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souliebird · 3 months ago

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[[and then I met you || ch. 27]]

Series: Daredevil || Pairing: Matt Murdock x Fem!Reader || Rating: Explicit

Summary:

A one-night stand years ago gave you a daughter and you are now able to put a name to her father – Matthew Murdock. Everything is about to change again as you navigate trying to integrate your life with that of the handsome and charming blind lawyer’s and Matt realizes he needs to not only protect his new family from Hell's Kitchen, but from the world.

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Words: 4.4k

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Police Arrest Three After Mass Protests in LA County

By C. Grant

Three people were arrested in Pasadena, California yesterday after a crowd gathered to protest the death of Sheila Pom. Police say the three individuals, whose names have not yet been released, appeared to be Enhanceds attempting to agitate the crowd. Witnesses claim one of the individuals was creating sparks with their fingers and threatening to start a fire, while the two others encouraged the behavior. Police have made no comment about these arrests and all questions about the incident have been redirected to a now defunct phone number.

Sheila Pom was killed in an officer-related shooting two weeks ago after neighbors reported her as a Dangerous Individual under the new Sokovia Accords Act. Pom, 23, worked at her uncle’s auto body shop as a mechanic while also attending online classes to get a degree in Engineering. She was also a telekinetic - someone who can move objects with their mind.

Pom was known to not be shy about her gifts. Pom was seen frequently lifting cars and trucks within garages without the help of equipment and is rumored to have once righted a tipped over semi-truck. Neighbors became concerned when Pom began using her gifts at home.

“We’d come home, and things would be floating up and down the street,” one neighbor said.

Another claimed Pom was unstable, and when she would become upset, things around her would begin to shake.

“I thought it was an earthquake until my TV hit the ceiling,” a source who lived in the same building Pom told GKTV, “I learned the next day her boyfriend broke up with her.”

Officers were called when Pom refused to return a motorcycle to the ground while working on it in a residential neighborhood. After a brief standoff, officers fired two shots, striking Pom in the head, and killing her.

Pom’s family claims she was unaware of the officer’s presence, as wireless earbuds were found near her body after. Pom was known to listen to music to block the noise of machines.

Protests began after the officers involved in the incident were cleared of any wrongdoing.

----

A full-page ad takes over your screen, and instead of continuing to read the depressing article, you close the tab.

There has been a palpable unrest in the news cycle the past week that is starting to leave you with an uneasy feeling in your stomach. You’ve noticed a shift in the general narrative tone and terminology used when discussing people who have superpowers.

Before Sokovia, before Lagos, before Connecticut, the morning shows would bring on people with amazing gifts and gently joke about them joining the Avengers as they made water fly around the set, but now those same hosts debate if they should be allowed to have the right to privacy. ‘Enhanced Peoples’ has been shortened to just Enhanceds and is now spit out like it is something dirty.

You don’t know when the conversation stopped centering around heroes and vigilantes and started being about everyday people, but it scares you that the change happened. There seems to be no official power scale about what is deemed ‘dangerous’ and your mind keeps zipping all over the place trying to justify different lines of thinking.

Does Matt fall under the category of Dangerous?

He is a vigilante, so by default the Accords are directed at him, but is it doubly so? If he was forced to reveal himself to the government, would they require him to wear a tracking device? Or would they try to lock him up?

Could he fight it in court, or would they whisk him away in the middle of the night and you’d never know what happened?

If Matt is deemed Dangerous because of his senses, and not just because he is a vigilante, would Minnie be considered the same?

With how intense and angry everyone is becoming you could see yourself having to take her in to be tested.

To be monitored.

And she is just a baby.

You can’t imagine how others must feel - people who are older, who are just trying to live their lives. The girl who was killed was just trying to fix her bike, like millions of other people do every weekend. She wasn’t going to other countries to fight terrorists. She wasn’t trying to use her powers to rule over others. She wasn’t hurting anyone.

But she was different, so they killed her.

“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! I need help!”

You’re ripped from your spiraling thoughts and look across the room to where Minnie is sprawled out on the floor. Her Starkpad is in front of her, and she’s set up Pig and Scooby so they are also peering down at the device and you know exactly what she is doing.

It is the same thing she has been doing for a week straight - playing a bootleg Muppet’s math game.

Since meeting Spider-man, all your little Mouse has wanted to do is learn math. She keeps saying she wants to impress him and make him proud, and you are in no way going to discourage her. Every day has been filled with counting and addition and subtraction and you are a bit amazed she has stayed so focused.

You are not going to complain at all about it - you are getting time to yourself while she has been glued to Elmo and Kermit.

You leave your phone on the dining table and head towards your daughter.

“You need help?” you confirm as you crouch beside her. The screen shows a Muppet you don’t recognize, along with various numbers floating around them, and up at the top, the equation that has your little Mouse stumped.

“I need help!” Minnie repeats as she scrambles up off her belly and into sitting. “I don’t have enough fingers!”

She holds up both her hands to show you all ten of her itty-bitty fingers and you make a sympathetic noise.

Mouse has been getting pretty good at using her fingers to help her with addition and subtraction, but on only one hand. She uses the index finger on her right hand to help count by pointing at each finger and hasn’t quite worked out she can use her fingers to point and count. That is okay, though, as you are happy to lend yours to her important cause.

“Okay, how many fingers do you need?”

You hold out your hands and she instantly begins to manipulate them.

“This one…this one needs three! One, two, three!” She pushes your thumb and index finger down so the other three remain up, then she pushes down the pinky of the other hand. “And this one is four!”

“So, three and four? What are we doing with three and four?” You ask, trying to not laugh at her determined face.

“We adds them!” She chirps, before starting to jab at your fingers, “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven! That’s seven fingers! Mommy, it’s seven! Three plus four is seven!”

“That’s right, it is seven. Which number is seven?” You direct her back to her game, where she triumphantly picks the correct symbol. The Muppet congratulates her before presenting a new equation.

Minnie squeals in delight before ripping the device off the ground and shoving it in your face, “I know this one! Mommy! I know this one! It’s three! Mommy! It’s three!”

You can’t even process what the question is before the screen is out of sight. Your daughter holds her Starkpad above her head, treating it like some war prize as she starts spinning and dancing around the living room.

“It’s three! It’s three! It’s three!”

You laugh at her antics, heartwarming at her pureness. How could anyone ever think she’s a danger?

“Are you sure it’s three?” You tease as you watch her.

She whips around to you, eyes scrunching up into a glare, and barks, “It’s three!”

“Okay, okay, it’s three.”

You push yourself up into standing just as Mouse returns to her spot. She drops her Starkpad to the ground a little harder than you would prefer, but that is why it has a big bulky case. She plops down in front of it and happily smacks the number three that is floating around the screen.

You let yourself watch her for a few seconds, silently bombarding her with all the love you feel for her. You want to wrap her up and live in this bubble forever.

Except, there is one element missing from your perfect moment. You wish there were a pair of arms wrapped around your waist and a chin on your shoulder. You want to lean back against a muscular chest and lose yourself to eternity like that.

Instead of indulging those thoughts, you tell yourself to stop fantasizing and you make your way back to the kitchen to check on dinner.

Vegetable curry has been simmering on the stove for most of the day. It has been a while since you had the energy to make the dish from scratch, but you had a craving this morning and went all out. You’ve made curry for Minnie before, and she did not complain - though you think that is because her portion was mostly rice and hot dog cuts. You plan to do the same again tonight, and if she wants more sauce, you’ll give it to her.

You check your seasonings and give everything a stir to make sure nothing gets stuck at the bottom of the pot. The rich aroma tickles your nose, and you are glad you don’t have to wait much longer to treat yourself.

As you debate adding a pinch more salt, you catch Minnie sneaking towards you out of the corner of your eye. Her movements are slow and dramatic, and you pretend you don’t notice her. This ruse works, and you appropriately jump in fear when she suddenly tugs on your shirt.

“Up!” She demands and you oblige, scooping your daughter onto your hip. As soon as she is high enough, she cups her hands around your ear and leans into whisper, “Daddy saids the food smells yummy-yummy.”

She quickly dissolves into giggles, and it is infectious, so you end up smiling.

Matt hasn’t been over for dinner in a hot minute, and you are hoping to have a nice quiet family night, before he goes out on his Patrol. The plan is to watch a movie after your meal and Minnie has already prepared for this by dragging multiple blankets out to the couch. You just know she is going to demand a cuddle pile, and now that you and Matt are intimate, it isn’t something you are nervous about.

You just want to have a good time.

“Can you tell Daddy everything is almost ready?” you ask, even though you know Matt can probably hear you just fine.

Mouse, always eager to be helpful, nods and relays the message directly into your ear. You try to not grimace, and so it won’t happen again, set her down on the ground.

“Can you plug in your Starkpad so it can sleep for the night?”

She streaks off to do her newly assigned task, leaving you to start setting the table. When you were at the store, you bought Matt a bottle of beer - a brand you know he likes - and you set it at his designated spot. You’ve grown accustomed to just drinking water and juice, but you don’t want to push that on to him - not when he’s a guest and coming over after a long day of work.

As you start to make everyone’s plates, you hear the water in the bathroom turn on. You know Minnie knows the routine for getting ready for dinner and you just hope she isn’t trying to wash Scooby’s paws again. You are worried he’ll end up moldy and you aren’t sure what you will do if that happens. You peek into the living room and are relieved to see your daughter’s best friends have been relocated to sitting on the coffee table, facing the television.

You finish setting everything up just in time, it seems. Minnie runs from the hallway right to the door as you go to wash your own hands, and you rush to get all the soap off so you can help her open the door.

Matt is standing on the other side, looking handsome as ever in a gray suit. He looks like he’s had a busy day - his hair is windswept, and he is sporting a strong five o’clock shadow. There is a garment bag draped over his arm and his saddle bag looks a little bulkier than usual and you wonder if he ran some errands on his lunch - picking up his dry cleaning and such.

You barely have time to take in his appearance before Mouse is launching herself at him.

“Daddy!” She shrieks and Matt oh so easily swings her up onto his hip. “Daddy! We’re having vege-tuhble kermies for dinner! I helped make it! I cut up ALL the carrots! By myself!”

“By yourself, huh?” Matt confirms, a bright, warm smile taking up his entire face. “Soon you’ll be making us dinner.”

You step aside so he can come in and help to take his things to hang while Mouse soaks up his attention.

“No! Mommy makes dinner because…’cause she makes the bestest foods. I just help!”

“You are a very good helper,” you interject, “You keep a very clean workstation. A professional chef would be proud.”

Minnie beams at the praise, then a microsecond later, is wiggling in to be let down. Her feet hit the ground and she takes off running back toward the living room, probably to collect something to show off to her Daddy.

Matt takes the small break to turn his attention to you. A hand goes to your cheek, and instead of a brief ‘hello’ peck, he kisses you like he wants to turn and pin you to the wall. It catches you off guard, but you easily melt into it. You clutch at the lapel of his suit jacket and try to not moan as he nips at your lips. You open your mouth for him, but being the tease he is, he pulls back just enough to whisper against you.

“Been thinking about that all day.”

The words send your blood rushing - some north to your cheeks and the rest to your cunt.

He’d been thinking about you? About wanting to kiss you? Or has he been thinking about more than that - because you must admit, you’ve been thinking about it. You’ve had more than a few thoughts about what you want to do to him the next time you two are alone together and those thoughts were certainly very explicit.

“Matt…” you totally do not whine out but instead of replying, his grin just turns cocky. He pulls away as Minnie returns to the entryway, and you decide you need a drink of your water. You escape and Mouse starts showing off her latest masterpieces to Matt.

Food coloring, cotton balls, and popsicle sticks have proven to be a massive hit and Minnie has made a whole collection of things for Matt - there’s butterflies and flowers, a house with clouds, and various abstract pieces. You are sure his office is already filled to the brim with his daughter’s art, and you would not be surprised if he started to hang things from the ceiling when he does run out of room. He seems to treasure every little thing Minnie has given him and it warms your heart so much. You hope that love never runs out.

Somehow, Matt ushers Minnie back to the dining room while she shoves different papers into his hands and gets her up in her booster seat.

“I’m going to put all these in my bag, so they don’t get dirty or lost, okay?” He tells Minnie, who nods way too enthusiastically.

“Keep them clean!” And then, just like that, she switches from being excited her Daddy is there to being a hungry toddler. She whips around to face you and asks in an almost impatient manner, “Can I has my hot dogs now?”

You give her the go ahead as Matt returns to the table and takes his place. You quickly tell him the placement of everything, including his beer, then quickly add, “If you don’t like it, I have a few different things I could make you. Or we could order something.”

A brief panic runs through you when Matt scoffs. You think you’ve insulted him - having him come all the way to Chelsea to eat a dinner he won’t enjoy and having to find a substitute.

“I love curry and this smells delicious. I wouldn’t trade it for the world - in fact, I’m hoping some of those leftovers on the stove are for me to take home and lord over Fog tomorrow.”

You flush at his sweetness and mumble out you’ll pack him some to go. This seems to please him, and he starts to dig in. Ever the little parrot, Minnie mimics him by shoveling food into her mouth with a big grin and you can’t help but laugh a little.

“It’s nummy!” Your little one declares, and even if she’s just eating plain rice right now, you’ll take it as a win. You know well she won’t eat what she doesn’t like.

“Speaking of yummy,” Matt starts, slow and deliberate, with his head angled towards you, “I was hoping we could go somewhere yummy together.”

You blink slowly at the statement, rolling it over in your mind and trying to dissect the meaning. Did he want to go somewhere for dessert? Maybe get ice cream or something? “Somewhere yummy…?”

“Mhm,” he hums, then his smile becomes a bit more sly. Even though you know it isn’t true, you feel like, behind his glasses, he is hungrily looking you up and down, “Somewhere like Uvas.”

The name doesn’t automatically generate anything for you, but after a moment, it dawns on you. Uvas in a Spanish restaurant near Central Park known to be high end and impossible to get into. It’s been in the local tabloids a few times for turning away minor celebrities who don’t meet the dress code. You’re mouth parts slightly in shock.

“What’s Oo-vuhas?” Minnie asks around her fork, her big eyes looking between you and Matt. “Do theys has yummy foods?”

“Oh, they have yummy food,” Matt teases. He then leans forward a bit in his seat and stage whispers to her, “It’s where I want to take Mommy for a date.”

“A date?” Minnie scrunches up her face at the word while your mind is still spinning.

Matt wants to take you on a date? To Uvas? You have never been anywhere that fancy or expensive as a date. Hell, you’ve never been somewhere that fancy, period. The nicest date you’ve ever been on was Hard Rock Cafe - which says a lot about your dating life.

“A date,” Matt confirms, smug and knowingly scheming. You can hear it in his voice as he tells Minnie, “That is where Mommy and Daddy go and have dinner together as grown-ups.”

Up goes Minnie’s hand into her mouth, but it stays there only a split second. Her eyes get impossibly bigger and filled with wonder, and she whispers, “Like Lady and Tramp?”

“Exactly like Lady and Tramp.”

“Mommy!” Minnie says a little too loudly, pointing her fork at you. “You gotta go to Oo-vuhas and be Lady and Tramp! You gotta!”

And at that moment you know you can’t say no, and that Matt knows that. You can’t tell your daughter you don’t want to be like Lady and Tramp. Not that you don’t want to go on a date with Matt - the idea gets you giddy and makes your stomach flutter - but you thought if it happened, it would be a coffee or something. Not somewhere where you can’t even afford to look at the building. The idea makes you a little nauseous, because you are sure you’d make an absolute fool of yourself.

But Matt looks determined and sure of himself. You are certain he asked in front of Minnie so that she could help bully you into saying yes to such a lavish date.

Luckily, your mind is working in overdrive, and you choke out, “I don’t have anything to wear. They have a dress code, don’t they?”

You don’t expect Matt to push his chair out and get up. Your throat instantly tightens up and fear shoots up your spine. Have you offended him? He clearly wants to do something with you and you’re over here hesitating. You must be coming off as a complete bitch.

You start to stand up yourself as Matt disappears into the entryway. You don’t think he’d just leave without saying goodbye to Minnie.

Maybe you can talk to him - explain that somewhere a little less grand would be ideal to start.

Before you can start to follow him, Matt is coming back to the table, holding up the garment bag he brought with him, still looking like the cat that got the canary.

“I thought you might say that,” he starts, his voice almost a little musical, “so I got you this.”

You stare dumbly at him, shock and confusion overtaking your system.

He got you something to wear? To Uvas?

No one has ever bought you clothes before - except your parents. Even when you were pregnant, the small amount of gifts you got were all for Minnie.

You distantly hear Minnie start saying something about presents, but it is all muffled under the sound of blood pumping through your ears. You step forward hesitantly and reach out for the zipper of the bag, your hand shaking slightly.

You expect it to be a joke. You’re going to open the bag and there’s going to be a clown costume inside, or a skimpy dress people like arm candy to wear, or something akin to a Burka.

You don’t expect a black floor length sheath gown. The silhouette is simple, but you can tell just by looking at it the quality of the dress is top notch. The fabric has a nice weight to it, and it is incredibly soft to the touch that you have the distinct feeling that it did not come from a dress warehouse or a department store.

This type of dress would come from a boutique uptown and would cost a few hundred dollars.

You are so caught up in admiring the dress, you don��t notice Minnie come up beside you until she is also touching the dress. Panic that she might have crumbs or curry on her fingers runs through you, but you force it down.

“It’s like a princess dress for Mommy!” Mouse cooes and you feel your face start to heat up.

You’ve never worn something so nice before and certainly nothing that would be fit for a princess, but it seems like Matt and Minnie are on the same page.

“Well, I want Mommy to feel like a princess.”

You want to hide your face, but you know you can’t, so you cover your mouth instead.

“Matt, this is beautiful. But this is so much, I can’t accept this.”

You know that while Matt is a lawyer, he’s still struggling a bit financially. If he had his way, you know he wouldn’t charge anyone for his services, and even though Nelson, Murdock, and Page has paying customers, they still have to stagger out their bills.

He shouldn’t be spending his hard saved money on you.

Matt sighs your name before gently draping the garment bag over the back of his dining chair and stepping towards you. Both his hands go to your waist, and you freeze up as he steps close enough to press his forehead to yours. Your heart begins to wildly beat when his hands slowly begin to rub your sides.

“Let me spoil you. To make up for all the dates I’ve missed. Please?” His lips dip into a small frown and you feel like you’ve kicked a puppy.

He’s gone out of his way for you, and you are being so ungrateful.

But it is so hard to say yes. Guilt is pooling in your stomach, and you just want to disappear into the shadows and be forgotten about. That is so much easier than Matt holding you, saying such sweet things.

You don’t want to ruin everything.

You close your eyes as you have a war inside yourself. All you have to say is ‘Yes’ and you’ll make Matt happy, but the monster inside of you keeps dragging your mind into a pit.

Matt wants to treat you like a princess, but how crushing will it be when he decides that is no longer the case? Can you take that?

The corners of your eyes start to sting and your monster starts to mock you for getting worked up over something as simple as being asked on a date.

Why can’t you be normal?

Why can’t you accept this?

Why can’t -

The thoughts cease as Matt’s lips press against yours, soft and sweet and tempting. You respond hesitantly.

“Let me take care of you,” he breathes into your mouth, making you shudder. “You deserve it.”

“You deserve it!” Minnie chirps from beside your knees and you very suddenly remember where you are and what you were doing. You try to pull away from Matt, thinking Minnie hasn’t seen the two of you like this yet, and it might confuse her, but he keeps his hands firmly planted on your hips, not letting you go. You don’t try to fight it, instead, you turn your head away, trying to hide away in your shell.

You know there is no way you will win this. Matt is determined and he clearly has Minnie on his side, so, very hesitantly, and feeling like you are going to throw up at any moment, you nod into Matt’s shoulder.

“Okay.”

Mouse lets out a deafening cheer and you feel her dart away.

“LADY AND TRAMP! LADY AND TRAMP! LADY AND TRAMP!”

Matt laughs at her excitement over something she doesn’t understand, while you tuck yourself into his hold, wondering how long you have before he ends up shattering your heart into pieces.

---

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#soulie writes #fanfiction #matt murdock x reader #daredevil #and then i met you #matt murdock x you

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solarmorrigan · 1 month ago

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The Pumpkin (Spice) King

For the @steddie-spooktober day 24 prompt: Pumpkin Rated: T | Words: 945 | CW: None | Tags: established relationship, this is very silly, fluff Divider credit: @steddiecameraroll-graphics

The clues had been there all along. Eddie should have paid more attention.

It starts with the candle.

“Why does it smell like a craft store in here?” Eddie asks the moment the apartment door has closed behind him.

Steve, half engrossed in whatever he’s scrolling through on his phone, shoots Eddie a quick, puzzled look. “What?”

“Like cinnamon sugar and spices. Fake fall.” Eddie sniffs the room speculatively. “This is what craft stores smell like every year from September to January.”

“Oh.” Steve rolls his eyes. “It’s not ‘fake fall,’ it’s just the candle I have burning.”

Now that Steve’s mentioned it, Eddie spots the candle on the table, one of the ones you get in a fancy-looking glass jar, the label of which proclaims the scent to be–

“Pumpkin spice?” Eddie utters, nose wrinkled.

“You got a problem with pumpkin spice?” Steve asks.

“It’s–” Eddie starts, then takes in Steve’s single raised eyebrow, registers the catty lilt to his tone, and changes tracks, “–barely September.”

If anything, Steve’s eyebrows get more judgmental, but he looks back to his phone, apparently dismissing Eddie as a threat to his fun, fall-scented good time. “They start selling these things in August," he says. “You should appreciate my restraint.”

“Riiight,” Eddie drawls, deciding to adjourn to the bedroom and leave the living room to Steve and his mass-produced miasma of imitation autumn.

Of course, it doesn’t end there.

Eddie barely notices in time, reaching for the pump of the hand soap by the kitchen sink and stopping just short of using it when the colors register. It isn’t the usual bland bottle with its inoffensive citrus and herb scent, but something brightly-colored, all orange and shiny silver. There are little wheat sheaves and pumpkins on the label, and the scent is, of course–

“Fucking pumpkin spice,” Eddie mutters.

Fine, okay, so there must have been some kind of sale at fucking– Bath and Body Works, or wherever the hell it is that sells this stuff, and Steve had temporarily lost his mind. Or something. Whatever.

Steve can go around smelling like something that wishes it could be cinnamon all he likes, but Eddie will not be joining him. He uses the dish soap to wash his hands instead. His eczema will not thank him later, but he thinks it’s a fair price to pay for his continued dignity.

(And if Steve eyes Eddie’s reddened, peeling knuckles later in the week, and the lemon herb soap reappears next to the pumpkin spice soap, well – that’s close enough to a win that Eddie will take it.)

Then there’s the coffee.

This one is technically the final nail in the coffin, but it takes a bit to really dawn on Eddie. He maintains that he had been understandably distracted at the time – largely because he only finds this one out by drawing the taste straight from Steve’s mouth.

It isn’t unusual for Steve to have been up and about for an hour or two (or three) before Eddie rolls out of bed on his days off; Eddie prefers to keep late hours, and Steve, as much as Eddie loves him, is a morning person. This had caused some friction when they’d first started living together, but it’s been nearly a year now, and they’ve managed to work it out. Often, their first kiss of the day tastes like whatever coffee Steve’s already been drinking.

It’s different today, though. Sweeter than usual.

Eddie hums, licking deeper into Steve’s mouth, trying to place the difference, and Steve groans, tugging Eddie closer by the hips, mistaking his curiosity for passion (and, well – it’s not not passion. Eddie can multitask).

“What’ve you been drinking?” Eddie finally asks when they pull apart.

“Pumpkin spice latte,” Steve answers, and then gives Eddie absolutely no chance to process this information, pulling him back in for another deep kiss.

It’s only later, back in bed when Eddie had barely even been out of it for half an hour, that Eddie has to admit to himself: his boyfriend is a pumpkin spice girl.

And that’s fine! Eddie can be mature about this!

Sure, it’s the sort of thing he’d sneered at back in high school—the conformity of the masses flocking to whatever seasonally-scented item corporations are hocking at the time—but he’s grown up since then. Someone’s preference for a certain flavor or scent doesn’t determine their worth as a person, et cetera, et cetera. Eddie knows this.

But still, he’s only human. He does have a breaking point.

“Oh, baby, no.”

“What?” Steve pulls his head out of the fridge, where he’s been putting the cold stuff away as Eddie unloads the grocery bags destined for the pantry.

Eddie holds up the offending item – possibly the most offending item he’s ever seen.

Pumpkin spice candy corn.

Steve blinks at him. “What?” he asks again after a long moment of loaded silence.

“Oh god, it’s already infected your brain,” Eddie laments, dropping the bag of candy on the counter and reaching for his phone. “I’m calling Robin, we’re staging an intervention.”

“Oh come on, what? They’re good!” Steve insists.

“Objectively, sweetheart, they really aren’t. But don’t you worry,” he leans over and pats Steve on the arm as he searches for Robin’s number in his contact list, “we’re gonna save you from yourself.”

(Later, of course, he’ll find out that Robin has already tried to break Steve of his tendency to buy anything labeled with “pumpkin spice.” His love of the stuff is ironclad. She tells Eddie that he’d better learn to enjoy the taste, or else give up making out with his boyfriend until Thanksgiving.)

#steddie #eddie munson #steve harrington #stranger things #steddie-spooktober #it's funny because I've written other things for this month that have pumpkins in them #but this one; for which the prompt is actually pumpkin; contains no... actual pumpkin #solar wrote #eddiesteve

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pricegouge · 3 months ago

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Get Her a Dog (She'll be Happier For It)

Part Three | master list | MDNI

Soap x reader, Price x reader, eventual PriceSoap x reader

series cw: cheating. dubcon. angst. cuckholding. pet play.

chapter cw: angst, extremely vague/brief mentions of injury. talk of wanting a baby

reader is fem and fat

It takes the bouquet a full two weeks to become so withered it's no use trimming the stems or mixing up that special sugar solution which keeps them in bloom longer anymore. Johnny doesn't call. You tell yourself that's standard for middle-of-the-night type missions and keep the twenty four hour news feed on at all times even though all it does is irritate you. You were never much good at reading between the lines of these things anyway, at picking out which bits of the endless scroll of World Gone Wrong News are actually just state fabricated lies to cover the pieces deemed too big and scary for the general public to know the intricacies of. You shut it off after the fourth mass shooting comes and goes with no update.

The flowers were a nice touch. At least more than you expected to get after being woken in the middle of the night to murmured apologies and promises of a big day out when he got back. If he got back. You know it's not a helpful thought, feel terribly selfish that you'd only thought it given the circumstances, but it crosses your mind nonetheless. Digs its fingers between the slots of your ribs.

After eighteen days away, you finally get a call from an unknown number and nearly drive through a red light when the notification pops up on your car's display. In theory, it could be anyone. But you know.

John's voice is too formal, too stiff. He calls you Mrs. MacTavish and guilt twines itself so thoroughly with your general sense of dread as to become inseparable. The cable cord holding up your life. Your stomach cramps hard enough you think you might be sick. They're at the A&E, John says, and while he may go on to explain there's no reason to panic, you're too busy racing through the streets of York to listen at all.

Kyle waits for you outside the entrance, escorting you through the labyrinthine halls and (somehow) multiple elevators to a quiet corner of the surgical waiting room. You've been here before, think vaguely that the vinyl seating should be familiar by now. You'd think after so many instances that you'd get used to moments like this, that Johnny's apparent constant death wish would stop weighing so heavily on you. There's part of you that's come to believe your husband is indestructible, a bedtime story you tell yourself when his side of the mattress lays empty and cold: it doesn't matter what befalls him in the dead of night while you lay your head on down pillows he bought, because nothing can ever break Johnny. It always crumbles apart when your phone rings like an alarm clock, John's steady, terribly formal voice there to rip you away from your fantasies. It's another reason you hate him; why you know you couldn't do this without him. When he comes back, clipboard in hand, John explains it was supposed to be a low stakes mission and how quickly it turned for the worst. You let it wash all over you with all the other intricacies of your husband's line of work because if you look at it for too long you start to understand those mums who poison their kids just to keep them home and under control. He returns his clipboard when he's done and Kyle picks up where he left off, voice much more soothing and sympathetic as he details Johnny's wound. Stray bullet, low in the belly where Johnny's vest didn't cover. He'll be right as rain in a few weeks, but they'd needed to re-open it up to get in there and make sure everything will heal up okay.

They sit with you through the long hours as much as they are able, John occasionally pulled away by a cell phone which will not stop ringing. It bothers you more than it should, but you don't want to analyze that just yet. Best left be until you're holed up in bed alone again. Kyle remains steadfast, a constant supply of bad hospital coffee at hand. You don't know when or how he memorized the way you take it, but you're too distracted to ask now.

You feel like you're being strangled, or maybe hanged, that cord of guilt and dread your noose. It pulls tighter with each minute that passes and you spiral deeper into your memories of the last few days, how you moped around in misery, wallowing in self pity while your husband risked his life trying to make the world a better place. Selfishness eats at you like a physical thing, worse so when Gaz asks if you want to go for a walk and you snap at him about wanting to be alone. He holds his hands up at you in mock surrender, a crease forming between his brows. You trip over yourself in apology, but the long days must have weighed on him just as heavily because he only mutters his quiet acceptance and strolls out the door, fishing a cigarette out as he goes.

John does not follow. You feel his eyes on you, that same steady gaze as always. Usually, it pins you in place just as much as it makes you want to squirm, but today it makes you seethe, temper flaring back red hot now that you have a real target in sight. John's the reason you're here, the reason you give yourself up to self pity every time you think about the shortcomings of your marriage. Because the truth is, Johnny's good when he's home - and that's a farside better than most women in your position get.

"What?" you snap as you wheel on your companion.

Though his face crumbles for maybe half a second, John's quick to recover, one bushy brow cocking as if in challenge - though you both know he would let you unload on him without so much as a word of protest. For some reason, the realization only makes you angrier and you stand in a huff, marching off in the general direction of the nearest coffee maker. A rustle of fabric tells you John is following, the distinct texture of your jacket telling you he's collected your things. Your jaw clenches so tight you think you might crack a molar, but you don't stop until he makes you, grabbing you by the elbow the second he finds a relatively inactive corner. You're already spitting when he wheels you around, pushing against his chest for all the good it does you as you rail on about everything being his fault. You think you start somewhere with his stupid taskforce and barrel right on through to his general form of leadership, delighting in the quick look of panic it brings as he drags you through a door, snicking it closed behind you. It's not until you have to take a breath somewhere around Johnny's general inadequacy that you realize he's locked you both in a bathroom, his hand covering your mouth while you pant for breath through the seams of his fingers.

He still smells like gunpowder, that same metallic quality that clings to your husband, too. You can't tell if your face is hot with anger, embarrassment, or tears.

"You done?"

You'd shake your head no, but he's not actually giving you an option, grip firmly holding you in place as he leans close enough to make your eyes cross.

"If I take my hand away, you gonna keep yelling about classified information in public?"

It's funny how you barely even register the guilt his words bring; a drop in the bucket. This time he lets you shake your head.

His palm is heavy when it shifts, grip changing so he can cradle your jaw delicately. The soft look from before is back, much as he tries to obscure it behind his stern facade. He's never been as good at maintaining it around you as he has his men. He calls you sweetheart, lets his voice trail off as he thinks of how best to address your laundry list of complaints. It makes you ache, for some reason. Perhaps the contrast to Johnny's quick, impulsive temper. Your husband's never been cruel with you, of course, but the two of you can be like oil and water when you're both worked up, and while you can see John's frustrations in the twitch of his mustache and the set of his brow, he takes his time to consider his words, trying to ensure proper communication. It's more than you deserve.

You'll tell yourself in retrospect that it's not you who leans in, that John's hand on your cheek was more insistent, his face tilted slightly closer. It's a lie, but John accepts the blame so gracefully everywhere else, surely he can shoulder this, too?

Knock, knock.

The speed at which you back away from the man before you nearly makes you stumble. John barks that the room is occupied, face clouded with an anger that doesn't reflect in the way he catches you, ensures you're sturdy on your feet before letting you slip from his grasp. For once, it's him who can't look at you and the thought makes your chest ache, propels you out the door before you have to hear him apologize for another person's shortcomings one more time.

Gaz is not yet back in the waiting room and you don't trust yourself to be alone with John again so you take the suggested walk around the hospital, letting yourself get lost in the long circuitous routes of wards that set you ill at ease. You do not linger, feet just as busy as your mind - just as directionless. You retrace the events of your morning like a skipping record, an endless revolution, getting lost in the panic of the phone call and the relief you'd felt in John's firm grasp before tracing the roots of your guilt deeper, the old growth spreading back years. These paths are worn, the familiarity almost comforting insofar as you've tread them enough times to know they do not end with you pressed against your husband's captain in a hospital bathroom while he gets his intestines sewn up mere yards away. Except, they do now, if you follow them long enough, and you spend some time trying to find the source of it, the tributary from which it branched. You worry maybe it was the day you met him, the day he waltzed into your life and you mistook his job title to mean he was a man who could help you wrangle the force of nature that was John MacTavish. Probably, it was earlier, when you'd decided to tie yourself to a man you thought needed wrangling.

You don't pay much thought to where your feet take you until you're staring uncomprehendingly into the face of a rather stern, if concerned staff member. When she cocks her brow at you expectantly, you shake yourself out of your reverie and ask her to repeat herself.

"I asked who you're here to see."

Blinking, your eyes slide past her, take in your surroundings properly for the first time. A glass panel backdrops her, separating you from a well-lit room, sparsely decorated with pastel tones. You think you spot the head of a baby giraffe mural over her shoulder and feel your face heat at being caught out, although logistically you know she's probably more concerned about the random distraught woman hovering around the newborns.

"S-sorry. I'm not -. I guess I just didn't realize where I was," you admit.

The woman - registered nurse Rita, by the ID clipped to her hip pocket - eyes you suspiciously for a beat longer, but whatever she sees in you softens her edges, brings her guard down. "Can't be here," she tells you, voice unyielding but far less harsh than it had been mere moments before.

"Right," you agree, glancing around as if looking for the way you came. "Uh…"

"Do you know what room your… loved one is in?" She sounds slightly patronizing, but you can't force your eyes to focus on her for long enough to confirm. You think maybe all the coffee is catching up with you, know it's more likely the combined effects of your embarrassment and guilt making it hard to maintain eye contact.

"My husband's in surgery," you blurt. "Gunshot wound."

Nurse Rita balks, takes a minute to look around herself. "C'mere," she mutters, fingers surprisingly strong when she wraps them around the soft flesh of your arm and steers you toward a proper waiting area. You stumble after her, trying to avoid the gazes of the anxious pack of new parents she leaves in your wake.

You're babbling when she comes to a stop. "It's okay, he's a soldier. He'll be fine. They just had to re-open it because they needed to tie up some loose ends."

There's a pause. Somewhere, a monitor sounds off. "Was that a joke?"

"Well, not a good one."

But despite your assertions, Rita does laugh. It's a good one, too, sets her heavy chest jiggling. She's got a nice smile, infectious. You're glad she works in the natal ward. You ease down with her, the deep breaths she pulls to catch her breath serving to calm you both. "Is it bad I like the repeat customers best?" She asks, conspiratorial.

You grin, thinking you know what she means. You can't spend so much time around soldiers without developing an appreciation for gallows humor, after all. "Gotten about as good at dealing with it as can be expected, I guess."

Rita hums, her eyes darting down the hall. You imagine she's busy but you're too greedy to assure her you'll be okay without her company so you don't. "Except this time, it seems."

"There's been… a complication."

"Oh, honey," Rita coos.

"Not with my husband," you clarify, "Sorry. Poor choice of words. Um. I mean - his captain's here and I don't want to… I can't sit next to him any longer without going insane. You know?"

You can almost see Rita mapping the points of information she has, assess the mire between them. "And what brings you here?"

It's hard not to blubber, though you're unsure why exactly. "I think I want a baby," you whisper instead, the secret pulled from you easy pie once someone actually asks despite the shame you feel about it, the words catching like barbs in your throat.

"And Mr. Tin Soldier doesn't?"

You offer her a forced smile. "Johnny. And I don't know. He used to. I think his captain wants one more," you confess, gaze slipping away from her again. You feel her rock back away from you momentarily, her breath puffing out in one great gust. "I haven't -. We've never…"

"Okay," she asserts. You don't think she believes you, but if the roles were reversed you suppose you wouldn't either. "But you'd like to?"

The yawning chasm of loneliness in your chest tells you one thing, but your pride can only muster a 'sometimes.'

"So not limited to when your husband is under the knife?"

"Christ," you hiss, crumpling in on yourself. "I'm a monster."

To your surprise, you feel Rita's warm palm on your back, rubbing soothing circles into your skin. Her voice is strained when she speaks, like she's not sure she believes what she's saying, but her caregiving instincts must win out because she speaks anyway. "I don't think so. Think you're probably just lonely, honey."

You know why she says it, know only someone desperate te be understood would reach out to her so eagerly like this. Still, it hurts to be seen. Maybe worse than not being seen at all. But it's the good ache, the kind you get from John. You have a brief, wild notion of kissing Rita, and have to suppress a bitter huff of laughter. "Johnny's not… here, even when he's here, you know?" You snivel, knowing full well how unsympathetic you probably sound.

"And the captain is?" Rita prompts. You think it's probably meant to clarify, but it sounds more like a challenge.

"Believe it or not, yes. John's very attentive. And nurturing. And he's always around more often than Johnny."

Rita's hand stops. "Wait, they're both named John?"

"I don't wanna talk about it," you gripe goodnaturedly, but Rita's not giving in.

"Well at least you don't have to worry about calling out the wrong name."

The snort you emit is terribly embarrassing, snot breaking loose after all your moping. Rita procures a tissue from some scrub pocket, makes a comment about tools of the trade. You sit silently for a moment as you dab your nose, for the first time taking note of the area she's sequestered you in. You're surprised to find the street outside getting darker, lamps glowing in the rain-slick parking lot. Inside, the hospital has begun to adopt a low, gentle glow - so far removed from the sterile, cold cold lighting you're used to seeing on hospital procedurals. The recesses and corners lie dim and dormant, the one you've been tucked into only kept lively by your company's presence. Without her, you fear you'd slink back into the darkness as well, become just another shadow on the wall. For a moment, you think you want that, and then your phone rings, the same unknown number from before illuminating your screen.

John doesn't wait for you to answer properly before asking where you are, but his voice is much softer than you'd expected, a pleasant drawl you're not sure is meant to lure you in but does all the same.

You sniffle, suppress a laugh. You don't see much use in lying to him. "The natal ward."

Silence stretches from the other end, the sound of a passing gurney all that your phone transmits. "Soap's out."

"I'll be right down."

"I can come -."

"I'll be right down, John." Next to you, Rita arcs a sparse, shapeless brow. You decide you love her, even if she has every reason to believe you're a bad person.

"Right. They're bringing him to room two seventy eight."

"Thanks. Bye."

Your departure from Rita is brief. She wishes you good luck and you tell her to swaddle some babies tight for you. You stand awkwardly for a moment, willing further conversation to come, but there's ultimately not much more to say to someone after baring your deepest shame to them basically unprompted, especially when they've so easily seen through you. So you wave in parting and beat a hasty retreat, trying not to think about how you'll forever be the cheating wife in her eyes, probably.

For as long as your meandering journey upstairs had taken, you find your way back quick enough. Still, it's Gaz who sits beside your husband's bed, Gaz who tells you the captain had to head back to base. "Just missed him," he sympathizes, nodding at a vase of familiar-looking flowers. "Left that for the happy couple, though."

You bypass them entirely, a sense of dread filling you when you spot the note tucked in among the buds. Instead, you fold yourself over Johnny's sleeping body, press kisses to his forehead. There's no faking the genuine relief you feel seeing him so you let it carry you through the motions, fuss about with his blankets and squeeze his hand. You fall asleep in the recliner next to him, waking some hours later to find your company gone, though an orderly tells you your handsome guest said he'd return in the morning. You suppress the urge to ask which one.

***

The flowers eventually make it home with you, the vase carried in Johnny's big fist. You wait until he's been tucked into bed before getting around to pruning them, the majority of the heads having wilted after too many days in stagnant water and poor quality hospital lighting. You toss the note away with them, unread, though you can't help telling Johnny they remind you of the flowers he sent.

"What flowers, hen?" He grumbles, still sleepy from the pain meds.

"Nevermind, baby," you assure him, chest too tight to trust your voice anymore than a whisper. "Go back to bed."

***

When he's feeling better, you tell Johnny you want a baby.

Next>>

#get her a dog #this is half baked but i needed to get it out of my head so i could concentrate on haul #captain john price x reader #john soap mactavish x you #captain john price x you #john soap mctavish x reader #pricesoap x reader #fat reader #this entire chapter was completely unplanned and then i spent like two weeks in a hospital as my aunt died so #you get inspiration where you can find it you know #also i know nursery wards arent really a thing anymore but source material has entire made up countries so we're moving on

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tofics · 7 days ago

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Broken - Chapter 7

Pairing: Joel Miller x fem!Reader

Summary: A year has passed since Joel and Ellie have returned to Jackson when he finds you on patrol, half frozen and half burning up. Jackson takes you in and nurses you back to health, welcoming you as the newest member of their community. The more time passes, Joel realizes that you and him have more in common than he likes… Until one day, everything changes and you get a gift that he’ll never get.

Word Count: ~8k words

This chapter is very dark. Reader discretion is advised.

Warnings/tags: show canon violence, clear intentions of killing, mentions of mental melt-downs, description of (underage) SA, cursing

Chapter 7 - Shared Pain Is Still Pain

The door to the room flies open and crashes against the wall with a loud bang, making the pregnant lady jump. Joel feels remorse for a split second before he appears in his line of sight and Joel sees nothing but red again. His hands dig into the man's collar with the determined grip of a python, yanking him off his chair with ease in spite of the man's size and mass.

Neither height nor weight stand a chance against Joel's rage. He slams the asshole into the nearest wall, wishing it was made of something sturdier than wood, something more gravelly perhaps or spikey even. Out of the corner of his eye, he registers movement, but he ignores it. Although the bastard’s head connected with the surface with a loud thump, it's not enough, nor is the dazed expression in his eyes after the impact.

"You like touching on little girls, hm?" Joel's voice is as cold as ice. The steps behind him come to a sudden stop. A quick sideway glance at Tommy tells him his words have struck a cord with his little brother, just like they had with Joel when you'd spat them out.

Joel slams the asshole against the wood once more. "Hm? Like how helpless they are, yeah? You get off on that, big man?"

"Joel." Maria's voice carries through the room with authority, her unspoken command clear. Stand down. But Joel doesn't obey, nor do his hands release the pig's collar. He feels his lips quivering in disgust as he stares into the bastard's eyes. It's taking every ounce of strength he has not to put an end to this pig’s life right here, right now.

"Maria," Joel pushes out between clenched teeth. "Might wanna take her out of the room." He cocks his head at the pregnant woman without ever taking his eyes off of his target. "She don't have to see this."

Immediately, the woman starts to protest, and Joel feels a fleeting tinge of worry for her and the unborn child in her belly. Images of Sarah's mom cloud his vision, belly and ankles swollen. Stress ain't good for the baby. The doctor had put her on bedrest for the last three weeks.

Over the loud protests, Maria instructs two men to remove the now screaming lady from the room and then closes the door behind them. “Don’t - don’t hurt her-“ The man’s cut off by another violent shove against the wall. “Shut your fuckin’ mouth,” Joel seethes. He’s grabbed the pig by his face, forcing his jaw shut by way of his fingers. They dig into the flesh with force, strong enough to leave bruises behind. “You think we’re scum like you, hm? Think we get off on hurting women like you do?” Joel’s spit lands just inches beside the scum’s ear. He has the decency to flinch, staring daggers into Joel’s face, but he keeps his trap shut.

"Joel," Maria warns again, but Joel’s grip doesn't loosen. If it did, his hands might wander straight to the man's throat instead, and he tells Maria so.

He hears her sigh behind him and then Tommy's right his side; a soothing hand on his back. "Liam's got a gun on him. He tries anything, we shoot. You can let go, brother." Tommy pats him on the back but doesn't urge him on. He knows him well.

Joel takes a couple more breaths, his face still distorted into a mask of disgust and fury. It feels like a monumental feat, but he manages to pry his fingers loose from the bastard eventually.

When he steps away, the other guy doesn't move from where Joel shoved him into the wall, just rightens himself slightly. Joel's delighted to see the man's hand come away soiled with blood after he touches it to the back of his head. It puts a grim smile on Joel's face.

He hasn't had much cause for blood-thirst as of late. Not since he rescued Ellie from the Fireflies. He became calmer after that, soothed by the safety Jackson had to offer and all that came with it. It changed him for the better, brought out more of the Joel he had been before the world had gone to shit and Sarah had been ripped from him. Her jarring loss had twisted something inside of him that only Ellie had managed to untangle. She'd made him softer in many ways, rounded out his hard and jagged edges where twenty years of brutal survival had chipped away at him.

But now that bloodlust has been rekindled inside of him, and the flames are licking up his insides, asking to be unleashed. Joel sees fire, and he wants to burn this man to the fucking ground until nothing but ashes are left of him.

As promised, Liam has his rifle trained on the man's chest. He's a good and loyal man, and Joel trusts him, but his hands are still itching to take the rifle from his hands and empty its magazine into the chest it's pointed at.

"So." Maria drags a chair over to herself and puts one leg up on the seat, her elbow casually resting on her knee.

"You wanna tell us in your own words what had one of our people react to you the way she did?"

Joel's glad to hear Maria's phrasing. One of our people. He knows Jackson's decision are run through the entire council. No one here decides anything monumental on their own, especially not the fates of potential newcomers. But he also knows that Maria's opinion carries weight with the rest of the council-members. It makes her phrasing of you as one Jackson’s own all the more meaningful.

"Go on," Joel urges when the man makes no move to open his mouth, just stares ahead blankly. His own hands are twitching, ready to beat the information out of him if necessary. Just give me a reason, Joel thinks. Lord knows he already has reason enough to beat this asshole to pulp.

Silence settles over the room. Four pairs of eyes rest on the man’s face, but he avoids all of them, just stares ahead blankly at the door he'd presumably love to leave through.

"Listen, you ain't doin' yourself any favors by not talkin," Tommy tries in what Joel recognizes as his ally-tone. "Better to hear it from you than someone else. You want a shot at livin' here? Give us your perspective."

"No way in hell we're letting that asshole stay-," Joel begins, but Tommy shuts him up with a look.

"Everybody gets their fair trial. That includes bein' heard out," his little brother chides him and Joel has to bite down on his lips to hold back a remark. Has to remind himself that this is why he wants Ellie to grow up here, and not in a QZ, with FEDRA and their sadistic version of what 'fair' means.

"He's right." Maria takes out a notepad and pen and looks at the scum expectantly, although there's no kindness in her eyes, just a neutral expression on her face. "Now let me tell you how this goes. You talk, we listen. We, that's our council. We decide things together in this town. You're gonna have a chance to tell your story to each of us individually. After that, we'll discuss your case within the council. It's in your best interest to stick to the same story. We'll all be taking notes and comparing them, so any discrepancies will be noted and followed up on. There’ll be a vote in the end about whether or not you get to stay. Any questions?"

Joel listens to Maria explain the town's prosecution process and can't help but feel like she is reading the man his rights. If you can't afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you. The wording from the old Miranda warning echoes in Joel's head, a remnant of a life that is long gone. Probably made one hell of a lawyer back in the day, he thinks and promptly feels a profound sense of pride for his sister-in-law.

Joel's head is swimming when he leaves the interrogation room two hours later. What a goddamn fucked up world we live in, he thinks as he heads out to find you.

Something like this was bound to happen, of course. Eventually, something was bound to disturb Jackson's peace. He just didn't expect it would come in the form of a rapist of all things, much less be brought in on his own damn horse. It sickens him to his stomach that him and Jeff are the ones who brought this evil into town, even if it happened unknowingly and with the best intentions.

Amber - the pregnant lady - is bound to give birth any day now, according to Jackson’s resident doctor. Joel could’ve told you as much on his own. By the looks of her swollen belly, it was clear that she’d be due soon. When him and Jeff came upon them, it had seemed like a no-brainer that they'd bring her and her husband back to Jackson with them. After all, they were a couple in need, and Jackson had both the space and resources to help.

It only occurs to Joel now that besides you, these are the first people he has brought into town. What are the odds that his second charitable act since becoming a member of Jackson could cause such a disruption?

His head is throbbing, both from what he's heard during the last two hours and a consistent worry about you. He needs to hear your version of what he's been told, but most of all, he needs to find you and make sure you're okay.

After what he witnessed not too long ago, Joel can't shake the looming worry that with the town's newest arrivals, your mental state is on the brink of a crisis and a meltdown is imminent. He just hopes he can catch you before you fall too deep.

Your visceral attack from this morning plays out in his mind again. He sees the fury in your eyes as you lunge at the man and bring a knife to his throat in a speed he did not think you were capable of. He’s sure that if he hadn't intervened, you'd have split that man open without hesitation.

Joel quickens his pace. He needs to find you.

You're showing Ellie how to bottle-feed the lambs when Joel all but bursts into the barn with a panicked look on his face. You can see the panic give away to confusion when he takes in the scene in front of him, just seconds before relief settles over his features, just a hint of suspicion remaining.

You can't blame him, of course. You know exactly what he was expecting to find, especially after he couldn’t find you at yours or his own house. It’s likely he looked there first. You would've left a note, had you been to either place before you came here, but you didn't trust yourself enough to allow yourself even the smallest of breaks.

You just walked straight across town to where you knew Ellie was working on the town’s barrier with her security crew. She seemed surprised to see you, and you could see the same hint of worry flickering in her eyes that Joel is now regarding you with. You couldn’t blame her either - it was taking all of your strength and then some to stay collected and to not fall apart at the seams.

Ellie didn’t hesitate when you asked her to come with you. You tried to keep the urgency out of your voice, to allow her the chance to stay out of your misery if she wanted to. She had already witnessed one of your meltdowns and you were hesitant to include her in another one, already feeling shameful that your legs had brought you here, to a teenager of all things, when you were a grown woman and supposed to be in charge of your own feelings. But next to Joel, she was the one who made Jackson feel like home; a faint echo of your own daughter.

You couldn’t deny that it was also worry that had driven you here and not just a need for companionship. With the personification of your worst nightmare having set foot into town, you needed to make sure that she was safe. You would sooner die than let that bastard lay a hand on her.

To Ellie’s credit, she didn’t ask beyond what was necessary. She accepted your answer of the barn as your destination without further inquiries, and didn’t even press on when you responded with “not yet” to the question of whether she should be worried.

You would have to tell her eventually, but you didn’t have the words just then. Not in the moment where he was being interrogated on the other side of town.

About what he had done.

About where she was.

About if he had lied; if she was truly still alive.

You didn’t have the strength to find the necessary words to explain yourself in a way that wouldn’t rip Ellie of whatever innocence she had left.

At the barn, you started prepping bottles and explained some of the vital factors to take note of when taking care of little lambs. Ellie listened intently, asking questions in all the right places. You loved her dearly for it. There was no hiding of the fact that you were teetering on the brink of madness, but Ellie either had enough instinct for self-preservation or your emotional needs not to question your lecture. You were almost certain that she recognized this barn excursion for what it was: an attempt at self-regulation.

As Ellie and you fed the little baby sheep, you tried your best to stay focused on the task at hand and to abandon all thoughts of the man Jackson's guards had taken into custody, but his words kept echoing in your head.

She's still alive.

You didn't allow yourself to think about what that could possibly mean, not even for a second. No lambs in the world could have saved you then, Ellie or no Ellie present.

But now, Joel is standing in the doorway of the barn, panting and visibly relieved to find you in such a 'composed' state, even though you're hanging on by a thread and your strength for self-regulation is slowly running out.

Ellie looks up when you stop talking mid-sentence about the correct way to hold a lamb's throat during feeding and notices Joel in the doorway. You feel her eyes going from Joel to you and back to Joel, and the shame for having dragged a teenager to the barn with you in an attempt to keep yourself calm washes over you once more. Here you are, at thirty-six years old, reliant on the presence of a teenager to keep yourself together.

Pathetic.

Worse than that, you can't help but wonder if Joel approves of your decision. You took Ellie out of a safe place and dragged her into your mess - again.

Something close to pain must flicker across your eyes, because Joel finally abandons his position in the doorway and strolls into the barn with an exaggerated sense of ease. It looks almost comical, the way he's trying so hard to appear calm and you wonder who he's doing it for - you or Ellie? Perhaps both. Either way, he's not fooling either of you which becomes evident when Ellie just outright comments on his funny pace. "Your foot fall asleep or something?"

Joel shoots her a glare, but Ellie just snorts, and before you know it, you're cracking up too, surprising even yourself. Emotions can be such a strange thing.

"No, I think he's just trying to be very casual so I won't be set off and go crazy, not while you're around," you say with a smile when your own laughter has subsided.

“Ah.” Ellie nods knowingly while she strokes the back of the lamb in her lap. You see her looking at you out of the corner of your eye. “Is this where I find out why I’m currently getting a free-of-charge lesson in lamb-feeding?”

Ellie's casual tone matches yours, and you suddenly find your heart filling with love, out of all the things you could be feeling right now. But you can't help it. Here you are, in the midst of hay and sheep, with the two people that somehow took you in and made Jackson a home without you ever having to ask for it in the first place. You don't know how you can ever repay them - if you can ever repay them for what they've done.

The unexpected surge of love works like a sedative and you feel your limbs growing heavy as the adrenaline slowly ebbs away. You're not calm by any means, but it finally doesn't feel like there's electricity coursing through your entire body anymore. "Because, kiddo." You sink to the hay-covered floor besides Ellie with a deep sigh and run a tired hand over your face. "Jeff and your father figure here unknowingly brought a man into town this morning that's responsible for my worst nightmare."

Joel looks like he's in pain at your words and you’re quick to point a finger at him. "You. Uh-uh. None of that. You didn't know," you say, hoping to nip whatever guilt-ridden bud is trying to take root in his head.

You beckon Joel over with a flick of your head. “C’mon.” He hesitates at first, but then walks over and kneels in the hay opposite of you and Ellie. You hand him one of your prepped bottles, then motion for him to grab hold of one of the lambs beside him. They’re all baa-ing and bleh-ing around the three of you, scrambling over themselves to get to the priced bottles. A flicker of a smile dances across Joel’s mouth.

You’ve been here for more than an hour, but you took your time, purposefully slowing down your movements in the hopes of also slowing down your heart. As a result, the lambs, used to a quick feeding, are slowly going insane.

You show Joel how to hold the lamb he’s picked, how to hold the bottle at the correct angle so the little one doesn’t swallow too much air at the same time. Ellie proudly shows off what she’s learned in her time with you and for a little while, it’s just the three of you feeding lambs, like a little wholesome family moment.

Eventually though, you have to ask.

You've avoided thinking about him as much as you could, trying to keep it together, but now you need to know.

"So. D'you kill him?"

Joel doesn’t answer right away. You see Ellie looking at him expectantly, like she has no doubt Joel could’ve killed a man just an hour ago. The thought doesn’t seem to scare her in the least.

He finally shakes his head with a look of distaste on his face. "No. Maria wouldn't let me."

Ellie snorts in response. "What'd you expect?" An unexpected grin flickers across your lips. You nod in agreement with her. "Yeah. Figured as much."

Something tightens in your chest. He's still out there. Still alive. Still breathing.

And so is your daughter. At least according to him.

“Did he say? Where…” You have to collect yourself, take a deep breath to get the words out. Prepare yourself for a no, you tell yourself. Don’t get your hopes up. But you know it’s too late for that. “Did he say where she is?”

The bottle in your hand vibrates slightly from how you’re shaking. You take deep, calculated breaths to steady yourself. Keep calm. You’ve got this. You feel the urge to scream as loud as you can.

“He did.”

The bottle in your hand squeaks as you press down on it too harsh. Milk shoots out of the top and soils the hay underneath and you’re glad you didn’t have a little one attached to the tip of it. You can feel Joel’s eyes boring into you, seizing you up, gauging your reaction. Deep breaths, deep breaths. Your vision goes blurry.

“So she’s… alive?” There’s a deep humming sound in your ear. You’re straining to hear Joel over it.

“That’s what he said.”

You slump forward, curl in on yourself. The bottle falls from your hand, spilling milk on the floor, but you don’t care. You can’t breathe, can’t hear anything over the intense buzzing in your ears. Your hands are shaking so hard you have to press them to your stomach to stop them from shaking.

She’s alive. She’s alive. My babygirl is alive.

The bottle gets picked up and is set down out of your sight. A hand appears on the back of your shoulder, stroking in soft circles, then a smaller hand appears on your lower back, mimicking the same gesture.

You try to breathe, to force air into your lungs. Alive, alive, alive. The word pounds in your head like the gong of a church’s bell, deep and strong. The rubbing on your back continues, offering a soothing counter rhythm to your erratic breathing. Slowly, the buzzing in your ears subsides. A few faint baa-s and bleeh-s reach you. The smell of hay seeps into your nose, grounding you to the floor. The rubbing on your back never seizes.

Joel’s on your left, Ellie on your right. He keeps his hand on your shoulder when you finally straighten yourself again. Ellie’s hand slips to your thigh, resting there assuringly. You would cry about the silent love you’re receiving if your brain wasn’t so occupied in the moment.

You take a deep breath, then look at Joel. His brown eyes are fixed on you, brows furrowed in concern.

“Where?,” you ask.

“He couldn’t say for sure,” Joel starts and you huff and roll your eyes. “Of course he couldn’t, cause it’s not true-“

“He couldn’t say for sure,” Joel loudly talks over you, his hand squeezing your shoulder, “but he gave enough pointers ‘bout where we could find her.”

You gnaw on the inside of your lip. You want to believe him so badly, but you don’t know how to survive if it turns out to be a lie.

“Do you believe him?”

Joel’s expression hardens. “I made it very clear he wouldn’t survive it if he lied.“

“I’m coming with!”

“Like hell you are. You’re stayin’ here.”

“Joel-“

“I said no, Ellie!” He doesn’t like raising his voice at her, not anymore. Joel and Ellie rarely fight, and when they do, he hates every second of it.

“Are you fucking kidding me!”

That girl’s got a mouth on her like a sailor, he thinks to himself. Joel pinches the bridge of his nose. He knows this argument is far from over, no matter how much he wishes she’d just listen to him and be done with it.

“Ellie, we ain’t got a clue 'bout what we’re walkin’ into. Hell, we got less of a clue than when I was takin’ you to the damn Fireflies,” he tries to reason with her. Can’t you see I’m trying to keep you safe?

“And that’s supposed to convince me to stay back? Just sit here and wait while you guys ride off into whatever danger? You can’t be serious.” Ellie’s got her arms crossed in that pissed-off stance she perfected over the years. It sometimes reminds Joel of the way Sarah would cross her arms at him. Always makes his heart ache, too.

“Babygirl, listen here, I just wanna-“ His warm approach is cut off when Ellie throws her hands in the air.

“Oh, don’t give me that. I know you wanna keep me safe. Don’t even start with that speech. I am not staying here. And asking me is downright cruel. I told you, I’d follow you wherever you wanna go. You’re my family. I’m not staying back.”

Joel doesn’t reply right away, just keeps firing clothes into his bag. He hates that she has a point.

“I’m coming with,” Ellie repeats.

Stubborn ass kid. Joel fires a pair of boxers into his backpack like they personally did him wrong and flicks his tongue. He knows asking her to stay behind while he rides out into danger is cruel, but what is he supposed to do? Chain her to the house?

“You know I’ll follow you either way. So just save all of us the trouble and take me with now.”

“You just know how to push my damn buttons, don’t cha,” Joel hisses.

“Course I do. All ninety-five of them. Now what’s it gonna be?” Ellie grins like she knows she has won. Of course she does.

“Alright, you listen to me.” Joel turns around with a sigh of defeat, a sour expression on his face. Damn that girl and her antics.

“Same rules as before. You listen to me, do as I say. No back talking, you hear me? I tell you to run, you run-“

“Yeah yeah.” She interrupts him with a smug grin. “I know. What you say goes. I know the drill.”

Joel flicks his tongue once more in annoyance. He sends her off to pack her things, then calls her back at the last second.

“One more thing.” Ellie lingers in his doorway, her eyebrows raised expectantly.

“You run it by her. This is her mission. She wants you to come, you can come. It’s up to her.”

Joel's tossing and turning in his bed. He can't find a single comfortable position, and even if he could, sleep would likely evade him anyway.

His brain is working overtime, running a hundred miles an hour. He tries to quiet his mind, to catch a couple of hours of sleep before the three of you ride out in the morning. But it's fruitless. The second he manages to put a cap on one thought, the next pops up and demands his attention, like an annoying game of whac-a-mole.

Joel grunts in frustration and sits up, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He knows sleep isn't on his side tonight.

Joel swings his legs over the side of his bed. He can't keep laying down.

He checks on Ellie first, slowly creaking her door open to catch a glimpse of her sprawled out between her sheets. It's a habit he picked up when they moved to Jackson, an echo of how he used to check on Sarah. He couldn't trust the safety at first, had to make sure that Ellie was still in her room, unharmed. Every nightmare of the Fireflies brought him to her door, night after night, sometimes more than once. Now it's just a force of habit, something he does when he can't sleep. The sight of her relaxed body has a soothing effect on him.

Downstairs, he pours himself a glass of whiskey, a luxury he doesn't grant himself often. Tonight, though, he needs one. If only just to silence his thoughts.

Joel's worried. About you, about Ellie, about riding out into a situation based on information he has no way of knowing are reliable. He fears what they might find. What you'll do if she's alive. What you'll do if she's not. How you'll react if you won't find her.

Will you leave? Leave Jackson to go look for your daughter that you were certain was dead, but has now been revealed to still be alive?

He knows he would. If it was Sarah, if there was somehow a way that she was still alive - he'd go out of his way to find her, move mountains if necessary. Not a soul could stop him if there was a chance he could hold his babygirl in his arms again. Not you, not even Ellie.

He knows this, and yet he can't stop himself from thinking that he doesn't want you to leave. It's selfish, he knows that, doesn't need to be told how incredibly selfish of a man he is to want you to stay when there's a chance that your daughter is still out there. But he can't help it. You've brought something back into his life that he never thought he'd feel again, and it's awful and selfish of him, but he doesn't want to give it up. It's too good, too sweet. He's been devoid of that kind of love for so long that he's not sure he's able to let it go, now that he's found it.

But he also knows all of this thinking is futile. Nothing is set in stone yet. For all he knows, if all goes well, you could be reunited with your daughter in a week, maybe less, depending on how soon they find the settlement.

Then again, when have things ever gone 'well' in this shit-show of a world?

Joel downs his glass of whiskey and wanders back to his bed through the dark of the house.

Only time will tell what the future holds. He only hopes you'll be in his.

Maria and Tommy had come over to Joel's to inform you of the interrogation. Ever the proactive man that he was, Joel had all but insisted for you to come home with him and Ellie. You didn't object in the least - you didn't trust yourself to be alone either. Not yet.

Ellie was lurking in the kitchen doorway, clearly unsure of whether she was welcome or not. You left the decision up to Joel, and he reluctantly agreed. "Ain't gon' be pretty, just so you know." Ellie took a seat next to you, silently squeezing your hand. Your heart ached with the love you felt for her.

"We've spoken to William at length," Maria opened. You recognized her tone as neutral. She was all business. No wonder she is a council member, you thought. "I understand that time is a valuable factor here, but we have to get your side of things first before you ride out."

You nodded. It felt like you were sitting on a pile of ants, the way you were squirming in your chair. What did he say? Where is she?

"In the name of fairness, we'd like for you to retell your experience before we share what he has said with you." Maria kept her eyes trained on you, her face a blank mask of neutrality. Tommy, however, did not quite have the same pokerface. He was leaned back in his chair the way Joel often was too, the resemblance between the two siblings showing in his stance. His arms were crossed over his chest and his lips were in a tight line, eyes trained on the table.

You nodded again. It made sense, it did. But to tell it all again, to relive it all over again... Do it for her.

You took a deep breath, steadying yourself. Then you began to recount the worst day of your life.

It's raining. Not just raining, but pissing down, endless buckets of water being poured out over the QZ. Just like the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that. Rain, rain, and then some more rain, until half the QZ is practically swimming, brewing in a stew of piss, rubble and murky rain water that stands a couple inches tall in the streets, despite the day-workers doing their best to unclog all the drains. The pay has gone up too. You get one whole extra ration card per hour if you're willing to sift through the murky and stinking water while getting drenched from head to toe. You scoff when Hailey tells you. "Ain't that the finest deal I've ever heard of." Hailey giggles, and you ruffle through her hair affectionately.

Despite your sarcasm, you consider whether you should take up some street-work shifts. Lord knows you could use the extra rations, even if it's just six per day. You and Hailey try to live as frugal as you can, you make sure of that. Resources are limited. You know it, she knows it, everyone and their uncle knows it. Still, you try to make as much of it as you can, trading and haggling where you can to get a little something extra out of it for your little girl. Anything that you can to brighten her day, you do it. The smile on her face always pays for whatever you had to go through to get here.

Tonight is special. It's Hailey's fifteenth birthday. You've saved up for this day for weeks, traded one of your finer clothes and some ration cards for the little cupcake that you're now placing on the cracked plate in front of you. It cost about as much as three normal food rations, but you don't care. You can go hungry for a night or two if that means you get to make her birthday special.

Carefully, so as not to mess with the delicate frosting, you push a single candle into the sugary goodness. That one you didn't get through cards, nor through a trade of goods. Nope. Something as simple as this little birthday candle cost you a blowjob, of all things. Not your favorite by any means, but still bearable. At least Barry keeps himself washed, unlike some of the other FEDRA soldiers.

Hailey's eyes gleam as you bring in the lit cupcake, softly singing 'Happy Birthday'. Her smile is about as wide as her face will allow her to stretch, and she blows the candle out carefully so none of the wax drops onto the frosting.

"How'd you get this?" She looks at you in wonder, like you can do anything. Your heart swells with love and pride. "Pulled some strings," you reply with a wink and gently tug on one of her hair strands. She giggles like she's ten years younger, the sound warming your chest and erasing any memory of when you were on your knees, working hard for the birthday girl's candle. Worth it, you think. Always worth it.

The knock on the door comes late in the evening. You're laid up in bed, your daughter nestled against you as you read to her from the book you've borrowed. The words die out on your tongue as your door rattles, a fist pounding against it from the other side.

"FEDRA. Open up."

Hailey's eyes find yours in a panicked, silent question. What's happening? You run a quick hand over her hair and press a kiss to her forehead, easing her worries. "Don't worry," you mumble as the two of you scramble off of the worn out mattress on the ground. "Probably just a routine check-in," you assure her with a smile that carries more certainty than you feel on the inside.

The second you open the door boots stomp into your little safe haven. Decked out in typical FEDRA tactical wear, four men barge in, all carrying a sense of importance around them that they are known and feared for.

The QZ was supposed to be a safe haven, a shelter from the horrors of the infected and raiders. That's what it had been marketed as, a pillar of society in a now broken land. You had soon found out that it was anything but.

"Come on in, boys," you say through a smile that promises a willingness to cooperate that you do not feel. But this isn't a time to revolt. Not when Hailey is here.

One of the men grabs the door out of your hand and shuts it with force. So much for this being a quick thing, you think and your stomach thinks.

There are four armed men in your tiny apartment, along with yourself and your daughter. You will your heart to beat steadily as you cross the room to stand by her. "What can we do for you?"

"Heard a little fun fact today," one of the larger men drawls. You know him - of him, really - he's one of the leading men in charge. You don't have a clue what he's doing here, but whatever the reason, it can't be good. He takes a look around the room like he's seizing up your possessions, to see if there's anything of value around. You'd give them the shirt on your back if that meant they'd leave again peacefully.

"Yeah?" You force your voice to be calm, force the smile to remain on your face. "What's that?"

He saunters over and comes to a stop in front of Hailey. Your hand reaches for hers involuntarily. His eyes roam over her, slowly, drinking her in from top to bottom. You feel bile climbing up your throat.

The man clicks his tongue and then puts a finger under Hailey's chin, turning her face up to him. You feel her shivering beside you, squeezing your hand in a panic. Calm, you tell her in your mind. Stay calm. You yourself are anything but. You want to gauge his eyes out with the way they're roaming over your daughters face, but you keep yourself composed. Keep her safe. Keep Hailey safe. That's your only goal.

"Little birdie told me it's this pretty one's birthday today," the man drawls. Your eyes flicker over to the rest of his men and you find Barry among them, an apologetic look on his face. 'Sorry' he mouths at you and your blood runs cold in your veins. Next time you've got his dick in your mouth, you'll bite off a good chunk.

"Fifteen years old! Practically a young woman now," he coos and runs a finger over Hailey's cheek. You have to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from reaching out and smacking his hand away.

"Gotta start payin' her dues now, doesn't she."

...no. No.

"My daughter does afternoon shifts after school, just as is law," you're quick to say. "You can check, too. We've got all the paperwork." You're already scrambling to find the papers in the drawer behind you when you hear an amused chuckle.

"I'm sure everything's up to code here," the man smiles. "Ain't what we're here for, though. Pretty thing like this? She gotta pay extra. Special pretty tax we got. Ain't that right, boys?"

The men all mumble something in agreement, and anger boils in your stomach. You hate all of them, cowards that they are.

"And when I heard that we got a pretty bird turning fifteen... Well. Just had to come see it for myself. Ya sure didn't lie, Barry. She's a sight to behold." He tuts as he twirls Hailey's face from side to side, examining her like one would a piece of furniture at an auction. You look at Barry, but he avoids your gaze. You're dead, you think. You're fucking dead.

"About time you get broken in, don't you think? Hm?" You feel Hailey shaking with fear as the man lowers his face to hers. Your hand is gripping hers so hard your knuckles turn white.

"Take me."

His eyes slowly wander from Hailey's face to yours. "Take me," you repeat, the determination edged into your face. "Do with me whatever you want, but leave her out of it." Your voice has authority, but you can't deny the pleading edge in your tone. Please. Not her.

The man's lips purse like he's considering it for a moment, then claps his hands together. "Ha! Nice offer, hun, but that's just not gonna work. Now you see, young William over here-" He pulls forth the youngest of the men who stumbles forward, a shy expression on his face. He can't be much older than Hailey. "-young William here is overdue for his initiation. And nice as you may be, but you're just a bit old for the young boy here, ain't cha." The ugliest wink you ever did see is thrown your way and you feel like you might scream.

"Alright, then." The man claps his hands and all three of you flinch at the sound; you, Hailey and young William. "Let's get to it. William, show us what you got."

For a moment, time stands still as the words echo in your brain. Show us what you got. Then you're shoving Hailey behind yourself. "No. No. Take me. Not her. Take me. I'll do anything."

The man in charge flicks his tongue and rolls his eyes. "Yeah, I heard you the first time. Pretty sure you heard me too. Ain't gonna do it. Now sit back and enjoy the show, unless you want me to put a bullet between your eyes."

The gun is pointed at you before you know it and Hailey screams behind you. "No!" She's fighting to get out from behind you, but you keep her locked in place. With a hard swallow, you pry your eyes away from the barrel of the gun and force yourself to look at the man who's pointing it at you.

"Please." Your voice wavers, thick with emotion. "Please. Don't do this. Please." You feel tears brimming in your eyes as you beg for your daughter to be spared. Not her. Not her.

You hear the cracking sound first before you feel the pain explode across your scalp. Your vision blurs for a moment and you slump forward, brought down by the force of the blow. A muffled groan presses out from between your lips as you fall to your hands and knees. There's a high pitched scream behind you, and then you're yanked forward, across the floor and onto your mattress.

The world spins as you try to straighten up. Your head feels warm and sticky where the pain is pulsating, and you see red smeared across your hand as you bring it from the top of your head to your eyes.

The screeches in front of you grow louder, calling your attention away from the blood on your hands. You narrow your eyes to see what's happening, and when your view finally sharpens again, you feel your entire body growing cold in seconds.

Hailey is being forced to bend over by Barry and the other man that you don't really know but you're sure you've seen before, her pants being pulled down towards her ankles. She's screaming, fighting, and each of her words pierce through your heart like an icy dagger. "No," you groan and crawl forward on your bed to get to her, only to be kicked back by a boot to the shoulder. You fly backwards and slam into the wall behind you, making you see stars as your head feels like it's being split open anew.

"No! No! Please! No!" Hailey's screams cut through your dazed state. You fumble to get onto your knees again, crawling forwards in what seems like slow motion. The world is still spinning and your arms threaten to give out, but you force yourself forward until you're suddenly yanked forward by your head.

"You're just dying for a front row seat, ain't ya," a voice hisses in your ear like an angry snake. You wince at the sound and try to rid yourself of the hold, but the large hands that hold your head hostage clamp down on you harsher, keeping you in place where you can only watch but not reach.

"That's right, open eyes, baby," you hear in your ear and you gag, both from the pain in your head and the sight you're being forced to watch.

With all the things you've seen, with all the things you've been through, everything shrinks in comparison to what you're seeing now. You feel like your heart is being torn apart, shredded into a million tiny pieces and you can only howl out in pain until a hand clamps down over your mouth. "Shut your damn mouth, whore."

You sob into the gloved hand as your daughters innocence is ripped from her on her fifteenth birthday. You watch and cry and wish it was you instead of her while you feel yourself dying on the inside.

Silence hung heavy in Joel's kitchen when you finished. Joel looked like he wanted to break something, whereas Ellie sat on the other side of you with a somber expression on her face. Tommy let out a breath and ran a hand over his mouth.

"Maria," he said and leaned forward til he leaned on his knees. His wife nodded, seemingly straining to keep her mask of neutrality intact. "Yeah," she replied lowly, then cleared her throat.

"N' you're telling me he's entitled to what. A fair treatment?" Joel spat the words out like they're too bitter to keep in his mouth. You could feel his eyes on you, running over your head like he was looking for the scar he now knew is hidden beneath your hair.

"He does." Maria inhaled deeply opposite you and brought order to the stack of papers she brought with her. "But fair doesn't mean unjust." Then her hand reached across the table and squeezed yours. "In light of your... experience, I would suggest to the council that we work with your testimony as I've written it down, so you don't gotta repeat yourself over and over. Would that be in your interest?"

You felt some of the tightness in your chest slowly releasing.

Maria nodded as you voiced your agreement. "Good. Please read this over to make sure I got the details right. It's important."

When Tommy and Maria were gone, Joel and Ellie sat with you as you read through your own testimony. You had to set the pages down a couple of times, and each time, they were there with hands on your back, on your thigh, intertwined with your own. They silently helped you relive your worst nightmare for the second time that night, and you didn't know how to give voice to your gratitude.

Joel protested when you got up some time after dinner and announced you'd be going home for the night. There was something wild in his eyes, worry mixed with something you couldn't quite place, and it warmed your heart to see him so worried for you. You had to assure him thrice with a hand on his cheek that you would be okay, that you would come and find him if it got too dark, and that you would be back first thing next morning.

"I'll break down your damn door if you ain't here at 6am sharp," he growled and you had no doubt that he meant it. "I know." You leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. "Good night, Joel. I'll see you tomorrow. Night, Ellie." She waved you goodbye, and Joel brought you to his backdoor, his hand on the small of your back as he walked you there.

"You sure you'll be good by yourself," he asked again when you turned to leave. The smallest of smiles appeared on your lips.

"Yeah. I just... need some time to digest everything."

He looked at you for a moment before finally nodding. "Alright. G'night, sweetheart."

You knew he kept watching you as you walked through his backyard and then up the street, and you couldn't blame him. But you had meant what you said. You needed to be alone.

You needed the time to think about the fact that for the first time in two years, there was a chance your daughter was still alive.

"I'm coming for you, baby," you whispered to yourself as you slowly walked yourself home.

Tomorrow, you would ride out to find her. Tomorrow, you'd go and look for your babygirl.

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rubycruzin4abruzin · 7 months ago

Text

never been (stage) kissed

Summary: After years of being a struggling actress in Los Angeles, you finally land your big break! The only problem is, you’ve been cast opposite your longtime celebrity crush… Ruby Cruz. What will you do when the director demands a kiss between the two of you?

Pairing: ruby cruz x actress!reader

Contains: mature language, small amount of adult humor, kissing, fluff, thigh touching, in depth details of Hollywood movie shooting, anxious!reader, publicity tweets and comments, ruby being the sweetest girl EVER

Word Count: 3.1k

A/N: This is a Real Person Fiction. I’ve included a mass disclaimer of RPF guidelines here. Make SURE to click the link before reading, it’s extremely important for the safety of all Real People involved in this fiction.

———

You stared at the movie script in your hand, biting your lip to stop from squealing. After being in Los Angeles for the past five years, you had finally landed your big break.

You had known that you wanted to act ever since your mother signed you up to be a munchkin in a community theatre production of “The Wizard of Oz.” Of course, being a stubborn elementary schooler, you fought her on it, saying the songs were “stupid” and the costumes were “itchy.” But as soon as opening night came, and the lights hit your face, you put on a smile and celebrated the death of the Wicked Witch like it was something you’d been waiting for your entire life.

After the song's last note, deafening applause echoed around the theater, causing adrenaline to course through your veins. In that moment, you decided to spend the rest of your life chasing that feeling.

When you reached middle school, you joined their drama department, taking theatre as an elective class while occasionally participating in the school plays. Once high school rolled around, you began to take some of the more advanced classes, and even competed in a couple One-Act Play competitions. A lot of the people you started taking classes with eventually got bored and left to pursue other hobbies, but over the years you just fell more and more in love with acting, and became completely dedicated to your craft.

Instead of attending college, after you graduated high school you packed up whatever you needed and moved across the country to a small town about half an hour away from Los Angeles. The area was slightly sketchy, your apartment was small, and you had to work two jobs while sharing with four other roommates just to make rent.

Los Angeles kinda… sucked. But you had stars in your eyes and couldn’t be happier.

Unfortunately, you were kind of in for a rude awakening once audition season rolled around. Back in high school, you would book leads left and right. Now, it seemed like the only gigs you could book were background work, maybe a role in a rinky-dink student film if you were lucky. You always took what you could get, but you longed for something that could get your foot in the door.

One day, one of the short films you starred in entitled “Attack of the Killer Zombie Prom Queens” got entered into some film festival, and not only did it win an award you couldn’t remember the name of, it ended up going viral on YouTube, and not in a bad way either. Your performance in that film was astounding.

Plus, not that this was the sole reason the film blew up, but as an actress in your early 20’s who tended to take care of herself, you were kind of… well… hot.

Suddenly, you were getting recognized in public, signed with an agency, and landing more notable roles. You were featured in a music video for an up-and-coming country artist, booked a commercial for a costume makeup company (in which you brought back your look from “Attack of the Killer Zombie Prom Queens”), and even starred in three episodes of a new series on HBO Max.

Just when you thought life couldn’t get any better, one day you were coming back from what was either your third or fourth audition of the day, when you got a call from your agent on the drive home. You groaned, almost certain she was calling to schedule another “last-minute” audition. Sure you appreciated how hard she worked to get you booked, but you were also so tired after a long day.

To your surprise, when you picked up the phone, she ecstatically announced that you had booked a huge role.

In a feature film.

Starring alongside your celebrity crush… Ruby Cruz.

You had to pull over on the side of a highway to keep from swerving out of excitement.

Ruby had been your celebrity crush since you saw her in the Disney+ series “Willow.” Her masculine ambience, her devil-may-care attitude, and the way she swung her sword had you absolutely drooling. Somehow, you finished the entire series in two days, and immediately ran to IMDB to add Every Single Thing she’s been in to your watch list.

Now, you stood in front of the building where your first read-through was supposed to take place, the script for “Aliens of Atlantis” resting in your shaking hands. You gulped as you pushed open the door, wondering how you were going to keep your cool around Ruby when the very thought of her practically sent you into cardiac arrest.

Walking into the reading room, you were met with several chairs arranged into a circle and sounds of chatter from the other actors. You recognized a few of them from some smaller projects, even recognizing one from a movie that had come out the previous year. Your eyes scanned the room for Ruby, heart beating out of your chest when they landed on the back of a choppy brunette bob.

When Ruby turned around, you swore her blue eyes sparkled under the fluorescent lights. She caught you staring at her from across the room, and shot you a wide toothy smile before walking over to you.

“Hey,” she started. “You must be Zephyra.”

You blinked at her. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Zephyra.” She repeated. “You’re playing the alien queen of Atlantis, right?”

She furrowed her eyebrows at you slightly and tilted her head, worried she may have gotten you mixed up with someone else.

Her words clicked in your head, finally. “Oh! Yes! I’m playing the role of Zephyra.”

Ruby’s smile returned as she let out a lighthearted chuckle. You swallowed, trying to keep your cool. You still had trouble wrapping your mind around the fact that you were standing in front of the Ruby Cruz, and having a semi-successful conversation.

She stuck out her hand, offering a handshake. “Hi, I’m Ruby. I’m playing Calantha.”

You took her hand, electric shocks vibrating through your body at her touch. “Nice to meet you.”

After removing her hand (much to your displeasure), she turned to walk back over to her seat, but not before flashing you a smile over her shoulder. “Can’t wait to work with you!”

God, why did she have to be so cool?

The table read went fairly well, in your opinion. The movie was about Calantha, an underwater adventurer, finding the lost city of Atlantis during an expedition. Once there, she finds the city being ruled by aliens who’s spaceship crashed near the area about 100 years ago. Calantha finds Zephyra, the alien queen, who makes her promise to keep their secret, and in return, Calantha will help her run the city.

You were playing Zephyra, of course, since being in “Attack of the Killer Zombie Prom Queens” proved you looked hot even in otherworldly makeup. You kind of thought there might be some romantic or even sexual tension between Calantha and Zephyra, but you brushed it off as you thought that might not be the artistic intention.

Once filming started, your days were basically exclusively spent on set. Not that you were complaining, you loved every second. Even after coming home at 1am when you left for work at 6am, a blissful smile would be painted across your tired face.

The only thing that bothered you was that you barely ever got to talk to Ruby on set. It was more your fault than hers. Every time you two were working together, your brain short circuited and you couldn’t get out anything more than a few dim-witted babbles. Ruby was always so sweet about it though, always lightheartedly chuckling at your barely-comprehensible speech, sometimes even giving your upper arm a squeeze if you felt especially nervous.

You knew she meant well, but any touch from your celebrity crush was sure to do the opposite of calming you down.

One day, during a filming session, you and Ruby were meant to be sitting especially close to each other. You were sure you felt some romantic tension between the two characters, but you chalked it up to your crush on the actress and tried to downplay it. The director, however, seemed very frustrated today, this was the nineteenth take of this particular scene and he still wasn’t happy.

“Cut!” He yelled, letting out a frustrated sigh as you and Ruby turned your attention towards him.

“Everything alright, sir?” Ruby asked, making you glad you weren’t the only one who noticed his irritation.

“This scene… it’s missing something.” He brought his hand to his chin and squinted at the both of you. “Do we think we could add a kiss? Right here?”

Your heart stopped, and all the moisture disappeared from your mouth.

It wasn’t like you hadn’t kissed people before. You had your fair share of dates back in high school, that wasn’t the problem.

You’ve kissed, but you’ve never stage kissed.

Sure you had plenty of acting experiences, but the roles you played never required kissing. Instead of playing Aurora, you made a fabulous Maleficent. While Elle Woods locked lips with Emmett, you were busy portraying a hilarious Paulette. And of course, nobody wants to make out with a zombie prom queen.

You had no idea if there was any difference between actual kisses and stage-kisses. Obviously, sex scenes in movies weren’t real. But kisses? What if there is a difference and you go to kiss Ruby on camera and make her uncomfortable? What if she pushes you away? What if she gets mad? You don’t know how you’d recover from something like that, and your mind swarmed with plans to flee the country if that did happen.

Ruby opened her mouth to answer the director, before looking at you for confirmation and noticing your overly-panicked state. She sent you a reassuring smile, and placed a gentle hand on your back.

She turned to the director. “Could we pick this up after lunch? I think my scene partner and I have some things to discuss.”

The director agreed, and since it was still about thirty minutes to lunch, decided to use that time to record some “room noise.” You and Ruby were meant to sit still and quietly, the only thing you heard being the echo of your heartbeat in your ears.

Suddenly, you received a text notification, causing sound to go off and the director to groan and shoot you an annoyed look. You mumbled a quick “sorry” before switching your phone to vibrate and looking to see who texted you.

After wolfing down a sandwich from the craft services table, you stood in front of the trailer with Ruby’s name on the door, wringing your clammy hands while deciding whether or not to knock. You took a deep breath, raised your knuckles, and knocked three times, taking a step back after.

She answered almost immediately, staring down at you with a comforting grin. “Hey, come on in.”

Walking up the stairs and into Ruby’s trailer, you couldn’t help but notice how much cleaner it was than yours. You weren’t necessarily sloppy, but your vanity was covered in various bottles of blue face paint, while your floor held multiple alien-like prosthetics. Ruby’s was tidier, with a small couch pushed up against the wall, and her vanity holding nothing but some makeup basics and a half-full can of Dr. Pepper she had been drinking right before you walked in.

Ruby took a seat in her vanity chair and took a sip from her Dr. Pepper, motioning for you to sit on the small couch. “What’s going on? You didn’t seem too comfortable with the kissing scene.”

You gulped, staring down at your lap. “It’s not that…”

Ruby sat up, leaning forward to gawk at you. “Oh my god… have you never been kissed?”

“What? No! Of course I have…” you trailed off. “I just… I’ve never stage kissed before, and I know you have, so is it any different from regular kissing? I feel so stupid for asking and I’m so sorry but I didn’t wanna do it wrong while filming and I’m kinda embarrassed that I don’t know the answer so that’s why I wanted to ask you privately because I didn’t wanna fuck up…”

Ruby stared at you, silent and wide eyed. You felt your heartbeat in your ears as you tried to decipher what she was thinking. Suddenly, she threw her head back and let out a hearty laugh. Your heart sank. Here you were being awkward and vulnerable in front of your crush, and she was laughing at you.

Just before you decided to get up and walk out, Ruby calmed down, wiping away a tear and smiling apologetically. “I’m sorry, I promise I’m not making fun of you. I didn’t mean to laugh, really. You’re just so cute.”

You felt your cheeks burn at her words. She thinks you’re cute?

Ruby threw her soda away in a nearby trash can and moved to sit next to you on the small couch. She criss-crossed her legs, turning to face you while pondering how to answer your question.

“So… stage kisses are different from regular kisses, but they’re also not, you know? Like, we’re kissing but we’re not like… kissing.”

She peered over at you, studying your facial expressions. You looked more confused than ever, so she continued her explanation.

“So, if you’re asking if my lips will physically be on your lips… then the answer is yes, they will. But they’re not exactly like the real thing, because it’s more of a demonstration to the audience rather than an act of passion between two people.”

“A demonstration?” You cocked your head. Ruby nodded.

“Yeah, so say the camera was over there…” she pointed out in front of you. “…then you might cup my jaw, or cradle the back of my head. But if you were to grab my face or something like that, it’d look pretty awkward in a fifty-fifty profile shot.”

You nodded in understanding. “Ok… I think I get what you’re saying.”

“There are also different types of kissing.” Ruby continued. “Like, it should portray how your character feels about the other character. When Zephyra has scenes with Calantha, how does she feel?”

You gulped, focusing on your lap again. “Well, to be honest, it kinda feels like there’s a lot of romantic or sexual tension between our characters, but I’ve sort of been suppressing it because I’m not sure that was the intention.”

“But you feel like Zephyra is attracted to Calantha sexually?” Ruby asked. You nodded. “Great! You don’t necessarily have to make it explicit, but something like that can help you dive deeper into your character.”

Ruby scooted closer to you, taking your hands in hers. She gazed at you with half lidded eyes, causing your breathing to accelerate.

“I want you to kiss me.”

Ruby’s words barely resonated in your head, there was no way you heard her correctly. “You… huh?”

“For practice.” Ruby clarified, letting go of your hands. “Like you would during filming. Is that ok?”

An involuntary swallow forced itself down your throat as you nodded. You couldn’t believe you were about to kiss your celebrity crush, even if it was only for practice.

You pressed your hand into her warm cheek, pulling her close and quickly pecking her lips before retreating away. Your face burned from embarrassment while Ruby cocked her head, clearly confused.

“That’s it?” She asked. “My bad, I didn’t realize Calantha was your grandmother.”

Ruby moved closer and cradled the back of your head, entangling her fingers into your soft locks. You felt your hands sweat as her big blue eyes gazed into yours. “I was thinking maybe something more like this…”

She crashed her lips into yours, causing warmth to explode in your chest. Her fingers played with your hair as you began to kiss back, and your arms wrapped around her waist. Holy shit could she kiss! You could barely fathom how soft her lips were, tasting faintly of Dr. Pepper and vanilla lip balm. As hard as you tried to act professional and pretend there was a camera in front of you, every inch of your body screamed at you to succumb to your most primal instincts.

You lifted one hand from her waist and moved to rest it on her mid-thigh, causing a gentle moan to escape from her lips and a shiver to run down her body. Startled, you moved back, throughly convinced that you majorly fucked up.

“Shit, I’m sorry!” You exclaimed, pulling back your hand like it had touched fire. “I wasn’t thinking, fuck. I got too swept up in the moment. I shouldn’t have touched you, that was completely unprofessional.”

“Hm…?” Ruby blinked, still in a daze. “Oh. Oh! You’re good! Don’t be sorry. I liked it. Really.”

Ruby grinned at you shyly. You stared back at her, a question you weren’t quite sure how to ask lingering at the tip of your tongue. “Ruby, are we still… practicing?”

Her smile faded as her eyes went wide, her gaze dropping to her lap. It was her turn to be coy, a sight you’d never seen before.

She dropped her voice to a low whisper as she choked out her question. “Do you want to be?”

Before you could even open your mouth to answer, your phone alarm screeched from your jacket pocket. You took it out, groaning as you turned it off.

Ruby furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. “What was that?”

“My alarm,” you answered. “I have to go.”

“But lunch isn’t over for another twenty minutes.” Ruby pointed out, trying to hide her disappointment.

“Yeah, but I have to head back early so they can touch up my makeup and fix my prosthetics.”

Ruby sighed in understanding. She supposed your costume might have a bit more upkeep than hers. Your prosthetics did look a little wonky after the lunch break, never mind your smudged blue lipstain that made her apprehensive to look in a mirror.

You collected yourself and turned to walk out, but looked over your shoulder before opening the door. “Uhm… Ruby?”

“Hm?” She answered.

You wrung your hands anxiously. “Do you think we could maybe… do this again? Sometime?”

Ruby’s head shot up to look at you, and a playful smile spread across her face. “Do what? More kissing lessons?”

You rolled your eyes as she chuckled, then gave you a lopsided grin. “I’d like that. Lunch again, tomorrow?”

A blush pink color sprinkled across the apples of your cheeks as you smiled back at her, trying your best to stay cool and suppress the giddy feeling that was bubbling inside of you.

“See you then.”

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lovelyghst · 8 months ago

Note

Your last ask about hungry simon and eating your leftovers just warmed my heart!

Like he would have a field day with me cause I can't eat much in one sitting but get hungry easily and sadly get sick fast if I can't eat.

Just Imagine him always having safe snacks on hand and loving strolling around and getting snacks from vendors and such and he just gets more than half of everything cause you get full so fast

Hear me out

You're always cooking for a football team portion wise and and and him praising the food and just really loving it (not me with a praise kink) and you're just glad it doesnt go to waste and he gets to feel full and satisfied

~🍯

[one, two, three.]

honestly!! simon has to carry snacks around with him twenty-four/seven. like, bag of pretzels being dwarfed by his giant palm while he’s walking around the house, emptying a large bag of beef/steak jerky every day and a whole carton of eggs every two days.

being eyed by the employees of a store while you try on clothes because food and drinks aren’t allowed in store yet none of the staff want to be the one to confront the six-foot-four, intimidating, hulking man with an apple in his hand as he watches you do a twirl for him.

and you’re so real for the last part! si has manners, undoubtedly, and he won’t hesitate to let you know how much he appreciates you and your hard work; he’d be such a fool not to.

just walking into his home office while he’s working at his desk, bowl of cut up strawberries and kiwis in hand for him to munch on as you find your place in his lap, possibly for a quick nap. bonus points if you cut the fruits up into little shapes or cover them in melted chocolate.

he gives the best hugs; it’s a given, considering his mass, and he could never say no to the sensation of your arms wrapped around his neck, pretty face buried in his collar, and the calming rhythm of your breathing against his chest reminding him that he could use a break, too.

he loves the effort you put in for him when he doesn’t even ask, and he always makes sure to pay you back for it. sometimes it tugs so severely at his heartstrings that, despite never wanting children or anything of the sort, he suddenly wants to make you a parent. only with him, and so fucking bad that it makes him sick.

but anyways my american brain is taking over and imagine going to a state fair or carnival with him, or just any theme park in general. you know he’s already getting in line for a vendor while he still has the prior’s food in his hand. the idea of him carrying around one of those ginormous turkey legs is so silly to me.

you’re going home with the half-dozen giant stuffed animals he won for you at the shooting games while he’s balancing two funnel cakes and an elephant ear in one hand, and your bag, filled with various sweets and memorabilia, in the other as you hike back to the car.

also, in my mind retired simon would still work as a consultant on a nearby military base a few days of the month or whenever he’s needed, and now i’m thinking about packing him nice lunches for those days, and how absolutely adorable he finds it. he’s glad he still has his own desk because the little love notes you leave in his box quite literally have his heart racing and knees buckling.

guys the demons are winning and now i can’t stop thinking about how good of a (girl!) dad he would be. i’m in shambles.

#love letters <3 #help me #cod mw #simon riley #ghost cod #simon ghost riley #simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #simon riley x female reader #ghost x female reader

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thefusioncelestial · 12 days ago

Text

Mix 13: A Geeky Bulk

Anonymous asked:

I am a chubby and hairy American Guy who is a little on the geeky side of life. I love Jamar Pusch's pecs and how he can make them bounce. Could you merge us please?

For the uninitiated, for those going the natural route of being big & cut at the same time comes in two cycles; the bulk and the cut.

The bulk is when the user focuses on gaining mass, and that means an big calorie intake. That means covering that coveted slab of visible muscles; the abs. But while they join the population of bears, the muscles, when paired with exercise, encourages muscle growth with the building blocks just sitting there.

The cut? Think of it as revealing the results. You go in the opposite direction on calorie & fatty intake and bask in the results. Continuous use of this basic method is how the skinny kid becomes the long lost cousin of Captain America.

Here is one dude who does this:

Jamar Pusch.

Worked his butt off to get that look. You would swear that he was sculpted rather than built up.

Unbeknownst to himself, he is the target of that infamous group we call the prowlers. In this case, a father who wants to give was Jamar has to his wimpy son. You would think that with all the money in the world that he could just pay for the best trainers & dieticians, but many wealthy people can be illogical & demanding.

He procured a bottle of red liquid. All he has to do is pour on the target, and have the one who attends to assimilate touch them.

Jamar is finishing a typical photo-shoot, the best result will go on his Instagram, the rest to whoever he dms. The man is looking for love like the rest us.

His shoot has been infiltrated, a couple of payments here & there under the table, and the father and son arrive to the location using the new info. There are other people there admiring the modern day Adonis. The duo poses as fans. The event concludes, and Jamar goes to a trailer he rented for use for a nearby music cultural event, and the duo follows him.

There is a knock on the door. He opens and sees the father & son standing there gleaming. The son has a nervous energy about him, but Jamar pushes this away as a nervous fan. He beckons them into his trailer for a private supervised one on one meet & greet, and they obliged him.

The father was more excited than the son. Maybe the son was just getting introduced to this world to inspire him to workout? How fatherly.

Unknown to all three of them, a third fan was just out of earshot in the area. He saw this as an opportunity, goes to the trailer as well. The door is unlocked. He goes in, but what he sees angers & shocks him.

Jamar sits the pair down and offers them drinks.

They accept.

The father sees this as his chance.

He uncorks the bottle and splashes the contents on Jamar. He turns around to protest, but soon he freezes up like a statue. The only thing he could do is plead & scream in protest.

"I must thank you Mr. Pusch, I appreciate what you are about to do for my son. He is about to go to college, and I find he will have a better time if he can "hang" with the physically gifted type. Tell me, what sports are you into," he asked in a jubilant manner that turned stern.

His son looked nervous. The father glanced over with a frown at his son.

"Hopefully you will give him your confidence too, I tried so hard to instill courage into him, but his mother may have babied him a bit too much. No matter, let's get this over with," he said.

"Charlie, go shake Mr. Pusch's hand," he said.

The young man walked over silently. Jamar tried his best to move but couldn't. He then saw something. Hope.

The silent fan who came over saw all of this in the trailer. His mouth was agape. Was Jamar about to get kidnapped or worse killed? His anger took over. He dropped his phone that he was going to use to get pictures, and ran over to the father.

The shock of an intruder made the father's heart stop and blood freeze. Was he caught by security? The person coming over was a large man after all. By the time he registered to do something else and than wish for laser beam eyes, he was knocked over.

The son too was shocked at this. He moved his hand away from Jamar, and turned to his father.

Truth be told, he didn't want to change like this. He didn't want to steal someone else's body to appease his father or anyone else for that matter. If he was going to change, it was going to be on his terms. What Charlie wanted to do right now was save his father.

He found his courage.

He ran over, and with an adrenaline boost peeled the large man off his father and shoved him away. But he pushed him in the direction of Jamar.

He crashed into Jamar, and it began.

Surprisingly, Jamar didn't fall over or collapse. He just sort of absorbed the impact. For the large fan, it was like jumping into a combination of marshmallow & quicksand. His body sinked further into Jamar until all there was left was just Jamar.

Jamar cocked his head back & began to shift.

Mentally, Jamar was in this fan's head space. He was getting assimilated by him. Jamar & this fan talked it out. Explaining things from their perspective and then uniting under one cause of escaping from these crazy people. Jamar also convinced him to let him drive the wheel. He sensed that whatever was happening was a done deal, and he would be better steered to handle whatever they are about to become. The mind space inverted. They were in Jamar's mind. The fan broke down into confetti and merged into Jamar. It was time to kick some ass.

In flipping the mind merge, Jamar was able to reverse the physical merge process. The fan would upgrade him.

He let out a soft moan. His body began to quiver & shudder.

His skin grew softer as layers of fat grew all over.

"Hmm."

A warmth washed over stomach, each wave an inch of fat covering his abs.

There was rustling in his pants. His rod grew longer and strained against the tight pants. He grunted and then chuckled.

His neck bulged out & his head lengthened.

His facial features shifted, bigger eyes, smaller lips. A slightly more upturned nose. He kept his ears. His hair shortened.

He took on a darker skin tone as well, but soon after hair began to grow throughout his body.

He opened his eyes. The father & son were shocked by what they saw.

The father snapped out and commanded Charlie to touch the fused Jamar, but nothing happened. One pair per dose, and the father used all of it in one go.

He gave the father a beating. He had to change himself and consume someone else because some jack rabbit of a father wanted a shortcut. Security came in after seeing the trailer move a bit, and apprehended the pair.

The father was charged with attempted kidnapping later on.

The son wasn't a total wash and Jamar would mentor the young man.

As for Jamar, his life trajectory changed. The fan that saved him, was a part of him now, imparted some interesting interests. With the connections he built up, Jamar went into acting; doing mo-cap & voice acting for video games, one of which involved a galaxy far far away. He is having a blast too:

In time Jamar would deal with layers on his stomach. He has been here before many times. He just fast tracked a bulk cycle. Time for the cut.

Wait, did that water bottle move by itself?

#male merge #body merging #merging tf #male fusion #fusion #thefusioncelestial #male body transformation #male transformation #merge #musclegrowth #muscle #muscular #assimilation #assimilate #jock #jock to nerd #jock to bear

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angellurgy2 · 4 months ago

Text

Pull The Trigger

your favourite freak's writing agaain! you ever wanted to read a story about a homophobic gamer boy getting doxxed and raped? well here u go! ^-^ part two coming soon

cw: noncon, forced gay, slurs, shit like that

sandstone brick, towering ahead. trapped in a corner, waiting, ak-47 comfortable in hand. listening, watching, pixel-perfect gaze. the soft pitter patter of booted footsteps approaching on sand. spin, shoot before you see. three shots of triple-round burst to centre mass. dead.

multiple pings hit the wall ahead of him, pelted at while his back was turned. losing health rapidly. he flicks and sends his barrel spinning 180 in the opposite direction, blind trading fire.

he screams into his bulky turtle beach headphones as the body in front of him ragdolls, screen blurring with bloody low health warnings. “YEAAAH FAGGOT, YOU LIKE THAT?”

he’s swiftly popped into the win screen, all chat and winner microphones switched on to offer a chance to flaunt or whine.

[ALL] TriggerFinger: get GUD fags i’ll wipe u in the next one 2 lmao

[ALL] XxxGr1mR3eaperxxX: dude you suck u just got lucky

[ALL] TriggerFinger: i bet u kno a lot about sucking huh?

[ALL] TriggerFinger: just like your MOM

trigger clicks on to queue for the next game, a satisfied gleam plastering his face as everyone else is gone to the aether.

in the top left of his screen as loading screens trawl pops a message from an unfamiliar user. not on his friends list, rather it looks like they’re in the ‘recently played with’ section. probably just another noob coming to rage.

[PRIVATE] Anonymous-Specter: that was pretty rude, you know.

‘ThAt WaS pReTtY rUde-’ what a beta.

[PRIVATE] TriggerFinger: why shld i care? get a life faggot. lmao

[PRIVATE] Anonymous-Specter: you really shouldn’t talk to people like that.

this guy’s clearly got some form of retardation keeping him from getting the hint. but trigger’s got better shit to do. the loading screen for this game always takes so long. he grabs a pack of shrimp tempura cup ramen off the nearby shelf and fills it with day-old water from his water bottle, shoving it in the microwave for a couple minutes. he numbly trawls through social media feeds, doomscrolling the beautiful faces on instagram before that gets boring, then the stale porn on twitter, then the ragebait on 4chan. nothing satisfying his appetite except this one clip of some guy eating shit on his first try skateboarding, which too is ethereal in the drips of serotonin it gives.

ding!

he grabs his soppy steaming meal and brings it back over to his computer, stirring it with a stray fork before moving back into the screen. the first thing he sees is another message from the same person as before. he rolls his eye and opens the notification.

[PRIVATE] Anonymous-Specter: this you? 78.222.0.13

[PRIVATE] TriggerFinger: TF??

he thinks he’s so cool. trigger quickly tabs over to chrome, typing into the address bar ‘whats my ip ad-’ before it autofills. he clicks in, praying for the release of the little ball of stress slowing spreading in his chest. only to have it implode. IPv4… 78.222.0.13

ok. well, he’s probably just trying to scare you. theres not much you can do with a few numbers. he remembers the streamers he’s watched being ddos’ed and how freaked out they’d always get. he can’t find that humour in the angered horror on their faces now, though.

[PRIVATE] TriggerFinger: thats not my fuckin IP asshole. ur not funny

[PRIVATE] Anonymous-Specter: i think it’s pretty funny.

[PRIVATE] Anonymous-Specter: see you soon :)

trigger looks around his surroundings. nothing around, just the same open bland studio basement. mattress on the floor, check. couch, check. tv, check. tiny window that shows literally nothing but a foot of grass? check. its hard for him to hide the scowl of hatred at this empty rotting enclosure. shit, did you lock the door? he runs up and flicks it locked like how a child runs up the stairs when they’re scared a monsters behind them. not because of this ‘specter’ though. just normal precaution. he wouldn’t let another man take up space in his mind like that.

trigger sits. unable to pull his focus enough to start another game, or to divest himself entirely. stuck in a limbotic resting space. he grabs the monster can sitting on his desk - one of many - and pours it down his throat with anxious franticity. after staring at the screen for long enough, with nothing else he can see to do, he types.

[PRIVATE] TriggerFinger: What r u talking about? fuckin weirdo

10 minutes pass.

[PRIVATE] TriggerFinger: hello?

nothing at all. empty threats and childish games. who puts in that much effort just to cause a little scare? freak, probably a faggot too.

he sighs and switches over to spotify, plugging his favourite XXXtentacion album into his grindy bluetooth speaker and grabbing a pre-roll from his weed drawer. a rusted old lighter folds between his fingers. flick, flick. hot choking mist fills his mouth and then suffuses his screen as he blows it back into the stale air. he lies idly spinning in his gaming chair, puffing until its gone and until the words leave his head. empty.

but not for long, apparently.

a resoundingly loud knocking thuds at his door. earthquaking enough to shake him out of his seatlock. but the tremors remain, rocking through his veins. he gingerly lowers his eye to the peephole. a short man looks up from a foot away, holding some sort of black bag. this is it trigger, time to man up. he paces back with soft steps, pulling a steak knife from the block and holding it behind his back. no more games, this is real life. no more being harassed by that bitch landlord, no more bad looks when mom and dad visit. when the police find him beaten and you on top you won’t have to feel bad anymore.

he opens the door.

“Hello. uber for trig?”

he doesn’t remember ordering any food, was he really that faded?

“it’s… trigger. but that’s me, yeah.”

the man passes trigger an unlabelled brown bag from the bigger unlabelled black bag. something liquid seeps out of the corner.

“have a great night, sir!”

trigger tosses the bag onto the table already scattered with trash. throwing the knife onto the counter along with it. being paranoid is the sign of a weak mind, you need energy. he thinks about the shrooms his bro gave him a couple weeks back, saved for a special occasion in a box under his bed. the devil and angel on his shoulders scream.

he examines the food. taco bell crunchwrap and spilled soda, amazing. he begins to clean it up right as a CLFBKGBNJ clanging from the kitchenette behind his back rings out. he turns to see a tall, muscley imposing man already towering over him from there. backing up slowly, like hes a blind animal that’ll pounce at any moment.

“hey there.”

“hi???” his words spit out with a spiteful acidity, tantrumic.

“you must be trigger.” his monotone face twists upwards into a cruel mockery of a smile. he examines trigger up and down, who shivers at being ogled like meat.

he hears his dad in his head. puff up your chest, faggot. you can’t let people walk over you like a little bitch all the time. he straightens his back, stops retreating. his voice mimics a tough deepness.

“you need to g-get the fuck out of my house.”

specter tilts his head with curiosity. trigger can feel the aftershocks of monster and adrenaline crumpling his heart as he looks into the intruders eyes. a dark jade gazes back, blank. empty. like null space inside his skull, giving off only the aesthetic of a watching being. beyond the entrancing holes, partially hidden behind curtains of frayed brown locks, a jagged scar cuts through his face, curved and serrated with the impression of its assailant.

“it’s not really your house though, is it?”

trigger stares back dumbly. specter lifts up a chiseled arm and knocks on the roof, indicating where the landlord resides. “it’s theirs, really.” he takes a step forward.

“what’s your fucking problem man?”

another step back. guarding facade broken as quickly as it was put up. you’re weak. pathetic. he can smell it on you, just like they all can.

“here to give you an attitude adjustment.” he says it so monotone, like reading a script. as if you should know what that means. specter gives a wide scan of the interior. sizing up your crime scene? this won’t be going the way you think it will, buddy. “this is a pretty shit place you got here”

“not any more shit than the goon cave you probably got, bitch”

the molded smile on specter’s face drops in a second. in 3 sudden steps forward he closes most of the gap between them, the air between the two grows cold. trigger has no choice but to back up more to keep the feeling of safety. the distance between handler and beast, but there’s no leash here. and there’s no medic to save him.

“listen.. s-specter? right?” he looks into those dead eyes with a quiver hes kept hidden for so long. “i'm sorry i insulted you or- or whatever i didn’t mean it okay? that’s just online shit, this isn’t real.”

specter takes another wordless step, and trigger hits the wall. this isn’t real.

“why so quiet all of a sudden?” his hand reaches out and cups triggers chin, his face too frozen with animalistic chemicals to react. forcing trigger’s weak inebriated gaze to meet his, dead yet malevolent. “are you scared of me?”

trigger spits in his face. “you- couldn’t. scare me.”

untrimmed nails dig sharply into the base of his skull. “i will.”

“my dads the chief of police. you don’t wanna do this.” he tries to put on monotone the best he can, head as swirly with emotions as it is.

specter chortles. “no he’s not”

the music emanating from trigger’s desk scratches hard as it changes into a fast-paced track. specter’s eyes and ears twitch in its direction like a bat.

“this is what you listen to?” his smile almost looks genuine this time. he gestures at the ground below them. “stay here.”

he turns and moves to walk past trigger, when he jumps into action, leaping at the man with a guttural yell. “AA-”

immediately cut off by searing blunt force ripping through his gut, sending him crumpling to the floor with the force of extraneous gravity. so you’re a warlock, subclassed into gravitational magic, is that it? he gets up onto his hands and knees, a trail of saliva connecting his lips to the dirty linoleum floors. he chokes on each breath he tries to take in. the pain is unlike anything his soft and unexplored body has experienced before.

specter walks away to the booming speaker, pulling out a black rectangle from the pocket of the black jeans sticking to his legs.. the speakers switch to a new track, unfamiliar to his ears. some kind of aggressive rapping, underscored by a metallic sharp noise groove. he tries to listen for words, analyzing the rhythm and slotting it with memories of other songs to try and figure out what it is. but before he can comprehend the first words to come out, a rigid boot crashes into the side of his ribs.

dazed on the ground, heaving for the little pieces of air that’ll fit through his trachea, cartoons birds twirling over his head as he stares up into the ceiling.

a sharp sound cuts through his stupor. “you’re funny” says specter, “i really thought you’d have more fight in you.”

PHWACK. the sound of some elastic material slapping against skin, a black glove clinging to specter’s boney hand.

trigger’s shocked by the feeling of cold on his bare stomach, face twisting with rage but the rest of the body betrays him with frozen fear. specter begins to slowly lift triggers shirt, feeling up his concave flesh with rubber digits.

specter flinches back as a red handprint manifests on his cheek. i wasnt even thinking i didnt mean to i just-

a vice grip takes hold of his windpipe, holding it hostage. the hand begins to rise upwards, holding him against a wall that wasnt there two seconds ago, and then he has to fight with his noodlish body to stand up before it rips his throat right out. “you’re so weak. how did you make it so long, bullying people like that?” his other hand then puts itself to use. the cold rises up triggers body slow and nerve-wracking. he tries not to feel it and to just keep his eyes on him. the tangible, hurtable, beast.

his mind lags from his body, not realizing he’s on the ground before he already is. terrifyingly strong knees spreading his legs apart ever so slightly, invading hand-shaped ghosts pinning him into the dirty floor face-first. months of uncaring habitation coming back to bite him in the ass all at once. his eyes jump from little pieces of dust and crumbs, filling his vision more than their existence is intended for. brought low with the trash. maybe you should’ve listened to mom.

a bottle squirts loudly out of his sight. he tries to spin his head around but he’s just met with increased pressure on his neck, pinning him down like meat on a butcher’s table. fuck this. thrashing out with all the strength in his limbs- it forces specter to change up his positioning, but even then you can’t make a single scratch, slapping at this very real intruder like a whiney little girl.

“stop it.” he says it like he’s talking to a petulant child, dry and tired.

“fuck you! get off me!”

a rubbery object shoves itself down his throat as he opens his mouth to yell more obscenities. fingers ripping open his jaw, dispelling his pleas into inhuman garbling.

“reht rre throo!”

he looks around, there has to be something he can do. everything is dark blobs because of his eyes wetting from the fingers assault of his uvula. heavy whispers assault the back of his neck, venom in his blurred ears. “i could take out a tooth. how about that?”

he shakes his head, as much as he can crushed between these manly hands.

water trickles down from the corners of his eyes. fuck, don’t let him see you crying, that’s the ultimate defeat. man card revoked. the only benefit of this positioning is that only the tile can see your face’s treason.

the hand abruptly leaves and moves back to the rest of his body. not preferable, but at least now his eyes will stop coating themselves in water. there has to be something on this floor somewhere if he can look.

blood coats his vision. bloody floor, bloody nose, face shoved into a pool of it. he can feel his nose contort under the hard material, head bouncing off it with a loud crack.

‘look’, you shouldve known better. thousands of hours of experience watching torture scenes in COD, and you think he’s gonna give you a break? you’re not the shooter like you thought you were, you’re just the dead russian snitch.

slender hands dip under the waistband of his sweatpants, threatening with slow dragging downwards. fuck, he is a fag. so much screaming in his head, be a man be strong fight back faggot stop being a fucking BETA. but the weak trembling in every inch of his nervous system won’t let go. the part that knows what you are. weak little soyboy. shit, was it the burger king? he looks at the softness of his tiny arms splayed out in front of him, thinking back to all those impossible whoppers he had during that first (and last) year of college. sure there were the conspiracies but- he had to lose some weight and it was right next to his dorm and surely a little bit of hormonal meat couldn’t hurt anyone. well, apparently not. he shudders at the thought of all those tiny little girl particles running around in his bloodstream.

coldcoldcoldcoldcold fuck. something cold and wet drips down his ass, sending rippling twitches through his body. something small pokes and prods, forcing the wet inside, already he feels speared through, he has to purposefully hold his face together to not burst into open sobbing.

“shhh sh sh. it’s okay. you’ll take it.”

it pulls out, a hot emptiness filling all feeling. another squirt, and more wetness shoved so deep he cant handle in the choking cries. “please. please don’t. i don’t- i’m not-” cut off by the finger pulling out again, leaving his hole gaped. “Fuck stop im not gay pleasepleasepleasepl”

a sweaty palm wraps over his mouth.

something warm and hard and fleshy begins to rub circles around his hole. pressing up so close his breath hitches in fear it might go in and then pulling back and then repeating.

“be a good boy and stay quiet, trig.”

pushing pushing pushing pushing pushing pushing

“HEEEEELPP WAIT PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME PLEASE HELP NONONONONONONO STOPP#&$*%9

&$#%^#^%)#!($#$^%

##&% %%#(% %$$*$#&

*#$&$THELP

* * *

specters hard chest presses up close and warm against trigger’s back. hot, heavy breathing forces its way into his ear. they stay there for a moment, frozen in time. a breaking point cut, getting a cinematic view of his own ruination. what a shitty fucking movie this is.

“mmhng-” specter pulls back, breaking the trance, almost making trigger wish he would’ve just stayed inside. he grunts at the feeling of trembling boyflesh seizing on his cock, shaking with each inch moved in either direction, clenching for dear life. he grips a handful of trigger’s hair and pulls it back, forcing his limp and drooling expression into specter’s vision.

“so, what was it?” the burning rod of pressure starts to move faster, thrusting with detached force, muscular hips bouncing off trigger’s ass. “dad beat you?” another assault forward, enunciating each bit of words with the slapping of their flesh. “mom molest you?” it hurts sososososososososo bad but he cant feel anything other than the pain nothing but searing waves of some long-forbidden feeling. “or- fuck- you just get bullied too much in those squishy formative years?”

boiling hot rain streams down his face, terror burning his eyes blind. choking sobs spit out little bits of snot and saliva pooling with his tears below him in a sad filth soup.

“oh c’mon-” specter reaches in closer, thoughtlessly pushing his cock into a switch that turns triggers legs to jelly. a waterfall of tears overlaid with shameful noises, the kind he’d before only ever heard through the speakers of a computer. each one abrading his will even more. he was supposed to be on the other side, not this. anything but this.

“please stop”

“it’s too late.” his hand brushes triggers cheek, mimicking a comforting motion with uncomfortable skin, “you can never take back what’s already happened… and what’s about to.”

#queue #puppy writing #rbs encouraged i want attention ><#triggers also the new boy name i go by btw but only real ones who look at this shit get to know that

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sp0o0kylights · 2 years ago

Text

Steve And Robin Are Stuck in A Timeloop AU

Steve's lost track of which time loop this is.

Had lost track pretty much instantly, because it turns out when people die repeatedly in front of you, it kinda takes precedence in your memory.

Besides, Robin has a list in her head, memorized via some kind of musical code, alongside all the dates and times they wake up in.

(Steve doesn't see what difference it makes if they wake up at 7:15 am the day of the Championship or 8:25 am, but Robin's insistent that even the slightest variations could mean something.)

He’ll have to ask his soulmate when he finds her though, because presently Steve has determined they're having one of their weirder loops.

Typically, when the two of them get kicked back in time, they wake up the day of the Championship game. Occasionally it will be the day right before or the day after, but sometimes?

Sometimes they’re sent back someplace, some time, that isn’t related to 1986 at all.

Thus far, the Starcourt loop had been the worst.

("If it happens a third time I'm killing myself." Steve had told Robin after they’d failed that one.

Robin didn’t even look at him, the two of them huddled up together in Steve’s bed. "No you're not Dingus, not without shooting me first."

"How come I have to shoot you!? Is it because I'm a man? That's not very feminist of you."

"No its because you've seen me shoot, I would miss!")

Steve had even woken up in an odd place. Not his bed or the couch, but the driver's seat of the Beamer, seated in the high school parking lot.

It made him immediately uneasy.

The chair is reclined all the way back, the mass of cars indicating it was a school day. Steve struggled to recall when he's ever taken a nap in his car as he got out of it, trying to decide how he wanted to go about things.

Felt his pocket and was surprised to find it full of a packet of smokes.

The sheer implication of that had him pulling out a cig and lighting it before the knowledge that he'd officially quit buying his own cigarettes in 1985 sank in.

Panicked and chainsmokes three, before deciding his best course of action was his usual one.

Find Robin.

Which of course means that he found Eddie instead.

xxx

He’d started his first lap, walking out if the parking lot and round to the more shaded, empty parts of the building when a voice he knew yelled.

The kind of yell he’d grown intimately familiar with, the one Eddie used when he was terrified and using anger to hide it.

Steve turns automatically, following the taunts and loud, pained breathing until he finds a handful of jocks encircling the metalhead. He's down on one knee, snarling like a wildcat caught in a trap while some guy Steve barely recognizes holds him by the hair, laughing.

Red coats his vision instantly, and any thoughts Steve had about being stuck in time (sort of) vanish from his mind entirely.

The world shrinks down, to that white knuckled grip on Eddie's hair, the way it’s pulling the older boy’s face up so that Steve can see the straining muscles in his throat.

The protective creature that lives in his chest and likes to punch it’s way out of problems awakens, and a thrum goes through Steve as he feels its demand for blood.

"Hey fellas " Steve calls joyfully, striding directly into the crowd. "What’re we doing?"

Two part before him like fish seeing a shark,and a faraway inner voice identifies them as members of the swim team.

Which likely meant the other two were football players, and for all the tackling they did they were surprisingly easy to scare, if you knew how to play it right.

Steve absolutely knew how to play it right.

"Fuck off Harrington. This isn't your business." The one holding Eddie's hair spits.

"Well that would be where you're wrong." Steve was still keeping things conversational as he positioned himself, arms nice and loose at his sides. He lets the thing that lives inside him, who made him turn right back around all those years ago and charge back into the Byers house, out a little more. Feels the need to protect, to save, to destroy the things that are his, fuel him. "Seeing as all of Eddie's business is my business."

Eddie stares up at him, wide eyed at the declaration.

Feeling entirely out of control of his body, Steve sends him a wink.

"Since when!?" The other football player asks.

"Since now." Steve declares cheerfully--and then smiles.

It isn’t a nice smile.

Thoroughly unnerved, his swim team members shrink back. He’ll have words for them later if he has time--Steve can't ever recall the swim team members being dicks but who fucking knows.

His memory wasn't the best before he and Robin got stuck in time.

"You fucking into drugs now or wha--" Their ringleader, still holding onto Eddie by the hair, doesn't get to finish his sentence.

Mostly because his mouth is too busy catching Steve's fist.

Fighting, he knows, is something he does best when it's too the death and he's armed with something.

Bonus points if his opponent is a horrific monster from another dimension.

He has gotten better though, and here the rapid pace he sets feels almost too easy.

The first guy goes down on the ground before the rest pick up on it, giving Eddie time to lurch backwards as Steve turns and torpedoes into the next jock.

This one gets in a good shot--Steve staggers with a blow to his side but it's not enough to wind him. He keeps to his feet and advances, delivering one more punch before the swim team guys are trying to call him off.

"Come on man, you're gonna kill them!"

Steve almost laughs-- he hasn't come close to killing either idiot-- but backs away, keeping himself between them and Eddie.

They wave their hands, getting ahold of their bloodied friends as they slowly ease between them and Steve. Make apologizes and promises that it was a poor joke, Munson just got to them, hot heads you know?

Steve snarls at them to fuck off, and glares until they're gone.

"What the hell just happened?" Eddie asks him, and Steve turns to find him on his feet, leaning heavily against the brick wall of the school.

As far as he can get away from Steve.

"Our football quarterback can't hit for shit." Steve informs him, having finally placed an least one of the guys. "It's probably why we always lose."

Eddie gives him such a freaked out face it almost makes him laugh a second time.

The effect isn't helped by the fact that Eddie's normally long mane is hovering just over his shoulders, the curls somehow poofier than normal. Clearly he’s still trying to grow it out, but it just makes him look like one of those frazzled dogs.

Adorable.

On instinct Steve reaches out to playfully pull a few strands, then freezes when Eddie flinches from him.

"Sorry." He keeps his hands up, as he takes in Munson's face. "Shit dude, he got your nose good."

There's blood smeared under it, and given the look of the skin surrounding it?

Eddie's gonna have an impressive bruise soon enough.

Steve gets a glare sent his way. "Why do you care?" Eddie spits, back very much still up, and-- right.

Right.

Time travel.

"I'm really bad at explaining it." Steve warns, running a hand through his hair. He did this part plenty without Robin (meeting Eddie that was--Robs usually tackled Nancy.) But he also typically did in it 1986, and with at least three of the kids, not whenever they currently were.

"We usually start with facts only you'd know, but I don't actually know when I am right now." He finishes, and realizes immediately that it doesn’t make a lick of sense.

"When you are?" Eddie asks, because of course he clocks that part immediately.

"Ye--eah." Steve says, dragging out the word.

He looks at Eddie desperately, like the metalhead will tell him the exact information he needs.

Eddie just stares back.

"Look, it sounds really stupid when you say it out loud." Steve says finally, because fuck, it does!

"Comparable to all the other times you talk out loud?" Eddie snips, voice full of venom.

"Shut up.” Steve replies automatically, but his tone holds no heat. He’s too used to trading banter with Eddie that is friendly. “I'm gonna preface this by saying I can prove it."

"Oh wow preface. Such a big word for you! Did Nancy Wheeler teach you that one?"

"Robin actually." Then, "Nancy?"

The look Eddie gives him could melt steel beams. "Yeah man. Nancy Wheeler. Your girlfriend."

"Oh--oh god." Steve says, because that means they're way back. Possibly to the beginning.

Or worse, before he and Nancy had broken up.

"I can’t handle that breakup a second time." He says wide eyed, the panic gripping him for a second. “I could-no, no I could get Robin to tell her!”

Because that sure would work.

Steve can just imagine it now. Robin, sauntering up to Nancy and going ‘Hey, we really haven’t met yet but you’re gonna dump Steve, if you haven’t already and to cut through all the drama, I’m here to just tell you on his behalf that it’s over. What was that? A coward? Why yes, he is one!’

You know, provided she didn’t just laugh in his face and then cuff him over the head when she realized he was being serious.

“Dude.” Eddie says, sinking a world’s worth of judgment into the single syllable.

“Yeah, you’re right, bad call.” Steve says, and whatever Eddie was expecting it clearly wasn’t that.

“Are you on drugs right now?” Eddie finally asks when Steve reverts back to looking to him as if he’s going to help. A bad habit, and one Steve knows he needs to stop doing.

Even if Eddie, in the original timeline and every one after they got him on board, eventually becomes someone Steve can rely on like that.

“You can tell me if you are, man, you know I won’t judge.” The hateful air around him is fading into something more confused, and then into something else entirely. The persona Eddie pulls when he’s hurt and trying to hide it with jokes and rants. “Unless you and your buddies bought from someone that wasn’t me, in which case I get exclusive rights to judge.”

He’s shifting as he finally stands up off the wall, and Steve doesn’t miss how he hugs one hand to a rib.

Shit.

He needs to get Eddie up to speed and he needs to do it fast.

Steve sighs and just starts listing Eddie Munson Facts like an unprepared kid who was called on in class.

"Okay, so your uncle collects mugs, right? And--fuck I don't know when you get all the tattoos,” Steve makes a vague gesture around his chest, “but you have bats on your arm and you gave them all names."

Eddie's eyes pop wide again, jaw slacking as Steve volleys off a few more Munson Facts.

"You have this weird fear about red ribbon necklaces because of a book you read in third grade, your first guitar has this giant ugly--sorry dude, but you cannot write legibly to save your life, 'This machine slays dragons' quote across it and--oh!"

He was so fucking stupid. The answer was literally staring at him in the face, dangling around Eddie's neck.

Steve snapped his fingers excitedly. "The guitar pick on your neck is your moms!"

Eddie’s mouth open and closes like a fish, long enough that the smile slowly slides off of Steve’s face.

"How the fuck do you know all that?" He manages after a long, tortuous moment, looking like he’d been sucker punched.

Again.

With the most pained look his face can manage, Steve finally answers. "Time travel."

Eddie blinks.

Then blinks again.

"Time travel." He echoes faintly.

"Yeah. I'm from 1986, where things kinda got really fucked up."

"No kidding?" Eddie says, right before he erupts into giggles.

"Did they get you in the head?" Steve asks, abruptly concerned, as Eddie collapses back against the wall in a growing fit of laughter.

Concussed Eddie was not a road he wanted to go down but Steve knew better than anyone what happens if you ignore such things.

"I think my weed just hit." Eddie explains as he wipes away a tear, and Steve wants to shake him, but knows it won't get him anywhere.

"That's great. That's just great." He grumbles, hands going onto his hips. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"To get you a bandage. And then find Robin.”

Robin, Steve decided, could handle a high, concussed Eddie.

#I do write more than pre steddie #but some days it doesnt feel like it #not even gonna lie this not-fic was just an excuse to write six million meet cutes #steddie #pre steddie #time loop au #stranger things #Eddie Munson #steve harrington #drug mention #hurt/comfort #sorta

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ashintheairlikesnow · 3 months ago

Text

The Only One Alive

Bleeding in Moonlight: Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three |

CW: Buried alive, digging out of grave, referenced mass murder, werewolves, nonhuman whumpee, captivity, escape, dehumanizing language, my boy is a survivor

Earlier

Misae hadn't known what was happening, at first.

He’d been locked up alone in a cage in the barn for a week straight after accidentally nipping at Ada’s hand the last time the humans had cut him to take blood. He’d been able to hear the noise of the packs in the kennels, at least, and had sometimes howled just to hear their answering howls in return - until Bill or somebody else came out and yelled and they all went silent again.

All day, there had been the grumbling roar of machinery somewhere off in the big clearing behind Bill’s house, where the humans lived. All day, things had driven close and then far, close and then far. When Bill’s younger son Aaron had brought Misae his midday meal, he’d dropped the bowl through the bars in a hurry so he could rush back outside, to help or to watch. He’d ignored Misae’s hesitant questions - until the moon rose, he’d been human in shape, curled up in the cage with a blanket over his lap.

The real humans always ignored them, or hurt them, when they tried to speak. Misae mostly didn’t talk anymore. He had been whipped too many times to keep trying.

It was only after the moon rose, and the shift had taken hold and the voices of Misae’s family had switched from soft human speech to rumbling growls and howling, that the machinery stopped its cacophony.

Shortly after that, the dying began.

At first, the sounds he could hear didn't make any sense. Misae had flattened his own ears against his head to muffle the shouting of the real humans, but it still hurt. Even here, forgotten inside the barn, all the yelling and ordering and threats had been deafeningly loud to his canine ears.

He’d ended up trying to press his paws up and over them, but even that wasn’t enough.

The sounds the packs made were even more confusing. He could hear the cries of them all, young and old. One of those howls might be his mother, or a deeper pleading for mercy could have been from his father, but the children born in the kennels were never told who had borne them.

The humans didn’t think werewolves should remember their children, who Bill called ‘puppies’, so they took them after 12 weeks and washed their parents’ smells off them and then handed them off to be raised in the kennels by all the shifters together.

Misae had never know which voice singing a lullaby might have been the first. Everyone was his mother or father, and no one was.

For a while, lying in that cage in the barn, he’d heard the pleading and the shouting, fear and rage, uncertainty and maybe even occasional hope that this might be freedom.

Then the first shots rang out.

The loud, horrible sounds of the special gun with its huge silver bullets had gone on and on and on. There had been high-pitched squeals and canine screams. Maybe they were being moved, and needed to be herded onto trailers. They’d moved once, a long time ago when Misae was still carried on someone’s hip. They’d been pushed into trailers in sweltering summer heat and driven from Bill’s last house to this new one, built far away from everyone and everything.

A few from the packs had protested and tried to fight back. The guns had come out, then - the first time Misae had ever heard them. A couple of the wolves had been shot to show all the others how serious Bill was, and they’d all been good then.

So, for a while, Misae thought they were just herding the wolves, and shooting stragglers or fighters.

But… the shots didn’t stop.

They went on and on and on, with the humans only pausing long enough to reload before firing again.

The howls of pain built, voices layering over each other. Something was happening that had never happened before, in Misae’s memory. They weren’t culling, killing the rebels and fighters to leave behind the softer, sadder, obedient wolves to be studied.

Misae was listening to them die.

All of them.

It was Austin who eventually remembered Misae, alone in the barn. Austin came in with a white face and white-rimmed walleyes to unlock Misae’s cage. He tossed a loop of heavy rope over his head, jerking it tight enough to choke him as he slowly dragged him out. Misae [pressed himself against the back of the cage and dug his paws into the dirt, but he wasn’t strong enough. His nails left marks in the dirt.

Tail tucked under his body, he was forced inch by inch towards the barn door and the squeals and whines and whimpers. They were begging not to die, asking why. The packs had been so good when studied. They had been obedient animals and they cried in confusion and terror when it wasn’t enough, asking the humans over and over why this was happening, what they had done wrong.

The humans couldn’t hear any of it. They didn’t have the right kind of ears.

But Misae did.

Later, he would see that Bill’s family shot the werewolves with silver under the light of the full moon because it was easier to kill them as wolves rather than face murdering them as men. At the time, though, he understood nothing but his own fear. His only awareness was of the pounding beat of his heart being maybe the last thing he would ever feel other than pain, the darkness that would follow it, and finally the promised, inevitable fires of Hell.

Monsters only had one afterlife, after all. Bill always said so.

“Come on, Rusty, you stupid fucker,” Austin snarled, but his heart wasn’t in the anger he put into his voice. Misae dimly realized Austin was scared, too. “Dad will blow a gasket if he realizes I forgot you were in here-... come on!”

Misae whined. Austin jerked the noose tight again to cut the sounds off, but he wouldn’t look right at Misae as he pulled him along. Austin looked like he’d seen a ghost. No, he looked like what he was - someone not much older than Misae was, forced to make ghosts. He’d probably made three dozen of them by now as Misae listened-

Misae tossed his head back and howled.

No one answered the call.

No one was left with enough breath to do it.

There was a big hole dug in the clearing.

That’s what the machinery had been doing all day, dragging huge piles of earth up and out, depositing it into a big pile off to one side. A hole like a wound in the grass had been left, nearly filled now by blood and fur and open, unseeing eyes. The sight loomed so large in Misae’s mind that he didn’t really see it at all.

His mind instead simply let horror wash over him even as it refused to accept the images his eyes tried to share. He would never be able to clearly recall the sight. He owed it to them, his pack, his family, to remember their deaths but his eyes and his brain would never allow it. Instead, he heard the sounds.

Some of them were still whimpering, when Misae was pushed up to the edge of the hole. Some of them were still whining. Some of them were only breathing, loud, heavy gasps that held too much blood in struggling lungs. He heard them all.

He would hear them all in his sleep, when he slept, for the rest of his life.

When Misae turned his head away from the horror of the pit, his eyes met the depthless black of the barrel of Austin’s gun instead. Austin’s hands were shaking, and the barrel kept dancing too far to the right or the left, unable to settle on its aim.

Misae dropped his head slightly. He let out a soft, plaintive whine.

“Shut the fuck up,” Austin hissed. He looked like he was going to be sick any second, throw up all over the dead wolves behind Misae or all over himself. “Don’t do that. I have to-... I have to.”

Misae looked away again. He made himself take one step, and then another, hovering just at the edge of the pit, looking down into a dozen open eyes, some wide with fear, and some seeing nothing at all any longer.

“Look… I’m sorry, Rusty,” Austin said, voice low. “I really am sorry. But I have to.”

BOOM.

Misae’s heart stopped.

His body toppled forward and he fell gracelessly into the pit.

Misae landed heavily on top of warm bodies, smeared in blood. It smelled like his family, and like metal and fire, and death. He knew what silver felt like in his body, how badly the agony would overtake everything else. It confused him when he realized he didn’t feel that pain. How could he be dead without hurting first? Had it been instantaneous, a shot to the head? Was he going to drift here in a corpse-body until Hell came for him?

He stretched one paw and then another. He took the deepest breath he could. His heart was still beating. He was alive.

Austin had missed.

The relief was overwhelming. One of the others was trying to move, Nina he thought, and her huge paw pushed against Misae’s snout, forcing his head to turn painfully to one side. He nearly bit his own tongue to keep from making any noise. Her huge body settled over his, jerking reflexively as she kept trying to move. Nina whined, low in her throat, again and again.

Someone else rolled, and pressed against him on another side.

He heard Austin above him, sounding farther away than he really was. There was another shot. Nina jolted and went still. “Okay… okay, got him that time. I’m sure I did… I’m sure.” Austin didn’t sound sure. His voice trembled. He retched, and Misae listened to him and wondered why he was losing his supper over the murders he had been the one to commit.

“Oh, baby, it’s okay, you’re okay,” Someone else soothed. Sandra, Misae thought, maybe. Bill’s wife. “Remember, not ‘him’... ‘It’. Don’t act like they’re people. Doesn’t matter if you hit it, it’ll suffocate once we get the dirt back in, anyway.” Her voice softened. Misae could imagine she hugged Austin, her precious son. What was having a mother like? “You did a good job, Aussie. It was a cleansing. The versipellis is washed clean and clear, and we can begin again. Your dad will figure out a cure one day, I know he will. He’d been led… this is his calling.”

“I hope not,” Austin replied. “I hope we’re… I hope we’re done, Mom.”

Nina, on top of him, was going limp, turning to dead weight. Misae could barely breathe.

“Dad will stop trying to figure out werewolves now, right?” Austin sounded… young. And softer, maybe further away. They were leaving. “We won’t have to do this again?” There wasn’t a reply, not one that traveled to Misae at least. After a pause, Austin made a noise of despair that made Misae want to laugh, with hysterical loathing and panic. “Please, Mom, tell me he’s going to stop now. Tell me he won’t just go find another group to run his tests on. Please tell me he’s done!”

The roar of the big machinery began again, and Misae didn’t know what Sandra might have said next.

Would there be other wolves in the kennels, soon enough? Other puppies born in the shed and then taken away to be blood-tested for the sickness? Would the new wolves smell the deaths of the last ones, and know that they would probably end up here, too, once all these bodies had turned to bones?

The first heap of earth fell.

All of those still alive began a new and frantic struggle. Their howls were more like screams, now, so loud that Misae’s whole head throbbed with them. He knew he was making sounds, too, but he couldn’t really hear them over his own heartbeat and the sound of static inside his head. He couldn’t even begin to stop himself. He could feel the vibration in his throat.

Another of his pack - Den, lying beside him and who was probably a littermate, even though nobody was supposed to know who their litter-siblings were - had gone still, too. Misae tried to wriggle out from under Nina, but her weight felt impossible, and with every passing minute more and more dirt fell. Covering the wolves, cutting them off from the moonlight. Misae went blind, except for a little sliver he could see when he dared open his eyes, before he had to clench them shut against the dirt that kept trying to work its way in.

For a while, he was surrounded by the whines, the whimpers, the pain and fear. His pack still begging for mercy, even now, even as they were buried. Wriggling, hot fur and the smell of blood overran every other scent in the world. Blood and silver, burning them from the inside out.

Each of their voices went silent, one by one.

Eventually, finally, he could hear his own whimpering.

Misae was the only one left making any sound.

Still, he could see a hint of the moonlight against the back of his closed eyes. The dirt was heavier on one side of the hole than the other, it hadn’t been evenly filled in. They might come back and push it over, though, make it solid and impenetrable, rob Misae of the air he still had to breathe. Hide the grave, cover it in new grass or clover or flowers.

He couldn’t hear the machine any longer.

He couldn’t hear people, either.

How long Misae laid there, he didn’t know. The bodies around him were becoming more solid with every passing minute, weighing on him more heavily. His own heart kept pounding, but he thought he was the only one. He would die here, under the dirt, surrounded by the corpses of his family. It was the longest he had ever been allowed to be here with all of them, and it would be forever. There was something… nice about that.

Misae was so scared of being alone.

But he was more afraid to die.

He began to wriggle his smaller body, as carefully as he could. He shifted, moved inch by slow inch out from under Nina’s body until even his tail finally pulled free of her, smeared in bloody mud. Dirt was ground into his fur, stuffed up his ears, found its way into his mouth and down his throat. He had to keep his eyes closed, and sometimes snorted out air to try and clear out his snout only to breathe more in.

He could taste their deaths on his tongue.

Alone.

He shifted his paw, slowly, carefully. Dug it into the dirt and then crooked a joint, pulled himself forwards using the catch of his nails to help him balance. He could smell a little bit of fresh air, and sense a little moonlight. He knew which way to go, if he focused on the moon. The moon always led the wolves, it meant for them to shift to run, not to be locked up in kennels pacing with endless restlessness until they were whipped by the humans for misbehaving.

He moved his other paw, echoing the motions of the first.

He had to dig his slow way up through the bodies of his family, shoving them aside when he could, when there was room. He climbed on top of them, moved his ears in apologies when he had to dig nails into their bellies or press paws against their heads, when he knew he was being watched by sightless eyes. Every member of his pack he moved past, he named their smells - Nina, Den, Hanwi, Nayi, Koya, Ka, Bliss. He repeated their names to himself, because no one else would ever say them. The humans had given them all other names, dog-names that sat like insults on human tongues. The wolves had had their own names for each other, and he thought them now, every single one.

Sometimes he felt the rough press of a tongue against him and hope would rise, small and soft, only to drop back to despair when Misae realized what he felt was a dead tongue lolling out of an unmoving mouth.

His stomach clenched, and heaved, but he fought it back down.

Eventually, though, one paw found the edge of the pit, and then the other. He felt the breeze against the softer fur there and whimpered, desperate to have that air on every part of his body, desperate for the knowledge that he’d made it out.

He pushed down on both front paws as hard as he could, his wasted muscles protesting as he pulled himself up and out, back paws scrabbling in the loose dirt, shoving himself up using Tate’s shoulder for balance. He panted, tongue out, opening his eyes finally to see the bright shine of moonlight as his head popped up over the pit, his ears up and swiveling immediately, checking for sounds, for any humans nearby.

He heard nothing.

Nothing but the sound of his own breathing.

But… there was a smell other than blood, finally, a smell that wasn’t death. The wind blew cool against his face. He smelled pine trees and birds hidden behind leaves. He felt the moon on his fur the way he imagined it might feel to have a mother hold you, and finally with one last push he stood on all four legs in the grass once again.

He shook himself, dirt falling from his fur in what felt like waves. Spread his toes, let his paws really sink into the soft earth. Took in a huge breath and then let it out in something like a sigh.

He was alive.

He was the only one alive.

Then, from close to the big house, he heard Aaron’s soft high child’s voice ask, edged with exhaustion, “Hey, Austin? Is that one of the werewolves over by the, um, the hole?”

Austin cursed. Misae turned to look just as Austin, with a red face and teary eyes, aimed and fired. He was too far away to even hope to hit, but a tree close by Misae suddenly burst apart in an explosion of pine needles and bark.

Misae let himself take one last look at the sight of someone’s paw sticking up above the loose dirt.

Kola's, he thought. There was a white spot on Kola's black paw.

Austin took aim again, and Misae ran.

Tag list: @finder-of-rings @burtlederp @scoundrelwithboba @shrimpwritings @deluxewhump @yassifiedinformation @whatwhump @dont-look-me-in-the-eye @tundra-tiger

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yourgoodbuck · 3 months ago

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for the prompt- maybe something combining somno and ovi? some creature returning night after night to fill you with more and more eggs?

tysm anon!! i had a lot of fun with this one :3

cw for noncon, breeding, general monster fucking, somno, and ovi. gender neutral reader/victim

You do not know it yet, but there is a monster under your bed.

This monster wants more than just scaring people or bringing them to the brink of madness. It wants to sow its seed…and you are the perfect vessel for it.

The first night it moves into your room, it waits until you are in a deep sleep before removing itself from its hiding spot. It hovers over you, watching the rise and fall of your chest as you slumber. It takes note of how, because of the summer heat, you have only a thin sheet covering yourself.

It lifts the sheet, delicate in its movements, and reveals your legs. You sleep in the nude; after all, it’s hot, and you live alone. Surely there’s no danger there.

A tendril creeps its way up your leg, starting at your ankle and slowly moving upward. When it gets to the merge point, it carefully spreads your legs wide so it can investigate better.

It finds a hole, warm and inviting, practically begging to be used as a seedbed. The monster slips inside, freezing only when you groan, and then returning to its business when you stay still.

Your walls pulse as the foreign intrusion makes its way inside, deep, deeper still. When it discovers there’s nowhere else to go, it decides that this will have to do. It settles into your body and begins to lay its eggs. One, two, three…it starts with a dozen, just to see if you’ll reject them. When your body responds with an orgasm, the monster takes this as a welcome sign. After all, if you didn’t want them, you would have gotten rid of them.

It slowly pulls itself out of you and slides back under the bed.

—

When you wake up, you feel dizzy and full. You glance down at your stomach, which seems a little rounded. You probably ate too much at dinner last night is your best guess, and you go about your day.

—

The monster is puzzled. Surely you should have laid the eggs by now. It knows little about humans and their anatomy and can only deduce that your body needs more. It’s been three days since it first laid them, something must be wrong.

Once again, it finds you asleep. It slips a tendril inside of you while carefully maneuvering its other appendages to hold your legs apart. The tendril begins to squirm, almost mapping out your insides, and when you groan, the monster pays you no mind. Instead, it’s discovering that it enjoys this feeling of power over you, and wonders how much more you can take.

You groan again and your eyes flutter open. Above you is…well, you can’t really describe it, and maybe that’s a good thing. It’s a mass of shadows and tendrils, and it’s what’s fucking your hole like its life depends on it. You moan and try to wriggle out of its grasp, but it merely holds you tighter and slips another limb into your mouth. This one is warm and sticky, and you find yourself gagging on it as it slides into your throat.

The thing between your legs is moving faster now, curling and twisting itself inside of you. You attempt to cry out, but instead feel something hot shoot into your stomach as the thing in your mouth pulses and throbs. Even after it finishes, it stays there, seemingly enjoying the tightness of your throat around it.

The one below the waist isn’t too far behind, but now you can feel the monster shudder as it pushes more of itself into you. You groan helplessly, your walls twitching as you feel egg after egg fill you. This time, the monster decides that you simply need more eggs in addition to its cum. Soon you feel like you’re going to burst, and that’s when the appendage inside of you spurts into you.

As your orgasm overtakes you, you notice that the monster hasn’t moved. It feels like it’s studying you, though you can’t be certain of that. When the last pulses of pleasure finally fade, it begins to withdraw from you. You see it slide under the bed before you are taken by sleep once again.

—

When you wake up, your belly hurts. It’s round and distended, and touching it even gently makes you groan and lay your head back.

Something shifts within you, and you realize with horror that last night wasn’t a dream. Instead, you can feel the eggs (there must be at least a few dozen in there) begin to move, making their way toward your entrance so you can birth them.

You have a feeling you’re going to be using a lot of sick days to get out of work from now on.

#nsft writing #br33d1ng #monster fucking #ovi kink #cnc somno #somno breeding #my writing

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paracosm-draw · 2 months ago

Text

Promptober Day 14 - First kiss ☄️

Tags : hangover amnesia, misunderstanding, idiots in love

~~~

The morning sun pierces through the entry panel of the tent, highlighting tiny sand particles floating in the still air and ending his course on Obi-Wan’s sleeping features. The warm feeling against his cheeks and eyelids ends up pulling him from unconsciousness a couple of minutes later and he rolls on his side to hide from the outrageous light, only to realize that he’s pinned on his back by a soft, heavy weight.

Peeking through his eyelashes just enough to understand what’s keeping him on his back, he’s faced with a mass of golden curls glowing lightly in the morning sun and tickling his throat with each inspiration. Anakin is sprawled on his chest, his arms tightly wrapped around his waist and he still seems to sleep deeply, snoring softly against his skin.

They both wear clothes, but Obi-Wan doesn’t really remember how they ended up in this position last night. His mind is still foggy from the aftermath of the celebrations and as his body comes back to life he realizes that all the places that hurt are also waking-up as well. His head for a start, a dull throbbing sensation right between his two eyebrows. His kneecaps then, probably because they danced a good part of the night and it had been a while since he did that for the last time. His bladder also ; he really has to pee after all the cheap beer they ingested during the festivities.

None of that explains why Anakin is sleeping in his bed and clinging to him like an emotional support pillow, though.

He tries to ignore his bladder in order to put back together the puzzle pieces of last night's events. They drank a lot, the soldiers of the 501th treacherously teaming up against Anakin and him during a drinking game that seemed to last for hours. Anakin gave up after three drinks but Obi-Wan bravely faced his garrison, the game turning into a drinking competition between Rex and him at some point. He won, but at the price of his memory the next morning.

Obi-Wan looks down at the young man sleeping peacefully on his chest, breath regular and slow, face soft and body lax against his own. He can feel his warmth piercing through both layers of clothes, and it makes him smile because Anakin’s body is always warm, like a living heating pad.

For a minute, he lets himself drift in the moment, bathing in the combined warmth of the early sun and of Anakin’s embrace, almost dozing off again as his eyes close by themselves. But then Anakin moves in a way that reminds him of his very full bladder. His eyes shoot open and he tilts his head to the side to assess the situation.

Anakin’s arms are completely wrapped around him, the mechanical one resting on his stomach as the other one is tucked under his back. It's not really comfortable for either of them and Anakin is most probably going to wake-up with a dead limb but they must have been too tired to care the night before. Now Obi-Wan was feeling the ache in his back and he shifts ever so slightly, trying to wiggle his way out of the younger Jedi’s hold without waking him up. With the way Anakin’s weight is pressing him on the mattress it seems like a vain mission, but he somehow manages to reclaim his body inch by inch, and finally sets himself free without Anakin batting an eye.

The air is fresh and welcome against his hot skin and pulsing head when he steps outside to relieve himself. The camp is dead silent, cadavers of bottles and empty ration cans being the only clues of last night's celebrations. With a thought for the men who didn't hold their liquor well - most of them in fact - and who are going to wake-up with the headache of the century, Obi-Wan smirks and gets back into the tent he shares with Anakin.

The young man is still sleeping ; he had moved unconsciously to curl up against Obi-Wan’s pillow, pressing it to his face and chest and… drooling on it abundantly. The sight makes Obi-Wan smile and he regrets not having something to immortalize the scene. He could show it to Ahsoka, or use it as a bargaining price.

It's still early in the morning and they don’t have to get up until a couple of hours, and Obi-Wan’s naked feet start to get cold on the hard soil. He considers the idea of going back to sleep on Anakin’s bed as his own is occupied. But Anakin’s bed lacks the warmth of a body and… and it just felt good to be held by someone in those difficult times. It’s not like they never slept together before. Friends do that all the time.

Resolute, Obi-Wan goes back to his bed, carefully climbing onto the narrow mattress to rest by Anakin’s side but he soon realizes it’s going to be an issue. The bed is made for one average person, his frame not wide enough to welcome two grown men side by side. It wasn’t a problem when Anakin was sleeping on top of him, but now they don't have enough space and if Obi-Wan doesn’t want to fall he has to press his entire body as close as possible to Anakin’s.

He’s still thinking about that dilemma when Anakin sighs in his sleep, shifting on his side and letting go of the pillow to wrap his arms around Obi-Wan once again, pulling him closer as if he felt his presence through the veil of his subconscious. Now Obi-Wan is facing him, their faces so close that their noses are touching and he can't help but feel himself blush at the sudden proximity. From where he is he can see every little detail on Anakin’s face, feel his breath on his cheeks as they share the same oxygen, see the tremors of his eyelids as his eyes move underneath. He’s probably dreaming and Obi-Wan hopes it’s a pleasant one. Anakin deserves nights free of nightmares, and he deserves rest, that is why he tries to stay as still as possible.

Because he has nothing to do other than observing him, Obi-Wan lets his eyes wander on Anakin’s face. His features had lost the soft roundness of his teenage years in the last couple of months, progressively turning him into a handsome young man. His cheekbones were more pronounced, high and regal looking, his jaw a bit more square, a light stubble starting to spread to his cheeks and neck. His skin was still soft, slightly sunburned but not yet damaged by time, weather or life. His lips still plump and pinkish, giving him that pouty expression Obi-Wan found pretty endearing. After days in the sun they were dry and cracking in the middle, and Obi-Wan remembers that he probably has something in his bag to put on them.

By the time his gaze travels back to his eyes, Anakin has opened them and is staring at him silently. Obi-Wan jumps, his heart hammering in his chest at the sudden eye contact.

“You’re awake.” He breathes dumbly, wondering since when Anakin is watching him.

“Yes.”

Ignoring the way Obi-Wan’s heart beats madly against his ribcage, Anakin smiles at him, warm and lazy. His fingers curl into a fist on the back of Obi-Wan’s sleeping shirt and without a warning he stretches his neck and places a small, chaste kiss against his lips.

“Good morning.”

Obi-Wan’s brain stops functioning then. He blinks a couple of times, mouth opening slightly in shock as his body petrifies completely. His mind can’t make sense of what just happened and Anakin seems to notice because he frowns and shifts backwards a little. Not enough to remove his hands from his back but enough to give him a proper look.

“What’s wrong ?”

Obi-Wan can’t answer that. Everything ? The way Anakin kissed him like he didn’t even consider being rejected, the casualness of it, the… Force, the simple fact that he kissed him for a start. The fact he did it without hesitation, like it was not the first time. The problem being that Obi-Wan doesn't remember kissing him before.

“I- What- What happened last night ?” He swallows once he's found his voice again.

Anakin’s face softens, a slight blush spreading on his cheeks as a smile blooms on the corner of his lips. He looks… content. Calm. Balanced. Happy.

“We drank a lot. You, particularly. You did that stupid game with Rex and you stopped only when he rolled under the table. I’m not sure how he got back to his tent to be honest. We also talked and danced a lot. We played more games. And then you were starting to fall asleep on my shoulder so I brought you back to our tent.”

Obi-Wan feels his guts rearrange into a tight knot. Anakin doesn't tell him everything.

“And then…?”

“Then we kissed.” Anakin replies with a shy smile, the blue of his eyes sparkling so much that Obi-Wan has to look away. “A lot, also. I had to promise to sleep next to you for you to stop. You were… very enthusiastic.”

Obi-Wan feels a blush creep up his chest and spread on his face, burning with hot shame. He's mortified by every word leaving Anakin’s lips.

“I’m sorry.” Is the first and only thing that comes to his mind at the moment.

He doesn't know how to explain his behavior, he has no excuse about the way he acted the night before. He could put this on the copious amount of alcohol he ingested but it wouldn’t be honest.

Judging by the way Anakin’s glowing face falls into a confused, almost hurt expression it’s not the answer he was waiting for.

“You’re regretting.” He states.

His bottom lip is shaking slightly and he bites at it, reopening an old crack. Obi-Wan realizes then that if his lips are in this state it’s probably because of him and not of the weather. He tries to swallow around the lump in his throat.

“I- I wasn't in my right mind. I don’t remember, I’m-”

“I knew you were going to react like that.” Anakin interrupts him, straightening and getting off the bed so suddenly that Obi-Wan almost falls from it. “I knew you were going to be a coward about it.”

There’s no more sweet, sleepy glow on Anakin’s face when he turns to him. No more shy, expecting smile, no adoration in his gaze, only betrayal on his tensed features and pain in his eyes.

“I can't believe this.” He says, storming out of the tent before Obi-Wan can try to say something.

He stays like this for a couple of minutes, heart beating into his ears as he tries to make sense to all of that.

He kissed Anakin last night. He kissed Anakin and he was so enthusiastic about it that Anakin had to put an end to it. By promising to share a bed. It was a lot. And it said things about him he couldn’t even start to comprehend. Or admit.

He kissed Anakin and he liked it, obviously. He kissed Anakin and Anakin liked it too. Enough to kiss him again in the morning despite his terrible breath.

He kissed Anakin.

Or Anakin kissed him. He has no idea who engaged first. He had no idea Anakin wanted to kiss him. Wants to kiss him.

He’s completely, utterly lost.

And he’s barely starting to come back from his shock that Anakin barges back into the tent, just as furious as when he left.

“You’re not even going to say something ?” He asks, planting himself at the foot of the bed with his arms crossed on his chest.

“Anakin, I’m just waking up…” He says carefully, sitting on the bed. “Everything is still very blurry.”

“So you don't remember what you said to me last night ?” Anakin huffs, eyes already shining. “You didn’t mean any of it ?”

Obi-Wan finds it difficult to swallow once again. He has no idea of what he told Anakin last night.

“I’m sure I meant it.” He answers cautiously. “Maybe you can help me remember exactly ?”

“You’re really the worst.” Anakin inhales sharply, and for a moment Obi-Wan thinks he’s going to start crying and leave again, but he stays. “You said I was the person you cared about the most.”

“True.” Obi-Wan replies without hesitation ; this one’s easy.

“You said you couldn’t imagine your life without me.”

Obi-Wan blushes but this one’s not wrong either. Just a bit dramatic.

“I meant it.”

“You said I was very beautiful and you've been wanting to kiss me for a long time.”

Obi-Wan opens his mouth but nothing comes out. Anakin could lie but he doesn't think he is. Obi-Wan said that for a reason, it’s not coming out of nowhere. It’s simply coming from a very deeply hidden place, a silly little thing that he sealed and buried along with his shame a long time ago. Only for his efforts to be swept away by a couple of stupid drinks.

“You're truly beautiful.” He says quietly, making Anakin blush slightly.

“What about the rest ?”

Obi-Wan slowly gets up from the bed, approaching until he can face Anakin properly.

“The rest ?”

“You said a lot of things the Order wouldn’t like to hear at all.” Anakin answers. “You said that prohibiting attachment was stupid. You said that attachment was part of a balanced life.”

Anakin stops then, moistening his lips as a faint blush comes back on his face.

“You said that falling in love was the most beautiful thing in the universe, and that you missed it.”

It’s Obi-Wan’s turn to blush then, embarrassed by the idea of having said such things contrary to Jedi teaching to Anakin, just before courting him in the most unsubtle way.

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

“But it was true. You were speaking from your heart.” Anakin says. “I could tell.”

“It was inappropriate.” Obi-Wan replies. “For that I'm sorry.”

“But I’m not.” Anakin says firmly, taking a step forward in such a manner he was entering Obi-Wan personal space. “I’m not sorry for kissing you.”

Obi-Wan has to lift his chin to look him in the eyes. Anakin’s gaze is still clouded by a lot of chaotic emotions, but he’s also determined.

“Are you, Obi-Wan ?”

“No.” Obi-Wan answers before he can truly think about it. He doesn’t have to.

Anakin leans closer then, moving carefully as if he was afraid to scare him. He stops when his nose brushes against Obi-Wan’s, laying his breath against his lips when he speaks and Obi-Wan opens his mouth to swallow his words.

“Do you still want to kiss me ?” Anakin whispers.

Obi-Wan breath hitches in his throat, and his gaze falls on his damaged lips. He takes his time to capture every little detail into his memory, like the way Anakin trembles slightly, or how the light is painting the shadows of his eyelashes on his cheekbones. He doesn’t want to forget once again.

Then he gives his answer.

Cradling Anakin’s face into his hands, he leans into him and presses their lips together into a tender kiss. Anakin wraps his arms around his waist, sighing softly as their mouths part for a split second before finding each other again.

They kiss slowly, savoring each other's touch, inhaling in each other’s breaths. Anakin holds him gently, his thumb brushing against his back through the fabric of his shirt. It’s sweet and soft and it's perfect.

When they part they’re both a bit out of breath and Anakin presses his forehead against Obi-Wan’s. They stay like that for a while, sharing warmth and unsaid feelings until Anakin speaks.

“You really don’t remember anything ?”

“No.” Obi-Wan admits and then smiles. “But I’m counting on you to fill in the blanks.”

#obikinpromptober2024 #obikin prompts #obikin fanfic #obikin #anakin x obi wan #obi wan x anakin #aniobi #anakin skywalker #obi wan kenobi #star wars the clone wars #star wars prequels #star wars fanfiction #star wars #my writing

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crucifiedfaerie · 1 year ago

Text

Gibson Girl | Pt. 1 ༉₊˚✧

Kylo Ren x Fem!Reader

➴ Summary: After a run in with the Supreme Leader, he can't seem to get you out of his head- or leave you alone.

➴ Song: Gibson Girl - Ethel Cain

➴ Part Two | Part Three

➴ Word Count: 3.4k

➴ Warnings: 18+ MDNI, fem!reader, dom!kylo, kinda slowburn ??, kylo is kinda really manipulative, stalker!kylo, um he's right behind me isn't he?, the mask STAYS ON, how does he not get hot in there ??, mean!kylo to soft!kylo, alcohol plus unbalanced power dynamic so dubcon, SMUT (unprotected PiV sex, fingering, hitting, slight sadist!kylo, degrading, scratching, a teeny tiny bit of blood- nothing serious), fluff if you squint, angst if you squint harder, typos and me being illiterate probably

➴ Taglist: ( @enviedear )

A/N: i haven't written a fic in a good four years so apologies if my writing is a little rusty. my partner and i have been watching the starwars movies and the kylo ren brainrot is so real. i need him expeditiously !! i've also been reobsessed with ethel cain recently and gibson girl is sooo kylo coded so i was inspired to write. i really hope you like it, if the response to this is good i might consider making a part two possibly ?? i do have a few other fic ideas for kylo/ben that are stirring around in my brain sooo im excited to share those eventually

It seems as though you've seen the Supreme Leader around more times in the past two weeks than you ever had in the two years you've been working as a technician on the Finalizer. Like a shadow clad in metal and black leather, he seemed to follow you.

It started two weeks ago with an honest mistake. You had woken up late that morning. Rushing out of your chambers and down the hall, you turned the corner a little too quickly, fearing youd be late to work.

When you crashed into him, you thought you had run into durasteel, the way he didn't move an inch. You, however, bounced backwards, hitting the ground and sending the toolbox in your hands flying.

It wasn't until the air that was knocked from your lungs had returned that you realized this dark mass was not made of durasteel. Sitting on the floor, your eyes trailed from the boots in front of you up to the dark expressionless mask you knew only belonged to the most feared man in the galaxy. Kylo Ren, the Supreme Leader of the First Order.

At this realization you scrambled to your feet, picking up your tools as you went and fervently apologizing. You did want to keep your head attached to your shoulders, after all.

"Supreme Leader- I- my apologies sir! I didn't see you th-"

Your string of incoherent apologies was cut short by him wordlessly lifting a gloved hand to silence you. With wide eyes you stared at him as he lowered his hand, bending down to pick up the wrench you had dropped on his boot in the commotion.

He placed it in the toolbox that shook as you tightly grasped it. As he pulled away the leather of his glove brushed against your bare hand, sending a chill down your spine.

He stood there, staring down at you. Past the near-blinding glint of the cold hallway lights bouncing off the dark metal of his mask, you could see your own mortified expression in the reflection of his visor. Your gaze flickered down to the hilt of the saber he kept on his hip and you winced at the mental image of that crimson colored plasma beam he could send shooting through your abdomen at any moment.

Oh gods, im done for. Any second now.

You were pulled from the morbid thoughts of your impending demise by his deep, modulated voice.

"Do not be late." He said sternly, not a speck of emotion behind his words.

You nodded quickly, "Yes Supreme Leader, I- thank you sir!"

You ran down the hall and as you turned the corner, for a split second you saw he had turned to face your direction. Despite that cold mask, you could feel his eyes on you, burning holes through it.

In the days that followed, he began to frequently make small appearances in your life and that feeling of a pair of mystery eyes on you became a familiar sensation. Whether you were eating in the cafeteria, working through a tangle of wires behind a control panel, or simply walking down a hallway, you'd feel your stomach drop. When you looked around there he would be, a creature in a mask, staring you down from afar. After averting your gaze, pretending you didn't notice him, he would continue on and disappear into the darkness of the Finalizer.

To say you were scared of him was an understatement. Was this just an elaborate plan to kill you for dropping your wrench on his foot last week? It couldn't be. If he wanted you dead he would have sliced you in half in the hallway, gods know he's done it to people before.

Fear wasnt the only thing he made you feel. As you knelt on the floor, trying to run a diagnostic test on the navigational software, your mind wandered to who could possibly be underneath that expressionless mask and modulated voice. Was he really the terrifying creature everyone rumored him to be? Or was there a real human under there? A human man with pretty eyes and rough hands from years of training. You let your mind wander to how they would feel in your-

Your thought was cut short by the hairs on the back of your neck standing straight up.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

When you turned around he was so close you jumped and dropped your datapad on the floor. The cracking noise made your heart sink. He was standing right behind you, looming over your small frame that was crouched on the ground. He stared down at you, his masked head tilted as if he were pondering something.

"Supreme Leader. W-what do I owe this pleasure?" You managed to choke out.

Kylo reached out a hand to you, and you obliged, your trembling hand dwarfed by his own. The stiff leather of his glove gripped you tightly, lifting you up to stand in front of him.

The modulator in his mask crackled as he spoke "No need to be so terrified, little star." He chuckled a bit but his usual sternness was still present. "I've only come to ask for you to join me in my quarters tonight..." He paused, "you intrigue me."

Your brain went foggy at the sweet nickname he gave you and it felt as though you might pass out at the thought of being invited to his room. Never had you seen Kylo Ren be so kind to anyone, so why you? Your face flushed with pink as you tried to find the right words to say.

"Intrigue you? Sir I can assure you there's nothing intriguing about me, I'm just a techn-"

"Nonsense." He leaned down to get eye level with you, his helmet inches from your face. "I expect you to be there tonight after lights out. When I want something I do not take no for an answer... and I always take what I want." His voice was dead serious but you could almost hear the smirk that was under his visor.

He released your hand from his tight grip and took a step back from you. With a swift turn, he walked down the hall, not giving you a chance to respond. You stood there stunned for a moment then sank down the durasteel wall, reeling from what just happened.

Kylo Ren, the Supreme Leader of the First Order, wanted you in his quarters. Tonight. After lights out.

Later that night, as you were getting ready, you felt like you weren't even in your own body. When you looked at the clock and saw it was 10 minutes until lights out you thought you might throw up from nervousness.

What do you even wear to see the Supreme Leader in his quarters at midnight? Oh gods I'm gonna pass out.

When you were finally satisfied with how you looked, you took a deep breath and exited your chambers. The cold quiet of the flagship's hallways sent a shiver down your spine.

What am I doing? Why would he invite me here? I should just turn around and go back to my quarters.

Your legs felt like Andorian jelly as they moved you down the dark, secluded hallway towards the front of the Finalizer. You ask yourself so many questions as you attempt to suppress every nerve in your body. He was terrifying, but there was something alluring about him, something so... attractive. Something that made you feel like a small insect being lured into a spiders web. And you liked it?

Once you reached the end of the hallway, you realize it's a dead end. The tall, dark double doors enlaid with silver told you this was probably his door.

Do I knock?

Before you could even finish your thought, they opened, seemingly on their own.

The familiar crackle of his modified voice called out to you sternly, "Come in."

You obliged, taking a deep breath before you stepped into his quarters. The room was dimly lit, illuminated only by the warmth of the fireplace. As you looked around, his space was about what you expected it to be, minimalistic and decorated in hues of red and black, but grand enough for a Supreme Leader.

And there he was, sitting in a red lounge chair in front of the fireplace. You saw him pick something up off the coffee table before he stood and approached you.

"I can sense your nervousness, little star. Take this and come with me." Kylo handed you a glass of whiskey before taking your other hand and leading you back towards the fireplace, motioning for you to sit in the chair across from his.

As you sat, holding the glass in one hand and feeling the velvet cushion beneath you with the other you realized you hadn't said a word to him yet.

"Supreme Leader sir, its an honor to have been invited here by you. Your quarters are... magnificent."

He chuckled. "I'm glad you like it, but there's no need to bother with honorifics when you're here. You may call me Kylo."

"K-Kylo..." You tested out his name, unsure if he was being serious.

This has to be a dream. This cant be real. He can't be-

He nodded, speaking as he poured another glass of whiskey for himself. "I invited you here only to get to know each other. It would be rude of me to expect my guest to be so formal with me."

You felt your face get hot and you look at the floor illuminated by the fire. "Apologies if this is too forward... but how can we get to know each other if I dont even know what you look like?"

I shouldn't have said that. Surely he'll kill me for even asking. Stupid. Stupid.

He fell silent for a moment and stared at you. You internally panicked, thinking your forwardness had angered him.

You've really done it this time.

Kylo reached up and you heard a click followed by a quiet hiss emitted from his helmet. Pulling the helmet up slightly, he revealed the bottom half of his face, and oh gods was he beautiful. His dark locks fell down and brushed his jaw which looked as if it had been carved from marble, and you think you caught the beginnings of a scar lining it.

"Compromise." He flashed a dark smile before taking a sip from his glass. Kylo's unmodulated voice was smooth and deep, a sound you could find yourself getting used to hearing. You watched his Adam's apple move as he swallowed the dark liquor down.

After setting his glass back on the table, Kylo lowered his helmet and clicked it back into place.

"I haven't been able to get you out of my head since our run in. You interest me so much." He mused.

You sighed shakily. "I dont mean to disappoint you s- Kylo, but there isn't much that is interesting about me or my life. Especially here on the Finalizer, most of my days tend to be the same."

You had taken only a few sips of your drink but your head was already getting foggy.

He ignored what you said, seemingly more eager to tell you something he's been wanting to say for two weeks now. "Your mind is what intrigues me most. I can hear them, your thoughts, and they are so loud." You could almost hear the smirk on his face.

He what.

"You what?" You choke out, your face going bright red.

No. no no no.

He chuckled darkly. "No need to be embarrassed, little star. I enjoy listening to your thoughts of me. How late at night you think about my hands groping your body. How you fantasize about being immoral in a complete stranger's lap. How right now you're thinking about me hurting you..." He paused, "I cannot lie to you, my thoughts have been plagued with yours for weeks now. Thats why I invited you here, so I could show you everything you wish you had."

You tried to speak, but couldn't find the words. Your face was flushed with pink and the whiskey was starting to take its toll on your thinking skills.

He stood from his chair and stepped towards you, taking the glass from your hand and setting it down on the table next to his. Towering over you, he leant down closer to you. His gloved hand lightly trailed down your face and snaked it's way behind your neck, his fingers weaving through your hair. He tightened his grasp and pulled down, forcing you to look up at him.

"Tell me, sweet thing. Are you scared of me right now?" He already knew the answer but wanted to hear it.

You nodded, looking up at him with wide eyes. "Y-yes Kylo."

"Good." He said coldly. The tone of his voice changed, as if his sweetness earlier was simply a ruse to lure you in. He pulled you up by your hair to stand, and in one swift motion he had you thrown over his shoulder.

He carried you away down a dark hallway, the light from the fireplace growing dimmer and more distant as he took you deeper into his quarters.

Like a little insect caught in a spider's web.

Once he entered his room, Kylo threw you on his bed carelessly, nearly knocking the air from your lungs.

He immediately went to work on your clothes, pulling your shirt and pants off, almost ripping them in the process. You were left only in your underwear, writhing from the heat growing in your core.

Kylo admired your body, running his cold, leather clad hands along your thighs roughly, spreading your legs. He had been waiting for weeks to do this. The seam of his glove brushed across your clothed clit, causing you to let out a whine.

"Such a pretty voice... I want to hear more of it." He said sternly before pulling your underwear to the side and running two gloved fingers down your folds, coating them in your slick. You gasped at the contact.

Without warning Kylo pushed his fingers inside your entrance, curling his fingers upwards causing your back to arch. As he pumped his fingers into your cunt, he went to work on your clit with his thumb. His other hand snaked its way up your body, stopping once it was wrapped tightly around your neck.

Waves of pleasure washed over you as he stretched you out with his fingers. You felt your climax quickly approaching "Please- sir. Please m'gonna-"

He pulled his hand away and you groaned at how empty you now felt. You rubbed your legs together to get a little bit of friction, but were halted by the sharp sting of his hand coming down on your thigh. You let out a loud yelp.

"Needy little slut." He raised one hand and an invisible force spread your legs fully and froze your entire body in place, while his other hand worked to undo his belt. "You don't get to cum until I say you can, understand?"

You only whined in response. He slapped you hard and grabbed your face forcefully, leaning down closer to you, his visor millimeters from your face. "Say it. say it!"

"Mhmm yes sir I understand!" You whined loudly. Your face stung and you could taste copper.

He let go of your face and finished freeing his cock. You nearly pass out from the sight of it.

Oh gods help me, how is that supposed to fit?

He chuckled at your thought as he lined himself up at your entrance "Don't worry little star, we'll make it fit." He said evilly before pushing inside, watching you as your face contorted from the pain and pleasure of his cock splitting you open.

You nearly scream, letting out a choked whine as he bottomed out, pressing forcefully on that bundle of nerves deep inside you. You tried to adjust to his size but without any warning he withdrew himself before slamming back into you again.

His thrusts were erratic, unrelenting on that sensitive spot, hitting it with every snap of his hips.

"F-fuck... Kylo- you're gonna make m-me cum." You whined, feeling tears prick your eyes as you were reaching your breaking point.

He reached up and grabbed your throat, squeezing, which made your head feel lighter. "Shut the fuck up and hold it." He said coldly. It sounded like a whisper coming from the modulator of his mask.

He pounded into you with such power, and it sent shockwaves rippling through your body. You screamed as he thrusted into you, showing not a speck of mercy on your much smaller frame.

Kylo felt your walls twitching around him. "You wanna cum so bad don't you?" He cooed, feigning sympathy for you.

You nodded your head desperately.

"Beg for it then. Beg to cum on my cock and I might just let you." He growled.

"P-Please-" You whimpered, on the verge of tears.

"I said beg!" Kylo struck the side of your face again, harder this time.

"Please! Please let me cum Kylo!" You cried.

He let out a satisfied groan, gripping your hair and tugging to make you look up more. "Go ahead then, little star. Cum for me." You could hear the smirk behind his mask.

An invisible hand went to work on your clit as he continued to ram into you with unrelenting speed. This sent you over the edge, the tight feeling in your abdomen burst as a wave of euphoria washed over your body. You dug your nails into Kylo's back. Despite him being clothed, you know you did it hard enough to draw blood. You heard him wince but the raw pleasure he was inflicting on your body was too much for you to care about that.

He's cold blooded so it takes more time to bleed.

His thrusts became sloppy and harder as he neared his own release. He had come completely undone, his emotionless façade gone as he whispered sweet nothings and strings of curse words through his mask.

"Fuck-" He said your name, lingering on it, drawing it out in a sickly sweet way. "Gods- your body- its so- I'm in love with it. Fuck."

A few thrusts later, Kylo buried himself inside you to the hilt one last time, bottoming out and groaning as he pumped your cunt full of his cum.

You felt his cock twitch inside you as he looked down at you, hands pressed into the bed on either side of your head and breathing heavily through his modulator.

Kylo pulled out as he stood up and you felt his cum leak out of you and down your thigh onto the bed. You watched as he tucked himself back into his trousers and redo his belt. He went into the refresher attached to his bedroom to retrieve a towel and you felt the bed dip when he returned.

He wiped his cum away gently with the towel and you yelped from the sudden overstimulation.

"Shhh" he cooed, still stern. "I'm only trying to help." Kylo threw the towel to the floor and sat on the bed, back leaning against the headboard. He pulled you closer to him so your head rested in his lap. You watched as he pulled his gloves off for the first time and you took a mental note of how strong his hands looked.

He ran his long fingers through your hair and you sighed, closing your eyes. "I could get used to this." You said sleepily.

The last thing you heard before you succumbed to sleep was, "Me too, little star." Even through the crackle of his modulator, it almost sounded like he was deep in thought.

When you awoke in his bed the next morning, Kylo was gone. As you rolled to the side of the bed, you could still smell him on his bedsheets.

On the bed next to you was a black box wrapped in red ribbon, with a note attached. You opened it and inside was a new datapad, with a fresh, uncracked screen. The note read: "Little star, apologies for the broken datapad. I expect you'll be here when I return later. -K.R."

You smiled as you sunk your head back into his pillows.

#kylo ren x reader #ben solo x reader #starwars x reader #kylo ren #ben solo #starwars fanfic #kylo ren fanfic #ben solo fanfic #star wars #crucifiedfaerie #saint writes - !#fanfic #the force awakens #the last jedi #the rise of skywalker #gibson girl

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ersatz-ostrich · 6 months ago

Text

See You Again

Chapter 2: Polestar

Jason Todd x f!reader

You and the Red Hood escape the laboratory.

[A/N]: This is the second of the two chapters I had already written. I just started writing the third chapter and putting down my thoughts for the rest of the story...oops...

read here on ao3

<< previous || next >>

masterlist

STAR Laboratories Los Angeles

9:52:03 PM PT

The Coffin

“Well, that can’t be good.” You mutter to yourself, yanking out the syringe with a hiss. When your soldier had yielded, you thought you could slip away from him. But his sudden fake-out had shifted both of your positions, creating a window for the Bat to shoot him. The bullet had come so close to your face, you had thought you could feel it brush past you and embed itself in the soldier’s exposed neck.

The bullet could have just as easily grazed you, even killed you, had you been just an inch too close.

You shifted your gaze to the figure in the red helmet. You hadn’t gotten the chance to examine them up close—they were tall and heavily built, even with armor on, and sported a weathered brown leather jacket that covered the huge red bat symbol emblazoned on their chest plate. “You’re Red Hood, right?”

“That’s me.”

“What are you doing in LA? Aren’t you supposed to be from Gotham?” The Red Hood let out a modulated chuckle. You thought this would go down as your weirdest day on the job, making one of Gotham’s most ruthless crime fighters chuckle.

“I wanted to check out the warm weather here in Cali.” Something in Red Hood’s tone and posture shifted. “Now, what’s going on with that syringe?”

“Ah. Well, this was supposed to be a dose of a certain virus for the lab animals we’re testing on,” you explained.

“And this virus, it’s…”

“The Polestar virus,” you sighed. “Unearthed from somewhere deep in the Arctic, inside some early human mummies who carried the virus.” You let out a weak chuckle. “We knew it had the potential to be sold on the black market as a bioweapon should it fall into the wrong hands, but we weren’t aware that the risks were so high. And now, the virus is in my system.”

“Are you feeling anything right now? What are the virus’s symptoms? What’s its incubation period?” His modulated voice was surprisingly soft, yet urgent.

“This virus is bad news. We found that it’s pretty fast acting, and…” You spared another glance at the syringe in your hand. “...the symptoms aren’t pretty.”

“How fast?”

“This dose is meant for a test subject that’s a fraction of my body mass. I’ll be dead in two or three hours, give or take.”

“And the symptoms?”

“Necrosis. A new kind that we haven’t named yet. The virus consumes soft tissue and leaves behind a metallic residue. We believe it’s because the virus leaches metals and minerals from the body and aggregates it, beginning with the extremities.” The Red Hood reached forward cautiously, as if he was afraid of startling you. He gently pulled back the fabric of your coveralls that the soldier had so unceremoniously ripped open and ghosted his gloved fingers over where the needle had once been. The blood vessels around the wound had already become blackened and distended.

“We have to get you to a hospital.” You shook your head.

“We can’t. This research isn’t public knowledge.” You hoisted yourself up, tucked in your coveralls, and adjusted your respirator like nothing had happened. “I’m already a target as it is.” You stepped over the black-clad form of one of the soldiers Red Hood felled.

“Are there any treatments?” You picked your way through the Coffin to the freezers.

“They’re still in development, but the vaccine should slow it down.” You punched some numbers into the keypad and put your index finger to the scanner on the door and the freezer doors eased open automatically. You strode over to the shelf where you had hurriedly stashed the vials and syringes, the glass and metal clouded from the cold. The vaccine was crystal pink, you realized, like the color of the phenolphthalein titration you had done back in high school. You had handled both the buret and the Erlenmeyer flask because Jason couldn’t get it right, and in return, he had done all of the calculations for the lab report. Turning over the vials in your hand, you wondered why you were reminiscing about Jason during this time. The thought made your heart squeeze a little bit.

Jason Todd had been gone for so long. The hollowness that Jason’s absence had carved out of you seemed to sigh achingly. Years on, that hollowness was still there, not as hungry as it had been at first but smaller, still present. It still gnawed on your consciousness from time to time, on his birthday or on the day the Joker took him from you.

When you returned from the freezer, Red Hood was preparing a large metal-lined briefcase that he had taken from the incapacitated—dead?—men on the ground. He had already filled it partially with devices and weapons he had taken off of the soldiers.

“Are those the virus samples?” He inquired.

“Yeah,” you replied. “Vaccines, too. They’re labeled as such, and the vaccines are pink while the virus suspension is cl—”

“Pack them up. We have to get out of here before the police come.” His request startled you.

“Are you serious? This is property of STAR Labs and the CDC—”

“That’s been compromised. Neither you nor the samples are safe here. The police will be of no help, and they’re gonna keep sending people after you and those syringes unless we get you somewhere safe.” He gestured at the tray in your hands. “You need treatment, too. Somewhere they can’t find you.” You sighed heavily, setting the tray on a countertop.

“You’re right. I’m carrying the virus right now, and I’m dangerous. STAR Labs is probably gonna terminate me and the CDC will whisk me away or something. People come after me. But I can’t compromise the Polestar program.”

“It’s already been compromised. Now pack that shit up and let’s get out of here.” You flitted around the Coffin in search of something to store the samples in. You were scooping ice into a Styrofoam case when your comms unit fizzled to life again.

“This is the LAPD, we’ve been alerted of a break-in at STAR Labs. We request that all STAR Labs employees still in the building evacuate immediately. That is an order. Repeat, that is an order.”

“Shit, we gotta go,” Red Hood muttered. You grabbed your comms and tucked the Styrofoam case awkwardly under your arm and followed him out of the Coffin and into the ruins of decon and aseptics—you had been in the Coffin for hours, and the sight of the wreckage and your coworkers in aseptics now slumped over their devices made your stomach drop. “No time for sightseeing. Hurry up.” You pushed yourself into a full sprint, stumbling in your PPE along the concrete and corrugated steel of the basement. You followed the Red Hood into the emergency stairwell. Peering through the glass of the door to the ground floor, you saw SWAT officers milling about.

“SWAT team, start sweeping the second floor.”

“Shit—” You and Red Hood hurried up the stairs, the contents in your arms rattling in its Styrofoam case.

“Guess we aren’t leaving that way. Know any other escape routes in this building?”

The top floor—your floor. The Polestar program’s home.

You didn’t want to know what kind of destruction the soldiers had left in their wake.

“Top floor. Only way out would be the roof,” You answered.

“Roof it is.” After climbing some more flights of stairs and monitoring your comms unit for any more activity, you decided to wrench open the door to the sixth floor, breathing laboriously—when was the last time you had done this much cardio? You led the Red Hood over to a service elevator—not accessible without clearance, you explained to him—scanned your ID, and pulled him in. Once it reached the top floor, the elevator dinged and opened its doors, the hallway blessedly clear. You and Hood skulked down the corridor, which ended with the door to the Polestar offices. Hood opened the door and swept the room for hostiles before waving you in.

Your heart sank when you saw what had become of the Polestar lab.

“No…” you whispered. The laboratory had been completely wrecked. Glass fragments and papers were strewn on the floors. Pieces of equipment were left broken and overturned, spilling their contents among the mess.

Then you saw the bodies.

You caught sight of Dr. Davis’s crumpled form on the floor, next to the comms he had used to warn you of the impending disaster. The comms unit looked like it had been crushed underfoot, exposing wiring and circuitry among shards of its outer plastic shell. You made a step towards Dr. Davis’s body, but froze when you saw the red stain on his back and the blood pooling onto the floor.

“They…” You felt Hood’s gloved hand on your shoulder, gently guiding you away from the destruction. “...they killed everyone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“This is…this is horrible. Unbelievable.” Your pulse quickened with your breath. You felt the tears begin to form, and your vision grew misty. “I can’t believe it. They killed everyone.” You thought you had known grief and death. But this was different—seeing your colleagues slaughtered, their blood drying before you, made you feel faint. And yet, you felt wholly ablaze with

“Hey…” Shouts sounded from the stairwell. Your chest felt tight and your head was turning fuzzy. “...hey, hey. We gotta move.” The hand on your shoulder was not so gentle anymore, insistently pulling you toward the gaping hole in one of the windows. He handed—more like shoved—the briefcase he was holding into one of your hands and produced a terrifying-looking grapple gun from somewhere on his utility belt. “Don’t drop it,” was all he said before he wrapped an arm around your waist. Your arms instinctively flew around his shoulders, holding onto him, your Styrofoam box and his briefcase for dear life, and then you were airborne.

You squeezed your eyes shut as you soared over the street, which had become choked with squad cars and assault vehicles. You gasped in surprise when you felt yourself change direction as Hood gently and skillfully hoisted you over the ledge of a neighboring building’s rooftop.

“The first time is always the worst.”

“That’s implying that this isn’t the last,” You heaved out. “Holy shit. Did they see us?”

“Don’t think so. We’ll wait here, I’ll…” You didn’t hear the rest of the vigilante’s statement. The adrenaline from the jump was beginning to wane and you felt the burden of the virus and the sights you had stumbled upon while escaping the laboratory coming on again.

“Hey." Red Hood moved to catch you as you slumped over. “Hey, can you hear me?” Illuminated by the city lights, he caught sight of your badge from where it hung on your PPE. Your name was printed in neat black font next to an unmistakable portrait.

Under his helmet, the Red Hood’s breath caught in his chest.

“...Y/N?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[A/N]: That's all I've got for now. Hope you enjoyed! x

#jason todd x you #jason todd x reader #red hood x reader #red hood x you #red hood #the red hood #jason todd #dcu

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itsgrimeytime · 1 year ago

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The Nurse (Part Seven) || Rick Grimes (TWD)

Part One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven

AVAILABLE ON AO3

Taglist: @strnqer @1985bitch @curlycarley @imaginemyfavoritefics @t-uroboros @crazytxgradstudent @addisonnie @whos6claire @taylvvrr @quicksilversg1rl @catt-leya @1tsk1tty @pascalshearts @hopefulatrocity @xoyouronlyamorrxo @fuseburner @idkseraphine @all-for-kpop @carlgrimeskisser @emo-potato-virgil @timotheesrealgf @mcuclintasha @8crazy-freak8 @peepeepoopoobutt

Summary: Before all this, you were a nurse. A nurse who had patients, one of which was a man in a coma. A sheriff, you think, it was all kinda fuzzy now. When it all went sideways, you set up what you could for the man - but had to leave. You’d always wondered where he’d ended up; until in your search of shelter, you run into a familiar face.

TWS: Blood, gore, mentions of death, gun violence (just violence in general), sickness, vomiting of blood, blood from the eyes, animal sickness, mentions of quarantine, swearing, and all things typical of TWD.

[[A/N: A plot heavy chapter???? In this economy??? It's more likely than you think. I did actual medical research on this one, so... Also, 'there's only one bed trope' except there's no bed. I will not be taking any questions at this time. Thanks for reading :)) ]]

That day really started midway through you cleaning up a few of your tools, it was an extensive process -especially considering the circumstances. Infection was not an option here, so you usually took a few hours to soak some of your materials in some antibacterial you'd recovered from the few runs you'd been on.

The fumes were a bit much, so you'd done it near the prison but not inside -dedicating a space distant from the crops and where the others strayed outside. Without a mask, you couldn't imagine the long term effects of inhaling the mass of well... germ-x that you accumulated to clean things. You'd been a stickler on using it as often as you could, even taking times within the day to run by everyone with it and having them run it over their hands. It got, let's say, varied reactions, but you knew with what ease an outbreak of any kind could frolic through the prison. So, they just had to deal with it.

That day, you were almost done cleaning your last scalpel -the coating washing away in some of the bottled water you hadn't quite finished. When you'd seen the smudge of a figure coming up to you.

You dunked the rest of the water over your hands and placed the scalpel on the rag -quickly folding it on the stool you'd taken out to use as an extra surface.

When you looked back at the figure now, they were much closer like they were running to you. You squinted, trying to see through the sun, and made out the edges of a cowboy hat -Carl?

Before you could so much as say a word, Carl was barreling up to you -eyes glossy (just a touch, you hadn't seen him cry since you got here) and eyebrows furrowed into so much worry that you only found fit for an adult.

He simply wrapped his arms around your middle, nestling his head into you -effectively knocking the hat off, and immediately felt a spike of worry shoot up your spine. Despite your head buzzing with questions and worries, you exhaled a shaky breath and gently held the back of his head against you.

"Everything okay?"

"No," he muttered into you -before pulling back to look at you with a seriousness that you found easily matched Rick's, "-you have to help."

Your worry spiked, help. Still, you coached yourself -crouching down to his level, "Help with what? Is someone hurt?"

Carl started then -tumbling over the speed of his words, "Violet, Dad says she's sick. She's laying around, she won't eat and she always likes to e-"

"Carl," you laid your hands on his shoulders -hoping to soothe the nerves out of him, "-breathe. When you say Violet, do you mean-"

"The pig," he answered, after exhaling a deep, long breath -something you taught him just out of habit once.

So, that was why you were now by the pigs' pen -carefully watching the one he called Violet with Rick, Hershel, and well... Carl. You hadn't known much about animals, but you knew some of the basics of something not feeling well. And Violet was... well, she checked all those boxes.

"How long has it been since she ate?" Hershel asked, his gaze just a bit more analytical than yours -he was a veterinarian after all.

"Just the past day," Rick answered, his hand passively rubbing along his son's back -he still seemed a bit shaken, "-Looked at their food, and there was more than there shoulda been."

"Okay, well," you added, turning to Rick and Carl "-it's early then. Any sort of early is better than too late. I'm just not sure what it could be, other than the basics."

Rick questioned, "Which is?"

"Swine flu," you answered, flickering to Hershel for his opinion, "-but it's not my specialty, I could be wrong."

Hershel hummed, rising back to his feet with his cane where he seemed to be looker closer at Violet, "Could very well be. It's not like we have any medicine for 'em either."

"Do we need to go straight for medicine?" you asked, watching Violet as she slowly seemed to inhale and exhale, "Are there other options?"

Hershel rubbed at his beard, "Not much without some sort of medicine."

You pursed your lips, "Should we risk it though? What if it's not whatever we may assume it has and it gets worse?"

"Guess that's true," Hershel spoke, looking at you now -intent on discussing your point of view, "-what's your idea?"

"Well," you started, a bit hesitantly, "-I'm not a vet but if this was people, we'd quarantine them. Try and limit the contagion, if it was even contagious. It's how we... It's how we started investigating when the walkers showed up."

"It's a good idea," Hershel agreed, and you felt a piece of you relax, "-singles Violet out so we can try and get more information on whatever she's sick of. And sometimes quarantining 'em can help 'em heal."

"What, so-" Rick responded -looking to the two of you, "-we get more pens?"

"Yeah," you answered, following your own thought process, "-just do a few resource runs? There should be enough containers to individually feed them around the prison. And just as a base, we wait a week. It's a typical time for human sicknesses, so I imagine it's long for animals? If any one of them gets worse, we cut it short and look for other options."

Rick and Hershel were just staring at you -eyes wide and a bit astonished. You hadn't been quite one to order others around, or make plans, or anything of the nature. But you'd been passionate about nursing -knew all you could, you were trained for crises and problem-solving.

"Sorry," you echoed, trying to recognize any of the emotions in either of them's eyes (all you could get out of Rick's was wonder and that really was not helping), "I didn't mean to just... take over. I just-"

"No, no," Hershel shook his head, gently placing a hand on your shoulder -soothing whatever idea that he had felt overstepped in your head, "-you got that brain of yours, best you use it."

You smiled, a bit bashful because well nursing had been a big portion of your life for so long -you were glad to be doing it well.

"Just hold back a little," he teased with a touch of a chuckle, "-or I think Rick might be out of a job."

Laughing, you turned back to Rick whose eyes were still steadily focused on you. It was always a little odd, but you were getting more used to it.

"I'll ask around, see what we have around the prison. Rick-" Hershel cleared his throat, effectively knocking Rick out of his daze -you bit back a smile, "-you wanna see if you can gather up some people to help build? The quicker they're built, the better."

"Yeah, yeah. I can-" Rick blinked, shaking his head just a touch like he was clearing his head -eyes disconnecting from yours, "-I can do that. Carl, you wanna stay with Y/N for a bit?"

You rolled your eyes, teasing, "You're lucky I'm free, cowboy."

Rick grinned, and you felt your stomach flip, as he brushed past you, "I'll owe you one, fair?"

"Fair," you bit back the grin that threaten to split across your lips -solely to limit his ego. Carl was beside you now, so without much of extra thought, you crouched down and asked him what he wanted to do for the rest of the day.

That had been a week ago, and your life had become significantly more difficult since then. Maybe you should've expected it.

It had started when someone, who you hadn't really individually known too well, had come into your office. He'd just said he was tired, much more than usual and you'd figured it'd been his body fighting off an infection. You gave him a few antivirals and sent him on his way.

He hadn't come back to see you after that initial visit, why you didn't know -it had only been just a few days but someone in a nearby cell had approached you. They were the ones that told you that he'd been throwing up blood.

Needlessly to say, when you rushed to his cell, you were too late. For two lives instead of one.

So, here you were, frantically writing on every scrap of paper you could find -detailing symptoms as they arose. It was the outbreak you really had dreaded -you'd last heard Glenn had been struck with some of the symptoms last night. And that had spurred the current frantic writing spree you were in.

Early in that week, you'd sat everyone down at respectable distances and told them of the quarantine plans. Everyone who had felt sick must be distanced and is to rest until further notice. They were most likely to heal with more time for their body to address it.

Still didn't stop you from focusing on the symptoms, running through different options with Hershel -who didn't have as much experience but enough to bounce ideas off of.

It was late, Hershel had headed to get some rest and you'd let him -still scratching away at the paper, and noting somewhere deep in your head to request some iron supplements from the next run. If someone was going to lose blood, they'd at the very least need the iron replaced -maybe that would help with the weakness? That was about as far as you'd gotten. You were sure it was something easily taken care of, just needed a little bit more time to even-

"Hey," the drawl echoed into the room, and you jumped a bit in surprise -you hadn't been expecting anyone, especially at this hour. You spun to the door as quickly as your body would allow it.

"Didn't mean to scare ya," Rick clarified, hands up in the air for a moment before his look smoothed into one of concern -blue falling to what you assumed was your eyebags, "Have you not been sleeping?"

"Rick," you blew an exhale through your mouth -your eyes heavy and clothes disheveled, "-what do you think the answer to that question is?"

He raised his eyebrows, retorting -probably noting your snappy comeback, "So, you haven't..."

"I just-" you sighed, tapping your pencil against the paper that currently held all the noted symptoms and a few of your ideas so far for the disease, "-it's right here, I can feel it. I'm almost there."

Rick pursed his lips, sidling up beside you -pulling up a spare stool to sit directly in front of you, "And this can't wait until just a few hours of sleep?"

"They're-" you swallowed, your hands shaking slightly, "-they're dying Rick. I can't- I can't lose another one. What if you get it, Rick? Or god-forbid, Carl or Judith? I don't know what I'd do-"

"Look at me," he placed his hands -calloused fingers brushing against your chin tilt your eyesight to his, "-that's not happening. Me, Carl, and Judith are all fine."

"But," you urged -tears prickling at the edge of your eyes, "-that could change."

"It could," he agreed, rubbing his thumbs under your eyes -maybe you'd actually started crying, "-but I think a few less hours of writing the same thing over and over again on a piece of paper won't make it worse. You said it yourself, it exhilarates over a few days."

"Rick," you whispered, eyes connected to his, "-I can't."

He sighed, pulling your head forward, and brushing back your hair to leave the gentlest of press of his lips. You hummed, letting your eyes flutter close -just to relish in the warmth there.

"One hour," he hummed against your skin.

You laughed, barely there but it still counted, "Cowboy, I know what you're doing-"

"45 minutes."

"Rick, it's not going to-" you sighed, the smile growing on your face -even just for a second.

"30," he offered, breathing against your hair -you could feel the grin seep across the words.

You pulled back, raising an eyebrow at him -as if testing how far this would go, "Really?"

Rick wasn't one to give up, though, "15."

"Rick," you groaned, "-I'm serious..."

"We all are," he interrupted, leveling a more serious gaze on you, "-it's not just you. Look, what if we have Hershel work on it while you rest, so no time is wasted? That work for ya?"

"I can't wake him up," you answered.

"Y/N-" he started, and you could tell in the infliction that he really wasn't going to give this up. It was his lecture voice, and that always meant business with Rick Grimes.

You caved, and maybe the allure of sleep convinced you a little too, "30 minutes, and you wake me up."

He rubbed at the bridge of his nose -a sort of frustration radiating from him which was unsurprising, "Okay, anythin' is better than nothin', I guess. C'mon-"

"Oh, Rick, no-" you clarified, "-I'll sleep down here."

He furrowed his brows, scanning the space for anything that you could've squinted at, and thought would be okay to sleep on, "What? Where can you sleep down here?"

"That bench will do fine," you spoke, digging around for something to lay on and another to use as a blanket.

"Y/N, you can't be serious," Rick responded, looking around, "-you even have a pillow down here?"

"I..." you faltered, scrunching your brows together, "-I think so."

He sighed, fingers brushing against his temples, making his way over to the bench, "Okay, no, that's not happening. I'm not letting you hurt your neck like that."

"Well," you huffed, "-what am I supposed to d-"

Rick, instead of passing by the bench to look for something close to a pillow, sat at the left side of it -a look in his eyes that said he'd found a solution, as he patted his shoulder, "C'mon, the clock's ticking."

You blinked, was he going to let you cuddle him? Were you going to cuddle?

You were more awake than you had been in the past week at the mere idea of that.

"Look," he started, explaining himself, "-I know it won't be the best, but it's better than the cheapass cushion, I swear."

Good, he didn't really know why you hadn't responded. You couldn't realistically wait much longer though, if that excuse was to hold. He was very persuasive, but could only convince you so many times before it got ridiculous.

So, you grabbed an extra blanket you had stored away and moved to his side. It was agonizingly slow, mostly because there was a part of you that was scared he'd suddenly change his mind. You knew the two of you touched, a lot. It was just... This was more long-term, not a 'heat of the moment, it just felt right' kind of touch. It was all casual things, brushes of fingertips, forehead kisses, spare moment motions. This was new.

Wonderfully new.

"Okay," you whispered, barely a breath and gently leaned onto him.

You were hesitant and didn't want to overstep in any sort of way -afraid of losing this closeness, you went rigid against his skin. Not necessarily because you were uncomfortable, but rather because you didn't want to make him uncomfortable.

Rick's breath stuttered in his chest as you pressed into his shoulder, you could hear his heart beating fast under your cheek. Without another word, to soothe you maybe, his hand wrapped around you -pulling you tighter against his side.

You relaxed, breaths coming out slowly through your nose -his scent filling your brain it made you fuzz up a bit, then. The deep wooded scent buzzed against your eyes, and you let them flutter shut -just absorbing well... him.

Still, your mind was humming against the darkness -facts and symptoms fluttering past your mind. It was all consuming.

"Can you-" you faltered, feeling a bit out of place to ask something, "-Can you just talk? Tell me something, anything."

"'Course," Rick hummed, you felt it in his chest as you lay against it -his fingertips brushing up and down your arm, soothing, "-let me think."

You opened your eyes, tucking yourself more gently into his side -the gate was open already, and you found it easier to relax with the knowledge he had offered this himself. He had wished to be this close, and that made your heart beat faster.

"I got my first pair of boots when I was 6," he started, and you laughed into his skin -still intent on listening, "-my Dad told me it was a rite of passage."

You smiled, "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he agreed, laughing at himself, "-couldn't walk in 'em for months."

"Mmm, well-" you hummed, teasing -as your eyes fluttered along his boots, "-you seem like a professional now."

He grinned, drawling low -as his hand began to brush his fingers through your hair, "Thanks, sweetheart."

And you exhaled, relaxing into his touch -as his fingers massaged into your scalp. The name was new, but you weren't quite awake then -your head filled with the fuzz of sleep and eyes faltering heavily. Maybe you could sleep for just a little while.

"Violet's feelin' better," he hummed, and you could feel his breaths against your temple -he was so close, "-ya must've done somethin' right."

You froze, body rigid -the sleep dissipating from your brain, sitting up enough only to dislodge yourself slightly, "What?"

Rick stared at you -a bit in disbelief, "Violet's okay. It's a win."

"Oh my god," you stood, the blanket falling to your feet -frantic and hopeful as you siphoned through the piles of books and papers scattered everywhere, "-oh my god."

"What-" he stood with you -hesitating to reach out and touch you, "-you alright?"

"No, no, it's not-" you stopped searching to lock eyes with him, "-I'm fine, I just... How long have they been quarantined?"

"'Bout a week."

That was it, that was it. You laughed, wide and bright, "I... That's familiar, I read it somewhere."

"Y/N," he spoke, watching you flutter through the papers -trying to keep his tone calm, and soothing, "-what is this about?"

"I had this theory, remember?" you explained, skimming across some of the pages in books you'd marked, "-Violet got sick and then some of the group had, so maybe it was from them?"

"What, so you were right?"

"Maybe, I just have to-" you corrected, finally finding the book that read 'Swine Flu: The Farmer's Guide', "-bingo."

You skimmed through the words, on edge -waiting for the familiar words. For the words that had buzzed over the bouncing in your head, you knew they were there. You just knew it-

And there it was. Quarantine for a week.

You grinned, wide and bright, tapping along the paper -god, you had been right. You jumped up, rushing up to Rick -grabbing his face, and pushing your lips against the stubble of his cheek. You laughed, bright and joyous, rushing over to the book -spinning around with it pushed to your chest.

He stood shocked still, before blinking out of a daze -eyes twinkling bright and grin wider than yours, a blush barely brushed across his face.

"I've got it!" You yelled out, before pausing, faltering, "...I got it. Shit, I have to-"

"Hey, hey," Rick whispered, stepping forward to press his hands on your shoulders -eyes seeking yours, "-talk to me. Let me help ya, I want to."

"Okay," you hummed, inhaling slowly, "-okay. I'll... We'll just need hydration, lots of hydration-"

"Got it," he spoke, scribbling down on a little notepad he must've found around here somewhere.

"-and still quarantined. For at least a week. They just need some rest. That's it. And keep an eye on their iron and protein intake, keep it balanced-"

Rick didn't speak this time, hand fluctuating through the page -handwriting messy but somehow organized all at once. He was intently listening -it took you aback almost with all the attention he laid upon you, but you were still on a train of thought.

"-and painkillers for whoever needs them. Um, maybe some lesser ones? Aspirin, something smaller, it doesn't-"

"Okay," Rick answered, scribbling down the final note, "-right. I've got it."

"Wait," you started, as he gently placed his hand on the small of your back guiding you, "-what are you-"

"Y/N," he leveled, turning you to face him, "-you need to rest. I've got it all in here, I'll wake Hershel up if I need help. I've got it."

You sighed, matching his eyes -he really wasn't going to give up on this, "Are you sure? I can rest after-"

"No," he echoed, seriousness etched into his face -and the warmth of his hands on you was alluring, almost made you want to sleep there, "-rest. I'm not jokin'."

"Okay," you responded, exhaling and leaning further into him, trusting him to guide you, "-okay."

Carefully, he leaned forward -sliding his lips onto your cheek. It sent goosebumps to your toes, at the soft pillow there -it was new, wonderfully new.

"I'll check on you in an hour, 'kay?"

"Okay," you spoke, breathless with heavy eyes -droning with sleep, "-you gonna take me there?"

"Yeah," he pulled you to his side by the waist, muttering into your hair with the cusps of a grin, "-I'll take ya there."

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