#gotta have like one gun drawing a year i guess

[risingsunresistance]

the sequel to this old doodle..?

[cozylittleartblog]

my ACEN tip gimmick has been fulfilled, aaand i got a little carried away with it. I haven't had time to draw for myself (or at all, really??) in like two weeks, i needed to Doodle and Have Fun. ... also, i did not think he would get so many donuts. people understand the value of giving treats to fictional characters :) its what he deserves

also shoutout to snazzyskeletons who had the same Tip Theme i did. we took pictures with our tip jars together. they are adorable v

i'm glad their vash got some donut money too :) 🍩 please check them out if you want some cute trigun stuff

[apollyonsdarksecrets]

The Suppressants

Alpha! Joel Miller X Omega!AFAB!Reader

Part One, Part Two

(( it won’t let me post the URL for part one, so please visit the link below to my Master List where you can find Part One!))

The complete Collection: Apollyon’s Master List.

Summary: What do you do when you run out of heat suppressants? You turn to the only person who can possibly get you more medication; even if it means airing your biggest secret. But when Joel doesn’t have what you need you must travel together to meet another dealer. Surely you’ll get more medicine score your heat starts… right?

Warnings: 18+ content, post-apocalyptic world. A/B/O alternative universe, (A/B/O dynamics including: Scenting, Marking, Knotting, Heats) age gap (Reader is 26, Joel is late 40s), reader has been on suppressant most of her life, Joel teaches reader about guns, parental lost (not depicted on page), he falls first, angst(?), gore and violence. SMUT: Fingering, PIV, no use of protection (wrap it up y’all!), slight breeding kink if you squint, knotting, marking, heavy praise kink. ((Please let me know if I missed anything))

The day creeps on into the late evening, and as stars begin to speckle the sky you finally draw yourself away from the window, unable to see anything but your own reflection. Joel sits by the fire, trying to make it seem as if he wasn’t watching you the whole time your back had been turned. He shuffles his legs, picking at the ruminants of the rabbit on his plate.

“He’ll be here.” Joel glances up as you pace over, biting at your thumb nail as you stare into the orange and blue embers.

“Yeah, yeah I know.” But there’s a catch in your voice, your smile wavering slightly when you catch his eye.

He holds your stare for a moment, and you’re unable to hide the pinch of worry between your brow, your smile falling further. “Come on, sit.” Joel nods at your sleeping bag, sliding the rest of the rabbit towards you. “Gotta eat, kid. It ain’t gonna do you any good to make yourself sick while we wait.”

He has a point. You slide your bag closer to him and the fire, crossing your legs as you sit, pulling the plate into your lap. The silence stretches between you, filled only by the pop of the logs in the brick fireplace. You dare a glance towards Joel, finding him leaning back on his hands, legs stretched out and staring into the fire. Both of you lost in your own heads, wondering what could have happened to make Mark so late.

“Let me ask you something.” You’re caught staring, your cheeks flushing as Joel turns to look at you.

“W-What?”

“How long have you been on this medication?”

“Oh um… Eight? Nine years, maybe.” You shrug your shoulder, popping a piece of meat into your mouth.

Joel stares at you, stunned. “That long?” His thoughts turn instantly to how the medication could have affected you, how your body works, down to your biology. He can’t stop the spark of horror showing in his eyes before you notice.

You blanch slightly, stammering over your words. “Well… well yeah. I mean I couldn’t let anyone know, obviously. It’s… mom explained it like it was pretty much birth control. Never have a heat, never have to worry.” You try to shrug it off but Joel shakes his head, turning his body towards you.

“Yeah, but even then birth control isn’t supposed to be used your entire life… Are all of your instincts suppressed?”

The look on his face, how his eyes have grown wider, it makes you fidget. “Um… I guess so. I don’t really know what though.”

Joel shakes his head slightly, finally resting his gaze on the fire. “How come you never decided to find an Alpha to settle with? Someone you trusted?”

Your cheeks grow warm, the plate long forgotten in your lap, staring at Joel as the firelight dances across his features. “Well, I…” You don’t advert your gaze when he looks back at you, your heart steadily beating faster. “I thought about it… but I’m… I’m scared. I’m scared that the moment an Alpha finds out that he’ll use me, strip me of everything I am until I am nothing more than my biology…”

Your words are heavy in the air, the two of you staring at each other as the logs shift and crack in the hearth. Joel sits up a little straighter, resting his arms on his knees and glancing you over, breaking eye contact first.

“You told me.” His voice is gruff, underlying emotions caught at the back of his throat and your eyes widen.

“Of… of course I did-You’re…”

“Different?” He offers, eyebrows lifting, gesturing with a hand. You nod, suddenly all too aware of how close you are to him, how his eyes burn into your own, how he’s a larger than life presence in the room and that…

It doesn’t scare you, nothing about Joel has ever scared you. Unlike most of the Alphas you had the misfortune of crossing paths with.

It’s a startling realization, stealing your breath as you turn away.

Joel is different. He’s always been different.

“Y/n?”

You set the plate down clumsily beside him, the clunk loud on the wood floor, before you stand with your bag.

“I’m tired… do you mind taking first watch?”

Before he can answer you’re walking away, setting your bag down near the wall farthest from his. You crawl in and turn over, the pounding of your heart keeping you up for most of the night.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Day one of staying in the safe house slowly rolls into day two. Then those hours bleed over into day three and the anxiety that was pumping through your veins has morphed and transcended into pure terror.

There is still no sign of Mark as you and Joel pick at breakfast.

There is still no sign of Mark as you pace back and forth across the house when Joel tries to convince you to sit and eat lunch.

Now the sun is beginning to set, and the limitations of your calm have reached a breaking point. The empty pill bottle lays by your bag, an orange beacon of what is to come should Mark never show. The heaviness of the situation is slowly suffocating the air from the room, and there is nothing either of you can do as you wait, and wait, and wait.

Joel watches you from his spot by the window, lines of stress carve your face, your body jerky with how tightly strung your muscles are as you fold another blanket from the pile you had found in one of the back rooms. He isn’t sure what more he can do, though his instincts beg to comfort you, to take you in his arms and soothe your fears. But he knows it would be a lie, that as soon as the medication begins to work out of your system you’ll go into heat at any given moment, if not immediately.

He glances out the window for what feels like the hundredth time, willing the short blond man to materialize on the empty street.

Your breath is staggered in your lungs, panic slowly tightening its grip around your neck by the minute, no matter how hard you try to keep it at bay. You toss another blanket onto Joel’s sleeping bag before bending to pick up the next, shaking it free of the dust that had gathered over the years. You try to focus on the feeling of the soft material beneath your fingers, or the way the particles float through the air, catching the sunlight. You count the blankets in each pile, trying to even them out.

“One, two, three-“

“Honey.”

You jump at Joel’s deep voice, turning to find him staring at you, his arms folded across his chest, his eyebrows pinched once more. “Y-Yes?” Your eyes flickering to the door expectantly, a spark of hope wishing to fan to life.

Joel rolls his lips together, adverting his gaze. “Ya might wanna take all those blankets into that back room… Make somewhere comfortable for yourself later.”

Your heart plummets into your stomach, the feeling flooding from your hands as the blanket falls to the floor. “W-What? Why?”

“I don’t think Marks going to make it.” Joel watches the color drain from your face in an alarming amount of time, his back stiffening as he pushes off the wall, suddenly afraid you’re going to faint as you sway on your feet.

“N-no… No.” Denial takes a head, your eyes becoming watery. “He said he would be here, he-he has to be here!” Despair makes you raise your voice, and the look of pity in Joel’s eyes only makes the feeling worse. “Why isn’t he here?”

Shaking his head, Joel runs his hands through his hair. “Darling I wish I knew. There’s a number of things that could have happened. From him deciding what I was trading wasn’t good enough to he could have possibly been attacked.” Joel’s words hold reason, and you want to accept them, you want them to make you feel better, to understand that this journey was a risk with no guaranteed reward.

“I can’t go through this Joel. I can’t.” Your voice breaks as he becomes blurry, tears burning your eyes that refuse to fall just yet. “I can’t go home, I can never go back to the QZ.”

“Baby… Yes you will.”

“No I can’t! The moment I get remotely close to those walls an Alpha is going to hunting me like I am some kind of-“

Joel is suddenly before you, gripping your shoulders, and his solemn features are extremely clear as the first tear falls. “Ain’t no one, and I mean no one gonna lay a finger on you. I wont let that happen.”

“I’m an unmated Omega, Joel…” You whisper, trembling under his grip. “I’m prey.”

The words are heavy, laden with the truth. Where as the few mated Omegas there are, are relatively safe in the presence of their Alpha or pack, an unmated Omega is injured prey in a room full of predators.

Joel cusses, his grip tightening ever so slightly, fingertips digging into your sweater. He ducks slightly, bringing himself to your level, and this close you can see the slightest specks of colors hidden amongst the brown in his eyes. Golds and greens swirling together. You get so lost in the depths of them for a moment that you start slight when he speaks.

“Listen… I’ve been thinking about this and I just… You need to hear me out, alright? You know I’d never do nothing to hurt you, but this is the only option I see.”

Hesitation bubbles uncomfortably in your stomach, your nod small as you suddenly realize how close you both are, how strong his smell is growing.

Joel swallows thickly, searching your eyes. “Let me mark you.”

You gasp, pulling away and Joel lets you, raising his hands in the air as you stare in growing disbelief. “What?”

Joel rushes to explain, sensing the rising fight that is about to ensue. “After. After you get through your heat, when it’s time for us to leave let me lay a mark on you. It wont be a mating mark, just a claim. Any Alpha that dares to come near you will scent me immediately.”

A trembling hand flutters to your throat, the most traditional place for a mark of any kind. “That’s… That’s a really big commitment Joel…” You breath, looking up at the older man. “I couldn’t… I couldn’t ask that of you.” The thought of bearing Joel’s mark though makes the blood in your veins feel thick, something deep in your stomach clenching as you imagined what it would feel like, how his mark would appear on your skin.

“You aren’t ask anything of me, Y/n. I am offering you a solution.” Joel insists.

A solution.

Is that all it is?

Though claims are not as strong as Mating marks, Joel’s scent would be imbedded into your very being; and as he said, not a single person would dare mess with you. Him being one of the most powerful people in the QZ… But there is something whispering at the back of your mind, a fleeting feeling of disappointment that startles you.

Is this just a man doing whatever it takes to uphold his bargain?

“I mean… I understand. It-It’s just… what if there is someone you find later on, they aren’t going to be happy that you have already marked another person.” You feel stupid just saying that, but apart of you wants to know, some part that is is suddenly feeling small and insecure as you stare at Joel.

Joel’s smile is bemused, the corners of his lips hardly lifting as he cocks his head. “I ain’t been worried about such things for a long time, darling.” There’s a gleam in those brown eyes as he looks at you, “Is that a problem for you?”

Your skin flushes, the color filling the apples of your cheeks, and you can no longer hold his stare. Joel takes a testing step forward, and when you don’t retreat, he closes the distance. He curls a thick finger under your chin, tilting your head up with no where else to look but at him. Your pupils are blown out, covering the beautiful color of your irises, and he feels the slight bit of weight as you seemingly, unknowingly press your chin into the warmth of his hand. “Hmm?” He prompts, easing a little closer, the toes of his boots brushing yours, and you squirm in place. His presence is overpowering, making you feel small in a way that has your breath hitching. “Got someone you’re sweet on?”

The low rumble of humor in his voice makes you blink, stuttering your answer. “What? No-No of course not…” You think back to the conversation just a few nights ago, how you realized that you found more than comfort in Joel presence and you suddenly feel as though you’ve been doused with cold water.

His smile grows with your silence, a dimple peaking through the scruff of his beard, those crows feet reappearing by his eyes as he slips his hand along your jaw. “No one? Not a single soul?” He teases, his voice soft like the stroke of his fingers over the back of your jaw. You push his hand away, turning your back to him as you shake your head in embarrassment.

“I’ll consider it.” You mumble over your shoulder, a shudder ripping through you.

“That’s all I am asking for.”

*~*~*~*~*~*

As the sun dips past the rising building, needs you’ve never felt before begin to surface with the creep of night. Sitting on the floor of the back room, you readjust blanket after blanket to your liking. Every one that Joel lays out you have to pull and tug into the right place, wadding up some and discarding others.

Joel watches you, patient as he follows your instructions on how to help as you make your bed. You worry your lips between your teeth, sitting back on your heels as you stare at the mess before you. “It’s alright, your instincts to nest are starting to come out. It use to be that when Omegas lived with their Alpha’s they would have specific rooms designed just for their nests.” His voice is calm, trying to quell your anxiety.

“Really? That must have been nice…”

“It was. The space was sacred to an Omega, it was completely filled with things that they desired and found comfortable as well.” An intrusive thought fills Joel’s mind, an image of you, curled up amongst soft blankets and pillows. Your face no longer pinched with fear, instead soft with contempt.

Your voice breaks him from his thoughts, a sheepish look crossing his features as you shake your head. “Something is missing… It doesn’t smell right… I need…” You whisper dies off as you look over, catching Joel’s stare. Your eyes move lower slowly, zeroing in on the dark green flannel he has thrown on over his t-shirt. Joel follows your gaze in confusion, cocking an eyebrow.

“Whatcha’ need, sweetheart?”

You swallow, his scent had been filling the room over the last few hours, calling to you, blanketing your nerves. He smells of pine woods, and whiskey, and the way a campfire clings to your clothes the next day. It’s intoxicating, a mouth watering scent you could easily become addicted to.

“Could… Could I have your flannel?” You can barely get the words out, embarrassed by the need for his scent to feel comfortable in your nest.

Joel stares at you in surprise, his eyes widening. “My shirt?”

You smooth out a wrinkle in the blanket you’re sitting on, unable to look him in the eyes as you stammer. “You… You smell good and it-it’s been comforting this entire trip…” Whatever you could possibly say to justify your request dies in your throat, sizzling with shame.

The room is quiet for a long moment before Joel moves out of the corner of your eye. He rolls his shoulders back, working the garment off his arms and handing it over. “There ya go.”

Your hand trembles minutely as you take it, his eyes locked with yours as you draw it to your chest, your heart pounding in your ears.

Joel’s next breath is cut short, a sweet smell beginning to permeate the air and he realizes your medication is leaving your system. Your natural scent is sweet, like peaches and chocolate, and something fresh like the first rain of spring.

It makes Joel’s stomach tighten, fire starting to kindle low in his groin, and he realizes he needs to put distance between the both of you while he can.

“I’m going to get you some food.” he stands from the crate and your gaze follows, traveling up the expanse of his body. Past his long legs clad in dark denim, past his tapered waist; further up his wide chest and corded arms until your focus is finally of his face.

You’re noticing things you hadn’t before, like how his salt and pepper beard has a heart shaped patched just under his jaw. The wild way his hair curlers, framing his face, and once more you’re drawn to the set of his lips. They look soft, warm, like they would move perfectly against your own.

“Honey?”

Joel’s thick accent washes over you, and a blazing heat licks up your spine making you whimper. Pain rips through your abdomen, your body suddenly feeling wound tight full of sudden need that leaves your panties slick.

His eyes widen, hit by the full volume of your scent as it perfumes and envelopes the room.

“Fuck, I’m-“

“You’re in heat.”

*~*~*~*~*~*

If you had to take a bet on who would be the first to break, you would have bet on yourself.

And you would have lost.

48 hours of hell.

48 hours of crying and silently begging for anything to end the pain.

Your fingers have hardly dented your heat, whatever relief you can bring yourself is too short lived, the agonizing pain eating you up until the point you’re certain you will die in this cramped little room. Joel’s flannel is damp with tears as you burry your face into the wad of material, the scent bringing you as much comfort as it brings you pain. The need for him is becoming too much.

You want to scream for him, beg for him to fix it the only way an Alpha can, but you force yourself to bite your lip.

The floorboard creaks suddenly on the other side of the door, and you know it’s Joel, checking on you once again, unnecessarily taunting you with what you can’t have. You whine, frustration eating at you as your hand cramps once more between your slick thighs, forcing you to stop rubbing cruel circles around your clit. You stare up at the ceiling, tears spilling along your temples and catching in your damp hair as you count the cracks in the drywall. Anything to focus on that isn’t the pain and need between your legs, or the way your skin sticks together with sweat.

The moment is to short lived and your body is moving, trying to find a comfortable position as you roll onto your knees, pressing your chest to the mound of blankets. You groan softly, letting your weight rest on your chest as your knees slide apart, your hand once again finding your pulsing clit. Burying your face into Joel’s flannel you huff a sigh, working yourself towards a quick high when the sound of the brass doorknob turning catches you off guard.

You shoot up, wrapping one of the loose blankets around your naked form just as Joel steps into the room.

Embarrassment and shock keep your tongue glued to the roof of your mouth as you stare at each other. The dying sunlight in the room casts him in shadows, his tan skin appearing darker, but his eyes shine as they rake over you.

He is quick to note the change in your smell, how the stress and pain have caused your scent to become overly sweet like turned fruit. The next thing he notices is his crumpled shirt, and the bright flush of your cheeks as you tighten the blanket around you, sweeping the garment underneath. Joel steps closer and you lean back, your breath hitching at the hunger in his eyes.

“Joel…” You try to warn, but he cooes softly and your cunt clenches at the noise.

“baby doll…” Tears fill your eyes at the softness of his tone, and he hurts to ease your pain. “Let me help you, sweetheart.” His voice is rough, ragged like he hadn’t spoke in days.

“No-No… I’m okay, I’ve got in under control.” You lie even as your body begs for the help.

Joel gets to his knees before you, hands clenching over his thighs. Your cheeks are bright red, your hair in a tangled mess on top of your head from where you had tried to tie it up. He has to keep himself from follow the beads of sweat that roll down your jaw before disappearing down the curve of your neck.

“I can’t sit out there a moment longer, listening to you crying and whimpering. It’s just me, you know you’ve always been safe with me.” You don’t reply, your eyes squeezing shut as a sharp shudder rips through you and it tugs at his heart. “Can I come closer?” You freeze, realizing that he’s asking to come into your nest. A delicious feeling of comfort rolls over your muscles at the idea, and you nod slowly.

Joel’s knees pop and creak as he climbs onto the pallet behind you, where he grips your shoulders and digs his thumbs into the tense muscles.

A small sob rips from your chest, leaning heavily into his grip. “I’ll do whatever you need, just say the word. If I need to leave I will, if I need to just sit here a while and talk you through this I can. But I can’t sit on the other side of that door and listen to you cry.”

His words simmer through your mind, stinging your already aching heart, and another sob is forced from your throat. Joel hushes you softly, his rough palms slipping up your neck then back down, as he pulls you back letting you rest against his chest.

Joel’s warmth bleeds into your own but it feels different, soothing. His scent is the strongest it’s ever been, filling your lungs with each shakey breath, and you feel something shift. Hushed words muddle together in your ears, your head leaning back against his chest as a breathy moan leaves your throat.

Without thought your hips begin to grind slowly, need pulsing so hot and heavy between your thighs that your hand travels down thoughtlessly. Your breath hitches as your fingers swirl around your swollen clit, slipping through your lips and pressing into your opening.

“Little Peach.” Joel’s voice is gruff, and another sob spills from your lips.

“I-I’m sorry… I didn’t ask for this Joel, I didn’t ask to be born like this.” Before you can snatch your hand away, horror flooding through your body, Joel is there. His hand finds an opening in the blanket so loosely wrapped around your body, gripping your wrist stopping you.

“I know… I know you didn’t but there ain’t no reason to fight it now baby. It’s said and done.” His clauses are rough against your skin, and you hold your breath as he covers your hand with his own. “Use me. Take what you need, whatever it is.”

Your eyes are droopy with lust when you turn your head to look up at him, the softest whimper leaving your lips when Joel shifts behind you , pressing the hard ridge in his pants against your back.

“I…” You swallow, thighs trembling as you feel your laced fingers brush the thatch of curling hair covering your pussy. “I don’t want to make you do anything…”

When he chuckles the sound reverberates through your back, “Darlin’,” He drawls the word out close to your ear, “You didn’t make me stay, you didn’t make me come in this room. And you certainly aren’t making me do this.”

He emphasizes his point by tracing the drenched slit of your cunt, earning a high pitched squeak. “Fuck, peach… So wet, she’s just fucking dying for some attention isn’t she?”

Your head, feeling heavy, falls back against his shoulder, eyes squeezing shut as bliss fills your body. Joel tugs testingly at your blanket and when it slips from your fingers, Joel pulls it away revealing your body to him.

Joel sucks in a breath, his pupils dilating as he drinks in the sight of you laid out between his legs. Your chest rises and falls with each quick breath, the sheen of sweat gleaming on your body in the dim golden light of the room. “Look at you…” A hunger permeates his words, his breath growing more ragged as he draws a delicate circle around your clit, eliciting a gasp. “You are beautiful, so very, very beautiful.”

Your hips circle, seeking more of anything he is willing to give you. “Please, I need you… I need you, Joel.” You turn your face into his neck, your breath fanning over his skin.

“Ain’t gotta beg, pretty girl. I’ve got ya.” His fingers draw lazy patterns around your clit and you moan, slow and drawn out, hips bucking as he keeps a steady pace. Joel works you up easily with a few expert swipes, your back bowing as your orgasm crashes through you. Your cries of ecstasy are muffled against his throat, thighs squeezing his hand.

He shushes you as you float back to reality, gasping for breath as you relax against him; your muscles loose, bones feeling like jello. “Atta girl, easy Peach.”

You try to catch your breath, reviling in the small reprieve he’s given you. “peach… why peach?” You whisper, making Joel chuckle softly.

“It’s all I can smell ever since your medication wore off. Peaches and chocolate .”

You hum, a small smile playing at your lips. “Are you sure the chocolate bar didn’t melt in my bag?”

Joel smiles, lazily dragging his fingers across your stomach. “Yeah, I’m sure. Bakers chocolate doesn’t smell this sweet.” He presses a kiss to your forehead and your heart flutters, a calm washing over your mind at the same time a spark flairs to life in your stomach.

You lean back, eyes hazy, lids heavy matching the look of his own. The few seconds you spend staring at each other feel like an eternity before you close the gap.

It’s hesitant, as most first kisses are, a little puff of surprise between your lips before they seal together. Finding the rhythm that works so well as one moans softly and the other swallows the noice. Your hand slips up his chest, feeling the wild thump of his heart before it travels up his neck to rest against his jaw.

Joel helps you as you turn, never letting the kiss break as you shakily straddle his lap, pressing your body tight against his own. The spark catches quickly, setting fire to your body as you grind against the hard bulge in his pants. His hands grip the dent of your waist, encouraging your movements with soft squeezes, while you tug fitfully at his shirt.

“More.” You mumble against his lips, letting your heat take the lead, turning off all thoughts of shame as his shirt slips up and you lay your hands on his bare skin for the first time. He pulls the shirt off completely and you lean back, admiring him with lust blown eyes. Joel sighs softly, his head dropping back as your fingers run through the dense curling hair across his chest. His body is strong, sculpted by years of manual labor and survival, yet his stomach is a little soft with age. You scratch your nails down his stomach lightly, following the trail of hair down to the buckle of his jeans and Joel closes his eyes.

“I want you.” You lick your lips, salivating at the thought of what lies just below the thick blue denim. Joel moans again, his chest rising with the need for air as he nods.

“Gonna need to work you open for me, honey.” He breaths, his eyes falling to where your hands fumble over the button of his jeans.

“Just… I just need you, it’s okay.” There’s a frantic note to your voice, all logic thrown out the window at this point, need and instinct pushing you forward.

Joel sees this, and slips his hand around your throat, squeezing softly and forcing you to sit back, ignoring your desperate whine. “Ima give you what you want, but you’re gonna listen to me little girl. Am I clear?” There’s a touch of command in his voice, forcing your gaze to his and waiting until you finally nod your understanding.

He keeps his eyes locked on yours, sneaking his other hand between your bodies, stroking your pussy. You groan, eyes fluttering closed as your grind yourself against his hand, supporting yourself by gripping his arm. “That’s it… go ahead baby…” Joel’s voice is hoarse, his pupils dilated as he sinks two fingers into your heat. You gasp at the sudden stretch, the burn of his thick digits spreading you open. Your jaw falls slack, eyes rolling up as bliss radiates through your body. “Fuuuck, baby girl…” Joel pulls his fingers out before sinking them back in, the calluses he’s built from years of working with his hands rub along your sensitive walls, reaching places you never thought possible. “Y’er so tight… squeezing my fingers like that.” Joel’s Texan twang seeps into his words as his arousal heightens, his cock throbbing painfully in his jeans as he works his fingers in and out, faster and harder, mesmerized by the way your hips buck and twitch; climbing towards your next orgasm. “Come on baby… cum fer me darlin’.”

Your body sings for him, the force of your orgasm shaking you as your back bows and light explodes across your vision. Your thighs quake, Joel’s name falling from your lips as you sob, rutting against his hand as your cunt squeezes his fingers with each radiating wave of pleasure.

The soft, comforting sounds of his approval reaches your ears, his grip slackening around your throat as you slump against him. “So beautiful, cumming all over my fingers like that. I need to see you cum on my cock baby.” His words have you preening, his voice husky as you lean back, your grin lopsided and your eyes glossed over. Joel strokes a thumb over your cheek, and you turn your head, kissing his palm. “Lay back for me. Let me take care of you.”

With much effort you manage to lay back in your nest, your legs spread, hips circling invitingly as Joel climbs to his feet, finally stripping off his jeans. All that remains in the way of what. You need the most, are his thin pare of threadbare boxers. Your mouth salivates at the bulge in his underwear, giving you a good peak at the size of his member hiding just underneath. “How do you want me?”

Your voice is so soft, yet wrecked with lust, ready to please Joel. He smiles, his cock twitching. “why don’t you roll over for me huh? That’s right, goood girl.” You follow his instructions, knees slipping on the blanket, head resting on your arms as you try to catch your breath through the thickness of your anticipation.

Dropping his boxers he groans as his cock springs free, bobbing between corded thighs as he takes his place behind you, hands steadying himself on the small of your back. He sighs deeply, cock twitching and knot swelling slightly at the sight of your drenched cunt, inviting him to sink into your heat.

You wiggle your hips impatiently, turning your head and catching sight of him leaning over you, the predatory hunger in his gaze. “I know… I know you need this little one.” His voice drops to a husky vibration in his wide chest and all you can do is nod, your tongue feeling thick in your mouth. “It’s alright baby, I’ll make it better.” Gripping his cock, Joel glides his fingers over the long length of his shaft, teasing the throbbing vein running up his cock before slipping the flushed tip through your folds.

“Please… Please Alpha.” You beg through thick tears, gripping the faded purple blanket below you as Joel notches his cock against your entrance. He presses his hips forward, both of you moaning loudly as he sinks into your warmth. “Joel…” You simper, rocking your hips back, attempting to take more of him. You thought his fingers had been a stretch, now you understand why he was so adamant about opening you up. His cock is long and thick, spearing you open and stretching your walls in ways that feel like you might be ripped in two at any moment.

“Fuck… fuck y’re so tight.” Joel breathes raggedly, his focus torn between not busting right here and now and not thrusting into you savagely. “Easy baby, gotta stretch you out nice and slow.” You mewl, your eyes squeezing shut as you feel him slipping deeper and deeper with small thrusts. every ridge and bump rubbing across your sensitive walls, working you higher and higher.

A hand travels up your bowed spine, gripping your neck and pressing your face into the blankets. “This sweet pussy must have been made for me, huh? the way she squeezes me so tight.” Joel curves over you, his weight settling against your hips as he drives forward, burying himself to the hilt. You squeal at the sudden force, your legs shaking and weak profanities spilling from your lips.

Joel chuckles quietly, bracing his weight on his hands, trapping you below him. “You can take it can’t you baby? You’re doing so well.” He rocks back, sliding out a few inches before burying himself back into you, a gruff moan falling from his lips. He continues his shallow thrusts, like he can’t stand the thought of leaving your drooling cunt for to long.

“Y-yes, yes Alpha.” You stutter, the euphoria coursing through your body threatening to break your mind, as the engorged head of his cock presses against a sensitive spot along your gummy walls. “Please… Please I’m gonna-!” Your muscles lock, mouth agape, as your orgasm suddenly begins to crest.

With a growl, Joel presses his forehead between your shoulder blades. “Cum for me.” He grunts, already feeling his heavy balls drawing tight as your cunt starts fluttering. “Cum for me and I’ll give you my knot.”

A shrill scream bubbles out of your throat, your body jerking below his as you fall into that black pit of pleasure. Joel’s hand slaps over your mouth, muffling your cry of pleasure as his head shoots up, eyes locking on the window for the briefest of moments. “There you go baby, let go for me.” He breathes into your ear, pulling you tight to his chest as he plows himself into your pliant cunt. Fat tears spill over your cheeks, your desperate whines and whimpers caught in his meaty palm as his thrusts become harder, deeper, faster.

“This little pussy, she’s just begging for my cum.” The rhythmic sound of his hips snapping against your ass fills the room, just below it is the sloppy sound of his cock spearing into you. You nod weakly, working your hips back to meet him thrust for thrust and he grins. The look almost triumphant. “Yeah she does… Gonna let me breed her, huh? Gonna let me fuck her full of me?”

Joel drops his hand, circling your throat holding your head against his shoulder. “Yes! Yes oh god, cum in me, cum in me please!” Your cry is all he needs, his control snapping as he bully’s his cock against your cervix.

Joel grunts, his eyes closing and head tilting back as the first jet of cum paints your walls. You squeal, a noise so high and piercing that Joel jerks slightly. His knot swells stretching your cunt beyond what you think you can take, locking you to Joel.

“Fuck baby… you can take it, let go and relax.” He whispers, nipping your shoulder as he grinds his hips against your ass, his spend filling you to the point it has no where else to go, your stomach bulging ever so slightly before it leaks past his knot.

You whimper softly, your thoughts dissipating completely as Joel pants above you. He slowly rolls you both on to your side, cradling you close as he pulls a blanket across your shivering body. Smoothing the sweaty hair from your face he rains kisses down on your shoulders and neck, hushing your whimpers with praises, even as his cock still twitches in your depths.

“I’ve got you, rest baby, I’ve got you.”

*~*~*~*~*~*

“Hng- Joel… oh god…” Your head lulls back, Joel’s hand keeping you from hitting the floor as he cradles your neck. Fingers twitching around locks of grey hair, you moan Joel’s name as he drags his cock from your sodden pussy, only to press back in a second later.

Fingertip shaped bruises and dark red love bites littler your body, mirroring Joel’s. A new one popping up every few minutes, consequences of how you’ve spent the last four days.

Even now, Joel circling a pebbled nipple with the tip of his tongue, laving the delicate skin before pulling it into the warmth of his mouth. Your jaw drops, back arching in a silent plea for more, which Joel is happy to accommodate. His teeth scrape over the sensitive peak, sucking deeply before twirling his tongue around your nipple.

You bask in the feeling, your senses having finally starting to become your own as your heat subsides. You tug on Joel’s hair, pulling him from your breast with a wet pop, his brown eyes meeting your own. They’re heavy with lust, soft pants falling from his lips as he grinds against your core. Snuggly wrapped in your wet warmth, his hips barely move as he languidly fills you with every inch he has. The course hairs at the bottom of his shaft, made sticky with the mix of your releases, rubs against your swollen clit; giving it the right amount of friction to keep you on the edge of bliss.

You drag Joel’s lips to your own, moaning as he sweeps his tongue into your mouth, tasting you in the same manner as which he ravishes your body. Pulling back Joel stutters for breath, taking in the rose color of your kiss bitten lips, the seemingly permanent stain of color on your cheeks, how your eyes shine with need as they never leave his.

You lean up, pressing kisses along his jaw, down his neck tasting the salt on his skin. Joel’s hand moves from its place in the bend of your knee, to the plush of your hip, holding you as close as he can. He can hear you breathing in his scent with soft little whimpers, your hands gripping at him as if he is likely to disappear at any given moment.

Joel knows the feeling too well, it threatens to cave his chest in, to pull him into an inky void of loneliness if you decide, by the end of this, that it was all a big mistake. His long fingers tangle into your hair, pulling you from the crook of his neck with ease to stare into your laden eyes.

“You look so pretty like this.” Joel’s voice is thick, sticking in his throat. You make a soft noise of appreciation, rolling your hips to meet his shallow thrusts.

Joel’s pace slowly increases, his cock sliding further and further out before finding home again. Your lashes flutter, gasping quietly as he presses his forehead to yours.

“J-Joel…”

“I want to mark your pretty little neck, I don’t ever want to let you go.” A whine falls from your lips at a particularly hard thrust, your pussy becoming more sensitive, your bud grinding against his pelvic. “Want to keep you all to myself, keep you covered in my scent and filled with my cum.”

Joel moans as your cunt flutters, your legs starting to shake, nails digging into his shoulders.

You nod your head, bliss building under your skin. “Joel… Joel!” He leans closer, practically bending you in half as his grip tightens on the back of your neck.

“Say it baby, tell me I can mark you. Tell me your my Omega.“

“I’m yours! M-Mark me Joel, please!”

With a harsh thrust Joel sends you spiraling, dropping you over the edge into oblivion as his teeth sink into the thin skin of your neck. Your eyes widen, your grip tightening around Joel as the new sensation washes through your body.

For the briefest of moments you can feel everything Joel does, though his emotions pelt you so rapidly you can’t catch on to any of them before he draws away. There’s blood on his lips, a needy manic look in his eyes as his hips falter, moans falling off his tongue as he fucks into you. Joel grips the backs of your thighs, bending you in half, letting gravity work with him as he bears his teeth and molds your pussy to the shape of his cock.

“Mine, my sweet Omega. All mine.” Little whimpers and babbled prayers leave your lips, too limp and compliant below him to do much else. You watch his face twist, his nose scrunching, lips pulling back from his teeth, eyes closing as the first twitch of his cock sends a jet of seed deep into your cunt.

Knot catching, plugging your dripping hole, Joel collapses, hardly catching himself from crushing you under the heft of his weight. Your thighs burn from the stretch, your limbs loose and yet tight all at once as he nips and peppers your jaw and throat with kisses. Your head falls to his chest, a wave of exhaustion crashing into you as Joel rolls you both over, welcoming your weight on top of him.

*~*~*~*~*~*

“We’ve used up most of our food, but that doesn’t mean we can’t hunt down a few rabbits to hold us over until we get back.”

Joel squats by the packs, sorting through them, transferring all of the lighter things to your bag. You watch from the center of your makeshift nest, now fully dressed in your travel clothes, your eyes trained on each item he rearranges as your fingers pick at the blanket below you.

A large part of you doesn’t want to leave this room, it wants to stay buried in your nest with Joel beside you. Never to emerge again, growing oblivious to the world outside. But you know that isn’t how it works, that you have to take the next steps and navigate this new life ahead of you.

Joel doesn’t need to look at you to see your discomfort, your scent gives you away. The sweet smell now is too strong, bordering on sour. He looks over his shoulder, catching your eye. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“Is it?” You look like your verging on tears, your lip starting to tremble. Joel sets the bag down, his eyebrows furrowing as he turns fully. “I’ve never… I’ve never lived as an Omega, Joel. I-I mean, yeah I have been an Omega this whole time but I’ve lived as a Beta, I didn’t have to worry about going out of my apartment, I never had to fear an Aloha taking interest in me. I-I don’t know what to do with all of these emotions and-and feelings burning in my chest.” Tears spill over your cheeks and Joel quickly moves to you, sitting on his knees in front of you. You suck in a harsh breath, a sob threatening to swallow your words. “I don’t want to leave my nest.”

“Baby…” Joel pulls you into his lap, cradling you as he smooths a hands down your back. “I’ve got you baby girl.” He whispers into the crown of your hair, your sobs wracking your body as you cling to his jacket. “You aren’t alone, I’m here and like I’ve said, I ain’t gonna let a thing happen to you. You’ll still live your life just as you did before. We just need make a few changes is all.”

You sniffle with a nod, closing your eyes as you inhale his scent. “I’m sorry.” You mutter timidly.

“Ain’t gotta be sorry. Just need ya to trust me, okay?”

“O-okay…”

*~*~*~*~*~*

The sun is so bright after being locked inside the house for so long, you squint at your surroundings as Joel ushers you outside and down the steps. You look around at the sunny world, the bright lights and hues of approaching fall. It all feels so conflicting with the turmoil of emotions you feel inside.

You start down the walk way, Joel’s presence at your back, he’s talking about the trip home, how often you both will need to stop, the things that need to be restocked. Vaguely you are listening, your focus drawn to everything around you, something wrong scratching at your bones as you turn onto the street.

You draw to a halt, your breath leaving your lungs in a whoosh before you stumble back, knocking into Joel.

“Oh my god.” You gasp. Joel goes ridged, seeing the body splattered across the road at the same time you do. His gun is drawn in seconds, coming around you, instantly scooping the surrounding areas and you are following suit. Your gun trembles between your palms, your heart pounding in your ears as Joel takes steady steps towards the corpse. “Joel…” Your voice is hardly a whisper, your eyes darting away to the darkened openings of the building on every side of you.

“Fuck…” Joel’s voice is louder than you expect, your skin prickling under your clothes.

“Wh-what is it?”

“Mark.” Widened eyes shoot to his, your mouth dropping open in shock. Joel glances at you briefly before crouching down, grabbing Mark’s bag and dragging it to his side. Quickly looking away you swallow the growing vile rising in your throat at the glimpse of his desecrated body. Despite the hefty distance you can smell the copper tang of Mark’s blood, can see the pool of it dried against the black asphalt and the flies that buzz about his body.

“Your pills are here.” Joel’s knees pop as he stands, heaving the bag over his shoulder as his gaze snags on you. Your body trembles like an unsteady fawn, eyes riveted to the ground before you as you gulp in lungfuls of air. He sighs, glancing down to step around the dealer as he speaks. “Hey, it’s al-“

His next words are lost in a flurry of motion, a yell erupting from his throat as he’s slammed to the pavement, sliding across the rough ground as a weight lands on his body.

The rotting stench wafts into his face, just before graying chipped teeth gnash mere inches from his throat. A scream rips from you at the same time the creature shrieks, struggling against the handle of the shot gun pressing into its throat as Joel struggles to fight against its weight.

Without thinking you raise the gun, the crash corse you learned running through your brain all at once. You aim and fire, the first bullet whizzing past its head feet to the left. The thing claws at Joels thick jacket, looking for a hold to retch itself closer as Joel kicks out his legs, tangled in the bag he had dropped.

The next shot burst into the ground, a foot above Joel’s head and you cry in frustration, anger filling your bones, burning your nerves as you scream. “FUCK!”

You step forward, one arm lifting as you aim, twisting your wrist as you squeeze the trigger.

Everything goes still, your heart, Joel’s breathing, as the zombie drops. the ruminants of its head splattered across the ground and Joel hefts its body to the side, rolling out from under it. A nervous laugh builds in your throat, your hand trembling worse than ever but you can’t bring yourself to lower your gun. Joel looks up at you from the ground, his chest heaving and eyes wide as he takes in your stance.

“D-Does he l-o-o-ook like a BITCH?!” Your voice rings off of the surrounds walls, hysteria making you stutter as you recall the only line you could think of. Joel springs to his feet, despite his bodies protest, and quickly makes his way to your side. Slowly he pries the gun from your hand, turning you away from the body of the cordio before he scoops up the fallen bag and drags you from the bloodied mess.

*~*~*~*~*~*

The fire crackles lowly, just barely lighting the area around it as night descends over the forest. You sit on the moss covered floor, knees tucked into your chest as you stare at the glowing embers, watching as they flicker in and out. Joel is across from you, his knife chipping away at a branch, whittling the wood down into a small figure, hidden in the width of his palm. The boarders of the QZ sit just a mile away, waiting for your return, but what is it you are returning to? The trip back had been far quieter than before, you had retreated into yourself, haunted by the question.

The bottles of pills are a reminder every time they jostle and make noise in your bag. Would you go back to taking them, only to risk reliving this trip all over again? What is your life now if you don’t take them? Do you live with Joel now or on your own? The mark on your neck burns at the thought of being separated from your mate, a concept your hormone free brain is having a hard time understanding.

“I can hear you thinking.” His gruff voice makes you jump, your eyes darting to his, blinking away the bursting dots of light that cloud your vision from staring at the fire for so long.

“What?”

Sighing he tilts his head to the side, pinning you with the inky depths of his stare. “I can practically hear your mind working itself into a tizzy. Plus you’re flooding me with your emotions, darling.” You blanch, mumbling an apology as you shift in your spot. Joel watches you, like he had the entire way home. The dark circles under your eyes, the dullness of your skin, the soft scared whimpers you’ve made in your sleep these last several nights.

He knows worrying like this will only make you sick, physically and mentally, being an Omega only makes it worse. “Come here.” He opens his arm, signaling for you to curl into his side and its like your body is wired to follow his commands. You move without a second thought, tucking yourself against his side, a weak sigh slipping past your lips. Being this close your muscles relax, your thudding heart slowing to a steady beat to match Joel’s own. “Talk to me, pretty girl.” He whispers, kissing the crown of your head as you shuffle impossibly closer.

After a long moment of silence, basking in the way his hand runs up and down your back, you finally relent. “I am so scared.” You breath, your gaze traveling to the luming walls in the near distance. “I-I know you will do anything to keep me safe but… but there is only so much you can do.” Your words sting, the hushed way you whisper them against his flannel nearly unbearable. Joel tightens his grip on your shoulders, about to deny your claim but you press forward. “Should I take the pills? Save us the trouble? But then we will have to do all… all of this all over again and I just… I don’t know if I can.”

Tears fill your vision, turning your face into his chest as you sob quietly.

“Y/n… baby girl.” He drops his knife to the ground, carding his fingers through your hair, pulling you in tighter. Almost as if he could press you into his very being, keep you there so that you never have to fret or worry again. Joel lets you cry, lets your tears soak through his shirt until there is nothing left but a few soft hiccups in your breath and your sagging against him for support.

“Look at me, peach.” His fingers sweep under your chin, lifting your face to his. Your eyes are swollen and red, your face blotchy but he cooes softly. His heart hammering against his own ribs but he can’t let you see that. Not yet. Not when there is still so much you have to face and need his strength for. “If you want to take the pills that is entirely up to you, I don’t have a say in the matter.”

“But you’re my-.”

“No. No matter what I am to you, I don’t have a right to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do with your own body. But,” He holds your stare for a moment, searching your tear stricken face. “But if you decide not to take them, you need to trust me. My scent is already marred into your skin, anyone can tell you are mine with or without being able to tell you are an Omega under neath. I’ve got you, you just need to trust in that.” Joel holds so much certainty in his words,so much need for you to trust and understand what he means, what he’s hoping to convey in the silent moments that follow.

You swallow, your throat working and Joel can’t help but to look, to see the mark that rings the side of your delicate neck. Whipping the remnants of your tears with the sleeve of your jacket you give a shallow nod, Joel had always protected you, had always made sure you were never without. Deep in your heart you knew he would hold true to his words, he would do everything in his power to keep you from falling prey to anyone else.

You just needed to trust him.

“Okay…” You breath, nodding your head as Joel does.

He leaned down, pressing his forehead to yours, sucking in a deep breath. the fire crackles and pops in the silence that follows, both of you lost in the comforting presence of the other. When Joel leans back there’s a smile playing on his lips. “You’re wrong by the way.”

“Huh?”

“Jules never shoots his gun like that. You’re thinking of Menace To Society.” Your mouth drops open, eyebrows furrowing in disbelief.

“Yes he does! When he has that guy kneeling on the floor!”

Joel laugh with a shake of his head. “Nu-uh sweetheart. You’re wrong.”

You glare up at him, and his smile broadens, “We will just have to see about that.”

Your challenge only earns you a deep chuckle, before he pulls you in, planting a soft kiss on your lips. “What do I get when I prove you wrong?” The suggestion in his words reflect in his eyes, the deep dark brown swimming with excitement. a flush works up your neck, your hand tightening on the front of his shirt. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Too bad we will never find out.” Joel lets out a little growl, squeezing your waist playfully making you squirm.

“Just you wait, little one. You’re in for it.”

*~*~*~*~*~*

Tag List: @halfburntout @scorpionsaintt

[ifbrd]

A little while ago I saw online someone had made a DND character sheet for Ford Pines. In the ability scores area, they had intelligence as the highest (makes sense), and strength as one of the lowest (fair enough)

But then they had wisdom as second highest and dexterity as second lowest, and I gotta say, I think those two need to be flipped

I mean let’s start with dexterity. Now I’m not an expert on DND by any means so apologies if I am misunderstanding dexterity here, but others have pointed out that Ford spent his entire adulthood chasing after and/or running from paranormal creatures. I guess I just feel like he has to have high dexterity for him to have even survived all those years.

Also this

But wisdom being low is where I feel most strongly.

I wouldn’t be the first to point out that Ford, while highly intelligent, completely lacks common sense.

People have noted that the safety measures for turning the portal on and off should have been reverse, that the portal shouldn’t have been that easy to turn on by accident and yet it required at least two people to turn it off.

He keeps an infinity die in a “cheap plastic case”

He gives a 12 year old a cross bow

He gives another 12 year old a mind control tie and tells him to “use it responsibly”

He takes Dipper out on several missions that were probably too dangerous for him, refer to the magnet gun above, where Dipper, if he didn’t do it right, could have fallen to his death, and Ford also took him on the mission to shoot Bill for …some reason???? Leave the 12 year old at home when you go kill god to save the world from the current apocalypse! Why do I even need to say that??? Also “don’t worry I’ve been down here countless times and all the aliens are dead…probably”

As I recall, “Bill proofing the shack” was his first line of defense and “Bill proof our minds” was “the next best thing” …shouldn’t those be reversed??? You gotta leave the shack at some point????

According to journal 3, Ford was the one who encouraged Stan to take the kids on a road trip RIGHT AFTER BILL PROOFING THE SHACK, which completely defeats the purpose of doing that in the first place.

I’ve pointed this out before, “Mabel will be fine! I watched her become pen pals with the pizza delivery man in the 15 seconds he was at the door!” … Ford…that’s creepy has hell, keep that pizza delivery man away from your niece!”

When weirdmageddon started he wrote in his journal????? And drew a lovely little detailed image?????

See that little greenish sticky note at the top? That’s my little note that says “when did you have time to write this?????” Seriously what. “It’s the end of the world…i gotta draw this and write a little entry on it before I save everyone!!!” It’s the drawing that really gets me. Okay write a note in case someone else has to take over but WHY THE DRAWING

And finally, everyone is holding hands at the Cipher Wheel. Stan is essential and is refusing to join unless Ford thanks him for saving him. Ford reluctantly does so. It’s now clear that Stan is willing to put everyone, Dipper and Mabel included, at risk just because he wants a thank you, so Ford decides this is a really good time to CORRECT STAN’S GRAMMAR

Look I say this with love but,

Ford may be the smartest people in the room but he’s also the biggest dumbass in the room. This man has no wisdom.

[lale-txt]

❉ confessing to you w/ Geto, Toji & Shiu

➸ 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟏: Gojo, Nanami & Higuruma

a/n: reader is gn! obviously i lied when i said that i won't write a part 2 for this, but here we are. the scenarios plagued my mind and i had to get them out. both Toji's and Geto's part turned out a little sad and angsty, but that's what you get with those tragic chars, i guess.

❦ 𝐓𝐎𝐉𝐈

Toji doesn’t confess. Deep, deep down he fears that he might put a curse on you if he speaks what weighs on his heart. 

You gotta forgive him, he’s a burned child. 

He’s afraid that you’re gonna vanish once he says these words out loud; without a trace, making him wonder if you were merely a fever dream. But you’re here, next to him in the dark, the heat of your body seeping into his when you roll over in your sleep and cling to him. He has to keep you safe, it’s what his life revolves around.

Toji’s hands are surprisingly gentle when he brushes a loose strand of hair behind your ear. You wouldn’t think that the same hands were covered in blood only a few hours ago. Some days he wouldn’t stop scrubbing them until you wrapped yours around his, giving him that look that makes his heart flinch. There’s no fear in your eyes, only compassion and a calm adoration, enough to make the lump of unsaid words in his throat swell. Sometimes he wonders if he’s gonna suffocate on those one day; if you’ll be able to forgive him for loving you, for touching you with those bloodstained hands, for engraving himself into your being.

He hopes you know. You do, don’t you? You wouldn’t curl up besides him otherwise, tangled in sheets he’ll never stay too long because he fears his world will melt down to just the two of you. So he keeps his gun on the nightstand and one foot out of the door, but his eyes will always dart back to your sleeping figure. You mumble out his name in your sleep and Toji responds by pulling you closer to him, only for a moment, holding his breath when you stir awake for a heartbeat. 

Maybe he can love you in between.

In those split seconds when you’re not asleep but not awake either; neither dreaming nor conscious. Not in this life, not in the next one. But in another life, when the stars have aligned and lead you back into his arms. Maybe he can hold you without worrying about staining your soul, your heart; maybe then he can kiss you with the absence of fear. Until then he’ll bite his tongue till he draws blood, choking on the words he chose not to say.

You will forgive him, won’t you? 

❦ 𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐎

In the dark and hazy mind of Geto, you’re the golden light that always guides him back to life. Even though fears he’ll dim you once he encases you, he can’t stay away from you for too long, your warmth way too addicting to him. You never push him away, instead you open your arms to embrace him. It’s as if you’re blinded by your own light, choosing not to see the sins he had committed because it would mean you’d have to stop loving him, and that would mean your whole world would simply fall apart; it’d mean Geto would fall apart.

Geto never asks for much. He did once and maybe that’s the heaviest burden he has to carry; that night when he showed up at your doorstep, asking you to leave everything behind and come with him. It was selfish, he knows that much. But how could you have denied him anything, when both his voice and heart were close to breaking, when he mumbled your name like an apology, his hands trembling till the moment you wrapped yours around them?

It’s too late now, and saying those words out loud now would feel like a binding vow, destroying you in the end. He can’t do that to you. Not to the person who saw the core of his soul and still chose to stay by his side, over all these years. Not budging, not complaining.

An unconditional love with eyes closed. A black hole where his heart is supposed to be, from dusk but never to dawn; while you’re burning brighter than a thousand suns. Maybe he has always been in your orbit, inevitably drawn to you.

When Geto trails kisses from your fingertips to your wrists, he can’t help but wonder when the day will come when he’ll slip through these fingers and plunge into darkness. He imagines your desperate cries and the scratch marks on his skin when you attempt to pull him back, back to the light, back to you. One day, it will be too late, he’s sure of that. His end won’t be a kind one. 

All he can hope for is your forgiveness when he places his bleeding heart in your open palms, and that you’ll swallow him whole like he did with the burden of never being able to openly telling you how deeply, madly he loved you.

❦ 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐔

Whenever he pulls up in the driveway, Shiu can’t help but wonder if you’re gonna be there, waiting for him at his doorstep with that mischievous grin of yours. You’re just a neighbor who he occasionally shares a cigarette with, he keeps telling himself, knowing it’s a full blown lie at this point. 

You’re tugging at his heart strings, night for night. Sometimes the thought of you just lying a few meters away from him, on the other side of a wall, drives him insane. You should be here, in his bed, in his arms. His sheets should smell like you in the morning, not like this creeping loneliness. Yet he never invites you inside and you never dare him to, like a stray cat tiptoeing at the edge of an open door, hoping for sweet treats and head scratches. It’s a game you’re both playing.

“My sweet,” he mumbles in that raspy voice you’ve learned to love so much when he spots you sitting at your familiar spot. Without hesitation he takes off his suit jacket and puts it around your shoulders. He never asks how long you’ve been sitting and waiting there for him, but he can easily tell from your cold fingertips when you hand him the lighter. Just a neighbor.

Inviting you in would mean something more than just opening the door. Within his profession, you don’t do love. There’s simply no room for it. Affection is exchanged through bundled yen notes and comes with fake laughter and lots of regret and headache in the morning. It’s just how things go. It’s the life Shiu chose for himself.

So why did his heart yearn so much for you? He should break this up before it even gets started. But he cannot, not when you inch closer while you talk, until your knees and your shoulders are touching, and the smoke from your shared cigarette is blown from lips to lips, as if you’re both testing just how close you can get before the resilience crumbles.

Maybe a kiss won’t hurt. Shiu knows that the lies he tells himself are piling up at this point. Of course it will hurt. A simple kiss won’t satisfy him, he’ll always find himself craving for more of you. A kiss first, then waking up by your side while you’re wearing his shirt that hugs your figure so nicely and next thing he’ll catch himself staring at the displays of the jewelry store, thinking which ring he should get you.

No, he can’t do that. He shouldn’t. And yet still, he cups your face so gently, lifting your chin up and catching your gaze. So let it hurt, he thinks to himself, before leaning in to kiss you, softly and deeply.

[yelena-bellova]

Twenty Years Later: Joel Miller x F!Reader - Chapter Five

Chapter Five: Soundtrack of Life

Plot: Y/n, Joel and Ellie journey to Bill and Frank’s house, where Joel and Y/n are forced into a conversation.

Word Count: 11.2k

Warnings: tlou ep.3 spoilers, language, guns, canon-typical violence, mention of killing (16+)

A/N: You guys blow this thing up more and more each week and I’m blown away each time. I see all your lovely comments, even if I don’t respond. A gentle reminder that this is a 16+ fic and I will not be adding anyone to the taglist who does not have their name on their page. Gotta look out for younger eyes 👀

Regarding this chapter, I did NOT intend forit to be this long. I honestly thought because the episode was all about Bill and Frank that it would be the shortest, but here we are. It contains one of my favorite scenes of the entire series, I’ll let you guess which one it os 😉

—————————

May 16th, 2002. Austin, Texas.

Y/n considered herself a fairly confidant person. She kept her fear reserved for things like family emergencies, natural disasters…things out of her control.

Not first dates with men she’d known a week.

She was pacing her kitchen, heels clicking against the linoleum floor and her sundress swishing each time she looped around. Her hands wrung themselves against her abdomen. She had never felt so nervous about a date, not even in high school. She figured it was a warning sign of some type. Either she was making a huge mistake or a fantastic decision. She rested her head against one of the cabinets and prayed it was the latter…

Outside Y/n’s complex, Joel had just parked his truck. Dressed in a long sleeved plaid shirt rolled up to his elbows, jeans and dress shoes, he felt constrained. Like his chest had expended three sizes and the shirt was no longer able to accommodate it. Or was he just hot? Hungry?

Joel tightened his grip on the steering wheel and shut his eyes. He was nervous.

It had been at least one, maybe two years since he’d been on a date. A neighbor’s daughter that Joel had felt obligated to go out with so that it would sate his street in their constant attempts at setting him up. It had been much longer since he’d voluntarily sought someone out. Taking a deep breath, he reminded himself it wasn’t marriage. They were just going to dinner. If nothing happened, it wasn’t the end of the world…

Joel sighed, but he wanted something to happen…

He picked up the roses from the passenger seat, a nod to the night they’d met, pocketed his keys and stepped out of the truck. He felt dazed as he climbed the stairs to the second floor. 41B, Y/n had told him. When he reached the door, he hesitated to knock. Such a minuscule part of the night, but the mere act of coming to her door felt like the beginning of…everything.

Three raps broke Y/n from her panic party.

She’d put on an old record, hoping it would ease her nerves. It hadn’t done a thing. She stood up straight, drawing a deep and tried to force confidence through her body.

When Y/n opened the door, Joel lost any and all words he’d been thinking over in his head. She was dressed in a simple yellow flowered dress, but it was her wearing it that melted Joel. She looked like sunshine itself.

“Hi,” she smiled.

“Hi,” Joel exhaled, “Sorry if I’m late.”

Y/n looked at the clock near the door, “Only a minute. I think I can excuse that.”

Joel huffed a nervous laugh. What came next?

“These are for you,” he stated, holding out the flowers.

Roses. Y/n was shocked that Joel had remembered the tiny detail of their night in the bar. Tommy’s nickname was going to stick so long as she stuck around the Millers, she had a feeling…

“They’re gorgeous,” she giggled, “You’ve got a good memory.”

Joel gave a half shrug, rubbing his sweaty palms against his jeans after.

Y/n felt like her brain had stopped processing for a split second. She jumped back to reality, “Come on in, I’ll go get these in some water.”

Joel followed her into the apartment, shutting the door behind him. It was modest, minimally decorated but the walls had pictures strung all over them. He could already tell she was more sentimental than materialistic. The roses had been a good decision.

Y/n made her way to her kitchen, carefully balancing as she crouched down to dig through her cabinets for a vase. Flowers. He’d brought her flowers. What guy did that on a first date? Was that a Texas gentleman thing? She didn’t particularly care, it was one of the sweetest gestures someone had ever made towards her. And tying it back to the night they’d met made it that much sweeter.

“Nice place,” Joel called from the entry area. The apartment was open so if the front door was one end, the kitchen was stretched twenty feet away from it.

“It’s decent,” Y/n replied, filling the vase with water, “Moving was such a spur of the moment decision, I didn’t think I was going to find anything.”

Joel awkwardly balled his fists at his side, he didn’t want to walk too far and cross a line. It was only then that he realized there was music playing.

“Linda Ronstadt,” he blurted.

“Oh yeah,” Y/n smiled, heading over to turn off her record player, “You like her?”

“Love her,” Joel replied, good taste in music was another box ticked for him.

“Okay,” Y/n announced, more to encourage herself, and crossed the room, “All set.”

She grabbed her purse off the hook and Joel opened the door for her.

“Where are we going?” Y/n asked as she locked the door.

This was the part Joel was dreading most of all. “Yeah,” he began, shoving his hands in his pockets, “There’s a place ‘bout ten minutes away called Tito’s. It’s, uh, it’s not the fanciest place but-“

Feeling a sudden, and most likely brief, wave of confidence wash over her, Y/n turned around and put her hand on Joel’s chest.

“Hey,” she smiled, “I don’t care about any of that. I work in a hardware store, I’m not expecting Seasons 52.”

Weight both lifted and slammed into Joel’s chest. If Y/n’s laugh could warm it, her touch could give it new life.

A corner of his mouth quirked upwards, “Okay.”

With an affirmative nod, Y/n allowed Joel to lead her down the stairs, open the car door for her and take her deep into the Friday night Austin scene…

—————————————

Tito’s had ended up being the perfect place.

There was very little a fancy restaurant could add to a date. Sure, the setting could be romantic, but that didn’t guarantee romance. At the end of the day, whether you went to the biggest hotel in the city or a fast food joint, it all boiled down to feeling that spark.

Joel and Y/n’s spark could have set fire to Austin.

“So wait,” Y/n tried to contain her laughter, they were seated out on the patio, “Tommy seriously nailed his pants…to the wall?”

Joel took a swig of his Budweiser and shrugged, “And tried to blame the nail gun.”

Y/n covered her mouth as she snorted, “So no tequila the night before a job anymore, huh?”

Joel shook his head, pointing off into the distance, “And a mile down the road, he just shot straight up in bed because I told you that story.”

Another round of laughter. “Oh gosh,” Y/n sniffled, “Can’t imagine what you two were like as kids.”

“You have any brothers or sisters?” Joel asked, every time he asked her a question, he got to stare at her. It had made him more chatty than usual.

“Two,” Y/n answered, “Sister and a brother, both older.”

“Baby of the family,” Joel observed.

“Yes, and as the age-old tale goes,” Y/n scrunched her nose and smiled, “I’m the little lost bird. Brother’s an Ivy League english teacher who vacations in Europe every year. My sister’s married to a ridiculously successful doctor and just had a baby.”

Joel listened carefully, coming up confused. “I’m not following,” he said, wiping his mouth with his napkin, “What about that makes you lost?”

“They’re both very settled,” Y/n answered, swirling her beer, “They both knew exactly what they wanted in life and they went for it. One of the whole reasons I moved to Austin was to try and find that…thing, you know?”

Joel nodded, “Yeah, I get it,” he decided to lighten the mood, “And the hardware store’s it, huh?”

Y/n smiled and rolled her eyes, “No, the hardware store’s not it. But it makes me happy.”

“That’s a step in the right direction, then,” Joel commented, never taking his eyes off of her.

Y/n could have sat there for the rest of the night just enjoying the warmth of his stare. “So,” she shook herself out of the daze, “What about you? Is construction your thing?”

Joel laughed under his breath, “Pays the bills. Wasn’t originally what I saw myself doin’, but it’s work.”

“What did you want to do?” Y/n asked.

“Music,” Joel answered, “Guitar.”

Y/n’s eyes widened, “You play?”

“I used to,” Joel said, knowing the question that would come after. That was the true test…”Still do sometimes, just for myself.”

“What made you stop?”

Joel sighed, staring down at the condensation that his beer had formed on the table. Either he was about to bring the night to a grinding halt or…well, he hadn’t seen the second option yet. From anyone.

“I met someone,” he started, “We had a kid. She ran out on me pretty soon after. Not a lot of time left over to go around playin’ gigs.”

The chatter around them seemed to fade as Y/n took in the reality of Joel’s answer. He was a single father, and had been for a while, it seemed. All of him made complete sense suddenly. The constant worry lines on his face, the responsibility, the work ethic…

“Boy or a girl?” Y/n took a chance and asked.

“Girl,” Joel answered, a small smile coming to his face, “She’s about to turn thirteen.”

Y/n continued, “What’s her name?”

Joel was surprised, more than surprised, that Y/n wasn’t running the other way. There weren’t a lot of women who willingly took on single dads. Here she was wanting to learn about his little family.

“Sarah.”

Y/n nodded, letting the information rest on the table. “Sarah,” she echoed, “What’s she like?”

“She’s…” Joel let out a laugh under his breath, “She’s incredible. Gets straight A’s, plays soccer, got room in her heart for just about everyone she meets…”

Y/n listened enthusiastically as Joel told stories about his stories as a single dad. How Tommy was helping to raise Sarah, how the three of them were extremely tight knit, how he wished his long hours didn’t interfere with getting to spend time with her…not even for a second did she think about leaving.

“You love her so much,” Y/n blurted before she could think it through. She just had to say it.

Joel smiled warmly over his beer bottle, “She’s my world.”

It was a moment so tender, it almost broke your heart. Joel was letting Y/n closer than anyone else had gotten…ever. And she wasn’t pulling away, she was digging in.

Inside the restaurant, there was soft music playing over a dance floor. Joel and Y/n had eyed it all evening, wondering if their night would inevitably end up there. From outside on the patio, they could hear the song change to one they both knew.

“I love this song,” Y/n said in passing.

Joel had been waiting all night for his nerves to calm or for the perfect song to transcend pass the anxiety. This was as good as it was going to get.

“You wanna dance?”

Y/n’s smile spread across her face, “Yeah.”

Joel stood and held out his hand for Y/n to take, their palms tingling at the touch. He kept a loose hold on it as he led her into the building, snaking through the crowd and onto the dance floor. Their were couples packed wall to wall, but they were able to find a pocket of space just for them.

Y/n’s heart did double time as she rested her hand on Joel’s broad shoulder. Joel pulled her towards him, connecting their hands and holding them up. They hadn’t yet been this close and it felt as intoxicating as they thought it might.

Joel’s hand rested on the higher part of Y/n’s hip. He exhaled shakily, hoping she hadn’t noticed. Slowly, they began to sway to the soft guitar.

The world was on fire and no one could save me but you….

It’s strange what desire will make foolish people do….

They moved as one, Y/n’s gaze resting over Joel’s shoulder because she knew if she looked in his eyes, she’d be overwhelmed.

Joel’s desires were doing battle with his self-control. He wanted to wrap himself around her entirely, leaving no space between their bodies. He would, of course, leave it up to her. She got to decide where the night went.

I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you…

And I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you…

Their chests brushed against each other, sending a thrill through their bodies. The second it started to fade, Y/n chased it, inching closer to Joel till their torsos aligned.

Joel’s head instinctively turned towards her just as she looked up. Y/n’s nose grazed his cheek, his beard delightfully scraping her skin. If they had intended to make eye contact, they never made it there. With Joel’s breath fanning her face and the scent of his cologne enveloping her, Y/n didn’t dare move and disturb the perfection.

No, I don't wanna fall in love…

(This world is only gonna break your heart)

Feeling confidant that she wouldn’t pull away, Joel’s arm slid around Y/n’s waist, his hand resting across her lower back. Y/n’s skin felt inflamed, like the building’s walls had fallen and the heat of the night was swallowing her whole. Her cheek fell against Joel’s closing the very last bit of space that laid between them.

No, I don't wanna fall in love…

(This world is only gonna break your heart)

With you…

That was it, it was a done deal. There was nothing left for them to do but let themselves fall. Their hearts hammered in time with one another, their respective anxiety intertwining at the base of their souls and transfiguring. Instead of a storm, raging, crashing, knocking them over, it became a wave, powerful and passionate. Drawing strength from each other, they allowed the full force of their feelings to flood them.

When the night was over, Joel drove Y/n back to her apartment. They’d chatted on the drive over, but the dance had left them both stunned. Where was there to go from there? What were they supposed to say when a whole conversation had been had in each other’s arms?

They walked up the stairs, coming to Y/n’s door and nervously pausing.

“I had a great time,” Y/n said, fiddling with her keys in one hand.

“Me too,” Joel smiled, broader than his usual thin lipped smirk.

The space between them grew tense. Who was supposed to ask who out for a second date? Were they supposed to kiss? What was-

“So…” Joel set aside all his excessive thoughts, “Did I earn a shot at a second date?”

A laugh rippled through Y/n’s body, thankful that he’d been the one to bring it up. Drawing from Joel’s confidence, she closed the space between them and placed a hand on Joel’s shoulder.

“I think your chances are pretty good,” she softly told him.

Joel’s heart throbbed at both Y/n’s touch and her words. His hand found its way to her waist, not wanting to let the closeness go just yet. They only needed to move a few inches, just a few measly inches and then they’d have it all.

Joel’s breath fanned Y/n’s lips as they allowed themselves to be drawn into one another. The delicious space, hanging on the edge of desire and satisfaction, was enough for them. That was how they knew there was something different to what they felt. Just to be close was enough.

“Maybe we should wait,” Y/n whispered in their shared space, pressing her fingers into Joel’s shoulder a little, “Wouldn’t want to rush anything.”

The tip of Joel’s nose rubbed hers, admitting a defeat that didn’t feel like one. “Wouldn’t want you to think you can take advantage of me or somethin’,” Joel smirked, “I have my reputation to think of.”

Y/n’s laugh mingled with Joel’s, her skin tingling as he brushed a stray piece of hair from her face.

“I’ll call you,” Joel assured.

“I hope so,” Y/n smiled before daring to press her lips to his cheek, “Goodnight, Joel.”

“Goodnight,” Joel choked out, the touch of her kiss paralyzing him.

She unlocked her front door and headed in, Joel stood on the welcome mat until the lock clicked. Alone in the concrete hall, he boyishly kicked his foot and grinned.

Y/n rested her forehead against the front door, shaking her head and grinning.

Joel got down to his truck, started it up and fell back in his seat.

Y/n laughed against the door, playing the night back in her head.

Joel smiled and slapped the steering wheel.

They felt weightless.

—————————

2023. Outside Boston.

Grief hung like a storm cloud over the group.

Y/n had left Joel and Ellie to make a lavatory out of nature, and was walking back. They’d camped overnight in a forest, a few miles outside of Boston. Joel had instructed they were leaving as soon as the sun came up.

When she got back to their camp, she found Ellie sitting up against her tree near the creek, Joel’s jacket draped over her legs.

“He’s still not back?” Y/n asked.

“Nope,” Ellie popped her lips.

Y/n rolled her eyes, if Joel was going to boss them around, he needed to comply with his own demands. She set off into the forest, going the same way he had.

The sound of the larger creek welcomed her. She scanned the area, looking for Joel’s tall frame and finding nothing. She slapped her hands against her legs in a shrug, if anything had happened to him, they’d be dead too. Where was-

The scrape of stones caught her ear.

Y/n gazed down to see Joel, hunched over on the river’s bed of rocks. With a fair bit of distance between them, Y/n could see him stacking stones. He was building a cairn.

He was building Tess a grave.

Y/n’s feelings contradicted themselves. Joel’s loss of the woman he cared for felt karmic, in a way, and yet the sight of him, so broken and empty, reminded her that bitterness had no place commingling with loss.

She didn’t disturb his memorial, she simply leaned against a nearby tree. Tess’ last wish hadn’t been selfish, she had begged for protection for Joel. They were, perhaps, the most heartbreaking final words Y/n had ever heard. She’d promised Tess, what else was she supposed to do? She couldn’t let Tess die in a horrific sacrifice thinking that Joel would meet her soon after.

Y/n sighed, letting her head hit the tree. The day was already exhausting her.

She decided to let Joel have a few extra minutes, walking back to their campsite. Ellie was in the exact same position as when she left. All of this trauma was being rehashed for one girl, but Y/n still believed she was worth it.

Footsteps behind her signaled that Joel was back from his solitary service. He didn’t look in either Y/n or Ellie’s direction, only trudging to his backpack and squatting beside it. It had been a near silent walk from Boston, Ellie asking Y/n an occasional question or Joel giving directions. They were all avoiding each other for different reasons.

Joel blamed Ellie.

Y/n blamed Joel.

And Ellie blamed no one, but could sense tension when she saw it.

“You want your jacket back?” Ellie asked Joel, testing the waters.

Joel continued digging through his backpack, responding with a small shake of the head. He still refused to look at her. The only gesture he made was after digging out and taking a bite of food, he threw the remainders to Ellie.

“I’ve never been in the woods,” the girl continued talking, “More bugs than I thought.”

Y/n leaned up against a tree, waiting and watching how the interaction played out.

“Look, I’ve been thinking about-“ Ellie started.

Joel rose to his feet, throwing his backpack over his shoulder, “I don’t want your sorries.”

Ellie sat forward, “I wasn’t gonna say I’m sorry. I was gonna say that I’ve been thinking about what happened. Nobody made you or Tess take me. Nobody made you go along with this plan. You needed a truck battery or whatever, and you made a choice. So don’t blame me for something that isn’t my fault.”

Joel’s eyes scanned Ellie before looking to Y/n, who simply raised an eyebrow at him. She was in total agreement. And the truth was, Joel didn’t have a reason to put any of what happened on Ellie. But he wanted someone to be angry with, someone to fling his grief at so that he wouldn’t have to deal with it any longer.

The rational side of him won out. He gave Ellie a small nod, mentally collected himself and picked up his rifle. It was time to hit the road.

Ellie got up and handed Joel his jacket, “How much longer?”

“Five-hour hike,” he answered.

Y/n collected her backpack, tied her jacket around her waist and came to stand with Ellie.

“We can manage that,” the girl shrugged, she was the most confidant out of all three of them.

Joel glanced over at Y/n again, the two of them communicating their indifference wordlessly, before turning on his heel.

Y/n put a hand on Ellie’s head and waited for Joel to be out of earshot, “Attagirl.”

Ellie smiled up at the woman and they fell in step a few feet behind their guide.

Joel got them out of the woods and onto a dirt path, leading their party silently and expecting the same in return. Y/n was perfectly content not to utter a word, but Joel was quickly learning something she already knew; Ellie didn’t do “quiet.”

“You’ve gone this way a lot? No infected?”

“Not often, no,” Joel answered.

“What are you looking out for?” Ellie asked.

“People.”

“Oh,” she rested a beat, “Are Bill and Frank nice?”

“Frank is.”

Y/n stepped forward to walk alongside them, keeping to Ellie’s side. “You haven’t told us anything about them,” she spoke up.

“There’s nothing to tell,” Joel answered.

“I’m entrusting two strangers with our lives,” Y/n scoffed, “There’s a lot to tell.”

“They’re good,” Joel said with finality to his tone.

“Oh, well…” Y/n mumbled under her breath, she was over the whole What-I-Say-Goes front.

Ellie was undeterred by their bickering. “How’d you get that scar on your head?”

Joel sighed, already exasperated and it was barely morning.

“What? Is it something lame?” Ellie inquired excitedly, “Like, you fell down the stairs or something?”

“I didn’t fall down any stairs,” Joel answered.

“Okay, so what then?”

Joel paused before speaking, “Someone shot at me and missed.”

Y/n hated the jolt of concern that shot through her chest. Old habits and all that.

“See, that’s cool,” Ellie insisted, “You shoot back?”

“Yeah,” Joel said.

“You get him?”

“No, I missed too. It happens more often than you think.”

Ellie thought it over, “‘Cause you suck at shooting or, like, in general?”

Joel glanced at her, vaguely insulted, “In general.”

Ellie fell back a step to get a look at Y/n. “What about you?”

“What about me?” Y/n echoed.

“How’d you get this scar?” Ellie poked the white mark on her bare shoulder. She didn’t feel comfortable touching Joel, but she was comfortable with Y/n.

By now, Y/n had scars littered all across her body. Ellie could have pointed to almost any one of them and she would have had to think about where it came from. But the one in the rivet nestled between her scapula and her clavicle was one she could never forget.

“A bullet ricocheted off a wall,” she answered, “Hit me instead.”

“That’s slightly less cool than his,” Ellie commented.

Joel caught himself before he hung back a step to get a look at the mark. It was instinct to worry about her.

“You know, seeing as it’s just the three of us,” Ellie began, “I was thinking I should prob-“

“No,” Joel cut her off, already knowing what she was after.

“Yeah, well, Y/n might feel different,” Ellie said, looking to her only ally.

“She doesn’t,” Y/n answered, smirking slightly at her blind enthusiasm.

They walked a few more feet before coming up on a once-white building.

“Cumberland Farms,” Ellie read the sign.

“Hang back a minute,” Joel instructed them both, though he knew it was useless, “I gotta grab some stuff I stashed.”

“Stashed?” Ellie questioned as she followed, “Why do you have stuff stashed here?”

“You ask a lot of damn questions,” Joel complained.

“Yes,” Ellie smiled, owning every bit of her personality, “I do.”

Joel forced open the door to the old storefront and they entered. It looked just about the same as how he and Tess had left it a few years back.

“So are you gonna answer me or what?” Ellie continued.

Joel relented, “We hide supplies on routes, in case we find ourselves short on gear, which I currently am ‘cause-“

“No way,” Ellie zipped over to the other side of the room, honing in on an old arcade game.

Joel ignored her, Y/n simply smiled to herself.

“You ever play this one?” Ellie asked without really seeking an answer, “Oh, I had a friend who knew everything about this game. There’s this one character named Mileena, who takes off her mask and she has monster teeth-“

While Ellie continued chattering, Joel was pacing the floor, trying to remember where his hiding place had been. Y/n crossed her arms and watched amusedly.

“You forgot where you put your stuff,” Ellie stated.

Joel was quick to defend himself, “No, I’m just zeroing in on it. It’s been a couple of years.”

Ellie and Y/n peered over at one another, sharing a knowing smirk.

“Go see if you can find anything in back,” Y/n instructed, Ellie would have gone even without the prompting, “Practical.”

“Trust me, it’s all been picked over already,” Joel grunted, shaking a wall display.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Ellie replied in a sing-song tone, “Is there anything bad in here?”

“Just you,” Joel called out.

“Ah,” Ellie rolled her eyes, “Getting funnier…”

Y/n set down her backpack, deciding to help speed up the process so they could get back on the road. She walked over to a section of floor that Joel hadn’t searched yet and started kicking around.

“I don’t need help,” Joel muttered.

“If we leave it to you and your shitty memory,” Y/n strained as she shoved a shelving unit with her shoulder, “We’ll be here till dark.”

Joel didn’t want to get drawn into an argument, he also couldn’t resist the person starting it. “My memory’s fine.”

“Oh, really?” Y/n waved a hand across the floor, “Point to the treasure.”

Joel’s lips thinned in frustration, mostly with himself for not being able to find the stash before she latched onto it.

“It’s somewhere on this aisle,” he begrudgingly told her.

“This aisle,” she repeated, the two of them going in opposite directions.

After a minute or two, there was a sound from the back room. “You all right back there?” Joel called.

“Yep!” Ellie replied.

“How likely is it that she’s doing something she shouldn’t be?” Joel asked Y/n, who had weeks more experience curbing Ellie.

Y/n jumped in place on a loose piece of the floor, “100%.”

Joel exhaled and continued searching, eventually feeling a slight raise in one of the tiles. He kicked a few old newspapers aside to discover his hiding spot. And better yet, he’d found it before Y/n did, taking away the opportunity for gloating.

He knelt down and flipped open his pocketknife, cutting open the cover and removing it.

Y/n stopped her hunt and came to crouch down next to him, visually sifting through the supplies. There wasn’t much.

It went against Joel’s natural programming to not be concerned when the back room went silent. Ellie had been gone long enough to have picked through everything at least twice. “Ellie?”

No response.

Now Y/n was on edge as well, rising with Joel. She raised her voice a little louder than him, “Ellie?”

They both unholstered their guns, walking in rhythm together towards the back room. Joel stuck a hand out to form a barrier between whatever unknown threat might have been lurking and Y/n. She annoyedly shoved it away and aimed her gun at the doorway.

They unclenched when Ellie walked out, touting a box of tampons. “Picked over, my ass,” she commented.

Y/n and Joel returned to the stash, Joel unloading his assault rifle and Y/n picking through a tin of first aid supplies.

“What are you doing?” Ellie asked Joel.

“There’s not much ammo out there for this thing,” he replied, bringing the lid back down over the supplies, “Makes it mostly useless.”

Ellie saw an opportunity, “Well, if you’re just gonna leave it there…”

Joel stood to his feet and made direct eye contact, “No.”

Y/n stood up, slung her backpack over her shoulder and lightly pushed Ellie ahead of her. Tess was no longer there to keep occupy Joel and she wanted to put as much space between the two of them as possible.

They were on the dirt road for another hour or two, time didn’t seem to matter in the middle of nowhere. Ellie barely complained, content to take in all that nature had left to offer. At some point, Y/n and Joel had fallen in step with one another. Even sworn enemies would have cracked under pressure and started hurling insults at one another. Their ability to stay silent with one another was unmatched.

“So,” Ellie eventually killed the quiet, “Are you ever going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?” Y/n replied.

“Why you two broke up.”

Joel scrunched his eyes shut, the darkness of his lids a more preferable place to be.

Y/n took the hit and answered, “We never said we dated.”

“You didn’t have to. You knew each other in Texas but you don’t talk,” Ellie began to list off her reasons, “And when you do talk, it’s only to fight.”

“Friends fight too,” Y/n suggested.

Ellie scoffed, “Not like you two.”

There was passion that bled through Joel and Y/n’s arguments that was only born from love. It was one thing they’d never be able to change.

“You don’t need to say anything,” Ellie continued, “I’ll just know that I’m right.”

Joel stopped short, putting a hand up to Ellie and trying to stay calm. “You do not need to say every fuckin’ thing that pops into your head,” he said, driving certain syllables harder than others.

Ellie was unfazed by him, turning her gaze to Y/n. “Was he always this grumpy?”

Y/n sighed, her time in Austin was a piece of her past she didn’t want anyone having. The obviousness of her and Joel’s fractured connection bothered her, it made it that much harder to sever it entirely. She picked up the pace again, getting ahead of Joel and Ellie.

Joel’s eyes followed her, something inside of him twinging against his will. He spared a glance at Ellie and continued on the path.

“Yeah,” Ellie smiled to herself, “They dated.”

They walked a little further before Ellie got distracted by something in a field. “Holy shit,” she exclaimed.

Up on a hilltop lay the rusted remains of a plane crash. The three of them stopped, it was getting harder for Joel and Y/n to remember a world where things like airplanes had existed.

“You fly in one of those?” Ellie asked,

“A few times, sure,” Joel answered.

“Yeah,” Y/n said.

Ellie’s excited eyes scanned the wreck, “So lucky.”

“Didn’t feel like it at the time,” Joel recalled, “Get shoved into a middle seat, pay twelve bucks for a sandwich…”

“Or hit turbulence,” Y/n remembered.

“You got to go up in the sky,” Ellie stated, her voice filled with wonder. Another simple pleasure stolen from her…

Joel had always been more of a realist than Y/n, who wanted Ellie to hold on to whatever pieces of happiness she could. “Yeah, well, so did they,” he added, killing the levity of the moment.

“Grim…” Ellie commented as they continued walking. “So everything came crashing down in one day?”

“Pretty much,” Joel answered, giving Y/n space to interject. She’d gone silent again.

“How?” Ellie asked, “I mean, no one was infected with Cordyceps, everybody’s fine, eating in restaurants and flying in planes. And then all at once? How did it even start? If you have to get bit to be infected, then who bit the first person? Was it a monkey? I bet it was a monkey.”

Y/n almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. Almost.

“It wasn’t a monkey,” Joel answered, “I thought you went to school.”

“FEDRA school,” Ellie replied quickly, “They don’t teach us how their shitty government failed to prevent a pandemic.”

Joel sighed, he couldn’t fault her for wanting to know how her world was destroyed before she’d even gotten there.

“No one knows for sure, but, best guess,” he began, “Cordyceps mutated. And some of it got into the food supply. Probably a basic ingredient like flour or sugar. There were certain brands of food that were sold everywhere, all across the country, all across the world. Bread, cereal…”

Joel and Y/n didn’t have to look at one another to know they were having the same thought.

“Pancake mix,” Joel continued, “You eat enough of it, it’ll get you infected. So the tainted food all hits the store shelves around the same time, Thursday. People bought it, ate some Thrusday night or Friday morning. Day goes on…they started to get sick. Afternoon, evening, they got worse,” Joel paused, a flash of blood coming to his mind, “Then they started bitin’.”

Y/n shut her eyes, as if it was all playing out in front of her again.

“Friday night,” Joel was able to push out, “September 26th, 2003. And by Monday, everything was gone.”

Y/n didn’t know whether to scream or stay quiet. Her entire world had come crashing down in a span of 72 hours.

“It makes more sense than monkeys,” Ellie said, then looked at Joel, “Thanks.”

“Sure,” he replied. Joel still wasn’t sure what to do with her, but he was trying. He only had to try for a few more hours, anyway.

Y/n kept her eyes down as she walked, only stopping when Ellie and Joel fell out of step. Joel had his arm stretched over Ellie’s chest to keep her in place.

“What now?” Y/n asked, nearing her breaking point with patience.

“We’ll cut across the woods here,” Joel directed.

“Isn’t the road easier?” Ellie asked.

“Yeah, it’s just,” Joel took a breath, looking ahead to Y/n, “There’s stuff up there you shouldn’t see.”

Y/n chortled, she couldn’t take any more of his mood swings. One minute he didn’t care, the next he was watching out for their sensitive eyes?

“Well, now I have to see,” Ellie sang, walking ahead to join Y/n.

“I don’t want you to,” Joel pushed.

“Newsflash, Joel,” Y/n announced, “It’s the fucking apocalypse. We’ve all seen things we don’t want to see.”

Joel paced after them, chasing Ellie more than his ex, “I’m not kidding. Ellie!”

“Can it hurt us?” Ellie asked as Y/n fell behind her.

“No,” Joel answered truthfully.

She spun around to face him as she strolled, “You’re too honest, man, Should’ve said axe murderer.”

While Ellie walked ahead, Joel sped up to match Y/n’s pace. “I’m serious, she shouldn’t see it.”

“You know what,” Y/n didn’t break stride, “I’m sure our delicate little sensibilities can handle whatever it is.”

Anger is intoxicating, but it can also be all-encompassing. It can numb all other senses, blinding all other emotions until the red is staining every part of someone’s perspective. Y/n’s rage with Joel was deceiving her into thinking everything that came out of his mouth was either an insult or an overreaction. Joel knew that the second she found what he was trying to shield her and Ellie from, she’d regret it instantly. But it was futile to fight her.

“Uh, whatever it was,” Ellie called from the front of the group, “Think it’s gone.”

Y/n felt sure of herself as she trudged on, until the details of Ellie’s expression came into view and she followed the girl’s eyes. There in a ditch, lay skeletal remains. If you reconstructed them, they probably made up about a dozen people.

“About a week after Outbreak Day, soldiers…” Joel started to explain to Ellie, “Went through the countryside, evacuated the small towns. Told you you were going to a QZ, and you were…if there was room…if there wasn’t…”

“These people weren’t sick?” Ellie inquired.

“No,” Joel replied, “Probably not.”

“Why kill them?” Ellie continued, “Why not just leave ‘em be?”

“It was their fucked up way of trying to contain the infection,” Y/n spoke up, trying to hide her trembling breath. It wasn’t the first open grave she’d seen, this was one of the easier ones to stomach. This was all bones.

Y/n turned on her heel, eager to get as far away from the hellish memories as she could.

————————————

Eventually, they made it to where Joel told them Bill and Frank lived. It was a small chunk of a town completely gated by a tall fence.

“Stay here,” Joel instructed Y/n and Ellie before punching in the entry code on the gate’s keypad. He let them go through first, it was the only place safe enough to do so.

Y/n’s breath caught in her chest, it was the first time she’d seen an actual town in…she’d lost count of the years. The white picket fences, the boutique shops, the houses. Actual houses. It nearly brought tears to her eyes, it reminded her so much of Austin.

The three of them walked to Bill and Frank’s house, the nicest looking one on the block. Joel took notice, however, that the flowers decorating the front porch were dead. Scorched by the sun. Bill would never let that happen.

He opened the front door, taking cautious steps into the entryway. Y/n and Ellie followed close behind.

“What the fuck,” Ellie elongated, it was probably her first time inside an actual house.

“Bill?” Joel called out. No answer. “Frank?” Nothing.

Shit.

“You stay there,” Joel directed Ellie, not looking Y/n’s way since she was going to do what she wanted anyway, “Ya hear anything, you see anything…yell.”

Joel and Y/n didn’t make it more than one step before Ellie spoke up, “What if they’re gone?”

No. Joel couldn’t think about that. He didn’t want to grieve over one more person.

Y/n set off down the hallway, keeping her pistol drawn at her side. Joel had gone through the kitchen, but the two rooms were connected. They made it to the bedroom door at the same time, Joel knocking and jiggling the knob. Nothing.

“Would they leave?” Y/n asked.

“No,” Joel shook his head.

The back porch door shutting got their attention.

“Ellie?” Y/n called, getting nothing in return. She set off back to the dining room where they’d left her, Joel just a step behind.

She was sitting at the table holding a piece of paper. Her expression was undeterminable, like she was between emotions and deciding which one to land on.

“It’s from Bill,” she finally told them.

Y/n sighed, holstering her gun, taking off her backpack and settling into a chair between Joel and Ellie. Joel put away his weapon too, neither of them needed to pretend there was any hope.

Ellie scanned the envelope the letter had come from, “‘To whomever…but probably Joel,’” she tossed it back onto the table, “I figured I fell under “whomever.” It came with this.”

She slid a single car key across the table.

Joel shrugged his backpack off next to Y/n’s, but wouldn’t sit. “So they’re dead?”

“Mm-hmm,” Ellie hummed.

Joel turned away, the very little emotion he let himself feel coming to the surface.

“You-you wanna?” Ellie offered.

He shook his head, “Go ahead. You do it.”

Y/n leaned against her knees, holding her hands to her lips, bracing herself.

“August 29th, 2023,” Ellie began to read, “If you find this…please do not come into the bedroom. We left a window open so the house wouldn’t smell, but it will probably be a sight. I’m guessing you found this, Joel, because anyone else would’ve been electrocuted or blown up by one of my traps. Hehehehehehe-“

Ellie looked up in confusion, Y/n gave a small nod for her to continue.

“Take anything you need,” she kept going, “The bunker code is the gate code but in reverse. Anyway…I never liked you, but still, it’s like we’re friends, almost…And I respect you. So, I’m gonna tell you something because you’re probably the only person who will understand. I used to hate the world and I was happy when everyone died. But I was wrong, because there was one person worth saving. That’s what I did. I saved him. Then I protected him. That’s why men like you and me are here. We have a job to do, and God help any motherfuckers who stand in our way. I leave you all of my weapons and equipment. Use them to keep-“

Ellie sucked her bottom lip, not knowing how to proceed. None of them had to ask what the next two words were.

Joel stepped forward robotically and took the letter, reading the rest over silently. Tess’ name struck a blow to his body, he wanted to curl in on himself.

“Stay here,” he mumbled, striding towards the front door with barely contained hurry.

Y/n shut her eyes, keeping her hands in a praying position. It was the first time in twenty years she couldn’t tap into the anger that lived inside her. She felt pure sorrow that Joel had to lose someone else he loved, regardless of whether he’d ever admit to loving Tess.

Outside, Joel took deep breaths that at one time would have been described as cleansing. But he felt no better when he inhaled than he had before. Bill’s letter weren’t just his last wishes, it was a call to action. He couldn’t have known the situation Joel was in when he wrote it, but he supernaturally addressed every part of it. He lifted up a silent apology to Tess, for not being able to save her.

Joel crumpled the letter in his palms and let it drop to the grass. He held up the key Bill had left him, forcing himself to move to the garage doors and open them.

Y/n and Ellie sat up straighter upon hearing the noise. “Stay here,” Y/n echoed Joel, rising up and heading out to see what he was doing.

She walked around to the open garage doors to see Joel hunched over the front of a truck. The hood was open and he was investigating its internal organs. Y/n had barely caught a glance at the empty spot where the battery should have been before Joel slammed it shut. There went that happy thought…

Joel’s eye caught the refrigerator nearby, a couple cans of oil and other auto supplies sitting on top of it. Bill had been a survivalist, it was his nature to prepare for every possible outcome. He crossed the space and opened the fridge, spotting the materials needed to construct a car battery from scratch

He smirked, maybe they had been friends…

Y/n joined him at the door, she was no mechanic but the men throughout her life, Joel and Tommy included, had taught her enough about car repair to know they were battery parts. A spark of hope lit inside her.

It dwindled in both her and Joel when the reality of what it meant hit them.

Y/n suddenly felt too close to him, she moved away and crossed her arms, going to stand on the furthest side of the truck. Joel didn’t move until she stopped, coming to stand on the other side of the vehicle. They wanted a proper barricade between them.

Y/n had made a promise to Tess that she would protect both Ellie and Joel. In the moment, it had seemed like the only honorable thing to do. Now, staring down the task itself, she wanted to admit her selfishness and run. Run back to the QZ, back to the Fireflies, back to the only semblance of safety she had. And with every turn she made in her mind, Ellie was waiting for her. Ellie was at the center of this all. She was the job. Everything else came second.

“If we do this,” Y/n started, her words slowly and cautiously calculated, “You are going to have to start treating me like an equal. I am not some delicate flower that you need to protect and I’m not some child in need of protection. We’ve already got one of those. I live in the same world you do. I didn’t hesitate to kill that Clicker,” she pointed behind them as if the monster’s carcass was present, “And I won’t hesitate going forward.”

Joel looked up at her out his eyebrows, “Can you blame me, last time I knew you?”

“We don’t need to keep bringing us up,” Y/n shook her head, a joyless smile on her face, “We are completely different people. Matter of fact, think of us as strangers. We only know each other from this point forward.”

Joel thought it over a second, accepting the truth of it. “Okay,” he said, “But you have to trust me that I know the best way to get to Wyoming-“

“I don’t trust you,” Y/n retorted.

“I don’t trust you either,” he echoed, bitterness rising to both their surfaces.

Y/n bit down on her bottom lip, if this was going to work, they needed to put away all of their past. Not just the good parts.

“We have to put this on ice,” she said, “What matters…is her. That is all that matters. Not us, not what happened…her.”

Joel’s thumb twitched against the hood of the truck. There were many questions he’d been wanting to ask Y/n, but there was one that was non-negotiable if he was going to take on this task with her

“Do you actually believe that she’s the answer to this?”

Y/n’s face softened, only slightly, but enough for Joel to see the gleam hope in her eyes. “I do,” she replied, earnestly.

Joel breathed a heavy sigh, looking down at the truck. He glanced back up at Y/n, scanning her up and down as if to take full stock of the woman she was now. “Okay.”

Y/n nodded, her body alight with apprehension. “Okay.”

A ceasefire had been called.

“I’ll start on the battery,” Joel announced, eager to get away from the conversation as quick as he could, “Can you do a once over on this thing?”

“Yeah,” she answered, forcing past the hurdle that was doing something Joel asked of her.

They worked in silence, Y/n checking that the car was in working condition and Joel constructing their battery. It was the first time they’d been able to tolerate each other’s presence in the last two days.

After a half hour, when Y/n was long past done, Joel stepped back and examined his work. “It’s gotta charge for a while,” he announced, “But it’ll work.”

“Okay,” Y/n sighed, glancing over at him before heading back out the garage. Joel was close behind.

They came back into the house, finding Ellie waiting for them at the table still.

“Show me your arm,” Joel ordered, he needed to be 100% certain that she was safe to transport.

Ellie stood and rolled up her sleeve, the second bite still had blood caked around it, but it was clearly healing. They had no reason to doubt it would continue that way.

“I just finished makin’ a truck battery,” Joel said, “It’s charging right now.”

“Okay,” Ellie replied, her face showing a hint of hope.

“And I have a brother in Wyoming,” Joel continued, “He’s in some kinda trouble, and I’m heading out there to find him. He used to be a Firefly. And my guess is he knows where some of ‘em are out there. Maybe they can get you two to wherever this lab is.”

Ellie’s eyes bounced between Y/n and Joel, “All right. Uh,” she began to fiddle with her hand, “Listen, about Tess-“

Joel held up a hand, he took a second to collect himself before speaking. “If I’m takin’ you with me, there’s some rules you gotta follow. Rule one, you don’t bring up Tess. Ever. Matter of fact, we can just keep our histories to ourselves.”

Y/n made a mental note of where Joel was emotionally.

“Rule two, you don’t tell anyone about your…condition,” Joel focused his eyes on Ellie, trying to drive the point home, “They see that bite mark, they won’t think it through. They’ll just shoot you. Rule three,” he pointed between him and Y/n, “You do what we say, when we say it. We clear?”

“Yes,” Ellie answered.

“Repeat it,” Joel demanded.

Ellie took a breath, “What you say goes,” she looked between the two adults once more, “Are you two gonna be able to get along?”

Joel glanced over his shoulder at Y/n, who was leaned up against the door frame. She had her hands tucked behind her as if she was trying to make herself as small as possible. They communicated their truce with their eyes.

“We’ll be fine,” Y/n said to Ellie, maybe saying it would make it so…

Joel sighed, it felt like he was signing on a metaphorical dotted line. “Okay,” he finally said.

The three of them stood in the dining room, all with their own separate reservations but with no choice in the matter. They needed each other, even if no one dared to admit it.

“So what now?” Ellie broke the silence.

“We grab what we can,” Joel responded, “Let’s check the bunker first.”

He brushed past Y/n, who followed with Ellie in tow, and located the hidden entrance to Bill’s bunker. Joel climbed down the ladder first into the pitch black room. Flipping on the lights revealed walls of canned goods, guns, supplies, various tools and first aid kits. In the middle lay a desk setup with a laptop playing music and monitor screens showing footage of outside the house.

“Ho-ly shit,” Ellie said for both her and Y/n, “This guy was a genius.”

“Little bit,” Y/n added, scanning the walls, “Back then, everyone called people like him crazy. I’m guessing he was okay with it.”

Joel went to work at the computer, switching off the song.

“Why was the music on?” Ellie asked.

“If he didn’t reset the countdown every few weeks,” Joel explained, “This playlist would run over the radio.”

Ellie glanced over the screen, assured now of her theory from the day before about Joel’s radio codes. “‘80s.”

Joel didn’t really care anymore, “Grab some cans from over there. Nothin’ dented or swollen.”

Ellie wasn’t so easily distracted, she was still gazing at the guns. “Dude,” she started to draft another pitch.

“No,” he replied without even looking up at her.

“There’s a whole wall of them,” she declared, as if that made a difference.

Joel shot her a glare, signaling there was no discussion to be had. Searching Y/n out again and receiving a frown in response, Ellie backed off and went to collect the canned goods.

Y/n traced her fingers across the wall of guns. She doubted her pistol was going to get them very far. It had taken an assault rifle and an axe just to kill the Clicker that had attacked them.

She loathed to ask Joel for help, but she was good at shooting, not specs. “Which one takes the most basic ammo?”

Joel peered up from the monitor screens, the sight of her standing amongst so many weapons was still a little shocking. “That beige and black one,” he nodded in her direction, “Standard shotgun.”

Y/n nodded once in awkward thanks and removed the gun from the wall, testing the weight and feel of it. She crossed the room to one of Bill’s work tables and took a box of bullets, stuffing it in her jacket pocket.

“I’m gonna start upstairs,” she announced, strapping the shotgun over her back and climbing up the ladder.

The three of them worked around the house, collecting any and all supplies they could possibly need. Ellie found toilet paper, Y/n found some unopened dry goods, Joel found clothes for them. It was strange to think that once upon a time, desires had felt like essentials. A new TV, concert tickets, expensive wine…Y/n felt like she was seeing heaven when Joel pulled out a box of women’s t-shirts.

Joel monitored the battery closely, it wasn’t charging as fast as he wanted it to. “Needs another hour,” he told them.

“They have hot water!” Ellie exclaimed, soaking her hand under the garage’s running faucet, “I’m takin’ a shower. And then you’re showering, because seriously,” she turned to Joel and scowled as he headed back to the house.

Joel stopped what he was doing, unsure of how to respond. “I smell that bad?”

Y/n was sorting through some shelves, collecting a few tools they could take with them for the truck. “I’m not even answering that,” she replied.

Joel took what he could from her answer. “You take the next one,” he offered, trying to put his money where he mouth was and bench their grudge.

“Should I be offended?” Y/n fired back, raising one eyebrow. “Thank you,” she finally said.

Joel gave a nod in reply before getting back to work.

Y/n eventually headed inside to wait for Ellie to be done. The girl emerged with wet hair in fresh clothes.

“That felt so good,” she groaned in happiness as she passed Y/n in the hall.

“I bet,” Y/n smiled, “There extra towels in there?”

“Yep,” Ellie called, she was already halfway down the stairs, passing Joel as she descended.

If Y/n and Joel had dodged any awkwardness in the past 48 hours, it had boomeranged back around and slammed into them. They stood in the hall, keeping three feet of space between them and struggled for words.

“I’ll be quick,” Y/n said finally, heading into the bedroom that connected to the bathroom.

“Sure,” Joel replied, fiddling with his fist at his side.

Showers were one thing that no one ever took for granted anymore. Water supply in the QZ wasn’t consistent, one day you could have warm water and the next it’d be ice cold. You couldn’t count on anything to stay the same. So when Y/n had complete control of the temperature and made it burning hot, she felt like she could cry from pure joy.

Joel stood outside the bedroom door, leaned up against the wall. He wasn’t sure what to do with himself. Sweet images of early mornings with Y/n stormed past his defenses, flooding his brain. How she looked with wet hair, the smell of her skin after using some soap he couldn’t remember the name of…he tried to ignore the fact that it was all on the other side of the door.

Y/n emerged from the shower a few minutes later, having gotten all the dirt out of her hair and nails, and wrapped a threadbare towel around her torso. She quickly dried off and changed into the new clothes Joel had found them. It was a plain t-shirt, a men’s button up to go over it and a plain pair of jeans. Gone were the days of dressing up because you felt like it. It was a stupid thing to miss, but Y/n felt the loss regardless.

Dressed, she opened the bathroom door. The sound signaled that Joel could come in.

He came around the corner, having just put his memories to bed when he saw her. Pruny, barefaced and natural…the way he’d always loved her.

“All yours,” Y/n muttered, unable to break the eye contact they held.

Joel cleared his throat and his mind, “Thanks.”

“I’m just gonna be here,” Y/n gestured to the dresser and the attached mirror, “Try and get a comb through my hair.”

“Okay,” Joel nodded.

He walked past her, their shoulders brushing as he did, and closed the bathroom door behind him. It was the first time they’d touched in twenty years.

Now anger was rarely ever born from just anger. No one hated someone just to hate them. There was always something deeper beneath it. More often than not, anger found a companion in heartbreak. They’d collide, morphing together to make something so complicated, you couldn’t tell one apart from the other.

Y/n reached for a spare comb, her trembling hands causing her hair to catch in the teeth. Harboring the anger had been effortless, it was a fire that stoked itself. It was the pain, the flame that started the blaze, that was causing her to feel like she was burning, from the inside out.

The tears welled in her eyes, she refused to let them fall until her reflection was nothing but a blur. She dropped the comb on the dresser, and fell back onto the bed. It could no longer be contained.

Joel had broken her, destroyed her. The loss of him was a hurt that had refused to fade with time. She could feel her heart splitting back open just being around him, the same way it had the day that they’d parted. She wanted to scream, to cry, to break the way she had after he’d left. With the simple act of calling a truce and playing nice, she had reopened the wound she had spent twenty years trying to heal with her unbridled bitterness. She was bleeding out.

On the other side of the door, Joel was propped up against the shower with one hand. Rivulets of the stream dripped down his hair and face. He stared down at the drain, his emotions mixing and swirling much like the water at his feet. Joel had never considered himself particularly favored by the world. There were only two times when he’d felt like there was some higher power bestowing happiness upon his unworthy head.

The first was when Sarah was born, when he got to hold her for the first time.

The second was when Y/n entered his life.

Now her mere presence felt like a punishment. A reminder of what he’d done to her, a child’s taunt of a love he could never go back to. Knowing she was on the other side of the wall caused every muscle in his body to tense. Joel was still himself, regardless of what the pandemic had turned him into. The guilt he’d long tried to drown was rising to the surface, threatening to rebel and throw him underwater. Mixed with the fresh loss of Tess, he was overwhelmed. If he didn’t keep repeating the same three things to himself, she lied, she’s a liar, she’ll lie again, he would collapse entirely.

Y/n sniffled, rubbing her fingers under her eyes in a desperate attempt to stop her tears. She was so tired of crying over Joel. She wished for blind hatred, not the memory of his smile. Bitter regret, not the ghost of his lips. She couldn’t take another time of looking into his eyes and seeing the man she had loved with her whole heart.

Had they known that with a mere twelve feet of space and one shoddy door between them, it still wouldn’t have changed anything. Their chapter was over.

Needing distance, Y/n got off the bed and combed her hair as she walked down the stairs. She found Ellie seated in the front room at the piano.

Ellie turned to her and smiled, “Well, that’s an improvement.”

Y/n bristled, “Be nice to me. I am keeping you alive, after all.”

Ellie hummed as if that was up for debate and turned back to the piano, “You ever learn to play one of these?”

“A little,” Y/n replied, coming to join her, “I played as a kid, not as much when I was an adult.”

“You wanna play something?” Ellie suggested, it didn’t feel like it was for Y/n’s benefit so much as her own.

Y/n motioned for Ellie to make room and settled in next to the girl. It had been over twenty years since she’d felt ivory beneath her fingers, and this one was a beautiful model. She wracked her brain for songs where all the chords were still intact.

She placed her hands accordingly, pressing down on the first keys.

“Slow down, you crazy child,” she softly sang, “You’re so ambitious for a juvenile. But then if you’re so smart, tell me, why are you still so afraid?”

“You can fucking sing?” Ellie cried excitedly.

“Where's the fire, what's the hurry about,” Y/n kept going, “You'd better cool it off before you burn it out. You've got so much to do and only so many hours in a day.”

Ellie swayed a little, taking in the curiosity of the person she hardly knew, yet liked better than anyone. She couldn’t help herself from sneaking a finger onto a key and quickly pressing down.

“Don’t mess me up,” Y/n laughed as she continued to play, “But you know that when the truth is told, that you can get what you want, or you can just get old.”

Joel had just pushed his wet hair back and buttoned up his shirt he’d found. Renewed by the hot water, he grabbed the stick of deodorant he’d used and left the bathroom. The music and it’s sweet accompaniment drifted through the bedroom door, hitting Joel and rendering him breathless for a moment. All he could feel was her, wrapping her arms around him with each word.

Ellie continued to hit random keys at inopportune times, Y/n’s knocked her shoulder against hers.

“You're gonna kick off before you even get halfway through,” Y/n crooned, her grin causing her to enunciate differently.

Joel quietly made his way down the stairs, feeling his body unnaturally relax with each note Y/n sang. Her voice hadn’t changed at all.

“When will you realize,” Y/n did a little flourish with the keys, leaving Ellie no room to mess with the melody, “Vienna waits for you.”

When she removed her hands, Ellie clapped and whooped. The mood had been so dark since the day of the shootout, it felt like a single ray of light was shining down on them.

Joel watched her sing the last line from the hall, it was like his memories had come to life right in front of him. How hard was it to bury the past when it was everywhere you looked?

Ellie turned around and saw Joel, “Well, don’t you look pretty.”

Y/n rotated on the bench and faced Joel. It was unfair that he seemed to be getting more handsome with age. With his hair slicked back and his plaid shirt rolled up to his elbows, it stirred up a singular butterfly in her stomach. She was quick to put it down.

Joel’s eyes flashed to Y/n before catching himself and looking back to Ellie, “Shut up.”

He tossed her the deodorant. “Nice,” she commented, swiping it on before handing it to Y/n. “Hey,” she trailed after Joel, “Did you know Y/n can sing?”

Y/n snorted as she used the antiperspirant. Ellie was the only thing keeping her spirits up on the trip. Everything else hurt, but the young girl’s joy acted as a balm.

Joel went back out to the garage to confirm the battery was charged up. He installed it quickly and headed back into the house. “We’re good to go,” he announced, slinging his backpack over his shoulder.

Ellie and Y/n grabbed their jackets and bags, the three of them filed out of the house in hopeful silence. They shoved their things in the back seat of the truck, leaving one side clutter-free.

“Why don’t you take the front?” Y/n suggested to Ellie, already climbing in the back.

Ellie jumped into the passenger side, a toothy grin spread across her face as she started fiddling with the foldout mirror.

“It’s your first time in a car?” Joel asked from beside her, not the slightest bit amused.

“It’s like a spaceship,” Ellie said wondrously.

“No, it’s like a shit piece of Chevy S10,” Joel grumbled, “But it’ll get us there…I think. Seatbelt.”

Ellie glanced up from playing with the radio dials, confused.

Undeniably in sync with each other, Y/n reached through the gap between Ellie’s seat and the window as Joel reached over the girl and pulled the belt over her body. “Seatbelt,” Joel repeated.

Ellie took it from him and clicked it into place, “So cool…”

Y/n watched from over their shoulders. It wasn’t lost on her how it had taken no time for Joel to start acting like a parent again.

Joel started up the car as Ellie dug through the glove compartment. She held something up to Joel that Y/n couldn’t see.

“Put it back…” Joel directed, “Ellie…”

Ellie ignored him, popping in the cassette tape and hitting play. Soft guitar rang through the truck’s speaker system. Ellie was about to skip the song when Joel and Y/n piped up at the same time.

“No, no, wait-“

“No, leave it.”

Their words collided, surprising them both. It was the first thing they’d agreed on.

“This is good,” Joel said as he made a turn, “This is Linda Ronstadt. Do you know who Linda Ronstadt is?”

“You know I don’t know who Linda Ronstadt is,” Ellie rolled her eyes.

Y/n smirked from the back seat before the nostalgia washed over her again. The song had been a favorite of hers for decades, but there was one night in particular she distinctly remembered playing it on.

Joel drove down the path that led to the gate, letting the song fill the cracks of him left by all the beauty disappearing from the world. There was still a musician living inside him. “Oh, man…” he muttered.

In the rear view mirror, Y/n and Joel’s eyes flickered to one another. The second their gazes connected, they diverted them back to the road. In their minds, they were back in Y/n’s shitty apartment, leaving for their first date.

“Eh,” Ellie remarked, “It’s better than nothing.”

Y/n couldn’t contain the chuckle that bubbled from her lips, nor could Joel hide his flash of a smile. She was going to make them both feel ancient before their journey was over.

Joel pressed the gate code on the remote Bill had left in the garage, the gate opening for them like the parting of the Red Sea. Even he, in all his jadedness, felt some sort of hope.

Y/n settled against the window, taking one last look at the town Bill and Frank had kept up over the years. Their legacy was one not of sadness, but of renewal. They had supplied her, Joel and Ellie with the resources to go forward with their journey. They were helping them in their mission to change the world. It was a kindness she’d never get to thank them for, but she’d certainly never forget.

They drove into the sunset, golden hour embracing them and welcoming them onto the open road. Maybe, just maybe, this was the turning point for them…

————

A/N: Just an FYI, we hit the 50 mentions limit so the taglist will be split between the post and the comments :)

TYL Taglist: @bachiracore @stolenxkissess @kayleezra @the-wistful-reader @allthesesonsofbitches @goth-detectives365 @trippovert @rh1nestonecowg1rl @emiliaserpe @khaleesihavilliard @frietiemeloen @gracie7209 @dorck26 @thegirlnextdoorssister @alanis-altair @mariwinns16 @whosscruffylooking @endofthexline @alexiaricciardo @eonnyx @pedrosmexicangf @scarlettequinn @ao-sleepy @toinfinityandbeyonce2 @deanlovescassie @turmoil-ash @sorrowjunky @kpopslur @xxlilyxx90 @midgetpottermills @presidential-facts @scoopsnini @tubble-wubble @jamesdeerest @burninggracesandbridges @star-wars-lover @lucyhotchner @cococola-cocaine @witheringhqarts @fall-writes @alwaysdjarin @xxmoonn @emilia-the-artist @wand-erer5 @boneyarrd @lizard-zombie @itwasallinmyhead1 @cassidylea123 @paleepeaches @mxltifxnd0m @kettlekatie @ultimate-cinephile @gloryekaterina @caramelkatsukis-bitch @whovianayesha @memeorydotcom @deadunicorn159 @get0ut0fmyr00m @siriuslymooned @emmyeed

[iceclew]

Part 2 is out as well, have a look! c:

Well GUESS who's got some days off of work, and is about to waste them solemly with drawing fandom -> THIS GURL HERE IS, WOOH!! (๑♡⌓♡๑)

Haaah...yes, me and the words again.. This is way to much dialogue for a comic isn't it? I hope it helps that I put down the whole text in the description as well (see below)..

Ah, yess the old "we ran into each other sometime somewhere before, but we cannot remember of course" (honestly, I just wanted to draw the two of them to interact as kids so badly, I just had to make something up for it)

Since Soshiro would have sort of a dialect, I tried to "englishify" that with slang..? (Slang I am not familiar with, because I am not a native english speaker, and just know about it because of the internet. Sorry if this is causing confusion somewhere) And when Kafka is speaking rather different than he does, I imagine it would sound funny to a 8 y/o... in case you've been wondering his comment..

Also I don't know if ppl would go on vacation, I literally just made everything up, analyzing a universe's law is so not my speciality... (*ﾟｰﾟ)ゞ

*transcript below*

*getting out of a shelter right after a Kaiju attack*

Soshiro: 'Scuse me, have ya seen ma brotha? He's like this tall! Kafka: Uh... sorry dude, I haven't S: Can you like ... look for him? (since you'r taller and stuff...) K: Sure. So what does he look like? S: Like my brotha... K: Uh.... ok.. S: Hehe, ya sound funny! K: You think? Yeah, I'm not from around here. I'm on vacation right now. S: REALLY?! People come on vacation? HERE? Like for real?? WHY? XD K (thinking): what an annoying brat, better find his bro soon...

---

K: So, are we just looking for your brother? Your mom and dad are not around? *looking for anybody slightly resembling* S: NAH, they kill'd the Kaiju, they won't be home anytime before ev'ning. K: So they're Defence Force officers then? S: Tkch, as if! My dad's a platoon leader! K: Really? That's cool! I want to get into the Defence Force too in a few years! :) S: HAH! YOU? You look like a whimp! There's more to a D.F. Officer, than being tall, you gotta have what it TAKES!!

---

K: Oh, let me guess. And you think YOU have that? S: YEAH? Well.. MOST OF IT!! I'm not allowed holding a gun yet... But just you wait! I'mma BEAT those Kaiju's BUTTS for sure!!

---

K: Relax, I believe you, don't worry! Look at ya, a feisty one like you can become Captain in no time! S: Ah! D: K: Keep going, so we get to spare in Tokyo one day! Let's see who's the better fighter when we're grown-ups, okay? S: ... YEAH! I'mma beat ya ass, tall guy!!

[intervalart]

I absolutely love your art of Sundown, he’s one of my favorites (next to Akira) 🙂 honestly he’s hilarious in the Dominion of Hate, he’ll literally fight Akira for no reason, he’s got this “tired single dad handling 6 kids” energy to him, and he even like…scolds Oersted? It sounded like? (His voice actor, Reagan Murdock, played Aki Hayakawa in this anime called Chainsaw Man, so i guess he has experience with voicing a guy who needs to wrangle teenagers 😅) do you happen to have any hcs for him?

I'M SO SORRY IT'S TAKING ME SO LONG TO GET TO THESE ASKS, i'm packing to move, so that's taking up most of my time and energy ;;;v;;;

BUT THANK YOU SO MUCH WAAAAAAA, I'm glad you like how I draw the schüt man <333 (who has somehow accidentally become The Muse, whoops lol)

Sadly there are currently no in-game dialogues showing how he interacts with the other party members (party banter like octopath is a common DLC request), but Mad Dog has a line about Sundown "being bad with the little ones", which is either Mad Dog's interpretation based on what he wants to see, or Sundown's stoicism and bluntness really does tend intimidate the kids. (I don't watch CSM so I will take your work for it... But I'm sure Mr. Murdock does a great job! He has a great voice for it...)

But from what we do know for sure (from his recruitment quest and his dialogue to Sin when out of the party of the final 4) is he is very tired, and wants nothing to do with you.

tbh that's part of the reason I'm fascinated with him, is in a whole party full of spunky/quirky anime youngsters who have Psychic powers, martial arts, laser canons, ninja powers, etc. (the oldest being Masaru who's usually hc'd at 25 years old for the meme).... there's just. A guy. Maybe late 30s/early 40s. With a gun.

People joke about Masaru being the Straight Man (which is true to some extent), but I feel like he handles the weirdness a bit better than Sundown does, just on account of his adaptable nature. If Mad Dog's reaction to O. Dio's true form was any indication, supernatural stuff is... Not normal for their time period. So I think Sundown is much more the Straight Man in the DoH just cuz he stands out so much from everyone else. (not that he isn't silly in his own way... he's based on Clint Eastwood ffs lol)

...and I wrote all of this text without even getting to my headcanons, so if that isn't any a warning for how much I can ramble about him at length, then let this cut should tell you. (you asked, sorry not sorry lol)

So warning in advance, there's gonna be a teeny bit of overlap with Mad Dog hcs on some of these because of how much the two intertwine with each other. They kinda come as a package deal.

Some of my hcs you've probably seen in this comic. Most notably; not just the survivor's guilt, but also in the panic of the raid on the town and the flurry of using the Hurricane Shot, he's not entirely sure if he only shot the invading bandits. :( He worried he might have gotten some townsfolk in there too. (Mostly illustrated on pages 5-6 when all the figures kinda blend together)

At the time I made the comic I thought it was just a theory that he'd placed the bounty on himself, I somehow missed the fact that it was canon. But the fact that it is canon definitely drives home both the survivor's guilt, and him fearing death despite having a death wish. (There's much easier ways to off yourself homie, you don't gotta have a bizarre death ritual with randos obsessed with fame and glory... </3)

On the earlier topic, he might not so much be bad with kids, as he is... blunt. He doesn't sugar coat stuff, and he's probably very hands-off. If he really was the respected sheriff of [Unnamed Town], he probably had some experience with kids in the past, but I suspect between the trauma and some degree of wanting to keep everyone else safe, he's cold and aloof on purpose. He was probably more sociable before The Incident. (Much like a certain blond knight)

But he does work well with others in the DoH and is brief but polite to everyone, even the younger characters. (I cry every time he says "thanks" or "sorry" when another party member heals him... TT0TT)

All that aside, some of the more domestic hcs:

• I think Sunny is very skilled at sewing!! Living out in the wilds and not having access to new clothes very often/if at all means he had to get good at repairing his own clothes. And between sleeping out under the stars and the bullet holes, he has plenty of practice... (MD called him girly for it once, and with a completely straight face, Sunny said "Why do you think being self-sufficient is inherently feminine...?". MD never mentioned it again.)

• The trade-off however is that he's... Not an amazing cook. Everything is either eaten raw or roasted over a fire, and he doesn't have a ton of access to spices and herbs in the wilds... Very utilitarian in his cooking methods.

• That ties into the next point; the dude's got a cast iron stomach. If the guy can canonically down an infinite number of glasses of milk (LONG after most adults develop lactose intolerance), the guy can eat pretty much anything. Including whatever rattlesnakes (and cactus) he found to eat.

• This is actually canon, but he does know Spanish. If not fluently, at least enough to understand it but not speak it. (I hc him as fluent though.)

• Sunny is probably a very skilled dancer! If for no other reason other than dodging bullets for years lmao. MD catches a glimpse once. Sunny looks him dead in the eyes and says "No one will ever believe you."

• I've already discussed this, but Sunny probably used to be left-handed, and either due to societal necessity or an injury, he became ambidextrous!

• Now that I'm thinking about it actually, I drew Young Sundown in the comic with much less facial hair to just make him look younger... But it actually makes sense that between the depression (and possibly self loathing), he kinda uses the facial hair as like... A mask? Like, so he doesn't have to see himself in a way? (I might be reading too much into it, the OG art does show he shapes his scruff and it's not completely unkempt, so maybe it started as Depression Scruff, and he just shaves it as best he can with a knife lol)

• I used to hc that he didn't name his horse because he didn't want to get attached. (He just calls it Horse) But after talking to another Really Cool Wild West Artist in the JP fandom, it's not impossible that he could have had the same horse the entire time... So that's not a hill I need to die on lol.

• For obvious reasons, he's a hard guy to get to laugh. If he does, it's usually wry and understated. But on the rare occasion he does genuinely laugh, he's more inclined to stifle it at first, more out of habit than anything else. It takes a lot to get him rolling in the aisles.

...But that's getting into BBFF territory, which is a whole 'nuther post, and definitely not something I have rambled about at length and stored on a hidden discord server.

AND that's not talking about my Mad Dog hcs......

-gripping you anon- Do you see why I am in hell.

[angelkitty54]

@the-sky-queen Here's the boy at last! Added in baby's first concert in the corner (coz I don't like big blank spaces); he's having a great time, even with his perpetual resting bitch face! I like to imagine he got a glowstick at the entrance coz everyone was getting one, but he has no idea what to do with it so he's just holding it the entire time! XD

Ugh, Shadow's design is surprisingly busy. Putting jacket on him was harder than it should've been... Gotta work around the chest floof and then the fact he don't got no neck! Also, I don't know how to draw helmets! Kinda based the design on the Lancelot helmet from Sonic and the Black Knight. Eh, is close enough for now I guess. (Am once again too tired to properly shade here too.)

Me thinks that Shadow's backstory be a little different, in that Maria was never murderized but probably still died young. Gerald modified the Ark in secret to be a spaceship, with the intention to have Shadow fly it out into space to keep his research out of GUN's hands. Once both Gerald and Maria are gone, Shadow pretty much loses all attachment he had to the world below and so does as instructed, journeying out across the stars.

Hmm, thinking that at some point he comes across the Black Arms and learns the dark secrets of his creation. But ultimately turns against Black Doom and the rest or the Black Arms, setting off on a crusade to bring an end to their reign of terror across the galaxy! Or something.

He largely kept to himself throughout all this. The time he spent on Mobius with Sonic and his siblings was the first time in many years that he'd let himself connect with others. Sonic also encouraged him to live a little instead of just devoting his entire existence to his "mission", something he took to heart even after breaking things off and leaving. He takes the time to stop and smell the space roses as it were, finding hobbies outside of fighting, like music for instance. ;)

Needless to say, Shadow was very shocked to find himself back at Earth after so many years...

[taggedmemes]

SENTENCE MEME ⟶ OXVENTURE PRESENTS: DEADLANDS / ch3 always feel free to tweak the sentence to fit your muse.

'YOU'RE A DEAD MAN! DEAD MAN WALKING, THAT'S YOU!'

'you can box him up to go.'

'isn't there some kind of gravedigger's union?'

'aw, you read the rules? aw dang...'

'you just stood there. you didn't do anything! you didn't even try!'

'now we've gotta get justice.'

'i wasn't there, but that sounds awfully wise.'

'oh, sorry, hang on. i've gotta kill someone real quick.'

'he'll think you're trying to kill him. which you are.'

'you've just gotta push that anger all the way down until the time is right.'

'well, it's already dusted in opium.'

'young man, do you know what jerky is?'

'can you move away from the house now, please?'

'we could pack the coffin with dynamite.'

'you'd be amazed how many people try to bribe me to declare people dead.'

'so you take bribes, you say?'

'people who love opium famously think they don't need any more opium.'

'well i enjoy getting paid money.'

'lost to a child. embarrassing.'

'doctors make mistakes all the time!'

'he might have the appearance of a dead child...'

'do you know what'll happen to me? do you know what he'll do to me if he finds out?'

'he won't be capable of anything when he's dead!'

'do what i tell you, or... i'm gonna have to hurt you.'

'man i get a kick outta you!'

'i don't know, i'm young, i don't think about illness.'

'looks like this chump doesn't wanna die!'

'i seen quicker molasses than her draw!'

'what kind of contest is this?!'

'i've been countin'. he's only got one bullet left.'

'i drank a lot of whiskey today, i could do with a milk.'

'once we've stripped anything valuable off the bodies what's the point?'

'then he comes back into town and he's all shooting the ground and making us dance and all that kind of stuff...'

'i'm increasingly not worried about making good decisions.'

'he seems pretty smart and pretty evil.'

'never seen him love on anybody.'

'he's very angry. that's a sort of weakness.'

'but you'll be dead because he will have shot you at the same time.'

'no one's this lucky this many years in a row.'

'does he look like his spirit has been crushed?'

'listen up fella, i didn't wanna do this...'

'you ain't so humble though.'

'let's push over something big at the same time.'

'there's a piano in the saloon; you go push the piano over.'

'we'll ask his cold, dead corpse, i guess.'

'well now i'm mad. i'm getting increasingly mad and vengeful.'

'it's like this fella's doing some kind of witchcraft or magic. i wish i knew more about this stuff.'

'i don't understand it, but there's something going on.'

'if things go weird, you throw this at him and i'll do the rest.'

'dynamite's not a weapon, it's a tool.'

'it's like any other tool. like a hammer.'

'this is just my walking-around dynamite.'

'if anything happens to me, you kill this man dead.'

'he was disinclined to hand over his weapons. it's his way, so.'

'I DON'T TALK TO DEAD MEN!'

'this is slightly awkward, i was mostly interested in talking to your friend.'

'i've been impressed by the way he killed those men.'

'you line your enemies up in a row and you gun them down.'

'i've not seen many come through with skills like him.'

'let me just go run it up the flagpole.'

'he's a big fan. he likes how you shot those people in the throat.'

'folks like that, i don't think they like people who're as good as them.'

'but... not above cheating. love to cheat.'

'if you get an opportunity to just outright kill him...'

'seems a shame for a young man of such obvious talents to die out here in the middle of nowhere.'

'i don't see your name on it!'

'there's no need to be raising your voice now.'

'this is the emergency prybar for when we put someone in a coffin who's not ready.'

'you're a dead man! the doctor said!'

'i'm glad you're back but, um, we're in the middle of a firefight outside.'

'springin' out of the grave!'

'did i get shot? or did i just get nearly shot?'

'we have a man to kill! shoot now, ask questions later!'

'i'll duel you right now! i'm young and i'm crazy!'

[joltai-showa]

okay it's way too late to continue working on chapter 6 of FQTP and I can't really pull an all-nighter cuz I got medical check-up in the morning for my unexpected job (my ao3 writer notes are gonna be fucking insane), so i'm gonna be rambling about the random stuff that i've been doing today

i finally started doing the natlan archon quest and GOD THE PRIMAL FEAR THAT I FELT IN MY SOUL when Ajaw spoke for the first time

for context i play genshin with japanese voiceover and with the new region we got a number of new characters (welcome to gacha world) and two of them are Kinich and Ajaw who are always attached at the hip but also argue a lot. and whoever is responsible for casting decisions in the japanese department really loves doing silly funny little things, thus Kinich is voiced by Sugiyama Noriaki, while Ajaw is voiced by Takeuchi Junko.

Yes, we've got Sasunaru in Genshin Impact.

This is not even the funniest thing that japanese dub did here. Half of major characters in Fontaine arc were literally voiced by people from the Attack on Titan's cast. Ono Daisuke (and his most famous role is arguably Jotaro from JJBA) voices Wriothesley there. Only in japanese dub Wrio does the "ora-ora" thing. It's insane and surreal and I love every second of it.

anyway, back to the original point, Ajaw appears and he sounds excatly like Naruto. my soul started to leave me when i was confronted with the idea that Kinich is seconds away and can sound just like Sasuke. thank god Sugiyama did the less bitchy and more calm pitch, otherwise i would have been bouncing off the walls screeching like a vulture.

also there was an absolutely hilarious explanation on what a piligrimage in natlan is. close enough, welcome back chunin exam.

at least after the piligrimage your god will resurrect you if you actually die fighting in the war. after a chunin exam the leader of the village will give a pocket knife and, if you are really lucky, a pat on the back. oh, the enemy village is dropping an damn entire cave on your head? gotta pray that your moldy ancestor and his army of undead cacti is somewhere nearby, grandpa hiruzen is too busy smoking that pipe🚬😎🚬😎🚬😎🚬😎

after that i read the latest chapter of csm and HOOO BOYYYY WHAT THE HELL FUJIMOTO

that shit was absolutely insane.

first of all, i am crying from the fact that fuji is capable of writing incredibly complex and realistic female characters, but can not draw them for his life. like lmao what even is that.

anyway, this is the least interesting thing that happened during this chapter, BECAUSE HOLY MOTHER OF LORE BOMBSHELLS WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT

YORU HAS BEEN A MOTHER THIS ENTIRE TIME? MOREOVER A MOTHER OF TWO? THE FANDOM'S BEEN CALLING MAKIMA MOMMY FOR YEARS AND NOW WE LEARN THAT THE REAL MOMMY HAS BEEN YORU?

ALSO HER CHILDREN? GUN DEVIL??? THE SAME ONE FROM PART 1???? THE SAME ONE THAT TOOK OVER AKI BEFORE BEING KILLED BY DENJI????? HOLY FUCK DID MAKIMA REALLY SPEND AN ENTIRE PART MAKING UP BEEF WITH HER NEPHEW?????

(also on unrelated note it's always such a jumpscare/reason to lol whenever there's a sudden reminder that soviet union is still a thing at the end of the 90s in csm lore. thanks pochita)

anyway yoru ate and left no crumbs holy fuck. happy motherhood reveal day i guess, being a terrible mother figure likely runs in the family.

but also it's so funny how the devil family tree is getting to the point where we really should be doing the infographics like JoJo fandom has. for now we certainly know about the Horse(wo)men of Apocalypse aka Conquest (Makima then Nayuya then ehhhh good luck Denji), Famine (Kiga), Death and War (Yoru) and War's got babies in Gun and Tank devils. hopefully in a few years the entire plot devolves into a gigantic family drama i will die from crying of laughter.

(also fuji is so fucking real for making the four of the most powerful devils to be all women. my man.)

but the implications of this chapter are fucking insane, cause are Gun and Tank the only Yoru's kids? Did the Weapon Hybrids use to be her children? Is it possible for Chainsaw devil to be born of her as well? Nuclear Weapons devil is supposed to be inside Pochita and Yoru refers to them as her comrades??? Anway holy shit just what a chapter.

(but also Makima's monologue about getting rid of death, famine and war sounds very reasonable rn cause wtf those insane bitches that happen to be her sisters are birthing into this world)

i am also so insanely hyped for Death Devil, because she is bound to be absolutely fucking insane, like horror beyond human comprehension. also i feel like she has to not only be one of the Horse(wo)men, but a Primal Fear as well like Darkness and Aging (I believe that's what the most recent one was supposed to be)? the entire devil classification system is so confusing lmao

(also i remembered my shock at chapter 167. like. i wrote the finale for LTFG about a month before it was released and then i read it and was like. do i and fujimoto go to the same astral plane where the voices are whispering to us that we must do a handjob in a seedy alley scene? lmao)

[thistleation]

I’m so obsessed with your eldritch space fic, I just can’t get it out of my head! I swear I catch myself thinking about it at least once per day. It’s got me really wanting to finally get into sci-fi media again and I’m wondering if you happen to have any recommendations?

Oh wow.

Damn.

Okay well first of all, holy shit, thank you!

I knew BoSaS was well liked by a handful of people, but until now I didn't think anyone besides me belonged in the "thinks about it daily category" 😭💖

As for sci-fi recs... well this is going to be a bit scattershot.

I've honestly not really kept up with recent sci-fi due to over a decade of major depression and not having my shit together, and I'm not a huge fan of a lot of the sci-fi that comes out these days in visual media, so I'm trying to make some time to read some of the sci-fi stories of recent years, but again, that's a work in progress, so can't really rec much in that regard.

First things first though, if you like Beyond our Space and Starlight, I absolutely have to rec luminous beings by @daisychainsandbowties .

It's warrior nun, it's star wars, it's got the suffering and the crying and the patented Cas poetic beauty amid the despair. It's SO fucking good and if you've not read it (and its companion pieces in the same setting) you absolutely gotta.

And also before I go any further, shouting out the Bifrost Incident which @the-darkness-does-not-bargain so kindly introduced me to. (don't look up anything about it, just listen). I assume that the main motivation behind you asking is something along the lines of "what kind of sci-fi was the inspiration behind this?" To which I'd have to say it's a mix that's a little eclectic and mainly old.

But let's talk about them because why not:

First off, the biggest influence is probably the original Star Wars trilogy, with dashes of the prequel trilogy.

I could write an essay about this, but I guess I could condense my opinion on Star Wars (and its relation to BoSaS) very simplified into something like: "Yes! You SHOULD bring swords and myth/magic into sci-fi... no, not quite like that!"

Rogue One brought it back and did it pretty well. (Only truly good recent Star Wars movie) I'd also draw from other sci-fi classics like the original Alien movies, the first two Terminators and Blade Runner.

Not to be all "the original is always better," but I feel like an issue with a lot of modern sci-fi is that the setting is too effaced, it lacks story and it's just a vehicle for spectacle. I like sci-fi stories where space is BIG and scary, and being on a ship surrounded by millions upon millions of miles of vacuum, utterly hostile to life? That should feel a little claustrophobic! Or at least occasionally unsettling.

If you hit the original movies, you're more likely to catch more of the vibe of the setting itself being an important character in the story, which to me is an essential aspect of my favourite kind of sci-fi content.

Okay this is getting long, let's go over the rest faster.

Ghost in the Shell

The original movie and the Stand Alone Complex (second season especially).

This is probably one of my biggest formative experiences on my "didn't realize they were trans at the time" adolescent brain.

High concept, transhumanism, guns, fast action, and enough of a spiritual/philosophical vibe to keep it from getting bland.

Then in a similar vein of physical dissociation and occasional body horror, but you want it to be even more fucked up?

Battle Angel Alita/Gunnm

The original run in particular. This along with Ghost in the Shell was what shaped my interest in sci-fi around my adolescence. I liked how both weren't afraid to introduce philosophical, almost spiritual and mythological elements to their futuristic stories.

Ghost in the Shell especially is like, the powers of mythical creatures, achieved through technology, and it leans into that and so you get an almost spiritual experience as an end result.

This story gets fucked up at times, but it's beautiful and heart wrenching all the same.

Prey

In contrast to my "watch the originals" statement of earlier, this is a recent predator movie that's actually good.

Thorgal

Okay this one isn't sci-fi, but I'm adding it to the list because this takes my love of adding magical/fantasy elements to sci-fi, but from the other direction: a story of a viking outcast, featuring gods and mythical creatures, but ALSO sci-fi elements as the lead character is of a race of spacefaring human(oids?)

Again, the first 20-odd books especially.

A powerhouse of the classic Franco-Belgian comics, nothing quite like it.

It's getting late and this is getting long, if any mutuals wanna tag on their recs for weird and not-so-weird sci-fi, please feel free.

[introvertedfox]

People You'd Like to Get to Know

Thanks for the tag @samssims!! 🧡

Last Song: Guns for Hire - Woodkid

Favourite color: Brown 🤎 (In reality the only colors I don't really like are shades of pink)

Currently watching: 13 Reasons Why. Don't know what possessed me to rewatch this as if the first time wasn't traumatizing enough. I just needed something to play as background noise while I draw.

Last movie: Elemental. I wasn't sure about this one so I waited for it to come to Disney plus. And I gotta say it was actually really good.

Currently reading: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I was one of those people who only watched the movies for so long, that now I made a bet with my mum that I would read them all until the end of the year. If I do it she'll give me the illustrated version of the Philosopher's Stone, so I really have to get a move on. xD

Sweet/spicy/savoury: Savoury.

Last thing I googled: How to write a CV. xD I was requested at work to give my CV, and it was so outdated that I had to google how to make one from scratch.

Current obsession: Hum...my Ocs, I guess? I'm always kind of on and off obsessing with them and their story.

Currently working on: Sims wise, nothing really... I've been too busy prepping Inktober, and next month that will take most of my time.

I will tag: @simbico, @ethicaltreatmentofcowplants, @zmemily, @llamabees, @loveryss, @cantseemtohide, @nusims

Feel free to ignore! 😊

[lokisis]

Just a lot of thoughts below. No common theme tbh

Perhaps I should do a tutorial on how I draw spam sometime? I've seen a couple tries of emulating my style so I think it might be fun to give a Direct way to do it. Not to say the emulations were bad! I just think it would be fun 2 do.

I have a love hate relationship with Hotel California. It's a good god damn song. But I heard it literally Every Day after school for like 2 years. I put it in one of my playlists to antagonize myself.

I often wonder what people think of me. Am I a good person? Am I doing right by myself? I don't know. I hope I'm good. I hope I'm kind and approachable. But looking back at my last relationship.. I don't know. It was definitely my fault but he also made me so upset so often. I hope I don't do that to anyone else

I get compliments about my line art a lot. Usually along the lines of "it's so smooth/clean/etc" Here's a fun fact: my hands are chronically shaky. Probably because I don't eat enough but I digress. I want you to open your art program and find the stabilizer. Or correction or whatever the fuck it's called. Turn it up to the point you can make a somewhat unsure line into a confident one. Bam, you're already 70% of the way to how I do my lines. The rest is experience and a trained eye ;]

I really want someone to hold and kiss and love. I have so much of it, and I can't give it to anyone near me. Why? I already dated most of my friends. It would be weird. Just really want someone I'm close to that I can snuggle up to again. I miss that comfort.

I realized, after I made the Blue and Spam post, that Pink is ALSO based on a family member. See, my mom has 2 sisters. The one like Spam, and the one I accidentally made Pink act like. For ease, Mo is pink, KT is spam, and Ma is blue. Mo fucking HATES KT. Doesn't want anything to do with her. But just like Ma, if KT actually needed her help, she'd be there. Begrudgingly, of course.

I wonder how long it usually takes people to make art like mine. For me, if it's just Spamton and no other characters/objects, it takes maybe 2 - 3 hours. That's the full piece. From sketch to post. I'm very fast at what I do so I wonder. I truly do!

My music taste leans heavily towards rock, but hard rock has never caught me quite as much as the rest. Maybe I just haven't found the right kind. Honestly finding new music is always a treat. My mom absolutely loves Rush, and I can see why! But I also love pretty much Everything! Musicals to pop to acapella to fuckin opera if it's good. Rock is a Huge genre, so I guess that's why my taste is so open to begin with. Gotta say tho, raising your kid on motley crue and guns n roses isn't the Best idea if you want an Obedient child.

I love drawing hands. I enjoy the process of feeling out the movement and flow. Hands are so expressive and I genuinely love drawing them. I can understand ppl hating them, but that doesn't mean I agree. Just take the time to learn and you'll see.

Oh right, I should say if you have any opinions/commentary/whatever abt all this shit I'm totally down for a full on rant. Ok. Time to sleep.

[alligatorjesie]

What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I'm the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that's just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little "clever" comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.

Whoa there Sparky. How about you take a minute and wipe some of the saliva froth off the keyboard there because it looks like your fingers slipped a few times.

So, what you're telling me is you're a 300 kill confirmed member of the navy seals, one of the highest ranked snipers in your class, presumably an adult man if any of this is true, and you're going to use all this skill and power of death and murder at the snap of your fingers to uhhh... Lemme check here again Take out a single furry reylo on the internet who told you to get the fuck out of the tags to a fandom you're not a part of if you're going to act like a complete set of cock and balls? I absolutely adore how vague this rant is. You're gonna have to be way more specific about what I called you and when because this is tumblr and I call a lot of people a lot of things on here. But I only ever yell at antis so either this is horseshit which is way more likely than the second option which is this full grown adult ass man who has killed a little less than a third of the people the whole United States Police departments have fatally shot in the last year (over 1,080 by the way) is just cruising tumblr and being a part of shipping wars and using all the deadly powers he gained from killing innocent people overseas to threaten death to women just trying to enjoy a fictional ship without dealing with harassment.

You need a whole secret network of spies to do what any neckbeard can do in their own basement for free? This sounds like a massive waste of resources. I guess the navy seals don't have courses on doxxing. I don't think you need a whole ass network of spies of that shit yo, not when darthpussy69 on any random star wars forums can do it in like a minute.

You can't even figure out you only need to press send once for the post to go through. Bitch you can hardly figure out how to use fucking tumblr. I don't believe you can shoot a gun, much less accurately. You know better yet, how about you re-send this 5 more times using your actual account because I wanna see the person who typed this out. I'll bet like 100 bucks and one free smut drawing by yours truly that this is a teenage girl. Butt hay guys! We gotta update the banner yaaaaay!

If we're playing pretend I wanna be a real anthro alligator brought to life by hell magic and I can breath fire. My fursona can't breath fire and I feel like it was a really wasted opportunity.

[tamarakkoarchive]

Shin Megami Tensei II livetweet thread (8/8)

the second aspect in smt2 that stands out: the crazy twist obviously

i still have mixed feelings over how weirdly written the law ending is but nevertheless the concept of an artificial messiah group was dope. they're pretty much what i'd like to see being explored in fanart the most

aleph felt linked to all these other lab creations and he must watch their fall caused by the fake roles assigned to them that in the end god would never truly approve of

i guess this must be why zayin got so convinced they should keep going even without yhvh

that being said, sadly aleph's connection to them is not really put as much weight as it could've been, he feels super detached because their interactions are very sparse, tbh i think it could've helped if all of them... were playable at some point like mt2 ryu or the smt1 friends. i was fine with the small amount of dialogue in mt2 and smt1 but smt2 is where i felt it ended up really diminishing the impact

i unironically ended up being more fond of the "what could've been" situation between aleph and our dead beth than hiroko lmao she has such an insane reveal behind her but the whole thing goes just "lol. crazy. anyway let's keep going"

~

izanami randomly appearing to comment "oh you two remind me of my marriage that is fucked up but for entirely different reasons"

oof how could i forget to show earlier

aside his sunglasses form zayin also turns into this cool shape with six boobs. iconic

the theme connection between smt2 and smt4a that i finally could confirm from that interview was that even back then they did think smt2 satan leaned towards neutral despite being from the law route, with killing yhvh and all. that's why they made him neutral in smt4a

~

and now for the third and last thing it's... finally the game where demon fusion gets fun but most importantly: where kaneko starts slaying HARD on demon designs. crazy amount of exclusive designs he was able to draw, a lot even beyond of what they could do relevantly with

alright let's go for the bad!

1. it's a replay nightmare. full of bugs. it somehow has a worse interface than smt1's. gotta mention AGAIN that you can't auto guns. by far the smt where you get lost the most and you gotta write down several passwords to enter locked doors

the dungeon design in smt1 wasn't super diverse either but smt2 it's just... excruciatingly boring. "shitload of doors with nothing" the game. you don't really have reason to fill the whole map because they don't put any reward whatsover be with items or npcs with information

2. THE SOUNDTRACK SUCKS period. it's the same composer from mt1-2 so my disappointment for how cheap the snes games sound in comparison is abysmal. they aren't improved much in the psx rearrangements either

instead of a final boss theme they use the same music from several major bosses (regardless of alignment) and it's just... this

compare it to the super special one from mt2

and now 3... this might surprise you guys since i just talked abt them being better at writing the law and chaos sides and to be fair this is on a subjective perspective but... i didn't like the alignment choices in this game

smt2 to me was essentially a game with dope worldbuilding and dope story concept all ready to be deliciously consumed on a plate but the execution ended up not feeling satisfying on the stomach

i think what made me like smt4&a way more than smt2 is that it showed more impact from the choices happening around the protagonist in a way that i could say "yeah this alignment makes sense for what he's feeling"

basically there's already very few relevant alignments choices and they went too far on making aleph an incognito for the player to insert their own thoughts into so the final result is that he ended up being awfully hard to read and sympathize with

guy is probably not even a year old, no hint of childhood, had fake memories but got them wiped (double brainwashing??) so he was literally a blank state with no humanity inserted into by the time he was found and taken by the gym uncle

he had no mercy in killing when he was a gladiator too so the likely options for aleph's personality is: 1. church tool (fake memories) 2. basically him copying the gym uncle and the normal citizens around him (after his memory got reset)

anyway i think you can guess where i'm going with this, a lot of the buildup to aleph has him either instinctly acting on the law side since it was what he was made for or he gradually replacing his default persona with feelings of compassion from living with normal people

the thiiiiing is, the biiiiiig problem i have with how the alignment system is written in some games that is ALSO a thing here is that when they want to make the player decide between law or chaos they don't discern between dark/light actions (aka being selfish or being selfless)

you'd think being a church tool would make aleph a cold-hearted guy. but no! remember the subplot with the workers in sweatshops? if you decide to release them from being incarcerated, it gives a LOT of points towards being law instead

the chaos side on the other hand wants to protect the underworld and the abyss residents from being exterminated but if you wanna join them you have to act like a selfish jackass in some instances like refusing to help hiroko, wanting to kill daleth or violently coercing demons

so tldr my frustration is that it was just really confusing why aleph would switch from law to other alignments. it got extra ?? with the whole "fake" yhvh and "true" yhvh thing. i don't think they even put down a proper explanation for why he'd prefer killing lucifer in neutral

like geez lucifer is so goddamn selfless in this era! he had his own agenda but prioritized giving help to the weak until the end instead of going on a rant of 'hurr the strongest wins'

man i can't stress enough that law was a big punch on the gut not only for zayin going 180º but also because the game gave you the impression you were gonna be "the kind law guy" and instead you got betrayed and forced to genocide the whole planet into oblivion

anyway that's what i fucking mean when i say aleph is hard to read 🙉 when aleph showed compassion to workers it was a buildup to abandon them in the limbo. when aleph was violent to mutants it was a buildup for him siding with them against the oppressors. like wtf

so yeah something something this game is biased towards being neutral since it was a sequel/alternate future to smt1 just like smt4a was to smt4. it's the best standpoint for how to make his actions make sense, whatever. aleph neutral hooray i guess

END