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sweetbans29 · 3 months

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Catch Me If You Can - CC

Pairing: Caitlin Clark x Reader

Summary: You were untouchable, until one summer day (based on THIS request)

Warnings: cuteness

Word Count: 4.5k

Sweetbans Masterlist

AN: I may have done a little too much with the backstory...

You were born and raised in Iowa City. Grew up going to all the local farmers markets and participating in any and all town events. Your parents are both teachers at the University of Iowa, your mom is a business professor, and your dad is an English professor. A lot of your time was spent on campus which made you pretty known starting at a very young age.

It started when you were a little girl, your parents would bring you to lectures and you would sit in the corner and do whatever you could to keep yourself occupied. The students in your classes never minded and would often come and color with you or read with you when class was over and your parents stayed around to answer questions.

When you were in middle school you would go to campus every day after school to do homework. It would either be in your parent’s offices while they had class and/or hosted office hours or they would let you go to one of the coffee shops on campus, as long as you were with one of their trusted students. At this point, you were pretty well-known on campus by both students and faculty.

Things pretty much stayed the same when you got to high school. You never really had many friends at your own school but had so many the second you stepped foot on campus. You continued to spend most of your time there - most of it studying but sometimes going to campus events (if your parents were okay with that).

The University of Iowa had always been your fate. With both of your parents working there, it was a no-brainer that's where you would be attending school. It also helped that you knew the campus like the back of your hand and were already known. It made going to college less intimidating.

For your high school graduation - there was a group of students at Iowa that hosted a view party since they all couldn't go to your graduation. If you got more than 8 tickets, they would have been there in a heartbeat. They live-streamed it from one of the lecture halls. You didn't know at the time but it filled up with students and faculty all super proud of your accomplishment and ready to have you as an official student. After your graduation, your parents took you back to campus saying they had a surprise - it turned out to be a surprise grad party with a couple hundred people from campus. You have never felt more loved than you did that day.

When fall rolled around, you started your journey as a Hawkeye. Campus felt like home and had become home when your parents gave you the option to commute or live on campus. It was a no-brainer as it was your dream to live on campus and would try and convince your parents to let you stay overnight ever since you were in 4th grade.

Your first year goes as expected. You started to make solid friends. Everyone knew you around campus and if they didn't they for sure knew of you. You would do homework at the same on-campus coffee shops and began to venture out more as you began studying on lawns and in different places to switch up the scenery. Freshman year was everything you had hoped and more.

Going into your second year at Iowa was about the same as the first. Campus remained comfortable for you. You couldn't go anywhere without several people stopping to say hello - people thought it would be annoying but you genuinely loved talking to people. You were well-known and well-loved by pretty much everyone.

As active as you were on campus, one area you never really paid attention to was sports. Your parents never made them a priority thus you never made them one either. Another reason they kept you away from games was because of the reputation a lot of the players had around campus. Ever since you started hanging out around campus in high school - your parents made it known that you were off limits and would remain off limits. It became an unspoken word on campus.

Even with your parents, relationships were never a priority for you. Not to say it was something you didn't want because there were times that you really did long to have the same experiences as your peers. After high school though, relationships weren't even a thought. It was interesting because it wasn't like there weren't people interested, but more so there was no one that you found interesting. Seeing your parent's love, your bar was raised far higher than any college student could really commit to.

It surprises you how frequently you get asked out. It isn't weekly but you consistently have people coming up to ask you out. It unofficially became a game on campus - specifically among athletes. They would place bets on who could get you to say yes to going out with them but nobody ever availed.

You of course learned about the whole thing when one of the guys you were friends with let you know out of respect for you. He was one of the waterboys for the men's basketball team and overhead them taking bets on who could get you to say yes. John always kept an eye out for you - he was a year older than you and treated you as his little sister. He has 3 little sisters at home, as he was the oldest and the first to leave for college - watching you was a second nature to him especially since he was one of your parent's favorite students.

When John learned it was more than the basketball guys and more teams were jumping in to see who could court you, he made it a point to make sure you always felt comfortable on campus. Not that he ever doubted you, but doubted all the guys and girls trying to get in your pants.

You were sitting and waiting for John and some other friends to meet up with you when you were approached yet again.

The star of the school's water polo team approaches you while you are studying on the lawn.

"Hey," he says trying to get your attention. You finish typing out your sentence then look up at him.

"Hi," you say with a smile. "It's Erick, right?"

He flashes a smile when you know his name. "Ya, we are in the same stats class."

You nod.

"Hey, I was just wondering if you were free this Friday night? The team has a game and it would be cool it if you came. We could go grab ice cream or something after and hang out." He asks with the confidence of you knowing who he is.

You give a light smile.

"Erick, I am sure you are a nice guy," you say - knowing all too well that he was not. It was just last week that he took a cheerleader out then was caught making out with one of her teammates the next day. "But I'm just not interested."

"Good luck on your game though - should be a tough one," you say and he walks away.

John comes up catching the tail end of the encounter and gives you a look.

"Another one?" He asks as you get up from the grass.

"Yep, nothing new - he went with the 'come watch my game then we can hang out' bit. You would think they would all get the hint considering I haven't been to a single Iowa game." You say.

"They all want to be the first," John says. You laugh.

"Well jokes on them," you say as the two of you head to meet up with the rest of your group.

You get through the rest of the semester with only a few more people attempting to ask you out. You never mention it to your parents because the last thing you need is them making some big fuss about something you have a pretty good handle on.

That summer is one where things took a turn in a direction you would have never expected.

A majority of your summer was spent around town at your favorite coffee shops. They would be your favorite place to read. It was something you did every summer at the same coffee shops - so much so that they would have a reserved sign at the table you would always sit at.

It was a gloomy morning when the shop was extra busy. You had been settled in for a while now and were sucked into your book. You are used to the buzz of the coffee shop but are pulled out when you hear a loud sound.

You look up and see a frazzled girl, bending over and collecting the bag she just dropped. You set down your book and immediately help the girl. You gather some things and stand up, passing them to her.

"Thank you," she says, still flustered from how busy the coffee shop is.

"Of course," you say with a smile, hopefully easing her.

"I came here hoping to have a quiet morning not realizing how busy it was going to be. I heard this is the best place to come to work," she says.

"Well I agree that this is the best place to work - it typically isn't this busy. I think there is an event going on in town this week. If you are looking for a table, you are more than welcome to join me," you say as you sit back down.

"Thank you," she says and sits immediately. It is just after she sits when you see her relax. You introduce yourself, offering your hand to shake. She reaches out and shakes it. She knows who you are - everyone knew who you were but thought it would be better to just keep your meeting simple.

"I'm Caitlin," she says. You smile at her - also knowing who she is. She had quickly became one of the faces on campus - the 'basketball superstar'.

"It's nice to meet you," you say with a smile. "You are always welcome at my table."

She notices the 'Reserved' sign on it and laughs.

"Did they do that for you?" She asks.

"Ya," you say with a laugh. "I've been sitting here for years now."

The two of you spend the rest of the morning working independently. You locked into your book shortly after your conversation missing the stolen glances Cait would take of you.

Caitlin took you up on your offer every day for the next several weeks. She even went out and got books to read just to come and spend time with you. The two of you would chat when she first got there, then would settle in and being reading for a few hours until you both got hungry. What started as a place for Caitlin to sit turned into so much more. The two of you started getting lunch together and really getting to know one another.

It's in the final month of summer when Caitlin asks you on a proper date. You are unsure at first but remind yourself that she isn't a stranger. The two of you have genuinely gotten to know each other over the course of the summer and you trust her.

It is after that first date that you decide Caitlin is worth it but if you were to ask her when she knew you were it, she would have said that first morning in the coffee shop.

Heading back into the school year, there were subtle changes in your day-to-day. You would still be on campus to study in all of your favorite places but when it came to grabbing your mid-morning smoothie, Caitlin would be waiting outside your first class of the day - smoothie in hand, waiting to walk you to your next class. Caitlin made it a point to be a part of your morning, just like you did in the summer.

It slowly became something Caitlin's team noticed - the first one being Gabby who passed by Caitlin holding two smoothies outside of one of the lecture halls.

"Cait - what are you doing here? Isn't your next class on the other side of campus?" Gabby asks when she sees her teammate.

"Ya, just catching up with a friend," Caitlin says, hoping Gabby will go before you come out. One of the things Caitlin had learned while getting to know you was the bitter taste athletes gave you. Caitlin was slowly changing that but didn't want to give you any reason to backtrack. She also hadn't told the team that she had started seeing you over the summer and would like to keep it that way for as long as she can. Not to hide you, but she valued having you all to herself. And she knew that the second her team found out - she would lose you to them. You were too incredible.

Gabby nods but her suspicion remains.

"Whatever you say Cait," she says and continues to walk. "I'll see you at practice."

Gabby turns a corner but stays in the vicinity - wanting to see the mystery person Caitlin is waiting for.

You walk out of class and see Cait standing against a wall with two smoothies in her hands. You make your way over to her and she meets you halfway.

"Why hello there," you say with a smile. She passes you one of the smoothies.

"Your favorite," she says and you thank her.

The two of you proceed to walk to your next class, missing a hiding gabby who sees Caitlin is walking with you. Gabby can't wait to take the news back to the team. Everyone knows you are not a fan of Iowa sports but here you are walking about with one of the biggest stars on campus. She also doesn't believe that Caitlin is one to wait outside of someone's class with a drink in hand only to walk them in the opposite direction of where she is going.

Later that day Caitlin arrived at practice to find her team bombarding her with questions.

"Woah, woah, woah - what's going on?" She asks overwhelmed.

"Gabby told us who you were spotted with and we think that is the cutest thing ever," Jada says - excited for her teammate.

Caitlin feels her cheeks heat up.

"How did you swing talking to her?" Another teammate asks. "She practically hates every sports team on campus."

"She doesn't hate us - well you know the shit that goes around with teams asking her out and making bets and stuff. It's left a bad taste in her mouth. It's not like they were discrete about it anyways." Caitlin says backing you up.

"Ya but still, I mean what makes you different - Cait you are the biggest name on campus right now and it is only junior year," Sydney says.

Caitlin shrugs, opting to leave how the two of you spent the summer out of the conversation.

"Is it even like that?" Kate asks. "I mean she could just be a friend."

"A friend that Caitlin goes out of her way to get a smoothie for then walk to class?" Gabby scoffs. "No ya, sure sounds like a friend to me."

The team keeps making fun of Caitlin to which she never confirms or denies any of their allegations. The two of you had been on several dates but never really solidified what you were to each other so Caitlin didn't feel like it was proper to bring it up when the two of you really didn't even know what you are yet.

"There is no way Caitlin could pull her - I mean it's CC, can you imagine her dating at all? Let alone the campus's princess." One of the girls says in a joking manner. Caitlin knows her team means well but it sort of rubs her the wrong way when they think she isn't worth your time.

Caitlin speaks before thinking.

"What if I get her to come to a game - would you believe it then?" Caitlin asks and immediately regrets it.

"No way in hell could you get her to come to a game," Jada says. "I've heard she's never gone to a sporting event nor will go near one with a ten-foot pole."

"Ya, but if she comes, then you'll all shut up about this?" Caitlin asks hoping it will be enough to just get you to a game.

"Get her there in your jersey and we will know it's real," Gabby says.

Caitlin grumbles but agrees.

After practice, Caitlin messages you and asks to meet up. You tell her to come over and that you will be making chocolate chip cookies - you know they are her favorite. Her mom also happened to send you home with her famous recipe after Caitlin brought you home once during the summer. It was before she asked you on a date - it was actually quite spontaneous.

"Would you be up for joining me on a little trip home? I told my brothers I would be there for an event of theirs. It won't be long but I don't want to make the drive alone." Caitlin asks you at the end of one of your mornings.

"I would love to," you say and she just casually mentions she is heading there now. When you still agree to join her - she is ecstatic but hides it well.

The two of you head to her home, talking the whole way there. When you get there Caitlin goes to help her brothers and you stay with her mom, she is baking for the event. You help her make her chocolate chip cookies and tell her about yourself. She then tells you all the stories of when Caitlin was little. You couldn't help but grow fonder of the girl after hearing about her childhood.

When the two are heading out, Anne pulls you into a hug and asks you to watch over her baby girl. You smile and nod. She then proceeds to stick something in your pocket - her chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Caitlin gets to your apartment and instantly recognizes the smell of her favorite cookies. You pull them out right after she gets there.

"Are these," she begins and picks one of them up right away.

"Caitlin! You are going to burn yourself!" You swat at her hand but she is too fast for you. She takes a bite of the cookie, blowing out the hot air and trying not to burn her tongue. Once she is able to enjoy it, her eyes close and she lets out a moan.

"You like them?" You ask, already seeing her answer. She finishes the cookie before speaking.

"Just like home. How did you get these?" She asks finally opening her eyes and going for another.

"From the one and only, Mrs. Clark - told me to take care of you," you say with a smile. "And I know that the only real way to care for you is through cookies."

Caitlin looks at you in awe and her mind begins going a mile a minute. Her mom doesn't give her recipe out to anyone - she doesn't know what you did in the kitchen with her that one day but seeing as you have her full approval, Caitlin begins to seriously consider what life would be like with you.

You can see the gears turning in her head.

"Talk to me," you say to her with a little laugh. "I can practically see the steam coming out of your ears. What's going on?"

Caitlin wants to tell you how much it means to her that you made her cookies, her mom's cookies. She wants to tell you how she misses how it was just you and her like it was during the summer and wishes the two of you could go back to that. She wants to tell you how she has started talking to your parents about you and how they have unofficially given her the okay to take you on a date (she didn't tell them how she had already taken you out but that is beside the point).

"How would you feel about coming to my game this Friday?" She asks, settling on getting this out of the way first.

You stand there putting more cookies on the cookie sheet, thinking over her question.

"I know you don't go to games and how much you aren't a fan of Iowa sports, especially with all the athlete's track records with you," she is cut off by you.

"Ya but I am a fan of you," you say which earns a little chuckle. Her heart skips a beat but she continues.

"But we are playing one of our biggest rivals and I think it would be neat to have you there," she says debating on adding the part about her team. She thinks about all you have been through and decides it is better to be honest upfront.

"And my team doesn't think I can get you there," Caitlin says nervously.

You look up at her amused, kind of shocked she would think you would be open to it. But you ponder it.

"It's not a bet - you know I am not like those other guys and girls. You know that right?" She asks.

You just look at her.

"Please tell me you know I am not like them," she says beginning to panic.

"Yes, CC, I know you are not like them."

"One of them saw me waiting outside of one of your classes and started saying that you're out of my league and it irked me." She says.

"And you thought it would be a good idea to tell them that I would go to your game and what? Cheer you on? Wear your jersey?" You press her.

"Well, ya - kind of," she says shyly.

You don't know why but this whole thing should make you uneasy but it doesn't. Not one person has actually told you to your face that their team was betting on you. Caitlin sought out talking to you about it - but in her words, it wasn't a bet.

"Okay." You say and her head shoots to look at you.

"Okay?" She asks.

"Okay."

Friday comes around and you look at yourself in the mirror. You are wearing Caitlin's jersey with some black leggings. You are second-guessing your decision and want to back out but know that's not an option.

You head to the game with your friend John. Caitlin got you two tickets which you instantly asked John to join you for.

The game is intense - watching Cait on the court was mesmerizing to you. She is electric on the court and you wish you had started watching her sooner. It's easy to see why so many people love her.

The game ends and Iowa takes the win by 4.

You turn to John.

"Should I go down to her? I don't know if I should wait until she is done or what to do," you say nervous.

"Go to her - show her how proud you are of her. Be the excited girlfriend," John says with a smile.

"She's not my girlfriend," You mumble.

"Just go," he says and pushes you towards the court.

You walk down to the now-packed court looking for Cait.

When you see her, you begin making your way to her. When her eyes find yours, she lights up. When you get to her you jump into her arms and she spins you around.

"You were incredible," you whisper in her ear.

"Thank you," she says with the biggest smile.

She puts you down and the two of you just look at one another. She finally speaks.

"I like you in my jersey," she says and you blush.

"Please stop," you say and hide your face.

"You're cute," she keeps teasing you.

"Okay okay, I'm going to go now," you say and begin to walk away.

"Wait no," she says and grabs your arm. "I'll be good. I promise."

You stop walking away and turn back to her.

"Come meet my team?" She asks and you nod.

You make your way to some of her teammates as Caitlin introduces you to them. You shake all of their hands then stick to Caitlin's side.

They all try to hide how shocked they are but don't do a real great job with it.

"You all look surprised I am here," you say with a laugh.

"We are - you are sort of known for avoiding sporting events like the plague," Kate says with genuine intent.

"Well, I decided to make an exception for a special little someone," you say and pinch Caitlin's side causing her to blush. All of her teammates take note and poke fun at her.

"Why Caitlin?" Sydney asks boldly and Kate hits her. "What? I am genuinely curious - Caitlin isn't the easiest person to be around."

You laugh and smile up at Caitlin. Then shrug.

"She puts up with me," you say.

"Ya but you're the campus's sweetheart," Sydney says.

"Don't let her fool you," Caitlin jokes and you hit her arm. She puts her hands up in surrender.

"Oh you two are cute," Kate says.

"I can see now why CC was playing extra hard today," Jada says coming over.

"Okay, you are all embarrassing me," Caitlin says and excuses the two of you. The team wants to get to know you more and protests but you follow Caitlin. She leads you to the tunnel where it is not so crowded.

"They are all sweet," you say.

"If by sweet you mean embarrassing then ya, they are great," she says laughing and rubbing her forehead.

You turn to face her.

"What is your intention with me, Clark." You say boldly, catching her a little off guard.

"Well, I really enjoy spending time with you - and I like you, but everyone likes you so that is really a given," she says stringing along more little comments.

The once confident All-American, now a blabbering mess.

"Caitlin Clark," you say pulling her out of her jumble of words. "Ask me to be your girlfriend."

She stands there looking at you, takes a deep breath, and takes your hands.

"Will you be my girlfriend?" She asks, her eyes locked on yours.

Without blinking, you respond.

"No."

"What? You literally just told me to ask you," she says with protest.

You laugh and she catches on to you.

"You are unbelievable," she says.

"I may be but I'm your girlfriend now, so you are just going to have to deal with me," you say.

"Well you just said no, so it looks like I am still on the market," Caitlin says now teasing you.

"Mmhmm, sure you are," you say wrapping your arms around her neck as her arms wrap around your waist. She laughs and looks into your eyes.

"I'm going to kiss you now," you say.

She waits and you stop leaning in - she takes you in.

"Okay," she says and your lips meet hers for the first time. The first time but certainly not the last.

AN: This may be one of my favorites...ever. But my opinion doesn't matter, let me know what you think. And as always, thank you for all the love and support 🤍

#caitlin clark #caitlin clark concepts #caitlin clark imagine #caitlin clark x reader #caitlin clark masterlist #iowa hawkeyes

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artdcnaldson · 4 months

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In part 2 you mentioned Patrick x reader having makeup sex after they got into stupid argument…. Can we get a flashback to one of those moments🤭🤭 domestic Patrick starting an argument with reader and reader calling him out about it but they end up making up in a cute way. Like Patrick making it up in a corny but cute way??? Just a suggestion, part 2 was amazing btw!

Rating: T

Warnings: just a minor argument, language ofc

A/N: thank youuuu!!! No smut in this little blurb, just a snapshot of domestic Patrick x reader in the changeover au 🫶🫶🫶

Also working on art x reader first time and also Patrick x reader first I love you blurbs for the changeover au :) so those will be coming sooooon

It was easy to let the stupid arguments devolve. It started with a facial expression when you brought up your college roommate’s wedding. An eye roll, an I-don’t-want-to-fucking-deal-with-that. And that became your, “why do you treat my friends and my life as less important?”

“I can’t fucking believe you got that out of me wanting to ditch Katie’s wedding to her dickhead loser fiancé.” Patrick’s words came out so flippant that it infuriated you further. “You don’t even talk to her outside of Facebook comments.”

“I’m sorry, Patrick. I didn’t realize that you’d be so fucking opposed to free food and booze considering you live off of it.”

Patrick set his jaw, glaring at you. It was a low blow, one you knew would sting. “I’m opposed to wasting my time flying out to bum fuck Iowa to because Katie— who has always hated me, by the way— is marrying some dickhead who’s a shill for a corrupt asshole in congress.”

You rolled your eyes. “Maybe she would like you, Patrick, if you ever put in an ounce of effort with anyone besides me.”

“Right, because I need to be friends with the kind of people whose proposal was a flash mob.”

You laughed softly, shaking your head. “Right, because you’re just too cool for stuff like that.”

It was so fucking like him— making fun of the lame proposals your friends got, or their baby names, or their engagement shoots. Sometimes they were lame— flash mobs were fucking stupid— but sometimes they were sweet, and romantic, and there was Patrick acting like he’d rather blow his brains out than ever publicly admit he cared.

“Yeah, I am.” He said back.

You rolled your eyes and stood. “Whatever, Patrick. I’ll RSVP for one, again, and you can bum around my apartment alone.”

You had slammed the bedroom door before he could respond, which left him alone and seething in the living room.

You heard the front door open, then slam shut, signaling that Patrick was going out for a smoke, or a walk, or something.

You opened Facebook and scrolled through your feed. Katie’s engagement photos, a coworker’s new baby, a college friend’s bachelorette weekend. And there you were, fighting so your boyfriend would finally be your plus one to something.

It wasn’t always his fault— he had tournaments, and commitments. But a lot of the time, it was an active dismissal of things you found important— engagement parties, friends visiting the city, the increasingly common baby shower.

You didn’t blame him. Adult stuff sucked, and it was almost always boring and agonizingly slow. But you just wanted him to show up with you for things that were big.

It would be stupid to break up over Katie, who you genuinely weren’t even that close to. She’d been a decent friend Freshman year, you supposed, but that was the extent of it. The invitation to the wedding was probably a formality.

All you wanted was an excuse to show off your super hot, super cool boyfriend. To get tipsy over free booze, then leave the wedding early to fuck in the shitty Best Western hotel room that wedding guests would get a discount rate on.

A few hours later, the front door opened, and you sat up against the headboard, waiting eagerly to see if he’d be the first to break, or if you would.

You heard four gentle knocks against the door, saw Patrick’s sneakers beneath the door. “You can come in,” you said softly.

Patrick slipped into the room and joined you on the bed. He kept space between you, just in case you were still mad, but met your gaze with the sad eyes of a kicked puppy.

“I bought a suit,” was all he said. “And I tried to buy you a huge bouquet of flowers since I was a dickhead, but my card declined since I just bought the suit, so…”

His hand was resting on the empty expanse of mismatched bedsheets between you. You moved your hand into his, tangling your fingers together. “You bought a suit, huh?”

He nodded, squeezing your hand lightly. “I’ll stop being a dick about Katie’s wedding.” He paused, turning away from your gaze. “I think… I’m away so much that when I’m home, I just want it to be me and you.”

You leaned forward and kissed his nose. “I just want to show you off to everyone I know,” you said lightly. Your forehead stayed pressed to his, and you relished in the closeness. “I don’t give a fuck about Katie or her ugly loser fiancé’s stupid wedding.”

Patrick grinned. “Oh? So you just want a hot, professional athlete to be your arm candy, huh?”

You rolled your eyes. “You’re always cheapening the moment.” You leaned forward kissing him sweetly, which always seemed to devolve into a hungry mess of tongues and spit when Patrick was involved.

“Wait—“ you said suddenly, right as Patrick began peeling off your top. “You said your fucking card declined? You drained your bank account for this stupid wedding?”

He paused, his hands warm on your bare skin. “Uh… it felt like a grand gesture kind of moment.” You leaned in and kissed him, pulling your shirt off the rest of the way.

Not smutty but I neeeeeeeded to write some domestic Patrick x reader 😁🫶 my pookies my babies my loves

#changeover au #patrick zweig fanfic #patrick zweig x reader #patrick zweig #my writing #challengers fanfic #challengers x reader

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mostlysignssomeportents · 8 days

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Christopher Brown’s ‘A Natural History of Empty Lots’

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Christopher Brown is an accomplished post-cyberpunk sf writer, a tech lawyer with a sideline in public interest environmental law, the proud owner of one of the most striking homes I have ever seen, and an urban pastoralist who writes about wildlife in ways I've never seen and can't get enough of:

https://fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/

All of these facets of Brown's identity come together today with the launch of A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys and other Wild Places:

https://christopherbrown.com/a-natural-history-of-empty-lots/

This is a frustratingly hard to summarize book, because it requires a lot of backstory and explanation, and one of the things that makes this book so! fucking! great! is how skillfully Brown weaves all that stuff into his telling. Which makes me feel self-conscious as I try to summarize things, because there's no way I'll do this as well as he did, but whatever, here goes.

Brown is a transplant from rural Iowa to Austin, where he set out to start a family, practice tech law during the dotcom boom, and write science fiction, as part of a circle of writers loosely associated with cyberpunk icon @brucesterling. After both the economy and his marriage collapsed, Brown started his restless perambulations around Austin's abandoned places, sacrifice zones, the bones of failed housing starts and abandoned dot-crash office parks.

When he did, something changed in him. Slowly, his eyes learned to see things that they had just skipped over. Plants, animals, and spoor and carapaces and dens of all description, all around him, a secret world. These were not pockets of "wilderness" in the city, but they were pockets of wildness. Birds' nests woven with plastic fibers scavenged from nearby industrial dumpsters; trees taking root in half-submerged tires rolled into a creekbed, foxes and rodents playing out a real-life version of the classic ecosystem simulation exercise on the edge of an elevated highway that fills the same function as the edge of a woodland where predator and prey meet.

As Brown fell in love again – with the artist and architect Agustina Rodriguez – he conceived of a genuinely weird and amazing plan to build a house. A very weird house, in a very weird place. He bought a plot of wasteland that had once housed the head-end of an oil pipeline (connected to a nearby oil-storage facility that poisoned the people who lived near it, in an act of wanton environmental racism) and had been used as a construction-waste dump for years.

After securing an extremely unlikely loan, Brown remediated the plot, excavating the oil pipeline, then building the most striking home you have ever seen in the resulting trench. Brown is a pal of mine, and this is where I stay when I'm in Austin, and I can promise you, the pictures don't do it justice:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/style/christopher-brown-edgeland-house-austin/

Formally, A Natural History of Empty Lots is a memoir that explains all of this. But not really. Like I say, this is just the back story. What Natural History really is, is a series of loosely connected essays that explains how everything fits together: colonial conquest, Brown's failed marriage, his experience as a lawyer learning property law, what he learned by mobilizing that learning to help his neighbors defend the pockets of wildness that refuse to budge.

It's an erudite book, skipping back through millennia of history, sidewise through the ecology of Texas, all while somehow serving as a kind of spotter's guide to the wild things you can see in Austin – and maybe, in your town – if you know how to look. It's a book about how people change the land, and how the land changes people. It is filled with pastoral writing that summons Kim Stanley Robinson by way of Thoreau, and it sometimes frames its philosophical points the way a cyberpunk writer would – like Neal Stephenson writing a cyberpunk trilogy that is also the story of Leibniz and Newton fighting over credit for inventing calculus:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/11/20/neal-stephensons-system-of-the-world-concludes-the-baroque-trilogy/

Brown is a stupendous post-cyberpunk writer, and also a post-cyberpunk person, which I've known for sure since I happened upon him one morning, thoughtfully mowing his roof with a scythe:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/46433979075/

You can get a sense of what that means in this lockdown-era joint presentation that Chris, Bruce Sterling and I did on "cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk":

https://archive.org/details/asl-cyberpunk

Brown is a spectacular novelist. His ecofascist civil war trilogy that opens with Tropic of Kansas got so much right about the politics of American demagoguery and was perfectly timed with the Trump presidency:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/07/11/tropic-of-kansas-making-america-great-again-considered-harmful/

The sequel, Rule of Capture, uses the device of courtroom drama in a way that comes uncomfortably close to the Orwell/Kafka mashup that the authorities have created to deal with environmental protesters:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/08/12/rule-of-capture-inside-the-martial-law-tribunals-that-will-come-when-climate-deniers-become-climate-looters-and-start-rendering-environmentalists-for-offshore-torture/

And the final volume, Failed State, is one of the most complicated complicated utopias you could ask for. This is what people mean by "thrilling conclusion":

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/12/failed-state/#chris-brown

As brilliant as Brown is in fiction mode, his nonfiction is unclassifiably, unforgettably brilliant. A Natural History of Empty Lots is the kind of book that challenges how you feel about the crossroads we're at, the place you live, and the place you want to be.

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/17/cyberpunk-pastoralism/#time-to-mow-the-roof

#pluralistic #books #reviews #gift guide #pastoralism #environmentalism #ecology #cyberpunk #austin #texas #climate #christopher brown #conservation #urbanism #ecosocialism #architecture #environmental racism #writing

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rimunagenius · 5 months

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It Was Doomed From The Start

ʚ pairing: Kate Martin x Roommate!reader

ʚ word count: 3.1k words

ʚ warnings: RPF!! , stalking, harassment, angst, self reflection (this topic scares me…don’t judge), fluff ofc bc it’s Kate

ʚ rimunagenius speaks: i know the title looks scary, but i promise, it’s nothing bad with Kate and reader. I wouldn’t write angst for them for this story not yet atleast I also wanted to introduce what Kate has reader under in her phone and i’ve also been thinking about adding one shots about how Kate and reader came up with the nicknames for eachother or little one shots of them before or during the events written about in the series (stuff that didn’t make it to the fic)…if i do they’ll be on the series masterlist but let me know if you’d like to see that!! anyways…here’s the long awaited part three!

Part 3

| Series Masterlist |

"C'mon, it's time to get up, sleeping beauty." There was no beauty in how you were currently knocked out in Kate's bed. Your hair is all over your face and pillow; with parts sticking up due to the lack of hairstyle before going to sleep.

You had your mouth slightly open, quietly breathing through it. You needed this sleep. You usually slept way more appealing but this—this was your well-needed catch up on weeks' worth of rest. "Y/n...y/n. C'mon. We have to get ready." Kate leaned over the bed, a hand on your hip, softly attempting to shake you awake. A string of muffled and incoherent curse words left your mouth as you pulled the comforter over your head.

Curling in on yourself to make yourself small and generate more heat. It was a pretty cold morning in Iowa City. "I don't wanna." You whined under the blanket. Eliciting a small giggle from the blonde, she crawled into the bed, almost spooning you before speaking to you softly.

"Well we have to, sunshine. We have classes, and if you still want to eat breakfast, I suggest you get up now." She flipped the comforter off your head, rubbing her hand up and down your arm. "C'mon, let's go." She gave your arm light taps before she then gripped it and started to pull you out of her bed.

"We should not have stayed up so late last night. It's your fault. I blame you.” You pointed in her face, your hair everywhere and eyes closed, preventing her from taking you seriously. “You kept doing that thing you do with your mouth." You mumbled as you now were standing right infront of your roommate, eyes looking up at her, your mascara under your eyes.

"Sorry I was having a good time. From what I remember you didn't want me to stop." She looked at you, wiping some of the mascara fall out away, giving you a bright smile before walking you towards the bathroom.

"Kate, we were drinking and you know that trick is only funny when we're both under the influence. If you would've stopped messing around, we could've finished both movies at a decent hour. I literally fell asleep in your bed and halfway through the movie." You say as you look at her through the mirror, narrowing your eyes before cleaning your mascara and whatever makeup you had on.

She raised her arms in defense, "I mean, what can I say? I'm the life of the party, baby." She said before placing herself on the counter. "Oh, and I already made waffles and yours are on the counter." She sat and watched your do your whole routine, her legs swinging a little every now and then.

"Yes?" You looked at her as you placed a refreshed coat of mascara on your lashes. You could see her staring. She's been doing that a lot lately. It made you feel warm inside and you wouldn’t lie and say you haven’t been doing it more recently also.

"Nothing. Just watching you." She smiled softly as she watched you do your makeup. A small blush casting over both your cheeks. You both knew what it was.

"Okay, creep." You side eyed her before giving her your best smile, just to prove you were being playful.

"Haha. Funny." Kate mocked you, lightly kicking her foot against the side of your thigh.

"Kate? Can you do me a favor?" You looked at your best friend, her blue eyes immediately meeting yours. She nodded her head quickly, eyes trained in yours immediately trying to read your face for anything wrong.

"Yeah, of course. Is everything okay?" She picked up on your nervous look. You sighed, looking down.

"Nick’s still weirding me out, so I wanted to know if you could walk back here to come get me after your class and take me to my next one? I just don't want to be on campus alone with him being around." You looked nervous, almost as if you had a feeling she'd say no. Of course Kate didn't, though. You still haven’t told her about not even going to report him in the first place.

"Yeah, for sure. I can do that. I'll see you in a bit, yeah?"

"Yeah. Okay, thank you. It's just for this class and my next two and then Hannah can take me to practice later." You watched Kate's face soften.

"Y/n, you know i'd take you to every class. It's not an inconvenience. Whatever you need, I got you." She hugged you before saying a small goodbye and watched you walk inside your class while she waited outside.

You went inside and sat down, your phone pinging with a new message.

bear <3

be safe, ily.❤️

sunshine☀️💕

ilym😘

'bear <3 loved "ilym😘"'

The class went smoothly, you walked outside to see Kate standing, waiting for you. She must have left class sooner to be here on time to not make you wait. God, you were so grateful for this girl.

She walked you to every class before you had anatomy. So far, Nick hasn't spotted you, and you felt a wave of relief wash over you. You didn’t want to put it past him to find you, but for right now, you were taking the win. As you finally made it to anatomy, Juliana had been waiting outside.

You and Kate had been laughing about something she said when you looked over and saw Juliana watching you both, a smile on her face. "Oh, Kate. This is my friend Juliana, the one who's helping me with the girlfriend thing." You introduced your two friends, them shaking one another's hands.

"Hi, I'm Kate. Nice to meet you." Kate greeted, a friendly smile on her face.

"Oh, I know who your are. Y/n has said so many great things about you. You're almost all she talks about in here." Your face immediately grew red. You hadn't realized you talked about Kate so much. Did you really?

Kate looked down at you and smiled. A small blush rising to her cheeks. "Does she now?" She asked teasingly.

"Yeah, she's always going on about how such a great friend you are. How good you are to her. Makes me jealous." She jokingly added, before chatting Kate up some more. You didn't know what it was but something about Juliana being overly excited about talking to Kate, Kate being engaged in the conversation, was something that made a pit grow in your stomach.

You had no idea why two of your friends talking gave you a sense of jealously. It was frankly ridiculous. Shaking the totally absurd assumptions of this otherwise normal interaction out of your head, you looked down at your phone. A new notification from a random account on instagram.

The picture less profile, what seemed to be a randomly generated username had sent you a message. Clicking the message, you immediately felt a ball in your throat form. Suddenly your knees felt like they would give up and the world would swallow you whole from right where you were standing.

maybe you should make her leave…

this won’t be good for you.

she’s not good for you.

make her leave.

it won’t be good for her either.

You looked around, trying to find who had sent it. They had to have been talking about Kate. You knew who it was, just thing to find him to justify that you weren’t absolutely going crazy and imagining this whole thing.

“Hey, you okay?” Kate looked at you, her eyes scanning every inch of your flushed face, her worry growing by the second.

“Yeah, I’m totally fine. I’m just going to walk into class.” You swalllowed before you looked around once more, suddenly seeing him. Lurking at a nearby a table, hat on, just staring right at you. He was sitting a healthy distance away, but watching your every move. Watching Kate. You couldn’t take this.

You hadn’t realized you had been staring, Kate followed your stare and saw him too. Juliana wrapping her arm around your shoulder, kissing the top of your head. You instantly regretted not being able to sell that you were unbothered, due to Kate starting to walk over to Nick.

“Kate! Don’t. I don’t need you talking to him.” You grabbed her arm, and pleaded with her.

“He’s obviously making you very uncomfortable. I thought you told someone about him already. What did he even say?” You did not have the heart to tell her that you let this man harass you for weeks just because you didn’t want to have any conflict. It wasn’t the best decision but it saved a lot of people trouble and you didn’t want to be inconvenience with this stupid thing. You could handle it. You could handle him.

“Kate, I was going to I swear. But I just forgot. You going up to him and telling him off isn’t going to make it better. Trust me. I do not want him to harass or hurt you too. ” You were getting super overwhelmed. Your eyes burning, your vision going blurry, eyes watering.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Juliana said, rubbing her arms up and down your arms. She didn’t have the first clue of what to do other than report this. She just didn’t want to do it without your permission. It was wrong, but it wasn’t her place.

“Hey, can you give us a moment?” Kate asked her. Juliana nodded and walked inside the class but not without staring Nick down before doing so.

“Hey, look. I’m sorry. I didn’t meant to get all riled up over this. But you do need to tell someone, baby.” Her face dropped and immediately started turning red. She should’ve caught herself. It just slipped. You hadn’t noticed because you were avoiding looking anywhere and seeing him.

You hadn’t picked up on the name. Trying to focus on what she was actually saying instead of thinking of all the ways Nick could harm Kate. What did he mean by ‘it won’t be good for her either’ ? All you could think about was her safety.

“I’m sorry, what?” You looked up at Kate, your brows furrowing. Suddenly feeling the biggest migraine come on.

Kate’s face relaxed, sighing before grabbing your face. “I was just saying that we should go report him, and i’ll take you home. I’ll tell coach we caught something and don’t want to get the team sick. We—I just need to get you out of here. Okay? Can you do that for me?” Her eyes stared into yours, wordlessly pleading with you to choose your safety over thinking you’re a burden to someone else.

You nodded, looking behind her to see that Nick had left. He was gone. That’s when you felt a hand grab yours, fingers interlocking. Kate. Immediately you felt more relaxed, more safe. At home. No one could hurt you when you were with the people you loved and cared for. Who cared for you. The team, your friends, were your home. Kate was your home. Your anchor.

Nothing could hurt you, and you were going to do it together. Sending a quick text to Juliana, letting her know the situation, you and Kate started walking to the deans office. Kate sat with you, held your hand, and made sure you were comfortable while telling the dean everything Nick had done to you and said he’d do over the course of the two and a half years you had been here.

It was extensive. It started off so small that you didn’t notice that he slowly integrated into your life. He was obsessed with you. Stalking you. You didn’t realize until it was too late—til it got bad. You and Kate had found out he was a transfer, changing his whole major and career plan to follow yours. He had been to 6 different universities in the last 3 years due to ‘personal’ issues.

Turns out every formal complaint had been waived and disproven. You weren’t the only woman he’s done this to. It was crazy to think that of the many women, the countless evidence of severe mental disorders and psychotic behavior and harassment, he was still allowed into many other universities, was able to appeal the accusations and allowed to leave it behind him.

Kate was in better words, fuming. Her and the dean had gone at it, you trying to mediate before the dean resulted to benching her for her last season. You guys had been in the deans office for about 2 hours. Leaving just in time to send a text to Coach Bluder that you’d both be in absence at practice today.

You two had been walking, still hand in hand, back to your guys’ apartment. “Kate are you sure you want to miss practice today?” You looked at her, eyes still a little bloodshot from the crying you had done. “I can totally just go home alone and say I just didn’t feel good. I’m not on the team, you are.” She still looked upset and very irritated at the situation. She hasn’t said much since you both left. The second you spoke, her face softened. You tended to do that a lot; you changed her mood. Her mood affects yours and yours hers. And only you two could fix it for the other.

“And leave you alone? On campus where a crazy guy is stalking you and making you feel uncomfortable and unsafe? No way. I’d miss as many practices as you needed me to.” She smiled at you, squeezing your hand, before letting it go, and settling for wrapping her arm around your shoulders.

“Thank you, Kate. Seriously. I don’t know what I did to deserve you.” You leaned your head on her, arriving at your apartment.

“Of course. Anything for my favorite girl.” She kissed the top of your head, smiling to herself. She was grateful to have you in her life, she needed you just as much, probably more, than you needed her.

You both helped and healed things in eachother more over the last two and a half years of knowing eachother than anyone had for you both in your guys’ entire lives. “You didn’t do anything to deserve me, you know? Anyone would be lucky to have someone like you. Someone as kind, beautiful, smart, loving, caring, and gorgeous as you. Oh, did i mention you were pretty?” Kate laughed, her cheeks growing pinker by the second.

“Okay, Kate.” You laughed as she unlocked the front door, letting you walk in first. “Thank you. I appreciate you, and I feel the absolute same about you. Any girl who gets you, is the luckiest girl alive.” You smiled at her as you sat the on the couch, her in the kitchen grabbing you both water.

She smiled at you, before you turned to turn the TV on. When you looked away, her smile faltered. You looked at the tv, thinking about what she said. What you had said. You both cared for eachother so deeply. You couldn’t possibly be catching feelings for Kate. Was what you said too obvious…? You had known her for a long time, she was your best friend. That could ruin everything.

Could it? I mean, Kate thought about it over and over, watching your from the kitchen. The way your lips curled slightly when you watched the same reruns of your favorite shows. The way you always sat in the same spot on the couch, next to hers, leaving the perfect amount of room for her but also not enough so that you guys would be touching.

It was hard for the both of you to think this way about the person you have shared a space with for so long. Your roommate. Your best friend. You both needed to figure this out. But it was hard. You couldn’t possibly harbour feelings for the one person you both told yourself not to when this arrangement came to be.

Maybe that should’ve been the first sign. The sign that this living situation was doomed from the moment it was thought into existence; it was doomed from the start. How could you possibly set that boundary, silently in your guys’ head, that you guys couldn’t catch feelings. It would only have meant that you both could’ve seen this coming. I mean, neither one of you turned a blind eye to the other being attractive. Let alone, being eachothers type.

Kate brought you both the waters. Setting them down on the coffee table infront of you. Sitting down in her spot, next to you. You leaned your head on her shoulder almost instantly. Whether you had feelings for her or not, the comfort Kate had brought you was something you couldn’t describe. The need to have the feeling of Kate next to you seemingly growing worse with the feelings.

The familiarity was something you haven’t known since back home. So you essentially chased the feeling whenever you could have it. “Thank you for being there for me, Kate. I mean, truly. I already said it, but thank you.” Snuggling a little closer, bring one knee to your chest.

“Anytime, you know that. I’d do anything for you,” Her voice grew quieter at the end of her sentence. She meant it. “Besides, you’d be completely lost without me, sunshine. You need me.” She smiled when you landed a soft playful smack across her chest. She reached her arm over your shoulders, making you more comfortable.

“You’re right, I do.” You laughed before turning your attention to the TV. You both watched TV the rest of the night, deciding that you’d worry about the Nick thing more tomorrow. The dean telling you that it’d be handled very soon and quickly as possible. So, it was tomorrows problem.

As you both watched TV, you both thought over the fact you may be inlove with your best friend. It may be real and you’d both have to find a way to either move on or deal with it.

And fast.

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bueckerrss · 5 months

Text

SWEET LOVE - CAITLIN CLARK

summary𞠬: hiii could you write caitlin clark x reader where she has a crush on a singer in the same level as taylor swift (like super famous, eyes on them all the time etc etc etc) pls and thank u!!

- warnings: none? at least i don’t think so

-taglist: @patscorner @wintersstan @bernardsbendystraws @junnniiieee07 @raysmayhem-72 @worldlxvlys @breeloveschris @endereies

masterlist | navigation | 2

❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

THE FLASHING LIGHTS of cameras being as blinding as it could be, people were shouting your name to get your attention and snap pictures of you.

as you made your way to the entrance of the building you were stopped by an interviewer “y/n! i’m john winston, is it okay if i ask you a few questions?” he asked pushing the microphone towards you.

“of course!” you replied with a smile “alright first question, who did your hair and makeup today?” he started “my stylist linda did my hair and makeup she really knows what she’s doing” you replied with a smile.

they asked you typical questions you’d always get in these events. “okay one last question before i let you go, we’ve noticed recently that you have been watching women’s college basketball who would you say is your favorite team and players?” he questioned looking up from his paper.

“my favorite teams and players?” you repeat the question “that’s a difficult question for players i would say either caitlin clark or kate martin, now for teams i don’t know actually i don’t have a favorite just yet” you replied with a smile and nodding your head. “there you have it guys she doesnt have a favorite team yet! thank you so much for your time y/n” he replied with a smile before walking off.

caitlin was scrolling through tiktok when she came across clips from last night’s interview, she paid attention to everything you had to say until the last question “that’s a difficult question for players i would say either caitlin clark or kate martin, now for teams i don’t know actually i don’t have a favorite just yet” your voice rang from the phone in her hand. “woah what” she said sliding her hand to go back to that specific question.

“i’m her favorite player? wait she knows who i am?!” she thought a smile creeping into her face. this was something big for caitlin you’ve been her crush since 2018, she loved everything about you from your music to how you interacted with your fans.

this was her chance, “should i dm her? no she probably gets too many dms and mine would get lost” she said responding to her own question before she could do anything she got a notification; “your.username just posted.”

liked by madisonbeer and 1,200 others

your.username: thank you toronto! 💕

user: best concert ever 🫶

user: i think i lost my voice 😭

↳︎︎ user: frrrr my throat hurtsss 💀

user: come to iowa next !

↳︎︎ your.username: 👀

user: what city/state next??

︎︎ ︎︎ ︎︎ ↳︎︎ your.username: cleveland, ohio 😛

↳︎︎ user: doesn’t iowa have a game there ??

you arrived at your hotel room, dropping all your bags by the tv jumping on the bed. a loud sigh escaped your mouth, the flight was so long and there was a kid behind you kicking your seat like his life depended on it.

you were slowly falling asleep but your phone buzzed then lit up with a notification.

“we’re getting food downstairs, join us we have a few things to speak to you about”

your manager texted, you sighed getting out of bed and putting your shoes on. you head to the elevator, clicking the button that heads to the first floor you send back a quick “omw” text to your manager the door opens you accidentally bump into someone who was getting out.

“i’m so sorry” you say looking up to see those dazzling brown eyes, the ones you’ve only seen on tv. “it’s okay don’t…worry” she said softly looking down at you.

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a/n: surprise surprise this is me introducing a new mini series for caitlin i hope yall enjoy this one:)

#caitlin clark #caitlin clark x reader #wlw post #wlw #wlw love #lgbtq #lesbian #wcbb #wcbb x reader

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bueckersstrap · 1 month

Text

CASUAL / MY FAVOURITE BRA LIVES IN YOUR DRESSER / WE’RE NOT TOGETHER / YOU WONDER WHY I’M BITTER

c speaks ; this has been rotting in my drafts for so long omfg 😣 i needed to get something out so idk 🤷🏽‍♀️ also my writing makes me cringe so bad omfg i read this back in horror…… but whatevs 🙂‍↕️

wc ; 1.1k (short ik butttt)

warnings ; alludes to sexual content, almost smut, paige is an asshole, language

not spell checked n this is a draft so it’s not perfect yk ?? 😁

It was a saturday night – a long one at that. You were laid up with your girlfriend, no, casual hookup, Paige Bueckers. She called you up after their loss against Iowa state.

“Yo, Y/N,” “Hello?” Your voice rang muffled through the phone, it was around 2 when she called. “We lost. You in the city?” You deeply sighed, “Yeah, for the weekend.” You rubbed your forehead in exhaustion. Not necessarily because you were tired but because you were at your wits end with Paige’s late night calls, but you weren’t innocent either as you always picked up and complied.

But, how couldn’t you? She had you completely wrapped around her finger. She knew you too well and knew exactly what to say and what to do, you were utterly captivated by Paige and there was nothing you could do to resist it.

She airily chuckled, “So, you like, tryna come over?” “Yeah,” You replied with little to no hesitation, “I’ll be there in 20.” You hung up almost immediately after the words left your mouth, you didn’t know why you accepted the invitation with such open arms. All your friends called you a loser for constantly beckoning at Paige’s call. It slightly took you by surprise when her contact had illuminated your phone screen, she hadn’t called in a while and according to her finsta posts it clearly didn’t bother her as much as it did you.

You ruffled the clothes in your top drawer, trying to find the matching bra and panties that Paige liked. When you realized you were only looking for the set because she liked them it sent a wave of nausea in your stomach. You eventually gave up looking with a sigh because you couldn’t find it, you glanced at the time that read 2:15. You didn’t want to be late so you picked out another set and clothed yourself, spraying two extra sprays of your perfume and lotioning with the matching pair.

‘im omw’

‘k’

The dry response made your stomach churn. Maybe you read too much into things but, god, she really couldn’t have cared less about you. For a second, just a split second, you sat in your car, nearly sinking into the leather of your seats rethinking about even going. You knew if you didn’t she would most likely never call you up again and thinking about not feeling the soft pads of her fingertips against your face, your hips, your body, made your head whirl with emotion. So, instead of getting out of your car (which in retrospect probably would’ve been the right choice), you started it and started driving.

You paced in the elevator, biting at your lips and fixing your fresh makeup in the camera of your phone. You strolled down the hallway and knocked at her door and there she was in all her glory. Her hair was wavy from her signature braids and she was clad in black shorts and a white Nike sports bra. “Hey,” She breathed all while looking you up and down, you smiled back and caught yourself in a blush. She signalled for you to come in and so you did. You kicked off your air forces and she pulled you in by the waist – that touch that you constantly yearned for, the touch that you feared to never feel again. Your lips connected and the way she swiftly slipped her tongue in your mouth sent heat straight to your core. The kiss intensified and you were led into her bedroom being pushed down onto the bed.

She pushed her bare knee in between your legs, both spreading them open and applying pressure where you needed relief the most. “Fuck, Paige more,” You moaned out, breaking the kiss and tilting your head back which gave you a semi-clear view in your peripheral of Paige’s phone lighting up in intervals of seconds. You tried to focus back at Paige and the way she was sucking dark marks on your chest but it kept happening. She picked up on it when she asked, “What's wrong, mama?” you paused between asking her a question you probably didn’t want the answer to, or just leaving it. Unfortunately, you picked the first option. “Who’s blowing up your phone?” Your tone shot out a lot more acrid than you’d like. “Wouldn’t you like to know,” She harshly laughed, going to reach for her phone.

You propped yourself up on the white pillows behind you looking at Paige’s inquisitive face. “So? Who is it?” You asked with a tinge of frustration in your voice, and instead of her answering she just waved her hand at you in a ‘shoo’ motion. You took matters into your own hand and glanced over her phone, “Bro, what the fuck?” She quickly swiped her phone and stood up. You felt yourself choke up in your throat, you didn’t see much but from what you could see it was some initial you couldn’t make out and a bunch of unnecessary hearts beside it.

"Who is that, Paige?" you demanded, almost pleading for an answer. "We're not even together, so why does it matter so much? We agreed on no attachments." She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Casual?"

"Casual is wild work considering you treat me like I’m your girlfriend or something," You started pulling your shirt back up, suddenly feeling the rush of exposure like a million eyes clinging to the bare flesh of your chest.

She let out a laugh at your pointed statement, "I don’t know what dreamland you’re living in, but I treat you like normal,”

Your eyes widened as you pressed your hands against your forehead. “Normal? This,” you gestured between the two of you, “Is what you call ‘normal’? You’re fucking insane Paige.”

You were genuinely caught off guard and confused about where the lines had blurred between you and Paige’s casual hookup.

“It’s been working fine for a while, you just want to pick a fight for no good reason.” she accused casually. You struggled to meet her gaze, your eyes darting around the room until they landed on it– the bra to the matching set you had been looking for earlier. It dawned on you that your bra (and likely your panties) had been residing in Paige’s dresser for some time.

"Hello?" Paige waved her hand in front of your face, snapping you back to reality. "Is it so casual for you to keep my bra in your drawer? Is that casual enough for you?" You marched over and pulled it out of the slightly open drawer.

“I don’t understand why you’re so bitter about this. I called you to fuck, not console you about shit that doesn’t involve you. God, you’re just so difficult,” Paige followed you out of her bedroom as you walked out in front of her, pure disbelief took over your mind and body.

“Nice to know how much you care, Paige.” Grabbing your air forces, you lazily slipped them on and stuffed the bra into your pocket. You unlocked the door and bitterly walked out.

#bueckersstrap #paige bueckers fic #paige bueckers smut #wlw #paige bueckers x fem reader #smut #writers on tumblr

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 2 months

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Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 7: Tell Me That I Won't Feel A Thing]

A/N: Hello besties! Thank you for voting in the poll for Chapter 7. Below are your predictions...let's see how you did! 🥰

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

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

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

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Give Me Novacaine” by Green Day.

Word count: 9.6k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

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

Billboards ask you as the Tahoe flies across the flat emerald sea of Iowa: Have you heard the good news? Have you been saved? Where will you spend eternity? Are you struggling with same-sex attraction? Do you regret your abortion? Do you fear the Lord? Do you want to end up in Hell?

Aegon snickers, gnawing on a Slim Jim. The sun glare turns his wild hair to gold, etches crinkles into the ruddy skin around his eyes, murky like deep water, oceans you recognize from other corners of the world. “I thought I was already there.”

Jace’s Honda Rebel 300 is left on the shoulder of the highway with its fuel tank uncapped, drained to feed the Tahoe, prehistoric combustion, bottomless mechanical hunger. Rhaena takes over driving so Baela can sit with Jace, touch him, inhale him, convince herself he’s real. Aegon climbs into the passenger’s seat and skips songs on the CD player until he finds the one he wants: In Da Club by 50 Cent. The miles roll by so soft and so infinite that you can’t imagine ever feeling trapped again, warm July air unfurling down the darkest corridors of your lungs, hawks on lifeless power lines and fields dappled with white-tailed deer. And you think: Everything will be better now.

You cross the Missouri River and into Nebraska at Plattsmouth, which—according to a plaque mounted on the outskirts of town—the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through over two centuries ago. Rhaena follows Aegon’s directions to cut between Lincoln and Omaha, avoiding the roiling wastelands of the cities and keeping well north of Cooper Nuclear Station, where in the absence of a successful manual or computerized shutdown before the power grid collapsed, rods of uranium are melting down and irradiating the surrounding area, anemia, cancer, heart disease, radiation sickness, an affliction that eats you alive.

Rhaena takes Nebraska State Route 66 north and then Route 92 due west, lush fields of corn and soybeans and sorghum planted before the dead began to walk, bones of devoured livestock. You stop for the night in a town called Broken Bow, the sky turning the colors of fire and rust and blood, the Tahoe exsanguinated like a man with a slit throat. Every vehicle you pass already has its fuel cap unscrewed; the farther west you go—the scarcer the resources, the longer it’s been since the world began to end—the less the earth will yield to you: less guns, less gasoline, less food, less human settlements scattered across what was once called the frontier. You commandeer a two-story house: white wood, wraparound porch, a long gravel driveway that winds like a snake. There is a small cornfield and a barn, both of which you sweep for zombies before making yourselves at home. You try not to think about what happened to the family that used to live here.

Helaena lights candles, Luke and Rhaena distribute bowls and silverware, Aemond and Rio gather kindling for the woodstove, Daeron keeps watch on the porch, Aegon picks all the Twizzlers out of a mixed bag of Hershey’s candy for Jace. There is a 12-pack of Ramen noodles in the pantry, gallons of water in the cellar, and a pot large enough to cook it all in one batch. Cregan takes Ice and disappears into the cornfield for half an hour at dusk—something none of the rest of you would ever consider—and reappears with an opossum that he’s nearly decapitated with his axe. He butchers it and you brown cubes of meat in a sauté pan placed directly on the glowing embers. The others are horrified and won’t eat a single bite until you do. It’s the first real food you’ve had since you left Saratoga Springs, and you feel satiated in a way you had forgotten existed.

In honor of Jace’s resurrection, some revelry is in order. There are bottles of Grey Goose vodka in a kitchen cabinet, and Aemond allows a two drink maximum for anyone eligible to participate: Baela is too pregnant, Daeron is too young, Aemond himself is too vigilant, too self-sacrificial, too indoctrinated into the religion of his own martyrdom.

“Daddy loved his screwdrivers,” Cregan says. “I remember being five or six and taking a big gulp of one thinking it was Sunny D or Tang or something. Lord almighty, was that a shock!” He guffaws, then inspects the pantry, scratching at the dark stubble on his cheeks. “We ain’t got nothing like orange juice though.”

“Mama made hers with Hawaiian Punch.” You point: there are several jugs of it on the floor between boxes of Pop-Tarts and Welch’s Fruit Snacks and Cheddar Whales, red like crushed blackberries or fresh blood.

Cregan grins at you over his brawny shoulder. “That’ll work, Miss Chips.”

Luke and Rhaena have first watch, Rio and Aegon will take the second. You are blessedly unburdened tonight. This house is big enough for you to get your own room; you climb the staircase with Grey Goose vodka burning in your throat, your head warm and dizzy, a sensation like freefalling as you lie down on the bed.

I left them, you think, the walls spinning around you, echoes of Mama’s voice through the phone as Rio stood there nodding, encouraging you to hang up. I left them and I never looked back. Can someone commit such an act of ancestral betrayal without incurring a curse?

You are still considering this when you feel Aemond’s weight on the mattress and fold into him, the world going dark and hushed and harmless.

~~~~~~~~~~

“I think it’s safe,” you tell Aemond between sighs, his lips on your throat, his hand between your thighs. Late-morning sunlight slants in through the bedroom windows; goldfinches and blue jays flap by chirping blithely. The dead pillage the misfortunate beasts of the earth, but creatures of the air and water are spared. You can hear geese honking from a distance, and the breeze through the cornfield, and calm indistinct voices beneath the floorboards. You can smell pancakes turning from white to gold in a pan sizzling with Crisco. Cregan must be cooking breakfast in the woodstove.

“How sure are you?” Aemond murmurs, his breath warm on your neck, those small teeth he’s always hiding nipping playfully, and if he leaves marks like stains of ballpoint ink you don’t care. He’s whisked every scrap of your clothing away. Beneath him you are bare and helpless and needing more.

“Like…eighty percent sure.”

“I’ll pull out.”

“Like Jace did?”

He laughs and kisses your mouth, not just ravenous but wild like a storm, and all the rest of the world goes quiet. Your ankles are linked around him, his hips rocking with yours. He is wearing only his boxers, black plaid from a looted Walmart, apocalypse chic. “Hopefully better than that.”

“Just try your best. I trust you. I’m willing to risk it.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s worth it to me.” I could be dead in nine months, he could be dead in nine months. I’m not wasting the time we have left.

“It’s your decision. You would be most affected by the consequences.” He draws away and glances down. “I want to look at you.”

“Ohhh.” You stall. “I’ve been trimming with scissors by candlelight. It’s a hack job.”

“I won’t mind.” He grins. “You don’t mind my hack job of a face.”

“I love your face,” you say as you skim your fingerprints down the length of his scar. And then, when he raises an eyebrow roguishly: “I didn’t break any rules. I didn’t say I love you, just your face. I’m totally using you for your face. Your personality is terrible.”

He snickers, kisses you goodbye, retreats to your hips and pushes your thighs apart as you cover your face and whimper, nervous, exhilarated. And then his lips are on you and the trepidation melts away, puddles pooling and then evaporating, and you have a vision of being home again, shivering and dripping in front of the crackling flames of the woodstove after playing outside in the snow and waiting for the fire to take the cold away. Now the fire is growing over you like ivy, tendrils snaking through veins and leaves opening in your lungs, bones vanishing, muscles turning pliant and weightless. You can feel Aemond’s fingers pushing into you, a fleeting second of tension and discomfort, and then a fullness that is delectable, irresistible, maddening.

“Come back,” you plead, and when he does you clasp his face with both hands, kissing him deeply as his fingers remain inside you, thrusting and bathed in your wetness. You’re finally ready for him, you have to be, you need him so badly: like you’re dying of thirst, like you’re running out of air. “Now, Aemond, please. I want all of you.”

And he wants it too. His boxers are gone and he’s positioning himself between your legs, his tongue in your mouth, one hand cradling your jaw as the other guides his cock to where you are slick and aching and aware of an emptiness that has never felt so dire.

He’s so big…

But you are determined to take all of him. You don’t care if there’s pain, if there’s fear. You want to feel what it’s like to be with him before it’s too late.

Aemond presses himself against you, rolls his hips cautiously…and nothing happens. He is a bit more forceful. There is immense pressure, then the beginning of a stretching that is sharp, searing, dreadful, unfamiliar in a way that is completely disorienting. You gasp before you can stop yourself; a wince ripples across your face too quickly to camouflage. Aemond shakes his head and climbs off you, settling beside you on the bed.

“Fuck,” you exhale in frustration, slapping a palm down on the mattress. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand why…why I’m like this…”

“Shh,” Aemond soothes, kissing you. “It’s okay, it’s fine. I’ll help you finish and then we can try again later.”

“Why isn’t this easier?”

“You’re just nervous,” he says gently, smoothing your hair back from your face, like it’s no big deal, like he’s pointing out a bird or a rabbit or the shape of a cloud.

“I don’t feel nervous.”

“It’s not always conscious, sometimes the body reacts without the mind even being aware of it. You tense up and things become…more challenging. But fortunately for us, the treatment is very enjoyable. We just keep messing around and working up to it until one day you’re so aroused and so relaxed that I can glide in without any discomfort whatsoever, and then your body adjusts to this glorious new experience and you aren’t so nervous anymore.”

“Can’t you just…you know…sorry, this isn’t very romantic, but like…shove it in?”

“I could, sure,” Aemond says. “If I was a horrible person. And then you’d learn to associate sex with pain, which would just exacerbate the situation.”

“The problem, you mean.”

He smiles patiently. “You aren’t a problem. We’ll figure it out, we have time.”

Do we? You stare morosely up at the ceiling, shadows of clouds, shades of wings. “I should have hooked up with that Marine at Corpus Christi. Then I’d have practice. I was so afraid of giving a man the power to hurt me or get me pregnant or otherwise ruin my life, but I didn’t know I’d meet you one day. And now I just want everything to be easy for us, and it isn’t.”

“Hey.” Aemond turns your face towards his. “For me, you are…” He struggles to decide on the words, his eye drifting to the window, sunlight turning the blue of his iris to a shallow, glass-clear river. “You’re like an island, and everything else is a sea of poison, and violence, and catastrophically fucked up situations, and when we’re alone together it all goes away for a little while. The world gets quiet. It’s never been like that for me before. I don’t mind if it takes time for us to figure this out. I just want to be with you.”

“What happens when we get to Nevada, and you’re supposed to turn south for the Bay Area while I go north to Oregon?”

Aemond shrugs, but his expression is contemplative. “I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe we’ll all stay together and go to one place, then the other. If Odessa is safe, I can bring my parents, Criston, and Grandfather there. If it isn’t, we can bring Rio’s family south and live in California in that beach house on the cliff.”

“I never thought I’d set foot in a mansion.”

“I never thought I’d eat opossum.”

You laugh and curl up against him, resting your head and a palm on his chest. “How was it?”

“Not too bad, actually. Kind of like dark meat chicken. A little gamey, but I like lamb and venison, so that’s fine with me.”

“Just wait until you try bear.”

“Bear?!”

There is a knock at the bedroom door. Luke’s bashful voice is muted through the wood. “Aemond?”

“Yeah?” Aemond replies impatiently.

This was not an invitation, but Luke doesn’t seem to know that. He opens the door, and as he does Aemond throws the blanket over you so you’re covered, leaving himself completely exposed.

Luke begins: “I’m really sorry, I didn’t want to bother you, but…” His eyes go wide. “Oh, you’re like, all the way naked.” He turns and stares at the wall to be polite. “If it’s a bad time, I could come back in five minutes. Do you need more than five minutes? Wait, that was rude, I didn’t mean it like that, I’m sure you can last way longer than five minutes…um…”

Aemond sighs. “What’s wrong, Luke?”

“Jace is sick.”

“Sick?” Aemond sits up straighter, his eye narrowing. “Sick how?”

“He’s been puking since he woke up.”

You and Aemond exchange a startled glance as you clutch the edges of a blanket patterned with wild horses. Illness, virus, plague, curse.

“He hasn’t been bitten or anything,” Luke says quickly. “So it can’t be…you know…that. And he and Baela don’t seem that worried. But you should probably take a look at him.”

Aemond nods, less alarmed now. “I agree. Can I get those five minutes first?”

Luke smiles. “Yeah. See you downstairs.” He leaves and shuts the door behind him.

You look to Aemond. “Why—?”

He yanks the blanket away and drags you towards him. “I said I was going to help you finish,” he says, grinning, a hand slipping between your thighs.

You bite at his lips when he kisses you and tease: “I don’t need your help.”

“No, I’m sure you don’t. But it’s better when I’m here.”

And he’s right; it is.

~~~~~~~~~~

Daeron is out on the front porch sharpening sticks into arrows and using goose feathers for fletching, attaching them to the wood with a tube of Gorilla Glue that Helaena found for him. Helaena herself is presently floating through the house—soundlessly, ethereally, traceless like a ghost—and partaking in what you all call “apocalypse shopping,” pilfering the clothes and accessories of the former occupants. She seems to know everyone’s sizes without needing to ask. Aegon, Rio, and Cregan are sitting in the living room and eating pancakes off paper plates, carelessly spilling Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup on hideous 1970s couches ornamented with scenes of pheasants and autumn leaves. Down on the Turkish-style area rug, Ice is merrily chomping her way through a stack of burnt pancakes.

“So Cregan,” Rio says, his bare feet propped on the coffee table. “What did you do before the whole zombie situation?”

“I was a lumberjack.”

“No way!”

“Yes sir. I cut down trees for the power company.”

“What a coincidence,” Rio says around a mouthful of pancakes. “I was an electrician!”

“Well how about that? We oughta go into business together once the world straightens itself out. Where’d you work?”

“All over. Wherever the Navy sent us.”

Cregan sets his fork down on his plate. “You were enlisted?”

“Yeah, me and Chips both. That’s how we met.”

Cregan, much to Rio’s surprise, seizes his hand and shakes it soberly. “Thank you very kindly for your service.”

“No problem,” Rio replies, then turns to Aegon. “No gratitude from you, huh?”

“I showed my gratitude when I let you have the last pancake, you ogre…”

In the only bedroom on the first floor, down a hallway and towards the back of the house, Jace looks worse than you expected. He is heaving into a reusable plastic popcorn bucket, gluey ropes of saliva dangling from his lips; his skin is pale and bloodless, his dark curls damp with sweat. Baela is perched beside him on the bed and holding a wet washcloth to the back of his neck. Rhaena and Luke are loitering anxiously in the doorway, watching Aemond to determine if they should panic.

Jace casts you a bitter glance. “You poisoned me with your poor people food.”

“There’s nothing wrong with eating opossum,” you say, somewhat defensively.

Aemond feels his forehead. “That wouldn’t give you a fever. And everyone else is fine.”

“Maybe I’m extra sensitive. My digestive system has higher standards. I’m built different.” Jace resumes retching into the bucket.

Baela tells Aemond: “He can’t keep anything down. There’s nothing left in him, but he’s still so sick…it has to be a stomach flu, right?”

“Who would he have caught it from?” Luke asks, and Baela doesn’t have an answer.

“Stand up,” Aemond orders Jace when his wave of nausea abates. “Strip down.”

“Aemond, he wasn’t bitten,” Baela says. “I saw his whole body last night. He doesn’t have any scratches or bruises or anything.”

“Fine. But I want to see for myself.”

Jace stumbles out of the bed, pushing away Baela’s hands as she tries to stop him. “Okay, Nick Fury. If you wish to gaze upon the goods, I won’t deny you. I’m not shy.” Aemond rolls his eye. You turn around to give Jace privacy. “What’s the matter, Chips? The only dick you’re interested in belongs to Mike Wazowski over there?”

“Jace,” Baela says, but she’s chuckling. Amused, you stare at a picture on the wall—a haloed Jesus guiding a flock of lambs—as Jace sheds his clothing and follows Aemond’s instructions: lift your arm, turn around, show me the bottoms of your feet.

“No bites,” Aemond confirms, deep in thought. “But the symptoms…”

“It’s not that, Aemond, I’m telling you,” Jace insists, rasping breaths between each clause. “Listen, I got sick when I was alone, before I found you guys again. My stomach, my head. Maybe it’s the same thing now. It didn’t last long, and I thought I was over it, but I guess not.”

“People don’t get better and then worse again after they’ve been bitten,” Rhaena observes softly. “They just get worse.”

Jace lies back down on the bed, his face crumbling with pain. Baela uses the wet washcloth to cool his cheeks and neck. “My head hurts so fucking bad…”

“Because you’re dehydrated,” Aemond says.

“Helaena brought pills, but every time I try to take one I throw it up before it can start working.” There is a gurgling sound in his guts, and then a horrified expression. “Baela, I gotta get outside again.” She and Luke immediately swoop in, grab one arm each, and usher him out of the bedroom, through the back door of the farmhouse, and into the cornfield to allow him some semblance of dignity.

Rhaena gives you and Aemond an awkward smirk. “Helaena found Jace a 24-pack of Angel Soft toilet paper in the basement. So there’s some good news.”

“He needs electrolytes,” Aemond says. “We can’t let him get so dehydrated that his kidneys shut down. IV fluids aren’t an option. Pedialyte would be the next best thing, Gatorade or Powerade if that’s all we can find.”

“We passed a pharmacy on our way here,” Rhaena recalls. “It’s only a mile back, I think.”

Aemond nods. “Then that’s where I’m going,” he says, and walks out of the room.

You say as you follow him: “I want to go with you.”

“No.” Aemond points to Rio, who is now playing Uno with Aegon on the coffee table in the living room. “You and I are going to a pharmacy to get Pedialyte for Jace so he doesn’t die.”

“Cool,” Rio says, standing and fetching his Remington shotgun from where he propped it against the wall. “What’s wrong with him?”

“We don’t know. Maybe food poisoning.”

Aegon says, a hand pressed to his heart: “Personally, I loved the opossum.”

You stare defiantly up at Aemond. “If Rio is going, I have to go too.”

“Aww, so you can protect me?” Rio teases fondly, patting your back with one monstrous palm, an unintentional battering.

“Yeah. Exactly.”

Rio looks at Aemond. Aemond looks at you, touching his chin agitatedly. “You are stressing me out.”

“I’m the best shot. I want to be there in case anything happens.”

“Fine, okay, whatever you want. Just stay near Rio.”

“That’s the idea.”

“A pharmacy?” Aegon asks excitedly. “Can I go?”

“No,” Aemond snaps, and continues out onto the porch. In the gravel driveway, Cregan and Daeron are kneeling by the Tahoe and inspecting the front tire on the driver’s side. “What’s wrong now?” Aemond asks, exasperated.

“Got a flat,” Cregan says. “The little fella here noticed it.”

Daeron is mortified. “Please don’t call me that.”

Aemond peers around mistrustfully, out at the road, into the cornfield. “Someone sabotaged us?”

Cregan shakes his head and taps the tire. “Naw, we just ran over a nail yesterday. You can see it right here. A big one too, a masonry nail, I suspect.”

“Can you fix it?” Rio asks.

“I think so. I saw a jack and a lug wrench hanging up on the wall in the barn, now I just need a new tire, a real one. A spare wouldn’t do us much good, not with all the weight we’re carrying. It’d pop in twenty miles.” Cregan gestures to the main road, but westward, the opposite direction from the pharmacy. “Don’t remember seeing a tire place on our way in. Figured I’d try the other direction. I’ll walk ‘til I find a shop or a truck with the right kind of tires to steal from, whichever comes first. Can’t change a tire on gravel, though. I’ll have to drive the Tahoe out to the road and fix it there. I’m gonna need Rhaena’s keys.”

There is an uneasy lull as Aemond studies him. You, Rio, Daeron, and Aegon—who is lingering on the front porch, not yet ready to admit defeat—glance between them apprehensively. Ice is rolling around in the gravel, coating her grey fur with dust. “How do I know you won’t take off without us?”

Cregan’s face goes dark. His brow, heavy and furrowed, settles low over his eyes. “Look buddy, I’ve done a lot of things for you and your people that I didn’t have to. And now I’m fixing the Tahoe so it can take you west, someplace you decided we’re going. If you don’t trust me, do it yourself. Kill your own opossum. Change your own flat tire. But you can’t, can you? Just like I can’t shoot a zombie straight through the eye or tell you how to cure that sick boy in there. We’ve all got jobs here. Let me do mine.”

Aemond glowers at Cregan, knowing he’s right. Daeron averts his eyes; Rio, grinning, eats a handful of Cheddar Whales from a pocket of his cargo shorts. You lay a palm on Aemond’s forearm. “Aemond…he’s trying to help.”

“Sure,” Aemond replies crossly.

“You want collateral?” Cregan says. “Take my dog.” He whistles, and Ice scampers to his side. He points to you. “Go on, princess.” Ice obediently trots over to stand with you, shaggy ash-colored fur, bestial amber eyes like a rattlesnake’s. “She’ll look after you on your way to the pharmacy and back. And if the Tahoe and I have mysteriously vanished upon your return, you can eat her for dinner.”

“You don’t want a warning if you’re about to run into zombies?” Rio asks.

Cregan chuckles as he picks up his axe off the gravel. “Don’t you worry about me. We haven’t heard a peep since we got into town, and I’m just going a little ways up the road. Any less than ten of those abominations, and I can take care of myself.” He gives you and Rio a parting salute and strides into the farmhouse to collect the Tahoe keys from Rhaena.

Aemond turns to Daeron. “Stay here, keep watch. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

Daeron nods, glancing to where his compound bow rests on the front porch. “Got it.”

“Aegon will help you.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Aegon says. “I want to go to the pharmacy too.”

Aemond is losing what remains of his patience. “No.”

“Please?”

“No!”

“Then can you at least bring me something back?”

Rio is confounded. “What do you need?”

“You know…” Aegon gestures vaguely. “Percocet, Vicodin, Oxy, maybe some of that cough syrup with the codeine in it—”

“Grow the fuck up,” Aemond flares, and Aegon falls silent. “You’re thirty years old. Take some goddamn responsibility for something, for anything. I have to go to the pharmacy, Cregan has to fix the Tahoe, someone has to stay here with Daeron to help protect Jace and Baela, and Luke and Rhaena, and Helaena too. Just shut up and do the right thing. You have to start acting like an adult. Who do you think is in charge if I get killed? I’ve never for a single day of my life had the luxury of making selfish choices, and now I feel like I’m not even allowed to die. Leaving everyone else with you would be like leaving them with nobody.”

Aegon gazes up at him, not offended but childishly, mortally wounded. His oceanic eyes are huge and glistening. “But you’re not going to die before me.”

“That’s not the point,” Aemond pitches back, cutting, caustic. Then he starts down the long gravel driveway towards the road. You give Aegon a small, apologetic half-smile and then follow after his younger brother, Ice loping alongside you.

Rio thumps Aegon encouragingly on one shoulder. “See you soon, Honey Bun.” And Aegon watches the three of you disappear, standing in the dazzling midday light with his arms folded over his chest and his hair in hie face, kicking at the gravel with the Sperry Bahama sneakers he once wore on yachts and golf courses.

“Please try to be nice to him,” you tell Aemond when you’re far enough away to be out of earshot. Rio is humming a song you don’t immediately recognize—probably Enrique Iglesias—and acting like he’s not listening. “You don’t know how much longer any of us have. And if that was the last thing you ever said to him, you’d feel awful about it.”

“You have no idea what it was like being his brother. Since I was born all I’ve done is try to plug the holes he blasts into ships. But there’s always water on the floor, I’m never done bailing it out. He needs to learn how to do things for himself.”

“Yes, he does. But he loves you, and he wants you to be happy. He would never intentionally take anything from you. He’ll grow into his purpose, whatever that is.”

“He needs to do it faster,” Aemond says harshly, and you walk the rest of the way without speaking, listening for snarling or lurching footsteps, hearing nothing but birdsong and wind whispering through leaves.

The pharmacy—a diminutive family-owned business, not a chain—has been ravaged. The glass of the large bay window has been broken out and the shelves looted, empty containers and wrappers littering the floor, crystalline shards threatening to gash, stab, infect.

“Stay out here with the dog,” Aemond tells you. Ice is panting calmly, her ears relaxed, her strange yellowish eyes taking in the scenery without any concern. “If she gets her paws sliced up, Cregan will have yet another accusation to levy against me.”

“You’re going to have to get used to him.”

“Not much of an adjustment for you, it seems,” Aemond says, then steps through the shattered window, glass crunching beneath his shoes. Rio gives you a wink and goes after him. They rummage through the remaining merchandise, strewn about randomly and interspersed among trash. Aemond peeks behind the counter where pharmacists once filled prescriptions and climbs over it, searching for any bottles or boxes that were left behind.

“Sorry guys, no condoms,” Rio announces, then laughs at his own joke.

“Be careful,” you urge from outside. “Look underneath, check the bottom racks. Rio? Rio, down low, check them!”

“Relax, ain’t nothing going on in here. It’s silent as the grave.” He laughs again. “Get it? As the grave.”

“Aemond?”

“I’m fine,” he tells you as he squints to read medicine bottles.

“Okay, okay,” Rio says, squatting to examine the shelves closest to the cluttered floor. “I’m checking all the racks. There’s nothing scary under the racks. Happy now?”

“Very. Helaena said something that freaked me out.”

“She can be a bit of an enigma,” Aemond admits. He is taking a tiny box from a drawer to keep.

“Oh, we got Pedialyte!” Rio says, yanking a jug of pink fluid from a pile of debris. “You think Jace likes strawberry?”

Aemond hurries over to help him hunt for more. “Yeah. It’s like a Twizzler, right?”

Ice noses your hand and whimpers softly. You look down at her. “What?”

She whirls and canters around the side of the pharmacy, then returns to make sure you’re keeping up. You go after her, slow and wary, a hand on one of your Beretta M9s. There’s nothing of note to be found in the narrow, shadowy alleyway other than an overflowing dumpster and two skeletons stripped of every shred of fabric and flesh; even the bones were licked clean.

You turn to Ice. “Did I need to see this?” She whines and shifts her weight from foot to foot, ears perked up. Something else? You look down the alleyway. Far behind the pharmacy and the shops that surround it is a church on a jade green slope, old-fashioned, white wood and a belltower. There is a cemetery beside it, and amidst the small grey blurs of headstones are… “Oh,” you breathe. “So that’s where the rest of the town is.”

The graveyard is full of limp, swaying figures that can only be zombies. You are far away and draped in shadows; you retreat back to the pharmacy without any indication that you’ve been spotted, Ice trailing close behind. Aemond and Rio are climbing out of the window just as you arrive. They are each carrying three jugs of Pedialyte in various flavors.

“Where the hell’d you go?” Aemond says; but he sounds more relieved than irritated.

“There’s a church about an eight of a mile away. And there are a lot of zombies in the cemetery.”

Rio sets his Pedialyte down on the sidewalk and reaches for the Remington 12 gauge hanging over his shoulder by its leather strap. “Okay, let’s go clear them out.”

“No, I mean a lot. Like a hundred.”

He freezes. “Oh.”

“We should leave town,” you say.

“While Jace is puking and shitting everywhere? You want to be stuck in a car with that?”

Aemond is thinking, toying with the little box you saw him pick up earlier. “We’ll leave as soon as we can.”

“What’s that?” you ask him.

He shows you the label. “Injectable morphine. All the pills were gone, but I found one vial of this, and I have syringes in my medical kit. It doesn’t need to be refrigerated. It should still be useable.”

“For Baela?” For when she delivers the baby?

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Just in case.” Then he looks at both you and Rio meaningfully. “Don’t tell Aegon I have this.”

“We won’t,” Rio promises. And Ice begins trotting back towards the farmhouse, as if trying to rush you along.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Tahoe is at the mouth of the long gravel driveway, still up on a hand-cranked scissor jack. The tire appears to be new, but the lug nuts haven’t been tightened, and the wrench is nowhere to be found.

“Cregan?” Rio says uncertainly, peeking through the cornstalks as they bend in the wind. “Hey, Cregan? Aemond’s sorry he was a bitch to you earlier. He wants you to return ASAP and do manual labor for him.” Aemond grimaces; Rio beams in reply. But Cregan does not appear.

You can hear them long before you reach the farmhouse, muffled chaotic chattering, raised voices and rushing footsteps. As you ascend the steps of the front porch, Rhaena bursts through the door.

“Thank God you’re back,” she says; there is blood on her hands. “It’s Jace, he…he…come look at him. Aemond, you have to do something. He’s sick, he’s really sick. He’s bleeding.”

“From where?” Aemond asks, urgent, bewildered.

“From everywhere,” Rhaena replies, and beckons for him to follow.

The bedsheets Jace is swathed in are blooming with crimson, flowers of doomed gore. Blood drips from his nostrils and his eyes; when he retches into the popcorn bucket, clots of pink and red spew out. Everyone is gathered around him and speaking at the same time, except Helaena. She is crouched on the floor of the hallway just outside his room, her arms wrapped around her bent knees and her face stricken. Ice curls up beside her.

Above the other voices, Baela screams at Aemond, a desperate horrified moan: “What’s wrong with him?!”

Aemond pushes by the others and feels Jace’s forehead, then grabs his wrist to measure his pulse. As Aemond’s fingers tighten, Jace’s skin rips beneath them, the top layer sliding off and leaving only glistening, raw pink. Jace howls, tears of blood streaming down his cheeks. “I don’t know,” Aemond says, his voice unsteady.

“What the fuck do you mean you don’t know?!” Baela shouts back. “You’re a doctor! Fix him!”

“It hurts, Aemond,” Jace gasps, fresh blood on his teeth. When Baela touches his hair, locks of it fall out into her hand.

“He’s turning, right?” Rio says to you. “This is what happened to Snowflake, the blood and the skin and everything—?”

“He wasn’t bitten!” Luke insists, positioned in front of Jace’s bed as if he’s guarding it.

“I don’t care if we can’t find a bite mark, he’s decomposing for Christ’s sake, what the fuck else could it be?!”

Daeron returns with more blankets and towels. Aegon grabs a strawberry Pedialyte out of Rio’s grasp and tries to help Jace drink it. Cregan is muttering: “I ain’t never seen anything like this…”

Decomposing, you think dizzily. He wasn’t bitten, but he’s falling apart…what else does that to a person?

Baela cleans blood from his lips, a towel turning from snow to rubies. “Jace, baby, it’s going to be okay, we’re going to help you…”

“Could it be rat poison or something?” Cregan is saying. “Rabies? Mad cow disease? Ebola?”

“How the fuck do you think he got Ebola?!” Aemond exclaims. “You think he took a jet to sub-Saharan Africa when he was on his own? Use your brain.”

“I’m just trying to come up with ideas here, doc, and I don’t see you with any bright ones!”

He’s decomposing. He’s decomposing.

And then you remember. You kneel down beside the bed so you can look into his face, so you can make him pay attention. “Jace, listen to me.”

“I’m listening,” he replies faintly. He coughs, wet and gurgling. Fresh blood paints his lips. There are blisters beginning to form up and down his arms, you see now, the skin bubbling and separating.

“Jace, do you remember Three Mile Island?”

“What the fuck.” He is baffled, dismissive. “Three Mile what? Huh? What are you talking about…?”

“You’re upsetting him,” Baela says fiercely, tears glittering in her eyes.

But you are determined. “Outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, after we left Fort Indiantown Gap. There were these huge concrete cooling towers. We saw them from the Wawa parking lot.” But he wasn’t there when we talked about radiation. He was still inside searching for guns. “Remember, Jace? Do you remember?”

Now Aemond and Rio are looking at you, petrified, realizing what you must be thinking. No one else understands yet. After a long pause, Jace nods feebly. “Yeah. I remember the towers.”

“Good,” you say, smiling to encourage him. “Okay, this is important. After we lost you at the river, before you found us again, did you see anywhere that looked like Three Mile Island?”

“Yeah,” Jace murmurs as he stares back at you with glazed, bloody eyes; and Rio sighs and shakes his head. “I drove right by it on the Honda. The sign said Byron.”

And it’s been over for him since that moment.

“Alright, Jace.” You want to touch him, to embrace him or cup his cheek. You know it will only make his suffering worse. “Thank you. That’s all I wanted to ask.” He begins to gag again, and Baela hurries to place the popcorn bucket so it can catch his liquefying organs. You turn around and walk through the doorway.

“What’s happening?” Aegon asks you, hushed voice, frantic eyes. He has followed you to the living room, along with Aemond, Rio, and Cregan. You nod to Aemond. He knows.

“It’s radiation sickness,” Aemond says, low and bleak.

“What?!” Aegon gapes at him. “I mean, are you sure…?”

“It fits all the symptoms. He was in close proximity to a nuclear power plant, something the rest of us have intentionally avoided. If there was a meltdown, there are miles and miles that are poisoned with radiation. Passing by on a motorcycle could definitely result in a lethal dose.”

“Poor guy,” Rio says. “Not a good way to go.”

“No,” you agree. It isn’t.

“So how do you treat something like that?” Cregan asks Aemond.

“It can’t be treated,” Aemond replies tersely. “Not here, not by me, not by anyone. Not even if the world was normal again.”

“What do you mean it can’t be treated?! Everything can be treated nowadays! Cancer, heart attacks, diabetes, hell, my cousin got testicular cancer and he was fine a month later, he even got to keep one of his balls!”

“Radiation sickness can’t be treated. He’s going to die.”

“But how is that possible when—?!”

“I need you to try to not be stupid for five minutes,” Aemond snaps.

You say quietly: “He’s not stupid, Aemond. He just doesn’t know about this.”

“You are always defending him.”

“Because not going to med school isn’t a character flaw.”

Cregan asks mildly, looking at Aemond: “Could you explain it to me?”

“It’s pennies in a jar, man,” Rio says. “Radiation stacks up and at a certain point it kills you. It destroys your DNA and your body falls apart. You can get it just by going near someplace contaminated, and you might not even feel it happen. And there’s no way to undo the damage. The pennies never leave the jar.”

Cregan raises an eyebrow at Aemond. “Was that so difficult?”

Aemond ignores him. “We have to tell Jace,” he says instead.

Back in the bedroom—a mineral stench in the air, coppery blood and the salt of sweat—Aegon sits on the edge of the bed and takes one of Jace’s swelling, blistering hands carefully in his own.

“Don’t hold my hand, you loser.” Jace mumbles, and Aegon respectfully releases him.

“Jace,” Aegon begins. “We think you have radiation sickness.”

Jace blinks up at him, wincing and disoriented. “Which means…?”

“Which means, um, it’s going to be…not great.”

“Why are you the person explaining this?”

“You’re right, I really shouldn’t be explaining it. Can someone else explain it…?” Aegon glances around hopefully.

“Jace,” Aemond says. “Those cooling towers you drove by were part of a nuclear power plant that melted down when the power grid collapsed. You received a fatal dose of radiation. It’s the only thing that explains what’s happening to you.”

“Fatal…?” Daeron ventures.

Rhaena gasps and reaches for Luke. Baela’s face is a mask of numb shock. Jace stares up at Aemond for a long time before he speaks. “Aemond, fix me.”

Aemond’s words are brittle and fracturing. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Stop fucking around, man, you’re a doctor. You can fix me. I know you can. You’re a genius. You’re a total freak but you’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. Give me the pills, give me the shots. Cut me open if you have to. I won’t scream, I promise. Fix me. I trust you.”

“Jace, I can’t do anything. No one can.”

“I have to meet the baby, Aemond,” Jace whispers, scarlet tears bleeding down his cheeks. “I have to be here for Baela and Luke. Fix me, man. I’ll do anything you tell me to.”

“Jace,” Aemond says, his voice breaking. “I’m so sorry. I can’t help you.”

Jace looks to Baela, Luke, Rhaena, and at last back to Aemond. “How long?”

“Not very. A few days, maybe.”

“Days?” he echoes, dazed. “What happens?”

Aemond shakes his head. You don’t want to know.

“Yeah I do. Tell me.”

Aemond can’t respond; clear silent tears snake down the right side of his face. Rio answers for him. “You continue to bleed out of every orifice and the rest of your skin falls off. And eventually you die.”

Jace breaks down in sobs. “I was trying to find you guys.”

Suddenly, Baela turns to you and Rio and Aemond, wrathful, hissing. “This is your fault.”

Aemond pleads: “Baela, please don’t—”

“You made me leave him at the river. I knew he was still alive, but you forced me to leave him. If he’d been with us, this never would have happened. But he was alone, and it was because of you. You did this to him. You stole him from me.”

Rhaena tries to console her. “Baela, no one meant to—”

“I just got him back!” she screams, and then shelters Jace in her arms as he clings to her, the skin of his fingers and palms flaking at the pressure, holding onto her anyway. No one knows what to say; everyone has tears burning in their eyes and embers in their throats. “Get out,” Baela demands. “Leave us alone. This is the last time I’ll ever have with him and it’s your fucking fault. So get out.”

And you leave them to their final moments, failing flesh in a dying world.

~~~~~~~~~~

Only Luke and Rhaena flit in and out of the bedroom, carrying soiled linens and the plastic popcorn bucket to be periodically emptied. The rest of you are engrossed in a grim, thunderstruck deathwatch in the living room. You discuss the inevitable in hushed murmurs. It is cruel to let Jace suffer; it is unspeakably horrible to let Baela witness it. Ice alternates between receiving scratches from Cregan, Helaena, and Aegon, never trying to enter Jace’s room. You can hear Jace and Baela talking in there, his retching and groaning, her sobs.

It is not until dusk that Rhaena summons Aemond. Luke is weeping as he paces back and forth in the bedroom. Baela is still sitting on the bed with Jace, resigned now. She does not apologize, but she doesn’t have any more venom to spit either. The rest of you watch from the hallway, keeping a respectful distance. Ice nudges your hand with her nose, but you ignore her. Jace’s bloody eyes roll to Aemond.

“I’m keeping you here, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Aemond replies. There’s no point in lying.

“And I don’t need to feel myself melting like this for days. I get the idea.” Jace looks at Aemond for a while. His voice is anemic but calm; there are fresh blisters on his face and neck. “What can you give me?”

Aemond opens his medical kit and shows Jace the vial of morphine. “I found this at the pharmacy today. It would be painless, like going to sleep and never waking up.”

“Why do you have that?”

“I was thinking a small amount might help Baela during labor.”

“Is it the only morphine in your kit?”

“Yes.”

Jace nods. “Save it for Baela.” His gaze drops to the Glock in the holster at Aemond’s waist. “Can I borrow that?”

Rhaena stifles a dismayed yelp. Baela closes her eyes, but does not protest. Aemond says: “I don’t think you want to do this.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Cyclops,” Jace says, smiling. “I’ll be quick, I promise.”

“It’s heavy,” Aemond warns. He clicks off the safety and gives the Glock to Jace. “Are you able to use it by yourself?”

“It’s a very simple two-step process. Barrel to skull, finger on the trigger. I think I’ll manage.”

Again, Ice bumps her nose against your knuckles; again, you barely notice. Baela kisses Jace on the mouth, her lips coming away bloody. Rhaena says goodbye to him, then Luke, whispered parting words you don’t try to listen to. Before Aemond exits, Jace grasps his hand.

“Take care of my family, Aemond.”

“I will.”

“Don’t let the zombies eat me afterwards.”

And then it becomes real. Aemond’s composure falters. “Jace…I’m so sorry…”

“Go,” Jace urges him. Then there is a coughing fit, fresh blood and pieces of stomach and lungs. “Right now. Before I lose my nerve.”

Baela is the last one to leave the bedroom; she shuts the door behind her. Almost immediately afterwards is a deafening bang. Baela sinks to the floor and wails, one hand on her belly, the other embracing Rhaena and Luke when they rush to her. Ice is whining and pawing at the floor, her nails screeching on the hardwood. Aemond alone returns to Jace’s bedroom and reappears with his Glock. He places it back in his holster, his scarred face vacant. There’s blood on his fingers, you see. Jace’s blood, the last he’ll ever shed. Aemond hasn’t noticed yet.

You reach for Aemond’s hand; he flinches away. You ask him, pained: “Do you think if you don’t touch me, it won’t hurt you when I die?”

“Please don’t say that,” Aemond responds in a hoarse, splintering whisper.

Ice yowls, and Cregan is abruptly aware of her. “Oh shit, the Tahoe is still up on the jack. I’ll go get it.” He opens the front door. Under the moonlight, there are upwards of a hundred zombies stumbling down the long gravel driveway. Everyone begins screaming. Cregan slams the door shut and shoves one of the couches in front of it. “What now?!”

“We go through the cornfield,” Aemond says as you are all frantically gathering your sparse possessions. “It will be more difficult for them to see us. We kill as many as we can and we make our way to the Tahoe. Cregan, how long will it take you to get it ready to drive?”

“Maybe a minute. But I’ll need someone to spot me while I tighten the lug nuts.”

“Sounds like my kind of job opportunity,” Rio says, pumping his Remington. Helaena gives you a flashlight. Cregan secures the lug wrench under his belt and picks up his axe. Rhaena has her Ruger out and is telling Baela to breathe, to stay focused, to let her and Luke lead the way.

Aemond comes to you and leans in close so the others can’t hear. “How many bullets do you have left?”

“Not enough. Maybe fifty.”

“Do what you can. Stay near Rio.”

“I’ll try.”

Now there are zombies at the front windows, beating their spongy swamp-colored palms against the glass. Baela, Rhaena, and Luke are leaving through the back door with Daeron; you can hear the whizzing of his arrows and the sick soft sound they make when they pierce rotting meat. Under the weight of so many hands, one of the living room windows pops from its frame and clatters against the floor. You open fire, bullets exploding skulls and spraying brains, corpses jolting and then diving to the ground. You shoot until both M9s are empty, then pause to reload, boxes of bullets that Cregan gave you back in Iowa.

“Let them in,” Helaena says.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?!” Aegon shouts at her. He’s firing his Marlin .22 beside you, quite poorly; Rio and Aemond are in the backyard killing any zombies that find their way towards the cornfield. “We’re not letting them get through the house!”

“Not through,” Helaena says placidly. “In.”

“Oh.” Aegon understands. “Oh! I get it! Trap them inside!” He races to the kitchen and tears the remaining bottles of Grey Goose vodka out of the cabinet, then begins spilling them onto the wood floor. “Helaena, give me a lighter.”

She places one in his outstretched palm and then leaves with Cregan as he escorts her away, leading her by her fragile hand. They vanish together into the cornfield, Ice on their heels.

“Time to go, Chips!” Rio booms; he can’t be far behind Cregan.

“We’re on our way!”

Zombies are pouring through the front of the house; another window has given way. You pull the trigger over and over again as you move with Aegon towards the backyard, his clear river of vodka drawing a path from one end of the house to the other. You hit the grass before he does, then wait for him by the edge of the cornfield. Aemond and Rio are shouting for Aegon to hurry up. He crosses through the threshold, flicks the lighter to life, and throws it into the house. His plan works—the farmhouse is abruptly aflame, cooking zombies like long-spoiled hams—but he neglected to realize that in his haste, he had also accidentally doused his own left leg and Sperry Bahama sneaker. The fire licks up over Aegon’s skin and blazes there radiantly. He shrieks and falls to the ground. Rio yanks his own shirt off and uses it to smother the inferno, then throws Aegon over one shoulder to carry him.

“Go to Cregan!” Rio tells Aemond, shoving him in the direction of the Tahoe. Rio will be slower now, but no one else could still run with Aegon’s added weight. “You and Daeron spot him until I get there!” When Aemond is gone, Rio glances back at you.

“I’m fine,” you say, felling zombies as they round the house. “Get Aegon to the car!” And Rio listens to you like he always does, vanishing with Aegon through the cornfield.

You weave through the leafy stalks, investigating each growl and rustling with the beam of your flashlight. Grotesque, fetid faces plunge through the greenery, and you demolish them. You’re in the rhythm now, wheeling for a target and locking in, squeezing the trigger and watching ghoulish faces disappear. And then you spy a zombie lurching towards you from fifteen feet away, a twenty-something in a red Nebraska Cornhuskers t-shirt making her way down the dirt aisle between two rows of corn; and when you pull the trigger, there is only a dry click in reply. Your other M9 is already empty. You’ve used all the ammo Cregan gave you.

“I’m out of bullets,” you say, but no one hears you; you are alone. Aemond always told you to stay near Rio and you never did. Too late, you realize what an oversight that has been. “Rio? Aemond?!”

There are human voices and gunshots, but reverberating from a distance. Far closer are snarls and groans of the dead. You click off your flashlight, drop to the earth, and crawl until you are as far under a row of corn as you can be, long leaves tickling the back of your neck and damp soil in your nostrils. Clumsy, lumbering footsteps trod by you. From the road, you hear the Tahoe’s engine start with a rumble.

They’re leaving.

You shake your head, here with no one to see you in the dark. Still, the thought persists.

They’re leaving. I left my family and now my family is leaving me.

“Chips, stay where you are!” Rio shouts. “We’re coming back, we’ll find you!”

You wait until they are within ten feet of you, Rio cracking skulls with his Remington—he must be out of bullets too—and Aemond firing his Glock. “I’m here, I’m here!” you cry, and they are lifting you up from the dirt and dragging you towards Tahoe, and Aemond puts his pistol in your hand knowing you can do more good with it. You fire ten rounds before the Glock is empty, and you think with terror: Do any of us have bullets left?

Then you are being helped into the Tahoe, and the second all the doors are shut Rhaena floors the gas pedal, heading west on State Route 92.

~~~~~~~~~~

“I got my drugs after all,” Aegon rasps as Aemond injects him with morphine on the floor of a laundromat on the edge of Merna, Nebraska, far enough to escape the zombies, not so far that the Tahoe risks running out of gas before you reach the next town. His left leg is burned from the knee down, and burned badly: skin, fat, muscle, blood-red scorched ruin. Even through the modest dose of morphine—Aemond is terrified of accidentally killing him—Aegon can still feel what has happened to him. He knows it’s bad. He knows it could be the last mistake he ever makes. “I’m so thirsty…”

“I got you, Honey Bun,” Rio says, and then uses the butt of his Remington to bust open the vending machines and bring him bottles of Powerade. Baela is sobbing in the corner with Luke and Rhaena. Helaena is shining a flashlight on Aegon’s leg so Aemond can see. Daeron and Cregan are keeping watch by the entrance. You don’t even know why. All the bullets and arrows are gone, Aegon can’t walk, the Tahoe’s gas tank is nearly drained. If you are descended upon now, what will you do?

Aegon sobs and clutches for you, links his arms around your waist, rests his head in your lap. You hold him and comb your fingers through his unruly hair over and over again, like a compulsion, like a ritual. You are so afraid to let go of him. You are terrified he’ll disappear.

I wish I knew what to say. I never know what to say.

He’s shaking uncontrollably as Aemond cleans his leg: peeling away dead skin, wiping down the raw flesh with disinfectant. Aegon’s eyes are wide and glassy. There is blood on the white tile floor, pinkish lymph fluid, bits of charred skin. Ice is whimpering, her muzzle propped on her paws and her eyes darting around the room. Aegon manages through the pain, a reedy, gasping whisper: “Tell me about all those places you went when you were in the Navy.”

You can see it like the miles-deep blue of his eyes: the Indian Ocean, the jewel-tone equatorial sky. “On Diego Garcia, they have these birds called red-footed boobies—”

Aegon barks out a weak laugh. “They do not. You’re making that up.”

“No, really, I swear! They’re like seagulls, but they have blue on their face and bright red feet, hence the name. They’re extremely stupid, and one night a few of us were hanging out drinking Guinness and playing pool, and a booby flew in through an open window. We panicked, it panicked, and then it was flying in circles and couldn’t get out. We opened all the doors and windows, and the booby still just flew around banging into the walls. And of course the whole time it was shitting and bleeding and getting feathers everywhere, we knew it was going to take hours to clean up. After thirty minutes of chasing this idiot bird around, Rio snapped, took off his boot, and smacked the booby with it. He was trying to fling it out the window, like hitting a tennis ball with a racket, but he accidentally hit the bird too hard and murdered it. Its beak literally separated from its body and flew across the room. None of us could believe it, we didn’t even know that was possible. Rio felt so bad he started crying. We took the booby—and its beak, of course—out to the beach for a Viking funeral. We made it a little raft of coconut tree leaves, set it on fire with a lighter, and pushed it out into the waves.”

Aegon is cackling. “Bryan Osorio, terrorizer of the homicidal undead and boobies!”

“What else?” Baela says, and you look over at her, startled. The flashlight incandescence turns you all to ghosts, phantoms, half-shadows. At first you don’t know what she means. “What else did they have on Diego Garcia?”

“Oh, tell them about the coconut crabs,” Rio prompts you. He’s settled down beside Aegon and is resting one broad hand on his trembling shoulder.

“Coconut crabs?” Rhaena asks you, wiping tears from her cheeks with her delicate, small-boned fingers.

You are abruptly aware that you have an audience. You can feel yourself shrinking beneath their gazes. “Rio should tell the story. I’m not good at it.”

“Sure you are,” Rio says, smiling kindly beneath dark, wet eyes. “Go on. Tell them.”

So you do.

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen #aemond x you #aemond x reader #aemond x y/n #aemond targaryen x y/n #aemond targaryen x you #hotd fanfic #hotd fic

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