jagged rocks on the ground. It’s stupidity that fuels you. It must be. Daryl’s misplaced courage and his overwhelming stupidity must have rubbed off on you, but you’re not as headstrong as him.

In the same way it had propelled you forward, your body stops you, freezing you rigid as Negan’s men tackle him to the ground. You hear him then, another twist of the blade as he yells his disapproval towards Daryl, but then you hear him chuckle - watch him amble in a circle and crouch down to where his people are holding Daryl down - and you’re terrified.

This is the end.

A man comes running out of the crowd then, half his face burnt and a mop of thin blond hair, and it doesn’t take long for you to realize the crossbow he’s holding is Daryl’s. You know that crossbow - you’ve held it and laughed when Daryl watched you miss the practice targets, felt the sore weight of it in your arms as you became accustomed to its draw, took it apart and cleaned it when he broke his finger tinkering with his bike - and you’ve saved his life with it more than once since the prison.

But it’s just a crossbow, no matter how much it means in your hands or Daryl’s, and the man holds it as such, pointing it at Daryl’s head as if he was an animal meant to be put down.

He looks it, swollen eyes darting around and held to the ground, a hand pulling his hair like he’s meant to be inspected. 

Your blood runs cold as you watch, helpless and shrinking while Negan toys around with Daryl’s fate in his head, and the only thing you can do is hope and pray to a god you’re not sure even exists that Daryl will come out of this alive. 

But then Negan says no, and it takes you aback, a relief washing over you as he gets dragged back between Rosita and Michonne, but it doesn’t last long. The second Negan starts up again - a hand on his hlp and a gesture of his bat - there’s no relief to be found anywhere. 

The first one’s free, then what did I say?

It torments, his tongue, dancing along weighted syllables.

I need you to know me

You feel it crush your lungs, and it steals your ability to breathe, the implications of his words dawning on you.

He’s going to kill someone else.

He’s going to kill someone else and he’s going to make you watch.

Again.

In a split second, he turns, his back to you as he lifts his bat, and though it happens so quick, time stands still.

You hear Glenn’s skull crack on the first swing, and you physically recoil. The second one makes you sob, and you’re sure it’s not him, but the force of Negan’s swings makes it feel like the ground is shaking. You wish it was. You wish the earth would tear apart and swallow you into it whole. You wish anything would just happen so you wouldn’t have to just sit and watch and listen.

Negan taunts. All he fucking does is taunt and taunt and taunt. He laughs and patronizes and leans in close as if fascinated by the blood rushing down Glenn’s face and the eyeball popped out of his socket. He plasters on fake concern, a fake apology lining his lips as if he felt any semblance of actual remorse for his actions while Glenn gathers the last bit of coherence he can to talk to Maggie, but he can’t fool anyone.

Each time he brings his bat down, it’s an ever-present ringing in your ear. Again, again and again - laughing, laughing and laughing.

You can’t be here.

It feels like a nightmare, but each time you breathe, you can feel a breeze on your wrist, the arms propping you up falling and surrendering your weight to your forearms instead. No matter how much you try to convince yourself this isn’t real, each broken puff of air reminds you it is.

So you close your eyes.

You rest your forehead on your stubborn wrist and close your eyes and hope that if you just blinked hard enough, you’d wake up. That this, this would stop.

It doesn’t. It doesn’t stop because it’s not how reality works.

But he does. Eventually, when his arms tire and there’s nothing left that you can recognize as Glenn, Negan stops, his voice straightening you back into a sit.

You were supposed to watch, and you’re terrified of what would happen if he had caught you.

Even after he stops, reprieve doesn’t come. The smell of metal lingers in the air, stinging your nose and making your skin crawl, and the only thing you can hear are the sobs ripping through Maggie’s throat. It’s muffled at first, the water you’d felt like you were under ebbing away, your brain returning to you as if it had shut off to keep you from even conceptualizing what you’d just seen, but its efforts can’t stop you from replaying every single goddamn thing.

Time drags on forever, drawing the sun up from under the horizon and painting a haze of fog over the trees, and exhaustion pulls at you. You’re in a limbo, teetering on the edge of fatigue and anxiety-induced restlessness. Your arms have long since forced themselves into a rest - somewhere between Rick getting into that RV and the overwhelming waves of nausea - but you’d long since given up on trying to control your body.

It’s your head that you need to control.

Because you keep seeing Negan’s first swing - keep seeing Abraham brace for it - and you can feel his blood on your forehead.

Then it’s Glenn, the crack of his skull and the twitch of his lifeless body.

Then it’s everyone.

You watch it happen to Rick, to Michonne. You watch it happen to Eugene, to Sasha, to Aaron and to Carl. It’s so vivid behind your eyelids that you’re not even sure what’s real anymore. You want to scream into the gravel just to feel the raw tear of it at your throat, but you can’t find the power to do it. You’re not even sure you can lift your neck from the way it falls limp toward your chest. 

Steadying your breath, you clench your fingers to force blood to return to them as you hear the engine run closer, and you pull your arms up from underneath you, lifting your head. Your breath is trapped in your lungs as you watch the RV roll in, your gaze passing brain matter and guts before it’s stuck on the front door. Rick’s been gone for hours by now, and you’re not sure if he’s even still in there.

The door swings open then, slamming against the side of the truck before Rick’s thrown out of it. You swallow hard at the way he hits the ground, shoulder first and dazed in a way that you can’t find any words to describe. Negan comes soon after, a nonchalance in his swagger before he picks Rick up by the collar, and the way he drags him across the gravel punches up into your chest.

Rick’s struggling to keep up - to find his bearings - but he never does, palms breaking against the ground for some semblance of balance and a panicked look on his face. He lands that way too, on shaking knees while Negan spews another monologue, the same twist, twist, twist of that dull knife returning to you. 

You’re not sure you’ve ever seen Rick like this - this defeated. 

There was always a drive in him to accomplish. He needed it to continue. It drove everything he’s ever done to show Carl that there was a whole future out there that was possible, but that drive in him is slowing, almost speeding to a stop.

He’s weak on his arms as his eyes dart around him, all of you listening as Negan just keeps talking and talking and talking. You hate the sound of his voice, but you find yourself wishing that it was all he would do. If he just talked then he wouldn’t be able to really do anything.

It’s all hope, though. All useless hope because it doesn’t take long for him to gesture with a gloved hand and for a cacophony of subservient triggers to sound behind you. You can feel cold metal lingering just an inch from the back of your head, and you bite your lip until it bleeds when Negan calls Carl up.

Michonne tries. Even through her tracks of tears and her quivering voice, she tries to reason with Negan, but nothing gets through to him. Rick knows already. Rick understands - probably better than anyone, you want to scream it out to him - but you know it won’t do anything. So you keep your mouth shut and fight the pool at the corner of your eyes as you avert your gaze for your own safety, the hopelessness in you churning and churning into something more explosive.

Nothing messy, clean, 45 degrees. Give us something to fold over.

God, does he ever just fucking shut up?

Rick’s begging easily cuts through your thoughts, crying and pleading for it to be him - for it to be him and please not Carl - but Negan berates him, screaming and yelling so loud it sends you into yourself, flinching away and trying to get as far from them as possible. Your head knocks against the gun behind you and there’s a forceful push to your head to get it back to where it was, and the air around you sears your lungs as he counts down.

It’s some sick game for him, you know it is, and all you want is for it to be over.

Metal slides against rock a few beats after Negan’s one, and though you’re not even looking in Rick and Carl’s direction, you squeeze your eyes shut, waiting for the squelch of sliding flesh and the sharp thunk of it meeting bone.

It never comes, though.

Thank God it never comes, but when you look back, there’s nothing in Rick’s eyes. As Negan yells at him and chastises him, there’s nothing but surrender and yielding. The drive is gone, replaced by an all-consuming fear of what’s next, and your stomach is unrelenting in the knots it twists.

All you can do is hope that it’s over - that you’ll be able to carry Abraham and Glenn back to Alexandria and give them a proper burial - but, there’s an odd feeling within you. While Rick’s fire is gone, yours is sparking, kindling alight. You’re exhausted, the fatigue weaving into your joints and the fibers of your muscles, but something swims volatile within it, too. 

Maybe it’s anger, maybe it’s determination and fury and resentment mixing together and settling in the night that’s passed. You’re not sure. All you know is that it’s consuming you, burning away at your numbness and your hopelessness. 

It powers you enough to finally lift your eyes and drag them over everyone else. They look the same way you do, tracks down their cheeks and shoulders slumped, empty eyes and shaking breaths, and you can’t even bring yourself to look at Maggie. You can hear the way her sobs linger in her throat, and even if you try to force a glance, you’re scared you’ve cried all your tears and something inhumane will come up instead.

Please, just let this be over.

And it almost is. God fucking damn it, it almost is, but nothing good’s happened today.

Why would it change now?

Why would you hold on to that idiotic idea?

Negan calls a name then, a familiar one - the burn stamped to his flesh flushing up the memory of the crossbow pointed at Daryl’s head - and just as his arms loop underneath Daryl’s, the streak of red down his open chest blurs in your vision.

No. No, he can’t-

Despite everything - despite your shaking legs and your burning lungs - you lunge for Daryl as he kicks at the ground in a frantic attempt to secure his footing. Blood still lingers on your palms from the last time your body acted before your brain, and you realize, no, this is the stupidity. This is that dangerous mix of Daryl that you must have picked up, but it’s not just him. It’s also desperation.

Desperation not to lose him. Desperation not to feel alone again.

No, no, no - they took Abraham, they took Glenn - you’re not sure if you could handle-

“Daryl!”

There’s a grab of your shoulder then, pulling back with such force that it knocks you down to your side, a kick to your rib rattling through your torso, and you don’t have the energy to fight the pain searing through you. They’re too strong and you’re too drained, thick soles of hiking shoes and steel-toed boots digging hard against your bones, and the ground’s sharp rocks indent your skin as if to humiliate you further.

“No! Get off’a-”

They hold you down by the hem of your shirt and by the collar of your jacket as Daryl yells, his shoulders jolting against the hands on him with the same desperation yours are. He’s never had someone like you - everything that was good and could still be good, he believed in them because, even though he fought it, your stupid smile twisted his pessimism and tore it into hope - and he can’t be the reason you’re gone too.

It’s barely a scuffle - it takes no time for the two of you to be overpowered, both of you held in clammy, trigger-happy hands - and you watch from the ground as Daryl’s thrown into the car, hunched over and shifting on his feet as if waiting for an opening.

It never comes. His crossbow is pointed almost mockingly at him, and when the doors pull shut, there’s no proof he was ever there except the ground where he was knelt. The pebbles that once lied even now piled up around the clearing his knees had made. 

They don’t let you up until Negan’s done talking, something about liking Daryl and how Rick shouldn’t try anything unless he wanted him back in pieces taunting you in the back of your mind. When they finally let you go, they look down at you with nothing but duty in their eyes - an upturn of disgust on their lips - and there’s no remorse to be found anywhere on their faces.

To them, you’ll never be anything more than a nuisance. Nobody here could be, Negan made sure of it. You could barely even be considered a threat in the state you’re in, your cheeks stained with dried tracks and your hair streaking down your forehead from cold sweat. No, to them, you’re a chore.

They look at you and can smell the hopelessness permeating your body and swimming through your veins if they even cared to linger for more than a fleeting glance, but after they load back into the trucks and peel out, leaving you to pick up each piece of yourself and wipe away the haze of tears and bruises and blood with your trembling hands, something new settles within you.

Finally, anger comes, rooting deep in your chest. It burns through your blood and shakes each breath.

They took Abraham - they took Glenn - there’s no way in hell you’ll let them take Daryl, too.