#if anybody wants the original i will send it to you if you ask

[elizi--s]

[comikadraws]

Whats tobirama's beef with the Uchiha?

An Analysis of Tobirama's Prejudice

EDIT: If you have headed here via another user's post, here is a note. That user has never interacted with me. They clearly also haven't read any of my previous or linked posts, as far as I can tell. They simply just blocked me and then made that post to harass me afterward - completely out of the blue. My post has since been edited to better combat bad-faith takes and bullies like her.

Oh boi. More Tobirama. Once again, I am probably biased but these are my thoughts on him.

First of all, the guy definitely had beef with the Uchiha Clan, but I personally find the "racist" allegations he often gets to be... difficult, to say the least (not that I necessarily disagree with them). It is just that there are some very oversimplified, black-and-white takes out there with zero nuance.

Not that I am necessarily better but I'm definitely trying xD

Tobirama's Prejudice

Tobirama doesn't "hate" the Uchiha Clan but considers them to be a danger to Konoha. That is because

The Uchiha were more loyal/attached to the concept of "clan" rather than the concept of "village" (which stood in conflict with one of Konoha's main philosophies). Hence Tobirama sees them as "rebellious".

The Uchiha are more likely to lose themselves to intense hatred (aka "Curse of Hatred"). And, in the world of Naruto, hate is one of the main motivations of war, ever since the Warring States.

Combine that with the several bad experiences Tobirama and other Senju have had with the Uchiha (centuries of recurring battles, the death of Kawarama and Itama, Madara leaving the village) and you can see why Tobirama would think the Uchiha Clan is dangerous. Beyond that, Tobirama's character actually makes a lot of sense - more so than if he didn't have any prejudice. The prejudice he has is realistic.

He also personally does not believe that he "hates" the Uchiha and describes his bias as "caution".

The Racist Allegations

As I have already covered in this post about the Curse of Hatred, there might be parallels to our world's definition of racism, but Tobirama is not intended as a racist by Kishimoto.

What is important to understand is that perceived themes of racism in fantasy settings (where made-up races can have all sorts of magical differences between them, even those that are undesirable) do not equal actual racism in the real world (where racial differences are purely cosmetic) and often make for a bad analogy.

What I have also covered in the same post is that the Curse of Hatred very much does exist and Tobirama was right to assume that there is something "wrong" with the Uchiha. (For all of you not interested in reading, the TL;DR is that Zetsu's been manipulating the Uchiha for centuries, hence the illusion of a "curse")

Whether his theory was correct or not, however, is up to the audience's interpretation. The problem here is that Kishimoto never contradicted Tobirama's theories and also that they were presented and treated as exposition by the narrative. I am basing my own theory specifically on the exposition given by Hagoromo (chapters 670-671) and Zetsu (chapter 681) who are both relatively reliable sources and seem to imply (emphasis on "imply") that the Curse of Hatred mostly just affects Indra's reincarnates rather than the entire clan (again, reference to my other post because it has nothing to do with Indra specifically but rather just with Zetsu being manipulative).

Not that Tobirama could reasonably know about that detail, though. What he saw instead were centuries of war and Madara's defection, leading him to believe that there must be something influencing the Uchiha's decision-making. (And yes, assuming that my own interpretation about Zetsu is correct, that would make Tobirama a racist as his theories are not based on fact).

Systemic Oppression of the Uchiha?

Another misconception that people apparently have is that Tobirama ostracized the Uchiha Clan, which is untrue. Yes, the guy was horrible, was far too wrapped up in his own trauma, and should not have become Hokage. Not even because I think he was a bad leader necessarily but simply on principle.

That being said, the Uchiha were not being purposefully isolated from the rest of the village. The police force is neither entirely comprised of Uchihas nor are Uchihas forced to join the police. Instead, it is implied to be a choice in the manga.

Somebody else pointed out Orochimaru mentioning that the Uchiha had their clan compound near the prison. But this is not a criterion of ostracization. All the other canonical information we have on the Uchiha's supposed ostracization is based on Obito, who is famously a liar and not a reliable source (therefore it is up to headcanon).

Tobirama also practically gave away permanent leadership of the police. The police are part of the executive branch in any government, just like the military or, in this case, the ANBU - with the only difference being that the police don't require Hokage orders for everything they do. The Uchihas working at the police are in a position of power rather than in a position of suppression. It is also implied that they are able to arrest anybody they want (except ANBU members) without a warrant (again, emphasis on "imply" because the context implies that arrest without a warrant is possible for all non-ANBU citizens).

Keeping this in mind, the establishment of the Uchiha Military Police Force was (most likely) indeed a gesture of goodwill and trust. It was not a slight and it was not an attempt at ostrachization. If anything, it shows that Konoha (and by extension, the police) was corrupt and abusing power on a regular basis (though that is not the point of this post but yes, Konoha's politics are no unchangeable gospel).

There are more misconceptions about Tobirama that are often twisted to fit people's agenda, but I'll leave it at that for now.

My personal conclusion is that Tobirama might fit our real-world definition of "racist". But that heavily depends on your interpretation. Either way, Tobirama was a product of his times.

[ivysangel]

fratboy!dick being your first fuck, he brags about to his buddies about it and sends a photo of you asleep beside him sporting a shit-eating grin, captioning it "winning" only to drop you hours later for a new girl the morning after.

fratboy!jason is your first suck/bj in a restroom after he asks you out on a milkshake date. to spite dick, he sends an update to the groupchat with a pic from his pov where you're on your knees, busy and oblivious to the camera aimed at you, and captions it with "milkshake no.2 tastes real good"

i'm tweaking over the fact that i missed this because this is literally just too good. i've literally BEEN obsessed with virgin chasing fratboy!dick like if you looked through me and kazz's you would see many a convo about that topic.

he's literally so manipulative; he purposely befriends you just to get in your pants, feigns interest in your hobbies just to gain your trust so he can fuck you then dump you. and he preys on your naivety, knows that you're apprehensive about losing your virginity to a fratboy especially dick because he's got such a messy track record, so he makes sure to reassure you constantly, telling you that you're "different" and that he's "never felt this way before." and every time you second guess the motive behind his actions he does something to make you feel like you're the only girl in the world, stealing your heart until you finally give in and let him fuck you, stealing your virginity.

the worst part is how loving he is during the whole process. he goes so slow, asking how you're feeling with every stroke, wipes away any tears that might escape from your eyes while you're getting used to the feeling. he keeps up the charade that he's in love with you the entire time that he's inside of you, and then he just leaves and pretends that he never even knew you and the only proof that he did is the pic he took of you while you were sleeping and the $50 he venmo'd you for plan b the next morning.

nonnie, i think we're so on the same wavelength because i have BEEN obsessed with the concept of fratboy!jason being a bj lover for ages. like i even briefly mentioned it in my fratboy headcanons post, and what i put wasn't even my original idea. i was originally gonna say that he held the record for most blowjobs received in closets and bathrooms in the entire frat's history. but anyway, back to what you said.

"milkshake no.2 tastes real good" is some crazy work, and i'm actually kind of upset that i didn't come up with it but whatever. fratboy!dick and fratboy!jason hooking up with the same girl just to get back at each other despite neither of them actually having feelings for her is actually so disgustingly real. and a bitch is gonna keep coming back because the dick is great!!! fantastic!!! phenomenal even!!!

the thing with jason is that despite being in a frat, he refuses to publicly associate with them and therefore has half the school thinking he's some sexy loner with no friends when he is, in fact, a legacy pledge and incredibly well respected amongst the brothers. so he's posted up in the university library, chatting you the fuck up with his knowledgable takes and dry-ass humor. convincing you to go on a date with him isn't hard at all, and somehow, despite you being freshly devirginized with approximately one body, neither is getting you to suck his dick in the dingy bathroom of the diner he took you to.

you're on the floor, dirty, offputtingly sticky tile pressing into your knees while you suck him off, really putting your neck into it because he's hot and you want him to come back for a round two in the near (hell, even distant) future. he snaps a pic of mostly the top of your head, features barely identifiable to absolutely anybody but dick who A) either calls him immediately (jason declines) or B) blocks him because even though he didn't actually like you this still somehow breaks bro code (dick is weirdly possessive over his virgin conquests).

jason never tells dick that it was one of the worst blowjobs he's received in his life and that you used way too much teeth because the ego boost from pissing dick off is way too good.

[woso-dreamzzz]

Flirts IV

Mapi León x Reader x Ingrid Engen

Summary: You have to go

It's not that you don't want to be there because you do.

It's that you have to go away for a surgery.

There's some rich woman in California who needs you to operate on her cat. She's paying an extortionate amount for your services and sending a private jet to pick you up.

You love those kinds of pet owners, the ones with enough money to fly in the very best if only because of the clear love they have for all of their pets.

But they're also clients you can't deny.

If someone wants to fly you out for enough money to keep a family afloat for a year, someone with enough influence to make or break anybody's career, you can't say no.

Even if your girlfriend is fighting for Euro's qualification.

"Do you have to go?" Mapi asks, sitting inside of your unpacked suitcase like she was Bagheera in a box.

Honey sits on the bed, head in her paws as she waits, tail wagging, for Mapi to throw her tennis ball.

"Yes," You say, trying to choose between your purple or your blue scrubs," It's a lot of money. Enough for that fancy holiday to the Maldives you guys want to take."

"But it takes you away from us," Mapi whines and Ingrid makes an agreeing noise from over by the door.

"I've travelled for work before."

"You're going to miss my match," Ingrid says and a pit forms in your stomach.

Before this job came up, you and Mapi were meant to be travelling to Norway to see Ingrid's last Euro Qualifiers game before going off in a camper van with her parents.

You'd still make it to the last part, depending on what the labs for this cat came back as but you'd have to miss the match.

You reach out for her, drawing her closer by the waist and resting your head on her chest.

"I'm so sorry, baby. I am, really. I can call up and cancel if you really want me to. I know a guy to recommend instead."

Ingrid sighs, her chin sitting on the top of your head. "No," She says," That cat needs the best care possible. We all know you're the best. Go and be a hero."

"I'd hardly be a hero. It's just surgery."

"Surgery for some woman that clearly adores her pet cat. What you do saves lives. I think that makes you a hero."

"You're so sweet, Ingrid."

"And hot!"

You laugh. "Thanks for that, Mapi. I'm sure she knows that seeing as you tell her everyday."

Mapi shrugs with a smirk on her face. "I'm sure it's nice to be reminded."

Honey whines on the bed and you roll your eyes.

"Throw the ball already. She's getting impatient."

Mapi frowns, waving the ball around.

Honey's eyes dart around erratically to follow it.

"She isn't barking, though?"

You laugh, crossing the space to take the ball and lay a soft kiss on Mapi's lips. "Because she's well-behaved, Mapi. She knows not to bark unless it's an emergency."

You throw the ball up and down to make sure Honey's still watching before you launch it out of the room.

She's off like a shot as Ingrid hauls Mapi out of your suitcase.

You still feel guilty though, through the flight, through the labs, through everything.

The cat is cute one, a little tortoiseshell with an amicable nature and a complete lack of awareness of her surroundings.

You've always been an animal person. You've always loved all of them but living with Mapi and Ingrid has just given you an even newer appreciation for cats.

The checkup happens quickly and the labs are already done and completed by the time you arrive.

Money really does move things along because all the charts are perfect and after what should have been a week long wait to begin, you manage to take a day to get over your jetlag and get to work immediately the day after.

Surgery is simple to you. It's easy and soon enough the cat is halfway to recovery.

You don't quite understand how private planes are hired and sent out, if someone has to book a runway days in advance or if they're open indefinitely.

The original plan had been for you to take a week to do this but now it's all done, you don't quite know what to do with yourself apart from stew in guilt.

You had planned to take your mind off Ingrid's game by throwing yourself into work.

You have no work though and can't help but imagine yourself in Norway with your girlfriends, curled up in Mapi's arms while Ingrid whispers to you.

You swipe away a tear as you head down for dinner, your host gracious enough to treat you to a meal for all your good work.

You've gone radio silent to your girlfriends but neither are surprised.

You're always like that when you go out of the country for work, focused only on your patient. You want no distractions.

Mapi sits slumped in her seat next to Ingrid watching Norway play their last qualifier, sighing to herself as she looks at pictures of the three of you together.

"What's with the pout?" Ingrid teases, running her thumb over Mapi's jutted out bottom lip.

"I miss her," Mapi mutters, feeling a bit like a little kid sulking.

"I know but she'll be here soon and then we go out exploring with my parents before heading back home for preseason. It's not that long of a wait."

"I don't want to wait at all."

"I know but-"

A body slumps down on Mapi's other side and both of them turn.

"I'm not really a fan of this hotdog," You say," It's not bad but I guess I'm not that hungry. Do you want some Mapi?"

You don't get an answer from her because she crushes you into a hug. The hotdog that you regrettably bought squishes between your bodies.

You don't complain though, especially when Ingrid moves into the hug as well, tightening her grip around the both of you.

"I thought you couldn't make it?"

"Money talks," You tease," And the owner felt a bit of pity when I told her that I'd have to watch this match on tv. Chartered a jet for me to come straight here."

"And the cat?" Mapi asks.

"The cat's good. Recovering."

"I'm so happy you're here."

"We're both happy," Ingrid says," So, so happy."

You grin at your girls, the smiling splitting your face.

"I'm happy to be here too."

[jjunieworld]

READ HERE!!!

would anybody like to be tagged in this?? it’s the angsty fic i’ve been talking about (and has gotten waayy longer than i originally thought lmao),,,

send an ask or reply to this post if you want to be tagged when finished! minors, ageless, and blank blogs will not be tagged. please have a visible age. my permanent taglist will already be tagged!

[vague-magnus-archives]

This is like… the Flesh, but silly- “They’re Made Out Of Meat” by Terry Bisson. He was an author who wrote a lot of really cool stuff and just died recently- while I can’t currently find the link to the original story, here’s the version I copied to tumblr-

"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

  "That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

  "That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat." "Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"

"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."

"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."

"No brain?"

"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"So ... what does the thinking?"

"You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you.  The brain does the thinking. The meat."

"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat.   The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"

"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."

"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."

"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"

"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."

"We're supposed to talk to meat."

"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello.  Anyone out there. Anybody home.' That sort of thing."

"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?" "Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."

"I thought you just told me they used radio."

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other.   They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

"Officially or unofficially?"

"Both."

"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."

"I was hoping you would say that."

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"

"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat.   How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"

"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space.  Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."

"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."

"That's it."  

"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You're sure they won't remember?"

"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."

"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."

"And we marked the entire sector unoccupied."

"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."

"They always come around."

"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone ..."

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

Do you have any extra prompts/perspective for shutdown trauma responses? So far I have a few related to freeze but I know they’re different in their own ways (I have some unrelated to freeze too, I just rather ask a professional in case there’s more)

disclaimer that while I have written about the topic in my own fics before, I only consider myself a fanfic writer who’s done some research, not a professional, and these are supposed to be prompts for writers to use and tweak however they see fits for their fanfics / original works for entertainment purposes. please don’t treat these following prompts as a 100% accurate psychological information that can be applied in real life situations without doing your own research and consulting with a licensed professional.

trigger warnings: PTSD, depression, implied suicide, eating disorder

whumpee not being able to feel the pain that should have been haunting them, be it physical or mental. and that is not a good thing, because they’re not processing what happened, and they can’t heal as long as they cannot process or acknowledge what happened to them.

numb, however, is all whumpee can feel. and the numbness is so much worse and more dangerous than pain.

depression, prolonged stress, anxiety and procrastination are also possibilities. if whumpee only feels numb all the time, there’re chances of them developing other mental disorders that may cause them to believe that their entire life is now without any purpose.

whumpee feeling hopeless and wanting to give up all the time. any personal interest they had prior to the traumatic incident is now gone.

loss of appetite. an eating disorder where food tastes like ashes, and panic sends them into having an episode whenever caretaker tries making them eat — because it feels like someone was forcing ashes down their throat and they could not breathe. their body would not accept the food, and their gag reflex made them feel like throwing up. it is as much physical as it is psychological.

confusion and/or hallucinations may occur — whumpee struggling to distinguish between what’s real and what’s in their head. denial may trick their mind into believing that the tragedy that’s happened to them didn’t actually happen, and denying is certainly not the read toward recovery.

whumpee stopped talking altogether. doesn’t matter if they’re safe with caretaker now. they would not talk to anybody about anything at all, not just what happened. (they physically could, but they’re so traumatized that speaking is too much for them.)

the needs to hide from everything and everyone all the time are there. doesn’t matter if it’s caretaker, whumpee simply does not wish to be seen.

they keep mostly silent and mostly to themself, in the sense that they avoid everybody and spend most of their time locked in their room where no one can see them.

they may be too afraid to make any decisions for themself, no matter how small the decision is.

appearing disengaged in any social interaction and limiting the way they express any emotion at all; in other cases where they’re not numb, they may be scared or upset in some situations, but their brain tells them to keep their guard up by not letting others see how they actually feel. whumpee believe they’re shielding and protecting themself this way, and they will always need to “play safe”, since it’s best not to let anyone know how they feel, even if it’s caretaker.

[justagalwhowrites]

Yearling - Ch. 38: Reckoning

You form a connection with an unlikely companion while Joel searches for you. A continuation of Yearling ch. 1-37 found on Tumblr here.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Warnings: Canon-typical violence and several steps beyond that. Fairly graphic torture. Attempted rape. No use of Y/N. Minors DNI 18+ Only 

Length: 17.6k

A/N: As with recent chaptesr, I want to state, real quick, that Bambi is NOT going to be sexually assaulted again. This is a highly triggering subject and, given the situation she's in, I understand if folks are bracing for it. That's not going to happen. Things are going to look really dicey this chapter but it does not happen.

We are into the final arc of Yearling and we are going to see some TLOU 2 OVERLAP again. There isn't any this chapter but there will be in this arc and here's how: a character from that game will be mentioned as will the spoiler-y incident from a few chapters ago. What happens plot wise in this arc is completely separate from the game and entirely original content BUT there is that character overlap and more specific mentions of the incident and the motives behind it. This character is in THIS CHAPTER. If you're trying to go in blind to season 2, it might be wise to step back. Feel free to send me a DM, I'm happy to answer any and all questions!

AO3 | Chapter One | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

She was a girl. Just a girl. 

You couldn’t seem to move past just how young she looked, her face twisted into a hateful snarl. There was something gaunt about her features now that you didn’t remember there being before but then, your memory of that day was twisted. You’d been so focused on saving Joel - and suffering from losing blood yourself - that things were hazy. But you were almost certain she’d been more imposing then, a golf club in her grip as she stood over your husband’s broken body. 

“You’re with them?” She spat. “Fucking figures, should have known you’d be just as fucking bad as him…” 

You cocked your head at her a little, trying to puzzle her out before releasing your hold on your chain and tugging your pant leg up enough that she could see it wrapped around your ankle. It was already rubbing your flesh raw, blood starting to cling to the metal. 

“Does it look like I’m with them?” You asked, brows raised. You kept your injured hand cradled to your chest, the throbbing pain where your fingers used to be oddly muddled with the ghost of a feeling of the flesh and bone still there. You kept absently trying to flex them, expecting to feel the tension in the muscle when you moved. Your mind hadn’t quite processed that it wasn’t coming. 

The girl - just a girl - clenched her jaw, shaking her head and looking away from you. You dropped your pant leg and pressed yourself tight against the wall at your back, holding your damaged hand with your intact one. It didn’t make it hurt any less but it was still a comfort, to shield that vulnerability. 

“What are you doing here.” 

The girl said it more than asked it, still not looking at you. 

“Same as you, I imagine,” you said, your stomach churning at that, knowing what had probably just been done to this girl. Knowing what was waiting for you. She looked at you then, a darkness in her eyes that you knew well. You clenched your jaw and nodded slowly. “You OK?” 

She scoffed. 

“Don’t act like you care,” she snapped. “I’m sure you’d love exactly what they’re fucking doing to me, what they’ve been doing to me -“ 

“No,” you cut her off, tightening your hold on your wrist. “I don’t. I’ve been here before. I know what they do. I don’t wish that shit on anybody.” 

She looked at you again, skeptical now. 

“That how you met him?” She spat the word, like referring to Joel at all left a foul taste in her mouth.  

“Kind of,” you said. “He found me after I got out, saved me from bleeding to death in the snow.” 

“Bullshit.” 

“It’s not,” you said, watching her, your chest tight. Joel had told you that his raider days were far behind him and you believed him but you couldn’t think of another reason why this girl would want to hate him in particular. “I owe him my life.” 

“So he’s alive then?” She asked, gathering her knees into her chest.

You considered lying for a moment but you didn’t see much point in it. Chances were, neither of you were making it out of this alive, anyway. 

“Yes,” you said. “He is.” 

She just looked at you for a moment and you wondered, for a second, if she heard you. But then, her eyes brimmed with tears and her lip quivered, her breath quickening. 

“Of course he is,” her voice shook before she slammed her fist back against the wall, hard enough that the sound made you jump. “Of fucking course he is! Do you know what I fucking did to get that far? What I fucking sacrificed!” 

She screamed and brought her fist down on the sagging mattress again and again until she was sobbing, the kind of choking almost strangled sobs that made you feel like you were going to suffocate when you were in them. It took her a moment to calm down enough to speak again. 

“That’s how these fucking assholes caught me,” she said, still taking deep, shaky breaths. “I was looking for some sign of him, of him or of your fucking people. I hoped I’d be able to find out that he died, that I fucking killed him, that I could actually fucking breathe again. Instead, these fuckers got me. Because I hadn’t lost enough to Joel fucking Miller.” 

She knew his name. That fact made your breath hitch. It hadn’t been something random or even something from a chance encounter, she knew him in some way. You just didn’t know how.

“Why,” it was your turn to say more than ask. If you were trapped here with this girl, you needed to know if she was going to turn on you. But, more than that, you needed to understand. 

You had survived a lot of terrible things since the outbreak but the days you thought you might have lost Joel were some of the worst of your life. You’d trade years of enduring everything Mitchum and his men had put you through if it meant you’d never have to see Joel like that again. You needed to understand what made this girl hate him that much and you needed to know if there was anyone else who would come for him that way. Not that there was much you could do about it here, chained to a wall and in Mitchum’s grasp, but you needed to know that he was safe. That he would continue on and take care of your daughters without this threat hanging over him. You needed that comfort. 

“Why do you want him dead.” 

“Why should I fucking tell you?” She didn’t seem to say anything without biting it out, like she was made up of rage. You didn’t much blame her. It didn’t take long surviving like this before every other emotion was impossible and, before too long, rage was gone, too. 

“Because I’m your best hope of getting out of here,” you said. “I’ve done it before, I can do it again. And I meant what I said, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. Even you. But if it comes down to your life or my husband’s? I’ll kill you. Wouldn’t even lose sleep over it. So you need to tell me why you want him dead because I’d rather not kill you. We can get out of this together but I need to know that you’re not going to kill him when we do.” 

“Husband?” She looked at you and laughed once, darkly. “Fucking… You married a monster, you know. A fucking animal.” 

“Why.” 

“If he hasn’t told you about the shit he’s done…” 

“I know what he’s done,” you cut her off. 

“And you still married him?” She shook her head, a disgusted look on her face. “Then you’re a monster, too.” 

“I can be the monster who saves you or the monster who kills you,” you replied. “How much do you want this grudge to destroy your life?” 

“Grudge?” She asked, brows raised. “That’s what you think this is? Like he called me names on the playground? He killed my fucking dad!” 

 Your chest got tight. 

“People kill other people every day,” you said after a moment. “It could have been anyone, it…” 

“You know a lot of other guys who slaughter an entire hospital of people in cold blood?” She spat. “People who were just trying to save the fucking world?” 

Your face fell and she huffed. 

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.” 

You’d thought - or maybe hoped - that her rage was a result of something that happened on patrol. That the blame could be comfortably placed somewhere else, that it was something that Joel could maybe even regret having done. 

Instead, it was the one thing you knew he would never even apologize for, not in a million years. If it had kept Ellie safe, it wasn’t something he could make amends for. And you didn’t want him to. 

“You don’t understand…” 

“No, I understand perfectly,” she cut you off. “He murdered my father…”

“No,” you shook your head.

“…and ruined every shot the world had at a fucking cure!” 

“That’s not what happened,” you said, straining to keep calm but starting to fail. 

“It’s not?” She seethed. “Then tell me! Tell me what fucking happened, give me one goddamn reason why anyone would…”

“He saved our daughter!” You all but yelled it, eyes wide, begging her to understand. 

She sat back, laughing darkly once.

“No,” She shook her head. “No, he decided one life was worth more than every other life on the planet…” 

“So!” 

“SO?” She gaped at you. “That’s… that’s psychotic, that’s…” 

“Do you think your father would have done anything different if it was you?” You asked. “You think he’d have just let them kill you?” 

“If it meant saving the world?” She asked.

“If it meant anything at all,” you said. “Do you really think he would have let them kill you.” 

“He…” 

“You’ve done how much to avenge him?” You asked. “Think that means he wasn’t a piece of shit.” 

“He was amazing,” she snapped. “Whole hell of a lot better than that fucking…” 

“Do you really think your amazing father would have let them kill you,” you asked. “Be honest with yourself. Would he have let them kill you or would he have done the exact same thing as Joel.” 

“He wouldn’t have become a mass fucking murderer!” 

“Wouldn’t he?” You asked. “You’re not a parent, you don’t know what you’d do for your kids…” 

“I know there’s a fucking limit!” She cut you off. 

“No, there’s not!” You yelled. “I have two daughters, I’d do anything for them…” 

“Even that?” She asked, incredulous. 

“I’m only here right now because of them!” You said before forcing yourself to calm down. “I’ve been here before. I barely survived. Some days, I didn’t want to survive but I did and I escaped. But they took my daughters and they wanted me to trade myself for them and I did it without a second thought. They’re my children. I’d do anything for them. And your dad would have, too.” 

She just looked at you for a moment and it was like you could see her deflate. 

“When it’s your kid, there is no such thing as too far,” you said. “I’m sorry your dad died for that. I am. But I’m not sorry that my kid lived and I’d have killed anyone to make sure that happened, too. I ain’t sorry for that part, either.” 

“Then you’re as much of a monster as him.” 

You just shook your head a little, turning your attention to your injured hand. 

Curiosity got the better of you, even though you knew you should leave it alone. You carefully unwound the cloth they’d put around your wounds where your fingers once were. The burned flesh, at least, had stopped bleeding and was just weeping where blisters were forming. The skin was ragged and the bone was splintered and it was surreal, realizing that part of you had been cut away. 

“Jesus,” the girl said and you looked over to her. You’d been so lost in your own pain for a moment, you’d almost forgotten she was there. “That… shit.” 

You looked back at your hand and flexed your remaining fingers, staring at where the two should be. 

“If you wanted to try to kill me, now would be the time,” you said. “I’m still down a lot of blood, you’d win this round.” 

“I don’t want to kill you,” she snapped. 

You took a last look at your injury before wrapping it back up slowly, carefully. 

“If I’m a monster then…” 

“Don’t give me a reason to kill you and I won’t,” she said.

You looked up at her, bandage half around your wound. 

“Same to you.” 

You went back to wrapping your injured hand, wincing at the pressure put on the cuts. You could feel the girl’s eyes on you as you worked and you cradled your hand to your chest again when you were done, something about holding it to yourself feeling more secure. 

“I think we should work together,” the girl said eventually. You looked at her, brows raised. “We’re both stuck here. We both want the same thing. I know what you’re capable of and you apparently know these assholes. You said you got out of here before?” 

You nodded slowly. 

“I did.” 

“Then you know where to start,” she said. “I’ve been here for… I don’t know how long. A few weeks, I think. If you help me, I’ll help you.” 

You considered her for a moment. 

“What’s your name?” 

She considered you back, like she was trying to puzzle you out. 

“Abby,” she said eventually. “Yours?” 

“Bambi,”  you said. She raised her eyebrows. “That’s what everyone calls me, anyway.” 

“Stupid fucking name,” she said. 

You snorted. 

“I don’t really disagree with you,” you said. “Abby, if I help you, I need to know you’re not going to try to kill my husband the second we’re out of here.” 

“Are you serious?” She gaped at you before laughing darkly. “Jesus…” 

“I’d rather us both die in here than get out and lose him,” you said. “That’s the deal. You leave us alone, we leave you alone.” 

“Yeah, because he’d just let me live…” 

“We haven’t exactly hunted you down before now, have we?” You said. “That’s the offer on the table. We help each other and we go our separate ways.” 

She looked at you, her jaw clenched tight. 

“Do you think your dad would want you stuck here, in a place like this, so you could kill someone in his name?” You asked. “Because I wouldn’t want that for my kids. I wouldn’t want them to kill anyone for me at all.” 

She ground her teeth, watching you closely.

“Fine,” she said eventually. “We make it out of here, I won’t go looking for him. And if I ever do run into him… He’ll leave alive.” 

“Thank you,” you said, relaxing back into the wall. 

“What do we do now?” She asked. “You’re the expert.” 

“Watch each other’s backs,” you sighed. “I’m in no shape to get us anywhere and I don’t think you’re doing so hot right now, either. When was the last time you got a full night’s rest?” 

She scoffed. 

“Like these fuckers leave me alone long enough for that.” 

“They will now,” you said. 

“Right,” she said. “Because you’re magically going to make them back off.” 

“Nothing magic about it,” you said. “I just know what I’m worth to their boss. They won’t go through me to get to you, he’d kill them if they did. You can take a breath.” 

She looked skeptical but she also looked exhausted. After a moment, she lay down on the mattress, her back against the wall and her arms crossed tight over her chest. 

“Don’t make me regret this,” she said before closing her eyes. 

“Yeah,” you said. “You too.” 

***

Joel rode with one hand resting over your fingers in his pocket. 

They were a comfort to him, his heart beating more steadily when he could feel the parts of you there. 

He tried not to think about why he found them so comforting. The truth of it nagged at the back of his mind but he tried to leave it tucked away. He wasn’t equipped to face that. Not now. 

But the truth of it was, if he couldn’t get you back, he needed to have some part of you he could put in the ground. He wouldn’t be able to bury an empty box so he had somewhere to lie when what was left of the world became unbearable and had a place to go when his time came, too. He had something he could honor and be close to if he lost you now. 

“Joel,” Tommy said. He wasn’t sure how long they’d been riding. “We need to rest the horses, we can’t keep pushin’ ‘em like this…” 

“They can rest when we find her.” 

“Joel,” he said again, and he actually turned to face his brother, his hand still on your fingers in his pocket. He could feel the metal ring of your wedding band beneath his palm. 

I promise to protect you. Promise to never let anything hurt you.

“The horses won’t be in any shape to get her out of there if we push ‘em too far right now. We need to rest them, for her sake. We need to rest ourselves, too. Can’t fight if we’re exhausted, it’ll just get us all killed. Please, Joel.” 

Joel clenched his jaw. Tommy was right. He knew he was. But it didn’t feel right. He didn’t want to sleep or eat or let another hour pass without knowing you were alive. 

“Let’s get to the stream,” Joel said, nodding toward where he knew there would be some water coming up. “Then we can take a break.” 

It didn’t take long, the three of them making it to the water almost too quickly for Joel’s liking. But he stopped all the same, dismounting his horse and giving him a chance to drink. Ellie and Tommy did the same, Ellie pacing for a moment before stopping, staring at the water. 

“Be back in a minute,” she said. “Need to use the restroom.” 

“Don’t go far,” Joel cautioned. She didn’t respond, just stalking into the brush. 

Joel stared at the water, too, shifting his weight from foot to foot, adjusting his back as his body settled into a different position than it had been in on the back of a horse. 

“Joel,” Tommy said, coming up alongside him. He kept his eyes on the water. “Look man, I can’t pretend to know what it is you’re goin’ through right now. Don’t know that I’d be doing any better in your shoes but… Jesus, man. Ellie’s a kid…” 

“Old enough to patrol.” 

“Patrol,” he repeated. “Not do the shit we used to do. There’s a difference.” 

“She wants to know how to protect what she loves,” he said. “You know as well as me the kind of world we live in…” 

“Don’t mean she needs to be doin’ that,” Tommy cut him off. “You really want her to live with that shit in her head the rest of her life? Knowin’ what she’s capable of doing to a person?”

Joel didn’t respond. He just crossed his arms a little tighter. 

“She wouldn’t want that for her,” Tommy said after a minute. “Bambi loves that girl. She wouldn’t want her torturin’ someone in her name.” 

“Well she’s not here to put a stop to it, is she?” Joel asked, finally looking his brother in the eye. Tommy didn’t say anything. “Ellie’s an adult. I’m not gonna pretend like she’s not grown enough to make her own choices. If she wants to make a man pay for takin’ someone she loves? I’m not about to stop her.” 

Tommy just squared his jaw, watching Joel intently for a moment. 

“So we’re clear, I’m not just out here for you,” he said. “I’m out here for Bambi, too. She’s my family and I’m going to do what she would want me to do, including saving that kid from herself.” 

Joel rounded on his brother fast and firm, forcing him back into a tree. 

“You really mean to tell me what my wife wants?” He was seething, in Tommy’s face. “I left her and our girls in the place you told me was safe and now she’s gone, I might never get her back and you’re gonna tell me how to handle it? That it?”

“You really gonna blame me for this?” He asked quietly. “You gonna tell me I’m in the wrong?” 

“Dad?” 

Ellie’s voice appeared behind him and Joel stepped back from Tommy who cleared his throat awkwardly. 

“Everything OK?” She asked, looking between the two men. 

“Fine,” Tommy said. “We’re just… worried.” 

“No shit,” Ellie said. “Me too.” 

“We’ll give the horses an hour,” Joel said, looking between the two of them. “Then we’re back on the road.” 

It wasn’t a relaxing break. Ellie patched up the knife wound on his shoulder. Once that was done, Joel just tried to not pace, feeling the burn of Tommy’s gaze on his skin. But it was like he was on fire, his muscle and his marrow burning with the need to move, to do something besides just fucking stand here at the water’s edge and watch it go past, as though everything was normal and life shouldn’t have come to a grinding halt because you were gone. 

It was just shy of an hour when Joel couldn’t take it anymore. 

“C’mon,” he said, mounting up again. “Let’s go.” 

They rode for a few hours more in brutal, damning quiet when Tommy finally spoke again. 

“Should talk about a plan,” he said. 

“Plan is to get my goddamn wife,” Joel spat. “What else do I need.” 

“We’re gonna be outnumbered, for one,” Tommy said, his voice almost eerily calm. “For another… it sounded like Mitchum ain’t gonna be there…” 

Joel was quiet for a moment, waiting for him to finish the thought. He didn’t. 

“Sounds like you’re arguin’ about the fact that there’s one less person standing between me and my wife,” Joel looked at his brother, his jaw clenched tight. His hand went to cover his pocket again, feeling where your fingers were against his leg.  

I promise to protect you.

“I’m not,” Tommy said. His tone reminded Joel of the way you spoke to the feral horses you’d brought to Jackson. Like Tommy knew he was an unbroken, wild thing, something that was dangerous and could lash out at any second. “But… He knows where to find her now and it doesn’t sound like he’s going to stop coming for her. We need to get her back but we need to make sure she’s safe and to do that, we need to kill him, too. We have to wait for him to come back otherwise we’re just buying time, that’s all. We have to end it.” 

Joel looked straight ahead, grinding his teeth. 

“He’s right,” Ellie said quietly. “We need to kill the guy at the top, too, or it won’t stop.” 

He was almost embarrassed to admit, even just to himself, that he hadn’t put much thought into that. He’d been singularly focused: Get to you, save you, destroy whoever he could reach who’d hurt you. 

But if he wanted to do what he’d vowed to do, he couldn’t let it be that simple. He would have to make sure he cut the snake off at the head. There was no other way. 

“So what do you propose we do?” He asked gruffly, even though he knew they were right. 

“Find ‘em,” Tommy said. “Take someone from the perimeter, if we can. Pull information from ‘em. If we can know when he’s coming back… if it’ll be soon, we can wait him out. If it’ll be long, we get Bambi and get a message back to Jackson, bring people out to take care of him when he does come back.” 

Joel nodded slowly, considering. 

The only faults he could find in the plan was that it could mean you were with these monsters longer than it took to reach you or that he wasn’t the one to take Mitchum apart. He needed to get to you as fast as he could, make sure you were still breathing and still you as fast as he could. And once he had you back, he wasn’t leaving your side. He’d have to trust someone else to handle your captor and that made his skin crawl. Mitchum needed to pay. He needed it to be long and harsh and cruel and he needed to know that, when he died, he knew why. 

But holding you was more important than any of that. 

“Alright,” he said. “We get there, we find someone, we take the information. We can decide from there.” 

Tommy nodded but was quiet for a moment. 

“It’s the right move, Joel,” he said gently. “You’re doin’ everything you can for her and we’re going to get her back. She’s…” 

“Don’t fuckin’ lie to me,” he snapped, his chest getting tight, so tight it was getting hard to breathe. “Don’t tell me she’s going to be alright not… not when I left her there, not when I should’ve…” 

“She’s strong,” Tommy cut him off, looking quickly at Ellie who’s head was hung low. “She’s the strongest person I know. She’ll make it.” 

The three of them made it to the edge of what they thought was Mitchum’s territory as night started to fall, finding a place to hole up and collect information. 

“You two stay put,” Tommy said, once it was dark. He went down to the basics, leaving his pack and horse behind. “I’ll find where to go. Don’t do anythin’ stupid.” 

Joel clenched his jaw but gave him a nod, watching what little he could see of his brother in the dark. 

“Get some sleep,” he said to Ellie after sitting in silence for too long. 

“I’m not tired,” she said, her voice harsh but quiet. 

“Try,” he said. “I’ll keep watch.” 

She sighed but he heard the rustle of her getting her sleeping bag from her pack all the same and watched the outline of her as she settled in nearby on the ground. Joel kept his hands on his rifle, tracing his fingers over the familiar edges of it. The weapon was a comfort, the corporeal reminder that he was not powerless, that he could do damage and take what he needed. He had what was necessary to save you, he just had to do it. 

“Joel?” Ellie said softly. 

“Hm.” 

“Are you OK?” 

His hands stilled on the gun and he looked over to her. He couldn’t make out her face in the dark but he could feel her eyes on him. 

“Shoulder don’t hurt,” he said. “M’fine.” 

“Yeah, but…” she paused. “What about the other stuff.” 

Joel sighed, not really sure how to answer that question. How did he tell Ellie that he felt like he was on the edge of a knife? There were only two options for him: bringing you home or not going home at all. He knew that now, there would be no coming back from this without you. He didn’t want to come back from this without you. 

“You can talk to me, you know,” she said. “I’m not a little kid anymore. I know you still see me like a kid but…” 

“I know you’re not a kid,” he said. “But there are some things… some things just ain’t yours to carry.” 

She was quiet for a moment, long enough that Joel thought the conversation might be over. But it wasn’t. 

“How do you do it?” She asked. 

“Do what.” 

“Hurt people.” She sounded so small it reminded Joel of when they were coming to Jackson, when she was scared and uncertain and had already survived so much more than she should have. 

He sighed. 

“Just do.” 

“How do you not lose yourself to it?” She asked. “When I saw him there, when… when I knew what he did and knew he was still breathing, I got so angry. Like all I wanted in the whole fucking world was to hurt him that way, too. I wanted to make him pay for it, pay for everything and I would have hunted him to the ends of the fucking Earth to do it but when I actually… when you gave me the knife, when I was able to… It didn’t feel better but I couldn’t stop it. I knew it wasn’t helping her and it wasn’t changing anything but someone needed to make him pay and I wanted it to be me but all it did was make me sick but I couldn’t stop it. How do you stop it?” 

He adjusted his grip on the gun, fingers pressing too hard into the stock, his chest tight. 

“Lot of practice,” he said eventually. “Started… it started out just for information. And… well, truth of it is, I wasn’t able to feel much when I started doin’ it. After I lost Sarah, I just didn’t feel much of anything at all. I just wanted to keep Tommy alive. Did a lot of shit I regret in the name of keeping me n’him alive. But that made it easier. And doing it when… when there’s trouble, when it’s you or her… I don’t feel much then, either. Can’t feel bad about doin’ anything to a man like that when he’s between me and… There’s nothing in me to feel bad. Only hard part is not killin’ someone who deserves it too fast. But the information’s important. Easy to remember to get it when I need to. It’s just… it’s practice, same as anything else. Practice you don’t need to have, baby girl.” 

Ellie sighed. 

“I get what you mean,” she said eventually. “I lost control with Cody before but… I don’t know. It’s like there’s part of me that’s missing right now and I don’t know what to do if I don’t get it back.” 

Joel’s heart clenched at that. 

“I’m sorry, baby girl.” 

“I know,” she said quietly. “We… we’ll take care of each other, right Dad? No matter what?” 

Joel was silent, trying to figure out how to speak without his voice catching.

“We will,” he said after a moment. He wasn’t sure if he was lying to her. 

Ellie was asleep when Tommy made it back to their small camp, sitting heavily beside his brother. 

“Found their perimeter,” he said quietly. “We ain’t too far, half a mile maybe? Got an idea of how they patrol, there are spots we can grab one. Looks like a decent set up, we’ll have to be smart about how we do this, Joel. If we ain’t, it could get her killed as much as it would you or me.” 

Joel knew Tommy was saying that to try to keep him from charging in, hot headed and foolish, but that didn’t make it feel any better to sit here and wait. 

“Think we get a few hours rest,” Tommy said. “Grab one of their men just before sunrise.” 

“Alright,” Joel said, settling in to wait, trying to ignore the pull in his chest at the thought of you so close but so out of reach. “You sleep, I’ll keep watch.” 

“Joel…” 

“I’m not sleeping without her,” he cut him off. “I’ll be fine. Sleep.” 

Tommy was silent for a moment. 

“She wouldn’t want you doing this to yourself, either,” he said quietly. Before Joel could argue, Tommy got up and got his sleeping bag from his pack, settling in on the other side of Ellie as Joel looked toward Mitchum’s base, watching the place where you were in the dark. 

***

Abby was right. They weren’t letting her rest. 

You weren’t entirely sure how long you were watching over her as she slept when you heard the front door open. You knew it was still dark, it couldn’t have been that long. You’d been trying to do something to keep yourself calm in the time that you’d been sitting there, watching over the girl who had nearly murdered your husband. 

Your entire body was tense and on high alert. You didn’t think you could hope for much else while you were here. Even before you’d never really been able to turn off the constant thrum of fear that pulsed through you. It wasn’t paranoia, it was self preservation. You had to be prepared for someone to come and hurt you at any moment. Your heart beat faster because of it, breaths came faster. You were sure you’d lost more blood because of it when they took your fingers. But you knew you couldn’t stay this tense for long and be useful. You needed to calm down enough that you could function and eventually rest. You needed to recover the blood you lost before you could do anything at all. 

But the tactics you used before to keep yourself sane couldn’t happen now. You couldn’t pretend to play guitar anymore. You’d never tried to play with just three fingers on one hand and thinking about losing that hurt, more than even losing the fingers did. You weren’t in any condition to train, either. 

Instead, you just stared at the wall over Abby’s shoulder, her back pressed to it. You tried to think about how to get out, what you had to leverage. If there was a time where you and Abby might be unchained at once, maybe together you could overpower them. 

Maybe Joel would come for you. 

Not that you thought he wouldn’t try, you knew he would. But you’d changed hands, groups had gone separate ways. Tracking you would be basically impossible. You couldn’t count on him to find you under these circumstances. You could only count on yourself and your need to get back home to him. 

Still, you thought you’d have more time of staring at the wall before anyone would come for you or for Abby. You were wrong. 

You tightened your grip on your chain and looked around for other options for weapons but Mitchum and his men had been thorough, the room stripped bear of everything but the bare necessities. You grabbed the bucket from the end of your bed - one that, thankfully, you hadn’t needed to use yet - before turning to the sleeping girl on the other bed. 

“Abby,” you hissed quietly, stretching your unchained leg out and jostling her mattress. She jerked and scrambled, already panicky and gasping for breath. So different from the girl who’d held Joel’s life in her hands. Her darting eyes found you and she seemed to remember then, relaxing a little. “Someone’s in the house.” 

“Fuck,” she swore, looking around for something to fight with but coming up as empty as you had. 

“How far can your chain reach?” You asked as quietly as you could, eyes darting toward the door. 

“Um,” she moved almost to the middle of the room, her chained leg stretched far to the side. “This far.” 

“OK,” you nodded, not sure you believed it. But yours went about as far, and you were able to place yourself in front of her. “Just.. stay behind me.” 

“You really think this will work?” She asked. You looked back over your shoulder at her. Her teeth were gritted and fierce but her eyes were wide and afraid. 

“They won’t touch me,” you said. “If you stay behind me, you’ll be OK. Just stay behind me.” 

The door opened and a man you didn’t recognize stalked in. Mitchum had either expanded or replaced a lot of his henchmen in the years you’d been gone. The man looked you up and down for a moment, his eyes calculating and hungry, before looking behind you. 

“Come here, girl,” he said, ignoring you completely. 

“Fuck off,” Abby snarled, but she stayed behind you. 

He squared his jaw, his nostrils flared. 

“Do as I say,” he snapped. “Or I’ll make it hurt.” 

She laughed once, darkly. 

“Like you wouldn’t anyway.” 

“Fine,” he said, going to move around you. “I’ll drag you, then.” 

You did’t let him pass. Instead, you lashed out with your unbound leg, kicking hard and landing a blow on his inner thigh - not quite where you were hoping to hit but it was enough. He hissed in pain and stumbled, looking vicious. 

“Fucking…” he rounded on you, moving toward you, but you raised your still-booted foot, ready to kick again. 

“Try it,” you said. “See what happens. Think your boss would just let you get away with fucking up his favorite toy before he got back? Take a guess what happened to the fuckers who took my fingers.” 

He hesitated then, looking between you and Abby. 

“Not getting her without going through me,” you said. “And he’ll kill you if you go through me.” 

His lip curled. 

“Bullshit.” 

You shrugged. 

“Risk it if you want,” you said. “Or ask the men who brought me in. Personally I think it’d be fun to watch you become clicker food…” 

You pressed back closer to Abby, feeling her at your back, ready to move as best you could if you needed to. 

The man, however, didn’t move. He just let out a short, enraged scream and turned his back to you for a second, stomping toward the door before turning back. 

“Mitchum is back soon,” he said, your body tensing at his name, heart pounding a frantic rhythm against your ribs. “He’ll take care of you himself.” 

He stormed off, slamming the door behind him. 

You relaxed then, your heart still in your throat as you moved back to your side of the small room. You didn’t want to be any closer to Abby than you had to be. 

She, it seemed, had the same thought, moving to her mattress and pressing her back against the wall, taking slow but shaky breaths as she did. 

“You alright?” You asked, pulling your injured hand back into yourself again. It felt so much better there for some reason. Not any less painful but at least less exposed. 

“Fine,” she said, a little breathless. You nodded, closing your eyes for a second and counting your breaths, trying to force them to slow. “Why did you do that?” 

You looked at her for a moment as she watched you, her eyes narrowed but in curious examination, not anger.

“I meant what I said,” you replied. “We’re stronger together. And… I might have every reason to hate you but no one deserves what they do. Not even you. I’m not about to just let them do it. I don’t have much power here but I have some and goddammit I’m not going to waste it.” 

She nodded a little and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. 

“Thank you,” she said eventually. “You didn’t have to do that. I’m not sure how much more I can take and… Thank you.” 

You just nodded, fingers absently seeking where your wedding band had rested just days earlier, a motion you’d done almost daily since Joel had put it on your hand. Instead, you found broken flesh. You took your fingers back. 

“You should try and sleep,” she said after a few minutes. “I won’t be able to for a while, not after… I’ll keep watch. Wake you up if anything happens.” 

You nodded slowly before stretching out on mattress, trying to calm yourself enough to actually rest. 

You did manage it, for a few hours. You drifted in and out more than properly slept, but it was something. When you finally woke, you traded with Abby, her lying down to rest while you kept watch. 

There wasn’t much to watch for, though. Your threat, it seemed, had been taken seriously. No one came for Abby and you knew no one was going to come for you, not while Mitchum was away. You weren’t sure what was going to happen once he did come back. You just hoped you’d have some kind of opening when they moved you to wherever they tried to take you for him to try and use, that you’d be staying close enough that you could easily come back for Abby and that the two of you could make a break for it together. 

Once you were both awake again, you tried to learn what you could as quietly as possible. Abby gave you an idea of the layout of the place you were in, where the horses were kept, when people tended to congregate. She’d been here long enough to have a decent enough lay of the land, enough of one that you thought it could be helpful when trying to find your way out. 

She was, as you learned, a resourceful young woman. She’d made one escape attempt already but she was caught quickly. She learned from it, though, telling you where she thought was better to avoid after watching certain areas after her attempted break out. 

If it weren’t for your shared history, you’d probably like her. You could even sympathize with her, to a point. If someone had taken the only person you had left in the world, you probably wouldn’t care much about the reason they did it either. You’d just want them to pay. But all that pain had been what landed her where she was. 

After leaving Joel to bleed and die in the lodge that day, she’d been content with it for a while. Satisfied that she’d ended the man who had ended her father, she felt like she could move on and she tried to, for a while. She spent time with the group of people who had helped her hunt Joel down, started looking for someplace to call home. 

Then, doubt took hold. She couldn’t be sure he was gone. She’d left him with you, after all, someone who seemed as determined to save him as she had been to destroy him. How could she know, with deep and comforting certainty, that he was truly gone? How could she just live her life if there was a chance he was out there, living his? 

So she set off toward Jackson. Her friends had tried to talk her out of it but she was unrelenting. She needed to see evidence of his demise before she could rest and - on the off chance he survived - she needed to finish the job. Two had come with her for a while, trying to talk her out of it the whole way, but, eventually, they gave up and she was alone. 

She didn’t know what her plan was, really. It wasn’t like she had resources to take on an entire town but she figured he’d leave eventually. She’d found him almost on his own before, she could do it again. 

She was closing in on where she thought Jackson was when one of Mitchum’s men - patrolling the areas around the town, looking for a foothold - found her. She fought hard and took several of them down before they took control of her, chaining her and dragging her back to Mitchum’s camp more than a month earlier. 

You had the fleeting thought that you should, in some way, find this satisfying. That her lust for pain had brought her here, victim to a monster of another kind entirely, knowing that if she’d just left well enough alone, she would be with her friends. 

But you couldn’t. You knew the kind of pain Mitchum wrought, how he and his men took a person apart from the inside out, separating them from their humanity with surgical precision until they were just a shell of who the were before. No one deserved that, not even her, especially not when you thought of her as somewhat like a girl you’d been once, one filled with so much hurt and anger you thought you might burn the world with it. 

It was an uneasy alliance, one that you were forced to trust. She watched over you as you slept and the two of you were only disturbed by an angry delivery of jerky and water. 

You wished you had some idea of when Mitchum would be back. Being left alone was almost disturbing and the feeling of looming agony was heavy and only grew heavier as time passed. You knew he would come back eventually, returning from whatever dark business he had and he’d come straight for you when he did. He always did when he came back unless he was too injured to do what he wanted with you. Any frustration that had built up in his time outside he seemingly loved to work out with your body, relieving it with your fear and pain. You could only imagine what he would do to you now, when you’d been a source of frustration and denial for him for so long and when he was apparently willing to trade so much for your return. The only solace you could find in that was the fact that he likely wouldn’t kill you too quickly. That would give you more time to get out and get back to Jackson, assuming he didn’t accidentally break you past the point of survival. 

You were pretty sure it was the afternoon the next day when someone came into your room again. You and Abby moved to the middle of it, you in front as you stared down the man, watching for an opportunity. You were stronger now, still not recovered from losing your fingers - no where near it - but you felt like you had a fighting chance now. You weren’t about to miss your shot at escape if it arose. But he just smirked, collecting the buckets from the feet of the beds. 

“Don’t get too excited,” he said. “Just cleaning up for the boss. Doesn’t want to deal with your stink.” 

Your heart sped up and you fought to keep it from showing on your face. If they were doing this now, he had to be close. He might already be here and time was running out. 

In truth, regardless of how careful Mitchum was to keep from killing you, you weren’t sure you could survive any of it again. His hands on you now would be poison, the feeling of him inside you now ruinous. There was some part of you that had started to believe that this was behind you. That no one would ever touch you without your permission again, that you had the skills and the tools to fight whoever came for you and you were safe. You could finally relax. 

That sense of safety had healed parts of you that you weren’t sure you’d ever get back if you lost them again and the man who would take them was all but knocking on your door. 

“Fuck,” Abby’s voice was quiet and panicked at your back. 

“He doesn’t like an audience,” you said softly, watching the door. “They’re going to take you away. See if you can make a run for it…” 

Before she had a chance to respond, the door opened again, the man returning the buckets. This time, they were far from the ends of the bed, tucked into the corner near the door where you couldn’t reach. You swallowed and tried to force yourself to stay calm. You couldn’t do this if you were panicked, you had to focus. 

“Alright,” he said, standing and looking the two of you over before nodding to Abby. “You’re coming with me.” 

“Fuck you,” she spat and you felt her tense behind you. 

“That’s the idea,” he sneered. “And you I’ve got permission to fuck up, so best if you listen.” 

“Still have to go through me, you fuck,” you snapped. “Don’t think you can just do what you want with me.” 

“No,” said a chillingly familiar voice from the other side of the door. Mitchum came in slowly, smirking and confident, his boots falling heavy on the plywood floor. “But I can. You’re my toy, little doll, in case you forgot. And just because you went and got yourself all feral out there doesn’t mean you can just run roughshod over my men like you have been.” 

You resisted the urge to scramble as far back from him as you could reach. You knew it wouldn’t help, he’d get to you anyway and then he’d have evidence of your fear when he did. You fought to breathe and hold yourself steady, even as your heart raced and your stomach churned. 

Mitchum prowled forward, a limp in his right leg you didn’t remember him having before. You tried to think back to a few nights before, when Cody had handed you over, and picture his gait then but you were so afraid and so lightheaded you could hardly recall anything specific. You stared up at him as he squatted in front of you and you tried not to flinch back. Everything about him being close like this felt wrong, the threat of his presence, the stink of horses and chewing tobacco and sweat, the uncomfortable heat of his body. Everything in you screamed to run, you had to force yourself to not try to take off so fast that it would pull your chained leg out of its socket and he reached out, his hands chapped and harsh, snatching your chin into his rough grasp. 

“You’ve always been a pretty thing,” he said, forcing your face to the angles he wanted as he examined you. “Glad to see you’ve still got that fire in your eyes. I’d have to fuckin’ kill Cody if he took that before I had my chance. Thought about it for your fingers - you’re no fun if you go too easy, can’t have you too damaged. Should never have sent him after you, should have known better… Was he who helped you the first time? Always thought he was goin’ soft for you. Not too soft, apparently, but…” 

You jerked your chin away from him and he let you go, a satisfied smirk on his face when you did. 

“Levi,” he said, glancing back to the man who’d come in with you. “Take the other one where ever you want, back bedroom should be open for you. But you’d better not damage her permanently, she’s a fun one, too.” 

“C’mon,” he went to take Abby but he wasn’t paying attention to you, leaving himself exposed  as he tried to move past you. You took advantage of it, lashing out with your still booted foot and slamming the heel into the crotch of his jeans. He cried out and fell to his knees, clutching at his genitals before he fell to his side, damn near writhing and he moaned in pain. 

You looked at Mitchum. 

“Your lackeys are fuckin’ weak,” you said through clenched teeth. 

He barked a laugh, the stench of rot on his breath as he did, before he turned to look at the man who was struggling back to his knees. 

“Now how am I supposed to believe you can wrangle a woman if you can’t even handle ‘em when I’m around?” He asked before whistling, high and shrill. A moment later, two more men came in, armed and large. He nodded to the girl. “Take her, do what you want as long as it’s nothing permanent. Take this idiot with you.” 

They moved with more caution, unchaining Abby carefully before hauling her away. She met your gaze for a moment, her eyes sharp but afraid. They closed the door behind them. 

“Before you get any bright ideas,” he said. “Got more men waiting not far away. I’m the only reason you’re still alive. Want to stay that way? You do what I say.” 

“You think I want to live if I’m stuck here with you?” You asked, eyes darting over him as best you could, seeing what weapons he might have that you could reach. “Rather die than be stuck with you for…” 

“Anyone else?” He cut you off. “I’d believe ‘em. But you… you were always different. Something special. You just don’t have it in you to die, not like that. You’ll just keep on going until I make you die. And that, pretty thing, is hard to find.” 

He didn’t give you a chance to respond, instead clamping his large hand around your throat and squeezing. Your eyes went wide and your fingers scrabbled at him, trying to claw him off of you but failing miserably as he dragged you by your neck to the mattress, throwing you roughly onto it. He moved you so roughly that your skull smacked into the wall, making your head spin and knocking you off balance. 

You tried to reorient yourself, vision doubled for a moment, as Mitchum unlocked the chain at your ankle, removing the metal from your bloody leg before pulling off your remaining boot and reaching up and opening your pants. You scrambled to stop him there, too, shoving at his hands while trying to kick away from him but he grabbed the ankle that had been bloodied by the chain and yanked you toward him, the shock of it jerking you to a halt. 

“This would hurt less if you’d just cooperate,” he snapped before ripping your jeans down over your hips and to your knees. You ignored him, feet scrabbling for purchase on the mattress. It didn’t seem to make much difference and soon, all you had on from the waist down was your underwear. 

“Now let’s see,” he said, panting a little as he moved up your body. “You still got my mark on you, little doll? Or did you find a way to get rid of it?” 

Before you could do anything to stop him, he tugged your shirt - Joel’s shirt - up and the side of your underwear down, exposing the brand he’d pressed into you the night he’d lied to you about Savvy’s death. 

“There she is,” he said, almost reverently, his fingers tracing the letter on your skin and you wanted, desperately, to climb outside of yourself in that moment. Or, at the very least, claw away every scrap of flesh that he’d touched to purge him from your body. “Almost surprised you left me here so long. Maybe you missed me, too…” 

“Fuck you,” you hissed through clenched teeth. 

Mitchum looked up your body, a sickening smile on his face. 

“You may not know this,” he said before gripping your thighs and forcing them wide apart. He wedged his large body between your legs before letting them go. You could feel the thick of his penis through his jeans and it made your stomach roll. “But you need someone like me. You’re too headstrong, too wild on your own. Without someone to keep you under control, you’ll destroy yourself. You’re much better off with someone like me. Just give me what I want and you get a pretty good life, just like one of those horses you love so much. Just let me break you and this gets so much easier for you.” 

His hand went around your throat again, fingers tightening to choke you until your vision grew spotty, your legs instinctively kicking as you clawed at his arm, trying to pull him away so you could breathe. You could see, just barely in your field of vision, his other hand going for his belt and you knew, if you passed out, you’d wake up with him inside you, forcing everything you’d fought for since you’d escaped him the first time out of you when he did. 

You couldn’t do that. Not again. 

The fear and the realization were so sharp that you had a split second of clarity. Instead of your hands instinctively pulling at the thing that was nearly killing you, you gave up on that, instead throwing them forward, your thumbs quickly finding their place in Mitchum’s eyes, pressing as hard as you could as your consciousness faded. 

It didn’t take long for him to jerk back from you, releasing the hold he had on your throat and giving you the chance to take a breath. You almost choked on it, the rush of oxygen a shock to your system and you felt his weight leave your hips. You took advantage of that, too, kicking blindly, bare feet connecting with the round of his stomach and the thick of his neck. 

“Fucking cunt!” He roared and dove for you but you were able to dodge him, his hands missing your body, head coming to land near your shoulder. You had just enough leverage with your body weight to throw him into the wall with a sharp thud and you scrambled away, going for the door. But then you remembered the guards that were waiting on the other side of it. 

You gave a whistle like the one he had, high and shrill, standing just to the side of the door as you waited to ambush the men who came when they thought he called. 

It only took a moment, the first one rushing in, a puzzled look on his face as he watched Mitchum try to catch his breath and get off the mattress. You jumped on the guard’s back, wrapping your arm around his shoulders and pulling back on him. He choked and sputtered against you, slamming you back against the wall but you tucked your head into his neck so you wouldn’t get hit there again. Instead, you sank your teeth into the tender flesh there, not like a lover but like an animal, ripping and tearing in search of his jugular. He shrieked and fumbled for his knife, grabbing it off his belt and slashing blindly back toward you. 

The man didn’t need much precision, though, the blade sinking into the thick of your arm just as your teeth closed around the flesh of his neck. You ripped your head away, a gush of blood in your mouth as you pulled his skin from his body, spitting the part of him you took onto the ground. The knife was still lodged in your arm and you released your hold on his shoulders to pull it free, adjusting your grip on it as quickly as you could to stab it into his bleeding neck. He dropped to his knees and you released your hold on him, rushing into the hall covered in blood, the knife in your grip. You wiped your mouth on the back of your sleeve and were about to make for the room where you thought they’d taken Abby when another figure darkened the mouth of the hall - the other guard. 

“What the…” he began. You didn’t give him a chance to finish. You launched yourself at him, his hands flying up on instinct to protect himself and he did a good enough job of it, catching your shoulders and keeping you not quite at arm’s reach. But you didn’t need to be any closer than that, sinking the knife into his throat, too. 

You heard a commotion in the back bedroom then, heavy thuds and a scream as the door flew open, Abby leaning against the frame and panting for breath, blood dripping from a gash at her cheek. 

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” she said, a broken piece of wood tight in her grasp. 

You just nodded once, making for the door, acutely aware that you didn’t have shoes or pants - so like the first time you’d fled for your life all those years ago on the ranch as the world came crashing down around you. 

The two of you peered out of the window at the front of the house, the guards who had been posted just outside gone. 

“Think those assholes were the ones who came in as back up,” you said, eyes darting back toward the bedrooms. You knew you hadn’t killed everyone but you couldn’t risk going back to finish the job, not now. People would notice the missing guards too fast and then you’d be outnumbered. “Which way?” 

“East,” she said. “The shortest route to the woods. We can lose them there.” 

It was dusk, not the best time to be on the run but at least soon you’d have darkness on your side. 

“Right,” you said, looking over at her for a moment. “See you on the other side.” 

She looked at you, too, like she wasn’t quite sure what to make of you. 

“Yeah,” she said, giving you a firm nod. 

You led the way, knife still firmly in your grip as you moved onto the porch, crouching low and sweeping the area. There were men in the distance, running toward something you couldn’t see with rifles drawn. 

“Go,” you whispered, staying bent over but letting your legs extend, ignoring the pain of sharp weeds and broken concrete below your bare feet as you ran, looking frantically for anyone who might try to stop you. 

You froze on instinct when there was a sharp whistle that cracked through the air, three short blasts like some kind of signal. You grabbed Abby and ducked between two houses, just in time to see a cluster of men with rifles tight in their grips running past. 

“Ever seen them do shit like that?” You asked quietly. 

“No,” she said. “They used whistles before for signals but never three…” 

“Well, let’s hope whatever the fuck made them raise the alarm stays busy with these assholes,” you said, peeking around the corner. No one else was coming. “Let’s go.” 

You darted from house to house, seeking cover in shadows where you could and you were starting to think that, maybe, you’d managed it. That you were going to get out of here and find a way back to Jackson when Abby shrieked behind you. 

A guard had grabbed her, his arm around her neck as he yanked her back. She flailed and thrashed, trying to dislodge him but he withstood her, pressing a handgun against her temple. 

“I’ll do it!” He snapped and your hands went up as Abby’s eyes met yours, wide and wet and afraid. “I’ll shoot her and you’re next if you don’t just calm down and come with me…” 

“Please,” Abby said, but she wasn’t begging him. Her eyes were locked on yours, pleading. “Don’t let him take me again, just let them kill me, please…” 

You held her gaze, tears burning as you did. 

“I’m sorry,” you said, voice wet as you started to lower yourself toward the ground. You looked toward the guard. “Just going to set the knife down…” 

“Go slow,” he said, the gun still to Abby’s temple. 

You just nodded, watching him closely, waiting for her to do something that would draw his attention. You didn’t need to wait long. 

“No!” She screamed, the sound thick with tears. His eyes went to her but that was all you needed. You shot forward and thrust the knife into his calf, the blade embedding in his muscle before you twisted it. He screamed and instinctively dropped the weapon, his hands flying toward you and his leg, his hold on Abby gone. She stumbled forward and you snatched the gun from the ground, shooting him in the head at such close range it covered you in his blood. 

“Thanks,” she said shakily. “I… thank you.” 

“Told you,” you said, rolling the dead man over so you could get the rifle from his back. “We’re in this together.” 

You handed her the smaller gun and kept the rifle for yourself and the two of you pressed on. You were able to dodge other trouble as you heard the commotion from the edge of the neighborhood get closer. There was the crack of gunshots and the boom of explosions and you just hoped whatever was coming for you wasn’t worse than you’d already been stuck with. Mitchum had pissed off a lot of people in his time. If he was gaining territory now, there was no telling who might have come to put a stop to it. And that was assuming a hoard of infected hadn’t picked up on this place, something you could only survive by outrunning. 

“Do you know where the stables are?” You asked, gun still tight in your grip. 

“No,” she said. “But I’m not exactly a great rider, if we don’t have time to saddle a horse…” 

You almost laughed at that, the absurdity that a horse could possibly hinder you. 

“Don’t worry,” you said. “All I need is a horse. I can take care of shit after that.” 

She looked at you for a second before she took a deep breath and nodded. 

“Right,” she said. “Still…” 

“Let’s split up,” you said, grip tightening on the rifle as you said it. 

“No,” she said quickly. “Fuck that, we split up…” 

“We need to get the fuck out of here,” you said. “And out run whatever’s making all that noise. Our best shot is on a horse. You go right, I go left, we meet up in the tree line on the other side. If you find the stable, just grab a horse, don’t worry about any tack, I just need a horse. Got it?” 

“Yeah,” she said. “Fuck I hope you’re not crazy.” 

“I’m not,” you said. Taking a deep breath. “Be careful.” 

She looked at you again. 

“You too.” 

You went your separate ways, smoke on the horizon now as you searched as best you could for some sign of horses but found nothing. You were nearly stopped once by one of Mitchum’s men but you shot him before he could flag anyone down, the sound of the gunfire blending with the sound of the chaos that grew closer. 

You made it to the tree line, a wide open span of grass between the house at the back of the subdivision and the start of the forest. You looked around quickly before you ran, darting from the shelter of the house and moving as quickly as you could for where you said you’d meet Abby, hoping that she found a damn horse. 

But you barely made it that far when it happened. A thick, meaty hand closing over your shoulder, ripping you around to face Mitchum’s ruddy skin as he seethed, a murderous look in his eye. 

You raised the rifle and tried to shoot even though he was far too close and he knocked the gun away as you pulled the trigger, the bullet going wide and barely catching the side of the leg he limped with. 

Still, he hissed in pain before he lifted his leg, planting his foot in your chest and kicking you, hard, forcing you to stumble back, your bare feet catching on a tree root and sending you to the ground. 

“You fucking bitch,” he stalked over as you scrambled up onto your hands, pulling yourself backwards from him, breathlessly looking around for something - anything - that could help you. “You think you can just do whatever you want, that it?” 

His foot collided with your shoulder this time, forcing you onto your back and he all but fell beside you, taking your face sharply in his hand. 

“Could have just cooperated,” he said, panting, keeping his face a good distance from you now so it was just out of reach and your fingers had nothing to scratch at. “Could have made life easy for yourself. You think I’m the worst thing out here, huh? Think there aren’t other men who would have let you fuckin’ die a long time ago?” 

“Fuck you,” you hissed as his fingers dug into your cheeks. 

“You want me to treat you the way those other men would?” He asked, releasing your face just to punch it. The blow made your head spin and your vision go spotty. “Fine, I can do that, I can stop bein’ gentle with you. Because you better believe I was being gentle before. Won’t be gentle now, not for you.” 

He grabbed your knees and wrenched your legs apart, going between them before you could snap them shut and you more heard his belt buckle than saw it. 

“You want to die on my cock?” He asked. “Who am I to fuckin’ stop you…” 

Time slowed, only for a moment. In that long, torturous second, you remembered everything from your time in captivity that your mind had tried to protect you from. The haze of pain the last time Mitchum had you, the way he forced your body to bend to his will in such a way that it didn’t feel like yours anymore, the burn of his brand on your flesh, the strange mix of fear and hope that maybe this time he would kill you. 

But you remembered everything that had moved in to replace all that agony, too. The way you’d slowly, gently come to love Joel more than you knew it was possible to love somone. The way Ellie was the opposite, bursting her way into your life and leaving you not other choice but to love her with everything you had. The way you’d grown to love everyone in Jackson, all these people who had come to rely on you, too. The way Savvy had joined you there, finding a place in a world you thought had died years before her birth. 

You couldn’t let him unmake all of that inside you. You had too much to lose, too much that made you who you were now, you didn’t have room for it all alongside the pain he was trying to force on you. You couldn’t let him take it all away. Not now.

Time righted itself again, just as his hand came to rest over the gusset of your underwear and you roared, the sound more ripping itself from you as you shot forward, slamming your forehead into Mitchum’s nose and feeling the satisfying collapse of it below your skull. He shocked back from you and you wrapped your hands around his neck, shoving yourself onto your knees and screaming as you did. He was larger than you and you had to work to knock him off balance but you were determined and he collapsed back, your hands still tight to his throat as you sat on his chest, knees on either side of his ribcage. 

He kept his wits about him as you tried to choke him, though, his fist catching you sharply on the chin and knocking your hands free for a moment. He took advantage of it and grabbed your left hand, bringing the place where Cody had cut your fingers away to his mouth and biting down, making you shriek in pain. You ripped your hand back from his mouth and punched him across the face with the other as he tried to wrench you from your place on top of him, leveraging your body with his own. 

Eventually, he managed it, his large hand shoving against your ribs as his torso twisted at just the right point when you moved to punch him again, sending you sprawling onto the forest floor. 

He was on you again in a second, the heavy weight of him on top of you as you tried to free yourself. 

“Told you, you little bitch,” he panted. You could feel his erection through his pants. “You’re mine and if I say you’re gonna die on my cock? You’re gonna die on my fucking cock.” 

You screamed, trying to wrench your hands free but it was no use, the panic in you rising. This, something inside you said, was the end. There would be no return, there would be no survival and there would be nothing left of you to save. 

And then something pulled his body from yours. You didn’t stop to see what, rolling onto your knees and scrambling to your feet, running into the trees before something else could destroy you.

***

“Bambi!” Joel screamed, frantic, but you didn’t seem to hear him, running headlong into the trees. 

“I got him,” Tommy panted, a boot on the man he’d pulled off of you’s chest and a gun pointed at his head. “Get her!”

“Don’t kill him,” Joel said sharply to his brother. “He’s mine.” 

He didn’t wait for a reply, just taking off after you as fast as his bad leg would let him move. He was so close to you now, so close to feeling you alive in his arms, so close to keeping you where no one would ever hurt you again. 

But Joel’s body was heavy. He’d been awake for far too long and had put it through far too much, especially for someone his age. But he didn’t have another choice. He couldn’t rest, not when he knew what was happening to you.

He’d stayed awake all night, going with Tommy to grab someone toward the start of their morning patrol. It would be hours before anyone knew they were gone. 

The man they took was young, not much older than Ellie. Joel should have felt bad about that, he thought, especially when he knew that he’d done much the same thing when he was far older than this boy, after he was raised in a time where he knew better how men should behave. But that didn’t matter. He was nothing more than an obstacle in his path to you. One made of flesh and bone and pain but an obstacle none the less. It did not take long to break him and he told Joel what he needed to know: that you were in the camp, kept in a guarded house toward the middle of it, and that Mitchum was on his way back that day. They expected him there before nightfall. Joel killed the man quickly and hid the body, then three of them moved to hide out the rest of the day, not able to get close enough to the camp to watch Mitchum come in. They’d just have to hope the guard was right and that nothing held up his return. 

It was early afternoon when Ellie noticed something coming up behind their hiding spot. She damn near jumped to her feet, rifle in hand and aimed into the forest. 

“Who’s there?” She snapped. “Not afraid to fucking shoot if you don’t answer.” 

“Take it easy, Williams,” Gene said, emerging from the brush with his horse following behind him. “Been lookin’ for you three.” 

“Normally, Miller, I’d be up your ass for being this easy to track but, this time, it was lucky,” Warren said, coming up behind Gene. “Should mean the others can keep up, too.” 

“The fuck are you doin’ out here?” Tommy asked, moving to embrace the men. 

“Made it back from looking for the kids to learn they’d made it back and you three headed out,” Gene said. “Soon as we could trust the horses to make the ride, we came too.” 

“If you’re here to try to talk us out of this…” Joel began, tightening his grip on his rifle, but Warren cut him off. 

“We’re getting her back,” he said, a sense of finality in his tone. “We can’t let aggression like this stand. It shows weakness, that we’ll just let any asshole come to our city and take our people. And besides all that… she is our people. Not going to just them have her. We’re here to help you, Joel. And there’s more coming behind us.” 

He was right. By the time it was getting closer and closer to dark, damn near everyone from Jackson who had a patrol rotation had amassed where Joel, Tommy and Ellie had holed up to wait. The last to join were Maria, Julie and Savvy, Gatling perched on your daughter’s lap as she sat astride Perseus. 

“What are you doing here?” Ellie asked, looking at her, eyes wide. “You’re supposed to be back in Jackson, it’s not safe…” 

“I’ve spent more time out here than you,” she said defensively, looking at Ellie like she was daring her to argue. “And she’s my mother, she’s out here because of me. I’m not about to sit at home on my ass while everyone else fights for her.”

Warren focused on coordinating everyone else, planning a full blown incursion of Mitchum’s encampment. Joel didn’t care. As long as he was able to get you back safely, the rest of it didn’t matter. Warren, thankfully, seemed to understand. He left Joel, Tommy, Savvy and Ellie out of the planning. The rest was on him. The four of them were finding you. 

As everyone got into position to launch the attack, Joel rode up alongside Warren. He adjusted the grip on his reins, looking for something to do with the nervous energy thrumming through him. He was close to you, so close he could almost feel the warmth of you next to him. 

“Thank you,” Joel said, more glancing at Warren than really looking at him. “Know we ain’t always gotten along…” 

“You think that really matters at a time like this?” He asked, raising his eyebrows. “We take care of our own. You and her? You’re both part of this place now, like it or not. That means we ride for you.” 

Joel nodded. 

“You focus on finding your wife,” Warren continued. “We’ll make sure none of ‘em ever come back for her or for anyone else.” 

“Mitchum, the leader, is mine,” Joel said, meeting his eyes this time. “After everything he’s done, he’s mine and I mean to make him pay for it.” 

Warren looked at him second, the smallest hint of a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. 

“Wouldn’t expect anything less. Good luck, Miller.” 

Joel sighed and looked toward the camp.

“You too.” 

The whole of the encampment was drawn to where the people of Jackson had begun their attack, giving Joel, Tommy, Ellie and Savvy plenty of space to search. They still had to be careful, ready to kill anyone who challenged them, but they didn’t need to. It was hard, letting the handful of men who ran past them go knowing that they may have been men who had hurt you but Joel swallowed that small hurt. The only comfort was knowing that they’d meet death soon, anyway. He just hoped it’d painful when they did.

Joel found the building he thought was yours, a house at the center of the encampment like the man they’d taken before had said. It was empty of everything besides signs of a fight, dead guards and bloody chains evident. Joel found your boots and jeans in a bedroom and his hands shook as he picked them up, blood around the ankle of one leg of the pants. His chest got tight as he folded the jeans, picked up the boots and put them in his pack before he left to look for you again. 

He had to keep reassuring himself that you were here, that he’d find you soon, anything to keep the panic from taking over. He had repeated that comfort so many times that, when he saw you, he thought, for a second, that he’d imagined you. That his mind had broken under the exhaustion and the fear and had started showing him the only thing that keep him going. But you were in nothing but a shirt - one of his shirts - with blood on your bare legs and a rifle in your hand and he knew you were real. He wouldn’t picture you like this, hurting and afraid and, for a second, there was relief. He’d done it, he found you. 

You took off before he had the chance to call your name and he grabbed Tommy, Savvy and Ellie to go after you when they were stopped by a group of men who were heading for the fighting at the edge of the encampment. 

Joel had very little patience for them. They were just more obstacles, more things that needed to be destroyed so he could reach you. They made quick work of them, not even bothering to move their bodies from the street before following the small path between houses that you had. 

When he didn’t see you at first, he was terrified that he was too late. That you’d run into trouble and he’d find you limp and lifeless on the ground and all of this would have been for nothing, that he’d have to find a way to stay here with you because there would be no going back otherwise. 

But he heard you then, your scream harsh and angry and afraid and he ran for the sound. Your cries shifted for a moment, to one of shock and pain, and then you went quiet. He tried to push himself faster, harder, and then he found you. The sight made him sick, you fighting below a man trying to hurt you. It was a sight so like those he’d seen with other women before but now, he would do the right thing. This time, he would save you. 

He roared and ripped the man from your body, tearing him back and throwing him to the ground and you scrambled away, not even looking back over your shoulder as you did. He had no choice but to follow you.

While Joel’s body was beaten down, yours was, too. He could see it as he drew closer, the bandage around your hand, the blood at your arm, the slight limp on the leg with the bloodied ankle. You were running like your life depended on it but he still caught you quickly, his hand closing around the wrist of your intact hand and pulling you back against him. 

It was like he came back into his body when he did, the feeling of you in his arms the thing that tied him to the Earth, to his humanity. The pain in his shoulder from the knife he’d taken there hit him then, the soreness of his leg, too. None of it compared to the relief that was there when he touched you. You were alive. The rest of it didn’t matter.

“No!” You shrieked, colliding with his body, planting your injured hand against his chest to try and shove him back. “Don’t touch me! Don’t fucking touch me!” 

“Bambi!” He said, panting for breath, clutching you tightly to his chest, his hand finding your cheek and forcing you to look at him. Your eyes were wide and wild, just like they had been the first time he’d seen you. They darted, frantic, over his face and there was a kind of desperation there he had never seen before, one that sent a chill up his spine. “It’s me, it’s me, I’ve got you, it’s OK baby. You’re safe, I’ve got you, you’re OK.” 

“Joel?” You said it like you didn’t believe he was there, those wild eyes softening at the edges. 

“It’s me,” he said again. “I’ve got you, sweetheart. It’s OK.” 

“Joel,” your voice cracked and you pulled your wrist from his hold to put your arms around his neck, clinging to him. “You’re here, the girls, we have to find the girls, he…” 

“They’re safe,” he said, wrapping his arms around you and holding you tighter than he should but he couldn’t seem to stop. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there, baby, m’so sorry…” 

Your legs gave out and he held you tight, lowering you both gently to the ground as you cried against him with choking, wracking sobs that shook your whole body. He just held you, rocking you gently as he did, his nose pressed into your hair as his lips kissed the crown of your head again and again. 

“Is she OK?” Savvy’s voice sounded so small.

Joel looked to find the girls standing beside him, watching with concerned looks on their faces. 

He wasn’t sure how to answer them. 

“We’ll get her back to town,” he said, still holding and rocking you. “It’ll be alright…”  

“Joel,” Tommy called. “What are we doin’? We gotta move.” 

He pulled himself back from you just enough to look at you, putting a finger gently below your chin and tilting your face to his. Your eyes were glassy. 

“That man,” he said softly. “The one who was on top of you. That Mitchum?” 

Your chin trembled but you nodded. He pressed a kiss to your forehead, leaving his lips there until he felt you take a deep but shaky breath. He pulled back enough to see you again. 

“I’m gonna go take care of him,” he said. “Our girls are here, they’re gonna stay with you, OK?” 

“They’re…” you frowned and looked around until you saw them, your eyes going a little wide when you did. It was like you couldn’t fully process anything that wasn’t right in front of you. Your eyes darted back to him. “What are they doing here? They should be back in Jackson, they should…” 

“They’re OK,” he said gently. “They wanted to come get you back and they did. You stay with them. I’ll take care of him and then we can all go back to Jackson together…” 

“Jackson…” You frowned for a moment, like you were trying to think of something and then your eyes went wide again. “Jackson, they want to take Jackson, they’re coming for the city, that’s what Cody was trading me for, he…” 

“S’OK,” Joel said, running a soothing hand over your hair. “Already killed Cody. We’re killing the rest of them here today, whole town is out here. We’re ending it. They won’t be a threat, not anymore. It’s OK, baby. You did it. You saved the girls, you survived. You can rest now.” 

He looked up to Savvy and Ellie, giving them a small nod toward the ground. They knelt next to you, one on either side, looking at each other for a moment before reaching to gingerly touch you. You flinched at first and then relaxed and Joel kissed your temple. 

“Gatling,” Savvy said, the dog suddenly at attention at her side. She snapped and touched your shoulder. “Guard.” 

The dog turned and stood sentinel, watching with ears pricked. Joel stood, leaving you with your daughters and your dog before prowling to the man who had tried to take everything from him. 

As he drew close, there was an explosion, closer than Joel was happy about hearing, and Tommy looked at him.

“Don’t think we got the kind of time you want,” he said, tightening the grip on his gun. “Better make it count.” 

Joel gave him a nod, squaring his jaw before looking down to the man on his side. Tommy had bound his hands and his eyes were somewhere between rage and fear. Something told Joel he hadn’t been challenged, not this directly, in quite some time. 

He reached down and took a fistful of his shirt, lifting his shoulders roughly from the dirt and dragging him back to a tree. He propped him up there, kneeling beside him and he saw a flash of defiance for a moment, like he was going to move to stop Joel. 

Joel wasn’t having that. He punched him, hard and sharp, across the face, sending his head whipping around. He glanced back, finding Tommy over his shoulder as he leveled his gun at Mitchum. Joel turned his attention back to his quarry. 

“I don’t know who you are or what you want,” the man said through clenched teeth, looking between Joel and Tommy. “But I’m sure we can make a deal…” 

“Time for deals is long past,” Joel said, pulling his knife from his belt. He turned the blade over in the fading light between them, giving Mitchum a chance to actually see the size of it.

“What do you want?” He said, his eyes darting from the knife back to Joel’s face. “Name it, it’s yours. Territory? Fine. Support of my men? You have it. Resources? Take it.”

“You think it’s that simple?” Joel asked. “What I want, you can’t give me.”

“Try me,” Mitchum said, teeth clenched.

“What I want,” Joel said, voice flat and calm. “Is to take back everything you took from my wife.” 

He took his knife and plunged it into Mitchum’s leg then, sinking the entire length of it into his thigh until he hit bone. The man screamed, writhing and thrashing below him. Joel held the knife in place, each jerking motion making the cut wider, harsher. It wasn’t long before he stilled, panting for breath. Joel kept his hand on the knife. 

“You took her from her daughter,” Joel said, twisting the blade as he did. He kept his voice quiet, hopefully quiet enough that neither Ellie nor Savvy could hear. Mitchum’s feet scrambled uselessly against the dirt. “You branded her.” He pulled the knife free. “Told her you’d raped and murdered her child.” He thrust the weapon into his arm now, wanting to save his stomach until he knew he was ready for him to bleed out. “Held her captive for years.” He twisted it, cutting a new path through his flesh as he screamed and panted for breath. “Sent your men to hunt her down and take her away from me and our girls.” 

He pulled the knife free of his arm, the man limp and panting on the ground and Joel had this sickening feeling settle in his stomach. He could never hurt Mitchum enough to fix it. No amount of agony he brought upon him would bring back the parts of you he broke. No amount of torment would bring Joel comfort when it was done. He would always hold you and look at you and see the ways he failed you, from decades before when he should have done better and saved women like you to days ago when he should have been there to keep you and the girls safe. You would forever be the reminder of the many ways he should have been better and  forever be the bearer of the scars because he wasn’t. 

“And you did all of that,” Joel said, taking the knife and cutting through the denim of Mitchum’s jeans, revealing the thin cotton of boxer shorts below. “So you could, what? Rape her?” 

Mitchum shook his head, straining to get away from Joel but he had nowhere to go. Joel still took his shoulder and shoved him roughly back against the tree, anyway. 

“You think she was some thing you could just take?” He asked, trailing the tip of the knife over the round of his stomach, the breadth his chest, pressing the point into his chin to force him to look Joel in the eye. “Thought if you branded her like livestock you’d own her? That it?” 

“I… I tried,” he managed through clenched teeth, panting for breath. 

“Tried what?” Joel asked when he didn’t continue. 

“Tried to get her to come with me,” he said. “Tried to buy her horses. Could… could have used her but she decided to fight…” 

“So you thought you’d treat her like an animal?” Joel asked, head cocked to the side. “See, that don’t sit right with me. Not one bit.” 

Joel took the knife from his chin and went to the boxers, carefully cutting the elastic over the fly. He quickly glanced toward you and made sure the girls weren’t looking too closely before he used the blade to fold the fabric back, exposing his penis and balls to the air. 

“Anything you and your people want,” he squirmed below Joel. “Anything, name it, anything at all…” 

“Right now?” Joel said, looking at his face. “I want this.” 

Joel lined the tip of the blade up with the base of Mitchum’s penis so the width of the knife ran down his length and pressed through it, slow and firm. Mitchum’s legs kicked uselessly as he shrieked, his body straining for an escape but Joel didn’t give him one. He just pushed the knife further and further into his flesh until the handle of it was all that was visible, the blade bloodied by his genitals. 

Joel left it there and was silent until Mitchum had screamed himself to silence. 

“We’re somethin’ alike, you and me,” Joel said, watching him. “Both know what we want, know how to take it. But difference is, I only take it when it’s owed and I only take it from some who deserves to lose it. You should have left her alone. Should’ve left her alone then, really should’ve left her alone now. You decided to take more than what’s yours and now you have to pay for it.” 

“Fuck you,” he managed through gritted teeth, his face wet with tears and spit. 

Joel nodded slowly. 

“See, you have a lot to learn,” he said. There was another blast, one that sounded close, molotov cocktails flying between opposing sides in a war the man bleeding had begun. “And I don’t got much time to teach you.” Joel pulled the knife from his body and he screamed in pain, trying to double over but Joel didn’t allow him to. “So I’m just gonna take it from you in blood and in pain because when you die? Want you to know why. Want you to understand that you could have lived. If you’d just kept to yourself, not taken what wasn’t yours to take, not taken her, you could have lived. You chose otherwise.” 

He put the knife into his leg, just over his knee and pushed, dislodging his kneecap as he screamed. Joel nodded, learning the different tenor of his cries. He liked hearing the change in it, the way his pain shifted and pulled from him. He moved to his shoulder, driving the knife down through it and in toward his lung, listening to the change of his pain. 

Mitchum’s blood was sticky and hot and gunfire was getting louder and Joel was lost in taking him apart. He grew tired of the distance the knife afforded, deciding that he wanted to feel the collapse of your tormentor’s body with his own skin. He left the blade embedded in his arm before taking his thumb and pressing it into the wound at his shoulder, the sticky heat of his blood driving him forward as he felt the give of his body beneath his force. Once he was satisfied with that, he curled his hand into a fist and pummeled his face to the point of disfiguration. Mitchum’s nose was broken, his jaw dislodged, eye socket collapsed, a mass of bone and viscera that was clinging to life, something Joel didn’t understand but was grateful for all the same. He couldn’t keep hurting a corpse. He only had as long as Mitchum’s will to live hung out and he wanted that to be a very, very long time. Even if it didn’t heal you or him, even if it brought him no satisfaction, he wanted it. In this world, the only justice to be found was in pain and in blood and he intended to give you justice in the only way he knew how. 

Tommy, he knew, was trying to pull him back from the edge, but he tuned him out. He understood why his brother was worried, why he’d pulled him back before, why he’d stepped in with Ellie the way he did. He knew, on a certain level, that the path he was done was not who he’d made himself to be in Jackson. But, with Mitchum in his grasp, he didn’t care. All that mattered was destroying the man who had tried to destroy you. 

He wasn’t sure how long he’d cut and beaten and hurt Mitchum when he heard you, your voice quiet and shaky over his shoulder. 

“Joel.” 

He stopped what he was doing, leaving the blade embedded in Mitchum’s side and adjusting his body to block the carnage from your view before turning to see you there. In that moment, you were a contradiction. He’d never seen you look so vulnerable or so strong, your injured hand cradled to your chest but a defiant look on your face. He’d never seen you so small or so tall, so desperate or so determined. Gatling was at your side, glued to your leg as she stared at Mitchum, her ears pressed back on her head and her eyes narrowed. He got to his feet, wiping his bloodied hands on his shirt before stepping closer and taking your cheek gently in his hand. 

“Sweetheart,” he said quietly, searching your tear streaked face, your eyes so wide and afraid and unyielding. 

“I want to finish this,” you said, your voice thick. “I want to finish him and I want to go home. Please, take me home.” 

He looked at you for a moment, your gaze pleading and stubborn, before pressing his lips tenderly to your forehead. 

“Whatever you want,” he said softly, dropping his forehead to yours. “I’ll give you anything you want.” 

You closed your eyes and took a deep, shaky breath before taking his hand in your uninjured one, lacing your fingers together. He touched your wedding ring in his pocket, still attached to part of you, as you led him over to Mitchum, Gatling still at your side. 

The man was slumped against the tree, covered in blood, the sound of his breaths rattling and wet and Joel knew he didn’t have long left. 

You stood over him, looking down at him with your hand tight in Joel’s, something cold and almost analytical passing over your features as you did. 

“I wouldn’t have wanted to do it like this before,” you said eventually to the dying man at your feet. “I never liked killing before. I never wanted to kill anybody before you, never. Even… even people who hurt me or tried to take what you took, I never wanted to kill them. When I did kill, I never much liked doing it. But I want to kill you. You made me want to kill, you made me like this. I was good, once. And you took that. So I’m going to kill you and I’m going to like it and you should know that it’s because of what you made me.” 

Joel gave your hand a squeeze, ready to hand you whatever weapon you asked for and you held tightly to him. 

But you didn’t need it. You gave his hand a squeeze before you released it. 

“Gatling,” you said, snapping your fingers and pointing to Mitchum. “Kill.” 

The dog obeyed instantly, getting down low and growling, her ears pressed back to her head before she shot forward, a bullet from a gun, and locked her jaws around his throat, ripping and tearing, Mitchum screaming for only a moment before going quiet, the only sound left on the air the guttural snarl of your dog ripping him apart. 

Joel was certain the man had been dead for a few minutes by the time you called her off, Gatling immediately dropping the shredded flesh when you gave the release command. 

You collapsed against Joel then, burying your face in his shoulder and sobbing into him as he held you. 

“You’re OK,” he said quietly, running a bloodstained hand soothingly over you. “I’ve got you. Never gonna have to do that again, you’re OK.” 

He held you close for a moment, until your breaths became less shaky and he thought you might be able to stand on your own. Joel pulled back from you then, brushing your hair back from your face. Your eyes were glassy again.

“Let’s get you dressed,” he said gently. “Then we can get the fuck out of here.” 

You just nodded and watched as Joel got your jeans and boots from his pack. He helped you into them, guiding your body through the necessary movements. You trembled under his touch and all he wanted to do was get you home so he could hold you close and tight and never let anyone lay a hand on you ever again. 

When you were dressed, Joel got to his feet and you fell against him. His arm slipped around your waist and he held you close, Ellie and Savvy moving to be alongside Tommy. Ellie had her arm around Savvy’s shoulders, holding her back from the devastation that had once been Mitchum. 

“Should see where everyone else is,” Tommy said, watching Joel carefully. “Don’t like how quiet it’s gotten.” 

Joel nodded slowly, having forgotten for a while that there was anything else to worry about outside of getting you back. 

Tommy led the way, Ellie and Savvy staying close to him, you still against Joel’s side as he followed his brother, on alert for anything that was a threat to you. 

He didn’t need to wait long. There was a rustle in the brush and Joel turned and raised his gun, only to see a young woman emerge, a rifle tight in her grip. For the second time that day, Joel thought he might have been imagining things. Because the girl in front of him looked just like the one who had nearly killed him months earlier. 

“You,” Tommy snarled, raising his gun, too, and Joel realized that he wasn’t imagining things. She was here, too. “What the fuck are you doing here?

“Don’t want to hurt anyone,” she said, lowering her weapon, nodding to you. “And I’m here for the same reason your friend is.” 

Joel turned to shield you but you stopped him and he looked down to you, frowning slightly. He lowered his gun then and saw out of the corner of his eye as Tommy did, too. 

“It’s alright,” you said, staying pressed tightly to his side, watching her. “You made it.” 

“So did you,” she said, looking you up and down, her gaze staying on your face. “You OK?” 

“I think so,” you nodded, still clinging to Joel. 

She didn’t look like she believed you but she pressed on anyway, turning her cold gaze to Joel. 

“I don’t want to be here talking to any of you for any longer than I have to be,” she said. “So I’ll let your wife explain the rest of it. Just know that after what she did for me, I won’t ever look for you again. And if, for some reason, we run into each other? I won’t hurt you. I’d appreciate if you did the same.” 

“You really expect us to just let you…” Ellie began but Joel cut her off. 

“S’OK baby girl,” he said, still watching the woman who had nearly killed him. She still seemed so young. She had a look in her eyes that reminded him of you, wounded but determined. He remembered what little he could of her after she turned on him that day, how she’d seemed so angry and in so much pain for someone so young. He’d told Mitchum that he only took what was owed and only from people who deserved it. Even after everything, he wasn’t sure this girl deserved it. “No use in killing people who don’t need to be.” 

“Thank you,” she said, looking at you. “And I really hope this is the last time I ever see fucking any of you but… thank you, for what you did for me. I won’t forget it.” 

She watched your group, her gun still held low, not turning her back to any of you until she was swallowed by the brush. 

“You really want to just let her go?” Tommy asked, looking to Joel. 

“That’s bullshit!” Ellie said, looking quickly the direction the girl had gone in. “She’s a fucking threat, she…” 

“She’s not,” you cut her off, tightening your hold on Joel. Ellie deflated a little but you pressed on. “You can’t let revenge swallow you up, honey. You just can’t.”

“Good lesson,” Warren said from behind Joel. He instinctively turned, keeping you away from the newcomer even though Joel knew the man well. He looked you over briefly before turning his attention back to Joel. “See you found her. It’s done, we wiped them out. A few injuries on our side but nothing major. We’re going to see what’s here and post up a few guards, make sure anyone else who comes around and thinks they can try us knows better, but all the trouble we’ve run into on patrol lately should be done for now.” 

“Good,” Tommy said. “Bout time something went our way around here.” 

“Expect you’ll be heading back?” Warren asked. Joel just gave him a nod. “Good. Let the folks at home know we’re all OK when you get there. Safe travels.” 

“You, too,” Joel said, tugging you closer.

He held you close as Tommy led the way back to where they’d left the horses, taking stock of you as you went. Your breaths were shaky but even, your footing unsteady but driven. Joel couldn’t be sure what was done to you here. He could only hope that you would find peace in Jackson and the life you shared with him and that, in time, you’d recover from it. 

The encampment was decimated, bodies of Mitchum’s men on the ground, Jackson folks already going from house to house taking stock, piling the dead together to burn. You stared at the carnage, a half dead look in your eyes as you did. Joel just held you, feeling everything again for the first time since he’d found you gone, until the five of you reached the horses. 

“Don’t have one for you,” Joel said gently. “But Ellie can ride with me or her and Savvy can ride together if…” 

“I want to ride with you,” you cut him off, looking at him with those wide eyes of yours. “Please, Joel. Take me home.” 

And so, he did. 

A/N: And Mitchum meets his end. I hope it was worth the wait for you all!

We are very, very close to the end of this fic, just two more chapters to wrap everything up. But Bambi is back with Joel, they have their girls and Jackson is saved. It's all going to get better from here :)

Thank you all so so much for going on this journey with me. It's been wonderful to share Joel and Bambi's story with you and it wouldn't be the same without you.

Love you!

Next Chapter

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[agoldenblackbird]

i'm gonna be a ranty bitch for a minute.

tbh i'm turned off even reading new buddie fic despite being a multishipper and have unfollowed a bunch of buddie accounts because i'm sick of the smug attitudes. one ask that i am otherwise not going to publish or respond to ended with 'sorry you don't understand media literacy bestie :)' fuck off. listen INFANT, i have been writing fanfic and original fic AND watching, reading and analyzing queer media since before you were born, i understand how character and story development works, and i know the difference between 'storyline i personally disliked' and 'bad writing.' this was BOTH, and it also was marketed to us as 'carefully crafted bi rep' and 'queer love story that is not about a bunch of pain and conflict FOR ONCE' so we have every right to be upset at the bait-and-switch.

the fact that i'm seeing the same exact posts - 'bt bones buddie CANON' that i saw three seasons ago after the bucktaylor breakup, or every time they thought buck and taylor MIGHT break up - says something. the fact that so many fans seem genuinely convinced (STILL!) that buddie is inevitable because there have been so many 'signs,' and then they rattle off a convoluted theory that would make the most hardcore taylor swift stan say 'wow, that's a bit of a reach,' honestly weirded me out a little when i first joined the 911 fandom. i have never been in a fandom where so many fans are insistent that their ship will be - not might be or could be, but WILL be - canon. i am skeptical both from past experience with other shows mishandling queer storylines or ship-baiting, and tim minnear's proven track record with this one of not really knowing what to do with buck's LI's. but i didn't want to yuck anybody's yum, so i let them have their theories and squee in peace, and unfollowed or blocked certain tags if i was seeing too much of it and getting annoyed. it's too out there for me, but i'm glad they're having fun!

yet they can't give us the same courtesy. they deride us as delusional for thinking that a canon pairing that was presented to us both in promo and the show itself as different and important (eg the bobby approval convo and 'buck getting off the hamster wheel') might last, and we're stupid to have ever liked tommy or lou or be disappointed at how the breakup was written, and if we point out the biphobia it's just sour grapes.

the bucktommy breakup is not the first time 911 has started out strong with an interesting storyline and fumbled it in the 4th quarter either because the writers got bored or in the name of needless drama/a 'gotcha' sudden twist. amir & bobby, eddie's fight club arc, the sperm donor SL, hen vs councilwoman ortiz, whatever the hell is going on with harry, the whole mess with shannon/kim, just to name a few. and especially the past couple of seasons, for me since 6b, the pacing has been off. they seem to have too much happening at once and many of the storylines don't have enough room to breathe to be narratively satisfying, or they get resolved in ways that feel lackluster.

if the toxic buddie stans who have been attacking lou on sm and sending death threats (wtf!) actually get what they want, which i admit is possible, but it's certainly not guaranteed….i don't know why they think the writers won't fumble that just as badly. it's not going to happen precisely the way they want it to because it is impossible to please everybody, that's what fanfic is for. but at this point i have zero faith that it would even be well done at all, and zero trust in the writers not to just sabotage or regress a character for funsies, and that's an excellent reason to stop watching the show. in most of my other fandoms i regard canon as a jumping-off point or a blurry outline at best, and i can have just as much fun in the 911 sandbox without any further input from canon at all, once i'm less angry.

[jayparked]

jayparked's 1k follower drabble celebration event!

as a big thank you for hitting this milestone i wanted to do an event for my followers :)

please send me an ask with one or two members from enhypen (except riki) and one or two numbers from the list below! after one each prompt has been claimed i will be crossing them out!

this event is nsfw so mdni

i got this list of nsfw prompts from this post. i did remove and adjust some of the prompts so this list is slightly different than the original posters!

1.“So how do you want me to fuck you?” 2. “I’m not sharing you with anybody. You’re mine, and mine only, and I’m going to make you remember that.” 3. “That’s sweet and all but do they touch you the way I touch you? Fuck you the way I fuck you? Mm, yeah, didn’t think so.” 4. Softly, “Want you to fuck me like you mean it.”  5. “Let me take care of you. I’ll do the work.” 6. “Gonna fuck you until the only word you remember is my name.” 7. “Can I…can I touch you?” 8. “My God, you’re so fucking gorgeous like this.”  9. “Can I please touch myself?” 10. “Wanna see how you look when you come undone under me.”  11. “I’ll make you feel good, I promise. Just trust me.” 12. “You sound/taste/feel/look so fucking good.” 13. “Oh God, you feel amazing, baby.”  14. A whispered “Please” slipping out of kiss bitten lips.  15. “You drive me so insane, you don’t even know.” 16. “You. Me. Bed. Now.”  17. “Is this okay?”  18. “How much do you want this?” 19. “Doing so good for me, sweetheart.”  20. “Shh, just a little more…”  21. “You’re taking me so well, baby.” 22. “Say please.”  23. “Tell me how you want me.” 24 Soft whines and whimpers; held back noises because they don’t want anyone else hearing them; a plea for more without the use of words.  25. “Oh, I can think of many ways to shut you up right now.” 

26. “I wanna hear you beg for it"   27. “Where do you want me to touch you?” “I don’t know and I don’t care — I just want your hands on me. Please.” 28. “P-please just”—a sob—“I just need you to fuck me.”  29. “Need/want you in me.” 30. “Beg and maybe I’ll think about it.” 31. “Not so fast, bun.”  32. “So…You touch yourself to the thought of me? I’d like to see that.”   33. “Want your fingers in me.”  34. “Now, why don’t we teach you a lesson?”  35. “Touch yourself for me.” 36. “I wanna taste you on my lips again.” 37. It’s the gentle and soft touches which send shivers skittering down their spine.  38. “Rough or gentle?”  39. “Fuck, look at you right now…” 40. “You’re really messing with my head here.” 41. “Fuck, just touch me already! Just—do something!” “Not so fast. We’ve still got the whole night/day ahead of us.” 42. “Don’t wanna come until I feel you in me.” 43. “All yours. Only yours.” 44. “How about we put that pretty mouth of yours into good use, hm?”  45. “I want you to say my name like that again.”  46. “Aren’t you desperate?”  47. “Only I get to ruin you like this, you hear me?” 48. “Only I get to touch you like this, okay?”  49. “Patience, love. We’re getting there.”  50. “Look at your reflection. Look at how gorgeous you are. So fucking gorgeous when I’m fucking you like this. So pretty for me, and only for me.”

51. “Be good for me.”  52. “You want to come?” “Y-yes, I— please—” “Hm, but do you really deserve to?”  53. “You like that, don’t you?”  54. “Let’s make your thoughts a reality, yeah?” 55. “I’ll fuck you so good, I promise.”  56. “I can taste myself on your lips and it’s messing me up real bad.”  57. “You look like a mess and I love it, because I’m the one who made you like this.”  58. “You’ve got me all hot and bothered.” 59. “You don’t get to touch yourself until I say so.”  60. “Always so needy for me, aren’t you? Can’t help yourself, can you?”  61. “Please let me come.”  62. “I-I promise I’ll be good.”  63. “How are you feeling?”  64. “God, you feel so good around me.”  65. “So wet/hard for me already, huh?” 66. “Mm, always so impatient for me, aren’t you?” 67. “Do I turn you on that much?” 68. “Let me ride you.” 69. “Behave.”  70. “F-Fuck, I don’t think I’m gonna last long if you keep doing that.”  71. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted someone more.”  72. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” 73. “Stop fucking teasing me and get to it already.”  74. “Oh, the things I’d do to you if we were alone right now…” 75. “Th-There are people outside this door—” “Well, this isn’t about them, is it?” 

76. “Look at you, squirming under me, all flushed and pretty looking. Can’t even take a little teasing, can you?” 77. “Yeah, but they don’t fuck you the way you deserved to be fucked, do they?”  78. “Might I remind you that these walls aren’t sound proof.”  79. A softly exhaled, “I don’t think I can ever get enough of you.”  80. “Do you know how much I love seeing you like this?”  81. “Gonna make sure you don’t forget about me or tonight.”  82. “Oh, sensitive there, aren’t we?”  83. In a hoarse whisper, “Fuck, you’re killing me here.”  84. “But you think about me when they’re fucking you, don’t you?” “I… That’s not true.”  85. “Try not to be so noisy, yeah?”  86. “Tell me if it hurts, okay?”  87. “Lift your hips up for me.” 88. “Fuck, you’re so hot when you’re bossy.” 89. “Look at you, coming undone before I’ve even started touching you.”  90. “I want to be the one fucking you this time.”  91. “Sweetheart, you’re so responsive to my touch.” 92. “I think you’d look even better under me.”  93. “Want you to ruin me.”  94. “Do whatever you want with me.”  95. “Just sit on my fucking face already.”  96. “Who gave you permission to touch yourself?” 97. “What did I just say?” 98. “You feel so fucking good in me.”  99. “You can have all of me if that’s what you want.”  100. “Baby—shit—I don’t think I’m gonna make it to the bed like this.”

101. “Tell me if it becomes too much, okay?” “Okay.”  102. “S-Stop leaving marks on my neck. I have a presentation first thing in the morning.” “Then I get to leave marks anywhere below the neck?” 103. “Let me make you feel good this time?”  104. “You only get to watch.” “B-but—” “No buts, sweetheart.”  105. “I’d fuck you right here, right now, if I could.”  106. “Let’s take it back to my place.” 107. “Are we— are we really going to do this here?” 108. “You look so cute like this, you know?” “Shut the fuck up and just fuck me already.”  109. “Why’d you stop?” “Because you sounded too fucking good and so I had like, a moment.”  110. “Eyes on me at all times, sweetheart.”  111. “Spread your legs for me.” … “Spread them wider.”  112. Hands firm on their thighs, keeping them from snapping them shut.  113. A whispered, “Then come for me,” right next to their ear after they beg for release 114. “I want you in the most sinful ways possible.”  115. “I want you to touch me like I’m the only thing you could ever want.”  116. “Can’t— can’t you go faster than this?”  117. “You like messing with my head, don’t you?” “Only because it clearly turns you on.” 118. “Fuck, you have such a tight hold on me, you don’t even know.”  119. “Don’t make too many noises or we’ll get caught.” “That’s part of the thrill.” 120. “You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted so badly.” 

thank you again for all of your support ♡ masterlist

[seireiteihellbutterfly]

Sunflower Sorrow - A Hanahaki Tale

A/N: Thank you so much @actuallysaiyan for making the pretty banner! And for reading my drafts and reassuring me multiple times that the story wasn't garbage.

All original artwork is credited at the bottom of the post.

Pairing: Higuruma x Fem!Reader

Warnings: 18+, MDNI, mentions of pain and death, PIV sex, clitoral and vaginal fingering, oral (fem receiving),

Summary: The reader finds herself infested with Hanahaki, right at the cusp of beginning to date her long time crush.

Higurma Masterlist

Your eyes open blearily against the sunlight pouring in, feeling like you’d much rather stay in bed than anything else. There’s a strange feeling in your body, almost like you’re about to come down with the flu, your chest feeling tight, and your throat feeling dry. Which is strange because you were fine when you went to bed. 

You groan as you roll over under the covers. Now was not the time to be getting sick. You wonder if you’re even well enough to go to work. Almost instinctively, your hand reaches for your phone, squinting against the backlight as you check your messages. A smile graces your face as you see a text from the man you had been out with last night.

I know this was just our second date, but I’m already thinking about a third. I’ve enjoyed our time together recently and would like to see you again. I guess get back to me? Oh, and I hope kissing you good night was appropriate. 😅

“Hiromi,” you mumble under your breath, feeling a rush of happiness flow through you as you read his text. The man was incredibly sweet and transparent and you loved that about him. Dating in your thirties was hard but he had given off some very positive signals over these last two dates and you couldn’t help but want to set up a third one quickly. You liked being around him, he was laid back and almost goofy, traits that most men seemed to lose at a certain age. Maybe if you recovered from this flu fast enough you can meet up with him over the weekend. 

I’d love that. I’m a little under the weather right now but if I’m feeling better by the weekend we can make plans? I’d like to see you again too. And yes, the kiss good night was totally appropriate. 😊

You text him back, heart fluttering as you hit send. You’re glad you had finally bitten the bullet and asked him out. There were signs of interest, but you had been secretly admiring him from afar for the better part of a year now. He was very gentlemanly, opening doors, asking if he could hold your hand, and checking in on your comfort while you were with him. A lawyer turned sorcerer, he talked passionately about his past cases and the interesting events that sparked his path into Jujutsu. On the first date, the both of you had been so wrapped up in conversation it took the poor waiter a minute to get a word in edgewise to ask if either of you had wanted another glass of wine. 

He was so impossibly handsome, the thick black hair and rich mahogany eyes, that crooked smile that came onto his face when he was amused by something. It was a wonder how he was still single. Just passing by him in the hallways made your heart pound, so sure that his greetings to you were just platonic and nothing more. There were so many other talented people in this institution, that you didn’t possibly think he could have any interest in you, convincing yourself those brief glances he gave you were imagined. 

But after last night’s kiss…so soft and patient, the lingering of lips, his large hands resting courteously on the small of your back, resting his forehead on yours, unwilling to let you go. Your hand had gripped the lapel of his coat, his scent flooding your senses, something woody and spicy that made you want to bury your face into his neck. Sure it’s only been two dates, but you couldn’t help but imagine what your life could be like with him. It felt like a guilty pleasure admitting it to yourself, but it wasn’t hurting anybody. It’s not like you were clawing at his door begging to move in with him. You were just really attracted to him, smitten, perhaps was the right word. 

A small ding from your phone shows a response from him. 

I’m sorry you’re not well. Yes, please get better soon, and let’s plan something for the weekend. I totally wasn’t waiting for your text by the way. You just happened to catch me on a break. 😉And I’m glad the kiss was appropriate. 

His text makes you giggle. How could someone be this adorable? The lucidity of his intentions was refreshing, with no awkward back and forth of painfully crafted messages trying to sound casual. He was making his interest plain, making it easier for you to let down the wariness of sounding too eager. It was a pleasant change of pace compared to some of the other dates you had been on. You hoped this would go somewhere. You wanted it to go somewhere…

A sudden coughing fit overtakes you, racking your body as you feel something come up your throat. You reach for a tissue from your nightstand…and then look dumbstruck at what falls into it. 

You stare at the yellow flower petals, each about an inch long, covered in pale pink mucus. A feeling of dread and anxiety fills you and you crumple the tissue, trying not to think about what you just saw. Your brain races. What could it be? Cancer? Was there a cancer that made your insides turn into tapered flower petals? Or maybe those weren’t flower petals but a tissue of some sort? The feeling of tightness in your chest gets worse. Maybe a visit to the doctor’s wasn’t a bad idea.

*＊✿❀○❀✿＊*

Shoko places your X-rays against the lightboard and frowns. You’re no medical expert but even you can see what the problem was. You stare at them with morbid curiosity. 

“Are those…?”

“Sunflowers, it looks like,” Shoko confirms, the large circular flowerheads unmistakable. “And they’re growing very fast. Your lungs will burst if they keep up at this rate.” She throws away her gloves and looks thoughtful.

“It’s strange how recently a lot of Hanahaki cases have popped up. We had Nanami in here a few weeks ago with the same thing.”

“And Nanami is in perfect health,” you interject, hoping Shoko is about to tell you a cure. “What is it? A pill? Surgery?” 

Shoko purses her lips and then faces you. “Hanahaki can be removed surgically. However, you’ll lose whatever feelings you have for the person that caused it.”

Feeling like you’d been doused with a bucket of ice water, all you could say was, “Oh.”

“But you’re dating Higuruma, aren't you?” Shoko asks. 

“It’s only been 2 dates,” you admit. “But it’s going well.”

Shoko’s expression remains impassive but she continues in a gentle voice. “But it’s obvious you’ve wanted him for much longer than that. The size of these flowers…How long have you loved him?”

Your chest tightens uncomfortably, this time not just from the flowers. “Who said anything about loving him?”

“The flowers don’t grow unless it’s love. But it looks like they were growing slowly and then when you started dating, your feelings intensified and caused them to bloom faster. Hanahaki rates vary from person to person depending on the level of emotions involved.” 

A nervous ripple passes through your body at the thought. You remembered the way you had yearned for him after the kiss but were worried about scaring him off. Who confessed their love for someone on a second date? 

“Is there any way to slow it down?”

Shoko shakes her head no. “The only thing that helps is when they return your feelings. Romantically.” 

“I see.” There’s a moment of silence before you double over as another coughing fit grips you, a blob of red and yellow falling into your hands along with a few black and white sunflower seeds.

“Couldn’t you just tell him?” Shoko helps you get up to the sink in the examination room. You wash your hands and spit out the flower petals that are stuck in your gums. “I mean, he wouldn’t be dating you if he wasn’t interested.”

“You don’t tell a guy you love him after two dates!” You wipe your mouth and grip the counter trying to think. You glance at the X-ray, wondering.

“How long do I have?”

“It’ll worsen over the next few weeks now that the plants have started to bloom. Beyond that…it’s difficult to say. The more time you spend with him and he doesn’t say he loves you, it’ll only accelerate the process. You’ll feel little moments of relief, followed by an even stronger relapse.”

For the first time since this morning, you felt genuine fear. What if Hiromi didn’t feel more for you? What if after a few more dates he decided you weren’t what he was looking for? Were your only choices waiting for him to love you back or to have your feelings surgically removed?

“Am I going to die from this?” The words leave your throat in a whisper. Shoko flinches and appears to struggle with how to word her response. 

“I hope not. I hope for your sake he does feel the same way.” Shoko hesitates before continuing. “I don’t want to alarm you but…if it truly becomes critical, have you considered having a plan of action?”

A tense silence passes between you both as you weigh her words. “I hadn’t. But…” You consider the words. “Is it worth dying for love, Shoko?”

“I can’t answer that for you. I can only say that I don’t wish to see you suffer.” 

You drop down into one of the chairs, covering your face with your hands, trying not to cry. You had never wanted anyone quite in this way, trying to brush it off as a crush but the feelings never went away, always persistent, weighing down on your thoughts at all times of the day. You remember the tender way he’d looked at you after the kiss, brushing strands of hair behind your ears, gently drawing you against his chest, a cozy moment. He certainly seemed to be fine with the pace things were going at and hadn’t asked if he could come in like some men had after such a short time. 

“Is there any chance that he’d…love me back in that way?” 

“If he harbors those kinds of feelings for you then yes. But given that the window is narrowing, the sooner, the better.”

But what if…

Your mind resolves, and you sigh, finalizing on a decision. “Shoko.”

She looks at you curiously, hearing the change in your voice. Yes? 

“I want to live no matter what.” Your hands ball into fists and although the notion makes your heart clench, you tell her your decision. “If my health declines, I want to be kept alive with special medical intervention. But if it gets to a point where the Hanahaki is going to be fatal to me… Please surgically remove it.”

Shoko looks at you surprised. “Really?” 

“Really. Don't leave it up to chance.” You rub your eyes wearily. It felt like a cruel joke, longing for Hiromi for so long, then when you finally started dating it ended up triggering the Hanahaki at a faster rate. “I may love him but…I mean I have a life too. If it gets that bad… it would imply he doesn't feel that way…and he may never feel that way. It may sound selfish but… I want to live.” 

“I get it. You don't have to explain to me.” Shoko pats your shoulder. “But considering your life is on the line maybe don't hold back in showing him how much you love him?” 

You laugh humorlessly. “How many men do you know who respond well to a woman saying she loves them after 2 dates?” 

Shoko sighs. “Fair enough. I wish you luck.”

 *＊✿❀○❀✿＊*

You hadn't set the third date. After the intense conversation with Shoko, you just felt like you needed to be by yourself. 

The bed felt so comforting but sleep eluded you as the coughing worsened, shaking your whole being. You got up countless times to clean yourself in between and finally having had enough, dragged yourself out of bed to grab a pot from the kitchen, heaving into it, watching with horror as it filled. After 24 hours, it had progressed from seeds and petals into partial flower fragments, bunches of petals stuck to a portion of the flower head falling out of your mouth. 

Your head throbbed, feeling like it could burst. Almost self-pityingly you think about what life would be like if you hadn’t asked him out. Eventually, it would have made no difference, the Hanahaki would’ve grown despite that, you muse to yourself, feeling the scrape of stems and roots embedding their way into your organs. How did things change so fast? You were fine and one kiss later…

Your phone buzzes, and you barely manage to pick it up, looking at it with one eye open, your pulse racing as you see his name. 

How are you feeling? Still sick? 🥺

A smidgen of relief is felt in your chest, surprising you, as you take in a breath that hurts just a little less. He was checking in on you. Would a man do that if he wasn’t interested? Was there hope that he may feel more for you? You try to calm your wandering thoughts, knowing it wouldn’t do you any good to imagine things that he hadn’t explicitly stated. 

Unfortunately 😔 I'm sorry but I don't think we can make that third date this weekend. Rain check? I hope work was good today. 

Ding. 

Work was fine. Yes, we can certainly hold off until you feel better. 

Before you can reply he sends another message. 

Do you need anything? I wouldn't want you to struggle while you're sick. 

Butterflies flutter amongst the blooms in your chest. You did want to see him, but Shoko’s words come back to you, about how spending time with him without any promise of returning your feelings could worsen things even more. Additionally, the state you were in made you want to immediately decline the offer. You didn’t want him to see you like this, pale, hacking up bloody mucus flowers, pining for him like a lovesick dog. You grip your phone wondering how to reply, then carefully word your text.

I think I’m ok. Besides you don’t want to see me sick. Not a pretty picture.

Ding.

I’m sure I’ve seen worse. But I promise not to run away screaming. 😄  What do you say? 

Despite it all you laugh, noting with wonder how you didn’t feel as bad as you did a minute ago. 

Ok, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. 💀

Ding.

Noted! I’m bringing soup! See you in 30. 

30?! You scramble up suddenly, then hang over the edge of the bed as more flower bits force their way up your throat, falling into the grotesque potpourri pooling into the cooking pot. With as much speed as your exhausted body offers, you dump the flower vomit into the toilet, quickly rinse the pot in the kitchen, and throw together an outfit appropriate for company. You add a little blush to your cheeks and some lipstick to remedy the pale sickly quality that your skin has become. 

You’re jittery when the doorbell rings. Taking a deep breath, you open the door, revealing Higuruma, looking so casual in jeans and a tee rather than the suit he wore to work. He was carrying a bag and there’s a slight twitch to his lips as he looks at you. 

“I’m disappointed,” he says good-naturedly, stepping inside. “Where’s the horrifying red nose and dripping snot? The messy hair and phlegm-covered tissues? At least tell me you have those droopy eye bags?”

“They’re hidden with concealer,” you admit, biting your lip to avoid smiling goofily at his presence. You feel a strange sensation in your body, almost like the parasitic flowers were retracting to allow their host to breathe a little before resuming their consumption of your flesh. 

“Concealer! The ultimate trick. Do you think I should wear some? Look at these.” He points to the just visible bags under his eyes and you give up, laughing heartily, the growing blooms inside you only slightly painful. 

Higuruma grins at you. “Well, they do say laughter is the best medicine. However, soup, as promised,” he says, brandishing the bag, “And decongestants, and a little dark chocolate. Because it’s the best.”

You take the bag from him trying not to blush. “Thank you, Hiromi. You didn’t have to come over. I appreciate it so much.” 

“Aw, it’s no trouble. Besides you don’t let people you like suffer. Well not alone anyway.”

Your heart constricts in your chest as he says he likes you but you try to play it cool, leaves and petals stirring in your heart and lungs. “Oh? Wasn’t aware you liked me.” You try to sound nonchalant as you say it, but secretly hope he’ll say a little more, something more concrete which would imply there’s something stronger between you two. Something that might take away this dreadful thing growing inside you…

“Really?” He widens his eyes playfully and covers his mouth pretending to be shocked. “Oh no! All my efforts have gone in vain!” He drawls dramatically. “What good is bringing someone soup if they’re unaware you like them?”

You place the bag on the kitchen counter and cover your mouth as an unruly snort of laughter leaves you, which you use to hide the twinge of disappointment you feel. Well, at least he didn’t deny that he likes you. That was a start, and it could progress from there, in a best-case scenario. 

Your chest contracts suddenly and you quickly grab a napkin and stand at the kitchen sink, coughing up more foliage, trying to be discreet, attempting to soften your coughing as the fragmented sunflowers fall out of your mouth. Higuruma walks into the kitchen at the noise and you hide the napkin in your hands, wiping your mouth. 

Unlike before his face is lined with concern, and he waits for you to turn around. You try to smile reassuringly, your lipstick smudging from wiping your mouth.

“You don’t have to hide being sick in front of me you know,” he says softly. “We’re both adults. What’s life without a little mucus?” 

You throw away the napkin and shake your head. “We only just started seeing each other. Helping someone when they’re sick is more of a sixth date thing.”

Higuruma contemplates your words, leaning his hip against the counter. “Well, we’ve worked at the same place for a year. So that plus two dates…I think it comes close. Your lipstick is smudged by the way,” he adds, tapping his upper lip to indicate where you should clean it. 

You wish he wouldn’t look at you like that, like you’re still pretty even when you’re hacking up blood, literally dying from how much you love him. You hastily swipe a finger over the color, and when he doesn’t comment further, you assume it’s gone. 

“Well…thanks.” You take out a bowl to pour some soup. “Do you also want some?” you offer him.

He shakes his head no. “Here let me.”

His large hand takes the bowl from you while the other picks up the takeout container and he deftly pours steaming chicken noodle soup into it. “I can bring it outside for you. C'mon, sick person’s privilege.”

It was odd being ordered around in your kitchen, even if it was in this endearing manner. You shake your head. “You and your chivalry code.”

“I thought women loved it when men waited on them like this! Maybe I should double-check Reddit.”

How did he manage to do this to you? Your stomach is doing flips and it feels like for a brief second, the Hanahaki has frozen, allowing you a moment of clarity. Being near him was like not knowing your head was underwater until you took in that first gasp of air and felt it expand in your lungs, life flowing back into your veins. 

You settle on the couch and accept the bowl from him. He sits down on the opposite end, crossing a leg over his knee, and turns to look at you. 

“I think the remote’s on your end. Feel free to put on anything.”

“Anything? What a treat. I had come fully prepared with a list of rom-coms but I’m glad I can put on anything.”

You roll your eyes as you swallow the hot soup, savoring how it slides down your throat. “Rom coms? Why?”

“Isn’t that the default for when you’re sick?”

“Is that the default when you’re sick?” You probe him teasingly, noting how you don’t feel the irritating brush of the flowers as much as before. It almost felt easier to breathe with him around. 

Sheepish, Higuruma grins at you and rakes a hand through his hair. “It might be. It’s too early to reveal my secrets.”

“Oh? And when would it be appropriate?”

“After a third date.”

You glance at him, spoon halfway to your lips. He hastily adds, “After you’re feeling better of course!”

You busy yourself with the bowl to hide the blush that was threatening to make itself visible and swallow zealously. As mentioned, he puts on a rom-com and you finish the soup, feeling warm and cozy. You’re wrapped in a blanket and Higuruma has remained politely at the opposite end but as he sees your eyes beginning to droop he offers his shoulder.

“No, it’s ok…I’m fine here…” You mumble, trying to focus on the movie but the Hanahaki is beginning to take a toll on your body. 

“It’s all right y/n. I guarantee I’m comfier than a couch cushion.” Seeing your hesitation he chuckles. “I promise to behave. Just…c’mere. I wasn’t joking when I said people shouldn’t suffer alone.” 

He scoots over to the middle and helps you tip over slightly, placing an arm around you as the side of your cheek rests on his shoulder. The effect was instantly soporific. You couldn’t believe it. He was here…and yet so far away. You struggle to remind yourself that nothing was solid, that this was all still in the beginning stages, and that plenty could go wrong.

But the yearning is stronger and you let yourself indulge for a brief moment before your brain switches from consciousness to sleep. Hiromi, warm, gentle, sweet Hiromi, here, next to you, on your sofa in your living room. Letting you use him as a pillow. It was like plucking a private daydream from your brain and shaping it into reality.

If you could disperse the little moments like this…could you possibly slow down the Hanahaki enough that you could date him a little longer until it was appropriate to tell him you loved him? And perhaps when you did…he would say it back? 

 You smelled that familiar scent of wood and spice, memories of the kiss lulling you to sleep. His hand rubs the side of your blanket-covered arm, steady and comforting.

“You smell nice,” you mutter almost imperceptibly but he hears it and his heart skips a beat. 

“I’m glad you think so.”

*＊✿❀○❀✿＊*

Monitors beep and there’s an IV in your arm. Shoko peers anxiously into your face as you come back to reality. Things had taken a turn for the worse. You had been floating in and out of consciousness for the past few days. 

“I need to know everything that happened. I’m sorry, I know you don’t feel like talking.” Shoko helps you sit upright in the hospital bed and hands you a glass of water which you sip weakly. “But I need to figure out when I should start the special interventions you mentioned. I have all the labs. But I need to know where you are emotionally if I have to make a call about surgical intervention next.”

You take a few breaths of oxygen from the mask in your hand before steadying yourself to speak. Every inch of you hurt. Your body prickled as you tried to suck in a breath, your mouth dry and your words raspy. Living was simply draining right now. 

“Four days ago, Hiromi visited me at home. He wasn’t aware of how sick I was. And I didn’t tell him.”

Shoko’s eyes narrow. “Why?”

You shake your head wearily. “It just didn’t feel right. He put me to sleep. When I woke up, I was laid out on the couch and Hiromi was gone. I felt a lot better and got myself to bed. Then the next day, I was in pain. So much pain. It felt like one of my lungs had burst. Like a million thorns were scratching the inside of my heart and throat. That’s when I called you.”

Shoko paces back and forth as she ponders on what the next best step would be, looking exasperated. “Y/n. I told you that being with him in this unrequited manner will only cause the Hanahaki to spread faster. You should have said no to him coming over. The closeness and then his absence, plus the lack of admission of any romantic feelings made it grow alarmingly. Your heart and lungs are almost purely plant now.”

You lay back against the pillows, taking the most shallow breaths possible to alleviate any further discomfort. “How long? Before…?”

Shoko sighs deeply. “I will have to do the surgery tomorrow.”

You had known deep down that she wouldn’t have any better news. Tears fill your eyes as you stare at the ceiling, dripping down your cheeks and onto the pillow. Your voice quivers are you talk. 

“Wow…I really thought…I had more time than that. I thought…we’d go on a third date. Maybe a fourth. And by the fifth or sixth, enough time would have passed that it wouldn’t be weird if I said it.” You press your hands over your eyes and a sob passes from your lips. “I really wanted it to be him Shoko. My end game. I guess…it wasn’t meant to be huh?” 

Shoko pats your arm sympathetically. “It’s not that you won’t ever fall in love again. It just won’t be with him.”

“Ah, but that’s the thing Shoko. Would anything else feel the way this feels?” You let yourself think back on every little interaction you ever had with Higuruma. Every tiny second where the two of you had been in the same room, or just passed by each other at work. The way his eyes danced as he laughed, little crow’s feet forming at the corners. And the fact that you’ll never find out if rom-coms were his go-to when he was sick. It was so bittersweet, to be so close yet so far to the addictive idea of almost knowing what it would be like to be loved by him, yet too late to escape the effects of the Hanahaki. 

“Can you find him for me Shoko? I just…need to see him one last time. Before…you know.”

Shoko’s eyes are contemplative, but she nods. “Let me see if he’s on campus.”

“And Shoko?”

She already knows what you’re about to say but listens anyway.

“Please don’t tell him anything. The last thing I need is him pitying me.”

*＊✿❀○❀✿＊*

Higuruma checks his phone and can’t hide his disappointment when he sees you haven’t replied to his last few texts. He’d been careful not to wake you when he laid you down on the sofa and quietly crept out that night. He’d been sure to text you to let you know you hadn’t been abandoned, but that he didn’t want to encroach on your boundaries and was looking forward to seeing you again. That was 4 days ago. Had he made things awkward without realizing it? Had you ghosted him?

He told himself it couldn’t possibly be a simple case of ghosting because you hadn’t been coming into work either. He was positive he hadn’t misread the signs. You were comfortable and relaxed around him. There was no reason for you to avoid him. Had your illness worsened? The ideas turn over and over in his head as he wanders the halls of the vast Jujustu High campus, then comes out of his reverie as someone calls his name.

“Oh! Shoko, hi.” He greets the brunette as she approaches him. Her expression looks tight as she nears, and she seems unsure of what to say. 

Shoko knows she’s obligated to hold her silence, but in this case, she can’t bring herself to do it. “Can we find a place to sit down? There’s a lot that needs to be said and I’m not sure there’s a lot of time left.”

“Time left? For what? Is this about y/n?” Higuruma feels uneasy but allows Shoko to direct him toward a bench in the well-maintained courtyard. 

Shoko does her best to explain everything concisely; the origin of the Hanahaki, its unexpected acceleration, and how you would be heading into surgery tomorrow to get it removed. Higuruma listens quietly but it’s clear from his expressions and the way they turn to shock and horror as Shoko describes it that he’s feeling this on a personal level.

“Unrequited love eh?” He runs a hand over the back of his neck and takes a deep breath. “Who would’ve thought?” Higuruma mulls this over in his head. Was there someone else he wasn’t aware of? He shouldn’t be surprised. You were so beautiful after all, and with your Jujutsu talents, courage, and principles, it wasn’t that much of a shock. It couldn’t be him…he was new to everything, needing help, always feeling like he was one step short. He looks to Shoko, needing confirmation. “And do we know who the mystery man is?” 

Shoko looks at him pointedly and he frowns for a second thinking. “What? Is it someone I know? Am I supposed to pass on a message?”

Shoko impatiently tapped her foot against the ground, biting her inner cheek, her expression almost becoming a glare as she prayed he’d have the epiphany soon. 

A lick of irritation passes through him. “Shoko, trust me when I say I want her to live. I'm dating her right now, but if there’s someone else that she needs to be well, I’m not selfish enough to stand in the way of that.” His heart clenches at the thought but if it was a matter of life and death, he couldn’t deny you that. 

To him, you were the moon, the lovely, elegant, marker in his sky, and he was the ocean, hopelessly drawn by your gravity, yet never getting close enough to grasp you and make you his own, waves crashing down into salt and foam after each failed attempt. 

Feeling like she might burst, Shoko begrudgingly gives him another clue. “There’s no other man.”

“There isn’t? Then…” He’s silent as the meaning of her words suddenly dawns on him, making him blush. The realization is stunning. “You’re kidding.” 

“I wish I was. But it’s always been you. Now let me make this very clear. If you do not have any feelings for her that are equal to romantic love, then there’s nothing else that can be done. I’ll take her to surgery and remove all of it. She deserves to live.”

He falls silent as her words wash over him. “And that…would take away everything right?”

“It will. She’ll forget everything. All those times she felt her heartbeat quicken when she saw you. The dates you had. You bringing her soup. She’ll forget and her feelings will become purely platonic.” She looks at him appraisingly and waits for an answer. 

“I…” The words catch in his throat and he feels an unbearable guilt wash over him. He was responsible for putting you in this state. It was his fault you were now hovering between life and death. He presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose and takes a calming breath. Nothing about him was steady at the moment. He was a knot of nerves, worried for your safety. 

“I do love her,” he admits. “For the longest time. It’s just…you can’t blurt out things like that. Scares people off.”

“So I’ve heard,” Shoko says, trying not to sound sarcastic. “But you were dating her. That must mean that you have feelings for her.”

“Who says ‘I love you’ to someone after 2 dates?”

Shoko’s eye twitches menacingly and Higuruma leans away, looking slightly apprehensive at the expression. “What is it?”

“Nothing just that you two…are very similar.” She sighs, massaging her temples. 

“So, what do I have to do now?” Higuruma looks at her helplessly. “I don’t want to be the reason she’s suffering. If I tell her I love her, that’s it? The Hanahaki fades? Because I’ll do it. I’ll tell her over and over. Anything to make it right.”

“That would certainly help but the state that she’s in…verbally making your feelings known would still require her to remain in the hospital for a few weeks.” 

“What else can I do?” Higuruma looks at Shoko with sincerity. “Whatever she needs, I’ll do it.”

Shoko clears her throat wondering how to put forth the matter. “Well, while the verbal affirmations would ease her discomfort, physical love would definitely speed up her recovery.”

“So hugs? Kisses? I held her on the sofa while she slept. I can do that again, I’ll cuddle her until she feels better.”

Shoko lets out a sigh, wondering how much more explicit she would need to get. “We are very much short on time, so let me ask you this. What’s the usual culmination of romantic love?”

“What? The culmination of romantic love? It’s…it’s…OH.” His eyes widen as the realization washes over him, turning his face a brilliant shade of crimson. “Doesn’t that cross a line? We’ve only ever kissed, and it was only once.”

“I’m sure she won’t mind if it saves her life. Besides, I can’t imagine her denying it if it’s you.”

“Ah, thanks?” he says uncertainly, not sure if it’s a compliment. Still flustered, he rakes his hands through his hair, trying not to feel embarrassed. Under normal circumstances, he would’ve loved this. To make love to someone as gorgeous as you? It would’ve been a privilege. But the added complication of you being sick added a layer of uncertainty. But he knew he’d have to figure it out.

Feeling like she’s finally gotten through to him, Shoko smiles at him softly. “Just…let yourself love her naturally. It’ll fall into place. You’ll figure it out.” She pats his shoulder reassuringly. “Think you can take some time off? Stay at home with her?”

He nods, feeling his resolve strengthen. “Of course.”

*＊✿❀○❀✿＊*

The hands that carry you are warm, large, and gentle. Was this it? Were they taking you to surgery? Shoko had given you something strong for the pain. Had she found Hiromi? You couldn’t recollect talking to him. Maybe he was out while you were hospitalized. Well, so much for that…

It was all going to be over soon. Shoko would extract the Hanahaki from your body and the next time you saw Higuruma, you wouldn’t feel a thing. Life really was cruel. 

But something felt different. Instead of being moved to a cold surgical platform, you felt yourself being placed onto a soft bed, the familiar smell of fabric softener surrounding you. Were you home? Was the surgery already over? 

A presence lays down next to you, gently drawing you closer, and as you inhale, you recognize the fragrance of woody spice. Hiromi was here? How? Were you dreaming? That must be it. You were post-op and experiencing whatever pleasant sensation the anesthesia gave you until you woke up. 

You feel your face being caressed, your hair brushed away, being pressed tightly against his chest as his lips skim across your temple. 

“Y/n. I’m so sorry.” His voice sounds regretful. “I guess…I was an idiot. I was so unsure about how you felt, when in fact, it was quite obvious. And I’m sorry if I made you feel like I didn’t want more. Because baby, the things I feel when you’re near me. They take my breath away. I thought the worst thing that could happen was that you would decide you didn’t want to see me anymore. I was wrong.” 

His embrace tightens, and he adjusts so that your head rests on the crook of his neck, your breath falling sweetly on his skin. “The worst thing is seeing you like this, knowing I put you in this state. Why has society made dating so hard? Why are we shamed for feeling things too soon? Or too late? I think it should be different depending on the people involved. Some people feel it early. Others feel it down the line. I guess I’m one of the former. I just know.”

He kisses your forehead, and when he speaks next, there’s a crack in his voice, raw emotion coming through. “I love you. Always have from the moment I first started as a sorcerer. You leave me in awe. I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner. I love you, y/n. I love you so much.”

You stir slightly, listening intently. Did he just…?

“You have to get better. Remember how on the first date, you told me that you’d love to visit Paris someday? We’ll go. Just us. After you’re well. I don’t care what society deems normal anymore. We’ll go on our third date. Because you deserve it. Because I love you.”

His words permeate your body, a curious sensation because it feels like they entered your bloodstream, and were being absorbed into your heart. The tightness of the root system embedded into your veins withdraws, and you feel your breath becoming less labored.

“Please wake up darling. You have to wake up.” 

He presses his lips against yours, full of tenderness and passion, and when he pulls away, he sees color coming into the previously pale and chapped lips. He kisses you again, and it’s bliss, his hands combing through your hair, stroking your back, and you take in a deep breath, the relief feeling ecstatic, your blood humming in your veins, almost purifyingly. Compelled to react, you move your lips gently, feel him still and pull away incredulously, and look down at your face.

“Y/n?” There’s so much relief on his face as he looks at you, his thumbs brushing against your cheeks.

‘Hey,” you manage to rasp, feeling that same purifying sensation, like the flowers in your body were contracting ever so slightly, making room for you to breathe. 

Higuruma lets out a soft laugh, then rests his forehead on yours. “Oh my…you’re awake. You’re going to make it darling, don’t worry.”

“Do you really love me?”

“I do. So much. I don’t know since when. I just knew I did.”

The fortifying effect of those words brings back strength into your body and you raise your arms, wrapping them around his neck. 

“Hiromi. You have no idea how happy I am that you’re here.”

“Oh I think I have you beat there darling,” he says weakly, nuzzling your neck. “I wasn’t sure when you’d wake up.”

He kisses you again, slow and gentle and your mouth opens to accept his tongue, reveling in the taste, feeling every inch of your body respond to his touch. His hands roam under the back of the thin T-shirt you’re wearing, anchoring themselves onto your shoulders, inhaling your scent as he tries to breathe through it all. He strings a line of soft kisses from your jaw down your neck, stopping to savor the way your pulse felt as it beat with vitality inside you, before coming down to your collarbone. A gasp leaves your lips, fingers tangling with his hair as he does so. 

The noise brings his attention back to you, unaware of the desire pooling into your veins where the flowers were starting to withdraw. Your cheeks had a healthy glow, a flush settling into them as he pulled you against him. 

“Are you ok with this?” He asks, his fingers tracing circles on the back of your neck, waiting for a response. 

“I am. More than ok. Just…don’t stop now. I need this.” You lean up and kiss him, electricity sparking between the both of you. “I need you.”

Hearing you needed him switches something on in him and he groans against the passion of your kiss before burying his face in your neck, nibbling the soft flesh, listening to the flow of breath running through you. His hands sneak up under the front of your shirt and rest against your breasts, letting the heat flow into them, feeling your nipples perk up against his palms before he squeezes, his mouth leaving wet kisses between the crook of your neck and shoulder. 

“Please…” you whisper into his ear, the word spoken with so much urgency that he almost loses control. He finds the hem of your shirt and pulls it off, taking in the sight of your lovely body, the pebbled nipples ripe for sampling. He pulls one into his mouth, causing a quiet moan to leave you, and begins to tease the other, rolling it between his thumb and index, listening to your cues as he increases the friction and pressure.

You feel like you're on a cloud, pleasure tingling into every crevice of your body, sighing, losing all other thoughts except for the man in your bed. “Hiromi,” you call his name in a breathy tone, cradling his head as he suckles, heat gathering between your legs. How long had it been since you were touched in this way? Held like you were precious, kissed like you were ambrosia?

Hiromi observes the way color comes back to your body as he teases you, watching with mild fascination as the pert nipple between his fingers changes color, life coming back into you. 

Your eyes close against the gentle ministrations of his tongue and fingers, the moans becoming whimpers as need takes over. When he finally lets go the need for more contact with his skin was overwhelming. You fist the fabric of his top and pull it off, and he allows it without any questions. Your eyes roam over the broad, tanned chest, the cloud of black hair on his chest leading into a thready trail that crawled lower like a lion’s mane, hidden by the waistband of his jeans. For a moment you stare, drinking in the sheer masculinity of it all, the hard planes and defined muscles, contrasting against the softness of your body. 

Almost shyly you run your fingers through the patch of hair before coming down to place a kiss between his collarbones, hear his breath strangle before continuing down, feeling all the muscles in his abdomen tense up as your lips follow the happy trail, delighting in the way he reacted when you nibbled around his bellybutton.

“Y/n you’re making me crazy.” he grits his teeth, struggling to keep a hold on his sanity. You had just recovered, he shouldn’t be rash or grab you but you were making it very hard to ignore the rush of want pouring into his bloodstream. It was so surprising how these acts of love, even briefly, had brought you back from the edge. 

He slides you back up, sees the vitality glittering in your eyes, and crushes his mouth to yours, letting his body speak for him as he runs a hand down your smooth skin, pausing to knead the soft squish of your belly, his hand slipping under the band of your shorts and underwear, bringing them down to reveal the curve of your ass which he grabs possessively, savoring the fat, pushing your lower body against his throbbing erection. He slowly grinds against you, paying attention to your body but you aren’t pulling away from him, rather, it appears to make you crave more, the way your hands fumble at his back, holding on to his shoulders and pressing your face into his chest.

Hiromi’s hands move to your front, repeating the action of pulling the waistbands down, exposing you to his hands. As he slides your clothing off, your legs part for him unashamedly, the throbbing in your sex unbearable, feeling your chest becoming free of the previous pressure that was suffocating it. Grasping your mound in his large palm, he feels for the edge of the swollen labia and massages, grasping the moistening flesh between his fingers and applying pressure, causing you to arch against his hand, the noises you make music to his ears. 

He gently parts the folds of your sex, seeing the slick from your arousal gathering at the entrance of your core, begging to be touched. He looks back up at you and you nod, the small sign of consent all he needed before he plunges his tongue into the most heat of your cunt. The knowledge of knowing he was here at such a sensitive spot on your body sends a thrill through him and he licks up, finding the base of your swollen clit, letting his tongue flick against it, satisfaction flowing through him as you hum your pleasure at the action. Laying his tongue flat, he slides up and down, unfazed when you move against him, trying to build a little more friction. 

He lets his middle finger circle the entrance of your pussy, teasing until you raise your hips slightly before sliding in, the digit feeling so wonderfully filling, curling upwards to find the little patch inside you that makes you take a sharp breath before becoming so wonderfully pliant and soft under him. He inserts his ring finger, and your sighs become a crescendo of gasps and moans, writhing under him, holding the pillow to remain grounded as the ache in your core becomes unbearably sweet, blossoming from the center and filling your body with a thrum of pleasure.

You sob as the orgasm hits, all the muscles in your body contracting before pleasurably spasming, your cries becoming shrill as it passes, feel Hiromi’s tongue slow down and continue to nudge against your clit, ensuring he squeezed out every drop of pleasure from you before pulling away from your core.

You’re a sight to see after that, body rosy and flushed, a fresh vigor visible all over, hair messy and splayed across the pillow. 

“Y/n…you’re so beautiful,” he rasps as he crawls back up to you, licking your juices off his fingers before covering your mouth with his. Shivering from the climax, you taste yourself on his tongue, gripping the back of his neck as though afraid he might slip between your fingers if you didn’t hold onto him hard enough. 

“Do you…ahem…” He suddenly turns shy but powers through. “Do you happen to have condoms? I kind of…forgot...you know with everything that happened.”

Your lips quirk and a peal of laughter leaves you, and he joins in, smiling, cupping your face tenderly in his hands. “Top drawer,” you answer him. “You went to the drugstore a couple of days ago and bought decongestants, but not condoms?” you tease him. 

“Who knew I’d be having sex a few days later?”

“We were dating! It was bound to happen.”

“Oh really? So that’s what happens when people are dating?” he teases you back and it’s your turn to blush, but he’s being sweet about it, brushing your noses together, and pressing feather-light kisses all over your face. He slides off the bed to finish undressing, and you watch him, fascination all over your face as his cock slips free, long and veiny, leaking precum, throbbing with hot need. He fumbles through your nightstand before finding the little wrapped packet, rolling down the condom before joining you back in bed, cuddling you close. 

“Ready?” 

You nod, a look passing between you both, before he positions himself and starts entering, the push of his tip feeling exquisite, going inch by inch, giving you time to adjust to him, feeling your fingernails scratch his forearms as he starts to bottom out. He holds still, your eyes meeting, your mouth slightly open as your pussy involuntarily spasms around him, feeling wonderfully stretched out. 

He starts moving, hips rolling deliciously to set up a rhythm, leaning forward to kiss you as he does so, arching his back to ensure your G-spot wasn’t missed with each stroke. It was so artful the way he made love to you, your body so responsive to everything, and he gathered you in his arms, both of you looking into each other’s eyes. 

“I love you.” He buries his face into the crook of your neck and you lock your ankles around his waist, mewling as he thrusts into you. 

“I love you too,” you mumble, mind in a haze, feeling nothing but pleasure flowing through you. Your breathing has changed, no longer ragged and shallow but to a full-bodied draw of air, so refreshing as you both touch and caress each other.

Your body starts the familiar sensation of tension gathering in your belly, coiling, waiting for release. Misty-eyed, you look at him, knowing he’s been watching your face all this while, looking for cues. 

“I’m close…” you whisper, touching his cheek, tracing the outline of his lips as you move with him. 

“Let go for me…I’ve got you…” With a cry, your second orgasm grips you, more powerful than the first, and you barely manage to keep your legs locked around him. 

“Hiromi…Hiromi…” his name falls from your lips, and his movements become a little sloppy, feeling his own orgasm nearing, and not too soon, he falls off the edge, cock twitching inside you, as he rides out the wave of pleasure. 

It was the best sleep of your life afterward, wrapped up in Higuruma’s warm and secure embrace, cheek resting on his chest, and listening to each other’s heartbeats as you both dreamt.

When you wake up, it’s the middle of the night and Higuruma is awake, peering at you through the darkness.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispers, petting your hair. 

“I can’t, I have the distracting problem of having a handsome man in my bed.”

“Hmm…And this is a problem, how?”

“I want to keep looking at him. Makes for bad sleep.”

A deep chuckle leaves his throat as you cuddle against him. 

“So out of curiosity, if I wasn’t conscious by the time you started up, what would you have done?” You lean up to look at him, legs tangling under the covers.

“Oh, Shoko reassured me that kissing you would bring you around.”

“Yeah, but what if it hadn’t?” you press, curiosity building.

Higuruma makes a funny expression, like he’s weighing whether or not to divulge something to you. 

“What is it? C’mon, tell me!” You lightly slap his chest and he sighs, defeated.

“Well, Shoko gave me a letter of medical necessity.”

Your face turns blank. “She…what?”

Higuruma takes his phone and pulls up an official-looking email with an attachment. Trying not to laugh, he reads out, “I, Dr. Shoko Ieieri, hereby state, that in the event that F/n L/n is only partially conscious, or fully unconscious,  the giver of medical services, Mr. Hiromi Higuruma, has my complete medical consent to make physical love to the patient to ensure her life does not fall into jeopardy. This medical order shall remain in effect until F/n Y/n becomes fully conscious and capable of making her own decisions. See she signed it and everything.”

He tilts the phone screen so that you can see, and you cover your mouth as you try to stifle your laughter. “I can’t believe Shoko!”

“I’m sure she wrote it as a joke,” Higuruma says amusedly. “She was very confident that kissing would wake you up sufficiently.”

“Ugh, I can’t believe my doctor wrote a note advocating for sex to save my life.” You bury your face into his chest and the both of you laugh uncontrollably. 

“So is it a safe bet to assume we’re having another date?” he teases, pressing a kiss to your neck. 

“I’ll have to think about it. I’m joking!” you add hastily, seeing his expression grow stony. He sighs, dramatically shaking his head.

“Guess I better get used to this. Looks like it’s going to be part of my life for a long long time.”

He kisses you again before you can retort. You smile up at him, knowing he is yours. 

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[y-vna]

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ㅤㅤ👻ㅤㅤㅤㅤ⚰️ㅤ ㅤㅤ𝐒𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 : 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐘-𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭 ㅤ ㅤㅤ🧹ㅤ ㅤㅤ🐈‍⬛

Welcome to the second ever official y-vent (y-vna's own twist on events hehe), celebrating almost 3.5k followers and our approaching 1 year anniversary of this blog!

Disclaimers/tws: some gorey images & mentions of most likely death/anything to kind of do with that since it's a dark Halloween oriented event. If you might be uncomfortable with such, please dm me about it, be cautious joining, or don't join!

Also event has quite heavy inspo from events made by @fairytopea and @sugarish (a lot by Vivi actually, and I swear I didn't mean for it to become so similar in the end, I hope that doesnt bother anyone) kind of unintentionally, my ideas just happen to be kind of unconsciously influenced a lot by them since I enjoy their creativity. If there's any issues concerning credits to original owners, please dm me.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ𝘔𝘰𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘸, 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘥𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘮.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘦, 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘱 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴' 𝘱𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘢𝘤𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘺 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘳𝘣𝘰𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 5 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘷𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘯 the ugliest emotions known to mankind, that our Halloween tales can't exist without.

　

steps

Comment your favorite Halloween movie + "boo!" under this memorial (post) to enter 🪦

Reblog & tag 3+ of your favorite ghouls (moots)! 👻

Send an ask to @s-pirits with one of the five options the spirits provided you that resonates most with your soul (rage, paranoia, grief, envy, or apathy). Please add a 🎃 emoji to your ask if you do not want a story included in your answer 🌔

The spirit will offer a unique story under the "read more" cut regarding your choice as it reads into the depths of your soul. There will also be a image along with the answer that you are not required to use, but can if you wish to! 🐈‍⬛

Be creative and have fun making your moodboards! Don't forget to tag me ( @y-vna ) in your entry and use the hashtag #Spirit of Halloween : The Event

rules

more than three of the same images on a moodboard of another entry can be considered copying, depending on the situation if the images are generic, idol pics, or ones provided by me.

deadline is going to be 28th of October. Do not panic if it isn't enough time, the extended last chance for submission will probably close 1st of November, since I was definitely not be posting winners until maybe a few days to a week after the first deadline.

Only one moodboard submission will count. You are allowed to post techincally as many as you would like, however you have to choose only one that will count in the final judging.

You may ask for another option if you are struggling with the one you pick. For example if you pick apathy (that one is gonna be hard I hope people can make that one work) and really can't work it out, you may have one more retry and send another ask to @s-pirits (make sure to specify you dont want the one you already got before).

Make sure to credit anybody who originally owns the resources you use! If you refuse to comply by adding credits when asked, you will be disqualified.

prizes

1st place : 2 custom moodboards, 90 reblogs, 2 custom divs, 1 edit

2nd place : 1 custom moodboard, 50 reblogs, 1 custom div

3rd place : 35 reblogs, 1 gif/div not fully customizable, shout-out

Send all questions or issues about this event to @s-pirits or to this blog's DMS idm which!

tags

@y-unrei @fairytopea @sugarish @heavenurl @wonjuii @tzulipss @chaeyve @yeoniis @aeraras @awwriri @loien @y2qi @soulari @bitchey @aestradairio @ciestial @c-heriis @eun-luv @flaireur @f-loqweres @floriseu @gyustarzzi2 @nikist-4-n @hyelita @fluiora @x-aravv @whosserina @p-oisn @purinkiss @n-americano @hourlyhoon @haerinism @aegsll @sukisng @sojuville @sxgarhan @imelis @yeossemble @sseulr1n @haenxn @jenfaery @chuwerii

[creature-wizard]

LOL, you shitheads again? You must really love getting your asses kicked if you're coming to me, of all people.

For anybody unaware, the Satanists behind the website mentioned in this ask are a bunch of openly antisemitic conspiracy theorists appropriating Eastern traditions, and they've been trying to advertise themselves and increase their SEO by sending asks like these. Each ask is tailored to appeal to whatever they think your beliefs might be, but they all follow a similar template that goes something like:

What do you think of [URL redacted]? They claim to follow [insert gods here], they [something about supporting abortion], and they're the largest [insert group here] group in the world."

The spirituality promoted on this website is rooted in deeply antisemitic conspiracy theories and pseudohistory. If I addressed every single claim they made, I'd be here all day, so I'm going to stick to a few examples:

They claim that Satanism isn't a reaction to Christianity, but is in fact older than Christianity. This is straight-up pseudohistorical bullshit.

They claim that Jews have perpetrated a grand conspiracy to conceal true spiritual knowledge from the masses. They outright cite The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a Czarist hoax created to justify violence against Russian Jews in the late 19th century. They claim that Christianity is a Jewish tool of world domination and mind control.

They claim that "Jewish ritual murder" is a thing. This is blood libel, an old conspiracy theory used to demonize Jews.

They claim that Jesus was a fictional creation made out of tropes "stolen" from various pagan gods. There is no actual evidence for this; it's another conspiracy theory. For a scholarly look at what most probably happened, I recommend How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee by Bart D. Erhman. Or if you can't get your hands on the books, just look into Dr. Ehrman's videos/lectures on the topic on YouTube.

They push the extremely racist ancient aliens bullshit, claiming that the pagan gods were actually aliens.

They claim that the serpent actually represents human DNA, life force, and kundalini. This is a conspiracy theory that disregards the diversity of lore about serpents in various belief systems and traditions around the world, and culturally appropriates from Eastern traditions.

Their idea of what constitutes genuine Satanic practices is basically New Agers' bastardized versions of Eastern concepts and practices.

They claim that the "Tree of Life" is actually a stolen pagan symbol that maps the human soul. Again, an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that disregards the actual significance of trees within the various traditions that involve them.

They claim that the Pentateuch was ripped off from the five suits of the tarot, and that tarot has ancient origins with alchemical significance. Tarot was actually invented in the 15th century for playing games. Mystical symbolism was applied by occultists in the 18th century.

The creators of the site apparently believe that the Simon Necronomicon is a genuine translation of older documents. It's not. The Necronomicon was a literary device created by HP Lovecraft; every text purporting to be a translation of the Necronomicon is a modern creation.

If you get an anon message like this in your inbox, do not post it. These people want you to share their URL to get more publicity and spread their antisemitic conspirituality. Don't give them what they want.

[hotdogstandz]

Haaaaaay pookies!

EDIT: FIRST OFF…. @colddogstandz is where I post my original art :] lots of stuff to come there yippee

Feel free to send me drawing requests, can’t promise I’ll get to em but I might. On this account, all my art is under #drawing ^^

Anyways. I finally got my updated commission prices put on a physical document, not just floating in my brain.

As far as content I will draw, anything goes AS LONG AS:

It is not illegal/harmful/traumatizing. This includes all pro shipping content. Anything that is meant to bully someone else. Hate speech. Just use your brain, I don’t want to have any idiots in my dms asking for weird shit. Kay?????

My prices are on a sliding scale because I do not want to restrict anybody in their requests. This is simply meant to be a general guide. If you are interested in commissioning me, dm me and I’ll get you sorted with exact pricing!

Besides that…I figured I should probably introduce myself…there’s a lot more of you than I thought there was these days

My name is Green :] I am 20 and my pronouns are he/him! I am a full time artist due to disabilities, so any and all comms are GREATLY appreciated and cherished!!! I love fashion, art (obvi), music, and horror. This account is a mess, there is fandom art, original art, and everything in between. I don’t have a set schedule for posts or for what exactly I draw. I like to keep y’all on your toes….but I hope you find something of interest ^^

Feel free to reach out if you’ve got somethin to say! I don’t bite

My words of wisdom- ACAB. Remember to cover your face when protesting. free Palestine/AMERICANS for Palestine. mental health matters (the suicide hotline is always online for chats or calls: 988 is the USA number, but a quick google search will quickly bring up your locations number!). Protect gay and trans kids. Carry Narcan on your person if you are able. Have compassion for those struggling with mental and physical illnesses. Use drugs responsibly. Stay safe out there y’all.

[lil-binuu]

𝑫𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒕𝒐𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒎𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔

~ 𝐼𝓈𝒶𝒶𝒸 𝒻𝒾𝒸

Isaac saves you from a creepy client

requested by: @mitsukitsume and @someonelol1872

560 words

sorry for the long wait mls! i hope you enjoy! <3

“Just go through to that room and I’ll bring the documents.”

You could hear Isaac in the hall say to the new client who had come through the door. You were in the kitchen and preparing Isaac his usual whiskey when he came in.

Since he was a new client, Isaac wanted to handle meetings himself for your own safety. While you would help with cases, Isaac felt a lot more comfortable if clients didn’t know about you. This way, you wouldn’t be targeted if anyone wanted to get to Isaac and he was always wary around new people.

“Ah, good afternoon. You must be Isaac’s housekeeper?” He asked.

You nodded, “What can I make you to drink?”

“I see Isaac likes his whiskey, I’ll have the same.”

You turned around to pour the same drink into another glass, but stopped when you realised it was chipped. Can’t serve a client that…you thought.

“You must’ve been working here a while, right? If so, you must be looking for somewhere else to take your services.”

You ignored the man’s attempt at conversation, choosing to focus on the drink instead.

"Isaac is lucky. You seem well trained, I could do with someone of your expertise."

You kept your back to him, hoping that he'll stop his comments if he doesn't get a response. You opened the overhead cupboard where the glasses were. You reached up to take a glass and felt another arm behind you.

“Please, allow me.”

You turned around to see the man taking the glass for you.

Surprised, you tried to step away only to stumble over your own feet.

“Woah, careful.” The man laughed, taking your arm to stabilise you. It would have been a nice gesture if this stranger wasn’t so close to you, practically breathing in the scent of your hair.

You smiled awkwardly, uncomfortable and wanting to get out of the corner he had pushed you into. Taking the glass he picked up and trying to move out of his grip, he stopped you abruptly, placing his arm as a barrier in front of you.

“Don’t be in such a rush.” He teased. “I want to get to know you.”

A sudden wave of sickness washed over you. The heavy feeling in your gut making you want to throw up. Your heart hammering with dread as he leaned down closer to your eye level, disappointed to see your eyes fixed on the floor.

“Didn’t anybody tell you it’s rude to break eye contact when someone is talking to you?”

He lifted a hand to correct your gaze, only to be stopped. Isaac’s iron grip and his eyes that flared so furiously, making the man freeze.

Isaac placed himself in front of you, pushing the man backwards to shield you while maintaining his tightening grip.

“Didn’t anybody tell you it’s rude to touch somebody else’s things?” Isaac growled back at him.

It’s safe to say Isaac dropped the client immediately, only, of course, after sending him to hospital with a black eye. You pretend you don’t know that Isaac digs up shit about him, and puts so carefully in his blackmail file to use whenever he pleases as a quiet act of karma. (I think it’s become his new hobby) I mean, keeping you safe is his priority, so what do you expect?

sorry it was so short!! originally i made this but was gonna make some changes to make it much more angsty but i struggled to write that stuff into the scene as it went too off the plot so i just decided to stick with this! i hope you enjoyed reading, please feel free to request me anything (but just know i only really write for elias x) and don’t worry i’m going to be working on my next fic soon!

[simblorbo-bracket]

Submission Info

So, you think you've got what it takes to be Simblr's next sexyman? Prove it!

The Rules:

Deadline for submissions is: September 11th

Submissions must be a sim. They can be from any game, but they must be: Your own original creation, an EA/Maxis premade, your own makeover of an EA/Maxis premade, or the offspring of some combination of the above.

You may not submit sims belonging to someone else. All non-premade sims must be submitted by their creators.

Sims must be at least a Young Adult. Some games do ages differently, but we wont be accepting any teens, children, toddlers, infants, etc.

Sim does not need to be playable or human. For example, Grim Reaper, the mother plant, etc. (We will be following the Harkness test here, ok?)

You may submit multiple sims. Go nuts. Our max number of participants is currently 256, there's no way we're getting there even if everyone submits like, 10 sims.

Images must be safe to post on tumblr. I don't want polls getting flagged and skewing the results, so keep it clean-ish. (I won't blame anybody if a post does get flagged, it's not your fault, but like, no full frontal nudity, okay? Let's use some common sense is all)

No negative propaganda.

Sims may be rejected at moderator discretion.

Ok? Now we're moving on to the real good stuff:

How to submit your sim(s):

Make a post on your blog (or one post per sim, if you prefer), @ this blog (@simblorbo-bracket), and make sure you include the following info for each sim:

Name of sim

At least 1 image of the sim (A main image will be included above the poll, additional images will be below a readmore alongside the propaganda. You can specify which image you'd like to use as the main, if you have a preference)

Whether they are an original creation, premade, or makeover

(Optional) Propaganda! Why should people vote for your sim? Remember: no negative propaganda. Lift up your candidate instead of putting others down.

That's it! Your submission will be reblogged or replied to by this account if everything is in order and your submission has been accepted! If you don't hear back in a timely fashion, you can send an ask or a message to follow up. It's possible I missed it! I'm only human.