#and I know someone who had to get medevaced! so!

[spaceoperetta]

apropos of nothing, if you end up going on a big out-of-the-country trip, please consider getting travel insurance! In case something terrible happens, it's cheap and potentially getting medevaced out of anywhere is crazy expensive. American friends, I get mine through geoblue, but there are other options!

[thevioletcaptain]

.

[luvlystarr]

︵‿︵︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵︵‿︵

Prompt: Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader, you two promised to get married Content: Angst

︵‿︵︵‿︵︵‿︵︵‿︵

"Simon," you called out. "What?" "If we're old and we're still not in a relationship, let's get married." Simon scoffed at the thought. It was a stupid idea, really. Who would want to marry a guy like him? Someone who’s hands are tainted with people’s blood, someone who’s deeply scarred. He wouldn't want that upon anybody, especially not you. "You couldn't come up with a better plan? And why me?" He asked. "Well, for starters, you're a good person, you know me pretty well, even my grandma likes you." Simon couldn't help but laugh. Although he thought it was really dumb, he felt somewhat honored. He could remember that day like it was yesterday, even though it had been well over a decade since that deal was made. The two of you rose up the ranks, even becoming partners at a special task force team. And, as unfortunate it is, both of you two aren't in a relationship.

Maybe it was meant to be, after all, you two ended up falling for each other. Although, no one decided to speak up about it. You thought he simply saw you as a friend while Simon thought you had eyes for someone else. Oh how he regretted not telling you sooner. The weight in his chest every time he thought about his unspoken love for you was draining him. If he had told you maybe you two would've gotten married, just like you guys promised, maybe even retire to raise a happy family. Yet instead he found himself, kneeling beside your weak and dying body. Blood stained your uniform as you laid there, exhausted. Your beautiful face that often was tinted with a pink hue was now sickeningly pale.

Simon applied pressure to your wound, yet it was no use. The damage had been done and you lost too much blood. His hands began to shake uncontrollably as he tried to fish for anything useful in his pockets. "Y/n, stay with me! They're almost here!" Simon reassured you. Rather, he was reassuring himself that everything will be okay, that you will be given another chance in this life with him. You slowly reached your hand up to cup Simon's face. In all of the years you've known him, you never saw this panicked look in his eyes. Simon was always calm and collected, even in the worst situations. Yet right now, he looked like he didn't know what to do for the first time in forever.

"Simon... It's okay..." You uttered. "Calm down, okay? Everything will be alright." It seemed like you accepted your fate already. But Simon wasn't ready, he didn't want to say goodbye. "For fuck's sake, you're bleeding!" Simon's hand went back to his radio. "Where the hell is medevac?! I need it now!" He yelled into it. He continued to go back and forth with whoever was at the other end before he slowly let go of the radio. All hope had left him. His shoulders fell slump as he leaned onto your body. He was eerily quiet. "Just hold on for five more minutes, yeah?" He muttered, doing everything he can to hold back his tears. You placed a hand on his back, hoping it'll calm him down. "Simon... look at me," you whispered. In most cases, he would've done so. He never admitted it but he adored your eyes. Right now though, he couldn't bring himself to even look at you. The life in your eyes were being sucked away too quickly for him and he didn't want to witness it. Hesitantly, he finally looked at you. Tears were brimming his eyes which blurred his vision. He had already ditched his mask yet he still had trouble breathing. It was like all the air in his body had disappeared the moment you were shot.

"I won't make it," you admitted. "But I'm okay with that, you know..? I mean, I don't regret the life I lived." A tired smile curled your lips.

Simon shook his head. "Don't say that..." His voice was breaking.

"But I do regret not telling you that I love you," you chuckled lightly. "It's too late, huh?"

At this point, the walls that Simon had built to keep his emotions hidden was now broken. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he listened to your words.

His hand found its way to yours and he held it tightly, like he was so afraid to lose you.

"I... fuck, you're making this more difficult than it has to be, love," Simon uttered.

He remembered he used to call you that stupid nickname as a joke, yet it stuck with the two of you.

"We were supposed to get married, like we promised back then, remember?" Simon chuckled dryly. "That dumb plan you made up back then... it's all I want right now."

You nodded your head. "Yeah, of course I remember," you spoke as your other hand wiped away his tears.

As Simon held your hand in his, all he could imagine was a simple ring hugging your finger. If only that could become reality. If only he knew that marrying you was the best choice he could've made.

He lifted your hand closer to his lips, kissing it softly and keeping it there.

"I love you..." Simon whispered.

"I love you too, Simon," you breathed out one last time.

︵‿︵︵‿︵︵‿︵︵‿︵︵‿︵︵‿︵︵‿︵︵‿︵

[cumsuga]

Grey Areas

taehyung x fem!reader

genre. implied smut, fluff, angst, romance, non-idol!au, twin!taehyung, BIL!taehyung, widowedmother!reader

Your husband is dead, now you're trying to avoid the man that looks exactly like him. The only problem with that is trauma bonds people, sometimes in more ways than one 

warnings: spouse in the military, death of a spouse, mentions of decapitation, sleeping with your brother-in-law, grief, implied unprotected sex (Be safe and be smart; please use condoms), infidelity, smoking, light drinking, taehyung may or may not be in love with his sister-in-law aka reader, you're a mama (no drama)

word count: 5k

18+ (Minors DNI)

A/n: First and foremost, thank you, @vintagedtae and @cxffee-addxct, for testing/proofreading; if I could give you two kisses, I would! I really needed the feedback. I don't know if I will make this a series because it differs from anything I've ever written, but I really like it. If anyone has seen the movie Brothers, it inspired it. I really hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and I hope you enjoy Twin Taehyung! Thank you all for reading and interacting with it. Please like and reblog! 💜

On January 30th, 2023, you received a knock on your door that would alter your life forever. 

You met your husband when you were ten years old. He was sweet and gentle, and you knew you would get married when you two got older. When you turned 18, he joined the military as a combat medic. He would always tell you he wanted to be a real-life superhero. At 22, he asked you to marry him. It was a beautiful beachside wedding. At 23, you gave birth to your son; you never saw yourself as a mother, and sure, Azra was a handful, but you were happy. By 25, you were a widow, watching as they lowered your husband into the ground, holding your crying son. 

The date was February 14th, the day he was supposed to come home, but you didn’t think it would be in a casket. You weren’t allowed to see your husband one last time. You were told they had gone out on a medevac mission when their helicopter was shot down. In nicer words, they told you your husband was decapitated, and they never found his head. And that was the image you would have to live with forever. The image of your decapitated husband never coming home. 

On the day of the funeral, his family showed you and your son so much compassion. His older twin brother, Taehyung, held your hand as he was lowered into the earth. Everyone expected you to be a mess, but no one knew that you and your husband prepared for this.  He talked about it often to desensitize you. While his dying in combat was always a possibility, you never thought in a million years that what you two spoke about in private would become a reality. So while internally you were destroyed, on the outside, you were stoic, unphased even.

After the repass, you watch quietly as everyone leaves. The only person who stayed was Taehyung. He told you he stayed to help you and that it was customary for someone from the family to stay with the widow while she grieves. Since he had no female siblings, his mother asked Taehyung to stay. 

“Hey, why don’t you go lay down?” he asks, taking a sleeping Azra from you. You just look at him, the dark circles under your eyes prominent. “Okay, I’m going to put him in the nursery, and I’ll be right back.”

It was silent when he walked away. Quiet enough for you to finally hear your thoughts. The inner turmoil is finally getting to you, and at this point, you are far too tired to hold it in anymore. So you let it out, sobbing loudly into the chaise. When Taehyung hears you, he bolts, the need to comfort you overwhelming him.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. Everything is going to be okay,” he says softly, cradling you in his arms. You pound your fists into his chest, angry at the world for taking your person. Eventually, you lose the energy to continue, balling your fists into his shirt. After what seemed like forever, you passed out in Taehyung’s arms.

Taehyung sighs in relief. What did he know about comforting anyone, let alone his younger brother's widow? What was he supposed to do to help you? Nothing he could say would ever bring him back, and telling you everything would be okay would only comfort you for so long. And who would comfort him? He lost his best friend since birth. He wasn’t like you, though. He never kept it bottled up. When you called to let him know, he dropped to his knees, sobbing loudly into the receiver before hanging up. He cried every day leading up to the funeral and even at the funeral, but no one told him that they were sorry for his loss. They only focused on you and his mother, but what about him? What about how he felt? He lost his identical twin brother, someone he spent every day with for 18 years. He had always held a little resentment for you for stealing his best friend, but right now, he loathes you. You weren't the only one hurting. He didn’t even want to stay here with you while you grieve. He begged his mom not to make him but was met with a slap to the face.

Nonetheless, he picks you up gently and carries you to your room. He sets you down just as gently as if you would break if he weren’t careful. He grabs the blanket at the bottom of your bed and covers you with it, tucking you in. He stands over you, admiring you briefly. He hated you for many things, and one of them was for being so pretty. He pushes the thought away, too inappropriate considering what is going on, before turning to leave. 

“Sujin?” you call out to him. Your dreams came true. He came back to you, “Come back to bed, don’t leave me again.”

“I’m not Su-” he can't finish the sentence. You won’t let him. You desperately want it to be your husband. You know deep down it isn’t him, but lying to yourself will help with the giant hole you have in your chest right now. 

“Please, Sujin… I’m scared.” it comes out so weak and pathetic that it genuinely pains Taehyung to hear. His heart breaks for you, the hatred he had for you dissipating. But he still doesn’t turn to face you,  so you plead for him again.

“Close your eyes…” he says softly. Taehyung decides to do this for you just once. He knew that it would hurt you more if he just walked away. It would hurt him just as much to pretend to be his brother, but he just wanted you to sleep. “Tell me when they’re closed.”

You tell him, and he walks slowly to the bed. He cups your cheek and runs his thumb against it softly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you…” You lean into his touch, and he joins you on the bed. “Let’s go to sleep.”

Taehyung takes you in his arms once more on this terrible day. You bury your head into his chest, and he strokes your hair. He swears he felt you kiss his collarbone, but he chalks it up to you being delirious. He wants to hate you so bad, but to hate you would be to hate a piece of his brother. He wants to get up and leave you to wallow in your sadness, but he knows that isn’t what Sujin would want. Taehyung hasn’t felt so conflicted in his life, but what he is sure of is that seeing you call out for your husband hurt him more than he expected. And what he was absolutely sure of was that he would never let you cry like that again.

When you woke up, you felt arms wrapped around you. So you turned slowly to see who it was, and the face you saw excited you, so you cupped his cheek softly. You moved to peck him gently and realized who it was before you did. You knew it wasn’t Sujin because of the small moles under his eye and on his nose. So you jolt up, startling Taehyung in the process.

“What hell are you doing in my bed?!” you move away from him quickly. Taehyung is rubbing his eyes, looking around at where he is.

“Where am I?” he seems confused about where he is and who you are.

“Taehyung, why are you in my bed, let alone in my room.” You stand up and make a lot of distance between the two of you. You turn to face the door. The last person you want to look at is Taehyung. Right now, you hate the fact that he looks exactly like Taejoon. It makes you physically ill to look at Taehyung. But before you can dwell on that for too long, Azra is crying. You look towards the nursery sighing. "Anyways, get out of my room and go home.”

He nods and gets out of bed, “I’ll get the baby. Just rest, please.” He’s noticed you refuse to look at him, and he can’t be sure why, but it hurts him a little.

“No! No, I want you to leave, Taehyung. Please.” he moved back into your line of sight, so you turn away and walk to the nursery. Taehyung follows behind you.

“I can leave you alone, but I’m not going. I told my mom I’d stay for the next couple of weeks.” He takes Azra from you, and you move to take him back but are immediately deterred by his face. “You know you’re going to have to look at me eventually. I’m his uncle, I’ll be around…”

You sigh in defeat but still don't look up, “I don’t think you’ll ever understand how hard it is to look at you, Taehyung. It hurts... And I don’t want to cry anymore.”

He scoffs, “You’re not serious, right? I don’t understand? I have to do is look in the fucking mirror and be reminded of my brother. Someone I shared a womb and room with almost my entire life. You’re not the only person hurting.” he leaves with Azra to the kitchen, and you're just standing there. You want to yell at him, but you don’t want to upset the baby.

You knew part of you wished that Taehyung was Sujin and that life was normal. You thought it was unfair that you had to go through this. But he’s right; he isn't the only one hurting. You’d been so selfish with your grief that you weren’t allowing anyone to join you in it. And he was also right that you’d have to look at him eventually, but you'd deal with that when the time was right. Right now, all you want is your son.

“Can I have Azra, please?” Azra coos out a little mama when he sees you, and Taehyung looks over at you and then back to Azra as he feeds him his banana baby food. 

“Um, we're having nom-noms right now. Right, Azzy? We’re having nom noms?” Azra giggles, repeating the word, and you wish you could be in his shoes. Living his baby life with no concept of death. You stared at him and realized one day, you’d have to tell him about his father, and tears welled up in your eyes.

“Taehyung, I don’t need your help. I need you to leave, please. You can come over later, but I want to be alone now.” You take Azra out of his high chair and walk towards the den. “We can discuss why you were in my bed after I take Azra to daycare, then you can come with me to pick up some of Sujin’s things from the base. Come back in 2 hours, I’ll be ready then…”

Taehyung reluctantly agrees. He’s scared to leave you, in all honesty. Sujin had mentioned to him about your past struggles with your mental health, but he didn't want to come off as he couldn’t trust you. He wanted you to know he understood what you were going through and was there for you and Azra. 

You watch through the curtains as Taehyung pulls out of the driveway and drives off into the distance. You turn back to the living room and look around. You feel… empty. You knew that grief never grows smaller with time and that life grows around grief. It was such a cliche analogy, and it helped you when your grandmother died, but this was different. You and Sujin talked about getting old and grey together. About watching Azra graduate high school and college, get married, and have children. Now, it was just you, no Sujin, to help with the woes of parenting. You, at 25, are a widowed mom of one. You’re going to miss hearing the sound of him breathing when you lay your head on his chest. You’re going to miss the way he kissed you, held you, and made love to you. You would miss the way he would quote Napoleon Dynamite at the most random times. You were going to miss him. Plain and simple. You wish you had time to grieve but couldn’t because you had responsibilities. So you pushed yourself to keep going because of Azra.

About 2 hours later, you pull into your driveway, returning home from taking the baby to daycare. Taehyung is already there, waiting outside, smoking a cigarette. The feeling of annoyance was brewing inside you. But then you push the feeling away because how could you be annoyed with someone just trying to do the same thing you are; grieve. So you get out of the car and join him on the stoop. “Why are you waiting outside? You know where the house key is. It’s the middle of fall; it's cold.”

“I didn’t want to be reminded of him right away.” he takes a drag, handing you a coffee he picked up on the way back to the house, which you happily accept. “Your house smells like him still. It’s weird.”

You nod; he’s not wrong. It does smell like him, but you like that. You didn’t want to forget that smell. “Yeah, I know. It is kinda weird, isn’t it.” you chuckle softly. He smiles at you, and you meet his eyes finally. You feel something weird, something that makes you blush. He looks away quickly, taking another drag of his cigarette as he stands before flicking it. “Let’s go get my brother’s shit.”

An hour later, you finally leave base with the bit of stuff your husband left behind and some paperwork explaining how your benefits will now work. You don’t even care about that stuff, especially because this wasn’t how life was supposed to be going for you. You get back in the car and give Taehyung the box. “I have to go meet with a lawyer about his will. I need a witness so they can open it. Would you like to come?” He nods, and you drive off.

“So why were you in my bed?” you ask, looking over to see his cheeks are now rosy.

“Well, after you passed out from crying, I went to put you in bed and..” he looks worried; he doesn’t want to embarrass you. 

“And???” you press. 

“And…” He sighs, “And when I went to leave… You confused me with Su, and I didn’t have the heart to stop you, so I held you until you fell asleep. However, anytime I moved, you’d grip me tighter, so I fell asleep with you…” He rubs the back of his head, and you know he’s just as embarrassed as you are. “I know it was inappropriate, but you wouldn’t let me leave..”

“Oh..” the silence that follows is extremely awkward. “Well, thank you for staying, I guess..”

“Yeah, don’t mention it. Literally.” He chuckles. 

The drive to the law office is quiet and gives you time to think about what his will could say. It’s strange, though, because he never told you about it. You just assumed when he died that everything would go to you and Azra by default, but knowing he had a will scared you. Because what could he possibly have to say?

“We’re here..” you don’t move, not even to unbuckle yourself. Your hands are gripping the steering wheel so hard your knuckles are turning white. Your heart feels like it’s going to explode. Taehyung takes your hand, rubbing the back of it with his thumb.

“Calm down, nothing can get worse. I know my brother. He’d never do anything to hurt you.” You wished it soothed you to hear those words, but his brother had done something to hurt you. Of course, it wasn't intentional, but it hurt nonetheless.

“Taehyung, your brother has done a lot to hurt me. None of them like this, though. This one he can’t fix with flowers and chocolates.” you say, half giggling, the other half getting choked up.

“Listen, I know this seems like the end of the world, and trust me, it sure as fuck feels like it. But let’s be realistic. You’ll eventually grow to deal with the loss of my brother. You’ll move on with your life, find some awesome guy, and fall in love with him. You’ll probably even get remarried. Realistically, of course.” you just look at him. The way he could say the most asinine shit you’ve ever heard honestly pissed you off.

“Why the fuck would you say that to me right now? I just buried him yesterday. Are you dumb? Please just shut the fuck up until I tell you to talk.” You finally move to get out of the car, slamming the door behind you and mumbling about how much of an idiot he was.

But that was the thing; Taehyung wasn’t stupid. He just says ridiculous shit. In fact, Taehyung graduated cum laude from Stanford, which is why you can’t understand why he doesn't think before he talks. 

He sits in the car briefly before coming out and following closely behind you. You two walk into the law office. The receptionist says she’s expecting you and leads you to a small conference room. “I’m nervous…” you sigh, fidgeting.

Before long, a tall, tan-skinned man walked in. He explained the legal jargon and then allowed you and Taehyung time to read over the will. But that's the thing: It wasn’t a will; it was more like letters to people in his life. You found the page for Taehyung and handed it to him. It wasn’t long before you heard sniffling coming from him. You smiled at him. You thought it was sweet how vulnerable he could be.

One page was dedicated to you, telling you all the passwords to his socials and bank accounts, where he had hidden money for Azra, and that he was sorry, but that was all. Nothing else was there. No, I love you, no, I’ll see you again someday, nothing. It was like all you were to him was a vessel to carry and care for his child. To say you were hurt was a complete understatement. But before you could take in the reality of what was happening, you found a page for a woman named Natalie. It describes how much he cared for her but also how much he regretted cheating on you while you were pregnant. He went on to tell her about the life he had imagined with her during their affair, but when you gave birth, it gave him a new meaning in your marriage and that he was sorry they ever got involved. He left her a small amount of money; it wasn’t said for what, only that she would understand what it was for. You only knew of one Natalie; you all went to high school together, but the last you heard, she moved to Los Angeles and hadn’t been back since. There was no way. This had to be Sujin’s idea of a joke. There was no other explanation.

You wanted to know when he even had time to cheat? If he wasn’t at work, he was with you. You try to think of any time he was not with you, but then you remember that he started going to the gym more often during your pregnancy. You thought nothing of it. He was in the military, for god sake. And you held on to that notion until you spotted her walking into the office.

“Hey, what does yours say? Mine tells me to take care of you and Az, and he finally admitted he broke my Donatello figure when we were younger. Plus some other stuff, but that's private.” He chuckles. He must’ve noticed your eyes glazed over because he waved his hand in front of your face. “Helloooo, anyone home?”

“He cheated..” is all you could squeak out. It’s almost inaudible.

 Taehyung doesn’t want to believe that you just said, “What? How do you know that? Let me see.” he snatches the papers from your hands and reads them repeatedly. “No way, Joon would never do that.”

“He did, and she’s here. The blonde woman you see in the lobby. Thats her… I don’t think she knows I’m here, nor was I even supposed to read that. I don’t think he meant to put it in there.” You both sit there in silence; before you know it, you’re storming into the lobby.

She looked shocked to see you, like she didn't understand what you were doing there. “y/n, what’re you doing here?”

“What the fuck do you mean what am I doing here? What are you doing here?” You scoff. You can’t believe this lady. She has the nerve to question you like you’re the mistress. So, you do the most logical thing you could do in any law office. You slap the shit out of her. “So you like fucking married men while their wives are at home caring for their children? Huh? Huh? ANSWER ME!”

She looks terrified and confused, clutching her now red cheek. “Married. He told me you two were divorced and that he only wore his ring to keep appearances with his parents.”

“Oh please, you can’t be that fucking stupid. YOU WENT TO FUCKING BERKLEY! You knew; don’t play dumb with me!” You are furious and yelling so loud a crowd is starting to gather. Taehyung comes up behind you, trying to calm you so he can get you outside, but you’re struggling in his grip. “HEY EVERYONE, HIDE YOUR HUSBANDS NATALIE STARK LIKES TO FUCK MARRIED MEN. NO, LET ME GO TAEHYUNG!”

“Nope, it’s time to go,” he says, flinging you over his shoulder.

Taehyung finally got you into the parking lot, but you still weren’t calm. He didn’t know what to do or say, so he lit a cigarette and handed it to you. “Here, it helps with the stress.”

You take it. You hadn’t smoked a cigarette in almost two years, choosing to quit right before you found out you were pregnant. “Thank you,” you say before taking a long drag. The nicotine rushes straight to your head, mellowing you out. “I swear to god, your bother is so fucking lucky he fucking died before I found this out because I would’ve killed him my-damn-self.”

You sigh. Your world is crumbling around you. How could you not have known? And what did you do to deserve this? You never spoke down to him, hell you doted on the mother fucker, and still he cheated. He lied to you every day with a smile on his face like everything was fine. Why couldn’t he be a man and tell you he was unhappy? Why did he have to die for you to find out? You wanted answers, and the shittiest thing, about it, was that you’d never get them.

Taehyung is still quiet. You wish he would just go away because looking at him makes you angrier than before. “Can you turn around or something? Your face is pissing me off.”

“Listen, I understand you’re upset but don’t take that shit out on me. I’m not Sujin, I didn’t do shit to you. Get in the fucking car, I want to go home.” He snatches the keys from you and walks to the other side of the car.

You finish your cigarette and get in. By the time you two make it back to town, you have to go pick up Azra. So you drop Taehyung off at your house and get him. When you left, you told Tae you wanted him to be gone when you returned, but he didn’t listen.

You were too tired to argue with Taehyung, so you put Azra down for a nap and then walked to the kitchen. “You want a glass of wine? I have a feeling the rest of the week is going to suck as bad as today,” you call out to Taehyung from the kitchen.

“Yeah, sure. Can I smoke in here?” he’s walking around the den, looking at all the pictures. He stops on a photo of you two at your baby shower. He smiles fondly. If Taehyung was honest, he wished he was around more. He hadn’t seen you or his brother since Azra was born. And he regretted that. 

Taehyung had a secret he told no one but hated you for. At your wedding, you told the story about how you met your husband, but the boy you met that day was Taehyung. He fell in love with you the moment he laid eyes on you. He confessed to you a week later and told you to think about it. When he went to find you the following day, he saw you kissing his brother; the rest is history. 

“Uh, no, but we can go into the sunroom. It’s heated, and I have the baby monitor.” You leave the kitchen and go into the den, “Is that okay with you?”

Taehyung looks over at you. He wished that it was him that you had fallen in love with. He would never hurt you in the way that Taejoon had. He felt selfish for his thoughts about you. They were wrong. Especially considering the current circumstances. But if he was being honest, you’d never look more beautiful to him than you did right now. Your hair was messy, with no make-up on, in sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt. “Yeah, that's fine.”

You grab the bottle and some glasses and walk towards the sunroom, placing them on the coffee table and going to the sound system. You didn’t want to listen to the silence. You put on something soft and airy to help soothe your nerves. Your week had gone from bad to fucked up in a matter of 24 hours. Whoever you were in your previous life must have been one fucked up person because your current life is kicking your ass.

“Hey, you guys got it remodeled. I like it.” he looks around, admiring the work.

“Uh, no, I remodeled it. Your brother did jack shit but complain about how it was keeping him awake.” You roll your eyes and throw yourself into one of the many chairs, sighing.

Taehyung takes a seat next to you.“I’m sorry this is happening to you. I know I was giving you a hard time earlier today, but I just wanted you to know you’re not alone. I’m here for you completely.” He grabs your hand. You look down at your hands and then back at him.

“It’s just tough to be around you, Taehyung. Even more so now than before. I wish you would get that, but you’re so goddamn stubborn. And you’re really touchy, it’s weird.” You remove your hand from his and pour two glasses.

He chuckles. “I’m sorry. It’s just how I show people I care. But if it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll stop.” He grabs a glass and takes a sip. He stands to open a window and then lights a cigarette. “Do you have an ashtray?”

You set one down on the coffee table. Taehyung turns to look back at where you set it, and for a split second, life feels normal. Like Sujin didn’t die, you didn’t find out he was cheating, and you felt happy. The silence that follows you is so comfortable. He smiles at you before looking back out the window. Then Fade into You by Mazy Star comes on, and Taehyung walks over to you.

“Dance with me.” He extends a hand to you.

You scrunch your face with a smile, “I’m tired.” you try to push his hand away, but he pulls you up by your hand. You give into the dance eventually, resting your head on his chest.

“I know I’ve said it a lot today, but I’m sorry about everything my brother has put you through… I would’ve never done that to you. You’re way too precious to me.” you pull away to look at him. And he stares down at you. The tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife. And before you knew it, your lips were crashing together. 

You both knew it was wrong, but it was like magnets. You two couldn’t pull away. Your hands move to the hem of Taehyung's shirt, sliding up against the smooth skin of his torso. He wasn’t lean, and you liked that a lot, so you scraped your nails against his stomach. “Take this off.”

He takes his shirt off and moves to take yours off. When he finally gets it off, he starts kissing down your chest, “I’ve wanted to do this since I was 15..” You swear you hallucinate him saying that. You unbutton his jeans and slide your hand into his boxers. He moans softly into your neck, and that was enough for him to snap. He tugs your sweatpants down, having you step out of the. He kisses your inner thigh before pulling your panties down, not even allowing you a second before he picks you up and pins you against the window.

Now, to say that Taehyung wasn't gentle was an understatement. He fucked you like he hated you like he wanted you to know how much you ruined his life, but also how much he was willing to give up to be with you. And as much as you knew it was wrong, you loved it. Neither of you talked the whole time. You both enjoy not being sad for once. When everything was all said and done, Taehyung set you down gently and walked away, sitting on the floor. He knew the severity of what had just happened and needed time to process it. But there was no going back from what just happened. You both had effectively ruined each other's lives.

You joined Taehyung on the floor, sitting behind him and leaning your head on his back. You planted a small kiss on his shoulder. You knew everything would be okay when he reached back for your hand to hold. “I’m gonna take care of you from now on,” he says as he kisses the inner of your wrist.

© @cumsuga 2016-2024. All rights reserved. — Unauthorized use or duplication of these works, including reposting, translating, and modification in any form, is strictly prohibited. DO NOT USE MY CONTENT FOR ANY AI PURPOSES WHAT SO EVER

credit to @cafekitsune for the dividers

[hiro--aoki]

TWD X Tumblr Chapter Four: Disoriented

TW: Somewhat suggested abuse, but its pretty plain of tw's today

A/n: I'm really sorry for how late this is, family shit, but it's here. It's also short, but that just means more chapters in season one

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

"Disoriented."

The fire crackles in the middle of the circle of people, crickets chirping off in the distance.

Rick has Lori and Lily either side of him and Carl laying on his lap.

"I guess that comes closest." Rick continues, glancing around the group as rubs Carl's head.

"Disoriented. Fear, confusion; all those things but disoriented comes closest."

Thunder rolls in the distance as the group listens to his tired voice, explaining the journey he went through to find his family.

Dale sets down his mug of soup, "Words can be meagre things. Sometimes they fall short."

He glances around the group as well.

"I felt like I'd been ripped out of my life and put somewhere else." Rick continues, "For a while I thought I was trapped. Trapped in some coma dream. Something I might not wake up from ever."

Carl pulls himself closer to Rick, tilting his head back to look up at him.

There's a soft sparkle in his eyes, as he listens to his strong and brave dad.

"Mom said you died." He whispers softly.

He sounds like he's almost about to fall asleep, cuddled up with his family.

There's another momentary silence withing the group.

Lori opens her mouth to explain, but Rick interupts, his voice soft like silk.

"She had every reason to believe that...don't you ever doubt it."

Lori looks over at Shane, who's sitting with Delilah and Kayden snuggled up next to him. They lock eyes, almost communicating.

Finally, Lori speaks.

"When things started to get really bad, they told me at the hospital that they were going to medevac you and the other patients to Atlanta and it never happened."

"Probably for the best." Lily whispers.

"Yeah, probably for the best." Lori smiles down at her.

"And, I'm not surprised, after Atlanta fell." Rick adds.

Shane tosses a twig into the warmth of the fire.

A few "yeah"s are murmered around the group.

"And from the look of that hospital, it got overrun." "...yeah, looks don't decieve." Shane adds, "I barely got them out. You know?" 

He gestures to Lori, Carl and LIly then Kayden and Delilah.

Rick looks over at Shane, "I can't tell you how grateful I am to you, Shane. I can't begin to express it."

There's a sudden tension spike between the group.

"There go those words falling short again." Dale jokes, trying to lighten the mood.

Glenn moves from the fire, with his cup of soup, sitting down next to Delilah and Kayden, offering a sip of his soup to Delilah. She shakes her head at the offer.

Kayden's eyes stay on Carl. She wants to be cuddled up with him, but she can't interrupt his family moment.

"Paltry things." Dale adds, directed at the lack of ability to express oneself purely through words.

Lori grips Rick even tighter, going into deep thought about something.

Rick rubs her arm, soothing her, as he thinks she's still recovering form the shock of him coming back.

Someone steps up. Ed Peletier. Here comes some drama.

He throws a chopped log into the fire, making it bigger. The fire crackles loudly and Ed sits back down.

"Hey, Ed, you want to rethink that log?" Shane asks, his patience obviously barely existent for this man.

Ed just throws his head back and says, "It's cold, man."

The groups throws glances at each other, each one showing a different combination of emotions, ranging from annoyance to... yeah basically all annoyance.

"The cold don't change the rules, does it?" Shane says to Ed, waiting for him to get the hint, "Keep our fires low, just embers, so we can't be seen from a distance, right?"

Everyone hopes that Ed will just listen and take the log out. But their wishes go unanswered.

"I said it's cold." Ed hardens his voice, as if he could scare Shane into letting him rule the roost, "You should mind your own business for once."

Shane lets out a groan, before standing, deciding if he wants it done, Ed ain't gonna do it.

"Hey Ed." Shane mumbles as he passes Ed, giving him two pats on his shoulder as he stands next to him, "You sure you want to have this conversation, man?"

Ed looks up at Shane from his seat, thinking for a moment, weighing his options.

"Go on. Pull the damn thing out." He says after a few seconds.

Shane just stands there. He's not Ed's dog, he's not doing it for him.

"Go on!" Ed raises his voice.

Carol stands, laying her shawl on her chair next to Sophia, as she stands to take the log out.

Shane looks between Ed and the fire before pulling out the log, just so Carol doesn't have to and so he doesn't have to put up with Ed's 'Lead Cheerleader Complex'.

He tosses the burning log to the ground and stops out the flames on it.

Shane then crouches next to Carol and Sophia, "Hey, carol, Sophia, how are ya'll this evening?"

Sophia stays looking at the fire, silently, but Carol turns to Shane and answers him.

"Fine. We're just fine." "Okay." Shane says, obviously questioning her.

Ed glares the the three of them from across the fire.

"I'm sorry about the fire." Carol adds.

"No, no, no, no. No apology needed." Shane assures, "Ya'll have a good night, okay?"

They both nod and Carol whispers a "Thank you".

Shane stands again, before saying to Ed in particular, "I appreciate the cooperation." 

The underlying sarcasm can be noted in his tone.

Shane walks back to his spot on the ground, the group watching him move.

"Have you given any thought to Daryl Dixon? He won't be happy to hear his brother was left behind." Dale asks.

"I'll tell him."T-Dog declares, "I dropped the key. It's on me."

"I cuffed him. That makes it mine." Rick counters.

"Guys, it's not a competition." Delilah says, Glenn rubs his thumb over her knuckle, his other hand holfing his now empty mug.

"I don't mean to sound racist when I say this but it might sound better coming froma white guy." Glenn adds.

"...I did what I did. hell if I'm gonna hide from him." T-Dog says firmly.

"We could lie." Amy suggests.

"Or tell the truth." Andrea says, leaving no room for argument, "Merle was out of control. Something had to be done, or he would've gotten us killed."

Andrea turns to Lori, "Your husband did what was necessary. And if Merle got left behind, it is nobody's fault but Merle's."

"And that's what we tell Daryl?" Dale asks with concern, "I don't see a rational discussion to be had from that, do you?"

Andrea shakes her head.

"Word to the wise," Dale continues, "We're gonna have our hands full when he gets back from his hunt."

"I was scared and I ran." T-Dog starts, "I'm not ashamed of it." "We were all scared. We all ran. What's your point?" Andrea asks.

"I stopped long enough to chain that door. Staircase is narrow. Maybe half a dozen geeks can squeeze against it at any one time. It's not enough to break through that. Not that chain, not that padlock. My point: Dixon's alive."

Taglist:

@kookiekult @smutinlove @far-cry-from-finality @zomb-1-egutzz

@shadowybasementmiracle @vaniniweenie @sleep-queen

@frankcastleautism @hisdahlia @carlslvr @zzombiegirl

@lunarnightt @carlmipololo @herrera2k @txrasbae

@a-vampire-bat @coveofthesiren @deathswrld

[omgkatherine01]

Between Your Wings - Chapter 3: Back to the City

Series Masterlist

Chapter 2, Chapter 4

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x female reader x Rick Grimes (slow burn)

Please comment, like and share

That night, you sat around the campfire with the members of the camp. Rick was recounting his journey here, "I felt like I'd been ripped out of my life and put somewhere else. For a while I thought I was trapped in some coma dream, something I might not wake up from ever."

"Mom said you died," Carl said softly, and you tilted your head sadly.

Rick nodded, his voice soft, "She had every reason to believe that. Don't you ever doubt that."

"When things started getting really bad, they told us at the hospital that they were going to medevac you and other patients to Atlanta, but it never happened," Lori spoke up.

"Well, I'm not surprised after Atlanta fell," Rick said, "From the look of that hospital, it got overrun."

"Yeah, looks don't deceive," Shane finally spoke up, "I barely got them out, you know?"

Rick's eyes shifted to Shane, a small smile forming across his face, "I can't tell you how grateful I am to you, Shane. I can't begin to express it."

Dale smiled, leaning back in his seat, "There go those words falling short again. Paltry things."

The sound of a log being dropped into a nearby fire caught your attention. You glanced over at the Peletiers, Ed sitting back down in his seat. Every night since you'd all arrived here, he had insisted that his family have their own fire. He wanted to keep Carol and their daughter Sophia as far away from the rest of you as possible.

"Hey, Ed, you want to rethink that log?" Shane asked.

"It's cold, man," Ed told him.

"The cold don't change the rules, does it?" Shane asked. "Keep our fires low, just embers so we can't be seen from a distance, right?"

"I said it's cold," Ed told him, "You should mind your own business for once."

Shane stood up, walking toward the Peletier family, standing in front of Ed, "Hey, Ed... are you sure you want to have this conversation, man?"

Ed looked at his wife, "Go on. Pull the damn thing out." Carol didn't move. "Go on!"

Carol stood up, walking around.

Shane shook his head, "Christ."

Carol pulled the log out of the fire, walking back to sit between Ed and Sophia.

Shane stomped the flames out, looking at Carol and Sophia, kneeling in front of them, "Hey, Carol, Sophia, how are y'all this evening?"

"Fine," Carol told him, "We're just fine."

"Okay," Shane told them.

"I'm sorry about the fire," Carol told him.

"No, no, no," Shane told her, "No apology needed. Y'all have a good night, okay?"

"Thank you," Carol told him.

Shane stood up, looking at Ed, "I appreciate the cooperation." He walked away, walking back toward the others, sitting back between T-Dog and Amy.

Dale cleared his throat, everyone having clearly been watching the situation as intensely as you had, "Have you all given any more thought to Daryl Dixon? He won't be happy to hear his brother was left behind."

"I'll tell him," T-Dog said, "I dropped the key. It's on me."

"I cuffed him," Rick said, "That makes it mine."

"Guys, it's not a competition," Glenn said, "I don't mean to bring race into this, but it might sound better coming from a white guy... maybe... someone like Audery?"

You frowned and looked at your closes friend, "What?"

Glenn shrugged, "I'm just saying... you are the safest person to tell him. Because he won't beat you up."

You shook your head, "Nah, nope. I'm not telling shit. Wasn't there, didn't see what happened exactly." Glenn nudged your shoulder with his while some of the group smiled with amusement. "Don't drag me into this."

"I did what I did." You looked at T-Dog, who looked down in slight shame. "Hell if I'm gonna hide from it."

"We could lie," Amy suggested.

"Or we tell the truth," Andrea said, "Merle was out of control. Something had to be done or he'd have gotten us killed." She looked at Lori, "Your husband did what was necessary. And if Merle got left behind, it is nobody's fault but Merle's."

"And that's what we tell Daryl?" Dale asked, "I don't see a rational discussion to be had from that, do you? Word to the wise--We're gonna have our hands full when he gets back from his hunt."

"I was scared, and I ran," T-Dog said softly, "I'm not ashamed of it."

"We were all scared," Andrea told him, "We all ran. What's your point?"

"I stopped long enough to chain that door," T-Dog said, "Staircase is narrow. Maybe half a dozen geeks can squeeze against it at any one time. It's not enough to break through that--Not that chain, not that padlock. My point--Dixon's alive and he's still up there, handcuffed on that roof. That's on us."

The camp went silent, everyone reflecting on the conversation. Nobody really wanted to tell Daryl anything; You knew Daryl was a hot headed like Merle, but he wasn't nearly as bad as his big brother.

You wouldn't lie, ever since you've met the Dixon brothers, you thought the youngest Dixon was quite attractive. You were shy at first to approach him--not to mention you pulled your father's gun to his face when you first met him when he and Merle stepped into your and your father's hiding place--but as time went on, he got used to you been around him.

You knew you developed a crush on him, but you kept it to yourself. Or well used to, until you and Amy had a heart-to-heart talk, and she found out you had a crush on him, she teased you a couple of times when it was just the two of you, but she definitely kept it a secret.

You sighed softly and looked down at Max who was lying on your feet. You would have to be the one to talk to Daryl about Merle.

Slowly everyone started to turn in, heading to their tents. You picked Max into your arms and walked to your tent. You walked inside and placed Max on the tent's floor. He walked to his small bed, and you put your boots outside before zipping your tent up.

You petted Max before stepping to your bed and lying down.

Tomorrow will be hard; you just knew it.

****

You woke up to a lick on your hand and opened your eyes slowly to see Max was awake and he whimpered. You groaned softly and slowly got out of the bed. Max jumped to the entrance of the tent, and you unzipped it.

He jumped out and ran off, wiggling his tail and you rubbed the sleep from your eyes and brushed your fingers through your hair. You put your boots on and stepped out completely.

You looked around at the camp and spotted only a few people around while the others still sleeping, which meant it was pretty early in the morning. "Morning, Audrey!" You looked up at top of the RV to see Jim.

You smiled as you stepped up to the RV. "Morning, Jim."

"Slept well?"

You shrugged, "Guess so. And so did Max, since he hasn't woken me up in the middle of the night." Jim smiled as he let out a chuckle. "Did you sleep?"

"Yeah, don't worry, just took the shift from Shane," Jim said and frowned, "Dale said he was up all night." You frowned at that; Shane was supposed to be on shift night but during the night Dale was supposed to take over.

"Huh," you said softly and glanced around before spotting Max running toward you, with his tongue out. You kneeled down and petted your puppy with affection. "Who's a good boy?"

"Son of a bitch!"

You looked to the direction the shouting came from and saw Ed throwing his shoe on the ground. You looked down at Max who just tilted his head up at you. You glanced slowly to Ed's direction... which was where Max was before running to you.

"Oh, you really are a good boy," you praised your dog quietly and rubbed him on the head. "Yes, you are." Max gave a small bark and fell on his back, and you giggled as you rubbed his belly. "Yes, you are!"

"Hey!" You looked over to Ed as he stormed toward you, and you froze.

Carol ran after him worried, "Ed--"

"Shut it," he said as he glared over at her and then turned back to you as you stood up with Max in your arms. He pointed in your face, and you took a step back while he glared at you, "Your stupid dog ruined my shoe!"

"Is there a problem, Ed?" you looked over your shoulder at Shane as he approached to your side.

"That little bitch's dog peed in my shoe," Ed hissed.

Shane's eyes darkened and his jaw clenched before he spoke in a calm tone which sounded scary, "First of all, don't call her that. Second, your shoe must have fell on the side, should watch how to put your shoes outside the tent." He stepped forward and faced Ed closer, "Now, anything else?"

Ed didn't answer and just glared between the two of you for another second before turning and storming back toward his tent. Shane and you watched him and Carol before you looked at Shane as he stepped around and stood in front of you.

"You okay?" he asked, and you nodded. He nodded and looked at Max for a moment before he smirked lightly and petted his head, speaking softly, "Good boy."

You let out a chuckle as he praised him for the nasty trick, and Max barked, wiggling his tail happily.

****

Everyone were now up and around. The kids had asked you if it was all right to take Max and play with him near the camp, which you happily agreed for them to do so. But your happy mood changed when Dale had told you the men would have to take parts out from the sports car you stole yesterday. 

You stood on the side with your arms crossed over your chest, watching in complete sadness as Dale, Jim and Morales worked on the car. "It's not fair," you said, while the three amused men ignored your complains, "Taking my new car apart is just cruelty."

You felt someone next to you and you glanced over to see Rick, who was staring at the men and the car. "Look at 'em," you said as you looked at them, "They took my dream car."

You heard Rick letting out a soft chuckle. Dale stepped closer with part of the car, which made you sad even more. "Generators need every drop of fuel they can get," he said, "Got no power without it. I'm sorry, sweetheart."

He rubbed your arm and walked away. You looked over at Rick, "Thought I'd get to drive it at least a few more days."

Rick petted your back with a nod, "Maybe we'll get to steal another one someday."

"Hope so," you muttered and glanced back at him as he walked toward Lori. You looked back at your ruined car in disappointment before letting a soft sigh.

You heard a honk and looked behind the car at Shane's jeep driving closer. Shane parked and leaned up, "Water's here, y'all. Just a reminder to boil before use." You watched the men approaching the jeep to help carry the water tanks.

You walked up to Shane who noticed your expression, "Oh no, what happened while I was away?" he asked with a frown.

"Stolen car has been torn apart," you answered.

"Oh boy, that's sucks," he said as he leaned to the passenger side and grabbed his rifle. "Look like one hell of a car. Don't worry, you get another one day."

"Can you go this time to the city and get me another one?" you asked with a small smirk.

He laughed, "Just because I care about you, that does not mean I'll go to the city just to get you the same looking car you stole." 

You pouted jokingly, "You mean." Your friendly conversation was cut off by screaming in the distance, and you tensed up and turned to where the screams came from.

"Mom!"

You watched as half the campers ran toward the direction the screaming came from. You followed them and immediately spotted Carl embracing his mother with Max in his arms. "What happened?" she asked, "Are you okay?!"

"Yeah," Carl answered as you watched the men running to where Jacqui was pointing.

You followed the men to the path and paused when you saw a walker kneeling down and eating an already dead deer. You leaned forward and saw the animal had a few arrows stuck in him.

You heard footsteps behind you and glanced over to see Andrea and Amy stopping near you. You turned back your attention to the men, the walker stopped and turned to them. He slowly got up and then Rick hit him with the pole, and he fell to the ground.

You watched the men beating the walker until Dale finished the walker off by chopping his head off with an axe. There was a moment of silent after that until Dale spoke, "It's the first one we've had up here. They never come this far up the mountain."

You heard small growling and looked down to see Max had left Carl's side and now was standing next to you and the sisters. His tail wiggled and he was staring at the dead walker.

You picked Max up and held him in your arms before turning your attention back to the men. "They're running out of food in the city, that's what," Jim said.

You heard branch snapping from behind him and you all looked tensed up. Andrea pulled you and Amy near her sides as you watched the men holding their weapons up.

Then after a moment of only hearing the footsteps approaching, you were relief to see it was only Daryl stepping into view. He paused and stared at the men, and they lowered their weapons down when they realized it was only Daryl.

"Oh, Jesus."

Max gave one bark in your arms when he saw Daryl, his tail wiggling.

"Son of a bitch," Daryl snapped as he looked at the deer. "That's my deer!" He walked closer. "Look at it. All gnawed on by this--" He kicked the Walker. "Filthy, disease-bearing, motherless poxy bastard."

"Calm down, son," Dale told him, "That's not helping."

Daryl walked around the Walker, standing in front of Dale, and you took a few steps forward toward them. "What do you know about it, old man?" he snapped, "Why don't you take that stupid hat and go back to 'On Golden Pond'?" He walked back to the deer, taking out the arrows. "I've been tracking this deer for miles. Gonna drag it back to camp, cook us up some venison. What do you think? Do you think we can cut around this chewed up part right here?"

As much as venison sounded good, you had to disagree because of the walker, "I would not risk that," you spoke up and glanced around at the men to see Shane nodding in agreement, before at Daryl.

Daryl looked back at you and then at the deer with a sigh, "That's a damn shame. I got some squirrel--about a dozen or so. That'll have to do."

The head of the Walker started to move his teeth. "Oh, God," Amy said behind you and you glanced back to see the sisters leaving.

"Come on, people," Daryl said and you turned back. "What the hell?" He shot the Walker's head with his crossbow. The arrow hit him in the eye, killing the walker. Daryl pulled the arrow out. "It's gotta be the brain. Don't y'all know nothing?"

Daryl walked past Shane and Rick. He petted Max on the head as he walked past you. You turned to the men and saw Rick watching Daryl leaving. "Yeah..." you trailed off and he looked at you, "That's Daryl."

You turned and took a step to leave but then Glenn spoke, "So... Audrey, you will... right?" You turned and gave Glenn a look as you raised your eyebrow. You didn't say anything and just turned and walked after Daryl to the camp.

"Merle! Merle! Get your ugly ass out here! I got us some squirrel! Let's stew 'em up."

You gently placed Max on the ground, and he ran up to the RV to where Lori was. You cleared your throat, "Hey Daryl?" Daryl stopped and turned to you as you walked close to him. "I, uh, I need to talk to you."

"'Bout what?" Daryl asked.

"About Merle," you answered, "There was a--there was a problem in Atlanta."

Daryl looked around, then he looked at you, "He dead?"

"No, I mean, we don't think so--" you started as Shane stepped to your side.

"We're not sure."

"He either is or he ain't!" Daryl yelled at him.

Rick walked closer, "No easy way to say this, so I'll just say it."

"Who are you?"

"Rick Grimes."

"Rick Grimes," Daryl huffed, "You got something you want to tell me?"

"Your brother was a danger to us all, so I handcuffed him on a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal. He's still there."

"Hold on, let me process this," Daryl said as he stepped back, facing away from everyone as he wiped his eyes. It took a moment before he turned back to Rick, "You're saying you handcuffed my brother to a roof, and you left him there?"

"Yeah."

Without missing a beat, Daryl flung the rope of squirrels at Rick before rushing to tackle him. Shane jumped into action, body slamming him to the ground as you stepped back. Daryl then pulled out a knife, swinging it back and forth at the two men. "Daryl, stop!" you called.

Rick was able to sneak in a gut punch, allowing for Shane to get Daryl into a choke hold. "You'd best let me go!" Daryl yelled, thrashing his body.

Shane shook his head, "I think it's better if I don't."

"Choke hold's illegal," Daryl snapped. 

"You can file a complaint," Shane said as Daryl continuing to thrash in his arms, "Come on, man. We can do this all day."

Rick knelt in front of Daryl, looking him in the eyes, "I'd like to have a calm discussion on this topic. Do you think we can manage that?"

Daryl thought for a moment, before choking out a quiet 'Yeah'. Shane looked at Rick for reassurance before letting the man go.

"What I did was not on a whim," Rick told him, "Your brother does not work and play well with others."

"It's not Rick's fault," T-Dog told him, "I had the key. I dropped it."

"You couldn't pick it up?" Daryl asked. 

"I dropped it in a drain."

Rick stood up as Daryl looked down at the ground, breathing heavily, standing up, looking at T-Dog, "If it's supposed to make me feel better, it don't."

"Well, maybe this will," T-Dog told him, "Look, I chained the door to the roof--So the geeks couldn't get at him--with a padlock."

Rick looked at Daryl, "It's gotta count for something."

Daryl looked away, shaking his head, "Hell with all y'all!" He looked at Rick. "Just tell me where he is so that I can go get him."

"He'll show you," Lori told him, and everyone looked at her, "Isn't that right?"

Rick looked around, nodding, "I'm going back." Lori shook her head slightly and she turned and walked into the RV. You looked at Rick and watched him walking to the tents and Shane followed him clearly pissed off with the idea.

You stepped to your ruined car and leaned against the side of it as you crossed your arms across your chest. Daryl glanced to your way before quickly he sat down on one of the rocks and started to clean his arrows.

There was a couple of minutes of silent, full of tension in the air until you saw Rick and Shane walking back to the main camp, with Rick in his uniform.

"Well, look, I--I don't, okay, Rick?" Shane asked, "So could you just--Could you throw me a bone here, man? Could you just tell me why? Why would you risk your life for a douche bag like Merle Dixon?"

"Hey, choose your words more carefully," Daryl snapped at him.

"No, I did," Shane told him. "Douche bag's what I meant." He looked at Rick. "Merle Dixon--The guy wouldn't give you a glass of water if you were dying of thirst."

"What he would or wouldn't do doesn't interest me," Rick told him, "I can't let a man die of thirst--me. Thirst and exposure. We left him like an animal caught in a trap. That's no way for anything to die, let alone a human being."

Lori was sitting on logs with Carl and Max, "So you and Daryl, that's your big plan?"

Rick turned around, before his eyes landed on you. Oh no, he was staring at me you thought. You pointed at yourself, "Me?"

"You know the way," Rick pleaded as he stepped closer to you, "You've been there before. In and out, no problem. You said so yourself. It's not fair of me to ask, I know that, but I'd feel a lot better with you there. I know she would too." His eyes landed on Lori, and you looked over at her for a moment. You sighed and nodded lightly.

"That's just great," Shane told him sarcastically. "Now you're gonna risk three people, huh?"

"Four," T-Dog said.

"My day just gets better and better, don't it?" Daryl huffed.

"You see anybody else here stepping up to save your brother's cracker ass?" T-Dog asked.

"Why you?"

"You wouldn't even begin to understand. You don't speak my language."

Dale let out a heavy sigh, "That's four then."

"It's not just four," Shane said, looking at Rick, "You're putting every single one of us at risk. Just know that, Rick. Come on, you saw that Walker. It was here. It was in camp. They're moving out of the cities. They come back, we need every able body we've got. We need 'em here. We need 'em to protect camp."

"Sounds to me like what you really need are more guns," Rick said.

"What guns?" Shane asked.

"Six shotguns, two high-powered rifles, over a dozen handguns," Rick explained, "I cleaned out the cage back at the station before I left. I dropped the bag in Atlanta when I got swarmed. It's just sitting there on the street, waiting to be picked up."

"Ammo?" Shane asked. 

"700 rounds, assorted," Rick answered. 

"You went through hell to find us," Lori told him, "You just got here and you're gonna turn around and leave?"

Carl stepped forward, looking up at Rick, "Dad, I don't want you to go."

"To hell with the guns," Lori told him. "Shane is right. Merle Dixon? He's not worth one of your lives, even with guns thrown in." Rick walked closer to them. Lori stood up. "Tell me. Make me understand."

"I owe a debt to a man I met and his little boy," Rick told her, "Lori, if they hadn't taken me in, I'd have died. It's because of them that I made it back to you at all. They said they'd follow me to Atlanta. They'll walk into the same trap I did if I don't warn him."

"What's stopping you?" Lori asked.

"The walkie-talkie, the one in the bag I dropped," Rick answered. "He's got the other one. Our plan was to connect when they got closer."

"These are our walkies?" Shane asked. 

"Yeah," Rick answered. 

"So use the CB," Andrea told him. "What's wrong with that?"

"The CB's fine," Shane said, "It's the walkies that suck to crap--Date back to the '70s, don't match any other bandwidth--Not even the scanners in our cars."

Rick looked at Lori, "I need that bag. Okay?"

Lori looked away, "All right."

As the men began loading the van for the trip, you approached Lori who stared longingly at her husband. "Hey, I'll watch over him, don't worry," you assured.

Lori looked at you and smiled a small smile, nodding. She wrapped her arms around you, bringing you into a hug. You hugged her back as she spoke quietly, "I didn't get the chance to thank you for saving him."

"What, he told you?" you asked, and you both pulled out from the embrace.

"Yes."

"You're welcome," you said, "I got his back, don't worry."

Lori nodded and then said, "Be careful out there."

"Always am."

Daryl beeped on the horn of the van with his feet, "Come on, let's go!"

Carl ran closer and you hugged him gently, "Alright, bud, remember what happens when I'm out?"

"Keep Max close," he said as he pulled away.

You smirked and nodded, "See you soon."

He waved to you goodbye as you headed to the van. You got into the passenger seat and closed the door. Rick got into the driver seat and closed his door. After a moment of waiting, you glanced over and saw Daryl sliding the back door close and sat in front of T-Dog.

"All right let's get going," you muttered, and Rick started the van and drove off.

****

"He'd better be okay." You glanced up from the map and over your shoulder to Daryl when he spoke, you saw him looking at T-Dog, "It's my only word on the matter."

"I told you the geeks can't get at him," T-Dog told him, "The only thing that's gonna get through that door is us."

You turned back your attention to the road and when you saw you reached just outside the city and on the railroad tracks, you looked at Rick, "Stop here."

Rick did as you said and slowly stopped and parked the van. "We walk from here," you said as you glanced at the men before opening the door and getting out. They followed your move and you glanced at T-Dog and saw him holding his side for a brief second before letting his arm fall. "You okay?" you asked.

"Yeah," he answered as you all ran to the gates, and walked through the cut fence of the highway.

Rick looked at you, "Merle first or guns?"

"Merle," Daryl snapped, "We ain't even having this conversation."

"We are," Rick warned him and then turned his attention back to you, "You know the geography. It's your call."

"Merle's closest," you answered, "The guns would mean doubling back." You glanced at Daryl, "Merle first."

Daryl gave a small nod to you, and you all ran all the way to the building of the clothing store, and you all paused. There were no longer herd of walkers around the area but that didn't mean there was no walkers inside. Rick walked in first, and looked around before nodding for all of you to follow in.

Rick stopped you all suddenly, seeing a Walker inside, looking at Daryl, signaling him. Daryl walked past you, walking toward the Walker, holding his crossbow, "Damn. You are one ugly skank."

The Walker noticed him, taking a step closer but then Daryl shot an arrow to the Walker's head, killing it, walking toward it. He pulled the arrow out, cleaning it from blood with his pants. "Let's go," he said, and you all ran to the stairs that lead to the roof.

At the top of the stairs, T-Dog cut the chain to the door. Daryl pushed past him, throwing the door open and running onto the roof.

"Merle! Merle!" Daryl called out, looking around.

You followed the men who came to an abrupt stop.

"Oh, my God," you whispered, covering your mouth with your hand.

Daryl rushed over, "No!" You looked at him, and he began pacing back and forth, tears welling in his eyes as he continued to scream out.

Everyone remained silent, not knowing exactly what to say; if there was anything to say.

Your eyes lingered on the ground, Merle's severed hand sitting next to a hacksaw. Semi-dried blood was pooled around it, droplets leading away from the scene. Yet, there was no sign of Merle at all.

That crazy son of a bitch.

[8-rae-rae-8]

Anesthesia nap inspired (thank you hopital I am okay)

CW: minor character death, IEDs, near death experience, owies, hurt no comfort, Agere, mama price

Simon getting injured on the field–an IED under another man's feet going unnoticed. Right next to him. He should have been more careful, really. The dirt was slightly uneven but the dogs hadn't picked it up. Simon thought he was okay, the marine next to him not so much.

Even still, his body absorbed most of the shock. Wounds coated half of his body as he hit the ground. He screams–agony tearing from his lungs. Amidst the pain, he shouts for 'mom'.

And Price can't tell who it's for. Him or Simon's mom. The IED's loud boom an the mix of Simon's cry had him running up without caution.

His form bloodied and some clothes both burned and shredded to pieces. Price is at his side immediately, pulling him away as soon as he could. There wasn't time to wait on medical, not now. Not when *his* Simon was critically wounded and calling for someone to help.

He's hardly awake, his head lulling as he tried to blink. That skull mask half melted, so Price stripped it off his face. The skin underneath raw And red. He didn't want to know what was under the ruins of clothes.

"Medics are coming, Si- Mama's here, okay?" Price has to fight off tears as he cradles Simon's head, the rest of him too damaged to attempt to touch.

"Mom- *mom* it hurts-" Simon's practically incoherent as he babbled out more, all Price could understand was that he was calling for mom. *His mom or John?* The captain's heart burned in his chest as he tried to soothe him.

"I know, Mama's here. Medevac is coming, I promise.. Stay awake for me."

[litlunacy]

I don't have anything finished for N7 Day, but I do have this wip I've been chipping at for a while. Takes place immediately post Destroy ending. ~1200 words

It's deathly silent.

The quiet settles over her like a heavy blanket, thick enough to be suffocating. Though, that might be because the last time her world was this dark and silent she had been gasping for air in the vacuum of space. She remembers how her lungs had burned while she thrashed uselessly, panicking in a way she hadn't since she was a teenager watching her brother get shot in the face.

That same panic is lurking at the edges of her mind now, waiting to take over. But she won't let it. She can't let it. There are too many people waiting for her to come back. Friends, people she cares about and who care about her. A lover who would follow her to the end of the world, and practically has. A wild wrecking ball of an adopted son she has to keep pulling out of trouble. 

She is Commander Lorelei Fucking Shepard, and she did not save the whole damn galaxy just to leave it behind.

So she keeps calm. She takes slow, deep breaths to keep her heart rate steady. The wound on her side is still oozing blood between her fingers, and she tries to keep pressure on it as best she can. Her entire body hurts, but she's slightly more concerned about the parts she can't feel. Maybe they're just numb from blood loss, or maybe she actually lost them in the explosion, but she tries not to think about it. 

Instead, she thinks about her crew, her strange little family that she's built for herself. She thinks about Liara's gentle smile and Jack's rabid grin. Grunt's throaty laugh and Wrex's bone-crushing hugs. Traynor's babbling and her frightening dedication to strategy games. She thinks about Joker, and knows that he got them all out, somehow. She thinks about her hamster. Somebody better be feeding the little furball. And the fish.

But most of all, she thinks about Garrus. She thinks about his icy blue eyes, and the way they go all soft and warm when he looks at her. She thinks about the feel of his talons gently carding through her hair. His wry, sarcastic humor. His voice. The feel of his keelbone pressed against her spine, his thrumming subvocals lulling her to sleep. 

God, what she wouldn't give for that right now. She's so, so tired...

But she can't sleep. Not yet. Somebody will be looking for her, and she needs to stay awake. As long as she's awake she can remind herself to breathe. As long as she can breathe, she can get back to her people. Her family.

So Commander Shepard lays there in the rubble, and she breathes.

***

Most of the krogan teams were still on Earth when the Crucible fired. Wrex had been hip-deep in husks, blasting one to bits only for three more to take its place when the shockwave had rippled across the galaxy. 

And all the husks had dropped dead.

It's now too many hours and one cramped shuttle ride later, and Wrex is leading the search team combing the wreckage of the Citadel. Officially, they're searching for any survivors. People who were on the station when the Reapers had dragged it to Earth. Civilians, officials, even the damn Keepers need to be saved if they want any hope of getting the Citadel up and running again. 

But personally? Wrex is looking for Shepard. Wrex is only looking for Shepard, and anyone who has a problem with it can talk to his fucking shotgun. 

Thankfully, nobody has a problem with it. 

When he finds a corpse, he ignores it. There's nothing to be done for the dead and not enough time to waste on them. When he finds someone alive, but not Shepard, he calls for a medevac and moves on. There aren't many alive. 

He digs through piles of rubble, shifting hunks of metal and stone that other races would need machines for. There's smoke and the smell of blood in the air. The joy of victory is soured by the still-rising body count.

But he hopes. He has to. If anyone could survive this, it's Shepard. She's already come back from the dead and survived what should have been a suicide mission. His friend is still here. She has to be.

"I hate this," comes a grumble from behind him. Wrex knows that it's Shepard's whelp without even turning around. "It's too quiet. Makes me antsy. Like I wanna kill something, but there's nothing left to kill."

Wrex snorts. "It's called worry, kid. And it'll eat you up like fear if you let it, so stop worrying and keep looking." He moves some twisted hunks of metal out of the way and walks through the new hole. Grunt follows.

"Krogan don't worry. We shoot things, and then we die. We don't worry. We get angry. We get violent." He kicks the discarded scrap of metal as if to prove his point.

The older krogan heaves a tired sigh. "You've got a lot to learn, kid. Don't pull this tough-guy bullshit with me right now. You're worried about Shepard."

"Shepard is fine. She's here somewhere, and she's fine. Why would I be worried about her?"

Wrex whirls around and grabs him by the headplate. "Because we're all worried about her! I am worried about her! She's my friend--"

"And she's my Battlemaster!" Grunt shouts, wrenching his head free and throwing an angry punch that Wrex easily catches.

"Then you need to channel this worry like you do your battle rage. Focus yourself so we can find her." He shoves Grunt's hand away and keeps walking. But the next words out of the kid's mouth make him stop cold.

"And what if we don't find her?"

Wrex doesn't answer right away. He balls his hands into fists, biotics fizzling as he resists the urge to throw the tactless youngster. Of course he's aware of the possibility. He's not stupid. But he also knows that what-ifs won't help anyone right now. This is a rescue mission, not a retrieval, and this whelp had better get that through his head.

"We will find her," he growls, though his traitorous brain adds an unbidden dead or alive in his head. "And when we get back to Tuchanka, we'll build her the biggest fucking monument the galaxy has ever seen. Now let's go."

"How can you--"

"Shut up!"

Grunt narrows his eyes and makes to grab Wrex by the shoulder. "You can't tell me to shut up, you old fossil."

Wrex slaps a hand over his mouth. "I said shut up. I thought I heard something."

Grunt grumpily shoves the hand off his mouth, but stays quiet. He turns his head, straining to hear...anything.

The dead silence is unnerving. It reminds him of the tank. If Shepard were here, she'd be making noise. In all the time he's known her, Shepard was always making noise. Humming to herself, tapping her foot, muttering under her breath as she scoped out a target with her sniper rifle. The woman even made noise in her sleep.

Grunt hates this silence. The ash and dust floating in the air. The smell of burning and death. They just won the greatest war in galactic history, but this wreckage smells like loss.

[maccreadysbaby]

I have many many requests. Do as many or as few as you’d like!

Cod Ghosts

Hesh Or Keegan X SingleMotherReader (I know it’s cliche but it’s so cute)

WoundedHesh X Reader (Someone steps on a mine and when it blows Hesh is standing relatively close. Reader is holding him in their lap trying their best to help/comfort him as they wait for med evac. Whether he lives/dies is up to you)

Keegan/Logan X Reader (TW on this one: reader has a miscarriage)

Cod MW 2:

Price X HealingReader (What I mean by “healing reader” is that reader is still in the active process of recovering, and is now an amputee getting used to life in a totally different way.)

Rudy X TeacherReader (This ones easy, Reader is a teacher and is dating Rudy.)

Soap X NerdReader (Reader has a hyperfixation on something and is nerd-ing out to Soap and he just stares at them, so in love. Reader stops talking because they think they’re being annoying but Soap is like “???.. You didn’t finish your sentence. Keep going.”

Hi. I love you. I’m going to do one from each section, the wounded!hesh x reader from ghosts and soap x reader from mw2. I’m going to portray the reader as fem since you didn’t specify. I saw the single mother and miscarriage ones, so I hope a fem reader is okay! 🥹

reader’s callsign is Patriot. Hesh x reader is first, Soap x reader will be under a second title below. I’m sorry soaps is so short compared to Hesh’s😭

I DON’T WANT TO DIE WITHOUT HIM™︎

“Go, Go, Go!” Y/n heard the frantic shouts of Merrick up ahead as she barreled through the dilapidated city. Searching for Logan after Rorke took him was way more of a task than she ever thought it would be. It seemed like, in the few days the Ghosts took to recover from their endless fight against the man they wished was dead, the Federation had tripled in size and firepower. Gotten cocky, too, since they’d captured a Ghost. Y/n knew cocky people usually just got hurt. But this time, the ones getting hurt were them.

She climbed over the rubble of buildings destroyed by war, trying her best to escape the bullets that were flying at them from every angle. Up ahead, she could dimly see Merrick supporting all of Keegan’s weight in the moonlight. He wasn’t doing good, and despite them calling for medevac several times, they weren’t close enough to any safe landing spot for the helos. Behind the pair was Kick, watching their six. Hesh was walking in front of her, sticking close to her side as always. Their group had nearly doubled in size when a few more spec ops units were called in to help find Logan. All she heard was that some of them were from out of country, and she didn’t even know that for sure. What she did know for sure, though, was that if they didn’t make it out of the city, they were all going to die.

Y/n clung tight to her machine gun, taking point at the bottom of a wall they were scaling. The roof of the building, somewhat cracked but still flat, was the only suitable landing site in the city. She watched quietly as Kick and Merrick got Keegan up the wall in one piece, Hesh following soon after. She turned to climb up, grabbing onto the cracked concrete, but there was already someone holding onto her wrist. She was suddenly pulled up onto the ledge like she weighed nothing, coming face to face with Hesh when she caught her balance at the top.

They wordlessly walked further into the rooftop, toward their comrades.

“You holding up, Patriot?” Hesh questioned, scanning her face with his icy eyes. Y/n glanced around him at Kick, Merrick, and Keegan, who were now sitting on the ground and tending to the latter’s wounds the best they could. The additional units they’d been assigned to travel with were spreading out across the roof, securing the perimeter. There was a large mess of metal and debris sitting in the middle of the roof that would have to be moved for the helo to land, but for right now, medevac was probably struggling to get through the hotzones. She just hoped Keegan made it until then.

“Well, Logan isn’t my brother, is he? I think that’s a question you should be asking yourself,” She replied, scanning his smooth features with her warm irises. “How are you holding up, Sergeant?”

Hesh shrugged. “Breathing.”

“Better than not,” She replied. She knew this mission must’ve been doubly hard for him. One, because he was still sporting a not-fully-healed gunshot wound from when the bullet passed through Rorke on his last mission, and two, because his baby brother was MIA, and as far as everyone knew, probably KIA as well. Patriot often made it a point to check up on him even if he wasn’t the most open about it all.

“Roger that,” He replied dryly, nodding to himself. Y/n glanced up at the sky, scanning the stars with her shiny eyes. Whatever happened to a world where people could stargaze? The answer was simple. War.

The gunshots across the city were dying down as the Federation temporarily lost their location. Everyone was able to take a quick breather. Y/n and Hesh stood near the ledge, watching quietly as Kick and Merrick argued over Keegan’s status, and the additional units began cleaning up the landing spot for the helo.

But their faint moment of peace was destroyed when a cleanup soldier shouted: “Mines in the debris! Hit the deck!”

Patriot barely had time to blink before she was slammed on the concrete by the force of the mine. Her ears were ringing so violently it was nearly vibrating her brain. She felt hundreds of tiny shrapnel pieces pierce her skin, and the hot, familiar feeling of blood soaking into her clothes surfaced quickly.

Peeling her eyes open, concrete dust was flying everywhere, making it nearly impossible to see. Metal and debris were laying all around her. She glanced toward the center of the roof, eyes landing on the four or five blurry spec op bodies that sat, bloody, around where the mine had been. It took nearly all of her strength to latch onto the small radio on her shoulder: “Actual, this is Patriot. We need medevac here now. Several critical.” She muttered, but all that came back was static. Her entire head was swimming and it felt like she was being hit repeatedly with a hammer.

As her eyes finally focused more, she pushed herself onto her knees, glancing to her right, where her squadmates were. She caught sight of Kick, Merrick, and Keegan, all moving with little visible damage. But the real fear didn’t set in until she turned around.

Knocked backwards by the force of the mine, Hesh sat on his hands and knees a few feet behind her. One of his hands trailed up to his chest and came back bloody. Extremely bloody. It was only then, when Patriot’s mind finally cleared enough for comprehension, that she realized there was blood actively pouring out of his chest into a messy puddle on the ground.

She found herself crawling, fumbling toward him like a child just in time for him to collapse onto his side. “Hesh!”

Y/n was nearly shaking when she sat beside him, latching onto his vest and pulling him into her with all the strength she could muster. His face was going white and his eyes were dull. Glancing down at his abdomen, there was a giant piece of mangled metal protruding from it, and crimson pouring from the oddly shaped wound it had caused. It was stuck, deep.

“Hesh, talk to me.” She ordered, looping one arm around his head and shoulders to keep him in place, holding him kind of like a big baby. She used her other hand for a weak attempt at slowing the bleeding.

“How… bad is it, Patriot?” He struggled out the question, icy eyes staying glued onto her frantic face. She smiled sadly, trying her best not to panic for both of their sakes.

“Just a… just a little blood, you’re going to be fine,” She muttered, hands shaking vigorously as she adjusted her legs, pulling him even closer to her. So close his blood was leaking all over her instead of the pavement. Hesh glanced down at his wound, eyes widening as his hazy mind seemed to comprehend it.

“That’s a lot of blood,” He corrected, looking back up at her to distract himself. She knew it wasn’t helping that her eyes were watering.

“It’s okay. Soldiers deal with lots of blood. You’re fine. Medevac is coming,” Y/n didn’t even know what she was saying anymore. She was too focused on the tears that were pooling at the bottom of his eyes as realization sunk in.

“It doesn’t… hurt,” He stated, suddenly growing frantic by the second. His hands shot up to his chest, one grasping at the metal, the second gripping her hand tighter than he ever had before. He strangled out a few coughs, tears falling down the sides of his face. “I don’t want to die without… Logan. I want him with me. Please don’t let me die without him, Y/n. I don’t want to die without him.” He muttered frantically.

Y/n couldn’t stop the small sobs that shook her body, or the tears that fell onto Hesh’s clothes. “You’re not going to die.” She whispered, wiping at the tears on his face with the hand that wasn’t pressing on the wound.

“Medevac’s almost to our location!” Someone shouted, but Y/n didn’t look to see who it was.

“They’re coming. You’re going to be fine,” She whispered, but his eyes were drifting off to the side. “Stop it, Hesh, look at me!”

He focused in on her face again, features contorting as more tears fell down his face. “Find Logan. Please find him.”

“You’re going to find him. You,” She ordered, voice cracking as she tapped his chest with her pointer finger. The distant humming of the medevac helo’s blades caught his attention, and he looked at the sky.

“What’s that?”

“Medevac. They’re almost here, just hold on. Hold on just a little longer,” She muttered, clinging tightly to the soldier that had become her best friend on the field. He was fading fast. His eyes were losing focus, and his grip on her hand was loosening. “C’mon, stop it. Please don’t leave me, Hesh!”

His icy irises landed on her face again, a sudden fondness overtaking his features as he lifted a bloody hand to her face. “I’ve always loved you, you… you know that, right? I love you.”

Y/n let out a few quiet sobs, desperately grappling to pull him closer even though they couldn’t actually get any closer than they were. “I love you, Hesh. I love you.”

The wind from the chopper’s blades blew Y/n’s hair behind her shoulders as the med evac landed on the roof ahead of them, but she didn’t look up. She could only look at him. At his glassy eyes that stared up at her with as much innocent adoration as a child. At his pale lips that were curved into a small smile as he trailed his thumb across her face.

He was going to be okay. He had to. Because she’d just realized the most life changing, earth shattering thing about herself that she’d ever realized before.

She loved him.

—

now for soap ;) pretty happy compared to Hesh’s. I’m also breaking the fourth wall rn because I’m gonna make her a fallout nerd. Sorry not sorry it’s about the only thing I know enough about to properly let a character geek about it. Also am making her a Lieutenant just for the sake of him calling her LT

Just cute conversations and flustered nerds, hardly any fluff, just cute :) bare with me please I kinda suck at writing stuff that isn’t depressing

DEACON’S PROTÉGÉ™︎

Y/n was young. The youngest and newest member of Task Force 141, actually, and definitely the most culturally up-to-date. Even if she didn’t know all the tiktok trends, she was still leagues ahead of her teammates, whose knowledge stopped at fidget spinners and Andy’s coming. It didn’t bother her. She quite liked being the young one, even though she was only a couple years younger than Gaz. It made her feel all hip and cool.

Things she did definitely raised questions, though. Mainly from Gaz and Soap. Like why she kept muttering things about only in Ohio when they clearly weren’t working in America, or when she used lines that were clearly the product of some movie or game they’d never heard of. But, Soap was most curious by far about her sniper rifle, which she pridefully named Righteous Authority.

And as she sat in the commons, scrolling on her phone, she glanced up when he plopped down on the couch beside her. “Oh. Hey.”

“Hey,” He replied. “I have a question.”

Y/n politely put her phone away. “Aim and shoot, Soap.”

He gazed over at her, scanning her face. “What’s with your gun’s name?”

She chuckled lightly. “Righteous Authority? It’s from a game my brother and I used to play a lot. It was like, the only thing we bonded over.”

Soap pressed on: “What game?”

A small smile grew on her face. “It was called Fallout. It’s basically like a post-nuclear war game where you have to choose who you want to rebuild with. There’s the institute, who make these awful humanoid robots, the Brotherhood, who want to kill the robots, the Railroad, who want to save the robots, and the Minutemen, who just want to live their lives. Righteous Authority was the name of my favorite companion’s gun. His name was Danse. He was part of the Brotherhood, but he ended up being a robot and didn’t know it. There’s a bunch of companions, though. And now that I think about it, there’s a sniper companion that really reminds me of you-“

She glanced up at him, and he had a small smile playing on his lips. Her mind suddenly flashed back to her mother, scolding her for constantly talking about the game. No one wants to hear that nonsense, she would say, talk about something else.

Y/n cleared her throat. “-But, uh, yeah… sorry…” She trailed off, glancing back down at her phone even though it wasn’t on. Soap shifted slightly.

“Huh? Sorry for what?” He asked, genuine confusion creeping across his features. “Why didn’t you finish talking?”

Y/n shrugged. “Sorry for being annoying. I’m always annoying.”

He stared at her with a straight-up what the crap face. “You aren’t annoying. Talking about something you like doesn’t make you annoying. If anyone acts like it does, they’re mental. Finish telling me about it. I want to hear about this sniper.”

Y/n smiled faintly, launching into a lecture about Deacon and why he reminded her of Soap. It was kind of hard for her to actually talk about Deacon, though, because the way Soap was staring at her while she talked made her lose focus. She practically stumbled through the entire end of her story, stuttering and doubling back on things she’d already said while Soap chuckled at her.

“Stop it, you’re making me nervous,” She muttered, looking away from him as her cheeks flushed red.

“I didn’t know I had that affect on you, LT.”

“You didn’t,”

“Until now…?” He questioned. Y/n tapped her fingers on her pants.

“Until you started staring at me like that,” She replied.

Soap shrugged. “Like what?”

God, she’d never felt redder in her entire life. Every single Fallout fact that was lodged in her brain was just gone, completely wiped from her consciousness as she rose from the couch. She was too awkward for this. “Well, I’m just gonna-“ She didn’t even finish talking before she started power walking out of the room with Soap chuckling behind her.

“You’re cute, LT!”

“Stop it, Soap!”

[griim]

DEAD BY DAYLIGHT VERSE

Even from her birth, Gemma's father made it clear that her mother was a nobody, much like she was. Gemma had believed that her mother was dead or something worse. Through paperwork, many years later, Gemma found she was alive but knew nothing of them because of the machine used by the Rossum Corporation. Meaning that to Alexandria, Gemma did not exist, something Gemma had become used to knowing. The young girl knew that she could never have a ‘normal’ family life. But Gemma made sure that Alexandria would not know of her or her Christian's existence, even if this would be possibly the only chance at having a family she would ever have.

During one of the many nights she began stockpiling evidence against her family, Gemma found a secret file. This file contained information about her and what they had been doing to her. Opening it, Gemma was horrified to find out that they had been experimenting on her, using the chair in hopes to remake it and break her in the process. They were hoping to make her a weapon, for the highest bidder. And reading through the files, each line got worse. These things done to Gemma should never happen to anyone. Let alone a child. That was when the voice started, ‘Take revenge, you know you want to.’ A voice that seemed to come from nowhere. However, the thought did cross her mind. Having enough, she would not be their test subject anymore. Grabbing what she could, Gemma stuffed it in her backpack and ran away at seventeen. 

Years passed, and Gemma joined the military, slowly amassing kills, almost as if something else lived within her. Something dark. Some soldiers even rumored she e n j o y e d the killing. Whispers began, calling her The Reaper. During this time, she met Jordan, someone who looked past this ‘darkness’ within her. Showed her the gentle touch she had wanted all along. However, that gentleness and peace ripped from her. 

Gemma remembers it as such; 

“We were out on a typical mission, going in when no one else could or would. You know, because we are the ballsy type. As we approached a small village, things seemed fine and quiet, but we were used to that. So, in that time, we made jokes and, you know, shoot the shit, as you do with people you consider family. That didn’t last long. Nicole, our unit's dog, alerted us to something. So, in typical fashion, we started to scope out the area. But it was too late. We had been ambushed.” Her heart began to race, even when she swore she felt nothing. Gulping, she remained stone-faced, not needing to show them any emotions. 

‘Take cover’, ‘coming from the east’, ‘hold your ground.’ The commands sounded clear as day in her mind. If she had done a better job at giving commands, Jordan would still have been here, or if she had not decided to go into the town, he'd be alive. 

“So, we took cover and began to return fire, something we were used to dealing with, most of us being seasoned members. Jordan, being my partner in the front. We had been behind cover together, taking turns shooting and reloading. Covering for the other. Stuff we both had done hundreds of times before,” this was where the guilt set in, a survivor who believed it should have been t h e m. “As I reloaded, it jammed for a split second, and that second cost Jordan his life…” Pausing, she struggled internally with speaking the words. “He had been shot. Pretty badly, you get used to seeing gunshot wounds. But because it was him, it felt different… After he fell behind cover,” once again, those screamed commands echoed in her mind.

‘Man down’, ‘Man fucking down’, ‘we need a medevac.’ However, now knowing that there never was one.

“I assessed the situation and called for help, but nothing came. Jordan was dying, and I had to hold off the enemy until my unit made its way to me. I could not cry. Because that would not have done shit at that moment. I was a soldier, damn it. One of our operatives told me we needed to move a bomb was set to go, it was all a trap. And, me being me, I wanted to save him, not just because I loved him, but because he was part of our unit, we do not leave men behind.” The tears fought desperately to fall from her eyes, but Gemma held them back. "Jordan knew he would not make it, so he told the team and me to go. I fought like hell to bring him with us, and when they attempted to grab me, that voice from my childhood. When I felt so much rage returned, telling me to fight back if he meant so much to you. Then something snapped in Gemma, she turned on her men, and in what seemed like a blur, she saw nothing but red, and then, she felt p e a c e. 

Blood soaked the ground around Gemma, and the bodies of her team littered the ground at her feet. A laugh escaped her lips as a voice from the darkness beckoned her from over Jordan's body, whispering. 'It is a very mean and nasty place, the world. And it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently. But not you. You became that mean and nasty thing.' Smiling, the woman stumbled over to her lover's body, laying herself over him, blood covering her. As the final ticks of the bomb sounded, she looked up. Face met with a blast of flame. The flame consumed nearly all of her face, and as Gemma thought it was over, something engulfed her, The Red Forest. 

A surviving Unit member swears he heard a laugh, something evil coming from her, and a mask. A skull mask shrouded in a cover, then she was gone.  Who knows, maybe you will find yourself facing The Reaper. 

[kleio-writes]

Medusa recovering after a bad mission.

Something that wouldn't get out of my mind when talking to @arturhunter about our characters in the MWII AU getting hurt.

This one is about Medusa, specifically. And I will be writing one for Hermes this week.

This is also a little part of the AU story that we're having fun with. So these characters are already in the TF141 (or at least used for some missions). On this specific one Medusa was deployed but not Hermes. This is after a week of Medusa being at the hospital (awake). Y'all have to wait until I write the whole background about what happened with the squad Hermes and Medusa were in before. But maybe that's after this gets some attraction.

The sound of the IV dripping fills the room and the smell of the antiseptic burns her nostrils each time she inhales. Medusa was recovering in the hospital bed of a private room Hermes had asked specifically for her when she was brought out of surgery. 

She should have been dead with the amount of blood she lost but the MedEvac brought her just in time. Another scar decorated her body now, another reminder of her brush with death. Looks like it’s what she always attracted to herself, ever since birth.

She was looking out the window absentmindedly when someone knocked at the door. She looked over, thinking it was a Nurse or Doctor. Or even Ghost who was guarding her since she was brought in. If it was because of Price’s orders or just because of his guilty conscience, she didn’t know.

-Hey ‘Dusa it’s me. 

The person didn’t need to say much, she recognized the voice of her brother. The only person that would have cared about her untimely death, maybe the 141 would have cared a bit but she was nothing more but another Soldier to them. A means to an end.

She stared blankly at the door before speaking, her voice hoarse.

-Yeah come in..

Medusa goes back to staring out the window as she hears the door open. She almost wants to look and try to see if Ghost is still out there but fears showing her face even more in the process. She couldn’t trust anyone. Fuck, why can’t she just have her mask here.

 On the bright side her family thought she was dead and buried after this last mission, right after going against them too. 

Morrigan. Her last name haunted her.

Hermes entered the room with some containers in his hand. Shaking them a bit, enough to hear the inside contents move. Medusa only looks back at her brother when she hears the door close.

-Brought you some of my delicious home cooked meals, the gods know you won’t be well fed with the hospital food or the MRE later on. 

Hermes says that with his normal voice. Excited, joking a little even. It was just how his booming voice sounded. Medusa found comfort in it, even if he was too loud at the times her brain was overstimulated. But anything was better than the constant buzzing in her ears and the arrival of her chronic headaches right now.

-Oh yeah ? Finally some good food..

Medusa responds with her quiet raspy voice and smiles, her lips cracked and with a little scar that was definitely staying. Another one adorning her features. 

She hasn’t talked that much since she was isolated in this bleak hospital room for recovery. 

Ghost sure didn’t talk to her or even bother to enter the room since the day she was brought in. The same day Hermes came to visit her with a disheveled look. All rage and concern and grief by just imagining she could have died. 

Ghost hasn’t spoken to her since the day the three of them talked when she woke up from her surgery. The day when Medusa asked for Ghost to stay when he wanted to give them both privacy, when she had her face in the open. All bruises and no mask.

She tried to shake the thought of someone other than Hermes actually looking at her.

Medusa tried to get up a bit to a sitting position, she winced from the pain. Her stitches and inflamed skin were giving her hell. Of course it had to be right in her abdomen, she had been a fool in her mission.

Hermes puts the containers on the bedside table when noticing her discomfort and helps her a bit. Medusa pulls a face at the sting.

-Easy there ‘Dusa.

-I’m trying..

Now she knew why she hadn’t  attempted to talk, even breathing hurt.

After successfully sitting on the bed she finally opens her eyes and actually looks at Hermes.

-No helmet or mask again, huh ?

-What can I say, I have a pretty face.

He makes a pause and focuses on the containers with food. Not really staring at them but lost in thought. Hermes looks at Medusa again after a bit.

-Plus, what’s the point if the team already saw my pretty mug when I came looking for you ?

She hums at his answer.

He sits down on a chair next to her and starts opening the containers, using the space on the bed next to her as a table. The sound of the plastic fills the room. She takes a look.

-Damn, not even metal utensils ?

-Nope, they search us up and down before entering. I love me a bit of a wandering hand but even I think it’s excessive.

She snorts at that and winces automatically.  Damn stitches. Hermes chuckles.

Both of them eat in silence for a while until Hermes breaks the silence.

-They’re worried about you, you know ?

Medusa doesn’t say anything, just hums and eats her food. Yeah right.

-I know you think they don’t after what happened to our last squad… Those motherfuckers were just a bunch of turncoats.

He continues. She continued to chew on her food. Medusa didn’t really like reviving memories and Hermes knew it.

-What I’m trying to say is…They were really shaken up with what happened. We all thought you weren’t going to make it ‘Dusa. Hell, I was not okay but the team certainly wasn’t better. Ghost blames himself you know ?

She swallows her food thickly and puts the plastic fork down.

-That’s his job, he’s the Lieutenant. He was responsible for the mission.

-Yeah but--

-Then he’s just doing his job.

-‘Dusa you don’t understand. He’s been at the door for the past week--

-Because of Price’s orders--

-THERE IS NO ORDERS.

Medusa just stares at Hermes after their back and forth. Her green gaze saying ‘You know better’ by his outburst. He pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a sharp breath, groaning right after.  Getting up he paces around while speaking loudly to Medusa.

-Why can’t you understand the concept of affection when it comes from other people!? These guys actually like us, why must you be so uptight about it !? For fuck’s sake, Ghost saved your ass out there. If it wasn’t for him checking in on you at that moment and called the MedEvac you would have died Mona.

Medusa closes her eyes, trying not to wince at the screaming. She knew that. She remembers having her eyes shut from the pain, trying to hold onto her wound to make pressure but being too weak for it. She remembers how the Lieutenant shouted her callsign and dropped to his knees beside her, grabbing her and putting his hands on hers to try to stop the bleeding, but it was bad. 

She remembers his gruff voice saying “Keep your eyes open Sargeant” and “C’mon ‘Dusa don’t fall asleep”. She wanted to remove those words from her brain. The softness and the distress of his tone along with them... Was that why she allowed him to see her face when she woke up ?

Medusa looked straight at Hermes, he had used her name, he had screamed at her too. Why couldn’t he just have his mouth shut.

-You know exactly why I can’t trust them. Both of us know.

Hermes remembers. He pales at the memory and swallows dryly.

-‘Dusa look, I’m sorry--

-Out.

-‘Dusa please--

-I said out. I’m tired.

The Operator didn’t say anything else as the Sniper put the container of food on the bedside table and got herself laid down. Her back turned. 

-I’ll be back tomorrow…Maybe Soap and Gaz will visit with me. Price still has some things to work with Laswell but he will appear by the end of the week.

That was all that was said before Hermes opened the door and left Medusa alone. She sighed, wincing again at the pain.

On the other side of the door, Ghost stood there waiting, guarding. He saw Hermes getting out by his peripheral vison.

-So ?

-So, she’s on her bullshit again. Seemed a bit better though hurting a lot from the wound, but she’ll live. That’s Medusa for yah.

Ghost looked down at Hermes, face unreadable from the plain black balaclava he was using. It was weird for him not seeing Ghost with his famous skull mask. Reminding the Operator of the uncanny valley concept. Humanoid but not really Human.

Ghost’s brown eyes stared intently at Hermes. As if asking permission for something. Would the Lieutenant ever use his own words ?

-You can enter, she won’t mind since she permitted you to see her face properly before. She is cranky and a bit mad right now so just beware. Snakes bite when threatened and all of that.

Was all Hermes said before going back to base.

Do not Repost.

[ella-and-the-ocean]

I felt compelled to write a small interpretation of what happened to our favorite OCs. I hope you'll enjoy.

🖋 1214 words

⚠️ blood and injury, violence, murder, brief violence against children

starts under the cut

“Vincent, watch out!”

But Vincent was still occupied taking down two men who were attacking him with all they got, their heavy armor making it harder to land a final blow. He didn't notice the third man approaching him with a knife.

Quinn was still on his sniper post, but had run out of bullets.

“Vince! Do you copy?”

But Vincent gave no indication that he had heard him or noticed the approaching foe.

Quinn swore as he abandoned his rifle and made his way to Vincent in a mad dash to get to him before the third man could knife him down. He had no plan of action, no strategy for self defense, he just needed to get there first. 

And he did. He threw his body between Vincent and the blade, but he had no time to block the blow. Instead he felt the knife slice through his skin and fat and organ tissue. He drew his own blade and buried it deep in his opponent's jugular. They went down together. 

Quinn's vision was swimming. When everything came back into focus, Vincent's face was hovering above him, worried and angry in equal measure.

“You goddamn idiot. I had it under control.”

His hands were pressed to Quinn's abdomen, it hurt like a bitch.

Quinn closed his eyes and let his head fall back with a groan.

“Don't you dare die on me. Medevac is on its way.”

“Not dying,” Quinn mumbled, “no visions.”

"Good. Keep it that way.” He still sounded angry.

“Yessir.” 

“Look at me.” Now he sounded more desperate than angry, so Quinn opened his eyes. They were bloody heavy. Black dots danced in front of his vision as he tried to focus on Vincent's face.

“What were you thinking?”

His eyes looked wet. Like the blood that was oozing out between the fingers he pressed to the ugly gash in his abdomen. Quinn had always wondered how he dealt with the bloodshed in the field. If it had gotten easier to resist over all those years. He had never asked.

“Couldn't– let your pretty mug get ruined.” he slurred, tongue as heavy as his eyes.

Vincent's next words got drowned out by a familiar rush of blood roaring up in his ears accompanied by a wave of nausea.

Seemed like his earlier health assessment might not have been as stellar as he had thought.

The world in front of his eyes started to flimmer like a broken display, black dots growing until they left him numb and blind in the darkness.

He tried to brace himself, but there was no bracing for what his visions showed him.

He saw women getting shot down in what looked like a school. Blood splashing over colorful children's paintings and textbooks. Girls were screaming and crying while they got dragged out by their hair and thrown into the dirt, forced to watch as their remaining teachers were executed before black hoods were pulled over their heads and they were abducted into an uncertain future.

When he came to, all the pain and nausea was still there. He couldn’t see properly, didn’t know where he was, but instinctively, he tried to roll over in an attempt not to choke on his own vomit, but someone was holding him back.

“Shh, I got you, it’s okay.” A familiar voice said, cool hands gently pressing down on his chest to keep him down. Hearing that voice soothed some of the mental agony, but didn’t alleviate the urge to empty his stomach. Quinn gagged helplessly; gastric acid burning in his throat, filling his mouth. The voice above him sweared.

“Hands off, I’ll put him in recovery position,” an unfamiliar voice commanded. The cool hands disappeared and rough hands were manhandling him onto his side.

“What about his wound?”

“He’ll live.” 

“You say that five minutes after we had to resuscitate him?!” Quinn finally recognized the voice; had heard that angry, disbelieving shade of it more often than he could count, every time he’d “done something stupid”. 

“Vince,” he garbled around another gush of acid leaving his agitated stomach.

“I’m here.” The cool hands were back, brushing some strands of hair from his sweaty forehead, then settled against his overheated skin.

“We’ll give him another minute, then we have to move. The fibrin glue and compression bandage will do until we’re on base,” said the unfamiliar voice, and a foreign pair of hands briefly tinkered with the part of his torso that felt numb and afire alike.

Somewhere between being hauled into the helo and flying back to base, Quinn lost consciousness again. 

When he woke up for good, he was lying in a hospital bed. The incessant beeping of a nearby heart monitor worsened the migraine that made his head swim, but at least the aggressive neon lights were dimmed down. 

Quinn forced his eyes to focus and took stock of himself. Unsurprisingly, the nearby heart monitor was hooked up to himself, and he had two infusions, one seemed to be blood – again, unsurprisingly – the other probably a cocktail of antibiotics and painkillers. The lack of pain in his abdomen was a strong indicator. 

Also unsurprising, was Vincent’s looming presence in a chair next to his bed, pulled up as close as possible. His expression was a potent mix of relief, anger and worry, his red eyes sparkling like livewires. 

“Would it help if I said I’m sorry?” Quinn asked.

“Are you?” Ah, so he was stuck with anger for the moment.

“Not really.”

“What you did was–” Vincent swelled in his seat, and Quinn prepared for a lengthy lecture that didn’t come, “so incredibly stupid.” 

“Well, you might be dead if I hadn’t done it.”

“You were dead!” Suddenly, Vincent was on his feet and hauled his chair across the room. “Three agonizing minutes long, your heart was not beating. I could hear your body shutting down, could hear your blood stopping to circulate, could smell it starting to coagulate, and each chest compression only made more blood spurt from your wound. I��� You have no goddamn idea–” His chest was heaving as he looked Quinn dead in the eye. “Never. Never do that again.” He tried to take a steadying breath, but it caught halfway in his throat and came out sounding an awful lot like a sob, “Please.” 

Quinn looked away from the open vulnerability displayed on Vincent’s face. His blanket was suddenly much more interesting as he absently twirled the hem between his fingers.

“Why weren’t you responding to comms?” He asked to disperse the tense silence. 

Thankfully Vincent knew him better than to force a conversation about their feelings onto him. 

“One of the perps dislodged it when we were fighting.” Vincent went over to the chair and brought it back to the bed, it was still intact. He sank back into it, and silence filled the room again.

After a while, Vincent broke it.

“Do you want to talk about the vision?”

Quinn sighed and closed his eyes, trying not to relive the images.

“Not really.” He admitted, hoping Vincent would leave it at that.

Instead of pushing the issue, a cold hand wrapped around his restless one and squeezed it gently. Quinn took a shuddering breath, and squeezed it back. 

s h o c k 🔴

[survivor-trinidad-and-tobago]

Episode 6: "you joined a Zoom call with two people who look fucking identical, did you not think people would connect the dots?"—Kolby

In this round: Lexi is medically evacuated; Zee finds an idol; a tribe swap switches things up again, bringing 3 tribes back down to 2; Raffy's soul leaves his body during Celebrity; and Zee thinks Raffy has a vendetta against her because he shared the absolutely shocking revelation that AJ and Zee are, in fact, identical twins

Soca Confessionals

Astyn

Champ

NEW TRIBE YAY! I’m so sad that Lexi got medevacted, I know she would’ve been an easy number for me going forward, but she left me 40 TT dollars so SLAY my social game! Raffy said that I’m very good at playing dumb LOL honestly I’m just a ditsy person in general. I would’ve loved to make a big move on Raffy had Lexi not got medevaced :( Honestly idk where I stand with him but he is probably coming after me so oh well. As long as I make it to merge, I feel pretty okay in my position. I’ve made good enough connections to know a lot of information and not be a threat. Everyone knows that Zee and AJ are sisters now and that’s so funny because I called it day 1. Also the fact that Kaleigh gave me her vote and now she doesn’t have a vote is so slay omg I love her she’s so sweet and I got her back 100%. Kolby Eman and I have an alliance that I feel really solid in and im assuming we are going to tribal so hoping for a good ole blindside

Eman

At first I was afraid. I was petrified. BUT I SURVIVED

And I was excited to continue working with Tony & Kolby.

I even confessed it to the VL how excited I was about it.

SO OF COURSE there was a twist and another swap.

So, I've still got Kolby.

And there's Champ who's been like boats passing in the night with me.

And Astyn who's already messaged me, so I've gotta see what they're all about.

And Jack seems nice.

And of course Raffy on who's good side I need to remain.

And then Lexi the enigma.

We'll see.

I've already revised my celebrities list a few times trying to be less esoteric. (It originally included Missy Copeland, Angela Merkel, and Mao Tse Tung)

--

Life comes at you fast.

First, thank God for Champ! I've wanted to work with her since day 1 and now we're finally there. She called me right after the challenge and we totally bonded and agreed that we need to bring Kolby in on things and I think we're good. A strong 3.

Where things get interesting is that Astyn and Jack have also expressed an interest in working with me. And from Jack I learned that he and Raffy don't have a vote next tribal.

So basically Kolby, Champ, and I could control the vote if we wanted to. Presuming that whomever we target either feels confident or doesn't have an idol.

I was feeling on the bottom with this shuffle and I don't anymore. This could get interesting.

Goat or GOAT?

--

PEE ESS

If it seems like I'm a little obsessed with my extra vote, it's because I am.

This is my third game and my very first tangible advantage and I've only been watching Survivor since the actual debut (see also: I am OLD) and I'm determined not to squander this, so in classic Survivor fashion, I will be overthinking everything associated with it.

Kolby

Jack

Raffy

My tribe is the worst. I don't want to be here. Apparently everyone and their mother on this tribe has no grasp of pop culture. I'm writing this as we are losing this challenge. I don't wanna be dragged out for another 30 minutes just to lose. Please someone end my suffering all of these people are getting on my last nerve with this challenge. From not knowing who Dracula is to Jack showering in the middle, I've had it up to here. I'm over it.

Calypso Confessionals

Zee

Ok hello hello, welcome to Zee tries to write longer confessionalssssss. I've been hella tired since that movie challenge, and I feel like I mellowed out A LOT. Let's recap a little bit here, I put my entire Calypsussy into the Movie challenge, like hardcore. I'd had the idea of the Wes Anderson style trailer since Thursday, when they put the challenge on hold, so that babey was SIMMERING, until they restarted the challenge(which I didn't even know if they'd do, honestly). Did I sort of take over the challenge when I woke up? Sort of. But I didn't steamroll anyone or anything. I'd been asleep at least 7 hours when the challenge was dropped, and nobody said a thing about it, so I copy pasted suggestions from the host chat, and gave a vague idea of the plot, which was kept vague until I edited. Middle of my day friday people said they liked the idea, so I asked for clips, and Champ and I called because she said I was the only one working and putting out ideas, and she felt bad lol. So she and I decided to be the "stars" of the movie trailer, and we shot a bunch of stuff, and then I gathered clips from everyone, and I shot my own clips for TWO DAYS, since I missed my bus home and stayed over at my friend's house. Then I edited all day Sunday, wrote the voice over and had to expand on the vague one line of plot I'd kept, but in the end it turned out great and we won first place even though we didn't have an advantage! I had a creative vision and I would have been damned if I didn't see that shit through.

As far as round four goes I didn't really do much, I woke up to having been sat out of the challenge, which seemed like a pretty fun challenge, but it's alright I guess. They did discuss it without me, but also they wanted to just lock everything in which is super valid, and it meant I HAD to participate in the next challenge, which is dope. We ended up getting first place again I think, which is very slay, and Astyn got a perfect 8/8! I do keep getting nothing from my idol hunt, which sucks, and Sally fucking swindled me out of 5TT$, like ma'am, please.

Round five was FANTASTIC, and I really think helped me bond with the team a little more. I also(and this might come back to bite me later) told Champ about the fact that I got the read reciepts on disadvantage from a hunt and not the excursion, and she said she was shocked bc the way I wrote it, it seemed legit, so maybe if she thinks that, so does everyone else I originally told. Again, I'm realizing I probably didn't need to tell anyone I got anything bad, but I did feel at the time like if I said I got nothing, nobody would believe me, but anywho now Champ knows. But I'm really hoping she and I stay allies, because we talked and bonded a bit more through being put on the same tribe in the swap, so hopefully that works out for us. Other than that, Champ and I called at 10pm my time, and began to practice Codenames because we both hadn't really played before, and didn't really know what to do. Colin and Jack came in a bit later, and the four of us played until the time of the challenge, which was at 3am for me, so my brain was definitely off by then. Somehow though we managed to pull through and secure second place, probably in part thanks to the five hours spent practicing lmao. At one point Colin and Jake(who were on a team opposite Champ and I) gave the hint meat, and so we went with wings, walrus, and pie. We probably would have(technically) tied with Soca, had it not been for the fact that when Jake gave the hint of body, I went with Disease instead of wings. But regardless, Jake Colin and I stayed on the call until the results were announced(Champ went to go watch survivor with her dad, mega slay) and we were all relieved to be safe from tribal. Trinica did give us shit for walrus meat though lmao, but it's the only thing Frikkie wants to eat so.....

With the Maracas Tribal, I wanted to stay up for the challenge to drop, since I know everyone talks about it without me lmaoooo. SO I set an alarm for 12:45 and plopped myself down to sleep. After some Zs, I woke up to see we had been SWAPPED AGAIN. My little heart cannot handle this, but upon waking up I realised that this actually could be exactly what I need for my black widow brigade plan, since I'm making allies with the ladies across tribe lines, though it seems like we're running low on those. BUT KALEIGH AND I ARE BACK TOGETHER ON ONE TRIBEEEEEEE. I woke up to the alarm at almost 1am and that was the first message I saw. Sadly Champ got taken to another tribe, I'm sending her all my luck, since I know she might need it. Kaleigh and I plan to call later today to update each other on everything, and I can't wait to hear how it's all been going for her. Do I trust anyone still? Oh absolutely not, but I am vibing with everyone. Alex IS on our tribe again, which makes me nervous because I don't really trust him because of his bio, but still I'm interested in this challenge. I put a lot of gay Icons(plus David Tennant) in my celebrity list, I also Included Jenna Ortega for Wednesday if we need one worded answers for round 2. Thank god it's at a decent time. I hope we win again, and I feel like we might, but I also sucked ass at that song challenge a bit back, so we'll see. I need to update my idol hunt document, but now that Kaleigh is back, maybe I can get some info from her again...we'll see.

--

"How the fuck did none of you know who DRACULA was. NOBODY. Anyway, WE WON AGAIN. And I found an Idol last idol hunt, but it's no big deal I guess. It's nice to have it but I feel like this idol is going to be like one of those stickers you get but never stick anywhere because you're afraid that it'll be in the wrong spot or be ruined and besides you think it's really pretty anyway, so might as well just keep it. Anyway we slayed so hard in the Celebrities challenge that multiple people on the other tribe asked if we could end it early out of mercy. Lexi got med-evaced so Soca isn't going to tribal, so idk what's going to happen there, or what they're doing, but we're at thirteen players now, which means a merge could be close, and I'm ready for it. I don't know what I'd do in the merge, because I try to put my whole ass into these challenges, and if I can win them, why wouldn't I? The only problem is that doing so would put a huge target on my back, and then the one time I don't win, people would immediately target me as a huge threat. Unless.....if I just win win win, then I have this idol, and I can use it on myself if I don't win, kind of like a safety assurance. But if I did that, I'd have to keep winning until almost final three, otherwise if I lost another one after using the idol, they'd just get me out then.

I'm interested to see who still wants to ally with me when the merge happens, because it would appear that Raffy is out to get me. To get to the bottom of this, let's flashback to last night when Kaleigh and I called to catch up after the challenge. We talked a lot about some mostly pointless stuff just like life, but we also talked about what was happening on the tribes we got put on. Sadly I didn't have much to say, since my tribe was veeeery quiet, and we kept winning so we didn't really have any drama. It's going to be interesting going to tribal though, especially with people who have already been to some. It's like watching an action movie with a war veteran, you're like "ooooh explosion" and they're like "[grizzled war voice]you wouldn't understand the sacrifices I've had to make to survive". I also have no idea if I can trust anything Kaleigh says, for all I know she could be lying to me about practically everything, that's the problem with this game, I don't fully trust anyone. Does Kaleigh know that I told a fib unrelated to the game in the beginning? Yes she does. Does she know WHAT it is? Nope, all she knows is that it was pointless, and started as me not wanting to correct people. She told me she wrote in all her confessionals about how much she missed me, but again, I have no way to know if this is true or not. Anyway, back to the point. She told me that Raffy told Alex, who told Steven, who told her, that I'm related to AJ. So it would appear that Raffy has been spreading this information to make people more wary of me and my game. Which is also a bit annoying because AJ has been especially harder and stricter on me than she is with anyone else, she even marked me as unemployed instead of a student in the bio in the beginning. She's extra hard on me because she doesn't want people to think she's playing favorites, and judging by the fact that I didn't get a winner's pick yet, I'd say her favorites are in other places. Regardless, there's no FRIENDLY reason for Raffy to spread this info, so it would appear he's out to get me. I would however like to use some of his own words and sentiment against him come tribal, if I'm asked a question about the rumors, because I know last game he and AJ had mild beef bc she kept saying he knew the host, and that he had hosted before and knew a lot about the games and was a challenge threat, and he could see those because tribal council there was posted and everyone knew what went down on the opposite tribe's tribals. I'll use his words of(vaguely) "I want to be judged for who I am in this game, and how I play here, and not for anyone I know or how I've played in the past." you know, something to that effect.

Oh also it's kind of random but Kaleigh and I have decided to conduct an experiment on Alex, since we both agree that the way he's acting in DMs seems very tailored to the way each of us talk, and kind of seems like a persona of himself that he's putting on specifically to charm us. Which makes us(or at least me) nervous, because of the info that he put IN HIS BIO. I still can't get over that, man revealed his entire strategy in his intro post, and nobody seems to have noticed lmao. Anyway, to test our theory, I've decided to start saying yassssss a lot in my messages with him, and see if he takes that and starts using it too. Because I already use a lot of double or triple letters, and he's been using it too, but ONLY with me lmao. So yeah, that's a little bit of fun we've got going on now."

Alex

Okay, a very successful 24-hours. We finally took first in an immunity challenge so I'm steadily raking in the TT$, and me and Michael worked SO well together in Codenames which has fiiinally helped us start talking more. I liked his vibes immediately so I wish we could have been talking throughout the entirety of our time on Soca 2.0 but better late than never. I've still got the rest of Soca Elite with me, too, which rocks. Colin already, reached out, which is cool, since he and Zee are the only in's to find out what was going on over at Calypso. I'm wondering if Zee worked some magic to rebuild trust from that first summit or if I can kind of play their information off of each other. I at least feel like I'd be secure were we to go to tribal. Less certain of what could happen over on Soca 3.0. Soca 1.0 still has a majority but with Kolby and Eman being sequestered from everyone else, Raffy and Champ's history, the Calypso 2.0 of it all, and not knowing anything about Jack or Astyn, I feel like there's the potential for some shakeups. Fingers crossed I make it to merge, I think things are going to just keep getting more exciting.

Colin

this swap has breathed LIFE into my game, I'm so grateful for it.

it's a little scary not knowing very many people on the tribe. Michael and I were both on OG Calypso, Zee and I were on Calypso 2, and then I know Steven from prior games, but then everyone else is new to me. But everyone is pretty active and I'm having great conversations!! It's giving me a lot more energy in the game, feeding off of everyone else's vibes.

I need to get some allies on this side, as all of my existing alliance is on the other tribe. I'm looking at Zee and Alex rn, they seem like great allies. Strong players are good to have on your side.

With us crushing this round's immunity, I think we just have to survive one more round till merge, so I'm feeling confident!!

Here are my tribe first impressions that no one asked for!!

Alex - kinda my fave. Very easy and fun to talk to. I wanna get close with him, he's someone I wanna get to know better. Kaleigh - loving the energy. haven't gotten to talk to her much, but I think she'll be someone fun. Michael - was pretty quiet on OG Calypso and didn't get a chance to get to know him before the first swap. I think he's a bit more active now, but I don't really have too many thoughts about him in the game as of rn Steven - in general, I would die for Steven. he's great and super nice. i value every game we get together because he's such a genuine person. i think we're two very different players so we usually don't get paired together strategically, so we'll see what happens in this game! Tony - seems really nice!! maybe kind of an underdog in the game. a wildcard mayhaps. Zee - a force to be reckoned with. She's passionate about the game and the challenges specifically, I know she's always going to give her all. Definitely a valuable ally to have but idk how far I wanna go with her yet.

Tony

And just like that I’ve reunited with so many folks from my previous tribe! It’s a bittersweet reunion seeing that Eman and I were split up :( but I trust that she is playing a strong game on the other tribe. Now that I’m here I gotta make sure that I’m pulling my weight given that I sat out of the last challenge. No telling what’s gonna happen next!

Michael

Not going to tribal again so the game is pretty stale. Tony and I are going to work together. I also entered an alliance with Alex, we need to pull a few more people. I also need to let Tony know about Alex. I just think nothing is really going to pop off until the merge, which I hope I'll make

Steven

Kaleigh

welp we had another swap. by some miracle?? or just a twist of fate, alex & steven & i are all still together, but on calypso now - michael too, though he still hasnt talked game to me. ZEE IS BACK. which i am v happy about. then we have colin and tony. raffy is on the other tribe. which is JUST FINE WITH ME! we had our little celebrity game today and we fuckennnn DOMMMINATED it was so fun and also kind of sad/hard to watch raffy going like “ok, the original vampire. like, you think of a vampire, that’s this.” and his team being like “oh! uh! twilight! edward…edward cullen! robert pattinson!” and literally not get it at all, and then on my turn i get dracula and go “Transvylania, vampire” and like my whole tribe in unison immediately goes DRACULA. LMAOOO LIKE DAMN i could feel raffys frustration in that moment. um ya so they did a mercy ruling in the 3rd round bc we were so far ahead. their team actually requested it lmao sheeeeesh. but then no tribal bc lexi was medevaced. that looks so ugly written down.

i talked w zee after the challenge and we caught up, got a bunch of info, feeling v solidified in the bimbo alliance. also talked to steven tonight. zee and steven both said they thought we’d merge @ 12, and what choice do i have but to believe theM? LOL i’m not doing any research on that! i messaged w tony briefly last night, asked him how his experience was on maracas, he rly dodged it and was like “the vibes were off with nick and tanner.” like, my brother in christ, we all know exactly how off the vibes were. they are gone! this is not helpful! obviously it seems like he and eman and kolby must be TIGHT, but he didn’t say shitittt and apparently alex asked him today about the excursion and he was j like “haha excursions are not my fave!” WHAT?! LMFAO WHAT ARE YOU DOING MY GUY!!!! like, what MUST be ur only solid alliance (eman and kolby) aren’t here! you gotta share info to build trust and get in where you fit in! like i get feeling like ur vulnerable and being uncertain about who to trust, and also… plz trust me :)

anyway, i feel very solid with zee now, and steven and alex as well. i don’t know what da fUUCK is gonna happen once we merge. maybe i’ll try to talk game with michael tomorrow. idk. oh i told zee that raffy told steven that she and aj are siblings and she is soooo pissed, UNDERSTANDABLY! like truly he did not need to share that info, even tho it seemed (based on what zee said) that someone else had asked about it and been thinking it. so anyway she is like ok raffy’s gotta go. she said she’s gonna try to fake ally with him once we merge, which, like, good luck girl… but if she’s successful in faking an alliance and then voting him out that tribal will be extremely delicious. she also said champ will totally work with us, which i believe! tho champ and raffy played together last season… also steven said raffy said that champ is good at playing dumb, which i’m like, what are you even talking about? like pretending to be a bad player? idk. i am getting a LOT of info from both steven and zee tho so that’s sick and like, maybe will help me out later. like raffy telling steven that aj+zee are siblings absolutely destroyed any potential game he had with zee, who actually seemed eager to work w him before hearing that LMAOOOO SORRY RAFFY MAYBE YA SHOULDA PRETENDED TO WANNA WORK W ME!! but ya zee said too that colin and raffy were in an alliance w astyn andddd drea so i know colin and raffy are allied, and i think zee was feeling good about colin and potentially working w raffy but i think that might not be the case anymore.

ok so my only strategy in this game so far is to win as much as possible (duh, and my teams are crushing it) and to do as many phone calls/video calls as possible bc that is truly the easiest way to tell if someone’s bullshitting AND it’s the best way to build trust and get info bc ppl just looooooooove to chitty chat. god yunno i will say it’s not ideal that alex+steven see zee as a big target and zee thinks alex is like playing a rly good game (is he?). it’s not ideal that my two alliances are gunning for each other. gonna have to fix that. i’m not even CLOSE to being ready for zee to go. who the hell has the idol(s)?? also kinda offended i havent been a winners pick since round one?!?!??!?!!?! who’s gettin those?!

[treatnow]

Geoff Dardia on mTBI misconceptions

‘It’s All in Your Head’: Military Veterans and Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

"Logistics Support Area Anaconda, Iraq." (The 302nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment/Department of Defense) Battlefields Staff January 29, 2023 Updated: January 29, 2023 Commentary Anyone who has battled with brain injury knows the frustration of having their injury downplayed because they “look fine” from the outside. There have been times when I wished I was missing a limb so medical providers would take me seriously. Unless you have been stuck in the shell of a person you once knew, you will never understand what it is like to have an injured brain. Regardless of what side of the political aisle you find yourself on, recent missile attacks in Iraq highlighted a significant problem with the misconception about the seriousness of “mild” Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI). As of 2020, there have been approximately 414,000 cases of mTBI diagnosed within the Department of Defense, according to data released by the Pentagon, the majority are from the United States Army.From the perspective of someone who has been exposed to thousands of blasts, had multiple loss of consciousness concussions, inhaled countless toxins, and been on the verge of calling it quits, there is nothing “mild” about any type of brain injury. In fact, I’d say having “mild” brain injury can be more dangerous because the people who have it often don’t know they have it and suffer years without a diagnosis and end up being medicated for all of the symptoms associated with mTBI. Mild traumatic brain injury often goes undiagnosed and undetected unless you get on a medevac bird and get hospitalized for it in combat. People could be battling depression, anger, anxiety, insomnia, sexual dysfunction, obesity, ADD, migraines, balance problems, vision problems, and be told: “it’s all in their head.” When they finally do decide to go get help for all the things mentioned above you, they end up with a box full of prescriptions that mask all those individual symptoms associated with TBI. Or worse, they get told to go to behavioral health to get their head examined, except nobody ever examines their actual head. A provider asks you a list of questions and without any physical examination, laboratory assessments, functional brain mapping, or imaging, they will prescribe you a list of prescriptions (Xanax, Zoloft, Effexor, Paxil, Seroquel, Ambien, Adderall, Lipitor, Viagra). I have never heard one success story about anyone recovering from a brain injury on the zombie cocktail. In fact, I have lost a lot of friends to suicide who were on the Dr. prescribed zombie cocktail. As a person who doesn’t want to be ripped off of a team, miss a deployment, lose a security clearance, or a promotion, you battle through all of your health issues in silence, in fear of being stuck in a staff job or being sent to the schoolhouse. What do service members do to survive another promotion, assignment, or rotation? They self-medicate with drugs and alcohol to get by but end up putting themselves, their families, their teammates, and careers at further risk. You cannot solve old problems by adding new ones, it will catch up to you in the end. Brain injury doesn’t get better with more blasts, chronic stress, insomnia, alcohol, prescription drugs, infectious diseases, and divorces, it gets worse and you end up in a downward spiral. The downward spiral is where you get all the Ds: Depression, Dependencies, Diseases, Divorces, Debt, Domestic violence, DUIs, Discharge, and eventually Death by suicide. That downward spiral often gets chalked up to “that guy is a turd,” even though he probably has had an incredible career for the 15 years prior, and now he is all of a sudden a turd and needs to be flushed from the unit as fast as possible.

“Military Progresses in Identifying, Treating Brain, Mental Injuries.” (Office of the Secretary of Defense Public Affairs/Department of Defense) Misconception and ignorance of brain injury is not exclusive to the president of the United States, it is widespread throughout the military and the medical community still to this day. The president’s comments were the exact words echoed by many medical providers and leaders over the past two decades of war. Countless service members have been told for years by their leadership and medical providers, “you only have mild TBI, it’s not very serious.” Recent studies have shown that people diagnosed with traumatic brain injury are nine times more likely to kill themselves and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that suicide is a top cause of death tied to traumatic brain injury. There is nothing mild about any type of brain injury and with the number of suicides and brain injuries in the military, it is time we take these problems seriously and address the root causes of brain injury and suicide. by Geoffrey P. Dardia This article originally appeared in The Havok Journal. The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.   Read the full article

[extasiswings]

“I felt it shelter to speak to you.” for Buddie

This was...not supposed to be this long but all the recent promo content has been...inspiring. Anyway...on ao3 here.

The first attack happens on a Saturday afternoon.

There’s nothing special about the day, nothing strange. Christopher is at a friend’s birthday party, Buck is off somewhere with Taylor, and Eddie is grocery shopping before he’s meant to meet Ana for an early dinner.

His shoulder aches a little—that’s what he notices first—but that’s not too unusual. It happens sometimes. Even as physical therapy has helped him regain strength and mobility in his arm and shoulder, a high caliber sniper round ripping through his upper chest is no minor injury. Plus, while he’s hardly ancient, he’s not even as young as he was when he was shot the first time, and those bullets left behind their own patches of scar tissue and occasional twinges.

So. His shoulder aches. It’s fine. He ignores it and moves on. Goes through the store, checks out, put his bags in the backseat—

There’s a glare off a window in the apartment building across the street.

Eddie reaches for the handle of his door.

Suddenly, his fingers start tingling, uncomfortable pricks of icy numbness traveling up his hands like they’ve fallen asleep, but shaking them out doesn’t help. And then, without warning, pain lances through his chest, sharp and acute, and he can’t breathe properly, as if his torso has been trapped in a vise that’s slowly tightening more and more.

His vision swims. He sways on his feet, grasping at the door handle with clumsy, numb fingers to keep himself upright.

He feels like—he feels—

He feels like he’s dying. It strikes him with sudden clarity. He’s dying. Dying in a random parking lot—he always assumed he was too young to have a heart attack but the symptoms fit and he’s just—

He can’t. He can’t die. Not when he’s survived everything else. This can’t be—

“Sir?” There’s a woman with a station wagon parked in the space next to his truck and she’s looking at him with no small amount of concern. “Are you okay?”

Eddie’s mouth is so dry and his breathing so irregular that it takes him a moment to respond.

“I—I think I need to go to the hospital,” he grits out as another wave of dizziness threatens to send him to his knees.

She calls 911. Eddie spares a moment to be grateful that the paramedics who show up a few minutes later aren’t from the 118.

As it turns out, he’s not dying. And he didn’t have a heart attack.

“A panic attack?” Eddie’s voice is distant to his own ears as he stares at the ER doctor in disbelief, his stomach flipping with a new kind of dread. “Are you sure?”

“Your symptoms resolved on their own and your EKG is normal, Mr. Diaz,” she replies as she flicks through the screens of his chart on her tablet. “And nothing in your prior history or other recent tests indicates that there’s anything physically wrong with you—you were healthy before you were shot and your recovery has progressed smoothly up to this point.”

She pauses and looks back at him. “Have you...spoken to a therapist? I noticed that your treating physician made a referral for counseling when you were originally discharged, but…”

Eddie clears his throat roughly. “Yeah, no, I, uh...with the PT schedule and everything else going on, I never followed up with that. But I’ve been fine. It never seemed necessary.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Diaz,” the doctor says, “you’re in the emergency room because of an acute stress response in which your brain tricked your body into believing you were in danger to such an extent that you thought you were dying. I’m not sure you’re as fine as you think.”

There’s probably some truth to that. Eddie can admit that much. But that doesn’t mean he needs—he’s been shot before. He’s been in a warzone. He didn’t need therapy to move forward from it then and he shouldn’t now. He can—he can handle this. He can make himself get over it.

He’s already spent months leaning heavily on everyone around him. The thought of not being okay, of asking for more help when he’s finally easing back into working, when things are finally getting back to normal, when they all have their own issues to focus on—

God, it makes him want to throw up.

So...no. He’s okay. Because not being okay isn’t an option.

He’s fine. The panic attack was...a fluke.

“I appreciate the advice,” Eddie says finally. “I’ll think about it.”

He can tell the doctor doesn’t believe him when her lips thin.

“You know, more likely than not, the panic attacks will keep happening if you do nothing,” she points out. “Ignoring this won’t make it go away.”

“I understand,” Eddie replies. “If that’s all, does that mean I can get out of here?”

The doctor sighs. “Sure.”

Eddie’s phone rings while he’s in an Uber on the way back to his truck. It’s Ana.

He swears under his breath as he sees the time—he hadn’t called anyone, hadn’t wanted the hospital to call anyone either, but that means he’s now late for a date that he doesn’t really want to keep after everything and further doesn’t leave him with any good excuses for his absence except the truth which...he doesn’t really want to admit.

Before the shooting, Carla told him to make sure he was following his heart. And he’s been too exhausted and focused on his recovery to really think too hard about that. But now—

For a moment, Eddie considers it. Telling Ana the truth. Showing her some of the dark, messy, ugly pieces of himself. Being vulnerable.

The very idea makes him recoil. Not because he thinks she would run away necessarily, but because he just...can’t.

He can’t. Not with her.

And if he’s that uncomfortable with the idea of letting in someone he’s been dating for over half a year, if he can’t imagine himself ever actually being comfortable with that...then what the hell is he doing?

He calls her back when he gets to his truck.

“Hey—I’m so sorry, I had a little emergency—yeah, everything’s fine now, but I’m not sure I’m up for going out. Can I meet you at your place? ...okay, great. See you soon.”

He may know even less about ending a relationship than he does about dating in general, but he figures he at least owes it to her to end things in person.

*

Eddie goes to work on Monday feeling fine. Great, even. He sleeps well the night before, he gets Christopher off to school on time, traffic is light enough that he gets to the station early—

Everything is fine. By all accounts it should be a good day.

At least, that’s what he thinks right up until all of them get different emergency alerts sent to their phones and they find out the city’s systems have been hacked. From that point forward, everything is chaos. Damage control. Twenty-car pile-ups because stoplights are being messed with, an outbreak of animals from the zoo when the electric locks on their enclosures released—

Eddie’s fine though. He’s fine. It’s nothing he can’t handle—in fact, he’s usually great with chaos. He’s focused and sure and capable. Nothing else matters but the work, certainly not himself. When he’s busy, he has no time to think about anything else.

The gradually worsening tension in his shoulders can be ignored. The way he has to clench his hands into fists to keep them from shaking in a way he hasn’t had to do since his earliest days in Afghanistan can be brushed off. He doesn’t have time to think about anything but the jobs in front of him, which means he doesn’t have time to think about his own state.

Brush it off, pick yourself up, keep moving forward. That’s what he knows, that’s what he can do.

Except, then they end up at the hospital and—

A medevac helicopter falls off the roof. Bobby nearly joins it. Buck and Eddie barely manage to get him back.

A cold sweat breaks out on Eddie’s brow as Bobby leans heavily against the wall next to the roof access door to catch his breath. His stomach roils. He doesn’t feel fully connected to his own body, caught somehow between present and past, a rooftop in Los Angeles and a desert in Afghanistan.

He breathes in. He tamps down on the rising panic.

Bobby is fine. The helicopter pilots and their patient are fine.

He’s fine. He’s fine.

“Are you okay?”

Eddie jumps at the question, his head whipping around to find the source. Buck’s brow furrows as he holds up his hands.

“Sorry,” Buck says quietly. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”

Eddie swallows hard and shakes his head. “You’re fine, don’t worry about it.”

He glances toward the door. “You know, I think I’m going to head back down,” he says, hoping Buck won’t notice the fact that he hasn’t answered the original question. “I want to make sure the pilots are holding up alright.”

“I can come—” Buck starts to offer, only for Eddie to cut him off.

“Someone should stay with Bobby,” he replies. He forces a smile as Buck’s eyes search his face. “I’ll be fine.”

Buck glances at Bobby, then back to Eddie before he finally nods.

“Okay,” he says. “But here, take the radio. If anything happens—”

“I’ll let you know.”

Eddie makes it down one flight of stairs before he decides to take the elevator the rest of the way down. The numbers on the top of the doors tick down, down, down—

And then, abruptly, the elevator lurches to a halt, throwing Eddie off balance and into the wall as the lights go out, plunging him into total darkness.

His ears ring from the impact.

He’s trapped. Trapped in a metal box in the dark. A box that could easily become a coffin if the emergency stop failed and sent it careening down to crash at the bottom of the elevator shaft.

Eddie’s breathing speeds up against his will. His chest starts to hurt.

Not again, he thinks vaguely. Not here, not now, not again.

But. He can’t move. He can’t breathe. Some distant part of his mind recognizes that what he’s feeling isn’t real, that he just needs to calm down, but he can’t—

He’s going to die. He’s going to—

The radio crackles in his belt.

“Eddie? Eddie! Can you hear me?”

Eddie’s mind latches onto the sound of Buck’s voice like a lifeline in an ocean of distress. It takes him a moment to make his trembling hands work through their numbness, to remind his fingers how to work the buttons, but eventually, he lifts the radio to his mouth.

“I’m here,” he says. His voice shakes. “I’m in the elevator. It’s—I don’t know which floor. Or if I’m between floors. I don’t—”

He shudders. His eyes close, not that it really matters given how dark the space is already.

“It’s okay,” Buck replies. “It’s okay, Eddie, we’ll find you. We’ll get you out, don’t worry.”

“I don’t want to die here.” It slips out of him before he can pull it back. Buck takes a sharp breath on the other end of the line.

“That’s not going to happen,” Buck says firmly, although his own voice seems less steady than usual. “I would never let that happen. I’ve got your back, remember? Always.”

A shudder rips down Eddie’s spine and he slides against the wall to sit on the floor. The walls still feel too restricting, like they’re closing in on him more each moment that he looks away.

The radio crackles again.

“Eddie. What can I do? What do you need?” Buck asks.

I don’t know. I don’t—I can’t—

“Eddie.” The fear and desperation in Buck’s voice cuts through the fog in Eddie’s mind.

He never wants Buck to sound like that.

“Keep talking?” Eddie replies. “I—just keep talking to me. Please?”

Don’t go, is what he really means. Stay with me.

He’s never allowed himself to say those things though. Not during the early days of the pandemic when they were sharing a bed in Buck’s loft. Not after he moved back home with Christopher and the other side of his bed felt too empty for sleep to come easily. And certainly not after he started dating Ana.

During his recovery, he never had to ask Buck for anything really. Buck was always just...there. Even though he was with Taylor, he was still there with Eddie and with Christopher whenever Eddie needed him. Like he knew somehow. Or maybe as if he needed to be there as much as Eddie needed him there.

Eddie hasn’t looked too closely at any of that. He’s not ready to. It’s too much, too complicated, too—too—

Dangerous.

“What do you want to talk about?”

Eddie swallows hard as his head rests against the wall. As he allows the sound of Buck’s voice to wrap around him like armor. Like home. Insulating him against the panic and isolation.

“Anything,” he says quietly. “Just keep talking.”

And Buck does. He talks about everything and nothing, random facts and stories from his past that Eddie hasn’t heard before, he talks and talks and talks until his voice grows hoarse in Eddie’s ear and the pressure on Eddie’s lungs eases.

Eddie exhales shakily and takes a few deep breaths as he continues to listen, as his body shifts from hyper-awareness and panic to wrung out exhaustion. When Buck finally cuts off, it’s because there’s an ugly screech of metal as the elevator doors are pried open, as light filters back in.

Eddie’s legs are unsteady as he gets to his feet. He trips on the edge of the elevator door when he exits—

Buck catches him before he can fall. Because of course he does.

“Thank you,” Eddie breathes into Buck’s shoulder as he finds his balance.

Buck shakes his head. “I promised we’d get you out, didn’t I? Besides, I—I shouldn’t have let you go alone.”

“I decided—”

“I shouldn’t have let you,” Buck repeats, low but insistent. His eyes meet Eddie’s and Eddie swallows hard.

“You weren’t okay. Were you?” Buck asks. And Eddie—

He wants to lie. Part of him does at least.

But he can’t lie to Buck.

Not to Buck.

“No,” he confesses. It’s half a whisper. “No, I wasn’t.”

Buck bites his lip and nods once.

“Okay,” he says. “We’ll figure it out.”

And somehow, Eddie believes him.

[enokvirkow]

rebelichor​:

Aerith hardened her gaze on the priest. James… he had a good heart, but he was a shocking liar. It wasn’t her business and she wasn’t in the habit of poking her nose where it didn’t belong — but there was no denying she had been keeping an eye out for the young man.

She had been there to treat him. Someone had dumped him in a church to die. That was the story, anyway. When he was found he was gripped by sepsis and knocking on deaths door. But she stood against that door and held it shut. Their small hospital didn’t have the equipment to deal with severe burns but she had trained for a warzone. She knew how to make do. And when the medevac was declared unavailable due to a line-up of emergencies she climbed into the back of that ambulance for the hell-on-wheels ride of a lifetime for that poor boy and saw him to the city hospital three hours away.

Even then she knew he was a boy. A teenager, misidentified as James. An identity he was all too happy to latch onto. After his recovery he was transferred back to their smaller hospital. His wound dressings needed close management and the larger hospital didn’t have the beds. She made sure she checked on him every day, and she was even there to help connect him to government assistance to get him back on his feet.

So, she liked to think she was considered trustworthy. “James. I will see to their wound care, and if they need to go to the hospital I must insist you do right by them. We don’t operate like a police station. I can file them as John and Jane Doe. And they can be discharged against medical advice. But please, allow me to at least give them a chance to avoid infection.”

Ariadne caught the runaway by his hand. James. Whoever he was. The man who had also been marked by the cult. “Back room.” she tensely whispered, huddling to hide away from the woman even more-so when the silent man returned. It was all too much, too quick. The bliss still had a hold on them, that was true, but there was enough of a break for her to realise they wanted to take her and Vergil somewhere. In her mind they were trying to send them back to Hope.

Enok did not like this situation at all. It was too much happening at once. Usually he was happy to have as many people come to his church as possible. To be surrounded by them all. But now it was absolutely stressing him out. Because he didn’t know what to do. He knew, though, that Aerith was right. The twins needed medical attention. Better medical attention than just some simple kit coming out of a car trunk.

But the twins would raise hell if they dragged them there just yet. They had no trust at all… not into anyone else but Enok. That much was clear by the whispered plea and the hand holding onto Enok’s.

“First the backroom…”, he finally got out, quietly. Careful about these words only being meant for Aerith. Mr. Caelum at her side got another nod and Enok requested his help to keep the gathering people busy for a bit. He did not seem to pleased, but one look at Aerith and he agreed, handing the med kit from their truck to her.

Enok exhaled a breath before turning to the twins, a soft smile on his lips.

“It’s okay. No one will hurt you. I will protect you.”

First get them out of sight of everyone who would soon flood the little church. Gently he guided them to the back room, anxiously looking over his own shoulder for Ms. Gainsborough to follow. She was kind. She was good. She had already saved him, and she had never dug into his past. So Enok trusted her intentions.

When they were in the small room, Enok brought the twins to a cot there, that he formerly had used to sleep on. Now it was a little dusty, but fine. The girl was hurt much worse than the boy, so she got priority.

First Enok brought them a glass of water.

“Here. You must be thirsty… Ariadne. Vergil. You are safe here.”

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Get it into their brains,through the Bliss’s fog. Get them to allow Ms. Gainsborough closer.

“You are hurt though… I know what this means. The night of the white rose. The symbol… and the fire. I saw it, too. We have to look at it, Ms. Gainsborough has to look at it. She cared for my wounds, too. She saved me from hell. She is an angel, I promise.”