#the grief might end some day | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

itneverendshere · 25 days ago

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LOVED YOU AT YOUR WORST - r.c series - NINE

pairings: ex!sweethearts; rafe x thornton!reader; rafe x sofia. chapter warnings: mentions of leukemia; death; pregnancy; abortion.

💌MASTERLIST

Rafe had been through a ton of traumatic bullshit by the age of fourteen.

His mom had been battling leukemia since he was ten, it started off as an infection—but it turned into one of those long, drawn-out wars that tricks you into thinking there’s hope when there isn’t.

It would go away for a bit, just enough to make everyone think the fight was over, and then it’d come slamming back worse every time.

When he was fourteen, it finally took her for good, when he’d been silly enough to believe she might pull through.

To be fair, he was only a little kid waiting on a miracle, praying she’d wake up one day magically cured.

Now, when he looked back on it, he hated himself for being so naive. The signs had been there all along, the nurses whispering in the hallways, Ward turning into this void of a human, who looked at him like he didn’t know how to fix it anymore. The talks his mom would have with him about how “no matter what happens, you’ll be okay.”

That phrase haunted him for years.

Her death didn’t wreck him; it tore him apart and left him in tiny pieces that didn’t fit together the same way. He wasn’t the same kid afterward, not even close.

He got angrier, distant.

He didn’t recognize who he’d been before it all—some kid who really believed in happy endings.

He didn’t believe in much after she died, people let you down, life ripped everything good out of your hands. Why bother holding on to anything at all?

It wasn’t just the grief; it was the guilt.

He’d get mad at her, sometimes, for being sick. He’d slam his door and cry into his pillow because he just wanted a normal life, a mom who wasn’t always tired or in pain or hooked up to some machine.

He hated himself for that.

The day of her funeral, he remembered everything, even though he wished he didn’t. The church smelled like old wood and lilies, that smell that never left you once it sank in.

People kept coming up to him, patting his shoulder, saying things like, “She’s in a better place now,” or “Stay strong, buddy.”

He wanted to yell at them, shake them, make them shut up. She wasn’t in a better place. A better place would’ve been here, alive, laughing at his dumb jokes, or rolling her eyes at him for leaving his shoes in the hallway. It wouldn’t be six feet under, locked in a box, shoved into a hole in the ground like she never existed.

He didn’t cry, not when they opened the casket for everyone to say their final goodbyes, not when his dad stood up and choked through some half-assed speech that was mostly apologies and memories, not when they lowered her into the ground, the ropes creaking as her casket disappeared into the earth.

He just stood there, hands in his pockets, staring straight ahead, as if he wasn’t even present. Inside, though?

His his chest was on fire.

He refused to let even a single tear fall, it felt pointless, it wasn’t going to bring her back. It wasn’t going to fix anything. And deep down, he thought he didn’t deserve to cry, if he’d been stronger if he’d prayed harder, or been a better son, she’d still be alive.

The sound he remembered the most was the thud of dirt hitting the coffin after the service. It was final, loud, the earth itself mocking him. People around him sniffled, hugged each other, wiped at their eyes, but Rafe just stood there, staring down into the hole, fists buried in his pockets until his nails dug into his palms.

He kept thinking about how wrong this all was, this wasn’t where she was supposed to end up, and none of this was fair.

She should’ve been there.

She should’ve been standing next to him, arm around his shoulder, telling him to stop slouching, whispering something to make him laugh in the middle of all this sadness. Instead, she was in there, soon the dirt would cover it up, and that’d be it.

Gone. Just like that.

After the service, Rafe didn’t try to stick around for the house gathering, he wasn’t going to survive that. All those people crowding the living room, balancing paper plates of casserole, acting like they gave a fuck about his mom. It was fake, all of it.

They’d forget about her in a week.

He slipped out when no one was paying attention, cutting through the side yard and heading to the only place that felt halfway normal—the old skate park behind the rec center. It was run-down as fuck, but he and his friends used to hang out there all the time, sitting on the busted ramps, talking trash, or just doing nothing.

When he got there, it was empty, which was exactly what he wanted. He climbed up on the old half-pipe, sitting cross-legged with his elbows on his knees, staring at the cracked pavement below.

He couldn’t stop replaying the day in his head, the casket, the dirt, the stupid better place comments. His chest felt like it was breaking in a million tiny pieces, but he still couldn’t cry, his body just wouldn’t let him.

Instead, he just sat there, wishing the world would leave him alone for five minutes.

That’s when he heard footsteps behind him.

He thought about running—didn’t need anyone seeing him like this, especially not now. But then you spoke.

“Figured I’d find you here.”

He didn’t look at you right away, just exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah? Well, congrats. You win the prize.”

He wasn’t in the mood to be nice, even to you.

But you didn’t flinch, you never did. That’s one of the things he liked about you—you didn’t get scared off when he got like this. You just climbed up next to him and sat down.

You didn’t try to say all that comforting bullshit people had been feeding him all day, and he was grateful for that.

“You okay?” you asked eventually.

He snorted. “Do I look okay?”

"Sorry, stupid question."

He sighed, hating that he was being asshole to his best friend, "It's fine."

When he finally glanced at you, you were watching him, trying to figure out what to say. It made him nervous, the way you looked at him. You always did that—you cared about what was going on in his head, you saw more than what he let people see.

“I’m not gonna sit here and pretend I know what you’re feeling,” you said finally. “But you don’t have to do this alone, Rafe. You know that, right?”

If only you knew what you would be going through just three short years later.

He wanted to snap at you, tell you to leave, he was fine, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, he just stared down at the pavement again, “Feels like I do.”

You didn’t say anything, just moved closer, close enough that your arm brushed against his. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make him feel…something, less alone.

Rafe didn’t know how long you both sat there, could’ve been ten minutes, could’ve been an hour. Time didn’t feel real anymore, you didn’t push him to talk, which he appreciated more than he’d ever admit, you didn’t throw out any of those awkward “it’ll get better” lines. You just sat with him.

“You can talk to me, you know.”

He shook his head without looking at you. “There’s nothing to say.” His voice was rough, flat. “She’s gone. That’s it.”

“You don’t have to pretend like it doesn’t suck."

He clenched his jaw, staring at the pavement like if he looked at you, everything would break.

“What’s the point?” he muttered. “Crying’s not gonna change anything. It’s not gonna—” His voice cracked, and he swallowed hard, trying to force it back.

“Rafe.” You sighed, and this time “You don’t have to hold it together for anyone, okay? It’s me.”

That broke him, actually broke him. His chest felt tight, suddenly he couldn’t keep it in.

His breath hitched, his shoulders shook, and before he knew it, tears were sliding down his face. He tried to stop it, to hide it, scrubbing his hands over his face, but it was no use.

“Shit,” he choked out, his voice cracking once more.

“Hey, hey,” you said quickly, and before he could pull away or do something stupid like tell you to leave, you scooted over.

He froze for a second, unsure what to do, but then he remembered the funeral, the whispers, the dirt hitting the casket, all the things he couldn’t stop thinking about—he just let it all out.

The first sob ripped out of him so suddenly it startled him, he hunched over, elbows on his knees, hands gripping his hair, as if he could physically stop himself from breaking. But it didn’t work.

Another sob followed, and then another, and soon they were pouring out of him—loud, messy, completely out of his control. He couldn’t stop it, and he hated it.

He leaned into you, his forehead pressing against your shoulder, and just cried. When he felt your arms instantly wrap around him, pulling him into a hug as if you’d been waiting for his permission, he shattered completely.

“She’s—” His voice caught in his throat, and he had to stop, gasping for air as the tears kept coming. “She’s gone. She’s gone, and I—” He broke off.

It was ugly and loud and nothing like how he’d pictured himself breaking down, but he didn’t care. You didn’t tell him it’d be okay or try to make him stop, just held him, your arms tight around him.

“I miss her,” he whispered, his voice so small it barely sounded like him. “I miss her so much, and I—I don’t know what to do.”

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried like this, and part of him hated how exposed it made him feel. He hated crying in front of people—anyone. But right now, with you, he didn’t feel embarrassed.

“I know,” you nodded, your hand moving in small circles on his back. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

“I—” he choked out, his voice breaking. “I can’t—this isn’t—it’s not fair.”

“It’s not,” you didn’t want to scare away the fragile pieces of him that were finally surfacing. “It’s not fair. None of it is.”

He couldn’t stop shaking or gasping for breaths that hitched in his chest. The more he tried to push it all backdown, the harder it fought to claw its way out. For years, he’d kept it buried—buried so deep he thought he’d never have to deal with it.

“I hate it,” he managed, the words tumbling out in a jagged mess. “I hate that she’s gone. I hate that I didn’t—” He stopped, gripping his hair harder. “I didn’t do enough. I should’ve been better, done something—anything.”

“Stop. You can’t do that to yourself.”

He shook his head violently, “But I did. I gave up on her. I stopped believing she’d get better, I—I got mad at her for being sick. What kind of son does that? I didn’t even say goodbye the way I should’ve. I just—I left the hospital because I couldn’t take it anymore, and then she—” His voice cracked again, and his hands dropped from his hair to his lap, clenched into fists “She’s gone, and I left. I wasn’t there when she—” His breath hitched, and he buried his face in his hands.

“You’re a kid. It’s not your fault, okay? None of this is.”

“But it feels like it is,” he shot back, “I should’ve done something, anything. I just feel so—” He stopped, letting out a shaky exhale. “Empty. Like nothing I do matters anymore.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

The way you said it, so certain—He didn’t know why, but it cut through the noise in his head just enough to let him breathe again.

“I don’t know how to keep going,” he admitted, “I don’t know how t-to live without her.”

Growing up, Rafe had always been a momma’s boy.

She was his safe place—the one person who didn’t make him feel like he had to be someone else. With her, he didn’t have to try so damn hard to be tough, or perfect, or whatever the hell his dad wanted him to be.

Ward wasn’t the kind of dad who let his kids cry on his shoulder or told them he loved them every day. No, Ward was the kind of dad who believed in rules.

Men didn’t cry. Men didn’t show weakness. Men didn’t mess up—or, if they did, they sure as hell didn’t admit it.

He expected Rafe to follow those rules like they were gospel.

The worst part? His rules about what it meant to be a man stuck with Rafe, even when he didn’t want them to. When his mom got sick, he found himself choking back tears in the hospital bathroom, staring at his reflection and hearing Ward’s voice in his head: “Crying doesn’t solve anything. You’ve gotta be strong, for her, for your sisters.”

He had this idea in his head of what Rafe was supposed to be—strong, dependable, successful. He didn’t yell or lose his temper like some dads back then, he just made him feel like shit in this fucked up way.

Rafe tried, shit, he’d tried, but it felt impossible.

Every time he looked at his mom, pale and tired but still managing to smile at him like he was her whole world, he felt like he was dying too, then he’d feel guilty—for being so weak, for wanting to break down when she was the one fighting for her life.

It didn’t help that Ward had always had a soft spot for Sarah. Everyone could see it, even Rafe. She was the golden child, the one who could do no wrong, the one Ward went out of his way to protect.

If Rafe screwed up, it was a lecture or a punishment, but if Sarah did? Ward would just shake his head and say, “She’s still young. She’ll learn.”

It used to piss him off more than he wanted to admit. It wasn’t that he hated her—she was his sister, and he loved her. But how could he not resent her? He felt invisible when she got all the attention and the understanding, while he was expected to man up and deal with it.

After her funeral, things changed.

Rafe became quicker to snap, to walk away from anything that felt too hard. He was only himself around you, behind closed doors, never for preying eyes. Sarah grew colder, retreating into her own world where everything was controlled and distant.

Every time they spoke, it ended in shouting matches, slamming doors, or long stretches of silence that neither of them attempted to solve.

Except when you were there.

Ward got even colder, the grief had frozen whatever part of him used to care. He threw himself into work, making sure Sarah was okay, and barely even looked at his son. When he did, it was usually to tell him to pull it together, or to stop being so “moody.”

Rafe started to wonder if he even cared that he was falling apart, if he ever noticed the nights Rafe stayed out too late or came home smelling like booze. If he saw the way he avoided talking to him, how he flinched whenever Ward brought up his mom. But if his dad noticed, he never said anything.

He thought it was just Rafe being Rafe—angry, unpredictable, a disappointment.

Fast forward to the present, and he hadn’t felt this helpless since that day at the funeral, not even when Ward’s died four months ago.

You weren’t in his life anymore—hadn’t been for a while and you were possibly pregnant.

He wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but it made sense, everything lined up with that possibility. He thought back to everything you’d been through together, the times you’d been there for him when no one else was, how you’d seen the pieces of him no one else cared to.

Now, you were having his kid—and he was hearing about it from Topper?

Rafe spent the first hour after Topper dropped the news pacing his bedroom like a caged animal, his heart wouldn’t stop racing and he felt like a ticking time bomb.

The Rafe—the one who flew off the handle, yelled, broke things, and pushed people away—was begging to get out. But Topper’s voice kept replaying in his head, he had to act right, be calm, for your sake. To prove himself.

The problem was, that staying calm wasn’t his strong suit.

He’d spent years burying every emotion he couldn’t control under layers of anger, and now he was supposed to sit with the hurricane in his chest and figure out how to make things right.

For the first time in a long time, he realized he didn’t even know where to start.

That night, he locked himself in his room, ignoring his phone, his friends, everyone. None of it mattered anymore, the only thing he could think about was you—and the baby.

He spent hours pacing, running his hands through his hair, trying to think of what the fuck he was going to say.

What was he gonna say after everything he’d put you through? After the fight, the distance, the way he’d shut you out when you’d been nothing but good to him until that point?

He sat down on the edge of his bed, head still in his hands, and let himself feel everything he’d been avoiding. The fear, the regret, the anger at himself. He thought about you—how you used to look at him like he wasn’t just a mess of a person, you’d stuck by him even when he’d given you every reason to leave.

You weren’t here anymore.

He’d pushed you so far away you hadn’t even told him about the situation yourself. Why would you anyway? He ghosted you and the next time you saw him he was with someone else. He could still see the look on your face when you saw him that night—arms slung casually around Sofia, while you sat in your car, eyes wild, you hadn’t tried to step outside, hadn’t yelled or made a scene, you simply drove off.

It wasn’t until an hour later and terrible text message to you, that drunk and pissed at himself, he realized just how badly he’d screwed up. But by then, the damage was done, and he’d been too much of a coward to fix it. What followed was a sea of bad decisions and nights he couldn’t remember, trying to drown out the ache of losing you.

He’d been drinking for Ward’s death until that point, now he did it for you.

Everything was catching up to him—the way he let his dad’s voice in his head drown out his own, making him let you slip through his fingers.

He didn’t deserve you—he knew that.

By sunrise, Rafe was still wide awake, sitting on the floor of his room surrounded by half-crumpled pieces of paper. He’d been trying to write down what he wanted to say to you, but everything sounded wrong. He’d never been good with words, not the kind that mattered.

He wasn’t a dad, wasn’t even close to being the kind of guy who could be a dad.

What the fuck did he know about raising a kid? Changing diapers? Teaching someone right from wrong? Being patient? But the thought of you—of you carrying his kid—hit him differently.

At first, it had been pure panic. You hated him, what if you didn’t want him involved? What if he was just like Ward—cold, distant, always expecting too much? What if he screwed the kid up the same way he felt like he’d been screwed up?

He pictured it without meaning to: you holding a tiny bundle in your arms, your face soft in a way he hadn’t seen in so long. A kid with your smile, your laugh—but his eyes. Or his messy hair. It scared the shit out of him.

What if she doesn’t even want to keep it?

Rafe hadn’t let himself go there at first, it was a lot to wrap his head around, the idea that there might not even be a child to fight for.

The thought of you going through this, struggling to make a choice that he couldn’t help with, made him feel useless.

Frustrated, he grabbed his keys and headed out, needing to clear his head. The island was silent this early, the kind of calm that used to make him feel trapped, but now, though, it was a relief. He drove aimlessly for a while, the salty air whipping through the open windows, until he found himself parked at the beach.

He didn’t know why he’d come here—well, you’d always bring him here when he spiraled. He sat there, watching the waves crash against the shore, feeling a weird sort of clarity that he hadn’t felt in months.

Perhaps it was the silence, or the way the ocean didn’t care about all the fucking mess in his head, but something about it made him stop spiraling for a second.

He started to think about what Topper had said—not just about staying calm, but about proving to you that he still cared. That wasn’t something he could do with words alone, not after everything. He’d have to show you, he’d have to be the version of himself you used to believe in, the one who wasn’t ruled by his worst impulses.

Rafe knew the first step before he could even think about talking to you: he had to end things with Sofia. They weren’t official, but they might as well have been.

People talked, made assumptions, and sure, he’d let them. It was easier that way—less explaining, less having to deal with the uncomfortable truth that he’d only been with her to fill the empty space you left behind. It was cruel, but at the time, he hadn’t cared.

Sofia wasn’t you, but she was there, and more importantly, she didn’t expect anything from him. Keeping things going with her wasn’t just a bad idea; it was disrespectful. To you, to her, to himself. He couldn’t pretend he cared about her like that—not when his heart had never really left your orbit.

When he showed up at her place that morning before work, she didn’t seem surprised—not even a little. She’d seen the writing on the wall for weeks now, but tonight, seeing him standing there, just confirmed what she already knew.

She watched him like she was waiting for him to get to the point, but not impatiently—just resigned, she already knew what he was about to say.

“Can I come in?”

She let him in without a word, she wasn’t mad, not really. If anything, she felt sad—mostly for him, a little for herself. How the fuck was he supposed to explain this without sounding like the worst person alive?

“You okay?” she asked quietly, she wasn’t being polite—she was trying to read him, figure out where this was going.

Rafe didn’t sit, didn’t take off his jacket. He stayed standing, hands shoved deep in his pockets, trying to find the words that wouldn’t make this worse. “I—” He cleared his throat. “I need to talk to you about something.

She raised an eyebrow, her lips pressing together in a tight line. “Be honest.”

“This...this isn’t fair to you,” he started, his words tumbling out fast, “I should’ve been real with you from the start, but I wasn't," He swallowed hard, “You deserve better than me using you to forget someone else.”

Sofia didn’t say anything at first, just crossed her arms loosely, not making it easy for him, but she wasn’t making it harder, either.

“I shouldn’t have dragged you into this,” he continued, forcing himself to look at her. “It feels wrong and it’s not because of you. You’re great. You’ve been...you’ve been more patient with me than I deserve.”

Her lips curved into a small, almost imperceptible smile, one that wasn’t quite happy but wasn’t cruel either. “But you’re still in love with her.”

He didn’t know why it shocked him—Sofia had always been perceptive—but hearing her say it out loud made it real in a way it hadn’t been before.

“I—” He hesitated, but there was no point in denying it. “Yeah.”

“I knew,” She nodded like she’d been waiting for that confirmation. “I figured. I told myself it didn’t matter because—because I thought maybe you’d move on. Maybe I could help you move on. But you didn’t, and I—” She pressed her lips together, shaking her head as her arms tightened around herself.

Rafe’s brows furrowed. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

She shrugged, the movement almost casual.

“Because I really like you,” she admitted, “I knew. The party? When you got blackout drunk after seeing her leave? Or the country club, when you nearly started a fight defending her? I know you drove her to the hospital too. I kept hoping—God, I kept hoping you’d see me, that you’d let me be enough.”

He’d known she cared—he wasn’t blind—but hearing her saying like that made him realize just how he fucked up. She wasn’t wrong. He had been trying to numb himself, to drown out the reality of losing you, and she had been the collateral damage.

He looked away, guilt twisting in his chest. “I didn’t mean to drag you into this. That wasn’t fair to you.”

“No,” she agreed, her tone firm but not unkind. “It wasn’t, but I don’t think you meant to hurt me either, you were trying to hurt yourself. It's still stupid of me to try, knowing you need to figure your shit out, but you don’t have to end things. I know what I signed up for, Rafe. I’m not asking you to choose me over her—I’m just asking you to try."

There was no anger in her voice, no bitterness—just exhaustion. It made him feel like a piece of shit because she deserved to feel angry, to lash out at him. But instead, she was still trying to give him a way out, a way to make this easier on himself.

“I’ll take whatever part of you I can get.”

It wasn’t desperate or pleading—it was resigned. She already knew the answer, but she couldn’t help saying it out loud.

Rafe shook his head, his jaw tightening as he fought to keep his composure. “No,” he said, his voice firm. “You deserve someone who can give you everything. That’s not me.”

“Why not?” she pressed, her tone insistent.

“Because all of me already belongs to her,” Rafe admitted, his voice breaking at the end. “It always has, it always will.”

Sofia blinked, her lips parting slightly in surprise, but she didn’t look hurt—just...sad. She nodded slowly, her shoulders dropping in defeat.

“I hope she knows what she has, and I pray you show her," She stood up and motioning toward the door. “We both deserve better than a guy who drinks himself to death after seeing her at a party. So do you.”

Rafe didn’t move right away, unsure if he should say something more, apologize again, explain himself better.

“Thank you,” he said finally, his voice quieter than he meant it to be.

“Don’t thank me,” she replied, “Just do better.”

“I shouldn’t have let it go on this long,” he confessed, “I just—I didn’t know how to stop.”

Her expression softened just enough to show the tiniest sliver of empathy. “For what is worth, I think she still loves you too, even if she hates you more right now.” She paused, her hand resting on the doorknob, but she didn’t turn around, “Next time, please don’t do this to someone else, and don’t do it to her again, either.”

She still loves you too, even if she hates you more right now. He wanted to believe it, needed to believe it. The faint possibility, that you might still love him, it meant he had a chance but it also meant he could screw them up even worse.

He stood slowly, “Thank you,” he repeated,“For...everything.”

She didn’t look at him, but she nodded, opening the door and holding it for him. “Take care of yourself,” she said, and it wasn’t cold or angry—just sad.

By the time he got back to his car, he knew she wasn’t wrong, about any of it.

She hadn’t screamed or cried or made him feel like the asshole he knew he was, that made it worse. If his mom was here, she would’ve smacked him across he head for hurting two amazing women at the same time.

He hadn’t been ready to deal with his feelings for you—not when he started whatever the fuck it was with Sofia, not when he ran into you at that party, not when he defended you at the country club.

He’d been running, hiding, trying to bury everything under distractions that only made him feel emptier.

He leaned back against the headrest, closing his eyes, and for a moment, it was like he was fourteen again, sitting on the edge of his mom’s hospital bed while his mom teased him.

“Come on, sweetheart” she’d said, her voice playful, even through the weariness. “You’ve been talking about her birthday for weeks. I think you like her more than you’re letting on.”

Rafe’s head shot up, and his ears burned red. “Mooomm,” he groaned, dragging out the word, “it’s not like that, she’s my best friend.”

“She’s your pretty best friend,” she’d corrected, smiling at him in that knowing way only she could. “You’re gonna pick out something nice for her, right?”

“I already did,” he mumbled, pulling a small velvet box from his pocket and holding it out like it was some great secret. Inside was a delicate bracelet he’d saved up for, something special, something he thought you’d like.

His mom’s smile had softened, the teasing fading into something more tender.

“She’s lucky to have you,” she’d said, reaching out to ruffle his hair. “Even if you are a little knucklehead sometimes.”

He’d ducked away, embarrassed but secretly pleased, tucking the box back into his pocket.

“M’m not a knucklehead,” he complained, but she just laughed, and it was one of the last times he remembered hearing her laugh like that—free, unburdened, just his mom.

“She’s a good one. You’ve got good taste.” Her smile softened, and the teasing faded into something gentler. “I hope I’m still around when you get married. I’d love to see you happy like that.”

The words were a punch he hadn’t expected. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. What could he even say to that? He wanted to argue, to tell her she would be, but the look in her eyes stopped him.

She knew. She always knew.

He just nodded, biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood. “Me too.”

She squeezed his hand. “Promise me something?”

“Anything,” he said without thinking because he meant it.

“When you find that person—really find them—don’t let them go. Not for anything.”

He nodded again.

Years later, standing in a stupid fucking car alone, those words haunted him. He’d found that person, he’d had her and he’d let her go.

“God,” he muttered, the self-loathing reaching a new high, “I’m so sorry, mom.”

As terrifying as it was to think about being a dad, to think about raising a kid when he was still trying to figure out his own life… the idea of losing this chance—of losing you, or the baby, or both, for good —scared him even more.

For the first time in a long time, Rafe Cameron felt something close to hope, but it was tainted in so much fear and uncertainty, that he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

The rest of the day, he forced himself to slow down.

He went back home, cleaned up the disaster of a room he’d been holed up in, and tried to think like a normal guy instead of a walking disaster. He even let Topper come over, though his patience for his relentless commentary wore thin fast.

“You’ve got one shot at this, dude,” Topper said, perched on Rafe’s desk like he owned the place. “If you go in there guns blazing, she’s just gonna think you’re the same old Rafe. And honestly? You can’t blame her.”

Rafe rolled his eyes, but he didn’t argue, Topper was right, as annoying as it was to admit.

He spent the evening coming up with a plan—just enough to make sure he didn’t go in blind. He practiced what he’d say in his head, pacing the kitchen while the sun sank below the horizon. Every time he started to panic, he forced himself to breathe, to remember why he was doing this.

By the time 24 hours had passed, he didn’t feel ready, but he knew he couldn’t wait any longer. The thought of you sitting somewhere, thinking he really didn’t care or that he wouldn’t step up?

That was worse than any fear he had about facing you. So he grabbed his keys, and headed out, this time, he wasn’t running away.

Rafe stood by your door, he’d gotten in the property using the gate’s code, one he’d hoped you had changed to keep him out, but you hadn’t.

He’d never been good at patience, never needed to be—not when he could push his way into anything. But this was different, you were different, always had been.

The wood under his hand was cool, in a way that pissed him off because it reminded him that there was a barrier between you and him, again, always.

He wanted to scream, kick the fucking thing down like the old Rafe would’ve, or instead use the keys you’d given him years ago. Instead, he stood there, swallowing his pride because you were worth it, even if it was tearing himself in half.

His knuckles dragged down the frame, fist clenching as if the pressure would ground him, keep him from losing his shit. He wasn’t here to fight, wasn’t here to make your life harder, no matter how much you thought he was.

The door rattled slightly when he pressed his forehead against it, eyes squeezing shut. “Five minutes. Please.”

Nothing.

His jaw worked, teeth grinding against the words he wanted to say but couldn’t, not if he wanted you to open the door. He couldn’t do this anymore—the back-and-forth, the lies. He wasn’t sure what broke first—your resolve or the knot in his throat.

When you didn’t answer again, he sank to sit on the porch, back against the door like he could still feel you on the other side. You were there—close enough to touch if there wasn’t this fucking door between you.

That was his fault.

He used to be the guy you’d let in without thinking twice, shit, there was a time when he didn’t need to knock.

He was in, part of your life, part of you.

Now, you were holed up, scared of him. Yeah, that ate him alive. He’d earned that fear—every cold shoulder, the slammed door, he deserved it.

He should’ve been different, been better, been someone you didn’t have to lock out. You were scared, and it killed him because it wasn’t just fear, it was him. He was the reason you didn’t feel safe enough to let the secret out, the reason your voice cracked when you told him to leave.

He had put that look in your eyes, the one he couldn’t unsee, no matter how hard he tried.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

He could almost hear you breathing, shakily, like you were preparing yourself to outlast him.

He wanted to push. Fuck, he wanted to shove the door open, make you look at him, make you tell him everything—but that was the old Rafe, he took what he wanted, and bulldozed through whatever stood in his way.

Where had that ever gotten him? Nowhere but here: on the wrong side of a door, the wrong side of you.

He exhaled, long and slow, hand falling limp to his side.

What the hell was he doing? Forcing his way in, forcing answers—that wasn’t going to fix this. It never did. You’d push harder, build the walls higher, and he couldn’t stomach the idea of you hating him more than you already did.

“Okay,” he said quietly, his voice strained. “I get it.”

He didn’t know if you could still hear him, perhaps you were blocking him out completely. Maybe you were curled up with your hands over your ears. He hoped you weren’t crying, though the thought twisted and turned something deep in him.

“I’m not gonna push you,” he said, hating how defeated he sounded. “You don’t owe me anything.”

He ran a hand down his face, swallowing hard, trying to keep it together.

“I just... I just want you to be okay.” He hesitated, then pressed his palm flat against the door, wishing he could reach you somehow, without scaring you, “Baby or not.”

He waited, hoping for something—a sound, a movement, anything, but the silence was absolute.

His heart clenched as he pushed off the door and took a step back, his shoes scraping against the porch. He didn’t want to leave, he never wanted to leave, but this wasn’t about what he wanted. Not anymore.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, almost to himself, "I'm so sorry. I’m sorry it took me this long, okay?”

He stopped halfway, looking back, hoping—praying—for some sign. A light flicking on, the sound of the door creaking open, your voice calling his name, anything.

But the house stayed still, it had already moved on from him.

He didn’t remember deciding to drive to Poguelandia; he felt it in his gut, in the pit of his chest, this pounding certainty that Sarah knew something he didn’t. You wouldn’t tell him—but Sarah? You’d chosen her to drive you home from the hospital just a few days ago.

She was the only person that could lie to his face properly, he couldn’t fucking figure her out, she was always deflecting shit wherever they talked.

By the time he pulled up to the pogues’ little hideaway, the sky had darkened, the place lit only by the glow of string lights and the hum of voices inside. He sat in the truck for a second, staring at the house, willing himself to calm down.

Barging in—loud, pissed, impulsive—wasn’t going to get him what he needed. But fuck, it was hard not to.

He climbed out, slamming the door behind him with just enough force to feel better for half a second. The screen door creaked as he stepped up to the porch, and he could already hear them inside—Sarah’s laugh, JJ cracking some dumbass joke, the rest of them chiming in like they didn’t have a care in the world.

He hated this, hated how they all looked at him, as if he was some ticking time bomb ready to explode. They weren’t wrong.

Rafe knocked, hard and sharp, the laughter inside cut off instantly. Footsteps approached the door, hesitant. A second later, it swung open, and there she was, his sister, looking at him like he was the last person she wanted to see.

“Rafe,” she said, one hand still gripping the door. “What are you doing here?”

He didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “We need to talk.”

Her brows pulled together, suspicion creeping into her expression. “Now? Seriously?”

“Yeah, now,” he snapped, stepping closer, his voice low enough to keep from drawing the others’ attention. “Don’t make me say it in front of them.”

She hesitated, glancing over her shoulder toward the voices in the living room. “Rafe, I don’t think—”

“Don’t,” he cut her off, his tone sharper than he meant. He swallowed hard, forcing himself to soften, to keep it together. “I need you to tell me the truth.”

She glanced back again, then sighed, stepping out onto the porch and closing the door behind her. He was already pacing, hands twitching at his sides, hardly able to contain the energy inside him.

The way she looked at him—wary, guarded—only made it worse.

“What the hell is your problem?” she asked, crossing her arms, like she was already bracing for a fight.

“My problem?” he barked out a laugh, sharp. “You really wanna play dumb right now? You’ve been keeping something from me, Sarah. I know you have.”

Her brows knit together, feigning confusion, “Dude. What’s this about? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bullshit,” he hissed, stepping closer, “Don’t lie to me. I already know, okay? I know about the baby.”

She didn’t say a word, didn’t confirm a thing, just stared at him like he was some wild animal.

“Where did you get the idea that she’s pregnant?”

His mouth opened, then closed. It felt wrong to snitch on Topper when he’d been one making him pry a little more.

“Well?” she pressed, “Answer me. How did you come up with that?”

Saying it out loud felt like admitting he’d been just as reckless and intrusive as everyone expected him to be. His hand ran over his face, trying to stall.

“I didn’t just make it up.”

Sarah’s eyes narrowed, her patience waning. “No shit. So where, Rafe?”

He glanced away, then back, his voice defensive. “Topper said something, okay? He heard—he thought—” Rafe stopped, knowing how weak it sounded.

“Topper? You’re taking life advice from Topper now?”

“He didn’t mean anything by it!” Rafe was quick to defend him, “He just... he mentioned some things, and it got me thinking. That’s all.”

“That’s all?” Sarah repeated, “You barged over there because Topper mentioned ‘some things’ ? Jesus Christ.”

His hands flew up in frustration. “What was I supposed to do? Pretend I didn’t hear it? Ignore it and hope it went away? I needed to know!”

“No, you didn’t,” Sarah shot back. “You wanted to know. There’s a difference, and it’s the difference that keeps getting you into this shit.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” Rafe pointed a finger in his direction, “Like I’m crazy or something. I’m not stupid.”

"You’re just not worth the energy right now."

Instead of crying like he wanted to, he let out a dry laugh, pacing back and forth in front of her.

"Right. Sure. I can see it all over you, just say it."

She shook her head, her lips pressing into a thin line. "You don’t know what you’re talking about. Neither does Topper.”

“Stop lying!” His voice rose, loud enough to echo into the dark yard. “Just stop. You know something.”

Sarah’s jaw clenched, and for a moment, Rafe thought he’d finally cracked her. Except instead of giving him what he wanted, she just let out a slow breath, meeting his eyes with a steadiness that made him feel like a child fighting for his favorite toy.

“You want to know the truth?”

“Yes,” he bit out, his chest heaving.

She stepped forward so they were only inches apart. “The truth is, you don’t deserve to know. Not yet.”

Everyone kept telling him the same thing, couldn’t they see he was already trying?

He staggered back a step. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"It means, that whatever you’re looking for, whatever answers you think you deserve, they’re not yours to take. Not until you can handle them without breaking everything you touch."

He flinched, her words striking something inside him, “You don’t get to decide that for me,” he said, almost desperate.

“I’m not deciding anything,” she replied, her eyes never leaving his. “You’ve spent these last few months making everything about you. Your pain, your anger, your needs.”

He glanced away, “So, what? You don’t trust me?”

Her silence was louder than anything she could have said.

“You don’t,” he murmured, the realization bitter in his mouth.

"I don’t," she agreed, “You’re still not the person she needs you to be, and until you can prove you can do that—without me, without anyone holding your hand—you’re better off not knowing.”

“I’m trying. I swear to fucking God, I’m trying. I don’t know how to fix it.”

“She’s scared you’re going to hurt her again—whether you mean to or not. You’re dating someone else, for god’s sake.”

“I ended it. This morning.”

Sarah’s eyebrows lifted slightly, “Doesn’t change the past, Rafe. And it sure as hell doesn’t make everything better overnight.”

Rafe flinched, the words sinking into him like stones. "Why the fuck do you think I’m here? I don’t want to hurt her—I can’t do anything if she won’t even talk to me."

Topper still had that number.

You hadn’t hidden it well enough, he hadn’t done anything with it, but it was tempting. All he had to do was call, just to confirm, he told himself. Not to pry, simply to know for sure.

“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t. This isn’t something you can force your way into. She would never forgive you, please be smart.”

His first instinct was to lash out, fire back some venom-laced retort that would sting as much as her tone. He nodded, swallowing hard.

“Okay,” He dragged a hand through his head, “I know that, I know. But I can’t just sit here, doing nothing. I need to... I need to show her I can do better. That I am better.”

“You need to crawl through hell to understand a fraction of what she’s going through; you need to stop thinking about what you want and start thinking about her.”

His hands fell to his sides, limp, the fight suck out of him. She was right—he hated that she was. This wasn’t about him anymore; it never had been.

“What can I do?”

Her expression softened, not with forgiveness but something sadder—she wanted to believe he could. “You start by fixing yourself, then you wait. Until she’s ready, if she’s ready. You’ve got to mean that, Rafe, you screw this up again..."

"I won’t," he said firmly, cutting her off. "I can’t."

“Okay.”

“What if she’s not ready?”

He had no right to demand more.

“You keep going, keep trying. Not for her, not for anyone else—just for you.”

By the time he got back in his truck, the hurt in his body hadn’t lifted. His mom’s words echoed in his mind one more, “When you find that person, don’t let them go. Not for anything.”

Maybe that started with learning to be the person who deserved to hold on.

TAGLIST: @maybankslover @october-baby25 @haruvalentine4321 @hopelesslydevoted2paige

@rafebb @rafesbby @whytheylosttheirminds

@zyafics @astarlights @bruher @nosebeers @carrerascameron

@serrendiipty @sunny1616 @yootvi @ditzyzombiesblog

@psychocitylights @maibelitaaura @kiiyomei

@stoned-writer @justafangirls-blog-deactivated2

@starkeygirlposts @enjoymyloves @ijustwanttoreadlols @icaqttt

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nereidprinc3ss · 2 months ago

Text

trolley problem

in which fem!reader has been gambling with her life and spencer reid is more than a little concerned

flangst, hurt/comfort warnings/tags: passive suicidal ideation from reader, she keeps risking her life, that really grinds Spencer’s gears, established relationship, existential dread, existential euphoria, lots of stuff about grief and death and self worth, not advocating for this, pretension from the author, blasphemy probably?, reader gets fuzzy from prescribed painkillers, arguing, hospital stuff, mention of sleep paralysis involving spiders, reader gets shot but she’s fineee, I pander to intro to philosophy takers, bau!reader, neurodivergent coded reader, if she’s not exactly like you I’m sorry, bean soup a/n: one day you’re in a writing slump literally the next you are in your notes app for six hours writing whatever the fuck this is but I think I love it even tho it’s weird and I hope u like it too!! btw this was gonna be called cotard's syndrome but then I never once talk abt cotard's but if u care that might be interesting context for the motif of not feeling human/alive, WC 3K

Spencer hasn’t spoken to you since the doctor left the room five minutes ago.

The air is antiseptic as you take it deep into the hollows of your lungs and trap it there for a moment, trying to optimize oxygen intake without actually having to breathe very often. Hospital smell is as universal as it is suffocating. It reeks of everything but death—flowers, blood, bleach, vomit. A humiliating, desperate scramble to defy the very thing that defines mortality. It’s pathetic. It reminds you of the worst instances of failure and loss and denial in your life. It curdles your blood. Literally rots you from the inside out.

You’ve had ample time to ponder that smell over the last few months because you keep ending up here, and some time ago you decided the institution of the hospital is inherently absurd. It’s stupid to think you could avoid the one absolute condition on your corporeal form: impermanence. It is the only thing that is promised, and people still waste their lives away running from it. It is the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy.

So around the time you acknowledged that hospitals are simply monuments to the self-importance of man, you gave up on trying too hard to preserve yourself. You’ve seen death too much and too often. You’ve tried staving it off with prayer and the miracles of modern medicine, and it never matters in the end because it’s all magical thinking anyway. All the wallowing and the bargaining and pleading never got you anywhere.

You’ve accepted that from the moment you were born, you were marked for death.

But you’re not a complete nihilist. You’re not even totally resigned to the abject certainty of death—because you’ve found a loophole.

Everyone has as many chances at escaping death as other people are willing to offer them at the cost of their own lives. Not many people are willing to make that trade—someone else’s life for their own—but you’ve decided you are. Because if not you, then who?

It’s not that you don’t see the value in your own life, as Spencer keeps making it sound. It’s just the opposite. You understand that you’ve got an extremely valuable resource, and you don’t just have to sit on it. There are things you can do. Choices you can make. Ways to defy death.

Just… not yours.

Or maybe you’re just in deep denial.

Either way—this is a philosophy your boyfriend intentionally refuses to understand. He gets mad, or some kind of upset, every time you try to explain it. Usually he ends up leaving the room close to tears. You never feel good about it.

Right now he’s presumably trying to give you the silent treatment and not doing a very good job.

“Stop holding your breath. Why are you—stop that.”

Spencer’s frowning, skin sallow and milk-blue under fluorescent lighting. Purple seeps from around his eyes like spilled wine on a white table cloth. Your stomach turns.

“Sorry.”

He doesn’t tell you not to apologize. You don’t expect him to.

“Why are you doing that? Does something hurt?”

Other than your entire bicep being on fire due to the 9 millimeter Luger it recently came into contact with?

“Not really. I just don’t like the smell of hospitals.”

At that, he gets stony again. Like, Medusa stony. You feel a tightening in your chest that has nothing to do with a lack of air. His arms are crossed. A silk lined blazer drapes over your lap, and you wonder if he’s cold in just that white button up. It’s translucent in this light, like onion skin, or maybe something less organic—the folds and wrinkles look like fabric, but lots of things look like something they aren’t. In the Pietá, Jesus lounges dead on his mother’s lap, his cheek pressed to her arm like either of them have warm flesh, and her skirts drape from her knees and fall to the ground in delicate folds just like Spencer’s jacket and looking at pictures of it you swear you could find comfort there too—but if you wanted to make space for yourself next to Jesus you’d have to do it with a chisel and mallet. You’re starting to think that’s what it’s going to take with Spencer, as well.

“So stop walking into active gunfire. You’ll spend a lot less time here.”

Every deep sigh (of which there have been several) calcifies you further. Ironically, you never feel less alive than you do in a hospital.

“I didn’t walk into active g—”

“I’m not debating it with you. It’s not a discussion.”

“So you’re just going to be pissed at me for the rest of forever? I mean, if it’s not a discussion—what are you gonna do? Break up with me?”

You feel yourself dripping poison in the well. Even as you say it. As his head tilts toward you slowly and intently from his spot against the wall, and his warning gaze is cold and unforgiving and weighs 3.35 tons.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Talk?”

“Don’t try and manipulate me by implying that there are no options between permissiveness and dumping you!”

“I’m not manipulating you. And I don’t need your permission to do anything.”

The first part is an incredulous scoff as well as a blatant lie. You are manipulating him. Chisel and all. At least, you were trying to. It clearly doesn’t work very well. His jaw clenches.

“Is this worth it to you? Fighting with me like we’re children solely so you don’t have to take accountability?”

“Accountability for what? I made a choice. I don’t regret it. You’re upset because I did my job.”

A beat.

Silence always makes you feel the gravity of your words.

“Do you believe that?”

His voice softens so much, so quickly, it splinters down the middle.

You’ve never been known for your light touch. For someone who sees eviscerated bodies nearly every day, and prides herself on her evolved understanding of mortality, you often forget other people are not, in fact, impenetrable marble—they are flesh and blood and bone, and you’ve splattered yourself in the evidence of that.

“What?” You murmur. You easily turn timid, when you’re afraid you’ve been too heavy-handed. Spencer’s seen you sob over the birds who hit the windowpane and never reappeared from the shrubbery—their delicate wings, their little beaks—he didn’t mean to, Spencer, and now he’s dead! He’s seen you spend forty minutes catching a spider with a cup and an envelope rather than smush it, even though you have reoccurring episodes of sleep paralysis wherein a giant arachnid is sitting on your chest, hissing and clacking its pincers. He knows you are, at your core, kind and good.

It’s a little scary for someone to know that about you. It’s a little scary when you see your own vulnerability reflected in their eyes and the way they speak to you, the way you see it in him now.

“Do you believe that the choices you make regarding your safety don’t concern me at all?”

“They’re… my choices to make,” you whisper, but you’re less sure than you were a minute ago.

“I’m not talking about that—I’m talking about how it feels like you are trying to kill yourself every time we’re in the field.” His voice shakes. You swallow. “You have been hospitalized for four serious injuries sustained on the job in the past five months. Every time I bring it up, you—you talk about life like it’s optional for you. Like you’re not only willing to give it up but are actively looking to throw yourself in harm’s way every chance you get. You think that doesn’t terrify me?”

There’s a small chip in the paint on the wall next to him roughly the shape of Africa.

“It’s not like that. I’m… I’m just having an unlucky streak.”

He snaps.

“Luck isn’t going to get between you and a bullet. Ever.”

“It’s my job, Spencer.”

“No. It is a risk of the job. Not a defining feature or requirement. But you keep running toward gunfire like you have a quota to meet.”

“Spencer, I’m not doing it at you. I’m not trying to get myself hurt.”

“Well it doesn’t really feel like you’re trying to avoid it, either,” he shoots back immediately, and you feel the anguish radiating from him until it lodges in your own chest, like it was always yours. Maybe it was.

You want to make it better, but you don’t know how, and even if you did, he’s pushing off the wall and crossing the room toward the door.

“Where are you going?” You call, a little too desperately for your liking.

“You need to eat something.”

Which translates roughly to he’s pissed and upset and he needs to leave the room. You’ve done this song and dance before.

However, food and an absence of him are contenders for the absolute last two things you want right now.

“Spencer, please don’t—”

But the door is already whooshing closed.

You stare at the grey and white checkered floor. Light bounces off the waxen reflection—some sort of parallel universe you can’t reach, perhaps. The whole room is desaturated. A mechanical humming threatens to drive you insane. It doesn’t feel like a place for living humans. You’re not convinced you are one.

When he comes back, maybe ten minutes later, nothing’s moved at all. In fact you’re not even sure you’ve been breathing.

The door closes as quietly as it opens.

This time, wordlessly, Spencer comes to you. You see his shoes first—his serious adult shoes. You wish he was wearing his Converse.

Then you see the bottle of apple juice he’s cracking open for you. Blue lid. Same kind you always get.

“You didn’t bring food.”

“You wouldn’t have eaten it.”

Fair enough.

You take the bottle with your good arm and sip shallowly—all that adrenaline and the subsequent interpersonal strife has left you nauseous. The drink is too sweet. It clashes with the tang of metal in your mouth.

Still, you drink enough to satisfy him, and then you’re tossing his jacket aside before balancing the bottle between your thighs so you can screw the lid back on. He doesn’t go back to the couch or his spot on the wall.

Spencer doesn’t pull away when you lean into him, but it does take him a moment to reciprocate. You’re still grateful all the same when he cradles the back of your head to his stomach like you’re made of porcelain.

“I don’t think you understand how upset I am,” he says quietly.

Only Spencer Reid could be furious with you and still hold you like this.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur.

“That’s not good enough. You need to stop risking your life like that.”

He doesn’t get it. Your brows flutter as they try to furrow but even holding that expression saps you. Maybe the pain meds are finally kicking in.

“I just wanna help people.”

“That doesn’t explain to me or justify your urge to do it at the cost of your own life. We all want to help people, angel. The whole team. That’s why we do what we do. But we don’t run into shootouts. We don’t split off and provoke people with guns when we’re unarmed and unprepared.”

“But it worked. She got away.” You feel a spark of fulfillment at the memory of Gloria Sanchez in JJ’s arms just before the ambulance doors had slammed you into your first cage of the night.

“We don’t know if he was going to kill her. He might not’ve fired at all if you didn’t go running toward him. That wasn’t strategic, it was reckless and irresponsible and you know that. I know you do. So something else is going on.”

The pressure in your nose that usually precipitates tears comes as a surprise.

“I just—if that’s how I can save someone, why shouldn’t I, you know? Why do they have less of a right to live than I do just because they’ve been deprived of the choice? If I have a choice, and they don’t, I should choose to… to help them. That’s my job.”

For a long moment, you listen to your own breath, muffled by Spencer’s shirt, and the mechanical humming, and something dripping, and the low, buzzy chatter of nurses far down the hallway.

When Spencer next speaks you get the sense he’s holding a lot back. His voice is taut enough it wavers slightly. Taut enough that if he weren’t speaking so quietly he might be yelling. It’s like pinpricks all over your body—not enough to hurt, but enough to make sure you’re paying attention.

“You can’t help anyone if you’re dead. Do you understand me?”

And yes, in theory, you do. But that doesn’t negate your original point. It only takes one life or death moment for you to utilize the most valuable resource you have. What happens after is no longer your concern.

“On the psych evals you helped develop it asks if you think it’s appropriate to sacrifice the one to save the many. The answer is supposed to be no. If you say yes you get flagged. The FBI frowns upon… lever-pullers. And that’s exactly what I’m doing if I let one person die when I could’ve potentially saved them.”

“Protecting your own life is not pulling the lever. What you’re doing isn’t smart or morally righteous. You’re just throwing yourself across the tracks, too. If you were to fail a psych eval right now it would be because you’re passively suicidal. And you know what? The FBI also tends to frown upon self-immolative delusions of grandeur and girls who like to play sacrificial lamb.”

“’M not a… sacrificial lamb…”

“No,” Spencer agrees quietly, stroking your hair. “You’re not.”

And you can’t react to the fragility in his voice, or the content of his words, and the fact that when he says it he means something different—you can’t do anything about it. You can only catalogue it. You can only know that he loves you, and feel a little guilty about it.

Some time passes. You don’t know how long he remains standing so you can doze against him. He does not smell like the hospital. He’s the antidote for whatever grief they distill from widows and orphans before aerosolizing it through the whole place.

“Baby?” He asks eventually. You know the lilt of it. He’s been thinking.

“Hm?”

He hesitates.

“Can we talk about you maybe taking some time off of work?”

“You heard the boss,” you mumble. “I can’t come in for at least a week.”

“I mean beyond that.”

You intend to respond, but by the time you open your mouth you’ve lost the prompt in all the brain fog.

“You’re so comfy,” you murmur dreamily. “Thank you for being mad at me.”

If he responds, you miss it.

You’re imagining the bed waiting for you at home, once the doctor is done observing you—warm, neatly made. Blankets woven with soft fibers. A mattress that will sink under your weight. You think of Spencer, who’s shaping himself to you, Spencer, who intentionally inhales when you exhale at night to make room for the rise and fall of your chest against his. You think of the imprint of his buttons on your cheek. You are both flesh and blood and bone.

Strange, pill-induced half dreams and visions and memories take over. You’re in that alleyway again. That man fires. You don’t blink or scream or feel.

Just before the bullet makes contact you’re standing in front of the Pietá. It’s massive. Spencer is there, too, holding your hand.

You can’t actually see him, only, you know he’s there. You feel his warmth, his presence, when he leans over to whisper in your ear. The way you know him goes beyond sight.

The Pietá—meaning the pity, in English—is 6’7” and six feet wide. It weighs 6,700 pounds. Michelangelo had to quarry the block of marble himself. He was only 25 when he finished. The Basilica keeps it behind bulletproof glass.

Jesus and Mary behind bullet proof glass.

God. Who’d try to kill Jesus a third time? He’s already dead.

Besides—they’re both made of stone. Bullets would probably just ping right off of them. Or maybe they’d shatter just like you did.

Probably not though. You’re not actually made of marble. You’ve no idea what it feels like to be a statue and get shot at. You sure know how it feels as a human, though—and it feels like shit. You don’t really know why you keep doing it. None of your reasons are good enough for Spencer, and he’s, generally speaking, pretty smart about some things.

Maybe you’re tired of being human.

Maybe you’re tired of sleeping on your arm funny and waking up to a hand in your bed that doesn’t feel like yours and remembering all the hands you’ve held moments before they couldn’t hold yours back. Or tired of those moments where you are being held and it’s so unbelievably perfect and then someone has to let go, or when someone you love hugs you goodbye and you realize that there will always be a final I love you, or simply getting older and watching potential life paths fall away like rotten fruit to the ground. Maybe life is sometimes so good it hurts and you can’t bear it. So you tempt fate. You walk a tightrope because even if you fall and it can’t ever feel good again—at least it can’t hurt either. At least you won’t lose anymore.

And yet.

It does feel good, sometimes. Sort of often, actually. Even when it’s awful.

Dead Jesus and Mary, with their marble skin and their bulletproof glass and their holiness and their virginity and all the other things they have that you don’t. Nobody can hurt them anymore. Not ever.

Maybe that’s something you envy.

But you doubt they’ve ever been so terribly, wonderfully alive as you’ve been, or as comfortable as you are like this, leaning into Spencer’s warmth and his softness, in the hospital, or the Vatican, or your dreams. Your bicep was ruined but it’s healing. You are capable of ruin and rebirth in the same lifetime. In the same day, in the same hour.

You doubt that in 520 years, behind bulletproof glass and unyielding, eternally flawless skin, they’ve ever felt as invincible as you do now.

You doubt they ever could.

#spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #spencer reid angst #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds fic #criminal minds fanfic

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cowboysmp3 · 2 years ago

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everything is going good and great <- boy who is lying

#vent #i just had a pretty severe panic attack about moving home <333 #2nd of the night xoxoxo #i am scared to go to sleep bc then it’s one day closer to moving out xoxoxo #can’t believe my life just ends on the 24th of june #sorry 4 the struggle posting rn it is just Quite Difficult #i am coming to terms a little bit with the reality of my mom perhaps having some narcissistic behaviours that might be impacting me a lot #i am not using that term lightly this has been heavily discussed with my therapist of 2 years #i’ve tried to be so practical and positive about this move and i’m trying to like #respect the grief of everything i’m losing while not letting myself get out of control about it #but i am losing this battle #i do feel sooo out of control #leeds i’m going to miss you so terribly #it will be okay btw it’s just going to be a tough year ahead i think

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moonlight-prose · 5 months ago

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RIGHT WHERE YOU LEFT ME

➛ 01. IN DREAMS WE REST

a/n: i've been stressed about this fic probably more than any other i've ever written. not because it's logan per se, but because wade wilson makes me want to rip my hair out. i love that bastard, but writing him feels like pulling teeth. i'm in love with this concept solely for the angst, so if you see more throughout and wonder if they will ever get a happy ending, please know i'm dead inside. enjoy!

summary: stuck in another universe and unsure of where he stands, logan expects things to even out as they always did. but when you cross his path and you have no idea who he is, he's in for a rude awakening.

word count: 5.9k+

pairing: logan howlett x f!reader

warnings: not explicit, wade wilson breaking the fourth wall, angst, cussing so much cussing, alcohol consumption, grief, pain, a broken man pretending he's not broken, chance encounters, awkward conversations, hope.

NEXT CHAPTER | SERIES MASTERLIST

He can hear it when he sleeps.

Their screams.

The constant ring of agony that chimes out like a bell, an alarm he never set for himself. A joke once told to him in the midst of World War II, as bullets flew by him and soldiers lost their lives each second of each day. There's no escape from hell. No running from the devil that nipped at his heels the faster he went, the longer he tried to navigate a way free.

There's no escape from the memories that ate away in his mind. Multitudes of them, of the faces he once called family, the people he used to love. They were his punishment. The boulder he continued to roll up the hill, day after day after day. Until eventually...he was crushed by his own self-hatred.

"Logan." The voice whispered long enough for him to grasp who it might be, yet never louder than a mere breath of air.

He clung to it some days. Sunk his claws into what little of his past remained good and allowed it to fill him with some amount of peace. At least then he'd be able to bear this weight, this grief he could never quite name.

Something light brushed across his cheek. Tickling the skin enough to send a flare of irritation down his spine, but the dreams held him in their grasp. What came next never surprised him. He expected it at this point—longed for it. The distant pain of losing what once made him whole; the entirety of his life now defined by one single moment he could never change.

"He sleeps so sweetly. I just want to curl up in his arms and have him read me bedtime stories."

"He's not gonna like that when he wakes up."

"Zip it Al. If I wanted an opinion, I'd go see a Hollywood therapist."

A scoff echoed in the background. "No therapist wants you on their couch."

"Not true. I hear Ryan Reynolds has a great one."

"Who?"

"Not the point." The feather dusted across Logan's face again, soft enough to keep him asleep yet annoying enough to bring a smile to Wade's face. "I wonder if he's dreaming about killing bad guys. They say it's good for the soul."

"Who the fuck is they?"

Wade laughed. "Oh you know. Them. The readers. And boy howdy do they love their blood."

Every day he was forced to listen to Wade's voice became another day Logan dragged his claw through a tally mark of his sanity. "Do you ever shut the fuck up," he growled, gripping Wade's wrist until he heard the satisfying crack of bones.

"Only when I swallow."

"I'll tear your fuckin' arm off."

The smile on Wade’s face only added another tally. "Nice kitty. No need for the claws."

Anger washed across his skin in a familiar wave as he released Wade's arm, watching it go limp. Trying to kill the unkillable walking irritation was like trying to swat a fly that never quite died. It still buzzed incessantly. Until eventually madness was the only viable option of dealing with it. In his case, he seemed to be driving head on with no brakes.

Logan wasn't sure he possessed enough sanity left within him to keep dealing with this. Sleeping on the couch didn't help the way his body never rested; always stuck in that permanent fighting mode. He'd give anything to find some peace. A small sliver of it carved off the past that continued to call him—that begged him to come back and try again.

Swinging his legs off the couch, he planted a swift kick to Wade's chest that sent him across the floor. The lack of caffeine in his system left everything hazy and half coherent. If he focused he might have caught the keys thrown at him, but being exhausted and sober didn't make for a good combination with him. An empty whiskey bottle lay discarded on the floor from last night; the memories of how he passed out barely tinged on the edge of his mind.

He could recall stabbing Wade in the leg.

Nothing beyond that.

Dried blood—now an ugly brown—stained his white shirt. He nearly stripped himself of it, prepared to throw it in with whoever was washing next, but his flannel being chucked at his head caught him off guard.

"Fuck off," he snapped, stumbling to the kitchen.

Wade sighed, following him. "Get dressed, peanut. We have to go do human things today."

"Human–”

"Food," Al retorted. "We're out."

Even in a new universe, he couldn't see himself acting normal. For so long he did what had to in order to survive. Yet now...he wasn't so sure. Accompanying Wade Wilson in order to complete household chores left a bad taste in his mouth. But the thought of fresh coffee and an unopened bottle of whiskey sounded like sweet silver bells in his head.

With reluctance, he buttoned up half of the flannel before he became annoyed with the small size of the holes punched into the fabric. There was only so much he could do with the life he had now. And sometimes shit really sucked.

"Don't scratch my fucking car," Al pointed her words towards Wade, thankfully ignoring Logan's existence for a brief moment.

"Is it safe for her to own a car?"

The door shut behind him with a bang, echoing down the vacant hallway. He was surprised people actually lived here given Wade's antics. They could hear the loud mouthed fucker across the street—if the angry notes in the mail were anything to go by. He didn't bother asking if he should be concerned with any of it. Not when he had no say in how the house was run. And choosing to insert himself where he wasn’t needed, rarely went well for him.

"God no. But I give her the benefit of the doubt. She hasn't killed anyone. Yet."

He yanked the keys out of Wade's hand. "Yeah well I don't trust you either Bub."

The car didn't leave room for his legs as he squeezed into the driver's side. His body practically folded in half as he turned it over—the rumble of the engine rattling against metal. How Blind Al managed to pay for this vehicle went beyond even Wade's knowledge, and in all honesty…he was too fucking scared to ask.

Too much seemed to be happening for him to ever catch up. While this Earth felt similar to his, small things were different. And when they began to add up...he began to wonder if he was drowning.

"Turn left to merge onto the asscrack of traffic."

He barely heard the directions as he drove, his mind drifting the further they went. Part of him sensed the grief from earlier begin to claw up the back of his throat. It begged him to fall, to be swallowed whole by the darkness he'd been stuck in before. And he nearly gave in; could feel his body shift into its constant mode of fight or flight.

The steering wheel cracked under his white knuckled grip as Wade's voice became an afterthought to the war he fought in his mind. Terror trapped itself in his throat and he slammed his foot on the brakes a foot away from a parking spot in retaliation. The car lurched forward, his claws descended. A snarl rumbled in his chest the longer he sat there thinking.

"Woah..." For the first time in days, Wade fell silent. "You alright?"

Logan ripped himself free, shoving his body out of the car before he even threw it in park. He gulped in breath after breath and did his best to wait for this fucking feeling to leave his system. The nightmares only came as he slept. A constant familiar horror show after two centuries.

Yet now he was left like this. Leaned up against a car, his eyes closed shut, and heart racing.

All because he couldn't do his fucking job.

"Logan–"

He snapped, shoving past Wade and his pity that choked him with a vengeance. He didn't deserve anyone's pity. He didn't want it. But people couldn't help but hand it over unconsciously. As if they could see the layers of broken pieces beneath his false expression of strength. Logan never pretended to be okay. Why bother with something people could see right through?

He merely wanted others to ignore he was there. Walk past him, look through him, do whatever it took to pretend that him and all his tragedies weren't standing before them. Because one day he would die and fuck how he couldn't wait for that time to come.

A small hole in the wall dive bar sat in the corner of the shopping center. He barely caught sight of it. But the unmistakable scent of alcohol poured out the door as someone stumbled out—their eyes squeezed shut against the harsh brightness of the sun. He could understand them in a way.

His world didn't have sunlight this bright. Or perhaps he never noticed it ‘til now.

Maybe his body wasn't acclimated yet; unsure of what the fuck was still happening. Everything seemed to be turned up to eleven for him, yet no off switch existed.

The dark hazy glow of the interior sent a wave of calm through him as the door swung shut with a soft thud. Four people sat scattered around the place and a bartender with white and graying hair stood cleaning a glass so foggy it was probably better to throw it out. He found himself letting out a breath that'd been trapped in his chest since that morning. Finally some peace before he had to listen to Wade yap about bullshit he didn't in fact give a shit about.

"What'll you have?" the old man asked, his face screwing up in a wince as he limped towards Logan's spot at the end of the bar.

A quick glance down let him see the brace wrapped around the man's knee. "Whiskey on the rocks."

He nodded, slowly heading towards the center of the wall—a lonesome half empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the counter. Logan shifted, taking the center seat directly behind the man.

"I can't say I've seen you around before son."

He grinned, his finger tracing a random carving that'd been placed in the wood. "I just moved here. Living with a coworker."

"Coworker huh?"

The word didn't sound right to Logan, but he couldn't exactly call Wade his friend. Although they were more than people who fought together, more than men who shared blood during the same battle. That was the thing about Logan though. He'd never be able to put a label on something like that. To him...things weren't one or the other as much as he wanted to pretend they were. There was nuance to his life.

Complications which made living that much harder.

The man turned, surprised to see Logan so close, but didn't make note of it. Logan could see the gratitude in the way his drink was slid carefully to him. The small silent thank you in the bowl of pretzels placed beside it.

"You look lost."

Logan grunted, biting into the salty and dry snack. "Do I?"

"More than some of the others that come around here."

"And who comes around here?"

The man laughed. "No one as of late. You're the first young man I've seen in a while walk through those doors."

He bit back his laugh at the word young. The stories he could tell would leave the man baffled. About wars that no living person had witnessed. About when the world was far different than today—when mutants were freaks of nature and humans were far less forgiving. He could list it all and then some.

But whether or not someone would listen was another thing entirely.

"This place that old?" he inquired, sipping on the amber liquid with a contented sigh.

"Oh you bet." A weary laugh filled the space. "I bought this place in the sixties. When my wife was still my girlfriend. She almost left me because of it."

Logan huffed, his lips curling slightly. "She wasn't a fan?"

The man shook his head, tossing a cloth over his shoulder. "Still isn't. Well she...wasn't." He pressed his thumb to the worn gold band on his left hand. "When she was alive she used to host a book night. Helped bring in the men's wives. Kept them outta trouble."

"Book night huh?"

"She loved to read."

Before he could down the final sips of his drink it was topped off. Logan nodded his head in thanks, his thumb digging into the thumbprint shape of the glass. If he thought about it hard enough, he could almost see himself coming here every night. He pictured a life far different than his own, a past where he might have been happy. With someone who might have even made him smile.

"I'm not much of a reader," he replied, his voice hoarse and eyes fixed on the ice that floated to the surface.

"Ah me too," the man laughed. "I just liked seeing her smile."

A soft remark was on the tip of his tongue before an entirely new image began to take shape. The face of someone lost. Of a smile he'd known better than his own. Hands that once held his face with the tenderness of a lover—a voice that sent the hair rising on the back of his neck. He could see it as clear as he did the man.

You in all your beauty. Lost to a past he could no longer rectify.

He swallowed thickly, beating back every emotion that crawled under his skin. "What's your name?"

"Travis."

Raising his glass, he tipped it towards the man with a tight grin. "Logan." The alcohol went down with a quick and biting burn. A feeling he'd grown familiar with. One he counted on.

"Nice to meet you Logan."

"Yeah you too."

He dug out some cash and tossed it on the bar as he stood with a slight grunt. He may heal quickly but the ache in his bones still existed. As if something resisted against how his body moved with each slow shift.

Fighting meant he could ignore it.

Existing is what made it worse.

The sun practically burned his eyes when he stepped out, the heat of the day encompassing his whole body quicker than he would have liked. For some unknown fucking reason, summer here felt worse than on his Earth. Then again the alcohol didn't help. He stood in the shade of the building next to the bar, searching the parking lot for any sign of Wade.

Going into the store wasn't an option and as much as he wanted to leave the annoyance behind, he didn't want to feel like a piece of shit. That is...even more than he already did.

"Fuck," he hissed, leaning against the brick wall. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."

One option would be taking a walk to work off the energy that ran through his veins. At least then he'd be able to sleep at night. And the temptation almost worked. If it weren't for the shop doors that opened to his left, effectively distracting him from the chance of leaving. He could have ignored the person, probably should have given everything he'd been through.

But then his heart dropped to his stomach as you walked out. He'd never seen you in such a soft sundress before, the off white fabric draped off your curves in a way that floored him. As if you were an angel floating by without a care in the world. You were busy shoving a small piece of paper in your purse, your face furrowed in frustration, and Logan smiled. Because he'd traced each line of that face before, he'd kissed those cheeks, your eyelids as you slept.

He'd loved you in ways that would scare a normal human.

And there you were.

"Honey?" he called, unconsciously following you quicker than he intended to. "Honey."

You glanced to the side, completely unaware of the giant lumbering man trailing after you with a soft look on his face and hope in his hands.

That alone tore him in two more than the memories from before.

"Baby, it's me."

The breeze finally went through the air, pushing the skirt of your dress a bit higher on your thighs. Except that's not what he latched onto. Your scent was different. Unlike any he'd encountered before. Honey still sweetly caressed his senses, but flowers overlayed that—peonies if he guessed. Delicious enough to have his mouth watering; his body already aching for you to be closer. To look at him in the way you used to.

He wanted to call out to you—gain your attention properly—but your name wouldn't leave his tongue. Because you were there and you finally caught sight of him and you were looking at him as if nothing bad ever happened between the two of you.

You saw him as a man.

Not a disappointment.

He willed himself to stop and breathe. Take in his surroundings; realize that you weren't who he once knew. You weren't even the same fucking person.

But before he could think straight, he'd already followed you halfway to your car. His eyes were dazed, heart nearly throttling him alive as he stood there dumbly. Waiting for you to finally speak.

"Oh..." Your heart rate spiked quicker than he expected. He couldn't find it in himself to feel bad though. "Hello?"

"Honey," he sighed, the weight on his shoulders lifting ever so slightly.

He caught the way your fingers tightened around your keys, the defense mechanism an instinct by now. And Logan realized what he looked like. A strange man standing too close for your liking. So he took a step back and gave you some space. In the hopes that you wouldn't see him as a threat. That maybe...you'd listen to what he had to say.

"Can I help you?" you asked, eyes darting around the parking lot in case you needed help.

What he wouldn't give for the opportunity to reassure you. To explain that he wasn't here to hurt you. That he'd kill himself before even laying a hand on you. Yet the correct words were lost and all he seemed to get out was an incoherent babble that had him wanting to dig his own claws into his chest.

"You smell different."

You straightened your spine, eyes narrowed into a glare he felt burn across his skin. "Look, I don't know who you are. But fuck off."

Something akin to pride flared in his chest at your tone, your words. But he couldn't show it externally. How would he explain that your fight—your fire—is what drew him to you in the first place? How could he tell you about a version of yourself you'd never know? A person he thought would be with him until his last breath exhaled into the world.

"I'm not here to hurt you." He raised his hands in an attempt to prove his point, but like your variant counterpart you were willing to bite first and ask questions later.

"Yeah. Sure asshole." The shopping bag in your other hand was lifted up, until you had a tighter grip on it in case something happened. You didn't know him. You probably never would.

But Logan had to try. He owed it to you to give it all he had this time around.

Otherwise...what was the point of living?

"My name's–" He made the wrong move stepping forward and knew it the second his boot hit the gravel. With a wince, he watched you stumble back against your car, your arm coming up to protect yourself. "No. Look I'm not gonna do anything–"

"Get the fuck away from me," you spit.

He moved back as if approaching a wounded animal—his body finally on edge in a new way. The fact that you didn't know him wasn't what broke off another chunk of his heart. He could handle that. He'd been through that.

You were afraid of him.

That realization dug in too deep for his body to heal.

That...he couldn't live with.

"WOAH hey!" He'd never appreciated Wade's irritating ass more than in this moment. He jumped between the two of you, the cart of groceries forgotten as he blocked Logan from your sight. "Step away from the nice lady wolf boy." Wade regarded you with a smile. "Hi! Sorry. This is my uncle and well as you can probably tell he's lost eight of his lives. So we're going on little old nine. And well the mind just goes to shit first."

Seconds passed by like minutes and Logan watched you visibly deflate. "Wade," you greeted him, visibly calmer than before. Logan felt his stomach twist violently at the thought. "It's good to see you. How's the job?"

"Oh yup you know. Left that. But I'm really pushing through. I've got an Etsy store where I sell miniature paintings of Michael Angelo's David's penis. So there's that."

Your laughter sent a hole through his chest and Logan bit back the growl that rose up the back of his throat. What the fuck was Wade doing making friends with you? Why were you laughing at his humor?

He couldn't count how many days he'd spent longing to hear your laugh again, the shine in your eyes that always came around when joy flooded your bloodstream. He could smell the honey off your skin, the warmth of what no doubt lay beneath your thin dress. And he wanted to rip Wade to pieces knowing that he was the one making it happen. That you were comfortable with a man who's mouth ran at a mile a minute.

"Did your sister have the baby yet?"

You brightened and Logan felt his heart stutter. "She did! A boy."

"Named Wade I hope."

Another peal of laughter had Logan's claws itching to descend as you ignored he was there. "Theo actually. A cutie."

"Aww." Wade moved closer, head bent to see the small polaroid you pulled out of your wallet. "Wow, he looks like you'd find him in a Gerber's advertisement."

Your eyes drifted up, past Wade's shoulder, until you finally caught Logan's gaze. And he felt like he could breathe. Every ounce of fear was wiped from your face; interest now creeping in as you dragged your eyes down his form. Past the slight peek of chest hair and down to how his jeans hugged his hips. Logan stood taller for your benefit, as if he needed to make a good impression.

He wanted to linger in your mind for days. Until the curiosity ate you alive.

"We're gonna go," Wade announced, after grabbing your bag and placing it in your trunk for you. "Someone has to feed the blind woman in my apartment. She tends to root through everything looking for food." He gripped Logan's arm, shoving him back a good few feet. Even as your eyes still remained glued to his face. "Glad to see the Hyundai is still working. You know you could take the fattest fucking nap in the back of that puppy. Makes you feel like an Egyptian mummy."

"Bye," you said, a dazed look in your eyes as Logan smiled in your direction. At ease with the knowledge that even in a different universe, he could still fluster you with a look.

Dragging himself away from you was hell, but Wade's grip remained unbreakable as they clambered to the car. The groceries stacked in the small backseat.

He could glimpse you driving off and suddenly the nightmare from earlier was the last thing on his mind.

Wade's back hit the wall with a crack before the door could shut properly. The groceries in their hands toppled to the floor. He barely had time to duck before Logan's claws were aiming for his head—a snarl ripping from his throat.

"What the fuck?" Wade shouted, grabbing the paper bag and gently setting it on the table. "Next time just say you need to stay home and find some joy in an empty room and your hand."

"How do you know her?"

Wade smiled, assessing the furious state of chaos Logan was now left in. The tatters of his stability falling to the floor around him. For as much as he held himself together, it certainly remained easy enough to tear him a part.

"Got an eye on someone, do we honey badger?"

Logan grimaced, running a hand down his face. "Would you just fucking tell me?"

"Let me bask in this Logan. I'm about to watch a romcom come to life and need some popcorn." He rummaged through the bag, yanking out some chips. "Salty and sweet. That'll do."

"Wade," he bit out.

"Stick with us girls, we're about to get to the good stuff."

"WADE!"

He tossed the bag to the table, eyeing the way Logan never quite settled. "I'm gonna take a guess and say we know her more than just friendly hellos."

Logan couldn't answer because his grief did it for him. He did what he could to catch his breath, to stop seeing his version of you. The disappointment on your face, the pain in your voice. You'd been so angry with him. To watch the person he loved be reduced to a screaming crying mess wasn't something he wanted to relive, but Wade's question seemed to send an avalanche toppling to the ground.

"She's..." He sucked in a breath. "On my world. I...knew her."

"Knew her? Or knew her."

He reached for the bottle of whiskey Wade threw in with the rest of the groceries and popped it open before he spoke again. "It didn't end well between us. None of it did."

Wade fell silent and Logan found himself loathing the quiet more than the sound of his voice. If he was joking Logan could ignore it. He could pretend nothing happened. That you weren't here, you couldn't be hurt by him again.

You were safe from his destructive tendencies as long as you were in another universe.

"She lives across the street." Logan's head rose and whipped to see the window that faced the building across from them. "The old uncultured shit whistles that keep complaining about WHAM! the greatest thing to happen to music. They're her neighbors. Live right next door."

"Neighbors."

Wade nodded, offering him a chip. "She found their note and angel that she is, she very sweetly threatened to get them evicted. I offered to let her borrow my katanas but was rejected like younger me on prom night. You've really got yourself a catch there buddy."

Logan didn't need Wade to tell him how fucking lucky he was. He knew that the second you walked out of that store. You were everything good in his life at one point, everything he couldn't save. There wasn't much keeping him going on his old Earth, but having you made all the suffering he went through—all the pain he endured—worth it.

If you were waiting for him at the end, he'd do it all over again.

"So you want to take a dip in that honey huh? Taste that rainbow?"

His claws would have sunk into Wade's throat if a knock hadn't sounded at the door. With a huff, he stepped into the kitchen, the bottle clutched tightly in his hand. Whoever decided to give Wade some luck was of no concern to him.

Or so he believed.

"I didn't mean to accidentally take your groceries," you laughed, handing over a overpacked paper bag.

Stuffing the bottle under the sink, he met you halfway to the living room, his eyes drinking in the sight of you still in that dress. Still delicate enough for him to rip if he tugged it right. Heat curled along the base of his spine when your eyes met his, wide and glimmering with your laughter. He felt himself crumple at the sight of your lips parting, the surprise at his size still enough to make you speechless.

"Good to see you again," he greeted you, voice low and soft.

You didn't mean to grow flustered in his presence, but something about the way his gaze devoured you within seconds left you breathless. The swooping sensation in your stomach became too much to handle. Desire and attraction weren't unknown concepts to you. But this felt like more. You could sense him right down to your bones and it scared the shit out of you.

"Oh right!" Wade scooched past you to swing an arm around Logan's shoulders. He did what he could to not stab him in the stomach. "This is Logan. My hunky new roommate."

Logan groaned. "Alright–"

"No, no it's good. You remember when I was declared basically the savior of the universe?"

Your face screwed up in confusion. Logan had never wanted to kiss someone more.

"Marvel...Jesus right?"

"I prefer MJ. Since I've got a Peter." Wade's head whipped to the side. "Suck it Tom Holland." His grip on Logan tightened. "This walking People's Sexiest Magazine helped. We're talking big claws, abs you just want to lick whipped cream off of–"

Logan's elbow slammed into Wade's stomach—crimson slowly tinting the tips of his ears. "That's enough."

"AND the Wolverine."

Surprised etched itself onto your face even further. Until you finally regarded Logan with a look he'd seen once before. Awe. When you first met one another in the halls of the mansion, you stared at him that exact way. As if you couldn't quite believe that iconic figure the X-Men made him out to be actually existed.

He couldn't tell if he liked it. Or if he'd rather you view him as a stranger.

"Logan," he said, offering his hand to you politely. Your skin remained as soft as he remembered.

Warmth bloomed in your body at the feeling of his calloused palm overwhelming yours, the scars across his knuckles old and ancient. Yet you found yourself wanting to trace them over and over, until the sight of them seared in your mind. You fought the urge to press your lips to them, etch your own mark into his skin. Something told you he wouldn’t mind.

Logan could see the intrigue on your face—the distracted gaze he wanted to keep in place. You were still curious. Still willing to learn about him. To pick him a part with soft words and even softer touches.

"Logan," you murmured under your breath, your eyes catching his. He felt his stomach leap at the sound of your voice whispering his name. Memories flooding his mind quicker than he expected. Of mornings spent in bed, your skin pressed against his. Of nights alone in his cabin—your stories lulling him to sleep.

Everything he willed himself to forget, yet could never truly let go of.

"I've got to head back." Disappointment filled your heart at the thought of not getting a chance to talk to him more. He had yet to let go of your hand and you found you liked his touch on your skin. "I'll see you soon Wade."

"Logan will be more than happy to walk you back," Wade replied, waving drastically behind your back. "Can't have you getting hurt now can we? Right peanut?"

You smiled. "I'm just across the street."

"I don't mind," Logan cut in, glaring at Wade to shut the fuck up.

"Okay," your voice was soft. Happy.

Logan would have done anything to keep it that way.

The walk back wasn't long enough for him to explain his actions from earlier, but you seemed to be just as smart as your variant self. Shutting the building's door, you turned to him—your dress fluttering in the breeze. Logan choked on his spit at the slight peek of your ass before you pushed the skirt back down around you.

"Did you know me?" You lead him to the corner, waiting for the traffic to die down. "On your Earth."

He paused, his eyebrows pulling together, and for a moment you wondered if you asked the wrong question. Wade told you bits and pieces of what happened since you last saw him, but Logan's background wasn't a discussion you tried to seek out. All you knew was that Wade acquired a new roommate. Not even a name.

Certainly not that he was Wolverine.

"Yes," Logan muttered, glancing at the change in lights.

You started to walk. "In what way?"

His hands curled into fists—echoes of his past rising to the surface. "We were...friends. You're a professor."

"A professor?" you exclaimed, a smile tugging on your lips. "Am I a mutant?"

He nodded. "You're able to bend time. Or control it." He snorted, following your lead towards your building. "I could never understand it. But Charles did."

The walk up to your apartment was silent, your thoughts filled with the new information he'd given you. And no matter how hard you tried to picture it, you couldn't see yourself as a mutant. A powerful being that held the ability to manipulate time who just so happened to be a professor. Somehow even thinking about it made you wonder why Logan was bothering to entertain this version of you. When the better one existed on his Earth.

"You said were."

Stopping at your door, he nearly knocked into you. "Hm?"

"Were friends. What happened?"

The answer he couldn't give you. The words he wouldn't even admit out loud to himself.

He felt his heart twist as if a knife slowly carved through his spleen. "We uh..." He coughed. "You..."

"I don't have to know." Grasping gently onto his arm, you offered a warm smile he felt down to his toes. A look he hadn't seen in quite some time. Logan could picture the last day you were happy in his head. Laughing with Charles in his office as you shared dinner, working on theories of your powers late into the night.

A week before they came.

"It's good to see you like this," he breathed, his hand reaching out to touch your cheek before stopping midair. "Happy."

Your eyebrows knit together. "I wasn't happy?"

"No." What he wouldn't give to take that information back, but it was out in the open, and as always—he remained too late.

"Why?" you asked, your hand sliding down to his much to his delight.

"I made you a promise." He sucked in a breath, his body begging him to start running. You'd be better off if you never knew. If you never remembered him in the first place. "I couldn't keep it."

I'll always keep you safe.

Words he refused to say again.

How could he promise this version of you that? How could he look you in the eyes and lie again? Breaking his Earth's you would haunt him for the rest of his life. He couldn't fathom doing it all over. It would kill him.

Except you weren't the person in his mind. You weren't the mutant who hated him with every fiber of your being. You were you. A continuous surprise that left his heart stuttering in his chest each time you looked his way. An enigma he found himself wanting to unravel.

"Maybe this time around you can," you said softly, letting him go with a smile as you entered your apartment, effectively opening the wound in his heart so wide there was no saving him.

Although he now knew something he didn’t know before.

He didn’t want to be saved.

#logan howlett x reader #logan howlett x you #logan howlett x y/n #logan howlett x f!reader #wolverine x reader #wolverine x you #wolverine x y/n #my writing

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nanamis-bigtie · 1 year ago

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50 Smutty Fics Ideas

Made this for an event I haven't run in the end, but it'd be a pity to keep them hidden. I hope they'll help your creativity flow!

A and B are hiding together in a tight place, their bodies pressed close. With adrenaline running in their veins, the situation eventually gets out of control.

A and B are dancing what eventually leads to a slow, intimate dance. A gets aroused from B pressing close to them.

A has an obvious crush on B and plans to finally confess. A chickens out and tries to opt out of the situation, but B presses them to speak in a spicy way.

A is tied to an altar as a sacrifice to demon!B. More than taking their life, B is interested in taking their body.

During a visit in a sex shop A spots a weird toy. B suggests purchase as a joke. Little do they know A seriously wants to use it.

A and B are friends with benefits. A's feelings turn out to be genuine, but they don't want to ruin the balance, so they keep it to themself…until they accidentally slip a confession during sex.

A is really into a specific body type/body part and B's body looks as if taken straight out of A's fantasy. A can't hold it anymore and reveals how much B turns them on.

A and B are on a motorcycle trip. The constant movement, vibration and touching is getting them excited.

A walks on B changing. It's the first time they see them naked, and they can't peel their eyes off them.

A survives a near miss. B, worried and scared to death, doesn't want to leave their side since then.

A and B need to share bed due to circumstances. They wake up in each other's arms and it awakens something in them.

A goes down on B. B wears nothing but stockings. At some point A starts tearing them out of the way with their teeth.

A loves B's scent but they keep it secret. One day B catches A masturbating while sniffing a piece of their clothing.

The way A moans "I love you" turns B absolutely feral.

A tries to get B jealous as a part of their flirting game. B snaps way harder then A predicted.

A and B are in a dom-sub relationship. A breaks a rule and B has to again teach them how to be a good sub.

A is less experienced in kink than B. B introduces them to the world of kink with their favorite one.

A gets extra loud during sex so B has to cover their lips. Limited oxygen/fingers in mouth insanely turn A on.

A and B meet for what's not supposed to be a romantic date - but they feel so good around each other, it's suddenly 2am, and they don't really want to part. A proposes B to move the meeting to their place.

A is arguing with B. They truly can't decide whether they want to kill or fuck B more.

That was supposed to be just a make out session, but A kisses so good that B gets impossibly aroused.

A and B are about to face a dangerous situation. They want to enjoy life before it might be too late.

A celebrates a great success with B. Drinks and festive atmosphere quickly turn the matters spicy.

It's A's birthday and they find B tied to bed in nothing but very revealing lingerie.

After a soul-draining break up, A wants to get rid of remaining grief & enter a new path of life with a bang: they contact B, a professional dom.

A and B realize they are being watched during sex. They don't intend to stop.

A is in a middle of meeting when they receive a message B. It's a very explicit nude.

A puts a blade by B's throat, be it seriously or as a joke/teasing. B's reaction is…enthusiastic.

A's hands seriously distract B. Their reactions eventually clue A in: and they decide to use the new knowledge to their favor.

A and B get trapped in one small space and need to wait for emergency. If only there was a way to kill the boredom…

A uses a sexual favor to convince B to do something.

A suffers from pent-up stress and frustration. B offers their body for them to use to get rid of negative emotions.

During soft, vanilla sex A asks B to try something different/rougher.

A shoves B against the wall. Now, once they are so close, A can't stop looking at B's face/lips/body part of choice.

A has lips/tongue/nipples/genitals pierced. B is really curious how does it feel during sex.

A rolls sleeves up/takes shirt off, revealing body hair to B. B has no idea how to act normal around A anymore.

A is usually reserved when it comes to intimacy and emotions. When in public, B does something that breaks A. A pulls B close and whispers to them: "I need you. Now."

A is preparing themself to roll with their day. B walks on them wearing nothing but their shirt.

A tends to neglect their needs. B uses kink as a way of taking care of them.

It's unbearably hot and A switches to wearing short and fine dresses. B finds out they are wearing no underwear underneath.

A has a really big dick/strap, B struggles to take it. A taunts and teases them about it.

Good cock & bad cock routine with dom!A, dom!B and sub!C. A praises C while B degrades and taunts them.

A and B are in a dedicated but open relationship. C grabs their mutual interest.

A loses a bet and now has to do what B tells them.

A, B, C (and maybe more 🤭) running a train on D.

A has a dark/unusual sexual fantasy & they bring it up to their partner, B. B agrees to try it out.

After a longer break A is so needy for sex that they can't enough of B. B is a trembling, ruined mess, but A just keeps going.

A is filthy rich & B is their sugar baby. A pays B a ridiculous amount of money to try a kinky scenario out.

A is a virgin but also very curious about a certain kink. B does their best to let them try it in a safe and satisfying way.

Wedding night between A and B takes an extra spicy turn.

Please, reblog and/or credit, when you use (but don't @ me!). The divider made by @/saradika.

#writing prompts #smut prompts #otp prompts #prompt list #smut prompt list #smut writing #bas writes

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sugudoe · 7 months ago

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𓈒ㅤׂㅤ ✎ ° 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐈 𝐊𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑 ! ࣪₊ 𐙚

✶ 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: being a kindergarten teacher is something you excel at, you even have two students you treat as if they were your own. not that they mind your endless devotion, much less do their dad, 𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐢 𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐨, if you could spare some attention to him as well.

✶ 𝐚. 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: papamin!!!!!!! honestly i love papamin so much, i wish i could make that man a daddy. while on the topic, nanami is girl dad code, but for the plot he is sukuna’s and yuuji’s dad. also i loved writing sukuna as a baby, he is such a menace, he definitely was that kid who bite everyone. just posting this because i can’t wait till i post the series i’m making, i had to do something before. divider by: @cafekitsune

✶ 𝐬𝐲𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐛𝐮𝐬: pure fluff / ooc!sukuna / reader has no gender / no curse!au / modern!au / mention of death and grief (minor character)

✶ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 3.7k

Yuuji thinks you are his princess, and you let him play with the wood horses and gallops around your desk, sometimes you even play pretend with him, accepting the roses he plucks from the school’s garden and sharing your sandwiches with him. He loves you very dearly, it’s not a secret he keeps that you are his favorite teacher, but it is yours that he is one of your favorites as well.

Now Sukuna, his twin brother, is a whole story. The two and a half years old siblings can be perceived as the perfect opposites, because Yuuji is adorable and expressive in good ways, and Sukuna tries to bite your ankles whenever you move near him sitting on the floor. His sharp teeth are always on showcase by his little smirk, he is a menace.

You know Sukuna might sometimes dislike you, not because you have done him terrible wrong, au contrarie, you have been a good teacher, a good human! He tries to grab your hair with his tiny fists and you put him in your lap quickly, staring at him with a cute smile, he thinks you are encouraging him to leave you bald but he ends up not caring anymore, and decides to snuggle against you and sleep. Only to wake up later with a bite on your wrist.

It’s love for your profession and for the children that you don’t report any of this to the superiors or his parent, you think hopefully that you can change his ways, make him better. It does work, credits be given, he used to be worse! He used to bite the other students, now his teeth are all over your and, unfortunately, his twin.

It’s something you try your best to control, gods be good, Yuuji only whines before slapping his brother’s head, and then Sukuna cries and comes to you. You open your arms and again, he is biting you.

“Ow, Kuna!” You move his head away from your skin. “What do you eat to have such sharp teeth, hm?”

He doesn’t answer you, his big eyes are filled with tears and he is wiggling towards any skin of yours to sink his canines.

“C’mere.” You grab him and adjust the baby in your hips, before moving towards the box filled with toys and grabbing a plastic one, you take it to the class bathroom and wash it, while Sukuna sits on the balcony, staring at you with his sad puppy eyes. “You are so cute, y’know that, right?” He nods, which takes you by surprise. “You can not keep biting me anymore, Sukuna, you get this?”

As expected, Sukuna doesn’t answer this time. He only gets what he wants.

“But let’s make a deal, you don’t bite me or Yuuji, you bite this whenever you feel like it, hm?”

Sukuna is not supposed to be with pacifiers anymore, something requested by his parent and passed to you through your boss. So it’s a little secret to let him have the blue whale in his mouth, he bites the thing so deeply that by the end of the week, you have to change it for a red rubber duck.

It’s keeps going like this for a couple more days until you notice the progress being made, Sukuna always has the toy by his gripping hands or in his pockets, and whenever he falls to the ground or gets pushed by a classmate, his little eyebrows crunch into an angry face. You think he is going to jump the kid or run at you and be a little vampire, but instead he grabs his toy and starts to violently munch on it.

It’s adorable, it makes you want to eat him.

But you noticed, obviously you did, how Sukuna has anger issues, and being a baby he has no idea how to control the anger but to externalize it with violence, and you gave him a escape plan. Now, he isn’t so angry anymore, sometimes he just squeezes the little toy, he also doesn’t spend his time with only you or his brother, he makes some new friends such as little Uraume, who follows Sukuna around and both keep sharing their lunches.

You do find one more problem arising, anytime Ijichi, who you learn is their butler, comes to pick the boys, Sukuna cries desperate for having to return his toy. You tried to let him have but the man refuses and your superior reprimanded you once, after catching you trying to give it. The next day, you notice quickly that Yuuji and Sukuna both have little red teeth marks on their arms.

You sigh desperate.

After class is over, few days later, Ijichi is late for the pickup, so you sat both Sukuna (sucking his little toy) and Yuuji (talking your ear off) down. They stop what both were doing and stare at you, one with pure sparkling eyes and the other with a raising eyebrow. You laugh at that.

“My darling cherubs, we need to talk.” You sit on the floor. “Kuna, you are not allowed to keep biting your brother, you know that. And you can’t bite him as well, Yuuji. You have to go to your papa, okay?”

The little one nods at you.

“Sukuna, honey, you can’t bring the duck home, we tried. But you can find another one to bite, hm?” He doesn’t answer, of course, he is two years he is not going on a quest for a rubber toy. “I’ll talk to Ijichi-san, for you, okay buddy?”

It takes you by surprise when Sukuna gets up and moves to sit on your lap, snuggling his face to your chest. When your arms go to close, Yuuji follows his twin and sits on you as well.

“Thank you, sensei.” Kuna’s little voice melts your heart even more, you hug them back instantly.

“I’ll do anything for the both of you.”

You don’t notice the presence behind you, or the fact that it’s been there since you sat down, and payed attention to everything you said, but mostly by how Sukuna went for you instantly and thanked you. The little bundle of angriness has his eyes closed, but his brother stares behind your shoulder and gasp, wiggling out of your touch and running towards the door.

“PAPA!” Yuuji screams making your heart jump. You turn back, staring at the scene. A tall blonde man, with formal clothes, kneels to the floor before opening his arms and grabbing Yuuji on his arms, kissing the pink hair of his baby.

You have heard the gossips towards the twins’s father, how exceptionally good looking he is, most charming and polite man anyone has ever seen or meet. And that he is single.

Of course, because of Ijichi being the one to bring and get the boys and the first teacher-parents’s meeting of the year being in just a few weeks, you haven’t met the man yet, but he here is, Nanami Kento, in all his glory.

You get up with Sukuna at the same time Nanami get up with Yuuji, and you notice right away that in his other hand he holds a bouquet of purple tulips.

“Look, Kuna, your papa is here.” You bounce the sleepy head on your lap, he opens his eyes before smiling a bit, and closing it again. “I think he got pretty tired after the playground today.” You laugh quietly before staring at the man, his eyes on his baby, a small smile on his face as well.

“Pleasure to meet you, Y/n-sensei.” It’s the first thing he says to you, his voice shaking your smile for a bit. “I’m sorry about being so late, the driver got busy with some stuff, so I had to come. I got you this, for the inconvenience.” He presents you the flowers, in your mind, he was going on a date, never in millions thoughts you would expect this.

“Oh, oh! Thank you, they are beautiful.” With your spare hand, you grab the flowers and smell them, smiling sweetly.

“I told papa you like those, sensei.” Yuuji says, with his eyes closed and large smile.

“Thank you, Yuuji, my charming knight.” You put the flowers on your desk before giving a pat to his head. “And thank you again, Mr. Nanami.”

“Again, I’m very sorry. But now, I think it’s time we go, right boys? Your sensei deserves to rest after the two of you.” Nanami grabs Sukuna from your arms, the boy open his eyes again for a second before falling into slumber. You help the male grabbing the twins backpacks and both of you move towards the parking lot.

When Nanami puts the babies in their seats, he turns to you grabbing the bags.

“Thank you for being their teacher, is not an easy job, but they both really like you.”

“It’s my pleasure, really. Sukuna and Yuuji make this job really worth it.” You answer sincerely, the door to the car is closed and the boys can’t hear you.

“I heard what you said to them, about the bites. I’ll get the toys for Sukuna, thank you for caring for him.“ Before Nanami gets into his car, he stops and turns back at you. “Would you need a ride? After all we did kept you here for longer than anticipated.”

You stare at the sky, dark clouds already reaching the sunset orange and pink, even the moon hangs more brightly than ever. You are inclined to accept, but you hold yourself.

“I would, any other day, but there is so much I have to do in the classroom and to grade the kid’s exercises, but thank you for the offer, Mr. Nanami.” You both exchange a smile before you wave at the awake Yuuji, staring at you by the window.

The next day and the others after, surprising everyone, Nanami is the one picking his sons up. His back is always tainted with the sunset from the corridor’s widows whenever he stays at the door, and a dozens of mothers and staff keep staring at him, searching for any opening to create a conversation. You are putting Yuuji’s bear beanie on, when you hear your boss asking Nanami for coffee with the excuse of talking about the boys, you laugh silently before grabbing the twins’s hands and moving towards their dad, giving an scape for him to move away from the woman.

“No need for the coffee ‘date’, the parents reunion with the teachers is this saturday, we all can talk there.” You say a bit loud, enough to send the message across, and all those people ready to jump at the blonde male move away.

“Thank you.” He whispers before grabbing the boys in his arms. “No ride today?”

Every once in a while, after the first time meeting Nanami, he has been asking you if you need a ride, and with a strength you don’t know where came from, you refuse nicely. It’s not that you don’t want, would be stupid to, it’s more for the fact that he is dreamily, you wouldn’t be any better than those who salivate at the sight of him. You could be worse.

“Not today, Mr. Nanami, these two made a mess in the bathroom, although I think Sukuna has a talent for arts, he painted the walls really well.”

“God, you’re joking.” You sign no with your head and the man sighs. “I’ll ask for the price of repair, please don’t worry about it, it’s my kids, I’ll fix it.”

“No need! Seriously, I believe just water and soap and it’ll be fine.” You grab Sukuna’s cheeks and he hides his face in his dad’s chest. “But if not, it’ll be a cute memory in the future, when they move classes or school.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Yuuji squirms. “We’re staying with you forever, right Papa?”

Oh.

“C’mon, buddy, time to go home.” Nanami laughs his answer, and you move with them, holding their backpacks. It’s a little ritual now, you could say.

You wave them goodbye and return home that day with a slight tremble in your fingers, after this year most likely you wouldn’t see them ever again, and that fact made you terribly sad. You would miss pealing the fruits for Yuuji and being gifted half of it, would miss even the mark bites of Sukuna little mouth, even though he hadn’t been a menace in a long time now.

Admitting, you would miss Nanami and his lovely smile, the way he would ask you for a ride anytime. You should accept it, you know, but could you move on from this little crush you’ve been harboring, if you are meant to never see him again? Doubt it, no one can get over the Nanami Kento.

You sleep with those thoughts, these little moments you had with him and the sweet and gentle and chaotic memories you had with the twins. It’s a bittersweet feeling teachers have, you should be used to it by now, dealing with the fact that the babies don’t stay babies forever, only in your heart and memories. But there is something in that little family that shakes your core, that moves your mind and warms your heart, something that scares you.

Saturday comes but your anxiety stays. You decorate your classroom with a large table filled with charcuterie boards and juices, there is also paintings of the kids hanging by the walls, presents to give to their parents. All of them are on the corridor, you call for one couple after the other, for the intimacy of talking about their children.

You notice how each kid can resemble their parents in a comical and adorable way. Megumi, for example, who has his mom messy hair but his dad scowl, Nobara is energetic like her mom, and sensitive like her daddy who cries when gifted her painting.

You also see how they can be with their babies. Toge’s parents who are elated with your hand signs, and how you explain that you learned it in two months for the boy and has been using and teaching it in your class, for the other students to communicate with the him. Maki’s and Mai’s parents are stiff and bored, and you take notice of that to pay more attention to the girls, help if needed anything.

You do your job perfectly, but your eyes always go searching for a blonde man whenever you go call the next parents. He is not there yet, and you wonder if he won’t come. Maybe job related, maybe he forgot, you try to not be sad.

When you are taking Nanako’s and Mimiko’s fathers to the door, waving them goodbye, you catch sight of a man with beige suit and blue shirt, in his hands another bouquet of purple tulips.

“I told you we should have given something.” Mr. Geto whispers while staring at Nanami.

“Love, that’s not a ‘Thank you for being my kid’s teacher’ bouquet.” Mr. Satoru answers with a smirk your way.

“I miss when you would give me flowers.” Geto answers, his voice low because they are already by the end of the corridor.

“Huh? I gave your flowers last week?!”

Nanami and you are staring at the couple, until their figures disappear and both of you stare at each-other, smiling fondly at first and then laughing a second later.

“I’m guessing these are for me?” You ask when you move inside the classroom, Nanami following behind. You turn to him, and he nods, giving you the bouquet, perfumed perfectly. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry I was late, the boys wanted to come as well but I had to keep them occupied and tired.” You nod laughing, before pointing at the table in front of your desk, putting your flowers there, he sits and you move towards the wall, grabbing two drawings.

“These are for you.” You sit by his side instead of in front of the man and give him the papers, he has a sweet smile while admiring the drawings. “I asked the class to draw their family, hasn’t had the time to check yet, but I hope it’s better than the one I saw earlier: the girl draw only her sister and their cats.”

“It’s perfect, don’t worry.” Nanami has his eyes on both drawings, side by side. You can tell which is which by the colors and traces, but none other, the art is basically the same. “This is Ijichi in the car, how cute.” Nanami points at the figure in a black suit driving a car besides the house in both paintings. You stares confused at the fifth stick person, besides Nanami and the twins. “Is that…?”

“I think so…” Your hands move to your mouth, hiding your growing smile when you notice characteristics in it that resembles you, specially a rubber duck in your hands, in Sukuna’s drawing. “I’m flattered they consider me family.”

“They are not wrong.” Nanami stares at you now. “That day we meet, you were helping them with one thing I had no idea how.” He moves the drawing to your desk. “I’m not their biological father, don’t know if you know that.” You don’t, so you keep yourself quiet and let him speak. “I was their godfather, been friends with their dad ever since we were little. Itadori Jin, great guy, that’s where they inherited that beautiful pink hair.” Nanami has a sad smile in his lips that break your heart. “He and his wife died in a car crash, first date since the birth of the babies, just two months old. Their grandfather was adamant on keeping them, but he realized he needed my help, so he let me adopt them officially.”

He sighs before grabbing his thighs.

“Recently I told them about their parents, that’s why Sukuna started the biting, his sorrow is physically showing. I tried to help but didn’t knew how, but you did, you handled it better than I could.”

“You are still a great father, they might not have come from you, but they are yours. And you did helped them, Sukuna might have received some slaps from Yuuji, but Yuu always hugged him whenever it became too much, and he listened to me instead of throwing a tantrum.” You hold his arm for a second before removing your hand. “You are raising them very well, Mr. Nanami, it’s not easy to be a parent, but you are doing fine.”

“Thank you, and please call me Kento.” It’s not professional, but you nod.

“Okay… Kento.” You whisper his name like a secret, and you wonder if you feel right, but it tastes like honey in your tongue. It’s just a second of both of you staring at each-other for his eyes to move to your lips. You should move back, but you don’t, nor you can. Instead, your eyes go to his pink lips as well. “We should wrap this up, it’s late, right?”

“Yeah, we should.” But none of you move, eyes moving to eyes and lips, over and over, you wet your lips, he groans and lunges at you. You accept him easily, moving your hands to circle his broad shoulders and touch his neck, while his large hands take your waist.

You shouldn’t be doing this, but it feels wrong to not be doing it. So you allow yourself to be kissed hungrily by Kento.

There is three knocks on the door before you both jump apart, your boss, the principal, makes her way in, eyes shinning at seeing Nanami.

“Mr. Nanami, so good to see you here! Would you like to come and have that coffee we were taking about some days ago?”

Kento looks at you, his hair is a little messy and his mouth is red, he looks even more ravishing than before. You cough awkward, grabbing your flowers, bag and the twins’s drawing before moving to his side.

“I’m so sorry, Principal, but Mr. Nanami is giving me a ride home.” The man has his hands on your back in an instant, moving both of you out of the class. “I see you monday.”

The two of you leave the baffled woman behind, Nanami has an eternal perfect smile charming his face, making you want to kiss him even more. Which you do, when he closes the door he opened for you, and enters the car you kiss him, when you both stop at a red light you kiss him. And when he let you at your house, his hands again in your back, he kisses you.

You are too tempted to bring him inside, even more to have your way with him, but he beats you to it, asking you to go out with him the next day.

It’s just the beginning of your blooming relationship, flowers every week, restaurant dates, kisses at every opportunity. You both keep yourselves occupied and yet reserved. He gives you rides home after most staff and students are gone, the boys happily talking with you all the way to your house, and he leaves you at your door with a peck the babies don’t see.

It’s at your last day of the year, all your students glued to you, crying red faces you promise them to always be there when needed, giving the parents your personal number, they happily accept it. Yuuji and Sukuna are the most devasted, their little hands keep you from moving far away from them, and when Nanami comes to pick them up, Sukuna cries together with his brother, taking you by surprise.

You tell them bye and run to your apartment, where you prepare a whole meal and dress nicely, soon you hear the door knocking. When you open, it takes three stunned seconds before two little babies are running to your arms, screaming happily to see you.

“Now it’s a good time to say, Y/n is staying in our lives.” Nanami says while hugging you, both boys in your arms holding you as well.

“Forever?” Sukuna asks, Yuuji stares at you waiting for the answer.

“Yes, my cherubs, forever.”

#♱ 𓂃 ࣪ ˖ on stage ! ᯤ #nanami kento x reader #nanami kento #nanami kento fluff #nanami x reader #nanami x y/n #jjk x reader #jujutsu fluff #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk nanami #jujutsu nanami #nanami fluff #nanami x you #jjk x y/n #jujutsu kaisen nanami #gege when i catch you gege #papamin au

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lipringlrh · 7 months ago

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HE DOESN’T WANT ME WHEN HE’S SOBER PART 2 (LANDO ENDING)

read: part one | logan ending

summary: lando’s your best friend but seems to like you when he’s drunk. but then again, he seems to like everyone when he’s drunk.

pairing: lando norris x gn!reader

wc: 1.8k

Lando wouldn’t admit it to anyone but that night was the worst sleep he’d ever had. He left as soon as he found out you’d left with Lily and Alex, and made his way to your house just to find out you weren’t there. He messaged Alex to get no response and contemplated waiting outside your door until you came back, whether it be days or months, he’d wait for you. But, after almost falling asleep numerous times and getting laughed at by a group of teenagers, he made his way back to his apartment, knowing you’d be looked after.

He was awake almost all night, messaging and calling you and regretting everything in its entirety. He didn’t fully know if you had even seen him kiss the person that resembled you, he only felt it deep down, but even if you hadn’t, he shouldn’t have done it, and he could never apologise enough. He thought of how to explain his thoughts but nothing would suffice; nothing would ever be able to explain how he felt.

At some point in the early hours, he finally drifted off, but awoke not much later to an aggressive banging on his door and a voice screaming at him to hurry up. He wished the voice was you but it wasn’t and he hated it. He rushed to his door, barely having time to pull on some grey joggers before opening it to an angry Alex, very close to breaking the door down.

“Are you stupid?” Alex questioned, fuming, pushing his way into Lando’s house, “I know that you’re in love with her so what are you doing?”

Lando looked like a deer in headlights. He couldn’t explain his actions, he didn’t even want to think about them. All he remembered feeling was grief at watching you walk away, so when he found someone that looked eerily similar, he took the chance to kiss them and create the image in his mind of kissing you. It didn’t last long. He realised too quickly that they didn’t smell like you and the way they kissed wasn’t the same. He hated it, he didn’t want to kiss anyone but you.

“I know, I didn’t mean to-”

“What, you just tripped into her mouth then?” Alex questioned, pushing a finger against Lando’s chest.

“No- no. I don’t know why I did, I really love them I promise. We almost kissed but then they walked away, I was hurt, I didn’t think they wanted me,” Lando almost cried, his voice cracking.

“You do this every time you go out. You kiss her every time you go out and she follows, you don’t get to pull that card. You might be upset but I promise you’re not even feeling half of it,” Alex spat, not caring if he hurt Lando because he hurt you much more.

“Help me apologise. I need to apologise, please Alex, please help,” Lando begged, wanting you to more than anything, “Please Alex, I’ll do anything.”

Alex sighed. At that moment, he hated Lando for what he did, but he’d been wishing for you both to get together since he first saw you both together, making heart eyes at each other. He contemplated in his head whether to help or not. He always envisioned you together but always wanted what's best for you and right now he couldn’t tell if that was Lando or not. But looking at the state of him, red, wet eyes, begging for his help, he wanted to believe Lando regretted everything and would do anything to prove he loved you.

“Okay, but I’m not letting you be forgiven easily, I want you to prove it,” Alex sighed, running his hands over his face. A feeling of simultaneous relief and guilt eating him alive.

Lando promised Alex over and over again, and in between each syllable, promising himself also that he would give you the world in apologies, and whatever happened he deserved it, but even if there was the slimmest chance you could forgive him, Lando would take it and cherish it.

Alex messaged you and you told him it was fine to bring Lando over, as long as he didn’t expect much, and so they turned up less than five minutes later. Alex left you both alone in the kitchen to sit with Lily in the living room after repeating countless times he was a shout away.

You almost broke down just seeing him but managed to keep it in. You didn’t want him to explain, you didn’t care to hear it at the moment, but as soon as Alex left he began spilling out apologies and trying to explain himself, which you quickly shut up.

“I want some space,” you sighed. You wanted Lando close but you wanted everything you felt for him gone first. You couldn’t believe he ever felt the same, not after that.

“Of course, I understand,” his voice broke as he stepped back, trying to show you he would do anything you said.

“Not like that, Lando. I mean it, I don’t think I can see you for a while.”

“Oh-” he said, “When can I see you again?”

“I’m not sure, I’m sorry-”

“Don’t be, this is my fault,” he sighed, clearly upset and looking at the ground, “I’ll go, I’ll see you soon.”

After he left, you broke down crying, debating your decision on if you handled it right. You already missed him, and still loved him, but you also didn’t want to see him. Alex explained the whole morning, and his perspective, giving you hope you could fix it with Lando, especially after Alex’s approval, which you trusted more than anything.

The next few times you saw him were at hangouts with your shared friends. You knew he’d be there as none of your friends would invite him unless you were completely sure you didn’t mind him there. He stayed away, but didn’t make it awkward to the people around you, and always gave you a shy smile when you caught his eye.

He didn’t try to text or call again, despite wanting to more than anything, and instead waited for you to make the first move whenever you were ready. You had missed him more than anything, in both an “I love him” and “he’s my best friend” way, and it was killing you from being away from him, especially after how well he listened to your instructions.

You were at a mutual friend's get-together, a small barbecue in a back garden when you decided it was time. You had been debating texting him but after seeing him, you decided you couldn’t wait.

He was standing alone in a corner beside a flower patch and some grass, drink in hand, and surveying everyone that was there when you walked over. He didn’t know how to greet you and so awkwardly moved his hands between going for a hug or a handshake. You laughed and hugged him, both of you holding on tightly, unhappy to let go.

“I’ve missed you,” you whispered gently, looking down and playing with your fingers, slightly nervous to admit it to him after all this time.

“I’ve missed you too,” he grins, adding on, “So much,” with a quiet whisper.

“How’ve you been?” you asked, trying to make small talk before delving right in.

“Okay, I’ve not really done much. Races have been okay.”

“I saw,” you smiled, “You’ve done really well.”

“You watched?” he questioned, a little surprised. You met his eyes and nodded, explaining how you could never miss one.

“Do you want to talk inside?” you asked, heart pounding as you said it. He nodded immediately, without hesitation, and followed you in through the double glass doors into the kitchen, but only after picking out a daisy from the grass next to him and offering it out to you, causing both of you to grin.

He closed the doors behind you both, blocking out as much other noise as possible, ready for you to begin. “I want to know how you feel about this and about me,” you started, voice shaky.

“I’m sorry, I’m still so sorry. I love you and I want what’s best for you and I can’t even find an excuse, I was being stupid and thinking how you’d never want me. It was all nothing, you’re the only person that’s ever meant anything, I’m so sorry. I will do anything to fix this- anything.”

“Lan,” you let out a breath, “You still want me?”

“More than anything,” he grinned and you stepped forward to reach him, locking your arms around his neck.

Your fingers tangled themselves in his hair as you pull his face down until his lips are almost touching yours. He was smiling so much you thought it might be impossible to kiss him but you pulled him into you anyway, finally kissing him again.

“Stop smiling,” you laughed, pulling away to say it before immediately kissing him again.

“What? Can I not be happy? I’m getting my girl back,” he pulled away, grinning harder, then trying to drag you back in, which was almost successful until you pulled away at the last second.

“I can barely kiss you like this and I’d really, really like to,” you giggled, tugging him back again to enjoy another impatient kiss.

Your hands were running all over his head, completely ruining his hair, but he didn’t care. His hands were wrapped around your waist, holding you impossibly close. When you finally parted he still kept you close, resting his forehead on yours.

“Are you sure you want this?” he questioned, his breath still heavy.

You kissed his cheek and looked straight into his eyes, “More than anything, I promise,” you paused for a moment, “But you’re going to have to grovel to repay all the lost time we’ve had.”

“I’m going to prove to you that I’m all in, that I want this more than I could possibly explain,” Lando promised, meaning every word. He was already planning out exactly what he wanted to do - he knew he had to work to become your official boyfriend, but he would do everything possible for you.

You just stared at him, showcasing the biggest smile you’ve ever had, eyes full of love, knowing you weren’t ever going to let each other go or even risk it again.

“God I love you,” he grinned, ignoring the fact he still hadn’t caught his breath and pulling you into another, more intimate, kiss.

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chronically-ghosted · 22 days ago

Text

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

AO3 Link | main masterlist | Joel Miller Masterlist

rating: explicit (18+)

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

word count: 9K

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You know Joel’s already do.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Joel.” Nothing. “Joel!”

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

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

“What?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And even worse, disarmingly sincere.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Not yet.”

“Then can I make a suggestion?”

“‘Course.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you done down there?”

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

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

(Maybe even want that.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The words die in his throat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sadness as anger.

Shame as anger.

Guilt as anger.

Fear as anger.

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

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

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

How being vulnerable made you so deeply, deeply afraid.

Almost as afraid as he was.

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

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

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

“Let’s try something new tonight.”

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

For I am the forest but you are the trees

The decision you make is a visible one.

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

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

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

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

I'm empty without you so come grow within me

For I am the forest and you are the trees

And the heavens need romance so love never dies

“‘N ‘m only fifty-six, jackass.”

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

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

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

That you are the thunder and I am the storm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everything. Anything.

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

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

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

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

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

For I am the forest and you are the trees

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

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

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

“It just seems silly to keep, Joel.”

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

“Why’s that?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oh, honey, the shit I’ve done . . .

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

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

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

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

“I was right about what?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Hm?”

“Get me out of this fucking dress.”

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

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

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

It’s not enough.

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

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

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

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

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

First option it is.

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

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

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

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

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

Good.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He follows it to the letter.

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

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

“Look at me.”

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

And no other man ever will.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He’s just as reverent with the other side.

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

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

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

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

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

He cannot lose you, he just can’t.

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

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

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

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

The shadowy, blurred curve of your shoulder, blue.

The spread of your fingers on his mattress, blue.

The swollen bottom of lip of your mouth —

“Joel.”

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

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

Something softer. Gentler.

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

No, you need —

“Joel, please come here. I need you.”

You need him.

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

“I love you,” you whisper.

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

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

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

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

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

He loves you.

And you love him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I wanna do it.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Don’t need anything but you.”

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

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

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

“Fuck me, Joel.”

Eyes never leaving yours, he does.

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

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

“Goddamn–,”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s peace.

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

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

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

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

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

Which is where Ellie finds him the next morning.

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

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

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

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

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

Shit.

“Ellie, um, I –,”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ellie!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So . . . girlfriend?”

He rolls his eyes. “Not you too.”

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

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

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

“No, it doesn’t.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Wherever you are, I am too.”

Listen to: I am the forest by Willie Nelson

913 notes · View notes

stylesispunk · 7 months ago

Text

"You're the loss of my life"

outbreak! Joel Miller x f!reader

part 2 here

summary: you and Joel went from one kiss to getting married to becoming strangers.

w.c: 5k>

Warnings: angst, implications of cheating, mentions miscarriage. Perhaps some grammar mistakes because no proofreading oops!

a/n: I know everything I write is angst but is what it fits in my mind right now. Reblogs and comments are always appreciated 💌

Dividers by @/saradika-graphics

The day you killed yourself, you woke up. The salty tears streamed down to your ears. There was a pity gaze you didn't want to meet, looking down at you, perhaps asking why.

You didn't want to talk, even less to answer the pitiful comments from people who thought they had a say on all this.

You remember the fall. You remember Joel running to Sophie to save her life instead of yours, instead of both. You and the baby who was inside you. The one who wasn't there anymore because of its tiny form didn't resist the impact of your fall.

What a tragedy.

Sadness overcame you in the aftermath. In a world like this, treating your wounded body wasn't as hard as treating your heart, which became a frozen glass shell.

The days that followed were a blur, each moment blending into the next, a never-ending cycle of grief and numbness. You avoided mirrors, hating the reflection of a person you no longer recognized. The hollow eyes, the lifeless expression—they belonged to a ghost, not to you.

Joel tried to talk to you, his words a constant hum in the background. "I'm sorry," he'd say. "I didn't know what to do." But his apologies were meaningless, lost in the chasm that had formed between you. He perhaps saved Sophie because he loved her more, because in that split second, she was the one who mattered.

Not you anymore.

You spent hours in the nursery, the room you had so carefully prepared. The crib, the tiny clothes, the stuffed animals—all mocking reminders of what could have been. Your hands would linger on the soft blankets, tears falling silently onto the fabric. It was in that room that you felt the closest to the baby you had lost—a place where the field of dreams you had died.

One night, as you sat in the dark, the pain was too much to bear, and you decided you couldn't go on. The world was too cruel, too indifferent to people's suffering. You wrote a letter, your final words, to those who might wonder why. It was brief—just a few sentences explaining the unbearable weight of your grief and the unending ache in your heart. Meeting your family and beloved ones in heaven sounded better than keeping yourself prisoner in a world that would never be a safe place for anyone.

You took the pills, each one a step closer to peace. As you drifted off, you felt a strange sense of calm, a release from the torment that had consumed you. You hoped that in death, you would find the solace that eluded you in life.

But then you woke up again. The salty tears streamed down to your ears. There was a pity gaze you didn't want to meet, looking down at you, perhaps asking why.

Waking up again felt like a cruel joke. You were back in the same world, with the same pain. But something was different. Joel was there, his eyes red and swollen from crying. He took your hand, his touch hesitant and afraid.

"I thought I lost you," he whispered, his voice breaking.

You turned away, unable to meet his gaze. The wound was still too fresh, and the betrayal was still too raw to face them.

Joel's gaze burned in your back, and the smell of death was in the room. You held your breath for a moment. You wanted to smell the flowers and the baby smell of the little head of your baby, which you would never get to meet.

"Why?" he questioned, and for the first time, his voice did soothe your wounds; instead, it caused your blood to boil inside you and irritated you.

"I want Ellie here, not you."

"Baby- “

"Go." Your voice could slice Joel’s skin.

He recoiled as if struck, his face crumpling with pain. He stood there for a moment, looking lost and broken. "Please, don't push me away," he pleaded, but you couldn't hear him through the rage and grief that consumed you.

"Leave," you repeated, your voice cold and final.

Joel's shoulders slumped in defeat. He turned and walked out, the door closing softly behind him. The silence that followed was suffocating, a void that threatened to swallow you whole. You curled into a ball, the tears flowing freely now—a torrent of pain and loss.

“Go to Sophie,” you whispered to the void, allowing yourself to cry.

Time seemed to stand still in that moment; your sobs were the only sound in the quiet room. You didn't know how long you lay there, but eventually, you heard a soft knock on the door.

Ellie's voice was hesitant when she called out your name, filled with a mix of anger and concern. "Can I come in?"

You didn't answer, but she opened the door anyway, slipping inside and closing it behind her. She looked at you, her expression torn between fury and sadness.

"Why did you do it?" she demanded, her voice shaking. "Why did you try to leave me too?"

You looked up at her, seeing the pain in her eyes and mirroring your own. "I... I didn't think I could handle it anymore," you admitted, your voice breaking. "I lost everything, Ellie. I lost you, I lost Joel, and I lost the baby. I didn't know how to go on."

Ellie walked over to you, her steps hesitant. "You didn't lose me. I'm still here," she said, her voice softening. "But you almost did. And I'm so mad at Joel. He should have saved you both. He should have done more."

“Do you think Joel doesn’t love me anymore?” you sobbed. The pain in your voice broke Ellie’s heart.

She kneeled beside you, taking your hands in hers. "I don’t know what’s on his mind now," she admitted, her voice trembling. "But I do know he loves you. He's just... broken too. We're all broken."

You pulled her into a tight embrace, both of you crying together, sharing the weight of your grief. “I lost my baby because of him.”

Ellie held you tighter, her own tears mingling with yours. "Cry,” she said softly. "Blaming him won't bring the baby back. It won't help us heal. We have to find a way to forgive and move forward."

The two of you stayed like that for a long time, finding strange solace in each other’s arms. The pain was still there, raw and overwhelming.

You were standing in the small kitchen of your home in Jackson, the dilapidated walls a far cry from the security of the life you once knew. But for a moment, you allowed yourself to dream of something better. Your hands trembled slightly as you held the small, worn piece of paper—a positive pregnancy test, a symbol of new life in a world consumed by death.

Joel walked in, weary from a long day of patrol. His eyes lit up when he saw you, but they quickly clouded with concern as he noticed the look on your face.

"What's going on?" he asked, setting down his backpack and walking over to you.

You took a deep breath, trying to steady your nerves. "Joel, I have something to tell you,” you began, your voice shaking. "I'm pregnant."

For a moment, there was silence. Joel's expression shifted from confusion to shock, and then to something darker—fear and maybe even anger.

"Pregnant?" he repeated, his voice rising slightly. "In this world? How could you be so irresponsible?"

The words hit you like a physical blow, your earlier excitement and hope crumbling into dust. "Irresponsible?" you echoed, your own voice rising defensively. "It takes two people to do this, you know.”

He shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "You know what it’s like out there! Every day is a fight for survival. We can barely keep ourselves alive, and now you want to bring a baby into this?”

“I know this is not the best way, but what do you want me to do?”

“You know what.”

Tears welled up in your eyes, but you fought them back, unwilling to show weakness at his suggestion. "I know it's dangerous, Joel. But it's also a chance for us to have a future. To have a reason to keep going."

Joel's face softened for a moment, but then the hard lines returned. "And what if we can't protect it? What if we lose it? Bringing a baby into this world... it's a death sentence."

You turned away, unable to look at him. "I thought you'd be happy," you whispered, the tears finally spilling over. "I thought this would be something good for us."

He reached out, but you stepped back, the distance between you growing. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice softer now, but the damage was done. "I just... I can't see how this can work."

You clutched the pregnancy test to your chest, tainted by doubt and fear. “Are you mad because of the baby, or what would Sophie think of this?" you questioned quietly.

Joel's expression faltered, and he looked away, unable to meet your gaze. The mention of Sophie seemed to strike a chord, bringing a new layer of tension to the room.

"Sophie has nothing to do with this," he muttered, but the words lacked conviction.

"Doesn't she?" You pressed, your voice rising. "She's always in the back of your mind, Joel. Every decision you make, every risk you take, it's always about protecting her."

"She's my partner in patrol,” he shot back, his voice growing louder. "I’m just as protective as I am with everyone here! I can't fail her, or you. But this world... it's no place for a child."

You took a deep breath, trying to steady yourself. "I know you're scared, Joel. So am I. But we can't live our lives in fear. This baby is a chance for us to have something real, something good. Don't you see that?"

Joel's shoulders slumped, the weight of your words pressing down on him. He sighed, running a hand through his hair again. "I do see it," he admitted quietly. "But it doesn't change the reality we live in. I just... I don't know if I can take that risk."

The room fell silent, the tension hanging thick in the air. You turned away from him, your heart heavy with a mixture of hope and despair. "I'm going to do everything I can to protect this baby," you said firmly, your voice steady despite the tears streaming down your face. "With or without you."

Joel looked at you, pain and conflict warring in his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something but then closed it, shaking his head. He turned and walked out, leaving you standing alone in the kitchen, your heart breaking as the small symbol of hope in your hand seemed to grow heavier by the second.

The “I do” and vows seemed so foreign in the back of your mind now.

A week had passed since your almost-death. The days were a blur of grief and small steps toward recovery. Ellie remained close; her presence was a constant reminder that there was still something worth fighting for. In your head, you felt guilt and pity, not strong enough to keep believing you were the same woman who arrived here. You were the gosh of a lively fighter who became a lifeless frame.

Maria approached you in the cafeteria, where you were trying to busy yourself. She had always been a pillar of strength in Jackson and a calming presence for you since the day you, Joel, and Ellie arrived.

"Hey," she said softly, her voice gentle. "How are you holding up?"

You shrugged, not trusting yourself to speak without breaking down. Maria sighed, pulling up a chair beside you. "I know it's hard. But you need to take things slow. You can't rush healing."

You nodded, though her words felt distant. The weight of your grief was a constant presence, making everything seem surreal. "I just... I don't know how to keep going. I don’t know how to do this again," you admitted, your voice barely above a whisper as Sarah’s lifeless frame came to your mind.

You had lost another child.

Maria reached out, squeezing your hand. "One day at a time," she said. "And remember, it's okay to lean on others. You don't have to do this alone."

You wanted to believe her, but the pain was too fresh and overwhelming. As the days turned into a week, you forced yourself to go through the motions, trying to find some semblance of normalcy. One afternoon, you found yourself in the cafeteria of Jackson. The noise and bustle were a stark contrast to the turmoil inside you.

Maria was there, talking to a few people, and she caught your eye, giving you an encouraging smile. You tried to smile back, but it felt forced. The weight of your loss was a constant shadow, making everything seem heavier.

As you moved through the line, Maria came over, her expression concerned. "Hey, remember what I said. Take it slow. You don't have to do everything at once."

Something inside you snapped. The pressure, the grief, the guilt—it all came crashing down. "Take it slow?" you repeated, your voice rising. "How am I supposed to take it slow when everything is falling apart? How am I supposed to keep going when I not only lost my baby but also my husband?!”

The cafeteria fell silent, all eyes turning towards you. You could feel the weight of their stares, the shock, and the pity. Your breath came in short, ragged gasps as the enormity of your outburst sank in.

Maria reached out, but you recoiled, your emotions spiraling out of control. "I don't need to take it slow!" you shouted, tears streaming down your face. "I need... I need..." You didn't even know what you needed; the pain was too overwhelming to articulate.

Joel was there in an instant, his face etched with worry. "Hey, hey," he said softly, reaching out to you. "It's okay. You're okay."

But you weren't okay. You felt like you were drowning, the weight of your grief pulling you under. You shook your head, backing away from him. "Don't touch me for fuck's sake! I don't want your dirty hands on me!”

Joel’s eyes glazed, but you didn’t care. He had become the best of the man you had married ten years ago.

Joel's eyes glazed, but you didn’t care. He had become the ghost of the man you had married ten years ago.

He froze, the words hitting him like a physical blow. The cafeteria's silence deepened, the tension thickening. You saw the pain in his eyes, a reflection of your own turmoil, but it did nothing to quell the anger and sorrow boiling inside you.

"I can't do this," you said, your voice breaking as you took a step back, your chest heaving with sobs. "I can't keep pretending that everything is going to be okay. Because it's not! Nothing is okay!"

Ellie pushed through the crowd, her face pale but determined. "Mom," she said, her voice steady despite the fear in her eyes. "We're here. We're all here. We'll get through this."

Joel looked helplessly at Ellie, then back at you. "Please," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "Just let us help."

You looked at him, the man who had once been your rock, now just a shadow of the person you had relied on. The anger still simmered beneath the surface, but Ellie’s presence brought a flicker of something else—a reminder of why you needed to keep fighting.

Ellie wrapped her arms around you, holding you tightly as you sobbed into her shoulder. The room remained silent; the weight of your grief was palpable. But in that moment, you felt a glimmer of hope—a reminder that you weren’t alone and that you had people who loved you and who were willing to help you carry the burden.

Joel stepped closer, his hand hovering uncertainly at your back, not daring to touch you without permission. "I’m so sorry," he murmured, his voice choked with emotion. "For everything. I’m so, so sorry."

You took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to steady yourself. "You killed him," you snapped, your voice barely more than a whisper. "I can’t forgive you.”

Joel's face crumpled, the weight of your words hitting him like a physical blow. He took a step back, his hand dropping to his side. The silence in the room grew heavier, and the tension was palpable.

"I know," he said, his voice barely audible. "I know I can never undo what I've done. I live with that guilt every day."

Your anger burned hot and fierce, like a wildfire consuming everything in its path. "You killed him," you repeated, the words tasting bitter on your tongue. "And you expect me to just forgive you? To move on like nothing happened?"

Joel shook his head, his eyes filled with sorrow. "No," he said softly. "I don't expect you to forgive me. I don't even know if I can forgive myself. But I want to try. I want to make things right as much as I can."

You looked at him, the man who had once been your partner, your confidant, now a stranger in the wreckage of your shattered life. The anger still burned hot within you, but beneath it, there was a flicker of something else—pain, sorrow, and a desperate longing for the life you had lost.

"I don't know if I can do this," you admitted, your voice barely more than a whisper. "I don't know if I have the strength to forgive you."

Ellie's arms remained wrapped around you, a comforting presence amidst the turmoil. She gently guided you away from the cafeteria, her touch reassuring as you stumbled through the hallways of Jackson. The weight of your grief felt heavier with each step, but Ellie's presence gave you a glimmer of strength.

As you reached the door, Ellie helped you inside, guiding you to the small couch in the living area. She sat beside you, her eyes filled with concern.

"Are you okay?" she asked softly, her voice filled with worry.

You shook your head, the tears still streaming down your face. "I don't know," you admitted, your voice hoarse. "I just... I don't know how to deal with all of this."

Ellie reached out, taking your hand in hers. "We'll figure it out together," she said, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. "I promise."

You squeezed her hand tightly, grateful for her unwavering support. "Thank you, Ellie," you whispered, your voice choked with emotion.

She leaned in, wrapping you in a tight hug. "I love you, Mom," she said softly. "And I'll always be here for you, no matter what."

Tears pricked at your eyes as you hugged her back, her words echoing in your mind. "I love you too, Ellie," you whispered, your voice breaking with emotion.

As you and Ellie held each other close, the weight of her love and support was a balm to your wounded soul. But amidst the embrace, a knock on the door interrupted the moment, causing both of you to startle.

Ellie pulled back slightly, her eyes searching yours with concern. "Should I... Should I get that?" she asked, her voice hesitant.

You shook your head, wiping away your tears as you tried to compose yourself. "No, it's okay," you said, your voice still shaky. "I'll go."

Ellie nodded, giving your hand a reassuring squeeze before standing up from the couch. "I'll be in my room if you need me," she said softly, giving you a lingering look before leaving the living area.

As Ellie disappeared down the hallway, you took a deep breath, steeling yourself for what was to come. With trembling hands, you made your way to the door and opened it, revealing Joel standing on the other side.

His expression was a mix of worry and remorse as he looked at you, his eyes filled with a silent plea for forgiveness. "Can we talk?" he asked softly, his voice barely above a whisper.

You hesitated, the memories of your outburst in the cafeteria still fresh in your mind. But despite the anger and pain, there was a part of you that longed for closure, for a chance to understand.

"Okay," you said finally, stepping aside to let him in.

Joel entered the house, his footsteps hesitant as he crossed the threshold. The living room felt suffocatingly small as you both stood there, the weight of your shared grief hanging heavy in the air.

"I... I don't even know where to start," Joel said, his voice strained with emotion.

You took a deep breath, trying to find the words to express the whirlwind of emotions swirling inside you. "I just... I need to understand," you said, your voice barely more than a whisper. "I need to know why you did what you did."

The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the abandoned streets of the city. You and Joel had been scavenging for supplies, your footsteps echoing in the eerie silence that seemed to permeate every corner of the world.

You had felt uneasy all day, a knot of jealousy and insecurity twisting in your stomach at the sight of Sophie, her laughter ringing in your ears like a taunt.

You had implored Joel to come. You just wanted to feel as worthy and important to him as you used to, even in your state. But despite your misgivings, you had pushed them aside, focusing on the task at hand, determined to prove yourself capable and worthy of Joel's love and attention.

And then it happened.

If Joel had been more careful, he wouldn’t have allowed you to come. But he didn’t want to make you feel worthless.

A horde of infected had descended upon you, their snarls and growls a chilling symphony of death and despair. You had frozen; your mind was unable to comprehend the danger until it was too late.

But Joel had acted, his movements swift and sure as he pulled you away from the oncoming onslaught, his grip firm and unyielding.

And then he had seen her.

Sophie was trapped beneath the rubble, her screams echoing in the chaos as the infected closed in, their hunger insatiable.

And in that moment, something inside Joel shifted.

He had hesitated, torn between saving you and saving her, his eyes flickering with indecision, before he made his choice.

He had chosen Sophie.

He jumped off the horse, leaving you alone. You had watched in horror as he raced towards her, leaving you behind, your heart shattering into a million jagged pieces as the truth of his betrayal washed over you like a tidal wave.

You had screamed, your voice lost in the cacophony of the chaos, your tears mingling with the blood and dust that coated your skin.

And then the world went dark.

You fell from the horse, hitting the cobblestones hard. The pain was sharp and intense, searing through your body like a white-hot flame. You could hear the distant sound of screams and growls, the world around you spinning in a haze of confusion and agony.

Through the haze, you could dimly make out Joel's voice, calling out your name in desperation. But his words felt distant, a mere echo in the darkness that threatened to consume you.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the chaos subsided, leaving behind a heavy silence that pressed down on you like a weight. You tried to move, to call out, but your body felt numb and unresponsive. Your world went black.

"I need to know why, Joel," you repeated, your voice trembling with emotion. "Why did you choose her over us? Why did you leave me behind?"

Tears welled up in your eyes as you waited for his answer, the weight of his betrayal still fresh in your mind, a wound that refused to heal.

Joel's gaze dropped to the floor, his shoulders slumping with the weight of his guilt. "I... I don't know," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. "I panicked. I made a mistake."

Anger surged within you at his words, a fiery rage that threatened to consume you. "A mistake?" you repeated, your voice rising with indignation. "You left me to die, Joel. You left our child to die. How could you call that a mistake?"

Joel flinched at your words, the pain in his eyes mirroring your own. "I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice choked with emotion. "I'm so, so sorry. You were my wife; I should.”

"Were you my wife?” You sobbed, “Since when is that in the past, Joel?”

Joel's words hung in the air like a heavy weight, his admission of guilt and regret piercing through the veil of anger and pain that enveloped you. But amidst the turmoil, there was a flicker of something else—a longing for understanding, for closure, for a chance to heal.

"You are my wife," Joel repeated clearly, his voice trembling with emotion. "I should have protected you. I should have been there for you. But I failed. I failed both of you."

His words stirred something deep within you—a wellspring of grief and longing that threatened to overwhelm you. "And now?" you whispered, your voice barely more than a hoarse whisper. "What am I to you, Joel?"

Joel looked at you, his eyes filled with sorrow. Not uttering a word.

“Do you have feelings for Sophie?” You asked, fear creeping to your bones, not wanting to hear the answer.

Joel's silence spoke volumes; his hesitation was a weighty presence in the air between you. You held your breath, afraid of what his answer might be and of the truth that lay hidden in the depths of his gaze.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Joel spoke, his voice barely above a whisper. "I... I don't know," he admitted, his words heavy with uncertainty. "

“You love her,” you stated. “That’s why you chose her.”

Joel's silence in response to your accusation only confirmed your worst fears, leaving a bitter taste in your mouth and a heavy ache in your chest. The truth hung in the air, stark and undeniable, like a shadow cast by the setting sun.

Tears stung your eyes as you struggled to process the betrayal, the pain of Joel's admission cutting through you like a knife. The realization that he might love Sophie and might have chosen her over you and your unborn child was a blow that threatened to shatter you completely.

"I can't do this," you whispered, your voice barely more than a broken plea. "I can't stay here, knowing... knowing that I'll never be enough for you. Living in a world like this is already hell, but you made it even worse. You made me feel disgusted by myself, worthless, and ashamed," you shouted. "You're a fucking coward."

Joel flinched at your words, the truth of your accusations cutting through him like a knife. For a moment, it seemed as though he might speak, might try to defend himself, but he remained silent, his gaze fixed on the floor.

"Hate me; I'll wait. Until you forgive," he finally said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

You shook your head, tears streaming down your face as you struggled to find the words to express the depth of your pain. "Forgive you?" you chuckled bitterly. "I won't."

There are two types of grievances. The one who met the spirits in death and the one who met with the ghosts of someone who should have died in front of you. You still couldn't comprehend which one was worse. Both were painful, and both watered your eyes. But having the ghost of someone who brought you warm, freezing your aura while slipping from your grasp, leaving you crying to yourself till your head tired up and there wasn't anything left that fell into the voiceless world of sleeping, where in your dreams, you were still the same woman in the white dress, marrying the love of your life.

"I needed my husband! I need him now! And the worst thing is, I still need you, but you're just a fucking phantom."

"I'm still here," he exclaimed.

"No, you're not.".

"It wasn't even born!" Joel said.

The silence met souls leaving the lovers's bodies.

You were left speechless, tears ricocheting. Your heart was clenched in pain, and your throat felt like it was being torn apart by a monster.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"Save it," you spat. You were exhausted, and your heart hurt so much that you couldn't even feel it beating anymore. "Sorry if grieving my baby was such a burden to you."

As you turned back to face Joel, the weight of your words hung heavy in the air, a painful reminder of the gaping chasm of loss that lay between you.

"Let me remind you of something, Joel," you said, your voice trembling with emotion. "Losing Sarah was the worst thing that happened to us, and just imagine how it is for me to know I carried her and this baby just to lose them both."

Joel's expression softened, a flicker of remorse crossing his features as he looked at you, his eyes filled with regret. "I know," he said softly, his voice heavy with sorrow.

"I'll move out," Joel said suddenly, his voice tinged with resignation. "So you can bring your new lover here and make all the babies you want."

His words cut through you like a knife, a painful reminder of the irreparable rift that had formed between you. "You know what really broke me?" you sobbed, the words tumbling out in a rush of emotion. "You... you're the biggest loss of my life, but as much as I love you, I despise you the same. You're the loss of my life I will be yours. There's no way back from this, Joel."

As the weight of your words hung heavy in the air, you reached for the wedding band adorning your finger, a symbol of a love that had once been unbreakable but now lay shattered at your feet.

With trembling hands, you removed the ring, feeling its weight in your palm as you stared at it, the memories of happier times flashing before your eyes like a cruel mockery of the present.

Without a second thought, you flung the ring towards Joel, watching as it spun through the air before landing at his feet with a soft thud.

"There," you said, your voice choked with emotion. "Take it. Take everything that remains of us."

Joel looked down at the ring, his expression unreadable as he reached out to pick it up and his fingers trembling as he held it in his palm.

"I don't want this," he whispered, his voice barely more than a hoarse whisper.

But you shook your head, tears streaming down your face as you stared at him, the pain of his betrayal a raw wound that refused to heal. "I don't want it either," you said, your voice barely more than a broken whisper. "But it's all we have left."

And with that, you turned away, unable to bear the weight of his presence any longer. The wounds he had inflicted upon you ran deep, a festering wound that refused to heal.

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jedi-starbird · 11 months ago

Text

Time Travel is my favourite trope and I think we need more fics where both Obi-Wan AND Qui-Gon time travel together because no matter when they get sent it's chaos. They're saving the galaxy and being physic flash-bangs to everyone around them.

like before Bandomeer?

The entire council is baffled to watch as Qui-Gon 'never taking a padawan again' Jinn has suddenly cut off his post-Xanatos depression tour to return to the temple and beeline to the creche with a frantic energy. His wild eyes immediately single out a fluffy, red-haired initiate.

"You." he exhales with a pointed finger, slightly ominous as he towers over the child. Said child starts vibrating with delight. "Me." he agrees, launching himself at the man. Qui-Gon drops to his knees with a thud that cannot be healthy. Obi-Wan's attempts to clamber into Qui-Gon's robes and maybe onto his shoulders is thwarted by the fact that Qui-Gon's massive hands are cupping Obi-Wan's tiny squishy cheeks. He stares at the initiate for a few minutes with an intensity that is starting to worry people.

Finally, "You're so small." Qui-Gon sounds like he might cry.

'What the fuck?' Plo Koon projects at Mace.

"I'm 9! That tends to be the case!" the child chirps back.

"You're nine." Oh. Ah. Qui-Gon's eyes are distinctively misty. He squishes the boy in a hug so hard he squeaks. Mace makes a series of gestures that imply the need for a head-scan. Depa obligingly drifts off towards the halls. Qui-Gon scoops the child up onto his hip and claims him as his padawan on the spot. The assorted council members and creche-masters burst into noise. Mace tells Depa to bring some space ibuprofen as well.

after Naboo?

Anakin is a little apprehensive of his place in both the order and Obi-Wan's life, but then one day Obi-Wan wakes up and is suddenly a lot less sad in the force?? In fact, if Anakin didn't know better he'd say he was almost giddy, but he's watched Obi-Wan try to pretend his world hasn't fallen apart for the past few months so it can't be that, right? And um, Miss Bant? He knows grief is a funny thing that affects people differently but he's pretty sure 'massive mood swing' and 'having full conversations with invisible people' is not...great? and you said to tell you if Obi-Wan got really weird in any way.

Anyway after a lot of medical exams, intense consultation with the archives, and a couple exorcisms, Anakin ends up being raised by his 'real' master and his ghost master. He is far more well adjusted emotionally and far less well adjusted for what counts as normal people behavior(not talking to thin air). When questioned on this, all he ever says is that he's talking to Qui-Gon. Isn't he...dead? Well, yes. Wait, he's a ghost? Ghosts are real? ...Well this ghost is real.

This starts a great number of existential crises among non-force sensitives and incredibly heated theological arguments amongst the Jedi. Whenever Obi-Wan is questioned on this, all he ever says is some variation of "the force got to know him for 5 seconds and kicked him back out." Mace backs him up on this even though that reasoning is technically blasphemous. Qui-Gon is having the time of his un-life. He's ascended to his final form, his sheer existence is a heresy, this is truly all he has ever aspired towards.

the Clone Wars?

The minute they get dropped back Qui-Gon immediately goes and haunts the shit out of Dooku. They have a signed terms of surrender and promise of info on the Sith Lord within the year. Only half of it is because Qui-Gon's giving Dooku complexes that are only perceptible to shrimp, the other half is because they now have a ghost spy that is not bound by the laws of physics nor spacetime.

Obi-Wan only nominally pays attention to this as he immediately goes and implements his 19 step seduction plan with Cody (he had to focus on something on Tatooine to pass the time). It fails. Spectacularly. Publicly. Ah right. Tatooine was not exactly the height of his sanity. Everyone in the GAR and temple is now riveted by High General and Councilor Obi-Wan Kenobi's attempts to go on a date with his Commander, who bats him away him like a particularly annoying stray and seems one bouquet of cactus away from committing mutiny. Anakin is worrying if it means his master knows about his secret marriage and this is some sort of really weird power play. (It is, but not in the way he thinks)

The next time Dooku goes after Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon spends a good few months appearing tear-stained at the edge of Dooku's perception and only communicating in terrible wails and discordant mutterings of 'padawan. my padawan. my little one.' 24/7.

"Wait, you're annoying Dooku into surrendering?"

"Oh no Anakin, we're crushing his psyche like a bug. :)"

#everyone feel free to use these i crave more time travel fics #the sheer power qui gon would have as a fully communicating force ghost before and during the clone wars is astounding #qui gon with baby obi wan is like inconsolable sobs cause he never saw him this small and then his life was so sad and he couldnt even hug #him on tatooine but now look at his boy!!! so small and huggable!!!!#they absolutely weaponise baby obi against others his wet cat eyes are 1000% stronger now #they drop him in dookus lap like look grandpadawan:)#if you hold the grandpadawan maybe your sith behaviour will calm down :/#anyway them together is like they throw enough bullshit into the air to blind everyone while they speedrun important changes in the back #after naboo is like everyone offering obi wan condolences and obi responding yeah im going to need them the fucker wont stay down #star wars #obi wan kenobi #qui gon jinn #qui gon and obi wan #fic ideas #time travel shenanigans #codywan #anakin skywalker #disaster lineage #count dooku

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lavenderprose · 4 days ago

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Emmrich is a morning person and Rook is only a morning person under duress, which becomes only a minor issue after the gods are finally dead because Rook's ideal wake up time is roughly noon, and Emmrich's up at the asscrack of dawn every day whether he works or not.

It's six thirty AM and Rook's face-down on the bed, titties out and hair splayed across three pillows, and Elgar'nan breathed this last breath less than a week ago. Emmrich gave the various factions of Thedas exactly three days to demand Rook's attention and, on the morning of the fourth day, grabbed Rook with one hand and Manfred with the other and asked the Caretaker if there was an Eluvian that might deposit one anywhere in the area of the Cumberland countryside.

Emmrich apparently maintains a small country house here, for 'Whatever occassion might arise' (demented) and it's modest but pretty. Manfred trampled straight into the rose garden when they got here and hasn't emerged since, but Emmrich claims that's normal for him. Rook personally believes that Manfred, even, is still processing their mutual ordeal, but she's content to let him do it with the caterpillars and the rose petals. Not like a skeleton can be pricked by a thorn.

The moment they arrived, Emmrich sought out the housekeeper and told her that her services would not be required for the coming week, and to stand by on the subject of next week as well.

"Go celebrate the world not ending, Helga!" he'd said, maybe a bit too loud and manic, as he closed what was surely much more than a week's salary into her hand. Knowing Emmrich, there was already a very robust system in place to assure that his housekeeper received her generous salary every week--this was merely some sort of consolation pay for the very difficult task of being given a week of vacation.

Helga was Elven, at least as old as Emmrich and blinked at him like a vaguely surprised cat. She swept her gaze over Rook as well before leaving. She'd been smirking, Rook thought, as the door closed behind her.

Thus, they've been alone in the house, and Rook has been sleeping, staring vaguely into the distance, sleeping, reading from Emmrich's extensive collection, looking at the ceiling while trying to forget the sight of Bellara's blighted eyes, sleeping, bouncing on Emmrich's dick like it's her job, and sleeping sleeping sleeping.

They've been here for two days, more or less 48 hours, and many of those hours were spent in his lap. Fucking him, yes, but also just clinging onto him like an extra limb because right now, she feels like she might disintegrate if he isn't touching her. He reads to her. Smiles and laughs through so many stories from his life. She thinks about Solas disappearing into the Fade, maybe never to be seen again. The last God of her people.

When she goes too quiet, sometimes he tells her a joke or puts a little chocolate in her mouth. Once, he ate her out while humming the Nevarran national anthem and she laughed as she came. Sometimes he joins her in melancholy and they lay together and cope. Sometimes she cries, mostly from exhaustion and relief and grief, and he kisses her face. Sometimes he cries. From exhaustion and relief and grief, probably. She tucks her head under his chin and rubs her small hand up and down his broad back, and then she swipes the snot and tears out of his mustache with her very own thumb because she loves him, she loves him.

This morning, she flutters her eyes open and enjoys the texture of the silk sheets against her bare body (Last night, and for lack of a better term, Emmrich fucked her to sleep--apparently, when the world isn't in active peril, he's very into the whole tantric thing. Hours of crazy hot, dragging sex that destroys braincells, but only the ones she's better off not having.) and she does that for about thirty seconds before she realizes it's just barely light outside, blue and cool. Then she starts wondering why the fuck she's awake right now.

The answer becomes apparent immediately: Emmrich is in the ensuite bath, running water and making the weirdest, loudest noises. She thinks at first that he's managed to gag himself with his own toothbrush, but then he sneezes, blows his nose with a honking noise like a malfunctioning horn, and clears his throat so thunderously that Rook thinks he must somehow be drowning.

She rolls out of bed and wobbles into the bathroom, birthday suit and all, because clearly he's become sick in the night and it's now up to her to guide him back to bed and care for him. She's surprised, then, to find him looking hale and healthy in front of the sink. He's wearing nothing but silk pajama pants and down slippers. He's making an absurd clicking sound and swirling a finger inside his ear.

"Are you okay?" Rook demands, propped on the doorjamb.

Emmrich jumps a foot on the air, winces as he jabs his own eardrum, and says, "Ow! Darling, please don't sneak up on--"

"You are being so loud," she says, because the polite section of her brain hasn't woken up. "Are you choking? Are you sick?"

"No," Emmrich says slowly. "I just--oh, the door must have fallen open. The floor isn't terribly even here. I'm sorry, darling--sound does carry in this old house." He twirls a finger behind his ear and clinks again. "I fear I suffer seasonal allergies, dearest, and it's been a long while since I slept more than a night or two outside of the Necropolis or the Fade. There's quite a bit of...mucus..." He clears his throat.

"Gross," says Rook, and then, "It's dawn, Emmrich."

"Mm-hm." Emmrich is now leaning across the counter, two inches from the mirror and examining his mustache like a jewel appraiser.

"Why are you making heinous old man noises at dawn?"

His eyes veer towards her reflection in the mirror, and they make eye contact in the glass. Very neatly, and with a raised eyebrow, he says, "Heinous old man noises."

Rook starts making hawking, gutteral noises in the back of her throat. It's a pretty faithful imitation.

"Dearest," he yells over the sound. "I apologize for waking you--"

"I cannot believe," says Rook, "that I'm going to spend the rest of my life being woken up at dawn by the hacks and sneezes of a man who wears wing tip shoes."

She's halfway through a half-asleep snicker at the hilarity of her own statement when Emmrich fixes her with a surprised look in his wet eyes and she realizes she's never actually voiced the idea that has become an unspoken certainty in her mind: That he's the love of her life, and her life may not be as short as she was thinking it might be this time last week, and that she wants nothing more than to spend the rest of her ambiguously-numbered mornings waking up to him.

She also realizes the truth of the situation. The baths in the Lighthouse were communal, and one never knew which companion they might encounter during their morning routine. Emmrich is fastidious and spends a great deal of his energy in broadcasting the image of a man who is utterly put together in everything he does. Never a hair out of place or a thread loose. It's a privilege of the highest order to witness him this way. Sleep-mused hair, shadow on his jaw. The bleariness of sleep in his eyes and, yes, even the throat-clearing and nose blowing.

Emmrich clears his throat and whispers, "Forgive me. I've...lived alone. For a very long time."

Rook's eyes water as she croaks, "Not anymore. I don't...want you to."

A smile spreads his face. It is wobbly, boyish, and so so beautiful. The absurdity of the situation finally reaches her--she is very naked and he's only slightly more dressed and there is a perfectly warm, perfectly comfortable bed steps away.

"Come back to bed," Rook says. "Please?"

He does.

#DATV #emmrich volkarin #emmrook #Spent my morning writing this in between wrapping presents #This was supposed to be a joke about dad noises and it grew feelings #🤷🏼‍♀️#This will probably be cleaned up and appear elsewhere.

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novaursa · 1 month ago

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The Northern Heart (2/2)

- Summary: Your father, King Robert, gives your hand to Eddard's oldest son. A decision that might change the future of the North.

- Paring: baratheon!lannister!reader/Robb Stark

- Note: Be aware of the time jumps and angst.

- Rating: Mature 16+

- Previous part: 1/2

- Alternative ending: you stayed

- Tag(s): @sachaa-ff @alyssa-dayne @oxymakestheworldgoround

The day of your wedding arrived under a sky shrouded with gray clouds, as if the North itself mourned the quiet hope that had once surrounded this union. The air in Winterfell was heavy, filled with the strain of anticipation, not of joy, but of waiting—waiting for news, waiting for Bran to awaken.

In the godswood, where your wedding ceremony would take place, the trees stood like solemn guardians, their branches bare and reaching into the somber sky. You were dressed in the finest gown the North had to offer, a deep forest green that complimented the surroundings, a delicate silver belt around your waist and a shawl lined with white fur draped over your shoulders. Your mother, Cersei, stood beside you, her expression unreadable as she adjusted the drape of your shawl, her gaze flickering with a mixture of emotions you couldn’t place.

“Remember, Y/N,” she murmured, her voice cool and steady, “a union like this is more than love. It’s duty.” She looked into your eyes, her hand lingering on your shoulder. “Bear that in mind.”

You nodded, though her words felt distant, almost irrelevant in the face of the sorrow that hung over Winterfell. Your thoughts were on Bran, the young boy you’d barely had the chance to know, now lying pale and unmoving under the Maester’s care. Yet, despite the sadness, a flicker of warmth remained when you thought of Robb, of the promises he’d whispered to you in the godswood, of a life you might build together.

As you stepped forward, the quiet murmurs of the small gathering around you faded into silence. The ceremony had been scaled back, out of respect for the dire circumstances, and though some guests were there out of duty, the faces of Winterfell’s people were shadowed with grief and worry.

Robb stood beneath the towering heart tree, his dark cloak draped over his shoulders, his face somber. His usually warm, easy smile was absent, replaced by a solemn expression that made him appear older, weighed down by a sense of responsibility he hadn’t known before.

As you reached him, his gaze softened, his eyes meeting yours with a depth of feeling that momentarily banished the sorrow. He offered his hand, and you took it, the warmth of his palm grounding you even amidst the cold and sorrow of the day.

The Septon stepped forward, his voice quiet yet steady as he began the words of the ceremony. You barely heard them, your mind absorbed by the feel of Robb’s hand in yours, the silent promises exchanged in each shared glance, each gentle squeeze of his fingers.

When it came time to speak your vows, Robb’s voice was steady but filled with an undercurrent of grief. “I, Robb Stark, take you, Y/N Baratheon, as my wife, to stand by my side in times of joy and sorrow. I promise to honor you, to cherish you, and to protect you… until the end of my days.”

You swallowed, fighting the wave of emotion that threatened to overwhelm you. Meeting his gaze, you replied, your voice barely above a whisper, “I, Y/N Baratheon, take you, Robb Stark, as my husband. I promise to honor you, to stand by you… and to hold Winterfell as my home… as long as we both shall live.”

The silence that followed was thick with unspoken words, a quiet acknowledgment of the weight that lingered between you. Robb’s hand trembled slightly as he lifted his cloak and draped it over your shoulders, the Stark direwolf sigil settling against the green of your gown. His fingers lingered for a moment, a gentle touch that offered both reassurance and shared sorrow.

Catelyn Stark stepped forward, her eyes red-rimmed but composed, her expression holding a quiet strength as she looked at you both. She managed a faint smile, though grief flickered in her eyes. “You are one now,” she said softly, her voice wavering just slightly. “Bound by honor and duty… and the strength of the North.”

Robb nodded, his gaze shifting from his mother to you, a silent promise etched in his eyes. He took your hand once more, and together, you turned to face the small gathering, where the royal family and the Starks stood side by side, united in somber witness.

As the ceremony ended, Cersei approached, her expression carefully controlled as she looked at you. “You’re bound now,” she said softly, her tone a blend of pride and resignation. “Remember who you are.”

“Yes, Mother,” you replied, your voice equally soft.

Robert clapped a heavy hand on Robb’s shoulder, his usual joviality absent. “Take care of her, boy,” he said, his voice gruff. “A Stark and a Baratheon… it’s a good match. We may not have joy today, but… there’s still hope for the future.”

Robb nodded, his grip on your hand tightening just slightly. “I’ll care for her, Your Grace,” he replied, his voice steady. “With all that I am.”

The feast that followed was a subdued affair, the usual raucous laughter and cheerful toasts absent. Servants moved quietly between tables, and the guests spoke in hushed tones, their minds undoubtedly drifting back to the small, still figure of Bran, lying somewhere in the castle.

You sat beside Robb, his hand resting over yours, his touch a constant reminder of the bond you’d just sealed. Every so often, his gaze would drift toward the doors, a flicker of worry crossing his face. You knew his thoughts were with his brother, as were yours, and despite the vows you’d just taken, it felt wrong to celebrate when Bran’s fate remained so uncertain.

At one point, Robb turned to you, his expression earnest. “I’m sorry, Y/N,” he murmured, his voice low so only you could hear. “This isn’t… this isn’t how I wanted our wedding to be.”

You shook your head, managing a faint smile as you met his gaze. “It’s all right, Robb. We’re together, and that’s enough for me.”

His hand tightened around yours, his gaze softening. “We’ll have our happiness, someday,” he promised, a quiet determination in his voice. “When Bran wakes, and the darkness lifts… we’ll find our joy.”

“I believe you,” you replied, and in that moment, you knew you meant it. Despite the sorrow, the grief, the uncertainty, there was a strength in Robb, a resilience that made you feel, perhaps for the first time, that Winterfell could truly be your home.

As the feast wound down, the guests dispersed, the weight of the day settling heavily upon the hall. Robb led you back to the godswood, where the faint rustle of leaves and the quiet murmur of the stream offered a small reprieve from the grief that had followed you through the day.

Standing together beneath the heart tree, his arms wrapped around you, Robb pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead, a quiet promise shared in the silence of the godswood.

“We’ll be fine,” he whispered, his voice filled with a quiet strength. “You and I.”

And as you looked up into his eyes, you knew that this bond, forged in sorrow and solemnity, would endure. The North was your home now, and Robb Stark, your husband, was your future.

The morning was shrouded in a gray mist as the royal family prepared to depart Winterfell. The air was filled with the sounds of horses being saddled, carts being loaded, and the quiet murmur of farewells exchanged in the courtyard. Snow flurries danced in the air, a reminder of the North’s unyielding chill even as summer lingered.

You stood to the side, watching as your family gathered their belongings, preparing to leave Winterfell behind. There was a strange ache in your chest, a mixture of longing and relief. This was goodbye to the life you’d known in King’s Landing, the world of your childhood, yet a new life awaited here in the North, beside Robb.

Cersei approached you first, her face carefully composed, though her eyes softened as she took in your winter garb. She placed a gloved hand on your shoulder, her gaze searching. “Remember what I told you, Y/N,” she murmured, her voice as cold and steady as the northern air. “If ever you find yourself… unhappy, if you ever decide that this place is not what you hoped, send word to me. I’ll send a raven, and you’ll be back in King’s Landing before they know you’re gone.”

You nodded, sensing her quiet desperation beneath the words, but you held firm, offering her a small smile. “Thank you, Mother. I’ll remember.”

Cersei’s hand lingered for a moment before she withdrew, the mask of the queen settling back into place. She gave you a small, almost reluctant nod, and then turned to oversee her children, leaving you with a faint chill where her touch had been.

Next came Myrcella and Tommen, their young faces full of both excitement and sadness. Myrcella wrapped her arms around you tightly, her soft voice muffled against your shoulder. “I’ll miss you, sister. Winterfell is so far away.”

You hugged her back, smoothing her hair gently. “I’ll miss you too, Myrcella. But you’ll write to me, won’t you?”

She nodded eagerly, her green eyes shining as she pulled away, clutching your hand for a moment longer. Tommen, who had tried to appear brave, stepped forward, his lower lip quivering as he hugged you quickly. “Goodbye, Y/N,” he said quietly, his voice thick with emotion. “I’ll keep practicing my sword skills, so when you come back, I’ll be strong enough to protect you.”

You smiled, ruffling his hair gently. “I look forward to it, Tommen. Be brave, all right?”

He nodded, his small shoulders squared as he stepped back beside Myrcella.

Joffrey approached you last among your siblings, his usual confidence subdued. He shifted awkwardly, his gaze flickering between you and the ground before he managed, “Well… I suppose this is goodbye, then.”

“Yes,” you replied, studying him as he avoided your gaze. The cool prince of King’s Landing looked almost uncertain here, his usual arrogance dimmed by the somber air of Winterfell. “Take care of yourself, Joffrey.”

He nodded stiffly, and after a moment, he added, “And… don’t forget what Mother said.” There was something almost grudging in his tone, as though he struggled to convey the sentiment, but you recognized it for what it was—a reluctant offer of support, or at least the closest he could come to it.

“I won’t forget,” you replied softly. He turned quickly, as if he’d revealed more than he intended, rejoining the group with a faint flush to his cheeks.

Tyrion approached next, a warm smile lighting his face as he looked at you. “Well, dear niece, I would say you’re off on a grand adventure, but the North is hardly the place I’d choose for one,” he said with a chuckle. “Still, it seems you have found yourself well suited here.”

You smiled back, appreciating his humor in the midst of the farewells. “The North has its charms, Uncle. Though it might not be quite your idea of a vacation.”

He grinned, raising a brow. “No, certainly not. But I imagine you will do well here. If you need a witty letter or a visit, you know how to reach me.”

“Thank you, Uncle Tyrion,” you replied, and he gave you a brief but warm embrace, patting your shoulder as he stepped back.

Jaime came next, his armor gleaming even in the dull light of the Northern morning. He gave you a smirk, the familiar glint of mischief in his eyes. “Princess,” he said, his tone teasing but affectionate. “Are you ready for a life of snow and solemn Starks?”

You rolled your eyes, a smile tugging at your lips. “I think I’ll manage, Uncle. Robb has been a kind husband.”

He regarded you thoughtfully, a flicker of something protective crossing his features. “If you ever need anything—anyone here ever makes you unhappy—you know you can call on me.”

The sentiment in his words warmed you, and you squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Uncle. I’ll remember.”

He gave you a playful salute, though his eyes held genuine care, and then he joined Tyrion by the royal procession.

Finally, the moment came for the royal family to mount their horses. You stood to the side, your hand tucked in Robb’s as you watched your family prepare to leave. Cersei glanced back at you one last time, her eyes lingering on you, her expression unreadable, before she nodded and looked away. Tyrion offered you a small, reassuring smile, and Jaime gave you a wink, his usual swagger intact.

Lord Eddard, Sansa, and Arya moved to join the royal party as well. Sansa, looking composed and almost regal, met your gaze with a polite nod, her own excitement clear as she anticipated the wonders of King’s Landing. Arya, on the other hand, wore a scowl, clearly reluctant to leave her home and her brother. She cast one last, longing look back at Winterfell before clambering onto her horse beside her sister.

Jon Snow stood apart, dressed in black furs, his expression solemn as he prepared for his own departure to Castle Black. You caught his eye and gave him a small nod of acknowledgment. He returned it with a faint, respectful smile, his gaze lingering briefly on his family before he turned toward the road that led him to his new life beyond the Wall.

As the procession began to move, Robert bellowed one last farewell, his voice echoing through the courtyard as he raised a hand in farewell. “Farewell, Winterfell! Take care of my daughter!” he called, his gaze briefly meeting yours with a hint of fondness.

You stood beside Robb, his hand a steady weight in yours, grounding you as the distant echoes of horse hooves faded into the morning mist. You watched as your family disappeared down the winding path, the figures of your mother, father, and siblings slowly swallowed by the gray expanse of the North.

The silence that followed felt heavy, laden with both loss and anticipation. The final ties to your old life had been severed, and now, Winterfell stood as both your duty and your destiny. You took a deep breath, the cold Northern air filling your lungs as you turned to look at Robb.

He met your gaze, his face softened by a quiet strength. His hand still held yours, warm and reassuring, his grip firm yet gentle. “Are you all right?” he asked softly, his voice filled with concern.

You nodded, managing a small smile. “Yes… it’s just strange, knowing they’re gone.”

Robb gave a small nod of understanding, his thumb brushing over your knuckles. “I understand. But you’re not alone, Y/N. You have me. And this is your home now, as much as it is mine.”

His words, simple and steady, offered a strange comfort. You could feel the warmth of the Stark family around you—their quiet strength, their loyalty, and their acceptance. You had become a part of that now.

Turning back toward the castle, you took your place beside Robb, your hand still in his, as you watched Winterfell’s gates close behind the departing party. The future stretched out before you, uncertain yet filled with promise, and as Robb’s hand held yours, you knew you had chosen to meet it here, together.

The air hummed with hushed whispers and solemn faces of the men marking the grief that weighed on everyone’s hearts. Eddard Stark was dead. News of his execution had traveled through the ranks like wildfire, leaving an ache that no one seemed to be able to soothe. But for you, carrying Robb’s child, it had been an especially bitter blow. Lord Eddard had accepted you into his family with the quiet grace of a father, and his loss felt like a gaping wound.

You sat in your tent, hands resting gently on the swell of your belly, trying to steady your breathing as sorrow and dread churned within you. Outside, the camp was unusually quiet, the only sound the faint rustle of wind through the tents and the distant murmurs of soldiers preparing for the next move in the war that had now become personal.

The flap of your tent was suddenly pulled open with force, and you looked up, startled, to see Lady Catelyn storming in, her eyes blazing with fury. Her face, usually a mask of composure and strength, was contorted in anger, her voice shaking as she spoke.

“You,” she hissed, her tone low but brimming with rage. “How could I have let you stand beside my son, knowing what I know now?”

You stood, heart pounding, uncertain of what she meant. “Lady Catelyn… I don’t understand.”

“Oh, don’t you?” she snapped, stepping closer. “My husband is dead. My son lies broken in Winterfell. And every shred of evidence points to your family. Your Lannister family.”

The accusation cut through you like a knife, and you took a step back, your hand instinctively moving to protect your unborn child. “Lady Catelyn,” you whispered, your voice trembling, “I had nothing to do with this. I grieve for Lord Eddard as you do.”

But Catelyn’s eyes remained cold, unyielding. “You expect me to believe that? You, a daughter of Cersei Lannister? Do you think I’m blind? The girl who grew up under her mother’s shadow, who has every reason to hate the North. And now, conveniently, you’re here, married to my son—carrying his child, no less. How do I know you’re not feeding information back to your family, plotting against us even now?”

Your mouth opened, but no words came. The accusation was too sharp, too unfair, and it struck deep. You felt the sting of tears but held them back, meeting her gaze with as much strength as you could muster.

“I am loyal to Robb. To the North,” you said, your voice shaking but steady. “I left my family for him. I would never betray him.”

But Catelyn was unrelenting, her expression hard as steel. “Loyal? A Lannister knows nothing of loyalty,” she spat, each word laced with bitterness. “I was a fool to think I could ever trust you.”

Just then, Robb burst into the tent, his face tight with worry. “Mother!” he said, glancing between the two of you. “What’s going on?”

Catelyn turned to him, her expression softening only slightly. “Robb, she is a Lannister. Can’t you see what that means? Do you truly believe she isn’t still loyal to her family?”

Robb hesitated, his gaze flicking to you, and the silence that followed was more damning than anything he could have said. His face was conflicted, shadows under his eyes from the strain of war and loss. “Mother… I know what this looks like. But Y/N has stood by me. She’s my wife.”

You felt relief for a brief moment, but then he continued, his voice soft, almost hesitant. “But… given all that’s happened, perhaps it would be best if she gave us her word… to clear any doubts.”

His words struck you like a slap, and the shock left you breathless. “Clear any doubts?” you repeated, your voice trembling as the realization dawned. He didn’t fully trust you either. After everything you’d shared, after all you’d sacrificed, Robb still harbored doubts.

The silence in the tent was suffocating, the weight of his words pressing down on you. “You think… you think I would betray you? That I would harm your family?” you whispered, pain lacing every word. You took a step back, your hand resting protectively over your stomach. “After all we’ve been through, Robb, you still don’t trust me?”

Robb’s face softened, regret and anguish flickering in his eyes. “Y/N… it’s not that I don’t trust you. But with all that’s happened, can you blame us for being cautious?”

The heartbreak in his gaze only twisted the knife deeper. You felt your chest tighten, a surge of anger and betrayal rising within you. “I have stood by you through every trial, Robb. I left my family, my home, and everything I knew to be with you. And now, when I need you most, you doubt me?”

His jaw tightened, and he opened his mouth to respond, but you shook your head, the pain and betrayal overwhelming. Without another word, you turned and pushed past him, storming out of the tent, ignoring his calls for you to stop.

Outside, the cold air hit you like a wave, but it did nothing to numb the ache in your chest. You walked quickly, each step heavy with anger, with sorrow, with the weight of every accusation that had been hurled at you.

You didn’t know where you were going, but anywhere felt better than being in that tent, surrounded by distrust and hurt. As you reached the edge of the camp, you stopped, pressing a hand to your stomach as you felt the first tear slip down your cheek.

The life inside you, the one that you had hoped would bring joy and unity, now felt like a painful reminder of the divide between you and the family you’d tried so hard to become part of.

The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and iron as Robb approached the makeshift cage where Jaime Lannister sat, bound and bloodied, his face shadowed but still holding that infuriating smirk that had become his signature. Grey Wind prowled by Robb’s side, a silent, menacing presence, his golden eyes trained intently on Jaime, teeth bared in a low, guttural growl that seemed to echo the barely restrained fury in Robb’s own gaze.

Jaime looked up as they approached, his smirk widening even as his wrists strained against the ropes that held him. “Ah, the Young Wolf,” he drawled, his voice tinged with amusement despite his bruises. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Robb’s expression was cold, his blue eyes piercing as he regarded his captive. “I thought it was time we spoke,” he said quietly, his tone even but laced with an edge.

Jaime leaned back against the bars of his cage, eyeing Robb with a sardonic tilt of his head. “And here I thought you’d just come to show off your impressive pet,” he said, gesturing toward Grey Wind. “Quite the beast, isn’t he?”

Grey Wind let out a low, warning growl, his fur bristling as he bared his teeth. Jaime held his gaze, unflinching, though a flicker of unease passed through his eyes before he looked back at Robb.

Robb took a slow step forward, crossing his arms as he stared down at Jaime. “I didn’t come here to discuss my direwolf.”

“No?” Jaime’s brows lifted in mock surprise. “Then what, pray tell, did you come here to discuss?”

Robb’s eyes narrowed, his jaw set in a hard line. “Your family,” he said simply, his voice steady.

Jaime’s expression shifted slightly, a flicker of something sharper in his gaze. “Ah,” he murmured, his voice softening as he looked up at Robb. “And by family, I assume you mean my sister… or perhaps my nieces and nephews?” His smirk returned, colder now. “How is she?”

Robb’s eyes flickered, a mixture of anger and something else lurking beneath the surface. “She’s as well as can be expected,” he replied curtly, his voice taut. “Given the circumstances.”

Jaime’s gaze sharpened, and he leaned forward slightly, studying Robb’s face with a hint of genuine interest. “You’re treating her well, then? Not as… shall we say, a prisoner?”

Robb’s lips tightened, his expression darkening. “She’s my wife, Lannister. And she’s carrying my child. I don’t treat her like a prisoner. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know who she is… or rather, whose she is.”

Jaime’s smirk froze, his eyes narrowing slightly as he processed Robb’s words. “Oh?” he said, his tone carefully casual. “And who, exactly, do you think she is?”

Robb’s gaze was unyielding, his voice low and dangerous. “We both know that she’s not Robert’s daughter,” he said coldly. “No more than Joffrey or Tommen or Myrcella are his.”

Jaime held his gaze, the amusement in his expression fading as his eyes turned steely. “That’s a dangerous thing to say, Stark. Especially with so many ears around.” He glanced meaningfully at Grey Wind, who was still growling softly, his hackles raised.

“I’m not afraid of the truth,” Robb replied, his voice firm. “I know exactly what she is. She’s a Lannister—a daughter of your house. And yet here she is, sworn to the North, carrying a Stark child.”

Jaime’s smirk returned, though there was a new edge to it, a cold amusement that glinted in his eyes. “So, you know,” he said slowly, as though savoring the words. “And yet… you keep her close. Tied to you.” He leaned forward, his gaze probing. “Tell me, Young Wolf, what exactly do you think you’ll do if she’s truly my daughter?”

Robb’s face hardened, his fists clenching at his sides as he fought to control his anger. “If she’s truly your daughter, then I’ll do what I must to protect my family,” he replied, his voice barely above a whisper, each word carrying a barely restrained fury.

Jaime’s eyes sparkled with something close to amusement. “Protect your family, you say?” He chuckled darkly. “You mean protect them from her? Or perhaps… protect her from you?” His voice dropped, his tone mocking. “How convenient, isn’t it? You don’t trust her any more than your mother does.”

Robb’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing, his silence only fueling Jaime’s amusement. “That’s what I thought,” Jaime murmured, his gaze sharp as he studied Robb’s face. “You married her, tied her to you with vows and promises… but you don’t truly believe she’s yours, do you?”

Robb’s fists clenched, his knuckles white. “She’s my wife. That’s all that matters.”

Jaime laughed, the sound low and scornful. “Oh, Robb,” he said, his voice laced with derision. “If you really thought that, you wouldn’t be here, would you? You’d be with her now, assuring her of your loyalty. But instead, you’re here, questioning me, looking for answers that only she can give you.”

Robb’s face flushed with anger, but he held his ground, his gaze unwavering. “She swore herself to the North, to my family. That’s the only loyalty that matters now.”

“Is it?” Jaime asked softly, his voice a mocking whisper. “Or is that just what you tell yourself, so you don’t have to face the fact that she could never truly be yours?”

Robb’s face hardened, and for a moment, he looked as though he might strike Jaime, his fists clenched, his breathing harsh. But instead, he stepped back, his gaze cold and unyielding as he looked down at the man who had sown so much pain in his family.

“Whatever you think, Lannister,” he said, his voice a low growl, “it doesn’t change the fact that you’re the one in chains, not her. And no matter what she is, she’s bound to the North now. She’s my wife. And the North protects its own.”

Jaime’s smirk returned, though it was tinged with a faint sadness as he leaned back against the bars of his cage. “If only you believed that,” he murmured, his gaze drifting off as though lost in thought. “If only she did too.”

Robb turned away, Grey Wind falling into step beside him, the direwolf’s growls fading as they left the cage. But Jaime’s words lingered, gnawing at the edges of his mind, each syllable a reminder of the doubts he’d tried so hard to bury.

You sat alone in your tent, the silence wrapping around you like a second skin. It was a silence you’d grown accustomed to over the past few weeks—ever since the accusations, ever since Robb’s words had driven a wedge between you that neither of you had been able to bridge.

You’d barely spoken since then, passing each other with brief, polite nods, or exchanging only the most necessary words. It was as if a gulf had opened between you, an invisible barrier that neither of you knew how to cross. And yet, here you were, sitting in that quiet space, waiting.

Finally, you heard the soft rustle of footsteps outside, and Robb stepped into the tent, his face half-shadowed but unmistakably weary. He paused at the entrance, his gaze meeting yours, and for a moment, the familiar warmth that once lay between you seemed to flicker back to life. But it was gone as quickly as it appeared, leaving only the animosity and the silence in its wake.

He cleared his throat, shifting his weight as if he were unsure whether to approach or keep his distance. “I thought it was time we talked,” he said, his voice low, almost hesitant.

You nodded, your fingers tightening around the edges of the shawl draped over your shoulders. “It has been… a while,” you replied quietly, feeling the weight of the unspoken words settle heavily between you.

Robb stepped closer, his expression guarded, his gaze flicking to your stomach for the briefest of moments before returning to your face. “I didn’t want it to be like this,” he murmured, his voice laced with a hint of regret. “I never wanted… distance between us.��

A bitter smile tugged at the corners of your mouth. “And yet, here we are,” you said softly, the hurt you’d buried these past weeks slipping into your tone.

Robb looked down, his fists clenching briefly before he took a deep breath. “I know you’ve been hurt by… everything that’s happened,” he said, his voice strained. “I don’t want you to feel like… like you’re alone.”

“But I am alone, Robb,” you whispered, the words escaping before you could stop them. “Every time you look at me, I see it in your eyes. You don’t trust me—not truly.”

Robb’s jaw tightened, a flicker of pain crossing his face as he shook his head. “It’s not that simple.”

“Isn’t it?” You met his gaze, your voice trembling with the emotions that had been bottled up for far too long. “I left everything behind for you. My family, my home, everything I knew. I made that choice because I believed that we could build something here together. But now…” You swallowed, struggling to keep your voice steady. “Now I feel like a stranger in my own life.”

He looked away, his shoulders tense, his hands curling into fists as he listened to your words. “You know the situation we’re in. Everything that’s happened—the war, the betrayal, the losses—it’s… complicated. I have to be careful, I have to protect my family, my men. I can’t just ignore—”

“Ignore what?” you interrupted, your voice sharper than you intended. “Ignore the fact that I’m a Lannister? That I have my mother’s blood in me?” The words tasted bitter on your tongue, and you forced yourself to take a steadying breath. “If that’s all you see, Robb, then maybe you never really saw me at all.”

The hurt in your words seemed to strike him, his face tightening as he finally looked back at you. “I do see you,” he said, his voice raw. “And that’s the hardest part, because I don’t want to doubt you. But I have to think of my people, of my family. And with everything that’s happened…”

You closed your eyes, feeling the weight of his doubt settle over you like a shroud. “I thought you loved me,” you whispered, almost to yourself.

“I do love you,” he replied, a note of desperation in his voice. “But…”

You opened your eyes, meeting his gaze with a sadness that seemed to echo the empty spaces between you. “But you don’t trust me,” you finished quietly. “And without trust, what is love?”

He flinched, the pain in his expression undeniable, but he said nothing. The silence stretched between you, filled with the words neither of you could bring yourself to say. You could see the conflict in his eyes, the struggle between his love for you and the loyalty he held to his family, his duty. And in that moment, you understood.

Robb loved you—there was no doubt of that. But his love was conditional, bound by the walls of mistrust that he couldn’t bring himself to tear down. And it hurt, more deeply than any wound you’d ever borne.

“You think I could betray you,” you said, your voice trembling. “You think I could harm the family I chose—the family I swore to protect. And you think that because of my blood.” You looked away, the bitterness swelling in your chest. “But blood is not the same as loyalty, Robb. And I would have thought you, of all people, would understand that.”

Robb took a step forward, his hand reaching out to you, but you pulled back, the pain too fresh, too raw. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, his voice thick with regret. “I never wanted this to happen.”

“Neither did I,” you replied, your voice hollow. “But here we are, standing on opposite sides of a war we never asked for, bound by promises that have become chains.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but the words seemed to die on his lips, leaving only the anguish in his gaze. For a moment, he looked as if he might reach for you again, but then he hesitated, his hand falling back to his side.

“I wish… things were different,” he said quietly, his voice barely more than a whisper.

You nodded, a single tear slipping down your cheek as you looked at him one last time. “So do I,” you replied, your voice breaking. “But wishing doesn’t change anything, does it?”

Without another word, you turned and left the tent, the cold air stinging your face as you stepped into the darkness. The weight of his mistrust settled heavily over you, suffocating the hope that you’d once held so close.

You walked through the camp, the sounds of soldiers and the crackle of fires fading into the background as you tried to process the reality of your situation. Robb might love you, but that love was fractured, shadowed by doubts he couldn’t seem to overcome. And for the first time, you realized that perhaps… you could never truly belong here, no matter how hard you tried.

As you looked out over the camp, the fires casting flickering shadows over the tents, you felt the beginnings of a resolve take root within you. If Robb couldn’t trust you, then you would have to trust yourself. Because at the end of the day, that might be all you had left.

And as much as it hurt, you knew that you couldn’t keep waiting for him to see you—not if he refused to look beyond the name you’d left behind.

The camp was quiet as you made your way through the rows of tents, the early morning mist clinging to the air. The soldiers were still sleeping or stirring groggily, barely aware of your presence. You walked with purpose, your mind a whirlwind of doubt, hurt, and uncertainty. Robb’s mistrust weighed heavily on you, and despite all you’d given up to be here, you felt more alone than ever.

At the far edge of the camp, beneath the watchful gaze of guards, lay the makeshift cage where Jaime Lannister was held. He looked up as you approached, his sharp eyes glinting with curiosity and a touch of amusement, even in the dim light of dawn. Shackles bound his wrists and ankles, yet he held himself with a casual arrogance that only Jaime Lannister could muster in such a situation.

“Well, well,” he drawled, leaning back against the bars with a lazy smile. “Look who’s come to visit.”

You folded your arms, keeping your expression guarded. “You’re not exactly in a position to be smug, Uncle.”

“Oh, but I am,” he replied smoothly, his eyes narrowing as he studied you. “You wouldn’t be here unless something was bothering you. And I’m willing to wager it has to do with a certain Stark boy.”

You stiffened, unwilling to let him see how deeply his words affected you. But Jaime was perceptive, and the small flicker of pain in your eyes did not escape him. He tilted his head, the lazy smirk giving way to something more serious, a flicker of understanding.

“Let me guess,” he said softly, his voice losing its mocking edge. “Robb’s questioning your loyalty. Treating you like you’re as much a prisoner here as I am.”

You looked away, the truth of his words settling uncomfortably in your chest. “It’s not that simple.”

“Isn’t it?” Jaime leaned forward, his eyes searching yours with a surprising amount of empathy. “You gave up everything for him, didn’t you? Left your family, your title, everything you knew. And still, he doesn’t trust you.”

You clenched your fists, a surge of resentment rising within you. “He says he loves me, but… love without trust? What kind of love is that?”

Jaime let out a soft, bitter laugh. “It’s the kind that makes you feel like you’re suffocating, like no matter what you do, you’ll never be enough.” He paused, his gaze softening as he studied your face. “You and I… we’re not so different, you know. Both bound by loyalty to families who would see us suffer before they’d let us be happy.”

You frowned, struggling to reconcile the man before you with the image of the arrogant Kingslayer you’d grown up around. “You speak of loyalty, yet you killed your king. You betrayed your own oath.”

Jaime’s smile faded, and for a moment, you saw a flicker of something deeper in his gaze—a hint of pain, of anger, of regret. “I did what I had to do,” he said quietly, his voice hardening. “Some oaths are worth breaking when the price is too high.”

You stared at him, the weight of his words sinking in as you considered your own situation. Jaime was a man who had been defined by the choices he made, choices that had earned him scorn, hatred, and the infamous name of Kingslayer. But beneath the arrogance and the sneer, there was a man who had made those choices for reasons only he could understand.

“Why are you telling me this?” you asked, your voice barely more than a whisper.

“Because I see what’s happening to you,” he replied, his gaze unwavering. “They’ll turn you into a prisoner of their war, of their distrust. And you’re too much your mother’s daughter to let that happen, aren’t you?”

You stiffened, his words striking a nerve. The mention of your mother brought a rush of conflicting emotions—loyalty, resentment, and a longing for the life you’d left behind.

Jaime’s voice softened, almost conspiratorial. “You could go back, you know. Back to King’s Landing. To your family. You wouldn’t be bound to this endless winter, this… constant doubt.”

“I chose this,” you replied, though the conviction in your voice was weaker than you’d hoped. “I chose Robb. I chose to be here.”

“But does he truly want you here?” Jaime’s question was gentle, almost pitying, and it cut through you like a knife. “Or does he see you as a pawn in his game, a piece that’s convenient when it suits him and expendable when it doesn’t?”

Your heart ached as his words struck closer to the truth than you wanted to admit. You thought back to all the moments Robb had hesitated, the doubt in his eyes, the subtle distance that had grown between you. It was as if no matter how much you tried, you could never truly be a part of this world.

Jaime watched you in silence, his gaze sharp and perceptive. “You’re not meant to be here,” he said softly. “You don’t belong among these people who see you as an outsider. You belong with your family, where your blood means something.”

You looked down, your hands trembling as you grappled with the reality of his words. You had tried so hard to be loyal, to be the wife Robb needed, to make a life in the North. But Jaime’s words stirred something within you—a reminder of the life you’d left behind, of the ties that had bound you long before you’d ever heard of Winterfell.

Jaime leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Let me go,” he said, his tone urgent. “Free me, and I’ll take you back to King’s Landing myself. Back to Cersei, to your brothers and sister. To a place where you’re loved, where you’re trusted.”

You looked up, your heart pounding as his words hung heavy in the air. There was a gleam of determination in Jaime’s gaze, an invitation—a promise. He was offering you a way out, a chance to escape the prison you’d unwittingly found yourself in, a chance to return to the world you’d left behind.

But even as the temptation washed over you, doubts clouded your mind. Could you truly abandon everything you’d chosen? Could you betray the family you’d tried so hard to make your own?

Jaime watched you, his gaze unwavering, his expression unreadable. “What will it be, Y/N?” he murmured, his voice a whisper that seemed to echo in the silence. “Are you truly one of them… or are you still one of us?”

The question lingered in the air, the choice hanging heavy between you. And as you met Jaime’s piercing gaze, the weight of his words pressed down on you, leaving you teetering on the edge of a decision that could change everything.

The tension in the war tent was crackling as Robb gathered with his bannermen, discussing the latest strategies and plans for their campaign. The low light from the candles cast shadows over maps spread out across the table, each marked with strategic positions and paths. Robb stood at the head of the table, his gaze focused and intense, while you stood behind one of the lords, quietly listening as the men argued and discussed. You felt the familiar weight of being an outsider, especially in moments like these.

Just as Lord Karstark was outlining a possible maneuver, the flap of the tent burst open, and a guard rushed in, breathless and wide-eyed, his face pale. “My king!” he called out, his voice filled with urgency.

Robb straightened, his brow furrowing. “What is it?” he asked, his tone sharp.

The guard hesitated, glancing between Robb and the lords gathered around him before finally finding the courage to speak. “The Kingslayer… he’s gone. He’s escaped.”

A stunned silence fell over the tent, and every eye turned to Robb, who stiffened, his face darkening with shock and fury. His gaze immediately swung toward you, the unspoken accusation in his eyes cutting like a blade. For a brief, terrible moment, you felt the weight of that suspicion settle over you, his silent question echoing in the depths of your heart: Did you have a hand in this?

But before either of you could say a word, the guard continued, his voice shaky. “It was Lady Catelyn, my lord. She… she freed him.”

The room erupted into an uproar, the lords shouting in outrage and disbelief. Lord Karstark, his face twisted in fury, slammed his fist onto the table. “Lady Stark? She freed the man who killed my sons? This is madness!”

“Your mother’s gone too far, Robb!” Lord Umber growled, his voice a low, menacing rumble. “She’s betrayed us all, and she’s released the only valuable bargaining piece we had.”

The tent filled with accusations and anger, each man speaking over the other, their voices rising in a chaotic swell of fury and disbelief. Robb stood in silence, his face pale as he absorbed the news. He looked stricken, a storm of emotions brewing in his gaze—shock, anger, and betrayal, all flashing across his face in an instant.

You lowered your gaze, the sting of his earlier suspicion still fresh in your heart. Despite knowing that the truth had been revealed, Robb’s silence, his initial reaction, lingered like an unhealed wound. The fact that his first instinct had been to turn to you, to wonder if you had betrayed him, left a bitter taste in your mouth.

One of the bannermen, his voice loud and furious, called out, “Your mother’s actions could cost us everything, Robb. If we lose because of this, it’ll be blood on her hands.”

Robb’s fists clenched at his sides, his knuckles white as he struggled to maintain control. “Enough!” he shouted, his voice ringing out above the chaos. Silence fell as the lords turned to him, each of them brimming with anger and frustration.

Robb took a deep, steadying breath, his gaze hard and unyielding as he looked around the room. “I understand your anger. Lady Stark’s actions were… unexpected.” He hesitated, his voice thick with barely suppressed fury. “But she is still my mother. We will not turn on her.”

Lord Karstark, his face a mask of bitter rage, stepped forward. “My king, with all due respect, this isn’t just about you or your mother. This is about justice. Your father’s justice, which she’s undermined by letting that… that Kingslayer walk free.”

Robb’s gaze flicked to you for the briefest of moments, and you could still see the shadow of doubt lingering there, a remnant of his initial suspicion. The silent accusation was gone, but the sting remained, a reminder of the fracture between you that no apology could fully mend.

You kept your gaze lowered, refusing to meet his eyes. The anger of the lords and Robb’s initial reaction had cemented a sense of isolation within you, a quiet resignation that you might never truly be trusted here. Not as a Lannister. Not as his wife.

Lord Umber turned to Robb, his voice softer but no less intense. “What will you do, then? How will you salvage this?”

Robb’s jaw clenched, the weight of responsibility bearing down on him. “I’ll send men after Jaime,” he said, his voice cold and resolute. “I’ll do everything I can to bring him back.”

The lords muttered amongst themselves, some nodding, others still simmering with anger. Robb turned to the guard. “Have all patrols doubled. Every man we can spare will search for Jaime Lannister. He won’t make it far.”

The guard nodded, bowing quickly before leaving the tent. The lords watched Robb carefully, their gazes sharp and unforgiving. They were looking to him to make a decision, to show strength, but you could see the toll it was taking on him.

In the charged silence that followed, Robb turned to face his bannermen fully, his expression steeled. “I know this seems like a betrayal,” he said, his voice steady, though there was a slight tremor beneath the calm. “But we can’t let this tear us apart. We’ll recover from this. We have to recover from this, or we’ve already lost.”

The lords murmured their reluctant assent, though the bitterness in their gazes remained. As they began to file out, some cast sidelong glances at you, their expressions a mix of suspicion and disdain. It was clear that for many of them, a Lannister among the Starks would always be viewed as a potential threat.

Finally, the tent cleared, leaving you alone with Robb. The silence was heavy, his back turned to you as he stared at the maps on the table, his hands gripping the edges tightly. His knuckles were white, and you could see the stiffness in his shoulders, the quiet fury simmering just beneath the surface.

You took a tentative step forward, your voice barely more than a whisper. “Robb…”

He didn’t turn, his voice low and raw. “You knew, didn’t you?”

The accusation stung, and you flinched, swallowing hard. “I didn’t know she would do this. I only spoke to Jaime once—”

“You spoke to him?” He turned, his eyes blazing, the hurt and betrayal clear in his gaze. “After everything, you went to him?”

“I went to speak to him, yes,” you replied, keeping your voice steady. “But I didn’t know she would let him go. I swear it, Robb.”

For a moment, he looked away, his expression torn, and you could see the struggle in his eyes as he fought to reconcile his love for you with the doubts that had festered between you. Finally, he let out a heavy sigh, running a hand through his hair as he looked back at you.

“I don’t know what to believe anymore,” he murmured, his voice laced with exhaustion. “My father is dead, my brother is crippled, and now my mother has freed the one man who could have given us leverage. And then… there’s you.”

The weight of his words settled heavily on your chest, and you felt a tear slip down your cheek, quickly brushing it away. “I’m not your enemy, Robb. I wanted this to work. I wanted to be part of your family, of this… but I don’t know if I’ll ever be enough.”

He looked at you, his expression softened by the faintest glimmer of regret, but the doubt still lingered, a shadow that neither of you could banish. “I don’t want to lose you,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. “But I don’t know how to trust you.”

The ache in your chest deepened, and for a moment, the distance between you felt insurmountable. You nodded, turning away from him, feeling the weight of all that had gone unspoken settling heavily on your shoulders.

In the silence, you left the tent, leaving Robb alone with his doubts, the wound between you left unhealed and festering, the echoes of mistrust lingering in the cold Northern air.

The night was cold as Robb stormed into his mother’s tent, his face set in a hardened mask of fury and disbelief. The shadows cast by the flickering candlelight danced on the canvas walls, giving his expression an almost spectral intensity. Catelyn sat at a small table, her face pale but composed, as if she’d been waiting for this confrontation.

She looked up as he entered, her eyes steady, but Robb could see the quiet resolve and sadness in her gaze. She rose, meeting his gaze head-on, even as he struggled to contain the storm of emotions brewing within him.

"Why?" His voice was low, laced with betrayal and anger. "Why did you do it, Mother?"

Catelyn’s expression didn’t falter. She clasped her hands together, taking a deep breath. "I did it for your sisters, Robb. For Sansa and Arya."

His jaw clenched, and he took a step closer, his eyes blazing with a barely restrained fury. "You let the Kingslayer go. You released the one man who could give us leverage against the Lannisters, who could help us end this war. You went against me, against your king. All for what? A promise from Jaime Lannister?”

Catelyn’s face softened, but she held her ground. "You weren’t there, Robb. You didn’t see Sansa’s letter. You didn’t hear the desperation in her words. She’s trapped in that viper’s nest, held by the very people who murdered your father." Her voice wavered slightly, though her gaze remained resolute. "And Arya… we don’t even know where she is. If there’s a chance that Jaime’s freedom could bring them home, I had to take it."

Robb shook his head, disbelief etched in every line of his face. "A chance? You traded our best leverage for a chance? And what of the lives lost in this war? The men who followed me, who died believing we’d bring justice to our family, that we’d make the Lannisters answer for what they did?”

Catelyn’s expression faltered, a flicker of pain crossing her face. "Do you think I’ve forgotten that?" she whispered. "Do you think I’ve forgotten the men we’ve lost, the sons and fathers who’ve given their lives for this cause? But they did it for more than just vengeance, Robb. They did it to protect our family, to bring your sisters home. And if freeing Jaime means I have to make sacrifices, then so be it.”

"Those sacrifices weren’t yours to make," Robb shot back, his voice rising. "You put everything at risk. You put us at risk. Your sons, your people, our cause… all of it thrown away for a promise that Jaime Lannister might help us? Did you think of what it would cost us if he betrays us?”

Catelyn’s composure slipped, and her voice rose in response, tinged with frustration and sorrow. "And if I did nothing? What then, Robb? Leave Sansa in the lion’s den, to suffer at their mercy? Let Arya’s fate remain unknown, just a shadow in our minds? I couldn’t sit idly by, not when there was even a glimmer of hope."

"Hope?” Robb’s voice was sharp, his gaze unyielding. "Hope that the man who threw Bran from a tower, who killed Karstark’s sons, would suddenly grow a conscience? Did you even stop to think of the betrayal that would bring upon us all? Or was that outweighed by a promise Jaime made while bound in a cage?”

The words hung between them, thick with accusation, and Catelyn’s expression softened with regret, but she did not back down. "You weren’t there, Robb," she repeated, her voice quiet but firm. "Sansa is my daughter, your sister, and I will do anything—anything—to bring her back to us."

Robb’s face twisted with a mix of anger and pain, and he took a step back, running a hand through his hair as he struggled to contain his emotions. "And what of me, Mother? Do I mean so little to you that you’d defy me, ignore my command, and risk everything we’ve fought for?”

Catelyn’s eyes softened, her own voice breaking as she spoke. "You are my son, Robb. My firstborn. I would do anything for you, you must know that." She took a step toward him, her voice pleading. "But you’re also a king now, and kings must make hard choices. I didn’t do this to defy you—I did it because I couldn’t bear the thought of losing any more of my children.”

Robb’s gaze was hard, but a flicker of understanding, of shared pain, crossed his face. “I am a king, yes. And as a king, I have to answer to my bannermen, to the people who follow me. And now they question me because of what you’ve done. They’re angry, furious that you would release the man who killed their kin. I cannot lead if my own family undermines me.”

Catelyn’s face fell, and for a moment, she looked vulnerable, her strength faltering. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Robb. But as a mother, I couldn’t stand by any longer. The Lannisters hold so much power over us… they hold our children, our family, and they’ve taken so much from us already. I just… I wanted to bring some of them back.”

Robb’s expression softened for the briefest of moments, a flicker of sympathy breaking through the storm of his anger. But he quickly steeled himself, his face hardening once more as he took a step back, putting distance between them.

"Do you realize what you’ve done?" he asked quietly, his voice cold. "You’ve cost us our advantage. You’ve sown doubt among my men, our allies. You’ve put everything I’ve built at risk, all for a promise that might mean nothing.”

Catelyn’s gaze wavered, but she held his gaze, her face etched with sorrow. "Then I will bear that burden," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "I will live with the consequences of my actions, Robb. But I did what I thought was right, as a mother.”

Robb’s eyes filled with pain, and he shook his head, his voice raw. "Right or wrong, you’ve betrayed me, Mother. And I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for that.”

The words seemed to hang in the air, heavy and final, and Catelyn looked away, her expression crumbling as the weight of his accusation settled over her. She took a shaky breath, struggling to hold back tears, but she did not try to defend herself further. She simply nodded, accepting his words, knowing that nothing she could say would change his mind.

Robb turned, his face as cold as the Northern wind, and without another word, he left the tent, leaving his mother behind, her shoulders slumped as she sank into a chair, the quiet grief settling over her like a shroud.

Outside, Robb took a deep breath, the anger and sorrow swirling within him, leaving him feeling hollow and adrift. He had lost his father, he had lost his trust in his wife, and now… he had lost faith in his own mother.

And as he stood alone in the darkness, he wondered how much more he could lose before there was nothing left of him at all.

The morning sun was a pale, cold light filtering through the muted haze that settled over the camp. It did little to warm the chill that seemed to grip Robb as he strode toward the war tent, the echoes of the previous night’s confrontation with his mother weighing heavily on him. His heart felt raw, torn between duty and family, and now he had to face his men, men who questioned his leadership, men who waited for him to set things right.

Inside the war tent, his bannermen were already gathered around the table, their expressions grim and expectant. Lord Karstark was there, his eyes red-rimmed and filled with anger, while Lord Umber stood with his arms crossed, his face hard and unyielding. They turned as Robb entered, offering him a nod of respect, but the tension in the room was palpable.

Robb took his place at the head of the table, looking out at the men who had pledged their loyalty to him, who had sacrificed for him. He could feel their resentment simmering, the weight of his mother’s betrayal casting a shadow over his authority. He took a deep breath, steadying himself as he prepared to address the situation.

“We’ve lost Jaime Lannister,” he began, his voice firm, though he kept his tone measured. “I won’t pretend that this isn’t a setback. We lost a valuable bargaining piece, and I understand your anger. But we cannot allow this to break us.”

Lord Karstark scoffed, his voice filled with bitterness. “A setback? Your mother has let the very man who murdered my sons slip through our fingers. This is more than a mere setback, Robb.”

Robb clenched his jaw, fighting to keep his composure. “I understand, Lord Karstark. I share your anger. But Jaime Lannister is gone. Wasting time on anger won’t bring him back.”

Lord Umber leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. “Then perhaps it’s time we consider other options, my king.”

Robb’s gaze flicked to him, his brows furrowing. “What other options?”

Umber exchanged a look with Karstark, then turned back to Robb, his expression calculating. “The Kingslayer may be gone, but we still have… another Lannister close at hand.”

Robb’s heart stilled, a flash of unease tightening his chest. “What do you mean?”

Karstark’s mouth twisted into a grim smile, his voice cold and unfeeling. “Your wife, my king. She carries the name Lannister in her blood as much as the Kingslayer did. If you want to draw Tywin Lannister out, what better way than to use her as bait?”

Robb’s face paled, his fists clenching at his sides as he struggled to comprehend the enormity of what his bannermen were suggesting. “You’re speaking of my wife,” he said, his voice low, dangerously quiet. “The mother of my child.”

Lord Karstark shrugged, unperturbed. “She’s also a Lannister. Do you think Tywin would stand idly by if he knew his granddaughter is in our hands?”

Lord Umber nodded, his tone practical, almost cold. “Think about it, Robb. This is war. Your personal feelings can’t come before the needs of the North. If using the girl could give us an advantage, then we should consider it.”

Robb’s fists slammed onto the table, his face contorted with anger as he looked from one man to the next, his voice shaking with fury. “She is not a pawn. She is my wife. She is carrying my child. And you would suggest using her like a bargaining chip?”

The lords exchanged uneasy glances, but Lord Karstark remained defiant, his gaze unwavering. “With respect, my king, this isn’t a game. We’re fighting for our survival, for justice. If we have a weapon we can use against the Lannisters, we should use it.”

Robb’s voice was ice, a low growl that cut through the room. “No. I will not hear any more talk of this. My wife is under my protection, and she is a part of this family, as much as any of you.” He turned his gaze to each of them, his eyes fierce. “If any of you even consider acting on this suggestion, I will see it as an act of treason.”

Silence fell, the men visibly taken aback by the ferocity in Robb’s voice, but Karstark refused to back down entirely. “You’re a young man, Robb,” he said, his tone bitter. “A young man who has let his heart cloud his judgment. War requires sacrifice. You cannot afford to place one person above the entire North.”

Robb’s jaw tightened, his eyes burning with barely restrained rage. “I know the cost of war, Lord Karstark. I’ve buried men I’ve called my brothers, seen lives destroyed, families torn apart. But I will not sacrifice my wife and my child on the altar of your vengeance.”

Lord Umber’s voice softened, though there was still a note of caution. “We’re only suggesting that we consider all options, my lord. No one wants to see harm come to your lady, but if we’re to win this war, we need every advantage we can get.”

Robb took a deep breath, trying to rein in his anger as he looked around at his bannermen, his voice tight with restraint. “I understand the risks. But we will find another way. I will not allow my wife to be used as a tool in this war. This discussion is over.”

The lords fell silent, some looking away, others muttering under their breath, but none dared to argue further. Robb could feel the weight of their disappointment, their doubt. But he stood firm, unwilling to compromise on this matter, no matter the cost.

Lord Karstark shook his head, his voice a quiet mutter filled with disdain. “You’re a fool if you think you can win this war with a conscience, Robb. This is a mistake, and it may well be the death of us all.”

Robb’s gaze hardened, his eyes like steel as he met Karstark’s glare. “Then so be it,” he replied, his voice unyielding. “I’d rather face death with honor than live knowing I betrayed the people I swore to protect.”

The lords exchanged glances, some nodding in reluctant acceptance, while others looked away, their expressions a mix of anger and disappointment. Robb could feel the rift growing between him and his men, the chasm widening with each hard choice he made. But he knew, in his heart, that this was the right decision.

As the bannermen began to file out of the tent, Robb stood in silence, his hands gripping the edge of the table as he struggled to steady himself. The weight of his choice pressed heavily on him, and he felt the creeping isolation that came with command, the loneliness of standing by one’s principles in a world that demanded compromise.

When the last of the lords had gone, he let out a heavy breath, his shoulders slumping as the anger drained from him, leaving only the ache of weariness in its place. He had chosen to protect you, to keep his promise, but at what cost? His bannermen’s loyalty was waning, and the unity he had once relied on was beginning to fracture.

Yet he knew, as surely as he knew the North’s bitter winters, that he could not—would not—allow harm to come to you. Not even for the sake of his war.

...

The early morning mist clung to the ground as you stood in the quiet edge of the camp, saddling your horse with hands that trembled only slightly. The air was cold, stinging your skin, but it felt like a balm to the storm raging in your heart. Each buckle, each strap you tightened, was a silent answer to the questions you hadn’t been able to voice aloud. You knew this wasn’t a decision that could be made lightly, but after days—weeks—of silence, mistrust, and feeling like a stranger in your own life, it was a decision you had to make.

The quiet was broken by the sound of footsteps behind you, and you paused, a chill running through you that had nothing to do with the air. Turning slowly, you saw Robb standing there, his face pale, his expression etched with disbelief and something close to panic. Behind him, at a distance, Catelyn had stopped, her gaze fixed on you with a mix of sorrow and regret.

“What are you doing?” Robb’s voice was low, strained, as if he could barely bring himself to ask the question.

You took a deep breath, steadying yourself as you turned to face him. “I’m preparing my horse, Robb. I think it’s time… I think it’s best if I leave.”

The words seemed to hit him like a blow, his face paling further as he took a step closer, his voice shaking with urgency. “You’re leaving? But… you’re heavy with child. You can’t just ride out like this.”

Your hand instinctively moved to rest on the curve of your belly, a reminder of the life growing inside you, of the love you had once shared so freely with the man standing before you. “I have no other choice,” you replied, your voice quiet but firm. “You doubt me, Robb. You’ve doubted me for weeks, maybe even longer. I can’t stay where I’m not trusted. Not like this.”

Robb’s expression crumbled, and he reached out, his hand hovering just inches from yours. “I don’t want you to leave,” he whispered, his voice thick with desperation. “I know… I know I’ve made mistakes, that I’ve let my own fears blind me. But please, don’t do this.”

You looked away, struggling to hold back the tears that threatened to spill. “How can I stay, Robb? How can I raise our child in a place where my loyalty is constantly questioned? Where every glance feels like a reminder that I don’t belong?”

Robb’s hand found yours, his grip gentle but firm as he held you close. “Because I love you,” he said softly, his voice filled with a raw vulnerability you hadn’t heard in weeks. “I love you more than I can say. And I know I’ve been a fool. But… please, don’t punish me for that by leaving.”

You looked up, meeting his gaze, and the anguish in his eyes struck deep, stirring memories of the love you’d shared—the warmth, the laughter, the quiet moments of solace and comfort that had once filled your life together. But those memories felt distant now, like echoes of a life that had slowly slipped away.

“I’m not punishing you, Robb,” you whispered, your voice barely audible. “I’m trying to protect myself. And our child. I can’t… I can’t keep waiting for you to trust me when every day feels like a test I’m doomed to fail.”

Robb shook his head, his grip on your hand tightening as if he were afraid you’d disappear if he let go. “No. You’re not doomed to fail. You’re the woman I chose, the woman I love. And… you’re the mother of my child.” His voice broke, and he looked down, swallowing hard before meeting your gaze again, his eyes filled with tears. “Please… don’t take that away from me.”

The words hung between you, heavy with the weight of everything you’d both lost, everything you still had yet to say. You could feel his desperation, the silent plea in his gaze, begging you to stay, to forgive, to give him one last chance. Behind him, Catelyn watched silently, her face shadowed with regret and sadness, but she said nothing, merely bearing witness to the fracture between you and her son.

You closed your eyes, feeling the warmth of his hand against yours, the familiar strength and comfort you’d once found in his touch. But there was still the lingering ache, the wound of betrayal that hadn’t yet healed, the knowledge that even now, doubt lay between you like a dark chasm.

“I don’t know if love is enough, Robb,” you whispered, opening your eyes to meet his gaze, your voice trembling. “Love without trust… what kind of life would that be for us? For our child?”

Robb’s face crumpled, and he took a shaky breath, his voice raw. “Then let me earn your trust back,” he said, his words filled with a quiet, desperate hope. “Give me that chance. Stay. Please.”

The silence stretched between you, the decision hanging heavy in the air. You looked at him, at the man you’d once given your heart to, the man who had given you hope, love, a new life. But now… now there was so much pain, so much mistrust, that you couldn’t tell if those promises still held the same weight.

Your gaze drifted to the road beyond the camp, the path that would lead you back to your family, to the life you’d left behind. And then back to Robb, his eyes filled with silent pleading, his hand still holding yours, a reminder of everything you’d built together, of the future you’d dreamed of.

And as you stood there, torn between two worlds, the decision loomed, uncertain and unresolved, like the misty dawn stretching before you, waiting for you to choose which path you would take.

There will be another part with the ending if Y/N decides to stay. 😉

#game of thrones #house of the dragon #hotd #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #fire and blood #asoiaf x reader #got/asoiaf #got x reader #got x you #got x y/n #got robb stark #robb stark #robb x reader #robb x you #robb x y/n #house stark #house lannister #house baratheon

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