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ahgasegotarmy116 · 3 months ago

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Faking It | Jeon Jungkook | Chapter Two

Summary: Seeing him again happened sooner than you thought it would but absolutely no one is complaining. Pairing: f!reader (30) x Single Dad Jungkook (33) (Arranged Marriage Slow Burn?) Word Count: 9.8k Warnings: Talking about Jungkook's wife who passed away in childbirth (Doesn't talk about her death but yeah) a/n: Took me three months but we're finally here 😭 And if any of you saw me post this and delete it...no you didn't. I posted it on my reblogs account on accident so sorry if that teased you a bit 😅 Anyways I hope this was worth the wait 😭 p.s. I only read through this once when I completed it so have mercy on me if there are typos

I wake up naturally this morning and it's honestly one of the best feelings in my opinion. Not having to worry about being woken up out of a sound sleep shows me that it's going to be a good day.

As I yawn and rub the sleep out of my eyes I hear my phone vibrate on my nightstand, telling me I have a new message. I roll over and reach for it lazily to check and when I read the sender's name I immediately shoot up, causing Salem to dart off the bed. "Sorry Salem" I call after him but then when I go back to read the message my heart is already beating out of my chest.

'Good morning y/n I hope you slept well. How are you?' a simple yet inviting message from the man I just met last night. Who knew waking up to good morning texts would still feel this good at the ripe age of thirty?

'Good morning Jungkook! I slept like a baby, best sleep I've gotten in a while actually. I just woke up so, so far so good. How are you? How's Juni? Did you guys sleep alright?' I send and at a second glance I can see how completely whipped I am for this man already. Why am I rambling on and on about sleep? I could've just said 'I slept well, I hope you did as well' or something like that.

'That's good, I'm glad to hear! Juni and I slept alright. She actually only woke up an hour ago which is unheard of since she's usually knocking on my door at six am. She's been talking about you since she woke up' he sends back and my heart flutters, loving that I've made that big of an impression on her already.

I check the time and see that it's already nine am which is a record time for me to sleep as well since I'm usually up by seven most days. Then again it's not everyday that you get to spend the night with a man like him...

Wait! That's not what I meant!

'She can't stop talking about going shopping for butterflies so I wanted to see if we could set up a time soon. Maybe this weekend if you're free?' he suggests and I have to restrain myself from kicking my feet, just thinking about this man asking to see me again, disguised by his daughter wanting to get butterfly decorations for her room.

'This weekend sounds perfect! I'm free tomorrow as well so either day is fine' I offer up and face palm, scolding myself for being too eager. 'Tomorrow sounds great! Should we meet around eleven? Juni and I would love to take you out to lunch if you'd like. You know, to thank you for the help' he sends and I can't help but think that maybe he's a little nervous too.

'Eleven it is! Should I meet you guys there? There's a shop that I'm sure Juni will love and it'll definitely have what we're looking for!' I send and I can see the bubbles popping up to show that he's typing but they go up and down a couple more times. He'll type for a little and then stop and type again and I can only hope that I didn't say something wrong in suggesting where to go.

When a few minutes go by I decide it's best to get out of bed and get a cup of coffee. That'll wake up my brain a little more and help me hopefully not make as much of a fool of myself while texting him.

I find Salem perched on top of his cat tree, still a little jumpy from me having scared him but I think it's made him playful more than anything as I watch his tail flick back and forth while he watches me walk up to him.

"I'm sorry for scaring you" I apologize again, scratching his between his ears but when I feel my phone vibrating over and over in my hand I jump again making him climb down off his cat tree and scurry under the couch. I sigh and scold myself as a result before taking a look at my phone, seeing an incoming call from Jungkook.

I almost drop it after reading his name but catch and answer before I end up dropping it.

"Hello?" I ask, slightly out of breath from the scare but try to hide it as best as I can. "Hi pretty lady!" I hear Juni call out in the distance, the phone no doubt on speaker phone. "Good morning Juni! How are you little one?" I ask, feeling more at ease talking to her first and my question awards me with a little giggle before she continues.

"I'm good! Daddy says we're going to a special store to pick out the butterflies for my room! Is that right?" she asks, clear excitement laced all throughout her tone. "Yes that's right Juni we are! Does that sound alright to you?" I ask and I can clearly hear how she's jumping from excitement from how punctuated her voice sounds now as she chants "Yes" over and over again.

"I wish we could go right now!" she says, her excitement too difficult to contain at the moment which makes me smile knowing that she wants to go right away.

"Patience Juni, tomorrow isn't too far away" I hear Jungkook's voice coming through now and it makes my breath hitch, forgetting the fact that he had been there all along. He wasn't kidding when he said that Juni grabs everyone's attention right away. Given the chance I'm sure she would've talked to me for hours if her dad hadn't reminded her.

"That's right Juni, only one more sleep until tomorrow" I say and I can hear a little gasp from the other side. "Does that mean I can go to sleep right now and then we can go?" she asks, not understanding the concept entirely.

"Not unless you want to sleep for twenty four hours silly" he says and I hear a fit of giggles that could only mean that he might've tickled her but after a few seconds it's calmed down.

"How long is twenty four hours?" she asks, a constant roulette of questions gearing up if he doesn't answer this question correctly.

"You know how you woke up yesterday, went to school, came home, played with your toys, got ready, went to meet Ms. y/n, came back home, went to bed and woke up this morning?" he lists off and I can tell she's probably nodded her head all throughout his explanation.

"Yes?" she responds in a questioning tone, waiting for him to get to the point. "Well that's how long twenty four hours is" he responds and I hear jumping again once he's finished before an excited Juni calls out. "Does that mean we get to go see Ms. y/n again when I get home from school?" she asks and my heart melts at her excitement.

"Juni, we're seeing her tomorrow remember. I'm sure Ms. y/n is very busy tonight" he says and I hear a sad "Oh" from her and I contemplate my next words carefully before going for it. "Juni, would it be okay if I talked to your Daddy for a second?" I ask and I can hear her let out a disheartened 'Okay' before Jungkook takes the phone off speaker.

"Hey y/n, sorry she's a little hyper this morning" he says and I smile at his efforts to apologize for Juni's adorable disposition. "No that's okay, I love talking to her! She's a cutie" I say and he hums, "Try living with her" he counters and I smile, knowing that her excitable attitude might get a little tiring sometimes.

"I wanted to ask you if you would like to do something today after Juni gets home from school? Maybe meet you at the park? I forgot to give you Juni's dress last night after I washed it. I have to go back to my parent's house to pick it up anyway and theres a park around the corner. It's your call though. I don't want to go against what you told her" I say, rambling off nervously again but this time over the phone instead of texting and I regret ever offering it in the first place.

Why am I so freaking awkward?

"You sure you don't mind? I could always just get it from you tomorrow? I don't want to inconvenience you or anything" he says, giving me a chance to back out but not saying no to me, giving me a vote of confidence. "I wouldn't have offered if I minded" I say with a smile in my tone and he takes another second to think before giving me his response.

"She gets off at three, does that work for you or should we meet up later?" he asks and my heart skips a beat, knowing that I'll get to see him again so soon. "That sounds great, you can meet me at my parent's house if you'd like? The park isn't too far away so we can leave our cars and walk there" I offer and he takes a couple of seconds to think again before saying anything else.

"Juni, do you wanna go see Ms. y/n after school?" he asks and I can hear her little feet running around this time and repeating her response of ceaseless Yes's again. "Well I guess we'll see you later then. I can bring some food for us to take to the park if you'd like?" he offers and I shake my head before remembering that thankfully he can't see me in my sleepy state.

"No that's okay I got it covered. You already said you guys are taking me to lunch tomorrow so the least I could do is bring us food to share at the park today. Plus, I'm the one who suggested it in the first place" I explain and he chuckles before agreeing.

"Alright, thank you y/n. Should we show up around four then?" he asks, giving them time to make their way over after picking her up from school. "Four sounds perfect, I'll see you then!" I say and he calls Juni over to say goodbye. "Bye Pretty Lady! See you after school!" she giggles.

I swear I'm never going to tire of her excitable disposition.

"Goodbye Juni! Have a good day and listen to your teachers okay?" and I can hear a faint 'I will' in the background, no doubt from her running off to do something. "Thanks again y/n, I know she's going to be so excited to see you today...we both are" he adds at the end and my heart skips at his confession. "Me too" I say quietly and we finish up our goodbye's before quickly hanging up.

I slowly walk over to the couch as to not scare Salem this time, grab the pillow next to me, put it over my face and scream into it. Although I tried to muffle it I still end up scaring him making him run off to my room, no doubt planning to be wary of me for the rest of the day but that's okay.

I get to see them again, I get to see him again.

I really hope I'm not wrong about thinking that there might actually be something between us already, something about this just feels right. I don't want to rush into this too quickly though since we don't really know much about each other. I want to take things slow and hopefully he does too.

Well...I hope he'll want to take things further but you never know, a man like him is sure to have a lot of options, right? I just don't want to set myself up for heartbreak. Gotta keep it together and not get too vulnerable with him, even if it feels like I should.

I've already let him in a little, and he's definetly let me in a lot with letting me spend so much time with his daughter but I don't know, I guess only time will tell what's going to happen between us.

If there's going to be an 'us'.

~~~~~

The day drags on as I unconsciously count down the hours until I get to see them again but it seems as though time is standing still.

I've spent most of my day editing the pictures I took for a family friend's wedding since that's usually how I get my clients these days. I know someone who knows someone who needs a photographer and my rates are pretty fairly priced so they tend to hire me.

Going through picture after picture and seeing how happy they look together makes me wonder what it would be like to be truly happy with someone like this. Be so openly and obviously in love that no one can say otherwise.

As time ticks by though my mind wanders off until I realize I only have about an hour to get ready before I have to meet them.

"Shit!" I say aloud and get up to hopefully make myself look presentable enough, luckily I took a shower this morning so we're all set on that front. I still need to figure out something for us to eat while at the park though and if I had paid attention to the time it would've been a brilliant idea.

The only option I have left is to phone a friend.

"Y/n? Is something wrong?" my mom asks, the call on speakerphone while I try to fix my hair. "Well depends on if you can help me or not" I say and I hear her sigh. "Please tell me you didn't end up in jail" she says and I scoff at her obviously sarcastic remarks.

"Very funny mom, but for your information no I did not end up in jail. This is seriously something I need help with though. Are you busy right now?" I ask, hoping and praying her answer is no. "No I'm pretty much free for the rest of the day, why?" she responds and I let out a huge sigh before responding.

"Good! Can you do me a favor and throw together a picnic lunch for three? Well...two and a half" I ask, not wanting to give up who it's for but by her gasp I can tell she already knows. "Are you and Jungkook seeing each other again already?" she asks, and I can tell her eyes are as wide as saucers with her hand over her mouth, her reactions being the same since I was a child.

"Yes" I say, giving a one worded response leaving me turning down the volume on my phone when I hear her squealing. "This is incredible! See I knew you two would hit it off! I can hear the church bells ringing already" she says, jumping to conclusions as she always does.

"Mom can you please get the food ready for me?" I plead, going back to the topic at hand while putting some makeup on, nothing too crazy but not wanting to over or under compensate. "Yes yes of course. Leave it to me!" and before I can say another word she's hanging up the phone. "Well that was easy" I say to myself before going to my closet to pick out what to wear.

As I'm flipping through my options I see Salem come out of the darkness, scaring me half to death leaving me scoffing seconds later, realizing he's given me a taste of my own medicine "Okay I guess I deserved that one huh?" I say to him and he meows in response.

"Okay Salem this one, or this one" I say, placing my options in front of him and he sniffs both before swatting at the one he's chosen. "You don't think a sun dress is too much?" I ask and he meows almost as if he was telling me to trust him and so I laugh and give in.

"I hope Juni likes it" I mumble to myself, quickly throwing it on and rushing to finish getting ready. A few minutes later I'm giving Salem a couple tummy rubs like I always do and rushing out the door, praying that I'll get there on time.

The drive to my parent's house seems like it's taking ten times longer than usual and I'm constantly glancing at the clock, making sure that I won't be late but thankfully I get there with plenty of time to spare.

"Hurry up they'll be here any minute!" my mom says, practically having babysat the door to make sure I arrive first. "Nice to see you too" I mumble, never getting a proper hello from her anymore. "The basket is on the table and I put a blanket in there as well" she says rushing me over to where she's put it and it's at that moment she finally notices my appearance.

"You really like him don't you?" she ask, smugness laced in her tone as her efforts of matchmaking are slowly succeeding. "No! Yes...I don't know" I deny but I backtrack immediately since I really do like him. "I haven't been interested in anyone in years and so I don't want to try too hard but I don't know" I somewhat admit to myself, as well my mom that I'm really starting to warm up to the idea of being with someone again.

"It's okay love, he hasn't been with anyone in a really long time either" she says and I furrow my brow, "How do you know that?".

"Well Mrs. Jeon and I were talking about it last night and it seems like ever since his wife died he's been really closed off to love or the idea of dating again. He's tried a few times but they never went beyond a second or third date" she relays and I nod my head, distracting myself with looking through all of the things she had placed in the basket.

I try not to let any expression spread across my face since I don't know how to feel. I don't want to say I'm happy that things didn't work out between him and another woman but it's also sad to think about how Jungkook might've felt when his wife passed in such a traumatic way.

"Thank you for telling me but I think I should start learning more about him when he feels comfortable talking to me about it. It's only fair right? I'm sure he hasn't asked too much about me and my past so I guess shouldn't either" I say and walk into the kitchen to get a glass of water.

"But he has" she says when my mouth is full making me spit it into the sink that was thankfully right in front of me. "He what?" I cough, trying to compose myself as I learn this tidbit of information. "He has asked about you. In fact I was on the phone with her right before you got here" I grab a paper towel to dab off whatever water I have left on me but before I'm able to respond we hear the doorbell ringing.

"I'll get it" she say knowingly, giving me another second to calm down before I have to face him. I take a few deep breaths, fix my hair and check my reflection as best as I can in the smudged steel finish on the fridge while listening to my mother greet them at the door.

While Jungkook and my mother exchange a few words I peek around the corner and notice Juni slightly tugging on my mom's pant leg. "Excuse me but where's the pretty lady?" she asks and I have to hold back the coos I want to let out so badly, my heart already a puddle at the sight of her pleading eyes wanting to see me.

"Why don't you go look for her?" she says and when Jungkook looks up his eyes meet mine immediately for just a second but long enough to know my cover is blown. I duck back into the kitchen to hide, convincing myself that he didn't see me when he clearly did.

"Go on" he says softly when Juni no doubt looks up at him for approval and my mother follows behind her as Juni walks in the completely opposite direction from where I am, my mom trailing behind her, giving no hints and letting her explore on her own.

I assume that Jungkook follows them but when I hear what sound like his footsteps get closer and not further away I tiptoe my way into the pantry, completely mortified that I know now for a fact that he caught me staring at them.

I close the door almost all the way and ten seconds later I watch as his form passes by the little crack in the doorway and I hold my breath as if that might help but there's only one way in and one way out of this kitchen and both him and I know that.

Why did I even hide? What was I thinking? Way to start things off on the right foot.

While I'm busy scolding myself I forget to pay attention and stumble back when he opens the door. "Got ya" he chuckles and I clear my throat, "Yeah I uh, I guess you did" I say, trying to lean back against one of the shelves, stumbling over a box instead but quickly recovering.

"Why are you hiding?" he chuckles, leaning up against the door frame and crossing his arms making me look down and notice how one of them is completely covered in tattoos. I had never specifically been attracted to tattoos before but on him...

I lose track of what he had said and only realize I had left a lull in the conversation when he clears his throat. "Oh I-" I start off but when I hear my mother and Juni's voices in the other room I grab his shirt and pull him in, making him stumble inside, closing the door right away.

It's only when he hits the switch to turn the light on that I realize what I had done.

"I-" I try to apologize but when I look up at him I notice that there's something in the way he's looking at me that I have never seen before, making my words die in my throat. We stand there for what feels like hours but had only been mere moments just observing each other, watching those small changes of expressions and I start to feel dizzy under his gaze.

The tension between us clear and building but it's only when he opens his mouth to say something that the door is thrown open and we're met with a squeal from Juni. She runs into the closet and grabs onto Jungkook's leg making him stumble forward and as a result pins me against the shelf, his hands resting on either side of me.

It's like the universe is playing some sort of sick and twisted joke on us, constantly putting us in situations like these and yet we had only just become reacquainted with each other last night.

"I found you!" Juni squeals again, giggles as her cries of victory and she soon pulls on Jungkook's leg to try and separate us.

"Daddy I wanna play with the pretty lady" Juni pouts and in her efforts of trying to pull him off of me he actually loses his footing and stumbles, our bodies fully flush against each other now, his face just inches away from mine.

I blink up at him and he does the same to me, both of us frozen and not really knowing what to do. It's only when my mother chimes in and asks Juni to come with her to get a snack that that little bubble that had formed around us had been popped.

"I...sorry... I uh, tripped...you know...with Juni and everything" he says, fumbling his words like a school boy, taking a few steps back to be at a respectful distance again. "Yeah no it's fine. I um, I shouldn't have pulled you in here in the first place" I admit and he smirks, remembering the point that lead us up to the little predicament we're in.

"Why did you pull me in here?" he smiles, glancing over at where my mom has Juni plopped down on the kitchen counter with a popsicle in her hand. "I take hide and seek very seriously" I explain, me being the one crossing my arms now and he chuckles at my lame excuse for my actions but accepts it anyways.

"Right" he says and offers me a hand to lead me out which I reluctantly accept.

"Mom she'll spoil her dinner" I say, scolding her with Juni just lost in the flavor and sheer size of it. To be fair it looks adorable in her little hands. "It's alright, a little sugar won't hurt her. Plus we're still going to the park right?" he asks and I look at him and nod. "Right" I agree and lift Juni off the counter to set her on her feet.

"Hi Miss y/n" she says with a bright smile with her lips and tongue stained a bright shade of red from the cherry flavor. "Hi Juni" I say and fix her little sun dress that she's wearing, it's almost as if we had planned to match and when she notices me straightening out her dress she look at mine and also notices the similarity right away.

"Look Daddy! Miss y/n and I are matching!" she says with the toothiest grin I've ever seen, her front two teeth standing out just a little bit more making it another cute little trait she shares with her father. Although who knows if she'll keep that once she starts losing her teeth I think to myself and quickly fix her hair as well since it's gotten a bit ruffled in the excitement of it all.

"That's right baby, you both look so beautiful" he says making my heart skip a beat. When I look over at him he's giving me a similar adoring look he gave Juni just moments ago making it even harder for me to not melt into a puddle.

I'm beginning to notice that these two really know how to tug on a person's heartstrings, it's almost as if it were as easy as breathing and that's something that's gonna take a while to get used to.

"Can we go to the park now, please?" Juni asks, her eyes going back and forth between the two of us and when I look over at Jungkook he nods. "Sure, are you ready?" I ask, turning back to Juni and she jumps up and down and chants 'Yes' over and over again like she had done this morning on the phone.

"Alright let's go" I say and with one hand clutching her popsicle for dear life she uses the other one to grab mine and drag me towards the front door.

"Juni be careful" Jungkook scolds but I turn back towards him and assure him not to worry and I can see how he relaxes at that. She's a little bouncing ball of sunshine, emphasis on the bouncing since she can hardly sit still most of the time unless she's eating, and even then she's dancing around and smiling happily. I swear if this girl gets any sweeter I'm gonna start getting a toothache.

I let go of Juni's hand while my mother entertains her so we can make sure we have everything before we head out and when I try to turn around to grab my cardigan Jungkooks already grabbing it and holding it out to help me put it on. "Oh! I can-" "I know" he cuts me off but doesn't make any moves to give it to me so I turn my back to him and let him do as he pleases, sliding it up my arms and over my shoulders.

He runs his hands down my arms, no doubt as an excuse to smooth it all out but it causes a slight shiver to run through my system and he let's go, surprised at the reaction.

"You sure you're gonna be warm enough?" he asks, a hint of amusement laced in his tone making my cheeks heat up but I nod my head and quickly rush over to the table where the basket is so I don't have to face him but he takes it from me as soon as my fingers brush the handle, making our hands touch.

"I can carry that" I counter and he shakes his head, "No I'll carry it, someone's gotta hold Juni's hand while we walk there" he says, clearly delegating our respective duties and I smile and nod again. "Deal" and at that we're out the door.

~~~~

"Higher Daddy higher!" Juni squeals while Jungkook pushes her on the swing, his arms no doubt getting a little tired since she's been on it for the past ten minutes now and I can see he's losing momentum with every push.

"Daddy's tired Juni. Can you swing on your own now? You know, just like I taught you" he suggests and she thinks about it for a second before saying a quick 'Okay' and clumsily moving her legs back and forth to keep the momentum going.

I smile as I watch Jungkook stumble over towards where I've been sitting on the blanket and watching them, adoring their father daughter relationship. "You're so good with her" I praise when he sits down and hand him a cold water bottle which he accepts right away and downs half of it.

"You think so?" he asks, always unsure of himself but I couldn't think of a more perfect father than him. "I know so. She's lucky to have a loving devoted father like you" I say and he smiles softly, grabing one of the strawberries that my mother had packed for us.

"You flatter me" he says, a slight blush blooming on his cheeks making me feel almost smitten with him. "It's the truth" I reenforcing what I've said and he shakes his head, finishing off the fruit in his mouth.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm not enough, you know? Like there's only so much I could give her" he says and I can tell from how his body language has changed that he's really thinking about how he wishes her mother could be here for her too.

"What was her name?" I ask and he looks at me curiously, not knowing that I'm on the same page as him yet. "Your wife, what was her name?" I say tentatively but when he registers it I quickly backtrack. "I'm sorry, you don't have to tell me that. I just figured that you might've been well..." I trail off and we sit there in silence watching Juni swing back and forth, back and forth until he decides to speak up.

"Julie" he says softly, as if it had been years since he had spoken it. "Her name was Julie" he says softly and when I look over at him I can see the melancholy expression he's trying to hide. "That's a beautiful name, did you want Juni's name to sound similar to her's?" I ask, not wanting to make this conversation go dark but knowing that talking about her might cheer him up.

"Well, kinda. We wanted something that combined both of our names. It's silly, I know" he mumbles getting bashful about it. "It's not silly, it's wonderful to see in a way that both you and Juni are still carrying her with you everyday. It's a beautiful way to pay tribute to her" I reassure him and he smiles at me, mouthing a silent thank you.

"I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't have pried" I apologize again, seeing that it still has him feeling down. "No it's okay, it's nice to talk about her every once in a while. Thank you, for that" him now reassuring me and I nod, both of us left in silence for a while before Juni runs up to us.

"Daddy what's wrong?" she asks, seeing the clearly deflated Jungkook as she gets closer and it's good to see that instead of brushing it off like it's nothing he doesn't hesitate to tell her how he's feeling. "I'm just a little sad, Ms. y/n and I were just talking about Mommy" he explains and she gets almost a look of understanding which is surprising for someone of her age.

"Please don't be sad Daddy, remember you said Mommy is always watching over us right?" she say, giving him the talk that he's clearly had with her a time or two. "Right" he say, brightening up just a bit. "And she wouldn't want to see us sad when we think about her right?" she continues, an slightly stern tone creeping up which makes both Jungkook and I smile. "Right" he echos again and she nods her head in agreement.

"You always tell me to look in the mirror and touch my nose, and my ears and my lips and everything else that you say reminds you of her and you tell me that she'll always be right here with me. So that means when I'm here with you she's here too right?" she asks again and he chuckles.

"When did you get so smart?" he says, grabbing her and starts tickling her, making her squirm all over the place and when he finally has mercy on her and she catches her breath she answers, "Well I am turning five soon" she says matter-o-factly and I can't help but chuckle at that. "Oh right, how could I forget" he over exaggerates and she giggles, grabbing his shoulder before leaning in to whisper something.

"Daddy can we show the pretty lady a picture of Mommy?" she says almost at full volume leaving him flinching back. It's adorable how she still hasn't figured out this whole whispering thing. "Sure baby" he obliges and pulls out his phone, picking out one and handing it to her so she can show it to me.

She surprises me by plopping down in my lap and putting the phone way too close to my face. "This is my Mommy, her name is Julie" she says proudly and my heart can't help but ache thinking this is the only way she's known her mother. "She's beautiful Juni" I say, putting my hand on top of her hand that's holding the phone and pulling it back so I can see the picture properly.

"You really do have your mom's nose" I chuckle when I notice the same curved button nose they share leaving me booping her's and making her smile. She scrolls through a couple more photos giving me little bits of commentary that no doubt Jungkook has told her as she grew up and it's when I hear the soft click of a camera that I look back up at him.

"Sorry, it was too perfect not to" he says, seemly enjoying watching the two of us and I can't help the way my heart skips a beat making me shy all over again. "Can we take some more pictures?" Juni asks, wrapping her little arms around my neck and squishing my face against her's leaving me laughing at how adorable this all is.

Jungkook obliges and we take picture after picture after picture together until Juni is satisfied and has run off to play again.

"I didn't even know that you brought that" I say, watching as he fiddles around with the camera, flipping through the photos he just took. "It was on the table right behind the basket" he explains and now that I think about it I do remember seeing the corner of a camera bag sitting next to it.

He smiles as he looks at the pictures and I lean over to catch a glance at them but he pulls it back out of my reach. "Hey!" I chuckle and she shakes his head. "Not until they're edited" he refuses and I scoff.

"You're not actually going to edit them are you?" I say, nervous at the thought of him spending hours looking at those pictures. "Why wouldn't I?" he asks as if I had said something confusing. "Well I mean, aren't you busy with work? I doubt you would want to take extra time out of your day to play around with them" I explain and he smiles.

"Let me take a few more and then I'll let you see them" he says, angling his body so he's facing me. "Did you want me to call Juni back?" I ask but when I try he stops me with another click and I look back at him confused. "I meant of just you" he says simply but I can tell he feels a bit bashful from the way he's started to hide behind the camera.

"I'm not used to being the one in front of the camera" I say, trying to figure out exactly how to pose but he chuckles and puts the camera down a little to take a good look at me. "I don't see why not, you're beautiful" he says casually as if those words hadn't sent my heart into overdrive. "I-" I start but the words just don't come out, especially when he places the camera down and leans in closer.

He takes my hand and places it on the blanket so I can lean on it, places the other in my lap, angles my shoulders slightly away from him and takes my chin and softly tilts my head up, making the sunlight peer down on my face through the leaves of the tree we're under.

"Just relax" he says, acting as if I could possibly relax after he had his hands all over me, posing me just how he wanted.

I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths to clear my head and once I start to get that sense of serenity I hear a few soft clicks from his camera, taking picture after picture, him adjusting my pose by hand every time.

"Daddy!" is the next thing we hear after who knows how long with the sight of Juni running over to us all covered in mud. "Is this your daughter?" a woman who is clearly out of breath says while trailing after Juni.

"Juni what happened?" I chuckle, seeing that she's as happy as can be with a few smudges of dirt on her face and her dress all muddy. "Her and my son were playing over there and I guess he convinced her to jump in the mud and well..." she says, motioning towards Juni where I'm trying to clean her off as best as I can.

"I hope she didn't cause you any trouble" Jungkook says, now feeling a bit guilty about the situation since he had taken his eye off her for a second.

"No, not at all. If anything I should be apologizing for my son. I swear we look away for one second and he's as dirty as can be" she chuckles, finally close to catching her breath.

"Can you tell the nice lady thank you for bringing you back?" Jungkook tells Juni and she does as she's told and I can see that she has just about as much of an affect on this mom as she does with me. If Jungkook's not careful she can use her cuteness for mass destruction if left unchecked.

We hear a boy calling out for his mom that looks just like the woman in front of us now with no doubt her husband trailing after him. "Mom, Dad says it's time to go home" he says, his state twice as bad as Juni's. What is it with kids these days and mud? I chuckle to myself and when the boy notices Jungkook and I with Juni he gets a little shy.

"Oh, hello" he says before he goes and hides behind his mother's leg, "Oh so now you wanna be shy?" his dad teases and snatches him out from his hiding space and whispers no doubt an encouragement for him to apologize.

"I'm sorry for getting her all dirty. She was just really nice and I wanted to have fun with her" he mumbles and I can see hints of pink peeking through the streaks of dirt on his cheeks just like Juni.

What did I say? Weapon of mass destruction.

"It's okay sweetie, I'm just glad you had fun" I say, brushing off his apology and when he looks up at me now I can see that his blush deepens and opts to hide behind his Dad's leg this time. "Alright well say goodbye" his mom says and he mumbles a quiet goodbye and gives Juni a shy wave compared to hers being one to match her outgoing and bubbly self.

"Can we play again tomorrow?" Juni asks him and he looks up at his parents for approval. "We usually come here around this time everyday after school so you just have to ask your Mommy and Daddy if you can come again" she says and when I try to deny her claims Jungkook jumps in before I can get a word out. "We'll be here" he says and Juni smiles so wide.

"See you tomorrow!" she calls out to them and the trio waves goodbye one last time before heading to their car.

"Mommy and Daddy?" I turn to Jungkook while Juni is busy doing a little happy dance before taking a drink of her juice box. "Well I um, I guess they couldn't help but think we're her parents so it felt best to not correct them" he says while rubbing the back of his neck, his cheeks dusted a light shade of pink just like the little boy's were when he was looking at Juni.

"Right, and when they say something tomorrow?" I tease and he clears his throat, no doubt not thinking this whole thing through. "Well I guess there's no harm in faking it?" he says and now I'm the one that's nervous.

"Faking it? You mean you want me to pretend to be Juni's mom? Why?" I ask, flustered by the thought of it. "I'm sorry I guess I didn't think about how you might feel about it. I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable" he apologizes but I rush to explain myself.

"I'm not uncomfortable I'm just shocked that you would want to go along with something like that to keep up appearances for people that we hardly know" I say, trying to figure out where his head is at. "Sorry that was a stupid suggestion we don't have to do it if you don't want to" he says and I shake my head.

"I mean I want to, but do you? I mean what about Juni? What's she gonna think?" I ask and watch as she chases a butterfly that has caught her eye. "We can just tell her we're playing pretend" he says and I raise a brow at him.

"That's the best you got?" I ask and he chuckles nervously. It's funny to see that a tall, strong, handsome man like him is getting so shy about this but I'll play along, I just don't want to confuse Juni.

"Juni can you come here for a second?" Jungkook calls and she turns and runs over to us right away, looking between the two of us since we're both looking at her with no doubt some very strange expressions. "You like to play pretend right?" he asks and she brightens up at the thought, "It's my favorite thing to do!" she says, twirling around in her very adorable muddy dress.

"How would you feel if we started playing pretend with Ms. y/n?" he asks and she gets even more excited and does her little chanting of 'Yes' over and over again, a very adorable habit of hers.

"So this is what we're gonna do, whenever we're out and about with Ms. y/n we're going to pretend like we're a family. You'll be the Baby, I'll be the Daddy and Ms. y/n will be the Mommy, does that sound alright to you?" he asks and she giggles and looks between the two of us, clearly loving the idea.

"Yes let's do it!" she says, fully confident in her playing pretend skillset. "Alright Juni but there's one little rule" he says and she come in close, knowing that this part is probably a secret. "You can't call her Mommy in front of her parents or grandma and grandpa, got it?" he says and I fully agree with him, we don't need to get their hopes up when we still don't know exactly what we are.

"Got it! Mommy?" she asks, getting my attention and trying on the name for size and I answer to it right away, somehow feeling almost natural already. "Yes Juni?" I ask, and she looks over at the playground for a second before looking back over at me. "Can I go play for just a little while longer?" she asks, holding her hands together and giving me the cutest puppy dog eyes I've ever seen.

"Go ahead" I say and she giggles and rushes off to run around just for a little while longer just like she said. "It suits you" Jungkook says and I look over at him curiously, "What does?" I ask with a tilt of my head. "You being a mom" he says and the words die in my throat. I've always been told I'd be a good mother when the time came but hearing it from him after what we just agreed to do just...

"Thank you" I say, my heart squeezing in a painful but also grateful way and he gives me a smile before he places his hand on my waist for a second to solidify his sincerity before walking a bit closer to the playground to watch Juni.

I decide to start packing up the stuff we had brought and by the time Juni is dragging her feet back over to me and completely out of breath I've got everything ready to go. "You tired?" I ask and she nods her head, her blinks getting lazy as a clear sign that it's time for bed.

"Why don't I carry her home...I mean back to my mom's house" I correct myself quickly but I can tell he liked the sound of what I had said, my implication being completely different from what he had imagined. "It's alright, I can carry her, we've got one pretty dress all muddy so I don't think we need another one" he chuckles.

I pause for a second and pull out the picnic blanket we brought and hold it against myself before picking her up. "Problem solved" I say and he can't help but smile at my solution and quickly takes Juni's shoes off and wipes her feet clean as best as he can before taking the end of the blanket and tucking it all up so she's practically wrapped up like a burrito.

"You sure you can cary her? She can get a bit heavy when she's sleepy like this, especially since we've gotta walk for a little bit" he offers and I assure him I'm fine. "What kind of mother would I be if I couldn't carry my child home?" I tease and his eyes widen, clearly having forgotten the little game we're playing.

"How dare I doubt your capabilities as a mother" he chuckles and picks up our stuff, motioning for me to lead the way.

A few minutes go by and we're left in a comfortable silence on our way back to my parent's house and when I decide to speak up he does the same. "I-" "Tha-", "Sorry you go first" "No that's okay you go first" and we toss it back and forth a few more times before he hits me with the age old "Ladies first".

"Thank you for coming tonight and letting me spend some more time with Juni...well and you of course" I say sheepishly and he smiles. "I would hope you like spending time with me since you are my wife after all" he teases and now we've switched personalities. "You know, I think you're getting a little too comfortable with this already" I say and he smiles, playing with his lip piercing that I somehow only noticed right now, the silver glistening from the street lights.

There's so many things I haven't noticed about him yet, or even know about him but somehow everything seems so easy.

"I mean can you blame me? You fit right in with Juni and I. Honestly better than I thought you would" he mumbles the last part to himself and I have to try my absolute hardest not to literally fall for him. I'm holding his daughter so I would one thousand percent say that now is not the time.

"What?" I ask, needing clarification but he doesn't give. "Oh nothing" he smiles and picks up the pace, leaving me trailing behind him and right when I go to say something else Juni flinches leaving me slowing down and soothing her back to sleep. "Your Daddy is crazy, you know that?" I whisper to her as if she could hear me but the need to say something was too great.

A minute or two later we're walking up to my mom's house and I twist my body to give him access to the small purse I brought with us and let him fish out the keys to open the door.

When my mom hears us come in she goes to give us a no doubt overly exaggerated welcome home but as soon as she sees a very sleepy Juni in my arms she cuts herself off and switches to a hushed tone.

"Looks like you all had fun" she chuckles and caresses Juni's head for a second, checking to see if she's really asleep and she very much is. "Maybe a little too much fun" Jungkook chuckles, seeing my mother slowly realize how dirty Juni had gotten.

"She's a cheeky one isn't she?" my mom smiles lovingly and I can't help but wish this whole mom thing with Juni was real. "She is indeed" Jungkook agrees, and hands my mother the picnic basket.

"Thank you so much for letting me steal your daughter today" Jungkook teases and I can tell that she absolutely loves this. "Honestly you can keep her. I hardly see her anyways" she says, giving Jungkook permission as well as sending a jab my way.

"Mom" I groan and the both of them smile as if they delighted in my embarrassment. "I just might" he says softly while looking over at me and I can see my mom picking out the wedding venue as we speak, meanwhile I'm wrestling with myself to stay calm.

We agreed to fake this relationship which means that everything he says is fake...right? I need to separate the real from the delusion but he unfortunately isn't making this any easier.

We say our final goodbyes to my mom and she watches until we walk up to Jungkook's car, no doubt still watching behind the curtain of one of our front windows, spying on us as if her life depended on it. I try to ignore it though because how we end tonight is really important to me.

"Can I ask you something?" I say after he finishes putting Juni in the car, him closing his car door and walking me over to my car just a few feet away. "Anything" he says while ushering me toward it with a hand on my waist, a slight sign of protection since it's gotten a lot darker than we both realized.

"When you said I fit in better than you thought I would...and that you might keep me, was that a part of this whole faking it thing we have going?" I ask, wanting to have an open line of communication with him. We're not shy teenagers anymore so as adults I feel like this is something really important to establish.

"Do you want it to be?" he asks, standing in front of me while I lean against my car door. It still very much being locked as a very clear sign that I don't want this to end. "I mean we just met and..." I say, trailing off because I don't really know what I want. All I know is I like him. I really really like him and his daughter has got me wrapped around her cute little finger.

"I know, we can take this slow. If this whole husband/wife thing is too much for you we don't have to do it" he offers and I shake my head, "No, no I want to. I just don't want the lines to get too blurry" I explain and he nods his head and leans his hand against the car right next to where I'm standing.

"Blurry lines aren't a problem for me when it comes to you, it's your call though" he says and if my heart wasn't already racing it surely would've been now. I look up at him and hold my breath when he gets closer my eyes not leaving his and when he lean down I close my eyes, giving into whatever he wants to do to me.

"Goodnight" he whispers, his warm breath fanning my neck making me lose my sense of reality for a second, wanting to lose myself in him without abandon. I can hardly breathe let alone think straight and he chuckles at that, standing up straight and ghosting his fingers along my jaw before stepping aside, a clear sign for me to get into my car and when I fumble with my keys he takes them and unlocks it and opens the door for me.

I sit down inside and look up at him, indulging myself for a few more seconds. When he hands me my keys he makes our hands touch only for a moment before saying a soft 'Drive safe'.

When he closes the door for me I finally let out that breath I had desperately been holding back, watching as he walks back to his car with his little Juni still sound asleep.

I watch him pull out of the driveway and decide that even the way he drives is irresistible, giving me a small wave before he goes and while I'm lost in thought I almost jump out of my skin when I hear my phone ringing and my mom's name pops up.

"Mom I really can't talk right now" I say, putting her on speakerphone and starting to car. "Do not give me that y/n I am your mother and set you up with this man so tell me what is going on" she says and I sigh, checking all my mirrors and heading out as well just seconds later.

"To be honest mom I don't even know. He's showing me very very clear signs that he's interested in me but I can't really say much of anything else at this point" I admit, the realization that the state of our relationship is anything but normal.

"We just met last night and things are progressing fast, like really fast" I sigh, stopping at a red light, thankfully giving me a second to think. "Well I'd say this is all a good sign. I mean you're both in your thirties honey so adult relationships can progress a lot faster than when you're younger. He's a man that clearly knows what he wants and he wants you. So go for it" she encourages and I take it all in.

"You're biased because you're my mother and would love to have his parents as your in-laws" I say and she scoffs. "Yes but that's not the point. You would be a fool if you let a man like him walk out of your life" she scolds and I know she's right.

"I'll do my best to keep an open mind. But please don't talk to his mom yet, or at least not tonight. I don't need both of you losing sleep over this" I warn her but I know she'll do as she pleases no matter what. "You know I can't do that, but I'll do my best" she says and that is the biggest lie she's ever told but I'm not surprised since we dangled this whole thing right in front of her face.

"You called her already didn't you?" I sigh and she chuckles. "As soon as I closed the door" she admits and I sigh, not the slightest bit surprised. "Alright mom well I gotta go but we'll talk again soon" I say, pulling into my parking spot and turning off the car.

"Okay well keep me updated" she says and I can't help but roll my eyes. "Between you and Mrs. Jeon I'm sure you can keep each other in the loop" I say, putting my keys in the lock and closing the door behind me when I step into my apartment. "But I gotta go alright, I'll talk to you later" I say once again and hang up as soon as she says goodbye.

"Hi Salem" I sigh, watching as he jumps down from his cat tree and stretches before walking up to me, rubbing against my leg before walking over to his food bowl, clearly requesting the very late dinner I'm giving him. "I'm sorry boy, I guess I gotta get you one of those timed feeders now from the looks of it" I apologize and give him his food right away.

I put a couple treats into his bowl as well as an apology and make my way back to my room to jump in the shower and think about everything that happened today.

Jungkook basically admitted that he wants to get to know me better because he clearly feels like he can see a future between us and to be honest I pretty much feel the same way. It could be that we've caught a severe case of puppy love but I think we both know that this could potentially go somewhere.

I love spending time with him and Juni, granted this is only the second time we've spent time together but still I can't get over the fact of how natural it all felt. Then he goes and pulls this whole pretend to be married business and now he's telling me he doesn't mind if the lines are blurred between us.

This is all way too much for one day but I can't deny that I'm not enjoying the journey. This is progressing a whole lot faster than I thought it would but that doesn't necessarily mean that's a bad thing. I guess we've both got a whole lot of learning to do.

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hope-you-brought-kneepads-bitch · 11 months ago

Text

And they were roommates

Summary: Demon Y/n and Human Wanda are roommates, and it’s obviously going really well until you have enough of Vision and decide to try and do something about it, Wanda doesn’t appreciate it though

A/n: I know I’m writing a devil reader but I missed demon reader and so they’re back for now

Words: 2000+

Warnings: 18+ Minors DNI small small amounts of angst (just a small argument)

“Hey pretty lady-“

“No! Don’t start Y/n” Wanda pushed past you and slammed her bedroom door shut leaving you out in the hallway “oh no baby don’t be like that I thought we had something special!” You slammed on the door starting to laugh

“Fuck off Y/n!”

“Who’s pissed you off today? Did Vision only kiss you on the cheek again to preserve your innocence? Really funny if you think about it since you and I-“

The door opened and you barley had time to right yourself before Wanda appeared and slapped you across the face “oof nice hit Wands, try the other cheek tomorrow yeah?”

Wanda just shook her head making her way to the kitchen and taking a beer from the fridge, you obviously followed your seething roommate sitting on the kitchen island facing the redhead “was I right?”

She took a swig of the drink and nodded “yeah, yeah you were right annoyingly, but just leave it okay? Anyway what did you do today?”

You smiled wide leaning close to the woman’s face “thought about you”

“Thought about me how?” She was curious, but also worried, you were nothing if not honest, way too honest

You lent back on the table ��Well first off we were laying in bed watching doctor who because you seem to really like alien men with weird space screwdrivers, personally I really like Missy, she looks like a fun time”

“Y/n! Stop getting distracted” you were known to ramble on and on about nothing and it annoyed Wanda to no end, even though she knew where the conversation was going she knew you wouldn’t shut up if you didn’t finish

“Oh yeah! Anyway long story short I was lay on my back and you were sat on my fac-

“Nevermind! I don’t actually care”

You shrugged “okay but I was getting to the best part and you know I was” you laughed while Wanda just blushed turning around to walk back to her room

There was a knock on the door and you jumped up to answer it seeing the man you were just talking about at the door “oh vision, what a disappointment I thought it was the strippers I ordered to cheer up Wanda”

The man just rolled his pushing past you to Wanda “Wanda please I didn’t know why they did that, it was just a silly joke”

You brushed off the man germs that appeared on your clothes and made a mental note to burn them later, whispering to yourself “sure just come into the house Vision, I wish you were a vampire so I couldn’t let you in the house without permission and watch you stand there unable to move and I could just bully you”

“Vision please I’m not in the mood can we just talk tomorrow?”

“But I’m here now! Please Wanda just talk to me I don’t want to lose you, how about we go on a date tomorrow? Skip lectures for the day and just go to the zoo or something?”

You let out a laugh “a zoo? Zoos are for babies, why not just go to a bar?”

The man turned back to you “because bars are for deadbeats and perverts”

Your head tilted and Wanda froze knowing you were trying your best to control yourself, she knew you didn’t like Vision but it was more because you hated men altogether she was pretty sure “Y/n let’s just calm down it’s okay, vision please just leave”

The man frowned looking between the two of you then just focusing on Wanda “why are you always defending her?”

Wanda glanced to you now with red eyes and your fangs showing, you could converse with Wanda in your mind so you did just that

“I will gut him like a fish Wanda I swear to Salem”

Looking back at Vision she grabbed his hands “I don’t always defend her, she just gets angry easy but it’s fine I will see you tomorrow I promise” she kissed him softly and you fake gagged “gross” whispering to yourself

“Okay I’ll see you tomorrow” he kissed her back turning around to you hanging your head, so to hide the fangs and eyes, “get some anger management done Y/n” your response was to flip him off, he left without another word and you lifted your head to Wanda with her arms crossed and glaring at you

“Well now I need to relive some anger, wanna have some fun?”

Wanda couldn’t believe you, you’d just pissed off her boyfriend and now you want to have sex? Unbelievable!

“Why the fuck do you think I want to have sex with you after that?!”

Shrugging you walked towards Wanda holding your arms out for a hug which she took rolling her eyes but instantly relaxed in your hold and forgetting about Vision “remember when your parents came over and you argued with them and then later you came into my room for the first time-

Wanda let out a heavy sigh “I know what you’re getting at, fine come on then” she pulled out of the hug walking to her room and looking back at you “you’re being on top this time”

You smiled “I love being on top”

Wanda rolled her eyes “only when it suits you”

“Yes because what’s hotter than a redhead whimpering and riding you harder and harder as she struggles to not cum without permission?”

The blush was heavy on Wanda’s face and instead of speaking she just went into her room quickly followed by you

**************************************************

“Wanda! You missed some lectures this morning!” Natasha Romanoff, Wanda’s best friend was worried about her not being in this morning “where were you?”

Wanda waved her off “I had to make sure Y/n was okay”

Wanda just raised her eyebrow “Y/n huh? How is the spicy hothead?”

“Still a bitch but she pays her half of the rent every month so I shouldn’t complain-

“Wanda!” The woman shut her eyes tight praying to whatever god she could and even the devil that it wasn’t actually you she’d heard, unfortunately no luck “Wanda! You forgot your books!” You got closer and Wanda opened her eyes to you and widening them seeing your outfit

“What the hell are you wearing??!” She whisper shouted at you trying to cover you up with her arms, practically half naked in college? You were asking for trouble

“Oh Wanda calm down it’s only a blazer” you playfully pushed the girl away and turned to Nat “what do you think Natty? Is my outfit appropriate?”

Nat glanced at your blazer open noticing the lack of anything underneath and she quickly averted her gaze “uh well if you move a certain way you can see your erm,see your breasts”

“Well you’re getting a free show then aren’t you Nat? It’s okay I won’t tell anyone, but if you want a physical touch then it’ll cost you” you winked and Nat nearly collapsed “Jesus Christ Wanda she’s a menace”

Wanda just rolled her eyes and took her books from your hand “you can go now Y/n, don’t you have a video game to complete or something”

You mulled it over “nah I’ve completed Alan wake 2, not as scary as everyone says, I’ve been in more dangerous situations, anyway no I’m hanging out with Loki today, he’s allowed to leave the house now”

You pulled Wanda into a hug kissing her cheek and keeping her close “do you have anything else to say about my outfit?”

Wanda refused to look at your chest, you knew she wanted to look but was being a baby about it “just that you should have a shirt on under your blazer”

“You’re no fun” pulling away from her you gave one last look to Nat “always a pleasure see you Natty, you’ll have to come to our party this weekend”

Nat smiled wide “absolutely! Wanda said she’s really excited for it”

“Perfect! Oh before I leave Wanda I’ll pick up dinner later, me and Loki are going to a posh restaurant, so I’ll bring some stuff back”

Wanda agreed “cool, we’ve got class so I’ll see you at home” Wanda dragged Nat away reluctantly from you as you waved her off with a sweet smile

****************************************************

“Is that him?” Loki whispered taking a drag of his cigarette glaring at the football players “yeah with the red bandanna on his stupid head”

“Interesting, so what are we doing about him?”

You sat up on the bench keeping your hoodie down so he didn’t recognise you “I want to kill him but I’m pretty sure Wanda wouldn’t like that”

“Still pining over Wanda huh? I thought you were with Carol and Val?”

You shrugged “nah they’re in a real relationship now and it was getting weird”

The man laughed “weirder than a demon third wheel?”

Just as you were about to respond your name was yelled “Y/n! What do you think you’re doing here?!”

Of course vision had recognised you, stupid smart human, you just offered him a smile when he approached the pair of you “Vision! What a surprise, apologised to Wanda for being a dick yet?”

The man seethed “you have no right! I don’t know why she puts up with you”

You laughed “if only you knew Vis, I’ll give you a hint, I walk around the house comfortably, which means I’m normally just wearing my boxers and sports bra, and I can tell you now my dick is so much bigger than yours”

The man stood there shocked, suddenly he held his fist out punching you square in the face forcing your head back and pretend it hurt “well fuck me Vision you have some punch on you don’t you?” You laughed wiping your nose with the back of your hand standing up and wiping it on the man’s shirt

“Aren’t you in pain?” He didn’t notice the blood, more transfixed on the fact you weren’t screaming in pain “I vowed never to let a man cause me pain, you’re not exempt from that, no matter how unmanly you are”

You walked away from the situation leaving Loki with Vision “she’s wild, maybe you should clean your white shirt, looks like she’s written something in her blood on it”

He followed in the direction you were going and Vision looked down seeing the word “douche” on his shirt “how the? How’d she do that so quick?”

*****************************************************

Wanda was sat under a tree when you found her with her eyes closed clearing having a rest, well you were definitely putting an end to that “Wanda your oaf of a boyfriend hit me and I’m clearly in a lot of pain so I need you to fix it”

You only saw Wanda’s chest move in a slow motion indicating a heavy sigh, at least she was awake, when she did open her eyes seeing you all blooded she just sat up “why did you insult him?”

“Insult him?! That bastard hit me, all I was doing was watching the hot cheerleaders and maybe tried getting one of their numbers but he attacked me out of nowhere, I’m the innocent one!”

Wand stood up inspecting your face “are you done being a drama Queen about everything?”

You shrugged “depends on if I get a kiss from you to make it all better”

Placing your hands around Wanda’s waist you pulled her in close “we’re in public Y/n”

“Come on Wands kiss the pretty demon, I don’t bite, unless you really want me too”

Wanda looked down to your lips and back up into your now red eyes “I hate how hot you are” it was whisper but you heard it and kissed her, only a short kiss as she pulled away quick in fear of someone seeing you both

“How many lectures do you have left?”

Wanda sighed “just math”

“Skip it, come home and we’ll watch doctor who and make my fantasy yesterday a reality” the redhead smiled pulling away from you and picking up her bag taking a face wipe out and cleared her face of the blood you transferred onto her then handing you one

“I can’t skip anymore classes Y/n, I need to stay”

“You’re 25 Wanda you’re an adult, adults don’t do math” you wiped the blood from your face and very ungraciously snapped your nose back into place making Wanda wince, she hated when you did things like that, really freaked her out

“I’ll just see you later, stop annoying vision” she waved you off and headed for her class

“Only when he stops being a dick!” You shouted back and took out your phone to text her something funny

****************************************************

Wanda managed to get to her class just in time to see Nat waiting for her “nice to see you finally” she laughed and Wanda shoved her friend giggling until her phone buzzed with a message

👩‍🦰+😈-👚🩲=best night of your life, there’s some math for you my love, don’t keep me waiting

Wanda rolled her eyes putting her phone away earning a look from Nat “leave it let’s just go in, can’t wait until I’m finished with my degree honestly”

*****************************************************

You were on Wanda instantly as she walked through the door, picking her up and wrapping her legs around you, kissing her all over ultimately landing on her neck sucking a dark mark there

“No, no marks you know the rules” Wanda tried pushing you away but your grip was firm on her “don’t care…you’re mine, sick of sharing you”

You continued your assault on her neck but Wanda managed to push you away and fall to the floor “okay we need to stop!”

“oh? What do you mean by stop?” Wanda’s harsh voice caught you by surprise

Your deep voice always made Wanda nervous, you being a demon and all but she stood her ground standing up and keeping her distance from you “I can’t keep dealing with this! You’re making it so difficult!”

“Making what difficult? I haven’t done anything, when you come into my room at night, when you send me dirty text messages and when you scream my name, that’s all you, you’re the instigator in all of this”

“Me?! You’re the demon, a waste of human skin and space, I don’t even know why you’re up here- wait actually I do! They don’t want you in hell, even the poor souls being tortured can’t be bothered with you!”

All you could do was laugh “you can’t even insult me properly, fucking pathetic” you continued to laugh but Wanda definitely wasn’t laughing “please just take something serious for once!

“I’m always serious, and I mean it, you’re the instigator but if you want to stop this then fine, we’ll stop, see you later Wanda”

You quickly turned and headed for the door

“Where are you going?!”

“Out. Don’t know when or if I’ll be back”

Wanda didn’t mean for this to happen, she just wanted try and talk but you were so difficult “Y/n I just, just please stay”

“No thanks Wanda, maybe I’ll go back to hell and bother the other demons there, if they’re not bored of me of course” there was no emotion in your voice and Wanda sighed “okay, just be safe”

“Bye Wanda”

#marvel #wanda maximoff #mcu #wanda maximov #wanda maximoff x reader #marvel incorrect quotes #marvel au #And they were…#marvel fic #demon!y/n #demon!y/n x Wanda maximoff #marvel imagine #and they were roommates

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museofthepyre · 1 month ago

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Thinking about character analysis lately and I really wanna talk about the themes of privilege prevalent throughout CHNT... I wanna talk about how they're core to SO MUCH of the series imo, especially in relation to Jedidiah and Elijah's actions and similarities. With that, I wanna talk about the transfem Elijah hc- and explain why personally, I stand with Mayfield on the whole “let’s maybe not do that” thing.

But I don't want my nerdy character analysis ramble to feel... inflammatory? This is nothing more than my own personal takeaway from the series, and as always, I have nothing against the people who enjoy trans Elijah & Jeddie hcs (especially if it's a self-projection!). I just have a contrasting perspective, and a tendency to over-analyze media, so don’t let me sour your fun ;3

I'm not as interested in discussing morality as I am narritave congruency, just since many have said it before... that being, something something "out of all the characters to hc as transfem, let's maybe not hone in on the guy who's notoriously creepy and invasive and stalkerish. Let's just be mindful of the insinuations that come from pointing at him specifically and going "omg so transfem coded". Theres something to be said about how so many ppl neglect the transfem rep we actually have in favour of it — yeah, ykwim..." something something.

But I digress— I wanna talk about the narritave!!!!!

To contextualize my thoughts: I believe Jedidiah and Elijah are meant to be parallels. I believe neither of them are ill-intended or evil. I believe they both thought they were doing "good", but their respective worldviews were uniquely distorted. One of the things warping their perspective issssss: privilege!

Privilege (and the subsequent ignorance it fosters) is a large theme I’ve noticed throughout CHNT, a theme which both Elijah and Jedidiah's characters explore.

For Elijah, this comes in the form of... his total obliviousness towards just how scary his behaviour comes across to Sydney. He just doesn't seem to realize it at all— how his actions, regardless of their intent, are threatening and frightening and creepy as hell. As a cis white man, he's likely never had to adapt that specific kind of hyper-vigilance that women (both trans and cis) and transmascs all learn at some point in their life experience.

I don't think it's any coincidence that Sydney and Marisol (and Salem!!!) were afraid of Elijah— but Jedidiah, another cis white man, just couldn't wrap his head around why they were scared. Why they share an instinctual fear of this random sketchy human man, and why *this* freaks them out so much more than the whacky magical anomalies they encounter daily. He, like Elijah, lives in a totally different world, one where he's never had to be hyper-vigilant in that way! He's completely detached from Sydney and Marisol's perspective. He cannot sympathize, because he’s never had to. Both Elijah's behaviour AND Jedidiah's dismissal of it share the same root— a privileged perspective that they can't (or refuse to) see beyond.

Something I love about CHNT is how it explores real world issues in a heightened reality. Nobody is a cartoon villain here, their actions come not from evil, not from malice, but plain ol’ ignorance.

With this understanding... and the understanding that trans women ABSOLUTELY adapt this hyper-vigilance the very same way cis women and transmascs do (as Marisol stands to demonstrate)... the notion of a transfem Elijah becomes an entirely different character, because she would know!!!!! She would not share that privileged blissful ignorance!

A character who is scaring Sydney, knows it, and continues that behaviour with no regard for his suffering... vs a character who is so detached from Sydney’s reality that they’re completely ignorant to how much suffering they’re causing him in their blind attempt to “help”. One is knowing and malicious— one is catastrophically ignorant.

WHCH IS STILL BAD- but it’s consistent with those themes of ‘no evil cartoon villainy’ and 'character is doing what they think is right. they do not know what is right'. Elijah’s goal seems to be earning Sydney’s trust… and making Sydney fear him directly sabotages that pursuit, so I don’t think he’s doing it with real awareness/ intent. I also don’t think he had ulterior motives, in case that needs to be clarified. I think he (like Jedidiah) truly wanted to do what they thought was “right” for Sydney…

… Doing what they thought was right, all the while being completely oblivious to the suffering they're causing him inversely— because (say it with me now), they're detached from his reality, they cannot sympathize, they've never had to! Well, they COULD sympathize... but in order to do that, they’d have to sacrifice the bliss of that ignorance, which neither of them seemed ready to do. Not until the last episode when Jedidiah… maybe took his first few steps. Maybe. Hopefully.

Anyways yeah. This specific facet of Elijah's identity (cis guy privilege) feels crucial to his character, and contextualizing why he acts the way he does. Same goes for Jedidiah tbh. I think showcasing, acknowledging, and breaking down the harm of that ignorance is part of the story's message (in so many more ways than just this one example) (I have a whole other ramble locked and loaded about why I think Jedidiah is very intentionally written to be a wealthy healthy skinny cis white guy and how that impacts the narrative lol)

In case it needs to be stated I'm not asserting this as any One True Way of interpreting the characters, it's just what I got from the series ;3 and I wanna share because I like to yap! Sidenote here, we should pay more attention to Marisol. God, I love Marisol.

#I hope this is not controversial #I don’t think it is?#peace and love to all headcannoners just bc I disagree doesn’t mean I think negatively of anyone /gen #I just think too much #of the media #I significantly condensed this down from a whole ass essay to post 😅#I cannot stress enough that this is not targeted I do not keep track of who does and doesn’t engage in which headcannons lol #camp here and there #chnt #camp here & there #ch&t #ramblings

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lesbianneopolitan · 19 days ago

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It's tiiiime to copy/paste my ordered ramble on the Vampire AU to have it archived here as well!

· Neo was born in the Late Middle Ages (around 1250), and the Vanille family turned her into a vampire around 1275, when she was in her middle 20s (25).

· It was around the age of the Industrial Revolution that she broke free from her family by killing them, after many years of training to hone her skills and develop her special powers.

· She was the heiress of the Vanille family, but in reference to canon, her relationship with her parents was less than ideal. There was a lot of drama with other vampire families, like if they were mafias. · Being born in such an early era made the ignorant populace (and even her parents) to believe she was cursed from the start or possessed by an evil entity (because of her mutism and heterochromia).

· As a side note, the cruelty of vampires not being able to reproduce in this world lead vampire families of renown to kidnap newborn children from humans to raise as their own, all before turning them into vampires at late adult ages.

· Neo never got to meet her biological parents- not like she ever got the need to do so in the first place.

· Modern setting unless stated otherwise. Ethnicity wise, she’s also a British Italian in this AU.

· Born Trivia Vanille, but she goes by the name of Neopolitan to everyone. Only really close people to her know of her real name.

· In this world, vampires develop special abilities aside of the base vampire powers. Neo’s powers are illusion-based, pretty close to how her Semblance works in canon.

· On the set of base vampire abilities, she’s good with vampire shapeshifting- turning into bats, mist, cats, wolves, and even a monstrous form. Her illusions feel more cold and less real, while shapeshifting physically changes her. She’s also good with dream invasion and telepathy.

· She’s pretty cruel when it comes to treat humans, for she only sees them as food and her playthings. However, the exception of this case is Roman Torchwick, who is actually just a normal dude in this AU, yet, he’s Neo’s best friend and partner in crime.

· Neo is pretty much an independent and free vampire. She helps Roman with robberies and other crimes, lives doing whatever she feels like doing.

· A lesbian (expected). In fact, she’s close to Cinder, a vampire of Salem’s vampire family. She’s her closest vampire buddy, and the woman she goes out with when it comes to vampire-natured mischief and cruelty. Neo is the reason Cinder became a vampire in the first place.

· Born mute, she can communicate via telepathy in this AU. She likes to scare people with it, but tries to avoid using it too much because it's not her preference.

· The first vampires that started to create their bloodlines all come from different origins, so there are small differences between each line, and Neo comes from one in which the vampires are specially talented with shapeshifting and illusion-based powers. Dream invasion too.

· While I didn’t define it too well yet, the idea is that the first vampire of her line was more related to the fae than say, an evil god or a demon of some kind, even if at the end of the day, all vampires are quite demonic in nature.

#Vampire AU #RWBY #Neopolitan #AU lore

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rise-my-angel · 2 years ago

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Perilous Companions

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Length: 24.7k

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And my father, what did he say?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Can you just listen to me?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Come up here, sweetheart.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Just turn around. Slowly.”

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

“You live here?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Put your hands back up,”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Show me him. Let me see him.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller imagine #joel miller fic #joel miller fanfic #joel miller fanfiction #the last of us imagine

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thelastbraincellofthehive · 2 years ago

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Ok so, back from work and finally had a chance to rewatch the episode and do my thoughts about it not that I haven't practically said it all in reblogs already lol

Neo, baby, I love you... But it was honestly so disrespectful of you to change into Penny while fighting Ruby???? WTH! I know when I started watching this show I basically gave RT full permision to rip my heart apart, but do they have to take every chance they get to do it? The fuck?!

Honestly in love with the Wonderland aesthetic of this volume <3 which is funny because I'm not actually a fan of Alice in wonderland lol.

But like... It's so pretty???? Also it's exacto what the girls need right now. Can't wait for the character development this volume.

Ruby making alies and friends by being kind and helpful is always one of my favorite things honestly. We need more Rubys in the world.

Remember when Weiss was considered the most annoying character in the show? God following her journey is just so rewarding! I love her so much!

Seriously that scene of Weiss cheering lives rent free in my mind now lol precious little bean<3

I thought it would take maybe two or three chapters to have team RWBY all together, but I'm happy it was so fast! Specially with such a small volume, now it's time for adventure!

Yang being upset that everyone is there because she just assumed she had died 😭 baby no!!!

Ruby's "if you thought we wouldn't come for you, you forget who raised me" is now top-10 moments of the show for me 🥹 perfection in every way

The tackle-hug 😭😭😭 I can't!!!! I'm never gonna grow tired of watching it!!!!

Also that's the SOFTEST "Yang" that Arryn Zech has ever said and I will always thank her for her work! I've been fed!

I have this weird feeling theory/idea that the weather in Wonderland is affected by the girls' emotions... Like, it literally started raining both when Ruby and Weiss started crying, while it goth Sunny when Blake expressed positive thoughts. O feel like it's no coincidence.

Also I can't stop thinking about how Oscar and Ozpin talked about The girl who fell through the world being about a girl who failed to learn from her mistakes and I'm sooooo excited to see how this is gonna play for the girls!

Like... We've gotten two fallen kingdoms in big battles that ended up with Penny dying and Cinder victorious and I think it's interesting.

Weiss having to tell everyone about Penny and Ruby just dropping to the ground 😭 I'm seriously never forgiving RT for doing that to my girl again.

Again: the new opening fucks! Which is not new and not surprising, but God sometimes I forget how much I love Casey's voice and just the Williams' talent in general <3

Also all the depressed Ruby shots in the opening are doing things to my heart and I don't like it! Let Ruby be happy 😭😭 with her girlfriend Penny

Also can I just say that I feel so proud about seeing Arryn Troche in the credits? 🥹 They deserve it so much!!!

I think that's all I can think... Now I'm gonna go keep rewatching the chapter <3

#rwby #rwby9 #rwby v9 #bumbleby #nuts n dolts #i missed this show so much <3 #just salem rambling around

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delurkr · 2 months ago

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A barely-edited ramble as I try to figure out stuff about David and other 1692 folks

Under cut because boy those paragraphs got long

I was never a fan of how David is called a farmer in the subtitles before we learn his name, because with all the other type of people it took (and takes) to make a town just calling him a farmer with ultimately no textual backing comes off as rather uncreative or uninformed, as if someone just assumed that of course he would be a farmer because it's ye olden days and nobody did anything else (not an uncommon perception but super dumb). Of course it's possible that there was more thought behind it, but still there were plenty of positions available in towns like Salem and Andover in their time; craftspeople of all kinds and storekeepers and merchants of varying scope are some basic ones (also I've seen it said that the prior increase of business and trading in the area is considered to be a contributing factor to the societal instability that fed the witch trials, not that I'm going to fact check right now or give a citation for that). He's also only 20 years old, and under normal circumstances he's not likely to be a landowner yet so calling him a farmer in his own right is less believable, but it's certainly not a given that the Miltons' circumstances are normal so that's less important.

Now thinking about the museum, there's a mannequin dressed in David's clothes and it's set up at some sort of work table or piece of machinery, and I have no clue what it is but someone on reddit once suggested that it looked a little like a potter's wheel, which seems to be as good a guess as anything. So I've always liked the idea that David was trained as a potter but never progressed in that occupation before he turned to farming for some reason.

So in the interest of filling in backstory for the 1600s characters, because I'm woefully deficient in that department and grasping at anything, an idea I'm considering is that the father of Tabitha, David, and Mary was a potter who was training David in the business, but then when the mother Martha Milton was taken in the Commencement Day Massacre in 1690, when Tabitha was 20 years old, Mr. Milton couldn't deal and left to buy milk as they say and hasn't been heard of since (not to make it all dramatic but if he up and disappeared from LH town with no news from any of surrounding town near or far it leaves an open question with a good amount of potential answers). That would have left Tabitha as the head of household she appears to be, and there might naturally be debts to settle on top of a sudden loss of income with Mr. Milton gone which might have taken the pottery business and the associated livelihood off their hands one way or another, so the Miltons hired themselves to the Lamberts in whatever arrangement best made sense and lived and worked on the Lamberts' farm by 1692.

That gives David his farmer label, and the other side of it is that the Lamberts would have needed someone like him around, because while I know Strong Farmer Joseph is an appealing idea I lean towards the doubles sharing each other's physical capabilities beyond just physical likeness, and farming takes truckloads of stamina but even adrenaline couldn't give John a whole lot of that (I mean let's be real, John is normal in that situation and the others are generally abnormal in their ability to do that much running around for an entire night with barely any effect, but that's a tangent). John also seems to have some concern about his heart, whether there's an actual medical reason behind that idk, so that may be a thing for Joseph too. So I imagine Joseph needed to take a step back from the heavy work on their property and David was needed to take that place, and of course there's plenty for Tabitha and Mary to do as well.

So yeah, that's what I'm considering to give background to the idea of the Miltons working for the Lamberts, which was the one part I'm solid on. If anybody has other ideas I'm lowkey desperate to hear them lol

#ramblings #david milton #tabitha milton #mary milton #joseph lambert #amy lambert #the dark pictures anthology #little hope

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etruatcaelum · 9 months ago

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[ @nothingbutthenight \\ for cinder]

Cinder isn’t altogether sure what brought her back to the convoluted ramble of Mistral’s lowest slums. Maybe a vague impulse to recapture the clear, burning sense of purpose she’d felt the last time she found herself stranded here, alone. It had been raining then; it’s sleet now, pelting down in miserable formless globs of slush.

Prowling through the deluge with nowhere to go and nothing to do is not how Cinder imagined this would go.

She’d planned to run.

Salem would come after her, and the unsettling mask of magnanimity would end. There would be pain enough to make what happened on the whale seem like a kindness, and Cinder would endure it all. No more pretending. No more games. Just the unvarnished truth Salem thinks she’s too stupid to realize, that Cinder is nothing more to her than a pawn, dredged up and laid bare.

Exactly none of that has happened. The dark glint of connection through her arm has lain quiet and still for eighteen days. Cinder made it to Forever-Fall like she’d planned—and there had been no chase, no hunt, no vindicating struggle against her fate.

Nothing.

Several tense, sleepless, uneventful nights led her to conclude that Salem believes she’s bluffing, and even worse was the uncomfortable realization that she might be. Alone in the wild dark of that forest, Cinder found that she could think of nothing she wanted that wouldn’t lead her right back to Salem. In pursuit of a new world…

Fuck her.

Cinder scowls, kicking disconsolately at a loose paving stone. Slush splatters everywhere. She’s not going to give Salem the satisfaction of crawling back empty-handed. She won’t.

She can’t. She won’t.

The problem is that Salem has the lamp and the staff, Cinder can’t retrieve the crown for her without first going back to Beacon, and with the whole world forewarned and rallying to Vacuo’s defense, she doesn’t like her odds there alone. And all Salem cares about, the only thing she wants, is those damned relics.

Snarling under her breath, Cinder whips around a corner. There has to be something–

Cinder never gets cold, but few other people are willing to brave the slum’s tangled byways in such foul weather; so her eye narrows when she sees another person coming her way, bent against the driving wind.

No one down here is worth robbing, and the stranger doesn’t have the bearing of a huntress. Still, Cinder draws an obsidian knife out of thin air to hold in her palm as they pass. Talons on the one hand, a blade in the other: if the woman recognizes her, she won’t have time to scream for help.

#LEGENDS AND FAIRYTALES ( ic. )#THE CROWNED KNOT OF FIRE ( ic: cinder. )#I DO NOT FEAR IT: I HAVE BEEN THERE ( v: dawn. )#nothingbutthenight

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the-elder-polls · 3 months ago

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post last updated: november 2, 2024 | ko-fi

hi hi! my name is salem (they/she/he). this blog is dedicated to polls centered around the elder scrolls universe. hope you enjoy your stay!

before you ask:

my inbox is always open to oc rambles or facts! i love hearing about people's characters. i think it's fun.

i am always accepting poll suggestions. if you've got an idea you'd like to see a poll of, please don't hesitate to send it to me!

speaking of the queue, all poll posts are queued. the queue is set to post 2-5 times a day (depending on how many posts are backlogged in the queue) from 8 PM to 4 AM UTC.

other accounts:

art blog: @salemelas

dragon age poll blog: @poll-age (presently on pause due to the release of veilguard)

tag directory:

#salem chatter is my tag for any post that isn't a poll. if you don't wanna see any non-poll posts, just blacklist this tag.

#oc chatter is the tag for posts where i or other people are talking about our ocs.

#tesblr is the tag that each poll is tagged with

game specific polls are tagged with the associated game (#tes arena, #tes daggerfall, #tes oblivion, etc.)

polls pertaining to protagonists are tagged with their titles (#last dragonborn, #hero of kvatch, etc.)

polls that are focused on characters are tagged with the name of the character(s) (#delphine, #paarthurnax, #nerevar, etc.)

trying to find a tag and can't find it? please feel free to send me a dm or ask about it and i'll gladly help you find it.

terfs, radfems, and racists are not welcome.

#salem chatter #tesblr #<- to see just the polls!

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fantasies-fairytales-n-fics · 3 months ago

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Code Blue Ch. 56 - Reap What You Sow

Summary: Josie has Deja Vu. Craig squirms at a sweet sight. The silence speaks volumes to Jo. She and Craig continue to bond. A past trauma is explained. Craig reels. A close encounter and some bacon rattles Jo. She soon takes another stab in the heart. Craig gets down to belated business and gives an ominous order. Jo spontaneously reacts to a dream. Lee sees the red.

*Chapter Warnings* language, angst, alcohol use, anxiety, kidnapping depictions, mob hit

Stories Stories Stories Masterlist:

Salem, Massachusetts

March 23, 2022

You groaned as the sunlight and the sizzling sound and smell of bacon awoke you from your drug induced slumber. As usual, you felt hazy and drunk from the anxiety meds, hence why you never took them and you hadn't a clue how you got in your bed. As you sat up and let your eyes begin to focus, you saw Craig sitting on your couch, sipping on his beloved red wine.

"W...what...time is it??" you mumbled.

"Well hey there sleeping beauty. It's almost noon." he softly spoke with a sweet smile. "Welcome back to earth. How you feeling?"

"Like I went on a drinking binder till all hours of the morning. I'm so thirsty. Wait...have you...been here all night?"

Craig chuckled. "I have. You don't remember getting up in the middle of the night and drinking half a bottle of wine all by yourself as you sat with me and chatted my ears off for over an hour?"

You squinted in thought for a moment. "N..no? I..I did?"

"You did and I told you it wasn't a good idea to drink and you told me to...and I quote...shut my pie hole and use it to drink with you."

Your eyes widened as whispered words slipped through your lips. "Oh my god...it happened again."

"What's that sweetheart?"

"Oh uh...n..nothing. So uh, what exactly did I talk about?" you asked as you began to get out of bed.

Craig swiftly stood in a panic with his hand up in a stop gesture. "No...don't do that! You...you're only wearing some flimsy nightgown. Here, let me get you a robe or a t..towel or...something er other." he rambled with cheeks as red as his wine as he scurried off to the bathroom.

As the sounds of Craig opening and slamming drawers pounded through your apartment, you placed your hand on your chest and looked down, mouth gaping at your attire that bore an eyeful of cleavage and judging by Craig's reaction, he certainly didn't dress you.

He came out empty handed, feeling the heat of his flushed face and sounding as if he had just ran up a flight of stairs. "Yeah so...there's nothing...nothing at all in there Jo, NOT... even... a clean towel."

Holding your sheet over your chest, a curled smirk arose on your lips as you giggled at the big bad mob man who, in that moment, resembled a nervous teenage boy. "I packed most of my stuff remember? and it's still in my car. I think there's a robe behind the door though."

"Oh...right!" he panted and zipped back to the bathroom, leaving you giggling again.

"I take it I put this on last night?" you hollered.

Still panting, he jogged back, held out the robe and looked away. "Yessss. You woke up, said you were hot and went to the bathroom, then came back with...th...that th...thing on...and you refused to cover up saying things like, It's my apartment, I can dress how I want and...stop being a big baby Craigy, it's just like a dress and I argued that it was a very SMALLLL dress."

The memory suddenly surfaced, but the rest was still foggy, such as the so called long conversation you had with him, hoping to god it didn't involve Lee. As you spaced out, trying to remember, your phone beeped from somewhere in the apartment.

"GAHH!" Craig puffed and spun around with his eyes closed as you hopped out of bed, forgetting all about the robe. "COME ON! Jo, put the robe on."

You heard him but you inattentively countered his request as you incautiously bounced around the room, searching for your phone in case it was your mom...or Lee. "Craig, apparently we sat and drank wine and talked for a long time while I wore this, so what does it matter now?"

He turned partially around to side eye you, hands on his hips. "Yeah well, I wasn't comfortable then and it's no different now. In fact, just so you know, I didn't even look at you while we talked. Just stared straight ahead."

Ignoring him as you found your cell, the knife that Lee had plunged deep into your heart twisted. There was not one call or text from Lee. The one you just received was from Landy asking how you were and informing you that Lee finally replied to his well check on him from yesterday with a text at 10 a.m. this morning that simply stated "she's all yours now."

Your prolonged silence and stillness forced Craig's eyes to look at you. "You...ok?"

"Fuck forever it is then." you mumbled and carelessly tossed your phone on the coffee table., then looked right into Craig's eyes. "So, refresh my memory. What did I talk about last night?" you asked, deflecting with a smile as you roughly grabbed up some old flowers from a vase that were from Lee and took them straight to the trash, for your sadness over him was slowly turning into anger.

How could he just walk away like that? To get you back for the time you RIGHTFULLY did it to him? Your head was still spinning as to how quickly the entire conversation with him at the cemetery went sour. Was it your fault? You never planned on telling him all that extra stuff until later, but when he overheard your mom's call about Gerry, everything just blew up. Maybe it WAS your fault. Maybe you shouldn't have went to see Gerry and that kiss would never have happened. Maybe Lee was right, of course he was right, HE was supposed to be your priority, but regardless, you were still extremely hurt and angry that he just abandoned and avoided you and then said what he said to Orlando as well. You thought that maybe the dawn of a new day would have changed his thoughts, that maybe he would regret what happened, but it was now crystal clear he was not budging. Was it really...over?

"Wellll..." Craig began, trying to mentally block the glorious vision of you in the skimpy satin nighty. "It was a mixture of things, mostly about Megan and what she did to you and then you kept apologizing to me again, over and over about Blaise and you cried and then you randomly said something about being locked in a morgue or something? And you also said you were going to go see Peter to tell him his brother got what he deserved, which I HOPE to god you aren't seriously thinking of doing something so insane! Jason would lose his shit! And after that, you didn't want to talk anymore and just got back in bed. Soooo...what was the morgue thing about?"

You froze in place as the entire conversation came back to you. "I...I can't even believe I mentioned that. It's not something I talk about...to anyone."

"Well, you WERE a bit sloshed on the alcohol and anxiety meds cocktail."

"Yeah, true but...if I'm being honest, I'm comfortable with you Craig. I kind of feel like I can tell you anything. I trust you."

"Comfortable....CLEARLY." he stressed with a smirk. "But...that umm, that means a lot Jo, that you trust me after the whole Jason thing."

"Water under the bridge Craig. Speaking of my brother, have you heard from him? He took off with Britt and just vanished. Do you think he may have found Ethan and that's why he's missing too?"

"I haven't, no. Jo, I'm sure if he found Ethan, I'd have Blaise back already."

"Assuming Ethan even has or had her."

Craig sat down and gulped the rest of his wine. You could tell your words upset him.

"I'm sorry Craig. I shouldn't have said that."

"No Jo, you're right. It's all just an assumption. One that makes the most sense, but maybe Liz had someone take her, or maybe Ethan's POS father is involved. Believe me, I've already thought about all this and have some men tailing him and also watching some people Liz knew."

You sat down beside him. "God I wish I could do something. I'm always going to feel like it's my fault, no matter what you say."

Craig smiled his sweet smile and poured more wine. "You ARE doing something. You care for one thing and that means the world to me and...you're here for me too. You have no idea how much that helps me."

You gazed at him for a moment as you made a difficult decision. "Peter....Peter is the one who locked me in the morgue drawer."

Craig nearly choked on the red vintage as he simultaneously swallowed. "Umm, say what now????"

"Yeah, it was years ago. Shortly after we first met and he became dangerously infatuated with me and..."

"I know all about Peter and his psycho daddy because of Jason and he never mentioned that."

"Because it really fucked me up and I made him promise to keep it to himself. I was traumatized enough and didn't want people knowing for many reasons. It's where I developed my fear of small spaces, storms and anxiety and easily blamed a lot of that on Megan."

"I understand that. Storms?"

"Yeah, you don't even want to know what it sounds like inside one of those during a hurricane. I'll just start from the beginning."

Craig put his glass down and took your hand. "You do NOT have to tell me all this Jo."

"I know but...I...I want to. I need to talk about it before it drives me crazier than I already am and like I said...I feel comfortable with you."

The sweet smile came back. "Well, for the record my dear girl, you're not crazy."

He patted your hand and sat back with his wine. "Alright...fire away sweetheart."

"Well, I'll make it as short as possible because as much as I need to talk about it, I don't care to....but maybe if I confront it, the nightmares will stop...maybe even my fears will lessen or go away completely. Jason told me that once."

"Well, if anyone would know about that, it would be him."

"SO..." you began with a heavy sigh. "Once I found out who Peter truly was as a person, I immediately broke off the short and very stupid fling I had with him, but he wouldn't let me cut him loose. There was a bad storm and I was at Gerry's, who was at work. I remember the power had went out and the next thing I knew, I woke up in a dark space that I could hardly move in and it was hard to breathe. The air was tight and I...I could smell the chloroform that Peter used on me. I began to panic as the thunder shook and pounded the cold metal beneath me and then...I felt the vibration of my cell. It was in my pocket and not only was I surprised that Peter missed it, but that there was even a signal inside there. I was able to maneuver myself just enough to pull it out. It was Gerry and answered and told him I didn't know where I was but I was able to describe just enough to him before Peter yanked me out and grabbed my phone.

He wasn't angry, but more in a panic himself and it wasn't because of the phone. It was because I then realized I was in a fucking morgue and I started crying, but I was too weak from the chloroform to get up.

He stood over me and said I had to be quiet or his father would kill us both since Faison hated anything and anyone that involved Jason and he considered me a betrayal by Peter. I guess Faison's father owned the funeral home which was counties away from Salem and he used it for refuge. Peter's plan was to ride the storm out there and then take me away to another country but he didn't expect his father to be there. He told me he was sorry for what he did but he knew I'd never come willingly. He then said I'd have to stay in the drawer until he could figure something out and he put me back in it and said he'd be back soon....but he never came back. I couldn't open it from the inside and I was running out of air and then....I woke up, choking for air in Gerry's arms. I never saw Peter again until the night I was shot and he was finally caught."

Craig stood up and began pacing and ranting with that one little vein popping out of his reddened forehead. "That son of a bitch, waste of space motherfucker! He should have never made it to prison. I always believed Jason would track him down, but the snake always slithered through the cracks. They need a death penalty for kidnapping! Believe me you, there will be no jail time for who took my daughter! I'll be judge, jury and executioner....the grim fucking reaper!"

As Craig turned to make another round of angry steps, you were right there to stop him, placing your hands on his. "Hey...try to calm down before you get a stroke or something."

"Calm down? Jo, all I see is red right now. I can't even imagine what you must have went through but seeing the attack you had last night sure says a lot and now I can't get the image out of my head of how frightened Blaise must be. She's only 4 for fuck's sake and she's with someone she don't know. What will this do to her?? I mean, this happened to you a long time ago and it still affects you."

"But that's the thing Craig. She's so young. There's a good chance she will forget it over time and who knows? Maybe she does know them and she's not scared at all? IF it's Ethan, do you really think he would hurt her?"

"Maybe not, but it doesn't stop my brain from imagining the worst."

"I know. Ughhhh, if I just would have told you right away where she was, you'd have her here right now."

Craig released a breath full of tension and then became calm as he fixed his blues on your teary eyes. "Once again, this is not your fault sweetheart. You had your own shit going on. I'm going to say this one last time and I want you to hear me ok? I don't blame you and I do not think you did it because I kept Jason a secret from you and I am so sorry that I ever accused you of that in the first place. I was out of my mind with grief and 3 bottles of wine."

"THAT you were." you lightly chuckled.

"AND...even then, after how horribly and unforgivably cruel I was to you, you stayed right there and tried to help me. Why...why couldn't we have met sooner?"

A mutual moment of gazing silence occurred and his hand came up, letting his fingertips lightly trace your neck as he pushed your hair back from your shoulder.

"W...what are doing?" you asked as you nervously angled your shoulder away from him.

"Just admiring a very beautiful vision."

You felt your body involuntarily tingle from his touch. He was so close, you could smell the sweet wine on his warm breath and then, maybe it was fate or a sign when the next thing you smelled was burning bacon.

You jumped back, staring at the smoking skillet. "Oh shit, Craig. You forgot about the bacon!"

As he ran to take it off the stove, you just stood there in severe mental anguish, thinking of how the same thing happened with you and Lee more than once when you had became lost in each other.

"Welp, those little piggies went to the market and back again." he jested as he came back to you, noticing how you were fighting back tears. "Hey, what's wrong love?"

You went right for the robe and put it on as you told a white lie. "Oh, uh...n..nothing. It's just the smoke. Burns my eyes."

Craig saw right through the lie. "Seems it is burning more than your eyes. I um...I better get back and let you go about your day. Sorry about the bacon. I'll buy you some more."

"No, don't be sorry." you softly laughed and meant what you said next with a passion. "It's just bacon."

His eyes were sad as he smiled. "Oky doky. I'll...see you later or whenever. And please, whatever you do, please do not go see Peter. It's what he wants and it will just cause you more pain."

"Hey!" you shouted as he turned to leave and pulled him back to hug him. "Thank you. Thank you for what you did. Staying by my side and all. You saved me Craig. I will never forget that."

Shocked like he was that day in the brush when you hugged him, he allowed his arms to return the embrace, only a little bit tighter than before. "You're welcome sweetheart. Just don't forget me either."

He released you, softly stroked your cheek as he smiled and then left.

Once Craig closed his apartment door behind him, his entire demeanor changed. He hurled his jacket across the room, opened another bottle of wine and took out his phone to make a call.

After a few hours of moping in your bed, you retrieved some luggage from your car, took a rust free shower, ate three bowls of honey nut cheerios and a banana, then sat down with the last of Craig's wine and your laptop to release some feelings on your Facebook, in hopes that Lee would see it since he was dismissing your texts and calls.

But as you opened your profile, one thing stuck out to you like a sore thumb. Your relationship status now said single. Immediately, you went to his profile and it said the same and not only that, he had unfriended you.

That knife that was lodged in your heart was ripped all the way out and thrashed right back back in. "Oh my god! You've got to be joking Lee!!"

You slammed the laptop shut and gulped down your wine, but when you went to refill your glass, the bottle was empty and you didn't have any more so now, you stared at it, contemplating if you should go ask Craig for another bottle...or maybe share one with him instead. Why not? You were now single.

Don't fear the reaper eerily echoed through Craig's studio as he poured his wine and gave a merciless command to Jeffrey. It was simple and straight to the point, for Craig was in no mood for chit chat and Jeff knew it. The mobster mostly known as Negan and sometimes John, comfortably kicked back in the chair, intrigued and enthralled, diligently listening as his hazel hues deviously slitted. He was all up for the job.

"It's time for Peter August to be handled. Make it as painful as possible. Fix him." he casually expressed with a matching smile, then knocked back his wine and left the room.

Three minutes of dozing off was just enough to invite the bad dreams right in and prove to you that talking about your traumas only made them worse. Once again, you were back in the cold, black box as the grim reaper slowly stole your breath, waiting for you to take his hand and suddenly, there was panting Peter towering over you, swearing it would be you and him forever. You could still smell his sweat.

Saved by the beep of your phone, you gasped awake. It was Jeffrey, who paused at your door, wanting to stop and talk to you in person, but he had arrangements to make, for Craig's directive wasn't going to be a simple task to pull off. Not even for him.

"Hey darlin. Sorry, something came up. Tail light and the hunting trip will have to wait. Hope you're ok. You never texted me back. talk soon. - J"

"Ok. and I'm fine. Just busy." you quickly replied and then with a spur of the moment decision, you grabbed your keys, feeling that maybe you needed to face the trauma instead.

Lee gulped down his go to Red Bull and hopped in the shower, running late for work due to his late night of consuming the wicked whiskey. Three hours sleep was all he managed to get as he had tossed and turned, unable to erase the vision of your face when he told you goodbye in the cemetery. And then there was Peter. He had seen him walk up to his parent's graves and just stood there....laughing, over and over and over.

He scrubbed faster and harder as the anxiety clawed at him from the inside out. In an effort to kill it, he cranked the water to a scalding temperature. When you had told him Peter wanted you to go see him, it was like someone had thrown red paint in his face because red was all he could see. Peter wasn't responsible for what happened to his parents, but he despised him nonetheless and he wanted him to pay and his idea of that was for Peter to be reunited with his father and brother in hell.

As he finished rinsing the soap from his overly heated skin, he heard laughter again, but this time....it was Jacob's. He spun around and stood frozen.

"J..Jacob? Is that you buddy?"

Silence then filled the bathroom except for the sound of the shower. As he turned to shut it off, Lee witnessed rust water pouring all over his chest. Gasping and yelling, he jumped back, frantically swatting it off of his body. "What the fuck!!"

He quickly shut it off and just stood there, watching the red water swirl down the drain as he remembered you telling him about experiencing the same thing. Was Jacob trying to tell him something just as you had believed he was?

His entire plans for the day had now changed. Lee was no longer going to work. He hated the place anyways and could not have cared less if he was fired. There was somewhere else he wanted...needed...had to go. Someone he needed to finally see face to face and settle the score.

"See you in hell Sam." he whispered to his reflection in the mirror and went on his way.

@redeemer46

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#lee pace #lee pace fanfiction #code blue #love stories #dark fiction #dark stories #craig parker #mob fiction #organized crime #mobsters #jeffrey dean morgan #jdm #negan

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poetzproblem · 5 days ago

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I am so with you on the Agatha All Along brainrot. What are some of your favorite headcanons about the show and/or Agatha and Rio's relationship?

This got very long, so apologies. I'm hiding it all under that cut and also recommending that you go read creator, you destroy me by velvetprayer if you haven't already. It more or less matches my own personal headcanon about the Agatha/Rio past, though her version of Lady Death might be a little gentler overall than I imagine her to be - although fully as angst ridden.

My winded rambling as follows:

So, I’ll preface this all by saying that I’m not really deep into Marvel lore. I only know any of it through the cinematic universe, but I can’t say I’ve ever watched the entire filmography, I did watch Loki and Wandavision, and I obviously fell in love with Agatha from that. I did a rewatch after the first episode of Agatha All Along dropped to refresh my memory, and it helped me form a headcanon for her, though there are some pretty big missing pieces that I haven’t quite worked out, mostly due to the incomplete backstory in AAA and Marvel’s general monkeying up of timelines between their television projects. (The Darkhold was an entire plotline on Agents of Shield, but WV and AAA both imply Agatha has had that book for a significantly long time.)

So before I go too deep into character headcanon, I will say that I mostly loved AAA. I think it was well written overall with so much foreshadowing and so many easter eggs that really make rewatching the episodes a joy. I appreciated the practical effects, and the song was a banger in every version. I will admit to being a little disappointed that the Road wasn’t real all along but a pocket dimension created by Billy, though I did just enough research about him to know it was one of his powers and saw the speculation about that twist being talked about, so I was expecting it by the last two episodes.

I also was disappointed with the Salem Seven being a big non event. Rio describes them in the first episode as "the worst of them," and they’ve supposedly been hunting Agatha for something like 320 years, so I expected them to be a real threat. But from what little we saw of them, beyond being creepy, they had no real bite. It felt very much like a fully powered up Agatha, especially one in possession of the Darkhold, could have easily squashed them all a century or two ago? (Again, when did she actually acquire that damned book?)

So Agatha. She’s unapologetically wicked, but I think of her as more selfishly power-hungry than outright evil. Knowledge of the craft is important to her, that was clear in her whole initial confrontation with Wanda, so she’s clearly well studied in addition to powerful. I imagine she really does think she’s more deserving of every other witch's power than they are, so why not take it?

Her one tiny line in the sand (or salt circle) seems to be not hurting children, although she really didn’t seem all that concerned with Billy or Tommy disappearing with Wanda’s powers during WV. I can only assume that was because Wanda magicked them up in the tiny span of a day or two out of nothing but her chaos magic with fake sitcom labor, so Agatha didn’t see them as real. And now that I know she had a son who she carried for (presumably) the full nine months and put in the real work for, I can kind of understand that.

WV showed her coven trying to kill her in 1693, and AAA put Nicky’s birth in 1750. That’s 57 years of wrecking havoc with her lover, Lady Death, and my own take on that is that they didn’t actually meet until after Agatha offed her coven. I’m sure Death was there for that event, and I even play with the idea that Death had been hovering around her long before that, but I don’t think she showed herself to Agatha at that point and Agatha wouldn’t have noticed her physical presence yet.

I don’t actually believe Agatha could control her siphoning powers before she killed her coven - in fact, she seemed genuinely surprised that she wasn’t dying when they blasted her and that her own power was pulling theirs into her. And her coven and Evanora sure as hell couldn’t have known she could do that, or they would have chosen another way to kill her.

And now that we know Agatha could absorb magic with her touch (kiss?), since that’s what she did with Rio in the end, I think that’s probably how her power worked before the attempted execution. In fact, I headcanon that she started siphoning Evanora’s powers during childbirth, and that’s why her mother thought she was evil and wanted to kill her at birth. I think the trauma of being born triggered baby Agatha’s magic and Evanora started growing weaker and weaker as it dragged on, and she felt her magic being leeched by the child she was birthing, but because Agatha was only a baby and not really all the powerful yet, she couldn’t draw enough to kill her mother outright, only severely weaken her.

And yes, I also imagine Lady Death was hovering in that room, waiting to see if she’d be taking Evanora Harkness or the baby, and maybe Agatha and her potential intrigued her from those first moments, so maybe she kept an interested eye on her - since Death is technically everywhere all at once.

There are so many circumstances when a young Agatha could have had her siphoning ability triggered. Like, imagine her trying to steal a treat or something and Evanora grabbing her hand away only for Agatha to start sucking up her magic through the touch. It would have made Evanora slap her away and refuse to even touch her again, and she certainly wouldn’t have ever wanted to allow Agatha to have the knowledge of how to use her power with intent. So of course young Agatha has to go looking for knowledge on her own. I don’t believe she had the Darkhold at this time, but there are certainly other tomes of dark magic she could have gotten her hands on and started reading, trying to understand what she is and why her magic works differently than the others in her coven.

Side note - siphoning through touch would only work in small doses, since once the other witch noticed it, she’d be able to push Agatha away. I mean, Agatha didn't exactly seem skilled at hand to hand combat there, so I imagine her childhood was a series of accidents or ‘accidents’ until Agatha figured out a much better way to employ her magic stealing touch. Let’s just say, I don’t think using her lips to steal Death’s power was the first time she used that trick, and I imagine the other witch might be too pleasantly distracted to realize what was happening for quite some time.

Maybe this is even the way she betrayed her coven and got put on trial. Both defiling the natural order by cavorting with other women and killing a fellow witch with her touch.

Anyway, she doesn’t figure out the much easier and, more importantly, faster way to steal power until her coven tries to kill her, but once she does, she gets very good at getting witches to blast her. (I also think this is why she told Lilia the supposed trick to her siphoning - because if she couldn't immediately provoke her, she could have tried going old school with it by latching onto her until she used her magic on her to shake her off, and then she’d get what she wanted the fast way. I mean, Lilia seemed old and frail. Agatha probably though she could take her no problem.)

So, back to past Agatha, now sans coven. She undoubtedly ends up killing more witches sooner rather than later, supposedly in self defense, after she pisses them all off enough to provoke an attack, and that finally brings Lady Death fully into her orbit. There are a number of fic writers who have already imagined the ‘meet deadly’ moment, so I won’t spend much time on that because this answer is already too long with no end in sight. Suffice to say, they spent 57 years being gay and doing crime. Agatha got more powerful and Lady Death - Rio now in her corporeal, Agatha-loving form - got her bodies and a taste of life that she'd never had before.

I headcanon that they did (still do) love one another in their own very disturbed, ultimately unhealthy way. And I definitely think Agatha was learning so many things from Rio in relation to magic during their years together. Rio is, after all, The Green Witch, so presumably no one knows more about green craft than her. And as Lady Death, she probably knows about every magic, and Agatha would just soak in all that knowledge over their time together. She probably learned to control her siphoning abilities from Rio so there wouldn’t be any accidental draws on the ancient power that would kill her.

I also imagine Rio’s presence might have kept the Salem Seven at bay for those earlier years. (Were they a factor during the Nicky years? Did Rio keep them at bay then too to protect her family from a distance? Why didn't they make a move in the any of the 200 years after?)

Anyway, jump skip to Agatha’s pregnancy which was doomed from conception. If we go with the thought that Nicholas was somehow created by both of them, then he carried the essence of Death inside of him and couldn’t have existed in a mortal body, doomed by his very nature. If we go with Agatha making him herself from scratch, it might have been her own inherent magic that doomed him. Maybe it was even a combination of both.

In either case, I imagine Rio warned Agatha what Fate would demand from the beginning if she carried the pregnancy to term - what she’d force Rio to do. (If Nicky is hers too, then his very existence is an abomination against the sacred balance.) But Agatha, with her severe mommy issues, was determined to go ahead with it and prove her mother wrong, because the rules of magic have always bent to her power. Death herself has bowed before Agatha - certainly she’d do the same again. Certainly, Agatha is powerful enough to bring her child into the world unharmed.

Spoiler: she is not.

But Rio does, in fact, bend the rules for her again, and grants the only thing she can - time. This is why it cuts Rio so deeply when Agatha throws all of that special treatment back in her face on the Road (that isn’t real) - why that argument de-escalates at the mention of Nicky and what really happened. Because what is more awful than the truth that Agatha had loved and been loved by Death herself and even that - even all her own power and the power she stole from other witches - couldn’t save her (their) child?

Would it ultimately have been kinder for Rio to have just taken Nicholas before he’d drawn his first breath? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t think there was an answer that could have saved their love at this point, but Rio did (does) love Agatha, and she went against her very nature and defied the laws she was bound by to grant her love time with her (their) son.

And we know how that part of the story plays out, though I do share the popular headcanon that Rio was lurking around for those six years that Nicholas lived, perhaps visiting him in his sleep, because he went to her without fear or hesitation in the end. She obviously has the ability to infiltrate the mind-space - she did it with the spell Agatha was trapped in.

That it happened when he was asleep - more importantly, when Agatha was asleep - is the thing that I think has fueled her anger and resentment of Rio all this time. Yeah, she was always going to hate Rio for taking him and be angry for a very long time, but Rio never gave her the chance to say that final goodbye, and that's what made it truly unforgivable. Rio probably thought it was better that way - a more peaceful death for Nicky - but Agatha could never be capable of understanding that.

So Agatha immediately embarks on centuries long rage and grief spree to gain even more power using the ballad she’d written with her son, and you’d better believe she’s gleefully using those bodies to taunt her ex along the way. That’s what we see, anyway, and there were no black fingers, so she wasn’t actively using the Darkhold for that Witch's Road con she was running. (Again, when did she find that book?)

Rio clearly implies in the first episode that it’s been a long time since they’ve seen each other and that Agatha has been using the Darkhold to hide behind - essentially hiding from Death. Did she have it for fifty years? One hundred? Two hundred? You’d think she would have gone looking for it soon after Nicky’s death, maybe hoping it would have some spell or ritual to resurrect him. But she didn’t. Or maybe she couldn’t? Maybe Nicky, being the son of Lady Death, didn’t end up in the same place as other, purely mortal souls, so whatever spell the Darkhold contained couldn’t work to draw his soul back?

(And if anyone is interested after this long ass post, I also have a separate headcanon about Nicholas and the Afterlife that I won;t get into here.)

I haven’t fully settled on how I think the timeline of those missing years lines up. I’m leaning toward Agatha having had the Darkhold for at least a century - long enough to make it really hurt for Rio to not be able to see or sense her, left with only bodies she knows Agatha left in her wake.

Now, Rio. Lady Death.

When we first meet her, she’s inserted herself into Agatha’s crime drama spell. I don’t think she was physically there at the time but projected herself into Agatha’s consciousness, and at this point it’s been either decades or centuries since she’s been able to sense her ex. First the Darkhold hid her and then Wanda’s spell - “You live here now. No one will bother you” - and as soon as both of those are gone from the multiverse, the spell begins to break. No, I do not think Billy broke it. It was already breaking before he tried his analog magic spell. At best, he sped up Agatha’s awakening.

So Rio has been unable to confront Agatha for a very, very long time, but I believe there were confrontations before Agatha got the Darkhold and after Nicky died. I think it’s fair to assume those were violent and angry on Agatha’s side and probably sad and regretful on Rio’s. They probably hate fucked a time or two. But any mention of Nicky would have set Agatha off and sent her running, safe in her anger and hatred of Rio, so other than the blame game, I don't think they actually have a real conversation about him.

I think Rio probably tries at least once to see her and apologize and assure her that Nicky is at peace and being watched over, but that really wouldn't have be met with anything but venom.

Agatha is the only mortal Death has ever loved and who has ever loved Death, and she doesn’t know how to let go of that. And then Agatha ghosts her metaphorically before ghosting her literally.

But still, Rio is surprisingly patient with Agatha as Agnes, even though she very definitely made a beeline to Westview the moment Agatha’s aura came back on the map. When Agatha is finally free of the spell and confronts Herb, he says she’s been acting extra weird on her true crime kick for a few days. That implies she was just rolling along in the Nosy Neghbor Agnes persona prior to that, while Wanda was alive and the spell was still in full effect.

I think her change in behavior should have coincided exactly with Wanda’s death, even though it doesn’t exactly jive with ‘Ralph’ knowing Wanda was dead when Billy seeks him out. That’s one of the rare plot holes in the writing of this show. Unless he just assumed Wanda was dead since she disappeared after Westview and went into hiding.

Anyway, Rio shows up and assesses the situation her ex is in, deciding she needs to help Agatha wake up before she tears into her over the decades / centuries of ghosting her. Because what satisfaction can she get if Agatha doesn’t even remember why she hates Rio?

Billy stumbles into the situation after Rio, so his presence can only speed up what was already started.

And then Agatha is awake, and what we see in that first confrontation is an angry and hurt Lady Death wanting to strike back at the love of her (un)life for almost certainly stealing the Darkhold and using it to hide from her (and the Salem Seven and probably the Sorcerer Supreme and every other witch/witchhunter out for revenge) while likely also trying to the resurrect their dead son against the laws of the universe and upset the sacred balance.

She’s saying she wants Agatha dead - which for her would also mean Agatha would be hers forever, no way to run again - but she also clearly still just wants her back in a more willing way. This first fight is very likely flirting for them, and she does want Agatha to get her purple back. She wants them back to the way they were before Nicky. It’s impossible, of course, but after 270-ish years, she’s hoping maybe Agatha has finally processed her grief enough to forgive her.

I don’t think Billy is on Rio’s radar at this point. Maybe this is because of the sigil. Maybe it’s that William Kaplan wasn’t dead long enough to pull her to his body when Billy jumped in. Maybe it’s a combination of both.

I do think he’s on her radar the moment the Road becomes real - or at least, the chaos magic that created it is. And since Wanda is gone, that really only leaves one possibility.

Rio is definitely already in the neighborhood for poor Sharon. She clearly doesn't need the door they opened for her with the summoning spell to come and go from the Road, as she demonstrates when she tears through reality to leave it in episode 8. She does tell Agatha that it wasn't her choice since magic took the path of least resistance, but I interpret that to mean that their spell gave her an excuse to show herself to all of them and investigate what was going on.

When she’s acting as Death, she’s stoic and calm. With Agatha, she’s sad and angry and creepily playful - the humanity Agatha brings out of her on full display. With the others when she arrives on the Road - well, she’s exactly what Agatha accuses her of being - a tourist. She knows the Road wasn’t real before exactly as Agatha does, so her reaction to being there is exactly what you’d expect. She’s admiring the scenery, the vibe, and the magic that created it. She even says, “this is cool,” when she first starts walking it.

I believe she knows Teen is Billy Maximoff before the sigil breaks. She asks about him as soon as she and Agatha are alone in Alice’s trial, and Agatha immediately tries to distract her with the promise of bodies. And when he ends up hurt, Rio once again makes an exception for Agatha when she begs, “Don’t.” She could have taken him then and maybe had a chance of grabbing his soul before he reincarnated because he hadn’t fully come into his powers yet in this life. But she waits because her guilt over taking Nicky is still a tangible thing, and Billy is saved, and Rio is going to lose her chance to re-balance the scales.

She’s still hoping for Agatha’s forgiveness, and she makes her confession of Agatha being her scar, and then they share that moment in the woods. But Rio isn’t truly forgiven for Nicky, and she knows it, and she stops Agatha because she doesn’t want her misplaced gratitude for sparing Billy Maximoff. After multiple viewings, I’m now reading - “That boy isn’t yours” - as less Rio reminding Agatha that Billy isn’t Nicholas and more warning her that Billy isn’t hers to save. He isn’t her second chance at motherhood with a powerful, magicked up son. He’s Wanda’s boy. He’s an abomination. He ultimately shouldn't exist, and his soul (and possibly William Kaplan's suppressed one) belong to Rio.

If she was going to ignore the sacred balance for anyone, it would have been Nicholas.

I’ve already posted about Rio’s reaction in Agatha’s trial. How the camera cuts to her after Evanora says she ought to have killed Agatha at birth. First we see Agatha, obviously, because it''s the confirmation that her mother has always thought her evil from birth, and the pain of that statement is twofold for her because she literally begged Death to spare her own child and then spent six years, presumably, trying to amass enough power to somehow save him. I think she believed that if she killed enough witches, if she collected enough of the kind of magic that she didn’t have - healing, protection, divination - she might one day figure out how either outrun Death or conjure more time for her son.

But right after Agatha, we see Rio with that look of pain, closing her eyes and looking away, because she nearly did with Agatha’s son - with her own son - what Evanora wanted to do. She nearly took him at birth because he wasn’t meant to exist in the living world, and then she was still forced to take him eventually. Just as Agatha hasn’t forgiven her for it, Rio has never forgiven herself for what she had to do.

And when we next see her after this episode, we see stoic Lady Death again, collecting Alice with bored indifference. Because that’s her job. Her vacation is over. The trials on this fake Road aren’t any fun anymore, and she’s done humoring Agatha with whatever con she’s trying to run this time. Because she knows Agatha could have ended all of this before it started if she’d admitted the Road was never real and Billy created it.

Billy has come into his powers at this point, and Rio’s likely pissed at herself for letting her chance to collect him slip away thanks to her eternal soft spot for Agatha. Once again, she’s given special treatment and risked upsetting the balance for this woman. And on top of that, Lilia easily took out the Salem Seven - bad ass of Lilla but so anticlimactic for whatever threat the Salem Seven were intended to be - so Rio's chance of finally getting Agatha over to the other side just took a nosedive. She’s not allowed to do it herself, and I’m not sure she’s yet at the point where she really wants to torture Agatha into begging her for release. If Agatha manages to finish the Road and actually gets her purple back, Rio will be chasing after her again for another century or two.

She’s close to the end of her patience with her ex at this point. Poor Nicky is never going to see her (other) mother again.

And then Agatha offers to deliver Billy to her, which I think Rio realizes is bullshit. I don’t think she really believes that Agatha intends to follow through without a trick, and even if she did, she doesn't believe Agatha will actually be able to convince Billy to give himself over to Death. But Rio plays along, wondering what Agatha wants from her this time. Maybe she even thinks Agatha will want to trade him for Nicky - one abomination for another. Maybe Rio actually hopes it would be this because it would give her a loophole to finally say yes. Maybe the prophesied demiurge would be more than an equal trade for the son of Death alive in the world again.

And incidentally, I do find it hilarious that Agatha’s condition is for Rio to stop following her - like, you’ve spent 300 years killing witches. It’s impossible for Death to do anything else but follow you. But it’s the part about not wanting to see her face when Agatha eventually does die that finally breaks Rio. I mean, that was basically the whole point of wanting Agatha dead now - a way for them to be together with their son.

It guts Rio, and you can see it in her expression.

And I believe Agatha fully expected her to refuse - to tell her that it wasn’t possible. All roads lead to (Lady) Death, after all. She’s the inevtiable end of all things, and she hates ghosts. There’s no way for Agatha to avoid her. The best she could do is greet her in her true form and let Rio Vidal die.

But for Rio, this isn’t just a rejection of her. It’s also a rejection of everything about their shared past. A rejection of Nicholas. If Rio can’t take her soul to the Afterlife, then she can’t take her to Nicholas either. Is Agatha really that much of a coward? (The answer, of course, is yes.) So she reluctantly agrees, heartbroken, but she also expects that Agatha won’t be able to keep her end of that deal, so she won’t need to keep hers.

It’s kind of a stalemate where they both think - shit, what the fuck did I just agree to?

It’s ironic really. To some degree, I think Agatha finally comes to some acceptance of Nicky’s death in that final trial. "Sometimes, boys die." "From death, life."

At the same time, this is when Rio fully snaps. She’s stewing over this whole Witches Road deal and Agatha's final rejection, and frankly, fully aware that Agatha just helped Billy create another abomination, messing even more with the rightful balance of things.

Yeah, Rio has been angry with Agatha, but also guilty and hurt and lovesick, so it’s tempered her somewhat. She’s been the antagonistic kind of angry where Agatha could easily assuage her, but now, with Agatha’s last rejection of everything about their shared past and helping that kid disrupt her domain even more, she embraces her rage in a way she hasn’t allowed herself up to this point. The human emotions that Agatha sparked in Rio take over all her reason and balance and duty, and she lashes out. The rejected lover, finally allowed to indulge the anger and grief that Agatha spent two centuries indulging with her own rampage.

I know we didn’t get to see the magical battle due to budget restraints, and honestly, I’m only a little disappointed by that. The Wanda/Agatha one wasn’t exactly spectacular with the boring energy blasts. But we get enough of it to see that Rio never hits Agatha with her full power. She isn’t trying to kill her here; she only wants to hurt her - vent her own rage and heartbreak. They’re even back to their weird kind of flirting halfway through it, but then Billy gets involved again, and oh yeah, the kid is still here. Something has to be done about him, because Rio can’t ignore her duty forever, and Agatha knows she can’t defeat Death.

So finally, we get that moment, when Agatha looks like she’s getting what she wanted and Billy is willingly surrendering himself, and she could walk away with a nice charge from his power and the promise to never have to see Rio again.

It’s my understanding that Billy’s mental plea wasn’t originally in the script, and I actually wish they’d left it out. I don’t actually think that his mention of Nicky in that moment would have changed her mind anyway. I think it would have probably had the opposite effect since she’s always reacted badly to the mention of him except when Rio brought him up in that last conversation on the Road.

But, in the context we got, that isn’t how Nicky died. He’d been stolen away in the night after Rio had granted him six more years than he should have ever had. Agatha would have never traded his life for hers. She would have traded hers for him in a heartbeat. So yeah, I get why that was added, but I don’t fully think it was necessary. Agatha was always going to realize that leaving Billy with Rio was the wrong thing, and she was crossing the one meager moral line she had - hurting children. And this one, specifically, reminds her too much of her lost son.

She puts a hand to her chest before she turns, right where we know her broach always sat. I’ve watched that scene a few times, and I noticed that we can’t see her broach on her costume for maybe the only time since she broke out of Wanda’s spell. But it’s obviously there somewhere because it’s the one thing left behind when Rio speed runs her decomposition - yet another bit of special treatment in allowing it to remain as a means of tying her spirit to the mortal realm.

And yeah, like Agatha said, it was a calculated risk. I don’t think Rio has ever outright lied to her or broken a deal, and Agatha technically upheld her end of their bargain but also very much didn’t, but Rio does slightly change the terms of the bargain before that last battle, such as it is. She gives them both the choice - “One of you is coming with me.”

And yet, she hesitates to take Billy as soon as he offers himself. Because taking him means losing Agatha forever, and despite her anger, she isn’t fully ready to do that. In the end, her hesitation gives Agatha the time to change the terms. She gives Rio what she’s claimed to want from the beginning - Agatha’s death.

Agatha gives herself to Rio in a way that speaks of both acceptance and forgiveness. And maybe, it’s also forcing the bargain that Rio never gave her the chance to make for Nicky. Her life for his.

And Rio keeps their bargain about seeing her face again anyway, because I think she knows that she’s finally been forgiven, but Agatha still isn’t ready to face Nicky. She doesn’t collect Agatha’s soul and even allows that broach to stay behind for Billy to take. I think Rio knows full well she just allowed Agatha to remain as a ghost, but she lets her go. She finally lets Agatha go and lets herself grieve their lost love.

She lets Rio Vidal die with Agatha and reclaims her eternal role as Lady Death.

And now her sacred balance is shot to hell, because she’s got not one, but two, abominations roaming around in bodies that don’t belong to them, and one stubborn, ornery ghost who she knows damn well is going to meddle in all of that chaos magic.

And, I think, she also hopes that maybe one day, Agatha will be ready to cross over and see Nicholas again - maybe even see her again - but, it’s all in Agatha’s power now.

Like Rio said in the very first episode - “If you want to be in control, you can be.” And it speaks volumes that Rio has honored that at every turn.

Now she just has to explain to Nicholas how she let his mama slip through her fingers again and stick around to mentor that Maximoff boy.

#agatha all along #long winded headcanon #fic rec

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