#dead men don't do radio plays | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

motherofagony · 1 year ago

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A HEART FOR EATING // vol. 1

joel miller x f!reader

pairing: post outbreak!joel x f!reader setting: jackson, wy (think tlou pt. 2 minus the golfing) rating: mature, 18+, minors dni word count: 5.6k series summary: a vicious raider attack robs you of human connection and lights a fire of destruction in your life in jackson. joel's fixated on you, and your lives tangle. revenge becomes a needful thing. chapter summary: life goes on after raiders infiltrate a routine patrol. you're a shut-in, and jackson residents tiptoe around your trauma. joel found you after the accident, but you don't know what to make of it. content warnings + tags: age gap (we'll say 15-20 years), protective!joel, mentions of trauma (no s/a, i promise), blood, bodily injuries, death, shitty men, dissociation/triggers, alcohol, angst, sexual tension if you close one eye, the softest enemies to lovers you've ever seen vol. 1 // vol. 2 series playlist a/n: longtime listener, first time caller. yes, there will be smut — in due time. probably a slower burn than you're used to on tumblr dot com, but there will be porn galore, i promise. heavy on the hurt + comfort trope in this one. thank you for reading, i hope you enjoy.

“Get the fuck up!”

The boot connects with your side again, the rounded toe slamming into ribs you’re sure are already broken. You’re trying to play dead, but it doesn’t exactly work when yelps are being kicked out of you. Old Yeller, of all fucking things, comes to mind.

But you’re not sick, not infected. Just wrong time, wrong place.

Blood pools sticky under your head. Voices are filtering in like an untuned radio, gathering static and making you nauseous. Like it’s all one bad hangover or a lucid dream in a realm too far.

“Where are the others?”

Someone else asks the question that you’ve been concentrating on. The knob turns, clearing the radio fuzz just so. You strain to hear, but you don’t dare open your eyes.

“Dead. Not shit on ‘em that was worth stealin’. We gotta fuckin’ go — just leave her.”

A vague twang of Boston wraps around his words. You’d forgotten what it sounded like, how the rs get caught in the back of the tongue and dropped. How the voweled aws are spit at you, the shell of your ear growing numb against the icy concrete.

Yes, you think. Fucking leave me.

The raider that’s been torturing you for what feels like hours groans as if it’s an inconvenience, an interruption to something he was thoroughly enjoying. Whatever he would’ve done, continued doing, taunts the crevices of your mind. He digs through your bag one last time, and you don’t know what he’s looking for or if there would have been anything at all that would have satisfied him the first time.

You remember a sliver of skin where his sleeve had bunched, revealing a shitty coupling of star tattoos on his wrist. You can feel your icepick heartbeat behind your eyes, and you wonder if it was a dare over a few beers. A matching tattoo with a lover. The thought lifts you up and out of the crushing burden of pushing air into clenched lungs, only for a moment. It’s no name to grab hold of, but it’s an identifier if you can make it out alive.

He’d crept up behind you while you were clearing a warehouse that you swore you’d be fine doing by yourself, pushing the cold barrel of something painfully familiar into the back of your head. He was tall, unflinching, unworried, too practiced. He helped you slip the straps of your backpack off your shoulders but staggeringly violent and unkind. Feeling you up for weapons with a disgusting leisure. As if you’d be hiding something gun-sized in your small back pocket.

You’d heard panic and screams outside, and you already knew. Voices outnumbered your friends, and it was almost – almost – funny to think that Tommy said the three of you would be one too many for patrol.

So, when exactly two gunshots hit their targets, it only took you seconds to figure out the score.

Something significant cracked in you then. Started in your chest and splintered to your heart, head, down to the tips of your toes. There was no fighting back, and you were next.

Now — fractured ribs, a dislocated shoulder, bloodied face, broken wrist, and one concussion later, here you find yourself. The tall one has a thick mustache, something sinister and villainous that seems too stereotypical even for this. At some point there had been a shift, and what started as a robbery now felt like killing for sport.

“Fine. Think she’s dead anyway.”

He kicks you one more time for the cinematic pleasure of it all.

This time you don’t wince, don’t feel a jerk or twitch betray you. The muscle in your jaw is so tense, the teeth grinding so hard into one another that you expect to open your mouth to a cloud of dust.

An agony you’ve only ever seen in movies is wringing every cell dry. It’s seizing, unrelenting, almost an exorcism in the tensing and writhing of it all. But you keep it beneath the surface, barely clinging to the little control you have.

You try to count the footsteps that are finally retreating, to breathe around the blood in your nose both dried and fresh. It feels like measuring the closeness of thunder and lightning, some kind of correlation with the distance of a storm.

The group trails outside, and heavier footsteps of your stolen horses lead them away. Onto the next. Breath idles in your chest, and the clarity that you think will come when you finally unstick your eyelids doesn’t. Everything feels swollen, scorched, raw. Nerve endings clipped and lapped up by the unrelenting lick of wind. A scream climbs up your throat, but the pain isn’t worth the exhale. And you don’t want them to come back for round two.

You drag the dead weight of your limbs out to inspect what you know to be true, and it’s nothing but bloody snow angels and twisted, awkward angles of your friends. You can’t even look at them, turning your head and squeezing your swollen eyes shut when you check for pulses that aren’t there.

Snowflakes collect on your lashes and drip pink down your face.

—

Daylight wanes, languid and impatient. It’s been hours trying to retrace your steps back to Jackson, the blood loss slowing you to a stop every five dizzying minutes. Your feet trick you into standing, only for your knees to buckle and bring you down into the snow. Teetering on the cliff of willfully alive and mercifully dead. There isn’t pain anymore, not really, and you’re grateful for the numbing cold, but you can feel your body threatening to cave in on itself.

Tears don’t come as much as you beg for them, for any type of release that’ll ground you. Enough time has ticked by that someone has to notice an absence of three, but you can’t be sure that you’re even on the right path anymore to meet them in the middle.

When they find you, if they ever find you, at least they’ll know you tried.

There’s a comfort in that, a warmth that reaches out and grabs you and folds you in like a blanket. It’s safe here, it says. Just lie down for a minute. And you don’t fight it.

Someone’s calling your name now, and it’s a gentle tug back into consciousness. There are frantic hands on your face, delicate and urgent when they take inventory of your wounds. When they say death greets you, maybe it’s this.

But there’s a Texas drawl that’s murmuring you’re okay, I’ve got you and I know, I know it hurts and shouting instructions to someone else that’s lifting you up, up, up.

Your fingertips scrape a stubbled jaw when you’re pulled away. The light dims like a blown-out candle. And you’re falling, grasping at anything, everything, nothing.

You forget the rest.

—

Ten months pass, dripping into spring, then summer, and meeting autumn at its doorstep.

Everything has healed, down to the last scratch. That day feels hazy, and you’d assume it was a hallucination if not for the two friends that didn’t come back with you. The recovery was just as strange, trauma shielding you from the gory parts but not the guilt. Never the guilt.

Sometimes, you test the memory, prod at it, but nothing new comes to the surface. No recollection of who they were, where they were going, if they were anything more than nameless thieves. It’s probably better this way, but there’s no way of knowing if that’s true.

Fistfuls of flowers collected on your porch, and they seemed to appear out of thin air because no one ever came with them. Anonymous condolences that didn’t want to be seen, and it was an easy guess as to why. You heard rumors, retellings of what happened without much accuracy, but there was nothing to say to correct them. Some of them were angry, and you let them be. Call it penance, undeserved or not.

Ellie would visit occasionally, sometimes Tommy. You let her play guitar without saying a word, let him bring you books to keep you occupied. Everyone else dodged you, and you didn’t know if it was discomfort or because you were the only one left alive to blame. Probably both.

Since then, they’d kept you busy elsewhere. Projects that hadn’t been projects before suddenly popped up. More hands in the stables for getting horses ready for patrol. Planting vegetables and flowers for food and morale. Playing doctor when the patrols would come back with minor injuries from staving off infected. Being underfoot at the Tipsy Bison, picking up shifts when there was a movie night or some string-lit illuminated get-together.

Slinking into the shadows and being the ambient background noise in everyone else’s conversations.

You didn’t have the heart to tell them that you had the farthest thing from a green thumb, that you couldn’t bartend for shit, that the most nurse-like thing you’d ever done was slap a band-aid on a skinned knee.

An otherness that weighed so heavy you thought it would be better to crush you. Poison that bloomed in the belly of a tight-knit community that didn’t know what shelf to put you on. Who felt like collective trauma was part of the deal, and this was just yours.

But it softened the blow of your abrupt uselessness. You let it happen. Becoming competent was better than peeking out from drawn curtains. Better than sleeping with your eyes open, watching everyone around you move on while you couldn’t.

While nightmares claw their way up your chest at night and leave you in a cold sweat, flicking on every light that’ll burn to make sure you’re really, truly alone.

The roar of laughter snaps you out of the trance, breaks the eye contact you were making with your fireplace. You wonder absently if you’d tuned out the rest or if everyone had finally huddled together in front of the projector down the road for tonight’s showing of whatever DVD was looted during this week’s patrol. You didn’t usually mind — sometimes even joined when Ellie had enough of your sulking and all but kicked your door in — but tonight feels like an organized, cruel punishment.

You pry yourself from your couch, knocking over the stack of books on your way to the coat rack. Anaïs Nin pierces you with a glare, rotting where you left her. You slip each arm into a heavy coat, tucking one of the books into your bag with a lone cigarette as a makeshift bookmark. It’s cold as fuck tonight, but maybe you’ll linger a little longer after closing down the bar. Maybe you’ll wait until the crowd outside dies down to sneak back into your house, light another fire, and count down the hours until your shift at the stables.

Bartending tonight should be quiet, hopefully only encountering a few regulars that usually kept to themselves and tipped you for doing the same.

You steal one more warm moment before opening the door and stepping into the flinching cold, taking note of the way words stutter and lose traction when your face registers with the nearby crowd. There always seems to be a vacancy of pleasantries. And you don’t exactly invite them.

Tommy gives you a sympathetic look, tipping his chin up in a half-nod. Ellie lifts a few fingers in a wave, knowing you don’t want the pity but hate the suffocation of nothing at all. You will the corners of your mouth to quirk in a smile that doesn’t reach your eyes and force your legs into a normal pace, almost locking your knees so you don’t break into a run. The debt of an overdue visit with them burrows in your chest.

The Jaws theme song hums ominously, and you think it’s only fitting.

A few people litter the bar when you meet the cozy blanket of peanut-shelled air of the Tipsy Bison. A pool cue cracks against a ball and sends it clattering into a group of others, a low crackle of some country something crooning out of the jukebox. You shed your coat and your bag in the back, washing your hands under scorching water to shake some feeling back into your bones.

“Just a few tonight. Been slow – you’ll probably be out early. What’s playin’?”

You smile at the thick, syrupy Southern mama accent by your side. Cheryl is no-nonsense, usually slips you a little extra at the end of your shifts, and feigns ignorance of anything about the ugly parts of your past. All she cares about is that you’re eating. There is an undying gratitude for Cheryl.

“Ah. Jaws, I think.”

She seems to read your mind with a laugh, patting your shoulder affectionately like only a mother can.

“Maybe I’ll go join the sharks. Joel just got here, wants a whiskey ‘fore I head out. You know him,” Cheryl tuts, almost rolling her eyes but you know she likes the caretaker role if you’re any indication.

And you do. You do know him.

Joel keeps to himself almost as much as you do, maybe a little less when it comes to Ellie and Tommy. He’s sort of your catty-cornered neighbor, but not the sugar-asking kind. More like the kind that glances in your direction, holds your stare for a beat too long, and abruptly looks away before anything discernible can appear.

The closest you ever come to saying anything of substance to each other is when you ready his horse for patrols and intercept it when he’s back safe and sound. You try not to let him catch your gaze shifting to that shiny scar on his head, and you stifle down the question that’s none of your business.

Maybe he does the same for you.

And maybe he was there and saved you that day, but neither one of you has ever mentioned it since. You don’t know how, and there’s a brick wall around the subject that won’t let you. Enough time has passed that you figure he’d have said something if he gave a shit.

Yet, there’s a deep yearning for his approval, his attention. It’s a mystery even to you, when you think about how savagely indifferent you are to anyone else’s. But you think it’s the magnetism of having him as a witness. The way he could vindicate you and give you an alibi, a heroic complex, but he doesn’t.

So, the idea that he’s one of the patrons that you can count on one hand tonight… you can’t put a name to what it’s doing to you.

Cheryl makes sure that you’re okay, but she doesn’t linger. She packs up her things with haste, jogging through the cold to join her wife in front of the bonfire.

No one really pays you any mind as you start your closing duties early, and it’s doubtful that the seats will fill any more than they are as the party picks up outside.

Joel sits at the corner of the bar that faces you, and he’s down to a knuckle’s length of whiskey. If he were anyone else, you might wonder why he’s not at the bonfire — but it’s Joel. Social anythings are like a second plague to him.

The thought of having to refill his drink vibrates in the back of your mind, and lead fills your stomach. Small talk that you never quite have with him. It dissipates just as quickly, when you see the way he’s fixed on the sweat gathering on his glass instead of anything else, and when a gust of wind comes in as the door opens.

Max. Anxiety snaps in your rib cage like a rubber band. Something acrid hits the back of your throat and you think it might be blood the way your teeth connect with the soft tissue of your cheek.

Max had been a recurring character in your bed once. Before. It was never more than convenience, and the way you fucked wasn’t love, not even close. Liberating to think that you never neared the edge of feeling anything except his hand pressing your face into a pillow, performing orgasms that never came.

There’s no carcass of affection left, so devoid of emotion for him that it feels like a severed limb.

He’s all ego and athletic strength, sauntering up to the bar with a gait that reeks of hours of pregaming. There’s a permanent sneer when he addresses you, a coldness that has nothing to do with the weather.

“Tequila. Two doubles.”

He’s the type to twist the knife of your tragedy in even deeper, making sure to hit all vital organs. The first to question what more you could have done to save his friends, blaming you for leaving them there to die as if they weren’t dead the moment raiders showed up. As if you weren’t almost dead. Anything you’ve said in defense is inconceivable, an excuse, an admission of guilt. He mourns at your expense and often.

Jackson trudges forward, but Max forces you to stay in grief and remember.

“I think you’ve had your fill this week. Drank through your ration on Tuesday, remember?” you say coolly, but a twinge of fatigue colors your tone, giving you away. You aren’t in the mood, and Max finds it easy to light flame to your resolve as-is.

Maria spends hours of careful inventory, and there’s been more than one occasion where you’ve been instructed to cut off a greedy drunk. The vice, the urge to drink in an apocalypse doesn’t really align with the limited stock, unfortunately.

“Yeah, I don’t exactly see Maria around, do you?” A jeer at face value, but you decide in the beat of silence that follows that rule enforcement isn’t worth it tonight. “Sounds like you’ll think of something. And you fuckin’ owe me one, don’t you? Or would you prefer I collect on that another time?”

It’s not worth it. You’re dropping your glare, squaring your jaw, lining up two glasses so that the rims clink. But the way your skin prickles, there’s an unwelcome visitor in his stare, an x-ray vision that you wished Max didn’t have.

Somewhere down the bar, glass slams against wood and something you know to be amber-colored sloshes.

You try to steady the angry tremble that overcomes your hands as you upturn the liquor bottle. One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four.

He holds the ration card to you, taunting you by pulling back when you reach for it, only to smirk and flick it toward you, uncaring of where it lands. You shove it into the mouth of the register with the violence you wish you were brave enough for.

“You can leave now.”

“That so? Mouthy now that you have an audience?” Max gestures cruelly to the grand total of four patrons, five if you counted Johnny Cash.

It stings, but dully. You’ve heard worse – even if not to your face – and it’s all kind of anti-climatic if you considered the low-budget production they always try to make out of you. The words eventually all sound the same, nothing punches quite the way they intend. Still, your cheeks burn as if on cue, and —

“She told you to get the fuck out.”

A low timbre erupts, easily mistaken as pure venom. There’s a sway in the way your senses glitch and then still, and reality swirls at the edge of your periphery. Pool balls stop their roll, murmured chatter ceases, and even the fucking jukebox settles on an instrumental to lean in and listen.

You dare to look over at Joel, whose demeanor looks more akin to statuesque and threatening than his curved slouch when you first clocked in. He’s standing, flexing his fists so hard that you think they might shatter.

Max backs off but subtly – you can see the way his puffed chest deflates even though his glare doesn’t. He finishes off one tequila before backing up with the other dangling in his fingers, both hands turned palm-out in mock surrender.

A deep annoyance plucks at his brow, but he knows he’s flirting with a black eye.

Max flashes a middle finger, lets his grip relax after downing the glass in his hand, and it crashes to the floor with a wincing shatter. He’s gone before you can string together any curses, and would it have mattered anyway?

Then, there’s scattering, the bar flies wordlessly agreeing that anywhere is better than the awkwardness of being here. Cards thrown down, beers drained, and there’s an uneasiness with the way they shuffle outside towards the rest of the group. A dance around the broken glass that isn’t their problem. You pretend not to notice, though you try to hide the redness that stains your cheeks as you bring a dust pan over to the mess.

You feel eyes on you and, all too suddenly, you realize that Joel didn’t follow them.

“Careful. Here, lemme do that.”

He’s kneeling, taking the pan from you. Knuckles brush yours a little too long and electrify, zapping you. You mutter something like thanks and it’s too ungrateful, too tired. A woodsy scent fills your nose, and you’re hard-pressed not to lean into his collar and bookmark it.

Glass slips into the trash with a tinkling, shimmering sound. You’re already back behind the bar, hands busying with something else, tidying up the already-tidy. Letting him slip outside with the crowd, heavy with satisfaction that he came to your rescue yet again.

But he’s sat back down, watching you with an odd intensity. He’s never assessed you like this, at least not that you’ve seen. A different sort of undressing than what Max gives you. You meet his eyeline warily. Vulnerable, waiting for your predator’s jaw to unhinge and devour you whole.

“He always talk to you that way?”

A quiet, lethal question hangs in the air, so quiet that you could’ve chalked it up to your imagination. But evidenced by the white-knuckled grip Joel has on his glass, the measured way he brings it to his lips, it was real. Controlled, scary even. But real.

Your mouth opens to answer, then closes. You consider in a beat’s time how it would sound to laugh it off, then stop yourself. It would be too forced, too desperate of a sound to be convincing. You’ve never been the unfeeling, unaffected type.

It’s clear that he knows the answer, has probably seen it with his own eyes, but it’s like he wants a green light to set his sights on some other more sinister and deserving prey.

“Doesn’t matter. He’s been through a lot,” you say, half to yourself. It’s easier this way.

“Does matter. So’ve you,” Joel says, even quieter, like he’s trying to contain an angry edge that threatens to bleed out. The calm is almost worse. In a way, you wish he would loosen the leash on his rage. Or break something to satisfy the urge in you that wants to do the same – you’d give him permission to do that. This is too unreadable and ambiguous, too much room left for agonizing interpretation in how he grits his teeth and pulses that muscle in his taut jaw. You want to yell, let out what’s long pent-up. Yes! Yes, it does fucking matter!

But you don’t. You keep the rag tight on the lip of the pint glass in your hand, rotating it past the point of needing to be cleaned. The rub of the microfiber cloth makes you itch, and your teeth scrape again at the inside of your cheek.

It leaves your mouth before you can catch it and shove it back down.

“Why do you care?”

Joel looks up at you now and you think that you’ve already overstepped during your first, real fucking conversation. He finishes off the whiskey and puts it back down carefully. He stands up, each slow step over to you spiking your blood pressure, your breath shifting into neutral.

It’s the way he’s fixated on you, a litmus test for any sarcasm. The way a chill creeps into the base of your spine and slithers up each vertebrae despite the warmth you feel below your waist. And when he comes behind the bar, reaches for the glass in your hand and puts it down gently, you wonder if that tug has always been there.

Fuck.

“You think I don’t care?”

Tiny hairs at your nape stand at attention in a near-salute. The web of intrusive thoughts tangles between you, and you’re acutely aware that this is the closest you’ve ever been to Joel Miller – that you’ve been conscious for. That feeling rushes back and bursts in your chest, the comforting honey in his voice that’s been haunting you since he found you crumpled in the snow.

The omnipresent, sharp tang of whiskey sticks to the slightly graying stubble that you want to reach out and touch. That you want to feel the scrape of in places that makes heat pool deep in your belly. His flannel is unbuttoned at the top, the column of his throat ridged and tense.

Focus.

“Why are you saying this now?” you say, and you want to hold your ground but his admission is akin to mesmerizing.

He thinks for a minute, his eyes smoothing over every angle in your face. They look past you, just over your shoulder, like he’s asking himself the same thing.

“Knew you could handle it. ‘Til you couldn’t anymore.”

There it is. You let it sink in, clicking that last piece into place. Always observing you from a safe distance, the buzz of something unsaid ringing in your ears when he’s around. How he listens to your interactions, but never too closely. Watching for weak spots. And tonight was the weakest of them all, letting yourself be humiliated by the only person that knew where to bite just right.

You feel laid bare, too seen. Pissed that he can witness your struggling, thrashing, drowning with outstretched arms and kicking feet and decide when and if he’ll pity you.

And this time, a laugh does slip out – humorless and breathy.

“The same way you can handle whatever’s making you drink alone on a Friday night? Don’t act so holier than thou, Joel. I’m the wrong one.”

“Watch it.”

You don’t mean it. Not really. But you’re so angry, a wasps’ nest that’s been taunted and poked at after being left to its own devices for too long. Sometimes violence feels more intimate. Safer.

And he’s using that gravelly, terse tone with you of all people, and you want to fucking lose your mind.

When he doesn’t say anything else, just looks at you and waits, they leave their home in a wave. Burying stingers where you know they’ll hurt. Once more, with feeling.

“Are you looking for a ‘thank you’?”

Joel’s mouth quirks, but it isn’t a smile. It only stokes the fire, and you know what he’s doing. Letting you win, begrudgingly because you’re being an ass. But you haven’t had a win in the last ten months, only loss after devastating loss. He’s throwing you a raft.

“No. Just tryin’ to help, ‘s all.”

Your nostrils are flaring in sharp inhales that you can’t control, and you physically jab at him, your own tightly wound chest dragging in the hive for a final, practiced nosedive. “I don’t fucking need your help, Joel.”

He’s snatching your wrist, holding it in a vise, but there’s a flinch in his expression. Joel hardens, sliding that cool armor back into place. Sizing you up one more time, committing you to memory. A curt nod, plucking that chord of roughness in his tone that makes you ache.

There’s a glare you’ve never seen from him, like disappointment and disdain wrapped up neatly in one package. Delivered with a dagger straight to your heart.

“We’ll see. Not s’good at that, are you?”

And it’s a KO you allow, one you’ll lay with. But he’s leaning in, invading your space. You move to retreat and cower, the way you’re accustomed to, but Joel’s grabbing a fistful of your shirt and fastening you in place. His mouth’s at your ear as if he’s telling you a secret.

“Good luck bein’ a fuckin’ martyr.”

The pressure loosens, as does his grip, dissipating like some ghostly presence. He leaves without another word, and something inside you snags and unspools.

—

You don’t see Joel for days.

Three days to be exact, torturous and fluid days that feel like trickling sand, but blend together in an indistinguishable slideshow when you zoom out. You time your breaks perfectly at the stables so you don’t run into him, and you ask Cheryl to cover for you on Tuesday, ignoring the strange look she gives you – the resident workaholic.

It’s a sort of avoidance that you don’t want to acknowledge or look directly in the eye. If you did, it would mean that Joel affected you more than you want to admit. Or that he’d sized you up in an expert way that a categorical stranger shouldn’t be able to.

You should be livid, and you are… in a way. But mainly you want to shrug your skin off, your unease for being so dissected by him. Just unzip it all and let it pool at your feet, stepping out of the pile one leg at a time. The pinch, the untethering of you and the man that could read you without translation.

And when it’s 9 o’clock and you’re making tea as you trudge through a book without really reading anything, you glance outside at the house across the street and it’s so dark that you think it may have swallowed him whole.

Or he’s hiding from you, too.

—

It’s finally Thursday, and you can’t put it off any longer. You’re running out of food, you promised Tommy you’d lend a hand with feeding the horses – and there’s a dull itch to see Joel again. You don’t even know what you’d say, if he even wants to bother with you after the other night. Part of you hopes that you fall backwards into the acquaintance of saying nothing, that you have permission to rewind past whatever this nagging feeling is.

It’s quiet outside – a lazy day. The snow on the ground is melting, patchy in spots where sunlight or kid-feet caught it at just the right angle. The greenhouses are so fogged and frosted over that you’re grateful you can’t see the death-rot inside. It’s not quite growing season yet, but close, and you long for the added distraction in your day if this is the alternative.

Anything to pass the time and not think about Joel and his hands touching yours. The fabric of your shirt oozing between his knuckles when he forced you chest-to-chest.

When you make it over to the barn, his horse is gone and there’s almost – almost – a twinge of relief. You’ll be done before he gets back from patrol. You won’t have a chance to swallow the apology that will rise in your throat like bile, but maybe it’s for the best.

You’re elbow deep in feed when there’s a yelling that cracks in the air. You freeze, waiting to hear a suffix of children’s laughter, but it doesn’t come. There’s a confused sort of shouting, and the gate at the border of Jackson slams and rattles like you’ve never heard before.

Shaky hands wipe at your pants, and you step out, a hand shielding your eyes from the glare of the sun.

Joel is slumped atop his horse, upright but hardly. There’s a cut somewhere on his head that streams a blurry red, and the horse whines when Tommy sprints to meet it.

“It’s Joel! I need some fuckin’ help here!”

And without fully connecting the dots or measuring the severity, you just run. Colliding with the crowd that’s formed, shoving elbows and shoulders as if in a trance. Like something’s pressing you from behind, throwing all its weight into pushing you forward.

You blink and you’re helping Joel down, Ellie’s tattooed forearm somewhere in the jumble of limbs. Tommy’s jean jacket stiff from the cold.

You don’t have to look in a mirror to know that you’re pale as a ghost. The moisture strips from your mouth, joints moving as if by marionette. Blood is already drying and caking in the creases of your hands. Knowing it isn’t yours makes you feel sick.

“‘M fine, Jesus Christ,” Joel coughs, a jagged edge in his throat that sounds anything but. There’s something underneath his coat that’s soaking through, blossoming a dark stain on the front.

Images keep shifting every time you blink, like you’re losing time in between and someone’s slamming the fast-forward button until it jams. Joel groaning on a makeshift stretcher. Ellie’s frenzied feet following as they take him to his house.

The tall one on top of you, squeezing your windpipe.

Your head cracking against the pavement.

Two gunshots firing.

Snow in your bloodied, matted hair.

“You’re okay, I’ve got you. I know, I know it hurts.”

Ringing grows loud and shrill in your ears. Tommy’s in front of you, calling your name. Shaking your shoulders.

“– need you to go fix him up –”

And you’re falling back into the present, vision shifting back into focus. You’re nodding, clinical now. You’ve seen worse, and strangely, that’s comforting.

“– whatever supplies you need, I trust you –”

The weight of Tommy’s confidence steadies you, tying up the loose ends that have untwined deep inside. You run through the mental checklist of what’s in your medical bag at home – stashed in your closet on the very top shelf. Bandages, antibiotics, sutures. But if you’re dealing with a bite…

“I got it. Promise. Keep everyone out, alright? I’ll let you know.”

He pauses, catching up with the subliminal thing that waits in the air between you. Wariness paints his gaze, and you know he knows what you’re afraid to say.

Tommy nods, but you’re already running.

#my writing #a heart for eating #ahfe #outbreak!joel #jackson!joel #joel miller #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #the last of us #the last of us fanfiction #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #tlou fanfiction #motherofagony

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katzenmas · 11 months ago

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okay but think about Nikto. Nikto who was not always no one. He was his mother's son, his sister's younger brother, the smiling kid from apartment 56 in the orange complex, the runt of the litter in his class.

Nikto who once had a name. A little boy who had a funny nickname that was yelled by his friends as they skipped class and ran from the guards in school. A boy who had dreams and nightmares and stupid petty fights with his classmates. Nikto who in his teenage years buzzed his hair and started wearing darker clothes. A boy who was offered his first cigarette at 14 and coughed up half a lung after one hit. A fight with the kids from a neighboring school left his nose crooked and blood filling his mouth, but his hands were slung over his friends' shoulders and they laughed. Nikto who watched wars break out. Had to hear it on the radio, see it on the news. Two old men talking about yet another conflict while playing chess in a park. History class in school talking about 'The Great Patriotic War', the horrors suddenly becoming too real. The need to do something pressing into his mind as he read the newspaper about an attack on a theatre by Chechen terrorists. Nikto who's mother's face paled when he said he enlisted. His older sister who tried to tell him to go to univeristy, study and then leave to go to a different country, live a better life, a life he deserved. His grandma who let silent tears spill as she remembered how her own husband did not return to her. A 17 year old boy who made up his mind, he wanted to serve his country, answer the call of duty. Nikto who went to training camp, passed it, but barely. A young fresh-faced boy who layed in his barrack bed and wondered if he made the right choice. He though he could never get used to the wight of his gun. Nikto who as the years passed adapted to the harsh military life. He revelled in it. The man came a long way, no one would be calling him the runt of the lotter now. His body filled out, muscles and skin hardening, his face that held baby fat even into his late teen years all but completely dissapeared, being swapped for a five o'clock shadow and a square jaw. Nikto who got into the helicopter with a smile, joking around with his squadmates as they set out to their next mission. The man who took down 13 hostiles by himself but was overwheled, the man who was not deemed worthy enough to go back for, the man who left at the hands of the enemy. Nikto who finally became no one. Nikto who's mind was spliced in so many directions that he could not make out the heads or the tails of life. Nikto who was no longer a boy or a man. He was death, he was nothing. Nikto who forgot his own name, forgot what life was like before the torture. Nikto who looked into the mirror, at the deformed thing that used to be his face. His minf trying to, but never quite coming up with a picture of what he looked like before. Nikto who came back changed. The voice in his mind also splitting, making him think that he was no one but also everyone at the same time. A big void of bodies and sounds trapped in one broken body. Nikto who had a chance to go back home. The door to the apartment where he supposedly spent his whole life was unfamiliar to him. The peeling paint and the rickety lock looked like things he knew, but the more he tried to remember the harder it was. Nikto who watched the woman who was supposed to be his mother fall to her knees when he said that her son is dead. The dog tags and envelope methodically handed over to her. He watched as another woman slowly made her way over to the weeping lady, embraced her and wailed. Wailed for a man who was dead but also alive. Screamed a long forgotten name and prayed to god, a god that Nikto himself remembers praying to during those months of being caputered. But they don't get an answer from him, just like he never did. He mutters an apology and turns away from the door. Leaves the orange complex with the women who grieved him behind. Just as he left himself behind. he was no one. He was Nikto.

#cod #call of duty #nikto #nikto call of duty #nikto headcanons #cod headcanons #call of duty headcanons

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i-drop-level-one-loot · 1 year ago

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Howdy, going through a phase with COD men (König my 6'10 BBG) and they would make such good Yandere husbands, would it be okay to request a Yandere military man who's completely delusional about a hostage he rescued? knife play and being stepped on with a tactical boot would be a bonus <3

btw the way you write dark content scratches such a specific itch and makes me want to wail, the yandere pirate story was *chef Kissssssss*

Honestly, the only thing I know about COD is that I kick ass at zombies lol so this is definitely just an oc

Yandere!Military Man x Hostage!Reader

CW: non-con, mention of death, assault, delusional ideation, dehumanizing language, dead dove

"Esteemed journalist (Reader L/N) has gone missing while covering the.."

The radio was drowned out by the vehicle hitting a rock, earning an aggravated groan from one of the men. Angrily, he slammed his fist on the dash board, as though he could intimidate the radio into working better. A couple of his brothers chuckled while the rookie squirmed nervously in his seat.

"Fucking, shit ass-" Adrian "Clank" Muigg muttered, quietly releasing a stream of curses in a very thick accent towards the machine.

(Most nicknames in the military were neither cool, nor had a badass backstory, most had fairly humorous or demeaning origins; Muigg, fresh out of boot camp, murdered an innocent television set in an attempt to fix it, which changed his name from "Big Bastard" to "Clank".)

The youngest man there prayed he wasn't visibly sweating. "Is everything alright, sir?"

Boston, the bushy browed man at the wheel, laughed with his entire chest. "That radio lady's talking 'bout the love of Clank's life!"

Clank felt the back of his neck heat up, and had to redirect his anger into tapping his foot to prevent himself from whacking Boston.

"I didn't know you had a partner?"

"He don't! HA! It's a one-sided, puppy love!" Boston joyfully mocked his best mate. "He's got that reporter-person's picture 'bove his bed, and has every article they've ever written. It's very sweet!"

Bright blue eyes warned Boston of the danger he was playing with, but Boston payed him no mind, causing more anxiety in the new recruit.

It was true, however, that Clank had a star struck crush on the journalist. They were brave in a way Clank hadn't seen before, the kind of bravery that made an unarmed civilian put their life in danger to expose the world to the horrors of war. This wasn't the first warzone (Reader) had willingly gone into, but it was the first time their mission overlapped with Clank's.

They were covering the battle Clank was involved in.

And it enraged him.

While their bravery is what initially drew him to them and their work, the longer he followed (Reader) the harder it got for him to read about the danger they got into. Weren't they fearful for their own life?? Why didn't they care for themselves as much as he cared for them??

The nearly six foot eight man had fantasized many times about what he would say and do if he got the opportunity to meet (Reader). He had an entire monologue prepared that exemplified his adoration for their work without ousting himself as a borderline obsessive fanboy.

However, that entire speech was forgotten when Clank burst into the room three hostages were being held in after killing the hostiles within the building, and found himself face to face with (Reader) in the flesh.

They stood defiantly, arms outstretched to protect the two other reporters behind them, not even wearing a bullet proof vest, ready to sacrifice themselves to save their coworkers.

Clank lowered his weapon, numbed by the sudden influx of confusing, and conflicting, emotions.

He was hurt, because he finally got to meet (Reader), and they were prepared for him to kill them.

He was enamored, because even with dirt clogging their pores, hair matted with sweat and drying blood, skin bruising and swollen, they were still the single most radiant being he had ever laid eyes upon.

And he was angry. Why wasn't (Reader) cowering like a good little civilian? Didn't they know that they could die? Why didn't they care about their life?

"I'm here to rescue you." Clank's voice was robotic, and unattached. It didn't feel like he was the one saying it, as the three frightened adults relaxed, scrambling over to his side. "Follow me."

He watched his object of affection as they obliviously helped lead the other two hostages down the stairs to the military vehicle. Their right eye was nearly swollen shut, but they were supporting a grown ass man with a slight limp. Clank imagined blowing the man's brains out.

As they made it down to where the group could see Clank's team, (Reader) released their friend and attempted to go back up the stairs. Still experiencing his out of body conundrum, Clank grabbed their arm forcefully, hard enough to earn a yelp from his favorite celebrity.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" He seethed, hissing the question between his clenched teeth to prevent himself from screaming it. The other two greedily ran outside to Boston's embrace, leaving them alone in the building.

"My footage, they kept it upstairs." Professional as always, the diligent champion of justice kept calm despite the feeling as though their arm would snap in Clank's fist.

"That is not important!"

"You don't know what I saw! It is, and I need the evidence, the proof, of what I saw!"

"Clank, where are you?" Boston's voice on Clank's radio distracted him enough for (Reader) to snake out of his grasp, bolting back up into the building.

"Shit-!" He pulled out his walkie as he ran up behind the surprisingly quick journalist. "Everything's good, I'll be down in a few minutes, start taking the others back."

"Uh, no? Excuse me-"

"That's an order."

"Clank-"

"I said; that's an order."

The violently pissed off man holstered his radio as he charged up the stairs three steps at a time.

His precious (Reader) had taken it too far this time.

Even if they didn't care about their own life, he cared. He loved them, adored them, worshipped them, so how fucking dare they continuously put their life in danger like this?

If they were to be wed one day, their life would be his. And that was downright disrespectful.

(Reader) could be heard rifling through cabinets and cupboards through the door of the first room on the floor above the one they were held prisoner on. Clank attempted to cool his rage before entering, wishing to not scare his future spouse again.

Glancing up only briefly, the adult of smaller stature offered a meak smile before going back to searching. "I'm sorry for that.. I don't mean to make your job difficult, but this is really important. We almost died for this footage; hell, LeDoux had his knee cracked open by one of those- his knee must be killing him."

-almost died-

Their words repeating in Clank's eardrums played over the exclamation of (Reader) finding their equipment. (Reader) almost died, for what? Nothing was more important than their life.

"I'm sorry?" Bloodshot eyes stared wide with confusion from under pursed eyebrows.

Without realizing it, Clank had spoken his thoughts out loud. But, perhaps this was for the best. They would have to learn the truth sooner or later. "Nothing is worth your life." He doubled down as he slowly approached (Reader).

It took a lot more energy forcing himself to smile than he wanted. Clank had never been so stressed or angry or conflicted in his entire life.

"That isn't for you to say." Sharp words responded with a huff, thrusting the camera into a duffel bag.

Clank released a humorless laugh. "You are like a small dog, aren't you, my dear?" His muscles were tensing under his uniform, and although (Reader) couldn't see it, they could feel the dangerous shift in his mannerisms. "You do not know of the danger you are in, so you bark loudly."

Although a pit of fear weighed down their stomach, the much weaker of the two hid it well, scoffing, and moving to stroll past Clank, praying that he was bluffing.

A harsh slap to their cheek confirmed that he was being serious, sending the already injured (Reader) to the floor.

Before they could scramble to their feet, a heavy, steel toed boot was placed firmly on their chest, pressing the air out of their lungs.

(Reader) could feel the blood rush to their head as they struggled to breath.

Clawing at Clank's shin and calf didn't move him.

"It is not your fault, that you are such a little dog. But, like all little dogs, you must be trained. Yes?"

Not a single word could be uttered. Black spots bounced around (Reader's) vision.

Clank eased up on the pressure just enough for oxygen to fill his love's deprived lungs. Between coughs and sputters, (Reader) only got out "Stop-" before his heel was digging into their sternum again.

"Tsk tsk tsk.. Now, I don't want to do this, but I have to. For us. So you must obey me, little puppy. Now, what do dogs say?"

(Reader) glared up at him in pain and hatred, sneering as angry tears welled up in their puffy eyes.

"Woof.." The pitiful bark was spat out.

"Ah ah ah." He wagged a finger at them in a chastising fashion. "Be nice, little puppy." His weight increased warningly, squeezing out a pained cry.

".. Woof."

Seeing the person Clank had loved for the past four years under his boot, writhing, flushed in the face, glistening eyes staring up at him and only him.. Clank could feel himself stiffening, and it disturbed him. Why did seeing his beloved cry in pain give him a hard on?

No, it is not because they are crying in pain.

Clank smiled, warping the situation to rationalize his hard cock pressing against his zipper. It was that they were being obedient for him.

Another cry rang out, louder this time, as Clank accidentally put too much weight on (Reader's) ribcage, lost in thought while admiring their pathetic face.

He got off, kneeling down so (Reader) wouldn't think about trying to get up. They got the message, and continued lying, grasping their chest and breathing raggedly.

"Good dog." Clank ran a hand through their hair. "You will listen to what I say, won't you?"

"Ye- ...woof." Their words quivered in shame.

"Good. Now, get on your knees."

(Reader) bit their tongue with how quickly their mouth clamped shut. It was humiliating, but their chest hurt so badly.. They rolled over, propping themselves up onto their hands and knees.

Their resolve to do as Clank said to avoid more pain was immediately forgotten when they felt his large hands tug at their pants.

"What are you doing?" They yelled in fright, whipping their head back to look at him before having their skull smashed into the floor, holding them down.

"Training, remember? For someone known for their intelligence, you sure are a moron. Bark, bitch."

Tears mixed in with snot, as (Reader) snarled "Fuck you!"

Clank removed his hand from their soft hair to firmly grasp their hips with both of his hands, pulling (Reader) onto his dick. "Incorrect."

"No!" (Reader) screamed, feeling Clank's bare member as it entered them painfully all in one thrust without lubrication. As they cried out, a slap to their ass rang out through the nearly empty room.

"What do dogs say?"

"Fuck you!" Another painful slap left a welt that would certainly bruise.

"You want to act like a bitch, putting your life in danger as though it doesn't matter, you're going to be treated like a bitch!" Clank raised his voice, terrifying his victim. "Now, what do dogs say?"

Slap!

"Woof.."

Slap!

"Woof! Woof! Bark!" They barked between viciously sobbing, heaving as he ravaged them from behind, fucking them so hard that their entire body rocked forward dangerously. The only reason why they hadn't fallen face first into the cement flooring was Clank's right hand digging painfully into their pelvis.

Whereas for (Reader) this was a nightmare, joy was already melting away Clank's anger.

"See, this will be better, for both of us. When we get back, you'll quit your job, and I can finally take care of you."

His thrusting became more passionate, and (Reader) could feel his precum as he began to slide in and out more easily. "I've dreamt of this for so long, and now I will finally be yours: whether as your husband or as your owner."

That triggered (Reader's) fight or fight response, realizing what Clank was implying. They attempted to throw themselves forward, to scramble away while he was still inside of them.

A strong arm caught (Reader) easily. Their spine was bent backwards, holding the attempted escapee in a head lock with a knife pressed to their throat as Clank continued stretching out their hole.

Despite their desperate pleas, their new fiance held (Reader) still on his cock as he released inside of them, going drunk on the way their walls felt clenching him as they milked him dry.

Eyes hazy with lust, he kissed their jaw, still keeping the knife held firmly against their neck just in case.

"Good dog."

A/N: I'm sorry it took so long! Thank you so much for your patience, I hope you like it ❤️

#sorry it took so long #thank you for your patience #yandere #yandere x reader #yandere oc #cw dead dove #dead dove do not eat #gn reader #cw noncon #cw assault #not proofread

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blueberrypancakesworld · 10 months ago

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Can you do a euronymous x guitarist reader where she is in slipknot and mayhem keeps playing the same gigs and euronymous sees her playing and falls in love

Guitar and Bands

Warning : falling/being in love, kinda fluff

Info : So here its is for you @iminlovewithmycarrrr hope you like it and I hope I did Slipknot some justice since I did not listen to them. Everyone have fun reading ;)

masterlist , rory culkins - masterlist

Disclaimer : I don't want to glorify anything, it's about the actors who play a role, not the real events.

--------------------

He knew the band, he knew every single damn one of the members, knew their names, where they were born, old hell even what they all ate and drank.

He admired the band that had only existed a few years longer than they had, but was just as well known. The masks were what fascinated them all, especially the band's founder. They could have been the riders of the apocalypse.

As if this evil force had come out of the dark, putrid depths of hell. But the biggest mystery of all was the mysterious guitar player with the cat-like mask as if they had taken a werecat and put the skin off her mask and given her power like Satan himself.

She was incredible he listened to every gig on radio and TV with his band even the beginnings of the internet helped the band find some tours for the band and get tickets.

The reason why his fingers, no, his whole body, was tingling, his heart was beating faster. He wanted to finally see her under the mask and see who she really was. She was a beast on stage a figure of the devil along with the band that was different in a different way than Mayhem.

His band was dark, satanic, boundary testing, offensive and wanted to blow up. Their band, on the other hand, seemed to be doing their own thing, living a life without rules, doing what they wanted to do and not trying to build a new Satanic power.

He drove faster to the concert hall, it was his biggest concert, but only as an opening act for Slipknot. ,,If you drive like that anymore you'll kill us" Necrobutcher mekcertge behind him and held the instruments and requisitions with Hellhammer and fist.

While the blond of the band took care of the dead animals and things, he did not take part in the conversation. ,,If I don't drive like this, we'll be late... besides, I have to see the band," Euronymous nagged back and pressed the clutch to drive even faster.

They were already late anyway, the party they had because of the gig had escalated a little too much and they all had to sip a few cups of coffee and throw painkillers to get out of the house and into the car.

But they still managed to get a place in the parking lot of an endless labyrinth. Sprinting into the hall with their instruments, they pushed past the masses of people and he could just see her with the guitar in her hand and, as always, the mask on her face. ,,Get everything ready, I'll have a look around!" he called out to Hellhammer and quickly threw his guitar to him, who almost collapsed and cursed at his friend.

But it didn't matter, he was there to see them play, he almost got lost in the masses of security men and technicians, but he saw the band was on stage, all that was left was for the fog to clear. Listening to the crowds of fans, he felt his fingers itching to play with her.

The way she played the guitar with such confidence, it was something that drew him in, she drew him in. ,,Amazing" came from his lips as the band gave it their all, playing one song after another until what he hadn't thought possible happened.

She took off her mask, threw the cat mask into the crowd and seemed to have been made better by all the music gods. Gods of music.

Her playing trumped her beauty a goddess of music and the determined look in her eyes as she shuffled through the crowd and suddenly looked at him.

His heart pierced and winked at him, he knew he had lost himself, that he was itching to play guitar with her, kiss her and be with her in a wave of music.

-------------------

#lords of chaos movie #lords of chaos #lords of chaos 2018 #loc euronymous x reader #rory culkin #loc euronymous

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salmonight · 1 year ago

Text

Free Title Ideas Pt. 1

I am always looking for new title ideas trying to find the perfect match for my meager amount of fics actually published ( I got a ton of wips mind you) so I have this little file full with title ideas I got from here and there and I thought I share them! Feel free to use them and all! I only actually used a few of them myself so theyre up for the take! Enjoy!

( I suck at categorizing mind u so take it however u want)

Low Mood:

Paint Splattered Teardrops

A Mournful Radio Song

The Quite Ivories

20 Minute Too Long… Too Late-

No Third Round Up

My Heart's An Artifice, A Decoy Soul

If These Walls Could Talk

Like Drying Paint on the Walls

Withering Memories

Bury Our Secrets Shallow

Isn't It Tragic How Far You Came?

The Best of the Worsts

Your Wings Are Failing, Icarus

Let Your Wings Carry You Away From Here

Cry For Reflection

The Scream of Winter

Much Madness in Divinest Sense

Family Doesn't End in Blood

In This Castle Of Glass

All the Same (Once a Liar, Always a Liar)

Crack:

Law is Where You Buy It

Miles from Normal

Stop Screaming - It's Me

Between Two Liars…

Lost My Soul and All I Got Was this T-Shirt

Dude, Where's My Soul?

When Life Hands You Demons Make Demonade

Demon-Blend Straigh From Hell

Nothing to See Here Officer, Just a Bunch of Blobs

Hey Kid, Wanna Buy a Blob Ghost?

Gingers Have No Souls

This Little Blob of Mine

Feral Goose Hunting: A Beginner's Guide (Just Don't)

10 Ways to Connect with Your Feral Goose by Robin

A Guide on Ruining Your Life

It IS and Idea (Just NOT the Brightest)

I Am totally NOT the One to Blame for THIS

Dead Men Won't Shut Up

Encryptid

Cryptid Crash Course

Shakespeare Has Nothing on Me!

[insert name]'s Observation Diary of the Weirdest Boss(es)

The Devil’s Eyes and His Voice of Reason

Romance:

Makeshift Chemistry

Stargazing, Coffee and the Mystery of You..

Play Love Like Killers (We All Fall)

Good Vibes:

Sunshine Riptide

Come on Baby, the Laugh Is on Me

Fair With Some Rain

Star Light, Star Bright, First Arrow I See Tonight

Bitter (?):

Ah, Lay Waste to it, then Laugh at it

Believe, We Were Never Gonna Lose Control

Die, but too Blind to See

Too Latte for Smiling (yes thats a pun there no miss typing)

And as the Scribe Said, Mark Me Up With Words

Vodka Shots in the Dark

What Lingers, What Waits

Dr.Sunshine is Dead

Action:

Swing 'em Sword, Comin' in Swarms

Droppin' Guns all on the Floor 'till it look like River Styx

Black on Black at Night

Rifles, and they're Useless in this House

Dropp the Dagger

Watch Us BURN

Death:

Leave Your Body and Soul at the Door

Dead Man's Party

'Till the Reaper Call

'cause the Hangman's Waiting

A Night in the Ice Box

Stars Fall Underground

Can't Reach the Stars from the Underworld

Dance on Your Grave in All Whites

I Will See You Down Below

A Toast to the Passing Lights

I am a Ghost, but Only If You Remember

A Forray into Thanatology

Do You Want to Build a Snow-ghost?

In the In Between

Deceased When Last Seen

They Only Murdered Him Once

Colder Than These Bones

A Ghostly Collection of Stories once Untold

Dearly Departed

Hopeful:

City of Last Hopes

Bright Foggy Skies

This Bird Has Flown

A Bard's Tale, so Bittersweet

In the Winter, the Van Keeps Rolling

Oh Raven (Sing Me a Happy Song)

A Light to Call Home

Lost and Found

Towards the Sun

Khmm I have quite a few ghost/death and Dc related ones cuz I mostly wrote DC and DP fics so I looked for tittles for those. Those who know, know those who don't can ignore them.

Pt 2 |

#writing #writing resources #free to use #free title ideas #title ideas #book title ideas #fanfic title ideas #crack title ideas #angst title ideas #title list #title suggestions #titles #story titles #fanfic titles #fic titles #crack titles #angst titles

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insomniacsystem · 5 months ago

Text

Because I'm in a Shadow Company brainrot mood here's all our OC's/alters bios at least with what were so far willing to share cause anxiety.

Name: Rhys 'Azrael' Grey

Callsign: Shadow 6-1 (based on his SAS callsign Bravo 6-1)

Rank: Captain (promoted)

Race: Native American(Navajo)/Irish

Height: 5'6

Age: 34

Gender: transgender male

Pronouns: He/They

Desc: Azrael is an ex SAS soldier at one point ending up a POW on a classified mission losing multiple members of the squad he was leading along with his fiance that had joined him on the team. After almost a decade of service multiple of his medical issues from childhood were finally diagnosed leaving him with a medical discharge and Azrael being the person he is definitely doesn't accept that as the end of his military career applying to Shadow Company intent on proving his abilities and keeping up his work.

Azrael is almost always found wearing as much covering clothing as possible almost never found without his neck gaiter on to cover the scars that mar the skin on his face and neck a painful reminder of captivity he's determined to keep hidden.(Though Graves and the other Shadows eventually coax him into opening up and wearing it less often)

Personality: Azrael is known for being extremely closed off keeping strong walls around himself to keep others out and away from his emotions and vulnerabilities. it's a major surprise to most to find that his old friends describe younger Azrael from before he was captured as cheery, sweet, and, extremely empathetic many don't exactly believe it considering most see him as cold and unfeeling, even if he does truly care for those around him just from behind his walls where he believes himself to be safer.

Name: Ashton 'Phoenix' Adair

Callsign: Shadow 7-5

Rank: Sergeant

Race: Scottish

Height: 6'5

Age: 33

Gender: Cis Male

Pronouns: He/They

Desc: Ashton is another ex-SAS soldier, having ended up a POW on the same mission as his ex-fiance Azrael, ending in them breaking up shortly after their release as guilt tears away at him, feeling he should have been able to protect his fiance and squad. It's not long before Ashton gets himself into trouble as he goes after the men responsible for him and Azrael's suffering leaving him on the run hiding from certain Russian extremists.

Ashton, with the help of a friend in high places, fakes his death, disappearing to work with Shadow Company on American soil where he's less likely to be discovered, and he still has opportunities to take out the men he's been searching for.

Personality: Ashton is known for being fiery, confident, and extroverted, often found chatting with the other shadows, happily helping out with what he can where he can without complaint.

Name: Vance 'V' Serra

Callsign: Shadow 0-2

Rank: Captain

Race: Mexican/Hispanic

Height: 6'7

Age: 33

Gender: Cis Male

Pronouns: He/They

Desc: Vance is and ex-Marine and has been close friends with Graves since they met encouraging the older man the entire way through starting Shadow Company despite his own contract with the Marines not exactly being up yet he waits out the time separated cheering his friend in from afar until finally he's able to resign immediately transferring himself to work with Graves once again become his right hand man.

All goes well for Vance for the most part the shadows do their jobs damn well and he's endlessly proud of his and Graves' men he's expecting things to go as usual as he's sent out in the convoy with the missiles only to find himself very wrong watching as his men are slaughtered he plays dead knowing damn well they have him outnumbered he's determined to make it back to Graves he waits out the soldiers as they collect the missiles keeping still even as the fire in the car licks at his skin immediately putting himself out and scrambling for a radio as the sounds of cars fade out he finds himself lucky as he's able to contact Graves ULF being able to send a small rescue team despite Shepards refusal to attempt proper rescue saving Vance's life leaving him in the hospital to recover during Las Almas returning to work as soon as he's cleared

Personality: Vance is known for being fiercely loyal to Shadow Company it's commander especially taking care of Graves and the shadows diligently making sure everyone is taken care of and not neglecting themselves his usual calm but happy demeanor soothing to those around him though that's definitely not saying he's not short tempered especially when it comes to defending Graves though the shadows often tease him for it prodding the man about having a crush despite Vance vehemently denying it.

Name: Emris 'Firefly' Hendricks

Callsign: Shadow 7-7

Rank: Sergeant

Race: Native American

Height: 5'7

Age: 32

Gender: Trans male

Pronouns: He/They

Desc: Emris is Shadow Company's most well-known demolitionist, always managing to find himself in trouble for some kind of energetic hijinks, often getting other shadows involved and getting slightly carried away. Emris is usually one of the many shadows messing with Graves in the most wholesome way possible, planting joke motivational posters of Graves and things, much to Graves' embarrassment, though he secretly finds it hilarious the shadows seem to love the posters and things so much.

Name: Arlo 'Icarus' Lyons

Callsign: Shadow 1-3

Rank: lieutenant

Race: American/Irish

Height: 6'5

Age: 28

Gender: Nonbinary (AFAB I swear that's important)

Pronouns: He/They/She

Desc: Arlo joined up with Shadow Company through interesting circumstances one of the few recruits trained by Shadow Company itself rather than coming from another military. Arlo is extremely dedicated to his work and loyal to Graves. the two had gotten along well since he joined Shadow company, though only a few years into his time with them through what he'd thought were harmless hookups to blow off steam, they had managed to get pregnant despite their infertility, despite the bad timing and circumstances, Arlo is understandably ecstatic having wanted kids of his own. though, due to the high-risk nature of her pregnancy, Arlo finds themselves on bed rest though Graves refuses to let him be alone considering, Arlo is single with no family, leaving him and Vance insistant on helping out and make sure he's cared for. he ends up having his daughter, Evie, with only mino8 complications, being age 8 as of the events of MW2 and 11 as of MW3.

Arlo does eventually defect from Shadow Company, joining up for 141 after the events of Las Almas. Despite the guilt he feels abandoning Graves, the young man couldn't cope with continuing to work with them, afraid of events like Las Almas repeating.

Personality: Arlo is known for being extremely sweet and charismatic keeping things running smoothly and arguments to a minimum at least to the best of his ability.

(wip)

Name: Callum Lucian

K9:Umbra (a black Belgian Malinois) (pup pic wip)

Callsign: Ace (0-13)

Rank: Sergeant

Race: American

Height: 5'8

Age:25

Gender: Trans Male

Pronouns: He\They

Desc: Callum is one of Shadow Company's resident K9 handlers. While Callum occasionally uses crutches, his cane, and braces between missions during flare-ups, and to allow his old injuries and chronic pain to settle, he is still incredibly capable in the field. having refused to let his back and knee injury stop him from serving, he joined SC once he'd healed shortly after his original discharge from the military, bringing his K9 along with him as they'd been retired together due to Umbra's strong attachment to Callum.

Personality:

Name: Warren 'Rune' Rivera

Callsign: Shadow 8-8

Rank: Lieutenant

Specialization: K9's

K9's: Nixie (Shepherd) and Nico (black Shepherd)

Race:White

Birthplace: USA/Tennessee

Height: 6'3

Age:35

Birthday: March 5th 1989

Gender:Male

Pronouns:He/they

Medical conditions: left leg amputated just below the knee hearing loss in left ear.

Desc:

Personality:

Name: Maeve 'Artemis' Grey

Callsign: Shadow 0-7

Rank: Lieutenant

Gender: Female

Pronouns:She/They

Age:29

Height: 6'1

Birthplace: Ireland

Race: Irish & (unknown)

Sexuality: Panromantic Greyromantic Asexual

Specialty:

Medical conditions: POTS ADHD Autism

Desc: backstory is still in the works but for now she's a new transfer from the SAS and Azrael's adoptive sister.

Mae is the result of a still secret affair her mother had, which has led to much resentment on her father's part. She, by now, is very aware she's not his biological daughter, but her mother still refuses to give her any information on her real dad, insisting on keeping their family's reputation spotless as usual.

Maeve, the youngest of all her siblings, grew up being taught to resent Azrael, being taught various horrible mindsets by her extremely religious family. For most of that time, she believed them, though as time went on, watching her older adoptive brother be abused so horribly chipped away at her. Her guilt only grew when Azrael ran away at 17 after being outed as trans, leaving her to reevaluate her parent's teachings. One could imagine the feeling of fear she felt when she found she'd started to crush on another girl at 16.

Maeve quickly realized she didn't want to live at home anymore and managed to forge he parents' signature, signing up for the British armed forces at 16, unknowingly following in Azrael's footsteps.

Personality:

Name: Adian 'Apollo' Grey

Callsign: 7-0

Rank: Lieutenant

Gender: Transmale

Pronouns:He/They

Age:29

Birthday: April 8th

Height: 5'10

Blood type: O+

Birthplace: Ireland

Race: Irish & (unknown)

Sexuality: Pansexual Aromatic

Religion: Pagan

Specialty: espionage

Medical conditions: POTS ADHD PTSD(childhood trauma) Autism Asthma Chronic pain from repeated injuries to his spine and ribs in his childhood.

Desc: backstory is still in the works

Aidan and Maeve are the result of a still "secret" affair their mother had, which has led to much resentment on their father's part. They, by now, are very aware they're not his biological children, but their mother still refuses to give them any information on their real dad, insisting on keeping their family's reputation spotless as she usually always has.

Aidan, the youngest of all their siblings aside from his twin sister. Maeve, grew up being taught to resent Azrael, being taught various horrible mindsets by his extremely religious family. For most of that time, he believed them, though as time went on, watching his older adoptive brother be abused so horribly chipped away at him. His guilt only grew when Azrael ran away at 17 after being outed as trans, leaving the twins to reevaluate their parent's teachings. One could imagine the feeling of fear Aidan must have felt already knowing he was trans like his older brother since he was young ~~hence Azrael's nickname for him Apollo~~.

The twins quickly realized they didn't want to live at home anymore and managed to forge their parents' signature, signing up for the British armed forces at 16, both unknowingly following in Azrael's footsteps.

Personality:

~~ok last one fr this time I swear dbdb~~

#shadow company #shadow company ocs #azrael(cod oc)#v(cod oc)#oc art #cod oc art #call of duty ocs #did osdd #osdd system #firefly(cod oc)#rune(cod oc)#shadow company oc #pheonix(cod oc)#Icarus(cod oc)#Ace(cod oc)#Artemis(cod oc)#Apollo(cod oc)

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memekais · 11 months ago

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daredevil sentence starters. s1ep6: condemned. feel free to change pronouns as needed!

interlock your fingers behind your head and get on your knees.

take care of him like we were told. no witnesses.

lying to that woman is impossible.

swear to god, that asshole knew i was a righty.

you find anyone alive, shoot 'em in the head.

that sounds pretty bad, but i don't speak asshole.

you got the wrong guy, i don't kill people. not even scumbags like you who deserve it.

and if i believe you and give you what you want to know... what do i get out of it?

oh, that explains it. the stabbing pain in my side.

i don't really go to the movies. i like records though.

don't let up... no matter how much he screams.

stay quiet, answer my questions or your night's gonna get a hell of a lot worse.

the world's a shitty place. you can quote me.

problems are just opportunities that haven't presented themselves.

if i didn't need you alive, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

so, you just stand there and let me die, huh? but you couldn't kill me yourself. is that where you draw the line?

you think you're different... from me? from him? but you'll get there. sooner or later... we all do, men like us.

right now, i'm your only shot at getting out of this building alive.

this is not how i die. this is not how it happens.

how's it feel, knowing your days passed? you're like the freaking dinosaurs, watching that big rock crashing into 'em.

i still got a few good stories in me.

i'm the closest he has to family. he'd do the same for me.

you've played the hero enough for one day. you're here and safe, so let's keep it that way, okay?

it was fun... watching you bleed.

you've been asking about me. i thought it was about time we spoke.

i want to save this city, like you... only on a scale that matters.

life is not a fairytale. not everyone deserves... a happy ending.

not that i don't admire what you're trying to do... to change the world... with nothing but desire in your own two hands, secure in the knowledge that you're doing the right thing, the only thing. that's something that i do understand. but we both can't have what we want. so your part in this drama, by necessity, comes to an end.

it's gonna take a lot more than a voice on a radio to stop me.

it's not me you need to worry about. it's the city you just blew the hell out of.

you're a child playing at being a hero.

i'm not trying to be a hero. i'm just a guy that got fed up with men like you and i decided to do something about it.

that's what makes you dangerous. it's not the mask. it's not the skills. it's your ideology. the lone man... who thinks he can make a difference.

i respect your conviction... even if it runs counter with my own.

keep telling yourself you've won. it'll make what i'm gonna do to you so much more satisfying.

general rule... guys who wear masks have something to hide, and it usually ain't good.

the moment you put on the mask, you got into a cage with animals. animals don't stop fighting. not until one of them is dead.

#rp meme #rp prompts #ask meme #rp sentence meme #rp sentence prompts #rp sentence starters #prompts #meme

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lifesver · 2 months ago

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(not) lil dire verse starter for @t4mpered / cw the usual dusk topics

bar is hazy with low laughter, and the warm rumble of a jukebox in the corner of the room — staticy, playing some old country song leland doesn't recognize. a little more lively than normal, though, leland thinks — or, maybe it’s just already the weekend, and he's lost track of his days, again.

leland's been here a few times now — quiet and subdued at johnny's heels. watch, learn. mirror. don't look so wide-eyed and scared. don't act like some skittish outsider. but he still feels out-of-place. it smells like mildew and cigarettes and stale beer in here, and rough-faced men sit perched on barstools, trying to chat up the pretty young bartender. real blue-collar types; ones johnny seemed to know most of by name, that leland didn't want to get caught looking at wrong.

he sends a nervous glance across the room — looking for a familiar shadow leaning on the wall, staring him down — but doesn't find him. it makes leland fidget with the handle of the blade in his jacket pocket. wouldn't he have told you, if this was another test? an odd worry settles in the pit of his stomach; what if something happened, and he doesn’t come back for you? what if —

( — what if you snuck away to that payphone outside, again? )

his fingers twitch at carved handle, agitated. eyes flick across the faces in the room again. breathe. you're fine, you can do this, you can — leland forces his shoulders to relax. it’s probably fine; he would be back. wouldn't let something get out of hand. wouldn’t let him get hurt, or anything like that — right? even if he isn’t watching leland from afar, others in this bar probably are. that's what johnny said; eyes everywhere, in this town.

he's supposed to pick out a stranger. a drifter, or a passer-through. someone who might not be missed. maybe, someone who seemed... vulnerable. leland tastes something sick in the back of his throat; there's no illusions of what he's here to do. what he’s done before — what’s expected. ( — and you want to do well for him, don’t you? show you’ve gotten better, that he can trust you. that he doesn't have to put you back down in the dark. you can be good enough — )

he scans the room again. johnny would say it like this; most people are lookin’ for something. then the trick was — you'd play that role for them; a friend, a hookup, sometimes a fight. whatever it took, to get them following you out to a secluded place — which, it got a little easier to do, when you pretended to be someone else. anyone else. anyone besides leland mckinney, officially, legally, dead. even if whatever he is, now, wanders around regardless of an obituary entry — lifelike in every way — with a heart that thuds and rattles, like a cold stone in his chest.

maybe in some sickeningly guilty way, it’s freeing. to smile, to give fake names to strangers. to know that no one’s going to match his face to a missing poster — not in this town, anyway. or, maybe not anywhere, now. people kept to themselves, around here. and if the past year had taught him anything — it was to forget about the idea of anyone in this god-forsaken town helping him.

leland blinks. opening chords of the next song roll fuzzy from the old jukebox; i need you, lynyrd skynyrd. he remembers, mostly, because he remembers when they started playing it on the radio, in the summer. he remembers trying to memorize the words, muffled through the dirt wall. it hums low in his throat as he spots his stranger, a dark silhouette by the bar, turned away from him. leland pauses just a moment, eyes fluttering closed as he performs the familiar practice, of putting all the roiling anxiety in him under cement. takes a measured breath to steady himself — okay. okay — find out what this stranger is looking for. you're fine. you can do this.

ain't no need to worry

there ain't no use to cry

'cause i'll be comin' home soon —

leland settles with his back to the bar, parallel to his stranger. at first it’s just a brush of contact, a bump of elbows, that could easily be written off as accidental. he gives a small sidelong glance to the man's profile, noting closed body language, static practically rolling off tense shoulders. but, definitely not a local, leland thinks, with a touch of bitterness — guy lacks the distinct grimy film this place tends to suffocate you with. but — there's something else, that makes his stomach twist in knots. something that stings nostalgic in the man's scruff and shaggy hair, the hard furrow of his brow. in that weathered brown jacket.

( " say somethin' " the far-away voice tries to reach him. as scared as him.

" ... leland? " )

— you know i get so lonely

that i feel i can't go on,

leland's eyes wander back to the blinking lights on the jukebox, and names that are not his own shift around behind his teeth. ❝ … they look lost in their own world, ❞ he comments, candidly. and nods toward the center of the room — where a couple of drunken patrons were in a slow, woozy sway to the music. a woman throwing her head back with laughter as her dance partner spins her around under the dim, gaudy lights. it looks a little silly, to him. it looks… romantic.

leland’s chest squeezes. he keeps eyes down, tracing the frayed stitching on the sleeve of stranger’s leather jacket. ❝ — what about you? ❞ leland smiles softly, mostly to himself, ❝ you look like you’d rather be anywhere else. ❞ god. he knows the feeling.

#cw dusk vibes #sorry as you might expect this got out of hand sorry for exposition city once again #anyway im normal about the trajectory #( ☆ ) ⸻ THE FILM WHICH YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE... / ic.#t4mpered

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fictionalmenxyn · 2 years ago

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Day off

Summary: having no missions to do, besides some training there isn’t much more to do.

F/n- Friends name

Tw:jumping out of plane/aircraft and I believe that’s it.

So today you and the lads plus Layla didn't have any missions. You had a few training sessions buts that's it. Your nickname/code name is Grim Reaper since if someone saw you, they knew they were already dead.

Currently walking down the corridor with your headphones on. You were listening to your favourite playlist. Bopping your head to the rhythm, you felt a hand on your shoulder. You jumped a little and turned around. You saw it was ghost, you smiled and spoke "hey" you paused your music and pulled your headphones around to your neck. He spoke "hey, when's your next training session?" You spoke "uhh I think in a hour or two I was just about to go on a run, why?" He spoke "I'm gunna join you" you smiled and spoke "sounds like a plan" you gave him a fist bump. You and Ghost both grew up together only you two know each others true pasts. You both wore some form of face masks, he wore his skeleton and you wore your half skull mask that was smudged. You did it because of three reasons one to hide your massive scars. Not that you were insecure about it but you just didn't want people asking about how you go them because some of them weren't from the military. Two is because you wanted to hide your Identity from enemy's and also because of your scars it would be quite easy to remember your face. Lastly because if you looked in the mirror long enough you just see your younger self and that was a bad place because of your bad parents and stuff so it would just remind you of childhood.

You were at the start of the track. You spotted ghost walking over, you waved and he copied your movement by waving back. You spoke "ready?" He nodded. You started your watch and you both started your run. Since you both joined the military you both have changed but you both know it was for the better. You both became stronger mentally, physically and emotionally.

After about a solid hour of running ghost spoke "don't you have training soon?" You looked at your watch and spoke "shit.. yeah I do come on I need to get ready" you both went back to your rooms. You quickly showered and changed.

Quickly leaving your room you headed outside. You spotted

F/n and Price outside. Price spoke "ah just in the Nick of time thought we'd leave without you" you spoke "sorry to busy running and lost track off time, no pun intended" he smirked and said "come on let's go" you three walked onto the helicopter and buckled yourselves in. Todays main training is free fall, you loved it since it gave you a feeling as if you were on a roller coaster plus you loved fear. F/n who is also known as Soap's missus, well she has a love hate relationship with the thing. Price spoke "get ready" the door started opening and he spoke "aim towards the astroturf" you shouted of the noise "ok!" Walking towards the opening you looked back at Price. He gave you a thumbs up, you shouted "three.. two.. one!" You grabbed F/n’s hand and you both ran off the platform and you both in the sky. Looking over to F/n you gave her a thumbs up to see is she was alright. She gave you a thumbs up to confirm she was alright. You heard Price over the radio in your ear "pull the cord" you pulled the cord and then so did F/n. You both managed to lad in the AstroTurf. You unclipped your parachute and ran over to F/n. You high-fived each other, you said "you did great" she said "that's because I enjoyed it this time" you said "then enjoy it the next" you smirked and she said "I'll try my best, Reaper" you walked over to your parachute and started packing it back up. You heard Price shout "well done ladies! both did great today!" you spoke "managed to get a few flips in too" me laughed.

Making your way back into the building. You saw most of the men in the break room. You spotted ghost, sat at the table playing cards with Gaz and soap. You looked away then felt eyes on you, instantly knowing it was ghost. You continued walking towards your room. Opening the door and closing it behind you, you placed your vest on your chair and helmet on the desk. You pulled your boots off when you heard the door. You beckoned them in. The door opened revealing ghost. You spoke "hey, love" he closed the door and asked "how'd it go?" You said "good.. good" he nodded his head and slipped his mask off. He laid on your bed. You spoke "Imma go in the shower alright, you can stay here I'll leave the door open so you can talk to me, ok?" He looked over at you and spoke "I want one thing first" you said "and that is?" He spoke "a kiss" you smiled and walked over and leaned down. Giving him a kiss then you gave him a peck on the cheek. You spoke "if you want music on my phone is on the desk if you connect it with my speaker it should work" he got up and walked over to your desk. Grabbing your phone he saw your lock screen. It was you pair in your gear after one of your duo missions and saved thousands of people that in your opinion was the best mission you been on. He unlocked your phone and did what he was told. Turning it up so it was practically background music so he could still hear you. Hearing one of your favourite songs on you started singing to it. He smiled to himself as he loved when you sang it reminded him of the time you and him would be in either one of yours rooms when you were teens and you’d sing the same song. That song to him and you had something there. It felt like a safe place, it had so many good memories behind it.

Getting out of the shower you changed into a pair of joggers and one of ghosts hoodies and a pair of your sports socks. Scrunching your hair in your towel you walked out of the bathroom and saw he still was on your bed. You walked over and said "so heard it's movie night tonight, you joining?" He said "if you go, I’ll go" you smiled and spoke "they we shall" you sat next to him.

After drying your hair, you and ghost pulled on your masks. Walking into the brake room you spotted everyone gathered round the table. You spoke "hey guys" F/n patted a seat next to her. You sat down and ghost sat opposite you and next to soap. Price said "now since everyone is here, we need to vote on what we are eating tonight." He handed out pieces of paper and spoke "write down what you think we should eat tonight." You pretend to right down but you looked at ghost to see what he was writing. Agreeing with his option you wrote down the same. Folding the paper you placed it into Price's hat. Once he collected the votes in he mixed them in his hat. In the end he said "so the food we are getting tonight is pizza." You looked at ghost and saw he was already looking at you. You smirked and looked back at Price and he spoke "once you get the note pad write your order down" after three people it was your turn. You wrote your name and ghost's name, you looked up at him and asked "the usual?" He nodded his head as you wrote down his order and then yours and slid the note pad to F/n so she could order hers and soaps food.

After a while you all ate your food and cleaned up. Soap said "everyone grab what you want for the movie" you and F/n gave each other an excited look. You ran to your room and F/n ran to hers. You grabbed your waited blanket F/n gifted you and you grabbed a pillow for ghost. Walking back out you saw most of the men had hogged up the sofa. You rolled your eyes as you hear F/n whisper "they've hogged up the sofa again haven't they?" You spoke "yep, gosh we can never have a seat can we?" You both chuckled and she said "no worries at least we got men we can us as a pillow" you gave her the eyes. She laughed. You both walked over and you threw ghost the pillow. He rested it behind his neck and he gestured for you to sit on his lap. Sitting sideways so your left side was against his chest as you both sat on the end. You pulled the blanket over you both. Feeling his arm snake around your waist and the other hand on your thigh. You rested your head on his shoulder. You watched the beginning of the movie and spoke "gaz picked this didn't he?" The men laughed and gaz spoke "how do you know that?" You spoke "I’ve know you all long enough now. Trust me I can read people like a book" he was shocked. You smirked and continued watching the movie when you heard ghost whispered "that was quite accurate" you smiled under the mask and he knew you did as well.

After the movie, you all headed to your room. Soap went with F/n and ghost went with you. Closing the door and locking it, ghost pulled his mask off. He later on your bed and said "come on, before I get cold" you rolled you eyes as you laid on top of him. He placed his index finger under your chin and lifted your face to look at him dead in the eyes. He closed the gab and started to make out with you. Sometimes when you kissed Ghost it was as if he’d haven’t seen you in years. He love it though and deep down you did too. Pulling away for air and asked "why'd you stop?" You said through each breath "do.. you want.. me to suffocate?" He chuckled and said "eh, as long as it's me doing it" you smirked and started kissing him again. Then you both went to sleep. The only time ghost slept it would only be in your arms. Just like when you both were kids.

Hope you enjoyed!

Make sure to request/message me if you want

Have a good day/night!🫶

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shimakaze-revivalism · 4 months ago

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this year i've been doing a lot of stuff that i didn't mean to do, and not doing a lot of stuff that i did mean to do. i got involved with the kink scene, i deepened my familiarity with carbonated beverages, i ate a lot of fried chicken sandwiches, i started reading again, and i played a lot of gacha.

and speaking of gacha, the only one that stuck with me from the decent-sized crop that i sampled this year was mihoyo's zenless zone zero! what to say about it . . . it's a Real Game, for one. it manages to shed the unsheddable "rubbishy" feel that is almost universal to gacha. its premise is like if andy and leyley were normal and worked as shadowrun hackers in jet set radio tokyo, in a semi-apocalyptic world where the only people around are orphans, anthros, or both. there are also sentient automatons that have cool outfits, and chubby baby bunny robots, but unfortunately neither of them have rights. it's got a really cool soundtrack, a charming spiderversesque look, and characters i found surprisingly compelling.

new music! well, new to me at least. you know ben and jerry's cherry garcia (possibly the most prominent contemporary cherry-focused ice cream flavor)? well jerry garcia was a guy who had this band that old men loved called the grateful dead. and well, i don't really care for what i've heard of their records to be honest. but it must be said that they were a jam band, and the 16 minute terrapin station gives one a taste of what i assume was the sensory height of a real-life hippy's experience, and i can imagine listening to it for decades to come.

indeed, if one wants a meal in the proggy realm rather than a bite, it's best to look to the guys that do that stuff all the time across the pond. Morgan put me on to electric wizard and their impeccable self-titled album has been in heavy rotation since. jackie put me on to yes' album relayer, and the first track provides the rarefied pleasure of hearing the singer of the irrepressibly lighthearted and goofy jojo anime ED "roundabout" trill about bathing in the blood of one's enemies.

in more occasional listening i have to rep my oshi 星街彗星 (hoshimachi suisei). her consistently strong body of work ranges from saccharine, to heartfelt, to sort of diva-core. listen, it's increasingly popular to reference hatsune miku, and it's often done with a sort of surface-level appreciation of miku, riding off of the long history miku has in overseas otaku culture. i myself have participated in this. but step outside the bit with me here. miku is a synth, an instrument. miku has all the humanity of the DX7. in fact that's what her color scheme is based on (because yamaha made both miku and the DX7)! hoshimachi suisei . . . listen, maybe people aren't ready. but she really is a virtual pop star. she's iconic. she's got a sigma grindset. she has a favorite food and a sister and friends and it's not lore it's reality. she's not a prop owned by a company, but an autonomous performer! miku is a virtual girl. suisei has a virtual face, but she's a real woman with a real dream! won't you believe in it?

staying with japanese affairs for a moment, anime has been good too! gushing over magical girls, perfect show, hannibal for anime girls, delightful and heartfelt. i also watched the vexations of a shut-in vampire princess, which was frenetic, lightning fast and kind of stupid, but i eagerly await another season. both extremely lesbian.

looking ahead, i'm extremely excited for the release of the alters, a game whose demo caught me completely off-guard, and i'm also excited to try the early access release of marmoreal, a sort of isometric completely touhoucore game with so much charm and sincerity.

that's my little roundup! have a great september!

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my-mt-heart · 7 months ago

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tldr here - it was very short qa, only 30 mins no questions. norman and melissa hung out and took selfies and signed stuff with as many people as possible before security wrapped it up. neither stopped when the came out the back to their cars.

what do you want to know? you don't have to post this / you can repost it under a cut for spoilers, idc.

pros: most scene time in the first ep is of carol, who's dry wit i missed but is totally back. i like the new character, avi. beautiful scenery, love that it's supposed to be maine. the crowd cheered for carol / melissa, there wasn't like favoritism towards norman / daryl in terms of reactions. fans of all ages / genders / etc.

cons: same character development. she meets someone, she puts on a facade. i was so frustrated carol didn't just tell the truth. i didn't watch the first season out of spite but daryl's scenes.....i really felt like i was watching, like, harry potter and the walking dead. it just felt wrong.

neutral (imo-not significant but feels a little stale / like they didn't try atp): focusing on carol's loss of sophia, call backs to The Barn scene, there's a cherokee rose that symbolizes "hope."

from the qa: norman really hyped up the finale but that could just be to get people to watch. teased "bickering like an old married couple." zabel teased the photos of mel and norm shooting in paris and norman was like, "there's pictures of it on the internet" they know. when they asked melissa what she said on the radio she did an adorable bit about "i want my socks back" or something. she also implied that she's been apart of crafting where the character goes and what's important. dalton ross is very cringe, he needs everyone to know he was the guy to be at the height of the comic-con days (but he wasn't that was hardwick lol). there was a well known rick cosplayer there and people were trying to sneak photos, i think they thought he was andy fr.

plot spoilers: tldr carol befriends a guy, avi, for his plane and convinces him to fly her to france by the end of the first episode to find her daughter sophia, who was in paris with her father ed when the world ended (avi calls her out on this and everyone laughs). she plays on the loss of his son, which melissa says is "awful." i'm not positive bc i didn't watch but i think avi's place is where daryl made the radio call from to cArol but i can't be sure i could be making that up.

it was cool but also gave me this deep bit of sadness? like maybe i'm too old for this and need to move on. it was a little disorganized - they kept removing reserved seating so people kept rushing for closer seats, which left me in the middle of the front section with empty seats in either side of me? it was weird.

Thanks for the writeup! I'm really happy Melissa was so well-received. She deserves that.

Carol falling back on old habits makes me nervous because of how quickly some viewers like to demonize her (female characters are always judged more harshly than men for their flaws). I know she's desperate to get to Daryl, I love that he's her emotional drive, and I trust Melissa's performance will be nuanced, but I'll judge the writing when I get to see the scene for myself.

What is Daryl's arc in 201?

I feel like there is actually a lot of healing left to do as far as Sophia goes, so I'm glad Melissa wanted to explore that. I hope the callbacks/flashbacks with Sophia as well as with Daryl really will help Carol grow as a character. I'm confident in Melissa's storytelling abilities. She's very intuitive. Zabel on the other hand tends to put gimmicks before substance and that doesn't mesh well. If people are saying they can feel Melissa's influence in the episode, that's a good sign. AMC should keep leaning into her vision for Carol/Caryl.

#caryl #carol peletier #melissa mcbride #daryl dixon #norman reedus #twd spoilers #twd caryl #the book of carol

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good--merits-accumulated · 9 months ago

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More Dead Poets headcanons: historical (Belle Époque) edition

Is this just fully self-indulgence now? Yes. (Insert Starship Troopers gif: "I'M DOING MY PART!")

- Todd is the second son of a couturier who prefers writing fairytales about the dresses instead of doing business with them. He often slips away to go play in string quarters in little riverside bistros and sit in on writers' salons. Strictly speaking he doesn't need to sneak as nobody outside his family really knows who he is, but he does it anyway

- Neil is the contrastingly very high-profile son of a government minister who has seen Todd looking uncomfortable at various balls and recognises him one evening playing violin in the corner of a dingy little cafe, because HE'S also been sneaking out

- Charlie is a dilettante and hangs about with artists (to the dismay of his parents) and keeps the gossip rags well stocked. Neil became friends with him at fourteen out of spite for his parents then discovered that they got on extremely well and that was, as they say, that

- Meeks is a student at the newly-formed University of Paris, unfortunately dating these headcanons exactly to 1896. He spends his time working feverishly on investigating radio waves + using them in communication, a discovery he is unfortunately eventually beaten to by Guglielmo Marconi (yeah, the real guy). Meeks keeps up a significant correspondence both with scientific luminaries (on a first name basis with Max Planck somehow???) and the large amount of siblings he's left behind in a village near Drôme, spending all his allowance on ink and foolscap. (Yes, he speaks fluent Provençal!) Pitts is an American classmate (courtesy of his father working in the embassy), and does mysterious things with aniline dyes after classes in the shed at the bottom of his garden. They prudently don't ask

- Chris is one of Todd's father's clients who befriends him after he very succinctly tells her exactly what's wrong with the fabric and colour and silhouette of the dress her fiance ordered for her. Said fiance is Knox, who Chris is marrying not particularly out of anything more than a very lukewarm platonic affection, but more out of a desire to get out, now, and to decide on something, Now. Knox knows this but he's still convinced it will work out (?????). Ginny is Chris' best friend very explicitly disapproving about it the whole time, and half in love with her as well

- Cameron meanwhile is a pencil-pusher at the American embassy (he's French, though, not American) and befriends Knox and then Charlie and then everyone else through strange twists of fate. Secretly reads a lot of dime novels on the sly. Insists he doesn't

- For at least one glorious summer they all get out and go free. Meeks takes them all down to see his family and Neil goes careening down country back lanes on his (new, very handsome) bicycle, with Todd sitting precariously on the handlebars and laughing the whole way. Knox gets a barge ("Where from?" "Well, I came across it tethered, abandoned, just... over there." "Over THERE?" "Yes. What's the problem?" [DISTANT, EXTREMELY HEATED SHOUTING] "Ah, Christ.") and they all end up in the river one way or another. When they get back to Paris the quiet of the countryside has sharpened everything to even harsher brilliance and Charlie pulls them all to visit his artist acquaintances and they go to the bars out of the way where men can be seen with men and the air is thick with smoke enough that nobody can really see each other's faces, and Neil pulls Todd into a clumsy waltz and thinks, this is how it should always have been from the moment that I was born.

#and then they remain frozen in that moment because i don't want to think about what happens next #i very much like the atmosphere of dps headcanons we've built up tonight btw. this is great. fan culture and engagement ftw #dead poets society #anderperry #dead poets society headcanons

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l3m0ncyan · 2 years ago

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New to Life | Chapter 13

MoonKnight System x Hispanic! Latina! Teen! Reader

Warning: Teen drinking, Vomit lmaoo, men being weird

Masterlist

----------------------

Y/N sat in the passenger seat of the white pearly cab. Jake kept his sight on the road, remaining silent throughout the car ride. She looked outside, and it was still dark out. Glancing at the analog clock on the radio it was 1:49am

She was only awake in order to keep the destruction of her and the other two alters safe. If it wasn’t in jeopardy, she would have ignored Jake Lockley.

“So why do you need my help again?” She finally broke the silence.

He didn't look at her, instead opening the glove compartment and pulling out a tan file, which he handed to her.

Nothing was written on it, despite her expectation that it would have a case number or the words "CLASSIFIED" in bold lettering.

She paused before peering inside, where she found documents and news articles, but at the top of the pile was a square photograph of a man with stubble and a low ponytail. He appeared to be in his final years of college.

"Okay, what about him?” She shrugged and motioned to the file on her lap.

"Keep looking through it," Jake groaned.

“It would be easier for you to just tell me…” She mumbled.

Y/N did as she was told and flipped through the file's pages. She read the articles and noticed how each one mentioned a cybercrime occurring in different parts of London, far apart from one another. The majority of those were small business owners and middle-class citizens.

“So he’s robbing people virtually?”

“Yes”

"I still don't see why you need my help, he's literally scrawny, and I bet you can take this guy down by yourself," Y/N leaned back.

"I know that, but he is very paranoid. College students are the only ones who can approach him." He cast a glance at her. "Usually, girls with an American accent"

"Hell no," she said as she closed the file, seeing where it was going.

“Y/N,” Jake said firmly.

"No; he's creepy, and me and Mania have only fought ordinary criminals." Like purse snatchers." She drew her arms across her chest.

“Mania?” Jake tossed a quick glance at her before returning his attention to the road, "You named the parasite?"

“Parasite?!”

"Uh, it doesn't like being called that, you ought to apologize," Y/N said nervously.

“I am not saying sorry to a—“

“Don’t” she pleaded.

“He better not go the second time!”

"Parasitic leech," Jake finished, his voice tinged with disgust.

“That is it!”

Mania suddenly stretched out a few limbs. One pair rushed to wrap themselves around Jake's neck. The others clung to the steering wheel. Taking over the driving duties from Jake.

“Shit!” Y/N yelled out

Mania began to swerve the cab on the street. Tires were heard screeching. Fortunately, there were no cars around to play bumper cars with.

Jake would try to steady the vehicle with his hand, but Mania strangling him stopped him. He struggled to peel the black tentacles away from his larynx.

“I am going to kill this piece of shit” Jake said between chokes.

"Mania, stop!" Y/N would grab the stems of all limbs and try to pull them away, but she was being hit side to side as the cab veered left and right.

“Not until he apologizes!”

Y/N grunted as she was once again thrown against the cabs door, “We’ll all die before that happens!”

“I'll make sure this one stays dead” Jake growled, referring to Mania.

A horn blew and there was a flash of lights as they all fought. They all turned to see a massive truck speeding towards them. Mania and Y/N let out a scream, and Jake's eyes widened.

Mania immediately returned to Y/N's body, leaving the wheel vacant. Jake rushed to return the vehicle to its lane. He then slammed into the breaks, creating a large force that caused him and Y/N to violently jolt forward and back.

The truck sent one last blow of its horn as it passed by them.

The two stayed quiet in the cab as only the sound of the sleeping city revolved around them.

Y/N caught her breath and glanced at Jake. He had a frown, and his eyebrows were furrowed as he looked at the street.

“…I still haven’t said yes to the job” She finally speaks.

Jake scoffs, shaking his head in disbelief, “You are still difficult; even after we almost die”

Y/N tightens her lips before continuing, “Technically, we can’t die because I have Mania and you have Khonshu—“

He cut her off, ignoring her last statement, “You tagged along after I said I’d pay you”

Jake finally looks over to her, who has her arms crossed.

"...Money ain't worth this," she crossed her arms. "Can't you just get someone else?"

“You are getting paid”

“Not enough”

“It’s more than what you get a day working in the museum,” he finally looked at her.

“At least my wellbeing is safe,” she said with an attitude.

"Weren't you saying that you don't die because of Manic?" he challenged.

"Mania, and you also have powers to help, far better than what I can do," she clarified.

Jake was on the verge of losing patience, which he never did, but with this girl, he felt like he was conversing with a child who kept whining.

Normally, if someone was being difficult, he'd just kill them, but in this case, he couldn't.

And it appeared that Jake's patience would be tested further as the young adult continued to argue with him. One upping him at every chance she had.

“Nadie te ha dicho que eres la niña mas enfadosa? Quien te entiende, primero que si y ahora que no” Jake pinches the bridge of his nose.

*Has no one told you that you are the most annoying girl? Who understands you, first yes and now no*

“Y nadie te ha dicho que te miras que tienes un pepino en el culo?” Y/N growled at him.

*And has no one told you that you look like you have a cucumber up your ass?*

"Hija de la chingada," he murmurs, "I'll pay you twice as much as I promised."

Y/N thought for a moment before nodding, “Fine”

—

The cab arrived at what appeared to be a three-story house. The front yard was made up of a stone driveway that circled a patch of rose bushes. It was constructed of red brick with four windows aligned on each floor.

There were flashing colored lights and people dancing inside. Outside the house, there were other people holding red cups, most likely with alcohol. The majority of the guests were college students, much like frat boys and sorority girls in teen movies.

"I've never been to a house party, especially one with people like them," Y/N scrunched her face as she shrank into her seat.

"You don't have to socialize, just go in and find the guy," Jake said, looking over to the group she mentioned.

He opened the window that showed the backseat, “There are your clothes since…”

He turned to face Y/N, who was dressed in pajamas and a large shirt. Her hair was also a mess because she had been sleeping an hour ago.

“This is the new style, you know that right? All the cool kids wear this” she mockingly said as she extended the hem of her t-shirt to show the graphic image.

"Not in England," he said, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, placing one in his mouth and flickering the flame onto it, "Hurry and change."

She turned around to see a casual crop top and jeans sitting on the red leather seats. Jake appeared to have gone through her wardrobe before they left. It's no surprise he didn't ask her to change at home. She got out of the passenger seat and went into the back of the cab, nervous.

—

She approached the front of the large house and gazed at the large social gathering. When she walked in, music was blasting into her ears, and the smell of pot and alcohol enveloped her.

“God, that money better be worth it” she scowled.

A small buzz was heard from her right ear, specifically her earpiece.

“It will, how’s the party?” Jake’s voice came through.

"Just future doctors and lawyers getting high and drunk," she said, placing her fingers on it. "I'm still confused why you have me using this earpiece instead of our phones. It's like I'm in Spy Kids."

“Because the guy we’re trying to catch has gotten everyone’s info from their devices; phones, smart watch, technology”

Y/N stopped, “Isn’t he hearing us talking then?”

“I have our pieces immune to that sort of thing”

Y/N nodded and made her way through the house, intrigued in how Jake is more tech savvy than Marc and Steven.

A large group of people was dancing to the music being played in one large room, which appeared to be the living room. It had a balcony above it where more people were talking or making out.

Walking into the kitchen, there was people having shots as everyone cheered them on. To the side we’re some who were recording while others who were unamused and on their phones.

“Question, why is he getting into peoples phones?”

“It’s a way to find out who you are. Which will be easier for us to catch once he sees who you are”

“…he’s gonna see my shit?”

There was a hum, “Si, just stay calm when he comes around, and it will be fine,”

“But–”

“Hey I know you!”

Y/N whipped her head around, and before her was a guy around her age.

He was about the same height as she was, maybe an inch or two taller. He had long-ish blonde hair that fell above his shoulders.

His pale skin accentuated his blue eyes and freckles. He wore a blue and white striped sweatshirt with jeans and sneakers.

Y/N furrowed her brows as she stared at him, trying to remember if she had ever spoken to him. His accent matched the rest of England's, and he didn't resemble the man in the photo, so who was he?

He gave a small laugh and said, "Guess you don't know who I am, I'm Nickalus, but you can call me Nick for short. We have the same class; you usually sit next to me?"

Y/N made an ‘ohh’ sound as her head lifted in understanding, even though she didn’t recognize him. “Right, you… sorry I didn’t recognize you”

“It’s alright, no one really does,” he said bashfully.

Y/N gave an awkward smile and nodded, resuming her efforts to look for who she had come for.

Staying in the background didn't seem to be working when a girl their age approached them with two red cups and said, "Come on! Nobody can hide from me, so drink!"

“Nah, I’m good,” Y/N raised her hand to dismiss the offer.

“Same with her,” Nick pointed to Y/N with his thumb.

The girl ignored Nick and turned to face Y/N. “You are from the States, right? You know the legal drinking age is 18, right?” She taunted Y/N as she leaned in close.

The aroma of the dozen mixed alcohols filled her nostrils as she brought the cup closer to Y/N's face. Y/N took a look at the red liquid. It was a lovely ruby color and appeared to be sweet, but she knew it wasn't.

“Y/N…don't do it” Jake came through the small earpiece, “Remember why you are here”

Y/N stayed quiet as everyone in the kitchen began to cheer her on. Nick looked nervous beside her. Hesitantly, the two took the cups in their hands. The yelling became louder, submitting them even more to peer pressure.

“Drink, pussy!”

"Don't," Jake finally said before Y/N chugged it, causing him to sigh.

Her mouth was filled with the bitter taste of alcohol. It left a hot sensation in her esophagus as it passed through. Everyone cheered when she finished the cup and crushed it. Nick could only watch and follow.

Her face felt immediately warm. Her tongue was tingling, and without a pause, the same girl brought more to the two.

And Y/N continued to drink.

She couldn't help herself; after all the stress of college and keeping so many secrets, this was like a breather. It was also the first time she felt like she was in one of those college party movies. With less sex and more booze.

Jake was also there in case anything went wrong. That is, if he didn't decide to abandon her.

She started to feel tipsy after about five drinks, and everything around her seemed a little off. She set the cup down and turned to face Nick, who appeared to be far from sober. Despite the fact that she barely knew him, she grabbed the cup from him.

"OK, bud, I think you've had enough," she said as she patted his back.

He shook his head, “I can take it”

She objected and motioned for him to leave. Everyone else in the room booed, but she ignored them and followed Nick.

"Thank you, we barely met, and yet you helped me out," he said, surprised.

"Yeah, just watch your drinking," she said with a quick smile.

“I will, maybe we should–”

Before he could finish, the screeching sound of a microphone echoed from the living room. Seeing people follow the commotion, they followed as well.

The music stopped, and so did the dancing. They were all looking up at the indoor balcony from before.

The guy from the file was, as expected, at the top. The same stubble and low ponytail.

“How’s everyone doing?!” People cheered, and others raised their cups of alcohol.

“Good, good. Everyone knows, we are close to ending this year, right? Everyone is moving up. But for us seniors, it’s our last fucking year before we actually behave like adults”

People agreed with hoots and cheers. He raised a cup, and so did everyone.

Y/N squinted at his figure, trying to make out his personality, cringing at how he was trying to give off some sort of TV host vibe.

“To the last year of our lives! Class of 2023!”

The audience erupted, and the music began to play again. He sipped from his cup and scanned the crowd.

That's when his gaze was drawn to Y/N. It was a look that showed she was the one he was looking for.

As he smiled and began to walk downstairs, her eyes widened. Y/N slightly panicked, mostly because she was not in the right state to fight if it came to it.

"Fuck, he's coming to me," Y/N said, turning away from Nick and holding the earpiece down. "What should I do?"

“Maybe if you weren’t drinking, you would know." Jake mumbled.

“I could just leave if I want to”

"Do you remember the USB I gave you? Let him take you to his computer, plug in the USB, and wait for everything to download. Flirting is usually useful."

Y/N groaned and turned to face Nick before sneaking away from him. Being left to win the heart of the Alexander Hamilton lookalike.

–

Jake took another puff of smoke from his cigarette and blew it out the window after turning off the mic. He saw Y/N from one of the large windows while staring into the large mansion. She stood awkwardly by the stairs, waiting for the party's main attraction.

“Why did you lie and say she was needed for this mission? You could have easily went in and finished it quickly if you had not brought her”

Jake didn’t need to look to know who it was. Khonshu sat in the backseat, near the small window.

“I just wanted to see if she could do things like this.” Jake didn’t take his eyes off of her.

"Are you sure she can do this?" Khonshu hummed. "The little maggot can't even kill without causing chaos, let alone do it herself. Her own parasite is doing it for her. She's also now intoxicated."

“She doesn’t have to kill anyone for this,” Jake scrunched his face, “Either way, if she ruins the plan, Ill just step in”

Through the window, he followed her figure as it stumbled her way behind the target and soon disappeared upstairs.

"I just want to see if she can handle herself, just for entertainment," he said, blowing out a cloud and tapping the cigarette to release the bundle of ash at the end.

It was silent before Khonshu continued, “I hope you aren’t already getting attached to her like the other idiots”

Jake stopped from putting the cigarette into his mouth again, “...That won’t ever happen, especially for a brat like her”

He looked to one of the windows on the third story and could see the two teenagers walk in. Y/N, and the guy talked before sitting on his bed.

–

As the guy made his way to his mini fridge on a table, Y/N drummed her fingers on her knees. She took the chance to look around and try to find the computer, but she felt like she was dissociating. Still, the computer wasn't hard to find when it had a huge set-up like one of those Twitch streamers. She just had to find a way to download the files without him noticing.

“I will do it; keep him busy,” Mania said before coming out of her lower back and grabbing the USB from her pocket.

It made its way to the computer and plugged in the small device. As Y/N stared, her anxiety increased as she realized she was going to be caught.

“What's your go-to flavor for Buzzballz?” He asked.

She looked back at him with surprise and squinted, “Uh…”

“Don’t tell me you never tried it,” he laughed and brought out one, “You look more of a ‘Chili Mango’ kind gal”

He handed her a small round yellow bottle. The top has the silver part that any tin soda can has.

She looked down at it, feeling nauseous about having any more booze. Still, it was a way to keep him distracted. She clicked it open and brought the rim to her mouth, letting her body consume more liquid.

Immediately, her head felt like it was spinning. It was like she just spun in a circle for twenty minutes, and she was still feeling the symptoms.

Y/N felt the right side of her bed dip down. The guy was too close for comfort, and he raised a finger to her face. It then traveled down and rested on her shoulder.

"Too bad I'm graduating, we could have been something," he says into her neck.

Realizing the situation, she sobered up quickly and sat up, “Hey, how about you tell me about your place. It’s real big”

“That’s not the only thing that’s big”

“Done! Let us get out!”

“Okay! Well this was fun but I have to go, exams tomorrow you know” She stood up and began to back away to the door.

He followed and steered her away into a wall. Cornering her.

“Hey, I show you my room and you aren’t going to reward me?” He stood more defensive. Using his size as an advantage.

"That doesn't mean shit," she squinted, attempting to flee from the side but being stopped by an arm.

“Girls like you just make me harder” he smirked which gained him a sickened expression from Y/N.

“Hell no, let me get him!”

“Wait!”

Mania took control of Y/N's arms, blackening them as if she had dipped them in tar. It grabbed the guy's shoulders and pushed him up against the wall.

“Oh my god, what the fuck?!” He yelled.

He kicked his legs in an attempt to break Mania's grip. Y/N tried to lunge back to unclutch Mania, but it was obvious that this was not going to work.

"Mania let him go! He isn't worth it!" Y/N grunted as she continued to try to pull away. Mania began choking him gradually before huffing.

“Fine”

It dropped him and retracted back into Y/N’s body. He choked as he used his hand to soothe his throat.

He finally looked up and scowled at Y/N, “What the fuck are you?”

She remained motionless, her mouth agape. Her secret had been revealed, and it was to a complete stranger.

A stranger with the ability to expose her with the click of a few buttons. He had most likely heard about the 'monster' in the news.

He began to stand up, keeping his eye on her, “If you’re that alien from the news, you are about to earn me recognition. I'll let everyone know”

Y/N’s eyes widened, “Look you don’t–”

When they heard sirens outside, their voices fell silent. A blue light shone through the window. When the man rushed to the window sill and saw two cop cars, he knew. People began to flee the house.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” He ran a hand through his hair, “I’m turning you in to save my arse”

He turned back and Y/N was gone.

—

Y/N bolted through the back door and, with Mania's assistance, jumped the fence. Her feet landed on the sidewalk. Y/N kept running until the white cab passed her. It honked, and the window slid down to reveal Jake.

“Hurry or i'm leaving you” he said which rushed Y/N to the passenger side of the cab.

As she caught her breath, Jake began to drive away. Her eyes were closed, her head tilted up, and she was heaving from all the running and panic.

"Did you do what I asked?" He cast an eyebrow at her.

She nodded and brought out the USB from her pocket, “Yup, police came right after it finished downloading”

Jake tucked the small device into the pocket of his jacket. He cast a glance at Y/N, who was looking ahead with a worried expression.

He looked back onto the road, “Que paso?”

*What happened?”

“...I screwed up. He found out about Mania and now he’s going to be tell the police and I might be arrested” Her eyes stayed glued to the road.

Jake hummed, “Not going to happen…”

“Huh?” she turned to him

“I called the police. Told them that I wanted to report drug use in a party full of minors. If he does say anything, they'll just think it’s just the effects”

“But there wasn’t any– You planted drugs in the house?” She finally looked at him.

Jake remained silent, with only the low music from the radio playing in the background. "Did you just have some laying around?" she asked, taking his silence as a 'yes'.

He didn’t say anything which made it easy for her to ask, “Can you get me weed?”

“No,” he said with a stern voice.

She huffed and roughly threw her back onto the seat. With that sudden movement, she slowly sat up. Jake noticed her turning pale and looked at her. Sweat started to form on her brow and neck.

Y/N felt nauseous and her mouth began to fill with extra saliva.

Registering what was about to happen, Jake’s eyes expanded, “No, no! Not in here!”

Y/N ignored him as she felt her throat fill with a warm substance that wanted to escape. Her body recoiled without hesitation. Her mouth forced open, letting whatever it was out. Her eyes welled up as she retched.

Jake switched between looking at the road and back at Y/N. As the odor began to fill the car, he grimaced and rushed to lower the windows.

“Whoops…I can clean it up?” Y/N smiled sheepishly.

Jake frowned and stared straight ahead, saying nothing to avoid saying something he would later regret.

–

Y/N was awakened by a throbbing pain in the head. She tried with little success to ignore it in order to get another hour of sleep. The light from the sun stung her eyes as she slowly opened them, forcing her to close them quickly.

She slowly sat up and used her arm to create a barrier between the beams and her orbs. Once conscious, she felt all the feelings of a hangover.

Her stomach felt empty, as if she had emptied it all out, which she had. Her hair was stuck to her forehead from sweating the night before. Aside from that, her head felt like it was being squeezed with a tight grip.

She held her skull as she slowly stood up and shuffled to the kitchen. She opened the fridge and scanned each shelf. Her eyes fell upon a bottle of water which she quickly took in her hand.

Once she unscrewed the cap, she jugged a huge gulp of the cool liquid.

She wiped her mouth and walked into the living room, then into the bathroom.

When she looked in the mirror, her hair was all over the place and her under eyes were darker than usual.

Her face transformed into Manias within a second, holding a sharp smile.

“You look hilarious”

Not amused, Y/N only stared, “I thought you would have helped with hangovers”

“I only help you not act like a fool, while your body just does it on its own”

Y/N rolled her eyes as Mania chuckled. She reached for her toothbrush and toothpaste to remove the bad taste from her mouth.

“You remember what happened last night?”

“Pretty much, especially leaving Jake cleaning duty” she cringed at the last part.

A knock came from the door which made Y/N stop cooking at the stove and move to the front of the apartment. She knew who it was without looking at the peephole.

Marc was standing in front of her, his hands in his pockets. He looked down and raised a brow, his confused expression quickly turning playful.

“Looks like you had fun last night. You went to one of your first college parties?”

Y/N scoffed, “I thought you would be freaking out right now. You know, especially from you and Steven’s talk yesterday”

Marc shrugged, “You’re standing in front of me aren’t you? So you made it home safe. Plus you might be too busy with a hangover to hear yelling from me. Steven though…”

His body tensed up quickly and Steven took over. He looked over at Y/N immediately. She knew immediately that he was about to talk her ear off.

And here she thought she left her parents lectures back in America.

“Did I not warn you Y/N?! Blimey, I’m surprised you got home last night, you could have woken up on the sidewalk!” He gestures to the outside of the building.

Steven’s yelling feels like it’s piercing Y/N’s mind. She tenses up and squeezes her eyes shut with the pitch sound.

Turns out, Mania wasn’t liking it either.

“Tell him to shut up before I eat his bowels!” Mania screeched.

“Steven! Shh!” She put her pointer finger against her lips.

Steven stopped and realized the situation, “Oh! I’m sorry but that is your fault”

“Okay whatever I’m sorry,” she waved it off and walked over to the stove to finish cooking breakfast which she and the two sat down to eat.

——

Y/N walked down the brick path of the campus that led to the building of her class.

It was actually sunny out, yet still cold. It left her to wear her usual sweatshirt and jeans combo for the day.

However she wasn’t thinking of the day or about her fashion statement. After exposing herself to a person about Mania, she worries that her secret will be out to the world soon.

She hasn’t even explained it all to her family. Anytime the topic came up, she would change it. Which probably made it worse to gently lay news in the future.

“Why are you worrying about it so much? We are fine” Y/N could hear Mania was smiling.

“For now, what if next time Jake isn’t there? What if we hurt someone, deeming us as a threat to society?”

“That won’t happen, you are exaggerating”

Y/N adjusted the straps of her backpack on her shoulders, “Can you at least put yourself in my position? It would really—“

“Hey Y/N! Is that you?!”

She turned around and saw a familiar blonde running up to her. Reminding her of a scene that would play out in a show.

“How did he know your name?”

“Uh, yeah, Nick right?” She wrinkled her brows together.

“Oh wow you remembered!” His eyes seemed to sparkle with her acknowledgment of his existence.

She gave a small chuckle, “I mean yeah, I don’t forget faces, especially ones that go crazy with frat drinks”

He gave an embarrassed smile, “You remember that huh, thanks for stopping me before it got out of hand. Speaking of which, were you there when everyone got chased out by cops?”

“Yeah, I was able to run out before they caught me”

Nick nodded, “By the way, were you with the host before the cops came? I heard him yelling about an alien or something”

Y/N swallowed thick saliva, “Oh? I didn’t know that. I was in the restroom when I heard the sirens”

“Hmm, weird then, maybe it was the drinks” he shrugged.

Y/N agreed and let out a quiet sigh as the topic changed.

The two continued walking down the path to the building of their lecture block. There the two continued to talk and soon enough, Y/N was able to form a new friendship in London.

———————

Omggg I am so sorry for the 3 (?) month hiatus. I was deep writers blocks ass. Anyways this chapter I kinda wanted to focus more on Y/N’s and Jake’s relationship in order to start off the arc of her figuring out more about Mania. Also new character!

Let me know if y’all want any scenarios added onto here (please I beg, I need more creative juices flowing, college is sucking it all out of me :,))

Tag list: @itsjusspele @dustyinkpages @scoliobean @moonywritings @zeros-rot

Btw let me know if y’all want to be tagged in the next chapters :)

#marc spector x teen!reader #steven grant x teen!reader #marc spector #moon knight #hispanic reader #platonic #steven grant #marc spector x reader #steven grant x reader #layla x teen!reader #latina reader #Jake lockely x teen!reader #jake lockely x reader

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sarahsmileslikesarahd0esntcare · 2 years ago

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A Poet Could Not But Be Gay — part 2

Part 1

Pairing: college!au Ellie Williams x f!reader

summary: You and Ellie text after you like her post and see each other in class again. You talk to each other, slowly growing closer.

word count: 2.1k

warnings: mutual pining, reader has no rizz, anxiety, English class

a/n: M (minors and men) DNI, please! Y'all I can't believe you guys gave me 34 notes on my first-ever fic!!! I'm literally on top of the world and it really motivated me to write another chapter so here it is!! 😁

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Ellie Williams: Hey stalker (;

You were frozen. Your breath had caught in your throat and you felt your entire body burning up as though you'd throw up at any second. Your phone screen had gone black by then and you only had time to blink before another notification came in.

Ellie Williams added you as a friend.

Finally, you were able to breathe. What the fuck is happening!? you thought. She has to be playing some kind of prank on me 'cause no one should be this cool about a random girl like a — how old was it? 5-week-old picture!

You decided that the best thing to do was to respond. She already knew you were online and you would only look more guilty if you ignored her. Ellie had caught you red-handed, sure, but she didn't need to know why you were looking her up. You started typing, probably taking way longer than you should to write a simple text.

you: hey! sorry i was just struggling with the homework and youre the only person i knew from that class so i looked you up

you: how are you handling the last minute assignment she sent us?

Really? A double text seconds after I was caught stalking her? I'm fucking dead. Every second that passed by felt like an hour. You were biting your nails, staring at the screen impatiently. She hadn't even seen it yet and you felt like she was judging you through the phone. After one minute, she opened the chat and started typing. Looking at those three taunting dots, you couldn't help but imagine all the texts she could be writing. Nightmarish thoughts were flying through your brain when her text finally appeared.

Ellie Williams: Oh fuck I hadn't even seen that email! What kind of psychopath of a teacher sends an assignment at 6pm?

You let out a relieved sigh, thankful she hadn't asked any questions regarding your lie. Your shaking thumbs started typing but you received another text.

Ellie Williams: And who even has a favourite poem to write 500 words about

Ellie Williams: Well you definitely do

You had to read that twice. She remembers about my poem. Your small smile grew into a grin, and the little exhale from your nose grew into a fit of giggles. You rolled onto your back before remembering you had to answer her.

you: im glad i was able to tell you about the assignment! and yeah i have a favourite poem and i absolutely LOVE telling people about it but i know how scatterbrained i can be so idk if ill be able to make sense

The two of you texted back and forth for a few minutes but your shyness held you back and your conversation eventually dwindled. After several minutes of radio silence on both ends, your phone vibrated again.

Ellie Williams: Well I'm gonna start writing that paper but I'll see you on Wednesday!

you: good luck with that!

you: cant wait to see you again :)

You held your breath, frightened by your boldness.

Ellie Williams: Don't miss me too much (;

You honestly thought you could have died at that moment. And there was that winking face again. You couldn't believe your clumsy mistake had led you to have an actual conversation! Outside of school! Sure it was mainly about your shared class but now it felt more personal. She wasn't just "Ellie, the hot girl from my poetry class" anymore. She was Ellie Williams, the charming girl you'd met in class and befriended and fell in love with and moved in with and married and — ok now. I shouldn't get ahead of myself. I don't even know her favourite colour yet. I don't even know if she likes girls, let alone me!

You decided that the best thing for you to do now was to focus on your assignment. It wouldn't take very long but at least it would keep your mind occupied for a little while.

Though the poem was about the beauty of nature and all it has to offer, you couldn't help but relate every verse to Ellie.

"they / Out-did the sparkling waves in glee" Ellie outdoes everyone and everything. There was not a single thing you could think of that you would rather look at than Ellie. There was no sound you'd rather hear than her laugh and no word you'd rather read than hers. I'm so fucking gay, it's ridiculous, you thought.

Some verses you felt rather poetic about, while others felt like they were describing the slight gay panic you'd had upon first seeing her, "I gazed — and gazed — but little thought". That's exactly how you'd felt. You'd stared at her sheer beauty and focused on nothing but her. The only thing you could remember from your time staring at her was the warmth that had formed in your belly and the tingling in your face.

You had known this girl for barely 8 hours and you could already see her in everything. Fuck, this is gonna hurt.

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Tuesday was somewhat uneventful. You'd been awoken by your alarm once again and had rolled over to check your phone. You were barely awake when you saw that Ellie had changed your name on messenger to "y/n🌸". Has she been thinking about me? you thought with a grin plastered to your face. Before you had time to overthink, you quickly changed her name to "Ellie 😉".

Neither of you texted the other again until Wednesday. It was a cool and cloudy day meaning everything had grey undertones and you refused to let yourself darken because of some stupid clouds. That's why you chose to wear your long sleeve, bright yellow shirt underneath short, green overalls.

The sky might be grey and sad but I'm looking like a ray of fucking sunshine! you told yourself in the mirror. The colour you wore made you feel invincible, as though you could conquer the world and make it bright again.

Eventually, after an interminable lecture, you were sat at your seat in your and Ellie's shared class, awaiting the girl herself. To busy yourself, you started taking out your books and laptop, putting your pens neatly out onto your side of the desk. While you were distracted, Ellie walked into the class.

Ellie's thoughts

Ellie's mind was racing, trying to figure out what to say to you when she saw you. She knew she would say hi; that was a given. But what then? She didn't want to just be an acquaintance to you. She wanted to be on your mind as much as you were on hers, which was constantly. Dreams of you consumed her nights which she loved until she woke up and realized you had barely talked to each other.

When she walked into the classroom, she nearly froze in the doorframe. Of course, she thought, on a gross day like this, she has to look like a ray of fucking sunshine. It was as though you were trying to make her fall head over heels for you.

When she started walking normally again, your head popped up and a genuine smile graced your lips. Ellie felt like the Earth had stopped spinning and smiled back with false confidence. She sat down next to you and told you her scripted, "Hi," in her usual, honeyed voice, adding an improvised, "how you doing?", proud she hadn't stumbled over her words.

"Hi," you answered, voice quieter than hers, "I'm doing pretty good. I actually finished the assignment on time, so the semester's off to a good start!" you said with a laugh.

Ellie laughed back, happy you had initiated a topic so she would get to keep talking with you. "Wow! Three whole days in and no late assignments yet! I'm extremely impressed." she replied, the glee evident in her tone.

You giggled and said, "You should be!"

There was a beat of silence and she was scared you had run your conversation to its course before it had even started. Then you surprised her by asking, "How have you been?"

She looked up at you, taking a few seconds to admire every line and curve in your face. "Oh, you know," she said, "I've been busier now that school started up again but I've been good." She paused for a second and continued, "I haven't been too busy to figure it out though."

A smile crept onto your face and she thanked her lucky stars that she'd kept talking. "Figure what out?" you asked.

With slightly shaking hands she hoped you wouldn't notice, she reached out to your arm and pushed up the sleeve of your shirt to reveal the tattoo you'd shown her. "This," she said looking back up, her eyes boring into yours, "It's Wordsworth right?" You nod and she goes on, "That's a sick name for a poet. I read the poem and I have to say, you've got some good taste, pretty girl." The name just slipped out of her mouth. Her eyes widened and she noticed your smile falter. She pulled away from your arm.

She cleared her throat, trying to regain her composure but you spoke before she could, "I feel like with a name like that, he couldn't really go into any other profession, you know." you laughed dryly, clearly trying to ease the tension.

She laughed the same dry laugh and let out a quiet, "Yeah, he had to go into writing."

Luckily, your awkward moment only lasted a short time and Ellie was saved from any further embarrassment as your professor began her lecture.

About 30 minutes into the lecture, Ellie was flipping the pages of her textbook like crazy, trying to find the poem the class was discussing. She figured you had noticed her struggling because you tapped her on the arm and whispered the page number. She thanked you and started flipping to that page. In doing so, however, a page managed to slice through her skin, causing her to flinch and immediately suck on her cut.

She was cursing the paper when you tapped her arm again. She turned to you, finger still between her lips. You gave her a small smile and lifted something in your hand, "Do you need a bandaid?" you whispered. How could she say no when you were looking at her like that, big doe eyes full of concern.

She took her finger out of her mouth and agreed with a low, "Sure". Before she could do anything else, you grabbed her hand and wrapped the bandaid around her injured finger. Ellie could only stare at you, marveling at the care you gave to such a minor cut. "Thanks, y/n" she whispered. She thought she may have caught a glimpse of a blush on your cheeks but you had turned your head too quickly for her to tell for sure.

When she picked up her pen, she got her first good look at what you'd wrapped around her finger and laughed to herself. Of fucking course this personified beam of sunlight would carry around flower bandaids. I'm never taking this off. she thought as she admired her finger.

Back to your thoughts

You were looking up front but your mind was nowhere near whatever subject the professor was talking about. I touched Ellie! you though. Not the other way around! I touched her arm and then her hand! I'm gonna pass out. You were ecstatic, to say the least. You couldn't wait to call Taylor and tell her everything that happened during this second class with Ellie.

Soon enough, the class ended and you started packing your books. You got up, still giddy from excitement, and got ready to say goodbye to Ellie. She stood up after a few moments and spoke first, "So I was thinking," she said, her usual confidence seemingly vanished, "if you wanted to study or do assignments for this class, I'm free in the afternoon on Thursdays. We could meet in the library if you want. Or not even necessarily for this class, like, we could study for any class together if that was something you were interested in."

You gave her a quick open-mouthed smile. "Yeah!" you beamed, "Yeah that definitely sounds good. I know a secret spot in the library nobody ever goes to so we won't even need to worry about other people."

"Sounds great. I'll see you tomorrow then."

You both hesitated a little before moving to leave the classroom, and then again in the hallway, not sure of where the other was going. Seemingly amused by this, judging by the smirk on her face, Ellie put her hand on the small of your back, guided you in the direction you'd been headed in, and walked backward in the opposite direction.

"Bye, pretty girl!"

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Part 3

a/n: I got a little carried away in this one... Did you see how much touching there was! Whoo, that was borderline smut! But I told you there would be more talking! Also, I am obsessed with Romantic poetry, specifically William Wordsworth so sorry if there was too much of him in this chapter but I really love his work! You guys should all read "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud". It's a really short poem that may or may not have made me shed a tear. Anyway, leave any ideas you have for this story in the comments! I can't wait to see what you think!!

ps: lemme know if you wanna get tagged in the next one!

tags: @lonelyfooryouonly

#tlou #tlou2 #ellie tlou #ellie williams #ellie x fem reader #ellie x reader #ellie x f!reader #wlw #lesbian #wlw fluff #college!ellie williams #not gonna lie this is the best thing I've ever written in my life

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