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squintyeyedjoel · 8 months ago

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Through Your Eyes | Part 2 - More than Meets the Eye (Joel x Reader)

A/N: IT’S FINALLY FUCKING HERE!!!! I’m so sorry it took so long! I’ve been sitting on this for almost a year and it’s just been evolving and marinating and improving, and I hope it lives up to the hype. It’s time for it to be set free. ✨ This is truly a hybrid of game and show Joel. I see them both, hence both gifs.

I do not own The Last of Us or it’s characters. Sadly. But I carry them in my heart. Does that count for something? My soul says yes.

Warnings: Oooo, this one’s a doozy. So many things. (Let me know if I miss anything.) 😮‍💨 Some original characters, mentions of an elderly family member passing, lots of canon violence and swearing, (this one is a big one. Like a lot. There’s a hefty amount of swearing.) mention of attempted sexual assault (not to reader) without detail, graphic description of injury (not to reader) and blood, attempted abduction? Reader is a badass and sports a black eye and bloody knuckles with pride. Panic attack? But Joel scares it away. 😌 We round it all out with obscene amounts of fluff and humor between it all, sweet moments, and just soft things. It’s me. I can’t not. No use of Y/N.

Word count: 11,928

Thank you to @fordo-kixed-rex for reading over this five bazillion times for me and fangirling over it when I was having my down moments. You’re a real one.

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Xxx

You rocked in the saddle of your horse as she slowly followed behind the first few people in the group.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Right.

Over.

And over.

Some quicker footfalls to your left made you turn your head, seeing Joel atop his horse come alongside you before slowing his steed back to the slow crawl the rest had fallen into.

“You okay?” He mumbled. “Look like you’re about to fall asleep.”

“Don’t tempt me,” you groused, turning back to face forward with a yawn.

He huffed out a laugh before shaking his head at you almost imperceptibly, nudging his horse to go a little faster toward the front of the group.

Watching him with narrowed brows, you saw everyone else make sure to steer clear of him, giving him a wide berth and a clear path to the front. Tommy’s words from that first day rang in your head.

“You saw a side of Joel right out the gate some wait a lifetime to miss.”

Joel whistled loudly, gathering everyone’s attention, as the whole party came to a stop. “Alright! Listen up!” Some grumbles began to go around, but stopped with one crook of his brow. “That’s an awful lot of yappin’ for people suppose t’be listenin’.”

If a pin had dropped in the grass underfoot, it would have echoed in the vast forest around you. Even nature seemed to heed his warning, only a few stray birds chirping somewhere in the distance brave enough to break the silence. A lone frog echoed in a nearby creek bed. A few bugs buzzed by, trying to ease the tension, and it seemed to work, because finally Joel went on after staring at everybody.

“We need to pick up the pace. This isn’t a leisurely walk to the park and back. We have a goal we need to get to, and back, and we got one week to do it.”

“Who made you the boss?” Some poor brave soul asked from behind you. A young man, maybe in his mid twenties from how he sounded. You didn’t dare turn to look at him, not wanting to move your eyes from Joel, because if looks could kill…. Joel would currently be facing a serious charge for the way he was glowering at the faceless voice behind you.

“Common sense.” A few small laughs went around the group, the corner of Joel’s mouth twitching up just slightly when he saw you shake your head with a smirk. “This was my run- our run,” he pointed to you then back to himself before retaking the reins to his horse, “and the council thought it best you all tag along to bring the most back we could. Now I don’t mind-”

“Yes, you do,” another voice behind you said, female, almost teasingly, making another round of soft laughter go around.

“Fine. I mind. A lot. But we’re here now. So, since you’re tagging along on our run, what we say goes. Agreed?” When no one protested, he gestured you up to the front with a tilt of his head, going on while you nudged your horse forward.

“Now, we need to move faster. Any bandits or infected we pass by would pick us off like flies at this pace. The cart will be the slowest, I want the four of you to stay with the cart at all times and watch all four sides.” He pointed to four individuals who nodded, moving toward the cart pulled by a single horse and rider.

“The three of you pull up the rear.” More pointing and nodding. “The rest of you, in the middle. Keep your eyes open. Everyone keep at a steady pace, we camp at sundown wherever that is. Don’t push your horses too far.” He began to turn his own mount to move forward. “Not their fault we’re a bunch of dumbasses.”

“I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard him say at once,” you heard someone mutter behind you, making you smile.

“At once? Try ever,” another retorted.

Joel looked over at you. “What? Why you grinnin’?”

“They respect you.”

He scoffed. “That so hard to believe?”

“It’s a side of you I’ve not seen before. I’m used to bad puns and screwdrivers, not….” You made a swooping gesture to the group behind you, “that.”

He shook his head once, tisking at you. “Shows what you know. I’m actually partly in charge of security around Jackson.”

Your eyes widened as you turned as much as your saddle would allow to look at him, the leather creaking against the movement. “Really?”

He nodded once in confirmation, a proud smile starting up his face. “Only a part time type’f thing, and it’s purely on a trial basis right now, but…. Yeah.” He grinned brightly at you. “The jokin’ and woodworkin’ are just for fun.” The smile turned somewhat dopey and lopsided.

“There’s more to you than meets the eye, Joel Miller.” He rolled his eyes at you, the grin melting into a scoff and his signature sour expression with impressive speed. Though his eyes still shone brightly, giving away his true amusement. “And I’m gonna try to see it all.”

Shaking his head at you again, Joel looked back forward, nudging his horse to go a bit faster and pull ahead of you. “Nah. Not that deep, darlin’.”

Urging your mount forward, you maneuvered to your right, and fell in beside him with a grin. “That’s what you think.”

Joel tilted his head down and to the side toward you as he spoke for emphasis, keeping his eyes forward. “That’s what I know.” He cut his gaze to you briefly after a moment to try and drive his point home before straightening back up in his saddle, his eyes going studiously back to the wide expanse of land ahead.

Your grin melted into a smirk, seemingly a new permanent fixture since moving to Jackson. Or more specifically, since moving in with Joel and Ellie. That thought made the side of your mouth tick even higher. “We’ll see.”

Xxx

In the chaos of starting up a new life in Jackson, you’d overlooked one little detail. While you could repair and paint just about anything on your own, you were shit at stitching any stuffed toys back together Joel happened on during runs. It was possible, but it was slow going, and to be honest, looked a bit like field dressings for a battle wound instead of repairs.

You’d thrown the last attempt of an old wrinkled teddy bear at Joel when he’d called it Sargent Cuddles, Ellie only adding to the confirmation when she asked if you could make an eyepatch for the bear instead to cover the deep scar you’d given it by way of cross stitches.

Halfway through that first week, you’d walked into the town’s seamstress with the best smelling cinnamon loaf the bakery had to offer, fresh and steaming, under your arm. When the girl behind the counter stopped what she was doing, setting down the socks she was darning while her nose went high in the air like a bloodhound as she took a deep sniff with her eyes glassed over, you grinned.

Target acquired.

“Can I help you?” Her voice was soft and kind, and her smile as she rose to her feet from the chair helped settle any trepidation you felt about reaching out.

People hadn’t always been kind about your hobby, for one reason or another, hence why you came with bribes at the ready. But you had a feeling this time would be different. You smirked as she nonchalantly eyed the loaf under your arm.

“Hi! Yeah! I’m the one who restores the toys? I opened up in the old bookstore down the street?” You introduced yourself, and recognition went off behind her eyes at the sound of your name.

“Oh! Joel’s girl!”

Your breath caught in your chest as your head gave a little shake of confusion at the declaration. “What?”

She chuckled somewhat nervously. “No! No, not like that, I mean…. His neighbor. His new lodger. The one in the attic.” She was talking a mile a minute. “Not his ‘his’ girl….” She slapped a palm to her forehead, cradling her head in her hand as she rocked it back and forth before pulling back just enough to look at you conspiratorially. “But can you imagine?”

After a moment of silence where you both simply stared at each other, soft laughter took over, melting the tension between you.

“Let me start over,” she huffed, lowering her hand from her face to extend it to you in greeting. “I’m Jane. Nice to meet you.”

As you shook her hand, you couldn’t help but smile at her antics. “Likewise.”

Jane turned her attention back down to the socks she had abandoned when you came in, fiddling with them absently before she looked back up at you, a soft tint of embarrassment staining her cheeks. “So, what brings you here?”

“Oh! Right.” Setting the loaf on the counter, you shrugged the backpack off your shoulder and set it down beside the bread, fishing out the few stuffed animals Joel had brought back that needed the most help. “I was hoping we could work out a deal. I can do some basic stitching, but even then, Joel and Ellie have compared my work to that of a field medic more than anything.”

Jane snickered at the comment as she took one of the worn stuffed animals, turning it over in her hands and analyzing it as you continued.

“People trade me all sorts of goods for these, like this loaf.” You gestured to it with a bob of your head, then placed your hand on the still steaming bread. “The baker’s son has a birthday coming up, and she wanted something special. Joel and Tommy don’t always bring back stuffed animals so it wouldn’t be constant work, but I was hoping when they do, I could bring them here, and we could work out some sort of trade system for the repairs-”

“No need,” Jane said, smiling down at the stuffed tiger in her hands. You arched a brow at her, waiting for her to go on, and she finally tore her gaze away from the toy and up to you. “I had one just like this as a kid. Loved it to bits. It looked like it had been through the wars before I lost it, patches everywhere and stuffing missing so it was lumpy…. I learned to sew on that thing.” Jane looked back at the toy again fondly. “I’ll help you. All I ask is that I get to keep this one, and maybe one every few runs if they happen to stumble on any others like I used to have. I…. I had a collection.”

When she brought her gaze back up to meet yours, her eyes were misty. “It was small, but it was everything to me. Got a new one every year when I was little from my grandparents. Stopped when I hit that certain age where adults deem you too old for those things. Which was fine.” She sniffed, a tear falling silently down her cheek. “Then my grandpa he…. He started having memory issues.” She took a deep, shaky breath, smiling sadly at the toy. “Regressed a certain amount of years…. Just so happened to be when I was a certain age, still, in his mind, and he got me a stuffed toy every year for my birthday, until….”

You reached out, placing your hand over hers. “Keep whatever you want. You don’t even have to do repairs to keep them.” She began to protest, swiping at her tears with the back of the hand still holding the tiger when you squeezed her other hand gently. “The whole reason I’m doing this in the first place is to help bring some joy back into the world. And I want you to be happy, you deserve to be happy, without me lording something over you like demanding a trade in exchange-”

Jane flipped her hand in your grip, squeezing you like you had her. “And doing this will make me happy.” You studied her for a long moment. “Do you know how boring it is to darn a sock?” You snorted a laugh, and she smiled. “Everybody in this damn town needs to take better care of their socks, I swear…. I’m up to my eyeballs in them. Nothing would make me happier than to work on something that would be giving back more to the community than dumb stinky, holey, wool.”

With a nod, you gave her hand still in your grip one firm shake, a grin crawling up your face. “It’s a deal. I’ll try to tackle the easy ones and send the few in need of more love your way. But!” You let go of her hand and held up a finger, wagging it like you were lecturing a petulant child. “I’m also dropping some of these goods by, too.” Patting the bread on the counter before softly pushing it closer toward her, you laughed at her show stopping grin and good-natured roll of her eyes in response.

“Fine,” she mumbled around the smile, the sound anything but angry. “If you insist.”

A few days later, you’d dropped a few stuffed animals off to her that Joel had stumbled on during patrol, Ellie tagging along with you. She had opted to stay outside the shop while you went in though, leaning against the doorframe by the front window, taking in the sights and sounds of the city street.

“Not a fan of needles,” she mumbled, glancing into the shop as you opened the door to go in.

“This isn’t that kind of needle.”

“I said what I said.”

You didn’t press her on it, just nodded and mumbled an ‘okay’ before disappearing into the shop.

“Hey!” Jane greeted you, pushing aside her current project immediately to make room for the box you were carrying. “Oh, these are cute!” She picked one up in each hand, lifting them up to look at them better before trading them out for another and repeating the process until each patient had been analyzed. “They’ll be easy.” She turned to you with a smile. “I’ll be done by this weekend.”

“No rush!” You assured her as she set the box behind the counter. “If you’re not done until then, you’ll have to leave them with Tommy, though. I’m going out of town with Joel on a run, it’ll take a few days, maybe a week max. We leave tomorrow. Though, no, actually, you can just leave them with Ellie, what am I saying-”

“You’re doing what?” She interrupted you.

Focusing back on her face, you tried to get back on topic. “What? Oh, yeah! We’re going back to where I lived right before Jackson to get the stores of paints and stuff I had. Bucket loads of it, no pun intended.” You turned to look at Ellie over your shoulder. “She’s rubbing off on me in more ways than one, I guess….”

“Is it just you and Joel?”

Her question caught you off guard, pulling your gaze back to her with knit brows. “It was going to be, but the council decided it was a ‘waste of resources’, so we have to take a little group with us. Why?”

“I’m coming with you.” No hesitation, just straight to the point.

Your eyes went wide. “What? Why?”

“You said you lived about a week north, right? Near the university?”

“Yeah. Because of the university, there were storage units nearby, used to be climate controlled before everything, now they’re just enclosed spaces with extra security to keep clickers n’ shit out. I lived in one, worked in another, and stored in a third. Got pretty good at picking locks, too.” You smirked.

Her eyes were wide and serious. “The ones by the north end of campus?”

Your expression went flat. “Don’t tell me….”

“I lived in an abandoned place on the south end of campus.” She had started to grin like a Cheshire Cat. “We probably were within spittin’ distance of each other and didn’t even know it.”

A laugh barked out of your chest, several more tumbling out after it until you were bent over her counter on your elbows, wheezing. Pushing up to rest on your forearms you met her gaze again, amusement on both your faces. “No fucking way.”

“I left a sewing machine behind. It was there when I moved in, and I hope it’s still there and still works, heaven knows, but…. The buildings by the school had power when the Fireflies were there. I’d use it when I could, and I was able to do so much more work. Now that I’m here I could actually make use of it with all that I have on my plate, and the dam giving us electricity….” She sighed dreamily. “I’m going. That’s final.”

Before you could respond, the bell over the door jingled, making you stand up straight and turn to look at the newcomer.

“Everything okay?” Ellie’s voice was soft as she poked her head in, causing you to do a double take. “I heard raised voices.”

You nodded once. “Yeah. Yeah, we’re all good. Just excited. Turns out we lived right by each other before moving here.”

“Oh shit! No way!” She stood up straight with a wide grin, stepping fully into the shop and letting the door close behind her.

“Language,” you scowled.

“Sorry, Miss Fanny,” she looked sheepish, spinning on her heel dramatically before exiting the shop.

You turned back to Jane who looked on amused. “She thinks she’s funny because I use a fanny pack.” Plopping onto a tall stool that sat in front of the counter, you stared at your friend.

Jane let out a low ‘ah’ as if she now understood everything.

Knitting your brows before arching one, you leaned on one elbow on the counter. “What?”

“Why is she outside?” She asked as she fiddled with some projects behind the counter.

“Said she ‘wasn’t a fan of needles’,” you mumbled, air quoting her words as you turned to look back at Ellie through the window. “Whatever that means.”

Jane hummed in understanding, drawing your eyes back to her. “Tommy got really drunk at the bar one night after I first got here. Saying all kinds of shit. People kept walking off because he wouldn’t shut up, so I opted to walk him home to Maria. It wasn’t far, and he’s a good guy. Anyway, on the way to his house, he starts mutterin’ about his brother and his new kid, how they just got back from some failed medical something or other with the Fireflies, most of it was unintelligible.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, looking at Ellie. You followed her gaze, finding the teen walking back and forth in the shade in front of the building, scuffing her heels as she went, and kicking rocks.

“Then, he got real sad, and said somethin’ about how he’d sent them to the university right after seein’ him for the first time in months. It was to get info on where to go for the medical procedure, I guess. Anyway.” She took a deep breath. “Apparently they got ambushed there, and Joel got stabbed real bad, almost didn’t make it. That girl out there had to care for him for weeks, drag him somewhere safe, stitch him up….”

Your breath caught in your chest as she paused for emphasis, unable to tear your eyes from Ellie as emotion swelled in your gut for your fellow housemates, but especially the tiny redhead on the other side of the glass.

“Tommy was real broken up about it. Said Joel almost died, and he felt like it was his fault. Ellie had to hunt, and somehow got Joel medicine.”

You turned to face Jane again. “How?”

“Those details weren’t real clear.” She shrugged. “Like I said, he was plastered. Maybe this whole story is some drunken imagining, but the way he sounded compared to all the shit he said in the bar?” Her face melted into something between sadness and understanding. “I’m inclined to believe him.”

She took a hesitant breath, but stopped before letting it out slowly, then closed her eyes for a moment. After another shallow breath, she opened them to focus on you, and tried again, her voice even softer still.

“We’d made it to his house by this point. Maria had come out and was helping me to get him inside, up the porch steps…. And he just broke down halfway up. Sat down, broke down, and started sobbing. Made it even harder to understand.” She rolled her eyes and you chuckled softly. “He said something about the medicine came at too high a cost. That Ellie paid…. Would be paying….” Jane swallowed roughly, looking to the girl through the window with something akin to admiration, then back at you. “He said it changed her.”

“Changed?” You could only whisper.

“Broke her. He said whatever happened was enough to take a spitfire, and make her an ember.” You both looked back at the teen one last time. “She’s improved a lot. I’ve seen her grow, come out of her shell just since I’ve been here, but…. It’s her eyes. They’re haunted. Whatever happened out there…. It didn’t stay out there. And it ain’t leavin’ anytime soon.”

“That explains a lot. About both of them,” you mused quietly.

“Joel I don’t know much about. He’s just the town grump.”

Despite the dark turn the conversation had taken, you burst out laughing, seeing Ellie turn toward the window at the sound with a grin.

“Everyone keeps telling me that, even him, but I just don’t see it!”

Jane’s face turned up in amusement softly. “Well, maybe you’re just one of the lucky ones like Ellie, and he likes you.”

“I think he tolerates me.” You looked across your shoulder at her, getting back to your feet from the stool you’d been perched on and faced her fully. “I live in his house. It’d be awkward if we hated each other.”

“True,” she grinned smugly.

“What?”

“You’ll figure it out.”

Xxx

Jane came riding up beside you, smiling wider than the canyon you’d passed a few miles back.

“I’m gonna regret askin’ but what in the hell has you happier than a butterfly on a daisy?”

“That’s not a real saying,” Jane mumbled, looking at you through skeptical, knit brows.

“Doesn’t mean it’s not applicable,” you countered, your own brows arched high in challenge.

With a roll of her eyes and a sigh, Jane circled back to the topic at hand. “We’re out in the open!” She whispered, excitement lacing her tone. “I love Jackson, don’t get me wrong, but it’s so nice to be able to breathe.”

A smirk made its way up your face. “I know what you mean. Problem is you trade security for a great wide unknown. The possibilities of things that can go wrong out here are much scarier than anything in Jackson.”

She pulled a face. “Nothin’s gonna go wrong when we have a man like Joel leading us. He knows what he’s doing.”

“Most of the time,” you mumbled. “The rest he’s just wingin’ it.”

“Heard that,” Joel grumbled as he passed by your other side, pulling in front of you from the back of the group where he was making rounds. “You’re one to talk.” He looked over his shoulder at you, face stoic as ever, but his eyes showed his amusement.

“I know things,” you shot back, head tilted back to look down your nose at him. “Lots of stuff.”

“Oh, I see,” his tone was condescending, but playful. “Stuff.”

“And things.”

“Oh, we mustn't forget the things….”

“Yeah, okay.” You looked to the side with an unamused grin. “Fuck you, Joel.”

“I mean, if you’re offerin’….”

Your jaw dropped as your head turned slowly to face him, eyes wide as you simply stared at him in shock.

He smirked. “What? You can dish it, but you can’t take it?” Joel’s tone was nothing but teasing, his eyes dancing with unspoken amusement.

Narrowing your eyes at him, his smile faltered slightly. “You have no idea what I can take.” Nudging your horse forward to fall into step beside him, you held his gaze with your head high, brow arched. “And I don’t think you want to find out.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“When I push back. You wouldn’t be able to handle it, Joel.”

He cleared his throat. “Look, I was just messing around. This wasn’t supposed to take such a serious turn. I’m sor-”

You couldn’t take it anymore. The laugh tumbled out of your mouth before you could catch it, more and more coming out to join it.

Joel lowered his brows, glaring at you. “That ain’t funny.”

Wheezing, you pointed at him. “You should have seen your face!”

A horse trotting up beside you made you turn, expecting to see Jane once again at your side, but all you were met with was her horse, sans rider. You thought quickly enough to grab the reins and guide it along with you, before you looked back at Joel, finding his eyes already searching the group. Turning, you tried to sit higher in your saddle for a better vantage point, when movement out of the corner of your eye caught your attention.

Near the tree line, Jane struggled in the arms of a man as he yanked her back towards the cover of the woods, none too delicately, one hand over her mouth to keep her quiet.

“Jane!” You yelled at the top of your lungs, and you could see when she heard you, her body going rigid in her captor's hold.

The man yelped, pulling his hand back from her mouth and shaking it.

She must have bit him.

Before you could fully process much of anything else, Jane was screaming at the top of her lungs, “Run!”

The hand was back over her mouth before she could say anything else, the raider pulling them both back until they disappeared into the trees, Jane putting up a violent struggle as they went.

Not willing to look away from where she disappeared, you called out for Joel, and he was beside you in an instant. His horse picked up on the sudden unease spreading over the group, shifting its weight from foot to foot restlessly.

“We’ll get her, darlin’,” Joel reassured in a low voice. “Don’t you worry. We ain’t-”

Suddenly the entire group was surrounded by raiders, guns and knives of various sizes pointed towards every member of your party, violent threats being traded back and forth from both sides.

While you had thought your group was large, this bandit raid made your numbers pale in comparison. At least double your head count at first glance, easily. And you had a feeling more were lurking in the shadows somewhere, if what had happened to Jane was any indication.

You noticed that while several of the men aimed menacing looking rifles at your party, they lacked the magazines full of ammunition to back them up. Leaning toward Joel as subtly as you could when they ordered everyone to dismount their horses, you mumbled under your breath, “They have no bullets.”

He looked at you in confusion for just a moment, brows knit until one of the raiders yelled loudly and pulled his attention away.

Falling in behind him, you whispered again, “Their rifles. They have no ammunition. No magazines. It’s all for show.” You saw the moment the information registered for him, his shoulders setting a bit broader, and his head held just that much higher.

A raider a few feet to your right was eyeing you skeptically, looking like he might dismount his horse any second and make a move toward you, so you pretended to trip into the back of Joel, smirking into his chest when he caught you.

Without missing a beat, his arm firmly around your shoulders to steady you, Joel went straight for negotiations, trying to talk the men down, offering supplies, whatever they wanted. You weren’t far from Jackson, it was a smart move. You could get back and recoup your losses in no time. But people? You can’t replace them.

“Nah,” the head honcho said with a sarcastic sneer. “We’ve got somethin’ else’n mind.”

You didn’t like the sound of that.

The raider in charge gestured Joel over to a smaller group of his men, which he obeyed reluctantly. After looking down at you for a moment, offering the most subtle nod you’d ever seen a person give, he began to move toward the small group of raiders.

The boss stopped him just short of the rest and asked him a question in a low voice, which Joel answered softly, shooting you a look which you couldn’t quite read. You couldn’t quite make out what he said, either, but then the head raider decided to make a scene, show who was in charge, and it all made sense.

In a loud voice, full of bravado and misplaced charisma, the raider turned back to your group with arms spread wide, rifle held lazily in one hand, and called for Joel’s second in command - Will - to hop down and join his ‘fearless leader’.

Surrounded by the smaller group of thugs, you could tell what the goal was…. They meant to make a spectacle for the rest of you. Take the leaders down, the rest will follow. But Joel didn’t let them get that far. He mumbled something to Will so subtly, you almost missed it, but you saw the younger man’s eyes dart to one of the raider’s guns, and you immediately knew where this was headed.

It all went by in a blur, and yet it was like you could see every detail in painful accuracy. And you couldn’t look away.

In an instant Joel had dropped three of the men in the smaller group surrounding them.

Will another two.

They both had commandeered their own rifles back off of those men, and they were now aimed at the remaining two raiders around their small group.

The one in front of Joel began to move forward, only making Joel smirk as he jerked the bolt action on the rifle. “Try it.” The raider stopped, making Joel’s smirk only rise higher up his cheek. “Good choice.”

That’s when all hell broke loose.

It was almost like someone kicked a pile of ants. The stillness of the valley you were in was broken and everyone swarmed at once. A cacophony of sounds clashing all around you.

You went on autopilot for most of it, simply fighting for your life and that of those in your group. It could have been hours or only minutes later, but the next time you really started to pay attention, or frankly, were able to focus on any one thing in particular, you saw a raider sneaking up on Will a few paces in front of you, and you lifted the rifle you’d snagged off of one of the men you’d taken down.

“Hey, bucko!” The raider froze and turned to you with a sneer, the expression falling off his face when he came nose to nose with the muzzle of your rifle. You cocked the bolt action just for added effect, chambering a bullet as you somehow had found the one locked and loaded gun the raiders had. Hands lifted in surrender, he slowly took a resigned step backwards, grip tightening around the knife still clutched in his right hand. “Drop it,” you ordered, narrowing your eyes at his slight smirk. “Nice and easy, now.”

Will turned to see what the fuss was, his eyes going wide when he realized what had happened. He looked between you and the raider from over the bandit’s shoulder, raising a brow at you in question, but you motioned him on with a jerk of your head to the left, keeping the rifle braced on your right shoulder and aimed at the raider. “I got it. Go help the others.”

Nodding, Will took off toward the remaining chaos, leaving you with the scumbag at the end of your barrel. He started to move after Will but you tisked, taking a step closer. “Not a good idea.” The lowlife hissed through his teeth in aggravation, but you cut him off before he could even start in on an actual sentence. “Knife. Ground. Now.” With a half step forward for emphasis, you gestured toward the field underfoot with your rifle before centering your sights back on their target.

The man arched his back away from you as you took the small step closer, his hands shooting up higher beside his head. He then began to slowly lower to his haunches to lay the blade on the grass, his other hand still held up in surrender. His eyes flitted from the weapon to something behind you, and before he could set it all the way down, or you could turn to look, an arm wrapped around your neck, cutting off your air supply.

Both the man behind you and the man in front of you laughed, cheering at your misfortune as you dropped your rifle, the weight of the weapon jerking its strap across your shoulders as it fell to your side.

You clawed at the arm wrapped around your neck, gasping for air, and grunting as you tried to get a shot in with your elbow, but he pinned down your arms with his other arm wrapping around your torso.

A voice close to your ear leered, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. It’ll all be over soon.”

The raider in front of you suddenly started screaming, dropping the blade in his hand in order to clutch his knee, blood pouring violently from a wound made by a large pocket knife you’d know anywhere protruding from its side.

“Don’t move!”

All three sets of eyes pulled over to find Joel standing just a few feet away, rifle raised and aimed at the raider now in a heap on the ground. His gun swung over to the man still holding you hostage, a dark chuckle rippling out through the chest pressed closely to your spine at the movement, and it made your skin crawl.

“Let ‘er go,” Joel said in a low voice, something dark and menacing thrown right back at the thief trying to steal your life away.

“Nah,” the man said after a minute, amusement heavy in his tone. “We’re just havin’ too much fun, aren’t we, sweetheart?” He tightened his grip around your neck as he pulled you closer, squishing his cheek to yours in mock affection.

You mumbled something as best you could, but it came out all garbled from the pressure on your windpipe.

“Aw, I’m sorry, I’m bein’ mean, aren’t I?” His tone was mocking. He loosened his grip slightly, the arm around your midsection disappearing altogether as he twisted slightly to get a better view of your face. “Now, try that again?”

“I said,” your voice was hoarse from the struggle, so you cleared your throat, shifting your weight slightly as you looked to Joel with wide eyes in mock fear. “I said-” In one smooth motion, you swung the butt of your rifle up and back, and slammed the man in the face, squinting when blood sprayed out of his mouth and onto your cheek.

Taking the opportunity, you elbowed him in the ribs, before stomping on his foot, spinning around once his arm around your neck released you and kneeing him in the crotch.

Stepping closer to him once he fell to his knees cradling his damaged manhood, you looked down at him as you wiped his blood from your cheek with the back of your sleeve. “I said fuck you.”

With a quick jerk of your knee to his face, the raider fell backwards, out cold. You turned to face his friend who laid in a ball on the ground, hands gripped tightly around the knife still protruding from his knee.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” He began to try and scramble back, looking to Joel for some sort of help as you approached.

Joel only shrugged, looking at you with wide eyes for just a moment before turning back to the poor man. “Hell hath no fury ‘n all that….”

Kneeling in front of the man, you smiled disarmingly sweet. Reaching out to grip the knife, you looked up at Joel. “This yours?” Lifting a brow at your rhetorical question, you knew very well it was his, he nodded. With a yank, you pulled it out of the man’s leg, his screams cut short when you elbowed him in the face, knocking him out like his companion.

Lifting your rifle slightly, Joel began to make a fuss, “Darlin’, they’re down-” but he stopped when you over exaggeratedly clicked on the safety, lifting a sarcastic brow at him. Rising to your feet, you wiped the blade off on your jeans before closing it and handing it back to Joel.

He took it cautiously, watching as you rubbed at your throat with a wince. “Thanks.”

“No, thank you. If you hadn’t shown up and distracted them, I wouldn’t have been able to get the jump on ‘em.”

He looked at the two men before looking back at you, his eyes flitting down to the rifle for the briefest of moments. “Looks like you would’ve been just fine.”

You leaned in closer to him, adjusting the weapon’s strap across your chest. “Take the compliment, Joel.”

He grinned softly. “Yes ma’am, Miss Fanny.”

You groaned at the nickname. “You know what? I don’t even really mind.”

It looked like Joel wanted to say more, but other members of your group came running up, looking around frantically only to find all the enemies already taken care of.

“We didn’t hear any shots,” Will said absently, staring at the two motionless forms on the ground after a wary glance. “Thought you might need some help.” After a long moment of silence, he looked from you, to Joel, then the raiders. “They still alive?” He pointed toward the men, one of them stirring with a pained moan.

“Only just,” Joel mumbled, watching the one man begin to roll to his side, the one who had held on to you, before his gaze flicked to the other, noticing his breaths becoming shallower and shallower. Gesturing to the latter with his rifle still held in his hands, he looked back up at Will. “That one’s not longed for this world if you don’t get something to stop the bleedin’. Need information from both, preferably.”

Will nodded, motioning to the others with a nod of his head, quickly moving toward the raiders.

You had turned toward Joel, your back to the men when a twisted voice rose up behind you, slurring around laughter as if it knew the funniest joke in all the world.

“Well, sweetheart, I’m just so goddamn sorry things didn’t work out ‘tween us.”

Joel glared at the raider over your shoulder. “Stop talking, asshole,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes as he took a step closer to the man, slightly in front of you. Turning to face the man yourself, you thought you’d steeled yourself for whatever you’d see, but the twisted smirk you were met with made your stomach drop.

Laughter turned to wheezing, wet coughs before the man spit off to the side in front of him, blood painting the ground an ugly, violent color. He lifted his head just enough to look at you again, snickering as he peered through his lashes. “I had such plans for you….”

“I said be quiet,” Joel’s voice had grown more firm, and he opted to step to the side, obscuring your view of the creep instead of taking any steps closer.

“Oh, but they were nothin’ compared to what we were gonna do to that little friend of yours…. That blonde? Whoo! She was feisty!”

“Can somebody shut him the fuck up!” Joel bellowed, turning to the group simply standing by and watching the exchange.

Will shrugged off his outer layer flannel, balling it up as he stomped toward the man and began to shove it in his mouth.

The man weaseled back away from the cloth, shouting with wild eyes, “You’ll never find her!” His following laughter was muffled around the material, manic and unhinged.

“Will, I need you to….” Joel trailed off when you put a hand on his shoulder, pushing him to the side gently. He tried to stop you walking towards the lunatic, but you met his gaze with your own, unwavering, and he let you go, following close behind, one hand adjusting his grip on his rifle as he held it loosely just in case.

Kneeling down in front of the man, you got close to his face. “What did you do with Jane?” Your voice was so low and quiet, you barely recognized it.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” The man mumbled around the shirt, eyes wild and sure of himself.

Looking down toward the ground, you huffed out an unamused laugh. “I’m going to ask you one more time,” you lifted your gaze to look at him straight on again, “and you’re going to tell me, or else my friends are going to be not so nice to you.” The man scoffed. “What did you do…. with Jane?”

The man leaned forward, his nose almost touching yours. “Go fuck yourself, bitch.”

Without hesitation, you slammed Joel’s pocket knife you’d swiped from his jacket a moment ago into the man’s hand where it rested on the ground with your left hand, yanking the shirt out of his mouth as he screamed with your right, and tackled him backwards onto the ground, pinning your right forearm against his throat. As he struggled against your hold, you twisted the knife still gripped tightly in your hand, making him settle into the dirt.

“Okay! Okay! Okay! Fuck! Just stop!” He looked at Joel with wide, wild eyes. “Get the bitch off me!”

You noticed some of your party moving toward you, but they stopped with a hand motion from Joel.

He studied you with an unreadable expression before looking back at the man and jutting his chin toward you. “Tell her what she wants t’know.”

“Get her off me first!”

“Talk!” You growled, digging your arm in further, making him gasp. When he turned a defiant look up your way, your knee ‘slipped’ where you straddled him and landed dangerously close to his ego once again.

“Okay, okay, goddamn!” He wheezed, collapsing fully into the ground below him, eyes fluttering shut as his face twisted in pain.

It was all you could do to repress the triumphant smirk wanting to crawl up your face, your brows arching in amusement instead.

“She’s back at our camp. ‘Least that’s where we left her. Don’t know how she’d move much after what boss did, though.” He looked back up at you again, everything about his expression amused, and nothing seemed to dull it, even as you pressed your arm harder into his throat, only causing his words to take on a sinister hiss. “He stuck her good. You think this little knife is somethin’, you should see the one he used on-” his words trailed off on a gurgled chuckle as you continued to lean into him.

“Hey,” Joel’s calm voice near your ear made you pause, staring down at the creep. “We need him alive, darlin’. Stop.” A warm strong hand gripping your upper arm firmly made you lift off the man just slightly, glaring down at him as he sucked in a breath and started coughing, grinning up at you triumphantly. He hissed with a wince when you yanked out the knife, bringing the hand close to his chest to hold it tight with his other, and wrapped it haphazardly with the flannel Will had shoved in his mouth to stop the bleeding.

“You Jacksoner’s are all the same,” he shook his head in amusement. “Bleeding hearts, all of ya!” He grinned up at the group in the most sinister way you’d ever seen. “And that is why you’re all gonna burn.”

At that, Joel was yanking you off the raider and pulling him up to a seated position with both hands twisted into his jacket, getting right into his face with the most menacing voice you’d heard yet. “What did you just say?”

The man just smiled a tight lipped smile, eyebrows shooting up before he used his good hand to pantomime locking his mouth and tossing away the key.

“They had a bunch of dead guns. No ammunition. How in the hell were they planning to do something to Jackson?” You mused offhandedly, mostly talking to yourself.

“Guns ain’t the only way to make somebody bleed,” the freak singsonged, looking at you gleefully.

You glared at him. “I liked you better out cold.”

He guffawed. “I liked you better up close….”

Joel gave the man a forceful shake by the front of his shirt still in his grip. “What’d I say?” The man rolled his head back to Joel with a bored look, his lips twitching up just slightly. “Y’either start talkin’ ‘bout somethin’ important I want t’hear about, or I’ll reach my hand so far down your Goddamn-”

“This one’s not doing well, Joel,” one of the party mentioned, checking the pulse of the other raider. “We need to get them back to camp.”

The man in Joel’s grip slowly melted into a wide grin. “Looks like you need me now more than ever.”

Joel began to smirk, and it made the raider’s sure grin falter. “Yeah, but that can change real quick.” He shoved the man back, rising to his full height before turning back toward you and walking quickly. A hand closing around your arm once again, you followed where it led.

“Get them to camp. Will, get a party of four together and come with us to go get Jane. The rest of these assholes are dead, there’s no one to keep her there anymore. She probably tried to run, and if she’s injured, we need to spread out and cover as much ground as possible.”

He stopped, looking over his shoulder when no one was moving. “Let’s go!”

When he turned to look down at you, you saw something in his eyes close to fear. “We’ll find her, Joel.”

He held your gaze as he kept moving you further away from the scene. “I know, darlin’.” He looked forward again, walking a bit faster. “I know. Now let’s get goin’. Sun’s gonna be settin’ real soon.”

Xxx

As the two of you made your way in the direction the thug had sent you in, your mind began to wander.

“What if it’s the wrong direction, Joel?”

“He said go east-”

“No, I know.” You closed your eyes briefly as you took in a sharp breath through your nose before looking forward once again. “But what if he lied?”

Joel sighed, looking down at his feet as he continued to walk. “Darlin’,” he looked deep in thought but also at a loss for words at the same time. It was such an inextricably Joel thing to do, it almost pulled a smile up one side of your face.

Almost.

Glancing over his shoulder toward the small group that was following along to help, the rest staying behind with the two assholes, he then took a step closer to you, speaking in a low voice.

“He very well may’ve.” When your eyes went wide, Joel was quick to continue on. “But,” he smiled at your now narrowed glare. “I’ve been patrolling these hills for a few years, now. Never out this far, mind you, but I know the general area. There’s a stream that runs not far from here. Anyone with any brains would camp near it. I know the worlds gone t’shit, but I refuse to believe we as a species have fallen that far that fast.”

His smile spread a little further at your soft chuckle.

“Touché, Miller. Touché.”

Grinning like a child, Joel turned back to the rest of the group, his expression turning stony in an instant. “The rest of you, fan out!” His voice was a low hiss. “Keep quiet and keep aware. These trees are dense from here on out to the creek. Keep a lookout. I’m not responsible for your own stupidity.”

Good-natured eye rolls went around as the few people spread into the trees starting to populate the clearing you’d been passing through.

Joel grabbed your arm when you went to take a step forward. “Not you.” He shook his head gently when you looked up at him. “You’re coming with me.”

“I’ll stay within sight,” you argued, pulling your arm from his grip. “I’m not a child, Joel.”

“No, you don’t-”

“I can take care of myself.” Taking a few steps forward into the tree line, you looked for any signs of life, but before you could get far, Joel’s voice was at your ear again.

“Don’t-”

He yanked you back into him, making you stumble into his chest. Lifting your head up to glare at him, you came nearly nose to nose as he looked down at you and you looked up at him. Your breath stopped, catching in your chest as your eyes scanned his face.

“Tripwire,” he mumbled, his eyes firmly watching your lips as they moved soundlessly in shock.

“Thanks,” you finally managed, closing your mouth and clearing your throat.

Joel nodded.

You went to take a step back, looking over your shoulder towards the trap, but his grip on your upper arm wouldn’t let you move.

Turning back to look at him in question, your curious expression melted when you found him even closer than before, his eyes cast down as his nose lightly bumped the side of yours.

The distance continued to close, only a breath left between you when a faint scuffle then a thud was heard, making you both pull apart like lightning.

Turning, the two of you saw Will suspended upside down by his ankle from a nearby tree.

“Careful. Tripwire,” you grinned.

Will smirked sardonically, arms coming to cross over his chest after batting away his flannel outer layer that hung in his face since he was inverted - he’d dug out a spare from his bag after using his original to shove into the mouth of the crazy raider. “We found a blood trail.”

The smile fell off your face as your gut sank. “That’s-”

“A good thing,” Will cut you off. “Means she was moving. She was alive.” After a loaded moment of shared looks, he cleared his throat. “Can someone cut me down, please? I’m getting woozy.”

Xxx

You only encountered a few stragglers at the camp, Joel earning some bloody knuckles and you a black eye, but the remaining members of the bandit group lay in lifeless heaps at the feet of your group when it was all said and done. There was no chance for prisoners, they weren’t going to be taken alive.

Which meant that one idiot back at the camp who’d tried to kill you had to stay alive if you wanted any answers.

The thought of that made you start to hyperventilate.

Which wasn’t like you.

You took everything in stride, this new world required it, but suddenly you felt his arm around your neck again, and you began to claw at the phantom limb, gasping for air as tears began to stream silently down your face.

You couldn’t look anywhere without seeing a body, violence, bloodshed….

Can’t breathe….

Everything blurred by as you faintly registered your feet moving you forward, a warm hand around your forearm pulling you gently along before the firm press of tree bark met your back with a gentle thump.

The soft trace of rough, callused fingers making their way past your cheeks to rest behind your ears drew a shiver from your bones. “I’ve got you. You’re okay. You’re good. It’s over. I’m here.” Joel’s mumbled words vibrated somewhere in front of you, desperately grasping at you to give you something to hold onto. Cradling your face in his hands, Joel stood toe to toe with you. He took a small step closer and leaned down, pressing his forehead to your own as you fought for air. “Nothing’s gonna get you. I won’t let it.”

The phantom touch of that asshole’s arm around your throat still constricted your airway, threatening to make the world cave in.

Joel reached up to gently grab your hands still frantically clawing at your throat, placing them on either side of his ribcage, and you clutched onto his flannel under his jacket for dear life. The warmth from his body heat radiated into your palms and sent a wave of something down to your toes. Worrying the threadbare fabric between your fingers mindlessly, Joel seemed to notice and step even closer still, enough that a deep enough breath would close the distance.

Though, as you thought about it, how he still had room to maneuver any further into you was a mystery, you didn’t even know it was possible. It seemed like every part of you was wrapped up in every part of him.

His voice drew your thoughts back to the present. “Hey, hey. Shhhh…. No more. He’s gone.” Did his voice just crack? “It’s over.” His voice grew a little firmer, if not quieter. “It’s over.”

If only he knew, you weren’t struggling to breathe because of the remnants of a panic attack anymore. No, now it was his proximity. His warm breath fanning across your face as he mumbled words of peace. The press of his skin against yours as he cradled your face so gingerly.

Time stopped, the world ceased its spinning, and suddenly all that was left was this right here between the two of you. This quiet moment, in the middle of a forest, painted in violence and hope, in fear and tenacity, in…. Vibrant shades of both of you.

Will walked up around the tree quietly, clearing his throat softly. “Some of these men were dead long before we got here.”

“Jane,” you smiled.

“That girl sure is a spit fire,” Joel remarked with his own grin, pulling away from you just slightly, but still keeping you in his hold.

Turning to Will, you steeled your shoulders. “Take me to the blood trail.”

Xxx

It took all of ten minutes of tracking to find Jane leaning against a tree with her back to you, heaving breaths as the right side of her shirt was stained crimson. The violent splotch was spreading, whatever wound obviously still angry and weeping under her white shirt, her outer layer long gone and forgotten in the chaos by now.

“Jane?” You called out softly from several yards back. A twig snapped under foot, causing a flock of birds in the trees above to startle and take flight in a whir of wings and wind.

She whirled around, knife held out in front of her at the ready, eyes wide and wild from the adrenaline. When she realized who it was, relief washed over her features so strongly it brought tears to your eyes. She dropped the blade to the ground with a clatter and slumped the side of her shoulder against the tree with a huff.

“Took you long enough,” she breathed in amusement, turning so her back was to the tree with her head thrown back, her face toward the sky, wincing in pain.

Before you could even make a move towards her, Will was there helping her back to her feet, scooping her up bridal style and carrying her back towards camp, her head on his shoulder as she went limp, finally able to rest.

Will glanced back when no one else moved. “Come on!” He whisper shouted. “She needs help as soon as possible, or I’m going to-” He caught himself. “We’re going to lose her.”

As the group moved in unison behind a speedwalking Will, you glanced up at Joel in amusement. “Do you think he knows?”

Joel shook his head with a grin. “Everyone else does, so no, probably not.”

You chuckled, despite the situation. It was probably the relief that she was alive finally catching up with you. “That girl’s got his number.”

Huffing a laugh, Joel looked at the back of Will’s head as he rapidly disappeared at the front of the group. “Wrapped around her little finger like those little things she uses to protect herself when she sews back at her shop. Oh, what’re they called?”

You stared at him for a long moment before quietly suggesting in hesitation, “Thimbles?”

Joel slapped his thigh before pointing at you with a renewed grin. “That’s the one!”

With a shake of your head, you turned back to face forward and head up toward the front with your friends. “Ellie was right. You’re losing it, old man.”

“Ain’t old,” he grumbled, his face instantly turning sour. “Jus‘ ‘xperienced.”

“Then you should know all the words, Joel.” You smirked. “No excuses.”

“I do know all the words,” he groused. “That’s the problem. I know too much, my brain can’t keep up.”

You turned to face him, walking backwards. “Sure. That’s the problem.”

“I know things,” he shot back, echoing your words from earlier, his head tilted back to look down his nose at you in a mirror image as he continued to mock your earlier statement. “Lots of stuff.”

“Oh, I see,” your tone was condescending, but playful as you mimicked him right back. “Stuff.”

“And things.” He was trying so hard not to smile.

You were not, letting the grin spread broadly across your face. “Oh, we mustn't forget the things….”

“Yeah, okay.” Joel looked to the side to try and hide his amused grin. “Fuck you, darlin’.”

“I mean, if you’re offerin’….”

His head snapped back to look at you in surprise as you threw his words right back at him yet again. Joel opened his mouth to refute, but you cut him off with a grin.

“I’m going to go make sure he doesn’t promise her his house or something. Boy would give her half of Jackson if he could.”

“He can have your half, you jackass,” Joel grumbled playfully as you turned back to face the front of the group. “Mine ain’t for sale. Don’t care how pretty you are.”

You glanced over your shoulder, fluttering your lashes ridiculously. “You think I’m pretty?”

“I meant her,” Joel gestured to your friends with his rifle still loosely gripped in his hands, strap slung over his shoulders, at the ready just in case, like always. “Ain’t nothin’ pretty ‘bout what you just said.”

“I only spoke the truth.”

“You’re only makin’ it worse.”

Xxx

The sun was setting by the time Joel was able to pry you away from Jane. You hadn’t wanted to leave her side as Will took it upon himself to treat and dress her wound.

You held her hand as she grunted in pain while he disinfected the area with a bottle of alcohol someone had brought, then stitched it up. Luckily the blade had missed anything vital, and hadn’t been rusty, thank goodness.

So far this whole trip had been getting by by the skin of your teeth, and that didn’t bode well with you.

Once she fell asleep, Joel coaxed you over to a clearing not too far away for a breath. A bucket full of water from the nearby stream had been brought to wash the blood off your hands.

Staring down at the water as it turned pink under your touch, tinged with the blood of your friend, you looked up when a shadow crossed over the little bit of sunlight left in the day.

Joel stood just in front of the dying light, backlit and a silhouette as he extended a…. rock? to you.

“That creek is fed from the mountains. Snow melt. Coldest thing around. Best alternative to ice we’ve got right now.” You narrowed your brows at him, making him sigh in frustration. “For your eye,” he said as if it were obvious.

“Oh,” you said dumbly and took it, lightly resting it against your left eyebrow where you felt the worst of the black eye forming. The cool, smooth stone instantly offered some relief for an ache you hadn’t even realized you had, making you groan softly, and shut your eyes with a grateful sigh. “Thank you.”

He nodded. “Mmm-hmm.” The side of his mouth twitched up as he lowered himself to the ground beside you with a quiet groan. “T’ain’t nothin’.”

Pulling the stone away to examine it for a moment, you arched a brow when Joel slowly pressed it back to your head. “Don’t work if you don’t keep it there, darlin’.”

“Really?” You said as sarcastically as you could muster.

“Huh-uh,” he confirmed with a gentle shake of his head, keeping the stone pressed firmly to your skin. “It’s not a comfort by osmosis thing.”

“No healing by proxy?” You groused, despite the smile working its way up your face, your one good eye squinting from the held back laughter you were just managing to reign in as you looked up at him.

The corner of his mouth lifted so high a dimple creased his cheek. “Now wouldn’t that be somethin’,” he mused softly.

The two of you sat in comfortable quiet for a long moment, his hand still holding the rock to your head gently until you finally decided it was time to break the silence.

“So what’s the plan from here, Mr. partially-in-charge-of-security?”

Joel’s hand fell from you with a sigh as he shook his head slightly in disbelief, his gaze turned forward as if he couldn’t even bear to look at you after an attempt at a joke that bad. “I’ve been goin’ over it in my head since we left their camp-”

“That must’ve been painful,” you muttered, grinning innocently when he cut his eyes over to you.

They shut briefly with another loaded sigh before they fluttered open and he turned to look at the forest on his right while he continued. “Best I can come up with-” he held a finger up in front of your face without a glance back your way. “I don’t wanna hear it.”

You stared at his finger inches from your nose. “I wasn’t-” You totally were.

The finger began to wag as his head rolled back to level you with a look. “Now, we both know that’s a lie, darlin’.” You shrank under his continued stare and he went on. “Best I can think of is to send the majority back home since we’re still so close to Jackson. Have them protect Jane and those two raiders we got to interrogate.” His arms were propped up on his bent knees, and his fist clenched at the mention of the thugs.

After he stared off vacantly for a moment, he brought his gaze back onto you. “That means the cart is going to have to go back with them, though. Jane’s in no condition to walk, and you did a number on asshole number one.” He chuckled.

“Don’t even worry about the cart,” you waved him off. “Jane is more important. What about asshole number two?” Rubbing your throat absently with the hand not holding the rock to your head, you stared into the trees straight ahead before you realized what you were doing and lowered your hand, turning your gaze back to Joel. “He can still walk just fine.” You tilted your head in thought for a moment. “May be a little bit more of a waddle, but….”

Joel chuckled darkly, hanging his head as his shoulders shook with the laughter. Finally he looked up at you through his lashes, a conniving expression twinkling in his eyes. “Let the little ugly duckling waddle back, then.”

“How will we be sure he doesn’t waddle off?”

“I’ve been known to tie a knot or two in my day.”

As the novelty of the whole situation wore off, you turned to face Joel a bit more fully, letting the hand that held the rock fall from its spot against your face to rest in your lap, ignoring Joel’s scowl in protest.

“You said most of the group. Joel, we should all go back. Safety in numbers. Making sure everyone is safe is more important than my paint-”

“Safety in numbers. Exactly. That’s why most’f’em are goin’ back. We only need a few t’do this run. It also made us a target bein’ such a big group. The council made a shit decision ‘bout that. There’s a reason patrols’re only two people.” He looked out at the woods again. “It was temptin’ to leave it just the two’f us as originally planned, but, after yesterday, even you could see the perks’f havin’ a few extra people should somethin’ happen.”

“Quality not quantity.”

Joel bobbed his head, his eyes shining proudly as you understood. “‘xactly.”

Something wasn’t sitting right. “But what about the threats, Joel? They said somethin’ about Jackson was gonna burn….”

“People say all kinds o’shit when you’ve got a pocket knife in one hand n’your knee pinnin’ their crotch to the dirt.”

You let out a snort, unable to contain your laughter at his blunt explanation. “Can’t say you’re wrong there.”

Joel leaned back with a contented sigh, propping his arm up on his bent leg. “I’m never wrong.”

You let out another snort of laughter, more bubbling up and out when he shot you a glare.

Xxx

That night, just as the sun began to set, Joel slammed the back tailgate of the cart shut after helping Jane up into it.

“You good?” He asked quietly, his voice soft and kind.

“I’ll be fine. Thank you, Joel.” Jane reached out a hand to rest on his shoulder.

“Not worried ‘bout you, sweetheart,” he mumbled, his eyes darting over to the wounded raider sitting as far from him as he could get in the front corner of the cart. The bandit cowered under his stare but stayed silent. “Was more worried ‘bout him.” Joel looked at Jane pointedly as he explained, his head tilted forward while he looked at her through his lashes and arched brows.

“Like I said,” Jane spoke firmly, her voice low and even as she turned to look at the asshole, making him cower even further. “I’ll be fine.”

“Whaddabout me?” The second bandit who had tried to choke you said loudly and amusedly from where he stood behind the cart a few feet away from Joel, his hands bound by one end of rope and the other end tied to the back of the cart. “Do I get a send off from tall, dark and brooding?”

Joel turned to him without even fully looking at the man, cocking his rifle as he spoke on a tired sigh. “That can be arranged.”

The raider guffawed as he stumbled back a few steps, Joel striding forward the ground he lost, while you stepped in between, hands extended.

“Stop. There’s no time for this.” Turning to face Joel, you lowered your arms. “Joel, let the little shit leave.”

The raider’s voice rose behind you like a forgotten tendril of smoke, thin and pungent, just enough to remind you it was there. “Ain’t nothin’ little ‘bout me, darlin’.”

Without a second thought, you whirled around and clocked the thug in the eye, making him stumble back further, the rope stretching to its limit and yanking him forward to his knees.

“Except your brain, apparently.” You shook out your hand to your side, the impact from the punch leaving a searing sting across your knuckles. “You don’t get to call me that.”

“What do I get to call you then?” The man sneered, bringing his bound hands up to swipe at his face.

You took a step closer, smirking, and enjoyed how the amused sparkle in his eyes faltered slightly at the sight. “Whatever you say when you’re begging for your life, tough guy.”

The man swallowed nervously, despite his narrowed eyes of contempt. “I don’t beg for anything. From anyone. ‘specially not you.”

You let your eyes travel up and down the length of him slowly in an unnerving appraisal. “We’ll just see about that. Won’t we, Joel?”

“Lookin’ forward t’hearin’ just how loudly he won’t beg….” Joel mused behind you.

“Fuck. You,” the man hissed.

“No. Thanks,” you sneered back.

Will pulled your attention away as he stepped up on the wheel of the cart to lean in beside Jane, his weight making the whole thing squeak under the pressure. “Are you sure you don’t need me to come with you to keep this asshole in line?” He jerked his head toward the guy tethered at the back.

Jane smiled and patted Will’s cheek lightly. “I think I’ll be just fine. Like I told Joel.” Her eyes flicked between the two of them. Her voice sickly sweet. “Now if you two don’t stop coddling me, one of you is going to be injured and sitting beside me on this trip back to Jackson. So shut,” she looked at Will, “your,” Joel, “piehole.” She looked at you.

You raised your hands in surrender. “Me? “ They turned out in question. “What did I do?!”

She shrugged, her head tilting just slightly. “It was preemptive.” Leaning towards Will again, she kissed him on the cheek, smiling when he began to sputter and turn six shades of red. “Stay with Joel. He needs you here more than he’ll admit.”

“I heard that,” Joel grumbled, walking past the end of the cart as he began to check in with the rest of the group.

“Good. You were meant to,” Jane grinned, lurching slightly as the cart began to move forward, Will jumping from the wheel before it could turn fully.

As the bandit walked past Will, he turned to him with a sadistic grin. “Don’t I get a goodbye kiss, handsome?”

“Sure,” Will said with a disarming smile, making the other man stumble for a moment. The next he was stumbling further after Will sucker punched him in the mouth. “How was that? Was it good for you, too?”

The raider in the cart was looking on wide eyed, but you caught him grinning slightly at the exchange, looking away quickly to try and hide it when Will glanced his way.

Jane was laughing as the cart began to disappear into the sunset. Her head thrown back, eyes closed, hand over her stomach type laughter. “Don’t make me laugh! It hurts!”

Will gave a dopey grin as he watched them disappear into the dying light, Jane and the bandit tied to the back of the cart bickering back and forth about nonsense that you couldn’t quite make out at this distance, but you could tell she wasn’t taking any shit.

“She’ll be okay.” You walked up to Will, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah, I know.” He was distant, his mind a million miles off. “I know.”

Xxx

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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 11 months ago

Text

Yellow City, Chapter Five

One probable no.

One probable yes.

One vote he has yet to obtain.

Arthur is having a day,, and he may be mad… but at least he isn't in denial.

Yellow City, chapter five. With the first of a couple of cameos.

Not exactly explicit, but there is sexual content and talk.

AO3

-----------

Nobody helped him. Nobody could. It felt like a quest, like proving he meant what he said, showing the world he wasn’t some milquetoast hypocrite. He had a job to do.

The presence of Mama Laveau (Shub-Niggurath, whose very name shook the already-spare sanity quavering in the corners of his mind) pressed him into the earth as he dragged himself toward her.

“Pretty sure he’s not gonna quit,” said Asenath, going on her toes and speaking up, up, up toward Mama Laveau, who was (twenty feet tall a hundred feet tall two thousand feet tall) six inches taller than Asenath.

“We’ll see,” said Mama Laveau. “How often do they do the hard thing, the pricey thing, when they don’t benefit themselves? We’ll see.”

For Faroe—

No. No, it was too late for her, too late for him. This wasn’t about him. This was about everyone else, the innocents, the people who didn’t deserve such a fate, to be fed upon, stolen for entertainment, bred until they died.

Lied to and eaten.

And he wasn’t the right one to fix this, he knew—unworthy, sullied, unclean—but there was no one else. I’m sorry, world, he thought in a doozy way. I’m all you’ve got.

“Do you really believe they’re innocent?” said Mama Laveau over howling wind, her words deep and resonant in spite of the noise of Arthur’s gasps and the scrape of his flesh over suddenly-sharp grasses.

Nobody could hear him over the howling gale, but he answered anyway, dragging, digging his fingers into soft loam filled with sharp and biting roots to pull himself nearer. “Yes.”

“What if I tell you there are no innocent humans, Arthur Lester?” said Mama Laveau, light and conversational, as if his answer didn’t even matter.

Faroe…

Some switch inside him flipped. “I’d ask you what in fuck’s name you think innocent is, because I’ve never met anyone who’s perfect, if that’s what you’re looking for—including you.”

“Yikes, Lester,” Asenath said, making faces as though caught between horror and humor.

Behind him, the wind rose in a strangely bass howl, like a train engine in distress.

“You’ve panicked your owner,” Mama Laveau said, sounding amused.

Owner?

He had a partner, not an owner, and it didn’t matter right now because Hastur wasn’t expected to reach Mama Laveau. “He’s new,” Arthur said.

To his confusion, Mama Laveau laughed.

Whatever that meant. It had no bearing, so Arthur kept coming, through the metal-screaming storm-howling grass-scraping pain, through the actual blades slicing his whole body to ribbons as he pulled.

(Vaguely, so vaguely, heard his partner bellowing, but it was so far behind and surely Hastur was just urging him on?)

His breath was thick and wet, bubbling red past his lips, like that moment when he’d saved the (frogs) children from that sinking boat and slid under the water. Drowning?

Hastur wouldn’t let him drown, so Arthur kept going.

It would be fine. He’d run out of blood eventually and stop smearing it all along his snail-trail path and making his chin so sticky. He’d had worse, anyway, though usually it ended in an orgasm.

She was so close.

The last six feet took eighty-four years.

Time didn’t mean things here, or so Asenath said, but enough of it passed (or seemed to) that Arthur no longer remembered why he made this journey.

He knew he needed to reach Mama Laveau. He knew she would stop something bad. He couldn’t remember what, but that was okay. He could wing it. Arthur was good at winging it.

He reached out (shaking, bones peeking through fingertip-flesh) and gently touched Mama Laveau’s foot. “Got you,” he wheezed.

“I’d say you did,” said Mama Laveau, and suddenly, it all stopped.

Arthur wasn’t shredded. The grass was grass, soft and wet, and the worst damage done was the dew soaking through his flimsy yellow clothes, which he’d smeared quite green.

(And a tiny, trembling part of him got a kick out of that, because Hastur would have to clean it up, but the thought evaporated before he could truly enjoy it.)

“You were right, Arthur Lester,” said Mama Laveau. “I’m not perfect. I believed, after all, you’d give up long before you got to me.”

“Ha! You wouldn’t be the first to make that mistake,” said Arthur like an eighty-year-old-man, and struggled to sit back in the grass with all the grace of a skinny walrus.

(Vague bass mourning back there somewhere—)

“Your god is going to need some triage,” she said.

“Don’t have a god,” Arthur said.

Again, she softly chuckled.

Arthur had no idea what that was for, but that was okay. “Give up yet?” he said with full confidence.

This time, she threw her head back and laughed for real, and the sound of it and her proximity shook everything, and his thoughts splashed wild and murky like soapy water disturbed by a rock.

(See to the fool, Shub-Niggurath said to her witch.)

Asenath went to check on Parker’s shuddering form, and Mama Laveau knelt down and brushed Arthur’s sweaty hair out of his face.

Her touch was cool, pleasant, calmed the waves in his mind instead of making more of them, and he had a weird moment of clarity. Her patience for him was thin because of what he was, and he couldn’t take too long with this. “Hey,” he said weakly. “Can I shoot straight with you?”

“I think you’d better,” she said, which was good advice.

“I don’t remember the details of this case,” he said as she plucked some grass from his (elaborate golden collar) lapel. “It’s my fault—had too much to drink last night.”

“That’s a real shame, with such a big, important meeting today,” she said, still running her cool, dark fingers through his damp hair.

He cranked the charm to a thousand, because Hastur was the scary partner, so he had to be the winsome one. “I can be pretty dunderheaded, ma’am, and I’d be the first to tell you that—but the biggest idiot in the world can still pass on an important message. Would you be willing to hear out this particular idiot, just for a minute?”

“Well,” she said, low and soothing, “it’d be a real shame to let all that effort go to waste, wouldn’t it? What’s that message, then?”

He couldn’t remember.

All his thoughts climbed over each other like ants, and he couldn’t see whatever dropped sugar cube they were swarming.

She waited, fingers cool, eyes patient if not exactly warm.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed, but he didn’t want to risk that patience drying up. Winging it. “Something bad’s coming.”

“It is,” she agreed, because her thoughts weren’t a wasp’s nest climbing out her ears. At least one of them knew what was going on.

“It isn’t their fault,” he said, going with instinct.

“Some are saying it’s yours, being as interesting as you are,” she said like opening a door to see if he’d go through.

He snorted. “No, it’s Kissinger’s for being a greedy, ugly baby who doesn’t like to lose.”

Her chuckle was dark. “You might be right on that.”

A glimpse of clarity, like a light flashing in a dark room. The Fire of Y. So many dead… “We know we fucked up, ma’am. Does that really mean we deserve to just be wiped out, down to the babies?”

She didn’t answer that. Her lovely, round face was unreadable. “Do you know what it’s like to put your good faith in someone, in a lot of someones, only for them to spit on your good will to the point that, in spite of your desire, you find them only distasteful?”

Oh, that was a big one. “I can’t say I’ve been betrayed that badly, ma’am.”

“Can’t you?” she said, and for one moment, just one, he remembered.

Hastur knew who, and knew all along, and never said. I know that if I had given you the name, and triggered my Contract, I’d be obligated to Harvest you—and then I’d lose my eyes in this world.

Parker sounded angry. “Of course I fucking know.” And he fell to his knees, splattering his weird blood.

Arthur cried out and gripped his head, breathing through lungs that felt shrunk to the size of lima beans.

She waited, silent as he rode it out, as the sloshing chaos of his thoughts settled again inside his skull.

Another moment of clarity, and he tried to hold the thought (the truth) that gods, for some reason, had such simple views of right and wrong, such easily hurt hearts, such ever-burning anger. “They hurt you. Like I hurt him. That’s it. Isn’t it?”

She didn't answer.

It slid like a wine glass on the edge of a table, going over, about to shatter, and he shouted while he still knew what it was: “I’m sorry we hurt you! For everyone! For all of us! I’m a fuckup, but maybe that’s why I’m the one here, in place of all the fuckups! I’m sorry we did it to you! It was wrong, and I…” Images of Faroe (Of course I knew) smashed through his remaining thought like a brick through a window, and he needed another minute while it all crashed and sloshed and spilled.

“What an interesting human you are,” said Mama Laveau somewhere in there. “I knew you were brave; I knew you were stubborn. I knew you were strong enough to hold Hastur within you, and to do what was necessary with the tools I sent. But I didn’t know you could be wise, Arthur Lester.”

Faroe…

“That’s kind of you, ma’am,” Arthur answered from a great distance. “But I promise I’m not wise.”

“Well,” she said. “I chose right before. I’m gonna choose right now, too. I will not vote, Arthur Lester.”

That was bad. Wasn’t it bad? “Wh… why?”

“Because I might vote the wrong way,” she said. “I'm upset; until I’m a bit more soothed, I won't risk making that choice. So instead, I’m going to do what I did before.”

He had no idea what she did before (the feel of that dagger in his hand, its red and black jags biting into his flesh). “What’s that?”

“I’ll give you aid. How well you do with it depends on you.”

This was what she’d done before. This mattered. This… he couldn’t hold on to it. “Aid? What, like a hammer or something?”

“Something like that. Hold out your left hand.”

He did.

Her warm, strong fingers (long and clever tentacles) wrapped around his wrist for one moment, totally enveloping his whole arm, and when they withdrew, they left a present.

A bracelet sat against the bones of his wrist, loose enough to dangle, but far too tight to remove. It was a simple chain, silver, with tiny links and numerous charms that he couldn’t quite make out.

It was surprisingly heavy, too, and his hand fell to the grass, where he stared at it for being weird.

“It’s up to you,” said Mama Laveau, and just like that, she was gone. Her patience was done, and he got that, on some weird internal level. It made sense she’d be gone. It—

Hastur yanked him into a tangle of overly-hot tentacles and swore in some language Arthur couldn’t understand, a language that sounded like rocks grating against steel wool.

“Rude,” said Asenath.

Parker groaned.

Hastur turned to go.

“Don’t you dare,” said Asenath.

Hastur… growled.

And Arthur remembered that sound from his time in Cloud City, when that growl frightened him, when the depth and breadth of it felt ravenous even when immaterial, but now, in the flesh, it was utterly, mind-shatteringly terrifying.

Arthur whimpered.

Hastur pulled him closer, comfortingly tight, keeping him from shattering apart.

There was a pause.

“Very scary,” said Asenath. "Now take your trash with you, for fuck’s sake.”

Hastur rumbled, displeased, and picked Parker up tightly enough that Parker cried out.

Arthur realized that by trash, she meant Parker.

Well. Parker killed her, so that made sense. But Arthur felt he’d indirectly gotten Asenath killed, and quite directly gotten Parker killed. “Don't hurt him,” he muttered.

“I will… not break him,” Hastur said to Arthur, absolutely sullen, and then they flew.

Arthur was glad they flew. The weight of that thin bracelet kept his arm down, making him feel weirdly drained. “Thank you,” he said, though he was already forgetting what for.

Hastur did not dally, did not show off; he simply flew home, slammed the doors of his palace (Arthur’s apartment had never sounded so cavernous), and doused all the lights but one.

(Your god is going to need some triage)

Arthur had been right: the green was everywhere, all over his skin, all over his silky yellow whatever the fuck, but he was very tired, and couldn’t gloat or put up a fuss as Hastur stripped him and began scrubbing him down while muttering darkly in another language.

“Yeah, fuck you, too,” Parker snapped from somewhere in the dark, as if trying to get hit.

(Your god is going to need some triage)

“Do you think I care to indulge your little suffering kink?” Hastur growled at those miserable shadows.

“Let me go,” said Parker, sounding weak as a leaking faucet.

“No. I traded for you. I did so on his request. You stay.” Hastur resumed scrubbing.

Arthur realized he’d gotten grass between his teeth, somehow, and Hastur didn’t like that, and was taking it all out. That made it hard to talk, though. “You were mmph… But yoummmph… quit it. Yoummmph…”

“No,” said Hastur, digging deeper.

Arthur gagged a little. “You were suffering,” he threw at the shadows.

“Fuck you,” said Parker, unsteady, like he was about to cry. “I’d almost paid. It would’ve been over.”

Hastur snorted. “Keep telling yourself that. Perhaps, in another world, another timeline, that could even be true.”

“Go to hell!” Parker bellowed.

“I don’t mmph… understand,” said Arthur.

“He thinks the Defiler would be content with temporary suffering,” said Hastur, being mean.

(Your god is going to need some triage)

“Why?” said Arthur.

“Because he wishes to believe the lies of his youth,” said Hastur. “He dedicated his life to something he has found is untrue, and cannot handle the loss, the wasted years, the terrible sacrifices that meant… nothing.” He laughed, low and cruel. “I broke many cultists’ minds in the same manner, back when we had easy access to Earth.”

Arthur’s brain scrambled all of that in under three seconds. “So Parker had a terrible boss. You were a terrible boss, too. I know it, and you know it, and you ought to give him leeway.”

Everybody stared at him.

“What?” said Hastur, his many limbs going still.

It was a beautiful story! “You don’t have to feel ashamed,” he said, his pride for Hastur warning his tone. “You quit to work with me when you saw how much better it was to help people than hurt people. Sure, the pay’s less, but we’ve had some good windfalls, and you got plenty tucked away, anyway.”

“Oh my gods,” said Parker. “What the fuck is he talking about?”

“A new adventure,” said Hastur softly, and stroked Arthur’s cheek. “It seems now I have been rescued from my own unworthy managerial practices.”

Arthur turned his face and kissed the gigantic hand nearest. “I’ve got you. I know it’s a lot. We’ll do it together.”

Hastur purred.

“Fuck,” said Parker, unsteady. “He’s lost it. They said he broke. I didn’t believe it. I thought he wouldn’t. Him, of all people.”

“Oh, he did,” Hastur said, and laughed darkly. “I, however, did not break him.”

“The fuck you didn’t!”

“I think you know very well what pushed him over that ledge,” said Hastur with a terrible eagerness.

Parker breathed quickly through his nose. “Say it like that, it’s like you think I contributed to it.”

“You did.”

(Your god is going to need some triage)

“Bullshit. You’re a god of madness. You broke him.”

“You and I did together, with the news we hid.”

Parker made a low, pained sound, as if he’d been secretly stabbed in the dark.

Arthur… heard all of this. He did. It didn’t really register, though, because he was too busy studying the bracelet Mama Laveau had given him.

It was pretty. Strange, though, and so much heavier than it should have—

“What the fuck is that?” Hastur snarled, yanking Arthur’s arm up.

“From Mama Laveau,” Arthur said, allowing himself to be lifted like a doll, manhandled. “It’s a clue.”

“It’s a spell,” Hastur declared like a barking dog, and tried to take it off.

“Wait, what?” said Parker, coming closer. “What… I can’t see it. I mean… it’s like a gleam of silver on him. What the fuck is that?”

“I don’t know,” said Hastur, low and getting louder. “Why would she… he’s mine. She wouldn’t want him! What is this? What is this?”

Arthur decided the little dangling charms were books. He wasn’t sure what books, but they were books, some open, some closed. They were the size of his thumbnail, but he felt he could almost read them. “It’s heavy,” he complained.

Hastur trembled. Just for a moment, just once, a tremor from his crown to the tips of his tentacles.

(Going to need some triage) “I haven’t figured out the clue yet,” said Arthur, reassuring. “I will.”

“Clue?” said Parker.

“For the case of the stolen ballots,” said Arthur.

Parker stared. Was it pain on his face? Grief?

“Hey,” said Arthur. “It’s gonna be okay. Kissinger won’t ever get you back.”

For some reason, that just made it worse. “Fuck,” Parker whispered, and turned away into the dark.

“Parker!” Arthur called after him. “Par–”

(Your god is going to need some tri—)

Hastur covered him so suddenly that he had no chance to even finish the word.

It took eighty-four years for Hastur to be satisfied.

“Mine,” Hastur kept growling, as if Arthur had a string of competitive lovers lining the street below, and “Mine,” Hastur kept growling, as though he wanted Arthur’s wordless cries replaced with vows, and “Mine,” Hastur kept growling, but all Arthur could do was moan, because it had gone beyond pleasure or pain into bell-ringing, ear-burning, brain-numbing madness.

This was more than scooped out and replaced. This was scraped clean and painted too many times over, and Arthur felt like his original canvas had began to thin.

His blood was spiced with Hastur’s heat. It didn’t hurt? Exactly? It was too much. Too much, and Arthur came again, yet again, and he sobbed. “Yours,” he managed, clinging, clutching. “Please stop. Hastur. I’m yours. Stop.”

Hastur stopped.

(Triage)

Stopped, and stared down at him, somehow communicating horrified wonder without a moving face. “There… there,” said Hastur, breathy. “Little detective. You’re all right. You’re all right.”

Arthur privately made it a goal to make him breathe like that again. “I’m okay,” he slurred. He could feel the tree-branch current of nerves under his skin, humming unceasingly, and he groaned.

Surprisingly tender (curiously ashamed?) Hastur began the healing.

The folding back together took a while. Something had panicked his partner, made Hastur forget not everyone was made of rubber and stone, but it was okay. Hastur was fixing it, following every hair-wide branch of jangled nerves and abraded veins, soothing every sharp bite of shattered bone and burning blood.

It was wonderful. This meticulous aftercare was somehow even better than the sex that led to it. Arthur felt very loved. He felt very safe. It made him all sniffly.

But Hastur was still upset. It was obvious. He kept growling.

Arthur wanted to fix it. “It’s okay,” he reassured when he remembered how to talk. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“Fuck,” Parker whispered, somewhere in the dark, sounding shaken and afraid.

Parker. Parker was here. Arthur had forgotten he existed. “Oh, hey,” he said, his lips still bleeding, his throat still sore.

“Fuck,” Parker said again. “That’s what you’re doing to him? No wonder he’s broken.”

“I do as he wishes,” Hastur snarled, which was true because of how good a partner Hastur was. “He wants to forget who he is, to pay for what he’s done. He wants to suffer.”

“Fuck that,” Parker snapped. “You think I don’t know he hated pain? You think I don’t know I pushed him? I did that because he hated it.”

What a weird thing to say.

But oh, that growl turned threatening, and oh, some limbs left Arthur’s still-aching skin as if to point at Parker.

“Yeah,” said Parker with relish. “And I fucked him through it, and made him come while crying. Your point, dandelion king?”

And Arthur couldn’t—

Arthur tried but could not—

He couldn’t make it make sense, and it had to make sense, because that’s how things worked (Not in the Dreamlands, little one, said Mama Laveau in his head, and he ignored that shit). So he closed his eyes.

The moment he did, it all settled down.

The lingering pain, strange and deep, like he’d been fucked by a car. The thrumming nerves, still pulsing with pleasure, like that car-fucking had been the best thing that ever happened. The presence of Hastur, deforming his mind like an elbow on a pillow. The cold, weird weight of whatever Mama Laveau (Shub-Niggurath) had given to him to make things right.

And Parker, breathing in the shadows like preparing for a fight.

Arthur closed his eyes. Took a moment. And he got it. It was a ruse. A goad. And his partner was falling for it, hook, line, and sinker. “Don’t,” Arthur said.

A beat.

“Don’t what, little detective?” said Hastur.

“Don’t hurt him. He wants you to. He thinks…” It was slipping. “He’ll… get… points, or something.”

Hastur’s dangerous rumble changed, switching timbre from angry to pleased. “You’re right. That’s so good, Arthur. To think, he almost got me!” A horrible laugh. “How pathetic.”

“You’re just shaken because we saw Mama Laveau,” said Arthur, because that would shake anybody.

“That would shake anybody,” Parker confirmed, low. “I can’t believe she came out to see you. She doesn’t see nobody but her fucking favorite witch.”

Asenath. Arthur was already sure of that. “She’s not that exclusive.”

Parker snorted. “Yeah, she is. She’s favored you since day one, apparently. If I’d had any fucking idea she’d been giving you things like the Ever Knife, I’d have slowed the whole damn plan down.”

“The… what?” said Arthur, who couldn’t remember.

“And you think he would have let you,” said Hastur, somehow sounding like a crouching lion, ready to pounce.

“Sure,” said Parker. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” And his voice caught. “He trusted me. I… he trusted me.”

“You mistake inability with trust,” said Hastur. “He couldn’t do anything but wait on you.”

“No! He trusted me. I’d earned it. He knew I was all in!”

“And yet turned on you without hesitation for something you had absolutely no control over,” said Hastur as though he’d just been waiting to drop that guillotine.

Parker fell silent.

Arthur shook his head. “Kissinger didn’t deserve you,” he said, eyes still closed. “You’re rough around the edges, but you’re not… you deserve a partner—“ (god) “—as faithful as you are.”

“There’s no such thing,” Parker said, and it felt honest, and it felt grieved, and it felt surrendered.

“Hastur is,” said Arthur, and couldn’t understand why Hastur’s hands suddenly went still.

“What,” said Parker.

“I fucked up at the end,” said Arthur, eyes screwed as tightly shut as he could manage. “I could’ve told him my plan, but I didn’t. He didn’t know what was coming any more than you did. He still forgave me.”

There was a long moment of silence.

Arthur shifted, hurt, moaned, and Hastur resumed healing, resumed comforting, and that made it better.

“He didn’t know for real?” said Parker, sounding amazed. “So when I bound him…”

“I thought I’d lost,” said Hastur in a rare moment of honesty, and Arthur had to reward that.

“You’re doing so good,” Arthur said, turning his sore neck (with sore lips and tongue) to minister to whatever part of Hastur was nearest. It felt good to kiss him, to lick; to gentle the storm that had hit them both.

(He didn’t have names for any of the parts he touched. That was okay. It was all Hastur.)

Parker’s laugh was cracked and crumbling. “Fuck. We all fucked it up. All of us.”

“I did not,” said Hastur.

He had, but Arthur knew better than to push right now. “He forgave me. That’s what good partners do.”

“You’re out of your godsdamned mind,” said Parker.

Arthur swallowed. “Maybe. It doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

“Why are you talking to him? You killed him,” said Hastur, suddenly, as though upset Arthur was talking to somebody else. “Remember?”

Arthur shuddered. “I had to stop him,” he said, tremulous and fading. “It doesn’t mean I wanted it to happen.”

“Why are you trying to comfort him?” said Hastur, growing louder. “Why did you even ask for him to begin with?”

Arthur opened his eyes (which was a mistake). “It’s not obvious?” Hastur twisted before him like vertigo taken form, and Arthur closed his eyes again.

“No,” said Hastur, flat. “It is not at all obvious to me why you asked for him, or why I listened.”

Damn it, this question mattered (triage), but Arthur couldn’t think, was aching in a way Hastur could not heal. “Because he needed it,” Arthur finally said.

A beat.

And Parker somehow knew it was coming. “Don’t say it.”

“Even with the knowledge he withheld regarding who killed your daughter?” said Hastur, almost joyful because Arthur had sprung that trap with both hands, and it was

Too late

Faroe cold, Faroe sticky, Faroe riddled with bullets

Too late

Faroe silent, and all the complaints Arthur had ever made about noisy babies lodged in his side like unholy spear-heads

Too late

Arthur screamed.

He tore at his face, his eyes, as though he could rip these thoughts out, and Hastur stopped him, and Parker shouted something like you asshole, and

Darkness.

A voice.

Warning?

Instructions.

Three sentences, stated in the dark, given as a gift like the dagger had been, like the jewel. Whom he had to look for. What he could expect. What would happen if he failed.

Her voice, Mama Laveau’s, filling his mind, howling across the unconscious void, just the same three sentences growing like the sound of an oncoming train—

Arthur woke. The three sentences nestled behind conscious thought like burglars behind a bush, in wait.

Nothing hurt.

Physically, nothing hurt.

He felt safe, snug; warm, compressed. Wrapped in so many tentacles, held against his monster-god’s torso.

“Good morning, little detective,” said Hastur, sounding pleased.

Something… there was something. “I…”

“Yes?” said Hastur, already anticipating, tentacles sliding over one another and curling at their tips.

Arthur’s brain filled it in. “Can’t believe that ambulance was stolen. Who the fuck? It’s not like there are so many of them. What’re they gonna do with it, anyway? Break it down for parts?”

“Mm, perhaps,” said Hastur, going right along with the story.

“Yeah. A chop-shop. Parts are so damn rare as it is, but we can’t let them do that.” Arthur sat up, stared at the cyclopean knife-edges of this horrible place, blinked, and saw his grimy brown apartment with its incredible view. “The doctors need that thing, you know?”

“For… the wounded?” Hastur said.

“I said ��ambulance,’ Hastur,” said Arthur, teasing a little, sliding out of bed to make coffee, and bounced off Parker Yang.

Arthur was off-balance and fell backwards. Hastur caught him.

Parker’s hair was everywhere, and his face was creased as if he’d slept on his arm on a table or something. He stared down at Arthur. “Ambulance? What are you talking about?”

“It’s our case, Yang,” said Arthur. “We were hired.”

Parker just stared at him.

“Well, now,” rumbled Hastur, already purring, tentacles sliding over Arthur with possessive familiarity. “Perhaps we can do with help from the police.”

Arthur made a face. “We need the pay. But… fuck, you’re right. This is too important to go solo.”

"What?" said Parker, who usually wasn't this slow on the uptake.

“You need coffee, too,” Arthur decided, finally pulling away from Hastur and going to dump what was left of yesterday’s.

“Oh, shit,” said Parker, snatching the coffee pot (some strange sharp vase with sigils on it that hurt to see). “Easy!”

“You wanna make the coffee?” said Arthur.

Hastur laughed, low.

Parker wore the expression he had last night—pained, maybe guilty, hard to fully comprehend because it wasn’t in line with his usual faces.

“Do you want his help, Arthur?” said Hastur, sounding pleased as punch. “It seems to me it might be a good idea.”

Arthur sighed. “Look, asshole, we do need help. That ambulance matters to people.”

“Am… bu… sure,” said Parker, and turned away to rub at his eyes. “Fuck. Not you.”

“You were fine with him being erased, but not crazy?” said Hastur (which Arthur ignored, running water to make coffee).

“That was different. That was an honor. He’d have been lauded. This is… this is just cruel.”

“To whom?” said Hastur.

Parker said nothing.

Arthur made coffee. Arthur stood at the enormous window (gardens that made no sense plants that fucking moved) and stared out at Cloud City, at its curves and color, and wondered. “Why the fuck would they take an ambulance?” he muttered. “Gotta be a reason. I mean… could’ve taken a lot of the cars out there. Why an ambulance?”

Slowly, almost cautiously, Parker joined him, staring not at the view, but at him. “Maybe for parts, like you said?”

“No,” said Arthur. “I have a gut feeling. That’s not why. Here, let me pour you some.”

Whatever he handed Parker made the man wince, holding it gingerly, and he didn’t drink.

Whatever. His caffeine to waste. Arthur downed his and turned to his partner. “Let’s get moving. I have a really bad feeling about this.”

“Then move, we shall,” said Hastur magnanimous, and picked him up to dress him.

“Fuck’s sake,” said Parker softly.

“What?” said Arthur, obediently stretching his arms over his head.

“Nothing,” Parker muttered. “Sure you want me along on this, Lester?”

“Yes,” said Arthur. “You’ve got your problems, fuck knows, but we’ll need help on this one.”

“Why?” said Parker.

“They’re gonna pretend,” said Arthur suddenly. “It’s a fake-out. They’re gonna use it to get to the governor! We gotta move!”

Parker just looked at Hastur.

“Come or don’t,” said Hastur, putting Arthur down.

And Arthur was off. He knew just where to go.

“Keep up!” he shouted behind him because Yang was lagging again (“We’ve been running for a fucking hour!”), and there was no time to waste.

They’d come to the edge of Hastur’s city and skirted it, just running along the outer wall, and Arthur knew what he was looking for, nevermind that he couldn’t say it, and knew his partner (partners?) would have his back, and knew the smell was the right way to go.

The smell of fish.

Salt-water.

Weed-rot.

Ahead, just ahead, was a dark alley (a gap in the hedge), and Arthur plunged through without hesitation, fists clenched, ready to punch out any monsters he saw on his way to his goal.

“Where the fuck are we goin?” Parker shouted back there somewhere, which was remarkably amateur of him.

“Another’s territory,” said Hastur, grim, and stopped Parker short.

Arthur had already run inside.

It was a walled section inside Hastur’s walls—a sort of preserve, an area, evidently owned by one person. The man sitting there (not a man not a man NOT A MAN) hunched over his own lap as though he had nothing to live for, staring out over the nasty water of a pond (not a pond) big enough to diminish him, though he was huge. Scum lapped at his legs, which were calf-deep in the water. He stared out at nothing, visibly unhappy, ignoring their approach.

“Oh, fuck!” said Yang from somewhere back there, and the man looked up.

He was big, meaty; a strong-looking man, a keen-eyed man, with dark reddish hair and mutton-chops and a look like someone who’d start a brawl just so he could

(Huge, larger than Hastur, scale-covered and sharp with spiked fins on his arm and down his spine and on his head, his eyes so shadowed by his brow that his attitude was impossible to read)

empty the bar out and have some peace and quiet.

This man watched Arthur's approach without comment, without smile. Without anything but an uncomfortable darkness, shading his eyes.

Time for the charm. Arthur adjusted his (lacy metal golden collar) tie and approached. “Good morning, sir.”

The man eyed him, unreadable, still except for breathing (and the occasional fluttering of gills).

Arthur stopped at a respectful distance and doffed his hat.

(There was no hat.)

“Well, isn’t this a thing?” said the man (god).

“Got a moment, sir?” said Arthur.

The man grunted, shifting, sending ripples across the scum that lay over the top of the pond like a weird blanket. “Didn’t think you’d make it all the way to visit me with your craziness, crazy man.”

Arthur’s brain translated that into something he needed. “What, you think just because you’re not high society, your vote doesn’t count?”

(“What… no ambulance, now?” said Parker back there.)

(“Evidently not.” They had not come closer.)

The being grunted again and moved, pulling his legs out of the scummy water, rose (up and up and up and up), and walked Arthur’s way.

So tall. So huge, (taller than Hastur), seven feet if he was an inch, and Arthur was not tall, but he swallowed, and didn’t budge.

The being stopped so close that Arthur could hear unusual air moving through those impossible gills. “You think I want to vote in something that has nothing to do with me?” he warned.

Oh, Arthur knew he had to go carefully here. “Sir—”

“Sir!” And the man threw his head back and laughed. “Who in fuck do you think I am, crazy man?”

(“Hastur!”)

(“Shh. Just watch. He is skilled, my little pet.”)

Arthur blinked. “You’re Morrissey Dagon. You own all the fisheries in Cloud City—which makes you rich, and also really dangerous, because the ocean and whatever the fuck is in there doesn’t scare you. I know all about you, sir.”

The man (sharp shark eyes and sharp shark teeth) was grinning now as though considering adding Arthur to whatever was on the menu today. “And you still walked up here to say hello.”

“Of course,” said Arthur as though surprised. “You’re on the Council.”

Morrissey Dagon tilted his head. “I could eat you. I could fuck you, then eat you. I could wing you over my head like a slingshot, send you over the wall so H’aaztre has to go chasing down your body in wherever the Dreamlands sends you.”

Arthur’s brain translated: they’d never find your body, and your partner will weep alone.

He swallowed hard. “Yes, sir. You could. “But this isn’t about me, sir, or even about you. This is about everyone else.”

Dagon growled.

It was different from Hastur’s growl (though the same birth defect, maybe), a pulsing and resonant thing, like it was somehow meant to sound underwater. “Why in fuck should I care about them?”

Arthur blinked. “Why should you… care about other people?”

“Mine are all gone.” Dagon rumbled like some oceanic devil. “Every last one, at least down there. You get that, crazy man? Do you? I lost them all!”

Arthur winced, gripping his ears. That last line had been so loud (louder than humans could be) and he felt warm wetness on his hands, but refused to look at it. “You... lost…”

“My whole family. Turns out they’re fucking susceptible to waterborne radioactive poisoning. Go the fuck figure,” Dagon growled.

And Arthur

(Faroe)

heard him and fully understood and

(and if he let this subsume him now and lost the plot he’d lose the vote)

took a shuddery shaky choked-up breath and answered. “I get that. Mister Dagon, I… I get that. I lost my—” (it wanted to swallow him whole) “—daughter. I know.” And he couldn’t help one tiny little sob.

Dagon stared at him, unreadable again, eyes shadowed. “You did, huh?”

Arthur’s voice was almost steady. “I do. I know. You… want to give up.” He swallowed, vision wavering, Cloud City smearing like a painting under heat. “Things like not wearing the same clothes for a week don’t matter anymore. You get aggressive, like maybe you hope someone will do the right thing and take you out, but they don’t, and they won’t, and you just have to wake up every damn day and it keeps happening, but she doesn’t come back, isn’t there when you wake, and the ones responsi… the ones who… who did it… got away.” Arthur's voice sounded distant even to him, over the rushing in his ears, a roaring flood, a rising clamor, and he didn’t realize he was hyperventilating until Dagon picked him up.

(Vague snarling back there like some dog robbed of its food)

Arthur dangled, hands up in a harmless gesture, eyes wide, held by his lapels

(by a giant hand around his waist)

up to eye level. “You’re real fucked up, too, huh?” Dagon said, low.

Focus. Focus. Just a little bit longer. “Yeah. Guess I am. But the vote’s really gotta… it matters. It matters.”

“Why?” said Dagon, quietly.

And Arthur said it, just said it, just went to that place. “How different would things be for you if someone had given a fuck about your family the way I’m asking you to give a fuck about other people’s?”

Dagon did not have a readable face. When still like that, terrifying like that, the stuff of deep-sea domains like that, danger was the only obvious projection. “Too late for me.”

“And for me,” said Arthur, low. “But not for them. Please.”

Dagon sighed slowly, deeply. “You’re kinda endearing, crazy man. I’ll think about it. I won’t promise you, so stop fuckin’ asking. But I’ll… think about it.” And surprisingly gently, he put Arthur down.

Arthur couldn’t stop shaking. Judgment loomed, an undertow, ready to pull him down.

“Aww, poor thing,” said Dagon, and patted him on the head. “You get on home, now.” Then he took Arthur by the shoulders, turned him around, and shoved him toward the exit.

Off-balance, Arthur staggered forward, carried that way merely because his own weight angled him forward, and his legs didn't want to fall down.

Hastur waited. Hand out. Not stepping through the gap in the hedge (territory), clearly eager for Arthur to return to him.

Parker did not look or sound calm. He shouted something, waved both arms.

Arthur couldn’t hear them. The rushing in his ears, the deep current of shame, eroded his mind with every step, and he tried to recall why he was really here—the case, something about a theft—but he could not, could only hear Faroe’s sweet giggle, could only feel her cold blood, and he staggered.

The bracelet on his wrist tightened suddenly, sharply, enough to cut his skin.

It sliced through the fog. He cried out and stopped, looking down, staring at the droplets of blood welling through the hole of each tiny link like eyes weeping red.

His vision went dark.

The undertow stopped.

The howling in his mind ceased as if someone had shut a door, and Arthur looked up.

The hedge was gone. The daylight was gone. He stood in a dark place, quiet except for the soft howl of air currents far above, surrounded by tall, black shapes like enormous coffins.

The bracelet fucking hurt, but something about it… it was like a knife made of ice, cutting through impossible fog, and he could think. (Could not remember the bad thing, not right now.) Vaguely, distantly, he knew why he was here.

The three sentences, from his dream. It was happening. This was the vote Mama Laveau wanted him to get in her place.

But it would be a challenge. This vote would be coming from someone on the Council who’d never, ever voted, who was locked away in mourning, who had walked away from the world, who had even less reason than Morrissey Dagon to care.

But Mama Laveau had sent him, and he would do what he had to do.

If only he could see. There must have been windows somewhere. Cold, lean light from maybe the moon kissed the tops of the coffin-whatevers (far too big too be coffins, bigger even than Dagon), but below that was only darkness.

This was where the Lady lived? Arthur swallowed. “Hello?”

“How in fuck?” came behind him, and a knife pressed into his back. “How in fuck, dude?”

The last of the three sentences: Her assistant won’t kill you if you don’t give her need.

Arthur would not give her need. “I’m sorry to bother you,” he started.

The knife dug in (though not as sharply as the bracelet). “I said,” threatened the young woman’s voice, “how in fuck? How did you get in here? Who are you? What the fuck do you want with her?”

Arthur swallowed. “Mama Laveau sent me. I don’t mean any harm, and I don’t want anything but just to talk to the Lady for a moment. I swear.”

A pause. “Mama who?”

And the next voice that came rose from this entire place, from everywhere, from the bookshelves (that’s what the coffin-things were), from the floor, the unseen ceiling, the moonlight itself. “Did she, now? That is quite a bold claim. Tabby, bring him to me. I would like to see his face.”

The woman named Tabby gripped his arm, and her knife-point didn’t leave his kidney. “Move. Try stupid shit and you are fucking ganked.”

Arthur walked where tugged. “Ganked?”

A sigh. “Just walk.”

Arthur did.

It was like walking in a tomb, in a mausoleum, in a graveyard if all the dead were somehow standing but no less full of all they once were. He caught glimpses of the books and scrolls that packed the shelves, spines burned and crinkled, gilded lettering all but destroyed; he heard his own steps snapping back at him like accusations, echoed by walls too far for him to see.

Mama Laveau’s words were clear. Three sentences. So simple. Tabby was obviously the assistant. But the last sentence… that’s what scared him most.

If you don’t get her vote, I think you’re going to lose, mon cherie.

Arthur walked in the dark, at Tabby’s prompts, and hoped his charm was up to snuff, because he knew that warning was right.

#malevolent #malevolent au #malevolent fic #cloud city #yellow city #arthur lester #the king in yellow/arthur lester #parker yang

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