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joshfutturman · 10 months ago

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"good boy" 18+

oneshot (request) - inexperienced virgin failure josh futturman asks the reader over for some 'video games' (4.4k words) pairing - josh futturman (future man) + reader (no gendered pronouns, reader is afab) tags: utter filth lol, porn with tiny plot, dom/sub, dom!reader, sub!josh, LOTS of good boy mentions, oral both receiving, penetration, kissing, no use of y/n, missionary, slight dumbification ig, lots of wet mentions lmao, orgasm control, probs more i cant remember rn

.・。.・゜✭・. .・。.・゜✭・. .・。.・゜✭・.

the janitor from work was cute in a nerdy, adorable yet super naive way. in passing he'd attempt to flirt with you at your reception desk, attempt being the keyword here. but you'd flirt back, stronger and harder - which most of the time simply flew over his dense little head.

"i'd love to see it sometime," you say enthusiastically, referring to his video game collection he'd rambled about for 10 minutes straight. again.

his face lights up and a smile tugs on the corner of his lips, "yeah? really? you should totally come over - i've been dying to play this new one i picked up on co-op. - i mean," he falters, "if you want to. . ."

oh my god. was he asking you over? finally? josh futturman asked you over to play video games in his bedroom. alone. score.

.・。.・゜✭・. .・。.・゜✭・. .・。.・゜✭・.

notes: this was requested by @fatinhadesiners06 hehe, i hope you like it! tried to make josh as much of a virgin failure as i could but turns out that he's pretty good at eating pussy ig ( ˘͈ ᵕ ˘͈♡) officially the first smut ive written and finished

.・。.・゜✭・. .・。.・゜✭・. .・。.・゜✭・.

"i'd love to see it sometime," you say enthusiastically, referring to his video game collection he'd rambled about for 10 minutes straight. again.

oh my god. was he asking you over? finally? josh futturman asked you over to play video games in his bedroom. alone. score.

. . .

however, that's exactly what you do. you play video games together. on his cramped single bed.

it's not like you don't enjoy it, it's actually pretty sweet. he allows you to choose your character first, he guides you through the levels he knows off by heart, and he even offers you his favourite controller.

but you can't help but note the uncomfortable silence that lingers every so often. you notice him glancing at you in between games. you wonder what he's thinking about, is he thinking about how his hand would feel inside your underwear? how his fingers would get slick and glide over your folds and slip beneath the surface and - ...

well, you certainly know what you're thinking of.

high scores flash on the screen at the end of the level, yours and his. yours is a few hundred points higher to josh' surprise. this earns a loud laugh from you and a laugh from him, tossing his controller down in defeat.

"beat you at your own game." you tut and turn to him with a smirk.

josh grins and looks down at his lap with a shrug, "what can i say? you're pretty good at this."

scooting a little closer, you tilt your head, trying to catch his gaze again. "do you think so? or. . . do you just like it when i come out on top?" a hum sings from your lips.

his eyes widen and he looks at you with an arched eyebrow, finally catching on to at least one of your dirty jokes, or at least partially. it was about time. "it was only a two-hundred point difference." he says, glancing at your lips with an unsure smirk, "i'll dominate next time, for sure."

"who are you kidding, futturman." you whisper, leaning in towards his lips. "i was always going to be the one to dominate you."

you're both inches apart. you can hear how his breath hitches in his throat slightly with each inhale. shaking, his hand raises in an attempt to cup your cheek. but you reach up to grab it, lacing your fingers in his as your lips connect.

immediately, futturman melts into you. you swear you hear a whimper escape his lips as your tongue glides along his bottom lip, seeking entrance. he allows you in, squeezing your hand. he's sloppy, but you don't mind, you like it, actually. it's hot that he's so lost in it that he can't even control his tongue.

his other hand grips the bedsheets, knuckles turning white. he's trying to ignore how his cock is already twitching in his boxers, wondering if you're already wet. josh sighs your name into your lips and you take this as a sign.

your hand finds his crotch as your kiss intensifies and you begin to palm his hardened dick through his jeans, grinning. his mind goes blank and all he can focus on is the fact that your hand is on him, it's actually on him. this isn't just in his head. you're touching him and - fuck, it feels so good.

"you like that baby?" you ask him, his kissing growing sloppier and slower as his breath picks up. you're hardly touching him and he's already squirming under you. hot.

josh hums in response and you find his hand, bringing it to your skirt, slowly sliding it under to meet your growing heat. his fingers feel wetness through the material of your underwear and he swallows hard. gingerly, his fingers dance across your panties.

a giggle slips from your lips as you pull back slightly, ". . . is this your first time?" you ask with a smile.

he's taken aback by this question, suddenly embarrassed as his cheeks begin to flush. "i . . ."

"it's okay, i'll take care of you," you reassure him, giving him a gentle kiss on the lips, "don't worry."

it's time for you to take the lead and you remove your hand from his crotch, this earns a soft whine from him that causes you to bite your lip. placing a hand on his chest, you push him back slowly until he's flat on his back. carefully, you straddle him, sitting just below his waist.

your fingers find the button on his jeans and unbutton it at an excruciatingly slow pace. josh looks up at you with pleading eyes, panting softly as his tummy rises and falls with each breath. "are you. . ."

"i want to taste you." you admit, licking your lips as you unzip him, pulling his jeans down to reveal his boxers.

"f. . . fuck. . ." he whimpers, leaning up on his elbows to watch you.

the outline of his cock is clearly visible through his blue boxers, he's so hard already, it's adorable. josh' heart pounds as he eyes you, his dick springs free and he gasps at the cold air around it. he holds himself back from begging you to touch it in some way. you'd be lying if you said you weren't a little surprised by the girth, it makes your mouth water.

your warm hand wraps around him and his eyes glaze over, head tilting back. he swears he could cum right there just from your touch and if he looks at you again, he just might.

"look at me, baby." you whisper, beginning to pump him slowly. "i wanna see your face while i touch you."

josh pulls his head up, brows furrowing as he tries to slow his breathing. the strokes are slow and deliberate, he moans under his breath. watching him slowly come undone underneath you, you can't help but feel the pulsing of your wet cunt intensify.

lowering your head, his eyes begin to widen and before he can figure out something hot to say, your lips are on his cock. tongue swirling on the tip, he swears he's seeing stars. his trembling hand desperately reaches up to find the back of your head, lacing his fingers through your locks.

"holy fuck, that. . . that feels so good." he mumbles with a gasp as you begin to take his length into your mouth. a high-pitched whimper escapes him as he bucks slightly. you keep your eyes on him the full time, taking in as much of him as you can until he hits the back of your throat.

picking up pace now, you start bobbing on him, lapping your tongue all the while. josh is curling his toes, gripping your hair and whispering your name into his bedroom like he's trying his best to tell a secret. he wonders how he got so lucky, the way he'd fantasised about this constantly and for it to actually be happening? it was his lucky day.

he'd imagined you both at the lab, in the back room, he's bent you over and you're dripping wet. he slides in with ease and you call his name a little too loudly. or, behind reception, he would crawl beneath your desk and you'd spread your legs and he'd dive in like a man starved. or sometimes, you were in this very bed, your juices coating his sheets.

you swirl your tongue on the tip once more, causing him to let out a loud, pleading moan before pulling away with an obscene pop. this allows him to catch his breath slightly, but man - he was so close. it takes everything within him not to beg you to put those pretty lips of your back around his aching cock.

glancing over your shoulder, your eyes find his gaming chair and you grin. you wonder how many times he's jerked off in that overused thing, thinking of you. pumping his cock, wishing it was coated with your wetness instead of some cheap lube. calling your name into the palm of his hand as ropes of hot cum land on his soft tummy.

it drives you crazy just thinking about it.

and you need him, more of him.

you shuffle off the bed and walk towards the chair before sitting in it, facing him on the bed. legs spreading, you relax them over his armrests, exposing your underwear beneath your skirt. josh watches on, mouth agape, blinking.

"c'mon baby, don't you wanna taste me too?" you ask and his eyes sparkle. you've never seen him move so fast - he scrambles from the bed, boxers and jeans around his ankles. kneeling like he's about to pray for you, (and maybe he should, with the sinful images plaguing both of your thoughts), he looks up at you with that same puppy dog look.

"please," you whisper, exhaling, "i need you, josh."

he bites his lip at those words and has to actively try and suppress a moan. hearing you plead like that. . . fuck, you were so hot.

slowly easing closer, josh hooks two fingers into your underwear and pushes it to the side. your cheeks flush as your wetness is exposed to him, but you can see by the look on his face that he's elated.

"your pussy is so fucking pretty. . ." he exhales, gradually getting closer before his tongue begins desperately lapping at your dripping cunt. a squeal escapes you as you arch your back, finally getting the relief you need. his licking is messy, it's wet, he's drooling and mixing his saliva with your juices but it's so filthy it's hot.

your gaze finds his and watch as his nose glides up your folds. his name falls from your lips repeatedly as you reach for his head, getting a firm grip on those messy curls. you guide him higher with your grasp and his tongue finds your clit finally. it's so sensitive, you'd been edging for days leading up to this.

"s. . . slow." you purr, "i'm. . . i'm gonna- fuck, i'm gonna cum if you keep going so fast."

he abides, slowing his tongue on that spot you enjoy so much. his hand presses into your thigh, pushing your leg out further to get in closer. wetness drips down his chin as he laps long licks, stopping briefly and hesitantly only to begin sucking your clit gently. he looks up at you for your approval.

a gasp and your head is thrown back, fingers in his hair tightening. there's pleasure building in your core, little sparks working inside your belly as josh obediently eats you out.

"good boy," you manage to say through breathy moans, "good boy. . . you're doing so good for- for your first time. . ."

and it was true - though he was sloppy, clumsy and got a little lost in the moment, that only served to turn you on more. his inexperienced moves were endearing, they were hot, and it felt kinda good that you were the one to finally experience this with him.

small moans sing from his mouth at the pet name 'good boy' - and you make a mental note to call him that more often. this urges him on. he moves his hand to your pussy, massaging with two fingers around your tight hole, fluttering at the sudden contact. it takes him a few circles to find it properly before sliding one inside.

the chair almost tips back as you feel him slide in, his tongue back to flicking over that sensitive spot while his digit pumps into you. your hand grips the back of the fake leather chair, digging your nails in. it's not long before he inserts a second one, and though his rhythm is off with his poor coordination, it's such a relief to be filled, even if only a little.

hand combing through his hair, you look down at him, encouraging him with every moan. wet sounds fill the small bedroom now, between his tongue on your clit and his fingers exploring your slick hole. his dick is aching to be touched, desperate for any sort of friction as it spasms occasionally under the chair - but he'd stay here forever, eating you like this, if it meant he could hear those sounds sing from your lips.

"you sound so fucking hot. . ." he mumbles, the low vibrations of his voice against your pussy, sucking harder to increase your pitch and it works. you're almost there and you'll cum all over his sweet little face soon if you're not careful. who knew that josh futturman could be so good at eating pussy?

"-n. . . need you to fuck me," you blurt out, completely breathless. josh pulls back a little to look up at you fully with wide eyes, excitement piquing. the dim light from the television dances across him and you notice the lower half of his face is completely coated in your juices.

you continue, "you need to fuck me too, i bet. you're aching, aren't you? i bet you've been thinking about this for years." - and he had, fuck, he had. he'd lost count of the number of times he'd imagined you both here, a writhing, moaning, wet mess against each other.

"please, please let me fuck you." josh begged, fitting that he was on his knees. he looked good down there, you thought, pleading with his hands grasped together and that pathetic, lovable, pussy drunk expression of his as your wetness drips from his chin.

staying there for a few moments to admire him in this position, and to hear him beg just a little longer - you finally stand and step over him deliberately to watch him underneath you for just a little longer. wriggling out of your soaked panties, you throw them towards him and collapse back onto the single bed whilst removing your skirt. surprisingly, he catches your underwear and relishes how wet they feel in his palm.

you spread your legs once more for him and he watches in awe like you're the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. wiping his chin a little, he scampers to you like a lost puppy, crawling up onto the bed and kicking his jeans and boxers off in the process.

he slots between your thighs and you see how his jaw goes slack when his dick brushes against your dripping cunt. you grab his chin, still a little wet, and pull him in for a deep kiss. when his tongue enters your mouth, you can taste yourself and it makes you smile. letting go of his chin, your hands roam to his hoodie, yanking it off and tossing it to the side. the only barrier between you both now was your damn shirts.

pushing him back, you begin to slowly pull your shirt up revealing your bra. josh bites his lower lip, swallowing hard as his eyes roam across your chest. his hands inch closer and you slap them away. "your shirt first." you tease.

he holds back a whine and removes his shirt, throwing it far across the room in frustration. "now, can i?" he hums, glancing at your chest and then back to you.

you wait a few moments, then a few more. and then nod.

your shirt isn't even fully off when his hands are desperately roaming your chest, squeezing both breasts as you gasp. his eyes glaze over as he continues to squeeze and you feel his dick twitch once more against your pussy. you begin to grind against him, his saliva and your wetness mixing against his cock.

holding back some moans, josh slips his hands behind your back to unhook your bra. it takes him a little longer than he'd have liked, and you arch your back a little to help him - but he finally removes it to reveal your chest.

between your perfect fucking body below him and the way you were slowly working his desperate cock along your pussy lips - he was in heaven. immediately he's sucking on a nipple, flicking his tongue over it with soft, breathy moans. you moan in return and cup the back of his head, petting him softly - "good boy," you whisper, "good, good boy. . ."

fuck, he loved it when you called him that. it lit a fire in his belly like he'd chase you to the ends of the earth just to hear you call him a good boy one more time.

he moves to your other nipple now, giving them both equal attention and you squirm a little, gripping his hair. the cold air drifts across your erect, soaked nipple he'd left behind but the coldness is quickly replaced by his fingers, rubbing.

"your tits are fuckin' perfect-" he mumbles with his nipple still in your mouth, pulling himself away finally as he begins to move in rhythm with you.

"josh." you say, commanding his attention with a sultry tone.

he snaps out of his dizzy state and looks at you.

"fuck me," you demand, reaching down to push his cock harder against your drenched cunt, "i need you inside of me. can you do that? can you be my good boy and fuck me?"

jesus fucking christ. josh wasn't sure he'd ever been this hard in his life.

josh nods with a whimper, it's so cute. he's so desperate. just as he begins to move into position, you reach up to grab his chin.

"use your words." you instruct him.

those hazel eyes widen, taking a breath to compose himself before nodding, "i'll fuck you. i'll be your good boy and fuck you." his voice wavers. he wants to be so good for you. he wants to be your good boy so badly, "please? please." josh pleads whinily.

"good boy." you grin and let go of his chin, trailing your hands down his chest and his soft tummy, taking great pleasure in grazing your fingers past his fuzzy snail trail.

lining himself up with your entrance, he makes a few sweeps with his cock, lubing it up and enjoying the feeling of your hole sucking his length in. his eyes glance to you for permission one final time and this makes your stomach flip, he's too fucking cute.

you signal, giving him permission with a nod and he slowly pushes inside of you.

he's slow, purposefully, so that one thrust doesn't cause him to immediately explode inside of you - cause the way you'd worked him up, it wouldn't be long before his cum was stuffed deep in there. your walls wrap around him so perfectly, his words get caught in his throat and all he can do is whine. but it feels so fucking good to finally have him inside of you. his thick fingers pumping into you were fine, sure, but his cock is what you craved all along.

your stomach tenses as he fills you completely, eyes locked on his to see him fully experience this for the first time.

"does that feel good, baby?" you ask him, trailing your hand across his lower stomach.

"s. . .so fuckin' tight- ah-" still, he can hardly speak, bottomed out inside of you with his cock pulsing, "so wet, so so fucking wet."

"just for you." you coo, beginning to roll your hips slightly to help him along. this earns a loud gasp from him, positioning his hands on your hips to get a proper grip on you. slowly, you both find a rhythm and he's thrusting inside of you at a slow pace.

each thrust has you moaning as you roll your hips to meet him, his strong grip on your hips only intensifying the feeling as he gets lost in the sensation. already, you can tell he's close - having almost finished him off earlier definitely adding to his desperation.

"faster," you tell him, gripping his stupid blue patterned sheets and holding one of his wrists in your other hand.

a whimper - no two - no three, falls from his lips as he picks up pace. josh is slamming into you now, his hands glide up the side of your body to meet your tits again and he leans over, unable to keep himself upright through the thrusts. his lips find yours once more, half to muffle his moans and half to ground himself a little.

over and over, his cock pumps into you speedily, creating loud, wet, slapping noises. you wrap your legs around him to pull him in deeper, closer and arch your back.

"-g...gonna. . . i'm. . ." his words are muffled by your lips and you pull back slightly, your breath mingling together as his eyes struggle to stay open through the pleasure.

"you gonna cum?" you ask with a grin, pulling his chin up for him to look at you.

"ah - yeah. . ." he swallows, and you squeeze around his dick causing him to whine loudly.

the thought of him exploding inside you had you close too. that girthy length was slamming you, over and over, slick from what he had done to you. josh was totally lost in the pleasure, sweat coating his brow as his hips worked hard to chase your climax and his own.

"can i?" josh suddenly asks, gasping for breath.

you deliberately don't answer, but moan louder and squeeze your cunt around him - you feel his rhythm waver in response.

"fuck - baby, please," he cries, locking eyes with you as his brow furrows, "please, i need to cum, please let me cum."

the words falling from his lips were so fucking hot, he was begging you for release. all he wanted to do was unload inside of you and he was pleading and wet and adorable. how could you possibly say no to that face?

"have you been a good boy?" you ask.

"yes!" he almost screams, "yes! i've been such a good boy, please, please. i need it, i need to cum in your tight, fuckin' perfect - ah, ah. . . - pussy, please." the words trip over themselves and he's really sweating now. the way he's pistoning into you, you can feel the desperation in every thrust of his hard cock.

"then cum, my good boy." you finally say, pushing him into you with your legs around his back for a hard deep thrust - and he keeps this up.

his whines heighten in pitch, going higher and higher as he gets a little rough. with each thrust, you're thrown back a little on the bed and it earns large explosive moans from you each time. his hands are back on your hips and he digs his fingers in, leaving harsh red marks.

you don't care though, watching him lose control is the hottest fucking thing you've ever seen. a desperate, whining, whimpering, cumming mess.

josh tries to announce it, let you know he's really about to cum, but all that comes out are breathy moans as his rhythm falters and his eyes start to roll back. you can feel it too, the way his cock is twitching and pulsing harder inside you. it brings your own climax closer, the inevitability of your pussy walls being painted white with all of his cum. . .

and though you try to hold off, you cum. lights flash behind your eyes as you reach out for him, pulling him by the back of the neck down to you. pressing your forehead to his, your hole flutters around him, squeezing and clamping down as your orgasm milks him - causing him to cum. ropes of hot, white cum fill you over and over, his mouth stuck half open.

you continue to grind through the orgasm, albeit with a faltering rhythm due to your climax, as he's mostly still beside the way his dick is jerking as it empties inside of you. his cum begins to leak out of you slowly with each grind you make against him and it causes you to gasp at the sensation. your moans fill his mouth, looking into his eyes as he struggles to make eye contact through the blinding pleasure. praises sing from your lips for him, coaxing him through it as you feel his movements slow to a halt.

he pulls out reluctantly and slumps against you with heaving breaths, his head falling on your chest with his cheek flush against your skin. his body is hot, and sticky. you begin to pet his head gently, your other hand tracing your fingers across his arm around you.

"that. . ." he pipes up, "- was amazing," josh tilts his head to look up at you with a dumb smile on his face.

"yeah?" you answer, smirking, "it was pretty fucking amazing, wasn't it?"

and you admire him like this, the way he's looking up at you with that familiar smile, practically with hearts in his eyes as your fingers pet through his hair. his eyes are sleepy, half-lidded - and the rest is deserved too, after what a good, hard-working boy he's been.

"you were so good for me." you lean down to kiss his forehead, peppering soft kisses all across it.

he giggles and snuggles against you closer, "stop - you'll get me goin' again." if his cheeks weren't already flushed from exertion, they'd be red once more.

"right, i'll save the praise for next time - since i know you love it so much." a grin tugs on your lips.

and he likes the sound of that.

his head suddenly springs up, his smile growing wider with his mouth half open, joy filling his face. ". . .next time?"

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marvelmaniac715 · 1 year ago

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The Nerdy Prudes never really send the Lords in Black away again, so imagine if like… they just never leave and decide to attend high school since they ‘blend in so well’. Peter, Stephanie and Grace go back to school one day and suddenly, Wiggly (sorry, ‘Will’) is in a corner of the cafeteria trying to get people to sign up to the Marine Biology club he’s started because he has ‘a deep connection to cephalopods’. There’s Tinky (or ‘Terrence’) correcting the History teacher in vivid detail and sitting uncomfortably close to Peter, asking intrusive questions about his older brother Ted. There’s Pokey (or ‘Patrick’) overacting every minor role he gets in the Drama club and staging ‘unfortunate accidents’ for the rest of the cast of the school musical so he’s ‘forced’ to take all the roles and perform a stirring one-man rendition of ‘The Sound of Music’ (you should hear his ‘Climb Every Mountain’). There’s Blinky (‘Ben’) getting straight A’s in his film class because he never takes his eyes off the screen and notices every minute detail missed by the teachers. There’s Nibbly (‘Nova’) defunding the Home Ec department by devouring all of their ingredients and spending class time eating everyone’s work. Then halfway through the year Webby (‘Wendy’) decides to come to the school in order to save the students, but she is immediately and relentlessly bullied by her brothers who designate her as a ‘nerd’ (she’s had around twelve swirlies). Oh yeah, and they’re all on the football team, go Nighthawks!

Update: I’ve already added this in a reblog but just in case you don’t feel like searching, here’s a link to the in-progress fic I wrote about this, I hope you read and enjoy (I reply to every comment!) 😊💕:

Gotta Get Back To School (16915 words) by Marvelmaniac715 Chapters: 16/? Fandom: Hatchetfield Universe - Team StarKid Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Stephanie Lauter/Peter Spankoffski | Hot Chocolate Boy Characters: Peter Spankoffski | Hot Chocolate Boy, Stephanie Lauter, Grace Chastity, Wiggly | Wiggog Y’rath, Pokey | Pokotho, Tinky | T'noy Karaxis, Blinky | Bliklotep, Nibbly | Nibblenephim, Webby (Black Friday), Hannah Foster, Lex Foster, Miss Holloway (Hatchetfield) Additional Tags: High School, Post-Canon, Crack, Humor, Crack Treated Seriously, lords in black - Freeform, No Beta We Die Like Ted Summary: You know how the Lords in Black are summoned in Nerdy Prudes Must Die? Yeah… well, they never got sent back, so they’re still hanging around. Since they have time to kill and no plans that require urgent attention, why not stay in their human forms and attend Hatchetfield High as ‘regular teens’ just to mess with our favourite Nerdy Prudes? Go Nighthawks!

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sweet1delusi0ns · 6 months ago

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Nicknames Naruto boys call you—☆*:・ﾟ

Characters: Naruto🦊,sasuke🗡️,kiba🐺, shikamaru🀄️,shino🪲,neji🎋,Lee🥋, choji🍥,gaara⏳, kankuro🪆

Naruto🦊-*

He always calls you complimenting nicknames such as beautiful, gorgeous and pretty ect. He doesn’t care about your looks honestly you could be the ugliest person alive and he’s still love you. He just needs you to know your attractive no matter what! But also calls you the classics like babe n sweetheart!

“Good morning gorgeous!!” “I look like a fucking raccoon babe.” “Your still attractive no matter what y/nnnn” side note he loves giving morning kisses~

Sasuke🗡️-*

Darling. Without a doubt he calls you darling or love. He’s not sure what he would call you at first other than your name but it soon came to him. He is soooo soft for You idc what anyone says I can just imagine his soft voice “oh love” “anything else darling?” “I have a surprise for you my love” (I’m crying)

He will genuinely start crying if you called him sweet nicknames like that. (I’m writing abt that later😋)

Kiba🐺-*

Hes so Basic yet so complex honestly he will call you the most basic nicknames like babe or sweetie but then go on for hours how your the only one for him and how your were like a missing piece in his heart that he has finally found, yet he can’t come up with any better nicknames😭

“Babe have I ever told you how I feel like I’m missing apart of myself every time your away. Honestly just going to bed without you pains me so much. I’m so happy I found the one for me~” “not even baby just babe?” “I’m trying to be sincere and sensitive y/n!”

Shikamaru🀄️-*

He mainly called you dear like a old couple (LOL). Other than the sweet compliments he gives you about how hot you are n such he’s similar to kiba, basic nicknames but a lot of meaning

“Dear, I have put together a small picnic for us. I finally have time to treat you right so I figured I’d take you on a date” “Aw your the sweetest old man ever~” “anything for you dear!….HEY.”

Shino🪲-*

Call me stereotypical but he totally calls you love bug, cuddle bug or flower, cuz your his little love bug yk just full of happiness (mostly). He isn’t one to just use nicknames every sentence, he thinks nicknames should be special not matter how many times he uses them!

“Shino! I’m so happy your back home ugh I’ve missed that face! Cmon give me a hug~” “of course, I’ve missed you too love bug, or should I say cuddle bug” “either one is fine Shino~”

Neji🎋-*

Destiny (ha get it) I’m jus joking. Similar to shikamaru he talks you like you guys are an old couple but still romantic, so names like sweetheart, love and gorgeous. He uses them frequently thought so throughout the day you get to hear his pretty voice

“Sweetheart how was your day?” “Love do you want to tag along with me to the store? Or just for a walk” “you look gorgeous as always” AGH

Lee🥋-*

Ez he calls you precious. He finds it complex enough to show the love he truly feels for you without the nickname being overwhelming. “You are my precious! I will spent my whole life protecting and serving you! You deserve the best!!” I love him.

“So pretty! You are so special y/n! You are the most precious person to me!” “My precious I have a surprise!” “Precious, do you care for some tea, I’m making it fresh!”

Choji🍥-*

Also ez he calls you either honey, sweetie, or pretty. Honey and sweetie for obvious reasons, he finds you as sweet as candy and as yummy as honey, but he also finds you VERY attractive.

“Honey! I’m making dinner I hope your hungry pretty~” “your so nice to me y/n, like sweets! Ooooo that’s a good name, sweetie!”

Gaara⏳-*

He just calls you by your name, he doesn’t know what he’s doing LOL. You’ll have to coerce him into calling you cute nicknames by either promising him a reward or explaining how it’s normal to call loved ones names other than their name.

“You can call me anything you want gaara!!” “Can I Call You raccoon?” “No.” “Oh.. then what can I call you?” “Oml I’ll give you cuddles if you start calling me darling~” “sure thing y/n…uh darling..?” “Your so cute when you get flustered!”

Kankuro🪆-*

Flirt. So names along the lines of hotty, sexy, doll. Pretty self explanatory he thinks your fine asf so he’s gotta make it known. “Oo whos that hotty? Oh my gosh that my lover~” he teasing you, well atleast tried you but you just end up giggling at his attempts!

“Doll do you want to come help me in my work shop?” “Danm your so sexy~ honestly I’d let you do anything to me” “what’s your problem weirdo!” “Your hot thats my problem”

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princeoftheeternalbog · 8 months ago

Text

Would op boys catch you if you fell? Lets find out next time on dragonball- no sorry it just reminded me of that narrator ANYWAYS.

I only did boys because i didnt have much inspi for Nami and Robin so i decided to wait until i do cos I don't wanna half arse stuff.

So anyways I feel like I saw someone do this idea already but it might've been just one character like a law x reader? I'm not sure but I would love to tag them so if you know please tell me ! I will also try to make sure mine is different :p.

Luffy

Depends. Like if he's fighting or eating then probably not but if he thinks you might get hurt then he will 100% attempt to catch you. Key word being attempt. Poor boy probably makes the fall 10x worse, like if you trip on one step you're suddenly falling down the entire flight of stairs with a weight on top of you. He will apologise though so at least there's that.

Zoro

He always catches you. Or prevents the fall in the first place. He tells himself it's so you're not unnecessarily out of commission for a fight but really he's a huge softie. Though he always catches you really ungracefully, llike there’s no princess carrying here, he's holding you upside down by the ankle with one hand fr. He scolds you every time too like- "Why do you never watch where you're going" or "Tie your shoes next time idiot", which you should hear as "I can't stand watching you get hurt". Cutie:(

Sanji

Oh you know he does. He lives for romance and what's more romantic than saving your beloved from certain doom (tripping on a rock). Oh he also does it in the most dramatic way possible, he'd rather throw himself to the ground underneath you then let you hit the floor, he's doing twirls, picking you up with one arm, occasionally will throw you in the air first so he can rearrange what he's holding. Menace tbh, like he's just obsessed with teasing you in any way possible.

Usopp

Another one who tries his best…tries🙁. He's always so dramatic about it too, he literally screams your name like you're in a horror movie and everyone is always like "WHAT'S WRONG?!" and Usopps just "Oh they tripped on a step". He either injures one of you in his attempt to catch you OR you both end up in the most compromising positions just as someone walks past . He goes so red trying to explain the situation while also trying to check if youre okay😭.

Franky

Oh every time and it’s smooth as hell every single time. Says super cheesy lines every time like “OWWWW GUESS YOU FELL FOR ME BABE”, and he gets sparkly eyed every time, he loves romance as a genre and finds it superrrrrrrr(😚) cute when something happens that matches a trope he's read. If he didn't catch you he'd probably panic and constantly apologise but just give him a kiss and he'll forget about it soon enough.

Brook

Catches you every time, really gently and really romantically. Instead of just full on catching you, he'll purposefully slow your momentum to minimise injuries in case his attempt at grabbing you fails because then you'd both fall and he'd rather not. Like if you trip into him then he'll pull you both into a delicate spin type of dancing and you're like huh??? He thinks its a really cute trait to be honest but it also makes him really worried about your safety so he likes to keep one hand on you at all times.

Jinbei

Catches you as often as he can, like he won't sprint across the ship to stop you from falling but as long as you're in his reach you will never hit the ground. And he always catches you really gently like you barely feel the impact so sometimes you won't even notice you've tripped until later when you see the scuff on your shoe or something. He really likes holding your hand to make sure you ‘keep your balance’.

Law

He doesn't want to look soft so he tries to force himself not to catch you for just harmless falls...yeah no that doesn't work. As soon as he sees you losing balance you hear that ever familiar room, shambles and then you're in his arms. If it's later in your relationship then he's a menace, he will use this to tease you, like "Oh. Looks like an angel fell into my arms" with this stupid ass smug smirk. He's just really obsessed with you.

Kidd

Catches you most of the time unless it's gonna be really funny. Also he catches you super awkwardly, like he's so obsessed with you but he never knows where to put his hands because hes not used to giving affection so it's like just in the most ungraceful ways. You are literally being held up by his arm around your thigh or something and you're like what the fuck and he's just stood there 🧍🏻‍♀️.

Killer

Prevents the tripping and catches you if necessary. But if you're too clumsy then he just starts getting huffy and hauls you up into his arms so there's no risk of you falling whatsover...and then you bang your head against the ceiling- He probably feels so bad if you get hurt because of him to be honest, he tries so hard to make you happy yk. Anyways at some point he just starts adding cushion to all the potentially harmful areas on the ship so even if you do fall it doesn't hurt.

#one piece x reader #x reader #luffy x reader #zoro x reader #sanji x reader #usopp x reader #brook x reader #franky x reader #jinbe x reader #jinbei x reader #jimbei x reader #trafalgar law x reader #eustass kid x reader #killer x reader #op fics #op headcannons #monster trio x reader #supernova trio x reader

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islandofsages · 11 months ago

Note

Hey ! Can I ask for the Diasomnia boys reacting to a male!Ignihyde!reader who join the gargoyle club (idk if it's name) ?

Like, the reader is really just interest in the gargoyles, and isn't scare of Malleus (or anyone, really. Man is too tired for being scare.)

Ignore it if you don't want to write it.

Have a good day/night ! And happy new year too.

characters: diasomnia boys x male ignihyde reader

tags: platonic, canon compliant, fluff, imagines + scenario format; mentions of malleus in literally everything, lilia being a dad

warnings: none

author's notes: reader is so idgaf energy i love it. also i just remembered the small font feature exists LMAO do tell me if it's too small, i'll change it back to the original size!! if not, i'll change my previous posts to the smaller font. also you have a good day/night too anon ! and happy new year :D

Malleus Draconia

Oh? You want to join the Gargoyle Studies Club? You’re being serious? Oh!

Words cannot describe how happy he is about a fellow gargoyle appreciator though his expression doesn’t really show that

And to think you see him as just another dude… such honor was bestowed upon him…!

He’ll excitedly bring you to every gargoyle he’s found on campus and infodump about them - and you’d write them down somewhere if you’re in the mood

Sometimes you’d find new gargoyles and bring him to them and you start to do likewise

Even outside of club activities you two geek out about gargoyles at times which has earned you two the title of nerds

“Have I told you about the time I’ve met talking gargoyles? I never thought I would see such a day…”

Gargoyles aside, he has times where he confides his personal daily life in you and in turn, he’ll ask you what’s it like being in Ignihyde, etc

After being around each other so much, it feels weird when you guys aren’t together - some people would ask where Malleus is whenever you’re on your own, and vice versa

People found it weird how close an Ignihyde student is to someone from a different dorm too and you’re not sure if you should be flattered or not

But in a sense, Malleus really is your other nerdy half.

Sebek Zigvolt

You?????? Join the club where Malleus is president and is the only member of?????????

“WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU’RE WORTHY OF JOINING SUCH A CLUB?”

Well, for one, the fact that you’re unfazed by his constant yelling and therefore probably too tired to be fazed by anything, consequently making you the perfect companion to Malleus because you wouldn’t react inappropriately to Malleus’ conduct

And that you actually are interested in gargoyles. That too. You tell all this to him

He clutches his head with one hand, debating your logic. You don’t know how and why but he accepts your argument

That doesn’t stop him from monitoring you two’s activities from afar but, again, you couldn’t care less. A sixteen year old’s fanatics is just part of the growing process

Outside of club activities, he interrogates you on what you’ve discussed with Malleus and you just tell him the truth: gargoyles

At some point, he gets so engrossed in your infodump about gargoyles his eyes shine with a new light

Of course, he mentions something about Malleus obviously liking something so interesting and befitting of his status - but he also thanks you for enlightening him on the topic and that he’ll go to you for more information if need be

You’ve converted him. You sometimes see him clutching a book about gargoyles around the school. It’s filled with notes sticking out of the pages. And a portion of that sometimes he’ll run to you to confirm about a fact or two

Maybe it’s safe to say you two are kind of friends now.

Silver

He doesn’t think too much of it other than being glad that Malleus finally has a fellow gargoyle fan he can geek out with

He’d see you and Malleus chatting it up around campus and he can’t stop the tender smile on his face from making an appearance

Sometimes he himself will try to strike up a conversation with you and gargoyle geek aside, he finds that you’re just a pleasant person to talk to and be around

He admits he’s not too close with any of the folks from Ignihyde aside for the Shroud brothers but you brush him off by saying that nobody is really

He also admires how you don’t really let anything get to you. Again, you shrug it off by half-joking that you’re too tired to be scared by anything at this point

He somewhat empathizes with you on that point, grieving over his narcoleptic tendencies with a heavy sigh

You try your best to cheer him up or if you have experience with such things, you give him advice on how to manage it

You then jest that he can tag along with you and Malleus’ club activities whenever he’s free if he wants. The more, the merrier, right?

He ponders it for a minute and nods. You didn’t think he’d actually accept the offer

“I don’t see a reason to refuse. Sebek and I have accompanied Malleus on his trips before. I’m sure this time around will be more fun with you here.”

And so you all do. You all have a royal time together - and the joy on Silver’s face is especially princely.

Lilia Vanrouge

He sheds (crocodile) tears at the thought of Malleus finally having an additional member in his one-man club more friends

Since you’re chill about it, he is too! As long as you get along with Malleus, everything will be fine and dandy

If anything, he’s a bit impressed by how it takes more than the average amount to gain a reaction out of you

…and a bit concerned. Are you sure you’re getting enough nutrients? His paternal instincts kick in when you tell him you’re too tired to have a reaction to anything

He knows that Ignihyde students are mostly shut-ins but he still advises you and makes sure you get a balanced diet

It’s like he’s adopted yet another son

“Oh, (Y/N), you really ought to take care of yourself more.”

You grow a bit annoyed at him sometimes but you know his intentions are good so you don’t protest

You do feel very loved though. You didn’t expect this much from just joining a club for a topic you’re genuinely interested in

But you have to admit it is kind of hard to come by people who aren’t intimidated by the Malleus Draconia, even if you don’t see it as anything special

What’s special, though, is the affection Lilia holds for you.

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thisapplepielife · 5 months ago

Text

Written for a @astrangersummer.

Save it For a Rainy Day

Week #9 Prompt: Where It All Started | Word Count: 1950 | Rating: T | POV: Wayne | Characters: Wayne, Eddie, Steve | Pairings: Wayne & Eddie, Steddie | CW: Eddie's Rough Start in Life, Parental Neglect, Language, S4 Canon | Tags: Good Uncle Wayne Munson, Taking in Eddie, Eddie and Steve Meet as Kids, Haircuts and Swimming Playdates, Fix-It, Happy Ending

He's so little.

That's the only thought Wayne has, over and over again. He's so goddamn little. With lank, limp hair, all snarled and knotted, matted. Unkempt. Dirty. Dark circles under his sullen eyes. He's small, but at the same time he looks every bit of a hardened fifty-five, at all of seven-years-old.

He didn't look like that the last time Wayne had seen him.

And Wayne is sick that he's deteriorated to this point, in just two years time. At five, he had been a happy, wild boy. All snips, snails and puppy dog tails.

With a loud mouth and big, round cheeks.

Al swore he was fine, that they both were, on the rare occasions when he'd call after losing Betts and Wayne had believed him. Until the social worker was on his front steps, Eddie standing there, head bowed, so utterly serious.

"Do you want me to find someone to try and comb it out, or would you like to shave it and start over?" Wayne asks, and Eddie just shrugs. Still not talking, still buried deep within his shell.

Wayne's not going to decide for him. Thinks it should be his decision, but knows it can't stay like this either, even if he doesn't have it in him to start dragging a comb through it. He knows that'll hurt, and he can't do it to Eddie. Won't.

"When you decide, you let me know," Wayne says, hoping he'll decide sooner rather than later.

It takes three days, but Eddie finally comes up behind Wayne on the couch, and taps him on the shoulder, and makes the motion for shaving his head.

"Okay, I'll get you an appointment," Wayne tells him, because he wants to do this right, and not leave Eddie with the memory of Wayne shaving his head in the kitchen of the trailer. Maybe that's cowardly, but he'd rather push that off on a professional.

Eddie is sitting on the little wooden board the hairdresser placed over the arms of her chair to make him taller, the hydraulic lift hadn't even been enough to get him where she needed him, and he somehow still looks little.

She gently, oh so gently, takes the clippers to Eddie's hair, shaving off strips, as she talks him through each pass. Eddie seems fine with it, there are no tears, but no smiles either.

This was the right call. A beauty shop, not a barber. Wayne's own barber does just fine on his own hair, but wouldn't have been so delicate with Eddie, and right now, Wayne's pretty sure his boy needs a soft touch.

There's another boy in the chair next to Eddie, probably the same age, but he's so much larger, and more animated. Studying every move of her hand as she barely trims anything off his thick head of hair. He doesn't need the booster board, even if Wayne suspects he's younger than Eddie.

"Nanny Louisa, can I get my haircut like that?"

She laughs, "Steve. Your mother would have both of our hides. We all have very strict orders for your haircut and you know it."

"Aw, man, it looks so cool," Steve whines, and if Wayne isn't mistaken, that's Richard Harrington's boy. And if that's true, there's no way he's leaving here with his head shaved, that's for damn sure.

And then, as if it were a miracle, Eddie smiles. It's small, faint, barely there. But it's a goddamn smile, aimed at the other little boy that is watching as Eddie's hair falls down all around his chair and onto the floor.

The Harrington boy doesn't win, and only gets a trim, but Eddie has straightened up on the board. Not nearly as withdrawn as he was when they entered the shop.

Maybe shedding all that damaged hair feels like a new start. Wayne sure hopes so, because they're gonna need all the help they can get.

When he's all brushed off, and the plastic cape removed, the hairdressers each hand Eddie and the Harrington boy a coupon for a free ice cream cone at the shop down on the corner. It's a perk for being good in the chair, and they both earned it today.

Eddie clutches his coupon in his little hands.

"Do you want to save that, or get it now?" Wayne asks, and Eddie looks torn. That isn't the look Wayne wants on his face, so he quickly amends his question, "Or both? You can save your coupon for a rainy day, and we can still get ice cream now," Wayne offers.

"Really?" Eddie says, looking so hopeful, and it's the most beautiful word Wayne's ever heard in his whole life.

"Really," he reassures, "you save it until you want to use it. And I'll buy, today."

"Can we go get ice cream, too, Nanny Louisa?" the Harrington boy asks, and she looks reluctant, but finally nods. She couldn't let him get his head shaved, but ice cream, that's probably a much more doable request.

Wayne sits at the table with Louisa and makes the world's most uncomfortable small talk, as the boys sit at another table together, and jabber back and forth. Well, Steve is doing most of the talking, but Eddie, his sweet Eddie, has said more in the past thirty minutes than he has in the past week, and Wayne doesn't care who has gotten those words out of him, he'll be grateful.

When the cones are gone, both boys appear at the side of the table, "Eddie's coming over tomorrow to swim," Steve announces.

"Oh, is he?" his nanny asks, teasing Steve, and Wayne smiles.

"He is. His uncle will bring him," Steve says with a confidence that things will always go his way in life, and Wayne hopes that rubs off on Eddie, just a little bit.

"I will?" Wayne teases, and Eddie meets his eyes, and Wayne nods. "If it's okay with Miss Louisa, I think that could be arranged."

"I don't know how to swim," Eddie admits on the way home, and Wayne laughs.

"Maybe you shouldn't have made a swimming playdate then, kid," Wayne teases, and Eddie laughs, a small quiet laugh. But it was a laugh. Wayne heard it.

"Yeah," Eddie says, and then he's quiet for a stretch, "could you teach me?"

Wayne isn't so sure that's his area of expertise, but he supposes he could try, "Yeah, I can try."

Knowing Eddie would be far too embarrassed to go to the public pool, Wayne takes Eddie out to the swimming side of Lover's Lake.

Wayne, not sure the last time he's even been in shorts, wades out in the water in his cut-off jeans, surely blinding the boaters a mile out with his white legs, as Eddie walks in beside him.

And Wayne teaches him, always staying within an arm's reach. And Eddie swims. It might not be the fancy strokes that the Harrington boy can surely swim, in his private pool with his private swimming lessons.

But Eddie's doing it, and Wayne feels like maybe, just maybe, he's finally done something right for the kid today.

Eddie's laughing, and splashing, a quick study, and Wayne lets him paddle around for as long as he wants, until the sun threatens to sink beyond the horizon.

Once back on shore, Wayne wraps him up in a towel, just one from the house, and gets him back into the truck.

"I'm starving," Eddie says.

"The downside to going swimming, I'm afraid," Wayne answers, but swings by Benny's Burgers on the way home, getting them both a burger, fries and a milkshake. Ice cream twice in one day is fine, Wayne's pretty sure, since Wayne's celebrating the first good day they've had since Eddie got here.

Anything the kid wants, forever, Wayne will do his best to make happen.

In the morning, Wayne brings Eddie by Melvald's General Store, to let Eddie pick out a beach towel from the rack. Eddie combs through them, so serious as he checks out the options: Star Wars and Barbie and Huckleberry Hound.

"Garfield!" Eddie finally declares, and Wayne supposes that's the one.

"Garfield, great choice," Wayne says, taking the towel to the counter so they can pay for it. So Eddie won't be embarrassed bringing a fraying old towel from home. So he'll have something new, and fun, that he picked out all for himself.

Wayne probably should have washed it first, but he's not that organized, and Eddie'll live. Wayne pulls off the tag and hands it over, and Eddie hugs it to his chest.

Pulling into the circle drive at the Harrington's is weird, to say the least. He's never set foot on the property, and never imagined he ever would. But, Eddie's brought a lot of changes, and if Eddie likes this other little boy, and he's kind, Wayne will be polite and make his boy happy in any way he knows how.

That evening, when he picks Eddie up, he's tired, and a little sunburnt, but rattling off information about his new friend and all their grand plans for the summer vacation.

And as time always goes, that summer flew by too fast, and before Wayne knew it, years had passed. The boys drifted apart as fast as they became friends. As kids do. By high school, Wayne hasn't heard the name Steve Harrington from Eddie's mouth in years.

But that summer, that first summer, Wayne will forever be grateful for him. For Steve Harrington, Garfield beach towels, and more ice cream cones than he could ever begin to count. To swimming, and fishing, and playing in the backyard.

To the little kid that made his boy smile again.

And when Steve Harrington, now grown into a man, shows up on Wayne's doorstep, Eddie's denim vest clutched in his hands, filthy and blood-stained, Wayne lets him inside without a word.

Wayne takes one look at him, and tells him to wait there.

He has to dig, but he finally finds Eddie's piggy bank in a cardboard box that he'd packed from the remnants of the trailer, and pulls out the bottom plug. Change falls out, clattering onto the desk.

But inside, there's a slip of paper. Folded to fit, and dirty from spending so much time hanging out amongst the coins.

Wayne clutches it in his hand, and when he presses it into Steve's palm, trading him for the vest, Steve looks down at it, his eyes wet and red-rimmed.

Wayne starts, "I don't know if you remember-"

"Of course I remember," Steve cuts him off.

"Well, I thought today might be that rainy day."

Steve laughs, and sniffles a little, both at the same time.

"This ice cream shop has been closed for years," Steve says, but he's finally smiling, just a little.

Eddie's not here to do it himself, not here to coax out that smile, so Wayne's repaid the debt for Eddie himself.

"Yeah, well…" Wayne trails off.

"But it is, you know," Steve says, "that rainy day. So, thank you."

And months later, Eddie shows up on Wayne's doorstep again. Dirty, his hair matted, and eyes downcast. Thin, worn to the bone, and as silent and stoic as he had been at seven. Wayne asks no questions. The answers don't matter right now. Instead, he pulls on him, hugging him tight, welcoming him home.

They've done this before, and they can do it again. And Wayne's grateful to have the opportunity. He was so sure he'd never see him again.

Then, after Wayne's gotten Eddie settled, and Eddie is standing in front of the bathroom mirror, combing out his own hair, Wayne excuses himself, heading for the kitchen to call Steve Harrington.

Wayne tells him to bring ice cream.

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @astrangersummer and follow along with the fun!

#a stranger summer #week nine #prompt: where it all started #stranger things #wayne munson #wayne munson fic #steddie #eddie munson #steve harrington #thisapplepielife: a stranger summer #thisapplepielife: short fic

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jellyfishbeansontoast · 8 months ago

Text

Oh shit, there's only one bed.

really couldn't think of a title but this made me giggle and it's basically the plot summary so enjoy lol. kind of enemies to lovers yay!!

pairing: Sirius x reader I don't believe I made any character descriptions so should be gn

word count: 937

It was almost the beginning of term and the group had decided to make a weekend out of purchasing new school supplies in Diagon Alley, minus Peter who’s parents had already bought his school supplies and disapproved of the immaturity of his friends. Which is ultimately how you've ended up wishing you'd never came, standing in a cramped room in the Leaky Cauldron with the one boy who seems to know just how to get on your nerves. Sirius Black.

It wasn't that you hated Sirius, but the boy knew every way to get under your skin and even after pleas from James and Remus to stop he wouldn't give it up. You'd only tagged along as Remus had begged you to come relentlessly, guilt tripping you shamelessly with how much he'd have to hear about quidditch otherwise.

“There's only one bed.” Sirius gawks after settling down his case.

“Astute observation, Black” you snap, to which he holds his hands up in mock surrender. You bury your head in your hands groaning.

“There is no way I'm getting in a bed with you.”

A momentary look of hurt flashes across your face, did he really find you that repulsive, before you manage to compose yourself “you're welcome to the floor.”

He looks disgustedly at the dirty floor, kicking up a cloud of dust like a petulant child “there is no way I'm sleeping on that.”

“Fine.” you cross your arms in a huff.

“Fine.” he says mirroring you.

You turn on your heel and march towards the bathroom, grabbing your pyjamas on the way. By the time you've brushed your teeth and changed Sirius is already in bed. You resign yourself to your fate and climb into your side of the bed, pulling the covers up to your chin. You aren't aware of how cold the room is until you can practically feel Sirius’ heat radiating off of him. You shrink further into the covers, defending your ears from the cold. Behind you Sirius makes a strangled sound, somewhere between a laugh and a groan. You roll around instantly to face him, eyebrows raised.

“What.” you demand.

“It's just-” he sighs “Fuck it, come here.”

“What!” you repeat, questioning if you heard him correctly.

“You're cold, I'm not.” he shrugs like he's just told you a simple fact. He grips your arms and slides you towards him, wrapping his arms around you. Your face is nestled in his chest and despite the situation you can't help but feel relieved at the warmth that envelopes your body. “See?”

His curls tickle your forehead and you're thankful that he can't see your face for the smile you're trying to contain. You can't help the laugh that escapes as you think about how funny it is that thirty minutes ago you were arguing about sharing a bed and now you're pressed flush against his chest. It's his turn to be confused now, “What are you laughing at?”

“This just isn't the behaviour of someone who hates me.” you retort.

“I don't hate you”

“You literally asked Remus why he was friends with me” he's looking sheepish now, pulling away from you slightly so he can see you.

“I didn't mean it like that”

“How can you possibly have meant it Sirius?” the bite is back in your voice, guarding your feelings from what he has to say.

His fingers are on your chin, tilting your head up to look at him “making sure he didn't have any ulterior motives”

“Be serious-”

“I am Sirius” there's a cheeky grin on his face at the old age joke. You glare at him and he continues “I had to make sure Moony didn't have feelings for you, because I do.”

“You have feelings for me?”

“Come on don't make me say it again”

“What if I want you to say it again”

Instead he leans down and presses his lips to yours, his hands moving to hold the back of your head. “Did that say it enough?”

“Maybe if you tried one more time it might” you tease. Sirius is quick to appease you, this time you're more prepared and able to reciprocate the kiss properly, your hands curling into the front of his t-shirt.

“Understand now?” he asks.

“I think so” you respond, nestling your head under his chin, eyes fluttering shut.

“Will you go on a date with me?”

You only hum in response, Sirius only choosing not to be offended when he hears your breathing slow. He smiles at your sleeping form before wrapping his arms supportively around your back and letting himself also give in to sleep.

“Do you think they've killed each other?” a low murmur voices from the other side of the door.

“I hope not I wanted to borrow that quidditch magazine Sirius was reading yesterday”

“I can't believe you're thinking about quidditch this early”

Despite Remus’ best efforts to keep James quiet the conversation is still enough to wake Sirius. He opens his eyes groggily and mentally curses the boys for being so loud. Flinging an arm out behind him he scrambles for his wand, which is somewhere on the nightstand, before unlocking the door. “I haven't been murdered.” he calls, voice still thick with sleep.

James and Remus enter the room, mouths hanging open at the sight. “Is that-?” they both ask unison.

Their shock is enough to rouse you but you only bury yourself further into Sirius, groaning when the sunlight hits your eyes.

“If we knew this would happen we would've done it sooner.” James mutters before being elbowed in the ribs by Remus.

#sirius x reader #sirius x you #sirius x y/n #sirius black x reader #sirius black x you #sirius black x y/n #sirius black #marauders era #sirius black fic #sirius black fluff #fluff #harry potter

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luvrodite · 5 months ago

Text

JASON X F!READER [12k]

synopsis. the end of the world comes and goes. you’re just trying to survive another day, but you don’t quite expect to become so attached to the green eyed boy who saves you. “i’m here,” he tells you, and a horrible part of you wonders, for how much longer?

warnings. zombie apocalypse in a no capes au, attempted sexual assault, body horror, gore, angst, character death, violence. (if you feel i'm missing any tags, please let me know) sfw but minors and ageless blogs please don't interact with my profile

note. for my sunnie @fic-over-cannon, who always lets me talk her ear off about my jason wips, and without whom i would never have listened to everywhere, everything by noah kahan properly and thought of this fic. you are such a sweetheart and deserve all the good things in the world. unfortunately all i can offer at this time is this fic. i love you, and i'm sorry

additional disclaimer that i am NOT american so i’m talking out of my ass and my expertise is like a six month stint in the midwest please ignore any inaccuracies i’m just a baby

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The end of the world comes and goes.

There is, as with all things, blood and the destruction promised. The end sweeps through the country, burnt buildings and shattered glass that crunches further under your feet. It leaves few survivors, cares not for wealth nor poverty, health nor sickness. All succumb to its touch, and the world you know slips away from your fingertips so violently you can no longer remember what it was like, in the beginning.

The world ends, but then it doesn’t, really, it doesn’t burn when it should have. You are still here, somehow, aren’t you? (It’s only a matter of time before you aren’t. Only a matter of time before you, too, join the horde.)

You find each other in the wreckage, on the outskirts of the city you’d grown up in. The body in front of you twitches as it falls – only moments ago, inches from your throat – and green eyes assess you coldly, your own tracking his movements with your heart in your throat. Blood stains your hands, and they curl around your weapon when he lowers the barrel of his gun.

What are you even living for? All you know is gone and lost, stolen from you by a drooling maw and ever starving fingers. Blood tracks your every step, a haunting you will never be rid of. Until your last breath, you will remember it.

You stay by his side, let him offer you a hand out of the rubble and sink your teeth into the tough skin of dried meat he pulls from his pack. It’s a kindness you refuse to leave unpaid. The days turn into weeks, and he doesn’t demand you leave. You aren’t sure when this thing became a partnership. Perhaps when he’d taught you how to wield your weapon better, clumsy movements turning precise, fear hardening a once soft heart.

I’m going to find my brothers. They’re out there somewhere. Over a small fire in an abandoned department store, he tells you this, green eyes flicking over his shoulder to meet yours.

How do you know they’re...

I just do.

Oh.

You coming? Or you got people to –

No. No, I’ll help you.

A nod, then, seals it.

The end of the world brings with it a disconcerting level of silence you find it difficult to grow accustomed to. Your skin crawls at the stillness of it all, the unmoving air of abandoned homes you use as shelter. A city once unrelenting, the echoes of what once was ring in your ears as you traverse through the city. No longer does the smoke catch in your lungs, and the nights are clearer than they ever were, stars shining on a city with no one to look up to them.

You travel out of the city, eventually. The bridges had been the first to go, in the beginning – an act of damnation perceived as absolution. Better to contain it within the island, you think bitterly, to damn the desperate millions who could not seek refuge. Still, you find a way through, travelling on foot through the tunnel they forgot to destroy – filled with stationary cars that prove just as difficult to navigate around as a destroyed bridge. You come out the other side by the skin of your teeth, and the both of you continue.

Do you know where we’re going?

A sharp look, as if questioning your loyalty. Last I heard, they were in Georgia. You getting cold feet?

No.

Then come on. We’re going to lose daylight.

It’s easier, the further you travel into the country. The quiet out here makes sense to you – it had been here long before the beginning of the end, before the beginning of all things. Gotham had never known peace, you think. It was not meant for that, ever moving, ever alive. Out here, there are less of them, too. Very quickly you learn that the end of the world did not kill with it all other vices.

Despite your rationing, despite ransacking what places you can for food, it dwindles down. Maryland, now, you think – you’d passed a sign a few hours back – he’s begun to slow down. His face is pale, but he stubbornly clamps his jaw when you try to get him to eat the last bits of your food. It’s in the middle of this argument, nearing tears and trying to keep quiet, when you’re found.

The trio makes their presence known by the deliberate snap of a branch, and you stiffen, hand flying to your hatchet as you whirl around. Jason moves closer to you, until your shoulders brush.

“You folks look like you could use a good meal.” The one at the front eyes you unabashedly as he says it, eyes trailing down your figure. A prickle of unease runs down your spine, and you shuffle closer to your partner.

“Couldn’t we all?”

He lets out a little laugh, and raises his hands. “You’re trembling, darlin’. Relax, it’s just an offer.” He looks over at your companion. “Your man over there looks like he’s about to fall over.”

It feels like a gut punch, despite his grumbled “I’m fine.” because you know he isn’t. In the end, you ignore the warning in your gut, and you find yourself making camp with them for Jason’s sake. The three men share looks amongst themselves when you shuffle closer to him, but you try your hardest not to pay them any mind, pressing bits of dried meat into trembling hands and watching him until he swallows every last bit. You don’t take a bite of your own soup until they do, relaxing only in the slightest when he seems to have gained back some of his strength.

“Where are y’all headed?” the second of them asks, and his expression rankles you less, so you answer.

“Further south,” you say carefully, looking between the three of them. “And you?”

The first grins at you in a way you think is meant to be charming. “Shit, sweetheart, I’ll go wherever you do.”

You stiffen and he lets out a laugh. “’M only joking, jeez. Going west – they’ve got communities over there.”

You can barely let out a non committal hum. Beside you, Jason’s head presses into your leg, and your gaze slides over to him. In sleep, he looks younger, more like what you think he might’ve looked like before all this. Black curls rest close to his forehead, hair cut close to the scalp courtesy of the scissors you’d found in a gas station a few days ago –

All of it?

All of it. Don’t need it getting caught on something and getting us killed.

Can’t you tie it back?

What, you attached to this look? Knotted hair does it for you?

No. It’s just –

...It’s just hair, kid. C’mon, I’m getting tired.

Fine.

– The group settles into silence after that, and though your lids weigh down, you take watch. The night is quiet for the most part. You’re kept company by the whispering trees and the occasional sound of an owl. Every so often, a branch will pop in the fire, the sound making your limbs stiffen reflexively. Your eyes scan the treeline each time, vigilant. You balance your hatchet across your knees, and wait.

Eventually, black bleeds into the cool blue of dawn and Jason stirs beside you.

“Morning. You didn’t sleep?” You dart a glance over to the three sleeping bodies a few feet away and he presses his lips together in understanding. “Should’ve woke me.”

You shrug, looking away to where daylight breaks through the thick of the trees. “You needed the rest.” And before he can argue back – you can already hear the retort, and you don’t? – you stand up, passing him your axe. There’s a small knife in your shoe, and you don’t intend to go too far, you figure it’ll be fine. “Gonna powder my nose.”

He snorts at the phrasing, and you offer him a tired smile. Relieved that he seems to be in better health today, you step away from the campsite. The breath of air you take is cool in your lungs, and you stretch your arms above your head as you step over rocks and fallen branches.

Relief muddies your senses, you think. You forget to be mindful, forget that this is not just another day, not just a camping trip of sorts. As you pull your jeans up, there’s a rustle nearby and you freeze, hands on the waistband of your pants tightening in unease when someone breaks through the foliage and it isn’t Jason.

“Oh,” he says, stopping short in front of you. There’s something like surprise in his voice but it feels short of convincing you that he hadn’t meant to find you, the artificial coating of his words doing little to hide the interest in his eyes. “Guess we both had the same idea, huh?”

You wrinkle your nose, taking a step to the side. “Yeah. It’s all yours.”

His hand clamps down on your arm as you go to walk past him and you stiffen. “Whoa, what’s the rush, little lady?”

You grit your teeth, glaring at him. “Can you let go?”

He balks at the look on your face, before his own hardens, lips tugging into a sneer. “You should be a lot nicer, you know. If it weren’t for me, you and your little friend would be dead by now. How about a thank you?”

You consider spitting in his face as you grind out, “Thank you.” Still, he does not let go. “Can I go now?”

He mulls it over, before shaking his head. “Nah. You don’t sound so thankful, let’s try that again.” At the look on your face, which suggests you’d rather die, he grins. It’s a mean thing, eyes glinting as he tugs you closer. Your heart picks up at the proximity, and by your side, your fingers curl into fists. “Or, you could just pay me back proper. How about you put that mouth to use?”

You stay still, frozen as he draws nearer. The stench of his breath makes your stomach turn and suddenly you’re in motion, raising a foot to stamp down on his with all the force you can muster. It takes him by surprise and he yells. You take the advantage to wrench your arm out of his grip, pushing him as he stumbles and booking it through the greenery.

He recovers quickly, if the crashing behind you is anything to go by, bellowing threats. Your arms sting as you push through the foliage instead of carefully stepping through as you had earlier, branches scratching and snapping as you barrel in the direction of the camp. The brush of fingers against your neck makes you scream, loud and high, and you force your legs to carry you faster.

The distance to the campsite isn’t far but every step seems to stretch and time slows with the threat of leaving you disjointed, forever stuck in this moment with hands reaching for you.

You burst into the clearing and bolt to where Jason is. He’s already on his feet and he meets you halfway, standing resolutely in place when you try to push him further away – we need to LEAVE, what are you doing? He steers you behind him when your pursuer breaks through, and you grip the back of his jacket. Still, he refuses to move, an arm stretching behind him to curl towards you protectively.

Your mind seems to black out then, because when you blink, Jason’s hands are hovering over you and there’s an awful amount of blood on them.

“You hurt? Did he touch you?”

Your gaze slides over his shoulder and your stomach begins to turn when you see what’s become of the man. Blood soaks into the earth in copious amounts, another carcass to join the millions. You tremble and he turns your face back to him. His palm is sticky, and the realisation of why brings tears to your eyes. You shudder, stepping closer to him.

“You’re fine,” Jason mutters, breathing hard. He repeats it when you begin to cry in earnest, clutching fistfuls of his shirt. “You’re fine. I got you. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

You learn a few things that day. The first, that he’s not hesitant about taking lives if it means yours are safe. And second, that a horrible, terrible part of you doesn’t feel remorse that he did it.

In the wake of the murder, the fallen man’s companions had fled, unwilling to meet the same fate, and Jason had let them go. You keep to yourselves after that, travelling further south and avoiding the few survivors you do come across. Guilt festers in your stomach when you sneak glimpses of weary faces run haggard, but fear weighs out when you feel the phantom brush of hands on your arm and neck.

Neither of you speak about it beyond the set of the sun that day but it brings about a shift, however miniscule it may be. He’s less willing to let you stray far from his eyesight, now. Sometimes, even with your back turned, you can feel the weight of vigilant eyes on you. But it isn’t only Jason who’s affected by the changes. You linger closer to his side, now, never beyond arm’s reach, never more than a few paces away, unwilling to risk being parted once more.

The spill of blood only brings with it more carnage. It feels rather like a curse when, in the days that follow, only havoc trails after you. Blood in the spaces beneath your nails, blood that pools and darkens in linoleum and hardwood and concrete, blood in your mouth. It clings to you, a stain you’ll never be rid of, no matter how you scrub your skin. The frigid water sticks you like a thousand pins, pinking in the dying light of the day, and still you scrub.

The end of the world doesn’t harden you like you think it’s supposed to. You think maybe if you were idealistic, it would be a kindness, to retain your softness. But it has no place here, meant for a life long gone. For all the precautions you take, the weapons you wield and hide on your person, you still feel like vulnerable prey, the soft belly of your heart exposed. You flinch, you freeze, you–

“You’re going to hurt yourself.”

He says it quietly, standing at the mouth of the river, behind you. Red lingers in the corner of your vision – his flannel, darkened. You ignore him.

You’ve stripped down to your underclothes and waded in until the water reached the top of your thighs. Your name falls off his lips, and your own press together tightly. Your jaw aches with the weight of all you try to hold back, and it’s only when fingers curl around your elbow gently do you let it out.

The boy pulls you out of the river with all the care of coaxing a wild animal, uncaring of the water that bleeds through his pants. The skies overhead grow darker, the air steadily cooling around the both of you, and yet you remain in place, staring at the place where his hand meets your skin.

There is no trace of what happened, nothing to suggest anything had occurred. Old scars fleck the back of his hands, disappearing beneath the sleeve of his shirt, but his hands are clean. You stare at the lines of him, the bitten nails, the tendons that flex. Hands that had, only hours earlier, killed for you.

“You’re going to get sick if you stay like this,” he says finally, and you let out a breath.

“I can’t wear those,” you whisper and he tips his head.

“There are clothes inside. They’ll probably fit.”

“Okay.”

He tilts his head, and you fall into step with him. His hand drops until it circles your wrist, and you let him pull you forward. There is only silence as you walk through the wood, save for the snap of leaves and sticks beneath your feet, clumsily pushed into your boots. You can feel the water clinging to your underwear, and you can feel the autumn air cutting you deep.

(You can hear the sound, still, of splitting flesh.)

You return to your camp for the night, stumbling up the rotting porch and entering the cabin. Unseeing eyes trail over the living room, browns and flaking paint quickly disappearing out of sight behind a wall as you’re pulled into the next room.

“Here.”

The Henley thrust into your hands is felted over. You look up and you’ve entered what looks like the main bedroom – perhaps the only one, you think.

Time stands still in here, the air stale and near everything left untouched. The bed remains made, dust lining the window, pale light filtering in through discoloured glass. Perhaps once, you might’ve felt the discomfort of standing in a place that was not yours. Once, your skin might have crawled at the clothing in your hands, the absence of their owner a clear signal of their fate. Now, it’s all you can do to tug the rest of your clothing off and pull it on. A pair of pants are passed to you next, a size too big and settling low on your hips.

Your wet tank top remains slung over the rail of the bed frame, and you watch the water drip out, pooling on the floor. There’s the rustle of clothes behind you, and you wait until he moves back into your line of vision to look up.

In the darkening room, the boy in front of you looks older than he is. The shadows beneath his eyes smudge deeper, the hollow of his cheeks carved. You wonder what you must look like to him, half crazed and yet entirely subdued. Your breaths mingle in the air between your mouths, and you feel, not for the first time, the years you’ve lost and those forced upon you in the last months.

“Good?”

It takes you a moment to register what he’s talking about. His eyes flick down to the clothes on your body, and you nod jerkily. He seems dissatisfied at your answer, turning to rifle through the closet. When he turns back around, it’s with a jacket in his hands that he pulls around your shoulders.

It’s thick, lined with fleece that settles comfortably against your sides. It’s a wonder it hasn’t been ruined and immediately you try to shrug it off. It would fit him better – but he refuses to let you, fingers tightening on the lapels and keeping it tight around you until you settle.

“Going to freeze otherwise,” he mutters.

“What about you?” you ask dully and he shrugs.

“I run warm.” But already, even in the dim light, you can see the pink in his face. The thick sweater he’s stolen out of the closet does little to combat the chill of the water, and you push past him to rummage blindly through it until your fingers come into contact with something soft. The coat you pull out is fraying at the sleeves, loose threads tickling the skin of your wrist, but you push it against his chest anyway. You don’t move until he pulls it on, letting out a breath you hadn’t realised you were holding.

“Better get some rest,” he tells you, tilting his chin in the direction of the bed and you nod, only to pause when he goes to turn. Your hand flies out so suddenly you have no time to feel ashamed, only fear at the thought of being left alone.

“Where are you going?”

He blinks. “I’ll take the couch. I’ll hear it if – if something tries to get in.”

“Stay here.” The words are out before you can rein them in, and you aren’t sure you want to, anyway. The bedroom is small, wide enough to fit a dresser, closet and a bed, but it looms outwards threateningly at the suggestion of only housing one occupant. As if on cue, a branch slams against the windowpane and you jerk, fingers tightening on his sleeve. He looks back and forth between the window and the door, and sighs.

When you go to bed an hour later, it’s after he pushes the couch against the front door and moves your things to the bedroom. The bags lay at the foot of his makeshift bed, spare bedding laid down on the floor beside the bed in a mess of blankets. It hardly looks comfortable, but he’s silent as he takes his place amongst them, lying flat on his back. You peer over the edge of the bed to confirm he’s still there. In the dark, it’s difficult to make out his features, but the sight of his body reassures you, the sounds of his breathing guiding you beneath the covers until you’re staring up into the blankness of the ceiling.

“You still awake?” It’s him who breaks the silence a while later, voice barely above a whisper.

“Yeah.”

“Can’t sleep?”

“Mm. You?”

“Yeah.” A beat, and then he says, “You know it’s not – it isn’t your fault, right?”

Your mind flashes back to the mauve blossoms you’d spotted on his stomach when he’d undressed – the only evidence of your morning.

“I almost got you killed,” you tell him, feeling dread burn in your gut. You see it once more, the horror etched in his features, the thud of a body against his, a drooling maw and rotted limbs outstretched. Your hatchet sinking into a softened skull. “You don’t need to coddle me.”

He lets out a breath. “I’m not.”

“You are. We got lucky.”

“You’re the reason I’m not -” he breaks off, letting out a shaky sigh. It’s the only thing that betrays his fear and your heart squeezes painfully in your chest. “I owe you.”

“You don’t.” Your voice comes out harsh, and you fist the sheets under your fingers, suddenly burning despite the chill in the room. “Don’t say that to me. If you’d died, it would’ve been on my hands. I nearly killed you. Don’t tell me that.”

Your voice rings in the air between you, harsh, before he exhales once more.

“If that’s what you want.” Weary, he settles back into the quiet.

Your eyes burn the longer the silence stretches on, and your throat is uncomfortably thick as you force out the words, “I can’t do it again.”

“I know,” he whispers.

“I’m selfish,” your voice wobbles, but you grit your teeth. Salt tracks a trail down the sides of your face, bleeding into the fabric under your head. “I just can’t. I can’t do it alone. Not again.”

“I’m here,” he tells you, and a horrible part of you wonders, for how much longer?

Outside, the world is still and you’ve never hated silence so much, never longed more for the shriek of a car alarm and drunken arguing. Gotham lies in ruin now, motionless and hundreds of miles behind you. It only seems to grow quieter the further you travel into the country, nought but grassland and the whispers of wind to be heard.

Your hand finds his in the space between you, and it’s only then that sleep finds you.

Autumn storms sweep through the county over the next few days when you leave the cabin, driving you to take up shelter in the loft of an empty barn. Water streams in through a gap in the boards with each burst of wind, whistling echoing in the caverned space. The two of you huddle in the corner, tucked close amongst bales of dried straw and a ratty, threadbare blanket you’d found hanging over one of the stalls. Grey clouds form overhead, thick and visible from the skylights above, and you watch through a window as the grass whips back and forth violently, the entire world awash.

Jason pores over the map you’d snagged, eyes squinting in the dim light to make out the lines. It’s torn in a few places, and an entire section of Eastern Gotham and the surrounding states has bled into an unintelligible mess of ink. He looks up when you shuffle away from the window back to his side.

“If we take this route, it should get us to Georgia quicker,” he tells you, pointing a finger along the line. “We’re gonna need to find a car, though. It’ll make it easier.”

“It’ll be noisy,” you murmur, pressing your cheek into your shoulder and he lets out a breath.

��Yeah. It’s that or we keep walking. We don’t have any other options.”

Water drips in through the ceiling, and you sigh. There’s a thread of steel woven tightly into his voice, desperation that reminds you just why you’re making this journey.

“What were – what are they like?” you ask quietly, pulling your legs close and resting your chin against them. His clothes rustle as he shifts against the wall.

“Annoying,” he tells you, but there’s affection in it, voice teetering on the cusp of grief-stricken. “Before, I couldn’t get a moment of peace without one of them interrupting it, showin’ up at my place and demanding to stay ‘cause they didn’t wanna go home.”

“You didn’t live with them?”

He shakes his head, and something in his eyes shutters, a story you’re not privy to hidden in their tourmaline depths. “Moved out. The two younger ones lived with my old man. My, uh, older brother, lived in Bludhaven, but you wouldn’t even know it, always hanging around mine or my old man’s.”

“I think that’s sweet,” you murmur, and he snorts.

“You would. You’d like him, probably.”

You tilt your head to hide your smile. “We’ll see, I guess.”

He sounds more plaintive than you think he means to when he says, “Yeah.”

Rain slams against the roof, the storm no closer to clearing, and he clears his throat.

“What about you?”

“Me?”

“What was it like, y’know, before?” He sounds hesitant, as if the question might hurt somehow. And you suppose it does, in a way, when you think of all that came before, of all that can never be. It will never be as it once was. You hum.

“I don’t know,” you tell him. “I was in college, and then I wasn’t. I thought it was gonna be like that forever, you know, finals and midterms and the break in it all when we went out, even though we had to be up the next morning.”

“You go out a lot?” he asks, curious and you shrug.

“I liked dancing,” you hum, and once more you can feel the heat of a packed room, the floaty feeling of a few drinks and the press of fingertips into your palms, sweet smiles and longing. You let out a laugh, bitter and mournful. “I always said I was too tired and then somehow ended up walking home at 2.”

“Sounds like you had a good time, at least,” he says, and you catch a hint of envy in his voice.

“Did you not -?”

He lifts a shoulder, hunching forward. “Things got in the way of normal for a long time. By the time it started to settle, I got in a few years before..” He gestures vaguely around you. You nod,

“We’ll find your brothers soon,” you murmur, shoulder pressed against his. Your hand finds his atop the straw, and he doesn’t move away.

“Yeah,” he breathes out, tiredly. His temple knocks against yours gently and the two of you sit like that, with his head on your shoulder until the storm passes through.

You think that maybe fortune must be smiling down on you when you find a truck a few miles out from the farm and it lives long enough to carry you to the interstate, where Jason is able to siphon gas from the lineup of abandoned motor vehicles. There’s a moment when you think it might go south, your heart gripping painfully in your chest when a herd passes through just as he gets back into the truck and you have to press down into the footwell of your seat to keep from being spotted. Your fingernails leave dents in the back of Jason’s hand, stretched across the console in danger of being seen to hold onto him. He squeezes yours back intently, green eyes meeting yours from where he’s managed to fold himself beneath the wheel. A finger comes up to his mouth, and you incline your head in the barest of movements.

They pass through, eventually and you find yourself glad for the grime that muddies the windows, making it hard for already decaying eyes to catch sight of a pale arm reaching out to comfort you. You hate that he’s kind, a little. He waits until you’ve caught your breath, letting you hold his hand and press your forehead to the seat until the tremors die down before the two of you shift carefully back into your seats and pull away – mercifully, in the opposite direction of the herd.

You drive for a day and a half, switching every so often and pushing the truck into the cover of the trees when you decide to rest. Dawn comes once more, and the terrible dream continues to prove it is anything but a fiction. There is cruelty in the enduring stillness of the world around you, and you think your heart breaks for the thousandth time when, as you pass a faded billboard sign, you begin to recognise the buildings around you.

Your hand flies to the console, pushing you up from the passenger seat to take a better look out of the windows. Beside you, Jason makes a noise of concern.

“You okay?”

You blink, looking over your shoulder at him before you’re pulled back to the passing playground and a familiar set of swing tires.

“I know where we are,” you tell him, hating the way his eyes soften sympathetically before the words are even out of your mouth to explain. “I used to spend my summers here – look, there.”

He follows the line of your finger to a row of houses, and you have to press your lips together at the wave of nostalgia that washes over you.

You think about a different time, a neighbourhood washed in gold and the roughness of bark beneath your palms. The ghost of a seven year old girl in overalls stares at you as you drive past the corner store, and you remember skinned knees, bare feet on asphalt and the stickiness of ice cream dripping down your wrist. You think of the two boys that had lived three houses down, always arguing, always dragging you to the arcade with them and insisting you play the games with them. You think of barbecues and the smell of charred meat, running around under the spray of a hose and squealing when the older kids jumped into the community pool.

Madison is now broken fences and stains you don’t dare to look at too closely, abandoned tricycles and boarded windows. It’s eerie as you drive through the bones of the suburbs you’d spent your youth in. Not for the first time, grief takes your heart in its hands and squeezes.

You turn your face away from your companion when the tears start, trying to discreetly raise your hand to swipe them away. It’s unfair, that the months have done little to soften the edge of your hurt, that even in the fear you find moments to mourn. Time passes, and your scars remain as fresh as the day the city fell, wounds open for anyone to see.

Jason, though, you never catch his grief, hidden except when the light tilts just so, when he turns and you catch a glimpse of it, like a star winking before it’s gone. You envy it, that he’s able to carry himself – that he’s able to carry you, too.

Sometimes, you wonder if it wouldn’t be better if he’d left you, that first day.

Almost intuitively, his voice draws you from your thoughts, the murmur of your name on his lips as he brushes against your elbow. You blink, and water splashes against your cheeks.

“Pass me the map,” he says, tactful enough not to mention the drying tears on your face when you turn to him. He lifts his chin towards the bag at your feet. “Should be in the front pocket.”

“It’s not there,” you mumble, after rifling around and coming up with nothing. Rooting around the spare t-shirts you’d bundled after a stop at a small boutique – 3 walkers, easy enough to take out except for the one, split second when you’d fumbled with your axe – and the ripening pears you’d salvaged from the farm had brought up nothing, and Jason clicks his tongue when you tell him as much.

“It is,” he insists, taking his eyes off the road for a moment to flick in your direction. “I put it there this morning before we left.”

You frown at him, impatient as you begin to unpack the bag again. “I’m telling you, it isn’t here. Is it in the other one?”

He takes the empty rucksack from you, placing it in his lap and rummaging through it with one hand. You don’t wait for him to realise he’s wrong, twisting in your seat to reach for the other bag in the backseat. Your body blocks the gap above the centre console, and you squeal when Jason swerves a little, your hand flying to grip the headrest of his seat. His hand leaves the bag to snag onto the back of your shirt, the material twisting in his fingers. The metal bars are cool beneath your fingers, and strands of his hair tickle your palms.

“Watch it!” you tell him reproachfully, unzipping the bag as best as you can with one hand. The material proves hard but it eventually gives way, and you grin when the glossy paper of the map comes into view. “Found it, I told you it wasn’t in there.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he grumbles, looking away when you settle back into your seat.

That evening, when you make camp, you park the truck and head further into the forest. 15 minutes of walking leads you to a lake, and you grin when you come to a stop near the water, turning excitedly to Jason.

He doesn’t return the enthusiasm, eyes tracking for movement on all sides, but you see the satisfaction in his face when he sets his pack down on the edges of the lake.

“You go wash up first,” he offers, nodding his head. You’re too pleased to argue. His face warms a little, and he turns away. “I’ll keep watch.”

The stones are smooth and rounded, here, and you bite back a swear at the chill when you step in after shucking most of your clothes. It occurs to you, when you wade in about knee deep, that maybe you ought to be a little more concerned about undressing in front of him, but when you glance over your shoulder, Jason’s face is directed firmly away from you. He remains alert, poised to act at any moment, and you let out a little breath, assured in the set of his shoulders.

The water is, mercifully, not too cold. You get used to it after a few seconds, scrubbing your skin as quickly as you can.

“Don’t take too long,” he reminds you, calling over his shoulder but keeping his voice fairly low. “Don’t need you getting sick.”

“I won’t,” you mutter, but you end up lingering a little longer than you ought to, soaking your worn muscles. When you get out the sun has begun its descent in the sky and you quickly pat yourself dry with a spare rag. You take advantage of the afternoon sun to warm yourself on a larger rock as you take up your post, now your turn to keep watch as your companion washes himself off.

“Shit.”

“What is it?” you tense immediately, turning your head in a panic only to find him clutching the sodden material of his shirt. He lifts his eyes to you, and shakes his head. You realise, delayed, that he hasn’t got a shirt on, standing only in his boxers, and you look away, feeling your face warm.

“Can you pass me -”

“Yeah, sorry, got it,” you mumble quickly, leaning for his bag. An undershirt and flannel are retrieved quickly and passed to him with your eyes decisively fixed on the treeline, passing the items behind you until you feel the brush of his fingertips as he takes them from you.

You try not to think about the water pooling in the divots in his skin, or the drops falling from his hair, ink black and curling.

“You sure this water’s safe?” he grumbles, after a while, climbing up onto the rock beside you. The sun is steadily setting, and you need to make camp, but you sit, watching the shadows stretch over the lakeside, orange glowing through the leaves. “I’m not gonna contract a flesh eating disease, or something, right?”

You huff, foot pressing out to kick gently at his ankle. “We swam here all the time, back then. Relax.”

He lets out a little laugh, and you look away when it turns something in your stomach over. It’s a pleasant sound, though one you’ve rarely heard – there isn’t much cause for joy, these days, after all. You turn the sound over in your mind, wondering if this is what it might’ve been like, to be friends in another world. You sneak a look at him through your lashes, and the feeling travels up to sit beneath your ribs, stretching soft like toffee, sticking to all it touches, too sweet a feeling for a world like this one. He leans back on his palms, face relaxed. You could almost pretend, here, that nothing exists beyond the treeline.

“I’m trusting you,” he says lightly, knocking your shoulders.

“I wouldn’t lie to you like that,” you say, and it comes out like a confession. His eyes meet yours, and all that you don’t say, all that you don’t even dare to think, too out of reach and impossible to grasp between your fingertips, lies between you. Jason nods.

“Yeah, I know.”

The cicadas have begun to sing, and he keeps his gaze on you a moment longer before he pushes himself up, holding out a hand.

“C’mon. Gotta make camp, unless you want to freeze tonight.”

You take his hand, pulling yourself to your feet. He squeezes it once, before your hands fall away.

The fire he builds that night is small, stones piled high to surround the flame and keep it from drawing any unwanted attention. You watch him squat, arranging the rocks from your place on a log, leaning closer to the pit and holding your hands out.

“Can I ask a question?”

He hums.

“How do you..” you furrow your brows. “Most people don’t know how to do all this stuff. Were you like, some doomsday nut, or?”

His eyebrows fly into his hairline, a surprised laugh falling from his lips as he turns to you.

“A doomsday nut?” he repeats, amused, and you nudge him with a foot, attempting to unbalance him. Frustratingly, he only grips your ankle to still it. “Come on, tell me.”

He presses his lips to stifle a smile, shaking his head. “My old man was the doomsday nut, not me.”

You incline your head forward. “Really?”

Jason snorts. He pokes at the fire a little, before sighing. “No. I mean, kind of. He was really disciplined about all that self defence shit and being self sufficient. We used to go camping, and he’d make a game of it, a survival exercise, or something. Mostly we were just goofing around, but I guess it was interesting, and I picked up a few things.”

He looks over at you, hesitating, before he elaborates. “He and I, uh, we fell out when I got older. We mended it after a bit, but it wasn’t the same, you know. It’s all gone to shit now, but if I have one thing to remember him by, this is a damn good one, I guess.”

His thumb strokes an arc across your ankle, before he lets it go, turning back to the fire.

“Did..” you trail off, unsure, and he shakes his head.

“Kicked the bucket a few years before all of this.” He stands up, only to deposit himself by your side. “Left a fucking mess behind him, but I’m glad. That it was then, before..”

“I’m sorry,” you murmur.

“It’s not your fault.”

You hum. “I know. I’m still sorry.”

You press closer, resting your cheek against his shoulder. His arm comes around you, after a beat of surprised silence in which you worry you’ve overstepped, and he leans against you. The flames flicker and burn, the cicadas sing and Jason does not move.

When you wake the next morning he’s lying on his side and both your hands rest in the space between you, fingers curled and knuckles pressed against each other.

It feels like the flicker of something new. Something is forged in the earth where your hands lie, weaving your palms together, an invisible thread that ties you. His eyes flutter open a few moments after yours, and in the early light of the morning, you know you aren’t the only one who recognises it.

But there is a bigger sky over your heads, one that presses the urgency of your journey, one that has no time to address the curling in your gut or the gentleness of his fingers as they brush dirt from your jaw.

Time, time, time. You return to the truck wishing for more of it, for more spaces in between.

The road is bumpier when you return to it, and you follow the map in silence, navigating carefully around the rare lone walker.

Georgia comes faster, then, and you feel the stirrings of fear as the distance to where you’re headed, noted on faded boards, grows smaller and smaller. Jason grows tenser, too, answers short and distracted. The possibility hangs heavy in the air – of what might await you. His fingers curl into fists, and he presses his knuckles to his mouth as you drive past the first sign –

Welcome to Georgia! The Peach State.

You don’t dare to speak when he tells you to pull over, climbing into the passenger seat wordlessly. He drives slowly, and your nails dig into the fabric of your jeans when the car slows down and he mutters to you,

“We’ll walk it from here. We know where the car is, if–” he stops short, and reaches over the console to grab his pack from the backseat. You nod, biting your cheek and he looks over at you in confirmation, pausing only when he catches your obvious apprehension.

He takes a breath, and extends a hand.

“You trust me?” he asks, and you nod.

“I do.”

“I’ll keep you safe,” he presses, intent, and you nod.

“I’ve got your back, too,” you whisper, and he leans forward to knock your forehead against his.

“Let’s go.”

There is a part of you that knows you will not return to the truck – that leaving will forever alter the course of your journey. Safety is not something you can guarantee, but intuitively, you know this: the moment you close the car door, you seal your fate. This knowledge is something you know, yet are blind to, unwilling to face it, unwilling to shirk your post at his back, unwilling to abandon him now. You are at a crossroads. He will not stay a moment longer from his brothers, and you –

You will not leave his side.

In the end, of course, you follow.

You are tethered, caught in his orbit and unwilling to let go – he is loath to let you, but you know he would. You’ve seen the hesitance in his eyes, the silent debate of whether he should have brought you into this, if you’d be better off without him. If you asked him to let you go, you think he would.

You follow him, eyes alert and shoulders tense. The path to the bunker is a difficult one, overturned branches and muddied with fallen leaves. Once, twice, a few times, you cut down the walkers that stray into your path. The sound of a splitting skull makes your stomach turn every time, and you bite your tongue hard enough to draw blood, in an effort to keep from screaming when you strike.

Each time, Jason pauses to inspect their rotted faces, and you wait in apprehensive silence. Stranger. Stranger. Stranger. With each that proves to keep the chance of his brothers being alive, his face grows harder, fingers twisting around his machete.

Dread creeps up on you as the sun begins its descent in the sky, and you draw upon the outer perimeter of the place he’d detailed to you in the car.

He told me – gave me the directions to a bunker. It’s pretty deep in the woods, but he said it was secure. They’ve got some sort of system in place, so it doesn’t go down easy.

You begin to see what sort of system exactly it is, wooden spikes boring up from the ground to act as a fence. Already, a few remain impaled, their gurgling making you flinch as you pass by. A pair of heavy metal doors act as the only entrance, and you watch Jason come to a stop in front of them, hands trembling by his side.

He takes a breath.

You grip your axe.

He bangs on the door.

There is a split second, right before the door opens and a gun presses to his head, where Jason looks over at you. The face that peers through is not, judging from the mistrust on the man’s face, his brother. A large scar runs down the side of his face, red hair dry and thinning. He’s much older than the both of you – and stockier. In a fight, you don’t know that the both of you could overpower him.

“I’m looking for Grayson,” Jason spits, unrepentant and unmoving in the face of the metal digging into his forehead. Your throat closes over and you find it difficult to breathe when a cloudy eye trails over his shoulder to fix on you. “She’s with me. And he’s expecting me.”

You anticipate the words before he delivers them. You see it in the way his face eases ever so slightly, as if he’s established you aren’t a threat, though his grip on the gun doesn’t waver. You see it in the pikes propped up beyond the fence, small boards attached with writing you can’t make out – you know it in the drop of your gut, though, the loss of balance as the world seems to swim before you. You know what those are, and you know the words before he says them.

“Grayson ain’t here, kid.”

Jason stiffens, and you taste blood. The walkers nearby gurgle louder, likely catching the scent of your bitten tongue, your grief palpable in the air.

“What the fuck do you mean,” Jason says lowly, and you want to reach for him, but you’re too aware of how anything could change in a split second. “He told me he was here – how the fuck do you think I found this place, huh?”

“Jason,” you whisper and the red haired man cuts you a sharp look.

“Grayson,” he bites out, clearly agitated. “Drake. Wayne. ‘S who you’re here for, ain’t it?”

Each name he drops makes the hair on the back of your neck raise, and you look at Jason – the eerie stillness on his face, not a muscle moving. He’s barely breathing.

“Only me left, man,” he breathes out, weary. Overhead, the trees blot out the sun, so thick it feels as though night has already fallen.

“Are they dead, is that what you’re saying?”

He looks at you then, at the devastation on your face, the grief of another life lost etched into your heart, and he sighs, opening his mouth to answer but before he can, he’s cut off.

“I don’t believe you,” Jason says defiantly, chancing a look over his shoulder at you and back to the man. “You’re lying – there’s something you’re not telling us, look at him.”

And you trust him with your life, he’s kept you safe thus far, so you do look. There’s a nervous twitch of his eye as he begins to protest, and you note the sweat beginning to bead at his hairline, despite the cool evening air.

“Is that true?” you ask, voice trembling. He pales and there’s a moment when you think he might just come clean but it comes too late. Jason, fed up, shoves him, dislodging the gun from his grip and spinning it around to face the other man. You gasp, but it’s already over in a matter of seconds, the tables turned before you can blink.

“Only you, you said,” he breathes out heavily, expression hardening. He lifts the gun to point over his shoulder. “You try anything and unlike you, I won’t hesitate. I’m here for Grayson and you’re going to fucking take me to him.”

Red grits his teeth. “Fine.” He mumbles something under his breath that you strain your ears to catch as you draw closer. “Don’t...warned you, though.”

The bunker is dark as he leads you down a large stretch, your flashlights pointing straight into the black to avoid tripping. You’re aware of your obvious disadvantage – though you might outnumber him, he knows this place far more intimately – and it makes you wary as you step through. When the hallway finally opens out, it’s into a wider, caverned space, and you descend a set of stairs into a small atrium of sorts. There is no sign of any other occupants – nothing scattered across the large tables joined together to meet in the middle, chairs left firmly pushed in.

Your gut curls as he leads you through the bunker, and you draw closer to Jason. His hand reaches out to brush against yours briefly, before withdrawing. Once more, you reach a set of stairs and begin the ascent. Another exit, you note.

Twilight outside slips through when he opens the door and with it, the scent of something immeasurably wrong. You go to clutch the hem of Jason’s shirt, panic spiking in your veins, but he’s just out of reach, already stepping through. Against your will, you are tugged forward, as if a marionette on strings. The smell reaches you before you’re even out the door, and you retch when your eyes fall on what he’s brought you to.

Red is breathing hard, glancing between the both of you, unaware of just how precariously his life hangs in the balance now.

Looking at what he’s brought you before, you can’t find any pity for him.

Jason makes a strangled noise, and your own face is warm, the slide of tears dripping into the earth beneath you. Once more, you find a spiked fence, once more you find bodies speared. All strangers to you. To Jason –

There are echoes of a handsome face in the rotted visage of a nearby undead. Milky eyes stare hungrily when he draws closer, clamoured breaths fogging in the air in front of him, anguished. Red remains forgotten, attention stolen by the groans of what had once been most loved. Jason’s knees give out before him, and he falls forward into the muck, prostrate in grief.

Flanking his sides, two younger bodies – both who receive the same reception. He doesn’t have to say a word. Grayson. Drake. Wayne. The youngest, no older than 16, bears the worst injuries compared to his counterparts. Grief rolls in through you, and overhead there is a distant rumble of thunder.

You turn, the contents of your empty stomach splattering into the mud at your feet.

The acidity makes your eyes water and when you stand, wiping your mouth, you look to Jason. A new feeling grows within you, the longer you stare at him, a burning in your gut that simmers at the look on his face – too late, too late. One, two, three, all gone, before he could reach them. Worse still, his failure stands before him, a taunt of all that he had done, all that had not been enough.

Red is blurry when you turn your gaze to him, but it doesn’t soften the loathing that floods your being. He stands a few feet away, fidgeting, unsure what to make of this.

“You kept them,” you breathe out and he furrows his brows.

“Huh?”

You tilt your head in the direction of the pikes. There’s a throbbing in your head, and you’re distinctly aware of your hands growing numb. “They were your companions – and you couldn’t even put them to rest. You just left them like this, and for what? To protect yourself?”

Confusion bleeds into irritation. He isn’t forgiving of your tone, contempt in your every syllable.

“Don’t you fucking look at me like that,” he growls. “You don’t get to judge me – I’m doing what I gotta do to make it out here. Everything’s gone to hell and you wanna judge me? No fucking way, lady.”

“Fuck that,” you shoot back, shaking your head. A suppressed sob threatens to rise when you step forward to the pike, and he grows alarmed.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Putting them to rest,” you snap, and he lurches forward. He doesn’t get very far, Jason rising from the ground in silence and slamming him in the jaw with the butt of his rifle. He stumbles back, swearing.

“Don’t fucking touch her,” he warns, voice hoarse. Red-rimmed eyes seek yours out and you nod reassuringly.

“I’m okay.” You turn to Red, eyeing him disdainfully. “You can either help me get them down or go back inside, but I’m not leaving them like this.”

He chooses the latter, after some moments of silence, retreating through the doors mumbling under his breath and leaving the two of you alone with his brothers. A light mist has begun to roll in, and it clings to your hair and lashes as you move towards Jason.

He folds into you when you reach him and you stagger to support his weight, a hand resting on the back of his head as he takes a shuddering breath. His face hides in your neck, hands gripping your jacket tightly. You let out a soft sob, clutching him.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur, lips pressed against his head. “I’m so sorry.”

“Fuck,” he gasps, struggling to draw a breath. “Should’ve...’f I’d just fucking stayed...”

“It isn’t your fault,” you plead, but it rings hollowly between you, a feeble consolation that even now does little to free you of your own guilt.

He weeps and the mist turns to a gentle pour, rainwater streaming over your heads and muddying the ground at your feet further. You hold him like that, trembling frames clinging to each other in your shared grief. A second passes, and then another, until you’re unsure how long you’ve remained there. Long enough to grow roots, certainly. It’s difficult to move when you smooth a hand over his rain slicked head, to urge him forward.

“Come on,” you murmur thickly. “We have to do right by them.”

His face seizes again painfully, and you fear he might collapse once more. His grief holds him whole as he moves forward, and you flank him as he steps forward.

The youngest goes first, an apology on his lips as he presses the barrel of the rifle against Damian’s forehead. The silencer keeps the shot from ringing out, and his snarling face falls slack in mere seconds, slumping forward. You hold the rifle as he’s lifted; cradled in Jason’s arms, how young he truly was weighs on you, and you turn your face into your shoulder to muffle a cry. Jason places him gently on the ground, and turns back to you. Tim is next, and laid next to Damian. Jason lingers by his side, a hand cradling his head, and you feel, not for the first time, like a stranger bearing witness to something sacred, like you’ve stumbled across something not meant for your eyes.

All that’s left of their family are the two eldest, now, and Jason stands before the being that had once been his older brother. Dick Grayson leans forward, drooling and he doesn’t flinch, despite the rotted fingernails stretching out only inches from his face. One step forward, and he too would join them. You wonder if he isn’t half considering it, staring up at him.

“I’m sorry. Dick, I’m sorry, you hear me?” His voice trembles as he hefts the rifle. “You stupid bastard. I told you I was coming. Why didn’t you wait for me?”

There’s a current of betrayal in his words, hurt and grieving. In the dark, it’s hard to make out the expression on his face, but you can hear the hitch in his breath, the strangled sob he tries to bite back at the groan his brother lets out.

“B’s gonna – he’s gonna kick your ass, you know.” He’s gasping the words out, trembling violently and you’re helpless to do anything about it, rooted to the spot. Would that you could carry his burden for him – but it’s his to bear. “You better – fucking give it back. Fuck. I’m sorry.”

The last of his line, an orphan again – you hear Jason shed bitter tears as he shifts his older brother, laying his body beside the others.

He rises, sniffing loudly. The rain has stilled, but the temperature is unforgiving on your dampened skin, you fear the two of you might fall sick if you stay out here any longer. Still, it feels wrong to leave them here.

“Go inside,” Jason instructs, his voice rough. “Gonna get sick, standing around like this.”

“I’m not leaving you,” you refuse. “I’ve got your back. Come on.”

You find a shovel amongst a pile of tools, just outside the door. Within the circle, unwilling to venture beyond the safety of the fence, you dig. The muck makes it difficult, and your arms strain as you sift through the earth. The two of you take turns, and by the time your plot is dug, you’re covered in filth.

Only one grave is dug – “Keep them together,” Jason mumbles tightly and you nod. In your arms, his youngest brother is light. You kneel, lowering him into the ground with a whispered apology of your own. It will never reach the ears it was meant for, but you repeat yourself, and then once more, when the third body is laid down. You make a vow of your own, too, to these three, whose brother might have reached them in time had you been a little faster – had he not been slowed down by you.

I’m sorry, you apologise, thrice over. I’m sorry. I’ll take care of him in your stead.

You climb up, standing beside Jason as the wind begins to howl, a wordless service to the fallen. Bitter, guilty and grieving, the two of you pack the earth over their bodies. Buried, you hope they’re at rest – and hope they’ll forgive you.

It’s only in the late hours of the night that the two of you return through the doors. Red startles awake where he’d been sitting in the atrium when you shuffle in, tracking in mud and grime with you. Bloodshot eyes scrutinise you before he tilts his head. “Shower’s through there. Should be a clean towel in there.”

You tip your head tiredly, and Jason nudges you in the direction of the bathroom. You’re dead on your feet, and more than once you stumble, muscles aching and mind foggy. The cold has begun to set in, and your fingers feel numb from the hours outside.

Jason locks the bathroom door after he steps in with you, scrubbing wearily at his face. He lifts his chin, a silent request for you to go first. You don’t have any time to protest before he drops to sit against the closed toilet lid, eyes closing firmly.

Stiffly, you peel off your mud-stained clothes, stepping into the small stream of water. The warmth takes you by surprise, and Jason lifts his head at the noise you make, finding your gaze in the thin cloud of steam that’s begun to amass in the air.

You okay?

You offer him a nod, and he lowers his head once more.

Neither of you speak, when you leave the bathroom later, about the sniffles you’d been unable to mask under the thin spray of water or the red that rims Jason’s eyes. The only other inhabitant of the bunker has long since retreated to one of the bunks and you curl up in a different room, listening to the tremulous breaths across the room. In the dark, Jason lies in the bunk closest to the door, a chair wedged against the door – just in case.

It’s difficult to sleep, despite the events of the last day. Exhaustion weighs your limbs down, and though you’d scrubbed down every inch of dirt, the grave clings to you still. Beneath closed eyelids you can still see the twist of their faces, of Jason’s when denial had made way for grief, stubborn disbelief swept away by a tidal wave when he’d met milky eyes.

Tears once more. You press your fingertips to your face, shucking the duvet higher up to muffle your breathing.

He hears it anyway. There’s a warmth at your back that you don’t startle at, only shuffling closer to the wall and making room as he slips under the covers with you. Perhaps it’s for your comfort, but you don’t doubt that he seeks it, if only partly, for himself, too. His forehead presses to the back of your head, and arm sliding beneath your neck. You clasp the hand that finds a home over your stomach, turning your head to press your mouth against the skin of his forearm.

Words conjure in your mind and fall short, a static-y mess of jumbled letters. There is nothing to offer him in place of the loss he’s suffered today. Your hands remain empty. Would that you could turn back time. All that could have been taunts you in the darkness beneath your lids.

When you turn to press your face into his neck, settling your weight firmly in his arms, it feels like both a plea and a measly tribute. What is a stranger in the place of three brothers?

When dawn breaks, you are deep beneath the earth. Sunlight does not reach through the walls of the bunker, and so you are disoriented when you wake. It is as dark as when you’d closed your eyes, but you’ve shifted in your sleep, and your bed is missing a body.

Panic seizes you first, and you sit up straight, ripping the covers off. You’re halfway out of bed when you trip over the rucksacks, and the fall startles you enough into realising you aren’t in danger. Much, anyway, you reason when you slink out of the room and find Red in the hallway. He raises a brow at you, and you press your lips tightly together, unwilling to interact with him any more than you have to.

“Your man’s down the end of the hall,” he tells you gruffly, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. You hum indifferently, waiting for him to leave before you start in the direction of the room.

You’re led to another bedroom, larger, with more cots pushed into it. Jason stands in the centre of it, holding a shirt in his hands that you don’t recognise from the contents of his bag. He turns over his shoulder at the sound of your footsteps, relaxing when he realises it isn’t Red.

“Hi,” you whisper, lingering at the threshold. The air is still in the room, and you’re hesitant to disturb it. A twitch of his mouth is your answer, a tilt of his head that coaxes you closer.

There’s a scribble of initials on the tag, D.G scrawled over the care instructions. Your fingers curl into a fist at your side, and you turn away, ashamed. It’s hard not to bear this guilt. It lingers with you, clogging your throat at the sight of the few possessions that clutter the room. You don’t have to draw closer to know whose room this had been.

“We’re leaving. I’m not staying here,” Jason says finally, and you turn to look at him. He clutches the shirt in his hand, fingers curling in the blue fabric.

What else is there to say? You go where he does.

“Okay,” you tell him, and only when his shoulders loosen do you realise they’d been tense in the first place, as though he had expected resistance, fearing your denial. “Should I go get our things?”

He shakes his head. “Too late to go anywhere now. We slept through the day.”

How are you up, you wonder, staring at him. How can you continue, how can you move on? But you see it, in the lines of his face, the fragility of his facade. There’s a haunting in his eyes, emerald turned viridian, and his hands tremble in front of him. Barely kept together, there’s a silent plea.

Don’t press. Not now. Now is not the time to break. There will be time to mourn your loss later.

So you don’t ask. You don’t press. You lead him out of that room, away from the ghosts, away from the pencil shavings left undisturbed and a sketchbook that never got to be filled. Another day passes, the first in a world without his brothers. He sleeps in your bed again, and your fingers intertwine in the dark. He presses his cheek against your pillow, and you remain awake until his breathing evens out.

Dawn breaks and you leave with a handful of things shoved into your packs. You don’t tell Red, nor do you care to wake him when you leave.

“Where will we go?” you ask Jason, when you break out of the woods. His face seizes painfully at the reminder that there is nothing to reach now, nobody waiting on the other end to make it worth the pain.

“Anywhere, I guess,” he croaks. He glances over his shoulder doubtfully. “You still with me?”

“I made a promise, didn’t I?” It’s far from what you want to say. But you think he understands, and there’s a hint of gratitude in the crease of his eyes – the time is not now, but not never.

That selfish hope tides you over, tightens your grip on his hand as you step out into the wasteland.

For a long time, the two of you drift. Unmoored, adrift with nowhere to go, you struggle. Days bleed into night, dusk into dawn, rinse and repeat. If you could ever find such a thing, you come closest to finding respite in the thick of the woods. Winter draws closer, closer, and you make your camp where you can find it, hollowed husks of dead trees, cordoning off the area with noise makers before you fall into fitful sleep on a bed of dead, dry leaves.

It’s difficult, grappling with the loss. There are no more moments in between – every breath spent covering as much ground as you can before nightfall and taking turns keeping watch. The cold cuts you deep out here, a knife that whittles you down to the bone. Selfish, you long for the cabin, longing for the stillness, for once. Ever in motion, you don’t linger in one place for too long. The woods are thick and you don’t intend to see winter through here.

Jason curls himself even tighter around you now. His body canvasses yours, nose pressed firm into your neck when you sleep. In the early mornings you wake in a vice grip and it becomes impossible to disentangle yourself from him without resorting to waking him, too. Always with a start, thrust violently into consciousness, he opens his eyes, alert. He seeks you out, first, before scanning your surroundings. Only when he’s satisfied there isn’t an active threat does he loosen his grip on you, following to keep guard as you relieve yourself.

He remains closer to your side than ever now, but he couldn’t feel further away.

There is a lifelessness in his eyes that only sparks when you chance upon walkers. Bloodshed sparks his adrenaline, and he takes a long time to come down, breathing heavily and eyes alight with a fire you haven’t seen since then.

Blood, always blood. You track it through the country, soles red. It cakes in your hair and darkens your clothes. This time around, there is no cabin, no wardrobe to replace your clothes. The fleece in your jacket is matted now, Jason’s shredded his further.

You still with me? Jason asks you one night, when the two of you have curled close to a small fire. Chest at your back, all you can see of him is the white of his fingers, scarred digits curled against your own.

Still here. (Still yours, you think.)

And that is the end of it. You don’t bother with reassurances, not when his palm presses over your heart – he feels it for himself, a vow intact. The cords threading you together are silken, unbowing. As he shadows you, so do you follow in his stead, treading the path after him unthinkingly.

It makes sense, that the end comes soon, once more.

It’s been a long year, and you’re weary. Down to the bone, you feel it, the heaviness of being. Of continuing, fighting against the grain to survive another day. You’re living on borrowed time and now, more than ever, it becomes apparent to you that it’s begun to run out. Perhaps the clock had started on that first day of it all, when the bridges had fallen. Or had it been when you’d found each other in the destroyed remains of your home city? You think it had been when you’d closed in on Georgia.

Death catches up to you. It had always been in the periphery of your lives, drawing closer with every staggered step, every brush of rotting breath, every encounter that got too close. Now, it drifts in, unbidden.

Bodies litter the forest ground, muddied, rotting. The clearing looks out on a cloudy sky, thick grey hanging low, the promise of a storm.

You and Jason fall last, staggering into the centre of the clearing. The wounds are deep this time, too deep. Copper, and the scent of petrichor. A thick mist that rolls in, a sheath for your bodies, a funeral shroud for a ceremony you won’t see. Side by side, you stare at the sky.

“I’m...” Heavy, gasping breaths. You use the last of your strength to turn your head. Fading green eyes find yours. “I’m...sorry.”

Your own burn with tears, and you brush your fingers against his. “Not your fault.”

Bloody lips press against your own, bitter against your tongue. Hand in yours, Jason goes first. His movements slacken, and then, it is only you. Time, more time. If you’d only had more of it. In the next life, perhaps. Jason goes first and, as you had promised, you follow.

The end of the world comes and goes and then you, too, join the horde.

fin.

i started this during finals season when all i could think about was the horror and tragedy of loving someone doomed to die.

'Do you still believe myths can save you? Foolish creature. Let me be clear: every version of this story ends with you being slaughtered' << this exactly.

anyway this was inspired by everywhere, everything by noah kahan but also, sort of: bones and all, the walking dead, ethel cain and the midwestern gothic ? maybe i'm misusing that term but i mean specifically location wise. the eeriness of how quiet the world would be after its end, how disconcerting it would be when all you knew was Gotham, too, never resting, always in motion. the end comes and you're driven out from a city you longed to leave, but now all you want is to go home.

at so many points throughout writing this, i wanted to keep jason (and reader) alive, even though i knew he was going to die well before i even started writing this. i struggled a lot with sticking to that decision, but i feel like in a lot of my writing i give them happier endings and i wanted to try something newer for a change. i don't think i'm as well versed in this sort of genre, i mostly write light-hearted romance. but i also think there is something beautiful in tragic romances that i don't explore enough. so here is my attempt at this.

anyway. this only makes sense 2 me, probably. i still hope you enjoyed reading it though

#jay my heart #jasonsmirrorball #jason todd reader insert #jason todd x reader #jason todd imagine #jason todd fanfiction #x reader #x fem!reader

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phyrestartr · 3 months ago

Text

Man of Worship (P.1) | Zagreus x M!Reader

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

w/c: 2.3k #NSFW themes, demigod reader, eventual polyamory, traumatic past, healing from trauma, mentions of dub-con, mentions of suicide, hurt/comfort, boys being boys, toxic parents, olympic gods doing typical olympic god bs

Note: SO this is basically a rework of Rhubarb, even though I still want to pursue the rest of Rhubarb with that particular reader character, HOWEVER I generally make two or three versions of the same story while I'm brainstorming, and I ended up digging into more Greek mythos while looking for inspo and BOOM.

ANYWAY I didn't tag for this since it's a new fandom I'm writing for, but if you'd like to be tagged, pls feel free to leave a comment!! I'll update my tag form thing in a moment too :D I hope this is a fun read!!

1. A Gardener?

He noticed first the flutter of feathered wings. It was an odd thing to hear in the underworld, and even odder still to hear it come from the outer gardens–the place poor, pitiful Zagreus was barred from.

Father won't tell me anything of this. And that was true--Hades was anything but straightforward and honest with his son. So, to the real parent of the house was where the prince went.

“Erm, Nyx?” Zagreus asked, shooting glances back at the iron gates as he met his mother-figure. “I've got a question for you, if you don't mind.”

“I do not mind. I will do my best to answer, my child.” She watched him with eased attention, then followed his gaze to the forbidden outdoors. “Is something the matter?”

“No–well, maybe? Not sure, but. Well.” Zagreus rubbed the back of his neck. “Just–are there birds out in the garden?”

Nyx blinked. “Birds?”

“Yes. I keep hearing something fluttering around every now and then, and I swear I've seen something moving around in the garden. You know, the one I'm not allowed to enter?”

“Ah.” The goddess nodded. “Of course. There is a new servant of the house, one who was chosen to tend to the gardens.”

“Really.” Zagreus planted his hands on his hips and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, gaze returning to the forbidden area. “Well, that's the first I've heard of it.”

“He does not linger long; he arrives with the sun, and leaves only when the work is done,” Nyx explained. “He is a diligent helper of the House. Your father is quite pleased, I've noticed.”

“Well, I've never thought that Father could be pleased in any regards.” Zagreus’ mismatched gaze flickered back to Nyx. “But why now? The garden's never needed a tender before.”

“A flower wilted,” Nyx sighed, looking aside. “And your father has grown concerned.”

“Hah. Concerned for the plants? Good to know he can still give a damn about something,” Zagreus bit, sending a scalding glare to the throne. “Guess that's why he locked it up, kept it from me.”

Night smiled, sympathetic. “You do have a reputation.”

“One that I must uphold,” he agreed, heart light and spirit lifted higher. “Thank you, Nyx. I should get back to ransacking my father's domain.”

Nyx nodded sagely and reached a hand up, fixing the tilt of Zagreus’ burning laurel. “I would hope for nothing less, my child.”

–

“You play music?”

Your voice startled Zagreus, sending a Zeus-like jolt through him and holding him in place with a fit of numbing static. Thankfully, however, twas not the true bite of the sky king, and Zagreus had the luxury to back out of his room a few paces.

“You heard?” He asked, face somehow both paling and burning in tandem.

You, whilst leaning against the iron gate, nodded. “‘N if I did?”

“Oh.” Zagreus rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “That's unfortunate. Sorry for the bother.”

“Don't misunderstand me, god.” Your spectral eyes bore into him with easy confidence. Zagreus quite liked that look. “You played much like a dying pigeon at first, I'll admit, but you've improved.”

Zagreus laughed and approached you. Your dry informality pricked him with intrigue. “Well, now I know you're lying.”

“Lies are useless for those who need the truth.” Your words came so bold, the prince had no choice but to believe you. “I can hear it. The notes–they come easier to you. Sweeter, even. Like figs ripe on the tree.”

“Figs?” Zagreus tilted his head much like Cerberus might. “Huh. Can't say I've had one of those.”

“Really? Well, then I shall see to it that you wonder no longer, god.” You leaned away, nearly out of sight of the iron-barred gateway, and jostled through the leaves of a bush or tree of sorts before the sharp snap of something announced your return.

You stuck your arm through a gap in the fence, one where your glowing skin was threatened by a cascade of decorative thorns, but you didn't much care. That care, instead, found itself funneled into the deliverance of a ripe fig to the prince of the underworld, it seemed.

Zagreus stared for a moment. He wasn't used to receiving gifts unless he bestowed one upon another, first. To him, this almost felt like–could it be--

“If you don't take it in the next three seconds, I'm going to eat it myself and not hand you another,” you groused.

“Hah.” He snatched the fruit from your hand. “You wouldn't dare.”

“I've dared much worse, god, believe me.” You withdrew your hand and drummed your palms against the iron. “Well, enjoy. And be sure to clean your hands before touching that lyre again.” You looked him over, face placid as it'd been for his entire short history knowing you–but your eyes, the strange things, they hinted at hidden curiosities. “I'll be listening.”

–

“Say, Meg, do you know much about the new House attendant?” Zagreus asked, flourishing his Stygian blade as he walked towards the Fury, prepared to fight after a quick chat.

Megaera's eyes narrowed. “You're talking about the flirt.”

“The flirt?” Zagreus rested his sword down, digging its diamond tip into the cracked ground. “Is that really what he's known for? Flirting? He doesn't seem like the type.”

A heavy sigh left Meg. “Ask Than. He might be more willing to endure your rambling and answer questions. I am not.”

“You know, I think we really need to work on your patience.” Still, he flicked up his blade of the underworld, and lunged first.

–

As the Fates would have it, Thanatos was already at the House. Even more fateful, still, was where he stood–not by the river Styx, no, but by the garden’s gate for a change. Death's presence on that side of the house seemed…odd, despite his infrequent visits to the lounge. Never before did he show interest in a coworker, neither, not unless it was his twin who needed some firm and stringent guidance.

“Admiring the flowers?” Zagreus asked, and Death flinched.

“No, I–” He sighed, and spared a look over his shoulder. “What do you want, Zagreus?”

The shorter one shrugged, and stood beside his age-old friend. “Came to find you. Is that so odd?”

“If you're going to shove more nectar in my hands, then you can forget it.” Thanatos looked away again and scowled beyond iron bars. “You've made your bed.”

Zagreus stifled a sigh, and rubbed the back of his neck. “I–well–in all honesty, I had a question, one that I'd hoped you could answer.”

“Then ask.”

“Right to the point then.” Zagreus cleared his throat and shuffled closer to Death. “Who exactly is the new gardener? Meg said you might know.”

Thanatos graced him with a wide-eyed stare. “I thought you'd know by now.”

Zagreus shrugged. “I wouldn't be asking if I knew.”

“He is–” Death paused, his jaw tightening, tendons threatening to snap. “Why do you want to know?”

Zagreus convinced himself not to pry. “We haven't had a new servant of the House in, well, eternities. Father wouldn't allow just anyone in here.”

“Sure, but don't you think you should ask him yourself?”

“It's hard to catch him. He's quite flighty, as Fate would have it. Must be the wings.”

“Must be.” Zagreus swore he heard the inkling of a smile on those words. “Well, I don't think it's fair for me to spoil the introduction. But I will say this–he was a servant of the House in life, and now continues on in death.”

“Really?” Zagreus couldn't quite wrap his head around it. How could someone be devoted to the house before even arriving?

“Yes. He made my job easier, in some regards. Assisted, at the very least,” Death said.

“Huh.” Zagreus crossed his arms and scuffed his sole against time-worn stone. “Guess that explains that. I don't suppose you'd be willing to go into elaborate detail regarding what exactly our avian gardener did in life to earn yours and Father's favour? Or, even just his name?”

“No.” A luminous wash of turquoise licked off Death's shoulders, his scythe. “Ask him yourself. I've work to do.”

And with the toll of a bell, he was gone.

–

It took a while to catch you again. Apparently, you kept to a strict, self-imposed schedule that Zagreus couldn't even begin to understand despite its simplicity. Nyx told him you arrived come morning, at the very least. That may have been helpful, if Zagreus could tell the damn time in the underworld.

So, he resorted to guessing; if he could not find you through the convenience of your daily routine, he'd swing by whenever he died. He was bound to run into you at some point.

And he did. It was when he wandered to the lounge, eager to deliver a wealth of fish to the head chef, that he caught the ghostly sound of feathers against leaves.

Zagreus backed out of the lounge in time to see your curious glance. A rush pulsed through him–finally, finally, he'd get his chance to interrogate you.

“Hey!” He called.

“Hey,” You called back.

“Just--don’t go anywhere. I need to hand over some river denizens and then I need to speak with you,” Zagreus rambled off as quickly as he could.

Your brows furrowed, but you offered a shallow nod. “I'll wait up.”

With that, Zagreus sped by the gossiping Meg and Dusa and a gaggle of other patrons to all but throw his catch to the head chef. It was a good haul today. Hopefully that meant–ah ha.

Zagreus rolled the bottle of nectar over in his hands. “Pleasure doing business with you,” he sang, and ran off, tucking the gift away before approaching the iron bars.

You were toiling away, a little farther in the garden than before, but not too far to escape the prince's presence. It gave him a chance to take a good look at you: simple black chiton on a well-muscled frame, wings full of bronze feathers, wild hair tied back into the smallest of ponytails. You looked quite ordinary, save for the wings.

But your eyes had been strange: they glowed. Not with the morose cold of Ixion, but with the exact opposite. Warm. Bronze. Sunlit, maybe. He'd never known sunlight, but you must have kept a drop of it in your very soul.

“So?” You said as you meandered back to him. You walked with unbothered confidence, much different to Zagreus’ sprightly impatience. “What important matters must we discuss?”

“Your name, first of all,” the prince requested. “I am Zagreus, son of Hades and--"

“Prince of the underworld,” you added. “Well, I figured you were him. Good to have a proper introduction, I suppose.” You took a breath. “As for me, you'll call me (Name).”

Zagreus repeated the name. It held a fullness in his mouth, something sweet and foreign, too much like the fig you'd offered him not too long ago. Maybe you were the minor god of figs (wouldn't that be something?).

“Pleased to meet you, then. I trust the garden will be well-kept in your capable hands. And wings,” Zag said. “Oh! And, ah, here--a token of thanks for your hard work.”

Your brows raised and Zagreus’ chest filled with hope; for once, your blank mask changed, and you looked less like a gorgon-born statue and more like a human. Somehow, it gave him relief.

But your expression crumpled into furrowed brows and narrowed eyes. “Nectar?” You wondered aloud.

Zagreus nodded and slipped the bottle best he could through the gap. “Yes, I…I hope you will take it, if it pleases you.”

You examined the bottle as it slipped into your hand and leaned a shoulder up against the gate. “Odd. Why is it in the underworld?”

The tension left Zagreus’ muscles as you accepted the gift. “Not a clue. Maybe Olympus ferries some down here from time to time to try and liven things up.”

“Hah.” The mock laughter almost sounded genuine. “Dionysus would, from what I've heard of him.” You held the bottle up, watching the light reflect shards of gold and ghostly greens. “He's not so bad, that god of wine.”

“You've met him?” Zagreus wondered.

“No,” you admitted. Your light-filled eyes found him again. “But I've met gods, when I once lived. No man should have to meet them. They bring misfortune, even the supposed good ones.”

The prince took a sure step forward, and your eyes steeled. “Well, you're right about Dionysus,” he assured instead of scorned. “He's good. I'm sure he's had his moments, still. But I get on with him well.” I'm sure you would, too, he decided against saying; the more he took in your features, the more he realized the god's work carved into you, painting you unnatural colours and robbing you of something only humans could have. He didn't think you'd much enjoy being forced into a hypothetical with them.

“Then I shall take your word for it,” you said. “And I will pretend this bottle comes from Dionysus, to make it more palatable.”

“Well, whatever pleases you.” Zagreus smiled and leaned against the wall by the gate. “But, if I may ask, which gods have you–”

“Boy,” Hades’ voice thundered, echoing down the hall. “Do not disturb the rest of the House and distract them from their duties. Unlike you, they do not wish to disappoint.”

Zagreus clicked his tongue and looked over his shoulder. “Yes, of course, Father. I'll get right to ignoring every blasted person in this damn House. Perhaps I'll consider a life of solitude while I'm at it!”

“Do not test me further, boy.”

Zagreus rolled his eyes, but gave in, finding your (gentler?) eyes once again. “Well. I'd more than happily argue with my father all day–or night–about this, but I wouldn't want you to bear the punishment.”

You nodded a little and glanced from the prince back down to the bottle. “I appreciate this, princeling.”

“It's nothing, really.” Though Zagreus did indeed beam with delight. “Well, then I'll leave you to your work.”

“Be sure to come back. I need to return the favour,” you said as you turned. “Until then, princeling.”

#cw: death #cw: suicide #cw: dubcon #male reader insert #male reader #zagreus x reader #zag x reader #zagreus hades x reader #zagreus hades game x you #hades game reader insert #hades game x reader #zagreus x male reader #hades game male reader insert

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