#people used to just write their slash in peace

[fulloflambing]

࣪ . ִֶָ๋ KINICH: ❝ HEAVEN CAN WAIT. ❞

pairing: kinich x afab!reader (uses she/her) synopsis: during the invasion of the abyss, the bond between you and kinich is put to the test when you're both lost in the chaos searching for eachother, as he fulfills his sacred duty as one of the heroes of Natlan. warnings: spoilers of the 5.1 archon quests! lots of bodily injury + descriptions of gore, the war ingame is described in a darker way here, cursing, many mentions of death. wordcount: 5.4k cho’s notes: PLS SRSLY LISTEN TO THE INJURY WARNING!! i might be a little dramatic but theres an injury here that made me geek when i was writing it idk. this is basically 5.4k words of me pretending to understand the mechanics of the ode of resurrection 😭 i was inspired to write this after playing the 5.1 aq! hope u guys enjoy this, happy reads <3

taglist: @sillywinnertidalwave

Today marked the exact moment the people of Natlan realized that the abyss weren’t just these noisy hilichurls you see camping in the meadows or the occasional mages you’d encounter in the caves; The Abyss was a ruthless cult of monsters with their uniform goal of bringing humanity to its demise.

‘It was never supposed to get this bad.’ was the only thought racing through Kinich's mind as he swung from cliffs to trees as fast as he could, the muscles in his arms feeling like they could rip apart if he swung one more time, his head slightly burning with exhaustion and heart racing with overwhelming pressure.

People were getting massacred on the ground underneath him, as numerous warriors and guards pushed themselves beyond their limit to fend off the neverending wave of rifthounds and hilichurls coming from the illuminating pylons—and he couldn’t do anything about it. Not when everyone and everything needed his aid, all at once.

But Kinich had someone to come home to, and it was you.

The last moment of peace the both of you had together was just earlier today; Sipping coffee and eating fruit together, discussing light subjects to try and distract each other from the rising attacks of the abyss, totally oblivious to the fact that Natlan would be dragged into war by them hours later. 

He felt like it was just a minute ago when you sat in front of him, and glowed under the sunlight, slicing apples intricately as your lips spilled words. ‘How could this happen?’ he thought.

The image of you smiling, your face full of faith pulsed in his mind, making his stomach twist when his eyes landed on the village of the Scions of the Canopy; it was on the brink of ruin.

Caravans and carts were being ripped open with the goods spilling onto the ground only to be squashed, children getting dragged by desperate parents, greedy businessmen clawing at their money hoping it would save them, and the scattered limp bodies of innocent natlanese. The sky loomed over everyone’s heads in an eerie color, only amplifying the hopelessness he rarely felt in his chest. The scent of blood and burning ash filled his nostrils the second he violently landed onto the oversized canopy, mildly hurting his ankles in the process.

“Y/n? Y/n!” He called out among the frenzy, his eyes darting to every face he could spot. He got on his heel and started running— desperate that you wouldn’t appear as one of the bodies that were left to rot on the ground. 

He raced to your house, and tried to push the door open with no luck. He had no time to care for it, and just slashed through it with his bulky claymore and bursted into the room, his eyebrows knitted together, pupils dilated, cold sweat on his nape. His eyes don’t spot you in your usual leisure spot of your common room, making his heart drop. He checked all other rooms, and finally opened your bedroom:

You weren’t there.

You weren’t anywhere.

His heart hurt with every beat, and he desperately clawed at his chest trying to get back his calm composure he was always known for. But what for?

“Just give it up, that peasant probably turned into abyss food long before you even got here. Stop wasting your time, my time!” Ajaw suddenly hissed out, his words filling kinich’s mind with poison.

Imaginations of your body growing limp and cold, face turning blue, and blood oozing out from some part of your body as rifthounds dug through your flesh flashed through his head. And he tried to stop it. But with the spinning of his head and the lifelessness of your house that was once so full with your laughter, it just kept getting worse.

He stood with a lowered head, his hand gripping his claymore so tight his knuckles turned white. He fought back tears as his mind danced like a kaleidoscope. To him, there would be no use in saving Natlan, if you weren’t in the picture.

He was supposed to not let his will in defeating the abyss sway at all, you wouldn’t want that. No one would want that. He doesn’t either. But now faced with the odds that you might not be able to experience a Natlan that is finally free from centuries of prejudice, after you’ve been by his side telling him to have faith that the day will come, and the dreams you want to accomplish when everything is finally okay��� It seemed unfair. SO unfair.

He whispers to himself, or rather to anything who was willing to listen, with a shaky voice: “If only one wish of mine can be granted for my whole lifetime, please.. Keep her safe. That’s all I ask.”

🎕 ‧₊˚ ⋅

The clashing of weapons against the shelled skin of the abyss monsters zipped through the air, as you swiftly dodged the claws of a relentless rifthound; you’ve been doing this for hours now.

You were helping your tribe, the Scions of the Canopy, strengthen its defenses before the outbreak until you were called by a messenger to help strengthen defenses of an adventurer’s base southeast of the village as it was being easily overwhelmed by the enemies. As the head of preparing defenses from the village, you happily obliged.

But now you were almost hours into battle, with your body aching in all different spots, as you tried your best to continue evading the insistent attacks of numerous monsters. You couldn’t find the energy to swing your sword with maximum strength anymore, so all you could muster up was to dodge them.

“Fuck! Will you ever quit!?” you yell, before pushing yourself beyond your limits again, attacking with frustration. You slashed through the tough skin of the rifthound with your dendro-infused blade, making it dissipate into purple smoke with a screeching growl before fading into the air.

You had a second for a breather and  took a deep breath, which you regretted immediately. “ugh!” you cried, falling to your knees, grabbing your side. You recall the moment you heard something snap when a hilichurl swung its wooden baton at your side when you were busy confronting a different monster. You broke your rib, and it was now piercing your lung.

You stared into the dirt, forehead collecting sweat. You took your hand off of your side, seeing blood paint your palm a deep scarlet. You touched your forehead, and brought your hand back to your eyes— You were bleeding. everywhere.

Your eyes sting with tears, the reality of the situation slowly setting into your head— The chances of you leaving this battlefield alive was slim. Your teeth press against your bottom lip tightly, the pain being incomparable to the injuries you’ve sustained. 

‘I’m sorry kinich.’ echoed in your mind. Kinich had been training you recently, for you to be ready in case of an invasion and he wasn’t there to protect you. But here you are, head-first onto the ground, realizing you’ll probably die in the next few minutes.

‘I’m sorry kinich.. I’m not built for this.’ you whimpered, tears slowly trickling down your face. You felt so heavy with hopelessness, you felt like you could start sinking into the solid dirt beneath your body.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this. You were only supposed to continue helping people fend off the abyss for a few more days, until the Pyro Archon solved the crisis. And after she did, you would’ve explored places outside of Natlan with Kinich. Sumeru was the first region you both agreed to visit; It was always a dream that you shared together to travel all of Teyvat one day. Hell, you even had a hunch he’d propose to you somewhere down the line of your voyage. 

So why are you kneeling on the floor, bleeding from every possible corner of your body, accepting your demise as your comrades slowly thin in number?

‘How long do I have to keep this up? I feel like if I swing my sword one more time, my arms will come flying off. I can’t do it anymore. This is something only strong people can do. Strong people like kinich. I can’t. I just can’t. I ca-’

Woosh!, Your ears picked up the sound and you jumped to your feet, barely escaping the blade of an enormous mitachurl that almost claimed your head. 

You tumbled lightly onto the ground, before you hold your sword up again with both your hands, your limbs trembling hopelessly in the gaze of the towering monster over you with demonic horns. You almost drop your blade and just let it kill you right then and there. 

But kinich appeared in your thoughts.

The mitachurl was standing the way the dummy kinich built for you was. Kinich’s voice instructing you rippled in your thoughts: “swing your sword down to the left, diagonal to the body. Then, slice up to the right, also diagonally. For the final blow, strike straight down the crown of its head, taking force from your shoulders. ”

You listen to kinich on repeat a few times, drawing imaginary lines on the body of the scowling mitachurl that stomped closer to you. You gulped the lump in your throat, before you did exactly what kinich taught you.

You twist your body with your edge in the air, taking a (painful) deep breath before swinging your blade to the left in a declining path. The mitachurl stumbles back at your sudden strike making an mmgh! sound, breaking down some of its armor. You quickly slice back up in the opposite direction before it could react any further. Your shoulder burned with every twist, but you had to keep going.

As it stumbled one more time, You bring your weapon above your head, and ignite it with dendro, causing a deep green aura to emit from your person. You meet eyes with the monster; It looked horrified. You stood there ready to take its life, appearing like a monster yourself with the blood that dripped down your head, your eyes seething with revenge.

You spare no more time before completely slicing straight down its head with maximum precision. A loud growl slowly faded with the noise, just as its body did, turning into a dark smoke. 

“If my life is going to end with this battle, then please grant my final wish—” You whispered, looking at your blood-stained hands, hoping the heavenly principles could hear your wish among the deafening sound of war:

“—Please.. Keep kinich safe for me.”

🎕 ‧₊˚ ⋅

The people seeking refuge in a temporary hideout turn their heads at the noise of their beloved heroes walking into the space. ‘Baraka’ Xilonen, ‘Umoja’ Mualani, ‘Uwezo’ Iansan, ‘Bidii’ Ororon, and ‘Vuka’ Chasca. There was only one more hero missing.. ‘Malipo’ Kinich.

Kinich had just rounded up civilians he saved from the village, and brought them there for safety. His gaze met with his friends, before he carefully placed a baby he was protecting into the arms of its mother— The baby had your eyes, which gravitated him into holding it just a little longer. He walked over to them with heavy steps, still trying to keep his composure despite the pain weaving his insides; just like them. 

“It’s the final phase of mavuika’s plan. We have to get back to the stadium, and help her with the Ode of Resurrection.” Xilonen says. “Can you do it?” 

It’s not like he had any other choice so he just nodded, not being able to muster up the strength to talk.

“Kinich.. Did something happen?” Mualani asked, taking notice of his silence as she placed her hand on his shoulder in support. It was clear she was just as broken down as he was, covered in bruises and scratches. But she continued to stay strong and pulled an empathetic look for him, trying to get his lowered eyes to meet hers.

“I.. couldn’t find y/n.” Kinich barely mumbled, the dread he felt earlier coming back to him, feeling like it only got worse verbalizing it. His eyes stuck to the ground, refusing to peel away.

The five heroes suddenly feel the air grow thick, a gasp leaving Iansan and Mualani's lips. This reaction only made the feeling worse, his fingertips digging into his palm. ‘Why does it have to turn out like this? I don’t fucking get it. It’s unfair. Not fair. Not fair to me, to her.’

The five struggled to find words to say, but ajaw quickly filled the space, spitting out: “Fear not lowly humans! For when Kinich finally slips in this final fight and accidentally ends up kicking the bucket, I, the almighty dragonlord, k’uhul ajaw! Will reign over this world once more! And the abyss will no longer be the biggest threat Natlan has faced!” The 8-bit monster laughed proudly with its jagged voice.

Kinich suddenly snapped at the puny dragon: “Zip it ajaw. Let’s go.” before stepping out of the hideout. The heroes gave each other glances, before silently following after him. They weren’t scared of kinich releasing ajaw, they knew kinich would never do that to them. But it was him they were worried about.

Kinich never handled loss well. It often resulted in.. Accidents. Towards himself.

🎕 ‧₊˚ ⋅

You continued to fight your way to survival, the dendro vision hanging by your hip flashing every few seconds. You shifted your focus to destroy nearby pylons. Your hands had bruised, and slowly became callused and firm. The amount of blood loss you’ve endured has slowly started affecting you too, as your actions started getting sloppier, following your sight getting hazy from time to time.

‘Ching!’ You sliced through the last mitachurl around— atleast, last one before another one spawns—and fell to your battered knees. You sat there, gasping, your body begging for air. 

“Y/n!” a fellow comrade called out, rushing to your side. You can hear him mumbling something to you, but it’s incoherent. You looked at your dirty, bloodied hands, ‘what an ugly sight.’  

“Just.. keep pushing on y/n.” his words sound muffled to you and almost accompanied with sand; he’s losing hope too. 

Without warning, a bright beam of light suddenly shot up into the air, emerging from somewhere in the distance.

‘Huh?’ You look up.

The ray of light exploded into a star, making you wince at the glare. The explosion was so grand, you felt the earth tremble all around you, and even felt a slight radiance of heat reach your skin, even when it was suspended so close to the stars.

The warriors and monsters’ brawl comes to a pause, all beings turning their heads to the magic unfolding above their heads.

You look back up once more. It’s the Pyro Archon.

“In the name of the Pyro Archon, Haborym,” the transcendent voice sends chills down your spine.

“I declare the Night Warden Wars underway—”

“—The Ode of Resurrection will guard all life, until the war is over!”

🎕 ‧₊˚ ⋅

Kinich might’ve lost his mind.

With the Ode of Resurrection, there was nothing in his way to contain the blood rushing through his veins anymore, the flame pumping his drive. There was no limit to the blood he could pour, no limit to the bones he could snap, no limit to the wounds he could take; There was no more life that kept him from death, and no death to threaten him to life. 

He shot himself through the trees and cliffs and plunged into the ground, slashing right into an abyssal pylon, immediately shattering it into pieces. The abyss that caught sight of his unhinged eyes,  became the last thing they saw. He swung his blade relentlessly, calculated with maximum precision embedded into every strike. Every blow he landed would end a life point-blank, not wasting a single movement. No monster could keep up with the speed of his assault, their death delivered to them in a blur.

A hilichurl had taken an open opportunity to stab him right through the heart from behind. He felt the flame inside him flicker for a second.

‘Again.’

He ripped the double sided polearm right out of his chest, before skewering the same hilichurl right through its chest with the same weapon. A cryo mage quickly sent icicles to penetrate through his limbs and vital organs. He felt the coldness pierce into his insides, feeling the flame inside him flicker for a second time.

‘Again.’

He swiftly turned around, and spun his claymore right into the mage, beheading it in the process. The mage had evaporated to its death, as his claymore spun right back into his palm, snug as a glove. A hilichurl decided to charge into his tall figure and stab him with a dagger, puncturing his abdomen. His flame flickered for the third time.

‘Again.’

He sliced down on the hilichurl, making it dissipate into the air with a groan. He pulled out the dagger from his body and carelessly threw it onto the ground. Noticing the area was clear, he flung himself back into the air, swinging himself through the thick trees and long branches. They would momentarily graze his skin, cutting and wounding him but it was nothing to him, not anymore.

His void eyes scanned through the rocky terrain underneath his feet, searching for your figure. ‘You have to be here. Somewhere. Anywhere.’ His thoughts of you distracted him from an incoming tree, before flying straight into its tree branch, his body getting skewered in the process. He let out a loud cry of agony— “aaghh!”���, hearing static ringing in his ears. His bewildered eyes landed at exactly where he got impaled before feeling his head go fuzzy, his eyes slowly losing light, and his body going limp. He feels his flame flickering once more.

‘Again.’

Life is shot right back into him as he braced himself again, taking a deep breath, and pulling himself off of the tree branch. His injury immediately punished him, making him wince. He took one last look at the tree branch covered in his gore before swinging himself again. He looked at the gaping hole in his abdominal cavity slowly patch and fill itself again, and for a moment he’s completely mesmerized by the power of the ode of resurrection. 

In his mind, he punished himself for not being by your side, for not protecting you. And his mode of punishment would be feeling your misery over and over again. The sensation of burning pain ending up to his death just to wake up again completely alive again all in a split second was intoxicating. He was preserving life, as he toyed with his own. 

In his mind, he would rather die a million deaths than find out he’d be alive without you around.

“Listen to me bastard! I’m starting to appreciate this new thing you got going on, you know, like actually following your master, me, Almighty dragonlord, K’uhul Ajaw! and using your vision for something exhilarating like ending lives. But I HATE! how i’m getting excited to take your body everytime you go floppy, but you just wake back up! It’s so ANNOYING!! So just keep it up until the fire-head woman turns the ode of what-ever-you-call-it off, and you stay dead. Alright!?”

🎕 ‧₊˚ ⋅

Mavuika looked longingly onto her people fighting for their nation underneath her feet, as she levitated in the dark sky. It was a surreal simulation to her; It was her that was the catalyst for their dreams and hopes. It left a deep impression of justice, duty and pressure on her. 

Mavuika took a deep breath, before feeling a surging power slither all throughout her body.

‘This has to end, now.’

She collected all the dreams her people have relayed to her, the hopes for a future guided with justice and equality, their ancestors and their prayers for Natlan, the lives of her beloved followers who had been sacrificed and martyred, into her fist and made it into her strength. 

Her hair ignited into its flamed form, as she shot out all the might and glory of Natlan into a beam of radiance, targeting the abyssal body that was the sole cause of terror over her nation. 

The Celestial body forms a temporary glowing shield to stand its ground, until it doesn’t.

It slowly starts shattering like thin glass, making her attack on it only more powerful. Her thrash breaks through until it exploded into a dark fume, her light piercing right through it and into the distant sky. The sky carries the sound of the thundering explosion, shaking nature all around.

The black cloud slowly starts fading, revealing the eradication of the Abyss.

The black sky lifts off of Natlan, revealing the blue once more. You choked out the blood that’s been pouring in your mouth for the longest time as you finally finish off the last creature in sight. The Abyss had been eliminated by the Pyro Archon, and no more would spawn. Dulled and scratched swords, torn bows, and unfortunate martyrs polluted the grassy field around. The noise of battle could still be heard somewhere distant but not around you anymore. 

You spat and coughed out blood onto your palm, your other hand clawing and digging into your chest trying to calm your rampaging heartbeat. You heard your remaining comrades cry and yell out of grief and solace. The words they yelled were incoherent, only being able to hear ringing. 

But you could almost make out what they're saying, somewhere along the lines of: ‘It’s over.’

🎕 ‧₊˚ ⋅

Kinich’s eyelids slowly peel open, feeling the heat of the sun greet his eyes immediately making him wince. He sits up and tries to gain back his senses, letting out a sore groan.

Ajaw perches up at the sound, and starts roaring in his ear: “You were supposed to be dead! I was so thrilled to finally take over your cold body, finally thinking of the horrors I'd run to this land, just to find our contract not working! Just bite the dust already you useless asparagus! Curse the archons!”

“Wh-what happened?” Kinich croaked, his throat stinging him in the process. Completely ignoring ajaw’s tantrum, he looks at the nature around him; There were dismantled weapons, a few dead bodies scattered meters apart, and an awful lot of silence. 

“The fire-head woman destroyed the abyss in the sky, and the magical thing happening to your body that stopped you from dying stopped, and you just crashed into the mountain side and passed out onto the ground. Your head should’ve caved in! Fucking imbecile!” 

Kinich stares at the state of his body; It was a disaster. His jacket was torn with all sorts of holes, his arms full of scars and dried blood and smeared dirt, his gloved hands having numerous rips and tears. All of his digits were present, but a huge scar trailed over the joints of his thumb. ‘So I lost a finger huh?’ he guessed to himself. He looks at his headband dangling around his neck, and feels his face with his hand. He felt a few scars and winces at a cut he had, realizing he had a gaping wound that was actively bleeding out.

Body intact, clothes and weapon secured, with his heart beating in his chest cavity.

But something was still missing. Something was out of place.

He feels his heart drop to the ground, mumbling: “Y/n.”

He hurriedly turns around and tries to run on his feet, a sharp pain kicking into his legs making him fall back onto the soil. He curls into a ball, suddenly feeling all his muscles tormenting his body at once. He groans in pain, feeling parts of his body ache and burn under his skin.

“Yes! Perish!” Ajaw shrieks, making kinich swat at him. He takes a cramped breath— almost like the capacity of his lungs had shrunk— before digging his hands into the sharp blades of grass, dragging his body through the earth.

Each pull of his body made him wish he wasn’t human, pain electrocuting each living cell in his body. Grunts slipped through his teeth, as he tried not to notice the torture he had been enduring for what has felt like forever. He despised the pain he could feel as he crawled not because it hurt him, but because it was proof he was alive and could use his senses. That would remind him that you might not be, only making the weight of his chest heavier.

Red from his wound dripped down his head and slipped onto his lip, making him spit it out bitterly. 

The silvery of blood was inferior to the bitterness in his mouth if he felt your body without its heart beating against his own. Ajaw slowly follows him in the air a meter away, and is almost horrified. Ajaw that day, saw humanity in its most desperate state.

🎕 ‧₊˚ ⋅

“Let me go!” You yelled, trying to break free from the arms of the other scions of the canopy. They had tried convincing you to go to the village and get your injuries treated, but they mentioned kinich was missing. You heard glass shattering in your ears, almost reality to your eyes breaking just the same. You escaped their captive and tried to find kinich, but they had caught up to you easily.

“You don’t understand! You might die out of blood loss before you even find him!” Said one of the nurses, gripping your wrist tightly. “I have to try!” You snapped, shoving and kicking at the men trying to get a holding of your legs.

“And what if kinich is dead y/n!?” A man retorted, making you freeze in your spot. Words got stuck in your throat, as your eyes blurred for a second. “Kinich would never.. be..” you feel your tongue stiffen, your knees slowly sinking back onto the grass. The men among the helpers quietly argue behind you, scolding each other with ‘don’t say that!’ as your thoughts slowly dim your spirit.

‘Kinich? Dead?’ the thought of kinich dying seemed so far and impossible to you. It was always kinich who seemed to prevent harm from going your way, and knew how to deal with injuries or how to get out of risky situations. But not even the strongest warriors of Natan's ancient tales survived against the toughest attacks of the abyss. You feel like vomiting, the imagination of kinich mangled body suddenly tormenting your thoughts. ‘I still have to try’, you interrupted yourself, reminiscing the oath you took between the both of you to never abandon his side, dead or alive.

You quickly try to pounce off of them, but they're quicker into getting ahold of you again. You try your hardest to tear through their grasp, feeling your skin ache as they tighten their hand around you.

“Please! Just let me try!” you cry out, almost freeing yourself. They object in volumes, a series of ‘No!’s and ‘You need to rest!’ leaving their mouths. You almost feel helpless, but the group of five freeze all together, out of nowhere.

Their eyes are wide, dilated. Their mouths agape, skin draining of color.

You turn your eyes the same direction as theirs, and a sudden chill waves all throughout your body.

It’s kinich.

🎕 ‧₊˚ ⋅

Kinich locks eyes with you, his breath hitching. Almost terrified you’ll disappear in front of his eyes, he doesn’t waste another second and sprints towards you on his feet, ignoring the sharp pain afflicted to his ligaments. The tribespeople quickly free you from their clutches, stepping back as your aching bodies collided into an embrace.

Everyone else disappears from his world as he takes you into his dirtied arms. His body melt into yours, leaving no space for the opportunity of separation between both of you ever again. He feels you trembling underneath his touch making him hold you tighter. “I’m home.” He whispers into your ear, feeling a weight lift off of his shoulders, like bulky armor sliding off of his battered frame— He had died a hundred times to tell you those words.

He can hear you; you're crying into his shoulder, salty tears reviving the scent of the dried blood on his clothes. All he can do is hold you, and take refuge back into your arms after leaving them for what seemed like an eternity. His heart is communicating with yours, beating back and forth at each other. “I was looking for you.” You mumbled against his skin, lips quivering. Your voice is hesitant, as you pull away and look into his tired dark-golden eyes.

“You never lost me in the first place.” He whispers, planting a delicate kiss to your cheek, placing your nimble hand on the left side of his chest to feel evidence of his return. His arms felt lighter, his bones seemed to unbreak, and his wounds were no longer burning. His eyes slowly stickled with tears, burying his face into your hair to let out his shy tears before you had the chance to notice.

His body grew vulnerable under your touch as your tears slowly undid the knot of grief residing in his chest. He almost feels himself shrink back to when he was a lonely child as your mere presence invited the fragile parts of him to be loved again.

His soul yearns for moment like this, where your love is presented raw; It was never about just the beauty. He thawed under your touch even when his clothes and body was drab and scarred. It was never about just the mora, his wallet was no longer weighing in his pocket and he knew that he didn't have to worry about it. It was never about just the distance, it didn't matter if he had to crawl from mondstadt, he still would've tried to come home even if he knew he would die along the way. and it was never about the festivity. he didn't need a festival to celebrate in a way of holding you like he is now. It was always about the bond between both of you and how much joy his heart is beating out just because he can count the beats of yours.

To him, his soul is bound with yours. No matter how far his heroship takes him, he’ll always return to you. For him, that was enough of a reason to come crawling home. 

Kinich escaped heaven a hundred times to come home to you. For you, he would’ve gladly left a hundred times more.

🎕 ‧₊˚ ⋅

You relish his embrace with tears sticking your lashes together when your mind slowly floats you away to a distant memory, one you feel like you should have forgotten by now.

It was so long ago.. 7 years ago or so?

It happened somewhere.. Here?

With someone.. Kinich.

You were younger teenagers with kinich that time. You had tripped down a short rocky fall while traversing grassy terrain with kinich. A wince squeaks through your gritted teeth, as he poured water onto the gash you scored on your stumbling. “I’ve always told you to stay sharp when we go out on a walk, but you never listen.” He grumbles, wiping off the dirt that trailed down your calf. “..And everytime you trip, it’s always me who has to clean you up, bandage you, and carry you home.”  He treated your wound as you sat on a rock, awkwardly playing with your fingertips.

You can tell he was just worried about you, you always managed to injure yourself when he took his eyes off of you. He was already pressured on finding a way home, but you just had to go get your knee busted. “Sorry.” you mumble, heat rising to your skin out of embarrassment. “If you really were sorry, you would actually look before you land your feet.” he said bitterly, undoing his bandana, and wrapping it around your knee tightly. As he tightened the knot, he said: “You know I won't always be around to protect you right?” 

“Yeah..” you shuffle your feet around. “But I-i swear I looked before I stepped okay! But the dip was.. was hiding under all the grass.” You attempt to defend yourself, looking at him with guilt written all over your face.

“Can you just promise me you’ll make heaven wait when I'm not around?” He sighs, before helping you get back on your feet, his arm snaking around your waist, as he scooped your shoulder over his shoulder. “Only if you promise too!” you scoff. He rolls his eyes, “As if I'll ever die before you. Seriously, one day I might just be running a commission and bump into you just bleeding to death from your knee.” you grimace under the thought. “Don’t say such horrible things!”

“Then promise me.” “..I promise.”

[uglypastels]

omg what about Logan being like the softest with a sensitive/shy reader. Idk in what context like maybe she’s just overwhelmed with life and kinda closed off in terms of voicing what’s wrong and you know he’s usually very stoic but he’s the BIGGEST softy. Totally not projecting btw.

YEsss Logan is such a fucking softie, no matter how hard he'd want to try and hide it. thank you for being my first request for this fandom i hope i can do it some justice 🫶 and pleeease, we love to project here so please, go right ahead.

warnings: darkness. anxiety. loneliness. alcohol. fem!reader. reader's mutation specified. mentions of past [implied toxic] relationship. so some angst but also bunch of fluff at the end. also please don't come for me if he's a bit out of character. this is my first time writing Logan so it will be trial and error.

~ X-Men Requests Open ~ Masterlist ~

It was the dead of the night. Quite literally. All around you was so quiet and dark that the rest of the world might as well have ceased to exist. All you heard was the floorboards creaking under your footsteps as slivers of moonlight illuminated your path through the corridors of the mansion. It was the rare instance that you felt at peace. 

Yes, you knew almost as soon as you stepped inside the large building and saw all these mutants walking around happily and carelessly that you had found a true safe haven, and yet, months later, you still had not found your bearings. It did not help that you were not exactly in the age bracket of most of the residents here. Having the mansion double as a school meant most of the mutants were in that school-going age range, and while they were lovely (for the most part), you had no desire to befriend children. Then, those who you felt more drawn to socially, like Storm or Jean, were all apart of that special ops team, which always left them busy, if not completely absent, while away on missions. 

Thus, most of your days went by in solitude. Something you had gotten used to throughout your life. Over the years it had become natural for you to simply disappear into your surroundings. Wether you wanted to or not, people simply overlooked you. In hindsight, it explained your mutation perfectly… or was that just an aftereffect of it? You had always wondered if it was one’s personality that influenced the mutation or the other way around.

Either way, for you, it all merged into one dark abyss. 

By now, you had gotten a hang of all the floor plans of the giant building, especially the route between your room and the kitchens. 

You hadn’t checked the clock when you got out of bed, but it must have been around 2 am, if not later. You didn’t expect anyone to be up at this ungodly hour. Especially not walking out of the dark kitchen exactly as you were coming through the threshold. The two of you bump, chest to chest, and the contact immediately made you burst out in a high-pitched scream. From the other side of the impact, you heard a muffled grunt and the sound of a blade being pulled. That was enough for your flight or fight mode to activate. You almost choked on the deep breath you took. The blade swung in your direction, but it only slashed the air where you once stood. 

‘Who’s there?’ it was a male voice. Hard and deep, almost wild. In your other form, your eyes adapted much better to the dark, and so you could see him looking around himself wildly. You counted the sharp appendages in his hands— no, they were coming out of his arms— six long claw-like blades ready to impale the very first thing that’d move. 

There was no doubt about it that this must have been the infamous Logan everyone around the mansion talked about. From what you had heard, he had been away for almost a year on some top-secret assignment for the Professor, but now he had apparently returned.

And what a comeback he has made, nearly stabbing you in the hallway.

‘Who’s there?’ he repeated his question louder, still looking around.

‘Just me.’ Your voice came out as the exact opposite of his, soft and weak, and you immediately regretted your words. Just me, as if he was supposed to know what that meant.

But it must have done the trick, as Logan retracted his claws. His shoulders visibly slacked at the lack of imminent danger.

‘Well, Me, you can come out of hiding. I’m not gonna hurt ya,’ he grumbled, ‘let me just turn the light on–’ 

‘Wait!’ You squeezed your eyes shut and let the cool air of the night brush over your bare arms. When you opened them again, all you could see was Logan’s large frame standing inside the kitchen, most likely hovering over the light switch, surprised at your sudden call.

‘Sorry, you can uhm– turn the lights on now.’ And like that, with a quiet flick, the kitchen illuminated with a soft orange glow. 

Logan’s eyes were immediately on you, scanning you up and down for any sign of recognition, but you already knew there would be none. Even if he had ever seen you before, there never was.

‘Do I know you?’ he cocked his head with the question, and all you could do was shake your head. 

‘I doubt it.’ No one knew you, but that didn’t feel like a smart response.

‘Care to introduce yourself, Bub?’ He leaned against the wall with the light switch, and maybe it was his overall greatness as he practically towered over you, but you felt a rush of heat fall over your face as he looked down at you in expectance. Awkwardly, you pushed out the sounds that formed your name, with a bonus of an extended hand for him to shake. 

‘And you must be Logan, right?’

He confirmed your suspicion with a grunt as he took your hand, squeezed firmly, but not painfully, and shook it once. Then, silence fell between you. 

Two strangers who met in a complete, nearly fatal accident. It was only to be expected you would have nothing to say to one another. But you were, after all both awake this late in the night, and that was enough to compel you to talk. 

‘Couldn’t sleep?’

‘Just got back, actually.’ His eyes glanced to your side and that is when you noticed the duffel bag that lay in the corridor. Then, only when you looked back at him did you take in what he was wearing. Not the expected gym shorts or sweatpants with an old shirt. Instead, Logan was dressed in a black button-up under a dark motorcycle jacket. With that, he had a boot cut-jeans and the boots to match. From the tiny dark dotted pattern on his shoulders and the light pitter-pattering that was occurring outside, it was visible he had just come from out of the rain. 

Immediately, a parade of questions entered your mind. Where had he been? Why did he come back so late? What was he doing in the kitchen? And so much more, though none of it would leave your mouth as you doubted he would talk to you about his secret mission. 

‘You alright?’ His brows furrowed as he looked down at you, and you realised how you must have looked. Staring up at him with wide eyes, not saying a single thing. Another heat flare hit your cheeks.

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

He cocked his head in an examinatory fashion. The disbelief evident in his eyes. 

‘You’re new here, aren’t you?’

‘Relatively,’ you shrugged. ‘Got here a few months ago.’

‘Parents kicked you out?’ He assumed the most common backstory that comes with the residents of the mansion.

‘Not exactly,’ you kept your response short. After all, you could hardly tell a stranger you just met that your boyfriend had kicked you out of your shared apartment when he found out about your genetic abnormality. You had never been sure how he would have reacted, but the events that unfolded were even beyond your imagination. But the past was the past, and you didn’t want to dwell on it. The important part was that not a day after this conversation, you were crying in your car with nowhere to go. It was by chance that weeks after your break-up/eviction, you stumbled into some other mutants who told you about the Professor. You weren’t too sure about going to seek shelter at a school of all places, but in reality, the Academy was much more than that. Though it did give you the perfect opportunity to safely train your abilities.

That and so much more was what went through your head, but you didn’t say any of that to Logan. Why would you? He didn’t know you. He didn’t care about your problems, and you didn’t blame him for it. 

On the contrary, you appreciated that he didn’t press you for more details. When you answered the way you did, he simply nodded in understanding and made his way over to the fridge. The blue glow illuminated his tense features. Strange, for a man who had been a year on the go on some secret spy adventure, you would have expected him to return at least a bit beaten up. But besides maybe some signs of a bad sleep schedule, no form of strain was visible on his face.

‘You want something?’ he looked over at you, making you realise you had been, in fact, staring and not very subtly either. 

‘I’m good, thanks.’ 

‘Suit yourself,’ he went back to inspecting the contents of the fridge before sighing with disappointment. ‘They still don’t have anything stronger around here?’

‘Oh, if you’re looking for beer–’ you walked over to a cabinet at the other end of the kitchen. You tapped a corner, and a small code pad appeared. You tapped in the code, and the cabinet opened to reveal a fully stocked mini-bar. ‘Scott had it installed over the summer,’ you explained when you saw Logan’s confused expression.

‘Explains the babyproofing.’ He walked over, and you handed him a cool bottle of beer.

‘Well, it is a school after all.’ You held in a smile as the thought occurred to you that the kids might not have been the only ones who weren’t supposed to know about the secret compartment. The rivalry between Cyclops and the Wolverine was known all too well around the whole campus, even for newcomers such as yourself.

Logan smirked, taking his beer. You were about to offer a bottle opener, but he hit the neck of the bottle against the edge of the table and with a pop and a clink, the cap came right off. 

‘Here,’ he exchanged your bottles, giving you the open one. You watched him repeat his actions with the second drink. Your eyes were still on him as he chugged down half of the beer in one go. He probably could have downed the whole thing if it wasn’t for his look down at you, most likely noticing your entranced look.

‘That staring a part of your powers, too, then?’ he commented, and the acknowledgement immediately made you turn your head in the direction of the window.

‘Sorry. I just— I tend to do that, I guess.’ You wrinkled your nose. Being on your own around so many people, you had gotten used to people watching, observing them from a distance like a show on TV that you kept on for the background noise.

‘What do you do, anyway?’ He asked bluntly, ‘I thought I had done you in good back there.’

‘You would have,’ you chuckled, remembering just how close his claws had come into contact with you. ‘It’s hard to explain. I just kind of—’ You noticed the shadow that fell over the floor from the table and lightly grazed it with the tip of your toe. With a deep breath, the world in front of you changed. Except the exact opposite was the truth. ‘Disappear.’ You finished the sentence, punctuated by your new state.

Logan’s eyes widened as you disappeared in front of his eyes. Where the shock came from, he couldn’t explain. He had encountered these sorts of mutants before. But this felt different than regular invisibility or teleportation. With his heightened senses, he could always detect those sorts of hijinks. No one ever disappeared to him. But you— as soon as you had faded away, it was as if you had completely fallen off the face of the earth. Not a single trace of you lingered behind. When you spoke, just as you had in the hallway, your voice didn’t seem to be coming from one place. It was all around him, almost like a whisper, a voice inside his own head.

With a blink of an eye, you reappeared before him. Just as you had stood there moments before.

‘There’s not really a name for this, I think; at least no one around here could come up with anything that made sense.’ Not that you had any conversations that made people interested enough to do the research. ‘But from my own understanding, I kind of become one with the shadows.’

‘And what about the light?’ he recalled your yelp when he had tried to turn on the light.

‘I merge with the dark, and so when new light sources interfere… it’s not pretty.’

Logan simply nodded as he took the last swig of his beer.

For a moment, the two of you stood there in silence, you leaning against the counter and he against the large table. 

‘You’re doing it again, Bub.’ He smirked, calling out your lost stare. 

‘Sorry,’ you hadn’t even realised you were doing it. You had just been looking around the room and may have, perhaps, accidentally lingered a look at his frame for a few seconds. And then you caught sight of his hands. More specifically, his knuckles. There was a faint pink glow on the skin, but besides that, you would never be able to tell that deadly claws could grow out from there. You blinked. ‘Sorry.’ You were doing it again. Quickly, you drank the rest of your beer. The bitter taste lingered in your throat, suffocating the burning questions that you wanted to ask.

‘Spill it out.’ He hit you by surprise with the command.

‘Uh–what?’

You knew there were plenty of mindreaders around, but you had not thought it was one of Logan’s abilities. ‘How did you–’

‘It’s all in your face, sweetheart. You think just ‘cause you’re quiet, you’re hard to read, don’t you.’ His assumption left you a bit stunned. It wasn’t that you had thought exactly that, but more so that you never considered that you were making any expressions that were that easy to interpret, as you never really had anyone pay that much attention to you to point it out.

 ‘If you want to say something, just say it.’ Logan said the corner of his lips lifted in a small smile. ‘If you’re wondering if it hurts,’ he looked down at his knuckles, ‘it hurts just as any other one-foot-long knife cutting through skin.’

‘That’s awful.’ You gasped, considering what it must be like to have such a mutation that inadvertently harmed you any time you used it.

‘You get used to it after a while.’ 

Another round of silence. This time, the longer it went on, the more you started thinking how you must be inconveniencing him. With the beers drank, there was little for you both to still be doing here, but also didn’t want to be rude by just up and leaving. After all, you didn’t know Logan very well. 

‘You sure you’re alright?’ He asked, coming out from behind the table.

‘Yeah.’ You tried to smile but could tell it probably did not reach your eyes. Logan moved with a sense of apprehension, unsure of how to approach you. Being a year on the road, not to mention the years of solitude before he had joined the Professor’s team, had not exactly prepared him for these kinds of situations. He didn’t know the right things to do or to say. But to you, just his presence was enough. Just him being there, talking, or in this case, just seeing you, was more than you could have asked for. ‘I’m good.’ 

And yet, ironically, though you had actually meant it for once, you really did feel alright, but something about the situation caused tears to prickle in the corners of your eyes. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation that made you overly sensitive. Or the alcohol. 

You blinked the tears away and smiled awkwardly. ‘It’s just been a long day.’ or week. Month. Year. How about your entire life?

‘Yeah, tell me about it.’ There was that quirk in his lip again, that ghost of a smile. And you couldn’t figure out if his response was just a sarcastic quip, understandably referring to his past days, which you were sure did not consist of a walk in the park. Or did he actually mean it, and he did want you to tell him more? Well, your moment of contemplation brought on another wave of silence, and the heavier it fell, the worse you felt to go back to your problems.

The sudden sound of footsteps pulled you back into your world. People must be slowly waking up; meanwhile, you hadn’t had an hour of sleep yet, and the effect of that started to hit.

‘I should— should probably go.’ You muttered, taking small steps in the direction of the door.

‘Well, the offer always stands.’ Logan followed you with his eyes, turning in his spot as you passed by him. See you around, Nightshade.’

‘What?’ the nickname caught you off-guard, stopping you in your tracks. 

‘Sorry,’ Logan winced, ‘I don’t know—’ that’s what he gets for trying to be cute. 

‘No, don’t apologise. I like it.’ Your smile finally found its full form. A “thank you” almost slipped past it, but you held yourself back. It felt too cheesy to get all sentimental about something as silly as a nickname. Especially since he didn’t know what it meant for you. He didn’t need to know didn��t think you’d ever belong amongst these people enough to get a moniker. 

And maybe it didn’t mean anything at all, maybe he had just said it as a mindless comment on your powers. Or maybe not. Maybe he had really tried hard to put that smile on your face. 

You would never know.

Unless you took that one small step. Because, of course, all you had to do was ask, just like he had told you, but maybe another time. For now, you just bid him farewell, hoping for that next opportunity to certainly come sooner than later.

the end.

thank you for reading 💗

if you enjoyed the fic, please consider reblogging and leaving a comment. or send a message via my inbox. requests are also more than welcome. 💗

[the-kr8tor]

Could we get some chill fluffy writing/hcs of hobie with an S/o that likes hanging out with minimal talking? Yknow just sharing their space and feeling safe :3? ❤️❤️❤️

S'cute!! Thank you for requesting! ❤️

Pairing: Hobie Brown x gn! Reader/ Spider-Punk x gn! Reader

Tags: No use of Y/N, no specific physical description of the reader, FLUFF!

ʕ⁠·⁠ᴥ⁠·⁠ʔ

You enter his workspace with a blanket trailing behind you, a thick encyclopedia-like book in the crook of your arm, and two mugs of steaming tea. The door was already open, a sign that Hobie openly invites you in. He feels your presence immediately, taking his eyes off from the contraption he's been tinkering with for hours, he senses that you want to be near him without interrupting his flow of work. To which he's most grateful for, he'd hug you if not for the high voltage tech he's handling.

“Plannin’ on stayin’, lovie?” Hobie asks, goggles fitted on his eyes, rubber gloves on his hands that he silently curses at because he can't hold you with it on— and because of the electricity coursing through his tools.

“Mm-hmm.” You nod, placing his cup on another table, safe from all his tools and thingamabobs. “Can I?”

“‘course.” You smile sweetly, leaning slightly, lips puckered up and head tilting questioningly. Hobie chuckles, and without another word, he purses his lips to meet with yours.

Your lips feel slightly tingly, you guess it's from the electricity. Nonetheless, you gladly kiss back even though it was quicker than you'd like. It's for your own good you bet as he beams up at you, goggles making him look a thousand times cuter than he already is. (which you thought was impossible at first) His brown eyes are all big and round, a sight that has you giggling and wanting to kiss him more. But alas, he has to continue working so that you have the rest of the day with him.

“I'll be there in a bit, yeah?” He whispers to you, matching your energy, and you immediately want to kiss him back for it. Fighting the urge to hold you, he returns to his work.

You nod, walking quietly to the cozy armchair that he specifically placed for you. It's a deep green colour, just looking at it brings you at peace. Laying your mug in the cup holder (which he installed for you) you wrap yourself with the blanket, perfectly tucking yourself in. With your book opened on your lap, you begin to relax whilst the soft whirs of Hobie's tools fills your ears.

You read while he works quietly, just two people living in comfortable silence. And loving each other in the same room but in different corners of it, it's love all the same.

Mug now empty, and belly fully warmed up, you're on page 210 when you feel him snuggle up to you. Hobie sits on the arm of the seat, body slightly folded to accommodate for your own; chin tucked atop your shoulder, lips brushing along your cheek. His arm finds its place wrapped along your middle, palm splayed over your stomach that he has since moved the blanket and your shirt over to feel you closer. Skin still warm, skin still making you giddy after all these years. His other hand meets with the other, fingers linking together, properly warming you up and embracing you like a burrito.

You lean close to Hobie, pulling him impossibly closer by the ribbons on his sweatpants. He chuckles against your skin, pressing a quick affectionate peck on your shoulder. You inhale his presence, he smells of steel and the green tea you've made him earlier.

For a minute, you two just sit there, you read and he watches your expression change depending on the paragraph you're reading. You suddenly sigh longingly, curious, Hobie follows your line of sight, reading it silently with you.

Hobie scoffs in place, rolling his eyes at the passage you're currently on. He points at the exact sentence that's full of pining and longing from the main character. You look at him as he points to himself right after, making a face that says ‘can’t be me, love’ and his hand gesturing a slash across his neck.

You raise an eyebrow, wordlessly saying, ‘you sure about that?’ Poking his chest, you shake your head with a smile and then you point at the same passage in the book repeatedly. ‘this was literally you, Hobie’

He shakes his head, mirroring you, ‘no, ‘m not.’

You correct him with a simple gesture that you know will have him melting into you further. And you winning the ‘argument’ Holding his cheek with one hand, thumb pressing softly on his chin, you lean forward, eyes slowly shutting close, lips reaching for his own.

Of course he'd chase your lips, especially when you flutter your eyelashes at him like that! His hands fly towards your own face, tenderly holding you close. Your lips brush along his, but before he could finally close the small distance, you move away with a smug smile. Hobie's mouth is agape, feigning offense. He follows where your finger points at the book where the main character literally did what he just did, chasing down his love interest’s lips like a thirsty man stranded in the desert.

You lovingly poke him again. ‘it’s you’

He sighs, defeated, ‘it's me.’

You're not a monster, so with all your heart, you continue what you didn't do just a moment ago. Wrapping your arms around him just like he did to you, you kiss him just like in the books you devour, you devour him also. To which Hobie clearly indulges himself in.

[it-happened-one-fic]

Stuff of Fairytales - Floyd

Author Notes: Happy MerMay Twisted Wonderland! I won't lie, this fic kind of flew together while I was just sitting and chatting with my mom and sister. It doesn't have any specific music that it was written to or anything like that and my only real idea that went into this was MerMay. Nonetheless, I had fun writing this fic. As per usual, Reader is gender-neutral. I hope you enjoy!

Type: Gender-neutral reader/ MerMay/ fluff/ romance implied/ sfw

Word Count: 1264

Ignoring Floyd was always something that one did at one’s own risk. Especially when he was staring quite as pointedly as he was staring at me right now. And even more especially so considering that I was sitting on the edge of the pool while Floyd was in his merform.

He drifted over, and I cautiously met his stare, not entirely sure as to what I should expect from him.

For one thing, he’d been oddly peaceful this entire time. And while that didn’t necessarily mean anything, it still felt suspiciously like the calm before a storm.

He tilted his head, slowly coming to a steady stop right in front of me before crossing his arms and resting them on my knees, where I had my legs hanging over the edge of the pool and in the cool water, “Hey Shrimpy, did your world have any merpeople?” 

His tone was relatively innocent, but I still felt my eyebrows lift warily before I shook my head. Half-surprised by his question even as I answered him, “No… They’re the stuff of fairytales in my world…. Kind of like magic is.”

He hummed, rolling his mismatched eyes up to meet mine as he rested his chin on his arms. Almost as if he were, suspiciously enough, trying to look innocent.

I watched him silently for a moment before finally biting the bullet and questioning him as he continued to stare up at me, “Why?”

That singular word had a grin splitting its way across his face, perfectly displaying his too-sharp teeth that made so many others uncomfortable.

But just like how I’d somehow gotten used to his merform’s slimy texture, I was perfectly used to his sharp-toothed grins by now.

“Nothing~ It just explains why you had such a cute, surprised reaction when you first saw mine and Jade’s merforms.”

I rolled my eyes slightly at his teasing tone, even as I smiled despite myself at his words, “You say that like I was the only one who was surprised. I seem to recall Ace, Deuce, Jack, and Grim all being pretty shocked too.”

Despite my words, I couldn’t deny that I had been genuinely startled. Floyd and Jade were nothing like the fluttery, magical creatures I’d imagined as a child. Instead, they were far more dangerous-looking. Something that was fitting, considering their personalities.

But even then, there had still been something enchanting about seeing a merperson for the first time. Much less two of them.

Not that I was ever going to tell Floyd that. He was already amused enough as it was.

Floyd faux-pouted up at me in an almost playful manner, “But none of them were cute. They just looked like a bunch of guppies silently opening and closing their mouths.”

He paused as I fought the urge to snort at his analogy, and, as if somehow he could sense my amusement, he grinned again. His tail slashing through the water as his eyes all but sparkled at me, “You weren’t like that though, Shrimpy. Your eyes were all bright. Like you were excited.”

I almost sighed at his pointed, pleased-sounding words. Because while I couldn’t say that they were wholly accurate, they were a little too perceptive in a way that I could only describe as very Octavinelle.

Floyd, Jade, and Azul were all practically uncanny when it came to their ability to hit upon something people didn’t want them to know.

“I wasn’t excited….” I trailed off unconvincingly, not entirely sure how to defend myself in this situation since he wasn’t entirely wrong.

Lying would be useless. Floyd was so used to his brother’s slippery nature that he would be able to see through any fib I came up with in a nanosecond.

I didn’t have to rush, though. Floyd was waiting. An amused smile on his face as he waited for me to give up in a rare display of patience from the usually restless young man.

But then, I supposed being patient might be easier when victory was assured. His grin wasn’t making it any easier for me to come up with an excuse, though.

“Well, how would you react if you suddenly saw something out of a fairytale?!” I gave up in an exasperated half-surrender.

I refused to tell Floyd that a slight bit of childish enchantment and awe had shot through me when I’d first seen him and his brother’s merforms.

Doing that would just result in him telling his brother, and then there really would be no escaping the teasing and harassment.

As it was, I would just have to put up with Floyd’s teasing and amusement until he drifted onto another topic. He might bring back up my initial reaction to his merform every so often, but I could deal with that. 

After all, it was only fair with how often I got to pick him on numerous things as well.

At odds with my expectations of his laughter, Floyd straightened from where he’d been resting his chin on his arms this entire time and tilted his head in a thoughtful fashion.

After a brief moment, he grinned, and something ever-so-slightly worrying flickered through his mismatched eyes as he met my gaze once more, “I guess I’d squeeze ‘em.”

Before I could even think about reacting, his arms were wrapping themselves around my waist. Pulling me closer and squeezing me with a surprising degree of care considering who it was that I was dealing with.

I gasped slightly in surprise at both his actions and the cold from his wet arms, my hands flying up and grabbing hold of his shoulders in a slight panic. Not entirely trusting him to not pull me into the pool with him.

I didn’t go splashing down into the water though, and my reaction only caused Floyd to grin even more at me, “Your reactions are too much fun, Shrimpy~”

His words were all but cooed, and I frowned slightly, “Floyd, you know your slime is hard to get out of clothes.”

I scolded him in retaliation, continuing to frown down at him, but my words were met with little more than a nonchalant shrug from the merman, who certainly didn't seem like he was going to be letting go of me anytime soon.

In fact, he seemed perfectly content, smiling up at me from the pool that I was now perched precariously on the edge of. Fully relying on Floyd to keep me balanced as he held onto me.

He smiled, tilting his head slightly, perfectly unbothered as he grinned up at me, “Just use the washer at Octavinelle and tell Azul it’s my fault.”

I sighed at his words, feeling myself surrender ever-so-slightly as I let a smile slip onto my face. Sometimes it really did feel like there was no winning against Floyd, and, to be fair, his plan probably would work.

Azul was nothing if not used to Floyd’s mercurial ways that often caused him troubles. 

I relaxed, letting my hands continue to rest easily on Floyd’s shoulders as I smiled down at him, “Just don’t come whining to me later.”

 He outright grinned at my words, his eyes sparkling in an almost challenging way, “No promises~”

I shook my head fondly at both him and his words as I continued to smile down at the man who hugged me close to him.

Floyd himself might not exactly be the stuff of fairytales, but he was definitely  unforgettable, and there wasn’t a thing I would change about him. 

Even if he could be a pest sometimes.

[tiredfox64]

I had an idea, I don't know how good this sounds but in the beginning of the MK1 story when the Lin Kuei trio attack Madame Bo's restaurant as an act to text Raiden and Kung Lao skills, the reader happens to be there as a traveler who also has fighting skills and fights off Smoke and finds out it's a test by Liu Kang who accepts being one of earthrealm's champions but has a hard time trusting Smoke after what happen and Smoke does everything he can to gain her trust?

Trust Me

Prior notes: Halfway through writing this the Ninja Storm theme song played in my head nonstop. I got distracted for an hour just listening to almost all the Power Rangers theme songs Σ(￣。￣ﾉ)ﾉ

Pairing: Tomas x Afab reader

Warnings ‼️: A few kicks and punches, we got those from our siblings.

You travel high and low, far and wide. The lands must be explored and experienced. Your current location? Fengjian Village in China. Quite a peaceful village actually with farmlands that stretch for many miles. You decided to rest for a moment at the tea house. Madame Bo was really nice to you, happy to have a lovely lady like you come in.

Little did you know that she was expecting you.

Lots of different people and personalities around here. You got a show as well. Two men fighting just to figure out who is paying tonight. It must have been serious because they were fighting for their lives. You can understand since the food was amazing.

The sun had set and the cool breeze blew through the tea house. You were finishing up your meal at the same time those two men were about to. In an instant the atmosphere became hostile. You looked up to see a man with silvery hair and gray attire harassing Madame Bo. You watched carefully, wary of this guy’s intentions. You jumped into action once you saw him attack Madame Bo and literally throw her over the balcony.

His eyes turned to you when he saw you running towards him. You were surprised by the smoke bomb he threw down. It made you cough which gave him the opportunity to attack you, causing you to hit the floor.

“You are brave, but against us? You are in over your head.” He mocked you.

“I don’t care who you are or what your purpose is. You will not be a nuisance to Madame Bo.” You declared before fighting him.

You fought viciously, as anyone would suspect. This guy had a few tricks up his sleeve. Magic that you’ve never seen before. Yet you stood your ground. While you were dealing with him those other two guys were fighting off the other assassins. Oh great there are two more who got some sort of freaky magic. Well at least they are taking care of that.

An amazing spectacle of kicking, punching, and slashing was performed by you and your opponent. After all that you managed to defeat him, leaving him lying on the ground. You moved quickly to check on Madame Bo who was…fine. No, really, she was. Standing up straight and smoking a cigarette like it was a normal Tuesday night. A man with glowing eyes approached you and you finally got the answers you needed.

This was all a test from Lord Liu Kang. You, Raiden, and Kung Lao were chosen to join Earthrealm’s champions. Liu Kang was thankful that you chose to visit Fengjian now since it made things easier.

He explained that the people who attacked were the Lin Kuei and that you fought Tomas aka Smoke. They weren’t thugs but were actually a clan that helped protect Earthrealm. You were still in shock about the whole thing. You couldn’t let your guard down fully even if you now know it was a test.

Liu Kang told you all that the Wu Shi Acadamy will help train you and prepare for the Mortal Kombat tournament. Looks like you will be staying in China for longer than you expected.

══💤══╡°˖✧🦊✧˖°╞══💤══

Ever since Tomas fought you he has been dying to talk to you. He thought you did amazing. He really didn’t know what to expect since you were just a traveler. No one had a clue who trained you or even why you were so good at fighting. You must have been a quick thinker since you manage to figure out he was using smoke magic.

The problem is that you were cold to him. You still didn’t trust him even after finding out it was all a test. He would visit the Wu Shi Academy just to get a chance to talk to you, only for you to move away from him whenever you saw a hint of his silvery hair.

Raiden and Kung Lao told you to not hold it over his head. Madame Bo is safe. Hell, she was even in the Lin Kuei once, she’s a tough woman. Nope, you’re still not budging.

“I don’t understand, Raiden. She still treats me like some thug.” Tomas expresses his frustration to Raiden who wants to help make peace between you two.

“It probably didn’t feel good to her to be tricked like that. It may be best to prove to her that she can trust you.” Raiden gave back the best advice he could give.

“But what can I do if I can’t even get close to her.”

Raiden had to think for a moment. The others such as Kung Lao, Johnny, and Kenshi all came around as well since they heard Tomas’ frustration. They didn’t want him feeling bad about what he did since he was instructed to cause a disturbance at the tea house. They also don’t want you holding a grudge against a sweet and cool guy like Tomas.

“I got it!” Kung Lao snapped his fingers, “How about you train with us for some time. She will see that you aren’t so bad after all especially when she sees how calm you are when fighting us. Maybe giving her a gift once in a while will help as well.”

Not a bad plan. It could work. Tomas was on board with this. He didn’t want you viewing him as some thug anymore. You need to see who he truly is and he will do anything to prove it. Operation make you trust Tomas is a go go!

══💤══╡°˖✧🦊✧˖°╞══💤══

Tomas asked his brother if it was okay to train with the Shaolin for a bit. Bi-Han couldn’t give two fucks where Tomas would be at so he let him do that.

Now you really couldn’t avoid Tomas. Anytime you decided to train with the other champions he was always there. You grew annoyed by his presence. You couldn’t understand why no one else was upset by that trick of a test.

You also couldn’t understand why he was leaving you bunches of lavender and peace lilies. Okay well the peace lilies should have been a big sign but you weren’t the biggest expert on flowers or their meanings. He would leave them at your door, on your chair, he would even have the guys pass you the flowers just to make sure you would accept them.

And after some time you did. It would be a waste if you kept throwing them out. They were lovely and lavender is useful. You didn’t fully trust him yet but his efforts were chipping away at your stubborn heart.

You started watched as he trained with the others. All those fighting moves you saw before when you fought him. The aggression you felt before when seeing those moves slowly started to fade. You watched as he patiently taught the others some tricks on how to defend themselves. Not just that but he was open to being taught as well. The monks taught him new moves and involved him in meditation. Now would a violent person meditate? Nope, because Tomas is not the violent person you think he is.

You realized maybe you were being a bit too harsh when you heard him speak. His voice was less deeper than when you first heard it. It was just an impression anyways. And without his mask on there is no muffle to it. You listened to how disappointed he was, concerned that you still don’t trust him. He expressed that he is doing his best but he fears that you will always see him as the bad guy.

It broke your heart when you realized you misjudged him. He was putting in a lot of effort and you were turning a blind eye to it before. You don’t know how long he will be training with the Wu Shi and you don’t want to regret not saying anything to him. You want to make things right and the best way to do that was to talk to him.

One day you found him near the zen gardens. A place of relaxation and peace. A good atmosphere for something like this. He was meditating all by himself and you were unsure about disturbing him. He already heard your footsteps, you can’t sneak up on a sneaky person. He turned towards you expecting to see someone like Raiden or Johnny. But no, it was actually you. He was shocked and wasn’t sure what you were doing here. You gently waved towards him before speaking.

“Hi…do you mind if I join you?” You asked softly.

Tomas just stared for a good five seconds before breaking out of his trace. “O-oh yeah sure.”

You thanked him before walking closer. You surprised him even more when you described to sit next to him. Both your hearts were beating fast. Yours because you were unsure of what to say and his because of the same thing. You took a few deep breaths before speaking up.

“I’m sorry that I’ve been kind of cold to you. Maybe even been avoiding you. I just kept thinking back to that night at the tea house and I just thought you were the same guy I fought back then.”

You saying sorry was already the highlight of Tomas’ day. Before he can say anything to you, even to apologize for fighting you, you continued.

“You don’t have to apologize for what happened. I understand it was just a test and no one really got hurt. Well, maybe not physically but I did hurt you by being mean.”

You were picking at your fingers as you looked down at your lap. Now you wondered if he thought of you as the bad person. He doesn’t, he never did.

“We got off on the wrong foot and I want to make it right. Maybe you and I can train one of these days if you are willing to spend time with me.”

“Yes! Yes! Of course I would love to.” Tomas got too excited and covered his mouth, not wanting to disturb the tranquility of the garden anymore.

You looked at him all shocked before chuckling quietly. He really was desperate to show you that he is trustworthy. Seeing that it all paid off was too great for him that he had to express it. How could you ever imagine he was some cruel man who purposely beats up old ladies?

Your chuckle made him feel less embarrassed and happy to see you loosen up around him. You seem way chiller than he imagined. He’s excited to get to know you more now. You took his hand into yours and shook it.

“It’s nice to officially meet you, Smoke.”

He smiled at you. The mission was a success. All of this was worth it.

“The pleasure is all mine. But please, call me Tomas.”

After notes: It’s a bad time for me to find out that my favorite show is free on YouTube. Mhm I’m gonna be blasting that good shit on my tv. Anyways I hope you enjoy whoever requested it. I actually thought about this scenario a bit ago but never wrote it down and forgot about it. So looks like you read my mind. Trust me it sounded good to me :3. Adiós!

[dark-and-kawaii]

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ Tainted Dreams ˖⟡˚౨ৎ⋆

✧₊⁺ Summary: As Zevlor sleeps, a dark shadow named Aradin creeps into his dreams, twisting his peaceful rest into a horrific nightmare. Zevlor dreams about Aradin taking away everything that he’s come to love… ♡

✧₊⁺ Pairing: Zevlor x F!Tav/Lofn

✧₊⁺ Content: Angst | Hurt/Comfort | Nightmare | Character Death | Jealous Aradin | Happy Ending | Sleep Cuddles

✧₊⁺ Notes: Another story I hope you all enjoy xoxo I’ve been wanting to write some angst involving Aradin so here it is!!! Heh heh to be honest I’m a sucker for a story involving some Aradin angst ♡

In the quiet embrace of night, Zevlor lay entwined with his beloved, Lofn, his arms holding her ever so close to him- always acting as a safe haven for her as she slept. Her body a comforting weight against his chest as he too slowly slipped into slumber. When she stirred gently against him in her sleep, her head nuzzling at his neck, his tail gently coiled around her thigh as he returned the gesture, their bodies blending as one.

As the night wore on, their bodies pressed close, their breathing synchronized in that gentle rhythm that lovers fall into with the passage of time, their hearts beat a gentle, steady rhythm of love, contentment, and peace... Until it was shattered by a shadow creeping into Zevlor's dreams, twisting his peaceful rest into a vivid nightmare. His body tensed, clutching Lofn tighter, his tail pulling up into the air, as if in warning. The darkness seeping into his dreams, like the blood of a wound left untended.

His mind's eyes filled with visions of betrayal- a group of men turning against their cherished princess, all because of her love for him, a so called foulblood, a hellspawn who was meant to rot- to die at birth for being what he was... The men who had once looked at him with respect, now looked at him with loathing... The nightmare deepened, his body trembling with each haunting image, a cold sweat breaking out over his body.

Zevlor saw the men first slay her dragons, Aetherion the first to be overwhelmed and slaughtered. His great form lying still in the dirt, his blood soaking the ground... Vyrmoth, the younger of the two tried to take flight only to be brought down and stabbed again and again, until his cries were silenced...  Then they set their sights on her... Lofn, bound by chains that kept her powers in check and helpless, her face, tear streaked and pale from the pain of her dragon's deaths- feeling everything that they had felt... 

One of the men laughed, his hand gripping her face harshly as he leaned down and spoke to her, “The lot of us could have given you the world, but you choose this abomination instead.” 

Forced to her knees, Lofn was made to suffer before Zevlor. He watched helplessly as the man pulled out his blade and slashed at her back, yet she did not cry out, she would not give them the satisfaction... Zevlor's eyes trailed down to her stomach, the faint swell of her pregnancy barely visible under her torn dress... His eyes filled with tears as he realized just what they were going to do, to the unborn children she carried... His child... Their child.

“Please don't,” Zevlor pleaded, his voice broken, “I beg of you. She is still the woman you all admir-”

A famiilar voice- a familiar smug tone cut him off, “Beggin, like the foulblood you are.” Aradin stepped forward, his hands grasping Lofn's head and forcing her to look up at him, “This foul blood has poisoned her, tainted her with his vile touch.” he looked at the men around him, “I aint going to allow it no more.”

Zevlor's brow furrowed his eyes hardening as he stared at Aradin, “You bastard! What has she ever done to you? To deserve this? She saved you! Your people!” He tried to fight the men holding him back, but failed, “I should have done you in the moment my fist connected with your jaw back in the grove…” the hatred and loathing clear in his voice.

Aradin sneered, “I shoulda done her when I had the chance, before you poisoned her.”

Lofn struggled weakly against Aradin's grasp, her voice low, “You were nothing, Aradin, nothing. Just some lowly adventure looking for his fortune.” She spit in his face, “A pathetic boy- not even worthy of calling you a man” her words dripping with venom.

“Shut it wench,” her head was yanked back, then forced forward to look Zevlor in the eye's. Aradin's blade traced a cruel path across Lofn's chest, his gaze locked with Zevlor's then the group of men circling around, “I witnessed it myself, how this devil stained your princess.” 

Lofn's eyes, brimming with pain and unshed tears, never wavered from Zevlor's face. Her sorrow was not for herself or her unborn child, but for him... Knowing the torment he was enduring- the pain he would never cease to forget... 

Zevlor whispered a plea, “Aradin, I beg you. Please. She has done nothing, take me- Like I know you've always wanted to- Rip my horns off, let my foul blood stain your boots- but please... Not her-”

Before his mind could register what was happening, Aradin's blade pierced Lofn's belly, “I should have gutted you and this tiefling back in the grove.”

A yell tore from Zevlor's throat as Aradin's blade descended upon Lofn again... She lay lifeless before him, her eyes wide and empty, her blood pooling towards him…

With a jolt, Zevlor awoke, his heart pounding like a caged bird desperate to escape. Zevlor's heart still raced as his hand came up to Lofn's cheek, her serene face turned towards his, a soft smile on her lips as she slept. He was grateful that she hadn't woken to his distress- grateful that she was still at his side and very much alive... “Thank the gods…” He gently ran his thumb across her bottom lip, his own curving up at the corner as her lips parted and she sighed softly in her sleep. He reached out, gently tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear, reassured by her peaceful breathing. Taking a deep breath, he slipped quietly from the bed, careful not to disturb her rest.

Crossing the room, he approached the crib where his newborn daughters lay nestled in soft blankets. Two small newly hatched dragons perched nearby, their eyes watching over their girls vigilantly. Zevlor smiled at the creatures, reaching out to rub one of their necks affectionately with the back of his fingers, “Quite the nightmare I had,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper, “But I know you'll keep them safe.”

As he gazed down at his sleeping daughters, a tender ache filled his heart. They were so small, so innocent, and the thought of Aradin lingered like a poison in the back of his mind. Zevlor shook his head, his jaw clenched tight. It would never come to pass- could never. Aradin would have to kill him first, and Lofn's dragon's, well... Zevlor knew the nightmare lied about how easily they would go down- even Lofn, no such chains could ever stop her from unleashing her wrath… Not to mention their son, now more grown than ever, had his own dragon and was quite good at wielding a sword and magic... And Lynnania, the Queen… Zevlor’s tail twitched, giving away his fear at the thought of what she would do… 

But still, Aradin's eyes always lingered on Lofn since their days at the grove... And now the piece of trash was in Thay for whatever reason... Now, with a life built on love and family, Zevlor couldn't shake the fear that his nightmare might one day creep into reality no matter how hard he tries to find it foolish…

He sighed, brushing his hands against both his daughter's tiny fists, “I won't let anything happen to you, or your brother.” He whispered, his voice a low rumble, “I promise. I'll protect you all.”

Sitting on a lush chair, Zevlor stayed at their crib for some time, watching them and their mother as they all slept, making sure that there was no shadowy figure lurking in the darkness... The tiny dragons lifting their wings in warning to any who might dare approach.

[tomorrowusa]

Sadly, a majority of Americans are almost completely ignorant about Eastern Europe. They probably don't know the difference between Budapest and Bucharest. (Spoiler: They are capitals of two non-Slavic countries in the region)

When Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, Americans were surveyed on the location of Ukraine on an unlabeled map. Just 16% got it right. This map shows one dot for each response.

Yes, a couple of people thought Ukraine was in Memphis. Not sure what's up with those many folks who thought it is in Greenland. Maybe that's why Trump tried to buy it from Denmark.

In history in US classrooms almost nothing is mentioned about Eastern Europe that happened before the 20th century. This short list of items is typical.

A few (usually exotic) personalities like Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler, and Peter the Great.

Copernicus (real name: Mikołaj Kopernik) sorting out the Solar System. And that is actually more science than history.

The Siege of Vienna (1683). Vienna is not exactly in Eastern Europe but the siege was lifted by Polish King Jan III Sobieski.

A passing reference to Tsar Aleksandr II freeing the serfs – but only because it happened within two years of the Emancipation Proclamation.

So if you know almost nothing about the location and history of a country, you certainly won't understand its importance to international peace and security.

And that's the case with Ukraine which Putin sees simply as a piece in his country collection in his effort to restore the decrepit Soviet Union in all but name.

As Brendan Simms writes in his linked article up top...

It is worth reminding ourselves what is at stake. If Putin is not defeated and forced to withdraw from Ukraine, this will endanger much more than just the viability of that country. It will enable the Russians to reconstitute their forces facing the Baltic states and Finland, constituting a threat that we will have to face without support from Kyiv. The Ukrainians are thus fighting not only for their own sovereignty but our security as well. Their army is one of the best guarantors we have against future Russian aggression. All they ask is our help. We should give them what they need.

About those so called "red lines" we hear about from tankies and Trumpsters – those lines apparently don't really exist.

Robyn Dixon and Catherine Belton at the Washington Post write:

Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion keeps crossing President Vladimir Putin’s red lines. Kyiv’s lightning incursion into Kursk in western Russia this month slashed through the reddest line of all — a direct ground assault on Russia — yet Putin’s response has so far been strikingly passive and muted, in sharp contrast to his rhetoric earlier in the war. On day one of the invasion in February 2022, Putin warned that any country that stood in Russia’s way would face consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history,” a threat that seemed directed at countries that might arm Ukraine. If Russia’s territorial integrity were threatened, “we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people. It’s not a bluff,” he said a few months later in September. “The citizens of Russia can be sure that the territorial integrity of our Motherland, our independence and freedom will be ensured — I emphasize this again — with all the means at our disposal,” making a clear reference to Russia’s nuclear weapons.

In other words, Putin has been bullshitting.

Ukraine’s Kursk incursion “proved the Russians are bluffing,” said Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former Ukrainian intelligence and defense official, now an associate fellow with the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank in London. “It shuts down all of the voices of the pseudo experts … the anti-escalation guys.”

Vladimir Putin can bluff only so much before people see that he's full of shit.💩 We're already past that point. His imperialist fantasies make him think that he's back in the Soviet Union and all he has to do is say something bellicose to get whatever he wants.

There are now Ukrainian troops on Russia's soil and over 133,000 refugees fanning out from the area telling other Russians of what's really going on near the border without censorship from Russian state media. The weaker Putin looks inside Russia, the sooner his invasion will end.

As I've said before, give Ukraine whatever weapons it wants – except nukes. Ukraine is doing NATO an enormous favor by keeping Putin at bay.

[v3lvieraven]

Twisted monster

Warnings- yandere behavior, blood, injuries, disease, curses, death

Note: I want to make it clear I did NOT say that he was a wendigo, I am aware that it is apart of many cultures. I said it was similar in its characteristics.

🌀- He is a natural hunter, his ram horns made it very easy to bash the skulls of any moving thing.

🌀- he resembles a wendigo but more humanoid, his skin is ashy and freckled, hair grown out very long. The horns growing out of his skull, the tips black.

🌀- [reader] often came into the forest, searching for berries or medicinal herbs. Often times, they would visit the ancient temple made to appease him. Every 20 years he would take someone from the village as a sacrifice. (Ik it’s overused but I’m still using it.)

🌀- offerings were left, and [reader] always left something as an offering to his temple. Flowers, letters, fruits..

🌀- he often would watch as they came and left…

🌀- It only took 6 months for him to finally gain the courage to reveal himself to them. His eyes were wide open, his feet thumping on the ground nervously as he waited for your arrival.

🌀- when they arrived, their face went pale, then red in the span of five seconds. His head lowered trying to make himself seem as docile as he could.

🌀- fortunately they could tell that he had no intention of harming them, so they approached him cautiously.

🌀- their eyebrows raise when he has a big smile, sharp white teeth shining at them as they get closer.

🌀- When they sit across him, he reaches out for their hand, playing with their fingers. It doesn’t take long for him to be all over them. [Readers] lap is preoccupied at the moment…

🌀- soon they had learned his name is Ciel…their visits become longer and longer until he gets way to impatient and greedy, he doesn’t want just 6 hours… he wants them all the time.

🌀- and so, his rampage begins..

🌀- it starts with little threats, crops being trampled and trees around the village burning down

🌀- this soon progresses into stealing livestock or killing anyone who talks to them, as well as writing [Reader’s] name with blood on walls, with big heats surrounding it.

🌀- The forest was the only place with yarrow near them, even if the village had warned them many times not to go in alone, they didn’t listen. The swirls around the trees should have been warning enough along with the curse of thorns.

Context- curse of thorns is when you enter the forest for a visit not welcomed by The Beast, thorns will start growing in your lungs, progressively spreading up to your eyes until your whole body is covered in thorns, not fully though.

🌀- usually when someone visited the temple, it would be during the yearly festival on October first.

🌀- the town had soon decided what was best for the village, giving them up. The lure was set, a feast in the middle of town square with [reader] as the main cook.

🌀- Once [Reader] arrived, the people held them down as they screamed.

“Get off of me!”

🌀- the summoning ritual had began, the slash across their chest was large, but not enough to lose to much blood.

🌀-shrill screams filled the air as the slash was being created, drawing in The Beast.

🌀- he was about to kill them all when suddenly the priest had spoken.

“O, great and marvelous Beast, allow this sacrifice quench your undying anger and serve as a peace offering!”

🌀- the absurdly annoying man yelled, causing Ceil to pause. Was this his moment? He rushed forwards to take them in his arms, his face filled with pure bliss when he realizes that they are all his… then to pure rage when he realizes the village had hurt them.

🌀- not to worry, he didn’t kill everyone, just the priest and the woman who had slashed you with a knife with a smile…

🌀- now you both can live in his nest forever….

[emblemxeno]

Chapter 13 of Fates Revelation is a writing highlight for me.

Corrin: What's going on? They're both blaming each other for this carnage.

Azura: Of course. Kingdoms at war will always twist things to benefit themselves.

Ryoma and Xander-representative of Hoshido and Nohr as a whole-uphold the conflict and status quo of the world they live in. Even if it makes no sense, they accept that they're enemies and an enemy must have done something awful to harm the peace.

Even parts of their battle quotes and end of chapter dialogue emphasize this.

Ryoma: It doesn't matter, Kagero. Anyone who doesn't side with Hoshido is the enemy. What will you be?

Xander: Trust her? Don't be a fool. I won't listen to any more of your lies. You've chosen your side—opposite me. Prepare yourself, Camilla.

-

Xander: This isn't over! We'll fight to the very last man!

Ryoma: You won't see Hoshido waver! We'll fight until there's no one left!

Xander: Whoever retreats now admits defeat! Nohr will never lose to Hoshido.

Ryoma: This war will continue until we take our last breath!

They are unable to see any part of a conflict as something with them or against them. Nuance and rationality don't sit well in minds stubbornly steeped in years of animosity. War, hatred, and reinforcing the way things are is something both of them are willing to do, because they see no other path or choice for themselves.

Corrin and Azura meanwhile, actively disrupt their world views.

Corrin: ...You may be my brothers, but I won't go easy on you if you try to stop me! Come, everyone! ... Ryoma! Xander! Please, you both have to listen to me! We've defeated the real enemy—you don't need to fight each other now!

Azura: Ryoma, Xander... It wasn't Nohr or Hoshido who destroyed this town. It was done by the invisible forces that we just defeated. Now that they are gone, I will not allow any more senseless violence. I will sing my song as many times as necessary to restore peace. Do you still insist on fighting?

And it's not empty words or cries that fall on deaf ears. Corrin is strong. Her will is iron-clad, and she will ensure her vision of peace is made a reality, no matter who she makes an enemy of. Azura is strong as well. What she lacks in directing a path on her own, she makes up for with raw resilience and no qualms about using her song-something that risks her life-to end things on her terms.

They force their stubborn older brothers to look at things in a different perspective; to stop trying to hack and slash their lives away and consider a bigger threat to what and who they care about.

While they aren't swayed immediately, they're undoubtedly shaken. After that, it takes personal introspection and uncomfortable truths for each of them to swallow their pride and admit their ways are wrong, and to follow Corrin to end a senseless war.

And I love this exchange at the end as well:

Scarlet: Ryoma's talked my ears off about what happened to you as a kid. You sound like an idealistic brat to me. You want to bring peace to the world? Ha!

Corrin: There's nothing idealistic about ending this horrible war.

REJECT 👏🏽THE 👏🏽 STATUS 👏🏽 QUO 👏🏽!

Accusing others of being naive or idealistic for things like this, in my opinion, shows cowardice, or even ignorance; a life that's been beaten down by other upholders of a terrible state of the world until they agree.

Why is it naive to trust people? Why is it idealistic to want something like endless warring to stop?

We're fed a lie as children: "Life's unfair, you can't do anything about it." Says who!? Why accept that life is cruel and unyielding, when there's so much capacity for good in the world? Is life actually unchangeably unfair in its nature, or is it simply malefactors taking advantage of innocent people in order to rise up to slake their own greed?

Once terrible people get in power, they beat down any forms of resistance and feed this very same lie to them. Worse still, they can even convince the masses to discriminate, fight, and kill each other all so they can swoop in during the aftermath and reap the benefits. And people, at their lowest point, take solace in any explanation-no matter how untrue and no matter who it's coming from-in order to have some semblance of control or direction. That forms their new view of the world.

It takes people who haven't been exposed or raised to believe such nonsense (Corrin) and people who are wise enough to recognize the true problems of the world (Azura), to push against this normalized destruction between two innocent groups of people and direct their ire towards the actual oppressor (Anankos).

It's succint, but scathing. The word choice-in both JP and localization-is too deliberate to consider it a coincidence, I genuinely think it's a good criticism of how our modern world works as well. From a philisophical standpoint it is basic, but Fates as a whole also tackles issues of ignorance/discrimination, xenophobia, the boundaries and meanings of family, who defines justice, the belief of many versus the will of the few, embracing consequences instead of running away, and exploring the concept of leadership in general.

For a game this big, IMO, it meets the mark more often than not when considering the points it wants its audience to hear.

[ramblingautisticman]

Why Is This Song In My Poolverine Playlist, A Series.

(I am extremely insane and make playlists for every ship/character/show I like, and yes, there is a reason each one is in there. I think of lil scenarios, situations, or straight up story ideas because of a song- so enjoy this series where I write them all down!)

(Part 1, Part 2)

Monster from Adventure Time

So, I honestly hadn't thought about this song in relation to Wade and Logan until @ohitsthemindstuffagain said about it, and now it's all I can picture when I hear it.

This is such a Wade and Logan coded song and it's insane.

"I know we'll never grow old together, cause you'll never grow old to me."

Wade knows Logan is slowly ageing, something he doesn't do, and one day, he will be alone again. One day, he will watch Logan get grey hair, his face gaining wrinkles, his muscles getting softer. He's okay with that. He's made his peace, but it still hurts. Still makes his heart ache to know that one day Logan will die of old age and he will still be here. Wade will still have the same young body he does now. His body will always be 40 years old- and Logan's will always be ageing.

"You're the pink in my cheeks, and I'm scared cause that means I'm a little bit soft."

Logan has softened since knowing Wade. He's become less gruff and angry over time. Wade jokes that he managed to domesticated The Wolverine, and what's funny about that is the fact it's true. Where Logan used to be rough and jaded, he was soft and caring. It scared him. Alot. He was so used to the anger and violence coursing through his body that now- with this love and affection slowly replacing it- he wasn't sure what to do. Wasn't sure how to function.

"We were messed up kids who taught ourselves how to live, and I'm still scared that I'm not good enough."

Wade had always survived- never just lived. Ever since he was a kid. His dad had been an abusive asshole- his mother a cold-hearted bitch- and so he had grown up teaching himself how to survive. How to hide bruises from school, how to make food without getting noticed, how to avoid getting screamed at if he didn't do well on a test. It was ingrained into him as a kid- that he wasn't good. He would never be good. He was a broken fuck up that would never amount to anything. It was something he had taken with him through the rest of his life- and it was something he couldn't help but reflect back on when him and Logan had begun dating. Logan was a hero- he had saved the world more times that Wade could count- and here he was, dating Wade. Dating the one guy he shouldn't. Logan deserved better. Alot better. Deserved literally anyone that wasn't Wade. Logan was so genuine with him though- sounded like he meant every word he said- that slowly, he was helping to break that childhood trauma. He was showing Wade that he was worth something, no matter what some asshole father had said. It was ironic, because Logan had gone through a similar experience as a child, but here he was- helping Wade like it was nothing. He supposed that after 200 years, you resolve some of your issues.

"I've always felt like a monster, long before I was big, but only seen as a monster, let's just say I'm used to it."

Logan had always been told he was a freak, an animal, a killer. Ever since he was young. It hurt- until he had heard it enough times that it was second nature. He started to believe what they said about him. Think about the fact he really was a killer and an animal, the way he slashed through people like it was nothing or the way he growled when he was angry, it was true- wasn't it? And then he met Wade, and Wade showed him praise for all of those things. He never once seemed scared of Logan- infact he seemed to like all of the things he hated about himself. Wade would gush over the claws, joke about him being a cat, shout him on as he took out the bad guys on a mission. It felt strange, being show affection for the things people showed him hatred for for so long, but here it was. The praise he had always wanted.

"Yeah, I'm used to that, but I could get used to this."

His time with Vanessa had been amazing. Wade really had loved her with all of his heart- and he really did think they would be together until the end of time- but life got in the way as it often did. He had accepted she moved on, and while it hurt, he was happy she was happy. That she was finally with someone who could treat her right and keep her safe. It had felt strange to feel that similar fluttery feeling towards someone else- but Logan had managed to slip into that gap in his life with such ease that Wade never even noticed until he found himself not thinking of Vanessa anymore- instead he thought of Logan. It took him awhile to get used to that- to realise he could feel these things for someone else- and he liked it. Love it infact. The way Logan made him feel was so much more different than Vanessa, and he liked that. Logan complelty understood him. Never judged him for his looks or about the way he acted- loved every part of him like it was the easiest thing ever- and Wade couldn't help but find that so much better than what he had with Vanessa.

And the rest of the song? I could make up SEVERAL scenarios or ideas about each lyric for both of them. It fits so well it hurts.

[screamingcrows]

I will die happy if you write Dain 🎲

You rolled 38! "It's not paranoia if they are really out to get you." 💀

Istg if you die I'll personally drag your ass out of the afterlife.

He could see how fatigue had begun to coil around you, every movement more sluggish than the previous. The tip of your sword was quivering, your leather gloves taut over the back of your hand from how hard you gripped the hilt.

Seeing the glistening beads of sweat trickle down your forehead almost made Dainsleif feel remorseful about how hard he'd been pushing you lately.

Almost.

With practiced ease, he sidestepped your swiftly descending blade, refraining from countering lest he risk injuring you. The soft contours of your body were never meant to bear the weight of armor, yet Dainsleif's biggest concern lay with how brightly your eyes shone. Surely, there were already plenty who coveted that radiance.

How he wished you would see nothing but peace when it came time for you to reign.

"Captain, can we please rest for today? You're not even focused," your whine reached his ears just before the sound of your sword clattering to the ground.

Dainsleif saw how you rubbed your hands, wanting desperately to erase every trace of callouses and bruises formed under his watch.

"We will continue for the allocated duration, princess. Vary your swings and use your momentum as I demonstrated earlier, this is a duel, not a drill."

A feeling of dread had haunted Dainsleif for weeks, his eyes always lingering in the corners of the palace, convincing himself no shadows trailed along the stone. It had begun with the odd withdrawal of his brother, yet he knew better than to let a single act incite panic. This was hardly the first time there had been disagreements or secrets between the two.

Somehow, this felt different.

His eyes flickered to you, repressing a faint tug at his lips upon being met with a petulant expression as you adjusted the sword in your hand.

"My time would be better spent in the library Dain, I'm no good at this."

"We practice to improve."

With a sigh, he parried your foolhardy jab.

"It's not like war is at our door, besides, I have you to look out for me."

"Being able to defend yourself is never wasted, if anything was to happen-"

A downward slash, easily dodged with your lack of reach. What made him raise an eyebrow was the exasperation in your voice as you interrupted him.

"You're always so paranoid, people are happy here."

He hardly had time to consider his words, speaking them more to himself than you.

"It is not paranoia if people really are out to get you."

It had been spoken so softly, words barely formed in his mind where they should have been confined to. He should have screamed it for all to hear. Perhaps then, things could have been different.

Rarely did he look at the sky, what reason did he have when he yearned to bury himself again, freed from the oppressive stares above. His only solace was knowing you'd fallen before the curse had taken hold.

After so many years, he'd come to accept that his failure to protect you in the initial chaos was the only blessing he would receive from this world.

[tiny-breadcrumbs]

Of Pencil and Paper

(Trigger warning: mention of Sexual Assault and self harm)

People often ask why I stay with analog medium? The world is moving, digital art is growing fast and it does perform better on industrial scale. But I can never find how to answer that question without it sounded like I'm selling a sad story. So a lot of people only get the "I don't like it" answer. Short and simple. Yet sometimes, I can see the prejudice in their eyes, how arrogant, they said.

It's unhealthy. I almost conviced myself that I simply didn't like it when the root was deeper than that. It's easier to tell the lie, to sounds like an arrogant old school artist who dislike digital art with passion. No, never that. I like the texture of paper and the smell of wet paint. Not in the artistic sense, at least not at first, I found peace in that because they once saved me from my darkest days. Thus, they are familiar.

I always love a story. Consuming one or writing it myself. Yeah, I used to write. Ten years old me have a dream to be a novelist. And it all shattered when I'm thirteen. I'm sexually assaulted by one of the teacher in my school. At school hour, in an empty classroom because everyone else in a middle of morning prayer and I'm the only kid at that time with different believe. And everything spiralling down from there. It was a prestigious school I study hard to get in, that jerk used to be everyone favorite teacher including me, now, I saw that place like a hell on earth.

I never get justice. Never. Me and family being silenced for the sake of keeping the school reputation, with just a word of apology and so called promise to never repeat. As if the SA trauma can be healed like that. But world is unfair and the society is in the hand of the rich. My family is in minority from every aspect, ethnic, religion stance, society, even economy. The school even has the audacity to blackmailing us, they said I'm alone in the classrom that day because I've been writing porn on my book. The book they already confiscated and read. The book where thirteen years old me write a silly treasure hunt story. I've never saw that book again.

You see, I have a lot of issue at that time. We don't even have money to pay for therapist. Nor we can get a free counseling for victim because the case was never disclosed. The school have connection with the local police and I can just bury that injustice deep in me. At one point it almost reach a self harm. I used to scrubbing my skin until it was red, but the phantom hands still there, and I very tempted to peel it out. My family hid all the sharp object, I think I scare them badly. But I found a single pencil. Unfortunately (or fortunately) not sharp. I run it across my skin, but they didn't tear. So I take it on paper.

At first, maybe I'm doing art as some kind of therapy. I pour all that anger and disgust on paper, for months it was all angry lines and colours. The texture as I scratch the pencil, the slash of black it made across the white paper, it strangely satisfying. A little bit sadistic perhaps, because I'm doing it with the face of a demon that appear every night in my dreams, that person face. But my family keep giving me more paper, they told me to keep going. By the time I'm calm enough, when I finally graduate, I start to turn that lines into a drawing. I love a story. And because words now terrify me, I finally learn how to draw.

With times, I learn to enjoy it for the fun and all the beauty in it.

The thing is, all that sensory experience became a habit. I need to feel the paper, I need to hold a wooden pencil, a wooden brush, I need to smell the paint, so I feel safe enough to concentrate and lose myself in arts. So I can loosen up a little bit and not being so hypervigilant. Maybe I'm afraid the screen and digital art can't provide me that sense of safety. That smooth glide on the screen gave me dissasociative feeling and freak me out. I try it before and nope out so fast my last bit of paint on the pallete was not even dry yet. I enjoy digital arts when I'm not the one doing it and good for all those illustrator that can make it to the industry. But I'm here first and foremost to keep myself sane.

I'm okay now. Fabulous. Fewer and fewer relapse over the years. By the time I'm fixing all my family financial problem and finally have enough to find a therapist, they said I already handle myself good. I'm carrying thirteen years old me crawling out from that dark pit with sheer spite and luck for finding the perfect outlet to regulate that negative emotion. Giving myself an art therapy without even realise it was one. I can talk freely about that now, maybe I finally find that peace with myself.

So, do you see how long this is? Thats why I take a two minute silence whenever someone ask me why I did not do digital art when I have a potential to make more money with it. How do you even explain this? And I don't think they will care. We Asian do not believe in mental health issue 😂😂 why so weak? So saying I simply doesn't like it looks like the fastest way to give answer and switch topic. Not a lie, but not the truth either.

But my therapist told me to write this out because they think it can help someone out there about the story of art therapy, and here it is. Next time when you are about to ask and pester someone about why they didn't switch into digital art, perhaps do it on a kinder tone. Maybe they have more story behind that, big or small.

If this resonate with you, here, let me give you a hug. You are a survivor and so damn strong, I'm super proud of you!

May the world be kinder to you today, tomorrow, and many years to come.

[mixelation]

for the reborn au: how will Itachi deal with being a dad?

the idea of itachi as a "dad" is so weird it took me a hot second to realize you meant him and his Illegal Test Tube Baby, Kushina Jr.

So, I think Itachi is someone who thinks he likes children (but in practice doesn't really enjoy non-Sasuke kids). In canon I think he definitely wouldn't want to have his own kids, but I don't think he's totally turned off by the idea. Maybe his pacifist life fantasies occasionally include a kid. Or maybe just like a cute neighbor kid he can talk to sometimes. This means that, in a universe where his life is more stable and people are actively expecting him to pop out an heir, he's able to make peace with the idea of having kids.

I talked about this before, but I think Itachi is more likely to form an attachment to kids that he can conceptualize as not being his. Sasuke's kid? Shisui's kid? He will Uncle them so hard. I think he's more likely to bond with his own kid if he thinks of them as a product of his beloved partner than his own. Not that he'd dislike his own kid-- he already resolved to have the mandatory heir and attempt to raise it well-- it's just... weird. With the test tube baby, from his POV.... it sort of feels like Tori went off and adopted a new puppy. He knew it was happening. He donated half the DNA. He's seen the test tube. He read a bunch of safety evaluations for cribs. It's still VERY WEIRD when a whole ass baby comes home one day. He's not like "oh gross, a mini-me," but Tori is his platonic friend SLASH life teammate he decided to move in with permanently and not his cherished lover, so he doesn't instantly fall in love with the baby. It's.... a process.

(I think at this point Itachi and Tori have to have some genuine affection for each other, so the idea of a tiny Tori IS funny/cute, it's just not like how I'd write him having a kid with a more romantic partner.)

The danger with giving Itachi kids, I think, is that he has a lot of anxiety over people he loves being taken away or killed by the ongoing horrors of the ninja world. That's why he makes a bunch of Insane Choices about Sasuke: if he can't completely control his loved ones, he will force them to be as strong and resilient as he thinks they need to be. The good news is that in the Reborn AU:

He's an adult and not a teenager, so his bad decisions and life philosophy have slightly more wisdom.

There are a lot fewer terrifying forces outside of his control that he can use to project anxiety onto his helpless little test tube baby.

There are a lot more people he can trust to have his (and therefore his kid's) back. This doesn't necessarily include his parents, but it definitely includes Shisui and Sasuke, and probably the rest of Team 4. All these people can also theoretically stop him from being insane. :)

So I think Itachi would have high standards for his kid, in part because Itachi forgets what normal people are like, and then in part because his kid being a good ninja eases his anxiety. BUT he's in a place where he doesn't feel the need to push them beyond what would be healthy for the kid. Like he would prefer they be able to best him in single combat at 10, but also he recognizes this is unrealistic. I can see him having to be reminded to compliment his kid for getting good grades, but I don't think he'd be like. Horrible.

All that being said, I don't think either him OR Tori completely conceptualized "making an illegal test tube baby means we have to take care of a baby now." Partly because if no one actually gets pregnant... you can just go home for the night and forget about how you have a baby in the works. So the learning curve is high and also very confusing the first couple years, in part because like. Navigating a baby is very different from from navigating a deep conspiracy to get rid of Danzo or a fake romantic relationship. And there's suddenly? A whole ass new human?? Who you named Kushina Jr for SOME REASON

[yu-reiii]

First Meeting

pairing: RE2 Leon S. Kennedy/Reader

you don’t know how you got here, but you’re going to survive.

also i don’t know how to write. do you guys have any recommendations for beginners? i fear my creativity ran out every time i moved past halfway point. i have like 10 wips rn _:(´ཀ`」 ∠):

<no beta read, practice writing.>

Sometimes, you wonder how it got to this point. Sitting in an abandoned building, counting your supplies. Praying to God you didn’t believe in to give you a chance. To make sure you get out of this alive.

Panicking when you hear a sound that didn’t come from you. You grip your knife tighter. You would’ve gone for your gun if it hadn’t run out of bullets hours ago. You have to restock your supplies soon, or you won't last.

It’s a zombie. Alone, too. Which is good, you don’t think you could take a horde of them with just your knife. You creep behind it and make a quick slash at its neck. It fell over to the floor and you stomp its head to make sure it won’t get up.

You are tired and alone. You haven’t seen any other survivors in days. Sure, it’s only been a week since the outbreak happened. But there’s bound to be some survivors left, right? You can’t be alone in this hell.

You have to make your way over to the police station. There are bound to be weapons left behind in it. Well, at least you hope so. You are in desperate need of a new gun. Ducking out of sight when a zombie come to view, you silently make your way past the few still staggering around.

You arrive at the police station. Upon closer inspection, you found out the entrance is locked.

Shit.

You have to find another way in. It’s going to be hard with all the undead walking around the station like there’s a barbeque party in there. And you are out of ammo, let’s not forget about that.

This is going to suck. You think. But your situation is already pretty shitty. It can’t be worse.

You hoist yourself over the gates, almost falling down and probably breaking your ankles. Surprisingly enough, the zombies on this side of the gate were already dead. Some survivors must’ve passed through here. That thought lit a candle of hope in you.

Maybe they’re still alive. I should find them.

It’d be nice to have another’s company. As long as they can take care of themselves. You can’t afford to take care of other people in a situation like this.

Walking over to find an entrance leading to the inside of the station, you found a door. It’s unlocked, surprisingly. You didn’t think it would be that easy, but you have no time to ponder about it.

You walk into the station. Quite frankly, it was a mess. Desks are scattered everywhere, and papers are on the floor. It looks like they were hurrying to get out. Which makes sense, given the absolute shitshow outside.

The station is quiet, unlike the growls and groans on the streets. It’s a good sign, there would be less infected here. You make your way through the lobby, trying to find things you can use. The atmosphere is really eerie, you noticed.

Turning your back to the main entrance (Which was a mistake, you'd come back and berate yourself later) You didn't notice a presence that crept up to you.

A hand reaches out and taps your shoulder. No matter what anyone said, you did not scream. No, siree.

You launch yourself back from the stranger (infected? no, not infected) panic blinding your vision. You hold your knife up threateningly, it worked, somehow, as the stranger puts up their hand in a placating manner.

"Woah, woah. I came in peace." The man said. He's in a police uniform, so that's… great? He could help you. You breathe out a sigh of relief, there might just be hope for you yet.

"You scared the shit out of me!" You exhaled, half annoyed. The other half is too busy celebrating that there is a survivor other than you. You're not alone in this.

"Sorry…Are you okay?" The officer asks in concern.

"...Yes, I'm fine." Steadying your breath, you then examine him.

He's…quite handsome. With blonde hair and blue eyes, he could be featured on the front page of a fashion magazine.

"My name is Leon Kennedy." Leon introduces himself. It brings you back to focus. You must've looked like a weirdo, just staring like that.

You tell him your name. "You’re the first person I’ve seen that’s not one of those rotting corpses out there.” You say, staring at him like he’s the answer to all of your problems. Which, at this point, he might as well be.

“There’s Claire running around somewhere in this station, too. She wears a red leather jacket,” He answers your unsaid question. You can’t help the wash of relief overcoming you. “She actually came here with me, but we got separated.” He continues.

You smile shakily. “Well, it’s nice to see you. I thought I was going insane from isolation.” Leon’s expression softens with understanding. “You could join me to find a way to get out if you want? I’d rather have someone watching over my back out there, too.” He offers. In a normal situation, he wouldn’t ask for help from a civilian like this, but this could hardly be considered ‘normal’. It’s safer with more people anyway.

“I’d like that.” You answer him with a smile, genuine this time. Having company is beneficial, especially since he’s a trained officer. You have a feeling things would be... Well, not fine, but definitely better than before.

[katsheadinclouds]

chapter 6

Joel Miller x gn!/f! reader

series masterlist - part 2, prologue

summary: After the events at the garage, you’re getting the help you need. Joel notices he might need some healing of his own.  

rating: mature

chapter warnings: angst, hurt/comfort, grief, soft!Joel, child birth (nothing graphic, just a happy event that happens at one point), insomnia, nightmares, infected, some violence typical to the TLOU world, therapy talk, Joel thinks about Sarah a lot, no use of y/n

word count: 18.2k

notes: We’re back to the main story! Enjoy this extra long chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it :)

divider by cafekitsune

Joel is sitting by himself in the dining hall, his foot tapping against the floor. It’s quiet at this time of day, just a few people sitting here and there without giving much attention to others. He thought maybe he should get something to eat, but he’s not hungry. Especially not now. The door opens and once again his focus shifts to whoever is walking through it. But it’s not who he’s expecting.

He crosses his fingers on the table, massaging the space between his thumb and index finger, feeling the small, tense muscle under his skin. He takes a deep breath, then another, deliberately calming himself down. He has everything memorised, like a script, in his mind.

The door opens again and he looks up, his back straightening and he stands up, his whole body stiff with nerves. Diana walks towards him calmly, a gentle smile on her face. Her curls are in a neat ponytail on the back of her head and she fixes her glasses on the top of her nose.

“Joel,” her warm voice greets him and when she pulls a chair from underneath the table and sits down, so does he.  

“Thank you for meeting me.” She relaxes in her seat, leaning her forearms against the table. He hums and nods, waiting for her to start asking question. But she only looks at him, her head slightly tilted. He fixes his posture, pulling his shoulders back and he clears his throat as quietly as he can.

Someone walks by the table and he fully expects the man to see his discomfort but he’s not even looking at Joel or Diana. He squirms in his seat and tries to find comfort in sitting still. But it seems impossible. Especially with Diana sitting in front of him, her eyes narrowing the longer he seems to fidget.

“So, what do you want me to start with? What they told me at the garage? Or how I know them?” He presses his hands into fists, opens them, then puts them under the table against his thighs. He forces himself to be still, but he can’t stop his foot from shaking. Diana breathes out a chuckle and her voice is even lower when she opens her mouth again.

“Do you know why I asked you to meet me?”

“I assume you want to know what happened that day at the garage?” Joel bites his teeth together.

“Yes, you’re correct. But I want to know how you’re holding up. I haven’t had the chance to talk to you yet and I’ve been a bit worried.” Her expression melts into compassionate tenderness, something that shows him she’s is open and ready to hear him out. He hates it. He can only see pity in her eyes.

“What they went through that day had nothing to do with you—”

“Yes I know that,” Joel spits out, keeping his voice low.

“But,” she raises her brows, “your reaction to seeing your friend having a breakdown wasn’t why you were upset.” Her words slash through him.

“We’re barely friends and I wasn’t upset.” He can feel the walls building up around him. He doesn’t know Diana and the way she’s talking to him is making him feel like he’s losing all control in this situation. She sees what he rarely wants to admit.

“Joel, it’s okay to be upset.” She reaches her hand towards him but doesn’t touch him. A peace offering.

“I know that.” Joel squeezes his hand against his thigh and the back of his neck aches from the tension in his shoulders.

“Good,” she answers back quickly, almost like in a challenge. Her face turns melancholic, there’s real grief in her eyes, and she pulls her hand back. She looks away and takes a deep breath.

“Can I be honest with you?” She asks with a sigh, facing Joel and his hardened expression. He nods reluctantly. His anxiety is tight in his chest and he’s doing everything he can to not let her through. He can’t handle someone probing into his head. He wants to keep her at a distance, even when he sees the gentle look in her eye and hears the warmth in her tone.

“I don’t think you’re a stranger to suffering. And let me tell you, I’ve met a lot of people who have gone through horrible things. I’m not here to ask you what you’ve been through. I’m not forcing you to tell me something you’re not comfortable with. I’m not asking you to tell me anything because you need to be the one who wants to talk.” He swallows hard and he can’t face her anymore. He turns his eyes towards the windows, but he can’t shut her or her voice out as long as he’s sitting at the same table as she is.

“I’ve helped a lot of people in my time, Lord knows how much people need it. But I will tell you this,” she inhales deep and the pause forces him to glance at her. “I can tell you’ve gone through your fair share of trauma and I think your friend’s breakdown has brought up yours as well, in a big way. If you ever want to or would feel comfortable with talking to someone, I can help you.” He shakes his head and smirks. He lets out a humourless laugh and opens his mouth to say something, but he can’t. So he ends up looking at her, seeing her undisguised worry. He takes a deep breath, his mood matching hers.

“I…” He starts, his palm slamming gently against the table. “I promised Ellie I’d help her paint the rest of the garage.” He stands abruptly, the chair scraping against the wooden floor. Diana follows him, slowly standing up on her feet, watching Joel’s frantic movements and urge to escape.

“Okay, I understand. But Joel,” her voice forces him to stop. “They’re going to be okay, they’ve just had a really rough few months. You can and have a right to heal as well.” She nods and the promise hangs in the air. Joel can’t do anything else but turn away and walk out the dining hall doors. The warm early summer air hits against his face and his fast pace makes sweat trickle down the back of his neck. It’s a shame he doesn’t have patrol today, he’d need to do anything that could take his mind off meeting Diana.

He wishes he could sleep. He wishes he could forget everything and be dead to the world at least for a few hours. But he can’t. He hasn’t slept properly for a couple of weeks. Just an hour or two every night. He hasn’t been able to sleep since he last saw you. Since his own memories were blown wide open.

That’s how he finished renovating Ellie’s garage one night last week, distracting himself with the physical work. And the promise of making the place completely different from the time when you were there, crying after your dead siblings.

Joel stares at the clock on his bedside table. 3.47. He watches time ticking by. 3.48. He rubs his hand over his face and breathes through his mouth. He can feel the fatigue in his body, the heaviness in his head. He wants to sleep, but when he lays down, he either can’t fall asleep or he wakes up from nightmares that keep him awake for the rest of the night. His arm stings where he cut it, the bandages keeping the shallow wound together.

It was his fault. He was out on patrol with Jade and everything was going well, it seemed like nothing remarkable or special could happen. The normal routes were extended a few weeks ago after they had come across that hoard of infected at the suburbs. This time they rode through an old town centre a few hours away and it looked quiet.

Until they heard the unmistakable sound of a clicker in one of the stores. They hid the horses and snuck into the shop, not realising what kind of shit they had put themselves into. They thought it would be just a couple of clickers, nothing to be worried about, but quickly realised they were in over their heads.

The shop looked quiet and they made their way to the other side of it. One turn and a clicker was right in front of them, seemingly sleeping, slowly swaying from side to side, making slow clicking noises. They backed up, right to another, which was also sleeping standing up. The whole store was full of them. The best way for them to survive it was to leave the same way they had gotten in.

Jade was sharp with her hand signals, telling Joel to follow her while they were grouched on the floor behind some shelves. She moved quickly and precisely, making sure to keep Joel in her line of sight while they made their way out through the same window where they got in.

Joel’s heart was beating out of his chest, barely being able to handle the adrenaline pumping through his veins. His hands were shaking and his mind was alert but working in the state of overwhelm. He was on edge, and not in the best way. His whole body felt like it could collapse. From the fatigue, from the stress. From the fear. He moved right behind Jade, breathing through his mouth to keep the sound silent.

One of the clickers moved, groaning as it walked to a new spot. It dragged its feet against the floor, its body twisting and bending as it found a spot away from the window where the sunlight was blasting through the shattered glass. They stood still while they waited for the creature to stop walking, but then another woke up from its slumber and started to trudge to a new spot. Right behind them.

Joel turned slowly to look at it, taking small, quiet steps to back away from it. He squeezed his revolver in his hand, ready to shoot. What he didn’t take into account was the rifle on his back, and how it hit an empty medicine jar on the shelf next to him. He heard it. The quiet rattle and then the silence before the bottle clattered against the floor.

The clicker right in front of them came alive the second the bottle hit the dirty ground. Joel shot it straight in the face, while Jade pulled at his arm, shooting her way through the shop towards the open window. It was pure chaos and Joel felt like his body wasn’t his at that moment. He was working on autopilot, shooting and running while Jade cleared the way for them.

He was panting erratically, sweat pouring down his temples and back when they finally got to the window and scrambled out. They ran as fast as they could, hearing the clickers right at their heels. Jade managed to get the pre-prepared molotov cocktail from her backpack, the cork holding everything together right as it should.

He doesn’t know how he got on Old Beardy so fast, but suddenly he was riding his horse and Jade threw the bottle behind them. He knew she hit the clickers from the screeches they made. They rode as fast as they could for a few miles before they deemed their surroundings safe.

Joel didn’t realise it at first, but when the sweat on his arms started to settle and the adrenaline started to wear off, he felt the burn on his arm. A wound from the broken window. He looked at it and the blood that trickled down onto his jeans.

“You clean?” He asked Jade, who looked back with such fury it surprised him. She breathed through her mouth, barely able to open it to tell him she’s clean. She didn’t say a word the whole time they rode back into town, staying ahead of him, keeping a steady, quick pace. Joel knew she was angry at him and he doesn’t blame her. He would’ve been angry too. He should’ve taken better care of the rifle on his shoulder, make sure it wasn’t too loose. Make sure it wouldn’t hit anything.

When the gates to Jackson opened, she rode in and right when she dismounted her horse, she started to pace back and forth. Someone from the stables came out right when Joel dismounted Beardy and he gave the reins to the man before he was left alone with Jade.

“You!” She yelled, pointing her finger at him, not stopping her pacing.

“I’m sorry, it was an accident,” he lifted his hands up and tried to keep his voice down as to not draw any attention to them. But Jade didn’t seem to care about it.

“An accident that almost got us killed!” She wasn’t ready to lower her voice. He had never seen her like this before. She’s always so calm and keeps her thoughts to herself. He has come to trust her. That’s why they’re patrol partners and he likes that she doesn’t swallow bullshit. She talks when there’s something to talk about and she’s not one to gossip. She’s a great shot and with her they’re always on time. But this? This is a new side of her.

“I don’t know what has gotten to you Joel, but you gotta fucking get your shit together!” She took a step forward and her index fingers came to poke at his chest. Joel saw Tommy walking out of the stables, a worried look on his face.

“For the past few weeks you’ve been in your own little head but I didn’t want to bring it up because it’s none of my business, but I’m done with this fucking moodiness.” She jabs her finger into his chest and her voice reminded him of a snarl. “I won’t put my life in danger because of someone else’s mistakes.” She stepped back and walked away, anger in her steps.

Tommy came to stand next to his older brother, his hand clapping on Joel’s shoulder. He shook Joel, to get him to relax his muscles. Joel sighed and his chin dropped against his chest.

“What was that about?” Tommy was still watching Jade, who was already far away.

“Something happened during patrol…” Tommy listened to Joel recount the events, worry settling onto his forehead. He saw the exhaustion on Joel’s face, the dark circles under his eyes and the way they seemed to be only half open. He looked like he was drunk off his ass.

“When was the last time you slept?” Tommy asks suddenly, in the middle of Joel suggesting getting a group together to check the abandoned town.

“What?”

“You look like you haven’t slept in ages,” Tommy raises his brows and the unimpressed look on his face makes the back of Joel’s neck prickle.

“I know you wouldn’t do such a mistake, especially around clickers. I know you, Joel. And I know when you haven’t slept.” Of course Tommy knows when he hasn’t slept or something’s up with him. He was there to witness it 20 years ago. Joel just can’t deal with this right now.

“I sleep just fine,” Joel told him and turned his back on his own brother. He heard Tommy call after him, but he didn’t stay to listen what he would’ve still wanted to say. Joel felt guilty for not being honest with him. He feels guilty still, now in the middle of the night.

He knows he can’t go on like this when his own insomnia is putting others in danger. Jade was right. He has to get his shit together, especially if he wants to keep on patrolling. But he doesn’t know where to start, or how to start. He has no clue what the next steps could be. The thought frustrates him to no end. He can’t deal with others telling him to work on his problems and then he can’t deal with himself because he has no solution for the things that swim in his head day and night.

He keeps on sitting on the edge of the bed, his back aching from the hunched posture. He keeps staring at the same spot on the floor, his vision getting blurry. He feels his brain turning off, his breathing running through his lungs slower and slower. He’s almost grateful.

It starts the way it always starts. It’s quiet at first, her breathing. It gets louder and more alive, something that he could be hearing right now. He feels the weight of her on his arms, and the way her body was shuddering from the pain of the gunshot to her chest. Her breathing is now in his ears, unrelenting, telling him he’s going to lose her again. She screams in his arms when he tries to lift her, to save her. He tries so hard but he can feel her slipping away like sand.

“Joel,” Tommy’s voice echoes from somewhere far away, such sorrow in his tone that Joel is shocked out of his sleep. He tries to catch his breath, his fingers coming to rub the scar on his temple. He feels the wetness on his cheeks and he quickly wipes the tears away and straightens his back.

The old wound in his stomach protests again and he winces from the tightness. But he forgets it right away, when he can still feel the heaviness of Sarah’s body on his arms. The fresh cut aches and with trembling legs he stands up and walks down the stairs in search of some pain relief. He knows the old pills have nowhere near enough power to knock out the pain he’s wishing to go away or would deserve to not feel.

The house is quiet, almost infuriatingly quiet. He’s leaning against the kitchen island, looking into the dark void that is the mudroom. He knows what’s still hanging on those hangers. The clothes he washed, your clothes, have been dry for weeks now. They’ve been waiting in the same place where he hung them when they were soaking wet, dripping water on the floor. He has been avoiding touching them, even looking at them lately. But every time he does look at them, or he accidentally touches them, he can still see you panicked. He can hear your voice, what you told him. It makes his skin crawl.

Slowly he walks towards the mudroom and turns the light on. The clothes are lifeless, frozen in time. There’s nothing threatening about them, they just are. But he can’t control the hate he feels when he looks at them.

It starts in his throat. He’s breathing harder, his airways constricting and tightening. The feeling spreads to his chest, the pressure inside his ribcage getting more and more intense. His arms feel heavy and his fingers start to sting. He breathes through his nose and tries to keep his jaw relaxed, but it tenses on its own. He’s grinding his teeth together as the intense anger bubbles in his mind.

Why the hell did you come here with Ellie that day? Why did you even want to come here, to Jackson? Why did you follow him and Ellie in the first place? Why didn’t you just suck it up and leave them alone?

He rips the clothes from the hangers, dropping them forcefully on the floor. His mind is restless while his body works until there’s only a crumbled pile of your clothes on the dusty floor. He feels lightheaded from breathing so hard. He stands still and the longer he stares at the clothes, the worse he feels.

His anger isn’t anger at all. The hatred he thought he felt is replaced by the deep sorrow that he carries around him everywhere he goes. Very slowly he leans down and picks the clothes up one by one, shaking them until they’re clean again. He folds them carefully and piles them neatly. He puts them on the top shelf so they won’t be in the way. He watches them, almost like making sure they won’t fall even though there’s nothing that could rip them down.

How on earth did you survive it all? How did you manage to keep yourself from totally breaking apart? Joel shakes his head and takes a deep breath. He has no idea how he’s keeping himself from breaking apart. How he’s surviving.

He will never admit it out loud, but Diana was right. You did bring up his own nightmares and now he can’t shut them out like he used to. He just knows that the way he’s operating and getting through his days can’t go on anymore. He has to get some sleep, but he has nothing that could knock him out.

He still walks up the stairs and goes back into his bedroom, lays on his bed and waits. He wants to fall asleep, but his head isn’t letting him. His whole body is tired and craving for sleep. At one point he realises he hasn’t closed his eyes at all. He watches the sun come up on the other side of the window, the gentle pastel yellow streaming in. Another day and he finally knows what he has to do.

He leaves before Ellie. He doesn’t stay to wait for her to wake up or for her to leave for school, he just wants to get out of the house. He has no idea what he should get Diana as an apology gift but also as a payment for her to listen to him if he’ll be able to say a word.  

After walking aimlessly around the town, he ends up at the gardens, some people already at work. He asks for fruit but because it’s still early summer, not a lot has grown. The woman who works there brings him a few stalks of bright, red rhubarb, ripping the leaves off before handing them to him. He looks at them doubtfully, not really knowing if it’s a good gift at all. But it’s all he’s getting so he has to be satisfied with what he’s got.

Diana and her wife live a few houses across from Tommy’s. He has seen them walking there from time to time when he has visited his brother. He’s nervous. He knows it from the way he’s trying to put going to Diana’s off. He walks slower than usual, he keeps thinking about other things he has to do today, how maybe he should’ve waited for Ellie to leave for school. Suddenly Diana’s house is right in front of him and he can’t back away anymore.

His knuckles rest against the door for a moment before he knocks, the sound coming off as unsure and tentative, just like he feels. He steps back and waits behind the wooden door, clearing his throat and holding the rhubarb stalks like they are flowers.

He hears the footsteps first, then the scratching of the lock and when the door opens, he’s met with a woman he has never spoken with. She tilts her head in question and for a moment they just stare at each other. Her dressing gown is loosely tied around her plump waist and the cotton pyjamas look soft and worn. Her greying curls are a mess around her head and her green eyes and the crinkles around them tell Joel she does not fit together with cordyceps and violence. She looks too kind, too caring, and it makes him instantly uncomfortable.

“Yes?” She finally asks when Joel has shifted his weight from one foot to the other twice.

“Is Diana home?” He asks breathlessly and squeezes the stalks in his hands. She notices them right away when the fibrous vegetables grit in his grasp.

“Are those for her?” Suddenly her face lights up and a smile brings out dimples on her cheeks.

“Uh, yes, but is…”

“Diana, someone’s here to see you!” She yells and reaches for the rhubarb stalks. He lets her take them and she inspects them while they wait for Diana to come to the door.

“Thanks,” she tells him, right when the door opens more and Diana is standing next to her.

“Joel?” Her voice is once again laced with worry. Diana’s wife’s smile melts into a gentler one and she mouths a quiet “bye,” before she leaves the two alone.

“Have a seat, would you like anything? We were just having breakfast.” She reaches her hand out and points at the two chairs on the porch around a small table. He backs away and sits down. The chair wobbles under his weight.

“No thank you, I…” But he can’t get the words out. He’s not sure how he’s even supposed to begin.

“I wasn’t expecting you, but I’m also not surprised to see you,” Diana offers when Joel hasn’t been able to put his thoughts into words. He sighs out a laugh and lets himself relax against the back of the chair. Her words stick into his consciousness.

“I can’t sleep,” he shakes his head and saying it, even though it’s just one part of the problem, makes him feel relieved.

“How long have you had trouble sleeping?” Her question is a simple one, but it holds so much weight.

“How can anyone sleep when the world has ended,” the sarcastic answer is quick to come out. He knows she sees right through it, how it’s not just a quick joke but his reality. His world ended when Sarah died, his life stopped that night. But time has still ticked away like it always has and that one single, life altering moment has faded into memories, making room for other life altering moments that are more recent. Diana hums at that but she’s not letting go. Her question is still hanging in the air.

“I haven’t slept properly in weeks,” he exhales, his voice lowering and his walls coming down just a fraction to let her see what she’s dealing with. In a way he feels like he’s giving up, letting that armour come off and let someone see that he’s not surviving at all, even though that’s what he has called it all these years. “It’s starting to affect my work and how I treat people.” He looks at Diana, who once again has her head tilted, her eyes deciphering him.

“How come you’re not surprised to see me?” He asks back, genuinely wanting to know the answer.

She smiles and visibly relaxes at that, both of them now leaning against their chairs, taking in the morning that’s promising a warm day. There are some people walking towards town, probably on their way to work or to get some fresh produce. A kid is rushing to school, holding a football under his arm. Joel’s hand squeezes the arm rest of the chair.

“You just seem like a person who doesn’t want to admit they have a problem but when they do have it, they want to get it over with as soon as possible. I think this is pretty soon since our last meeting.” Her voice is like honey, coating his nerves with softness and warmth. He notices the gentle joke—they met a couple of weeks ago.

“What keeps you up at night?” She asks and the walls come back up. He turns his face from her, he’d want to run away, forget he ever came here. He’d want to hide from the feeling he has on his arms, the one he felt last night in his sleep, the one he feels so often in his sleep, the one that once was real. It’s so real it threatens to take his breath away.

It’s like Sarah is right there, in his embrace, her weight getting heavier and heavier. The worse the grief is, the more it feels like someone is adding weight to the feeling of having her pressed to him in her last moments.

He can feel her body against his chest, how it turned cold and stiff when he had to carry her to the emergency triage they had set up on a field in Austin. Her sticky blood dried on his skin, like a tattoo that he can’t wash off. He can feel her hair against his cheek, when he held her for the last time, not ready to let her go.

It felt like a nightmare that he couldn’t wake up from. It still feels like that. He can still hear her pained gasps, the look in her eyes, the way she was trying to grasp onto him, trying to survive, trying to be brave even she was so incredibly scared. That’s the worst part. Knowing she was scared and he wasn’t able to do anything about it. He could just hold her, hug her to his chest, and he couldn’t save her.

He squeezes his eyes shut, his hand massaging his arm, trying to remind himself he’s here now, far away from the horrors of that night. He tries to squeeze the memory out of his head, make it go away, but it doesn’t. It coexists with something that he rarely lets himself remember. Her laugh. The crinkle of her eyes. Her plump cheeks and freckles. Her smart mind and quick comebacks.

“I… Lost something, a long time ago,” he says through the thickness in his throat. He can’t look at Diana, he can only imagine how she’s analysing him at this moment. And he doesn’t like that. He doesn’t want to be feeling like this in front of someone who he considers to be a stranger. And in a weird way, she is easy to be around with, even though he finds himself feeling uncomfortable most of the time.

He also knows why. she is disarming, she sees through him, she sees him and she sees his struggle. The quiet after his words stretches into a long silence. He dares to look at her from the corner of his eye and she’s not looking at him as he thought she was. She has a sorrowful look on her face, that of understanding. She’s watching life pass by them on the street, people doing their daily chores and having their own histories. He doesn’t feel pressured by her to say anything else and after a while the quiet seems to soothe his confession and the emotions that thunder through him.

“I’m sorry.” She turns her attention back to him, her compassion being the end for his nerves. He knows she’s not going to pry. She’s not trying to get inside his head. She knows enough just from what he’s ready to tell her.

“I’m quite fond of different herbs and plants,” she suddenly says and stands up. He sits still, looking up at her. She touches the hanging planters, her fingers gently nipping one of the flowers off from the root. She keeps the flower in her hand, smells it and smiles.

“Since it’s sometimes hard to get medications these days, I’ve become interested in using plants to treat different ailments.” She offers the flower to him, who takes it tentatively between his fingers. The small, violet petals seem fragile in his large hand. He brings it closer to his nose, inhaling the sweet, floral scent, that reminds him of the woods. Lavender.

“Don’t get me wrong, sometimes real medication is necessary, but I think I might have something that could help you sleep.” She leaves him on the porch, telling him to wait. He sits still, smelling the flower. He finds it to be calming, surprisingly so.

He closes his eyes and he’s taken right to a moment with Sarah, when she found lavender growing in a community garden that she wanted to explore. Her wide smile made him buy her a lavender plant the next day, which she planted in the backyard. It bloomed wildly, thriving from the way she was taking care of it. She took cuttings of it, making it spread until the whole flowerbed was filled with it. They were right under his bedroom window and when it was open, he could smell it in the night. The delicate, herbal scent that he can now smell on his fingers.

The door opens and Diana steps out, a small pouch in her hand.

“This is a mix of herbs I’ve made just for sleeping. It’s nothing strong, but when you make tea out of it, try it with just a teaspoon of the herbs. Some people need more, some less, but try a smaller amount at first.”

“Doctors orders?” He asks, reaching for the pouch as she gives it to him.

“Doctors orders,” she repeats and smiles. But then suddenly her eyes turn solemn and she takes a deep breath, like she’s calculating her words very carefully.

“I’ve been around people who deal with tremendous amount of trauma. And loss.” She watches him, waits for him to react. He can’t look at her in the eyes anymore, giving her the answer she needs.

“If you have any other… Symptoms… Anxiety, panic, anything,” he looks up and she knows she has his full attention. “If you feel anxious, I want you to try grounding yourself. Find things around you that you can sense with all your senses and list them. And I want you to breathe. Focus on it, count to five when you breathe in and out as gently as you can.”

“Joel?” She asks, when he feels his cheeks tingling with heat. He hums, the pouch in his hand smelling of flowers and herbs.  

“It’s okay to admit you need help with these things, be it from me or someone else. It’s okay.”

“It’s that simple, just to admit it all?” He asks and the doubt is clear in his voice.

“Yes, sometimes that can help the most.” The simplicity of her words takes him off guard. He knows he’s not good with words. He knows he wants to shut everything in, shutting everyone out in the process. It’s hard for him to admit if he needs help or that he’s in any way struggling. He’s so used to it all that it’s hard to change his ways.

“And even if you only admit it to yourself too, that’s enough as well,” she adds, before her attention is back on the street in front of them. A bird sits on the street lamp, watching the town quietly move through its paces.

“I better get going,” he stands up, his body still as tired as before, but his mind not as heavy as it was.

“I’ll see you around, I hope the tea helps,” she tells him, standing with him and letting him move past her. He says a quiet bye before he’s on his way, walking towards the mailbox that’s barely standing tall. He rounds the corner towards the street and bumps to the bushy hedge, the twigs hitting his face.

He looks back, seeing Diana opening the door and stepping inside. And just as she’s closing the door, he sees a familiar looking face, but it seems like his brain can’t put your face and the realisation together. Just like he would’ve seen a stranger. The door closes before he can get a clearer look, see if you’re feeling better than the last time he saw you.

Even the quick glance he got of you shakes him off his broken roots. Something clicks in him, twists just right, putting some things into place. He steps away from the hedge, stops and smells the lavender again. He looks around, makes sure no one’s around, and he dares to close his eyes.

“I miss Sarah,” he whispers to himself. Words he hasn’t admitted in a long, long time. Maybe never. Because he never lets himself miss her. He inhales the lavender and opens his eyes. He’s not suddenly fixed, but he feels a sense of relief.

He has the lavender in a glass full of water on the kitchen counter and he glances at it from time to time while he’s cooking. Nothing fancy, a simple dinner of stew from veggies and some deer meat. He’s waiting to hear Ellie’s footsteps at the front porch, the familiar sound of the door opening and closing. He’s trying to distract himself from the nerves that are bubbling in his stomach.

He hasn’t been good to her lately. He has left her to her own devices. He has been too tired and burdened to take care of her. No movie nights or evenings in the living room, her drawing in her notebook or doing her homework while he’d read a book from the bookshelf.

They’ve mostly had dinner together at Tommy and Maria’s but other than that, they’ve been eating the food he has prepared separately. He has seen her sitting by the dining room table alone, reading a comic book or leaning her cheek against her hand. But he hasn’t been able to go and join her, not when he has felt so raw and torn open by his memories of Sarah. She has tried to approach him, but he has been shutting her out as well. So she’s been careful with him, not stepping on his toes or made too much conversation other than if he’s going to be out when she’s home.

And sometimes, when he has been at home, the house has been so quiet he hasn’t known if she’s under the same roof at all or spending time with her friends. He has just wanted to be out the door, patrolling or working on something else around town, not letting himself stand still for too long. It’s time he makes up for it.

Like clockwork she opens the door just when the stew is done. He knew she was with her friends after school, there was a note on the fridge door. He takes the pot off the stove and carries it into the dining room, passing Ellie who looks taken aback by his actions.

“Hi?” She asks, dropping her backpack on the floor and toeing her sneaker off.

“I hope you haven’t had dinner yet?” He asks, standing behind his usual chair. She shakes her head and comes to sit opposite him, smelling the food. He fills her plate, then serves himself before he sits down. She sits still and the confused look on her face makes Joel place his spoon on his plateful of stew and not start eating.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry,” he starts, but doesn’t know how to continue.

“About what?” Her voice has an edge that he doesn’t want to hear. He knows he deserves it. He looks at her straight in the eyes and sees the question in them. She’s talking about something else entirely. But he’s not going to breach that topic. If he can, he will never talk about it.

I swear.

“I’ve been having some problems and I haven’t been fair to you, I haven’t given you the care and attention you deserve,” he tells her sincerely, his voice low and slow. She turns her eyes towards the plate in front of her, her arms coming to rest on the table.

“You deserve better.” She wipes away a tear from her cheek quickly, trying to hide where his words are hitting. She nods and takes a sip of water from her glass.

“Thank you,” her voice betrays her, the broken note in her tone revealing how the apology was what she has to hear. He knows he fucked up by not being there for her, only caring about himself. He sniffles as tears threaten to spill from his eyes as well and he clears his throat. He fixes his posture and takes a spoonful of stew. Not bad, if he says so himself. Ellie also takes a bite and nods as she chews her mouth empty.

“What did you end up doing at school?” He asks and the mood changes instantly.

Ellie looks up amused, her brows raised. But she talks, grateful to have his attention. She tells him about their school day which didn’t really feel like one since they only have a few days left and they could do almost anything they wanted at this point. They just had to stay in the school grounds which aren’t big to begin with. They had a fun day nonetheless. She drew and hung out with friends. And afterwards she went to Jesse’s with Dina, where they tried to play some odd boardgame but they didn’t really understand the rules.

He soaks in her stories as she goes on and on about what she’s been up to. How she’s been decorating the garage with items she’s found around town or gotten from Maria. She digs up her notebook and shows him her drawings and he can see the pride on her face when he very slowly goes through the pages and takes in her talent. She had also found a new joke book from the town library, making him groan as he has to listen to her recite her favourite ones so far while he’s cleaning the table. He’ll never admit it to her, but he  enjoys the bad jokes.

They sit on the couch in the living room and he puts on a movie from the nineties, a really bad action comedy, that makes them both laugh and comment on the silliness. She asks questions if things really were like that before the cordyceps and he tells her whatever she wants to know.

If people were chasing each other on the streets: no. If people were calling each other on the phone every day: sometimes, yes, possibly. If everyone wore one brand of clothes: no, that was just marketing. Were all accountants secretly trained in fighting like the protagonist:  definitely no. What are those guys doing in the background? Dancing, I can’t remember what it was called. Did people used to dance on the street? Sometimes. Did you ever go to a music festival? Yes, when I was younger. Concerts? Yes. What was the last concert you saw? Uhh, it was this band Sarah liked. The questions keep on coming, and she absorbs everything like a sponge.

The movie ends and Ellie stays sitting on the couch, scribbling something into her notebook. Joel washes the dishes, a calm filling him from the relaxed evening. He doesn’t bother Ellie when she looks to be so in thought while writing something down, but he sits next to her and takes one of the books from the bookshelf. He opens the first page but can’t get past it. He reads the sentences over and over again, nothing sticking to his memory. He can’t stop thinking about the tea he’s about to make. He’s nervous, what if it doesn’t help?

Ellie is the first to go to sleep. He waits for her to wash her teeth and shut herself into her room before he goes back into the kitchen and starts boiling water. He opens the pouch and a strong, herbal smell fills his nostrils. He might’ve been worried about it not being able to help him sleep but he didn’t come to think if he could even drink it.

He takes a teaspoon of the ground up leaves and petals into a mug and pours the gently bubbling water over them, mixing it with the spoon. The water turns to a tint of green and he realises he should’ve strained the herbs out of the water. He tries to be as graceful as he can, but the water dribbles all over the counter and even on the floor when he pours it through a sieve back into the same pot, where he boiled the water, then back into his mug. He can’t help himself when he mutters curse words under his breath until the tea is safely back in the mug, only a few small specks of green leaves swirling through the water.

He tastes it, grimacing from the strong, earthy flavour. He braces himself, before he gulps it all down, damned be the roof of his mouth as it burns from the hot drink. He’s too stubborn to wait for it to cool down and the taste sticks to his mouth. He washes the mug and sieve and hopes for the best, though the flavour is something he has to get used to if it does help.

When he’s brushing his teeth, he feels himself getting sleepier. When he undresses, his eyes feel heavy. When he lays down in bed, he doesn’t remember anything else after that. He goes out like a light, sleeping without nightmares for the first time in years.

When he opens his eyes, he can’t believe it’s the next morning. He slept through the whole night without waking once.

Maria is cutting up vegetables in the kitchen when Tommy opens the door for Joel and Ellie. She rushes in, excited to see the pile of DVD’s Tommy had found while out on patrol with his partner. Joel smirks at her enthusiasm and the brothers exchange a look before Tommy is after her, ready to give her details about all of them.

“Joel, could you give me a hand?” Maria calls from the kitchen. He steps in, seeing her scrunched up face and her hands reaching back to massage her lower back. Without thinking he rushes to her side, pushing the cutting board and knife back from the edge of the counter, giving her his arm and walking her towards the dining table. She lets him pull a chair out for her before he helps her sit down.

“Thank you,” she smiles. Even though they have been having regular dinners every Saturday for weeks now and Joel and Maria have been friendly to each other, there still seems to be a hurdle they need to go over. He has come to enjoy her company even though he doesn’t know how to make conversation with her that often.

It’s always her who initiates conversation and Tommy and Ellie are always there to be the bumpers, a safety net for any quiet or awkward moments. But when it’s just the two of them, he doesn’t seem to know how to approach her. Her negative attitude towards him made sense in the beginning, there was a lot of things that she knew about him through what Tommy had told her and they haven’t resolved those thoughts. She might have a lighter mental image of him these days, but there’s still that small detail that is being left unsaid.

“What should I do?” He asks and picks up the knife, looking at the different vegetables on the table.

“I was going to make a soup,” she tells him while he looks into the fridge, seeing fish on a platter.

“Tommy went fishing?” He is surprised when he turns around. Tommy was never a fisher and even the thought of him going out to fish seems unnatural. He was always more into hunting.

“No,” she snickers, as she shifts in her chair and finds a more comfortable position. “The neighbour sometimes goes out hunting with a group, they had been fishing this morning. I gave him some of the strawberries from our garden to get it.” The pride in her voice is understandable. You have to be quick to get fish in Jackson, usually the whole catch is already reserved even before they come back into town.

Joel keeps on cutting the planned ingredients, asking Maria here and there how she wants them to be cut and if the size is what she had in mind. He can hear Tommy explaining the plot of Alien to Ellie, who sounds like she wants to watch the movie immediately. She’s awfully interested to see guts and horror, which makes Joel shake his head.

“She’s really finding her footing here,” Maria comments, apparently after carefully listening to the same chat from the other room as well.

“Yeah, she deserves a life in a place like this.” The melancholy in his voice is apparent.

“So do you,” she fills in, making Joel huff out a laugh.

“You think so?”

“Yes. You’ve become a good addition to the patrol team, you help around town and I’ve heard good things from other residents. I think you’ve become an important member of this community.” She is trying to get his attention. Tonight is the night when she wants to cross that hurdle that she knows they haven’t been able to resolve before. Tonight seems right.

Joel feels grateful Jade didn’t tell anyone about what happened in the abandoned town a few weeks ago. They talked it out, he apologised, so did she even though he didn’t think she had anything to apologise for. She insisted she should’ve been more considerate in the moment, even though she wasn’t sorry about telling him how he messed up.

She was the first person who he told he has been dealing with something lately and he’ll try to do better. He can’t believe he even said it out loud, but since he has been admitting things to himself lately, it’s also been easier to tell others that he needs a little time or that some days just aren’t going well. Others being Jade and Ellie, who once caught him standing in the kitchen doorway, anxiety making his skin itch.

But it also seems like Tommy didn’t tell Maria what he witnessed. She hasn’t brought it up even though she has every right to do so since she’s one of the people who plans the patrols. She has every right to know about what happened.

“I heard about what happened during one of your patrols,” she begins and Joel freezes right away. There it is. He has been dreading this moment. He knows he fucked up. He doesn’t want to get that same talk from her either, even when he deserves it.

“I just want to make sure you’ve been doing better? Nothing like that hasn’t happened since?” Not what he was expecting. He looks at her and she doesn’t seem to be angry or disappointed. Why was he even nervous about that, like a little boy scared to be chewed out by his own mother.

“That was just an off day, hasn’t happened and will not happen again,” he tells her, lowering his voice. He doesn’t want Ellie to hear what they’re talking about, since the conversation between her and Tommy has quieted down.

“Good,” she smiles and smooths her hand over her large baby bump. It’s almost time, just a few weeks left until the due date. Joel follows her hand movement with his eyes and turns away, washing carrots in the sink.

Not now, please not now, he repeats to himself, closing his eyes and focusing on his breathing. He can feel the water where he has dunked his hands, the carrots still tightly in his hold. He leans his body against the sink, feels it digging into his pelvis. He opens his eyes and looks out the window right in front of him, seeing darker clouds rolling in, a strong wind blowing through the green trees.

The town is lit up with street lights and there’s an odd sense of normalcy that is only broken when he encounters infected outside the walls during patrols. This seems like a simulation, a test, a dream where he’s trying to find a way to wake himself up.

“Tommy has told me about…” Her voice breaks him out of his head, bringing back to the kitchen, to washing the carrots in the still water in the sink. She has seen the way Joel looks at her stomach, the dread in his eyes when Tommy has brought up the baby.

This is the hurdle. The small detail. She knows there’ll probably always be some tension between them, she can’t help it. She got a first impression through stories and it will always make Joel be just slightly less gentle and warm in her eyes. The stories only told her about one side of him, of the actions that he did years and years ago before he settled down in Boston.

She can’t blame him, even though she doesn’t approve of everything. She’s also not in a place to deliver approval or judgement, not when she has done things in the past that she regrets or others would find cruel. She would’ve probably done the same things if she was in the same position as Joel and Tommy were back in the day, hurting, desperate, trying to cope with everything that was going on around them. No one stays clean in this world, no one stays innocent. It would be foolish to be that naïve.

“I’m sure he did,” he tells her, turning back towards her. He doesn’t face her and she knows why. This is not an easy subject for either of them, even less for him. She has never heard him talk about Sarah.

“This is my second child. Kevin was very young when he…” Her voice quiets down when she sees his discomfort. His shoulders are stiff as rock and he works with slow, rigid movements. He avoids looking at her as he feels like his thoughts are going to strangle him.

“I just want to say that I understand if it’s hard for you to be a part of this child’s life.” Joel visibly stops and puts the knife down from his hand. He takes a deep breath and even though the anxiety is holding him tightly in its grasp, he faces her openly, dropping the pretence of a strong man. For the first time she sees a truly broken person in front of her, someone who is still struggling to admit his own daughter has died.

“Do you really?” He asks, really hoping Tommy will pick up the discussion with Ellie again. He wouldn’t want to have this conversation right now, but it also seems like this is the only right moment for it. He looks towards the living room, grinding his teeth and squeezing the edge of the counter in his hands.

He hears Tommy clearing his voice, mentioning music he thinks Ellie could be interested in. Maria turns to look towards the living room with a concerned look on her face and relaxes when music starts to flow into the kitchen. She shifts in her chair again, giving Joel her full attention.

“Yes, I do.” She lowers her voice, just for Joel to hear. “You should’ve seen how I reacted when I first found out I was pregnant. I still don’t know how I’m going to cope with this fear that is ever present. Kevin… He died from pneumonia. It should’ve been treatable, but in a quarantine zone that was still in such chaos, it wasn’t possible. It seemed like nothing was treated then. People were just trying to stay alive. It sometimes feels like he never existed.” She holds her bump and gives it comforting strokes.

“So yes, I understand you. And I also hope they’ll have an uncle they can talk to and lean on no matter what the issue is, even on things that they don’t want to talk to me or Tommy about. They deserve you in their life.”

Joel doesn’t know what to say. He lifts his face towards the ceiling, feeling tears rolling down the sides of his cheeks. He blows air out of his mouth excruciatingly slowly until he feels like he can breathe normally again. He counts to ten and barely shakes his head from side to side. His head is so full and empty at the same time, different feelings, thoughts and memories jumbling together.

He wipes the tears with his hand before he leans them both against the counter. He can imagine Sarah’s laughter once again, her bright eyes gleaming and her small frame shaking with joy. He smiles thinking about it, his head finally calming down.

“What can you remember of him, of Kevin?” He asks quietly, settling into the moment of desolation.

“There are so many different things…” He can hear the distance in her voice, like she’s also overtaken by memories. He looks up and finds her smiling, but also tears under her eyes.

“He was interested in everything. He investigated everything and he was always marveling at something. When we survived the outbreak day and he was scared the whole time while we were trying to get to a safe place, I’ll never forget the moment we got to a QZ. He laughed when he saw a squirrel in a tree. We watched it as long as it stayed sitting on a branch and he kept pointing at it, babbling, and trying to interact with it.” Her smile gets wider, and the tears stream down heavier. Joel walks to her and sits down next to her.

“His voice was like a melody. He got it from his dad. I don’t know where he is, we weren’t in contact anymore when Kevin was born. But he gave me a gift I’ll never forget.” Her words start a heavy silence which he’s anticipated to end. He knows what she’s going to ask next.

“What about Sarah, what do you remember of her?” The question is like a gun that goes off, the bullet ripping through him and opening the wounds that he has tried to keep together with band aids. But when the question is out there, hanging over him, waiting for him to answer it, he doesn’t feel the unbearable pain it usually holds. Just the weight of her. His Sarah. He draws circles on the dining room table with his finger, trying to get a clear image of her in his head. But the memories flow so fast he can’t grasp them, he can’t grasp her. She’s always out of his reach yet still there, he just has to hold his hand out.

“She was… Everything to me. Her laughter made everyone else laugh as well. She was witty and incredibly smart. She always corrected us if we didn’t know something or got something wrong. She would’ve gone to some expensive college. I started to save up for it since the day she was born, if…” He taps the table with his finger and his throat closes up. He gasps out a breath to get his airways to open again.

“She showed me the world in a way that I never knew was possible. She taught me things that I wouldn’t have learnt otherwise. She took care of me, woke me up in the mornings when I didn’t wake up to the alarm, made me drink juice, planned trips to different museums and hikes and she took me to the movies and concerts. I just had to be there. She knew I worked hard and I knew it hurt her when I broke a promise or forgot something she had asked.” He can’t believe he’s telling Maria all this, but at the same time he can’t hold back anymore. He wants to share her with someone else who might understand him.

“Even though she was the one who always had the energy to make plans, I couldn’t resist surprising her. She loved surprises. It was a year before…” He swallows thickly and he has to catch his breath for a moment before he continues. “She wanted to make a trip to see the Grand Canyon on her summer holiday and we planned a road trip for it. She was prepared for the drive, making a list of everything we’d need, snacks we had to have and the music she wanted to listen to while we were driving. What she didn’t know was that I took the whole week off from work and I drove us to California, to see the Redwood National Park. We slept in a tent and then we drove to San Francisco and from there to Arizona, to the Grand Canyon, and back to Austin. I remember how tired I was because I drove day and night. But it was all worth it when I saw her reaction. She was shining from the astonishment and excitement. She was in awe the whole time. It was all worth it with her.”

He dares to look up and Maria is fully crying. He can feel his eyes stinging, the tightness in his throat getting worse the longer the moment stretches, but he smiles because it’s all true. It was worth it with her. He tries to smile, to soothe Maria somehow, but it feels impossible with the weight of grief on his shoulders.

“Sometimes it might be hard, but I’d want to be part of the kid’s life. I’d like to try, at least.” Maria nods and touches his hand on the table.

“Maybe Tommy is the one who needs support the most though, he can be a mess sometimes. And he keeps panicking about the baby, if he’s going to drop them or doesn’t know how to hold them right.” Joel chuckles and shakes his head. He looks over Maria’s shoulder, seeing Tommy showing some LP records to Ellie. He’s reading something out to her from a back cover, pointing at the people who are posing in an artistic photograph.

“Tommy is going to be a good dad,” he says, seeing it clearly for the first time. It hits him like a ton of bricks, sobering him from his own memories.

“How do you know?” Maria’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Because he was the best uncle I could’ve imagined for Sarah.” Maria doesn’t say anything to him and when he looks back at her, focuses his sight on her face, Maria is crying again. The tears on her face are streaming uncontrollably and she’s trying to wipe them away with her free hand, the other still holding his. He closes his hand over hers, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Don’t ever tell that to him,” Joel reminds her, making her laugh. In a way he feels himself lighter, just a bit, after being able to talk about Sarah without any pressure. He can see her smiling in his memories and even though he can feel it as a painful longing to have her be real again, to have her be alive, it doesn’t tear his insides into pieces.

He stands up and gives Maria a clean hand towel. She wipes at her cheeks while he keeps on chopping the vegetables. The music stops in the living room and the cheerful conversation between Ellie and Tommy drifts closer.

“How’s my wife?” Tommy asks, dropping his hands on her shoulders and presses a kiss on the top of her head. Ellie has a DVD in her hands, the familiar cover of Alien making Joel smile.

“I see you’ve put Joel to work,” Tommy laughs. Ellie takes a piece of carrot and pops it in her mouth.

“Yeah, I couldn’t resist when I have such a good excuse.” Maria rubs at her bump with both her hands, making a show of it. Tommy gives her one more kiss before he starts to help Joel. They both have to protect the vegetables from Ellie, who keeps complaining about being hungry and asking how long it’s still going to take.

When they’re sitting around the dining table, eating and sharing stories, Joel realizes he hasn’t felt himself this happy in a long time. The laughter fills him with ease, company gives him comfort and he forgets about the constant pain he has to carry for the rest of his life. This is his family.

The evening is nearing night, when they’re finally leaving to go back home. Ellie is clearly tired, even though she tries to seem perky. The teenage stubbornness in her is shining through, when Maria says it might be her time to go to sleep after she keeps laughing at things that aren’t funny. Ellie is already opening the door when Maria asks Joel to wait. Tommy is hugging him goodbye when Maria comes back. Tommy gives him a sorrowful look and takes Maria under his arm.

“We went back home, to Austin, a few years ago. I wanted to see what it’d look like out there. You should’ve seen your house. It was like a hurricane had hit it. Most of the stuff was gone, but some were still there.” Joel looks at the couple in confusion. He hasn’t thought about that house in forever, it didn’t even feel real to think that he had a house in Austin.

“These belong to you,” Maria offers him an envelope and he takes it tentatively. He looks at it and starts to open it.

“Are you coming, I’m tired!” Ellie sticks her head back in, making them all look at her.

“Yeah yeah, I’m coming,” he says under his breath, tucking the envelope into his jeans back pocket. Tommy gives him a sad smile while Maria wishes them a goodnight.

Ellie drags her feet against the ground and blows air through her mouth, making herself whistle. Joel matches his steps to hers, but it seems to only slow her down.

“Isn’t it funny that just fifteen minutes ago you wanted us to believe you weren’t tired but now you can’t even lift your feet?” Joel asks her, making her roll her eyes.

“Very funny. I’m not even tired. My legs are just—”

“Tired?” She gives him an unpleased look, while he laughs quietly.

“You could just carry me,” she suggests with her kindest tone. The question makes him stop and turn towards her.

“You’re turning fifteen, I think you can walk,” he tells her before he turns and keeps on making his way home.

“I know,” she whines, sighing dramatically. He shakes his head and stops again.

“Hop on then,” he tells her, squatting down.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to carry you, take it or leave it,” he tells her and in no time he feels her small hands on his shoulders, as she hops on his back. He tries to act as if it’s frustrating to carry her, but her enthusiasm makes him smile. He bounces her on his back and she giggles.

“Has anyone ever given you a piggyback ride?”

“Nope, this is the first time,” her joyful voice seems to echo around the street.

“First time for everything,” he says and makes her bounce on his back again. The look on her face when they get home and she slides down his back is something of satisfaction and childhood joy. Joel opens the door while stretching his back, letting her in first. He prepares himself the tea, which he now takes with just the smallest amount of honey. It brings the floral notes out just right.

He waits for Ellie to be done brushing her teeth. When he hears her quiet goodnight wish, he climbs up the stairs and goes to his room, the steaming cup of herbal tea in his hand.

He digs the envelope from his pocket and sits on the edge of his bed, in the dim light from the lamp on his bedside table. He opens it. There are two polaroid pictures inside, yellowed and faded, and his whole body seizes. Sarah’s smile from his memories was just a shadow from the one he sees in the pictures.

He looks at the polaroids, stares at them, until they seem to come alive. He can hear her voice, see her move. He touches the picture with the brush of his fingertips. They take him back to the moment when he took them.

Sarah got the polaroid camera as a birthday present. They bought the film for it together and when they got home, she wanted to play with the camera the moment she stepped out of the truck. She took pictures in the house of different items. His favourite picture was of the remote control that was right on the edge of the coffee table.

She went outside, where she took pictures of the massive tree that grew in their garden, of the lavenders that were blooming, and of butterflies that flapped their wings in slow motion. He followed her for a while, emptying and refilling the dishwasher and wiping down the table from bread crumbs. He stepped out when she was shaking a picture in her hand, of a bird that sat on a branch.

“Will you take my picture?” He asked her and she made him pose for it. She took the picture and together they waited for it to develop right in front of their eyes. Somehow she had managed to hold her finger in front of the lens and you could only see his feet. Joel remembers laughing heartily, taking the picture, and putting it into his pocket, before he took the camera in his own hands.

“Let me show you how you actually use this thing,” he sighed, getting familiar with the camera in his hands.

“Yeah right old man, I forgot you probably used a similar one back in the 1800’s,” she joked back.

Joel wrapped his arm over her shoulder and managed to cover her eyes with his hand. Sarah laughed sweetly into his ear, her hair tickling his neck, when the camera clicked. He let her go and she took the picture, pecking him on the cheek with a dramatic smooch. He scrunched his face and took another picture. The camera printed it out and Sarah took it immediately, shaking it in the air.

She looked at the photos, while Joel tinkered with the camera and then aimed it at the same bird Sarah had taken a picture of earlier. The bird was still sitting on the branch, the dark figure looking like an omen. The camera gave him the photo and he waited for it to develop. It was overexposed, the sun making the picture look white with a grey blob in the middle.

“These are going on my wall,” Sarah announced and showed their photos to him. She took fast steps inside, while he stayed out with a warm smile on his face, similar to the sun that was burning against his skin. The bird on the branch croaked, before it spread its wings and flew off.

He puts the pictures back into the envelope and closes them in the bedside drawer. He has to remind himself to breathe. He rubs his fingers against his palms, bringing himself back into this moment. Into this bedroom, that sometimes doesn’t feel like his. To this house that sometimes feels like he’s just visiting. To this town that seems too calm and too idyllic. He feels like he’s supposed to be somewhere else, like those pictures were the reality where he’s supposed to be in.

But it’s not. Those are the past. He brushes his teeth in the bathroom and stares at his own face in the mirror. The same that was also in the pictures, but so different in so many ways. He recognises the man in the reflection, and at the same time he doesn’t know who the man is at all.

He drinks his tea and lets it take effect. He falls asleep silently, replaying that happy moment with his daughter over and over in his dreams.

Joel closes the front door, grateful for the soft draft inside the house from the opened windows. His t-shirt is sticking to his shoulders and back after patrol, his skin clammy with sweat after being in the sweltering heat for hours. The sun is turning towards the front of the house, leaving the bedrooms to cool down for the night.

He washes his hands and ends up washing his face as well, the cold water bringing welcomed freshness. He really should have a shower as well but he wants to eat first. There should be some leftovers from yesterday. Ellie ate at Dina’s he thinks? Either way, she didn’t eat dinner at home and he made food for them both. She’s not going to eat at home tonight either, she’s going to Jesse’s house with her friends to play that same boardgame they had first struggled with. Apparently they had figured the rules out.

Tomorrow is Ellie and Joel’s night though. They still need to pick up the movie they’re going to watch and decide what they’re going to eat. She’s been spending a lot of time with her friends as they’re on summer holiday. He’s happy for her and she should enjoy this time. Soon it’s going to be her last year in school and she’s going to have to say goodbye to her childhood as her patrol training starts properly.

He takes a glass and fills it with the water that’s been sitting in a jug in the fridge since he filled it this morning. The cold feels good in his throat, clearing his mind and bringing a bit of alertness after a long day outside in the sun. He stares at the windows, the glass looking a bit grey and dirty. He should wash them, maybe later today.

He’s shaken from his thoughts by a loud banging at the front door.

“Joel!” He hears Tommy’s frantic voice booming through it, before he’s hitting his fist against the door again. Joel finishes the glass in one mouthful, the gulp too big and it burns in his throat.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Joel reassures Tommy, taking fast steps towards the door. Behind it stands Tommy, his face covered in droplets of sweat, his cheeks red and he’s panting like he just ran in a competition. Joel knows immediately what’s happening when his eyes land on his younger brother.

“The baby’s coming,” Tommy only needs to say, when Joel is already pulling his boots back on his feet and rushing out the door following Tommy towards their home.

“It’s about damn time, you’ve been waiting all week,” Joel huffs as they keep on walking fast, their feet wanting to jog every few steps.

“I know. Now that it’s happening it feels like everything’s moving too fast,” Tommy answers him through his panting. Joel can hear the fear in his voice.

Sweat is pouring out of their pores when they reach the front door and Tommy pushes it open. They can hear the midwife talking to Maria with a calming tone.

“Tommy?” Maria’s painfilled voice echoes down the stairs. Joel squeezes his shoulder while pushing him to go be with his wife. Tommy looks back, his brown eyes wide with dread. Joel nods at him to go on, patting him on the back before Tommy is climbing up the stairs two at a time.

“I’m here,” Tommy sighs and the bedroom door closes behind him.

Joel stands at the bottom of the stairs. The excitement and anxiety compete inside his head, the anxious part of his brain taking the lead and making him feel like he’s not in control. Maria had her due date last week and since then they’ve all been waiting for this moment. When she’s not seeing her friends, Ellie has been spending a few hours here and there with Maria while Tommy has been out on patrol or running some errands around town.

Joel has been making food for them all, simple dishes that have been easy to warm up afterwards if it was left uneaten. Now that the baby was about to born, the moment isn’t about dinners or who is out running errands or who is with whom. There’s going to be a baby, who is no doubt about it going to change everything.

Joel’s hands flex against his thighs. He stands idly, looking around, when Maria yells. He can’t stay in. He has to go out. He steps on the front porch, shields his eyes from the glaring sun and sits slowly on the porch stairs. His knees pop and he massages them, listening to Maria’s faint voice from inside.

People in town keep on living their normal lives. It seems like no one even knows Maria has gone into labour, maybe they don’t. It’s just another day in Jackson, except it’s never going to be just another day for the people inside this house.

A couple of older teenagers walk on the other side of the street, when Maria’s voice echoes out louder, her agonising yells making the teens look at Joel in horror. Tommy must’ve opened the window. The other teen says something to his friend, clearly understanding what’s going on.

“Hi Joel,” they say almost in unison and he nods his head hello to them, forcing his mouth into a smile.

His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. There’s a lot of noise coming from the town centre. He didn’t realise it was Saturday already, a day when he’s usually not out for patrol. And it’s movie night. People are doing all their chores before the evening arrives, for them to enjoy their off night and time getting drunk.

Joel presses his chin against his chest. The sun is beating up against his bare skin, his dark t-shirt making him feel even hotter now that the sun is warming it up. His skin is beading with sweat and there’s no relief. No clouds to shield him from the sun for a moment or trees reaching the porch on their front yard to bring a little shade. He listens to Maria’s wails and moans, a few curse words peppered in. He closes his eyes, trying to calm himself down.

He’s taken right back to the moment when Sarah was born. He was in the operating room with his girlfriend, Sarah’s mom, sitting right next to her head when Sarah was born by c-section. He held her hand and kept massaging her palm with his thumb while listening to the doctor explain what was happening.

Suddenly Sarah was in front of them and she was handed to him, into his arms. He showed Sarah to his girlfriend who couldn’t stop crying. They were definitely too young, too immature to think they’d have a family together,  but when he got to hold Sarah, it felt right. He just had to grow up quickly, they both had to.

“Are you alright?” A familiar voice asks and when Joel lifts his head up, Diana and her wife are standing by the mailbox side by side. Joel fills his lungs with air, his chest puffing and his shoulders drawing back. He stands up and walks up to them, giving them a friendly smile and a quiet “yes”. He knows from the look in Diana’s eyes that she’s observing him and not completely believing his answer.

“Just this morning we were wondering when the new arrival would come. Maria had her due date last week didn’t she?” Diana makes kind conversation, trying to ease the tension in Joel’s shoulders.

“Almost a week,” he tells them, crossing his arms across his chest. He feels like his shirt is sticking to his skin now even worse.

“You remember my wife, Brenda,” Diana introduces, her hand swaying from Brenda to Joel.

“Yes, with the rhubarbs,” he chuckles and extends his arm out, shaking her hand. “Nice to meet you ma’am.” She smiles at him, her grip strong and confident.

“You’re going to the movies later?” He tries to drown out the agonising wailing that comes out of the house.

“Probably, your friend was interested to see the movie they’re playing tonight.” The strained look on his face that he’s trying to disguise with an easy-going smile drops immediately. He doesn’t know how to react.

This is the first time he has heard anything of you in such a long time and knowing that you’re interested in seeing a movie and actually wanting to go out to the town during one of the busiest evenings makes his thoughts jumble and fall into a pile of disbelief in his head. He swallows thickly and his tongue feels like sandpaper in his mouth.

“How are they doing?” He asks, trying to keep his tone even. But his voice breaks on the last syllable.

“Better, we’re taking it one day at a time,” Diana assures him with a gentle smile, while watching him collect his thoughts.

“Good, that’s good,” his raspy voice manages to put together. “Maybe I could—” He realises he has no idea what he’s trying to say, he has no idea what he’s even thinking. What could he do when there’s nothing he could do. It’s just him, someone insignificant in your life, someone who just happened to be there when you were falling apart. He probably has no right to even know how you’re doing or to take your time.

The softer side in him starts to babble in his head, coming up with something for him to say. He’d like to say so much, but not to Diana and Brenda. He could suggest coming over, bringing your clothes that are still collecting dust on the shelf in the mudroom. He could come and help with something if they need help with anything, like fixing the wobbly garden chair on their porch. He knows it doesn’t make any sense to them, or to him for that matter. He’d just like to see that you’re actually okay, that you’re on the mend.

“Maybe some other time, I think someone else needs you more at this moment,” Diana breaks his thoughts with her warm and soft voice, like she was reading his mind. She nods towards the door, making Joel turn around. Tommy steps out, tears streaming down his cheeks and the most blissful look on his face.

“It’s a girl,” he gasps and crashes into Joel, hugging his brother so tight that Joel feels like Tommy could take his breath away and crush him.

“Congratulations!” Brenda has the widest of smiles on her face, Diana’s own smile matching hers while giving her own well wishes. Tommy cries from happiness against his older brother, his body weight making Joel grab him tight against him to keep them both upright.

The women bid their goodbyes with gentle waves, Diana giving Joel a knowing nod as they start to walk away towards the town. Joel follows them with his eyes when Tommy finally manages to stand up and find some strength in his own legs again.

“Come meet your niece,” Tommy pats him on the chest and wraps his arm around Joel’s shoulder.

“Wait till you see her,” Tommy gushes, reluctance slowing Joel down. He separates from Tommy and follows him up the stairs, unease settling in his stomach. He can only imagine the moment he first saw Sarah and the way he clung to Tommy when he couldn’t comprehend becoming a dad just a few hours after her birth.

His life that he knew had exploded into smithereens and Sarah had taken her place deep in his mind and heart. Now he’s here, living through Tommy’s most joyous moment with heaviness and grief in his heart. He could’ve never imagined he’d be seeing his niece without his own daughter by his side.

The bedroom door is ajar and Joel stays to stand outside. He can see Maria on the bed, sweat and tears on her skin, and a small bundle against her chest. The look on her face tells everything Joel needs to know what she’s going through. The complete, disbelieving joy is what you could see first. But then you see her eyes and the soft sadness in them. The midwife writes something down into her notepad and chuckles when Tommy reaches for the baby and coos praising words to her.

“One of the calmest babies I’ve ever seen,” the midwife remarks. Maria sees Joel standing outside the door and she smiles with tears flowing out of her sorrowful eyes, relaxing against the pillows behind her back.

“Let out the loudest cry and then just quiet coos,” Tommy says and steps out on the landing with his daughter in his arms.

“Joel, this is Matilda Miller,” Tommy tells him and gives the baby to him. Joel’s breath catches in his throat and his arms reach out instinctively, making sure he’s as gentle as he can be when he feels the baby’s weight settling onto his arms.

“Matilda, meet your Uncle Joel,” Tommy whispers and lets go of his daughter. Joel cradles her against his chest, his palm securing her small head. Joel watches her like she’s not supposed to be here, like she’s someone who isn’t real. He can’t see or hear anything else around him.

Her light brown skin is soft against the pad of his finger when he brushes it against her cheek and her long, dark lashes flutter when she opens her eyes and blinks them slowly. Her small hands gravitate to close into small fists and Joel offers her his finger. She grabs it like she’s unsure if her hand is supposed to wrap around it, leisurely grasping onto it before she squeezes it. She makes the most delicate humming sound as she makes herself heard.

The front door opens and closes and there’s banging in the stairs when Ellie runs them up as fast as she can.

“Ellie, meet Matilda,” Tommy tells her quietly, watching his brother with careful eyes. He doesn’t want to leave Joel alone with the baby, not yet, when he knows Joel is going through a whirlwind of emotions.

“Hey Matilda,” Ellie whispers and leans against Joel’s side, her fingers brushing against her swaddled knee. Joel doesn’t say a word to her, doesn’t even acknowledge her next to him. He sees only Matilda. She has gotten her nose from Tommy, same with the curve of her mouth. She’s so small and at the moment she’s holding the whole world in her grasp without knowing anything about it. Joel feels like she doesn’t fit into this cruel world, this is not the right place for her. She’s so much more remarkable than anyone could imagine.

“Would you get the horses?” Jade calls out over her shoulder when she leaves him to get their rifles.

He walks towards the stables and sees Dan outside, sweeping sawdust off the ground. He hears Joel’s heavy boots and raises his hand in hello, leaning the broom against the wall. Joel makes easy small talk, asks if something had happened for the sawdust to end up outside the stables. Apparently a wheelbarrow had tipped a little and spilled some on the ground, nothing concerning. 

“You want Beardy and Aries?” He asks from Joel and gets a deep nod as an answer. Joel stands outside, taking in the late morning warmth. It’s going to be a hot day by noon, no doubt about it, just like every other day in the past couple of weeks.

The sun is unrelenting already and the slight breeze is barely giving any relief. The sky is stripped of any clouds and a pair of swallows circle in the air, swirling around each other, their trilling songs reminding him of summer days with Tommy when they were just young boys. He shields his eyes and watches the birds’ playful dance, stretching his shoulders back at the same time. No doubt about it Tommy is going to be showing these wonders to Matilda as well. Who knows, maybe they’re already out in the garden enjoying the fresh day.

A clatter of a hay fork makes him look out towards the field where some of the horses are leisurely feasting on fresh grass. He freezes in his place. He hasn’t seen you in a long time, since that glimpse through Diana's door, but he recognises you immediately. Your hair and your clothes, how you stand and work, focusing on the task at hand. He wonders if you went to the movies the day Matilda was born. Not that he would’ve seen you. He spent the rest of the day at Tommy and Maria’s with Ellie, only to go have a shower at home and change his clothes before he went back for dinner at theirs which he cooked. Ellie helped, even though she was far more interested in spending her time watching Matilda.

His palms break in gentle sweat and he rubs them against his thighs, nervously looking around before he has his attention back on you. He takes slow steps, he doesn’t want to scare you, and when he reaches you he coughs under his breath.

“Hi,” he says quietly, a calm, relieved smile spreading on his face. He’s been looking forward to this moment, to seeing you again, just to say hi. When he’s at home, deep in thought or alone while Ellie is somewhere with friends, he has imagined how this would go. He’d say his hello, hi, hey, maybe a howdy. No, that would be too weird, it would probably make you laugh. Though he wouldn’t mind seeing you break into a real smile, he saw you too many times in despair. It would fit the setting though, being at the stables and all that.

And he’d ask you how you’ve been, if you’re doing better. And you’d tell him and he could see it as well, that you’re much better. He has been thinking about this moment for a while, and the longer he has been planning how to greet you again, the more nervous it has made him. At least it seems like the nerves aren’t as present now as they always have been in his head.

When you turn, it’s not you at all. It’s Sandy, the teenager living down the street from him and Ellie. Her wide eyes look at him in surprise and no wonder. They’ve never spoken, other than a courteous hello if he has passed her and her dad on the street. He doesn’t know them at all, rarely ending up in the same circles.

What Joel does know is that Sandy’s dad works at the woodworking shop and she is a few years older than Ellie. How does he know this? Ellie talked about her once or twice, how she had seen Sandy at the stables and how she had inquired about Sandy’s love of horses. Ellie has always been clear that she wants to become a patroller and the first chance she got, she signed her name up for the training starting next spring.

Sandy wasn’t sure what she wanted to do now that she was finished with school and she has been rotating between different places to find a good match for herself to work at. Ellie was confused by this. For her patrolling seems like the most natural choice. They had had a good talk about it, how some people just need to try different things out while others might know what they want to do immediately.

And of course Ellie was interested to know more about how he ended up as a contractor and how he didn’t go to college. Now he feels a little self-conscious about knowing these details about Sandy when he doesn’t know her at all.

“Hi?” It comes out as a question from her mouth, her confusion getting more prominent the longer Joel stands in front of her without saying a word.

“Sorry, thought you were someone else,” he mumbles and takes a few steps back, before he turns his back to her and walks away, embarrassed about his mistake. She stands still for a while longer, distracted by the weird encounter, but when he hears the hay fork clattering against the fence again, he lets out a long breath.

His hand flexes and he taps his fingers against his thigh, trying to get his mind back to the route he’s going to take with Jade during patrol and mentally going through what he packed into his backpack. He’s trying to focus his thoughts back into today’s agenda so hard that it becomes impossible.

He looks over his shoulder and realises Sandy looks nothing like you. How on earth did he think he saw you when the two of you couldn’t be more different. His nerves get the best of him and the last time he saw you come crashing back into his mind. Your panicked cries and revelation of your siblings get him on edge, uneasiness settling in his stomach. He has to count his breaths and calm himself down once again.

He hears the horse hooves hitting the ground and sees Dan leading trusted Beardy and Jade’s Aries out of the stable doors. Joel takes both of their reins and pets them but leans closer to Old Beardy. Slowly he leans his head against the large animal, his left ear against its large frame. He breathes in, and out, listening to the slow beating of Beardy’s heart.

“I’m home,” Joel says into the empty looking house, closing the door after himself. He’s carrying a crate full of ingredients from the town and toes his shoes off, trying to balance with the heaviness of the crate in his arms. The beautiful summer day is casting everything in a golden hue and the light that streams in through the windows looks ethereal.

Tess walks out of the kitchen, a tea towel in her hands and a smile on her face. The unsettling view in front of him stops him and he feels his hands going numb. Tess rushes to get the crate from him, touching his fingers with her own.

“Did you remember the eggs?” She asks and waits for him to answer.

“What?” He looks at her, seeing her smile spread even wider. He can’t believe she’s here in his home. Tess is dead and now she’s looking as domestic as ever, something he never saw her as.

“The eggs I asked you to bring?” Tess looks younger, her brown hair glinting in the glimmering sunlight. Tess leaves him by the front door, walking softly into the kitchen. He follows her, afraid that if he won’t, he won’t see her again. All the pots and pans they have sit on the counters, all the cupboard doors are open.

“Joel, eggs? Did you bring them?” She asks again and sets the crate down. She turns towards him, but she’s not looking younger anymore, no. She looks like when he last saw her, just moments before she saved him and Ellie. With the addition of cordyceps growing out of her forehead and cheek, mycelium tendrils reaching out of her mouth. She smiles and the tendrils are moving towards him. He hears her laugh, the deep sound that he was blessed to hear rarely.

“Earth to Joel? Did you bring what I asked you to?” She takes slow steps towards him and takes him by the hand. He can’t move, he can’t even talk, even though he’s trying hard to get away. His whole body is frozen in place. He’s fighting against himself. He wants to get away from her. He needs to get away.

He can feel a yell being suffocated in his throat and his limbs feel like they’re filled with rocks. Her smile horrifies him, the mycelium getting closer and closer. She closes her green eyes and he can feel the tendrils spreading against his neck, before her lips touch him. Her teeth follow and finally Joel gets his voice back.

He wakes up to his own shout. His hand flies to his neck, touching it all over to make sure there’s nothing on his skin. His heart is hammering in his chest and he’s trying to catch his breath, his head swimming with images of Tess that are getting swept behind a curtain between wake and sleep.

He sits up and leans forward, his body hunching over his knees. His skin is sticky with sweat, his hands tingling from the nightmare. His throat burns from the tension in his muscles, and his body feels awfully light after not being able to move it in his nightmare. With careful feet he stands up and opens the window, the warm night bringing little comfort for his troubled mind. He counts his breaths, leaning against the open window and watches the trees in the backyard against the dark cobalt blue sky.

He can distinguish the light tint in the horizon, the sun attempting to bring light to end the night. There’s a soft songbird singing somewhere close by, the gentle, sorrowful sound calming him down. He combs his fingers through his wavy hair. He should get a haircut, he thinks, his attempts at distracting himself coming up short. He’s trying to shake the dream from his head, but the image of Tess has burned through into his waking thoughts.

He walks slowly out of his bedroom, wiping the crumbs of sleep from his eyes. Maybe a glass of water would clear his mind just a little more. He reaches the stairs when he hears soft weeping from Ellie’s bedroom. He presses his left ear against her door before he knocks on it with the knuckle on his index finger. She doesn’t answer.

“Ellie?” He asks with a low, thick voice. He opens her door and sees her small frame in the middle of her bed. He gets closer and sees her shuddering with the silent cries.

“Ellie, are you awake?” He asks gently, tiptoeing to see her face. It’s half hidden under her duvet, tears streaming from her closed eyes. He sits on her bed, his hand hovering inches off her shoulder, her body trembling in her sleep.

“Ellie,” he says softly, resting his hand finally on her shoulder and he shakes her lightly, trying not to scare her out of her sleep. Her eyes open slowly and it takes a while for her to realise that she’s in her room and Joel is sitting next to her. She stares at him, the tear streaks across her face getting wet once more when a fresh wave of salty water leaves her eyes.

“Everything’s okay, you’re safe, you’ve nothing to worry about,” he tries to calm her down, but her face scrunches up with sadness washing through her. He strokes her arm and she wipes her face with her pillow. She fixes her gaze back on him, a desperate look in her eyes. Gently he brushes the waves of her hair that have fallen over her forehead behind her ear.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks carefully. She stares at him and Joel can barely see the little shake of her head.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to,” he tells her. The room feels warm, a bit too warm. He stands up and opens her window as well. The two open windows make air run through the upstairs with more ease and there’s a calm breeze making her curtains sway.

“You’d never lie to me, right?” Her voice is barely audible, but Joel hears the question. The muscles in his upper back strain with anxiety immediately, but he turns towards her and sits back on her bed. His hand finds her shoulder once more and with slow caresses he soothes her racing thoughts.

“No,” he shakes his head and looks her in the eyes. She swallows visibly, but she’s not letting him look away.

“Would you want me to stay here for a moment?” His voice is still thick with sleep as he watches her emotions slowly even out after her upsetting dream. She just nods, her fingers finding the corner of her pillow. She fiddles with the pillow case and she keeps glancing at him, her mouth opening and then closing.

He waits for her to say something, nerves building visibly in her. He can feel the uneasy energy trembling out of her. But then it suddenly crumbles and she relaxes against his hand, her shoulders softening and her body melting back against her mattress.

“Just for a moment, until I fall back asleep,” she tells him with a resigned sigh. He nods, but he can’t help when the line between his brows becomes deeper with confusion. He has no idea what she dreamt about, but something clearly bothered her about it.

She closes her eyes and her face mushes back against her pillow. For a moment he just looks at her, softness spreading into the room. She exhales deep and turns to her other side, making him lift his hand. Her back rounds once again as she pulls her knees closer to her chest. His hand lands back onto her shoulder, but it feels like she doesn’t want him to continue.

“Is this okay?” He whispers and she looks over her shoulder.

“Mmhmm,” she hums and her mouth curves into a small smile. She closes herself back up and he keeps on stroking her shoulder, very gently hovering his hand just against her clothed skin.

He ends up staring out the window, watching how the sky gets lighter and Ellie’s room gets cooler. Ellie’s breathing starts to slow down and deepen, and the steady rhythm of her sleep lulls him into thinking of Tess.

He hasn’t thought about her in a long time. Not because he doesn’t miss her or he doesn’t want to think about her, but because losing her was like a breaking point. Nothing was keeping him in Boston at that point anymore, only her. And thinking about her would only bring him more pain, he has convinced himself.

Now that she’s on his mind, the pain isn’t as strong as he thought. There’s the dull constant of a sadness, the grief of losing her, the realisation what she was to him. She was incredibly important to him, even more, which he never wanted to admit to himself. Even less to her. Her loss meant also losing part of himself. She kept him together and he had to get comfortable being alone with himself after she was gone. Or, as alone as Ellie would let him.

Tess would’ve loved Jackson. He can imagine her in the kitchen, fixing them something to eat, before she’d go out into the backyard, sit on the porch and enjoy the quiet. She would’ve gotten to know the other residents around town, probably even made friends with some of the people who are so similar to her that they always remind Joel of her.

He can picture Tess and Ellie being joined at the hip and Tess would’ve taught her new things. The three of them would’ve been like a small, odd family with different backgrounds and shared trauma. Joel and Tess would’ve gone out horseback riding, maybe they would’ve even been patrol partners. Tess would’ve loved riding horses out here.

The life he imagines for Tess, the one that she never got to live, makes him sad. She would’ve deserved it.

When he met Tess, she wasn’t sugar coating anything. She was fierce and cold, fearless, and she didn’t doubt anything she did. She knew what she was doing.

And she was hurting.

She never fully talked about what had happened to her, but she sometimes let some things slip. A mention of a family. Knowing firsthand how the infection took over a person. A memory of going to an amusement park when they passed through one.

He knew she had had a family, but she didn’t talk about them. And he didn’t tell her about Sarah. But Tommy did. Joel was so angry at him for telling her because he didn’t want to be known as the man who had lost a daughter. He didn’t want anyone’s pity. Especially in a group of raiders. That’s why she never talked her past either.

But she didn’t tell anyone and she didn’t treat him differently. She never brought it up, she just understood him better.

Of course it was her, who kissed him first. And that was the first and only time he saw her being nervous. They had known each other and been friends for a couple of years by that point, yet she surprised him when she took his chin between her fingers and kissed him.

There was no romance or sweet moment, no buildup, or stolen glances. It just happened. And it felt good. So he didn’t stop her and she didn’t pull away. After the first time they slept together, when she was getting up from the mattress on the floor, looking for her clothes, throwing his clothes on the bed next to him, she looked at him with a concerned look in her eyes.

Later he found out that she was afraid he would cut her off, not talk to her or keep her in the loop, and she had ruined something between them. A friendship or mutual trust. He just didn’t know how to act around her. He felt embarrassed after not sleeping with anyone for a few years at that point. If he had been too rough or too eager, if she hadn’t liked it like he had.

But when she cornered him and demanded he tell her if he was going to pull away completely, he was the one to kiss her. And that’s how they got together. She never demanded him to tell her what they were, even though they were always like a package deal after that.

They never left each other’s side and they could trust each other completely. They went everywhere together, worked together and fell asleep in the same bed together. She helped to keep him grounded, she knew how to calm him down. She knew him.

And he knew her and he knew what she wanted. He understood her like they would’ve known each other since they were young. And she didn’t hide from him. He would’ve done anything she asked him to. He would’ve followed her anywhere.

He tried to protect her, but he failed. The grief that follows his memories about Tess come to his mind and it makes him angry. And in no time it’s replaced by the sound of her voice. How she’d tell him to not wallow in losing her but be there for them who are still alive. That it was just her time and she did what was right.

He wonders how things could’ve been different if Tess was with them when they made their way to Jackson. Would she have done the same decision as he did when he saved Ellie? Would she have brought you along when him and Ellie found you in the wilderness? He saved who he could save, he did what she told him to do.

He realises that Ellie wasn’t the only one he saved. He saved you as well, even though it’s hard for him to admit. He’s not some knight in shining armour, being good and kind to others. He knows that, he’s become too hardened in his lifetime. Once again his thoughts drift to you, how the thought of you haunts him. Lately he hasn’t thought about the time in the garage, but what Diana said. How you wanted to see a movie. Something so simple and insignificant has built up to become something meaningful in his mind.

It's not because he thinks you’re weak or unfit for this reality. He recognises your pain and the way you wanted to run from it. Of course he knows. Some people are just more successful hiding it than others, succumbing to their own demons at some point. He wonders if he’s going to see you sometime soon around town, walking on the street, minding your own business. Maybe even going back to work, finding comfort in this town. Afterall, that must’ve been the reason why you came looking for Jackson in the first place. To find a place, where you can live a meaningful life.

His hand has stilled on Ellie’s shoulder. Sleep is still slowing his thoughts down. He looks at her and sees that she’s deep in sleep with no sign of bad dreams. He stands slowly from her bed and leaves her door ajar, just to make sure he can comfort her if her sleep gets disturbed again. He presses his head against his pillow, his eyes falling shut. The early morning sun reaches its shiny rays through the window, making him cover his head with his arm. The damage is done already though.

He listens to the songbirds’ concert outside intensifying, sleep abandoning him and leaving him to lay in his bed with heavy limbs. Maybe he should just get up, make some breakfast, and get today started.

He wonders if you’re awake already as well, if you’re enjoying the early sun, if you’re planning what you could do today. He shakes his head and gets out of bed before his mind starts to ask more questions.

[vivisandg]

Hi so I rarely request anything but I’ve fallen back into the httyd rabbit hole again and the lack of eret son of eret content on here is criminal. I came across your eret x pregnant reader and OH. MY. HEART... it’s beautiful! I was wondering if you could write some fluffy Eret x reader who is a dragon nurse? Like a vet for dragons who’s really gentle and compassionate but takes some time to trust him because of the whole ex trapper thing? Thanks and hope you’re enjoying your day and staying hydrated :)

Love thank you sooo much! And yes, I’m trying to stay hydrated, so all of YOU🫵 get some water and drink it RIGHT NOW. Anyways, this is a really good ask and the lack of eret content is, in fact, criminal. I will try my best on this, feel free to criticize and ask for more!

Healing takes Time

Pairing: Eret son of Eret x (g.n/fem)reader

Summary: As a healer for Berk’s dragons, you meet a lot of new dragons in different situations… but nothing prepared you for a certain ex-trapper asking for your help.

     You are one of Berk’s best dragon healers, spending almost 24/7 in the “dragon infirmary” as most call it. To you, it was home. You had been doing this job since Berk made peace with the creatures that you grew to find beautiful, feeling they needed to be treated as equals. You had always loved to help people and were known as one of the kindest Vikings in the archipelago.

     Of course, when the evil Drago Bludvist came about and practically demolished your home, you had a change of heart. You became a bit colder to newcomers and strangers, a bit, but a noticeable bit. After Hiccup and Toothless had successfully taken the madman down, it came as a shock to no one that many dragons needed healing and care for a while.

     One day, as you were releasing a Snafflefang named Muds back to his family, you were greeted by a slightly beat up Skullcrusher with none other than Eret son of Eret, the famous ex-dragon trapper at his side with concern painting his face. It dimmed your heart to see the tall man and not Stoick, the only father figure you ever had, at Skullcrusher’s side, but you would have to get used to it. You had always been skittish around the young Viking, as his tribe killed your dragon before your eyes. You weren’t sure if Eret was there when it happened, you didn’t care, all you saw was your beautiful Raincutter, Sinkah, get beheaded and thrown into the boat next to her.

     It was time to stop thinking about that and face the problem in front of you. “What brings you and Skullcrusher in, Son of Eret?” You ask with more malice than you meant. “He flew through a good 7 trees while finding boulders to rebuild, tore the beast up, they did.” You pursed you lips a bit when he said ‘beast’, but that’s the only way to describe the dragon. “He looks like he got scratched a bit, I’ll have him out of here in about and hour,” you say while examining the slashes on his green wings. “Alright. Thank you, (y/n),” Eret says as he starts to walk away.

     To your surprise, he turns back around and asks you “is there anything that I can help you with? Finding herbs or stuff to help?” This takes you aback, as you expected him to be arrogant, as he seems all the time. You look at him questionably as you ponder why he asks. “If you could get me a few perch from the lake in the east side of the island, that would be great,” you say as both you and Skullcrusher were hungry. Eret says nothing, but nods as he hurries away. That was a bit odd, you thought.

     Eret gets back in a good 30 minutes with a basket of perch, just as you had asked him. You watch as he returns, putting the last few bandages on Skullcrusher, and heading towards him. “Thank you,” you say with sincerity, as you hadn’t eaten in about 5 hours. “No problem, thanks for helping Skullcrusher,” he says back. He then asks a question you weren’t expecting: “ Do you hate me or something?”

     You are taken aback, again, by him. “Why?” You ask this because you don’t even know. “You glare at me every time you see me, specifically the markings on my chin because that’s about as high as your eyes can reach,” he says blankly. “If you must know, your tribe killed my dragon in front of me and threw her into a nearby boat and dumped me into the ocean,” you say, frowning at the memory. Eret looks appalled, he had seen those men that day, sure he was younger, but he saw how heartbroken you looked. He had sabotaged those men’s work so that Drago punished them; he never saw those men again.

     Telling you this, you realized why he always looked at you like you were familiar, why he looked at you with a look of ‘I will protect you’, rather than sympathy. Finally, shocking Eret, you hug him and mutter a thousand ‘sorry’s. He hugs back and says it’s ok. Maybe you can heal dragons in an hour, but for people, healing takes time.

That’s it for this request. Again, wonderful ask, I wrote this in 2 hours💀😭 bc I loved it soo much. Again also, feel free to request stuff in my ask box, have a good day!❤️