#and i know it was all for the sake of the trama

[ivy-pendragon]

Isn’t it funny the fact that ck decided to make a girl’s division in the tournament instead of something more logical like I DON’T KNOW AN AGE DIVISION MAYBE?

[rise-my-angel]

Perilous Companions

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Length: 24.7k

Warnings: Depictions of violence, mention of suicide, non graphic torture, hostage situations, heavy angst, angst/hurt comfort, trama related flashbacks, smut, oral (m and f receiving), p in v, canon divergence

Notes: This ones a big boy with some big things happening. Not everything will make sense yet as its part of a bigger unfolding narrative, and certain moments are intentionally skipped over for the same reason. Knowledge of the 2nd game not needed as its not canon. A lot of nerves went into making and posting this one, so I hope it doesn't disappoint you. Sequel to Melancholy Interlude, part of the Confused Warmth series.

It was a cruel joke that you were this ill. If you had to trace it back, you think you may have been bitten by a mosquito at some point. Of all the things you could catch, you were falling apart from something as small as a bug bite. You were always scared of being bitten by any sort of insect as a kid after your neighbour had come home from school talking about how you could get sick and die from one bite.

Your only saving grace being that a cordyceps infection didn’t incubate for this long, and as far as you were aware, didn’t result in how bloodshot and feverish you were nor did it result in vomiting a liquid disgustingly close to black. You had guessed for a while that in the old world the man in front of you had either was a scientist or worked somewhere in that field. 

Whatever research your current companion had done though clearly didn’t encompass all illnesses, but at least you finally were sick long enough he wasn’t constantly terrified you’d turn. Neither you or the rambling man pacing above you had any clue what to do about it, but he somehow seemed more worried then you. Looking at the map in his hands as he ran his mouth non stop. 

You had insisted you were fine until about ten minutes ago when you felt dizzy and would have completely collapsed onto the ground if Seth wasn’t there to fail to catch you in time, at least before you hit your head. Travelling with someone wasn’t what you wanted, you had been alone for months but you felt awful when a bumbling, older, tearful man came across you asking for help getting to his wife near Salem. Only to have him confess when you got sick that he was just lonely and wanted company. 

Now you were just too exhausted to get angry. Letting him travel with you as he desperately tried to make you like him despite your very purposeful choice to stay away from any people. Briefly you had wondered if he was a plant, tricking you to walk you into a trap right back to the place you were running from. Part of you still wondered that, but now you were too sick to do anything about it. 

“We’d have to go to every clinic just to see whose there, but that’s way too big to check.” Seth’s messy hair was flopping around with every spin in place he did, the rhythmic movement distracting your already fuzzy brain. “You said no to everything else I suggested, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” 

Your head smacking back against the tree you were currently sat up against shook your spinning vision even more. Squeezing your eyes shut you let out a shaky breathe that burned your esophagus as it flowed upwards.  There was an extremely expired pack of gum a few kilometres back when you were sifting through an old abandoned store front. The bile still coating your mouth had you hating yourself for passing that up now. 

“You sure we can’t go to Boston?” One eye blinked open, a kaleidoscope of orbs floating in your vision as Seth’s figure stood right in the suns path. He was standing with the map crinkling in his hold as he looked hopeful at you. “They have doctors, it’s an actual city they’ll have medicine won’t they? We can get you a bed and everything. We’re practically right there, you can see the walls from the top of one of those hills for god sakes.”

Your fingertips tapped against the grass beneath you as your jaw clenched. Forcing yourself up, the tree worked as a main support for your legs that trembled from the exertion. The man seemingly perked up at your slowly approaching self. He stared at you, your name coming out as a question when you got within a few feet. “Is that a-” 

Jumping back, Seth gasped as you ripped the map out of his hands. Your face flat as your eyes shifted to the side to stop yourself from glaring. “A no...I’m guessing it’s still a no.” 

Your legs wobbled as your vision spun trying to read it. Kneeling down you rested it over a bent knee as your finger followed a path you already were dabbling in planning out. “You ever been in a QZ before?” 

Looking up at him, Seth had a shifting and sheepish face akin to something like guilt. “I spent some time in one for a while, a little bit in Boston.” Your heart skipped a beat, forcing your gaze down to the destination you had in mind willing away the swirling anxiety. “That’s why we need to go though. I have friends there, they can help you- wait where are you going?” 

The beating of your heart pounded erratically. You wanted to be alone for this very reason, you had no idea what kind of friends were waiting for him, or you, in Boston of all places. There was no one you knew anywhere near such an area, so you walked away. In the opposite direction of his suggestion. 

Seth called you again, “I thought you needed to rest.” 

Pace picking up you pulled the other strap of your bag on both your shoulders properly. “I’m going west.” Pairing up with this man was foolish, heading in the complete opposite direction of where you were headed was even more foolish. 

His voice was getting more and more grating. “We just came that way, didn’t we go to Massachusetts for a reason?” 

Heading down a slight hill full of ragged dirt clumps and drop offs only bang around the blurring migraine in your head more. It wasn’t killing you yet, so you just didn’t bother stopping for it. “No, you wanted to go to Salem, I wanted to be alone.” 

Sputtering, Seth wailed his arms as he slipped and tripped over his feet down the hill with a grace that only assured you that he’s likely spent his entire life in and out of some halfway sizable apartment Fedra probably threw his way. “I was just trying to help.” 

Your mind was already made up. You’ve been trying to get out of this state for months and everything kept pulling you back in. But their unwillingness to let you go spoke a different story, the people you’ve encountered since that have tried to trick or lead back to that room you ran from. 

Seth was saying something, but you tried to tune it out until he was too loud. The sun was setting in a gold that shined off of the decay around you. Travelling the outskirts was longer, a much longer path but if you were being honest with yourself? Just because you were more scared of what other people were capable of, doesn’t mean the shrieks didn’t haunt you every time they echoed through the emptiness. 

It didn’t take long for Seth to overtake your strides. Longer legs and too much energy compared to your muscles begging to sit once more. You so desperately wanted to believe it wasn’t true, that maybe just once since that day you could meet one person who you didn’t have to leave your guard up for. But you couldn’t. 

You were the only of your kind they ever seen, and it didn’t matter who told them what. He had his sights set on you and so did everyone else. Were they hoping to pull you back because they were too stubborn to give up? Or were they truly so delusional that they just didn’t care. The arguments you spied on seemed to tell you something divided them greatly but at this point you didn’t have anything to go off of. 

You had enough scuffles with them to know they were willing to be violent to get you. You knew why they wanted you and it was a fate that terrified you. You saw the remnants of what they had before you, and now? It was a fate you knew would be worse. Their willingness to beat the air out of your lungs had you supposing that having you in one piece wasn’t required.

It was only months ago when a few men came across you as you realized that it wasn’t just a small group that were involved. Somewhere along the lines, three men in the fireflies approached you and when you refused to even hear them out? That’s when they left you with a fair few more scratches then you gifted to them. 

Bruised and covered in mud from being kicked down a steep forest hill, you could hear the small group of men on a radio, but their words overpowered in your head from noise. The only words made out from what you could hear past the ringing the fall had smashed into your head. “....I don’t care, just tell say it’s Owen...” 

More static noise blasting out as you sunk your nails into the muddy hillside pulling you upwards onto your knees at least. Biting your lip so forcefully it had cracked and drawn blood by the next morning, you held the cries of pain back as your muscles strained to drag your body behind a tree. 

Tears streaming down your cheeks, you cradled your side now dripping blood from the ripped open fabric once covering you. The other occupied with gripping your shoulder tight as each twitch of your body shot a current of pain through what might be a strain.

Finally a response over their radio rung out, your jaw tensed as you breathed deeply in and out your nose. “..can make it in a few days...yes ma’am....Gran-” Was it the distance cutting his voice off, or was it your own heavy breathing invading your senses? You didn’t know. It was hard to focus. 

You didn’t know if you wanted to go back for real answers, or if a part of you still clung to seeing the man who had his hired thugs strap you to a chair as soon as they got their hands on you. He barley even looked at you like his own, and neither did his partner look at you anything but a specimen. 

You being this sick wasn’t the plan, and you knew making it wherever they were headed in one piece wouldn’t be easy. Not even sure if any of them would be there anymore by the time you got there. They had working cars afterall, and you only had two feet. Already your head was dizzy, but it felt wrong to turn away, leave it alone. You could just run from them, head far North until you reach the border and forget all of this. 

But you couldn't. They should have gotten what they wanted, so why wasn’t it enough? 

Now though, in the early hours of the morning, it was impossible ignore what you had heard the next few subsequent nights. Listening to this man ramble on what was no doubt some kind of radio. Foolish enough to think that you’d feel comfortable sleeping anywhere near him now he assumed he wouldn’t be heard or caught. Sprinkling hints of a deception that became harder to push away. Someone far more collected and confident then the bumbling coward presented to you. It chewed and gnawed in your mind throughout that night. 

He didn’t see you coming, knelt down faced away before having his body grabbed by the back of his shirt and tossed a few feet to the ground. Flipping onto his back, he stood up slowly to see you feet away from him. Exhausted and pushed to an edge. He tried placating it but only got as far as your name before you cut him off. 

“Why do you want me to go to Boston so badly?” You pulled from something attached to your belt, a thick yellow rope long and flopped down to the side. 

Seth’s face slowly melting off it’s aloof bravado. Something deeper inside brewing that you only felt your body tense at. “I don’t know what-” 

The voice waver made you a lot less brave but the force which you shoved it out masked it. “You led me there even after I told you no. What’s in Boston you’re so eager to get to?” 

There was an entirely new man in front of you, someone more poised with sunken eyes. As if whatever this facade was became too useless to keep up. This wasn’t a stumbling fool, but someone hiding too much. “We don’t need to do things this way-” 

You weren’t buying it though. Wrapping both ends of the rope around your hands, but kept low enough to give him hope to talk first. “Don’t make me ask you again, Seth.” 

His voice grew softer, as if to entice the part of you that wanted to grant sympathy. “It’s about you.” His gaze on your covered arm, and your heart beat harder. “I knew your Jerry and your father from the old days. They discovered a problem during testing, but you already had gotten out before he could look into it for himself.” 

You didn’t even need to ask about ‘they’. He knew them, and apparently your guess of some kind of scientist was correct. Both of them treated you like cattle once they had found you. The ghosts hovering over your life. “What problem?” 

“He never told me, and when your father died I didn’t think it mattered anymore. Left Jerry to pick up the pieces without his expertise. He’s replicated the work as much as he can, but the only thing your father told him only made him that much more desperate to find you. He’s a doctor not a scientist.” 

Maybe you should have been angry, upset. Dropping that on you as if you should already have known, but on the other hand it might be for the better. Jerry was cold, and uncaring. Your father was entirely too emotional, perhaps closer to disturbed than anything. “I gave them everything they wanted, what’s he desperate for?” 

The lack of blinking put you on edge even further. A look as if trying to figure out the very thing he was describing. “That I don’t know. Research has been kept under very tight watch, especially now.”

“And my father, what did he say?”

Seth’s eyes glazed with a troubled conflict, and a sorrow in his voice that told you he knew far more then he was telling you. Flashes in his eyes that spoke of a truth that sat unsettled within him. 

“He said this is the end. He said that we are all finished, and he took his own life.” 

The trickery, the trouble in his eyes, how this all kept relating back to that day. Your father taking his own life though? Something inside of you shifted unsettlingly, and not quite a loss for family. If you had even a modicum of faith in your father, you had none in his partner. “What I still don’t get is what you were planning to do with me. I mean what use would someone like me be to a lying con like you?” 

A debate flourished in his head, saying no words as he almost looked through you. The now calmness in the air, quiet and dulcet tones between you echoed eerily in your voice. You needed him to speak, you needed to know. “What do you think your last breath will feel like, Seth?” 

Eyes shutting for the briefest of moments, he let something echo in his veins. Words slipping from him in a level of defeat. “There’s a woman. A firefly-” 

“I’m already running from the fireflies-” Nothing but a bunch of make shift mercenaries playing at a war they’ve never even started to win. 

Seth shook his head, “Not this one. She’s a leader, has real goals she wants We can trust her, she can help.” You instinctively gnawed at your bottom lip, unwilling to believe in him. “Now if you come with me to Boston, I can get you to her.” 

Shaking your head, you bled distrust from every pore. “What’s her name?” 

His shoulders sagged as he sighed. “Please don’t make me tell you that,” the tightening of the rope between your hands squeezed as his eyes flickered from you to it and back again. “Marlene. Her name’s Marlene. She’s a good woman, your father trusted her.”

More then a few seconds passed. The wind flowing through the luscious trees nearby, and the grass grazing along the empty land. The peace nowhere near the small bubble you stood. “Why wouldn’t they have just told you what the problem was. If you worked with them, I mean. Bit odd.” 

Seth’s head tilted, a softness pleading with you as your name murmured from his mouth, “I’m on your side. I’m one of the-” 

Something snapped inside of you. Almost a scream inside your heart shouting at your survival and it consumed your vision within seconds. He wasn’t a fighter, you wrapped the rope around his neck with little defence. 

Within a second you kicked him to the ground, a struggle tumbling in the quiet grass as you flipped onto your back. The pull burning your wrists and your own legs trying to keep him down. His struggles and groans eating away at your hearing. 

You could only look down at your hold for seconds, nothing close to a fight back from a man who didn’t know how seek out for a real fight. Your breathe was forcibly rhythmic, in and out deeply as your head tilted back as you pulled. Breathing the sounds of struggle away as your eyes fell upon the nature.  

The leaves blowing on a tree, large and flourishing in the emptiness that ravaged around it standing tall and bright. The wind flowing like a calm around it like it was wishing to entrance you. Your breathing desperate to keep a deep even as your mind pushed away the burning pull on your wrists. The sight of the trees colours striking against the rest of the field hiding the groans below. 

You took your mind elsewhere, you weren’t strong enough to keep yourself in the moment. A life on the outside didn’t make you capable. It just made the struggling figures on an open ground dragging the life out of a man who knew more then you’d ever know, feel like a kind of memory you couldn’t live with if the trees didn’t exist.

Nothing like that existed here and now though. The barrel sights down to a man who helped play his part in many fights that these people didn’t deserve to be a part of. 

Once someone too sure of his own bravado, now faced you wide eyed and swallowing panic. His hands at first positioned in front of his torso as Joel approached you both, his knuckles turning white from how tightly he was pulling and twisting the coarse rope in his hands. You wanted to see the trees in that rope but you only saw the purple imprints on your wrists that had stayed with you for days. 

But it wasn’t someone tricking you to your death at the other end. It was people you wrapped a new life around, and the only ones who cared about you in return. Owen pleaded. “Come on, please. I’m not going to do anything, do you really need all this?” 

Your hands hesitated, grip on the shotgun so harsh for so long it your arms had started to shake. “I’ll behave, let’s all be reasonable here.” Barrel only lowering enough that it’s aim left the eye line of Owens head. Low enough that he had the gall to leap towards you as if having any chance. Before you could even register how startled you jumped, Joel had grabbed him by the shoulders and tossed him face first into the bar counter beside you. 

Owen’s head up enough to growl in anger, “Fuck you-” only to be slammed down into the wood with a crack of a bone splintering in the air. 

Yanking his arms behind his back, Joel tightened the mans own ropes around his wrists, leaving him just enough room before his circulation, or lacktherof, would turn his hands blue. The mans head yanked back with blood dripping from his nose and smeared down his face and painted the dark surface. Your fingers twitching on the shotgun aimed uselessly to the ground as your shaking breathe vibrated into your very chest as Joel hissed into his ear. “You try anything like that again, I’ll break a lot more then your nose.” 

Owen groaned but said no more. Shoving him towards Tommy, Joel only looked a his bloody face for a second longer before taking four strides over and all but shoving the chair out the mans reach. Stumbling onto his knees, grumbling unintelligible swearing as Joel burned a deep anger into his face and slinking it up to Tommy in unspoken words. 

Tommy himself seemed more hesitant. Taken back by something he had no way of seeing coming. You didn’t know how much of the other week Joel had even told him about. He at the least didn’t particularly care enough for the strangers well being to let him sit anywhere but the cold floor. He was more on the edge of confused, Joel saw you trying and failing to mask the shaking feeling of silent fear and that look washing over your eyes only had his blood run hot. 

Tilting his face to the side, Joel caught your gaze the hard set steel of his expression still peeking a deep concern for you behind it. His brown eyes gestured downwards to the shotgun in your grip, covering one of your hands with his own, the way it overtook your small ones with such warmth had you wanted to flip your palm to hold onto it, but you just let him slide the gun into his own possession. Holding it upright around the short cut barrel. 

Ever the vocal one, Ellie spoke up first. “Who are you?” She was stood still, arms crossed over her chest with a stare that could sear a hole in the floor. Her body now against the table, blocking any view of the towns layout from the strangers prying eyes. Tommy stood to his side, back to the wall and eyes to the door while Joel stepped away from your side. 

Watching him crouch down in front of the man, you yearned for the grace of someone more worthy. A gun to a mans surprised back peering right through whatever facade he would spit out were you not there. You had felt brave until he turned to face you. Owen’s face painted with fearful shock but yours only seethed with undiscovered ire. Whatever in your body that didn’t shake, a tingling flooded where ever nerves were attached. 

Owen’s stare towards Ellie was suspicious. Dots connecting in his head, he raised an eyebrow as he returned her stare. “How about you go first, then I have my turn?” 

“Hey,” Joel’s voice rumbled out tight and controlled, just like his unwavering posture. “You look at me, not her. Got it?” Owen didn’t answer quick enough, meaning not instantly, which only got him grabbed by the jaw, Joel’s fingers squishing parts of his cheeks in like a blooded up fish. “I said got it?” 

Owens brows furrowed in a grumble but he nodded. “Good. Now answer the question.” His kept his promise, he didn’t look back at Ellie. Just you. Empty eyes with a smile that had been smeared onto his skin like a goo. 

“Or you could just tell them, you already know my name afterall.” 

Your nails dug into the skin of your palms, scratching and clawing to keep them from shaking. In a world where you knew how to stand your ground, maybe the words would come up out of your mouth. Only they didn’t and you weren’t standing your ground, you weren’t sure your heart would calm enough to give that chance. 

Joel yanked his head back over to face him, face even sterner then before. “I asked you.” 

No one was impressed with the eye roll. A childish act for a tied up man, “Owen. Like she said.” When Joel didn’t let go of him, only gripped tighter did he remember to act like a grown up. “We used to know each other, had a couple run ins didn’t we?” 

You couldn’t see Joels eyes flit back as if he could see you behind him, but that yearning never left his heart. You were supposed to be at his side, not trapped in place by whatever memory this man dragged into town with him. “This is not-”

“He’s a firefly, or was.” Part of you was happy Owen hadn’t seen you in over a year, missing the slight waver in your voice as you forced it to come out in one go. All three of them had completely different reactions. 

Ellie was confused. A group in her life held a complicated relationship with her, one that she suspected wasn’t wholey truthful with her, but never had the chance to put her finger on it. Tommy was braced for either side of things. His eyes never straying from the sight in front of him but one foot of his stood out towards Ellie, as if to intervene. 

You didn’t need to see Joel’s face to know what he was feeling. Crouched down, his shoulders and back were set and so tense you could see it through his jacket. His hand dropped to his thigh with a thud curled into a fist. Those brown eyes washing over to a black as his nostrils flared as he kept a wild within him. 

No doubt lost in what you have found yourself in many times, flashes of light passing your eyes as images that keep you up at night taunt you. You found yourself pacing towards him, hand reaching out to him, but hovering in place at the prospect of sneaking up on him. But just like you felt with him, Joel didn’t need to hear or see to know you were near him. 

He just felt you already, taking a deep breathe as his back stretched back, giving your hand the chance to simply push forward and grasp onto the back of his collar like he knew you would. “What’s a firefly doing in our town, sneaking up on my own.” Joel was seconds away from bearing his teeth, if he remained just a strange intruder that was one thing. But none of you had any delusions about what having someone like this here could mean. 

“Just looking for a friend is all. Big state you know? Gotta check all the corners.” Joels fist curled in more as you curled your fingers into his collar. The two men eyed one another before Joel made to stand back upright. Letting go to give him space, it was only snatched back by Joel’s empty hand. Keeping it tucked to his chest, to turned so both your sides leaned against the bar. His warm breathe heating the skin of you face still doused from the cold outside. 

Eyebrows raised, you could read the question unsaid. Nodding yes, you bit the inside of your cheek. “Don.” Your eyes on his chest, Joel turned his body partway to gesture Ellie to take the shotgun from him. Sometime later, Joel would feel pride of how confidently she took it into her hold and held it to Owen. Perfect form like he taught her. But now that wasn’t anywhere near his mind. 

His now free grasp held onto your hip and pulled you at an angle, hiding your gazes from the man flickering his eyes around the room. Fingers stretching from under his, you wrapped them into the top of his shirt peeking through. Unable to decide if you could handle being the subject of this kind of intensity from Joel. “Don mentioned travelling with them for a while, I didn’t know he stayed with them after..” 

Joel cupped the side of your cheek, turning you up to his face. He meant to say something, meant to comfort or suggest but your own genuine unease pressed against the heart under his chest. A vulnerability that he spent weeks trying to coax from you from the quiet safety of your room together, but now on display for someone that Joel felt the growing urge to slam face first into a wall, leaving a mark he wouldn’t come back from. 

For only a moment you let yourself feel it. Shutting you eyes, Joels hand warm and soothing in your heart as you let the uncertainty flow over. Letting it drip from you head to your toes, melting off as it reaches the floor. Finally you flickered your eyes up to Joels. “I’ll talk to her.” Joels head whipped around, eyes blazing at the mans suggestion. “I’m not gonna kneel here and spill my guts to all you bozos-” 

The other two pairs of feet in the room both shifted a foot forward. A “Watch yourself” sounding from Tommy at the same time as Ellie’s far less decorum of “Shut the fuck up.” 

Shuffling in place, you could tell Joel was grappling with the idea. A deep protective instinct that threatened to overtake him should anything happen to you. “I’m not leaving you alone in a room with one of them.” 

Your cheek pinched between your teeth just a tad to sharp, your mind salvaging for any hint you have a plan in mind. But you don’t, and Joel knows you don’t. Because he doesn’t have one either. Your eyes drifted to Owens tied up frame, gesturing your chin over in debate, Joel doubled down.

“They’re better talkers then they are fighters out here. I’m not worried what he’s going to do, I’ll chain him to the wall if I have to. It’s what comes out of his mouth I don’t trust.” Something within you sensed something coming. Like the polarizing fear sweeping through you when Don had walked into town was a child’s bad dream compared to what your anxiety begun to brace for. But you agreed. 

That part of you which could no longer pretend as if you felt anything but racing nerves in your veins wouldn’t admit it, but you were eternally relieved to have Joel. You faced people like Owen, the fireflies always them versus you. Always running, stealing and sabotaging behind their backs it would weigh less on your chest to have someone in your corner, helping you up onto equal landing. 

Jaw clenching, Joel’s eyes pleaded a different story. One of a man dreaming of finding a small life with you and Ellie, and having to shove down the urge to burn everything to the ground just to keep you three in that harmony. But the fireflies played a different game. One that burned into Joel’s core, and one that froze yours over. 

Sending a shiver down the length of your spine as his thumb gently rubbed over your bottom lip, he was holding himself back from kissing you. Brown eyes flickering to your lips as his fingertips flexed where they sat on your body as if resisting pulling you into him. 

Sarah echoed in his head. Holding you in his arms on the porch as you told him unequivocally that she would be proud of who he is, but he didn’t feel proud now. Joel felt like control was slipping away from him and the last time that happened it ended in a bloodbath. 

You didn’t like this look on Joel. His handsome features warped by a painful conflict behind, firm and set as if nothing he was preparing to let nothing to get past the stone walls. You wanted him relaxed, soft. The kind of look he gave you that very morning. A smile that you’re not sure you’d ever seen yet. A soft one, a sleepy glaze in his eye and that very thumb rubbing over your bottom lip only then he moved it to help pull you out of sleep with his own lips. 

Anxiety shocking your limbs, jolting them like electricity while Joel was reliving the nightmares the people just like Owen brought on him. That quiet bubble of lips and skin against each other under the sheets Joel wanted you to call your own? That morning seems to not exist anymore. 

One of your hands drifted around, trailing on the inside of his jacket along the thin layer of his shirt, nails tracing towards his stomach as both of your eyes begged for even one kiss. Something to keep you both here and grounded. You weren’t going to give the satisfaction to Owen though. 

So you let yourself out of Joel’s hold. His hand sliding from your waist only until you were to far to stretch out to. Owen’s eyes were far less confident as you approached him. His laboured breathing the only thing in the air as you crouched in front of him. 

“You talk to both of us. Or no deal.” If you were someone else, you would have sounded firm. Sure of your conviction and unafraid of the coward in front of you. Not the weaker almost out of breathe hesitancy it came off as. 

Owen narrowed his eyes at you. “And if I say no?” 

Joel was what you tried to sound like. Deep and threatening, no room for doubt or barter as he came up behind you. “I dump you outside of town face first, hog tied in the snow.” 

Warm large hands pulled you up with one of them now refusing to leave your side. Owen conceded just as Tommy called Joel. Gesturing over to the sight of people beginning to mill about like nothing ever occurred inside the building. The man wasting no time as he hauled Owen up uncaring of the stumble he felt from the aggressive jostle. 

Owen stood crookedly against the bar, as Tommy circled his finger for him to turn around. “Ellie.” Joel beckoned her, a hand out for her to hand the shotgun over. Glancing between it and you, her face fell flat as she rolled her eyes giving it to a tiny smirking Joel at her petulance. 

No sense of personal space as he dove right into the small bag at your side for the ammo he assumed was in there. Loading it for you, he draped the strap over your shoulder. “Me and Tommy’ll handle getting him out of here. You two head back to the house, it’ll take us a while to move him.” 

Owen’s wrists rubbing together at the redness already scratching into them, Tommy added “I got a feeling he’s not against making a scene if we walk him through the middle of the street.” 

Neither you or Ellie were keen on leaving the two of them to handle it on their own, but you gently pushed her forward to grab her jacket. Joel turning you to face him as he cupped your cheek once more. There was something at the tip of his tongue, but it wouldn’t let itself out. A disruption you both felt in your bones just when he was finally putting a life together. 

Gently grasping his wrist, you turned his hand, pressing a kiss to his palm and watching him stiffen and breathe force itself from his lungs harder. A rage inside him that you knew he didn’t want to relive, or even expose you too. You couldn’t form the words, you knew what you felt but your tongue wouldn’t take them in. You just wanted him to know that it was alright.

The disgusting turmoil you brought upon his family hadn’t made him turn you away. His own would never do the same to you. There wasn’t anything Joel could do that would destroy what you were trying to pretend wasn’t a stem of blossoms flourishing into unconstrained winding petals.

But now? Watching Joel share muted words with an agitated Ellie, both struggling to let the other walk away? Wondering if it was mere coincidence that it was Owen who was here, or if you dragged them to your doorstep. 

Your mind far off, preoccupied in the possibilities going unconfessed. If this was your fault, if you brought this on them, then Joel should hate you. You deserved it. No reason could form in your head as to why he should support you, he’d done enough. 

You didn’t know what to bring to this relationship, and now all you have started bringing is burden upon burdens. Nothing to go on, all you could assume was that love wasn’t supposed to be sharing the brunt of the others problems. 

You were selfish for letting him bring you home that day, and he was stupid for going after you in the first place. The gruesome mark on your side should have stayed there. Ripped open and bleed out until you wouldn’t get back up from that blood soaked room anymore. 

Fed up, Ellie grabbed your arm with a shout of your name. Turning you towards her, eyes narrowed in exasperation. “Where are we going? Joel said-” 

Mouth opening then closing, your peeked at the people around you some glancing at the Ellie’s sudden outburst. It didn’t even dawn on you until now how far into town the pair of you had gotten. You couldn’t do this here, not in front of all these people. You couldn’t breathe around a crowd closing in on you. Swallowing the swarming cloud threatening to engulf you. “I need to get something, okay?” You grabbed her hand on your arm, squeezing it for a moment. “It’s important.” 

She didn’t say much as you both walked into the now mostly empty house. You wasted no time, making a bee line to your bedroom as Ellie paced around. Taking in the lack of any feeling home. You had brought hardly anything over. A bag or two at most. Neither she or Joel had much when they arrived, but they finally had started to feel like a home, like a place in the world once long forgotten. You arrived with nothing, and you still had next to nothing. 

Ellie couldn’t help but wonder. Is that what life on the outside was like for you? To truly have nothing to find joy in? The clang of wood caught her attention, dragging her over to your old bedroom. Your body knelt on the ground tearing out part of the floor only to reach in and rag out a small box. “So what are we doing back here?” 

Hands pausing mid movement what would you even say? What Joel was keeping from here was nowhere near the kind of lie you were keeping from both of them. The lie you tried to throw away the day you set foot in this town. Fingers slowly wrapping around loose drawings scattered at the bottom, you shuffled them together, throat tight as you tired to find careful words. 

“Something he might be after.” Head lifting up you saw the question form on her tongue. “It’s complicated. I’m not- I don’t know how to explain it.” Right now at least. 

“You could try. I mean I’m complicated.” Your head dropped again but in a breathy laugh, Ellie always managing to let that bemused attitude slip through no matter what. 

Tilting your head to the side a smirk played on your lips. “Yeah, we seem to be a house full of that.” Slipping the drawings into part of the journal, you sucked in a breathe with your eyes blinking shut for as long as you exhaled. Chucking the box back into the hole you lazily threw the wood down. Nothing left in there to hide under hammer and nails. 

Ellie’s face was stuck in hesitation when you stood back up. Her eyes looking to the journal you pressed tight to your chest then back to your own face trying to appear neutral. “Is that what he wants?” 

Lungs constricted and coiled more in your chest. Best case scenario likely being this was all he travelled here for. “Stay in your room, when we get back.” Your head shaking just once as your face tightened and scrunched up. “I’m not asking Ellie. You’re not going anywhere near him.” 

Her arms waved in the air, voice raising just like outside. “I’m not just gonna hide in my room like a-” 

“You don’t think Joel’s going to tell you the exact same thing?” Inside hoping you weren’t coming across as harsh. But you didn’t know what Owen was going to say, or what was going to happen to get him to say it. Ellie deserved a normal life, and none of this was apart of that. 

The house was silent when you both got back. Not a creak or muffle as Ellie charged in first. An annoyed attitude to match such a flat expression unwilling to even keep the door mostly open. Your grip on the journal adjusting and reajusuting multiple times as if letting for a fleeting moment would sweep it out of your possession. 

Opening the door the rest of the way, you were silent as you watched Ellie stand in the middle of the room. Her body turned towards the only closed door, eyes wider and sunken in with a deeper hesitation then before. You could see Joel leaning back against the counter, arms crossed with eyes harsh and narrow at the same direction. 

“He’s in there?” Half her torso twisting to watch Joel nod once. “Is he-” 

“Still tied up. He’s not going anywhere.” An edge cut through his voice, restraining an emotional you knew was a battle to bury back down. “As long as he’s here you’re going to-” 

Head dropping as did her eyes. “Stay in my room. I know.” She didn’t bother taking her jacket off out here, just step by step towards the hallway there wasn’t even a blink. Suddenly the prospect of staying as far away from him as possible didn’t sound like a punishment. Stopping in front of the door, she looked back to Joel with her teeth gritting in an anxiousness. “What are we going to do with him?” 

There was no response. Joel’s shoulders squared as he exhaled through his nose harshly. Brown eyes just glued between her and the door as his head brewed with thoughts you couldn’t possibly imagine. 

Neither of them said anymore. Ellie turned to open her door before taking one last peek at the shut one not far from her own. Keeping her in the dark wouldn’t last, but right now wasn’t time. Not for Joel, not for you. 

The quiet air didn’t dissipate with her departure. An uncertainty floating between you and Joel, his eyes now following the way yours stared at the door. Unlike Ellie though, your own blazed with a knowing fear. Murmuring your name, Joel gestured for you to come over to him. 

You didn’t reach out for him the way his hand did for your waist. Pulling you closer, Joel stood up straight with a deep breathe. Eyes flickering to the door and back, brows narrowed still. “The hell does he want with you that he tracked you all the way here for?” 

It felt like a blame, even if it wasn’t one. What did you to do drag something else into his life? Your grip on the journal in your hand didn’t go amiss. Nor did your casual shrug fool him. “If he’s still a firefly he either only wants me..” 

“Or that?” Joel raised an eyebrow towards your hands as his own pulled your retreating body back into him. “Hey. I’m not prying, but if you’re in danger I need to know about it. Now.” The sternness in Joel’s voice carved something deep inside you as did the fierceness in his bright eyes.

Your jaw clenched as the defeat just piled up. His eyes followed as your hands dropped to your sides before you tossed the journal aggressively onto the counter behind him, but your arms returned to cross your chest protectively. “They know about me. Like-” 

His large hand squeezing just above where the mark sat on your side. His eyes squinted in confusion at what was in your hands. “What does a book have to do with it?” Heart lurching in your chest, you pried yourself from his hand but found yourself unable to move entirely from his warmth. One palm pressing into your forehead as the other sat on your hip. 

“It belongs to them.” Your chin cutting over to it. Jackson was supposed to heal over those memories, but that wasn’t the plan of whoever watched your life over. “I stole it from them, Owen took it back from me, I stole it from him so on.” Head raising into the air to push the sting in your eyes down even when your shaky breathe gave it away just as much. “Either they only got their hands on the book, or lucky enough to try and drag me to Boston because Marlene just can’t give anything up.” 

“Marlene?” Joel leaned into you, pulling your face to look at him by your chin. Your own lost ones stark against his heating fire as he said your name. “She was the one looking for you?” 

You stammered, watching Joel run a hand over his face. Dots connecting in your mind, your mouth fell open slightly as a tangle of disjointed words tumbled out. “Yeah she wanted me.... and you were in Boston. With Ellie.” A story you knew the details to but didn’t stop to wonder how deeply intertwined it’s words were.

This time it was Joel who fidgeted his body back and forth, jaw so clenched it might snap as both his hands found his hips. “Ellie grew up in there, and that’s where I lived when Marlene got me to take her, or forced my hand was more like it. She was adamant someone needed to get her to one of their stations out west when she couldn’t.”

Joel’s head snapped to you as you started putting it together. “I’m assuming she didn’t specify west meant a hospital in Salt Lake?” 

Running his hand down his face again, Joel finally leaned back against the counter. “I didn’t know the extend of where I was taking her until Ellie mentioned a cure. By the time I got her there, it was almost to late when I found out what the fuck they were about to do.” 

Blood racing in your veins you hated where this was going more and more. “Because she knew you’d never do otherwise. She seem desperate?” 

All you needed was his nod of yes. You felt incredibly stupid. The details Joel had already shared, what Don told you, what had happened what was in the journal itself. That’s why they left you alone after all that time. She found Ellie, and dumped her off with people who couldn’t possibly know what Marlene was handing her off for. 

You weren’t sure how long you had been silent, but Joel cupped the side of your neck urging you to come back to him. You were quicker on the draw then he was. “We need to find out what he’s doing here. Now.” 

Soothing you, his breathe grazed your face as he leaned his forehead onto yours. “I can do this alone, you don’t need to see this.” 

Sliding your fingers up to hold his wrist gently, your eyes as soft as your touch felt opposite of how much Joel’s nerves sat in his fingertips. “You said we’re in this together. So we do this, together.” He took one last moment to hold you against him still with a hand at the back of your head. 

Pulling back he grabbed something you couldn’t quite see from behind him, sliding it into pocket inside his jacket before you could make it out. His hand stayed in the middle of your lower back as you both approached the door. The journal left alone on the counter the reasons to keep it in the shadows leaving you moment by moment. 

It should have satisfied you to see fresh blood now on his face. Two distinct cuts clotting over on his cheek, drifting down to see his frame tied to a chair looped with more then one restraint. Hands bound to the arms of the seat, a redness that too was blood on his fists. You wanted to feel smug at how rough he looked, but it did nothing to soothe the racing of your heart. 

Owen barley looked your way when he saw Joel follow in. The harsh shut of the door behind him making the bound man jump. A rag drenched in droplets of blood and sweat tied around his mouth explained the no noise as you walked in. A sprinkle of suspicion that his newfound red paint was a result of putting far more of a struggle up then he could handle the consequences too. 

The air around the three was charged with such a heavy weight you felt as if it could crush you flat. Your vision as it turning white flashed, the slamming pain skyrocketing from your body to your head as it rattled against the cliff side. The blood on your face felt as if it had never been washed off as you looked at the still red stained ones on Owen. 

Yours weren’t bound to the arms of the chair. No yours were wrapped behind you, phantom sensations of the metal digging into your skin as it gave way to a snapping bone. Memories you’ve never spoken of,  ones you wanted to bury deep. 

Joel had spoken, and you didn’t even catch it. Muffled voices quiet and rumbling as your brain forced itself into the present. You had barley moved from just feet inside the room. Joel stood tall over him with the rag now dragged down from his mouth spitting as the words came out. “What? I can’t just pop by to visit a friend? See an old pal? Isn’t that right? Good ole Don?” 

Snatching his jaw, Owens cheeks smushed together as Joel forced it to lurch forward to his knelt over figure. “Hey, you’re not talking to her. Just me.” His voice was even, but unseen to your place behind him, Joel’s features stood sharp, a dark in his eyes that worked it’s way into his bones from weeks of torment on the people he loves. “Start with what Don was here for.” 

Joel’s hand dropped as he stayed at his eye level Keeping the mans only view of him. The condescension in Owen’s voice circulating Joel’s bloodstream in an angering trail. “Small town living.” 

He gave him no response. A stone walled stare leaving the pure nothingness in the air force someone to fill it, only neither you or Joel would do so. 

“He’s an idiot, who knows what he was doing here. I just haven’t heard from him is all, a guy can’t worry for his friend apparently.” You knew Owen wasn’t stupid enough to believe that. Part of you wondered if he just didn’t realize why Don was nowhere to be found, or if he was dumb at playing dumb. 

Joel’s hand flexed as he turned his head. Barley enough to even look beside him until moving back trying to not shift focus to you. Keeping Owens focus or Joels focus away he wasn’t quite sure of. “This can end right now. But if you keep bullshitting me, I promise you’ll wish it did.” 

Owen opened his mouth and closed it more than once. He was a footman. Strong, not pragmatic. A fear not unlike one you’ve felt countless times in your own eyes doubting himself as Joel stared at him. Only letting a few more seconds pass before Joel’s face twisted in anger. Bracing his palms on his thighs Joel pushed back upright. 

Stepping uncomfortably close into his space, Joel tugged the gag back over his mouth, but was nowhere near done. You couldn’t tell what Joel had pulled from his jacket until rusting pliers braced themselves onto the nail of Owens index finger. 

Tilting his head with an eyebrow raised, Joel was giving him a warning that Owen didn’t take. Just shaking his head with a muffled string of what sounded like petulant swearing. Joel held it to him, breathing heavy as whatever conflict in his head won out, forcing himself to act on that conclusion before a softer part of his subconscious wanted to talk him out of. 

A few years into the outbreak you had watched a number of members from your group screaming not dissimilar to the muffled ones before you. You had been pressed inside the back of a desk. Your only sight the dilapitating square of wall in front of you, but the wood surrounding you felt as it it made it echo. Warped, distorted screams as it was followed by a cracking. One by one the cracks followed screams that rasped into sobs. 

It was a sound and sight that for a while, was the scariest thing you’d ever seen. A body unconscious from either shock or blood loss as scattered puddles of blood and teeth lay strung about. You didn’t dare look how many were left. There were enough teeth on the ground to know not enough to matter. 

You had thought to yourself, never again did you want to be anywhere near something like this. But that was before you were tormented with screams, screeches and searing rips into your skin and clicks that stabbed into your brain until you felt numb to the fear. 

Owen didn’t sound quite like any of it. More like a strained groan trying to push down the agony. Your nails digging into your palm with each silence between Joel’s growling voice. Blood asking to drip down from the nails you still had, unlike the man who took his only chance to speak with his gag off, to try and spit at Joel. Much more swearing came from that rip then whatever your nails scratched into your palm. 

The red made it look worse then it did. Comparing to what the world outside proved it was capable of, Owen would live. Live without having to change who he was entirely. Your side told you not to feel bad and it was a hard voice to ignore. Your forearm throbbing in rhythm. Neither of those were a fate anyone should feel, but you had. And so did she. Those were far worse.

Owen wasn’t just connected to Don, it didn’t just trace back to you, and Joel had enough of keeping that thought out of it. “Look at me. Hey-” He yelled more this time, nostrils flared as he grabbed Owen by the throat to force him to look. 

Owen looked dazed, swallowing hard as his eyes fluttered in and out of pain. “You this embarrassed someone got the jump on you in front of your girl?” 

A roaring current zapped through Joels nerves, his hand tightening his hold on the mans throat. “Fine, you’re in my position. Someone breaking into your home? Rope in his hands, sneaking up on you and your daughter behind your backs?” His voice snarling at the edge of breaking into something Joel could lose control over. 

But you didn’t give either of them a chance. Your footsteps banged into the floor, heart pounding but unwilling to break eyes with Owens attention, now on you as he heaved in pain. Joel didn’t move, forcing his snarling heaves back down.

Hand curling into a fist around the pliers. It didn’t matter what Owen’s plan was. Joel covered all of Ellie’s sides, and so you would cover his back. You didn’t bend down to their place near the ground. You wanted Owen to strain up in the pain to look at you. “You read the journal, right?” 

Joel’s heart tempered down, but didn’t have the willingness to look anywhere but the man bleeding in front of him. Nothing had happened, but the threat was enough. Men like this, people like them? Joel would make sure they had no right to even look at Ellie. They get to keep their lives, their families and there was no comprehension in Joel’s mind to ever appease that they tried to tear apart his for their own gain. Tear his family back to shreds, keep their own when they had no heart or soul as they tried to do it to his. 

Unlike him, you didn’t bother with the intimidation, it was never a word given to you anyways. Letting it your hand brush the wrist attached to where Joel’s was, brushing your thumb over the vein you could reach, Joel finally let the mans airway free. Desperate to keep himself here, it only switched places. You felt his hand, large and close to bruising as he held part of your calf. 

Owen heaved and you let him. He wasn’t a solider, he had no obligation to withstand this, and both you and Joel knew that. You let Joel push Owen to the edge as long as you held him back from the cliff when Joel himself got to close to falling alongside. Broken at the bottom, splayed on jagged rocks you spoke softly to him. 

“Owen. I asked you a question.” He glanced from Joel to you, but finally kept it mostly on you when Joel didn’t move a muscle. “How much of the journal did you read?”

And there it was, his bloodshot eyes jumping to your forearm. In another world, maybe you’d smile, smirk, enjoy the torment. But neither you or Joel did. This was his family, and he was protecting it regardless of the cost. 

Nodding, you didn’t really even register doing, but your eyes sat wide. “It didn’t say anything about this,  I imagine.” One hand slip the side of your shirt up. 

Forearms heal better then the sides of a torso, and yours still looked like a horror. The colour, the scarring still healing with skin bitten and torn into and no disillusion as to what it was from. “Do you think you’re bite will look like this? Or rot to something else entirely.”

Would you do it? No. Humans deserved the fate of other humans. No one deserved what you and Ellie had barley survived. It was more then teeth, it was a blood curling terror like a radiation poured into your body along with it. But Owen didn’t know that, all he knew is someone in the fireflies inflated your reputation to dangerous. And that certainly wasn’t the image of hope Marlene tried to frame it in, no only one other person would have given Owen that idea. 

You wanted to crouch to look him properly in the eye, but you dared not interrupt the iron grip Joel had on your calf. So your fingers curled into the side of his jacket collar, one the front of his shirts were familiar with on quiet, peaceful nights. “Don could have told you if his own bite didn’t tear into his neck. Bring you to him if you don’t believe me.” 

“No, n-no,” There was the crack Joel had broken in. 

“Then tell us the truth. If you’re here for the journal, we can talk about that. But of you’re here for me then that’s a new problem.” 

You could feel Joel’s hand slid up your calf, less desperate and tight but now more all encompassing. A need to feel you there without risking his attention elsewhere. But that didn’t matter. The attention wasn’t about you at all. Owen looked defeated at you before sliding his eyes to the thing you feared putting at risk the most.   

“We weren’t looking for you. We were sent to look for him.” Your fingers curled into his jacket more as your heart beat so fast you felt it in your throat. A penetrating cold shivering from your heart and outward. “Fuck, no one even knew where you were until now I guess. A few of us have been scouting different nowhere towns looking for a Joel Miller. Just a wild fucking coincidence I guess.” 

Joel’s voice was controlled, forcing words out slowly and clearly. Low almost like a whisper. His eyes the opposite as they fell dark and falling down a hole of realization. “Whose us?” 

Owen gnawed at his lip before relenting. “Anderson,” Joel tilted his head needing him to elaborate, but you knew. You knew it was a divine force that kept you from falling back. “You know the doctor, the fucking hospital? We’re not with the fucking fireflies anymore, just got a few of us together when she finally learned your name. You killed her dad, so? Fair’s fair.” 

Joel stood up, the room silent as your head spun it’s contents. Turning to you, his face was lost in an overwhelming blast of emotions. Yours was flushed, a shiver running your entire body as you looked at him.  This wasn’t even about you, and that scared you even more. You couldn’t just walk away to get rid of this for them.

Joel grabbed your wrist on his jacket, holding to keep you close. He seemed to grapple with something before turning to shove the gag back in Owens protesting mouth and dragging you out of the room. 

He pulled you closer to the main room cupping the sides of your face urgently, pulling you into his space as you tried to rationalize it. “She can’t, you..I won’t let her.” 

Joel muttering your name almost commandingly as he almost smoothed over your skin to quell the panic. “Hey, hey- it’s okay eyes on me.” Your nails almost dug into his chest as you shook in his hold with a skin prickling combination of distraught and a back blowing whoosh of determinating protectiveness. “Nothing is going to happen. Nothing’s going to happen to me, not me, not any of us.” 

Your soul felt like screaming on the inside. “I’m not going to lose you, not for this. I won’t leave anyone to-” 

Joel pulled your lips into his, a harsh and rough collision that took not just your breathe out of your lungs but his. His own brushing against yours aggressively, pulling back only enough to have you hear him.

“Together. Anything we do, we’re doing it together. You don’t want to leave me? Good ‘cus I’m certainly not leaving you or her. I didn’t do what I did, only to get ripped away from her as soon as we finally started becoming something.” 

Joel kissed you another time, telling you to stay out here. Just for a minute before turning on the spot and slamming the door back behind him. A sharp anger on his face that you decided wasn’t worth holding him back from. 

Your back pressed against the wall, palms shoving pressure onto your forehead as you realized just who was looking for Joel. If it was her, then she’d come looking for Owen. If Joel didn’t hesitate to go find you the day you took off, then she would come looking for Owen the second it was too late for him to reasonably not come back. 

At some point you had slid onto the floor right next to Ellie’s door. This was it. She needed to know about that day. But it wasn’t what Joel did that was the lie going to hurt, it was the truth you had to come to terms with too. The truth all Joel did, was save her from and the pain he thought he was keeping from her was nothing. 

You could see the journal still sat on the counter at the other end of the room. He’d tell her, then you’d tell them. Somewhere in the back of your head you registered a thud, but it was too faint to drag you back into the light. 

The quiet creak of Ellie’s door however, was just that. She had heard enough to know what was happening in that room, but none of you were disturbed by it. Ellie had been through more then what Joel had done in those last ten minutes with Joel himself. Her eyes were tensely trained on the door when she almost jumped at the sight of you. 

“Fuck, make a sound or something next time.” Laugh, smile give her something but you couldn’t. Everything was about to be laid out on the table, and your nerves were crippled with the nightmare of losing Joel, losing her, for it all. “What happened?” 

Both of your heads shot up as Joel finally came back out. A redness on his hands that you knew were smears of the mans already dripping blood inside, it didn’t look bruised so at least it wasn’t that. You could only see inside the room enough to see the chair awkwardly moved over with Owen muttering to himself along with it as the door shut. 

All three of you looked at one another before Joel looked at Ellie with a seeping guilt in his eyes, “We need to talk.” Ellie’s eyebrows raised in worry but nodded. 

“Not just you. I mean, she needs to know.” Ellie’s face darting between you both now confused, “But you both need to know something else. You talk to her first though.” 

Ellie looked lost and anxious, “What the fuck is going on?” 

Joel’s hand smoothed over the side of Ellie’s head, his heart melting at how instinctively now she leaned into his embrace without realizing. Any of you losing this would be catastrophic. “Give us a minute,” his head gesturing to you. “Then we’ll talk.” Looking between you both, she finally conceded. Joel unable to take his eyes off of her until the door shut completely once more. 

Holding his hand out, he pulled you up onto your feet and gestured to the main room before either of you said a word. Wavering looks swimming in both of your eyes and hearts beating just as loudly as the other. “She-” Joel cut himself off with a sigh, handing his head with his hands on his hips. “I wanted to find the right words first. Not spring it on her like it doesn’t matter how I say it.” A strain in his voice you wanted to honey over.

Though you weren’t sure he was really telling you, not past your nerves. Running a hand down the length of his face as his eyes stayed shut. You were in the same boat, how were you supposed to tell the only family you had how much of a lie they were both sold on. How would they feel knowing you were a sliver of that story? 

Maybe you shouldn’t have unpacked that bag, your old empty house feeling more and more like the isolation you belonged in, but Joel didn’t deserve this feeling. He’d been through enough, he’s done enough. Softly muttering his name, he dropped his hand back to his hip but still was trapped behind his eyes.

This time whispering his name, hands very gently reaching out to cup the side of his face, thumb tracing against the coarse facial hair. His larger hand circled your wrist. “Give me your worst case scenario.” His eyes darting up in narrowing, an incredulous look but you kept your hand softly on him. “What would be the worst reaction she could have?” 

It was clear he’d thought too much of just that, because his answer was instantaneous. “She hates me. I lied to her about all of it, and she resents me for what I did, and for lying to her.” A part of your heart cried at hints of agony his eyes looked at you. “I don’t know if I could handle that. Not now.” 

Joel deserved to hear one thing, but right now you think he needed something else more. It was surprisingly easy to pull such a tall giant man to lean down into you. His hands both squeezing you waist as his forehead rested on your shoulder. Winding one arm past his neck you kept him there as you raked your hands through his hair as the other ran your palm shallowly against his torso down closer to his stomach. His deep breaths the only thing in your ear as you let him feel the worry for just a moment. 

Let him process what’s being forced onto him so suddenly. You didn’t let go of him as you softly spoke into his ear minutes later as his breathing steadied against your skin. “Do you know why that will never happen?” Hands gripped you tighter, you were starting to speak his silence. “That kid loves you. You’re her whole goddamn world even if you can’t see it. She was sold on a lie that got sold onto you. You were the only person who did the right thing, probably one of the only people who ever put her well being before someone else.” 

Joel found enough of a calm to lift his head, steady movements in his chest as he rested his head against yours. Face still twisted and tearing apart with nerves. “I still lied to her.” 

When you first met him, you’d never have said anything close to what came out of your mouth in the firm meaning you spoke. “You lied to yourself, Joel.” His eyes widening, a hurt treading on them that needed to be satiated fast. “When you think about that day, do you see what you did or why you did it- no don’t try to tell me otherwise. Because that’s exactly what I see.” 

Your hands sliding down to his own waist, “There’s not a single time I’ve heard Ellie talk about everything that happened that doesn’t end in her finding a way to tie it back to something you did for her. Marlene wanted to dump her life off on lies, and you kept her from it because you love her. What lie do you think’s going to hurt more? The one you couldn’t even admit to yourself, or the one people like them just for a chance to get her into a slaughterhouse.”  

Pulling your arms away from him, you gave Joel the chance to stand on two feet. The thoughts clearly mixing and repelling against one another as he followed your lead. Giving his body a chance to breathe on his own, his eyes on nothing while the mind behind brewed and boiled. Slowly you stepped away, the time it took getting to where the journal had been tossed feeling like a lifetime. 

Your hand paused as you slid it towards you. Eyes flying over the well used pages stuffed with fresher notes in your own once manic scratchings. Heart felt beating in your chest, you had to do it, but it wasn’t your place to say it. You had to let them be together. They could call you whatever they wanted, but you were still just on your own. Joel was her father now, and that’s the love she’s going to desperately need the most. 

Biting the inside of your cheek, you quickly moved things. Putting your own notes in one pile and storing it right at the front. It had to be done before regret slipped in. Snatching it off the table you didn’t hide it on your person this time. It hung in the hand at your side, as you looked at his face once more. 

No lies between you. Even if it sacrificed the adoration he watched you with. Both of you moved slowly as you handed it over to him, grateful he didn’t open it right away. “There’s nothing I could say that isn’t already in there.” 

Joel’s head tilted as he looked at you with doubt. “Neither of us is trying to exclude you.” 

Nerves burning on fire, you shrugged. “It’s still your life before me. Don’t open it until after. She needs you first, not this.” Watching his eyes bounce between the journal and you, the defeat crawling over sitting heavy in Joel’s stomach. “I think I pretty much summed it up, my notes in the front.” You pointed to the obvious white sheets contrasted against the stained darker ones. “But it’s still all in there.” 

Neither you nor Joel said the words. The grief of losing it before becoming real a fear you needed to steel yourself with once more against as Joel stood before you. Himself holding it back from spilling out of his mouth, especially with that dissonant look in your eyes. 

Selfishly, you have yourself what could be a final indulgence of his warmth. Your hands pressing flat onto his chest wishing those warm brown colour of his eyes would stay with you forever. “You’re not a bad person, Joel. Ellie knows that, so stop thinking that she will.” 

His eyes skipped down to your lips, choosing to pull you in with his fingers under your chin. Small and chaste with the taste of restraint from losing yourself in the other. Pulling back only enough to give you air, “Didn’t realize this is what it would take to get this much out of you.” 

Your heart leaping into a breathy laugh as he too lightly laughed into another kiss. Everyone always had something to say the second you ran your mouth for more than a few minutes didn’t they? 

Control slipping, you had to gently push him back before he let go of it entirely. You didn’t watch as he walked away, didn’t watch as he went into her room. The click of the door was a trigger. The air in the room heavy and constricting, as the walls surrounded you. You couldn’t be in here, you couldn’t listen to whatever would happen it was suffocating you. You didn’t deserve to be anywhere near them, not now, not for this. 

Not sure if either of them heard the front door shut, you walked out into the now significantly darker sky. Lungs filling with air you could stand as if the house was drowning in water. You didn’t get too far, just far enough to throw your back against a brick wall, sliding down as you lifted your head into the late winter sky.

It was a strange thought that passed through you, wondering what she’s heard about you since. If she was still with the fireflies then she knows all to well the man power wasted at trying to get you back.

Like the faces that followed you with every stabbing pain, she no doubt remembers your face perfectly. One of the hands now resting on your knees twitching as it relived a pain. 

The blood dripping down your bottom lip from how hard you bit into it, holding back your voice as the bones in your hand snapped, slipping from the metal handcuffs forcing your arms behind the chair. The chain clanging together as you retched them in front of you, barley making it off the chair as your upper body leaned in on itself, shaking as you snapped the bone back barley staving off a cry.

The darker the sky grew the further down the dilapidated, dripping hall your memory travelled. You had caught her coming around the corner, nearly jumping as she turned to see you. It was easy to see the blood on you was your own, but it was even easier to see what sat on the forearm with the fractured hand. Red skin and stiff hanging at your torso, you had it unknowingly tilted where the ripples of an infection she couldn’t possibly guess was long past it’s prime. 

You didn’t know if all of them here knew, a pathetic excuse of a firefly mid stop with too much empty space for them to even think of how to use it. Hell, at the time, you didn’t know a single of them were fireflies. You just knew him, your father, and now her. Judging by her face, wide eyes stepping back as an urgency fell over her face, she didn’t know the person here was you. The familiarity between you didn’t mean anything close to it’s beginning.

It all took no more than a few seconds. One of her hands reached behind her for what you had seen from the side was a gun as she begun to shout out someone’s name that you didn’t give her a chance to spell out. You had done it before you even heard it, arm stretched as the sound of the shot hit your ears after it already casted blood into her stomach. Something inside you wanted to stay, by the time someone else reached her it could already be too late. 

But that would’ve been your fate if you didn’t leave. You fell into their laps by accident, but wasted no time in trying to find a use for you that didn’t involve keeping you around. It was the first time you stole the only resources they had, you. And the first time having you get away, ate at Marlene’s desperation to force you back from that day onward. You didn’t even know Marlene’s name until that day in the field, but you new who she was all too well now.

Front door slowly shutting was followed by the slight thud of boots against the wood of the porch. Head snapping up you saw Joel looking out with a squint, his shoulders looking less risen and tense then he had all day. You however, shot up so quickly your feet almost stumbled you back over if not for your hand braced against the brick beside you. 

It was too far to see his expression, but it wasn’t always the best way to determine what was going on inside Joel’s head. Let him come to you, you told yourself. Constantly going to him, invading his life, disturbing their privacy was all you provided. 

He had on a different shirt then before, this one looking much warmer then what was on you. Part of you wondered just how long you had been out here alone. If the sky had anything to say about it, it might have been far longer then you knew. 

Now though, being out in the snow? A lack of anything substantial for winter weather having Joel’s eyes look at you, not knowing if in simple concern or judgment. Standing a foot or two away from you, Joel answered the question he saw you open your mouth to ask. 

“You were right.” Your back sagged against the brick, this time though your legs finding the strength to hold you up. “Turns out having your whole life upended hurts a whole lot more then being lied to about getting her out of it.” His voice was shoved out in a gruff kind of pain, his eyes fared no better.  Bright but not in a shine you yearned for, a pain, an upset that sat heavy in his heart. Just because it didn’t devastate their relationship, doesn’t mean it wasn’t devastating in every other sense. 

You swallowed harshly as you nodded. Nothing even in your throat to say, scared to look to long at him, missing the needing stare he gave you that shined in the growing moonlight. Your voice just weak and cracked, “And you?” 

The sigh he let out was loud. Arms crossing his chest he paced to put rest his back against a close by tree. The increased distance between you growing larger, you didn’t know how intentional it was. “I said something when she first told me what Marlene wanted with her. They’ve talked about cures all the time and none of them worked. Everyone wanted me to believe in it, in her so badly.” 

Clenching his jaw you could see the frustration build and build. Making you feel like you understood without any idea of how to comfort it in a meaningful way. “But she’s a kid, not an answer.” 

You yearned to reach out to him, his eyes glazing somewhat as he looked from the night sky, to the ground and back to you as a darker tone resurfaced in his voice. “She didn’t deserve to be treated like some miracle. She needed someone, anyone, to give a shit enough to protect her. Even from them.” 

For once you stood still like a stature while Joel kept shifting his stance or his shoulders. “I don’t know if I even believed it when I went back for her. All I knew is it didn’t matter what they wanted, she didn’t deserve that and I couldn’t live with it.”

Your fingernails chipped away at the brick behind you, “Sometimes desperation makes you dumb. Doing bad things because they deluded themselves into thinking as long as they accomplish something then they can keep feeling as if they’re winning.” Sighing out raspily you hoped he couldn’t hear it. “Couldn’t get me anymore, so the second she found a new one? Getting her on that table was all they a cared about.”

“Even though they knew it wouldn’t work.” Joel pushed up from the tree, letting his hands fall to his belt loops trying to close the distance. “Didn’t matter what the truth was, everyone wanted her to be the one to set all of this right. All I could see was a girl who wanted to have a life. Didn’t matter to me what anyone else wanted, I’m not sure it ever did when it came to Ellie.” 

Silence fell between you, that feeling in your throat coming back up like it wasn’t able to stop. Your heart falling over at the pain filling his features. “I’m sorry.” 

Joel scrunched his face at you. “You’re sorry? For what?” 

Throwing your hands out, you for once found yourself starting any kind of argument. “What do you mean what? How about everything I do somehow keeps coming back to fuck you and Ellie’s lives up.” 

Joel’s own voice started to match in a frustration level. “Wait- you haven’t done anything.” 

Rolling your eyes to the side you struggled to understand what he was even trying to do. “Right, because you’re lives have been so much more peaceful since I showed up and for some reason you just let me hang around no matter what I’ve done.” 

Joel tried to come towards you but you just pushed off the wall and circled around to stay away. “I-”

At least it was growing dark enough that Joel couldn’t see the redness in your eyes. “He came looking for Don, Joel. Don never checked in because I killed him, he never even mentioned them. If he was here looking for you, he stopped giving a shit about you the second he saw me. Maybe if I just let him-” 

Joel’s anger wasn’t at you but it sat visibly steaming on his face as he tried stepping towards you, but you just stepped away again. “No. I’m not even going to fucking entertain that idea-” 

Your head pounded, every modicum of sound screaming as it flowed into your ears. “Well I am, so maybe you should for once, Joel.”

Running a hand over his mouth, you knew he was either going to yell or going to try and come closer, but at the moment you couldn’t tell which one you wanted less. “What do you want from me? Blame you for everything that ever goes wrong? Pretend I don’t want you in my life?” 

If he was growing angry, you deflated it by turning to face him. Not quite yelling, but certainly not quiet either. “No, you’re just supposed to not want me in general.”

His volume grew with yours, as did the sharp features on his face grew twisted and stiff. “Well I’m sorry, sweetheart. You don’t get to just stand there and tell me I’m not allowed to love you just because that’s what you expect out of me.” 

He didn’t realize what he had just said. And neither did you. The only ones who realized what Joel had just said, were the half awake birds on the treetops and the single pair of ears quietly listening from a far off window. 

You pressed your palm to your forehead, trying to will the headache away with the pressure. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Joel. I just-” 

Joel tried to come closer. His heart was turned up tonight, and between earlier, sitting on a way too low to the ground bed for his frame, running his hand soothingly over his what loose strands of hair splayed out from their ponytail as his little girl finally let that insufferably stubborn wall of hers fall down for once and cried into his lap. That everything that had finally brought them together was all based on a horrific lie that duped them both. Neither he nor her having any idea what to feel about it. 

It was too much for him, but nothing compared to the endless turmoil spinning behind Ellie’s eyes as they were laid out what this all truly was. Ellie had been through a lot, too much with him, but for once she let herself react the way she needed. She didn’t do anything, she shouldn’t be brave about it. 

Now he’s standing out in his front yard, watching you float around too many emotions for you to figure out what you even felt. Your voice wavering and how you kept stepping away if he came forward. To Joel, it was his own actions that brought this down on them, yet here you stood trying to force him to put every blame on you for just existing. 

“Can you just listen to me?” 

You wanted everything to stop, your lungs yelling at you and your vision feeling like it wanted to start spinning. “No, Joel-” 

His hands gestured uselessly in the air, “Why not?” hoping he didn’t sound angry, but sometimes he wasn’t quite aware enough to know how he was coming off to people. Especially if airing on the side of losing his temper. 

You told yourself not to cry, feeling a vile embarrassment if you cried in front of him right now. But your throat felt choked up, and barley managed to spit it out. “Because I don’t get it, Joel.” Everything in his face paused, taken back by what was about to spill out of your heart. 

“I don’t understand why you care. I’ve never understood it. I’ve done nothing but get in the way, and you keep just bringing me back when we both know your life would be a hell of a lot easier without me in it. I don’t understand why you keep me around or why you even like me. I just...I don’t get you.” 

Pressure build behind your eyes while the rest of you burned with humiliation. Being with Joel exposed parts of your soul that you never even thought to share with another, but the undeniable shake in your voice as you trailed off was twister of panic and tears that you tried to push down. Pretending it was anger. 

In anyone else, Joel would have taken it in a worse light. But the silence in him as he grappled with just how little you could see how he felt didn’t sit right inside him. He knew part of this between you both was somewhat new to you. What he didn’t know, is that in fact all of it was new to you. 

He was new in every way and now it all swirled on terrifying, your eyes staring at each other until you turned to go back in the house. In your frazzled mind, you hoped maybe Joel wouldn’t yell at you if you were inside. It felt different once you got there though. Countless houses you’ve walked into, abandoned, dilapidated, some in surprisingly good condition. Even your own small one in this very town. But something about being in Joel’s house felt different. Like a warmth spreading through your bones as you walked into the front door. 

Your palms sat flat against the back of the couch, trying to count how long your inhales were and focusing on the exhales. Slowly your heart tapered down, the walls around you stopped shrinking in as you hoped when your eyes opened once more the world would stop feeling like it was tumbling around you. 

Just seconds ago you felt like if Joel came anywhere close to you, that the weight of your emotions would implode on you. Yet as you heard Joel quietly following you into the house, you couldn’t help but follow where he was by the sounds he made as he walked in. 

It all just hit you too fast. Giving yourself no time to process so you chose the worst possible way to react. Too much of your lives were converging together and it kept brewing a storm that you once only had to deal with alone. Now there were actual people in your life who leaving would tear parts of you across the distances between them. The only life that had been in danger since you arrived was your own. Having the forces from yours come down to Joel wasn’t fair. He had no stake in this fight. 

He only did the one thing none of those people had the heart or the guts to do for another. And people like her had no right seeking out revenge for someone who wasn’t anywhere near close to what was toted around. Truly thinking about it, there was another person in this house who you know has his back too. 

Eyes opening you looked over to her closed door, this time at least knowing she asleep. Only time would heal what you finally had to expose her too. 

It was hypocritical of you, how the second two strong arms caged you in against the back of the couch, you leaned back into what you knew was Joel’s warm torso. He stepped in to press you closer to the couch so he could cover your hands with his, fingers linked as much as he could manage in this position. 

His chin rests on your shoulder as you both stand with the other against you, a quiet that is far more familiar and soothing then any kind of arguing. Joel must have been watching you, because as soon as you opened your eyes to speak, he leaned his mouth closer to your ear. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry again.” 

Letting you go, Joel pressed himself more into your back as his hands decide to rest more comfortably on your hips. His nose pressed to your hair you nod in agreement. “Guess I’ve scared you enough, only a matter of time until it was my turn to get it.” 

Your fingers dug into the couch more, but you still leaned into his touch head tilting back at his every move, even though he always found his way back. “I’m not going to bother telling you not to be. We both know listening to me isn’t exactly your forte.” Joel smirking against the side of your head at your face instantly falling in a playful offence. “I need you to listen to me this time, though.” 

One arm slid across your stomach, almost as if he knew your hands were itching to hold onto him in some way. His hold pressing you against him further at the feeling of your nails scratching along his arm slightly. Your nod not enough for him, “Out loud.” 

His heartbeat was so much calmer then yours, clearly having taken his jacket off while your back was turned the single thin layers between you meant you could feel him with every breathe. “I’m listening.” 

Joel’s own eyes were off in the distance, staring at the table he could see through the door frame. The kind of nerves he saw on you felt like an echo of that night. So wrapped up in how sure he felt, that he forgot how unused to all this you were. Not used to the feelings that came with finding yourself so close to someone you didn’t expect too. 

He knew all to well what that was like. The girl he felt in his heart like a father to, laying everything out on the line for. Ellie could look back on that day and joke about it. Trying to make a scene over how mistreated she was anytime he made her do a chore she’d turn back with a hand over her head lambasting the time he so callously threw her entire body into a wall. “Like a piece of meat,” she’d go on like.

Being told she’s nothing but cargo to him, not knowing the pure terror the day he could have truly lost her in more vile ways then he wanted to ever imagine. How it wasn’t the only day either.  A small name he only ever felt pain even thinking about slipping from his lips as he looked at Ellie, unable to deny what they had become and just how deeply both of them wanted to hold onto the other.

It was different for you, but he knew whatever family you had wasn’t even present enough for you to care to share. Spending a lifetime outside any kind of walls or city with any form of order, not until you walked into town that day. You were still getting used to him, just as he had to do with Ellie. 

“Maybe in another life, this might go down differently. Ellie decides she doesn’t trust me, I get caught off guard, or by some miracle that doctor even had a fucking clue what he was doing.” Both his arm around you and hand on your hip squeezed tighter. “But that’s not going to happen. We have each other, sweetheart. All three of us. You don’t deserve to be dragged back into this shit. And I’m sure as hell not leaving this world for that son of a bitch thinking he had any right to cut her open for some cure that doesn’t fucking exist. Who didn’t give a second thought about murdering the one other kid in my life who has ever felt like a daughter to me.” 

You could feel the tensity in his muscles, wanting to turn around you tried to twist but Joel kept you in place. Pressing his lips to the back of your head. “He deserved exactly what you gave him, Joel.” Pausing your minds were both torn between two growing factions, one of which had to be dealt with before the other. “She’ll try to get the jump on us. Think I accidentally taught her the advantage of actually sneaking up on people.” 

Joel’s voice was such a deep and bassy rumble in your ear that you couldn’t help your eyes flutter at the sensation. “Then she tries sneaking up on us. You with me?” Nodding in his hold, he muttered “Good girl.” 

Oh he did that on purpose. As soon as your thighs tensed, Joel smirked into your hair. “Joel, we’re supposed to be making a plan- this isn’t fair.” 

His chuckle was closer to your neck as he traced his nose down your cheek and jaw. “You saying I can’t do both?” The hand around your stomach started tracing over you, the way you’d run your hands through his air he traced over your front. When you didn’t respond right away, Joel’s lips pressed one more kiss right under your ear before nudging you with his nose. “We don’t have to do anything, sweetheart. It’s hasn’t been an easy day. I just want to pull you out of that head of yours.” 

This time as you went to turn in his grip he let you. Your hands finding a home on his waist as he kept his back on your hips. His hair somehow just as light and fluffy now as it was when you woke up that morning. Coaxing you awake with his kiss as your hands found his still messy sleeping hair. 

It was just as lovely now, the yellow tinged lights making the greys highlight the rest of the colour that suited him so beautifully. His eyes treading on a darker lust, but instead of a greedy tinge there sat almost a need. Something softer that not even a year ago he thought he’d never even consider wanting anymore. “What is it you want, Joel?” 

Just like he didn’t expect this to be something he ever would want, he almost would never have guessed how easily you got him to open up to you. He’s not sure he’s ever been like this with a woman, even in his old life. 

But you held nothing but an innocent generosity in your eyes, and Joel wasn’t about to part ways with that either. “Call me needy,” leaning to your face his nose trailed along yours as your eyes slid shut. “But what I want, is to feel how warm and tight you are for a little while.” 

Joel read your body like a book, could feel in the smallest actions, the certain pitch of a tiny gasp or the way your body seemed to tense up and shiver at the same time. You always struggled to tell him what you wanted, but he was working you through that. Joel was perfectly happy to take care of you, typically because what he needed matched what you needed perfectly. 

And talking wasn’t always the easiest way to get either of you out of your heads. Joel trying to lull you into his touch when you still hadn’t let go yet. “But if she-” 

One hand tilting you up to his eyes again,”How many does she have with her, if you were to guess?”

If this was about Ellie, there was no way she’d be involved. She wasn’t apart of the group, and there weren’t many people who would follow her on a revenge quest for the father instead of towards the girl they thought they finally had in their possession. “Maybe one or two others, besides him.” Your head nodded in the general direction. “Probably looked at a few different areas. Couple other smaller communities in the state that they would have looked at first. Likely didn’t realize anything was wrong until Owen didn’t check back in. Maybe a day away from here or so.” 

Joel looked through you as he went over something in his head, you guess you still weren’t that good at reading him. Not knowing what plan he was going over. His eyes met yours finally, dipping down to your lips before slowly dragging them back up. “We’re bigger, means she’s got to be more careful. In other words, you can afford to let me have you for a couple hours. Dead man’s final request and all.” 

Your face fell flat along with a weight settling back down in your stomach. “That’s not funny.” 

He shrugged one shoulder, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Is it?” The unamused look on your face still tinged in anxiety had Joel switch gears again. He didn’t find anything funny in joking about you or Ellie that way, so maybe it was fair you didn’t find jokes about him funny either. “Hey, I already told you. I’m not going anywhere. None of us are.” 

Biting the inside of your cheek you shifted your eyes off to the side before nodding. Feeling Joel press another kiss to the side of your head as he shoved you towards the hall. “Go, I’ll be right there.” 

In his room and in the hall you both lingered on something. Your fingertips trailing over the almost insignificant things on his dresser. Tiny pieces of Joel that if he were gone, wouldn’t really belong there anymore. A thought making you sick to your stomach. You’d rather she come for you, at least they could go back to their regular lives. 

Joels own fingers flipping through the pages. Knelt down he quietly had pulled the journal from where it sat close on Ellie’s bed. He let her discover it, he already knew what it would say, just in details that actually mattered. 

She went through most of the reactions she could, denial, anger, lashing out before she exhausted herself leaving tears the only energy she had left in her. It tore his chest right open exposing his heart to the cold air. They were the monsters and not only did they want to kill him all for a man who tried to take his own girl’s life but now the delusional lies they told themselves left her feeling betrayed and used. 

But it wasn’t just her was it? By some miracle some higher power gave Joel not one, but two things in this nightmare to hold onto. Sometimes it was frustrating, watching you unable to believe what he wanted to give you, but then again he wasn’t much different with Ellie was he? 

Ellie pulled him out of a darkness, and Joel had no intention of not doing the same to you. And he knew damn well Ellie felt the same. 

Standing in his room, it occurred to you that maybe you should try to be sexy, allure Joel to you or anything like that. You felt stupid though even thinking about where to start or if he would just roll his eyes at you for trying.

The door closing knocked a sense into you, realizing maybe he wanted you to be ready by now you almost flinched back before starting to pull your shirt up. Two large hands however covered yours as he pressed himself behind you. “Doing my job for me.” 

Your arms went willingly Joel stopped to pull your bra up over you along with the shirt, dropping it down into a messy pile. He wasted no time in filling his hands up with your breasts, almost kneading the plush skin as your back arched into his chest with a breathless gasp. He didn’t want you like this though, he wanted all of you. 

Using his thumb and index finger he tugged slightly at both your nipples letting you choke a moan back as he moved onto the rest of you. His taller figure leaned over you, the once presumed glare narrowing his features now rung in your head as an introspective train of thought, determined in whatever task even with his arms wrapped around your front skillfully undoing the button on your pants. 

A shiver ran down your spine as his mouth bent to press a feather light kiss to your neck so he could reach lower, dragging the zipper down and grasp the waistline. Your shivering from the winters cold air still floating through the room, you felt your limbs tingle as he mumbled into your neck, “Be good for me.” 

Slowly starting to pull both your pants and underwear down, Joel couldn’t help his greed, pausing to squeeze fistfuls of your ass almost too roughly before continuing to pull them off of you. Before he could do anything else, once you stood bare in front of him, you turned in his hold quickly. 

Sudden movement catching him by surprise, it gave you enough time to already start undoing his belt and zipper. Joel’s own plans caught in his mouth at just how easily you made him so unbearably hard just at your small careful hands trying to pull out his cock before he even has properly touched you yet. 

He didn’t let you get as far as the faint beginning of you moving your fingers to grasp at his own pants before snatching your hands. Your eyes wide as he held them in the air, his eyes dark with a mocking disapproval. “Now what did I say about being good for me?” 

That tingle in your limbs spreading through your heart out into your veins as you bit slightly at your bottom lip at his tone. Your hands fell loose in his grip causing him to switch to approval. Maneuvering you so he now was the one with his back to the bed, he held you at your hips walking you over to the bed. 

“Now, are you going to let me do something for you? Something new?” Your eyebrows raised in question, unsure to what he meant. You thought at this point you had done mostly everything or at least knew everything. 

Living outside of the walls didn’t exactly foster an environment eager to share or teach the fun side of sex, or you know, it in general in your case. “I-yeah.” Boy, how enthusiastic of you. 

Joel only smiled softly though, pulling your chin in to press a soft kiss before pulling you onto the bed with him. Joel the one laying with his back on the sheets, he guided you so your core sat pressed right against the bumpiness that blocked his cock under the open belt. Large warm hands running over and squeezing the plush skin he could grab at watching you slip your fingers to smooth over his stomach under his shirt. 

“Come up here, sweetheart.” 

You both had two different intentions. One being you assuming he means for a kiss, the other using his strong arms to pull your hips off his clothed cock and up his body. Suddenly your soft touch against his skin turned into a much more urgent press against his chest, “Wait, wait-” Joel kept you in place, but his eyes narrowed in concern at your tone. Your question confusing him somewhat. “What are you doing?” 

His tone slow and clear as he worry turned to a bit of confusion. “I’m just trying to taste you, sweetheart. Just like always,” 

Your fingers pressed into him more, causing him to sit up slightly as you looked hesitant and even somewhat embarrassed. “But why would I-” Your eyes casted down at anywhere but his face as you put the not so complicated clues together. “Why would you want it that way? Instead of you know, like we usually...” Christ you couldn’t possibly feel less attractive currently.

Joel raised an eyebrow, letting your hips back down without moving you away, his hands now smoothing over your thighs. “Because I really want my mouth on this pussy, sweetheart.” 

Your body tensed which he didn’t like at all. “Why would you, I mean wouldn’t you find that...” You hesitated on saying gross, having a feeling that wouldn’t be a word to go over well. “...uncomfortable?”

Joel’s hands squeezed your thighs as his head flopped back down onto the pillow. Unable to stop wondering what kind of encounters you had out there. You genuinely just didn’t know what he was trying to do, looking at him in the most confused innocent way he’s ever seen on you. “Jesus fucking christ, you’re going to kill me.” Barely mumbling under his breathe. Sitting up properly, he maneuvered you into his lap. “We don’t have to do it, but I really fucking want to.” 

Your hands tapping at his shoulders, you seemed to drop some of the embarrassment leaving just an uncertainty. “I just don’t get why you’d want to..can’t I just suck your cock?” 

Joel’s head dropping down onto your shoulder as he mumbled even more. Sliding his hand between your bodies, he felt a trace of your wetness, using what he could touch to slide up and rub into your clit. “We can do that if you want. Or we can do both at the same time.” 

This time you smiled, pulling back with a laugh as he joined keeping you from going too far off in his hold. “Okay that sounds even worse for you.” 

He let you get away with it this time. Joel pulled you into his lips, sighing as you let his tongue tease and slide into your mouth as he kissed you. The push and pull of his tongue against yours sending shock waves between your legs adding to what you already knew was making a mess. His kiss and his tongue always making you so lightheaded. 

Taking advantage of how lost you got in his kiss, Joel suddenly lurched forward, sending your back to fall against the rest of the bed as he crawled over top of you. Your hands finding their way to rake through his hair as he kissed you more. 

Joels hands unable to choose a spot to touch you, from your hips to thighs and back to to teasing your nipples, he tucked his head into your neck once more as he kissed the skin there. 

One hand of your leaving his hair, trailing down his broad back to his narrower lower side before sliding under to gently take his cock into your hand. His hands gripping his preexisting hold on your nipples tighter as he groaned. Joel covering your body so much made the angle not easy, but you ran your thumb over hips tip already leaking onto your hand. 

In a move that actually caused Joel’s body to jump, you suddenly smoothed your palm all over the tip of his cock, smearing the precum over it before sliding it down the length you could reach. Enough precum on you to fill the air with the slick sounds of his skin with each stroke. Joel moaned into your neck before trying to smother it with biting a mark into it. He was too long and too thick to cover enough even half of his cock, but your grip was tight and strokes fast but steady. 

Yanking your head to angle for his mouth, you gripped him tighter in pleasure at how his hold on your hair was so commanding.  Biting against your lips this time until you whined in need of a breathe. The feeling of his lips sliding across your cheek to right against your ear. “I want this pussy, not your hand.” 

Sliding own he pushed your thighs out to spread enough for his size. Giving you no warning for how quickly he moved his mouth over your clit. His hands never letting go of your spread legs with a bruising strength, his was shameless in how sloppy he was. Licking at your clit only to almost kiss it as he would your actual lips. The same soaked licks moving down to tease at your entrance, to your clit and back. 

One hand roughly shoved its way to your mound, pressing the heel of his calm into your clit soaked with you and his own saliva and rubbed short quick strokes. As one knee bent with your gasp, Joel used his free hand to greedily hold the soft skin of your waist before licking into you feverishly. 

Your back arched off the bed as a shock stabbed through you, sending a fiery pleasure into every stretch of your nerves. He licked into you with no cohesive pattern or approach, just drinking from you like a man starved for only one need. His rubbing into your clit lost in your wetness form how little he moved away from it, but deep in Joel he knew the slight burn of drier friction on your clit yanked cries from you. 

Your orgasm suddenly hit you with a force, “Oh fuck, Joel-” A white hot train flowing from your clit and soaked right into Joel who only added to the feeling as he moaned into your pussy. His grip already so tight he’d be able to see bruises once he was done with you. 

He never let up, “Fuck, baby.” Mumbling to himself as he licked more inside of you, letting his hand slide down to gather more from your core he realized just how unbelievably soaked you were. His tongue grazing up against a sensitive wall inside of you, he gave you zero time to calm down. 

The wet rubs of two fingers against your clit, harsh pushing and tight strokes the wet sounds filling the air alongside how relentless he tasted you. Your hands tightly grasping the sheets just above your head as your whole lower half arched closer to his mouth. 

Your heart beat widely out of your chest as the pleasure coiled inside of you without ever letting you recover from the sudden burst of your first orgasm. Your legs shook as he kept them bent by the knee, feet flat on the sheets as they were spread as far as he could manage. 

You didn’t even realize when one hand left your hip, his grip so tight it held a phantom sting in its departure. Joel’s own hips lifting up enough to start shoving his jeans down as far as he could manage without leaving your cunt. 

The groan vibrating through your body as he finally was free down to his knees and pressed his cock into the sheets adding to whatever mess he was pulling from you. You didn’t have words this time, just high pitched gasps and desperate attempts at his name that were interrupted by sharp jolts of pleasure almost bordering on pain. 

The flying burn of your orgasm this time felt like a flood passing the bloodstream. A needing warmth engulfing you as the white noise in your ears turned out whatever was passing by Joel’s lips. You missed it the first time, and now the second time. 

Joel didn’t realize it either. He knew exactly the feeling and why it made him take you with such a lack of control but neither of you were in the state of mind that night to hear it. 

You had just barley felt the final shocks of pleasure as Joel pulled from you. His face twisted close to a snarl as he impatiently pulled his jeans off the rest of the way. Grabbing the back of his shirts collar and throwing it beyond sight. 

His chest leading to such a soft stomach made his thick cock stand out between his legs. You touched the skin over his chest near his heart, but Joel couldn’t handle such a soft touch. Not right now. He couldn’t lay there and let himself feel your gentleness without something in his heart snapping. Instead, Joel yanked up your hips and sunk his cock into your folds. 

Your name moaned from his mouth, “Fuck, don’t- oh fuck.” You hadn’t come down yet, aftershocks of your orgasm overwhelmed your system as you felt his thick cock sliding into you. Clenching around him without trying to tease, you were still soaking his cock from your orgasms. 

Joel buried his face into your neck. One hand fisted into the sheets beside your head as he closed his eyes. Your arms wrapped around his neck, you paused mid motion as your rang your hands through the ends of his hair as one arm wrapped around your waist to keep himself tucked inside you but strong enough to keep you from moving. 

It actually took a bit before Joel tempered whatever aggression was overwhelming him. He wanted to do this for you, but now your touch, your cunt, your soft lips always speaking and pressing so sweetly against his? It tugged at his heart just as much as he took over all of your senses. 

The grip on your hair tempered down to cupping the back of your head. Joel moving to consume you in a less rough kiss, but the damage was already done to your swollen bitten lips. The plumpness just like his own without the greedy teeth markings. 

Your heart slowing down, but somehow still hard enough to feel in your chest at his touch. Joel pulled away, tracing his nose along yours. “Turn around for me, sweet girl.” 

Joel gently shushing comfortingly at you at your whine when he pulled out. But you complied. Joel’s mouth was open, panting as his hands clenched beside him watching you go willingly move to your hands and knees. But that’s not the closeness either of you truly needed. 

You sighed at how much more gentle his touch was, moving you up to kneel your back against his chest just like earlier. His cock slid between your thighs, already soaked as it teased between your folds. “Just like that, I’ve got you.” 

One of your arms reaching behind to find a tender home in his now messy hair, while the other laid flat against the arm wrapping around your stomach. “Please,” You leaned your head against his shoulder as Joel rubbed your stomach and hip with his free hand. His brown eyes bright and so much less of a dark lust, replaced with a soft almost desperateness. “I want to feel you. Please? I can still take it, I just want you inside of me.” 

You felt so one note in your brain, but Joel dealt the killing blow when he pressed his lips to yours. Not rough, or commanding, just soft kisses that he struggled to part from. Finally moving to grip his cock, he pulled away and turned your head to look down. 

Joel slid his cock inside of you, not spending a moment to stop and let you adjust to his size. Just one smooth stroke that didn’t thrust into you too fast until you were sat totally full of his cock. “Always slide so well into you,” 

Your eyes squeezing shut at the sight, his cock was so thick watching it slide deep inside you was too much to handle. Your head leaned back against him, lungs stuttering at how drastic he was handling you now compared to mere minutes ago. 

Joel held you tightly against him, burying his face into your neck and shoulder as he started to finally slide his cock almost out of you. Your whimper at the prospect of him leaving you empty poking at something distressing in your mind. 

You weren’t sure he ever kept up a pace this slow. Your pussy so tight and wet around his cock, making the sounds of him pulling and pushing his cock in and out so much louder. How much you’ve already cum so much more obvious as he moaned into your shoulder. 

You couldn’t tell anyone how long you were there. Knelt back against his chest as his cock fucked into you, not even hard enough to call it thrusting. Your chest felt so constricted yet filed with a warmth that would be cozy if his cock wasn’t sliding right up against such a sensitive wall inside of you. 

Inside of you this time the coil was just a slow and calm. But the addition of how tight he already pushed your orgasm too had this build up flutter around you. It just slipped from your lips, the brave face you tried to fake in front of him, in front of everyone crumbled with his squeezing hands and slow slide of his cock inside of you. Something deep in your heart plead. “Stay with me, please. God, Joel- stay with me.” 

Your eyes were shut and Joels arms held you tighter. His jaw clenching, teeth gritted as his breaths came out in rasping pants. He pressed his lips into your neck and whatever part of your jaw he couch reach. “Always, sweet girl. I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere. “

Even as his cock throbbed inside of you as your walls clenched around him, as the burning orgasm threatened to overtake you once more, it all mixed together as you just whispered his name. The drag of his cock along the sensitive walls of your cunt pushed tears from your eyes. 

Gasps and breathless pleas let go of the stinging tears behind your eyes and cried down your cheeks as one final loud and wet push of his cock inside of you had whatever hold you had on him dig your nails into his skin. 

Your orgasm pulling a gasping sob from you. Just one, but loud enough in Joel’s ears to cover your mouth as your pleasure sung into his hand. Joel couldn’t take it any longer. His cock so desperate to burst, he moaned into your neck and finally came.

Your pussy fluttering around him, as his cum spilled inside of you. Thick and to both of you, never ending. He came inside of you more then he could remember, filling you with warm cum that didn’t stop the tears of your need. 

By the time you both came down, you had dropped more then Joel had thought. Your eyes barley open, as your struggled to catch your breathe. Weak nods to his questions, asking if you were with him, what you needed, weak thank yous to him just saying how perfect you fit him. 

He shushed in your ear when he pulled out, never letting both hands off of you and his lips somewhere close to yours. You both laid in bed for a while, both your bare, sweat covered bodies, your lower half a little more wet with cum then what he didn’t bother cleaning from his cock. He held you with his nose pressed into your hair waiting for you to come down before he even thought of getting up to clean you off. 

Your mind was fuzzy and your face felt the aftermath of tears but none of it had any regret. Your eyes were closed, fine with coming down in his arms as you faced one another. Slowly ready to peel your eyes open, you noticed he wasn’t at your eye level, his face in your hair. His breathing enough confirmation he hadn’t fallen asleep. 

You burned between your legs, the mix of rough and soft kept the memory of his thick throbbing cock inside of you. You knew you were covered in cum between your thighs but you didn’t have any reason to want to get rid of it anytime soon. 

You did however ask to do something Joel ignored. Smirking, you suddenly left his gentle pressed arms, down his body. He flipped onto his back reflexively to see what you were doing, before hissing out. 

Licking the tip of his cock before sinking down around the rest. His cock now soft but it still was coated in your orgasm and his cum. Joels moans were stuttering and needy as he cupped the back of your head, still bobbing up and down his length sucking him until his chest was ready to explode. He called your name in warning along with more strings of swearing through hissed teeth, “Jesus fucking christ, baby”, but you already were slowing down the second it bordered too overwhelming for him. 

Your mouth sliding down to press your nose into the coarse dark hair around his cock, before very slowly sliding back, making sure his cock didn’t leave you until you had sucked him clean. Only fair he gets even the slightest idea of how overstimulated he so greedily made you.

Sliding him gently out of your mouth you went to come back up to his level. Your hand cupped his soft length now resting between his legs before your palm moving to his stomach. Chest, and the cupping the side of his face as you rubbed your thumb along his facial hair.

Joel chuckled deeply in his chest, pulling your face to his with fingers pulling your chin as he kissed you. Pushing you back into the sheets with half his body over you as you shared a gentle kiss. “You are such a goddamn brat.” 

You smiled back, letting his tongue tease yours as you tried to find breathes into between the kiss. “Maybe. Just for you though.” 

He nuzzled his nose against yours then pressed a kiss to it. He didn’t say it, he so badly wanted to say it but so much of his emotions came out in times like this. He wanted to tell you in quiet peace, make sure you understand your heart belongs to him for the rest of his life. Telling you now, he didn’t want to risk you thinking it was just to keep you calm or not upset. 

Neither of you realizing he’s already said it twice this very evening. 

Only one of those times did it reach someones brain, but to their dismay, it was neither of you who even heard what came out of his own mouth. 

You spoke quietly into the night. Joel on his back as he kept his arms around you to rest on his chest. Sometimes you sat up enough to look at him properly, ensuring you both understood the plans, backup plans, and what might be the safest option. At least for in his home, in a town of innocent people. 

You needed Joel, but Joel needed you like he never even wanted from anyone else before. The concept of a deep need in his heart to keep a woman like you close in his arms like a lifeline would have been foreign not long ago. But then again, meeting Ellie changed a lot about what was going on in Joel’s head and heart. 

You took your time joining the two of them that morning. Still balancing intruding on what was no doubt an emotional time between those two, and wondering exactly what Ellie would even see you as. 

Joel for his part was as normal as possible, with an underlying closeness both he and Ellie stuck to each other with with a different kind of silent intensity. You did tell him your news would be the actually hurtful one. Ellie stopped moving her fork the second you turned the corner, a stare that almost felt judging but the slightest softening as she sniffed and forced her face impassive. 

Sensing Joel watching her carefully, Ellie glanced up at his flat expression with one eyebrow raised. Her own face falling just as flat. “What? I already used my crying quota for the week. And I’m not getting it all over my eggs either.” 

It wasn’t enough to jostle her, but Joel nudging the side of her head lightly before sharing a more serious glance with you. His eyes nodded over to a drawer in the counter, watching you for as long as he could follow. Neither of you wanting to make a scene about it in front of Ellie. 

Watching the their backs as you silently wrapped the your knife sheath around your waist, quickly covering it purposely with one of Joel’s jackets that sat just blow it on your thigh. He had taken it upon himself to sharpen your usual knife for you, not before stopping of course to comment on how shit it looked. Words of praise towards your equipment he was full of. 

You had found yourself alone with Owen when Joel was distracted. Ellie prompted out of the house from a Maria that gave Joel a knowing look. He had stopped by earlier to talk to them, and she agreed to keep Ellie out with her, purposely around a decent amount of people. 

A spark of need inside your heart telling you that he at least deserved water. He didn’t say much, but his eyes spoke for him. A surprise at being given any hospitality. 

Almost ending up giving him an entire bottle, you watched him with one hand hovering somewhat near his face. Looking between the water and his face, you tilted your head as you considered if you were willing to ignore the part of you that people like him tried to deprive you of. “If I take that off of you,” using your free hand to gesture to his gag, “Are you going to stay quiet?” 

Owen seemed exhausted, nodding his head almost lazily as your chest raised in a deep breathe. “You make any noise, this time I’m just going to stuff it right into your mouth.” There wasn’t much in the way of conviction in your voice, but as you slowly untied the gag he made no sound aside from catching his breath. 

Flipping the bottle against the cloth, you let it soak for a while on the cleanest side where it sat at the back of his head. 

Silence, Joel was used too. He lived in it, too much of it for a long time even. Even through the turmoil in his head, the quiet still helped him stay clear. Listening to any hint of a sound and knowing how to react to it. 

Probably why he didn’t search for you when he found himself seemingly alone in the house. If he had one distraction it was you, and an unshakable need to make sure he could hear or see your every step. The past few weeks had really set that tendency in motion. But he needed silence. And he heard it break. 

Getting the jump on him outside in the world was one thing, but this was his territory. Somewhere he could sense the slightest thing out of place. Joel just raised two hands slightly in the air. He knew it could be a variety of possibilities behind him, so he played ball. For now. “You really think I can’t tell when someone’s in my own home?”  

“Just turn around. Slowly.” 

Joel expected something not quite what he saw. Dark eyes and angry, willing to do anything for that ravaging vengeance inside. But no. The woman behind him wasn’t quite that. As if it was what she wanted to put on but there was an uncertainty in her eyes that made him narrow his. Her face was tense, looking over him with her arm outstretched as much as she could. Either keeping the gun as close to him as possible, or wanting to keep as much distance from him. 

“You live here?” 

Joel’s eyes darkened more at the woman. “You sure don’t.” 

“Just answer the question, you live here right? With a girl? Fucking, what’s her name, Ellie?” 

Sometimes anger worked in favour of the advantage, but not against him. Joel mastered the art of anger as motivation and there wasn’t a single second ever again did he want any of her kind of people saying that girls name. His face steeled at her, hands up almost just for show at this point. “Keep her name out of this. I think we both know who you’re looking for.” 

A realization dawned on her, and it only pissed her off that much more that he was having no reaction of fear. “You’re him right?” Joel cocked an eyebrow but nothing more. “The hospital, that was you right? You’ve got the girl, after everything you’ve done I can’t imagine you’d dump her off somewhere. People usually don’t ditch people they’ve murdered innocent people for.” 

Her own teeth started to grit as she spat her words out with eyes no doubt growing red. “You in the habit of cutting open a fucking child and calling yourself a good person for it?” 

Shaking her head, Joel could hear how hard she was trying to keep her breathing under control, her fingers on the gun twitching slightly and not from any kind of trigger fingers. “No right, you had no fucking right he was a goddamn person-” 

Joel’s hands started to lower, and yet it didn’t make her any more confident. The twitch turned into what looked like her hand shaking. “And she’s my daughter.” 

She shook her head, eyes falling in darkness to something much more complicated. “So what you get your daughter and I have to loose my own father for it? Fucking..people like you...” 

No doubt this was a plan much more confident in theory, because Joel risked a step forward as his face twisted more into something of anger she took a step back. Readjusting her aim with an unsteady arm. 

“Put your hands back up,” 

They remained just barley by his sides, “You think I’m gonna reach for something? ‘Cus trust me you even think about pulling that trigger and I’ll make sure you regret it.” 

Whatever laugh she let out was weak, but the tense look one could mistaken for crazed told a thousand different emotions. “I’m not stupid, I know you don’t have a fucking weapon on you.” 

The one he thought was in the room wasn’t. Getting caught off guard by her after getting caught off guard by it’s lack of presence. Ellie didn’t always put things in the right place after she tries to sneak them away. His voice was low, even, and absolute that it made her hair stand on end. “You really think I need a gun to kill you?” 

You don’t remember Grady being particularly smart. Loyal, good at following orders but missing the basic function of checking a corner. Crouching as he snuck into the room, he could see Owen knelt on the floor, blood on his face, chest, hands and a swollen eye as even his gag was blood soaked. What he didn’t see was you. 

One arm suddenly wrapped around his face, the fabric of it’s jacket shoved to muffle his voice as the other hand pressed a cold metal to the bottom of his head right at his chin. Unlike the shaky arm holding a similar gun at Joel, you had the advantage of having yours at least pressed right against the mans head. Grady didn’t feel the shake in your bones behind the straining muscle. 

Moving him closer to the open door, your heart pounded so harshly that you could throw up from the shaking pressure it put on you. You could hear her yelling, and a dangerously low cadence from Joel, but she was getting louder and angrier. 

And while you had this one and a knife strapped to your side, Joel’s gun sat tucked behind your back only realizing whoever touched it last, didn’t put it where Joel had clearly expected to grab it before being snuck up on. 

He was bigger, stronger then her. But if she shot first then it didn’t matter how much Joel could overpower her. She was yelling more, and so did your limbs shake. You were supposed to help have this under control, but she was looking for blood and Joel’s own gun wasn’t in his hand. 

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t shoot you dead right now you fucking bastard-” Joel must have said something in response, “Her dad for my dad it’s only fair,” 

You couldn’t stand there, you couldn’t let him deal with her on his own. You push an already aggressive dog to the edge, then she’s just going to go for the throat because she can. Plan B it was. Despite not knowing what that entailed. 

A hallway door was kicked open, and following right out was a man Joel didn’t recognize but by the confused anger on her face, she did. Deep down Joel wished the voice was Tommy. There was no hesitation the man could handle himself, and didn’t make Joel feel cold and petrified at having to involve you in this more. 

But you rang a warning shot at a higher part of the wall that had the woman jump in startle. What followed though, was a reaction that in a way reminded him of you. Likely an ironic association, because all that it took was you yell out who you were. Her eyes widened as the hand pointed right at Joel trembled. A washing devastation that surpassed mere surprise, something she didn’t expect and neither had Owen.

The man on the floor pressed himself up against the wall in fear as did a new unsettling emotion come over the woman in front of Joel. But you piled onto something that just dug deeper, 

Your voice almost a shout that shook in what Joel felt in his heart a terrified urgency. “You know who I am Abby, and what I’ll do to Owen and Grady if you don’t bring Joel to me.”

Whatever intimidation she felt from a man she considered a monster, Abby’s entire being shook. Her gun was on Joel but she could barley keep her eyes on him or on Grady just looking at her desperately for help. This wasn’t a normal fear, almost one that was like seeing a ghost she could only hear.

Her yell back was a rasping screech as she morphed her features into too much to keep up with. “You do anything, and I swear to god-” She’d what? Shoot the man in front of her and set you lose on her? 

You needed to scare her. Swallow the dizzying sickness in your head and the bile from eating at your chest. You couldn’t take the chance of her first instinct to act at Joel before you did hers. 

You shook as you pointed the gun at Grady, but you were hidden behind the wall from her sight, and the sting in your eyes couldn’t be used against you. Blood splattered all over the wall behind Grady's head, the booming shot and painted red had Abby flinch back. 

Joel didn’t move. A deep seeded anger at who his life was at the expense of burned his soul, but he didn’t dare risk letting it happen. If Abby was going to shoot, it sure as hell wouldn’t be at him or his own.

In barley a second, you holstered the gun so quick it could have missed and dropped to the floor. The knife at your side flew into your hand, gripping tight as you hauled Owen over in front of you, your knife pressed so much to his throat he made the most inaudible squawks of protest at the sharpness. 

Hauling him up partially on his feet, you pressed with better leverage. “Your boys next Abby- give him to me,” Your voice yelled, so loud it scratched your throat at the strain. It was violent and angry, and you only wished it made you feel it too. Instead you stood, braced against the wall with a knife keeping Owens battered self in your threat as your soul kept shaking and holding back the sting in your eyes. 

Abby’s jaw clenched as she swore, her yell echoing down the halls. “Fuck- okay.” 

It was the only choice for you and her. She wanted Owen back, and you needed Joel. A conflict in her eyes as she looked between the man now slumped over in the hall, and the darkness in a pair of eyes she never truly prepared herself to face properly. 

Abby’s eyes peeled off the sightless body to the open air between it and the door. “We make a trade. I bring him to you, I get Owen back and we leave. Got it?”

You looked to the side, knowing nothing was out the view you could see out the door anyways. “You touch him in anyway and I slit this throat. Got it?” 

One request was shouted back. “Toss the gun.” 

It wasn’t even a second later the gun banged far out on the wooden floor. You it turned out, weren’t the only one with a shaking fear of losing their companion. There wasn’t a soul in that house didn’t radiate that very perilous fear. Joel looked at Abby with his features sharp and penetrating. Her other hand having to rise up and join her hold on the gun just to keep it aimed at him. “This isn’t over you understand me?” 

Abby didn’t appear to know what scared her more. The threat of death you held at Owens throat, or just how terrifyingly cold Joel’s unblinking expression didn’t move from. This was supposed to be easy, kill some guy who shot her father for no reason. But standing here, motioning for him to walk slowly towards the hall? It was made clear that you and Joel weren’t regular people, and this was exposing itself to be something she didn’t remotely prepare for.

It felt like agony standing there, each creak of the floorboard screaming in the terse silence the only indication of life. Owen’s blood was seeping into your clothes and staining your skin at this point and there was next to nothing holding back the pressure behind your eyes. 

You wanted to be someone else. Someone brave, a person others would look at and say is some kind of fighter, someone a kid like Ellie would amusingly call a bad ass. But you stood holding a man at knife point trading his life for the man you love didn’t make you feel brave. Just scared. Scared beyond whatever danger you had been alone in the past, and sick to your stomach that it took up until now for you to feel brave enough to even think that word. 

They were outside the door, but you shook. Grip on the knife so tight you might have started hurting your own palm with the tight grip as you were hurting Owen’s neck with the blade. The bravery wasn’t even in your voice. “Joel first.” 

“Show me him. Let me see him.” 

You were done paying any kind of hero or savior. Instead just tearing the knife away and shoving Owen enough that he stumbled onto the ground. Hands behind his back still too bound to steady him. 

Joel was handed over first. Whatever passed between them unknown to you until a tidal wave hit your heart as you both reached for the other the second he came in view. Joel’s own expression harsh, nostrils flared as his rage was barley contained in his bones. His warm hands gripping your forearms as he looked at a watering overflow of something grander then fear pass your face as you looked him over for anything hurt. 

He cupped one of your cheeks as you took a deep breathe. Joel’s eyes narrowed in question, and you nodded. Hoping the shaking breathe you let you was only audible to one. His hand keeping your touch as it wasn’t leaving one of your wrists, almost keeping your mind back at his side as you turned the corner. 

Neither of you looked like the visage of bravery your actions spoke. Neither of you even tried. Abby’s eyes widened with a taken back sort of shock as she looked at you. A name she kept hearing and denying, but your face that of what she long remembered as a memory. A bite sharp on your arm before watching your gun raise as she fell back to the ground. 

She lived, and kept trying to deny that you could have either. But you both looked at each other, as she held her own gun to you. Resting one side against the door frame just to keep it steady, while your own hand kept the knife painfully tight. 

Joel stood behind you, and you felt him pull up your jacket slightly, resting the fabric to expose what you had hidden away behind you. Abby was staring at you and you back, she didn’t even see Joel’s hands moving near your back. 

Her words slurred together, teeth bordering on gritting from the force. “Give him to me.” 

Joel squeezed your arm holding the knife. Don’t move was his touch. Abby’s gaze continued to plaster all over you, and yours taking her person in, in a capacity she couldn’t possibly even guess now. Blood ringing in your ears hearing the shuffling behind you. Abby kept it on you now, a woman much more a fighter unable to tear her attention away from how entangled your lives became. 

Your own eyes stung. Unable to move or blink, looking at the very thing that confused you. Was her being here what scared you, or how very real losing the one thing that brought you to a purpose was becoming? 

As soon as Joel slightly pushed Owen, Abby snatched him with one arm and yanked him to her side, Owen barley keeping himself up despite his hands now free. Joel having undone them bringing him over. But as soon as he was out of his hand, he reached for your back once more. His arm smoothly pulling the gun, and now aiming it at Abby. She didn’t just try to kill him, now she had her gun pointing at you and it was pushing Joel to an edge he was close to forcing you to let him fall off. 

His instincts were quicker then hers, and he dared her to end it the smarter way, as opposed to joining the mess on the walls behind her. 

Her eyes flickered between the two of you, mind racing with questions not even she could understand at that moment. You weren’t supposed to be here, this wasn’t even about you. Blind to what kind of people she walked in on, she just looked at you and Joel unable to land on what to do. 

You could feel something vile rising in your throat, just as unable to grasp what was unfolding in front of you. Abby had no right to make this about Joel. Either she knew the truth and lost herself beyond the capacity of her own humanity, or she was left in the dark and didn’t care to turn the lights on herself. A fact you couldn’t feel okay with. Your voice was mostly just a whisper once you found the strength to push something forward. “This is really just about your father?” 

You didn’t need to hear the answer to that. You already knew by a confused pain in her eyes. Not understanding what else this could possibly be over. To her it was almost a taunt, her failure she was able to see through, but to you? A memory that no longer felt pushed away. A truth that was fighting tooth and crawl to attack you at your door. 

Owen leaned against her exhausted and bloody. Lowering her gun she glanced down to your arm, it was covered and there was nothing to see though. Remaining you a ghost. 

Her gaze flicked to Joel’s own aim, no shake or tremble to be found. Don described nothing more then some guy had done it, but the inflamed emotions boiling behind Joel’s eyes wasn’t the story she had been sold on. So they ran. Slamming open a back door you not to long ago ran out of just as harshly, also running from these very people but for drastically different reasons. 

 You didn’t register Tommy or Maria coming in, you only had the capacity to feel Joel pull you into his chest. One arm wrapped tightly around your stomach as you finally leaned back into him. Your eyes squeezing shut, you felt Joel gently take your knife from your fingers and put it back in it’s sheath as he spoke to Tommy. 

You grabbed the wrist that wasn’t around you, holding it just as he did when he first came back to you still needing him to ground you to the floor. These weren’t two worlds ever meant to mix. This was supposed to be a solace for him and a breather for you, but you combined your lives and now stood a mess painted with the looming of blood.

Was this your fault? And if not why couldn’t you have done something to actually end this? 

You thought back to the night you and Joel opened up to each other. How the worst emotion you felt was finding out how Tommy blabbed about your feelings for him by the very man you had the such a humiliating crush on. How letting him in was so scary to you back then. 

Would all of this have happened anyways? Or was letting him kiss you that night, pull you into his arms and he yours forever entangling your hearts in ways new to both of you the catalyst? 

If this was all your fault, would Joel end up despising you for not fixing this? 

[coeluvr]

As much as I would love for Alistair to be alive, I've honestly started wondering if it would actually be better that he did die. Both for his and Mc's sake. I know its sad, but otherwise I could see him and mc facing a lot of heartbreak over it.

And its been 10 years, a whole decade. Mc may have had a hard life, but they didn't have to worry about survival/money etc. They lived in relative peace and safety. (Though I'm sure mc got food poisoning at least once..) And they did have people that tried to be there for them. Even mc's that discounted Lance and Hunter's company, they still had Fadiya and Neima. And some mc's are still super messed up. Who knows what Alistair would have had to go through. And how would that have shape him. And the agony of having his twin kidnapped and married off to the same man that killed his family.

So supposing he did survive. Its possible he's off living a relatively peaceful life, albeit still with the trama of losing his familly and nearly dieing. And he would probably be working hard to find a way to rescue Mc. Training and studying and whatnot. Best case scenario, his personality has dulled but still retained a bit of sunshine. Mellowed but still hopeful. Still a recognizable older version of himself, even if sadder overall. I think that would definitely hinge on him being rescued and taken in by a kind and loving person/family and got properly cared for emotionally and all. And I feel that is unfortunately not going to be the case if he lived. (Because of course you wouldn't let something so nice happen 😒)

Otherwise, what would have happened? Who would it have been to save him then? Would he have just layed low, gotten a lowkey job, had to steal to survive? Would he have joined some rebel/mercenary group? I feel like some groups would have seen a good oportunity for a royal in their fold. Would the people around him be kind and nurturing, or not? Would he retain his current personality?

Maybe he'd be colder, cinical. Would he have seen and lived the harsh reality of the world and turned into a bitter, cruel, and merciless version of himself, intent on revenge?

What happens when he and Mc finally reunite? Would it be the joyful occasion everyone expects? If the first case, then yes. He and Mc finally get to have a happy life together. The End. Well…maybe. Even if Alistair is still the same as Mc remembers, what about the Mc? What if they've change so drastically, caught up in their hatred and revenge, so unwilling to back down even if it destroys everyone around them? Would they still be someone Alistair could love?

But if he and Mc want revenge just as much, maybe things would work out. Would mc be able to see the change in him reflected back on them and regret what they've both turned into? What if Mc didn't want revenge. Would he aquiesce to mc's wishes or not? Would mc be horrified to see what he had become? The image they once had of him be ruined by this new version.

And past that, how would mc feel about the news of his survival being kept from them?

His body should have been missing, right? Luceris would have know if he had lived in that case, or at least suspected it, and by extention so would Lancelot. I don't know if Helios or Hunter would have know. However, even if they didn't, mc still might think that they both knew and just didn't tell them. Afterall, its not the first time things have been kept from them.

So would mc be able to forgive them, especially one who was close to them. Or would that permanently destroy any trust and friendship they had with them.

- Sorry if this was too much of a ramble. 😂 Just got to thinking a bit to much about what-ifs and all. 💕

This was very interesting, thank you for sharing your thoughts! 🫡

I think when people say they wish for Alistair to be alive, they never consider what being alive could've looked like for him. Nor the fact he could have changed and become someone who is a stranger to MC.

[mayimkjs]

All of my DID Research for FOOL's MATE So Far

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CRITQUE THIS IF YOU ARE A SYSTEM! IF THERE'S ANYTHING YOU THINK I SHOULD ADD, PLEASE TELL ME IN ETHER THE COMMENTS, REBLOG THIS, DM ME OR THROUGH THE ANNONOMOUS FEEDBACK FORM.

Taken from the FOOL's MATE research doc

Introduction

Mikoto has Dissociative Identity Disorder. This means that he has multiple personalities/identities called “Alters”. DID is developed by repeated trauma typically before the age of 9 or 10 while one’s identity is not fully formed yet. In order to keep the host safe and functioning, the brain dissociates from those experiences and amnesia walls are put up. These walls interfere with the identity from fully integrating, and because of that, multiple identities are created. DID is the most severe form of PTSD.

Terminology

General

Alter: An individual “personality”. Alters are their own entities with their own consciousness, opinions and free will. They are each their own person, not a personality. They have their own names, genders, sexualities, ages or other identity traits. Alter is short for “Alternate Stare of Identity”.

System: The group of alters in one’s body. Sometimes, the system gives itself a name. For simplicity's sake, I will be calling Mikoto’s system the “Kayano System” or "Kayano Sys".

Inner World: A world that the mind has made for all the alters to live and communicate in. This is sometimes called “Headspace”.

Integration/Fusion: The act of 2 or more alters becoming one. This can happen randomly, when an alter is unneeded or from an alter coming to terms with or processing trauma. The new alter may change genders or names.

Split(ting): The formation of a new alter.

Switching / Fronting

Switch: The act of the alter who is in control of the body changing and switching to another. They can look slow, fast, immedient, very dissociated or many other things. They can also be intentional or unintentional. 

Front(ing): The alter who is in control of the body.

Co-Fronting: When multiple altars are in front at once. This can differ from system to system. 

Triggered Switch: These switches are not desired by any of the alters involved and occur when a stimulus has been registered that forces out an alter who can better handle it. 

Co-Conscious: When one alter is close enough to the front to know what’s going on in the outer world but isn’t in front. This is often called “Co-Con”.

Think of being able to tell what’s going on outside like a house. Someone is talking in a room and the closer you get to them (front), the more you can hear.

Roles

Host: The alter who is in front the most and handles day-to-day activities. This is seen as the main alter. These are not necessarily the “original” alter. However, it’s very common for the host to be the alter that has been around for the longest. Co-Hosts can also exist.

Protector: The alter who’s job is to protect the system from more harm whether it be physical, mental or emotional. There are many possible types of protectors like personal, primary, sexual, physical, spiritual, emotional and more. Protectors can slightly manipulate who is in front. 

Gatekeeper: The alter who is essentially like the administrator for the system. They can choose who fronts and manages/has access to all the memories in the system. They help the system stay organized and make sure nobody is remembering trauma they can't handle. 

Caretaker: They take care of and comfort the system or body. 

Fragment: An alter that is not fully differentiated or developed. They may exist to carry out a single function, to hold a single memory or to represent a single idea. It’s possible for fragments to develop into more elaborate alters if the need arises or with further use.

Types

Trauma Holder: An alter who holds trama. 

Non-Human: Sometimes, alters may appear as something other than human.

Introject: An alter who is based on a real person. The amount that they are based on someone can vary.

Fictive: An introject of a fictional character.

Little: A child alter. They stopped developing during the initial trauma or they extant to retain a type of childhood that the system was unable to experience. 

Others

Dissociative Amnesia: Not necessarily a DID thing and is really only a symptom. This is caused by someone unconsciously repressing traumatic or stressful memories as a coping mechanism. 

Singlet: Someone who doesn't have DID.

ANPs: Apparently Normal Parts have little knowledge of trauma. They are the rational, present-oriented and grounded parts of the system that handle daily life. 

EPs: Emotional Parts have awareness of trauma. They are the parts that represent dissociation and are often drawn to the front by reminders of trauma and may not experience much of everyday life.

Notes

Physical reflexes can differ between alters.

The debated average number of alters in a system is around 10-20 but you only need at least 2 alters to have DID.

Switching can also cause headaches and migraines. 

DID is the most extreme form of PTSD.

PTSD > CPTSD > DID

Medication cannot help DID it’s self. It can only manage symptoms such as anxiety or depression. 

Some alters may be neither apparently normal nor emotional parts but a combination of both.

Stress alone or in combination with genetics is not enough to cause PTSD. 

Misconceptions

What it is & How it’s formed

Someone can develop this but not have any symptoms until they are older. That is likely the case with Mikoto. 

Not all alters have trauma. 

DID isn’t always formed from abuse but it’s the most common way it’s formed. It’s not linked to a certain type of abuse. 

It’s not a personality disorder. It’s a trauma disorder. 

What are people with DID like?

People with DID can do anything someone without it can. 

Not all systems or alters are dangerous. 

Alter Relationships

Alters can be in any type of relationship. 

It's not always fun to have multiple people in your head. It's like a roommate you can't escape. 

All alters are responsible for each other’s actions. 

Alters can get into arguments and have their own opinions of other alters.

Kayano System

Roles

Mikoto: Host

John: Protector (ex-fragment)

Midokoto: Gatekeeper

Notes

They’re communication is horrible, if not non existent.

[pleasantspark]

A bout emily In base of her official script she wants more responsability and I believe despite being joy bringer she doesn't take care about traumatized winners so she has very shilder reality. Not matter the canon says I like theory exocists victims od sinners,so adam helps them with their trama, and aslo raphael.

I think both emily and charlie want to be hero because they feel unworting respect their tutor, and redeption is just an excuse. I mean imagine a scene like in mulana(cartoon) charlie admit she did what she did because she wants to feel special , ahero like her parents but she fail(because I'm not believe now extremination gone sinners would attack earth and another rings)

It doesn't really help that case. The point is, we didn't get what were shown. All I see is Steven Universe genderbent in Hell. I understand people make up their own fan theories but that's just fuel for VivziePop to make canon in her show, I don't understand why we weren't given what was advertised and I feel like either we were scammed or robbed.

I mean look at the HB PDF of the Pitch. There was no mention of He-Shall-Not-Be-Named. But that doesn't change the fact the show could've at least stuck with the original script.

We didn't even know Emily was a "Joybringer" until after Charlie and Vaggie was sent back to Hell and she TELLS US NOT SHOWS US she is to Sera.

To me, Emily is just Charlie 2.0. and it's not fair how the characters we are following don't get the proper characterization at all. Other than the fact they either fall into a specific critera in order to make the the show more "well meaning" and "evil"

Yeah females being shown in the wrong even if they aren't is definitely stupid as fuck. Apologizes for the rant I'm not feeling to good and I don't want to talk much about Hazbin anymore I'm starting to believe criticizing every point that's been bothering me is just not it anymore.

I'm a fanfiction writer for fucks sake! So most of my next few posts will be related to my DBZ stuff god I miss it so much.

Also my irratic behavior could be that I'm off my meds. Even though I've been off them for awhile now. Prolly just tired. Posting this and going to bed. Yes it's 2PM EST and I have depression. I don't find joy in this if anything Depression in the helluvaverse makes me even more depressed.

[ranlien]

"What are you?" (Theory)

(Chapter 107 spoilers)

Theory: the Fydor we see is actually the ability "Crime and Punishment".

(also, first time making a post; please pat gently and tell me if I break any tumblr etiquette roles or something)

First off, we know that it is possible for abilities to gain human form/take over their wielders.

There is Jules Gabriel Verne from 55 minutes, where his ability consumes him and walks around in his body as Gab for most of the novel,

and also how Arthur Rimbaud lived on as his ability (or programmed his ability to act as him? Uncertain, because I did not read the source material for this part)

so it is possible for abilities to be 'alive', or human-like.

There are a couple things that I am drawing from for this theory, but it feels like it all comes together nicely? So here it is:

Dead Apple, when Fydors ability appears it acts differently from other abilities in many ways.

His ability does not attack him and instead there is the kinda famous proclamation of "I am crime" and "I am punishment". Crime and punishment are cause and effect/result, and the person it is associated with can just as easily be reversed. In that scene, it always struck me that Fydor and his ability looked like mirror images and the proclamation could just as easily be reversed

the manifested ability under the fog has distinct facial features, unlike the other abilities

gemstone on hand rather than forehand like everyone else

From Dead Apple, his ability seems to be very 'human' (and for the sake of consistency, I will just be referring to Fydor as the one we see in canon and his ability as "Crime and Punishment" instead of inverting it and confusing everyone and myself).

The other main point I guess was how Sigma phrased his question; he hesitates and then something causes him to ask "what are you?" instead of "what is your ability".

while far-fetched, maybe its Sigma's origins speaking to him as something created from the book. In physical terms, he is as human as everyone else (and probably the sanest and most mentally stable person in the prison)

but he is created from the book, completely out of nothing. I was always curious whether his origins would have further repercussions other than trama (wanting a home and trust) but it would be very interesting if he could sense, when he really looked, that something was off with Fydor as well.

and given how the question switched, it does seem like there. is the very natural implication that rather than directing the question about the nature of Fydor's ability, what he is is in doubt.

From the above, I propose: what we have been seeing in the manga is actually "Crime and Punishment" puppeting Fydor's body (also possible that they can switch, cause otherwise I don't know how they would be able to stand being in the same room as Dazai) while actual Fydor maybe sleeps inside the body???? Or helps along with the plans??? (maybe where the "help me" comes from)

The above is mainly what I was going off of when I thought of this theory, but there are some other miscellaneous notes as well.

Fydors 'ability' seems to kill through touch but the exact mechanics aren't really explained and its been so long (please asagiri we want to know). There are a lot of theories going around but I do like the one where it is some sort of judgement cause-and-effect death penalty. anyways.

If the actual Fydor and his ability is switched, I am curious as to how it plays out with his ideology of abilities being a sin that he seeks to erase from the world.

Now, onto really off the rails rambling that has almost no basis in canon, but just some cool theories that I have.

Assuming that the "Fydor" we see is actually "Crime and Punishment":

I am more inclined to believe that it was a conscious or at least meaningful decision to let "Crime and Punishment" take over, which could be for several reasons

first of all, his personality. Abilities do reflect the person, and Fydor seems to be someone who would gladly calculate and weigh his own death if it will bring enough benefits, and

given the age range, Fydor was probably fairly young but still around when the great ability war happened, which may contribute to their desire to eradicate abilities

given the nature of the ability, would it be interesting if original Fydor's ability granted him the ability to judge anyone who has committed more crimes than he has

but that wouldn't let him get too far, cause the road with good intentions is paved to hell, so maybe when "Crime and Punishment" takes over it becomes an inversion

and he can judge anyone who has committed less crimes than he has (which is a lot easier to control; he just has to ensure he is the only sinner around) and so he can instant-touch-kill almost anyone (save maybe Dazai actually, assuming there isn't the nullification that would be funny)

Well, thank you for reading my theory. First time posting, I really love bungou stray dogs and am looking to get into the fandom more, so I might post more (or lurk around).

Good day.

[thaliasthunder]

ok ok these r my notes from chapter 1 to 4

annabeth got taller than percy oh gods

since book 1 percy has a tendency to describe/compare annabeth's little gestures, even the gentle ones, to BATTLE MOVES. boi r u ok

so.. thalia's baddass

nico is a CHILD, didn't expect him to be that young 😭 (also him being a little gamer boi kind of remind to richie tozier from my last fandom)

not Artemis and the hunters throwing the boys shade HELPKSDJ

and not percy being a little shit for Bianca joining the hunters of Artemis 😭

grover being in love w artemis my little son

the way apollo annoys the shit out of artemis & her hunters 😭

15-almost-16-thalia driving omg 👀

grecia reading Percy Jackson #1: the lighting thief

IT'S HAPPENING

[winterpower98]

Its such an adorable idea for the Flower Fruit Mounted monkeys to just adopt MK as their older brother, then I remembered in havoc in heaven the monkeys actually know how to use swords and im pretty sure the Monkey king used them as an army at some point. So im just imagining when Red stared dating MK all the mokeys were ready to beat the crap out of him because at one point when red and mk were enemies MK would sometimes come to train with burn marks! And after the emotional trama Macaque put MK through im pretty sure he's in the same boat. Short answer MK's little monkey siblings know how to kick ass and take names!

Yes! In the book, you can see the monkeys fighting before Wukong gets captured and thrown in the brazer and if you watched the cartoon “Havoc in Heaven” from 1964 you can see the Monkey King training all the monkeys!

So you’re right when you say that all the monkeys on Mount Huaguo can and will fight for the sake of MK!

After Guanyin drags Macaque to Wukong (I wanted to draw this but I don’t know if I’ll ever have time to do that) the monkeys are all hellbent on bothering the hell out of the black monkey. They won’t stand a chance if they fight Macaque but that doesn’t stop them from throwing objects at him or sending him glares.

The first few weeks that MK came to training he and Wukong had the equivalent of a crowd watching them. All the little monkeys never showed any interest in MK’s training sessions but now that Macaque spent a good portion of his time on the mountain, they didn’t want to take any chances.

And as for Red, when MK brought him to Wukong the first time, the demon could see hundreds upon hundreds of eyes watching him, ready to spring on him the second he made a wrong move!

[fullmarvelheart]

Wakanda

Pairing: Avengers x Enhanced!OFC

Word Count: 3,000

Warnings: Swearing, mentions of violence, mentions of past trama

A/N: Welcome to Chapter 5 of Blue Starlight. I hope you all enjoy the story as well as the way I wrote the characters! The gif is not my own. All rights to the original creator. I hope you guys enjoy!

Series Masterlist

The plane lands and I'm almost blinded by the bright sunlight that reflects in off the tarmac as the ramp is lowered down.

Waiting for us is whom I'm assuming is the King, based on what Cap briefed us over, along with his personal guards. When Cap told us about the Dora Milaje, to say I was impressed is a gross understatement. I knew they were the fiercest warriors in Wakanda but seeing them up close, they're almost as intimidating as Natasha is. Even the Kingsguard looks exceptionally deadly.

"Should we bow?" Banner asks Rhodey as they exit the jet before me.

"Yeah, he's a king." Rhodey responds in an almost serious tone. Which apparently Banner doesn't catch onto.

As the Captain greets King T'Challa, Banner clears his throat and starts to bow.

"What are you doing?" Rhodey questions loudly enough to catch the King's attention.

"Uh, we- we don't do that here." The King says, somewhat awkwardly.

I chuckle to myself as the group begins to walk.

"So how big of an assault should we expect?" I go to answer the king but am cut off.

"Uh sir-sir, I think you should expect quite a big assault." Banner says pushing his way to the front while I roll my eyes.

Shut up. You don't even have the slightest idea.

"Thanos will most likely send one of his support ships, like the one that was in New York not too long ago. He calls them Q-Ships. He won't send his full army here, just what is deemed to be enough to overwhelm the forces on Earth, so the stone can be retrieved." I explain loudly but lower my voice as I get closer to the King, who looks at me curiously.

"How are we looking?" Natasha asks softly, diverting attention away from me, thankfully.

"You will have my Kingsguard, the Border Tribe, the Dora Milaje, and..."

"A semi-stable 100-year-old man." A new voice says walking up to us.

I take in a sharp breath and freeze. The Winter Soldier. Please don't let him still be with HYDRA! That's not something else I want to deal with today. But, he's smiling and doesn't look anything like the last time I saw him. He's not glaring at anything and he has plenty of emotions that I notice, just with one glance. He outwardly looks happy, healthy, but I can see pain and guilt still present in his steel blue eyes.

I can see it because I recognize it in myself.

As both Cap and him share a friendly embrace, I see Sam move into my periphery, though I don't acknowledge him.

"Are you alright?" He asks in a whisper.

I blink out of my frozen state and give him a tight smile and nod. As I'm turning back around, I see Natasha give me a curious look before turning back towards the Captain.

"How you been Buck?"

"Uh, not bad, for the end of the world." He says solemnly, yet with a small smile

I swear, this is the most I've ever heard him speak in one go. His voice isn't raspy from misuse anymore either. Maybe he's-

As if he can feel my eyes burning holes into the side of his head, he turns to face me. His eyes widen in recognition as his face changes from shock, to confusion, to anger, to regret, and then suspicion, all within a second.

"It's good to see you again, Blue." He says skeptically.

"You too, Soldier." I say in the same tone, brushing my fingertips over the hilt of a dagger on my thigh.

He glances down, catching my movements which freeze immediately.

"You remember...?" I ask softly, not knowing if I need the confirmation for his sake,... or mine.

"I remember everything." His piercing gaze moves back to me, his features stiff and cautious, waiting for me to make a move.

"Blue?" Natasha inquires, trying to lessen the tension.

"My ability..." My explanation comes out more timid than I would like as I move my hand away from the blade and give her a shrug.

Come on! Surely he's not more terrifying than Thanos! At least this one I know I can stop.

"There won't be any problems, right?" Cap asks seriously, after clearing his throat.

The Winter Soldier, or Buck I guess, says no. I can only shake my head.

"Good. Coms on and Rhodey, suit up. Saddie, I want you out here while we go in with Vision, incase anything happens." I nod in understanding as he, Natasha, and Dr. Banner follow the King and his men inside where Wanda and Vision had disappeared earlier.

I watch them trek inside while a knot forms in my stomach.

"You're nervous."

"Huh?" I turn to find Buck staring at me curiously.

"You used to make that face whenever the men were in the room. Whenever he was in the room." He explains.

I sigh and wrap my arms around my stomach while letting my head hang over.

"Can you blame me? This whole situation is something I was hoping to avoid. Plus, I wasn't exactly expecting to see you and when I did... I didn't know what would happen, or what to expect." I keep my gaze fixated on the pavement below me as I hear him take in a deep breath. Though, I know he was thinking the same thing as I was. "But I'm terrified. Like I was then." I admit with a whisper, looking up at him.

He hums, walking closer to me.

"What should I call you?" I ask suddenly causing him to snap his eyes to mine and stop.

He hesitates looking at the ground before back at me.

"Bucky please, Saddie." He says teasingly.

I roll my eyes but crack a small smile. So Buck is a nickname then. Didn't know he knew the Captain that way...

"Your arm is different." I note as I look at the black metal appendage edged with gold markings. Much different from the previous silver one with the infamous red star.

He hums thoughtfully, looking down at it with a small nervous smile.

"I like it, it suits you." I tell him sincerely as I turn away from him, not waiting for his reaction.

I walk over to Sam and begin to talk to him while Bucky joins us with a rifle one of the Kingsguard gave to him. Rhodey appears in his armor and things begin to click in my head as I remember Sam and Rhodey's hero names. Falcon and War Machine. Definitely not who I'd expect to be next to at a time like this.

At one point, I decide to sit crisscross on the tarmac with my fingertips pressed into the pavement and my eyes closed. It's almost like I'm in a meditative state. I feel the energy running through this city, running under it. There's an endless supply far below me, that I manage to tap into.

It's immensely powerful!

"What ya doing there, Saddie?" Sam calls out. I realize there's probably blue wisps circling around my hands or even arms.

"Recharging and resting." I say, distantly.

"Meditating." Bucky answers at the same time, causing me to huff and send him, where I think he is, a playful glare.

"Are you already tired, kid?" Rhodey jabs humorously through the ear piece.

"I'm a creature that relies on energy for power. If my stored supply runs out and I can't tap into a source fast enough, I have to rely on the power my body holds. Meaning, I'd lose consciousness soon after I'd start pulling from my own life-force. Thanos has an army coming for Earth, and I want as much power as I can hold." I tell them, still in my meditative state. "Plus, relaxing like this allows me to extend my powers beyond Earth."

"Creature?" Sam mumbles in question to himself.

"What does that mean?" Bucky asks curiously in reference to my abilities while talking over Sam. He still doesn't know the full extent.

"It means that I can sense when they arrive." I tell them, ignoring Sam's notice of my slip. Though, with that and what I said in the aircraft, he should be piecing it together soon, if he allows his mind to focus on it.

They don't ask anymore questions after that, and leave me to myself. After what feels like several minutes later, I feel a very strong hum of power moving towards Earth, and quickly. I call my power back to me and absorb as much of the energy as I can from below me, I can see the bright blue growing brighter from behind my eyelids.

"Saddie?" Bucky sounds worried.

My eyes shoot open as I jump to my feet, looking towards the sky.

"Saddie!" Sam calls, trying to get my attention.

"They're here." I say fearfully, not moving my eyes.

I summon an energy ball as I see one of their ships quickly descending straight for us.

"Hey, Cap, we got a situation here." Sam says while looking to where I am.

That wasn't enough time to get the stone out safely!

I prepare to launch the ball in my hands when the dropship pings off the shield, exploding instantly. The force of the strike is absorbed back into the shield.

"God, I love this place." Bucky says in stark amusement while I reabsorb the power in my hand.

"Yeah, don't start celebrating yet, guys. We got more incoming outside the dome." Rhodey warns as the rest fall fast, impacting the Earth.

I feel the vibrations from the impact rattling though my bones and my breathing becomes harsher. The shockwaves bounce off the dome, making me feel only the tiniest bit safer.

"Is this what you were expecting?" Sam asks, looking at me.

I nod slowly with wide and fearful eyes, unable to speak. Though, how do you speak when one of your worst nightmares is occurring before your very eyes and is becoming reality?

Alarms blare through the city and the dread I have been feeling for some time now, grows in the pit of my stomach to the point it becomes nauseating. Unfortunately for me, I joined this fight, so I can't back out now. I swallow back whatever fear I can and focus on the chaos around me.

After several minutes, the Captain, Natasha, Dr. Banner, King T'Challa, and his warriors come running out of where they led Vision and Wanda. Dr. Banner goes straight to where a big red and gold suit had been laid out as warriors rush out to the tarmac.

"You two," Nat gestures to me and Bucky. "Come with me."

We chase after her into a transport ship that is filling up with other warriors of the Kingsguard. I see Cap and T'Challa board theirs with half of the Dora Milaje. When we get in, Natasha stands up front with Bucky right behind her, and me on his right, like it used to be. As much as I hate the memories, the familiarity of a fight and his presence is comforting.

Sam and Rhodey take off and fly above us as we all head towards the front line while we begin to merge with other ships on the way.

"How we looking, Bruce?" Natasha asks through the coms.

"Yeah, I think I'm getting the hang of it." I hear what sounds like rockets through my ear piece and cringe at the loudness "Wow! This is amazing man. It's like being the Hulk without actually..." His loud enthusiastic voice is cut short as I hear him fall.

I try to stop myself from giggling at him but can't help but slightly laugh out loud when I hear Bucky's chuckles beside me.

"I'm ok, I'm ok." I hear, but before I smile again, I actually notice just how many of the dropships there are... and just how big they look from here. I've never seen them in person, just heard stories.

My stomach lurches at the sight. There will be so many. Can we even win this?

"I've got two heat signatures breaking through the tree line." Rhodey calls out.

I move forward slightly, in hopes of recognizing which two of the puppets Thanos sent here. Bucky gently grabs my arm, snapping me out of my head, and gives me a questioning look. I move back to his side but keep my eyes set on the edge of the dome in front of me, not looking at Bucky. I'm not sure if I'd be able to hide my fear if I do. Rhodey and Sam do a fly over as they begin to circle back around.

The Captain, King T'Challa, and the Dora Milaje pile out of a transport. My transport group follows and Natasha, Bucky, and I merge with them. One of the legions begins to chant as we move forward. Though I can't distinguish the words over the sound of my blood pumping in my ears. Natasha comes up next to me and gives me a small assuring smile. I try my best to do the same, though I'm sure it's more of a grimace. We form a line and I finally spot the two of the Black Order that Thanos sent. I scowl and clench my fists at the sight and memory of those two.

"Do you think there's any chance of surrender?" Natasha muses.

"No, it's not the way of the Black Order." I say with a slight growl.

"Well, there's always a chance." Captain says, but it's not reassuring.

He looks at me and motions for me to follow as him, Natasha, and King T'Challa start to walk in the direction of the dome's edge. I swallow the lump in my throat and proceed to fall into line with them.

Cull Obsidian and Proxima Midnight become clearer the closer we move to them, and I try to push back my fear again. While Cull stands several feet tall than the other, with a much broader stance and deadlier appearing body and weapon, it's Proxima I fear the most. This sight of the midnight blue and black hair, brown horns, black and blue war paint, and lifeless grey eyes that make me tremble slightly. Proxima drags her sword along the dome's edge, almost hypnotized by it, watching the power crackle along her blade. She finally stops when we're at the edge, only separated by the dome.

Cull and Proxima snarl once they set their eyes on me and my lip twitches up in annoyance.

"Where's your other friend?" Natasha quips, and I have no idea which other one she's referring to.

"You will pay for his life with yours." Proxima says in the most emotionless tone I've heard her use. Her mechanical voice sends an unpleasant shiver down my spine. "Thanos will have that stone." She moves closer, as to intimidate. But so do I.

"That's not going to happen." Captain says, seemingly unbothered but determined.

"I will make sure of it." I growl.

Proxima directs her gaze to me.

"The traitor... or at least, one of them." She muses, a gleam flashes in those deadly eyes as she smirks at me. "You are nothing without your other half. A child in regards to your abilities. Weak." I know she's trying to get a rise out of me, I know it, but it's working.

Her words stroke the grief and self-doubt I had buried for this fight, making it rear it's ugly head. Before I get the chance to even move, King T'Challa speaks as Natasha moves me back.

"You are in Wakanda now. Thanos will have nothing but dust and blood." I look at the King with wide eyes, knowing he doesn't realize just who the Mad Titan is.

"We have blood to spare." Proxima states before striking her sword up into the air.

I scowl at her, but that falls into a frown when the drop ships begin to whirl and extend. We quickly make our way back to the frontlines.

"Are you ok?" Natasha asks as me move back towards the group.

"No, not really. But I'll be able to fight." I tell her, gathering what courage I can. She gives me a hesitant nod, but says nothing else. "I really hate her." I grumble, which earns me a small chuckle from Nat

I try to clear my mind and focus on my powers on the rest of the way back. I focus on what I feel, where it is, and how I can use that to my advantage, like I was taught. We get back to our forces as Bucky looks on edge but doesn't look away from the ships.

"They surrender?" He asks sardonically, knowing the answer.

"Not exactly." Captain breathes as I move to Natasha's side.

I feel the ship release the army that lurches inside.

"Here we go." I nervously breathe.

Falcon flies along the edge, circling as a scout, but I can already feel the pounding of their sharp and deadly paws vibrating against the ground. As they get closer, the thunderous pounding reaches my ears over the sound of my own heartbeat. I absorb the little bits of kinetic energy from them as they run. I feel Natasha's stare on my loose fingers which begin to glow a slight blue.

King T'Challa begins a battle chant as I feel the army slow at the edge of the tree line. Proxima strikes her sword down, letting it fall out of the air, and the army begins their charge forwards. There's more of them, more than I imagined. And they spill out of the tree line like a tidal wave of death, charging towards the dome.

[reallybadfeeling]

FF Reclist del 2020

Sono tornata a postare su questo blog al solo fine di lasciare questa lista a caso di ff che ho letto nel 2020 e mi son rimaste impresse? La risposta è sì. E Buon Natale a tutti, eh! 

Star Wars [Trilogia Sequel]  (let’s be honest, son quasi tutte Reylo)

The Trail Bride Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17454824/chapters/41100980 Questa Western AU è una di quelle fic che anche se ho letto a gennaio ci ripenso e *chef kiss*. Avete presente quel slow burn dove prima arriva il smut, poi l’angst e infine il momento di falling in love? Ecco, 160k di sabbia negli stivali che apprezzi sul serio.

Tie Your Heart to Mine Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16143359/chapters/37718534 Potrei dire “chissene del p0rn” per questa storia perché GUYS, LA TRAMA IN QUESTA FF È PURE GOLD! Non solo c’è Rey che si spaccia per una dei Knights of Ren, ma i Knights of Ren in questa ff sono tante cose. Che poi aggiungiamo al mix jealous Kylo e… CIAONE! Mi son riletta i 147k+ di questa ff due volte quest’anno.

They Don’t Have A Word For What We Are Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17867792/chapters/42167327 Dicevo sopra dello slow burn? Ecco, FORGET ABOUT THAT. Questa è smut con contorno di trama. Sono 183k di Rey e Ben che fanno zozzerie? YEP. Ma se lo smut trascina la trama e far trasformare Kylo in Ben… WIN WIN AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED!

The Termination Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20834045/chapters/49526072 Okay, NON consiglio questa storia ha chi ha problemi a leggere di gravidanze e aborti. Che fa sembrare questa ff molto più edgy di quel che è in realtà. Però è la ff con cui son stata introdotta alle Nightsisters prima ancora di sapere cosa fossero, AND I FELL IN LOVE WITH THEM! Che posso farci, ho un debole per i villain! E questi 62k in un paio di giorni si leggono NO PROB.

The DILF of Disneyland Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21535246/chapters/51335782 A dimostrazione del fatto che NON leggo solo long, questa cosina da 13k! Perché ci vuole anche un po’ di crack nella vita e questo è mild crack di quelli di qualità honestly

Gross Breylo (series) Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1246199 Avete mai avuto quella sensazione di “can I have more Ben? More Kylo”? Ecco, questa serie è quel guilty pleasure perché ci sono Ben, Kylo e Matt. In un sandwich di tutti i più comuni kink (e pure alcuni un po’ meno) con Rey nel mezzo (e a volte pure senza di lei cause why not?). Sooo conta come incesto o self-incest? Who know? Who cares?

Savage Beauty Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20921171/chapters/49735226 Lo ammetto, nonostante siano solo 77k, questa ci ho messo più del dovuto a leggerla. Plot heavy soprattutto verso la seconda metà, ma come detto ho un soft spot per i villain. Rey che per Kylo passa al Dark Side. Non vi rovino il finale, ma assolutamente vale la pena di buttarci energie (anche se rallenta dopo un inizio più accattivante).

The Wedding Necklace Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22513729/chapters/53796988 In generale non solo una fan dei rewrite o delle fix-it che seguono la trama di TROS. Ma questa storia ha un pretesto di trama così scemo e prometteva il tipo di happy ending che piacciono a me (quelli in cui la Reylo figlia)... 40k di fluff e silly crack spacciato per cose serie.

Pillow Talk Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20405317/chapters/48401371 Non sono una grande fan del tag “space virgins”. Anzi, non ho mancato di dire più volte quanto spesso mi irriti. Ma questi 93k di Rey e Ben in denial mentre son costretti a condividere il letto più sì che no? Awkwardness senza esser cringe. Che è sempre un requisito per quanto mi riguarda.

Supreme Leader & Last Jedi: Caught in the Act!!! CLICK HERE Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21798247/chapters/52015984 Ogni tanto ci vuole anche del porn for the sake of porn giusto? Ecco, questi 11k sono esattamente quello. Con un pizzico di crack che, you guys, dovreste aver capito che ho un soft spot per le scemate, no?

H.O.A.cus Pocus Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26955406/chapters/65788996 Una modern!AU di con Ben vicino rompipalle per motivi del tutto idioti? Enemies to lovers vecchio stile? 21k di kinda crack but also not? Eh… Sentite, ero in vena di qualcosa di meno plot heavy sotto halloween. E questa mi ha decisamente messo un bel sorriso in faccia.

Star Wars Rebels

(let’s be honest, son tutte Kalluzeb)

A Safe Haven Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25758262/chapters/62554666 Honestly, non mi aspettavo di divorarmi 146k di Kallus che si abitua alla vita da ribelle. But guess what? That’s what I did. C’è anche un seguito scritto giusto qualche giorno fa, ma è una roba breve. Anyway, sta ff mi ha uccisa di brutto, facendomi amare un botto di personaggi secondari. Scritta bene you guys. Vedetevi Rebels solo per shippare Kalluzeb e leggervi questa.

Come in from the Cold Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24562042/chapters/59820526 Welp, diciamo che dopo aver letto la ff precedente ed esser tornata al tag, mi son accorta che questa autrice aveva prodotto altra robina. E son inciampata in questa AU con Kallus che viene salvato dai ribelli. E poi c’è tutto un arco in cui Kallus cerca di redimersi che *chef kiss*. Ci sarebbe pure un seguito, ma mi puzzava di angst di quelli pesi ma pesi di brutti, e mi pareva di capire dai tag che ci sarebbe stato some kind of time travel fuckery. Quindi mi son accontentata di questa.

Dream Walking Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23857447/chapters/57341344 62k di due patate che più enemies to lovers di così si muore. Also, soulmates!Au… I mean, come puoi dire no? Con loro sto trope è proprio la morte sua. (ed è la stessa autrice delle due fic precedenti. Quindi you guys, assicuro che è scritta bene. The feels are strong.)

Purple heartstrings Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27454297/chapters/67118188 Ho detto che la soulmates!Au con loro è una trope che adoro? Ah ecco… Beh, questa mi è quasi dispiaciuto fossero solo 16k. Perché seriously, Kallus è ancora più patata. E adoro la famiglia Kallus che ci ha buttato come original character l’autrice. Son tutte patata e I WANT MORE! 

When You Pry it From My Cold, Dead Chest Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16373723/chapters/38320103 Okay, lo ammetto, ero entrata in un loop chiusissimo di soulmates!AU con la Kalluzeb. Ma son letteralmente una meglio dell’altra e tutte con il loro twist. Questa ad esempio sono 43k di feels distrutti di brutto perché l’enemies to lovers in questa ff è SO STRONG! Like, passatemi sopra con l’asfaltatrice e poi rompete tutte per trovarmi sotto ancora morente causa feels. 

Star Wars [trilogia prequel] (let’s be honest… Ah no, a sto giro ci son 2 ship! *surprised pikachu meme*)

Well It Goes Like This Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23977453/chapters/57673405 Avevo bisogno di good parent Anakin you guys. Non mi aspettavo però di trovare 62k di Anakin good parent di un gruppo di younglings invece che di Luke e Leia. But guess what? Mi ha scaldato il cuore lo stesso. Perché ALL OF THE FUCKING FEELS! Questa è una di quelle storie che finiscono apertissime e per cui vorresti da morire un seguito perchè JUST TOO SWEET! (E per chi ha visto Clone Wars e Rebels ci son anche cose che fan fangirlare di brutto. E ciaone.)

i grew up here till it all went up in flames Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23473327/chapters/56276515 I mean, di questa ff potrei pure dire soltanto 30k di Anakin che si fida di Obi-Wan e Padmé invece di farsi fregare da Palpatine. Also, baby!Leia e baby!Luke adorable as fuck, domestic fluff che please yes, Anakin vestito superfashionable and rocking it. Che altro devo dirvi you guys?

Master Mine Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22209502/chapters/53027014 De-aged Obi-Wan diventa il padawan di Anakin. E ovviamente Obi-Wan ha una huge crush immediata. CAUSE, YOU KNOW… Pensieri inappropriati, that’s a thing teeneagers have! No, sul serio, questa ff è proprio sul confine dell’under-age e delle dynamics fottute a bestia… Ma young Obi-Wan è just too sweet! (Also, sta ff conferma che per quando è affiancato a Padmé il fluff e l’angst la fanno da padroni. Se però è Obi-Wan il love interest… NOPE, FUCK THIS SHIT, GIVE ME THE INAPPROPRIATE PORN! XD C’ho problemi).

With a Warm and Tender Hand Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6054904/chapters/13881241 Vi sto per caso consigliando 38k di puro angst e porn? YES. Yes, that is what I am doing. Niente, cosa posso dire a mia discolpa? Che ho un soft spot per questi due che dopo essersi girati attorno per anni ammettono finalmente che si amano in modo completamente fottuto per poi fottere come ricci per rendersi conto suddetti sentimenti incasinati in realtà son racchiusi in una ammissione di demolezza e amore? … … … HO PROBLEMI. Ma la ff è super sweet in the most sexy way.

The Witcher (let’s be honest, son tutte Geraskier)

An All-Consuming Creature Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23408935/chapters/56101345 Questa è quella long infinita (163k) con una botta di angst, perlopiù Jaskier centric, in cui non solo c’è una trama al bacio, ma Geralt canta e l’autrice della ff ha scritto e composto musica! E è linkata you guys! Questa ff ha davvero tutto! Ho già detto Geralt che canta? Ecco, perché non importa che a un certo punto iniziate a chiedervi “WHY AM I EVEN READING THIS?!” La risposta è GERALT CHE CANTA PER JASKIER! (Ma poi l’angst potente e il modo in cui finisce *chef kiss*)

You Can’t Be My Sugar Daddy, We Don’t Even Have Sugar Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23075560/chapters/55199137 Il vero titolo di questa storia dovrebbe essere “Cause Geralt deserves nice things!”. Honestly, questi 50k non vi renderete neppure conto di averli letti. Si naviga nel fluff, nel crack e soprattutto nei feels!

The Smell of Heartbreak Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22776946/chapters/54427231 Niente, passiamo all’estremo opposto con questa ff. Se avete voglia di TANTO angst, fatevi un po’ una nuotata in questi 60k di Geralt e Jaskier che cercano di riparare la loro relazione. Il tutto con un contorno di maledizione random perché WHY NOT?!

If We Must Starve (Let it be Together) (series) Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706485 Di solito non consiglio cose in corso. Mainly perché leggo solo complete. Ma questa ne vale la pena tantissimo. Al momento è appena sotto i 90k, e gli aggiornamenti della fic ancora in corso son sporadici. Ma se volete la cosa di “Geralt deserves nice things” pompata e ampliata a tutti i Witcher, THIS IS THE SHIT FOR YOU!

The Courting Season Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23708941/chapters/56928121 47k di fluff con Geralt che cerca di esser romantico e quello che è totalmente oblivious è Jaskier? YAS PLEASE! Seriously, sweet as fuck fluff con un pizzico di feels che è semplicemente *chef kiss*

To Understand Love Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24128269/chapters/58090600 Che posso dire? I’m a sucker for God!Jaskier. Questa è solo una delle ff in lista con quel tag, ma giuro, questi 53k valgono la pena. Tanto angst e BAMF Jaskier e personaggi originali che li adori a prescindere!

I’ll Be Your Voice Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25129009/chapters/60884227 Non so se son l’unica, ma… Geralt e Jaskier che crescono Cirilla? I like that. Ora, aggiungeteci anche bambino salvato a caso da Geralt! ESATTO! Una botta di fluff e angst e… I CAN’T EVEN! 36k che ho divorato in 2 giorni nonostante fossi occupata con lavoro quando l’ho trovata! (Ma c’è pure Jaskier che non è propriamente umano… RAGA, COMBO DI TAG per quanto mi riguarda!)

Detroit: Become Human (let’s be honest, son tutte 900Reed)

One does not simply say “I love you” (series) Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2051340 Ho un debole per le patate sceme? YUP. Quindi cosa vi aspettate?! Dovevo consigliare almeno una 900Reed. Non ne ho lette tantissime quest’anno, ma questi 60k totali son fluff e p0rn che val la pena.

/all the gun fights/ and the limelights/ [and the holy sick divine nights] Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19822831/chapters/46936537 Un titolo infinito per 85k di reverse!AU in cui alla fine fine ste due patate restano broken AF. Consiglio se volete trama e tanto angst e traumi di quelli pesi e… Ho menzionato due patate che si innamorano? Ah no?

chaos looks good on you Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24575989/chapters/59354422 Penso sia chiaro che ho un soft spot per le enemies to lovers. Questa è una di quelle super sweet. In particolar modo per colpa di RK900 che cerca di creare rapporti umani quando è convinto che tutti funzionino solo in pattern prevedibili e l’unico punto di chaos sia Gavin.

Despite It All Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26151949/chapters/63628915 Tecnicamente uno “spin-off” di una HankCon, questa soulmates!AU mi ha spezzata tantissimo causa angst e cretini in denial. Poi tra Gavin che è un pozzo di issues e 900 che è una patata supersoft… yeah, decisamente 50k di ALL OF THE ANGST!

Teen Wolf (let’s be honest, son tutte Sterek)

spiderweb of lies Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17212451/chapters/40474175 Ho un soft spot per i pg grumpy dal passato tragico che hanno cose belle nella loro vita. E mi mancava il fandom di Teen Wolf e son inciampata in questi 54k di Stiles che finalmente si accorge di quanto tossico sia Scott e rimette le cose a posto. Non è la best ff ever, honestly, ma c’è badass!Stiles. E non so dir di no a badass!Stiles (Ha pure dei seguiti, ma honestly dopo aver letto il primo I got tired of it all.)

What Goes Around Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13560651/chapters/31118688 Ecco, badass!Stiles è uno stile di vita se non era già chiaro. Questa ff porta la cosa all’estremo e lo trasforma in un cold blooded assassin. And I STAN THIS. In particolare perché c’�� un Peter scritto benissimo in sta ff e… FIGHT ME, OKAY?! Ma poi tratta la moralità dei grey heroes tipo The Punisher… Yeah, 71k che non posso che consigliare (anche se l’inizio sembra slow)

I’d Do Anything (for you) Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20821298/chapters/49494104 Sempre sulla falsariga del badass!Stiles e dell’uccidere gente “for the greater good”, questa roba di 46k ha direttamente Stiles che parla con il nemeton. Ed è kinda un necromante but also not. Sta ff è in generale una delle Sterek migliori che ho letto negli ultimi anni. Principalmente perché ha un botto di tag che adoro. Quindi magari son di parte.

Critical Role (let’s be honest, son tutte WidowFjord)

now my charms are all o’verthrown Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23364643/chapters/60220915 Questa storia è l’unica long di Critical Role che ho trovato e ho letto fino alla fine. Quindi OF COURSE è finita con un cliffhanger. DANG IT! Sto ancora aspettando che sia finito il seguito perchè WORTH IT! 85k di pirate!AU? YAS PLEASE! Are you fucking kidding me?!

Definitely not a romantic sub-plot (series) Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1339861 Tecnicamente questi 21k son una rilettura di qualcosa che ho beccato l’anno scorso. Ma che io l’abbia riletta dovrebbe dirvi che è adorabile. E per chi mi conosce sa che non sono una fan del RPF, ma qui honestly Liam e Travis non sono davvero una romance, son più due scemi che fan gli scemi come il resto del gruppo. E ADORO l’alternarsi tra l’RPF e il gruppo che è in-game e fa cose ADORABLE AS FUCK!

[thedevilsnewsky]

A Fairy Tail Rant

Man, for fucks sake, can the anime community just back the fuck off a little.

I mean it’s been years and awhile ago since Fairy Tail ended and beat on it like it’s a joke and call it trash still. I know it’s not a masterpiece and I know and the fandom knows what Mashima writing isn’t the best but, seriously the show has some good aspects to it and to beat on it and say it’s crap it’s a dead horse in itself.

Some things Fairy Tail does do well!

Character design (most of them aren’t boring and bland like the “alike” syndrome a lot of anime characters from another anime. A boy with pink hair who still looks like they could still kick your ass, b*tch what the fuck that’s insane)

Good Female Lead (Lucy Heartfilla is a great Female Lead, and she does her job well of being the sane, grounded, and relatable person of Team Natsu. Plus she never feels overpowered and every win or accomplishment she makes feels like she’s earned it (though I can say there were times where I think she was cheated out of a win, but that’s a later post))

Good Character Development and Relationship Development

Despite Erza being a pretty bland character after Tenrou (At least that’s what I think), she had the one of best Fairy Tail arcs dedicated to her; The Tower of Heaven Arc! That’s not mention the progress that Natsu has made in terms of maturity (in some aspects) or how Lucy has become a much stronger person and character!

Also yeah Relationship Development I’ll make it short

This

Becoming this

This

Becoming this

This

Becoming this

And this

Becoming this

And then this

(Yeah their story is a tad bit complicated but basically there Relationship went from “I hate you-I love you-I hate you again” to “I have a Fiancé” to “This girl is named Wendy she is our daughter now”.)

And alll this ships have gotten approirated good development for their relationships. NaLu has to mature and they did throughout the course of the series, Gruvia had to get over Relationship borders (aka Gray being more opened to Juvia’s warmth and Juvia being less of a crazy “I’ll cut your tit off if you go near him” stalker), Galevy gaining trust within another and Gajeel learning what it means to live for another. Jerza getting over past trama and guilt, and guess what these ships still have room for development and are still developing!

The characters get to chill in the guild

Look how many movies or shows you’ve watched just been “Action, Action, action” well Fairy Tail is one of those rare shows that’s let’s the characters well be characters in a more relaxed environment (aka being at home in magnolia in fairy tail and just chilling) and it happens quite a bit too.

The story sticks to the premise/goal

Listen I got nothing against One Piece, I’m not a fan of it but I made sure to give it a try (I watched like 150 episodes before giving up and deciding I’ll never catch up), but it the goal of the series/ultimate premise point is to find the one piece. 700 episodes later and for some reason Luffy and the Gang are fighting some other pirates and it has nothing to do with the One Piece!? Wait have they been looking for it anyway!? Luffy you said you wanted to be the the pirate king but why you not looking for the one piece and are getting involved with a plot against the world government?! Luffy?!

Anyway Fairy Tails premise is just about a band of misfits and they’re family like guild going around and having adventures and they do that! Not to say there are a few flaws in execution, the main idea is barely twisted and has never been betrayed.

I would say more but in all honesty I would say I named some of Fairy Tail’s strongest postives but if I were to go deeper I would need to split up the anime from the manga and It’s two am so maybe another date.

[archived-dawn]

You know theo and her selflessness is quite interesting. Its almost hardwired into that she's not allowed to be selfish not even a little bit. Every time she is something bad happens while its most of the time pure irony it still hits her harder and harder each time.

Theo wants to protect her baby sister and make sure she has a normal happy life ? Is used as a danm experiment and is turned into leaving resurch and due to trama can't even remember her siblings faces.

For example she wanted to have a friend met romani and he desided to save mash and her. Something unavoidable because they simply weren't strong enough to deal with beast class. She started to fall for caster gil and wanted to befriend ereshkigal and not one but both eather die or are forced to sacrifice for her sake. She wants to befriend astreio ? He dies to Hercules. Wishes to have nero and Elizabeth by her side ? She loses nero and Elizabeth nearly dies. Wishes for a normal life and the lost belts Happens.

See what i mean ? While these event's happen to everyone theo is the type of person to blame herself even if its not her fault.

Its why she's so okay with dying. She knows she'll restart her loop and its why she never fixes the runes on her body.

Its why when and if she loves someone whether its romantically or platonickly theo loves them with all of her heart .

[roseblogsxo]

wait. i looked at that post you reblogged from that j*nsa and she told you she didn't want 'posts like yours' when you look at the mjority of comments under that gif set saying 'i'm glad that b*tch dany is dead'. that has nothing to do with the gif set either and yet it's the majority of the comments. double standards i guess. wanting violence to happen to a women is okay but saying 'i didn't like this line' is 'too far'. i'm with you, that person is ridiculous.

Thank you anon! Honestly it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that I even ship jonerys. I hated how they pinned Dany and Sansa against each other. They both went through a lot of trama and it was just dumb honestly. It was like watching two high school girls fight but 100 times worse bc two dip wads didn’t realize that wasn’t okay and rape doesn’t empower either one of them or anyone for that matter. I really dislike too how some Jonsas (not all of them) seem to always hate on Dany and not the way they written her to be in the end. A lot of us jonerys fans don’t do that. We of course aren’t fond of Sansa but you don’t see us going around saying haha that girl is gonna loose the north once they all go hungry in the winter from demanding independence and everyone starts revolting or that she’s living the rest of her days out alone bc apparently according to Sophie she’ll never marry and the rest of her family has their own lives it looks like. 😂

Dany was a hero until 8x5 she done nothing wrong, it was so much grief to the point where it was just hard to watch such an empowered woman defeated like that and die at the hands of her lover bc he thought he couldn’t be happy. That they couldn’t be happy bc that’s not what everyone else wanted. Dany isn’t a saint she had her issues burning everyone but she’s not the only one responsible. Everyone else pushed her there and took advantage of her, I don’t blame her for what she did. That would make me loose it too. Ugh breaks my heart. It even makes me mad bc Sansa deserved a better ending too, she got a crown but based on manipulating and scheming. Is that what they wanted for their fav? Doesn’t feel satisfying to me. That’s why I will always dislike her character, she turned into cersi/little finger and she will struggle when her people go hungry and that war breaks out which brings me to my next point...

In which that my ship was real and not something we just made up and Jon never forgave Sansa too he simply defelected it with a complement knowing there was no point of him arguing about what already happened. He regretted what he did and will always love dany regardless of the harsh reality that pushed them there. Dany in my eyes was rezed since her and Jon have paraellel paths (again another headcanon they wanted us to believe) and that she’d believe that breaking the wheel meant everyone should be free not just the north once a civil war broke out and Yara and such reached out to her, bc they will when all hell breaks loose with that weak government. Jon will be the one to try to get close to her and she’s not trusting him just dealing with him for the sake of everyone one else until he proves to her that he truly did love her and they live happily ever after the war is over and everyone is free the end.

There was a reason that no one liked the endding, and it was bc no one liked where Jon and Dany the two main characters ended up (along with others) but they were the main ones apart from Sansa and Tyrion. If more people liked Sansa and Bran in power it wouldn’t have gotten such a bad rating. Mic drop...

Haha I’m sorry that was a bit of a ramble but you get what I was trying to say. Cheers

[stonestridernerd]

🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 🌻 Its a little Blumensträußchen!

That this is, @shuuhuu! Thank you so much for all the lovely flowers!

I'm going to apologize now though, since there is no read more button on mobile, so we're stuck with all my ramblings! Huzzah!

First off, Happy (late!) Canadian Thanksgiving! I hope everyone has eaten well this past weekend and enjoyed some good family time.

I certainly did, to say the least. The holiday was wonderfully peaceful, with all the ham and potatoes I could stuff into my mouth before falling asleep.

Unfortunately, we woke up Monday morning to hear that my great uncle passed away. His wife woke up to find him struggling to breathe. They took him to the hospital, but couldn't get him back up. He was 58 years old, and last we saw him (three weeks ago at another funeral), he was the healthiest of the adults.

It was so shocking that my mum and both of her siblings are going down to Missouri for the funeral. I can't emphasize this enough, but those three are never in the same place. The aunt and mum have a crappy relationship, with the former often flying around the county while mum cares for the grandparents, while my uncle is on and off tours to the Middle East. I'm not sure what to think of this, but I'm hoping we don't have anymore funerals for a while.

Onto less depressing subjects, I've been using my October Writing Challenge prompts on a wee Kul'tiran alt I have named Coquina Barros to flesh her out more.

She's one of three rock based characters I have and the only one that isn't dwarven. As suggested by her name (Coquina, literally translating to seashell in Spanish, is a type of limestone made of compressed and cemented shella. Meanwhile, Barros refers to clay, or the clastic types of these rocks), she's based on sedimentary rocks!

I'm really excited for her, since I've finally solidified that she trains service animals (mostly dogs right now, but she's open to trying to train more exotic creatures). She has her own service pupper, a Kul'tiran water dog named Argie, that helps her with her anxiety and disassociation.

Speaking of help with disabilities, Gizzie's background is actually in prosthetics. It's what she learned as a child to make under her parents' home and she still continues it on the side to this day (hence her fox mount has a nice arcane fueled leg).

I mean, I'm not sure why prosthetics are more common in goblin society. With how much their inventions blow up (and their love of firepower and bombs), you can't convince me that they don't have a high injury rate. Some of those have to be of lost limbs, so why not bring that zany goblin innovation to their medicinal care? I'm talking robotically propelled legs, magically infused arms for the ultimate arcane missels, all the Detective Gagdet beauties. Maybe some bad inventions for the sake of puns, a la a leg designed to be heated up and safely cooked upon without harming the attached goblin (great for on the go bacon and 'baby, my thighs are sizzling' flirts).

TL; DR: I have such a mighty need for incredibly powerful, crazy, and maybe dangerous answers to disability that I've said feck it, I'm doing it. So if you're thinking of having your character lose a limb or deal with trama, I have some ideas.

Next up for rambling, tumblr has shown me a love for tropes I didn't know even existed. For instance, sword lesbians are my jam. I've noticed throughout the years that the only characters who get happy, long lasting relationships to RP are lesbians who wield some epic forking swords. They can actually flirt while the rest of my characters struggle with it as well. I'm not sure what -if anything- that says about me, but it's interesting.

I watched the demoncratic debate about it last week with my sister. Along with learning about the candidates so I can vote in the primaries, I'm trying to get my younger sister more informed about what's going on, what with her 18th birthday coming up next year and right to vote. She seemed to be more interested than last time, so the hope is that she'll be willing to watch the next one with me.

Okay, I'm running out of things to remind myself of or random thoughts, so....have some dogs. The lighter hound is Lola and the black and brown one is Bruno.

[anthony-sparkz]

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Words of wisdom with Dr. Weekes

A wiseman once said to change the world we all must learn to change ourselves from that right there i gained the understanding of the 4 sides to the bigger picture and that is to love ourselves cuz if your not lucky enough to find the one you want if your not able to do what you love because of unfortunate circumstances, then change your perspective and mindset material. manifest your destiny by building your emotional intelligence , compassion and self worth with yourSELF 1rst you cannot teach something you have not yet learned and as human beings weve all been there one way or another and with that being said you cant do something that you have no knowledge of doing so before. So when you go out in the world today be like thoughts my friends (intangible until spoken off or spoken to)

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Please do not refrain from having a fresh , drama free day and a euphoric dopamine filled positive weekend

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[inumbratte]

A darker point

Shikamaru did think about killing himself after Asuma’s death. It was- as well all know, really hard on him and he felt like he was the reason for it. If it hadn’t been for his dad’s words, Shikamaru probably wouldn’t have recovered. He owes that recovery to Shikaku in ways he couldn’t ever express.

After Shikaku’s death- and even Neji’s, Shikamaru begins to go back into that depressive state, now having lost his rock and his support/feeling guilty about not telling his dad everything he meant to.

However, he gets over it rather quickly by himself- for Ino’s sake and for his friends. They need someone to help them recover from the trama, and he needs to be their rock. 

I feel like in a relationship with Temari, that would be something they’d need to get over- Shikamaru learning to rely on her and her doing the same with him. Shikamaru has a lot of pent up anxiety and depression, but when he looks at her, she’s shinning and warm, and it doesn’t go away, but it’s manageable.

Shikadai also helps with this later. Though he can’t understand what good he did to deserve something so preciously wonderful like his son and wife.