#to a degree this COULD be canon compliant...

[allthegothihopgirls]

if we wanna compare the waynes to the kardashians then i think steph is the token scott disick of the family.

post-breakup with tim she has no business remaining so socially intertwined with the family, as far as the general public knows. however she's stayed so connected to them that she's an honorary member at this point.

she probably gets comments online saying that she's 'leeching' off them, or trying to weasel her way into their successes. ppl would get over it after a while though and just accept that she's there for the long run.

while i'm at it i also think she's the only one who would have non-professional social media accounts. she definitely attracts the love of the internet's 'wayne boy fans' because her accounts are the closest they get to a window into the wayne's private lives.

whether that's steph doing dances on tiktok with tim and duke, or convincing bruce to lip-sync a total of 3 words for a video that sends the internet crazy. she goes completely viral on the off occasion she gets jason to make a cameo because he keeps his personal life just about as private as his nighttime activities.

[radiaking]

as far as the show goes, i do think there is a genuine possibility g.houlcy could be endgame. they're obviously setting up something significant w/them and no, it doesn't have to be romantic ever but i do think there's a very strong chance it actually could be. and i would be thrilled if that's the case.

it def don't think it'll happen fast or easy tho. and it'll take quite a while for coop to realize any feelings he has for lucy. and i think it'd take something bad happening to her for him to really grasp what he feels about her. i even feel like there's some possibility of them having sex before feelings are revealed mostly just bc of who lucy is as a person lmfao

[loliwrites]

I. Tenacity | Edelweiss

pairing: joel miller x f!reader  rating: explicit, 18+, minors dni  warnings/tags: jackson era!joel, sharpshooter!reader, age difference [joel is mid 50s, reader is early 30s], joel lives forever fight me, canon compliant violence, no infected here just terrible humans, mention of death, blood, and murder, mentions of hunger, diva cup appearance, talk of irregular menstrual cycles [trauma-induced menopause][epigenetics], DUBCON/NONCON [tagging ‘cause reader allows it but true enthusiastic consent is absent], brief SMUT, unprotected p in v sex, female reader, no physical description other than a height difference, slow burn-ish, protective!joel, no use of y/n. word count: 5.6k series masterlist a/n: my first go at writing something tlou-related. be gentle pls.

⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

The steady rhythm. You could count the number of times your hip would be shoved into the wooden table with a high degree of certainty of when it would be over. Michael never lasted too long. Somewhere between thirty-four and thirty-seven thrusts. He was never particularly rough, and though he was never chasing to make you feel good, he was at least better than George and James – both of whom would probably be lining up after Michael was done. George seemed to last forever. Some old fart who’d gained his stamina before the world came to a screeching halt. He usually landed somewhere between sixty-two and sixty-six thrusts. The bruises he left behind always lasted the longest because of the sheer amount of times he slammed your body into whatever you were up against. A table, a railing, an old pool table with torn, dirty felt. And the worst of all was James. He may not last the longest, but he had the uncanny ability of making you feel like some depraved wild animal he was trying to break. He never took his time to make sure it wouldn’t be absolutely painful like Michael did. Nor did he have a pencil dick to make it somewhat manageable like George. He took it how he wanted it – fast, unceremonious, and always left you in a mess you’d have to clean up.

Part of you wondered if this was worth it. If the wolf was only as strong as the pack, then having a pack was supremely necessary. And though, these guys… and the group they led… weren’t the people you would’ve gone with by choice. A pack was a pack. Alone, you were an easy target for almost anything and anyone. Being together afforded you safety in numbers. Relative safety in numbers. Safe enough to have stayed alive with them for the past six years. Years that you likely wouldn’t have gotten if you’d fought them tooth and nail and went off on your own. Solitude could only get you so far. No matter how proficient you were with your rifle.

The one that lay in front of you on the table. Clean, well-oiled, with a scope affixed to the top. As Michael started to moan recklessly behind you, you thought about the meals you’d forfeited in trade for the supplies needed to keep the weapon in the best of shape. Times were tough – had been tough for a couple decades now – and a gun was a gun. It didn’t need to be clean, it just had to work. But this was no ordinary gun.

Michael came inside you with a strangled grunt and pulled out a second later. That was a relatively new twist in the routine. For years the men were careful to never finish inside you… or any of the other women in the group. Food and resources were scarce enough as it was, let alone adding little mouths to feed and take care of. But a few months back, you’d confided in some of the women that your period hadn’t been coming when you expected it to. And when time had passed and neither a baby nor your period came, you came to the conclusion you were suffering from the same fate as some of the other women. A hard life compounded. Trauma induced menopause. You weren’t sure which of the women had ratted you out. But soon enough the men had become aware of your new biological situation, and they stopped the frantic pulling out as they came. Perhaps that was for the best. Who’d want to bring a child into a world like this?

“Was that alright?” Michael asked, buckling his belt back up. His back was turned toward you as he reached for his own rifle, which he’d propped up against the wall.

You glanced over at him and pulled your pants back up your legs. Over the lofted railing, you could hear George and James mumbling to each other. “Fine,”

“Did you…?”

He finally met your eyes. Anxiety-ridden. None of the other men ever asked, but you didn’t have it in you to lie to him. At some point maybe it’d sink in that he should stop partaking in the act just to fit in with the boys. “No,”

His gaze averted to the floor sheepishly and he shouldered his rifle. “Guess we should get back downstairs,”

“I’ll be down in a couple minutes,”

Now you were the one to turn your back on him. Though you hoped he’d come to his senses and start to become a better man. You knew he wouldn’t. He was initiated into the system. The one George and James, and all the other men in the settlement formed. The one that meant they brought girls along on patrols so they could get their kicks and save face with the others that they were doing their due diligence in protecting the group. And you joining the group… well you turned out to be the little guardian angel for the women in the pack. Good with a gun, able to pick off infected and humans alike from a mile out. It only seemed natural that the men going out on patrols would take you with them. For that you inadvertently protected the other women from your fate. 

Michael cleared his throat and started down the stairs from the loft. You bit the inside of your cheek to show yourself you could still feel something, and – BANG! 

Your head flicked around toward the noise. What was left of Michael was splattered against the wall leading up the stairs. You grabbed your gun and held it poised. Looked over the lofted banister and down at the room below. George had backed up into the far corner; his arms raised in non-threatening compliance. Someone must’ve been pointing a weapon at him, but you couldn’t tell from the angle. And James, well… if it didn’t warm your heart a little bit to see him being restrained in a chokehold with a handgun to his temple. The man you could see, holding James, was tall, muscular… he had black, curly, jaw-length hair. A thick mustache. He was in all denim. And it was clean, which was the thing that caught you the most off-guard.

You lifted your gun, disregarding the scope, and looked down the barrel. James may’ve been part of your pack, but you’d thought about putting a bullet in him on a daily basis for the last eight years. And while these guys might kill you afterward, at least you’d have the brief satisfaction of knowing that you’d taken one terrible human off the face of the planet.

So there was no hesitancy when you squeezed the trigger. The round flew by the denim-clad man’s head and went straight into James’. He crumpled to the floor and the man who’d been holding him looked up in your direction, though you’d backed away enough to ensure you weren’t seen.

Your pulse was pounding in your ears. Despite two thirds of your life having been in a post-Cordyceps world, the sound and reverberation of your rifle going off right by your ear didn’t keep it from ringing. An almost concussion-like haziness emphasized by the adrenaline coursing in your veins. From down below, you could just barely hear George pleading for his life. Something about how he had a woman he loved and wanted to go home to. Strange considering he had his dick in you on most days out.

The ringing in your ears started to quiet, just in time for you to hear a footstep behind you. A heavy one. Definitely belonged to a man. But not in time for you to spin around with your rifle before finding the man already pointing his rifle at you.

“Drop it,” he commanded gruffly. A deep, gravelly voice. He was sure of himself. Confident. His tattered jacket bunched up around his shoulders. He wasn’t as clean-looking as his partner currently detaining George. Graying, brown hair, a prominent scar over his nose, a scruffiness… and yet, he still looked too put together to have been living off the land for any amount of time. You should know. God knows what you looked like had you ever taken any time in front of a mirror. If the dirtiness of your hands were any indication, you were a little worse for wear. “I said, drop it,”

Your eyes flicked back up to his face and you slowly bent over and placed your rifle on the floor. No sooner than you’d completed the action, he had another order for you. Kick it here and get on your knees. So you did. Nudged your most prized possession away with your foot when another BANG! rang through the old hunting lodge. Your eyes flinched shut; the nanosecond of thought that this was it. You’re dead. But then… you still felt alive. And you squinted your eyes open to evaluate. Yep, definitely still alive. No bleeding holes coming from your body, and the man still in front of you waiting for you to comply with his last order. Which you did… awkwardly. A grimace stretched over your face when you knelt down and felt your pants sticking to your thighs; Michael’s spend dripping out of you.

The muzzle of the man’s rifle never left you, “got anything else on you?”

“Knife in my front pocket,”

“Slide it over,”

You did. Quickly. Hoping that your quickness and willingness to obey him would mean he’d let you go with your tail tucked between your legs.

“You infected?”

You glared at him, “do I look infected?”

He cocked his gun and held it up in line with your head. You trained your eyes on his index finger around the trigger. Just one twitch. That’s all it’d take.

“Joel,” both you and the man… Joel… looked away from each other, and fixed your eyes on the stairs where the second one – the one you’d disregarded in order to kill James – entered the loft. “Look at her gun,” both men looked at your rifle. “I don’t think she misses very often. If she was gonna kill us, we’d already be dead.”

He went to approach you, and this time Joel spoke up. A cautious step forward, “Tommy.”

But this Tommy… he took another couple steps in your direction and handed off his rifle to Joel when he went to stand in front of you. You kept your eyes on his face, tilting your head back to keep him in your line of vision. Even if he tried something, you weren’t sure what you’d do to stop him, but at least you’d see it coming.

“I don’t think you missed me. I don’t even think you were aiming at me,”

“I wasn’t,”

A victorious smile spread across his face and he twisted around to look back at Joel, “see.” Tommy looked back down at you and set his hands on his hips. “What’s your name?”

You flicked your eyes at Joel quickly before returning them to Tommy to answer his question.

“You’re with the other settlement?”

“I wouldn’t call them a settlement,” your eyes flicked over to Joel when he clicked his tongue on his teeth and rolled his eyes. “Nomads, at best,”

“And at worst?” Joel barked.

Your eyebrows lifted quickly in contemplation before… “a bunch’a assholes,”

Another wide grin broke out over Tommy’s face. “You got a family or a partner in that bunch of assholes?” He waited for a verbal response but you only shook your head. “We’ll take her back with us. She might be able to give us some answers about our friends we’ve been seeing on patrol.”

⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾

They made you walk while they sat easily atop their horses. Some kind of cruel twist of fate that your own gun was turned on you the whole time. Joel made sure of that. Based on the way the sun fell toward the horizon, you figured you’d all been an hour and a half walk south of their settlement. Which as you neared the large wooden gates, seemed to be more like a QZ than some random encampment. And judging by the way the two men bickered, you assumed they were brothers. Only siblings could piss each other off like that and not take it personally. How lucky, you thought, that after all this time, they still had each other.

When you did near the enormous gates, Tommy left you behind with Joel. A precarious position. His face remained stoic the entire time, muzzle of the gun pointed at you… didn’t even answer when you asked if his horse had a name. You thought about goading him into an argument for the fun of it. Maybe he named his horse Princess. Or Spike. But Tommy interrupted again, riding up with a handful of others and even a dog. It growled and snarled in your direction, and you weren’t sure why, but you glanced back up at Joel to see if his expression had changed. Maybe you wouldn’t be so scared if he didn’t look like there was something you should be nervous about.

To your surprise, he was already staring at you. Upon meeting your gaze, he nodded once and jut his chin in the direction of the dog. “S’gonna sniff you. See if you’re infected. If not, like you say, nothin’ll happen.”

“If I am?” You cocked your head back toward the snarling animal.

“It’ll probably just take your leg off or somethin’,”

“Any chance this dog fucks up?”

“Probably not,”

And it didn’t. Thankfully. Hopefully this meant they’d trust explicitly that you indeed weren’t infected. They seemed to trust their trained animal enough to let you inside their settlement. Jackson, they called it. You’d never heard of it. Never heard of any rumblings of a massive commune. And yet…. It was gorgeous. Nice buildings, string lights, stables, a bar, dining hall, and in the distance, what seemed to look like a large, sweeping neighborhood.

Tommy had joined up with a woman: Maria. They kissed and spoke fondly to each other, so you assumed they were partners. Both walked ahead of you, while Joel remained at your rear. You figured with your rifle still pointed at you. Everyone stopped what they were doing when you passed by. All staring to get a glimpse of the newcomer. Would you be joining them permanently? Would they kill you? You asked yourself the same questions.

Your feet had stopped moving but you didn’t notice until you felt the muzzle of your rifle press against your upper back. Joel jabbed the metal against your back again, growing antsier with the fact that your gaze had settled on a teenager in the distance. She was staring at you, too. A fact that seemed to make Joel even more aggravated. He mumbled his annoyance to you and you got moving again, walking up the boarded steps into the dining hall. 

⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾

They treated you better than you expected. Hell, better than your group would’ve treated someone they didn’t know. They set a big glass of water in front of you with a heaping plate of vegetables, chicken, and fresh bread. The water was one of the biggest surprises. You couldn’t remember the last time you didn’t have to boil water before drinking it. Maybe when you were still with your parents. That felt like a lifetime ago.

Tommy and Maria shared glances like they weren’t sure what you were going to tell them. Considering no one else joined you, you figured these three (or a combination) held a great deal of power in the settlement. Joel, however, looked pissed that this was even happening at all. That he hadn’t just shot you on sight back at the hunting lodge. It was pretty easy to ignore him. You’d spent the better half of your time on earth ignoring men just like him. But then the questions started coming and you figured all this kindness came at a price. They wanted to know everything. So you didn’t hold back. Maybe if you were open and frank with them, they’d let you stay here. They wouldn’t make you go back to those awful people. 

Told them that you’d been with that group for the last eight years. And in those eight years, they hadn’t really expanded their numbers by any considerable amount. That they hovered somewhere between forty-four and sixty-two people -- including the three that had been killed today – and that about two thirds of them were men. You even told them about how you’d become a sort of fun novelty for the men. That they brought you along on their scouts because you were better than anyone with a rifle. Once they got their rocks off by watching you down game a mile off, they got their rocks off again, fucking you up against anything sturdy enough to withstand the weight and pressure. 

Joel looked down at his lap at that. Avoided your eyes. You took it to mean that he knew what that was like. Maybe he did the same. 

You shrugged and pushed the remnants of food around on your plate. Eight years was a long time to endure that type of treatment. You told them as much.

“You don’t have loyalty to anyone in the other group?” Maria asked, probing. 

“She shot one of her own guys today. Doesn’t have loyalty to anyone,”

Everyone’s heads turned to Joel. He’d since leaned back in his chair, almost nonchalantly. The gun that had been pointed at you now lay on the opposite end of the table. You thought you saw indignance in his eyes. Disdain for you and the plight he perceived you to be on. Scorched earth. Loyal to no one but yourself. Maybe that was true. Maybe you’d evolved to become highly selective in where to lay your loyalty.

“He wasn’t my guy,” you spat in Joel’s direction. It might as well have been just the two of you in the room. “He was the guy that killed my parents. So fuck him,”

It was hard to tell what they thought of you. Tommy was the only one who smiled freely. Maria saved hers for Tommy. And Joel didn’t smile at all. There was no talk of a plan or a future. No conversation about what was to become of you. All they told you as you wandered from the main street and down one cul-de-sac road lined with houses was that they didn’t allow anyone to have weapons in town. All firearms stayed at the armory. 

That conversation ended as they stopped in front of a small one story cottage. It was dark and rickety, and for the life of you, you couldn’t fathom who you were to be put into the arms of. If the house was any indication, probably some horribly untidy mess of a man. Maybe it’d be the type of man you’d wished you’d have your gun around for. 

Maria, Tommy, and Joel led you inside that dark, rickety cottage. Unlocked the door and flicked the lights on as they entered the living room. You kept your eyes and ears alert. Your awareness might be the only upperhand you had in sensing danger here. But you heard nothing. You saw nothing. There wasn’t another soul in this house waiting to attack. It was just you and the three who’d brought you here. They didn’t offer an explanation. Joel just stood back and eyed your every move carefully while Maria handed you a little stack of clean clothes, a toothbrush and a tube toothpaste, and a small cardboard box that held something you’d never heard of before: a diva cup. 

You looked up to give her an apprehensive glance but found that she was already giving you one. It was a look you’d seen before. When you’d talked yourself into joining that other group all those years ago. It was the look the women had given you before they realized you were about to become their saving grace. She turned away from you and gave Tommy a peck on her way out; not even bothering to acknowledge Joel.

There was a part of you that admired her. For the amount of power she clearly wielded over not only these two men, but seemingly the entire commune. And the other part of you was scared of her. She reminded you of your mother. A strong, domineering type who knew how to control the men around her. You figured if the outbreak hadn’t happened and humans didn’t devolve before your very eyes, you might’ve become the same type of woman. The type who could keep her men in line with a look. The type whose men would’ve quivered at the look you’d shot them.

The front door shut behind Maria in the same moment Tommy was handing you a key. You took it in your hand and ran your thumb over the cold, smooth metal. It had been decades since you held one like it. Surely even before the outbreak, people just didn’t hand over keys to houses for nothing.

“You can stay in Jackson for a month on a little trial run–”

“Probation,” Joel interrupted.

Both you and Tommy flicked your eyes at him. While Tommy looked annoyed, you actually smiled. Somehow Joel’s bluntness was growing to be comforting.

“Jesus, Joel,”

He shrugged, “S’call it what it is. Probation to see if she’s a problem and we gotta send ‘er packin’,”

“Appreciate you both not shootin’ me,” you said, you voice sounding hoarse. You cleared your throat and shook your head absently; a small smile passing over your lips, “would’ve put a damper on my day.”

Tommy grinned though his brother looked unamused at your effort of levity. “Someone’ll come ‘round tomorrow morning around seven-thirty to bring you to the greenhouse. Teach you the workflow down there.” Then off your confused look, he smiled again, heading for the door, “if you’re gonna live in the community, you gotta help out.”

Joel turned his back on you to follow his brother, and you were quick on their heels, “what about my gun? I mean, does everyone have their own gun at the armory, or…”

“It’s a commune. We share,” Tommy said over his shoulder as he tugged the front door back open. He and Joel stepped through the threshold, but your voice stopped them.

“It’s just that… I’d rather not be here and have my gun, than be here and have someone else usin’ it. I appreciate what you’re doin’, and your helping me out, but… to me, staying in Jackson isn’t worth havin’ someone else use my weapon,”

“It’ll be safe,”

Tommy’s voice rang clear and sure, trying to reassure you of something. What, you weren’t certain. But he continued on his way, and only once he stepped off the small porch, did you realize that Joel had momentarily kept himself frozen in place. By your front door, staring you down. You started to shrink back beneath his gaze, unable to discern what it was trying to convey to you. Anger. Resentment. Disappointment. The door nearly concealed you entirely before Joel got his bearings again and descended the porch steps and jogged to keep pace with Tommy again.

⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾

The whole thing was weird. All of it. Jackson was an anomaly and the more you tried to make yourself at home, the weirder it got. The house they’d just given you was definitely a pre-outbreak build. It was obvious. Some of the other houses on the block looked new. You imagined they’d smell new. Not your cottage. Scuffed up wood floors. Cracks in the paint and drywall. Even the wood-burning stove. And when you looked out the front window, out at the street, you saw children. Walking by themselves. Joking around. Not nearly on edge or high alert. In fact, you dared to say that they looked like they were having fun. 

You’d only been ten when the world came crashing down around you. Fun ripped out from right under your feet. The homestead you’d grown up on – climbing trees, playing hide and seek, shooting down Coke cans – once a safe place to be a kid, had quickly become something to be defended. As you found out many moons later, to the death.

At ten, there wasn’t anything to rebuild in the new world. You hadn’t had any worldly possessions to hang onto. When money became obsolete, it didn’t matter because you’d never had any. Perhaps in a bank somewhere, stuffed away in a savings account that no longer held any weight. Nor did you need the money to get by in life these days. You’d heard tales of the QZ’s from people who’d come from them. Escaped from them. They had a new type of currency. Not the kind you used to have. The green paper money with a bunch of old dudes on the front. The kind your family burned sometime in the winter of 2006 when the first freeze took over and you were sure you’d never get back to the old normal.

And that was what made Jackson the weirdest. It was the closest to ‘old normal’ you’d seen in over two decades. A whole town. Village. Commune, they’d called it. A formal education had stopped young, so the only awareness of anything commune related came from a book your father had about the Bolshevik’s October Revolution. And if you were being honest, it didn’t sound too good. But on top of that, how were you supposed to rebuild now? Maria had been kind enough to give you a few things, but there wasn’t wood for the wood-burning stove. And the electricity might’ve been working, but there wasn’t any food in the fridge. No sides of deer cut up and stored in a chest freezer. How were you supposed to get that in a commune? Did they have money? Did they barter? And either way, you had no money to give and nothing to barter. So how exactly were you supposed to get on in life?

Face up, staring at the ceiling, you laid in bed willing yourself to go to sleep. You’d gone to bed hungry before. More times than you could count. But usually those nights were accompanied by a dirt floor, extreme cold, the threat of being hunted. A million other things to keep your mind off of the fact that your stomach was growling. There wasn’t any of that in Jackson. Everything was quiet, almost eerily so. You were warm. And even though the mattress wasn’t the comfiest of things, it sure as hell beat the floor. With all these little luxuries, it was hard to ignore the hunger.

But even if you had been asleep, you’re sure you would’ve been woken by the footsteps on your old, rickety porch. None of the wood planks laid exactly right. All creaking with age and rot. Much like the world, you thought. Plus you couldn’t remember a night’s sleep that wasn’t disturbed by panic or anxiety, or just plain fear. Probably hadn’t had a peaceful night like that since before the outbreak. Now that creaking on your porch made you jump up and scurry into the corner of your bedroom. Into the shadows. Praying you’d had your rifle. Cursing the idea that you’d stay here without it. 

The creaking came and went in a steady procession. Four footsteps. A pause. Another four footsteps. On and on for a few minutes. Long enough for you to have gained your courage again. Long enough for you to have crawled to the front room and peek through the window. Long enough for you to see Joel Miller ambling back and forth on the porch, stacking pieces of wood, conveniently chopped to fit the size of your wood burning stove. What a stark difference from the Joel Miller who’d been pointing a gun at your head this morning. You went to the door and unlatched it, slowly pulling it open so as to not startle him. He came to an abrupt stop. An armful of wood. Staring at you.

He blinked a couple times in quick procession, gaining the wherewithal to move again. “M’sorry if I woke ya’,”

You shook your head, “I don’t sleep much.”

Joel nodded and set the armful of wood on top of the rest. He wiped his hands on the back of his jeans, almost sheepishly. “Winter comes up on us pretty quick here. Insulation in this place is for the birds. Figured you’d need some wood for the stove.”

“Oh,”

“I cleaned out the flue a couple months back so you shouldn’t smoke yourself out,”

Lips pursed together, you pondered the stack of wood nestled up against the cottage. “I don’t think I’m gonna stay. Doesn’t seem like this is the right place for me,”

Joel didn’t have a response for you, just looked down at his feet and kicked at a nonexistent something on the porch.

“That gun–my gun. My dad gave it to me in 2003. September 26th,”

Joel’s eyes flicked back to yours. Pain riddled in his gaze as if he remembered that date all too well. And when it vanished, the coldness you’d first noticed in the hunting cabin returned.

“It’s all I have left. And as ridiculous as it sounds to be so attached to a rifle, I am. And I–”

“It doesn’t sound ridiculous,” he interrupted. Just when you thought he’d continue on and show a little more softness, kindness… he kept speaking, “Look, I don’t care if you stay or go. Don’t need stragglers hangin’ ‘round. So I’d love to give you your gun back and dump ya’ out past the gate. But Tommy’s always been a little stupid. Takes chances on people,”

“What an idiot,” you smirked.

A smile flashed over Joel’s face. It was gone in a second. And he turned away from you, descending the porch steps. “He’ll bring you to the greenhouse. Teach’ya how things operate, and…” he took a deep breath. Something almost like fondness erupted in his tone, “you might not wanna stay, but don’t fuck things up there for the rest of us. We got families here. And we’ll need the resources to get through the winter.”

“You think I’d fuck things up on purpose?”

Joel looked over his shoulder and nodded, “yeah. ‘Cause I’ve been in your spot before and I did.”

He continued on and you stayed put on your porch, watching him until he was out of sight. Wondering where the house he was given was. If he was alone, or if he had some sort of partner living with him. But also figured you’d never get the chance to know. 

⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾

“We get most of our roughage and root vegetables in the colder months. There’s a constant harvest to keep up with the community’s needs, but some of these aren’t hearty enough to withstand the winter. Even inside the greenhouse,”

You nodded dutifully behind Wendy. At least you think that was the name Tommy mumbled as he was being dragged out of the greenhouse by Joel. Something about being late for patrol and not wanting to spend all day on some godforsaken cliffside. She’d just got done showing you the strawberry vines. The lifeless things that she assured you would spring to life when the warmer weather came back.

The work was easy enough. Boring. Nothing you hadn’t already done on your family’s land as a teenager. Only this was on a much smaller scale. Maybe most of these people had come from QZs. And maybe before that they came from big cities. Places where they never knew where their food came from. That it just somehow appeared in their groceries. Yet, by current standards… of canned things from yesteryear, the greenhouse was a bit of a spectacle. Something beautiful.

Wendy continued on her well-practiced lecture about potatoes as you got lost roaming the rows of plants. Up and down each long, leafed path. Fingers gliding over them, not taking the time to stop and acknowledge any plant in particular. Until, in the absence of your thought, your fingers brushed over something woolly. Pulling your hand back, you focused in. There, just beyond your fingertips, a tray of small white flowers. The petals, less like blossoms, but more like leaves. And woolly. Fuzzy. Unlike anything you’d ever seen.

“What’re these?” Eyes still locked onto your discovery, you hadn’t fully comprehended that you’d interrupted Wendy’s spiel.

And yet when she came upon you, there was no ill will or annoyance from her. Just her gentle hand on your shoulder. “It’s edelweiss,” she smiled and shrugged her shoulders when her answer had you giving her a questioning glance. “It’s usually up in the Alps. In the middle of nowhere. Jesse came back from patrol one day ‘bout a year ago with a handful of these plucked up from the root. No idea how they ended up in Wyoming.” Wendy brushed her fingers over the fuzzy leaves.

“How’d you know what they were?”

“Call it coincidence or divine intervention, my grandfather had an oil painting of them above his fireplace in the eighties. When he was stationed in Germany during the war, he’d heard all these stories about this little star-shaped flower. Soldiers would climb high up into the mountains to find them. They grow in the harshest places, sometimes even right on rocks. The journey to get them was hard. A lot of guys didn’t finish the trip, but if they did, they got to pin one of these to their uniforms. A symbol of true bravery,”

You admired the flowers again. Now even a smile crossed your face.

Wendy let out an exasperated sigh, “and I figured, hell… if they can survive on the top of the Alps and in this nightmare of an apocalypse, Jesse finding ‘em wasn’t no mistake. Maybe we’re lucky here in Jackson.”

[yandere-daydreams]

Okok gonna face my fears and send this off anon . . . ♡ I woke up at 6am and have been plagued by the concept of yan!satosugu with idol darling like all morning

Walk with me here okokokokok. So like satoru obviously has like sooo much money. What if just to get a break from focusing on sorcery all the time he became a sponsor or even producer for a very cute girlypop idol group,,, (and yes I do think he would be kinda weird/creepy to idol darling, especially with how he views himself as basically untouchable (I mean he has enough money to pay the right people off) sooo). 

That’s where suguru comes in (I see this as a mostly canon-compliant geto never defected au). Obviously he would want to keep up with what his best friend is up to, so he’s like a day one supporter of said idol group. With how the japanese idol industry seems to have a focus on the youth and purity of female idols, I could definitely see suguru wanting to “protect his oshi’s innocence” . . .

So if (let’s be honest, WHEN) satosugu bring idol darling home, I could totally see suguru just absolutely babying the poor girl to kind of a weird infantilizing degree?? If that makes sense?? Like very much trying to condition darling into relying on them for everything

I would assume that satoru would be a lot more upfront about how much of a gross perv he is (especially since he probably mistreated the group members to some extent)

I think they would expect total compliance from darling, but if darling ever acts up I can’t help but think one of their go-to punishments would be forcing her to perform the groups choreographies with some sort of “handicap” ie vibrator taped to her pussy at the full speed (and yes they would probably reprimand if she messes up - gotta make sure their number one idol isn’t missing practice!!

Speaking of missing practice/group activities, I fully believe it is within satoru’s capabilities to spread the narrative that darling just kinda . . . suddenly “graduated” from the group and left without a trace, so therefore the other members shouldn’t worry about her and should instead just resume group activities!! (I could also see satosugu using this as some kind of mental leverage over idol darling - like “hey, your group is actually way more popular now that you’ve left”)

Sorry gang I fear I let the thoughts simmer for too long . . .

please let me know your thoughts :3

tw - non/con, kidnapping, idol exploitation, long-term stalking, and obsessive behavior.

WAIT may i suggest: suguru and satoru as parasocial ultra-fans of the same idol as kind of an escapism thing from the stress of being some of the world's most powerful sorcerers, with satoru having the fortune to completely devote himself to making him and suguru your #1 fans. you start to recognize them around the fifth time they miraculously appear at the very front of the line for your post-concert meet-and-greet, but since they're a little bit older and they always have a small gaggle of shy, but polite preteens with them, you just assume they're a pair of wealthy fathers eager to fuel their kids' shared fixation. sure, it's a little strange that the white-haired man always seems more excited to shake your hand than his standoffish son, and it does raise a few concerns when the twin girls spend the majority of their time with you gushing about their black-haired father, but you're a very popular idol with a very busy schedule. you don't have a lot of time to think about one strange family out of the hundred or so you'll meet, that night.

you don't have a lot of time to think about them until your group starts getting extravagant, expensive gifts and donations - always paired with the a gushing fan letter and always sent from one of two increasingly familiar names. since you always seem to be the primary focus, you're the one pressured by your producers to film 'thank you' videos that are just a little too intimidate, to post the type of pictures your generous sponsors compliment the most heavily more often than you may like to. it gets to the point where you're being asked how you'd feel about ""private shows"" to ""ensure the support of a select demographic"", but you adamantly refuse every time it's brought up. it's enough to have to deal with satoru's touchiness at your handshake events, suguru's prying gaze from his permanent seat in the front row of your group's concerts. you don't need to be trapped in the same room as them, alone and all-but paid to cooperate, to know that you want as little to do with them as possible.

that is, until your producer slips you a drink that's just a little too bitter during rehearsal and you wake up in a large room decorated entirely with your merch and memorabilia, to satoru's head between your thighs and suguru behind you, an arm wrapped around your waist and his chin propped on your shoulder as he tells you about how excited they are to finally meet their favorite idol in person, how patiently they've been waiting for you to finally retire and take on a more domestic lifestyle. they'll be delighted to find out that, because of how long you've been in the industry and how protective your fans can be, you're still very much a virgin, and you very much need your two biggest fans to show you what you've been missing <3 if you're lucky, they'll even add pictures of your first climax to the shrine they've been building since they day they first discovered you, the shrine they're going to be keeping you inside of from now on. you might be crying, sure, begging to be let go, but that's alright.

in time, you'll realize how lucky you are to have such devoted fans.

[manicpixiefelix]

never wanted anything from you (except everything you had)

{ One-Shot AU for head, heart, hand. }

@saintbeau asked: I know you said in the Canon ending, up until a certain point, Oliver was planning to let the reader live. If he'd never decided to kill them, do you think they'd suffer a similar fate as Farleigh and be forced out? Or do you think there's ever a possibility of 'the pet coming with the house' so to speak? I think to a degree Oliver's yearning to take Felix's place could lead him to essentially slotting himself alongside the reader if they'd allow it.

Summary: After the death of your best friend and his sister, you can't bring yourself to stay at Saltburn, even when their grieving mother wishes you would. However, after several years away to process and grow, you find yourself back in touch with Oliver Quick, who's changed so much in the time you've spent apart. Fate certainly has a funny was of working out, so you're not entirely surprised to end up back at the place you'd once called home.

Need to Know: They/Them. Explicitly NB Reader. Reader is from a well off family but has pretty much been adopted by the Cattons. Oliver/Reader are endgame here.

Warnings: Very poor relationship with reader's parents. SALTBURN-CANON ENDING; Felix & Venetia are still dead, but we get a happy ending this time. Also not sure if it needs a warning but Oliver does admit to killing Felix.

A/N: 4162 words. This got away from me. this ends up being so painfully fluffy. it's VERY Oliver/Reader, Oliver's less of a bastardman and he doesn't kill Elspeth but her health is failing significantly like it does in the movie. i think i might have made him a better person as compared to the film, but it's still canon compliant mostly. it ends so fluffy and happy tho, i love it omg. AGAIN THIS IS NOT CANON TO head, heart, hand.

TAGLIST IN COMMENTS!! // TAGLIST ALWAYS OPEN ! (just message or comment to be added)

----

There is no world where you stay where Oliver wins.

But there's a world where you leave, heart too heavy with grief, where you transfer from Oxford and spend time as an adult reconnecting with your own family, where he finds you again. Your parents don't respect you as family, but you're granted access to their lives, to be in their line of sight; you become almost like a live-in assistant who takes meals with them but for whom they show no outward affection.

It's all you have left.

You tell yourself it's enough.

"That Catton fellow offed himself," your father says it with such idleness, as if reporting the weather.

"Sir James?" You almost choke on your breakfast, and father peers down his nose at you over his morning paper, giving you a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes.

"Yes, sorry, I forgot you knew him -"

"Surely it doesn't say that he offed himself," your mother frowned, tugging at the corner of the paper to try and get a look at the article. They bicker lightly, charmingly, in the middle of this cafe about the death of your best friend's father, and what the article is saying or implying, but you just wonder about Elspeth.

Later, when you search through old papers and memories and notebooks, you find the number for Saltburn and call. Duncan's voice is familiar, as is yours to him.

"Captain," the old nickname is so gentle on his tongue, the most gentle you'd ever heard him be about anything. Then, as quickly as you'd heard it, the gentleness is replaced with apology, letting you know that Elspeth is unavailable, but that you'd be welcome to attend Sir James' funeral. You know you'd never be able to bring yourself to attend.

It's Oliver who reaches out, deliberate, in the months that follow. It's slow going, too formal for how intimately, how messily you knew each other for those few months in the Spring and Summer. He apologises, says he saw you on the cover of a tabloid trailing a pair of aging socialites and looked further into it.

"You looked -" he tells you over dinner in the city, beautiful, settled, no more of his youthful awkwardness; it had only been a few years, but how glad you were to see him, "fucking miserable," he says so gently, taking your face in his hands. Oh fuck, you'd missed him, missed his touch, missed how clearly he could see you - you burst into tears in the restaurant.

Dating Oliver makes you feel like a whole new person, raw, relearning yourself, realising you'd been living like a ghost since you'd left Saltburn. Your hyper competency had needed an outlet and your parents had provided that, but you were barely a person, to them or to yourself. Now you were learning who you were, alone.

Quieter. More focused and driven in your professional endeavours. As dangerously charming as Farleigh ever was. The memory of Venetia peeking through in your wickedly sharp wit. An echo of Felix in the affection you carried with you, in your smile, in your laugh. A living ghost, learning to love and embrace the ways in which you were haunted, rather than grieving for them.

You spend nights in his little flat, take refuge from your own life in his, and Oliver's the one who informs you that Elspeth has moved into town, leaving Saltburn echoing and empty, if not for the skeleton crew that maintains it.

"She wants to see you," there's a strange look in his eyes when he says it, something conflicted, almost dark, but when you smile, he too lights up.

Elspeth holds you for a very long time. In the middle of a cafe in walking distance for your both it turns out, there's tears in her eyes, and a joyful smile, and she doesn't let you go even as Oliver goes and order you all drinks.

"So beautiful, you've always been so beautiful," she murmurs, long, elegant fingers feather light against your features, no care for propriety here, "you're so grown up." It's like she's trying to connect the person you are now with the memory she has of you. Tears are welling in your own eyes.

"I'm sorry I left, mum." There's a lump in your throat and her tears start to fall as she takes your face gently, cradling you against her, laughing through her bittersweet memories.

"I never blamed you, pet, never," she assures, voice wet with tears but reassuring nonetheless. Oliver sits down on your other side, wordlessly leaning into you both, resting his head on your shoulder. The three of you stay like that for a long moment. You can hear Elspeth sniffling quietly.

The moment breaks, she lets you go, and when you sit back up, Oliver takes your hand, lacing his fingers with yours and resting your joined hands on the table. Immediately Elspeth's eyes focus upon them, and she gives a warm smile to your both.

"I cannot believe you've found each other again," and she sounds so genuinely joyful, "it's funny how the universe works out." Oliver gives a faint, bashful smile, leaning into you, bumping your shoulder for a bit.

"I'm a lucky man," there's something wonderfully, desperately loving in his eyes when he looks at you in this moment. It is, to him, the total and complete truth. Before you're overwhelmed by your urge to kiss him, however, Elspeth continues.

"After all that's happened, I am glad luck, and life, have brought you both back to me; I was just saying to dear Ollie the other day," Elspeth rests her cool, well manicured hand on your free hand, sitting on the table, "the two of you should come stay at Saltburn again."

Something constricts in your throat, grip on Oliver's hand tightening momentarily.

"I know," Elspeth is quick to move her hand to your shoulder, seeing the way your expression changes, drops, "but that house still holds so much love for you, my dear pet," and she takes a deep, shaky breath, finally admitting, "and I can't bring myself to be there alone."

Looking to Oliver, he gives you a gentle smile, nothing but sweet warmth and reassurance; he's changed so much since Saltburn, so sweet, so sublime. That version of Oliver didn't know how to love you or Felix in a way that was good for any of you, you came to realise, but this Oliver, oh this Oliver had crafted himself a home in your heart with love you didn't think anyone other than Felix had been capable of.

"It can be our home again," he murmurs, a sentiment Elspeth echoes like she hadn't even realised that was what she had wanted from you both;

"It can be your home again."

The drive to Saltburn feels like a memory, of young laughter and loud music and Summer sweat whipped away by the wind in Felix's convertible. The car you'd chosen to take with you is far more sensible, but still relatively ostentatious, and when you ask Oliver to drive, he of course obliges you. Still, the music is loud, and the day is warm, and even if the two of you are quiet, there's still a warm hand on your knee.

And you still feel loved.

Saltburn creaks and echoes with familiarity.

The doors open, and though you don't recognise the footmen either side of the entrance, you certainly recognise Duncan. He's older, of course, as are you. There's a touch of grey by his temples, and he's paler than you remember, but still prim, still gaunt and haunting -

"Mister Quick," until his eyes fall on you, and he softens almost imperceptibly, but you see it, you hear it in his voice, "and Captain Y/N," almost like it's an in-joke between you both by now.

"It's good to see you, Duncan," you tell him sincerely, and for the briefest moment he actually smiles.

"And you as well."

Everything's the same, just as Elspeth had assured you both. Everything's the same, just as when you'd left. Fled. Alone all those years ago.

Coming back, hand in hand with Oliver, it feels surreal.

Grand foyer, red staircase, secluded alcove that you and Venetia used to tease Felix about regarding his 'accidental' bout of cousin fingering, Henry Seventh's cabinet, the arch Felix claimed his grandmother haunted, the Green Room, gardens through the windows, Rubens that Felix never cared for but you had always appreciated. Still broken piano. Blue Room; still blue. The King's bedroom, not that you cared for Henry the Eighth, but Felix always liked to bring it up. The long gallery. Portraits of Cattons you had never cared for. Shakespeare's folios that you and Felix had spent a Winter going through, just to brag that you had, without realising how few people would care.

Sir James' teddy was absent from it's usual chair. Something about that makes something ache in your chest, just a little. So you look away, to the maze beyond the windows that you never want to go in again.

You know this house, this route, like the back of your hand even now. Oliver holds your hand tightly as you rest your hand on the intricate doorknob of the midnight blue door that you both remember so well.

"Are you okay?" Oliver's voice is quiet, is reverential, as you hesitate. Nodding once, you push open the door.

It still smells like Felix. His things are still here, still a bit of a mess. Books and knickknacks and photos. His wardrobe door is still ajar, the way you know you left it when you'd been scrambling to pack your own garments when you'd last been here, and his clothes still hang there, frozen, a moment in time.

It aches, but it doesn't... hurt. Not like you thought it would. It almost seems silly, to have this preserved for so long.

"Can we stay in here, Duncan?" You call out, knowing he must be around somewhere, he always was.

"I thought you might," Elspeth's gentle voice from the doorway makes you and Oliver both jump. But she's smiling at you both, and once the shock has worn off, you can't help but laugh. It sets you all off, laughing warmly, fondly, all three in Felix's perfectly untouched room.

Elspeth does, however, let you know that they've had the bathroom redone. She doesn't say it's because of Venetia, but you're quietly grateful nonetheless. You don't know if you could bring yourself to bath in there if all you could think about was Venetia's blood across the bathroom floor. It's different now.

When you try out the new tub, still claw-footed, still deep and soothing, there comes a knock at the door you'd left ajar out of habit.

"Mind if I join you?" It's Oliver, with a teasing little smile and hope in his eyes. He does not wait at the door like you know he once had, he is bold, he is unapologetic, he is confident in his love. Enthusiastically you wave him over, delighted to create new, better memories in this bathroom that no longer resembles the one you know.

There's still this strange kind of divide; Oliver, at times, still acts like a guest. Saltburn's been your home for too long for you to feel uncomfortable within it's walls, but Oliver's still always asking permission. For everything. He asks if he can borrow some of Felix's old clothes and looks relieved when you look at him like it's an absurd request.

"He's not going to be wearing them."

Elspeth gets this look in her eyes whenever she recognises any of Felix's clothes on Oliver, fond and nostalgic as she tells him she's glad they're no longer gathering dust.

"Beautiful clothes for a beautiful boy," she liked to say.

It takes you a few weeks to realise Elspeth's ulterior motives. Her health is failing. She has no family left. She needs people. As Oliver had pointed out so long ago, you were both desperate to be needed. Much like when you were younger, your own parents had no qualms about you living your life at Saltburn without them; they'd hire another assistant. The email they'd sent back to you did however note that you had been the best assistant either of them had ever had. It's the nicest thing they'd ever said to you.

Elspeth speaks to you alone one morning during the fall, the grounds turning all shades of golds and oranges.

"I..." your thoughts are moving too fast, her offer was so simple yet so overwhelming, "can't take Saltburn." A deep sigh escapes her, and she looks out over the grounds, but pets your knee, "I won't leave," you try to placate her, "you, or Saltburn, if you'd like me to stay; I'll be like Duncan -" this gets her to laugh, fond and bright, "but I think it will complicate things with my own family."

She tells you she understands. Her voice is getting weaker by the day. Then, after another long moment of gentle silence and contemplation, she speaks carefully.

"And Oliver?"

Part of you kind of knew this was coming.

"He might love Saltburn more than me," you admitted with a chuckle, "and he loves you dearly, you know that right?"

"He's such a strange, beautiful creature," Elspeth muses fondly, "I don't know if James even looked at me the way he looks at you," she smiles at you, expression turning soft and nostalgic for just a moment, "Felix used to look at you like that, didn't he?"

"In his own way," you agreed, unable to look her in the eyes while knowing exactly what she meant, exactly what she could see in this moment.

"They say we have more than one soulmate in our lives, pet," she says softly, reassuringly, and you look up once more. There's gentle hope and fragments of old grief that wrap around your heart as she continues, giving your knee a faint squeeze, "I think you're one of the lucky ones."

And your mind settles back on Oliver, how good, how kind, how loving he's been in the year since you'd reconnected. Finally, you're able to smile.

"I think so too."

Oliver seems genuinely surprised when you and Elspeth approach him with the offer. He keeps looking at you, confused. All you can do is smile, assure him that you want Saltburn to be in his name.

"I'm not abandoning you," you laugh, "I'll be here as long as you'll have me, help take care of any paperwork or maintenance or, well, calling people to take care of those things."

"They're a good house pet," Elspeth actually teases, while Oliver is still silent, looking at you in awe. He stutters through a verbal agreement, and Elspeth delightedly says she'll get the contract drawn up in the next few days.

"Why me?" Oliver finally asks, and Elspeth stands, wrapping her arms around him in a hug.

"You've worked hard all your life, Ollie, I can see that in you," she murmurs, "and you loved the ones so dear to me. I know you will love this home, and my darling Y/N, and one day I know it will be a family home again."

Oliver is quiet during supper, he keeps looking at you with this unreadable expression, almost grateful, but somehow intrigued. There's something lighter about him now, less tension carried in his shoulders, a small smile he can't quite get rid of. After you all eat, he offers you his arm and asks you to stroll the grounds in the moonlight.

"I thought it'd be you," his voice is so soft. The moon makes him glow. He's wearing the pale, linen shirt of Felix's that catches the light so beautifully.

"I could tell," you can't help but smirk, gently ribbing him. When he laughs, it almost sounds disbelieving.

"Saltburn was your home first."

"Saltburn is a place," you tell him, "my home was always the people in it."

"Felix was your home," he remembers when you'd told him that, how wide Felix had smiled when he'd heard it.

"And now," you're surprised by how your voice catches as you realise what you're about to say, "it's you."

"You love me," Oliver turns with wide, adoring eyes, while you can't help your shy smile.

"Of course I love you, you know I love you -"

"You love me-love me," he sounds like he's discovered the meaning of life, like he can see it in your eyes. Then, very suddenly, a whole new realisation seemed to wash over him, "I think I actually want to spend the rest of my life with you."

Oh! Is this -?

"I don't have a ring, fuck-!" Before he can get any further, you're kissing him, wrapping your arms around him, desperate to make him taste how much you fucking love him. Giddy and burning with desire, you feel like a teenager again, overwhelmed with delight and affection in this old house you call a home.

When you suggest that you meet his parents, properly this time, Oliver makes a face like he's bitten a lemon. It's a beautiful, cool mid-morning at the beginning of Winter, grey light reaching through the curtains to caress you and your fiancé, wrapped up in Egyptian cotton sheets.

"I've met them before," you remind him gently, hand splayed out across his chest as he looks at the ceiling, "I don't hold that Summer against you."

"Felix stopped... trusting me," his voice barely breaks a whisper, "he stopped loving me because of them," it trembles, catching, and you see tears in his eyes. A flush was rising up his cheeks, grief and a strange kind of fury overwhelming him it seemed, much to your surprise, "you should hold that Summer against me, should hate me, should -" it's spilling from him now, with such speed, such anger that it's almost frightening.

"Ollie, love -"

"I wasn't in my right mind, I was sick and obsessed and- and- and I can't believe I hurt you like that -"

"What are you talking about?"

Through his tears, his grief, his outburst, Oliver threw his arm over his face, unable to look at you, unable to look at anything in this room he now seemed to regret being in.

"I just wanted him to love me too," Oliver choked out, "I know you tried to help me - I can't believe I hurt you, I know you loved him - but I didn't want him to love anyone if he didn't love me."

"Oliver."

"I put the cocaine in his wine. I gave him the bottle. I left him there."

To your surprise, as much as the news hurts, it comes in a dull wave of grief, not the sharp, stinging kind you were braced for. What you don't expect is the sympathy that wells up inside of you for the man who just admitted to killing your best friend.

But you had spent years grieving for Felix, had come to terms with it, made peace with it. It's a shock to the system, of course, to learn he was murdered, but you can see the hurt, the guilt that Oliver had been carrying with him, and knows how it feels to be overwhelmed with love for Felix Catton to the point where you'd do unspeakable things with him in your heart. You'd ruined lived over one-word insults spat in his direction because that was who you were, that was what you did.

And you knew Oliver Quick, who he was, how he operated, the kind of desperate jealousy and need to be needed that became dangerous or perverse when they went unsated. Neither of you were the people you once were.

Carefully, you drape yourself over Oliver as he wept, wrapping him up tightly in a hug with one arm, other reaching up to brush through his dark, messy hair.

"Loving Felix makes us do terrible things," you murmur softly, fingers carding through his hair, "you took someone special from this world, but we can't change that."

"Why the fuck are you being so nice right now?" Oliver groans, voice full of disbelief, "I just told you -"

"You loved Felix and he stopped loving you back; you were drunk, and obsessive, and out of your mind with some psychosexual desire. You killed the man you loved, that we loved," you recount firmly, and he quiets down, still sniffling, "do you regret it?"

"Yes," he whispers.

"Are you lying?"

A long pause follows.

"I don't know."

"Did you ever stop loving him?"

"I don't think I ever will," then, moving his arm, he reaches out for your face, gently cupping your jaw. His eyes are bright red, smudged tear tracks shining on his cheeks, "I don't think you will either." You shake your head, confirming as much, before you turn your face and press a kiss to his palm.

"You're not that same person, Oliver, neither am I. The version of me from that Summer might never forgive the Ollie that killed Fi, but I know you now, and I know you love me, and you'll love this house, and the memory of Felix, just like I will."

"Why are you so good to me?"

"Because you're not a saint, and you're not a devil. You can't change the past. You're just a human, full of flaws, but you're better than you used to be, I know."

"I love you." He coaxes you forward, bringing you in for a passionate, messy kiss, murmuring against your lips, "I love you, I love you, I love you."

Still, you keep this revelation between the two of you. Elspeth never needed to know.

It was a small ceremony at the beginning of Spring on the grounds of the Saltburn Estate. Elspeth was barely able to get out of bed anymore, so the location was more for her sake than anything else. She'd insisted on taking the reigns for planning the wedding though, looking through folders and magazines with you and Oliver at her bedside.

A beautiful flower archway, Duncan officiating, and only your families as guests. At your suggestion and reassurance, Oliver had worked hard to repair his relationship with his family.

"You don't have to lie about being important anymore," you'd smirked at him, "you're inheriting the Saltburn Estate, you're marrying into my family; you're Oliver Quick, that means something."

Oliver's family had marvelled at the estate the minute they arrived at the property; his sisters and their partners seemed shocked and delighted.

"Is this your place?" One had asked you, eyes bright and incredulous as you and Oliver were giving them all the tour.

"Ollie's actually," you give him arm a squeeze as you give him a proud smile, watching as he ducks his head, flush with embarrassment.

"This is you house, Ollie?! What the fuck!?" Another shouted, even as her own partner laughed while asking her to tone it down.

Before the wedding even begins, his oldest sister has talked him into letting she and her children visit in the Summer.

It comes as a surprise when your own parents show up, though you suspect it's because Elspeth personally called to invite them, not because of you. They too are impressed by the house, but less so than the Quicks; they'd been there for gatherings in years past, after all.

When your grandmother arrives, however, that's when it all becomes real for you. Unlike your parents, she dotes on you. Your grandfather had been the head of the business when he'd been alive; your grandmother was a dedicated professional, but always a romantic at heart, which is where your mother claimed to have gotten her artistic proclivities from.

Oliver says you have the same, beautiful eyes, and she chuckles.

"He's a charmer, I see," she teases, but wraps him up in a hug. "You be good to them, Mister Quick," your grandmother tells him in a faux-stern voice as she leans out of the hug, "we're the kind of family you don't want to get on the wrong side of." Despite how she's waving a finger at him and doing her best angry glare, Oliver can't help but cast you a fond smile, wrapping an arm around you.

"I'm aware, ma'am; every day I feel lucky to have Y/N by my side."

This seems to sate your grandmother, who pets his cheek fondly, and tells you that you've got a good one.

"I think so too."

It's a beautiful, perfect day, the best day of your life so far, where the worst day is now but a mere memory. All that matters is Oliver Quick, and the love in his eyes as he looks at you, as he promises you;

"This house will be full of people who love you for the rest of your life."

[hwadam-stories]

⊹ PHANTOM PAINS ⊹ PILOT EPISODE

(black!fem!) mea harper!reader x ceo boss!dhan tae-oh

ᴍɪɴᴏʀꜱ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴀᴄᴛ

I do not consent to my work being reposted, — stolen or translated anywhere else.

⊹ CW: long post, emotional cheating, unrequited love, depression, fluff, drama, etc.

⊹ SYNOPSIS: Celebrating his niece's birthday at a restaurant, Dhan recognizes you from across the room as his past lover from five hundred years ago and is determined to stop at nothing to be with you again.

⊹ A/N: this is my first serious fanfic, feedback on this pilot (comments, messages & reblogs only!) will help me consider continuing it with motivation. Canon divergent / somewhat canon compliant to the MEA CULPA (2024) film by Tyler Perry with some crossover aspects thrown in. I hope you enjoy!

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

"Does Your Majesty wish to meet again in our next lives?" You asked, wrapping your arms around him.

"Of course, were you considering abandoning me?" Dhan replied, chuckling.

"Okay then, when the time comes, I'll be your master once more." You promised. "Your love. Your pain. Even your very last breath, please give them all to me."

"They are all yours, y/n."

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

There was a time when those words meant everything to him.

A time when finding you meant everything to him.

But after his fifth life, Dhan had given up on his search and the phantom pains have haunted him ever since.

It was a pain that wasn't his, a pain that never faltered in reminding him of his failure despite the many times you two were reincarnated throughout the last five hundred years.

Your souls were connected after all and even though this pain has brought him a great deal of misery, part of him hoped you weren't feeling anything.

Presumably, because he was always reincarnated as a man, he assumed you would be reincarnated as a woman but other than that, he never really had any concrete way of finding you. It was safe to assume that since his ethnicity changed, yours did too.

Not that he particularly cared what race you were now, all that mattered was that he was reunited with you. But that promise has become nothing but a fleeting dream. A delusion Dhan couldn't completely let go of because this pain meant that you were alive, somewhere out there. Hopefully looking for him too.

In every lifetime after the first one, he always accumulated a great deal of wealth somewhere in his mid to late twenties under the name of Dan.

In this era, he was Dhan Tae-Oh, the boss of a CEO corporation in Korea and came from a long line of gangsters that reinforced the values of family and business to a rather high degree.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Tonight, he was celebrating his niece's 9th birthday and his sister-in-law's most recent promotion in the fashion industry.

His younger brother, Charles Kang, arranged everything at the finest Italian restaurant in all of Chicago, Illinois, called up Dhan three days before and here they all were.

"You know, we got lucky tonight." Charles set aside his fork and knife for a sip of wine.

"I initially planned to invite more people for Abby's dinner party but a larger group had already reserved a bigger table and I snagged us the only one they had left."

Now that Dhan gave it a second thought, Piccolo Sogno was unusually packed tonight and much busier than he had initially anticipated.

Even looking over his shoulder he could still see the glimpse of the same crowd he passed through, still waiting in line outside.

His assistant, Seon-woo, mentioned something about a on the rise celebrity artist being one of its more known customers over the last couple of years. No one Dhan had really heard of or cared to for that matter.

"Their celebrating their mum's birthday, I heard." Susan remarked, her posh accent gleaming through. She looked past her husband and over her shoulder, seeing the large the table behind them.

There were about five people and that one particular redheaded woman must've been the birthday mom. "Surely Abby won't mind sharing her special day when two cakes come out." Susan teased.

"You got me a cake?!" Abby gasped, beaming with a smile. "Is it a big one?"

"You can only have two slices, young lady." Susan tenderly pinched her daughter's cheek. "The last thing we need is you bouncin' off the walls at 2 o'clock in the mornin' on a school night."

Abby pouted and brought those puppy eyes straight to her uncle.

Dhan stifled a laugh, hiding that cheeky smile behind a half closed fist. "I'm sorry Abby, not even that can convince me to break your parents rules but I'll make it up to you when dessert arrives, I promise."

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Dessert was served in the form of a double stacked white and pink frosted cake decorated with strawberries and red icing for the words "Happy 9th birthday, Abigail!"

Candles were blown and nine year old Abigail Kang became tonight's birthday girl that the staff (and some nearby tables) sang to. Pictures were taken and there were smiles all around.

The gift that Dhan purchased was a reasonably expensive one but not something he would ever think to showboat about. He simply had some connections here and there and thought to put them to good use for the short time he was going to be in Chicago.

"All fourteen of Taylor Swift's albums!?" Abby squealed, wrapping her arms around her Uncle Dhan and squeezing him tight. "I love it! I love it! I love it!"

Dhan laughed nervously, patting her head and squeezing her shoulder tenderly. "Your arms squishing my insides make that explicitly clear."

Everything was going great. Dhan was feeling great.

That is, until things weren't great anymore.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Dhan suddenly gripped the edge of the table to stop himself from keeling over on the floor of the restaurant.

His chest became uncomfortably tight and his head began throbbed with a splitting sensation.

The phantom pain had returned.

For the sake not wanting to make a scene or ruin what was already a perfect night, Dhan got his breathing under control, keeping some stoicism to his face to not alarm anyone.

The tightness in his chest seemed to lessen but the throbbing in his head wasn't going anywhere.

"Pumpkin, why don't me and you freshen up in the girls' room and leave the boys here, yeah?" As if on cue, Susan took her daughter by the hand and headed straight for the bathroom.

"Dhan." Charles sighed, addressing him in a somber tone of their birth language. Entirely oblivious to what his brother suffering with. "I know we haven't always seen eye to eye but I'm really glad you could make it tonight."

He listened to his brother -- or at least tried to.

The words were being drowned out by a sudden ringing in his ears, leaving him momentarily stunned that it almost felt like the world around him was going to spin.

But he wasn't feeling nauseous from the alcohol or a sudden fever. It felt more like ... resentment.

It put a bitter taste in his mouth and made him clench his fist at the end of the table until his knuckles went white.

His brother hadn't done anything wrong and yet Dhan was being swallowed whole by the sensation, not knowing where to place it.

It's just ... if his brother wasn't the problem, then who?

"Oh look! Her Majesty, The Queen has finally arrived." A woman's voice cackled in the air.

She was an older looking caucasian woman with red curly hair and wine red lipstick, belonging to the group that booked a table for a total of nine and judging by what the already opened and nearly empty wine bottle, she must've had a bit too much to drink.

That's when he saw you approach the table.

It was you. It was really you.

His soulmate.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

"Don't worry son, your second wife will be on time." Azalia, your mother-in-law cackled, caressing the cheek of Kal, your husband.

His awkward shuffle of a smile made it crystal clear that whatever came out of her mouth tonight, he wasn't going to come to your defense anytime soon.

What can you expect from a man that holds his disrespectful mother over your marriage of three years?

What's worse is that Azalia had the nerve to invite the one woman she favored more.

Your husband's childhood friend, Jenna.

The same childhood friend that had become the topic of your marriage counseling session that your husband Kal had ditched midway through for this dinner party.

A session that you had to finish by yourself, making you the one who arrived late.

Jenna was a tall, light skinned woman with dark curly hair and a bright red dress with a V neck to show off a window of cleavage and a shortened skirt to show off her toned and slender legs.

And to add salt to fucking wound -- Azalia made sure Jenna sat next to your husband while you sat at the end of the table with your only friend and sister-in-law, Charlise.

"I'm sure you won't mind, y/n. You and Charlise probably wanna talk anyway."'

You looked at Kal, searching his gaze for something, any sign of him speaking up to his mother but to your utter disappointment he just let it happen.

You can only push down the intense feeling of resentment and agitation with a passive aggressive smile, taking your seat at the far end with Charlise.

This was going to be a long dinner to get through.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Apart from a brief exchange of words from your brother-in-law, Ray Hawthorne, and the couple sitting across from you, Charlise was the only saving grace at this table and frankly the only reason you kept it together as long as you did.

As much as you wanted to tear off that terrible red wig and burn it, you tuned out your mother-in-law whenever she made any more chide remarks about you.

Not much of a point in ignoring your husband, he was too focused on Jenna and giving Azalia one of the most expensive birthday gifts you had ever seen.

A silver and gold watch that you knew your unemployed husband didn't have the money for.

"Happy birthday mom, from me and y/n."

You scoffed in utter disbelief and stood up from your seat, grabbing your purse. "If you'll excuse me, I think I need some fresh air."

"Oh, well you take your time. We're doing fine here." Azalia insisted, smiling from ear to ear.

Kal was on the verge of getting out of his seat, expressing concern. "I can come with you babe--"

"No." You snapped coldly, barely sparing him a glance as you waved him off dismissively. "I'll be fine on my own, thank you."

Kal frowned, lowering himself back down with a defeated expression. "A-Alright, just don't stay out there too long."

You sighed into the night air, hands pressed against the metal railing while the people behind you carried on with their evening under the lit up patio roof. Glasses clanking, people laughing, wine pouring and plates clinking.

All of it was just background noise to drown out one particular thought that you couldn't run away from.

Maybe it's time to put this relationship on permanent leave.

It's not a pleasant thought. It never was. You and Kal had known each other for eight years and had been married for the last three of them. You've had your ups and downs like any other couple and got through it but this? This was too much. His mother was too much.

But that's probably what SHE wants. The sooner you're gone. The happier she'll be.

You only stuck it out this long because you genuinely loved Kal and Charlise was the anchor keeping you grounded.

As one of Chicago's most successful defense attorney's alongside your brother-in-law, you had everything and yet nothing at all with how your marriage was starting to fall apart, on top of shouldering the numerous bills since Kal lost his job as an anesthesiologist.

God, where did it all go wrong?

"Having a rough night?"

You were snapped out of your thoughts by the deep and smooth voice of a man walking up beside you. The cool night's breeze washing over you both.

He was a tall and handsome man of Korean decent. The darkness of his long hair making the crimson color of his eyes seem as though he were some beast straight out of a fairytale.

Alluring eyes that stared into you with a hint of sincerity and invitation.

You can barely hold in a chuckle, crossing one arm over the other to let your wedding ring glint in the moonlight. "That would be the understatement of tonight."

He sees this and can't hide the smirk on his face. "I don't blame you. In-laws can be infuriating like that sometimes. Especially mother-in-law's."

The restaurant wasn't exactly that big in terms of table arrangements so it makes sense one's antics would be overheard when they're standing around the biggest table in the room.

You chuckle again. The tightness in your chest starting to lighten but your smart enough to keep up you guard to shut down any potential flirting, even the harmless kind. "Can you expect anyone to act cordial on their birthday? I've been here all night without a single drink of my own and tolerating her has been exhausting."

You certainly weren't the type to open up like this to a stranger of all people but it felt good. Yes, you had your friend, Charlise, but there was something different about this man. Something oddly familiar.

"Because she's acting like a cunt towards you and only you and you feel that if you didn't step out when you did you would've tore her a new one right infront of her favorite son and the entire restaurant?" He guessed your exact feelings with a cheeky smile.

You exhale a baffled laugh.

It's like he knew exactly what you were feeling.

"Oh, so you're a mind reader now?"

He raises his right hand, jokingly. "Guilty as charged, your honor."

The both of you laugh.

"Dhan."

"Y/n."

Dhan smiled, staring longingly into your eyes. "A pleasure to meet you, y/n."

⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹ ⊹

Eventually, you were back inside the restaurant. Sitting comfortably beside Charlise and ignoring another passive aggressive comment from Azalia.

You had been gone for a solid eight, maybe ten minutes tops.

The dinner eventually ended and everyone was putting aside their plates and gathering up their coats and belongings while Ray generously secured the bill.

That's when the waiter approached with an expensive looking bottle of wine.

Ray dismissively waved his hand. "No need to send over anymore wine, sir. You can take that back, the dinner party is over."

The waiter shook his head. "I'm sorry sir this isn't for the table. I'm looking for a y/n, is there a y/n here?"

You raise your hand slightly to get the waiter's attention. "I'm y/n."

The waiter smiled at you, presenting the bottle. "Piccolo Sogno would like to formally gift you our most exclusive wine to enjoy right at home. On behalf of a generous courtesy from Mr. Tae-Oh, ma'am who wishes you a fine night. Thank you for you dining with us."

A bit stunned, you still accepted the bottle. That name alone already clued you in to who this was from.

Unaware of your husband's jealous gaze, you can't hide the smile on your lips as you read the note on the bottle.

A drink to wash away all your frustrations - Dhan.

[sunflowervoltwentyeight]

Hello! This is a fic rec of my all-time favorite fics. These fics have really stuck with me over the years, and I've read many of them multiple times. This is an ongoing fic rec, that I will continue to update. These fics are organized by word count from longest to shortest. You can view my other fic recs here. Enjoy!

Of Mates and Men by bananaheathen / @bananaheathen (630k)

In which, Louis and Harry meet as best men for their best friends' wedding... well... sort of.

Or, the one where Harry's just moved back from New York and Louis doesn't believe in romance.

Or, I guess... the one where Zayn and Liam are getting married.

Hiding Place by orphan_account (365k)

Louis never wanted a soulmate, didn’t really care for the whole Bonding thing at all, really. Enter Harry Styles, who’s wanted to be Bonded for as long as he could remember. With one fateful meeting in an X Factor bathroom, Louis gets a dagger on his arm and the realization that just because Harry is his soulmate doesn’t mean it’s mutual.

From the X Factor house to Madison Square Garden, from the Fountain Studios stage to stadiums across the world, Louis has to learn to love without losing himself completely, because someday his best friend will Bond to someone and replace Louis as the center of his universe. Meanwhile, Harry begins to think that maybe fate doesn’t actually know what it’s doing after all, because his other half has clearly been right in front of him the whole time. All he has to do now is convince Louis to give them a chance.

Or, the canon compliant Harry and Louis love story from the very beginning, where the only difference is that the love between them is literally written on their skin, and there’s only so much they can hide.

You Can Hear It In The Silence by imogenelee / @imogenleefic (234k)

When Harry Styles was accepted into a post-grad degree, he knew he could no longer afford his flat, leaving him with three options: 1) Move back into student halls. 2) Become homeless. 3) Move in with his best (and only) friend, Niall, and three of Niall's other mates. He went with the third option. But it was a close race. Shame one of his roommates reminded him why he only has one friend. If there is one thing Louis Tomlinson can't stand, it's pretentious tossers, having grown up around enough of them. If there is one thing he can't live without, it would be his friends. So he was proper thrilled to move in with his best mates and a couple of other lads. That was until he discovered one of them was the archetype for a pretentious tosser.

In the interest of seeing out the twelve-month lease without killing each other, they both try (debatable) to get along despite believing they are opposite in almost every conceivable way, each having the communication skills of a cucumber, and secrets that have no business be kept secret.

One More Time Again by orphan_account (232k)

Harry looks down to where Louis is cradling his hand between his own. Louis' hands are slender, the bones delicate, the nails bitten short. The 2-8 on the backs of his fingers is gone, but the faded scar from a skateboarding mishap in Year 7 is still there.

Harry's hand is awkward, knobby-boned and naked, no rings, no tattoos. It's too big for his wrist and his wrist too big for his arm. Yet it still somehow fits in Louis' in the painfully perfect way it always did.

He blinks back the sting in his eyes.

On the morning of his second sold-out performance at Madison Square Garden, Harry wakes up to find that he's sixteen years old, on The X Factor, and that he has a chance to make things right.

A canon-compliant fix-it fic (sort of).

Stranger Stars by shaylea (212k)

Five years ago, Africa offered a grieving Louis Tomlinson an escape from an England he couldn't tolerate. Now it's become home as he leads overland tours across the continent with his best friend and driver Zayn Malik. What's meant to be just another ordinary six-week trip from Cape Town to Nairobi turns into anything but, when future lawyer/current photographer and songwriter Harry Styles and his friends join Louis' latest set of passengers.

Given A Chance by fabby / @fabby1d (173k)

Five years after One Direction took their last tour, the last thing Louis Tomlinson ever expected to happen while on a tea run at the local Piggly Wiggly was to run into his ex-boyfriend and ex-bandmate Harry Styles.

The odds of them ever running into each other again had to be super slim, right?

Wrong.

What happens when you mix ex-boyfriends with a large serving of Small Town America? Will Louis and Harry be able to set aside their differences, or will Louis be able to stay breezy as fuck in the wake of Harry’s arrival?

(or, the one where Louis and Harry run into each other five years after One Direction ends and learn how to love each other again. Featuring: Reggie as the overweight labrador, Niall as Louis’ last grip on reality, and Nowheresville, North Carolina as the setting for Louis’ worst nightmare to come true.)

The Wonderlands by stylinsoncity /  @aliensingucci (150k)

"Somewhere between chaos and control — these are the wonderlands."

Harry's daughter, Andy, is signed to Louis' girl band. Her path to success is marked by competition, chaos, and for Harry, a love affair.

As You Are by Zarah5 (139k)

AU. Five years after The X Factor launched his career as a radio host and songwriter, Louis Tomlinson returns as a judge. Falling for a contestant is the last thing he needs. It's also against his contract.

The only reason Harry auditions for The X Factor is because his best mate signed the two of them up as some kind of joke. Harry doesn't get the big deal—not until he's faced with this season's judges and realises that one of them used to be his desperate, impossible teenage crush.

Unbelievers by isthatyoularry / @isthatyoularry (136k)

It’s Louis’ senior year, and he’s dead set on doing it right. However, along with his pair of cleats, a healthy dose of sarcasm and his ridiculous best friend, he’s also got a complicated family, a terrifyingly uncertain future, and a mortal enemy making his life just that much worse. Mortal enemies “with benefits” was not exactly the plan.

Or: The one where Louis and Harry definitely aren’t friends, and football is everything.

Empty Skies  by green_feelings / @greenfeelings (134k)

For three years, Harry has been running from his past. Now, he is moving to London and pledges to fulfil his only dream – making it big in the music industry. Not everyone has a place, though, and the competition is tough. As is his past catching up on him.Louis is part of the biggest boy band of the world, and getting there had meant a lot of hard work, as well as sacrificing parts of his heart and soul. He’s still happy. Maybe not as happy as he could be, but who is he to complain?

Let's Fall in Love in a Place You Want to Stay by embro (134k)

A George of the Jungle / Tarzan AU where Louis is a model who meets Wild Man Harry in the Congo. He was raised by apes and barely speaks a word of English and turns Louis' life upside down.

Love Is A Rebellious Bird by 100percentsassy, Gloria_Andrews / @gloriaandrews (134k)

AU in which the boys still make music. Louis is the concertmaster of the London Symphony Orchestra, Harry is the New! and Exciting! interim conductor/ex-cello prodigy who "has made Mozart cool again" according to Esquire Magazine (Louis hates him immediately, which is definitely why he internet stalked him in his dark bedroom late at night that one time), and Niall is the best. Zayn and Liam are around too.

Don't hum Bolero.

Wild Love bypurpledaisy / @harrydaisy (130k)

“Good,” Julia says, clearly pleased to have them both uncomfortable and unable to look at each other. “Now, I only have one more question before you can go. What are you planning to do when this experiment ruins your friendship?”

“We said we’d stay friends no matter what,” Harry says smoothly, his chin lifting in defense.

“That was our one thing going into it,” Louis agrees. “Stay friends no matter what.”

Julia raises a perfectly manicured brow, “That’s all fine and good. But I hope you realize your emotions aren’t going to realize this is an experiment in the end. If one of you falls for the other and finds out those feelings are not reciprocated, you’re not going to be able to laugh it off as a social experiment. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do this, I’m just hoping you’ve considered all of the possible outcomes.”

- AU: Two best friends try to date each other for forty days. It’s supposed to be fun until emotions make it complicated.

After All These Years byLifeInAColorWheel (127k)

It’s been seven years since One Direction went on hiatus and it’s been eight years since Louis and Harry broke up. They’ve been strangers to one another since then.

But, over the course of a weeklong boys’ trip, history between Harry and Louis resurfaces.

Or,

The one when Louis and Harry don’t talk, connect again years later, and reflect on why their love collapsed.

Wild and Unruly by 100percentsassy, Gloria_Andrews / @gloriaandrews (123k)

Harry is a cowboy sitting on the biggest oil reservoir in Wyoming, and Louis is the paralegal assigned to pressure him into selling his land.

I'll Fly Away by juliusschmidt / @juliusschmidt (122k)

Harry and Louis grew up together in Lake County, Harry with his mom and stepdad in a tiny cottage on Edward’s Lake and Louis in his family’s farmhouse a few minutes down the road. But after high school, Louis stuck around and Harry did not; Harry went to Chicago where he found a boyfriend and couple of college degrees. Six years later, Harry ends up back in Edwardsville for the summer and he and Louis fall into old patterns and discover new ones.

ft. One Direction, the local boyband; Horan’s Bar and Grill; families, most especially children and babies; Officer Liam Payne; many local festivals and fireworks displays; and Anne Cox, PFLAG President.

Bitter Tangerine by purpledaisy / @daisyharry (119k)

Maybe it’s Niall, he reasons to calm his storming heart. Maybe he’s not actually gone for the holidays yet, maybe Harry got the dates confused. Slowly, he holds his breath and pushes the kitchen door open. The first thing he sees make him jump, a wooden spoon held out like a sword. Once his brain processes the sight in front of him, it’s less the sword that gets him than who is attached to the wooden spoon.

“Harry,” the swordsmen speaks before Harry can, his voice low and steady though confusion laces each word.

Harry’s breath catches. Every string around his heart, all the protection he spent nine months building, rips out and tears open all at once as he says, “Hi Louis.”

-

AU: Nine months after they break up, a twist of fate brings Harry and Louis back together at Christmas.

Never Be by cherrystreet / @cherrystreet (117k)

Monica: You've got to see her again.Ross: And why do you care so much?Monica: Because! You could get to live out my fantasy!Ross: You had fantasies about Emily?Monica: No! Y’know, the fantasy! Meet someone from a strange land, fall madly in love, and spend the rest of your lives together.  

The one where Harry Styles moves to Connecticut from England for nine months as a part of a study abroad program, and he just so happens to move in with Louis Tomlinson and family.

Burn to Ash by bethaboo (116k)

Harry is sitting there, so fucking casual, and Louis realizes in a split second he was not ready. When Harry walked out in Detroit and never looked back, he was a boy verging on a man, still only twenty years old, but there's a man in his place now. Hard and resolute, yes, but still, for the first time in a long time, Louis can kind of see the old Harry in him. The soft, directness of his gaze, the hesitant smile he gives to Lou, the way he wrings his ridiculously large hands in his lap.

He's a little bit the eager sixteen year old puppy dog again, his innocence and sweetness resurrected miraculously, and Louis freezes in place. He was prepared to face the asshole Harry. He was prepared to meet a whole new Harry.

Louis is not prepared to meet one of the old incarnations of Harry, and it absolutely tears him up.

Or the fic where Harry spirals out of control, the band breaks up, and then he shows back up, five years later.

Mine Would Be You by crinkle-eyed-boo / @crinkle-eyed-boo (114k)

Louis blinks his eyes open, his eyelids fluttering as the room swims around him. He takes several gulps of beer once he confirms that he’s definitely not hallucinating, that the very first portrait Harry Styles ever painted of him is hanging on that wall.

Louis stares at the wall, his heart jackrabbiting in his chest as he realizes that there’s not just one painting of him, there’s five, the portraits lined up like they’re some sort of storyboard depicting the rise and fall of his deepest love. His greatest heartache. A pain that cut him so deep that he left the fucking country, severing all ties with his life in New York, now suddenly surrounding him as if he’d never left.

Fucking shit motherfucker fuck.

Louis returns to New York City five years after he left it – and the love of his life – behind. He didn’t intend to see Harry again, but fate has a funny way of pulling them together, whether they like it or not. After making a begrudging truce, they both start to wonder: Would it be so bad if history repeated itself?

Tired Tired Sea by mediawhore / @mediawhorefics (113k)

As a B&B owner on the most remote of all the British Isles, Louis Tomlinson is used to spending the coldest half of the year in complete isolation, with his dog and the sea as sole companions. Until, one day, a mysterious stranger on a quest to rebuild himself rents a room for the winter.

Babydoll Blues by devilinmybrain / @thedevilinmybrain (111k)

Louis is a high profile, filthy rich label executive who has the world at his feet - a music god.. Harry is the sugar baby trying to make a name for himself singing in shady bars and hanging off the arm of Louis' biggest rival. What Louis wants, Louis gets. But what if the game gets too hot and hits a little too close to the heart?

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by certainsadness (103k)

“There’s something so great about watching you interact with art,” Harry said quietly. “Like, when you were giving the tour, you were just so you, and so happy and excited and funny and engrossing. But then when you’re looking at the art, when it’s, like, just for you, you get so quiet and observant.” He pressed a kiss to Louis’s shoulder. “But you still seem so you, and so happy. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you as happy as you’ve been tonight.” He kissed his shoulder again. “As you are right now.” A shiver went up Louis’s back. “I’m happy when I’m with you,” he said.

Or, Louis loved art and Harry was a masterpiece.

Emperor's New Clothes by sunsetmog / @magicalrocketships (92K)

The fact that Louis’s most precious belonging was a cat with a face like thunder and an uncanny ability to cover every single inch of Louis’s clothing with cat hair was something that Louis chose not to think about too much.

or: Harry’s a pop star and Louis isn’t, and there’s a non-disclosure agreement where there used to be a relationship.

Behavioural Ecology by turtlekz / @turtlekz (81k)

Louis Tomlinson is a primatologist working with the Jane Goodall Institute for primate conservation; and Harry Styles is the photojournalist sent from National Geographic to write a piece promoting awareness about the endangered species. They meet, and love is never, ever simple, as we know.

Featuring Eli the chimpanzee, bickering humans, storytelling, and five men who come to gain an understanding of what it means to be human; all stationed in the Republic of the Congo.

Do Not Go Gentle by afirethatcannotdie / @afirethatcannotdie (70k)

“This is all a game to you, isn’t it? Well, it’s not for me. This is a real life or death situation,” Louis says, spitting the words at him. “And I just don’t think you’re cut out for it.”

For a moment, they stare at each other in complete silence. Harry can feel his blood thrumming between his ears, can see Louis glaring at him, feels red-hot anger. And then all he feels, oppressively and desperately, is lust.

Suddenly Louis is surging up to him to press his lips against Harry’s. Harry walks the two of them backwards, pressing Louis back against the door. Louis oomphs in surprise and brings his hands under Harry’s scrub top, scratching at his lower back.

“Lock — oh — lock the… fucking door,” Louis mutters.

When Harry Styles starts his first day as a surgical intern, he expects a lot of things: to treat patients, to observe a surgery, to feel a bit overwhelmed. What he definitely doesn't expect, however, is that the handsome guy he kicked out of his bed this morning is also an intern.

A Grey’s Anatomy AU where tensions are high, Harry and Louis are hooking up in secret, and no one has time for love. Or do they?

To the Ends of the Earth by stylinsoncity / @aliensingucci (68k)

During a yearlong hiatus, Louis visits Harry at his cabin in Idaho, where long-buried feelings ignite like the fire keeping them warm.

A Yuzu Grows in Brooklyn by stylinsoncity / @aliensingucci (66k)

Harry is a recent implant in new york and a young chef opening a restaurant called yuzu. louis, a music teacher and broadway lover, has been around the block for a while. in a city that's so fast-paced, they're slow to catch on to each other.

The Dark and the Dentist by sunshiner / @theprizeofcoolness (66k)

“I know this song,” Louis whispers, and Harry has to lean his ear toward him to pick up what he’s saying. “It was written for people to dance to it. We should be dancing.” We can’t, Harry almost spits, but it’d be stupid of him. Louis knows they can’t. Even if he looks like any regular Parisian in their twenties, and Harry looks like any hipster Parisian in their twenties, they can’t anyway. To be fair, they probably wouldn’t do it even if they were out. But if they were two uni students, both in Paris for an exchange, meeting over fallen books at the library, or because of mutual friends, or watching Monet’s Water Lilies? “How would we dance?” Harry murmurs, mouth almost pressed to Louis’ cheek, so close he can feel his warmth. What a picture they must make, two millionaires freezing in a park and dreaming of a different life.

An account of the events of November 2014. Canon-compliant.

Time Passed by coffinofachimera (66k)

Louis struggles with their relationship as Harry grows into his identity.

Outwit, Outplay, Outlast by dancesongsoul, lookatyourchoices (60k)

“Tommo and Harry are gonna do it. I don’t know when, but they’re gonna do it. They’ve got the mattress, the pillows, everything’s in place, and they’re gonna do it. I really wish those two the best of luck.” –Taylor Swift, "Chapera"

Or a Survivor All-Stars AU in which Harry and Louis are just in this game to win the million dollars, but they end up with something better.

Featuring Harry's yellow swim shorts, Louis in snapbacks, and OT5 shenanigans.

No One Does It Better by nodibs (49k)

Harry’s an alcoholic and Louis is a bartender. The first time they meet isn’t the first time they’ve met.

Sail Away With Me by star_henderson / @star-henderson (47k)

“It’s inhumane putting four blokes in one cabin.” Louis stripped off and climbed up into his top bunk. “And why did we get the smelliest twat on the whole ship and bore of the century?”

Harry shrugged. “We clearly pissed someone off along the way.”

Louis snorted softly. “Who do I have to bend over for to get us an upgrade?”

Harry barked out a laugh. “If only it were that simple.” He rolled his eyes wistfully at Louis.

“The only way I’m going to get a two berth is to throw Payno overboard and be next in line for the deputy cruise director's job.” Louis leaned up on one elbow to look over at Harry. “Would you help me weigh his body down so I don’t go to jail?”

“Only If I can share your cabin.” Harry shuffled about, tucking the duvet between his legs, sweeping his hair up into a bun and securing it in a band. “I’m not being an accessory to murder and then still having to share with them two, no fucking way.”

Or

Louis and Harry are part of the entertainment team on board a luxury cruise liner. They hate sharing their four berth cabin with two other guys and would do anything to get a cabin of their own. One drunken night the solution was simple. They'd just get married...

Be My Little Good Luck Charm by 100percentsassy (34k)

In which Harry is a promising amateur golfer making his debut at the PGA Championship, and Louis is a Sky Sports anchor who would really rather be commentating on footie.

The other boys are around too: caddy!Niall provides victory pints, Liam is Louis's Very Serious co-anchor, and poor Zayn just gets his face drawn on.

Have You Coming Back Again by whoknows (31k)

It’s five o’clock in the morning. Louis has a lecture at half eight. He could be using this time to study or to do his readings or to go to the gym, but - well. He doesn’t have any exams coming up, he’s not going to his seminar today anyway and he hates the gym.

Instead he’s using this time to fuck with Harry Styles’ poor little brain.

Louis jogs across the street and jabs the key into the car door. It opens easily, not that he was expecting anything else. He copied the key for a reason, after all.

He’s got Harry’s schedule memorized, more because the guy keeps following him around than anything, so he doesn’t bother looking around before climbing behind the wheel and setting his bag on the passenger seat. It’s a Monday, which means that Harry doesn’t even get out of bed before noon unless he’s planning on harassing Louis.

Loved By Your Mother by superglass / @gaymoustache (31k)

Harry stretches out like Venus with her lover, growing sleepy in the late afternoon light with a baby growing inside her. Perhaps not literally, not physically. Not exactly.

or

Harry struggles to come to terms with wanting to have children, and what that means for their relationship. Canon compliant, set a few years into the future

[blenselche]

Hello hello! I have come with another art request if it is ok (I don’t know if there’s a limit or smth???) and the request isssssssss

Finn and Fern’s first kiss! I’m curious how it would’ve gone for you/how you imagine it! (Have you done this before?? Idk T_T)

the only way that i could envision it happening in any canon compliant way is smth like this in a world where he didn't croak (maybe Finn doesn't chase him in 3 Buckets or Fern comes back to free him after accepting that he's just not Finn anymore and can't keep the act up, maybe he doesn't get knocked out in Whispers, maybe he moves out for good after Do No Harm-- pick your poison) cuz someone who worked on F&C obv had a thing for selfcest. I can't see it happening otherwise with where they took Fern's character. I'm suspicious that they found out about not getting renewed sometime before Whispers because of the 180 degree change in direction of Fern's character motivations.

Full image in case tumblr ate the quality.

[cherryslyce]

Second Son (VII) | Regulus Black

Series Synopsis: Forbidden from contacting Harry over the summer, you opt to explore the eerie halls of Grimmauld Place where you stumble upon a lonely portrait of the House's second son.

— Chapter Synopsis: The summer before your sixth year is another fruitful one spent at Grimmauld Place. Regulus and Y/N have an insightful conversation and grow closer than before.

Part VI / Part VIII / Series Masterlist

Pairing: Regulus Black x GN!Reader

Notes: Cheers to another summer break! The not canon compliant warning is starting to become more apparent. The slow burn is burning a bit.

The weeks following the confrontation at the Ministry left the Wizarding World at a standstill, the alleys and streets seeming to grey and titter in jumbled whispers and conspiracies. Minister Fudge could no longer make a public enemy out of Harry, having witnessed the return of Voldemort for himself. Unsurprisingly, Fudge resigned shortly after Dumbledore was reinstated. 

Despite the retreat of public scrutiny from his back, Harry fared no better than he had the summer before, conceivably managing far worse. You don’t remember much after Sirius’ attack, only that Luna quickly rushed to your side and grabbed Regulus’ portrait from your hands, hiding it in your jacket as Auror Tonks made her way over to your glass-eyed form. 

You could never thank Luna enough because you distinctly remember being unable to feel your limbs due to shock, and you’d rather not have to explain your portrait predicament. Tonks’ words barely registered, but you heard one thing loud and clear: Sirius was not dead. 

But he did not get better. 

Currently, he occupied a suite room at St. Mungo’s, his consciousness torn away as he remained in a frigid coma. After Harry had recovered from his clash with Bellatrix and Voldemort, he had nearly tackled you to the ground, realizing that your quick thinking to grab Sirius with your spell was the only reason he was still alive. 

Breaking the news to Regulus was difficult since you knew how much he loved his brother, despite the strained relationship they had. Regulus was devastated by the news and he seemed to pale further when you told him that it was Bellatrix that got him. Pureblood family issues were so complicated. 

After your brief conversation about Sirius’ status, neither of you had the energy to talk about Regulus’ disappearance, so you ended up pocketing away his portrait. 

Despite the relief you felt because Regulus was back with you, you couldn’t bring yourself to face him just yet. Your reluctance to face him again led you to leave him in your pocket for a few weeks without talking to him. 

However, you knew you’d have to face him eventually, and it was just the opportune time to do so. Harry and the Weasleys were going to spend the summer at the Burrow, but you pleaded with Dumbledore to allow you to return to Grimmauld Place under the guise that you would research ways to help Sirius. 

Bellatrix had hit him with a highly complex dark curse, one that was foreign to the healers at St. Mungo’s, meaning that it was likely a curse found in the Black library. 

Your excuse wasn’t a lie, but it was far from the whole truth. You also wanted to further explore your magical connection with Regulus and the disappearing room, still perplexed by the wisp of magic you felt last time. But it seemed that there was little use hiding that fact from Dumbledore, as he gave you a small, all-knowing smile before giving you permission, “The world seems to have strange ways of bringing people together. I do hope you find what you are seeking.” 

At first, your heart nearly gave out because you assumed that he had used legilimency on you, but your ring gave no indication of it, so you presumed it was just a Dumbledore thing. 

It seemed that Dumbledore and Luna were aware of Regulus’ existence to some degree, which was no surprise, one was a legendary wizard, the other an understated seer. Their knowledge only served to worry you though, as you weren’t confident that Voldemort was none the wiser to Regulus’ existence now. 

If Dumbledore knew with what limited time you spent around him, there was no doubt Voldemort was itching from suspicion. 

Vengeance was practically Voldemort’s middle name (even if Harry insists that it’s Marvolo). You still had no idea how Regulus had wronged Voldemort, but you weren’t sure if you wanted to find out for the sake of your own sanity. 

As the green flames engulfing your vision slowly dissipate, you carefully step out from the floo network and brush away the ash from your clothing. Spinning around, you faintly smile at the nostalgic environment. Grimmauld Place was far from a welcoming home, but it had a certain knack for bringing along pleasant surprises. 

Before you can set out to dive into research, a popping sound has you whirling your head downwards towards the noise. 

“Master Regulus’ friend is back” Kreacher’s voice is tuned with surprise, but he looks pleased to see that you’re alone, evidently still not as accustomed to your friends or the Order members. You were secretly quite flattered to have the elf’s approval–not that you’d ever admit it to anyone. 

Grinning down at the elf, you wave as he moves to grab your trunk, “Hi, Kreacher. I’ll be here awhile, I need to research a few things to help your Master.”

“Help Master?” Kreacher turns his eyes to you in apprehension.

Nodding solemnly, you release a small sigh before answering, “Yes, he’s been in an accident.”

At your words, Kreacher’s grip on your belongings loosen, turning to look at you with a face full of anguish, “What is wrong with Master Regulus?!” 

Sputtering a little from shock, you quickly placate the elf, still reeling at the fact that he was capable of that much worry, “No, no, Regulus is fine. I’m talking about Sirius, he was cursed by a dark spell and the healers don’t know how to fix it.” 

Kreacher’s tense form relaxes considerably and he grunts, turning back to his task of gathering your items, “So, Master Sirius still breathes? Pity.” 

Expecting a far more violent response at the news, you simply nod, allowing silence to blanket between the both of you. You briefly considered asking the elf if he was knowledgeable of Bellatrix’s ledger of favorite curses, but decided it would be your last resort. 

You weren’t sure if Kreacher would be of much help considering it involved Sirius. 

“Kreacher, I’ll be in the library. You can put my things in the guest room I stayed in last summer.” Your words are met with a slight nod and that’s all the sign you need before you’re bounding up the stairs and in the direction of the expansive library. 

Much of the content filling the shelves of the sealed library were enigmatic, but you hoped that you could kill two birds with one stone and find information for both of your goals. How lucky that both of your problems involved the Black brothers. 

As you trailed through the aisles of shelves, running your finger along the leather-bound books, you sighed as you realized you were putting off your chat with Regulus. At first, it was truly because you didn’t know how to breach the subject of his portrait traveling, but now it was also because you felt guilty for avoiding him for so long. 

Rip the bandaid off, stop stalling or he’ll really leave this time around. 

Reaching into your jacket, you carefully extricate the frame out of your pocket, bringing it to eye-level. Plastering on an unsure smile, you feel relief flush through your veins as Regulus greets you with his own soft smile. 

“Little bird, it’s been a while.” Regulus’ voice is smoother than you remember, and you find yourself shuffling around as your heart begins to pound uncomfortably. Bloody crush giving you heart palpitations. 

“Hi, Reg. It has been. I’m sorry for not talking to you sooner, I’ve just been thinking.” Even though your excuse was flimsy at best, Regulus shakes his head firmly, as if all was forgiven on your part. 

Warmth shines in his eyes as he alleviates your worries, “It’s not your fault, it is entirely mine for mindlessly leaving you alone that day without a word.” 

Shocked by his initiative to bring it up first, you can only nod mutely as he continues, “I’m sorry, Y/N. My reason for leaving…it was entirely childish, and these few weeks of not communicating with you allowed me to contemplate some more. I want to be honest with you, if you’re up to hear it.”

“Of course, and I want to be honest with you as well, Reg.” Your nod and soft smile seem to strike a chord in him, causing him to emit a low laugh of fondness. 

Tilting his head to the side, his eyes seemed to shine brightly at you, “You’re always honest with me, little bird. I think I owe it to you—to us, to be transparent this time around.” 

You have to make a conscious effort to stop his ‘to us’ from replaying over and over again in your head. 

Huffing in playful annoyance at his ability to endlessly fluster you, you decide to take a stab at his declaration, “Alright, if you’re sure, then…I guess we should start with the most obvious question, why did you leave that night?” 

Dragging his hand up to tuck a loose curl behind his ear, he gives a little pause before answering you, “I was scared.” Seeing your confused look, he continues, “I was scared because…your injury. When I saw it, I was furious–and not at you, but towards Umbridge. I was terrified because I care for you… so much, but there’s nothing I can do to help you in those kinds of situations.” 

He cares. It was so different hearing it verbalized by him. 

The stress weighing on you seems to melt away, the furrow between your brows letting up as you lightly come to your own conclusion, “So you left because you were angry.” 

He shakes his head lightly, “It was not just anger, but also fear. Frankly, I feel a sense of devotion to you and I was frightened by it. I left because I thought that it would be logical to languish my connection to you, but I realized how foolish my thoughts were. I am stuck with you, just as you are stuck with me.” 

His words were genuine, but you could tell he was dancing around a deeper meaning. Still, you were glad for his honesty. It was a step forward in your relationship. 

You feel yourself getting choked up by his announcement, but before you can even muck up a response, he continues, “I was anxious that day, before I even took notice of your wound. Before you casted that muffliato, I had heard the blast and thought that you were being attacked. But I waited to hear your voice, maybe a reassurance that it was all okay. When everything became muffled, I was worried that you were hiding everything from me because something was happening to you.” 

“Oh.” Well, when he put it like that, it’s no wonder he was so furious that day. 

He nods at your realization, finishing his explanation quietly, “You are so kind, little bird. Even in that moment where you could have been in danger, you still put your consideration for me first. It’s scary to think, but I know…I know that I would do the same if the roles were reversed.” 

“You know that I care for you deeply as well, Reg. We’re in this together.” It comes out slightly watery, but your words are firm and the vulnerable glint in your eye eased Regulus’ tension. 

Reinvigorated by Regulus’ words, you decide to bring up the topic that had been troubling you for a while, “I was honestly unsettled by my attachment to you as well. I’m unsure of what to make of it, some days it feels unreal. I just don’t understand it all because logically, you’re a portrait, but deep down, I know that there is so much more to you. You’re not like any ordinary  portrait I’ve stumbled upon.”

Nodding as if expecting the topic to be brought up, he straightens up and clears his throat, “I suspected you felt this way, and honestly, I’m not entirely sure why I’m so different. I know there might be a few possibilities as to why, but I feel as though I am missing a part of the answer, myself. When I left you that night, I was able to spy on a few portraits in the castle. Of course, I couldn’t reveal myself since they would have recognized me, but, from what I observed, most portraits are not as…dynamic as me. Even the most complex ones at Hogwarts seem to be entirely derivative.”

Not quite expecting Regulus’ loss for answers as well, you can only seem to reach one conclusion, “So the answer to all of this…it happened shortly before your death then?” 

“Yes, it’s highly likely. After all there was a two week gap of radio silence between the last visit from my living-self and his untimely death.” Regulus’ confirmation has you suppressing a groan. It seemed like you wouldn’t be getting a clear answer so easily, but perhaps Regulus left clues on the research he was doing before his death around the library. 

Humming as you feel a headache coming on, you decide to let the topic drop there, “It’s okay, we don’t need all the answers right now. But I’m glad we had this conversation, and I hope that in the future we can continue to be honest with each other.” 

Regulus smiles at you, “Of course, little bird. But I’m curious, any news on my brother or about the Dark Lord?” 

A small frown tugs at your lip as you’re brought down to reality, “No changes in Sirius’ condition, but I’m hoping that maybe we can find some clues here. Unfortunately, Voldemort is making his move in bold ways, he’s truly an incisive foe. He murdered Amelia Bones last week, it was all over the press, even the muggles covered it.” 

Taking notice of how your voice catches at the end, he returns your frown, “I didn’t know you were fond of Madam Bones.”

“I was quite partial to her morals, and she was an accomplished witch, to boot. Plus, I know her niece. She has no guardian now. Voldemort murdered her parents during the war.” Shaking your head at the turn of events, you can’t help but feel a sense of unease at Madam Bones’ death. 

Voldemort was moving rather quickly. There was no telling what his next move was going to be. This wasn’t the first time he was able to strike down a famously powerful wizard or witch, even in his revived state, he was just as remarkable of a wizard. He was slowly removing the pillars that held up the Light side’s confidence, at this rate, Dumbledore was going to be the only one left to look to. 

No use in overwhelming yourself, take it one day at a time. 

Lowering Regulus’ portrait slightly, you begin to peruse through the book titles on the shelves, trying to find anything synonymous for “dark curses and hexes”. You were hoping that the search for the curse would be quick, but unfortunately, it seemed that the entire library was just pooling to the brim with parchments about the Dark Arts. 

“Hey, Reg. Do you have any idea where Bellatrix might have learned such a troubling curse? Any area of the library I should focus on?” Your words were meant as more of a joke, but Regulus’ contemplative expression has you stopping in your tracks to focus your attention back on the boy. 

Rubbing his chin, he seems to map out some ideas in his head, “During our last conversation, the day Sirius was cursed, you said his muscles seemed to constrict before he went limp and then he dropped into a coma?” 

You nod in confirmation at the pointed assessment, wondering just how useful the symptoms could be at narrowing down the possibilities.

Why couldn’t Bellatrix have used another curse of milder lethality with far more ridiculous effects? Coma, really? Why not puking up tarantulas or something? While it would make for a ghastly sight, it would be ridiculous enough to make the hex more apparent. 

After a few more moments, Regulus seems to have a lead of some kind, “I don’t have an exact answer, but it does remind me of a time when I was younger and Bellatrix would talk in circles about experimenting with soul magic. She wanted to impress the Dark Lord, so it’s no doubt something of that caliber.” 

“Soul magic?” You punctuate the words in disbelief, realizing that the circumstances might be far more dire than anyone could have fathomed. 

Realizing that you had no idea where to even begin, you decided to enlist some help, “Kreacher!” You weren’t exactly sure if it was necessary to yell, but the action soothed some of the stress you were suddenly feeling. 

A pop echoes around the library and Kreacher stands before you in mild irritation, “Kreacher has been called?” 

Placing a hand on your hip, you try to seem authoritative with your command, “Yes, Kreacher I need your help. Could you gather up all the books on the property that concern soul magic or soul hexes?” 

The elf’s eyes seem to light up at your words, clearly thinking that you were taking interest in the Dark Arts. The prospect wasn’t exactly improbable, but you were much too reluctant to choose soul hexes as an introduction. 

“As you wish. Kreacher will begin right away.” After giving you a razor-sharp grin, he’s gone in the blink of an eye and you hear a distant pop ring from deeper in the library. Hopefully, Kreacher could be trusted to keep your little research topic a secret, you would not fancy having to explain to your friends why you were researching such a dark subject amidst Voldemort’s return. 

As you begin to make your way out of the room, you bring Regulus’ portrait back up to your face, “Reg, there’s something interesting I discovered the night you left. I was wandering around the castle-” looking for you “-and I spent the night in the Room of Requirements. Except it wasn’t exactly the Room of Requirements.” 

Regulus looks both intrigued and full of reproof at your words, compelled to hear about your adventures, but displeased by your decision to break the rules and risk being punished further. 

Brushing aside his concerns, you continue, “Well, while I was wandering around, I was thinking about you and where you might be, and the room that ended up appearing was the disappearing room that your portrait was originally in.” 

Finding yourself in the kitchen, you carefully prop Regulus up against an empty fruit bowl before rounding the table to raid the cabinets. To your utter dismay, all the cabinets are empty, save for one filled with numerous knives. Groaning at the lack of food, you decide to plop back down in front of Regulus, cradling your empty stomach pitifully. 

Shooting you an amused eyebrow raise, Regulus seems to consider your findings as you continue to mope, “That is fascinating. If it was truly the same room, then it must be as a result of something my human counterpart did whilst he was still alive. When I was first painted, the room already existed–that much I know. Although he was the only one who ever came into the room, I thought very little of it at the time.” 

“It seems that all the answers about the strange magic surrounding you and the disappearing room vanished with him. How frustrating.” Your groan is cut off with a loud grumble from your stomach, causing you to slap a hand to your middle bashfully. 

Entertained at your embarrassment from the strident noise, Regulus chuckles before putting you out of your misery, “Kreacher will be awhile with the books. It’s fine, go out and grab some food, we can talk after you’re done.”

Nodding glumly at his suggestion, you quickly pocket his portrait and feel around for your pouch of galleons. Once you’re ready to head out, you grab a handful of floo powder and ready yourself for human interaction. 

Merlin, you were so looking forward to being a recluse the entire break.

The feeling of becoming a hermit only grew as the rest of the summer dragged along. Kreacher managed to snag a little over a dozen books about soul hexes and magic for your research, keeping you occupied indoors for a majority of the break. 

You only managed to stay sane because Regulus kept you company, and for that, you could never repay him enough. 

The last few days of July flickered by and soon you were preparing yourself to enter the familiar floo network to make your way to the Burrow. It was finally Harry’s 16th birthday, and you intended for it to be a happy one, needing some semblance of normality as war shifted on the horizon. 

“Little bird.” Regulus’ voice pierces through your concentration as you finish taping the last fold of wrapping on Harry’s gift. 

“Hm?” Your distracted hum has him rolling his eyes playfully. 

Tilting his head, he finally speaks up once your eyes meet his, “You do know that there’s a spell to do the wrapping for you?” 

“What? And miss all the fun?” Your teasing words have him looking unimpressed, “Besides, it has more meaning to do it by hand, Reg. You can see all the little imperfections, for example, this little uneven crease on the bottom.” As you show him the bulky wrapping, he can barely disguise his look of amusement.

Shaking his head, he crosses his arms as a pensive look crosses over his expression, “We should try something before you head out.” 

Tying a silk ribbon around the wrapped gift, you peer up at him in interest, “Sure, what’s on your mind?” 

“I think we should try out those charms you found a while back.” His words surprise you since you figured he still held reservations about the risks of the Mens est Oculus charm.   

Sitting up straighter and reaching for your wand, you can’t help but voice your confusion, “Not that I’m opposed to it, but why now?” 

“It would put me at ease to be able to talk to you, just in case.” His words are touching and you’re much too pleased to dismiss his concerns. On the one hand, you were only going to the burrow, on the other, you were aware of how risky it was to be out and about since death eaters were slowly strengthening their forces. 

Giving him an understanding nod, you furrow your brows in concentration before casting the charms. Luckily, you had much time to imprint the movements and incantations in your head so it only took a little pause to cast. 

Quirking your lips in uncertainty, you slowly bring your wand down, unsure if the charms were put into place. 

‘Reggie? Can you hear me?’

‘Impressive work, little bird. Not that I doubted you.’

Gasping loudly at his voice, you reel back in your seat to gape at a pleased looking Regulus, “Woah!” 

Laughing at your shock, Regulus opts to merely respond through your newfound mind link, ‘Woah indeed. Now, it’s about time for you to head out, no?’

As you tucked Regulus’ portrait away underneath your pillow and headed down to the floo network, you couldn’t help the victorious laugh that escaped you. 

It seemed that every summer was more eventful than the last, and you were hopeful that you could spend many more summers in the future with the boy who was slowly winning over your heart. 

Reaching out into your mind link one last time, you send Regulus a fleeting farewell. 

‘Stay safe, little bird.’

And then green flames were filling your vision. 

tag list: @krazyk99 @venomsvl @valsarchives @bunny24sstuff @novella12nite @elia-the-bibliophile @txoru @surelysherly @xlifexdeathx @trikigirl271 @urgurlfave @the-marauders-world @sleepydang @blueberry-thrawn @lestat-whore @chanaaaannel @clockworkherondale

[alienaiver]

Rugged

Aizawa Shouta x GN!reader

warnings: quirk-induced amnesia, canon minor character death (major in my heart tho), spoilers for... season 5 and forth? to be safe wordcount: 4.9k content: confessions, first kiss, fluff, sfw, no use of y/n, pro hero reader but quirk is unspecified, canon compliant, genderneutral reader, poc!friendly reader, body positive reader, hurt/comfort in like the mildest sense, soft love, amnesia situation, friends to lovers, childhood friends to lovers, started as a meme turned into something serious, something about cats, unbeta'd, flashbacks to high school days

notes: this is so embarassing to admit but i only came up with this story bcos of that tiktok/insta reel (link is a tiktok as thats where i could find the source material) about having a type that's 'rugged'. it was supposed to just turn into a little joke on that and... uh, ykno suddenly i was almost 5k deep into a childhood friends to lovers, ..ya my brain had a VISION alrighty!!!!! please enjoy a one-eyed kitty, one-eyed aizawa and interrupted confessions!

Aizawa’s leaning forward on the desk, meticulously writing down an exact copy of your notes from English Literature that he missed yesterday due to being in the infirmary… again. He’s always known that becoming a Pro Hero with a non-physical quirk would be tough, but he didn’t imagine landing himself in a hospital bed as often as he does. He’s bulking up nicely, but he feels beaten black and blue every other day and it’s… exhausting.

Rewarding, but exhausting nonetheless. He’s momentarily disturbed as a chair is being dragged across the floor, screeching away before haphazardly thrown next to the desk, wrong side facing it, and Yamada throwing himself onto it, arms leaning on the backrest. He says your name in a sing-song voice – your given name, has he no shame? - and steals a peek of you from over the rim of his glasses. You rest your head in your palm and smile at him, “what’s up?” you ask, and he hums as if he’s thinking deeply about something. Aizawa’s got a bad feeling about whatever subject he’s about to bring up; ever since he appointed himself Aizawa’s wing man, the pestering’s both been non-stop and non-discreet.

Aizawa keeps his face buried in the notes, purposefully removing himself from the conversation.

“What’s your type?” Yamada asks and Aizawa has to hold back a facepalm. You simply giggle and play with the zipper from your pencil case before you answer, “hmm, I’m not sure. But with all due respect, I know it’s not you,” you tease him and he straightens his back in mock-surprise, the conversation’s one you’ve had before. He takes a hand to his chest, “what? Not me? Well you’re not my type either!” the shriek in which he yells is a little too loud, his quirk still a little too unmanageable when he gets excited – he winces as the rest of the class turn their heads. You simply laugh and bite your lower lip. Aizawa steals a look at you through his bangs, admiring the glimmer in your eyes.

“Yeah, I’m sorry ‘Zashi, I truly am, but… you’re just not… rugged enough.”

“What? I’m so rugged. I can be rugged!”

“Look at you, you’re not rugged,” you laugh as you gesture vaguely to… all of him. He takes offense as he puffs up his chest, “how am I not rugged? Because I’m not wearing a flannel in 80 degree weather?”

You hide your face in your hand as you try to contain your laughter, “yeah, sure, whatever… but look at you now. You fly off the handle like that, you’re too angry.”

“That’s a very rugged thing to do!”

“No, it’s really not.”

Aizawa has been saddled with the two of you for almost two semesters now, and he’s still not entirely used to the way you joke around. In the beginning he was always worried about you fighting and not getting along and he’d stare at you both with wide eyes like a startled cat and hope you’d settle down soon. You always did, laughing like the greatest joke was just told.

You lean forward on the table to bark out a laughter deep from your stomach, momentarily blocking the view of your notes that Aizawa’s copying. He lets out a soundless grunt at you being so close and pulls away in surprise when he accidentally smell your shampoo. He wants to lean forward again, to commit the scent to memory, but you’re already straightened back up, wiping an imaginary tear from your eye, “you don’t even want me, Hizashi, why is this always so important to you?”

This makes Aizawa freeze, terrified that Yamada will accidentally tell his secret to you. But Yamada simply crosses his arms, puffs up his cheeks and nods, “you’re right, I don’t. But I want you to want me. I’m the entire package.”

You laugh and shake your head, letting your arm fall onto the desk in defeat. “Sure then, ‘Zashi. I want you. Badly. More than anything. Please go out with me.” your face is as flat as Aizawa’s can be, and Yamada smiles proudly, “no thank you.”

Aizawa’s startled out of grading papers when his personal phone starts ringing next to him on the desk, the screen much too bright for the darkened room he’s situated in. It’s an unknown caller, which makes him hesitant at first but since it’s well past office hours, he knows it won’t be a salesman of any sort.

He bites his lower lip before he picks up.

“Aizawa speaking.”

“Ah, good evening. I apologize for contacting you at this hour, however, you are written down as the emergency contact for…” he apologetically butchers the pronunciation of your name, but gets your hero name correctly, “this is Aizawa Shouta, right?” the person on the other end confirms, and Aizawa nods before he verbally comes up with an answer.

“Well, it’s just that…” he explains your situation precariously, advising Aizawa to just come down to the station if he’s able, since someone will need to escort you home. He makes sure to remind Aizawa that you have two more emergency contacts on file in case he’s not available, but after getting the location, he’s already up from the chair before he’s hung up with the poor officer dealing with you.

From the call he knows you’re neither mortally wounded or in any kind of distress. You were on patrol when you encountered two villains. One of them turned out to have an amnesia quirk, and now you were stuck at the precinct, not entirely sure where your apartment is located. The officer informed Aizawa that you seemed calm and collected but that the last date you remember was well over 10 years ago even if you haven’t age-regressed in any way.

When he arrives, the officer leads him to one of the offices, profusely apologizing and thanking him at the same time. He’ll never really get used to the way newly appointed officers act around Pro Heroes.

Even if all facts and rationale tells Aizawa that you’re fine, he still grips the door handle way too tight, throwing open the door and evidently scaring the shit out of you, sprawled out on the couch with an ice bag on your knee. You spew out some profanities as you sit up. Aizawa immediately calms down as he sees you alive and well. He thanks the officer and agrees with the officer to sit down and talk with you before taking you home. He bows before he closes the door and looks back at you.

“I already gave a statement – was anything missing?” you ask, resting your hands neatly on your thighs. Aizawa shakes his head, “I came to pick you up – they informed you about which of the emergency contacts to call, right?”

Realization seems to travel across your features as Aizawa masks the sting he feels. Instinctively you reach out, but ultimately pull your hands back, “Aizawa?”

For a split second he lets his emotion show on his face – the way you say his last name instead of his given name, but he’s quick to hide it again. He nods and sits down on one of the chairs on the other side of the coffee table, “I was informed that your memory’s been wiped.”

You nod and look at the floor, “yeah. They took in the villains and interrogated them. It seems it’ll wear off in five to seven hours, but until then I’m stuck with my first work study as my most recent memory. I don’t feel like high school me, though, it’s just like there’s an empty gap in my timeline and not an age-related kind of thing. I can’t remember what has happened since then, but cognitively speaking, I’m still myself.”

Aizawa breathes in sharply, “well, that’s a relief. I have enough students to take care of,” he dryly jokes and the way your eyes widen make him self-conscious. He shouldn’t have made the joke he thinks as he shrinks in on himself.

“You’re a teacher?”

The way you ask betrays your emotions all too clearly and Aizawa holds back a snort. If the last of his personality you remember is high school, he gets why you struggle with the image of him taking care of the budding youth.

“A homeroom teacher, actually.”

Whatever preconceptions you had initially seems to dissipate and you smile proudly, “that’s amazing.”

You haven’t commented on his appearance; besides the moment where you didn’t recognize him, you don’t seem all too taken aback by his lack of eye and prosthetic leg. He’s relieved.

“You ready to go?” he asks, patting his lap with his palms before bracing himself to get up. You get up too and stretch your arms over your head, waiting for that satisfying pop, but it never comes. Annoyed, you let your arms falls and Aizawa smiles at you.

He leads you out of the room and as you put on the jacket he came with, he thanks the officers for their work with some polite back and forth and a bow.

The trip back is quiet as you seem to just take in your surroundings. You stop by your Agency to grab your personal items and civilian clothes that you left behind before your patrol. Luckily the offices are mostly cleared out, so you don’t have to ‘meet’ everyone and Aizawa gets out of explaining everything to everyone.

“Do you want me to escort you to your place? Or do you want to come to mine?”

The question is straight-forward and innocent; you sleep over so often that Aizawa’s spare futon has simply been dubbed your futon, but you seem taken aback, eyes wide and mouth agape. For a moment Aizawa’s blind to the confusion before he remembers.

“Sorry, you sleep over at my place a lot since it’s close to your work. I thought you might also like to see Benben.”

Your eyes that had seemed so tired ever since he arrived, lights up in recollection and excitement, “Benben’s alive and well?” you ask, absentmindedly leaning into Aizawa’s space in your joy. He struggles not to lean back reflectively.

“Yeah, she’s living with me now. She’s becoming old, though. But you’re still her favorite human, so she’d be happy to see you too.”

You giggle into your palm, clearly trying to picture Benben. She was a stray that you and Aizawa started to feed your leftover lunches to back during your first year at U.A. She was also one of the reasons you even started bonding with the stoic classmate. When you talk about the name Benben, a very bad nickname based off of bento, you always laugh and tease Aizawa about his cat-naming skills. While he defends himself in front of Yamada – the man with a habit of getting out his childish side – he never once argues against you on that subject.

Next to Aizawa, you clear your throat right as he’s about to unlock his front door. He’s been polite enough to not comment on the level of staring you’ve done ever since he picked you up, but it seems to be getting too much for yourself. He smiles at you gently, like he’s communicating with a lost child, and the smile makes you act before you can think too long about the action. Aizawa’s breath hitches and whole body freezes when your cold fingertips reach the skin of his cheeks. Your eyes look at him like they’re searching for something, and shortly after your palms make contact, your thumbs start traveling around his face, from his eyebrows to the slope of his nose and then a finger is being traced over the scar under his right eye. He can see all the questions fly through your head, the way you hold back from tracing the eye patch but stare at it like it’s not supposed to be there. He’s about to clear his throat when a thumb starts tracing his chapped lips before continuing down to his jawline, tickling his 5 o’clock shadow. As he tries to smile patiently at you, you mumble something under your breath that makes Aizawa’s heart stop for just a moment too long before racing at the same speeds as Yamada’s car when he’s late.

“It really is you… you’re just so…” you pause for a moment to swallow thickly and lick your lips, “…rugged.”

Not until you’ve had your (in Aizawa’s terms) grabby little fingers on every part of his face and given his heart an aneurysm with your words, does realization hit you. You seem to shrink and pull away to bow half-way a few times at him. Aizawa grumbles out a weak complaint about personal space and jingle the keys again to find the right one. No matter how advanced his work place is in terms of security and technology, he finds it unbelievable how many different types of keys he is expected carry for the school grounds alone. Logically, he’s aware that he’s fumbling due to your innocent advances but his brain’s not exactly acting calm and rational, so he furrows his brows and as he puts in the correct key, takes in a deep, calming breath.

When he motions for you to enter the apartment, he can’t help but observe you as you curiously peek around while you enter. You don’t toe off your shoes or step up from the genkan until the door behind him is locked and he gestures to the left pair of slippers in front of you. You let out a breath as you mumble, “sorry for intruding…” as if this isn’t your home away from home.

As Aizawa toes off his own shoes, he takes notice of your searching eyes. He jerks his head towards the living room, “she’s probably sleeping on the couch. She can’t hear very well anymore, so she doesn’t greet by the door.”

There’s a clear sort of heartbreak in your eyes that Aizawa recognizes, before you nod and walk in the direction of the living room. While your memory might be gone for the moment, it seems there’s muscle memory still intact as you purposefully step over the loose floorboard he always warns guests about. He smiles at that. Benben seems to spot you from her pillow on the couch because no sooner than you enter the room, he starts hearing the hoarse bleating of the senior kitty in there. She must’ve stayed up when Aizawa suddenly left, since it’s out of routine. She’s never been able to meow properly, which enchanted you since she first bleated at you for a bite of your convenience store-bought onigiri back when the two of you met her for the first time.

He hears you coo at her and can only imagine you both before he turns the other corner for his office to shut down the computer for the night. He quickly rejoins you and finds you with Benben on your lap, purring and headbutting your hands to her heart’s contents. When his eye travel higher to meet yours, he’s taken aback momentarily at the strained smile and wet eyes.

“She looks so loved.” you try to explain, and Aizawa can’t hold back the blush from the compliment. She does look loved now, a little on the fuller side (not by a lot, as her physical health is very important to Aizawa), her coat is shiny despite the coarseness that age brings, and she no longer has that stubborn eye infection it took Aizawa several years to treat out of her; she’s missing an eye now as a result, but she’s healthy.

You look around his living room, smiling and heaving in breaths at all the external proofs for her love; she has a pet staircase to both the windowsill, couch and the dining chair next to his; there are three different cat towers and several cat shelves for her to perch on although they’ve rarely been used for several years now. Aizawa can’t bear to take them down – what if she wants to go on one last adventure to the shelf highway he built for her close to the ceiling? It obviously wouldn’t be safe for her to do so, but robbing her of the options feels cruel to his heart.

When you pet her behind her ear and Aizawa situates himself on the floor pillow, you giggle, “you match.”

You’re referring to the missing eyes and while Aizawa takes no offense from the comment, he can’t help but snort at the straightforward observation. It’s very like you.

“How did you lose it?”

You don’t remove your eyes from Benben as you ask and from the shaky lilt to your voice, he knows you’re afraid of the answer. He’s afraid of telling you, too.

So much bad has happened during those years – you were there during his low points after, and asking that question is like removing the experiences you’ve shared. The grief you’ve suffered.

But he knows you want to know. Before he can answer, you continue, “can you tell me everything? About you… Oboro and Hizashi, too. I was informed it was only you, Hizashi and my mom on my emergency contact list. I know it’s not supposed to be miles long but… yeah…” you trail off and Aizawa’s grateful that you’re not looking at him. He’s not sure he’s able to control his face right now; and the emotion he’s showing wouldn’t be remotely close to soothing for you.

“Uh,” he jerks and clears his throat several times to stall, “when did you say your memory would be back?” he asks instead even if he’s aware of the answer.

You look up and hum thoughtfully, “they said five to seven hours around … two hours ago? So…” you count on your fingers and despite everything, Aizawa huffs out a soundless laugh, “three to five hours? Give or take.”

He inhales sharply. He can’t drive you off for that long, even if he used going to bed as an excuse. You’d just toss and turn in fear of what you’d come to remember.

So he tells you. He retells every painful memory with clear objectivity, pausing to let you process each one, seeing the light slowly dissipate in your eyes for every terrible incident. When he reaches present day, he inhales slowly and holds his breath for a moment to control his own emotions.

You’ve stopped petting Benben who’s sound asleep on your lap now, your hands hanging like lifeless limbs by your side. Aizawa then clears his throat, “you were scouted. In third year. ‘Zashi opened a radio station shortly after graduation. Oboro’s mom still invites us for hotpot for his birthday every year despite the mismatch in dish and weather,” you both laugh at that one – of course she insists on his favorite dish on such an important day. An image of the four of you huddled around, sweating over a pot of delicious food has you throwing your head back in sincere laughter, “you have a prodigy; you inspired me to take a pupil on as well, and he’s graduating this spring… I, uh… I use eye drops now.”

The last tidbit of information makes you turn your head so fast you almost get whiplash. Then, your expression turns stern, “didn’t I tell you! Didn’t I tell you to be careful!” you reprimand and he almost rolls his eye at you. Almost.

You shake your head at him and focus back on Benben, a little more color on you again as the mood has successfully shifted. He’s unsure if you’re pretending to be fine for his sake or if he actually succeeded in making you feel better, but he can’t stifle the yawn that comes out of him as soon as he feels relief.

You look up apologetically, “oh my God I’m so sorry, I’ve kept you up haven’t I? Please, you can just go to bed, I’ll be okay!”

Aizawa wants to argue but he also can’t fight the creaky ache he feels in his bones. He went straight from a night shift to school, napped in the teacher’s lounge and then home to grade papers. He’s dead-tired.

He gets up to carry his futon into the living room and set yours up in his bedroom. Usually, you sleep in the same, bare room as him and Benben, but he feels it might be too much for you without your memories, even if you sleep on separate futons with space in between. You make a joke about the futons but then, in a soft voice admit, “I think it’s nice you sleep on something accessible for Benben…” there’s a warm tone to your voice that makes him blush heavily before he pushes you out of his living room.

“I’ll sleep out here, you take the bedroom.”

You meekly argue about taking his bedroom, but he shuts you down in the same way he’s always done, and urges you to carry Benben in with you. You agree to have the door ajar in case Benben wants to walk around, and you bow your head when you bid him goodnight. Aizawa lets the light in the hallway stay on.

////

You wake up with a hitched breath and sweat on your brow, unsure when you managed to fall asleep. Disoriented, you take in Aizawa’s bedroom; you were supposed to sleep home tonight after your shift though, not to mention that Aizawa’s futon isn’t laid out next to yours. It takes you a moment to gather your bearings until it all comes back to you. You’d lost your memory.

You’d lost yourself. You hug your arms around you as the feeling of being lost still sits heavy in your body and makes you shiver. Seeing Aizawa was terrifying; you’d no idea of the obvious horrors he’d had to endure. You didn’t remember your best friend’s death.

For a moment you control your breathing, making yourself calm down as best as you’re able. It makes sense why Aizawa decided to sleep in the living room, if the last memory of him was a pimple-y teenager and not the gruff man he is today. You close your eyes and think back to right before you entered the apartment.

You roll onto your stomach and hide your face in your hands, letting out a drawn-out flustered groan. Without thinking, you kick your legs on the bedding to alleviate the embarrassment that’s coursing through you at your own actions. You’d just went all up in his face! The sensation of his stubble underneath your fingertips, his warm breath and his chapped but so, so kissable lips.

No!

You groan again, drowning in your one-sided misery of a crush. Your honed Pro Hero senses are completely dulled by your pining, so when Aizawa suddenly throws open the door and asks if you are alright, you screech as you lift your head from the pillow, “Shouta!”

“Shit, sorry, I heard you moving around so I thought you might have a nightmare,” he hurries to explain, secretly relieved to hear you say his given name again. He frowns when he can’t see your face with your back turned to him. Still frozen, you barely breathe before he continues, “...you are alright, right?”

Making a grimace and with no interest in facing him right now, you choke out “mhmyepdefinitelyeverythingsperfect!” in one single breath before you’re forced to inhale deeply. You hear Aizawa’s metallic foot as he walks towards your futon and hear the rustling of his clothes as he bends down in a squat next to you, “you don’t sound perfectly fine to me, though. Do you have a fever? Is it an aftershock from getting your memories back?”

Being the perfectly rational man that he is, he oversteps any boundaries to quickly check your temperature with his palm. Embarrassment can come after he’s made sure you’re okay.

You push his hand away weakly, still looking pointedly at the wall in front of you, letting out a strained laugh, “heehee, I’m just… you’re right, it must be an aftershock, right? Nothing else!”

He lets you swat his hand away without much resistance but stays where he is, letting the silence hang over you both for a minute. Suddenly, he croaks out all hoarse and desperate, “Just tell me if there’s anything, please.”

Your shoulders fall at the voice. Aizawa’s the opposite of having a heart on a sleeve, but you’ve been with him through enough tragedies to know he must be scared shitless right now. Whenever you or Yamada is even remotely bruised, he fusses over you in his own, annoyed way, until he finds you sufficiently healed. You sigh before you let your head fall back onto your pillow, a short moment to gather your thoughts and feelings before having to face him.

It must’ve been a lot for him, when you asked him to recount the years you’d momentarily lost. It would’ve been better to let it be, but he knew you so well and knew you wouldn’t let it go. Curiosity kills the cat, right?

With heavy and slow movement, you turn around so that you’re facing him, hoping your expression won’t betray your real emotions. You sigh and reach out for his hand. It’s shaking but as soon as your warm fingers make contact, he flinches before he relaxes.

Then, he grunts like he’s annoyed and chastises you for worrying him. You giggle, “I’m sorry, you’re tired, right?” you ask, knowing his schedule this week is packed. He usually leaves little wiggle room for emergencies, however many he encounters.

Before he can reply, you pull at his hand and he topples over, half on the futon and half on the floor, on his knees. You laugh and pull him even closer to you, hoping your beating heart isn’t as loud as it feels.

You and Aizawa have cuddled before; loneliness and grief has made you carve out comfort in each other, but nothing else have ever been spoken aloud. No kissing, no romantic notions to trace back to. Having a one-sided crush since high school feels deafening right now, when all the years travel back to you after what only amounts to a moment without them.

You want to tell him how you feel; losing your memories made you realize how much you’d like for him to comfort you with kisses if anything should ever happen; how you’d like for him to hold you without holding back.

He grumbles where his head is rested in your neck after he’s settled, but he makes no effort to move. You nuzzle into the mane of hair and breathe in his scent; it’s a lavender-scented shampoo that Yamada insists on buying for him. He never accepts it without complaining, but he also never showers without using it. There’s a spare in your bathroom, at the Agency’s bathroom and at his teacher’s dorm at U.A.

“Y’know, I was really surprised for a moment that you became a teacher.”

He makes no movement, but you know he’s listening.

“But as soon as I thought about it, it made perfect sense. You care so much it sometimes hurts to watch…”

You feel his fist tighten around your bedding, but he stays otherwise quiet still.

“You hurt watching me, too, right? How we both have a habit of bending over backwards for what we perceive is right.”

You start dragging your hands through his hair, letting out a sigh.

“I like that we know each other so well. I like how after so many years, you’re still right here in my arms…”

You pause as his upper arm snakes around you, a sharp exhale against your neck.

“You’ve never dated anyone. At least, not anyone you’d tell me about, so I have no idea where this will lead me to but,”

You take a moment to gather your nerves. There’s really no backing down now. Even if you regret it, your words have already given your feelings away; there’s nothing you can take back.

There’s nothing you want to take back.

You’re about to continue your confession when Aizawa pushes against your neck, his warm lips, soft despite the dryness, presses against your pulse point. You can hear your heartbeat so loud in your ear that the rustling of the sheets from Benben is indistinguishable to you, the only sensation you’re able to take in being Aizawa’s lips as they briefly pull away from your neck, only to push back higher up, closer to your jaw.

You whine and pout, but it’s shaky and without much force. You want to protest, scold him for interrupting you but suddenly he lifts his head to face you, and you’re faced with wide eyes and blown pupils. He steals a glance at your lips before he licks his own, pink tongue peeking out. You feel like a cornered prey, one that’s about to be devoured by a beast. When he hovers mere millimeters above your lips he pauses as if to ask for permission and the sigh you let out makes him know that everything’s okay. That everything he’s ever wanted, wished for, dreamed of, is real.

That losing your memory for a second made you desperate to make more meaningful ones.

And you kiss.

While curiosity did kill the cat, satisfaction definitely brought it back.

[orbitular]

I just fought for my life for a real genuine hour and a half to craft up my personal timeline for Night Swan/Cygnus/Jack

It has many flaws and assumptions so I will list them all below the cut if you'd be so kind to read:

1. Assumes time passes at the same speed in Danceverses that it does on Earth (unlikely)

2. Assumes Night Swan was the one to have Jack OR she took him from someone when he was literally 0-1 years old

3. Just Dance exists on Earth in 1997 . because I said so (again compliant with time passage being the same on Earth)

4. I was fighting for my life to rationalise why Cygnus would have a city named after him when he was 25 years old . so he's just a very enthusiastic architecture student okay

5. I was ALSO fighting to make Night Swan a reasonable age at the start of story mode so she entered the Danceverses at 29 and had Jack at 33 so he would be canon age (early 20s) and she would be in her mid 50s (a little older than I would have liked)

6. I couldn't have her enter the Danceverses any YOUNGER or Cygnus wouldn't have built the city yet because he'd literally be a young adult still doing his damn degree (and she needs to be there for Darkest Hour) . I could have made the age gap between them less but alas I Did Not Want To

7. Why do I call her Leda the whole time I Don't Know . I just like her name a lot and didn't want to write Night Swan or NS

There's probably more flaws but I shan't point them out and will simply let you do it for me ♥️ thank you for reading

[drunkenlionwrites]

I want your take on uncanny vash with some relationship/affection headcanons too please!

Damn, that's a popular request! 💖

Okay, so I’m not on twitter, so I totally missed the beginning of this trend, but I’ve seen some snippets here on tumblr and I absolutely love this thing as a total monster lover at heart. Though interpretations vary from something more Lovecraftian to even something from 5 nights at Freddy’s or your standard local creepypasta. My take is more or less canon-compliant, cause Trimax already gave us soooo much food that we can explore deeper. What can be ever uncannier than a walking talking man-made creature, who’s also a sentient matter generator as well as extremely empathetic being with heightened senses who also possesses telepathic abilities to some degree.

There’s always been something slightly…off with Vash. Something you couldn’t pinpoint exactly. Something about his body proportions. His lanky limbs and his overly controlled movements. The way his body could go from rigid and collected when you’ve been in danger to mellow and seemingly boneless when he’s been partying with townsfolk.

The way his teeth have been slightly sharper than an average human being. The way his skin was seemingly poreless and smooth, always milky-white no matter how much time he’s spent under the scorching suns.

A few times you for sure saw his eyes glowing in the dark. You did, right? Just the way the cat’s eyes would look when reflecting light.

His eating habits, when you’ve noticed them, also left you dumbfounded. You could swear that he could go on days and days without eating a crumb, later defensively claiming he ate when you hadn’t seen or that you’ve just forgotten and anyway why is it such a big deal to you? When you hit the town, he immediately was lost in diners, or saloons, or cafes eating humongous portions of food that you were sure would make you puke all your guts out, but made Vash only smile at you contentedly.

The smell of him, that was always of hotel’s cheep soap, or dust and sand, gunpowder, and cold night breeze, but never of sweat or any kind of natural body odor you can imagine a man clad in leather clothes should smell after a few days of travel without bathing.

 The texture of his hair, coarse and springy and thick, and always so so clean, but smoother and silkier where his black strands began. ‘Good genetics’ he claimed.

You’ve also never expected him to have such deep and profound displays of emotions: rage, grief, hurt. They always felt so raw and palpable in the air. It seemed like it was too hard and thick to breathe, making you unable to move and think clearly. When you carefully asked Wolfwood about it later he claimed he felt the same as you.

His pained screams were nothing but animalistic, otherworldly too…you couldn’t forget the sound even if you could. It was something between a malfunctioning screeching machine or the wail of a distressed animal.

When you gained the knowledge about him being an independent plant, receiving awkward profound apologies from Vash for lying to you and dismissing your concerns to him, it all made so much more sense and made you feel strangely more at ease with all his oddities, your brain still unconsciously catching things that were off with Vash.

Nothing you’ve seen before could compare to the moment you saw him communicating with his sisters, all kinds of feathers growing out of his body, while he’s been leaning his forehead to the glass.

The way some otherworldly flesh parts have been manifesting out of him at times have been chillingly terrifying and incomprehensible for you. Seeing the way he demolished the moon with his power didn’t register with you for some time until Wolfwood repeated it enough times for you to make sense of it.

Relationship/affection uncanny valley stuff:

It has been pretty normal with the perfectly sweet and affectionate Vash, except the slight buzzing sound that reminded you of the sound of refrigerator emitting from him during sleep or when he’s been completely relaxed. You’ve been surprised once again but decided to not bring it up to Vash to not make him feel self-conscious and uneasy again.

Once after an especially stressful day you’ve awakened being encaged in some sort of a cage surrounding you and connecting back to Vash, fleshy, soft to the touch but weirdly sturdy, covered in all sorts of feathers and small wings and weird small body parts, resembling humans. You almost screamed, but Vash woke up first from your rustling the sheets and moving next to him. With a surprised yelp from him, the fleshy structure started quickly decomposing and falling off you, disintegrating before hitting the bed. Well, that’s some protective plant boyfriend for you.

[thevioletcaptain]

the ashes by imogenbynight

1.2k | mature | deancas

a 13.01 coda with dean scattering cas' ashes. technically this is canon compliant but i feel like i need to trigger warn for like… cannibalism? not really but. man. idk.

Dean sits with the ashes when they get back to the bunker. Sits with them and stares and goes a little insane with it, until he can’t stop imagining himself cracking open the lid and reaching his fingers inside.

Would Cas be soft? Chalky, velvety, like the white-charred remnants of driftwood after a bonfire? Would he be rough as his voice; as the sand his pyre had been built upon?

With a belly full of fire and whisky and desperate unease, he stares and stares as his thoughts spiral. As he thinks about pressing his damp index finger into the ash and raising it to his mouth. Swallowing it down and letting Cas become a part of him.

He could keep Cas forever that way; absorbed into his being.

Fuck, he can’t stop thinking about it.

Years ago, they worked a case where a young couple had been so frantic with love, intensified to the trillionth degree by the cruel touch of famine, that they'd eaten one another alive. Torn into each other's flesh with teeth as they clung together, ecstatic and bloody. Dean remembers feeling as confused as he was revolted by what had seemed to him a far-too-literal leap from desire to hunger.

Now, though, he kind of understands it.

Because it wasn't hunger, exactly, that lead to such a violent conclusion. It was need, followed through to its inevitable end. And he gets it now. Gets wanting to take the one you love into yourself and keep them there always. To hold them so wholly that they become a part of you, so you can never be parted again.

Of course, that's the thing that stops him, in the end. Not what should have stopped him--not the sick, visceral horror of what ultimately equates to eating his best friend's remains, no matter how he spins it--but the fact that tying Cas to himself in such an irreversible way feels like a betrayal. A punishment to Cas' spirit, however much of it still exists. He can't do that. Can't force whatever part of Cas' grace or soul might linger in the ash to endure however many years Dean has left as a part of him. Can't tether Cas so selfishly in death when Cas had never seemed to want to stay with him in life.

Cas might have been the love of Dean's miserable fucking life, but he's not under any illusions that the feeling ran both ways.

He learned early that it wasn't even possible--learned before he'd even fully slipped into loving Cas himself. Learned before he ever could have known how important it would be to him. Anna had told him, point blank, and he'd seen the difference in her. Human, feeling; angel, cold. And sure, Cas has come a long way -- had come along way by the end. He feels. Dean knows he feels, and feels for him, in particular. But his capacity for it is limited, and it's never been clearer than in his ability to leave Dean behind at a moment's notice. He's detached. Was detached.

So he can't force Cas to be a part of him. Would never forgive himself.

When he had eventually started falling, he'd hoped the knowledge that nothing could ever come of it would help keep him from toppling headfirst into something deeper than a fleeting infatuation. He hadn't been so lucky.

And now here he is, staring down a can labeled Cafe Bustelo Medium Roast and thinking the kind of thoughts that make his stomach turn in endlessly cycling fits of longing and revulsion, all because he fell in love.

It's half past five in the morning when he decides he can't keep the ashes in the bunker. Can't have the sick temptation. Less because he thinks he's actually going to do it, and more because he knows he won't be able to stop thinking about it whenever he sees the tin. So he scoops up the tin, and creeps down to the garage to the Impala, and drives west on US-36. 

Keeps driving until the rising sun starts turning the sky in his rearview a pale shade of pink, and he sees a few lonely lightning bugs blinking in and out of view on an quiet roadside near Phillipsburg.

He's pulled over before he's consciously decided to do so.

It's a pretty spot, is his first thought. Tall grass and scattered wildflowers spanning the open meadow which slopes down to a stream. A rusted old windmill stands vigil over the scene, slowly spinning in the gentle breeze.

Cas would like it here, is his second thought. Would gaze up at the windmill and make some observation about the ingenuity of human invention, and crouch down to watch the fireflies as they gently sink back into the grass at the arrival of the sun. 

The image is so clear in Dean's mind that he forgets, just for a second, that Cas is gone. Or-- he doesn't forget, exactly. He just isn't thinking about it so directly. Is so focused on the visual of Cas in the tall grass beside him, on the memory of his voice and the way his long fingers would look dipping between blade of grass that when he looks back down at his hands, at the coffee can he's holding with white-knuckled grip, the reminder of why he's here is harsh enough to leave him winded.

"I woulda brought you here," he says once he's caught his breath, like Cas can hear him, but it's a lie. They rarely had downtime, and whenever they did Cas almost always took off. Dean was lucky to get him to stick around long enough to watch a movie, most of the time. But he'd have wanted to bring him here. That much is true. He would have wanted to.

"I hope--" he starts, then stops, drawing his lip between his teeth and looking first to the sky, then to the ground, then just closing his eyes. Taking several deep breaths. "Man... Cas. Cas, I hope you're--"

Okay. Safe. Alright. Fuck, but all the words he has equate to alive, and with me, and whole, and underneath them all an unwavering current of coming home soon. Anything else feels like another lie. His throat clicks on a swallow.

"I hope you're happy," he says finally, and pries the can open. Stares down at the small cloud of ash that rises with it. "I'm gonna miss you for fucking ever, but wherever you are... I really hope you're happy."

With the windmill at his back, and the field of flowers spread out before him, he lets Cas' ashes run through his fingers as he gives him over to the earth, and he doesn't notice the texture at all. He's too busy thinking about how Cas' hand felt in his the last time he'd helped him to stand. How heavy he'd been, then. How light he is now.

It's not until he's preparing to return to his car, wrung out and cracked open and raw as an exposed nerve, that he notices the thin cut on his ring finger. He must have nicked it on the coffee can, or the fence, or the dry grass, and it doesn't hurt, but-- his blood is swelling from it in a bright red drop, and his hands are dusty with ash. His heart lurches at the sight of Cas' ash and his own blood mingling.

He raises his finger to his mouth.

Cas is holy on his tongue.

[also on ao3]

[loliwrites]

III. Bravery | Edelweiss

pairing: joel miller x f!reader  rating: explicit, 18+, minors dni  warnings/tags: jackson era!joel, sharpshooter!reader, enemies to lovers [ish], age difference [joel is mid 50s, reader is early to mid 30s], joel lives forever fight me, switching povs, canon compliant violence, no infected but terrible humans present, one use of bitch [readers inner monologue], mention of death, stabbing, and blood, attempted SA [reader gets revenge], female rage, SMUT, protected p in v sex, clear and abundant consent, fingering, oral [f receiving], praise kink [attagirl, good girl], aftercare, stress baking, female reader, no physical description, protective!joel, joel’s really just a big softie, no use of y/n. word count: 7.4k series masterlist  a/n: gosh there is not much i love more than uninhibited female rage. and the praise kink will always make an appearance because i’m just an ex-honors student at heart

⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾

“I know you’re Mr. Shoot First Talk Second, but try to control that trigger finger if we run into any of them. That boy whose brain you painted along the stairwell the day you found me? He wasn’t a bad guy,”

Joel flicked his eyes at you, and from your periphery, you could tell he was starting to fume. You knew how to push his buttons and knew that it’d rile him up even more that instead of looking at him when accusing him of such a thing, you were petting your horse’s mane.

“Nah, he wasn’t a bad guy, he was just fucking you for sport,” a sense of accomplishment rose in him when his comment resulted in you flashing a look of disbelief his way. “F’we run into any of ‘em, they’ll be lucky if I paint a wall with their brain.” His eyebrows furrowed and he adjusted himself in his saddle, “give ‘em a belly shot and let ‘em go all slow and painful,”

“There he is,” you smiled. “Mr. Sunshine,”

“Eyes open. We’re here,”

You pulled your rifle out of the scabbard attached to your saddle, a little more clumsy than usual with the thick gloves Maria had given you for the weekend. Winter had fully come down upon Jackson and you were thankful to be there rather than with your old group. How you ever survived the last handful of winters without a real, sturdy winter coat, you didn’t know. Regardless, with the butt of your rifle propped against your thigh, you inspected the right ninety degrees knowing that Joel was scouring the left ninety degrees. Together, both of you had a pretty wide range of sight to catch the upper hand of anything or anyone that might be lurking around.

Thankfully – gratefully – this had become routine. Joel hadn’t exactly sung your praises to Tommy after your first patrol together. According to Tommy, Joel had talked you up as much as someone like him could. She’s good, Tommy. Better than everyone. Not me ‘n you, but everyone else. Now nearly a month into your patrols with Joel, a lot had been talked about in the effort of opening up to each other. 

He tried to stay away from your more recent past with the other group and instead asked about your family. About how it went when the outbreak began and your family of four defended a large ranch property. The grin he hid when you told him you were the son your father never had. That you’d helped him patch holes in the barbed wire fence, or replace rotted wood beams. And when the bad weather came in, you spent most nights in the barn cupola – on high ground with a 360 degree view – with a blanket wrapped around your shoulders and your eye spotting through your rifle’s scope. In turn you asked about his life and kept it vague. You figured he’d tell you the parts he wanted to tell you. You also figured there was a lot of pain in his past. He’d opened up as much as he was willing to for someone still so new. He talked a lot about what it was like when he and Ellie first arrived in Jackson; and a little bit about the time he spent in the Boston QZ. But everything before Boston, and the in-between Boston and Jackson went undisclosed. You didn’t need him to verbalize it to know it wasn’t good. The scars on his hands and face told you that. And the way he handled his gun told you that it wasn’t everyday someone gave him a new scar.

And you’d started to see deeper shades of the care and concern Joel held for the ones he was fond of. Even if Ellie wouldn’t acknowledge him, he always made sure there was a meal ready in the house for her. Sometimes going as far as to leave the food outside the shed door for her. You only saw these things because ever since the incident at your house about a month ago when he’d realized you’d gone without a full meal for almost a week, he took to calling you around for dinner at least once a week. Of course it was never phrased as “will you have dinner with me,” as much as it was, “come by for dinner tonight. Don’t need you passin’ out on me on patrol.” He even encouraged you to see the doctor in Jackson. Jus’ to take a look. And beamed when the doctor gave you a clean bill of health. More than once since that night in the dining hall, he brushed away any guy that made himself a little too comfortable in your atmosphere. If they were flirting, getting too close, or just flat out laying any type of hand on you, Joel seemed to materialize out of nowhere to warn them to back off. Another woman might’ve found the whole thing off-putting. That Joel was out to lay claim to something that wasn’t his. But all you knew was that he was keeping men away that just seemed to like that there was new blood in town. A new face to ogle at. And with the pressure of what that could mean, if Joel Miller wanted to be your own personal guard dog, well… that was alright with you.

Normally you and Joel patrolled the areas that were high risk for a presence of infected. Mostly runners. A couple stalkers. Even less clickers. Though Joel warned that he and Tommy had come up against a couple bloaters before. You hadn’t ever come across one in all the years since the outbreak, but you’d heard more than enough horror stories to know you never wanted to come across one. And if you had to, hopefully Joel or Tommy would be by your side. 

Today you and Joel were going south. In a debrief of all the patrol teams, while you and Joel were northeast hunting runners, the southern teams were finding traces of human activity. Everyone knew what that meant, and once they figured it out, all eyes turned to you. Had you led them closer? Apparently two months wasn’t long enough to earn the trust of everyone in Jackson. They had long memories. 

Tommy all but interrogated you in his living room with Maria and Joel the night before. Asked for any intel and insight that might help. But what could you know? You’d spent the last month only outside the gates with Joel, and the month prior to that holed up in the greenhouse. You told them as much. And even so, you knew you were close when you and Joel rode through the old abandoned town, long forgotten. The remains of what used to be strip malls all bumped up to each other. The wind blew through the tall grass that had erupted from the pavement, sending a whistling through the air. Not ideal if you were hoping to hear someone sneaking up on you. But you could feel it. Electricity in the air. You should’ve paid a little more attention to it.

You and Joel dismounted your horses at the same time, fully cautious and aware of everything around you. No words were going to be spoken for a little while. It was a dance that was well on its way to being perfected. But a new location – one not generally covered on the usual patrol routes, meant there were more variables to deal with. And one neither of you was prepared for the way an old flag of some raider group hung from one of the stores’ doorframes. It whipped in the wind, sending a sharp crack reverberating through your ears each time it snapped against the pavement. Worse than that, it made it impossible to see through the doorway, and mixed with the sun shining a glare through the old dusty windows, there was no clear line of sight in. 

Like moths to a flame, you and Joel were drawn to it first. Guns poised, ready to act without hesitation. You weren’t sure if Joel felt it, but it was like every cell in your body knew this wasn’t going to go well. There wasn’t even time to see it coming. They had seen you but you weren’t given an even playing field. And your only regret was that Joel went in first.

You heard it before you saw it. A whoosh flying through the air followed by Joel letting out the most pained grunt you could imagine his body could summon. Then a thud on the floor. You figured the thud was Joel, but you, caught up in that old flag, trying to fling it around the barrel of your gun, left defenseless without your eyes. Just as soon as you untangled yourself and gathered enough visual information to understand what had happened, your gun was being ripped out of your hands and thrown to the other side of the shop.

And the first thing you thought was, you better fight, bitch.

Hands flailing, cursing yourself for that terrible nail biting habit. Some long fingernails would’ve done some good right now. Edward. Just as bad as James but with the benefit of youth on his side to be a real pain in the ass. He got you by your hair and gave it a yank that had you seeing streaks of white in pain. You stumbled backwards over a heap on the ground (Joel), who you just barely had the chance to get a look at – all in shock and sucking wind. You weren’t sure where he’d been hit but he was gasping for air.

You swung and kicked and did your best to fight despite Edward being significantly bigger than you. He was taunting you. Saying things like he knew he’d run into you again. Get his chance with you. And you wanted to scream for help, for anything, but the only person who would do anything for you was currently face down on the floor. You wondered where someone else was. Surely Edward wouldn’t have been out here alone. As soon as that other person showed up, you and Joel would be sufficiently fucked.

But the thing that pissed you off the most was the way he spoke about Joel. The way he mocked him – attacking his masculinity because surely Joel couldn’t give it to you the way he could. So you swung harder, each time hoping it would prove that Joel was more of a man because he didn’t give it to you the way Edward, and James, and George, had. Luckily one of those swings landed on his jaw and it was your chance to get away. To bolt for your gun. If you thought he’d been ferocious before, it was nothing compared to how he was after you’d punched him.

He ran after you and you were nothing for his big strides. Caught up to you in no time and tackled you to the ground. That was when you really started screaming. The absolute loudest and most feral you could muster. No. Stop. Joel. It all came from your lungs and none of it mattered. Edward straddled you and bore his weight down, pinning you in place, leaving you in the fruitless effort to beat against his chest. And though it didn’t account for much, you didn’t stop. You pressed your hands to the bottom of his chin and pushed his head backward but it was like a game of cat and mouse and the cat was getting even more riled up by the mouse putting up a fight. Edward reached for your pants and it was the straw that broke you. You knew these men. You knew their patterns. And you could use that against them.

Case and point – Edward may have had you at a complete disadvantage but you knew they generally always had a knife in their pocket. It was the reason you’d kept one in yours. And, not feeling the outline of it pressed to your thigh despite his body being flush to yours, you knew it had to be in one of his back pockets. The fact that you’d found it on the first side you checked was complete luck, but you’d take it.

Pulled that switchblade from his back pocket, flicked it open, and plunged it deep into his side. Over. And over. And over again. In a sound mind, it would’ve been enough the moment he slid off of you and to the ground. But you were not of sound mind right now. The furthest thing from it. So when his body was no longer on yours, you climbed up over his body and with both hands clutching the handle of the knife, continued to wreak havoc on him. Pure and unadulterated rage.

Had it not been for what came next, you were sure you would’ve spent all afternoon there, carving away at his body. Likely until his partner came around to see what he was up to. But you stopped yourself. Tossed the blade to the side. Because Joel had gotten himself up on his hands and knees and was crawling toward you, and that was all it took to get your brain to snap back to reality. 

You scrambled to him, hands cupped around his cheeks but didn’t touch just yet; trying to find where he was hurt. Eyes scanned, and couldn’t pinpoint any particular injuries except for some blood at his nostril. “Y’alright,”

Joel nodded, still taking deep breaths to try and fill his lungs fully. “Clocked me in the stomach,” he set a hand over his heart. “Knocked the wind outta me, then got me in the chest,” he was speaking, but his eyes were searching you. “Did he hurt you?”

“We gotta get outta here, he wasn’t out alone,” you got up and ran to pick up your rifle, making a quick line back to Joel. With your hand hooked around his elbow, you helped him back to his feet and led him hobbling out of the shop.

⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾

Joel croaked and held the left side of his ribs the entire way back to Jackson, though when you both got through the gates and Tommy ran to intercept you, he somehow straightened himself up and acted as though nothing was wrong. Maybe that was something he’d picked up in childhood. Putting on a brave face in front of baby brother.

Tommy herded you into the barn, urging – no, forcing – Joel to lift his shirt. To check if anything was looking out of sorts. And in typical Joel fashion, he swatted his brother’s hands away, insisting he was fine. Tommy eventually won out. There was a part of you that figured Joel resisted because of you. How silly, right? For you to insert yourself in such a way as if that man even gave a real rat’s ass about you. But you really did figure he didn’t want you to see him ailing. At least not more than you already had. So you ducked away with your horses in tow, ready to be untacked. Passing by on the way to their stalls, you caught sight of Ellie. She, no doubt, had come along to visit Dina, but at the ruckus of Tommy yelling at Joel to lift his damn shirt, Ellie peeked out from the stall she was in to get a glimpse. Concern filled her eyes, and the urge to ask her why she was upset with him was near all-encompassing. But you also knew it wasn’t your place.

⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾

You’re not sure how it happened. The ‘almost killing you to being inside you’ pipeline was way too quick. German Autobahn quick. No speed limit. Pedal to the metal. Whiplash. 

At least Joel put a condom on first. Actually, most of what Joel did was a first for you. Somewhere between walking him home and ordering him to ice his ribs, and him asking you to come inside for a beer, you had ended up here – in Joel’s bedroom with him hovering over you. His hands pressed to the mattress at either side of your head. He hadn’t asked if he could kiss you, though in the hesitation that had oozed from him, you’d been the one to kiss him first. Quick and haphazard; everywhere and simultaneously nowhere for too long. He had cupped your face in his hands and held you still, letting a more gentle kiss to take place. Not that much kissing of any sort had happened in your life previously. George, James, and the rest of those guys hadn’t ever bothered with such a formality. Bit of a blessing, you supposed.

But he did ask if you wanted to go up to his bedroom. That was a first.

And he asked if it was okay if he helped you out of your shirt. And then your bra. That was a first.

Then bare to him and the world, he asked if he could touch your chest. And kiss it. That was a first.

When his hands began to wander down your side, leaving goosebumps on your skin, he asked if he could take off your pants. And that was a first.

Despite all these firsts, and your consent for him to do these things, you figured that by the time your pants were off, he’d do much of the same as all the other men had done. Get in, get out. Chase their pleasure. And leave you in the aftermath to do… whatever. 

He tugged your denim jeans off your legs and tossed them to the floor, but instead of ripping off your underwear and pushing himself into you, he leaned back down over your body and kissed your lips. A bit rougher than he had previously, but you knew he was still fully conscious… calculating. It was as if you could hear the gears turning in his head. And a noise… it came from him no doubt but it was unlike any noise you’d ever heard a man make before. It was soft. And yearning.

When he gathered himself, the questions continued. Can I take off your underwear? Can I touch you? Make you feel good? A pounding in your head began. Nerves? Fear? You could only nod an affirmative, but Joel asked again, as if insisting to hear your voice and it wasn’t lost on either of you that it shook.

“M’not gonna hurt you,” Joel whispered and dropped his head lower until he was able to press his lips to the side of your neck. You’d never been kissed on the neck before. And perhaps even more frightening than what was to come, it scared you how much you liked the feeling of his lips pressed to you. “I wanna make you feel good,”

“Why?” You choked out. Now the pounding in your head was paired with a dryness in your throat. You could feel his lips stretch into a smile against your skin.

But then he lifted his head – removed the feeling you loved so much – and gave you one more quick kiss before his fingertips dipped lower. “Because it’s fun for me if you’re having fun,”

You swallowed and bit into your bottom lip when Joel’s fingers brushed over your slit. Eyes widened but you tried to mitigate it by quickly closing them. It seemed so strange to have so much experience with something so much more than this, and yet feel so inept with this. His fingers circled around your entrance, rimmed the hole for just a moment before he slid them up and found your clit. Your legs flinched together and you peeked past your eyelids to see if Joel had noticed.

The shit-eating grin on his face told you he had. “Bullseye,” he drew his eyes away from yours and rested more of his body weight on you. His muscular thighs kept your legs spread apart, but the only thing keeping him from laying himself on you fully was his arm snaked between your bodies. He raised his free hand and brought it up to the top of your head. His fingers at your clit only circled it a few more slow times before he slid them back down to your entrance. A wider smile appeared on his face and you only caught a moment of it because he pressed his lips back to your neck, just below your ear. “You this wet just for me?”

You didn’t know it yet but you were about to become well acquainted with Joel’s dirty talk.

“Make a man feel like a fuckin’ casanova gettin’ this wet over nothing,” he added pressure to your hole, not yet pressing his fingertip inside you. But you still turned your head to the side, knocking your cheek into his. And it drew him back, until he lifted himself and looked down into your eyes again.

“It’s not nothing. No one’s touched me nicely before,” heat rose in your cheeks and neck.

He nodded, “and you’re gonna let me touch you nicely right now?” He smirked when you nodded, but his eyebrows raised and he asked, “yes?”

“Yes,”

His fingers sunk into you at an agonizingly slow pace. And his eyes never left yours. They were ever searching for validation but there was no way he could know that your brain was already a million miles away from your body. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t even feel uncomfortable. If you had actually let yourself feel it, you imagined it’d feel pretty good. But brain and body were diverging for self-preservation. Of the only thing you’ve ever known. You looked down and saw the tendons and muscles in Joel’s forearm flexing, and when you glanced back up into his eyes, you wondered how this would end. Whether or not you bruised the ego of the assholes you’d previously found yourself with was of little concern to you. They hadn’t cared to make sure you were having a good time, so you never tried to fake it with them that you had. But Joel wasn’t like that. He was trying. And if the growing warmth in your belly was any indication, you thought he could get you to finish if you let him. If you let him.

“You’re so tight,” he mumbled, bowing his head. Long, graying curls bounced against his forehead and the nape of his neck. “Bet you’ll feel amazing wrapped ‘round my cock,”

A whimper floated past your lips and it was the first of that sound you’d ever made.

Joel seemed to catch it too. “Yeah? Y’like the idea of takin’ my cock here,” he curled his finger inside you, pressing up against your front wall. “Tell me you want it,”

“Joel,”

“Tell me,” he goaded, “I’ll give it to you. Fuck this tight, little body ‘til you’re screamin’ for me, but I wanna hear you say it,”

You furrowed your eyebrows, almost frustrated, “want you to fuck me, Joel. Please,”

He obliged rather quickly. Withdrew his finger from you and sucked it clean before he grabbed the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it over his head. It was the first time you ever cared to ogle a man. To really take in the sight of him. To commit him to memory as this was going to happen instead of doing all you could to wipe it from your mind. His broad shoulders, and defined pecs, and soft tummy, all tapering down to a thinner waist with creases at the sides, hinting at what was below. His shirt hit the floor with your clothes, and then he swiftly moved on to his pants. Taking them off completely proved to be too much of a hassle. He pushed them down with his underwear, just low enough to pull his member out. His size – length and girth – was daunting despite the amount you’d seen, and your eyes flicked back up to his, swallowing a sizable lump in your throat.

“Nervous?” He asked, reaching past you for the nightstand.

“No,” you protested, watching him yank the drawer open. When he pulled out a small packet and tore it open, you cocked your head to the side. “Condoms survived the apocalypse?”

Joel smiled and rolled it down his length, “lamb skin.” He placed his hands on the bed at either side of you, “ready?”

“What if you hurt your ribs more?

“My ribs are fine,”

You nodded, trying to be as reassuring as possible, but when he reached for his shaft, you sucked in a breath loud enough to grab his attention. “I might not… you know…”

“Okay,”

“I usually don’t. Just so you don’t take it personally,”

“Okay,” he pressed a grin and lifted his hand to your cheek, where with the gentlest of swipes, he wiped his index finger across your skin, “eyelash.” Joel blew it off his finger and then looked back down at you, “how about you tell me if something doesn’t feel good.”

Eyebrows furrowed again. Confusion. “You won’t get mad?”

“No, I–I want you to come, so if I’m not doin’ it for you, you gotta let me know. Alright?” He nodded after you and lined himself back up with your entrance again. “Alright,” he pressed forward gently. Slowly. Eyes glued to your face; absolutely nothing could’ve gotten him to look away from you. 

And what you found was new. Call it whatever you wanted but you spotted care in his eyes. Maybe not care in the way fairytales of your youth wanted you to believe, but care in the way that he was doing his best to be soft and gentle. George and James hadn’t had the intention of hurting you, but they didn’t care if they did. Joel didn’t have that intention either. But he was going to great lengths to ensure that he didn’t.

He had eased himself into you steadily until your waists met. The coarse hairs at the base of his member brushed against you. When he exhaled, it was the first you’d noticed that he’d been holding his breath just like you had been. “Attagirl,”

It felt like he was splitting you in half, and he very nearly was. Your legs were stretched wide to accommodate him but it still didn’t feel like enough. His thrusts didn’t start immediately. You hadn’t been expecting that. He was waiting; studying your face, and you figured you looked pretty shell-shocked because he remained paused for a good amount of time. Long enough for you to look up at him and with vision blurring, just the silhouette of him reminded you of any number of the guys you’d run into over the last six years.

Maybe if you shut your eyes, it’d make it a little better. You could focus on the inside of your eyelids and the colorful squiggles that appeared. So you did just that, but still noticed that Joel didn’t make any inclination of beginning relentless thrusts. There was only a slight movement. But not of his waist. Before you knew it, you felt his lips at your neck again. Open mouthed kisses to your delicate skin, his tongue lapping up to your earlobe. He hummed softly and you knew it was a less-than-verbal way of checking in with you. You couldn’t respond yet though, not with the image of George and his saggy ballsack in your mind. 

Joel hummed in your ear again and then took your wrist in his hand. Before you could even get the idea to fight back, he placed it over his shoulder, releasing his grip when your fingers hit his back. “Y’alright? Talk to me,”

You summoned your strongest voice, “I’m fine. Go on,”

He still stared at you and hesitated. His hips only shifted timidly, “what’re you thinking about?”

In a moment of pure honesty, you looked up into his eyes. And with an air of sadness, “them.”

Joel’s lips pressed into a thin line. Definitely not what he was expecting you to say, but couldn’t also say he was at all surprised. God knows the last time you’d done this for anything other than obligation or self-preservation… if you’d ever done it for any reason other than obligation or self-preservation. He wanted to be considerate to that. Maybe it was a little late now that he was already inside you. He settled more of his weight on top of you to free up both his hands, and with most of your bodies touching, he raised both hands above your head and cupped them over it. His thumb stroked back and forth over your hair with the utmost softness.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” you said firmly. “I want you to make me forget about them,”

He nodded and after looking at you for just a second more, he leaned in closer for a kiss. Maybe he couldn’t do much, but he could certainly do that. And with the utmost care, he pulled his hips back halfway before slowly thrusting back in. You winced, eyes closing, and pulled your bottom lip between your teeth. It was then you felt Joel’s lips back on your neck. A bite for emphasis. A lick and kiss for intimacy.

Then with a sigh, “was right. You feel fuckin’ incredible. Squeezin’ me so good and tight,”

“Joel,” you whimpered, stretching your legs further apart to accommodate the size of his body. Every sensation was a new one – even the feeling of a foreign material inside you instead of skin. 

You felt like you were on fire; heat spreading throughout you, starting from where you two were connected and radiating outward from there. Through your stomach, up to your chest, creeping up to your neck and all the way up to your cheeks. There was heat coming from Joel too. Just about everywhere you touched radiated heat; beads of sweat gathered at his hairline and followed down to his sideburns.

“How’s it feel takin’ me here,” a harder thrust than before speared you deeper, pressing up against you cervix. Though you tried to wriggle away, Joel leaned back on his knees and hooked his arms around your thighs, tugging you down on him further. He kept you close there with a hold on your hips and remained upright when he started thrusting into you with greater fervor. “Tell me,”

“Good,” you choked on your breath.

He laughed lowly and removed one of his hands from your hip so he could wipe the sweat away from his forehead. “I know you can do better than that,” he fucked into you and laid back down on top of you, caging you in his arms, lips back at your ear. His hips in an endless cycle of pressing into you. And when a moan floated past your lips, he couldn’t hold back a smile, “there she is. There’s a good girl,”

“So big, Joel…”

He nipped at your neck and trailed his tongue over the affected skin, “and you’re takin’ me so well. Doin’ so good,” his lips stretched into a grimace against your neck, “M’not gonna last long,”

“S’okay,”

You couldn’t have predicted his next move. It hadn’t happened before in any capacity, let alone in this way. With Joel pulling out in a fury and tracing down your body until he reached the apex of your thighs. His hands held your legs forcefully apart and his hips rut into the mattress beneath him. And in the long line of things that were new tonight, this was exceptionally so. His tongue expertly ran from where he had just previously been splitting you in two, and migrated up to your clit, where again your legs flinched. This time it didn’t get any more of a verbal response than a hum against you and the vibrations it sent up your spine made your throat go dry. 

He lapped at your clit. Tongue undulating against it in smooth procession and just when you thought you wouldn’t be able to make a noise due to your scratchy throat, you felt two of his fingers push inside you, curling up and scissoring open inside. It pulled the headiest moan from your lips. You didn’t dare look down to take a peek at him, but if you had, you would’ve seen the way he was thrusting into the mattress seemingly not of his own volition.

Your legs twitched together again, this time around his head and your hand flew down to cradle him, fingers tangling into his graying curls. It was fairly long now, giving you enough purchase as your body writhed beneath Joel’s ministrations. You could feel it building; slow at first and then all at once, just on the edge there. It hadn’t ever felt this way before. When you were younger, so were the boys, and not at all well-adapted to the skill. Even when you got yourself in the headspace to do it for yourself, it never felt like this. This was different. This was new. And so much so that you hadn’t known when the literal climax would be. When you’d hit that peak.

Whatever the case, it didn’t take long, that was for sure. One moment you were gasping for air to fill your lungs, and the next you were expelling the air you’d just sucked in with a shriek and labored groan. You all but pushed on Joel’s head to get him to stop and he did so immediately. You weren’t sure if that was because of what you were doing or if it was because his body was telling him to get the fuck up unless he wanted to soil the sheets.

So Joel scurried up to his knees and sat back on his heels. He peeled the condom off and wrapped one big strong hand around his shaft. The other went down to cup his balls. And his eyes stayed glued to you. More specifically your face… your eyes. Not aspects of your body like the others had. No. He stayed locked in to your face. And when you chewed on your bottom lip, his eyebrows furrowed and a growl rumbled through his chest. Just a few tugs more and he was shooting his load up over his stomach. Long, firm strokes finished him off, and when he was done, he released his member and looked down at himself while his chest heaved.

Yours was heaving, too. If your ribs hadn’t been a cage, your heart and lungs wouldn’t have remained in your body. You’d seen plenty of men come in your lifetime. Maybe more than you’d have cared to see. But watching Joel was an entirely different experience. Not only had you wanted that for him, but when he did come, there was a sense of pride…or satisfaction in knowing that you’d been the one to get him there.

In the moment you wanted him again. Wanted his lips back on yours. Wanted to feel him. And you were just about to reach out for him when he carefully eased himself off the bed. He must’ve caught some sort of expression on your face because he flashed you a reassuring albeit sheepish smile. “Lemme get cleaned up. Made a bit of a mess of myself,” he plucked his underwear up off the floor. “Y’want water?”

You nodded eagerly, and had partially wished you hadn’t seemed so impatient because Joel turned rather quickly and left the room. If your guard and walls had been lowered by having him there with you, the moment he was out of sight, you felt the walls starting to build again. You scrambled beneath the sheets to hide yourself as if Joel hadn’t just seen you completely naked, and had only just gotten settled again when he strode back into the room; underwear on, stomach cleaned, with a glass of water in one hand and a washcloth in the other.

He handed the glass to you before he knelt back on the bed and flipped the sheets away from you without a second thought. It wasn’t until the cold air hit your skin and your entire body shivered that he paused and remembered this wasn’t something casual for you. He lifted his hand away from the sheet.

“What’s that for?” You pointed at the washcloth he still held. After taking a sip of water, you reached over and set the glass on the side table. 

Joel glanced down at the wet cloth and then back up to you, “I was gonna…” he swallowed and cleared his throat, “was gonna help you get cleaned up.”

“Oh,”

“Can I?”

You thought for just a second before nodding, “sure.” But as soon as Joel made a move, you spoke up again, “Joel?” Heat rose in your cheeks when he looked up into your eyes again, “can I have another kiss?”

A red hue colored his cheeks, “‘course you can.” His lips were stretched into a smile when they made contact with yours. 

This time you were the first to part your lips, allowing your tongue to gain entry into his mouth. He accepted it immediately and shared his tongue with you, too. The kiss hadn’t even finished before you felt the washcloth between your legs. It still held some warmth to it and you pulled your head back to look up at him; your legs spread wider to give him full access. He kissed your temple when you leaned in and set your head on his shoulder. His hand paid rapt attention to your most sensitive areas as he wiped you clean, folded the cloth over on itself, and then wiped the wet fabric down your inner thighs.

You weren’t sure how many more new things you’d be exposed to tonight. Everything seemed to be different from what you’d known. Joel didn’t ask you to leave. Didn’t give any indication that he was hoping you’d split. In fact, he seemed to evoke the exact opposite. Was getting ready to lay down beside you in bed when you asked if he could get you your underwear and shirt. He did so without question. Without asking if you were going to leave him. Was going to let you make any decision you needed to make. And yet – you swore you saw him exhale a sigh of relief when after putting your shirt and underwear back on, you tucked your feet back in beneath the sheets and settled in beside him.

⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾ ⌾

Joel jolted awake as he normally did at night. Per his habit, he glanced over at the clock on the nightstand and was not at all surprised when it read half past two in the morning. That was about right. Sometime between two and four was usually the time when the nightmares reached their peak and he’d rise in a panic, gasping for air, trying to get his bearings, and hoping he’d be able to fall back asleep. But instead of his panic diminishing once he realized he was safe in his home, it increased when he looked to his other side and found himself alone in bed.

You’d been there when he fell asleep. Of that he was positive. He’d taken an extra peek at you to make sure you were comfortable. Finding your breathing slowing and evening out, he rolled over onto his side and went to sleep, too. But now you were gone and he jumped out of bed, straining his ears for any hint that you might still be around.

Out in the hallway, he heard something downstairs and it gave him a half-moment of hope before he tamped it down within himself. It could be Ellie, he told himself, don’t get your hopes up. The noise got a little louder when he came down the stairs, and a sweet scent in the air led him in the direction of the kitchen. At this point he knew it wasn’t Ellie, but he still didn’t want to jump the gun and believe it was you. Not until a whispered shout greeted him as he was about to turn the corner.

“Shit!”

And then he was there, in the threshold and staring at you, fully dressed again – your index finger pulled into your mouth, sucking at a burn. On the counter in front of you, a pie. His focus returned to you instead of the pastry, and he started in your direction, a smile spreading over his lips.

“Did I wake you up?”

Joel shook his head once he sidled up next to you. And easily, his hand dropped to your lower back, fingers curling around your hip. He noted how you glanced down at his fingers before looking back up into his eyes. “What’re you doin?”

You looked down at the pie, guilt rising within you, “couldn’t sleep.” You took a breath, “I thought about leaving, but then I thought you might get upset.” Averting your gaze back to the pie when Joel’s eyebrows furrowed, “my mom was a stress baker. Seemed like after the outbreak, she was always whippin’ something up. I just– you had most of the ingredients.”

“What didn’t I have?” his hand squeezed at your hip and tugged you in closer to him.

“Cinnamon. And sugar,” you looked back up at him as he all but shook you by the hip, trying to get your attention. “Hopefully the apples were sweet,”

Joel pulled open a drawer and took a fork and knife out of it, “well,” he started when he then reached up into the cabinet for a plate, “I don’t remember the last time I saw cinnamon.” With everything he needed in front of him, he sliced into the pie and about as indelicately as you could imagine, scooped the slice out of the baking dish and onto the plate. “Sugar’s hard to come by so whatever we have is usually kept at the dining hall for the whole town,”

You watched him carefully as he lifted a forkful up to his mouth. A good mixture of the flaky crust and the soft apples. No way this pie was better than your shooting, but you hoped he liked it all the same. He didn’t have to say anything for you to see that he did. His features softened, almost drooped in the relaxed way of having eaten something that was evoking a memory.

He swallowed, “the apples are sweet. I like it,” he went and stabbed for another bite, but instead of lifting it back up to his mouth, he offered it your way.

It took you a moment, but while looking up into his eyes, you opened your mouth and ate the bite he presented you. It would’ve been better with sugar, you thought. But the look Joel was giving you was almost better than the sugar.

Joel slowly pulled the fork out of your mouth and set it back down on the plate. He reached for your hand and hooked his fingers around yours, using that leverage to pull you into his body. You stumbled forward and caught yourself against his chest.. He suppressed a smile and bowed forward until his lips were pressed to the top of your head. 

“Y’alright? Comfortable?”

You nodded gently and ran your hands down over his sides, fingers ghosting over his ribs, “s’it hurt?”

He shook his head but that wasn’t exactly the truth. “You don’t have to stay. And I don’t want you to think you do, but… I’d like to take you back upstairs, curl up with ya’, and go to sleep.” Joel pressed another kiss to the top of your head but then migrated down to your forehead and gave it a kiss. “Been awhile since I had a woman to cuddle up to,”

“Joel Miller cuddles?”

A smirk crossed over his face, “oh yeah. And I’m great at it,” he leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to your lips. 

You both inhaled into the kiss and Joel wrapped a hand around you again. This time, over your ass for a hearty handful. After a moment of just relishing in this moment, Joel patted your ass and with one more glance for reassurance, you passed by him and made for the stairs. If you could have only seen his face once you’d passed by. A deep sigh, a grin, and a thankful look skyward before he took off to follow you up the stairs and back into his bedroom.

[fountainpenguin]

🌆 Heroes' Journey 🌆

WordGirl

Pulling back the curtain on a world where mere mortals possess wild superpowers, with a focus on WordGirl and Kid Math's mentor-apprentice-equals relationship. Heavy consideration on how superpowers affect society, with emphasis on found families, secrets, and the mortifying ordeal of being known.

#ridwork guides

What Is This AU?

A slice-of-life WordGirl period piece that expands on the worldbuilding and character relationships seen in the show. Worldbuilding is thoughtful, lightly angsty, but mostly lighthearted with a goal to avoid infodumping and serious angst.

Give it up for Rex trying to hide his powers while more and more people grow convinced he's only hiding them due to abusive upbringing. Shout-out to Becky juggling his superhero training with her fractured social life.

AO3 Series - Heroes' Journey

WG Character Study Series - 28 Million Degrees

All WordGirl 'fics - Any series

WordGirl blog tag - #Satirical vocab alien child show

Posts about Rex and Becky as a comedic duo - #LexiHexa duo

Tone

Serious, but sprinkled with fluff and general tomfoolery. Cute and goofy moments interspersed with light relationship drama. Blends cartoony vibes and a thoughtful take on the worldbuilding.

Ex: Chuck has a broken foot that takes him out of the villain game while he recovers. Becky has to do homework. Yet we still have the Narrator and featured words :)

Characters

Heroes' Journey is a relationship study focusing mostly on Becky, Rex, and Huggy. Parents, friend groups, and neighbors play supporting roles.

Factor It In spotlights Rose Franklin, Victor Best, Eileen, and Granny May, as I figured they could use some extra love. Most villains show up at some point in the Heroes' Journey timeline.

Ships

Canon-compliant within the show's timeline. For me, this means Tobey has a crush on WordGirl, who doesn't reciprocate. Becky has a crush on Scoops, and Scoops/Violet is mutual. Also, Brent/Miss Question, who I definitely don't call [‽] in my head.

Romantic ships are not a big focus in the series as I prefer emphasis on friendships and rivalries, but you'll see romance in the background. Exposition Guy/Exposition Guy's Wife OTP SWEEP! ... Tim and Sally are there too, I guess.

- I write Becky as asexual with no interest in sex, pregnancy, or kids. She loves romance books and would like a fairytale romance, but... her true love is unlearning guilt, taking breaks, and finding peace with herself, I think :)

- Rex sort of has a crush on her, by which I mean he's convinced it's "obvious" the two alien superheroes will end up together. I see them growing up to have a pretty queerplatonic relationship. As he grows, he also develops a crush on Violet (She's kind to him) and Tobey (He uses calculations to build robots; idk what you expected).

- It's important to me that you know Rex is bisexual and when he's an adult, he will tell you this and giggle because "bisect" is a math term and he thinks it's funny every time he says it.

Setting

Fair City, which I've set in the state of Washington (Spotted owls and sasquatches represent!)

"AlgoRhythm" takes place December 1997 and the main 'fic - Factor It In - opens January 1998. This series may range from as early as Huggy's pilot years and Becky's infancy to as late as their adulthood.

Is It For Me?

If you like Becky, Huggy, Rex, the Narrator, thoughtful character relationships, and deeper worldbuilding about life in a world of superpowers, this series may be up your alley! I strive for canon-compliancy for pieces set during show canon.

I try to spotlight less popular characters in the show. Popular villains like Dr. Two-Brains are definitely there, but I try to give folks like Hal Hardbargain, Timmy Timbo, and the Coach their chance to shine as well (both as villains and civilians).

I have no "Becky's family finds out she's WordGirl reveal planned for this story," at least not in Becky's youth.

Major Themes

Expectations, pressure, stability, control, culture, conforming vs. self-expression, envy, trust, pride, guilt, secret-keeping, growth, self-reflection, moving on, and found family

Plot Highlights

- "AlgoRhythm" follows Kid Math as WordGirl introduces him to the Evil Villains Association at an overstimulating party.

- Factor It In bridges the gap between Rex's arrival in "Kid Math" and his cameos in both his Rex and Kid Math clothes in later episodes.

Other works in this series further develop the relationship between straightforward Rex and wishy-washy Becky, with plots ranging from teaching Rex about life on Earth to teaching Becky about the culture of Lexicon and Hexagon.

- Generally, the vibe is that Kid Math is inexperienced and therefore falls for tricks that don't feel WordGirl, so people try to take advantage of him. He gets frustrated when he doesn't understand why he has to follow certain rules and she gets frustrated by his stubborn pride. Shenanigans occur and require problem solving.

- "Flypaper" depicts The Gang in their late teens and young adulthood. Becky is now in college and left Huggy with Rex, who's Fair City's main hero until she returns. She feels detached and uncertain about where she is in life. Also, WordGirl and Super Why speak on a panel together and I badly need you to know.

Ongoing?

I wrote a one-shot in 2018. In 2023, I posted more content. This series is ongoing with infrequent updates at the time of posting.

- On hiatus & in need of buffer building. Intent to finish.

Warnings, notes, and explanations below so readers can learn more about this AU.

👀 Take a Peek

New here? You might like to start with these:

These character studies take place within this universe, though they're not listed as Heroes' Journey content since they focus on side characters:

- "Your family is doing okay" (G - 4400 words) - First meeting of Exposition Guy (Milo) and his to-be wife (Miah)

- "A penny for your thoughts (Oh no)" (G - 7000 words) - A zero-dialogue challenge with Captain Tangent

- "28 Cities" (G - 25k words) - A one-shot series focused on queerplatonic Rhyme and Reason. A taste of childhood with powers vs. without powers. Ongoing, but on hiatus.

Start Reading

Recommended ways to get into the full AU

"AlgoRhythm"

- Get started with a fluffy piece about Kid Math training under WordGirl, then attending a party so she can introduce him to different villains.

- Intro to basics like character dynamics, superpowers, and how Rex thinks

- Fluff, humor, & found family vibes

- Large cast of characters

🗺️ Worldbuilding

- It's rare to be born with powers, but not unheard of. The determining factor is genetics, as is the case with Kid Potato and the Butcher, or the Bests.

-> In-story, there's a character called the Nightmare King: father of Exposition Guy, the Narrator [and his twin], and Invisi-Bill. Their abilities range from semi-omniscience to invisibility, with the Narrator having both.

- Those who have powers are charmed. Doctor Two-Brains is not charmed as he relies on tech, and neither is Captain Tangent, who replies on a curse and his hook.

- Miss Question is not technically classified as charmed due to receiving her powers from lightning. However, she's found acceptance in the charmed community and she can use the label if she wants to. Chuck IS technically charmed, but doesn't identify with the label because he doesn't consider himself to have powers; it's just part of his family history.

-> Chuck would register as charmed on a blood test while Miss Question would not.

- It can take years for powers to show themselves. Most people show theirs as a toddler or during puberty. It's very rare for someone to spontaneously discover powers as an adult. There is seemingly no limit to the types of powers people can have. 1 power is the standard, but some people have as many as 3. It's very, very rare to have more than 3.

-> Rhyme has about 4 powers depending on how you classify things like super strength and durability alongside her super speed and freeze breath. Her dad has wind powers and her mom had water powers. Her family has a long history of charmed genes while Reason's has a long history of none.

- Charmed individuals may study in public school or in specialized charm schools that tailor teaching and accommodations to better suit them. Becky fears that if her parents learn about her flight and super strength, they'll send her to charm school (away from her friends).

-> Becky and Rex are not charmed because they're aliens; their powers follow special rules. However, Becky is "out" as a charmed individual who can speak with monkeys.

- All Lexiconians and Hexagonians have the potential for superhuman abilities. However, these abilities are nullified when they're on their planets, which contain trace amounts of Lexonite / Hexanite in the soil and ground them like average people.

-> Rex was raised with the intention of leaving Hexagon to pursue life as a hero somewhere else. He has the book knowledge for his powers, but no practical experience until coming to Earth.

- During Factor It In, Rex tries to conceal his powers while moving between foster homes, unaware that his caseworker found out about his quick healing and flight. Miah hints to him several times that she and Milo [Exposition Guy] are "a very charm-friendly household."

-> Flight is a rare ability. Miah suspects Rex may be lying low to avoid being traced by an abusive supervillain relative. Beyond that, she's surprised he would hide his powers, as it's not like they're unheard of in this world.

- There's a lot of depth to my takes on Lexiconian and Hexagonian culture, such as Lexicon being more into exploring nature and hunting or gathering food while Hexagon is more into mechanical things and agriculture. Rex is scared of storms because he grew up on a planet that had weather under control, and it's overstimulating for him.

- Both Rex and Becky have synesthesia. Rex can't read because "that's a Lexiconian's job." Also, Hexagon apparently had unicorns and Becky is jealous. My 'fics trickle details like this in over time.

- Last thing worth mentioning is that Huggy grew up with a lot of simians. Some he's on good terms with, others he has rocky history with, but it's generally accepted that Lexiconian monkeys are very intelligent and make great pilots.

- You can also send an Ask if you want to hear me talk about this world. I tag WordGirl content as #Satirical vocab alien child show

📋 Notes & Warnings

- Canon-typical violence (It's taken seriously and people do get injured, but the vibe is what you'd expect for goofy superhero content).

-> Cuts, scrapes, and wooziness are fair game, but no blood or gore. The most serious injury is probably Chuck's broken foot.

-> You should assume all robots are fair game to be destroyed.

-> No serious injuries or character death. Death mentions are backstory only

- Abuse mentions (Adults suspect Rex ran from an abusive home). However, no on-screen abuse besides the basics like family pressure from the Bests and Doctor Two-Brains having a rough go of it.

-> In "28 Cities," it's implied that Rhyme's dad pushed her superhero training pretty far and that she was emotionally and/or physically abused in the process. Reason only hears about this later.

- Rex has canon-typical morbid commentary (which is funny if you take it as "ha ha logic boy" but you could also read it as "Oh that's super dark Rex wtf?")

-> Ex: wanting to tear down the city

- Rare mentions of death (Ex: Rhyme's backstory ("28 Cities") where it's said her dad is a hero turned villain since his hero work didn't pay well enough to provide for Rhyme after his wife died.

More details about Rex's crush on Becky:

Rex sees himself as "Becky's obvious choice in partner someday" and is repeatedly flummoxed when she rejects his elaborate plans to court her 15 years from now.

Becky's asexual with no desire for pregnancy, but as they get older, people definitely try shipping her with Kid Math. She does go out with him in their teens/young adulthood in "A Little Ambiguity," which is a lovely date where no one has childhood baggage weighing them down.

As years pass, a young adult Becky starts seriously debating if she should "settle" with him because there are just so many parts of marrying Rex that are easier than trying to date other people, like the fact that he knows her superhero identity, doesn't think she's fragile, and he can take care of himself in the event that he's targeted.

-> It's the inherent angst of "I don't want kids anyway and I would really like a companion and he knows me so well, but WOW is he going to be so smug about it and I hate that."

It's this weird QPR where Becky's not sure if she feels "love" in the ways it's commonly defined and she's upset and burned out and lonely. Meanwhile Rex has gone on lots of dates, but always felt like she was the clearly logical option. Ah yes, Lexiconian definition crisis meets Hexagonian practicality.

-> I can't even say that I ship them because I Don't Romantically, but I need to study her chronic wishy-washiness & his refusal to look beyond surface-level understanding of things. Do u see my vision?

- All my WordGirl 'fics

- Want more info? Send an Ask!

You can create works based on this AU. Please cite me and/or the AU as appropriate (i.e. for things very specific to this AU). You are free to expand on ideas you've thought of thanks to my AU as a jumping off point. I'd love to reblog or link things to my AO3 works if I see them!

I write content with morally gray characters. Please don't portray my story events or worldbuilding out of context with intentional malice. As in, I request you do not post things created for the specific intention of bashing me or the AU

[wowowwild]

For my krisnix enjoyers. Pls accept my ramblings below.

Good evening. It's me, Mx. Wild. First and foremost, I don't think anyone does, but I definitely do not think they are health, just to be exceedingly clear. Also these are my mostly canon compliant musings, I have other 'if this, then that' headcanons I'm not shoving in here bc nobody has the time for all of that at once. Now, moving on.

Look, Phoenix has bad taste. Kristoph is known to make horrible decisions. Match made in a hell equivalent. Kris wants to keep Phoenix close bc he's paranoid, Phoenix wants to keep Kris close bc he's a sketchy mf (imo).

I think Phoenix would know Kris wanted something out of the relationship. Some random guy he doesn't know stands up for him and tries to be besties with him all of a sudden? Kristoph could absolutely spin it that he knew the legendary Phoenix Wright would never and he feels bad bc it was his little brother who exposed the fake and is so appalled that someone would frame Phoenix and he wants to get to the bottom of it. That's even believable. I don't think that takes away from the clear indication that Kristoph wants something out of the relationship.

And Phoenix isn't stupid. Don't get me wrong, mans is dumb of ass, but he's incredibly intelligent. I think fairly early on if not immediately he would expect that the relationship (at this point budding friendship) is transactional to a certain degree. And honestly, he would get a lot out of it, too. Someone definitively believes he's innocent and is helping him through the worst years of his life. At some point Phoenix figures out the truth, but I don't see any universe where him knowing that is immediate. There would be too much going on. They have time.

From Kristoph's perspective, he needs to keep Phoenix close and figure out what he knows at all times. Kristoph isn't stupid either, just spiralling further and further out of control. Once Phoenix begins to suspect, it's a matter of time before Kristoph suspects that he suspects. Whole lot of suspecting going on. But until then they have time.

So while they have time, they 're both putting into this relationship they have. They're 'friends'. From the outside it wouldn't look like it, but they care, Phoenix might care a bit more genuinely on purpose, but Kris would also have to care somewhat after all that time. Even if it was on accident, if someone is a big enough part of your life, even if you hate them, you start to care.

I think the type of person Phoenix is, is someone that Kristoph has not seen a lot of. Phoenix and Klavier are pretty similar, I can see him drawing some parallels, but he's not really close to Klavier at this point. I think Phoenix's true personality would be pretty disarming for Kris, he wouldn't know what to do, how to act towards someone like Phoenix. With that loss of control and stability, I can find him accidentally very quickly coming to care to Phoenix, despite also hating him. As strange as it is to say, you can hate someone without disliking them, just like you can love someone without liking them.

So taking this time, we've come to a situation where they care for each other. Depending on how long they have, maybe they've come to love each other platonically, romantically, and/or otherwise. But at some point Phoenix begins to suspect. It would be complicated for him. He doesn't want to suspect his friend of being a forger or eventually a murderer. It's hard to say exactly when those two dots might connect or which came first, but at some point he realizes these things. So what happens then?

Phoenix has learned his poker face by now, but Kristoph knows him fairly well at this point too. Phoenix can probably keep the fact that he's suspicious under wraps for a while. Even though Kris knows him well enough to eventually see through, Phoenix knows Kristoph well enough to know how to hide it. Kristoph can never get out of Phoenix anything definitive. Nothing that could be used as an admission. At this point they both know what game they're playing and that the other is in just as deep.

At this point, it would hurt them both deeply if they had fallen into a committed relationship (qpr, romantic relationship, exclusive fwb, etc.). Phoenix has to have some PTSD about the Dahlia situation, and Kristoph doesn't strike me as the type to have thought much about that type of relationship before if at all. He's honestly way too paranoid imo. I think it would cut them both deeply either way, but having someone you've committed to sizing you up like that hits a little different in most cases. (I am aroace but i've been in relationships, I am working based off of my own experiences which are not universal.)

They're out of time now. Any day the other shoe could drop. Kristoph could take Phoenix out of the game once and for all. Phoenix could find the one piece of evidence he needs to pull the curtain crashing down on Kristoph. In the end, it's the latter, but until that day they're frozen, stuck pretending everything is ok, playing their roles the best way they know how, time is standing still around them.

And then a hard rubber sole meets the concrete. That is my broad interpretation of the relationship between smarmy bitch Kristoph and shady asshole Phoenix (affectionate in both cases). I could pick all my little headcanons about this, that, and the other thing to show you, but I'll do that later if y'all want. (pls ask me questions, I would love to explore answers to them)