#my knees hit the ground so fast i heard a cracking noise

[quick-catton]

BARRY KEOGHAN FOR BUMBLE.

[sweetiecutie]

Pairing: yandere!Tom Riddle x gn!Reader

Synopsis: no one can take you away from Tom, not even Death itself

Warnings: yandere themes, obsessive behavior, non-sexual nudity, dark forces, mention of death and bodies, reader’s gender not specified

You felt weird. Your ears were filled with buzzing white noise, mind racing but also completely muddled up. You inhaled sharply, searing pain surged through all of your body at the feeling of your lungs expanding. It felt like your insides were set ablaze all at once. Rattling cough tore through your throat, filling your mouth with the some thick slime-like substance that you quickly spat out, gulping desperately on cold air in fast shallow breaths.

From what your overwhelmed senses could tell - you were laying down on some kind of flooring - which felt more like bare stone. You struggled to get yourself into sitting position, hard cobbles dug into your flesh painfully, causing you to shiver violently from both cold and discomfort.

You cracked your eyes open, blinking rapidly a few times to get the same sticky slimey stuff out of your eyes. It was very dark around- or was it your unstable state? Heavy steps could be heard, coming in your direction; your body tensed impossibly more, head snapping in direction of nearing man(?), hands roaming the ground underneath you, trying to find something - anything - to defend yourself with.

- Shhhhh, dearest, it’s just me. You’re safe, - a familiar voice spoke soothingly, your body relaxing at the dear sound of it.

- Tom? - you whispered, eyes flickering in all directions haphazardly, trying to distinguish male’s slim figure in thick darkness.

Tom fell to his knees next to you, muttering quiet ‘Lumos’, dim ray of light coming from the tip of his wand blinded you temporarily. You heard some soft shuffling before a thick woolen cloak was wrapped tightly around your shuddering frame.

You managed to crack your eyes open, finally being abele to look around. You peeked down at yourself - your body looked raw - as if you spent hours emerged in hot water - skin was a bringt pink color, extremely sensitive to the smallest of touches - just like an infant in first minutes of its life. You were completely bare, some weird slippery substance was covering every part of you, cooling your body down unpleasantly.

Your eyes wandered up to Tom. His face was gaunt - cheeks looked as hollow as ever; dark eyes you loved so much were unusually sunken, dark purplish circles you knew he got from sleepless nights were laying underneath them; his beautiful lips were chopped and pale, lacking their usual plushness; lush shiny waves of brown hair laying so elegantly on his forehead now looked bleak and brittle. Tom looked ill - as if he was struggling from protracted ailment. But even despite his miserable -you could’ve never thought of using this adjective for describing Tom Riddle- appearance, his eyes were sparkling maniacally, like diamonds in finest of the jewelry.

- Tom, what happened? I don’t understand… - you inquired quietly. Your throat felt way too tight, making your voice sound shaky and weak, and you struggled to get words out. You felt Tom wrapping his arms tightly around you, bringing you to his chest in a tight embrace.

- Everything’s all right now, my love. It’s okay, you are safe with me, - Tom muttered more to himself, rocking you from side to side gently.

You took a look at your surroundings - it looked like you were inside of a huge dark cave of some sorts, rough wet stones were forming walls and ceiling of the cavity, you could hear water dripping down the stalactites all around, hitting the rocks underneath with loud echoing sounds. What caught your attention were deep involute lines carved deeply into stone ground, forming an intricate designs all around you, slightest red glow was still visible emanating from them.

There were dead bodies laying all around. About a dozen of men and women, some of them you recognized as Tom’s devoted followers, were splayed around what seemed to be a transfiguration circle. There were no injuries nor blood on them visible. In fact, they looked fully normal if it wasn’t for their dull eyes and looks of absolute horror etched on their lifeless faces.

And then suddenly pictures flashed before your eyes - Tom’s face, still full of health and youthful beauty, covered in grime and blood, was gazing down at you, his eyes sparkling with shiny tears. What was that? Why was he crying? And then, like in some kind of drunken haze, you looked down at yourself - a huge crimson blotch was growing bigger and bigger on your robes, saturating soft cotton fabric in warm sticky blood. You looked back up at Tom - he was full on crying now, babbling “don’t leave me” and “please, don’t die” over and over again, trembling hands pressing down onto your chest, trying to stop the blood flow.

What was he talking about? Why would you die? You tried to say it, to console your silly boy, reassure that there’s no way you would leave him - but no sound came out of your throat, no matter how hard you tried. Your mouth filled with sickening metallic taste of your own blood, black clouding your vision rapidly.

And now you remembered. Those were your memories - your last ones - before you died.

But how was this all possible? Here you were, blood and flesh, warm and breathing and surely alive, in welcoming arms of your lover.

- Tom? What have you done?.. - horror mixed with shock slowly crept up your back, all the way to your chest and throat, making it even harder to breath than before.

- Nothing will ever hurt you again. I won’t let that happen, I promise, - Tom uttered next to your ear, his body shaking with soundless sobs as he held you even closer to himself,

- I will keep you safe, away from all dangers. You will know no worries nor fears. It will be just the two of us, in our perfect world we’ve always dreamed of. Forever.

Likes, reblogs and comments are highly appreciated! Feedback inspires writers on creating more content!💗

[avonne-writes]

humbly here on my knees to beg and beg for more kitty!Gale content 🥺🙏🏻 can’t get enough!!

You're in luck, anon 😊🩷

~♡~

Outside, the men are still shooting up the occasional flare to celebrate the end of the war, but on the stairs inside the Tower, the noise is barely audible. The whoosh of Gale's rapid breathing echoes between the cold walls and the icy grip of nerves around his heart. The only sound of life is his own. No footsteps followed him here. John stayed up there with only his flask and the heavy emptiness they both feel for company.

But not for long now.

Gale closes his eyes and sinks into that wild call inside of him until his bones start shifting, and the next blink finds him on four cream-white paws on hard steps that look bigger than they were a moment ago. He shudders and almost shifts right back by accident, because the fear of being killed or eaten hits him with a harsh, unexpected low blow. But he counters it with the memory of his father, stomping and swishing his belt as Gale scrambles to hide with the barn kittens, and staying a cat becomes easier again.

Gale's bravery is sometimes only a matter of finding a stronger fear. He’s not sure if he should be ashamed of that.

Soundlessly, he pads back up where he came from. On his way down, he left the door open just a crack, enough to shoulder it further ajar and to push his slender body through the gap. He’s a pale shadow sweeping across the ground like the moonlight. Stealthiness thrills him, even as the jitters under his skin are making his fur all puffed up. No matter. At least, it might cover the sorry state he's in with all the weight he lost. He’s grateful that the scars on his cheeks don’t show unless one's looking for them.

A few feet away from John, he freezes, crouching low. His heart is pounding so fast it might just tear out of his chest. What if John doesn’t recognize him? It’s been almost two years since he last saw Gale in this shape, since he last held him and whispered sweet compliments in his ear. Two years since he let Gale rub his cheek against his neck and leave his scent on him. What if he doesn’t find Gale lovable anymore? What if all he sees is a mangy stray, or worse, a reminder of - of what they’d done in the stalag.

He doesn’t have time to get lost in the horror of that memory though, because John turns his head to watch a green flare on his right, and in its flash of bright light, his eyes land on Gale.

He gasps and leans forward in his seat. "Princess?"

Gale's relief is loud and high-pitched. "John!" He wants to sob, but all he can do to let the waves of pain out is to continue meowing. Sad and pitiful, it floods out of him in a way he can’t express as himself, as a man.

"It’s you! Jesus Christ." John slides out of his seat and to his knees on the rough stone, his arms outstretched like the first time he met Gale as a cat. "Come here, come here, baby."

Gale wants to jump into his embrace, but his doubts hold him back. What if he remembers it all wrong and it won't feel as good as he thinks? What if John changed in the stalag? What if he did? He walks towards John slowly, hesitant. His whole body trembles, and he can’t get a grip on it, so he starts a low purr, both to calm himself and to offer an apology.

The noise John makes is nothing like Gale has ever heard him sound. It’s both happy and distraught, a perfect mirror to the turmoil in Gale's heart. He scoots forward until his hand is right in front of Gale, and when Gale headbutts it, he chuckles wetly and runs his large palm over the line of Gale's spine.

"Shh, don't be scared. It’s just me. Just me, darling." John's quiet voice cracks. "I know I've changed. I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?" Gale cries as he closes the rest of the distance between them and tries to climb on John's lap, rubbing himself to John's stomach and chest. When John's arms wrap around his small body, he goes limp and closes his eyes. He’s scooped up high on John's chest.

"You’re so thin, Princess. The boys didn’t take good care of you, did they?" John says mournfully, then his voice goes even quieter. "Or did you lose the ones who did?"

Stroking Gale's back and side, he sighs long and hard. "Oh, your fur."

"Just ignore it, please." Gale thinks, hiding his face against John's uniform. It will be silky and beautiful again, it has to be. He’ll recover.

John pets his head and rubs his ears, sniffing and rocking gently back and forth with Gale. "I'm sorry I wasn't here. I'm sorry."

"I love you." Gale purrs when he feels John's face pressed to his side. He puts his paw on John's chest and sinks his claws in softly, then releases. "I love you."

But John doesn’t know what he's trying to say. He doesn’t know how every second of his warm embrace tears Gale's badly healed wounds right open just to stitch them together properly. He doesn’t know how much pain and joy and relief it is for Gale to be here with him, still loved. Not even the knife of captivity could cut this away from him.

John doesn’t say anything for the longest time. His breathing comes uneven against Gale's fluffy body, as if he's trying to hold something back. Gale keeps purring and kneading his chest, hoping it helps, but a few minutes later, he feels wetness soak into the cushion of his fur.

John cries silently, without a single sound. His chest shakes and heaves with it, and his heartbeat drums erratically under the touch of Gale's paw, but he doesn’t let himself sob. Not until Gale gives his temple a lick as a kiss of consolation.

It bursts out of John then, hard, guilt-stained agony. "I didn’t know." John cries. His breath hitches. "I didn’t know."

It doesn't matter what specific facet of the war he means, Gale feels what he feels. They didn’t know how horrifying life could get, when you live in an endless hide and seek with death, or how far an act of madness could ripple down a group of men. They didn’t know what it was like to starve or to be powerless on enemy soil, to see no point in existence anymore but the light in each other's eyes, to march into their death with the thought that at least it would be by each other's side.

Perhaps, what John means is that he didn’t know what he signed up for, or that he didn’t know the cat he thinks he left behind would end up thin and faded in his absence. It doesn't matter. Gale understands.

"I know, John," his small, rumbling meows mean to convey, and he squirms in John's hold to be able to rub his head to John's chin.

"I missed you too." John laughs wetly. He wipes at his face and stands up. The movement makes Gale's stomach flip in a pleasant tickle. "Think you can handle a jeep ride, Princess? Wanna introduce you to someone."

He scratches Gale's chin until Gale's putty in his arms. "I'll find a way to take you home with me." John cups his paw, and to his own astonishment, Gale lets him. "Or find you a nice home in town at least, I promise. How about that?"

Uh-oh, Gale thinks. He’s too comfortable to be alarmed, but a thought appears in his mind. Is he gonna have to help organize his own adoption?

[simplydannie]

["The Set Up"]

Once Floyd learns Veneer's fate, I can just imagine him screaming and crying in anguish and rage. Anguish over his adopted son's death, and rage at The Mistress.

If a troll that grew up in Under Rageous were to say ignorant, insensitive things about Veneer in front of Floyd while he's in that state, I imagine Floyd would give that troll an earful and rake them across the coals, basically showing them why they shouldn't run their mouth about matters they know nothing about nor diss someone's dead kid in front of their parent. I don't think he'd normally go on such a tirade if he weren't emotionally raw from bereavement, but he wouldn't be having the other troll's crap either way.

In that context, if Floyd were "rescued" from Velvet, he'd already be pissed at his "rescuer" before they inadvertently throw fuel into the fire.

Floyd is definitely going to be heartbroken. It showed how they still cared for each other: Veneer set Floyd free even if he knows he’d earn a beating. Yet, Floyd still returned for him. Floyd is so kind that it takes something truly to heart to get him angry… and that something could very well be Veneer. Hmm, i can picture it like this:

The Set Up (con.): Rescued

Link to main story here.

Everything happened so fast: the rising platform making strange noises, it cracking and breaking in half, Velvet screaming… Veneer falling to the ground below with Bruce and John. These diamond were impenetrable, he didn’t doubt John and Bruce had survived the fall…. But Veneer…

“He has to be okay.” Floyd whispered to himself as he hugged his knees inside his diamond. Branch sat opposite him inside his own. Since the accident he noticed a shift in his brother’s mood…. He grew silent and distant. Clay stood on the other side.

“Floyd?” Branch called out to him. Floyd did his best to smile; he had put Branch through so much, why worry him?

“Sorry. Just…a lot today.”

“John and Bruce are going to be alright.” Clay said.

“I know they will. These diamonds are tough. That’s why they say the perfect family harmony is the only to break it.” He smiled, but he didn’t say more.

Branch allowed for some moments of silence to pass, “It’s Veneer isn’t it?” Floyd looked up his brother, Clay gave him a questionable look.

“Why the kid?” He asked.

“There’s a bond… isn’t there?” Branch finally asked. Floyd sighed and nodded.

“We…” Before he could continue any further the sound of high voices came from out the door.

“The Trolls are gone? And you just wait till now to tell!” Mistress screamed at the top of her lungs. She was yelling at the two Bergens who barely showed her the empty diamonds they found. “That stupid kid…” they heard her mumble under her breath. The three Troll brothers glanced at each other… John and Bruce escaped! Floyd knew all to well that it was Veneer who would have done that… he kept listening…

SLAM!

The sound of a door bursting open echoed through the room and halls.

“Where is he?!” Velvets boomed down the hallways.

“Velvet please just…”

“WHERE IS MY BROTHER!” She screamed at the top of her lungs. Floyd could hear the desperation in her voice.

“Don’t you door talk to me like that!” Mistress replied…

CRASH!

The sound of things breaking began to echo with the voices, “WHERES VENEER?” Velvet demanded again.

“DEAD VELVET!”

Silence……

“….where is he? I’m not playing.” Velvet continued.

“He’s gone!… Ruff and Gruff went to look for him. They found him…. He was already gone when they found him….I’m sorry.” Mistress tried to sound as sincere as she could.

“No….” The word escaped Floyd’s lips. Branch and Clay turned to look at their brother as he fell to his knees.

“You’re… you’re lying…” A whisper was barely heard escaping Velvets lips…..silence…..

THUMP!

The sound of a fist hitting the wall was heard, then the wailing sounds of Velvets cries…

“No. No. No. No. No. NO!” She screamed at the top of her lungs…. The small Trolls heard the pain in her cries and voice. “No. No!” She cried over and over, “Not Vennie. Not my Vennie.” She screamed and screamed.

“Velvet im sorry, but there’s nothing you can do.” Mistress tried to speak to her, but Velvet continued to scream and cry, muting the sounds around her. “Get her up! Let her sorrow in her room. We need to speak about retrieving the body…” Velvet cried and wailed. The Trolls heard her screams as she was carried down the hallway.

“She…. She doesn’t deserve to feel that way…” Clay said.

“… It’s like… I felt her pain…” Branch added. They both turned to Floyd… he was hugging his knees, face buried.

“Floyd?” Branch called out.

“AAAGGHH!!” His tiny fists slammed against the diamond, tears were streaming down his eyes, “It’s my fault! It’s all my fault! I….I….” He tried to catch his breath in between his tears, “I should’ve left when I could! I shouldn’t have tried to abandon them like I did!” He cried and screamed in pain.

“No, no, Floyd… you can’t..” Branch tried to sooth him.

“No Branch! Dont please!” Floyd continues crying, “He’s gone. He’s gone because of me!” He cried and punched the diamond over and over…. Branch and Clay then saw something in Floyd they had never seen…. Hatred, and true anger.

“She’s going to pay….Shes not going to get away with this…. I’ll kill her myself if have too..” He whispered under his breath….Suddenly a commotion was heard above them…One of the vents popped off landing with a CLANK on the dresser the Trolls were propped on. Coming down on grapple hooks were three gray Trolls.

“What are you guys doing here?” Branch asked. Floyd turned to look between them and his brother curiously.

“We were there at the Rage Dome. We saw everything. We also ran into John and Bruce, they said you three were most likely still captive.” One gray Troll said walking up to Clay’s diamond.

“Of course. They were right.” The other responded. The Troll near Clay’s diamond took out a device, placing it on the diamond, it began to vibrant at a high frequency….The diamond shattered.

“Whoa. That’s one way of doing it.” Clay commented.

“Why not just pop the lid off or something?” Branch asked as the gray Troll made himself over to him.

“Rageons are the only ones who open and close precious jewels. There touch does something to it or something like that. Unfortunately for the rest of us…” Branches diamond also shattered… “We have to find ways.” He then went over to Floyd.

“You found my brothers….Did….Did you see a Rageon with them?” Floyd asked, a pain in his voice.

“Oh yeah.” The gray Troll giggled…this itched Floyd’s nerve, “Let’s just say he wont be seeing the sunrise tomorrow.” The other gray Trolls laughed. “It’s what the kid deserved. Don’t get yourself into something you can’t get out of…and that’s exactly what these two knuckle heads did. Torturing Trolls all for their gain. Hopefully he get’s tortured in the afterlife, see how he likes it. I would say maybe someone could show him how it feel like to suck his talent, but no luck there. He was a talentless bastard…”

CRUNCH!

As soon as Floyd’s diamond shattered, his fist came straight in contact with the grays Troll face. He fell back holding his nose, crying in agony, “What the hell?!” He cried out looking at Floyd. Floyd’s breathing was ragged as anger fumed across his veins. He went up to the gray Troll again…

SMACK! He punched.

SMACK! Again….

SMACK! And again…

“FLOYED!” Branch ran to his brother, restraining him. Clay joined in as he saw Floyd was determined to continue laying a beating on the gray Troll.

“DONT YOU DARE TALK ABOUT VENEER THAT WAY! DON’T YOU EVER, EVER DARE! EVER AGAIN!” He screamed. The gray Troll held his nose as blood seeped through.

“He was just a stupid Rageon!” He yelled.

“AGGGHH!” Floyd shook free and tackled the Troll. He held him tight in a head lock, “He was more than that! He was much, MUCH more than that! He was kind, he was gentle…he was innocent and didn’t deserve this!” He screamed as tears began falling down his face, “….He was my kid…and now he’s gone…”

“FLOYD!” Branched yelled again.

He released the Troll, leaving him gasping for air. Branch and Clay stood and watch him in bewilderment…never had Floyd acted like this, never had they seen the anger run through his eyes as it did now. Stupid Under Rageous Trolls wouldn’t understand. They hated Rageons for what they did to Trolls….But Veneer was just any regular Rageon. He took pity on Floyd, saved him, helped him regain his colors…became his family…and now…all that would be just memory…because Veneer wasn’t there for Floyd to run back to anymore. Floyd allowed himself to feel the pain of loss once more as tears began to fall again, his body shaking with every cry….

He then gathered his strength and stood up. Floyd turned to face the gray Trolls once more, “Don’t ever comment on things you don’t know about..Especially when it involves the death of someone’s son.” He hopped off the dresser and went towards the door.

“No, Floyd! Where are you going? We have to get out of here.” Clay called out.

“No…I have one more kid out there…one more alive. I am not going to abandon her…not again.” He ran and slid under the opening of the door…he was gone out of sight.

[netherfeildren]

FEAR OF GOD : Chapter IV : Mouth full of blood

Series Masterlist ; Moodboard

Pairing: Joel Miller x OFC

Summary: A trap is set, the two of you fall.

Content Warnings: canon-typical violence, gore, threat of sexual assault, PTSD, rough sex, heavy angst

Rating: Explicit 18+

A/N: Art is Healing by Laura Makabresku. 

Word Count: 6.8K

Read on AO3

CHAPTER IV: Mouth full of blood

Without violence, how do I understand my life as

meaningful?

As if the only tool I owned for finding truth were a knife. -Gabrielle Bates, Eastern Washington Diptych

A silence as vast as it is particular surrounds the two of you. The loud, wheezing gasp of his breath, the only discernible thing he can make out. It was like you’d been sucked into a vacuum, the rest of the world taken through the maw of a black hole. Trees and darkness and your small hand clutched to the back of his jacket as you follow close behind him. 

He makes his way slowly through the dark, one precise step in front of the other, rifle trained ahead of him. The two of you’d been separated from Tommy and the others one by one, picked off like goddamn flies. He didn’t even know if they were all still alive, if his brother was okay. 

It was a trap. It was a fucking trap. Goddamnit, he’d known. He’d known this was a mistake. 

He was going to kill someone, several someones, for this. 

They’d come out of nowhere, the so-called group of weary travelers the girl had told you all about. She’d appealed to your soft nature, tears and timidity, and scrapes and bruises you’d tended to with the gentlest hands that’d ever graced this world. You didn’t belong out here. He should’ve never let you come. You needed to be somewhere safe and warm and protected. Surrounded by your books and your soft things, and him there, to watch over you, always. This was all so fucking wrong. 

The men had diverted the group, spooking the horses and separating you all, a coordinated attack. Whether they were trying to find an in to Jackson, or if they’d heard rumors of a doctor, the resource you posed was a valuable one any group or community would vie for, he didn’t know. They’d targeted you first, spooking your mare. She’d reared and unseated you, and he’d almost cracked his neck he’d whipped around so fast watching you go down. The small thud your body had sounded as you’d hit the ground, the seconds it took you to open your eyes and start to move again, the longest moment of his entire life. He’d scrambled off his horse and lost it in his rush to get to you. Hands smoothing over you, down your neck and back, your limbs, checking for breaks. And then he’d looked around to find the two of you were alone. The sound of the others echoing off in the distance, accompanied by other, more harrowing noises. The shot of a gun firing, rushed footsteps and shouts going in and out of his ears. He’d told you to stay close and had set off in the opposite direction, away from where he thought the sounds of the group were coming from. 

And then the clicking. 

Singular in the darkness, the croaking click of an infected. He pauses your movements, halting abruptly so that the soft weight of you thumps into his back. What the fuck was an infected doing so far out here? Was this part of their plan? Had they connived some way to herd infected out here as part of their attack? Who the fuck even were these people? He needed to get you back, get you safe. Now. This was all wrong, wrong, wrong. 

“Was that an infected?” your scared, cracked whisper.

He holds up a single hand, listening, listening. “We’re gonna move, slow and steady. Silent,” he whispers. “It’s okay, baby. Don’t be scared, I’ve got you.”

“Joel–” fierce little hand clutched in his jacket. He starts to move again. And then the splintering of a nearby tree, gunshots directed at you, and he’s spinning and grasping the back of your head to push you down onto the ground. “Down, down,” he shouts at you, “Crawl to the tree!” He hunches over your form, knees bent to hover over you and shield you with his body, towards the protection of the trunk. The shooter has shit aim, trees feet away from the two of you fracturing in the ricochet of the bullets. But then there’s a heavy weight slamming into Joel’s side, taking him to the ground, and he hears you scream his name as the man struggles to straddle his middle, get the upper hand. A heavy fist slams into his cheek and Joel grapples to get his arms and legs around the fucker. He can hear your voice sounding in the darkness, but all he can see is the man above him, his sloppy fists swinging without precision or direction. The man is haggard and dirty — months of traveling and wilderness apparent in his face and clothes. Joel manages to get a strong hold on his throat, and then he’s heaving his legs around the man’s torso and cinching him in a lock between his thighs, pulling his face down to meet his fist over and over. His knife is in the holster at his belt, and he’s able to reach it with the hand not gripping the man above him at the same time that he realizes Joel’s reaching for a weapon. He scrambles to knock the knife away and goes for Joel’s throat. Joel manages to turn his head enough to find you in his periphery while still grappling with his attacker.

He watches as the man above you grabs you around the ankle and slowly starts to drag you across the forest floor. Your screams reverberating in his ears like a gong, like the shredding of metal. They’re desperate and visceral and the worst fucking sound he’s ever heard in his entire life. You claw viciously at the ground, nails cracking and bloody, trying to find purchase on anything to pull you away from the man’s grasp, to use as a weapon against him. And then he’s gripping your knee and flipping you over roughly, boot planting his heavy weight on your chest as he pins you in place like a broken butterfly. He bends to say something to you he can’t make out from where he is, but the look of sheer terror and disgust on your face tells him everything he needs to know. Joel sees red, doubles his efforts into a savage mess of limbs and fists, trying to get the man attacking him off. 

The dead man standing over you pauses then, turns his head slowly to Joel, and his smile is revolting – dark and rotting, “You ready to watch?” This is every nightmare Joel has had since the end of the world, come to life. 

The man crouches down over your struggling form, hand wrapping around the delicate column of your neck. Get your hands off, off, off, get your fucking hands off. There’s fire in his lungs, in his blood. He hears the sound of a clicker again, the screeching monstrosity charging through the dark wood towards you all, and with a burst of extra strength, born of pure terror, he finally finds purchase on the ground with his foot, enough to leverage up and reach his hand towards his lost knife. The sound of the clicker getting closer, closer – and then he’s slamming the knife into the eye of the man above him, the sick crunch of steel meeting bone, and then deeper, until he feels the tip meet the softness of brain – rips it out and then slams it back in again at his neck – blood spurts hot and metallic across Joel’s face. And when he turns his head back towards you, preparing to take in the worst thing he’s ever seen since he watched his daughter die – there you are. Small, trembling frame straddled over the much larger body of your would-be attacker, a hunting knife the length of half your arm stabbing over and over again into his chest and abdomen. He can hear your guttural screams over the white noise in his ears –  great heaving sobs shake your chest. Your face, tear streaked and splattered with blood. He sees the eye socket closest to Joel is empty, optic nerve hanging torn and bloody. The gouged eyeball lies a few inches beside his lolling head. The sight of you, his little bird, with hands that hold such power for healing, for care and love, imparting such violence – this is his greatest failure. 

He calls your name, loud and sharp, and you pause your massacring immediately. Look up, as if waking from a haze, brought back to consciousness at the mere sound of his voice, eyes glazed and vacant, and his heart is breaking for you, a savage howling ringing within him, his bones vibrating with the very force of it. This is no place for his gentle little bird, no, no, this is all wrong. 

“Run, Birdie. Run. Hide. I’ll find you. I promise, I promise. Run.” He can see the refusal in your eyes. The stubbornness threatening to set in. “You promised. You promised you’d do as I say,” he grits through clenched teeth, voice filled with desperation and panic. You shudder, body jerking violently as his words settle inside you, and then you’re shooting up quick as a bullet and turning to run into the darkness. He watches the wood swallow you, and then he’s pushing himself up and squaring himself to face the clicker.

-

The pounding of your feet in the dark, the rattle of your breath in your chest are the only things you can discern in the black surrounding you. 

You have been here before. 

You’re terrified that at any second you're going to see your sister. Her ghostly specter, her savaged and torn body, her beautiful, warm face, whole and healthy and smiling at you, the massacred pieces of her torn flesh, scattered along the forest floor. 

But you need to go, you need to run, to hide, to do as Joel ordered you. Even though every fiber of your being is telling you to turn back. That the worst thing in the world you could ever do would be to leave him. And then you’re slamming into something, jarring and painful. Something blunt and heavy jabs into your gut, slams into your knee with so much force you see stars, sends you to the ground. 

A woman screams, guttural and shrill, as your two bodies collide and a sharp needling cry echoes. Your back slams against the hard forest floor, your head bouncing sickeningly, and white streaks of light flash against the swallowing darkness. 

“Fuck, fuck –” she spits, already scrambling back up to prepare to flee, the high pitched cry sounds again. A baby, you think dazedly. There’s a baby here. The baby the girl mentioned? Your head feels hollow, your brain pulsing against the confines of your skull.

“W–wait–” you croak. You can’t get your bearings, too many sounds muddling your pounding head: the far off gunshots – getting closer, the horrible clicking, your memories battering within your mind over and over, Beth’s phantom screams of pain, Joel yelling at you to run, run, run, the baby’s wail fueling your panic to rise higher and higher inside of you. You have been here before. A sense of déjà vu so acute – as if this moment is the only one you’ve ever existed in. Your skin throbs in echoes, a hair raising chill rolls through your body and you shiver, jerking. “A baby–” you stutter, “You have a baby–” you roll over, reach out to try and grasp her kicking ankle. Her boot collides with your wrist, and you swallow an agonized scream, rolling away from her. 

“Get the fuck away from me! Fucking murderer!” she screeches, over the baby’s cries. A flash of the moon illuminates the woman’s figure for a second and you see the bulk of the child cradled to her front. And her face, panicked, dirt streaked and desperate. You lock eyes for one interminable moment, take each other in, they’re light, almost glowing translucent in her skull with the reflection of the moonlight. 

“Let me– let me help you — Wait–” you urge, you can’t get up, can’t get your limbs to work. 

“Get away from me!” she screams again, and then she’s up and gone, fleeing into the darkness. You need to move, the vicious sounds of a fight are drawing nearer – Joel’s pleading voice in your head run, run, run. The thought of having left him behind makes bile curl in your belly, burn your throat, but you’d promised him you’d listen to anything he said, and the instinct to keep your word won out. You hear Beth’s voice more clearly in this familiar darkness, and you force your shaky mind to move, to work. The way she’d say your name so patiently when trying to teach you something, imparting some of her slightly snooty big-sister-wisdom, always well meaning: The trees, the trees are always our friends. They can do so much for us. And then you’re clawing your way to your feet, just like that long past night, and grappling for any sort of purchase you can find with your hands and boots. Up, up the tree, go up the tree. It saved you once, it’ll save you again. 

It terrifies you to think that life was only ever a recurring set of events; cyclical in an inescapable way. That you were all doomed to repeat the same steps, relive the same instances, again and again. Beth forcing you up the tree last time, the night of her death. You’d been taken by surprise by clickers that night also, but only you had made it up to the first branches before they were on her. Before you were forced to watch, helpless from your perch as she was ripped to shreds. You had been here before and you’d lost something essential to you last time. You would not survive a second loss. 

Joel, please be okay, please, please. 

You manage to foist yourself up into the lowest hanging branches, the blood in your head throbs so strongly it’s coupled with a wave of nausea with every beat of your heart, up higher, a little more. You’d perched on that tree branch for hours after she was finally dead. Staring unseeingly at the scattered pieces of her body. A sudden gunshot echoes loudly in the darkness and you almost lose your purchase on the branch, and then it all stops. Like all sound is suddenly sucked out of the air in a vacuum echo – the struggle of the fight, the clicking and screaming – and the vacant wilderness is so consuming, so terrifying, tears stream silently down your cheeks. You can hear your breath rattle in your chest. You feel very, very alone, as if every other human in the world had vanished with the sounding of that gunshot. 

Alone in a sick and destroyed world. 

But then there’s a sudden bumbling through the trees. A body breaking against the brush and leaves on the ground, and another one of the attackers stumbles into the clearing. You turn your head in the direction the woman had fled, perhaps she’d been part of this group, but the sheer terror in her eyes, the desperation to get away as quickly as possible, her words, calling you a murderer, inclines you to think not. Joel stalks into the clearing after him, and you huddle deeper into the shadow of the branches. The moon slants just so allowing you to take him in. 

It’s like he’s grown five inches taller, the look in his eyes – there is no hint of the man who’d touched you with the gentlest hands you’d ever felt in your entire life – it’s terrifying. His gaze swings almost manically in his head, taking in the clearing, and then his eyes stop on your tree, pause on the patch of dirt at the base and slowly travel up, looking into the looming darkness of the branches. He will always find you. You know this as surely as you know your own name. His face, his hands are steeped in blood, his clothing savaged. There’s no weapon in his grasp as the man turns to swing a long, serrated hunting knife at him. He jerks back, smoothly evading it. “I’m gonna find your little bitch, gonna fuck her dead – gut her. Make you watch the whole thing, you motherfucker,” he taunts. He’s laughing, provoking, and Joel’s countenance is so terrifying in this moment – his face seems set in stone, unmoving and frozen in a rage so black. Your whole body shivers so violently you almost lose your perch. The branch creaks beneath you, and you let out a small whimper as your hands scrape and scramble to hold on, your bloody, broken nails clawing at the wood. The man turns at your sound, but Joel’s gaze remains trained on him. The man’s eyes are manic with sick glee. “Oh, there she is,” he croons. His teeth gleam red in the moonlight, and he never should’ve taken his eyes off Joel, not even for a second. He’s on him faster than you can blink, shoulder to the man’s gut, he slams him to the ground and his skull rebounds with a sick crack on the hard dirt, the sound of his skull breaking with the sheer force of the tackle. 

Joel is an animal, hungry and vicious, ready to gorge. 

The knife is in his hand then, and the sick, slick squelch of it plunging deep into the man’s chest sounds loud and victorious in the night. He lets out a small surprised oh, as he looks down at the knife impaling him, and Joel’s teeth are bared in a snarl, he grinds it harder, deeper.

“That’s right, fucker,” he says, voice low and guttural, almost unrecognizable in this darkness. “Shoulda never put your hands on her.” The sound of it makes you more afraid in this moment than anything else that’s happened tonight, the thought of not knowing the sound of his voice – of losing him so far to his rage you’d be unable to recognize him, to bring him back to you. But then he speaks again: “I’m going to kill you now.” He’s nodding his head mockingly, and that familiar monotone is back. His tone so matter of fact – almost like a reassurance to the three of you. The oily grip of your fear slides off you, and you’re left only to appreciate the magnificence of his violence as he starts beating the man’s face in with his closed first, again and again. The sound of crushed bone and flesh resonating in the dark night air like some gruesome song. And the sight of it: it is lurid, grotesque, but also somehow, erotic. Joel’s huge, heaving body, his fist breaking repeatedly over human flesh; you are mesmerized. You slowly start to lower yourself back to the ground, never once taking your eyes off him, barely blinking. The sight of him, wrathful, murdering, the way he kills for you, the way he protects you; you understand it. It is very much like the moment in which Beth died in its violent inevitability. It will always happen like this; Beth dying, Joel protecting you. The way her body was torn apart piece by piece by clickers as you watched on from above. The basest display of violence imaginable. Joel, meticulous, precise in his strikes, protecting you with everything he has. The man’s skull is an almost bloody mass of pulpy, bone riddled sludge beneath his blows. But in this instance, the scene before you is now something that is being given to you, something being done for you – not something being taken away.

There have been many times where the lines between the infected and the humans blurred in your psyche. Unsure which was more violent, more horrifying, more willing to inflict damage. But there never existed a question of which had a greater capacity for cruelty. It was always, always the humans. Cordyceps had taught you that nature could never be cruel – it only existed as it was meant to, did as it was always intended to. There was no cruelty behind it’s actions, no motivation behind the consequences it wrought besides to go on existing, no choice. But humans, people, the well of cruelty that existed within humanity was endless in its possibility. Endless choices. Nothing else like that lived in the world. The man you killed – his disgusting whispered words ring in your ears as you watch Joel: You think your man over there’ll get off on watching? ‘Cause I sure as hell am gonna enjoy knowin’ he is, pretty thing. 

There are no lines in this moment – the way you’d murdered him – there is no sense of division. There is only Joel’s desperate violence existing with the three of you in this clearing – the echoes of your own.

And the sight before you, the violence in him, it is not frightening to you. He is not frightening to you. To see his very basest nature – to see him protect you in this way – that violent heart, beastly, savage – it does not frighten you. You step forward, closer to the massacre, to the man you love, and he instantly stops. Hearing or sensing your approach, he stops and turns his bloody, savage face towards you, chest heaving, fist still raised. The look in his eyes as he registers your presence, that you’ve witnessed him in this way – to Joel, to Joel it is devastating. You can see it in his gaze, the moment it settles within him – catastrophe of the highest order. 

The possibility of losing you, of you being hurt, of him not being strong or fast enough to protect you; every fear, every moment of unimaginable danger, every point of no return flashes in his eyes – it’s like you’re reading his mind in this moment. The instance of connection, of knowing, of intimacy you share in the wake of his violence – it tethers you to him in a way that is deeper than anything else the two of you have experienced before. To share this, to know what he’s feeling in this space his violence has forged, to understand his rage – he’s seen this play out so many different ways, so many times, with different versions of someone he cares for. Sarah, Ellie, you.

His eyes like glass, broad chest heaving, painfully out of breath; it’s like you can see him recall another moment like this as he looks at you, as he takes in the familiar look of hungry reverence in your eyes, mirroring another set too young to churn with so much appreciation for violence. 

He straightens from his crouch over the massacred form of your attacker, and comes to you, bloody hands fisting in your hair as he takes your mouth, open and fierce. The groan he licks into you is guttural, eliciting a shaky, broken moan in response.

“My brave girl,” he murmurs softly, nose nuzzling your cheek.

His hands roam down, gently pressing for wounds or hurts. “You’re okay? Are you hurt anywhere?” You press yourself to him, gaze peeking over his shoulder, staring out into the empty darkness, only the sound of your shared breaths now. 

“There was a woman,” you whisper, “With a baby.” Where did she go? Why did she have a baby out here with her in this hell?

He pulls you back, grips your jaw gently, “Are you hurt?” He demands, ignoring what you’d just said, and you shake your head, wide eyed. Do they have shelter? Somewhere to go? Someone to help them? 

“Are you?” you ask him. 

“I’m fine.”

“I saw a woman, Joel. She had a baby.”

“Was probably with those bastards. We have to go – find the others. I have to get you back home.” 

“But she had a baby–”

“That isn’t our concern,” he says sharply, and turns, clutching your hand in his, pulling you forward to bend for the knife still plunged in the man’s chest. He isn’t letting you go again. You feel the promise in the strength of his grip around your bones. The skull is caved in, and your eyes volley back and forth between the slaughter and Joel.

“But I–”

“Don’t.” There is no room for discussion in his tone, only an urgency that begs for your obedience. His panic, his terror, envelopes you both in its asphyxiating embrace. “Not now. We have to go.”

-

You make it back to Jackson within several hours. Never coming across the group or the horses again. Joel sets an uncompromising pace that has your exhausted, overwrought body shutting down once you finally set eyes on the gate. 

He hasn’t said a word in hours except to check if you’re okay. His breathing, harsh and angry — you’d focused on the rhythm of it, the reassurance it provided you. Let the sound settle in your bones and guide you forward along with his hand. He’d not let go of you since he’d picked it up, and your fingers have long gone numb in his strangling grip. But you know, that like the sound of his breathing, the feel of your palm in his is his own form of reassurance. The embrace he’d not allow himself right now. Not until you’re safe. 

The dark, red thread of tension pulls taught between the two of you. His earlier violence, still palpable on your tongue, felt in the rigidity he holds himself with, it buzzes between your bodies like a hive. A restless anxiety overshadowing the exhaustion threatening you, making your skin itch and sweat. 

You return to find Tommy safe and unharmed, Kenneth and Pablo being patched up by Nancy and interrogated by Maria. The fourth in your party, Ben, is dead. A group already assembled to go out and search for the two of you. The teenage girl had disappeared from the clinic shortly after your group had headed out – the whole thing was a trap. Joel recounts the fight in tense, short bursts, never letting go of your hand. Pulling your body slightly behind his, as if these people, familiar to you, your friends, your family, also pose a threat. Anyone who dares too close is met with the fire of his glare, bared teeth. He’s yet to shed the blanket of violence he’d dawned to defend the two of you earlier, and your body seems to answer it, a keening cry only he can hear. Shaking and sweating, clutching the back of his jacket, pressing your feverish brow to his shoulder. You know you should pull yourself together, tend to Kenneth and Pablo, clean and wrap Joel’s obviously broken hand and your own scrapes and bruises – it’s your responsibility – but you can’t focus, can’t pin a rational thought in your mind long enough to propel yourself into action. The wet sound of Joel’s pummeling fist plays over and over in your mind, the only thing you can focus on, the feel of his warm back under your touch. You need him, need something from him after that trauma, after your fear of being taken from him, of one of you being killed. You need him to remind you that you’re both okay, alive, that you belong to him and only him. 

You block out their conversation, eyes closed, you try to match the rhythm of your breathing to his, try to ground yourself with his body. The feeling of never having left those dark woods, of still being in that tree with Beth, not Joel, beneath you, of being lost, lost, lost, of never finding him, is overwhelming you. And then he’s turning and pulling you into his arms, guiding you away from the group and whispering into your hair, “It’s alright, it’s alright, just a little longer. We’re going home now.” Home, he was taking you home. The words out of his mouth allow you enough clarity of mind to squeeze the wish from your heart into your brain – that you want so desperately for his home to be yours also. That you could both share the same space you call just your own. 

“I’ve got you, baby. Stop your trembling now,” he presses into your hair. His voice, so comforting, so reassuring. 

Your eyes are blurry, colors passing your gaze in a hazy amalgamation that makes your heart beat faster. You can feel the mass of it pounding against the ribs in your back, the sensation sick and uncomfortable. And then you’re in his bedroom, and his hands are everywhere, ripping aggressively at your clothes, sliding through your hair, squeezing your ass and your breasts and your hips. 

“I need you– need you, need you– Need to feel you, Birdie.” His voice pushes an urgency into your skin that has your heart beating even harder against your ribcage, his mouth sliding over your neck, tongue laving into the hollow of your collarbone, teeth biting, sharp and painful, into your shoulder, and you find your voice finally, keening and broken, calling out his name. He’s moving lower, sucking on your breast, biting, as if he could fit the entire heavy weight of it into his mouth, “Joel– Joel, please.” You push and grip at his head, his hair. 

“I know, I know, baby. I know what you need.” He pushes you back onto the bed, rips your legs open, fingers and nails pressing painfully into your soft skin, he spits on to your exposed sex, rubbing his saliva into your folds, bends for a long lick, and then two of his thick fingers are shoving into your cunt. He curls them forward and presses, presses, hooks into that spot that belongs only to him and bares his teeth at you. Snarls like an animal. Mine, mine, mine, you’re okay, you’re mine, he chants. He moves his fingers fast, with a lewd squelch that has you writhing and gasping, scissoring them to stretch you open. He pulls them from you, too soon, not enough, you want to say, but you hear the drag of his zipper – he spits again – and then the hot, wide head of his cock is there at your entrance, swiping along you in a wet arc, and then pressing, pressing in, and he’s there, surging into you and fucking hard and fast into your tight heat, hitting the end of you. The groan he lets out when he sinks to the hilt vibrates through you. You aren’t fully ready to take his thick length, and you don’t care, want it harder, faster, want it to hurt more, to remind you that you’re here with him, that you made it out of that dark wood. You curl your fingers under the damp crook of your knees and spread yourself wider for his ravaging. Eyes never leaving his, you arch your back to allow yourself to take him deeper. The moan you give him, pleading, almost pathetic in its desperate supplication – like an animal, like prey, pinned beneath the claws of a savage beast.

“This is what you needed – this is what you needed. You’re okay, you’re okay” he chants. You cannot discern where it is he ends and you begin. You never want to be able to tell again, want to meld your souls, your bodies together like ore. 

-

Still standing over your naked form at the edge of the bed, he lets himself fall forward, rigid arms holding himself up. He takes in your flushed, sweaty face, the glassy, terrified look you’d worn for hours replaced by the glassy haze of arousal. Delirious at the pleasure he’s forcing into you right now, he picks up the pace of his hips, gives it to you harder. Snakes a hand down to give your clit a gentle swirl, then further down, where his fingers part in a V to feel where his cock splits you open. 

“Just take it, just take it.” His cock inside you is brutal, cunt stretched to the point of obscenity, stuffed full. “I need you to take it for me, just like this – be a good girl – don’t struggle, lemme give it to you how I need.” His desperation has a flavor, a scent to it. He changes the angle to fuck up, up against something no one but him has ever touched, a space inside you that belongs to him, thumb soft as a whisper on your swollen clit, around and around. He can tell you almost need to tell him to stop, that it’s too much. “Fuck, that’s so good, baby, you’re such a good girl,” he praises, and you make a soft, obscene sound that he feels in his battering cock. He gives it to you harder. It’s a sound of acquiescence, of complete capitulation, that he rings out of you. He’s conquered you in this moment – conquered you in a way that grants you no option of stopping. The sound is his permission to conquer. With his body over yours, within yours – you are completely at his mercy and protected from everything else in the world that could ever hurt you. He feels god-like. There is no fear or loss or hurt, no possibility of failure, only his body moving within yours. Your warm wet heat swallowing, gaping for him as he fills it like you both need him to.

The panic of that darkness surrounding him, of being unable to find you, of killing everything in his path just to fucking get to you, sings through him. He’d kill this dead world over and over and over again a thousand times just to find you in that darkness. 

-

He hooks your knees over his arms, hitches them higher – holds your legs open wider to receive him – your bare tits pressed up against the bloody, savaged cotton of his flannel – too desperate to bother stripping his own clothes, and the rough fabric rubs your soft skin raw. Each time his hips slam against your ass, balls slapping, your breath stutters out of you in broken gasps, and you don’t think he’s ever been as deep in your cunt as he is now. He wraps one of his arms around your back, gripping your shoulder to impale you down onto his cock. His other fists painfully in your hair to keep your head in place and tilted up to him; your jaw hinged open so you can breathe into each other. Your own hands clutch uselessly at his wrists, trying to exert some semblance of force against him – to remind him of your own strength while he overwhelms you with his. He’s fucking you as if he could burrow his way inside of you forever, live within the confines of your skin. You’ve lost track of how many times your cunt has spasmed and come around him, your muscles milking him relentlessly. Your clit engorged and rubbed raw. You’re one unending, throbbing orgasm. Everything is wet and messy between the two of you, the gush of your lust sticky and clinging to the hair on his pelvis and thighs. Birdie, Birdie, Birdie, it’s like a prayer. 

“Should’ve never left you alone in the dark, baby.”

He wants to break you, you're sure of it – to turn you into a creature reduced to only the virtue of his whims, ruled by the savaging of his cock. The very nectar of you pooling at his feet, leaking out of your pores under the unrelenting focus of his body and you know you won’t survive him. Not after this. But no, you realize, no, this is Joel breaking, not you. His fear is a living creature sharing the room with the two of you right now. Everything that’s ever held him away from you, everything he’s ever been too scared of to admit, lives and breathes with you in this moment. Like some sort of monstrosity crouched in the corner, bloody and frayed and wanting. 

“Birdie, I love you. Birdie, Birdie, my Birdie,” he brands the words into your skin. “I was so scared—” searing kisses pressed to your face, your neck, your breasts, in the wake of his words. 

Oh, this is it. Your heart, your heart, it’s going to burst, to cleave in two. He’s wrought a fracture through the core of your very being. 

This will never mend. 

The rhythm of his hips speeds up, becoming sloppy and stuttered – he’s close – and his grip transfers to your jaw, so tight and bruising; you’ll have the ghost of his fingers on your skin tomorrow. His cock kisses your womb with each brutal thrust, and he bares his teeth at you as he starts to come, the blazing wash of his spend filling you. “You’re gunna take all of my fucking come.” Anger and violence and all the feelings he wishes he didn’t have to experience, churn in his dark eyes. And you’d hold onto his anger soaked skin for the rest of your life if you could, if he’d let you. His eyes flick between yours, still holding your face, he ghosts his thumb over your wet bottom lip. “Birdie, I– I…” His hips are still moving, fucking his come deeper into your messy, used cunt. You see the realization of what he’s just said settle in his eyes, moving back and forth between yours, as if he’s watching him bare himself to you over again in their reflection. 

You’re losing him, you can feel the tension – regret, please, please don’t be regret – slowly start to seep into him as soon as he’s finished, to steal him away from you, and you cling more desperately to him, pull his face to yours and press soft butterfly kisses across his cheeks and nose. Joel, Joel, Joel. Please, don’t. His eyes flutter closed – the image of you beneath him already too much to bear.

“Stop,” he growls. Again: “Stop,” and suddenly he’s ripping himself out and away from you. The loss of him from between your legs, so violently abrupt, is almost a physical pain. The emptiness after being so full leaves you clenching around nothing, pushing his come out of you, and embarrassment, shame, fills you so acutely – to have your sex bared to him like a wound he’s left you with. You shut your legs, clutch your knees to your chest and gasp for breath, almost a sob. You gouge your nails into the skin of your knees trying to draw blood – before he can. You know what’s coming. 

“I didn’t mean… all that. I– fuck—” he spits, clutches his hand in his messy hair, “I– I got carried away.” He’s backing away from you – other hand outstretched as if to keep you away. As if he could keep the reality of his confession, the betrayal to his own self, away from him with just that outstretched hand. 

You’re still on your back, vacant eyes trained towards the ceiling, sucking in painful gulps of air, but you register him from the corner of your eye, the look he wears – you can’t decide if he was more terrified at the possibility of you being ripped apart by the clickers, taken and brutalized by the hunters; or in this moment, if his fear is more acute now, in the wake of his fortuitous confession. At the risk of being laid bare and vulnerable at your feet; as you’ve lived at his since the moment he first took you.  

“Okay,” you say – try to temper your voice, slow your breaths, remain quiet and calm. Only one of you can be overwhelmed by panic right now. And yet part of you wants to rage at him. Your heart beats painfully in your chest, and you want to say, it’s not like I’m asking you to open your vein and let me drink – only just to love me.

Birdie, I love you. Birdie, Birdie, my Birdie.

“Okay…” you say again, “I– it’s… it’s okay. I know.” You sit up slowly, your body throbs and aches, still not able to look at him – the sight of him so terrified of all you represent, it would burn you – but you feel his gaze like a brand across your skin. You wrap your arms around your naked breasts, shielding yourself. His own bloody shirt is askew, his pants still open, cock slick with your mingled come, still semi-hard. If this were any other moment you’d tease him – how are you still hard after all that? 

You turn your head away, towards the door, a traitorous little tear escapes the corner of your eye, and you quickly wipe it against your lifted shoulder, press your fingers to your mouth to keep in the threatening sobs. One of his flannels is strewn across the ground and you toe it towards yourself. “It was the adrenaline.” Your voice is limp, dead. Diminishing this will be the thing to kill you, you’re sure of it. How can he expect you to turn away from the one thing you’ve wanted from him more than anything else? 

Birdie, I love you. Birdie, Birdie, my Birdie.

You shrug on his shirt, and he’s still not said anything else, but you see him move to tuck himself into his jeans now. “I- I’m gonna get some water,” you mumble, give him a moment to recalibrate.

Chapter V

Netherfeildren Masterlist

[thedwarventradesman]

Hollow — Tech x GN!Reader Batcher

Description: Tech x GN!Reader Batcher, established relationship; POV is 1st person so there's no use of gendered pronouns (: Warnings: Angst, major character death, grief, very vague allusion to suicidal thoughts and self-destructive tendencies Word Count: 916

A/N: This is the first time I've really written any fandom content since high school. Or at least, with the intention of letting others read it. Tried to balance the mix of recounting the past while also shifting to how reader/oc is in the present which can be tricky so I hope it reads well.

Image Credit: @ilcuoreardendo-fic

Everything happened so fast.

It was like any other mission gone bad — shots from grounded enemies, shots from the sky, and having to problem-solve on the fly amidst the chaos. Then… it was very different.

There was a violent shake as the rail cars were hit and then I was looking down at my husband hanging far below the car. Momentarily, all sound became an indistinguishable noise, garbled voices of distress mixed with ringing and roaring in my ears, as you struggled to climb up to the car.

As I moved to help you, the car creaked and, snapping back to reality, I heard you shout up, “Whoa! Don't! Any shift in weight could send both of these cars over. You must sever the connection hinge. Now!” Wrecker and I immediately exclaimed our rejection of that idea. I could feel my panic rising, my desperation increasing. There must be something. There HAS to be something. Anything to fix this mess and save you.

Your next words, spoken so calmly and matter-of-fact, slammed into me. “There is no time, cyare. Plan 99.” “Don’t. You. Dare, Tech.” My voice cracked on your name. Gently, desperately, I repeated my words, punctuating them with “please”. Your eyes locked with mine — soft, sad, and full of love. “I love you, cyar’ika, but when have we ever followed orders?”

When you shot the connection and began to fall, a deafening scream ripped out of me. “NO!” My body automatically lunged for the side with my hand outstretched before Wrecker grabbed me and held me firmly. Thrashing to escape his grasp as the car began to move, I screamed, “TECH! No! No no no! Go back!”

As the car got further and further away, the shock of the situation overtook me — numb, unseeing, unmoving with that same mix of indistinguishable sounds in my ears. My body went into a survival autopilot – moving as prompted but I wasn’t there – and the team had to help drag me back to the Marauder through the attacks.

Once aboard the Marauder, standing in the middle of our quarters, my knees gave out as I crumbled. Ripping off my helmet and goggles, my agonized sobs finally broke free and echoed through the ship. So full of grief, my body shaking, I leaned forward on my hands for support, fingers digging into the metal floor. One hand reached up, taking my chained wedding ring from underneath my undershirt and I clutched it so hard a mark was left in my hand.

At some point, I had stopped crying and left my body. I didn’t even know the ship stopped. Feeling a gentle hand on my shoulder, the only acknowledgment of awareness I could give was a hoarse, emotionless mumble, “You should have let me go with him.” 

From there, I don’t truly remember much of anything. There’s a blur of being dragged to my feet and out of the ship, and of having wet hair and clean clothes while AZ checked me over with no memory of cleaning up or changing. I’m ashamed to say that I don’t even truly remember Omega being taken. All I truly remember from the past month and a half is waves of soul-crushing pain surrounded by numbness as I attempted to lose myself in my work. I keep crying and feeling flashes of disbelief and anger. I’ve lost my appetite… and my desire for self-preservation. All this while moving on autopilot to complete my tasks and finish the mission. Find and save Omega. That is all that matters right now.

Hunter, Wrecker, and Echo are concerned for me, often pushing food on me and otherwise fussing. Up until now, there were eyes on me almost all the time, it felt like, and I hated it, but I understood why they hovered. Echo left a couple of weeks after the events to rejoin Rex, but I still hear him comm Hunter every so often to check in on me and find out how the search for Omega is going.

The days are often easier than the nights since I’ve taken on most of Tech’s tasks alongside my own. Hunter and Wrecker have tried to take some of them, wishing to lighten my load, but I adamantly refuse. I need them. I need the memory of helping with and hearing about them from him by doing them. They’ve let the situation be, but still intervene to make me sleep.

That’s when it gets unbearable.

The emptiness beside me screams, his scent got fainter with each passing day until it disappeared, remembering the quiet moments we shared in this space, and hearing his final words on a loop in the silence. Once the exhaustion finally takes me… I often watch Tech fall and wake with tears streaming down my face or stinging eyes and a heavy heart. Some nights, I think Hunter has been slipping me medicine in my food ‘cause those are the only nights I get any decent sleep.

Despite all this, I have, believe it or not, been getting better. Slowly, I began to reengage with the boys and be open with them. They stopped having to watch me as close or force me to take care of myself. Now, it’s reminders and intervention as necessary along with occasional check-ins when I seem particularly off one day. I’m still far from okay and I won’t ever be the same but, thanks to our brothers, I become a little less hollow each day.

[evansbuckkley]

so i had a dream earlier during my nap, and i really need to write it down or something because when i woke up i went feral (i really should be asleep 'cause it's 12 am and i have to get up at 6:30 but here you go).

It's been a week for Eddie. Work, Chris' school schedule, and these odd, reoccurring dreams about all of his loved ones dying, one by one. First Chimney, then Bobby, Athena, Maddie, Hen, Chris, and just today, Buck. And what do you know, Buck was right outside of Eddie's room on the couch, and had to be awake when Eddie awoke at 3 am, screaming 'Buck!' and hyperventilating. And that night, Eddie really was thankful for the fact that his kid was somewhat popular, being at a sleepover with his best friends. And, to be honest, Eddie didn't really know what to do when he woke up. He was either gonna go get Buck, cry, or have a panic attack, he guessed, although Eddie Diaz "wasn't one to panic".

______

"Go get 'em cowboy." Eddie said, patting Buck on the shoulder. The other man turned around and smiled at him that beautiful, bright smile, showing off all of his pearly whites. God, did Eddie love that man. He was just so perfect, so sweet, so handsome, so...Buck. A few minutes later, Buck was at the very edge of the ladder, looking up at the sky. Eddie couldn't hear or see Buck say anything, but he saw the sky turning blue in that one spot above Buck and thought, "What the heck is that?" It's like Eddie blinked and Buck was dangling in the air and he was on the ground. His back hurt and was probably bruised, but he didn't care. He only cared about Buck, who wasn't moving. Buck, who looked lifeless by the way he was being put on display for everyone on the ground like some kind of animal. "Buck!", was the next thing Eddie heard coming from himself. His throat was gonna be wrecked later, but he didn't care. He had to make sure Buck was okay, even though he probably wasn't by the looks of it. "Buck!", he called out again, now climbing up the ladder at his highest speed, which was pretty difficult with the fact that it was raining. "Buck!", his voice cracked, he slipped, didn't fall though. "Buck!", he kept going, finally reaching the top of the ladder. "Buck! Can you hear me? Buck!", he yelled, trying to pull Buck's rope up to him, trying to get Buck back on the ladder. But the rope started going down, started lowering. "No, Buck! Can you hear me? Buck! Buck!", no response. He kept pulling and the rope kept falling, falling, until- SNAP! The rope broke and Buck fell. For a moment, Eddie wanted to follow him. Throw himself over the railing too. "Buck! Buck! No, Buck!", he yelled, screamed for his best friend. Even with the loud noises and rain pattering all around him, he still could hear the heavy thud when Buck's body hit the ground. "Evan! Evan, no!", Eddie screamed, voice cracking, grip on the rail weakening. He felt his knees buckle, and felt his body hit the ladder. He was sobbing now, rain mixing with tears. "Buck."

______

Eddie awoke with a loud gasp, immediately bursting into tears. "Buck!", he sobbed, calling out for his best friend. He heard a thud hit the floor and heard mumbling, then loud, running footsteps following after. "Buck.", he whispered, tears rolling down his face and sobs taking away his breath. Eddie was shaking now, on the edge of his bed. His door burst open, and he fell with a loud thud. Buck basically leaped over the bed, trying to get to Eddie as quick as possible. "Hey, Eds. Eddie. Eddie! Listen!", but he couldn't. Eddie couldn't move, couldn't breathe. His chest felt tight, heart beating too fast for his liking. "Eddie, you're having a panic attack."

Buck automatically knew what to do since Eddie wasn't cooperating. He grabbed Eddie and placed his head over where his heart was to get the man to listen to it, to match it, to breathe. Eddie had stopped crying now, but the panic attack was still going. "Eds, I need you to listen to me, okay? I need you to breathe." Eddie took in a shuddering breath, and a few more, finally calming down a little. "Good. Good, just breathe, baby. You're doing so good." The pet name slipped out, but Eddie couldn't help but smile. After a few more minutes, Eddie was calm, Buck now holding Eddie safely in his lap, rubbing his back with both hands.

"Wanna talk about it?" Eddie shook his head. "Okay, but what happened? Did you have a bad dream about me?" Eddie nodded. They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes.

"You died."

It was quiet, but loud enough for Buck to hear it.

"We were back at the call where you got struck, and I tried to pull you back up on the ladder, but you fell, then..."

Buck only squeezed Eddie tighter.

"I'm sorry. But you know that it was just a dream, right? I'm right here, baby. Right here." Eddie was so giddy and warm now, but he was enjoying this moment too much to move, so all he did was smile to himself.

"Baby, huh?"

Buck froze, the hands on Eddie's back stopping. "Buck, if you like me, just say that."

"I love you, Eds. In that way."

Buck lifted Eddie's chin with two fingers, locking their eyes. "I love you too, Buck."

And oh, my God, Eddie was kissing Evan Buckley. The man he'd been pining over for more than two years.

The kiss was soft, tender, passionate. It was everything Eddie thought kissing Buck would be like. Buck pulled back, Eddie definitely not being bothered one bit. "Yeah. I love you, Edmundo Diaz."

"Well I love you too, Evan Buckley." Eddie kissed right over Buck's heart where his head rested and got up, reaching a hand out. Buck got up as well and they both got into the bed, immediately tangling themselves up in each other like it was a routine. Eddie kissed Buck's birthmark, then smiling into Buck's neck. "Talk tomorrow?" Asked Eddie. "Yeah. Talk." They shared another kiss and were out after that.

[f4iryjjosh]

“The Mangoose” || C. Seungcheol.

GENRE: Suspense.

WARNINGS: Cursing, blows, fanciful writing, mention of Seungcheol's dark past, mental illness, death, Chan is the bad guy (?

NOTES: English it's not my first language so it perhaps have discontinuity errors and nonsense texts. Also, I was supposed to post this months ago but ok. Pls, enjoy this mess!

❦

Act I.

At the top of a mountain, where the clouds almost touched, there was a huge old house. Occupied by a young man, son of the best business family in the village.

Choi Seungcheol, was the one they called a simple and generous boy, but also grumpy and pessimistic. It could be said that he lived alone in that house, since winters used to be cold and heavy in that area and his parents took months to return home from their turbulent business trips.

Besides, he never went out. He didn't even see the reflection of the clouds or take in a tiny drop of air. He shut himself away, like any grumpy, hopeless old guy.

And of course, if since that fateful day when he hit his head, he has been afraid of what people might come to think of the minuscule malformation on the left side of his skull.

(...What a silly...)

But then, one windy autumn night, he—sunk in his oh-so-abundant cowardice and boredom— was nodding like a fool, refusing to even take a little nap in his comfortable red velvet chair.

And from one second to other, his right ear caught a slight tapping.

Tap tap tap.

(...On the wall...)

It was small.

Barely inaudible, but Seungcheol heard it perfectly.

Unable to move, he continued to stare at the point of the noise, holding his chin up with one of his fists.

The big, tall room was dim, and oh, he had forgotten to bring candles. So that was it.

Even so, without giving it much importance, he returned to his state of pleasant reverie, batting his eyelashes, he closed his eyes again, in the same position as before.

Ah, what a pleasure. Being like this as if it were summer was too pleasant, especially that nice breeze that entered through the cracks and caused him a few...

Tap tap tap.

In the wood.

His head jerked around, almost making his little bones rattle.

"Who's there?" In the cold solitude and tranquility of the room, he called out.

Who could be?

Nobody. Don't be silly. He thought.

The feeling that it would happen again pounded in his head more than it already was, and then and there he heard it.

With his two big ears.

The little cry of a baby.

Leaping from his sturdy chair, he made a beeline for the wall, putting his ear to it.

But it stopped. The sound was gone as soon as he moved up there.

But he waited.

Waited for anything else.

Tap tap tap.

He heard right next to his ear.

It was smooth and faster than before.

Seungcheol fell to his knees, his mouth hanging down and his hands resting on,—almost tearing— the worn decorated paper of the wall.

The baby's crying started again, but this time it seemed to come from… the ground.

As if his life depended on it, the boy threw himself on that side, sticking his left ear to the ground. The boards seemed to bounce and groan under his weight.

For a moment, the fleeting thought of self-control crossed his mind, and he was on his feet in a blink and adjusting his long bordo robe, he quickly made his way out of the room.

(...So ridiculous...)

He couldn't allow himself to have such imaginations like these. See? It was clear that at any moment it was going to start.

The delirium.

He couldn't let himself go crazy.

But as he took heavy, fast steps down the narrow hallway, there it was. Again!

The sound.

As if something was crawling behind the walls.

God, it made Seungcheol so uncomfortable.

"Damn it!" He blurted out shakily.

He hurried away until he reached his bedroom. With the door locked, he was left in soft shadows like before.

He walked back, still facing his door, and it wasn't until the back of his knees touched the bed that he finally flopped onto it. A sigh of relief leaving his throat.

In that quiet moment, his hand reached up and reached for the bruised part of his head. Where the scar itched.

"I'm going crazy because of you..." He muttered, furrowing his brows and pouting in obvious nervousness.

(...Talking to your scar won't solve anything, you fool...)

"I better go to sleep," he said, crawling backwards until he reached the gigantic ornate headboard.

Seungcheol crossed his arms on his chest, looking up and, without covering himself or arranging the pillows, closed his eyes, still breathing irregularly.

There and then, pure silence he witnessed. And a content breath left his nostrils,—not thinking at all that it was maybe all a bad moment of his head— convincing himself that he was merely tired from the day's climate.

"Seungcheol" It was heard.

"Mmh...," He hummed almost completely asleep.

But, wait...

Startled, Seungcheol sat up and looked around the room, trying to pinpoint the source of the voice. He was alone, completely alone! So what was that?

"Who's there!?" He exclaimed, standing up like a spring.

The voice didn't reply immediately, but after a moment, it returned, clearer this time, as if it had gained confidence. "I am here, Seungcheol. I am the guardian of this house."

"Guardian? What do you mean? Show yourself!" He ordered fiercely.

But the voice didn't materialize. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, as if it was a part of the very essence of the house itself.

Seungcheol's mind swirled with confusion and fear. "What are you? Are you a ghost? A spirit?"

"I am not a ghost, nor am I a spirit as you understand it," the voice, in an almost high-pitched tone, replied. "My name is Chan, and i'm a mongoose."

Seungcheol's mind was overwhelmed with a mix of disbelief and paranoia. It seemed impossible, and yet the voice held an air of truth he couldn't ignore.

"I'm dreaming, yes, that's it," he said, with quivering lip.

"Oh, you're not in a dream Seungcheol, it's all real" Chan said.

"What do you want from me? My heart? My blood? Tell me!" He verbalized with fear.

"None of that, actually. I only come to offer you my company."

"Company? I don't need no company! I'm more than fine here alone!" Seungcheol exclaimed irritably.

"It seems the complete opposite Seungcheol. Tell me, how is that scar on your head?" Seungcheol noticed the taunt in the question.

And immediately he directed his hand towards the mark on his skull, forming a resentful pout.

"What the hell are you talking about? Leave me alone!" He screamed, his cheeks burning pure red with rage and his ears ringing.

"You know, Seungcheol, medically speaking, rub or touch a scar like that could cause an infection, sensitivity or even delay the healing of the wound. Or, in the worst case cause severe injuries or even death," Chan said matter-of-factly.

Seungcheol grumbled, "Well, thanks for your expert analysis, Dr. Chan. Maybe you should be a physician instead of lurking in walls, scaring people."

"You really should be more careful," Chan continued, undeterred by Seungcheol's sarcasm. "The human body is remarkably resilient, but it also has its limits. Especially for someone who already has a scar on their head from a previous injury."

"Ugh, stop bringing up the scar!" Seungcheol groaned, rubbing his throbbing head. "As if I didn't have enough reasons to feel self-conscious about it..." This made Chan laugh softly.

And as the night grew darker, Seungcheol lay awake, listening to that voice's whispers, that seemed to emanate from the very walls and floor.

Mentioning also the squeak of what seemed to be a ferret, and its small footsteps echoing through the grate on the wall.

Act II.

Amidst the echoing animal sounds, Seungcheol's mind remained haunted by the fall he had suffered months ago. Every time he heard Chan's voice or felt a chill down his spine, he would subconsciously reach up to touch the scar on his head, blaming it for his perceived descent into this strange madness.

"Oh great," Seungcheol muttered sarcastically one evening as the walls resonated with the sounds of a howling wolf. "Just what I needed, my personal wildlife orchestra. Thank you, Mr. Scar, for this never-ending symphony of insanity."

Chan's voice, melodious yet eerie, floated through the room. "Ah, my friend, you have quite the sense of humor. But I must admit, I enjoy providing the soundtrack to your life."

"Very funny," Seungcheol retorted with a wry smile. "Tell me, invisible creature of mystery, are you planning to add more creatures to your repertoire? Perhaps a screeching bat or a hissing snake?"

"I'll take those suggestions into consideration," Chan replied playfully.

Seungcheol's patience wore thin. The constant animal sounds, once amusing, now grated on his nerves like a relentless torment. He longed for silence, for a respite from Chan's haunting presence. But every attempt to ignore or escape the invisible being proved futile.

Other night, as the cold wind beat the branches outside, Seungcheol found himself pacing the dimly lit room, his frustration reaching its peak. "Why won't you leave me alone?" he yelled into the emptiness. "What do you want from me, Chan?"

The torturous sound of an elephant trumpeting his trunk seemed to intensify, surrounding him like an ethereal choir of taunting spirits. "You can't escape your past, Seungcheol," Chan's voice echoed. "The scar on your head is a constant reminder of your fall from grace, your vulnerability, your fear."

Seungcheol's eyes narrowed, his anger boiling over. "Why can't you just shut up about that? It's none of your business!"

"Oh, but it is my business," Chan replied, a touch of amusement in his tone. "Your life has become my fascination, and your pain, my entertainment."

Seungcheol's blood ran cold as he felt a chill crawl down his spine. "You find joy in tormenting me, don't you? You thrive on my suffering."

"I am merely an observer of human nature," Chan said, his voice taking on a sinister edge. "And your suffering is a fascinating study. Your fall, your scar, your descent into madness – it's all so delightfully tragic."

Seungcheol's fists clenched as he shouted, "Stop mocking me! Stop playing with my mind!"

"But what fun would that be?" Chan's voice seemed to echo from all directions, making it impossible to pinpoint his location. "You're a delightful puppet, Seungcheol. So easily manipulated by your own fears and insecurities."

The room felt like it was closing in on Seungcheol, and the animal sound this time changed to a horse neighing and trotting across the room, and it grew louder, their cacophony deafening. He couldn't bear it any longer. "Leave me alone!" he screamed, his voice hoarse.

"I'll leave you alone when you confront your demons, Seungcheol," Chan taunted. "Until then, I'll be your constant companion, whispering reminders of your past."

Seungcheol's resolve hardened, and he took a deep breath. "Fine, if that's what you want. I'll face my fears, my past, and put an end to this madness once and for all."

A haunting laughter filled the room, and Chan's voice echoed in sinister delight. "Oh, how I look forward to seeing how this tragic tale unfolds, my dear Seungcheol."

With newfound determination, Seungcheol vowed to break free from the clutches of his tormentor. He would confront his past, his fears, and the scar that haunted him. Whether it led to his redemption or his downfall, he would no longer be a puppet in Chan's twisted game.

And as the wind continued to hit the window's glass wildly, the stage was set for a tragic showdown between a haunted soul and the enigmatic creature that reveled in his torment.

Act III.

One particularly rainy afternoon, tired of hearing the incessant animal sounds that Chan playfully unleashed upon him, Seungcheol reached his breaking point. All the days that followed were filled with both hallucination and dread.

He couldn't take it any longer; his sanity was slipping away like sand through his fingers. With each animal noise, he touched the scar on his head, convinced that the fall he had taken a while ago was to blame for his supposed descent into madness.

Seungcheol, immersed in his chair, in that room of books so immense that he could still get lost, breathed with some exaggeration. Still and without emitting another sound than that.

The thick old forgotten book of poetry upon his lap, his face wrinkled with weariness and his mind racing with all kinds of thoughts.

Soon, from the other side of the room, beyond the other bookcases, the soft laughter of what looked like a wild animal brought him out of his ideas.

The boy got up quickly, as if on alert, and cautiously surveyed the place. Even in the dark, his eyes were capable of capturing any movement. But there was nothing he could see.

Instead, the tender shriek was heard again, this time coming from above.

Seungcheol took that rusty sword from the wall and, determined to catch a glimpse of the unseen thing, he climbed on one of his tall bookcases, his heart pounding with anticipation and fear and standing there, he tried to keep his balance.

"Chan! Show yourself, you mischievous creature!" Seungcheol yelled into the darkness. "Enough with these games! I can't bear it any longer." He announced in a desperate tone of voice.

From the hidden corners of the room, more animal sounds formed, now accompanied by mocking laughter that seemed to reverberate through the very walls. He wanted to put an end to this torment once and for all.

"Come out, Chan! Coward!" he taunted, hoping his sarcasm would somehow reach the unseen creature.

"Oh, I'm here, dear Seungcheol, but catching me might not be as easy as you think," Chan's voice echoed from all directions.

Seungcheol's hands trembled on the sword as he reached out to hit—somehow— Chan, but every time he thought he had him, the creature's voice would emanate from a different spot, teasing him relentlessly.

"Can't catch me, can you, Seungcheol? Perhaps your clumsy fall has left you even more inept than you realize," Chan taunted.

"Enough! Just stop this madness!" Seungcheol's voice cracked with frustration and desperation.

"Why so serious, my friend?" Chan's tone turned soothing. "I'm just trying to add some excitement to your dull life. Isn't that what you wanted?"

"Excitement? This is torture! I can't sleep, I can't think, and I can't bear this anymore," Seungcheol cried out.

The animal sounds intensified, filling the room with a cacophony of noise, as if mocking him. Seungcheol clutched his head, feeling overwhelmed by the sounds and the memory of his fall.

"Oh, poor Seungcheol, blaming your fall for your troubles. But deep down, you know it's more than that, don't you?" Chan's voice took on a knowing tone.

"Shut up! You know nothing about me!" Seungcheol snapped, squeezing the hilt of the sword between his fingers.

"I know more than you think," Chan replied cryptically. "I know about the darkness that lurks within you, the loneliness that haunts you, and the fear that consumes you. But I also know that your parents don't love you."

Seungcheol scoffed, "And how would you know that? You're just a voice in the darkness!"

"And yet, here you are, talking to me," Chan said softly. "You're not as alone as you think, Seungcheol. I may be unseen, but I am here."

Frustrated and afraid, he blinked several times to push away the salty drops that were beginning to blur his vision. "This can't be happening," he muttered to himself, the noise of the huge knife falling against the floor echoing. "It's all in my mind. I'm just tired, that's all." His trembling fingers scratched at the rinds of his scar, making him hiss.

(...Wake up, Seungcheol. Wake up once and for all...)

"I've told you before Seungcheol - none of this is a dream. You're awake." Chan's voice sounded more serious.

"Then show yourself!" He uttered in a state of nervousness.

A flash of lightning illuminated the room, casting eerie shadows on the walls. In that moment, Seungcheol thought he caught a glimpse of something moving in the corner of his eye. Immediately, as if a little bit of adrenaline had entered his body, he jumped towards the other bookshelf, making it wobble slightly.

"C'mon! I want to see you, coward! You feed on my anger and you don't have the decency to show your face!" He yelled, almost breaking his voice.

"Your anger? What I feed on is your fear, Seungcheol. Your damn fear." Chan murmured without flinching at the madman's sudden attitude.

In that moment, a powerful gust of icy wet wind blew through the room, knocking over a few books and causing Seungcheol to lose his balance completely. He felt himself falling backward, his body descending through the air in slow motion.

His body fell to the ground with a thud, darkness engulfing him, and in that instant, all type of sounds were silenced. Even Chan's voice remained on pause.

"Poor boy, you finally got it. Your final fall" Chan whispered, sounding almost regretful. "You'll be fine now Seungcheol."

But Seungcheol could no longer respond.

And, in the next second, the rain stopped, the sky cleared and cleared, and the fallen leaves were making their way inside the house.

With the truth that remained hidden, like the secrets that lay behind the walls of that huge old house, where the clouds almost touched. And where the mongooses weren't seen.

[starlessskies94]

Consequence (Joel Miller x OC)

Summary: What if Joel survived his injuries from the Abby and Fireflies attack but ends up with really bad amnesia. He can’t remember his wife, Ellie, or the Outbreak; only before. How will his family bring back the man they once knew?

Pairing: JoelMiller x OC

Note: I haven't had much engagement with my latest chapter and that's cool so it was voted for the next chapter to be Ellie and Dina. I hope you enjoy this one. I'm ready to get this updated more regularly now as I'm pushing towards reaching the end. Still a way to go yet though but please stick with me I promise it'll be worth it.

Chapter Twenty-Two

It was quiet. Too quiet. They moved cautiously towards the tunnel, the inside filled with rubble and decades-old debris. They fitted through the creaks towards the other side but only just. Ellie and Dina went first being the smaller ones of the group. Knees and palms were scrapped in the process but they managed to with little effort to get to the other side. Ellie checking the coast was clear before helping Dina back up to her feet.

“We’re clear, you guys come through.” She said to the older pair on the other side. Ada moved to crouch towards the gap when they heard an ear-piercing screech echo through the silence. Followed by more screams and grunts from the infected. They appeared as if from nowhere, a large group charging towards Ada and Tommy from the ruins of old derelict buildings that were left to rot on the outside of the QZ walls.

Tommy wasted no time in aiming his gun and taking the first shot, it hit its target. A runner square in the head before he moved the barrel to take out another runner. Ada was quick to follow suit but as the noise grew so did the horde's size.

“MOM! TOMMY! GET THROUGH HERE NOW!!!” Ellie yelled, the panic evident in her voice.

“THERE’S NO TIME!” Tommy yelled back. “JUST GO! WE’LL FIND ANOTHER WAY IN AND WE’LL FIND YOU!” Her mother added in a rush of breath as she reloaded her gun.

Ellie didn't like that one bit but they had no time to argue, Dina was pulling her away saying something…words of comfort? Angry yelling? She was too scared to process it. She’d already lost Joel, she couldn’t lose her mom and Tommy as well. “Ellie we have to go!” Dina screamed, pulling hard on her wrist. She turned to look at her girlfriend, the panic in her eyes matching her own. She took one last glance toward her mother and Tommy fighting off the infected and swore this would not be the last time she saw them.

And with that, she took off with Dina’s hand in hers.

Ellie couldn’t speak. She couldn’t think. The white noise shrieked through her eardrums; and ricocheted around her skull as adrenaline and fear shot through her chest, constricting her lungs so heavily she struggled to breathe. Her feet never stopped, old worn boots scuffed against shattered concrete as she ran from the deafening screams that followed close behind. It hadn’t taken long for the infected to force their broken bodies through the cracks of the debris. Now the screeches of clickers and roars of runners were fast on their heels.

Both girls ran until their legs burned, their clutched hands sweaty and slipping. Ellie urged for Dina to take the lead but felt a jolt as she was violently pulled back by the scruff of her backpack. The next thing she knew she was on the ground, her hand wrenched from Dina’s. The grunting and growls perforated the distortion that filled her head as the face of a runner howled at her. Bloody eyes bore into hers as twisted hands gripped and pawed at her. She panicked as bile worked its way into her throat, her stomach churning in raw terror. She fought to get away, her body thrashed around in a futile attempt to push away the attacker on top of her. Until finally, her saving grace was a sudden gunshot to the runners' temple, its body slipped to the side limp and silent.

Her wide eyes met Dina’s; the brunette not wasting a moment to reload her pistol and dragging Ellie to her feet.

“Come on! We gotta go!” she yelled. Ellie didn’t need to be asked twice. They both took off together. The broken horde continuing their relentless pursuit. Dina pushed on ahead, down the street before ducking down an alleyway. “Ellie?” She murmured in fear. “I’m right here! Don’t slow down!” she replied. Taking a moment to check over her shoulder, the horde showed no sign of slowing down. An array of stomping feet trampled behind them, a booming bass that rumbled underfoot. They needed to think, they needed a way out. Making their way through the alley, it brought them towards an old security check-in point. The gates looked old and rushed but seemed to be standing firm. “Shit!” the redhead cried. “Fuck, go right!” they veered out of  the way from the confines of the alley, kicking over old trashcans in an effort to slow the infected behind and sprinted towards the gate. Both clawed at the metal; in a desperate attempt to find a way forward. But the gate didn't budge. “Fuck no!” Dina screamed in frustration. Turning back towards the horde charging their way, Ellie swung back to face her girlfriend before leaning down to cup her hands together. “Come on, I’ll boost you over.” Her face fell at the statement, Ellie’s tone leaving no room for debate. “But what about you?!” Dina demanded.

Ellie snorted a growl of her own that could rival the monsters beyond them. “Just fucking go Dina!” Exhaling a huff, Dina did as she was told. She placed her foot in Ellie’s hands as she pushed her up towards the top of the gate. Dina struggled but managed with quivering arms to pull herself up. She then twisted and angled herself to lean over, legs tangled within the bars to steady herself and reached for Ellie’s hand below. She took her hand and propelled herself up and over just in time as the horde slammed bodily against the blockade. Ellie and Dina lost their balance; slipping and falling with heavy thuds onto the ground on the other side. Hands gripped and slashed at the air through the bars of the gate, the two girls heaved with breaths of relief as they watched their attackers flail in anger at not being able to reach their prey. Ellie reached up with a dirtied sleeve and wiped the sweat away from her face, then slipping off her backpack she pulled a bottle of alcohol and soaked a rag. Making sure it was stuffed inside, she flicked a match and lit the material; hurling the Molotov over the fence.

It smashed with an echo in the empty street as clickers shrieked at the movement and stumbled over towards it. Ear-piercing howls rattled from their throats as the flames engulfed them and the runners nearby. Ellie stood with twisted satisfaction as she watched the fuckers burn. No longer even bothered by the smell of burning flesh and clotted blood.

Her attention was pulled back by the sound of heavy panting behind her, and she whipped around to see Dina collapsing from pure exhaustion. “Dina!” She called. Rushing to her side to help her back to her feet. With her arm wrapped around Ellie’s neck, she supported her weight and both girls hobbled along, away from the devastation left in their wake.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They’d been walking for a while, both tired and sore. Bloody and bruised. Dina was weakening, her body slumped against Ellie's side as tried to hold the brunette up as much as she could but Ellie’s strength was quickly waning too. Her eyes scanned the area for a potential safe haven, then as if answered by the very heavens above she spotted one.

“Hey…what do you say we rest in that theatre?” She gestured at the building with a flick of her head and Dina nodded weakly. “That sounds so fucking good.”

It didn’t take long to get inside and thankfully the place was empty. It was quiet but this time it wasn't unnerving. It felt comfortable. Safe. Ellie had already decided this was the right place to stay before looking for her mother and Tommy. At least until they both got their strength back. Turning on her heel to face Dina, the girl had already taken it upon herself to sit down. Ellie buised herself with reinforcing the door; giving her girlfriend a moment to breathe. She moved to stand beside the couch Dina was sat on. Noticing that she was still breathing heavily, almost choking down sobs. Tentatively she kneeled beside her; a hand reaching out to rest on her knee in concern.

“Hey.” Ellie nudged gently. “You wanna tell me what’s going on with you?”

Dina didn’t answer straight away. She also; Ellie noticed, couldn’t seem to look at her either.

She exhaled slowly, her breath trembling as tears pricked her eyes. Her hand sweeping across her stomach and glassy gaze aimed at the floor.

“Ellie…” She whispered in a broken sob. “I think I’m pregnant.” She confessed. And Ellie’s blood ran cold. No…how could she be?? She huffed a scoff and rolled her eyes. There was no way. How could she be sure? She tried not to let out a bitter laugh when Dina confessed that she’d suspected for a few weeks. A few weeks?! Before they’d even left Jackson. And yet she’d still demanded to come. Put herself at risk like that. Ellie’s head swam with dizzying thoughts. Her chest burning and stomach twisting with fierce anger.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Ellie yelled. Her hands tugged at her sleeves; knuckles turning white with how tightly she was pulling at them. Dina slowly rose to her feet, a pained look shooting across her face as she hobbled towards her. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to be a burden-” “-Well you’re a fucking burden now aren’t you?!” She interrupted angrily. It all made sense now. The fatigue, the sickness, the mood swings. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t happening! Except it was. And as much as Ellie wanted to comfort Dina. Wanted to hold her and kiss her and tell her everything would be okay. She couldn’t shy away from the bitter betrayal she felt that twisted itself within her like venom. She didn’t have time to deal with this, she needed to find her mom and Tommy and bring them back here. Ada would know what to do. She’d know how to help Dina.

The girl in question turned towards her; reaching out to take her hand. But Ellie flinched away before she could stop herself. She didn’t miss the hurt look in Dina’s eyes and Ellie hated herself for being the cause of it. But she knew better than to comment. She needed time to calm down lest she say something she couldn’t take back, and then Ellie really wouldn’t be able to forgive herself. She turned on her toe and looked towards the ticket booth and corridor that led towards the staging area.

“Uh…I’m gonna make sure this place is secure.” Ellie uttered. She hated how awkward she sounded. How broken. “Once I’m done, I’m gonna head out and try looking for my mom and Tommy…You stay here and rest.” She didn’t give her the chance to reply as she walked out of the room. Leaving with it the thick tension that swelled behind them. 

[whatamesswehavemade]

Fuck, I'm So Sorry- Eddie Munson x Reader

Requested: Yes

Pairing: Eddie Munson x female!reader

Requested: Yes

Word count: 1,319

Warnings: swearing, crying, Eddie yelling at you but makes up for it.

100% Fluff

GIF not mine

“Now put your finger here and strum light like this,” Eddie guides your hand from behind you. You’re sitting on your bedroom floor between Eddie’s legs. He brought his guitar over to your place after months of begging him to teach you. He was worried about you damaging his poor guitar, but you promised him he could keep his hands on it at all times to make sure not even a scratch could happen.

You strum, and it makes a way prettier noise than five minutes ago in your first part of the practice. You turn your head and smile at him. He rubs his nose against yours before catching your lips with his. He meant it as a peck, but you got lost in his intoxicating taste. You turn as much as possible in his lap, letting go of the guitar. 

It slips from your lap and hits the floor. You both jump, and he reaches around you and grabs it, laughing. “At least we’re not on your bed. That would’ve been a nasty fall.” He slides the guitar back in your lap.

“Sorry, Eds. I got a little carried away there.” You flush, putting your hands back in position on the guitar.

He leans over and kisses your cheek. “It’s fine, babe. Anyways, where were we?”

The next hour, you learn simple strings while the rain splatters against your window.

Lightning flashes over your room, causing you to jump a bit.

“I’ve got you, babe, don’t worry, your pretty little head.” He kisses the back of your head while bringing you impossibly closer.

“Are you talking to me or the guitar?” you laugh.

“Of course, I’m talking to you––” A deep, rumbling thunder cuts him off. 

It was close and caused you to yelp and jump while tightening your hold on the neck of the guitar. The sharp jump movement with your hand's opposing force caused the neck to crack. You both hear it, looking down at the neck and seeing the crack, only another hit away from the entire top breaking in half.

“Fuck, Eds! I’m so sorry!” You let go of the guitar to let him grab it. He jumped up with the guitar, inspecting it.

“Fuck, Y/N! I knew this would happen. This is why I didn’t want to teach you. Fuck! I have a show this weekend, and this is gonna cost an arm and leg to fix. Probably my kidney too!” 

You’ve never seen him so mad at you. You’ve definitely seen him angry, but it has never been directed towards you. You jump to your feet with your hands out, unsure whether to grab Eddie or the guitar, but you’re frantic. “I’m so sorry, Eddie. I didn’t mean it.”

He puts the guitar in the case, latches it shut, and stands up, walking to your door. “I’ve gotta go see if I can fix it myself or something.”

“Eds, let me help. I’m sorry. I didn’t ––”

“It is what it is, Y/N. I gotta go!” He stormed out of your room, and a few seconds later, you heard your front door slam shut.

You sink to your knees and start crying. You hear his van start over, the loud rain pings hitting your window. You hold yourself, rocking back and forth.

“It was just an accident,” you whisper to yourself.

After a few minutes, when you ran out of tears, you looked over at the clock. It only takes him about 10 minutes to get from your house to his. In the rain and at night, maybe an extra few minutes. He’s been gone for roughly 15 minutes now.

You pull yourself off the ground and go over to the phone by your bed. You dial his number and let it ring. He doesn’t pick up.

You try again. Nothing.

Now you start to worry. What if he didn’t make it home? 

He did drive off pretty fast, and he was mad, so now you start to think the worst.

You dial again. And again. Now that it’s your fifth time calling, if he doesn’t pick up this time, you swear you’re going to jump in your car and go check.

“What?” He snaps on the phone.

“Eddie, a-are you OK?” your voice breaks.

He sighs. “Yes, I’m fine. Now stop calling. You’re gonna wake up the neighbors. I’ll talk to you later.” He hangs up.

You start crying again. You roll up into a ball on your bed, ending up crying yourself to sleep.

An hour or two later, you hear tapping on your window. You ignore the taps, thinking it’s the wind or the rain, and rollover. Your head hurts from the sobbing.

The taps continue, getting louder. They became knocks.

You jump up and grab the baseball bat you keep under your bed–– your parents leave you home alone often–– and stalk slowly to your window. Once you get close enough, your hands tightening on the bat, a figure pops up in view. You go to yell but realize it’s Eddie, soaking wet. He lightly smiles at you. You drop the bat and open the window, letting him jump in.

His hands go up defensively. “Damn, were you gonna beat the shit outta me? Well, I know I deserve it.”

“Let me go get you a towel; you’re soaked.” You go to leave the room, but he grabs your wrist and pulls you into his soaking form.

He kisses the top of your head and sways you back and forth. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. It wasn’t even that bad. I have a friend who will help me fix it tomorrow.”

You look up at him and sniffle. “You said you didn’t want to teach me. That you knew that I’d break it. I didn’t mean to….” you trail off, feeling the tears well up.

“Hey, hey, no. I was dumb. I was being an ass. I’m sorry, babe. Fuck, I’m sorry. Please don’t cry,” he shoves his face into your hair, tightening his arms around you.

The two of you stand like this for a while, waiting for you to settle your breathing. You look up at him and give a weak smile. He leans down and rubs his nose against yours. “I obviously love you more than the guitar, princess. You know that, right?”

You lean up on your toes and kiss him lightly, pulling away. “I know now. I love you too, Eds. Now let me get you a towel and a change of clothes because I’m not letting you back out into that storm.”

Once getting a change of clothes from your dad’s closet–– an old shirt and shorts you know he won't miss–– and a few towels, you come back with a confused look on your face. “Eds, you do know my parents aren’t home, right?” you toss the towel at him, going and grabbing new pajamas for yourself. 

He starts to change as you have your back to him, slipping on a new top and sleep pants. “Yeah, I know. Why?”

You turn back to him. “You climbed through my window. In the rain. I have a front door, you know.”

He smiles, ruffling the towel through his hair. “I thought it’d be more romantic to scale your house to apologize. What, is there a problem with that?” He throws the towel in your face jokingly.

“You could’ve been struck by lightning. Or fallen. Or now catch a nasty cold since you were in the rain for however long.” You cross your arms over your chest.

“Aw, I love when you care too much, babe. C’mere.” He reaches out and grabs your waist, bringing you in for a kiss. “And when my guitar is all fixed up, I promise I’ll go back to teaching you how to play. Just, probably not during a storm next time.”

[ragingbookdragon]

Batsis & Green Lantern, Sittin' In A Tree. K-I-S-S-I-N--Wait, Is That Our Sister? PT. 1

Kyle Rayner x Batsis One-Shot

Word Count: 4K Warnings: Explicit Language

Author's Note: Aye, looks who's back at it again with a fic like this! IT'S ME! Enjoy! -Thorne

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

The creature was coming at him a lot faster than he’d thought it was, and he barely had enough time to form a wall before it slammed into him. Even then, the force of it hitting the green construct sent him back a hundred feet and into the side of an abandoned skyscraper.

Pain wasn’t really felt when in the suit, but man, it still threw him for a loop and he groaned as he picked himself up off the ground, shoving glass and concrete away from his body. He could hear the rest of the Justice League fighting outside and as he started back towards the hole his body had made, the creature came in.

And this time, he didn’t have any to react, and the glowing magenta beast was coming right at him—fast. He lifted his arms and started to will a construction when a low sound came from his hand and with wide eyes, he watched the glowing neon green ring faded dull.

“Shi—”

His suit faded instantaneously and the next thing he knew, he was being shoved into the wall. It cracked under the pressure and his skull felt as though it’d been split when it connected with the concrete. The creature’s giant clawed hands wrapped around his throat, starting to choke the life out of him and he scratched at the magenta skin, to no avail.

“He—lp!” he gasped. “Som—on—e hel—p!”

Black started to edge from the corners of his vision and a haze began to settle over his brain as his lungs stopped receiving air.

I don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna die like this. Someone, anyone, help!

Something cold splattered across his face, and suddenly the steel grip around his throat went slack. The weight of the creature fell away from him and he dropped to his knees and collapsed onto his back, gasping in lungfuls of air to his deprived organs.

When his head stopped spinning, and he found the strength to move, he rolled onto his side and immediately, he recoiled with a shout of fear. The creature’s big ugly head had been decapitated and was leaking a fluorescent blue blood—that’s probably what splattered on his face and he reached up, wiping a hand across his skin. He pulled his hand away and there was the neon ichor painting his palm.

“You’re weak, Rayner,” a voice commented disapprovingly.

He craned his neck up to see a woman who looked about his age wiping the neon blood from a silver sword before she sheathed it on her back, her white slit eyes finding his.

“You almost died because your ring ran out of power.”

Kyle huffed and unsteadily stretched his legs. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the woman that saved your life.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re welcome by the way.”

“Thank you,” he said, casting one last look at the creature before looking back at her. “So, who are you again? You obviously know me?” he took a moment to examine her suit. It was black, with silver stripes and in the middle of her chest was a silver symbol, that of a Greek helmet. But what got Kyle was the bat wings that outstretched from the sides of the helm.

“Are you apart of Batman’s troupe?”

She grunted and tapped at the glowing screen on her wrist. “Yeah. Name’s Silver Sentinel.”

“Oh, I know who you are!” he grinned. “You’re Dick and Jason’s sister!”

“Yes, please, tell the world who my younger brothers are.”

Kyle’s face heated and he glanced down at his hands. “Sorry.”

She tapped a button and waited, then a voice came over the comm link.

Talk.

Her eyes found Kyle’s and she replied, “Rescued your Green Lantern about two klicks from your position.” A sneer came over her lip. “Fool let his ring run out of power.”

He stared at his hands as embarrassment crawled across his skin, flushing from his neck up to his cheeks.

Hmm. Can you get him back to New York?

“I could be persuaded.”

Sentinel.

She rolled her eyes. “Alright, whatever. I’ll take him back to NY.” Walking over to the hole in the wall, she saw a beam of light. “Need a hand down there?”

Negative. We’ve got it under control.

“Ten-four. Silver Sentinel out.” The line went dead, and she looked down at Kyle. “Well, are you going to keep sitting there on your ass or are you gonna get up?”

He scrambled to his feet, an apology rolling off his tongue. “Sorry.”

She merely grunted in return and started off towards the exit, him following rather quickly. As they got to the entrance to the floor, she walked over to the elevator and pried it open, and Kyle had to fight to not be impressed by her sheer strength. She placed some type of device between the open doors and clicked a button, and it spread, keeping them apart.

Next, she pulled out what looked like one of the grapple guns Kyle had seen her family carrying around, and pointed it at the ceiling of the elevator, pulling the trigger. It hit the top with a clink, and she gave it an experimental tug before looking over at him.

“Come here,” she commanded, and Kyle blinked as something tight shot through his gut at the tone she carried—one of force and complete authority. Something told him that she was the type of woman who did what she wanted and expected people to fall in line behind her or else. He wasn’t sure if he should’ve been aroused or terrified, but it was probably a mix of both as he walked over.

She curled an arm around his waist and tugged his body up against hers. “Put one of your arms around my shoulder, the other around my body.”

“I—uh—I don’t feel comfor—” Kyle stuttered as his cheeks turned scarlet and she glared at him.

“We’re not going to dry hump in the elevator like horny teenagers, Rayner.” She pulled them nose to nose and he tried not to wince as the black nose of the cowl pushed into his skin. “If you’d rather us grapple down the side of the building where everyone can see, then let’s go.”

He swallowed thickly and did as she’d said a moment earlier, putting one of his arms around her shoulder, the other wrapping snug around her back. “N-no. We can do this,” he agreed, and she grunted.

“Listen carefully, this is going to be scary because you’re not used to it, but the second our feet come off this floor, don’t panic. I’ve got you and I’m not going to drop you.”

Though her voice was harsh, he could feel the security. “And the claw holding us up?”

“Has a gripping force of two tons.” She looked at him and inched towards the opening. “We’ll be fine.”

Kyle stepped over and looked down into the cold and dark shaft, immediately feeling his heart-rate pick up and she sighed when she heard the sharp intake of breath.

“You’re such a baby,” she scowled and pulled them into the shaft. His arms tighten instantaneously and even his legs tightened around hers. “Gonna try and climb me, Rayner?” she teased.

“Shut up,” he hissed and buried his face in her shoulder pad. “Just hurry and get us down.”

She snorted and clicked a button, allowing them to descend at a faster pace than he would’ve liked. “I thought Green Lanterns were supposed to be fearless?”

“Usually when I’m somewhere I could fall to my death, I’m powered up.” He retorted, still burrowed in her shoulder. “This is a little different.”

“Relax, Rayner. I’ve got you.”

Kyle pulled his face away from her armor and stared at her, though all he could make out was the white slits. “How are you this strong? I know I weigh at least one-eighty.”

She grunted. “Yeah, I can tell.”

He blinked. “Are you calling me fat? That sounds like you’re calling me fat.”

“Your muscle mass could be better.”

“That wasn’t a no,” he griped and when she chuckled, it sent shivers down his spine.

“To answer your earlier question—”

“The one where you called me fat?” he interrupted, and she scowled at him.

“The one about how strong I am. I work out daily, Rayner, and I can lift a lot more than my weight.”

“How heavy—” he chuckled nervously when she glared at him. “I’m not gonna finish that question.”

“Good idea, Rayner. Might save you from being dropped.”

“Hardy-har-har. You’re hilarious,” he retorted, and suddenly his feet his something hard. He looked down and saw the elevator, and she shoved him back from her, clicking the button on the grapple gun.

It recoiled in a matter of seconds and she tapped a button on the side of her cowl as she stowed the gun, then she moved to the corner of the elevator and brought her foot down as hard as she could. Kyle winced when the hatch gave way and he wondered how powerful she was to kick through a metal latch in one hit.

She looked at him. “Come on. I’ll call the Batplane when we get outside.”

“I thought only Batman was allowed to do that?” he asked, and she scoffed.

“Let’s just say I’m the one who’s allowed to do whatever she wants, and things don’t get fucked up.” She disappeared down the hatch and a moment later, he heard the elevator doors being pried open. “Are you coming, Rayner? I’d be more than happy to leave you here without a ride home.”

Kyle hurried and squeezed down the hatch, grunting when his tennis shoes hit the floor. The elevator rocked and creaked and she made a noise that sounded a lot like the one Batman made when he was annoyed.

“Hurry up and get through the doors.”

He ducked under her arms and out onto the floor and she followed, letting the thick metal doors slam behind her. She strode ahead and tapped at her screen.

“Alfred, are you there?”

A moment later, an older voice came over the line.

Yes Miss Wayne. How can I assist you this evening?

“I need the Batplane at my position. Could you send it?”

At once.

“Thanks Alfie.”

Of course, Miss Wayne.

As they waited in the lobby of the skyscraper, she murmured, “If you’re not going to ask whatever you’re thinking about asking me. Stop thinking. It’s annoying.”

Kyle blinked. “How’d you—”

“Oh please.” she rolled her eyes. “You’ve opened and shut your mouth eight times in the last two minutes.” She gazed at him. “Just ask.”

“You’re really Bruce Wayne’s daughter? (Y/N) Wayne?”

“I am.” (Y/N) replied. “Why?”

He shrugged. “I dunno…it’s just kinda hard to believe that a famous model doubles as a vigilante at night.”

“Why’s that so shocking? My dad’s a multi-billionaire playboy by day and Batman by night. Are you telling me a woman can’t do it too?”

Kyle’s green eyes widened, and he shook his head. “What? No! That’s not what I meant! I just meant that with back-to-back photo shoots, it must be hard to make time to do all this.”

(Y/N) hummed, turning her gaze to the street, a blur of red went by and she knew it was Barry Allen. “I run on my own schedule, Rayner, not anyone else’s.”

“Wow, you really are the woman in charge, aren’t you?” he remarked.

And she turned her eyes onto him again, this time narrowed in amusement as she teased, “Trying to see if you can find out what it’s like to be in charge for the night?”

Kyle’s mouth opened and snapped shut. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, swallowing nervously.

She crossed over to him in one step, getting up in his personal space again as she cooed, “Oh, you don’t?” he nodded and she reached up, trailing her silver armored fingers up the front of his white shirt and he was incapable of fighting how his muscles twitched at the pressure.

“I think you do,” she flirted. “Come on, Rayner. Don’t you wanna see what it’s like when you’re the man in charge? How much fun it can be to take all that control?” (Y/N) leaned close, her face barely an inch from his. “To be the one who holds all that power over a woman?”

He couldn’t breathe. His head was swimming with R-rated thoughts that if she really were a mind reader, she’d probably break his jaw, but all he knew was that his mind was so far into the gutter it wasn’t funny, and he swore she could hear his heart pounding.

She pulled away. “You should break out on your own instead of working for a design company. Then you’d have better control over your own schedule.”

Kyle blinked, stunned silent, then he said, “Wait, what?”

(Y/N) cocked her head to the side. “What?”

“What was,” he gestured wildly. “All that just now?”

Placing a hand on her hip, she asked, “I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Rayner. All I said was that you should get on your own.”

A deafening sound shook the floor and Kyle stared at the black plane settling down in the middle of the street. (Y/N) walked out the doors and to it as if it just hadn’t pulled a “J-turn” at twelve G’s.

“Let’s go, Rayner. I’ve got better things to do than babysit you,” she called, and he ran after her. She helped him climb into it, then scowled. “Move over. You’re in my spot.”

He shimmied in the tight space to the other seat and strapped in, watching curiously as she tapped at the buttons and flipped switches before grabbing hold of the steering device.

Kyle snorted. “It’s even shaped like a bat.”

(Y/N) huffed. “Yeah, that’s how we do things in our family.” She tapped at the screen. “Batman, this is Silver Sentinel. Come in.”

Read you loud and clear, Sentinel.

“Green Lantern and I are in route to New York.” She paused and directed her gaze to the screen, watching red dots surround a group of blue ones. “You’ve got enemies incoming. Do you want backup?”

Negative. You and Green Lantern get back to New York. We can handle this.

For once that night, Kyle watched as concern crossed (Y/N)’s face and she replied, “Dad, I think—”

I gave you an order, Sentinel.

(Y/N) glared and looked at Kyle and he about shrunk in his seat form the withering stare; she tossed him a helmet and ordered, “Put that on and don’t puke in it.”

“Don’t what?” he inquired as he put it on and the only answer he got was the sudden kick of the engines and he was pulled back in his seat. “Holy shit,” he whispered breathlessly as the Batwing took a U-turn in the air and headed off towards the fight.

Sentinel, we’re fine.

“With all due respect, sir, I don’t believe that,” (Y/N) retorted and in a matter of moments they were flying over the rest of the Justice League. She tapped at the screen. “You’ve got incoming hostiles from the north, east, and west.” (Y/N) flipped a few switches above her then pressed a button on the steering wheel. “Heatseekers and nanite missiles deployed.”

Kyle watched her go between the screen and the switches. “Hostiles in the east and west quadrants have been eliminated.”

What can you tell me about the north?

“You’ve got multiple hostiles coming in. Got a big guy too. Got any tips?”

They’re vulnerable to sound waves. Take him out and we’ll do the rest.

“Ten-four. Happy hunting.”

(Y/N) turned the steering wheel and directed the Batplane towards the north part of the fight, grinning when the giant creature came into view, while Kyle looked like he was going to crap himself.

“Merry Christmas, ugly. Kiss my ass,” she quipped and pressed a button, and a black tube the size of a fire hydrant shot to the ground, and with a thunk, sunk in.

“What’s that supposed to do?” Kyle asked and she grinned.

“Watch and learn.”

The device popped up, blue and armed and she hit the screen. Immediately the windows of every building and car in the mile radius shattered and to his amazement, Kyle watched the creatures screech and grab at their heads before they exploded into piles of neon blue goo.

His jaw dropped. “Holy shit. That was cool.”

(Y/N) smirked and checked the map once more. No more hostiles inbound and she hit the comm link again. “Justice League you are all clear. I repeat, Justice League you are all clear.”

Good work, Sentinel. Now do as I told you and take Green Lantern back to New York.

“Is nothing I do good enough for you, father?” she griped, though Kyle could see the humor in her eyes.

Get off the comm link.

“Make me.”

Sentinel. Get. Off.

“Fine, fine. I love you too.” (Y/N) pushed at the screen once more then reclined in her seat, shutting her eyes.

“Don’t you have to fly this thing?” Kyle asked as the engines picked up again.

“Nah. It’s got autopilot.”

“I gotta get me one of these,” he whispered, and she reached over him, pulling out something from a drawer. (Y/N) opened a snack bag and popped a cookie into her mouth.

“You could probably construct one with your ring,” she offered, then held out the bag.

He took one with a ‘thank you’, then said, “Yeah but there’s nothing like owning the real thing.”

“HA! Give my dad a couple million dollars and he might be willing to part with one.”

“And on that note, I’ll stick to constructs,” he chuckled, and the rest of their flight was filled with easy banter, where (Y/N) found herself teasing Kyle a lot more than he was comfortable with—only because he found himself lacking a comeback for every remark she gave him.

***

“You really gotta get a new apartment. This place is way too small for a grown man,” she commented, and he snorted, picking up a pair of shoes that were laying haphazardly on the floor.

“I’m not exactly on the billionaire’s credit card, (Y/N). I live on minimum wage and whatever I can get out of commissions.”

She observed Kyle as he recharged his ring and when he was finished, she asked, “How much do you charge for commissions?”

He blinked and looked up at her. “Oh, well it depends on what the commissioner wants me to do.”

“Give me a price range.”

“Uh…between eighty and two hundred. That’s usually what I charge.”

(Y/N) thought for a moment. “Mind showing me some of your best works? I’ve been thinking about hiring a graphic artist for a new project I’m working on.”

Kyle felt a giddy feeling rise in his chest and he practically tripped over himself to his desk to grab his sketchbook. His cheeks were warm when she giggled and took it from him, flipping through it in silence. And that wracked his nerves because without the cowl on, he could see just how scrutinizing her gaze was.

After a moment she passed it back to him and when she didn’t say anything, merely frowned, he couldn’t help but deflate a bit. “I guess it’s not what you’re looking for, huh?” he tried to sound light, but it came out a lot bitter than he meant.

(Y/N) hummed. “It’s exactly what I’m looking for.”

“I can get you in touch with a better artist at the—” he stopped mid-sentence and gaped at her. “Wait, what was that you said just now?”

She snorted. “I said your work is exactly what I’m looking for.”

He couldn’t fight the shock coursing through him. “Really? It is?”

Suddenly her smile was replaced with a scowl and she bit out, “Quit making me repeat shit and listen the first time.”

Kyle nodded. “Right. I just…wasn’t expecting you to say that.”

“I know,” she replied cockily, then took out her phone and tapped at the screen before showing it to him. “I know you’re a graphic designer and not a clothing one, but you’d be really helpful with the new line of clothing and jewelry I’m planning on making.”

He took her phone gently and swiped at the pictures. “Justice League themed?”

(Y/N) tipped her head. “We’re doing an exclusive line for Gotham’s vigilantes first. If it pays well, we’ll go from there.” She took her phone back and stared at him. “I’m willing to pay you up to two grand for every design you give me.”

Kyle’s eyes practically popped out of his head and his jaw went slack. “Are you—are you being serious?”

She nodded and stowed her phone. “On one condition.”

He nodded. “For two grand a design? I’ll do anything for you.”

The corner of her mouth rose in a smirk and he realized his words too late as she purred, “Well I would love to see you on your knees for me. So, I’ll keep that in mind, Rayner.” Waving a hand, she added, “But besides that, if you want the job, you have to come to the manor.”

“Wayne Manor?”

“Mhm. I’ll provide everything you need to create and design.”

His dark brows furrowed. “I can do that, but why?”

A solemn look came across her face. “You almost got yourself killed tonight because you let your ring power down.” She placed her hands on her hips. “If you want this job, you’re going to take combat lessons from me and you’re going to start working out more.”

Kyle’s face pinched. “You want me to work out and get my ass kicked for a job?”

“More like so my brothers don’t lose a best friend.” She shrugged. “But, if a freelance artist like you can find better money elsewhere, I’d be happy to let you go and—”

“I get it!” he scowled and looked away for a moment before sighing and turning back to her, his hand outstretched. “Fine. It’s a deal. You pay me and I’ll do your designs.”

“And?” she questioned with a smirk.

He groaned, his muscles already feeling the pain coming. “And I’ll take lessons from you.”

(Y/N) smiled. “I’m so glad we could come to an arrangement.” She shook his hand. “It’s going to be a pleasure doing business with you, Mister Rayner.”

Kyle swallowed thickly as she pulled away and walked to the fire escape. “Likewise, Miss Wayne,” he replied lowly, knowing that with each sway of her hips, he was getting more and more screwed. Not only was she his better, she was also his best friends’ older sister—hotter and badass older sister.

She opened the window and paused, looking back at him. “This’ll be a three-month project. Are you okay with that, Kyle?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I can do that.” (Y/N) seemed to be thinking about something and he could tell. “Is something on your mind?”

She pulled on the cowl and gazed at him. “I’ve half a mind to tell you to pack a bag and spend the time at the manor while we do the project.”

“Pay my rent and I’ll consider it,” he snorted and then she blinked and shifted her gaze down to her wrist then tapped at it.

After a minute, she said, “Alright, your rent and utilities have been paid for the next three months.”

“What?”

“You said pay your rent. So, I did.”

“Please tell me you’re joking,” Kyle begged—he didn’t want to owe her like that.

She smiled. “Pack a bag Rayner. You’re moving in.”

“Seriously?”

“Didn’t I tell you to stop making me repeat things?”

He sighed heavily, moving to pack. “Yes ma’am.”

“Ooo, call me ma’am like that again and I might not let you leave when this is over.”

[jdeanmorgan]

buddie + "he can't lose another parent"

which one of you 911creators friends sent me this 👀 this is my first time trying to write something for buddie so be nice

-----

I happened so fast.

One second Eddie was carrying the boy outside, Buck close on his heels, and the next there was a loud cracking noise. He heard the ceiling collapse.

He looked behind himself, hoping to see Buck still there. He was gone. He handed the boy off to Chimney outside, then turned around, intending to go back inside, to save Buck, to get him outside.

Bobby grabbed him by the arm and forcibly dragged him back. A loud boom sounded from inside the building, and Eddie felt a frantic scream wrench itself out of his throat.

"Evan!" Eddie tried to get out of Bobby's grip, but Chimney was now on his other side, holding him back, eyes full of worry and sympathy. Eddie kept struggling. "No! You don't understand, I have to get inside! I have to save him!"

"Eddie." Bobby said calmly, his grip on his arm tightening. "I know how much you want to run back in there, I understand. We have to wait for back up. Buck wouldn't want you to risk your life like this."

Eddie's knees buckled, hitting the ground hard. He knew he was having a panic attack. He tried to get away, he shouted, screaming, kicked. Chimney and Bobby kept their tight grips.

He had no idea how much time passed until he managed to get his breathing under control. He had an oxygen mask on his face. He must've blacked out. He was sitting on the ground, turned away from the building. Bobby was still there, sitting next to him with a solemn look on his face.

"Buck's on his way to the hospital." Bobby said, reaching out to squeeze Eddie's shoulder. "He'll pull through. He always does."

"Christopher," Eddie whispered, his throat hoarse. He pulled the oxygen mask off, throwing it to the side. "He can't lose another parent."

"He won't." Bobby said after a moment of silence. He patted Eddie between the shoulder blades, getting up from the ground. "Let's get ourselves to the hospital. He'll want you to be there when he wakes up."

"Yeah," Eddie breathed out. "Okay."

[imaslutforremusandsirius]

Tease

Wanted to try a male reader for once and i really enjoyed writing this :) One of my favs dare I say. Have fun!

Warning: 18+

---

„You said you didn‘t want it!“ Sirius exclaimed, throwing his hands up in defense when you threw the empty chocolate pack at him.

„I was being polite!“ You protested, „Posh boys like you should know that!“

Sirius‘ eyes narrowed and he threw the pack at your head this time. „I am not a posh boy, fucker. You better fucking kiss my feet or I will-“

You tackled him with a cry, hitting his face repeatedly with a pillow. Your body jerked on top of his rhythmically, which either meant that he was laughing or chocking to death. And you really hoped it be the latter.

„Don‘t you fucking dare asshole! You promised not to bring it up!“

His next words came out muffled from underneath the soft fabric, which began to feel not so soft, considering that you were pressing pretty hard. Sirius started to panic and yelled out a „Help! Help! I‘m dying!“

You felt strong arms wrap around your stomach and drag you away from your murder mission.

„Let me go! He needs to die!“

James was laughing so hard at Sirius‘ horrified face that even he had trouble keeping you at bay.

„This is bullying! I‘ll tell Minnie! You fucking lutanic!“

„Minnie doesn‘t care about your sob story, she would be delighted to find out I killed you before she could with all of your missing homework!“

Sirius barreled towards you with a battle cry, but James threw you to the side, effectively blocking the tackle with his body. Sirius must have aimed to hurt you a little, because James fell down with an painfully loud thud.

„Bloody hell, Pads. That bloody hurt.“ James groaned, rubbing his ribs soothingly.

Sirius scrambled up and helped his friend off the ground, throwing you a dark look. You sneered at him, sitting down on the bed farthest away. James grinned at his friend, mouth opening to make fun of him.

„How could he hold you down like that? He‘s smaller than you!“

Sirius huffed, blushing a little with embarrassment and he turned away, presumably to hide his red cheeks. „He had an advantage. I was being strangled, mind you.“

„Strangled my ass“ you said under your breath and crossed your arms petulantly. „He made fun of me. Again!“

James raised a brow in amusement, eyes flickering towards you and you groaned when you saw his expression. Here we go.

„Is it about a certain wolf?“

Sirius turned around so fast you heard his ankles crack and moved to stand next to his friend, delighted to have him at his side and chuckled. Your scowl darkened and you got up, trying to push though your friends to leave.

„Fuck off, both of you. I‘m leaving.“

Sirius stopped laughing and raised his hands in defeat. „Oh come on, don‘t be ridiculous, we‘re only taking a piss mate.“

Your mouth fell open to hurl more curses at him when you saw Remus appear behind the two boys and clamped your mouth shut again. Fuck, was your hair alright? You secretly smoothed it over, glaring at James when he wiggled his brows suggestively.

„Alright, everyone?“ Remus asked, voice exhausted and he fell down next to you on the bed, sighing with relief when his aching joints didn‘t have to carry his weight anymore. The moon was taking a toll on him.

„Are you alright?“ Your voice came out worried and you stroked through his messy curls. Remus only let out a tired „Mhm“ as he sank down further into the mattress, pressing into your hand.

„Is it the moon?“

„Mhm.“

„Are you hurting already?“

Sirius chimed in from his bed. „I think it‘s safe to say that the old man is always hurting.“

You glared at him. „Shut up, Black. No one asked you.“

Sirius huffed and turned his back towards you with a dramatic toss of his dark hair, pulling his curtains closed.

This time James spoke up, peaking his head from the corner of the bathroom door. Some of his toothpaste spilled over when he opened his mouth and you grimaced at the disgusting sight. James and Sirius seemed to share one braincell. A part-time braincell, that was clearly rusty at this point from being so rarely used.

„Need anything?“

Remus jerked, clearing jostled awake from his little slumber and groaned in annoyance. „Peace and quiet. Oh wait, that‘s death.“

You couldn‘t help the snort that escaped you at his deadpanned tone and whacked him on the head. Remus cracked an eye open and smiled at your amusement. You schooled your expression and held your hand up in a mock salute.

„No one is dying. And if, then we‘ll do it together.“

There was a series of Amen‘s and you nodded in satisfaction, like a general who never liked being told no. Already dressed in your pajamas, or actually only your pajama pants, you crawled into your own bed, across from Remus‘. You wished that Remus would have clasped your wrist and made you stay, he did that sometimes, but alas it was just a wish. You had it bad for the boy, fingers still tingling with the feel of his hair. You thought about what it would be like to kiss him, to touch his scars and feel his breath on your face when you slept.

You huffed frustratedly when your brain forced stupid scenarios into your mind. Fuck, were they nice ones at that.

No, he isn‘t gay, brain! Fucking stop with the mental images!

Your brain decided to one up itself and showed you a very suggestive image of Remus on his knees, sucking your dick with such contentment it made your breath hitch.

Fuck.

Or Remus on his hands and knees, every little detail of his body on display, making such lovely keening noises you thought you had died for sure.

Oh fuck.

You opened you eyes instantly to stop the dirty thoughts of your best mate, mind you, and tried to calm your breathing. Apparently, meditation is a hoax, because no matter how many sheeps you counted or deep breaths you took, your brain was still convinced that Remus sucking you off was the hottest thing ever. And it is the hottest thing ever, you agreed. So did your raging boner.

Only this once.

Against your better judgement your hand trailed down your chest towards your pants, slipping under the waistband of your underwear. Your hand wrapped around your hard cock and imagined Remus on top of you, kissing your lips feverishly. Groaning and moaning into your mouth, telling you how good you feel around him. Telling you how long he had waited for this moment. Biting your lip you moved faster, stifling your groans when your palm spread your precum over the sensitive tip. You were so close, head thrown back in pleasure, fuck so close so clo-

„Shit sorry!“

Somehow you managed to pick up a shocked gasp through your trance and your eyes opened wide, jerking violently. And here he was, the source of your inescapable desire. Remus fucking Lupin. Who just caught you wanking. Your brain has meanwhile decided to pack its suitcase and piss off, because suddenly you couldn't produce a single clear sentence. It felt like being a baby all over again, not knowing how to use your voice or twists your tongue to get the right words out. Not that there was anything to say, you couldn’t just pretend like you weren’t touching yourself.So, you just stare at him like a moron, your hand still in your fucking pants. Slowly but surely you felt your face heat up and you didn't even dare to breathe loudly, too scared to scare Remus away.

His eyes were fixed on your hand, teeth biting his lip. Not knowing what to do, he apparently decided to just stand there. The curtains of your bed were gripped tightly in his fist, as if it were the only thing that kept him steady at the moment. The both of you stared at each other for a good minute, digesting the embarrassment of the situation until Remus climbed into your bed.

Wait. 

Alarm bells rang shrill in your head, the nerve cells in your skull burst into panic. 

Remus in your bed. 

Crawling between your legs. 

Your hand still in your pants. 

What.

„Let me help?“ Remus‘ voice was raspy, slightly scared that you‘ll reject him. He was seated between your knees now, wringing his scarred hands nervously. It took you a few seconds to register what he had said as you blinked at him in mortification. 

Remus hung his head, nodding to himself as if he had known that this would happen and moved away. Fuck, no come back. Brain! Say something!

Your brain was still hyperventilating however, so your legs decided to give you a hand, definitly under the order of your hard cock, which was already throbbing with excitement. You snap your legs shut, trapping Remus’ upper body between your thighs and pulled him on top of you. Not expecting the move, Remus fell forward and his lips smashed on yours.

Oh wow.

This was better than you expected. This exeeds all 638 fantasies you ever had of this moment. This was real.

You kissed for a while, both of you falling into each others arms to feel as close as possible, grinding your cocks on each other like horny teens. Which you were, to be precise. You moved your head to the side to break the kiss, grinning at Remus’ lust hazy expression and bucked your hips up again.

“I’ll have that help now, if you’re still offering...” You whispered, basking in the boyish grin of the wolf.

Moving to wipe your hand on your bedsheet to finally touch him, Remus caught your hand and brought it to his mouth. You whined quietly when you felt his tongue tickle your palm. Remus mmm‘d softly, a devilish glint twinkling in his bright eyes.

Lifting your hips, Remus pulled down your pants and you propped yourself up on your elbows to watch. Nothing in the world could keep your from branding the sight of Remus licking your cock into the depths of your mind. 

Remus leaned in, mouthing at the skin of your stomach, inching closer to your weeping tip. He took his time, breathing your scent in deeply, his eyes closed.

„Come on Moony“ you urged, lifting your hips. Remus held you down, smirking up at you teasingly.

„Either you let me go in my own pace or you can suck it yourself.“

You immediately stilled and made a motion of locking your lips with an imaginary key. Remus chuckled soundlessly and you nearly, nearly, bucked your hips up again. His mouth was so hot and wet and god it was really Remus sucking your cock. The thought alone made you shudder and writhe under him, your hands burried in his curls. Remus may not know much about blowjobs, but he made up for it with his enthusiasm. His moan was just filthy, the way he looked at you through his eyelashes as if he just wanted to devour you, to break you into pieces.

“Oh Remus” you groaned into your fist, knuckles white from gripping his hair so tightly, “Wait ah fuck please wait!”

Remus rolled his eyes and pulled away, raising his brow at you. His facial expression was something akin to “How dare you interrupt me?” 

You took deep breaths to hold yourself from cumming when he smeared the tip of your cock against his glistening lips, coating himself in your cum while he glared at you. This boy is sin.

“Wanna cum with you” you explained breathlessly, pulling him up to smash your lips on his. Remus groaned low in his throat when you sucked his lips, moving to straddle your lap. The rough fabric of his pants made you snort contemptuously and you tugged at the waistband, mumbling an annoyed “Off.”

Remus seemed to agree, with the way he nearly ripped the zipper clean off and finally he was naked. Not fully, but you let him be, knowing he’d be insecure about his scars. You’ll work on that next time. Next time.

Remus placed his hands on his thighs, letting you admire his body. His confidence shot up by the way your breathing got heavier and your cock twitched under his. Every millimeter of your skin is touching, both of you slowly rocking your cocks against the other. Your cum mixed and made it easier to move and you took them in your hands, a huge breath escaping your lips with the sudden rush of electricity. Remus quickly casted a silencing charm and gave into the pleasure, setting a fast pace by thrusting his cock in your fist.

“Fuck you feel so good” Remus groaned and squeezed your wrists, “I’ve wanted this for so long”

You nearly laughed by how ridiculously acurate your fantasies had been and gripped harder, crying out when Remus leaned down to bite your shoulder hard, leaving imprints of his teeth on your flesh.

“’M’not gonna la- oh Moony fuck” You were lost in your pleasure, already sensitive with your denied orgasm from before. Remus slapped your hand away and spit on your cocks, taking them in his hands this time. His pace was aggressive and impatient, hand unyielding and he rocked his hips as fast as he could. 

“Want you to cum on my cock” Remus grunted, his other hand gripping your jaw to look into your eyes. His pupils were blown out, as if he was on a high. You felt him pulse against you, his eyes screwd shut and he came with a loud cry, making you tip over the edge as well. His hand kept going, thighs holding you down when you tried to squirm away. 

Bringing his cum covered hand to his mouth, Remus gave it a tentative lick, eyes fluttering shut when his tongue wrapped around his fingers. You watched him hum around his hand and he gave you a satisfied smile, totally in bliss with your little session.

“This was fucking hot” Remus grinned and fell down next to you, blinking at you tiredly.

You bit your lip and mustered up enough courage to squeak out a “So you’re gay?” 

Remus gave you a flat look. “I came on your cock didn’t I?”

You cleared your throat and laughed quietly. “Yeah. Yeah you did.” Your voice came out dreamy and you threw your leg over his middle.

And just like that you surrendered to your exhaustion, while Sirius and James were hysterical with exicetment. Their shared braincell was activated and currently made it its mission to come up with ways to catch you next time. Embarassing you was their thing after all.

[just-another-blog-of-fluff]

An Unfortunate Predicament - Part 2

I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of likes on my last post, and so I was inspired to continue yesterday's fic and write a part 2... The ideas flow while I'm writing the lead-in portion, and then I get to the tickling part and my brain goes ----does not compute---- and short circuits, so... hopefully this turned out ok!

Part one is here

Word count: 2300

* * *

You weren’t sure if he actually expected that you would willingly come down to greet the Avengers when they arrived home that evening, just so that you could keep your end of the deal. Regardless, you weren’t dumb enough to come out of your room when you finally heard the commotion that was your teammates entering the tower (mostly because Thor’s boisterous voice echoed in every corner of the building.) Just to be on the safe side, you remained in your room for the rest of the evening, scrolling through your phone and watching some TV to keep yourself entertained.

The following morning, you awoke to your stomach growling so loudly you thought Wanda could probably hear it through the wall in her room next door. Having hidden away for the entire evening, you realized you hadn’t eaten an actual meal last night, having only munched on some chips you had stashed away in your desk for when you got hungry while you worked. Reluctantly, you knew you would have to actually exit your room if you wanted to get some breakfast.

Besides – he must have forgotten by now, right?

… Of course not, you remembered. Loki doesn’t forget when someone crossed him, and he certainly didn’t forgive either.

Despite your knowing it was probably a very bad idea, you slipped on your softest pair of socks in hopes they would help muffle your footsteps before pressing your ear to the door, trying to hear whether there was anyone talking or shuffling about outside. Satisfied when you were met only with silence, you gradually cracked the door open and peeking cautiously out into the hallway.

Empty. Perfect.

As quickly as you could while still ensuring your every step was soundless, you tiptoed your way to the kitchen down the hall, pausing at the doorway to listen for any signs of movement. Nothing. Perfect. You leaned forward and peeked around the door frame, your weight shifted to the balls of your feet in case you needed to make a quick exit. Your eyes scanned the room from corner to corner, even glancing under the table and at the cabinet doors to assess for anything that might indicate someone was hiding in there.

Ok, so maybe you were a little paranoid.

Seeing nothing out of place, no cabinet doors cracked ajar or anything, you let out a breath and stepped into the room. You reached the fridge and opened the door slowly so as not to allow it to make that suction noise it always did. Someone had stolen the last yogurt cup apparently. Slightly annoyed, you scanned the fridge trying to decide what you wanted instead. You settled on a bowl of cereal, grabbing the bottle of milk and turning around to get the cereal box out of the cabinet.

“Eep!”

Heart leaping into your throat, you let out a sound that was somewhere between a scream and a squeak when you found yourself face to face with none other than the god of mischief himself, his face mere inches away from yours. In your shock, your fingers slipped from around the handle of the milk bottle. It would have exploded all over the floor had Loki not reached out and caught it with his cat-like reflexes before it hit the ground. He leaned toward you to place the milk bottle on the counter directly behind you, boxing you in with your back against the countertop.

“You didn’t show up to the common room last night.” He had a deep, menacing edge to his tone as he made this simple observation, his narrowed eyes and wide smirk only reinforcing the fact that you were in deep trouble.

Fight or flight instinct took over, and you rapidly ducked under his arm and started to sprint away from the trickster. Unfortunately, he had predicted this move, his hand latching onto your upper arm before you could even take two steps.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Ahah… well, you see, I have a really important assignment I have to get done, and I just came down here to grab some breakfast to take back to my room while I work, and…”

“Do you really expect me to believe that?” he chuckled.

“… yes?” you replied, your voice increasing an octave with nervousness. Loki shook his head, giving you a pitying look.

“Darling, I am the god of lies and mischief. I know a lie when I hear one.” You tried to jerk your arm abruptly out of his grasp in hopes it would catch him off guard, but he merely tightened his grip on your bicep. “I do believe we have some unfinished business, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Really? Because I thought we were done with that, actually…” you stammered, frantically scanning the room for some way to escape. Your eyes darted back to Loki, catching his gaze as he realized what you were doing.

“Sorry, but there’s no way out of this,” he declared. In one fluid motion, Loki had scooped you up off the floor into his arms, holding fast despite your kicking and squirming. You hadn’t realized you could become any more flustered around the god, but he had proven you wrong just now, your face burning hot. He started to make his way out of the kitchen, careful not to slam your head into the doorframe as he carried you out into the hallway.

“Loki! Put me down this instant!” you demanded, kicking your legs to try to throw him off balance.

“Hmm… no, actually, I don’t think I will,” he teased, tossing you up just the slightest bit so he could gain a better grip on you.

“Where are you taking me, then?” you growled. You could hear faintly the voices of the other Avengers in the common area, growing slightly louder as Loki continued to stroll along with you still captive in his grasp. “Really? You’re still going to make me announce that you’re ‘the superior prankster’ to the team? Don’t you think that’s sort of lame?”

“No, darling. I have more effective methods of humiliating you.” His eyes flitted down to glance at your face, his smirk expanding across his.

Was it possible to die from blushing so hard?

When Loki had finally reached the opening to the common room, the rest of the team glanced up at the two of you with immediate expressions of confusion.

“Good morning, lady Y/N! Why is my brother carrying you? Are you injured?” Thor asked, genuinely concerned.

“No! He’s holding me prisoner! Help!” you cried, starting to squirm again to try to get him to put you down. Tired of having to keep hiking you up to keep from dropping you, Loki finally lowered your legs so you could plant your feet on the floor. He wrapped an arm around you tightly, pinning you to his side so you couldn’t run off.

“Is that true, Loki?” Thor inquired, squinting at him.

“I just thought you’d like her to be here when I inform you all that I found her on the ropes course yesterday,” Loki announced. To your confusion, the entire team let out groans of frustration.

“What the hell?! We’ve been trying to decide who was going to make you try it with all of us! You never wanted to join in!” Peter complained. You raised your eyebrows in shock.

“Wait, what? Why are we changing the subject, here?? Do none of you care that he is holding me captive??” you protested.

“Sorry, Y/N, but this is unforgivable,” Tony sighed with mock disappointment, shooting you a mischievous wink. “The ropes course is a team-building activity. There’s no ‘I’ in team.”

“But… what… ugh. You guys are unbelievable,” you groaned, shaking your head.

“Don’t worry – that’s not all I learned about our devious little mortal yesterday,” Loki began. You immediately tensed up, heart pounding impossibly faster, although you weren’t sure if it was because of what you knew was coming next or because you were mortified to find you actually liked the unusual pet name he just used to refer to you.

“Oh really? Do tell,” Bucky urged, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees in anticipation.

“You see…” Loki reached over and grasped your wrists, yanking your arms behind your back so he could hold both wrists with just one hand. You looked up at him and bit your lip, shaking your head rapidly in desperate, silent protest. He merely grinned, wiggling the fingers of his free hand in the air at you to taunt you even further. You had to fight to keep yourself from allowing anticipatory giggles to slip out. “… our little friend, here, is devastatingly ticklish.”

Without further ado, Loki’s hand darted down to your side, squeezing rapidly as laughter immediately began pouring from your mouth. You twisted your upper body in hopes you could break his hold, but you quickly realized there was no escaping the vice grip he had on your wrists. Defeated, and weakened from laughter, your knees buckled, and you slowly sank to the floor. Loki only followed you down, finally letting go of your wrists in favor of freeing his other hand up to torment you. He moved his hands to your belly, scratching at it in the most maddeningly light and rapid way, eliciting a shriek from you.

“Oh, no way! She really is ticklish!” Peter exclaimed over your laughter.

“Damn. She’s worse than this kid,” Tony observed, patting Peter on the shoulder as he blushed and glared at his mentor.

“WHY AREN’T YOU HELPING MEHEHE!” you shouted, throwing your friends a betrayed look.

“Sorry, Y/N, but you’re just too damn adorable to make him stop,” Bucky apologized, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Meanwhile, Loki had pressed one of his shins down on both your legs, leaning on you to hold you down as his fingers traveled up to your sides. He drilled his thumbs into the front of your lowermost ribs, digging his fingers into the sides of your ribcage simultaneously. You supposed you should have known that someone with his mischievous title would be good at tickling, but the way his fingertips sought out every single one of your weak spots was causing you to slowly slip into madness.

“Why don’t you try her knees?” Wanda suggested with a smirk.

“Wanda!! Why are you helping hiHIHIHIM!” your voice pitched up an octave as Loki began to pinch the soft skin just above your kneecap, sending ticklish shocks up your leg.

“Thank you for the suggestion,” Loki said casually, removing his shin from your legs so he could reach around and flutter his fingers against the backs of your knees. Without his weight on you, you were free to kick your legs and squirm to try to escape. If you accidentally kicked Loki in the process, well, that was just an added bonus. At least, you thought so, until he wrapped his fingers around one of your ankles and dragged a finger down the sole of your socked foot to test your reaction.

“NOHOHO LOKI STAHAHAP!” you pleaded, jerking your leg wildly without success. Loki shot you a positively evil smile before lightly scratching five fingers up and down the bottom of your foot. You covered your face with your hands to hide the fact that you had never felt shyer and more embarrassed in your life, muffling your laughter behind your palms.

“Aww, lady Y/N, there’s no need to hide!” Thor insisted, kneeling down beside you and pulling your hands off your face.

“Ah, brother! Why don’t you help me hold her down? She is making this increasingly difficult,” Loki suggested, moving back up to torment your ribs again.

“Certainly, brother!” Thor obliged, tightening his grip on your wrists, and pinning them above your head. You shot him the biggest glare you could possibly muster in your frazzled state.

“THOR! That’s BETRAYAL!” you exclaimed. “What the h-“ Loki started to scribble his fingers into the soft skin under your arms and the remainder of your sentence died in your mouth, your body shaking in silent laughter. At long last, Loki finally took this as his cue to let up, tracing feather-light fingers along your sides to keep you giggling.

“What an unfortunate weakness you have. So easy to exploit,” he teased. Your blush spread down to your neck and up to the tips of your ears. Luckily, Thor let go of your wrists so you could cover your face again, doing anything in your power not to see the arrogant look of victory on Loki’s face.

“Whyhyhy Loki?” you groaned as he finally stopped torturing you. You immediately rolled onto your side and curled up in a ball, rubbing the residual ticklish tingles off your sides.

“Well, darling, I had to make a statement… Don’t mess with the god of mischief,” he warned, referring back to the prank you’d pulled when you hid his books.

“U-understood,” you acknowledged firmly, your breathing finally returning to normal.

“Well – that was the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. My day is made,” Tony teased, reaching down to pat you on the shoulder and causing you to flinch away involuntarily. “Relax, kid! You clearly need a break, I’m not that mean!”

“Sorry… reflex,” you mumbled. Loki stood and offered you a hand to help you up off the floor, which you took after a moment’s hesitation. “You… better not do that again, or I’ll… I’ll… punch you.”

“Really, darling? That was the weakest threat you’ve ever made,” he snickered. "Clearly you're losing your touch." Throwing your hands up in frustration, you turned around to walk back to your room, suddenly realizing you were still in your pajamas. “And I can’t make any guarantees,” he called after you, “so you’d better behave yourself!” You turned around and stuck your tongue out at him, eliciting a laugh, before you turned down the hallway and made your way to your bedroom door.

Note to self, you thought – Loki doesn’t do mercy.

[theladyofmanyfandomsfanfiction]

Fear

Pairing: Jon Snow x Reader (with the ability to summon fire)

Inspiration: Season 7, Episode 6 - Beyond The Wall

Warnings: Language

Author note: Honestly my favourite scene! I had writing fever straight after.

Summary: You travel with Jon, Tormmund, Clegane and Beric and others beyond the Wall when you’re ambushed by wights.

Clegane and Tormmund slammed their bodies atop the creature to stop it from running off. It growled and screeched in a way that chilled their bloods more than the weather itself. Jorah grabbed rope from his bag and passed it to Gendry who hastily wrapped it around the creatures legs. The rest of the company watched on, ready to pounce if the creature got too powerful. 

“Jon.” You called out, voice slightly distant and distracted.

Turning to you instantly, Jon worried if you had been injured during the scuffle but it seemed that you weren’t paying any attention to them capturing the wight. 

Your eyes were wide and drawn to a large opening, face frozen with fright. Jon walked closer and noticed that you were breathing far quicker than normal after a fight. He placed a hand over your stomach to remind you that he was there and that you were going to leave but his voice was stuck in his throat when you let out a choked sob. 

“He’s coming.”

Jon was back on high alert at your words. Without questioning how you knew what you knew, he looked out in the same direction. Suddenly, everything fell silent and he heard the wind picking up in the distance with a faint rumbling. The sound of an avalanche drawing near with each second could be heard and the temperature around them dropped rapidly. 

Turning to where his company were restraining the wight, he saw that Jorah had noticed the same as fear latched onto him as well. Knowing that nothing good was coming, Jorah worked as fast as possible in throwing a bag over the monsters head. 

Thinking quick, Jon ran over to Gendry. 

“Run over to Eastwatch. Send a raven to Daenerys - tell her what’s happened.” He rushed out, frantically looking in different directions for a way out. 

“I’m not leaving you-“

“You’re the fastest. Go. Now!” Jon demanded, knowing that the danger was growing alarmingly fast and pushed the young boy in the direction he needed. Jon bolted off towards the large opening, grabbing you by the arm on his way. He couldn’t waste breath explaining himself. 

Quickly glancing back, he saw that the rest of the company were also following fast as the rumbling noise started to grow. He hoped that they’d have an advantage on open ground as one rock formation stood in the middle of an ice plain. 

Crack!

“Stop!” Jorah shouted, halting everyone suddenly. 

You finally snapped out of your fear-induced state and realised that the ice beneath your feet had started to crack. 

The noise behind switched from a rumble to a violent shake and, upon turning back, you all saw a hoard of wights charging for you. 

“Run!” 

Forgetting about the thin ice, you broke for the rock in the centre - praying to any god that was listening that it would be enough. The wights followed succeeding in taking down one of the nights watch. However, the weight of the creatures violent movements, broke the ice floor and drowned them. 

Once safely upon the rock, the company found that a ring of ice shattered around them which forced the wights to stand back. It was tense. The dead creatures stood silent, watching with blue eyes at the prey. They were ready to pounce.

“What are they waiting for?” Jorah asked. His question was met with silence, save for a few painful groans from Beric being tended to.

What were they waiting for?

“I can feel him.” You shivered, having taken a seat on a broken slab of snow-covered stone. 

“You sound like you fucked the Night King.” Clegane growled. He was tense and, quite frankly, tired of all this White Walker business. His remark blew over your head as your body trembled. 

“You don’t understand. I can’t feel my fire. Without it, my abilities won’t work.” 

Clegane rolled his eyes and grabbed you by both arms, shaking you so rough that, for a second, you thought he was trying to kill you. 

“Listen here! We’re fighting an army of dead fuckers who will rip you to shreds if you don’t get your shit straight!” He shouted. 

A hand landed on his arm and forced him a few steps back. “Get away from them!” Jon ordered. 

Clegane shook his head and turned away, muttering loudly for them to hear, “What good is a fucking 'phoenix’ if they’re scared?” 

Jon scowled at the man, almost regretting that he was with them. Then, he turned to you, crouching to your level. 

“Hey, they can’t get to us. See?” He pointed beyond the ring of water. “It’s alright.”

You frowned and looked up at him – your unintended fury surprising the young man. 

“It’s not fucking alright! And I’m not fucking scared!” You snapped, the latter part of our outburst aimed at the Hound before focusing on Jon again. “I can’t summon fire if my insides are frozen. I can’t use it to fight and I can’t do anything to help.”

Jon sighed and placed a hand on your cheek. He knew what it was like to feel lost and hopeless without the one thing he relied on. 

“Then fight. Fight to stay alive.” He told you and you instinctively gripped your Valeriyan steel sword. Just listening to his voice, made you feel like your situation wasn’t so deadly. You leaned into Jon’s touch and wondered how he was emanating heat in such conditions. 

“Only if you promise that you’ll fight to see me after this.” 

Jon chuckled for the first time since he reached beyond the Wall. He knew there was always a catch with you. Deep down, he wished he hadn’t asked you to come. You wouldn’t be in this kind of danger if he hadn’t opened his mouth. 

“I swear on my life,” He began. “That we’ll see each other after this.”

Beric paced past the couple and sighed, “I pray to the Lord of Light for it to be true.” 

It wasn’t long before night had fallen. Your energy was spent but you did everything you could from falling asleep but it was weakening you. Jon moved closer despite the winter chill biting his face. 

“Get some rest.” He insisted. 

You looked at him sadly, whispering back a small, “I can’t.” 

Clegane was taking the lookout and walked past with a loud groan. “Just go to sleep, for fucks sake.” 

Tormmund frowned at Clegane and stepped in front of him, “Watch your tone.” 

Clegane pushed past the Wildling and walked away from the Brotherhood for some peace of mind. Ignoring the Hound, Jon helped you sit down and let you press yourself against him for warmth. 

He didn’t sleep, he was on too high of an alert to close his eyes. But it seemed that being beside him, calmed you enough to lower your guard and worries. In no time at all, Jorah managed a small smile in your direction. 

“Perhaps with some rest, we may get our (Y/n) back.” He said. “Tyrion will not forgive me if his dearest friend doesn’t return.” 

“Nor would my sisters.” Jon nodded. “Or myself.”

It wasn’t long before each of them succumbed to the temptation of sleep in the cold silence. Sitting beside each other to not die. When they woke it was to the sound of their wight captive growling and snarling beneath the bag on its head. 

One by one they all stood up and saw that the wights hadn’t moved from the day before. The stood still and silent. They also realised that they had lost one of their own during the night. Saying their goodbyes as Beric prayed to the Lord of Light, Jon poured alcohol over the body before Beric lit up his sword and set his friends remains afire. 

Jon sighed and walked away to look out over at their problem, hoping that Daenerys was on her way. Jorah also made his way over and, together, they tried to solve the mystery of why the wights fell after Jon killed the White Walker. 

You were stood beside Tormmund when you felt a jolt of fear, shock through your body and fell forward on your knees - limbs numb and bones rattling. You gasped when you felt your chest constrict as if something had found its way to your heart and was trying to crush it. 

Closing your eyes briefly to null the pain, you saw the blue eyes of the Night King. 

Tormmund was at your side instantly, quickly and gently grabbing your arm to get you up, “On your feet, little flame.” He ushered. You caught your breath and looked up past the wights and to the ledge above them. 

There he was. Sitting on his horse with his generals behind. 

“He’s here.”

Tormmund helped you over to where Jon took a seat and left you with him. You sat quietly as talking would waste breath and you needed to save as much as you could for when the dead attacked. 

Crunch.

You and Jon turned sharply over to where Clegane was crouched over the end of the rockface. Tossing small stones to the side to grab a larger one. 

The pair watched as he stood back up, leaned back and then hurled the rock at the dead. There was a sickening slam against one of the skeletons as its jaw fell off. 

“Are you trying to piss them off?” You reprimanded. 

“Nope. Just you.” Clegane replied. 

You rolled your eyes angrily at him and watched as he hurled another rock - this one however, slid on the newly hardened ice and hit an undead foot.

“Shit.” You muttered and stood up. Jon thought the same and joined your side, remembering that you were fighting to stay alive.

Masterlist here

[honeyatsu]

Loner (Junpei x F!Reader)

Reader implied POC! but ofc anyone can read <3

warnings: none that I can think of

Summary: 

Junpei was suspicious of you. He always felt the world was filled with people who were naturally evil in some way, until you came into his life and challenged his theory.

masterlist

Spotify playlist - all the songs I listened to helping me write this story. lmao and songs that helped inspire some parts. Think of it as an unorganized soundtrack. 

AO3

a/n: Hiii. He deserved better. I was rewatching and got mad all over again. The first time I saw his character arch I almost threw the whole show away lmfao but I can’t wait to continue the manga during summer! There wasn’t enough content so I decided to make some. 

The familiar dark marble floors were all Junpei would keep his eyes on as he walked to his next class, the chatter of his fellow classmates bouncing around the walls acting as background noise he would attempt to mentally cancel out. Junpei didn’t bother to look anyone in the eye, it’s not as if he had anyone to look forward to seeing anyways truthfully. High school was supposed to be a place where the best memories were made, but Junpei couldn’t relate to those empty promises of those being his best years. Everyday feeling as if there was a target on his back for his unfriendly peers; he would do his best to hide within the shadows he felt comfortable in, doing his best to make himself as invisible as possible. His only goal was being to survive the day without being bothersome to others.

Just as before, staring at the ground and ignoring the chatter going on in the classroom he made his way to the conjoined desk in the back of the room. He sat on the desk and began pulling out the material, his first time raising his head during the day to scan the room, everyone but one other person having a sitting partner. It didn’t sting him that he was sitting alone, that’s how things usually went for him. He was either alone or ostracized, finding being alone the better option of the two.

As the teacher began to lecture about the importance of being prepared for the advanced chemistry class, Junpei began to scribble down in his notebook taking notes already. His eyes didn’t leave his notepad until he heard the large bang of the classroom door hitting the wall.

“I’m sorry for being late!” you screamed while bowing to the class, panting and catching your breath with your hands now holding on to your knees. It was easy to tell that you ran to class and still managed to be notably late.

The teachers rolled her eyes at you, unfazed by your obnoxious entrance in the classroom. “Just choose a seat.” She scowled before returning to the beginnings of her lecture.

Your eyes scanned the room before you noticed the empty spot in the combined desk in the back, you didn’t even look at the person who would be sitting beside you, you just knew you wanted the desk farthest away from the front to prevent being called on during class.

Junpei on the other hand cursed himself as he saw you rush to the seat next to him; he knew that the seat was your target as soon as he noticed your eyes land on it. He recognized who you were, he knew who your friends were. Why would you sit next to him? What was your plan, to mock him? His heart was beating rapidly the closer you got, his palms began sweating. He doesn’t know if he can manage being picked on in class, he has never had a personal interaction with you but what made you different from your friends?

You rushed your way to your seat and began to drag the items from your bag onto the desk. Your elbow accidentally bumped into the classmate next to you, the physical action causing a small yelp from the boy. You finally turn to see him, the first thing you noticed were his eyes, they were the kind of green that would kiss over the ground during the beginning of spring time, probably the prettiest green eyes you’ve ever seen. His hair was brown and reached his shoulders, with one bang large enough to cover the right side of his face. You were too enchanted by his appearance that it took you a while to see how uncomfortable he was. His body was slightly trembling as your elbow was still making physical contact with him, his eyes slightly widened, he wasn’t even trying to hide how uncomfortable he was with the accidental physical reaction along with you staring at him as if he had three heads.

“Sorry.” You whispered to him removing your elbow from his side and looking down at your stationary materials, organizing them on the desk. From the corner of your eyes you can see him looking down at his desk, his body was stiff, and you could tell he was still uncomfortable. “If me sitting here bothers you, I’ll move…. it’s just this is a hard class and I don’t want to be called on all the time and embarrass myself.” You turn to face him and see that he still isn’t looking at you. “But please put up with me. I promise I won’t distract you.”

His eyes perked up while hearing your last sentence, he didn’t expect you to have such a kind and sincere tone. He finally brought his head up, slighting turning his head to face you. He couldn’t point out where he’s seen eyes like yours before, and he saw the small smile formed on your lips. People have smiled at him before and he can usually tell how people are feeling by looking at their eyes. He was good at reading people, he had to be just to survive. But he couldn’t read you, he couldn’t tell how you were feeling towards him. He doesn’t remember the last time someone showed him any sort of sincerity.

“No…it’s fine. You can sit here.” He managed to whisper out while looking back down scribbling down some notes.

Fifteen minutes went by, the class slowly dragging out and it being harder to focus. Junpei’s head was starting to feel heavy, he didn’t regain complete focus until he noticed the ink getting lighter on his notebook. He scribbled fast and hard, trying to get ink out before realizing it was completely dry. He cursed himself in his head, his day just starting and already something had to go wrong. Hearing the sound of rough scribbling on the paper your eyes darted to his side, seeing the pen drag only putting scratches on the sheet.

His head turned towards you out of curiosity, hearing the aggressive rustling from you digging in your bag. Your eyes focused and face scrunched up in concentration, your tongue slightly sticking out. He wanted to think you were cute, but he knew who your friends were, and that group was anything but cute. While he was deep in thought about how unfortunate it was that he already knew the type of person you were by your crowd, he almost missed the sense of accomplishment displayed on your face as you pulled out a packet of glitter pens. Your smile grew as you turned to him, realizing he was already looking at you. You were satisfied with the first instance of eye contact with your desk mate. He felt the heat rise to his cheeks; he didn’t need a mirror to know the red hues were forming on his face embarrassed with getting caught staring at you.

“These are my favorite pens.” You whispered to him, still looking at him not caring that he looked away for a second. “I only share these with my friends.” His eyes grew wide, were you going to rub in his face that his pen went out on him? What kind of teasing was this, for you to make fun of something so small? He was appalled that he knew he was right, you sat next to him just to -

“So, lets be good friends, okay?” You cut off his train of thought as you placed a dark blue glitter pen on his desk. He slowly turned to you, seeing the same smile on your face from earlier, the same smile he couldn’t quite read.

He nodded back at you nervously, his hands shaking as he grabbed the pen you placed onto his side of the desk. You nodded to him as you returned to focusing on the lesson, knowing his nod was his way of saying ‘thank you’ without speaking.

Junpei had trouble focusing on the rest of the lesson, hands still shaking while using the pen you let him borrow.

                  ---------------------------------------------------------

Your body ached as you dragged yourself out of the school grounds. Cheer club just ended, and you were exhausted from learning the basics of it considering this would be your first time being in the cheer club. The sun was out still, slowly going down making the sky a mix of yellow, orange and red. The only thing you could think about was going home and hoping that your mom had left over food from the dinner the other day.

While walking to the direction of your house you noticed a boy with a slender build a few feet away from you, and once you saw the long bang you grew excited, recognizing him as the boy you sat next to in class. All the energy you lost regained quickly as you ran up to your new friend. “Hey!” You screamed as you ran into his back, tripping on the cracked ground while making your way towards him. You held on to his sides to prevent you from falling, his body tensed up at the sudden contact and you screaming at him.

His heart dropped, he thought he was able to go an entire day without being picked on. He was confused, he didn’t think you’d bother him too. He made sure to not get in anyways way today, he just wanted a day where he could be in the background and be left alone, but at the last moment of him being on his way home you appeared out of nowhere and ran into him. Were you trying to push him down? Did you get angry he never gave the pen back? Were you being kind to trick him before you finally got to pick on him like the rest of your friends?

“I’m sorry!” You squealed out. You removed your hands from his back and walked towards him, giving him a tired smile.

You apologized for hitting him, why did you apologize?

“Didn’t mean to run into you! I just left my club and saw you walking, I wanted to say hi. I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable, again.” You laughed out awkwardly. Junpei gave you a confused look. He was suspicious of you, what did you want from him for you to constantly acknowledge him unprovoked? Sure, he’ll let go of the class interaction. You guys were desk mates, you were probably being cordial. You lend him your pen because you noticed his ran out, unlike your friends you at least had common decency. But why would you come up to him outside of class? What could you possibly gain from talking to him outside of having to?

The pen. Once he remembered he never gave it back, he retrieved it from his pocket and brought it out, extending his hand out to give it to you. “I-I never said thank you. Here, you can have it back.”

Once you saw what he was trying to do you laughed at his actions, “I gave it to you silly. It’s yours to keep! I mean we’re friends after all, right?”

His breathe got caught in his throat, he felt unable to respond. He tried to find any signs of malice in your face but couldn’t find anything.

“Oh, right. I sound funny declaring friendship when I don’t even think I’ve given you my name! I’m y/n.” You said with a smile.

For the first time, he returned it back to you softly. “Junpei.”

You opened your mouth to say something back, but your next sentence was disrupted with a loud growl from your stomach. Your eyes widened in embarrassment as your squealed and brought your arms to your side, squeezing your stomach.

“Sorry!” you said quickly, “I just left my club. It was a lot of work today, my body is exhausted and I’m starved.”

Junpei laughed at your reaction, you smiled realizing you got another first from him today.

“Hey Junpei, are you busy?”

“Uhm, I was just going to walk home now…” he replied back to you softly.

“How about we get some ramen! I know this great place not too far from school. I was gonna eat at home, but there probably isn’t food anyways. And you’re here so I don’t gotta go alone! You’ll love it I promise, it’s so good.” You continued to ramble on. You didn’t even give Junpei a chance to respond to you before you grabbed his wrist and dragged him along to the direction of the ramen restaurant. You were walking in front of him as he was being dragged behind you, you were holding onto his wrist the entire way there. He was glad you didn’t get a chance to see his flustered face the entire way there.

        ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You’re seriously not going to finish?” Your voice was muffled due to your cheeks being stuffed with the food in your mouth. It was hard not to stare at you while you were eating, he’s never seen a girl eat so aggressively or fast. You took a big swallow of the remaining food in your mouth, his eyes grew wide noticing your bowl, completely empty. “How embarrassing, I’m done already.” You whined out noticing his bowl looking as if its barley been touched.

“I don’t eat much.”

“I guess I should have asked if you had an appetite before I invited you. All I did was embarrass myself.” You sighed as you leaned back in your booth, rubbing your bloated stomach for comfort.

“I-it’s okay! Um, I’m…sorry?”

You couldn’t help but laugh at his flustered expression, “You’re real funny, you know?” You took out your phone and whined as you noticed how late it was getting. “It’s getting so late and I totally forgot I had chores! My moms gonna kill me!” You hurriedly got up and grabbed your school bag.

Before you walked away you turned to Junpei, “I hope we do something like this again one day.” And with that being the last thing you said, you ran out of the restaurant and headed your way home.

Junpei was in his head the entire way home. This by far had to be the most confusing school day he’s had. He tried not so hard to think about the classroom interaction, but then you basically forced him to hang out with you after school hours. Friends weren’t something Junpei had a lot of, he grew up being bullied and it followed him even at the age of seventeen. Outside of his few club members, he didn’t really talk to anyone let alone see them after school.

He’s seen you around before, you were pretty popular. You were always surrounded by friends; he can’t say he was fond of any of them. You declared him as your friend, but didn’t you know what your friends did to him? He couldn’t tell if you were genuine, and he wasn’t ready to let his guard down yet. This was too suspicious for him.

All he had on you so far was:

You were very peculiar, your aura screamed kindness but it could be too good to be true. He had just met you after all.

You had a problem with being on time.

Him being in his head made his walk home seem quicker than it usually was, time flew by as he was mentally theorizing who you were as a person and what was your plan with him. He didn’t even hear his mother greet him as he walked in, asking if he was hungry and ready to eat.

“Junpei? Are you not going to eat?”

“Hm?” He finally looked up from the ground facing his mom. “Oh, no. Sorry. I didn’t tell you I went out to eat after school. With a….friend.”

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