#mud grief

[mudwisard]

i cannot overstate how obsessed i am with this band. their ep has me by the throat. the fact that they have mud in the name is only a small factor

[sleepyhurts]

moodboard for living in the us as someone isn't a straight rich white christian man

[chronically-ghosted]

i'm empty without you, so come grow within me

AO3 Link | main masterlist | Joel Miller Masterlist

rating: explicit (18+)

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

word count: 9K

summary: with winter approaching, joel takes stock of what he wants and what he has in his life. he wants you, but he's not quite sure he has you, not in a way that only a life in Jackson can afford. joel's an old-fashioned guy, so he's looking for an old-fashioned love . . . if he can only remember how to do it right.

inspired by the songs 'why don't we just dance' by Josh Turner and 'the kind of love we make' by Luke Combs, this fulfills a request from @handsomehelmet for my 1k celebration (creativity struck and now i'm going to make it everyone's problem)

warnings: the nastiest thing i can possibly imagine which is romance and sincerity, some willie nelson lyrics, established situationship, no age of reader specified, body insecurity, feelings of unworthiness/shame, survivor's guilt, blatant disregard for old man knees by eating pussy on the floor, unprotected piv, a teenager bullying fully grown adult to quit being stupid.

a/n: i know everyone gets into a tizzy when Joel doesn’t name what Tess is to him in front of Bill and while there probably was a heaping amount of guilt that accompanied that omission, i wonder if it might be a bit more complicated: he simply couldn’t name one thing because she was all things to him. A friend, a lover, a guide, a support system, a protector, a partner. So he says it the best way he can: “she’s mine.”

come see what else we've done to celebrate 1K followers

By the fourth bag, all you can think about is a warm shower. 

A chance to scrub away the dirt smeared on your arms, your neck, probably your face. You’d brought your own work gloves to bag fresh dirt for the greenhouse, but the longer you work, more sprinkles of dirt find their way down the lip of your gloves. You can feel it against your palms, under your nails. The cold winter air lurks beneath the crack of the door, stifled from invading by the artificial heat provided by the generator just outside, and it stifles you too with its oppressive weight. You’re fairly sure the dirt on your forehead has turned to mud, sweat and damp earth encrusted on your dry skin. 

By the sixth, you doubt your shoulders will ever move again without popping. 

You know Joel’s already do. 

Never a particularly chatty man even in his best moods, the greenhouse had become stuffy with heat and silence, both you and Joel too lost in the work to find the energy to even fake idle chatter. But, knowing this about Joel and a certain degree yourself, silences with him were never a bad thing. That was one of the things you enjoyed most about being with him; you two could do your own things together. Many snowy days were spent with him stretched out on the couch, reading, and you working on writing your sheet music on the floor, his knee hovering over your shoulder with your back to the cushions – spent in total silence, and they are some of the fondest memories you had since coming to Jackson and falling into the third and final piece of the Miller-Williams household. 

Like with the end of the world, you weren’t sure how you got there until everything had fallen into place around you; Joel and his adoptive daughter had been just another group who were taken in by the town of Jackson . . . until they weren’t. Ellie was just another foul-mouthed kid who had seen too much and had too much taken from her . . . until she wasn’t. Joel was your occasional patrol partner and a fellow Willie Nelson fan. . . until he wasn’t.

Until that unmistakable line, one that seemed to be lost on a global scale beneath the blood and the gore and the grief, had been crossed when he asked you out for drinks and the both of you knew the evening wasn’t going to end in a nightcap. 

And then you were partners, even outside of patrol. Partners in re-enforcing a weakened part of Jackson’s outer walls. Partners in cooking, attempting to recreate an enchilada recipe Joel only vaguely remembered from a Tex-Mex hole-in-the-wall fifteen minutes from where he used to live in Austin. Partners when it’s snowing heavily outside and there’s not much to do except to read and, well . . . Joel was a fantastic partner in that.

Joel Miller was a great partner for a lot of things. He worked diligently, quickly and, unless the conversation was started by someone else, silently. 

He, in short, was not someone who was easily distracted.

Which, in combination with your own exhaustion and a desire to scrub the first layer of your skin off with a loofah, is why you feel a flare of annoyance when you look up and see him staring off into the distance. His fingers loosely grip the handle of the shovel, his palm resting over the curved point, Joel’s expression is nearly unreadable, except for the small crevice between his eyebrows. He stands, fixated on the greenhouse wall, as if watching the blurry Christmas lights from the town square, suddenly oblivious to the work you two have been doing for the past hour and a half. 

“Joel.” Nothing. “Joel!” 

You raise your hand to smack him on the leg when, without looking down, he asks:

“When was the last time I took you out?” 

“What?”

His weight shifts, holds the shovel by one hand now. You catch a sliver of frustration in those deep brown eyes as he looks at you. He wears what you and Ellie secretly refer to as his “pouty-mouth”, a classic expression when he isn’t getting his way about something but won’t draw attention to the fact that it annoys him.

“Tell me about the last date I took you on.”

You huff, standing up with a pop in your hips. Your knees are aching from kneeling on the cold winter ground and your skin fluxes between overheating under your jacket and stiffly frozen on your extremities. 

“Joel, c’mon, be serious. We’ve got three more –,”

“I am being serious.” Dumb-founded, you watch as he digs the tip of the shovel into the ground with a hollow chunk. Crosses his arms and continues to frown at you like you just suggested doing away with the Christmas holiday entirely. “We’ll get to this, but I want you to tell me right now what we did on our last date.”

You roll your eyes, humoring him. “Fine, I don’t know what crawled up your ass, but okay. On our last date, we . . . we did . . . you took me to . . .”

It’s your turn to frown. He raises a petulant eyebrow and it’s eerie how many times you’ve seen that exact expression on Ellie. 

“Okay, fine, so it’s been a while. We’ve been busy – we’ve all been busy with the winter season coming. All of Jackson has been out battening down the hatches. What does it matter if we’ve let things slide a bit?”

He doesn’t answer immediately, quiet in his Joel way. He glances out through the blurred greenhouse glass and maybe he was actually staring at the string lights hung over Jackson’s square. Normally, you didn’t mind being unable to dissect his every expression, every sigh, every carefully wielded silence, but when it came to you and his feelings about you – feelings that were always implied in those silences – you wished you had a little window, some hint, as to what rumbled on behind those earth-dark eyes. 

Joel drums his fingers on the handle of the shovel, unease rolling through his body as he shifts his weight. 

“Matters some,” he tells the ground. “With the holidays comin’ around . . . matters for Ellie – her first winter here in Jackson. Matters for Tommy, with that new baby of his . . .”

“Your nephew,” you supply as much as prod. Sometimes the only way to get an honest answer out of him was when he was just a bit pissed off and less guarded. Instead he just nods, gloved hand on his hip, thick jacket widening his already confounding broadness.

“It matters because it’s important. To me. It’s important to me.”

He meets your gaze and you’re struck full force again with that feeling like you drank too much of the Tipsy Bison’s shitty whiskey too fast. Same feeling that couldn’t be drowned even with the Tipsy Bison’s shitty whiskey when you shared a drink with him for the first time. When you managed to laugh when he bet you a whole day of stable cleaning duties that Willie Nelson and Chris Stapleton survived the apocalypse somewhere in a shack in Tennessee. Joel Miller was disarmingly funny when he wanted to be.

And even worse, disarmingly sincere.

You take his gloved hand in yours. You feel the sensation of his fingers threading through yours but not the heat you’ve grown so accustomed to. 

“Alright, then. What do you want to do about it?” You ask quietly, to the upturned collar around his neck, his green flannel peeking out from behind the zipper of his jacket. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there’s a lot of snow on the ground so that makes our options for date night kinda limited.” You scrunch your nose at him because you like to see the light in his eyes bloom when you do.

He chuckles, a rumbling sound, and he drops his forehead against yours, fingers tightening their grip around yours. Suddenly in your throat, your heart pounds. He’s never this affectionate in public. Maybe it’s those miraculously blurred greenhouse glass walls. 

His breath smells like that peppermint toothpaste that came in last week, infused with the warming-coil smell from the greenhouse. 

“Dunno yet.” He admits. “I’ll think of somethin’.”

“No ideas yet?” You raise your eyebrows against his forehead and he grins, shaking his head.

“Not yet.” 

“Then can I make a suggestion?”

“‘Course.”

“We finish bagging this dirt, then head home for a shower. In a really sexy way, obviously.” 

He huffs, smothering a laugh, and quick as lightning he kisses you on the cheek. But in the same movement, steps away and grabs the shovel again. You don’t have time to react to the fact he just kissed you for the first time outside of the four walls of his house before he’s scooping up dirt. You drop to your knees to pick up the bag again, your legs already weak.

“We both know you’re going to pass out on the couch the second we’re home.”

Your voice is steadier than you feel, as you look up at him. His face is flushed and that worry line between his eyes is gone. 

“You got me pegged, Miller. You got me pegged.”

Two days later, he stands in the middle of his living room, hands on his hips, surveying his handiwork. All of the furniture has been pushed to the far ends of the room, up against the walls or against the staircase out in the hallway. He’s kept the overhead lights off and put the standing lamps in the corners, bathing the room in a despondent glow. He thinks, after a quarter of a century never even entertaining something like this, it might be interpreted as romantic. He hopes you’ll see it that way at least. 

He hears it now, in his head, even though she’s out in the disconnected garage, snug and warm as he could have possibly made it – you worry too much, old man. 

Ellie knows there’s something going on between you two. Hell, the entire town has cottoned onto whatever this is; you’re often seen leaving his house early in the morning, and he’s been seen on occasion strolling up to your house with flowers. It’s not new, it’s not a secret, but it is . . . it just is and that’s about as far as he’s gotten. 

He hasn’t had you over for dinner with Ellie in that very specific way that very much needs to happen, as it often does when there is a new presence added to an established dynamic – as Maria often reminds him. But that almost feels like presenting your head on a silver plate to Ellie to either sniff with disinterest or tear into – both terrifying scenarios, even though they seem unlikely. Ellie does in fact seem to like you very much, as her riding teacher and occasional greenhouse buddy. But would she continue to like you in the context of you being one half of “You and Him” as a pair? Together. As a couple . . . of people who are seeing each other, whatever that means in a world filled with the most aggressive form of fungus imaginable. 

This life in Jackson, this fragile second chance to remember and rekindle his own natural instincts, is too precious to bet on a question like that. 

So he doesn’t ask it. At least not out loud. 

That’s one of the things he likes so much about you: his silences aren’t entirely indecipherable and often are encouraged by your own. Except this silence about this particular thing doesn’t feel like one of your shared, comfortable moments and instead it’s encroaching rapidly into avoidance. 

Standing in that greenhouse and seeing the string lights over the town square reminded him of a long ago Christmas, dancing with his favorite person under a Christmas tree, and how good it made him feel. How special it made him feel. All these years later, safe in a way his body has almost forgotten, there’s an urge he has to share that feeling, to recreate it under entirely different circumstances, with someone new. Someone else. To not try and fight the smile that constantly threatens to buoy up every time he’s around you. 

It’s foreign, that feeling in his chest, but it’s not entirely alien, at least not of late. 

He knows he’s white-knuckling it because he knows firsthand how painfully quick it can all be gone. Taken away. Left and buried by a black river while the world burns.

But he’s worried he’ll crush it with how tightly he holds on. How hard he begs a silent universe for it to last just a little bit longer. 

His knees ache, his left shoulder goes tight when it rains, his body is not what it once was, but his mind is still there, still clear, and he remembers how romance used to feel, where it used to reside in his younger body, and as he stares out at the cleared room, listening to your footsteps overhead as you attempt to follow his vague instructions to “make yourself feel pretty” (because you already were to him, even covered in dirt and sawdust), he thinks this feels like the old world. An old world romance. It’s foreign, that feeling, but for the first time in a long time he doesn’t want to hold it at arm’s length.

“Joel?” You call from the top of the stairs, your voice tentative and cautious. But not cautious like you peeking around a corner to look for clickers. But cautious as in unsure, doubtful. You are a woman made up of a lot of things, with foundations unlike he’d ever seen before, but doubt is not a part of you. You never doubt him. 

“Yeah, baby?” Your nerves make him nervous and he futzes with a lampshade while waiting for you.

“Are you done down there?” 

He has to breathe slowly through the fluttering beneath his breastbone before he can answer. “Yeah, baby, all finished. You can come down now.”

“Okay . . . but you can’t laugh.” Him, laugh at you? There’s the instinct to smother the faint grin that spreads out across his mouth, but he told himself he wasn’t going to fight whatever came across his face tonight. If you see it, then you see it and he’s come to accept that. 

(Maybe even want that.)

He shakes his head, his only pair of nice boots (a thank you from a former rancher when Joel fixed his family’s heater) clicking on the hardwood floor as he stands at the bottom of the stairs. You must be hiding behind the wall because he can’t see you. 

“I’m not gonna laugh, sweetheart. Why d’ya think I’d laugh?” 

Silence faces him at the top of the stairs, and then:

“Because quite frankly I forgot my tits could look like this and I don’t know how to feel about it.” 

The snort that comes out of him is a poor attempt to muffle the chuckle. He thumbs the wood finial at the top of the bannister. 

“Can’t remember ever having any complaints before and I don’t think I’ll have ‘em now, no matter how they look.” 

“Whatever, Miller, you’re just a horn dog.” 

He rolls his eyes, fingers rubbing anxiously together at his side, as if he could tug the fluttering out of his chest. He leans on the other foot, the one with the bad knee, to adjust the slightly uncomfortable tightness in his jeans. A dark swirl in the second step of the stairs has become wildly interesting.

“Baby, just come down here. I’m not gonna laugh. Promise.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that,” you grumble, still out of sight. “I know where you keep your feral child and I will not hesitate to let her loose on you.”

Joel nods, grinning faintly, still focused resolutely on the whorl in the floor. “That’s a real big threat from someone who –,”

The words die in his throat.

In fact, he’s quite sure he won’t be capable of speech for a very long time. 

That foreign feeling – that feeling he’s worked for twenty years to suppress – is ignited in his chest. 

You walk, no, maybe you float down the stairs in the most stunning red dress he’s ever seen. It’s definitely not yours – he knows every inch of your closet because he had inspected it studiously when you offered to keep some of his clothes at your place and he was trying very hard to delay putting a handful of his belongings beside a woman’s things in a move that felt heart-stoppingly domestic. 

No, he has never, ever seen you in this dress. 

Come to think of it, he’s never seen you in any dress and you were entirely correct that your tits look wildly different. Fantastically different, but –

“Maria didn’t have any heels that fit me to go with the dress,” you announce airily, your chin up. But your eyes dart over his face as if looking for something you need to find. “But it’s fourteen degrees outside, Joel, and I’m not doing whatever this is in just socks because that’s ridiculous so you’re just going to have to deal with the boots.”

The Boots. The ones you wear while crushing clicker skulls and tending the stables. They still bear damp spots from where you tried to clean the blood and dirt from the leather.

It’s rather incapacitating how arousing he finds this particular combination.

So much so, he doesn’t realize he hasn’t said anything in a full minute until you bark at him, a cold tinge of panic in your voice.

“Joel!” His eyes snap to yours. Of course, you’re fucking beautiful – your eyes seem bigger, cheeks pinker, mouth wet – fucking Christ, where did you get make up? 

“Say something!” Those rosy lips drop down and to his horror, you’re upset. “Please!”

“B-baby, you look . . .” He doesn’t mean to grab your entire ass in one hand; he just wants to feel as much of that velvet on your skin as possible. You stumble into his arms, another something that is so unlike you, as he tugs you forward. Bends his lips to your ear to discover how fast you’re breathing. How fast your pulse races in your neck. The shudder that breaks the rigidity of your body when he brushes his mouth, the short bristles of his beard, against your skin is no surprise; you told him exactly what that sensation does to you in no uncertain terms the first night he ate you out on the table of your kitchen. “You look incredible.”

Your fingers bite into his biceps. Push back out of his arms, despite the obvious warmth in your cheeks. You level his arousal in a single glare. “Joel, I asked you not to tease.” 

Tommy once told him he was a pain in the ass to be around sometimes because he displays every negative emotion as anger and so it’s damn near impossible to figure out whatever it was he was so bent out of shape about.

Sadness as anger.

Shame as anger.

Guilt as anger.

Fear as anger.

With your fingers balled up, it's the tremor in your fists that gives you away. 

He had genuinely intended this to be a quiet night away from the cafeteria, away from the Tipsy Bison, away from anyone else. He wanted you all to himself and in his greed, he didn’t see it until he saw it in your eyes. 

How vulnerable being pretty made you. How vulnerable privacy made you. 

How being vulnerable made you so deeply, deeply afraid. 

Almost as afraid as he was. 

Without a word, he turns to the record player, strategically hidden behind the couch and puts on the carefully selected record. The silent scratches for a moment before –

Your eyes widen as Nelson begins to sing his most beautiful love song (in Joel’s humble opinion). Your shoulders slacken, hands lose their grip, you blink up at him in total bewilderment. You aren’t an indecisive person, you’re quick as a whip, rarely confused – so this befuddled look on your face is kinda cute. 

Tucking that rare look on your face away for another time, Joel wanders to the center of the room, in the heat of the light from the fireplace, his good boots clicking over the wood. He opens his arms, hand out to you.

“Let’s try something new tonight.”

I'll always be with you for as long as you please

For I am the forest but you are the trees

The decision you make is a visible one. 

Your palm is warm, weighted as it slides over his. This time his hand respectably settles on your waist, then on your low back when (to his surprise) you come closer. He’s delighted to watch you smile at him, distantly aware of the stretch of his own on his face. 

Willie strums on his guitar, crooning softly, the sound warm and deep. With the weight of you against his chest, that feeling crackles like the flames over the wood logs in the fireplace. You drop your head, turn your cheek, and just before you come to rest on his shoulder, he sees your smile slide into a smirk.

“New, huh? What’s new look like for a sixty-five-year-old man at the end of the world?” Even with teasing, your voice is soft and sweet, the soft powder of cinnamon. Slowly, as if not to startle either one of you, he leans his chin against your forehead.

“You n’ I’ve been burning both ends, keepin’ the lights on. New to us is having a goddamn break.” His voice is low, meant only for you, and in the tremble of his deep bass, the words elongate in his mouth. He brings your intertwined hands just under his chin and when that goes well, he tightens his grip around your back, drawing you flush against him. It reduces the dancing to more of a sway but Joel can’t find a single thing to complain about. You gently tap the pad of your middle finger in the hollow of his collarbone to the beat of the song.

I'm empty without you so come grow within me

For I am the forest and you are the trees

And the heavens need romance so love never dies

“‘N ‘m only fifty-six, jackass.” 

You grin, twisting in his grasp, rub your nose on his chest to wrap your arms around his neck. He clutches to your back like a key finding its lock. 

You'll be the stars dear and I'll be the sky

And should any of this find us let them all be forewarned

That you are the thunder and I am the storm

“This is nice, Joel,” you murmur in his ear. The backs of his arms are growing warm by the fire. He presses his lips to your exposed shoulder, unsure of what to say, or what not to say, only nodding. He closes his eyes, trying to hold this moment forever in his memory. The soft flare of your waist, the winged-spread of your ribs, beneath his hands brings him back into your arms.

"Yeah?" Quiet, into your skin as if to muffle the question entirely, to muffle the unsure wobble in his voice. "It's good?"

He feels you nod beneath his chin, the smell of fresh soap escaping from the back of your neck, and the clamp around his throat loosens. He breathes, unimpeded for the first time all night, a low exhale taking the tension from his body as the air leaves his lungs.

Relief. A sinking down into the moment, into your arms.

You chuckle with your cheek against his chest and he feels the vibrations down to his stomach.

"Yeah, Joel, you did good. Really good." With the hand he holds in the air, you rub your thumb over the knuckle of his thumb, soothing. It used to bother him you could read the lines of his emotions as well as you read a book, as well as you write your own name, effortlessly, as if you had been given a guide no one ever thought to show him. But now, now that you understand how much this means to him, that you know he needs to be told he made you happy, it's more than relief. It's an unburying – a resuscitation of pieces of himself (seed-like bone fragments) that he thought had long since died in the soil of his ribs. "Thank you. I needed this."

He wants you to see the whole of him. Lift up an antiquated silver plate and show you the dents and scratches in his reflection. When you kiss his cheek gently, the hope floating in his chest flares, a solar explosion with tendrils that reach into the blackness of space and it asks him, what would you do to keep her?

Everything. Anything.

He shuffles closer, feels the warmth of your body lined up against his, the clean scent beneath the edge of your jaw blooming in his nose and throat. The hope hums, pitches dark like the forest floor in the rain, and grows teeth. His want for you digs into his skin and evolves into a needy, unsatisfied thing.

“Where’d you get this dress, hm?” He asks, lips half an inch from your shoulder. It falls and rises, never catching on your skin as he plays with the fabric. He runs his palm up your spine, the velvet coming with him, and watches as the swell of your thighs and the tease of your ass is revealed. Dirty old man. “‘N who do I have to kill to get you to keep it?”

You laugh into his neck. He wonders if you’re intentionally twisting his curls at the base of his neck to send sparks of arousal down his spine or if you are completely unaware of the cause of his insanity. Your hands are littered with scars and calluses and every time you touch him, he could melt through the floorboards.

“They found it in some strip mall and were actually going to strip it down for material. But Aaron at the sewing center owed me a favor and you said wear something nice, so . . .” You thumb the lip of his collar, your fingertips brushing the knot of his spine every time you drag your fingers back and forth. 

And I'll always be with you for as long as you please

For I am the forest and you are the trees

He knows you well enough to know that something lingers in your mind, but even after all this time, even after what he’s seen with you, been through with you, the things he’s done to you – he isn’t quite sure if he has the right to ask. 

Instead, he squeezes you. He means to do it just with his hands, but ends up swallowing you in his arms. 

Your mouth is pressed up against his chest when you finally go on. 

“It just seems silly to keep, Joel.” 

The high he’s been riding on all night falters, since you first walked down those stairs to him. Your eyes are wet when he pulls back and cups you by your cheek. He stops swaying with you.

“Why’s that?” 

There it is, that all too familiar flicker of fear. You can’t look at him, despite his every touch, his every glance pulling you into him, to be near him. 

“Because other people should have it. They should have a chance to . . .” 

You withdraw your head from his hands, his thumb brushing your jaw as you retreat. He might actually lose a piece of himself if you let go now, but instead you clasp his wrists in your fingers. You stare at your hands and his between you, as if this whole thing between you could solidify at your feet, finally real. 

Willie has stopped singing, only that musky drone on an empty track.

“Someone else should have a chance to feel pretty, to feel this way, because it shouldn’t be wasted and I’m afraid – I wonder if –,”

He knows he’s being a bit too rough when he takes your jaw and straightens your gaze to him, but his heart might fly out of his chest before he has a chance to say anything. His stomach turns, not knowing he’s not at the peak of a roller coaster drop, that he’s standing on solid ground, even if it swims under his feet.

“What you feel is not wasted.” A murmur, stern, as steadily and as serious as he possibly can be.

That feeling aches in his chest and you haven’t even gone anywhere. You haven’t left . . . yet. “What this is, is not wasted time. I spent twenty years wasting time, looking for something that wasn’t there, and with you . . . I can’t say I’ve found it –,”

“Why? Why can’t you say you’ve found it?” Your grip around his wrists tightens, eyes hard. “Why can’t you name it, Joel?”

“Can you?” He pulls his hands out of your grip and you let him go. “How can you ask for what you want when you can’t even ask to keep this dress?” 

“Because I don’t deserve it!” It’s not silence that follows; it’s emptiness. You face away from him, pressing the heel of your hand into your brow bone, teeth slightly bared. Your arm bars across your stomach like you are literally holding in your guts. Finally, you lift your head, the few scant tears on your face sparkling in the firelight. “I don’t deserve you, Joel. I don’t deserve any of this. Ellie, the way she . . . I’m here, warm and happy, acting like the fucking world hasn’t ended. Playing house, playing pretend. Pretending like I’m your –,”

You swallow the words caught in your throat, gaze leaping away from him. At your side, your hand trembles again. 

Oh, honey, the shit I’ve done . . . 

With wide, wet eyes, you watch him approach. He doesn’t look at you, instead seeing exactly where he’d like to put his lips on your stomach beneath the fabric. 

“Then what do you want, hm?” There’s a fold in the front of the dress and he runs his fingers along the edge of it. “We can’t fix it. Can’t go back ‘cause there’s nothin' to go back to. I don’t care what you had to do to get here, right here, with me because I’m so fuckin’ glad you are. I’m not pretending, not wasting my time, never was. ‘Cause you’re right.” 

Your hand over his stills his endless roving and then it stays, scarred hand over scarred hand. Your gesture says something to him, something so meaningful he has no idea how to put it into words. He swallows his attempt and instead, slowly, drags both hands over your hips, where they stay. Heavy against the velvet. 

You rest your own against his forearms, neither pulling him in or pushing him back. 

“I was right about what?”

His eyes flick to yours and maybe it’s presumptuous, maybe he really is an old man afraid of his feelings, or maybe living this long – despite everything that ever tried to make it otherwise – living this long has granted him the privilege of knowing with perfect clarity what you’re thinking when you look at him like that. How he wants to whisper it back to you and he decides he will the next time your skin is warm and tacky, body helpless beneath his. 

Your eyes shamelessly track the brush of his tongue against his bottom lip.

“That you’re mine. Just like I’m yours.” 

The hands at his forearms glide up to his chest. The rims of your irises have gone a bit blurred, a bit unstable, and you can’t decide whether to look at his mouth or his eyes.

“Joel?” Suddenly breathy, all begging, pleading.

“Hm?”

“Get me out of this fucking dress.” 

When your lips crash into his, his entire world narrows down to where on his body, yours touches: 

your rough hand cradling his cheek, the other fisting the collar of his shirt. His fingers digging into your skirt, the heat from your thigh nearly driving him to tear straight through the fabric to get to you. Your sweet, perfect mouth smeared against his, lips puffed pink, nose to your cheek. 

That warm, wet cunt he thinks he can feel through his boxers, jeans, the dress and your underwear. 

It’s not enough. 

The cry you let out is some mangled mix of a moan and his name when he licks the soft supple skin behind your ear and nips your earlobe.

“Baby, please – please – bedroom, we have to–,”

He grunts his disapproval at your words, overwhelmed by the scent that makes his mouth water as he stains the column of your throat with wet, humid kisses. 

“Joel, c’mon, honey, just upstairs –,” 

The last flickering tiny speckle of logic in his brain fights with itself; take your right here or haul you over his shoulder – which isn’t great for his back and, quite frankly, he intends to spend most of the night on his knees. 

First option it is. 

You mumble in confusion, eyes shut, chin brushing the thread of gray curls on the top of his head as he purposefully sucks a bright hickey into your collarbone, one hand cupping your breast, the other pushing you backwards. You go willingly, of course. 

Until the backs of your legs hit the couch and there’s nowhere else to go. In the stumble, your dress rides up even higher and those thighs he’s actually lost sleep over appear to him. He drops to his knees, hands like meat hooks as they squeeze your waist, pulling that warm cunt even closer to him over the edge of the couch. You groan when he pushes the skirt up even higher, practically to your tits, as he explores your outer, then inner thighs with soft strokes of the back of his hands. He presses his nose to the crevice between your thigh and hip and inhales. 

“B-baby, the windows,” you swallow thickly, slurring like you’re drunk, grabbing at his shoulders like you’re trying to steady yourself, or turn him towards the windows. “I mean – the curtains, baby, the curtains are –,”

“It’s a fucking blizzard outside,” he explains tersely with his eyes still closed, as if irritated to have a conversation instead of focusing every ounce of concentration he has to the heat and smell beneath your black panties. He drags his teeth over the elastic band around your hips and makes you whine his name for an entirely different reason. 

You don’t make him stop or wait when he tugs those panties down your hips. In fact, you help, lifting your hips, the irises of your eyes so wide and black, you look halfway out of your mind.

Good.

He gathers the skirt he was once so fond of and stuffs it into the cushions behind you. You watch him as he moves, eyes half-lidded, finger scraping your bottom lip. Around his ribs, your knees dip back and forth, moving targets, like he’s forgotten why he’s here and needs reminding. 

His big paw, the size of which makes you feel indescribably small, catches your knee and stills it, gaze dark and heavy. Do not test me right now. You try not to moan. 

“Can’t believe I’m going to let you fuck me with my boots on,” you whisper airly, watching with delirious fascination as he puts one of your slender legs over his shoulder. His mouth is actually watering at the sight of your damp curls. 

“Not gonna fuck you. Just gonna eat your pussy. You’ll know the difference.”

“Semantically, it’s the sa-a-me thi-ng, Jo-e – ah, Joel!” 

His tongue up inside you turns you into a whiny, high-pitched, feminine mess. He eats like he does everything else: diligently, quickly, and silently. 

Until you bury your fingers in his ash-flecked curls and tug. 

That first deep, loud moan ripples through his body, rolling him up just off his heels, his crotch seeking some kind – any kind – of friction. 

The feel of his mouth humming against your cunt has your eyes rolling back in your head. “Please, oh fuck, please –” 

You are a grown woman. You should not be making these noises. 

You also shouldn’t be using a man’s face to get off . . . but you do it anyway.

“Tha’s it, baby,” he mutters when your hips grind against his face. His nose catches your clit and around him, your thighs wobble. “Use me, fuckin’ use me.” 

His grip around your calf over his shoulder turns rough and he knows he’ll bruise you, but fuck, the thought of you walking around town with a mark in the shape of his hand where everyone can see —

He briefly lifts his grip from your thigh to adjust his iron-hot cock in his jeans. From his view over your cunt, it doesn't seem like you noticed, or even saw him leave your skin. He watches you writhe, try to capture your breath, eyes crammed shut as your hips rock almost without your control. He takes a chance to lick the musky dampness from his upper lip when your cunt rolls back from his face a fraction of an inch — and then he sinks in again.

Call it age or the fact that you both are here at the end of the world, but the first night he ate you out, you told him exactly how and where you like it, unabashed and in control and honestly it’s the hottest thing he can think of in recent memory. 

He would have written it down on the backs of his eyelids if he could. 

He follows it to the letter.

“Joel – Joel, baby, please don’t stop –,” You buck and moan beneath him as he spells out your instructions with his tongue along your cunt. He dots the i’s with a tap of his tongue or a lick on your clit. Just inches above his head, your chest heaves, your fingers locked into his curls, gently pushing him closer to your puffy pussy as if he’d ever waste a drop of what leaks out of you. 

With a flat-tongued brush against your suffering clit, you arch off the couch, your sighs now verging on desperate, high and whinging, because it’s just not fair how good he makes you feel. He can feel your foot curl against the planes of his back, the rubber heel heavy, your mouth open and wet, with your eyes locked on the ceiling as you try to ride out your humming orgasm with a semblance of control.

“Look at me.” 

No other man has ever been able to make you come with just his mouth, you told him once.

And no other man ever will. 

It’s sweet, the way your eyes soften briefly when you lock eyes with him, crouched between your thighs — before your head tips back, lips wrenched apart in a silent scream, and you come, as hard as he has worked for the flush of slick down his chin.

There’s goosebumps on your thighs, he notes. He rubs his thumb against your raised skin and you shudder, head rolling against the back of the couch.

He’s already feeling a slight twinge of shame at the noise his knees will inevitably make when he stands, but for now he’s content watching you glide down from your high, his head against your knee, shoulders still stretching your legs open wide. 

To his delight, you manage to laugh, your hand draping over your eyes. You can see the shine of the dull light all across his lips, his chin, his nose and you have to close your eyes. He should make you lick it off him, but not tonight.

“Top marks, Miller, as usual,” you mumble, “but the threat of voyeurism really deserves the extra credit.” 

He grins. Still waiting for your breath to slow, he wipes his mouth with his palm and slides the leg over his shoulder down in between his own thighs. Propped up on one knee, he begins to unlace your boot. He holds your calf like it’s delicate as he gently drags the boot over your heel. 

He’s just as reverent with the other side. 

And then your boots, the pair, sit at the end of his couch, like they were always meant to be there. 

His heart, easing down from its own thunderous beat, squeezes and that feeling, that strange-not-so-strange feeling, the one that dictates practically every action with you, dribbles into his veins. 

You open one eye. A flutter of lashes, coy and playful, the curve of your mouth guarding a hoard of secrets.

“Now, Joel Miller . . . will you take me to bed?” 

It’s a question. A request. Your eyes, as dark as ever, on his warm his chest, all the way down his spine. You’re asking, politely, for a thing you both know he would never, ever deny you. 

He cannot lose you, he just can’t. 

He stands and, yes, his knees crack and pop, but he regains stability when he toes off his only good pair of cowboy boots. He nods, grinning, and offers you his hand.

The walk, half-run up to his bedroom is something his brain designates as not important enough to store away. 

Instead, it languishes in the way you stretch out on his mattress before him, ass in the air, knees spread over his blankets and arms sliding through crumpled sheets towards the headboard. 

The room is dark, the only light fighting its way through the downpour of snow comes from the lamp posts that dot the street outside. But the veil of snow warps the light and everything in the half-darkness is doused in blue. 

The shadowy, blurred curve of your shoulder, blue. 

The spread of your fingers on his mattress, blue.

The swollen bottom of lip of your mouth —

“Joel.” 

The snow falls so fast and hard, it patters against the windows and the sides of the house. It’s the only thing he can hear over the pounding of his heart and the short breath in his lungs. He stares at you, soaking his blankets in your scent and slick, and you stare right back in utter and total silence. 

You sit in the center of his bed, bare for him beneath the velvet dress that is red like blood, your patchy white socks at complete odds with your smeared make up and the fucked-out look in your eyes. But there’s something else there too. 

Something softer. Gentler. 

You reach out a hand to him and he goes to you, like always. The instant your skin touches his the instinct to fuck you hard until you’re bruised and crying evaporates. He doesn’t think you want that anymore either. 

No, you need — 

“Joel, please come here. I need you.” 

You need him.

The mattress squeaks when he settles one knee and then the other on top of it, his fingers stroking your ear, brushing the tips of your hair, while he kisses you with an ache that is not physically manifested. Instead, it resides —

“I love you,” you whisper. 

You pull back infinitesimally, just enough that your eyes are all he sees. 

A patient silence hangs from the ceiling. The sound of snow falling. Of baited breath. The scratch of your fingers against at his beard —

“I love you too.” You smile and his body is no longer big enough to contain his heart. “I feel like I’ve always loved you. Is that strange?” 

Your gaze traces the same path your fingers take when you think he’s sleeping; it runs over his nose, his forehead, his eyebrows, the plush curve of his lips. Like you can’t believe he’s there with you. Like you can’t believe he’s real. 

That feeling — that feeling he had been fighting because it always was the only thing that would ever really do him in — is love. He loves you. 

He loves you.

And you love him. 

Didn’t think they told stories like this anymore, not in a world like this. So maybe, for once, Joel Miller just got lucky. 

“No. It’s not. Just be sure you mean it.”

He can't tell if the glow in your eyes comes from within you or it beams out of him. “Every word.”

Eventually, he sheds you of his favorite dress of yours, your only dress, and he lays you back, fully bare in the nest of his blankets. In the corner of his bedroom, the heater hisses like the wind from a purple storm, the static crackle of warmth hovering in the air. You watch, with eyes that shine like stars, as he pops apart the pearl-snaps holding his shirt together. 

And then his white undershirt goes next. He used to worry what he looked like, until he found someone else who had done exactly what was necessary to survive. 

When he goes to unzip his pants, you sit up, hair mussed and the hickey he gave you earlier throbbing like a dream. 

“I wanna do it.” 

He lets you unbutton his jeans, slide the zipper down, at the edge of the bed, but your hands are shaking, your breath stunted.

“I’m fumbling like a teenager,” you huff, a small, flustered smile on your face. “It’s like I’m nervous, but what is there to be nervous about —,”

His mouth pressed up against yours creates the most beautiful silence of all. 

How do you want me, you ask him and he thinks, all the time. But he takes you both under the covers and settles in next to you. He positions one leg over his hip and immediately you know exactly what he’s asking for. Quick as a whip, you are. 

There’s a rustle of covers, the bed slats squeaking, and then he’s nearly nose-to-nose with you. You kiss him again, maybe nervous still. 

He disconnects, when you slip between his legs and take his thick, leaking cock in your hand. 

“Baby, wait, do you need — I know it’s a lot — I’m a lot –,”

He can’t fathom why he’s so nervous either. But you chuckle, shake your head, smile at him. 

“Don’t need anything but you.” 

Your leg wraps tighter over his hip, knee up to his ribs, as he sinks inside you. The palm wrapped around the back of your knee grips roughly only once.

This is true silence. The instant where the world goes muted, everything distant and muffled, when he’s first buried deep in your heat. 

Your fingers thread through his curls and suddenly all sound is cranked up to an eleven. Your rapid, stilted breathing, the groan of the bed, your soft smothered moans, or are those his? —

“Fuck me, Joel.” 

Eyes never leaving yours, he does. 

Your fingers dig into his skull, nails biting, hand wrapped around his neck to hold yourself steady as he thrusts up into you. He thumbs your stiff nipple, half of his hand still grasping your ribs. 

You meet him thrust for thrust, a slow steady pace that draws sweat to his hairline and endless gasps from his mouth. But your gaze stays strong, never falters. Your hand slips to his shoulder, to stabilize just a bit more, but then it's on his chest, twisting his chest hair and he thinks he feels that sparkle of sanity, of rationality, any restraint to hold back crack and shatter between the clench of his teeth. 

“Goddamn–,” 

He rolls, taking you under him and demanding a faster pace. You push your hand against the headboard, the bed knocking against the wall in rhythmic, hypnotic thuds. 

He thinks you hiss his name before you bite down his shoulder. 

The sharp shock of pain lights up his brain, channeling the sudden awareness that he liked that so fucking much all the way down his spinal cord where it presses hot against his groin. 

He lifts up onto one elbow, skin sweat hot and sticky as it splits from yours. 

“Tell me what you need to come,” he pants.  

You whine again, your throat dripping sweat, but that’s not an answer. Knowing he has about a half-a-dozen to a dozen good grinds before it puts too much strain on his back, he uses every single one of them to drag you to the knife’s edge. 

“What–,” grind, “do you need –,” grind, “to come?”

The wail you let out nearly makes him come on the spot. Your eyes have that same, out-of-this-world, off-this-planet unfocused gaze, any sort of language impossible. You plead with him in the silence. A silence loaded with damp moans, grit teeth, and skin against skin against skin against skin against skin. Best sound in the world, as far as he was concerned.

You arch until he lifts above you and, taking the hand that was by your head, tuck it down between your legs. You let him grasp around with spread fingers where you are wet, where his cock rocks into your body, watch as that pulls him apart faster with dark eyes, before pressing his thumb against your clit. 

There, you say without words. There is where I need you.

Once, twice, he circles – he can feel the tightness in his back already settling in, his jaw fixed and locked, his body battling the two overwhelming sensations of dull pain and fierce, wild pleasure – and you hit your release and you soak him in it. 

He falls then too, falls just as hard and as fast as you, the chronic pain he holds in his shoulders, his neck, his back, his knee fleetingly gone in the rush of heat that branches out of his body from his groin and it feels divine.

When he lies on top of you, face buried in the curve of your neck, the heat from your humid skin warming up the breath in his lungs, the throb of your body matching his, his mind wiped clean, the thought occurs to him:

It’s not silence he’s found with you, it’s quiet. 

It’s peace.

Eventually, some awareness seeps back into his trembling body and he rolls off of you, but takes the curve of your jaw in his hand as he goes. He can’t settle into the pillows because he can’t stop kissing you, love bites occasionally against your lip, as if where his body fails, he proves his love for you won’t end so easily.

Eventually, you press your fingers into the base of his skull and, like a reset button, he groans and drops onto his back. 

Eventually, the quiet returns. Only soft noises, murmurs of existence outside of this perfect little room, fill the space. 

Eventually, he falls asleep with you curled up next to him. 

He knows you love waking up in bed together, but he also knows you love fresh coffee even more. 

Which is where Ellie finds him the next morning. 

He nearly adds too much ground coffee to the pot because he’s distracted, lost in thought about the way your curves looked in the bright morning light, when the back door slams open and a little creature made of entirely scarves, mittens, and an oversized purple jacket stomps into his kitchen and clomps its snowy shoes on the rug. 

“Joel, we gotta go!” She’s a little breathless, red-cheeked too as she unwinds the scarf around her head and her face is revealed. “We don’t wanna miss it!”

“Miss what?” Joel asks, this time carefully measuring how much water the pot needs. 

His question is not met with her usually buzzy chatter. Instead, she’s stopped undoing her scarf and just stares at him like he’s been beamed down from another planet. 

He realizes all too late that he’s still in PJs at 9AM (basically a sign of another apocalypse), he’s making more coffee than just for himself, and he’s smiling. 

Shit.

“Ellie, um, I –,”

She rolls her eyes. Her scarf is flung off her neck and she starts yanking off her gloves, her plucky attitude back, if not a bit smug.

“Get your girlfriend up too. They’re lighting the big tree in town square in an hour. I know she’d be pissed if she missed it.” 

So definitely caught. Time to be “The Adult” here and put it out on the table. 

“Don’t call her that.” Joel eyes her. Coffee percolating, he grabs a slice of bread and Ellie’s favorite jam. “Makes it sound like we’re fourteen.” 

She frowns at him, classic “pouty-mouth”. 

“I’m fourteen — rude. But seriously, and I say this because I care, get over yourself. Call a spade a spade. You’re dating her, fucking her–,”

“Ellie!” 

"– and you make gross ga-ga eyes at each other when you think I’m not looking."

She slides into the seat at the island in front of him as he pushes the toasted bread with jam across the marble to her. She takes a bite, chews with her mouth open, and shrugs. “That’s a girlfriend, dude.” 

Joel turns back to the eggs that might be burning, his shoulders hunched and fist tight around the spatula. Hate it when the kid is right. 

He salvages what he can of the eggs, plates them along with two strips of bacon on two plates, and balances a mug of coffee on each. He tries to salvage some of his dignity with a glare. 

“When you’re older, you’ll see some things just don’t need labels.” 

At that, she rolls her eyes again and snatches up the last strip of bacon from the folded, greasy napkins. “Whatever, you dork.”

Argument soundly lost, he gathers up the plates and heads back up stairs. She’s still mumbling to herself as he goes. 

“'Girlfriend', pfft . . . much better than fuck bunny!” She yells to no one in particular.

You hear the entire conversation from bed, the door cracked open enough for the sound to travel. Muffling a giggle, you snag his white shirt from the floor and draw it over your head. You should probably be more embarrassed that Joel got caught in his Walk of Shame, even if it was to his own kitchen to make breakfast. But . . . you’re just not. 

The smile is still on your face when his footfalls approach the door and he sticks his head into the room.

“Sounds like we’re busted,” you smirk. 

Joel almost chuckles. “'Bout as busted as you can be.” He hands you one plate and sits on the end of the bed with his own. He takes a low, slow sip of coffee and you follow him. The eggs are nibbled at and the bacon is perfectly crunchy.

“So . . . girlfriend?” 

He rolls his eyes. “Not you too.” 

“I mean," you slip the plate and coffee onto the bedside table, then hug the sheets around your knees, "I agree with you on the bit about labels. It seems silly. And not wasteful silly. Just . . .”

“Silly.” Joel’s eyes are as dark as his coffee, warmer than it too. “Doesn’t really capture the whole thing, does it?”

An apocalypse and a half later, and a boy’s sweet eyes on you can still make your stomach swoop. 

“No, it doesn’t.” 

“Then what do you wanna say, if people start askin’?”

You bite your lip, eyes up in faux-thought. “Truth be told, I'm kinda partial to fuck bunny. Cute like with a little tail and ears —,"

The groan from Joel and subsequent head shake makes you laugh enough for you to take pity on the old guy. You crawl closer and his eyes slip from your face to where the sheet tucks under your knees. But a hand on his cheek returns his gaze.

"I like what you said last night." Your smile is soft, pleased. "That I’m yours. Like you’re mine.” 

Joel’s warmth bleeds from his whole frame as he leans in close to put his mug on the bedside table, then leans in closer still to you. He drags his nose over your bare, exposed shoulder, in a way that is sweet and sensual all at once. He stops with a kiss on the hinge of your jaw. 

“I like that too. I like saying that you’re mine.”

Ignoring the shiver that rockets up your spine at the low hum of his voice, the flutter of his lips barely against your cheek, you tuck an errant curl around his ear and it immediately springs back up again. You smile and he smiles back, a youthful shine in his eyes.

“Wherever you are, I am too.”  

Listen to: I am the forest by Willie Nelson

[klausysworld]

A Second Chance

A thousand years ago, when the Mikaelson's were still human, Niklaus had a secret lover.

She was soft and sweet, gentle and kind. Y/N would wash the blood away from the wounds that colour his skin as a result of his father's rage. Her soft humming would lull him to sleep, his head against her breast comfortably as they lay out in the forest where he felt most at home.

His siblings knew of Y/N, they had seen her around and met her once or twice but Esther and Mikael weren't in the know. Niklaus was too afraid they'd forbid him from seeing her and he could handle being without her.

Each of his siblings had sworn not to tell but Finn was so awful at keeping things from their mother.

Niklaus hadn't known that he brother has tattled until it was too late.

Henrik had been killed and Esther and Mikael in turn made the rest of their children undead forever.

However it was only when Klaus's true identity came to light that Y/N was punished too. In addition to Mikael locking away Niklaus's wolf side and swearing hatred on him, he sought to punish him further by shoving a dagger deep into her chest.

Niklaus's scream shook the trees, Elijah held him as his sobs dragged the grass back into the ground and buried the life that was lost.

As centuries past, his grief was hidden behind more death and agony of which Klaus inflicted across the world. Her face was painted a million times over, a thousand different styles until Klaus could not bear to look at her anymore, it was like tearing his heart out over and over.

When the daggers came into his possession, they reminded him of her. He could still see her fearful eyes begging him for help as the blood seeped through her dress. And yet the weapon made him feel close to her each time he used them.

Her memory began to fade as the years went by, she drifted within his mind as other things came and went. But she could never be forgotton.

Esther knew that, and she used that to her advantage. She knew from the first time she stumbled across her son bathing in the lake late at night with his arms hanging loosely around a girls naked hips, their foreheads touching as they gazed lovingly at each other. When mikael killed her, she kept the girl preserved and buried safely.

A thousand years later she finally had use for the girl.

So when her children stood threateningly at the doorway, Klaus's rage on full display, Y/N's frightened whisper would break his attention.

His eyes found her. She was in that same dress she died in, still stained by her own blood but now coated head to toe in mud. He stepped forward but Esther's hand grabbed Y/N's wrist tight in a warning and he froze. So did Elijah and Rebekah.

"She's human, Niklaus." His mother reminded. "You could be human with her, have a family, a real life together like you were supposed to." She offered, watching the glimmer in her sons eyes.

Elijah stepped forward, hold hand resting on Klaus's shoulder as he too stared straight at the confused, petrified girl they had all loved.

"She's not real." Elijah whispered, assuming it was a trick and Esther's expression darkened as a blade was swiped quickly across Y/N's wrist, not hard enough to be fatal but enough to draw blood and panic Klaus.

He was in front of her in a second, trying to pull her to him but Esther threw him to the wall before he could reach and just like that Elijah and Rebekah were moving too.

Y/N was shaking silently in the corner by the time that Esther had been torn apart.

Her body flinched and trembled even once she resided in Niklaus's arms. She whimpered weakly, confused words recited in the same language they had used all that time ago. Niklaus didn't remember much but he had played the memories of their words over and over so many times that he was still able to comfort her in his mother tongue.

They got her home quickly, hiding her away in Klaus's room and muttering amongst themselves as to what to do.

"There must be a way to at least let her understand english-" Rebekah questioned and Elijah sighed, glancing over to how Y/N's fingers touched Klaus's curls and she whispered in their old language about how short it had become.

"We'll ask Davina... we should let Niklaus get her washed...she appears as though she'd been dug up." He murmured, a furrow to is brow.

Rebekahs gaze drifted to her dirtied finger nails. "She wasn't dug up...mother wouldn't be so kind. She dug her own way out." She uttered and Elijah grimaced.

"Come, we should get her some tea..." Elijah swallowed thickly, guiding Rebekah out of the room and leaving his brother alone with his old love.

His hands tried to pick the clumps of dirt from her hair whilst also trying to understand the fast words she threw at him. He tried to give her the word for bathing and eventually she nodded, holding onto his hands as he lead her into the bathroom.

The bath was small, not like the lake and the water was hot, it startled her. Klaus steadied her, helping her down and climbing in behind her when she cried out for him not to leave her alone. Not again.

The feel of her skin back against his was a feeling Klaus had been so sure he had forgotten forever. She tried to turn to face him, ending up completely pressed on top of him as his hands washed the soap and water down her back only start panicking when the expensive body wash made her soft skin scatter with red rash.

"Oh-" He muttered and wrapped his arm round her waist and lifted her up with him. She muttered out in confusion but didn't struggle, too happy to be in his hold as he drained the water and started again, laying back down with her. "Come here, my sweet." He guided her onto her back so he could reach and see her hair as he washed it enough until it was back to the silkiness he remembered so fondly.

He heard her little sniffles first, before her shoulder shook slightly with a sob. Klaus's heart sunk slightly and he nudged his nose into the side of her neck, placing gentle kissed like she had loved so much but they made her cry harder.

Her words were lost on him, he couldn't recall the language well enough after so long and it made his guilt swirl so much it hurt. Klaus tried to make sense of something but all he could make out was "Darkness" and "loneliness".

He tried to comfort her with the few words still in memory but she wouldn't stop, not even once she was dressed in one of his shirts and tucked to his chest under the covers, a cup of tea in Klaus's hands that he'd insisted she sip on from time to time.

Eventually she sunk into sleep but it only lasted for so long before she was clawing at her throat with her already broken nails, as though she were suffocating.

Klaus grabbed at her hands, immediately being sucked into her mind. The image of her waking beneath the ground, unable to breathe or see as her hands tried to find the light above.

Only a few seconds passed before Elijah was bursting through the door, awakened by the screams. Rebekah and Marcel a few seconds later.

"I'm calling Davina." Marcel muttered to Rebekah after actually seeing the girls condition and hearing her foreign cries.

The lights were back on which calmed her partly, finally being able to see. Her hands clung onto Klaus's shirt, clutching the fabric against her palm for any sort of security.

Elijah and Rebekah were sat on the edge of Klaus's bed, watching the once full of life girl from their village full of fear and confusion.

Ages went by before Marcel returned with a half asleep Davina and a couple candles. Klaus rocked his love calmly, hand stroking her arm to prove he was still there as Davina set up around them. Her chant echoed through the room, flames standing tall and proud as she reluctantly held her hand out for Klaus to take and then gently held Y/N's in the other.

"I'm sorry...this is the only way I can think of." She whispered before a thousand years worth of Klaus's memories were thrust upon Y/N.

A loud sound of pain emitted from her and she held her head. Klaus frowned in concern, trying to cup her face to see what was happening but when she looked back at him it was like she had seen a ghost.

A thousand variants of each emotion painted her expression before she crawled back against him and breathed in his scent with each hiccuped cry.

After a while the others left and Klaus rest his chin on top her head.

She didn't utter a word for days, not in any language. Klaus would dress her and feed her each day, hold her to him as he showed her the television which only seemed to hurt her head.

He had left her downstairs on the couch when she had fallen into for once a stable sleep without the traumatic nightmare of being buried alive.

He was just in the other room, trying to think of any way to make things better for her and for them.

Y/N being alive had never once been a possibility in his mind, especially her being alive with no knowledge of any time passing to all of a sudden knowing every shameful act he'd committed.

Klaus was too lost in thought to hear Camille making her way into the abattoir, calling out for him and stumbling across Y/N who had just woken.

"Oh...uh hi." She blinked at the girl. She was clearly in Klaus's clothes. The sweatpants were barely holding onto her hips and the shirt was easily recognisable. Y/N stared back, she recognised her, from Klaus's memories. Camille, Cami.

He liked her, they'd danced together. He'd thought about her, a lot. It made her stomach twist uneasily and her knees pull to her chest self-consciously.

"Camille." Klaus's voice echoed over her head before he was kneeling down beside her and stroking her head, checking she hadn't woken in terror again. "I'm afraid this isn't a good time." He informed her, sitting down on the sofa and noting how Y/N withdrew, instantly making the mental connection.

"You haven't been answering, I worried something had happened." She explained warily as she watched Klaus watch Y/N.

"This is Y/N." He introduced faintly, his attention not lifting to her. "She died a thousand years ago but my mother brought her back, she's struggling to adjust for the moment. I'd appreciate if you left, I don't think new people is helping right now." He tried to tell her to leave as politely as possible.

Cami only nodded, the information hitting like a wave as she apologised under her breath and retreated.

Klaus stroked Y/N's cheek as he sighed softly, "Please understand that I love you Y/N." He murmured. "I would have chosen you over any woman I have ever come across without a doubt. I would have taken my mother's deal, I would be human beside you." He told her, eyes sincere. "I only wish we could go back all those years, I should have married you then." He uttered, a kiss pressed to her cheek.

"Why didn't you?" She whispered, speaking in english for the first time.

"I was afraid. Not of us, of-"

"Mikael." She mumbled, “I remember now, sorry." She sniffed and he sighed.

"You shouldn't have been given all my memories like that, it's too much for anyone to handle all at once." He sighed, his hands cupping her face and stroking her soft cheeks. "I won't ever leave you alone again. Never in the dark, never in the cold, never anywhere."

"I don't understand why she would bring me back." Y/N whispered and Klaus frowned.

"I'm happy you're here, my heart." He murmured, his brows furrowed. "I've lived to long without you, and you have not lived long enough. Things will be better now."

"You hurt and kill..." She whispered, a soft sniff to her words and he looked down.

"I know." He nodded. He hated all the evil she had seen him do through his memories. He was nothing like he used to be. "But I'd never hurt you, and I'd keep you safe."

"I don't want to be here." She whimpered and he held her onto his lap.

"It's just hard at the moment, we've only just started adjusting. It'll get easier and you'll start to like it. I know you've seen things through me but it'll be so much better when you actually experience them." He persuaded, stroking her hair but she didn't look overly convinced.

"I don't want to push my way into your new life." She mumbled and sighed softly to himself in slight annoyance, not being annoyed with her but annoyed with the idea that he could ever not want her with him in his life. She would never be an inconvenience for him, a long time ago she was every thing for him and now she was that again. It had been clear that Klaus's attention had remained on her since the second his eyes found hers again, it was very possible that Klaus wouldn't be so infatuated with power so much now.

She held the innocence of his past that he had lost. She gave him something that no thing or other person could ever supply.

She was old life and she would be his new life, he could finally have a second chance worth taking.

His body was curled around hers, protecting her frame like a shield as he nuzzled her hair. "You're not pushing in, my love. If anything, I'm pulling you in. I don't think I can ever lose you again." Klaus uttered, his eyes closing as his mind conjured a hundred different possibilities for their future. "You are the life in my death, even when I was human...you were the light.

[catgrandpa]

Gotham has always been weird, so when the groundskeeper at the cemetery noticed the Wayne kid’s plot was disturbed, he just chalked it up to more of the same ol’. Alright, so ‘disturbed’ may be a tad too light of a word, but what’s an empty grave in the grand scheme of Gotham? God knows in a city like this one, they could use all the burial room they could get. He figured he’d just jot it down on the website and hope nobody noticed for a while.

Too bad he didn’t account for the 13 year old boy in Bristol who periodically checks the cemetery’s website when he’s feeling particularly lonely.

Plot Removed.

Tim Drake stared at the two words under the heading for Jason Todd’s plot number. Removed? What do they mean ‘removed’? They can’t just remove a plot? That’s a person down there! That’s Robin down there! You can’t Remove Robin!

Calm down. Deep breaths. Assess the situation.

Robin has been dead for 5 months and 14 days. There is no reason for a grave to be removed that early, especially one of a member of such an affluential family. Chances are likely it’s a simple clerical issue. He can call first thing in the morning and make them aware of the mistake. He can have it all fixed in 5 hours.

Just a phone call.

In 5 hours.

…

Tim hates talking on the phone almost as much as he hates waiting.

Well it won’t be the first time he’s snuck out to head to Gotham proper at 1am. It can’t even really be considered sneaking out if there’s no one home to catch you.

Buses stop running at 2, so he layers a couple sweaters under his coat and grabs his best running sneakers so he can comfortably make the trek back.

Just a quick trip to settle his nerves. Maybe get a few shots in if he spots Batman, but really he just wants to see with his own two eyes that things are okay and Jason can rest.

It’s 1:37 by the time he gets to the headstone reading ‘Here Lies Jason Todd’ and the gaping, muddy pit in front of it.

This- This doesn’t make any sense. This is not removal. This is destruction. Desecration. Somebody did this. Somebody-

Assess the situation.

A hole in the ground, approximately 1.5 feet in diameter.

Mud and grass flung outward but with little force.

Large chunks of earth turned over and shoved away.

No signs of tool marks or clean lines of entry into the dirt.

Dragging claw marks.

Staggering, shuffled pairs of foot prints in the mud.

A trail of dirt.

Something… Something large clawed its way out of the ground here. Something large and bipedal and- and humanoid.

Tim refuses to jump to any conclusions he can see all the facts laid in front of him. He’s going to cautiously follow the trail and simply hope to any god listening that he isn’t the world’s first line of defense against the zombie apocalypse.

He’s been walking for 23 minutes and there’s good news and undecided news. Good news: he’s closing in on the target and the trail isn’t taking him out of the way so his trip home won’t be prolonged. Undecided news: The potential Zombie Robin is heading directly for Wayne Manor.

As zombie apocalypse news, this is very bad. From Tim’s collected observational evidence, his not-so-professional opinion is that Batman, faced with a horror movie level zombie of his dead son, would not respond well, and would likely not fight back.

In Batman and Robin news? Tim’s unsure. If Jason is simply back? What could that mean for them? Batman can have his Robin. He wouldn’t have to continue nearly killing others and himself every night in his grief. Jason could-

No. Stop. Do not jump to conclusions.

Hope only brings heartbreak.

What would Batman do? Get close and see if the target is a threat.

Target is male. Mid-teens. Dark hair. Pale skin. Leaning against surfaces as he walks. Appears injured and disoriented.

Minimal risk assessed. Approaching and attempting contact.

Target identity confirmed: Jason Todd.

“J-Jason?” It comes out as a croaked whisper. Jason shows no sign of acknowledgment.

Tim clears his throat, steps right in front of his path, and tries again.

“Jason. Jason, stop I want to help you.” Still nothing.

“Please, Jason. I can help, I promise I can help!”

Why isn’t this working?! Why can’t he just do something right for once?! He wants this to work, he wants to help Bruce, he wants to fix Batman, he wants to not be alone, he wants-

“Robin!”

Robin jerks to a stop.

Tim reached out his hand.

“Robin. Robin please, I’m sorry you’re going through this, it’s really scary, I’m really scared. But I just want to help you. Help you find Batman. Help you get home.”

Jason just stares at him. Of course he does. Of course it’s not going to work. Why did he even bother hoping he could help?

Hope only brings heartbreak.

His sight blurs as his eyes fill with tears and he starts to lower his outstretched hand.

His arm is slowed as a cold hand weakly grasps his own.

“Don’t… scared… Bat… help… Dad… help.”

A relieved sob tears out from Tim’s chest and he gathers himself together. He yanks his extra sweater off and gently pulls it over Jason’s cold shoulders. Jason lets Tim drag his arm over his shoulders to try and carry some of his weight.

“Okay, Robin. Yeah. Your dad will help us.”

Batman will solve everything once Tim gets Robin home.

[mudwisard]

i sewed a new vest and stenciled the back. will iron it tomorrow but so far it looks p sweet

[rizzanon]

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m.list | prev | next

“Cassandra.”

Her name barely carried through the still air, but she didn’t move.

Didn’t flinch.

Didn’t acknowledge the voice.

She sat there, arms wrapped tightly around her knees, her entire body curled inward like she could somehow shield herself from reality.

From this.

From your name carved into stone.

The graveyard was too peaceful.

The world around her was too bright.

The sky was impossibly blue, the kind of endless, cloudless stretch that belonged to better days. The sun hung high, warm and golden, spilling light over everything as if this were just any other afternoon. A soft breeze rustled the leaves in the trees, and the grass beneath her was still damp with morning dew. The air smelled fresh—too fresh.

It was a beautiful day.

And Cassandra hated it.

It wasn’t right.

Why wasn’t the sky dark? Why weren’t the clouds swollen with grief, heavy and suffocating? Why wasn’t there a storm, wind tearing through the city, rain drenching the ground, filling the cracks in the pavement, turning the earth around your grave to mud?

Why wasn’t the world mourning with her?

It should be.

Because this—this wasn’t just another day.

This was the day Cassandra Cain sat in front of your grave, alone in the silence, mourning the loss of you.

You.

The person who was supposed to be her younger sister.

The person who shouldn’t be here—not like this. Not beneath the ground.

A shadow passed over her. She barely acknowledged it.

Duke.

He stood for a moment, just watching her.

Duke hesitated before he stepped closer.

His movements were slow, careful, like approaching a wounded animal.

And maybe that’s what Cassandra was.

He placed a hand on her shoulder.

“You can’t stay here forever,” he murmured, his voice quiet, gentle.

Cassandra didn’t respond. She just nudged his hand away, still staring at your name carved into the stone.

Duke exhaled, long and slow, before lowering himself to the ground beside her.

They sat in silence.

Neither of them wanted to be here.

But neither of them could leave.

Not when this grave was here. Not when it held you.

And it still didn’t feel real.

Duke ran a hand over his face, his fingers pressing into his eyes. He didn’t blame Cassandra for shutting down like this.

Because he was still trying to understand it too.

Duke stared at your name, carved into stone, like if he just looked at it long enough, it would make sense.

But it didn’t.

It wouldn’t.

Your death—

God.

It wasn’t just tragic. It wasn’t just painful.

It was sudden.

It didn’t feel possible.

One day, you were here. And then you weren’t.

And Duke didn’t know how to process that.

He kept thinking—kept replaying everything in his head. The details. The reports. The last time he saw you.

And the same question kept coming back to him, again and again and again.

Why didn’t you call him?

You knew he would have helped you. You knew that.

Right?

You knew he wouldn’t have thought twice.

Right?

Would he have thought twice…?

No, surely not.

Right?

You should have known that.

So why didn’t you?

Why didn’t you tell him what you were doing? Why didn’t you let him back you up? Why did you go after that drug ring alone?

You should have called.

You should have known he wouldn’t hesitate. That he wouldn’t have even thought before coming to help you.

You should have been standing here with him.

Not lying six feet underground.

Duke let out a slow, shuddering breath, staring at the gravestone, his chest tightening like something inside him was caving in.

It wasn’t fair.

None of this was fair.

And the worst part? The part that made him feel sick?

Losing people—he knew what that was like.

He lost his parents.

And now—

Now he had lost you.

And you weren’t just anyone.

You were—

God, you were you.

You weren’t perfect, but you were alive in a way that few people ever truly were.

You had this way of making things feel easier. Not because life actually was easier, but because you had a way of making it manageable. Making it bearable.

And you were stubborn.

God, you were so stubborn.

You never backed down, never walked away, never let things go when they mattered. You fought for people. You fought for him. Fought for yourself.

You weren’t his sister by blood, but blood had never mattered in this family. Not really.

You had been his friend before you were his family.

And now you were gone.

And he was just supposed to accept that you were gone?

That he was supposed to sit here, staring at a piece of stone with your name on it, instead of looking you in the eye and telling you you were a dumbass for going in alone?

No.

No, that didn’t make sense.

It didn’t make sense that you—the person who had somehow become his sister—was just gone.

And he—

He hated this.

He hated this so much.

“What…. do you think her last words were…?”

Cassandra’s voice broke through the silence, small but steady.

Duke’s throat tightened. He barely held back a flinch.

“I… don’t know,” he admitted.

And he didn’t want to know.

Because the moment he let himself think about it.

The moment he let himself wonder what your last moments were like—

He wouldn’t be able to take it.

Had you been waiting for someone to save you?

Had you been hoping for some kind of miracle?

Or had you known?

Had you known you weren’t going to make it?

Had you realized that help wasn’t coming?

Had you been scared?

Duke clenched his jaw and swallowed hard.

He didn’t want to think about that.

He couldn’t—

He couldn’t think about that.

Cassandra didn’t look at him, but she was still staring at your grave, her expression unreadable.

But he knew what she was thinking.

She was blaming herself.

And she shouldn’t.

She wasn’t even in Gotham when it happened. There was nothing she could have done.

But logic didn’t matter.

Because you were dead.

And she hadn’t been there.

Neither had he.

And he was always going to carry that with him.

Cassandra had learned you quickly.

How you liked your coffee, how you always leaned against walls instead of standing straight, how you tapped your fingers against your thigh when you were thinking.

How you always waited a second longer than necessary before answering a question—like you were testing the weight of your words before letting them go.

You had been sharp, but soft.

Blunt, but kind.

The kindest of them all.

You had been quiet, but so damn loud in the way you existed.

And now—

Now you were gone.

And Cassandra was still here.

And she didn’t know how.

Cassandra didn’t know how to fight that.

Didn’t know how to fight the weight pressing against her chest, the grief that curled around her like a vice. It was strange. Loss was something she should’ve been used to. Death was something she had faced time and time again. It was part of this life. It was part of the job.

So why did this feel so different?

Why did it feel like something was clawing at the edges of her ribs, carving out a hollow space where you used to be?

She had died before. Her heart had stopped beating, her body had given out. But she had been revived, dragged back to life before the darkness could fully claim her. She had cheated death, walked away with a heartbeat that wasn’t supposed to be there anymore.

So why hadn’t that been you?

Why had she gotten to wake up, gasping, with another chance at life—while you had been left to rot in the ground? Why had she been spared while you had been taken?

Cassandra’s hands curled into fists on her lap, her nails biting into her palms as she forced herself to breathe.

It didn’t help.

Her eyes flickered to your name on the gravestone. The letters carved into the stone were so sharp, so permanent. You weren’t coming back. No second chances, no miracles. Just a name, a date, and the suffocating silence of your absence.

She swallowed thickly and let her gaze drop lower.

No flowers.

Cassandra stared at the empty space in front of your grave, and something in her chest twisted. No matter how hard she searched her mind, she couldn’t remember what kind of flowers you liked.

What flowers did you like?

Did you like lilies—soft, gentle, but heavy with the scent of mourning?

Did you like daisies—bright and stubborn, growing even in the cracks of concrete?

Did you like marigolds—bold, striking, impossible to ignore?

She hated that she didn’t know. Hated that she had spent years at your side and still, she didn’t know what flowers to bring you.

It was ridiculous, how something so small—so insignificant in the grand scheme of things—felt like another knife to the ribs.

Cassandra had always been good at reading people. She had always been good at reading you.

And yet—she didn’t know this.

Didn’t know something so simple.

The realization made her stomach twist.

She had memorized the way you carried yourself, the way your fingers twitched when you thought too hard about something, the way you always paused before speaking, like you were testing your words before letting them go.

She knew how you fought, how you moved, how you breathed.

And yet—she didn’t know this.

This was all she knew.

What did you actually like to do?

What did you like to eat?

What was your go-to drink?

Did you drink coffee out of necessity, or was it your favorite?

What music did you listen to when no one was around?

What did you hum under your breath when you thought no one was paying attention?

Did you like the sun or the moon better?

Did you ever have a favorite book? A favorite movie?

Have you ever fallen in love? Fancied a guy or girl from afar?

Everything that a sister should know—she didn’t.

And now, she never would.

Cassandra squeezed her eyes shut, hands pressing against her thighs, fingers digging into the fabric of her pants.

To think—to think—of all the times you had tried to stay by her side.

Of all the times you had tried—tried to connect with her, tried to understand her, tried to make her feel like she belonged in this family—and she hadn’t let you.

She had been distant. Subconsciously pushing you aside. Not because she hated you—no, never because of that.

But because you two were so vastly different.

Because she saw you and thought—you weren’t built for this life.

Because she looked at you and thought—you shouldn’t be here.

You weren’t a killer. You weren’t a soldier. You weren’t someone who should have had to claw and scrape your way through the darkness of Gotham.

You should have had a normal life.

You could have had a normal life.

And maybe, maybe—if she had pushed harder, if she had done more, if she had made you see what she saw—maybe you would have left this life.

Maybe if she had pushed harder, you wouldn’t have ended up like this.

You wouldn’t be here, six feet under, with a name carved into stone and a body lost to the dirt.

Maybe she could have been there.

Maybe she could have saved you.

Cassandra clenched her jaw, her fists tightening further.

No.

That wasn’t even it.

That wasn’t even the truth.

It wasn’t about whether you should have been a vigilante. It wasn’t about whether or not you belonged in this life.

It was about her.

It was about the choices she had made.

If she hadn’t thought she knew what was best for you—if she hadn’t dismissed you before even giving you a chance—maybe things would have been different.

If she had helped you instead of discouraging you—if she had guided you instead of pushing you away—maybe you wouldn’t have felt so alone in this.

Maybe you wouldn’t have felt like you had to prove yourself at every turn.

Maybe you wouldn’t have pushed yourself so far—so recklessly, so relentlessly—that your body had begged you to stop, had screamed at you to rest, and yet, you had ignored it anyway.

Because you had something to prove.

To yourself.

To everyone else.

To her.

And why?

Because she had made you feel like you weren’t enough.

Like you weren’t competent enough, weren’t worthy enough, to stand beside them.

Like you had to earn your place in a way that no one else had to.

And that—

That was what crushed her.

That was what made her stomach churn and her chest tighten, what made her fingers twitch at her sides and her jaw clench until it ached.

Because she had done that.

She had made you feel that way.

And it had cost you your life.

If she had just been there—if she had helped you, taught you, stayed by your side as a sister should, instead of leaving you to figure everything out on your own—maybe you wouldn’t have needed to push yourself to the brink just to keep up.

Maybe you wouldn’t have felt like you had to bleed just to prove you deserved to be by their side. By her side.

Maybe—just maybe—

You would still be here.

She didn’t know where the thought came from, only that it settled deep inside her, heavier than stone.

She should be used to loss. It was part of the job, part of the life they all lived. People died. People left. That was just how things were.

But Cassandra Cain didn’t know how to exist in a world that didn’t have you in it.

Why?

Because your presence had been undeniable.

Not in the way that others were loud—not in the way Dick filled a room with laughter, or in the way Jason made his presence known with his sharp words and sharper gaze, or in the way Tim existed like a shadow, quiet but calculating.

No.

You were present in the littlest ways. The kind of ways that most people overlooked.

But she noticed.

She always noticed.

The way you drummed your fingers against your thigh when you were thinking—not impatient, not absentminded, just… rhythmic, like you were keeping time to a song only you could hear.

The way you always lingered in a doorway before stepping inside, as if you were gauging the room, the people, the atmosphere—like you needed to prepare yourself before crossing the threshold.

The way your shoulders stiffened whenever someone called your name unexpectedly, like you were always bracing for something, like you had learned a long time ago that being noticed wasn’t always a good thing.

The way your eyes softened, just barely, whenever you looked at her.

The way you tilted your head when you were confused, the way you bit the inside of your cheek when you were frustrated, the way your fingers twitched whenever you held back from saying something.

The way you carried yourself—quiet, but never unnoticed. Soft, but never weak.

You had been everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

In the way the floorboards creaked in a rhythm only you walked in. In the faint scent of your shampoo that lingered in the halls long after you passed through them. In the way the air felt just a little different when you were around—charged, like something unspoken was always hanging in the space between you and everyone else.

And now—

Now you were gone.

And the world felt wrong.

Her nails bit into her palms as she exhaled sharply.

The weight in her chest grew heavier, suffocating, pressing against her ribs until she could barely breathe.

She wanted to say sorry.

For not being there when it mattered.

For not being the sister you had wanted her to be.

For all the times you had reached for her and she had turned away.

But apologies were meaningless now.

There was no use in apologizing to a grave.

The dead could not hear the apologies of the living.

And she hated—hated—how it seemed like she just wanted to get rid of the guilt, like this was just another weight on her shoulders that she was desperate to shake off.

It wasn’t that.

It wasn’t about making herself feel better.

But to anyone else, it might seem shallow, like she was just trying to justify her regrets.

And that—

That was when she exhaled sharply, her voice quiet, raw, and firm.

“I failed her.”

Duke stiffened beside her.

“Cass…”

“No.”

She finally moved.

Finally stood.

Her knees ached from kneeling too long, but she ignored the feeling, ignored the way the world spun for half a second before steadying again.

She looked down at the grave—at your name, your absence, the proof that you were really, truly, gone.

“There’s a lot of things I regret,” she admitted, her voice steady. “A lot of things I should have done. A lot of things I shouldn’t have done.”

She exhaled.

“But there is no use feeling this way when—”

She stopped.

When what?

When you were already gone?

When nothing she did would change that?

When no amount of guilt, no amount of grief, no amount of anything would ever bring you back?

Duke watched her, silent, waiting.

And finally—she finished.

“There is no use feeling this way when the only person who could have forgiven me isn’t here anymore.”

Duke inhaled sharply. His lips parted—ready to argue, ready to refute, ready to tell her that it wasn’t her fault.

But he didn’t.

Because she was right.

And they both knew it.

There was nothing either of them—or anyone else—could do.

The damage was done.

You were gone.

And Cassandra would have to live with that. He would have to live with that.

She turned to Duke, her expression unreadable, her body language tight.

Her shoulders were stiff, arms curled inwards, fingers twitching ever so slightly at her sides. A silent scream compressed into muscle and bone, into tension that refused to unravel. Her breath was steady, too steady, the kind of control that only came when someone was barely holding themselves together.

And then, after a moment—

He moved first.

Slowly, carefully, as if giving her the chance to pull away, to reject the gesture before it even landed. But she didn’t.

So he pulled her into a hug—strong, firm, grounding.

A weight. A warmth. A presence she didn’t realize she needed until she was sinking into it.

Cassandra didn’t resist.

Didn’t hesitate.

She didn’t go rigid, didn’t pull away out of habit, didn’t keep that careful distance she always did when she wasn’t sure how to accept comfort.

No.

She closed her eyes and let herself feel.

For the first time in hours. In days. In what felt like forever—she let herself be held.

Let herself be comforted.

Even though she didn’t feel like she deserved it.

Because what right did she have to be comforted when you weren’t here?

What right did she have to grieve you when she had been part of the reason you were gone?

But Duke didn’t let go.

He held onto her like he understood. Like he knew that if he let go, she might just disappear, might crumble into something irreparable, something that grief would consume whole.

So she stayed.

And for now—

For now, that would have to be enough.

128 hours, 13 minutes, and 27 seconds.

That’s how long it’s been since Gotham fell into chaos. Since the family fell into shambles.

Since you took your last breath.

Tim’s fingers twitched over the console, knuckles pale, hands locked into position as if frozen mid-action. The blue glow of the Batcomputer flickered against his face, casting long, sharp shadows that made the bags under his eyes seem deeper, his expression more hollow.

He hadn’t slept. Hadn’t moved. Had barely breathed.

Because he couldn’t stop watching.

The footage looped again. And again. And again.

Warehouse. Low light. South Gotham docks. Camera angle, elevated—one of Batman’s hidden surveillance feeds.

You moved like a ghost. A shadow.

A blur of motion cutting through the dark.

Tim rewound the footage. Slowed it down. Watched. Memorized. Analyzed.

His eyes were red from the hours of staring at the screen. The footage ran in a constant loop, a ghostly reminder of everything that had gone wrong. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t look away, even though he knew it wouldn’t change anything. Maybe this time, there’ll be something he missed.

That’s what he told himself.

It was a sickening kind of hope, one born from desperation. He needed something—anything—that would prove this wasn’t just another casualty of the mess they lived in. This wasn’t an accident. He couldn’t let it be an accident. If it was, then what was the point? What was the point of all of this? If it was just an accident, if this was just the way things always were, then what the hell was he even doing here? What was the point of it all?

What was the point of all the fights, the struggles, the years of fighting against the darkness if it could just snuff out a life like that, without any warning? Tim couldn’t accept it.

His heart hammered in his chest as he hit replay again. He didn’t even realize how many times he had watched this same clip. How many times he had gone over it, scrutinizing every frame, searching for something that wasn’t there. There’s something.

There has to be something.

A sign.

A clue.

Anything to prove this was deliberate, something he can blame.

But no matter how many times he watched it, no matter how many hours he spent scrutinizing every damn detail, nothing would change. Nothing could undo what had already been done.

But still, he couldn’t stop himself. He had to watch. He had to know. He had to find the why, the how, the reason behind it.

Why had you gone in alone?

Why hadn’t anyone been there for you?

Why hadn’t he been there?

The rest of the world had moved on, or at least tried to. Gotham was still reeling from the explosion of chaos that followed the takedown of the drug ring you’d infiltrated. The criminals, the ones you’d exposed, some of them were caught, while others were already on the run, their operations disrupted in ways they hadn’t anticipated. The whole damn city had been thrown into disarray because of this.

Tim gripped the edge of the desk, his knuckles turning white, his jaw clenched so tightly it hurt. He felt a knot twist in his stomach, one he couldn’t untangle, no matter how hard he tried. He wanted to blame the criminals. He wanted to blame them for everything. For the sudden rise in crimes. For the sudden disarray in Gotham. But it wasn’t them. He couldn’t make himself believe that. No. It wasn’t their fault. Not exactly.

It was yours. It was yours and no one else’s.

It’s all because of you.

That thought stung, burned in the pit of his stomach, and yet it lingered, demanding to be acknowledged. Tim didn’t want to think that way—he didn’t want to blame you. But how could he ignore it? You had done your job, you’d exposed something they couldn’t ignore, but now it was a nightmare. Gotham was chaos, because of you.

No.

He slammed his fist on the desk, glaring at the footage, refusing to accept that thought. No, this wasn’t your fault. It couldn’t be. It was never supposed to happen like this. You had been right about the drug ring, and you had fought damn hard to stop it, all by yourself. But that’s where it went wrong, wasn’t it? You hadn’t called for backup. You hadn’t reached out. If you had—if you had just asked for someone, anything, anyone—maybe you would still be here.

Tim couldn’t stop the wave of anger that crashed over him. But it wasn’t at the criminals who had shot you, it wasn’t even at the fact that Gotham had spiraled into a warzone. No. It was at you.

Fuck.

Even now, after everything, he was the one left to clean up your mess. The same way he always had. The same way he always would. The same he always did. But this time—

This time, you weren’t there to hear him run through the details, to see the frustration in his eyes when things went sideways. You were gone.

And that was the most fucked up part of it all.

Where had it all gone wrong? When had things shifted from predictable to catastrophic? What had gone wrong between your last breath and his desperate attempts to piece together every detail, every frame of this damn footage? How many more people did he have to lose before he could just accept it?

Tim’s hands tightened around the desk, nails digging into the cool surface, but his thoughts kept spiraling out of control. He should be used to this by now. Loss. Death. People getting torn away from him like everything was just so damn fragile. But no. He wasn’t used to it. No matter how many times he told himself he should be, no matter how many people he’d lost, he wasn’t.

It never got easier.

It was almost too much. Too much to bear, but it wouldn’t stop. The losses he faced just kept looping over and over again. The image of you, falling to the floor of that warehouse, blood pooling beneath you.

Tim exhaled shakily, his nails scraping against the desk as he forced himself to take another breath. His chest was tight, his ribs felt like they were caving in, like his own body was rejecting the sheer weight of everything. But he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop watching. Couldn’t stop looking at you, frozen in time, caught in the endless cycle of your last moments.

The footage looped again. And again. And again.

His brain wouldn’t stop dissecting it, wouldn’t stop scrutinizing every movement, every frame, as if the sheer force of his obsession could change something. As if watching it just one more time would suddenly make it all make sense.

But it didn’t. It never did.

He slammed the replay button, forcing the video back to the start, watching as you darted through the shadows, your movements swift and efficient. You had been so sure of yourself. You had to be, because you wouldn’t have done this otherwise, right? You wouldn’t have gone in without backup unless you knew you could handle it. Unless you thought you had no other choice.

Right?

But why?

Why?

Why hadn’t you asked him for help? Or anyone else for the matter.

Tim dug the heel of his palm into his eye, as if he could press the questions out of his skull, force them into submission.

Hah. Who was he fooling?

He knew why.

Because this wasn’t the first time.

This wasn’t the first time you’d come to him with a lead, eyes sharp and voice brimming with certainty. You’d always been like that—so sure, so goddamn convinced that you were right. And most of the time?

You weren’t.

Tim had been the one to prove it almost every time, the one who always had to go back, retrace your steps, find the gaps in your logic, the flaws in your deductions. He’d been the one who had to clean up after you when things didn’t go the way you expected.

And this time—

This time, you had been right.

The realization hit him like a knife to the gut, twisting, tearing.

You had been right. You had exposed something big, something that should have been on their radar, something that had been festering in Gotham for longer than any of them had realized.

And it had cost you.

Tim’s hands trembled over the keyboard, his fingers curling into fists. That’s why he can’t blame you. That’s why he can’t let himself be angry at you.

Not really.

Because if it hadn’t been for you, this whole operation would have gone unnoticed. Would have slipped through the cracks, just like so many things before it.

You had forced them to see it.

And now Gotham was paying the price.

Now you had paid the price.

Tim gritted his teeth, his breath unsteady.

If you had just—

If you had just waited.

If you had just asked for help.

If you had just asked him for help.

His vision blurred for a moment, but he wasn’t sure if it was from exhaustion or frustration or something worse. He swiped at his face, barely noticing the wetness on his fingers before his hand hovered over the keyboard again. He had to—

“Tim.”

The voice cut through the haze of his spiraling thoughts like a gunshot.

He barely reacted. His shoulders tensed, his gaze stayed locked on the screen, his fingers frozen above the keys.

“Tim.”

He heard her footsteps approaching, the sharpness in her tone laced with something else—exasperation, frustration. Concern.

He ignored it.

The footage replayed.

Again.

And again.

“Tim.”

He didn’t turn. Didn’t blink.

And then there was a hand on his shoulder, yanking him away from the screen, forcing him to look up, to register the anger, the exhaustion, the raw frustration carved into her expression.

Stephanie.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Tim blinked at her, dazed, uncomprehending.

Stephanie’s jaw clenched, her grip tightening. “Are you even aware of what’s happening out there? Gotham is a fucking mess. And you’re down here—what? Watching the same damn footage on repeat? Watching (Name) die over and over again?? Like it’s going to change something?”

Tim’s fingers twitched. His throat felt dry, his voice rough when he finally spoke. “I have to—”

“No, you don’t.” Her voice cracked, just slightly, but it was gone in an instant, replaced by something harsher. “You don’t, Tim. You’re just—” She exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through her hair. “Jesus Christ, do you even know where Damian is?”

That made Tim hesitate.

Stephanie’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

Tim swallowed, his jaw locking. “I’m—”

“You’re what?” she cut in, voice sharp and furious. “Busy? Too busy staring at a screen, trying to—what? Bring her back? Figure out some convoluted explanation that makes this make sense?”

Tim flinched.

And Stephanie didn’t stop.

“Because guess what, Tim? It doesn’t make sense. It never makes sense. And you just sitting here, watching her die on repeat? Analysing her every move, every breath, every mistake? It’s not going to fix anything.”

Tim exhaled, slow and shaky, his gaze dropping for a fraction of a second.

“Bruce, Jason and Damian are god knows where. Dick’s gone on a rampage. Cass and Duke are off on their own, trying to keep shit from burning down completely. Helena and Kate are out there trying to contain the damage—we had to call Dinah in because there aren’t enough of us—”

Her breath hitched, her voice shaking now, but she pushed forward, because Stephanie Brown didn’t stop when things got hard.

“And you? You’re here. Acting like this is going to change anything.”

Tim’s fingers curled into fists.

Stephanie shook her head, anger flashing in her eyes. “She’s gone, Tim.”

“She’s not gone.”

Tim’s breath was coming in quick, ragged bursts. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, but he wasn’t sure if it was from frustration or the way Stephanie was looking at him right now—like she couldn’t believe the words coming out of his mouth.

“She’s not dead…!” His voice cracked, but he barely noticed. His hands slammed against the desk, gripping the edges so hard his knuckles went white. “She can’t be dead—she just—”

“Tim, do you even hear yourself right now?!” Stephanie snapped, stepping closer. “(Name) is dead! Dead, Tim! And you need to start—”

“No.” He shook his head, refusing to let her finish. “No, because what about all the other people we thought were dead? Superman. Bruce. Conner. Bart.” His voice was climbing now, chest heaving as his mind raced faster than his words. “And you—you, Stephanie. Every single one of you somehow came back to life, whether it was because you weren’t actually dead, or you were brought back by—”

“That’s not the same thing!” Stephanie’s voice was sharp, but Tim didn’t stop.

“It is the same thing!” His eyes were wide now, wild with something he didn’t know how to name. “Superman was literally killed, and what happened? He came back. Bruce—we buried him, and guess what? He wasn’t even dead! Conner—he died during Infinite Crisis and came back! Bart sacrificed himself during —” His breath hitched, and he barely held it together. “And you.” His voice was shaking now. “You faked your death, Steph. You let me and everyone think you were dead for months...! And yet—”

Stephanie exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through her hair. “But this is different, Tim! She’s different!”

“How?! How is this different?”

“Because she was shot, Tim!” Stephanie practically shouted, frustration burning in her chest. “She wasn’t resurrected by some Kryptonian regeneration matrix, or caught in some bullshit time displacement! She wasn’t lost in the timestream like Bruce, or cloned by some insane scientist, or mysteriously revived by the Speed Force! She was shot! Bullets went through her, Tim! There’s no coming back from that!”

Tim’s breath stuttered, but he clenched his jaw, shaking his head rapidly.

“No,” he muttered, his fingers flying over the keyboard. “No, that doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense. Her suit was reinforced—there’s no way a bullet could have—”

“Because we weren’t prepared, Tim!” Stephanie cut in, her voice cracking. “She wasn’t prepared! Those bullets weren’t normal—those weren’t some cheap rounds from street dealers—they were made of promethium, Tim. Promethium. Her suit wasn’t designed to withstand that kind of impact.”

Tim faltered for half a second.

But it wasn’t enough.

“No.” His voice was flat, empty. “No, because if that’s true, then that means—” His breath hitched again, his fingers twitching over the keyboard. “That means she wasn’t supposed to die.” His voice grew distant, his mind racing through every scenario. “That means there was a way we could have stopped this. That means there was a way I could have—”

Stephanie’s head snapped up, eyes narrowing.

“You always do this,” she seethed, voice shaking. “You always think it’s on you to fix everything—to stop everything before it happens.” Her hands clenched into fists, nails biting into her palms. “Well, guess what, Tim? Not everything is your fault.”

Tim let out a humorless laugh, sharp and bitter. “Oh yeah? Because it sure as hell feels like it is.”

Stephanie inhaled sharply, rage flaring in her chest.

“She’s gone, Tim,” she said, her voice dangerously low. “And you’re sitting here acting like you’re the only one who lost her.”

Tim flinched at that.

She’s right.

How could she not be?

“You think you’re the only one hurting?” Her voice cracked, but she pushed through. “You think you’re the only one who can’t believe she’s actually gone?” She shook her head, frustration bleeding into every word. “Newsflash, Tim—I can’t believe it either. None of us can.” Her breathing was uneven now, the weight of the past few days pressing down on her like a vice. “But you—” She exhaled sharply. “You and (Name)? You weren’t even close.”

Stephanie saw Tim stiffen, and she felt her throat tightened, but she didn’t stop. Even though she knew she didn’t have any right to say the next few words.

“I mean, I can’t even talk, right? Because it’s not like she and I were friends or anything. But whatever we had was at least something—more than whatever the hell was going on between you two.” She swallowed, voice thick with something she refused to name. “So why, Tim? Why are you acting like this? Like you’re the only one who lost her?”

Tim opened his mouth—then closed it.

Because she was right.

And he hated that she was right.

Because he didn’t know why.

Didn’t know why this loss felt different.

Didn’t know why it felt like he was suffocating on it.

Maybe because he had never taken loss well.

Maybe because every time he lost someone, it felt like another piece of him was being ripped away.

Maybe because he still wasn’t convinced.

Maybe because he still felt like there was a way to fix this.

Before he could say anything—before either of them could keep unraveling—a sharp, piercing alert rang through the cave, slicing through the air like a blade.

Stephanie jerked her head up, eyes narrowing. “What the hell was that?”

Tim’s entire body went rigid.

He turned to the screen, fingers flying over the keyboard. His heart pounded against his ribs, his stomach twisting. His eyes scanned the system logs—

And then he froze.

Stephanie immediately stepped closer. “Tim?”

Tim didn’t move.

“Tim.”

Nothing.

Then, slowly—so slowly—he turned to look at her. His expression was unreadable.

“…That’s the alert Bruce installed at the graveyards.”

Stephanie felt her stomach drop.

“What?”

Tim swallowed, his throat dry, his voice barely above a whisper.

“It’s an alert that goes off whenever someone is digging up the graves.”

Stephanie’s breath caught in her throat.

And then—

Tim clenched his jaw.

“The alert that just sounded… was for (Name)’s grave.”

The Batcave was silent.

Not the kind of silence that came with solitude, nor the kind that settled between brief moments of stillness.

No—this silence was suffocating.

Not in the literal sense—there was no smoke, no lack of oxygen, no pressing physical force keeping them in place. But the weight in the air, the way it clung to their skin and settled in their bones, made it impossible to ignore.

It was the kind of silence that pressed against their ribs like iron bars, the kind that wrapped itself around their throats and made it hard to breathe. It was the kind of silence that wasn’t truly silent at all—because beneath it, there was tension, rage, a storm waiting to break.

The only sounds were the quiet hum of the Batcomputer and the occasional distant drip of water echoing through the cavernous walls. Even the bats that lurked in the high crevices seemed to hold their breath.

It had been silent since they got back.

Not the comfortable silence of routine, not the practiced quiet of soldiers working in tandem, but a silence teetering—on the edge of something irreversible, something that could snap at any second.

Bruce had yet to turn around.

His back remained to them, shoulders squared, posture impossibly still, and yet—somehow, in some unnatural way, he still managed to command the entire room. Still made every breath feel like it had to be earned, like speaking out of turn might shatter something fragile and irreparable.

But the silence couldn’t last forever.

Bruce’s voice, when it finally came, was low and sharp as a blade.

“Damian.”

His name cut through the air like a blade.

Damian inhaled sharply, but he did not falter.

His shoulders squared, his hands curled into fists at his sides, his jaw locked in a way that made his teeth ache, and he forced himself to meet Bruce’s gaze when his father finally turned around.

“Why did you do it?” Bruce’s hands had curled into fists at his sides.

“I had to take a chance.”

The words left him before he could second-guess them, before he could even consider any other way to phrase it. As if putting it any other way would make a difference. As if making it sound more reasonable, more calculated, more understandable would change anything.

Bruce’s stare didn’t waver.

His response was immediate.

“No.” His voice was harsher now, dangerously close to breaking. “This isn’t the way.”

The words were spoken like a fact. As if there was no arguing it, as if the conversation should have ended right there, as if Damian had already lost.

But he hadn’t.

Because this wasn’t about right or wrong.

This wasn’t about rules.

This was about you.

“Why not?”

His voice came sharper this time, cracking through the space between them, pushing against the weight of Bruce’s certainty, forcing something else into the silence. Something raw. Something desperate.

“I had to take a chance.”

He had to.

He had to.

Bruce inhaled, slow and measured, before exhaling just as steadily.

When he spoke again, his voice was still calm.

Unshaken.

And somehow, that only made it worse.

“(Name) is dead, Damian.”

A sharp breath.

His stomach twisted violently.

His body tensed, his nails pressing so hard into his palms that the sting barely even registered. His heartbeat slammed against his ribs, but outwardly, he refused to react.

He refused.

“She’s not—”

“Damian.”

Bruce’s voice cut through his own, and the finality in it sent something cold shooting down his spine.

But he shoved it down.

He wouldn’t accept this.

He couldn’t.

Damian’s hands curled into fists. “Then I should have gotten her to the pit sooner.”

“That’s not how this works.”

“Then how does it work, Father?” Damian snapped, his voice cutting through the cave like a whip. “Tell me—tell me how it makes any sense that Jason could be revived but not—” His voice caught for half a second, but he gritted his teeth and pushed through. “Not her.”

Bruce didn’t answer immediately.

And that silence—it was almost worse than anything he could have said.

“That was different.”

Damian’s fists clenched.

“How?”

Bruce inhaled again, and something in the way he did it—something so controlled, so deliberate—made Damian’s stomach twist even further.

“Jason wasn’t brought back to life by the Lazarus Pit.” His voice was firm, but there was something almost reluctant in the way he spoke, like he didn’t want to explain this. Like saying it out loud would make something real. “The pit only restored his mind. It erased the damage. That’s different from what you tried to do.”

The words felt like they didn’t make sense.

Like they didn’t fit.

Like they shouldn’t exist.

Like they should be impossible.

But Bruce—

His father was saying them like they were true.

Something shifted.

Something small.

But Damian noticed.

Bruce stopped speaking, his sentence left unfinished, hanging in the air like a rope about to snap.

His fingers twitched at his sides.

His jaw tightened—just slightly, just barely.

His mind raced—whirring, unraveling, dissecting—because it should have worked.

He had done everything right.

He dug you out of your grave, broke through the dirt with his own two hands. He had brought you to the only Lazarus Pit in Gotham, he dragged your lifeless form across the damp cavern floors. He had submerged you into the emerald waters, the same way his mother had shown him, the same way it had worked before.

But nothing happened.

The pit remained still.

The water glowed, but it did not churn, did not surge with life.

It removed the scars you’ve gotten over the years. But that was it.

You—

you did not wake up.

You remained still. Cold. Gone.

Why?

Why didn’t it work?

It should have worked.

Unless—

A voice rang in his ears.

His mother’s voice.

“The Lazarus Pit restores the body to its perfect condition—before death.”

Before death.

Is that why?

Is that why the Lazarus Pit didn’t work?

Jason was barely alive—barely sane—when he was thrown into the pit.

But he was alive.

And you—

You weren’t.

Damian couldn’t say it.

Couldn’t bear to say it.

No.

No, he refused to accept that.

You couldn’t be gone. Not like this. Not this easily. Not this pathetically.

His voice was hoarse when he spoke again.

Something inside him cracked.

“You knew.”

The words felt like an accusation.

Bruce didn’t deny it.

Damian’s hands shook.

“You knew it wouldn’t work, didn’t you?” His voice was quiet, but it carried through the cave like a gunshot.

Bruce still didn’t deny it.

“You knew, and you still let me—”

Damian felt himself faltering. He felt the words get caught in his throat.

“You still let me dig her up.”

His throat tightened, and he felt something press down on his chest, something suffocating, something that refused to let him breathe properly.

“You let me take her to the Lazarus Pit. You let me think it would work—”

Bruce inhaled, slow and even. “You needed to see for yourself.”

Damian’s vision blurred for half a second.

Then he snapped.

“That’s bullshit.”

Bruce remained still.

“You wanted me to fail.”

Bruce remained silent.

“You wanted me to see—” His breath hitched. “That she was really—”

He couldn’t say it.

Because if he said it—if he let himself even breathe those words—

It would be real.

Damian couldn’t stand it.

Couldn’t accept it.

Because how could he?

When you had died such a meaningless death?

When you had gone out like that?

He hadn’t gone to your funeral.

Hadn’t watched them lower you into the ground.

Hadn’t stood beside the rest of them, listening to empty condolences and meaningless words.

No.

Because he couldn’t.

Because he refused to accept that you were really gone.

Because you had always been so stubborn.

So reckless.

Because you shouldn’t have died like that.

Because you should have let them help you.

Because it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

But who was he to say that?

When he was just like you.

Stubborn. Reckless in his own way.

Just as self-destructive.

And it was eating him alive.

“She wouldn’t have wanted this.”

Damian’s eyes snapped toward Tim.

Tim, who had been standing quietly until now.

Tim, who looked like he was barely holding himself together.

Tim, who had alerted Bruce—who had found Damian at the Lazarus Pit, alongside Stephanie.

Damian let out a sharp scoff. “Huh.” He tilted his head, voice dripping with something venomous. “And what would you know?”

Tim’s expression flickered—just for a second.

“More than you think.”

Damian scoffed, shaking his head. “No. You wouldn’t.”

Tim exhaled sharply. “You think you knew her.” His voice was low, measured, but it wavered slightly. “But you didn’t.”

Damian’s chest tightened. “And you did?”

Tim’s hands curled into fists.

Damian let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “You hated her.”

Tim stiffened. His jaw clenched.

“No, I didn’t.”

The words were immediate. Unshaken.

And somehow, they hit harder than anything else so far.

“You never even acknowledged her.”

“Yes I did—“

“Well I suppose it wasn’t enough apparently.”

Tim’s breath stilled, his shoulders locking, his throat bobbing in a way that Damian almost wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been looking for it.

“Well you pushed her away every chance you got,” Tim shot back, voice sharp, words cutting. “So don’t act like you actually cared.”

Damian’s fingers twitched.

“I did care.”

Tim exhaled, bitter.

“Yeah? She definitely knew that for sure.”

Damian froze.

His breath hitched.

You knew.

You had to know.

Didn’t you?

Even when he had insulted you, even when he had been a complete bastard—

Even when he was cruel, even when he acted like you were nothing but a nuisance, even when he never said anything—

You had to have known.

Didn’t you?

Didn’t you?

“I had to take this chance,” Damian said, quieter, breath uneven, hands shaking. “Because she was my sister.”

Tim’s expression flickered.

And then—

“She was my sister too.”

The words left Tim before he could stop them.

Before he could even think.

Everything stopped. The words lingered in the air, sinking into the silence like a blade buried deep into flesh.

She was my sister, too.

Tim hadn’t meant to say it.

Hadn’t planned it.

Hadn’t even thought about it before the words just left his mouth, before they hit the space between them, before they cut into something raw, something real, something he hadn’t even let himself acknowledge until it was already too late.

His own breath caught, his hands curling into fists at his sides, his pulse hammering against his skull as if his own body was trying to reject what he’d just said.

Because why now?

Why was he only saying it now?

Why was he only acknowledging it when you were already—

His throat locked up.

Damian’s fingers twitched.

His mouth opened slightly, as if to speak, as if to say something, but no words came out.

The air between them was thick, suffocating, the weight of everything pressing down on Tim’s ribs so hard that he felt like he could barely breathe. His heartbeat was uneven, erratic, like his own body didn’t know how to process what had just happened.

“You don’t get to say that.”

Damian’s voice was quiet.

Too quiet.

Tim exhaled sharply, his jaw locking. “What?”

Damian’s shoulders squared, his arms stiff at his sides, his fingers still shaking even as he clenched them into fists. His breathing had turned uneven, almost unsteady, but his voice—his voice was sharp.

“You don’t get to say that.”

Tim scoffed, shaking his head, but he felt something tightening in his chest.

“I don’t get to say that?” His voice came out bitter, biting, but his own hands were trembling slightly now. “(Name) was my sister too, Damian. That’s just a fact.”

Damian’s breath stilled.

For a split second, his body went completely still.

“Then why did you treat her like she wasn’t?”

Tim’s chest clenched. His breath hitched.

Damian took a step closer, voice cutting deeper, something sharp in his expression, something broken in his stare.

“Why did you act like she didn’t matter? Like she wasn’t even worth your time? Why did you act like she—”

His breath stuttered for half a second, something cracking through his voice before he forced it back down.

“You pushed her away.”

Tim clenched his teeth. “That’s rich coming from you.”

Damian’s hands twitched.

“I never pushed her away.”

“You shut her out,” Tim snapped, voice cracking under the weight of it. “You resented her.”

Damian’s stomach twisted.

“I did not.”

“You didn’t care about her when she was alive.”

“I did.”

“You barely even acknowledged her—”

“I did not hate her.”

“But now you suddenly care?” Tim let out a bitter laugh. “Now, suddenly, she’s your sister?”

“She is my sister,” Damian snapped. “And you don’t get to say otherwise.”

Tim’s breath hitched.

His heartbeat slammed against his ribs.

Because that—

That wasn’t the same thing.

That wasn’t—

“That’s not what I said.”

Damian’s nails dug into his palms.

“Yeah, but it’s what you meant.”

Tim inhaled sharply, his hands twitching at his sides, something thick in his throat that he didn’t want to name.

He shook his head, exhaling, his breath uneven. “You think I—”

“You think I hated her?” Damian cut in, voice sharp, voice dangerous. “You think I would have wannted her to die? You really think that’s what I wanted all this time??”

Tim clenched his jaw, shaking his head. “That’s not what I’m saying—”

“Really?”

Damian took another step forward, his body tense, his posture unreadable, his fingers curled into fists like he was trying so hard to keep himself steady, to keep himself from doing anything other than this.

“Then what are you saying?”

Tim exhaled sharply, shaking his head again, running a hand through his hair before letting it drop back to his side, something tight inside of him, something that was pressing too hard against his ribs, something that felt like it was clawing at his chest from the inside out.

“She wouldn’t have wanted this.”

Damian stilled.

“You keep saying that,” Damian said, voice tight, voice low, voice lined with something Tim couldn’t fully decipher. “Like you actually know what she wanted.”

Tim’s throat tightened.

“You didn’t know her, Drake.”

A beat of silence.

“You don’t get to say that,” Tim said, voice shaking with something raw. “You don’t get to act like you gave a damn about her when it actually mattered.”

Damian’s eyes burned.

“You don’t get to act like you knew her, either,” he shot back, his voice venomous. “You don’t get to tell me what she would have wanted—”

Tim let out a breathless laugh. “And you do?” His voice was rising now, sharp with frustration. “You think you had the right to drag her out of her grave and throw her into the Lazarus Pit because you couldn’t deal with it?”

Damian’s stomach churned. “Shut up.”

Tim stepped forward. “You think she would’ve wanted this?”

Damian’s nails dug into his palms.

And at that moment, Stephanie, who’d be silently listening to the entire argument, stepped forward. “Okay, that’s enough, guys—”

“You think she would’ve wanted to wake up in that pit—if she even could?” Tim’s voice cracked slightly, but he didn’t stop. “To wake up wrong?”

“No,” Tim interrupted, his voice raw. He stepped closer, his fists trembling at his sides. “You think you’re the only one who wanted her back?” His voice cracked slightly, but he pushed through. “You think you’re the only one who couldn’t accept it?”

Damian exhaled sharply, looking away.

“You thiink you’re the only one who’s thought of dumping her in a Lazarus Pit, hoping that somehow—”

Tim’s breath caught.

He stopped.

Because he couldn’t say it either.

Because saying it out loud would make it real.

Would make it final.

That there really was no way of bringing you back to life.

And for a moment, neither of them spoke.

Neither of them moved.

“That’s enough.”

Bruce’s voice cut through the air, sharp, commanding, absolute.

Tim sucked in a breath.

Damian’s hands shook.

Silence.

The silence that followed was suffocating. Heavy. Almost unbearable.

Tim felt his pulse pounding in his ears, his breath still uneven, his body still tense from the argument—no, from the fight. Because that’s what this was.

Damian wasn’t even looking at him anymore.

His hands were curled into fists so tight that his knuckles had turned white, his shoulders were stiff, his breath was shallow, and his entire posture was wound so tightly that Tim thought he might just snap.

But he wouldn’t.

Not in front of Bruce.

Bruce, who had spoken with finality, whose voice had cut through the air like a blade, sharp enough to make even Damian shut up.

Tim swallowed, dragging a hand down his face before exhaling sharply, trying—failing—to let go of the tension clawing at his chest. His other hand clenched at his side, nails digging into his palm, grounding him, steadying him, because if he didn’t, he wasn’t sure what would happen.

Damian still wasn’t looking at him.

He wasn’t looking at Bruce either.

He was staring straight ahead, at the cave floor, at something that wasn’t even there, his entire body locked up, unreadable, unreadable, unreadable—

And then his gaze shifted.

Just barely.

Tim saw the exact moment his eyes landed on your body.

—or, at least, where your body should have been.

You were still there.

Your body was still there.

They had laid you down. Covered you up with a white sheet. Tim hadn’t been the one to do it—he didn’t even know who had done it, if it was Bruce, or Stephanie, or if they had both done it together, but he knew it hadn’t been him.

He hadn’t looked.

Not really.

He hadn’t let himself.

Damian’s fingers twitched.

His breathing hitched.

And then, before anyone could say anything—before Bruce could look at him, before Tim could process anything, before Stephanie could even move—

Damian turned and stormed out of the cave.

His boots struck the floor hard, fast, and then he was gone.

Stephanie opened her mouth, but nothing came out of it.

Bruce was already turning back toward the Batcomputer, already refocusing, already shutting down, because that was what he did. That was how he functioned.

Tim exhaled sharply.

The tension in his chest was still there.

Still suffocating.

Still unbearable.

He thought back to what he’d said. Thought back to what Damian did.

And Tim hated how he would’ve done the exact same thing Damian did if he were given the chance to.

Hated he was just like Damian in that sense.

Without a word, without a look, without a second thought—

Tim turned and left, too.

The alley reeked of rain-soaked asphalt and cigarette smoke, the kind that clung to the air long after the ember had burned out. A flickering streetlamp cast jagged shadows against the crumbling brick, the light barely reaching past the fog curling along the ground. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed—short-lived, swallowed by the city’s restless hum.

Then came the scratch of a lighter, a brief glow illuminating a worn trench coat, a sharp inhale followed by a slow exhale, smoke drifting through the damp air.

“Well, ain’t this a bloody mess.”

woops… 😬 heyyy guys…!! 🫣 did y’all miss me HAHA. this was definitely long overdue… i think i probably gave yall trust issues 😭 actual chapter 7 will be out at utc+8 12am on 14 Feb 🥰

taglist is closed ‼️(i’ll think about opening it again soon 🤫)

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[two-white-butterflies]

❀ - so confusing sometimes | multi

Description: i have a request for some beautiful lotr elves! how would they react to their human s/o being so…human? sleep talking, bumping their hips on a counter, catching their clothes on doorknobs, expressive, etc? REQUEST

Thranduil. Legolas. Elrond.

A/N: I wanted to squeeze as much elves in here but alas I only wanted to make this for the elves that (i feel like) i know.

Thranduil of Greenwood (Sleep-Talking)

He's been having difficulties with sleep.

It all started after the darkness took hold of his kingdom, placing his people's lives in danger. How was he to rest? When his soldiers were risking their lives fighting against the darkness - all while he had the luxury of sleep, on a soft bed with his lady-wife beside him.

His human.

Gods, another reminder of why he cannot sleep.

He fears that time will steal you away from him. Your life was a mere blink of an eye to him, a minute of rain and he'll be thrown back into the barren desert. He cannot bare to lose you. It will consume his soul with grief. It will ruin him. It will kill him.

"Catch the fish, Thran." you mumbled in your sleep.

He raises an eyebrow, believing you to be awake. "It's a big one." you continued mumbling, while burrowing deeper into the sheets. "Meleth," he whispers, wrapping his arms around you. "But I feel bad, we should let it go." you hummed.

He forgets about his fears - his anxiety.

You looked adorable while sleeping - evidently still dreaming about the summer you both spent in Laketown. Before the darkness. Before the clock ticked against your favor.

"I am quite hungry." you bit your lower lip.

Thranduil chuckles, pulling your body closer until your head was on his chest. "Continue dreaming, my love. I hope that you find light in your dreams, as we've been surrounded by darkness as of the late." he whispered, although you were unable to hear.

Still dreaming about the past, and mumbling strings of incoherent words about fist and lunch.

Legolas of Greenwood (Bumping their hips on a counter)

Legolas was perhaps the most hilarious elf in all of Arda. He likes making jokes, sharing anecdotes of all the trees he's had a conversation with. He's always on top of a tree, coming home all covered in mud. He was adorable.

But he was still an elf.

He still possessed grace and elegance. He's never scraped his knees as a child. He never loses his balance. He always has his shoulders squared, and walking in a straight line.

"Chocolate is evidently better than vanilla." he rolled his eyes at you.

"You are an elfling." you say plainly, continuing to mix the batter for his father's nameday cake. "Chocolate is naturally better. When an elfling wants to be happy, they don't reach for the vanilla, they climb the counter and reach for the hidden chocolate." he defends.

But you can see through him. He's a sweet-tooth.

"You told me that Ada's favorite flavor was vanilla." you reminded, referring back to the conversation you had about your good-father.

"- but I am also his favorite child, which means that I will have the biggest piece of cake. I want to eat chocolate." he pleaded.

"You are his only child, Las." your eyes narrowed teasingly. The humans were always quick to point out the chasm between your ages, but Legolas acted more like an elfling sometimes.

"- and you will eat chocolate cake on your nameday" you walk past him.

Bumping your hips on the counter.

"Ow," you flinch, and his eyes widen.

"What was that? Are you okay? Are you hurt?" he wrapped his arms around you, caging you in his warm embrace.

"Are you sick? Is that normal?" he continued asking, concern flashing through his blue irises. The pain subsides, but his concern does not. "Should I call for a healer?" he inquired.

Why was he so worried? You only bumped your hips on the counter. He continues staring deep into your irises, checking your eyes for any sign that you were feeling pain.

You piece his reaction together.

Damn.

"My wife." he repeats firmly, snapping you back into reality. "Las," you say before beginning to laugh.

Your reaction catches him off guard. "Why are you laughing at me?" his eyebrows merge together, his face turning serious. "There's nothing to worry about, I just bumped into something." you comfort.

"There's something wrong with your eyes. We must have it healed." he insists, but you shake your head. "It's normal, Las." you smile.

"- you mean to tell me that you didn't see it?" he was flabbergasted.

His face softens, his eyebrows return to their normal place. You answer him with silence and with silence he understands. You are human, same in face as the elves - but still human nonetheless. "I'm sorry," he apologized, you wrap him in a warm embrace.

Ultimately forgetting about the cake you were baking.

Elrond Peredhel (Catching their clothes on doorknobs.)

Elrond's heart heaves at the sight of that scowl on your face. His lady-wife whose anger quickly turns into sadness. "Meleth, please, talk to me." he pleaded - like a lost little puppy. "I can't believe that you've left me in the dark about the Fellowship." you frowned.

You've been married for a decade, and he's always told you everything. What he ate for breakfast, luncheon and dinner. He even shares with you the types of wine he drank. You trusted each other with even the tiniest details of your lives, but why did he lie?

"I do not wish for danger to happen upon you. The great darkness has been marching against us. I fear that those forces take you." he confessed, keeping his voice low. "- but there is no use in hiding that from you, not when you already know." he breathed.

His eyes were cloudy with tears.

"As Lady of Rivendell, is it not my duty to know?" you explained, suddenly feeling guilty about confronting him all those hours ago.

"I know that it your duty, meleth. I was being selfish. I allowed my fears to consume my judgement." he apologized.

"- while the Fellowship still marches, I urge you to not speak about them, even in the confines of our haven. The darkness has grown in power. I believe that he is strong enough to pierce through my defenses." he reminded.

"Yes, I understand." you pressed a kiss to his forehead. Standing up to close the door, after closing it shut - you turn around to face him, but your robes have been caught in the doorknob.

"Gods," you mentally facepalmed, trying to pull your robes free. "Meleth," he stood up, helping you free your robes but you continued tugging at it - giving him a harder time. "Meleth," he smiled, preventing the chuckle that threatened to escape from his mouth.

The littlest joys.

He frees your robes from the treacherous hold of the doorknob.

"Thank you." you smile in return, already red in the face.

[sematarygirls]

⠀    ⠀⠀♯┆marshgirl!reader x rafe ⏤ part i.ㅤ ۪ ୧

ᰋ. ‎ ‎‎ ‎ ‎“ i asked my father if he believed in ghosts; he told me he would be one someday ,, ‎‎ ‎ ‎ : ‎‎ ‎ ‎IN WHICH . . . rafe bets that he can befriend the weird girl who resides in the marsh.   ─── ⊹ᡣ𐭩₊⋆🌾

THE CYPRUS BRANCHES swayed in the gentle breeze of the early morning, mist still clinging low to the murky water and roots of the trees. The air was thick with the earthy scent of damp soil and natural decomposition of material as well as the sickly sweet smell of crushed wildflowers under your feet.

You moved through the marsh like you were born from it— maybe you were—with quick, precise steps that avoided stray tree roots, sticks, rocks, and the occasional small animal. Your skirt swished at your ankles, wetted with fresh mud as you returned home from your morning scavenge of all the fascinating things nature had to offer.

Your lonely little cabin where you resided with your father was tucked away from the roads and civilization. He often told you that the world was dangerous, and it would eat a girl like you alive, so it was better to stay in the marsh where it was safe.

He'd never quite explained your way of life. You knew you were different, not like the other kids your age, but you didn't understand why, and whenever you dared ask, he would get agitated, asking you who put those thoughts into your head.

Maybe it was paranoia, a fear of what others were capable of, a fear of being out of control. Maybe it was grief, the loss of your mother so achingly deep that all he could do was run away and disappear.

Or maybe he was hiding something from you, from the world. Maybe the real reason for keeping you isolated had nothing to do with keeping you safe but rather, protecting whatever secrets he had buried in the marsh so long ago.

As you approached, you heard the familiar song of your handmade windchimes—made from animal bones, shards of glass, and rusty metals you had collected—and the piercing creaking of the old rocking chair that sat on the porch and moved with the wind. It was comforting. It was the sound of home.

"Daddy?" You called softly, pushing the creaky wooden door open and pausing to take your muddy boots off and set them down outside to keep from tracking mud inside before venturing into the house to retrieve this month's grocery list.

Once a month, on the last day of the month, you were permitted to go into town to stock up on groceries for the coming weeks. It had been a ritual like clockwork since you were thirteen. Though at that age you weren't technically allowed to be driving, your father insisted upon it anyway.

Padding further inside, your feet instinctively avoiding the spots in the floorboards that stuck up or had exposed nail heads, you found your father sitting in his worn, leather chair, knife in hand as he whittled something out of wood. "Back already?" He asked, glancing up at you. His gaze was always sharp and scrutinizing like he expected to catch you in a lie, and his voice was deep and rough, his vocal cords like rocks that had been weathered by a stream.

You nodded, the scent of burning wood from the fireplace mingling in the air with the smell of dried herbs and fresh flowers and infiltrating your senses. Your eyes followed his motions as he scraped the knife against the wood with slow, deliberate strokes, the sound of him humming in acknowledgement reaching your ears.

After a beat of silence, he sighed heavily, looking up at you with that piercing gaze as he set his knife down on the table, a little harsher than intended. "Remember the rules," he said firmly, his tone warning as he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. "Get what we need and come straight home. No lingering or talking to strangers," he reminded you, like he always did despite you having done this dozens of times.

"Yes, sir," you replied softly with an obedient nod, reaching for the paper in his outstretched hand. He held it firmly for a moment, not letting you take it as he searched your eyes, as if he could pull the truth from your bones. Clearly, he decided you were telling the truth about obeying his strict rules because he loosened his grip, allowing the paper to slip from his fingers.

You slipped the paper into your bag—the same one you'd used to collect your trinkets—and turned on your heels, heading back to the front door. You swiped your dad's keys from the table by the door before closing it behind you, paying no mind to the screeching that would have made anyone else wince.

Slipping on your boots and trudging down the crumbling wooden steps, you noticed a shift of atmosphere; you always did when you were leaving. The wind seemed to blow a little harder, whistling to catch your attention as you started your father's rusty old truck and put it in reverse to make your way toward the road. In response, a nearby crow cawed loudly, causing a few others to follow.

The marsh didn't like when you went into town.

Neither did you.

The drive was always unsettling and left a pit in your stomach as the trees grew few and farther between and more houses came into view, eventually giving way to buildings crowded together and pavement instead of greenery.

You pulled into the parking lot, the truck's engine rattling as you put the car into park. People stared before you even got out of the car; they always did.

Stepping out, you felt the weight of eyes upon you, hushed whispers following you as you walked with your head held high. You didn't mind them. You always figured they were just curious, as you were about them.

Across the street, Rafe, Topper, and Kelce were exiting a high-end clothing store when they caught sight of you. "Holy shit, country cryptic incoming," Topper smirked, nudging Rafe and nodding to your form retreating into the grocery store.

"Bro, I swear she only crawls out of the swamp, like, once a year," Kelce said, following Topper's motion. They kept walking down the street, farther and farther away, but their conversation stayed centered around you.

"What do you think she's buying? Eye of newt? Frog legs?" Topper snickered, finding himself incredibly funny.

"She's gonna hear you two talking shit and hex you," Rafe quipped, smirking as he pushed his sunglasses up his nose. "Yknow, make your dicks shrivel up in your sleep."

"I'm not sure Topper's can get any smaller," Kelce snorted.

Topper shoved Kelce with an indignant scoff. "Shut the fuck up, man, not cool."

Rafe grinned, his gaze flickering back to the doors you'd just disappeared through. It was rare to see you in town, so rare that it became a spectacle. People would wait for your inevitable return and tell tales, most of them bullshit, about what they'd allegedly seen you do or heard you say when they encountered you.

A thought occurred to him that had him smirking. "What do you say we make this a little more interesting?" He proposed, making Topper and Kelce quit their bickering over dick sizes and look over at him with pinched brows.

"What do you mean?" They asked, almost in unison, their curiosity undoubtedly piqued.

"I think we should talk to her, see what her deal is, yknow. I don't think anyone in this town has actually ever heard her say more than, what, three words?" Rafe grinned, like he had just said something revolutionary.

The two boys looked at each other before bursting out laughing. "There's no way she'll talk to us, let alone you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rafe scowled, his face growing hot. He didn't appreciate being challenged.

"It means you're the biggest asshole I know," Kelce rolled his eyes, always one to tell it like it was. He wasn't as much a lapdog as Topper was. "You're like the last person she'll want to talk to."

"Girls talk to me all the time," Rafe defended, gritting his teeth at the insult.

"Yeah," Topper snorted. "When they're trying to fuck you. Not when they're, yknow, feral." He bared his teeth and made a clawing motion for emphasis.

Rafe was determined to prove them wrong. Nothing made him more willing to do something than when someone told him he couldn't. "Fine then, let's make a bet."

Kelce raised a brow. "A bet?"

"What kind of bet?" Topper asked.

Rafe’s grin stretched wider, cocky and self-assured. “I bet I can get her to talk to me. Not just talk, but, like… really talk. Get her to like me, maybe even fall for me."

Kelce and Topper exchanged glances, their skepticism evident. "You think you can make her fall for you?" Topper scoffed. "Dude, she's probably never even talked to a guy before."

"Exactly," Rafe smirked, already having decided that this would be a piece of cake to pull off. All he had to do was turn up the Cameron charm, and she'd fall to her knees. "That just makes it easier."

Kelce snorted. "Or it makes it fucking impossible. She lives in a swamp, bro. She probably doesn't even know what flirting is."

"That's the fun part," Rafe shrugged with a cocky grin, adjusting his sunglasses as he glanced toward the grocery store doors again. "She won’t even see it coming."

"Alright," Kelce shrugged, deciding this would be the easiest money he ever made. "You're on. If you can't get her to fall for you in a month, you owe us big time." Topper nodded in agreement.

And just like that, the deal was made. Rafe had one month to woo you into going on a real date with him, out in town where he would be able to prove to Kelce and Topper that he was every bit the man he claimed to be and that no woman was resistant to his charm, all of this completely unbeknownst to you.

                         ୭ৎ

author's notes .ᐟ   this is definitely not my best work. i really like the beginning, but i am terrible at dialogue and being descriptive when people are talking. i hope you enjoyed it anyway !! this will be a series, but i will take misc requests for marshgirl!reader and rafe at any stage of their relationship <33 also i didn't edit this because i'm tired, so if you see any mistakes, please lmk !!

tags .ᐟ   @starkeysprincess / @cometmultiverse / @all4l0vee / @kissesfrmriri / @bradshawed / @rafeslittleangel / @bakugouswaif / @fakedhearts / @avada-kedavra-bitch-187 /

[goonmieser1069]

Lieutenant!Simon “Ghost” Riley, who isn’t a fan of his sargeants actions.

“Why th’ hell woul’ you do tha’ Sgt?! ar’ you bloody insane???”

Was all you registered throughout the practical growl coming out of the man barreling towards you. The looks of fear radiating off the Privates that had the bad luck of being present in the same hallway as you and the brute stomping towards you.

Your eyes quickly met with his as you furrowed your brows. You could see the snarl through the thin balaclava if you couldn’t already see he was fuming from the looks of sheer fury in his deep brown irises.

Any and all of the poor Privates left in the tight hallway scurried away upon seeing the angry man. Eyes narrowed and blonde brows knit together, his voice low as he snarled at you.

“wha’? You think you’re fuckin’ invincible or something? Tha’s it?”

He barked at you, mud soaked boots stopped short just inches away from you. Fist balled, knuckles almost white as you felt the building practically shake when it collided with the wall near your head.

What you would see of his face was beet red, sweat mixed with the black paint around his eyes under the mask. Jaw tense, snarling at you each time he spoke.

Barely registering his words you sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose shutting your eyes tiredly. Your voice was dull while you spoke any way you could to ease the anger.

“Lt. orders are orders…I can’t just directly disobey the commands base gives me.”

He shook his head ferociously at your words, pacing around you like a predator about to pounce on its prey.

“Tha’s bullshit an’ you know it.”

He spoke dangerously, the tank of a man stopping his pacing and jabbing a finger into your chest harshly. His massive gloved hands balling your uniform into his fist.

“So wha’? You can jus’ disobey my orders instead? Real fuckin’ peachy Sgt.”

You weren’t sure if you imagined it or not, a flash of grief coming across his features. The anger replaced with something, something you couldn’t name for a half a second before it returned ten fold although now he looked utterly defeated.

He let go of your uniform, shaking his head like he was talking himself out of saying something he didn’t want to admit. Turning his back away from you voice low, the words coming out of his mouth hoarsely.

“Don’ know wha’ I would’ve don’ if you died.”

He muttered before stomping away, his steps harsh against the concrete floor as you stood in place. Mouth slightly agape trying to process what the hell just happened.

[daryl-dixon-daydreams]

Words: 4,331 Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader Era: S9, after Rick's "death" when Daryl is living in the woods (No Leah) Reader pronouns: she/her Warnings: language, sexual content (this one contains some spice babies!)

Daryl was just coming back from his morning snare check when he heard Dog barking excitedly down by the water. "Dog! The hell ya doin'?" he growled, stomping toward the noise. "Yer gonna bring the dead in! Quiet! No bark!" He rounded the shelter and strode toward the dock but quickly froze.

He was stunned to see you wading out into the water tentatively, your bare back exposed to him and steam rising off you in the cold morning air. His eyes traveled down the graceful curve of your spine to the dimples in your low back. He gulped thickly. The surface of the water lapped at your hips. Dog danced back and forth on his front paws on the shore.

"Y/N!" Daryl yelled. You looked back at him over your shoulder, your arms crossed tightly over your chest as armor against the cold of the morning air. You kept walking deeper into the river. "What the hell are ya doin'?!" He stormed forward, wetting his boots in the water. "Have ya lost yer damn mind?!" He was bewildered.

"I'm getting clean!" you yelled back, shivering slightly as your toes sunk into the cold mud on the bottom.

Daryl swore under his breath. He could see the goosebumps all over your skin. "It's freezin'! Yer gonna catch yer death out there!" he roared.

You were finally in up to your collarbone, treading water, and you turned to look at him standing on the bank. "It's not that bad!" you yelled back. "It's—it's invigorating!"

"Yer shiverin’! Get back here!" He swore under his breath again and rushed to his makeshift shelter to pull all the blankets off his cot before hurrying back to the water's edge again. "Y/N—C'mon! I ain't jokin'! I'll—I'll close my eyes. C'mon out and wrap these around ya."

You were simply treading water, trying to pull in deep breaths. "I'll c-come out once you come in!" you announced.

"What?" he spat, looking at you like you truly had gone completely mad.

"You're not taking care of yourself out here, Daryl! When is the last time you washed up?"

He dropped the blanket he had stretched out in front of himself to hang toward the ground. He chewed on his bottom lip and stared at you.

You smiled broadly at the expression on his face. He looked about ready to throttle you. You took a few lazy strokes backwards, into deeper water. "Alright. I'll j-just stay out here until you c come get me then!"

Your nose and cheeks were kissed red with cold and Daryl heaved a frustrated breath. "Have ya lost yer damn mind?!" he roared. "I ain't playin'! Get back here! Yer gonna get hypothermia!"

"Only if you l leave me out here t-too l-long," you said, shaking with the cold. It was starting to work its way in deep. You could feel your muscles growing tense as they tried to retain heat in your core.

Daryl flicked his hand in your direction. "Is this why ya came out here?! To give me all this damn grief?!" he growled.

"I can't f-feel my toes anymore, Daryl! Are my l-lips turning blue yet?" You smiled as you saw the frustration and worry on his face growing. You did feel a little bad, but you’d already told him what the solution was... and it was an easy one.

He swore under his breath and paced back and forth on the bank before tossing the pile of blankets he’d dragged off his cot down on the dock. He shot a deadly glare in your direction and you knew you'd won.

You submerged for a moment and came up blinking the water away from your eyes. You grinned at him and then spun in the water so you were facing the other bank. “I won’t look!” you announced. “Tell m-me when I can t-turn around!” Your shivering was getting worse.

Daryl was muttering to himself under his breath as he pulled layer after layer of his clothing off and piled them on the bank. “Ya best swim to the other side ‘cuz if I catch ya, ‘m gonna—”

Your laughter interrupted him. “You’re gonna w-what, Daryl?”

Dog seemed to think this was all a game as well and dashed back and forth in the shallow water, panting and smiling his Malinois smile.

Daryl’s hands landed on the hem of his final top layer, a waffle-knit thermal shirt, and he hesitated. He looked out at you bobbing in the water, your hair wet and clinging to the nape of your neck. He swore one more time and swept his shirt off. The cold morning air bit at his bare skin.

Then he was a blur of movement, trying to shed the last of his bottom layers before he lost his nerve. He felt sheepish as he discarded his pants and underthings, tugging his socks and boots off in one motion and kicking them aside. The mud was freezing on his bare feet and he swore again before hurrying to get into the cover of the water, not that it was going to be warmer at all.

You heard the splash of Daryl entering and bit your bottom lip. You tried to stop yourself from shivering so violently, but the fingers of cold were working their way in deeply. The next thing you heard was a murmur of expletives as Daryl immersed himself in the water and then what sounded like him walking and swimming toward you. Daryl was hurriedly scrubbing at the dirt on his skin while your back was turned. Taking his clothes off had revealed the striking demarcations around his sleeves and neckline and more where the dirt had clung to his skin instead of his clothing. Living out of a patched together shelter in the woods was hard and you were of course correct—he wasn’t taking care of himself. He had buried all his feelings in combing the banks for Rick and hiding from things past and he certainly wasn’t thinking about more than the basic necessities of survival. Bare minimum, that’s how he was living.

“C—can I turn around?” you asked, breaking him out of his musing.

There was a little more splashing and then his voice came from quite close right behind you. “Yeah,” he growled.

You turned and saw that he was only a couple feet away. His bright blue eyes were narrowed at you in a glare that could have curdled milk. You found yourself nervously chewing on your bottom lip and blushing as you realized how closed the two of you were, and how entirely naked you both were too. Though, the tea-colored water was a sufficient cloak to hide your bodies. Your eyes flickered down to the scars visible near his collarbones and on his shoulders and you felt a deep tug behind your navel, a pang of empathy and pain. “S-see? It’s not so b-bad,” you said, meeting his bright blue eyes again.

“Yer teeth are chatterin’,” he said. “I came in. Will ya get out now before ya freeze to death? This is the most ridiculous shit ya’ve ever pulled.” Your eyes flickered over his face and Daryl felt something shift in the air between the two of you and he thought he could read it on your face. He gulped nervously. “What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” you breathed. But you swam a little closer to him. Then closer, within a foot. He could feel the currents whirling away from your legs and arms keeping you afloat, buffeting his bare skin below the surface. Water droplets were clinging all over your shoulders, running over your goosebumps and then rejoining the river winding around you. He was keenly aware that if he looked down, he’d be able to see much more of the shape of you than ever before, but it felt like an imposition despite the fact that you’d undressed yourself and created this whole ridiculous scenario. He kept his eyes fixed on your face instead, but that didn’t stop the thought of it, the very idea of you so bare so close to him from setting his heart racing and tugging up some bubble of feeling between his lungs that wouldn’t be ignored or shoved back down.

You reached up suddenly and your fingertips brushed gently into his hair and trailed down to the wet ends. From there, your fingertips dropped down and alighted on his bare chest for just a moment. Daryl felt as if an electric current suddenly zipped through his entire body and he found himself gulping thickly again.

“W-wash up, Daryl,” you whispered, another shiver wracking through you. “You d-deserve to be c-clean and cared for.” You gave him a tight smile that was touched with a mark of sadness and then paddled backwards away from him for a few strokes before you turned completely and swam toward shore. Your feet touched the soggy bottom and you were soon rising up out of the water, hugging your arms around yourself and shaking with the cold.

Daryl allowed himself to drink in the shape of your bare back, trace your shoulder blades, to watch you until the water dipped in against your waist, and then he turned away again. He cupped the water in his hands and splashed it over his face. He scrubbed over his body with his rough palms, wiping away the layers of sweat and dust and dirt and ash. His fingertips snagged in snarls and frazzled locks in his hair. He dunked himself below the surface and held his breath, let the cold pressure press against his ear drums, dampen his senses for a long moment as he ran his fingers over his hair. He surfaced again and shook the excess water from himself.

The cold was quickly working its hooks into him and he swore under his breath again, marveling at the sheer absurdity of this whole sequence of events and furthermore at the fact that it had worked. You’d gotten him into the damn frigid river. Of course you did. If you threw yourself into a fire, he’d follow after you.

He chanced a glance over his shoulder at the bank. Dog was sitting there dutifully, but you were nowhere in sight. He took that as his cue that it was safe to come ashore again. He hated to admit that though he was now shaking with the cold as he planted his feet back on the makeshift dock, he did feel clean, new, and somewhat restored. He hastily grabbed one of the heavy blankets still left behind beside your now drying footprints and wrapped it around himself.

Dog trotted up and down the dock happily as Daryl made his way toward his shelter. He cleared his throat loudly. “Hey, Y/N?”

“In here. C-come in, Daryl,” your voice answered.

Daryl stepped around the tarp and saw that you were standing in the middle of the space, still clutching a heavy, gray blanket around yourself, and positively shaking from head to toe with the cold. Your clothes were piled on the floor by your feet where you must have discarded them before your foray into the river. He sighed heavily and shook his head, moving past you to dig into a leather duffel bag that had piles of clean clothes in it that he never wore. “The hell’s wrong with ya? Look at ya. Yer whole body is shakin’,” he said in a low voice. He had planned to grab some clothes and go change into them outside the shelter to give you some privacy, but your voice soon stopped him dead. “Yer freezin’ to death over there...” he growled.

“S-so warm me up,” you said in a low voice.

Daryl gulped thickly. He heard your soft footsteps moving toward him and again was sharply aware of his nakedness beneath the blanket he was holding about himself. And of yours. “Lemme just grab some clothes and I’ll get dressed and get the fire built up.”

“That’s not w-what I mean.” Your voice was soft behind him.

Daryl turned, his heart jumping into his throat. “...what?”

You padded toward him across the dried pine needles he’d spread as a makeshift floor. You were still clutching the wool blanket around yourself. Water kept dripping down from the ends of your hair and running down the fabric like dew drops rolling off a blade of grass. “W-why d-did you st-stay outside last night?” you asked him in a low voice, unable to keep the shivering out of your voice despite trying hard to. Your eyes were questioning.

Daryl couldn’t tear his eyes from you. Something was happening. He could feel it like a tingle in his fingertips and the top of his head. And that bubble in between his lungs seemed to be growing, upwelling like the coldest, deepest layer of water in the river when his feet has disturbed it. You held his eyes steadily as he tried to come up with an answer to your question. “...I was keepin’ watch. And—I wanted ya to have the cot.”

Your lips tugged down into a pout that had his chest aching. God, and that furrow you got between your brows as you were puzzling over him. He couldn’t stand that pout on your face. It made him feel instantly guilty but he didn’t know why and as he would reverse the spin of the earth if that was the only thing that would fix it. It didn’t matter; he’d figure out how to do it if that was the cure. You took a couple more steps toward him, stopping within a foot of him now. The blanket slipped off your right shoulder and his eyes were drawn to that expanse of bare skin like a moth to a flame. He gulped again and tore his eyes away and back up to yours. Your voice broke through his jumbled, racing thoughts. “Daryl—I w-wanted you. Couldn’t you tell?”

He was paralyzed, dumbfounded. He felt like an idiot staring back at you, wondering how long he’d been talking himself out of what was apparently right in his face.

Your eyes flickered between his as you tried to read what was going on in his mind. “Why do you think I came out here? I was p-practically b-begging you to kiss me last night, by the fire. But you didn’t. And then I couldn’t s-sleep on your damn cot all night, alone. And you were just sitting out there...” You were searching his face for an explanation.

His lips parted as if to say something, but no sound came out. You were standing there just in front of him, shivering, telling him that he hadn’t imagined the charge in the air the night before, the heavy tension, the thickness between you like an approaching storm. He hadn’t imagined the way you’d been looking at him with that dewy softness in your eyes. He hadn’t been imagining your hesitation to disappear into his shelter completely. Anything he could come up with in response to that, to this, sounded stupid. Finally, he closed his mouth again and sighed, shutting his eyes briefly, drawing in a slow breath. “Just tell me—what ya want from me. Tell me, righ’ now, what ya want and I’ll give it to ya.”

Your eyes searched his face before you answered. “I already told you. I want you.” Daryl watched with bated breath as you backed up toward his cot and sat down on the edge. Though you kept the wool blanket clutched to your chest, it slipped completely from your other shoulder now and pooled on the cot behind you. “Do you want me in the s-same way? If you don’t, tell me now before I further em-embarrass myself.” Another shiver wracked through you. “I mean, I’m s-sitting on your bed basically naked right now, Daryl.”

Daryl pulled in a bracing breath and walked to you, sinking down beside you on the cot, his own blanket falling down around his hips. His bare chest and stomach were scattered with scars and goosebumps rose at the cold kiss of the air. His body was angled toward you and after hesitating only one nervous moment, he reached to cup your face tenderly in his hands, so gently it was as if he was worried you would crumble into ash under his fingertips. “Course I want ya. I’ve—I’ve always wanted ya.”

One of your palms landed flush in the center of his chest, and that was the last thing he needed before he crashed his lips against yours. Your hand drifted down to his side and rested there, exhilarating and grounding and electric. His palm came to rest on the side of your neck, his fingertips tickling around to the nape, and he kissed you with an urgency that suggested he expected you to dissolve into the air and vanish at any moment. He’d been hiding from so much out there for so long—and you were pulling him back to plant his feet on the earth again, to grab hold of something true and concrete and real right in front of him. He wasn’t a shapeless shade condemned to comb the banks of the river alone until he found what he’d lost... He was making a conscious choice in being there and he’d made a conscious choice to leave other things behind... You. He’d left you behind.

He kissed you more desperately, more hungrily.

A small hum of pleasure escaped you and Daryl deepened the kiss, his hands sliding down from your face over the curve of your neck and onto your bare shoulders. Your skin was chilled and damp still from the river. Droplets rained down from your hair. They did the same from his. They ran over the landscape of his scars and met your fingertips where they were pressed to him. They navigated his landscape and crossed onto yours in this way, where the two of you met and melded.

You pulled back from him slightly, just the tiniest bit, out of breath. “Daryl,” you breathed.

His heart was racing as his hands settled on your waist. He gripped to the folds of the wool blanket hard. Had you changed your mind? “Are ya okay?” he asked, his blue eyes opening and searching your face.

But a smile grew on your lips. “Y-yeah. Just cold.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Some mad woman went out into the damn river. I had to go after her.”

“She does sound mad,” you breathed.

“Little bit,” Daryl agreed. He straightened up slightly and looked at how you were shivering. “Ya should get some clothes on. Yer gonna get sick,” he said, turning away to stand, but your hand landed on his arm and arrested all movement.

“Wait—”

He glanced over at you again and settled more deeply into the cot again. Your simply touch had done that.

You were biting your bottom lip, your top teeth dented into the fullness of it. “I—I meant what I said. I want you to warm me up. If—if you’re okay with—”

Daryl’s brow furrowed. He was unwilling to make any kind of leap here as far as your meaning. You’d need to make it clear, exactly what you wanted from him, with him. He hadn’t even dared to hope for anything like this with you, and most of him was still doubting that this was anything other than some crazy whim of yours... though he’d never known you to be flighty or capricious in this way. But his whole life he’d been taught that he was worth nothing, undesirable, unlovable... and that gets into a person’s soul deep, like a splinter that works inward instead of out, year after year. But you had been always determined to show him his worth, to care for him even when he didn’t care for himself, to make him feel safe and home. He just didn’t dare to hope for more...

But now you made it clear to him by letting the blanket fall from your hands, baring more of than he’d ever seen, and reaching for him again. You pressed your soft lips to his and kissed him gently this time, but with the same intensity of feeling and desire. One of your hands landed on the side of his neck and the other alighted on his side. Daryl kissed you back with a growing heat, his hands drawn to your newly revealed skin like a magnet. He moved over you and you laid out beneath him on his cot, your fingers traveling over the tensed muscles in his back and pushing his damp hair away from his face. Your fingernails raked gently across his skin and heat flared in Daryl’s chest. He tugged the blanket that was still swirled around his hips and used it to cover the two of you. You felt a flush burning in your face and chest as you looked at the broadness of him leaning over you and the strength of his chest and stomach. Daryl’s eyes and hands wandered over your edges like he was trying to memorize every crest and curve by touch and new waves of goosebumps rose on your skin as the roughness of his palms grazed the insides of your bare thighs and the roundness of your hips and buttocks.

His lips crashed down onto yours again and the heat of his skin met yours. He bit gently at the plumpness of your bottom lip and heat flared in your core. His fingertips dimpled into your hip and the curve of your ribs. You let out a breathy sound as his mouth departed yours and kissed down your neck to your collarbone. “Daryl—”

The way you had just said his name was enough to drive him insane. It was at that moment that he was totally lost—whatever nagging doubts that had been still rattling around in his head were silenced and you were both completely immersed in each other. He pulled more sinful noises from you with his fingers and his mouth until your back was arching and your toes were curling and you were begging him in the prettiest voice for more, your fingernails raking down his back or tangling into his hair. Neither of you could bear to wait a moment longer by the time he finally pushed into you, drawing a gasp and breathy sigh from your lips, his teeth biting down lightly on your shoulder at the overwhelming sensations rippling through him. He tucked his face into the crook of your neck and breathed you in as you began to move together as one. Your hand stayed splayed on his lower back, pressing into him as if you were afraid he would suddenly put space between you again, but there was no risk of that.

Daryl’s breath was hot against your neck, but when both of you were nearing the peak of your bliss, his lips captured you in a desperate kiss before he withdrew and pressed his forehead to yours as the two of you crashed over your highs together. Your ragged breathing was the only sound to be heard in the early morning air. You pushed the sweaty strands of Daryl’s wavy brown hair out of his face and met his blue eyes. He seemed to be searching yours, trying to read what you were thinking.

You leaned up and kissed him again, but this one was soft and full of the yearning of all the long years you had wanted him but been too afraid of ruining the bond you already had. He settled down beside you and drew you in to press you against his heated skin, adjusting the wool blankets and skins over the two of you to keep out the cold morning.

You felt his eyes on your face even as you were still trying to catch your breath and you turned to look over at him. “Hmm?” you hummed in a question.

“I just—I can’t—I can’t believe yer here. I can’t believe ya came out here and now we’re—we—” he broke off, his eyes flickering over your face as if he expected you to disappear as soon as he stopped looking at you.

“I guess I got tired of waiting,” you breathed. “And I was afraid you were going to disappear out here completely.” Your expression was sad as you traced a finger lightly along his jawline.

“I think—I wanted to.”

You rolled onto your side to face him. “Do you still want to?”

He shook his head. “Nah. I want this,” he said, ducking his eyes, still feeling nervous about what had happened and was happening.

“Good,” you said. “Me too.”

There was a long silence as you tucked yourself in against him. Beneath the blankets, his arm draped over you and he pressed his palm to your soft skin.

“I still can’t believe ya went into the damn river like that,” he drawled suddenly.

You laughed lightly. “But look where it led us.”

“Yeah... but I think we coulda still got here without the near-hypothermia. Mad woman,” he said. You gave him a smile brimming with light. Daryl pressed a kiss to your forehead and then another soft one to your lips. The two of you were content to fall back asleep together and not wake until the sun was warmer and the day was half spent.

[renshengs]

what if you were a thousand year old demon lord cursed to be a literal walking vessel for all the world's horrors and i was a young upstanding swordsman who lost my family to your uncontrollable violence. what if i inherited the only weapon in the universe that could kill you and you came to me one day and told me you'd help me learn how to do it. what if i promised you, in all my grief and rage, that i'd be the one to kill you someday. what if you were gentle with me despite my hatred for you. what if you looked out for me, cut yourself on my sword to save me from my nightmares, held my hand and healed the bleeding wound and asked for nothing in return. what if you never asked for anything from anyone and loved the world anyway. what if you wanted to die because you thought the world would be better off without you because the only thing you see in yourself is violence. what if they dragged me through the mud and you stood by me and protected me and looked me in the eyes like you'd always done because you understood how it felt.

what if one day i looked at you and realized i didn't want you to die and it tore me apart. what if i'd rather walk into fire, freeze myself for eternity. what if your death by my hand was written in the stars by our ancestors. what if i know how this story ends, know it can't be rewritten. what if i try anyway. what if i try anyway because i love you.

[dreamcubed]

i hate it here | theodore nott x reader

song; i hate it here [taylor swift] pairing; theodore nott x fem!muggle-born!ravenclaw!reader genre; s2l, fluff, angst, hurt comfort word count; 5k timeline; half-blood prince warnings; swearing, reference to deaths, referenced grief, discrimination (muggle-borns), implied anxiety, implied depression summary; a chance encounter caused your life to intertwine with theo nott’s, of whom provided a comfort and solace you had sorely needed

this is an old draft i made in 2020, put through some serious editing

also, happy holidays and happy new year!!!

masterlist

"i'll save all my romanticism for my inner life."

———————————————

Flames flickered dangerously on the wall candles as the determined Slytherin sixth year charged down the corridor, eyes glaring at anyone who dared get in his way. His destination was unknown, but no one really gave it any thought as they stumbled to get out of his path. Theodore Nott wasn't one to mess with, nor were his group of friends.

"Nott," a voice muttered quietly from behind, causing Theo to halt in his tracks. Spinning on his feet, he caught sight of you and your hesitant gaze.

"What?" he snapped.

"You- uh- you dropped this..." you sighed, opening your hand to reveal a golden locket sat on your palm.

To your surprise, he took it quite gently from you and offered a quiet, "Thanks," before turning on his heel and continuing to storm down the corridor.

You exhaled deeply at your awkwardness as you began making your journey to the Great Hall for lunch. You weren't much in the mood to talk, but still joined your small group of friends at the Ravenclaw table. Greeting them with no more than a smile, you began dishing food on to your plate.

Meanwhile, Theo had arrived to the lunch hall via a different route, and earlier at that too. His thought process had been that of wondering who you were and why you knew his name. There was a sense of gratitude towards you, as that locket had been a gift from his late mother; thus it was a priceless artefact to him. He wouldn't know how to cope if he lost it— her absence was difficult enough as it was.

He sat down on the Slytherin table, surprised to see his friends weren't there yet; they were normally just as eager to eat as him.

He didn't really notice your presence in the room, even though he was still thinking about you. Alas, the hall was rather large, and rather full of students. Regardless, his thoughts were interrupted when Lorenzo Berkshire showed up, one of his closest friend. "Hey, Enzo," he looked up from his plate of food.

"Hi," he sat down opposite, "Where are the rest? I thought I was late enough as it was. L/N and I were just exchanging notes for my ancient runes test. And... then I went to the toilet."

"L/N?" a look of confusion rested upon Theo's features.

"Yeah, Y/N L/N, she's in your potions and DADA, I believe. She's helping me on the test that's coming up soon. Don't you know her?" Lorenzo quirked an eyebrow.

Your name didn't ring a bell at all.

"She's over there," Lorenzo pointed to the Ravenclaw table, "She is a mud— muggle-born, but she's really smart and I'll get detention if I fail this test."

Theo flicked his gaze to where you were sat. He observed your lack of participation in the conversation your friends were having— two Ravenclaw girls who he did recognise.

"Wait, that's L/N?" he turned to Lorenzo in surprise, seeing that Mattheo had now arrived wordlessly, already stuffing his face with food.

"So you do know her?" Lorenzo replied.

"Yeah- uh- I met her earlier, actually," Theo continued to watch you eating your meal while visibly spaced out.

"Mate, if you keep staring at L/N like that she's gonna get uncomfortable," Blaise Zabini announced his arrival, sitting by Theo.

"You know her too?" Theo spun his head to face Blaise, eyes slightly widened.

Blaise quirked an eyebrow, "Yeah? She's, like, one of the smartest girls in our year..."

"Why am I only hearing of her today?" he said, somewhat aggravated, as if he had been left out of an inside joke everyone else was in on.

Blaise and Lorenzo chuckled, before the latter said, "It's because she's so quiet. Trust me, it took me ages to get her reasonably confident around me."

"Why?"

"What d'you mean, why? Some people are just like that, Theo," Blaise shrugged.

Something told Theo that you weren't quiet for no reason.

***

You headed to your potions class at around 11am the next day: it was double potions, and your first lesson, which you were not looking forward to. You had it with a lot of Slytherins, and some of them were a bit judgmental of you being a muggle-born. That didn't necessarily bother you, it was just tedious to deal with constantly.

Much to your shock, you found Theodore Nott sat on your table and the old Hufflepuff boy you used to sit next to over in Nott's old seat. Awkwardly sitting yourself down in your own seat, you pulled out some of your books and ingredients and began working through the starter on the blackboard. All without saying a word to Nott.

You didn't realise Nott had been watching your every move from beside you.

"L/N," he whispered as Professor Slughorn called the attention of the class. You lifted your eyes from the book to him, and he could see the flash of fear in your eyes. Most likely because his group of friends were notorious for picking on muggle-borns.

"Yes?" you said as confidently as you could, in a hushed tone.

"Why have I never seen you around before?"

A frown graced your face as you eyed him incredulously, "What do you mean? We've had classes together for years."

"But I've never noticed you."

With a scoff, you muttered, "Thanks."

"I mean, I don't understand how I haven't noticed you."

You shrugged.

Sensing he needed to change the subject, Theo said, "Thanks again for finding my locket. It's priceless to me, I don't know what I'd do without it."

"It's fine," you dismissed, "Why's it so important, anyway?"

"My mother gave it to me before she died."

Pursing your lips ever so slightly, you murmured, "My condolences."

He rolled his eyes, "Empty words I've heard a thousand times."

Before you could reply, Slughorn scolded the both of you for talking.

And you didn't get another chance to talk until the lesson came to an end; you packed up all of your belongings and muttered a polite, "Bye, Nott," before hurriedly walking towards the door.

"L/N! Wait!" he called after you, jogging to catch up, "Please drop the Nott. Just call me Theo."

He walked with you to the Great Hall, engaging in a polite conversation about the material covered in the lesson.

Eventually, you found the courage to say, "N- Theo, my words weren't empty earlier."

Theo quirked an eyebrow, "What do you mean?"

With a slight shrug, you pointed to the Ravenclaw table, "My- uh- friends are over there, Theo. D'you mind if I go?"

Frowning, Theo asked, "Why would I mind?"

"Uh- I don't know... I just- uh..." you purposely avoided his eyes, not wanting to say that you were scared to offend him, when he probably already saw you as lesser, being a muggle-born.

"Look, Y/N, you don't need to be so nervous around me. I'm not gonna hurt you."

"Really?" you tilted your head.

"I swear. I don't care that you're muggle-born." Although his father would.

Nodding, you mumbled, "Goodbye," and joined your group of friends, of whom had been watching the previous encounter. Theo then headed over to the Slytherin table where his friends were also waiting.

***

A few days later, the Slytherin boys were once again gathered in the Great Hall, this time for breakfast. Lorenzo downed the rest of his coffee, and rose to his feet. "Gotta go."

"Where're you going?" Mattheo asked.

Climbing over the bench, he replied, "Library. L/N's helping me study for the ancient runes test, remember?"

"Can I come?" Theo quickly questioned, interested upon hearing your name mentioned.

Lorenzo gave him an odd look but said yes nonetheless; Theo instantly stood from his seat and tailed his friend on the journey.

Upon reaching the library, the pair found you already sitting at a little oakwood table with a dusty maroon novel in hand and scrolls of parchment laid before you. "Since when are you so stressed about tests?" Theo whispered.

"I told you, I'll get detention if I fail," Lorenzo shrugged, "What about you? Why a sudden interest in L/N?"

"I don't have a sudden interest in her," he blatantly lied.

Lorenzo gave him a look, "Sure, mate."

Luckily for Theo, they had reached the table where you were, with a little green sofa positioned by it. Theo smiled at you, muttering a quick, "Hi."

"Hi..." your face warmed at the sight of him.

As Theo set himself down on the sofa, Lorenzo said his hello to you - curious as to why you were even shyer around Theo - and sat down by you so he could pull out his books. He silently speculated as to what was going on between the two of you.

You began going over ancient runes, explaining in as much detail as you could the most recent topic. Still, you found yourself constantly glancing over at Theo, who had started reading a book, which didn't go unnoticed by Lorenzo. He didn't say anything, however, because if he did studying would be futile due to your inevitable embarrassment.

"Why did Theo come?" you questioned awkwardly when the aforementioned had left briefly to use the toilet, "He never has before..."

Shrugging, Lorenzo replied, "I think he wanted to see you."

"Me?" your eyes widened, "Why would he want to see me?"

You didn't get an answer; Lorenzo didn't give you one.

***

If you weren't so oblivious the question would have probably answered itself over the next few days. Theo had begun to go with you everywhere, and had moved to sit next to you in both DADA and potions officially. He sometimes napped during theory lessons in potions, but you didn't mind enchanting a quill to copy what you were writing so he would still have notes. Not that he had asked you to, you just felt weirdly obliged.

Whenever you would read in the library, he would be right next to you on the sofa, also reading. Whenever you were sat alone in the Great Hall, he would join and eat with you. Whenever you were taking a nice stroll around the grassy slopes of the Hogwarts grounds, he would walk by you, maintaining a comfortable silence.

Annoying wasn't the word you would use for him; in fact, you had never felt so content with someone's constant presence. The rest of your friends you needed breaks from, as they drained your social energy despite how much you loved them. Theo, however, was more of a calm and quiet person: he seemed to be quite happy not speaking at all around you. You appreciated the fact you could dwell together without doing anything.

***

The following Saturday, Theo was pissed. Determinedly walking down the corridor with a ferocious glare in his eyes, everybody was quick to jump out of his way, knowing the extent his wrath could sometimes take. Someone, namely a dumb third year, had accidentally set off an exploding spell on him. While Theo had fixed himself up, the third year had ran off without apologising. Now, Theo was hunting him down to seek revenge.

Everybody in the school feared him and the other Slytherin boys, except for a few of the first years who were yet to see their rage. When they were angry, no one dared go near them— it was kind of like an unspoken rule. You, unfortunately, had not yet realised that Theo was angered and ran up to him from behind, since you had been looking for him. You had found it strange that he wasn't yet by your side.

"Hey, Theo," you levelled your pace with his, wondering why he was moving so fast. A couple students loitering in the corridor exchanged glances, knowing you were about to get screamed at.

Except, you didn't. Theo's features went soft as he turned his head to you and smiled gently. Shock was evident on the observing students' faces, having never seen such a switch in emotion on any of the Slytherin boys before.

"Hey, Y/N," Theo spoke, "D'you have any good hexes to use on a stupid third year who accidentally hit you with a spell but didn't apologise?"

"Well, um, you're kinda putting me on the spot here..." you tapped her chin thoughtfully, "If you wanna go with a classic you could use the bat bogey hex."

Scrunching up his nose, he replied, "I kinda want something more original."

"Uh... why don't you make them turn purple?" you shrugged, "That's not done often."

"Why purple?"

"I like purple."

Theo chuckled, "Okay, then. We've just got to find him, now."

"Well, think logically. He'll probably go where there's lots of people so he can either blend in or have some hope of protection," you said, "And where will there be lots of people on this fine Saturday morning?"

"The Great Hall," he realised, grabbing your hand without thinking so he could start sprinting there.

You gasped at first, not expecting to be tugged along so roughly. But you weren't unfit, and quickly pulled your legs to match his pace.

"Alright," he panted, coming to a halt after running through the large double doors, "He's over there, on the Gryffindor table."

"Why... did... we... have... to... run?" you forced out between breaths.

Squeezing your hand unintentionally, he watched with amused eyes at your breathless state, before replying, "Couldn't risk him getting away again."

"Enchant his- uh- drink," now hyperaware of your still joined hands, you felt shy.

"What, so I don't get caught?"

"Uh, yeah..."

He tugged on your hand, guiding you down the side of the red table with his wand hidden discreetly in his free palm. Uttering the charm, he pointed his wand at the golden goblet in front of the boy.

"Better hope it works," he muttered, looking around to see all his friends together on the Slytherin table, as usual. You found yourself being dragged over to them without a say in the matter.

Theo only remembered to let go of your hand when you reached his friends— your expression likely gave away your embarrassment, but you still sat down next to him. Lorenzo, who was the other side of Theo, whispered in his ear, "You made it official, then?"

Shaking his head and taking a bite of toast, Theo answered, "What d'you mean?"

"You know what I mean, Theo," he sighed, "You both have such blatant feelings for each other."

The conversation swiftly switched as Mattheo began discussing the upcoming quidditch game. You didn't share an interest in the sport, but Theo did, so you were able to remain silent, much to your relief.

Blue puffy coat drowning you in warmth, and black leather gloves wrapping your shivery pale hands— woolly white bobble hat on head, and tickles of snow balanced on cheekbones— matte black snow boots on feet, and thick jeans on legs: you were well kitted for the day's snowy weather out in Hogsmeade, all of your friends were there too. You were now off the carriages and strolling down the icy street, gazing at the familiar sweets, book and joke shops. Cho, a friend of yours, was awkwardly making conversation with Blaise. He returned the level of awkwardness.

Mattheo and Lorenzo - Theo's closest friends - suddenly pulled your arms with mischievous looks on their faces. "Come to Zonko's with us!" Mattheo smirked.

It was obviously not a question.

Giving Theo a pleading look, you pulled a strained expression when all he gave you was a smirk similar to Mattheo's. "We'll be in the Three Broomsticks," your friend, Jane, said, "See the rest of you there."

You sighed, accepting your defeat and going to Zonko's— you ended up spending most of your time hidden in the corner of the shop while keeping an eye on the devious Slytherins. The crowd in the shop wasn't relaxing. At all. Right now, the only place you wanted to be was in the Three Broomsticks holding a refreshing cup of golden butterbeer with Theo by your—

Theo? Since when had he been the first person you wanted to be with? The first person you thought of when you went to your happy place? Warmth spread to your cheekbones and lit them aflame, the only thoughts in your head being Theo's cheeky smirk and fluffy brown hair. It took you awhile to realise Lorenzo had now grabbed your arm and was pulling you over to the pub with Mattheo, but you soon snapped out of your imagination and allowed yourself to enter through the door independently.

The second you were in there you made eye contact with very same boy you had been thinking about, causing you to grow flustered. Keeping your head down, you walked over to the table and smiled awkwardly at everyone. There suddenly seemed to be an overwhelming feeling that everyone could read exactly what you were thinking and immediately knew what was up.

Blaise budged along the bench a bit, allowing you to squeeze in next to Theo. All that you could notice now was the warmth radiating from the body - Theo's - that was squashed against you in the confined of space on the benches and chairs.

"Y/N? You good?" he whispered, concerned over your sudden shyness in demeanour.

"Uh- yeah! Fine... just fine," making the mistake of glancing at him again, your thoughts stammered and stuttered.

A million thoughts swarmed through Theo's head, having no idea what was happening. He decided to ignore it for now, however, and pushed over a glass of golden butterbeer to you.

Relief washed over you as you took a sip of the frothy beverage and allowed the warmth to fill up your insides. Theo's presence was beginning to feel comforting again, now your spout of realising your feelings was over. Unintentionally, you shifted millimetres closer to him causing your thighs to be pressed together. Theo was now conversing with Lorenzo, but he noticed your minuscule movement next to him.

Continuing with the conversation, he shifted the hand he had resting on his lap to hook it around your thigh: an action that had your eyes widening like saucers. Still, you couldn't help but smile slightly, before taking another sip of beer to cover your face.

***

One bright Saturday morning, you were in the library with Lorenzo, as he needed help with his studies. Only, this time it was Jane who was helping him, as you did not take herbology, and so could provide no assistance to him in that area. Regardless, you had come along, despite the fact you were in a great deal of pain. You were laying on the sofa by Jane and Lorenzo's table, curled up into a ball as you cursed your uterus for daring to grieve you in such a manner.

Theo, however, was in the Great Hall eating breakfast. The lack of your presence confused him, since you were usually there, so naturally he asked your friends where you were.

"Oh... she's in the library with Jane and Berkshire," Cho replied nonchalantly, "I don't know why she went— she has really bad cramps, and it's Jane that's tutoring Berkshire right now anyway."

"Cramps?" he frowned.

Cho sighed, "She's on her period, Nott."

Coughing awkwardly, he hummed in acknowledgment and continued eating, praying that the subject would be changed.

"Well? Are you just gonna sit there?" Cho questioned threateningly.

"What?" he said with confusion lacing his tone.

Mattheo laughed from across the table, "You're practically her boyfriend, aren't you gonna go to her? Period care is a classic boyfriend duty."

"What do you know about boyfriend duties?" Theo scoffed at his friend, but he knew that he was right, even though he wasn't your boyfriend. Nonetheless, he rose from his seat after Cho gave him a glare.

Once had poured a cup of hot chocolate from the breakfast spread, he began his journey to the library. Upon entering the massive room full of oakwood desks, homely sofas and bookcase after bookcase, he spotted you lying on a settee by Jane and Lorenzo with your eyes tightly shut. In your foetal position, you seemed oblivious to the heated discussion going on between the pair.

Crossing the room while scanning his surroundings, he noticed the various students sat chatting with friends or lazily doing homework: all of them in casual clothes. The thought of that made him take note of your attire: a loose-fitting Ravenclaw shirt much like the ones quidditch players wore, simple black pyjama bottoms and a pair of green and blue striped socks. Now that he had arrived, he could make out the battered black Converse sprawled at the foot of the maroon settee you were on.

Shooting a quick hello to Lorenzo and Jane, who were too preoccupied to notice, Theo leaned over you, and whispered, "Hey. I brought you some hot chocolate."

You peeled open your eyelids and rubbed them, wincing suddenly before clutching your abdomen. "Thanks..." you mumbled softly.

"Chang told me it was your time of the month," he said in a low tone so nobody else could hear, sitting down by you properly and handing over the mug.

"Did she?" tiredly pushing yourself up into a more upright position, you felt the beginning of your heart rate speed up now that you could clearly see Theo.

He smiled gently, taking in your cute mildly flustered appearance. Such an expression on your face made him want to hold you— desperately.

Taking a deep but quiet breath, he took the mug from your hands and placed it on the table, making you scowl. The scowl disappeared, however, when he scooped his arm underneath you, taking you much by surprise, and lifted you up slightly so he could budge himself to the end of the sofa and allow you to now be blatantly flustered on his lap. "How're you holdin' up?" he asked as he leaned the both of you forward to pick up the mug again.

"O-Okay, I gue-" you cut yourself off by clutching your abdomen and scrunching your face.

"Maybe not so okay," he chuckled, pushing your arms away from your stomach, and slipping his free hand under your royal blue shirt before applying some pressure.

Sighing in relief, you said, "You're so warm," before proceeding to curl up once more. You took the hot chocolate from his other hand, granting yourself a big gulp.

"'S'good chocolate."

"Fresh from the breakfast table," he chuckled, the action vibrating against your back.

You smiled, something that he couldn't see. "Thank you."

"It's nothing."

At that comment, you disagreed, as you knew that Theo Nott was not the type of man to do such nice things for people. Still, you continued to drink the hot chocolate, looking towards Jane and Lorenzo— who were still arguing about a herbology topic.

"What could they possibly be arguing about?" Theo sighed.

You shrugged slightly, "I think she proofread his essay and said it looked like a toddler had written it."

"I'm guessing you're a kinder tutor?"

You laughed, "I would say so. Unluckily for Lorenzo, I don't take herbology."

Then, Cho arrived, with Mattheo and Blaise as well— how she had persuaded the former to come to the library was nothing short of impressive.

"Sorry, did we interrupt a double date?" Mattheo smiled devilishly, sitting down in an armchair.

Oh, that would explain it.

You and Theo didn't react to his comment: you were so used to being teased at this point that it was just another day in the life.

As for Jane and Lorenzo— it was a completely different story. Their faces flushed as they became defensive, spouting off all sorts of insults about the other in relation to their prior argument.

"We're all heading down to the lake for a bit, d'you guys wanna come?" Blaise asked.

Looking to you, Theo could easily tell you didn't want to by your expression, so declined on behalf of both of you. Meanwhile, Lorenzo and Jane agreed, likely realising the tutoring was going nowhere, and rose from their seats.

***

Quidditch matches were the pride and joy of the school, and also something even you took seriously, despite not caring much for the sport. You had never missed a Ravenclaw match in your time, and never intended to either. That day's match was Slytherin vs. Ravenclaw, so you were definitely going to be in the stands watching.

With it being a few weeks away from Christmas (and nearly the end of the first term), being comfortably wrapped up was a necessity: a winter coat, a scarf, a hat, and gloves. Theo was about to head into the changing rooms for the match, but ran over to you first. Even just looking at him made your previously unwavering loyalty to Ravenclaw's team falter.

"Two galleons we'll win," Theo smirked down at you.

"Bet accepted," you held out your gloved hand, to which he shook, "Because I know Ravenclaw'll win."

You then made your way up to the stands, as Theo went to change and warm up. It wasn't long before

"Alright, it seems the teams are ready to start, so on Madam Hooch's whistle..." the commentator, Lee Jordan's successor, spoke, followed by a sharp whistle, "And the teams are in the air..."

The boy commentating continued to describe what the green and blue players darting around in the cold and crisp air were doing regarding the four balls of quidditch. Watching intently, you observed as the quaffle was passed between people and through hoops. The score reached 80-60 to Slytherin.

You could have sworn that Theo was smirking at you.

Only, when the crowd on your side suddenly started cheering, you snapped your gaze away from Theo to see that the Ravenclaw seeker had a shiny golden sphere in their hand.

Immediately, you began cheering as well, throwing middle fingers in Theo's direction. He scowled and rolled his eyes, flying over to you.

"Rigged game."

"Sore loser."

"Whatever."

"That'll be two galleons, please."

He rolled his eyes again, "Meet me after."

***

"Come with me," he said the second he emerged from the changing rooms, grabbing your hand and pulling you along.

You were really confused as he dragged you all the across the quidditch pitch and over the grassy plains of the Hogwarts grounds. Unanswered questions filled you even more as you reached the less thick area of the Forbidden Forest, that was not as forbidden. In the distance, you could make out the skinny black silhouettes of the thestrals.

"Why'd you take me to the thestrals?"

"So you can see them?" he observed the mighty creatures as they noticed your presence.

"You can too?" you asked.

Moving closer to stroke one of them, he replied, "When I was eight, my mother passed."

"Oh, I'm sorry..." you gently petted the same one he was.

Theo's mouth settled into a grim line, "Don't be."

Taking a deep breath, you said softly, "I watched my parents get killed when we were in fifth year. It was the Christmas holidays and I came home after shopping to see..." your breath hitched, "To see death eaters torturing them through the window..."

Instead of saying anything, Theo wrapped his arms around you and pulled you into his warm chest.

"I just wish I'd done something... but I... I couldn't..." you recalled the day, your heart aching.

"Hey, it's okay, bambi," he pressed a light kiss to your forehead.

"I know they... they only did it... because... because I'm a witch... I just..." you fought against the lump in your throat.

You drew back from his chest, and Theo stroked the softness of your cheeks, staring into your sparkling eyes. He couldn't understand why his heart hurt so much to see you saddened, let alone why it hurt even more when you forced a small smile.

It dawned on him that you were far from nervous and weak, instead quietly carrying the weight of a tragedy that many wouldn't be able to manage. He was amazed that you didn't break down every day: especially since it had been only a couple years, and you were so young.

The realisation that the Christmas season was probably no longer full of festivity and joy for you, but painful reminders and memories, was one that made him grasp your hand tightly.

"Y/N... you're the strongest, smartest and kindest person I know..." he spoke softly, caressing your palm.

Your voice cracked when you said, "Really?"

"Really," he confirmed. The next thing you felt was his soft and plush lips against yours, sitting there in a sweet and chaste kiss.

Your lips parted as he rested his forehead against yours and squeezed your hand as gently as if you were a porcelain doll.

"Where d'you go during the holidays?" he asked hesitantly.

"I live with my great aunt now."

The evidence of how hard you found the absence of your parents was shown through your expression.

"Is she nice?"

You nodded, "But she can't fill the hole."

He understood. His cold and cruel father could never— would never— step up and pick up where his angelic mother left off.

"Y/N," he said softly, "You know what my father is, don't you?"

"Everyone does," you murmured, "How is he not imprisoned?" You grimaced after asking that, and added, "No offense."

He chuckled dryly, "None taken. I despise him," he then paused for a moment, but continued, "I just want you to know I'm not like him— I'm not—"

You pushed a finger against his lips, silencing him. "I know, Teddy. I wouldn't be here right now if I thought you were, no?"

The corner of his lips curved up in a smile, "My mum used to call me that."

"Oh, I'm sorry—"

"No. It feels right coming from you."

You matched his smile. "Theo, I... I think I love you."

He cupped your face with his warm hands, "I know I love you."

—————————————

masterlist

written; 04/03/2020 —> 27/12/2024 published; 28/12/2024 edited; —/—/——

[neil-gaiman]

Dear Neil,

I have loved your work ever since my dear friend gave me American Gods some 20 years ago. However, it has been weeks since I finished Good Omens season 2 and I am still heartbroken! My grief is so evident that my daughters are conspiring to torture you. Specifically they want to:

- lock you in a room

- shave your head

- dye your skin blue

- cover you with mud

- sing and dance and scream around you until you go insane

I just thought you should know, and beg for some hope that everything is going to be ok?

But if they covered me with mud nobody would be able to tell that they had shaved my head and dyed my skin blue...?

[madaqueue]

gn!reader - 18+ MDNI (jjk spoilers !!!! also just....angst. lots of angst)

you never hated the rain. satoru made sure of that.

“it’s a way to prove things are alive!” he’d beam, gaze fixed on the window as it slowly collected droplets, tracing their path down the glass. he smiled when they’d meet, rivulets diving down and onto the concrete below to join one another. as if they, too, were alive.

maybe that’s why you’d find him standing outside during storms, hair matted and clothes drenched. soaked in proof.

it’s almost fitting that it’s raining today.

almost.

the rain sounds hollow as it litters the ground. the dirt. the empty casket. for someone so loud, who filled every space with his soul and energy and mind, you would have expected more. but then again, not even the sun exploding and burning and wiping everything away until the only noise echoing through the universe is a chant of his name would be enough to capture him. to honor him.

instead, today, there’s no sound anywhere.

you want to scream, to pull out the grass and slam your fists onto the wood just to make something happen.

but it won’t make him come back.

it won’t make his arms wrap around you, pulling you into his warmth. it won’t make his lips press kisses over every inch of your skin like a promise. it won’t make those bright blue eyes linger a moment too long on yours. not ever again.

and then you’re on your knees. you’re screaming and your chest hurts and the rain tastes saltier than you remember and you feel like you’re drowning in it.

maybe then you’ll at least get to see him again.

“hey, it’s okay,” a warm voice pulls you back to the surface for a moment. but the hand rubbing your back is too small. it’s not him. “let it out,” shoko hums behind you, holding an umbrella above your shaking form.

you feel weak, like a strong enough gust of wind could blow you over. you wish it would. you wish it would throw you into the hole in the ground and cover you in wet soil and mud. even dirty, satoru would love you.

you wonder if he’d find this pathetic. he was never one for dramatic displays, especially for his sake. but then again, he never looked down on you for how violently the waves of your emotions seemed to throw you around, crashing into rocks and tumbling underwater. no, he would just rub your back and kiss your tears away. “it’s okay,” he’d whisper, “i’m here.”

but now he’s not here.

and he’ll never be here again.

and you can’t bring him back and you can’t hear his voice or his laugh or the soft little breaths as he fell asleep in your arms and you can’t say “i love you” ever again. because you won’t. you won’t ever feel what you felt for him again.

your heart is buried in the ground and no amount of digging will bring it back.

but then, more arms wrap around you. they still aren’t satoru’s, but they’re warm. in spite of the rain.

“we miss him, too,” yuji whispers. the others don’t say anything - they don’t have to, they can’t. what more is there to say?

but then, as they hug you, and you hug them, the grief gets a little lighter, just for a moment. because you’re all carrying it together. his students, his future, will hold him in their memories and bring him with them.

your head falls back, and raindrops land on your cheeks. the same places satoru’s lips used to be.

the sky matches his eyes.

maybe you can find him in the rain.

a/n: sorry :/

[themusingsofacurlyhairednerd]

Ludos Imperiales

Summary: A Princess!Reader x Gladiator!Bat Boys fic that's been swimming around in my head for weeks after watching Gladiator I and II

Content Warnings: Blood and Gore, Mentions of Torture, Slavery, and Assault

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

“So good of you to finally join us, cousin.” The din of the crowd nearly drowns out the words, the feverish cheers echoing off the massive stone pillars that hold the auditorium seats up and away from the stench of death and decay that permeates from the mud soaked pit beneath the plush outdoor auditorium. There are rows of decadent booths along the pit's edge, each box set with plush chases and golden edged pillows. Slaves with palm fronds fan ornately dressed royals, their faces obscured by gold lined veils. The auditorium oozes wealth and luxury, offers decadent food and drink and deep enough betting pools to make the strictest penny pinchers among the elite crawl out of their caves to try their luck.

The altar for the Mother gleams golden in the afternoon sunlight, the carved statue standing with arms and feathered wings outstretched in welcome. Beckoning those to come and offer a bit of blood in hopes of trading it for some luck. Luck for the gamblers, of course, never the males, and sometimes females, who fight and die in the muddy pit far beneath the first row of booths. My father says they made the Games to punish our enemies, and to reward our soldiers, but both fight and die as equals all the same. 

I frown first at the statue, how could our most beloved Goddess reward this kind of brutality? Then at my cousin, who I remember, is still waiting for me to speak. Dagdan sports his military regalia, the glittering medals across his chest all pinned there by my father for his service to our great empire. Service he never actually participated in. Dagdan can wield a sword because of the patience of his tutors, he’s never raised it in battle, despite the stories he tells at every possible turn. 

“Father said the Games would be impressive this year,” I reply, trying to keep the bite out of my tone. Mother raised me to be demure, to keep my chin up, to never let an enemy see what I was feeling. She had been good at that, too good, perhaps that was why she had been publicly executed. For all her poise, she had not been able to outmatch my Father’s paranoia.

Beside him, Dagdan’s twin sister Brannagh grins, her pearly white teeth a harsh contrast to her otherwise impassive face. It’s like watching a shark try to grin. “The Uprising in the Courts made for a lot of candidates this year.”

My stomach turns. The Empire is vast, spreading across continents and oceans. The Courts in Prythian were the last of the fae to fall in line before Father turned his attention to the Human Lands. Each year, more and more slaves and captives are carted in through the iron gates far beneath the smooth stones we stand on, all tossed into the mud to fight each other for a slim possibility of survival. Some come willingly, chasing fortune and gold; some are sponsors of Father’s Inner Circle, their armor always pristine, their weapons always sharp. But most of the gladiators are slaves, crammed into dingy cells in the catacombs beneath the arena. Despite the decadence of the auditorium, one visit down into the bowels of this awful place was enough to scar me for life. As Father intended, I’m sure. Our esteemed Emperor had not been shy about his disdain for not being able to produce a son and his paranoia often convinced him that I would one day find a husband crafty enough to steal his Throne before he found a match he thought suitable, he often dragged me to these things to remind me the brutality he was capable of if I stepped out of line. No doubt it was why he’d insisted I come out today. I had not been out in public in some time, not after the grief of losing my mother had so thoroughly consumed me. My grief had shamed him; had made some in his Inner Circle suspect I was also plotting against him. My presence here was as much a check into my loyalties as it was to remind me of what fate could befall me if I kept on wallowing away in the dark.

I smooth my hands over my skirts, putting thoughts of my Mother aside. It always feels like a gaping wound in my chest, nerve and sinew exposed and open for every onlooker to see. I must reign it in. For the sake of my future. 

“We’ll see a lot of Fae, then?” There were a lot of elves last year and shifters the year before that. There is no prejudice in the games. Race and gender matter little in a battle of survival. 

The twins follow me as I find my way through the bustling crowd to our booth, where I know Father will already be waiting. 

“Some humans for the first round,” Dagdan spits like he’s tasted something vile. 

“Some half-breeds and mutts for the second,” Brannagh finishes with far more delight than her brother. Their eagerness from blood is one of the few reasons Father didn’t name their heir in my place. Brutality is necessary, but bloodlust turns a well rounded Empire on its head. Father placates them by giving them titles, parading them around like their important so they remain loyal, but he will never truly give them the power they seek. They’re simply not smart enough to see it.

“But the final round will be entertaining,” Dagdan says, gray eyes twinkling as the wall of guards at attention in Father’s booth part for us. 

Our esteemed emperor sits on a throne made entirely of gold, a goblet of wine already in his hands. A circlet of gold leaf perches on top of his salt and pepper hair, the sharp edges reflecting the light along the crimson curtains that help keep out the summer heat. We all bow to him as we enter, and Father reaches out a hand for mine without ever looking at us. 

“It is good to see you outside again, daughter,” he says, chapped lips brushing over my knuckles in a brief display of affection. 

“I’m sorry it has been so long, Father,” I keep my voice even, unbothered. I will not let any of them see how much I hate all of this. 

He guides me to sit on the couch beside the throne, where I have ample view of the uneven floor below. Yesterday’s rain has filled the giant pit with mud. Mud that could have easily been covered and smoothed out to make the playing field fair for all, but that is not how these Games work. Bones still litter the uneven ground, a rib cage protruding from a mound of dirt, a crumbling arrow still caught inside it. There’s the skull of an animal turned upside down, a stream of muddy water running out the eye sockets like some sort of twisted water fountain. Old weapons lay scattered around the arena floor; a wagon weaves around boulders and mounds of loose earth to scatter more. 

“I trust you’re feeling better?” The question is pointed, for the sake of my cousins. He has been telling people the shock of my Mother’s supposed betrayal had been too much on my health and I’d been bed ridden. It’s not entirely far from the truth. 

“Yes, Father. The sunlight does me good.” Not far from the truth either. It is nice to be away from the palace and all the chaos that comes with it. 

Brannagh sits beside me, a slave scurrying behind her with a fan, a second not far behind with some wine. She stretches her long legs out in front of her with a sigh, the sunlight drifting through the curtains making her pale skin look translucent. “Do you have a favorite to win today, Uncle?”

My Father sips from his goblet, a bit of wine caught in his graying beard. “Just a favorite to lose,” he chuckles. Though he is getting older, the gleam in his slate gray eyes is still sharp and youthful. Even with his bouts of paranoia, his mind is still sharp and calculating. 

“Do tell, before it’s too late for me to change my bets,” Dagdan quips. Though I doubt it is all in jest, my cousin is far more in debt than he realizes. 

Horns blare from the upper rings of the arena, signalling those still milling about placing bets and finding food to get to their seats. The Games will start soon. My stomach twists itself into a new knot. There is no shortage of ways my Father will have found to torment the poor souls who find themselves in the pit today, I am not eager to see what they are. 

“There was some… trouble in the mountain regions of the Courts,” he says carefully. 

I force myself not to turn and look at him. Trouble for my father usually means rebellion, or outright war, anything else is too insignificant to mention. In my seclusion, I had not even caught wind of it. 

“We have a few insurrectionists I’d like to see fall today.”

Few are foolish enough to raise a hand against the Empire. It usually means their provinces go without food and aid in the harsher months of the year. I am curious to see who would be foolish enough to risk the lives of their people. 

“Those great wings of theirs would make an excellent trophy on my wall,” Father finishes. 

A shiver runs down my spine. It would not be the first gruesome trophy of his, but still, the outright admittance to such cruelty still makes me tremble. My unease is only heightened by the arrival of my Father’s General, who enters the booth followed by a handful of male slaves, all barely dressed.

“Amarantha!” It is no secret that my Father has always wished I shared the temperament and constitution of his beloved General. If he had to be cursed with a female for an heir, he wanted ruthlessness, cunning, and a smile that could peel paint. All things the red headed fae oozed in abundance. 

All things my Father was convinced I lacked. I’d take it. His disdain was better than being exactly like her. I can’t help the way my nose crinkles at the sight of her. Brannagh moves closer to the edge of the couch, in hopes of ending up in her line of vision, eager to swap stories before the Games officially start. Brannagh wants to be just like her, the gaggle of pleasure slaves included. The two of them would unleash hell on the world if my Father ever put the two of them together. 

“Your Highness,” Amarantha bows, the loose fabric of her nearly sheer gown spilling to give my Father ample view of her cleavage. I stopped allowing myself to question the nature of their relationship long ago; my stomach turns thinking about it. 

“It is a good day for betting, don’t you think?” She asks. Her voice is like gravel, fitting since its the color of her eyes. A finger bone dangles from her neck, an eye encased in glass sitting atop her finger; though she is lean, she is stronger and more deadly than most people assume at first glance. Everything about her is dangerously sharp. 

“I was just telling Dagdan the same thing,” my Father says.

Those dark eyes flick briefly to my cousin, who puffs up his chest, but she ignores him entirely as her gaze settles on me. “Princess! I didn’t know you’d be joining us today. What a monumental occasion!”

“I thought the fresh air would do me some good,” I say simply. What else is there to say to Evil Incarnate? Perhaps I should put more energy into being clever, I know that if Amarantha saw a benefit to cleaving my head from my shoulders, she’d take it--power is all she cares about, so far we haven’t faced each other because she doesn’t think I have enough to steal--but I cannot summon the energy. Ever since the incident with my Mother, I have not managed to find much in me at all. Especially not for Amarantha and her social climbing. 

“Nothing like a little blood sport to invigorate the mind,” she purrs as she lowers herself into the seat at my Father’s right hand. One of her slaves perches on the arm of her chair, bare chest glinting with oils in the harsh sunlight. Another sits at her feet, and her nails, sharpened to points, drift harshly through his thick curls. 

I watch my cousin run her tongue over her lips at the sight. 

“Did you place any bets, Princess?” Amarantha continues as someone brings her a goblet of wine. She sniffs suspiciously at it before instructing one of her slaves to test it first. Perhaps poison would be a mercy. 

Never admit weakness. Never admit that my solitude has kept me out of the loop and left me ill prepared for whatever is about to happen in the Pit beneath us. Instead, I say, “We have several days of entertainment, I prefer to observe on the first day.”

To his credit, my Father does reach over and pat my shoulder in approval. 

“Clever,” she says, but there’s enough bite in it to not make it a compliment. 

“My money is on your Attor, as always, General,” Brannagh says with the eagerness of a child with a crush. 

Amarantha huffs in annoyance, as if my cousin is a fly buzzing around her ear, “He’s too good, its almost boring at this point.”

Brannagh deflates, but before she can come up with something witty in response, the final warning horn blows from the rafters. The Games will begin. 

I turn my attention away from my company, watching brightly dressed royals rush to their booths. There are all sorts of creatures here to watch: Elves and Fae and Fawn, a few Goblins and Giants, observing from a standing platform opposite us. There is room for most, save for humans, within the Empire, as long as they prove their usefulness. That is my Father’s crowning achievement, the Hybern Empire has room for all, if you play your cards right and never step out of line. 

The groaning of the gates draws my attention away from the spectators and down into the Pit beneath us, where a whole cart of humans appears from the gloom of one of the entrances. They look small; mud and blood splattered as several Praetorian guards usher them out of the cart with spears bigger than most of their heads. The guards do not remove their shackles, leaving all twelve of them tethered together in the center of the Pit.

The cart rolls away, the guards with it, only once their out does another gate open to let out the challenger: Amarantha’s hulking Attor. The creature is battle scarred, lines criss-crossing over its leathery skin. Its giant wings flutter on the breeze behind it as it stalks into the center, Amarantha’s crest painted in blood red over its chest. 

The crowd goes wild as it enters the pit, clawed hands swinging wildly around its hulking body. “ATTOR! ATTOR! ATTOR!” The monster has always been the crowd favorite.

Amarantha yawns. She’ll make thousands off the creature, but that is nothing to her. Money is trivial, unless it can buy her the power she craves. 

I glance at my Father as the Games Maker starts addressing the crowd and explaining the match up. “Would it not be more entertaining to unchain them?” They’re all going to die anyway, surely this gives them a fighting chance to die with some honor. “We all know the Attor will win, why make it easy for it?”

Amarantha nearly spits out her wine, a gurgling sound coming out of her as she tries to maintain her composure. 

I do not let myself grin at the victory.

Father runs a hand over his graying beard in thought. “Perhaps your solitude did you some good, Daughter.”

I do not shutter. I cannot save any of them, as pitiful and helpless as they look alongside the Attor. It will give them all gruesome deaths purely for the fun of it. But perhaps the Mother will take pity; may the chance to die fighting grant them peace in the afterlife. 

Father stands and motions for the Game Maker to quiet. “Let the humans be unchained!”

The crowd erupts into varying shouts of surprise and approval. 

“Let us test the skill of the Attor!”

This pleases the crowd, but it makes Amarantha’s cheeks flush crimson. She hides a grimace behind her wine as my Father returns to his seat. 

A single guard returns with keys, and the crowd falls into a hushed silence, waiting for chaos to ensue. I force myself not to look away; to face what I have done. One of the humans cranes its head to look up at our box and flashes us his middle finger.

Dagdan bristles in his seat next to his sister. “He should pay for that!”

They will. There will be no rescue. There is none to be found. The Empire comes for all of us eventually, best that we can do is go into it with our heads up. I am trying to accept my fate in this, what other choice do I have, lest I end up dead or locked away. 

Once the guard is clear, the horns once again blow, telling the Attor he can start his hunt. Those great wings at his back kick up loose dirt as he launches into the air with a roar that makes the arena tremble. 

The crowd cheers, leaning forward in their seats to watch as the monster swoops down and gets its great jaws around the head of the first human. Brannagh giggles at the splatter of blood that erupts from the poor creature’s neck. 

I clench my hands in my lap. 

The second human tries to run, scrambling for purchase in the thick mud. It doesn’t help that they’re all barefoot. The Attor’s claws tear through the human’s back like butter, the poor thing going down with a wail that makes my heart lurch painfully in my chest.

The third manages to find a sword, the blade rusted from the rain; the man gets a good swipe in, nicking the inside of the Attor’s palm before it gets shredded to pieces.

Each human tries a little harder than the last, getting further each time. One manages to weave around the debris and avoid being swooped down on like the first, but the uneven terrain catches her ankle, sending her sprawling down with a shout as her leg is left twisted and broken. Another manages to get an arrow into the Attor’s back, but not deep enough to do damage. They all go down fighting, and each new one has me saying a mental prayer to the Mother on their behalf, but none survive. Much to the crowd’s glee.

“Wonderful!” Brannagh says, clapping as the Attor roars in victory. 

Amarantha shrugs. “Boring.”

The Attor exits the Pit, ever the victor. The bodies it left aren’t even carted away. No one comes to pick up the pieces. No one will bury them. Their bones will rot and decay into the Pit floor.

I ask one of my Father’s servants for some wine to try and settle the nausea that rolls in my stomach, but even the smoothest of wine does not dull it. 

My Father watches me carefully, calculating every move. I do my best to keep my features neutral. 

“What did you think, Daughter?”

I take another sip of wine before speaking, giving myself time to collect my thoughts. “Humans don’t make very good gladiators.”

He laughs at that and my cousins join in, as if it was the funniest thing ever. 

“Humans don’t make good anything,” Dagdan says.

“Except for a snack,” Brannagh adds.

“Worms,” Amarantha spits.

Father raises his cup in salute to me. “May the next match be more exciting for you.”

I ignore my revulsion and return the gesture. I cannot wait for this to be over. I shall retire back into my gloomy quarters with the curtains drawn and try to scrub the gory images from my brain. Perhaps my solitude would be more comforting than this.

The horns blow announcing the next match and the Games Maker drones on and on about where these next gladiators hail from. One side are all sponsored by royal families, all males trying to make a name for themselves and some coin to feed their families. They’re all well trained and well equipped for the task. They’re a filler spot, to give the rest of the Game Makers time to prepare the next victims of the Empire’s wrath. Beneath the Pit floor, in the dark of the catacombs, the next round of war captives are likely being hauled out of their cells and prepped. I can’t help but wonder if they can hear the roaring of the Bogges and Gladiator’s alike from down there. Do they understand what is about to happen? Are they saying their final prayers to the Mother?

I can’t help but glance at Her altar. What kind of world is this that we live in? Brutal and cruel and blood splattered. If we are so favored, how could our lives look like this? It is thoughts like these that have kept me sequestered in my room. I do not know what I am supposed to live for, or who I am supposed to be any more. My life feels like it is stretching out before me, and someone else is pulling on the strings, making me a puppet that moves at their will. I no longer have the protection of my Mother. Father will soon throw me to the wolves if I am not smart or careful or cunning. The world is different and dark and I have utterly lost my way.

I am so wrapped up in my thoughts I barely register the fight. One of the males gets eaten by the terrifying Bogge, his screams echoing off the great walls. The crowd eats it up, cheering and screaming and jumping from their seats. The more blood that flows the louder they yell and cheer. These are my people? These are who I am to rule one day? What does that make me?

Dagdan huffs about his losses as the gladiators exit the arena, the Bogge all dead. He drowns his sorrows in his cup as if the solution to his terrible gambling habit might lie in the bottom. 

“Finally, now we can get to the part I’ve been waiting for!” Amarantha declares. 

Father grins. “I take it they gave you trouble on the way here?”

She spits again, a nasty habit that doesn’t bother anybody but me, apparently. “Damned Illyrians! Had to use faebane on them the whole way, otherwise they tore through the damn chains!”

Father shakes his head. “I have to admit they surprised me-” certainly a feat few have ever accomplished in his lifetime “-usually their kind throw themselves on their swords before they get caught. Makes you think, doesn’t it?”

I’ll chalk that up to his paranoia talking, but I have to admit, I am intrigued by the conversation. Anyone who can surprise my Father must be very skilled. Despite my disdain for these Games, I find myself leaning forward to get a better look into the arena when I hear the grates open for the third time. 

“What is there to be surprised about?” Amarantha counters, but her words feel farther away as I catch sight of movement from the dark tunnel behind the entrance of the arena. “They’re rebels, their deaths will make martyrs out of them. They want a public execution.”

The world feels as if it has narrowed into this moment. The din of the crowd starts to fade in and out of focus. I am suddenly very aware of the roaring of my heartbeat in my own ears.

The first male steps out of the tunnel, stripped to the waist, his bronze chest smattered with cuts and scrapes and bruises so dark they’re nearly black. Dark twisting tattoos trace their way up his broad chest and over his shoulders and back, until they meet great, leathery wings like that of a bat’s. Long, dark hair, matted with mud and what might be blood, clings to his face, but despite the disheveled state, his hazel eyes remain clear and bright. 

The crowd boos when they see him. A few people hurl food at him. 

“Cassian,” Amarantha scoffs. “The rebels call him their General.”

Father frowns. “As foolish as their militia was, do not forget how many of our soldiers he killed.” 

I cannot take my eyes off him. He’s taller than the guard that leads him by his bound wrists into the Pit. Larger too. Those broad shoulders and defined abs speak volumes about how skilled in swordplay he must be.

“Will you keep his wings when he dies, Uncle?” Brannagh asks.

The wine threatens to come up at the thought of having to see such beautiful wings pinned to a wall in Father’s study. The male clearly cares for them. When the guard gets too close he flicks them out of reach. While there are some nicks in the leathery membrane, the wings are the least scarred part of him. He has to take good care of them for someone so battle hardened to keep them looking like that.

“Happily,” Father says.

Even if I wanted to look at him, I couldn’t, not as the second male enters the arena. He’s a little shorter than the first, his hair shorter, the dark onyx locks curling gently around his forehead. Blood still drips from an open gash across his temple, staining his cheek and neck crimson. Like the first, his chest is bare and marked with the same swirling tattoos, but unlike the first, his great wings hang limp behind him. One drags along the mud like a cape, the leathery membrane ripped open and bleeding, the other is twisted at an angle sharp enough to make me wince at the sight. The urge to run down to him is overwhelming. My hands drift down to the seat cushion and hold tight to keep myself still.

The crowd continues to boo and throw things as he tries to keep his head up and meet the other male in the center of the Pit. 

“Azriel,” Father says to Amarantha, “ was quite a challenge for you, I hear?”

His beloved General frowns. “The shadow wielder managed to get a few good blows in, I’ll admit. But surprise only gets you so far.”

My eyes drift from his broken wings to his hands, covered entirely in scars, like someone burned him. The thought makes my chest heavy. 

I don’t know what’s happening to me. I have never been so obviously shaken by the Games, not since the first time I’d come. Father had made me sit through weeks of slaughter, watching as gladiator after gladiator fell prey to a magic storm and a slew of magic beasts. Even then I had managed to hold it together until I’d made it home to vomit, but now I feel as if I cannot keep my body in its seat!

The magic that lives caged beneath my, usually, pristine facade cracks through, a bit of dark mist seeping out from between my fingers. I unfurl my fists and take my hands carefully into my lap, using a bit of my skirts to hide the errant flow of power. I’ve been neglecting my studies, have not given myself an outlet, this is a terrible time for a flare up! I try to focus on my breathing, the pounding of my heart isn’t helping. I need to remain calm. I need to remain in control. 

A feat that feels utterly impossible as the third and final male exits the tunnel. Time comes to a grinding halt, every footfall against the Pit floor a drumming, haunting echo in my ears. I have utterly forgotten how to breathe; how to think. The male is by far the most beautiful male I’ve ever seen, violet eyes twinkling with a thousand glittering stars. He sports the same tattoos as the others, the same bronze skin and battle hardened muscle, but it is the expression on his face that gets me. He is as battered and bloody as the second male, cheek split open, a slash mark clean down the middle of his chest; most of his body is a bruise, but he doesn’t wince at all. He keeps his chin high, high enough to look Father right in the eyes with every step he takes into the Pit. There’s a clear challenge there, unhindered by the chains around his neck and wrists. Those gorsian stone chains don’t often make an appearance, unless the person attached to them is exceptionally skilled with magic. 

“Rhysand,” this time Amarantha’s voice is an excited purr and the power trying to escape through my fingers slips faster from my palms. I dig my nails so tight into my palms they bleed. 

“I do admit, it’s a shame you have to kill him,” she continues. “He’d make such a pretty addition to my collection.” 

It is all I can do to not turn and hurl a blast of dark, obsidian power at her. I keep my gaze on the Pit instead, as the final rebel joins the others in the center. Its only once he’s there that something clicks into place in my mind. If Amarantha still speaks I can’t hear her. Time freezes again, the only signal of its passing the pounding of my heart in my ears.

They’re my mates!

And I’m about to watch them die.