#life‚ but he left us with a body of work unlike almost anything else‚ and which is still being celebrated and analysed today. rip bsj

[mariocki]

Fat Man on a Beach (HTV, 1974)

"I'm going to read some more poems now. Erm. It may be that if you want to go and have a cup of tea, this would be a good time. I know that's what you masses are like. The mention of poetry and off you go."

[morning-star-joy]

bloodshed, crimson clover

Pairing: Joel x Doctor F!Reader

Summary: You run a small practice in the Boston QZ, willing to treat anybody who needs it. After an encounter where you save the life of Joel Miller, you form an unlikely friendship with one of the most notorious, feared men in the QZ, a reputation you didn't realize existed until you come face to face with it yourself.

Warnings: Angst. Slow build. Mutual pining & tension (unresolved). Ambiguous ending. Game!Joel. Canon-typical violence. Reader captured with mentioned physical harm, Feral Joel with descriptions of torture/murder. Vague descriptions of injury treatments (bullet wound with cauterization, cleaning glass/debris from cuts, burn wound). Reader from California & Joel calls her Cali, Reader calls Joel Texas.

Wordcount: 12.1k

A/N: I've had this idea for a while, started it and it sat in drafts, and suddenly I was hit with inspiration again this past week. Also ty @cupofjoel for letting me scream about them to you and all your support, ily!!

In his own ways, Joel Miller was a complete gentleman.

A distinctly Southern one, with a show of selective manners from his upbringing before the world went to hell, paired with a charming ruggedness that pulled your attention to him from the very first time he stumbled through your little clinic’s doors.

You were one of the few legitimately licensed Pre-Outbreak medical professionals left in the QZ, and accepted each and every sick and injured person into your tiny practice. It took a long time and care to get a place out of the view of FEDRA’s ever-looming gaze, but even then you risked the possibility of having a target painted on your back if you treated the “wrong” person.

Somebody always owed somebody else within those tall steel walls surrounding the poor semblances of a society that, in your opinion, should have been left in the dust with the rest of the world. In not discerning who you patched up, you put yourself in danger of getting on the wrong side of someone distinctly more powerful, more violent than you.

But through your diligent work over the years, you’d gained enough of a clientele for your hidden practice to remain largely untouched. There were a few instances with graffiti, but even that wasn’t too terrible—immature Fireflies pissed off that you hadn’t accepted their offer to join them, most likely new recruits trying to earn their place in the rebel ranks.

So when the rickety old doors banged open hard enough to nearly tear them off the top hinge one night, you were up on your feet and running to assist the large body that almost fell to the floor with the momentum of how they had burst in.

There was not an ounce of anxiety in your body other than the familiar adrenaline of assess the damage, stop the bleeding, prevent infection and keep them alive as you wrapped your arms around their waist, using all your strength to pull them up and direct them to one of the two old clinic beds in the dingy old room that you sanitized as best you could between patients.

That was the first thing you noticed about Joel Miller, even though you didn’t know him by name or even face yet—he was heavy. Solid muscle underneath blood-stained fabric that you began to pull away from his torso, hardly paying attention to the low timbre of his pained grunts when the cloth stuck gruesomely to the gunshot wound you finally saw once you got the shirt off.

There were no questions in your mind other than how deep was it, was there an exit wound, did it hit anything vital, not caring how he had gotten it, who had given it to him, or why they had as you paced to your instruments, only taking a moment to make sure they were clean before pulling on a pair of gloves you were running dangerously low on, hoping that they wouldn’t get too blood-soaked in the process of keeping this man alive.

Yes, you would do all you could to save him—but you still knew in the back of your mind that two pairs of gloves spent on him would risk no gloves and losing somebody else further down the line.

It wasn’t a thought you wasted the time to entertain now as you quickly got to work. There was nothing to numb the pain of the man who laid back on the clinic bed, teeth gritted and half-delirious from blood loss, not even bothering to try and say anything to you while you saved his life.

You weren’t offended. In some odd way, it was a breath of fresh air.

Most, if not all patients you treated with this kind of wound, were usually tripping over fast anxiety-fueled words trying to explain to you how they had gotten into this situation. You supposed they were hoping you wouldn’t turn them in for whatever they most likely weren’t supposed to be doing, not knowing that the only thing you truly cared about anymore was keeping as many people as you could alive in this godforsaken dystopia.

This man though, he stayed silent. Not trying to assure you of his goodwill, whether he truly had any or not. He only stared up at the dilapidated ceiling, jaw practically wired shut, maybe to keep in the low grunts and groans that rumbled from his chest, exposed from where you had to remove his denim shirt to treat the wound on his torso.

Unfortunately, you did end up having to switch to a new pair of gloves, the bleeding slowing but stubbornly refusing to stop completely. You were reaching for more of your quickly dwindling supply of gauze to keep pressing against the wound when you heard his voice clearly for the first time.

“Cauterize it.”

You looked back at him with your hand outstretched halfway to the gauze, eyes widening at the simple command that fell from the man’s chapped lips in a low drawl that rasped with pain and dehydration.

Blinking, you looked from his face that was still directed towards the ceiling down towards the wound, a frown pulling onto your lips as you glanced back towards him and began to protest, “I don’t—”

“Cauterize. It.” He repeated firmly, jaw still clenched with the words hissed out through gritted teeth.

You stiffened, not particularly enjoying being ordered to make a medical choice in your own clinic, but then his eyes met yours, filled with an intense determination that had your hand pulling back slightly from its path towards a longer process that would've hopefully let the wound heal naturally.

Then there was a slight shift in the unfathomable depth of that gaze, a fracture in walls even more impenetrable than the ones that had surrounded you for almost half a decade, and his cracked lips parted, tongue darting out to wet them in a desperate attempt for hydration before he gave a quiet murmur of, “Please.”

There was the first hint of those selective manners, emphasized with an underlying sense of unspeakable eagerness, and your face set into your own determination, nodding as you set about preparing for a practice that wasn’t your favorite, but was sometimes necessary.

Maybe this man couldn’t afford the time it would take to stop the bleeding completely, sew it up and let the wound heal on its own. Maybe there was something out there, somebody out to get him.

Or somebody he had to protect, to get home to.

That last thought is what urged you not stop even when the man grabbed the edge of the bed in a large hand, fingers curling so tight around it that you marveled if the rickety old metal would actually break under the strength of that grip. It's what spurred you to keep going even through the sharp shouts of pain muffled around the clean, rolled up washcloth you had gotten him to bite down on through the procedure.

Once the wound was forcibly closed by the red-hot metal of your sterile knife the best you could manage, you found your eyes drawn back to the man’s face, tracing the strength of his features as they relaxed a fraction from relief once the onslaught of pain from the procedure finished.

When you began the process of disinfecting the closed wound, his face had grown so blank that you worried he was on the verge of passing out, but he surprised you by placing his palms flat against the bed, pushing himself up with a loud grunt the moment you were done treating him.

“Sir—”

Any protests towards his movements you were about to make were cut short as he swung his feet over the side of the bed, placing his boots on the ground, heavy-footed and nearly collapsing when he pushed himself up and strode forward anyway, powering through the weakness you would much prefer he would sit in before trying to leave.

“Sir, I really don’t think—”

But he was shaking his head towards your attempts to get him to rest, fingers fumbling with the buttons of where blood was beginning to dry on the faded denim of his shirt, managing to get it most the way fastened back up as he took increasingly more steady steps towards the door.

What flabbergasted you the most, though, was the way he turned his head back towards you, gaze meeting yours for the second time as he muttered a gruff, “Thank you.”

The second show of those bizarre Southern gentlemanly manners, and you still didn’t have a name for him yet.

And then he was gone.

Time passed, and you allowed the mysterious man with the dark gaze and deep drawl to fade into a memory.

Like with all your patients, you spared just enough thought in the days following his treatment to hope he was alive, even though you knew that any hope to ever get confirmation of survival was fruitless. There was no way to know how much longer somebody survived if you managed to save them.

Other than making that wish of wellbeing for yet another soul, you moved on with your life.

So when the door opened one afternoon weeks later, in much worse wear now than it ever had been from the time that patient had charged through it, you were surprised to see the very same man who was the cause of it standing in your doorway when you looked up.

When you saw him, you paused halfway in rising from your squeaky old rolling stool, remembering his face even from the way his head was turned to the side, observing how the top of the door was nearly coming off its rusty hinges before turning to find you.

With a nod, he stepped further into the room, surprising you with how carefully he shut the door behind him, a direct juxtaposition to his whirlwind entrance and exit when you had treated his gunshot wound.

“Doctor,” he greeted in that same low drawl—Southern, maybe Texas, you thought somewhere in the back of your mind—as you finally rose fully from your seat, returning his nod and automatically moving towards your sparse supplies.

“Take a seat,” you said more kindly than firmly over your shoulder, not in a haste to stop him from bleeding out on your floors this time as he seemed to be relatively fine.

“Sorry?”

You paused, glancing from one of the few pairs of gloves that remained back over your shoulder to see the man staring at you with a slight furrow in his brow, a pinch of confusion on an already severe face that pronounced deep lines of age.

He didn’t seem that old—in fact, you guessed he was perhaps around your age. But then, you supposed you were both old considering the world you had survived in, and even so, there was a haunted look to the man’s intensity that spoke of his longer years, one you weren’t even sure he knew that he exuded as his presence seemed to take up the entire room and all your attention.

“Your wound,” you answered simply, gesturing towards where you remembered the gunshot you had treated to be on his torso, and he followed your gaze to look down at himself, the deep lines on his forehead relaxing a bit when you clarified, “You’re here to have it checked on, no?”

“Uh—no,” he replied, giving a slight shake of his head, his head lifting so his eyes could meet yours again. “‘M healing just fine, ma’am.”

There were the manners you had recognized the first time, more distinct this time, and they drew you a step closer towards the man, your body turning away from your small tray of supplies to face him fully for the first time.

“Oh,” you said softly, head tilting as your own brows furrowed, confused as to what had brought him back to your clinic when he had seemed so desperate to get in, get treated as quickly as possible, and get out the last time. “What brings you back, then?”

There was another flicker of something across his face, some emotion you couldn’t name before he shifted the backpack you just now realized he was wearing off of one shoulder. It slipped to his side, where he balanced it on his hip, drawing your attention to how his broad chest and large arms narrowed down to his waist as he began to rifle through it, the quick flare of some feeling in your stomach shifting to trepidation at his actions.

Oddly enough, you didn’t get blaring warning signals of danger from this man. And besides, if he was trying to rob or kill you, he was going about it in a very odd way.

“Here.” His voice was gruff as he pulled something out of his pack, and you blinked rapidly, eyes widening at the same moment your jaw dropped at the sight of what he was holding out to you.

Supplies.

Medical supplies.

Gloves and bandages and—

“Jesus Christ, is that a stethoscope?” you gasped out, reaching forward to take the items before you could stop yourself, too thrilled by the notion of getting your hands on a crucial medical tool that had eluded you for years.

“That it would be,” the man replied, but you weren’t looking at him anymore, instead unrolling the worn leather pouch to see that there was, indeed, a stethoscope inside—one that had seen better days but, oh, the ways you were going to be able to properly diagnose more patients now because of this was—

You finally paused, back stiffening as you looked back up at the stranger who had so easily handed something this precious to you, a sense of unease finally curling uncomfortably in your gut as you took a step back.

“What do you want?” you asked quietly, uncertain as to the terms of whatever arrangement was happening, even as you were now holding the items close to your chest after rolling the stethoscope back up. Unwilling to give them back, even as you were suddenly daunted by the prospect of what he might want in exchange.

He watched you shift, eyes dropping to where you were nearly hugging the supplies to yourself now, and for a moment you worried he was about to try and take them back before his lips parted and he surprised you yet again by mumbling, “To thank you.”

You blinked, taken aback by the shockingly simple sentiment. The desire to repay kindness with more kindness, despite the kind of world you both lived in.

Despite the fact that just one glance at this man—with his hard muscles and intimidating presence, the grim set of his face and the way his muscles tensed not just with the anticipation of something going wrong at any moment, but almost an eagerness that it would happen, that there would be an outlet for that tension ready to snap—would give one the impression that there wasn’t an ounce of kindness in his body.

“That’s…it?” you ask slowly, still wary, hardly able to believe that there were no strings attached. You weren’t a pessimist, but being an optimist wasn’t exactly an option either, not anymore.

But he just nodded, shifting back on the balls of his feet, hands raising with palms turned out towards you, as if to show he had nothing to take, nothing else to give other than this.

“I repay my debts, ma’am,” he uttered with a deadly seriousness in that low drawl, and this time you definitely settled on Texas as being the origin of such a smooth accent.

“Oh,” you said softly, nodding at the explanation, because now this made more sense. Kindness was a rarity, nearly nonexistent, and it wasn’t what he was showing here.

All he wanted was to repay a debt, one that you weren’t even aware existed.

Though you certainly weren’t one to complain when this was the payment. 

Clutching the medical supplies tight to your chest, you reel at how saving this man from an untimely death may have just saved even more lives down the line.

You’re opening your mouth to thank him for his own thanks, but then he’s gone once again, leaving the same way he came in, with more tempered control and less chaotic storm than the first time.

You still don’t have a name.

You settle on calling him Texas.

Not that you say it to his face, or that you even see his face.

More time passes now than those few weeks in between your first two meetings with the Southern stranger. One month goes by, then two, and you once again resign him to the confines of your memories, even though the image of him is much more adamant on breaking out since the second visit.

Second and last, you reminded yourself as you disposed of a used pair of gloves after seeing off a patient, seeing his face flash in your mind’s eye as the cause of why you were able to save this life. Why you could save yet another life after this.

And it wasn’t just the gloves, but everything he had given you. There was still quite a bit of the stash left, as you were used to knowing how to make supplies last for as long as possible, dividing them and deducing who needed what the most as you saw to patients throughout your days.

You were thankful for him. Even if this was his way of settling a debt, washing his hands of you and moving on with his life, you still felt immense gratitude. 

You also felt unbearable curiosity.

Every now and then, you found yourself wondering how he had gotten the supplies, and that much at that. Surely by no legal means, and none of your business at all, but you still couldn't help but wonder.

And so with the gunshot wound he had first stumbled into your life with, you tried to paint a picture of Texas in your head.

When your hands were idle, you created stories in your mind of the life he’d led that brought him from home—or where you imagined his home to be, if you were even remotely correct in dubbing him Texas—to here. 

It was an embarrassing pastime, really, and you had no business entertaining anything more than a passing thought of gratitude about him. But still, you imagined.

Sometimes that imagination was of an exciting life for him, one of travel to far places that you never got to go, pretending that this was a man who had lived through better times and had many tales to tell of them. Tales to tell you, if you were being particularly delusional.

Other times, you pictured him with a life much more humble. Born and raised in the Lone Star State, probably proud to be. A family man who yelled at football, loved barbeques and beers with buddies, working a simple 9-5 until the world went to shit.

You liked that imaginary version of him. You liked thinking that Texas wasn’t too different from you, just trying to get by in the old world and the new.

So used to him staying inside of your mind, you were surprised the next time you actually saw him again.

In hindsight, you supposed you shouldn’t have been. With the scars you had seen just on his torso when you were treating his gunshot wound, you doubted this man lived an easy life now, no matter what it had been before.

It was late, well into curfew hours, but your tiny apartment was just a few streets away from your humble clinic, and you knew the best methods to get back and forth without being seen. You liked to stay as late as you could most nights, just in case somebody needed tending to at the odd hours when nobody else would be able to help.

Your eyes were growing heavy, a few persistent yawns you failed to fight off your body’s way of letting you know you were definitely pushing it, but you held on for a little longer.

And you’d be forever grateful you did, when he was the one needing tending to that night.

The loud, metallic creak of those loose hinges pulled your attention up from where you were staring absentmindedly at your small desk, and you were jumping from your stool the moment you saw him.

There was no stumbling this time, but you saw the streaks of red well, cuts across his face and arms, worn flannel shredded around the skin embedded with glass that glinted in the low, fluorescent light of your lamp that lit up the confined quarters.

“Sit,” you were saying before anything else, and you swore you heard a quiet chuckle under a pained breath as Texas moved to sink down onto a clinic bed.

“Good evening to you too,” he mumbled, and you glanced up at the unexpected humor, unsure if it was for your expense or benefit.

Nevertheless, your eyes narrowed slightly, and his mouth snapped shut then. He settled back as you pulled your tray with you, a neat array of the dwindling supplies from what he had given you waiting underneath your fingertips before you pulled on some gloves and began.

Much like the first time, the ruined shirt was removed so you could work, but the lack of the looming threat of immediate death and ample time to wonder about the man between his visits left you now with eyes that wanted to wander. 

You hoped Texas couldn’t see each time your gaze flickered across his broad chest in the low light of the lamp, observing the way it illuminated his scarred skin before quickly moving your careful attention back to picking glass and debris from the series of cuts across his body, doing your best to stop more scars from finding a home there.

“Gotta stop meeting me like this, Texas,” you find the words slipping from your lips as you focused on your work, your mind not even catching up to what you had said, too focused on your work until he spoke.

“Texas?”

You pause, feeling a surge of embarrassment at what you let slip, only used to him existing inside your thoughts and not in front of you, warm flesh beneath your hands, the heat of him radiating even through the latex gloves. 

Your fingers flexed from where you were bracing yourself against the center of his chest, swallowing thickly when you suddenly noticed the steady beat of his heart underneath your palm. You refocused your attention on picking another shard of broken glass from just below his collarbone, trying to gather your thoughts enough for a somewhat reasonable answer.

“I just—” You bit your cheek, struggling with what to say, a sigh held deep in your lungs before you exhaled it slowly and mumbled, “You are from Texas, aren’t you?”

Your gaze shifted up to his neck, gently cleaning the dirt from a scrape there, your new focus of attention leaving you with a perfect view of the twitch of his lips from the corner of your eye.

“Guilty.” You can feel the rumble of his voice in his chest as he mumbles the word, and you quickly lift your hand from it, not realizing that your touch had lingered there even when you had moved away from that area of his body. “Just surprised you picked up on it, s’all.”

A little smile turned up on your lips; part pleased that you had gotten it right, part embarrassed that you had even thought of it, thought of him, that much.

Quiet fell between you and Texas for a while, as you made sure the cuts on his neck were clean before finally moving up to his face.

Your eyes met with his for the first time since he had sat down that night, and it was also the first time you noticed their color.

All that time he had plagued your mind, and you realized you hadn’t even really seen the color of his eyes. You had settled on brown, but sitting closer now, you saw the green surrounding the warmer color, creating a stunning hazel that was all you could see for a moment before your gaze snapped away, the heat of embarrassment filling you again as you pulled your focus back to his cuts.

You hesitated then, one hand hovering in the air before gently gripping his chin between a thumb and forefinger, tilting his face to different angles as you treated it, a remarkably easy task when he hardly winced with each piece of glass removed, seemingly unbothered by the pain.

Once again, you were sucked into the familiarity of the focus that came with your work, and it was Texas that broke it this time, your brain taking a moment to register what he had said.

“California.”

You paused, tweezers hovering over his cheekbone, eyes meeting that hazel again to see he was watching you, and you wondered just how long he had been doing so—the whole time? Why did you hope he was?

“How’d you know?”

Texas shrugged one shoulder, and you once again forced your attention back to your work, trying to ignore the weight of his gaze on your face now that you knew it was there.

“Lucky guess,” he said in that low timbre, and you laughed softly, shaking your head as you pulled the last shard of glass from a cut above his eyebrow, eyes lingering on a scar near his temple before dropping the glass into your tin of medical waste, full of all the once painful remnants of whatever had brought him back to you tonight.

You felt like an awful person, being glad that it had brought him back to you.

Once all the cuts were properly taken care of, you leaned back with a sigh, snapping the gloves off your hands and dropping them into the rest of the medical waste. By some old habit, you patted Texas on the knee before standing, wheeling your tray away with you as you declared him free to go once again.

“It was the accent,” he says, and you pause, looking back over your shoulder as he pushes himself to his feet, and you’re reminded once again of how big the man is when he’s not sitting still while you treat him. “Your accent gave it away. Sure as hell don’t sound East Coast.”

Another laugh left your lips, curling up into a smile as you shake your head and look back towards your remaining medical supplies. Dangerously low again after tonight, but in this moment now, you found yourself not caring just yet.

“Guilty,” you repeated his own affirmation from earlier, and one glance back showed the corner of his lips turning up into a small smirk that had much larger consequences on your heart, racing now at the sight of amusement on his stoic face before you quickly looked away again.

“Long way from home, Cali,” he says slowly, and your heart skips a goddamn beat now at that drawled nickname, as if he wasn’t doing enough already. 

“Same as you, huh?” you try to sound casual as you kept your gaze focused on shifting through your supplies, reorganizing them just to keep your mind busy, even as it marveled at how he hadn’t left already,

“Not nearly as much as you.” 

At the continued conversation, you finally turn, seeing him bent over at the waist and rifling through the beat-up backpack full of duct-taped holes that he had brought in with him.

You see the gun tucked into the back of the waistband of his jeans then, a sight that wasn’t surprising given the injuries he’d come to you with, but your brows still furrow, mind continuing to create different stories to solve the mystery of him before he straightens up and turns back to you. 

He holds out a bundle of bandages and gloves to you, and you try to hold back your excitement at the offering as much as you can, as thrilled by the promise they offered for your work as you were by the idea that he’d already had the supplies ready this time.

The idea that he’d been holding onto them for you.

Delusional, an inner voice chides you, but you smile down at the supplies anyway, rubbing a thumb across the box of gloves and sighing quietly as your mind brings forth a time long gone where you never would have thought twice about the availability of what was once such a common thing.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” you say slowly, pondering how you had recognized his accent, attributed him to a long gone place, as he did you. “How even after all this time, we still remember those little things about a world that doesn’t exist anymore.”

He’s not looking at you anymore when you glance back up. The stoicism you had come to associate with him from just a few meetings was back, and you get the sense you had taken the rare offer of a conversation too far.

You thank him for the supplies, and he nods almost absentmindedly, seemingly half paying attention to you before he moves back towards the door, and you turn back to begin to organize your new supplies, eager to restock your workspace.

The only thing that stops you is—

“What’s your name, Cali?”

Your head lifts, body half-turning around to stare at him in shock. 

Nobody has asked for your name in years. 

It’s been so long since you’ve said it out loud that the syllables assigned to you at birth feel foreign in your mouth. It taunts you with a time long past, like a bad taste you have to spit out, and when you do, he repeats it back.

The way he says it is…different. He sounds it out just the same as you, but it sounds less wrong leaving his lips. He says it slowly, as if tasting each letter on his tongue, memorizing it before giving a nod and turning to leave.

“Wait.”

He does. 

For some reason, he stops when you tell him to, facing the door that he himself was the sole cause of its state hanging off its hinges, something he stares purposefully at when you ask for his own name.

Texas doesn’t look back as his voice wraps around the sounds of his own name, distaste similar to yours when you gave him your own dripping from his mouth as it curves around his syllables.

You start to say it back. The name, his name, Joel leaving your lips quietly, but he’s already back out the door before you can even sound out the M of his last name.

It leaves your lips anyway, his name echoing alone in your clinic, clutching the medical supplies tight to your chest.

Somewhere buried deep in your thoughts, you ponder over the idea that, just from the sheer intensity that radiated from the man the few times you had met him, Joel Miller memorizing somebody’s name feels like irrefutable danger, like you’re in for a very short life span. It’s a feeling you ignore, an instinct you try to forget about as you recall no hostility in his eyes, the hazel sharp as shrapnel you once cleaned from his body with none of the lethality when he repeated your name back to you.

Somewhere, buried even deeper, your heart races instead at the thought that he intends to say it again.

Joel leaves, but he always comes back. 

It’s never a social call. The world’s gone to shit; you don’t have the time, and you’re sure Joel doesn’t have the patience.

He shows up in your doorway when he’s injured, and leaves you with enough medical supplies to keep you going until the next time he comes along. At its core, it's a business transaction. He’s just continuing to repay a debt to you so he doesn’t owe you anything. There’s nothing fundamentally personal about it.

That doesn’t stop you from looking forward to those visits. You never know when Joel’s going to show up next, and it does more than keep you on your toes; it holds you in anticipation, keeping those daydreams in the forefront in your mind rather than the back whenever you have time to yourself now.

Because each time he comes through, he leaves you with another snapshot of himself. Another glimpse into the lives he lived once and lives now—usually the former rather than the latter, much to your surprise.

You hold every reveal of the aloof man close; purely off-hand, inconsequential things, like a love for going to the movies now rendered nonexistent, or the time he and his brother rode motorcycles cross country. Those things don’t matter anymore, but you like hearing about them. You like knowing those things about him, fitting the real pieces of him in with your imaginary ones to solve a puzzle that only existed inside your head. It fuels your imagination, spurs on your delusion.

You’re not actually sure if he realizes how much you know about him at this point, while simultaneously knowing nearly nothing about him at all. The important things, like why he keeps showing up with all those injuries, remain unknown.

Joel brings it up, just once, off-hand as you’re wrapping up his shoulder in a spot where you could tell a bullet had grazed him.

“You don’t ask.”

Your hands had paused, eyes lifting from your work to his face, glancing over his side profile before his head turned and he was looking down at you from inches away.

He was waiting for an answer, but your mind was having trouble keeping up with what he had even said, too startled by the swirling of brown and green in his eyes when they were right there. A color as warm and solid as the earth beneath your feet, grounding you to him, pulling you in with that same undeniable magnetism he had first stumbled into your life with.

His facial hair had gotten longer, dark whiskers of hair framing cracked lips, a split down the top one that you had carefully cleaned earlier. You hadn't even thought twice about it when dabbing it clean, but now you couldn’t see anything else, not until—

“Cali?”

You blinked, head snapping up as your back went ramrod straight, and you quickly turned back to where your hands had frozen mid-bandage.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“About what?” you forced the words from your lips, trying not to think about how they ached to have his own pressed to them, split lip and all molding firmly and then gently against yours—

Oh god, no, what were you thinking?

“About any of it,” Joel grumbled, waving a large hand towards his face with a vague gesture, seeming to think you had just been observing his injuries even with the way you’re now staring at thick fingers, long veins, prominent and begging to be traced—

No! Stop!

“You don’t have a policy of asking your patients questions?” he asked, arching a thick brow down at you, and you curse the way your stomach flips at the sight.

“Believe it or not, I actually have a strong one not to,” you finally answered with his shoulder now wrapped firmly, fingers grazing against the gauze before you pushed your stool away from him, gloves snapping off your hands and ignoring the ache to touch him without them. “You do what you have to in order to survive. My job is to make sure you keep surviving. Not to ask questions.”

Joel hummed, and you felt the weight of his gaze on you up until he handed you a new bundle of supplies and left again.

Sometimes, you wonder if he’s picked up anything about you in turn, the way you’ve locked away every small fragment you've learned of him. You wonder if he even cares to listen during those rare moments where you might let something about yourself, past or present, slip.

You dare to dream that he does.

Foolish. 

You can almost say with certainty that Joel doesn’t realize the things about himself that you’ve picked up on. Like the movies thing—it had been revealed through slurred words at your last-ditch effort to distract him by asking him questions through a particularly painful procedure, and he had rambled in delirium about popcorn and previews for no more than half a minute before promptly passing out beneath your moving hands.

It had caused bubbling panic in the moment, but when the moment had passed and he had awoken with embarrassment about not being able to tolerate the pain, it seemed all recollection of what he had shared had disappeared.

Or maybe he was just embarrassed about that too.

You would surely never admit that the thought of the large, intimidating man even experiencing an emotion as mundane as embarrassment only endeared you to him more.

And the motorcycle trip—well, that hadn’t even been Joel’s choice in revealing.

A few years into gaining your most returning patient—“we have to get your picture on the wall,” you had jested to him about simultaneously having the best (can somehow survive a plethora of injuries) and worst (has a penchant to keep getting them) luck at one point, much to his silent judgment at your attempted joke—he had entered the clinic the same way he did upon that first meeting, and you winced at the way the door banged against the wall in the same place it'd once left a dent during that first visit from him.

A sharp disapproval at treating your humble place of work like this was on the tip of your tongue, before you saw that Joel wasn’t alone, nor was he the one currently injured.

Any questions other than those pertinent for your new patient’s survival were rapidly dismissed from crowding your fast-moving mind, the same way as always. You helped Joel set the man down, hardly even realizing he was talking, that they were both talking, until after you had snapped on your gloves and assessed the burn wound on the back of the man's forearm.

“It worked out, didn’t it?”

“Hardly,” Joel bit back, voice rough with a harsh disapproval bordering on anger, the sound of which made the hairs raise on the back of your neck as you busied yourself getting cool compresses ready. “It was goddamn stupid, is what it was. Nearly got yourself killed.”

“But it worked.”

“Tommy—”

“Lighten up, big brother,” this Tommy said while you checked his pulse and lifted his arm above his chest, and now you understood the energy filling up the entire space of the room.

There was a blood bond between the bickering men, tested by the fraying of nerves and something deeper, some unnamable tension that came from something you didn’t know, maybe wouldn’t even understand. Some after effect of the transition into this world you now lived in, something that was none of your business.

Even then, the way Tommy’s body was constantly shifting and Joel hovering over your shoulder as they kept arguing while you tried to treat the burn is what made you finally snap.

“Hey!”

The clear echo of your voice layered over the argument, and instantly broke it, both men turning down to see your narrowed gaze shifting between the two of them.

“You need to sit still because I’m not fond of breaking burn blisters, and you won’t be either,” you ordered sternly, not wavering under the attention of the man finally focused on you for the first time since coming in, before you whipped around to Joel still hovering behind you. “And you!”

For a moment, you found a bit of humor in the utterly stupefied look on the man’s face that matched that of his brother’s, before you stood from your stool so you were chest to chest with Joel.

“You need to stop breathing down my goddamn neck and let me work,” you said firmly, pointing towards the far wall, the order clear in your eyes without even having to say it at this point.

You knew Joel saw it, and to his credit all you saw was his jaw ticking, a brief flare to his nostrils before he spun on his heel, marching towards the wall to lean against it heavily. His arms crossed across his broad chest while he watched you sit and go back to cooling Tommy’s burn.

Order was regained in your clinic, and you smiled a little to yourself at having established it, before Tommy shifted forward slightly towards you and muttered conspiratorially, but not at all quietly, “No wonder you got even this hardass to like you.”

A tremor briefly overtook your fingers with the shock of the unexpected words before you flexed them, willing your grip to steady before renewing your focus on his burn injury as Joel snarled from his spot you had assigned him against the wall, “Shut the fuck up, Tommy.”

Your gaze snaps up, making sure Joel hadn’t moved, eyes narrowing when you saw he had pushed off the wall just slightly. When he notices your look, he shifts backwards, back hitting the wall again as his glare shifts off to the side, towards the loose hinges on the door now in even worse condition thanks to both Miller brothers.

There’s a chuckle from Tommy, more bristling from Joel, and the illusive taunt of hope wound tight in your chest, but nobody says anything else until you’re sending them off with the rest of your low supply of lotion that would be adequate for burn treatment, along with instructions on how to take care of the now loosely bandaged burn.

Tommy nods, thanking you when Joel snaps at him to show some manners. The younger brother leaves with a pointed look towards your door and an offhand, not unkind comment on getting it fixed, followed up quickly by an offer of doing the work himself to pay back your kindness. 

Not a debt, but kindness, the exact verbiage he used himself in a Southern drawl a bit lighter, more intentionally charming than Joel’s rough allure.

Joel is still irritated, more than you’ve ever seen, but he still nods at you with a mumble of “thanks, Cali,” before following his brother as the younger man is saying “so that’s Cali!”

There's a hard smack to Tommy's shoulder to direct him away, Joel's reprimanding tone saying things you couldn’t hear before they disappear around a corner.

It was then that you decided you liked Tommy.

You like him even more when he stops by a couple weeks later to actually fix the door like he mentioned, filling your head with stories about his older brother you could have only ever dreamed of.

Because of Tommy you have reasons to giggle into your pillow that night at the thought of the two born and raised Texas boys racing across the country on motorcycles, smiling stupidly against the coarse fabric at the image of a younger Joel Miller with wind in his hair and a carefree smile on his face.

You’d only ever seen tiny twitches of those lips into halfway smirks, and so you dreamed of a time where they weren’t chapped from the smog of QZ air or split from punches to the face, but soft and pink and curling up into a real smile.

You dreamed of making him smile again.

Sometimes it takes a while for a visit from Joel.

Weeks turn into months in-between those short moments where you see his face for quick patch-ups and restocks of supplies.

Once there was about a year that passed without so much of a glimpse of him, and you had tried to settle yourself into the likely idea that he may have finally gotten himself hurt so bad he couldn’t even stumble into your clinic, when he proved your hidden, greatest fear wrong by turning up again.

He had limped through the door without a word, letting in a cold burst of snow laden air with him before it shut. A sigh of relief was exhaled from your lips, dry and chapped from the harsh winter months, and you hurried to him, slinging his arm over your shoulder as you helped him through the room to sit.

Peeling the blood caked jeans from his legs with a mumbled apology of the chill permeating your clinic this time of year, you barely got out one word out after of, “You—”

“Gotta stop meeting you like this, I know,” Joel sighed, avoiding your gaze as you settled on your stool with a familiar squeak of the old furniture, pulling on a pair of gloves you had set aside specifically for him months ago, ensuring that you’d have at least one left for him in the hopes that he could still make it back to you in one piece someday.

Even if that meant one less for someone down the line, potentially sacrificing a life for the uncertain possibility of saving somebody else.

It was unlike you.

Selfish, the inner voice of reason chides you again, as it always speaks in his presence.

And as always, you ignore it.

Your eyes flickered up from critically observing the stab wound haphazardly sewn above his knee—his own work, no doubt, and you were surprised at your frustration that he hadn’t come to you instead. You figured it must have not been an option, some reason having kept him from you, but you still fixed him with a hard look that the surly man actually shifted under, wary under the weight of your scrutiny, for whatever that was worth.

Shaking your head, you turned back to set about the process of thoroughly cleaning the wound, checking for any sign of infection and treating his body properly, because somebody had to do it if he wasn’t going to.

It wasn’t like he was reckless. Despite your visits with the man being few and far between—if they could even really be called visits in the first place—you had caught enough of a glimpse of who he was to know he was far from irrational. He wouldn’t have made it this far if he was.

Joel Miller could keep himself alive, of this you had no doubt.

But the repercussions that came with his survival, infection of the body or wounds that went deeper than that of flesh or blood, were things that you learned he merely shouldered as a consequence.

A burden you would lessen, even if all it meant was making sure one wound out of many wouldn’t fester, if he came to you with it.

It wasn’t until this one was treated and redressed, and he was pulling his pants back on while you stared down at the gloves on your hands—a pair that he had given you, that you had saved to save him, now speckled with his blood, a reminder that he was still alive but maybe just barely—and the words you had actually wanted to say when he came in, the ones that you had held back when he interrupted you, echoed through your mind again.

You scared me.

They aren’t spoken, not with words. Instead, your hand pats his knee again after his jeans are zipped up, fingers brushing against where his properly tended wound is now hidden beneath the heavy fabric.

The touch lingers, for just a second, before you’re up and moving away.

To your surprise, Joel follows.

He rifles through his backpack, and you notice a few new holes, more spots where there’s recently applied duct tape. You absentmindedly wonder why he sticks with this one. If he’s able to find and trade other sorts of goods, couldn’t he get a new backpack?

Thanks is given by reflex when he gives you the supplies, even though you know with this trade, you’re even once again. He doesn’t expect your gratitude, maybe doesn’t even want it, but there’s a sure cause for it this time as you shift through the pile to observe the weight of what you felt sitting unassuming at the bottom, but couldn't discern until you saw it.

Gloves.

Not thin latex, but heavy fabric, fitting in the palm of your freezing hand.

Not medical, but practical, even as the promise of warmth had now become a luxury.

Not for patients, but for you.

Joel had gotten this for you.

When you look back up at him, eyes wide with shock, he’s already explaining it away with a dismissive wave of his hand and gruff drawl, “Gotta keep those fingers in proper working condition, right?”

Your brow furrows then, more gratitude trapped inside your mouth as you notice something again that had lingered in your mind since he had shown up that night, something you couldn’t ignore anymore.

That this Joel in front of you now was different.

Joel had never been a beacon of warmth, but he’s never been colder.

He won’t meet your eye, doesn’t even seem bothered by his lack of ability to keep eye contact now. He’s rigid and tense, something pent-up deep inside of him, worse than ever before, and that’s when you know that whatever had happened since you saw him last had taken another piece of whatever he was. Another part of whoever you dreamed about once existing, gone.

“Hey,” you mumble, and he glances back at you, surely seeing the way your brows are knitted above eyes that put your concern on full display, just judging by the way he stiffened.

He waves another dismissive hand, looks away with arms crossed over his chest in a way that you’d seen before. It was like he was physically containing whatever emotions he was experiencing to his own body, holding them in with the flex of his muscles through his beat up winter jacket. A silent show of his strength, trying to protect himself with it, even if it couldn't stop whatever it was he was feeling.

You expect him to leave then, but his weather and time worn boots are glued to the ground, unmoving.

Eventually, he speaks, and the two words with the flat affect shake you to your core.

“Tommy’s gone.”

Fear blankets your body and sets every nerve on fire, pain flashing across your features as Joel sees it and quickly shakes his head, adding simply, nearly without emotion, “Left.”

The daunting grief at the possible death of the younger Miller brother fades, even as an emptiness remains when you softly say, “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Silence fills the space, and tension with it, setting you on edge with Joel in a way you’d never felt with him before.

“Fireflies,” he finally supplies, and you nod, looking down to the winter gloves you still held tight in your grasp, even as you set the rest of your new stock down.

So that was what had happened. The last thread holding the brothers together had snapped, and Tommy had left, taking a part of Joel with him. Maybe the last part of him, of who he had once been.

No wonder the man before you was even more hardened than you had ever seen him before.

“I see,” you whisper, and neither of you says anything more after that.

Not until you look back up at his face, refocus on the familiar features, noticing a few new lines of age in the year that had passed since last seeing him, some white whiskers in the edges of his beard, and—

Your hand is reaching out before you can stop to think, gripping his chin between thumb and forefinger, tilting his face down towards you in a way similar to when you’d treated him in the past.

Maybe by reflex from those moments, he lets you do it, even as the sharp clarity of his hazel eyes meet yours in confusion.

“What’s this?” you ask, fingers hovering over the new red line of scarring across the bridge of his nose, tracing the length of it without touch.

His eyes flash, not with anger, but with an emotion you don’t recognize. He tries to pull away, but your grip tightens, keeping him in place as you wait for an answer.

“Nothin’,” he mumbles, your eyes narrowing at the evasive answer, the way his gaze shifts away.

“Texas, this isn’t—”

Joel’s hand finds yours then, thick fingers wrapping around your smaller ones to pull them away from where you were still holding his chin, and the warmth of his skin seeping into yours hits you with a jolt as you only then realize this was touch.

Skin on skin, the very thing you had been aching for, dreaming of, for years. Those thoughts of him that kept you going on lonely days and cold nights, longing for something you could never have, an impossible reality now on the edge of your fingertips as he enveloped them in a rough palm, in his touch.

Touch.

Touch you had instigated, without the barrier of medical gloves between you. Without the clear lines that defined all you were to each other—doctor and patient, business transactions, a debt repaid again and again. Lines that now blurred when he didn’t drop your hand right away.

Blurring further, obscuring your vision in a rose-tinted blush when his grip tightened, and your breath caught in your throat at the feeling of him holding on to you.

“‘Ts fine,” Joel assures quietly, your fingers finally slipping from his, the clear hazel of those eyes you had spent a year waiting and hoping to see again, not meeting yours even once.

He hasn’t looked at you even once.

Just like that, you snap from a slow motion daze back to true reality. Your fantasies hit the ground hard, leaving you shattered with the empty aches of your heart forever unfulfilled in the dark crevices of your mind.

But even then, you can’t look away. 

Again, you hear the admission aching to be revealed, slipping from the back of your mind to the forefront on waves of anxiety and need that grew larger, more disastrous, crashing through all your thoughts as you watched him looking away, but not leaving.

You scared me.

The words fill your mouth, waiting to be spoken.

But they aren’t.

Even though you wanted to tell him how his absence had filled you with fear, terror that only abates whenever he’s with you until he inevitably leaves again, you don’t dare to say it. Not when he doesn’t even look at you, even though you can’t bring yourself to look away.

The only thing you do say is an assurance that you’d make it home safe when he tells you to before he’s finally gone again.

It’s the first time that you notice that each time he leaves you with a new piece of himself, he takes a piece of you with him.

“You’re scaring my patients, Texas.”

“Good.”

“Joel.”

It’s been like this since Tommy left.

Joel visits you now when he’s nothing less than the perfect picture of health.

At first, he brings you things—the usual, necessary items that keep your unsanctioned practice running. You thank him each time, albeit with puzzled looks when there’s no visible harm on his body, confusion that only furthers when he lingers.

Eventually, he drops by without anything at all. Nothing in hand, sometimes no backpack in tow, but always with that gun tucked into the back of his waistband.

For a while, you think nothing of it. You’re glad that he’s showing his face, that you’re not glancing up with baited breath each time your door creaks open, hoping for just a glimpse of the man to assure you that he was alright.

Joel lets you see often enough now that he’s still in one piece, and for a while, you’re foolish enough to think that it’s purely for the benefit of your peace of mind.

Then one day, when he’s walking out, a patient is walking in—a younger man you’ve seen more than once, treating wounds similar to those that Joel’s had, though not quite as severe.

What is severe is the look Joel instantly shoots at him as they pass by each other, your heart sinking when the injured man scurries towards the available clinic bed while the door shuts.

You try to push it out of your mind, try to ignore the way your patient keeps watching the closed door with baited breath, until he breathes out with certain trepidation, “That’s Joel Miller.”

Pausing in the middle of splinting his broken finger, your brow furrows, glancing up at the nervous scrunching of his face as you reply slowly, “Yes, it is.”

His gaze finally shifts from the door towards you, then back again quickly, like he’s afraid the mentioned man will burst through the moment he’s not looking.

“You—” A gulp, and then the shaky question of, “You know him, don’t you?”

You finish bandaging his injury, gently placing his hand back in his lap and replying honestly, even with your uncertainty lingering at his tone, “Of course I do.”

He doesn’t say anything more until he’s leaving, glancing back at you warily, seeming to struggle over what he wants to say before settling for, “He’s…he’s got a reputation, you know. Lots of folks are scared of that Joel Miller.”

With a nervous wringing of your hands behind your back, and a calm smile on your face, you assure him, “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Of course, you don’t know that Joel’s been waiting.

There’s no way to be aware that he’s been in the alley next to the clinic the entire time you treated your patient, no way to know that he trails the man the moment he leaves the safety of your building.

You’ll never know that the man you treated isn’t so good either. Or that he’s not nearly as bad as Joel.

Somebody always owed somebody else, after all. You knew it well, knew that Joel paid you back for this very reason.

But you didn’t know what happened when you owed him.

Or what happened when he went to collect.

And Joel ensured you were never getting anywhere near it. 

A sentiment made clear with another broken finger for the lackey of a rival smuggler late on a payment that had sought you out for the last time that day, along with a painful promise made that he and his buddies would never step foot in your clinic again.

There was no way for you to know what happened that day, but you noticed the shift afterwards.

The way Joel takes up residence along the wall of your clinic and doesn’t leave when patients come in. How he watches them, the mere weight of his sole attention setting them on edge.

You tell them it’s fine, shoot him a glare that tells him to back off. And maybe it works for a little, but not for long.

You assure yourself that it’s fine. A reputation means nothing, and you know Joel Miller, don’t you? Or you know all that matters. And you know that there’s nothing to be afraid of.

Until there is.

You’re gone.

It’s the first time since meeting you that Joel stops by the clinic, and you’re not there.

Well into the morning, and you’re not sitting there at your little makeshift desk. At this time, you should be half-rising from your stool he’s been meaning to find a replacement for just at the sound of the door opening.

You're always ready to spring into action, to save a life or make one better. Like you’ve done for him, time and time again.

It’s also the first time since before Tommy left that the door is swinging off its hinges again, and that’s when Joel knows.

You’re gone.

He doesn’t need to see the ransacked clinic, but he looks anyway. Searches frantically through the overturned furniture, your well-organized stock of supplies now a mess, some missing because he knows how much you have of everything, he silently keeps track along with you so he knows what to pick up when he and Tess go on runs.

There’s a panic settling in his gut, a burning ache crawling its way up his throat, and his hands twitch with the need to do something, to make somebody hurt, make them pay, make them talk to bring you back.

Back to the work that is your pride and joy, the four walls that have been your safety for years, a safety you’ve only ever extended to others, one you offered to him.

Joel needs to bring you back to him.

No time is wasted when he gets back to Tess. She knows you by now, having visited the clinic herself with or without Joel, for injuries or for chats. He’s noticed his partner always smiling after, the two of you forming a kinship that warms what fragments remain of his heart like so little else can.

Tess is taking charge in a way that’s familiar, and Joel is grateful for that. He doesn’t know what he’d do if left to his own devices right now, uncertain who’d wind up dead in the streets if let loose to find you on his own terms.

But he takes solace in knowing that Tess will let him do what he does best when it's time.

And when it is time, when they’ve cornered the last person who’s had your name leave their lips, the bone of their arm shatters underneath a brutal stomp and twist of Joel’s heavy boot after a series of ruthless hits that have left them begging for mercy on the ground.

But it gets them what they need—a location, information on a deal gone south for a specific kind of medicine that these smugglers had a monopoly on, medicine you most likely needed to save one patient, and deemed it a risk worth taking just for that.

Smugglers that Joel had very specifically warned to stay the fuck away from you.

The whimpering man under his boot gets a bullet to the head for not heeding his warning, for taking you from him, and they’re on their way without another word.

Fear burns so hot that it singes his veins, making him move faster, hit harder when they get to the warehouse. Red is all he sees and it’s all he feels, running through his fingers as he pulls triggers and chokes windpipes before twisting, snapping. Blood, hot and metallic, staining his skin in splatters up to his forearms as he moves from one to the next.

Joel has lost too much to make it quick, and the thought of losing you too only adds to his rage, making his preemptive vengeance all the more deadly. He lays waste to them all, sparing not a soul of his brutality. 

His shiv sinks into a neck, and he leaves it there for too long before pulling it out, leaving a streak of evidence of another life he’s stolen across his face as he turns, more than ready for the next one.

Movement catches the corner of his eye, and he’s lifting his gun towards where he sees legs pushing against the ground, a body scuttling away into a corner out of his sight, cowering behind a tower of boxes.

Joel’s finger is already on the trigger before he sees the shoes peeking out behind the cardboard, the tips of well-worn sneakers that he knows well, having seen them turn and move quickly around one tiny room for years.

Relief doesn’t rush to him yet, not until he’s rounded the boxes, not until he really sees you.

There’s an angry purple bruise forming along your jaw, and fury burns hotter, seeping through the edges of sweet relief that you’re okay, although injured.

You whimper, and his heart breaks, reaching out a hand towards you to help you up, to bring you back to him.

At the movement, you press your back against the wall, cowering away even further as your eyes fix onto his face.

Joel’s brow furrows, anger and relief both ebbing away slowly, and he says your name, holding his palm out further for you to take.

You whimper again.

Eyes wide and clouded with fear, lip quivering as you shrink away from the hand that he had stained with blood again and again to find you, to bring you back.

Above where your back is pressed to the wall, there is a line of windows. They offer a view to the first floor of the warehouse, now littered with bodies he had left, a clear trail of evidence of his path of destruction from the moment he had entered the building.

And that’s when Joel realizes you’re afraid of him.

The worst part is, he’s not surprised, not even in the slightest.

On the contrary, he thinks some part of him had been waiting for this. Waiting for you to finally open your eyes and see him for what he is.

Someone like you, who has spent her whole life patching up the kind of wounds he inflicts, who saves lives and gives while all he does is takes and takes, by his own choice or some kind of curse—of course you’re afraid.

Joel’s bloodstained fingers twitch, remembering the softness of your own the one and only time he had held them that cold winter night. His hand hovers in the air halfway to you, yearning to comfort a hand that heals with one that only knows how to kill.

But then you flinch at the twitch of his fingers, having witnessed their deadliness, and he pulls back.

When Tess arrives a moment later, you turn to her, allowing the other woman to pull you to your feet. You lean heavily on her as she helps you leave, takes you back, but not to him.

Because Joel knows now with certainty that it's a distance that was never meant to be closed.

He knows it's for the better.

Weeks turn into months once again.

Joel doesn’t come back.

As time passes, you reflect on the man you’d known, and the one everybody else knew. You compare the image of those half-smirks that you always hoped would turn into a smile to the face splattered with blood as he ruthlessly murdered any man in his path.

You feel like a fool. For more reason than one, but mostly because you knew.

You had seen the signs of just who Joel Miller was from the first time you met him, signs that you had ignored every time they lit up right in front of your face, blaring signals that you replaced with the naïve images you had created in your mind’s eye. Fantasies of a man that may have existed once, long ago, but not anymore.

It wasn’t the killing that bothered you. You knew what people had to do to survive, and you had always known just from his injuries that this was an indisputable truth heavily ingrained in Joel’s life, no matter who you imagined him to be before.

No, it wasn’t the killing that scared you, but the slaughter. 

What you were afraid of was his lack of mercy. His lethality. His intent to make them suffer.

After days of being held at the whims of dangerous men, only to discover that the only man you had come to consider a safe space in years was just as, if not more dangerous than them…

It rattled you.

Changed you.

Left a scar that even you didn’t know how to heal.

In the days that followed, you were glad that Joel kept his distance. You needed time to recover, to process what you had gone through, what you’d seen.

After a few weeks passed, you found yourself staring at the door, waiting once again for him to come back. Waiting to talk to him for once, to say the words that had plagued your mind once again. Even if they had shifted, they still rang true.

You scared me.

Because he did.

Joel Miller himself scared you, and you didn’t want him to.

Because you knew, you knew, that he’d done it for you. He'd done it to save you.

He’d saved you the same way you saved him, in the only way that he knew how.

Maybe it was senseless. Maybe it was wrong, and horrible, and unforgivable.

But he had done it for you.

So you wait for Joel to come back.

Months fade into years; one, and then two, then five and still counting.

Joel Miller never comes back.

At some point, you hear that he’s gone. Left the QZ completely with Tess at his side and never looked back.

You hope that they made it, wherever they were going.

You hope that he doesn’t think of you the way that you think of him. The image of him plaguing your mind every night, broken memories of everything you had memorized about him constantly shifting through your mind, a lonely ache filling in your heart that you knew was your own fault.

He had bloodied his knuckles for you, and you had turned away.

God, you hated yourself for turning away.

You missed him, with every breath, with every moment the door of your clinic opened and you glanced up with the automatic reflex of hoping it was him, even though he was long gone.

You know it's for the better.

Joel is not supposed to be here.

Any form of radio communication is strictly forbidden. He knows this well, knows that if he’s found here, he could be risking everything, even if his brother is married to the woman who keeps Jackson up and running smoothly.

But he’s here anyway, hands trembling with the cold and something else, something that settles deeper into his bones as he holds the microphone in hand.

Waiting.

It’s his second time up here in a week, and though he’d been lucky enough to not be caught the first time, he wasn’t an optimist.

You’re a cynic, a voice echoes in the back of his head, and his eyes flutter shut with the image of you that never seemed to quite leave him, even with the years that have gone by.

But you’re not, his own voice, younger, replies to you in his memories.

I try not to be, you replied honestly, one of your first discussions when you had begun to settle into each other’s presence. Don’t think I could keep doing this if I was.

Joel’s gaze darts down to the small notepad he had brought with him, the pages where he had written one message only to cross it out, rewrite it, and torn pages of it to throw away in frustration.

In front of him was the one left uncrossed, his eyes scanning the words he could only hope had gotten relayed to you, the message he had left for the black market radio specialist in Boston earlier that week.

Found a nice place that could use a doctor, followed by a date and time for a conversation, not wanting to air Jackson’s location without hearing confirmation from you yourself.

Following that sentence, another one, the last thing he had said: they could use you.

And another, crossed out after, the last thing that he would never say: I could use you.

Joel’s head lifts when the static on the old machine clears, a click resounding through the speakers of the radio, and his heart races with the weight of the microphone in his hands.

It’s lifted halfway to his mouth before he hesitates. Your name hangs heavy in his mouth, syllables he had not sounded out in years, but when he finally says it, it feels…natural. Like not a day has passed since the letters of your name were hanging on his lips, the way he always longed for you to be.

There is a pause, long and heavy, and Joel feels his heart sink with every second that passes.

This was stupid. So incredibly stupid. 

The last time he had seen you, there was fear in your eyes. Fear of him, well-placed at that, and surely he had taken up no voluntary thoughts of yours ever since other than your worst nightmares.

Surely you were—

“...Hey there, Texas.”

When your voice crackles to life through the speaker, Joel sighs, a sound filled with relief and a rush of longing he thought his mind had forgotten, but his body—no, his soul—had not.

And then a whisper, softly in return, with a smile on his lips.

“Howdy, Cali.”

taglist: @darkroastjoel @thetriumphantpanda @dinsdjrn @cavillscurls @tightjeansjavi @dissentientss @harriedandharassed @ladyfiery47 (tag won't work!)

[imgoingtofreakoutnow]

you're a bad idea (i'll never say no to)

Summary: After an awful one night stand, you find some comfort (and more) in an unlikely source

Pairing: Nick Miller x fem!reader

Words: 3.3k

Warnings: 18+, oral sex (fem receiving), sexual innuendo, alcohol consumption, mentions of cheating

A/N: i remembered i had this draft lying around and it was not as bad as i thought, so here it is for y'all to enjoy!!

Tagging: @tripleyeeet @elfinbloodbag @fictionobsession (not sure if you care about nick miller, but if you do, i hope y'all enjoy!! if you don't want to be tagged, let me know <3)

\_/

Entering the loft, you found Nick laying on the couch in complete darkness. You only noticed him because of the dim light that shone through the windows. His eyes were stuck to the ceiling, his hand wrapped around a bottle of booze that, in the darkness, you couldn’t entirely make out.

“Hey, Nick.”

He groaned, raising his bottle in what you imagined was his way of greeting you home.

“Anyone else home?”

He answered with another —negative— groan, putting his lips around the bottle and taking a long sip. You sat down on the other end of the couch, reaching out for the bottle that, after a scowl, he handed to you.

“So, what are we drinking for?” you asked, after gulping down some of the liquor. Probably whiskey, given the burning taste it left in your mouth.

“I’m drinking,” he started as he sat up on the couch, “because life sucks.”

“Preach.”

You took another sip under Nick’s tipsy but inquisitive stare.

“Why are you drinking?”

“Can’t I just drink because I want to?”

Nick raised his eyebrows, scoffing slightly and raising his hands in surrender. “Trust me, I won’t be the one to stop you.”

You nodded, lowering your gaze on the glass bottle in your hands as you pondered pensively if it was wise to drink more of that. You had to show up at work the next day, you couldn’t miss another shift without a reasonable excuse.

“Didn’t you have that big thing tonight?”

Your fingers tightened around the neck of the bottle.

“Yeah, you had that date with the guy you met a while back at the bar.” He turned towards you, his elbow resting on the back of the sofa. “How did it go?”

You didn’t answer. You just took another swing of the liquor —definitely whiskey, your burning throat confirmed— before giving the bottle back to Nick.

“Wow…” he chuckled as he placed the whiskey on the floor, “that bad, uh?”

“I mean…” You threw your head back on the couch. “It wasn’t going that badly but then…” You groaned in frustration, covering your face with your hands.

Nick scooted a little closer, the leather of the couch creaking under him. “Well, well, color me intrigued.”

Your arms fell to your lap as you skeptically looked at him. “I don’t think you really want to hear anything regarding my misadventures in dating.”

“You underestimate me, I love hearing about other people’s misfortunes.” He took the bottle once again before handing it back to you with a smile. “Makes me feel better about my awful life.”

You snorted as you gladly accepted his offer.

“Well, then you’re really going to enjoy this.”

-

“His mom?!”

You nodded, squeezing your eyes through the embarrassment. Your hand moved on his own and brought the nearly empty bottle to your lips; some more booze to hopefully quiet down those memories freshly ingrained in your brain.

“And she did not only walk in on us having sex, but she also started giving both of us a lecture on protections, trust and cheating…”

“Don’t tell me he has a girlfriend,” he murmured, already in a fit of giggles.

“He has a girlfriend! Good job, Miller!”

You clapped as you watched Nick almost rolling with laughter. His head was thrown back, his body incredibly close to falling flat either on the couch or the ground, depending on which direction he swayed in. Every time you thought he was about to fall face-first into the floor, and every time he managed to balance himself at the last moment and not break his nose.

“That’s the LA experience right there, little Day.” He gave you a fist bump and stole the bottle from you. “You haven’t lived here unless you’ve had at least one weird hook-up.”

As he downed what remained of the whiskey, you realized how cute he looked when he smiled. In the two weeks since you had ‘moved in’ with your sister, crashing in her shared apartment while you looked for one of your own, Nick Miller hadn’t exactly been Mr. Sunshine. The moment you had set your foot through the door of the loft, he had made clear he didn’t love the idea of you staying there —or at least, that was before you said you were going to help with the rent— and since then, whenever you were around he acted more like a robot than a human.

Answering in monosyllables, sometimes even ignoring you when you were in the room, it was almost logical that you had come to the conclusion that Nick Miller hated you.

“He does not hate you,” Jess had assured you despite your skepticism. “He’s just not the biggest fan of change.”

Telling the truth, from what you had seen so far, Nick wasn’t the biggest fan of anything. He spent most of his day complaining about everything he could think about. The half-broken sink. The socio-economic injustice that plagued the US. Pants with tight crotches.

But most of all, something that he avoided like the plague itself: talking with other people. Sure enough, he and the other three roommates talked all the time: always fighting, bickering, gossiping, bothering each other in that irritating but loving way that you —as a sibling— could understand. However, when it came to opening up and communicating without filters or jokes, it seemed like he would’ve much preferred jumping off the roof of the loft than to actually say how he felt. He could do it, but he always seemed about to puke when he had to.

After the cold shoulder he gave you for two weeks, you were surprised that you were able to have a civil conversation with him at all. Obviously there were no feelings or any other deep emotional stuff, but it was still baffling how easy it was to just be with him like that.

Maybe it was just the booze.

“I bet you’ve had many weird hook-ups,” you teased him, poking his leg with your shoe.

“I’ve…” Nick trailed off for a moment, his eyes following the shape of your leg —from the ankle to the knee— before clearing his throat and looking away. “I’ve had my fair share.”

You raised your eyebrows, tilting your head as you watched Nick in the dim light. It might’ve been the booze, but he looked incredibly hot. Since you had arrived at the loft, your eyes had always been drawn to Nick, one way or the other. You often found yourself lingering on him as he walked by, replaying every interaction you two shared in your head for hours before letting it go.

His scruffy attractiveness wasn’t a subjective matter, it was a fact. But at that specific moment, there was just something more to him. Perhaps it was his hair, all messed up and going in all different directions, or his cheeks, slightly flushed because of the whiskey… or perhaps —you thought— because of you.

When he looked back at you he scoffed, shaking his head and standing up, his gaze glued to the ceiling.

“Don’t look at me like that, little Day.”

“Like what, Nick?”

He didn’t answer: he just stepped away from the couch, heading to the kitchen while chanting no to himself. You followed him with your eyes as he opened the fridge and took a beer. The condensation glistened on the glass as Nick opened the bottle and brought it to his lips. You swallowed as you watched him drink, transfixed by the movement of his Adam’s apple with every gulp he took.

He came back to the couch, sitting on the other end of it, putting as much distance between you two as he could. Despite that, he kept glancing at you before looking away immediately after.

“You’re Jess’ younger sister.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“She will kill me if I…” His eyes darted to your face, falling to your mouth and then lowering even more. “If we…”

“If we what?”

He shook his head and took another long sip of beer, avoiding your piercing stare.

Frowning in annoyance, you stood up and plopped on the couch next to him. You took the beer from his hand and put it on the shelves behind the couch. When you did, your fingers brushed: despite the cold bottle in his hands, his skin was warm. You blamed the booze for the thoughts that started filling your head, wondering how his fingers would’ve felt on you.

“If we what, Miller?”

Nick took a deep breath before turning towards you with a wry smile. “It’s the rules of the loft, little Day.” He moved one arm on the back of the couch, just behind your shoulders. “As roommates, we vowed not to nail each other or each other’s siblings.”

You raised your eyebrow with a smirk. “So you want to nail me?”

“I never said that,” Nick pointed out immediately, shaking his head with a smile, “and I’m ready to deny these accusations in court.”

You nodded slowly, biting the inside of your cheek.

“So…” you started again, shifting on your seat until your shoulder was pressed against his side, “you don’t want to nail me?”

The smile on his face faded, leaving behind just a hint of softness in his features. “I never said that either.”

He stood still, looking into your eyes while someone shouted in the streets below and a far away car alarm kept ringing. A shiver ran down your spine as his fingers moved on the back of your neck, brushing on your skin and leaving behind a trail of fire. You held your breath for a moment, getting used to the sensation and keeping your tipsy mind from roaming too far away.

“I see,” you whispered as your fingers moved along his jaw, the rough stubble grazing against your fingertips. “It must be a very hard decision for you.”

He nodded, his mouth opening ever so slightly when you pressed your thumb on his bottom lip, still damp from the beer. You leaned in, stopping just a couple of inches from his face. So close that you could feel his breath on your face.

“Then I’ll leave you to it.”

You pulled away with a smirk, quite amused by Nick’s annoyed face. “So you can make up your mind without any distractions.”

You pushed yourself up, headed to Jess’ bedroom. You were already dreading sleeping once again on the air mattress that she had kindly lent you when a hand grabbed your wrist and pulled you back on the couch.

As you fell across Nick’s lap, one of his arms wrapped around your back and the other held your waist. His mouth was on yours before you could say or do anything, and when his lips started moving your brain melted just as much as your body did in his hold. It was unexpected, a mess of crashing limbs and lips that tasted of alcohol and poor decisions, and a warmth almost too intense for your fogged mind.

When you pulled away, breathless after just a few seconds, you found him staring at you, his lips parted as he inhaled shakily and a longing glimmer in his eyes.

“I think I might’ve made up my mind.”

You snorted, gently holding his neck as you ran your thumbs along it. “Took you long enough.”

Your back soon met the cushions of the couch as he cupped the back of your neck —tugging ever so slightly at your hair— and dove back onto your mouth, deepening the kiss when you parted your lips again. Gripping his scratchy flannel, you pulled Nick closer as you kissed him back, wrapping your legs around him. When you felt his crotch pressing against your core, a groan of desire left your lips, silenced by Nick’s mouth while his hands wondered along your thighs and towards the hem of your shorts.

“Jess can never know about this,” he stressed as he pulled away, just enough for your eyes to meet. “Ever,” he added, your lips brushing when he spoke.

“I’ve lied successfully to my sister thousands of times.” You nudged your nose against his with a smirk. “What about you, sweaty-back? Will you be able to hide it?”

Nick rolled his eyes, half a smile gracing his face before you pulled him back in for another kiss. Despite the stubble, his lips were soft and gentle, even when you were eating each other’s mouths. It might’ve been the booze that still lingered on them, but the more you drowned in their taste, the more intoxicating it got and the harder it was to pull away from them, even to just breathe.

“Maybe-” you gasped, moaning softly while Nick left a trail of kisses down your neck and along your collarbone, “maybe we should go to your room. Before anyone-”

He shoved those few words back in your throat with another kiss, pushing your shirt up as his hands glided along your skin. His warm palms pressed against your bare waist created a loud cacophony of sensations which made your guts twist all around.

“Yeah,” he nodded as he pulled away, his cheeks flushed and his lips ever so slightly glimmering with spit in the dim light. “Let’s do that.”

It took you all of your self-control not to drag him back on top of you.

He clumsily stood up, his legs all tangled in yours, and then helped you to your feet. Before you could take another step, Nick placed his hands on your waist and pulled you into him. His mouth was back on your neck, almost tickling as he kept kissing and sucking your skin.

“Nick, I swear to God,” you muttered between a giggle and a moan as he dragged you both to his room, “if you give me a hickey I-”

His mouth moved from your jaw and sloppily closed around yours. His tongue moved on your lips, that opened to it without any resistance. You threw your arms over his shoulders, pulling him in as he blindly opened the door and then closed it.

After hearing the lock click, you felt the plywood pressing against your back while his mouth wandered even deeper into yours. Your hands tightened on his hair, gaining a moan from Nick that died in your throat.

When he finally pulled away, the only sound in Nick’s bedroom was your heavy breathing as your lungs slowly filled.

“As I was saying,” you sighed with trembling voice, “I will not hesitate one second to throw you under the bus.”

“God.” His whisper brushed onto your numb-kissed mouth, his fingers cupping your jaw and running on your bottom lip. “Do you ever shut up?”

You threw your head against the door, eyebrows cocked and a smirk gracing your glistening lips.

“Do you want me to shut up?” With your eyes glued to Nick’s, you hooked your finger to his jeans and pulled him in. “Or do you want to hear me scream, Miller?”

-

“Fuck!”

The moan left your mouth louder than you expected as Nick curled his fingers inside of your cunt, reaching the deepest part of you before pulling them out and then thrusting them in at an agonizing pace.

“Do you like this?”

His whispered question hit your inner thigh, followed by the grazing of his beard as he let his lips run over your skin. His warm breath brushed on your core, tingling on the wet and sensitive skin between your legs.

“Yeah,” you breathed, nodding quickly as you watched him pushing his fingers in again, both of them disappearing inside of you up to his knuckles. “Can you go faster?”

Nick chuckled against your leg, curling his fingers once more —almost touching that soft spot inside of you— before slowly pulling them out. You groaned, throwing your head back on the pillows, while he moved the sticky fingers up and down your thigh.

“You don’t have a grain of patience in you.”

“Well, at least I’m not edging someone who’s had a terrible-”

You took a sharp breath in when his tongue lapped your folds, his hands grabbing your legs and pulling you closer. Before you could even think about anything else, he wrapped his lips around your clit and started sucking onto it, stealing another loud whimper from you.

“God, you’re so loud.”

His words rumbled against your slick, twisting the knot in your abdomen that was aching to be released. You bit down on your lip as you felt a flush of warmth growing on your face, suddenly too aware of yourself, too bare in front of him. Then a soft tapping on your thigh drew your gaze back between your legs. Nick was there, looking back at you with a smirk pulling upwards his lips damp with your slick.

“I love it.”

Your throbbing core sent one last aching pulse before Nick, his eyes still stuck in yours, dove right back into it. When his tongue slithered inside you, lapping your folds and walls, you closed your eyes as your mouth started letting out the most lewd sounds you had ever heard.

He kept fucking you with his tongue, moving it back and forth as you bucked your hips towards him for more friction, chasing that release you’d been looking for all night. Then Nick turned his head ever so slightly —an accident, probably just trying to find a position that hurt less for his neck— and, with every thrust inside of you, his nose started nudging your clit. Over, and over, and over.

Your hand jolted to his hair, keeping his face in place as you bucked your hips again and again, as much as you could despite the rush of pleasure that was starting to overcome you, the same rush that had transformed you in a whimpering mess, unable to form one single word.

“Fuck- I-”

Whatever you wanted to say, it died in your mouth as his tongue curled inside of you and his nose nudged once more against your clit. That was the last push you needed; soon after you were writhing in the bed, your hands tightening around Nick’s hair as the knot in your abdomen finally loosened and a sudden warmth rushed to your face, and every other inch of your body.

As your muscles and grip eventually relaxed, you felt one final lick running along your sensitive and over-stimulated folds before Nick sneaked out of the nestled spot between your legs.

“So.”

He crawled to the spot next to you, his fingertips roaming along your sternum as your chest kept slowly raising and falling with each breath you took. With the rush of adrenaline and desire still running through your veins, even his ghost touch was enough to make your insides tremble.

“So what?” you breathed, turning your head to meet that annoying, attractive grin — still glistening with your cum.

“Was it or was it not the best oral of your life?”

You scoffed, rolling your eyes.

“I see, you’re speechless.” He nodded to himself. “Understandable, I’ve trained a lot for this.”

“Ah, yes…” you chuckled lightly, taking his hand in yours and playing with his fingers. “Nothing more romantic than to hear about your previous one night stands.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Was this supposed to be romantic?”

“This? God, no! But next time…”

Nick scoffed. “You’ve already decided there’s going to be a next time?”

“Why not?”

“Little Day…”

Before he could say more — before he could try and convince you how that was a really bad idea — you pushed yourself up and sat on his abdomen, legs spread on either side of his body.

“I mean, at least let me ride you before you decide.”

His mouth hung open for a few seconds, a couple of terrifying seconds. Then his hands slowly crept along your thighs, taking hold of your flesh with a mischievous grin.

“I would never say no to that.”

[iamnotoriginalphil]

A Tale Told in Three Parts (Lydia Deetz x f!Reader)

Synopsis: Each of the Deetz women gets a glimpse into your relationship with Lydia.

Words: 4.4k

Warnings: mentions of toxic relationships, angst

i) Astrid

After the disastrous wake for her grandfather, Astrid was doing her best to avoid Rory and her mother. She wanted to return to school and not be forced to watch the farce of her mother’s life. By extension, she was doing her best to avoid you too. Another one of the people caught up in her mother’s world, she hardly wanted to give you any more thought than she had to.

Still, when she came upon you being so careful as you packed up her grandfather’s possessions, it was hard to hate you.

You’d been in her mother’s orbit for a few years now. She’d never quite been sure of your purpose. Caught somewhere between assistant and friend, you were always in the background, watching and listening, but staying out of the fray. She couldn’t blame you. It’s not as if she wanted to be involved with anything her mother was doing.

But unlike her mother, you would smile and let her sit in silence, and not ask her probing questions in an attempt to force emotional intimacy she didn’t want. Unlike Rory. She could do with less attempts to be her friend from him.

“Hey, did you need something?” you asked, noticing her lingering in the doorway.

“No,” she said.

“Okay.”

You went back to the box, delicately placing an object wrapped in bubble wrap inside. With both hands on your hips, baggy jeans and old worn t-shirt, you looked out of place in the house and in the family. You looked… normal. She couldn’t work out why you were still there, with her mother, letting your life be ruled by such insanity.

“There you are.”

You glanced up again, a smile spreading over your face. Your eyes focused on something over her shoulder, your entire face brightening. Astrid rolled her eyes, turning away, brushing past her mother. Lingering for a moment, she could hear your soft voice, answering whatever it was her mother was saying.

“He said something about getting more boxes,” you said, your voice hardening for a moment.

Maybe that was part of the reason she found you less insufferable than her mother. You made it no secret that you didn’t respect Rory or even particularly like him. She’d heard enough snide comments under your breath to know that, in least in that respect, you were on the same wavelength as her.

Slipping away, she left you to your own bad life decisions. It wasn’t anything to do with her. Not really. She had no interest in whatever was going on.

Even if the way you’d smiled upon seeing her mother was the way her dad used to smile at her too.

A few hours later, as she haunted the upper levels of the house, she happened to glance out the window. Wrinkling her nose at her mother standing on the grass, staring down at the town, she was ready to turn away and go back to ignoring her existence. She paused, a shadow rippling across the grass towards her mother.

She jumped, turning with a disgruntled look on her face. Your smile was wide enough for her to see it from her perch in the upper levels of the house as you approached her mother. A similar smile broke over her mother’s face and she felt something uncomfortable shift under her skin. That smile was almost familiar. One she could almost see as if a dream running through her fingers, hazy from childhood memories.

You said something that made her mother’s shoulders tense again before she seemed to make a concerted effort to relax them. You took another step forward, entering into her personal space, the way so many people never seemed comfortable doing with her mother. Herself being one of those people after everything.

She lingered, an ache in her chest, a bittersweet feeling dripping through her veins. The longer she watched, the more it grew. It wasn’t as if the two of you were doing more than talking. But the way your bodies were curved towards one another, seemingly unaware of anyone else on the property made it seem like it was more.

She watched, almost in slow motion, as your hand reached out, finger gently tapping the tip of her mother’s nose. It wrinkled and your head tipped back as you laughed. Even through the glass from so far away, she could hear it, bright and sunny and so full of joy. Her mother’s face melted into something soft, her lips tugging up in the corners into a small smile. She hadn’t seen that look in so long.

Her heart gave a pang and she turned away. It shouldn’t matter what her mother did with you. You weren’t the one she was choosing to marry. You weren’t the one leeching off her family. You weren’t the one that was ruining her life.

Yet, the feeling lingered long after she’d stopped watching you with her mother.

ii) Delia

Grief was a many pronged thing. Sitting in it was incomprehensible. The house, a constant reminder of all Delia had lost. She could use it. As an artist, exploring her inner feelings was as natural as breathing. Something good could come from all the pain she was forced to feel.

Only the house was full of people and she wasn’t sure what to think about it. Astrid was a relief in many ways, and Lydia was no longer a thorn in her side, but Rory was an active dark cloud on there periphery. You, in amongst all that swirling angst, were a breath of fresh air.

She’d met you a number of times before. One of her step-daughter’s entourage, you were a nice balance to the absolute bullshit that came spewing out of Rory’s mouth. Softer spoken, kinder, straightforward and caring in a way that spoke to the warmth of your soul, she appreciated your presence far more than her soon to be step-son-in-law’s. You offered more comfort in her moment of need. You were happy to take a backseat to her own grief, to let her art shine the way it deserved.

It would be wrong to say she hadn’t developed a soft spot for you. It would be hard not to when compared to Rory. It helped that, while the sleaze of a fiancee Lydia had ended up with tried to ingratiate himself in the family, you offered a steadying force without announcing your intention. In their time of need, you were a rock she was happy to have in the house.

You were sitting on the floor, legs crossed in front of you as you sorted through a large collection of books she hadn’t wanted to touch. Piles surrounded you, carefully wiping dust off each one with a gentle touch. It’s like you knew everything of Charles’ was precious, that a part of him remained in what he left behind.

It was something Rory would never be able to understand.

You looked up, eyes widening before settling into a small smile when you saw her lingering in the doorway. Head tilted up to watch her walk into the room, you placed the book in your hand into the open box in front of you.

“Did you need something, Mrs Deetz?” you asked.

That was another thing. You were always respectful towards her, a trait that had seemed to have passed by Rory without his notice. She definitely preferred your presence in Lydia’s life than the oaf of a man she’d hitched her cart to.

“No, no. I’m merely passing through in an attempt to capture the wistfulness of a life lost,” she said.

“I can give you the room, if you want,” you said, already rising to your feet to give her the space you thought she needed.

“You stay,” she said.

“Alright,” you said, but you didn’t resettle on the floor again.

As she floated through the room in an attempt to feel the way Charles had seeped into the foundations of the house, you made your way to another bookcase, pulling the tomes down. You worked in silence, not interrupting her communion with her husband.

Another thing Rory would never be able to manage.

“Do you have- oh.”

Delia glanced up. Lydia had managed to find her way into the room with the two of you, the familiar expression of anxiety and frustration on her face. You were careful as you placed the books down on the closest surface.

“What’s up?” you asked.

“I was looking for… it’s not important,” she said, already backing away again.

You stepped forward, lowering your voice as you drew closer to her.

“Lyds, come on, what is it?” you asked.

She shook her head and you sighed. Your hand rested on her shoulder, drawing even closer.

“Front pocket,” you murmured, “and I have the prescription hidden amongst my things if he throws them out again.”

Lydia seemed to relax, her eyes slipping closed as she let out a long breath. You squeezed her shoulder.

“I’ve got you,” you said.

“I can’t…” Lydia raised an unsteady hand to her eyes, pressing it in.

“Hey, it’s okay,” you said, “whatever it is, we can get through it.”

“He’s back,” she said, almost a whisper, “he’s in the model.”

This again. Delia was tired of hearing of the demon who had terrorised her poor family all those years ago.

“We’ll get rid of it,” you said, your hand rubbing along her arm, “it’ll be okay.”

“Why won’t he leave me alone?” she groaned, turning away from you.

The way you looked at her was like you you could understand why someone would become fixated on her. It was such a look of longing she wanted to capture it for all to see. An ache, bittersweet, yearning in every line of your face. It was such an open expression of vulnerability, the exact kind of emotion she was trying to capture in her art. And it was all there on your face, for anyone to see, except the person it was directed at.

It was art in its purest form.

“I need a moment,” Lydia said, striding out without looking back at you.

She watched as your body almost crumpled in on itself, spine curling and shoulders hunching. One deep breath then another before you straightened. You turned, blinking when you saw her standing there, watching you with pity in her eyes.

“Sorry,” you said, returning to the books.

“What are you apologising for? Emotion is the fabric of humanity and it is an artist’s job to capture it,” she said.

“Please don’t capture this,” you said, “it will only end in disaster.”

“Are you sure? It’s rather potent on you,” she said.

“I’d rather play out my heartbreak in privacy, if it’s all the same to you,” you said.

“There is no reason for heartbreak,” she said.

“I’m completely smitten with Lydia. How can it end in anything but my heartbreak?” you asked, “she’s marrying someone else tonight.”

“The curtain has yet to be drawn. Tell her. I’d much prefer you join this family than Rory,” she said.

“It’s not really about what you’d prefer though, is it?” you said, the note of resentment clear in your voice.

“She might prefer it too,” she said, “you’ll never know if you don’t try.”

“I know enough,” you muttered.

You lingered a little longer, finishing up your work with the books before slipping away. The front door slammed and she considered watching you from a window, to luxuriate in the pain and longing and consider how she would express it in her work. Instead, she turned back to her own project.

A nice distraction could never end the ever suffering of her grief.

iii) Lydia

There was something to be said for a wedding interrupted. The aftermath was always something to behold. Still, two weddings aborted in a single night was a record, even by Lydia’s standards. A second trip into the Neitherworld had reminded her of the joy of life, the way her blood pumped in her veins and the time she still had left on Earth. To share it with her daughter, coming out of it with the gap between them beginning to be bridged, was full circle with her teenage self returning with a new outlook on living.

By the next morning, the overwhelming feelings were crashing into her again. Delia was gone, Rory was gone, Beetlejuice was still lingering in her unconscious mind. Astrid was more opening to her attempts to talk. You were doing your best to give her the space you thought she needed. In the space of one night, her entire world had been turned on its head, and she was trying to adjust.

She didn’t want the space you were giving her. She didn’t want that one thing to change. She’d never wanted that thing to change.

You slid a plate of food in front of her, pancakes drizzled in some kind of fruit syrup. Astrid had taken hers into the living room, curling up on one of the old armchairs that would be coming with them to their home when they left. She had taken up space in her father’s study.

“You didn’t have dinner last night so don’t fight me on this,” you said.

She sighed, taking the cutlery from your hands. Your finger under her chin tilted her face towards you, seemingly taking her emotional temperature. You gave her a small smile as you let her go.

“I’ll be in the kitchen if you need something,” you said.

She caught your wrist, keeping you from leaving.

“Stay?” she asked.

You looked down at her, considering her request before you nodded. You sunk into one of the chairs on the far side of the room. Fiddling with your phone, she wondered if there was a reason you were avoiding looking at her. Your eyes flicked up and you looked stricken at being caught before you relaxed into a smile.

“I haven’t poisoned that, you know,” you said, nodding at her plate.

She took a bite, your eyes lingering before you nodded again. It wasn’t often she couldn’t figure out what you were thinking, usually so good at reading you. The longer you’d been in this house, the less she’d been able to. She didn’t want to think about it.

But then you looked up again and something in your face softened, fondness in every line of your face. Something in her chest broke open, delicate warmth spreading through her body. It was like the sun had come out from behind the clouds, illuminating every inch of her psyche she’d kept locked up and hidden in the shadows.

Her heart thumped hard in her chest, bruised and battered, and yet still beating. Your lips spread in a smile, the kind that was tired and soft and spoke to the years of intimacy you’d built with her. It was the kind of look she’d been searching for for so many years. How had she never noticed when it was right under her nose?

It had crept up on her so slowly there’d been no reason to pay attention to it. The way you were a steadying hand, keeping her upright, helping her through every moment when she was worried she’d break apart. The way she sought you out when the anxiety got too bad, her eyes scanning the room until they found you. The way you made everything easier without fanfare or an expectation of gratitude.

The way she breathed easier around you.

Blinking at you, it all crashed into her. The events of the last few days should have left her weary and broken, but this was the moment something in her snapped. This was a step too far.

To have fallen in love without even noticing was not meant to be the conclusion to two disastrous weddings, a funeral, and a trip to the Neitherworld.

She turned her attention back to the stack of pancakes you’d made her, brought to her, thinking about her needs even after everything. When was the last time someone else had done that?

“These are good,” she mumbled.

“My grandma’s recipe. She made them every Christmas morning. They taste like childhood joy to me and I figured we could all do with some of that,” you replied.

Her heart squeezed at that. It was so simple. You wanted to give her a bit of your childhood joy, to share with her something that might lift her spirits, to give her something beautiful without asking for something in return. And wasn’t that just a wonderful metaphor for her entire relationship with you.

You shifted in the chair and she realised she was staring at you. Looking away, she took another bite, the warmth of your kindness doing more for her than the actual food. There was no indication you felt even a fraction of the same thing she did. This was how you’d always been with her. You’d always been so soft with her. She hadn’t always deserved it.

“Thank you,” she said, voice quiet, staring down at her plate.

“Any time,” you said, “you know I’ve always got you.”

She was beginning to realise exactly how true that was. Later, after you’d drifted away to give her that space you seemed so sure she needed, she found herself sitting in Delia’s chair, staring out at the town spread out down below. Astrid was keeping close for the time being while you were exploring the surroundings. She lent back, looking up at the sky, hoping Delia had found her father in the Neitherworld and moved to the Great Beyond. The thought of them together for eternity had to be some comfort in the face of her own lose.

Laughter floated towards her on the breeze. Turning her attention down, she found you in your old jeans and soft t-shirt walking through the grass. Your head was tipped up and you paused, a smile stretching over your face as you sought out the sun. The long line of your neck was on full display and she felt her mouth grow dry.

“You might want to wipe the drool away.”

She startled, not having heard Astrid appear in the doorway. Her daughter seemed unimpressed with whatever she saw on her face.

“I don’t,” she began to say.

“It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain,” Astrid interrupted.

“Could you keep your voice down?” she asked.

She turned back to make sure you hadn’t heard anything her daughter had said. Your eyes were closed and your face was still tipped up to the sun but you seemed to be taking time to breath deeply. Her eyes lingered, staring at you in a way she hadn’t allowed herself to ever do before. Even before she’d realised her own feelings it had felt dangerous to look too long.

“You should just tell her,” Astrid said, leaning against the side of the house.

The tableau was hauntingly familiar, the same as just a few days ago between herself and Delia. Was this the cycle she was bound live for the rest of her life? Reliving her own relationship with Delia? There were worse things to live through, she supposed.

“I’m not doing that,” she said.

“Why not? You obviously like her. And she’s better than Rory. Even Delia thought so,” she said.

“You talked about this with Delia?” she asked, something uncomfortable sitting in her stomach.

“In passing. Shockingly, we had other things to talk about than your abysmal love life,” she said, “but we both liked her more than him.”

“I didn’t-“ she tried to say.

“Look, you should just tell her. Life is short and you never know when it’s going to end. Look at Delia. Look at Grandad. Look at Dad. No one expected them to die but they did and we were lucky to see Dad and Delia after they were gone to say goodbye properly but most people don’t get that. So tell her,” she said.

“We’re not talking about this,” she said, turning away again.

She couldn’t tell you. There was no possibility it would end well. The thought of having to go on without you, especially after everything that had just happened, made the panic rise in her. And if she told you that perhaps her feelings were more than what they seemed she was certain you’d pull away from her. She’d rather sit in the feeling with you in her life than lose you.

“I’m not enjoying it any more than you are but she makes you happy and I’m trying to be nice,” Astrid said.

“I’m not risking ruining what I have for more,” she said.

You were slow to lower your head, eyes squinting open. Raising a hand, you shaded your eyes as you looked up at the house. Your hand raised in a wave, hers automatically raising in response without thought. Astrid snorted.

“She likes you too. Just talk to her. It’s not that hard,” she said.

“Says the teenager who’s first date led to her almost giving up her life to let a dead murderer return to the world of the living,” she said.

“We’re all allowed to make mistakes. I haven’t given you shit for Rory,” she said.

“You gave me nothing but shit for Rory,” she replied, looking up at her.

“Rightfully so,” you said, coming up to them without her noticing. Her attention was severely lacking, it seemed, continually being snuck up on by the two people staying in the house with her.

“What?” she asked, on the wrong foot from the surprise.

“No offence, Lyds, but you deserve a bit of shit for Rory. He sucked and you were the only one who couldn’t see it.” You took a seat on the steps, looking up at her with one of those smiles that felt intimate and warm and fond, “sorry but you’re a total badass and you put up with that whimper of a man? You deserve some shit for that.”

“You never said anything,” she said, taken aback. You’d never been this open about your feelings on Rory.

“Yeah, because you were in love with him. It’s a dick move to do that to your friend. But now he’s your ex…” you said.

“I wish you had said something,” she said.

“Would it have made a difference?” you asked.

She paused a moment.

“I don’t know.”

You gave her an indulgent smile, your chin tipping down as you looked up at her from under your lashes. Her heart skipped a beat. She was no romantic but there was no other way to describe the feeling in her chest.

“Am I allowed to be critical of him now?” you asked, voice softening, “if you’re not okay with it I’ll stop.”

“You can,” she said.

“Okay.” Your shoulders relaxed, “because he was awful. You’ve always been too good for him.”

“Who would you pick for me?” she asked before she could stop herself.

“Someone kind,” you replied.

Such a simple answer and yet it felt like a shock to her system. Could it really be that simple? You were kind. So maybe her heart was on to something already.

“Do you know someone?” she asked.

“I’m sure you’re more than capable of finding someone yourself,” she said, “after all, you found me.”

“I did,” she said.

She braced for some kind of comment from Astrid, caring wrapped in sarcasm to get her to say more. But when she looked around, her daughter was gone from where she’d been, slipping away in silence. Something about you seemed to ruin her perceptive abilities. You distracted her from the rest of the world.

You stood and she had the sudden fear that you’d heard more than she’d intended in those two words and were about to leave her alone. Instead, you lent against the railing beside her, fingers plucking the sunglasses off her face and dropping them onto your own. Her heart stuttered and she froze.

“If you had to pick someone, who would they be?” you asked, and she had the desperate wish to see your eyes.

“Someone I’m safe with,” she replied, “someone I trust.”

“That seems like the bare minimum in a relationship,” you said, but you weren’t smiling anymore.

“Clearly I’m not good at finding that,” she said.

“Lyds,” you sighed, pushing the sunglasses to the top of your head, keeping your hair out of your face, “I hope you already have those things. With me.”

“I do,” she rushed to say, that familiar anxiety growing.

“So you’re not bad at finding it,” you said.

“Yes but you…” She wasn’t sure she could finish that thought.

“I…?” you prompted.

“You wouldn’t be interested in being with me like that,” she eventually said.

“I wouldn’t?” You raised your eyebrows.

“Would you?” She couldn’t look at you as she asked.

“I suppose that would depend,” you replied.

Her eyes darted back up to you. The way you were looking at her was so gentle, like she was something special, something wonderful, something you couldn’t believe existed.

“On what?” she asked.

“On if it was something you were interested in,” you said.

“And if I was?” she asked.

“Then I would be very interested in you like that. In fact, it’s possible I’ve been interested in you like that for a while now but thought there was no chance you’d be okay with that,” you said.

Lydia stood from the chair, stepping into your personal space. You fidgeted until she reached out, hands laying over yours to still them. Your expression was so open, so vulnerable and all she could think about was how special it was to be given permission to see this side of you. Her fingers brushed over the pulse in your neck, feeling it jump under her touch. Your breath hitched and you swayed towards her. When your teeth sunk into your lower lip, her gaze was drawn to it, heat seeping through her veins.

“Then maybe you should know I’m thinking about what it would be like to kiss you,” she whispered.

iv) You

Reader, you kissed her.

[imweirdimjazzy]

Questions of Hell

Pairing: Alastor x GN!Reader

Description: after tiring a day, it wouldn’t be such a bad idea for the radio demon chasing you with questions spending the night, right?

Warnings: mentions of drugs and that’s about it (alastor is prick btw)

Word count: 2104

A/N: hello! This is kinda my first time posting here in tumblr so bear with me on my first post here. Also this isn’t proofread so there could be couple of mistakes here and there so I’m sorry about that. No use of Y/n. But please enjoy it! Btw this fic can be taken as romantic or platonic either could work. Enjoy! :)

For most of my human life I thought death would be simple and morbid. Once life expectancy reaches its limit for how much it can go, the body starts to get tired and the brain will shut, just as the body decomposes.

And just like that you would be dead.

I never tried hard to question the afterlife since it had gave me a headache if I had think too hard about it but I do admit I had a few times where I did think about it too hard.

I just didn’t expect to wind up as a goddamn sinner in a literal pot of hell.

I can admit I wasn’t exactly the most holiest person. I fucked up. Quite a lot of times. And I suppose that life is all about whether you be rewarded to get into heaven or thrown down to hell for punishment.

And for that I now have to deal with the princess of hell and her friends in the Hazbin Hotel.

Charlie was energetic to know that I was another guest at the hotel ready to redeem sinners and probably grab the chance to get to heaven. Seems quite ridiculous once the opportunity was handed to me. Honestly I stayed because I knew nowhere else would let me stay without paying or doing something to repay back.

Yet I got to meet some of the most interesting people. Starting with Angel Dust who was porn star himself and only seems to make it his whole personality but he sure knew how to make a party start going. He also makes anything—and I mean ANYTHING to be dirty.

Vaggie who seems to be strict on everyone and trying her best for all of us to actually have good morals. Sure, we didn’t care but we all understood she wanted for the best of us. Sir Pentious was there to spy on them because of the Vees but then accidentally liked the idea of staying and making a better change of himself.

And there was Nifty who has a certain quirk driven into her personality that was unlike everyone else but she was almost a kid just needed to be protected. Just try not to get stabbed by her. Husk who seems to tell everyone to fuck off even though he’s bartender and you’re sitting at the bar specifically wanting a drink. He acted he hated everyone, but he never really did. He just hated someone who seems to fake who they actually are.

And I’m guessing that’s why he isn’t particularly fond of Alastor.

Alastor is a unique demon. To say in a short sweet way to not say any bad word on his name. Yet it’s hard to say he’s quite a mystery to all of us. Charlie might own the hotel but Alastor is faculty manager of the hotel. He’s always looming somewhere in here and always there with an eye to watch us.

I have to admit I even avoid him. His presence was kind I never had bump into, I rather make it stay that way.

My legs had grown numb and heavier as I kept walking back to the hotel. I was exhausted from Charlie’s shenanigans today. Trying to encourage other sinners out there to come to the hotel and save themselves from the extermination. Failed horribly since how many either attempt to kill us, offer sex, or offer straight up cocaine.

I gave up and had left Charlie with the others to keep going. It was getting late either way and they were planning to go into club.

Didn’t want to get myself into too much trouble anymore either way.

Pushing the doors to let myself in the hotel—I had let out an exhale that I had held all day. My body was slumped and all I could think was my comfy bed.

“My, my, you look quite a mess dear!”

The radio voice had made me slightly jump out of my skin.

To the right of me I could see Alastor sitting on a couch in the lobby. One hand with whiskey in a glass cup and the other with a book. His legs crossed with one leg on top bouncing to the sound of jazz playing background.

“Alastor?”

“Didn’t expect a fellow like me up around this hour, but I couldn’t resist such a great novel here wouldn’t you say?”

He made that little hum that sparked a few radio statics in his voice.

“Look, if you’re here to mock or annoy me today I make sure those antlers of yours are gonna be long gone before you know it.”

Alastor laughed and got up with swift movement with his cane. That smile was almost stitched to his face every glance I took of him. I expect there won’t be a day where I don’t see that venom smile of his.

His hands clasped in front of him as he eyed me down. “Now why would I do that? I merely checking up on is all.”

He said it with such a smirk in his voice.

“Sure, whatever, do what you want I guess,” I grumbled under my breath.

Attempting to head upstairs, Alastor tried to get in my way as he kept reappearing in front of me in every corner I try to go.

“What the—“

“Ah, ah, ah. Where do you think you’re going?” A playful tone was layered into his voice. Letting out chuckle as his antlers move just for a second.

He knew it was getting on my nerves.

“To my room. Is there something that you want?”

I was a bit hesitant when I first spoke, especially since Alastor was a type of demon who never necessarily wants nothing out of someone except manipulation.

He makes that same hum again, letting out a sing-song voice. “Well, I’m bored and I’m in the mood of doing something.”

“Okay—kill someone or some deer.”

I tried again walking away but he reappears again in front of me on the steps of the stairs. Keeping his eyes on me as he leaned on the handrail of the stairs. I could tell from his eyes that my annoyance was kicking the roof by now.

“Not really in the mood for that kind of fun tonight dear. I was actually hoping to maybe play some sorts of game with you.”

“A game?” I questioned.

“Yes! Just any sort of ordinary game. A game where I can ask questions about you and you have to answer them.”

I blinked at him for a moment and then narrow my eyes.

“So you’re interrogating me.”

“No, nonsense! Now, come on, sit on the couch and make yourself comfortable.”

Alastor nudge me downstairs and I follow him. I had no choice and I rather didn’t wanna push any limits with radio demon exactly. He wasn’t the type to be messing around.

Suspicion was written all over my face as I sat down.

Alastor offers whiskey in a glass with a smile. “Whiskey, dear?”

“Um—-no, no thank you.”

He sets the glass on the side table along with the book. Peering to my side I notice the book was the classic Dracula book.

Alastor sat on the other end of the couch. A leg propped on the other. Resting his chin on his hand on the arm rest.

“Now, I’ll start of the with an easy question to start off soft,” stated Alastor. “Do I annoy you?”

“Yes. Next question.”

His smirk grew wide yet his eyes narrowed down on me. Letting out a laugh that sounded for sure forced but as well annoyed.

“Okay, let me ask an easier question. What is your favorite color?”

“Oh well um—maroon. Maroon is my favorite color.”

Alastor hummed to himself. “Quite an unique answer. Didn’t take you as the type to like color such as maroon.”

“Red or maroon. I just like good color of red. Next question.”

Alastor tapped his fingers along the arm rest as he thought of another question to ask.

“What’s your favorite time of day?

Looking back at him with a tilted head I raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

Alastor rolled his eyes jokingly and chuckled, seeming slightly amused of me. “I mean exactly what I said. What is your favorite time of day? Mornings? Afternoons? Nights?”

He lists off with this condescending tone, as if he spoke to me as a child.

“Watch your tone, and watch your ears, deer,” I hissed. But since you’re so damn curious. It’s night. And sometimes late afternoons. Not as much anymore though. I love them more in human life.”

“Human life you say?”

Alastor watches me as I adjust the black turtleneck I wore.

“Next question please.”

Alastor didn’t say anything but made a louder hum as he thought. Still overbearing me with annoyance of course.

“I’m running out of quite a lot of questions here but I suppose I should’ve asked this first, how are you liking this hotel so far?”

The tone switches and audibly notices it. Turning into this nonchalant tone. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to be curious or crack me under pressure with his eyes seeming to only stare at me.

With a sharp inhale I spoke direct.

“Annoying as fuck. I never was too fond of the idea of redeeming since it was hard to wrap my head around the fact that sinners here can even get the chance to go up to heaven with the rest of angels.”

He kept silent with his smile but I kept continuing.

“I didn’t think it would work. And I still have mixed feelings about it but…I do have to admit I kinda like the friends I made here.”

His eyebrow raised and he tilted his head almsot intrigued of what I had said. “I see. And these friends you’ve made here..”

His smile twisted into a smirk as he leaned forward slightly, his elbows on his knees.

“Any particular ones you admire the most?”

It was a question that had me actually thinking this time around and I knew it was a way for Alastor to get to me, and I didn’t want him too.

“Well, each person has their own unique thing to admire.”

He tweaks his head to the side and only narrows his eyes. Still with smile.

“Charlie can be a lot and maybe too hyper, but she’s willing to give people a chance. Vaggie pushes everyone and is harsh but does it for us to get better.. Sir Pentious is someone willing to give up villainous tendencies. Angel is…well Angel but he is a friend that is loyal and would do anything to back up friend.

Husker and Nifty are the same as well. All of them have everything to admire about.”

Alastor listened intently on how I spoke each of the hotel residents living here

“Interesting. Very interesting.”

He sat back once again, his legs still crossed and his hands back in his lap. Alastor chuckled again, looking at me for a moment.

“And what about me? Is there anything you admire about me?”

I scoffed and smirk a little.

“A bit full of yourself are you?”

His eye twitched a little and seemed ready to respond, but I quickly added on.

“You always stay in control. Even if you aren’t or you’re not wanting to, you always are. You piece of shit who certainly earn a spot living here. I’ll give you that, but even I can admit that you’re intelligent in what you do. Even how manic and evil it can be.”

Alastor chuckled again. He was quite amused by my words. That wasn’t what he was expecting, but he was satisfied by it. He leaned forward a bit again, resting his arms on his legs. His elbows on his knees once again as he stared right into your eyes with his permanent smirk.

“How observant you are my dear. I thought you’d think of me as a annoying bastard”

“No, I also think that too.”

A smile spread on my lips as genuine the pit of fire in hell and before another word had slipped out of Alastors mouth, a rush of familiar friends came through the door.

“I need fucking a drink what the hell was that!?” Angel's voice rang through the hotel and same with others.

I laughed and got distracted by them as soon they called for me but Alastor sat on the couch there observing the others.

Asking himself many questions of himself now.

For how much this sinner might’ve made him rethink his plan.

[stinkykitty8]

My beatiful boy Hanz

(Hanz belongs to me!!! Everything else credits to Gatobob!!!)

WARNING

This post contains very heavy topics, nsfw, r@pe, 18+ stuff, and overall just not very good things. Do not read if you are sensitive to these things.

Read warnings before pressing more please!!!

Hanz was conceived through rape. After Ren ran off Strade tried to find a replacement for him. The replacement being a very beatiful woman and yet another victim to Strade's doings. Unlike Ren, Strade never let her roam free to make sure she doesn't escape the same way Ren did. Instead she was locked in the basement 24/7 shackled and collared and checked daily to make sure nothing was lose or she tried breaking off. Thats where she stayed the entire time being with Strade as he abused, tortured, and r@ped her. And through all of this she had fallen pregnant which wasnt surprising. Strade was actually expecting it to happen. Strade decided to go along with it and make her have the baby. Almost like he wanted a kid. Shortly after Hanz was born Strade really didnt see any other use for Hanz's mom so he ended up killing her and burning her body to ash. The ash is currently burried in his back yard. Hanz will never find out what happened to his mom and if ever asked Strade would never say, change the subject, or just shrug it off and laugh. Hanz was a little spoiled rich kid growing up. He was sent with 20 bucks ince for snacks at school and hes seen as a rich boy. Strade never hit him once (even though he needs it) and the worst he probably did was just yell but that was it. Strade didnt really care when he got phone calls from school because of Hanz's behavior. If anything he found it funny and encouraged it as long as he didnt go to far to be kicked out. He especially found it funny when it came to messing with Yoki. After the first day of school strades interest was peaked after Hanz mentioned a certain orange tail and ear having freak from school. And after finding out that little beast belonged to Ren he just encouraged Hanz to fuck with her more. Basically using him to get to Ren. Although Strade never physically abused Hanz he mentally abused him without Hanz really even realizing or noticing. He raised Hanz "like a man" so most times it was just him telling hanz to suck it up or trying to make him have the mindset to act like a man and not give a fuck about much else. It made Hanz really treat women horribly at that time and even the smallest things like a dude having something pink he would call them gay. Even refused to hold a purse because 'it was to gay'.

Hanz was always seen as the tough kid in school, always threatening to beat kids asses or threatening them that his dad would take legal action if they hurt him. He was all bark no bite though. When put in an actual situation like fighting he would fold and pussy out. He got into a fight once with Yoki and she left without a scratch and he left with cuts and bites that later got infected. Strade was pissed, not because Yoki hurt hanz, but because she hurt his blood. And it was almost seen as a disgrace to him and would tell Hanz how disappointed he was. Hanz always tries to be perfect and make his father proud so of course he apologizes because he thinks he didnt do enough especially for that. Hanz would do anything to make his father proud even doing things out of his comfort zone.

Strade always kept a thick padlock on the basement door and because of the sound proofing nothing was ever heard down bellow. Hanz always thought he just wasnt allowed down because thats where Strade worked and it probably had a lot of tools or objects Hanz woukd hurt himself with. One day Hanz got a little to nosey and decided to explore the basement after Strade left to the store but strade forgot his keys and came back to see the basement door open and Hanz nowhere to be found. What Hanz saw down into the basement changed his entire view of life and his entire perspective of his father. He probably saw some very badly tortured woman tied to a pole bleeding and begging Hanz for help. Of course any young child would be horrified of this even though Hanz says he could take things like that. And so when trying to leave the basement strade was standing there up top glaring at him. Strade locked the basement door with Hanz in it and left Hanz in the basement overnight. Even though Hanz was kicking, hitting, and screaming at the door repeatedly apologizing, Strade did not allow him out until the morning. Even mocking hanz saying things like "I thought you were a man why are you crying?" Even though he was about only 12. Hanz learned very quickly not to snoop around again. After that he was very quiet at school and stayed to himself. Messing with people seemed to stop and he even went so far as to give shitty apologies to the kids he fucked with. He couldn't tell anyone what he saw or and learned so he kept it a secret and "maned up" like his father said. The strong live and the weak die. He pushed that mindset on Hanz so much he believed it and began thinking Strade was doing good by just getting rid of the weak and cleaning the world. Over time Hanz was forced to help with streaming until it was basically his new job. But over time it got a little easier for him since it became a normal thing, even though he still had an ick for it. But he had to do it to make his dad proud.

Over time he ended up starting to form a semi relationship with Yoki. Nothing serious. He never really knew much about Ren either at thay time until snooping on the web and checking out some of Strades older streams and seeing Ren in them. Of course recognizing it was Yoki's father he told Yoki about it and she just couldn't believe it until she saw it and then it brought out into a small fight that was settled. Hanz had always tried to be seen as some big hotshot badass but deep down hes really just a big softie. Especially when hes older. Hes still a prick sometimes but not to Yoki or Basil anymore. Hanz is absolutely majestic. Overall just being a better version of Strade looks and health wise (Strade doesn't understand why hes so good). Unlike Yoki he actually has his own credit card and him and Strade split the cash they make on streams.

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ASK!!! :3

(Hopefully this all makes sense XP)

[adnauseum11]

Defence Logistics (John Price x Reader)

2.6 k words

CW: swearing, canon-typical violence, minor character death

This work is part of the S.N.A.F.U. series, the Masterlist is pinned to my blog

I don't know why, but I've struggled with this chapter more than any others lately. The format I chose, the tenses, all of it was a puzzle I've been wrestling with. I don't know if it's my insomnia making a come back or what, but I have been agonizing on this one. Almost scrapped it altogether but have decided to be brave and let 'er rip. I found writing John without the warmth he has for his love a bit jarring, having the ability to turn off that part of yourself and focus on wrecking damage on others was hard to capture. If it's subpar I can only apologize lol - the next chapter is already coming easier.

Feedback welcome, if folks have any tips or suggestions - this is all for fun and improvement! (that's what I keep telling myself anyways lol)

Masterlist

John’s transfixed, watching rusty blood swirl around the shower drain, his mind still back in the field. He’s showering off before he drives home from the black site, situated deep in the English country side. He’s bruised in several places, with a fresh cut across his lower forearm where the Commander’s knife had connected during a wild swing. The dull throb pulls his brain back to the present moment, making him realize he’s slowly dripping blood all over his own feet. He lifts the cut above his heart and tries to refocus his thoughts. Kate’s dealing with the paperwork, folding their use of equipment into existing work orders. Gaz and Simon are also showering, medical and debrief waiting for them all on the other side of the steam. John’s mind keeps running over the events of the last few days, looking for anything he’s missed.

Thankfully, he and Ghost had arrived in Lithuania a whole day ahead of Gaz’s taskforce. They had driven across Vilnius in an SUV that had been held together with good intentions and baler twine, as far as John could make out. It had rattled something awful, to the point they had ditched it on a side road and hiked the last few rough miles, working their way across farmer’s fields dodging cattle and sheep in the early morning light. The Industrial section was set outside of city limits, in between old farms, where the smells and sounds would be less likely to disrupt the rhythms of life. The physical exercise helped re-center John’s mind on the task at hand. The way things had been left between himself and his love had unsettled him, giving his mind a stone to turn over instead of focusing on his immediate surroundings. He’d said more than he’d wanted to in explaining his departure, opening a can of worms he hadn’t intended and couldn’t put right before he left. If Ghost noticed John’s initial lack of focus, he said nothing.

The intercept point was more or less on top of the taskforce’s rendezvous point, in the back end of a massive sheep field with a small hut built out of field stones. By the time they arrived to do their recon, he had pulled himself together mentally and was feeling more present. John’s body remembered the training that had been drilled in to it, the rust of retirement flaking away as time stretched on. Soon it was nearly like he had never left.  He and Ghost discussed how to proceed in various probable scenarios as they checked the surrounding area.

How many people were involved in the revenge plot would depend on how the commander split his forces, to John’s mind. If he kept Gaz under his direct command there was likely no one else involved and Gaz was unlikely to survive the mission. If he sent Gaz with one of the other men, it was more likely they all were involved and it was more probable they would detain Gaz for information. Ghost agreed with John’s assessment, and they scouted the area before making a small camp a quarter of a mile from the rendezvous point to wait.

The downbeat of helicopter blades alerted them to the taskforce arriving a few hours after dark. John had signaled to Ghost, stubbing his cigar out and flipping the night vision goggles on. Then he and Ghost set out, snaking through the underbrush, using trees as cover as they moved in on the clearing and the stone hut. Once they got within a few hundred yards of the edge of the clearing they fanned out, Ghost swinging wide behind the unloading area.

They watched silently as five men disembarked using ropes, the wash of the helicopter blades obscuring any noise for several long minutes. Finally, it lifted, slowly claiming altitude again in the darkness, a handful of blinking lights the only outward signal of its location. The men had immediately moved on the stone hut as they landed one by one, quickly sweeping and entering it. John and Ghost had stayed in position, watching the hut for signs of life. Eventually the men exited, filtering into two separate groups. One group of two and another group with the remaining three. John located the Commander, pointing out the line of travel and giving a shove to one of his men. He squinted through his goggles, quickly identifying Gaz as the other man in the Commander’s trio.

As the groups split off into the darkness, the former Captain let the warmth of his anger wash over him again, keeping his movements purposeful and his mind on task. Staying a healthy distance behind, he stalked the trio as they hiked along the edge of the pasture, using trees and the waist high rock fence as cover. John tracked them easily with his night vision, quietly moving deeper in the woods. Ghost had shadowed the other group who were working their way further into the woods, opposite to where John and Ghost had camped and back towards the plant. When the Commander paused a few miles later near the badly rutted dirt road, their intent became clear to John.

The Commander’s group was set to create a diversion at the front gate of the chemical plant while the secondary team got in and collected the intel they were after. John waited until they were moving again to softly relay his plan to Ghost who responded with a subdued “rog that” in his ear. John moved incrementally closer on silent feet, waiting to see how they would go about creating their diversion. He watched as the Commander motioned Gaz to push forward, yanking a grenade from Gaz’s tac vest and pressing it into his hand. John had to force himself to wait, the instinct to get to Gaz pressing in on him tightly.

 The front gate was framed with two concrete pillars, into which were sunk the posts for retractable chain link fencing. Beyond that, a bar gate, manned by middling security guards wearing flak vests and holstered pistols. John had guessed they were there to keep the local gangs out more than they were prepared to deal with para-military operations. He was proven correct shortly after when Gaz lobbed the grenade in his hand at the chain link fence. It landed close enough to blow the gate off its track, making what was left of the twisted metal hang at an awkward angle. The explosion rocked the gate house, making the men inside shout and duck for cover. Gaz lobbed another grenade, this one blasting the gate off completely, the smoking metal smashing into the ground with a loud screech.

The men inside the gate house finally got themselves organized and started cautiously coming out, using the door as cover as they opened return fire into the darkness. John watched as the Commander gave Gaz’s shoulder a shove, jerking his head towards the gate house. John understood in a flash the Commander was trying to position Gaz where a stray bullet wouldn’t be blinked at if it connected. John was instantly moving, his feet creeping him closer to their position when Gaz did the unexpected. Instead of scurrying forward as they all assumed, he threw himself backwards, kicking his legs up to get leverage as he swung his body around to lock legs with the other soldier, standing beside the Commander. He went down in a heap, Gaz wrestling for top position for all he was worth.

John sprinted the last few yards, yanking the unsuspecting and now screaming Commander by the back of the tac vest before he could interfere. Chaos reigned as shots continued to pepper out from the gate house and the men shouted each other down. John hadn’t been fast enough getting his hands clear, the Commander yanking a Bowie knife free from his vest and swinging wildly over his head, trying to fend off the attack from behind. John grunted when the tip of the knife skittered across his arm but he didn’t stop in his action, drawing his rifle butt up and bringing it down on the Commander’s cheek as he stumbled backwards. The blow knocked him unconscious, his body falling the rest of the way into a heap.

Gaz was still scrambling on the ground with the bigger soldier, trading blows before John stepped in, levelling his pistol at the man’s head and pulling the trigger without hesitation. Gaz was instantly covered in a spray of brain matter and blood, and his hands came up instinctively, warding off another shot from the same direction. John had spoken up then.

“On your feet soldier.”

John had offered him a hand and it took Gaz’s brain a split second to recognize the ex-Captain.

“Cap - Laswell said you uncovered this shitshow. Wasn’t sure you were going to leave your new girl for this though.”

Gaz had extended his hand, letting John haul him upright. John had hummed non-committedly, not wanting to get into the specifics of his presence in the field. He reached into his vest and pulled out zip-ties, handing them to Gaz.

“Smart man to not let him get you in a bad position. Get him restrained for now.”

He muttered before tapping his coms.

“Ghost, how copy?”

There was a brief pause and then Ghost’s deep voice was in John’s ear.

“They’re almost at the target. The explosions and gunfire pulled all attention from the rest of the building. Moving fast.”

“Regroup with us at the vehicle once they’re successful. Anything goes off the rails, I want to know ASAP. Out here.”

“Rog that, Captain.”

John let go of the comm and lifted his rifle again, firing a few bullets into the air. This riled up the security guards again, setting off another round of wild shots into the now eerily quiet night.

“Strip him. No insignia.”

John gestured to the remains of the solider, blood and thick brain matter pooling on the ground. Gaz started ripping the patches off the dead man’s vest, stuffing them into a spare pocket of his own. John reached over, using the muzzle of his rifle to push what was left of the man’s head to the side, reaching in to the neck and yanking the dog tags off, handing them to Gaz as well.

“Help me get this one further into the woods.”

John kicked the foot of the Commander, and Gaz stood, taking an elbow on one side. They carried him backwards, his dragging feet going silent as they entered deeper into the woods. Gaz counted out a hundred steps and then they propped him up against a tree. John rummaged around, pulling his field first aid kit out and locating the smelling salts.

“We’re going to wake him up. I want to know how many people he’s involved in this revenge scheme.”

“Think he’ll tell us the truth?”

“Won’t know unless we ask, soldier.”

John broke the salts and waved them under the unconscious man’s nose. Gaz refastened his gloves, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched the man wake.

“Oi, OI.”

John’s tone was abrupt, not giving the waking man time to adjust to his surroundings.

“Wha- “

“You wanted the 141, Commander, you’ve got ‘em.”

When it took the man a beat too long to respond, John reached out and slapped his cheek with his open palm, jerking his head back against the trunk of the tree.

“Wake up Sunshine. What do you want with the 141?”

The Commander’s words are slurred, likely concussed from the blow to his head.

“Killed my brother – “

“You want revenge.”

John’s tone was flat, emotionless. The words unamused and to the point.

“Justice.” The Commander coughed, his head lolling to the side as he squinted up at them. “But we make our own, don’t we Captain?”

“If we’re lucky. Any more of your men involved? You already got one man killed.”

“No.”

The word was spat out, the hatred tangible in his tone.

“Norris feeding you information?”

“Get fucked.”

John looked over at Gaz who nodded silently to John’s unasked question. John had raised his pistol and pointed it at the man’s foot.

“Norris feeding you information?”

“I said get fu – “

John unloaded the bullet into the man’s foot, the bones and flesh splintering inside his boot. A bloodcurdling scream rang out, bouncing off the trees, making it seem like it was all around them. John lifted the pistol to aim at the man’s knee, his face impassive as the scream died down, replaced with frantic wounded whimpering.

“Norris feeding you information?”

“Holy fuck, oh shit, wait, wait, wait please – “

John leaned in, speaking lowly for the man’s ears only, not sure how much Gaz had been told.

“You send a sexual predator to my woman’s place and expect this to go well for you?”

John didn’t wait for an answer and shot the man’s knee out, the spray of blood missing Gaz this time but catching the side of John’s chest. The howl the Commander let out was unearthly, birds startling from their nighttime roosts. Some deeply tucked away part of John that demanded the collection of a pound of flesh was perversely satisfied with the sound. John stepped away again, training his pistol on the heavily bleeding man’s uninjured foot. Gaz stood, emotionless as the ex-Captain moved around the prone man, the dark forest obscuring their movements from the road.

“Last chance before I even you up. Norris feeding you information?”

“He’s the one who told me about my brother being at Las Almas!! He’s the one.”

John had shot a look at Gaz before turning back to the now heavily wounded man propped up against the tree. He gestured to the zip ties behind the man’s back with the muzzle of his pistol.

“Cut him loose.”

“You’re going to pay for this – I’ll make sure everyone knows-”

John took aim and unloaded a final bullet into the man’s skull, shards of bone and brain mixing with the wood splinters and smoke in the air. Gaz startled but collected himself, stepping over to cut the ties off the body, pocketing them. The dead man’s arms fell forward once the tension of the plastic tie was released. John helped him strip any identifying insignia silently.

“You need to radio that you were ambushed, both men down. Do you have a secondary exfil?”

“Yeah, if we can get to Belarus, the location is a few clicks over the border.”

“We’ll take the vehicle as far as we can. Ghost is going to rendezvous with us, let’s move out.”

John had waited to loop Ghost in before reaching out to Kate with their new exfil plans - taking turns sleeping in the vehicle for the rest of night while pushing on to the border. This gave Kate time to organize their ride and run interference with the story of the ambush. Which is how John spent Christmas Eve, crammed into a dilapidated SUV in the rural area of Lithuania’s border with Belarus, amongst his mates eating cold MRE’s again, all of them tired but alive.

Simon’s deep rumble knocks him out of his mental reverie, calling him back to his current position under the steaming water of his shower.  So far, outside of the problem of Norris, the only thing John has been able to surmise he’s missed in the last few days is Christmas dinner with his love.

“Laswell said she’s sending the medic in after ye’ if ye’ don’t git yer ass in gear, Cap.”

John shuts the water off with a sigh and presses his lips together.

“That’ll do, Ghost. I'll be there shortly.”

Next Chapter

Ao3

Tag list:

@deadbranch @beebeechaos @cadotoast @syoddeye @writeforfandoms @itr-00 @chloepluto1306 @batw3nch @magsmagic @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @chickennn-soupp

[tar-thelien]

I might, or might not, have written chapter two of my little fourth age silvergifting werewolf fic...

Summary:

Celebrimbor tries to give his ex - enemy? Lover? Friend? - a bath, unfortunately, said ex, isn´t really that great around water…

Words: 1.686

After having left his horse in the big ornamental stables, carefully placing the creature on a pile of fresh hay as he tended to its needs, he gently lifted the creature up in his arms, feeling the familiar weight shift against him. The long black legs hung limply over his arms, their uncomfortable length getting caught on the carved doorways he maneuvered through, each step taken with calculated precision to avoid taking the decorations on the walls and tables that adorned the manor down accidentally. He maneuvered his own overcoat off as he approached one of the smaller common rooms with a fireplace, longer into the manor.

Upon reaching the room, he placed the creature gently on the rug before the fireplace. However, he nearly lost his grip as he bent down, the creature´s body hitting the floor with a soft thump that echoed slightly in the serene space, “sorry,” he murmured softly, the apology escaping his lips as he instinctively reached out to stroke the creature's forehead, his fingers brushing through the red coat. 

“I-” he started, noticing how the eyes of the creature opened a little, “think you need a bath,” he ended but quickly made to jump back as something akin to the lowest growl he had ever heard came from the creature's throat, “you need a bath!” he insisted, shocked.

This was so unlike Annatar, no Sauron; this was so unlike Sauron! Didn’t he value perfection, order, and cleanliness over everything else? The creature lifted its head abruptly, its eyes gleaming with a mix of anger and confusion, before dropping it again with a new, louder growl that rumbled through the air, causing Celebrimbor to step closer to the wall in the dark room.

“Don’t you dislike being dirty!?” he cried, voice rising, “I have never seen you this filthy!”

It was a startling sight, for the once majestic figure of Sauron now lay in a tangle of matted fur and grime, a far cry from the imposing presence he had once commanded. Not that he had ever actually seen Sauron in wolf form, but he assumed it looked a little more elegant than the awkward limbed pitiful creature before him.

The creature, in a fit of frustration, lifted its head yet again, releasing a series of guttural sounds that echoed through the stone walls, a cacophony that seemed to mock Celebrimbor's attempts at reason.

“Auuuuhh,” the creature complained loudly now, its long legs bucking restlessly. Celebrimbor’s heart raced, “NO!” he cried at last, “I’m not going to try to understand what you want to say! If you have anything intelligent to say, speak in words!”

That, at least, seemed to stop the creature, which had gone completely silent, its breath heavy and labored. Then, in an unexpected turn, it began to whimper in stops, each sound more pitiful than the last, almost as if it cried out, it only needed the tears.

“What has become of you?” he murmured, his voice softening as he stepped closer, drawn by an unexplainable urge to comfort the creature, as if it were a long lost friend, which it was, “you were once an exemplar of strength and elegance, a master of deception and brilliance. Now, look at you! Can´t you just do something useful for once in your too long life and choose a form capable of speech!!” he roared, mulling at the remains of Sauron that lingered within the creature’s eyes - those same eyes that had once radiated power and ambition, now clouded with confusion and despair.

“I cannot help you if you do not help yourself,” he continued, his tone more flat, as he leaned up against the painted wall and let himself sink to the floor, “I just-,” he sighed deeply, “I just thought you would like to be clean and well rested?” Celebrimbor added thoughtfully, “a bath is what you need. I mean look at you!” he laughed hopelessly, as the creature, still quivering, seemed to weigh his words. 

“Will you allow me to help you?” he asked quietly, an unexpected wave of hope washing over him, as the creature turned its head away from him with an annoyed huff, as if giving up, and Celebrimbor smiled like one fey - just like Sauron smiled when Celebrimbor gave up? Right? No perhaps more like Haru… yes.

-o0o-

The problem wasn’t really the act of carrying the creature to the washroom, nor was it the tedious wait for the water to warm as he delved deep into the cabins, searching for the oils designated for hounds - remains from his father's last visit alongside Atarhanno and their hunting hounds. No, the true challenge lay in the vigorous task of keeping the creature securely in the tub. 

As he carefully lifted the creature into the soapy water, it stilled for a brief moment, seemingly resigned until the water advanced upon its rapidly rising chest. Within seconds, however, panic surged through it, and it began to bite the air, twisting and writhing as if its very existence depended on escaping the confines of the tub. 

“Calm down!” Celebrimbor shouted, already drenched from the splashes, though, thankfully, he still wore his traveling clothes, “nothing is happening!” he cried, as the creature attempted to claw its way out, its limbs flailing against the slippery sides of the marble tub. He pressed down on its shoulder and back, willing it to remain down.

He had accepted it to be way stronger than him, although it looked weak and starved, but it was neither. Weak, it was not, but neither was it strong, something akin to a dog, a little smaller than it was now, not that that mattered, no, what mattered was that Celebrimbor was strong enough to hold it down, although it was pressed up against the side of the tub with its head leaning over the edge as it gasped for breath that had never been stopped, revealing sharper and longer teeth than any wolf had any business having.

“There there,” Celebrimbor whispered soothingly running a hand through the wet fur to get the soap deeper into its matted coat, giving it an even more pathetic look, “you are doing so, so good,” - he had not forgotten Annatar´s need for constant praise!

READ THE REST ON AO3

[theclaravoyant]

Ripples (Hen, Tommy) - 1400wd

AN ~ i am obsessed with sweet, sweet platonic content and the hentommy moment we may never get, so i'm giving us one.

In the middle of a building collapse (because of course they are), Hen and Tommy catch up. Read on AO3 (~1500wd)

-

It's coming down!

The ear-shattering screech of steel and concrete is the only thing Hen can hear for a long moment after she throws herself forward into the hallway. The roof is holding out here, although the concrete dust isn't helping as the air is becoming dangerously smokey. A torn electrical line spits out aimless sparks. But she's okay.

Grimacing against the oncoming headache, she gets to her feet and takes stock.

“Ravi, you okay?”

“Partial floor collapse back here when the ceiling came down,” Ravi reports from somewhere out of sight. He coughs. “I'm down a floor, but I'm okay.”

“Kinard?”

Nothing.

“Tommy? Come in.”

“Hen?”

His voice is weak, but she's not just hearing it through the comms. Hen turns back to the pile of rubble, sifting through sheets of ceiling plaster and trying to pinpoint where it's coming from. Soon enough, she sees a hand wave.

“Got you,” she assures him. “How you feeling?”

He groans. She frowns as she clears the last of the lighter debris, and can see why, because of course he's not been lucky enough to catch a bit of plaster and plywood. He's stuck face-down, the whole back half of his body pinned under probably a half a tonne of rubble.

“My leg,” he advises. “Right's okay I- I think. Left is really- oh, Christ, I think it's twisted up pretty bad. At least it was. I can't- I don't think I can feel it anymore.”

Tommy's breath shakes like he's fighting off a panic attack as Hen requests assistance. Possible spinal. Even when she manages to get both of their halligans under there and relieve some of the pressure, there's only so much that can be seen from here of his bloody mess of a knee. She can only confirm that it's highly unlikely his toes are actually moving. And sure, it means maybe nothing but maybe it means a pinched nerve or amputation or permanent paralysis or, or, or – in other words; no more being a firefighter, no more being a pilot, no more of a lot of other things too probably and that hurts so much more than the fact that half his body's being pulverised into the floor.

“Come on now,” Hen challenges gently. “You know better than to take it to the worst case scenario.”

He nods as best he can down here. He's starting to feel cold and shake and it's got to be some kind of stress response. Is he going into shock?

“I also know better,” he manages, “than putting myself on the call roster for the craziest firehouse in LA.”

“Yeah, well. We all do stupid things for pretty boys, hm?”

He can picture it, the smirk on her face; equal parts compassion and mischievousness. It makes him feel warmer and stop clenching his jaw. He hadn't even realised he was doing that. But she's right, and she's picked a hell of a time to bring it up, and it's working: thinking of Evan and his boyish smile and his big blue eyes brings his heart rate down, steadies his breathing...

Hen settles in beside him. She's close enough to check his brachial pulse, or grab him and yank him forward – possible spinal be damned - if anything else goes down, but as it is, they wait.

After a few breaths of reassuringly collapse-sounds-free silence, Tommy asks:

“So, how's Karen and Denny?”

It almost makes her laugh. He's still face down and bleeding under a roof and for his tone, they could be stood free and clear around an average office water cooler. Ah, the life of a firefighter.

“They're good,” Hen assures him. “Great, actually. You know, Denny's almost fourteen?”

“Wow. Way to make me feel old.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Evan tells me you guys have a daughter now too?”

“Mara,” Hen updates him. “She's nine. Came to us through foster. She's been through a lot but we're getting there. She's really strong, and she's working really hard, you know, to heal.”

“Good, that's good. Sounds like she's got a bright future ahead of her,” Tommy congratulates. Then a more sombre tone settles into his voice. “Sounds like someone else I know.”

It's something about having your whole life and livelihood hanging in the balance that brings out this sort of confessional in people, Hen knows. She's both always wary of it, and also sort of addicted to the kind of radical honesty that constantly spilling your literal actual guts tends to inspire. So even as she tries to get out - “Tommy, we don't have to do this,” - she braces herself to accept whatever is about to come next as if it's the last thing he'll ever get to say.

“I'm sorry I was such a dick to you,” he says, “back in the day. I wish I could say I just got caught up in the machismo and stuff but honestly I- I didn't know any better. And I didn't really want to try. But you, and Chim, you're some of the best firefighters out there and I didn't give you guys your due and I'm sorry.”

Tears prick at Hen's eyes, and it doesn't help the sweat and smoke and concrete dust that's still settling all around them. She'd patched over these wounds a long time ago but it feels nice all the same, freeing in a way she hadn't anticipated, to get an apology she was never going to ask for.

“You know,” Tommy continues, softer now. “I think you saved my life.”

“Uh, pretty sure I'm up to about six counts of that,” she jests, because she can feel it coming;

“I'm not talking about in the field.”

There it is.

Hen's breath catches in her throat as Tommy finds the courage to recount it. She's felt it coming for a long time now, maybe even years, but certainly since he'd strode into Chim's hospital room all giddy and covered with soot and with Buck she'd kind of wondered. Wondered what her crying and demanding to be seen in the middle of the firehouse floor all those years ago might have actually done. It had done a lot for her, but she'd never quite be ready to hear, let alone to contemplate, what those words might have done for a man who'd grown up in a military family under don't ask don't tell – the same policy that had kept Karen's dream out of reach until it was too late. For a man who'd not grown up having and valuing marginalised experiences; not having a bad-ass, butch as hell mother who'd always taught her to speak her truth, even if that truth was something said mother had struggled to deal with at first. He'd been taught how to be a man and a gentleman and a soldier and not much else. He'd never realised what intimacy could actually be like, what love could actually be like; he'd thought he'd scared off every girl he'd ever had because there was something abnormal about him. Something fundamentally unloveable.

“... Bits and pieces, looking back – you know how it is. I'd just always sort of thought there was something wrong with me. I'd never really seen any other possibility. Until you. So. I know I'm late to the party, but for what it's worth – I see you now, Hen. And I am honoured to call you Captain.”

Hen nods, trying to swallow the lump in her throat as some of those tears splash down her cheeks. In spite of herself she feels something reach back in time and touch her fierce, heartbroken younger self; a promise that it's going to be worth it one day.

“It's worth a lot, Tommy,” she manages. “Thank you.”

Then, the radio crackles back to life.

“Cap,” Eddie reports, “Ambulances from the 133 pulling up. 118 should be on you now.”

Footsteps clamour down the hall toward them, as Ravi, Buck and Chim rush in, backboard and hydraulic jack in hand. Chim pushes the morphine, Ravi pushes the pain point of the rubble away, Buck and Hen slide Tommy out and even though he yelps and moans Buck can't hide the joy and relief that breaks out on his face as they flip him onto his back and slide him onto the backboard in swift, perfectly matched unison like a well-oiled machine.

“We've got you,” Buck promises, squeezing one of Tommy's trembling hands with a sweaty, giddy smile. He glances over at Hen, and checks in - “You good?”

What do you think it is? he'd asked her once. The secret to happiness?

He's in the middle of a burning building, and it looks like it's pouring out of him now.

“I'm great,” she replies. “Let's move.”

[80pairsofcrocs]

baby scarab || 64

masterlist - marvel masterlist - series masterlist

A/N : THERE IS NO MORE SCHEDULE, IM SORRY also thank you all sm for the support and requests :)))

please enjoy, and don't be shy if you want to be in the taglist, just ask <3, sorry for the long wait

pairings : steven grant x (platonic)reader, marc spector x (platonic) reader, khonshu x (platonic)reader, jake lockley x (platonic)reader, layla el faouly x (platonic)reader

TW : medicine (pills), spidey stuff, violence, language, angst, kinda rushed? angst, more angst, yelling, mentions of past child abuse, let me know if i missed anything.

~~~

you were sat at the table in the kitchen the next morning while slowly picking at a muffin steven had made earlier.

marc sat across from you, and layla had left earlier as well.

it was silent. too silent. you could hear every drop of rain that fell on the ground a couple stories down.

that was until you decided to speak up.

"so... am i still grounded?" you ask uncomfortably.

marc sighs a runs a hand through his hair. "yes. but.. for less time. and i know this will.. absolutely break your heart but.. but..... oh motherfu- jake you do it"

"no"

"darling listen.." steven takes over. "we decided as a group.. and your mother and even khonshu agrees but... we've decided that you won't be able to be arachnid until you're eighteen.." your heart drops at stevens sentence.

"what..?" you ask shakily and marc sighs.

"i know it's hard to hear, but we really mean it this time. we can't have you out there getting hurt-"

"but you do it all the time!" you interrupt. "jake knows how important it is to me- he agrees that i should have freedom! right jake?" you look to him in the mirror and he gives you a sad look.

"wha- jake?! you too?! seriously- i- you've seen what i can do- i-" you cut yourself off, tearing up and putting your head in your hands, allows resting on the table.

steven sighs sadly. "it's okay darling, we're sorry but- you need to focus on your school work, i mean it's the beginning of march and you're failing almost all your classes! you haven't even been in school all too much either!" he raises his voice and you look up at him.

"you can't do this- it doesn't matter if i graduate i don't even know what i'm going to do in life- all i have are these stupid powers!" you tell back at him and a stern look takes over stevens face.

"no, you listen. you need to graduate, i'm not letting you throw your life away-"

"why not?! you're already taking away everything else!" you cut him off again.

steven scoffs, which is something unlike him to do. "excuse me? we are taking away one thing- and it hurts you don't you understand? it's gotten you kidnapped!" he raises his voice another notch.

you groan out of annoyance. "steven just stop- im not giving this up, i can't" you start. "there's people out there that need my help-"

"they have us, kid" marc says and you look to the mirror where he looks at you. "you aren't invincible! you're just a kid, you shouldn't be out there risking your life-"

"neither should you! what if one day khonshu can't heal you?! what- what if one day i just sit here like an idiot waiting for you to come home and you never do?!" you stand up from your seat.

"y/n we will always come home- but you however are young and inexperienced. you are more likely to die out there than we are" steven answers. "we can't lose you. we are doing this because we love you, i need you to understand that" he quiets his voice and you sigh, sitting back down.

"but that's why i-" you're interrupted by khonshu appearing in a thick fog before he turns to steven.

"we must go!" he shouts and you look to steven in a panic.

"no! i- i just got back-"

"darling listen, we will continue this when we get back but you have to promise me you'll stay here-"

"don't just leave! what's wrong with you?!-"

"casper is coming over to make sure you stay put- now we really have to go-" steven  continues to talk over you while his suit forms onto his body.

"steven this isn't fair-"

"don't talk to me about 'fair', now i love you, just stay here" steven days before leaving out the window, making you stare with wide eyes at all that just happened.

"great job 'dad'. sending my fucking boyfriend to come babysit me" you mutter under your breath as you speed walk to your room and slam the door shut, falling onto your bed face first.

that's when you immediately hear a knock at the front door and you groan out of annoyance.

"yeah okay- can't even get a fucking minute of peace" you mumble, swinging your door open to march to the front door.

you open it to see casper with a sad smile on his face. "are you okay?" he asks quietly and you sigh, dragging him in by his sleeve and shutting the door.

"i'm fine. it's not like you came here just to babysit me" you say sarcastically and sit down on the couch with your arms crossed.

casper sighs and goes to sit next to you. "i came here to make sure you're okay. and because i love you" he says honestly, and you look over to him.

"and to make sure i don't leave" you add and he shakes his head.

"even i know that i couldn't stop you if you really wanted to leave" he says and you nod. "that's true-"

"but you wouldn't. i can tell how exhausted you are right now" casper tells you and you look away, biting the inside of your cheek.

"i'm not even-"

"come on, marc told me everything that happened. have you even tried to sleep since then?" he asks and you stay quiet.

casper sighs and stands up in front of you, offering you a hand. "come on" is all he says before you take his hand.

he takes you to your room and pulls the blanket back on your bed.

you get the message and sit down, looking up at casper as he slips his shoes off before joining you.

"just get some sleep, okay? i'm worried about you" he pushes you down so that your head hits your pillow.

"i'm really not in the mood to sleep right now-" you try sitting back up and casper moves behind you to put his arms around your waist, keeping you from sitting up.

"casper-"

"you're not getting out of this and i'm not leaving until you fall asleep"

"how about you just don't leave at all"

"deal"

you smile to yourself before turning around in casper's arms to face him.

"and for the record, i love you too" you lean to press a kiss to casper's lips before burying your face in his neck.

casper sighs in content and hugs you closer, feeling almost just as tired as you were.

i'm not even two minutes both of you were fast asleep in each others arms, not a care in the world about anything that has ever happened.

meanwhile a few hours later you were still asleep, but in a different position.

you were on your back, head to the side while casper was still hugging your waist but with his face buried in your stomach.

and that's what jake had come home to.

he smiles as and shook his head before closing your door and quietly cleaning up the dried blood on his face.

it wasn't his by the way.

another hour passed and marc was extremely stressed about how tense them and you were before they left, and was almost scared of the next conversation you were going to have once you woke up.

he heard your door open a moment later and thought the worst.

that was until he realized it was casper and not you. he unknowingly let out a sigh of relief as casper approached him.

"how was she?" marc asks quietly and casper sits down next to him.

"justifiably angry" he starts. "i know that she understands why you're taking away arachnid, but it is a part of her now" he explains and marc sighs.

"i know but she's my kid.. she should be focusing on school, not listening to the news and going out to risk her life everyday" marc rants and casper nods.

"i miss her" casper confesses. "the real y/n. she used to try, like actually try. she had a job, and she tried her hardest in school but now.. she's changed so much" he takes a breath. "and i get that she's been going through things lately, like being kidnapped and- and taken by the police but- i need her back" he looks tearfully to marc, who gives him a concerned look.

"i can't let her destroy herself, i just can't" casper hides his tears behind his hands. "i love her marc. i would do anything to make her happy again"

marc puts a gentle hand on his shoulder. "i.. i know how that feels" he starts. "i'm glad she found someone like you.. and i hate that i just admitted that" casper smiles slightly at marc's comment and wiped his tears away.

"thank you, sir"

"call me marc.. you've earned it" marc mumbles and casper nods before marc furrows his brows in thought.

and that was when jake fronted, and casper noticed a change.

"you guys didn't actually have sex did you?" jake questions and casper quickly shakes his head

"no- no. we didn't..." he says.

"but?" jake adds and casper sighs.

"she.. she tried to get something started and i could tell she didn't want it" casper starts. "i.. i stopped her before anything actually happened.."

jake looks down at the ground. "..are you both okay?" he asks and casper nods.

"yeah, i.. i know she wasn't in the right headspace.... and i knew she was hurting" he finishes and jake nods.

"thank you"

casper looks confused. "for what? i just did the right thing- anybody would've done it-"

"no i.. we thank you for protecting her. even though she's technically a 'superhero' she still needs someone" jake starts. "someone like you" he admits and casper smiles slightly.

he's about to say something when you come wandering out, yawning and wiping away the tear stains from your cheeks.

nobody said anything. you just stood looking at them.

"you guys were talking about me.. weren't you?" you ask, already knowing the answer.

"all good things" casper tells you. he thought that one little lie couldn't hurt, as long as you didn't use all your energy up again from crying and being overall angry.

"does this mean you have to go home?" you ask him, not even bothering to acknowledge jake.

casper sighs. "i believe it does.. but we will see each other at school tomorrow, and i can help you get caught up" he offers while standing up.

you simply nod and tiredly walk over to him, wrapping your arms around him waist in a hug.

casper hugs you back and when you let go he heads to the door.

"i'll see you tomorrow, y/n. take care of yourself for me" he says before leaving.

you stare at the door for a moment before looking hesitantly at jake.

there was an awkward silence before either of you said anything.

"are you still mad at us?" jake asks which earns a scoff from marc at his bad choice in starting a conversation.

you furrow your brows and cross your arms in front of your chest. "what do you think, dip shit?" you retort and jake stands up with his hands on his hips.

"disculpe?" jake responds and you look away from him with a shake of your head.

"hey- look at me when i'm talking to you" he says sternly so with attitude, you look back at jake, who seemed to switch.

"don't call him that" steven starts, taking his hands off his hips to put them in his sweaters pockets. "you don't get to swear at us like that-"

"yeah? but what stopped me before?" you interrupt and steven takes a deep breath.

"don't interrupt me, and when you did it before it wasn't to hurt us- you better apologize to him or so help me-"

"so help you what? what are you going to do? send my boyfriend back here to babysit me while you go fuck around in your stupid suit?" you start angrily. "how about taking my phone- oh wait! you already have! god knows when i'll fucking get it back!"

"you watch your tone-"

"i'm not finished 'steven'" you say his name as if it's a curse in your mouth. "bet you're regretting adopting me now, huh? it's all been shits and giggles up until you took everything away from me! first my phone- and- and then arachnid- what's next?! are you going to starve me?! resort to beating me, because i damn well deserve it!"

stevens eyes widen at your words and the fact that your angrily yelling at him, marc and jake are just as shocked but can't find anything to possibly say.

"why did you even adopt me?! why bother trying- you've never been around kids before- and marc's had a bunch of trauma associated with it so why?!" you yell in stevens face and he hesitates in putting a hand on each of your shoulders.

"listen. we love you y/n, please just tell us why you're so worked up" he offers quietly and calmly and you stare up at him confused.

"..what...- you- answer my damn question!" you shove his hands off you you.

"we adopted you because we all saw part of ourselves in you.." steven starts.

that's when marc fronted. it was getting to be a bit too much for steven.

"even before jake.. me and steven both saw a part of ourselves in you. and you were hurting. you were overworked with school and your job, and you were being bullied at school- we had to at least help you" he starts and you calm down enough to listen.

"we.. grew attached. we became protective over you because we saw you as our kid. i have always had trouble expressing.. feelings... and so have you now please, please just tell us what's bothering you" he takes a breath. "please baby, i know you're hurting just tell us how we can help you" his voice breaks at the end of his sentence and you look down at the ground.

it's silent for a minute while you try and hold back tears.

"i.. if i can't help then what's the point..?" you start slowly, still staring at the floor. "i don't want to just sit here and do nothing... nobody else knows what's going on out there with harrow- and- and all that shit- i just want to stop it. it's my fault" you take a deep breath.

"i should've died out there where my mother left me.." you manage to rasp out before marc looks at you in absolute terror.

he moves his hands to each side of your face to lift your head up so he could look you in the eyes.

"don't you ever say that again, you hear me? nothing is your fault- and we're sorry for being so hard on you when you got home but you need to learn. you need to have a life outside arachnid, where you can get a job you love- maybe have a family of your own one day but you can't do that it you're constantly being hurt physically and emotionally" he pauses. "you need a break"

you don't say anything but your eyes gather with tears as you take in a shaky breath.

"..i'm sorry...." you manage to squeak out before tumbling into full blown sobs.

"i'm so sorry- i didn't mean to yell at you guys! i know why you do these things and i shouldn't take my anger out on you it's not fair! i'm sorry- i'm so so sorry-!" you get pulled into marc's chest, and your arms fall around his shoulders as you cry your heart out into his shirt.

"shh.. it's okay, we know you. we know you don't mean those things-"

"no marc you don't understand! i've been a horrible person to you guys and you didn't even do anything-"

"no. stop thinking like that, okay? i only want to hear you say good things about yourself, none of this self deprecating bullshit" marc rubs your back as you calm down, and you refuse to look up at him.

"i'm sorry.." you wipe your face. "stevens suit isn't stupid.. it's great" you sniff.

"it's okay darling, are you feeling better?" steven speaks up through the mirror on the wall.

"i shouldn't have yelled at you.." you say quietly, and wipe at your wet cheeks again.

"it's alright, you were just blowing off steam.. but next time just talk to us okay?" steven requests gently and you nod.

"good, now you seriously need to eat something, you're going to pass out from exhaustion" marc says and guides you back to the kitchen table where your muffin still sits from earlier in the day.

"if you want something else-"

"no.. it's fine" you cut him off and start taking small bites of the muffin.

you eat your muffin while marc sits across from you at the table, trying to decide if he should say anything.

he overall decides to, with the help of steven and jake.

"is there anything else bothering you..?" he asks and you look up at him and nod slightly.

he tilts his head at you as if asking you to go on.

you sigh and look down at the table, specifically the empty muffin wrapper.

"i just.. i miss how we used to be. i've been a terrible girlfriend to casper too.." you voice your worries and marc sighs.

"i miss you too. you lost yourself for a while and we are all here to help you, you know that" he starts. "and don't worry about casper. that kid loves you so much, i've seen it"

you look up at him and nod, slowly standing up from your chair, making marc do the same.

you slowly walk over to him to snake your arms around his waist and rest your forehead on his chest.

marc gently puts a hand around the back of your head and the other around your shoulder.

"it's okay. you'll be okay, kid" he tells you, which makes you tear up again.

you stood there with him for what felt like hours, and he didn't mind one bit.

steven and jake let him have this moment with you, letting him hold you while you calmed yourself.

who knows what the future would bring from here?

would you turn yourself around? would you go back to being an angst teenager?

but more importantly, would you lose someone close to you..?

i guess we won't know until later.

much later.

you thought this was going to be the end of this little chapter of your life didn't you?

tsk. you should know me better than that by now-

anyways, now, you're doing much better. it was now middle of april and you've gotten your grades up to C's, you get your phone for the day, and your dads take it at night and charge it in the kitchen.

your cats are no longer kittens, they have matured to the point where they fight for a spot on your bed, and whoever loses has to usually sleep with marc.

you'd gone on a couple dates with casper, who had gotten his first job at an ice cream parlor about 5 minutes away from his house.

so of course, he had to spoil you and take you to a fancy restaurant.

with a live quartet too. he wore the nicest clothes he had, and you did as well.

layla lent you an old dress of hers for the occasion, it was dark red with gold accents around the trim.

casper thought you crash landed there from heaven that night.

now back to present day, casper was walking you home from school while you fidgeted with your phone.

casper noticed the nervous tick, so he spoke up. "hey, you feeling alright?" he asks and you nod slightly.

"yeah.. just.. evie asked me to go to a party with her tonight and i'm nervous to ask my dads" you voice your worries and casper hums.

"well the worst they can do is say no" he points out and you turn your head to smile at him.

"i know. i guess i just needed reassurance, so thank you" you say kindly and casper opens the door to your apartment building for you.

"it's no problem. do you want me to come up with you?" he asks.

"no, that's okay. you should get home and get your brace off, i know it's been itching lately" you offer and casper chuckles.

"well i'll see you tomorrow then" he smiles.

you nod and lean in to give him a quick peck on the lips before backing up to the elevator.

"i love you, see you tomorrow" you smile and he waves before leaving.

you get a bit nervous in the elevator, watching the numbers rise as you reach your floor.

'the worst they can do is say no' you chant in your head before unlocking the door.

you walk in and leave your bag by the door while steven made tea at the stove.

"hey darling, how was school?" he turns to you for a second with a grin.

"it was good.." you say and steven turns to you with a confused look on his face.

"and..?" he asks and you fidget with your fingers before looking up at him.

"evie invited me to a party tonight.." you say quietly and steven looks over to the mirror on the wall.

"but it's fine if you want me to stay here i understand-"

"how much homework do you have?" marc asks and you blink a few times before answering.

"casper helped me finish it all during lunch"

marc sighs before nodding to steven.

"you can.. you can be out until 11 at the latest. and we will drive you there and back. you're lucky it's a weekend" he jokes and you smile at him.

"you mean it? i can go?" you ask excitedly.

steven nods. "you've been doing better, i think.. we think it'll be a nice reward for you, to keep you motivated, you know?"

"thank you!" you rush to hug steven and both marc and jake smile at you through the mirror.

steven reluctantly pulls away as jake speaks up. "now go clean your room"

"okay!- thanks dads!" you yell as you run to your room to begin cleaning.

i mean, what's the harm in letting you go to a party with your friend?

you've pulled yourself together and began focusing on school and your relationships with your loved ones.

you were finally you again.

what could possibly go wrong?

~~~

A/N : omg this took way too long, but IM BACK!! i have more time to write now and im back in my baby scarab mindset lol. hope you enjoyed, and ill see you later!!

~~~

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[royisrandom]

Just a Misunderstanding

Davy Jones x Reader

Short Summary:

Davy Jones notices how you have started to ignore him for the past couple of days. Curious as to why, he attempts to question you and figure out what's made you so grim.

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

These past couple of days, Davy Jones had been watching you with high amounts of confusion. He noticed the only person he spent a lot of time with on the Flying Dutchman had grown increasingly distant. He didn't consider you a friend, but you were definitely getting there. It wasn't common for Davy Jones to know anyone that he considered anything more than an enemy.

You havn't said a word to him in days and you had been avoiding him like the plague; even avoiding his gaze and refusing to give him a passing glance. Something was off and he knew it, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

He watched as your posture became more slouched, and your work became more sluggish. You always seemed to be 'out of it'; almost like no emotion has touched your features in decades.

After debating on whether or not to try to talk to you, Jones finally decided that he needed some answers.

As you were heading to the sleeping quarters, you were immediately called out by your captain, Davy Jones. Out of the corner of your eye you saw him standing at the stairway leading up to the helm. You didn't even have to look him in the eyes to know that his eyes were focused on your every move.

"What's going on here? Why are you avoiding me?" He slowly walks up to your shaking form. There's a hint of confusion in his eyes, right behind the infamous look of determination.

You continued to look away, trying not to make eye contact with him. Your shoulders were slumped slightly and you spoke in a soft voice.

"I thought you were mad at me..." Your voice trembled, revealing just how much this situation had been weighing on you.

Davy Jones let out a small chuckle and took a step closer to you. You were taken aback by his laugh, thinking that you have just made the worst decision of your life by saying you thought he was mad. You wanted to move, but your body was frozen, like time stopped around you. A shiver went down your spine as you awaited for what he was about to do...

"No," he said firmly, shaking his head slightly for emphasis, "I'm not mad at you y/n."

You were slightly shocked by this response. Was he actually telling the truth? You hadn't expected such an open and honest answer from someone as cruel as Davy Jones.

"But... I dropped the main sheet cable. I messed everyone else up... they..." You felt tears prick the sides of your eyes, remembering that horrid day. You felt horrible for what you did. Everyone's job was interrupted because you couldn't hold onto a rope...

Seeing you like this didn't resonate well with Davy Jones. He's used to seeing your charismatic and joyful attitude, which ultimately surprised him given you were on the Dutchman. This ship wasn't a place for the kind-hearted, but you found the little good that it had left.

"Aye, you did cause an inconvenience for the rest of the crew... But you did not mean it, did you?"

You look up at Davy Jones, shaking your head 'no'. You really didn't mean to be a burden. Almost like he knew what you were thinking, sensing your guilt, he continued to speak to try to ease the tension in the air.

"You are fine, y/n. It was an accident, is all. Just make sure you don't let your mind wander next time. "

You could sense a form of demand as he said those last words. Not enough to frighten you, but enough to keep you in line.

You looked up at Davy with an expression that was both relieved and confused. You were relieved that Davy wasn't mad, but it was unlike him to act this way. Even with the confusion, you didn't complain. You we're getting the better side of Davy, one that most people never see.

Davy Jones gave you an understanding look and stepped closer. He noticed how you started to slowly inch backwards with every step he took.

"It's all right," Davy said as nicely as he could. "You don't have to be scared of me y/n."

'He really is good at reading people, isn't he?' You thought.

You nodded slowly in acknowledgement. Feeling more relaxed than you had before, you take in a breath that you didn't know you were holding.

You looked up into Davy's eyes then smiled sheepishly; realizing how silly your worries were.

Davy gave a small smile back, then placed one arm around your shoulder, pulling you into a side embrace; not one of those awkward ones, but one filled with comfort and understanding.

You two stayed in the embrace for a few moments longer until finally letting each other go again. It felt nice to know that everything was alright between you two.

All you can think about now is how your life would have been if he never brought up this situation, but you're glad you had this talk. Turns out big ol' Davy Jones he has a soft spot for you after all, even if he may deny it.

[ghostflowerhotpotch]

So I'll just tell myself all of the things I can't say to you yet (Fic)

Pairing: Ghostflower (Miles x Gwen.)

Chapter: 1/4.

Summary: On a scale from interested to desperate, where do you rank buying a plushie of your crush?

...Could she even still call this a crush?

As Gwen closed the portal behind her, she couldn't believe she has gotten away with it. When Miles invited her and the rest of their friends to Festival, she has been thinking about what type of music she would hear, what difference she could catch from her dimension- not this.

It has been kind of an impulse purchase, she has honestly been lucky that the money from her dimension seemed to be close enough to the bills in Miles’ universe; hopefully the seller wouldn’t have trouble depositing a glitching bill. It couldn't count as scamming someone, right?

“This was stupid,” She thought to herself, yet still hugging the brown bag against her chest, almost a bit too protective, not wanting anyone to see its contents.

She doesn’t know how she managed to hide it from Miles (or Pavitr, who was very curious about it- Gwen almost wonders if Hobie knew since he helped to move the conversation around,) or even get it without anyone else noticing. Gwen didn’t think she could come up with an excuse if any of them saw this.

But she was in her own dimension again, her dad wasn’t at home right now, which meant there was no one but her, and even in the safety of her own room, she didn’t want to look at it, as if getting it out of the bag would somehow be more incriminating than having it.

Still feeling a bit silly, she sits in her bed and finally, opens the bag and finally gets her precious cargo she has been so mindful of. On her left hand, there is a medium-sized, Miles' plushie.

It was spiderman themed, of course; she wasn’t sure how it worked, but multiple companies have started selling merchandise with his name and colours in it, even if he technically hasn’t signed anything. The quality wasn’t that good, a big head with a very fluffy body and limbs, it was kind of ridiculous.

Insanely cute though, almost as cute as him.

Groaning, she let herself fall in the bed “What’s wrong with me?” she whispered to herself as she put a hand on her forehead. Looking back, she glares at the plushie, almost as if it came home with her by itself rather than being her own idea. Sighing, she lies on her side and hugs the plushie.

She already bought the damn thing; she may as well embrace it.

Miles and she had been working on rebuilding their friendship. After months of silence, the secrets about canon and Miles’ Spiderman situation; they needed to take a step back and get a chance to breathe, especially for Gwen who was not just trying to rebuild her relationship with her dad, but catch on all the classes she missed on the meantime. Considering how things ended in HQ, she was honestly grateful Miles wanted to keep in contact after that fiasco.

There was just a small problem, her crush.

“Well, can I call it that anymore?” She thought bitterly to herself, as she looks back at the plushie that she was clutching against her chest. The little Spiderman just looked back at her; unlike the real one, there wasn’t a way to take that mask and look at his face. If she had more artistic abilities, she may have tried to find a way to give a face to the plushie.

God knows the only reason her notebook has half-made songs instead of drawings like Miles, is because she couldn’t draw like him.

Gwen wasn’t always upfront with what she was feeling, not even to herself. Part of her thought if she could pretend to be okay, those emotions would eventually leave her and she could continue her normal life. Except that it doesn’t; not with the guilt of losing Peter, not with the gaping hole that felt those months when she thought her dad hated her, and not with her feelings for Miles.

Everyone knows about his crush on her, or at least the feelings he used to harbour for her; ever since the whole situation with Miguel, Miles hasn’t been the same to her. He was still kind, and warm, but it didn’t feel like it used to be, even now.

What she has for him? It was still there, as strong as ever, and she was drowning in the feeling.

Part of Gwen wonders if the people around her had pretended not to know, or at least make it easier for her because she was in such denial she would try to shut down the topic otherwise. But Jess knew exactly what Gwen must have meant by "getting too close to someone," Miguel thinking Gwen was a liability thanks to her feelings for Miles (which was sorta right,) and Hobie- the guy probably figured out the tenth time she mentioned his name.

She has been insisting they were just friends, that it wasn’t that big of a deal; but she knows it wasn’t exactly Ham the one she has been missing all those months before finding the organization, and she wasn’t going to forget about monitoring a bad guy to spend an afternoon with Peter B.

It was kind of dumb, but she has been so glad that no one has pointed out that on a mission that would have been easy with the Spot literally out of ways to travel to other dimensions, she opened the portal right where Miles was as she ignored the bad guy until her watch screamed at her. While hugging the plushie even harder, she knows you don’t risk the multiverse just to catch on with someone, and you don’t sneak out to get a plushie of someone while obsessively making sure no one notices.

As she looked at the oversized head that mimicked Miles’s mask, she thought to herself when she was going to give up acting as if those feelings weren’t there, or it was as simple as a crush.

“I love you” She whispers for the first time, and somehow the phrase feels like it almost echoes in her mind. It feels right in her mouth, the truth she has been battling for so long.

Groaning, she looks to the roof “I’m so stupid.”

Because only someone like her would get into a mess like this. Loving someone from afar while not being sure if they could actually make it work, but wanting so badly to do it.

And yet still too scared to do anything that whispers the truth to a plushie.

Perhaps even after all this time, Gwen Stacy still only knew how to run.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Oh my g-d I am typing lines and dots as separation like this fanfiction net in 2011, jeez I am old.

So! I normally just upload my fics in ao3; however, as all we know (or so I assume because multiple communities are in shambles right now.) AO3 is down, and the best way to help is to not try to get in.

And it just so happens this fic that was supposed to be a one-shot became a short fic because the comments ended up inspiring me to do more.

The second chapter will be posted in a few moments, and the link to it will appear in this post and vice versa. The third chapter will be published on tumblr depending on how the ao3 situation goes and my mood.

Hope you like it! Leave a comment if you did, is the only reason this went past the first chapter.

Second Chapter here!

[officialchristiancagebbgirlblog]

5: Okay but if we leave now, we can avoid all that traffic and…why are you staring at me like that?

Warnings: none

Themes: fluff

Word count: 530

Link to masterlist

Happy reading 🩵

After weeks of waiting, the day had finally come that you and Adam were able to leave for a well deserved vacation. He had been working hard at his matches and would usually come home in the late hours of the evening, exhausted and ready to hit the hay.you so badly wanted to go with him to work but you needed to stick at your job. So instead you watched every one of his matches from home. Regardless of how tired you were, you refused to kiss a single match or anything.

But finally, it was here. A quiet week away in Ireland. Just the two of you. But of course. Adam decided to pack his suitcase the morning before you left.

“Look, all I’m saying is that I might need those clothes before we leave!” He argued, throwing shirts in haphazardly, “why should I pack a week in advance? It doesn’t make sense!”

“Why? Because it makes life so much easier, that’s why!” You retorted, “it stops us from having to worry if we forgot something.”

Adam shook his head with a chuckle. “Babe, I’ve been doing this for years. I’m very good at not forgetting things and even better at packing what I know I’d use when I’m away, unlike…someone else.”

He looked up with a twinkle in his eye, a smirk plastered on his gorgeous face. Feigning offence, you gasped in horror and bought your hand up to your chest.

“How dare you, you cheeky fuck!”

“What can I say? I’m a natural heel.”

He squished the clothes down to zip up the suitcase, finally finished with the task that should’ve been done way earlier. Looking at your phone you could see the time to head out was fast approaching.

“Oop, Adam we gotta leave soon, please tell me you’re almost ready?” You questioned, looking up to watch him sit down on the armchair in your shared bedroom.

“Ah I’ve just sat down,” he sighed, “we’ve still got time, we don’t need to leave just yet?”

You could feel yourself getting anxious just thinking about leaving late which he quickly picked up on.

“It’s okay, we’re not going to be late. I don’t think there’s too much traffic out today-”

“Yeah but you know that every time you say that, we always get caught up in it.”

“Look, babe, it’s fine. We won’t be late, I promise. I’ll get us there on time, just give me 30 minutes to sit down and we’ll go.”

“Okay but if we leave now, we can avoid all that traffic and…why are you staring at me like that?”

He sat there, fist under his chin, a smile on his face. His cheeks glowed a gentle pink as he stood up, walked towards you.

“You’re so cute when you get all concerned,” he teased, giving you a small peck on the lips, “I’m so in love with you!”

Chuckling slightly, you leant in for a proper kiss, snaking your arms around his body. Maybe waiting for 30 minutes wasn’t so bad if it meant you could have some much needed cuddle time with Adam?

“I love you too, you big doofus.”

[slythepuffle]

Walking Corpse AU - Part 1

Patty rubbed her eyes as she walked into the morgue, already tired even though her shift just started. The mayor had assigned her a few autopsies that needed to be done, the first on the list being one 'Dexter Erotoph'.

He was a weird case. He had been declared missing back in June, having been last seen by his mother leaving for a job and never returning. She hadn't really cared about it much, until his body was suddenly on one of her tables when she walked into work in October. There had been a little sticky note placed on him: 'Work on this like the others. Don't ask questions. Don't tell anyone outside of the Mayor and Head Doctor about this.'

'Or else.'

Well, there goes her list of questions. She liked her paycheck (and life) a little too much to disobey the cryptic letter. So, she decided to hide his body in storage as she worked through her list of 'patients', down until it was just him and a few others left today.

Her reasoning for that? Well, it was mostly because he was just plain horrifying to look at. The main cause of death had been a simple neck-snapping, but it appeared as though his body had been brutally mutated. His mask had fused to his face somehow, sharp teeth circling what used to be the nozzle. Horns sprouted from his head, while claws fused to his gloves, ending in sharp, dangerous tips.

She also hated seeing his eyes. They kept following her, even when she was far away from the morgue, far out of sight.

So yeah, she didn't want anyone to walk in on that when she was out of the room. Especially if she was supposed to keep this a secret from virtually everyone.

Patty began to set up for Dexter's autopsy, back turned to the body lying on the table. With her back turned, she didn't notice the body twitch.

Or how it slowly began to sit up.

She only noticed, when a sharp crack filled the air, making her flinch. More cracks followed, and she slowly turned, looking at the...

...body?

He was sitting up, staring at the wall away from her. He looked... different now, more normal. The claws were gone, his skin was no longer gray, and the horns were slowly receding into his head, shrinking until they disappeared. She stared, frozen, as he began to look around, never turning to face her.

holyshittheywerestillalive-?!

Slowly, he turned around, body turning to face her. The two blinked at each other.

Patty reached for the intercom button somewhere next to her.

"Mort, I have a fucking situation down here."

~~~~

Mort stepped back from the table, frowning at his new patient.

"Everything seems... normal. No abnormalities or even injuries. No signs he even died."

Patty leaned against the wall, frowning behind her mask. "How? His neck was snapped and his body was mutated. People normally don't recover from that."

The man shrugged, handing Dexter a pen to fidget with. "Hell if I know. The only thing that seems to be wrong with him is the fact he can't remember anything."

Clicking filled the air as Dexter played with the pen, a little delighted smile on his face. The two glanced at him, then returned to their conversation. "Oh, and he's mute. And no, I don't know why either, since his vocal cords seem intact."

Patty huffed, looking at the newly undead patient. He seemed... so unlike the nightmare that she had to hide away for months. That almost scared her more than when she first saw him.

“So… should we call his mom?”

Mort nodded, already bored again. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Tell her that he just wandered in without any memories and no injuries.”

“Mhm.”

Mort left, leaving her alone with Dexter. Patty rolled her eyes - Typical Mort, leaving her with the work. She grumbled as she grabbed her phone, dialing the number left on Dexter’s medical file. He was watching her as she called, head tilted curiously.

"Hello, Miss Erotoph? This is Patricia Azure, I'm a doctor at the hospital. Your son turned up today- Yes, ma'am, he's fine. However, he doesn't seem to have any memories- Oh, right now-? Um, okay, I'll bring him- Or that. That works too, ma'am. See you then."

She placed down the phone, looking at Dexter. He stared back at her, expression curious as she gave a strained smile. "Well, your mom is coming to get you soon. Hopefully, she'll be able to help you with your memories and... your life."

He said nothing. She looked away, unnerved by his constant staring. It almost made her miss his more demonic appearance. "...And, uh, sorry. About the whole... locking you away in a body cabinet. If you even remember that."

His eyes dropped to the floor, and he began clicking the pen again. She sighed, looking away. Well, so much for that. Guess they just had to wait until his mom came.

...Which wasn't long apparently, as she felt her phone ring. "Guess your mom's here. You wait here, I'll go get her."

With that, Patty took her leave, with Dexter now alone in the room.

...They looked down in their lap.

It was very strange, their situation. Apparently, their name was 'Dexter Erotoph', a man who had been missing for quite a few months now, only to suddenly reappear in the hospital. They lived with their mother and worked as an exterminator.

Except, that wasn't right. They weren't Dexter Erotoph.

At least, they didn't think they were. It was just a feeling, that told them that this wasn't right. That something was off and that they were in the wrong body.

Maybe it was just the whole memory-loss thing that they had going on. Or the trauma of the 'mysteriously dying in a horrible but suddenly coming back to life' thing. That could explain their feelings of wrongness.

Yeah, that was probably it.

They continued playing with the pen, clicking noises filling the air again. It was a comforting sound, for some reason. Definitely better than the silence and their thoughts.

The door opened again. They looked up, only to suddenly be wrapped in a tight embrace. They stiffened, eyes locking onto the woman again.

"Ma'am-!" she tried, seeing their uncomfortable expression. "He doesn't- He might not-"

Her words were ineffective and she gave up fast, giving them a helpless shrug. So they were left trapped in an emotional embrace, unsure of how to react to the strange woman - their mother - clinging to them.

They braced themselves, about to gently push her away-

"I was so worried," she cried, voice shaky and sorrowful. They could feel her tears soak their shirt, her body trembling. "I thought something terrible happened... I'm so glad you're okay..."

...

They - Dexter - slowly wrapped their arms around her. A loose hug, but a hug nonetheless.

Even if they weren't actually Dexter which they knew they weren't they could pretend to be. If only to help ease the pain and grief that their mother had experienced.

Besides, it's not like the actual Dexter was ever gonna come back.

~~~~

Elsewhere, a doll is furiously scribbling on pages, trying his best not to lose whatever fragile sanity he has left.

[healingskywalker]

Agony (Shot!Tech AU)

Hello all! I was inspired by the art of the lovely @wrenkenstein​ , who made me spiral so into my feels that I had to make a short story about Tech. Huge thank you to them again for letting me write this, and using this beautifully sad work of art as muse! (Art below)

In this, Tech has been shot by Imperial!Crosshair and is now suffering the consequences of having a permanent injury. I think the rest can speak for itself. Feedback is strongly encouraged, and I hope this finds you well. 

TW: blood, gore, mentions of depression, pain, anger, hopelessness, and injury.

Taglist: @l-lend

Things would never be the same for Tech. 

Agony slithered down his limbs, into his hands, into his fingers, and cascaded down into his soul. The pain is more than just physical. It’s more than just his body, his stomach, his spine, and his hands, it became his everything. The silent lover that he can never be apart from. It’s in his waking thoughts, his bedtime weariness, his daily routine, and it’s crushed down into every decision he makes, and every waking part of his life. 

His brothers may be free. Free from the shackles of an empire that took everything from them - their childhood, their innocence, their comfort, their joy, and twisted their livelihood into something that could be used for their gain—bred for war. A tool for destruction, doomed to a destiny of early death. In many ways, Tech never got that freedom. He never got that chance, and he isn’t free. He didn’t get that peaceful, or rather un-peaceful, moment of liberation that his brothers silently and secretly were relieved to have. 

The empire took everything from him. It stripped him bare, lying him still and cold on the battlefield, chest heaving with the effort of breathing, blood quickly exiting his body. His faith in his brothers, and the empire they once stood for, shattered in a singular heartbeat. His faith left him sooner than the blood did. 

His life was wrenched from himself, spinning out of control. There wasn’t a moment of relief. There wasn’t a moment of pause so he could breathe, collect his thoughts and feelings, and continue trooping on. There wasn’t anything else he could do except move forward and be the trooper that he was always trained to be. Accept the pain. Move on. You deserve the pain. Move forward. 

The shattering reality that things would never be the same hit him almost as hard as the bullet did. His mind never stopped, unlike his body, which hit the ground with a force unrivaled by anything he’d ever felt before. The blood started immediately. The pain took longer to kick in. 

Pain was the only thing he really felt now. It was the front focus of everything that existed in his life. Projects, people, emotions, dreams, and goals were all something that seemed to stay stuck in the past. They left him, truly left him, as he lay on the ship’s dining table, his brothers crowding around him, their frantic voices faint and muffled, as if 10,000ft deep underwater. 

His vision was blurred, and the only thing he could pick out was the fluorescent lights above him, streaked and blurred into shining stars that, had he been a weaker man, would have given him hope. Stars that continued to shine despite the situation he was in, but it was only his tired brain giving him the only excuse it could in order to make things feel better. Too bad he knew better than his brain. 

Too bad he knew that the chances of him surviving were low, and the chances of him coming out without significant damage were even lower. The room was muggy. His skin was pale, and the texture sweaty. His breaths left him in a flurry of quick heaving, hyperventilating, through the agony that seared his everything. 

Shivers raked through his body, pushing more blood through the gaping wound in his stomach. With each beat of his heart, his life source diminished, as did his hope. They were wasting too much time. Had he been the one doing the operation, with his brilliant mind, vast knowledge, and steady hands, things would have already been done. Leave it to his brothers to panic. They could never shut their emotions off quite like he could. 

Logically, he knew that their state of panic came from seeing him nearly dead, as well as having Crosshair be the reason behind it all. Tech’s eyelids fluttered once, twice, and then shut, squeezing them as tight as he could, brow furrowing into an expression of anguish as he felt them truly begin to work on his gaping wound. 

Somewhere deep in his mind, he thought about how much of a mess he was leaving behind on his ship, and how much of a pain getting blood off of the durasteel would be. Somewhere even deeper, he wished that he had died on the battlefield and that he had bled out quicker. The feeling of tweezers plunging into his intestines, the sharp metal stabbing its way along, attempting to locate the bullet that lodged itself into him was something unexplainable. 

Distantly, he heard a shrill, bone-chilling scream and came to the conclusion that it must have been himself. 

It had been almost a year since the incident, and remembering all the gritty details was something that happened often. He couldn’t ever forget the sound of his own screams, the smell of his own blood, and the feel of his intestines being ripped open. 

Most days he lay in bed or walked around in small circles in the Marauder, his head unable to be in the present moment. He could only handle small repairs now. Anything longer than 20 minutes, and fine motor function, he couldn’t handle. Every movement cause physical strain, and every muscle in his body would tense in response to the pain, and he was stuck with it for weeks, unable to relax or get his body to unknot itself, and no amount of baths, massage, or medicine dulled the ache. The ache physically, or emotionally. There was never a reprieve. And now? He could not longer do what he loved. 

It was suffocating. His life no longer lived in the essence of freedom, or the effort for it. Stuck in the moment where things all went wrong, and stuck in a body that will never work the same. They say you only really live once, but when things like this happen, what becomes the motivation to live? It’s not the ideal of getting better. 

There is no getting better. No amount of bacta, band-aids or physical therapy could fix something like this. 

He’s broken. 

Unrepairable. 

The stifling consequences of actions that he didn’t make. The illusion of a happy ending for him and his brothers. Because at least they aren’t being hunted anymore, right? At least not by the Empire. They don’t care enough to come after them, but Crosshair sure did. It was Crosshair’s mission to end them and hunt them down to the ends of the earth.

As much as he tries, Tech is always going to be hunted. Not only by the cursed Empire, or even the determined sniper but by the pain that surrounds his life every second, every minute, every hour of every day, awake or asleep. His dreams are haunted by the feeling and thought of the one moment that ruined everything.

He think often about the ‘how’ of the situation. 

How he should have ducked lower so that the shot hit his armor. How he should have retreated quicker, so Crosshair wouldn’t have had time to get the shot.

 How Crosshair’s chip activated, while the rest of the Batch’s remained dormant.

 How the chips existed in the first place. 

How the Kaminoans, senators, Jedi, and civilians alike regarded the Clones as nothing. 

How they all turned a blind eye to the blatant corruption, child abuse, and grooming that occurred within the Republic that raised good men to be even better killers. 

How the armor they received was more of a visual trick because the plastoid didn’t protect them from much. Certainly not from blaster bolts, and certainly not from themselves. 

How the conditioning they went through should have prepared him better for this moment and this outcome. 

He should have steeled himself for a gruesome end like this. But when you’re part of a squad that has a 100% success rate and dodging death is a daily, you tend to lose some of the fear that comes along with battle, They weren’t shinies anymore. 

They were experienced. They should have known better. Fear is a healthy thing to have in war. 

A sense of invincibility shrouds the mind and gives a false sense of confidence. He regrets that now. He never realized how much he had taken for granted. All the little things that he wouldn’t have thought twice about are now the struggle that plagued his every movement. It consumes and consumes and consumes.

 It’s never-ending, thrumming with him in every heartbeat. The heartbeat that keeps going despite every other part of himself that wishes it would all just stop (please stop, please, please, please). The heartbeat that wishes things could be different. The heartbeat that wishes he could be himself again.

[fangaminghell]

Welp! Spoilers for pokemon rejuvenation, particularly 13.5!!!!!!!!

So in my big ass renegade trio post, I said that Teddy is dead. That is partially true. Teddy did die, though to the rest of the world he simply went missing? Why? Because his body wasn't there when Isador came back with everyone to "save" him. So what happened to the body? Spacea and Tiempa happened. Theodore Arkwright died that day. And Spacea and Tiempa brought him back to life. Which. Isn't exactly allowed, if I'm remembering correctly. Interfering with humans at that level is a no go. But Teddy was a special case. He was a good battler. A very good battler. And his dutiful heart and sense of justice was honestly perfect for the Storm chasers cause. So they decided to bend the rules and bring Teddy back to life, and have him join the Storm chasers.

The thing is, though, that because of the special circumstances of Teddy - being brought back to life - Spacea and Tiempa made sure to keep him as separate as he could from the other Storm chasers. He had his own missions, his own place to life, and was almost always busy. I think Melia only really saw him a couple times - he could never really form a connection with others. Which was fine. He was convinced that he was doing a good thing, and even if....even if he was still alone, without his brother, it would be worth it in the end. Needless to say, unlike others, Teddy has a lot of faith in Spacea and Tiempa.

It's unfortunate,though, what inevitably happens to him. Because like all Storm Chasers, even one of the best like Teddy, once their usefulness was out, they were discarded. And Teddy, inevitably, was no exception. And so, by the end of it all, Teddy dies once more. Whether or not he ever gets to see his brother again is still getting worked out. Though chances are, they do not.

Let's take a step back for a moment because I've explained the Storm chasers part, but never fully explained Teddy.

Teddy is everything that Isador wants. Teddy is kind, heroic, and patient to a fault. In many ways, he is like his father. I mentioned in the renegade post that the twins father was a well respected member of his community: many people looked up to him. So when he died, the people of the town looked at someone else- young Teddy. Because he was kind, heroic, patient to a fault and noticeably, talented. He could be the one to save the town. He would be their hero. And what an unfair thing to put on a child.

Truthfully speaking, Teddy never wanted to be considered the hero. He loves helping people yes, and for his town, he would do anything but. He didn't want all that attention. All he wanted was to be with his twin brother, the only person he felt he could be himself with. Cause here's the thing. Isador hated and envied ( and loved?) Teddy. Teddy absolutely adored and loved Isador. Because it was really all he had. Teddy never wanted for Isador to feel left out- he wanted them to do things together, laugh together, battle together. Even when Isador left him for dead, he couldn't even be angry. He hoped that one day the two could just talk and hope that maybe, it was just a mistake. He hoped that one day there would be no tension between them, and that they could just be brothers again. That's all he wanted.

But that day never came.

In paragon, because of the reset and Will's Curse, Teddy is an only child. He does not remember Isador. No one does. And yet he always feels like something is missing. He was never able to get Oblitus town on the maps like the town had hoped, though because he was always the favorite, they were never mad at him. He helps around the town as he can, and tries to keep everyone in spirit. He's still the town's little hero. A lone hero. Shouldering his own grief and responsibility all on his own. But he tries. He really does. That's the best he can do anyway.

Oh! Fun fact. The red scarf that Isador wears in canon? It's Teddy's. Isador is very protective of that scarf. He refuses to take it off even at his own detriment, and gets very anxious when it's not with him. It's funny. It's a reminder of the person he hates the most. And yet, he doesn't leave without it. Odd.