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juletheghoul · 5 months ago

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Let Me Follow (Part 7)

AN: Ooop. I haven't updated this in a year and I feel terrible, I am trying to go through all of the unfinished fics I have, and update one every week. (dream big Jules) Hopefully get through all of the things I have in my head. Hopefully it's been worth the wait! I've done my best to edit this myself, but it hasn't been beta'd. Enjoy! xo 🩷

Joel Miller x F!Reader

Pairing: Joel x F!Reader

Word Count: 4.8K

Warnings: (18+ NO MINORS) ANGST, language, age-gap (about 10-11 years, legal, reader is of age), Yearning, post-apocalyptic world, Joels injury / ptsd / nightmare

Let me know if I missed anything!

reblogs are appreciated

Masterlist Series Masterlist

He’s gone when you wake up. Both of them are, they’re gone most of the day but it makes sense. You chalk it up to Joel catching up with his brother and Ellie taking advantage of the safety of this place. You, in turn, find yourself almost haunting the house Maria and Tommy had put you up in. The time spent in the trailer, although quiet for the most part, was also wrapped up in the web of anxiety. Every second spent there was corrupted with fear of someone finding it, always the danger of infected wandering into the woods and surprising you when you’d go scavenging, and in comparison to that, this felt peaceful.

This house gave you a chance to rest, to nap and enjoy the safety of the walls surrounding you, surrounding the town itself. Even when you got hungry, it was only a matter of making your way down the street to the cafeteria. People looked at you with curiosity, but didn’t pry, which only inspired intense gratitude.

The whole day was a much needed respite from the worry and anxiety, until Ellie stormed into the house to find you reading an old novel on the sofa late in the evening. Anger burning on her face and it seemed strange to be so angry in a place like this.

“What happened?” The adrenaline shoots up, the familiarity of it is so depressing, it seems your body is always ready to feel this way.

“He’s leaving me.” She runs up the stairs and you find yourself running up after her, the door to the bedroom she’d claimed all but shut in your face before you could follow her inside.

“Ellie? Can I come in?” You knock, hoping she’ll elaborate, “Ellie?”

“Whatever.” She calls out and you follow her inside, finding her sitting on a dusty bay window.

“What happened?” Your heart races but you do your best to control your breathing.

“He’s leaving me,” she sighs, picking up what looks to be someone's journal, “I heard him tell Tommy, that he has to leave me.” You frown at her. Joel hadn’t exactly been the cuddly type but he did care about Ellie, that had been obvious to you. “Maria told me something about him, something that makes sense-”

“I wouldn’t listen to what Maria has to say about Joel, it seems to me she’s been listening to Tommy say some not-so-nice things about his brother.” Annoyance burns brightly in your gut that she’d dare poison Ellie against the man that had been keeping her safe.

“No–I didn’t let her talk shit, I told her where to fucking go about that but–” A soft tap on the door pulls you out of the argument, Joel’s voice coming through before he opens the door.

The familiar ‘Joel-frown’ is back in place as his gaze shifts from Ellie, to you, and back to her again.

“Listen-” He starts, but she doesn’t let him get very far.

“Why are you here?” The anger still burns on her face, but you know what’s really there. Sadness, fear, disappointment, you know because you’ve felt it all before.

“I came here to talk to you, both of you.”

“No, why are you still here? If you’re gonna ditch us then ditch us.” her eyes cast down as she speaks, looking without really seeing the journal in her hands. You see him let out a heavy sigh, resignation taking over.

“What exactly did you hear?”

“‘I have to leave her, you have to take her’,” your eyebrows must have raised up into your hairline, Joel leaving Ellie had never crossed your mind, “You know I stuck up for you today because I thought-” She bit her lip, cutting off her own words.

“I made this decision for your own good. You’ll be way better off with Tommy, he knows the area better than I do-” He was floundering and it was as though you were listening to a stranger, his whole demeanour completely different from last night.

“Do you give a shit about me or not?” Her voice rose, and your heart broke for her.

“Of course I do.”

“Then what are you so afraid of? I’m not her, you know? Maria told me about Sarah-”

“Don’t.” The change in him was chilling, “Don’t say another word.” Seeing his eyes shift, the whole of him as cold as ice.

“I’m sorry about your daughter, Joel, but I have lost people too.” And there it was.

He’d had a daughter, and he’d lost her. This was it, the missing piece. It made so much sense, the cloud that followed him around, the loss that poisoned him to the world. It wasn’t just the terrible, awful, practically unbearable state of the world, it was his loss.

“You have no idea what loss is.” His eyes hardened even more, and you understood why he would be upset. The loss of a child would definitely make anyone lose their minds, but Ellie wasn’t wrong. Everyone in this world knows what loss is.

“Everybody I have cared for has either died or left me. Everybody, fucking except for you!” She pushes him, her anger and hurt getting the best of her and you can’t help but move from your place on the couch to comfort her. “So don't tell me that I'd be safer with somebody else because the truth is I would just be more scared.” Your hand goes to her shoulder, letting her know you’re there for her.

“You’re right. You aren’t my daughter, and I sure as hell ain’t your dad. Now come dawn, you and I go our separate ways-” Your hand flashes up without your permission, and cracks him clean across the face. It was too much for you to bear.

“Enough! I am so sick and tired of this, and I am through with letting you act this way. You can’t keep living your life like this, Joel. Head down, barreling through like a juggernaut, cutting through everyone and everything, completely closed off to the world.” The hurt was sharp in your voice- “I can’t even begin to imagine how much losing your daughter must have hurt you, I wish it had never happened. I cannot take it away from you, neither of us can but we don’t deserve for you to treat us this way. Losing her doesn’t mean you can throw Ellie away.” His eyes flashed with something, a hurt so deep it was part of him, “Tomorrow, we’re going–whether it’s with you, or Tommy is up to you.” You turned from him then, gathering Ellie into your arms. You heard the door click, and then you and Ellie were alone.

You spent the night with Ellie.

A soft knock sounded as you gathered the few things you had to take with you, both of you. Ellie opened the door to a very resigned Tommy standing at the door.

“Y’all ready?” He spoke to both of you, the look on your face leaving no doubt as to whether Ellie would go alone or not.

“Yes, we’re good to go,” you reply and he nods once before leading the way out, “Come on Ellie.” You don’t look at the room across the hall, even as the outline of the door burns bright in your peripheral. That it was closed and he was probably asleep inside only filled your stomach with rocks, so you keep your eyes forward and ignore the feeling.

The morning is crisp enough to see your breath and it wreaths around your head like a halo as you all make your way towards the barn. Your anger with Joel is a simmering pot on the back burner, and that’s where it has to stay, there’s too much to focus on with Ellie to give it any attention. Tommy leads the way, bundled up with a rifle on his back and the anger you’re trying to tamp down finds its bullseye.

“How much shit did you talk about Joel, Tommy? Be honest.” He turns, his brow furrowed, “Must have been a lot, with the way Maria was eyeing him.”

“Yeah, not to mention giving me some bullshit warning about him not being who I thought he was.” Ellie chimes in, he lets out a deep sigh.

“You don’t understand, we did terrible things-“

“Yes, both of you, and you got to explain yourself. You’re letting your grievances with your brother colour the way people in this town view him. If he stays here, you’ve just made his life harder when you both did the same shit.” You round the corner, ducking into the barn to find the man you’re discussing, loading the horse's saddle with what looked to be supplies. You’re angry at him, at the cruel words he threw at Ellie, at the thought that after all of your confessions he might have let you go. It’s hard not to feel relief that he’s here though, ready to follow her, ready to follow you.

“You came here to say goodbye or something?” Ellie’s voice is neutral, but the hurt simmers under the surface.

“No, I came here to steal one of these horses.” He kicks at the ground, nervous.

“I woulda gave you one.” Tommy sighs, his frown still in place but now directed at Joel.

“I know. Anyway, that was thirty minutes ago, and I guess you deserve a choice. I still think you’d be better off with Tommy-“

“Let’s go.” She tosses her bag at him. Your lip curls without your permission, but you keep it to yourself.

“Okay.” He grunts out the word, but you can see he’s just as affected as you are. He turns, and speaks to Tommy while you and Ellie lead the horses out, letting them have a moment.

“You okay?” Ellie’s eyes find yours at the sound of your words, and for a moment you see her age and it breaks your heart. Her eyes are wide, dark shadows underneath them, all of the stress and the weight of her lot in this life painted across her face, and still she smiles.

“Fuck yeah, all good.”

God, she’s just a kid.

“Let’s get going.” Joel comes out, Tommy’s rifle on his back and his eyes are wild, darting between you and Ellie. His words still ring out in your ears, but so does the knowledge of his loss. It’s the Rosetta Stone, the why of all of his anger and hurt and reluctance to open up to anyone and anything coming into focus.

There are two horses, and Ellie claims one right away, leaving you to share with Joel. He climbs up and swings his leg around, then holds out his hand to help you climb on, and wordlessly you take it. The horse is calm underneath you, for which you are grateful, even when you climb up, much less graceful than Joel and sit tucked into his back.

The anger in you still burns bright. Too bright to say anything to him just yet, so you let it wash over you. Ignore the happy chant to have him there, to have his familiar, safe shape solid in front of you, and focus on not spooking the animal beneath you.

Hours pass with small talk between Ellie and Joel, and silence from you. He doesn’t press, but his voice sounds lighter than it ever has with her. You let them have this conversation and bonding and you keep your mouth shut. He tests the waters though, your arms wrap around his waist, and every so often you feel him squeeze your hand or your knee. A silent olive branch, a request for connection and as much as you try to hold out and ignore him, punish him for his cruelty, you cannot help but give in. You press your lips to the little bit of skin exposed at the back of his neck. You can feel the way he melts, and part of you feels guilty for denying him for so long, but then his words come back and so does the anger.

Ellie has gone ahead, just a little bit, close enough that he can keep an eye on her, but far enough away that he tries his luck with words.

“It was bad wasn’t it?” He speaks over his shoulder, his words heavy with resignation.

“Real bad.”

He sighs, but says nothing else. You don’t expect an apology, and you don’t get one. It’s there though, the remorse, in his voice, threaded through the soft words and explanations he gives Ellie as the day goes by. He speaks to her of his life before, and it’s a marvel to hear him speak so much, he used to be a contractor. The shape of the word in your mouth feels familiar, one of those words adults used to say but there’s no reference for it in your memory. She is happy, that is all that matters.

When you stop to camp, it’s in a densely populated forest, eerily quiet but good enough. The land is far enough away from any QZ to be free of infected, but they aren’t the biggest worry. He sets up camp, a couple of sleeping bags all piled together.

“Sleep, both of you, I’ll take first watch.” It doesn’t take much convincing on your part, and for once, Ellie doesn’t grumble, she yawns hard enough to tremble and gets into the sleeping bag without comment. You want to give him something, a promise that you’ll discuss what you both know you need to discuss but he shakes his head when your eyes meet. “Sleep, Sunny, you need your rest.”

You nod, and sleep claims you, quick as falling.

You wake with a gasp.

“You’re okay.” He’s sitting on a fallen log, watching the surrounding darkness. Full consciousness creeps in, and awareness calms the anxiety of whatever nightmare that had spilled over. Even the horses are calm, no immediate danger threatening, but there’s no way you’re going back to sleep.

“I’m up now. Here, give me the gun, you should get some shut-eye.” You stretch for a moment, before getting up. At this point, he knows you better than to argue, and so as much as he wants to keep watch, he gets up with a groan, and climbs into the sleeping bag still permeated with your body heat. The brief spark of warmth and comfort that was born of your new found intimacy with him, although still there, is obscured by the things you know you need to discuss, but it won’t be tonight. He knows it too, and so you keep watch, and when the morning comes, you all set out again.

Days pass, and you travel in peace. The days are cold but clear, and he surprises you even more. He teaches Ellie to shoot, instructs her on how to load and reload the rifle, how to aim and even lets her keep a pistol and you can see the father so clearly in him. He notices your quiet withdrawal, and he lets you have your silence, but it doesn’t last.

Three nights into your trek, he finally breaks the silence.

You feel him slip into the sleeping bag behind you, the night is colder than you expected and his warmth is welcome, even if your heart is still hurt. You’d found a small copse of trees, hidden enough that you could all sleep relatively calmly.

“Sunny.” It’s just above a whisper, “How long you gonna punish me?” His breath tickles the little hairs at the back of your neck, raising goosebumps in its wake. You sigh.

“I’m not punishing you Joel.” His hand slips around your waist.

“You’re angry at me, I can feel it.” He presses his lips to the skin just below your ear, soft and sweet and your eyes close at the feel of it, you turn towards him.

“I’m hurt,” he pulls you close enough to tangle his legs with yours, “Not just for what you said to Ellie, but for what happened to you.” You felt the clench in his jaw, felt how his body tensed. “I’m not trying to pry into your past Joel, I don’t want to open old wounds and make you relive anything, but I’ve been with the two of you long enough to see the bond. That girl-” you gestured to Ellie’s sleeping form near the horses, “-sees you as a father. You’re all she has, and you were ready to drop her.”

“I know.” He pressed his forehead to yours, the tension going out of him like a balloon deflating. “It’s why I didn’t think I could do this, I am scared that I won’t be able to protect her, if she got hurt on my watch I couldn’t forgive myself.” All of a sudden you felt stupid, his anger and lashing out at her was a way to protect her, it didn’t excuse it, but it definitely explained it. “I don’t think she heard my whole conversation with Tommy, I was tellin’ him how scared I am.”

“She needs you around, she needs to know you aren’t going to abandon her.” You can’t help but bring your hands to his face, comfort him. “We need you, I need you, I don’t want you to leave me behind either.” The little part of yourself that you’d been stomping down reared its head. “I’m sorry I slapped you, I shouldn’t have done that.” He shakes his head, dismissing your apology.

“I won’t leave you behind. I meant it when I said I needed you to be patient with me.” He presses his lips to your hand, then to your lips, an apology and a promise and you clutch to it, despite the fear that permeates every aspect of the world. You don’t say anything more, trusting that when he's ready, he’ll tell you about his loss.

The university is a massive, rundown building, eerily quiet, without many signs of life.

“No fireflies.” Ellie points out when you stop just in front of an overturned car.

“Probably in the middle, safer.” Joel leads the way, and the three of you continue throughout the grounds. He answers Ellie’s questions about University life, about anything and everything she can think of while you focus on your surroundings. The quiet irks you.

Monkeys roam the campus the closer you get to the building, and she’s excited to see them, you’re a little more wary but they scatter at the sound of you approaching.

“Lookit.” He points to a sign, a bright firefly symbol spray-painted onto it.

“Here we go.” She sounds a lot braver than she looks, her expression matches yours. This whole place was creepy, and your stomach roiled the closer you got to the entrance of the building. The sound of the horses' hooves clicking onto the pavement echo around you as you approach, guard houses sit unmanned just outside the door, and your stomach drops further.

“Guard houses.” Joel voices your thoughts.

“No guards.” You reply, and the mood sours further. “Let’s tie the horses, and continue on foot.” You gesture to a tree and they both nod in agreement. With them taken care of, you make your way inside.

“Gun?” Ellie looks to Joel, and he nods, she takes out the pistol he’d trusted her with, his rifle at the ready and you follow close behind him, no weapon, but eyes sharp.

The inside is abandoned, but there is a mess of tables, discarded equipment and supplies left behind.

“There were definitely doctors here.” She rifles through a stack of old gauze, gloves and other things littering the tables, pulling a list from under an empty box.

“This is a packing list,” Joel takes the list from her, “Something you make before moving.” There’s a distinct lack of dust and dirt blown in on the mess left behind you cannot help but focus on.

“Looks like they just left-” Something crashes above, movement in one of the higher floors interrupting your sentence, “maybe not all of them.” You move as one, slowly and quietly following the source of the noise, your heart races, scared of who or what you might find here. Joel leads the way, his rifle at the ready, Ellie brings up the rear, gun in her hands and pointed down like he’d taught her. The place looks more like an abandoned hospital than a school. There are carts knocked over, hospital beds and IV bags still hooked up to the poles littering the hallways.

He counts down silently, hand just hovering over the door containing the source, and then opens it. A monkey shrieks, and seeing you jumps out the open window. You let out a heavy breath.

“Well, at least it ain’t clickers.” Joel’s tone is as relieved as you feel.

“Yeah, no fireflies either. Maybe in all that research they turned into fucking monkeys!” He frowns at her, there’s a disappointment heavy in the air. So much travelling, just to come up empty. There’s a giant map in the middle of the room though. You make your way over to it, there are different colour pins all leading up to one place, Salt Lake City, Utah.

“That’s where they went?” She’s staring at the map beside you.

“All the pins lead there.” You press your finger to the spot on the map, Joel is beside you, all three of you studying it.

“Maybe they were getting ahead of the weather? Better facilities? I don’t know.” He frowns, letting out a breath but you hear it, people talking outside the window. You shush them, gesturing to the window but they hear it now too. Your heart jackhammers in your chest, any and all peace you’d found from finding this place empty is gone.

Quietly you all move closer and peek out the window, and see four men walking past, they hold crowbars, and baseball bats and it’s obvious they’re raiders.

“Out the back.” Joel whispers, and then the three of you take off. Within a few tense minutes, you’re all back outside, ducking behind piled up sandbags to make sure you don’t encounter anyone. With the coast clear, you all run towards the horses. Ellie climbs up onto hers, and you climb onto the one you share with Joel while he unties them.

“Joel!” Ellie screams, one man has followed, baseball bat high in the air but Joel turns in time and ducks out of the way, the bat swings hard, hitting the tree and shatters. Ellie holds up her arm, aiming the gun but they move too erratically.

“Wait Ellie! You might shoot Joel–” She puts it down, he doesn’t need help, they grapple and slam against the tree but then Joel has wrapped his arm around the man's neck, and with a sickening crunch, he falls. When Joel turns, your stomach drops.

He looks down, and the butt of the broken bat is sticking out of his lower abdomen. He takes a deep breath, and pulls it out and a wave of nausea hits you to see at least three inches of wood come out, his blood pulsing between his fingers.

“Joel–get on the horse!” You scream out to him, seeing the others spotting you and running full speed. He struggles, but climbs up with a pained yell, swinging his leg over and managing to get in front of you.

“Get back!” Ellie follows behind, shooting at them when they get too close, with the frosty wind whipping at your face you get away. The horses gallop across the grounds and away, your grip on Joel is iron.

You know that going so fast is only hurting him but you have to get far enough away that they won’t follow.

“They don’t seem to be following us, I think we’re safe.” Ellie calls out behind you and you’re glad she’s keeping an eye on your back, because you cannot focus on anything other than Joel’s weakening grip on the reins.

“Joely, baby you have to hold on, please–” He teeters, swaying like a boat in choppy waters and you feel the way he cannot hold himself up anymore. “Joel-Joel!” He topples off the horse and into a pile of snow despite your best efforts, he's so pale you can barely contain the tears that flow freely down your face. “Joel, please, please wake up, we need you to wake up.” You slap at his face, but he doesn’t stir. Ellie is off her horse and kneeling beside you, trying to aid in waking him but she’s as unsuccessful as you are. She presses his hands as well as hers to where the blood pulses out of him slowly.

“Joel, open your eyes.” You stare at him while she speaks, pressing your hand to his face, “I can’t fucking do this without you, I don’t know where the fuck I’m going, or what the fuck I’m going to do, we need you Joel please, get up.” Tears stream down her face and it hits you then. You’ve cursed him, this is what comes from loving another person.

There’s no time, you have to move him.

“Let’s get him somewhere safe, Ellie, one of those houses.” You gesture to a residential area not far from where he fell. There’s no way you can carry him, instead you look for something to put him on that you can drag like a sled. You send Ellie to look, warning her to be careful and to keep her gun out and she comes back with a wide mat, almost like a big dog bed and it’s perfect. You shuffle him onto it, and tie the mat to the back of one of the horses, pulling him towards one of the houses.

It takes so long to get him into the basement. By the time you’ve piled a stained mattress and musty blankets and laid him on it, your skin is slick with frozen sweat, your breath comes out in pants, exhausted with the effort. There had been an old towel in one of the bathrooms of the house, Ellie had grabbed it while you wrestled him to where he lay. Once settled, you ripped it up, and moved his shirt to press it to the wound, barely looking at it. You had to stop the bleeding, if he kept bleeding he’d die.

“What are we going to do?” She watches, terrified.

“I don’t know.” You want to comfort her, but you cannot stop swallowing the lump in your throat. You both stay quiet for a while after that, focused on his breathing.

It’s because I love him

The thought squeezes your heart like a vice, the curse of you fills your head, overtaking every thought. This is what happens when you love another person, the black hole has taken him just like it took your parents, just like it took Johnny and there is nothing to be gained but misery and heartache. The black pit of your love is full of emptiness and all you’d done was sentence him to death. You should have just let them leave, given them your supplies and stayed in your trailer.

Tears stream steadily down your face, hoping against hope that he’ll wake up, that the wound will close, that nothing inside had been too badly damaged. You hoped you’d wake up back in that bed in Jackson, that this was all just some horrible nightmare and that he’d be there, rubbing your back. You didn’t wake up though, and he lay there motionless while you cried, breathing shallow enough to fill your stomach with nothing but dread and nausea and regret and every other horrible thing you’ve felt since this world went to shit.

You move the towel after a while, to see how bad the damage actually is and your body tenses, it’s angry and red and still blood pulses out, his skin shredded where the sharp wood had pierced him.

“We need to close it, we should see if we can find a needle and thread.” You speak to her, but she watches him, his eyes are open, and there is nothing but naked fear in them. He groans and grabs at your arm hard enough to bruise when you press the towel back to the wound.

“Go.” He grits it out, at both of you. She puts her hands on yours, helping to staunch the blood. “Go, leave, take the gun.” He repeats it.

“Shut up, shut the fuck up Joel!” She all but screams at him but he grabs her by the jacket, pulling her close.

“You go.” He doesn’t relent, “You go. You go north, go to tommy.” He shivers, speaking the words clearly and when he pushes her back, she stumbles, staring at him in disbelief. His eyes find yours, and he repeats himself. “Leave.” He does not expect to survive, and all at once you are angry with him, angry with yourself for ever having opened your heart, angry at the world for your lot in life. His eyes find yours then, tears slowly streaming from them, the same anger burning in your chest shining out through his eyes.

You wipe at your eyes, and rise. Leaving him there, as you make your way up the stairs, and out of the basement.

She catches up to you in the kitchen.

“Are we really leaving him?”

“No. I’m looking for something to stitch him up, but if you want to go find Tommy I won’t stop you, you can shoot, and he’s taught you how to keep watch and find safe places to sleep. You can take all of the supplies–” You open cupboards, pulling them off the hinges in your haste and spilling drawers in the pursuit of something, anything to help him.

“I’m not leaving either.” She moves, and helps you search.

—

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vampzity · 8 days ago

Text

[ 8:29 pm ]

You stared outside the window, feeling the small amounts of cold radiating from the glass. Snow was falling, and falling fast. You had always loved the snow, especially when it was fresh like this. Though you still felt empty in a way. You shouldn’t be enjoying this snowfall alone but that was quite impossible as your boyfriend was stuck at the studio with his members.

You looked at your phone, the time reading 8:29 pm. It’s been over an hour and you have yet to receive a text from him yet. You didn’t like to bother him when he was working, but he should’ve been home 2 hours ago. It was unusual for him to not update you if he needed to stay longer.

You turned to the dinner table, nicely plated with food in their own dishes just waiting to be dug into. You decided to make his favorites, kimchi stew with rice cakes. You had also made cheesecake brownies as you were slowly getting into baking and knew brownies were his favorite.

Though at this point, everything was just cold.

Cold and unenjoyable.

Sighing heavily you walked over to the couch, turning down the volume on the weather channel. You began to call Felix for the last time, only to receive no answer.

Again.

That was all you needed to understand that he just wasn’t coming anytime soon, that he wasn’t going to reply to you anytime soon. It wasn’t like him, and you’d normally be worried if his location didn’t show him at the company.

You grabbed the folded blanket that sat at the edge of the couch, wrapping it around you as you laid down to watch the tv. A part of you hoped that Felix would just walk through the door at that very moment. That he would be at your knees with a gazillion excuses, practically smothering you in kisses to make you forget his tardiness.

Except you’ve accepted that wasn’t the case.

— ✧⁂✬ —

“y/n?”

Felix closed the door, shivering slightly from the freezing cold. He changed into his slippers, taking off his coat and leaving it on the coat rack. It was odd to catch you sleeping on the couch, especially alone. He walked over to your limp body, frowning slightly remembering the numerous amount of texts and calls he received.

He sat in front of you, rubbing your arm slightly so he wouldn’t startle you. Nothing. Felix glanced to the clock in the kitchen; the time reading 11:23 pm. His eyes fell to the table, catching a glimpse of the untouched food and dishes you set up meticulously. A sudden weight rested on his shoulders, feeling so much guilt for making you wait so long. He felt sorry that you went to sleep on an empty stomach, as you always preferred to eat with him. He kissed your forehead softly, the cold lips awaking you just barely.

“Hey angel.”

A soft deep voice filled your ears, making you open your eyes to see a blonde boy standing in front of you. He smiled at you as his hand came up to caress your face softly.

“I’m sorry I’m late. You must be mad with me, yeah?”

You blushed slightly, rolling your eyes as you tried to remain upset with him. Felix frowned, playing with your hair while he sat in front of you.

“You have every right to be mad with me and I’m okay with that..”

A small smile appeared on his face again. “I wanna show you something.”

You furrow your eyebrows, watching as he unzipped his sweater to see a small head pop out from the inside. It was a kitten, white fur with brown covering her eyes and head like a helmet. Your eyes popped out of your head seeing the little animal, immediately sitting up on the couch.

“Oh my god?! Felix?!”

He placed the cat in your lap, watching as she sniffed you. She rubbed her head against your body, slowly becoming comfortable with you as she laid there. You pet her fur, her warmth seeping into your skin and her purrs vibrating against you.

“The boys and I found her outside the building, no collar, no name tag or anything. So I decided to take her home. It’s too cold to just leave her.”

He looked up at you, watching the way your eyes lit up at the sight of her. He smiled, looking back over to the table.

“Why didn’t you eat?”

You looked up at him, a slight sigh escaping your lips.

“I don’t like to eat without you.” You looked back down at the cat. “You know that.”

Felix took your hand, caressing it with his thumb while giving you a reassuring smile.

“Well I’m here now and I see you made my favorite.” He looked back at the table, eyebrows raised. “Ahh, two of my favorites?”

You gave him a small look, a smirk following behind it. “Be mad at me all you want angel, but I know you’re hungry.”

He got up from where he sat, kissing you on the cheek softly before brushing past your ear.

“Maybe I can make it up to you later, yeah?”

He pulled the cat into his arms, winking at you as he walked over to the kitchen. His deep whisper sent chills down your spine making him laugh at your body’s response. He set the cat down beside him, preparing to heat up the stew so you wouldn’t have to do so again.

“You coming, angel?”

a/n: i wrote this weeks ago when we had our first snowfall here :3

taglist: @rvereri @dvrktvnnel @h4untedgrl @scarfac3 @jjongibears

@sundaybossanova @kittykat-25 @yyaurii @hwasddeongbyeoli @woojirang

@vnessalau @dollywoo @tiredlittlevirgo @roomsofangel @minghaoslatina

@mingtinysworld @joonezra @honeyhwaaa @evidive

#—♡vampzity #—♡︎vamp’s soft hours #stray kids #skz fluff #felix x reader #lee felix x reader #stray kids felix #skz drabble #skz stay

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just-my-latest-hyperfixation · 2 months ago

Text

WIP Weekend

Weekly WIP Update

Chapter 3 of Saltwater Symphony is going live later today (Friday)! I love Steve in this one, he's such a bossy, vain little diva!

I think I've finally figured out the final bit of King's Gift that was giving me trouble, so I'm very motivated to put these boys through the meet grinder some more!

20 out of 31 holiday drabbles are finished. Still need to brainstorm some ideas for the final 11, but I'm sure I'll get there.

Send me an emoji, and I'll write and share three sentences from that project.

🏰 The King's Gift

🦭 Saltwater Symphony

❄️ Steddie Holiday Drabbles

Snippet from 🏰

It takes him a while to come to process his discovery. Only when the cold of the stone floor starts to seep into his legs does he remember why he came here in the first place. He swears softly under his breath, standing and flipping open the book in hopes of finding the right page to put the photo.

What he finds instead is his own face.

It’s not just the smile - that slow curl of his mouth that he knows he does when someone made some stupid joke and he doesn’t want to admit he finds it funny - it’s … it’s everything else. His hair, which Eddie must’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time on, sketching out the way it falls around his face, curling lightly at the tips, light and shadow playing in the strands. The moles on his face and neck, every single one in exactly the right spot.

An elaborate, lifelike portrait of him, done all in black ink, so large it fills an entire page. He’s in half-profile, as if he only just turned around to look at the spectator, and he’s smiling.

The image takes Steve so much by surprise that he stumbles back and lands on his ass in the window seat.

The light in his eyes.

It’s like looking into a mirror, and at the same time it’s not. This must be the way Eddie sees him, he realizes with a violent flutter of his stomach. Everything about this picture is soft, every line telling of longing, every stroke of the pen telling of … love. And he’s known before, of course. Has known that Eddie loves him. Not only have people told him, time and again, Eddie himself has never been exactly subtle about it, from the moment they first met. He found it strange and scary, back then, to be loved so fiercely by somebody who had never even met him before, but now?

Now it’s still scary, but for entirely different reasons.

Because he wants to prove himself worthy of that love.

Because he’s mortified of what’ll happen if he doesn’t.

#steddie #steve x eddie #steve harrington x eddie munson #steddie fanfic #steddie brainrot #fanfiction writer #fanfiction #fanfic #my writing #wip ask game #wip weekend

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itsagrimm · 1 year ago

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He Who Comes from under the Water

Chapter 11 - The Dive

Monster!König X she/her afab Reader

CN: Mentions of possible death and injury, fear of water, nearly drowning, mentions of possibly getting hurt, inappropriate use of an axe, depression and bad mental health, on character is passively suicidal, cannibalism, fear of being alone, fear of separation from a loved one, lack of self-confidence, kissing, making out, partial nudity

Notes for better understanding at the bottom!

Beta-read by the equally afflicted @queenquazar. Unhinged writing and editing sessions in the dead of night wouldn't be the same without you.

6.0k words

Masterlist

Hope you enjoyed your summer as I have but now as it's getting colder, darker and most importantly weather outside, I am fairly sure updates will roll quicker now.

also I need to do more trips with my camera, I am running out of decent looking header photos.

I made a playlist for this series. Enjoy.

The fresh morning breeze caressed over your slowly warming up skin. Branches of trees danced a lazy rhythm and the late birds of summer sang their song. Ghost stood next to you, wrapped in his coat made of leaves and moss and sturdy solitude, as you both looked up to the window of your bedroom. König was in there, still asleep and out of your reach.

“Let’s try to wake up König one more time.”

Hope reared its head as you heard Ghost’s words.

But not too high.

“How?” You wondered out loud. “I am sorry that you feel stuck here with me, but König did not wake up last time you tried. Why should he now?”

“Maybe we need to try harder,” Ghost replied and grabbed Königs axe.

Your eyes widened.

“Hold on!” You tried to stop what was unfolding before you, only to witness Ghost grow in size, taller than the trees, taller than the house, and far away from your little human words.

“Enough, little brother,” Ghost groaned from high above you and you had to shield your ears from the loud thundering voice “It is time to wake up. I am tired of guarding your Bride in your stead.”

Birds took off, the earth shook and trees froze as in fear of the giant that was said to be their guardian.

Ghost straightened up and turned to the house.

“Hey!”

Like an animal on the hunt that got caught, Ghost froze and turned back, staring down at you with an oddly blank expression.

“What are you up to, Ghost?” You called, trying to ignore the little voice in your mind telling you that shutting up and quivering in fear before the giant was a smarter strategy to survive.

“Why the axe?” You squeaked as you tried not to squeak.

Ghost blinked, confused by this little being that was his future sister in law. Such a flimsy thing of flesh and bone, shouting at him from her place in the dirt. Ghost glanced at the axe, shaking his head.

“Right. I am sorry. I am not used to explaining myself but you have every right to ask,” Ghost admitted, and fell back into a shape more approachable to you, like a shadow growing smaller by the change of light.

“You can do it.” Ghost said. “Hit König with the axe to wake him up.”

You blinked, it was your turn to stare confused.

“He is just the Vodyanoy napping in water. Swinging an axe against him is like hitting the surface of a lake, stirring up a few waves but nothing else. He will be fine. And hopefully he will wake up from it.” Ghost explained and passed you the heavy axe before growing in size again.

You looked down onto the massive wood axe in your hands, the wooden handle old and used.

“Are you sure that will work, Ghost?” Uncertainty creeping up in your mind and voice, worry and frustration manifesting about your fiance’s wellbeing and actions.

“Have you ever heard of running water getting cut?” Ghost answered. “I am not saying König will like it, but it won’t harm him. Trust me.”

You swallowed, feeling uneasy. Hitting a human with an axe in their sleep was murder. Plain and simple. But, König was as much a human as you were a fish. His skin shifted and shaped as he pleased. He ruled the waters and even summoned them in his dreams after not sleeping for who knows how long, destroying your room. And his eyes…

“I understand this might be a lot to ask,” Ghost paused. “You will have to trust me on this one, Vodyanitza.”

His words danced through your mind like willow branches in the wind. If Ghost would have wanted to and this was ill-intentioned, he could have harmed König without bothering to talk and convince you of this plan. Maybe there was a point in trusting Ghost even if the thought of König getting hurt made you grow colder inside than the cooler morning breeze ever could.

You looked up to the giant and nodded.

“Let’s do this.”

“Hold on tight,” He stated and grabbed you to place onto the window sill to your bedroom. Like a leaf he tumbled into the room after you, turning himself small again and landing in the splashing water on your bedroom floor.

You cried out, first in surprise than dreadful fear from all the water suddenly around you as the heavy axe slipped out of your fingers and landed in the water, sinking down with a shallow ‘clunk’ against the wooden planks.

“Ghost. I-” you eyed the water splashing around the room like a lively river. Or a dark river, a deep river, deep enough to drown. “I am afraid of water. I can’t get down from here. I can’t do it.”

Ghost made a sound that could have been a grumbled curse whispered by a tree before being hit by lightning.

“A Vodyaniza who fears the water,” He stated. “Sounds right like the mess my brother would cause. Alright, I’ll do it then.”

“Wait,” You looked at König as you tried to calm your nerves as you took deep calming breaths. He was still deep asleep. A mess of tangled unhuman limbs and scales and hair and skin in the waters of your flooded room. Panic and fear surged from all the water, but you forced those emotions in you aside as you tried to commit his sight to your memory, just in case something was to go wrong.

“Okay,” You finally agreed and nodded to Ghost.

This was it.

Ghost picked up the axe from the water and raised it high before swinging it down onto König.

The impact of the axe connecting with Königs head sounded like thunder rolling over you.

Loud and painful and final.

Suddenly, like a storm, the water rose and reached high before you, waves building and crashing at your feet as you held onto the window frame for dear life while trying to see through the room filled with fine droplets of water and foamy waves.

A groan rang through your ear.

Königs voice - strained and painfully familiar.

Another groan as you heard a second hit from the axe through the wild waters before you … like…

…like a yawn before having to leave bed, yet still feeling tired.

“König?” You hoped aloud, your voice being drowned out by the rushing water and Ghost’s deep voice.

“Wakey-wakey, brother! Stop making your Bride wait for you!”

“Urgh.”

A massive wave crashed right next to the wall with your window, breaking the glass and causing the house to shake from the impact.

“Get up, little brother.” You could not see through all the splashing water before you, only hearing the sound of Ghost’s deep voice. “Stop being dramatic and flooding your girl’s room. It’s rude.”

A third axe hit thundered through the little space before you. More water rose and a wave finally hit you. You wailed as you tried to fight against the dreadful flood, with desperate fingers you reached for safety. Catching the clammy window frame, the sill, and finally just the thin fabric of the curtains until the pull of the retreating water consumed you and took you in to the deep waters.

The silence of being underwater was more unbearable for your mind than the loud crashing of waves and shattering sounds of the hitting axe above.

For a moment fear froze your body and you could not help but stare as you floated impossibly downwards at the sight of König, coiled up like a serpent snake and shifting scales reflecting the light. His eyes were closed except for a sliver of that beautiful blue peeking into the world as if the king of everything under the water was about to wake up. Bubbles of air fought their way out of your lungs and you felt panic as you watched the axe hitting König from above.

Would he be fine?

No blood came out of the wound that broke as the axe connected with Königs sleeping shape. You watched König being unharmed and lazily stretching his long limbs and body as you floated downwards, taken by a strong current in the impossibly deep waters of your bedroom.

Wait, would you be fine?

König did not notice any of it. Instead, his eyes only slightly fluttered, as if merely being tickled awake - lazy, unfocused blinking of blue eyes before sharpening up. Still sleepy, he looked around as if confused if he was still dreaming or awake. Finally, König locked eyes with you and smiled. It was a beautiful smile, toothy and life-savingly-relieving to see him coming back to his senses.

You did not smile back. The air bubbles in your mouth were too precious a cargo to smile for König, opting instead for an unhappy grimace and some waving motions that hopefully spelled out: ‘I don’t want to be here and need your help to get out’.

For a moment, a very long moment as you struggled, König blinked before the realisation kicked in. He was far away, so far away from you in the waters that he had dreamed up. Yet, unbelievably quick the serpent body moved and changed as König headed for you. With hands, not scaled claws anymore, König reached out as he fought his way through a whole ocean between you and him as a last air bubble left your mouth.

Your head was spinning and you started to lose sight as you felt hands on you that lifted you up and out of the water.

You coughed, ungraciously spitted out water as König tried wiping out hair and tangled clothes out of your face.

“Bride! Are you okay?”

You vomited water at his feet and chest while he held you like a cat that got rescued from the floods, close to his body and patting you like a little animal.

“She looks fine.” Ghost’s gravelly voice sounded through the air as you still tried to blink and see. “You better worry about this flood you caused.”

“Oh. Right.” You felt König shift and then the sound of water draining away as if someone had pulled a plug.

You coughed again for good measure, still feeling weak and miserably wet. The cold was starting to set in as the rush of fear and panic started to run out.

Shivering, you tried wiping away the water from your face and opened your eyes.

Your bedroom was a mess. But not in the way your mother would have disapproved of but in a way she would have questioned whether or not it was still habitable. The water was gone, but the signs of the flood were catastrophically clear with nothing being dry, in pieces or not where it ought to be. Your bed was a pile of torn fabrics and splintered wood. The chest with your clothing, tipped over and empty, looked like a sad hungry animal no one had bothered to feed. And your few personal possessions, kept toys from your childhood, gifts from friends, clothes lying around the floor. Ghost was standing before you on something that might have been pieces of your wedding dress, leaning on the axe with the same skull-covered expression as always, yet appearing somewhat amused under it.

And König - he was holding you up to his chest, his hands still patting you helplessly as if that could help you. He looked human. Mostly. The hair was as messy as the first day you saw him, covering most of his face except for blue eyes burning through with worry.

“I-” you rasped despite the storm of emotions waging through you. “I was so worried about you, König.”

Another cough.

“But I have never been as angry as this before. What did you do with my room? And my wedding dress. Also-”

You felt like there was still some water in places of your body where none was supposed to be, wheezing and shaking your head from the uncomfortable feeling.

“-put me down. You are so cold and I feel like I am freezing in your arms.”

Guiltily, König put you down, mumbling something that could have been an apology while Ghost choked on something that could have been a laugh.

You paid no attention to them, concentrating on your weak legs to hold you and carry you to the torn pieces of your wedding dress. Ghost stepped aside and watched you with open curiosity as you held your dress in disbelief of how quickly your work had turned into rags. Holding back tears, you let the fabric fall back down with a wet squelching sound and turned to the door. If you were lucky the hinges still worked and you could walk out on your own and warm you up again downstairs, away from the left battlefield that used to be your sanctuary.

You stumbled, reaching for the handle and opening the door only to face another cruel adversary.

The stairs.

There was no way you were able to make it down the steps without breaking your neck with how wobbly your legs felt and how ridiculously shaky your hands twitched.

You turned around, the pleading frustration in your eyes too visible for König not to step closer and peaking at the obstacle in your way.

He nodded while trying to control whatever emotions attempted to govern his face.

“Allow me, Bride.” He asked and lifted you up again before carrying you downstairs and into the kitchen, setting you down before the warm oven.

Ghost followed and started preparing tea and a hot stone before leaving the room as König returned with dry clothes for you, magically found somewhere in a part of the house that hadn’t been flooded. You looked at the pieces offered in his hands, only to see that it was a mix of mostly your fathers and brothers clothes from the storage. You did not care. They were dry and the village would judge you no matter what you wore. Might as well just do the best for yourself.

Unceremoniously, you stripped out of your dripping clothes. König held and steadied you where you needed it and grabbed the discarded pile of fabrics to put it up on the laundry line outside once you were done.

You stayed where you were, leaning close to the oven in the hopes of warming up quickly, and refusing to do anything before feeling less miserable.

Ghost was still a guest. And König was your fiance. A good hostess and bride would have started serving them the food that you had previously prepared.

A good hostess and bride would not have been dipped into a pool of dreamed up water in their own bedroom either. You thought bitterly before adding a relieving Fuck it.

Someone knocked at the door and you called them in.

Ghost reappear from the outside with a blanket of moss and leaves, wrapping it around you and placing you in the nearest chair to the oven before passing you a cup of the freshly brewed tea.

“Thank you,” You rattled through cold lips.

König returned with more wood for the oven and added a large log to feed the fire. You had shown him how to care for a fire, never expecting he would ever find a need for it. Both brothers hustled and moved around your little kitchen, hardly speaking and only every once in a while giving you worried glances as they made sure all work of a proper household would be done while you rested and warmed yourself. You closed your eyes, letting the feeling of being safe and cared for, seep in.

This day, even if it was slightly past midday, had punched all energy out of you while also confronting you with every possible emotion a human heart could feel. Waking up in the flood, alone and confused, next to your water serpent like fiance, meeting your future brother-in-law who thought you would die soon, nearly drowning once again while your fiance woke from the literally deepest nap possible in your now destroyed room. You sighed, not even bothering to bring order into your mind.

Instead, you gratefully thought how you finally weren’t alone even if it was scary at times to share your life with beings so different from you - König, Ghost, Farah, talking animals and murderous Rusalkis. Yes, this had been another moment where you could have been harmed. And mourning your room and things destroyed by the flood, was one of many things in the curled grey corners of your mind. There was still anger and confusion in you why it all had happened. But you weren’t alone anymore to face those things on your own. There were people around you now that noticed you and cared for your well-being. Clearly, not all of them to the same degree or out of the same motive. You understood that. But your lost room and wedding dress, your fears and secrets and longings felt more like a coherent song than a desperate cry for help when it wasn’t just your voice.

Someone touched you softly on the shoulder and you opened your eyes.

“Hey.” König stood before you with his blue watery eyes and wild hair.

Both brothers had paused their busy work and stood with their attention turned towards you.

“How are you feeling?” Ghost asked gravely from his far away spot at the door and reached for more tea for you with his long unhuman arms without moving.

You shivered, unsure if from the cold or from the odd reminder that neither of the men were human.

“Better,” You replied. “Thank you for giving me time to recover.”

Your eyes wandered to König, craving to hear his voice again and feel his warming eyes on you. He looked away, avoiding your gaze.

Your little heart dropped deeper than the waters in your room had been, fighting hard to soldier on.

You cleared your throat.

“Well,” you squeaked, your voice still feeling thin and fragily human as you addressed the giant men. “I am starving. This is not how a host normally does it in this house since all I did was sit and rest now. But how about we eat?”

The rabbit stew that you had made this morning smelled tempting and promising from its reheating spot in the oven and you heard your own stomach growl.

“Thank you for the invite, Vodyanitza,” Ghost declared, slightly bowing his head. “But we will have to do that another time.”

“Oh,” You huffed, slightly disappointed.

Ghost stilled, as if thinking before taking a deep breath.

“It has been lovely meeting you, my dear sister-in-law. It’s been a pleasure. Also- ” He paused. “I may have treated you rougher than necessary and I do apologise for that. If you ever need help, just send for me. I may not appear to be the most, let’s say, approachable. But I do hope that there is nothing but the best for you and I am looking forward to your wedding.”

“You are coming after all?” König finally spoke, surprise ringing in his voice as he turned to his brother.

Ghost nodded. “It’s not every day a brother of mine gets married. I need to make sure you don’t drown your own wedding guests.”

König forced a smile.

“Graves marries someone new every couple of years,” He interjected.

“Graves married and remarried so much, he hardly needs his elder brother to tell him how to plan a party. He knows what he is doing.”

Both brothers chuckled and you smiled at the sight, remembering your own brother.

“Before I go, dear sister, allow me to give you something.”

Ghost reached into his coat. From the depths of his pockets he produced a huge leaf, rolled up into a package and bound together with a simple string.

“I suppose you have none yet, but a future queen should wear one. It would look good on your wedding day.”

You took the package from his hands and pressed it slightly, trying to guess what was inside.

“Thank you, Ghost. Why-“

“Open it.”

Obediently you opened the little knot holding the leaf together with slow, cold fingers and unrolling what was inside.

You gasped.

In your hands was a Kokoshnik, large and covered with fine embroidery and colourful stones of green and blue. It felt firm in your hands. And it wanted to be worn. Like a crown, proud and bright for a special day. At least one thing you would have for your wedding day.

You thought back a sob at the thought of your torn wedding dress, your fingers still holding the precious crown like an anchor.

“I am sure König will gladly help you put it on. But don’t lose it. I made it for you and there is no other like it. It will protect you when you walk in the forest.”

“I…”, you huffed, “…don’t know what to say. This is very beautiful. Thank you.”

Ghost just waved with his hand like it was nothing.

“Don’t say anything and just wear it to keep you safe. Do me that favour.”

You nodded, out of words.

“Well, I’ll be gone then. The forest calls me.” Ghost turned to the door and you started to get up to send him off. “Don’t you dare get up, sister. What’s the point of the Kokoshnik if you fall sick from the cold and exhaustion. No, stay right where you are.”

You fell back onto your spot, the moss blanket encasing you like a cocoon of earthly smell and warmth.

“Save travels then, Ghost.” You spoke. “Thank you again.”

“Don’t mention it.” He waved and stepped outside, followed by König.

You sat there, hearing them talk and laugh and wishing each other well without making much out of it.

Then, finally, Ghost was away.

The rest of your day was spent alone with your own thoughts. König, aside from making sure you ate and rested, hardly spoke to you. His distance confused you. It gave a feeling of newfound loneliness when you stared at the unfamiliar ceiling with the wrong knots in the wood and the wrong bedding around you as you leaned against the oven. Ghost’s reassurances just a couple of hours ago now felt like a lie. You were no queen. And there was no way for you to live long enough to ever learn how to be one for König that was good enough. No standing on a box or life saving spells could change that. The finality of your fate was devastatingly simple. You would drown and König, your beloved König, would find himself a better queen. Why else did he withdraw himself like that?

The mauling insecurities inside of you stopped you from asking.

Instead you listened to König rummaging upstairs while you dozed under your moss blanket, practised drawing letters in the ashes of your oven or thought about how you could fix your wedding dress. It was pointless but you had little else to do and so you continued like you had always done.

König had brought the dress out together with the rest of your wet belongings, hanging it up to dry in the sun. The liberating concentration kept you from your dark thoughts: you had watched the dress through the window, mentally placing one piece of rag over the other in the hopes of possibly having a saving idea as the rags swayed gently in the breeze. It had worked until the light grew low and the trees around the house in the garden had started to spawn more unpleasant shadows than welcome distractions.

You got up from your cosy spot and started preparing dinner. Still feeling weak, your legs carried you with a slight tremor as your whole body was plagued by a deep tiredness. It came from all those times not resting. It felt like all those tears not shed. It was a tiredness that wasn’t fixed by sleeping longer one night because it was deeper than the soreness in your muscles and bones. It was the dark abyss of water calling for you. But you could lie to yourself. Opting to go to bed and calling it a day in the hopes that tomorrow would be better. Sometimes, giving up was actually a smart thing.

You huffed, once again forced to consider the reality of your situation.

Going to bed? Where? Your bedroom was destroyed. And the other rooms in your house had been packed up and sealed when your family died. Back then it was too much to bear seeing their things and looking at the places they used to rest. Even now, under no condition were you ready or willing to disturb those rooms. The easiest for you would probably be to sleep here in the kitchen.

But what about König? Would he need to sleep too? Flood the rest of the house and destroy every last bit of habitable space as he took you out in your sleep? Or would he leave you tonight and watch as the human-monsters and monsters-monsters finally had their feast with you. The thought nearly entertained you. Maybe that was better than drowning and at least some poor Tschort would enjoy a bit of your precious meat.

You chuckled at your own morbid thoughts.

But it was not night yet, and maybe there was a bit of queenly pride inside of you yet as you decided to brace yourself for an overdue conversation with König, leaning against the kitchen counter for support.

You opted to make some food. Since it might be your last chance to enjoy a meal before you became a meal, you took your time. There was not much to be done for dinner: heating the left-over stew, cutting some bread made of acorn flour, setting the table. After you finished, you steeled yourself for the hardest part.

“König?” You called upstairs. “Would you like to eat dinner with me?”

You held your breath and waited as the rumbling from upstairs stopped.

“It’s fine if you are busy, but I am hungry and would love your company,” You coaxed.

Heavy steps sounded through the wooden house, causing the old stairs to creak under the weight of the Vodyanoy.

König emerged into the kitchen, bowing down slightly under the marginally too low ceiling and looking at you sheepishly.

“Are you sure, Bride?” He asked. “I haven’t finished repairing your room.”

You raised your eyebrows in surprise, too stunned to speak before you swallowed down a good chunk of your raging insecurities.

“So that’s what you have been doing up there,” You finally said. “I did not know.”

König looked to the ground like he had been caught stealing goodies from the pantry. It was a look that made your knees weaker than even a day facing terrors could.

“I wanted to repair it. I wanted to apologise with more than words. It’s what good kings ought to do.” He explained looking immensely guilty.

Your breath hitched.

He cared?

You looked down, still thinking of your room and your ruined wedding dress. It did hurt you.

But there was hope because he cared. You nearly hated yourself how desperate you were from the affection of someone who you could never have.

“It’s fine,” You said, after a few moments of heavy silence as you fought the storm inside of you. “It’s fine for now. We will make it work and repair it together. It’s, ah, fine.”

He looked relieved as you looked up from your hands.

“I also want to apologise,” You continued. The words in your mouth felt relieving to spit out like bitter medicine. “I thought about this. I was really cross at you. Not entirely sure how much nicer I could have been considering the moment. But I don’t strive to talk to others like that, especially not my fiance. I just felt hurt and alone.”

He turned his head like the Heron when hunting little fish in the water.

“You have every right to be angry, dear,” König stated

“I...” You tried before stopping and starting anew. “That does not mean I am proud or okay with my words. Especially after Ghost explained to me that you probably overworked yourself on my behalf. I am not sure how to feel about that yet but it does not make me feel good. I don’t want you to suffer because of me. I feel so guilty. And like a burden.”

König stared at you.

“Dear,” He said softly. “I know you want to be good and kind. I know you are. But please give me your bad as well.”

You blinked at him.

“What?”

He raised his arms like a man at a loss of word, stumbling around the room until he turned back to you.

“Guess how I feel failing you over and over again when your reaction to me is kindness and surrender? I feel bad. The worst! Don’t do this to me. Be a burden. Be angry. Be the biggest inconvenient person wherever you go. Please be angry and demand better of me! I want all of you. Not just the nice parts.”

Your head was spinning. Was he…? Did he really…?

“I am not good enough!” König continued his tirade with a voice rising louder and louder like a tea kettle that had reached its boiling point. “I am who puts you in danger over and over again. I hardly protect you from the dangers of the world. I am a danger of the world. I am making a poor husband for you. But the reality is, I am not good enough to step away because I am selfish. So, how dare you make yourself feel any less than you are.”

His eyes gleamed with a madness you had never seen before in him as he lowered his voice with the last of his words. It was dangerous. A sign of warning that told you to step back and run as far away as you could like a good girl should.

But you were just invited to leave that behind you.

“I don't want you to leave either!” You hit back, squaring up to the challenge. “I just don’t want to feel like I am a constant problem. I am just a human! A peasant! And a bad one at that since I will likely starve next winter without help! I know nothing of how to be a queen! I nearly drown all the time! How can you not understand that I don’t feel like I am allowed to be a problem when my reality is that no one cares if I live or die!”

“Because you are wrong! I care.” König's eyes gleamed as he hissed his answer.

“Why?” You spit back, the fire in you burning and ready to torch any bridge behind without thinking.

“Because I love you.”

Königs words hung in the air, irretrievable and powerful enough to break whatever you two had.

You looked at him. His face was frozen in fear and panic. Like he had admitted to a crime he’d sworn to keep a secret.

He loved you. The thought raced through your mind, unsure where to be put and what to do with it now.

“I am sorry,” König said. “I understand. I will make sure you are okay as promised anyway and-”

“Please…” you managed to your own surprise.

“Please?” König asked with his eyes shining down at you.

You took a deep breath and all the courage in you that was left, “Please lean down so I can kiss you.”

König looked at you, too stunned maybe or unsure how to touch you without breaking this human body of yours, before finally kneeling down in one, not so smooth, motion. You stumbled forward, colliding into his chest and tangling in his arms before lifting your head and kissing him.

It was all teeth and desperation. König met your lips with a hunger matching yours, and an anger challenging your long hidden fury. He moaned and you wanted every bit of air you could get from him as you roamed his back and shoulders and arms and chest and neck, and at a certain point you got lost in him. You bit his lips and tasted blood. He snarled and pushed you back, catching your head before you could fall and hurt yourself. You stumbled and fell back anyway, taking him with you. The crash rumbled loudly as König caught himself on his arms, hovering above you before continuing where you had left off. His mouth was addicting, and willingly you answered his salty lips and tongue. A bit of revealed skin at his neck here, a tug at your shirt there. You scooted up feeling hot and needing that damn old shirt off your body because you were burning up with it. Instead of getting it off quickly you got yourself tangled in the large sleeves, nearly ready to just tear it off your body as you felt Königs hands pulling at the fabric and freeing you. The kiss of the cooling air on your skin made you still. For a moment you felt shy, making you cross your arms in instinct before your chest.

König looked at you from a position that was something between kneeling, sitting and lying before you, also half out of his clothes with his Rubacha hanging around his neck and head.

“Not sure why I feel like this is new, now.” You admitted. “You have seen me naked before.”

“That was a different nakedness,” König offered and finished getting the shirt off. “This is new.”

You nodded, understanding entirely what he meant, and continued to feel vulnerable. What were you supposed to do? You had no idea what you wanted now except being close to König.

“We don’t have to continue, my love.” Your fiance said.

You nodded again, reassured yet still utterly lost on what to do.

König scooted closer and slowly raised his hands, “Can I touch you? I just want to hold you.”

Instead of bothering with words or another creative and variety serving nod, you leaned into him. Königs warm hands caught you, pressed you closer to him and embraced you.

You hummed.

“Is this good?”

“Yeah, I am sorry-”

“No,” König shut down instantly. “No more ‘sorry’ for you tonight. Or ever. I really meant that.”

You knitted your eyebrows together in confusion.

“But what if I do something bad?” You countered as you enjoyed feeling close to König. “Shouldn’t I say sorry at some point?”

“To me? Always.” König grinned teasingly before growing serious. “The rest of the world, however, has a lot of apologising to do before you ever get back into a situation to be sorry for something, dear.”

“You just want me to be as bad as you are,” You teased back half-heartedly.

“Naturally.”

You stayed silent, not sure what to say or do except enjoying being safe and loved in Königs arms as you mindlessly explored his back and chest with your fingers, drawing little circles and charms into his wonderful skin.

“We should talk about the sleeping situation tonight.” You finally spoke, breaking the silent spell over you.

“Yeah.” König agreed. “I have an idea.”

Cultural Context Notes:

The theme of the unkillable giants as beings connected to nature can be found in the Edda, but it’s not the only place this theme is explored. It’s just the most clear one I thought of, and can be put into words as a place to maybe start researching if your are interested in that. The idea of hitting König as something akin to a giant to wake him up, comes from the tale of Thor and Skrímnir.

Generally, the idea of paralleling gods/godlike beings, humans and giants, escalated into a bit of a philosophical excursion at the kitchen table when I mentioned how the story is unfolding, leading to the question what exactly the difference between godlings, giants and humans is and if there even is one. In plenty of pre-Christian European tales, there aren’t boundaries between godlike beings and humans. If a human stays with a godlike being, they kind of tag along and don’t die like they would have had when staying with their fellow humans. Sometimes there is an explanation for it (godly ancestry, nectar or Idun’s apples, magical blessings), sometimes there isn’t (Thialfi and Röskva as Thor’s entourage, general trope of humans in service of or in marriage with a non-human being).

Warming stones or using ceramics is an old practice when hot water bottles weren’t available.

There are several legends and myths associating the water or waters generally with snakes. Naturally, there is the saga of the Midgard snake, encompassing the world in Norse mythology. The theme of a great water snake or mermaid-like half-fish, half-human body encompassing the world also comes up in Greek mythology in the figure of Oceanos as the great river god and father of river gods. Since we don’t have plenty of sources about old Slavic beliefs, I am taking the liberty and filling some gaps here from geographically closer regions where we do have more sources on mythology.

Acorn is edible and can be made into a fine flour from which it is possible to bake bread. However, do not just make flour from acorns. It’s a huge process to disinfect and debitter acorns before grinding them into flour. There is a reason why nowadays most cultures opt for utilising cultivated crops like grains and legumes instead of using low yield giving nuts and seeds. (Also, we really need those acorns as food for wild animals and for reforestation!) Cultivation of plants is a huge game changer for human life quality and communal living. It’s really cool. But it does require more cooperative systems of labour since harvesting and processing plants like grain requires sharing of work, space to do it, and natural weather & ground conditions to grow. Plus the grain in itself needs to be cultivated first. And these amazing food sources can be exploited by having control over places in which one can grow certain high yielding crops which can trigger war and oppression. Most noticeably in the Central and Eastern European region, which is obviously what I write about a lot, this is the case with Ukraine. This now independent country has good climate and ground conditions, yielding great harvests of wheat grain and sunflower, leading to the region being dubbed the Granary of Europe. Ukraine was fought over not just today but also occupied in historical moments like WW2 by the Nazis or under the Russian Empire precisely to have access to these high yielding conditions. So, food and where food comes from, is an important angle to understand plenty of conflicts, imperial oppression and cultures. I invite you to read more about the history of grain, why Ukraine has a flag literally depicting a grain filed under the blue sky or maybe learning how to make bread yourself. To return to my point: Bride lives in an area which has seasons. However, the climate is cooler with lots of swamps and waters around. The forest takes most of the shore space in her immediate vicinity. She has a garden in which she (tries to) grow buckwheat, a very climate-resistant pseudo grain. And technically she owns fields, but has no way to work them on her own due to the lack of manpower, possible lack of seeds, as well as timing issues for the sowing. But common grains like wheat require a warm and steady dry climate which is not the case here. Other grains like rye are historically common in Central and Eastern Europe, however one needs to plant them first and after the harvest it still requires labour to dry and deshell the rye first, a luxury that Bride does not have because she has been on her own for most of the year. So, to finish this long excursion on grains and flours - she uses acorn flour for bread because she was isolated and on her own. Also, agriculture is really cool and maybe you will think about the amount of labour, logistics, politics and historical development when biting into something flour based.

Vodyanitza is just the female version of Vodynoy

Rubacha is the name of the traditional linen shirt worn by historically both men and women but nowadays mostly associated with male clothing traditions. This shirt is often loosely fitted and bound at the hip with a belt. Having embroidery, especially red embroidery on a Rubacha is very common as red natural dye was widely available in the region. The embroidery and introduction of other colours is dependent on the exact time and place a Rubacha comes from. Even nowadays the Rubacha is part of plenty of Eastern European traditional dresses.

Quick reminder: a Tschort is a type of evil spirit.

Would you like to be tagged as well? send me a message.

@thesinsoflust @kdkj122920 @die-prophetin @lillianastuff @1234ilikecowsthanyoumore @fatedeniedhope @queensidillasworld @agspgrwasb @silelda @unlikepoltergeist @matcha-flavored-cake @blvkwondaland @diamondnightdreamer @brooklyn-1918 @thorns-x @icepancakes @sizzlingsaladpeach @peachymonsters @blackrockshooter780 @cl3rks @king-thunderstorm @hosshihusshi @id0nthaveidea @perilous-pasta @lothiriel9 @berryjuicyy @asmohunny @amatis-gray @blubumblebee @ofmenanduhhhwellmen @c00kied0ugh44 @quesowakanda @moonlitmoonpie @ktmjoslin @globalmilk03 @interactive-brain @dark-rosy-amaranthine @quietlyignoringyou @hey-assbutt35

#grimmwriting #he who comes from under the water #hwcfutw #könig #könig x reader #könig cod #könig mw2 #könig call of duty #call of duty modern warfare 2 #call of duty #call of duty 3 #call of duty modern warfare 3 #call of duty modern warfare #simon ghost riley #leshy #monster!au #monster!König #vodyanoy #vodyanoy!König

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kkeidawrites · 3 months ago

Text

A Gemstone Amongst the Rest

Welcome to Day 11 of Blacktober!

CW: Violence, enemies to lovers, slow burn

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A Bird in the Shadows

The shadows of Gotham City fluttered with unknown characters and the rats, as elusive as they were finally came into the night.

Lights were lit around the remaining buildings of the business district, crime alley already open to the public and no doubt ready for their shenanigans to begin.

On top of an unfinished building, stood the infamous detective and protector of Gotham City, the Batman. With his knee perched on the edge, Batman looked around the streets of Gotham, a watchful eye on its citizens as the nightlife that the city is known for started up.

“Master Bruce, do you plan to come home anytime soon to eat dinner?” The earpiece in his cowl spoke and the man presses his finger to his left ear.

“Alfred, I need an update on that lead I had last night. I think I may have found a clue as to who it is.” Batman says as his eyes focus on an abandoned jewelry store sitting in front of the building he stood upon.

Scaling down the building, Batman makes it to the front entrance of the jewelry store and steps into the broken window where normally the pieces of gems would be displayed.

“Catwoman, again sir?” Alfred speaks up questionably.

“Unless she’s switched to robbing abandoned jewelry stores then no, I think we have a new friend in Gotham.” Batman replies then kneels down to pick up a powdery substance on the ground.

“Oh joy.” Alfred says unimpressed.

Searching the area, Batman took his time taking samples of the powdered substance, that leads him to the back of the building. He finds himself in the vault of the store and sees it is picked clean of any trace of jewelry; no brainer there but what could someone want with an abandoned jewelry store?

Turning to his left, Batman spots a handprint on the vault’s handle, the powdered substance once again making an appearance.

Taking out a scanner tool from his utility belt, he holds it up to the handprint and analyzes the impression. It comes back with no results and Batman frowns in thought.

“This handprint doesn’t match with anyone. That can’t be possible.” He mutters to himself. Taking a step back, Batman feels something by his foot and looks down to see a rounded rock.

Bending down on a knee, he picks up the rock and inspects it carefully. It felt lighter than a regular density a rock would originally weigh, it was hollow.

Cracking the rock on the concrete floor, it is revealed to the detective that there were gems inside. Batman ponders on what this type of rock was doing in a place like this.

“Ohhhh, I see you’ve found my gem. Quite fascinating aren’t they?” A new voice speaks up from behind him and Batman looks over his shoulder at the woman that stood at the vaults entrance, her back leaned against it.

Her black and silk mask covered her entire face, hollow eyes looked at him with a blank expression. She wore a full body black suit and high heeled boots.

“Each one is full of different gems and colors, each one a price that is worth much more than that Bruce Wayne owns.” She says looking at her nails, bored.

“Who are you?” Batman demands.

“Black Sparrow, now if you don’t have anymore questions I would like my rock back.” Sparrow holds out her hand to him, expecting to have her geode but, the Dark Knight didn’t move whatsoever.

“What do you need them for?”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? If they have a pretty color inside, then they are worth a pretty penny.” Sparrow places a hand on her hip while the other sneakily goes into her right pocket.

“And if I don’t give this to you?” Batman gets in a wider stance.

Sparrow sighs then suddenly throws three round balls at his feet, a gas emits from the balls and Batman covers his mouth with his free hand.

He saw that the gas didn’t affect him and slowly lowered his hand. However, the gas didn’t hurt him, it did activate something with the geode in his hand, it began to grow as if it was ice around his hand. The geode’s grip takes over his entire upper body and his right leg making him stuck.

Sparrow walks up to the struggling hero of the night and takes the geode from his hold. Looking it over to see if any of the inside was destroyed or damaged, Sparrow tilts her head at him in curiosity. She checks out his face and body and hums.

“I told you to let me have it but, now look at you: stuck and struggling.” She giggles and goes to leave the vault.

“Oh, another thing, there is a ‘little something’ I left behind. I figured you would be here sooner or later and I was right. Ka ọ dị. (Goodbye).” She waves as she walks out the vault.

Just as she said that, beeping was heard around Batman and he struggles against his restraints. His free foot kicks at the gem encased around his leg and is able to free it. Placing both feet behind him, Batman pushes himself off the wall and this allows the rest of his body to be freed from the geode.

Running out into the sales floor, Batman searches the room for the beeping and finally sees the little something that Black Sparrow left behind.

A bomb sat cushioned in a velvet jewelry box and Batman inspected the bomb. His mask scanned the contents of the inside of the bomb and saw that it was an opened geode on the inside. 45 seconds was showed as it ran down on the timer, Batman had to work fast and without knowing how powerful this bomb was he couldn’t take any chances.

Flipping it over, he pulls open a little hatch at the bottom and sees four wires inside. Red, green, blue, and yellow were his options and he had to be careful as to which wires were not going to set it off.

20 seconds were left and Batman had to make a decision now, guessing that blue was the correct choice he pulls it. Unfortunately this wasn’t the right wire as the timer now read 10 seconds, pulling the red, nothing happened again.

Batman pulls the other two wires and it did the same thing as the first two, none of them were the right wire and Batman felt that it was best to bail out now.

He is quick to make his exit and once the beeping of the bomb stopped an explosion went off and the entire jewelry store was now full of crystal geode, sticking out of the window and walls like spikes.

Batman looks at the mess that was made then presses a finger to the earpiece in his cowl.

“Alfred, call Gotham PD to my coordinates. I believe Commissioner Gordon should be aware there is another criminal in Gotham.” Batman orders looking around the area.

“Right away sir.”

Unbeknownst to Batman, Black Sparrow looked on three buildings down from her crime scene and smirks at her work, then is quick to leave the area by using her in suit wings to fly off.

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Two weeks later

The annual Wayne Industries Conference Ball was held at Wayne Manor as it usually would around this time and all socialites and business gurus alike were in attendance.

Bruce Wayne, billionaire and businessman, made his rounds at his party; greeting old, faces meeting new ones, and showing off his playboy mannerisms that he is known for.

However, as he was speaking with one of his business partners, Bruce’s eyes found a newcomer enter the foyer.

Hair in boho braids that went to her shoulders, a cocktail dress that had a slit up to her mid thigh and black stilettos.

Her eyes find Bruce’s blue ones for a second but she is quick to look away and walk over to the hors d'oeuvres table. Using a napkin, she picks up a cucumber sandwich, and takes a drink from a nearby waiter. Taking a swig of the champagne, the woman hums in delight then eats the little snack.

“Excuse me,” the woman hums, answering and turns to see Bruce Wayne standing in front of her.

“I don’t believe we’ve met, Bruce Wayne.” He holds out a hand to her to shake. Swallowing her food, the woman dabs the napkin over her lips.

“Y/n L/n, I would say it’s a pleasure Mr. Wayne but, I believe that you and I have nothing to say to one another.” She raises a brow at him.

“Oh? Have we met before then?” He asks lowering his hand to his side.

“L/n Styles, your company is trying to sell out mines. The very one that I worked my ass off to get off the ground. I was only going to attend this place for a short time because I owe a friend but, now that I’ve met you, I can’t help myself.” Y/n snaps then takes another swig of her drink.

“L/n Styles? I don’t know what you’re talking about. My company doesn’t deal with any clothing brands.” This doesn’t settle the ire in Y/n’s stomach.

“You’d best figure out who is trying to take my business away from me or else I will see you in court Mr. Wayne. Good day.” Y/n sets down her glass on the table behind her and pushes past Bruce, heading for the exit. He takes notice of the necklace around her neck and sees it is a geode.

Bruce places a hand under his chin in thought. Since when was he buying out a clothing company, that was never something he wanted to do. He needed to get on the horn with his brokers and see what is happening.

Rushing out to follow her, Bruce spots her getting her fur coat from the coat checker at the door and puts it on.

Y/n leaves the manor with a displeased look on her face and carefully walks down the slippery steps.

“Miss L/n! Wait a minute!” Her head turns to see who it was but, this makes her slip on a step and she gasps in shock.

Bruce is quick to catch her by the waist and pull her up straight so that the two were face to face. Y/n pushes him away when she realized he was holding her much longer than she liked and glared at him annoyed.

“What is it that you want Mr. Wayne?”

“I was going to tell you that I will give your company a call tomorrow. This is all a big misunderstanding, I do not incorporate my business with anything related to fashion or threads, I don’t know anything about that stuff. If you’ll let me, I can investigate this and keep you informed of what is going on.” Bruce offers and puts his hand in his suit pocket. He pulls out his card and hands it to her, Y/n reluctantly takes it.

“Fine. But, if I find out that you are trying to buy my company I will sue your ass to high Hell. This will be mine.” She threatens.

Bruce nods with a sly smirk.

“I’ll even hand over the keys if that is the case.” He says.

Y/n looks him over and turns to leave once more, the valet at the bottom of the staircase already waiting with her keys and car.

Driving off, Bruce watches the woman leave his home turf then frowned in thought. A geode necklace? How interesting. His thoughts are interrupted when he hears Alfred call for him inside.

Bruce walks back up the stairs but not without looking at the entrance of his manor gates where the woman had just left from then returns to continue hosting inside.

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If you guys want a part 2 let me know!

Make sure to like, reblog, and follow and hey ask me for any particular content you want to see written for Blacktober in my inbox!

Part 2:

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twohearts-hs · 2 months ago

Text

Defying The Odds: 11 - Michael Scofield x Reader Series

Words in Total: 6.1k

Pairings: Michael Scofield x Reader: afab x reader

Synopsis: Y/N was a victim of the mob since the age of fifteen, however, falling in love with the wrong guy and having an argument got her 25 years in prison for murder. She had a plan to get out in faith of her husband until she met Michael Scofield, who, despite his plan, fell in love with her. Now she has the mob and Michael Scofield's escape to worry about.

Warnings: Swearing, Prison, Intimacy, Murder, etc. you know the deal...

A/N: this is a complete series of ~105k words. Based on Season 1 & 2.

Hope you enjoy :)

Masterlist

Michael was in the psych ward waiting for Dr. Remington to arrive so they could talk about his well-being. He stood at the window, hands on his hips as he looked out. He missed her…he had to admit. It’s been a few days without Y/N and they left it on a bad note and he was sorry. He was in the wrong for his reaction. They were something. Something special.

A knock came, and Michael turned around to see Dr. Remington coming in. “Hi, Michael. They said you wanted to talk to me.”

“Hey,” Michael said solemenly. “Yeah, I do.”

Dr. Remington came in the room and sat down on the bed. Michael sat next to him. “Um, how’s Y/N?” was the first thing he asked.

Dr. Remington smiled. “She’s good. Worried about you. Paid a few guards to find out where you are. She still thinks you’re in solitary,” he told Michael.

“Can you let her know where I am? I don’t want her to worry.” Dr. Remington nodded. “I, uh, made this for her,” he said, grabbing the ashtray.

“An ashtray. Y/N smokes?”

“She used to. Before prison. I told her it was gross and to never do it again, but it can be like a bowl for like jewellery or something,” Michael chuckled.

Dr. Remington nodded, taking it. “I’ll give it to her. Now, let’s talk about how you’re doing.”

Michael nodded, sighing. “I think we both know I don’t belong here. I don’t remember much about that night, but being locked up in A.D. seg, something must’ve snapped,” he told him honestly. “What I’m trying to say is, I think I’ve had enough of arts and crafts. But that’s your call,” he mumbled but with confidence.

“And the doctors here do say that you’ve been acting fine,” Dr. Remington added. “However, the problem is that if you don’t tell Pope who burned you, he’s gonna lock you back up in A.D. seg. And after a couple of days of that, you’re gonna be right back here.” Dr. Remington took a deep breath. “You need to let me help you. Not for me, but do it for Y/N.”

“She’s ok?” Michael asked.

“You two are in a symbiosis relationship. I don’t know what type of relationship as I know you two will never tell, but I have my ideas and she’s worried about you.” Michael listened intensely. Nodding. “If you want to stay out of the psych ward and see Y/N again, you need to tell Pope who burned you.”

It was that time of day when prisoners could socialise; however, Y/N was not interested. Instead, she focused on keeping to herself. She sat on the edge of her bunk, legs crossed beneath her, holding a book that she’d been trying to read for hours now, though the words blurred together on the page. Her thoughts were consumed with worry for Michael.

It had been days since he got put into A.D.-seg…if he was still there. No news, no updates. Just empty silence. She tried not to imagine the worst, but the ache in her chest only deepened with every passing hour. She missed him – missed their conversations, his touch, missed the way he looked at her like she was the only thing keeping him grounded in this place.

“How many books have you read since you got here?” a voice said from in front of her cell. Y/N’s heart skipped a beat as she looked up from her book. Her pulse quickened when she saw him – Michael. He stood at the entrance of her cell, his frame leaning slightly against the door, still recovering from his adventures. But there he was, alive, with a tired but soft smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“Michael,” she whispered, dropping the book and instantly scrambling to her feet. Her emotions surged, crashing against her chest like waves against a cliff. They stood there for a brief moment, eyes locking in silent recognition of everything they’d been through. Relief, love, longing. Everything was there, unspoken but so palpable in the air.

“Are you going to hug me?” he smirked.

“Of course I am,” she responded as he took a step into her cell, and he reached out for her. In one fluid motion, his arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her flush against him. She melted in him, her hands clutching at the fabric of his shirt, her feart pounding in her ears. Her head burrowed into his nape as he held him close.

“Shh, I’m here,” he whispered in her ear, kissing her head. “I’m here.”

Y/N pulled away, hand coming up to cup his cheek which had small stubble on it. Her fingers brushed over his lips and he kissed them.

“Never go away like that,” she mumbled.

He nodded before leaning down and kissing her. Passionate, desperate, like all the lost time and worry had been poured into that single moment.

He didn’t care who saw them or what the guards would think. People were already talking. For once, the prison walls around them dissolved, and all that mattered was that they were together again.

When they finally pulled apart, breathless, Michael rested his forehead against hers, his thumb brushing lightly over her cheek as if to make sure she was really there, that this was real.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, his voice low but filled with sincerity. “For everything. For the fight in the cafeteria, being thrown to AD-seg then sent to psych ward–“

“–the psych ward?” she whispered.

“I spent my days doing arts and crafts, but I needed to see Haywire to get him to draw the missing map as he remembered.”

“Who?”

“My crazy schizoaffective old cellmate,” he chuckled. “It’s the past.”

“You went on an adventure,” she jested, shaking her head.

“I did, but I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have said those things to you. I was scared, angry about the plan and I lashed out on you and you didn’t deserve that,” he explained, his voice low and empathetic.

Y/N swallowed, blinking back her tears that threatened to spill over. “I was just so worried about you,” she whispered.

“Did you get my gift?” he hummed, tucking her hair behind her ear and bringing her face up to his for a kiss.

“No.”

“Then Dr. Remington is not a good delivery guy,” he chuckled. “However, sweet thing, we are in a relationship. I want that. I want to be with you. When we get out of here, I want you to come with me and Linc. Panama.”

“Panama is beautiful,” she whispered.

“You’ve been?”

“No, but I’ve been around there,” she whispered. Y/N looked down. “You’ve been to receiving, right? To get the watch?”

He nodded.

“My wedding ring and engagement ring are in there. They are worth a lot. If you can get them, we can pawn them and get money,” she told him. “It’s 14k gold and a huge rock.”

He heard her loud and clear. That would make a lot of money.

“Pawning isn’t as easy as dropping off a ring and making money, Y/N. You need ID and then they clear them to see if they’re stolen,” he told her, playing with a strand of hair. “But, we can try.”

She nodded. “I’m glad you’re ok.”

He nodded. “Me too.”

Y/N sat at the cold, sterile table in the visitation room, her fingers anxiously tracing the edges of the metal surfaces as she waited. The dum hum of florescent lights overhead seemed to echo the tension that had been building inside her for weeks. Despite everything – the escape plan, Michael, the weight of her sentence – today was about something else. It was about severing the last time she had to a past she’d been trying to escape: Sebastian.

When her divorce lawyer, Mr. Lukas, finally walked in, he looked composed as always. He was a seasoned professional, with salt-and-pepper hair and a calm demeanour that never faltered. He carried a thick manila folder and gave her a small, reassuring nod as he took a seat across from her.

“Hello, Y/N,” he greeted, his voice even. “Good to see you.”

“Likewise. What’s the news?”

Mr. Lukas straightened his glasses and opened the folder, pulling out a stack of papers. “Well, I’ve got an update that might surprise you,” he began, his tone careful. “Sebastian has signed the divorce papers we have served him.”

Y/N blinked, her heart skipping a beat. “He signed them? Willingly?”

“Yes, he signed them without a fight.”

Her mouth opened to speak, but no words came out. Of all the scenarios she’d imagined, Sebastian agreeing to the divorce so easily was not one of them. He had been manipulative, possessive and controlling – the type of man who thrived on keeping power over others, especially her. There was no way he would let her go this easily, not without a catch.

“Something’s not right,” she muttered, more to herself than to Mr. Lukas. Her eyes drifted downward, focusing on the papers in his hands, the lines blurring as her mind raced. “He’s up to something. He always as a plan.”

Mr. Lukas offered a sympathetic look, clearly sensing her apprehension. “It does seem surprising, given the history between you two,” he acknowledged. “But from a legal standpoint, this could make the process a lot smoother. You’ve been living separate lives for quite some time now and you have no joint assets. It could be a relatively clean break.”

Y/N nodded, but the gnawing feeling in her gut didn’t subside. Sebastian never did anything unless it benefited him. He was smart, calculating, always one step ahead.

“But…” Mr. Lukas continued, his voice taking on a serious tone, “there’s one potential issue. Mr. Marino has requested a clause to be included in the agreement.”

Y/N’s heart dropped. There it was. The problem she’d been waiting for, the one thing that would complicate everything. “What clause?”

Her lawyer hesitated for a moment before speaking. “Due to your sentence, he has asked for biweekly visitation rights,” Mr. Lukas said, his voice measured. “Here at the prison.”

Y/N froze, her blood turning cold. “Visitation? Why?”

“He claims it’s to ensure you’re well-being,” Mr. Lukas explained, his voice tinged with scepticism. “He framed it as a concern for you, wanting to ‘check in’ on how you’re doing. But I think we both know what’s not what this is about.”

Y/N’s stomach twisted. Of course, that wasn’t what it was about. Sebastian didn’t care about her well-being, he cared about control. Even from behind bars, he wanted to maintain his grip on her life. He wanted influence on her.

“He just…wants to keep me under his thumb,” Y/N whispered, more to herself than to her lawyer. “He’s never going to let me go, is he?”

Mr. Lukas’ expression softened with sympathy. “It’s certainly an attempt to maintain some form of control. I’ve seen this kind of tactic before. If we allow it, those visits could be another way for him to manipulate you, emotionally or otherwise.”

“He signed the papers though?”

“This is a clause.”

Y/N thought for a second before nodding. She was escaping soon and Michael promised a life away from the mob.

“He can have it,” she said with shrug. “However, Mr. Lukas, I need a favour.”

“And what’s that?”

“I need you to get a man named Christopher Thomas to make a withdrawal from my bank account. Can you get him to do that?”

Mr. Lukas nodded. “Of course, and who is he?”

“My brother.”

It was another cold day and Y/N was dressed in layers with her hat on as she leaned against one of the walls with Michael talking.

Sucre sauntered in, fresh out of solitary as he hugged his cousin. Michael pushed off the wall to walk to him as well giving him a hug before going back to the group.

“You all can sign each other’s yearbooks later. Where are we at?” T-Bag cut in, ruining the moment.

“The map is complete. I got what I needed,” Michael announced looking over to Sucre and smiling.

“Then we’re ready,” T-Bag grinned.

“Almost.” Michael began to walk a circle back to Y/N. “I know which pipes we need to take beneath psych ward now. Which means our way to the infirmary is clear. With our new route, we’re gonna come up on the fear end of that building.” He nodded towards the building where there was a wire hanging from one side to the wall. “We gotta walk down 30 feet of hallway to get to the doctor’s office. Our exit point. Which means there’s only one piece left to this whole thing. The key to that room.”

“No sweat. That’s all we gotta do is run a bump and grab on a CO like we did last time, grab the keys, make a copy,” C-Note suggested.

“It’s not that easy. Only medical staff have those keys,” Michael says.

“How’re you fixing on getting it then, Pretty?” T-Bag cocked.

“Carefully.”

“No more surprises this time, right?” C-Note hummed.

“Right.”

Just then Abruzzi appeared, coming off the bus dressed in a yellow jumpsuit and a blue jacket. Y/N scanned him over, seeing his new haircut and looking very much alive.

Y/N and Michael walked off together to the corner of the yard. His hand found her lower back as they halted. The sun hung low in the sky, casting a warm glow over the prison yard as Y/N and Michael found a secluded spot away from prying eyes of guards and inmates. Michael leaned against the fence, his expression serious, contrasting sharply with the fading daylight. She leaned against the fence, closing her eyes and taking a breath.

“I think Tweener is a rat,” she said looking at him. “I haven’t told you as you got yourself locked up in the SHU,” she stated.

Michael glanced over. “Explain.”

“Lots of questions about you, your thinking, what you’re planning…us. I think he’s reporting to Bellick.”

Michael nodded. “I figured.” Then he glanced at her and saw her looking ahead. “I need to task you with something.” She glanced back and nodded. “Keys, to the infirmary.”

Y/N crossed her arms, a mix of uncertainty and determination etched on her face. “What do you mean?”

Michael took a deep breath, preparing himself. “I need you to get the keys to the infirmary. Dr. Remington has them, and I think he has a soft spot for you.”

A knot twisted in Y/N’s stomach. “You want me to steal from him? I haven’t stolen in years, Michael.”

“I know,” he replied, his gaze steady. “But you can do this. You have to play it smart. Pretend you need to see him for a blood test.”

“Why a blood test?” she asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.

Michael looked at her. “I’m going to ask you a personal question,” he whispered and she nodded. “Have you been pregnant before?”

Y/N’s eyes bulged and she stayed quiet. “A year ago,” she whispered, “miscarriage.”

“I’m sorry,” he responded. “What kind of symptoms did you have that indicated pregnancy?”

“Missed period,” she said. “Nausea but no vomiting. Fatigue. My breasts were really sore and got bigger real fast.”

Michael nodded. “Then use those symptoms because we are doing the pregnancy card. Make a lie if they talk about sexual intercourse or activity. Drop my name if you have to.”

“Michael,” she tried.

“You’re a good actress, Y/N. You know how men act, think, talk. If you can manipulate his emotions, he won’t see it coming. Play up fear and vulnerability. I am here for five years, you’re here for twenty-five, if you’re pregnant, the baby will go into the system.”

“I’m on birth control,” she argued.

“Mistakes happen. It doesn’t always work. Plus, you just had it changed, and you haven’t been on it for a while. They lowered your prescription. Chances could be you can get pregnant. Dr. Remington has his figures about us, so it’ll make sense.”

“Where did we have sex, Michael? We never get a time alone. T-Bag caught us and then Bellick.”

“Showers. Ever heard of a quickie? Or selfish sex if you want to go down that route even though I’m not a selfish lover.”

“Ew,” she grimaced. “Ok, I’ll do it.”

“Cry, Y/N. Have a panic attack. But keep it to your normal demeanour. We don’t want him to think something is up.”

He came up to her, arm wrapping around her shoulder/neck, pulling her in. His lips came close to her ear. “Play him like a victim. I love you.”

She nodded, mumbling those words back and pulling away. Michael had done so much for her, she needed to do this for him. For the plan. For the team. For them.

Y/N’s heart raced as she stepped into the sterile environment of the infirmary. The bright fluorescent lights felt harsh against her skin, she forced herself to maintain a composed expression. She had rehearsed her words, and now it was time to put on the performance of a lifetime.

This was life or death.

Dr. Remington was seated at his desk, reviewing some files when he looked up and noticed her. “Y/N,” he said, his tone a mix of surprise and concern. Her eyes closed, as a tear flowed down and she took a deep breath before speaking. “Are you ok?”

“Can we talk?” she whispered, taking a step forward as she played with her trembling hands. “It’s…serious,” she stammered, letting the worry seep into her voice.

“Of course. What’s going on?” His brow furrowed as he stood up and went to the hospital bed and preparing it for her. “Sit down.”

Y/N did, looking down to the ground before whispering. “You can’t tell anyone.” She forced herself to look vulnerable, her eyes welling with unshed tears.

Just then, she heard the doors to the infirmary open and Michael was being escorted into the room by guards. He was here for his insulin shot, but as her eyes darted to her, she closed them letting the tears come a little more. Dr. Remington looked over to Michael who was watching her as he was escorted to the room next door.

“Y/N, what’s going on?” he whispered. “Did Scofield do something to you?”

Y/N’s head shot up as she shook it. “No, no. Never.” Then she took a deep breath. “I didn’t think much about it. I was feeling really fatigued and then I thought it was the prison food that was making me nauseous, but then I missed my period.” She paused, looking away as if the words were too heavy to bear. “It wasn’t until I felt my breasts being really sore and they are getting bigger that I knew.”

Dr. Remington’s expression shifted from concern to shock, and she could see the wheels turning in his mind. “Y/N, are you saying you think you might be pregnant?”

Her heart pounded in her chest as she nodded, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I–I don’t know what to do. I can’t have this baby,” she whispered, choking on her words.

“Who’s the father? Were you assaulted?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, it was consensual.”

Dr. Remington leaned back. “Scofield?” Her eyes kept darting to Michael who was watching her, doing his own act due to her emotional reaction. Dr. Remington looked at Michael who was trying to talk to the nurse to let him in the room with her due to her obvious distress. “Does he know that you think you’re pregnant?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered. “We talked this morning.” Y/N took a deep breath and then looked into Dr. Remington’s eyes. “If I am pregnant…and they make me have this baby, Matt…” she said his first name. “I have twenty-five years on my sentence. Michael’s…only doing five, but do you think he could get custody? The baby…for five years will be in the system. I was part of the system; I know what it’s like. I can’t have that,” she whispered, voice croaking.

“Let’s get you a blood test before we jump to conclusions, Y/N,” he said as he got up to get supplies. “We need to confirm if you’re pregnant because with the change of birth control, this can happen.”

Y/N nodded. “I know my body, Matt. I’ve been here before,” she admitted.

“Ok, let me get supplies,” he said as he walked over to her, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before holding her hand. “You’re not alone, but Y/N…you should stop having intercourse in a prison. I don’t even know where…” he chuckled, but then he went silent. “Let’s get you tested.”

Y/N sat, wiping her tears as Dr. Remington grabbed a needle and other materials for the blood test. Her eyes went over to Michael who was watching her, intensely while they gave him his insulin test.

Dr. Remington did the blood test and as he was finishing up, taking his gloves off Y/N looked at him.

“I feel so alone,” she whispered. “Michael, he’s great, but as the only woman and having no other female friends…”

Dr. Remington sat next to her.

“I can’t have this baby,” she whispered again, trying to catch her breath but soon enough her breath became short and fast.

“Oh, Y/N,” he said, rubbing her arm before eloping her in a hug. “You’re not alone.”

Y/N worked fast, one hand rubbing his arm while the other one went straight into his pocket and grabbed the keys before putting it back in her pocket. She then cried further into his shoulder.

“It’s going to be ok. We will take the necessary steps once we know the truth,” he said pulling away. “We should have the results in 24-48 hours.”

Y/N nodded. “Thank you, Dr. Remington.”

“You’re not alone. We’ll figure this out together. Do you need to sit here for a bit or…”

“Michael is there…can I?” she whispered.

He nodded, escorting her into the other room with Michael. Instantly, she ran and gave him a hug, placing the keys into his pocket as he rubbed her back. Dr. Remington watched this, thinking it was all completely real.

“You ok?” Michael whispered into her ear.

“I will be,” she responded, keeping up the act, pulling away. Michael wiped her tears, cupping her cheek. “24-48 hours for the results,” she responded. “We will get through this.”

Dr. Remington paced the small infirmary, his brow furrowed in frustration. He patted his lab coat pockets again, though he had already done so a dozen times. He checked his desk, his drawers, his car…the keys were nowhere to be found. Beside him, Nurse Katie offered a sympathetic glance as she rifled through the desk drawers.

“They’re not here,” she said, shaking her head. “Are you sure you had them earlier?”

Dr. Remington sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yes. I had them just before I saw Y/N.” His mind began to replay the events of that conversation – her tears, the trembling voice, the fear of being pregnant. He had been so caught up in comforting her, his guard had been completely down.

Katie raised a brow. “Y/N? Like Scofield’s girl or rumoured to be?”

He nodded, the gears in his mind beginning to turn. “She came to me, convinced me she might be pregnant. I…” he paused. “I hugged her.” Realisation occurred. “I had the keys when I entered that room.”

Katie straightened, her face reflecting the same understanding. “Do you think she…?”

“I don’t think,” Remington muttered, the weight of the situation sinking in. “I know.” He headed toward his desk, pulling open a drawer with a sharp yank. “I’m going to accelerate her blood test results. If she was lying about the pregnancy… But why would Scofield be involved…?” he whispered.

Katie frowned. “You think she faked the whole thing just to get the keys?”

“That’s exactly what I think.” His voice was firm, and without missing a beat, he picked up the phone to call maintenance “Get someone to change the locks. Immediately.”

Kaite stood frozen for a moment, then hurried off to help as Dr. Remington started running through Y/N’s bloodwork. His heart sank as the results popped up faster than expecting, confirming his suspicions – no pregnancy. His jaw tightened, both in disappointment and concern. Y/N had fooled him, but why? Was Scofield involved? Was it his idea?

Minutes later, he sat in deep though, Michael entered the infirmary for his scheduled second insulin shot of the day. His usual calm demeanour did little to mask the tension in the air. Remington glanced up at him, his eyes narrowed slightly, suspicion burning at the edges of his thoughts. Michael greeted him with a nod, his face carefully neutral.

“Afternoon, Doc,” Michael said, rolling up his sleeve for the shot.

Dr. Remington prepped the syringe silently, his mind racing. As he did so, Michael casually placed something on the desk – keys.

Remington’s eyes flicked to the keys, recognition instantly firing in his brain. The very one that had gone missing. Before he could speak, Katie entered the room, spotting them. “Dr. Remington, your keys!” she said, picking them up from the desk and handing them to him.

He took them, his grip tightening around the metal, and stared at Michael as he administered the insulin shot. “Thanks, Katie,” he said, his voice laced with a odd mix of gratitude and suspicion.

“Also, the maintenance guy is here. Do you still want the locks changed?” she asked looking at Dr. Remington.

Dr. Remington looked at Michael who stared at him, eyes narrowed. He licked his lips, trying to see if Michael would crack. Then he nodded. “Yes, send them in.”

Michael went frozen, eyes open as he stared at Remington. The locks would be changed.

As Dr. Remington pressed the plunger of the syringe, he couldn’t shake the unease settling in his chest. He knew. Michael and Y/N had orchestrated this. His disappointment was palpable, but so was his curiosity. Why did they need his keys? What were they planning.

As Michael finished his shot and rolled his sleeve back down, Dr. Remington leaned back in his chair, his gaze unwavering on the man in front of him. “Y/N’s pregnancy test came back negative,” he said.

Michael’s brows furrowed. “You said they’ll take 24-48 hours to go through,” he said confused.

“I accelerated them.” Then he scoffed and shook his head in disbelief. “You know,” he began slowly, leaning closer to Michael, “there are only a few reasons why someone would need keys to this place.”

Michael’s face remained calm, unreadable.

“And then I remembered,” Dr. Remington continued, his voice dropping to a thoughtful murmur, “Y/N is an addict. Dilaudid, right?” Then he smirked. “However, I didn’t take you as the junkie type.”

Michael’s eyes flickered, for a moment, but Remington caught it. He was not accusing him of anything outright, but the weight of the statement hung between them like a question answered.

“No, sir. I never have and never will dabble in that.” Michael stood, his tone polite and firm. “Thanks for the shot, Doc. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Remington watched him leave, the unease deepening in his gut.

However as Michael left, Remington called his name. “Do I need to tell Y/N about her test result?”

Michael stood. “It might be wise as she is quite upset.”

It was happening tonight. With Bellick in the hole, they had to leave that night and Michael tasked her one final thing.

And she feels like she is back in her old habits – fooling, manipulating and ruining the crowd.

Y/N sat in the infirmary, her heart pounding in her chest as she waited for Dr. Remington to return with her test results. The sterile smell of antiseptic and the quiet hum of medical equipment did little to calm her. When Dr. Remington finally entered, holding a file in his hands, his expression was unreadable. He pulled up a chair across from her and sat down with a heavy sigh.

“Y/N,” he began, looking at her with a seriousness that sent a chill down her spine. “Your pregnancy results came back, and I am happy to say that you’re not pregnant. However, you knew that,” he stated, looking up. He placed the chart behind him and then clasped his hands in front of him. “I know what you did and I wonder if you’re honest enough to admit it,” he stated. “I’m not stupid. You’ve been acting – putting on a show just like your file said. I didn’t believe the file, thinking you’re innocent but you’re an actress.”

Y/N froze, her stomach twisting into knots. “They keys,” she whispered, looking down.

He nodded. “What are you after? Drugs? Needles?” his tone grew harsher. “Are you falling back into old habits.”

Y/N looked down. “I’ve been clean for ten years,” she whispered before meeting his eye. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes before gaining the confidence. “No. I am not after drugs or needles.”

“Then enlighten me,” he spat.

She stared at him for a few moments before nodding in acknowledgement. “Michael, Lincoln and I are breaking out tonight,” she said with confidence, “and I need your help.”

“What are you talking about?” he scoffed.

“Michael and Lincoln are getting out tonight and I am going with them,” she said. “Lincoln is innocent. He has been framed. And for me, the longer I stay, the closer to my death date I will be. My ex-husband is out to kill me.”

Remington sat back, his face pale. He held a hand out as he pinched his nose. “Stop talking, Y/N, for your own good.”

She ignored his wishes. “I never wanted to involve you, believe me.” Y/N leaned forward, desperation creeping into her voice. “But now you know, and you can help us. I just need you to forget to lock up. That’s all. I don’t need you to do anything else. Just forget.”

Remington shook his head, standing up abruptly. “Do you realise what you’re asking me? This is aiding and abetting a prison break. I’m legally required to report everything you’ve just said.”

Y/N quickly stood up, grasping his hand, her eyes wide with desperation. “Please, just listen to me. I know why you took this job. You’re not a man who wants to be part of the system that crushes people. You want to be part of the solution, not the problem. An innocent man is going to die.” Her voice softened, pleading. “That’s why you’re here, in this prison, working with people like us.”

Remington’s jaw clenched, his eyes flickering down to her hand on his arm. “This will destroy my career, Y/N. Do you understand that?”

Y/N met his gaze, her voice steady. “I’m asking you to make a mistake. Not to hurt anyone, not to steal anything. Just forget to lock up. That’s it.”

There was a long, heavy silence between them as the weight of her words hung in the air. Dr. Remington’s eyes darkened with understanding as the pieces of the puzzle clicked into place.

“You’re–You’re getting out of here?” he muttered, his voice barely a whisper.

“Yes,” she said.

His face twisted in frustration. “Everything you’ve done, every tear, touch, word – has it all been a act?”

Y/N hesitated, the vulnerability in her eyes breaking through the façade. “At first yes, but Matt–“

“Don’t.”

“You mean a lot to me as this progressed and I will say that you’re a good friend of mine, but it is killing me that you will never believe that. However, I didn’t know about the plan until I fell in love with Michael and him for me. I can have a life away from the mob, away from Sebastian. I’ve been in this mess since I was fifteen, and if I don’t get out now, they’ll ruin me. The murders. The deals. The crimes. They will pin it all on me when really I was just a good wife.”

Dr. Remington stood, running a hand over his face and through his hair. He walked to the door, gripping the handle. His face was a mix of anger, fear and conflict.

“I can give you money,” she said.

Dr. Remington turned around. “I don’t want your mob money, Y/N. I want the truth.”

“What truth?”

“Did you do it? The six murders? The seduction, the hotel. Did you pick up these men in speakeasies across the country and murder them in their hotel bathroom with a knife? The clean cut on the neck and the messages on the mirror with red lipstick, warning them of their crimes? I read your file.” His voice was so sincere, wanting to know.

“They hurt people,” she said seconds later. “I made sure they’d never hurt someone again.”

Remington nodded. “You’re asking me to break the law, Y/N.”

Y/N shook her head. “I’m asking you to make a mistake.”

“Would you murder someone again if I do let you go?” he asked.

“It was either my life or theirs. I promise to never touch a knife or a gun again,” she said. “On my mother’s grave.”

“How much did they pay you for the murders?”

“Six million for all six,” she said.

“Where’s the money?”

“With my brother.”

“Cash?”

“Never touched a bank account. It’s dirty money, Matt. I can send you–“

“I don’t want your money.”

He grasped the door, the weight of words pressing on him like a heavy burden.

“Does Scofield know the truth?” he whispered.

“He knows enough to not get him killed,” she responded. “I love him. I really love him.”

Remington nodded, opening the door and slamming the door behind him, leaving her there in the infirmary…alone with the truth out.

The silence that followed was deafening.

I tried to edit it.

I was falling asleep.

Sorry for the lack of response.

Enjoy!

Ava <3

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piedpiperart · 1 year ago

Text

Phantom of Gotham 11

Chapter 10

After lunch, the four boys parted ways and Danny found himself in his room. He checked his Tucker Approved phone for the four hundredth time since arriving in Gotham to find a spam of messages. Situating himself on his bed he clicked the messages open to read. All of them were from Tucker, in what looked like an info dump of updates on Amity.

Danny frowned, not really liking what he reads. According to Tucker, his parents really were working with the GIW and Jazz had scoped out that they had already started inventing some questionable things. One was a tracking device of sorts, which sent a shiver down Danny’s spine at the implications of that. They were fairly certain that Danny was still safe in Gotham for the time being, given they didn’t think the range of it would go as far as Gotham from Amity.

Tucker reported that while everyone else in Amity was still going about business as normal, Valarie, Sam, Tuker, and Jazz had picked up slack on ghost hunting. There were not a lot of ghosts coming to Amity, especially now that Phantom was MIA, so there wasn’t a lot of work to be done. Mostly, it took more effort to keep the Fentons distracted.

On a sidenote, Sam had a run in with Vlad because of her millionaire parents, and concluded that the old man had something planned. None of them could figure out what, but they seemed to be more worried about the GIW and the Fentons to think about Vlad’s friutloopy plans. Either way, Sam and Valarie were keeping an eye out. Speaking of Valarie, apparently she joined the team because she was worried about Danny going missing. Tucker and Sam had given her the barest amount of information and in turn got her to help them wrangle the ghosts in Phantom’s absence. He was quick to reassure Danny that Val didn’t know about him being a halfa, but Danny trusted Tucker with his life. Even if Tucker had told her, he knew it would have been for a good reason.

Sighing, he typed out an acknowledgement and signed off, hoping they were doing okay without him. His core pulsed anxiously at his feelings for his friends and sister. It felt wrong to have them deal with all of this without him. Danny couldn’t help but feel responsible for dragging them into this mess. But, he couldn’t help the overwhelming feelings of pride and affection that his friends were so capable at handling this. That they cared about him.

Danny laid on his bed for a while before getting bored. He couldn’t fall asleep, so he figured he might as well find someone to bother. His core thrived on being around people, and protecting them. Out of everyone in the manor, Danny figured someone might have some free time, or needed some cheering up from being stuck inside all day. Though, looking out the window he could tell the blizzard had died down. All that was left were the heaps of snow and icy trails. It looked pretty, the thought absently. Maybe he could help Alfred with something. The elderly man was probably not enjoying the cold.

Fighting the urge to smother the old man in blankets, he turned the corner and almost bumped into the manor’s smallest resident. “Oh- Damian, hey, want to play in the snow?” Danny asked,”Looks like the blizzard stopped.”

Damian wrinkled his nose, glancing out the window. “I do not require a babysitter, Folson. Playing in the snow is for children.”

“I dunno, we could have a snowball fight?” Danny offered. “You could bring your dog. Tim said you had a dog, right? Dogs love snow. Probably.”

“Fine,”Damian sighed. “Titus has been upset at being cooped up in the manor, and I am under the impression that you will freeze out there without proper supervision.”

“Awesome!” Danny exclaimed, bouncing on his toes.”Lets go, I wanna meet Titus.”

“You won’t be going out in that,”Damian scowled at Danny’s t-shirt and socks. “Follow me, you can use Drake’s winter gear.”

Danny and his core were too excited to play in the snow to complain about having to put on warmer clothes. Not that they’d really help against the cold, since he’d be fine no matter what, but if it made Damian feel better he’d do it.

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

Damian sighed exasperatedly. After Danny cajoled him and Titus into going out into the snow-filled backyard of the manor, Danny and Titus had not stopped jumping and running through the snow. The smaller teen watched from his position as Danny raced Titus through the snow, only they had to trudge through what was probably a good foot and a half of snow so it wasn’t very fast. Damian scowled that Danny and Titus had gotten along so well. Usually Titus took a bit longer for strangers to warm up to.

Suddenly, the two miscreants raced towards Damian as he looked on with mild annoyance, until about ten feet in front of Damian Danny had dove into the snow in front of him. Pushing down amusement, Damian took a step forwards, realizing that Danny had in fact doven under the snow to confuse Titus. The greyhound was nosing around where Danny had disappeared, and Damian was about to call him over when a voice rang out behind him.

“You gonna join us?” Damian hid a jolt of surprise that Danny had not only snuck up on him, but also apparently traveled ten feet under the snow to behind Damian without him noticing. He whirled around to face the other boy who had snow clinging to his clothes and hair despite Damian’s efforts to get him into Tim’s winter gear. His eyes wandered from Titus to Danny before he elected to ignore it.

Danny’s eyes sparkled with mischief, and Damian gave him a look. “Join you in what?” Damian asked sarcastically,”You two have just been running around in the snow for the past ten minutes.”

Danny nodded,”True. I think I just missed my dog a lot. Titus reminds me of him, and we used to go running around the park a lot. But we can make a snowman if you want?”

Damian perked up at the mention of animals. “You have a dog? Who is taking care of him while you are here?”

“Ah, he’s not really my dog?” Danny said sheepishly, running a hand behind his neck. “He’s kind of a stray dog that likes to stick around sometimes. I play with him when I can but couldn’t keep him, you know?”

Damian nodded sagely. “I understand. It took me a while to convince Father to adopt TItus. What kind of dog?”

“I have no idea,” Danny smiled, reminiscing about his kind of big and small friend. He continued talking, but started packing the snow around him into a pile.”But his name is Cujo and he’s super sweet, but not very obedient. He looks kind of like a bulldog? I’m not really sure, but I think you’d like him.”

“I’m sure we’d get along,”Damian agreed. He definitely got along with animals more than people. Part of him was glad Danny had a dog, because that meant the teen understood a bit of where Damian was coming from. “Now can we go back inside now?”

“What? No way, we’ve only been out here for like five minutes,”Danny complained, flopping into the snow, despite the disapproving look on Damian’s face. “Besides, I just got started on my snow-batman.”

Damian scowled at the lump of snow in between them. “If you’re trying to make Batman, you’ll need more snow. He is taller than that.”

“It would be faster if you helped me,”Danny pouted, reminding Damian of Grayson,”You know Batman better than I do.”

“Fine,”Damian relented, despite the cold irritating his exposed skin. He knelt down to pack the snow in better, and before he knew it, they were making a life-sized Batman snowman.

“He’s perfect,” Danny said smugly, hands on his hips. Looking over the snowman that towered over the two of them, Damian could admit he felt a bit of pride at how they managed to make a snowman that perfectly encapsulated the dark knight.

“How are you not cold?” Damian scowled, looking to Danny’s uncovered fingers. He’d taken his gloves off to make the bat ears because they needed a ‘delicate touch’, and hadn’t put them back on. Even Titus had retreated back into the house for warmth. “Do you have some anti-cold meta-human ability?”

“Um,”Danny started, caught off guard. He shifted in the snow, debating food a moment while Damian stared at him with narrowed eyes. Damian wasn’t exactly trying to pry, but he wanted to know if his siblings’ theories were correct, or if Danny would be a threat. Granted, Damian thought it was difficult to view the boy as a threat after watching him fail at making snow-bat-man’s ears twenty eight times. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Damian raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. They kept eye contact before Danny slumped in defeat, looking a little bit wary.

“Okay, I’m not really a meta, but I can like, create ice and snow and stuff,”Danny said, looking back up to the mansion as if someone were watching them. Damian however, knew along with the rest of his siblings that Danny had some type of meta abilities, but was preening internally at being the first one trusted with the secret. Danny lifted his hand, and Damian watched as a few snowflakes forms to circle the air before floating to the ground “So the cold doesn’t bother me, and I’ve never lost a snowball fight. But I can’t do anything big, and I didn’t cause the blizzard, so please don’t tell anyone?”

Damian wrinkled his nose. “I would not betray your secret. However, I doubt ice powers are your only abilities.”

Danny bit his lower lip, and Damian was about to say that he didn’t need to say what they were even if he was curious, when Danny smirked. “I may have cheated at arm wrestling.”

Caught off guard by his answer, Damian huffed out a laugh. He cleared his throat, continuing with,”Super strength then? What about speed or healing?”

“Nah, not speed but I think I heal a little bit faster than normal,”Danny said, starting on another snowman. Damian guessed it might be Robin, and deduced that it would be embarrassing to have only a Batman and Robin snow sculpture out in the lawn where everyone could see it.

“Despite your abilities, I highly doubt you’d be able to win at a snowball fight against me,”Damian redirected. He kicked at the newly formed pile of snow when Danny wasn’t looking just to ensure it’s doom.

Danny’s eyes lit up, and his hesitant smile turned bright. “Oh, you’re on!”

If Damian and Danny were smiling like idiots as they pelted eachother with snowballs and hid behind snow fortresses, then no one knew but them and the cameras Alfred would review later and then show to Bruce. Both adults would ignore how Danny seemed to create snow-sculptures in minutes.

Hours later, Alfred came outside to fetch the two boys, only to come across an entire snow-army of replicas of the Bat family, as well as a few other heroes. On either side of the yard were two different versions of a castle, with little piles of snowballs on each side of the fortress. Alfred raised a brow at having spotted Damian first as he threw a snowball to hit the small snow Robin at a perfect angle to topple the entire thing. From the other snow-barricade castle, Alfred heard a noise of distress.

“How could you Damian?!” Danny cried out at his fallen brethren.

“He is an abomination and deserved death,”Damian called back, only for Danny to appear out of the barricade with a snowball in each hand.

“I’ll avenge you Snobin!” Danny exclaimed, using his snowballs to hit what Alfred thought was a snow-Titus on Damian’s side.

“Sn- don’t call it that!” Damian demanded,”How dare you kill snow-Titus?!”

“There’s like four Snitus’s over there! He sacrificed himself for the greater good,”Danny called.

“You are not allowed to give my Snow-Titus names!” Damain yelled back, throwing more snowballs to topple Danny’s army.

“Not Snow-wing too!”Danny cried, and Alfred decided to intervene before all the snow people met their end.

“Boys! Won’t you come inside to warm up before dinner?” Alfred called, mustache twitching in amusement as both boys halted what they were doing to stare at Alfred, only for a snowball to smack Danny in the face while he was distracted.

“Coming!” Damian called, running gracefully up to the manor. Danny on the other hand, squawked in protest and stumbled after the younger teen.

As they both passed the butler, he couldn’t help but hope Danny would become a permanent member of the family if he got along with Damian so quickly.

Chapter 12

#phantom of gotham #dcxdp #dpxdc #Danny Phantom #danny fenton

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bluecatwriter · 1 year ago

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A Blood of My Blood fic from Mina's point of view, taking place when Quincey is 11 or 12. (Domestic angst/fluff, pretty bittersweet.) Thanks as always to @ibrithir-was-here and @animate-mush for creating this sandbox for us to play in!

~~~

At one time, the broth she was making would have smelled wonderful to her.

It was odd, to be able to think such things. When she had first awoken, years ago, snarling and disoriented and in the grip of someone— someone who had turned out to be her husband— she had no memory of Before. It had taken years for these memories of a different life, a different self, to return. She didn't particularly strive for them, since there was no sense in dwelling on her past, but sometimes they cropped up at odd moments. She had just dropped into the broth a handful of parsley and lovage, both from the herb garden her husband had grown in the courtyard of the castle, and something about the fragrant waft of steam gave her a memory. Yellow sunlight on a wall, humming some long-forgotten tune. Warmth. Memories of Before were always warm.

She had no desire to eat what she was cooking, though— the very thought turned her stomach. Usually her husband cooked for himself, but today he could not, and so she had found a recipe and made it step by painstaking step: slaughtering and plucking the chicken, boiling it once for the meat and a second time for the broth, adding paprika and cayenne and a pinch of precious dried lemon peel, brought by the serfs on their last delivery. Like all tasks, she went about it methodically. It was only a few days after the winter solstice, so the night was long and she had plenty of time to work.

She felt her son's presence before she saw him, and smiled as he popped his head in the window, upside down. He had been crawling lizard-fashion on the castle walls again. "Hello, Mum!" he said cheerfully.

She loved that her son had inherited her husband's ability to change and grow. His face was losing the chubby roundness of childhood, and he was growing lankier, though still just as skillful at skittering around the castle walls.

Where have you been all evening? she asked as she stirred the broth, projecting her thoughts to him.

"Sitting with Papa and reading to him," her son said, crawling into the window and hopping up on the stone counter. His expression faltered, his red eyes growing wide with worry. "He's… he's going to be all right, isn't he?"

Of course he is. My broth will cure him. She winked at him, and he laughed.

"I wish Papa didn't get sick! Why can't he be like us? It would be so much easier…"

She gave him a look, and he sighed. "I know, I know, if he was like us, we couldn't kiss him, and he likes kisses too much to change."

It was a silly explanation, left over from her son's early days when he was just starting to question why Papa was different. But she felt a strange reluctance to update the explanation.

She stirred the broth once more and decided that it would need to simmer now. Go back to your papa— he'll be lonely without you.

"All right, Mum." Her son left by the door this time, no doubt to grab a new book from the library on his way up to the room.

She walked to the window, looked out, and let her mind go blank.

It was easy to do, to think nothing at all, while staring at the midnight draped over the world. She could still touch her son's mind, feel vague emotions from him, as well as feel her husband's suffering as he tossed and turned on his bed, his fever burning him up.

Most of all, though, crackling like fire over everything else, was the mind of her lord.

She was not allowed to enter his thoughts— she had tried, once, early on, and he had chained her to a wall for three weeks as punishment, keeping her from her husband and her son until the ache of wanting them made her tear her flesh down to the bone trying to break free. She could not overpower him. She could not enter his thoughts without him noticing.

But here in the blankness, the fire of his mind seemed less harsh, and she tried out small thoughts, inconsequential thoughts, seeing if he would notice them. Seeing if he could truly rummage through everything in her mind, or if anything was hers to keep.

Of course, her lord considered nothing to be hers, and he made sure she was reminded at every turn. When they dined together on her husband, her lord made sure to eat first, to make her follow, to assure that she made no mark on him that he had not already made. And yet, she found a smug satisfaction in this, that her lord never left a mark that she did not erase with her own touch. Her husband would be still and dutiful at their lord's bite, but he melted against her own. Her lord has ultimate authority over them both, but her husband was still hers.

At last the broth was ready, and she focused her mind, imagined knocking on a door in the wall of flames. May I visit him? It was a formality at this point— her lord had not kept them apart in over three years now— but she knew that not doing it would have consequences.

The reply sounded almost bored. You may.

She dipped some broth into a large bowl and left the rest simmering on the hot stove. She walked up the endless stairways to the tower where he lived, knowing that she must not waste her energy on things like turning into mist, not when she must fast from the nourishment he gave her.

At last she came to his door and opened it. There was no lock on it, for her husband belonged in some way to everyone in the household. No one was barred access.

Her son was sitting beside him reading aloud, but closed the book when she entered. Her husband turned his head weakly, and she felt a ripple of frustration at the frailness of his body, the way that it was endangering him needlessly. She ordered her son to leave them alone, and he nodded, taking his father's wrist and giving it a bloodless bite to show affection before walking out.

She walked to his bedside and sat beside him, sliding an arm under him to pull him up. He shivered and had a hard time drinking the broth, but she made him take it, sip by sip. He sagged against her, and she stroked his forehead.

"My darling," he said, stuttering a bit with his shivers. "I think I'm dying."

If you must die, you must. It would happen eventually— he would rise again like them, without this pathetic body to drag him down.

"I— I don't want to. I want to raise our boy to manhood without…" He trailed off, but she knew his meaning.

We will be together. That is all that matters.

Her husband stared at her, and tried to smile. "You're right, you're right."

She hesitated, then situated them on the bed so that his head was resting on her lap, and she stroked her fingers through his hair. If it brings you comfort, you may close your eyes and pretend that I am a mortal woman. Pretend it is Before, and all the After has been a dream.

Her husband gulped. It had been a long time since she had soothed him this way. "I… I shouldn't…"

She frowned at him. Do not refuse me.

A faint smile of acceptance crossed his face, and he rested more deeply on her lap.

When you wake, she told him, weaving her fingers into the fine strands of his hair, you will either be well, or you will be like me. And either way, we will be together.

Her husband squeezed his eyes shut, tears spilling down his fever-flushed face. "Will… will you say my name as you stroke my hair?"

She smiled down at him indulgently. Jonathan.

"Mina…"

My Jonathan… The urge to sink her teeth into him, to express her love in lapping up his essence, was strong, but she was stronger. She petted his hair and spoke his name in her thoughts, playacting the doting human wife who had no loyalty to any but him.

Her husband seemed to be drifting to sleep, but then murmured, "It's Christmas, you know."

Her hand paused, the word from Before stinging her, but then she continued stroking his hair.

His eyes closed, tears still drying on his face, her husband began to sing softly. "What child is this/who laid to rest/on Mary's lap is sleeping?/Whom angels keep/with anthems sweet/while shepherds watch are keeping?"

She grew still; the words, cracked and almost silent, sent a shiver through her. She remembered candlelight, and the smell of incense, and a figurine of a baby in straw. The mark on her forehead tingled.

Her husband was asleep now, and she held him, staring through the window at the night sky dotted with stars.

~~~

#blood of my blood #jonmina #my writing #mina harker #jonathan harker #quincey harker #dracula (novel)

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nhaneh · 13 days ago

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so the other week my secondary PC had yet another one of those full screen "We're ending support for Windows 10 soon you need to upgrade to a more modern PC to support Windows 11" ads show up and feeling particularly annoyed with that kind of bullshit at the time I decided to have a peek into task manager to see if I could find out what particular executable was behind this bullshit and whether I could do something about it, and well...

It turns out this is all run by one of the four executables that Windows update has sneakily decided to install under /Program Files/RUXIM/, notably either RUXIMICS.exe or RUXIMH.exe

Okay so what does this RUXIM stuff actually do? That's... good question - according to their file properties metadata, and Microsoft, and just about every place on the web i could find, they are part of the Reusable UX Interaction Manager, and are used by Windows Update and is supposedly used to collect data to "keep Windows up to date and performing properly."

There's apparently a number of people who are very insistent on that being the full, entire, and absolute truth of it and anyone questioning why it is there, what it does, or wanting to be rid of it is a complete fool. And also that your Windows PC will quickly and hopelessly degrade in performance, become unstable and break down if you're dumb enough to delete it. Apparently.

But like... why exactly should we be taking Microsoft at their word about any of this, again? You know, the same company who have been actively lying about the hardware requirements of Windows 11 seeing how they allow some of their larger customers to entirely circumvent it? The same company who came up with Windows Recall and still intends to roll out some version of it basically as soon as they can get away with it?

Do these people also genuinely believe it whenever a website shows a popup to tell you how much they care about your privacy even as they ask you to please click that big shiny button to allow them and their affiliates to track your browsing to the maximal extent possible?

Companies lie to you. Silicon valley lies to you. Even your favourites lie to you.

Anyway I decided to forcibly replace all four executables in the RUXIM folder with a tiny little program I built that basically just writes an entry to a log text file listing what date and time it was loaded and what arguments was passed to it and Windows Update is still working so far ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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mechformers · 2 years ago

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Ma Miles - Ch. 11

3.1k words

Bold letters are spoken in English by the Reader to Quaritch.

'ts I, the easy writer that spews words in excitement after getting compliments... It's almost embarrassing by now lol Anyway, here's another, smaller, chapter for you!

(If you want to be tagged with the updated chapters, please leave your @ myusername in the comments! )

Previous chapter | Masterpost | Chapter 12

Humiliated. That’s how he felt. Utterly humiliated. Embarrassed that he’d let his emotions develop into something so meaningless as infatuation. Being sweet on a hostile, no matter how pretty, was beneath him. It didn’t mean squat that she’d been his son’s mother all these years, didn’t mean shit that she’d raised him to be a confident and happy boy. It was wrong, and deep down, he knew that.

Except… that wasn’t right. Immediately, the thought makes his chest hurt, makes his stomach cramp uncomfortably, the cruel lie proving too much for him. Shaking his head, he pinches the broad bridge of his nose as he closes his eyes. Taking deep breaths to calm his frozen, racing heart, he eventually manages to ease the queasy feeling he’d been keeping at bay for the past hour. Stepping up to the ceiling-to-wall window, he looks out at the Pandora night skies. Distantly, behind the Kill Zone, the jungle almost twinkles with the bioluminescent glow from the trees and plants.

Sighing deeply he rests his forehead against the cold glass. This was a mess. He knew that he couldn’t blame you for pulling away, for rejecting him. He was basically your jailor, the one who had kidnapped your son and held you prisoner, allowing for the events of your torture to happen. Still, he thought that he had read the signs right. Thought he had recognized mutual attraction when you sought out his touch, but he must have been wrong. You looked so uncomfortable when you had pulled away, giving the sorry excuse that you needed to get back to Spider. Your son was a teenager, he didn’t need his mother with him 24/7, but then again, a part of him understood. This was not an ideal situation…

Still, his pride had taken a major hit, one he needed time to heal from. So he did the only thing he could, he separated himself from you. When your worried eyes had searched for his during breakfast, he had ignored you, instead continuing to push his food around. He knew that the action not only hurt you but Mansk as well. The younger man wouldn’t say anything, but Quaritch could see it in the way his ears drooped. He obviously thought that he had failed to impress his leader. Quaritch would have to do something about that.

“Won’t you fix me up a box of this, kid,” He drawls as he steps up to Mansk when everyone had finished their breakfast.

“Yes, Sir,” Mansk’s ears flip up to attention immediately, his tail swishing lazily behind him.

“You did a good job with this,” The praise takes the younger man by surprise, the notion obviously not a common occurrence by the way Mansk reacts. Quaritch makes a note to praise his unit more often. Taking the box from the younger man, he turns to leave, only to run straight into you.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” Quaritch dips his head, avoiding eye contact.

“I need the talk with you?” You ask him, your voice almost small, but still determined and to the point.

“I’m late for a meeting, it’ll have to wait,” He doesn’t wait for your reply, instead he strides down the hallways as if a thanator was on his tail.

“Lyle, you’ve got lead today,” He shouts as he’s out of there like a bat outta hell.

Willingly, he walks into the General’s office, prepared to bullshit a direct report just to fill a couple of hours of his day. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have anything to do, but this would be the less boring option. Making a face at the pile of paperwork on his desk in his room, Quaritch decided that the General definitely was the better of two evils.

“Genera Ardmore,” He greets after she beacons him inside after he knocked.

“Colonel, what can I do for you?” The woman smirks and immediately, Quaritch regrets his decision.

“Figured a direct report was owed, after the mediocre paperwork, ma’am,” Quaritch bullshits through his teeth, but a shift in the General’s face is all he needs to clamber onto.

“Go on,” Ardmore folds her hands over the desk as she leans back in her chair.

And so he covers every base, going into detail about what they’ve learned, about how they mostly understand the ins and outs of Pandora and how it works. He reports how his unit is quick to catch on and how, with each day, they manage to handle the wildlife that poses a threat to their operations. The General eats it up with seemingly undivided attention, but there was something burning behind the General’s features.

“The native has officially connected us to their deity, by way of the queue in the back of our heads. We are now able to connect to places. I reckon we’ll be able to move out on Sully soon,”

“Well, that was a thorough report, Colonel,” General Ardmore starts, her beady eyes staring into his. “Good work,”

“General,” Quaritch nods, holding eye contact.

“There’s something more I want you to do, however,” She continues, an unsettling smile crossing her thin lips. “I need you to mate with the hostile, to bind her to you. We need her to be completely under our control,”

“Pardon?” His ears slick back against his skull so fast it almost hurts.

“You would have no problem with that, would you, Colonel? By the looks of it, you might already be bedding the female,” The smirk on the General’s face reminds him of a swindler back on Earth.

“I’m not sure I get what you’re referring to, General,” He doesn’t know what else to say, the implication, one he doesn’t want to even consider.

“Oh, come now, Colonel,” Ardmore starts, “She’s exotic for sure, the adoptive mother of your predecessor’s child, and in your new, young body, I'm sure you’ve got certain… biological needs. I’ve been willing to turn a blind eye to those needs as long as it hasn’t interfered with your mission,”

“I have not and will not mate with the native, General.” For long moments the room falls silent, the two of them staring at each other.

“Then I suggest you find someone who will,” The General leaned forward, her beady eyes narrowing as she scowled at him. “Or I will find that someone for you.”

Nodding, Quaritch doesn’t say anything before he’s dismissed. Leaving the General’s office, he wanders the halls of Bridgehead city as his mind races. Just the mere thought of finding someone to mate with you sent his blood boiling, his tail whipping angrily behind him as he walked. There wasn’t a recom that was worthy of you, yet, he had to choose between them, take their and your freedom away for the sake of control. Could he even do that to you? A darker side of him clearly said yes, stating that the mission was more important than any one individual. But a stronger side of him told him that even the human Quaritch built strong bonds, bonds that would never be broken because his loyalty was unwavering. Unless you had betrayed him, he would walk through the jungles of Pandora at night for you without a second thought. He took care of his own, so why was this any different?

The thought of binding you to him, to make you unhappy made his stomach turn. He couldn’t do that any more than he could mate you off with someone who would make you equally unhappy. This would be the hardest decision of his life, one where there would be no satisfactory result. The better of two evils… Sighing deeply, he decides to let it go for now. There would be no decision made today anyway. He mostly managed to hide from you the rest of the day, only getting caught when he needed to eat or needed a word with Lyle. He somehow always managed to weasel away though, but by the time night fell over Bridgehead city once more, your patience seemed to ebb out. Your voice was sharp as you called for him, but like a coward, he slammed his door shut before you could reach it, a sorry “No time, sweetheart,” thrown back to you.

He was certain that you would take one look at him and just know. Know that he would seal your future happiness away, rob it from you like a… like the sky demon, the very monster your people thought him to be. Flopping onto his bed, Quaritch sighs deeply as he stares up at the ceiling. His datapad dings and he just knows that it’s Lyle checking in on him. Rubbing his eyes roughly, Quaritch turns around in his bed, smushing his face into the bedding. It smells of you and immediately his anxiety and stress mellow out, evaporating from his body like the morning fog. In the back of his mind, he wants to hold you close, to breathe you in while he wraps himself around you. Shaking his head at his ridiculousness he turns around on his back. He would take Spider out in the morning and when they returned, he would take you out for a way overdue heart-to-heart.

Knocking on your door the next day Quaritch waits patiently before your voice sounds from the other side before opening the door. Your eyes look tired as you stare up at him, but instead of the annoyed lecturing he’s expecting from you, you just smile gently at him.

“Good morning, ma’am,” He greets formally, devoid of all emotions.

“Good morning,” You repeat, uncertainty entering your features as he continues to stare at you.

“I’m taking Spider flying today,” Quaritch informs you, watching disappointment spread over your face.

“Are you well?” You look up at him, hope entering your beautiful eyes.

“I am well,” He replies, biting his tongue hard before he says something more, something entirely stupid.

The silence stretches for an uncomfortably long time, long enough for Spider to walk up to you, a questioning look on his face before he crosses his arms and stares up at Quaritch - taking your side even though he doesn’t know what’s going on between the two of you. Chuckling at the ridiculousness, Quaritch throws his hands up in surrender. It’s enough for Spider to uncross his arms and look up at his mother.

“Go with your sempul, my dearest,” You tell Spider, and oh - Quaritch recognizes that word.

“I know that word,” He mumbles, his mind blank, while his ears turn attentively toward you, “Sempul, it means…”

He can’t help his eyes from growing big. You were acknowledging him as Spider’s father, even though you rejected his advances, even though he had pushed you away to lick his wounded pride. Even though he knew you were disappointed with him, you found it in your heart to give him this, not for your own gain, but for his happiness. You smile gently up at him while ushering Spider towards him.

“Have a nice day,” You tell him before turning to your son - your son, his, and yours - “Be careful, okay?”

Staring at you for a moment longer, you just smile gently at him, the silence no longer uncomfortable. You’re letting him come to you when he’s ready, once more surprising him with your patience. He doesn’t want to leave, but Lyle is walking up behind him, Z-Dog in tow, and then he turns and walks away, following his son as he chats animatedly while they walk toward the hangar. Securing him to Cupcake’s back, they eventually take off, leaving you and Bridgehead city behind. As morning turns into day, he leads his unit to explore the shorelines for any sighting of either the Sully family or the insurgency, while Spider excitedly tests his Na’vi. To say he’s not doing as well as he’d like to, would be the understatement of the year. Even though he’s here with his son, his mind is still miles and miles away.

“Okay, this one; I see you,” Spider grins up at him while doing the hand gesture that follows the phrase.

“Oel naati kameie,” Quaritch pronounces, hand gesture and everything, just the way you and Spider had taught him.

“Ngati - ngati,” Spider repeats with fond laughter in his voice, a big smile plastered on his face as he looks up at him.

“That's what I just said, isn’t it?” He has to ask, feeling that he nailed the pronunciation near perfectly. “Oel ngaati kameie,”

“Not naati - ngati,” His son twists his body towards him, placing his small hand on Quaritch’s knee. It’s so small against the blue of his skin.

“Ngaa… Ngaaa-ti, alright. Like comin' out your nose or something - ati,” He thinks he got it this time, Spider’s guidance a big help when it came to the nasal stuff. Somehow, you always skipped this one rather quickly, your eyes never really meeting his. He made a note to ask Spider if it had another meaning to the Na’vi.

“Boss,” Lyle cracks through the comms, pulling him out of his thoughts, “Long-range parole picked up a radar ahead, a rogue gunship,”

“Where?” Immediately, his mind starts racing. This had to be Sully and if it wasn’t, it would be heading toward him.

“Eastern sea, four clicks north,” Their course is set before he even thinks.

“Uh-huh…” Quaritch hums, his head dipping as his Corporal reads his intentions. Leaning to the left, he holds onto Spider’s small body as Cupcake shifts direction, “Hang on,”

Flying back to Bridgehead, he lets Spider wait with his unit while he takes Lyle with him to the ops center where General Ardmore is waiting for them. The glass of the holofloor slaps beneath his bare feet as he crosses the floor, the sound loud even in the noisy room. The General isn’t pleased with not having direct coordinates, but she knew as well as everyone that even getting this much of a pointer was a gift - she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

With the green light for a fleet and aircrafts, Quritch’s hyperfocus sneaks up on him once more. There’s nothing in his mind but Jake Sully and his wife while he prepares for the new mission. Almost nothing. While he moved, he felt like your eyes were watching him from every corner, judging him. He could hear your voice in his head, begging him, pleading with him to stop. But Quaritch couldn’t stop. Hunting down Jake Sully was the only reason he was brought back in this form, he would not fail his mission twice. If not for the RDA, then for himself.

His unit was a band of misfits, a pack… a dysfunctional family. Once someone was accepted, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for them. Families stick together, through tough times, through real hardship. And alright, maybe he could have handled the Sully situation differently, maybe he should have listened to Ja when he told him to be more understanding of the situation. But he hadn’t. He put his neck on the chopping block for Jake, gave him time he initially didn’t have, and all for what? For him to turn around and spit in his face, to betray the family - to betray him.

Marching Spider to the Ikran’s, Quaritch knew that this was wrong, knew that when you realized they weren’t coming back later that day, you would move the very foundation Bridehead was built upon to find your son once more - and when you did, he would have no more favors with you. Looking back in the direction of your room, he takes a deep breath before turning back to mount Cupcake. Getting a good grip on her handle, he makes tsaheylu, feeling her nervousness through the connection.

“What about mom?” Spider asks as they take off and for a little while, Quaritch doesn’t know what to say.

“Something’s come up, kid. You’ll get to see her tomorrow,” He doesn’t know if it’s a lie or not. Depending on what happens once they hit the island groups, they might be gone for more than just a day.

Meeting Scoresby, Quaritch immediately knew what kind of guy he had to deal with. The guy was as slimy as mankind came, living only to gain, damning everything in his way. It’s easy enough to convince the guy to play along though, something Lyle found hilarious enough to repeat to the whole unit once they gathered around for supper.

“You should have heard him!” Lyle wheezes, before doing the worst overly dramatic impression of himself that he’s ever heard before, “I’ll be nice, once - then I won’t,”

It has the desired effect though when smiles and chuckles spread across his unit. Even Spider huffs a chuckle while he eats. It soothes something deep within him to see his son smile again. Ever since leaving in a haste earlier that day, he had been down, keeping quiet and more reserved than usual. Sighing to himself, Quaritch promises himself that he will bring his son back to his mother again the next day.

But with most plans Quaritch makes, the mission doesn’t go as planned. He brought Spider with them to translate in the water villages, the kid being much less trouble than his mother, therefore an easier target to play for their gain. Which was a good thing. The Olo’eyktan speaks way too quickly for him to understand what he’s saying, his accent making it harder for Quaritch to make out the words. More than once, he finds himself looking at Spider while desperately waving his hand for his son to translate.

“Now what, what’s he saying,” He urges Spider, frowning as the leader keeps talking.

“They never saw him. These are sea people, forest people don’t come here,” Spider hurries the translation along, his son so obviously distressed.

“I ain’t buying that,” Quaritch sneers, looking back at the kneeling man before him.

Quaritch is used to playing hard to get what he wants from people who don’t want to give him anything, used to methods unfit for children's eyes. Hyperfocused as he is on finding Jake Sully, he forgets just that. He forgets that his son bears witness to him ordering the death of a sea creature, forgets that his teenage son is standing right there, desperately translating while he orders the death of the Tsahìk unless they give up Sully’s location. It’s only when his Spider starts begging him directly, eyes filled with unshed tears as his voice quivers with fear, that he breaks the surface of his hyperfocused insanity once more. By then, it’s way too late to go back.

He burns down three villages that first day…

Chapter 10 | Masterpost | Chapter 12

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hornsbeforehalos · 3 months ago

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Anytime Sweetheart (Remastered)-Part One

Pairing: JDM x OFC (RPF) SERIES WARNINGS: (not specific to each chapter): violence, implied sexual assault, drug use, drinking, smut, murder, cursing, age-gap relationships, power dynamics, angst, slight slow burn, cheating... will update warnings as needed. AUTHOR'S NOTE: this is a rewrite! I originally wrote this, which can still be found in my master list, years and years ago and finally have decided to spruce it up a bit. This will be in third person POV and updated to be less... cringy as the original. As of right now there are only two chapters rewritten but if anyone shows interest, I will continue :) Please let me know if you would like to be tagged. I haven't written anything serious in years so this is me dipping my toes back in :) Face credit for OC is Taylor Momsen :) Tag List: @coffee-obsessed-writer @kazosa @lovealways-j @lovetusk @sorenmarie87

“You’re fucking useless, you know that? Like some useless blonde bimbo, I swear.” Anthony growled, advancing towards her menacingly.

“I-I, I’m sorry, something’s been wrong with the washer and I guess something got wrapped around the agitator-” She tried to explain, her voice shaking.

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up, you stupid bitch.” Anthony roared, raising his hand back and drawing it forwards across Kylin’s face. A cry of pain escaped her lip and her hand cupped her stinging cheek. She backed against the door of the couple’s bedroom and stumbled as the door fell open behind her, already broken from a previous altercation.

She slammed the door closed in his face, thankful to hear the click of the handle, rushing to lock it and secure it closed. Anthony banged on the door, threatening to break down, while Kyln grabbed her backpack from the closet. She packed up a few things before zipping it up and throwing it out the window closest to the driveway. The door was soon easily broken open by Anthony, and she dove out the window herself. Thankfully, she landed unbruised and quickly made her way to her car with the backpack.

But she wasn’t quite fast enough, unfortunately.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” He seethed as his hand found purchase in her hair. He spun her around, pinning her against himself and the car door. His free hand came to wrap around her throat, squeezing her throat closed.

It had to have been pure adrenaline, she would think looking back, because she instinctively brought her knee to his groin with all the strength she could muster. He dropped her to the ground, stumbling back as he gripped his useless nutsack. She took advantage of the moment and bound to her car, quickly locking it as he tried to stumble his way towards her.

Before she even registered where she was going, she was already two and a half hours south of DFW on I-35.

_____________________________________

Half an hour later, Kylin pulled into her brother's gated community and gave the security guard the passcode. She followed the GPS through the neighborhood, even though she knew the way by memory. She put the car in park before turning off the engine as anxiety raged in her gut. Why did there have to be so many cars in his driveway at 11 o'clock at night? A million ‘what if’s’ swam through her head, and she almost lost her nerve completely.

But then she remembered every sad look her family had given her, how disappointed they were with her, how much it hurt them to see her in that condition... How much they tried to remind her that they weren’t raised to put up with bullshit like what she had endured.

She rang the doorbell, and a relieved sigh left her when her sister-in-law answered the door.

“Oh my god, Kylin, What are you doing here?” Danneel screeched as she threw her arms around Kylin, not spilling a drop of wine as it sloshed around in the glass that was clutched in her hand.

Kylin smiled as she returned Danneel’s embrace. She squeezed her tight as relief spread over her and her nerves seemed to immediately release themselves. She had misses her bestfriend SO fucking much.

“Um, I-I hope I’m not intruding or anything,” Kylin sniffed as she pulled away to wipe the tears that fell without her permission, “ I uh, needed somewhere to go.”

Danneel’s smile fell immediately. She looked around before pulling her into the empty den. She gripped Kylin by the side of the head with her free hand as she asked in a whisper, “Did he…?”

Kylin nodded shamefully, “Don’t tell Jens, please. It’s over, and I’m not going back.”

“Stay here as long as you need. I’ll call Dad in the morning so he can deal with getting your stuff. You really drove here from Dallas?” Danneel replied with a hint of snark. She let out a laugh when Kylin answered her question with a shrug.

“Well, you picked a hell of a night to make an appearance.” Dani smirked, taking a sip from her glass of Cabernet, “Somehow everyone managed to be in the same place at the same time for once, so it’s a full house.”

The girls made their way from the den and into the dining room where everyone else was gathered, Danneel rubbing Kylin’s back soothingly before pulling away to get her husband’s attention.

“Look who came to see her favorite brother,” Danneel touched Jensen on his back and he whipped around, a smile immediately brightened his face.

“Ky, what the hell are you doing here?” He whooped, moving quickly to engulf his younger sister in a smothering hug. He squeezed her tight around her ribs and she couldn’t help the shriek of pain that she let out as he lifted her up off the floor. Jensen let her go and gave her a questioning look.

“Err, sorry, Bubs. I, uh, fell off the ladder at Dad’s the other day trying to help him do something, Kinda, uh, bruised my ribs a little bit, I think. No biggie.” She excused as she rubbed the sore area.

“He should know your clumsiness does not make you helpful,” Jensen joked, throwing his arm around her shoulders as she motioned for Dani to make Kylin a drink.

“Whiskey, please,” Kylin stated when she saw her attempt to reach for the wine. Danneel gave her a look, but obliged nonetheless.

“And who is this beautiful young thing you have yet to introduce me to, Jensen?” A thick drawl came from behind. Kylin turned her head towards the voice.

‘Holy fuckballs,’ Kylin thought as she was met with the tall length of a man that was Jeffery Dean Morgan, clad in dark washed jeans and a faded band tee.

“This is my sister, Jeff, my baby sister. She just popped in to surprise me from Dallas.” Jensen replied, his voice lowering with a hint of protectiveness. He wrapped his arm tighter around Kylin’s shoulders and she fought to wince with the tenderness.

“She looks young enough to be your daughter, J,” Jeffrey chuckled as he let his eyes roam Kylin’s frame.

“Not quite, but she is definitely old enough to be yours, old man.” Jens replied, eyes squinted in annoyance.

“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Morgan,” Kylin replied as she stuck her hand out towards him, “Ignore my brother, he’s a bitch.”

She ignored Jensen’s scoff as she smiled up at Jeffrey, who took her hand in both of his much larger ones.

“Definitely related to you, Ackles. She’s cute.” Jeffrey smiled, letting go of Kylin’s hand after a moment.

“Ky! How the hell have you been, woman?!” Was heard right before Kylin was scooped up from behind and spun around by Rob Benedict.

He set her down gently and turned her in his arms to hug her properly. She couldn't help the whimper that escaped her throat as pressure was once again applied to her sore body. Rob brought his head back to give her a knowing look. Kylin simply smiled shyly before she dodged his eyes and looked away.

She was quickly passed around by Jared, Gen, and Rob, and a sense of comfort graced her as she realized that she was finally surrounded by people who loved her and would protect her. She was safe. For now, at least.

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

As she enjoyed the company of her friends, family, and warm whiskey, her phone was constantly vibrating in her pocket, Anthony not willing to give up. The alcohol was working its way through her system, and in her drunkenness, her anger started to flare up all over again. With a sigh of frustration, she retreated to the back yard to answer the phone. She lit a cigarette and took a deep drag before pressing “accept” on the screen.

She didn’t even get the chance to say “Hello,” before the verbal attack began.

“Get your stupid ass back to this fucking house, now.” Anthony demanded, his voice low and almost growl-like.

“No,” She replied simply, taking another anxious pull from the cigarette between her fingers.

“Where the fuck did you even go, huh? Who are you with? You’re at some bar, huh? I’ll beat your ass in the middle of Pearl if I find you, you fucking whore.” He threatened, followed by a loud crashing noise coming from the background.

“I’m done with this. This is not how you speak to someone, Anthony. Who the fuck raised you?” She hissed, attempting to keep her voice down so as to not draw any attention, “I’m done. Like, done, done.”

“Since when do you get to have a complex, bitch? You ruined my life having to deal with all of your shit, so you don’t get to just walk away from me.”

“The fuck I don’t!” She barked, her voice raised, “Fuck you, you piece of shit. Fuck. you. My dad will be there by tomorrow to get my shit. I’m done with this conversation.”

Anthony started on another tirade, but before she could tell what his next slew of curses would be, her phone was snatched out of her hand. She whipped around as Jeffery brought the phone to his ear.

“I do believe the lady said she was done. Learn your manners, boy.” His drawl was thick and assertive, and he left no time for Anthony to reply before he pressed the “end” button and held the phone out for her to take back.

She hadn’t even realized she had started crying until she brought the forgotten cigarette back to her lips, and the ashes fell across her hand as she took a final drag before tossing it into the yard. She wiped her face with the sleeve of her sweater, trying to rid her face of the tears and snot.

Jeffrey took a seat next to her on the bench she had been sitting on and lit up a joint. He took a couple of hits for himself before he passed it to her.

“Thanks,” She whispered and took a deep drag. She hummed in appreciation as she held the smoke in her lungs for a moment before blowing it out.

“Anytime, sweetheart. Sounds like you need it.” Jeffrey chuckled as he took it back from her. They sat there for a few minutes, passing the joint back and forth without speaking. The sound of the back door opening, followed by Genevieve’s voice broke the comfortable silence.

“There you are! Oooooh, you have goodies!” Gen giggled as she sat beside Kylin, who was forced to move closer to Jeffrey, their shoulders touching.

“Rough day?” Gen asked as she plucked the roach from Kylin’s fingers and took a deep drag. She had already been informed of the situation by Danneel.

Kylin simply replied with a huff of a laugh and a shake of her head.

“That boy needs to learn how to speak to a woman,” Jefrey stated simply as he brought a cigarette to his mouth.

“You have no idea,” Kylin replied. She picked up her glass of whiskey and finished it off.

That earned her a sigh from Gen and a confused look from Jeffrey. She ignored both.

The silence washed over them again while Jeffrey finished his smoke. He tossed the butt in the yard with hers as he stood.

“Well, ladies, I have enjoyed your company, but I am going to hit the hay” He said smoothly, holding both his hands out for each of the girls to take one. He kissed them both, gave a small bow, and retreated back inside the house.

“Jay sent me out here, you know. Didn’t like the way Jeff was ‘looking’ at you.” Gen said, making sarcastic quotation marks with her fingers with a laugh.

Kylin smirked and shook her head. Of course her brother was being his usual over protective self.

“So is this the real last time?” Gen asked gently, after a few moments.

“Yep,” Kylin replied, popping the ‘p’ sound. She dug around in her pocket and found her pack of cigarettes. She lit one and took a drag and then offered it to Gen.

“Good.” Gen nodded simply and brought the smoke to her lips. One of the best things about being best friends with Gen and Dani was that they all knew what the other person was feeling and needing without the use of words.

“Come on, chick,” Gen said suddenly as she grasped Kylin by the thigh and hoisted herself up. She turned and grabbed Ky by the hand and pulled her up with her, “Let’s go take shots until we black out.”

“Sounds perfect,” Kylin laughed as she threw her arm over Gen’s shoulders and let her guide them inside.

And black out they did.

#jeffrey dean morgan x ofc #JDM X OFC #Jeffrey Dean Morgan RPF #JDM RPF #Jeffrey Dean Morgan x Original Female Character #JDM x OC

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steviewashere · 1 month ago

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Rating: Explicit | Genres/Tropes: Drama & Romance, Angst & Hurt/Comfort, Slowburn, Future Fic, Canon Divergence | WC: 56, 917 | Chapters: 11/11 | Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings————————————————————————————————————————Relationships: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Eddie Munson & Wayne Munson, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Past Steve Harrington/Original Female Character(s), Steve Harrington & Original Child Character(s) Characters: Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Wayne Munson, Steve Harrington's Mother, Robin Buckley, Original Female Character(s), Original Child Character(s) Tags: Cancer Diagnosis in a Secondary Character, Mentions of Past Spouse Death, Implied/Referenced Past Alcohol Abuse/Addiction, Implied/Referenced Past Drug Addiction, Parent Steve Harrington, mailman!Steve Harrington, retired rockstar!Eddie Munson, Second Chances, Getting Back Together, Middle Aged Steddie, Tender Sex, POV Alternating, Eventual Happy Ending

You are at Chapter Two! Chapter One

———————————————————————————————————————— Ding. Ding. Ding…Ding…ding, went the bell above his head. The diner is a ghost town, despite it being around dinner time. Though, part of Steve appreciated how slow and small everything seemed. Despite his world expanding, recoloring, lighting gently.

Benny’s was never a particularly big place, even under the new ownership, there was no plan to expand it. All the tables were freed from the walls, chairs able to scrape against the floor. Yet, instead of the drab metallic grey the chairs were back in the ‘80s, the seating was race car red. A jukebox still sat across from the front entrance. Majorly overused fan by the door, dome trash cans, white lace curtains. Grease popped in the kitchen. Cooked potatoes filtering through the air, lightly salted, probably deliciously crispy.

Before he came in, he’d replaced the mail van with his own car. He also removed his jacket and hat, stored loose on the backseat, so it could be seen clearly if anybody walked by his windows. It’s not terribly unusual that he’s seen around town without his work uniform on, but tonight he feels especially bare. He would’ve dressed himself up a bit, though he supposes he doesn’t need the whole horse and carriage for rekindling whatever scraps of his friendship with Eddie remains. Just wished he appeared a little more presentable. Maybe a bit more colorful, if anything.

Still, the new owner, Cheryl—a first name was all he was given some years ago—greets him with surprise. She pops out from the kitchen and meets him at the counter. “Well if it isn’t our trusty mailman, Steve! And in his natural state, who’s the lucky lady?” she gently teases. He chuckles nervously, trying to not show the pulse of hurt that surges through him. And he must be too readable because she adds, not even a second later, “Oh, I’m just teasing you, kiddo. What can I do you for?”

“I’m ordering for here tonight, Cher,” he says in turn. “Got a friend that’s meeting me here.”

“Oooo, that’s exciting! Do I know this friend?”

Steve shrugs. “You might’a heard of him. Eddie Munson? Guess he used to be a nuisance to everybody back in the day,” he explains, smirking with it. She laughs brightly, bouncing. He sighs. “Anyway. I’ll just order some shakes first. Wait until he gets here for the food. Can I just do a strawberry shake with extra whip and a plain vanilla? Maybe throw an extra cherry on the vanilla one—only if you got it.” He reaches for his wallet, digging around in his back pocket, but she speaks before he can bring out the cash to pay.

“Sure thing, kiddo. I’ll put that on a tab for you, have you pay after you eat. Could even wave it off, since you do so much around here.”

“Don’t wanna put you out, Cher. The tab will be just fine.” Tucks his wallet back down in his pocket. And turns his head to the jukebox. She disappears to the blender, already working on the shakes. “Hey, Cher?” She just hums. “This old jukebox…does it still work?”

“You betcha! It’s not all that updated, though. But have at it!”

He steps away from the counter and busies himself with looking at the music selections. Sure enough, there’s nothing new past 1989. Which, even if Steve wanted to listen to something more recent, he wouldn’t know what to pick. He can only hope that whatever he picks is fine with Eddie.

Just as he shuffles through the songs for a second time, the bell above the door jingles again. Heavier footsteps behind him. As he goes to look over his shoulder, a waft of cigarette smoke and musky aftershave fills his nostrils. “Anything good in here?” Eddie asks behind him. His arm reaches over Steve’s right shoulder, index finger tapping on the glass window of the jukebox.

Steve gives a half-hearted shrug. “Nothing that you’d like, I’m sure,” he mutters. “Unless you don’t mind my go-to pick.“

“You invited me out here,” Eddie murmurs. He’s close to Steve’s ear. Pressed in against his back. “You’d know your way around here better than me, yeah? Whatever you want is fine with me.” His voice echoes inside of Steve’s head. Soft and raspy and something he’s ached for for way too long. Steve wants to melt into him, but forces himself to pick a song instead.

“The Promise” by When in Rome filters through the tinny speakers.

Maybe it’s a bit…on the nose, but the other handful of artists he does enjoy on this old thing are Taylor Dayne and Madonna. Not exactly Eddie’s forte, if Steve is remembering correctly. Though—How would I know about his music taste, he asks himself. They haven’t spoken to each other in nearly three decades. And he may have an inkling, but they’re off to a good enough start. He wouldn’t want to push his luck.

Steve forces himself away from the jukebox at the sound of glasses clinking on the diner’s counter. Grabs the nearly overflowing cups and guides Eddie wordlessly to a table in the back. Away from where prying eyes could spot them if someone were to walk through the front door. He sorts them out as they take their seats—Eddie on the far side, facing the entrance and Steve opposite—doling out napkins and straws.

When Eddie sidles into his seat, he makes a small surprised noise in the back of his throat. Right hand gripping the milkshake glass tight. Steve settles further, taking a mindless sip of his own shake. Strawberry sweetness exploding on his tongue, but he chokes as soon as Eddie asks, “How’d you remember this shit? Vanilla? Even the extra cherry on top?”

He slams a hand on his chest, wheezing around the swallow. With a strained voice, “I don’t know, man. It’s just something my brain latched onto, I guess.” His line of sight inches up to Eddie’s face, unaware he was even looking down at the plasticky tabletop. Met with copious bewilderment.

“You are something else,” Eddie mutters. He takes his own sip. Goes quiet and thoughtful. But nudges Steve’s shin with his foot, their eyes meeting once more. “Y’know, honestly, I’ve been trying to figure out that damn perfect oatmeal recipe you’ve got.”

“Perfect?” Steve scoffs. “You used to whine to me every time I gave you a bowl. All, ‘Ew, Stevie. I’m not a horse.’ Which, granted, you scarfed it down anyway. But still. You hated oatmeal, even if it was mine.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. Shrugs a little and looks down at his hands still wrapped around his glass. But he glances back up, a scorching softness behind his eyes. Every part of his face relaxed and open. Drinking Steve in as if they’re seeing each other for the first time. His left ankle hooks around Steve’s right. “It just…I don’t know. Maybe I just miss it,” he murmurs.

Steve hums. Runs his thumbs over the bottom of his own glass, over the textured edges, and sighs—trying adamantly to not think about the warmth radiating from Eddie’s leg. He sobers with a steadying breath. “Every morning I have a cup of coffee with way too much vanilla creamer,” he admits quietly, “I don’t even like it. It’s just straight up disgusting. Too much sugar in the morning, but it gets me awake enough for work. So I do it anyway. Maybe because I missed it, too, after you…You know.”

“Well, I’ll be back in town a while. Y’know, if you’d like to catch up.”

Something in Steve pulsed painfully raw at that. He knew, of course he knew, that Eddie wasn’t going to be here forever. But something in him hoped, even the slightest bit, that they’d have all the time in the world. Like their days could freeze over and they’d still be in this diner—sipping on infinite shakes and shooting the shit like they were still barely in their twenties.

But they’re well onto their fifties now.

Time doesn’t wait for them anymore.

“Sure,” he agrees, albeit a little hesitant while staring at his hands, “sure, Eds.” The nickname slides off his tongue easy enough, though. “Let’s get some food first and then…You can ask me anything? I’ve already ran my errands for the day. I have until”—he stops to check his watch again. It’s sluggish and behind by two whole minutes.—“I’ve got fifty minutes to entertain you. Jeopardy! is on right now and I have it recorded, but if I don’t get back home by eight, my mom will watch it without me.”

Eddie nods slowly, a small smile gracing his features. “I can do that, easy. Let me get the food, though? If I remember…” He stops to think. A dramatic hand gripping his chin, eyes squinting off into the distance, eyebrows furrowing deep down his face. Steve barely contains his snort. “…You get double fried french fries. And a cheeseburger with pickles on the side, extra mustard?”

“Ding-ding-ding!” Steve exclaims softly. “Looks like we remember more about each other than we thought.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe what I’ve got stored in my spacious brain, Stevie,” Eddie teases. Or…it almost sounds like flirting, if Steve zeroes more closely on it. He doesn’t, but it’s the thought that counts. “I’ll be right back,” Eddie states. And slips out of his chair before Steve can tell him about his running tab.

He watches Eddie’s back move away from him, as he rounds the corner back to the register. It’s hard to rip his eyes away from where he just moved, but Steve knows that if he doesn’t look away sooner, he’ll get himself trapped worse. He has to remind himself that Eddie is not here for dating, for romance, for second chances. There’s something else drawing him back in, making him drive through backroads, making him smoke out by his car in front of Wayne’s trailer—though, Steve swears that’s something Wayne and Eddie would’ve done together. And the very little he saw of Wayne’s face earlier, there was something familiarly terrible about it.

A reminiscent ghost from his past that Steve dares not make eye contact with longer than needed. Though, something in him stirs miserably alive—nauseous and unwelcome—the more he stews.

Steve rests his palms on the sticky tabletop, lukewarm in comparison to the ice cold outside of his milkshake glass. It grounds a part of him. Makes him draw back into reality. Eddie isn’t yours, he’s not here for you, he’s here for something else, he has to repeat. The feeling of Eddie’s fingers on his face, his weight pressed on his back, the ankle under the table…it’s all hard to ignore. Reminds him, all too much and all too well, of a time where they saw each other everyday, holding each other close on the couch, breaths mingling when they’d whisper to the other late at night—promises towards a future together, a life that they both wanted; promises that were nothing. They were just nothing; though not to Steve. Never to him.

The sound of a chain jingling makes him look back up from the table.

“We, Stevie, are set for a hot dinner of the world’s best cheeseburgers,” Eddie says boisterously, sitting back down. He’s smiling wide and shiny. An arm over the back of the chair, his body leaning to the right, an elbow on the table. There’s a certain suaveness that Steve vaguely remembers; it’s weird, yet comforting, to see it back now. To have that smile on him. Those wide, gleaming, Bambi brown eyes, too.

Fire prickles underneath him. Ready to engulf him. To damn him.

In Eddie’s orbit, he’s warm for the first time in a long while. In Eddie’s orbit, he is merely a planet circling the sun.

———————————————————————————————————————— “Can’t believe you enjoy talking to people around here,” Eddie says. There’s a little spot of ketchup in the corner of his mouth, something Steve’s getting antsy over—his fingers tingle, wanting to reach out, wanting to swipe the mess away; like he would’ve years ago, in another life. It’s endearing, though. Has been endearing the entire time he’s been rambling and raving over Steve’s little life here. “I feel like I’d get all clammed up, keep my head down and just slot the mail in, y’know?”

Steve snorts. “Oh, really? Feel like that’s a wrong observation.”

Another really endearing part of Eddie’s face has always been his eyes. How they just…light up. At anything. One point, it’d been when he realized he could bother Steve and Robin at Family Video. There was when he got a rather large crowd at the bar when he still played in town. When he received the information for a recording studio, when he began making connections, when he realized he was actually getting somewhere. Now, they light up at Steve with the faintest bit of tease, with mirth that he’s missed.

That he has missed.

“I’ve found it easier to talk to my walls over the years, man. Lost all that charisma I had.”

“Don’t think I’d call it charisma, Eds. Maybe something like…luck and coincidence?”

“Hey! You liked listening to me talk.”

That raw pulse of hurt surges back through him all over again. The same kind of rawness that’s left him gaping and lost over the last several decades. Why does so much of life have to be past tense? Why do him and Eddie have to be something to never happen again?

“I like listening to you talk right now,” Steve murmurs a moment later; a moment after he’s stuffed his mouth full of fries, trying to give his tongue something to do before he lets his hurt show. And, yet, even the distractions can’t save him from Eddie’s flash of surprise. He looks away from Eddie’s too open face, down to the face of his watch; sluggish, two minutes behind as always—“Jeopardy!’s on,” he states, “might miss it.”

“Oh,” Eddie breathes. If Steve weren’t right in front of him, he’d think it was just a nothing sound. This, though, sounded like disappointment. “Well…” he hums. “We can go, if you need to. I’ll still be at the trailer, if you ever want to”—

“Tell me about Los Angeles,” Steve interrupts, slapping his right hand down on the watch’s face. “Is it as glitz and glam that the magazines make it out to be?”

Taken aback briefly, Eddie just blinks at Steve. His head jerks, neck going frozen with the movement. Fingers rubbing against each other, sprinkling crumbs and salt back onto his plate. Those eyes curious. Those eyes…those eyes. After a confused pause, Eddie answers slowly, “I mean…it’s just a city, I guess.” He shrugs, looks away towards his food, fingers picking at the stale bun of his half-eaten burger. There’s still ketchup in the corner of his mouth. “It, uh, it’s big. Orange because the sun is almost always out. There’s these big, ugly billboards on the side of every road; no matter how major of a roadway it is. I’ve never seen the same faces twice, unless they’re my friends, but…I don’t even see”—Eddie shakes his head, silencing with a shallow breath.

Tension holds tight to Eddie’s shoulders, Steve notices. The way they hike to his ears, his head hanging low. There isn’t enough hair to cover his face, though. So Steve can see him contemplate, get all…distanced and something close to mournful.

“Los Angeles isn’t for everybody, let’s just say that. And, if I’m being honest, I kinda hate it out there. It’s pretty miserable. It gets lonely, people get wild, you end up in places you never thought you would,” Eddie says; bitterly, if Steve lingers on it. “Things just got crazy out there. I…I don’t even want to go back. Just one day here has really made me miss peace and quiet.” He clears his throat, lets out a deep breath, and then glows all over again. As if his part of the conversation never happened. “So, what’s been going on with you outside of work? That apartment still treating you well?”

“Apartment?” Steve repeats, confused.

Eddie squints his eyes and cocks his head just a little to the left. “Yeah,” he says slowly, “the apartment. Few streets behind Melvald’s?”

His mouth drops open into a silent “Oh.” He gives a brief, nervous chuckle. “I—uh—I actually live in a house now. Couple streets away from the house in Loch Nora. Been there since…since, I think, ’91? Or was it early ’92?” Steve sets his chin in his right palm, elbow on the table, deep in thought. Muttering absently to himself, dates cross-wired in his head. Shrugs, lets his other hand fidget with the last remaining burnt crumbs of fries on his plate, and gives a glance back to Eddie. “Doesn’t matter,” Steve says, “I don’t live in that shithole apartment anymore. Not since the toilet rat of ’89.”

Owlishly, Eddie blinks at him. Wide eyes, pursed lips, sprung forth eyebrows. “Toilet Rat.” A snort. “Guess I didn’t…I never heard that you moved. Makes sense you never responded to”—Eddie clears his throat awkwardly, gives a half-hearted huff, and scoots his chair back—“You’re right, doesn’t matter. How about I walk you out to your car?”

Floored, Steve can only muster an, “Oh, um.”

“C’mon, Stevie. Should probably get you back home so you don’t miss your show, right?” And Eddie’s already out of his seat before Steve can even get a full breath out. He startles and stands, too.

If he had the courage to call Eddie out on it, he’d probably point out how offensive it is that he’s so eager to get rid of their night. To call it good when the good has just begun. But, Steve—always the protector, whether it be of his own heart or the nervous prospect of a revisited relationship—won’t say a damn thing.

Instead, still awkward in Eddie’s presence—unsure of what to say, what to do, where to put his hands—Steve tries, “I was actually going to see if you wanted to…to come over?” That makes Eddie freeze in his maneuver to get away. Steve nearly collides with his back. Nearly falls flat on his ass, heart regurgitated into his palms, when Eddie turns back around with that confused puppy look. “Unless you’re busy,” Steve rushes to add, “which is totally fine. Just means I’ll see you around, probably the next time I’m delivering mail. You…you probably have things you need to do. Stuff to catch up on with Wayne. This can…” he trails.

We can wait, Steve faintly thinks.

A hesitant, light hand squeezes Steve’s right bicep. He inhales sharply at it.

There was a time when something like that didn’t feel so…sudden and scorching. A time in which he could be touched, held, cared for without the possibility of it fading away from him. He’d had that with Eddie, the first few months. Had it with his late wife, before she was sick—well and truly and unmistakably sick; when it seemed like a flu, not the sediments of an ending. A brush of fingers to his fresh, aching scars or the hard, yet careful edges of fingernails to his tender scalp trying to rid of a migraine. It was heavy heads on his shoulder as movies played out, breaths growing deep, the lights dimmed low or off completely. An elbow to a rib. The hug of a lover, unexpected, yet warm. An all encompassing thing; set fire to his lungs, burnt him inside then out, made him grow big when he was fed, made him fizzle once he learned to be starved.

Starve he did.

The morning after Eddie up and left. The three years before he met his wife. The seventeen years he’s somehow survived with nobody by his side; sans his mom, his daughter, and the here-and-there visits from Robin and Dustin and Nancy. But for the most part, it was just him. Him and a gaping maw and a hole in his chest the size of his heart—still pulsing, still searching, still hungry.

Eddie’s thumb tickles over the stitch at Steve’s shoulder. Just a little brush, absentminded and going just to do something. A fidget, that’s all it is. “If you want me there,” Eddie says low—hot and orange and autumnal like the embers catching inside Steve—“I can be there. Told Wayne I’d be out for a little while anyway. It’ll be good to be with you for a while.”

Steve sniffs and gives one, sure nod. “Cool,” he mutters, “let me—uh—I gotta pay the tab and then you can follow”—

“Already covered,” Eddie interjects. And his hand pats once over Steve’s bicep, falling away as fast as it landed. “Just lead the way, big boy.”

The nickname stirs those embers, even as there was still ketchup in the corner of Eddie’s mouth. Sticky, red, staining. A part of him wonders if that’s the condiment at all. Or maybe he let Eddie get away with a piece of his heart, chewy and beating, and he’s just now seeing what happened to it—maybe Eddie’s just as hungry as he is.

“My car’s the Subaru Outback in the lot. I drive a little under the speed limit, I’m hard to miss.”

“Y’always were.”

Maybe Eddie’s just as hungry.

———————————————————————————————————————— Eddie didn’t really know what to expect when it came to letting Steve back into his life.

Honestly, if he really thought about it, he figured it’d be that quick conversation in front of Wayne’s and then maybe a breath of eagerness to get to know one another, an eagerness that washes away—a saving face kind of thing. He never would have thought it to be remembrance, like the trees know to undress as soon as the autumn solstice hits. Just as he knows to order a cheeseburger meal for Steve, or how to clean his glasses (counterclockwise circles with the hem of a worn cotton t-shirt, left lens first then the right), or to keep his distance behind Steve’s car because he kept slow when not in danger. This morning, when he was driving into Hawkins, Eddie didn’t think he could rekindle a flame just by talking to it. Didn’t think he’d be excited, of all things, to learn about another person. Or—to learn about another person all over again.

Steve’s gone grey and worn. He’s soft the way the sun is right before it gives way to dark expanding night, decorated by little stars soft as the sun, soft as the morning. And he’s thoughtful. Like he takes his time to figure things out now, no longer head first and ready to strike.

Because they’ve matured. Whether by chance or by need, Eddie’s uncertain in Steve’s case. Though, driving behind this green Subaru Outback with a whip-wild streak of hope in his chest, Eddie’s certain that in the case of himself, he’s never matured. Maybe not as much as the rest of the world. Maybe not as much as others would’ve liked for him to.

He turns down a side road, Steve near tight to the right curb, high hedges coloring by in splashes of crisp yellows and muted greens. There are potholes and small cracks in the road. Family cars parked in driveways, in front of houses that are much, much smaller than his current…mausoleum of a house. He wonders, currently dwarfed by the sheer homeliness of the neighborhood, if Steve ever felt this way in Loch Nora. Resigned and shallow, yet heavy and infinite with a want he could not fulfill—for a home; a place to be safe; to remain.

The home they park in front of is one story, not terribly wide, brown and a little drab. There’s a few spots of moss growing on the gutters, a patch of replaced roofing that’s black in comparison to the reddish-brown tiling, an overgrown rose bush flush to the street-facing wall, and a crooked three next to the front door. 3019. He kills the ignition, keys sharp in hand, and hefts himself from the driver’s side. Steve does the same, lifting himself out with a gruff grunt. There’s a massive blue coat slung over his left arm, a hat scrunched tight in that same side’s fist, and a velvety navy messenger bag across his torso. He walks up the driveway to the front door, sure of himself and familiar, leaving Eddie to straggle after him.

When the door juts open, awkward under its heavy weight, Steve tells him, “Shoes off at the door, but make yourself at home. Feel free to…look around, I guess. ‘M gonna check-in with my mom, make sure she’s ready for bed.”

Eddie just nods and steps inside behind Steve. He follows instructions, toeing out of his Reeboks—carefully, though, he doesn’t want to crease them. And then he stands in the center of a warm, dimly lit, yet unfamiliar living room. It connects to another room, carpet meshing terribly with the cheap looking cream tiles of, what Eddie assumes, is a kitchen. There’s a dining table on the far right, or Eddie’s right, wall. Only two chairs, a third one just off to the side, unused.

He steps a little more into the actual living space as Steve comes from the hallway to Eddie’s left, just off of the living room. And he disappears into the kitchen wordlessly, scouring around a full sink, it sounds like. At the tap turning on, Eddie focuses elsewhere.

Finally, he took the chance to absorb Steve’s little living room. There was the sofa, dusty pink and well-loved—a middle cushion that’s long since dilapidated and still had the imprint of a well-held body. And the tabletop flat screen, sitting atop a low entertainment center made of black wood, pressed near flush with the wall, cords around it that were knotted and ill organized, a DVD player that’s dinged up and has faded buttons from oiled fingertips. There’s a framed puzzle of a sunset just above the television. A coffee table that’s just slightly lower than the entertainment center (definitely shorter than the couch), cluttered with magazines and the most recent copy of the newspaper. Bookshelf next to the TV that’s brimming to the edges; some titles he recognizes: The Great Gatsby, The Hobbit, The Scarlet Letter, A Separate Peace, The Outsiders; and some he doesn’t: Speak, White Noise, Warrior Cats, The Fault in Our Stars. There’s a few textbooks scattered among the other books; anatomy, algebra, and medicine.

Something important, that he notices, is a shelf dedicated to a jewelry box and a framed photograph. The picture intrigues him, so he grabs for it.

It’s three people: Steve, a little girl, and a woman. The background is plain grey, saturated and marbled with faint glints of white. Almost like a school picture. Steve is standing in the background; most likely in his twenties, though gently graced with the beginnings of aging, his smile is wide yet soft, crinkled hazel eyes, hair shaved down yet spiky like a kiwi, a polo with thick horizontal pink and white stripes, and what looks like the edge of a pair of khaki chinos. The woman is sitting in the foreground, Steve’s hands on her shoulders; she’s gaunt and pale, hair cut close to her scalp (too close to garner a good color), large and wide brown eyes that are fitted with faint black eyeliner and brown mascara, heart shaped face, nose similar in shape to Steve’s though narrower, sparse eyebrows, long sleeve white blouse with a heart neckline, plenty freckles on her chest and face, and pink lips stretching over yet another beautiful smile. This little girl is probably three years old, thick curly dirty blonde hair that falls to just under her little ears, pale pink overalls over a white t-shirt, fingers in her mouth, round hazel eyes, flushed cheeks, yet her skin is just as pale white as the woman’s. She’s a splitting image of Steve and the woman.

He’s a dad, Eddie realizes, and this must be his wife. And he cradles the photo more carefully in his hands. They make a good family. A very, very beautiful family. He can’t help but wonder about Steve…about his wife, too.

As if sensing he’s being thought about, Steve comes wandering back out from his kitchen, a tea towel thrown over his shoulder. “Hey, do you want some tea or should I—What do you have there?” He’s standing between entryways, to the living room, to the kitchen. Like an apparition, glowing from behind, soft though hard to miss. And his eyes go from tired to curious to…sadly thoughtful behind those shiny glasses of his. He spotted the photo almost immediately, of course he did. “Mmm,” he lowly hums. “It’s a cute picture, isn’t it? One of a few that I can display that has all of us.”

“It really is,” Eddie can easily agree. “Your wife, she must be really proud of you.”

“I hope she is,” Steve murmurs, “wherever she may be.” His tone is too somber for Eddie’s liking.

So, Eddie looks back at the photograph. Something like an 8x6. Sharp cheekbones, shaved hair, a slight dullness to her eyes. It’s what he sees in Wayne now. His stomach hurts. He looks back to Steve, words lost.

“I can tell you a bit about them,” Steve offers softly, “make you some tea, too. You still like English breakfast?”

He nods wordlessly. Of course. Of-fucking-course he still remembers after all this time.

When the tea is up and piping hot, Steve leads them towards the sofa. He places the mugs—pottery things, light brown with blue on the rim—on the coffee table, coasters underneath each one. The photo is still in Eddie’s hands, which he relinquishes when Steve holds his hands out for it. And just as he’s getting ready to take his seat on the middle cushion, Steve tells him firmly, “Don’t sit there.”

Another silent nod, sitting slow onto the far right cushion, space between them. And then the photograph is held up.

“Which one do you want to know about first?” Steve asks. “I know you’re curious.”

Eddie cranes his head just enough to see the edges of softly smiling faces. Arm thrown onto the back of the sofa, fingers tracing lumpy divots. “The little girl? Is she yours?”

“Yeah,” Steve murmurs, “her name’s Joanna. Sometimes, to annoy her, I’ll call her Josie. Drives her up a damn wall.” He chuckles under his breath. “She’s bright. Funny. Very charismatic, but don’t tell her that I said that. She’ll use it as an upper hand in every argument we get into from here on out. Stubborn, I guess I should add.”

“Sounds like you, Stevie.”

Steve barks out a single “Hah!” He gives a side glance to Eddie, something he wouldn’t pick up usually, but he’s right here, looking on at Steve’s gentle pride. The glow that parents seem to get when talking about their kids, he’s seen the same damn thing on Wayne’s face at conferences in the past and when he came home today. “That’s what Cathy always said,” Steve says, “never believed her. Josie always seemed right, guess we know why. But…she’s also my complete opposite. She’s in school, y’know, twenty-one and off in Boston. She’ll call me every once in a while, talkin’ damn near a mile a minute, rambling about some lecture a professor gave.

“Half the words she uses I barely have the time to remember, let alone ask what the hell they mean. Her friends are sweet, sarcastic, nice. So different from my childhood friends, it’s hard to believe her judgment came from my tree. I swear, Eds, if Nancy didn’t slap me in the face and knock my brain loose, I’d see a donkey’s behind and equate it to God or something.” Steve reverently swipes his thumbs on either side of the frame. Sniffles, a light thing barely here. He looks up to Eddie with half-lidded, wet eyes. A smile, shiny and wide. The tip of his nose is crinkled. He looks so…elated. “Josie…she’s more than anything I could’ve ever imagined. A freaking miracle child or something. I don’t know how I ended up with a kiddo like her; she’s where my luck begins and ends, swear on it.”

There’s a tear hanging for dear life in the corner of Steve’s right eye, one that Eddie wants so badly to reach out and swipe away. But he restrains. It’s hard, but he does it.

“And…and the woman?” Eddie asks gently.

Steve takes a snotty, deep breath, and swallows hard. “Catherine, she was my wife. I called her Cathy,” he whispers. The words barely make it out of his mouth, more letters than coherent sounds. His hands shake lightly, thumbs still reverent on the sides of the frame. “We met in 1989. I was on-duty, delivering mail. One of my first drives, I think. She was new in town, in this shabby apartment. It’s honestly not all that romantic. There was this package she needed hefted inside, so I did it. Sweated my ass off, she offered me a glass of lemonade”—

“Classic move,” Eddie murmurs.

Playfully, Steve swats his chest and scoffs. “I declined it,” he says, “gave a goodbye, went on the rest of my delivery route, and went back to my shitty apartment. Bumped into her a few days later at Benny’s. So, we sat and ate together. She asked me all kinds of questions about Hawkins; What happened here? Shit that I can’t describe, is what I told her. Do you think it’s safe to be here now, did I make a mistake? I just gave her a shrug and said, I don’t think you did. Do you maybe want to get drinks some time? I couldn’t believe my damn ears, she was so fucking forward. It’s just who she was, honestly.

“She was…god, she was beautiful, Eds. So fucking intelligent—like, she was studying to be a psychologist at the time, she was that smart. And she was funny, indescribably so. Just one look from her sometimes melted me into a puddle of giggles, could never reign myself back in. She and I shared an interest with cooking, always was pushing food at one another; Oh, try this soup I made, try this pie and tell me what you think, try the fish. It’s good, right? That’s what she always asked afterwards. And…I gotta be honest, she could’a charred all my damn food and I’d think God was feeding me straight from his palms.”

“Oh…oh, she had you tied around her finger, Stevie.”

“Yeah,” Steve breathily chuckles, “yeah, guess she did.” He lets out a quiet, sad sigh. “I fell for her hard and fast, as I always do. But she was…she was different. Something about her, I can’t really tell you what, felt like a forever kind of thing. Or…or maybe something like a while. And so, I took initiative on my gut this time; like…whatever that thing is you do in Dungeons & Dragons—the roll for initiative thing. I took my chances, is what I’m saying. Proposed to her by dressing up our apartment—at this time it was January, 1991 and I had been living with her for a little over a year, after that dreaded toilet rat thing; a story for a different time—but I put bouquets of bluebells everywhere that I could, granted they were out of season, but I put ‘em in vases and by her pillow and even in a few pairs of her shoes. I had made the lights dim and all amber. Put a record on, she was big into Jim Croce, so I kept nailing the needle to play out ‘Time in a Bottle’ and got on one knee in the small walkable space of our living room—it was heavily cluttered with furniture and knick knacks, surprised we even could walk around that place—and just waited.

“I almost threw up from nerves. But she…she came around the corner, her hair was wild and up. Just a big, bee’s nest of curls sitting lumpy at the back of her head. There was a slight sheen of sweat all over her face, grocery bags with thinning straps gripped tight in her fists, some sort of ink splotched all over this beige, cashmere sweater I bought her for Christmas. And I broke into tears, couldn’t believe my eyes that she—despite having what seemed like a rough go around with her day—she was this supermodel in our home. For the first time in my life, I was certain that I was doing something right.

“And of course she said yes. We worked day-in, day-out over our wedding plans. Just tirelessly. We wanted to get married as soon as possible, so it was set for mid-March. It was a small thing, here in town. I had actually…I asked her if it was okay to send you an invite—she already knew all about you and”—

Eddie stops Steve with a gentle hand on his bicep. It takes a sluggish moment, but soon Steve’s looking at him; wide eyes and perplexed eyebrows. Disbelieving and incredulous, Eddie flounders, “Hold on. She knew about me?”

A little shrug. “Yeah…yeah, of course she did. She probably would’ve found out about you at some point, I’m sure. Not sure how exactly, but she’s smart, she would’ve. And, y’know, it’s hard to keep something like how I’m bisexual away from somebody I love. She just took it in stride. She wasn’t like upset or anything.

“In fact, she encouraged me to invite you after some time. Thought that it’d be nice to meet you, for the two of us to reconnect. But I…” Steve blinks down at the hand still on his arm. A moment passes in stilted silence, contemplative and charged. He pats the back of Eddie’s hand. “…I wasn’t sure if you’d want to be there. And I also wasn’t sure if you had the same address. And I didn’t want to make Robin play middle-man, so I just…I guess I made the decision.” Eddie’s met with Steve eyes again, something deeply regretful and sorrowful in them. “Sorry,” Steve then whispers.

“It’s alright, Stevie,” Eddie assures, “really, it is. I probably would’ve let you down anyway. Wasn’t even at home, wouldn’t be even when the invitation arrived. Y’know, concerts and shit.”

“Oh, I forgot to ask you about all that. How’s music working out”—

“We can get to that a different time,” he gently interjects, “I want to hear more about Cathy.” Another emotion washes over Steve’s face. A bit of shock, a lot of disbelief. Eddie rubs his palm down Steve’s bicep, soothing him away from that surprise. “Keep going,” he murmurs, “I’m listening.”

“Oh—Okay,” Steve chokes out. His head whips back down to the picture, gripped tight now in his hands. Puzzled, he asks, “What more do I say?” Another silent pause. Then, “I didn’t have long with her,” he settles on, “we moved in here and took our time really getting accustomed to living with one another, but this time on a much, much bigger scale. She gave birth to Josie in August, 1995; Cathy and I were freshly twenty-eight. Then, Josie turned two and the months kinda tumbled after that.

“We were alright for a while. The house was warm and full and spilling with laughter. Our food was hot and fresh and delicious. Cathy would do her puzzles, like the one above the TV. Josie would toddle around and try and put anything and everything in her mouth. I went on with delivering mail. It was the same kind of routine. But then…then, Cathy got sick—sicker than I think I’d ever seen her, and that’s saying something because in the bit of time I really got to know her, she had food poisoning at least three separate times.

“This was…none of it was normal. I urged her to go to a doctor. And by the time she did, it was already too late.”

Eddie, absentmindedly, rubs his palm down Steve’s arm again. Sensing more than really seeing the seizing trembles of Steve’s whole body. He squeezes gently at the soft bicep under his hand. This is how he used to talk about his mom for a long time. All this gushing, red love; tainted so slowly, so obscenely, so invasively by illness; by death. And, sure, he saw this pale gauntness in Wayne this morning, but that doesn’t mean knowing the hurt and hearing the hurt makes any of this easier.

“You don’t have to continue if you aren’t ready, Steve,” Eddie says, trying to give him that out. The thing he never received as a kid. But, Steve’s hand is wrapping on the back of Eddie’s, heavy and warm and shaking. It just holds on. Bracing.

He steadies himself with a breath and keeps on, “The tumors were widespread in her lungs. On their way to her brain. She was on chemotherapy for a while. Then radiation when the chemo couldn’t work the way it did. And then it was…we were doing it just to grasp straws, trying to collect our bearings; she needed all the time in the world at the end, just to say goodbye of all things.” Another hard swallow. One that regurgitates with his spit, with tears ready to fall fast. Steve keeps going (never one to quit), voice low and trapped, “I knew that the cancer was invasive. We were at a loss cause. But…but you would not believe how many people were in the know. So many fucking strangers. Lawyers and—and funeral directors and doctors and hospice nurses. God, there were so many people in this house near the end, I’ve almost fallen in love with the quiet loneliness after her.

“And that’s terrible to admit, I know it is. But it’s true. When it came to her final day, it was just her and I. Josie had been picked up by Robin a couple days prior, taken out of town under the guise of a fun roadtrip with her aunty—but I just didn’t want her last memory of her mom to be a…a dark bedroom with a couple candles and a bunch of beeping that was just slowing and not to mention the…the discomfort. Cathy wanted to be completely in the moment. She wanted to be able to hold a conversation with me without having to slip away because of her morphine drip.

“So, at the end, it was me holding her hand, hiding winces behind the other palm. It was singing to her. It was sitting as close as I possibly could, telling her anything she wanted to know. Told her about how much fun Josie was having with Robs, about the flowers for the funeral because I didn’t know what she wanted—bluebells, she told me; it was always bluebells—and I told her that I loved her. Because, at the end of it all, that’s all a person really wants, isn’t it? To be cherished? To be loved?”

Steve sets the photograph down in his lap with barely a sound, leans forward for his mug—dislodging Eddie’s hand completely—and takes a slow, barely savoring sip of his tea. It’s probably cold, if Eddie had to guess, but if it was, Steve didn’t show it. He just resettled in his cushion, photograph left alone, and wiped the tip of his nose on the back of his left hand. Where, if Eddie had been looking hard enough to begin with, a gold band sits unpolished on his ring finger.

“Anyway,” Steve sighs. “This is one of a few photos I have with the girls. I keep it up on that shelf, just so I have…god, this is going to sound so depressing…just so I have something to say goodnight to before I try and sleep. Don’t know if you could tell, Eds, but I live a pretty boring, unfruitful, lonely life now.” A here-and-gone half-laugh, almost humorless, but the sound is too full to be hollow. “It’s why I wanted to know about Los Angeles. Maybe I’m missing something by staying here. But…but if somebody as wild as you isn’t enjoying it, maybe being a flour sack on my couch isn’t too bad.”

Eddie doesn’t want to leave this loose-ended and sprawling, but his comforting hasn’t always been that—comforting. “It’s a really nice picture, Steve,” is all he can muster. If he were better at organizing the feelings and words in his head, he’s sure he could say something at least a little nicer. Maybe make some connection to his mom, but even that feels just a little too…sour for all the love that Steve poured out. He pats at Steve’s arm again and reaches for his own tea; sure enough, the drink has gone cold over the course of their conversation. They’ll have to reheat them, if Steve still wants him here.

Just as he sets his cup back down, he spots Steve wipe his face with both of his hands, glasses knocked to the top of his head, coming back down awkwardly onto his nose. He readjusts them and groans. “Sorry,” he sighs. “Christ, I didn’t think I’d still be such a mess after all this time. Didn’t think I could still be all…mopey after it all. But it’s just”—he shrugs—“nobody’s asked about her in a long time. And you were interested and I just…guess I couldn’t help myself.”

“We all want to be remembered, Steve. I’m not going to wave you off as you do that. It was nice to hear about her, though. I’m glad you had somebody so…so lovely to share a portion of your life with, even if it wasn’t as long as you would’ve wanted. It always sucks when that happens,” he tries to amend. Eddie spots a breath in the conversation, where it lulls, where they’re beginning to really wrap up their evening. So, he takes a courageous breath and confesses, “I’m back in Hawkins because of Wayne.”

“Oh, yeah?” Steve questions, nasally and wheezy.

“Yeah,” Eddie answers, a nod and a sigh tied in one. “Yeah…he—uh—he’s got lung cancer. Just a single tumor, so it was caught early, but I mean…fuck, y’know? It’s hard to get news like that over the phone. Couldn’t just leave him by himself. Had to come home.”

A sniffle as Steve clears up his nostrils. And a breathed, “Eddie…”

“Nah, no, don’t—I don’t want you to feel bad. Please, please don’t feel bad. Shit, I just”—helplessly, probably the same way Steve’s been feeling the last few minutes, he gives a half-hearted shrug of his own—“I just needed to be here. In case, I suppose. But it’s nice—it’s really nice—to have a familiar face around. Not that I’m—I’m not asking you to be my emotional support rock, but I”—

“I’ll be here, Eds. I will even if you don’t always need me,” Steve rushes in, headfirst, chest strong. “I know what it was like to go through a lot of this alone. And…in my case, not saying it’ll be yours, being alone in it all is the worst. Sure, I had Robin on the phone and all, but my support system was small. God, it was so small. If I can do anything, you let me know. I make a good soup, I—I might have a few orthopedic pillows from Cathy, hell, I’ll come over with a beer if you need it.”

Eddie chuckles. “Don’t drink anymore, Stevie. A story for a different time, right? Toilet Rat, me not drinking—they’re one in the same. But I’ll accept a crisp Coke if you ever want to hang out.”

Steve responds with his own snort. “Toilet rat,” he echoes. “Yeah, okay. Another time, that’s okay.” He gestures off-handedly to their mugs on the table. “Want me to reheat your tea? I could get you a slice of toast to go with it or something?”

“No, that’s okay,” Eddie whispers, being careful to not break this peace they’ve now shared, “I should actually head back now. Make sure Wayne’s doing alright. He starts chemotherapy in the morning and I need to be ready for it.”

“Right,” Steve murmurs, “right, yeah, of course. Let me lead you to the door.”

The photo is set carefully on the bookshelf as they make their way back to the front door. Eddie clumsily worms his feet back into his laced sneakers, hand braced on the wall, the other tight on Steve’s shoulder. And then Steve opens the door, Eddie on the porch, staring at one another.

“It was nice catching up with you, Steve. I’m…I’m glad that you found something you like to do. That you still look good after all these years.”

“Oh, please,” Steve scoffs. “My whole head is basically silver. Stress will do that to a guy, y’know. I’d hardly say that it looks good.”

“You kidding, man? Makes you look like a…a silver fox or something. Trust me, you look good.” Eddie rocks back on his heels, face warm with the admittance. He’d been thinking it, didn’t know he’d actually follow through with saying it out loud. “Well, thank you for a nice evening, it really means a lot in the chaos that is my life right now. I’ll see you around?”

Steve nods softly. “Of course, Eds. Anytime, I mean it. Come hell or high water, I’ll be there if you need the support.”

This would be the part where they’d hug or something, Eddie figures. But for now, he gives an awkward wave of his fingers, a nod in return. And a final, “Good night, Steve. Sleep well.”

“You, too,” is whispered at his back.

And he can’t place it, why after so much softness, so much love, so much warmth, his chest goes tight with those words.

———————————————————————————————————————— End of Chapter Two! Read the Next Chapter Here —>

#stranger things #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #drama #romance #angst and hurt/comfort #slow burn #eventual happy ending #read all tags above in the post #steddiebang24

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