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scentedpepper · 3 months

Text

Missing | TWD

MALE READER X S5 GROUP

Summary: The group reverberates with a somberness upon your potential death

Content Warnings: Mention of Major Character Deaths from previous seasons, S5 and below spoilers

AUTHOR NOTE(S):

Not too sure how I feel about this one

Could be read as GN for the most part (he/him used a few times, 'Father' used once, 'Brother' used once)

Was originally supposed to be centered around Daryl and Rick, but somewhere along the writing process, I devlled into just about every other member of the group

Ya'll know how many last names I had to look up for these tags

Enjoy?

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7 days.

Seven days of them searching for their found family member who went out to investigate and never came back.

Glenn thought for sure that maybe with all the shit they have been through, the apocalypse must have treated you a little kinder.

That was assuming you were already dead.

Which Rick, in all his glory, continued to remind everyone that until there is evidence, there are just as many possibilities as there are stars in the sky.

He thought it was a strange fit, all doom and gloom, it wasn't like Glenn to carry around the carcasses of such negative presumptions about his loved ones, but nonetheless, he had just the same.

An ever present reminder as the fire was stoked by Glenn's constant fidgets, his spaced-out breaths being released with the baggage of endless possibilities.

"Glenn's gonna lose it when he sees this one. "

Is what Daryl said to Rick on the night of day 5, your shirt clenched in hand, approaching the church with footsteps so heavy you could mistake them for Walkers.

The worst part, Rick thought, was how he had found it, which further fueled the possibility that couldn't help but arise.

A decaying Walker's den where there was a mass majority of bodies wearing clothes; Not Walker corpses.

Hopeless and without explanation Rick approached camp with a grim expression that took root in his features.

And when Daryl had handed the shirt to Glenn after he feverishly chanted let me see it, let me see it, over and over, Daryl observed the way his hand shook when he snatched it and how the same hand came up to rub his face after he confirmed in his own mind that, without a doubt, it was yours.

Maggie had to take the shirt from his hands and when she felt the dirt and grime ragged against her skin, she almost burst at the seams, Rick knew by the strain in her brows and the way her hands turned into fists at her side.

She was the first person Rick had questioned upon your missing presence, wanting to know who you had walked out with last night and who stayed behind, wanting to pinpoint possible places you might be, or routes you could've taken.

Her response was ridden with anxious adrenaline, her lips chewed raw in worry, bouncing on her toes before stomping off and pulling everyone together to go looking for you.

There was no conversation within the group but a mutual agreement.

Naturally, the first person they looked to for some account of wrongdoing was Gabriel.

You had always been so intuitive, like you were the one who could read minds not him.

The others felt so comforted by you, Gabriel assumed.

He was only too accustomed to the fact that everyone saw the good in you, the positive, and while that brought him a modicum of solace, there were times where he couldn't help but wallow in envy.

A man of God and yet, it was you who they looked to, as if you were Christ himself.

As if you were his light.

Gabriel couldn't understand this fascination.

When he had confronted you about it, rather presumptuously, Gabriel was too quick to gauge the situation and allow his ego to speak for him. Said confrontation also happened to occur right before Maggie and Sasha who shared pointed looks with each other as they watched the scene unfold before them.

You were quick on your toes, always had been. Back on the farm, when Shane had been more akin to a wild boar, you were always the first to confront him. Always calm, or whenever you spoke you at least had the appearance of it, always matter of fact. Even when your voice raised or when anger was seething through you, it seemed like everyone just stopped, and listened.

It was one of your redeeming traits, sharp tongue laced with facts that wouldn't hesitate to point out things that were missing, contradictions, positions and beliefs.

It left some satisfaction amongst the ton when Gabriel pushed out of Judith's designated room, nearly knocking Carl off his feet as the door came with his exit.

A flustered look had replaced him, no doubt having felt the embarrassment, as if he had been burning inside.

After a beat, he had apologized under his breath and carried himself in haste towards you.

Unfortunately, this incident occurred the last night anyone had seen you.

When everyone had risen that morning, one by one coming off the floors of the church and stirring awake those who remained sleeping, you were the only one who hadn't stirred. Because your body wasn't even of prescence.

Almost immediately, everybody went on an emotional and mental frenzy.

Even when the conversation with Gabriel didn't bode well for him. He refuted, if a little pathetically, that you weren't very friendly towards him.

Upon hearing of what had happened just hours before they woke, Daryl seemed to retreat back to the deepest of his old roots.

Begrudgingly, Rick knew this was what they called "fight or flight."

Luckily for everyone involved, Daryl never moved unless there was something to fight for. The man had gained some sort of control over the years of personal development but like a dog, he'd jumped on Gabriel the second tensions rose.

There was a knife pressed against Gabriel's throat when Drayl pushed him into the nearest wall and the preacher did nothing but pray to himself and accept his fate.

Minuets later of interrogation and threatening, Michonne and Tara intervenned, though Daryl seemed none too eager to back off the smaller man, not until he was physically being dragged back and Rick telling him to get a hold of himself.

"He's lucky I didn't slit his fuckin' throat! It was him!" Because back in the day, with Merle at his side, he would've and to hell with anyone who said differently.

Rick saw Carol's lips part to say something, as did Abraham, but nothing came out. That was because Rick cut them off by clearing his throat loudly, hands rising in demand to appease the tension in the church.

"We are going to look for him. It's no secret that we're standing on a ticking time bomb. " He was blunt and direct, his head turning sharply towards everyone and waiting a beat before he continued. "Everybody gets paired off. No one leaves each other's sides. And yes, Daryl, that includes Gabriel. “

His gaze softened upon the archer as he came around to see the anger and frustration but most of all, the pain in his eyes. He wanted to assure him, they were going to find you. But he couldn't find the words to, as his own fingertips surged with doubt and as the rest of the days proceeded, his whole body seemed to become encapsulated by it.

They all began out at once, weapons gathered, determination and grievance fused into them as they exited the church in pairs. The only 2 persons staying behind being Judith and Abraham.

Before the front doors fell, Rick sought out Gabriel, his fingers ghosting over the knob as his stomach tied in knots.

"If you so much as touch a hair on her head, " he was referring to Michonne who'd gotten the unlucky job of catering to Gabriel, "I swear it'll be the last thing you do. " He watched Gabriel swallow a lump in his throat in response. "And if I find out you had an inkling of any wrongdoing, God won't be able to save you. "

It wasn't an empty threat and the conviction in his tone let Gabriel know.

It wasn't just Daryl that was shaken by the fear of your abduction or death, there wasn't a moment where Rick could stop to inhale without thinking about you. How tightly you had embraced him 2 nights prior, when he'd confided that maybe he wasn't suited for this leader job anymore, that he didn't know where you all would go, or if you'd even make it past these religious grounds before succumbing to hunger.

There was warmth radiating off you like a furnace and he couldn't shake the soothing way your fingertips gilded against his forearm as you told him that things would fall into place in time, no matter how difficult it got.

But Daryl was a damn firecracker, this way of his to emote through hostility and intimidation was a way for him to cope with the potential loss of his brother.

You were not Shane.

There's so much Rick could rationalize before he no longer had the will to counter how much he wished you were there now to quell the savagery within his best friend.

Carl couldn't care less at this point, as the rage within him seemed to blaze each step closer to the forest. It burned at his eyes, tearing his hands into fists that felt as if their own knuckles may shatter within the grasp.

Rosita had to stop him.

"What?" He initially sneered at her, pushing out of her grip and continuing to stomp forward until he could feel her nipping at his heels.

"Carl, now is not the time to get some kind of revenge, alright? We'll find the fucker, but getting ourselves killed is not going to help. "

Eventually, she got him to sit down and collect himself which consisted of roughly pacing and rubbing his face with his palms in attempt to scrub the hostility right out of him. He wanted to scream, to fucking yell the earth apart because this wasn't fair, none of this was. He was fueled by Daryl's rage.

Carl found it somewhat easier to sit there and allow his teeth to sink into his knuckles while he suppressed tears.

Eugene and Tara had wandered the farthest the fastest, the church began to slowly disappear the deeper they strayed into the density of the trees until there was no distinguishable church at all, or street or houses for that matter.

They were silent the entire way, like speaking would somehow shatter the chances of finding you, safe, sound and alive.

So then when Tara did speak, Eugene nearly jumped.

He halted immediately, his body turning as he looked every which way as if you may suddenly appear behind a tree.

"We should turn around and just make our way back. " She whispered.

That was her biggest concern, because with the route they had taken, any further into the unknown, she knew there were no way to familiarize themselves with where they were.

"Rick said to keep searching til sun down and that's just what I intend to do. " There was an anger in his expression and an agony to his voice that confirmed his intentions were anything but logical.

"Eugene. "

And again his body suddenly felt like it wasn't his, or maybe his bones weren't aligned and he was a puppet, a stranger, someone entirely else.

"Eugene, we won't get anywhere trying to force out this search. Please. The sun is already setting, it's near impossible to see 10 feet ahead and even if we were to press further in the dark, they're-"

She didn't need to finish her sentence to know what she wanted to say, the image was still clear in her mind as if she had just watched the last interaction you'd had with her and Rosita. The absolute dejection you allowed her to see in your eyes, the hesitation and restraint you had felt in giving your hugs. She took one and wrapped herself around you and you didn't dare do more than reciprocate the tightness, afraid to hurt her. As if.

After some minuets, Eugene came to and they turned back.

When they got to the church, Abraham was pacing back and forth, doing circles around the confinements of the holy sanctuary with Judith in his arms.

"Where's Gabriel?" Eugene spoke cautiously, realizing the weight in his voice when he did so.

"He's locked in his office. Said to leave him to rot or somethin'. Not a bad idea, the bastards a fuckin killer. "

Abraham was just as convinced as Daryl. No one asked to elaborate because they somehow knew the moment he did, he'd lose his shit. Like a bomb that's set to a timer, ticking away until it explodes into your ears.

"Find anything?" He asked as Tara slid down the wall she had been leaning against since they returned and brought her legs to her chest. Eugene shook his head at him which made the soldier nod back bitterly.

By day two, Michonne decided to conduct a one man search party for the nights. When the moon came out, she snuck off to the woods and scouted the area she had previously searched, for any evidence that may have been missed on the 1st visitation. Which would prove to cause strife amongst the group when Carl found her out four days later.

"What are you doing?" He challenged harshly as he forced himself into the dark brush behind her with Michonne's body jolting at the abrupt arrival of company.

"Carl-"

"Are you crazy?”

The boy wasn't the only person who she'd receive these questions from, Tyrese had found himself wandering her way as well.

"Why would you come out here on your own? Have you lost it?" He griped under his breath, tone laced with disapproval as if the woods had just come to eat them alive.

"Well, what are you doing out here?" She retorted back in a whisper yell with a forceful gesture to the man who was just as armed, just as ready as her.

Her efforts were fruitless, though, and no response was heard, which left her walking the same way she came.

Rick wasn't happy about it.

At first, when Carl appeared through the door in the night, he thought his son was the culprit of the secret night searches, but soon realized what has transpired when he saw Michonne making her way inside.

"Everyone is on edge, alright? Everyone is doing exactly what is expected of them, they have been looking and looking and Michonne, it's about time you pulled your head from your ass and sat down for the night. " Rick had said 5 minuets after they'd settled in the privacy of Judiths room. Their voices were lowered considerably so as not to wake the others, but Rick's tone wasn't anything less than a demand.

"So we should just sit around?" She had, then, the urge to spit at him and remind him that you could be dead in the next second. Gone. Poof.

"We are not–" Rick's voice began to rise in octaves but he took a moment to lower the volume. "We are *not* just sitting around. "

There was an enervation in Rick's stance that Michonne could feel pricking her heart strings. He looked exhausted, absolutely strained.

"He could– he could be in trouble. " Michonne attempted to keep her voice leveled as she looked around in disdain, her lip trembling and Rick saw this, that she could not come to accept the way things were."I can't bury him." She hissed as a tear streamed down her face.

Rick knew exactly the terror Michonne felt in the pit of her gut and he knew that she was seeing the vision of a funeral and everyone in a heavy sweat of depression and rage. A few dead bodies surrounding the fire pit in the woods while everyone circled around you and Daryl cried.

He had already envisioned it all, envisioned the way Glenn would crack at your loss. While Maggie was reduced to hiccups and broken speeches, she had somehow found the strength to collapse to the floor and refuse help.

Bobs face would fall, for once, it would fall and Sasha wouldn't be able to handle the breath leaving her body, clutching Tyrese, who looked just as devastated, to her to bring her solace.

Carol would gasp but it wouldn't matter because no one would hear her over Daryl's sobs, no one would see the way her lips pulled down at the corners and the lines in her face would tighten.

Rick didn't like to think about how he might react. He imagined it be something similar to crazed. But beyond that, he didn't want to picture it.

And what about his son? Carl who hadn't even fully grown yet. Rick couldn't stomach the thought, the sheer utter torment he'd experience watching his sons body begin to wither. He didn't want to know.

You'd been there while he was unconscious in that hospital bed, through every storm, everything, by his side. You were a father to Carl as much as he was and you'd been nothing short of a supporting role to Rick. There's been times when you just drove the both of them off in the car, taking trips to lakes and nearby parks, anywhere that offered a semblance of normalcy.

You'd scout the places out days before, cleaned the place free of Walker's and set up a picnic on the cool greens of grass or tables. Even once or twice when the fire burned out at night or if Carl's blood started to burn so hot, you'd give them a midnight rendezvous, all three of you climbing up a tree or anything that fit the current circumstances in which the group resided.

Rick had to run a hand through his hair and all he could do was grab Michonne by her shoulders, look her forcefully in the eyes and say:

"We are going to find him. And anyone who gets in the way of that will pay. "

Because he wasn't going to accept anything else.

Which is why he didn't stop Tyrese or Daryl or anybody who wanted a chunk out of Gabriel the morning of day eight when he suggested that they move on.

He even went as far as leaving the church entirely, not caring to put aside personal feelings, not caring how he may look. His expression was sour and drained and at this rate, the only thing he cared about was finding you.

He would have no problem burying his tomahawk right into the preachers skull.

Daryl kept watch most of the nights, refusing rest for the past week because every time he tried, he felt as if it were a ploy. He became distressed each time he was reminded you weren't going to walk in and slumber on the floor next to him or Carol. You weren't anywhere.

It pissed Daryl off beyond belief to know there was an actual possibility that you weren't breathing anymore, weren't thinking, feeling.

His anger had to be one of the few things driving him into the same track less search the next day as he pushed through the forest ahead of Rick.

Things were starting to feel all too familiar and he thought he might find you in a barn just the same as Sofia. But you didn't pop out the doors in any walkers veil, you weren't bloodied nor torn apart. There were no traces of anyone or anything in those forests.

You simply disappeared.

And it left them in another night of quiet.

Spoons scraping agaisnt cans, the faint sound of chewing. A tiny droplet of rain hitting a window pane or two.

That was all.

No one spoke, yet they all sat around a room cramped with anxious bodies.

Sasha's leg brushed against her guns outline, her boots rubbed together, her tongue flicked at her teeth and she felt as if her thoughts were vibrating the inside of her skull, riling her from the depths. There was an eerily absence of anything positive, because at this point no one was expecting good news.

Gabriel's execution was more or less inevitable as each of the nights rolled by. There'd be the lingering aura of danger and anticipation due to the preachers remaining presence. But no one ever mentioned it, let alone had the will to.

It was hard to digest the concept of your loss because not a single one of them wanted to bury you, the group preferred to be broken and you had become like an integral part of what bound them.

Food was beginning to dwindle down the line of low and low to nonexistent.

And as they sat there, in silence, there was collective knowing resonating around them that this would be the last night they spent in the church.

Not that anyone dared to speak it, not even Rick, who gazed afar into the burning light of a candle and contemplated.

Carol noticed first, maybe it was her nose, fine tuned for the scent of trouble and like a dog trailing a rabbit, she jumped up with a clatter and darted towards the front door.

But she didn't even get halfway across the church, with Rick trailing closely behind her, along with the others who were all clammering to their feet, when the doors burst open on their own, the cool whip of wind entering the room as the room itself seemed to rise up in temperature.

There, with a trail of blood drops, a scarily dehydrated and filthy body fell into her arms.

It was you.

And the sigh of relief felt as if you breathed the air back into everyones lungs. It reanimated the whole church.

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callsign-rogueone · 7 months

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you're somebody else - b.s.

Brennan Sorrengail x Reader words: 1.7k 🏷: IRON FLAME SPOILERS. reader uses she/her pronouns. angst, angst, angst (but a happy ending!) blood, discussion of injury, scars and stitches. inspired by / titled after the song by flora cash

Your fiancé has been dead for six years. You’d read his name on the death roll, and burned his belongings in an offering to Malek.

Now he’s standing thirty feet away from you with both of his sisters, breathing and moving, reacting to something they’d said.

He’s alive.

Your grip on your bag falters, and it falls to the floor with a soft thud.

Everyone’s eyes turn to you. The younger of the two Sorrengail girls recognizes you instantly, her lips parting in shock as she takes you in for the first time since Brennan’s graduation from Basgiath.

Her gaze shifts to her brother, whose eyes are now locked with yours. You look like you’ve seen a ghost, unable to pull your eyes away from the man in front of you.

You make no move toward him; don’t leap into his arms like he’d imagined for years, don’t hug him as tightly as you can, don’t cry tears of happiness. Your boots are still glued to the polished floor of the hall.

“Sweetheart,” he breathes, “I…”

You flinch at his voice, the sound you’ve only heard in dreams for the last six years.

The tall man standing beside him, who you distantly recognize to be Fen Riorson’s son, motions for the two girls to leave.

“It’s good to see you again,” Violet says softly. You’ve always had a soft spot for her, had written her letters after you’d gotten the news, sharing in her grief.

Mira only gives you a lingering glance as she follows her sister, leaving you alone with Brennan.

“You’re hurt,” he says gently, seeing the tear in the right thigh of your pants and the bloody gash beneath it. “Can I mend you?”

You remain silent, but you nod once in affirmation.

You pretend the hands on your leg belong to anyone else, keeping your eyes forward while he kneels in front of you, working to close the wound.

He finally speaks. “My love, I’m so-”

“Please don’t call me that,” you interrupt, and he feels a pain rival to that of the arrow he’d taken to the chest, the one that should have killed him.

He’s silent, letting you continue. You’ll likely have as much pent up emotion to release as his sisters did when they found out. Thankfully, you choose Violet’s path over Mira’s, eviscerating him with words rather than fists. His nose still doesn’t feel right; mending himself has always been difficult.

“I still mourn you,” you tell him. “I've lit a candle for Malek every night in your honor since I got the news. To have my life crumble around me, to find out we’re at war, that I’ve been on the wrong side the whole time, and then to find that for six years, you’ve been alive, but you never once thought about writing to me to tell me any of it…” you shake your head, pressing your lips together to hold in a sob.

You steady your breathing after a moment. “I’m glad you’re alive, Brennan, I really am. But my Brennan, the man I was supposed to marry, the one who wrote me love letters in ancient languages, is still dead. He has been for years.”

You reach into the chest pocket of your flight jacket, placing something cold in his hand and closing his fingers around it. He doesn’t need to look down to know that it's your engagement ring.

“Thank you for the mending,” you say, picking up your bag.

He waits until your footsteps have retreated back into the hallway, letting loose a shuddering sob.

Marbh sends him a wave of warmth and empathy. If there is any being who knows how much it had hurt Brennan to be away from you so long, it is him.

“Your brother needs you, silver one,” Tairn relays to Violet, a resigned quiet in his tone that has the cadet slipping away from the group to run back to the assembly room.

When she arrives, she finds Brennan sitting on the floor, knees tucked to his chest, sobbing. It’s a sight she never wants to see again; it just feels so wrong.

Brennan had always been the strongest of the siblings, the tree that could weather any storm, a perfect balance of their mother’s intense strength and their father’s calm intelligence. It was always her crying after an injury, Mira or Brennan taking her to the infirmary for Nolon to mend it, soothing her all the while.

It’s her turn now to hold him as he cries, murmuring reassurances.

“She’ll come around,” Violet promises, though there’s a nagging feeling in her chest that says you might not. “Prove to her that you are the same man she fell in love with, that you are still worthy of her, and she’ll come around.”

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

You don’t speak with him for two days, only seeing him stand on the dais at Battle Brief.

It had stung to hear Devera refer to him as Lieutenant Colonel Aisereigh. He’d changed his name. He really isn’t your Brennan anymore.

He catches you at breakfast — none of your squadmates had come with you from Montserrat, so you’re sitting alone at one of the long tables.

You look up at him silently, letting him speak first.

He lays a thick bundle of papers on the table in front of you. “The first year of letters,” he answers before you can ask, “that I was too much of a coward to send.”

You look down at the stack of aged parchment. There have to be at least twenty letters there — one a week since July, when he’d been sent to Aretia.

By the time you look back up, he’s gone.

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

A week passes, then another.

He’s nearly too busy to worry about you, between the arguments among the assembly, the arrival of the gryphon fliers and the subsequent issues integrating them, and his duties mending the injuries resulting from the animosity there.

Someone steps through the door of the infirmary, panting as they limp an injured rider forward. “She just collapsed. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

Brennan realizes it’s you they’re holding up, his heart pounding. He wraps an arm around your waist to take you from your friend, and his hand slips against your side, warm and wet with blood.

He guides you onto one of the empty beds, pulling up the sticky fabric of your shirt.

The messily-wrapped bandage around your torso has absorbed all the blood it can, the row of stitches underneath torn open. You must have done this yourself in an effort to avoid him, and it didn’t hold.

At least the wound doesn’t seem infected.

He presses a clean palm into the skin, apologizing when you whimper and flinch away. “S’okay, pretty girl,” he soothes, brushing the hair from your forehead gently.

You don’t seem to hear him, your eyes still closed. Fuck, how much blood have you lost?

It’s easy enough to mend the wound, but it’s going to scar — it’s not fresh enough for him to make it disappear without a trace.

He washes the blood from his hands, pulling up a chair beside the bed and watching the gentle rise and fall of your chest as you sleep.

He has no idea if you’ve read the letters he gave you had changed your mind, or if you’d read them at all. You may very well have burned them. You’d be right to, after the way he’d lied to you.

You might never take him back. This may be his last chance to touch you, to feel the warmth of your skin against his.

He takes your hand gently, intertwining your fingers and pressing a soft kiss to your knuckles, squeezing your palm three times — three times means I love you, you’d told him years ago.

His heart nearly stops as you squeeze back weakly; once, twice, three times.

—————————————————————

You blink the sleep from your eyes, your gaze settling on Brennan sitting beside you, an ancient looking book in his hand, pen between his teeth and a notebook covered with nearly incoherent scribbles in his lap.

Maybe he hasn’t changed as much as you’d thought.

The book and notes are quickly abandoned when he realizes you’re awake. “What the hell happened?”

“Godsdamned gryphon bit me because it didn’t like the order I gave it’s flier,” you explain, stretching your aching muscles. How long had you been asleep?

“And rather than seeking professional help, you stitched it up yourself?” He asks in that same stern tone he’d always used with you after you put yourself in danger.

This time you don’t find it endearing.

“Yes, I did, like I have for the last six years every time I’ve been injured,” you snap. “The way people do when they don’t have a mender with them.”

He holds his tongue, realizing how many scars you’d acquired over the years. Since he developed his signet, he’d always mended even the smallest of scrapes for you, but now stripes of scar tissue run across your skin like rivers on a map, ghosts of past wounds, some healed better than others.

He imagines you sitting alone in your barracks room with a needle and thread, a folded shirt clenched between your teeth as you sewed the wounds shut.

“Please come see me next time?” He asks softly, genuine concern in his voice. “It could have gotten infected, or worse. And if your friend hadn’t been there…”

You sigh, guilt tugging at you. “Okay.”

“Thank you. Get some rest,” he encourages, turning to gather his things.

“I read some of the letters,” you say, and he turns back to face you. “I’m still hurt, but I’m not angry. I don’t think I could ever be angry with you. You’re a good man, Bren. You’ve done great things for these people.”

The weight on his chest lightens, but he stays quiet, waiting for another heartbreaking line.

“Can we start over?” You ask in a whisper, looking up at him. “Can we try to be us again?”

He smiles. “I’d love nothing more, sweetheart.”

Your heart flutters at the word, as if you’re hearing it from him for the first time. In a way, you are.

#brennan sorrengail #brennan sorrengail x reader #fourth wing #fourth wing x reader #liz brennanposting at midnight? more likely than you think #mine

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flightlessangelwings · 10 months

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Right Where We Belong

Loki x gn!reader

Word count- 3.7k

Dialogue prompt- “ you underestimate how much you mean to me. i wasn’t about to let them hurt you. and i certainly wasn’t about to let them even consider killing you. “ Action prompt-[ SECRET ]: sender, having been secretly following the receiver, saves their life from an immediate threat while remaining hidden from the receiver.

Warnings- s.mut (18+ ONLY!), protective!Loki, mutual pining, harassment, kidnapping, minor character death offscreen, feelings, romantic s.ex, praise, takes place mostly in a woodsy/forest area but I left it open as to where in the world it is, pet names (lovely, darling), no use of y/n

Notes- For my Year of Protectiveness @yearofcreation2023 . I've actually had a rough idea of this story in my head for about a year it just took some time to flesh it out and get it right. For that reason too, there's no series spoilers and is ambiguous as to where it fits on the timeline so you can imagine whenever.

This can be read as a prequel to In My Arms (Over and Over Again) but it can be read on its own. That fic is one of my pride and joys though so I recommend reading it after this one! Enjoy!

@flightlessangelwings-updates is my update blog so feel free to also follow that and turn on post notifs to stay up to date on when I post new stuff!

Midgard… Earth. It was the last place Loki ever expected to find himself, let alone willingly. Yet, it was the last place anyone would ever think to look for him. So it’s where he found himself when he wanted to be alone, unbothered by any pressures that surrounded him.

Loki had no idea where on the planet he was, but it didn’t matter. The trees of the forest surrounded him and created a shelter of peace where he would just breathe. The warmth of the sun hit his skin, and the fresh air from the trees filled his lungs. It was refreshing. It was peaceful. It was everything he needed.

But, as he made his way through the forest with his eyes closed, listening to the sound of the birds around him, another sound made his eyes shoot open. The roar of a large animal snapped any notion of peace out of Loki’s mind as he found himself nearly face to face with bared, sharp teeth. He wasn’t worried, though, and he smirked as he brandished his dagger in his hand.

Just as Loki was about to attack, however, a voice from behind him made him freeze.

“Wait!”

Loki paused.

The voice continued, “It’s not aggressive, not really,” you were calm as you spoke, “Keep eye contact and back away slowly and it’ll leave you alone. There’s no need to kill it.”

Loki pondered his options. He could easily kill the beast and be done with it. But, there was something about your voice that swayed him, so he did as you instructed. Slowly, he stepped back, putting more distance between himself and the wild animal until it stopped growling and turned away. As it did so, Loki let out a deep breath.

You also let out a sigh of relief as the tall stranger with black hair got closer to you, “She’s just defending herself,” you explained, “Must be a den or a nest around here somewhere. I bet she just had babies too.”

A smirk lit up Loki’s face, “Would you give that benefit of a doubt to anyone?” he asked as he turned to face you, revealing his face to you.

You gasped as you brought your hands to your face, “You’re…” your body tensed as you clearly recognized who you found in the woods, “Loki…”

“Would you have said the same thing if you knew who I was?” Loki challenged, yet no malice was heard in his voice, “Would you grant me the same courtesy?”

Silence filled the air between the two of you for several moments, the tension palpable. But, you exhaled, releasing the tension in your body as you did so, “I guess I would be a hypocrite if I said no, huh?” you said, trying to ease the tension.

Somehow, it worked, and it made Loki let out a genuine laugh. Something he hadn’t done in so long, and if he had to admit, felt nice. “What is your name?” he asked.

You told him.

“Lovely,” Loki said genuinely.

It all blossomed from there. You and Loki fell into conversation easily and naturally, as if you had known each other for a lifetime. And the more time you spent in his presence, the more at ease you felt, not that you were scared of him in the first place. Nervous, yes, but Loki had a calming air about him, and something told you it was ok. And Loki, for one reason or another, felt comfortable around you. You had the same calming aura about you that Loki felt drawn to, and he found he actually wanted to stay and talk to you longer.

That never happened with anyone before… Loki wondered why that was.

Before you knew it, the sun started to set, and you looked up with a gasp, “It’s getting late,” you breathed, “I…” you paused as you stared into Loki’s eyes, “I should go.”

Loki bid you farewell with a nod and watched you leave. And he already decided he was going to keep an eye on you until you were safe. He wasn’t going to let you know, though, and he stayed in the shadows, keeping watch over you from afar. And as he did, he couldn’t help but notice the new feeling in his chest. Sure, Loki had bedded princes and princesses, lords and ladies, and common men and women. But, you… you were different. And he couldn’t help the feeling of fondness towards you.

You seemed to know the path well, and you made your way to the clearing at the edge of the woods in no time. Behind you was the fantasy world, the forest, the place where your life just changed forever. In front of you was the real world, civilization, the daily grind. Taking a deep breath, you took the first step back into reality.

But, as you started to leave, you suddenly found that you were not alone. A chill ran up your spine as a group of men whistled at you, and closed in on you quickly.

“Hey there sweetheart,” one of them grinned darkly.

You didn’t reply, but your hands shook as you looked around for an escape plan.

“Oh come on, don’t be like that,” another chimed in, “We just want to talk to you.”

A whimper escaped your lips as you hated the helpless feeling that came over you. But, a growl in the distance called all your attention, and everyone snapped over and saw a shadowy creature. All that was visible were glowing eyes and sharp teeth, but it was enough to scare the men away. You, on the other hand, backed away and tried to make yourself smaller in hopes that whatever it was would chase them, and you let out a heavy breath when you felt a rush of wind past you and heard a roar in the distance where the men ran off to.

You stood still for several moments as you processed what happened. For some time, you didn’t dare move, yet something within said you were safe. There was a familiar feeling around the air, as if you were being watched. Yet, you didn’t feel threatened like with the men who approached you. Looking around, you took one tentative step away from where you stood in hopes of finding someone, yet you were alone. After letting out a deep breath, you turned and left, smirking to yourself; you had a hunch who was responsible for the shadowy creature that saved your life. After all, you did notice that the shadowy creature had bright green eyes.

In the shadows, Loki smiled with satisfaction.

One week to the day later, you found yourself back at the same spot. You weren't sure why or what you were expecting, yet you couldn’t help but find your way back there. The sun shone through the trees, warming your skin, and you felt at peace here.

“Well, it looks as if you and I had similar ideas, darling,” a voice chimed through the trees.

“Loki,” you breathed as you turned around and met his gaze. The tension you momentarily held in your shoulders melted away and you grinned widely, “Were you stalking me?” you asked cheekily.

“Never,” Loki replied, “It seems mere coincidence that we both came back to this spot on the same day.”

You gave him a pointed look, but the smirk never left your face, keeping the tone light.

“I promise,” Loki raised his hands in mock surrender, “I’ll never lie to you, my lovely.”

Your breath caught in your throat as the world around you suddenly felt hot, “I.. Uhhh,” you stumbled over your words, unsure of how to respond, “Thanks,” you decided on in a low mumble.

Loki returned the grin you gave him earlier, “Shall we sit, darling?”

It turned into a routine for the two of you. Every week on the same day at the same time, you and Loki met in the woods. It was your escape from the world for both of you. It became a comfort for each of you to seek solace in the other. Although neither of you ever officially made plans, or said you’d be back the next week, you always were.

For you, it was an escape from your life, from your stresses, to meet with Loki. And though you never thought you’d make friends with a Norse god, you were grateful for him. You tried to ignore the way your heart fluttered when you realized tomorrow was your meeting day, and you forced your heart to calm its wild beating as you stood in the woods waiting for him.

And as for Loki, he felt the same way. He never expected to find peace and solidarity on earth, and he certainly didn’t expect to fall… Loki laughed at himself, for so long he chastised his brother for loving someone from earth and here he was… They have more in common than Loki cared to admit. And he wasn’t ready to fully admit his feelings for you yet. They were there though.

Loki paced around the forest; it was unusual for you to not be there waiting for him. It was rare he felt nervous, but Loki couldn’t help the sinking feeling in his gut. Everything in him screamed that something was wrong, and after he waited long enough, Loki decided he was going to look for you.

And may the gods help if anyone hurt you…

You groaned as your body ached. The last thing you remembered was that you were on your way to meet Loki for your weekly rendezvous when you bumped into a group of men who looked like they were up to go good. You gasped and tried to run, but one of them grabbed you. You tried to scream, but no one heard you, and the last thing you heard before a cloth covered your face was, “Wrong place wrong time, sweetheart.”

And that was how you found yourself in a locked room tied to a chair, blindfolded and gagged. You wiggled in your binds as much as you could, but it was no use. They were tied too tight, and you had no idea where you were anyway even if you could break free. You didn’t even know what time or what day it was. And you whimpered softly when you realized that you would most likely never see Loki again…

Or so you thought.

Gunshots and screams from a distance called your attention and you snapped up to strain to listen. You faced where the source of the sound was, even if you couldn’t see anything. You didn’t dare move, however, since you had no idea what was happening. Were you going to be safe with whoever attacked the men who kidnapped you? Or would it be worse? You held your breath, pressing your lips together as you tried to calm your trembling hands.

The screaming went on for what felt like hours, and you could only imagine what the men were fighting in their last moments. Part of you didn’t want to dwell on it, but part of you had to have hope that whoever it was would be your savior. You never, however, expected to hear your name after the screaming stopped.

“Loki?” you whispered. When his voice called your name again, you shouted back, “Loki!”

The door burst open, and you heard Loki breathe your name in relief as he rushed over and untied you, “You’re alright, it’s me.”

“Loki?” tears filled your eyes as you were filled with disbelief that he was actually here. He actually came. For you. “You…?”

“I’m here,” he cupped your face, “Are you hurt?”

You shook your head as you felt your body tremble, “A little sore, but I’m ok,” you froze as you looked into his eyes and your heart skipped a beat at the look on his face, “Loki… You… You came for me?” your voice was shaky.

Loki grinned, “Darling… You underestimate how much you mean to me. I wasn't about to let them hurt you. and I certainly wasn’t about to let them even consider killing you.”

Before you could stop yourself, you lunged forward and kissed him deeply. Your bodies smashed together as you pushed everything you had into him, clinging to him hard. You trembled as your emotions overwhelmed you and for a moment, you lost yourself into the feeling of Loki’s lips. It brought a comfort unlike anything you were expecting, and a lone tear fell down your cheek. But, then you realized what you did.

“I’m sorry,” you breathed as you tried to pull away, “I don’t know what came over me.”

Loki just mumbled your name as he cupped your chin and gently turned you so you met his gaze. There was a sure look in his eyes, and it told you everything you needed to know. This time, it was Loki who closed the gap between your faces, kissing you once more. His kiss was more tender, but very purposeful, and Loki wasted no time in darting his tongue past your lips.

You moaned into the kiss as you lost yourself in the emotions once more. For a moment, you forgot where you were as Loki became your entire world. Nothing existed beyond him and his kiss. And the taste of him was immediately intoxicating.

But, neither of you could stay like that forever, and after one last peck on your lips, Loki broke away. He stayed close to you, however, and his voice stayed low and soft and comforting, “Let’s get you out of here.”

Without a word, you nodded.

“Sorry it’s not much,” you stood nervously at your front door as you let Loki inside your place, “It must be completely different than what you’re used to…”

Loki caressed you as he reassured you, “It’s wonderful, darling,” he purred. Truthfully, he wasn’t even paying much attention to your place; Loki couldn’t take his eyes off of you.

Feeling his heavy gaze on you, you turned back from where your eyes wandered around the living space and you felt a tingle up your spine at the way Loki eyed you, “Loki…” you whispered.

Time felt like it stopped as you stared into each other’s eyes. Your breath caught in your chest as you felt your heart pound. Between the way his hands cradled your form and the way he looked at you with those dark eyes, you knew exactly what Loki was thinking. And before you lost your nerve, you made your move.

You crashed yourself into him as you pressed your lips into his. Loki immediately yanked your close, his hands roaming up and down your sides as he deepened the kiss. Both of you moaned into each other as you savored the taste of the other. Heat rose in the room as passions erupted, and there was only one thing on both of your minds.

“Bedroom is this way,” you murmured, your tone low, “You want to…?”

“I thought you’d never ask, my lovely,” Loki smirked.

Sliding your hand in his, you led the way, and Loki kept a cheeky grin on his face as he waved his hand the moment you crossed into the bedroom. Suddenly, all your clothes were piled neatly on the dresser, his next to yours. Before you could react to his antic, Loki pounced on you, crashing both your bodies onto the bed.

You landed on your back with Loki overtop of you. You gasped as you found yourself in such a vulnerable position, yet you weren’t scared. You could never be scared of Loki. No, there was a different feeling that pulsed through your veins, and it made your body warm at the thought of what was to come.

Loki hovered over you, his hands on either side of your body. As he trailed up and down your figure with his eyes, Loki felt his cock harden and his heartbeat quicken, “You are absolutely lovely,” he purred, “A decadence of perfection.”

All you could do was whimper as your mind went blank. No one ever whispered such sweet and beautiful words to you, or about you, before. Your hands roamed all over Loki’s bare chest, and you felt a rush of need between your legs as he groaned at your touch. “Please, Loki,” you whispered, “Don’t tease me right now.”

He smiled down at you as he caressed the side of your head, “Don’t worry, darling,” Loki’s tone was just as low as yours, “Let me show you how a god makes love.”

The moan you let out echoed in the room as Loki leaned in and attached his lips to your skin. With expert precision, he nibbled and licked and sucked at every spot that made you mewl, as if he had touched you a thousand times before. Loki groaned into your skin as he kissed his way across your chest before latching onto your nipple.

You arched your back, allowing Loki more access to your body as you dug into his shoulders. Your mind swam in pleasure as he swirled his tongue around your nipple, driving you wild. Bucking your hips into his, you murmured his name once more, begging him for more.

“I’ve got you, darling,” Loki hummed as he kissed his way back up your body, “Exquisite,” his voice was a low rumble that went right to your core. Loki noticed of course, “You like that, darling?” he asked, amused.

He didn’t give you the chance to properly answer as he rocked his hips against yours, dragging his cock between your legs. The action made you moan even louder and you dropped your head down onto the mattress. “Fuck… Loki…”

He exhaled sharply with a grin as he did it again, feeling a tingle up his down spine as he rocked himself against your body. But, as much as Loki wanted to prolong this, the way you cried out, and especially moaned his name, made him more impatient than usual. “Are you ready, darling?” he asked as he reached between your bodies and lined his cock up with your entrance.

“Yes,” you replied immediately, “Please, Loki.”

Loki groaned as he slowly pushed himself inside you, feeling your warmth engulf him. Both of you gasped loudly as he filled you inch by inch. You cried out as he pushed deeper inside you, and you wrapped your arms and legs around him as much as you could, holding him tightly.

Once Loki’s hips met yours, he immediately started a slow yet harsh pace. Skin slapped against skin as Loki drove his cock into you over and over again. Your mouth dropped open as the moans and cries flowed freely- music to his ears.

“That’s it, darling,” Loki purred, “So beautiful…” he mourned your name as he lost himself in you.

As Loki’s cock hit that one spot deep inside you, your eyes shot open and you screamed louder, “Loki! Fuck! Yes!”

He growled as he picked up his pace, aiming for that spot every time, “I’m close too, darling,” he groaned, “Fuck, you’re so lovely.”

“Loki…” you whimpered as you saw stars and felt your skin tingle.

It only took a few more thrusts for you to completely fall apart and you came with a loud scream. Your nails dug into his skin as your entire body trembled. Never in your life had you felt a pleasure like this, and it brought fresh tears to your eyes from the overwhelming sensations.

Loki groaned as he watched the spectacle you put on just for him. His arms trembled as he fought to keep himself overtop of you, not wanting to miss a moment of your climax. Although you couldn’t hear over your screams, Loki mumbled soft praises as you came on his cock. And he had never seen anything in the nine realms more beautiful than you were right there in that moment.

And that was when Loki couldn’t hold back any more. He came hard, his own orgasm overtaking his entire body. And Loki did something he had never done before in bed- he moaned your name as he spilled himself deep inside you. Tears of his own formed in the corners of his eyes as he gave one last thrust before he fell forward.

Heavy breaths filled the room as you both came down from your highs. Loki placed a series of feather light kisses on your skin wherever he could reach as he caressed your body tenderly. Once he gathered his strength, he carefully pulled out of you, kissing the side of your head as you gasped. Loki didn’t go far, though, and he settled in your bed with you gathered safely and secretly in his arms. Together, the two of you laid like that for several moments in a comfortable silence.

Until you broke it with a question that had been on your mind for some time, “Why me?” you asked.

Loki grinned, “Remember the day we first met?” he paused as you nodded, “You can see beyond what’s in front of you, and that, my lovely, is a rare occurrence in the universe,” Loki cradled you in his arms as you let out a deep breath, “Sleep now. I’ll watch over you. You’re always safe with me.” He placed a feather light kiss on your head.

“I know I am,” you yawned contently, “Loki I…” you fell asleep mid thought.

Loki watched you for some time as he whispered to your sleeping form, “I’ll protect you, darling. No one will ever harm you again, I’ll make sure of it.”

As Loki watched you sleep, he noticed that the beat of your heart was the exact same rhythm that drew him to earth time and time again. It was like a siren song that called out to him although neither if you were aware of it. Was it soulmates, as your people would call it? Perhaps… but Loki was never one to believe such fables… until now. He smirked to himself before he fell asleep in the last place he expected. But it was right where he belonged. And you were right where you belonged: safely in his arms.

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violetrainbow412-blog · 11 months

Text

Wheels up [S. R]

word count: 4k

summary: Spencer has just been released from prison and things seem to get complicated when Mr. Scratch attacks again. You want to know what's going on with your boyfriend, but when you confront him, you don't expect him to yell at you like he does.

contents: spoilers for season 12-13, directly based on the episode of the same name, established relationship, hurt/comfort, spencer being mean for a moment, mentions of migraines and schizophrenia, apologies, crying and I think that's it.

To say that you were worried was an understatement, because to cut all the tension around the team you would no longer even need a knife but a sword.

You had just gotten over the bitter pill of the fact that your boyfriend had been unjustifiably imprisoned when now Scratch had done this: the ambush, Walker's death, Emily's kidnapping… he just couldn't seem to get enough of this sick game.

“We also never stopped to ask why Scratch was in Honduras in the first place,” Simmons murmured next to you.

García, he and you were trying to review as best as possible the existing research on Peter Lewis that you found in your deceased friend's office to see if you could discover any other details, even if it were the slightest thing that could reveal the whereabouts of your unit leader.

“Reid'll figure this out. “He's really amazing at this kind of thing.”

Garcia had barely finished saying this when a roar made her jump in her place and look back. Spencer Reid had just furiously thrown a book against the glass windows. You exchanged a worried look with your friend and the three of you silently agreed to go to the meeting room to investigate what was happening.

When the doctor arrived, he began to rant about what he had managed to discover. He talked about hallucinogenic plants found in Honduras and how this was related to Scratch, but you honestly couldn't pay attention to anything he was saying. You could only focus on the purple spots around his eyes, his messy hair jumping every time he said something, the sweat that glistened on his forehead, the erratic and rushed tone of his words and how he constantly rubbed his face or neck.

Spencer wasn't well.

You had seen him like this when he had feared he was developing an outbreak of schizophrenia and you had hated every second you had accompanied him to get tested, every second of uncertainty, every time you knew his vision was blurring. And now this was a thousand times worse, because you didn't even know how to help him. Shit, you didn't even know if he wanted your help.

While he was in prison he had refused to see you many times and it had broken your heart every time. He claimed that he didn’t want other prisoners to see you talking to him because they would try to use you to threaten him or that he didn’t want you to see the state he was in because he feared that after seeing the bruises and wounds you would no longer love him.

You respected him, but at the same time you felt that he was building a barrier between you so that in case he couldn't get out of there you wouldn't be tied to a prisoner and could live your life normally. That was why when Emily managed to build a solid case to prove his innocence you felt like you were going to die of joy, and when you saw him leave the prison the first thing you did was run into his arms to make sure he was safe.

But Spencer wasn't, because you knew he had only left there so he could help look for his mother: Diana Reid. During the course of everything you had barely seen him, you two were too busy with your own affairs to have a moment as a couple, but even so when you solved everything you let him go with her; after all they deserved it and you were happy that he had a quiet moment.

But Peter Lewis seemed to have other plans.

“What?” Spencer asked, noticing the way Penelope was looking at him. She looked like she was about to cry behind her blue glasses and you felt sorry for her.

“You threw a book at a window. It was jarring”

“Took me 60 minutes to deduce what should have taken me 60 seconds,” he muttered, clearly sounding furious with himself, “and if Emily dies because I was too slow, I'll be throwing a lot more than books.”

“Spencer” you tried to stop him, but he had already started on his way to the exit.

You always wanted to believe that you were his weak point, he had told you that on more than one occasion. When the team couldn't reason with him, they sent you instead.

Reid will do anything you tell him, Morgan used to say, whether it's convincing him about something silly between friends or something more serious.

And so it was, because every time he was upset all it took was for you to make flirtatious eyes at him and steal a kiss for him to forget about it.

One day you're going to be my downfall, did you know that? he used to laugh. You're going to ask me to bring the stars down from the sky and I'll have to figure out a way to do it because I don't know how to say you no.

However, this time he didn't seem to understand any reason. He was just walking towards the exit and you were stumbling after him to catch up with his quick pace.

“Spencer,” you insisted, reaching out to grab his arm in an attempt to stop him. You didn't expect him to stop abruptly to the point where you collided with his chest, in the middle of the desolate hallway you had arrived at.

“What?”

The sharp tone and angry look he gave you unnerved you slightly, but you managed to clear your throat in search of your voice.

“Honey, it's obvious that you're not fine. You need to rest"

"Rest?" he spat, incredulous. “Do you think I can think of resting when we have a situation like this?”

“That's not what I meant. I'm just saying that no one expects you to be here after what happened, you can at least take a break”

The sigh he let out was enough for you to know that whatever was coming was surely not good.

“Huh yeah? And what is that break I'm going to take going to cost us? Emily’s life?”

“You know I'm as worried as you are.”

“I'm not worried, I'm sick. I'm sick of this damn case, I'm sick of one thing after another happening to us and I'm sick of failing."

"I know but…"

“No,” he interrupted you, leaning back when you tried to lay a hand on him. “There's no but. Today I don't need you to tell me what I have to do”

“I'm not telling you what to do, I'm asking you to take care of yourself. How much sleep have you even had? When was the last time you ate?"

Your tone of voice had come out more recriminating than you intended and if you were already tense, this exchange was not helping at all.

Hearing no response, you continued.

“If you're not going to rest, at least let me help you.”

You wanted him to have the confidence to tell you anything, to be able to explain why he was acting so strange or to at least take two minutes to admit that things weren't right. But Spencer had changed a lot in that prison, because if before it was difficult for him to talk about his feelings, now it seemed practically impossible. You were the only one he dared to do it with and you didn't even think you were that exception to the rule anymore.

If you had known what was to come you would have preferred to stay for the moment he took to take a deep breath.

“Do you know how you can help me? Stepping aside”

“Spencer”

“I'm sick of this too! I'm tired of everyone coming and offering me their faces of compassion and their words of encouragement as if they really understood me. They don't do it, nobody does it, not even you. This is... it is a huge and heavy accumulation that has accumulated for years and years and when I think that it can't be worse, life surprises me by saying that yes, it can be worse. So just shut up, let me do my job, let me catch Scratch and for the love of God stop treating me like I'm a child because on top of all the stress of the case I have to deal with that too and honestly it's killing me”

Your boyfriend turned around without waiting for a response and a part of you was grateful that was the case, or else he would have seen the tears that had already gathered in your eyes.

You were shocked and felt your face burning with shame, with a hole in your stomach that wouldn't be easy to fill. You were no longer even worried about the man, nor sad, but you felt very different; it was as if Reid had infected you with his anger.

Still with wet cheeks you hurried to walk in the opposite direction, finding yourself at the end of the hallway to meet a very worried Penelope García. Without letting her tell you anything, you asked her to continue with the investigation and the entire time you swallowed your pain.

You knew that Peter Lewis' desperate face when he was hanging from that building and the way you and Luke left him to die would haunt you for a lifetime, but you didn't feel even the slightest bit sorry for it. Even a part of you wished that man had died a slower and perhaps even painful death. Whatever the case, he was gone and you could feel a second of peace at night.

Spencer was right, the most important thing now was to save Emily. Later there would be time to attend to marital discussions.

When you got home you were sweaty, tired, and had a headache that you knew a shower could probably solve, adding a glass of good wine just to be safe. However, clinging to that peace of mind that solving the case had provided you was only a mechanism to postpone confronting the problem that was still latent. You hadn't spoken to Spencer for the rest of the day since your fight in the hallway and although your heart ached you knew this was the prudent thing to do.

Fighting had never had a place in your relationship because both of you were too rational to be carried away by impulse. You had disagreements and arguments, but you had tried to resolve them like adults or you had let the matter rest until you were cool-headed enough to speak calmly. You suspected that right now you were doing the latter, but you knew for a fact that you wouldn't be the one who would look for your boyfriend to talk to.

You were hurt by the way he had reacted to your advice, but a part of you also understood that Spencer had been going through too much and that, in some ways, he had some right to want his own space. Or maybe both of you were partly to blame; you for demanding something that didn't belong to you and him for not having said things tactfully enough.

But you couldn't help but miss him. You had spent so many months away from him that you longed to be in his arms, shower him with kisses and hear the soft beat of his heart just to make sure he was real.

Still lost in your thoughts you searched the living room for your briefcase to grab your cell phone, hoping to find something to distract yourself, and upon unlocking it you discovered that you had several missed calls from Spencer. It wasn't like you were ignoring him on purpose, rather it had been an oversight on your part, but when you were about to dial his number a new call was announced on the screen. It was him.

"Hello?"

“There you are,” he murmured, sounding tremendously relieved “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, I just left the phone in my briefcase and that's why I didn't hear your calls. I'm sorry"

There was silence for an awkward moment and then he spoke again.

“You went home early.”

"I was tired. I told Emily.”

“Yes, she… he told me, but… Do you think I can see you? I would like to talk to you about something and I don't think it is appropriate to do so on the phone.”

You evaluated your options, looking at everything around you. Spencer was welcome whenever he wanted in your house and you knew a mess wouldn't matter to him, but you were more worried about him noticing the emotional mess, not the physical one.

“Y/N?”

“Yes,” you responded when you heard your name, without thinking too much. “You can come”

Spencer responded with a monosyllable and then he hung up. You were about to get up from the couch to look for something more decent than colorful pajamas when a knock on the door startled you. When there was no response, the person knocked again and when you tiptoed until you reached the peephole, you met a familiar silhouette who was visibly nervous. Apparently the look of confusion on your face when you opened it was enough to express a silent question to Spencer.

“I was in the hallway,” he explained to you. “I didn't want to take long if you said yes.”

You knew you shouldn't give in so easily, but it was hard when Spencer said things like that and he came to your house looking completely disoriented, sad, and regretful.

"Can I come in?" he asked. Although your silences were not with that intention, the truth was that you were making him even more nervous.

"Yeah, you can”

You turned around only when you heard the click of the door closing and leaned against it, waiting for him to say something. You took a moment to observe him and noticed that his clothes were slightly disarrayed, while his hands played with the leather strap that was still across his chest. When he noticed that you were looking at his hands he interpreted it as a sign to get rid of the garment, and so he did.

“Wine?”

“Rossi gave it to me,” you responded, following his gaze to the bottle on the coffee table along with the crystal glass.

Spencer opened his mouth slightly in understanding and then there was silence again.

“I think it's obvious why I'm here, right?” he murmured in a low, cautious voice. You looked at him with sealed lips. “I want to apologize.”

“Yeah?”

"Yes. I know I shouldn't have talked to you like that in the office”

“No, you shouldn't have done it,” you responded sternly “And I accept if you don't want me around, but…”

“No,” he interrupted you, lunging forward to take your hands. You didn't refuse. “It's not that. I want you close, I don't want you to go away”

“I want you close too, Spencer. And I care about you. That's why I tell you things, not because I want to bother you."

“I know not. I was wrong, okay? I was wrong and I had no right to yell at you just because I was upset. And I wasn't upset with you, I was upset about the case and… it was just too much. This is all too much” by this point Spencer’s voice had already broken and your arms were already open for him.

It didn't take much for your boyfriend to start sobbing.

"I'm sorry"

“I know, Spencer.”

"I was an idiot"

“Yes, you certainly were,” you responded, speaking barely above a whisper. You couldn't stop feeling empathy for your boyfriend, but you couldn't ignore your own pain either. “You made me feel so hurt.”

“Forgive me, you know that was not my intention.”

“I just want to see you well. I want you to be safe and help you, but you won't let me do it. And it's okay if you don't want my help, but you can't deny that you need help. We need help. Do you think I wasn't stressed too? Do you think I could care less about finding Emily?”

“I know not. I know…” he sobbed.

“And I understand that we were both going through a hard time but you had no right to treat me like that.”

"You hate me?"

“Of course I don't hate you. I love you very much and I always will, but when something bad happens we don't yell at each other. And I'm not hating you for this, did you hate me that time in Georgia when I went into negotiating in that hostage situation without consulting anyone?

"No. I was very angry and worried about you, but I would never have hated you.”

"You see it? It's the same” you said softly.

You weren't going to torture him with this and you didn't want him to kneel and ask for forgiveness, the message you wanted to give him was already more than clear. And you knew that the simple act of accepting his mistake was something that showed you that he cared about you.

“It won't happen again, I promise.”

“Oh, it may happen again. We are both dumb sometimes and the older we get the grumpier we become” you tried to joke. Although you didn't hear him laugh, you knew that it had lightened the atmosphere. “But talking about it makes him feel better, right? Just like now”

He nodded at your question and then your hand went up to his head to stroke his hair. The contact seemed to melt him against you, as if with this you had also given free rein to his crying. You knew he probably wasn't going to tell you about the horrors he'd experienced in prison yet, but maybe this moment could be a start; you were being honest with each other and after all that was what was important.

Spencer calmed down after a long while and when you separated you made sure to get him some napkins so he could wipe his tears and blow his nose.

“You're seriously not upset at me?”

“No,” you assured him, shaking your head at the same time. You approached him and raised your hands to his cheeks to hold him gently. “It's okay, Spencer. I would be upset if you hadn't apologized."

“I wanted to do it sooner, but I knew that maybe you needed time to… you know, not want to strangle me”

“You're always so smart,” you complimented him and this time he did laugh.

The man's hands were experimentally placed on your waist and upon noticing your approving smile he pulled you a little closer to him until you collided against his chest. The puffiness in his eyes didn't stop him from giving you a sweet look.

“I haven't kissed you since I came back,” he observed absently and after thinking about it for a second you realized it was true.

You hadn't even kissed him. You had gone three months without seeing him and you still hadn't had time to kiss him.

You opened your mouth slightly, but before you could say anything he had already leaned down to capture your lips in a kiss. With the help of your hand sliding to the back of his neck you deepened the contact and Spencer wasted no time, wrapping his thin arms around your torso.

Even if you didn't want to admit it, you had already forgotten how good it felt to kiss him and amid everything you thought that you wished you could capture that moment in a jar to turn to it when necessary. Because after everything that had happened that day you really needed that moment of peace with him.

His lips were slightly parted, but your gentle tongue took care of moistening them and when the air began to fail you just let him go for a second, kissing him again when you breathed enough. Your kisses were sweet and soft enough to dissipate the rest of the guilt that remained in your lover's body.

"Better?" you asked once you two were satisfied. It took him a moment to compose himself from the intoxication of your kiss to be able to answer you.

"Yes, I feel better"

“How is Diana, by the way?” you said quietly, leaning back a little to look him in the eyes.

“She is fine, I managed to admit her to a sanatorium before García called me. It will only be for tonight, tomorrow I will look for where she can stay permanently” he answered you, rubbing his tired face with a hand “I think it would be best for us to return to Las Vegas”

“You should go to her now” it hurt you to give him that advice, but you knew that he must have other priorities now. One of your hands kindly caressed his bicep, feeling how he had lost considerably in weight.

“You don't want me to stay here?”

“I don't want you to feel obligated. I know Diana needs you more than me."

“She'll be fine today,” he murmured. Apparently he wanted to be with you more than you thought. “I left my number and she'll be asleep right now. As much as he wants to deny it, I think… that she is better off with professionals”

“So you want to stay here?”

You had sounded more excited than you intended and just because of the sparkle in your eyes he felt the urge to steal another kiss from you.

"Of course I want to. I missed you so much, I just want to feel you close to me."

“I can stay only if you promise me two things.”

“What is it?”

“We’re going to try to sleep,” you asked him, passing the tip of your index fingers under his eyes. “I don't like that look at all and I think you could use some rest. I have a comfortable bed waiting just for you.”

“I'd love that,” he smiled weakly. “What's the second thing?”

“Tomorrow you will let me cook you something delicious before we go to your mother.”

The thought of you spoiling him so much made him smile.

"Done deal"

You carefully guided him to your room and once there you kissed him again. Spencer felt like he was going to cry again when he noticed that you still had the change of clothes that he had left in your closet over three months ago and the soft fabric along with the familiar scent filled his chest with joy.

You two snuggled under the warmth of the sheets and you made sure to kiss your lover's face countless times while your hands touched every piece of skin you had within reach, trying to show him that he didn't have to worry about anything; you wanted him to know that you loved him and that he was somewhere safe.

"Are you okay?"

You spoke in the middle of the darkness, while Spencer had his full weight on top of yours. His nose rubbed slightly against your bare skin and he found it necessary to leave another kiss there.

“I am now.”

And even if it only lasted for a brief moment, Spencer knew that nothing compared to the peace and tranquility of being with you.

taglist: @navs-bhat @reidwritings @tricia-shifting14 @spencerslove @instabull @rhiannonhippiegirl @r-3dlips @missabsey @olivia’s-25

#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic #dr spencer reid #matthew gray gubler #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #jason gideon #JJ #penelope garcía #david rossi #emily prentiss #spencer reid x you #luke alvez #matt simmons #tara lewis #spencer reid hurt/comfort

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justagalwhowrites · 3 months

Text

Yearling - Ch. 38: Reckoning

You form a connection with an unlikely companion while Joel searches for you. A continuation of Yearling ch. 1-37 found on Tumblr here.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Warnings: Canon-typical violence and several steps beyond that. Fairly graphic torture. Attempted rape. No use of Y/N. Minors DNI 18+ Only

Length: 17.6k

A/N: As with recent chaptesr, I want to state, real quick, that Bambi is NOT going to be sexually assaulted again. This is a highly triggering subject and, given the situation she's in, I understand if folks are bracing for it. That's not going to happen. Things are going to look really dicey this chapter but it does not happen.

We are into the final arc of Yearling and we are going to see some TLOU 2 OVERLAP again. There isn't any this chapter but there will be in this arc and here's how: a character from that game will be mentioned as will the spoiler-y incident from a few chapters ago. What happens plot wise in this arc is completely separate from the game and entirely original content BUT there is that character overlap and more specific mentions of the incident and the motives behind it. This character is in THIS CHAPTER. If you're trying to go in blind to season 2, it might be wise to step back. Feel free to send me a DM, I'm happy to answer any and all questions!

AO3 | Chapter One | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

She was a girl. Just a girl.

You couldn’t seem to move past just how young she looked, her face twisted into a hateful snarl. There was something gaunt about her features now that you didn’t remember there being before but then, your memory of that day was twisted. You’d been so focused on saving Joel - and suffering from losing blood yourself - that things were hazy. But you were almost certain she’d been more imposing then, a golf club in her grip as she stood over your husband’s broken body.

“You’re with them?” She spat. “Fucking figures, should have known you’d be just as fucking bad as him…”

You cocked your head at her a little, trying to puzzle her out before releasing your hold on your chain and tugging your pant leg up enough that she could see it wrapped around your ankle. It was already rubbing your flesh raw, blood starting to cling to the metal.

“Does it look like I’m with them?” You asked, brows raised. You kept your injured hand cradled to your chest, the throbbing pain where your fingers used to be oddly muddled with the ghost of a feeling of the flesh and bone still there. You kept absently trying to flex them, expecting to feel the tension in the muscle when you moved. Your mind hadn’t quite processed that it wasn’t coming.

The girl - just a girl - clenched her jaw, shaking her head and looking away from you. You dropped your pant leg and pressed yourself tight against the wall at your back, holding your damaged hand with your intact one. It didn’t make it hurt any less but it was still a comfort, to shield that vulnerability.

“What are you doing here.”

The girl said it more than asked it, still not looking at you.

“Same as you, I imagine,” you said, your stomach churning at that, knowing what had probably just been done to this girl. Knowing what was waiting for you. She looked at you then, a darkness in her eyes that you knew well. You clenched your jaw and nodded slowly. “You OK?”

She scoffed.

“Don’t act like you care,” she snapped. “I’m sure you’d love exactly what they’re fucking doing to me, what they’ve been doing to me -“

“No,” you cut her off, tightening your hold on your wrist. “I don’t. I’ve been here before. I know what they do. I don’t wish that shit on anybody.”

She looked at you again, skeptical now.

“That how you met him?” She spat the word, like referring to Joel at all left a foul taste in her mouth.

“Kind of,” you said. “He found me after I got out, saved me from bleeding to death in the snow.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s not,” you said, watching her, your chest tight. Joel had told you that his raider days were far behind him and you believed him but you couldn’t think of another reason why this girl would want to hate him in particular. “I owe him my life.”

“So he’s alive then?” She asked, gathering her knees into her chest.

You considered lying for a moment but you didn’t see much point in it. Chances were, neither of you were making it out of this alive, anyway.

“Yes,” you said. “He is.”

She just looked at you for a moment and you wondered, for a second, if she heard you. But then, her eyes brimmed with tears and her lip quivered, her breath quickening.

“Of course he is,” her voice shook before she slammed her fist back against the wall, hard enough that the sound made you jump. “Of fucking course he is! Do you know what I fucking did to get that far? What I fucking sacrificed!”

She screamed and brought her fist down on the sagging mattress again and again until she was sobbing, the kind of choking almost strangled sobs that made you feel like you were going to suffocate when you were in them. It took her a moment to calm down enough to speak again.

“That’s how these fucking assholes caught me,” she said, still taking deep, shaky breaths. “I was looking for some sign of him, of him or of your fucking people. I hoped I’d be able to find out that he died, that I fucking killed him, that I could actually fucking breathe again. Instead, these fuckers got me. Because I hadn’t lost enough to Joel fucking Miller.”

She knew his name. That fact made your breath hitch. It hadn’t been something random or even something from a chance encounter, she knew him in some way. You just didn’t know how.

“Why,” it was your turn to say more than ask. If you were trapped here with this girl, you needed to know if she was going to turn on you. But, more than that, you needed to understand.

You had survived a lot of terrible things since the outbreak but the days you thought you might have lost Joel were some of the worst of your life. You’d trade years of enduring everything Mitchum and his men had put you through if it meant you’d never have to see Joel like that again. You needed to understand what made this girl hate him that much and you needed to know if there was anyone else who would come for him that way. Not that there was much you could do about it here, chained to a wall and in Mitchum’s grasp, but you needed to know that he was safe. That he would continue on and take care of your daughters without this threat hanging over him. You needed that comfort.

“Why do you want him dead.”

“Why should I fucking tell you?” She didn’t seem to say anything without biting it out, like she was made up of rage. You didn’t much blame her. It didn’t take long surviving like this before every other emotion was impossible and, before too long, rage was gone, too.

“Because I’m your best hope of getting out of here,” you said. “I’ve done it before, I can do it again. And I meant what I said, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. Even you. But if it comes down to your life or my husband’s? I’ll kill you. Wouldn’t even lose sleep over it. So you need to tell me why you want him dead because I’d rather not kill you. We can get out of this together but I need to know that you’re not going to kill him when we do.”

“Husband?” She looked at you and laughed once, darkly. “Fucking… You married a monster, you know. A fucking animal.”

“Why.”

“If he hasn’t told you about the shit he’s done…”

“I know what he’s done,” you cut her off.

“And you still married him?” She shook her head, a disgusted look on her face. “Then you’re a monster, too.”

“I can be the monster who saves you or the monster who kills you,” you replied. “How much do you want this grudge to destroy your life?”

“Grudge?” She asked, brows raised. “That’s what you think this is? Like he called me names on the playground? He killed my fucking dad!”

Your chest got tight.

“People kill other people every day,” you said after a moment. “It could have been anyone, it…”

“You know a lot of other guys who slaughter an entire hospital of people in cold blood?” She spat. “People who were just trying to save the fucking world?”

Your face fell and she huffed.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

You’d thought - or maybe hoped - that her rage was a result of something that happened on patrol. That the blame could be comfortably placed somewhere else, that it was something that Joel could maybe even regret having done.

Instead, it was the one thing you knew he would never even apologize for, not in a million years. If it had kept Ellie safe, it wasn’t something he could make amends for. And you didn’t want him to.

“You don’t understand…”

“No, I understand perfectly,” she cut you off. “He murdered my father…”

“No,” you shook your head.

“…and ruined every shot the world had at a fucking cure!”

“That’s not what happened,” you said, straining to keep calm but starting to fail.

“It’s not?” She seethed. “Then tell me! Tell me what fucking happened, give me one goddamn reason why anyone would…”

“He saved our daughter!” You all but yelled it, eyes wide, begging her to understand.

She sat back, laughing darkly once.

“No,” She shook her head. “No, he decided one life was worth more than every other life on the planet…”

“So!”

“SO?” She gaped at you. “That’s… that’s psychotic, that’s…”

“Do you think your father would have done anything different if it was you?” You asked. “You think he’d have just let them kill you?”

“If it meant saving the world?” She asked.

“If it meant anything at all,” you said. “Do you really think he would have let them kill you.”

“He…”

“You’ve done how much to avenge him?” You asked. “Think that means he wasn’t a piece of shit.”

“He was amazing,” she snapped. “Whole hell of a lot better than that fucking…”

“Do you really think your amazing father would have let them kill you,” you asked. “Be honest with yourself. Would he have let them kill you or would he have done the exact same thing as Joel.”

“He wouldn’t have become a mass fucking murderer!”

“Wouldn’t he?” You asked. “You’re not a parent, you don’t know what you��d do for your kids…”

“I know there’s a fucking limit!” She cut you off.

“No, there’s not!” You yelled. “I have two daughters, I’d do anything for them…”

“Even that?” She asked, incredulous.

“I’m only here right now because of them!” You said before forcing yourself to calm down. “I’ve been here before. I barely survived. Some days, I didn’t want to survive but I did and I escaped. But they took my daughters and they wanted me to trade myself for them and I did it without a second thought. They’re my children. I’d do anything for them. And your dad would have, too.”

She just looked at you for a moment and it was like you could see her deflate.

“When it’s your kid, there is no such thing as too far,” you said. “I’m sorry your dad died for that. I am. But I’m not sorry that my kid lived and I’d have killed anyone to make sure that happened, too. I ain’t sorry for that part, either.”

“Then you’re as much of a monster as him.”

You just shook your head a little, turning your attention to your injured hand.

Curiosity got the better of you, even though you knew you should leave it alone. You carefully unwound the cloth they’d put around your wounds where your fingers once were. The burned flesh, at least, had stopped bleeding and was just weeping where blisters were forming. The skin was ragged and the bone was splintered and it was surreal, realizing that part of you had been cut away.

“Jesus,” the girl said and you looked over to her. You’d been so lost in your own pain for a moment, you’d almost forgotten she was there. “That… shit.”

You looked back at your hand and flexed your remaining fingers, staring at where the two should be.

“If you wanted to try to kill me, now would be the time,” you said. “I’m still down a lot of blood, you’d win this round.”

“I don’t want to kill you,” she snapped.

You took a last look at your injury before wrapping it back up slowly, carefully.

“If I’m a monster then…”

“Don’t give me a reason to kill you and I won’t,” she said.

You looked up at her, bandage half around your wound.

“Same to you.”

You went back to wrapping your injured hand, wincing at the pressure put on the cuts. You could feel the girl’s eyes on you as you worked and you cradled your hand to your chest again when you were done, something about holding it to yourself feeling more secure.

“I think we should work together,” the girl said eventually. You looked at her, brows raised. “We’re both stuck here. We both want the same thing. I know what you’re capable of and you apparently know these assholes. You said you got out of here before?”

You nodded slowly.

“I did.”

“Then you know where to start,” she said. “I’ve been here for… I don’t know how long. A few weeks, I think. If you help me, I’ll help you.”

You considered her for a moment.

“What’s your name?”

She considered you back, like she was trying to puzzle you out.

“Abby,” she said eventually. “Yours?”

“Bambi,” you said. She raised her eyebrows. “That’s what everyone calls me, anyway.”

“Stupid fucking name,” she said.

You snorted.

“I don’t really disagree with you,” you said. “Abby, if I help you, I need to know you’re not going to try to kill my husband the second we’re out of here.”

“Are you serious?” She gaped at you before laughing darkly. “Jesus…”

“I’d rather us both die in here than get out and lose him,” you said. “That’s the deal. You leave us alone, we leave you alone.”

“Yeah, because he’d just let me live…”

“We haven’t exactly hunted you down before now, have we?” You said. “That’s the offer on the table. We help each other and we go our separate ways.”

She looked at you, her jaw clenched tight.

“Do you think your dad would want you stuck here, in a place like this, so you could kill someone in his name?” You asked. “Because I wouldn’t want that for my kids. I wouldn’t want them to kill anyone for me at all.”

She ground her teeth, watching you closely.

“Fine,” she said eventually. “We make it out of here, I won’t go looking for him. And if I ever do run into him… He’ll leave alive.”

“Thank you,” you said, relaxing back into the wall.

“What do we do now?” She asked. “You’re the expert.”

“Watch each other’s backs,” you sighed. “I’m in no shape to get us anywhere and I don’t think you’re doing so hot right now, either. When was the last time you got a full night’s rest?”

She scoffed.

“Like these fuckers leave me alone long enough for that.”

“They will now,” you said.

“Right,” she said. “Because you’re magically going to make them back off.”

“Nothing magic about it,” you said. “I just know what I’m worth to their boss. They won’t go through me to get to you, he’d kill them if they did. You can take a breath.”

She looked skeptical but she also looked exhausted. After a moment, she lay down on the mattress, her back against the wall and her arms crossed tight over her chest.

“Don’t make me regret this,” she said before closing her eyes.

“Yeah,” you said. “You too.”

***

Joel rode with one hand resting over your fingers in his pocket.

They were a comfort to him, his heart beating more steadily when he could feel the parts of you there.

He tried not to think about why he found them so comforting. The truth of it nagged at the back of his mind but he tried to leave it tucked away. He wasn’t equipped to face that. Not now.

But the truth of it was, if he couldn’t get you back, he needed to have some part of you he could put in the ground. He wouldn’t be able to bury an empty box so he had somewhere to lie when what was left of the world became unbearable and had a place to go when his time came, too. He had something he could honor and be close to if he lost you now.

“Joel,” Tommy said. He wasn’t sure how long they’d been riding. “We need to rest the horses, we can’t keep pushin’ ‘em like this…”

“They can rest when we find her.”

“Joel,” he said again, and he actually turned to face his brother, his hand still on your fingers in his pocket. He could feel the metal ring of your wedding band beneath his palm.

I promise to protect you. Promise to never let anything hurt you.

“The horses won’t be in any shape to get her out of there if we push ‘em too far right now. We need to rest them, for her sake. We need to rest ourselves, too. Can’t fight if we’re exhausted, it’ll just get us all killed. Please, Joel.”

Joel clenched his jaw. Tommy was right. He knew he was. But it didn’t feel right. He didn’t want to sleep or eat or let another hour pass without knowing you were alive.

“Let’s get to the stream,” Joel said, nodding toward where he knew there would be some water coming up. “Then we can take a break.”

It didn’t take long, the three of them making it to the water almost too quickly for Joel’s liking. But he stopped all the same, dismounting his horse and giving him a chance to drink. Ellie and Tommy did the same, Ellie pacing for a moment before stopping, staring at the water.

“Be back in a minute,” she said. “Need to use the restroom.”

“Don’t go far,” Joel cautioned. She didn’t respond, just stalking into the brush.

Joel stared at the water, too, shifting his weight from foot to foot, adjusting his back as his body settled into a different position than it had been in on the back of a horse.

“Joel,” Tommy said, coming up alongside him. He kept his eyes on the water. “Look man, I can’t pretend to know what it is you’re goin’ through right now. Don’t know that I’d be doing any better in your shoes but… Jesus, man. Ellie’s a kid…”

“Old enough to patrol.”

“Patrol,” he repeated. “Not do the shit we used to do. There’s a difference.”

“She wants to know how to protect what she loves,” he said. “You know as well as me the kind of world we live in…”

“Don’t mean she needs to be doin’ that,” Tommy cut him off. “You really want her to live with that shit in her head the rest of her life? Knowin’ what she’s capable of doing to a person?”

Joel didn’t respond. He just crossed his arms a little tighter.

“She wouldn’t want that for her,” Tommy said after a minute. “Bambi loves that girl. She wouldn’t want her torturin’ someone in her name.”

“Well she’s not here to put a stop to it, is she?” Joel asked, finally looking his brother in the eye. Tommy didn’t say anything. “Ellie’s an adult. I’m not gonna pretend like she’s not grown enough to make her own choices. If she wants to make a man pay for takin’ someone she loves? I’m not about to stop her.”

Tommy just squared his jaw, watching Joel intently for a moment.

“So we’re clear, I’m not just out here for you,” he said. “I’m out here for Bambi, too. She’s my family and I’m going to do what she would want me to do, including saving that kid from herself.”

Joel rounded on his brother fast and firm, forcing him back into a tree.

“You really mean to tell me what my wife wants?” He was seething, in Tommy’s face. “I left her and our girls in the place you told me was safe and now she’s gone, I might never get her back and you’re gonna tell me how to handle it? That it?”

“You really gonna blame me for this?” He asked quietly. “You gonna tell me I’m in the wrong?”

“Dad?”

Ellie’s voice appeared behind him and Joel stepped back from Tommy who cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Everything OK?” She asked, looking between the two men.

“Fine,” Tommy said. “We’re just… worried.”

“No shit,” Ellie said. “Me too.”

“We’ll give the horses an hour,” Joel said, looking between the two of them. “Then we’re back on the road.”

It wasn’t a relaxing break. Ellie patched up the knife wound on his shoulder. Once that was done, Joel just tried to not pace, feeling the burn of Tommy’s gaze on his skin. But it was like he was on fire, his muscle and his marrow burning with the need to move, to do something besides just fucking stand here at the water’s edge and watch it go past, as though everything was normal and life shouldn’t have come to a grinding halt because you were gone.

It was just shy of an hour when Joel couldn’t take it anymore.

“C’mon,” he said, mounting up again. “Let’s go.”

They rode for a few hours more in brutal, damning quiet when Tommy finally spoke again.

“Should talk about a plan,” he said.

“Plan is to get my goddamn wife,” Joel spat. “What else do I need.”

“We’re gonna be outnumbered, for one,” Tommy said, his voice almost eerily calm. “For another… it sounded like Mitchum ain’t gonna be there…”

Joel was quiet for a moment, waiting for him to finish the thought. He didn’t.

“Sounds like you’re arguin’ about the fact that there’s one less person standing between me and my wife,” Joel looked at his brother, his jaw clenched tight. His hand went to cover his pocket again, feeling where your fingers were against his leg.

I promise to protect you.

“I’m not,” Tommy said. His tone reminded Joel of the way you spoke to the feral horses you’d brought to Jackson. Like Tommy knew he was an unbroken, wild thing, something that was dangerous and could lash out at any second. “But… He knows where to find her now and it doesn’t sound like he’s going to stop coming for her. We need to get her back but we need to make sure she’s safe and to do that, we need to kill him, too. We have to wait for him to come back otherwise we’re just buying time, that’s all. We have to end it.”

Joel looked straight ahead, grinding his teeth.

“He’s right,” Ellie said quietly. “We need to kill the guy at the top, too, or it won’t stop.”

He was almost embarrassed to admit, even just to himself, that he hadn’t put much thought into that. He’d been singularly focused: Get to you, save you, destroy whoever he could reach who’d hurt you.

But if he wanted to do what he’d vowed to do, he couldn’t let it be that simple. He would have to make sure he cut the snake off at the head. There was no other way.

“So what do you propose we do?” He asked gruffly, even though he knew they were right.

“Find ‘em,” Tommy said. “Take someone from the perimeter, if we can. Pull information from ‘em. If we can know when he’s coming back… if it’ll be soon, we can wait him out. If it’ll be long, we get Bambi and get a message back to Jackson, bring people out to take care of him when he does come back.”

Joel nodded slowly, considering.

The only faults he could find in the plan was that it could mean you were with these monsters longer than it took to reach you or that he wasn’t the one to take Mitchum apart. He needed to get to you as fast as he could, make sure you were still breathing and still you as fast as he could. And once he had you back, he wasn’t leaving your side. He’d have to trust someone else to handle your captor and that made his skin crawl. Mitchum needed to pay. He needed it to be long and harsh and cruel and he needed to know that, when he died, he knew why.

But holding you was more important than any of that.

“Alright,” he said. “We get there, we find someone, we take the information. We can decide from there.”

Tommy nodded but was quiet for a moment.

“It’s the right move, Joel,” he said gently. “You’re doin’ everything you can for her and we’re going to get her back. She’s…”

“Don’t fuckin’ lie to me,” he snapped, his chest getting tight, so tight it was getting hard to breathe. “Don’t tell me she’s going to be alright not… not when I left her there, not when I should’ve…”

“She’s strong,” Tommy cut him off, looking quickly at Ellie who’s head was hung low. “She’s the strongest person I know. She’ll make it.”

The three of them made it to the edge of what they thought was Mitchum’s territory as night started to fall, finding a place to hole up and collect information.

“You two stay put,” Tommy said, once it was dark. He went down to the basics, leaving his pack and horse behind. “I’ll find where to go. Don’t do anythin’ stupid.”

Joel clenched his jaw but gave him a nod, watching what little he could see of his brother in the dark.

“Get some sleep,” he said to Ellie after sitting in silence for too long.

“I’m not tired,” she said, her voice harsh but quiet.

“Try,” he said. “I’ll keep watch.”

She sighed but he heard the rustle of her getting her sleeping bag from her pack all the same and watched the outline of her as she settled in nearby on the ground. Joel kept his hands on his rifle, tracing his fingers over the familiar edges of it. The weapon was a comfort, the corporeal reminder that he was not powerless, that he could do damage and take what he needed. He had what was necessary to save you, he just had to do it.

“Joel?” Ellie said softly.

“Hm.”

“Are you OK?”

His hands stilled on the gun and he looked over to her. He couldn’t make out her face in the dark but he could feel her eyes on him.

“Shoulder don’t hurt,” he said. “M’fine.”

“Yeah, but…” she paused. “What about the other stuff.”

Joel sighed, not really sure how to answer that question. How did he tell Ellie that he felt like he was on the edge of a knife? There were only two options for him: bringing you home or not going home at all. He knew that now, there would be no coming back from this without you. He didn’t want to come back from this without you.

“You can talk to me, you know,” she said. “I’m not a little kid anymore. I know you still see me like a kid but…”

“I know you’re not a kid,” he said. “But there are some things… some things just ain’t yours to carry.”

She was quiet for a moment, long enough that Joel thought the conversation might be over. But it wasn’t.

“How do you do it?” She asked.

“Do what.”

“Hurt people.” She sounded so small it reminded Joel of when they were coming to Jackson, when she was scared and uncertain and had already survived so much more than she should have.

He sighed.

“Just do.”

“How do you not lose yourself to it?” She asked. “When I saw him there, when… when I knew what he did and knew he was still breathing, I got so angry. Like all I wanted in the whole fucking world was to hurt him that way, too. I wanted to make him pay for it, pay for everything and I would have hunted him to the ends of the fucking Earth to do it but when I actually… when you gave me the knife, when I was able to… It didn’t feel better but I couldn’t stop it. I knew it wasn’t helping her and it wasn’t changing anything but someone needed to make him pay and I wanted it to be me but all it did was make me sick but I couldn’t stop it. How do you stop it?”

He adjusted his grip on the gun, fingers pressing too hard into the stock, his chest tight.

“Lot of practice,” he said eventually. “Started… it started out just for information. And… well, truth of it is, I wasn’t able to feel much when I started doin’ it. After I lost Sarah, I just didn’t feel much of anything at all. I just wanted to keep Tommy alive. Did a lot of shit I regret in the name of keeping me n’him alive. But that made it easier. And doing it when… when there’s trouble, when it’s you or her… I don’t feel much then, either. Can’t feel bad about doin’ anything to a man like that when he’s between me and… There’s nothing in me to feel bad. Only hard part is not killin’ someone who deserves it too fast. But the information’s important. Easy to remember to get it when I need to. It’s just… it’s practice, same as anything else. Practice you don’t need to have, baby girl.”

Ellie sighed.

“I get what you mean,” she said eventually. “I lost control with Cody before but… I don’t know. It’s like there’s part of me that’s missing right now and I don’t know what to do if I don’t get it back.”

Joel’s heart clenched at that.

“I’m sorry, baby girl.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “We… we’ll take care of each other, right Dad? No matter what?”

Joel was silent, trying to figure out how to speak without his voice catching.

“We will,” he said after a moment. He wasn’t sure if he was lying to her.

Ellie was asleep when Tommy made it back to their small camp, sitting heavily beside his brother.

“Found their perimeter,” he said quietly. “We ain’t too far, half a mile maybe? Got an idea of how they patrol, there are spots we can grab one. Looks like a decent set up, we’ll have to be smart about how we do this, Joel. If we ain’t, it could get her killed as much as it would you or me.”

Joel knew Tommy was saying that to try to keep him from charging in, hot headed and foolish, but that didn’t make it feel any better to sit here and wait.

“Think we get a few hours rest,” Tommy said. “Grab one of their men just before sunrise.”

“Alright,” Joel said, settling in to wait, trying to ignore the pull in his chest at the thought of you so close but so out of reach. “You sleep, I’ll keep watch.”

“Joel…”

“I’m not sleeping without her,” he cut him off. “I’ll be fine. Sleep.”

Tommy was silent for a moment.

“She wouldn’t want you doing this to yourself, either,” he said quietly. Before Joel could argue, Tommy got up and got his sleeping bag from his pack, settling in on the other side of Ellie as Joel looked toward Mitchum’s base, watching the place where you were in the dark.

***

Abby was right. They weren’t letting her rest.

You weren’t entirely sure how long you were watching over her as she slept when you heard the front door open. You knew it was still dark, it couldn’t have been that long. You’d been trying to do something to keep yourself calm in the time that you’d been sitting there, watching over the girl who had nearly murdered your husband.

Your entire body was tense and on high alert. You didn’t think you could hope for much else while you were here. Even before you’d never really been able to turn off the constant thrum of fear that pulsed through you. It wasn’t paranoia, it was self preservation. You had to be prepared for someone to come and hurt you at any moment. Your heart beat faster because of it, breaths came faster. You were sure you’d lost more blood because of it when they took your fingers. But you knew you couldn’t stay this tense for long and be useful. You needed to calm down enough that you could function and eventually rest. You needed to recover the blood you lost before you could do anything at all.

But the tactics you used before to keep yourself sane couldn’t happen now. You couldn’t pretend to play guitar anymore. You’d never tried to play with just three fingers on one hand and thinking about losing that hurt, more than even losing the fingers did. You weren’t in any condition to train, either.

Instead, you just stared at the wall over Abby’s shoulder, her back pressed to it. You tried to think about how to get out, what you had to leverage. If there was a time where you and Abby might be unchained at once, maybe together you could overpower them.

Maybe Joel would come for you.

Not that you thought he wouldn’t try, you knew he would. But you’d changed hands, groups had gone separate ways. Tracking you would be basically impossible. You couldn’t count on him to find you under these circumstances. You could only count on yourself and your need to get back home to him.

Still, you thought you’d have more time of staring at the wall before anyone would come for you or for Abby. You were wrong.

You tightened your grip on your chain and looked around for other options for weapons but Mitchum and his men had been thorough, the room stripped bear of everything but the bare necessities. You grabbed the bucket from the end of your bed - one that, thankfully, you hadn’t needed to use yet - before turning to the sleeping girl on the other bed.

“Abby,” you hissed quietly, stretching your unchained leg out and jostling her mattress. She jerked and scrambled, already panicky and gasping for breath. So different from the girl who’d held Joel’s life in her hands. Her darting eyes found you and she seemed to remember then, relaxing a little. “Someone’s in the house.”

“Fuck,” she swore, looking around for something to fight with but coming up as empty as you had.

“How far can your chain reach?” You asked as quietly as you could, eyes darting toward the door.

“Um,” she moved almost to the middle of the room, her chained leg stretched far to the side. “This far.”

“OK,” you nodded, not sure you believed it. But yours went about as far, and you were able to place yourself in front of her. “Just.. stay behind me.”

“You really think this will work?” She asked. You looked back over your shoulder at her. Her teeth were gritted and fierce but her eyes were wide and afraid.

“They won’t touch me,” you said. “If you stay behind me, you’ll be OK. Just stay behind me.”

The door opened and a man you didn’t recognize stalked in. Mitchum had either expanded or replaced a lot of his henchmen in the years you’d been gone. The man looked you up and down for a moment, his eyes calculating and hungry, before looking behind you.

“Come here, girl,” he said, ignoring you completely.

“Fuck off,” Abby snarled, but she stayed behind you.

He squared his jaw, his nostrils flared.

“Do as I say,” he snapped. “Or I’ll make it hurt.”

She laughed once, darkly.

“Like you wouldn’t anyway.”

“Fine,” he said, going to move around you. “I’ll drag you, then.”

You did’t let him pass. Instead, you lashed out with your unbound leg, kicking hard and landing a blow on his inner thigh - not quite where you were hoping to hit but it was enough. He hissed in pain and stumbled, looking vicious.

“Fucking…” he rounded on you, moving toward you, but you raised your still-booted foot, ready to kick again.

“Try it,” you said. “See what happens. Think your boss would just let you get away with fucking up his favorite toy before he got back? Take a guess what happened to the fuckers who took my fingers.”

He hesitated then, looking between you and Abby.

“Not getting her without going through me,” you said. “And he’ll kill you if you go through me.”

His lip curled.

“Bullshit.”

You shrugged.

“Risk it if you want,” you said. “Or ask the men who brought me in. Personally I think it’d be fun to watch you become clicker food…”

You pressed back closer to Abby, feeling her at your back, ready to move as best you could if you needed to.

The man, however, didn’t move. He just let out a short, enraged scream and turned his back to you for a second, stomping toward the door before turning back.

“Mitchum is back soon,” he said, your body tensing at his name, heart pounding a frantic rhythm against your ribs. “He’ll take care of you himself.”

He stormed off, slamming the door behind him.

You relaxed then, your heart still in your throat as you moved back to your side of the small room. You didn’t want to be any closer to Abby than you had to be.

She, it seemed, had the same thought, moving to her mattress and pressing her back against the wall, taking slow but shaky breaths as she did.

“You alright?” You asked, pulling your injured hand back into yourself again. It felt so much better there for some reason. Not any less painful but at least less exposed.

“Fine,” she said, a little breathless. You nodded, closing your eyes for a second and counting your breaths, trying to force them to slow. “Why did you do that?”

You looked at her for a moment as she watched you, her eyes narrowed but in curious examination, not anger.

“I meant what I said,” you replied. “We’re stronger together. And… I might have every reason to hate you but no one deserves what they do. Not even you. I’m not about to just let them do it. I don’t have much power here but I have some and goddammit I’m not going to waste it.”

She nodded a little and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.

“Thank you,” she said eventually. “You didn’t have to do that. I’m not sure how much more I can take and… Thank you.”

You just nodded, fingers absently seeking where your wedding band had rested just days earlier, a motion you’d done almost daily since Joel had put it on your hand. Instead, you found broken flesh. You took your fingers back.

“You should try and sleep,” she said after a few minutes. “I won’t be able to for a while, not after… I’ll keep watch. Wake you up if anything happens.”

You nodded slowly before stretching out on mattress, trying to calm yourself enough to actually rest.

You did manage it, for a few hours. You drifted in and out more than properly slept, but it was something. When you finally woke, you traded with Abby, her lying down to rest while you kept watch.

There wasn’t much to watch for, though. Your threat, it seemed, had been taken seriously. No one came for Abby and you knew no one was going to come for you, not while Mitchum was away. You weren’t sure what was going to happen once he did come back. You just hoped you’d have some kind of opening when they moved you to wherever they tried to take you for him to try and use, that you’d be staying close enough that you could easily come back for Abby and that the two of you could make a break for it together.

Once you were both awake again, you tried to learn what you could as quietly as possible. Abby gave you an idea of the layout of the place you were in, where the horses were kept, when people tended to congregate. She’d been here long enough to have a decent enough lay of the land, enough of one that you thought it could be helpful when trying to find your way out.

She was, as you learned, a resourceful young woman. She’d made one escape attempt already but she was caught quickly. She learned from it, though, telling you where she thought was better to avoid after watching certain areas after her attempted break out.

If it weren’t for your shared history, you’d probably like her. You could even sympathize with her, to a point. If someone had taken the only person you had left in the world, you probably wouldn’t care much about the reason they did it either. You’d just want them to pay. But all that pain had been what landed her where she was.

After leaving Joel to bleed and die in the lodge that day, she’d been content with it for a while. Satisfied that she’d ended the man who had ended her father, she felt like she could move on and she tried to, for a while. She spent time with the group of people who had helped her hunt Joel down, started looking for someplace to call home.

Then, doubt took hold. She couldn’t be sure he was gone. She’d left him with you, after all, someone who seemed as determined to save him as she had been to destroy him. How could she know, with deep and comforting certainty, that he was truly gone? How could she just live her life if there was a chance he was out there, living his?

So she set off toward Jackson. Her friends had tried to talk her out of it but she was unrelenting. She needed to see evidence of his demise before she could rest and - on the off chance he survived - she needed to finish the job. Two had come with her for a while, trying to talk her out of it the whole way, but, eventually, they gave up and she was alone.

She didn’t know what her plan was, really. It wasn’t like she had resources to take on an entire town but she figured he’d leave eventually. She’d found him almost on his own before, she could do it again.

She was closing in on where she thought Jackson was when one of Mitchum’s men - patrolling the areas around the town, looking for a foothold - found her. She fought hard and took several of them down before they took control of her, chaining her and dragging her back to Mitchum’s camp more than a month earlier.

You had the fleeting thought that you should, in some way, find this satisfying. That her lust for pain had brought her here, victim to a monster of another kind entirely, knowing that if she’d just left well enough alone, she would be with her friends.

But you couldn’t. You knew the kind of pain Mitchum wrought, how he and his men took a person apart from the inside out, separating them from their humanity with surgical precision until they were just a shell of who the were before. No one deserved that, not even her, especially not when you thought of her as somewhat like a girl you’d been once, one filled with so much hurt and anger you thought you might burn the world with it.

It was an uneasy alliance, one that you were forced to trust. She watched over you as you slept and the two of you were only disturbed by an angry delivery of jerky and water.

You wished you had some idea of when Mitchum would be back. Being left alone was almost disturbing and the feeling of looming agony was heavy and only grew heavier as time passed. You knew he would come back eventually, returning from whatever dark business he had and he’d come straight for you when he did. He always did when he came back unless he was too injured to do what he wanted with you. Any frustration that had built up in his time outside he seemingly loved to work out with your body, relieving it with your fear and pain. You could only imagine what he would do to you now, when you’d been a source of frustration and denial for him for so long and when he was apparently willing to trade so much for your return. The only solace you could find in that was the fact that he likely wouldn’t kill you too quickly. That would give you more time to get out and get back to Jackson, assuming he didn’t accidentally break you past the point of survival.

You were pretty sure it was the afternoon the next day when someone came into your room again. You and Abby moved to the middle of it, you in front as you stared down the man, watching for an opportunity. You were stronger now, still not recovered from losing your fingers - no where near it - but you felt like you had a fighting chance now. You weren’t about to miss your shot at escape if it arose. But he just smirked, collecting the buckets from the feet of the beds.

“Don’t get too excited,” he said. “Just cleaning up for the boss. Doesn’t want to deal with your stink.”

Your heart sped up and you fought to keep it from showing on your face. If they were doing this now, he had to be close. He might already be here and time was running out.

In truth, regardless of how careful Mitchum was to keep from killing you, you weren’t sure you could survive any of it again. His hands on you now would be poison, the feeling of him inside you now ruinous. There was some part of you that had started to believe that this was behind you. That no one would ever touch you without your permission again, that you had the skills and the tools to fight whoever came for you and you were safe. You could finally relax.

That sense of safety had healed parts of you that you weren’t sure you’d ever get back if you lost them again and the man who would take them was all but knocking on your door.

“Fuck,” Abby’s voice was quiet and panicked at your back.

“He doesn’t like an audience,” you said softly, watching the door. “They’re going to take you away. See if you can make a run for it…”

Before she had a chance to respond, the door opened again, the man returning the buckets. This time, they were far from the ends of the bed, tucked into the corner near the door where you couldn’t reach. You swallowed and tried to force yourself to stay calm. You couldn’t do this if you were panicked, you had to focus.

“Alright,” he said, standing and looking the two of you over before nodding to Abby. “You’re coming with me.”

“Fuck you,” she spat and you felt her tense behind you.

“That’s the idea,” he sneered. “And you I’ve got permission to fuck up, so best if you listen.”

“Still have to go through me, you fuck,” you snapped. “Don’t think you can just do what you want with me.”

“No,” said a chillingly familiar voice from the other side of the door. Mitchum came in slowly, smirking and confident, his boots falling heavy on the plywood floor. “But I can. You’re my toy, little doll, in case you forgot. And just because you went and got yourself all feral out there doesn’t mean you can just run roughshod over my men like you have been.”

You resisted the urge to scramble as far back from him as you could reach. You knew it wouldn’t help, he’d get to you anyway and then he’d have evidence of your fear when he did. You fought to breathe and hold yourself steady, even as your heart raced and your stomach churned.

Mitchum prowled forward, a limp in his right leg you didn’t remember him having before. You tried to think back to a few nights before, when Cody had handed you over, and picture his gait then but you were so afraid and so lightheaded you could hardly recall anything specific. You stared up at him as he squatted in front of you and you tried not to flinch back. Everything about him being close like this felt wrong, the threat of his presence, the stink of horses and chewing tobacco and sweat, the uncomfortable heat of his body. Everything in you screamed to run, you had to force yourself to not try to take off so fast that it would pull your chained leg out of its socket and he reached out, his hands chapped and harsh, snatching your chin into his rough grasp.

“You’ve always been a pretty thing,” he said, forcing your face to the angles he wanted as he examined you. “Glad to see you’ve still got that fire in your eyes. I’d have to fuckin’ kill Cody if he took that before I had my chance. Thought about it for your fingers - you’re no fun if you go too easy, can’t have you too damaged. Should never have sent him after you, should have known better… Was he who helped you the first time? Always thought he was goin’ soft for you. Not too soft, apparently, but…”

You jerked your chin away from him and he let you go, a satisfied smirk on his face when you did.

“Levi,” he said, glancing back to the man who’d come in with you. “Take the other one where ever you want, back bedroom should be open for you. But you’d better not damage her permanently, she’s a fun one, too.”

“C’mon,” he went to take Abby but he wasn’t paying attention to you, leaving himself exposed as he tried to move past you. You took advantage of it, lashing out with your still booted foot and slamming the heel into the crotch of his jeans. He cried out and fell to his knees, clutching at his genitals before he fell to his side, damn near writhing and he moaned in pain.

You looked at Mitchum.

“Your lackeys are fuckin’ weak,” you said through clenched teeth.

He barked a laugh, the stench of rot on his breath as he did, before he turned to look at the man who was struggling back to his knees.

“Now how am I supposed to believe you can wrangle a woman if you can’t even handle ‘em when I’m around?” He asked before whistling, high and shrill. A moment later, two more men came in, armed and large. He nodded to the girl. “Take her, do what you want as long as it’s nothing permanent. Take this idiot with you.”

They moved with more caution, unchaining Abby carefully before hauling her away. She met your gaze for a moment, her eyes sharp but afraid. They closed the door behind them.

“Before you get any bright ideas,” he said. “Got more men waiting not far away. I’m the only reason you’re still alive. Want to stay that way? You do what I say.”

“You think I want to live if I’m stuck here with you?” You asked, eyes darting over him as best you could, seeing what weapons he might have that you could reach. “Rather die than be stuck with you for…”

“Anyone else?” He cut you off. “I’d believe ‘em. But you… you were always different. Something special. You just don’t have it in you to die, not like that. You’ll just keep on going until I make you die. And that, pretty thing, is hard to find.”

He didn’t give you a chance to respond, instead clamping his large hand around your throat and squeezing. Your eyes went wide and your fingers scrabbled at him, trying to claw him off of you but failing miserably as he dragged you by your neck to the mattress, throwing you roughly onto it. He moved you so roughly that your skull smacked into the wall, making your head spin and knocking you off balance.

You tried to reorient yourself, vision doubled for a moment, as Mitchum unlocked the chain at your ankle, removing the metal from your bloody leg before pulling off your remaining boot and reaching up and opening your pants. You scrambled to stop him there, too, shoving at his hands while trying to kick away from him but he grabbed the ankle that had been bloodied by the chain and yanked you toward him, the shock of it jerking you to a halt.

“This would hurt less if you’d just cooperate,” he snapped before ripping your jeans down over your hips and to your knees. You ignored him, feet scrabbling for purchase on the mattress. It didn’t seem to make much difference and soon, all you had on from the waist down was your underwear.

“Now let’s see,” he said, panting a little as he moved up your body. “You still got my mark on you, little doll? Or did you find a way to get rid of it?”

Before you could do anything to stop him, he tugged your shirt - Joel’s shirt - up and the side of your underwear down, exposing the brand he’d pressed into you the night he’d lied to you about Savvy’s death.

“There she is,” he said, almost reverently, his fingers tracing the letter on your skin and you wanted, desperately, to climb outside of yourself in that moment. Or, at the very least, claw away every scrap of flesh that he’d touched to purge him from your body. “Almost surprised you left me here so long. Maybe you missed me, too…”

“Fuck you,” you hissed through clenched teeth.

Mitchum looked up your body, a sickening smile on his face.

“You may not know this,” he said before gripping your thighs and forcing them wide apart. He wedged his large body between your legs before letting them go. You could feel the thick of his penis through his jeans and it made your stomach roll. “But you need someone like me. You’re too headstrong, too wild on your own. Without someone to keep you under control, you’ll destroy yourself. You’re much better off with someone like me. Just give me what I want and you get a pretty good life, just like one of those horses you love so much. Just let me break you and this gets so much easier for you.”

His hand went around your throat again, fingers tightening to choke you until your vision grew spotty, your legs instinctively kicking as you clawed at his arm, trying to pull him away so you could breathe. You could see, just barely in your field of vision, his other hand going for his belt and you knew, if you passed out, you’d wake up with him inside you, forcing everything you’d fought for since you’d escaped him the first time out of you when he did.

You couldn’t do that. Not again.

The fear and the realization were so sharp that you had a split second of clarity. Instead of your hands instinctively pulling at the thing that was nearly killing you, you gave up on that, instead throwing them forward, your thumbs quickly finding their place in Mitchum’s eyes, pressing as hard as you could as your consciousness faded.

It didn’t take long for him to jerk back from you, releasing the hold he had on your throat and giving you the chance to take a breath. You almost choked on it, the rush of oxygen a shock to your system and you felt his weight leave your hips. You took advantage of that, too, kicking blindly, bare feet connecting with the round of his stomach and the thick of his neck.

“Fucking cunt!” He roared and dove for you but you were able to dodge him, his hands missing your body, head coming to land near your shoulder. You had just enough leverage with your body weight to throw him into the wall with a sharp thud and you scrambled away, going for the door. But then you remembered the guards that were waiting on the other side of it.

You gave a whistle like the one he had, high and shrill, standing just to the side of the door as you waited to ambush the men who came when they thought he called.

It only took a moment, the first one rushing in, a puzzled look on his face as he watched Mitchum try to catch his breath and get off the mattress. You jumped on the guard’s back, wrapping your arm around his shoulders and pulling back on him. He choked and sputtered against you, slamming you back against the wall but you tucked your head into his neck so you wouldn’t get hit there again. Instead, you sank your teeth into the tender flesh there, not like a lover but like an animal, ripping and tearing in search of his jugular. He shrieked and fumbled for his knife, grabbing it off his belt and slashing blindly back toward you.

The man didn’t need much precision, though, the blade sinking into the thick of your arm just as your teeth closed around the flesh of his neck. You ripped your head away, a gush of blood in your mouth as you pulled his skin from his body, spitting the part of him you took onto the ground. The knife was still lodged in your arm and you released your hold on his shoulders to pull it free, adjusting your grip on it as quickly as you could to stab it into his bleeding neck. He dropped to his knees and you released your hold on him, rushing into the hall covered in blood, the knife in your grip. You wiped your mouth on the back of your sleeve and were about to make for the room where you thought they’d taken Abby when another figure darkened the mouth of the hall - the other guard.

“What the…” he began. You didn’t give him a chance to finish. You launched yourself at him, his hands flying up on instinct to protect himself and he did a good enough job of it, catching your shoulders and keeping you not quite at arm’s reach. But you didn’t need to be any closer than that, sinking the knife into his throat, too.

You heard a commotion in the back bedroom then, heavy thuds and a scream as the door flew open, Abby leaning against the frame and panting for breath, blood dripping from a gash at her cheek.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” she said, a broken piece of wood tight in her grasp.

You just nodded once, making for the door, acutely aware that you didn’t have shoes or pants - so like the first time you’d fled for your life all those years ago on the ranch as the world came crashing down around you.

The two of you peered out of the window at the front of the house, the guards who had been posted just outside gone.

“Think those assholes were the ones who came in as back up,” you said, eyes darting back toward the bedrooms. You knew you hadn’t killed everyone but you couldn’t risk going back to finish the job, not now. People would notice the missing guards too fast and then you’d be outnumbered. “Which way?”

“East,” she said. “The shortest route to the woods. We can lose them there.”

It was dusk, not the best time to be on the run but at least soon you’d have darkness on your side.

“Right,” you said, looking over at her for a moment. “See you on the other side.”

She looked at you, too, like she wasn’t quite sure what to make of you.

“Yeah,” she said, giving you a firm nod.

You led the way, knife still firmly in your grip as you moved onto the porch, crouching low and sweeping the area. There were men in the distance, running toward something you couldn’t see with rifles drawn.

“Go,” you whispered, staying bent over but letting your legs extend, ignoring the pain of sharp weeds and broken concrete below your bare feet as you ran, looking frantically for anyone who might try to stop you.

You froze on instinct when there was a sharp whistle that cracked through the air, three short blasts like some kind of signal. You grabbed Abby and ducked between two houses, just in time to see a cluster of men with rifles tight in their grips running past.

“Ever seen them do shit like that?” You asked quietly.

“No,” she said. “They used whistles before for signals but never three…”

“Well, let’s hope whatever the fuck made them raise the alarm stays busy with these assholes,” you said, peeking around the corner. No one else was coming. “Let’s go.”

You darted from house to house, seeking cover in shadows where you could and you were starting to think that, maybe, you’d managed it. That you were going to get out of here and find a way back to Jackson when Abby shrieked behind you.

A guard had grabbed her, his arm around her neck as he yanked her back. She flailed and thrashed, trying to dislodge him but he withstood her, pressing a handgun against her temple.

“I’ll do it!” He snapped and your hands went up as Abby’s eyes met yours, wide and wet and afraid. “I’ll shoot her and you’re next if you don’t just calm down and come with me…”

“Please,” Abby said, but she wasn’t begging him. Her eyes were locked on yours, pleading. “Don’t let him take me again, just let them kill me, please…”

You held her gaze, tears burning as you did.

“I’m sorry,” you said, voice wet as you started to lower yourself toward the ground. You looked toward the guard. “Just going to set the knife down…”

“Go slow,” he said, the gun still to Abby’s temple.

You just nodded, watching him closely, waiting for her to do something that would draw his attention. You didn’t need to wait long.

“No!” She screamed, the sound thick with tears. His eyes went to her but that was all you needed. You shot forward and thrust the knife into his calf, the blade embedding in his muscle before you twisted it. He screamed and instinctively dropped the weapon, his hands flying toward you and his leg, his hold on Abby gone. She stumbled forward and you snatched the gun from the ground, shooting him in the head at such close range it covered you in his blood.

“Thanks,” she said shakily. “I… thank you.”

“Told you,” you said, rolling the dead man over so you could get the rifle from his back. “We’re in this together.”

You handed her the smaller gun and kept the rifle for yourself and the two of you pressed on. You were able to dodge other trouble as you heard the commotion from the edge of the neighborhood get closer. There was the crack of gunshots and the boom of explosions and you just hoped whatever was coming for you wasn’t worse than you’d already been stuck with. Mitchum had pissed off a lot of people in his time. If he was gaining territory now, there was no telling who might have come to put a stop to it. And that was assuming a hoard of infected hadn’t picked up on this place, something you could only survive by outrunning.

“Do you know where the stables are?” You asked, gun still tight in your grip.

“No,” she said. “But I’m not exactly a great rider, if we don’t have time to saddle a horse…”

You almost laughed at that, the absurdity that a horse could possibly hinder you.

“Don’t worry,” you said. “All I need is a horse. I can take care of shit after that.”

She looked at you for a second before she took a deep breath and nodded.

“Right,” she said. “Still…”

“Let’s split up,” you said, grip tightening on the rifle as you said it.

“No,” she said quickly. “Fuck that, we split up…”

“We need to get the fuck out of here,” you said. “And out run whatever’s making all that noise. Our best shot is on a horse. You go right, I go left, we meet up in the tree line on the other side. If you find the stable, just grab a horse, don’t worry about any tack, I just need a horse. Got it?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Fuck I hope you’re not crazy.”

“I’m not,” you said. Taking a deep breath. “Be careful.”

She looked at you again.

“You too.”

You went your separate ways, smoke on the horizon now as you searched as best you could for some sign of horses but found nothing. You were nearly stopped once by one of Mitchum’s men but you shot him before he could flag anyone down, the sound of the gunfire blending with the sound of the chaos that grew closer.

You made it to the tree line, a wide open span of grass between the house at the back of the subdivision and the start of the forest. You looked around quickly before you ran, darting from the shelter of the house and moving as quickly as you could for where you said you’d meet Abby, hoping that she found a damn horse.

But you barely made it that far when it happened. A thick, meaty hand closing over your shoulder, ripping you around to face Mitchum’s ruddy skin as he seethed, a murderous look in his eye.

You raised the rifle and tried to shoot even though he was far too close and he knocked the gun away as you pulled the trigger, the bullet going wide and barely catching the side of the leg he limped with.

Still, he hissed in pain before he lifted his leg, planting his foot in your chest and kicking you, hard, forcing you to stumble back, your bare feet catching on a tree root and sending you to the ground.

“You fucking bitch,” he stalked over as you scrambled up onto your hands, pulling yourself backwards from him, breathlessly looking around for something - anything - that could help you. “You think you can just do whatever you want, that it?”

His foot collided with your shoulder this time, forcing you onto your back and he all but fell beside you, taking your face sharply in his hand.

“Could have just cooperated,” he said, panting, keeping his face a good distance from you now so it was just out of reach and your fingers had nothing to scratch at. “Could have made life easy for yourself. You think I’m the worst thing out here, huh? Think there aren’t other men who would have let you fuckin’ die a long time ago?”

“Fuck you,” you hissed as his fingers dug into your cheeks.

“You want me to treat you the way those other men would?” He asked, releasing your face just to punch it. The blow made your head spin and your vision go spotty. “Fine, I can do that, I can stop bein’ gentle with you. Because you better believe I was being gentle before. Won’t be gentle now, not for you.”

He grabbed your knees and wrenched your legs apart, going between them before you could snap them shut and you more heard his belt buckle than saw it.

“You want to die on my cock?” He asked. “Who am I to fuckin’ stop you…”

Time slowed, only for a moment. In that long, torturous second, you remembered everything from your time in captivity that your mind had tried to protect you from. The haze of pain the last time Mitchum had you, the way he forced your body to bend to his will in such a way that it didn’t feel like yours anymore, the burn of his brand on your flesh, the strange mix of fear and hope that maybe this time he would kill you.

But you remembered everything that had moved in to replace all that agony, too. The way you’d slowly, gently come to love Joel more than you knew it was possible to love somone. The way Ellie was the opposite, bursting her way into your life and leaving you not other choice but to love her with everything you had. The way you’d grown to love everyone in Jackson, all these people who had come to rely on you, too. The way Savvy had joined you there, finding a place in a world you thought had died years before her birth.

You couldn’t let him unmake all of that inside you. You had too much to lose, too much that made you who you were now, you didn’t have room for it all alongside the pain he was trying to force on you. You couldn’t let him take it all away. Not now.

Time righted itself again, just as his hand came to rest over the gusset of your underwear and you roared, the sound more ripping itself from you as you shot forward, slamming your forehead into Mitchum’s nose and feeling the satisfying collapse of it below your skull. He shocked back from you and you wrapped your hands around his neck, shoving yourself onto your knees and screaming as you did. He was larger than you and you had to work to knock him off balance but you were determined and he collapsed back, your hands still tight to his throat as you sat on his chest, knees on either side of his ribcage.

He kept his wits about him as you tried to choke him, though, his fist catching you sharply on the chin and knocking your hands free for a moment. He took advantage of it and grabbed your left hand, bringing the place where Cody had cut your fingers away to his mouth and biting down, making you shriek in pain. You ripped your hand back from his mouth and punched him across the face with the other as he tried to wrench you from your place on top of him, leveraging your body with his own.

Eventually, he managed it, his large hand shoving against your ribs as his torso twisted at just the right point when you moved to punch him again, sending you sprawling onto the forest floor.

He was on you again in a second, the heavy weight of him on top of you as you tried to free yourself.

“Told you, you little bitch,” he panted. You could feel his erection through his pants. “You’re mine and if I say you’re gonna die on my cock? You’re gonna die on my fucking cock.”

You screamed, trying to wrench your hands free but it was no use, the panic in you rising. This, something inside you said, was the end. There would be no return, there would be no survival and there would be nothing left of you to save.

And then something pulled his body from yours. You didn’t stop to see what, rolling onto your knees and scrambling to your feet, running into the trees before something else could destroy you.

***

“Bambi!” Joel screamed, frantic, but you didn’t seem to hear him, running headlong into the trees.

“I got him,” Tommy panted, a boot on the man he’d pulled off of you’s chest and a gun pointed at his head. “Get her!”

“Don’t kill him,” Joel said sharply to his brother. “He’s mine.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, just taking off after you as fast as his bad leg would let him move. He was so close to you now, so close to feeling you alive in his arms, so close to keeping you where no one would ever hurt you again.

But Joel’s body was heavy. He’d been awake for far too long and had put it through far too much, especially for someone his age. But he didn’t have another choice. He couldn’t rest, not when he knew what was happening to you.

He’d stayed awake all night, going with Tommy to grab someone toward the start of their morning patrol. It would be hours before anyone knew they were gone.

The man they took was young, not much older than Ellie. Joel should have felt bad about that, he thought, especially when he knew that he’d done much the same thing when he was far older than this boy, after he was raised in a time where he knew better how men should behave. But that didn’t matter. He was nothing more than an obstacle in his path to you. One made of flesh and bone and pain but an obstacle none the less. It did not take long to break him and he told Joel what he needed to know: that you were in the camp, kept in a guarded house toward the middle of it, and that Mitchum was on his way back that day. They expected him there before nightfall. Joel killed the man quickly and hid the body, then three of them moved to hide out the rest of the day, not able to get close enough to the camp to watch Mitchum come in. They’d just have to hope the guard was right and that nothing held up his return.

It was early afternoon when Ellie noticed something coming up behind their hiding spot. She damn near jumped to her feet, rifle in hand and aimed into the forest.

“Who’s there?” She snapped. “Not afraid to fucking shoot if you don’t answer.”

“Take it easy, Williams,” Gene said, emerging from the brush with his horse following behind him. “Been lookin’ for you three.”

“Normally, Miller, I’d be up your ass for being this easy to track but, this time, it was lucky,” Warren said, coming up behind Gene. “Should mean the others can keep up, too.”

“The fuck are you doin’ out here?” Tommy asked, moving to embrace the men.

“Made it back from looking for the kids to learn they’d made it back and you three headed out,” Gene said. “Soon as we could trust the horses to make the ride, we came too.”

“If you’re here to try to talk us out of this…” Joel began, tightening his grip on his rifle, but Warren cut him off.

“We’re getting her back,” he said, a sense of finality in his tone. “We can’t let aggression like this stand. It shows weakness, that we’ll just let any asshole come to our city and take our people. And besides all that… she is our people. Not going to just them have her. We’re here to help you, Joel. And there’s more coming behind us.”

He was right. By the time it was getting closer and closer to dark, damn near everyone from Jackson who had a patrol rotation had amassed where Joel, Tommy and Ellie had holed up to wait. The last to join were Maria, Julie and Savvy, Gatling perched on your daughter’s lap as she sat astride Perseus.

“What are you doing here?” Ellie asked, looking at her, eyes wide. “You’re supposed to be back in Jackson, it’s not safe…”

“I’ve spent more time out here than you,” she said defensively, looking at Ellie like she was daring her to argue. “And she’s my mother, she’s out here because of me. I’m not about to sit at home on my ass while everyone else fights for her.”

Warren focused on coordinating everyone else, planning a full blown incursion of Mitchum’s encampment. Joel didn’t care. As long as he was able to get you back safely, the rest of it didn’t matter. Warren, thankfully, seemed to understand. He left Joel, Tommy, Savvy and Ellie out of the planning. The rest was on him. The four of them were finding you.

As everyone got into position to launch the attack, Joel rode up alongside Warren. He adjusted the grip on his reins, looking for something to do with the nervous energy thrumming through him. He was close to you, so close he could almost feel the warmth of you next to him.

“Thank you,” Joel said, more glancing at Warren than really looking at him. “Know we ain’t always gotten along…”

“You think that really matters at a time like this?” He asked, raising his eyebrows. “We take care of our own. You and her? You’re both part of this place now, like it or not. That means we ride for you.”

Joel nodded.

“You focus on finding your wife,” Warren continued. “We’ll make sure none of ‘em ever come back for her or for anyone else.”

“Mitchum, the leader, is mine,” Joel said, meeting his eyes this time. “After everything he’s done, he’s mine and I mean to make him pay for it.”

Warren looked at him second, the smallest hint of a smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

“Wouldn’t expect anything less. Good luck, Miller.”

Joel sighed and looked toward the camp.

“You too.”

The whole of the encampment was drawn to where the people of Jackson had begun their attack, giving Joel, Tommy, Ellie and Savvy plenty of space to search. They still had to be careful, ready to kill anyone who challenged them, but they didn’t need to. It was hard, letting the handful of men who ran past them go knowing that they may have been men who had hurt you but Joel swallowed that small hurt. The only comfort was knowing that they’d meet death soon, anyway. He just hoped it’d painful when they did.

Joel found the building he thought was yours, a house at the center of the encampment like the man they’d taken before had said. It was empty of everything besides signs of a fight, dead guards and bloody chains evident. Joel found your boots and jeans in a bedroom and his hands shook as he picked them up, blood around the ankle of one leg of the pants. His chest got tight as he folded the jeans, picked up the boots and put them in his pack before he left to look for you again.

He had to keep reassuring himself that you were here, that he’d find you soon, anything to keep the panic from taking over. He had repeated that comfort so many times that, when he saw you, he thought, for a second, that he’d imagined you. That his mind had broken under the exhaustion and the fear and had started showing him the only thing that keep him going. But you were in nothing but a shirt - one of his shirts - with blood on your bare legs and a rifle in your hand and he knew you were real. He wouldn’t picture you like this, hurting and afraid and, for a second, there was relief. He’d done it, he found you.

You took off before he had the chance to call your name and he grabbed Tommy, Savvy and Ellie to go after you when they were stopped by a group of men who were heading for the fighting at the edge of the encampment.

Joel had very little patience for them. They were just more obstacles, more things that needed to be destroyed so he could reach you. They made quick work of them, not even bothering to move their bodies from the street before following the small path between houses that you had.

When he didn’t see you at first, he was terrified that he was too late. That you’d run into trouble and he’d find you limp and lifeless on the ground and all of this would have been for nothing, that he’d have to find a way to stay here with you because there would be no going back otherwise.

But he heard you then, your scream harsh and angry and afraid and he ran for the sound. Your cries shifted for a moment, to one of shock and pain, and then you went quiet. He tried to push himself faster, harder, and then he found you. The sight made him sick, you fighting below a man trying to hurt you. It was a sight so like those he’d seen with other women before but now, he would do the right thing. This time, he would save you.

He roared and ripped the man from your body, tearing him back and throwing him to the ground and you scrambled away, not even looking back over your shoulder as you did. He had no choice but to follow you.

While Joel’s body was beaten down, yours was, too. He could see it as he drew closer, the bandage around your hand, the blood at your arm, the slight limp on the leg with the bloodied ankle. You were running like your life depended on it but he still caught you quickly, his hand closing around the wrist of your intact hand and pulling you back against him.

It was like he came back into his body when he did, the feeling of you in his arms the thing that tied him to the Earth, to his humanity. The pain in his shoulder from the knife he’d taken there hit him then, the soreness of his leg, too. None of it compared to the relief that was there when he touched you. You were alive. The rest of it didn’t matter.

“No!” You shrieked, colliding with his body, planting your injured hand against his chest to try and shove him back. “Don’t touch me! Don’t fucking touch me!”

“Bambi!” He said, panting for breath, clutching you tightly to his chest, his hand finding your cheek and forcing you to look at him. Your eyes were wide and wild, just like they had been the first time he’d seen you. They darted, frantic, over his face and there was a kind of desperation there he had never seen before, one that sent a chill up his spine. “It’s me, it’s me, I’ve got you, it’s OK baby. You’re safe, I’ve got you, you’re OK.”

“Joel?” You said it like you didn’t believe he was there, those wild eyes softening at the edges.

“It’s me,” he said again. “I’ve got you, sweetheart. It’s OK.”

“Joel,” your voice cracked and you pulled your wrist from his hold to put your arms around his neck, clinging to him. “You’re here, the girls, we have to find the girls, he…”

“They’re safe,” he said, wrapping his arms around you and holding you tighter than he should but he couldn’t seem to stop. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there, baby, m’so sorry…”

Your legs gave out and he held you tight, lowering you both gently to the ground as you cried against him with choking, wracking sobs that shook your whole body. He just held you, rocking you gently as he did, his nose pressed into your hair as his lips kissed the crown of your head again and again.

“Is she OK?” Savvy’s voice sounded so small.

Joel looked to find the girls standing beside him, watching with concerned looks on their faces.

He wasn’t sure how to answer them.

“We’ll get her back to town,” he said, still holding and rocking you. “It’ll be alright…”

“Joel,” Tommy called. “What are we doin’? We gotta move.”

He pulled himself back from you just enough to look at you, putting a finger gently below your chin and tilting your face to his. Your eyes were glassy.

“That man,” he said softly. “The one who was on top of you. That Mitchum?”

Your chin trembled but you nodded. He pressed a kiss to your forehead, leaving his lips there until he felt you take a deep but shaky breath. He pulled back enough to see you again.

“I’m gonna go take care of him,” he said. “Our girls are here, they’re gonna stay with you, OK?”

“They’re…” you frowned and looked around until you saw them, your eyes going a little wide when you did. It was like you couldn’t fully process anything that wasn’t right in front of you. Your eyes darted back to him. “What are they doing here? They should be back in Jackson, they should…”

“They’re OK,” he said gently. “They wanted to come get you back and they did. You stay with them. I’ll take care of him and then we can all go back to Jackson together…”

“Jackson…” You frowned for a moment, like you were trying to think of something and then your eyes went wide again. “Jackson, they want to take Jackson, they’re coming for the city, that’s what Cody was trading me for, he…”

“S’OK,” Joel said, running a soothing hand over your hair. “Already killed Cody. We’re killing the rest of them here today, whole town is out here. We’re ending it. They won’t be a threat, not anymore. It’s OK, baby. You did it. You saved the girls, you survived. You can rest now.”

He looked up to Savvy and Ellie, giving them a small nod toward the ground. They knelt next to you, one on either side, looking at each other for a moment before reaching to gingerly touch you. You flinched at first and then relaxed and Joel kissed your temple.

“Gatling,” Savvy said, the dog suddenly at attention at her side. She snapped and touched your shoulder. “Guard.”

The dog turned and stood sentinel, watching with ears pricked. Joel stood, leaving you with your daughters and your dog before prowling to the man who had tried to take everything from him.

As he drew close, there was an explosion, closer than Joel was happy about hearing, and Tommy looked at him.

“Don’t think we got the kind of time you want,” he said, tightening the grip on his gun. “Better make it count.”

Joel gave him a nod, squaring his jaw before looking down to the man on his side. Tommy had bound his hands and his eyes were somewhere between rage and fear. Something told Joel he hadn’t been challenged, not this directly, in quite some time.

He reached down and took a fistful of his shirt, lifting his shoulders roughly from the dirt and dragging him back to a tree. He propped him up there, kneeling beside him and he saw a flash of defiance for a moment, like he was going to move to stop Joel.

Joel wasn’t having that. He punched him, hard and sharp, across the face, sending his head whipping around. He glanced back, finding Tommy over his shoulder as he leveled his gun at Mitchum. Joel turned his attention back to his quarry.

“I don’t know who you are or what you want,” the man said through clenched teeth, looking between Joel and Tommy. “But I’m sure we can make a deal…”

“Time for deals is long past,” Joel said, pulling his knife from his belt. He turned the blade over in the fading light between them, giving Mitchum a chance to actually see the size of it.

“What do you want?” He said, his eyes darting from the knife back to Joel’s face. “Name it, it’s yours. Territory? Fine. Support of my men? You have it. Resources? Take it.”

“You think it’s that simple?” Joel asked. “What I want, you can’t give me.”

“Try me,” Mitchum said, teeth clenched.

“What I want,” Joel said, voice flat and calm. “Is to take back everything you took from my wife.”

He took his knife and plunged it into Mitchum’s leg then, sinking the entire length of it into his thigh until he hit bone. The man screamed, writhing and thrashing below him. Joel held the knife in place, each jerking motion making the cut wider, harsher. It wasn’t long before he stilled, panting for breath. Joel kept his hand on the knife.

“You took her from her daughter,” Joel said, twisting the blade as he did. He kept his voice quiet, hopefully quiet enough that neither Ellie nor Savvy could hear. Mitchum’s feet scrambled uselessly against the dirt. “You branded her.” He pulled the knife free. “Told her you’d raped and murdered her child.” He thrust the weapon into his arm now, wanting to save his stomach until he knew he was ready for him to bleed out. “Held her captive for years.” He twisted it, cutting a new path through his flesh as he screamed and panted for breath. “Sent your men to hunt her down and take her away from me and our girls.”

He pulled the knife free of his arm, the man limp and panting on the ground and Joel had this sickening feeling settle in his stomach. He could never hurt Mitchum enough to fix it. No amount of agony he brought upon him would bring back the parts of you he broke. No amount of torment would bring Joel comfort when it was done. He would always hold you and look at you and see the ways he failed you, from decades before when he should have done better and saved women like you to days ago when he should have been there to keep you and the girls safe. You would forever be the reminder of the many ways he should have been better and forever be the bearer of the scars because he wasn’t.

“And you did all of that,” Joel said, taking the knife and cutting through the denim of Mitchum’s jeans, revealing the thin cotton of boxer shorts below. “So you could, what? Rape her?”

Mitchum shook his head, straining to get away from Joel but he had nowhere to go. Joel still took his shoulder and shoved him roughly back against the tree, anyway.

“You think she was some thing you could just take?” He asked, trailing the tip of the knife over the round of his stomach, the breadth his chest, pressing the point into his chin to force him to look Joel in the eye. “Thought if you branded her like livestock you’d own her? That it?”

“I… I tried,” he managed through clenched teeth, panting for breath.

“Tried what?” Joel asked when he didn’t continue.

“Tried to get her to come with me,” he said. “Tried to buy her horses. Could… could have used her but she decided to fight…”

“So you thought you’d treat her like an animal?” Joel asked, head cocked to the side. “See, that don’t sit right with me. Not one bit.”

Joel took the knife from his chin and went to the boxers, carefully cutting the elastic over the fly. He quickly glanced toward you and made sure the girls weren’t looking too closely before he used the blade to fold the fabric back, exposing his penis and balls to the air.

“Anything you and your people want,” he squirmed below Joel. “Anything, name it, anything at all…”

“Right now?” Joel said, looking at his face. “I want this.”

Joel lined the tip of the blade up with the base of Mitchum’s penis so the width of the knife ran down his length and pressed through it, slow and firm. Mitchum’s legs kicked uselessly as he shrieked, his body straining for an escape but Joel didn’t give him one. He just pushed the knife further and further into his flesh until the handle of it was all that was visible, the blade bloodied by his genitals.

Joel left it there and was silent until Mitchum had screamed himself to silence.

“We’re somethin’ alike, you and me,” Joel said, watching him. “Both know what we want, know how to take it. But difference is, I only take it when it’s owed and I only take it from some who deserves to lose it. You should have left her alone. Should’ve left her alone then, really should’ve left her alone now. You decided to take more than what’s yours and now you have to pay for it.”

“Fuck you,” he managed through gritted teeth, his face wet with tears and spit.

Joel nodded slowly.

“See, you have a lot to learn,” he said. There was another blast, one that sounded close, molotov cocktails flying between opposing sides in a war the man bleeding had begun. “And I don’t got much time to teach you.” Joel pulled the knife from his body and he screamed in pain, trying to double over but Joel didn’t allow him to. “So I’m just gonna take it from you in blood and in pain because when you die? Want you to know why. Want you to understand that you could have lived. If you’d just kept to yourself, not taken what wasn’t yours to take, not taken her, you could have lived. You chose otherwise.”

He put the knife into his leg, just over his knee and pushed, dislodging his kneecap as he screamed. Joel nodded, learning the different tenor of his cries. He liked hearing the change in it, the way his pain shifted and pulled from him. He moved to his shoulder, driving the knife down through it and in toward his lung, listening to the change of his pain.

Mitchum’s blood was sticky and hot and gunfire was getting louder and Joel was lost in taking him apart. He grew tired of the distance the knife afforded, deciding that he wanted to feel the collapse of your tormentor’s body with his own skin. He left the blade embedded in his arm before taking his thumb and pressing it into the wound at his shoulder, the sticky heat of his blood driving him forward as he felt the give of his body beneath his force. Once he was satisfied with that, he curled his hand into a fist and pummeled his face to the point of disfiguration. Mitchum’s nose was broken, his jaw dislodged, eye socket collapsed, a mass of bone and viscera that was clinging to life, something Joel didn’t understand but was grateful for all the same. He couldn’t keep hurting a corpse. He only had as long as Mitchum’s will to live hung out and he wanted that to be a very, very long time. Even if it didn’t heal you or him, even if it brought him no satisfaction, he wanted it. In this world, the only justice to be found was in pain and in blood and he intended to give you justice in the only way he knew how.

Tommy, he knew, was trying to pull him back from the edge, but he tuned him out. He understood why his brother was worried, why he’d pulled him back before, why he’d stepped in with Ellie the way he did. He knew, on a certain level, that the path he was done was not who he’d made himself to be in Jackson. But, with Mitchum in his grasp, he didn’t care. All that mattered was destroying the man who had tried to destroy you.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d cut and beaten and hurt Mitchum when he heard you, your voice quiet and shaky over his shoulder.

“Joel.”

He stopped what he was doing, leaving the blade embedded in Mitchum’s side and adjusting his body to block the carnage from your view before turning to see you there. In that moment, you were a contradiction. He’d never seen you look so vulnerable or so strong, your injured hand cradled to your chest but a defiant look on your face. He’d never seen you so small or so tall, so desperate or so determined. Gatling was at your side, glued to your leg as she stared at Mitchum, her ears pressed back on her head and her eyes narrowed. He got to his feet, wiping his bloodied hands on his shirt before stepping closer and taking your cheek gently in his hand.

“Sweetheart,” he said quietly, searching your tear streaked face, your eyes so wide and afraid and unyielding.

“I want to finish this,” you said, your voice thick. “I want to finish him and I want to go home. Please, take me home.”

He looked at you for a moment, your gaze pleading and stubborn, before pressing his lips tenderly to your forehead.

“Whatever you want,” he said softly, dropping his forehead to yours. “I’ll give you anything you want.”

You closed your eyes and took a deep, shaky breath before taking his hand in your uninjured one, lacing your fingers together. He touched your wedding ring in his pocket, still attached to part of you, as you led him over to Mitchum, Gatling still at your side.

The man was slumped against the tree, covered in blood, the sound of his breaths rattling and wet and Joel knew he didn’t have long left.

You stood over him, looking down at him with your hand tight in Joel’s, something cold and almost analytical passing over your features as you did.

“I wouldn’t have wanted to do it like this before,” you said eventually to the dying man at your feet. “I never liked killing before. I never wanted to kill anybody before you, never. Even… even people who hurt me or tried to take what you took, I never wanted to kill them. When I did kill, I never much liked doing it. But I want to kill you. You made me want to kill, you made me like this. I was good, once. And you took that. So I’m going to kill you and I’m going to like it and you should know that it’s because of what you made me.”

Joel gave your hand a squeeze, ready to hand you whatever weapon you asked for and you held tightly to him.

But you didn’t need it. You gave his hand a squeeze before you released it.

“Gatling,” you said, snapping your fingers and pointing to Mitchum. “Kill.”

The dog obeyed instantly, getting down low and growling, her ears pressed back to her head before she shot forward, a bullet from a gun, and locked her jaws around his throat, ripping and tearing, Mitchum screaming for only a moment before going quiet, the only sound left on the air the guttural snarl of your dog ripping him apart.

Joel was certain the man had been dead for a few minutes by the time you called her off, Gatling immediately dropping the shredded flesh when you gave the release command.

You collapsed against Joel then, burying your face in his shoulder and sobbing into him as he held you.

“You’re OK,” he said quietly, running a bloodstained hand soothingly over you. “I’ve got you. Never gonna have to do that again, you’re OK.”

He held you close for a moment, until your breaths became less shaky and he thought you might be able to stand on your own. Joel pulled back from you then, brushing your hair back from your face. Your eyes were glassy again.

“Let’s get you dressed,” he said gently. “Then we can get the fuck out of here.”

You just nodded and watched as Joel got your jeans and boots from his pack. He helped you into them, guiding your body through the necessary movements. You trembled under his touch and all he wanted to do was get you home so he could hold you close and tight and never let anyone lay a hand on you ever again.

When you were dressed, Joel got to his feet and you fell against him. His arm slipped around your waist and he held you close, Ellie and Savvy moving to be alongside Tommy. Ellie had her arm around Savvy’s shoulders, holding her back from the devastation that had once been Mitchum.

“Should see where everyone else is,” Tommy said, watching Joel carefully. “Don’t like how quiet it’s gotten.”

Joel nodded slowly, having forgotten for a while that there was anything else to worry about outside of getting you back.

Tommy led the way, Ellie and Savvy staying close to him, you still against Joel’s side as he followed his brother, on alert for anything that was a threat to you.

He didn’t need to wait long. There was a rustle in the brush and Joel turned and raised his gun, only to see a young woman emerge, a rifle tight in her grip. For the second time that day, Joel thought he might have been imagining things. Because the girl in front of him looked just like the one who had nearly killed him months earlier.

“You,” Tommy snarled, raising his gun, too, and Joel realized that he wasn’t imagining things. She was here, too. “What the fuck are you doing here?

“Don’t want to hurt anyone,” she said, lowering her weapon, nodding to you. “And I’m here for the same reason your friend is.”

Joel turned to shield you but you stopped him and he looked down to you, frowning slightly. He lowered his gun then and saw out of the corner of his eye as Tommy did, too.

“It’s alright,” you said, staying pressed tightly to his side, watching her. “You made it.”

“So did you,” she said, looking you up and down, her gaze staying on your face. “You OK?”

“I think so,” you nodded, still clinging to Joel.

She didn’t look like she believed you but she pressed on anyway, turning her cold gaze to Joel.

“I don’t want to be here talking to any of you for any longer than I have to be,” she said. “So I’ll let your wife explain the rest of it. Just know that after what she did for me, I won’t ever look for you again. And if, for some reason, we run into each other? I won’t hurt you. I’d appreciate if you did the same.”

“You really expect us to just let you…” Ellie began but Joel cut her off.

“S’OK baby girl,” he said, still watching the woman who had nearly killed him. She still seemed so young. She had a look in her eyes that reminded him of you, wounded but determined. He remembered what little he could of her after she turned on him that day, how she’d seemed so angry and in so much pain for someone so young. He’d told Mitchum that he only took what was owed and only from people who deserved it. Even after everything, he wasn’t sure this girl deserved it. “No use in killing people who don’t need to be.”

“Thank you,” she said, looking at you. “And I really hope this is the last time I ever see fucking any of you but… thank you, for what you did for me. I won’t forget it.”

She watched your group, her gun still held low, not turning her back to any of you until she was swallowed by the brush.

“You really want to just let her go?” Tommy asked, looking to Joel.

“That’s bullshit!” Ellie said, looking quickly the direction the girl had gone in. “She’s a fucking threat, she…”

“She’s not,” you cut her off, tightening your hold on Joel. Ellie deflated a little but you pressed on. “You can’t let revenge swallow you up, honey. You just can’t.”

“Good lesson,” Warren said from behind Joel. He instinctively turned, keeping you away from the newcomer even though Joel knew the man well. He looked you over briefly before turning his attention back to Joel. “See you found her. It’s done, we wiped them out. A few injuries on our side but nothing major. We’re going to see what’s here and post up a few guards, make sure anyone else who comes around and thinks they can try us knows better, but all the trouble we’ve run into on patrol lately should be done for now.”

“Good,” Tommy said. “Bout time something went our way around here.”

“Expect you’ll be heading back?” Warren asked. Joel just gave him a nod. “Good. Let the folks at home know we’re all OK when you get there. Safe travels.”

“You, too,” Joel said, tugging you closer.

He held you close as Tommy led the way back to where they’d left the horses, taking stock of you as you went. Your breaths were shaky but even, your footing unsteady but driven. Joel couldn’t be sure what was done to you here. He could only hope that you would find peace in Jackson and the life you shared with him and that, in time, you’d recover from it.

The encampment was decimated, bodies of Mitchum’s men on the ground, Jackson folks already going from house to house taking stock, piling the dead together to burn. You stared at the carnage, a half dead look in your eyes as you did. Joel just held you, feeling everything again for the first time since he’d found you gone, until the five of you reached the horses.

“Don’t have one for you,” Joel said gently. “But Ellie can ride with me or her and Savvy can ride together if…”

“I want to ride with you,” you cut him off, looking at him with those wide eyes of yours. “Please, Joel. Take me home.”

And so, he did.

A/N: And Mitchum meets his end. I hope it was worth the wait for you all!

We are very, very close to the end of this fic, just two more chapters to wrap everything up. But Bambi is back with Joel, they have their girls and Jackson is saved. It's all going to get better from here :)

Thank you all so so much for going on this journey with me. It's been wonderful to share Joel and Bambi's story with you and it wouldn't be the same without you.

Love you!

Next Chapter

Taglist: @ashleymsnodgrass@planet-marz1@kalea-bane @juneswonderlust @ilovepedro @h-annahayy @starstruckmusiciansartghost @beccerjune @mumma-moonchild @netonetoneto @mellymbee @purplelye @n7cje @flugazi @evyiione @randomhoex @aliengirl99 @orcasoul @reds-ramblings @pedropascalsbbg @fupoola @tinypotatothing @knopes-waffles @lilmizmoz @ayamenimthiriel @jenispunk @panda-pascal @sarap-77 @flugazi @your-slutty-gf @daniegraceg @partyofone3413 @cumberpegg @noisynightmarepoetry. @fifia-writes @grumpygrumperton @srmacaroni @txlady37 @bigboiseason123 @ashleyfilm @arizonadreamingg

#fanfic #joel miller x female reader #yearling #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x oc

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delicatebarness · 4 months

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i cant read your mind | chapter seven

Summary: Your last few hours in Madripoor.

Warnings: MCU Spoilers. Major The Falcon and The Winter Soldier Spoilers. Avengers Endgame Spoilers. Guns, Violence, Explosions and Jealously.

Word Count: 1192

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A/N: FINALLY episode 3 is done, now onto episode 4, and boy, have I been waiting for this one. - B

Leaving the bathroom, you joined the rest of your team in the lounge area. As you entered, you couldn’t help but notice Sam without a shirt, your eyes lingering on his defined abs longer than you had intended. He caught your gaze, shooting you a playful smirk.

As you broke eye contact, you made your way to Bucky. “By the way, how is the new Cap?” Sharon directed her question over to Sam.

“Don’t get me started,” Bucky mumbled, answering for Sam. You tensed as Sharon walked over, carrying on their conversation and sitting next to him on the small couch. Their conversation turned into white noise in your mind while you watched them sitting close together.

You didn’t realize you had been holding your breath, as Sharon stood up to make herself a drink, you released it with a sigh. Seizing the opportunity, you quickly sat in her previous spot, itching closer to Bucky. He draped his arm over the back of the couch. You listened intently to Sam and Sharon’s discussion about the Power Broker, flinching slightly when you felt Bucky’s fingers start to play with the ends of your hair.

You both sat watching and listening to the deal they made, offering leads for a pardon.

Upbeat music played as the crowd cheered and danced around the artwork. Your anxiety heightened as you watched them wave drinks around in their hands, so close to the priceless work. Madripoor was a crazy place, especially since you found yourself laughing and having fun with Zemo.

After a few moments of dancing with Zemo, you felt a pair of hands place themselves on your hips. Lost in the moment, you didn’t bother to check who it was and began swaying along with them. It wasn’t until your eyes met Bucky’s from across the room that you realized it might be someone else. The intensity in his gaze sends a thrill through you. Instead of stopping, you let a mischievous smirk play on your lips and gave him a wink.

After a few minutes of dancing with strangers and by the tightness of his jaw, frustrating Bucky, you decided to start regrouping with him, Sam, and Zemo in case Sharon got any information.

Bucky didn’t say one word to you as you looked at the art, or when Sharon came back with a lead, and he never said a word on the way to depot.

After taking the comm from Sharon, you entered the shipping container with Bucky, Sam, and Zemo. You stayed at the door with Bucky as Sam and Zemo inspected the inside. His jaw tensed every time you glanced up at him.

“Bucky…” You tried to get his attention, but as his gaze snapped down to you his nostrils flared. A telltale sign for you to either watch what you say or be quiet. You chose the latter as you began following the men further into the container up to a science lab.

You stood quietly as Sam spoke to the Doctor, your eyes surveying the lab for any other clues, that was when Sharon’s voice blared in your ear. “Guys, we have company.” Sharing a glance with Sam, your eyes having a private conversation. Once he nodded, you bolted back out of the container to find her.

Her grunting was the first sound you heard, rushing towards it you helped her to knock out the rest of the bounty hunters. “Feels like old times, huh?” you quipped, a reference to the times you fought together while working at S.H.I.E.L.D. She didn’t get a chance to reply before more bounty hunters showed up.

After getting the last of who was currently around, you and Sharon ran back into the container towards the men. “Guys, we’re seriously outta time here,” Sharon shouted towards them as you reached the lab.

You yelped at the sound of a gunshot, Bucky rushed toward you, blocking your view of the scene that had unfolded seconds before. “Keep your eyes on me,” he mumbled, his voice only loud enough for you to hear. Doing as he said, you locked your gaze with him as your heartbeat raced.

Suddenly, you were pushed to the ground, Bucky’s body weight on top of yours as your ears rang, the temperature of the room heightened and sirens blared. Bucky pulled himself up, reaching out his hand to help you up from the ground too.

Scanning the room, you notice the liquids in the testing tubes start to bubble and whistle around you. “It’s about to blow!” you exclaimed, hurrying after Bucky as he guided the others. He swiftly assisted them back to their feet before he turned to usher you out the door.

Before you knew it, you were all once again in a shoot-out. Sam and Bucky fought over who was leading, shouting at each other about who was in the right. “It’s in every action movie!” Sam declared as he gestured around him to Bucky.

“He’s never seen an action movie!” You shouted back at Sam, defending Bucky, who had unmistakably exclaimed, as you all left the container, to go on his signal. Just then, another explosion erupted, and Bucky instinctively shielded you with his body, his protective nature over you kicking in.

“You alright?” He mumbled as the smoke cleared, locking eyes with you as the world behind him blurred into insignificance. At that moment, he was all you saw. You offered him a reassuring nod, murmuring a quick ‘yeah’ to him before you both shot your glances over to where the gunshots began again.

Back on the plane, you sat in silence, reflecting on the events of Madripoor. Gazing out the window, the conversation between Sam and Bucky faded as your thoughts took over. You couldn’t help but wonder how Steve would have handled the situation, and how things might have been different if he just stayed. Doubts crept into your mind about whether Natasha’s sacrifice had been worth it.

Just then, you felt the presence that reminded you why it was worth it. Towering over you, he watched as you remained fixated on the passing clouds.

“I’m still pissed,” he said quietly. Shrugging your shoulders in response, you tucked your knees closer to your chest. “But, you still need to get some rest.” And, with that, pulled you up from your seat. Taking your place, he gently guided you to sit on his lap. You didn’t resist, nestling into his chest as he traced soothing patterns on your outer thigh with his left hand. His right hand entangled itself through your hair.

“Is this really for me to rest, or for you?” You asked him, aware from the many nights spent together that he found it easier to relax and fall asleep with you as close as possible.

“Both of us, Baby,” he muttered softly. His voice was honest as he gently tightened his embrace, his breathing warm against your ear.

Sighing, you felt the tension in your body slowly melt away. His familiar touch and steady heartbeat calm your thoughts, making it easier to let go of the day's chaos.

---

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#i cant read your mind #i can’t read your mind #icrym #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #bucky x female reader #bucky fanfic #james bucky barnes #bucky fic #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x avenger!reader #the falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws au #tfatws bucky #tfatws

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jxckchxmpi0n · 1 year

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Press tour

Jack Champion x Actress reader || m.list

Summary : You and Jack have been on a press tour for a few weeks as scream vi was just released. An interview with MTV leads to the realization someone's in love

Word count 1.6k

Tag list: @chaethewriter @demausbreaux

Warning: spoilers for scream vi

It was the last interview of the day. Answering fan questions with Jack for MTV. Both of you were tired and ready to call it a day. As you sat down, the producer came over to explain how it works. "So what will happen I will read you guys the question, answer however long you want keep it flowing simple easy and your done" the costume director came over fixing Jack's clothes and your hair was being fixed.

"What do you say after this wanna get food?" You couldn't turn your head, but out of the corner of your eye, you could see him staring at you. A soft blush came to your cheeks as you hummed a yes. Satisfied with your answer, he turned back "good"

"Alright, we're on in 5, 4, 3" the producer stood behind the camera as they finished the countdown.

"Hi, I'm y/n l/n," you waved and smiled at the camera.

"I'm Jack champion, and we are here with MTV to answer fan questions about Screamvi." he winked at the camera.

'What's your favorite memory while filming scream?'

Jack held a bright smile on his face as he flashed through all the memories of you and the other cast members on set. As you both sat there making comments about how hard it was to choose, Jack was the first to settle on his favorite.

"I would have to say my favorite memories would be when- and well spoilers if you haven't seen it yet- but umm definitely the whole wiping the knife in sync with Liana" you watch him in awe as he explained it was so satisfying yet hard to film. "Overall, it was just very fun to experience the whole scream and ghostface." he turned towards you after he rambled on, a soft blush creeped on his cheeks as he realized.

"You're adorable." You turned to the camera, but your body was still facing Jack, "I would have to say the frat party. There was this scene that we filmed. I don't know if it will ever see light- but it was Chad he was hyping up Ethan to talk to a girl. Which is in the movie - but there's a snippet where we see Ethan actually trying to make the moves on Scarlett, my character look at him so confused because she sees Chad behind him jumping up and down like a little school girl."

"Who are you close with on set?

You both laughed as you thought about the times the cast would just hang out and mess around. The first to come to your mind was Jack. You guys were and are always attached to each others hip. There were many times when filming went late, and the amount of energy that went into filming had finally caught up to both of you.

Mason had found both you and Jack sleeping on the apartment couch while they were filming the "core four scenes" you laid on the inside while Jack laid halfway on you. Mason saw a blanket on the end and just threw it over you two. But what you don't know is Jack woke up and saw Masons' actions. He smiled and saw Mason giving him a thumbs up.

He felt you move underneath him, worried you'd wake up he stayed still. Mason already walked away, and Jack was slowly falling back asleep, his arm laced around your waist as he laid on you. Your arm laid over his back as if you were trying to pull him close if possible.

"I would say y/n, we spent a lot of time together on set and off when we weren't filming," he felt himself get warm, his ears slowly turning red. Shifting in his seat, he made eye contact with you and saw the soft smile you always wore. The one he loved, the one that means he had your full attention.

"That's a good point. There were days they called us in, but we didn't film anything. We were just there to be there if they needed us. So that resulted in us hanging around set trying to find stuff to do. " You saw Jack in the corner of your eye messing with the hem of his shirt, something he always did when anxious.

Your eyes softened at the sight of him, his curls loosely sat on his head, some falling in his eyes. The freckles that were sprinkled around his face - shit. You were madly in love with him! How could you not be? He's a gentleman. He pays attention he's funny he's sweet, he's caring - he's Jack.

"Are you guys aware that many of the fan ship both of your characters together, as well as you in real life?"

Your face grew a shape of red so fast, giggling you quickly jumped in before anything could be said. "I think it's adorable to see what the Fandom creates."

Jack was still on the idea of people out there saying you guys should be together. Well, they aren't wrong. You and Jack are basically a couple, just without the tile. He liked you a lot, and he liked the idea of being with you. But his heart sank at the thought of you not feeling the same way.

Without thinking, Jack quickly jumped in, "I agree with the fans. Maybe in a different universe or something, uh, you know, " an awkward laugh went through his body as he just realized what he had said.

You, as well, very confused awkwardly laughed. On the other side of the camera, the producer motioned for you to do an outtro. Smiling at the camera, you said your name as well as Jack's as he was stuck in thoughts.

"Screamvi is out now in theater." You blew a kiss to the camera, and Jack did a little wave.

"CUT" beautiful guys, we'll get makeup and costumes to take you back, and you guys are free.

Awkwardly, you stood up, taking your mic as well as Jack. "Did you still want to get some food?" He couldn't even look at you. He was so red. Thank god his hair covered his face for once.

"Yeah, uhh, that sounds good. I'm just gonna go change and meet you at the car. " Before any more, he could be said he sped off towards his dressing room.

Twenty minutes passed by, and he finally pulled himself together. He paced I'm his room debating is he wanted to tell you about you feelings.

His stomach was doing flips as he was walking to you. His hands became clammy as he got closer. He saw you standing on the wall looking through your phone. Do it while we're out.

You looked up and saw him walking towards you. He looked like a lost puppy. Looking around, trying to understand where he was, the dark brown of his eyes found yours, and for a second, you saw a calmness take over his body.

"Ready to go?" He nodded his head, and you made your way to the car.

There was a cafe on the corner near your place that both of you loved. It was your favorite place. "What you gonna get?" You continued looking at the list as he looked at you. He noticed the shine in your hair, the glow in your skin, the way you bit your lip as you debated what to eat.

"I think I'm just gonna get the club sandwich. Something simple and easy. What about you?" He looked down to remember what he even chose.

"The pasta sounds pretty good. I might just get that." Satisfied with his answer, he closed the menu. The waitress came out and took our order. Food was out in a matter of minutes.

Once the bill was paid, you made your way to your apartment. You were raving on about a story on your upcoming role in a movie, while Jack was stuck in his head.

"Y/n, I need to tell you something." Stopping in the middle of the stairway to your door, you looked at him confused.

"You finally gonna tell me what's been going on in that pretty head of yours?" He smiled. He knew you noticed it.

"Listen, I love you, and I love our friendship - but this," he motioned between you and him. "I want more. I want it all. I want to hold your hand. I want to hug you. I want to be able to look at you and adore you - well, even though I do that already - but god y/n, I'm like in love with you. "

You stood there mouth ajar as he just confessed his love you you. Jack champion said he loved you. A wide smile took display on your face as you stepped forward. Grabbing his shirt, you pulled him into you, and your lips met his.

They were so soft, yet chapped. It took him a second yo realize what was happening, but the second it clicked, he grabbed your waist, pulling your body into his. Smiling into the kiss, your hands made their way to his hair.

He groaned as your hand pulled on it, and your lungs burned as the kiss continued. You felt him pulling away but wanted to keep going. His eyes hazed with lust as he looked at you. His lips swollen and red, your matching his.

"I want it all as well, trust me. I love you," he reached up and tucked a hair behind your ear and kissed you again.

#jack champion #jack champion x reader #ethan landry x reader #ethan landry #scream vi #spider avatar #ethan landry smut #ghost face x reader #ethan landry imagine #jack champion imagine

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diamondcitydarlin · 14 days

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----LOTS OF SPOILERS FOR THE FILM BELOW BE AWARE---

The thing that's driving me kinda CRAZY about the sequel though is how perfectly it sets up a personal arc for Lydia to be intertwined with Beej's. Like I said in my reaction post after seeing the film last night, I feel like Lydia as a character doesn't really get much of an arc or a resolution by the end of the story, as most of the plot is focused on repairing her relationship with her daughter, with Delia, maybe even her ex-husband to a certain extent, and for as much as she's rid of someone actually preying on her (Rory) we have no reason to believe she's found inner peace or really discovered herself or isn't still constantly popping pills to help with the 'gift' of sight she still has to deal with. There's so much about her left unresolved that Tim is either going to have to make another film about or I will have to fanfic about. But again, what's also fascinating is the way the beats of Lydia's story become tangled up with Beej's by the end of this, and also the ambiguous suggestion that there might be some kind of red string of fate linking them together across life and death and centuries (my kingdom for Beej saying "I've crossed oceans of time to find you" in a deep sexy Dracula voice and Lydia being like "plz shut the fuck up" LMAO)

Like, the 'psychic connection'. The thing that makes Lydia able to see and interact with Beej in places other than the house/model in Winter River. At first I think we're led to believe these are genuine hallucinations she's having, but ofc that's debunked when Beej reveals he's aware of these sightings and has been participating in them on purpose. Does this suggest that their first marriage may have been binding in some way that didn't release him from death, but allowed him more range to manifest so long as he was attached to her? That's not really addressed or explained, but I feel like it opens the possibility of being a thing (as so many fanfics have had happen before, I LOVE it tbh)

Also, the parallel of them both having had predatory exes that tricked them into 'selling their souls' (one in a figurative sense, the other literally lmao). I'm honestly shocked more conclusions weren't drawn from that conspicuous parallel in the film itself, because it's VERY interesting. It seems almost to suggest they're both meant to safeguard each other's souls (which is why I'm still bitter we didn't get Lydia defending him from Delores, I think that would've been a nice follow up to Beej saving her from Rory, even if she was just doing it out of a sense of obligation).

And idk, on the whole I feel a lot of Lydia's personal struggle at this point in her life is defined by a need to feel 'normal'. I get how that can seem odd coming from the teen girl that confidently described herself as 'strange and unusual', but this is 30 years later, after several failed relationships, after becoming a mom and struggling with a strained relationship with her daughter because of her oddity, idk, I think it's a good case study on how society forces women to conform lest they be a bad daughter or a bad mom or a bad wife, etc, but I think it's obvious she's just fighting her 'strange and unusual' nature and the more she does that, the more difficult her life will be.

To me, that suggests her path to happiness has actually a lot to do with Beej, or very well could. Who else is going to understand her true nature the way he does? Who else is going to unashamedly encourage her to be balls to the wall weirdo like she REALLY is??? Who else can truly set her free that way??? Like I'm gnawing on wires here yall, if nothing else Tim gave us SO much fanfic material to work with on this one.

#beetlebabes #beetlejuice spoilers #im already plotting out the fic tbh #lots of brain food to chew on here #lydia deserves a full personal arc and it deserves to be spooky and weird af

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odditycircus-2002 · 1 year

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Medusa! Reader and Shang Tsung in MK 1 (Part 1)

SPOILER ALERT FOR MK 1 STORYMODE

A/N: I hope y'all like this as I've been hyped for this game since I heard its release!!! I was so excited for the possibilities that I watched the full storymode cut as soon as it came out to take notes! Be aware, given this is a new timeline, there ARE gonna be some changes from the other hc/s you've known, but rest assured that doesn't mean I have forgotten. Please enjoy!

You were born around the same northern canton as Shang Tsung, yet you would come to know him in adulthood. You were born as the second eldest to your village's apothecary during your childhood. You never knew your eldest sister, who was taken at infancy to become Umgadi; despite this, your mother always spoke highly of the daughter she never got to know. To the point of being grating to everyone around you, including yourself. On the other hand, your father had high hopes for you to someday take over the apothecary of your village, having seen your innate talent and intrigue for medicine from an early age.

You reveled in the pride your father expressed for you. Although, your mother gave you a different time of day despite your best efforts. Because of your frustrations, you would come across to others as prickly and shrewish. Although deep down, you just wanted a chance to make BOTH your parents proud.

That day came, but not in the way you truly hoped, when a plague struck your village from another nearby canton. Thankfully, it wasn't Tarkat, but that didn't make the one that came any less deadly.

You and your father worked day and night to help treat your village, giving them depleting medicine to ease their symptoms. However, that doesn't mean you didn't have your fair share of corpses you had to help burn to stifle the plague from spreading.

When your father became ill from overworking, you took it upon yourself to search for a cure. It took weeks of secretly digging corpses out of the burn puts and cutting them open (something that wasn't so hard for you to stomach, oddly) to find which combinations of elixirs were the most effective before you found a cure. Even then, it took weeks of trials and tribulations before you finally succeeded. However, to others, you seemed to have cured your village overnight by some miracle, making both your parents proud.

From then on, through the grapevine, it wasn't hard for the newly crowned rulers of Outworld, Sindel and Jerrod, to hear the word of an upcoming healer making a name for herself around the northern cantons by healing most ailments and diseases. Eventually, they would invite you to study at the palace to further your knowledge of medicine.

You were already stunned to hear of Outworld's rulers inviting YOU, of all people, to study at their palace. Imagine your amazement when you first saw the luscious and lively city of Sun Do. Yet the city seemed pale compared to the crown jewel of Sun Do Palace.

When you were escorted into the palace, instead of immediately heading into the throne room as instructed, you slipped away from Li Mei's watch to head toward the legendary Hanging Gardens. While exploring the garden's flora, you took the time to sketch out the plant life you've never seen to look up later. In fact, you were so caught up in what you were doing you didn't immediately acknowledge Empress Sindel when she entered. When she invited you inside for tea, did you finally look up from what you were doing and realize who you had spoken to the entire time.

You quickly bowed as you started to ramble out apologies for not properly greeting your Empress, stating how you meant no offense or disrespect. Sindel only gave a small chuckle and brushed it off, stating it was a relief to know the healer they invited to study here had so much potential. From there, after getting berated by Li Mei about how there won't be a next time for you to slip from her, you meet Jerrod.

Jerrod and Sindel watched you flourish into a benevolent and dedicated healer, eventually the Head Healer for the Palace, often treating the royal family, Imperial Guard, or Umgadi. While there, you were also trained by Li Mei herself to defend yourself, to prove that every member of the Imperial House is capable of defending Outworld.

You and Sindel grew to have a close friendship. In fact, you treated Sindel the most when she was pregnant with twins and watched as both came into the world. You, too, helped with the upbringing of Mileena and Kitana after Jerrod's death. Sindel found she could confide in you, knowing any secret with you is safe, assured in your loyalty to her and the royal house.

However, that's not to say your friendship with Sindel didn't get into trouble occasionally, specifically in matters concerning Tarkat and those afflicted with it, as your role as a Healer conflicts with Sindel's policies.

You took it upon yourself to become one of the lead researchers into Tarkat, including going to the colony of those afflicted in the Wastes. What you saw appalled you and sickened every part of you that is a Healer.

Yet, as Sindel continues to ignore your suggestions on improving Tarkatan's life, a wedge forms between you. That doesn't stop you from advocating giving Tarkatans better treatment than what they currently have. You and Sindel's skirmish reaches a crescendo when Mileena, infected with Tarkart, one day approaches you.

You tried everything you could to treat her in secret from Sindel, fearing the Empress would banish her own daughter. Yet neither of your efforts would be successful as Sindel and Kitana eventually learned about Mileena's affliction. You and Sindel argued about how Mileena's illness should be dealt with, with you calling Sindel a hypocrite for protecting Mileena when she doesn't do the same for the rest of her sick subjects.

Thanks to the new sorcerer, Shang Tsung, that Mileena found, she was temporarily cured before she could go on a bloody rampage. Immediately, you asked Shang how he figured out how to treat Mileena's symptoms. To which he answered by offering a partnership, stating that together, you both had a real chance to cure the princess and all of Outworld. An invitation you were not going to turn down, much to the Sorcerer's delight.

Thanks to Shang Tsung backing your argument, Sindel had a laboratory built near the Tarkatan camp so you could further your studies for a cure. Although, secretly, it may have also been a way for you to put some distance between you and Sindel since you felt you needed time away from her and the city.

Shang Tsung introduced you to Syzoth, who he claimed would work as an assistant. You were unaware of his enslavement to Shang. Although more at ease in your presence, you couldn't help but notice how twitchy Syzoth can be, especially whenever Shang is in the room.

You recognize Shang's mannerisms, dialect, and choice of clothing to be from the same area you're from. Despite the familiarity you two connected with, you were wary of Shang when he refused to indulge in what he used to be. While he finds your caution understandable, that would not stop him from trying to woo you.

At first, he wasn't quite successful in using honeyed words and shiny trinkets since you were too caught up in your work to care for them. Frustratingly for him, you struck a faster friendship with Syzoth over your interests in each other's cultures. Yet, it didn't escape Shang's notice that Syzoth would cringe at your dark humor and be unable to fully understand the theories you would share with him.

Shang Tsung changed his approach to you after taking note of you and Syzoth's interactions (and punishing Syzoth in private). He got this chance when you let slip a dark joke that some would say is in bad humor. You slap a hand over your mouth when you realize what you said. Yet, to your surprise, the sorcerer you saw as pretentious and full of himself let out a genuine laugh to the point he had to step back from his worktable to reorient himself.

Shang Tsung didn't fake finding you humorous especially when it meant seeing you direct your smile toward him. One small but genuine one he scarcely ever saw directed at him. He found himself wanting more.

Such a small moment led to a friendship that intertwined with your partnership. Shang got you talking about your work and what you hope to accomplish with it, occasionally encouraging you. You would find him sometimes jotting down notes when you share with him theories you developed about Tarkat, including how its mutative properties cause an excessive amount of bone to grow from a person and could probably strengthen a person if used right.

"Yet, I would never actually see if that's true. Not only would it be incredibly painful, but it would be an act against nature.

"Of course, yet shouldn't progress be something healers should strive for?

"Indeed we do, but not at the cost of lives."

Syzoth watched as your relationship with Shang Tsung flourished, thus leading you to share a few apothecary secrets your father taught you. The Zatteran wishes he could've told you about the man you looked fondly at, yet he kept his mouth shut.

Unbeknownst to you, Shang Tsung would take some of your ideas and theories with Tarkat and then make them into a horrid reality, all right under your nose. For all you knew, the basement level of the lab would eventually be used to treat patients.

Yet, you didn't think Shang Tsung could ever be so depraved. Not from the charming and intelligent man you came to know through long discussions and walks near the lab. However, you started to grow suspicious since you saw Syzoth often head downstairs, but Shang Tsung discouraged you from looking around below. This eventually spiraled into a confrontation between the two of you.

You argued that both of you are partners and thus are equals. Just, what was he hiding down there? However, when you confronted the Sorcercer and gave him a piece of your mind, that's when disaster struck.

Fed up with Shang Tsung dancing around the answer and his secretiveness, you marched right to the door leading to the lower levels of the Laboratory. Out of desperation, Shang Tsung then ran to your side to push you away from the door.

He only meant to push you hard enough to get you away from the door, but it was enough to push you directly into a shelf containing a glass jar containing proto-type Anti-Tarkat serum that fell directly on your head, followed by more unknown serums. You screamed at the searing pain of glass and the liquids entering your eyes.

Your skin started to peel away, leaving your entire body in patches of red rashes, and your hair fell out in clumps. Your screams filled the entire laboratory as you collapsed to the ground. You didn't see the panicked look on Shang's face as he instructed Syzoth (who saw the whole thing) to carry you.

A/N: Sorry, that's all for now, folks. I reached the word count limit.😅 Don't worry, part 2 is coming out real soon!

#mortal kombat #mk x reader #mortal kombat x reader #mk11 #oddball writes #shang tsung #shang tsung x reader #syzoth #Reptile mk #mk syzoth #mk sindel #mk kitana #mortal kombat 1 2023 #mileena #mk Lei Mei

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if-whats-new · 28 days

Text

What's New In IF? Issue 19 (2024)

By Marjorie, Axelle, and Noi

Now Available!

Itch.io. - Keep Reading below

If you read the zine, consider liking the post: it helps us see how many people sees it! And sharing is caring! <3

~ EDITORIAL ~

New faces for a new season!

This week, we had to say goodbye to Erika, who is returning to legal pastures after their incredible hard work with the zine. They were a core member of our team, digging through so many spots to help us find all the news for our readers!

With their departure leaving a big gap, we have been discussing the future of the zine, and have decided to add new faces to our roster!

If you would like to help us out in a more official capacity, shoot us a message!

For this issue, we talked with E. Jade Lomax, author of the beloved Stay? and More a Haunting than History, fan-fic writer (dirgewithoutmusic) and podcaster.

We got quite the scoop during our discussion, and dove quite a bit into spoiler territory… So you only get a tease today… and see the rest Wednesday!

Check out our interview with E. Jade Lomax on Small Talk…

We hope you enjoy this extra long issue!

MARJORIE, AXELLE, AND NOI

~ BE PART OF THE ZINE ~

WHAT'S NEW IN IF? HAS EXPANDED!

Since the release of issue #14, we've enacted some changes with the zine. It is now expanded with interviews of creators from all around the IF world, as well as direct contributions from you, our readers!

THIS ZINE ONLY HAPPENS WITH YOU!

Want to write 1-2 pages about a neat topic, or deep-dive into a game and review it in details? Share personal experiences or get all academic?

WRITE FOR THE COLUMN!

Prefer to be more low-key but still have something to share? Send us a Zine Letter or share a game title for Highlight on…!

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Excited as we are about next week's interview and have questions for our guest? Or want to see a certain author answer questions next? Message us!

SMALL TALK... IS WAITING!

Came across something interesting? Know a release or an update announced? Saw an event happening? Whether it's a game, an article, a podcast… Add any IF-related content to our mini-database!

EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS!

~ EVENT SPOTLIGHT : Tales to Thrill Jam ~

Get your snacks, sit around the campfire, get thrills!

Hosted by Catsket (@catskets), who was interviewed in a previous issue of this Zine, the Tales to Thrill Jam is an unranked game jam with a focus on the Visual Novel medium all about stories.

Inspired by the campfire setting, the jam hopes participants would be inspired by this vibe: people gathering around a fire to tell stories, any kind of stories. No matter the genre, the aim is to give thrills to the players!

To help participants thinking of stories to tell, the jam includes different themes, from which at least one has to be chosen: Possessive Possessions, Lost & Found, and Forgotten Promise.

There is just a bit more than a week left to mess around and create a thrilling Visual Novel, with at least some plot, a conflict and an end!

And if you prefer experiencing thrills, there are already a couple of submitted entries!

~ ENDED ~

Two dozens entries were submitted to the Velox Fabula game jam. While it is a ranked jam, voting is restricted to entrants. But you can still check and cheer for the games submitted!

~ ONGOING (VOTING) ~

Though the winner of the IntroComp has already been decided, as only one project was submitted, consider checking it out and give it some feedback! The author will only receive its prize if the game is completed...

~ ONGOING (SUBMITTING) ~

For those who created an intent to participate at the IFComp, there is less than a week left to submit a full game... or wait for next year! (Or you can look our for beta-openings, create an account to vote when the games are released, or offer prizes!) @ifcomp

For the francophones, the French IF community is organizing a summer-long camp to create parsers. Join the Confiture de Parser if you're interested!

With just a bit over one week to go, the SuNoFes is still accepting narrative games, whether they be visual novels or more text-focused.

Do you have WIPs on indefinite hiatus? Projects you've started forced to be set aside? Bring Out Your Ghost is a jam to show off your ghosts (and maybe even spruce them up and finish them)! @neointeractives

On the CoG Forum, Halloween is already there! Until Oct 31st, submit to the Halloween Jam - it has funky themes!

Running until Halloween, the Phantasia Jam is a three months game jam to create a fantasy narrative game, with the theme of “Hidden Magic”. It accepts both VN and IF.

Do you understand or write Ukrainian? Until the end of the year, the Ukrainian IF Festival is happening on itch.io!

~ OTHER ~

There is only a short week left to participate in the Review-a-thon on the IntFiction Forum, whose initiative is to get more reviews for games. Check out this post by Tabitha! This is also a sponsored event, aiming to raise funds for one of the Forum members.

The Interactive Fiction Showcase is still running! If you have completed an IF piece this year, consider submitting it! It is happening only on itch!

~ SMALL TALK… ~

WITH E. JADE LOMAX (@ink-splotch)

Joining us this week is IF author, fanfic writer, and podcaster: E. Jade Lomax ~ Author of Stay? and More a Haunting than History

The interview below is not in its complete form, but it will be released in its entirety shortly. See at the end.

⟶ Hi E! Can you tell us a bit more about yourself and how you found IF?

I grew up playing very few video games (the city-builder Pharoah being a massive exception), and hardly any narrative-based ones. After college, one of my best friends started introducing me to some of his favorite games, all of which had strong narrative elements – I think we started with Witcher 3 – and GDC talks. Not just IF, but computer-games-with-stories in general were something I hadn't really gotten deeply into before.

As the pandemic trapped us inside, we mainlined sourdough and Emily Short blog posts, and I grew more and more intrigued by the idea of narrative with choice and exploration included. It was (and is) just really satisfying to my brain to think about breaking a story and a possibility space down to comprehensible units and stitching them back together to make a navigable whole. You always find something new in doing it.

I made an interactive quiz for my personality sorting system, sortinghatchats, as a small project just to learn the ink tool. (I genuinely don't remember how I found out about ink, but blessings to the inkle guys for sharing that with the world so freely. That sort of generosity, easy knowledge-sharing, and joy in others' creations is one of the things that's made the IF community, like fandom, so enjoyable to engage in). Then I wrote Stay? in a four month binge and I'm a little hooked.

⟶ For those who don't know Stay?, can you tell us more about this game?

Stay? is an IF game in which you play as a young adult attending a magical university, choosing your career path, your relationships, etc. About a decade later, unbeknownst to you, the world is meant to end.

But the morning before the world ends, your taciturn friend Jo pulls you aside and tells you that they've been working, living, and dying for hundreds of lives, trying to figure out how to save it. They've figured out how to stop the final cataclysm (a comet on collision course), but there's so many things that are still imperfect, war-torn, or poisoned in your world. Things Jo wishes they could fix.

But they're tired. And they're done. They don't think they can do any better than this. So Jo is passing the work on to you.

They give you a magical stone that sends you back to the start of the game, to a Jo that doesn't remember any of this, and your work begins.

Over the course of the many lives you lead, you have to figure out how to stop the comet that destroys your little country-- but after you manage to keep from dying and being forcibly re-set every time the comet hits ground, it's not a strict victory. You're offered a choice: do you re-set the world anyway, because you think you can do better, save more people, change more lives, fall in love a little differently if you're given another chance-- or do you decide that this life is the one you want to keep?

Do you choose to stay?

And that gameplay loop is really the heart of the story. It's one of the first things I knew about the game, when it was scribbles in a notebook, and of course it's where the name comes from. I knew that question was going to be the heart of it, and I think that held through in the final version.

⟶ Why center the game around this choice? What was interesting for you to explore in this gameplay?

Hm. Making that the final choice – to stay or to say I'm not done yet, I can do better, or I want something different – changes the focus of the story from being about a challenge or a victory and into a story about deciding who you want to be and deciding how you want to impact the world you live in. The world you will, eventually, have to stay in, to live in and die in for one final time.

It's not about saving the world from the comet – that's just a prerequisite. It's about deciding what the world will be, both on a personal level and at a more monumental scale, and what work you're willing to put in to change, shift, and shape it. What is your happy ending? (There are no wrong answers).

⟶ Stay? is a pretty beloved game in the IF community, often shared in recommendations lists, and ranking among the top 100 best rated games on IFDB. Have you received interesting returns from players?

That's very nice of you to say! And yes, there's been a lot of fun player feedback. I try to respond to most of the itch comments, and folks also write to me on my tumblr and other places. I really enjoy hearing about what their “lives” were like – folks who lived six happy marital lifetimes with Suzie before finally trying romancing someone else and learning about some of the alternate Suzie timelines; or who went back again and again to try to rescue a particular character or fix a particular wrong; who walked off into the hills and lived a quiet life, or found a revelation among the orange groves. There are so

many different orders, connections, conclusions, and most of all feelings that different folks find in their own playthroughs and I like hearing about them all – especially the ones I didn't intend! A couple folks have even written fanfiction, which is a delight to me. I also enjoy hearing from the folks who are new to IF, who knew me through my novels or fic, and tried Stay? anyways. I appreciate them following me into something new.

⟶ Do you have a particular scene or path from Stay? that is your favorite? and one that you found challenging to write/code?

I didn’t originally have a way to prevent the war, in the game. The only thing you could do was win it. That was an eleventh hour epiphany and I think eventually vital to what the game became, but I was all but done with everything else before I went in and added the long walk south, the orange groves, and the various ways to commit treason.

The ability to “fuck off into the hills” had existed from an early date, including the three “lives” you can lead in that little village. It was meant to be a respite or a distraction, but made a wonderful launching point for that final path once I realized I needed it— and realized that I had all the pieces (the poisoned land, the history of artifacts, the famine, the dam upstream, the beginning of the path south) to build players a place to walk there.

So that one still feels very satisfying to me.

Honorable mention also to Suzette’s overall arc, though. Her story has the greatest breadth— her highs and lows are the furthest apart while still being compatible with each other (I think), and I’m proud of pulling that off. I wasn’t sure it would hang true in the end, but it does to me at least.

⟶ You mentioned getting into IF during the pandemic, but what brought on Stay? specifically? How did it come to be?

Outer Wilds. If you haven’t played this game, I highly recommend it. We played through it, and the story is lovely of course, but I was fascinated by how well it was able to maintain a feeling of forward momentum and exploration. I wanted to understand how and why it worked so well. And one of the best ways to see if you understand how a system works is to try to build it yourself.

There’s a few fascinating things that Outer Wilds does, some of which I didn’t implement. For example, they hide secret areas or solutions behind fear. It’s a really interesting pattern. They teach you specifically to avoid or fear a certain danger; and over and over again the puzzle secret is to step into the fear. It doesn’t get old! And it ties so well into the overall narrative themes.

I didn’t do that — with non-parser IF, I don’t think there’s an easy way to lean into that. Instead, I tried to key into one of their other design patterns: concentric secrets.

Outer Wilds is built around a few core secrets; specifically three final secrets that gate your access to the climax/final area. Putting those three secrets together enables you to gain access to that final climax. The path to each of those three final secrets have barriers that are passable if you know certain other secrets. It’s this repeated pattern of “gather secrets → have epiphany → use new conclusions to access new areas and gain new secrets”. This is not in itself novel or groundbreaking, though the repeated, nested patterns of Outer Wilds have a particularly satisfying beauty.

What I tried to hone into and replicate in Stay? was the way Outer Wilds seeds their secrets and the hints that lead to them. Along the path to Secret A, you have to bypass various barriers; same with B, same with C. But after the first barrier on the way to Secret A, you stumble across a hint that points you to something that will help with Secret C, or a secret/key that opens up new possibilities for getting to Secret B. Outer Wilds is filled with distractions – that’s one way to look at it. It’s also filled with constant signposts and will o’ th’ wisps and reminders such that wherever you go, wherever you wish to explore, wander, or wonder, you will find something to answer you and something to lead you on. And what you find almost never immediately points you to what’s ahead of you – it points you somewhere else, over another horizon, almost always.

I loved that feeling and I loved that play space. I wanted to see if I could build it in words. I didn’t make Outer Wilds, of course (and I wouldn’t want to – it already exists!) but I think I captured something of that feeling I was after, and I’m glad of that.

⟶ Were there other sources that inspired the making of Stay?

Nothing as direct as that, though I find Emily Short’s blog posts very influential, and for the aesthetics of Stay? I drew on a childhood trip to the Mediterranean. I can’t think of anything else specific…

⟶ Your next game, More a Haunting than History, has been coined as an emotional sequel to Stay?. Can you tell us a bit more about how that game came to be?

...

READ HER ANSWER AND MORE IN THE FULL INTERVIEW! (to be) RELEASED ON WEDNESDAY!

~ NEW RELEASE ~

LITHOBREAKERS - Defenestration is a collection of 10 short games from multiple interactive anonymous authors, inspired by the secret jam of the same name.

Parser author Ryan Veeder recently published two games: another sequel to the LMG series, The Little Match Girl and His Holiness Pope Pius IX (Inform 7), and the experimental standalone Welcome (Inform 7).

Jerusalem (Twine) is a Twine port of the text-adventure Talos Principle: Road to Gehenna.

Fairweather Friends (Twine) is a thriller game where you can play different characters going through the sadistic Killing Game.

You Are Out of Gas (Decker) is a short horror game set in a gas station.

Rabbitat (Twine) follows the adventures of a rabbit named Paige, trying to go home.

life without honey (VideotomeSuper) is a short conversation about love and life.

Deek's Deed (Adventuron) is a remastered sci-fi text-adventure from the 90s with extra elements.

The Super Tiny Pirate Tale (Unity) is a tiny CYOA story where you play as a pirate captain.

Miss Concepcion's Mysteries and Rumors (Ren’Py) follows Maria, a child-detective on a case to find a missing students and reveal secrets.

Through the Storm (Twine) is a short sim game where you play as a therapist, trying to make your patient open up.

The Last Rays of Autumn (Twine) is a slice-of-life about an average person living an average life.

Concoeur (Custom) lets you play as an emotional king, whose choice may literally break your heart.

A Date to Remember (Ren’Py) is a dating-sim about the highs and lows of online dating.

Maus House (Ren’Py) is a cute slice-of-life visual novel where you play as a mouse.

As always, don't forget to check out the submitted entries to the events mentioned in the previous pages. They deserve some love too!

~ NEW RELEASE (WIP) ~

Lost in Limbo (Ren’Py) is a dark fantasy otome mystery project where you must face your fears to reveal the truth and find your way home. @ravenstargames

Azrael (CScript) is a thriller project where you play as a former legendary assassin.

Tales of Wocdes: The Silver Protector (Twine) is a high fantasy following your progression from a helpless child to the all powerful Silver Protector. @tales-of-wocdes

Viatica (Twine) is a post-apocalyptic romance project where you play a healer named H-313.

Texas Hold’em (CScript) is an experimental game where you can play the said card game.

Scale the Scale with Scale between Scale (Unity) is a surreal humorous VN about ocean life.

~ GAMES UPDATES ~

Dragon Kin (CScript) updated the demo with Chapter 4.

Drink Your Villain Juice (CScript) added the first part of Chapter 7 to the Patreon demo. @drinkyourvillainjuice

Adoriel's Tears (Twine) added extra content to the demo. @adoriels-tears-if

Chains of Destiny (CScript) updated the demo with the second part of Chapter 2. @chains-of-destiny

Blood Moon (CScript)'s demo now includes extra content for Chapter 11. @barbwritesstuff

Vendetta (CScript) made its latest update available to all. @vendetta-if

Crown of Ashes and Flames (Twine) added Chapter 4 to the Patreon demo. @coeluvr

Blood Legacies (CScript) updated the demo with extra content. @bloodlegacies

Starless (Twine) returned with re-writes of its first Chapter. @cheryl-writes

Peninsula Campaign (CScript) updated the Patreon demo with extra content.

Aesemyr: The Withering (CScript) added the second part of Chapter 2 to the demo. @wiz-writes

After the end (Twine) completed Chapter 1. @albywritesfiction

Weeping Gods (CScript) added extra content to the demo. @jcollinswrites

~ OTHER ~

Leas: City of the Sun (CScript) has started the beta testing process. The last version is available to all patrons, but you can request a spot as a beta tester here. @sailingshellsgames

Until next Thursday (Aug-29th), ChoiceofGames is having a sale on all its games with management mechanics. See more here. @choiceofgames

The author of Love the guard - Be the king (Ren’Py) is doing a giveaway for game keys. Just fill in the survey to participate. @ligiawrites

As always, we apologize in advance for missing any update or release from the past week. We are only volunteers using their limited free time to find as much as we can - but sometimes things pass through the cracks.

If you think something should have been included in this week's zine but did not appear, please shoot us a message! We'll do our best to add it next week! And if you know oncoming news, add it here!

~ THE COLUMN ~

In Defense of ESL Authors

One of my favorite IF creators decided to call it quit recently, after the barrage of negative comments about their writing. This hadn't bothered them when they started: being ESL, they knew their writing wasn't perfect but still wanted to try their best. They used multiple spellcheckers, looked for beta-readers, asked players to send them any errors they would come across. And, in my opinion, it did pay off! Since the first version, their writing improved and flourished. It was a joy to see the progression of all their improvements.

But for some vocal readers, it wasn't enough; it never was enough Every update came with the same criticism: “fix your writing, there are too many typos, it's unreadable”. Like clock-work, they were there, for every update, only pointing out what was wrong with their project, with very little positive comments. The author even asked some if they'd want to be part of the beta-testing - none were actually interested. It was frustrating, for them to keep receiving the same thing over and over, and for us to see them struggle and still not get their due. Yet, they continued to push through, since the project meant a lot to them.

Except... the criticism got worse over time, more and more aggressive. One went as far as ‘advising’ the creator to find a native author to write the story for them instead, because they liked the premise but hated the writing. And when one told them they might as well use AI to write their project, the creator just... gave up.

The problem is... this wasn't the first time or place I've seen this happening.

All over the IF space, ESL authors can't escape those comments. Replies in forum threads, comments on game pages, reviews, public asks... Time and time again, no matter their writing skills, someone publicly will point out that something in the writing doesn't sounds natural, that the structure of a sentence might be technically correct but still not right, that the wrong homonym was used... It's like we all look down on ESL writers for not reaching some unspecified level (that we keep raising every time they get close) of writing quality.

And, honestly, part of me sort of gets it. Interactive Fiction is almost exclusively textual (maybe there's a background or two, or some audio, or you're doing a VN), so the writing will make or break the story. Typos and awkward sentences will break a reader's immersion, the same way bugs and badly built puzzles would. It can be pretty frustrating to butt against every other page because a word is clearly missing or is wrongly spelled. No matter how great a story can be, if the writing is inconsistent, staying invested will be a challenge. Because you can't unsee those issues.

However, what I don't understand is the way the community has decided to deal with this as a whole. And I know, every commenter, every reviewer, every reader is different, and will convey their feelings about a work in different ways, some much kinder than others, some more constructive than others. There are obviously good apples out there, and the MVPs who will report all the typos or issues they've found to the author, unprompted (outside of beta), with a kind message with it should be given their flowers.

But as a whole, the community has not been kind when discussing issues with writings. Worse still, I've noticed a pretty substantial difference when native or ESL authors were on the receiving ends of those comments. People were much harsher to the latter group when reporting typos. While the former would more often get a passing comments or simply a list of found errors, ESL authors were more likely to get condescending comments about their writing to borderline insulting.

It is incredibly disheartening the tone many have taken when discussing someone's prose. From the downward-looking comments (“It's so obvious the author is not native, because the game is riddled with the most basic of errors.”) to the fake-nice ones (“Ah, I really don't want to sound like a dick for pointing it out again, but you really *need* some spellchecking.”), without touching upon the insulting ones (I will spare you an example), I can't blame authors for throwing in the towel and disappearing quietly. It's incredibly dismissive of their efforts, and demoralizing.

Take a moment, just to imagine this: you've spent weeks, maybe months or years, writing a story, to the best of your abilities, in another language than your mother tongue (do you know a second language and feel confident enough to create something with it?); you decided to take the plunge and share it with others, on a public platform, with maybe an invitation for readers to provide comments because you're not fluent. Feeling anxious yet?

Now, imagine getting the these kinds of comments. Imagine your efforts being completely dismissed because “I couldn't finish it, there were too many typos”. Imagine your work deemed unworthy of people's time because “you clearly didn't make any effort writing this, it's unreadable”. Imagine being told to “pay more attention to how you write, it's all just... so wrong”. Imagine having readers assume things about your process: “if I were you, I'd at least use a spellchecker”, “you know, there are plenty of people here who would proofread for you, you just need to ask”. All the while, none of those commenters provided a single concrete example of typos or wrong sentence structure. And if you asked, they'd reply “just read your text again, it's so obvious” or “oh, there were just too many to keep track”.

So, you put your heart out, all that blood, sweat, and tears into creating something, only to get a ‘Git Gud’ in return. How can you not be demoralized? Why would you want to be part of a community who is all too ready to punch down?

Over the years, I've my fair share of ESL authors abandoning their projects because of those unfiltered and unhelpful reactions. Some quit writing altogether, leaving behind a hobby that stopped bringing joy and fulfilment; others returned to their mother tongue and now exclusively write in that language; a few pushed through and continue releasing, regardless of the harsh environment. None ever really get the kudo’s they deserve for writing in another language (how many native English IF creator can say they wrote a game in another language?).

Maybe I'm a bit disillusioned by it all, but... I don't understand how, in our community, we are not trying to uplift each other, to help one another, to be kind to one another. Where in this darn community can we find actual empathy and compassion? Because I've seen enough of sweeping under the rug when an ESL author tries to raise their concerns and their feelings on the matter. You know, the “oh, but I do the same thing with native speakers”, or “if it makes you feel any better, I didn't realize you were ESL, so you should take those comments as praise”, or “but there are native speakers here who would totally help if you asked”, or “but there are ESL authors that have done really good work, like so-and-so”. None ever really address the crux of the issue, do they…

Sometimes, I wonder whether the English-speaking side of the IF community really realize how incredibly catered it is. Out of all the languages used to make IF, English is overwhelmingly the most used (it's the lingua franca of the Internet...). Not only are they getting a diverse library of stories from native authors, the community will find ESL giving extra efforts for theirs to be seen. Served on silver (maybe a bit banged up) platter, the community doesn't even need to spend time or energy learning a new language: it's already in English for them!

And plenty are obviously taking for granted this gift.

See, in trying to uphold rigid (and often unwritten) rules about what is proper and improper writing, we lose an incredible amount of diversity in language, of beauty in poetic prose that sings because the author's mother tongue is lyrical, of strange (good!) idioms translated word for word that actually make a scene more impactful than if its “proper” counterpart was used, of personality in writing stemming from the author's identity and background, of bringing forward unique phrasings to an ever-changing language, of flourishes and aesthetic that wouldn't exist otherwise. This is something that cannot be recreated by native speakers. And this is not something that should be suppressed either.

Honestly, if we continue like this, we would lose all these vibrant voices, diverse stories and perspectives, and variety in use of the language. Not just that, we'd also scare away any ESL newcomers.

So, before someone brings up the ‘awesome’ idea of making authors explicitly indicate their fluency in languages in their blurb so “we can all have the same expectation”, or tells us to “stop coddling people because if they can’t take it then they shouldn’t make it public”, or replies that “ESL should use GenAI to help improve their writing” (don't you fucking dare!), I just have one advice for people who comments on an author’s prose (and maybe forget about their tone): please, instead of generally say “there’s quite a bit of typos here” or “it could do with another round of spellcheck”, consider explaining a specific issue and how it affected your experience as the player. You know, the “it made me feel like…” rather than “you did something wrong”. Or reach out to the author with concrete examples of their errors. General passing comments don't help people improve their writing, but explanations and details do.

And for my ESL authors out there… You are truly awesome. The work you put into creating stories in a language that you had to learn, the constant effort put into writing with structures that might still be foreign to you, the commitment you made into creating and translating, it is mind-blowing. You are doing amazing, one word at a time!

ludatwilight

~ HIGHLIGHT ON ~

A couple of games that we thought were cool.

The Queen's Menagerie by Chandler Groover (Texture - IFDB)

“honestly, I really hate Texture as an engine, with its frustrating click-drag interactive. So there are very few Texture games that are worth it. And this one. Oh boy, this one is weirdly enjoyable. It's also pretty short (15min), that helps. IF you're into Gothic vibes and guilt, now, this game is going to be worth your time.”

//submitted by anonymous//

Invite the blackbird by ana.merzlaya (Unity - itch.io)

Invite the blackbird is an adorable interactive VN, with beautiful handdrawn watercolor illustrations, where you follow Sonya, a young girl, and a blackbird, enjoying a very chill day. The aesthetic is very charming and surprisingly emotional.

//recommended by Erika//

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich by Rex Mundane (Adventuron - itch.io - IFDB)

A funky nonsensical adventure where the goal is to make a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Except the game twist and turns, and gets pretty meta for a joke game.

If you are looking for a fun silly time, with fairly easy puzzles (it was made for the TALJ), you should try this one!

//recommended by Axelle [Team]//

Your favourite game here?

Do you have a favourite game that deserves some highlighting?

An old or recent game that wowed you so much you spam it to everyone?

Tell us about it! And it might appear here!

WE LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU ALL! WHETHER IT'S GOOD OR BAD, OR EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN...

i loved your interview with Drew Cook (@golmac)!! All your interviews so far have been so expansive and interesting, full of useful info for gamemakers as well as context for players. This is a great project and I hope it continues. - @adz

so bummed class is starting soon... cause i won't have enough free time to enjoy all the cool IF games being updated every week :( - anonymous

hiiiii! this is for the shoutout bit! to Grayson (@if-30x30), hands-down the best sci-fi author and illustrator (if i wasn't super broke, you'd get all my money!) of this community. your stuff is insane <3 - a super shy fan

Have something to say? Send us a message titled: Zine Letter!

As we end this issue, we would like to thank:

@adz, a super shy fan, Erika, ludatwilight, SailingShellsGames @tabitha-writes, and a bunch of very helpful anonymous users!

For sending news, interview questions, helpful tips, cool links, filled form, written Sheet line, even emails... all these help us so much to make this Zine possible!

And as always, huge thanks to all you readers who liked, shared, and commented on last week's issue! What might be tiny actions are huge support and motivators to us! Thank you for cheering us on this journey!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We also hope you join us again next week, for we have a very special guest on the zine:

IFComp Organiser, Founder of ClubFloyd, and IF author : Jacqueline A. Lott is our guest next week!

Want to know more about her work? How she found IF? Or learn more about her community projects?

Send us all your burning questions!

And see you again next week!

MARJORIE, AXELLE, AND NOI

WHAT'S NEW IN IF? 2024-ISSUE 19

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