#she always manages to turn around even the worst situations

[cometblaster2070]

meeshell's webisode boils my blood for a variety of reason but top of the list HAS to be the fact that her name is meeshell fucking MERMAID and yet ashlynn briar and maddie have the nerve to look absolutely GOBSMACKED upon finding out that she's a mermaid.

it's giving H2O just add water and I am NOT enjoying it. it also very much reminds me of the "ah yes let me just ask my good friend haggravated lassault" meme.

but genuinely this webisode has to be one of the WORST ones by far and the only thing that came even remotely close to saving it was maddie and her giant cup of tea:

this image genuinely cracks me up every time it's just so fucking funny.

[hiraethwrote]

there's a lightness in him

summary: finally, the day has come where you get the chance to meet gojo. but megumi doesn't handle it as well as you had hoped

[ loner!megumi x popular!reader ]

cw: college au, modern au, f!reader, fluff, gojo cameo, some angst, aged up characters, no use of y/n

word count: 2.9k

You really wanted to meet Gojo.

For reasons unknown to you, Megumi became even more quiet than usual whenever he was brought up — nearly blatantly refusing to talk about him at all.

Your curiosity was obviously peaked — who was this mysterious individual, who through unfortunate circumstances had ended up basically raising what had turned out to be your perfect boyfriend? Was this where Megumi had gotten his closed off demeanour from? Were shared dinners around the dining table spent in utter silence?

The few things you had gathered about Gojo: he was NOT Megumi’s dad. That was the most important thing you’d learned. Because how dumb were you when you simply assumed the adult man he lived with was his father?

You had also learned that there was a new level to Megumi’s frown that always grew deeper whenever he talked to Gojo on the phone. Granted, he was never happy whenever he was on the phone, but it was something entirely different when he talked to his… guardian?

“What do you mean you haven’t met his family?!” Kasumi exclaimed in pure disbelief once you told her, head tilting up from her doomscrolling.

“As far as I understand, there isn’t much family to meet. It’s mostly just this Gojo figure.”

“And that’s his dad?”

“God no, he’ll bite your head off if you assume so, but whoever he is, he’s the closest thing he has to a parental figure.”

She tried to blink away the worst of her surprise. “But you’ve been together since high school.” It seemed like she wanted the statement to be a question, but it definitely came out more as a judgemental remark.

“Look, his family situation isn’t ideal,” you trailed off, thinking about the few things he had actually opened up to you about — both his sister and his absent father, and you had quickly understood family was a fragile topic for him. So whenever you dared approach the situation about Gojo, you just wanted to be cautious in case there was anything serious he just did not want to talk about.

However, lately, the idea of anything seriously worrisome being the issue had slowly ceased to exist. Megumi genuinely only seemed to be annoyed with whatever it was Gojo said or did — nothing graver than that.

“Does that mean you’ve never been to his house?” Yet another shocked question fired at you.

“No, I’ve been to his house plenty of times,” you chuckled. “It just so happens that Gojo is never home. He’s apparently sent out of town a lot for work.”

She quirked an eyebrow, shaking her head and turning her attention back to her phone. “Your boyfriend is kind of a weirdo, not gonna lie.”

A small, smitten smile automatically grew on your lips. “Yeah, I guess he is,” you said, probably mostly to yourself.

“I have to go now.”

“What, already?” You whined, bottom lip sticking out in a dramatic pout as Megumi got up from his seat beside you. He met your pleading gaze, leaning forward to capture your lips in a tender kiss to ease his departure.

“It’s probably gonna take a while today,” he sighed, walking over to the door. Before his hand had even managed to clasp around the handle, you were already at his side, staring at him with doe eyes while your arms were tucked behind your back — like you always did when you wanted something.

“Then why don’t I come along?” batting your eyelashes at him.

Whatever your ulterior motive was, he was weak for the look you gave him — sucking in his cheeks to smother the smirk you were slowly pulling from him.

“You wanna come along?”

“I wanna be with you as much as possible!”

“You gonna help with errands, too?”

Your innocent smile was pushed into pursed lips instead. “I can watch?”

He instantly let out a taunting scoff. “Cute,” he sighed, placing a quick kiss on your cheek and opening the door to leave. Before he got too far, you already grabbed ahold of his wrist.

“So, you’re going home for these errands, right?”

And once you said ‘home’, Megumi immediately understood why you had suddenly decided to be so persistent in tagging along for his duties, when you always preferred he just get it over with so he could return to you once he was done.

And his body slowly started to tense up, because unlike you, Megumi really did not want you to meet Gojo.

Why? Well, Megumi could list hundreds of reasons why he wanted to shield you from the menace he had lived with most his life. But he knew those reasons were all superficial, and he never really dared put into words what really plagued him about the situation.

“Megumi,” you spoke his name softly, slowly letting go of his wrist. “I want to meet your family.”

There it was again, your genuine interest in him — somehow always catching him off guard despite you proving it to him from the very first moment. He just didn’t feel deserving of it.

It was written all over your features just how important this was to you — guilt striking him as he couldn’t understand why he had been so selfish as to deprive you of meeting his family, when he had no real reason to.

But what wasn’t he willing to do for you? With a clear of his throat, he tried to set aside his ever present anxiety about the situation, grumbling a low “fine” as he pulled out his phone to send a quick heads up to Gojo.

“Wait, really?” The fragile sentiment in your voice was replaced by an airy relief, not quite expecting him to surrender so easily — especially considering how long you’d bothered him about it all.

“Has to happen eventually, right? Might as well get it over with.”

The nonchalant shrug of his shoulders and the look in his eyes was all it took for you to feel your stomach tickle with butterflies — you saw he was trying to power through his stubbornness for you. He wasn't going to let his own struggles triumph how important this was for you.

“You’re just so-“ endless giddiness spilling over in your expression, unable to finish your sentence. You cupped his face and placed the sweetest kiss on his cheek, before you rather abruptly interrupted your own actions by yanking him after you towards his car.

For the entirety of the ride, you held a mostly one sided conversation, hoping your casual talk would calm him down — but it didn’t stop his knuckles from slowly turning paler when his fingers gnawed at the steering wheel, hoping you didn’t catch how his teeth were grinding against each other.

But he wanted to try — for you.

Pulling into the driveway, surrounded by the familiar scenery of the neighbourhood he grew up in, none of his nerves seemed to disintegrate. Even when he opened the door for you (like he always did) and you laced your fingers with his, the nerves remained knotted inside him.

“If you really don’t want to do this-“

“No, ‘s fine,” he interrupted you softly, reactively squeezing your hand to ground himself. “Let’s just get-“

A blaring voice shouting your name cut through the sad tension, both you and Megumi jumping at the sudden outburst.

Capturing your wide eyed glare, you were met with a freakishly tall man staring directly at you with the most intense blue-eyed stare one could imagine and untamed hair of the purest white — and lastly, a somewhat off putting grin that was overflowing with outgoing charm.

This was Gojo? The Gojo? The very same who had raised your stoic and quiet boyfriend? The one who seemed to have too much pent up energy in his body, despite the size of it? This was not at all what you had expected.

You were about to take a polite bow to introduce yourself, but Gojo simply waved his hand. “No need for formalities. Feel like I know you already.” His smile never wavered, even when he took a step back to let you in.

Megumi was already grumbling to himself, unable to stop how his fingers clenched harder on your hand as a reaction to Gojo’s first appearance — and heat was rising up his neck, slowly colouring the tips of his ears red with embarrassment.

“So glad you finally managed to convince him,” Gojo nearly sung, leading all three of you into the kitchen. “I’ve tried desperately since that day he first visited you. But Megumi never listens to me.”

He was so far from the character you had created in your mind, taking some time let the new impression replace the old one. He leaned so casually against the kitchen counter, while Megumi acted on instinct and pulled out the stool for you, taking a seat next to you.

“I couldn’t quite believe my eyes when he came back home that evening, and he smiled. You know how hard I try to make him smile?”

“Oh, it’s not so hard,” you laughed along, turning to look at your boyfriend only to see he was looking at Gojo with chronically furrowed eyebrows. The lump in your stomach formed immediately, hating just how displeased Megumi appeared to be — reaching out to grab his hand under the table, head turning to look at you, smoothing the crinkles on his forehead. You started to believe he wasn’t even aware of the way he was looking at Gojo, because all evidence of annoyance was gone when he shifted his eyes towards you. “He smiles plenty.”

“Hmpf,” Gojo pouted, arms crossing loosely over his chest. “Well, maybe you just share the same bad sense of humor.” The comment caught you a little by surprise before the genuine laugh slipped past your lips, while Megumi went back to shooting him an ugly scowl.

“I’ve been wanting to meet you too for a while.”

“Is that so?” His tone sounded accusatory as he met Megumi’s eyes. It didn’t take a genius to understand the subtext that Megumi had served him excuse after excuse on why he’d never introduced you.

“Yes, but my schedule is crazy busy,” the lie rolling of your tongue so easily, Megumi almost believing it himself. “Something always came up whenever we tried to make it happen.” It was a small gesture, yet Megumi’s heart fluttered lightly at how you tried to make this as comfortable as possible for him.

“I’m very pleased you finally got the time,” he beamed, seemingly buying into the lie.

And then the conversation flowed as smoothly as butter. He asked questions about your studies and your family, showing a real interest in your life. And he was funny — the clutching-your-stomach type of funny. You didn’t even notice when Kuro and Shiro walked into the kitchen, Shiro lightly nudging your hand for pets before both of the dogs laid down by Megumi’s feet.

But the conversation consisted mostly of your and Gojo’s voice, Megumi only contributing with a weak “hm” or “sure” whenever fitting, which definitely put a thorn in the atmosphere of the company.

“How about we get around to those errands?” You suggested, bringing an end to the constant rambling you knew Megumi had probably prayed would stop.

“Yeah, we probably should,” he mumbled lowly, quickly jumping out of the seat he had been glued to since you arrived. “I just have to get something upstairs-“

“Just go,” you giggled, knowing he was about to ask if you were alright with being left alone for a second.

Megumi hurried away, leaving you and Gojo alone. It didn’t take long before he broke the silence again.

“He’s not usually this cold towards me.” His tone had completely changed, now full of sentiment, one you could only assume came from genuine love for Megumi. “It doesn’t look like it, but I’m sure he secretly likes me. The death glares are at least kept to a minimum when it’s just the two of us.”

“He has a tendency to be a little cranky.” He smiled then, a small and almost shy smile.

“I’m going to make this quick, because he’ll be back down any second,” he took a deep breath as he straightened his posture. “After you came along… I’ve never seen him like this.” Your breath hitched in your throat at the slightly ominous statement. “There’s a lightness in him I’ve never seen before. You clearly mean a lot to him, which is why he exaggerates his frown. He’s just being protective.”

With further clarification, your shoulders found rest, starting to shuffle towards the front door, Gojo close behind. “Believe it or not, he brings me lightness too.”

“No, I believe it,” he smiled as Megumi came down the stairs, both of his dogs following him. “I see it in you too.”

“Ready to go?” Megumi asked in a monotone voice, already having put on his shoes and opened the door.

“It was nice meeting you, Gojo,” you bowed.

“Looking forward to the next time.” Megumi didn’t manage to fully conceal the quiet groan that escaped him, both you and Gojo deciding to not pay it any attention.

“I’ll be back in a few days,” Megumi sighed, already halfway down the pathway, simply waving goodbye over his shoulder.

“I’ll miss you!” Gojo yelled dramatically after him, your boyfriend never sparing him a second glance. While he opened the car door for you, you decided to pay Gojo the decency of a smile and a tiny wave.

Megumi did not hesitate to start the engine, his childhood home quickly disappearing behind you.

Then silence hit — thick silence, nearly suffocating on all the thoughts you could so clearly tell was swarming Megumi’s mind.

“I like him,” you breathed, leaning back on the headrest.

“Yeah? I’m glad.”

“You don’t sound glad.”

“Sorry.”

His eyes were glued ahead, as if there was nothing more interesting than the boring scenery and the asphalt going straight ahead.

“Megumi?”

“Hmm?”

“Why didn’t you want me to meet Gojo?”

He didn’t answer — he only let out a deep breath through his nose which you suspected had been trapped in his lungs since the moment you first pulled up in his driveway. Then he pulled over, the car slowly rolling to a halt.

Your pulse quickened, eyeing how his hands had left the steering wheel only for him to pick at the skin around his nails — a nervous tick you only saw him do when he was extremely anxious.

“I don’t want to mess this up.”

His confession was quiet, and had it not been for the fact that there was not a sound in the car or any distractions outside, you would not have been able to hear it.

“Meeting family… it brings expectations. And if I am to mess this up-“

“Don’t say that, you’re not going to mess this up!” You cut him off, hands cutting through the air to intertwine your fingers with his, stopping his bad habit.

“You don’t know that.” His voice still came out low, eyes directed at your hands. “After last time-“

“Stop it,” you interrupted again, bringing one hand to his face to force him to look at you, breaking your heart when his eyes had turned glossy. “We’re past that now, okay?”

“I know we are, it’s just-“ he took another deep breath, “for some reason, I just felt like that if I kept you from meeting him, I could contain the damage and disappointment if I were to screw it up.”

“I didn’t know you felt this way,” you sniffled quietly, fighting not to let the tears take over. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know,” he averted his gaze again, back to fixating on his lap. “Scared, I suppose.”

“You’re not in this alone. You can always talk to me about these things, okay?”

“Mhmm,” the weak sound was barely heard.

Once again you cupped his face, wanting his eyes on you when you said “I’m on your team, Megumi.” His nostrils flared, not wanting the tears to spill. “Please just let me be on your team!”

Yet again he took another deep breath to steady himself, slowly beginning to nod along before leaning into your touch. “Okay,” he whispered.

He didn’t say it, but you could sense how he had actively reached within himself to fint sparks of confidence to give himself over to your request.

Megumi was just used to doing things on his own, never depending on anyone but himself. And up until he met you, that had worked perfectly fine. But faced with a relationship, he had found himself between a rock and a hard place, where exposing himself emotionally to another human being was necessary for it to work — and you were worth every ounce of dedication. Every other aspect of his life had turned miniscule in comparison to you.

He hadn’t exactly made it easy for you to cooperate when it came to his feelings. But that stopped now, fully surrendering to the fragility one could not avoid in a relationship. He knew you’d be there.

“You want me to drive?”

“No, it’s fine,” he sighed, the evidence of tears gone as he sat back up in his seat. He removed your hand from his face to place a soft kiss on your knuckles.

“You’re not still going to run errands, are you?” Your pulse finally started to calm down when you spotted a small smirk lurking at the corner of his lips.

“Not a chance.”

“My place and order in?”

“Sounds perfect.”

tags (taglist is open)

@sad-darksoul @nyahctrl @ssetsuka @aceakariii @chxlexauriana

@ps-forgetmenot @thejujvtsupost @acowboykisser @rixo-19

@aestheticallyvini @iheartlinds @rory-cakes @tiffanyandrson

a/n okay idk what's happening but i'm not quite vibing with my writing lately... words aren't wording iykwim... however, did yall catch me teasing some angst in here tihi?? look forward to that

[savemefromanepicoftimewasted]

Secret Lovers

Simon "Ghost" Riley X F!Reader

Simon wasn’t someone who very willingly opened up to anyone, his teammates were no exception either, save for Price. It was always better to keep things quiet and let people assume what they pleased instead of trying to answer their questions. Better to remain mysterious than show your cards to the wrong person. a/n:this was originally started because of a snippet @thebeesatemyknees had written, thank you so much for letting me turn this into a full fic! I hope I was able to do it proper justice warnings:none, just tons of fluff Part 2

Simon wasn’t someone who very willingly opened up to anyone, his teammates were no exception either, save for Price. It was always better to keep things quiet and let people assume what they pleased instead of trying to answer their questions. Better to remain mysterious than show your cards to the wrong person. Johnny had badgered him from day one if he had a partner, going on and on about how much he loved his girlfriend. SImon wasn’t going to tell him anything, no matter what he’d keep his lips sealed.

Kyle was the next one to ask, though it was more in passing rather than a true and genuine question when he cornered the older man. They had been discussing mission details when the topic arose, did he have a next of kin? And if so, who would be the one to inform them if Ghost were to be KIA’d? He never asked Simon after that day, instead going on to different topics whether they had to do with the mission or what they wanted to eat. Kyle treated him like a friend, it was nice.

And John, well he knew all about Simon’s personal and very private life.

~~~

You were a new addition to the team, a medic that could stitch up a wound within a minute and get you back on the field within five. They were thankful to have you come around with them, helping stitch up a wound on Johnny’s arm, or cleaning up a gash on Kyle’s head. The only person who seemed to be a little wary around you was Simon, which both Johnny and Kyle felt odd. You fit in their group like the puzzle piece that was missing, and yet Simon acted as if he wanted nothing to do with you. Surely he’d warm up to you a little more, they were all sure of it.

“Thank you all for meeting me on such short notice. We’ve got word that an arms dealer is hosting a gala and we need to get more intel before we can swoop in.” Kate was a woman who took no shit and left no prisoners, she wasn’t going to risk this.

“Who do we want to send?” John was nervous, his men were trained for this, but putting them into a situation where they’d have to become someone else entirely? Nerve wracking.

“I was discussing it with Shepherd last night, and we’ve decided that Simon and Y/N will be going on this mission while the rest of you stake out the building.” All eyes suddenly shifted to Simon who looked calm as ever.

He’d forgone the mask for this mission briefing, knowing that only his teammates and Kate would be in the room with him. Knowing that you were going to be there made things a little more tense, could he handle something that dire?

“If you think that’s what’s best, I fully support the decision.” John wasn’t going to argue, Simon could be suave and charm the pants off of anyone if needed.

“Thank you, we’ll be heading out tomorrow and meeting up at the hotel. Promise me you’ll behave so no one suspects you, please.” Kate knew how much of a troublemaker that Johnny and Kyle could be, given the opportunity of course.

“I’ll make sure of it myself if need be, don’t you worry.” John smiled up at her, leaving Kate to wonder how much trouble there would be.

They would need to debrief you on the plane ride over, given that you weren’t even in the room with everyone. Having something like that just dumped on you with no time to prepare was the worst, how could they manage? Simon would just have John give you the rundown so he could worry about more important things, like how he’d have to act like the two of you were so desperately in love.

You would have an entire day to get comfortable in the hotel room, there would be a few people lingering so you’d get used to being stared at. Simon knew they’d mainly be staring at you, you were downright gorgeous. And with the clothes that had been picked out? A deep navy blue tux, with a pitch black button up and black silk tie. It perfectly matched the dress they’d picked out for you, a deep V down the front that left just enough to the imagination. The color matched his tux almost identically, the only difference was your dress was silk. 

“They’ve packed everything for you to do your own hair and makeup, we don’t want you to stand out too much, better to blend in.” It was the smartest idea, if you or Simon were to attract too much attention things would end badly.

“Yeah, Kate told me as much as she could, I made sure to pack my best heels.” You were nervous, it’d been so long since you’d been able to go out to something fancy.

“Are you sure you can handle this?” John knew you were smart and quick witted, but something about this mission unnerved him.

“I’m positive, Simon and I will get the intel and get out before anyone even notices we’re missing.” You were confident everything would go smoothly, Simon could be silent if needed.

John nodded at you, settling back into his seat as the plan began to descend down onto the tarmac below. Simon was staring at you from across the way, palms sweating slightly as the time drew closer to getting inside the hotel. Johnny was going to see how nervous he was and make comments, he was sure of it. The sound of tires squealing brought everyone’s attention to high alert. It was time to grab your things and head to the cars, you were driving over with Simon, leaving the other three to their own car.

It was mainly to not raise any suspicion, if you were seen driving with any man that wasn’t your husband word would spread before you managed to make it to the party. You were absentmindedly playing with your ring, twirling the obnoxiously large diamond with your other fingers. It was a habit you picked up whenever you tended to wear jewelry, though it was much better than picking at your cuticles.

“You feeling alright hun?” Simon glanced over at you, though his own nerves were shot, he wanted you to feel comfortable.

“A little nervous, but that’s to be expected considering the circumstances.” You kept twirling the ring, glancing between Simon and the road ahead of you.

Simon took a quick breath and grabbed your hand, lacing your fingers together without skipping a beat or taking his eyes off the road. You couldn’t stop the smile that spread across your face, you had been waiting to see how long it took before he finally felt comfortable around you. You’d need to practice around everyone else if you were going to look natural around a bunch of strangers. Everything was going to be just fine, you were sure of it.

John had set up everything in the hotel room, along with hanging up your dress and Simon’s tux to help steam out any wrinkles if needed. So far there was nothing to worry about, save for Soap acting like a little shit and pranking Simon and Kyle for the most part. You’d all settled in, changing into comfortable clothes and ordering food so that you wouldn’t have to leave. Simon was cleaning up the kitchen so he could sit down and enjoy dinner with you.

“Do you need any help?” You walked over to him, pressing your hand against his lower back.

“Nah, just need to finish cleaning this plate and we can eat.” Simon smiled at you, leaning down to press a kiss to your cheek.

“Whatever you say.” You patted his back gently, heading over to the small kitchen table.

Johnny raised a brow at how you and Simon seemed to naturally work with one another, he didn’t want to raise any suspicion. Kyle on the other hand was ignoring him entirely, digging into his own meal and scrolling through his phone. Simon had finally finished, grabbing his plate of food and heading over to sit with you. He could faintly hear that you were both discussing the mission and going over your alias’ one last time.

“Simon, you need to wear your ring.” You’d gotten on his case the entire day, he kept taking it off complaining that it felt weird to wear it.

“I’ll wear it during the mission tomorrow.” Simon brough the fork to his mouth, focusing on his plate rather than your raised brow.

“You say that now, but when we end up leaving you’re going to forget it and then we’re going to have to drive all the way back because you won’t wear your ring.” You had put yours on right away, mainly because you were forgetful and didn’t want to end up forgetting it.

“Are you really going to make me wear the ring all night?” Simon’s expression would normally terrify a recruit, but you’d gotten used to it.

“If I want to make sure you have your ring on? Yes, I’m going to make you wear your ring until we get back on that plane and go back home.” You’d glue it on if need be, but Simon knew better than to disobey orders.

John chuckled to himself watching the two of you, it was a dynamic he hadn’t seen in quite a while and it was pretty funny to witness. Johnny on the other hand was now even more flabbergasted at the way you worked together. Why did you seem so comfortable arguing with a man who’d killed for less? This was something sinister and it unnerved him to no end, he’d get to the bottom of this.

You’d offered to clean up everyone’s dinner dishes, carefully cleaning any knives before laying them on a towel to be dried by Simon. He walked over to where you were, wrapping an arm around your waist to pull your bodies flush together. Johnny’s jaw dropped open as he slapped Kyle’s arm to get his attention. The playful bickering was one thing, but watching Simon the Ghost Riley be so affectionate? 

“Damn, he’s a good actor.” Kyle watched the way you and Simon began to sway gently, giggling at something he’d whispered into your ear.

“Scarily good, didn’t think he had it in ‘em.” Johnny shook his head, turning back towards the computer in front of him.

It wasn’t until the sound of someone kissing caught their attention once more. Simon had dipped you, lips pressed against yours as his arms wrapped around your waist. Johnny’s jaw dropped wide open, well if you weren’t together already that was surely going to change. You pressed your hands against Simon’s chest, laughing happily as you stared up at him.

“Cap, do ya think Lt and the medic are gonna get together after all this?” Johnny had high hopes, no one gets kissed the way Simon kissed you and simply part ways.

“What’re you talking about?” John barely lifted his gaze from the screen, typing up the pre mission notes to help catch up on them before.

“Simon’s practically tonguing the medic! He’s gonna woo her.” He waggled his brows at the older man, cackling when John rolled his eyes.

“Oh, yeah that’s not gonna happen.” John’s attention focused back on the task at hand.

Johnny’s laughing abruptly halted, what the hell had he meant that Simon wasn’t going to woo the medic, it was obvious! Clearly John had no idea what he was talking about, Johnny could see the little twinkle in your eye from across the room.

“Gaz, am I wrong or do ye think Ghost and medic are gonna end up together?” He was determined to get someone to agree with him.

“Oh, if they don’t I’m asking for her number for him.” Kyle may have had a slight crush on you, not that he’d ever admit it.

John sat upright in his chair, focusing on Johnny and Kyle who thought they were being more subtle than they actually were.

“Have you ever looked at their name tag by chance?” John wanted to see if the other two would finally catch on.

Both Johnny and Kyle shook their heads, neither of them had a reason to over analyze your name tag when they had injuries to be taken care of. He sighed softly to himself before glancing over to you and Simon. You were laughing at some bad joke Simon had whispered to you, a bright smile on his face.

“Her last name is Riley.” John watched as realization dawned on their faces.

You’d been married this entire time and no one, besides Price, was none the wiser. How the hell had you managed to keep it hidden from everyone? Then again Simon wasn’t the most overly friendly or affectionate when it came to anyone. You were his wife though, that was different! Surely you could bring out a different side of him, something that no one usually got to…of course.

“Would’ve been nice to know at least.” Johnny shrugged off his disappointment, this was a big thing to keep hidden away.

“It wasn’t my place to tell, just remember that.” John wanted to respect your privacy, it was the least he could do considering your line of work.

Johnny and Kyle understood why Price hadn’t admitted to questions about your relationship, but knowing the truth? It felt good. They watched the way you and Simon danced to the music playing from your phone. Simon’s arms were wrapped around your waist, pressing kisses all over your face as you tried to squirm away. It was a side of their teammate they’d never thought to see, and no one outside of this hotel room would ever get to see it.

At least, not until after the mission of course.

tagging: @gaylemonshark

[avaf00rd]

Little shits Pt 3

Arsenal women x Teen!reader

I know a promised this a few days ago but it actually took ages.

Like always enjoy!!

Warnings: spelling mistakes in too tired to read over xxx so if something doesn’t make sense it probs doesn’t

part 1😚

part 2😚

————————————————————————

“What time will you be ready?” Asked Katie through the phone. Whenever she went grocery shopping she would take you with her so you can do your shop. Then she claimed she could also make sure you buy the right foods for a girl living on her own.

You actually liked grocery shopping, it was so much fun now that you were living alone and got to pick the foods for your own kitchen. “Like now. Head over now”

She soon hung up the phone and found herself out the front of your building. You go down the lift and found the white car. You went to walk to the front seat when you found Caitlin in the front. She poked her tongue out at you from behind the glass as you smiled and hopped in the back, only to find a grinning Kyra sitting on the other side of the row. “Kyra!” You exclaimed as you hugged the girl.

“I’m coming” smirked Kyra at you

“Yeah and no being little shits!” Caitlin exclaimed from her seat

“Hi Cait” you said kissing her cheek, Katie pecked your shoulder as you hugged her from behind her seat. After 20 minutes on the road, Katie pulled her car up to the parking lot of the grocery store. Before leaning back to face you and Kyra.

“Ok no going crazy. Specifically you Kyra” Katie said as Kyra gave the older girl a ‘really?’ Look before she continued “have you got your list y/n?”

“Yes mum” you dragged out the last word as you got onto your notes app to check. Kyra only came along cause she was apparently ‘bored’. She already went shopping with mini, even though mini had only been in London a week, she was not happy with the 23 year old’s kitchen.

You all walked in the entrance with you grabbing your shopping basket. After 10 minutes, you were grabbing pasta stuff in one of the aisles, when exiting said aisle. Kyra and her obese puffer managed to knock down one of the cardboard-built shelves, with bottles of fake tanner on the shelves. The noise of 30 bottles of tan falling to the ground made the entire store turn around. You felt embarrassment standing next to the girl so you walked away from her, hiding into the next aisle, trying to hold onto your laugh.

“Sorry” Caitlin announced quietly to workers and other shoppers around as Katie and her knelt down to help the very embarrassed girl. You finally finished all of your shopping as you lined up to pay for yourself. You felt a light shove to your back from behind.

“Oi why did you leave me” Kyra complained “that was the worst thing I have ever experienced” she winged leaning into your shoulder whining.

“Are they done?” You asked Kyra, motioning to Katie and Caitlin

“Apparently not” Kyra said now standing behind you with her bag of chocolates, full on pushing in front of the middle aged woman in the line.

——————————

You were in your room packing a suitcase for Switzerland. Arsenal had some brand sponsorship situation with a travel company that you didn’t understand. But all you know is that the company was sending you, Alessia, Kyra, Vic, Caitlin, Katie, Teyah, beth, viv, Steph, Lia, Kim, Jen, Lotte, Laia, Leah and Amanda all to Switzerland. All in one house. Leah told you to get super excited cause the house in the mountains must be huge to fit 17 girls in.

You texted Leah to ask if she was done packing so you could come down to her apartment. Leah lived in the apartment below you so she took you to things often, you would both drive to the training grounds together so you could get on the bus for the airport.

“This is gonna be sick” you said later sitting at Leah’s kitchen island as she filled up her water bottle.

“Yeah it’ll be cool” she laughed screwing on the lid of her bottle

“I brought my Aussie rules ball” you said wiggling your brows at her, she was horrendous playing it. She let out a huff remembering it.

“We are gonna be in the cold mountains, no one is gonna wanna play with it”

“Ouch”

“Sorry. You know what I mean. Anyways are you ready?” She yelled across the flat, heading to her room to grab the suitcase. You propped yours up on its wheels, turning off all of Leah’s lights for her. You both drove peacefully in the car to the facility, you quickly connected tour phone to Leah’s car when she turned up her own music.

“Ew you just like old people music” you said turning on your preference

“This is not old people music. This is the greatest album of all time”

“Meh meh” you mimicked her as you turned on Nikki Minaj.

“Watch it Missy. And your music taste is just awful” she giggled next to you

“Watch it missy” you said back.

When you sooner arrived, you jumped out of the car and grabbed your suitcases from Leah’s boot, you kindly grabbed Leah’s out and setting it down upright next to the car. “Thank you tiny” she smiled as you both walked towards the other girls waiting neat the bus.

“Ah I do too much” you sighed shrugging

“I did just drive you here. Ever thought about me helping you apply for a driving test?” She looked down slightly at you as you walked together

“Why would I if I have a whole starting eleven who would do it for me?” You said motioning your hands towards the large group of girls ahead, all in their twenties. You noticed Viv’s back towards you as you sped up towards her, before quickly jumping on her back. “Missed you vivvy” you said sweetly.

“Ow you nearly did my spine” Viv whines as you hop off her.

Beth shoved you away from her girlfriend and pulled you into her. “How are you tiny?” She asked kissing the top of your head

“So excited” you hummed, squeezing her tight.

A few media staff would be coming with you. Since you were on the trip with some arsenal sponsor brand, they would film some fun media on the trip. Said staff announced that you could all leave your bags where they were and hop onto the bus. You got onto the bus last and saw Lia sitting on her phone in one of the front rows, you loved Lia. She was one of the sweetest people in the world in your opinion. So you pointed towards the seat, reading ‘is this taken?’ on your face, quickly before she moved her hat that was sitting on it motioning for you to sit next to her.

“It’s so cool we get to go to Switzerland, you have to show me everything” you said to the brunette. Your excitement to go to her country made her heart warm up as she pulled you into her side for a hug.

“You are gonna see everything. I think best travel guide right here” she pointed towards herself, making you giggle. The bus was still too cold for you so you unzipped your backpack to grab your warmer jacket out, you felt the front pocket vibrate where your phone was so you went to grab it. You saw a text from Kyra

Kyra

Im 6 rows behind turn around

You and Lia stupidly both turned around to look at the row before two scrunchies were flown at both your faces, Vic and Kyra both laughed loudly, while you whined at the stinging on your forehead. The elastic flying at both your faces actually hurt.

“Four victims down lets go” Kyra said high-fiving vic with a wide grin.

“You better get her on behalf of both of us” Lia sighed settling back down in her seat.

“The idiot better sleep with one eye open I say” you said making Lia giggle before opening her own phone.

———————

Later on the plane you found yourself sitting across from Kyra and Alessia. You again, sitting next to Lia.

“Y/n” kyra whispered from across the aisle. You peeked over Lia before Kyra waved at you. You thought it was weird but slowly waved back before mouthing a ‘what?’.

Kyra quickly turned to poor Alessia who was peacefully on her phone, “please switch with y/n/n” she held up being hands and pulled out her puppy dog eyes towards the blonde.

Kyra huffed followed by a laugh before getting her stuff and heading over towards where you were , you didn’t realise kyra had requested this until Alessia had made her way over to you. You were honestly getting bored of the sleepy Lia next to you. So you smiled at her before gabbing your bag and going over to Kyra.

“Absolutely not!” Leah slightly yelled from the other end of the plane, who caught you shuffling over next to Kyra.

“We won’t be loud I promise!” You said peeking over to see the blonde. She raised her eye brows at you before giving in to your begging eyes. You and kyra soon pulled up the games on your phone you could play together, you first started by playing Fifa mobile together.

“Aha! Goal!” You yelled throwing your arms up jolting out of your seat, you scored your eighth goal in the last few seconds “I win” you smiled before settling back down in your seat. Avoiding making eye contact with some of the other girls sending you glares due to your volume.

———————

You found yourself and 16 of your teammates at this random building having a briefing with an older man. He told you a bit about the house you would be staying at and how the next three days would look like. You really weren’t fazed by any of the given information, instead just excited to get there. It was already freezing you had put on your large puffer jacket, scarf and beanie. You were hoping to see snow while here.

You all hoped into multiple mini black vans to head to the house, you cuddled into Viv’s side of how cold it was. Both vehicles slowly pulled up a long driveway, you were first to notice the house “what the fuck-“ you said in shock looking at the house.

You received a slap to the shoulder by viv and an “oi” from Steph. But most were also in awe of the house, some taking photos. When you got out of the car there were wide faces and glowing eyes at the large house. The house was huge, covered in dark timber, still managing to give it a cozy feel due to its size, you could tell by the large number of balconies, that there would be many rooms. A wide scene of mountains surrounded the outside, which got you excited for the views from the rooftop you spotted. Lia held the list in her hand of how to unlock the door with the key and code, as all of you girls trudged your suitcases up the front stairs.

You noticed Kyra walking up in front of you, you grabbed a small pile of snow in your fist and threw it at her beanie-covered head. “Ow y/n!” Kyra wined.

“Don’t” Caitlin told you. You made a few of the girls laugh either way, so you didn’t really care.

Lia and Leah struggled for a few minutes to get the door unlocked with the code. But it was a success a moment later and everyone was trying to get in the door.

Lots of “oh my god”, “shit”, “this is huge” words could be heard from you and your teammates. A large staircase could be seen in front of you, leading to a range of bedrooms above. The biggest kitchen you had ever seen in your life to the right, with a floor length window containing the best views of the snowy mountains.

“Ok ok rooms, some get their own, some share, made by the staff” Kim said getting people’s attention, “Little room 1, sweet! Foordy and McCabe room 2, Teyah and Vic room 3, Jen room 4, Beth and Viv room 5, Lotte and Less room 6, room 7 Kyra and y/n - wait no” Kim said as most of the girls agreed, you two could not under any circumstances share a room for the next 3 nights. “One of them is gonna share with me. You two pick, who wants to share with me?” Kim asked you and Kyra.

“No its fine one can share with me” Steph said “you get a good sleep” she laughed at Kim.

“Ok I’ll share. At least ill be safe with Steph, Kyra watch out” you mentioned to the girl, noting that you would get her back for the bus.

“You already got me back with the snow to my head!” She exclaimed

“No more pranks” Steph smiled pushing you from behind slightly towards room 9. When the door was opened, Two huge queen sized beds were in the middle of the room, the comfiest looking beds you were sure you had seen in your life.

“Omg omg” you squeezed jumping up and down like a toddler.

“Insane!” Steph grinned wide admiring the room and its view from the large window behind the beds. You both unpacked your suitcases in the respective suitcases provided.

———————

“Hurry up you two!” You yelled at Katie and Caitlin who took a while to come out and play in the snow an hour later. “Cheeky girls” you smirked at Caitlin before Katie shoved you slightly and Caitlin threw snow at your face. The older girls broke out into laughter as you felt it go down your jumper. You shook your head and moulded the largest snowball you had seen and threw it right at Caitlin’s chest.

Those actions broke the sweet hour of all you girls making snow angels and snowmen into a full snowball fight. Everyone was after everyone at that moment, a hard throw from Amanda to the back of your head had you slowly falling over. You pulled at her feet from the ground, which caused her to join you in the slippery snow. You both were collapsed laughing. You saw Leah next to you, both you and Amanda looked at each other before throwing a snowball to her head. She groaned at the cold feeling.

“What happened” Jen laughed at her

“Just got 2 balls to the face”

“And that my friend is a rare occurrence for Leah Williamson” you smirked before hiding behind Amanda. Since you were on the ground, Leah easily and quickly threw snow at your whole body.

“Your disgusting tiny!” She yelled as you got up and tackled her into the snow, both of your stomachs hurting from laughing.

—————

Later you were snuggled into Lia’s lap on one of the large campfire chairs. A blanket covering the two of you. All of you girls were working up around it while Kim, Jen and Katie attempted to get the pizza fire maker working.

“What are we doing tomorrow tour guide” you said to the girl with her arms around you.

Everyone all turned their heads, curious for the girl to tell what she had planned. “Well we should all go into town tomorrow morning and get drinks and food there for breakfast. I could see the lights from my bedroom so it shouldn’t be a long walk” You all nodded smiling, “then definitely snow boarding for sure!”

“Yay!” You said in excitement. You felt a buzz in your jacket pocket, you pulled it out and opened your phone.

Mum

Hey girl. Hope your having the best time there! So so happy for you, give me a call when you can chick. Mama loves you.

Your eyes stung looking at your phone, You always got emotional when you received texts like this from your family. Managing to get out of Lia’s arms you smiled at her “just got to call my mum”. Steph brushed her hand against your back in comfort as you walked inside the house.

You were on the call for a good 30 minutes, it made you start to tear up. You didn’t get to see her for the last camp in Australia, so it had been months. You talked to all your older siblings as well as your dad on the FaceTime call. You showed them the house and view briefly. When the call ended you went into the bathroom to check your face didn’t look too sad and teary. When it was all clear, you turned off the light and walked out with a sigh. You went back out. There was now an open seat just next to Beth and Steph.

“You good tiny?” Beth nudged you with a warm smile.

“Yep” you smile back at the older girl. Caitlin and Steph both shared looks, with Caitlin then settling her eyes on your face which staring at the ground. They knew how you got homesick whenever you called your parents.

“Pizza time!” Jen yelled loud, filled with pride after finally getting the pizza oven to work.

———————

After a very filling dinner made by Jen, Kim and Katie. You all headed back inside and were just chatting in the living room, nearly all of them having a glass of wine. You tried to get a glass, as Vic went to pour you one Kim quickly stopped her at the stupid idea. Everyone was starting to get tired and you announced you would head up to bed first.

“Night” Lia and Leah softly said hugging you as you were sitting in the middle of them.

You walked up the halls, as your’s and Steph’s room was on the bottom floor, when you reached the room you quickly opened the door and fell on your bed. You put your face in your hands, your heart tonight was slightly sinking at the though of missing your family in Australia. You told yourself you wouldn’t let stars fall. You were on one of the best trips of your life with your team. So you took a large breath before getting up to shower the smell of smoke off your body. You heard the sound of laughter get loud for a moment as you were in your bed. Signaling someone was opening up the door, the person shut it before you shot up to see who it was. Honestly scared for a moment since it was a huge house in the mountains.

You expected Steph, but not Caitlin trailing behind. “Gosh you scared me” you said softly making the other girls smile.

“How are you going puddin” Caitlin said sitting next to you on the bed.

“Alright why?”

“You sure?”

“Well I was feeling a bit homesick before, like missing mum and stuff. But its all good” you said looking at the sheets, slightly fidgeting with them.

“You don’t have to, But we really want you to talk to us when you feel like that. You know we are here for you” Steph said softly. You swore she had said those words 30 times since you moved alone to London to join Arsenal. You still felt insane comfort when around the two girls.

“I won’t lie. You two make it easier. It just reminds me of home with you two.” You said to the two of your Aussie teammates, “Kyra…not so much” you giggled.

“Yeah no not her” Caitlin laughed

“She’s alright. Sorry for always being so annoying with her, and like Caitlin I actually feel terrible about your fridge like so so bad. You need to send me your transfer details so I can give you the money to fix it-“

“Absolute nonsense. No need. It wasn’t even you it was kyra” Caitlin said softly

“Still”

“And you’re not annoying. You are one of the sweetest people I know I won’t lie to you. Sure you anf Kyra get a bit too pipped up sometimes but we still love you” Steph said

“Yeah like little shits!” Caitlin exclaimed adding to her words, Steph nudging her with a giggle from both of you.

“Thanks mum and dad” you laughed as you hugged them. “Ok I’m gonna get ready for bed too now.” Steph said getting up.

“More wine for me!” Caitlin said before skipping off to the living room.

———————

[ellieluvr420]

Friends? Never. Pt.7 (Ellie Williams x reader)

SYNOPSIS: You and Ellie had been bitter enemies for years now but before that you were best friends. You had always planned to be roommates one day but when that becomes a reality the situation isn't exactly how you both imagined it.

SMUT mdni, brief mention of attempted SA, story-typical violence

It had been two weeks since Ellie had come back from patrol injured, Maria gave you leave so you could take care of her and it had been a nightmare for the full fourteen days, Ellie never once making life easy for you and proving herself to be the worst patient in all of history. Nevertheless, you still managed to get through it and today was your first day back on patrol. If you said you weren’t nervous you would be lying and if you said you were nervous solely because of the attack two weeks ago you would also be lying. You had been up all-night pacing and fretting about being away from Ellie for a whole day, you were so angry that in the space of two weeks you had become dependent on her company but there was nothing you could do to rationalise with yourself, so you paced, and you bit the skin around your nails raw and possibly pulled a couple clumps of hair out, you had yet to look in the mirror and assess the damage but when you walked into Ellie’s room where she was sitting eating breakfast, you knew it was bad. 

“Why do you look like that?” 

“Like what?” 

“Bad.” 

“Wow thanks.” 

“Oh come on you know what I mean.” As you sit on the bed and lean in to peck her lips, she holds your face close to hers to whisper: “You always look beautiful, but you don’t look well.” She kisses you once again and leans her forehead on yours as you smile bittersweetly at each other. 

Since your first kiss you had spent every second together, the little bubble surrounding you both was tinted pink and the second you walk out the front door for patrol you know the feeling will be ripped away from you. You had spent every night watching films, making dinner together once Ellie was mobile again and you had even started taking it in turns reading your book to each other. The new definition of your relationship was undecided but the air around you both was heavy with want. You had been holding yourself back because of Ellie’s condition and Ellie had been holding herself back because the irrational fear that she would somehow infect you if you had sex was at the forefront of her mind, sometimes she’d even hesitate to kiss you before remembering that it was okay. Things were calm and quiet, and you almost forgot the real world, almost. 

“I’m fine El, I just didn’t sleep much last night.” 

“Then you shouldn’t be going on patrol, you won’t be able to focus, tell Maria you can’t.” 

“Okay so I tell Maria I can’t patrol because I’m tired, how do you think she’ll react?” 

“... Okay fair enough but I don’t like it.” 

“You and me both.” You gaze at her face that had the last remnants of some green and brown bruises as well as the stitched cut across her freckled cheeks that was healing well as you cup her cheek. She takes your hand in hers and kisses at your knuckles before tightening her grip and holding your fingers for her to inspect. “Wait, No Ellie.” 

“I fucking knew it you liar, you’ve bitten them raw. Are they sore?” You snatch your hand away from her with a shameful look on your face as you avoid eye contact. 

“No they’re fine. And I’m fine, I gotta go though so I’ll see you later.” 

“What time will you be back?” 

“Five-ish.” You both go quiet as the memory of that day dawns on each of you, you watch as panic flashes across her face. “Hey, it’s going to be okay, there’s a big group of us going today and we’re sticking together. They managed to get us walkie’s somehow, so we’ll be able to stay in touch with each other and Jackson, okay?” 

“Okay.” She sighs and you kiss her check before walking to the door. “Be safe.” You look back at her and flash a solemn smile. 

“Always.” You keep walking without looking back again for fear that if you did you would never leave, so you don’t look back until you’re on Greg and riding out of Jackson to your first checkpoint. 

“Haven’t seen you in a while.” Lacey smiled at you. You were often on patrol with her, so you had become good friends. Her black curly hair was pulled up into a messy bun and her brown eyes sparkled with a hint of curiosity. Lacey was beautiful with her glowing deep-brown skin that only looked more heavenly in the sunlight that was beating down on you all. The first thing you noticed about her was her beauty but as you got to know her you found she was strong and kind. She was the first person you told about your sexuality and she was the first person after Maria that you told about your parents kicking you out.  

“Yeah, I got given leave because my roommate got really hurt in the attack the other week, so I was taking care of her.” 

“You were taking care of Ellie; I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that.” 

“How do you know I live with Ellie?” You had barely seen Lacey since moving in with Ellie because of everything that’s happened so you hadn’t had a chance to tell her, for a second you wondered if you would have told her even if you had seen her, but you push the thought away before you let it distract you. 

“Everyone knows.” 

“What?” 

“Oh come on, you two are sworn enemies and now you live together, everyone’s a little interested on what that’s like. So, fill me in, is she secretly buried in the backyard right now?” She grins at you playfully as you shake your head and chuckle. 

“Well, um, she’s not dead yet.” You choke out a small laugh and immediately feel consumed with guilt as Lacey laughs with you. You don’t know why you said that. What you wanted to say is it’s been the best thing that’s ever happened to you, but your mouth wasn’t connected to your brain. 

You had been to two out of four checkpoints and you were approaching your third now, a small holiday town with large cabins and a couple shops and bars, whenever you came here you always tried to imagine what it was like before the outbreak but your mind can never conjure up a picture and it frustrates you more each time. The actual checkpoint is one of the furthest cabins from the entrance to the town, so you check each building you pass on your way to it. There were seven of you today and each person seemed more on edge than the next but other than a couple stragglers you had been okay so far. You felt stupid for relaxing a little the second one of your men went down and bullets started raining down on your group. 

“FIND COVER NOW!” You scream to the rest of them and as you sprint past Finn lying dead on the floor something inside you flips and you’re no longer consciously acting, all your movements were controlled by the need to get back home to Ellie safely as you dived into the first cabin on your left. Immediately you pull your handgun out and check your pocket to catalogue how much ammo you had. You quickly but carefully check each room downstairs. If you had been calm and collected you would have went upstairs first knowing that you’re more likely to find someone there than downstairs, but you aren’t calm and collected, you’re panicked and running entirely on adrenaline. You hadn’t realised how easy it was for life to end, how quick, you had always pushed the thought of death away knowing it was all too possible in the hostile world you lived in, so you chose to stay ignorant to reality. You were content with your decision, until you hear the creak of a floorboard behind you. Without a second thought you spun round firing your gun twice, you watch as the figure that you had shot at dove towards you showing you his grisly face. You fire again but he’s too quick, slamming you down to the ground and climbing on top of you, pinning you down. You glance at your gun that had been hit out of your hand and was now sitting in the corner of the room, mocking you. He smiles like the cheshire cat as he runs a knife down your face before reaching for the walkie talkie he had attached to his hip. 

“Boys come to number 7, I’ve got a pretty one.” He speaks into the walkie talkie before turning his attention back to you. “I’m gonna enjoy this.” He begins reaching to unbuckle his belt and your body turns cold. 

Get home to Ellie. 

You lean up and smash your head into his and as he groans with a disoriented expression, you deliver a hard punch straight to his nose.  

Get home to Ellie. 

You push him off you and scramble away as quick as you can but his hand latches onto your ankle, you let him pull you closer and then kick him hard in the face which allows you to wriggle free again. 

Get home to Ellie. 

This time you manage to make it to your gun, immediately shooting him straight in the foot. He bellows out as he goes to the ground and you watch as you grab your walkie talkie. 

“Come to number 7, be discreet and be ready, there’s a group of them and they’re all coming here. I’ve got one already.” You walk over to the now writhing man and jam the gun into his stomach. “WHO ARE YOU?!” You screech out. His silence angers you more so you slam the base of your gun down onto his temple. “Start talking or I break your arm next.” 

“I’d like to see you try.” He chuckles and the arrogance sets something off inside you, in one swift motion you hold his right arm up, his dominant one you had noticed, and stomp down onto it until you hear a loud crack and see the creamy white of his bone poking through his upper arm. The scream he lets out is inhumane, but it was music to your ears. 

“You’ve got a minute or I break the other one too.” 

“FINE, fine, we spotted your town a couple days ago, we were gonna take you guys as hostages to make them trade us for supplies.” 

“Oh so you’re raider scum.” 

“We’re survivors just like you, you ain’t better than us just because you live in your fancy, cosy town.” 

“If you wanted supplies, you could’ve just approached the walls, we help anyone that needs it. That’s why we’re better than you.” As you finish speaking Lacey burst through the door dragging an unconscious man by his foot, she brings him to be in line with the man before you and drops his foot. The rest of your team follow, bringing in three more guys between them. “Two of you go find stuff to tie them up with.” You look back at your group that were waiting eagerly for what you next had to say. There was no leader in patrol groups, but they were listening to you like you were. 

“How did you find us?” You turn your attention back to the men sat before you, the conscious ones each exchange looks. You slam your boot-clad foot into one of the men brought in by your team. 

“Look at me. How did you find us?” 

“People talk, pretty town like yours, shit like that makes the rounds.” One of them pipes up. He’s clutching his side, and you notice the blood seeping from between his fingers, you walk over to him so you’re towering over his hunched form. 

“What people?” 

“Met a girl and her friends, said they’re looking for a guy who lives there but they don’t know where it is, only that it's in Wyoming. They’re on their way too but we move faster than most, we just wanted supplies.” 

“Did she say the name of the guy she’s looking for?” 

“Nope.” Your face turns dark as you raise your gun to his head and shoot him in a split second, the thump of him hitting the floor coincides with Lacey and Raphael coming back into the room with all the stuff they found. They all look at you as though you have two heads. 

“He was bleeding out, would’ve been deadweight.” They nod and start getting to work tying the rest up. They go to tie their feet, but you stop them. “We’re taking them with us. Maria’s gonna want to interrogate them about this. I’m gonna radio Maria and tell her we’re bringing back hostages. The rest of you watch them, they move you shoot but not to kill, got it?” They all nod, and you walk to the next room along to contact Maria. 

“We’re heading back now, we’re at Mountain Valley, we got ambushed by raiders and we’re getting ready to transport them now, they’re talking about a group that are on their way to Jackson looking for someone, figured you’d want to talk to them. We had one casualty, Finn, he went quick.” Your voice trembles but you take a deep breath to hold it together. 

“Okay, well done, he shouldn’t have died but six is better than none, don’t beat yourself up, it’s not your fault.” Her bluntness had always been refreshing but now it was causing bile to rise up your body, you push the feeling down and concentrate on replying. 

“I’ll see you at the gates.” You can’t acknowledge what Maria said, it doesn’t feel right, so you focus on getting the raiders ready to take back to Jackson. You all load them onto your horses, tying them to the reins and then climb onto your horses also. Lucas volunteered to take Finn on his horse so his family could say goodbye and he could be buried in Jackson. You, Ben, Mick and Lacey each have a raider on your horse, so you climb on behind them and jam your guns into their backs as a warning. The ride back to Jackson went by in a flash and before you know it, you’re approaching the slowly opening gates of home. 

Ellie was standing at the gates of Jackson, when she walked, or limped, over there it was 4 PM, she knew she’d likely be waiting for some time, but she couldn’t sit at home waiting for you to come back any longer. She finally understood your reaction to her coming home late because you weren’t even due back yet and her anxiety was the worst it had ever been. She figured waiting at the gates would be better than waiting at home but as she approached the gates and saw Maria standing there as well as a large group of guards, she felt uneasy. The atmosphere was calm but foreboding and she couldn’t understand why there were so many guards just standing and waiting. She walked over to Maria who looked stunned even before she was faced with Ellie who she wasn’t expecting to be out of bed let alone at the gates.  

“Maria, what’s going on?” 

“They got ambushed by raiders, the scumbags got Finn, but they managed to take them as hostages, they’re due to be back soon.” 

“Why are they bringing them back?” 

“She didn’t say.” 

“You spoke to her?” 

“Yes Ellie, she’s fine.” Ellie felt her cheeks flush at Maria’s obvious awareness of the situation between the both of you, but the thought is wiped from her mind when she hears yells to open the gates. She moves as quickly as she can towards the crowd of people, mimicking your movements two weeks prior, shoving and pushing past people to get to the front. She watches as you ride in on Greg with a man hunched over in front of you, she makes no attempt to move, just watching the scene play out before her. 

Two guards walk over to you as you climb off Greg and reach up to cut his ties to the reins with your knife before yanking him down where he lands on the ground with a thud and an ear-piercing screech. “You bitch.” She hears him spit out and she can’t contain the small chuckle that leaves her lips when you kick him once on the arm he was already clutching. He writhes and cries and as he turns, she sees the white of his bone protruding from his arm. She’s watching intently as she surveys the damage done to him until she notices your eyes on her. 

You weren’t expecting Ellie to be at the gate, especially not since you were early but the sight of her standing there staring back at you releases all the tension in your body. You were home, with Ellie, everything would be okay. You go to start walking over to her but Maria steps in your way putting a hand on your shoulder. “I need to speak with you.” 

“Wait- Can I-” 

“Now. Let’s go.” She pulls you by your arm and as you catch a glimpse of Ellie over your shoulder you mouth ‘I’m sorry’ at her before letting Maria yank you away from the crowd. 

Ellie watched Maria dragging you away and her guard immediately went back up again as she subtly started to follow you both. You walk round a corner, out of sight, and she darts to the edge of the building that would shield her from yours and Maria’s sight as she focuses on trying to listen to your conversation while wincing from the sudden movement. 

“Not a word of this to anyone. Seriously, not Ellie, no one.” 

“Alright I got it. Are you worried?” 

“I haven’t decided yet.” 

“Who do you think they’re looking for?” 

“I don’t know, do you think they’re not letting on everything they know?” 

“Maybe, I’m not sure.” 

“Well we’ll find out won’t we.” Ellie panicked as she heard footsteps coming her way, she once again darts round the other corner of the building so she’s out of sight of whoever is about to walk past and as she watches Maria storm away she creeps back round the building until she’s met with you, standing staring at the floor as you bit at the skin around your nails. 

“Are you okay?” You jump but relax as you see it’s Ellie approaching you. 

“Yeah, hi, I’m okay.” She pulls you into a hug that neither of you feel ready to leave so she speaks into your shoulder. 

“What the fuck happened?” 

“Fucking raiders.” Your voice is muffled by her chest but she can understand you fine.  

“Sorry about Finn. You know it’s not your fault right?” 

“Yeah I know.” You were lying but it was easier to lie than have this conversation right now. 

“Why’d you bring them back?” 

“Thought Maria should decide what to do with them.” You both know you’re lying but she leaves it for the moment. 

“Come on, let’s go home.” 

“I actually had a better idea.” You pull away from her with a cheeky smirk as she cocks an eyebrow at your tone. 

You’re sat in a booth with Ellie at the Tipsy Bison nursing your fifth drink of the night, you had been there for an hour and a half. You recognise the first few notes of one of your favourite songs: ecstasy by the crooked stills, and you gasp before jumping up and standing in front of Ellie. “We have to dance to this.” 

“I’m good.” 

“That wasn’t a question.” You grab her hand and gently but firmly pull her up and onto the dancefloor with you. Despite her reluctance her hands immediately find their place at your waist, sqeezing a little, as you begin to sway to the slow song together. You arms that are round her neck pull her closer to you until your bodies are pressed together and your head is resting on her shoulder. 

Ellie feels her cheeks redden as she realises you two are in public and dancing together, so closely too, but as she looks up, she breathes a sigh of relief that no one’s eyes are on you both. It wasn’t that she wanted it to be a secret but she felt like she was under a magnifying glass whenever she was out and now was no different. She notices you shifting until your face is back in front of hers where she meets your lidded eyes. You’re drunk and she knows that so she had only had one drink to make sure she could watch you, she wanted to let you blow off some steam but the thought of being drunk like you were now unsettled her. Her eyes widen as you lean in but they shut as she relaxes into the kiss. You lick at her bottom lip and she opens her mouth so her tongue can collide with yours and the kiss deepens as you cock your head to the side slightly and push your body impossibly closer to hers. As you both pull away she looks at you with a giddy expression, she hated being the centre of attention but knowing that you just kissed her in front of everyone here makes her beam with pride, until she notices your eyes aren’t meeting hers, they’re fixed over her shoulder and your eyebrows were scrunched together in a cruel scowl. She glances over her shoulder and when she sees your parents standing there both red with scowls that matched yours she realised you kissing her in front of everyone had nothing to do with her. You were using her to piss off your parents and she felt more hurt than she had two weeks ago after the attack from the horde. 

“Are you fucking serious?” She pulls away from you leaving almost a foot of space between you both.  

“What?” You feign ignorance, she shakes her head and chuckles drly before storming away from you and out of the bar. 

“Ellie, wait up! What the fuck is your problem?” You slur as you chase after her, despite the limp she was moving impressively quickly. As you catch up to her she spins around with fire in her eyes. 

“YOU! You’re my fucking problem.” You stand completely taken back by her rage as she begins walking off again, the guilt consumes you in an instant as you begin trailing behind her, keeping your distance, knowing you had been caught. It wasn’t like you only kissed her because your parents were watching but that fact doesn’t make what you did any less awful. The walk was slow and long despite Ellie storming as fast as her injured body would take her and when she reaches the house and enters she slams the door behind her, right in your face. You enter cautiously and close the door behind you quietly as you see her stomping up the stairs. You flinch as you hear her bedroom door slam and prepare yourself for the worst as you turn the doorknob and shamefully slip through the door. “Get out.” 

“No, let me explain.” 

“Get out.” 

“No Ellie, just listen please.” She moves towards you at lightning speed and pushes you against the wall holding you there, she was rough but she wasn’t trying to hurt you. Her breathing was deep and fast as she stared you down with dark eyes. Neither of you spoke, you didn’t know what to say and all Ellie wanted to do was scream so you both stayed silent and frozen in your places. She takes in the sight of you hungrily as her mind is is contemplating her next move. Just looking at you makes her angry but as she takes in your appearance, something else takes over. 

She smashes her lips into yours so hard it almost hurt as your teeth clash together and her tongue prods at your lower lip. Her hand finds its place around your neck and squeezes until you gasp so she can invade your mouth with her tongue, her hand remains wrapped around your neck squeezing more gently this time as you moan into her mouth. She snaps away from you and pulls you away from the wall before pushing you down onto the bed face first, you go to flip over to face her but her knee over the arch of your back stops you. “That was fucked up.” 

“I know Ellie, I’m sorry.” 

“Shut up.” She grabs a handful of your ass and kneads at the flesh. You hadn’t seen this side of Ellie, even when you would bicker day in and out, she still seemed like Ellie. This wasn’t Ellie. You feel her knee leave your back but you don’t move, afraid that if you anger her more she’ll leave you pent up and frustrated. You just watch as she looks down at you taking in your body from this angle before hooking her hands round the waistband of your trousers and underwear, she meets your eyes and for a second you see your Ellie in there. “You wanna do this?” 

“Please.” 

“You’re gonna regret that.” She yanks everything down in one swoop leaving you completely bare from the waist down. She grabs your hips and yanks them up until you knees bend to support the new position. You feel vulnerable knowing she can see everything right now but you feel safe regardless as you watch her eye your heat with a lick of her lips.  

You gasp and jolt as you feel her rubbing two fingers up and down your slit gathering your slick and spreading it all around. Her free hand holds you in place with a bruising grip on your hip as she surveys your face to check you’re okay. She was so, so angry at you but the thought of hurting you almost made her stop for a second, she only didn’t because of the quiet whine that left your lips as you wiggled your hips at her slightly trying to signal what you need. 

“Ask for it or you’re not getting it.” You roll your eyes before sighing and accepting defeat on this one occasion knowing that if there was ever a time to not hit her with a snarky rebuttal, now was the time. 

“Please fuck me, Ellie.” Your words set something off inside her and she immediately plunged two of her long fingers inside you as the other hand left your hip to rub tight circles harshly on your throbbing clit. You groan at the sudden intrusion as you push back, your needy hole sucking her fingers in even deeper as you shudder. Her hands were bigger than yours so her fingers reached places you never had and the feeling had your eyes rolling back in your head. She curled her fingers to abuse your sweet spot as her assault on your core only quickened, your body was on fire as you trembled and moaned. “Oh fuck Ellie, please... keep going.” You can barely get the words out through bated breaths and a mixture of groans and moans as you clamp your eyes shut focusing on chasing your high that was racing at you like lightning. “I’m so close oh my god.” As quick as your release approached, it dwindled away as Ellie removed her fingers from you and flipped you over. 

She could barely feel the achey pain in her body as she stared down at the prickly expression on your face. You open your mouth to question her but before you can she slips her fingers that were shiny from your arousal into your mouth, making you gag as she pushes them in to the knuckles.  

“Didn’t I tell you to shut up?” She uses her hand in your mouth to manoeuvre your head into a nod that she can’t help but smile at. It was the first time you had seen her smile since you started dancing at the bar so the sight warmed you until her face dropped once again. With her free hand she yanked down her bottoms in the same fashion she did yours before climbing on top of one of your thighs to slot you both together at the hips. She brings the thigh she isn’t straddling to rest over her shoulder as she bites at your calf, you wince at the sting, but the pain is immediately replaced by pleasure as she begins to grind herself down onto you, hard and fast. Her face screws up as her eyes clamp shut ignoring the way yours were staring holes into her as she chased her high. Your moans became muffled to her as she uses you to get herself off. You’re seeing stars as her hips begin to stutter in their rhythm but once again, the feeling goes as quick as it came as she finishes with a guttural groan and stills her hips on yours.  

“No, no, no.” You whine to yourself as you throw your head back in frustration until you feel her climb off you and yank you up from the bed so you’re standing in front of her. She doesn’t wait before she spins you around and starts walking you backwards to the door. As you realise what she’s doing panic takes over and you wrap your arms around her in a death grip as you plead with her. “No, please Ellie. Come on, let’s talk. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She reaches the still open door from earlier and pushes you off her past the doorframe. She slams the door in your face before she can even see you stagger from the force of her push. 

You consider storming back in there but decide now wasn’t the time before dragging yourself to your room where you shut the door and immediately curl up on your bed as you pull the covers over yourself. You hug your knees tightly to your chest as the tears begin to fall. You had sex with Ellie, for the first time, and she kicked you out afterwards without a second thought. You weren’t angry, you understood why she did it, but it didn’t hurt any less. 

You fall asleep still hugging yourself tightly trying to pretend it’s Ellie’s who’s embracing you and that you aren’t alone right now. But you are. 

tags: @emiliabby @readbydayana @radioheadfan699

[howiscallmewhateveridctaken]

Lmfaooo what a week 😅

So a lot of people are, understandably, leaving the fandom. Drama like this always tends to put people off and unfortunately that affects the media they’ve come to love. I’m not going to be one of those people bc honestly, I don’t even know if I was ever that “in” the fandom in the first place to even leave it. My account isn’t and never was a nevermore account, yes I’ve made a few nevermore post but those were infrequent and amongst posts and reblogs of multiple other fandoms. I’m also in the discord server but I’ve only ever been a lurker, and usually only ever go in it when I want more context to something I’ve seen on tumblr. With that being said however, I still plan on reading nevermore when (or if) it continues because in THIS particular instance I can easily separate art from the artist and I’ll explain why in a moment.

Like I said I’m not and never have been very active in the fandom. I learned about this drama through a post from an account I follow and went through the server to find more context. I was not present through any of the actual conflicts but I’ve seen the conversations.

So why am I commenting on this?

Well mainly I want to make a point about para social relationships as well as moderation of servers and fandoms as a creator.

I just want to preface this by saying that after reading through all possible context, perspectives, takes and evidence I could find or come across, I genuinely don’t think red is necessarily a bad/morally wrong person. I DO however think she is in the wrong in this situation especially due to how she handled everything. As for how a lot of people are reacting to everything, there’s a couple of things I’d like to note:

From what I’ve seen, all of this is just one big thing of “he said/she said” and pointing fingers as well as just picking sides. If your absolutely distraught because red didn’t turn out to be the person you thought they were simply because she said things you didn’t like, I understand the disappointment and frustration but please remember that content creators in general aren’t your friends. You don’t know these people, they just do things you happen to like. Now I’m not saying you SHOULDN’T feel upset about it, it’s ok to and you even should if it’s an issue to you feel strongly about but please keep in mind that this isn’t a “sign of their true colors” or anything because you don’t know what they were actually like to begin with. Ofc I don’t mean that to say “expect the worst from people” but more as a reminder that can hopefully help you to look at the situation more critically and logically before jumping in guns blazing. It’s understandable if it affects you emotionally, you were emotionally invested in their work; but please realize this before you let it get to that point. Now on the other side of the coin, there’s the people who I feel as though will just pick the creators side simply because they’re fanboys and will stand by them no matter what. I’m DEFINITELY NOT saying that’s what everyone who’s on red side is, but naturally there’s bound to be a few that are going to dickride for the sake of dickriding. Regardless, there’s a lack of willingness to listen and understand from both sides (at least from what I’ve noticed) and that’s a problem because when no one wants to listen then what’s supposed to be a community coming together to resolve an issue just turns into a giant flame war. Also this should go without saying, but at least give the mods a chance. They obviously handled the whole situation horrendously but they aren’t going to do their jobs any better when they’ve got people coming at them with pitchforks.

Speaking of the moderators. I genuinely can’t wrap my head around how red and the other mods have managed to fumble this badly…….like it’s almost funny. All said and done they all had ONE very simple job and they blew it. Although I very much disagree with it, I do understand red’s decision to unban crimson. They wanted to give them a second chance, sure whatever. What I DONT GET is why would they not at the very least check to see if anyone else would be comfortable with a decision that would possibly affect them or even impact their safety. At the very least a warning to or a discussion with the victims would have been something. Not only that but even after they unban them, once red saw the NUMEROUS amount of people that were upset about it they, they should have immediately banned them again and then apologize after instead of some rushed explanation. But I get it stress gets the better of you. I understand their desire to keep things as transparent as possible (which i appreciate and I’m sure so do many others) but from that first apology/explanation it felt more like red trying to shake responsibility off themselves and pointing fingers in the guise of being transparent. I did see where red was trying to get at in her first statement, but there was also things that she honestly should have just had the foresight to realize wouldn’t put her in a better light, and this is aside from the victim blaming-esque wording. red basically says that she felt like a group of people (including Laci the one who reported crimson) were just out to get crimson, which is absolutely insane but then again it’s the internet so who knows. However it’s super clear that Laci obviously wasn’t lying bc the things she accused crimson of did in fact happen. So even bringing that up was enough for me to raise my eyebrow at but I digress. Then red practically says it was hard to handle the situation bc the evidence provided was censored, but Laci literally offered to give the uncensored versions so that was completely disingenuous on red’s part at best. To me it just seemed like the mods were looking for excuses for what could be there own laziness at best and negligence at worst. Their biggest fault so far is not being very good at actually listening to their audience and taking them into consideration. She also brought up that fact that Laci was apparently the only person to report crimson which I did not like to say the least. One of the victims confided in Laci and Laci brought it forward. I understand reds suspicions about Laci not being in the actual server where it happened but how are you going to immediately jump to “well why did no one else bring it up” instead of stopping for a sec and thinking “ hm clearly these victims feel uncomfortable stepping forward”. Which they had to do now anyway because of how bad the issue became. They should not have had to do that. Better it be just one person reporting, even if it’s someone you don’t like, than no one reporting and the issue persists under the radar.

And then there’s red’s formal apology…

First off, girl why are you dropping names??? A bunch of who are supposedly minors? Like let’s be so fucking for real right now😭

And then the audacity to be like “please don’t go after or dm these people” like babes if you were genuinely worried about them you wouldn’t have used their names at all. ESPECIALLY when in the end it was completely irrelevant and borderline inappropriate since it really had nothing to do with crimson, their actions or how you handled them. Not to mention the act of calling them “cliques” when literally all they were was side servers. Like if they’re cliques then what does that make red and everyone who’s on her side? It was very clearly just a biased reaction to people saying things she doesn’t like about her, which by all means she has the right to respond to but not in a way that is clearly trying to sway how everyone else sees them. The way red describes everything is as if it’s middle school drama and then proceeds to play directly into it. Don’t get me wrong her apology was fine, when she was ACTUALLY apologizing. Everything else felt like a last ditch effort to drag others under the bus with her. It was lowkey embarrassing to say the least.

Again, it’s important that I make it clear that I don’t believe red is a bad person. I just think she’s an immature person, or at least she is in how she handled everything and continues to handle it bc like I said I don’t know her, and don’t care to frankly. I didn’t start reading nevermore to be buddy buddy with her. Like if we look at the grand scope of things, this is a grown woman beefing with kids. Obviously they aren’t all kids, most of them aren’t I believe but she’s practically stooping down to school yard conflict in how she’s responded so far. Especially at one point in the server when she was being called out and jumped to “yeah I guess I’m the bad guy and totally evil. You all should hate me”. Like actually cut that shit out, what are you doing. I mean honestly.

And my final point because I’ve ranted long enough. I mentioned before that in this instance I am willing to separate the art from the artist, I stand by that because I genuinely do think this is a situation where red could hopefully grow from this and rectify things. The actual unbanning was a stupid and inconsiderate move on her part, but I don’t think she meant any ill-will or had any malicious intent. I disagree with the people calling her a r@pe apologist because that’s honestly just a huge reach. I’ve also seen some accusations of red and/or Flynn being racist, promoting inappropriate art knowing there’s minors around and from what I’ve seen it’s pretty iffy. Regarding the racism, I don’t believe that they are. Their characterizations of the characters regarding their ethnicities IS stereotypical and was obviously just very surface level research into those respective cultures but I chopped that up to ignorance rather than racism. As a woc I was frankly just relived they didn’t make the poc characters centered on some kind of discrimination or tragedy from their era, which yes is something that shouldn’t be ignored but also I don’t know if rednflynn could accurately and more importantly, respectfully portray those types of issues. Nor is it even their place tbh. With that being said however I don’t belong to most of the cultures the characters belong to. To me it never seemed like they were making a caricature out of these cultures, especially since their ethnicities are barely relevant to their stories anyway but I acknowledge that it’s not my place to deem what’s offensive or not.

As for the promoting inappropriate art of the characters and creating some themselves. Yeah they do. I’ve never been shocked about that nor did I think it was something that they are wrong for doing, I mean it’s their own work. Granted I didn’t realize how many minors were in the fandom but that’s literally every fandom, there’s only so much you could do about it. I don’t know if nevermore has a rating but it’s not like it was something ever promoted to be kid friendly, it’s obvious that some scenes are just straight up fan service. While I personally don’t like fan service it never was enough to impact the story so I personally never saw an issue. But point is I don’t think they should have to monitor what is and isn’t appropriate for minors but things get tricky when they have a server where they are clearly aware of minors.

And then there’s other things like people accusing them of promoting SA or some shit like that bc of a lot of stuff involving Montessor which frankly, that’s just a media literacy issue on the readers part. So yeah with that being said I don’t think red is a bad person, although I understand why a lot of people are done with them which is completely fair. I’m pretty much in a grey area about it, who knows if they end up getting in an even bigger scandal, hopefully they come out better from this but only time will tell. The best/smartest thing red has said throughout this entire debacle was that they’re taking a step back from the fandom. I think it’ll be good for everyone, especially them. It seems like it’ll take stress off them anyway. Plus the hole they’ve dug for themselves is already halfway to china by now so there’s that

[yelena-bellova]

Twenty Years Later: Joel Miller x F!Reader - Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen: Carry You Home

Plot: Ellie and Y/n do their best to save a wounded Joel and survive on their own.

Word Count: 8.6k

Warnings: canon-typical violence, language, blood, injuries, hunting, reference to smut

A/N: Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy…these chapters suck to write for 2 reasons…1: D*vid. 2: We’re getting so close to the end that I want to cry 😫 I’m going to miss this show so much!!

As always, this series is 16+ and I will not be adding anyone to the taglist if your age/range isn’t in your bio. Gotta look out for younger eyes 👀

I hope y’all enjoy this blend of fluff and angst and laughter. I’m going to try to get 14 out on Sunday, but no promises. Read on!

——————

“Protect him.”

Tess’ dying words had echoed through Y/n’s mind more times than she could count. The sentiment had travelled with her across the county, an ever-present passenger on their journey.

And now they were haunting her.

Ellie and Y/n had managed to get Joel into the basement of an abandoned house, laying him down on an old, dank mattress. Unfortunately, he had woken up by then and was feeling the full force of his wound.

“I know, I know,” Y/n tried to soothe him as he screamed, bent over his abdomen. The tourniquet had done a subpar job at stopping the bleeding. If it had been a river, now it was a stream. “Hold still,” she looked to Ellie, “Press down on the wound. Hard.”

Ellie had found an old towel in the kitchen upstairs and tore off a strand.

“Squeeze,” Y/n instructed Joel, who was already squirming in pain, “Hard as you need.”

Joel had lost enough blood for the world around him to spin, the only things in focus were Ellie and Y/n’s faces.

Y/n nodded to Ellie, who pressed down on Joel’s wound, causing him to choke on his own breath. His hand shot out, reaching for Y/n’s arm and crushing it in his grip. She turned her face downwards to hide the grimace of pain.

“Ah, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Ellie cursed as Joel writhed beneath her hands.

“Keep going,” Y/n ordered, blindly reaching a hand out to push Joel’s shoulder into the mattress, “Honey, c’mon, I need you to work with us.”

Joel winced, digging his head back into the bed. Out of all the injuries he’d sustained over the years, this was the worst. Not just because of the searing pain stabbing through him, but because it was the one that was going to take him out.

He was dying, and neither Y/n nor Ellie could stop it.

“Leave.”

They both ignored the word.

“Leave,” Joel strained through it again.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Y/n stated, watching Ellie’s hands, “He’s gonna say some weird shit.”

“Go,” he continued.

“Shut up, Joel,” Ellie’s breaths quickened in quiet panic.

“Take the gun-“

“Joel, shut the fuck up,” she yelled.

“Ellie,” Y/n said forcefully, the girl’s hands were slipping. She pushed them off and held the rag down on Joel’s wound.

With a last surge of strength, Joel reached out and grabbed Ellie by the collar, yanking her to face him.

“You go,” Joel whispered, “You go. You go north. Y/n-“

Y/n shook her head, shutting out the reality of their dire situation. “Stop,” she said without looking up.

Joel was undeterred, “You go to Tommy.”

“Stop,” Y/n gritted out, her hands hanging over his stomach with no plan of action. She wasn’t even sure what there was to be done. At best, she was only stalling Joel’s death by a few precious minutes.

When she finally dared to look up, her gaze fell on Ellie, whose eyes were misting as she stared down at Joel. He shoved Ellie back, releasing her from the burden of caring, and let his arm fall at his side.

Joel managed to turn his head, letting his eyes wash over the woman he loved, had never stopped loving. Kneeling over him and covered in his blood, he thought back to how she’d looked the night they’d first met. Her eyes untouched by cynicism, her laugh deflecting no hidden pain, her smile striking him like lightning and giving him a new pursuit in life; to bring enough joy to her life that her lips were forever turned up.

Now he was going to break her heart. Again.

He thought of their last night together, spent cradling each other’s bodies underneath the sheets in Jackson. How his skin had remembered the feel of hers the moment they touched, how his lips had recalled the roads they used to travel across her like he would an old hometown street. Though bathed in the tears of their sins and all they had lost, he had been reborn at the first kiss. He had a standing reservation in hell, but he could go knowing he’d felt the touch of an angel.

“Rose…” Joel strained out, the word tasted like sweetness.

The four letters burned in Y/n’s ears, sending a new wave of fear through her. “No,” she finally looked to Joel, “This isn’t how it happens.”

“Rosebud,” he pushed with a surprising calm to his tone.

“Joel, no,” Y/n fought to keep her sobs down, “This is not how it happens. It’s not.”

Joel’s hand shakily slid up her arm, needing to feel her as he told her, “I love you.”

Y/n squeezed her eyes shut, the strength of her grip on the towel faltering as she forced them open to look at Joel. Despite his impending death, there was a peace that filled in the lines of his face, one that only graced those who were on their way out.

“No,” Y/n whined, her voice unable to carry further than the distance between them. She reached up to stroke his hair, taking his cheek in her other hand, “This isn’t how I want to hear it, Joel. Please.”

Once he’d said it, he couldn’t stop. He was making up for twenty years in twenty seconds. “I love you. I love you…” Joel drew a shallow breath, “You go. You take her,” his stare gripped her, nearly choking the will out of her, “Go.”

For as prominent as Joel’s abandonment had been in her life, Y/n had done her fair share of leaving. She had left Sarah’s body, at least it had felt like leaving, when they’d sought shelter in the triage clinic. She had left her parents, panicked at what she had done, in the spots where she’d taken their lives. She had left Tess to die the worst way a person could, even if she was only following orders. Her life had been one abandoning after the other, and now she was being asked to abandon the love of her life.

In her haze, Y/n hadn’t even remembered Ellie was there. It wasn’t until she felt Joel’s thick coat being slipped over his body that she realized the girl was making her choice. She would decide, for once in their time together, to heed Joel’s words. And as her boots slapped against the stairs, she was also making Y/n’s choice.

Unable to force the words she felt like a sweet sickness inside her soul, she dissolved into tears, pressing her forehead to Joel’s. She didn’t think even if they’d had twenty years ahead of them that she’d have ever found to words to describe the depth of her love for Joel Miller. It stretched two decades of euphorias and tragedies. It was stronger than her hate or his violence. It was forgiveness and redemption and all-encompassing in its triumph over the worst of their persons.

Y/n sniffled, nudging Joel’s nose with her wet one and letting her mouth hover over his as if she could breathe life back into him. Joel took it, letting his eyes fall shut and savoring the the last of her lips he’d ever feel.

Joel had spent twenty years trying to detach from who he’d been, his old skin a constant reminder of all that he’d almost had. Y/n had spent twenty years trying to find her way back to her humanity, desperate to redeem herself. Without ever knowing it, they had been running back to each another, one step at a time.

Protect him.

Perhaps Y/n had only kept her promise to Tess in the beginning out of obligation. But now, now the words were as true as if they’d come out of her own mouth.

Joel had left her once.

She’d be damned if it happened again.

Y/n broke from Joel’s lips, rushing to her feet and bolting for the stairs.

From Joel’s point of view, it was the last he’d ever see of her. There was a duality that Cordyceps had forced on anyone who prioritized survival over anything else. Joel had meant every word with the force he’d said it, he wanted Y/n and Ellie safe. But he also knew he was dying, something that, despite all he’d wished over the years, he wasn’t ready to do yet. He had Ellie, this beautiful, unexpected gift of a child, who depended on him as if she was his own. And now he had Y/n, the miracle that he’d let slip through his fingers, returning to him with the same perfect timing she’d first appeared to him. He wanted to stay, to cherish and protect them like the man they made him feel he could be again. And if that wasn’t in the cards for him, he at least wanted to hold their hands as he faded out.

As Joel watched Y/n head up the stairs, he let a single tear fall down his face. He’d had one last night, one last kiss, and one last ‘I love you.’ It wasn’t a lifetime, but it would have to be enough.

When Y/n got to the stairs, Ellie was nowhere to be found. Was she already saddling the horses? Was it that easy for her to let Joel die?

“Ellie,” she called through her tears, bursting through the door, “Ell-“

The girl rushed past her, one step ahead, raiding cabinets and drawers.

Y/n felt herself breathing for the first time in an hour.

“What do we look for?” Ellie hurriedly asked.

“Something,” Y/n flung a empty cabinet door open, “Anything. We need to get the wound closed up.”

They searched high and low, in every room, until they met in the kitchen. Ellie dove for a set of drawers while Y/n scoured more cabinets.

“It won’t open,” Ellie groaned, pulling against the handle.

Y/n ran over, squeezing her hands next to Ellie’s and tugging with her. “Pull,” she breathed, the two of them shifted all their weight backwards.

The drawer’s internal mechanism released, the momentum they’d built throwing Ellie and Y/n to the ground. The contents were scattered from the drop.

“There’s nothing here,” Y/n panted, on the verge of frustrated tears.

“W-wait,” Ellie breathed, her hand sliding across the linoleum floor to grab something. She held up a rusted needle and thread to Y/n.

“Yes,” Y/n gasped, she took the supplies into her shaking palms. She wished she hadn’t used the last of her own days before, but they could make do with what they had, “Yes, this’ll work.”

Stumbling to their feet, they ran back through the door and down the steps, bringing salvation with them.

Joel was trying, trying to hold the rag to his wound, hoping it made his death a little less painful, but his strength was fading. His whole body shook with shivers, even his lips trembled from the cruel mixture of shock and the cold. He could feel himself slipping away, so much so that he was convinced the thudding footsteps he heard were hallucinations.

Y/n and Ellie kneeled down on either side of him, their faces illuminated by the last bit of light peeking through the clouded basement window. His saviors.

Ellie threw Joel’s coat off of him, catching her breath as she reached for his hand.

Y/n leaned down, interlocking her fingers with his other hand and brushing the hair from his face. She pressed a determined kiss to his clammy forehead, willing him to stay alive a little bit longer.

Joel would never admit to them just how much he’d wanted them to stay. He summoned what was left of his strength and tried to squeeze both of their hands, letting them squeeze back. They were going to fight this, and they were going to do it together.

Ellie reached for the towel and peeled the cloth off Joel’s wound. The bleeding had slowed, but was far from stopping. They had to move fast.

In the midst of their panic, Joel softly reached for Ellie’s cheek, pulling back halfway when he lost his strength. It was a moment none of them noticed in their mad rush.

“Honey,” Y/n began, pressing one more kiss to Joel’s skin, “We gotta get it closed up. It’s gonna hurt like a motherfucker,” she moved Joel’s hands to grab her forearms, “So you fuckin’ squeeze, and try to stay still for us. Okay?”

Ellie quickly thread the needle and tied a knot. Y/n wished she could spare her the pain of having to stitch Joel up, but Y/n was the only one who’d be able to hold him down and keep him relatively calm.

“Keep going,” Y/n directed Ellie, “I’m gonna try to keep him still, but you don’t stop, even if he moves.”

Ellie nodded, apologetically seeking Joel’s eyes one last time before turning to his abdomen.

Y/n put both her hands to Joel’s shoulders, bracing herself for what was to come.

“Go,” she said,

Joel let out a sickening groan as Ellie thread the needle, the pain giving him strength enough to squeeze Y/n’s arms so tight, she couldn’t help but wince. In his daze, he could sense he was hurting her, but couldn’t fight past that which his own body was bringing him.

Tears sprung to Y/n’s eyes as she forced Joel down into the mattress, taking the searing heat in her shoulder as a good thing. It meant Joel still had enough fight inside him to push through.

“I know, I know, I know, I know,” she muttered as Joel threw his head to the side, trying to hide his grimaces from Ellie, “I know, honey. Just hang on.”

Joel’s vision was going dark around the edges, the pain dulling all his senses. The only thing strong enough to cut through was Y/n’s voice.

“I’m here,” Y/n assured Joel, his eyes fluttering but fighting to look at her, “I’m here. I got you.”

“It’s stopping,” Ellie announced, still hard at work.

Y/n wasn’t able to sigh in relief yet, Joel had finally lost the battle and had slipped into unconsciousness. She’d expected it, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t still filled with dread.

It only took Ellie a few more minutes to finish sewing Joel’s wound, Y/n helping her to tie a clumsy knot at the end. They dabbed and tried to clean the blood off him as best they could before laying his shirts back down. When they were done, they slid off their ankles and onto the concrete, watching the rise and fall of Joel’s chest.

“Is he…” Ellie began before realizing it was a stupid question.

Y/n was fighting off the same thought, wondering if their efforts would be enough, or if it was a losing battle.

“I hope so,” she whispered, it didn’t matter to her if fate was calling Joel Miller home. She would rage against it regardless.

The next hour was spent waiting and watching. Ellie, eventually, went upstairs and collected their backpacks.

Y/n kneeled above Joel’s head, her hands resting over each of his ears. She combed her fingers through the ends of his hair, not trying to wake him or soothe him further into sleep, but simply providing what little comfort she could to both of them.

Ellie clunked down the stairs with their packs and sleeping bags, depositing them on the floor. She had spent the last three months watching Joel and Y/n fight, and the last week watching them drift back together. This was new. She hadn’t seem them vulnerable, on the verge of losing one another when they’d finally found some sort of peace. She didn’t have twenty years of experience, but she understood why Y/n was hunched over, cradling the man, who didn’t even know she was there.

Ellie settled against the wall, working up the courage to speak. “How’d you guys meet?”

It was perhaps the only thing said in the moment to make Y/n smile. “At a bar,” she answered, remembering the night like it had just passed, “A guy hit on me, couldn’t take the hint that I wasn’t interested…Joel threw a punch, Tommy threw the next…” she nearly laughed, “Then they threw him out.”

“So…he’s always been like that,” Ellie commented.

Y/n soothed a thumb over Joel’s cheek, the skin was so pale it almost brought on a fresh batch of tears. Or maybe it was the reminder that they’d once lived in a world where violence wasn’t a necessary evil. Where Joel’s laugh was an every day occurrence. When he kissed her as if it was the last time he ever would, with the end nowhere in sight.

“No,” she whispered over the lump in her throat, “He wasn’t.”

Ellie sensed she was getting to close to shattering what was left of Y/n, and she couldn’t do that. She needed one person left to look to, to hold her hand through these impossible problems. She rubbed her hands together anxiously, nearly choking on the words she wanted to say.

“Riley.”

Y/n dragged her eyes away from Joel to look up at Ellie, “What?”

Ellie drew a shaky breath, “Riley. She was my…she was my friend,” she rubbed her knuckles together, “She got infected and…”

All of Y/n’s longing told her to stay with Joel, not to move from her spot, no matter what. But her duty was to both him and Ellie, and she knew where she was needed at the moment. She inched her hands off of Joel’s head and crawled over to Ellie, coming to sit next to her against the wall.

“I knew Riley,” Y/n admitted, hugging a knee to her chest.

Ellie’s eyes widened, “You did?”

Y/n nodded, “She only joined a few weeks before…” she trailed off. Marlene had been the one to find them, Y/n had been back at base. But she’d met Riley, had even tried to take her under her wing before the fatal night at the mall. “She was fucking fearless,” Y/n shifted gears, “And fun.”

“Did she ever mention me?” Ellie asked after a beat of silence.

“No,” Y/n replied, looking over her arm to Ellie’s expectant stare, “I think she wanted to keep you safe,” she cracked a smile, “Bloodthirsty demons that we are.”

Ellie’s lips turned up the slightest bit, but they fell just as quick. It was one of the first times she had allowed herself to grieve her best friend, and there was something about the setting that made it all hurt worse. Across from her, Joel lay on the brink of death. To her side, Y/n was sitting with her in worry and in comfort. The last two people on the planet that she loved.

Y/n’s maternal instincts caught the change in Ellie’s demeanor just before she broke. She slipped an arm around her shoulders as the first tears fell, Ellie willingly sliding into Y/n’s side and curling her face into her body. It was the first time Ellie had allowed anyone, apart from Riley on that dreadful night, see her fall apart, and Y/n didn’t take it lightly. She pressed a kiss to the top of the young girl’s head, reminding herself that the journey had started out the two of them, and if even if tragedy intervened, it would end with the two of them.

—————————

Deep into the night, Y/n stayed awake, telling Ellie she’d press on until morning. The girl needed a break from the world.

Joel stirred a few times, letting out a moan or blindly reaching to clutch his wound. Y/n was there each time, holding his hand and soothing him back to sleep. Around what Y/n guessed was 3AM, he stopped slipping in and out and just stayed out. His ragged breaths, creating a steady rhythm in his stomach, were the only thing reassuring Y/n that he was still alive.

While Ellie was awake, Y/n held it together as best she could. But under the cover of dark, she allowed herself to fall apart, her fear for Joel’s life swallowing her whole.

“Do you remember that trip we took to the beach?” Y/n whispered, hanging over Joel’s head, stroking a hand over his hair as her other one cupped his cheek, “For our anniversary? Sarah’s graduation?”

In her weaker moments over the years, Y/n had drifted back to the memory. It was the last time she could remember feeling truly free and yet it was also the first time she remembered feeling tied down. Stuck in the space between Sarah’s dad’s girlfriend and a parent, between Joel’s love of one year and his potential wife. She wanted them both back; the liberation and the duty.

“Remember that night?” Y/n asked Joel’s unconscious form, she’d always wondered how she could recall the exact feel of the hotel sheets. The exact trail of her skin Joel’s lips had traveled. Which of his t-shirts she’d been wearing. “I made you promise that…” Y/n trailed off, bristling, “It sounds so fucking stupid now.”

“No matter how much I hated you,” Y/n slid her thumb against Joel’s cheek, “I couldn’t hate you enough to stop loving you. I tried, my g-“ Y/n chuckled softly, “I tried so fucking hard. Couldn’t do it.”

Her tears were building now, the more she exposed, the more the threat of loss became real.

“I waited twenty years, Joel,” she whispered, her throat tightening up on her, “Twenty fucking years, not knowing if you were dead or still hanging on. And then I got you back,” she sobbed once with nostalgic joy, “I got you back. And I can’t lose you before I get to love you again.”

Y/n lowered her head, dropping her lips to Joel’s ear, her voice barely audible, “Because I do. I love you. I love you so much it…” she bit back a cry, not wanting to wake Ellie, “It fucking hurts. You can’t just…you can’t just come back to me and then leave. You can’t do that to me. To Ellie.”

“I need you to fight,” Y/n begged, tears freely flowing down her cheeks, “I need you to fight so fucking hard, you need me to carry you the whole way to Utah, and I will. I’ll do it. I just need you there.”

Y/n choked on her sobs, digging her forehead into the mattress and letting them shake her. All her losses in life had been so sudden, she’d never had to watch a life hang, the pendulum swinging between a second chance and death. It was tearing her apart.

She wiped the snot and tears away on her jacket sleeve, the same sleeve that was painted with Joel’s dried blood. She leaned back over Joel, pressing the gentlest of kisses to his forehead. Y/n had heard stories of miracles, of voices at hospital bedsides being the thing to bring people back from death’s edge. She’d lost faith in that sort of thing after the loss of her family, but in the throes of worry, nothing was off the table. She’d stay up all night, telling Joel how much she loved him, if there was even a chance it would reach him.

—————————

For two days, Ellie and Y/n kept watch as best they could. With no medicine, there was little they could do to help Joel’s, now infected, wound.

Y/n finished up feeding snow to the horses, moving robotically from the garage to the basement. She hadn’t gotten more than maybe two hours each day. It didn’t feel right to rest when Joel was clinging to life.

She came downstairs to see Ellie kneeled next to Joel, placing one of their last pieces of rations on his chest.

“He wouldn’t want you doing that,” Y/n said softly.

Ellie sniffed away the cold air, “Yeah, well…”

If the terrible series of events was doing anything, it was showing how deeply they cared about each other.

“I’m going to go out real quick,” Y/n announced, heading to pick up her rifle, “Try and find us something to eat.”

“I’m coming with you,” Ellie jumped to her feet.

“No, you’re not,” Y/n replied, “You’re gonna stay here and watch him.”

“I can’t fucking do anything for him here,” the girl gestured down to Joel’s body, “If I can hunt something then…”

Y/n already knew what she was trying to say, she was desperate to feel in control of something. Hunting was a great way to make you feel like you had some power over the world.

“Okay,” Y/n sighed, “Twenty minutes.”

Ellie moved across the room to grab Joel’s rifle while Y/n crouched down and kissed his forehead.

“We’ll be back soon.”

The two of them filed up the stairs, both of their hearts unsettled at leaving without Joel. It was one thing to see someone with no fighting skills or survival techniques be taken down, but to see someone like Joel battling for their life was a quick way to make someone feel entirely exposed. And Y/n could feel the full weight of the responsibility they’d shouldered together the last three months.

Y/n drew her rifle into postition as her and Ellie exited through the front door, Ellie struck a similar stance. They moved down the driveway into the street, scanning for footprints in the snow that didn’t exist. They’d made the right decision to hide in the abandoned neighborhood.

Ellie and Y/n made their way to the forest, trudging through the snow and huffing patterns into the cold air.

“Remember what Joel taught you,” Y/n instructed, keeping her voice low to not spook any animals, “Regardless of what your instincts tell you, pull slow.”

Ellie’s eyes were already drifting ahead, having spotted a white rabbit thirty feet away from them. She glanced over to Y/n, who nodded for her to go ahead. Y/n felt better keeping her gun aimed at the space around them anyway.

Just as Ellie was setting herself up, the rabbit ran off. Ellie took off charging the way it had run.

“Ellie,” Y/n gritted, the worst thing to do when tracking an animal was to chase it.

Ellie tripped on a branch, falling face first into the snow.

Y/n came over and extended a hand to the girl, pulling her up to her feet. “Word of advice…if an animal’s running, you don’t go after it and make more noise.”

“Yeah,” Ellie exhaled, wiping the snow from her face, “I got that.”

“Come on,” Y/n hitched her rifle back over her shoulder, “Ten more minutes.”

The two of them walked a little further, eventually hearing a clicking noise that sent them both reaching for their guns.

Ellie hit Y/n’s arm, guiding her attention to a patch of trees providing shelter to a full-grown deer. Y/n gestured for her to take the nearest log and the shot. It felt like a good idea to keep Ellie as distracted as she could and maybe give her a much needed victory.

Heeding all of Joel and Y/n’s advice, Ellie lined up the shot perfectly and-

BANG!

The deer wailed, limping away into the depth of the forest.

“No fucking way,” Ellie muttered.

“Come on,” Y/n pulled her free hand and the two of them sprinted off after it.

There are certain moments in life that, with hindsight, stick out as forks in the road. If Person A hadn’t have made it to Point A, then Person B wouldn’t have found them and both their lives, good or bad, would be forever altered because they didn’t meet.

Y/n and Ellie couldn’t have known what they were running straight towards.

They tracked the blood trail of the deer 1/4 of a mile before hearing two male voices. Y/n threw her arm out, catching Ellie and holding a finger up to her lips. The two of them drew their rifles and very carefully stepped around the snowbank. Sure enough, there were two men standing over their now dead deer.

Y/n inhaled to speak.

“Don’t! Drop your rifles! Now!” Ellie yelled.

The two men carefully removed their guns from their backs, the taller of them keeping one eye on Ellie and Y/n.

“Turn around,” Y/n ordered, her gun locked on the tall man, while Ellie took the shorter one.

“Any sudden moves,” Ellie threatened, deepening her voice to make her words more convincing, “I put one right between your eyes. Ditto for buddy boy.”

Internally, Y/n grimaced. Ellie was going to get them killed with a poor imitation of Joel.

“You two are quite the hunters,” the shorter man said, his hands held in the air, “We didn’t even hear you coming.”

“Flattered,” Y/n replied, unimpressed, “But this is where you two walk away with your asses still attached and we take what’s ours.”

“Okay,” the man said, making no effort to move.

“Just go!” Ellie impatiently yelled.

“A-all I ask is ten minutes of your time,” the man continued.

“Did you not get that that was a warning?” Y/n muttered, extending her foot ever so slightly to make it look like she was taking a step closer.

“Please,” the man didn’t budge at her non-verbal threat, “Just ten seconds. My name is David. This is my friend, James. We’re from a larger group: women, children, and we’re all…very, very hungry.”

“We’re from a large group too,” Ellie lied, drafting the lie quickly in her head, “Also hungry.”

David sighed, “Well, even so…” he gestured to the deer, “Ya can’t drag this back just the two of you.”

“We’re fine,” Y/n finished the conversation. The world was dead, yet somehow misogyny was still alive and well…

“We’re not asking for charity,” David clarified, “W-we can trade you for some of the deer. What do you need? We have…boots-“

Ellie’s rifle lowered ever so slightly, her voice coming back to its childlike pitch, “Medicine? Like, for infections.”

“We do,” David replied, surprised they’d hit on something so fast, “Back in our village. You’re welcome to follow us.”

“Yeah,” Y/n wasn’t so quick to believe that it was just that simple, “That’s not happening.”

Ellie picked up her gun-slinging persona again, “Buddy boy can go get it. He comes back, you get half the deer. Anyone else shows up, I put-“

“Put one right between my eyes,” David finished for her.

“That’s right,” Ellie finished, sensing that at some point, she should have let Y/n take over the talking.

David turned to James, leaving his hands hanging in the air, “Alright, go talk to Howard. He’s got a case with some penicillin. Bring back two bottles and a syringe.”

James looked stunned at David’s request, as if killing the two women was the obvious option.

“It’s not code, James,” David added, “Do as I said.”

Y/n’s rifle remained trained on James, waiting for him to make the right move. The man kept his eyes on her the whole time till he could safely jog back into the forest.

“Ten steps back,” Ellie ordered David, her and Y/n marched the man backwards, “Keep going.”

Once he was past the deer, Ellie kneeled down to pick up David’s rifle, unloaded the cartridges while Y/n kept her aim fixed on him.

“That your dad’s gun?” David asked, “He the one who’s sick? That’s why you two are out here on your own?”

“This is not a Starbucks,” Y/n bit out, “We are not chatting over a latte. All you need to know is that one wrong move, and your village goes hungry a hell of a lot longer.”

The words hurt Y/n as she let them fly, she didn’t feel cut out for Joel’s intimidation tactics.

“Well, look, uh,” David looked behind them to an old cabin, “It’s a four mile round trip back to our settlement. It’s gonna be…a while before James gets back. I have some oil and matches in my pack, we could,” he gestured to the cabin once more, “Take shelter. Start a fire.”

It wasn’t the most obscene idea, Y/n thought. She didn’t plan on lowering her gun at any point, and if Ellie and her were going to make the trip back carrying half a deer with them, they needed to save the strength the cold was stealing from them.

“You bring him with us,” Y/n decided, nodding towards the deer.

David nodded back, a smile on his lips that Y/n couldn’t decode. She just knew she’d seen the same expression on the wrong kind of men before.

—————————

David tended to the fire he’d started in the middle of the cabin’s living room, sitting back down and warming his hands. Ellie and Y/n sat across from him, rifles aimed and ready to silence him.

“You know, you two really shouldn’t be out here on your own,” David said, his voice soft and concerned.

“Says the man with two rounds pointed at him,” Y/n remarked.

David shrugged, “Fair enough. So what’re your names?”

Ellie frowned, shaking her head in reply.

“It’s hard to trust strangers, I know,” David stated, “But I honestly mean you no harm. And for what it’s worth,” he opened his hands, “There’s room for you two in our group, if you want.”

“You’re inviting us to join your Hunger Club?” Ellie retorted, “Thanks.”

“It’s true, we’re hungry,” David admitted, “But we’re still here. I’m a decent man, just tryna take care of the people who rely on me.”

Y/n gave a nonchalant shrug, “Okay, so you’re the leader of a ragtag group of survivors. That’s nothing special.”

“Wasn’t my choice, it was theirs, but” David replied, “Yes.”

“They “chose” to follow you?” Ellie replied, “Is this some weird cult thing?”

One half of David’s mouth quirked up, “Uh, well, you sorta kinda got me there, I am a preacher, but just pretty standard Bible stuff.”

Ellie smiled to herself and glanced up at Y/n, who had already tuned out of the whole topic.

David looked between the women, “What?”

“The whole world ended, and you still believe that shit,” Ellie replied.

“I actually started believing after the world ended,” David corrected the girl, “Before that, I was a teacher. Math. Taught kids about your age.”

“So you went from teacher to preacher because, what? It fuckin’ rhymes?” Ellie fired back at the man.

David nearly laughed, “Yeah, exactly.”

Ellie smiled, just a little bit, keeping her aim on David but loosening it. He didn’t seem like much of a threat to her. Y/n, being older and having seen a lot more shit, was less convinced.

“But seriously,” Ellie prompted him to continue his story.

“Well, I found God…after the apocalypse,” David told them, watching Ellie more than Y/n, “Which is either the best time or the worst time to find Him, hard to say. But when the Pittsburgh QZ fell in ‘17, Fireflies and FEDRA…I left with a few others, and th-that’s how I ended up with our flock.”

“This is a long fucking way from Pittsburgh,” Y/n replied, perhaps it would have been a comment coming out of anyone else’s mouth, but it was an accusation from hers. There was something about him she didn’t trust.

David chuckled, “Yeah, we’d settle somewhere and then raiders would come, so we’d move again. And as we wandered, we picked up new people along the way until…” he glanced around him, “We ended up here.”

“Well, your luck had to run out sooner or later,” Ellie commented, the choice of words wasn’t lost on her or Y/n.

“Hm? Luck?” David rearranged his face the way some pastors did before jumping in the pulpit, “There’s no such thing as luck. No, I-I-I believe everything happens for a reason.”

Ellie and Y/n both shared a restrained smile, dodging the attempted sermon like it was a bullet.

“It does,” David insisted, grinning back at them, “I can prove it to you.”

“Okay,” Ellie agreed to his attempt.

David sighed, settling into his makeshift seat a little deeper. “We didn’t expect this winter to be so cruel. Nothing’ll grow. Game’s been hard to find. So I sent four of our people to a nearby town to-to scavenge what they could and only three of ‘em came back. And the one that didn’t was a father. He had a daughter just like you,” David pointed to Ellie, “And her dad was taken from her.”

Y/n slowly connected the dots, one step behind David but ten ahead of Ellie.

“Turns out…he was murdered,” David continued, “By this crazy man. And get this, that crazy man…was traveling with a little girl and a woman.”

Y/n was up on her feet, eye peering through the viewfinder, instantly.

“You see?” David smiled unsettlingly at Ellie, “Everything happens for a reason. James, lower the gun.”

Ellie spun around on her heels, both her and Y/n finding James returned, his handgun aimed straight at Ellie. They switched positions, Y/n’s weapon trained on James and Ellie’s on David.

“She is the one that killed Alec, isn’t she?” James asked.

“She didn’t kill anybody, neither of ‘em did,” David corrected, “Lower the gun.”

James and Y/n squared off, Y/n’s breath hanging on the edge of her lungs, just waiting to pull the trigger and release. Reluctantly, James lowered his pistol.

“Did you bring the medicine?” David asked his friend.

“Yeah, but-“

“Throw it to them.”

James hesitated, “David…”

Y/n’s back was turned to the preacher, but his silence indicated his seriousness. James reached into his pocket and tossed the small package at Y/n and Ellie’s feet.

“Back up,” Y/n said from between her teeth.

James did as requested, moving away from the medicine. Y/n moved closer to the man, letting him stare down the barrel of her gun while Ellie grabbed their trade.

“I know you’re not with a group,” David called, his voice creepily calm, “You won’t survive for long out there. I can protect you.”

They didn’t need to hear any more. Y/n fell behind Ellie, keeping her gun trained on the two men while the girl made a run for it. She thought to shoot them, be done with the whole thing and ensure their safe getaway. Except David had talked too much about his position in their town, they’d have twenty people after then instead of two. It was easy math.

As soon as she was certain David and James wouldn’t pick up their weapons, Y/n bolted into the forest after Ellie.

—————————

They made it back to the house, sweaty and out of breath.

Y/n shoved Ellie through the front door, fearfully scanning the street once before shutting and locking the door. When she got in, Ellie was already making for the basement, where Y/n followed her to.

“Are they gonna find us?” Ellie panted, sprinting down the stairs.

“I hope not,” Y/n replied, wishing she could give her more assurance they were safe.

Joel had barely moved since they’d left, his head having lolled to the right a little. Y/n knelt down at his shoulder, picking up a piece of rag to wipe the sweat from his brow. His body was working overtime to beat the infection.

“How the fuck do I do this?” Ellie loaded the syringe with the first bottle of penicillin.

“You put it either in the wound or around it,” Y/n instructed, an invisible question mark appearing at the end, “I don’t know, I’ve never dealt with a wound like this.”

Ellie considered her options, rolling Joel’s bloody shirt back and getting a good look at the gash. “Fuck it,” she muttered, just before inserting the needle in the middle of his wound.

Joel’s breathing quickened, his abdomen clenched a few times at the sensation, breaking through his unconsciousness. Y/n was there, pressing a kiss to his slick forehead, ready to hold him down if he woke.

“Okay,” Ellie said under her breath as she extracted the needle.

“Good job,” Y/n reassured her, “Penicillin’s fast acting. He should start to improve.”

“H-how do you know that?” Ellie asked, placing a worried hand on Joel’s forehead to test his fever.

The truth was, Y/n didn’t know anything. She was floating on a life raft in the middle of the ocean, adrift from any and all sense of safety. But she wanted to take solace in medicine, in the science of twenty years ago that a little dosage could stitch the body back together. She was choosing to believe.

“I don’t,” Y/n replied honestly, stroking Joel’s hair and peering up at Ellie, “But I have to have faith in something.”

“What, like the guy who wants to kill us?”

Y/n nearly bristled, “No, not exactly. I don’t believe everything happens for a fucking reason,” she looked back down at Joel, her lips quirking upwards briefly, “But some things…some things, definitely. And I don’t believe that we’d go through all the hell we have just to lose now…”

Ellie sighed, nervously rubbing her hands together as she watched Y/n tend to Joel. It came so easy to her guardian, to care for both her and the man who had abandoned her. Ellie’s walls remained so sky high, she wished that she could simply surrender to the warmth in her heart without fearing it as weakness.

She walked around to the other side of the mattress, sinking down onto its edge and laying down next to Joel. She carefully placed her hand on his chest and rested her head on his broad shoulder.

Y/n knew it was difficult for Ellie to open up, that the connection they’d formed back in Boston was like some eclipse that only came every hundred years. She’d watched Ellie slowly peel away at Joel’s defenses, until it was impossible for either to deny they cared about one another. Y/n wished desperately that Joel was awake to return the gesture, to encourage her vulnerability.

There wasn’t enough room on the mattress for all three of them, and Y/n didn’t dare ask Ellie to move an inch. Instead, she brought Joel’s hand up to his chest and laced her fingers through his. She rested her forehead just above his heart, the soft thudding against her skin filling her body with hope that he’d keep fighting. That he wouldn’t leave them.

Joel, slipping in and out of consciousness, wasn’t aware of much going on around him. But somewhere in his slumber, he could sense the warmth that was wrapped around him. He wasn’t chasing any white light, calling him home, but he chased the heat, leaning his head into it. He knew he was safe, so long as he could feel the warmth.

—————————

But there was no improvement the next day.

Joel’s wound had stopped bleeding, but his fever had yet to break.

Y/n knelt over Joel’s abdomen, sucking the second dose of penicillin into the syringe and injecting it. He didn’t so much as make a sound, that worried her.

Ellie sat on the edge of the bed and watched, waiting for some miraculous transformation to occur that would make Joel shoot straight up and return to his normal, grumpy self. If Y/n was honest with herself, her sleep-deprived mind was also waiting on something similar.

“Thought you said it was fast acting,” Ellie remarked, more bitter with the medication than Y/n.

“It is,” she answered, she was fucking exhausted, “But it’s not magic. He took a fucking…” Y/n let her hand fall against her lap, “Whatever it was. That doesn’t heal overnight.”

They didn’t want to say what they were both thinking.

“Come on,” Y/n sighed, rising to her feet with a groan, “Let’s go serve breakfast.”

The two of them filed out the garage, Y/n going to lift the squeaky door and Ellie carrying out a bucket. They gathered handfuls of the freshly fallen snow and brought it back to their horses, it was all they could offer them.

Y/n looked out on the neighborhood, her fingers nearly twitching in anticipation. They’d left tracks on their way back from the woods. If David decided to come after them, it might not be hard to find them. Then again, if he was a preacher, he could have subscribed to the believe that God might exact some sort of revenge on them rather than dirty his own hands.

“What are you thinking about?” Ellie asked, coming to stand by her side.

Y/n sighed, not wanting to consider dying any more. “How tired I am of fuckin’ snow.”

“You and me both,” Ellie remarked.

Without another word, Ellie leaned her head against Y/n’s shoulder. Y/n interlocked her fingers with the young girl’s and they stood in silence, drawing strength from one another.

A flock of crows cawing, flying away from something, broke their peace.

“Get back inside,” Y/n ordered, stepping into the street and following the direction the birds had fled from.

“No fuckin’ way,” Ellie argued, chasing after Y/n. It was wasted breath, telling her not to do something.

Y/n led them through a line of trees, staying low as they walked along a wooden fence. Through the shrubbery and snow, Y/n could spot several bodies a few hundred feet away and the tips of the rifles they carried.

David.

Neither of them dared to say a word, Y/n pushing Ellie backwards and hurriedly sneaking them back across the street to the house. They ran into the garage, quickly and quietly shutting the door behind them, before bolting through down to the basement.

“We gotta draw them away,” Ellie said, on the same wavelength as Y/n, “If they’re after him.”

“We ride back towards the university,” Y/n finished the thought, if there was a fight to be had, that was the best battleground.

Ellie slid across the basement’s floor, smacking Joel’s chest and shaking him by the arm, earning a gasp in return.

“Joel,” she urged, “Joel, wake up.”

“Joel,” Y/n called, she was already grabbing her rifle, “Joel, come on. Wake up!”

“He’s not fucking moving,” Ellie panicked, running off to her backpack.

Y/n took her place, grabbing Joel’s face in her hand, “Joel, I need you to fucking wake up. We need you. Now.”

Everything hit Joel’s ears as if he was underwater, three layers of sea between him and the words. The familiar voices were speaking urgently, in desperate tones. He found the strength to open his eyes, two tiny slits offering him a blurry view of Y/n.

“Keep them open, Joel,” Y/n urged, “Keep them open for me,”

Ellie returned with Joel’s knife, placing it in the hand across his chest, “Okay, okay, look at me. There are men coming, okay? We’re gonna lead them away from you, but if anybody makes it down here, you fuckin’ kill them. You got it?”

Joel’s eyes were beginning to glaze over again.

“Joel,” Y/n slapped his cheeks a few times, feeling him slipping from them, “Do not fall asleep right now. Stay the fuck awake.”

In the end, there was nothing else her or Ellie could do. David was coming and they had to act fast.

Y/n pressed a final, urgent kiss to Joel’s brow, before leaping to her feet with Ellie, praying that he was weakened rather than dead when they returned.

“We gotta block him in,” Y/n said as her and Ellie ran up the stairs, “Grab the china cabinet.”

The two of them maneuvered the hutch in front of the basement door, blockading the entrance as best they could. They ran out to the garage, quickly saddling both their horses and shoving the door back open.

“You ride in front of me the whole time,” Y/n ordered as she mounted her horse, “And if I go down, you don’t stop. You ride back to Tommy, got it?”

Ellie was ready to argue to the death on the point, “I-“

“You ride back to Tommy,” Y/n repeated, feeling the weight of what she was telling Ellie to do. It was the same one Joel had felt two days before.

Ellie rode out first, with Y/n bringing up her rear. She had her pistol off its holster and the rifle across her back, ready to do whatever necessary to keep Ellie and Joel alive.

They rode out the backyard, cutting past a few houses before coming out on the end of the street David and his men were creeping down.

“Hey, motherfuckers!” Ellie yelled just before her and Y/n began to fire. Ellie was shooting to warn, Y/n was shooting to kill.

As soon as the first bullets flew, making the men jump, Y/n and Ellie galloped off the same way they’d come from the university. Ellie listened and stayed ahead of Y/n as they rode. With each foot they gained, a new surge of determination flooded them both that they could make it. Y/n rotated on her horse and prepared to take another shot-

BANG! BANG!

One well timed bullet to Ellie’s horse sent the girl flying, landing harshly in the snow. The horse’s failed body tripped Y/n’s animal, she clutched the reins as she was thrown off, rolling into the snow as her spooked horse ran off.

“I got ‘em,” one of the men yelled.

“El,” Y/n grunted, belly crawling to Ellie, who managed to roll over onto her back. She was in a daze from the fall.

Y/n reached back for her rifle, scrambling to her feet as the crunch of boots began to surround her. She raised her gun at the first set of men, firing one bullet through one of their legs and sending him to the ground. She wasn’t quick enough to swing behind her and avoid the butt of one of their guns being driven into her head.

“Fuckin’ bitch,” the man muttered as Y/n fell.

It was a battle to stay awake through the dizziness, but Y/n managed to get to her knees, shielding the men from getting any closer to Ellie.

“Do it,” the same man who’d clubbed Y/n decided.

Even though they were her last moments, they didn’t feel like it to Y/n. She reached beside her to grab her pistol and cocked it. After twenty years of fighting, she wasn’t about to stop just because death and her were face to face. Not for Joel and certainly not for Ellie.

A shot fired into the air stopped the situation from escalating any further.

David came forward, standing over Y/n and Ellie. He cocked his head towards two of his men before Y/n, his disciples each grabbing one of Y/n’s arms and dragging her back.

“No,” she screamed, kicking wildly as David kneeled down beside Ellie and reached down to take her pulse, “Don’t you fucking touch her!”

David glanced up at Y/n, nearly amused by how aggravated she was. He removed his hand from Ellie, holding it up where she could see it. “Two of you with me,” he ordered, “Drag the horse,” he moved to pick Ellie up.

With all her strength, Y/n slammed her boot down onto one of her captor’s feet, causing his grip to loosen in the agony. She freed her arm and punched the second man at his temple, making him stumble backwards. “No!”

Y/n marched forwards, shoving David’s hands off of Ellie’s body, “She’s my fuckin’ kid.”

David watched every move, thoroughly evaluating the woman in front of him. He removed his hands and stood to his feet slowly, adhering to her demand.

Y/n brushed the loose strands of Ellie’s hair off her wet face, the sight of her unconscious nearly incapacitating Y/n with fear.

“The rest of you go door to door,” David continued his orders, “You so hungry for vengeance? Deliver it.”

Y/n’s head had barely turned before she caught herself. It was better for them to think Joel was up and about and that she had nothing to worry about. Internally, she felt fear spread to the very tips of her fingers.

David began to lead the way as Y/n lifted Ellie into her arms, beginning the two mile hike back to David’s community. She didn’t know what fate they were being marched towards, but she knew one thing.

She’d burn down the whole fucking town before she let anything happen to Ellie.

TYL Taglist: @bachiracore @stolenxkissess @kayleezra @the-wistful-reader @allthesesonsofbitches @goth-detectives365 @trippovert @rh1nestonecowg1rl @emiliaserpe @khaleesihavilliard @frietiemeloen @gracie7209 @dorck26 @thegirlnextdoorssister @alanis-altair @mariwinns16 @whosscruffylooking @endofthexline @alexiaricciardo @eonnyx @pedrosmexicangf @scarlettequinn @ao-sleepy @toinfinityandbeyonce2 @deanlovescassie @turmoil-ash @sorrowjunky @kpopslur @xxlilyxx90 @midgetpottermills @presidential-facts @scoopsnini @tubble-wubble @jamesdeerest @burninggracesandbridges @star-wars-lover @lucyhotchner @cococola-cocaine @witheringhqarts @fall-writes @alwaysdjarin @xxmoonn @emilia-the-artist @wand-erer5 @boneyarrd @lizard-zombie @themultifandomofmadness @cassidylea123 @paleepeaches @mxltifxnd0m @kettlekatie @ultimate-cinephile @gloryekaterina @caramelkatsukis-bitch @whovianayesha @memeorydotcom @deadunicorn159 @get0ut0fmyr00m @siriuslymooned @emmyeed @superbreadsoul @hellu-people1 @ourautumn86 @inas-thing @noraapple05 @givemylovetoall @luvwanda (tags cont. in comments)

[hollowed-theory-hall]

re.: the weasleys + parenting

what's always bugged me most abt percy's fight with arthur (especially in the fandom, where everyone's like 'oh, he turned his back on harry and betrayed his family to side w the ministry) is that. that's hardly what the fight is about at all. the fight is about the fact that percy, an 18yo kid who just got promoted to his dream job instead of straight up losing any chance at ever being Minister (because they tried to scapegoat him into taking the blame for the crouch business even though he managed to keep the whole department running while his boss wasn't even there), comes home all excited to tell his parents that "Hey, he's not unemployed and bereft of any and all hope for his biggest dream", but rather that his skills and competence got recognized by The Most Important Man In The Government, and molly and arthur look him straight in the face and go—"no you didn't."

there is no mention whatsoever that they even try to be gentle about it, that they congratulate him first and then bring it up later like "just be careful around Fudge, he's always looking for people to get information from and you are the best of both worlds, close to the action and actually good at the job he hired you for", nothing of the sort. they straight up don't even consider how any of those factors might've weighed in Fudge's decision to hire him.

and, perhaps worst of all, they have no faith in Percy. he tells them "I'm working for the minister", and not only do they not spare a second to be happy for him over this frankly momentous achievement (or at the very least concern for the position it puts him in), they jump straight to conjectures and accusations. "you only got this because of Harry" has got to crush Percy, who was raised to believe that good things come to honest, hard-working people and who has been working for this since he was a small child. and it digs the knife deeper when you realize that most of his siblings have basically replaced him with Harry. Harry, who also plays Quidditch and also keeps throwing himself into death-defying dangers and overalls fits much better into the family dynamic than Percy ever has.

and there's just this. crystal clear implication that they do believe Percy would spy on them. he's so Different and Other and Un-Weasley/Gryffindor-like and they've alienated themselves from him so absolutely that they can't see any reasons he wouldn't willingly and consciously jeopardize his parents' livelihood and Harry & his siblings safety just to stay in the Minister's good graces, when if anyone's actually at risk of losing their job for siding with Dumbledore is his father, who's still working there quite merrily and continues to so for a long time afterwards.

Percy, who runs into a freezing lake mid-February while attending an international event as Crouch's replacement to make sure Ron is alright, who pesters Ginny to eat and have a pepper-up potion most of her first year bc she doesnt look well, who tails Harry and Ron a lot of their second and third years bc there's something petrifying kids and then Dementors on the grounds and a mass murderer on the loose and they all just think he's being willfully bothersome like no you idiots he's worried.

of course he left. of course he left. what did he have to gain by staying at the Burrow, beyond fresh home cooked meals harassment and disagreements? why wouldn't he leave?

sorry I have a lot of feelings about this.

No need to apologize, this is brilliantly written!

I don't even feel like I need to add anything as you summed up the Percy situation perfectly.

But I can't help myself because I love discussing the Weasley family dynamics, so it's a bit more rumbley than my usual...

Percy cares so much for his family. When Voldemort is revealed and the war actually starts, he puts all his disagreements with his parents aside to come and help and make sure they're okay, because he cares. And still, he is being shunned and treated like an outsider.

Arthur and Molly Weasley are just really good at alienating their kids because it isn't just Percy.

Somehow all of them succeded in feeling like outsiders in a family of 9. Bill shows frustration with his parents and only returns to Britain because of the war, Charlie's in Romania for most of the series. Fred and George run away the moment they can and are treated like trouble by their parents most of the time (Molly and Arthur assume they are selling stolen goods from Mundungus when they hear they have money, not that they, idk, somehow earned it), Ron has a whole complex of low self-esteem and a tendency to blame himself for everything. Ginny is isolated from her brothers as the only girl and youngest...

And Percy cares and tries to be the best and most responsible sibling and gets scorned in turn.

Harry and Ron do acknowledge Arthur's and Molly's accusation towards Percy was awful and that he was right to respond negatively in OOTP. Ron is just sensitive about their family's financial state which soured Percy to him after Percy blew up at their dad (rightfully so, honestly, I'd say way worse to Arthur if it was me).

The thing is, Percy also gets scorned by his siblings, not just his parents (like Fred and George do). He gets grief for trying to be responsible and for wanting his siblings to do well in school and not get in trouble, Fred and George lock him in a pyramid...

That being said, do I think Percy is perfect? No, he is pretentious and overbearing at times, but he is a child in a large family who tries to find a place to fit himself in. According to child psychology, usually when it comes to siblings, the eldest would usually (at least in childhood) try to be everything the parents want (Bill), and then each next sibling will carve a different niche for themselves, and we see this with the Weasleys. I think the twins being born right after Percy and demanding a lot of attention from their parents from a young age as they were little troublemakers from the start is a big reason why Percy chose the niche of being bookish, ambitious, and responsible for himself. To contrast himself with them and his older brothers and get some attention from their parents.

I'm not a fan of the epilog (like everyone), but I find it hard to imagine Percy being close to his family post-books. I think he never fully got over the sting of not being seen as skilled and competent and that his parents believed he'd turn on them all without a second thought. Nor do I think he should just get over it.

Like, I'm really salty that Percy was the only one to apologize:

“I was a fool!” Percy roared, so loudly that Lupin nearly dropped his photograph. “I was an idiot, I was a pompous prat, I was a—a—” “Ministry-loving, family-disowning, power-hungry moron.” said Fred. Percy swallowed. “Yes, I was!” “Well, you can’t say fairer that that,” said Fred, holding out his hand to Percy. Mrs. Weasley burst into tears. She ran forward, pushed Fred aside, and pulled Percy into a strangling hug, while he patted her on the back, his eyes on his father. “I’m sorry, Dad.” Percy said.

(Deathly Hollows, pages 512-513)

Like, yes, it's great he was smart enough to realize the ministry is corrupt, but this demand only for him to apologize when Molly and Arthur Weasley were just as much in the wrong. Fred and George weren't beacons of sainthood here either. But none of them have apologies demanded of them. None of them are demanded to confess they are "morons". Just Percy.

Who even after his apology is still an outsider. Probably always will be one.

You said it best: "Why wouldn't he leave?"

And that's what we see him do (if temporarily).

[x-gabrielle-x]

Withered Cards | I

Pairings: Jason Todd x Reader.

Warnings: Blood, gore, violence, murder, swearing, major and minor injuries, death.

Summary: Despite the many problems you overcome with Jason Todd, you always eventually make it back to each other. Even after his death, how could you still love a man who changed so much? Even when you made a turn for the worst.

Series Masterlist

No child would ever imagine the world to be as cruel as it really is.

Yet then again, most adults would refrain from exposing their children into the world, the harsh reality of it, at least, and Gotham was definitely a place of violence and rage.

The small nightmares every child would experience would never live up to the cruel reality of the world.

"Y/N, baby, get up," my mother whispered into my ear, panicked and rushed, causing for my eyes to flutter upon.

It was still dark, meaning that it couldn't be morning, but my mother was hunched beside my bed with her fingers trailing through my hair, and that was when my gaze met her own fearful ones.

Her voice was so low in a whisper that I could barely manage to hear, fearful of what - or who - could hear us.

"We need to leave, baby. Come on."

With my eyes still groggy and barely comprehending the situation, my mother's arms carefully scooped my body up from beneath the warmth of my blankets, her grip tight and secure as she adjusted my body in her hold. I didn't fail to notice the heavy thumping of her chest and the pale complexion to her face.

“Mummy?” I asked, but she was quick to hush me, her gaze burning into the door with a look of terror I would never forget.

She waited, as if she were expecting the door to swing open any moment, but it only left us in a deafening silence. Despite the obvious confusion set on my face, my mother chose to ignore it, not giving any indication as to what was occurring on the other side of the door.

With the few passing moments, my grip on her tightened, and the many fearful questions were swarming my mind. I was scared, but of what?

Without a word, she took a single step toward the door with me still held tightly in her arms, and just as her hand went to grasp the handle-

“Mum!” I spoke, too loud for her liking, because she jumped back away from the door as if it had burnt her flesh and clasped a tight hand over my mouth. She listened carefully, and when she was comfortable enough, she took her hand away.

“What did I tell you?” She whispered harshly, but her eyes softened when she saw the fearful gaze I held. “What is it?”

I pointed behind us, back to my bed where my favorite teddy laid beside the unmade sheets. It was only small, the perfect size for a small child, with soft brown fur and button eyes. I remembered that night my father came home from work, a bouquet of various different flowers for my mother in one hand, and in his other hand he held the brown bear. He had just gone away on a long business trip, and I was overly excited after not seeing him the last few weeks. Maybe it was the fact it was from my dad, or maybe it was simply because of the soft fur, but it was by far my favorite teddy to hold while I slept.

Letting out a long cautious sigh, my mum quickly picked up the bear before giving it to me, my hands instantly going to clutch at the teddy while my mum went back over to the door.

“Ok, sweetheart. I’m going to need you to play a game with me, ok?” She looked down at me, and I nodded despite the darkness of my bedroom, only my lamp casting a small glow around the room.

She smiled gently and gave a quick peck to my forehead.

“Ok, we’re going to see who can be quiet the longest. I know you always beat me, and that’s why when I put you down, you’re going to run and hide so we can do some hide and seek.”

If it weren’t for the dim light, I only just managed to catch a glimpse of the hot tear streaking down my mother's cheek.

“Do you understand, baby?”

I nodded once more, holding a finger up to my lips as I sign I knew I had to be quiet. She let out a quiet breathy laugh.

I watched as she reached forward, her hand shaking as she grasped the door handle and slowly twisted it, pushing the door open. It was dark, the only source of light being the living room light from downstairs. I heard a small muffle of voices, one I recognized to be my father.

I wondered if maybe my dad had decided to play with us, too. Maybe that’s why mum had been so quiet and told me to hide.

My mum knelt down, carefully placing me down onto my feet before she stood up to her full height. I thought that it was my time to start hiding, but right as I went to turn, her hand was grasping mine tightly and she was walking down the stairs to where my father and the unknown strangers were.

There was a wall dividing the living room and the stairs, so anybody on the other side wouldn’t be able to see my mother and I crouched down at the bottom of the stairs. I watched as my mother peeked around the corner, probably to check that nobody was looking, because she was quick to pull me along to the other side of the room. I only caught a glimpse of the living room.

My father was leant up against the kitchen counter, still clad in his pajamas, whilst five men I had never seen before stood beside the dining table. Four of them were each dressed in black, but the one in the middle was wearing what looked to be a clown costume. A purple suit with a weird bow tie, his skin as pale as a sheet of paper that made him look almost sickly. His hair was also a deep green, and for a moment I wondered if I even saw right.

The clown had a huge grin plastered onto his face, almost too wide to be natural, revealing his slightly yellowed teeth.

My mother pushed me against the wall to remain out of sight, and when she knelt down to my level to get a good look at me, I could see the tears now freely falling from her eyes.

“Ok, my sweet girl. It’s time to hide,” she whispered next to my ear, her breath tickling my skin.

I nodded, and that’s when she leant forward to press a lingering kiss to my cheek, her fingers combing through my hair, just like how she would do it any other day to simply play with my hair.

With a quick nod, she gently pushed on my shoulders and watched as I sneakily crept to my chosen hiding spot.

It was by far my favorite spot, a small hatch underneath the desk pushed up against the wall. It was hidden beneath the few piles of shoes cluttered around, and I had to hastily move them enough to open the hatch.

I cringed once the hinges made an old rusty screech, and with ease I crawled inside, making sure to close the hatch securely behind me. Hugging my knees to my chest, I shuffled my position and felt the rough dirt and dust cling to my clothes. The bear that was still held in my hand was put at my feet, even though I couldn't see it with the darkness.

Although I could still vaguely hear the ongoing conversation, most of what I could hear was muffled. I tensed once I heard the loud cackles of the green haired man, shivers erupting over my body.

“Mrs. Y/L/N! How lovely to see the family together- oh wait, no… your little girl isn’t here?” He mocked sadness.

“She won’t be coming, Joker,” I heard my dad speak before my mother could, his voice stern and protective.

“Aw, what a shame. I was really looking forward to meeting the little lady! Perhaps maybe I can after this has all blown over.”

At this point, my confusion only grew. Nobody was coming to find me yet, and my mum was now in the same room as my dad and those other men. I felt my gut twist uncomfortably, and the fear was coursing through my body.

I wanted my parents. I didn't like this game anymore. I could only wish I was back in the warmth of my bed, peacefully asleep and unaware of the world around me.

My mother let out a sudden loud sob.

“Please, just- just don’t hurt us or our baby. She doesn’t know anything,” I heard her cry more, and before another word could be said, a loud gunshot echoed throughout the house causing me to jump and bump my head on the hatch door.

“No!” I heard my dad scream, and it was then that I knew none of this was right. His voice was a tone I had never heard before, filled with pain and anger. I didn’t hear my mother anymore. Was she-

“I did you a favor,” the Joker cooed, my fathers muffled crying echoing throughout the house. “Women are picky. You can’t tell me the girl didn’t annoy you at least once?! You should be thanking me!”

“You monster!” My dad screamed, before he was harshly cut off by him grunting in pain.

“Now, now, don’t be so picky. She was bothering the both of us. Now, where’s your little girl?” The Joker said, clapping his hands in a ‘chop-chop’ motion.

There was no response from my father, and I didn’t even realize the fresh tears streaming down my cheeks and falling onto my knees. I held back any whimpers in order to stay hidden.

“If you won’t tell me,” the Joker started, his tone switching from cheerful to dark. “Then I’ll get her myself.”

It was barely a few seconds, five at least, before the hatch door was swung open and my arms were grabbed. I screamed and thrashed, before I was harshly pushed forward onto the floor. My head made impact with the wooden slats, and I cried out.

Despite the tears clouding my vision, I didn’t fail to notice the body of my mother laying lifeless on the floor, hot crimson blood spilling from a hole in her head and pooling around the floor, her blue top now stained red. Her eyes were open, glazed over and lacking life, and it looked as if she was merely frozen in fear.

I wasn’t crying anymore. The tears had stopped, and now I could only watch with wide eyes the sight before me. My mum, who I had touched and talked to and heard only a few minutes ago, was dead.

“Y/N,” my dad called, his arms outstretched, and I was knocked from my thoughts and practically stumbled into his open arms.

“Don’t look, baby. It’s ok, just don’t look,” he whispered into my ear, but his voice was shaky, and I could feel his own tears soaking into the fabric of my pajama shirt.

I heard footsteps near, but I refused to remove my face from the crook of my dads neck, the only way to hide the scene behind me. I felt a cold hand pat my head, and my dad tugged me away from the stranger.

“Beautiful little girl you’ve gotten yourself, Xavier. She looks almost identical to you,” the Joker teased. “You know, I bet she’ll become just as great a fighter as you, huh? Just imagine it, father and daughter, working alongside the one and only Joker to rule over Gotham! Oh, it will all be so much fun, what do you say?”

I turned my head a little, catching a glimpse of the Joker crouching at the knees in front of my father and I, the smile never leaving his face. When my dad didn’t say anything, the Jokers sickening gaze drifted to me.

“How about we let the little one decide, huh? What do you think, little clown?”

I didn’t need to try answering, because my dad's grip on my body was tightening to the point I could just barely breathe.

“No, you sick shit! She’s only a kid! She’s only just started second grade. She doesn’t deserve any of this.”

For a moment, it was quiet.

“You’re right…” I heard Joker sigh, standing to his feet. “Maybe that’s why we need to let her choose for herself, and to not be influenced by the wrong kind of people.”

The Joker clicked his fingers once. Two of the guards came forward and pried me from my father's warm embrace, and once more I was crying, reaching out for him. I watched as he attempted to fight to get me back but was pinned down by the other two guards while Joker stood over him.

“Such a shame, really. I did enjoy your small family. Unfortunately, it might just need to be a little smaller now.” he reached into his suit pocket, pulling out what looked to be a long needle filled with a black tinted liquid. “Recognize this?”

I watched as my dad's eyes widened, and tears streamed down his face while his voice cracked with each word.

“P-please, not my little girl. Not my girl. I’ll do anything!”

Joker laughed, loud. “Oh, you poor man. This wasn’t for the child! I’m not that cruel!” He stalked closer to my father, watching in amusement as he thrashed wildly in an attempt to escape. I saw the fear flash in his eyes.

The Joker leant close to his face, licking his lips in a mocking manner while holding up the small needle so that my dad could see.

“This wasn’t meant for your daughter, it was meant for you, silly!” And just like that, the sharp tip of the needle was penetrating my dad's flesh at the neck, his eyes grown wide in horror. He didn’t even try to fight anymore, his body giving up while he turned his head to me for the last time.

“Y/N,” he chocked, and I watched with frightful eyes as black veins spread across his neck, traveling over his body like bolts of lightning. He groaned in pain.

"I love you so much, baby. I'm sorry," he cried. "Do you understand? I love you so much."

My body shook as his eyes met mine. I didn't have the voice to say it back, and I saw the hurt flash in his eyes. Opening my mouth, the only thing that would come out was a chocked sob.

He fell onto his side, limp.

The Joker wiped a fake tear. "Oh my, how sad..."

He paid no mind as I continued to cry, calling out for my parents. I was sure that I was next, and I flinched when I felt the Joker's hand pat my head. He let out a maniacal laugh the more I cried, and I physically struggled to inhale more air. Nearly instantly, he frowned to what I thought was sympathy, tutting.

“Don’t worry about them, my new apprentice! Life would have been so boring here; I'm giving you another chance! How exciting! Harley will be thrilled."

I didn't fight as he took my hand, my shaky body going to stand beside him. Even when he continued to drag me toward the door, my gaze was trained on the bodies laid out in the middle of the room, and it was then that I realized that the only person I had now was this man.

A monster brought from my nightmares.

©x-gabrielle-x. Do not steal, copy or translate my works.

[strikethematch18]

I Want You

Dazai x Reader

word count: 2,001

TW: Mentions of homelessness, loss of home, housing insecurity

Reader ability is not specified.

This has not been proofed or edited

Reader has recently been evicted from her run down apartment with a weeks notice, and has problems trying to find temporary housing. She strikes out with every coworker, but leaves one out thinking it would be an automatic no.

m.list

The process of finding a place to live was much harder than you originally thought. After your apartment building was being shut down and you were forced to move by the end of week, you found yourself in a scramble to find a place to go. You didn't have much, being at the agency, you didn't spend much time in your apartment anyhow.

You did the next logical thing you could do to help your situation. You talked to the president of the ADA, see if he could point you in a direction of options, maybe the agency had a dorm available until you could figure out a more permanent solution. Unfortunately, since Atsushi had started there were no vacant apartments and he was unaware of any other buildings within your budget or could get you in as quick as you needed. He did suggest you speak to your coworkers if you could stay with one of them temporarily, and he would start with Yosano.

And you did, you traveled to the agency infirmary and asked her. Unfortunately, she was unable to allow you due to the hazards of her near fatal tools, it wouldnt be safe. From there she suggested asking someone else. With a forced smile you left and felt your stress increase tenfold.

Once you made it back to your cubical, Kunikida handed you a case file and left it to you take care of. This took you the rest of the day and returned when nearly everyone already left the office. You left for home with a sigh, prepared to start your search again tomorrow.

Upon arrival you kicked your shoes off and started the packing process. Leave the most essential items until the end, but you could start with things you didn't need everyday. Laying out outfits for the remaining time you'd need, you started folding clothes and putting them in a bag. Then came most HBA, you could just wear your hair up and hair wash day wasn't until after your move anyways, that just left soap and some hair ties. Your kitchen had the bare essentials you'd need to eat and cook, but more often than not it was fruit or cup of noodles. After analyzing what you would need to pack you took your evening shower and went to bed.

The next day started as it always does just earlier than normal. You wanted to get into the agency before as many of your coworkers as possible to not raise suspicion of your bag of clothes and toiletries. The hiding spot wasn't the most hidden, but it wouldn't be in the way and obvious either. Arriving at work, you somehow managed to just barely show up before kunikida, stuffing your bag under your desk before he could see. While you needed to move and find a place to live, you didn't want people to see how dire the situation really is.

It was a relatively slow day, a stray case here and there, some allowed you to go with your coworkers and have one on one conversations. Given the opportunity you'd ask if you could stay with them until you could find another place. So far, you were striking out.

Over the week you had collectively been bringing you things to the agency before you couldn't anymore and still had nowhere to go by the end of the day.

You couldn't impose on the brother sister duo of the Tanizaki's, so you didn't ask.

You briefly asked Kenji but stopped yourself due to his young age and mannerisms.

Kunikida turned you down due to you staying would impose on his strict schedule where everything was planned to the last second, and no where in it did it leave space for you to crash until you found a place.

Word got around to Atsushi who said he would offer but with him sharing with Kyouka, there wasn't much space.

Asking Ranpo was probably one of the worst things you could do so you didn't. And you were sure he already knew anyways.

Today your tenancy was up, all your things in the agency under your desk with no where to go. You felt so alone and unwanted even though everyone had their reasons. The only option you had was crashing at your desk or finding a street, and the desk seemed more appealing. No one asked if you had actually found a place to go for at least tonight, or maybe they assumed you did. Making up a lie that you were staying late to finish some paperwork, everyone went to their respected living arrangements. All except the former mafia executive who had been watching you and saw past your smiles and knew your nervous ticks. Dazai was the only one you hadn't asked, you just assumed it would be an automatic no and you'd already had enough rejection for the week.

You were under the guise he had left for the evening but he had instead getting something from down the hall. So you finally took a large blanket from a bag under your desk to wrap around yourself, slipped your shoes off and turned sideways in your chair and pulled your feet up to hug your knees. Finally you let the mask slip along with some tears and silent shudders. In your moment of weakness you failed to notice the bandaged man standing in the door way with a deep frown on his face. He was expecting you to possibly break at some point, but not this soon. Watching your breathing pick up he broke his trance and walked over and placed his hand on your shoulder. Not expecting anyone you flinched and looked up to see none other than Dazai himself.

Of course to save face you did your best to wipe your face of any tears and hide any sniffles trying to put the mask back on. You knew it was pointless but pretending things were fine had become your specialty recently.

Giving a strained smile and clearing your throat you addressed the dark haired man, "Hey Dazai, I thought you already went home when everyone else did, you usually leave early."

"Not today, I thought I would stay a little longer for once."

Honestly, he was staying because he knew you didn't have a place to go tonight, and the one thing he couldn't figure out was why you didn't come to him, and he planned to ask but was waiting until the right time.

"Any particular reason for acting out of character?" You asked with a forced smile.

Really what you wanted was for him to go home so you could try to sleep in your bed of an office chair until further notice. More than anything though you wanted the mask to slip, the week was exhausting physically, but also mentally and emotionally. And stopping and restarting that mask made it increase tenfold. He could see your exhaustion which was precisely why he didn't leave.

"Just reasons, thought maybe I could set up a prank of Kunikida for when he comes in tomorrow morning. and what reason do you have to be here late Y/N, curling up in your chair like that doesn't seem like working to me," he sing songedly replied.

Just for a moment you let the smile fade from your face before you forced the facade back on, "I thought maybe I could take a bit and get comfy for a break."

"There's no work on your desk."

"I'm in-between tasks right now"

"And the bags you've been hiding under your desk and around the agency over the last week?" He suddenly turned slightly monotone.

Apparently he had figured you out. It was too hard to keep the smile from slipping, but you tried nonetheless. It was hard to notice, and had you been anyone else, you wouldn't have seen the slight grimace he gave watching you try to portray something you weren't. He knew what was going on and you didn't even have to tell him, and he couldn't help but wonder why you didn't come clean.

You were unable to formulate a response, you knew it was pointless to try and fool him. He was too smart for that, too perceptive. So you did the only thing you could think of in the moment, you looked down and let your loose hair that fell out of your slightly oily bun ages ago, cover your face. There was nothing you could say, you didn’t even know why you even tried to hide your reasoning for being at the office well after closing from the Osamu Dazai.

Dazai removed his hand on your shoulder and moved it slowly towards your face, tucking the curtain of hair in front of it behind your ears one side of a time before placing two fingers under your chin and nudging it up to look at him. He was surprisingly startled by the silent tears falling down your face, leaving tracks behind. For once he doesn’t think logically, in fact he doesn’t think at all as he moves his hand to your cheek before using his thumb, wiping your tears away. That’s all it takes for you to crumble into broken pieces as your shoulder begin to shake.

”Dazai?”

He simply hums in response, desperate to not lose eye contact with you.

“How come n-no one wants m-me?” You can’t help but shudder out.

Eye contact be damned, he knew your starvation for physical touch, he knew because he was the same. He buffered for a moment at your question before he threw his arms around you, pressing you tightly into his frame as you cried, let out your shudders and whimpers in a safe space.

And he wasn’t accepting any of this, he wasn’t going to let you wallow in your own pity, ashamed of being found out for something out of your control. Dazai knew what that was like, before he had joined the mafia he had already been a master at hiding it; the only one who saw right through him was Chuuya and that ship had sailed a long time ago. So no, he was not going to let you suffer in silence anymore than you had over the past week. Not when he knew he had an answer.

Before he could stop himself, and after a few minutes as you calmed down he finally responded, “I do.”

Looking up and blinking at him like an owl you’re not quite sure you heard him right, “What?”

With a tone of certainty he repeated himself, “I do. I want you.”

Your mouth slightly agape as he took a breath to pause before continuing, “Stay with me. Come home with me.”

”I- Dazai.”

”You never asked me, why?”

”I just - I thought- I had already been rejected enough and the idea of another-“

”Would have been the straw that broke you,” he finished for you.

”Yeah.”

Before he gave you the option to decline, he grabbed the last bag you brought in this morning, obviously all the stuff you needed day to day, and put it on his shoulder. Dazai then proceeds to grab your hand, pulling you up and starts to drag you across the room.

”Dazai wait!”

“Nope, no time like the present m’lady. It’s late, want to get home before all the creepers come out to play!”

”No Dazai seriously, I need to put my shoes back on,”

Immediately he stops, runs back to your desk to gab the shoes underneath it, and proceeds to come back and kneel in front of you, forcefully putting your shoes back on your feet. All with a shit-eating grin on his face.

You gasp as he grabs your hand again and pulls you towards the stairs,

”I-Dazai-“

”Osamu.” His tone strong and serious as he interupts you.

”What?”

”Osamu. If we’re going to live together, call me by my given name.”

“Thank you, Daz- Osamu.”

[vicsnook]

Good Luck, Babe! Pt. 2 | Jake Seresin x Reader

word count: 2004

warnings: mentions of abortion& throwing up

notes: Hey y’all! As promised, here is part 2 for Good Luck, Babe! Hope y’all enjoy and part 3 is definitely coming soon. As always please don’t forget to like and reblog 🫶🏼.

I’m pregnant.

I slide down to the floor and sob. How could I have been so careless? How could I have let myself be in this situation? I can’t even take care of myself, let alone a baby. And the worst part is that Jake’s gone and I have no idea how to contact him.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, I finally feel steady enough to stand. God I wish Mer was still around, she would have been the only one to not judge and help me figure things out. I never realized how alone I’ve been until now.

Calling my mom is definitely out of the picture, I was already freaking out enough for the both of us. I do know having this baby would be the most irresponsible thing I could do. I can hardly afford my apartment and to get groceries as it is. But before making that kind of decision, I need to talk to Jake.

Unfortunately for me, it’s only Monday and the Hard Deck is only open on the weekend. I check to see if I still have Mickey’s number but of course I deleted it. Just my luck, guess I’ll just have to wait till Friday to hopefully break the news.

-

I stare at the Hard Deck from the front seat of my car while getting major deja vu from the night everything changed. Peering around the parking lot, I don’t spot Jake’s truck or Mickey’s car. Finally, after what feels like hours but was really only 5 minutes, I open the car door and head inside. It’s now or never.

The bar looks exactly the same as last time minus Jake and Mickey. I check all over and they’re nowhere to be found. Worry starts to creep in that I’m going to have to do this all alone.

I take a seat at the very end of the bar and the bartender comes right over. “What’s it gonna be, honey?” she asks, looking at me pitifully with her big brown eyes. “Just water, please,” I respond, feeling like she can see right through me.

I nursed my drink for almost an hour before giving up. Heading out to the beach, I notice the sun starting to set and couples walking hand in hand by the shore. Tears well up in my eyes as reality starts to finally sink in but I swallow them back down, hoping he might still show.

Making my way to the car, I notice the parking lot is now even more packed than when I arrived. I peer around the rows looking for Jake’s truck but still no luck. Sighing, I get in my car and let the tears fall down.

Putting the car in reverse, I look in my rearview mirror and immediately put the car back in park once I catch a glimpse of him. Am I dreaming or re-living that night?

I hurry out of the car and sprint towards the door but once I make it inside, regret fills me up from head to toe. How can I do this? Maybe I should just leave. But I don’t even make it to the door when his hand catches mine and spins me around to face him.

Those green eyes that gave me the best night of my life and also left me with the worst result, now are staring into mine. “Y/N? What are you doing here?” he asks, while leading me to a table in the corner. “Is everything okay?” he says, turning my face up to look at him and I can see concern etch in his features when he notices the tear stains on my cheeks.

I sit down on the chair and brace myself to say what will surely change everything. “I’m pregnant.” His eyes widen and I regret the words that just came out of my mouth as he looks down, digesting what I just said. “Are you sure?” He finally manages to say and I nod, wishing the Earth would just swallow me whole.

“Let’s go somewhere else. This isn’t a good place to talk about this,” He blurts out, getting up. “There’s no need for that Jake. I just came to tell you and to say that I’m not keeping it.” He stares at me in disbelief and I know whatever he says next, I definitely won’t like.

“Are you crazy!? You’re not getting rid of our baby. Absolutely not. Now come on,” He hisses, grabbing onto my arm and practically dragging me out of the bar while I plead with him to let me go. Thankfully when we make it to the door, someone bumps into Jake.

“The lady asked you to let go of her arm Bagman,” says the man in the Hawaiian shirt who has the best mustache I’ve ever seen. His smug look tells me that this probably isn’t good.

“Mind your fucking business Rooster,” Jake says, his face turning red with anger as he tries to pull us around Rooster. But before we can make it out the door, once again Rooster has blocked our path.

“Let go of her right now, or I will have Penny ring the bell on your ass,” threatens Rooster to which Jake chuckles sarcastically. “I mean it, Hangman.”

“It’s okay, really,” I whisper from behind Jake. Beginning to get uncomfortable by the stares we were getting. All I want is to leave and pretend this never happened.

Jake looks back at me and gives me a grateful smile then turns back around. “You heard her, Rooster.”

Rooster looks over at me again and I nod reassuringly , trying to make him move which he thankfully does and I feel his eyes on my back until we’re outside the bar.

The weather is muggy and the smell of cigarettes makes me feel sick. Before I can even make it into the car, I pull my arm out of Jake’s grasp and bend over, throwing up on the bushes. His hand immediately goes around my waist to steady me while his other one holds onto my hair which normally would make me smile but I can’t focus while emptying the contents of my stomach.

After catching my breath and wiping my mouth with my shirt, I feel Jake’s hands pull back. All I wanted to do was turn around and cry on his chest but instead, I head to the car while he follows.

His hand closes my driver's side door as I try opening it and I turn around annoyed. “What Jake? You left. No note, nothing. I came here to tell you as a courtesy. Now please move, I don’t feel well and just want to go home.” I half yell, exasperated, he still looks angry but at the mention of my well being his anger dissipates and is immediately replaced with concern.

“Let me drive you home so I can explain please. I’ll Uber back here for my truck.” He pleads, and being that I still felt sick and a headache was starting, I consider it. But I think back to him leaving and decide against it. “I’m fine, Jake. Please let me go.”

Unfortunately, my words immediately betray me as I push him off to the side and turn around to throw up again in the grass.

“See, you’re not fine, I’m taking you home. End of discussion.” Jake states firmly as he leads me to the passenger seat and takes my keys.

Thankfully he remembered where I lived so the drive was silent. The only thing I knew for sure was that this was bound to be another long night and not the fun kind.

-

Once inside, he helped me over the couch and went to the kitchen, returning with a glass of water.

“How come your fridge is empty? He asks, looking at me curiously while taking a seat beside me. My cheeks flush in embarrassment as I answer. “Being a paralegal doesn't pay much, Jake. That’s why I can’t keep this baby, I can hardly afford myself as it is.”

He looks ashamed before quickly replying,“Honey, it wouldn't just be you who’s responsible for this baby. I can afford it and more. We’ll probably have to get married so that you can -”

“Married!? Have you lost your mind?” I shriek. What the hell was he thinking? A month ago he hit it and quit it and now he was proposing wedding bells. I think I’m going to be sick again. But he continues on like my reaction didn’t happen.

“Well yes, darlin’. I know we got some steps out of order but you’re having my child, of course, we’re getting married.” He says, like it’s common sense and I don’t if I want to kiss him or slap him.

“For fucks sake Jake, I hardly even know you. I can’t marry you nor can I have this baby.” I say, pulling my knees close to my chest while my head throbs in pain. God I wish I hadn’t let myself get so depressed when I realized what he did and thought of taking the morning after pill.

“Well we have 9 months to get to know each other and I think that’s plenty. People nowadays marry even sooner than that.”

His tone so matter of fact it made me want to strangle him. This couldn’t be happening, surely I’m just having a nightmare. Jake definitely isn't in my living room proposing we get married and be a family, right?

But after pinching my arm he was still there watching me. I needed time to think but with him there it’s like any rational thought flies out the window.

“Jake, I need some space. Please. I’ll think about what you said but right now all I want is to be alone.” He opens his mouth to object but I add, “You can come back tomorrow, I’ve just had enough today. I promise, we’ll talk some more then.”

After a moment of consideration, he nods in agreement and gets up, extending a hand out to me and I look at him confused. “Let me put my phone number on your phone, and promise me you’ll call me if you need anything.”

I nod, handing him my phone and looking down while swallowing the lump on my throat. He hands me my phone back and I set it down beside me. His eyes find mine and he gives me a small comforting smile and I feel my heart flutter a little but before I can let it fill itself with hope I’m standing up and leading Jake to the door.

“Goodnight, Y/N,” he says, looking up from his phone after ordering his uber. “Goodnight Jake.”

I close the door and lean against it, letting a few tears escape before quickly wiping them away and heading to the bathroom for a much needed shower. I sit on the floor of the shower and let myself cry it all out again, the only difference is that this time I cry because of Jake’s proposal rather than his absence.

My fingers are very pruned when I finally get out of the shower. I stare at myself in the mirror, turning sideways to see if a bump has begun to form but I’m met with none since it’s probably too early for that.

Finally I decide to go to bed, stopping by the living room to grab my phone. As I unlock it, I stop dead in my tracks, noticing that Jake’s contact name is Baby Daddy and that he texted me “I’m sticking around. I promise.”

My legs feel wobbly as I read it over and over again but thankfully I’m pulled away from obsessing over it by the doorbell. I look out the window and see no one but against my better judgment I open the door and look down to be met by a grocery delivery and some flowers.

Maybe things will be okay after all.

click here for part 3.

taglist: @rosiahills22, @harperdoodle, @weirdothatwritess, @mrsevans90

[nayziiz]

Stay | LN4

Summary: A new romantic prospect puts things into perspective in the best and worst ways possible.

Pairing: Lando Norris x OC (Cara)

Warnings: Angst

Masterlist

CHAPTER 6

The music was louder than Cara expected when they entered the club. Maya immediately dragged Lando over to the bar to get drinks, and Max and Pietra went on a mission to find the private booth Maya had apparently arranged. Cara hung back for a minute and surveyed the scene. It wasn't her go-to place regardless of the country she found herself in. She sighed, defeated, knowing she would be spending most of her night being miserable.

Trying to make the best of it, Cara wandered over to the bar, deciding to get herself a drink. She squeezed through the crowd and managed to catch the bartender's attention, ordering a simple gin and tonic. As she waited for her drink, she couldn't help but notice Lando and Maya at the other end of the bar, Maya clinging onto Lando's arm as they laughed together.

Cara felt a pang of something she couldn't quite place—jealousy, maybe? She quickly dismissed the thought, reminding herself that she and Lando were just friends. Still, it was hard to ignore the growing discomfort she felt every time she saw them together.

“Here's your drink,” the bartender said, breaking her train of thought. She thanked him and took a sip, letting the cool liquid calm her nerves. She turned away from the bar and tried to spot Max and Pietra, hoping to find some solace in their company.

After a few minutes of searching, she finally saw Max waving her over from a corner booth. She weaved through the throng of people, grateful to finally sit down and escape the chaos for a bit. When she reached the booth, Pietra scooted over to make room for her.

“Never really been your scene, huh?” Max observed, a knowing smirk on his face.

“Not at all. But hey, at least I've got you guys to keep me company,” Cara shook her head, managing a small smile.

“Don't worry, we'll make sure you have a good time,” Pietra assured her with a pat on the shoulder.

“See, she looks so out of place,” Maya whined when she looked back at Cara. Lando followed her eyes and found Cara slowly moving towards Max and Pietra.

“Cut her some slack, she's trying,” Lando countered, a hint of frustration in his voice.

“Why do you defend her so much?” Maya asked, her tone a mix of curiosity and annoyance.

“Because she's one of my best friends, Maya.” Lando sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as he tried to find the right words.

“It just feels like she's always around, and I don't get why you prioritise her so much.” Maya pouted, clearly unsatisfied with his answer. Lando took a deep breath, trying to stay calm.

“Cara is important to me, just like Max, just like Pietra. We've been through a lot together. It's not about prioritising; it's about recognizing the people who genuinely care about you. You should give her a chance, get to know her better.” Lando continued. Maya rolled her eyes as she shifted closer to Lando, linking her arm through his.

“Baby, she's not like us, she doesn't fit in,”  Maya retorted, her tone dismissive.

“Like us? What does that even mean?” Lando asked, baffled by Maya's comment. “Alright, if you want to see me defensive, keep saying stuff like that.”

“Calm down, Lan. I'm just sharing my opinion,” Maya shrugged, trying to downplay the situation.

“No, you're being mean towards her, and that's not cool, Maya. She's only been nice to you,” Lando continued, his voice firm.

“Whatever, Lan. I just think you should focus more on us.” Maya rolled her eyes at him once more. Lando shook his head, feeling a growing frustration.

“It's not a competition, Maya. If you can't accept my friends, then this won't work.” Lando informed her. Maya stared at him, a mixture of anger and hurt in her eyes. “Give her a chance. You might actually like her if you got to know her.”

Maya didn't respond, instead turning her attention back to the bar. Lando sighed, knowing that this was far from over, but determined to stand by his friend.

Cara spotted Lando and Maya in an intense conversation from their reserved booth where she sat with Pietra and Max, who were also chatting away. She nudged Pietra, drawing her attention to the scene unfolding at the bar. Pietra turned to look at what Cara was indicating.

"Trouble in paradise?" Pietra asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Who knows?" Cara sighed again, feeling a pang of discomfort at the sight.

Max, picking up on the shift in conversation, turned his attention to the bar as well. "Looks like things are getting heated over there."

Cara nodded, taking a sip of her drink. "Yeah, it does."

Pietra leaned in closer to Cara. "You okay?"

Cara forced a small smile. "Yeah, just...it's been a weird night."

Max gave her a sympathetic look. "Weird how?"

Cara hesitated, glancing at Lando and Maya again. "Just...Maya's been making things a bit uncomfortable. I feel like I'm in the way."

Pietra put a reassuring hand on Cara's arm. "You know you're not in the way, right? You're part of this group, and we all want you here."

Throughout the night as the drinks flowed, Cara loosened up and even ended up on the dancefloor. She danced with some girls for a while, and then the men started approaching her. Lando ground his teeth, his jaw locked, as he watched her dance against a new man every few minutes, a goofy smile plastered on her face as she did so.

He could feel the frustration bubbling inside him, his protective instincts flaring up with each passing moment. He knew Cara was just trying to have a good time and shake off the evening's earlier discomfort, but it didn't stop the surge of jealousy and concern he felt seeing her surrounded by strangers.

Maya noticed Lando's attention was securely on Cara and nothing else the second she went on the dancefloor, so in a huff, she left the club without saying goodbye to Lando. She felt a sting of betrayal and disappointment as she pushed through the throng of people, heading for the exit. Her dramatic departure went unnoticed by Lando, who was too engrossed in his moment with Cara to see anything else.

Lando was able to contain himself until he saw another new man approach Cara. The man slid in behind her, grabbing her hips as they swayed, and pressed himself right against her. She didn't move away from him, not even when his hands travelled around to her waist and later to her butt and thighs. Lando's blood was boiling as he stood and watched.

Max, noticing Lando's agitation, nudged him. "You okay, mate?"

Lando forced a tight smile. "Yeah, just... keeping an eye on things."

Max followed his gaze to where Cara was dancing, understanding dawning on his face. "She's just having fun, man. Let her enjoy herself."

Lando sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I know, I know. It's just hard to watch."

Pietra, joining the conversation, leaned in. "Maybe you should go dance with her?"

Lando hesitated. "I don't know if that's a good idea."

Pietra gave him an encouraging smile. "It might be exactly what she needs. Besides, it's clear you're not happy just standing here."

He walked through the crowd to where she was. The man dancing with her had disappeared, and Lando took the opportunity to wrap his arms around her waist from behind to see what her reaction would be. Instead of pushing his hands away, she rested her hands on his and intertwined her fingers with his. She pressed her body against his and swayed to the beat of the music. She rested the back of her head against his chest and turned her head slightly so she could just, ever so slightly, brush the tip of her icy nose against the skin of his neck.

“You know it's me, right?” Lando asked, his voice soft yet tinged with a hint of amusement.

“Uh-huh,” she hummed, warm from both the alcohol and by Lando’s sudden presence behind her.

“I thought I'd join you,” he replied, trying to keep his tone light. “Looks like you're having fun.”

"I am. But I wouldn't mind a familiar face to dance with,” she admitted, a slight flush to her cheeks. 

“Well, here I am.” He grinned, relieved.

Lando and Cara continued to dance, their laughter and movements synchronised. The energy between them was palpable, drawing a few curious glances from onlookers but mostly just blending into the vibrant, carefree atmosphere of the dancefloor. Max and Pietra, seated in the booth, observed the scene with satisfaction.

“Looks like they’re finally letting their feelings take control,” Max commented, leaning back with a contented smile. Pietra nodded.

“It's about time. They both needed this.” Pietra agreed, hinting at all of the months and trips they spent watching Lando and Cara dance around each other and their feelings.

After their night at the club, the unexpected intimacy they shared on the dance floor lingering in their minds, Cara and Lando found themselves back at the apartment. The atmosphere was filled with a mixture of awkwardness and anticipation, as both of them tried to process the shift in their relationship. They had reversed roles for the evening: Lando took the couch, and Cara took his bed.

Cara lay in Lando's bed, surrounded by the scent of him that clung to the sheets and pillows. She turned over and buried her face into his pillow, breathing in deeply. His scent was comforting, but without him being close, it felt suffocating and incomplete. The bed felt enormous and empty without his presence. It was cold. Too cold. She pulled the blankets tighter around herself, trying to find some semblance of warmth, but it was no use. The events of the night replayed in her mind, especially the moment on the dance floor when she had felt so safe and connected in his arms.

In the living room, Lando tossed and turned on the couch. The cushions felt foreign and uncomfortable, a far cry from the familiarity of his bed. The eerie loneliness of the room gnawed at him, amplified by the silence of the early morning hours. He stared up at the ceiling, his thoughts consumed by the feel of touch and the way she had fit so perfectly in his arms. He couldn't shake the feeling of emptiness that filled the room without her presence nearby.

Both of them were restless, struggling to find comfort in their new sleeping arrangements. The distance between them felt greater than the physical space that separated the couch from the bedroom. They were both acutely aware of each other's absence, and it weighed heavily on their hearts.

His bedroom door creaked open, and Cara stood leaning against the doorframe, watching Lando toss from one side of the couch to the other. The sight of him struggling to find comfort tugged at her heart. She could see the unease etched on his face, and it mirrored her own feelings of restlessness.

“Not comfortable?” she whispered as she approached him, halting his movements.

“Something like that,” he admitted, sitting back with a sigh. He looked despondent, the weight of the night’s events clearly still on his mind. Cara took a seat beside him, their shoulders brushing. “Why are you still up?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” she confessed, pulling her sweatshirt’s sleeves over her hands. The fabric provided a small comfort against the cold, but it did nothing to quell the chill she felt inside.

Lando sat there, his heart pounding against his ribcage like a caged bird desperate for freedom. His mind raced, a flurry of doubts and uncertainties clouding his judgement. Was this the right moment? Would she think he was being too forward? A myriad of questions bombarded his thoughts, threatening to drown out the faint whisper of courage that urged him forward.

Yet, amidst the chaos of his mind, there was a flicker of something different—an ember of spontaneity and daring that dared to defy his apprehensions. It was that tiny spark that propelled him forward, urging him to take a leap of faith into the unknown. For a brief moment, he hesitated, his lips parting as if to speak, only to falter at the brink of uncertainty.

But then, with a surge of determination, he silenced his doubts and let his words spill forth into the space between them.

"Fancy a cuddle?" he suggested, the words hanging in the air like a delicate promise waiting to be fulfilled.

In that instant, time seemed to stand still, the world holding its breath as they stood on the precipice of possibility. Would she laugh it off, dismissing his offer with a gentle smile? Or would she embrace the spontaneity of the moment, taking his hand and diving headfirst into the unknown?

As the blush bloomed across her cheeks, Lando felt a surge of anticipation mingled with a hint of vulnerability. He watched her, his heart pounding in his chest, wondering what her response would be. For a moment, she seemed to retreat within herself, her gaze flickering away from his as if grappling with an inner turmoil.

Then, just as he began to fear that his suggestion had been too bold, she surprised him. With a deep breath, she rose from her seat, her hand extended towards him in a silent invitation. It was a gesture filled with a quiet determination, a silent affirmation of trust and curiosity.

Lando felt a rush of relief flood through him as he accepted her hand, letting her lead him back to his room. The air between them crackled with anticipation, the weight of their unspoken feelings hanging heavy in the space around them.

Once inside, he closed the door behind them, the sound echoing softly in the silence. He watched as she made herself comfortable under the covers, her movements graceful yet tinged with a hint of uncertainty. It was a simple act, yet it spoke volumes—a silent agreement to embrace the intimacy of the moment, to explore the connection that pulsed between them.

As Lando slipped out of his shirt, the fabric falling away to reveal the contours of his frame, it felt like shedding a layer of inhibition, a symbolic gesture of vulnerability and intimacy. It was a routine he had grown accustomed to, a small act of comfort and familiarity in the quiet moments before sleep claimed him.

With a silent grace, he joined her beneath the covers, the warmth of the blankets cocooning them in a world of their own making. And as he settled beside her, he felt a sense of rightness wash over him—a feeling of belonging that transcended words or explanations.

She welcomed him into her embrace with a natural ease, her body fitting against his like two pieces of a puzzle finally finding their perfect match. He could feel the gentle rise and fall of her breath against his neck, a soothing rhythm that lulled him into a state of contentment.

Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he pulled her close, relishing the sensation of her skin against his own. It was a simple gesture, yet it spoke volumes—an unspoken promise of protection and comfort, a silent declaration of love and devotion.

With her hand resting on her exposed stomach, he felt a surge of tenderness well up within him.

“Tell me something nobody else knows about you,” Lando quipped in an attempt to distract himself from the feeling of her body against his.

“I am absolutely terrible at skiing,” she whispered with a small chuckle.

“Is that why you didn’t come to Finland with us?” he realised.

“Partly, yeah,” she chuckled. “I did have to work, too.”

“I can teach you, you know, how to ski,” he offered.

“You’d be teaching a wall how to walk, not going to happen,” she countered.

“Then it’s a good thing I’m a great teacher. Just look at how great you are now at karting,” Lando teased with a knowingly smile.

“Alright, fair enough,” she conceded, chuckling slightly at his cockiness.

The excitement of their banter dissipated into the tranquil embrace of the night as she nestled her head into the curve of his neck once more. Her breath, warm yet tinged with a hint of chill, ghosted across his skin, sending shivers down his spine.

Lando's fingers traced gentle patterns over her arm, the warmth of her touch a soothing balm against the tumultuous currents of his thoughts. He tried to coax himself into a state of sleep, to let the gentle rhythm of their breaths lull him into oblivion. But amidst the quiet darkness, the desire that simmered beneath the surface refused to be ignored.

With each passing moment, the urge to lean in and capture her lips in a tender kiss grew stronger, a silent plea that echoed in the depths of his soul. He turned his head slightly, his gaze meeting hers in the soft glow of moonlight filtering through the window.

Their eyes locked in a silent exchange, a wordless conversation that spoke volumes of unspoken desires and hidden truths. In that fleeting moment, the world fell away, leaving only the two of them suspended in the timeless embrace of the night.

“I really want to kiss you,” he confessed, his voice so soft it was barely a whisper.

“Okay,” she mimicked his tone and volume, her breath warm against his skin.

With a tender reverence, Lando cupped her cheek, his thumb brushing lightly across her skin. He leaned in, closing the small distance between them, and gently pressed his lips against hers. The kiss was soft and delicate, a gentle caress that spoke of all the unspoken words and feelings they had shared.

For the first time in a very long time, Lando felt butterflies fluttering in his stomach—the good kind that signalled something special, something real. It wasn’t a hungry or desperate kiss, but one filled with sweetness and tenderness, a reflection of how he felt about her.

When he finally pulled away, he watched her eyes remain closed, her face serene as she absorbed every moment of the lingering sensation. A smile curved her lips, and in that moment, Lando knew that this simple kiss had sealed something profound between them.

They spent the rest of the night wrapped in a cocoon of warmth and intimacy, gazing at each other with a mixture of wonder and contentment. The world outside their little bubble seemed to fade away, leaving only the soft glow of the moonlight and the quiet whispers of their shared breaths.

With tender curiosity, they traced invisible shapes into each other’s skin, their fingertips leaving trails of warmth and affection. Each touch was a silent declaration, a wordless conversation that spoke of their growing closeness and the trust they had built.

Her fingers played gently with his hair, twirling soft strands between her fingertips, while he marvelled at the delicate way she moved. In return, his hand found its way to her hair, smoothing it back from her face with a tenderness that made her heart flutter.

As the night wore on, their words grew softer, their touches slower, each moment drawing them deeper into the embrace of sleep. The rhythm of their breaths synchronised, creating a soothing lullaby that carried them towards slumber.

Finally, with their bodies entwined and hearts beating in unison, they drifted off to sleep, each wrapped in the comfort of the other’s presence. And as they slipped into dreams, the night held them close, a silent witness to the beginning of something beautiful and enduring.

[thelovelywriteress]

➷ With Zodiac Cursed Reader (2)

▶︎sᴀᴋᴜʀᴀ xғ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

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────────────────────────────╰┈➤ Sakura accidentally find your secret and now is unknowingly close to you due that that secret. (Part1)

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You weren't able to find Sakura before ask day when he enter the Kotoha's cafe and you immediately cornered him: making sure he didn't say the word of what he saw yesterday.

"So that wasn't a dream?" He said with a blank face that you always fall in dramatic manner.

So he even believe what he saw yesterday? What a boy. . .

Well you simply ask him to keep your situation quite and walk away from him while he in return ask you to make sure it's only him hiding your secret. You pout and walk away, almost bumping into a male customer while Sakura wondered how you even manage to hide it for so long.

Sitting at that particular corner of Kotoha's cafe, you wonder about how these days you seems to be getting more and more in trouble that may end up revealing your secret.

While you were in your thought, Kotoha brought your order and ask you about your interaction with Sakura earlier.

"Never thought I would see most anti-people kids talking to each other. You both go anything between you?"

"I am not anti-social. And about your other statement it's wrong too!"

"Don't sweat much, I was just teasing you but Sakura is a good boy. He may act tough but if you would go to him for help, he would never reject you."

You did think about Kotoha's last statement very deeply. You do need atleast one person if you do not want to reveal your secret on mass level.

While Sakura was walking around, you pulled him in a dark ally from his arm. You throw a punch that you avoided and was in fighting posture before he recognised your face.

"Oh it's you." He sounded disappointed,"I heard you at once. My mouth is seal, no need to abduct me."

". . .Do you think you can help me to make my secret a secret." You said in a low tone that Sakura catch quickly and brought his all focus on you,"I need someone to accompany me. I. . .I did let out my secret before but thankfully he also thought it was some dream but I don't know if next person to find my secret would think same."

"So you want me as your bodyguard?"

"Oh yeah, it's good way to put it. I am hiring you!" You exclaimed with arrogance as Sakura throw you a annoyed expression.

Long way, short. You both have officially emerged into each other's life. You don't consider yourselves 'friends' but you guys were pretty cilivised with each other. This made Kotoha almost teasing you daily about it.

"Oh well, my anti-people ship sailed. I knew from the first day." She said like a proud mother.

"What the heck is anti-people ship anyways?!" You both yelled at her with red hues on your face.

"Like the hell I would like this prick." Sakura crossed his arm and turn away while you clutched your fist that was tempting to hit his head.

Verbally you would agree with Sakura but emotionally you would little flustered to know you guys were shipped (even if that ship had a werid name).

Before you realised, you have been crushing on Sakura and unconsciously tried to spend more time with him. You ask him to accompany you on random places, saying you got some work there when in truth you just wanted to enjoy his presence.

You didn't realised that you were of that type, who chooses their crushes over themselves. Well not until today where you're head feel like spinning but since you ask Sakura to visit market with you, you're ready to ignore that throbbing feeling in your head.

Despite how you were feeling, you still choose to come. You made your presence known to him and at first glance he seems to know something was wrong with you. He enquired you about it but you just brush it off as summer heat. You thought once you're with him it will eventually go away.

You were wrong! If anything it has become worst and you feel like burning too. Ahh, you wonder why didn't you cancelled the meet up. It's like he would have care anyways, he's so idiot: idiot for noticing your affection towards him. And before you know you black out.

You slowly opened your eyes and started to observe surrounding around you. It was an unfamiliar surrounding. You were almost worried before you heard a familiar voice.

"So you're wake finally?" Sakura come in your view. His head little tilted, so to level your eye level.

"Didn't know you transform while backing out too." He comment while he sit back straight. Unlike now you didn't notice that you had transformed.

You sit and swing your face like an animal brushing off dust themselves. Something Sakura compared your movement too.

"When I am exhausted or not well my body transforms then too." You corrected his assumptions.

Sakura notice how you still look out of breath and speak out the question, he is wondering whole time,"Why did you lie? I knew at first glance something was wrong." You feel like targeted and almost let out confused words,"I-I think-thought it would go and I-I can handle, no want I am fine. But I would b-be." Your mind wasn't functioning properly.

Sakura notice it and just put a hand to your head, making you lay back,"Just rest quietly for now." He said and turn his head away.

It was at time moment when his hand touched your forehead, you feel little better and you transform back to your human form.

Sakura bring his gaze back to where his hand was and almost wake the town with his scream. He was fine when you were (animal), he can't handle your human self, not especially when his sheets are only thing covering you.

He quickly search for your clothes he picked earlier when you turn into your animal form and ask you to put them while he walk out.

You wondered where was he going. You liked the feeling of his hand earlier and you don't feel like wearing clothes for today. You dozed off again.

You wake again, calling the name of Sakura, he appear again in you though he didn't dare to look directly at you. You without care sir up straight as Sakura's face almost exploded. Now it was even more clear you were naked.

"Sakura. Sakura." You repeatedly called his name as with a hand on side of his face, hiding you, he question the reason you were saying his name like parrot.

"Come here for once. I feel like my temperature is getting worst." Hearing this Sakura reluctantly started to come near you. His whole situation may be embarassing but your health is still his top priority.

How much he regret agreeing with you cause moment he was enough near around you, you jumped in his chest.

"What-!" And before he could exploded due to your action, you already transformed into your animal. You told him to take you in his arms and come with you at your home. You get better medicine there.

Holding (animal) in arm, Sakura walk on the way you guide him. Unlucky for him he bumped into Neirei, who obviously question him about animal and where he was talking it.

"I know a vet near by." Neirei offered with pure intentions.

"It's someone pet." Sakura lied quite smoothly,"Oh ok-Sakura-san is that girl's clothes?" Neirei exclaimed as Sakura's cheek also flare up,"T-The pet r-run away with c-clothes." He lied through his flustered state and run out.

He didn't stop before he reached your house. You did bad for getting tangle with you, heck you always feel bad for everyone who gets involved with you. And for some reason "always feel bad for everyone" feeling get too much today that you started to ramble it to Sakura out of all people.

"You don't need to. I may don't want to catch in this mess but if I was given choice, then I would be involved with you again and again." Sakura state with a serious but sincere tone.

"B-But I always get too much. I order people around and act so arrogant."

"That's true."

On your second statement Sakura agreed nonchalantly and you kicked his head with angry expression. He is truly a idiot. He was supposed to comfort you like mc of shojo manga you read sometime before.

"Weren't you sick!?" He questioned as you keep biting his head to express your angry.

You didn't say anything and even bite his head harder, making him let out a 'ouch'. Sakura didn't know why was he suffering for being honest but in some sense he does think it wasn't right moment to be honest so he tried to manipulate his statement a bit.

"I was just being honest. That's real you. The you I like."

Sakura was being totally platonic. He would even punch himself if he realised his wording but for now he just wants to you stop biting his head to death.

He didn't realised his wording but you did. You stop with dreamy look in your eyes. That same moment Suo and Nirei weakly open your door, calling for you and was also left in shock by the scene in front them.

"He said he liked me." There was you, naked on Sakura's back with blushing and dreamy face,"Put some god damn clothes!" Sakura ordered with his eyes shut closed but his face rising with colour red.

"Let's go Nirei. We are distrubing Sakura-kun." Suo put a hand on blond boy's shoulder and started to walk away.

Sakura notice him and started to quickly move towards him while Nirei remind him about your cloth-less figure on his back.

While everything was in choas all you can think in your sickly state is that boy you crushed over told you he liked you.

"Hehe."

"What the hell you giggling for?"

"(N-Name)-san is about to black out!"

"Let Sakura-kun be worried about it Nirei."

"SHUT UP!"

"He liked me."

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honestly part two isn't like i imagined but it was still fun! Honestly sorry if it wasn't much good like I said in first part, I honestly lost some motivation mid way but hey atleast it's completed now. Haha that was some fun writing.☁️🏂

Also this @systemix girl was one of my biggest motivation. Like you don't know how much her headcannons motivate me to complete part two fast. And girl you need to make your own headcannon post with wind breaker boys with zodiac cursed reader fast! Us readers & fans would definitely like it! 🙏🌬️

Well then everyone take care and don't forget to eat your meals<3

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[lonesome-sometimes]

wheels on the bus

I promise I don’t have a thing for matty being a married man this was just a very real experience for me minus most of it

suddenly a man climbs on and interrupts, giving a series of apologies to both the driver and the people he kept waiting. you would be annoyed if he wasn’t so hot, tight black jumper and unruly curls sitting on his head like a halo. suddenly, the woman from before is waving him down towards the back of the bus and your heart sinks.

that’s her fucking husband?

matty healy x female reader

content warnings: face fucking, sub matty, teasing, semi-public sex, cheating, age gap

minors do not interact!

If you knew that you would be stuck on a bus for as long as you were, you wouldn’t have even bothered travelling but the world seemed to hate you that day and was throwing every possible obstacle towards you.

luckily for you, the seat next to you had managed to stay empty for most of the trip which was always a blessing. you were pulling into the second stop of the journey when you quickly realised that was about to come to an end, the queue far too long with too little seats left.

you force yourself to seem as unapproachable as possible when you feel someone tap your shoulder, turning to see a dark haired woman smiling at you almost condescendingly. you pull one side of your headphones to the side so it sits behind your ear, still looking at her dumbfounded. you weren’t in the mood, your day had been long enough.

“Is it okay if my husband sits here? he’s coming now, he just is putting our bags away but I’m going to sit in front of this seat and I want to be able to sit near him. my husband won’t be a bother-“ every word went in one ear and out of the other, the word husband suddenly becoming the worst word in the entire dictionary and the shiny diamond on her finger painfully obvious. how charming.

you nod, turning your body and sliding your headphones back on for the simple pleasure of drowning out most of the noise of the other passengers, your music staying paused. the driver stands up, a tall man who seemed far too young and cool looking to be stuck driving some bus on a saturday. “I know this situation isn’t really ideal for anybody, but I promise to speed and get you all where you need to be. please just shout at me if you need anything, my name is george and-“ suddenly a man climbs on and interrupts, giving a series of apologies to both the driver and the people he kept waiting. you would be annoyed, feeling deserving of an apology to if he wasn’t so hot, tight black jumper and unruly curls sitting on his head like a halo. you turn your attention to the woman from before, waving him down towards the back of the bus and your heart sinks.

that’s her fucking husband?

his face lights up at the sight of her, making his way down towards where the empty seat is and sliding down next to you. he shoots you a quick, kind smile before turning his full attention to his wife to your dismay, leaning over the top of her seat and stroking her hair. the whole situation was just sad really, he was far too good for her but you can see why she was so obsessed with using the word husband beforehand.

you were in for the hardest two hours of your life.

you couldn’t even focus on your music, abandoning it all together and hour into the drive in favour of hearing his hushed voice instead. he was currently resting his chin on the top of her seat, eyes crinkling as he smiled at something she said. he pushed a hand through his hair, the sleeves of his jumper pushing up slightly to reveal some tattoos on his wrists causing your eyes to widen, becoming curious as to how many tattoos he had and where.

another hour of torture goes by, the man next to you seeming to be so sickly in love that it started to make you somewhat mad. he was fully leaning around her seat now, his face close to hers as they talked quietly. you decided to just try and ignore them alltogether, reopening spotify when you hear him speak.

“radiohead? great choice! I didn’t know they were still popular with the kids these days.” you turn to see him smiling at you, not even realising he had moved and being absolutely dumbfounded that he’s suddenly speaking to you. he laughs nervously, rubbing the back of his neck causing you to notice the crinkles by his eyes for the first time. “god, that makes me sound so old doesn’t it? sorry I wasn’t meaning to bother you-“

“no!” you suddenly exclaim, realising how crazy you sounded. you regain your composure, side eyeing his wife who was not in her seat. he must notice your curiosity because he speaks up again. “we’re stopping for a bathroom break, the kids on board must have been pissing the driver off, do you want me to move?” he attempts to stand but you grab his wrist, pulling him back down.

“I’m good, thank you for letting me know.” you try and sound as sweet as possible, smiling softly while rubbing the soft material of his jumper between your fingertips. “you’re not bothering me at all, you’re actually the first person I’ve spoke to all day.”

he looks down at your hand on his jumper and you swear you see a blush spread across his face, a stray curl falling forward as he does. you start feeling a little lightheaded, almost letting your thoughts get the better of you. you drop his jumper, moving to push the curl back away from his face but he moves too suddenly, shaking his head to organise his thoughts.

you turn to see his wife climbing back on the bus, that condescending smile from before returning as she sees you both. they start chatting again, forcing you to return back to your petty mood and making a show of it, crossing your arms and letting your music flow through your ears. you through two minutes of karma police before you physically cannot take it anymore, pulling your headphones off and turning to the couple next to you.

“I’m so sorry if I’m overstepping, but you guys are just so cute together. how long have you been married?” you smile too wide to be genuine, voice sickly sweet as your attention focuses solely on the man. his wife leans around her seat and looks at you like you had offended her, but takes the opportunity to obsess over the word husband once more.

“well my husband and I have actually been married for about three years, is that right matty? I think so.” she smiles at him, playing with his fingers awaiting his answer. you don’t really care what she has to say, the name matty bouncing around your brain and how it would sound coming off of your tongue. he continues to look at you, completely taken back by your boldness before clearing his throat.

“yeah we erm, we have been married a while now. we actually just got back from our two year anniversary vacation, you should know that darling.” he speaks to her, almost seeming sad that she had forgotten. she just laughs, announcing that milestones mean nothing so long as she has him. you could almost feel your eyes rolling back into your head and not in the way you were imagining.

he smiles awkwardly at you. they went back to talking between themselves, your brain racing with ideas and images. you think for a little while, coming up with a truly awful plan. you had found something you wanted and with the day you were having you deserved some excitement.

you wait a few minutes, waiting for the right moment before beginning. “I’m sorry, I just need to grab my charger in my bag. I’ll just-“ you stand up, causing matty and his wife to stop talking and look up at you as you begin to climb over his legs. you silently thank the driver for suddenly going over a bump in the road, causing you to trip and fall directly into his lap.

his hands fly up out of instinct, grabbing your waist and holding you there for a moment. you can feel the bulge in his pants pressing up against you, moving so your hips grind down on him as you stand up again. “god, matty! I am so sorry! I lost my balance, I’ll just grab my charger and I’ll stop being a bother, again I’m so sorry to interrupt.” you lie through your teeth, reaching up to grab your charger out of your bag in the overhead compartment while making sure your tshirt rides up directly in front of his face, exposing your lower stomach and a strip of your lace underwear that was hidden beneath your pants. you pretend to look for your charger for a good few minutes, giving him a show as you did.

you eventually find what you were looking for, making eye contact with him as you climb back over into your seat. you bite your lip as you look down at his crotch, the bulge more prominent than before. you feel powerful, causing a married man to fold at practically nothing.

you get comfortable again, scrolling through instagram when he suddenly speaks for the first time in the last twenty minutes. “god, when did it get so fucking hot in here?” he laughs sheepishly again, pulling his jumper over his head and shoving it in his lap to cover up his problem.

granting you your wish, you could finally see the wrist tattoos from before as well as the many others. his arms were toned, covered in artwork that looked so beautiful and hot at the same time. his curls had become messy through his hands constantly playing with it and the jumper being pulled over.

the bus keeps driving for another ten minutes, the longest ten minutes of both yours and his life, before pulling in at another service station. george stands up, announcing that the bus would be here for thirty minutes and that if you weren’t back in time he would drive off and leave you, causing the kids at the front who must be driving him mad to giggle and pull faces.

matty suddenly stands up, announcing to his wife that he was running to the bathroom and to grab them both a snack, urging her to stay there. perfect.

you let him get a five minute head start before standing up, not even acknowledging the woman as you make your way off the bus and towards the bathrooms where you see matty push the door open. you rush after him, causing the the door to fly open. you both stand in the middle of the service station bathroom, the tension thick and heavy in the air.

he swallows, rubbing his arm and avoiding your eyes as he speaks up first. “can…can I help you?” he asks, his voice coming out strained and broken which only causes you to giggle. you move further into the room, crowding him up against the tiled wall.

“I’m not sure matty, can I help you at all?” you smirk, lips so close to his own as you speak you could feel the shaky breaths on your face. he swallows again, eyes avoiding yours as he shakes his head.

“I’m married, I shouldn’t be…” he trails off as you push your body up against his, cocking your head to the side as you lick your lips and grab the shape of his cock through his pants. he lets out a breath, relaxing against the wall as you start stroking him through the fabric softly. interesting.

“I’m sorry, you were saying?” you ask innocently, knowing what you were doing by now, the effect you were having on him. he closes his eyes, letting his head hit the tile with a thud before he looks down at you through his lashes. up close, he’s so much prettier than you had realised. you wanted to ruin him and have him ruin you at the same time.

“please.” he breathes out, taking you by surprise as he pushes his hips up until your hand and parts his lips. “please just touch me.” he begs, and how could you say no to that?

you move your head and steal his lips in a soft kiss, his lips parting instantly and letting you control the situation. this isn’t what you were picturing when he first stepped onto the bus, but after the mood you had been in you can’t say you’re unsatisfied with the turn of events. you move to unzip his trousers, shoving them down his legs and pulling his cock out of his underwear.

fucking hell. you weren’t expecting that.

he breaths are heavy, eyes wide as he waits patiently for you to do something. you think for a moment, deciding what you want to do with the little time you had. you started mouthing at his jaw being careful not to leave any marks to save him some face, his neck and down his torso until you’re forced to get on your knees so that you’re face to face with his leaking cock.

he leans his head back against the wall again, his hands finding refuge in your hair as he lets out a choked moan at the sight of you on your knees for him. If only you had more time, you’d spend hours torturing him, his sweet breathy moans quickly becoming your favourite sound.

that doesn’t mean you couldn’t have a little fun right now.

“I thought you were married, hm? your poor little wife, sitting on that bus completely unaware that her husband of two years is letting a young, innocent girl get him off. don’t you feel bad?” you tease, lips ghosting the tip of his cock as you speak. he quickly shakes his head, hands moving from your hair to form fists at his sides.

“she…she doesn’t do this for me. we haven’t even…just please?” he begs, his revelation music to your ears. “you don’t know how long it’s been since I…she won’t have sex with me, something to do with-“ he moans as you wrap your lips around his cock, letting the weight of it sit on your tongue as you savour the taste.

you slap his thigh lightly, a silent order for him to keep speaking as you start to suck his cock slowly. “oh fuck, something to do with staying pure…an act of celibacy or some bullshit but I really do love her, I promise.” he continues, emphasising the really with a thrust of his hips, causing his cock to hit the back of your throat, fluttering around him as he whines.

you pull off his length with a pop, lipgloss smeared around the tip of it as you work him with your hand. “that’s such a shame, you’re far too pretty for that. you sound so sweet. If only you were mine, I’d do so much to you.” you lick away precum that had gathered at his tip again, kissing it softly and pulling back again. “hm, how about I let you fuck my throat, since you’ve been such a good boy for me? you deserve to use me, no need to be shy.” you wink, moving your arms behind your back and letting your lips fall open and ready.

he stares at you, completely taken back by what you just offered. he lets himself think for a moment, about the morality of the situation, before shaking his head and grabbing his cock again and shoving it past your lips. clearly deciding that there was no time for questioning his moral compass as he moans loudly, feeling more free as he begins to fuck your throat. he picks up his pace, holding your hair as he whispers sweet nothings like you’re so good for me and so much better than she could ever be, even going as far as to wipe away the tears that had formed around your eyes and saying please don’t cry, you’re too pretty baby, I’m sorry

his hips begin to stutter, a sign that he’s almost there. “please, please let me cum down your throat, I need to cum please let me-” he begs through broken sobs, waiting for a nod of your head before he’s spilling down your throat, his groans echoing around the empty bathroom.

you pull off his cock, his body slumped against the wall as you show him your white covered tongue, swallowing his cum only causing him to moan again. he was such a boy, and you couldn’t really blame him considering what he had just told you. you decide to be nice, tucking him back into his underwear and pulling his pants back up his legs, going as far as to button them back up for him and placing a chaste kiss to his lips.

“I genuinely don’t think I can move away from this wall.” he admits, blush creeping up his cheeks again as he brings his thumb up to wipe the smeared lipgloss from your face. “thank you for that, and I erm…fuck, I’m sorry? I feel bad that I didn’t-” he says, gesturing towards you.

you shake your head and smile, giggling softly. “don’t worry about me, it seems like you have enough to deal with.”

“you could say that.” he laughs back, checking the time on his watch and letting out a sigh of relief to see that you still had five minutes before you really needed to be back, knowing his kind, thoughtful wife would hold the bus up if needs be. “we still have five minutes, if you really want me to do anything?”

you shake your head again, pulling his hand up into yours and playing with his fingers the same way his wife had done on the bus not long ago, sliding his wedding ring off and on. “I think I’d rather learn more about you? If that’s okay?”

he smiles down at you again and nods, eyes crinkling as he says “well I never actually got to talk to you about radiohead…”

[postersofleon]

The Undesirable Feeling Of Love

During missions with Leon, every time Ada Wong must always appear, and at first they didn't really mind her. Funny enough, even found her interesting enough to keep her around. But as time passed, they were getting tired of Leon's attitude towards Ada. Always forgetting you and forgiving her sins. After another brutal mission, they finally have the guts to complain about his conduct.

content: angst

warnings and mentions: no assigned gender or race; they/them pronouns used; resident evil 6 kinda mentioned but not really; ada wong isn't the bad guy in this story but she is technically a bad guy; reader and leon fight with words; sexual talk but nothing sexual; the question of what is right or wrong; bad coping mechanism as in sexual; alcohol; jealously from leon's part; bad friend leon; mention of chris redfield; no happy ending

This mission was fucking awful. Fucking awful. Leon wasn't usually an idiot like this, he wasn't usually an idiot, but this time they couldn't deal with it. Oh, this time was full of anger and frustration. They stopped Leon in front of the agency, they were tapping their foot on the ground as they saw Leon approach. Leon immediately groaned, there wasn't peace between these friends since 2005 thanks to Leon's decisions. "What do you want?" He walked back them. He didn't stop to look at his friend in the eye, they followed Leon quickly; their heel turned around and walked with Leon.

"What the hell was this mission, Kennedy?" They glared at Leon, "No offense but not even our last mission with her around got this bad."

Leon rolled his eyes, "Ada died and this is your first complain." The two friends walked down the streets, people ignored them as they began their conversation. "Leon, the problem is you." They stopped Leon with a simple gesture but it didn't last. Leon kept walking.

They groaned, "I know you like her but for fuck's sake," The sun was making this conversation feel even worst, the sun burned on their backs and began to make them sweat. "You fought with Chris to prove a point. You got lucky your point was valid." Leon stopped and looked at his friend, "Are you going to just bitch and moan for what I did? I managed to prove that Ada was innocent all you're doing is complain."

They felt their anger start forming in their cheeks, "That's not my point, Kennedy!"

"What is it then?" Leon clenched his jaw with a grin in his lips, he got close to their face, "Exactly, you got nothing."

They held Leon's forearm, "I got a lot of shit to say, Kennedy." They pulled Leon back, the people still ignored them as the conversation began to get the unnecessary heat. Maybe they should've waited and calm down their anger, but ooh- they absolutely hated how Leon had semi called them a bitch and his stupid grin he wanted to get. "A whole lot of shit to say." Leon glared back at his friend. "What is it, huh?"

They couldn't believe that this situation was forming and it was getting worst. "Fuck, have you been drinking?" They tried to speak calmly.

"No, no, don't try to get rid of this conversation- what did I do to you that was so horrible?" Leon swallowed as his arms crossed against his chest.

"Fall in love with Ada." They replied so simply that it made them feel guilty. Sure, Ada had her horrible flaws but she didn't deserve to get dragged in this conversations. "I don't know how you managed it. But a stupid simple kiss and six years later kept your cock hard for years." Oh, no. They are losing control. They closed their eyes to try to relax, and while they managed to calm down Leon was getting even more pissy.

"My cock hard, huh?" Leon pushed himself back. It was obvious that this fight was getting worst and for some reason no one still didn't see or try to listen to their conversation.

"Yeah, your stupid cock. You are always forgiving Ada's contributions from making the virus worst," They clenched their jaw, "And when you finally actually got the chance to fuck her, you got fucking worst." Their voice didn't shake. They never wanted to be a negative Nancy when speaking about the relationship Leon had with Ada. "I know Ada isn't technically a bad person but she is working against us."

Leon got their face, "Yeah, like all those times she saved us, huh? Did you forget when we were Spain? Do you remember Raccoon City! Even this stupid mission!" His blue eyes looked cruel against their eyes, but that didn't stop them from snapping back. "Forgiving her despite making the virus worst, huh? Right now, I don't give a shit how many times she saved us because all I see you being a moron."

Leon began to walk away, they quickly followed him, "Then, you bitch and moan crying because you hate fighting against the bioweapons your girlfriend caused." They shrugged, "But that's love right?"

He threw them a dirty stare, "You don't know anything about Ada."

"You don't even know her real name!" They exclaimed annoyed.

Leon's face was twitching with anger, his jaw clenched; He stopped rubbed his face.

"When we first met, I actually thought you were an honest man, you graduated the top of your police academy, but seeing a hot woman makes you an idiot." They started to feel more calm. Did they have all this anger inside them without knowing? It didn't matter. They felt tired.

"At least she didn't leave me like you did," Leon said looking back at them, "She actually tried to know the man I was." Their anger was fluttering inside but Leon continued to speak. "What did you do?-"

"Are you a fucking idiot or does the idiot way of thinking appeared since you got pussy?" They snapped back angrily. They glared at Leon, they pursed their lips together, "You were the moron who decide to get missions and vacations without me since Spain. I actually thought we were getting better in 2007, but I was wrong- so painfully wrong." They actually thought they were getting close to Leon, the have been friends since 1998 and apparently they didn't try hard enough for him. Their emotions were getting worst, but in a different way.

"And that's why you went crawling to Chris?" Leon gritted his teeth, "Because I had a life without you?"

They began to let tears go, "Because you were my friend." They whispered. They didn't care if Leon was with Ada, but the way Leon just decided to act that their friendship meant nothing. They cleaned their tears away from their face, but something appeared in their mind... They looked at Leon and shook their head, "I don't love you anymore." It came from their soul. It was the most fragile thing that wasn't suppose to come out, but now Leon heard it. Leon's face soften, "What?"

They didn't know either, was it the romantic way or the platonic way? They shook their head as they repeated it again, "I-I don't love you anymore." Their voice stuttered. Leon wasn't the same Leon they grew to love, he was different and mean- they slowly began walking back to the agency. Leon didn't try to follow them because he was stuck with those words. They once loved Leon.

Leon tried to look at them but they were gone; All Leon had were the people walking around him. They were on their phones or talking with each other. Leon stood alone in a crowd.

[thekingofwinterblog]

How to fix Halamshiral as a Zone

Inquisition is a flawed game.

I don't think there's anyone who is going to argue otherwise.

The only question is wheter you place it higher or lower than DA2.

One of the things I think it does better than DA2, is that it managed to give every place a soul, an identity of it's own, and at least a distinct, if not always amazing storyline.

The emerald graves doesnt have a very interesting plot, but it has some spectacular side quests, and atmosphere, inculding a haunted mansion, which might be my favorite possession based quest in all of DA because it shows much better than others just how dangerous untrained mages actually are to those around them.

The storm coast tells a story of what was once an important dwarven port, and shows how it fell and was repurposed over time.

The Hinterlands shows the aftereffects of the templar mage war, as well as solas stupid plan to give cory his orb, and the mage rebellion and an actually decent time travel story.

I could go on, but the point is, I usually have at least aomething nice to say about every single region.

All except one.

Halamshiral.

Halamshiral was the single worst part of all of Dragon Age Inquisition for me, and every single time I boot up this game, it's always the last thing i do before the temple of sacred ashes, despite how bizarre the game flows as a result.

And the reason is because i hate everything about it.

I hate it's unique attempt at side quests, i hate the characters involved, i hate the Orlesians who inhabit it, and i hate how this section tries to copy what worked so amazingly well with Orzammar and Denerim during the landsmeet section, and fails every single shot it lines up.

The ONLY good thing i have to say about this, is that it's at the very least relatively short.

So here's today's question. How to fix Halamshiral?

Let's begin with the three main players.

Celene, Gasparde, and Briala.

The big problem with every single option, is that they all suck.

Celene and Gasparde are both fucking awful people without any redeeming qualities, they have no charisma, and there is no prospect of the Empire reforming itself under either of them, the way Orzammar would under Bhelen.

Meanwhile, Briala is much, much better, but the problem is that we know exactly what is going to happen here if you support her.

Maybe today elves will have it better, but tomorrow, when Gasparde is gone, or celene turns on elves again as she always does all the progress will be repealed, and reversed, along with a few purged alienages.

Its an old story that's been told before in Dragon age.

In short, there is no reason at all to care about this overall plot. None whatsoever.

There were so many reasons to care about both Orzammar and Denerim in the same situation, and every single character involved had so much more charisma than either of these would be monarchs.

So let's fix that.

Starting with Celene, take the idea of her wanting to reform the empire, and actually take it to the next level.

Celene is genuine in wanting to reform the empire, and has already taken grand, successful steps to make the entire thing much better for everyone, even elves, giving them and serfs more rights, outlawing the practice of chevaliers having a tradition of killing unarmed city elves to graduate.

But the catch is, while she is genuinely making progress, she is doing so within the confines of the great game.

Celene has nonintention of changing the great game, no plans of wanting to remove this thing that holds Orlais back more than any other, this center stone of their nobility and it's culture.

Meanwhile, Gasparde is a different kind of reformer, one that takes the ideas he had of him claiming to hate the game, and actually doing something with it.

He is far less progressive, has no love for elves, is far more warlike than Celene ever was... But unlike Celene, his ideas of reform isn't going to act within the grand game.

He's going to break it.

Unlike canon gasparde, this gasparde is hated by every single noble family in the entire empire. His only support, and it's a strong one, is the army. The parts of the army that supports Gasparde, and they are a huge part, are loyal to him personally to the hilt.

And he hates them back. He hates the game, he hates the way it cripples the empire, and he wants to change things. Like Celene he plans to break the serfs free of their chains, for the good of the nation and it's power and economy if not for any progressive reasons.

And he'a going to start with Halamshiral.

For this Gasparde isn't merely positioning men to stage a coup... He's planning to kill EVERY SINGLE NOBLE in Halamshiral. Evety man, every woman, every child there.

He's going to reform this empire by wiping out it's cancerous nobility in one fell swoop, and install himself as supreme dictator to see his reforms through, and wiping out the entire Orlesian nobility that might have opposed him, french revolution style.

And thus the Inquisitor has a dilemma.

Unlike Orzammar, where only one side was a reformer, both of these Orlesians are... But you have to choose one.

Do you choose Celene? The more progressive candidate, who wants a more peaceful Orlais going forward? But who is not willing to get ridd of the grand game to do so, thus making it a permanent risk that all her reforms will be undone...

Or will you support Gasparde, and by doing so be complicit in destroying the entire nobility of Orlais, many of whom are not guilty of the shit that Celene and Gasparde here both hate so much? Gasparde is far less likely to create a peaceful Orlais going forward... But he will have obliterated the Grand Game for good and all, a prize that might be worth this Red Wedding style bloodbath.

Meanwhile there is Briala, the elven spy who has enough influence to allow, or prevent Gasparde's plans from going through.

Here there should be another moral dilemma, quite different from the base game.

Do you convince her to aid Gasparde, in exchange for the Elves getting a duchy of their own in Halamshiral? Do you then back her up with Inquisition forces and support, forcing Him to publicly announce her as such, and trust his own, twisted version of honor to actually stick to it going forward(Something he ultimately does), or do you throw her to the Wolves the moment things get rough?

Or alternatively, do you convince her to side with Celene, and bury the hatchet? And if so, on what terms? And similarly, if she actually wants to get something out of this, you actually need to back her up... Something you may, or may not choose to do.

And voila, here you have an actual story of intrigue, massive, lasting political changes as a result of the Herald's actions, and morally grey on grey choices.

Everything that Denerim and Orzammar had in spades.

Now moving on from the plot to the actual place.

Halamshiral has no soul.

It's a french villa on a mountaintop. Whoop de freaking do.

It has no interesting murals, unique art only found there, interesting geography, or anything really to make it stand out.

Compare it to Denerim and Orzammar, and the way they fleshed out the entire city's levels of power and criminal underworlds, and you see the difference.

Denerim is a very realistic, squat, squalid medieval city, with it's buildings built on top of every single bit of available space.

Orzammar is a full on high fantasy dwarf city lit up by a lake of lava.

Halamshiral is a villa presented as a city.

How do you fix that?

There is an artist here on Tumblr who pretty much showcased what Halamshiral could have been, if they had taken the idea of the Dalish(who were the original owners) taking inspiration from native americans(amongst others), and use that to build a truly spectacular city, which has long ago been paved over, but the structure is still there.

Make it a city on the water, like the aztex capital of Tenochtitlan, a marvel of canals and stone.

Make it this Venezia like city, with canals everywhere you look, and the entire city running on water. A marvel of Dalish city building, where they took something as simple as a couple of islands in a lake, and built the most beautiful city in the world.

And rather than just limit you to the palace, instead let you actually explore this city.

Expand the entire event from one night, to a week.

Let the Herald explore the city, meet the players, interact with the nobles, become friends with a few like you could with Ferelden's bans, which in turn makes the possibility of sacrificing them for the greater good hit so much harder.

Let you choose what fancy stuff to wear to the balls and meetings, rather than have this stupid motto of forcing you to wear one, pre determined outfit like this game had for some reason.

Let you discover the places where what little Elven Architecture and art still remains can be found, and talk with the elves who still live here, the descendants after the first elves the Orlesians enslaved.

Make the plotting of Gasparde and the positioning of troops be gradual, not instantly discovered and twarted.

And at the end, if you choose to back Gasparde, you mirror that scene from Dragon Age 2, where the Templars sail across the bay, and you either step aside and witness the bloodbath you just allowed to happen, or you fight them and be recognized by the nobility(most of which are horrible, horrible people) as a hero who just saved the day.

Have the venatori plot be to kill both Gasparde and Celene, rather than their involvement mostly be about handing the player the the easy knife for the knot of which monarch to pick without having to get your hands dirty.

Also have the entire group be gathered for once. Every inner member of the Inquisition just like at Denerim.

Each of whom have their own thoughts on the events.

Who supports who? What is the right thing to do? What is better for the inquisition? Are you staining your honor beyond repair if you back Gasparde? Does the Inquisitor maybe have a breakdown after witnessing what they just allowed to happen and they walk through the gardens or rooms filled with corpses? Maybe have the scene at the end with the love interest be about a moment of them truly comforting their lover in the aftermath of it all, understanding(or not) that as boss, it's your job to have to make the tough decisions. And now you have to live with them.

Or if you wanna go the other way, this could be one of the breaking points like Origins had. If you support Gasparde, Blackwall choses to tell you to get bent, and that he will die as benefits a knight. Defending the week, and calling you out on how you are just as bad as he ever was, a child killer who's going to run away from responsibility, to pretend you are some better person than what you actually are. You're a murder. Just like he was. You are just as responsible for the blood that's flowing as he was with that carriage back in the day.

It would have been a far more impressive reveal moment for his crimes, that's for sure.

Cole probably would be the one who would be second most upset, but wheter he leaves or ultimately stays should probably be depended on your other choices and your relationship with him prior to this, probably have his personal quest be the determinating factor of what he chooses to do.

And i could go on, but point is, this would be a return to Origins choices actually mattering. There were choices that could make or break a characters bond with you. Shale would not budge regarding Caridin, Leliana and wynne would stand against you if you choose to defile the urn, Sevran would choose to betray you for his old friend if he didn't like you enough, and of course the age old choices at the end of act 3 in da2, where you have to pick between templars and Mages, as well as anders fate, and chances are regardless of what you do, at least 1 person ends up dead.

If anyone reading this has any suggestions for how to further improve this storyline, feel free to share, but regardless, i think we can all agree that this is a vast improvement of what we actually got.