#Mar you picked the one fic I was like 'man this shit is Awful' but ily anyways | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

polaroidpascal · 3 months ago

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i've rarely, if ever, explored the world of dark!joel fics... but holy. fucking. shit. i've been struggling to put the words together to explain the way this makes me feel, and it only gets stronger and stronger with the more you decide to share with me. like... i am so fucking invested in this. i wish there was a way i could just pluck my heart out and translate the physical feeling into words or like a visual but i literally can't, IT'S JUST TOO MUCH 😭😭😭

ANYWAYYYSSS... i am sooo fucking excited for more of this. i'm so invested. i'm on edge. i'm holding my breath. i'm falling for him when there is LITERALLY no reason to. i'm deluding myself into thinking he's not that evil but man, oh man, i know he is, like sooo evil. BEYOND evil. and he is also beyond saving, truly.

winter, i bow down to you 🧎‍♀️

it’s not like she’s winning the “mom of the year” award any time soon, either. She’s never even been nominated.

the "she's never even been nominated” made me giggle 😭

You sit cross-legged, elbows propped up on your knees so that your hands can support your weary head, the skin of your palms becoming slippery with salty tears as your crying just doesn’t seem to stop. The road you’ve found yourself on seems relatively low-trafficked, the heaving sounds of your sobs accompanied by more cricket chirps and rustling wheat than rumbling tires.

idk why i could see this so clearly in my head and it made me so sad. like my chest started getting achey i was like :( i feel like i AM her fr

He’s probably just somebody’s harmless grandfather, anyway, judging by his motheaten flannel and gray-stricken beard you can see now that you’ve approached his truck a few paces closer.

JUST SOMEBODY'S HARMLESS GRANDFATHER AIDUBFAKJSDBF

Joel is lucky that all he came away from it with is that ugly little scar that mars the bridge of his nose. He can’t say the same for her.

ohhhhhh my god... making his nose scar be from one of his victims... and from her specifically... oh my fucking GOD.

You suppose that’s what you’ve been needing all this time, someone to guide you and understand you and at least pretend like they care about you.

hello yes i am in this fic and i don't like it 🧎‍♀️ i literally stepped back for a sec i was like woah.

The last room they had, yeah, right. You’re just the most pathetic little thing, aren’t you? You’ll believe just about anything that comes out of his mouth if he turns up the ‘southern charm’ dial a few ticks, throws in a feigned apologetic-looking expression for good measure. It’s sad, really. For you, anyway.

HELLO YES I AM IN THIS FIC AND I DONT LIKE ITTT 😭😭😭

That’s what the others would have done. It’s what they have done. And they faced the consequences.

the panic i got from this... and she's not even awake. and these are just his thoughts. she has no fucking idea... oh my god. 😵‍💫

In the morning, if you do remember any of it, you’ll just chalk it up to a very strange dream, one fueled by the desire he knows you’ve felt towards him since he picked you up. You’ll be left with a strange assuredness that he feels the same way about you, without really knowing why. But Joel will always know.

he knows her type too good. he knows exactly what will happen. and then it fucking DOES. joel will always. know.

What you are certain of is that neither of you ever have to go back to that town ever again, and that feels good, too. And if it feels good, then it can’t be bad.

if it feels good, then it can't be bad oh my god you really do want me dead winter. i'm on the floor. i'm going through every emotion humanly possible rn.

again i'm so in awe at this bc i don't typically read fics like this... but holy fucking shit. i'm just in awe at you. i'm so sat for more of this. once again saying that i can't even describe how this has captivated me. i wanna give your brain a big old kiss 🧎‍♀️

strangers | part 1

summary: following in the footsteps of a girl you once knew, you decide to up and leave home one morning without looking back. when you find yourself to be tired, hungry, and alone in the middle of nowhere, you're thankful when a kind stranger offers you a ride, a warm meal, and a place to sleep for the night. he only tells you about himself in bits and pieces, but he seems trustworthy enough, and what you don't know can't hurt you, right?

!!PLEASE READ WARNINGS, THIS IS A VERY DARK FIC!!

I've tried to label this fic as detailed and as boldly as possible. I will not be held responsible or bullied off the internet if you choose to read this potentially upsetting/triggering work of fiction anyway.

warnings: joel miller x f!reader, 18+, smut, age gap (reader is college-aged, joel is mid-50s), no outbreak au, serial killer!joel, dark!joel, talk of death/murder and blood, mommy & daddy issues, brief talk of domestic violence, lying/gaslighting, manipulation, f-receiving non-con somnophilia (no sex, but groping, fingering, dry humping, kissing, and choking), degrading language toward victims, pet names (baby, darlin', sweetheart), some joel pov, no ellie/sarah but tommy has an unnamed daughter, somewhat inspired by "strangers" by ethel cain, takes place in illinois/ohio/indiana, vaguely set in the 70s/80s, this part is mostly introduction/storytelling/yapping, please respectfully let me know if i missed anything and i will rectify the tags

word count: 9.8k

a/n: i started this as a oneshot way back in november, and then it sat abandoned for a very long time. thank you to my lovely friends @polaroidpascal and @chippedowlmug for encouraging me to finish it, and also bestie kiers who never hesitates to match my freak. also thank you to the many writers who made me feel inspired to write something dark and not give a fuck what people think about it. i hope you enjoy this joel he's a freak and i love him and if you say anything mean about him i'll send him after you <3

divider by @saradika

part 2 coming 8/16

Ruby Carpenter.

You had spent all day trying to remember her name without really knowing why. Maybe it’s because as the sun sets on what would be the first day of your junior year at the nearby state school, you wonder if she ever made it to one of the fancy ivy leagues she had always aspired to attend. You wonder if she’s even still alive.

Ruby had disappeared a few years ago now, the summer after your senior year of high school. For nearly a year afterwards, her missing posters remained stapled onto every telephone pole and stuck onto every store window around town, until the paper began to disintegrate and the ink began to fade. In that time, you couldn’t even make a quick run to the grocery store without being confronted by dozens of replicas of her yearbook photo printed onto the sides of all the milk cartons. Despite all of the efforts to find her, including several search parties and a decent amount of statewide media coverage, everyone had just stopped looking for her, eventually. Even the police. Even her parents.

It was decided that she had probably just run away, and you can’t entirely blame her, but you can’t imagine why she would, either. You remember her perfect head of blonde ringlet curls that shone a yellow gold in the sun, and her bright blue eyes that turned fiery in her more passionate moments during classroom debates. She had every boy in your grade wrapped around her finger, was the teacher’s pet in every class, and it wasn’t even a question whether she would win prom queen your senior year. She was always sweet to you, always complimented your outfits or your makeup or your art projects with a genuine lilt in her voice and a kind smile, so you could never bring yourself to hate her even though it would’ve been so easy to. You figured she was going to cure cancer or become the president after you had all graduated, which is why you never really stopped wondering whatever happened to her that summer. She was beautiful, with boundless potential and a bright future ahead of her, why would she have just given it all up?

Everyone around town knew Ruby, or at least it seemed that way. But maybe nobody ever really knew her as well as they thought. Maybe she’d had a secret boyfriend all that time who whisked her away that summer, maybe she had decided to try drugs and fell down a rabbit hole that she couldn’t claw her way out of, maybe she had finally figured out that the only thing this town would ever be good for is holding people back. Maybe she did just wake up one day and decide to run without ever looking behind her.

Maybe you should do the same.

With your dad long gone now and your step-father doing a piss poor job of filling in the hole he left, following in Ruby’s footsteps has sounded like a better idea with each passing day. Rob isn’t even really your step-father, anyway, just your mom’s sorry fucking excuse for a boyfriend. The guy’s already been married upwards of three times before, why try for another one? He’s a lazy son of a bitch who can’t hold down a job at a fast food joint for more than a couple of weeks at a time, who sleeps every second of the day that he’s not chugging through a six pack, and who leaves marks on your mother uglier than his fucking face.

She doesn’t deserve to be treated that way, of course, but it’s not like she’s winning the “mom of the year” award any time soon, either. She’s never even been nominated. She’s forgotten just about every one of your birthdays, been the reason you’ve never had any friends come over, and in her most recent offense, blew all the savings you had put away for your last two years of college. Which is why you’re not spending tonight celebrating being one year closer to at least having an official-looking piece of paper to show for yourself. Instead, you’re using the rattling of your bedroom window unit and the booming bass of your radio to drown out yet another drunken screaming match between your mother and the guy she lets live in your house now, watching the world outside pass you by and knowing that if you don’t do anything about it now, you’ll never make it out of here. You’re thinking about Ruby Carpenter, hoping she found somewhere greener and more promising and was able to make something of herself, far away from here. And you’re thinking that this rusted orange sunset is the last one you’ll ever see from your bedroom window.

It’s decided, then. You’re leaving, first thing tomorrow.

—

You’ve only gotten a few hours of sleep by the time your alarm clock chimes to life at five o’clock on the dot. You’re quick to silence the shrill beeping with a swift swat of your hand, careful not to wake anyone else in the house. The sun has just barely begun to stream in through the blinds of your bedroom window, but it illuminates the room just enough for your eyes to land on the backpack you had stuffed full of a few changes of clothes last night, waiting for you by the door.

You don’t waste any time stripping off your pajamas and pulling on just about the only clothes left in your room that aren’t in your bag. You’ve got your teeth brushed, face washed, and hair tamed in all of about ten minutes, too anxious to spend even one more unnecessary second in this house. You swing your backpack over your shoulder, pull your bedroom door open at just the right speed so that the hinges don’t squeak too loud, and tiptoe delicately down the stairs, careful to avoid the creaky floorboards that you know like the back of your hand—the one three steps from the top, the one at the landing about halfway down, and the very bottom one.

You land softly when you leap over that tattletale bottom step, successful in the most difficult part of your escape plan so far. Rob is passed out on the living room couch in typical fashion, his mouth full of crooked teeth hanging open as his grating snores permeate the calm morning air. He’s still got a death grip around an empty beer can, even in his sleep, and your mother will likely be the one to toss it into the trash for him, useless fucker that he is. You aren’t going to miss either of them, and you imagine they’ll just skip trying to replicate the first half of the aftermath of Ruby’s disappearance altogether—no posters, no search parties, no police. You’ll just be gone, one less mouth for your mother to feed. Though, you’d been mostly feeding yourself since you were tall enough to slide a couple of bills across the counter at the corner store down the street, anyway. You’re ready to disappear, the same as candle wax when it burns, the same as the end of a rainbow, the same as Ruby Carpenter.

You don’t bother looking back when you shut the door behind you, content to leave it all behind just as the sun begins to rise and set the sky ablaze. By the time it sets again tonight, you hope to be in a different county, in a different state, anywhere that isn’t here. The rest, you’ll just have to figure out when you get there, wherever “there” may be.

—

You had only realized about an hour ago that you’d forgotten your cheap digital watch in the drawer of your bedside table, where it’s laid unused for the past couple of months, because who needs to tell time during the summer? You never had anywhere to be, never had to get to class or turn in a paper by a certain time, so it’s just been collecting dust since you had unclipped it from your wrist on the last day of spring semester. It sure would have come in handy right about now, when you have no fucking clue what time it is. The sun had disappeared behind the hills several mile markers back, so it must be… eight o’clock? Ten o’clock? Fucking midnight? You have no idea. What you do know is that you’re exhausted, hungry, and your feet hurt like hell. You aren’t really sure what you expected, the reality only just now setting in that you don’t even have ten bucks to your name anymore, thanks to your narcissist of a mother. The crumpled up bills you do have in your pocket are hardly enough for a goddamn sandwich, let alone a motel room. The cool night breeze raises goosebumps on your skin, and you swear you can see your fucking breath, even in the middle of August. You wrap your arms around yourself just as tears begin to prick at your waterlines, and you let them fall as you collapse onto the scratchy patch of dead grass on the side of the freeway, not a park bench or a bus stop or even a gas station in sight for God knows how many more miles.

After several minutes, your tears seem to dry up on their own, your body likely too dehydrated now to produce any more. You wipe the moisture from under your eyes with the back of your hand, sniffling as you gnaw at the skin of your bottom lip and debate if you should just turn back now, give up on your stupid little plan (or lack thereof) and just call the whole thing a loss, pretend it never even happened. Your mother and Rob won’t have even noticed you’d left.

Just as you pull yourself back up to your feet, set on at least finding somewhere that isn’t the hard ground to sleep on tonight before you make your way back home tomorrow, the warm headlights of an old pickup truck are shining bright in your eyes. You put your arm up to block them as the truck slowly squeals to a halt in front of where you’re standing, and you squint your eyes at the driver as your vision adjusts.

“You need a ride, sweetheart?” A man asks in a gravelly voice, and you can still hardly make out what he looks like. Based on the southern accent you pick up on, he doesn’t sound like he’s from around here.

“N-no, thank you. I’m okay,” you respond shakily, taking a nervous step back from the stranger and his rusted pickup.

“You sure? Looked like you were cryin’ over here, like you might be lost or somethin’.”

“‘M not lost, I know where I’m going.”

“Oh yeah? Where’s that?”

Shit.

You take a guess.

“Um… the motel down the road,” you reply, tilting your head in the direction you had been walking in.

“There ain’t a motel down there, sweetheart. Ain’t nothin’ in either direction for miles, ‘s all just farmland out here. Reckon you’ve already figured that out, though.”

You pause, unsure of what your next move should be. He knows you’re lying, knows you’re alone with no fucking idea where you are or where you’re going. You could run, but even that shitty truck of his could catch up to you in a matter of seconds. You take another step back, swiveling your head around to look up and down the road as you try to figure your best way out of this.

“Just lemme give you a ride somewhere, darlin’. There’s a diner just off the exit, ‘bout twenty miles up ahead. Could take you that far, at least, get you somethin’ to eat,” he offers. A warm meal does sound pretty good right now, and you suppose you aren’t exactly in a position to refuse his help.

You think on it for a second. “What’s it called? The diner.”

The stranger huffs. “Moody’s.”

“What do they have?” you challenge.

He sighs. “It’s a fuckin’ diner off the side of the freeway, darlin’. They got greasy food and black coffee, ‘s about all you need.”

You don’t say anything.

Then, after a beat—“They got some kinda sloppy mess they call the Thunder Burger. ‘S got onion rings and shit on it. Ain’t half bad.”

You have to admit, he’s passing your pop quiz with flying colors. His answers have been too quick, too specific for him to be lying to you. There’s a pretty solid chance this diner does exist, and that he’s been there before. The man hasn’t said anything that’s indicated he wants more to do with you than to offer you a ride and some dinner. He’s probably just somebody’s harmless grandfather, anyway, judging by his motheaten flannel and gray-stricken beard you can see now that you’ve approached his truck a few paces closer.

“Okay,” you concede, your stomach growling loudly as the man leans over the bench seat to pop open the passenger side door for you. You shrug off your backpack and climb into the cabin, clicking your seatbelt into place as you situate yourself on the cracked leather seat.

“All set?” the stranger asks.

“Mhm,” you hum, finally getting a better look at the man you might just owe the rest of your life to after tonight. For being somebody’s grandfather, he’s… kinda handsome. Really fucking handsome, actually, in a rugged sort of way. He’s got warm amber eyes that sparkle even in the dark of night, a kind smile that completely disarms you in an instant, and a splintering scar across the bridge of his nose that somehow only adds to his good looks. You try to suppress your own grin as you look away from him quickly, opting to focus on fidgeting with one of the fraying edges of your denim shorts instead. Even in your peripheral vision, you don’t miss how his eyes shift from your own to the exposed skin of your thighs. He doesn’t say anything, just clears his throat as he shifts gears and steers his truck back onto the road again.

He lets the next few minutes pass in comfortable silence before asking, “You got a name, sweetheart?”

You tell him, and he flashes another charming smile at you. “I like that, ‘s pretty… Well, I’m Joel. Sure you were wonderin’. Now you ain’t gettin’ a ride from a stranger no more, are ya?”

“Yeah, I guess I’m not,” you giggle, and you’re surprised at how comfortable you feel with him. “So… you’ve been to Moody’s before?”

“Handful of times, yeah. When I’m passin’ through.”

You nod. “So you come up here, like… for work or somethin’?”

Joel chuckles. “Or somethin’. You never even heard of the damn place, so… reckon you don’t find yourself out here very often, do ya?”

“No… ‘M not even really sure where ‘here’ is, to be honest. I just kinda… started walking.”

“Ah… a runaway, then, are ya?” Joel asks, with an appreciated amount of understanding in his tone rather than judgment. “‘M sure your folks are missin’ ya right about now, must have your boyfriend worried sick.”

You scoff at that. “Fuck no. They probably don’t even know I’m gone, won’t even bother trying to come look for me. And I don’t have a boyfriend, so…”

“Damn shame. ‘M sorry about that, sweetheart,” Joel comforts, placing a large calloused hand on your thigh. It makes your breath hitch, but his touch isn’t entirely unwelcome. You let him squeeze once at the plush of your leg before he replaces his hand on the wheel, and your cunt spasms out a little fluttering pulse against the seam of your shorts, despite yourself.

The rest of the drive to Moody’s is relatively quiet, save for the gentle crooning of an old country singer emanating from the cassette player on the dash. The soft singing and steady strumming of a banjo combined with the muffled chugging of the truck’s engine is enough to lull you to sleep, especially after the day you’ve had. You know that just about every mental alarm bell you have should be screaming at you to jump out of the car, to run, that sleeping alone in the dirt would’ve been a better decision than getting into this strange man’s—Joel’s—truck, but you’re too tired to hear them. He smells good, like woodsmoke and pine and cinnamon, and if he wanted to do something awful to you, he probably would’ve done it by now. So you trust him, for now at least, and let your lashes fan out against your cheeks as your head falls back against the cushioned headrest, coaxed into sleep by the lullaby of tires against pavement and fingertips against guitar strings.

—

You only rouse when you feel the truck come to a stop about half an hour or so later, slowly blinking your eyes open against the bright neon sign that reads “MOODY’S” in bold capital letters. Your jaw stretches wide as a yawn overtakes the muscles, and you hear Joel’s southern drawl replace the one from the cassette as he shuts the engine off.

“Mornin’, sleepyhead. Not too tired to eat somethin’ now, are ya?”

Another unpleasant-sounding rumble from your empty stomach answers for you, loud enough for both of you to hear this time. The air puffing out of the diner’s kitchen smells strongly of fatty bacon and rich coffee, just like Joel had promised you the place would offer. Although the digital clock on the dash read just after 10:30 before you fell asleep, you’ve never craved breakfast quite like you do right now. You absentmindedly lick your lips as you imagine the sweet and savory—and more importantly free—meal that could be waiting for you beyond that blinding beacon of a sign.

“Well, alright then. Let’s get some food in ya before you keel over, hm?” Joel says as he exits the truck, landing on his feet in the dirt parking lot with a soft groan. He waits by the hood for you to meet up with him, and you walk up the couple of steps to the entrance together. He holds the door open for you, and you offer him a shy ‘thank you’, to which he responds with a soft spoken ‘welcome, sweetheart’. You stand shyly behind his broad form as he asks the hostess for a table for two, and she leads you to a green leather booth tucked into the corner of the diner. She hands each of you a sticky laminated menu, the pages a charming mess of clashing colors and faded pictures and retro-looking fonts, then departs with a promise that your waitress will bring the two of you some water as you take your time deciding on what you might like.

You light up upon reading that Moody’s serves breakfast all day, and that they can make you exactly what you were hoping for—a stack of chocolate chip pancakes with sides of bacon and hashbrowns. You can’t help but smile to yourself as you wiggle in your seat, excitedly anticipating the waitress to come back around so you can order.

“Whatcha so excited about over there?” Joel asks, eyeing you from across the table as he glances up from his own menu.

“Nothin’, I was just hoping I could get some pancakes, and they have ‘em on the menu,” you explain giddily. “I’ll probably get some coffee, too, really complete the whole ‘breakfast for dinner’ thing.”

Joel huffs through his nose. “Decaf, I hope. ‘S the middle of the goddamn night, sweetheart. Gonna be bouncin’ off the walls in the room later, hardly get any sleep.”

He’s right, you suppose. But wait—“What room?”

Joel shrugs casually. “There’s a decent motel another exit or two down, figured they could probably get us a couple o’ beds for the night. But, ‘m sorry, shouldn’t have assumed—”

“No! No, it’s okay.”

Is it? You only met the man less than an hour ago, and you already agreed to let him give you a ride before you even knew his name. You suppose you hadn’t really thought about what would happen after he bought you dinner, but not thinking ahead seems to have been a theme today, hasn’t it? You remind yourself that he’s only been kind and respectful to you so far, save for that placement of his hand on your upper thigh soon after he picked you up. But that could’ve just been a friendly, paternal gesture, right? And he said a couple of beds, when he mentioned the motel, which seemed to imply that he plans on the two of you sleeping in separate beds, maybe even separate rooms. You’ve found yourself having to make yet another somewhat reckless decision tonight, but one that would be in your best interest to say ‘yes’ to, at this point. What other option would you have if you declined his offer?

“Don’t really have anywhere else to go, so… yeah, okay. Motel sounds good. And decaf it is, I guess.”

Joel’s apologetic expression quickly morphs into a satisfied smirk. “Good girl,” he praises. You like how the words sound coated in his thick drawl, even though you probably shouldn’t. You shift where you sit as that familiar fluttering sensation returns to the seat of your panties, just for a moment. You’re grateful that the waitress arrives at the booth not a second later, cheerily introducing herself as she sets down a glass of water for each of you. When she asks if you’re ready to order, Joel gestures to you as if to say ‘ladies first’, and you politely prattle off your request. You make sure to emphasize that you’d like your coffee decaf, and ask if she could please bring some more of the little cups of vanilla creamer to the table. “Not a problem, honey,” she replies, and Joel winks at you as she asks what she can get for him. He orders the Thunder Burger he had told you about earlier, and a black coffee, which he doesn’t request to be decaf. The waitress leaves the two of you alone again with an ‘I’ll have that right out for ya,’ and you let your eyes follow the calming baby blue color of her dress as she glides her way back to the kitchen. When she disappears around the corner of the bar, you take the opportunity to study Moody’s other patrons. There isn’t another young person in sight, mostly just men around Joel’s age with similarly heavy bags under their eyes, likely truck drivers indulging in their first hot meal of the day within the diner’s comforting wood-paneled walls. You wonder if that’s how Joel knows about this place, because he “passes through” this area on long hauls across the midwest. You open your mouth to ask him if your assumption is correct, but he cuts you off before you can say anything.

“I gotta admit, sweetheart, I’m curious… The hell was a pretty thing like you doin’ out in the middle of goddamn nowhere tonight? I mean, I know you’re a runaway ‘n all, but… shouldn’t you be one o’ those college party girls or somethin’? ‘M sure you got plenty of friends wonderin’ where you are.”

You sigh, shaking your head as you distractedly pick at a splintered piece of wood at the edge of the table.

“I was in college. Was supposed to be going back again this year, but… my mom spent all the fucking savings I had left for the rest of it on fixing up her dumb boyfriend’s car. It’s just been sitting in the fucking lawn all summer, sure as hell not being used for something useful like going to the job he doesn’t have. That bastard…” You say the last part under your breath through gritted teeth.

“Shit… Tha’s a tough deal, baby, ‘m real sorry to hear that,” Joel comforts. “But y’know, everybody’s got mommy ‘n daddy issues, don’t mean you just up and start walkin’ all by your lonesome, not even have any idea where you’re goin’.”

“Well, it wasn’t just that. There was… nevermind, it’s stupid.” You slump into the cushioned booth, silently cursing yourself for even bringing it up.

“What is it?” Joel pushes, sitting up straighter to show you that he wants to listen, wants to get to know you. And God dammit, he might be the first person you’ve met in a long time who actually seems to care about what you have to say, as strange as it is. You flick your eyes up to his face, and he’s wearing a sincere gaze that convinces you to continue.

“There was this girl I went to high school with. She disappeared a couple of years ago, nobody ever found out what happened to her. People figured she probably just ran away, and I thought… I dunno. That maybe she had the right idea, leaving that place behind. I always held onto this hope that maybe she was still out there somewhere actually doing something with her life, that maybe she just changed her name or something and disappeared on purpose.” You pause. “I guess I just thought I might be able to do the same, if I left.”

“I see…” Joel muses sympathetically. “Maybe I oughta give you a lil’ more credit, then. Must’a been tough losin’ a friend like that, not knowin’ where she ended up.”

“I mean, Ruby wasn’t really my friend. She just—”

“Hang on. Ruby, you said?” Joel interrupts, his eyes suddenly looking a little wild.

“...Yeah. Her name was Ruby. Ruby Carpenter.”

—

Fuck.

Joel has to adjust himself under the table, his dick now hardening uncomfortably in his jeans at just the mention of her name. He remembers Ruby, remembers chuckling to himself when he realized the irony of her name matching the color of her blood, remembers watching the news coverage of her disappearance in this very same diner, those handful of years ago. She was a sweet thing, he remembers this, too. It was a shame she had ended up being such a fighter, that she had to get put down the way she did. But she shouldn’t have thrown that fucking rock at his face, called him a sick fuck and a freak as she made her pitiful little escape attempt. Joel is lucky that all he came away from it with is that ugly little scar that mars the bridge of his nose. He can’t say the same for her.

“Why? You heard her name before?” You ask him, an unfortunate little twinkle of hope in your eyes.

“Maybe.” Yes. “Sounds a lil’ familiar, might remember hearin’ about it on the news or somethin’.”

That goddamn news coverage sure as hell taught him a lesson. Joel had spent months trying to keep the cops off his fucking tail after he had dumped her body on some forgettable patch of land behind an old decaying barn. He had even gotten pulled in for a fucking interview at the station in what he now presumes to be your hometown, where they had questioned him for an hour or so about her disappearance. He still isn’t sure how he talked his way out of that one. Ruby might not have been good for much else, other than pissing him the hell off with all of her pathetic crying and begging to just please, please let me go back home, but she did help him perfect his craft, he can give her that much. It’s because of her that Joel makes certain now that any girl he picks up doesn’t have anybody who will miss her or plaster her face on every local channel or send out goddamn search parties to find her. Girls like you.

You’re just so perfect, it would be so fucking easy for him to make you disappear for good, it’s almost comical. It had hardly taken any convincing at all to get you to climb into his truck, had taken even less to get you to agree to go to some seedy ass motel with him that might not even exist, for all you know. It does, but you didn’t even try to test him about it this time, just put all of your trust in him like a stray puppy would to the first person to pick it up off the street. That is just about what you are, he supposes. So far, you seem like the perfect candidate to become his little captive pet. If you keep it up, maybe you won’t meet the same fate as the rest of them. He’d told himself he’d be done after the last one, anyway, his body too old and achy and slow now to chase after the ones who put up a little more fight, like she had. She’d nearly escaped, made it a decent way through the woods and almost reached the main road before tripping on an exposed root and snapping her ankle. He remembers how weak and scared she’d looked before he’d used his knife to put her out of her misery, and it makes his dick twitch. Joel doesn’t plan on snuffing you out, not right now at least, since you haven’t given him a reason to. But his fingers still twitch where they rest on the table, moving out of instinct as he can’t help but imagine what they’d look like wrapped so tightly around your little throat. Would you cry? Would you beg? Would you pray? Would he have to glide his blade across your vocal chords just to get you to stop screaming so fucking loud? He wonders.

“Oh… Was that one of the times you were just ‘passin’ through’ for whatever reason you haven’t told me yet?”

Joel hadn’t realized that his eyes had been unfocused for so long, or that he’d been holding his breath, or that his hand had been squeezing his glass of water so hard he’s glad it hadn’t shattered. The airy sound of your voice brings him back to reality, and he huffs a light chuckle as he fixes his face into a more pleasant expression.

“Yeah, ‘spose it was.”

You roll your eyes at him playfully. “Come on, Joel. I just told you, like, my whole sob story. I feel like I deserve to know at least one thing about you now.”

You have a point.

He gives in. “Fine. I got a brother, used to come through this area when I’d pay him a visit. That good enough for ya?”

You cross your arms. “No. What’s his name?”

“Tommy.”

“What’s he look like?”

“Like me. Little younger. Little uglier.”

You laugh at that.

It makes Joel smile.

Maybe you could be the one he’s been looking for all this time. Too bad he had to waste so many others before he finally got to you.

—

The waitress comes back to your table soon after that, with your steaming plates of delicious-smelling food and hot mugs of coffee balanced expertly on a large plastic tray. She sets them down in front of the pair of you with a cheery smile, and you thank her happily when she doesn’t forget the extra sickeningly sweet cups of creamer you had requested. Joel doesn’t take his eyes off you once during the interaction, not even to feast his eyes upon the monstrous burger now sitting before him, not even as he thanks the waitress for delivering it to him. His lingering gaze makes you feel a little warm, but it could just be from the heat radiating off of your plates.

“What? You’re not getting a bite of mine, if that’s why you’re looking at me,” you tease, already getting to work putting the sugary creamer to good use.

Joel just shakes his head, his caramel colored eyes still never leaving you as your coffee begins to resemble their hue. “No, ‘s not why.”

“Whatever,” you reply through a giggle, making a poor attempt to hide your girlish grin behind the lip of your white ceramic mug.

The two of you eat your meals in relative silence, mostly enjoying each other’s company and basking in the relaxing ambience created by silverware tapping against porcelain, hushed conversations, and the local country station playing through the old radio sitting on the counter. The reception is a little spotty way out here in wherever the hell you are, so you can’t quite tell what song it is. But Joel seems to know, judging by the rhythmic bouncing of his knee under the table that creates little circular ripples in your coffee. Maybe you’ll ask him what it is later, how he knows it, if you can listen to it again in the truck together. He doesn’t seem to be as much of an open book as you’ve already given yourself away to be, and you respect that about him. It doesn’t make you any less curious, but you resign yourself to getting to know him better in the small doses he’s willing to offer you.

You decide to begin a mental list of all the things you want to ask him later, knowing that by the time you make it to the motel tonight, you’ll be far too exhausted to do anything more than just collapse onto the springy mattress and sleep until you get kicked out of the room the next morning. You almost wish you hadn’t listened to Joel’s request for you to take your coffee decaffeinated tonight, and you still aren’t quite sure why you did. It just feels so strangely easy to give into him, to trust him, to let him make decisions for you. You suppose that’s what you’ve been needing all this time, someone to guide you and understand you and at least pretend like they care about you. Joel has shown you more concern and care and protection in the last hour or so than either of your parents have pretty much your whole life. And he’s good at this, making you feel wanted, making you feel like somebody, even in subtle ways, just by looking at you.

“A’right, why don’t you finish up, darlin’, ‘n we’ll hit the road again. Practically usin’ your pancakes as a pillow over there.”

“Oh, sorry,” you apologize sleepily, waking yourself up enough to make quick work finishing off your plate and your last few sips of coffee.

“Nothin’ to be sorry ‘bout, sweetheart. Lord knows you need some rest, won’t be too much longer now,” Joel assures, fishing a few tens out of his faded leather wallet and placing them on the table. He slides to the edge of the booth and stands himself up with only a few pained noises as he straightens out his back, then offers his hand for you to take. You use it as leverage to pull yourself upright, and your hands linger in each other’s hold for a few seconds longer than they need to. The hostess thanks the two of you for stopping in when you pass her by, and Joel opens the door for you again as you leave Moody’s. He opens the truck door for you, too, and promises you that the motel is just another couple of minutes down the freeway. You make an effort to stay awake in your seat this time as Joel begins the drive, opting to gaze out the window and focus on trying to make out the sparkling constellations above the treeline. You smile privately at the moon when you find that she’s following closely behind you just as she always does, bright and full.

She doesn’t leave your side until you reach the unassuming little roadside motel, which to your gratitude, proudly displays their vacancy on the flickering sign in the parking lot. It doesn’t look like a five star joint by any means, but you know it will serve its purpose just fine. Joel instructs you to stay in the truck while he goes about getting a room for the two of you, and you don’t object. He’d insisted that you didn’t need to be on your feet any longer than you already had been today, and you were too tired to argue with him even if you wanted to. When he returns, he taps lightly on the passenger side window so as not to startle you from the half-asleep, half-awake state you’ve found yourself in, and swings your backpack over his shoulder as he helps you out of the truck. He leads you to the room at the end of the row, and the door takes some finessing of the key and a shove of his shoulder to open. Joel flicks on the light, and you let out a disappointed-sounding ‘oh…’ when it reveals your accommodations.

There aren’t two beds like you had assumed Joel was going to request. There’s only one.

Joel catches your reaction. “‘S this gonna be alright? I know it ain’t the Ritz Carlton, but—”

“No, the room’s fine, it’s not that. I just thought… I just assumed that… I didn’t know it was gonna be, like… just the one bed.” You try to explain your discomfort as gently as possible, without seeming ungrateful for everything Joel has done for you tonight.

He looks at you sympathetically. “I know, I ain’t tryin’ anythin’, I swear. Guy told me it was the last room they had, jus’ figured it was better than nothin’.”

You offer him a soft smile, but your eyes must still look a little wide as you begin to nervously pick at your fingernails. Joel continues, “I can take the chair if you want, darlin’. Get the bed all to yourself, how’s that sound?”

You visibly relax at that, your shoulders deflating as your smile becomes a little more genuine. “Okay, that’s good. Thank you.”

“‘Course, sweetheart. How’s about you take a nice hot shower, rinse off some o’ that dirt you picked up from walkin’ all day… Don’t suppose you got some suitable clothes in here for sleepin’ in?” Joel asks, handing your backpack off to you.

You shake your head. “Just some jeans and t-shirts, and another pair of shoes. And… y��know, some underwear, and stuff.”

Joel pinches the bridge of his nose, then rubs his fingers across his forehead exasperatedly. “I swear… it’s like you didn’t think there’d be a tomorrow or somethin’, girl. Christ.” Joel looks out the window to his truck parked just outside. “Tell you what, think I got somethin’ in the truck you can wear. Why don’t you see if they got anythin’ on the TV tha’s worth a damn, ‘n I’ll be back, alright?”

You nod, “Okay,” then set your backpack down on the drab carpet in favor of picking up the remote perched in front of the small square television. You sit yourself down on the edge of the bed as Joel leaves the room, and begin to flick through the few channels that aren’t just a screen full of snowy static.

Local news. Commercial. Game show. Commercial. Documentary. Commercial.

Eventually, you land on what seems to be one of those old black-and-white western shows that you can never remember the name of. You only know that the reruns used to play on Sundays around lunchtime, because Rob would always be half paying attention to it with a beer in his hand when you and your mom would get home from church. For how adamant she was that you attend every weekend, she sure never called him a harlot and a sinner for not wanting to go with her. You’re not sure she had ever even tried to get him to go, but he probably didn’t own anything decent enough to wear, anyway. Whatever, fuck them. The show seems like the kind of thing Joel would like, so you let it keep playing.

He comes back a moment later with a small stack of folded up clothes, tossing them over to where you sit on the bed. You unfold what he’s given you and examine them—a pair of simple pink cotton shorts, and a white tank top with a ditsy floral pattern scattered across the fabric. The clothing is a little more revealing than you’d like, but you figure you’d be a hell of a lot more comfortable wearing them to sleep than the denim shorts you have on now.

“These are… great. Thank you, Joel. But…” you snicker. “Should I be concerned that you have a very convenient supply of girls’ clothes in your truck?” Joel scoffs. “‘S for when I got Tommy’s kid with me, smartass. He’s got a daughter, few years younger ‘n you.”

“Okay, well, I dunno how I was supposed to know that, but… as long as you don’t have a girlfriend who’s gonna come after me for wearing her clothes.”

Joel only chuckles in response, his attention suddenly pulled to the TV.

“Gunsmoke, huh? ‘S a good choice, definitely what I’d classify as ‘worth a damn’.”

You smile to yourself, and his approval makes that warm fluttery feeling return to your belly. “I didn’t even know what it was called, just seemed like something you’d like.”

He turns back to you. “That obvious, huh? ‘S just ‘cause I’m old and southern, ain’t it?”

“Maybe a little,” you admit, making a pinching gesture with your hand.

Joel nods as he makes his way over to the armchair on the corner of the room, collapsing onto it with a groan. “Well, why don’t you go ‘n get yourself all changed and cleaned up, ‘n if you’re quick enough maybe we can finish the episode together and then get some shuteye, hm?”

You swiftly unzip your backpack to retrieve one of your clean pairs of underwear, then bound over to the small bathroom with them and your new change of clothes in hand. It’s not the most spotless one you’ve ever had to use, but you’ve honestly seen much worse. You rinse off quickly in the steaming shower, using the scratchy motel-provided washcloth to scrub the dirt from your legs, stuck to you with the sweat you worked up from God knows how many miles of walking today.

Today. You can hardly believe it hasn’t even been a full 24 hours since you left home yet. It seems like you’ve already known Joel for days, maybe even years, as silly as it sounds. You wonder if he might just take you in after this, or if he’ll have had enough of providing for you after just one night. He seems like a man of limited means, and he’s already given you so much. If you’re brave enough, maybe you’ll ask him tomorrow, when you get to the ‘so… what now?’ part of your time together.

For now, you step out of the shower and dry yourself off with an impossibly scratchier towel, then pull on your panties and the tank top and shorts Joel provided you with.

Jesus, how much younger is Tommy’s daughter?

The shorts just barely cover your ass, and there’s a sizable gap between their waistband and the bottom hem of your top. The thin, white material of the shirt only serves to accentuate the way your nipples poke through the fabric, but you suppose there isn’t anything you can do about that.

You quietly crack open the bathroom door, and are somewhat relieved to find that Joel’s already fallen asleep in the chair. You do wish you could’ve finished the episode of Gunsmoke with him, but the end credits seem to be rolling already anyway, and you’d rather avoid being seen in your very ill-fitting pajamas. Although, you do wonder if he’d say anything, or if he’d just let his hungry gaze linger in silence again, holding himself back from touching you beyond a comforting pat on the thigh.

You pick the remote up off the bed and use it to make the TV screen sizzle to black, then tip toe over to the lightswitch by the door and turn it off, the room now completely shrouded in darkness. Joel snores softly from the chair as you blindly feel your way back over to the bed, pulling the covers back and nestling yourself underneath them. The bed is surprisingly comfortable, considering, and it doesn’t take long for your exhaustion to catch up with you. Your thoughts become slower and slower along with your breathing, and you’re asleep not even five minutes after your head hits the pillow.

—

Joel fakes his snoring for another thirty minutes or so, until he’s certain you’re sound asleep. He had heard your breath even out almost immediately after you had tucked yourself in, but he had chosen to lay in wait for a little while longer, just to make sure you wouldn’t put up too much of a fight when he made his move. You don’t seem like the type, considering how you’d hardly argued with him at all tonight, like when he had convinced you to forgo the caffeine with your dinner. There’s a reason he wanted you sleepy and subdued tonight, but you didn’t know that. Joel likes how well you listen to him, how easily you do as he asks.

He also likes how warm you are, how small your body is compared to his own, the difference in size especially prominent now that he’s laying snugly against you, his front pressing firmly into the back of you. You don’t wake from his lumbering movement, only coming to slightly when you feel his arm slide underneath your body, his warm hand snaking its way beneath your tiny shirt to squeeze at your plush tits.

You mumble out a little “Hm?”, which he’s quick to quiet with, “Sorry, darlin’. Chair was too hard on my damn back. Just go back to sleep, ‘kay?” That chair felt like laying on a goddamn cloud compared to some of the other surfaces he’s found himself having to sleep on before, but again, you don’t know that, and what you don’t know won’t hurt you. You probably won’t even remember this in the morning, how his hard cock is slotted so perfectly against your ass, especially without the confines of his thick jeans holding him back. They’re discarded onto the floor now in front of the armchair, along with his flannel shirt and jacket. Joel holds you tightly against his bare, hairy chest as he circles a roughened pad of his finger around one of your nipples, smirking to himself at how quickly the bud hardens from his touch. He knew you wanted this, and the wet spot that the fingers of his other hand are teasing in the gusset of your panties is proof of it. How long have you been leaking for him like this? Had you been soaking the seat of his truck earlier today? Filthy thing.

You still don’t rouse when he pulls your panties aside and slips a finger inside your slick cunt, or when his grip on your tit loosens in favor of sliding up higher under your tank top, his hand coming to a rest around the base of your throat as he pumps his finger in and out of your tight heat. It would be so fucking easy…

But he can’t, he won’t, because you’re not like the others. You want to get to know him, you let him take care of you, you seem to like his company, and you don’t leap out of bed and call him a fucking perv and a dirty old man for what he’s doing to you. That’s what the others would have done. It’s what they have done. And they faced the consequences.

But you’re different. You’re not like them. You’re like him. A lost soul, that’s what you are. Nowhere to call home, no one who misses you or loves you or gives a damn what happens to you. Joel’s mouth had tasted bitter when he had told you about Tommy, or rather, lied about him. Joel hasn’t seen the fucker in years, certainly doesn’t pay him any visits or watch his brat, not since Tommy had learned the truth. You better not show your goddamn face around here ever again, you understand me? Tommy had spat at him. You’re fuckin’ sick. Only reason I don’t turn your ass in myself is ‘cause you’re my goddamn brother. But if I ever fuckin’ see you again, I won’t hesitate. Better make yourself pretty fuckin’ scarce ‘fore I change my mind. That might’ve been about the only time Joel had ever taken orders from his little brother.

That bitter flavor is cut by the sweet tang of you that he tastes on his finger now, so young and eager and fresh. The hand around your throat squeezes a little tighter, and Joel’s hips begin to move against your ass as he allows himself to suck wet kisses onto the skin under the hinge of your jaw. Softly, gently, so as not to wake you. He could come just like this, using your pliant body in your sleep, rutting himself against your still form with the taste of your pussy on his tongue and his fingers pressed against your pulse points.

He’s close when you stir again, making broken hiccuping sounds as you choke on your breath.

“Shh, shh,” Joel soothes. “You’re alright, sweetheart. ‘S just me. Just—fuck—hold still, go back to sleep, baby.” You let out a quiet whimper, squirming against him just a little bit, but return to your unmoving and silent state a second later. Joel finishes himself off quickly with another couple of shallow thrusts against you, his large hand still gripped around the column of your neck, trying to stifle his groans as he spills into his briefs. He removes his suffocating hand and keeps you pressed tightly against him for a while after that, tanned arms wrapped around your waist and breathing in your scent as he waits for you to settle back down.

When he’s sure he won’t disturb you again, Joel releases you from his hold and pads quietly back over to the armchair, redressing himself and resuming the position you had left him in. In the morning, if you do remember any of it, you’ll just chalk it up to a very strange dream, one fueled by the desire he knows you’ve felt towards him since he picked you up. You’ll be left with a strange assuredness that he feels the same way about you, without really knowing why.

But Joel will always know.

—

The digital clock on the nightstand only reads around 8:00 when you’re awoken by a beam of sunlight shining brightly against the backs of your eyelids, streaming in from the window’s lopsided blinds. You had gone to sleep with your back to Joel, but you find yourself facing him now. He looks kind of peaceful when he’s asleep, that permanent furrow etched between his brows finally smoothed out as he dozes. A small smile tugs at the corners of your lips, but they fall quickly when you adjust your legs and feel the cool dampness against your core, the sensation bringing back the memory of the dream you’d had last night.

It had felt so real, but it couldn’t have been, could it? There’s no evidence that Joel had really laid next to you last night, that he’d really touched you like that, that you’d wanted him to keep going. It must just be some kind of strange side effect of the affection you feel toward the man who had rescued you, more or less. You’ll likely just part ways after today, anyway, so it’s probably best to just try and forget about the whole thing, put on a fresh pair of underwear and pretend it never happened.

Joel is awake by the time you’re done freshening up in the bathroom, and he greets you with a raspy ‘Mornin’, sweetheart’ as you retrieve your backpack from next to the bed and shove your ruined underwear into the bottom of it. “You get some good sleep last night?” He asks, rubbing a hand over his eye.

“Mhm, the bed was nice, more comfortable than the one I had at home, honestly.” You finish zipping your backpack closed and sit back down on the bed, pulling on some socks and the lace up sneakers you had been wearing yesterday. “I hope the chair was okay, like, for your back and everything.”

“What makes you say that, baby?”

You pause in the middle of tying one of your shoelaces, turning to look at him with a confused pout. “Didn’t you…? I thought you had told me something about how the chair would be hard on your back. Like, last night.”

Joel frowns, shaking his head. “Don’t think so, darlin’. Chair was just fine.”

“Oh… Well, that’s good.”

Maybe it had just been a dream, then.

Joel hands you a few bills from his wallet, and tasks you with getting the two of you some breakfast from the gas station across the street while he cleans himself up. He tells you that he doesn’t eat much in the mornings, but that you can get yourself whatever you want, as long as you bring him back a carton of cigarettes and a black coffee. You obey eagerly, retrieving what he asked for and getting a pack of miniature powdered donuts and an equally as sugary coffee for yourself.

He’s just stepped out of the bathroom when you return to the room, and your face feels hot when you see him with his dark hair slicked back and wet from the shower. The few strands that fall onto his forehead as he laces up his boots almost make him look a little boyish, despite his whitened temples.

“Such a good girl, thank you,” Joel praises when you hand him his items.

You respond with a shy ‘You’re welcome’, but he doesn’t miss how you seem to light up at his words. You plop yourself down onto the worn-in chair that Joel had used as a bed last night, happily munching on your gas station donuts and sipping on your coffee. It all makes you feel warm from the inside out.

But you figure you should find out what the rest of today might look like before you let yourself enjoy the beginnings of it too much.

“So, um… We’re just gonna check out this morning and then… what?”

“Whaddya mean, baby?”

“I mean… are you just gonna, like… take me to the nearest bus station or something?”

Joel’s confusion is written all over his face, embedded deep into those lines between his brows. You could swear he almost looks a little hurt. “Why would I do that? ‘S that what you want?” He asks softly.

You try to backpedal a little, afraid you might’ve offended him or seemed ungrateful in your question. “I just thought it might be what you want. That you probably have somewhere else you need to be, like Tommy’s or—”

“No, I don’t,” Joel says definitively.

You pause. “Okay, so—”

“You ever been to California?”

His question stumps you for a moment, seeming so random in its nature. “No.”

“You want to?”

You shrug. “I mean… sure. Maybe someday—”

“Why don’t you come with me then, baby?”

You let out an awkward giggle. “...Come with you where?”

“To California. Come with me.” Joel’s tone is genuine but firm.

“Like, today? Are you sure?”

“I mean, we ain’t gettin’ there today, darlin’. But yeah, I’m sure. We both got nowhere else to be, do we? So let’s just go, we’ll see it together.”

You beam up at him, realizing that he’s being serious. Joel does want you, wants you to be his companion, maybe even something more that you’ll discover on familiar-looking back roads and in cities you’ve only ever seen pictures of.

“Okay,” you agree excitedly.

Joel nods. “Okay, then. Lemme go check us out ‘n we’ll get back on the road again. Burnin’ daylight already,” he jokes. He carries your backpack out to the truck for you, setting it down between your feet after he opens the door and helps you inside with a stable hand. It only takes a few minutes for Joel to hand in the room key and pay for the night, and then he’s back at your side. You begin to feel like that’s where you always want him to stay.

“So, where to first, baby? California ain’t goin’ anywhere, can take as long to get there as we wanna. We’ll go wherever you like, take your pick.” Joel leans across your body to dig a folded up map out of the glove compartment, handing it to you.

You examine it, your eyes darting across the dozens of dots with the names of cities next to them, some you’ve never even heard of. You point to one that you have heard of, but have never been to, because you’ve never even left the state you grew up in before.

“Um… how about Detroit? I’ve heard it’s nice, I think.”

Joel belly laughs at that. “It ain’t, but sure. You wanna go to Detroit, that’s where we’ll go. Buckle up, baby,” he instructs, patting your thigh. You oblige, and it feels good to finally know where you’re going, and that you’re going there with someone who cares about you, who feels safe, who wants you around. You also feel a little hopeful that maybe you were right about Ruby, after all. That you didn’t start walking for nothing, that you weren’t following some childish delusion, that if something as good as Joel had happened to you when you left, that maybe she had found herself on a similar path, ran into somebody good who took her wherever she wanted to go and helped her find someplace she belonged. Maybe she found her way out to California, eventually. What you are certain of is that neither of you ever have to go back to that town ever again, and that feels good, too.

And if it feels good, then it can’t be bad.

tag list: tag list: @beefrobeefcal @iamasaddie @rebel-held @dilfgestivo @zliteraturehoe @joeldjarin @kamcrazy123 @hellowoolf @rexamongthestars @stevie75 @luxurychristmaspudding @noisynightmarepoetry @mewantpeepaw @pedritoferg @alex-does-art-things @evolnoomym @annoyingmarvelreader @k1l4ni @joelsdagger (if your name is crossed out, it won’t let me tag you!!)

#dark!fic #dark!joel #dark!joel miller #dark!joel x reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #tlou #joel miller #the last of us #joel miller fanfiction

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retrievablememories · 3 years ago

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what happens at night | taeyong

title: what happens at night

characters: vampire!taeyong, reader, BP jisoo, side character ocs

genre: vampire!au, fantasy, angst

summary: There has been a vampire sighting in a nearby town. You and a few other amateur vampire hunters flock to the area for fun, but are soon in over your heads when you come face to face with a real vampire.

word count: 2.6k

warnings: some violence, use of weapons, mentions of blood and blood drinking, cursing

a/n: i got the prompt for this fic from this writing prompt post

writing vampire fic just reveals that i am maybe a little too intrigued with finding different ways to describe blood, lmao

also, this picture...are you fuckin kidding me

"Y/N, look. You aren’t gonna believe this.”

Adrienne holds the digital ledger out in front of you, and you look at it with tired, uninterested eyes until your brain registers what you’re seeing. Your eyes light up as you recognize whose face is on the screen.

“Taeyong.”

You take the ledger from her as she offers it to you, holding it tight with both hands.

“The Vampire King?” Jisoo perks up and gets up from her seat to rush over to see the ledger, peering wildly over your shoulder. Likewise, Percy makes his way over to the rest of you at a slightly speedier gait than his usual unaffected amble.

“Can’t be,” he says, shaking his head in quiet disbelief even as he looks over your other shoulder.

“But it is.”

The ledger’s screen displays the seal of Hawthorn Academy and its vampire registry, which holds the name, age, suspected location, and family lineage of every registered vampire in the world, along with a plethora of other pertinent details. On Taeyong’s profile, there is the familiar portrait of him you’ve always seen—his hair styled perfectly and curling over his forehead, and his eyes dark, piercing, and shining vermillion.

Under the list of Status Updates, there is a new entry from yesterday—a sighting nearby in the city of Dresden. Within that entry, there is a blurry, zoomed-in photo of a man in a dark trench coat and black boots, walking away from the viewer and down a shadowy street lit up with lampposts, almost too vague to be worth deciphering to the average viewer; but that silhouette is unmistakable.

“When was the last time Taeyong was seen out in public? I can hardly believe it,” Jisoo says, her voice practically trembling with awe.

“If he’s letting himself be seen, he must have specific intentions...whatever those are,” Percy notes.

“Let’s go pay Dresden a visit,” Adrienne announces, darting off to her desk and starting to gather up her essentials—phone and silver staff among them.

“Go? Pay it a visit?” Percy echoes, his mouth rounding on the word go and his eyes widening.

“Of course! Why not? Isn’t this exciting? A sighting of the Vampire King so nearby, and so recently,” Jisoo replies, grinning with all her teeth.

Percy narrows his eyes at her, uncertainty marring his features. “Yes, but what about dangerous?”

“Come on Percy, it’ll be fun,” you chime in. “Think of it as a field trip for baby vampire hunters. Dresden is huge, anyway, there’s like zero chance we’ll actually find him.”

“Just take it as more skills training,” Adrienne adds, grabbing her backpack and heading off to her quarters to get the rest of her things. “Except this time, we’re actually in the field instead of that same boring facility.”

Percy grumbles to himself, but he knows there’s nothing much left to argue about; when the three of you outvote him on a topic, he has no choice left.

By the time the four of you arrive at Dresden, it’s dusk. The perfect witching hour for the vampires to be out, with the last bleeding streaks of the sun fading out of the sky. The lack of sunlight unnerves Percy even more—you can tell by his disturbed countenance—but he says nothing. He quietly follows you out of the train once it stops.

On the outside, you all look like four regular sight-seeing young adults, taking a trip from the next city over and ready for a night on the town; but most of your weapons and gear are concealed within your clothes and the backpacks you wear.

“There’s a slight blood scent here,” you note, taking in a deep lungful of air once you notice it. Indeed, there is the lingering hint of sweetness and iron, and something more musky and earthy underneath it—like decaying organic matter. The smell every vampire hunter is trained to be able to recognize—the odor of a vampire who hasn’t taken their scent blockers.

“There is, though I’m just barely picking up on it,” Jisoo agrees, waving her hand across her nose and screwing her eyebrows up. “God, I’ll never get used to that.”

“Do you think he’s been here?” Adrienne asks, leading the pack as you all walk through the train station.

“I would think a high-ranking, old-ass vamp would know better than to leave their funk trailing everywhere,” Percy disagrees. “Maybe it’s a younger one.”

“Maybe we could get an actual kill tonight, then. Our first,” Adrienne suggests, and though her tone is nonchalant, her expression betrays her enthusiasm.

You chuckle. “Wishful thinking, but maybe that would make the seniors stop treating us like children for once.”

Your group ends up bouncing from the train station to a pub and then to a nearby park, where a festival is being held. There’s bright lanterns, food, dancing, singing, and little kids running around galore, which makes you think these citizens either don’t know about the recent vampire sighting in their area or don’t care.

You all spend an hour mingling around and checking out the festival’s fun-filled offerings, chatting in low tones about the recent vampire appearance and trying to put your skills to the test to scout out any other vampires that might be hiding in plain sight within this mass of people.

“Hey!” Adrienne’s shout rings across the area, and you whip your head around in shock as you watch her take off running behind some teenage boy, maybe 12 or 13 at most, who has managed to nip the digital ledger from her belt and take off with it.

“What the fuck?” Percy barks, and you all shoot each other a wild, surprised look before you and him follow behind her.

“Guys, really? Don’t leave me here!” Jisoo calls out from behind you. “You don’t need three people just to get the ledger back!”

You and Percy round the alley corner that Adrienne disappeared behind and spot her farther up ahead, still hot on the boy’s trail and cursing him profusely. He’s a lot faster than he looks. Just before you can get a good look at him, he’s turning down another road with her behind him.

“Maybe we can cut him off. I’ll go down one of the connecting streets,” Percy suggests.

“Wait, what? Shouldn’t we stay together?”

“That ledger is too important to lose to some street urchin, and the seniors will never let us leave campus again if we come back without it. You go that way, I’ll be down here.” He’s ducking into an adjacent alley before you can even respond.

“Shit…” you sigh and shake your head before running down the road he indicated.

You unstrap your silver staff from a hidden section of your pants and extend it, just to be safe.

This land is not overly familiar to you, with you only having been to Dresden a couple times before. You carefully navigate your way through the maze of interconnecting streets, listening for Percy’s and Adrienne’s footfalls, which have become distinctive to you by now, and the sounds of Adrienne’s yelling. There are few people on the streets, most of them at the festival or in their homes, which makes it easier to navigate and watch for the others as you catch glimpses of them rushing past neighboring alleys.

Percy bursts into the same alleyway Adrienne is running down, finally trapping the boy between them on either end of the narrow passageway. However, the boy remains undeterred from Percy charging toward him as he deftly jumps up onto a nearby closed dumpster and uses it to launch himself over the older man.

“Shit!” Percy makes a mad grab for the end of the boy’s shirt, but the boy is a few seconds faster and narrowly gives him the slip.

“Are you serious? You can’t catch a damn kid?!” Adrienne shouts; Percy only curses again and whips around to follow the boy.

You hear the commotion from a few roads over, and you make a beeline for the area.

Just before you make it there, Adrienne screams. The sound almost startles you into dropping your staff, and you tighten your grip around it. “Adrienne?! What’s happened?”

You reach the alleyway, your shoes skidding on the ground as you nearly overshoot it, but Adrienne is nowhere in sight. You look around confused and alarmed with your chest heaving, but there is no trace of her — when she was there only seconds ago. “Adrienne?” Repeating her name still doesn’t bring her out, and you see nothing as you walk farther into the narrow back street and search every shadow and corner. Something dark and distressing settles in your stomach, and when you catch a whiff of that blood-decay smell on the night breeze, your unease turns into an avalanche of fear.

“Percy,” you whisper, and you take off again. “Percy!”

Your heartbeat rushes in your ears, nearly blocking out all other sounds, and your legs and arms burn as you run. You are abruptly stopped in your tracks as there is another shorter sound, like someone suddenly being cut off in the middle of a scream.

You desperately want to call out for him, and the syllables of his name crawl up your throat though you struggle to contain them. The blood-decay smell still inundates your senses, and whatever vampire is skulking around this maze of streets with you is likely still present somewhere. You don’t want to call any attention to yourself with a shout, though it may already be too late.

With a spiny chill driving itself down your back, you realize everything is suddenly silent. No insects, no night birds, no other people on the streets surrounding you.

Pushing the button on your staff ejects the silver blades from both ends, and you hold it for dear life as you stand in the middle of the dim alley, shivering despite your sweat and waiting for any hint that the monster is approaching you.

It happens so quickly that it’s almost outside of your perception.

The air around you grows significantly colder even with the existing chill from the early-winter season, and you shudder once more, your jaw clenching and molars chattering against each other. When you blink again, he is standing in front of you.

Taeyong.

Melting out of the shadows and becoming one with them all at the same time, a strange liminality similar to his existence—being alive and dead in the same time and space.

His mouth and chin are wet and red from blood, presumably that of your friends and teammates, which sends an intense ache through your stomach. The newness and excitement of the vampire sighting has drained out of you, replaced with stone cold dread. You’re not sure what any of you were thinking. Percy tried to warn you, but now he is likely dead for it.

Maybe it’s a foolish move. All your training has gone out the window in your panic and fear. You make a sloppy, sudden swipe at his front with the blade of your staff; and the next thing you know, it’s flying out of your hand and clattering feet away. Behind him, and out of reach.

It takes a second for you to realize he’s knocked it out of your hand without even touching it or you; his own hand is still raised with the movement of telekinetically shifting the object. “You came terribly unprepared. I guess I shouldn’t expect anything more from you fledglings.”

Your sweaty palm slides against the other leg of your pants where a smaller silver dagger is concealed in a tearaway pocket, but that idea is useless. In the time it’d take to get any weapon out, he could kill you.

“The Academy has really been in decline the last few decades. This is the caliber of hunters they’re putting out now?” Taeyong sucks his teeth, and he takes a step closer to you. Your entire body is on high-alert, but you feel too stiff to move a muscle, and you vaguely wonder if this is somehow his doing, too. Only in the stillness of this moment do you realize that you cannot detect any of that blood scent coming directly from him, though the putridness of it still lingers in your nose. It’s coming from somewhere else, then. This confuses you more.

When he realizes you aren’t going to speak, he stops approaching you and takes a moment to really study your face, his big and curious eyes blinking slowly. The redness of his irises and the shiny, pale quality of his skin from the moonlight shining on it make him look just as surreal as he truly is.

“You’re a pretty thing. Maybe I could make you one of mine.”

“Never,” you blurt out, and it’s the first thing you can bring yourself to say to the Vampire King.

“Oh, so you can speak.” Taeyong reaches for your chin. His fingers brush the underside of it, the coolness of his skin freezing you, before you snatch away from his touch, stumbling backwards. A flash of irritation sparks on his face.

His hand reaches for you again, this time clasping at the back of your neck, and it is impossible to move away quickly enough. “Don’t waste any more of your time fighting. This will all be over soon. Well—this life, anyway.”

His teeth in your neck are sharper than needles, making your nerves twinge with stabbing pain; and then it’s strangely pleasant, like having painkillers injected into your veins. You can’t feel anything anymore except warmth and endorphins and his fangs inside you as the alley around you smears into a bunch of incomprehensible shapes—bricks, streetlights, strewn trash, Taeyong.

When you wake up, you’re in an unfamiliar place. An unfamiliar bed. You startle out of unconsciousness sweating and frightened, but with barely enough strength to push yourself up on your elbows. Looking around doesn’t provide you with many more clues; this space is murky with darkness, and your vision is foggy. You think you can make out the rectangular shape of a large curtained window, but it’s unclear.

You’re still wearing your clothes from the trip, although your backpack is now gone. Your throat has never felt drier in your life, and the pounding in your head threatens to split it clean apart.

You feel sick and feverish, like your body is trying to fight against some virus it’s picked up, but you haven’t the slightest idea where you could’ve contracted anything—you didn’t even eat at the festival—until you remember—

A door opens with a bang somewhere in the distance, and it isn’t until the footsteps grow nearer and a blurry figure approaches the bed that you realize the door is the entrance of the room you're in.

“You’ll want to feed soon.” As soon as those words break the quiet, you’re struck by the pungent smell of blood. Unlike the relative lack of response it would elicit any other time, its aroma pokes at a sudden and peculiar craving inside of you, and you find yourself futilely scrabbling on the bed to reach the source. “Lucky you. I have just what you need.”

There is a cold hand tilting your face up, the press of equally cold glass against your bottom lip, then the tang of blood entering your mouth. It is the best thing you have ever tasted, and a slowly dying, still-human part of you is horrified.

You finish the blood quickly. It doesn’t really seem like enough, but it does make you feel a little less like you’re actively decomposing. Despite your hazy vision, there is no misreading the small smile on Taeyong’s face.

“Happy Birthday, little one.”

#taeyong scenarios #taeyong imagines #taeyong angst #nct vampire au #vampire au #nct imagines #nct scenarios #nct fic #taeyong fic #nct angst #superm fic #superm scenarios #superm imagines #superm angst

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angst-fairygodmother · 4 years ago

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Idiot (Affectionate) ~ A Bad Samaritan Fic

CHAPTER THREE: CHANGING TUNE

Pairing: Derek Sandoval x (fem)Reader Word Count: 2646 Rating: T - angst (self esteem issues/abandonment issues) canon-typical language A/N: This here is a Cheese sandwich on Whole Angst Toast. I also feel like I should say thanks to the folks who made some suggestions for me, even though I ended up going with a different song.

Previous Chapter | Masterlist

“Shit,” you muttered, looking up with a grimace of disgust, half-poking your head out from under the awning. You had forgotten your umbrella on your way to work earlier that afternoon, and had spent the whole shift praying that the rain would hold off long enough for you to get home. Unfortunately, it hadn’t and was coming down hard.

“Sean…” you whined, turning pleading eyes on your cousin.

“No. Y/N, you know I love you, but I can’t. I’m supposed to meet Riley right after work,” he said. “And I’ve already been late to her place three times this month.”

“You’re just going to ‘watch a movie’ and then kick her roommate out so you can fuck. How is that something you can be late for?” you said petulantly.

Derek guffawed. “She’s got you there, man.”

“Just for that,” Sean said, waggling a finger at you mockingly. “Even if I could have given you a lift, I wouldn’t.”

You stuck your tongue out at him, making Derek laugh even more, until you turned your childish, affronted glare on him.

“I’m glad you find it so amusing that my cousin, my own flesh and blood, would betray me like this,” you huffed dramatically.

Sean rolled his eyes.

“I could walk you home,” Derek offered with a shrug.

You eyed him suspiciously.

“I don’t have an umbrella but it wouldn’t be so bad with company right...like I dunno, solidarity?”

“You’re just hoping the rain will be enough to make my work blouse see-through, aren’t you?” you teased.

“What, nah! I’m a gentleman, I swear,” he said, placing a hand over his heart. “I want to make sure you get home, that’s all.”

“Don’t you have your car tonight?” Sean pointed out.

“Come on man, why you gotta blow my cover like that?” Derek hissed with a laugh.

“What was that about being a gentleman?” you quirked an eyebrow.

“Alright, so it was a little bit about tryin to see your titties. But can you blame me, I mean come on, girl, you’re gorgeous.”

“You are such a dick,” you cried, laughing, punctuating your words by playfully batting at him with fists and the sides of your hands.

He yelped, ducking your ‘blows’, trying to hide behind Sean and the podium.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Mercy!” he gasped through his laughter. “I’ll drive you home, just stop hitting me.”

Immediately, you let up on your attack. “You don’t have to, honestly,” you said, waving aside the offer. “I’ll be fine. I’m pretty sure you can’t actually drown in the rain.”

“You were gonna let Sean drive you.”

“Yeah. But he’s family. He’s supposed to help even when it’s an inconvenience. You have no such obligation.”

“That’s what friends are for though, right?” Derek asked.

“You’re not an inconvenience,” Sean protested at the same time. “Usually.”

“Friends don’t let friends drive the opposite direction of home just because the drivee friend forgot an umbrella in Portland. That’s like forgetting sunglasses in L.A.”

Sean sighed, rolling his eyes. “Y/N. Just take the ride. Or don’t and get totally soaked. I’m sure your uniform will dry out in the...thirteen hours before you have to be back here.” He shrugged with a pointed look at his watch.

Somehow, in the course of the conversation, the rain had picked up even further, now pounding down in sheets. Very cold sheets. You looked at the waterfalls off the awning with disdain.

With a grumble and a reluctant protest, you agreed to let Derek drive you home.

A comfortable silence fell over the two of you as Derek navigated the slick Portland streets. You gazed out the passenger side window, lost in random thought, listening passively to the radio, until you became aware of something beneath the sounds through the speakers, almost hidden by the thrumming bass.

Slowly, you realized that it was Derek, singing along.

You felt your breath catch, turning to stare at him in awe. He was really, really good. Trying not to call attention to the fact that you were listening, you shifted in your seat, tuning out the radio to focus on him. It was a crooner’s voice at heart, like smoke and honey, soft and warm with sharper hints of something more versatile and modern. You felt hypnotised as several songs went by, drawn in like a magnet to his sound. At the points it lacked technical brilliance, it was made better for its honesty, like no matter what he was singing, he meant it with heart and soul.

Eventually, Derek seemed to notice your attention.

“Y/N?” he asked, his normal conversational tone jolting you out of the near-trance he had lulled you into. “You alright?”

“I didn’t know you could sing,” you blurted, voice breathy and soft with awe.

A deep red color crept up his neck, splaying out over his ears and face all the way to the hairline and maybe beyond. He chuckled nervously. It was honestly kind of adorable, and you mentally kicked yourself as the thought crossed your mind. This was Derek you were talking about. The only way he should be paired with that word was if it was in the sentence ‘look at the adorable kitten/puppy Derek is holding.’

“It’s just along to the radio, nothing special dawg,” he rushed to claim.

“No. I heard the radio, and I heard you. That was different, you were different. And better.”

“You’re just sayin that.”

“Have I ever said something nice to you just to say something nice?” you asked, your face skeptical.

He laughed, unable to stop himself. “I don’t think you’ve ever complimented me at all before.”

“Kind of proving my point for me, aren’t you?”

He snorted.

“I’m serious. Definitely the kind of voice that teenage girls would pay too much money for tickets just to scream over it in a concert.”

“Ya think?” there was a note of hopeful excitement in his question, and he seemed to turn even redder at your words.

“I mean, I’m no expert,” you shrugged. “But I did used to be one. A teenage girl that is.”

“Huh.”

Silence, save for the upbeat pop song now playing in the background, settled back over the car as he continued to drive, pondering what you said, and you let your thoughts drift aimlessly.

“So what about you?” Derek suddenly asked, making you jump again.

“What about me?” you asked.

He paused, a spark of tension crackling between you. He reached a hand to scratch at the back of his neck.

“I mean, were you...did you used to scream over boybands and shit?” he finally managed to say.

“Nah. I never had the money for concerts. Besides,” you flashed him a sheepish half-smile. “I liked some of it, but my taste was mostly more along the lines of Bowie, Broadway, and Cash than it was Fall Out Boy or whoever.”

He seemed to consider this. “Maybe I’ll have to learn some of that for you then.”

“I bet you could do a good Life on Mars,” you suggested genuinely. “Still won’t get you in my pants though.” You couldn’t help the smirk that tugged at your lips.

“Ouch!” he laughed with mock-hurt. “You still think I’m just playin you?”

“Obviously,” you shrugged. “I’m too smart to think otherwise.”

‘No matter how much I wish you weren’t,’ you thought fleetingly.

Derek frowned, catching something in your tone, below your usual teasing. Something...sad? No, defeated?

“You don’t think I could be serious? Or...actually into you?”

“Please,” you scoffed.

His frown deepened, hurt that no matter how close you’d gotten of late or how you acted, you still thought that low of him.

“I know I’m not really someone worth sticking around for,” you said softly. “And you’re sweet sometimes, but...that doesn’t change facts.”

He opened his mouth to protest but you kept talking.

“My own parents figured that out, I’m sure you will too. Everyone does. I don’t even mind anymore,” you chuckled bitterly. “It’s just the trying to pretend otherwise that hurts.”

He was silent, unsure where to even start. He wanted to tell you that you were wrong, he wanted to prove it. He wanted to keep the tears he could see building up from ever falling.

The car slowly rolled to a stop outside your apartment. He realized that somewhen the rain had let up to a fine drizzle, but the gloom had moved inside the car instead. You flashed him a smile that didn’t meet your eyes.

“Thanks for the ride,” you said, leaning slightly on the doorframe as you got out, and wringing your hands. “I’ll see you tomorrow. And...uh...try not to worry about what I said. It’s...no big deal.”

The car door sounded heavier than ever as it closed and you headed up the walk, turning briefly as you put your key in the lock to wave.

He continued to sit there, well after you had disappeared inside, trying to wrap his head around what had passed between you. Eventually, he had an idea.

“Sean!” he said into his phone when the Irishman in question finally answered. “Yo, I know you’re wit’ your girl, but this is important.”

A week or so later, Derek offered you a ride home again, even though this time it was a perfectly clear night, if a little chilly. There was no need for it, and equally no need to agree.

“Sure,” you said, shoving your hands into the pockets of your jacket and leaning against the building. “If you really want.”

“Great,” he smiled and there was no guile or joke or performance in it, just him, happy that you’d agreed. “We just gotta cash out with Nino and then we’ll go?”

You nodded. Sean lingered at the door, a smug, knowing look on his face.

“What?” you asked, defensive.

“Nothing, nothing. Just quite the shift from ‘oh no I don’t want to be a bother,’” he said in a tone that you thought was meant to be an impression of you, but a very bad one. “To ‘sure, Derek, I’d love a ride home.’” He batted his eyelids for added effect.

“Oh shut up,” you grumbled, feeling your face heat.

“Admit it. You’re into him.”

“You’re impossible.”

“That’s not a no.”

“You’re right...it’s not.” You looked down, fiddling with a pen you had found still stashed in your pocket.

Sean’s eyes widened. “Really?” He couldn’t contain the excitement in his voice.

You countered it with a glare. “Keep your mouth shut. And go cash out, before you get ripped off by your alleged best friend.”

You settled easily into the pleather passenger seat; Derek started the engine and the radio crackled on. You closed your eyes, letting the music wash over your exhausted mind, secretly hoping that he’d sing again. It only took a moment to register this was very different music than what he’d been playing the other night, but before you could ask about it, he started in, humming the opening, gradually gaining energy until he was belting out the lyrics.

“Thanks to you, Bonnie babe, I can make plans again. I've got lots o' reasons to keep livin' Its true that love can set you free, And this world will remember me.”

Swept up in the moment, you answered with the next verse in equal passion and drama.

“You said you'd go straight. Clyde, I wanna be in movies. I can't name one movie star who's doin' robberies on the side. I know in my heart, babe, that Hollywood is callin', How can I be in the spotlight if we always have to hide?”

The pair of you grinned at each other as you continued the back and forth, voices syncing surprisingly well for having never sung together before. You couldn’t help the sort of giddy rush you felt, losing yourself in the music and the character.

As the last note chopped off, you reached over, turning the radio down enough to have a conversation over it.

“You’re pretty good at that, Bonnie,” he joked.

“It helps to have a good partner, Clyde.” You winked dramatically.

“I try, I try.” You weren’t sure, but you thought you might see a hint of color on his cheeks.

“You know,” you mused, with a quirk of an eyebrow, “I didn't take you for a Bonnie and Clyde fan, so I’m guessing it didn’t just happen that you were listening to one of my favorite musicals.”

“It kinda did,” his mouth twisted ruefully. “I know you said to forget it, but I couldn’t stop thinkin about the other night and I,” he glanced over at you, checking to see if you were angry before continuing, “wanted to show you that you’re important to people, that we...I...care about you. So I asked Sean what some of your favorite songs and stuff were.”

You swallowed, fighting back a wave of emotion that threatened to overwhelm you. Still, when you spoke, your voice came out soft and breaking. “Oh.”

“I was gonna surprise you by learning some and then find an excuse to sing 'em for you or with you or something, but this is the only one I got so far, and it was by accident.”

“What do you mean?” Curiosity overrode everything else for the moment.

“It just gets stuck in your head man. I’ve been listening to it for days.”

You joined in his laughter. “It does doesn’t it?”

“I can’t figure it out.”

“Probably because it’s so relatable. The dressing’s complicated, but in the end it’s just about people in love, people with dreams.”

He fell quiet, considering.

Something hung over the pair of you that you couldn’t quite find a name for, or didn’t want to maybe. It felt safe though, whatever it was, and you wanted to cling to it.

Not sure what else to say or do, you nudged the volume up and threw yourself back into the musical, hiding yourself in Bonnie Parker for a time.

That girl's got somethin' Nothing scares her Only piece of luck that's ever come my way

Derek was singing softly, and his hand reached out, fingers tentatively brushing against yours. It was on instinct that you turned your hand and slipped your fingers through his, lacing them together for a moment, the action just feeling right. Seconds later, your mind caught up to what your body had done and you recoiled, jerking away as if his touch had burned you.

“I don’t know why I...I mean I wasn’t...I...sorry,” you stammered.

“Don’t be,” he replied with a half-hearted shrug. “You uh, you have soft hands.”

Almost in a whisper, he added, “I liked it. I wanna keep holding your hand, if you want me to.”

You glanced down at his still outstretched hand, and then back up at his face. He stared resolutely ahead, eyes fixed on the road, as if that could hide the waiting tension that he practically hummed with. He’d told you, in a way, how he felt and now he was leaving it up to you.

Hesitantly, you reached back, sliding your fingers back to where they’d been. You chewed on your lip, staring nervously at the juncture where your skin touched, mind racing. You weren’t sure what it meant, or how it would change things, and you were afraid. Derek was already important to you (you took a moment to marvel at that change, wondering when exactly it had happened). If you let the connection grow…You debated retracting your hand. At least if you pulled back, it would be your choice, for once, to lose.

You felt a slight pressure as he squeezed your hand comfortingly and flashed you a grin. You smiled back.

Maybe this — maybe Derek — was worth the risk.

#another self-indulgent chapter #because as soon as I learned Carlito Olivero is a singer I had to work Derek singing in somewhere #is it relationship progression? maybe #but like in the way 5ft feels like progress in a traffic jam #Derek Sandoval x reader #Bad Samaritan fic #Idiot (Affectionate)

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stonerbughead · 4 years ago

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maria watches friday night lights (#4)

season 2, pt 2!! (2x08-2x15)

ugh Matt is really having his Being A Stupid Teenage Boy season huh?

-lol love a good naked dude being chased scene — in this case, Smash on his recruiting trip being chased around by a potential future teammate. Classic.

(it’s kinda cute that Matt came to pick him up tho)

- the latest in season 2 being off the fucking rails: really? Riggins’ new digs include a meth lab on wheels??

-Landry confessing to murdering someone and then having his sheriff dad drag him out of the station to go home is the whitest shit EVER. Like, Landry is literally *trying* to be punished and they just won’t punish his white, cop-kid ass. ‘Murica. (I mean don’t get me wrong: it WAS self defense against someone literally stalking and trying to rape Tyra, but the point still stands that if Landry was a black kid he’d have been tried as an adult and convicted no doubt)

-YESSSSS a MySpace shoutout! we love to see it

“I hate you” - Santiago (and also me) @ Buddy Garrity

-omg Coach Taylor noticing that things aren’t good at home for Riggins and taking him in, my heart!

-Wow in just one scene Riggins charmed baby Grace, warned Tami’s sister not to shame women for eating a lot (“it can lead to anorexia, especially in girls”) and then offered to go out to the store to get baby formula in the pouring rain. What a man.

-and yes, Shelly, you fully grown woman, it IS a bad idea to lust after a TEENAGE BOY

-wow Riggins protecting Julie from the SUPER DRAMATIC TORNADO that made me laugh. Do we get to have a Riggins-Julie friendship??? bc I’d be down. We need more friendships.

-Thank you, Tami, saying “EW” to her sister watching Riggins work out! Someone has sense to know a fully grown woman shouldn’t be lusting after a teenager! Julie can lust if she wants tho, that’s age appropriate.

-DYING at Landry being aghast that Tyra’s never heard of West Side Story.

-oh god, Lyla — it is totally fair to assume your mom would tell your dad she’s getting remarried, especially if she knew you’d be seeing him — so I’m sorry you’re the one who accidentally set off whatever nonsense Buddy is gonna pull now that he knows his ex wife is “marrying that treehugger.”

“Who’s that?” “Some douchebag named Chip. who names their kid Chip anyway?” Same, Tyra, same.

-Landry, one of my biggest pet peeves is asking someone out while they’re on the clock. Like, come on! let Tyra work, boy.

-Jesus Christ it’s like everywhere Julie looks, she has to see Matt making out with someone. That’s rough.

-and oop Matt you busted bc Julie actually knows who Carlotta is!

-once a cheater, always a cheater, Buddy. And yes to Pam for being like “nah bye I’m happy now, it is over.” You treated her like garbage so here we are, sir!

-hilarious that Landry is the one who ends up throwing the first punch that gets the post-tornado, school-crossover tensions to finally boil over

-I like that they show both the fall formal and the party where everyone who didn’t go to the formal is. Nice.

-Aw poor Julie got drunk af to deal with all her feelings. This really is the season where they have Julie and Matt being sixteen year olds in the most painful ways. So maybe it’s good they’re not together during this tho I’m still looking forward to when the tide turns their way again.

-anyway, Tim is a good friend for getting the creep who thought he was “one beer away from getting laid” off of Julie.

-And....in true Texas dad fashion, Eric Taylor misinterprets everything! Noooo. We can’t have nice things.

-This Noelle-Smash partnership is definitely an interesting pairing. Two very ambitious football people courting all these recruiters while Smash’s mom side eyes them in the corner? Hilarious.

-omg not this Oklahoma tech recruiter harassing smash’s mom in the grocery store! GTFO here! Give her some fucking personal space. They really do such a good job of showing as much of the toxic shit about football culture as the inspiring, big moments.

-Aw and I love that Tami tried to help Mama Smash get the guy to go away. It’s such a familiar scene, women helping each other get a dude harassing them away. And then they have a heart to heart in the parking lot? Love that.

-omg what a throwback that Shelly TAPED OVER Eric’s football game to tape a NEW EPISODE of The Office! Love it. “Y’all should get a TiVo.”

-omg watching Tami and Eric work out arguments is so beautiful, they communicate very well! We stan a good marriage.

-wow seeing the other coach from tornado school lose his shit publicly after he knocked down Riggins was uh....wild???? This is the second time he put his hands on Riggins!

-awww Eric actually coming to apologize to riggins for overreacting about Julie when he hears the real story??? Love it.

-Weevil from Veronica Mars shows up as a friend of Santiago’s? Of course.

-WOW and Logan from Gilmore girls as a Christian radio host...tracks.

“Is that your way of telling her you like her?” Jason making a surprisingly astute observation about Tim. (And Lyla.)

-yo why would you invite your daughter’s boyfriend’s family over for dinner just to say they shouldn’t date? (And bc it’s an interracial relationship.) Southern culture is wild to me lol

-wow the racist coach from last season is now off spouting his mouth about how “no wife of mine would be working with a kid at home.” I love that Eric calls him out as sounding stupid and ignorant — you better!

-hearing that Lyla burned her cheerleading uniform is one of the most badass things she’s done so far tbh along with that dealership destruction

-off the rails update: 2x12 was toooo much!! Like, Jesus between Smash’s sister getting harassed at the movie theater by the racists who hate on smash and Noelle...and this plotline with Santiago and his old friends trashing Buddy’s place...it’s like, can we breathe.

-I could not be more excited for Carlotta to leave and another teenage boy with adult woman relationship to end.

-wow can’t believe the plotline where Riggins stole $3000 from a drug dealer isn’t ending well for him. And now Smash is getting arrested bc of those racist guys from the movie theater episode? One recap I read said that too many of this season’s plots feel contrived and I think that sums it up.

-is there any character who HASN’T worked at Buddy Garrity’s dealership at this point?!

-and yikes at all the other salespeople being mad that a salesperson in a wheelchair was hired...y’all mad ugly and ableist for that

-Tyra and Landry are....confusing

-Wait Logan from GG is an actual preacher and not just a Christian radio host? CREEPY. And he kissed Lyla? A lot to unpack there.

-lol Tim trying to woo Lyla is kinda funny to watch simply bc Tim is clearly so confounded by rejection

-I love how much space they give for Smash’s sister’s pain in the Noelle-Smash theater incident. A lesser show wouldn’t have centered her as much.

-is it mean of me to say Jason is boring AF most of the time

-yeah this dreads girl is seemingly way more compatible with Landry than Tyra yikes! Like she made him a power metal mix cd???

-wow this Smash storyline where mouthing off to the press is what gets him suspended....really checks out bc teenage boys are dumb

-I love Tami as a volleyball coach and getting to see another sport! Also as someone who’s been on a losing team I know that feeling of finally winning a game!!! Go Dillon volleyball!!! (Am I maybe currently writing a Bughead fic based on my underdog field hockey experiences? ;) yes yes I am)

-Oh shit now Saracen’s at the nihilistic Nothing Matters phase of teenage angst. Right on schedule!

-lol these two short haired blondes (white dreads Jean and Tyra) being in a love triangle with Landry is wild

-Omg jean just said, “are you a friend or are you competition?” She is not playing!

-I love Riggins dragging Saracen to practice

“I don’t want you to become at an at-risk youth” -Landry teasing Saracen while also sincerely caring about him is some of the best friendship banter on this show. The accuracy 😂

-It seems like Julie gets a lot of hate? But I think I have such a soft spot for Julie bc I was a bitchy teenager with undiagnosed mental health disorders and I just wish so much #growth for her! Also I really do miss her and Saracen’s relationship, I’m so excited I’m almost at S3 where it seems like it’s happening again?

-LOL this guy at the dmv is the first person in Dillon to be like, “no I hate football.” That tracks.

-wow Saracen is getting driven to the hospital to make sure his grandma is okay by the sex worker who was just giving him a lap dance. Amazing.

-also I hope grandma is okay!

-okay Tyra throwing her hat in the ring for Landry at the last minute? Idk I think Jean deserves the win but there’s no way it’ll happen bc she’s a guest actor?!

-awww Saracen’s abandonment issues coming out whiles he in the tub after being sobered up by Eric Taylor. “There’s nothing wrong with you.” 😭 and “your daughter left me for a better guy” - will take that crumb — first mention of Julie out of Saracen’s mouth in a minute

-hey, Landry, my friend: flirting with a girl (Jean) to get her outside then dumping her immediately is kind of a wild bait and switch. But I get it, he’s been in love with Tyra for a long time and Tyra IS right — they had a very fucked up start to their relationship so it makes sense she needed a minute to process her ~feelings~. however I definitely identified closer to a jean in my high school experience L O L (minus the unacceptable white dreads)

-these Julie and Tami driving scenes are painfully accurate, btw. Love them.

-wow the scene of Smash hyping everyone up, the adrenaline/energy of the team cheering with helmets and a classic “clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose” - then the whole team running out onto the field and leaving an empty locker room with just Smash breaking down into tears....#art

-alright y’all I’m gearing up for the last episode of S2! Thanks to @lockitin for reminding me this is the writers’ strike season — I was in eighth grade then and remember being pissedddd about the shortened fourth season of “the office” — so I’m fully prepared for the abruptness to come.

-I love when they parallel showing the white church and the black church

-and Tim going to church just to see Lyla makes me laugh

-ooooof Jason you cannot put on this waitress you had a one night stand with the fact that this could be your only chance to have a baby!!! Omg this poor woman who just pointed out she, too, is NINETEEN.

-wait so is Riggins doing a sports show on a Christian radio station? What?

“I think you’re really hot. Your long hair reminds me of Jesus” -Christian girls being horny for Riggins LOL

-awww Saracen being like “okay Landry you’re gonna impress Tyra right now” before that football play was a cute friendship moment for those two

-aww I love how this Smash storyline is turning out with Coach Deeks whose had his eye on him for six years my heart 😭

-also unclear to me whether Logan Huntzberger the Preacher is a fully grown adult dating a high school senior?? Biggest teen drama pet peeve once again! Stop this!

-Tami is my heroine for just leaving Eric at the restaurant fighting with her ex. “see you at home, honey!”

-I’m sorry, is Jason gonna like actually convince this girl to have a baby with her one night stand at 19??? Oh lol wait THAT ended up being the cliffhanger of the whole season? Fucking hilarious.

well I made it through season 2!!! Super psyched for Season 3, Jay has been hyping me up for it. See y’all next time! (I’ll try to post more for season 3 bc this accidentally got long af.)

#maria watches friday night lights #mine #friday night lights #friday night lights 2x08 #friday night lights 2x09 #friday night lights 2x10 #friday night lights 2x11 #friday night lights 2x12 #friday night lights 2x13 #friday night lights 2x14 #friday night lights 2x15

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dinomight · 5 years ago

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all the stars in all the skies: a playlist for Home and a Half by @echodrops

the chain - fleetwood mac // sorrow - the national // nothing’s gonna hurt you baby - cigarettes after sex // child i will hurt you - crystal castles // constant craving - the cat and owl // run boy run - woodkid // female robbery - the neighbourhood // sleepsong - bastille // small things - ben howard // iron - woodkid // greens of june - neko case // mars - sleeping at last // iscariot - walk the moon // human - daughter // body - mother mother // i come with knives - iamx // all these things that i’ve done - the killers // an angry blade - iron & wine // all the stars - the wailin’ jennys // i’ll be good - jaymes young // slow wake up sunday morning - mountain man // someone to stay - vancouver sleep clinic // it’s alright - mother mother // this is home - cavetown

Song explanations under the cut!

First I’d like to clarify: I’m not insane. I’m just a huge ass dork for this fic. (For a lot of things, really, but irrelevant.) HaaH is one of my favorite written works ever, fanfiction or not, so I really, truly should not have been surprised that this playlist ended up being so much longer than I meant for it to be, and it probably could’ve been even longer if I’d let myself keep going. In my defense, I can’t art, so this is one of my only ways to show my appreciation.

Anyways, I’m not gonna wax poetics about how much I love this story because we would be here all day and this post is too long as it is, so down to business: this playlist is very loosely structured. It’s hard to give the songs a significant order when only a few correspond to specific moments or lines; most of them I chose to focus more on bigger picture themes and concepts from the story. So the order isn’t that important, I just organized them so they’d transition relatively smoothly sound-wise and tried to keep similar concepts together. Additionally, I did use both quotes from the fic and the songs in some of my explanations, so fic quotes are bolded and song lyrics are in italics. Some of these are short, some are a bit longer, some are just the quotes because I didn’t feel the need to explain further, but hopefully all of them give a good idea of why I chose the song. I thought about just posting the playlist by itself, but I felt weird not explaining the thinking behind it, so uh, here it is I guess?

1) The Chain - Fleetwood Mac: The best song in existence. Objectively speaking, of course. The first time I heard this while thinking of HaaH though, it just fit so well, and I haven’t really been able to un-associate the two since. (Not that I want to lol) It just has such a desert vibe to it that matches with the story, and I think it represents Keith’s desperation to avoid rejection from the team so well. It’s like...if I were to picture a trailer for HaaH, this is the song I would hear in the background, y’know?

2) Sorrow - The National: This one’s a bit of a weird one because I can’t quite put into words why this is on here. Like, I added it back when I was just throwing some songs together for background atmosphere while reading HaaH, but when I was working to make this into something more thought out, I couldn’t bring myself to take this song off. So here it is, I guess.

3) Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby - Cigarettes After Sex: This one is here more for its sound and atmosphere, not really the lyrics. It just sounds like...nostalgia, I guess. Like it’s supposed to be reminiscing about something comforting, but it’s not quite there because the pain of the present is keeping you rooted. The way I hear it, it’s like Keith is thinking about his mom and her love and comfort, but it’s tainted by the loss of all of that. (I might be slightly insane. I’ve come to terms with that.)

4) Child I Will Hurt You - Crystal Castles: I don’t know how else to phrase this so I’m just gonna say it: this song gives me the heebie jeebies, just like Keith’s flashbacks to his earlier times with the Garrison. I swear, every time he says replacement mother or father it gives me chills. Or makes me want to cry a bit. It just feels so wrong, and that’s why I picked this song, ‘cause it gives me the same feeling. The music is so soft, like it was supposed to be a lullaby, but the lyrics and the feeling underneath is...disturbing. Plus, “Hide all that you could / Done for the greater good / It’s later understood” reminds me all too well of the Garrison scientists and what they did to Keith.

5) Constant Craving - The Cat and Owl: So while I was searching for songs to add, it suddenly occurred to me that despite the fact that one of Keith’s major problems is that he can’t put his thoughts and feelings into words properly, every single song I’d added did exactly that. And so began my search for some instrumental songs that unfortunately only turned up this one, mostly because I realized this playlist was getting far too long lol. Though now that I’ve thought about it, an all instrumental HaaH playlist would be an interesting challenge. Hm. I already knew I wanted to add Constant Craving as a sort of representation for Keith’s own craving for love, acceptance, and family, but when I heard this version I knew it was right. Keith knows he desperately needs all these things, but he can’t put it into words, can’t communicate it right. It’s made even better by how well known the original song is, because you can feel the familiarity in it, feel what’s missing and what should be there, but it’s different at the same time, like that absence has created something strange, something off-kilter from what it should have been. Plus it’s sorta a lullaby version, which I like since Keith’s childhood is an often reoccurring topic.

6) Run Boy Run - Woodkid: Seems to me like there’s a lot of shit Keith’s been running from. (also...running makes me think of “escaped from the Garrison”. Escaped. Escaped. ESCAPED.)

7) Female Robbery - The Neighbourhood: There’s some really fucked up stuff in Keith’s past in addition to the whole Galra thing, and he really does not want the team to find out any of it. This song makes me think a lot about that.

8) Sleepsong - Bastille: “You go to sleep on your own / And you wake each day with your thoughts / And it scares you being alone, it's a last resort” & “All you want is someone onto whom you can cling / Your mother warned of strangers and the dangers they may bring / Your dreams and memories are blurring into one / The scenes which hold the waking world slowly come undone.” ...yeah.

9) Small Things - Ben Howard: Another song that’s on here more for the sound than the lyrics, though the lyrics could possibly fit. I just love the dreamy, suspended feeling that this song exudes and how well it fits with the feeling that Keith’s flashbacks and memories give me.

10) Iron - Woodkid: “But Keith was gone—every reflex retuned for battle, every nerve sparking under his skin, and all there was fight, win, refuse to be killed.“ - “I'm waiting for the call, the hand on the chest / I'm ready for the fight, and fate” So the lyrics don’t *exactly* match up, but the underlying themes are there, I think, and the atmosphere of this one was more important to me anyways. The intensity of it just screams fighting and death and red to me.

11) Greens of June - Neko Case, k.d. lang, Laura Veirs: “Just in the moment / Everything's changed / My dark disposition / Has been rearranged” The arrival of the kids is certainly not a very happy time considering the circumstances, but it brought a change that Keith desperately needed, one that will hopefully help him actually be happy. (My other reason for choosing this song is, for whatever reason, it also gives me desert vibes.)

12) Mars - Sleeping at Last: “We let the end goal blind us to the means. We’ll have to re-evaluate before we take on any more missions. If violence is our go-to method of beating the enemy, we’re no better than the empire ourselves.” - "Lay your weapons down! / They're calling off the war / On account of losing track / Of what we're fighting for." The team has taken up an immense and necessary duty to protect the universe, but that doesn’t mean they don’t get caught up in the grey areas of war, and it doesn’t mean they get to come home without scars.

13) Iscariot - WALK THE MOON: Broganes, anyone? For real though, this song is about betrayal between two people who are essentially brothers (specifically Jesus and Judas but I didn’t pick it for the religious references). While I don’t think Shiro is gonna see Keith being Galra and hiding it as a personal betrayal, Keith clearly does. “How long did he have left before…Before Lance said he’d known all along there was something wrong with Keith, before Pidge threw his hypocrisy back in his face: no secrets between paladins, huh? Before Allura turned her back on him. Before Shiro couldn’t, and Keith had to meet his eyes, watch betrayal dawn white-star bright and burning.” Ah. That sweet, terrible angst.

14) Human - Daughter: “Underneath the skin there's a human / Buried deep within there's a human / And despite everything I'm still human / But I think I'm dying here.” I think this song works on two levels. One, you can take “human” to be quite literal and interpret it as Keith’s desperation to hide his Galra heritage and keep pretending that he’s entirely human, even though it clearly has awful emotional repercussions for him. Two, you can look at “human” with a metaphorical lens to talk about how even though Keith seems like a cold tough guy on the surface, underneath that is a complicated mess of emotions and trauma, and not being able to properly deal with all of that is killing him.

15) Body - Mother Mother: One of the things about HaaH that I find most interesting is Keith’s relationship with his body. Between the whole Galra form vs human form, the fact that his human form is not how he was born, and everything that the Garrison did to him...it’s a goddamn mess. Hence, this song. can I please give this boy a hug

16) I Come With Knives - IAMX: First and foremost, I had to include this song for the irony, because Keith did, in fact, come with a knife. However, I also included it because I really like how on the surface, it can be written off as just another angsty emo song, but if you take the time to really listen to it, it’s filled with genuine emotion and hurt. (Almost like a certain knife-wielding alien boy I know...)

17) All These Things That I’ve Done - The Killers: I have a few different reasons for why this song is here, but the main one is pretty much “I got soul, but I’m not a soldier”. I mean...yeah. That screams Keith to me. He’s driven and angry and passionate and willing to fight so hard to protect the people he loves, but...that doesn’t mean he’s emotionally okay with being a soldier, even if the rest of the team seems to think otherwise.

18) An Angry Blade - Iron & Wine: Another one that immediately earned points for Keith irony in the title. Seriously though, I love the tone of this song for Keith. It’s got desert vibes to it, and maybe it’s just because my hearing isn’t fantastic, but I like that the lyrics are a bit hard to make out. You really have to listen. (Again, almost like...hmm...) Plus: “You’re an angry blade and you’re brave / But you’re all alone”

19) All the Stars - The Wailin’ Jennys: I swear I didn’t just pick this for the title. It was a little bit for the title though, sue me. Nope, it was more for “So open wide your wounded heart / Feel yourself be blown apart” because for the love of god, Keith, please open up a bit more to the people around you. On a more serious note, I was also struck by “You don’t know me / You know one side of a story” because it’s true for both Keith and his mother. The Keith part is obvious--the team, with the exception of Shiro, only really sees the Keith that’s on the surface. But it’s kinda true for Keith and his mom too, right? He’s missing so much information because of his spotty memories. Up until the kids arrived, it seems like he didn’t even consider the idea that she might be, y’know, not evil. So...yeah. Also “All the stars in the sky / Say goodbye say goodbye” because I didn’t need my heart, it’s fine, it’s okay, I’m not crying over a fictional character and the death of his alien mother, there’s just dirt in my eyes--

20) I’ll Be Good - Jaymes Young: “But if there was a way to stop the blood flowing down his glove, the sound a sword made when it struck bone, the way her breath came in pieces between the shocks her sobs, then he definitely would have... “ - “I've been cold, I've been merciless / But the blood on my hands scares me to death / Maybe I'm waking up today”

21) Slow Wake Up Sunday Morning - Mountain Man: “It's lucid dreaming; he knew it wasn't real, not anymore, but still he couldn't focus his eyes, couldn't see past the fall of her hair in the pale morning light...” - “The light / It moves / Across this room / Like it could reach us, honey” & “We are already there, it seems / (I know I can't stay in this place)” I don’t quite know how to explain why I connected this song with this moment beyond the whole early morning thing but...this moment was an especially emotional one for me. It felt like something Keith wanted to hold on to, wanted to go back to, but just like the sun continues rising, the world keeps moving, regardless of whether we want it to or not.

22) Someone to Stay - Vancouver Sleep Clinic: “You were alone left out in the cold / Clinging to the ruin of your broken home / Too lost and hurting to carry your load / We all need someone to hold” I just...yeah. There’s not much I need to say about this one. Just Keith and the kids, man.

23) It’s Alright - Mother Mother: Whenever I listen to this song, I feel like I’m getting a hug. Since I cannot project myself into fictional stories and hug the characters myself, I instead gift this song to Keith. Please, someone give this boy more hugs. Please.

24) This is Home - Cavetown: “Get a load of this monster / He doesn't know how to communicate / His mind is in a different place / Will everybody please give him a little bit of space / Get a load of this trainwreck / His hair's a mess and he doesn't know who he is yet / But little do we know the stars welcome him with open arms / Oh / Time is / Slowly / Tracing his face / But strangely he feels at home in this place.” <3

This got way too long, so to anyone who actually made it through all of that, I sincerely apologize. >.<

#echodrops #home and a half #haah #not using fandom tags cause ha no way am i getting involved in that mess again #anyways imma just...leave this here #and go have my anxiety in the corner so bye

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blustersquall · 6 years ago

Text

Only Make Believe // Chapter 34: Nightmares Are Real

So, last chapter was left on a cliffhanger.

Fair warning: this chapter is heavy going. There’s mentions of abuse, physical, mental, and emotional. There is physical abuse in this chapter. Nothing graphic, but enough I feel it necessary to warn y’all about it. Please, as always, take care of yourself as you’re reading. Take a break. Practice grounding techniques. Breathe deep. If you feel yourself getting overwhelmed, step away. The chapter will be there when you’re good and ready.

I’m grateful to every single one of you who has been with me through this fic so far. I also have utter solidarity for every single person who has ever dealt with someone like Rick. We’re not victims. We’re survivors. And no one can take that away from us.

Also, I ask that you please read the notes at the end of the chapter.

- The chapter is available on AO3 as well, for those who prefer it. (Link to AO3 on my blog).

Cullen hurried through the Chantry phone in hand and dodging around the visitors who were trying to find a place to get a view of exhibition curator and to hear them speak. The number that flashed up as missed was one that Cullen did not recognise; that wasn’t particularly uncommon given how he offered his services. Calls from unknown numbers were expected. That there were six missed called worried him. Six was extreme. Six wasn’t someone calling him to ask about his services. Six missed calls were more like an emergency.

Once outside, Cullen took a deep breath of the freezing air as he tapped the screen to call back. He shoved he free hand in the pocket of his jacket and began to pace along the steps, not far from the doors.

It was two rings before someone picked up.

“Hello?”

Cullen was surprised to hear a male voice answer. A voice he knew. “Josef?”

“Cullen! Thank the Maker I got you!” Josef’s tone was audibly relieved.

Immediately Cullen’s focus went to Matilda, Dante and Rowan. “What’s up? Are the kids okay?” Before he and Nevena left Haven, Josef had said he was taking them to his mother’s in South Reach. Given the treacherous and ever-changing weather, his concern was if there had been an accident or they were stranded somewhere on the road.

“They’re fine. We reached my mother’s safe and sound earlier today. The roads are pretty terrible.” Josef answered quickly, all but brushing off Cullen’s concern. “Look, I know this is a weird call but is Nevena with you?”

“Uh,” Cullen ran his thumb over the scar on his lip. “Sort of. We’re in Kirkwall with some friends of mine. We’re at an exhibit right now.”

“So, you are in Kirkwall…” Josef said under his breath. “Shit.”

“Joe, what’s going on?” asked Cullen, his hackles rising due to the questions he had and the answers he didn’t.

“I was hoping…” Josef sighed. “Ineria knows Nevena is in Kirkwall. Nevena has been checking into various locations on her Facebook.”

“Okay…” Cullen said, uncertain why this was an issue. “I can’t imagine Ineria is on Nevena’s Facebook.”

“She isn’t but Matilda is. Matilda left her Facebook profile logged in on the home computer. We left in such a hurry, she didn’t even think about logging out or anything until we got to my mother’s and I called Ineria to let her know the kids were safe.”

Cullen’s body went cold all of a sudden, and not from the snow. “Ineria wouldn’t use Matilda’s social media to track Nev, would she? And even if she did, it’s not like she can reach Nevena here.”

“Rick lives in Kirkwall!”

Cullen almost dropped his phone. The world around him slowed down to a snail’s pace.

Rick lived in Kirkwall.

Rick, Nevena’s living nightmare, lived in Kirkwall. The city they had come to. The city he suggested they go to as a safe haven and for a change of scenery. And worse, Nevena’s social media was acting as a beacon.

“Is Ineria still in contact with Rick?” asked Cullen, his voice almost robotic as his brain struggled to catch up the time around him. “Do they still talk?”

Josef sighed down the other end of the phone. “Honestly, I’m not sure. I only… When I was speaking to her, something she said made me think she is, and has probably told him that Nevena is in the city.”

“What did she say?”

“Something about Kirkwall and it being a good place for Nevena to bump into old faces.”

“That sounds pretty clear cut, doesn’t it?” Cullen pushed his fingers into his eyes. “Would she, really?”

“This is Ineria we’re talking about, Cullen.” Josef sounded weary. “If it means she gets her claws into Nevena from a distance, she’ll do whatever she can.”

“I have to go.” Cullen said, beginning to climb the steps to the entry of the Chantry. “I’ve left her alone and if he’s looking for her I can’t leave her for long. I don’t want her to have to deal with him. She shouldn’t have to.”

“Agreed. Let me know everything is okay. Matilda feels terrible.”

“It’s not her fault, I know that, and Nevena would say the same. But I’ll let you know if anything happens.”

“Alright.”

“Thanks for calling me.”

“No problem.”

Josef hung up and Cullen slid his phone into his pocket. He marched into the Chantry and through the metal detectors bypassing the security guards with hardly a glance. His heart was in his throat, and he was acutely aware of everything and everyone.

He looked over the sea of people. It was as though each person had suddenly multiplied into five people. The crowd looked so much larger than it had when he was walking through to return the call. He cursed the dim lighting, it was impossible to make out faces of the people he walked by. He didn’t really know what Rick looked like, except from a quick glimpse of him in a photo taken years ago. For all Cullen knew, the young angry looking brunette in that picture could be bald, with mutton chops and a tattoo on his face now.

It didn’t matter that he didn’t know what Rick looked like he scanned the faces of every person he went passed, searching for the face of a man looking for someone else in earnest. If he was here, if he had been informed of Nevena’s whereabouts by Ineria, then Cullen was determined to act as a wall between Rick and Nevena. She did not need to see him, not after everything he put her through. Not after the strides she had taken in the years past to get to where she was today.

The crowds grew thicker the further into the Chantry Cullen walked. A woman was talking on a small platform elevated about a foot above the onlookers, indicating with a wave of her hand to different exhibits on display. Cullen closed his ears and tried to patiently ease his way through the people trying to get to the alcove where he left Nevena, and hoping she was either still there, or at the very least nearby and alone.

From the corner of his eye he noticed the familiar style of Cassandra’s short hair as she stood taller than most of the other women gathered. Varric was with her, and Cullen breathed a momentary sigh of relief making his way over as fast as possible.

“Cass!” He nudged her and spoke in a low, frantic whisper.

“There you are Curly,” Varric chuckled, “we were wondering where you and Freckles got off to…” he glanced around for Nevena. “Speaking of which, where is she?”

“What’s the matter?” Cassandra asked, the voice almost aggressive. Cullen realised he must have looked stricken to her in some way, despite how much he was trying to keep his calm. Nothing got passed Cassandra. Nothing, and for once, Cullen was glad of that.

“I had a call from Nevena’s brother-in-law, Josef. She’s been checking her in to the places we’ve been visiting since leaving Haven on her Facebook.” As Cullen spoke he realised he was breathing fast and a sense of panic was starting to overtake him. His chest was tighter, and his extremities were cold. Cool sweat soaked the back of his neck and trickled down his spine. He drew in a deep breath and stood straighter – he couldn’t afford to panic now. “Ineria has informed Nev’s ex that she’s here. He lives in Kirkwall.”

“What?” Both Varric and Cassandra’s eyes widened.

“Shit.” Varric said. “Alright, I’ll go grab a security guard. Where’d you leave her?”

“Over there,” Cullen pointed in the direction. “There’s a sculpture of a parent and child.”

“Okay.” Varric went off, easing through the crowd with as much speed as was possible.

“Come on,” Cassandra said, moving at a brisk pace with Cullen through the throngs of people. People who seemed to just part for Cassandra with minimal effort. Cullen kept a step ahead of Cassandra’s gait leading her through the Chantry to where he left Nevena not five minutes ago.

He swallowed back his fear and worry, hoping she would be as he left her. Alone, and safe.

Nevena jerked up from the two-seater bench and stepped out of the reach of the hands that had tightened for a moment around her throat. She touched her neck, unable to shake cold clammy sensation under her hand and tainting her skin.

It was a trick. It had to be.

Some terrible, awful, cruel joke.

How was he here?

How did he find her?

Why was he here?

There was no sense to it. It was him though. In the flesh. Standing at the same six-foot height, the brown hair a little shorter, the blue eyes as small and cold as they ever were. He stood with his hands still outstretched, a look of surprise marring his features as though shocked Nevena had dared to get away from him.

Her throat tightened. Nevena wasn’t sure if she was about to scream, or cry, or vomit. Her stomach turned, while also somehow being in her feet and she was rooted to the floor. Heart hammering in her ears, she tried to find her breath, her voice. Tried to find herself and make herself do more than stare in abject horror and terror.

“It’s good to see you, Nene.” Rick’s mouth slid into a thin smile, “I was shocked when Ineria called me and told me you were in Kirkwall. Shocked, but… pleased. You know, I’d been thinking about you a lot… Christmas was when you broke my heart.”

Ineria?

Nevena’s mind turned that information over slowly like rusted cogs in a clock. Ineria told him she was in Kirkwall? Ineria was still in contact with Rick? How did Ineria even know she was in Kirkwall? Aside from Cullen and Roselyn, she hadn’t told anyone where she was going or what she was doing. So how did Ineria know? How had she found out? Why had she called Rick?

The last question was stupid. The reason Ineria called Rick was because she knew how much it would hurt and how much he would frighten her if he found her. Which he had.

“Aren’t you happy to see me?” he began to walk towards her, circling around the bench with arms open, palms up. He looked so… unthreatening. He gave the impression of someone who was so relaxed and calm, he always did. The well-practiced lie that hid the truth of the person he was underneath the facade. Nevena glanced over his shoulder, hoping someone might look over, catch her eye and see the terror she was trying to convey. No one did. She was alone. Alone with an animal who wore the mantle of a man. “I’ve missed you, you know.”

Nevena almost stumbled into the sculpture as she backed away from Rick with every step he took towards her. She caught herself before she hit the art piece staggering away and blindly fumbling to regain her balance. A hand grabbed her left arm in a vice-like grip. In a series of motions that left her feeling as though she was about to be sick, he twisted her arm up and behind her back holding it there in an awkward position that caused pain to shoot down from her wrist to her elbow and then up into her shoulder. Nevena’s eyes started to sting. Her chest constricted around her lungs pushing all the breath from her in a rush. “You could at least say something.” Rick hissed at her, mouth close to her ear. His breath wafting over her face made her feel nauseous. A feeling that only increased when she heard Rick inhale deeply, his nose pressing into her hair. “You look great.”

“Let go.” Nevena mumbled, trying to pull her arm free of Rick’s grip – which only resulted in more pain. His hand tightened around her wrist the more she struggled. Over the years, she had forgotten how much stronger than her she was. Now was an unwelcome reminder as he held her, trapped within his grasp. “Please.” She could see his steely eyes boring into her in her periphery but refused to look.

“Who was that you were with?” he asked conversationally. His grip on her never faltered, no matter how much she wriggled and her arm, wretched behind her, was starting to go numb. She remembered times like this from before. During arguments when he would grab and wouldn’t let go until he left a mark, or she was crying. “I didn’t like him.”

“Please, let go.” Nevena tried to tug her arm again – her shoulder burned in complaint. “Please don’t cause a scene.”

“A scene?” Rick smiled. “Why would I cause a scene? We’re just talking.”

“If we’re just talking, then please let go.” Begging. She was already begging. Hardly two minutes and she was back to the submissive, frightened person he turned her into. The nightmare of him just appearing if she so much as thought about him had come true. Here he was, in the flesh, ruining everything the way he always did.

“Who was he?” Rick’s voice became more of a snarl, and he loomed over her, his face inches from her. Nevena had no other option but to look at him. The shadows cast by the low light made him look as though he was possessed. She tried to summon her voice up to scream, but nothing came out.

“He…” Nevena swallowed hard, “he’s—“

“He was touching you.” Rick snatched her chin in his free hand and pressed his fingers and thumb into her skin. He squeezed her jawbone making her wince. “And kissing you.”

Nevena clenched her eyes shut. He was so uncomfortably close she could feel his breath on her face. She was certain he was about to try and kiss her. Try and lay claim to her. Make her do things she didn’t want to do the way he used to. She tightened her lips together, as if doing so might make kissing impossible. She hated the sensation of tears stinging her eyes. All the time she’d spent trying to put her life back together. All the time she’d spent thinking she was stronger, and she could move on and that Rick didn’t have a hold on her any more – all for nothing. She was still afraid of him. He could still force her and scare her and make her do things, just because he wanted to and because he knew he could exert that power over her. All the progress she thought she’d made had been nothing but an illusion… or perhaps a delusion would have been more accurate.

The fear and panic were taking hold, blood pounding through her veins, her vision blurring at the corners, her heart thundering at an alarming speed against her ribcage while she was yanked between fight or flight. Her chest tightened even further, her ribs feeling as though they were clawing into her lungs making it impossible to get even a gasp of air. Every breath she tried to take was shorter and sharper than the one before. She wanted to run and hide, and cower in a corner, never to come out again. She wanted to be home, safe behind her locked doors, her locked windows, and her drawn curtains.

“Am I scaring you, Nene?” Rick’s voice was closer, as though he was whispering directly into her ear. She sensed movement through her closed eyes and flinched away instinctively. “You’re shaking.” She realised she was, trembling from head to foot, a scared rabbit in a fox’s den. “Are you cold?”

“N-no.” Nevena jerked away from Rick’s hand gently gliding up the side of her face from her chin. His flesh was cool on hers, and his fingers curled back into her hair. She tried to bury her head and neck down into her shoulders, like a tortoise retreating into its shell. Rick’s hand tightened in her hair and he pulled. Nevena bit back a yelp of pain. “That hurts…” Nevena managed to say, reaching up and wrapping her free hand around his in her hair. She had nails, she could scratch him – but the pain in her shoulder from the hold he had her in was now spreading across the top of her back. And even if she did try to scratch him, it wouldn’t make any difference. He would just laugh in her face at her feeble attempt to free herself.

“Does it?” he tugged on her hair again and this time Nevena did let out a small noise of protest. She didn’t know if it was involuntary, or if some deep part of her hoped making any kind of noise would attract some attention. “I thought you’d be happier to see me.”

“I-I am…”

“You’re not acting happy.” Hissed Rick. “After everything you put me through, after all the pain I experienced when you broke things off and humiliated me – I would have thought you’d at least apologize to me” Nevena’s throat constricted, further restricting the air she tried to breathe making even that feel as though it was choking her. “Why did you let your friend trick me? Why did you let her call the police when all I wanted to do was get you alone to talk to you?”

“I… I didn’t know sh—“

“Liar!” Rick pulled back on Nevena’s head. “Don’t lie to me! You must have known! Why else would you have allowed her to do it!“

“I didn’t know, I swear.” Nevena whimpered. Tears escaped from the corners of her eyes making her want to curse. Crying was what he wanted. What he liked. He liked it when she cried in the past. He enjoyed seeing her crumble into pieces. Enjoyed knowing how afraid of him she was. He enjoyed knowing that he could reduce her to nothing by doing so very little. “I didn’t know.”

“Why should I believe you?” Hissed Rick. He slid his hand out of her hair and down. Nevena shuddered. His skin was clammy and cold on hers, it almost felt leathery and she was sure she was melting, as if his touch was corroding her flesh away. His fingers closed around her throat and Nevena suddenly found herself stumbling over her feet as she struggled to keep up with Rick’s stride. His arm and then hers hit the hard stone wall, the impact almost winding her. Her head hit a moment later smacking into it with an almighty crack that ricocheted around the small vestibule.

Nevena’s head throbbed from the pain and her mind swam for a moment while she tried to focus herself. Dark spots flickered across her vision and for a terrible moment she thought she was going to be sick. Bile burned the back of the tongue before she forced it back down with a hard swallow. More tears spilled down her face, dripping on her clothes and Rick’s hand. When she sniffled and looked at him, Rick’s thin lips curled up at the corners. “What do you want?”

“What I’ve always wanted.” Rick shrugged when he answered, as if he was making a vague comment about nothing at all. His grip tightened on Nevena’s arm and she yelped when he forced one leg between hers, pressing his thigh against her. “I want what was promised to me by your useless shit of a father. I want what you promised me when I asked you to marry me. I want you. I want your family’s connections. I want your family’s money.” He pushed harder, his thigh working at pinning Nevena to the wall, all the while she could feel his blunt fingernails digging into the skin of her throat. “Most of all though, I just want you.”

“I don’t have any of that.” Nevena managed to choke out between gasps for air that were becoming more desperate with each one. “I don’t know anything about his finances or the business.”

“Do you think that matters to me?” Rick’s smile grew a little. “Someone has to take over when the old fucker dies. Why shouldn’t it be me?” Nevena’s eyes widened at that, and she stared at him, searching for any deception. Rick chuckled. “After all, that was part of what he agreed to when I asked him if he would allow me to marry you.”

“You’re lying.”

Rick snorted. “You can believe that if you want to. You’ll have to talk to daddy dearest. But, that’s beside the point right now. What I want is what I was promised. I asked you to marry me, and you said yes. That’s a verbal agreement. A binding contract. A contract that you, little bitch, broke.” His hand tightened around Nevena’s throat and she coughed against the pressure he applied.

“What I want is what any reasonable husband wants. I want to be able to fuck you as much as I want, when I want, and how I want,” with each phrase he rubbed the weight of himself against Nevena, and his lips – cold and cracked and wet – pressed to Nevena’s jaw, working along towards her mouth. “I want you to be a good girl and not fucking complain and bitch when I do. I want you to learn your place and do as you’re told, instead of always trying to fucking fight me. I’m not asking for much here, Nene. It’s not unreasonable to expect your obedience.”

Nevena’s mind was fuzzy. She wasn’t sure if it was the knock on the head, the lack of air, or the information that was being thrown at her, but she couldn’t concentrate and could barely hear. Blood thudded in her ears drowning out most sounds except Rick’s voice. Her flesh crawled under each kiss Rick applied, as if her own skin was trying to slough off and get rid of any essence of him. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to concentrate over the pain in the back of her head, and the fear welling up inside her. Once more, she bit her lips together doing so would act as a deterrent if he tried to kiss her.

“We’re going to be really happy, you and me, Nene.” Rick said, his voice losing its edge and sounding deceptively gentle. Somehow, that softness made everything so much worse. It was the voice he used to fool everyone. The one he used to charm his way through life, while hiding his true self behind it. Nevena swallowed down hard on the sickness threatening to rise up her gullet again. The tears started falling freely and she choked on a sob. “You’ll see.” His moist and sickly smelling breath wafted over her face. Nevena retreated back, eyes clenched closed, holding her breath and praying the wall might simply let her melt into it. “Now, kiss me like a good girl, and we’ll—“

“Nev--!”

Nevena opened her eyes at the sound of a third voice. One that filled her shaking body with relief.

“Cullen!” His name fell more like a bark from her mouth, caught somewhere between a sharp inhale and a sob.

He stood at the mouth of the alcove, hair slightly dishevelled, breathing hard and red faced as though he’d been running. His eyes were blazing, more fearful than angry and he might have been the most beautiful sight Nevena had ever seen.

She watched him taking in the scene in front of him. Eyes darting from her to Rick, to his hand on her throat, his leg pushed between hers. She saw him see the tears staining her face and then his eyes glanced just to the side of her. They widened a little, before returning and focusing full fury on Rick.

“Let go of her. Now.” Cullen advanced, an icy stillness to his voice. He was taller than Rick by a few inches, but at that moment he was more like a giant towering over a mouse. Nevena watched him, noticing a moment later that Cullen wasn’t alone, that both Varric and Cassandra were flanking him with one of the security guards from the entrance. Cullen’s eyes were fixed on Rick, gauging him and checking for everything from his breathing pattern to his expression, alert for any sudden movements.

Nevena realised in the haze of her muddled brain that this was Cullen the TEMPLAR in front of her. Someone with military training, looking for the safest way to deal with the situation with minimal injuries to any party involved. That was a world he had left behind… and now he was forced to drag up that training, and everything that went with it because of her.

Rick didn’t move. He didn’t speak, but Nevena heard him take a quick breath, clearly taking stock of the fact he was outnumbered and outmatched. Cullen lifted his hands, palms facing Rick. A peaceful stance and non-threatening. Rick watched him with sharp hawk-like eyes as Cullen continued to approach until there was only a few feet between himself and Rick. Nevena wanted to fall into him, into the safety he provided, but with Rick’s strength and his full weight pressing her into the wall, she knew moving would cause more issues than it would solve. Cullen’s gaze flickered across to her and his face hardened slightly.

“You don’t want to make this worse than it already is.” Cullen said, voice even and slow. “I know Ineria must have put you up to this.”

“She told me Nene would be here.” Rick spat. He stepped back from Nevena and the pressure between her legs alleviated when he moved. His hand was still around her throat, though he relaxed his grip a little. Her legs wobbled. “She didn’t mention she’d have company.” The sneer was unmissable, but Cullen didn’t flinch or react beyond a small twitch in the muscle of his jaw.

“Just let her go—“

“No! She’s mine! I asked her to marry me, and she said yes! That’s an agreement! A contract! You can’t just—“

“She changed her mind.” Cullen interjected, coldly. “She is and was well within her rights to do so. She never belonged to you, even if she did say yes at first because you manipulated her.”

“I didn’t manipulate her!” Rick shouted so loud, spittle flew from his mouth. “It was a gesture in front of her family!” Nevena clenched her eyes closed and recoiled from the sound of his raised voice. “She always was a good liar! Tried to convince everyone I was stalking her, and that I hurt her! I never did! She just never listened, and I had to make her listen to me! It was for her own good! I know what’s best for her!” Rick’s hand on her arm tightened and he shook her with every statement he shouted at Cullen. Nevena cowered away from the noise. “Her family owes me for the humiliation I endured. She owes me for fucking my life up so much! I haven’t had a single day since she dumped me that I haven’t thought about her!” To Nevena’s surprise, there were tears welling up in Rick’s eyes and his voice had started shaking as he ranted. He looked at her, the anger in his face cracking for a moment to show a brokenness she had never seen before. “You owe me.”

For a moment, a split second, she felt a glimmer of sympathy for him. He was not well. Never had been, and for all the time away, it seemed like he never got the help he so desperately needed. His family probably didn’t want to admit there was something wrong with him. A chemical imbalance, and psychological issue… People like them, like her family, would rather ignore a problem, than face it and deal with any potential scandal. He was sick, and Ineria must have known and manipulated him in some way. Rick was a victim, in this at least.

The sympathy conflicted so much with the fear he evoked in her, it felt strange. Strange enough that Nevena reminded herself that Rick was in no way deserving of her compassion. No matter what he had endured, no matter how he might have been coerced or manipulated into this situation by a puppet master – he didn’t deserve anything from her. She had wasted time, and tears, and too many sleepless nights, lying awake out of fear to allow her soft heart to wash it all away. Rick wasn’t a monster, he was a man. Sick, and without people around him to help, but he had still put her through hell for years. Still tormented her dreams and her waking hours. Still cornered her, attacked her, tried to take advantage of her after three years of nothing. Nevena might have felt a flicker of sympathy for him, but it was extinguished in moments by the memory of everything he put her through.

“Let her go.” Cullen said again his voice still and steady. “She doesn’t owe you anything.”

Rick scoffed, “and who are you, then? What is Nene to you? Are you her new boyfriend?”

“None of that is any of your concern.” Cullen replied, “all you need to know, all you deserve to know is that she has told me everything you did to her, and what you put her through. That if you think I’ll allow you to inflict anything more on her you are sadly mistaken. I love her, and if you dare to hurt her, it will be the last thing you ever do.”

Through the panic flooding Nevena’s senses, Cullen’s steady words broke through enough to shatter it for a moment. Had he said what she thought he said? What she thought she heard? Was he being truthful? Being earnest? Or was he saying it to get Rick to react and drop his guard for a moment? His expression was so still it was hard to tell. Something inside her bloomed with warmth, until Rick’s fingers tightened on her throat again and the reality of her situation crashed down around her.

“She’s not capable of loving someone. I proposed to her and after she said yes, she changed her mind and gave me the ring back!” Rick laughed, a high-pitched maniacal laugh that send a cold shudder down Nevena’s back. “Who does that?!”

“Looks like she dodged a bullet from where I’m standing.” Varric muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear.

As Rick reeled around to turn his ire on another person, his fingers loosened around Nevena’s throat and her arm. Taking a chance, she gathered up what strength she could and pushed herself off the wall trying to wrench herself out of his grip. Cullen grabbed her around her upper arm, his own strength pooling into her momentum. He gathered her up in his arms, and all but dragged her out of Rick’s reach. In the seconds it took for Nevena to escape, the security guard had Rick spread eagle against the wall and was cuffing his hands.

Nevena started crying. Big, uncontrollable tears and sobs that shook her down to the core as she buried and all but hid herself against Cullen’s chest. Her shaking legs finally gave out underneath her and she sank to the floor, a dead weight. Cullen caught her before she completely slipped from his grasp and he eased her down to the ground. The guard marched Rick away and through the crowds who had now gathered to see what the commotion was. Nevena heard him yelling something but didn’t catch what.

Cullen knelt in front of her, his hands gently pushing her hair off her face. He spoke, though Nevena could only catch low rumbles of words over the pulsing thunder between her ears. He took one of her hands and placed it over his chest. His heart was beating as fast as hers, but he slowed his breathing on purpose. Nevena closed her eyes trying to concentrate on the rhythm of his inhales and exhales but she couldn’t. It was too hard, and her head hurt. She started to scratch at her hands. She wanted to rub her flesh raw, scratch it with sandpaper, dig her nails under her skin and claw Rick out. Anything to get the mere thought of him off and away from her. She remembered that he’d been kissing her jaw, and that reminder sent a wave of intense nausea washing over her.

“Breathe, Nevena…” Cullen’s voice sounded so far away and disjointed to her. Like she was underwater, and he was above. She coughed so hard she retched, doubling over and clutching her stomach. The back of her head hurt and felt unnaturally warm, but she didn’t dare touch her hair. She would sooner cut it all off than touch it again. Hands held her shoulders, steady, comforting. Nevena reached up with her left hand, and her fingers interlocked with those on her left shoulder. “Slowly, try and slow down…”

She was trying. Trying to breathe easier, trying to stop the crying, the panic, the shaking. She was trying so hard not to be… this. This trembling, fearful, shameful mess that Rick turned her into. She was trying to be better.

“S-s—“ she took a deep breath, her voice and words failing.

“Shh…” Cullen gently cradled her face in his hands, coaxing her to lift her head so she could meet his gaze. It was just them. The alcove had been cordoned off and it seemed that Cassandra and Varric had made themselves scarce for the time being. “It’s okay, you’re okay. You’re safe. He cannot get you, I swear. Take your time…”

They were on the floor, and Nevena didn’t remember how they got there. Her whole mind was confused and fuzzy, small details missing. She shook her head from side to side, hopelessly hoping it might provide some clarity. It didn’t – it just succeeded in giving her more of a headache than had already started to form behind her eyes. Cullen pulled her into his arms and she all but melted into the safety and security he provided.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that.” He murmured, stroking her back. “Had I known he was in Kirkwall I would never have suggest we come here. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Nevena tried to find her voice, but the threat of sickness kept her from speaking. Instead she shook her head slowly into Cullen’s shoulder, burying her face into the curve of his neck.

“Are you hurt?”

She shook her head again.

“There’s blood on the wall…” Cullen gently ran his fingers back over her hair. “Sweetheart, you’re bleeding.” Nevena grimaced. “You need to see a first aider.”

The thought of being touched by someone else, by being poke and prodded, even if it was to help her, made her whole body go cold. She tightened her grip around Cullen and forced a hoarse: “no.”

“You might need stitches.”

Exhausted, Nevena shook her head. “No.”

Cullen breathed out very slowly, “we’ll go back to Varric’s when you’re ready, okay? Call a doctor out to where it’s more familiar if need be.”

Nevena nodded.

“Do you want to go back to Varric’s?”

She nodded again.

“Okay.” Cullen kissed her forehead, his lips lingering on her flushed and sweaty skin. She opened her eyes for a moment to catch a glimpse of him. His face, stricken with worry, and his skin almost grey. Kirkwall had been just as bad as Haven, if not worse. She squeezed her arms around him, trying to convey in her gesture that she didn’t blame him. Forming words was too hard right now. Cullen squeezed her back. “Just breathe…”

Nevena wondered if he was telling her, or himself.

The journey back to Varric’s was a blur. All Cullen could focus on was Nevena, trembling beside him, as they walked through the streets towards the town house. Her head bowed, she shrank away from everything, light, sound, even Cassandra when she guided Nevena upstairs in the house to wait for the doctor Varric called on their way home.

It didn’t take long for the doctor to arrive, in his mid-thirties with sandy coloured hair pulled into a dishevelled ponytail, Varric gestured for him to go upstairs and then joined Cullen in the living room where he was pacing.

Pacing, back and forth, wearing a pattern in the carpet, his phone in hand and words of anger burning on his tongue. Never, in his entire life, had Cullen felt a rage like this. It was as though a bloodlust had taken over his better senses, and he had nothing physical to take it out on, except the carpet and his own footsteps. His hand clenched around his phone. He thought of Ineria, back at Haven. In that big manor house, probably beside herself with glee, thinking of what her callous and cruel actions might have brought about.

What could he say to her? What could he say that could thoroughly and completely express how much he despised her? How could he properly illustrate with words just what an evil woman Ineria was? How low her tactic of sending Rick after Nevena was? Would it matter? Would she even care? He doubted it, but he so desperately wanted to say something. To give her a piece of his mind, even if he could only do it over the phone.

“--Curly!”

Cullen stopped, only because Varric stood in his path and held a mug of steaming black coffee out towards him. “What?!” Cullen snapped, drawing in a deep breath afterwards. “Sorry, Varric.” He ran his hand down over his face. His heart rate was still up, the adrenaline still pumping through his system. His mind turned over the different things he wanted to say, listing them in concise bullet points. Cullen glanced around the living room for a pen and a pad of paper.

“Sit down.” Varric said, his voice taking on a tone of authority and making the suggestion sound more like an order. When Cullen didn’t move, Varric’s expression grew harsher. “Sit. And give me your phone.”

“Why?” Cullen took the coffee and sat, but held tight to his phone, even as Varric held his hand out for it, expectantly.

“Because I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I know it’s a bad idea, whatever it is.”

Cullen squeezed his fingers tighter around it. “I could kill her.” He said in a low growl. “Ineria, I could fucking kill her.”

“That’s why you need to give me your phone.” Cullen offered no resistance when Varric slid the phone from out of his fist. “You need to calm down.”

“She sent him after her.” Cullen snarled, opening and closing his hands in his lap. “She sent him after her, knowing what he’d done. Knowing what he would probably try to do! How could she do that?!”

“I don’t know.” Varric sighed. He sat on a foot stool opposite Cullen so they were level with each other. “I don’t know Nevena’s family, or the ex-boyfriend, but I know you can’t see her like this. The poor thing’s scared to death, and if you go up there this angry and declaring you want to kill someone – even if you have the best intentions and Nevena’s safety at heart, you’re going to make things worse.”

He was right. Of course he was, Cullen knew that. He knew going and being with Nevena while he was as angry as he was, would not be a good idea. That anger would be palpable, it would make her more frightened than she already was. He didn’t want to be another Rick in her life, and he would not let that anger control him. It was the reason he wasn’t up there now with her, Cassandra and the doctor. Varric was smart enough to take him to one side, to separate him until he was calm and coherent. The last thing Cullen wanted to do was scare Nevena. He didn’t want her to ever be afraid of him. Never wanted to her to look at him the way he saw her look at Rick. The fear on her face, in her eyes, was something that would haunt him.

“I know.” Cullen exhaled a long breath, concentrating on the sensation of his lungs emptying and the movement of his chest. “I just… I can’t understand how someone could be so cruel. Nevena isn’t to blame for anything that’s gone wrong in Ineria’s life. Any of the imagined slights… That she would do this is…”

“There’s nothing for you or her to do about it right now.” Varric explained with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. “I think the best thing right now is that you drink your coffee, and call the Josef guy, let him know everything is okay.”

“Yeah… yeah, I should do that.” Cullen nodded and Varric handed his phone back to him.

He didn’t drink the coffee, knowing it would only make him more wired than he already was. Instead, he went out into the garden, and skimmed through the numbers on his phone. For a moment, his thumb hovered over the number for Haven – he had entered it before leaving Denerim, in case he needed to call for directions. He considered tapping the call symbol and ignoring Varric’s advice. The thought of giving Ineria a piece of his mind was tempting, but who would that help in the long run? It might make him feel better for a moment, but the fallout from that would undoubtedly land squarely in Nevena’s lap, and he couldn’t do that to her. She’d been through enough at Ineria’s hands.

Skimming passed Haven’s number, he found Josef’s a little lower down the list now he had it entered properly and tapped the call symbol. After a couple of rings, Josef picked up.

“Hey Cullen.”

“Hey…”

“Everything okay?”

“Is now a good time?” He asked, slipping his free hand into his pocket and staring upwards towards the sky. There was thick cloud cover. It would snow tonight.

“Sure, kids are getting ready for bed.” Josef sounded tired, “did anything happen?”

Cullen sighed. He rubbed the five o’clock shadow on his chin, “Rick found her.”

“Oh shit. I’m sorry, I should have called earlier. I tried calling Nevena’s phone before you, but I couldn’t reach her. Maybe I have her number down wrong.” Josef paused a moment or two. “How bad was it?”

“Honestly, nothing could have prepared me. Nevena’s told me what he put her through, how he treated her. But seeing it playing out in front of me… I feel sick just thinking about it. Knowing she had to endure years of…” Cullen clenched his jaw and swallowed, hard. “How could no one in the family have believed her?”

“I don’t know. I wish… I wish I’d stepped in more. I… It’s no excuse, but you’ve seen how the family is. How they close ranks. If you speak out of turn, you’re an enemy. With the kids at stake I couldn’t risk them.”

“I don’t blame you. I can’t imagine Ineria is an easy woman to get out from under the heel of.”

Josef snorted, “You’re not wrong. She—“ he sighed, and Cullen could imagine him ruffling his salt-and-pepper hair. “I should have left a long time ago. The kids aren’t safe with her. I was a coward.”

“At least you made the hard choice and left now.”

“Yeah. It’s a temporary solution. I have to think of something long term while the legal battles are being fought. I can only hope I get full custody of the kids and that whatever trauma they endure, or have endured at her hands, we can work through.” There was a silence of a few seconds and then Josef cleared his throat. “How’s Nevena?”

“Shaken up. Terrified of everything that moves. This last few weeks has been horrific for her.”

“At least she’s had you to turn to.”

“I don’t know if I’ve been much help.” Cullen thought back to his nightmares. “I can’t talk long, I just wanted to let you know Nevena was safe now. Maybe you could let Matilda know?”

“Yeah, I will do. She’ll be relieved to hear it.”

“Make sure she doesn’t blame herself, okay? This isn’t her fault.”

“I’ll tell her, but I don’t know if it’ll do much good. Thanks for calling, Cullen.”

“No problem. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Josef hung up, and Cullen slid his phone into his pocket. His breath turned to steam in the air, and he stood in the cold for a few minutes letting it penetrate his skin. The chill chased away whatever adrenaline was still racing around his system. He was calmer than when he first came back to the house and his main thought was to go upstairs and check on Nevena. He turned and went back into the house, wiping his feet on the mat inside the kitchen. Cassandra appeared in the doorway and stood with her arms crossed.

“Is the doctor still here?”

“No, he’s left.” Cassandra replied, her tone short and clipped as though she was angry. “She doesn’t need stitches, thank the Maker, but he’s given her some painkillers for her arm.”

Cullen rubbed his face, “at least he didn’t break her arm or something.”

“I left her to have a shower.” Cassandra said. She didn’t move from the doorway, even when Cullen approached. Those sharp eyes of hers narrowed, almost glaring into him and Cullen backed up a few steps.

“Can I see her?”

“In a moment.” She walked into the kitchen and closed the door behind her. Cullen suddenly felt cornered. “Do you realise what you said? When you were confronting him?”

Cullen crossed his arms, defences rising. “What did I say?”

“You said you love her.” Cassandra’s unwavering gaze bored into him, and her expression was made more severe by the sharp angles of her cheekbones.

“I… I did?” Cullen swallowed to dampen his throat that was suddenly parched.

“Yes.” Cassandra said with cold stillness. “You did.”

“I… I didn’t realise.” He cursed his hesitation on his words. Cassandra would never believe him if he stammered or if he hesitated. He could see her mind turning over everything he was saying, her eyes watching his every move, looking for tells. “I was just trying to get his focus on me and off her. Catch him off-guard.” He added, hoping the explanation would suffice.

Cassandra gauged him in silence. He could feel her weighing him up in her eyes. Considering his words and how they contrasted with his body language. He tried to keep her gaze, but in a battle of wills, she won. “You really didn’t realise?” She took several steps towards him.

Keeping his gaze down, Cullen unfolded his arms and slid one hand into his pocket. With the other he brushed his thumb over the scar on his lip.

“Cullen…”

“Please don’t lecture me.” Cullen met Cassandra’s gaze. To his surprise it softened and the tension in her body lessened. “Please. It wasn’t the best time, I know. I didn’t mean to say it. It just-- I wanted his attention on me. I wanted to get her to safety. I wanted--” He sighed and dragged his hands down his face. “Fuck.”

“I’m not going to lecture you.” Said Cassandra. “Sometimes we say things in the heat of the moment.”

“That wasn’t the heat of the moment though.” Cullen replied, “I wasn’t shouting. I wasn’t under attack or desperate. I was completely calm and trying to take control of the situation. It wasn’t planned, but it wasn’t exactly spontaneous, either.”

“Cullen,” Cassandra sighed, “whatever you said, in whatever way I only hope you’re sure, and certain in your conviction. I don’t think Nevena can take much more, and if you retract that statement now – if she heard it… I fear that she might just break.”

“I won’t retract it. I don’t want to. It’s the truth.”

She said nothing, simply regarded him in silence and stepped to one side giving him access to the door. Cullen went towards it and reached for the handle. “You may want to rethink plans of going to Ostwick. I’m sure Varric can explain to Dorian and Josephine. They’d understand.”

Cullen threw her a quick glance. “I’ll talk to Nevena about it.”

Climbing the stairs, Cullen quickly pushed his fingers through his hair and took several slow breaths. In the conversation with Cassandra his heart started racing. It hadn’t occurred to him that other people would have heard his declaration and given Cassandra’s warnings about slowing down earlier that day it made sense that she would be the first to broach the subject with him. Warning him of how his words might have consequences. He expected more of a telling off – the kind of reprimand his sister Mia occasionally gave him when he was being particularly obtuse. Cassandra’s softness with him was welcome, even though she likely disapproved of the rash word choice, he was glad she wasn’t fighting him on it.

Once upstairs Cullen saw steam escaping from the bathroom through a gap between the door and the lintel. He supposed Nevena left it open, in case she needed to shout down for something. Walking passed, he glanced inside through the crack left open. He expected to see a glimpse of skin and nothing else, instead he saw her huddled in the corner of the shower, still fully clothed. Something inside him cracked, sending a sharp pain pulsing through his chest.

“Oh, Nev…”

He entered the bathroom, closing the door behind him. After removing his shoes, and his phone from his pocket, he went to the shower and sat down beside Nevena. She flinched away when he tried to put an arm around her. He left his hands in his lap, one open, palm up and fingers open in case Nevena wanted to hold it.

The water was too hot for him, and he was soaked through in moments. Droplets clung to his eyelashes and drenched his hair. He didn’t move or talk. The spray was too loud as the sound bounced off the walls and there was so little he could say or do that he felt would be a comfort. He noticed there were raw scratches on the backs of Nevena’s hands where she was clutching her legs to her protectively. Tentatively, Cullen reached towards her and coaxed a hand into his. He ran his fingertips along the scratches.

“Shall I see if there’s any antiseptic in the cabinet?” He asked and waited for a reply. He got it in the form of a small, silent nod. “Can I turn the shower off?” Another nod.

The silence of the bathroom was strange after the constant stream of water and the way the sound echoed. Cullen got to his feet, dripping and his jeans squelching a little when he walked from the shower to the small cabinet above the sink. He dug through various tubes, bottles and cardboard boxes until he found what he was looking for. Antiseptic in hand, he went back to the shower pausing when he saw Nevena start to rise onto her feet. She used the wall to support herself, and Cullen was quick to step in, placing his hands on her waist and leading her away from the shower to sit on the toilet seat. He grabbed a towel off the rail and started to pat her dry.

“I threw up.” Nevena mumbled, “twice.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Cullen squatted in front of her, “that’s okay.” He put the towel to one side and grabbed the antiseptic from the sink. “Can I see your hands?”

She held her hands out in front of him, sleeves rolled up to her elbows. The scratches went almost all the way up her forearms, but the worst ones were directly on the backs of her hands. Cullen uncapped the antiseptic and started to treat them with a small dab of cream. He noticed her hands were shaking. Now the shower wasn’t running the bathroom was cold, but he doubted her trembling was due to that.

“I used to do this before.” Nevena said, watching him gently rub the cream into her skin. “Sit in the shower. The sound would drown out my thoughts, and…” She clenched her fingers into fists, choking on a breath. “I just want to get him off me.” Her voice was a harsh, angry whisper and Cullen saw tears already falling when he looked at her face.

“Nev…” He put the tube back on the sink. “We should get you dry, before you catch cold.” It hurt to see her so broken, so afraid. Cullen’s chest ached and while he wanted to offer her comfort and soothing words, there was nothing he could say that would truly take away or make better what she just experienced. All he could do, all he knew how to do, was to be practical.

He guided her to her bedroom, left her with a towel and then went to his own to dry off and change. It took him all of two minutes to do, when he returned, Nevena was where he left her, still dripping and shivering. It was like Christmas Day all over again, only worse. Nevena was numb and so far out of her own head, it was like she couldn’t function.

There was little Cullen could do to help her mental state, so he fell back on what he knew, and helped her change. It was awkward, mostly due to the weight of the wet clothes but there was no sexual tension between them or arousal he felt on seeing her bare skin or when garments were removed. That wasn’t what this was. This was the only thing he could think of to do, to help. He put wet clothes in the bathroom when they were removed and left the bedroom when Nevena was mostly undressed and only her jeans and underwear needed to be removed and changed. He waited until she opened the door when she was ready.

She wore dry pyjamas and went and sat on the side of the bed. Unbidden, Cullen sat beside her. He took her hands in his and they were both silent except for their breathing. He ran his thumbs over his knuckles. Words were not his strong suit, but he could at least let her know he was there, that she was safe, and he wasn’t going anywhere with simply his own presence.

It might have been thirty seconds or thirty minutes before Nevena spoke.

“I’m never going to be rid of him, am I?” she asked. Cullen lifted his gaze to her. She was staring straight ahead at the opposing wall. “He’s always going to be there in some form or another.”

Cullen considered his words. He could offer placebos and platitudes. He could lie to her and make it sound like she would forget him one day. He could help her make believe that one day she would wake up and never remember anything about Rick, or the things he put her through. But that wouldn’t have been fair. He knew first hand that some things never left a person, no matter how much time passed. Lying would have been cruel.

“Probably.” He said, inclining his head towards Nevena. She automatically tilted her head to one side, allowing him to kiss her temple. “I wish I could tell you differently. I wish I could tell you that it’ll get easier. That one day you’ll wake up and have forgotten his face and his voice, and you’ll have forgotten everything he did to you.” His felt his throat closing as he spoke, raw emotion forcing him to swallow hard. “I wish I could erase that part of your life entirely – no one deserves what he put you through, least of all you.”

“You could tell me that.” Nevena looked at him, eyes bloodshot and tired. “You could lie to me.”

“I could,” Cullen agreed with a sombre nod of his head. “But do you really want me to? Would it help?”

Her expression grew thoughtful before it crumbled, and she pulled one hand away to stifle a sob. “Probably not.”

Cullen pulled gently on the hand he still held and guided Nevena into his arms. He wrapped her up within his embrace, resting his cheek on top of her hair as she buried herself against him. “I’ll help you through this, in whatever way I can.” He told her, stroking down her back.

“I’m getting your clothes wet with my hair.”

“It’s fine.” Cullen said, “I have lots of clothes.”

Nevena lifted her head, a small smile just ghosting over her lips. “Thank you. You really saved me today.” Cullen kissed her forehead. “Would you mind staying with me?”

“Of course not.” He spoke with his lips pressed to her forehead. “Whatever you need, I’m here.”

This chapter... went through a lot of edits. A lot of drafts. A lot of changes.

My first, initial desire was to have Nevena stand up for herself. I desperately wanted her to stand up and tell Rick 'no'. I wanted to demonstrate that she was strong, and had overcome all the trauma he put her through. But that would have been a lie. That would have been a cop-out, and it wouldn't have been sincere.

Like love doesn't magically heal Cullen's PTSD, love doesn't magically cure Nevena's, either. What Rick put her through, the trauma he inflicted on her mentally, emotionally, and physically can't be healed and overcome so easily. Is Nevena a stronger person now than she was when she was with Rick? Oh, undoubtedly. But, she's also still a person who was traumatized for years by someone. She's a person who was beaten down to almost nothing by a person. She was used, and abused, and no matter how much stronger she might be now, she still fears her abuser.

To have her stand up for herself, and have this "strong woman" moment didn't feel honest. It felt forced, and untrue to her character, and also untrue to many survivors. As one myself, I know if this situation happened to me... I wouldn't be able to stand up to my abusers. I'd want to, and Nevena wants to and maybe one day she'll be able to, but she's not there yet.

This version of this chapter did feel honest. To have her fearful. To have her tearful, and reverting back to methods she hoped would placate him. It felt - for lack of a better word - right. I'm not a fan of the damsel in distress trope. I wanted to avoid it at all costs, but in this situation... there wasn't another way to go that was true to the situation and the characters. I felt the need to write this explanation because I'm genuinely worried for the reaction to this chapter. I feel like I'll be disappointing readers, because Nevena doesn't get to give RIck a piece of her mind. I'm afraid you'll all be disappointed that Cullen stepped in, and that Nevena didn't stand up for herself. But... as I've stated, it didn't feel genuine or sincere.

I hope, despite the heaviness of this chapter, you were able to enjoy it. I might have to take March off from uploads because I'm running out of buffer chapters, and need to get some writing done - but we'll see. Thank you for taking the time to read this chapter, and for sticking with this fic for so long. I'm grateful to every single one of you. Please do let me know your honest thoughts in reblogs/comments/tags, and I'll see you in the next chapter.

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