#vomiting over the one guy who said I’m one of the good ones

[kaleighkarma]

I did a public speaking thing today about rent control and I didn’t cry! Someone said they liked my speech because I mentioned how raises weren’t at inflation if you even get one so I felt better!

[frudoo]

How would slasher! 141 react to a reader who isn’t a fan of violence but goes absolutely HAM when one of the victims escapes and injured her boyfriends? (I know the guys are good at what they do but let’s just pretend lol)

maybe she’s dirty from doing chores outside and the victim assumes that she’s an escapee as well, says something about ‘stabbing that fucker with his own knife’ and she just sees red because this piece of shit hurt her boys and she CANNOT let that stand.

Without even thinking, she starts absolutely wailing on this person, punching, kicking, etc. She's got blood on her clothes and shes breathing heavily when the boys finally make their way outside.

how would they react? 😳

This AU has me tweakin I swear

Warnings: Dark!Fic/DDDNE. Explicit gore. Emetophobia.

You gently pick up the little rabbit and giggle, pressing a kiss to its fur before sending it off somewhere else that isn’t your vegetable garden. The pesky things have been terrorizing your poor crops, and while it’s a nuisance, you just can’t stay mad at the little fellas, let alone ask your boys to get rid of the problem. There’s a rustling in the bush next to you and you suspect it’s another bunny looking for a tasty meal, but before you can go investigate, a loud scream coming from the barn startles you.

     Typically, you’re able to drown out the sounds of your husbands’ victims—it freaks you out to hear a person in so much pain, no matter how badly they deserve it. But this is not a victim’s scream. You know that scream. It’s the same one you hear any time he stubs his toe or gets a cramp in bed. That’s Simon’s scream. Immediately you’re on alert, standing from your knees and starting towards the barn.

     Instead of seeing your husband rush out, seeking medical aid or some kind of comfort, a random man covered in dirt and blood comes stumbling outside, looking terrified. You recognize him as the guy Simon, the big, unbreakable brick wall of a man, had even said wasn’t an easy one to catch. When the man sees you also covered in muck, he laughs like he’s just won the lottery, relieved. He rushes up to you, grabbing your hand and trying to pull you towards the fields, no doubt to look for some kind of escape. 

     “C’mon, we- we gotta get outta here. Now! We have time- fuck, lady, come on! I stabbed that fucker with his own knife, so we have time,” he rambles, digging his filthy nails into your skin to get a better grip.

     His words seem to make your heart stop beating in your chest. So that’s why Simon was screaming in pain. Your Simon, your sweet baby, one of your protectors, hurt by an inferior piece of meat. A special brand of scum. You’re scratching at his face before you even realize it. 

     “Wha- bitch! Stop! I’m trying to save you, lady!” Any other time, you’re sure a man like him could have easily overpowered you, but you feel fucking invincible right now, kicking the backs of his knees until he falls.

     You pounce on his back and trap him on the ground, grabbing a handful of his hair and pulling his head back just to smash it into the dirt. He’s screaming in agony and you’re sure his nose is broken, but you can’t stop. He hurt one of your boys, and if you know anything about the pieces of shit your husbands get rid of, you’re positive nobody is going to miss the one struggling beneath your weight. You bash his head into the ground over and over—his nose is completely crushed and his teeth are busted, but you just keep going and going and going until your arms are finally tired and you’re heaving with effort.

     When you climb off of him, you see just how much blood has tainted the grass, and you feel nauseous. The man is no longer screaming, not even grunting or moaning, and you know you’ve killed him. You roll him over just to make sure, and the sight of his mangled face makes you lean forward to vomit. You end up tripping over one of his untied shoelaces and falling right on top of his body. Sobbing, you scramble away, screaming when your back hits something solid.

     “Hey, hey, it’s just me, darlin’. Just me,” John coos, helping you up and pulling you into a tight hug.

     “I-I di- I didn’t mean to,” you weep, blood and bile still sour on your tongue. “H-he… he stabbed Simon, and- and I-”

     “Okay, sweetheart, it’s fine. I’ve got you now, yeah? Deep breaths, baby, breathe with me,” John instructs, cupping your sticky cheeks in his palms and forcing you to look at him.

     Distantly, you see Johnny rushing towards the barn and Kyle dragging the man’s body out of sight, but John makes you focus on him. Only once you’re calm, sniffling instead of hyperventilating, does he explain what’s going on. 

     “Kyle’s cleanin’, and Johnny’s gettin’ Simon all patched up. He’s gonna be okay, baby. You were so brave for us, sweet girl. Do you hear me? I'm so proud of you. We all are.” 

     You nod, but you need to see Simon, make sure that he’s really okay. Make sure your efforts weren’t in vain, that the blood on your hands wasn’t shed pointlessly.

     “I wanna see him,” you hiccup, and John nods, turning you around so you can watch as Johnny helps him walk out of the barn.

     You let out a sob of relief, rushing towards the pair and wrapping your arms around Simon, who grunts in pain. You gasp and move to pull away, but Simon just holds you tighter, letting you take as much comfort as you need from him.

     “I love you,” you murmur, and he smiles.

     “I love you more, perfect girl.”

[ange1heavensent]

Walk You Home

:｡.｡:+* ﾟ ゜ﾟ *+:｡.｡:+* ﾟ ゜ﾟ *+:｡.｡.｡:+*ﾟ ゜ﾟ *+:｡.｡:

Pairing: college!Abby x fem!reader

Content Warning: vomiting

w/c: ≈ 1800

:｡.｡:+* ﾟ ゜ﾟ *+:｡.｡:+* ﾟ ゜ﾟ *+:｡.｡.｡:+*ﾟ ゜ﾟ *+:｡.｡:

The air was stuffy as you walked through the living room, which was now transformed into a dance floor. People were bumping into you, but it did not matter, all you needed was to pee, which was not surprising after the amount of drinks, shots and sips from other peoples beer you’ve consumed. It was your third, maybe fourth?, trip to the bathroom, but this time your friend did not accompany you, because of some conversation with a guy, who was speaking alarmingly close to her face. As you trudged to the sea of people, you found your light at the end of the tunnel, the bathroom door. Luckily or, unluckily, for you there was only one person standing in line in front of the bathroom door.  

-

Abby breathed out a sigh as she stood leaning against the wall opposite the bathroom door, she had stood there for what felt like an eternity, for what was supposed to be a quick trip to the bathroom before leaving the house party. The fucker that was taking their sweet time on the toilet was going to get an earful, for making her stay in what she would call hell on earth for even a second longer. She wasn’t the biggest fan of house parties, the reason being the people, drunk frat guys and sorority girls slobbering on each other in every corner, people half passed out on the couch, way too early into the night and people not being able to behave in general. She much more preferred sitting with her friends around a table at a bar, rather than screaming in each other's ears over awful music.  

As she was leaning her head against the wall behind her, contemplating walking out, lose her last ounce of dignity and just pee behind the nearest bush. She felt someone grab on to her hands. She looked at you, a little bewildered, before you slurred out, “Hi, I'm so sorry, but can I please go to the toilet before you, please” You squeezed her hands to accentuate the urgency. Abby looked into your pleading eyes and released a sigh, she would be an asshole to say no to you, but she did herself also need to pee. You saw the reluctance on her face and added “I really really need to go to the toilet, I am going piss myself any second, please.” You said this with a chuckle, because of the absurdity of the situation, practically begging some stranger to let you cut in line to the toilet. Abby herself let out a chuckle and noticed that you hadn’t let go of her hands, she sighed out an “okay” you gave her hands another squeeze, smiled big and said a “thank you” in return. 

Abby didn’t know why she had said yes, however if she were to be honest, it was because you looked so goddamn beautiful, your eyes, your smile and especially how good you looked in that little black dress you were wearing. She was already missing your soft hands in hers, as you released your grip, turned around and walked, more like stumbled, to the bathroom door and knocking your fist on it. You yelled out a “Can you please hurry up!” before retreating to stand in front of the opposite wall facing Abby, with your arms crossed over your chest, mimicking Abby’s stance. 

You looked at her smiling and couldn’t help but to blush, Abby noticed and smiled back at you. If the situation wasn’t dire, you would have tried to flirt with her, start to compliment her outfit, then her hair, her eyes and of course her muscles. But now all you could do was focus on not peeing yourself in front of her. The flirting could wait. 

-

Abby saw your demeanour change from giving her flirty glances and smiles to a serious expression, eyebrows knitting together and heavy breathing. “What’s wrong?” she asked, you muttered “I think I’m gonna throw up.” Abby sprung into action, making her way across the small hallway, her fist knocking hard against the wood, from your perspective it looked like she was going to punch a hole through the door. She yelled “Hey, you better come out, someone needs to throw up” and continued her banging on the door. It only took seconds before the door unlocked and a couple clumsily walking out of it. You sprinted to the toilet, got down on your knees, and vomited into the toilet bowl. Abby was immediately behind you, after closing and locking the door, and grabbed your hair and held it. After a couple of minutes, you laid your head on your arm against the toilet seat. Abby stroked your back, which she had done through all of it, and asked softly “Are you okay?” with a weak “yeah” you answered her. Abby helped you to stand up, you walked to the sink to rinse your mouth as she flushed the toilet. 

“Is it alright if I pee?” Abby said, making sure that you're okay with her going first. “Yes, of course,” you said while trying to remove the mascara smudges under your eyes and Abby was a little surprised that you didn’t leave the bathroom. When Abby was finished, flushed the toilet and took a stand beside you to wash her hands, you yourself went to relieve your bladder. “Do you want me to get you an Uber or something?” Abby asked you when you were sitting on the toilet, she of course didn’t look in your direction. “No, I don’t want to risk throwing up in someone's car,” you answered. “Do you live far away from here?” Abby asked, “kinda” you answered, “How long of a walk?” “45 minutes maybe” you answered her. You were now by the sink washing your hands, with Abby standing beside you. “Let me walk you home then.” Abby said with a smile. “You don’t have to do that,” you told her, but she retaliated with “How will you get home then?” You just shrugged your shoulders, she continued with “I really don't mind, I promise. I just want to make sure you’re getting home safe.” “You sure you don't mind?” you questioned, “I am sure” Abby said with a smile. 

- 

The two of you now stood outside of the house, after retrieving your jackets from a small bedroom where they laid in a pile on the bed, and then having to elbow your way out of the house. You had just sent a text to your friend saying that you were going home and were now typing in your address into Abby’s phone. When you were done Abby looked at her phone and then started walking the route that her phone told her to go. You had your arm wrapped around her bicep for stability, no other reason. The two of you had made it a couple of metres before you looked at her and said “You're walking me home, but I don’t even know your name” Abby chuckled, when she realised that in all of the chaos of the night the two of you hadn’t mentioned your names. Abby put away her phone and reached out with her right hand inviting you to shake her hand, “I’m Abby, nice to meet you” she said with a smile, you giggled at her antics finding her very cute at the moment, before you released your grip on her bicep and shook her hand “It’s very nice to meet you Abby, I’m Y/n.” You mirrored the smile on her face, which you couldn’t get rid of even if you tried to. 

For the rest of your 45 minute walk you and Abby talked about anything that came up in your inebriated mind. First the basics, like what the two of you were studying, your respective future careers, hobbies and what not. Abby was just enabling your continued drunken thoughts and questions about her. She found you quite amusing in the way you rambled about different topics. She also found you charming in the way you manage to slip in some flirty remarks about her, while still slurring on your words. As the walk continued however, your words became more clear and you regained your balance and towards the end of it you started to feel fine, having sobered up in the cool air of the night. 

At the end of your route, the two of you stood outside the entrance to your dorm building. Either of you wanting the night to end. You went to hug Abby, which she reciprocated opening up her big arms which you then became enveloped in, while in the hug you asked her “How are you getting yourself home, Abby?” “I’ll just get an Uber,” she answered. You nodded at her as you stepped out of the hug, holding onto her hands, the two of you in the same position which you had started the night. “You could come up to my room, while waiting for it,” you suggested, while lightly swinging her hands and gleaming at her. She let out a chuckle, but her facial expression turned sincere, she softly said “I don't think that's a good idea.” You took a small step back. “Oh, I’m sorry, I just assumed you were-” you started, but she cut you off, “It’s not that I don’t want to, I just don’t think we should, given the state you're in,” she said genuinely. 

You gave her a smile, and went in for a second hug, which she again reciprocated, you again spoke in the hug “Let me give you my number, so I can make sure you get home safe.” Abby looked at you and plastered on your face was a smirk. “Of course,” she answered, handing over her phone, she wasn’t going to let something like this just pass her by. When you were finished typing your phone number into her phone, you handed it back and said “I’ll see you around then.” Before walking off, you pressed a kiss onto Abby’s cheek and then all she saw was the back of you making your way to the door. She quickly saved your number as a contact, before turning back to look at you. You were now turned towards her at the entrance door and you gave her a little wave, she waved back and you stepped through the door and let it close behind you. Abby smiled to herself when she booked the Uber.

- 

When you woke up the next morning with a dry mouth and a headache, you tapped the screen of your phone and saw a new text message.

+1 (564) 000-0000

Made it home safe :) Let’s grab a coffee sometime - Abby

:｡.｡:+* ﾟ ゜ﾟ *+:｡.｡:+* ﾟ ゜ﾟ *+:｡.｡.｡:+*ﾟ ゜ﾟ *+:｡.｡:

Thank you for reading! If you liked this fic, check out my masterlist for more :)

[flemingsgirl]

Bundle of joy

Her sweet wife's expecting and her teammates being just like family.

Viviane Miedema x freader

Tw: Mention of vomit and a swear..

Wrapped in your coat only your eyes and scrunched nose looking out you sat behind the bench of her team; Viv organized you a bandage for the seat. When the team walks back to the locker room Katie and some other wave at you and as Vivianne makes her way past you she stops at the railing. “Look at you all freezing up, just wearing gloves, what are you hoping for,” you laughed and she rolls her eyes. Her hand reaching for yours intertwining them, “You okay?” She knitted her brows. “you’re quite passive just some jogs.”

“Yeah, yeah, someone kicked me against my shine.”

“Nasty.”

“You can say that loud. Are you alright?” her eyes wandering from yours down to your abdomen.

“I’m fine, we’re fine” her lips curl up and her dimple visualizes on her cheek. “You’re rocking it Anna,” you squeeze her hand, the goner laughed, and you showed how you have her finger crossed, she gives you another radiant smile before disappearing into the dugout.

When the game ends her eyes search for you on your designed seat. “You good Miedema?” her thick accent filling the air.

“Yeah just looking..”

“For Y/N? I think she left ten minutes ago.” The woman takes off as the words left katies mouth.

Banging on the several doors in the restroom she hears heavy breathing behind the last one. “Schatje,” she raises her hand and knocks hesitantly on the door, “can you let me in?”

“It’s open,” you mumble, and she slowly pushes the door open. “It hit out of the blue, couldn’t even watch the end.”

Her hand rubs over your back, her other holding your hair back, “it’s alright, it wasn’t even important.”

“Every game is important for me, seemingly not for her.” Your head rests in your hand as you take deep breaths in.

“She cannot quite understand it,” Viv lets out a chuckle and takes your cheek in her hand.

“Don’t, I stink.”

“So, do I.”

“You don’t wanna kiss me with all the vomit.”

“I’d always kiss you but if you don’t feel like it it’s okay.” She rises to her feet holding out a hand for you, “you wanna come into the changing room and wait for me?”

“I don’t know I’m not sure if the nausea is gone,” you take her hand, and she helps you on your feet.

“Good, small steps, okay? So how are we?” leading you out of the stall and towards the sinks, getting some water in her hands she attaches it to your skin, a prickling feeling runs through your body. “You’re doing so well.”

“I’m just standing.”

“Yeah, and that’s enough,” she places her hands on your tummy which is hid in your coat. “We’re almost done, only a few weeks.” She pecks your cheek, then the other and at last your forehead. “I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you, my love,” you bring your arms around your neck and snuggle into the crock of her neck, the sweaty smell almost calming you. “I’m ready let’s get this done.”

She guides you into the changing room where you’re meet with cheers and shouting from her mates, Beth almost jumping you to the ground, Viv could catch the two of you before worse could happen. “I can’t believe only a few weeks,” she squeaks still jumping up and down. Two strong arms sling around your body as Katie pulls you into her embrace “Can’t leave before aunty Katie said hello,” she lowers her head to the bump, “Yo hello bud in there, it’s your favourite don’t upset your mommies they’re doing their best and beyond. Can’t wait until you’re here.”

“Oh, girls you’re so sweet,” tears built up in your eyes and your bottom lip trembles they’re taking the cue and hold you in their embrace until Vivianne is ready to go home. “Okay guys see you tomorrow,” she waves for them, and you both step out.

The first days back home with your little bundle of joy was everything besides joy, screaming, crying, vomiting, pooping, people who say it’s easy peasy lemon squeezy should rod in hell. Hectic that was your new normal. Don’t get this wrong the birth of your baby girl was next to your wedding day the best day in your life, Heleen is a sweet girl and looks just like her mom but then she got this cold in the first days being home, she gets fuzzy and screams almost the whole day, neither of you could keep an eye shut, your hearts breaking at her being sick.

After this bumpy start the three of you fell perfect into the family routine and life. The only thing that was a topic that you discussed with your wife was football. She paused training with the girls the first month of Heleen’s life, she needed to get back on the pitch, stay in form, train for her to be part of the squad but that wasn’t as important to her than her family.

“Viv, it’s been a month you can’t stay home and workout here.”

“Why so?

“We don’t have the capacitate nor the girls to push you. You miss them. I know,” you caresses her cheek as you step closer to her in the rocking chair. “They need you. We got this; you still have half of the day with us my love.”

“But what if I don’t want to leave you?”

“I don’t want it either but there are some things we can’t change. We’ll come around as much as we can,” you peck her cheek and rest your head on hers as your hands hold her face. “You’re not a bad person, it’s your job.”

Marking her tenth month she was the first time in the stadium with you, the noise cancelling headphones on her head as she cradles in your arm eyes sparkling as she observes her surroundings. “Quite lovely innit Hel?” you kiss her occipital. “Look there’s mommy,” you point towards your wife who walks behind Beth onto the pitch, she squeaks and jumps in your lap. Heleen fell asleep around the twentieth minutes.

Viv scored twice that day and sent you a heart each time. Your daughter wakes before them and sees them as well, so you think cause she somewhat claps her small hands together, making you giggle. When the games ends you moved closer to the pitch with your daughter tight pressed into your body.

“Look who’s there,” you turn her in your grip, “your favourite aunty.” Katie sees you and runs over to you almost crashing into some other player.

“Look at you, all proud of aunty to win,” she raises her hands towards you, and you hand your daughter to the other woman.

“But careful Katie,” one brow raised, and your pointing finger dared on her.

“You know me.”

“Yeah, the biggest argument.”

“Let’s get you to your mommy,” she coos and walks over to Viv who was wrapped in a conversation with Beth and Caitlin.

“Oh, who’s there!”

“Our biggest fan!”

“Hartendief,” Viv tickles her side, and she wiggles in Katie’s grip and then she takes her off her aunties arm and into her body. “I scored for you have you seen that?” she whispers into her little ear, “I’m very happy you’re here.” She pecks her forehead and joins the conversation again, a smile plastered on her lips.

[wosoamazing]

Sick Days

Blurt/One-Shot | Diabetes & Love Warnings: Sickness (vomiting), Sever low blood sugar, passing out, mentions of seizures, hospitals, ambulances. This is probably crap but yeah.... wrote it and decide just to post it...

You were flopped against your Mum’s body as she held you whilst also trying to carry everything else, she stopped at the door to the gym, knocking before sticking her head in, 

“Hey Leah, I’m so sorry, I know we were meant to spend the night hanging out and I was taking you home but she is really sick and so I think it's best I take her home, hopefully then no one else will get it either,” Leah saw the way you looked slightly green and decided your Mum was going to need help, this was the first time you had been sick since your diagnosis and it looked like it wasn’t going to be pretty.

“I’ll still come if you want, help you with y/n and keep you entertained while you’re cooped up in the house,” Leah offered.

“Yeah okay. I’ll meet you in the car?” your Mum said, gaining a nod from Leah.

-

“You’re going with Russo right?” Viv asked as Leah entered the locker room.

“Yeah,” Leah said as she started frantically packing her things.

“Good, we were worried, y/n looks really sick,” Katie said “Keep us updated?” The Irish woman was pretty sure Leah sent her a nod of confirmation.

“Leah if either of you guys need anything just call, and I’ll be straight over,”

“Will do, thank you all, sorry for leaving so abruptly,” Leah told everyone as she walked out the room.

It had been a few hours since you got home and you kept vomiting, Alessia was getting worried and Leah was nervous that she would soon need another set of hands to help her, so she called kim. Your Mum was looking more green by the minute and seemed to be sweating a lot more than she should have. Leah was also pretty sure she heard your Mum coughing one of the times she went to the bathroom.

“Leah, can you call an ambulance?” Alessia asked just as Kim arrived at the front door.

“Okay, so it is bad, Leah you good calling the ambulance?” The older of the pair nodded at their captain as she was already dialling 111, “What do you need Alessia?” “Can you put some towels down beside her, she’s most likely going to vomit once I do this,” your Mum asked and Kim nodded before quickly running off and returning with some towels. She placed them in front of you and your Mum quickly gave you the glucagon injection, causing you to cry, before suddenly you had thrown up again, but you barely had the energy to do that, your cries were so weak and everyone in that room hoped the paramedics would be there soon. Your Mum was rubbing your back, trying her hardest not to cry yet, she didn’t want to scare you.

“I know bubba, I’m sorry, the ambulance should be here to help soon, I’m so sorry, I love you so much.”

Just as the paramedics walked into the kitchen, you were throwing up again and your Mum and Kim quickly stood up letting them get to work, Leah having told them everything they needed to know already.

You Mum stood up and immediately was pulled into Leah’s arms, where she just started sobbing violently, and Leah had to hold her tightly to make sure she didn’t collapse.

“We’re going to take her to Watford, they may then want to transfer her to one of the bigger paediatric centres, but it's best we get her stabilised first, unfortunately only two of you can travel with us, and they most likely will only let two of you in with her anyway at any one time,” The paramedics told the three women but mainly it was aimed at Leah and Kim, with your Mum being so out of it now.

“I’ll stay here and clean up, you go with them, Leah, just keep me updated,” Kim told Leah who nodded.

“You can sit in the back with them both if you want,” One of the paramedics told Leah who nodded before grabbing your Mum’s phone, and her keys before grabbing her own phone, and going to sit next to Alessia in the ambulance, who held onto Leah's hand like a lifeline.

You were wheeled ahead as your Mum and Leah, well more Leah were left to do some paperwork, Alessia felt a panic surge through her body when she saw your body start seizing, immediately you were surrounded by doctors, she started swaying slightly, accidentally bumping into Leah as her feet became unsteady, “Less, you okay? Less” Leah said just before Alessia passed out, “Shit, Less,” Leah dropped the clipboard and pen to catch her before lowering her on the ground, positioning her on her side.

“Why didn’t you tell us you weren’t feeling well,” Leah asked your Mum sternly who was now sat in a hospital bed.

“I ah-” “Is that what you were doing every time you went to the bathroom? Throwing up?”

“I’m sorry,” Alessia mumbled before beginning to cry, causing Leah to climb into the bed next to her, pulling her into her chest.

“We’re all here for you Less, you just need to let us be there for you,” “I just, I didn’t want to feel like a burden, and I just, I’m a single Mum, it’s just me,” “But it’s not just you Less, we are all here for you, her diagnosis has changed nothing, we will look after both of you, just like we always have. Would it make you feel better if I made everyone do a professional diabetes class rather than just going off what you have taught us? I mean I already have but I would be happy to sit through another one and force everyone else to do one too, I'm sure they would all be just as happy to learn so they could help out though. Does that sound good?” Leah felt Alessia nod into her shoulder before they both started to doze off.

[topguncortez]

Blow to the Head - J. Halstead

whumptober masterlist || previous day

prompts: slurred words

synopsis: you had always dreamed of being a police officer, but one bad accident left you with a lifetime of pain. Luckily for you, Jay is the perfect person to be by your side.

warnings: car accident, swearing, mentions of child crimes, mentions of sex trafficking crimes, mentions of passing out, mentions of vomiting, slurring words, intense pain

word count: 1.9k

You knew from a young age that you wanted to be a police officer. Your father was, and there was something about watching him protect and save the people of the city that had you wanting to follow in his footsteps. He always reminded you that it was a daily sacrifice, that some days were easier than others. Some days, he got to do the easy things like write traffic tickets and do school yard crossing. Other days, he was arresting people for warrants or having to tell a total stranger that their loved one was killed. You were prepared to make those sacrifices, prepared for those tough days that came with the job that you so badly wanted. 

And you did get that job. You got to have your perfect job for three years. One of those years was spent in a patrol squad, before you and your partner, Jay Halstead, caught the eye of Hank Voight, the captain of the intelligence unit. You knew of Hank’s reputation from your father, and knew that he didn’t extend the invite to join the unit very often. You took the spot without thinking, easily falling into the groove of the unit. It was tough work, and sometimes the bad days outweighed the good by a long shot. But those good days. . . those good days were your favorite. 

It was one bad day that took your entire life from you in an instant. 

It was going to be a routine bust, you and Jay waiting in your jeep on the side of an abandoned warehouse, waiting for Hank’s call to move in. It had been months of creeping in on a local gang leader who had been involved in a sex trafficking ring involving children. To you, the cases involving kids hit harder. They were the most innocent group, and the easiest to be attacked. You had a chip on your shoulder the whole time while working the case, chomping at the bit to get this guy. 

“Come on, Hank,” You muttered, looking out your car window, “Come on, come on, come on.” 

“Patience,” Jay hissed, as annoyed as you are, “This guy is skittish. We move too early and we lose everything.” 

“Or we lose more kids,” You shook your head, going to reach for the walkie when gunshots fired off. 

“I lost him! Out the back!” Hank’s voice crackled over the radio, “Blue car! I got kids here!” . 

“Shit! I’m going in, chase after him!” Jay said, jumping out of the car, and running into the building. You quickly put the car in drive, going straight to the back of the building, easily spotting a blue car. You pressed down firmly on the gas, sending your jeep flying through the city of Chicago. You almost had him, closing in closer and closer, maneuvering the car so you could side swipe him. That was, until a black SUV came out of nowhere, plowing into the driver’s side. You felt your head slam against the airbag as it deployed in your face, your body jerking as the car came to a stop. 

The accident hadn’t totally crippled you. You had to have surgery to repair a broken pelvis, several painstaking months of physical therapy, and to pass the physical fitness test before you could go back to the team. Although your broken bones had been fixed, your doctor diagnosed you with arthritis, making almost every day a living hell. When you got the all clear to come back to the team, you did, for about a month, but the whole time you felt like such a burden. 

“I can’t do this, Jay,” You cried in the locker room, him kneeling in front of you, “I can’t run as fast as I used to, or jump things, or fuck, it even hurts to sit in a car on long surveillance. I can’t do this anymore.” 

“It’s okay,” Jay said, rubbing your knee, “I’m going to take care of you. We’re going to be okay.” 

Jay kept his promise to take care of you, moving you into his house almost as soon as possible. The two of you hadn’t really defined your relationship at that point, but you knew he was yours and you were his. Hank still had you somewhat a part of the intelligence unit, working more inside the house than out. It was easier for you, the days when your pain was really bad, you got to stay home and work from home. 

You knew that you were going to wake up in pain the next day. It was supposed to be an easy gym set, just some light leg work followed by a thirty minute walk on the treadmill. Usually, it wasn't an issue, you would wake up feeling that good type of muscle soreness. But the shift from warm late summer weather to the cooler fall weather had your bones feeling brittle.

You could hardly get out of bed, your knees and hips aching, your spine feeling like cement had been poured down it. It took you nearly ten minutes to pull yourself to your feet, and it felt like pins and needles. Tears filled your eyes as you shuffled your way to the bathroom to do your morning routine. You bit back a cry as you lowered yourself down to the toilet. 

Ever since your diagnosis, Jay has done all he physically could do to help you. He read nearly every article he could get his hands on, wrote down all the recipes he could find, googled all the best treatment options there were. On the days the pain was really bad, Jay would help you inject cortisone into your joints, hoping to help relax them and lessen the pain. He hated watching you like this. He hated that your careers, which had started together, had gone in such totally different ways. 

You let out a shaky breath as you tried to reach for the ginger tea on the shelf. You had already planned to take some Tylenol, and curl up with your heating pad. You texted your physical therapist and sadly she couldn't get you in for acupuncture. 

Your whole body felt weak as you picked up the tea kettle and poured the hot water into your mug. You very slowly walked to the couch, holding your mug tightly in your hands, worried that your hands could give out at any moment and send scalding water to the ground. You gently eased yourself down on the couch, letting out a groan as your body sunk into the soft cushions.

You weren't sure when you fell asleep, but you woke up to Jay's worried face in front of you, gently running his hand over your cheek. "Jay?" Your head was pounding as you looked up at him, the lamb behind his head making it look like a halo around him, "What are you-"

“You haven’t been answering your phone,” He said, “Hailey said that you canceled your lunch plans and then quit answering. I got worried.”

You nodded, “I just. . . hurt.” 

Jay’s eyes filled with hurt at your slurred voice, knowing that the pain is damn near unbearable if you canceled your plans with Hailey, “Show me where it hurts.” You closed your eyes as the tears started to fall down your face, “You should’ve called me.” 

“The case is important,” You sniffled, not wanting to look up at him. 

“You are important,” Jay said, bending down to place a soft kiss on the crown of your head, “How about a bath and a massage?” You nodded, "Alright. I'm gonna help you sit up." You nodded again as Jake put his strong arms under your back and arms, moving your body from a laying down position to a sitting one. You let out a cry and Jake pressed his lips to your forehead, "I know, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." 

“It’s okay,” You sniffled, taking in a short breath. Just that small movement sent a wave of pain and had stars dancing in your vision. It wouldn’t be the first time that you have lost consciousness from Jay trying to help you. The pain gets to be too much that your body just shuts down. You gripped Jay’s shirt tightly in your hands, willing the all too familiar feeling of bile rising in your throat to go away. 

“Do we need to go to Med?” Jay whispered. You hated having to go to Med when the pain got bad. You did everything in your power to stay away from taking heavy pain pills and going to the doctor for treatment. 

You let out a slow breath, “No. Just move slowly. Please,” Your voice cracked. 

Jay nodded his head, letting you sit up for just another moment, before sliding his arms under your legs and around your back. Another cry left your lips as Jay lifted you up and began walking to your bedroom. He hated causing you more pain, but knew that this was going to be the best place for you to get some reprieve. 

"I'll go draw your bath and change," Jay said, setting you down on the vanity chair. He moved around the room quickly, drawing your bath and adding some drops of essential oils in, as you tried to strip from your clothing. You tried to lift your shirt over your head, but even that caused you to cry out in pain. 

Jay stopped what he was doing and ran to you, "Hey, let me help you."

"I can do this," You shook your head and Jay nodded. He had learned one thing over the years that you still wanted to do as many things as you could despite the pain. When you were fully naked, Jay helped you to your feet as you walked towards the bathroom. You could smell the lavender and rosemary oils. You gripped Jay's hands tightly as you stepped into the bathtub and he helped you gently lower yourself into the hot water.

Jay sat on the other side of the bathtub on the ground, and watched you. You let out a sigh as you settled into the water, feeling the ache in your joints go from a nine to at least a five. Everything still hurt but it was a bit more manageable.

“I’m still going to call Will and have him come see you tomorrow,” Jay said, grabbing a washcloth, soaking it in the bath and then gently rubbing it across your back and down your shoulders. “You can tell him to fuck off when he gets here, but he’s coming over.” 

A small chuckle left your mouth, “Okay.” You knew there was no arguing with him on that one. You were surprised that Jay hasn’t already invited Will over to come take a look at you. 

"Do you want to ice down after this?" Jay asked, gently moving his hand in the water.

"No. Just put the lotion in the fridge," You said and Jay nodded, "You already did, didn't you?"

He smiled, "Yeah, I did," He sat up on his knees and leaned in to kiss your forehead, "I rewarmed your tea and got you some more Tylenol. Your physical therapist said she can get you in tomorrow morning. I already got tomorrow cleared so I can take you."

"Jay-"

"In sickness and in health," Jay said, and caressed your cheek, "I made a promise. And I mean it." You nodded and Jay placed yet another kiss on your forehead, making you smile.

[wosoragebaiter69]

a bit hot

barça fem x teen!reader

request: here

A/N: yesterday i was in shambles trying to write this.. i keep getting sickness i write about 💀food poisoning next 😃

TW: Vomit, passing out, illness

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

It all started with a small headache, it was one you could tolerate, probably just a bit of exhaustion and would go away once drinking water. The thing was though, it didn’t go away.

It was hot in Barcelona, 37° C hot. Water intake for everyone was high, and you were being made to drink extra water by not only the physios, but also your Captains.

Honestly, you thought everyone was feeling like this if you’d been drinking the most and still feeling headachy. You persevere though determined to not let a bit of pain decide how the training goes.

But when ignored, problems only get worse.

It only takes half an hour for your overall health to decline, and obviously people notice. How couldn’t they when it looked like you couldn’t even think straight.

Which is true. You don’t recognise what’s happening until Alexia is pulling you away and inside the air-conditioned room.

“Dios Mío. What are we going to do with you.” Is the first thing she says, putting you in the direct line of 18° coolness blasting. It isn’t enough though.

You feel yourself growing tired, your head dropping every few seconds.

“Hey, hey. Stay awake for me yeah?” Your captain asks you. The only thing you are capable of doing is groaning before ultimately passing out, falling into her chest.

- - - - -

When you wake up again, you’re in a different room. A fan blowing on you and a UV line dripping into your skin. Alexia is also there, who has been joined by Marta and Mapi.

You feel sick to your stomach, shutting your eyes in hopes of holding anything inside back. Conceal don’t feel right? That’s what Elsa says.

You hear footsteps cautiously approach, you don’t have to open your eyes to know it’s Alexia.

“Nena?” She whispers quietly, placing her hand on your still slightly warm skin. You shake your head, trying to suppress any indicators that you were about to throw up. She knows better, Mapi knows better, Marta knows better.

The other captain throws Alexia a puke bag who holds it in front of your mouth.

“Come on, I know you don’t want to but please. You’ll feel better.” You give into her and into yourself. Retching into the bag, making all the girls in the room cringe at the sound.

Once you’ve pulled yourself together, Alexia closes the bag and disposes it in a bin in the corner.

“Are you going to throw up again soon or no?” She asks, sparing a glance at the other two.

“I should be fine, thanks Ale.” Your voice is hoarse and slightly cracks.

“Ok, good.” She leans against the table you’re on thinking about what to say next. Marta beats her to it.

“Why didn’t you speak up about how ill you were? We would’ve brought you in sooner.” You sigh.

“Well I thought we were all going through that! I had been drinking more water than you guys yet I’m still the one who is plugged into a machine?”

“You have to promise to tell us next time ok?” Alexia asks, you nod.

“Bebita, I have Ingrid ready in the car when you feel well enough. The doctor said you could take the UV out when you wake up” You smile at the thought of getting into your bed at home.

“Ok, thanks Mapi.” She pats your leg smiling.

“We’ll talk about this another day ok? Go home, get rest. You are not going to be training in conditions like these over the next few days. Some investigators are looking into why this has happened so they might want to talk to you at some point.” She finishes curiously.

“Well, sounds fun. I wanna go home now.” Mapi nods, helping you stay up and walking toward the car where Ingrid is already situated.

- - - - -

When you get home you’re exhausted, hungry and sweaty.

“Come on elskling, I’ll run you a bath while Mapi gets you some light food. Then you can sleep for however long you need. Is that ok?” Ingrid says, pushing you inside.

“Mkay, thanks Ingrid.” She kisses your temple placing the training bags she was holding in her room before going to the bathroom to start a cool bath.

“I won’t make you anything warm, do you want a salad?” A salad does sound good, and refreshing.

“Sounds good.” She leads you to the bench, the cool countertop doing wonders against your warm skin.

She gets the salad ready rather fast, it’s not that big, but definitely enough that you won’t go to sleep uncomfortable.

Soon after eating your food, Ingrid comes back.

“Bath is ready when you are.”

You nod, legs still shaky so the couple helps you to the bathroom sitting you down.

“You’ll be ok?” Ingrid asks feeling your forehead, still cringing slightly.

“Yeah, I will. Thank you both… this means so much to me.”

“Don’t worry bebita, it’s the least we can do.” Mapi says smiling.

They both take your silence as a que to leave the room so they do. The bath relaxes you, and takes away most of the uncomfortable feelings inside.

When you’re done, you change into shorts and an old shirt, walking out slowly to the living room where Ingrid is reading a book and Mapi is playing with Bagheera.

Ingrid notices you first.

“Do you want medicine? Then you can sleep.”

“Yes please.” She gets up, going to medical cabinet pulling two paracetamol out and handing them to you with a glass of water.

“Drink.” You do as told and you finally let the exhaustion of the day come up to you. Before you realise what’s happening, Mapi has lifted you up and is taking you to your room.

“If you need anything, we’ll be here. Promise.” She whispers, putting you to bed. You smile up at her before falling into a peaceful slumber.

—————————————————

thanks for all the love and support guys, i hope that i can post the other fic tonight so you get 2 in one day 😘

[fr0stf4ll]

Forge of Starlight - Part 3

paring; Azriel x reader

summary; In the heart of Velaris, a skilled blacksmith's quiet life is turned upside down when unexpected bonds begin to form with the enigmatic Spymaster of the Night Court. As she navigates the challenges of her craft and the complexities of newfound relationships, she discovers that love and loyalty may be the strongest forces of all in a world where darkness often lingers just beyond the light.

word count ; 4.6k

warning; blood, vomit °°3

notes; hello hello everyone, here is the part 3 a bit earlier this time ! Please take into account the warnings it's nothing to big but I rather mention them before. Otherwise don't hesitate to comment (I'm down to see if you guys have some theories for the next parts :)) ) or ask to be on the tag list ;)) See you soon, bisous bisoussss

here is the link for part 2 or part 4

---

The morning sun had barely risen over Velaris when you began preparing for your trip to the Winter Court. The crisp air carried a hint of frost, a promise of the cold that awaited you in Kallias’s domain. Your latest commission was an intricate and challenging one—a weapon requested personally by the High Lord of the Winter Court. The order was for a ceremonial glaive, crafted with a blade of shimmering, icy blue steel that seemed to capture the essence of winter itself. The hilt was designed to resemble the ancient trees of the Court, with delicate, frost-like etchings that trailed along its length, meeting a pommel embedded with a crystal that glittered like freshly fallen snow.

You admired the weapon one last time as you packed it carefully in a protective case. The glaive was a masterpiece, a blend of artistry and power that you were proud to deliver personally. But as you were finalizing your preparations, Alex approached you, his expression a mix of determination and concern.

“Nana, I think I should stay in Velaris,” Alex began, his tone firm despite the lingering traces of the boyish enthusiasm he usually carried. “The shop needs someone here, and I can handle things while you’re gone.”

You paused, turning to face him fully. “Alex, it’s not just about the shop. Leaving you on your own in Velaris for a week, it’s not safe.”

Alex crossed his arms, his brows furrowed in a way that reminded you of your younger self. “But Nana, you’re the one who taught me how to take care of myself. And besides, business is going great! We can't afford to close the shop for a week, maybe even longer. I can just tell customers that we’re temporarily closed for new orders, but that we are still selling regular weapons.”

You sighed, considering his words. “It’s not just about the money, Alex. It’s about making sure everything stays secure. The shop, our work, you—it’s all important.”

Alex stepped closer, his eyes pleading. “And that’s exactly why I should stay. I know how much this place means to you, to us. I’ll make sure nothing happens, I promise. Stellan can stay with me for protection, and you know he’s more than capable of keeping any trouble away.”

You glanced at Stellan, who was lounging nearby, his dark eyes watching the conversation with quiet understanding. The direwolf had been your protector for years, and you knew that with him by Alex’s side, there was little to fear.

“But Alex, you’re still young. I can’t help but worry,” you said softly, your concern evident in your voice.

Alex’s expression softened, but his resolve didn’t waver. “I know, Nana. But you’ve trained me well. I can handle the shop, and Stellan will keep me safe. Besides, I’ll just be here in Velaris—it’s not like I’m going anywhere dangerous. You’ll be back before I know it, and everything will be just fine.”

You hesitated, the protective instinct within you clashing with the knowledge that Alex was more capable than you sometimes gave him credit for. The truth was, he was right. Business was good enough that closing the orders for a week wouldn’t be a disaster, and with Stellan at his side, the risks were minimal.

Finally, you sighed, nodding in reluctant agreement. “Alright, Alex. You can stay, but promise me you’ll be careful. No taking on new orders, just handle any clients who come by and tell them we’re temporarily closed for them. And if anything happens—anything at all—you send word to me immediately.”

A grin spread across Alex’s face, a mix of relief and excitement. “I promise, Nana. I won’t let you down.”

You smiled, ruffling his hair affectionately. “I know you won’t, Alex. Just remember, Stellan’s there to protect you, but don’t take any unnecessary risks. I’ll be back before you know it.”

As you finalized your preparations, you brought Stellan downstairs, where he immediately positioned himself near Alex, his massive frame a comforting presence. “Keep an eye on him, Stellan,” you said softly, rubbing the direwolf’s head. Stellan’s eyes met yours, and you felt reassured by the silent understanding between you.

With everything settled, you turned to Alex once more. “I’ll leave early tomorrow. You know where the emergency contacts are, and if anything comes up, don’t hesitate to reach out.”

Alex nodded, his expression serious now that the plan was set. “I’ve got it covered, Nana. Just focus on your trip and getting that amazing glaive to Kallias.”

You smiled, feeling a mixture of pride and a hint of anxiety as you realized how much Alex had grown. “Thank you, Alex. I’ll bring you back something from the Winter Court.”

Night had fallen over Velaris, and the familiar routine of winding down the day had set in. You were seated in your bed, sketchbook open on your lap as you meticulously worked on the designs for your next project. The soft light of the moon filtered through the curtains, mingling with the warm glow of the candles, creating a peaceful ambiance. Alex was fast asleep beside you, his breathing slow and even, the day’s events having worn him out.

Stellan, ever vigilant, lay at the foot of the bed, his eyes half-closed but his senses still sharp. As you sketched, you felt a deep sense of contentment, the tranquility of the moment wrapping around you like a comforting blanket. But that peace was suddenly shattered.

Within seconds, the atmosphere in the room changed. The air felt thicker, charged with something ominous that set your nerves on edge. Stellan’s ears shot up, his body tensing as a low growl rumbled from deep within his chest. The hairs on the back of your neck stood on end, and you felt a chill run down your spine.

Before you could react, a dark shadow coalesced in the corner of the room, and Azriel, the shadow singer, materialized before you. His face was grim, his usual calm demeanor replaced with urgency. "We need you," he said, his voice clipped and direct, wasting no time on pleasantries.

Without another word, he reached for your arm, his grip firm but not harsh. The world around you blurred as shadows enveloped you both, and in the blink of an eye, you were no longer in your apartment.

You arrived at the House of Wind, the sudden change in surroundings leaving you momentarily disoriented. The grand, familiar architecture did nothing to ease the confusion swirling in your mind. Azriel was already moving, his expression dark and unyielding as he led you down a corridor.

"Azriel, what’s going on?" you demanded, struggling to keep up with him. The urgency in his movements only heightened your anxiety. "Why did you bring me here?"

"I don’t have time to explain," he replied, his voice tight with controlled emotion. "You’ll understand when you see it."

That statement did nothing to calm your nerves, but you followed him without further question, your heart pounding in your chest. The path he led you down seemed endless, the tension in the air growing thicker with each step. Finally, he pushed open a heavy door and ushered you inside.

The room was dimly lit, the air heavy with the scent of herbs and something far less pleasant—blood. Your eyes immediately landed on Rhysand, who stood near the bed with a look of barely-contained worry. Madja, the healer, was at his side, her face set in grim determination. But it was the sight of Cassian that made your breath catch in your throat.

He was lying on the bed, his usually powerful and imposing figure reduced to a broken and battered state. His wings, once magnificent and strong, were shattered—twisted at unnatural angles, with blood staining the once-proud feathers. The sight was enough to bring a sharp gasp to your lips, your hand instinctively covering your mouth.

Madja’s eyes met yours, and in that moment, you understood why Azriel had brought you here. There was no hesitation in her voice as she spoke. "Y/N, we need your power. You’re the only one who can heal him."

Your heart raced, fear and uncertainty clawing at your insides. You had never used your abilities on something this severe before, and the mere thought of it sent a wave of doubt crashing over you. But as you looked at Cassian, writhing in pain and clinging to consciousness, you knew there was no other choice.

Steeling yourself, you stepped forward and surveyed the state of his wings. The damage was extensive, and you knew that to heal them properly, you needed to use your power to its full potential—a process that required something very specific.

You turned to Azriel, your gaze falling on the blade at his side. "Truth-Teller," you said, nodding toward the dagger.

Azriel hesitated for a moment but then handed you the blade without question, his eyes dark with concern. Taking a deep breath, you positioned yourself over Cassian, holding your arm above his wings. With a swift motion, you made a shallow cut along your forearm, letting your blood drip onto the mangled wings below.

Azriel's eyes widened as blue flames flickered to life where your blood touched, spreading over Cassian’s wings. "Y/N, what are you doing?" he asked, his voice laced with worry.

You glanced at him, offering a small, reassuring smile. "Don’t worry. The fire doesn’t burn—it heals."

As the flames grew, their warmth enveloping Cassian’s broken wings, you focused all of your energy on mending the shattered bones and torn flesh. The process was intense, your body straining under the effort as the flames worked their magic, knitting together what had been broken.

But as the flames did their work, a frown creased your brow. Something wasn’t right. You could feel it—a lingering darkness that wasn’t being touched by your fire. Once the wings were fully healed, you stepped back, still frowning as you scanned Cassian’s body for the source of the disturbance.

"Rhysand, Azriel," you said, your voice tense, "help me turn him over."

They moved quickly, carefully shifting Cassian onto his back. You placed one hand on his face and the other over his heart, closing your eyes as you focused on the strange, dark presence that clung to him.

Madja watched you closely, her expression filled with concern. "Y/N, what’s going on? What do you feel?"

Your eyes snapped open, and without answering her, you leaned down, your instincts guiding you as you pressed your lips to Cassian’s mouth. The taste was bitter, acrid, and wrong. You inhaled sharply, feeling the dark presence surge up, and with a gag, you spit out a thick, black liquid.

But it wasn’t over. You reached into Cassian’s mouth, your fingers searching, feeling for the source of the darkness. Your hand closed around something cold and solid, and with a grimace of effort, you began to pull. 

A long, snake-like spirit, dark and twisted, slithered from Cassian’s throat, its form writhing in your grasp. It fought against you, but you held firm, your determination outweighing the horror of what you were doing.

"Hold him straight!" you commanded, urgency in your voice.

Rhysand and Azriel quickly moved to hold Cassian upright, their faces etched with shock and concern. As they did, Cassian began to vomit, thick black liquid spewing from his mouth and covering you as you knelt in front of him. You didn’t flinch, your focus entirely on the cursed spirit in your hand.

With a final, forceful pull, you yanked the spirit free from Cassian’s body. It writhed in your grip, hissing and snapping, but it was powerless outside of its host. You held it aloft, the dark entity thrashing violently as you turned to the others.

Rhysand, covered in a mixture of concern and gratitude, stared at you, his voice calm but firm. “I think we all need some explanations, Y/N."

Breathing heavily, your body and clothes drenched in Cassian’s vomit and the remnants of the cursed spirit, you nodded wearily. "I’ll explain everything," you said, glancing down at yourself with a hint of exasperation. "But first... I need a shower. I’m still covered in Cassian’s… well, everything.”

—— 

Rhysand led you through the winding halls of the House of Wind, his pace measured and deliberate. The tension from the night’s events lingered in the air, a heavy reminder of the seriousness of the situation. He stopped in front of a door and pushed it open, revealing a room that was both elegant and functional, with the understated luxury typical of Velaris.

The room was furnished with deep, rich fabrics, the bed draped in dark, sumptuous linens. A fireplace crackled softly in the corner, casting flickering shadows across the walls. A balcony at the far end of the room offered a breathtaking view of Velaris, the city’s lights twinkling like stars against the backdrop of the night sky. Beyond, the Sidra River glimmered in the moonlight, its gentle flow a calming presence.

Rhysand gestured toward an adjoining door. “The bath is through there. Take your time, Y/N. We’ll talk when you’re ready.”

You nodded, your body aching with exhaustion and your mind still spinning from the events that had just transpired. As you entered the bathroom, you were greeted by the sight of a grand, sunken bath made of smooth marble. The water was already drawn, steaming gently and scented with soothing herbs that filled the air with a calming aroma.

You sank into the bath, letting the warmth seep into your bones, washing away the grime and tension. The soft light of candles flickered around you, the scent of lavender and eucalyptus soothing your frazzled nerves. As you soaked, you allowed your thoughts to drift back to that night long ago when everything had changed.

You had been just a child, wandering through the woods late at night. The night was alive with shooting stars, bright streaks of light cutting across the dark sky. You’d been entranced, watching the stars fall when you stumbled upon a glowing entity lying in a small crater, its form otherworldly and beautiful. It was like a scene from a dream, the world around you shimmering with magic.

The creature had been weak, its light flickering like a dying flame. It had reached out to you, a small, scared girl, asking for your help in a voice that echoed in your mind rather than your ears. You hadn’t understood the full weight of the decision at the time, but you had agreed to help it, to take it into yourself, binding its essence to yours. From that night forward, you were never the same.

After your bath, you stepped out and found a set of clothes laid out for you—fitting for Velaris, yet with a touch of practicality that matched your own preferences. A tailored tunic of deep indigo, embroidered with subtle patterns, paired with fitted leather pants that allowed for ease of movement. A sturdy yet elegant belt completed the outfit, cinching at your waist with a silver clasp. It was both comfortable and suited for someone who needed to be ready for anything.

Once dressed, you stepped out onto the balcony for a moment, letting the cool night air brush against your face. The view from the House of Wind was nothing short of spectacular, the city of Velaris spread out beneath you like a sparkling jewel. For a brief moment, you allowed yourself to breathe in the peace of the night, to let the beauty of Velaris ground you before you had to face the others.

When you returned to the main room, Rhysand was seated near the fireplace, his expression thoughtful but unreadable. Azriel stood off to the side, half-hidden in the shadows, his gaze flickering toward you as you entered. He didn’t sit but remained in the shadows, a silent sentinel. There was something different in the way he looked at you now—something intense, as if he were seeing you in a new light.

You moved toward them, your steps measured as you took a seat across from Rhysand. The silence between you all was thick, heavy with the weight of unspoken questions and the lingering shock of what had just occurred.

“How’s Cassian?” you asked, breaking the silence, your voice quieter than usual.

Rhysand’s expression remained neutral, his violet eyes sharp and assessing. “Madja is with him. He’s stable, thanks to you. His wings will heal in time, and the curse… whatever it was, is gone.”

You nodded, relief mixing with the residual tension in your chest. “I’m glad to hear that.”

Rhysand’s gaze didn’t waver as he continued, his tone calm but probing. “Madja told us about the healing flames, but what you did tonight—extracting that curse—it’s something we didn’t expect. We need to know, Y/N. How is it possible?”

You took a deep breath, the memories of your past stirring once more. You could feel Azriel���s eyes on you, a strange, unreadable intensity in his gaze that only added to the tension in the room. But you pushed it aside, focusing on the question at hand.

“We all make mistakes,” you began, your voice steady, though the weight of the words pressed heavily on you. “When I was young, I made a contract with a creature that fell from the sky. It wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen before—an entity of pure power, beautiful and terrifying.”

Rhysand leaned back slightly, his expression unreadable as he listened. “A contract?”

You nodded, your gaze distant as you recalled that night in the woods. “I was just a little girl, alone and afraid. I was out in the woods, mesmerized by the falling stars when I stumbled upon this creature. It was weak, dying, and it asked for my help. It needed a host—someone to share its power with, in exchange for life. I didn’t understand what I was agreeing to, but I said yes. I took its essence into me, and from that moment on, it became a part of me.”

Azriel’s eyes narrowed slightly, though he remained silent, his posture tense. There was something almost protective in the way he watched you, though he kept his distance, as if struggling with his own thoughts.

Rhysand’s gaze remained steady, assessing you as you spoke. “And that’s how you gained your abilities.”

“Yes,” you confirmed. “The creature’s power is vast, but it’s also dangerous. I’ve had to learn to control it, to keep it from consuming me. The blue flames you saw—they’re just one aspect of it. But tonight, with Cassian… I could feel the curse inside him, a darkness that my flames alone couldn’t touch. I had to draw it out, to confront it directly.”

“And the curse?” Rhysand asked, his tone careful.

“It was tied to something much darker,” you explained. “The creature’s power allowed me to see it, to pull it out before it could do more harm. It was a risk, but I couldn’t just leave it there.”

Azriel shifted slightly, his gaze softening as he listened. There was a tension in his posture, as if he were grappling with something internally, but he remained silent, letting Rhysand lead the conversation.

Rhysand exchanged a glance with Azriel before turning back to you. “You’ve been carrying this burden alone for a long time.”

You nodded, the weight of your confession settling over you. “I didn’t want to involve anyone else. It’s my responsibility, my mistake.”

Rhysand’s expression softened just slightly, though his voice remained firm. “You’re part of this court now, Y/N. You don’t have to face this alone.”

Azriel’s gaze met yours across the room, and for a brief moment, something unspoken passed between you—a connection that felt both new and ancient, as if something had shifted irreversibly between you two.

As you finished recounting your story, the room fell into a contemplative silence, the weight of everything hanging in the air. You sighed softly, rubbing your temples as the exhaustion from the night caught up with you. Finally, you stood, a sense of duty pulling you back to the reality of your responsibilities.

“I appreciate everything you’ve done,” you began, glancing between Rhysand and Azriel. “But I need to get back home. Tomorrow, I’m supposed to leave for the Winter Court to deliver Kallias’s order.”

At your words, Azriel’s expression immediately shifted. His brows furrowed, and he took a step forward, his posture rigid with concern. “That’s not possible. You can’t go alone—it’s too dangerous.”

You met his gaze, a flicker of frustration sparking within you. “Azriel, I’ve been traveling alone for hundreds of years. I’ve crossed continents, faced dangers you can’t imagine. I know how to take care of myself.”

Azriel’s frown deepened, his eyes darkening with a mix of worry and something more. “Things have changed. After what happened tonight, we can’t take any chances. The roads to the Winter Court aren’t safe, especially not for someone like you.”

You took a step closer to him, squaring your shoulders, determined not to be underestimated. “I’ve handled myself just fine, Azriel. I appreciate your concern, but I’m not some fragile thing that needs protecting. I’ve faced worse than bandits or creatures in the wild. I can deal with it.”

Azriel opened his mouth to argue further, his wings flaring slightly in his agitation, but Rhysand raised a hand, cutting him off. “Azriel, calm down,” Rhysand said, his tone soothing yet firm. He then turned to you, his expression more measured. “We know you can handle yourself, Y/N, and we trust your judgment. But just promise us you’ll be careful.”

You nodded, appreciating their concern but determined to maintain your independence. “I will. I’ve been traveling for centuries, and I know how to handle whatever comes my way. I’ll be back next week, and we can talk more then.”

Rhysand offered you a small, understanding smile. “We’ll look forward to it. There’s much more to discuss, and we’ll be here when you return.”

Azriel, still tense, stepped closer, his gaze intense but still filled with worry. “I’ll fly you back to your place,” he said, his tone steady but leaving no room for argument. “It’s late, and you should rest before your journey.”

You hesitated for a moment, but then nodded. “Alright. Thank you, Azriel.”

Before you could step out into the cool night air, Azriel shrugged off his jacket—a soft, dark leather that still carried the warmth of his body—and draped it over your shoulders. The jacket was far too big for you, the sleeves hanging well past your hands, but the warmth and the gesture itself made your heart skip a beat.

“It’s cold out,” he said quietly, his voice almost a whisper in the quiet of the night. His eyes lingered on you for a moment longer before he added, “And the wind can be biting when we’re flying.”

You pulled the jacket tighter around yourself, the scent of leather and something distinctly Azriel surrounding you. “Thank you,” you murmured, genuinely touched by the small act of kindness.

With his jacket securely around you, Azriel stepped closer, wrapping an arm around your waist to lift you effortlessly as his wings unfurled. The warmth of the jacket and his presence eased the chill of the night, and as he took off into the sky, the cold wind seemed to matter less.

Flying with Azriel, wrapped in his jacket, you felt a strange comfort. The world around you blurred momentarily as the ground fell away, and then the night opened up before you—a vast expanse of stars and the twinkling lights of Velaris below. The city was breathtaking from this height, the Sidra River winding through it like a ribbon of silver, reflecting the moonlight in shimmering patterns. The rooftops of the city glowed softly, the night alive with a quiet, serene beauty that took your breath away. Everything became a blur of twinkling lights and darkened streets, and for a moment, it was just the two of you, soaring through the night sky, sharing a silence that felt more like an understanding than anything else.

The cool wind whipped through your hair as Azriel flew, his strong wings cutting through the air with practiced ease. Despite the speed, his flight was smooth, each powerful beat of his wings propelling you forward with a steady, unerring grace. You found yourself momentarily entranced by the view, the way the world seemed so peaceful from up here, so distant from the chaos and dangers you had faced below.

Azriel’s grip on you was firm but gentle, his warmth a comforting presence in the cold night air. You could feel the tension in his body, the silent worry that still lingered despite your reassurances. It was as if every beat of his wings was fueled by an unspoken need to keep you safe, to ensure you returned to Velaris unharmed.

The flight was over too quickly, and before you knew it, you were descending toward your apartment. Azriel landed lightly, setting you down with care. The ground felt solid beneath your feet again, but you couldn’t shake the lingering sensation of being cradled by the night sky.

“Thank you,” you said quietly, offering him a small smile. “I’ll be fine, Azriel. I’ll be back next week, and we’ll talk then.”

He nodded slowly, his expression softening just slightly. “I’ll be waiting. Just… be careful, Y/N.”

“I always am,” you replied, giving him a reassuring look before turning to head inside.

As you thanked him one last time and made your way inside, you couldn’t help but feel the weight of the jacket—a comforting reminder of the connection that had silently grown between you two.

As you quietly made your way up the stairs to your apartment, the door creaked open to reveal Alex waiting for you in the living room, his arms crossed and a comically exaggerated look of suspicion on his face. Stellan was by his side, watching you with calm, knowing eyes, but Alex’s expression was what really caught your attention.

“What is going on, young lady?” Alex began, his voice mock-serious. “A guy intrudes our place, you run off with him without a word, and then you come back hours later with different clothes, a MEN’s jacket, and then he flies you home? Hmm, hmm, hmm…”

You couldn’t help but burst into laughter at his over-the-top delivery, the tension from the night finally breaking as you took in his antics. “Alex, I promise, it’s not what it looks like!”

He raised an eyebrow, leaning forward with a smirk. “Oh, really? Because it sure sounds like something out of those romance stories people talk about. Are you sure you’re not hiding something from me?”

Still chuckling, you shook your head, stepping further into the apartment. “I was helping a friend, that’s all. And the clothes were a necessity after… well, let’s just say the night got messy.”

Alex’s grin widened, clearly enjoying every bit of this. “And the flying home part?”

You sighed, though your smile remained. “That was just Azriel being… protective. And practical.”

“Uh-huh,” Alex nodded sagely, as if he had it all figured out. “Sure, sure. Just Azriel being ‘protective.’”

You reached out to ruffle his hair, playfully messing it up. “Enough, you little troublemaker. It’s late, and we both need to get some rest. Tomorrow’s a big day.”

Alex laughed, batting your hand away but finally relenting. “Alright, alright. But you’re not off the hook, Nana. I’m keeping an eye on you.”

You gave him a mock salute. “Duly noted, Captain.”

As you headed to your room, Stellan trailing behind you, you couldn’t help but smile at Alex’s antics. Despite the seriousness of the night, his playful teasing was exactly what you needed to lighten the mood.

And as you finally settled into bed, the weight of the day easing off your shoulders, you knew that no matter what challenges the Winter Court or the future might bring, you were ready to face them—with Alex’s humorous observations always keeping you grounded.

tag list: @annamariereads16 @hanatsuki-hime @elsie-bells @shizukestar @rose-girls-world @brit-broskis-cole-fanfic @faridathefairy @elsie-bells

don't hesitate to comment if you want to be added to the tag list ;)))

[jakesangel]

unrequited love w jake - 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒘𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒓𝒚 𝒌𝒊𝒔𝒔 event request

preview : he is always putting you first, why can't he be his girlfriend. allas, you're only his childhood best friend

word count + genre : angst ( i tried to ) . 3.1k ( word vomit so it's not proofread

warning : dorm roommate, childhood best friends, confession, rejection, happy ending, reader gets in her head easily but never cries, jake is a sweetheart

having jake as a bestfriend is the best thing possible in the world. the sweet australian boy who always help you for your physic exams or who's being his dog layla when you're on your period. but it's also the worst thing because of random girls asking you for his number or being hugged by him because you're his cute little sister. it's even worse because no boys are hitting on you, being too scared of to hit on the leader soccer team's favorite girl. so you're jsut left to watch your love story inexist, daydreams of kissing jake the only thing you can do.

baby y/nie ? are you listening to me ? he said with a pout when he realized you werent listening to his usual lego rants while doing lego. sorry jaeyunie, i just keep thinking about our last exam, but i'm here now, you say as you try to convince him tho the pet name made you sadder than what your thoughts did. y/n ? youre okay ? his worry overtaking his body, dropping the lego piece comming closer to you, you know im here for you hm ? his round eyes searching yours. yes, i promise yunie ! im sorry for worrying you, please tell me about that star wars lego set ? to pretedn to the fullest youre acrually okay, you finish your sentence with your hand on his cheek, smiling softly at him but it wssbt needed as hearinf the wors star wards and lego set together pearked his imaginary puppy ears. he goes back on the set, talking about how excited he is for the pieces to arrive tomorrow, indirectly asking you to do them with him tomorrow . i'm studying tomorrow yunie, i’m not done yet with the last chapter, you reply with some sadness filling your voice, not believing of what you gonna say next, but you could do it with emma ? he gives you a confused expression that can only warms your heart, emma ? why would i do lego with her ? its our thing baby y/nie, he answers nonchalently, as he places the last piece on his now finishes thor hammer. finally ! its looks so good isnt it ! he shows you the piece finally done, come on we need to put it up, it's the best one we've ever done ! he excitedly said, jumping on his feet to go to his bedroom. you followed smiling to his puppiness but also from his unasked reasurance. wouldn't it be better in the living room ? i want to see it too, you say w round eyes too, genuinely wanting to see you guys work everyday. which he is more than happy to comply, his love for your happiness alwaya taking over when it fomes to you. omg yes ! always having good ideas, y/nie !, kissing your cheek as he goes to tje round tbale in the center of the kivinf room.

it comes to a shock, coming back from classes to see the said emma on the sofa, checking the lego pieces done just a day before. oh hi y/n, i didn't hear you coming, she said staying on the sofa, just turning around, not even greeting you properly. she has that arrogant smile of hers, paired w her high knee boots and mini skirt. you smile back, going straight to your room, studies waiting or you, you know i should thank you for talking about me to jake but it would be hypeocite of me to do so. we all really really hate you, so please, once jake is mine, stop bothering me hm ? she warned me before turning around to reapply your lipgloss. you can't even defend yourself as jake comes back from his room, smiling at you. baby y/nie ? how was your day ? he asked as he comes for a hug. just classes, you know how it is. you ? you hug him tighter to piss emma even more. as much as he will never date you, he is still your jake and everyone knows it, that she likes it or not. dont wait for me tonight, im having dinner with emma. but i made you your usually study snack and ive made a study plan waiting for you on ur desk. please use it well hm ? he softly says, detaching from you, see you later baby y/nie, domt stuyd too late! he says, coming closer to her, not even looking at her but taking the girls hands, making her proudly smile at you, winning the mental battle you both had. he doesnt even see it as he waits for you to bid him goodbye, which you gladly do, not forgetting to add the baby innfromt of his name, makimg him giggle and getting a frown from her. finally gone, you enter your bedroom, plopping on your bed, softly sighing, taking in everything that had happened. why would she hate me ? ive never ever talked to her, but when she asked me his phone number. and who is we ? are the girls threatened by you ? do they think i have a chance with jake ? or even the boys ? that would explain why none of thek ask me out ? but what about him ? is emma even his type ? she is pretty and seems smart but she is also so arrogant and entitle ? cant he see it ? or is it actually what he likes ?

trying to study is useless, your thoughts belonging to jake, you can only take a shower and pray for the best tomorrow. but even as you shampoo your hair, you can't help but think about emma's reaction. was she really scared of you or is it just her usual self ? so you've been standing there, the water hitting your scalp, for 30 minutes, trying to figure out what you should do. if she was really scared of you that means you can actually have a future with jake as your boyfriend. all the baby y/nie or little gesture will come out as romantic and not as his little sister anymore. as you realized you have a chance, you finish your day in peace, eating the snack jake made you, his infamous ramen, heating it up before going the watch a movie on the sofa. it's only mid movie in, you hear the keys in the door, announcing jake's arrival. i'm in living room ! you whisper yell, letting him know of your presence. y/nie ? why are you still awake at this time bby, he say wrapping his arms around your neck, are you done studying, he finally whisper in your ear, making you all fuzzy. not really, but i saw your study plan, i'll read it before sleeping. join me ? the movie is almost done. you offer, your head titling so you can look at him, i also want to cuddle with you and you can tell me about your date ? you ask cutely, knowing jake wouldn't never say no to cuddles with you. anything you want bby, he says with a kiss before detaching himself from your back. he would smile as he lay on your belly, indirectly asking you to play with his hair, which isn't even needed to be asked. he rubs his face on you, almost cat like, and hums finally getting comfortable. did you have a bad day yunie ? you seemed okay earlier. you softly ask, still brushing hair hair. yeah, it's just emma. she isn't how i thought she was and she talked bad about you so im just disappointed. i could never date someone who doesn't like you bye y/nie, you mean to much for me he says, his head finally lift up, looking right at you. besides she is too much of a diva, i prefer someone like you. someone who wouldnt judge me for playing legos or playing with my hair without needing to be asked to, he smiles at you. i'm really lucky to know you y/nie, he finishes, his head finally going back on the rubbing, acting as if those words were normal to be told, but you know jake is someone really vocal, specially to you, but you can't help but hear something else. like he wants you. and more than just friends. me too yunie, im really really happy to have you by my side. besides who wouldn't want to play with your soft hair, i love them so much. you say making the both of you giggle. and it's like that, the day ends, jake laying on you and you playing with his hair, comfort filling the living room.

omg jake wake up ! we're gonna be late for the exam ! is how up you started your day. but you're now, here, almost tearing where you were soothing jake yesterday who is now the one comforting you, which is something you hate the most. i'm okay jake, we don't have to talk about it, let's just order pizza please. jake knows you aren't the type to talk about your feelings, specially when you feel like crying but for some reason today he can't stop pressuring you, come on y/nie baby, we can talk about it. im sure u didn't do that bad, you'll do better next time, he tried to reassure you, his hand coming to your hair, stroking it. jake, you said, going back, leaving a inch between the two of you, i do not want to talk about it. are you gonna order them or should i do it, you reply almost too coldly. y/n please, i know you, you don't have to keep it in. i'm sorry you feel disappoint- if you know me you'd know i don't want to talk about it nor do i enjoy being in this position right now, jake, you cut him off leaving the living room to go in your bed room, leaving a sad puppy by himself. you feel awful for snapping at him, but you couldn't help it as your nerves are already hanging w a thin thread because of that exam. and having jake all over you, interrogate you with question over your feelings is too much.

you didn't realized you zoned out, right here, sitting up on the edge of your bed, until you hear jake's knock on your door, y/n ? can you open the door please ? you hear a scared jake on the other side of the door, yeah come in, making him enter your bedroom. he never looked this sad, your best friend never wanted to make you sad or be the cause of your distress. ive ordered the pizzas do you want some ? he softly ask, slowly coming towards you, scared to do the wrong thing. it's in the kitchen if you do want it. he is finally in front of you, kneeling up to see your face. i'm sorry if i pressured you, y/nie, i know you don't like being vulnerable. i don't know why i pressured you. he softly tells, his finger lifting your chin to look at him. my apologize baby. he finishes with his eyes asking for forgiveness. i'm so sorry too, i shouldn't have lashed out on you, you say as you throw your arms around you. you're always so so nice to me, i shouldn't have snapped at you. i'm sorry jake, you really dont deserve it, as your arms thigthens around his neck. hearing you, only made his heart sadden, he picks you up by your thighs, to make you more comfy in the bed w a come on baby,let's get you comfy. you can only giggle to that making his heart and mind happy again. once settled, your head on his chest, his on your pillow, a comfortable silence falls upon the both of you. his arms encircling you and his thumbs softly stroking your skin, his soft scent filling up your nose, made you feel such at peace. cuddling with jake is always so calming and comforting and it's somehow making you fearless to tell him your true feelings. jaeyunie ? you say looking up to him, asking for his attention. hm ? he just replies , already looking at you. always looking at you. i feel really good with you. i love being in your arms or playing with your hair. you're confident jake likes you back, he wouldn't be here if he didn't right ? me too y/nie baby, me too, he softly chuckled, happy that you arent mad at him anymore. no jake i mean it, i love it all. youre so nice, and smart and i just can't help but want to be more than your best friend. you expected to see a jake smiling at you, but you're faced with a jake with a confused furrowed brows. what ? as he detach himself from you, to actually look at you, looking for any joke in your face. i hate it when you go on dates with others girl or when you call me baby because im a year younger than you, i want to be the one holding your arm on friday nights or being called baby because you like me as your gf, you explain yourself, the end of the your phrase said in a whisper. and the once comfortable silence became anxious to you, jake processing your tirade. do you not feel the same way ? you asked scared of his verdict, but that only made him leave the room, shock overtaking him.

since then jake been avoiding you. the once nights fulled of braiding jake's hair and legos are now replaced with the living room empty, the light always turned off. jake spent his time either at practice or in his room, even avoided you in the kitchen, going in when you leave or leaving you when you go in. you on the other hand, is busying yourself with studies trying to do your best for the next final but it's mostly to stay in denial of your current situation. you've lost your best friend, and every time you come out of your room, the thor hammer keeps reminding you of it. he even stopped offering his help for any studies, or prepared you any study snacks. he stopped looking at you or mentioning you. the girls also stopped coming to you for his number, sensing the shift of your dynamic with him, but going straight to him. it even more painful now to see so many dolled up girls all over him, all of them knowing you aren't in the picture anymore. so here you are, spending a friday night by yourself after the long week full of studying n repressing your feelings. you know jake isn't going to be here tonight, surely in one of many dates he has, so you snuggle yourself on the couch along with snack you bought yourself earlier. but it came to a surprise, to see jake arriving at 7pm. he stops when he sees the tv light on, not knowing if he should greet you or not. he simply stay frozen, the both of you staring at each other, but like a week ago, he leaves you alone, going into his bedroom. and you thought all of this didnt affected you that much, but as you have nothing to focus on anymore, you can only cry, right there, in front of the movie you picked earlier, for the first time in a long time.

the tears keep failling down as the movie goes by, the tv light the only thing linking your mind and reality together, you can't even hear how loud you are. your sobs doesn't go unnoticed by jake, coming out of his room. you don't even hear his first y/n ? your back the only thing he can see. he never saw you nor hear you crying, and the scene in front of you is way too funny to make you cry. so he calls again, louder, with no answers but the slightest from the movie. he tries one last time, with a hand touching your shoulder, making you leave that weird trance you were in. jake ? you say as you wipe your tears. wha- what do you want ? you ask, failing to pretend that you are okay. he doesn't reply right away, coming to sit next to you. he opens his arm, a sign of an invitation not sure if you're okay with it or not, but still wanting to offer. you on the other hand were craving his touch, so you juts crawl on his lap, hand clenching on his hoodie, tears automatically coming back.

he lets you cry for a while, still trying to soothe you with hair strocks and shhh, even rocking you side to side but as he seems your tears don't fade away, his hands leaves your hair to hold gently the both side of your face, y/nie look at me please, he whisper. but as you can't even dare to look at him, a mix of shame and sadness filling your body, he'd just start kissing your tears. come on y/nie,as he keeps on pecking your face, i want to tell you something but i need you to look at me first, the long time per names finally coming back. you slowly turn your eyes to his, only to see adoration on his, speaking silently to you. i am so sorry of how i reacted this entire week. i was so shock when you told me you liked me, i genuinely saw you like my little sister, my long time bestfriend i've always had. i couldn't possibly imagine myself dating you. but i should have told you that instead of being a dumb ass. and then i felt so so ashame, i couldn't even face you in the kitchen. how i could i make the most important person in my life,so sad and, he stops, a hand coming to his hair, trying to find his words, i just couldn't bear it anymore. that time away from you made me realize that i in fact like you too y/nie. i cant live without you baby. who will i do my legos with ? or go home to, to have my hair played with ? or eat my not so good ramen whne i make them, he says between chuckles, making you laugh too. what i wanna say is that, i dont want any of those activites to be done with anyone else. i just want you y/n.

notes : hai anon, i've never written any fic before, n im not even gonna talk about the angst, i hope it feeds you well tho > < i actually didn't want to write it as i don't write anything fictional but i somehow liked ur request so here it is <3

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨🍓୧⋆ ˚｡⋆ tag list : @dreamiestay @jakesprincess1

perm tag list : @allurecile @luvj4key @stwrjvke @amouriu @neos127 @goldenretrieverjakezgirlbaby @jaeyunpinkyring @pockettwinzz @jwsdoll @heeheeswifey @sjylouvre @txnwvc @oopshee @luvlyhee @en-ner-jay @en-chantedtomeetyou @erenmyman @driedflowwr @hoonion . @enchive @enhablr

[seokmthw]

in the fire | sung hanbin

⇢ pairing: hanbin x reader

⇢ warnings: dystopia au, zombie apolocalypse au, angst, some fluff, slow burn, major character death, vomiting, blood, gore, violence, explicit language, mentions of/implied assisted suicide (this is the best way to describe it)

⇢ synopsis: a deadly virus has broken out and left the world in shambles as everything you once knew gets flipped upside down and you're fighting for your life alongside your best friends. the three of you decide to follow a pair of strangers to a city that supposedly has an entire community of people, but you didn't realize the amount of horrors you would have to endure along the way.

⇢ word count: 19.08k

⇢ note: i am SO proud of how this turned out, it's one of my favorite fics i have written to date. the plot moves kind of fast but i feel like that happens with most zombie apocalypse media, so i hope you guys don't mind. if you want to listen to the playlist i listened to during the making of this while you read, here it is. i hope you enjoy :]

JOIN MY TAGLIST!

i.

“y/n, wake up!” the deep slumber you were in felt as if it didn’t last very long due to the familiar voice of one of your best friends, taerae, shaking you awake.

you groaned, stirring around beneath your covers, swatting his hands away from you, “what, taerae? i was sleeping so good.”

“that’s not really important right now,” his voice was hushed, a hint of anxiety laced within his words. it was extremely unlike him, and within mere seconds you were opening your eyes and staring at him, sitting up from your cocoon, brows furrowed in concern, “what's wrong?” you asked, observing him as he began rummaging through your bags hanging on the back of your bedroom door.

he tossed your largest backpack at you, “we need to go, within the next few minutes, actually. pack only the essentials.”

“why?” you inquired, swinging your legs over the edge of the bed and touching your feet to the chilly hardwood floors. you were greeted with silence, trying to get your tired brain to catch up with taerae’s actions of grabbing some of your personal hygiene products and tossing them on the bed next to you. 

you become frustrated with the boy, snapping, “taerae, what is going on? you can't just barge in here and tell me to pack some of my shit and then not tell me why.”

he stopped dead in his tracks, shoulders tense and a sigh slipping past his lips. he turned to face you, the fear he was feeling clear on his expression now. you searched his face for anything that might be an indicator of what it was, but the words he uttered were something you never expected, “there was just a nationwide announcement broadcasted on the tv that said the most recent round of flu shots contained a nasty string of some virus in it and it's mutating in people’s genes,” he explained, “the people who got it are going crazy and freaking out on everyone around them. biting them, clawing at their skin, swallowing whatever bits of flesh they can get their hands on. it's complete madness. they want everyone to travel to some hospital a few hours north of here.”

you couldn't help the way your jaw fell slack at his gruesome words. people eating other people? there was no way this was happening. you were surely dreaming, or taerae was pulling your leg and taking it a little too far; it wouldn't be the first time he's done something like this during your time being friends with him. you shook your head, balling up one of your shirts and chucking it at him, “stop fucking with me, dude. i can't believe you woke me up for this.”

“i’m being dead serious, y/n,” the bewilderment in his eyes and the nervous bobbing of his adam’s apple was hard to miss, “ask hanbin if you're really that skeptical. you know he would never seriously joke about something like this.” he took your backpack from your hand and began shoving things inside of it, motioning for you to seek out hanbin and find out for yourself. 

you pushed past him and out into the hallway, feet padding gently against the floor into the living room where the television was quietly humming in the background. you focused your attention on that, snagging the remote from the coffee table and turning the volume up. on the screen was your local news channel, an anchor braving what seemed to be utter chaos behind them. 

/reporting to you live from the streets of atlanta. since the news of the virus outbreak, madness has struck the city. people are in a frenzy, desperate to get out and find some sort of safety. it is highly advised you form a group with whoever you are near now and leave as soon as you can. i will provide you with more updates as they com-/

before the reporter could finish her sentence, someone came barreling up behind them, snapping their neck cleanly. you watched in horror as the reporter’s body crumpled to the ground and the culprit followed suit, crawling on his hands and knees to get to the exposed flesh of their neck. the culprit sniffed deeply before he began ripping their throat out, blood pooling near their head and their face quickly becoming unrecognizable. the look in the culprit’s eyes was nothing short of evil and you felt as if you were going to vomit just watching. 

“y/n, there you are!” the sound of hanbin's panicked voice caused a wave of fear to course through your veins. you yelped in surprise, quickly whipping around to face him, taking in his expression, a backpack of his own secured on his back not going unnoticed by you. 

this was real. and it was serious.

you felt tears well up in your eyes at the sight of him, still digesting what you had just witnessed on the television. he glanced over at the screen, catching a look for himself, and was quick to shut it off so you didn't have to see anymore. he approached you gently, but you were quick to cling to him, desperate to be grounded, to have a sense of security after being woken up to such intense news. you felt his arms envelope you in an embrace, his hands cupping the back of your head as you whispered, “i’m terrified, hanbin.”

“i know,” he consoled, trying his best to keep his voice steady, “i am too, but we can't let that control us right now. we have to be logical and level headed. let’s go find taerae and get out of here.”

you nodded, pulling away from him, feeling your heartbeat speed up in your chest at the way he wiped your tears away, the softest of smiles on his face. he tilted his head in the direction of your bedroom, and you followed behind him, shaking your head at yourself. now was /not/ the time for you to be dwelling on the crush you developed on him. at this point, you weren't sure if there would ever be a time, but you were hardly worried about it. 

you entered back into your bedroom, having seen taerae was almost finished with packing your backpack full of things. you thanked him quietly and apologized for freaking out on him a few minutes prior, earning a small smile from him in return, “i understand why you didn't believe me at first, so it's really okay.”

“so what’s the plan?” you asked, now taking the bag from taerae’s grasp and slinging it over your shoulders. 

“i suppose we attempt to get wherever they're saying to go,” hanbin answered. you looked outside of your window, catching a glimpse of the chaos a few streets over, a cynical laugh erupting from your lungs, “looks like that’ll be easier said than done.”

the three of you made a collective decision to at least try, because maybe you'd be guaranteed safety that way. you stayed clustered together tightly upon exiting the house through the front door, every sense on high alert as you kept your eyes peeled out for anyone you suspected might be infected by the virus. you felt as if your heart was in your throat, adrenaline coursing through your veins in a way it never had before. 

you slunk to taerae's suv, opening the doors to get in as quietly as you could muster, though you knew it would be harder to keep its old doors from squeaking too loudly. you hopped in quickly, desperate to get out of there and to a place where you wouldn't have to fear so much, and hopefully live in peace until this entire thing blew over. 

out of habit, taerae shut the door loudly, and the panic that sank to the pits of your stomachs was enough for taerae to kick it into high gear and speed out of your neighborhood as fast as he could. loud, gutteral shrieks from infected chasing after the car could be heard – the sound was unmistakable. you tried your hardest to keep your head down, to not look, because you genuinely felt like you'd throw up at any given moment.

but your efforts were cut short from the sounds of the tires screeching and taerae yelling, your gaze flicking up to see a body toppling over the hood of the car, blood splattering on the windshield and oozing from their mouth from where they'd likely just gotten done devouring someone. silence hung thickly in the air, the three of you processing everything that just happened.

“i just ki-”

taerae’s words were drowned out by the sound of you wretching in the back seat.

ii.

you never made it to the hospital. there was far too much chaos, and by the time you’d made it to a gas station, everyone had used up every last drop trying to top off before they drove up there. the three of you ended up having to completely abandon taerae’s suv, and despite the sheer amount of infected surrounding you, somehow, you survived. 

your new routine had been set in place for quite some time now. find a shelter, scavenge for supplies, and repeat for a couple weeks. then afterward, you would relocate. it was really the most you could do, considering every place you deemed worthy to make a hideout ended up being overtaken by more infected than you could usually handle. you were getting pretty sick of constantly having to move around, having no stability.

you missed life before the outbreak.

it took weeks for you to adjust to seeing so much blood, or having to kill infected who hadn't completely rotted away, some eerily intact despite the virus taking hold. it took an even longer time to adjust to /killing/. it was never something you imagined you would ever have to do in your life, but by now, about a year and a half later since the outbreak, you were immune to it and it didn't bother you anymore. regardless, you still longed for the days where all you did was complain about work and bills. 

having taerae and hanbin around made things a lot easier; especially hanbin. he naturally assumed the role of leader within your small group, and even more so if you had others tagging along with you. but just barely a week ago the last person of a group of about 5 you came across got bit and succumbed to the infection, leading to a huge scare of taerae potentially getting infected himself. thankfully, he wasn't, but the prospect of losing either of them to the virus made you feel nauseous. 

your tasks for each day were split up so none of you experienced extreme amounts of burnout. some days were dedicated solely to rest, though all three of you felt incredibly guilty when you did that. at any given moment, you could be attacked. or not have enough to eat. or even die. one thing you all had learned the hard way was that you were never guaranteed to live through an entire day. 

which led you to your current situation of trying to sneak around a nearby general store in hopes of finding some sort of supplies with taerae while hanbin protected the house you were currently inhabiting. since losing the last of your new group, you often found yourself wishing you could have at least a few more people so nobody was left alone. knowing that hanbin was currently by himself made you uneasy, especially since he couldn’t defend himself against more than two or three infected, or even other people, at once. you shook the thoughts plaguing your mind away; there was no time to think about things like that.

besides, you knew hanbin would be fine. he always was.

you gripped your knife tightly in your hand, allowing your eyes to constantly scan the aisles while you were searching through boxes in hopes of finding anything you could use. you had come to this place a couple of times since settling down a couple weeks ago, but it was nearly empty now. your food supply was running out at an alarming rate and there was only so much you could ration between the three of you before you would inevitably starve. 

the moment you came across anything that was edible, you could have cried. it was the millionth can of beans you had come across since you’d been traveling and you were tired of them being the main component of your diet. it was no wonder it was some of the only food left no matter where you went. people still hated beans, even in the midst of an apocalypse.

you carefully stepped over large chunks of broken glass to avoid making too much noise so you could stand next to taerae, who was dejectedly kicking around some garbage that was of no use to any of you. smiling sadly, you asked, “have you found anything?”

“not really, no,” he answered, “i think another group of people came through here and took a bunch of supplies we had seen when we were fighting that mob last week. bastards.”

you knew how frustrated taerae was getting with unsuccessful supply runs. admittedly, you were feeling the same way. it was hard not to have a temper. but, you were actively trying to make sure you didn’t let it crush your spirits too much. if you did, you knew that it would not only bring your motivation to keep searching down, but it would take a toll on everyone else around you as well. that was the last thing you needed, especially since things were looking more and more grim each day.

“have you found anything?” he asked.

you sighed, “other than a couple cans of beans and a box of cold medicine, i haven’t come across anything worthwhile.”

taerae softly whined, and for a minute, you thought he might throw a tantrum, “why does everyone leave only beans? that’s been our diet for what feels like an eternity.”

“i know, but be glad we find anything at all. it’s better than nothing,” taerae huffed in annoyance, but ultimately agreed with your sentiment.

you followed taerae out of the store, careful not to let the door slam shut behind you. making one loud, uneccessary noise would more than likely lead to your deaths, and that wasn’t particularly something you were looking for by any means. you both refused to leave hanbin on his own. you were doubtful he could survive alone, especially if he were to encounter a lot of infected at one time.

there was nobody who was capable of that.

you set off down the road toward your current hideout. night time was creeping up on the two of you, and while you were sure the you could take on a small group of infected together, you knew you couldn’t handle any more than that. you peered over to your partner, taking note of the sour expression adorning his features, and nudged him playfully, “a little success is better than nothing at all, you know.”

“i do,” he attempted to fight the smile creeping at the corners of his mouth, “maybe you’re just bad luck. every time i go on a run with hanbin, we always find so much.”

“hey!” you exclaimed with a light laugh.

taerae shrugged, a small chuckle emitting from his lungs, “you didn’t deny it.”

you fell into a comfortable silence, the only audible sound being your boots thudding against the pavement. you felt a shiver course down your spine; this would be your second time going through this apocalypse in the winter months. it was hard to ignore the fact that it was starting to get icy out and the wind was cutting right through your thin jacket and down to your bones. you leaned a little closer into taerae, who was practically grinning from ear to ear as you did so.

“i take it you’re cold?” though he was teasing you, his arm instinctively wrapped around your shoulders. you nuzzled closer into the boy’s side, soaking up any bit of warmth he radiated from underneath his hoodie.

“no, i’m sweating buckets,” you sarcastically remarked, completely unable to mask your playful smile, “i’m actually freezing. and i think it’s starting to rain.”

taerae tilted his head up toward the sky, his dark eyes scanning the darkening gray clouds overhead. he audibly sighed, and you took note of the cold droplets of water starting to fall on top of your head and seep into your clothes. he turned to you, “we’re only a couple blocks away from the house, let’s just pick up the pace. we don’t want our asses to get mauled by infected when we’re almost back.”

you nearly stopped dead in your tracks at the sound. it was almost as if taerae was psychic sometimes, and you were hoping like hell you were just hearing things. a deep, throaty growl sounded off behind you once more, and when you turned your head to look, your eyes widened at the sight of a mob forming behind you. you supposed that this was to be expected, especially considering it had grown darker a lot sooner than it normally did, but it still put fear in your heart. 

taerae gently urged you forward, “we need to go, now!”

even if the size of the mob was manageable, it certainly did not mean the two of you should take it on. the moment you were to do that, more were likely to start showing up and you would be doomed. taerae grabbed your hand as the two of you began to sprint, his grip on you preventing you from falling any further behind from your slight lack of speed. the rain had become heavier the closer you got to your hideout, skewing any good amount of vision you were hoping to have between your hair plastering to your skin and the weather limiting how far ahead you could see in front of you.

you cursed the month of december; it had always been one of your least favorite months, even before the outbreak, but now it was definitely taking the top spot for your most hated. ice had already begun to form on the road and sidewalks of the neighborhood and your boots were no longer gripping to anything. an intense jolt of pain shot through your knee the moment you lost your balance and smashed it into the pavement. you inhaled a sharp breath, struggling to regain your footing as taerae stopped to help pull you up. 

“they’re getting closer! come on, y/n, we’re only a few houses away!” 

you pushed your legs to keep going, no matter how much your knee was throbbing or your muscles felt like they were on fire. you desperately searched your surroundings in hopes of finding some sort of familiarity, and the moment you saw hanbin standing in the living room window of your hideout, you felt a wave relief wash over you. 

taerae pulled you up the front steps of the porch, making sure you got inside before he did, and kicking an infected back into the crowd and following you so it couldn’t force its way inside. hanbin slammed the door and locked the deadbolt the moment he was able to. your legs felt like jello and there was no mistaking the heavy breathing of taerae as he was hunched over, tossing his bag onto the ground. 

“did it get you?” hanbin sounded frantic as he shoved taerae’s right pant leg up, eyes scanning every inch of his skin for a mark of any kind left by the infected he had kicked back.

taerae scowled, shoving the older boy away from him with a smirk, “of course not. i would have felt it,” his gaze softened at hanbin’s solemn gaze, “i’m okay, don’t worry.”

hanbin nodded, his eyes flickering over to your hobbling frame as you attempted to make your way to the old couch you had been sleeping on since being in the house. you winced the moment you put any pressure on that knee, though, and within mere seconds hanbin had his arm snaked around your waist to help you get to your destination easier. 

you sat down, exhaling a shaky breath as you rolled up your own pant leg. your entire knee was already beginning to form a deep purple bruise and blood seeped from the small scrape that you figured you would have. you gingerly poked around the wound, mentally cursing yourself for losing your footing in the first place. 

“y/n took a pretty hard fall out there, i’m surprised they didn’t shatter their kneecap,” taerae spoke up.

a look of concern contorted hanbin’s face, “are you going to be able to function okay?” 

“i don’t know,” you truthfully replied, “i think i can as long as i nurse it or have some sort of support. i also think it would be best if we leave and try to find another shelter somewhere, we’ve definitely overstayed our welcome here.”

taerae scoffed, “are you out of your mind? there’s absolutely no way you can travel with your knee like that, let alone fight off any infected.”

“as much as i hate to admit it, i think y/n is right,” hanbin said, “besides, we’ve wiped out everything nearby that could possibly have usable supplies. there’s no way we can survive on what little we have until y/n is fully healed up.”

“not to mention, it seems like more and more infected are showing up around you here,” you added.

your gaze locked with taerae, who looked as if he could explode at any given moment. you knew he had the best of intentions, but it was crucial you left at dawn. sighing, you reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing it in reassurance and muttering, “i’ll be okay, i promise. i can hold my own and as long as we wrap my knee up well, i’ll be able to walk normally. you know i wouldn’t say any of this if i didn’t think i could do it.”

taerae finally nodded in agreement, though his expression remained menacing as his eyes flickered between both you and hanbin.

“we better get some rest, we leave the moment the sun rises.”

iii.

it had been a couple of days since the three of you had set out from your hideout. to say you were exhausted was an understatement; you hadn’t found a shelter worthwhile to stay in, so you had to make camp in the most closed off spaces you could, usually in the woods. you hardly slept; it was far too cold to stay asleep for very long at all and if you did manage to get a couple hours in, you felt worse when you woke up.

you had to eat your supply of beans straight from the can because you had no way to cook them. scarfing them down wasn’t exactly ideal, and you dealt with taerae whining about it the most out of all of you. but, food was food, and you were lucky enough to have what you did. 

“if this map is correct,” hanbin interrupted the silence as the three of you continued walking down the same road you had set foot on, “this road should take us to the next town a couple miles out from where we are now.”

you felt a pang of excitement hit you, “maybe we’ll find better food there.”

“and somewhere a little more warm to sleep,” taerae added, the eagerness in his voice hard to ignore.

hanbin nodded, “we could probably make it there today if we keep up the pace we are,” he turned to look at you, “can you do that with your knee?”

truthfully, your knee felt like it was going to give out on you at any given moment. hanbin did the best he could with the little supplies you had to stabilize it enough so it didn’t hurt when you walked. it worked for the first day and half, but ever since your last stop to try and sleep, it’s been in an excruciating amount of pain. 

you still assured the two with a smile anyway, “i’ll be fine, i promise.”

as the three of you continued your journey, you couldn’t help but feel like every inch of your body was going numb. being out in the cold for the amount of time you had been was definitely not good for any of you, especially since the jackets you had were suitable only for autumn-like weather. snow had begun piling up on the first day of traveling, making things even more slick beneath your boots and the chill in the air to cut through every measly layer of clothing you adorned. 

you just hoped that hanbin was right about the town. for everyone’s sake.

— — —

“there’s a stream not too far from here, i’ll go and get some water while you change y/n’s bandages.”

hanbin was currently kneeling on the ground in front of you, teeth gritted together as he tried to keep from shivering too much while he focused on the task at hand, “just hurry back.”

with that, taerae set off into the woods where the stream could be seen from where your spot on a tree stump, his boots crunching the snow beneath them. one of the only perks about winter was being able to see through the usually dense areas a lot easier. 

you sighed, frustrated with yourself, “i’m sorry for setting us back.”

hanbin shook his head, “you don’t have to apologize, i know you wouldn’t ask to stop for the day if you were feeling okay.”

“maybe you should just leave me for the infected, i’m more of a burden right now than anything,” you half-joked, one corner of your mouth raising in a smile.

however, the boy in front of you didn’t find it to be very funny. his frown deepened and he locked his dark eyes with yours and grabbed your hand, his fingers chilled to the bone, and a seriousness radiating from his body, “i will never, ever leave you behind, even if it costs me my life. okay?” 

“the same will always go for you,” you squeezed his hand reassuringly. you would be an idiot if you didn’t admit the small smile he gave in return made your belly do backflips or the feeling of his hand in yours made you warm up just a little bit.

hanbin taped the remaining bandage together the best he could before rolling your pant leg down, careful not to roll his hard work down with the fabric of your jeans. you mumbled a thank you, standing up to make sure it was still secure and once you gave him a thumbs up, hanbin rose to his feet as well. 

by now, taerae made his way back to the two of you, extending the canteen of cool water out to you. taking it graciously, you took a few good sips before passing the object to hanbin. 

“what’s the plan now?” taerae inquired, scanning the brush around you in an attempt to find somewhere to set up camp for the night. 

hanbin shrugged, “maybe we should wait until morning to finish the hike to the convenience store. it’s almost dark now and i would hate to travel and have that be what kills us,” both you and taerae nodded in agreement. 

you parted your lips to speak, “let’s find somewhere to rest then, we have a long night ahead of us.”

— — — 

you desperately clung to hanbin and taerae, craving warmth more than ever. you were to the point now that moving hurt from how cold your entire body was. the small fire you had going earlier in the evening had to be put out before you slept so it didn't attract more infected that you wanted, so it was exponentially more difficult than any of your previous nights on the road or inside an abandoned home. 

morning began to break through the clouds in the sky, your surroundings illuminated by the dim light it provided to you. the snow glimmered all around you, and bad you not been freezing your ass off, you would have found it beautiful.  hanbin began to stir next to you, uttering a quiet, “did you get any sleep?”

“barely,” you mumbled back, taking note of the way taerae was snoring on your other side, sleeping soundly as if he wasn't on the frigid, hard ground in the middle of winter. you envied him, because no matter where you were, he was somehow able to sleep at least a few hours. 

hanbin lowly chuckled, “me either, but i’m glad to see it's going well for him.”

you peered up at hanbin through your lashes, taking in the gash just to the side of his right eye that was still healing from an encounter with a hostile group of survivors a few weeks ago. you reached up to touch it, gently tilting his head sideways to get a better look at it. you informed him, “it’s healing really well, i don't think the scar will be all that noticeable.”

“good, i’m glad,” he replied, and you missed the way his eyes followed you as you flipped around on your other side to begin rustling taerae awake. truthfully, you turned away because you were scared hanbin would catch on to the feelings you still somehow possessed for him, but waking taerae was also just as important. 

taerae grunted as he woke up, surprise evident in his face; almost as if he were worried something bad was happening, but when he realized it was just you, he relaxed almost immediately. “what time is it?” he asked, and you glanced down at the watch you adorned on your wrist, replying, “just barely after six.”

your morning was pretty relaxed after that. you took your time waking up and even managed to get another fire going so you could defrost yourselves before trekking back out into the snow toward your destination. your knee was feeling a lot better since taking a break and you were able to comfortably walk on it without needing some kind of support from either hanbin or taerae. 

your relaxation and bliss of the fire were quickly replaced with dread and hatred toward the cold as you trudged toward the town you were looking for. you still felt better, and your knee was much easier to walk on than previously, so you knew you'd at least be able to make it there while there was still daylight.

a soft gasp erupted from the boy on your right “what’s that up there?” the glee laced in taerae’s voice was hard to ignore upon him catching sight of gas pumps and the building next to them. 

you squinted to catch a better glimpse and couldn’t help the grin tugging at either corner of your mouth, “i think we’re here!”

hanbin chuckled, “you two sound like you’re arriving somewhere for a field trip.”

you nudged him slightly, the three of you unknowingly picking up your paces in pure excitement. you pulled out your weapons upon getting closer to the gas station, eyes and ears fully alert for any potential threats surrounding the area – infected or not. 

taerae extended his arm, quietly pulling the door open and holding his gun up in front of him as he walked inside. you were the next one inside with hanbin following up the rear, and once you were able to see that there was no imminent danger inside any of the rooms, you put your weapons away.

the sight you were greeted with was enough to almost bring the three of you to tears. there was at least four shelves of food and supplies that hadn’t been touched yet, which was extremely rare to come by at the point you were in with the apocalypse. 

“this has been well worth the wait,” taerae piped up, tossing a box of crackers, a package of hot dogs, and a few bottles of water into his backpack, “we finally don’t have to eat stupid fucking beans anymore.” 

“and we don’t have to hear you complain about it,” the eldest boy teased, mimicking the younger’s actions as he got a feel for everything there was to offer. 

you headed toward the back room, flicking the light on only to be greeted with a few makeshift mattresses the people here previously had left. you searched the drawers of the desk off to your right, greeted with a pad of paper and a pen as well as a few other items you found to be useful to the group. 

you tossed everything into your backpack and put it to the side, opting to tidy up the beds so everything was neatly arranged and each of the three of you had a spot to sleep. The padding on the floor was much softer than you expected it to be and you almost screeched in excitement when you stumbled upon a closet filled with thick coats. 

as you finished pulling them out of the closet, the other two were entering the room with grins adorning their faces. taerae saw you struggling to hold all the coats at once and came forward to help you, laughing at your misfortune when you dropped pretty much all of them on the floor. 

without a word, you began going through them and found ones in your sizes or at least close to them, sighing in content at the feeling of warmth they gave you once you slipped them on. you closed the door to the office, settling down onto the mattresses with the other two.

“do we want to stay here for a little bit before we head out again? or do we want to try and find a house?” hanbin asked, finally breaking the silence between the three of you and the analytical part of his brain speaking for him. 

you leaned back against the wall, your eyes trained on the ceiling, “i would be okay with either one. right now we’re at least guaranteed shelter, even if it’s only for a couple of days.”

“maybe we can stay for three or four days and see if we can find a house nearby,” taerae suggested. you all nodded, deciding that was the best plan you could come up with. 

you were just glad to have something go your way for once.

iv.

you stirred around on your spot on the floor, groggily coming out of one of the best sleeps you’ve had in months. you felt deliciously warm, sandwiched in between both taerae and hanbin, who were also just beginning to wake up. 

you smiled to yourself, propping your body up onto your elbow as your eyes scanned the area around you. it almost felt too good to be true, striking the jackpot with so much in one day. it was very rare the group of you ever had more than enough food to survive for a week, especially if there was more people with you, and here you were with everything you could have ever hoped for. you felt extremely grateful.

“why the hell are you up so early?” taerae groaned, flipping his arm over to look at the time on his watch before he covered his head with a pillow.

you chuckled at him, voice a hushed whisper so you didn't wake hanbin, who was still sleeping peacefully, “i don't know, i just couldn't sleep anymore.”

taerae huffed loudly before eventually sitting up, his hair tangled and messy and eyes still shut as he gained his bearings back. finally, he looked at you, playfully annoyed, and said, “i suppose you and i can rummage around for some more stuff while hanbin rests for a little longer. he never gets enough and he seems to actually be into a deep sleep.”

you peered over at the boy fondly, taking note of his soft snores and slightly agape mouth. taerae was right, and you did everything you could to be quiet before you left. you wrote a quick note on the pad of paper you found the previous day and left it where you slept so hanbin could easily find it if he woke up and you were still gone. 

you followed taerae out of the office, careful to not close the door too loudly just in case any infected had wandered in overnight. you seemed to be in the clear, and almost welcomed the crisp morning air as it hit your face and filled your lungs. there were a few other buildings nearby, abandoned cars as well, so you decided to scope them out and see what they had to offer. 

as you rummaged through a bag on the ground near one of the vehicles, taerae’s straightforward question caught you off guard, “are you ever going to tell hanbin that you like him?”

you were baffled, to say the least. you glanced up at him, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, before you finally managed to spit out, “that is not what i was expecting to talk about while we did this.”

“that's not an answer to my question,” taerae teased.

“no shit, sherlock,” you sarcastically remarked, deciding to keep a box of matches you'd found in that bag. you pondered his question before you answered him as you rose to your feet, avoiding eye contact and feeling yourself begin to blush, “i don't know, i mean, we’re in the middle of an apocalypse, i don't think it's the right time.”

“is there ever going to be a right time?”

his question made your mind start reeling. of course you'd /thought/ about telling hanbin, but you didn't want to ruin your friendship and most certainly didn't want to make things awkward considering you had to be around him until you either died and split off in your own ways. you thought he was way out of your league, anyway. there was no way he would ever like you back. you finally looked at taerae, a smug grin plastered on his face, and you stuck your tongue out, “quit being an ass.”

“y/n has a crush~” he sing-songed, skipping in annoying little circles around you and poking your sides annoyingly. you crossed your arms over your chest, giving taerae a blank stare until he stopped in front of you, his smile even wider now “you're blushing.”

you smacked his arm, earning a yelp from him, and hastily said, “no i’m not, it's just freezing out here.”

the two of you kept rummaging around, and after several minutes, taerae had done eerily quiet. you knew he was probably scheming something, because even amidst hell on earth, he always found a way to pull fast ones on you and hanbin. you shook your head, mentally preparing yourself for whatever it was he decided to do. 

but nothing came, and you were beginning to get worried. you had your upper body inside of another car, legs still dangling outside, after seeing one of the windows rolls down, and you were trying your best to grab onto a bottle of rubbing alcohol in the passenger seat. you desperately lunged for it, but to no avail. you decided to see if you could find taerae and make sure he was still alive and breathing. 

you attempted to shimmy your way backward out of the car, and felt panic set deep in your stomach at the feeling of something grabbing at your ankles. you tried like crazy not scream, but frantically began kicking in an attempt to get the infected off of you. a growl was able to be heard as it pulled you the rest of the way out the car, but you were able to get leverage and fully kick it off of you. turning around, you reached for your knife on your holster, fully prepared to kill it, but stopped with your hand gripping the handle upon seeing taerae standing behind you, mocking an infected far too well. 

“damn it, taerae!” you exclaimed, whacking him on the chest with your hand, “i could have killed you!”

he pointed menacingly, “but you didn't.”

“having fun out there?” the sound of hanbin’s voice broke the two of you out of your bickering, heads turning to see him leaning against the door frame of the gas station convenience store, a small smile curling up the corners of his lips, “looks like he got you good, y/n.”

you groaned in annoyance, “i can't believe you saw that,” you pushed taerae for good measure, “and you thought it was funny.”

hanbin shrugged, laughing along with you, “what can i say, i love a good prank when i see it.”

v.

you continued this little escapade at the gas station for a few days, more because the office was much warmer than outside and less because there was a plethora of supplies. all of the surrounding buildings ended up being a bust, completely ransacked before you even got there. thankfully you had the gas station, but it was only a matter of time before you would have to relocate. again. 

the three of you were sat in the office on the foam pieces you'd been using to sleep on, looking at the map smoothed out in front of you to determine your next route. you pointed to a small town north of where you were, but before you could say anything about it, you were pulled from your thoughts at the sound of voices and rummaging out in the main area of the building. you turned to the other two, eyes wide in panic, “do you hear that?” 

“yeah,” taerae was already moving to get up, his hand reaching for his gun placed on the desk beside him, “it sounds like people are trying to take our shit.”

“taerae, don’t” hanbin attempted to stop the younger boy from leaving the room, but his words went through one ear and out the other. his impulsivity never failed to amaze you. 

you sighed, shaking your head as he opened up the door, completely giving away your location to whatever was out in the main lobby. you rose to your feet as well, quick to follow him out and grab his hand in a futile attempt to pull him back and keep him from going on an unintentional murder spree. 

you were greeted by the bewildered gazes of a couple of boys, both very obviously malnourished and freezing, hands up in the air upon seeing taerae’s gun pointed at them. the boy in front of you two spoke up, subconsciously moving in front of the other one in a means to protect him from any harm.

“we aren't infected, i swear, we’re no threat to you,” his voice held both confidence and fear at the same time. you felt your gaze soften at their petrified expressions. 

you heard a harsh slap. “ow!” taerae exclaimed, turning around to face the eldest in your group, who had a grin on his face. taerae's hand gingerly rubbing the back of his head. 

he looked at the others, “you’ll have to excuse him, he can be a bit of a dickhead at times.”

you shoved taerae’s arm down, preventing him from holding the two at gunpoint any longer. he defeatedly sighed, tucking the weapon away into his pocket. he gave hanbin a scowl before muttering, “sorry.”

“that’s okay,” the taller boy spoke up, “we apologize for intruding, but we haven’t been able to eat for three days now and we were just happy to find supplies.”

“take whatever you want,” hanbin motioned to the shelves in front of them, a kind, gentle smile causing his eyes to take the shape of tiny crescents.

“thank you,” the boy opened up his bag, “i’m gunwook, by the way,” he motioned to the boy standing next to him, ”and this my brother, gyuvin.”

he smiled, giving a small wave, “nice to meet you.”

“nice to meet you too. i’m hanbin, and these are my friends taerae and y/n,” hanbin replied. he seemed almost giddy that you’d come across more people to speak and potentially form a group with. 

you cleared your throat, pointing your thumb at the office, “you guys look like you’re freezing, we found some coats if you want some.”

a wave of relief washed over gyuvin, “yes please, this is all we’ve had since winter started creeping up. i’m surprised we haven’t gotten frostbite yet.”

you led him back into the room you slept in, opening up the closet door to reveal the remaining coats. you helped him find his size, and when he couldn't zip it up from how stiff his fingers were, you did it for him, smiling at him afterward. gyuvin smiled back, but it held a hint of sadness. you didn't want to inquire why, especially since you’d just met them. 

he sifted through them and picked out one for gunwook. “thank you so much, really,” he sounded more grateful than you had felt when you first found them, “i’ve been really worried about what would happen the deeper we get into winter.”

“it’s not a problem. we weren’t going to use them anyway,” you looked at him as you began walking back to the rest of the group, “are you just passing through or finding somewhere to stay?” 

gyuvin made eye contact with his brother, as if he were scared to say anything, but gunwook gave him a nod of approval. he parted his lips to speak, facing the entire group, “we’re actually headed to seattle.”

“for what?” taerae inquired, brows furrowed in thought, “from what i’ve heard, it’s a dead city.”

gunwook chimed in, “a few people we met not too long ago told us they were going out to try and find others to bring back to this community they’ve built and sent us on our way. apparently they have a farm, horses, and a lot more supplies than people like us could ever hope to have,” he seemed so hopeful at the prospect of so many resources. 

“if you want, you guys can come with us. it would probably be a lot more beneficial to travel in a larger group anyway,” gyuvin offered, mainly making eye contact with hanbin since he was the one who appeared to have the most authority in your group.

he looked a bit hesitant, scanning the faces of both you and taerae, “do you guys want to talk about it?”

“yeah,” taerae was quick to answer, pointedly looking at the other two, feigning a fake smile, “we’ll be right back.”

the three of you locked yourselves away into the other room. taerae turned around, the expression on his face unreadable, but his words shocking both you and hanbin, “i think it’s a horrible fucking idea.”

hanbin scoffed, “and why is that?”

“these people literally just showed up not even ten minutes ago and you’re giving up our supplies and considering going with them to some community that we aren’t even sure exists,” taerae exclaimed, “plus, we /just/ lost the last of the other survivors we picked up. i’m sick of losing the people we grow close to.”

“i don’t know, taerae, i think we can trust them,” you told him, “besides, it’s better to have a larger group. you have to admit, traveling and finding supplies has been a lot harder with only three of us,” his shocked gaze met with yours and you did your best to reason with him, “they are extremely malnourished and only came to try and find food and you’re mad about that. what if it was us instead of them?”

he opened his mouth to retort something, but quickly closed it and shook his head, staring down at the floor. you gave hanbin a knowing look, a small smile on your face. 

he nodded, “it’s settled then. we’re going to seattle.”

vi.

as you walked with your newly formed group, you couldn’t help but feel a little giddy. taerae was right; you were still navigating the feelings of your other group mates dying, but you were still less anxious when there was more of you together. you had almost given up hope that there even was anyone else. 

taerae had remained silent almost the entire time you had been traveling. he was still nervous about grouping together with the strangers you had met the previous day, which you understood, but you were confused as to why it was suddenly a problem when you'd done it countless times before. another thing that bothered you was the fact that he was giving both you and hanbin the silent treatment. you scanned the other three in front of you, who were conversing about when they should set up camp for the night, and sighed, grabbing taerae's arm and making him wait until you were a few paces behind. hesitantly, you met your gaze with his, your voice as stern as you could make it when you spoke. 

“what’s your problem?”

taerae looked taken aback by how blunt and straightforward you were with your question. his bewildered gaze almost immediately went back to the scowl he had previously been adorning. he shook his head, his response short as he said, “it’s nothing, y/n.”

“well, you sure aren’t acting like it’s nothing,” you retorted, rolling your eyes at how stubborn the boy was being. however, your gaze softened upon seeing his frown deepen, “talk to me. this isn’t like you.”

taerae pondered your words for a moment before finally admitting his worries to you, “i guess i’m just scared.” “scared about what?”

“getting close to them and losing them like we did the others. they could be selfish, too. we don’t know a single thing about them and if we get in a situation where someone’s life is on the line, i fear they’re going to leave us without much thought,” his voice grew quiet upon his confession. you swore you could feel your heart break in your chest at his next words, “i can’t lose you and hanbin.”

you reached out and laced your fingers with his, squeezing gently in reassurance and forcing him to look at you, “as long as you, hanbin, and i are loyal to each other, that’s all that matters, right? all we have to do is back each other up if the other two happen flake on us.”

taerae’s eyes were glossed over in clear appreciation for your words, his grip tightening on your hand, “thank you.”

“you don’t have to thank me. it’s what i’m here for,” you teased, nudging the boy playfully with your shoulder. the smile on his face was refreshing to see after having him upset the entire day since leaving the gas station. 

the two of you caught back up with the rest of the group, who had come to a halt to scope out the area surrounding you all. the woods appeared to be significantly thicker, which provided more protection from any of the infected that lurked in the shadows at night. it would also be easier to make a shelter to sleep in overnight. 

gunwook turned, asking the two of you, “what do you think?”

taerae was the first to speak, “i think it’s definitely a decent spot for now. it looks like we might be able to have an area for a fire as well.”

to say you were shocked was an understatement. hanbin shared a look with you, a grin threatening to tug at the corners of his mouth. you knew the eldest was worried that taerae was going to stay in his funk for days on end, but the look of relief was enough to cause you to feel it too. the boy winked at you, asking the group, “should we split into shifts to keep watch over everything?”

“i’m not opposed to the idea,” gyuvin piped up, pulling his coat closer to his body. it was clear he was still freezing despite having a lot more warmth than when you first met him, “i can take the first one if you want.”

it was your turn to pitch in, “i’ll join you, it’s best to work in teams of two.”

he gave you a grateful smile. you honestly thought that he’s someone you could wind up being really good friends with. you just wished it didn’t have to be because the apocalypse brought you together.

— — — 

the evening came quickly once camp was set up for the night. hanbin and gunwook had managed to get a pretty decent fire going considering the fact that most of the wood you all found was damp or frozen from the snow. you all had welcomed the warmth with open arms.

since everyone was able to take most of the supplies from the gas station, the thin foam that you had used for mattresses the night before were now neatly laid out on the ground in a dense thicket of trees that had already formed somewhat of a shelter. It was certainly a lot better than what you, hanbin, or taerae had made in the past. 

one thing taerae was particularly happy about was being able to warm up some of the food you guys had. he even accepted the beans with a smile instead of turning up his nose to them, which caused both you and hanbin to giggle at him. 

the five of you sat around the fire, recounting your stories of what happened when the outbreak was first announced. taerae was laughing his head off, stating, “y/n really thought i was joking when i went into their room and told them what was happening.”

you threw a wadded up wrapper at him, “in my defense, he is constantly messing with me,” you looked at gyuvin and gunwook, who were laughing along with you, and joked, “watch out for him, because soon he'll be pranking you guys too.”

“what were you guys doing?” hanbin asked the two of them, and they sat deep in thought for a moment, gyuvin finally telling them, “i’m pretty sure we were staying the night at our brother’s house. if i’m remembering correctly, it was a friday, and we usually did stuff together after school.”

“yeah, it was, i think we were getting ready to go out to dinner,” gunwook added, “and instead of getting in the car normally, it felt like we were the main characters of an action movie or something. ricky drove like a maniac.”

you laughed at the image you had in your head of not only their experience, yours as well, “taerae ran one of our neighbors over when we were trying to get off of our street.” 

gunwook’s eyes widened, his smile stretched from ear to ear as he said, “becoming a murderer early on, i see.”

your laughter began to die down as the sun started to set, and your playful conversation turned into solemn ones. hanbin stared at the dancing flames, quietly asking, “i hope this isn't prying too much, but how did it end up just being the two of you?”

gyuvin sighed. you could tell this was a touchy subject, but he was willing to answer hanbin's question, “he got turned not too long ago. we got ambushed by the biggest mob of infected we’ve ever encountered since the outbreak,” his voice cracked as he said the next part, “he shielded us the entire time we were fighting them.”

“he ended up getting bit and made us tie him to a tree so we would have time to run,” gunwook’s solemn gaze made your heart twinge in sadness for them. you couldn't imagine losing hanbin or taerae like that, if at all, and wondered how your new friends were even managing to push through. 

taerae gave the pair a close-lipped smile, “it sounds like he was an amazing brother to have.”

“yeah,” gyuvin seemed deep in thought, a stray tear racing down his cheek, “he was.”

— — —

as soon as darkness engulfed the woods, gunwook, hanbin, and taerae settled down and drifted off to sleep, which left you and gyuvin sat by the fire to keep watch over the camp. the boy was sat across from you, his knees drawn up to his chest and his gaze fixed on the flickering flames that illuminated his face. he was practically glued to gunwook’s side. 

softly, he questioned, “hey, can i ask you something?”

you glanced at him, confusion painted across your features, “of course, what’s up?” 

he sighed. it looked like he was contemplating even saying something to begin with, but finally, after you assumed he won his internal battle, he asked, “does taerae hate gunwook and i or something? he seemed angry when we first met and i don’t want us to intrude on whatever the three of you were hoping to do.”

“no, he doesn’t hate you at all,” you reassured, which caused his shoulders to visibly relax. you fell silent for a moment, gazing over at the boy who was curled up as close to hanbin as the eldest would allow. he looked so at peace, which you rarely ever saw from him. you turned back to the boy across from you, “he’s just incredibly protective of the two of us. it’s really been only us together since the start of all of this and he doesn’t want to lose either of us, is all.”

“i completely understand that,” gyuvin replied, shifting to now lean back against the tree stump behind him, “i hope you never have to go through what we did, that's for sure.” 

“could i ask you a question now?”

gyuvin nodded, “sure.”

“i noticed this the other day, but you just seem to get sad whenever i’m around, and i wanted to make sure it was nothing i was doing,” you were hoping that you didn't seem like you were accusing him of anything, and he most definitely didn't take it that way. 

he offered a sad smile with his answer, “you just remind me a lot of ricky, is all. you guys are very similar in terms of personality.”

“well, i know i can't ever fill his spot, but i can still be there to support you throughout this entire journey we’re on.”

a small cry escaped gyuvin’s lips as he angrily wiped his tears away from his cheeks, “thank you, it really means a lot to hear that.”

once he collected himself, the two of you fell into a comfortable conversation, telling stories from your childhood and even some crazy ones of times where you thought you were going to die in the midst of the apocalypse. for the first time in a while, you felt content. at peace, even.

you hoped it would happen more often. 

— — —

the woods were serene at night when you didn't have to fear for your life. the soft chirps of the crickets, the occasional hoot of an owl, and even the crackle of the fire brought you a sense of comfort and security you hadn't felt for a very long time; since the start of the apocalypse, really. but for whatever reason, you just couldn't sleep.

maybe it was because you were thinking back on your conversation with taerae and the concerns he expressed about losing you or hanbin. or maybe it was the added stress of gyuvin and gunwook’s story. it could have been something entirely different, but you just couldn't doze off for the life of you. 

you huffed out a frustrated sigh, eventually sitting up from your cocoon on the ground and scanning the areas surrounding the fire. the only one awake was hanbin, taerae having dozed off again shortly after being woken up for his shift. hanbin insisted he didn't mind, especially since everything seemed to be relaxed, but you still felt bad he had to stay awake entirely on his own. 

he glanced over at you, gentle smile quirking up the corners of his mouth as he whispered, “can’t sleep?”

you shook your head as a response, eventually making your way over to his post and plopping down next to him, the fire emitting a slightly warmer flow of air in your direction. hanbin peered down at you, a fond smile ever so slightly on his lips, and you swore the butterflies in your stomach might give your feelings away. instead, you scooted closer to him, resting your head on his shoulder and fixing your gaze on the fire. 

you could feel the pressure of hanbin’s head resting on top of yours, his voice almost inaudible as he asked, “do you think anything will ever return to normal? like sometime in the future, do you think there's a chance things will go back to the way they used to be?”

a heavy silence hung in the air as you pondered his question, absentmindedly beginning to pick at a string hanging down from inside of hanbin’s coat sleeve. you could feel your eyes begin to gloss over as you thought about the nights you'd spend pestering hanbin while he attempted to do his coursework for college, or how you'd always give taerae advice on songs he'd written on his guitar. everything was so much simpler, so much /better./

“i don't think so,” you gave your honest response to him, “i mean, everything is destroyed and gone. it'll take years and years to even get rid of the infected, let alone rebuild the entire country to what it used to be,” a shaky sigh from you followed suit to your words, leaving hanbin to think on them. 

he clicked his tongue, “then i guess we’ll have to make a new normal, right?”

“i suppose so,” you hummed, “but how would we go about that?”

“i don't know, but hopefully we’ll figure it out.”

conversations with hanbin were always something you treasured. he gave you new perspectives on things that you wouldn't have even considered before and logically thought through everything. you admired him for that, and it was one of the many reasons you developed feelings for him in the first place. but you knew, deep down, that you wouldn't be able to live the life you wanted with him. you doubted he even returned your feelings.

besides, there would always be infected in the way.

vii.

having new friends that you actually got along with made a huge difference in your travels. there was a lot more team work, laughs, and supplies that you were able to get your hands on. it was arguably the most productive you'd ever been and the quickest you had gotten to know strangers. it felt like you were friends for your entire life. 

it didn't take gyuvin very long to catch on to your feelings for hanbin, and soon he was teasing you alongside taerae when you weren't in earshot of him. gyuvin’s antics were far less intense, and he asked you lots of questions about why you'd grown so fond of the eldest boy. he listened with open ears and was able to see the mannerisms that hanbin displayed easily after your conversations with him.

it felt nice to just gush to someone who would listen to you. 

you were currently attempting to break into a shed to see if there was any useful weapons inside considering gyuvin’s was starting to give out on him. you lunged forward, hitting your hip into the rotted out door, and it gave way easier than you thought. you coughed as dust and wood chips rained down toward the dilapidated floors. 

there was a lone infected inside, which was fighting for its life to even hobble over toward you, and you swiftly put it out of its misery, watching in disgust as it crumpled to the floor. you stepped over its now limp body, gyuvin's following closely behind, exploring the shed further than just standing in the doorway. you kept your knife out just in case you were to come across anymore, eyes scanning your surroundings in an attempt to fine something that would hold up. 

“i don't think this is a question i asked you yet,” gyuvin broke the silence, “but have you ever considered telling hanbin how you feel?”

you had to hold back from bursting into a fit of laughter, taking a deep breath, before you chuckled, “you and taerae are so similar it's crazy.”

you ducked under a cobweb in front of you, careful not to disrupt it in fear of a spider crawling on you. gyuvin mimicked your actions, inquiring, “why do you say that?”

“he asked me the same exact thing.”

you were now standing in front of a wall of rusted weapons. gyuvin looked slightly defeated, but instead of dwelling on that, he turned his attention back to you, “well, it's not a horrible question. i mean, it's better late than never, right?”

you just giggled at him, crouching down to open up a door on a workbench, “i guess so. maybe i will someday, when we’re in seattle or something. that way if he rejects me, i’ll have a home to go into and sulk.”

gyuvin’s cackle echoed inside the barn. you flared up at him, pulling the machete you found out from the self, pointing it at him jokingly, before you threatened, “keep it up and i’ll cut your head off with this and feed it to an infected.”

“hey!”

you handed your find to gyuvin, who admired it in awe, mouth slightly agape and a plethora of thank you's slipping past his lips. the two of you made your way back outside, meeting up with the other three who were attempting to get a car started, but to no avail. gunwook was turning the key in the ignition but had no success of getting the engine to turn over. 

“i take it this whole car thing is a lost cause?” you inquired, looking at the three of them inquisitively. taerae and hanbin had their heads underneath the hood of the car, inspecting the engine in order to, what you assumed, find out what was wrong with it. 

gunwook attempted to turn the key again, and while the vehicle made sound, it was more along the lines of grinding than anything else. he finally looked at you and gyuvin, “i think so, we’ve been working on it for an hour now and nothing has worked.”

“i mean, we’ve walked this much already. we really can't miss what we never had, right?” gyuvin reasoned as he attached his new machete to is pants. 

gunwook shrugged, “i suppose so,” he looked almost bummed out, “it just would have been nice to take a break from walking.”

hanbin shut the hood of the car, now gaining your attention. his hands were smeared with grease and a fine layer of sweat had broken out across his forehead. you blinked a few times, finally finding it in you to tear your eyes away from him. 

you parted your lips to speak, motioning to the road ahead, “guess we better get moving while it's still light out.”

— — —

you’d volunteered to take the last shift of watch for the night. you knew you wouldn't really be able to sleep anyway, so you didn't mind, and would rather everyone else get some well deserved rest instead. this was a common thing for you now, not being able to sleep. you just couldn't get your mind to ever shut up. usually, it was creating the most morbid scenarios, which would either cause nightmares or for you to be so paranoid you felt you had to stay awake. 

you supposed that's what came with life during an apocalypse, but it didn't make it any easier. you wished so badly that you could just go back to normal, or that this was just some cruel, twisted dream you could wake up from. but it wasn't, and you were stuck here fantasizing about a life you would never have again. 

the fire crackled softly, illuminating the surrounding area in a peaceful orange glow. you could hear the soft breaths of everyone, a slight snore emitting from taerae, and you smiled to yourself. seeing the people you'd grown to care about so still and calm brought a sense of comfort to you, and almost made it feel like you were at a sleepover of some sort. 

you heaved a sigh, drawing your knees up to your chest and resting your chin on your arms. you sat like that for a while, mind reeling with all the opportunities you were missing out on, and a stray tear raced down your face. there was gentle rustling next to you, and soon after, hanbin rose up from his place on the ground, a sleepy smile stretching across the expanse of his face. 

“i feel bad you're not getting any rest,” his voice was raspy with sleep as he spoke. he shifted his body so he could be sitting up next to you. he extended his legs in front of him, a yawn catching him by surprise, “if you want to try and get some before we leave, i can take over watch.”

you pondered it for a moment, finally nodding in defeat, and began to stretch out on the ground yourself. however, he caught you off guard, putting his lap, and murmuring, “you can use me as a pillow if you want, i know not having one isn't the most ideal.”

you could feel your heartbeat in your throat at his offer, silently nodding as you shifted your weight around, finally settling onto the ground and lowering your head onto his thighs, a content sigh slipping past your lips. you had to admit, he was right, and you didn't think you would be doing this when you first woke up that morning. hanbin pulled the blanket over you, enveloping you in a warmth you hadn't felt in a very long time.

delicately, he threaded his fingers through your hair, and your eyes fluttered shut at the contact. you sighed contentedly, mumbling a soft, “thank you,” to which hanbin chuckled quietly.

the feeling of his hand massaging your scalp caused your body to relax much quicker than you thought it would, and you were soon fighting to stay awake and relish in the feeling of it. before you finally succumbed to sleep, you swore you could could hear him barely whisper, “i’ll be here when you wake up, my love.”

viii.

“y/n, hanbin, wake up!” a voice pulled you from the surprisingly deep slumber you had fallen into despite the frigidly cold temperatures. an extremely panicked voice, though, the person’s hands gripping your shoulder and shaking you lightly in an attempt to get you to hurry. 

you shot up from your nest of blankets and hanbin’s legs, body close to taerae the moment you did so. your gaze locked with his, and instantly, you knew something was horribly wrong. he was quick to answer your suspicions, “infected, there’s a lot and we need to get moving,” hanbin cursed quietly under his breath next to you, angry at himself for even dozing back off in the first place. 

quick to get on your feet, you began shoving the blankets into your bag - rather haphazardly, might you add - your hands shaking from the anxiety you felt from the situation. hanbin remained close to you throughout the process, packing away the food you guys had left sitting out through the night. you glanced around, taking note that the other three were still within your line of vision, and you felt slightly relieved knowing everyone was still in a general vicinity of one another. 

a deep, rumbling growl resonated to the left of you. you turned, being greeted by an infected with outstretched arms haphazardly swinging at you, and his jaw hanging slack as he approached you. his flesh was missing in chunks around his cheekbones and his eyes were beginning to sink in from the disease. his hair was in matted, pale blonde tufts on his head. you’d never gotten the chance to actually see an infected’s features in tact like this before, and to say you were shocked was an understatement. he must have been freshly turned. 

you scrambled backwards the closer he approached, pulling your knife out from its holster on your pant leg. however, the pained cry of gyuvin stopped you from killing it right then and there.

“ricky?” 

the walker turned his head quickly at the sound of his name and you felt your heart lurch in your chest. the boy was attempting to run forward, but gunwook was able to wrap his arms around him before he could make it any further, “gyu, you can’t, there’s no saving him. you know that.”

you made eye contact with his brother, desperately searching for what to do, but his solemn and knowing expression told you everything. he turned gyuvin around, pulling him close to his chest, one of his hands holding the back of his head as he sobbed, “don’t look, okay?”

to ensure you didn’t overthink what you were about to do, you swung your knife forward, sinking it deep into the side of ricky’s neck. he sputtered loudly, dark crimson blood spraying out from the wound and onto your hand and sleeve of your jacket, some of it speckling on your face in the process. you twisted the knife and pressed your boot to his chest to shove him away as he fell, throwing your bag onto your back in a haste. 

“come on, there’s more following in behind him,” hanbin grabbed onto your arm the moment you hesitated, realizing just exactly what you had done. 

it wasn’t supposed to be difficult killing infected, yet here you were.

you followed behind him, meeting up with the rest of the group before everyone began to run on the same road you had been following to seattle. none of you really had time to take in everything that had happened in the past five minutes due to the large mob following hot on your trail, their wicked screams echoing through the empty fields that surrounded you. 

your breathing was erratic, legs and lungs both burning from the amount of energy you were putting into getting away from them. the road was slick with thick ice and it made it difficult to get any sort of traction. over the yelling, you were able to make out taerae’s voice, “keep an eye out for any kind of shelter!”

you squinted, scanning for anything up ahead that could prove useful to the group of you. however, gunwook was the first to notice something, “right over there! it looks like an old farmhouse!”

you took a sharp turn onto the gravel driveway that led up to quite a tucked away house, pushing your legs to go faster. the sooner you got there, the better it was for the group overall. the mob behind you was starting to lessen the more you ran, thankfully, and by time you got to the front door the five of you only had to kill a few before you could stop and catch your breath. 

nobody hesitated to go inside, careful to clear each room and make sure infected hadn’t wandered in. taerae rounded the corner of the kitchen, announcing, “i think we’re safe for now. we should probably rest for a minute before we leave again.”

“would it hurt to explore? see what this place has to offer?” gyuvin asked, the tremble in his voice hard to miss as he spoke. tears stained his face, streaked through the layers of dirt caked on his cheeks and revealing the pale skin beneath it. he was suffering, and rightfully upset, so you knew there was no consoling him until he was able to calm down and have some time to just himself. 

hanbin gauged everyone’s reactions, eyes resting on your blood splattered face, gaze softening. he parted his chapped lips, stating, “honestly, depending on what’s here, we could always stay for a few days and actually think of a better plan instead of just winging it and something like this happening again.”

“i’d have to agree on this one,” gunwook replied, “i don't want something like that to ever happen again, really.”

everyone wordlessly began to rummage around in the house, searching for anything that could be useful. you took note of how clean the place was despite the apocalypse occurring in the outside world. you turned into the bathroom, twisting the knob of the faucet on as a joke, only to be pleasantly surprised at the sound of running water. “guys! the water here works!” you called, dipping your finger under the stream, excitement bubbling into the pit of your belly, “and it’s warm!”

“the pantries and fridge are stocked full of food as well,” hanbin piped up, the excitement evident in his voice, “and there’s power? this place is loaded!”

“the people who were here previously must either be out or newly turned,” taerae remarked. 

it only brought you to the harsh reality of what had just happened. 

your gaze snapped up to your reflection in the mirror. ricky’s blood managed to get smeared across your cheek and mixed into the dirt and grime that had made a home on your skin quite some time ago now. your hand was stained red and your sleeve still heavily damp with blood, which you swore you could smell, and it made you feel sick.

you hurriedly shut the door and fell to your knees in front of the toilet, wretching at the stench and realization that you killed someone’s brother, gyuvin and gunwook’s brother, and you had to live with that for the remainder of time you were with them. a soft cry pushed out of your lungs as you vomited again, completely emptying the contents of your stomach, and you felt you couldn't do it another time. you flushed the toilet and sighed, staring at yourself in the mirror once more.

a quiet knock was able to be heard on the bathroom door and you opened it, greeted by hanbin, who’s eyes were concerned and his lips were contorted into a deep frown. “y/n?” hanbin’s voice was soft, “are you okay?”

and you burst into tears. 

hanbin pulled you close, his embrace strong around your body. you were sure you’d collapse onto the ground if he wasn’t holding onto you at that moment. he rocked your bodies slightly, humming into your ear as a means to calm you down in some sort of way, “you did what you had to do. gunwook wouldn’t have told you to do it if he didn’t think it was necessary.” 

you tried like hell to get the butterflies in your stomach to go away as he pressed a quick, comforting kiss to the crown of your head. not when you had just killed gyuvin’s brother and you were reaping the consequences of that. 

you shook your head, getting ready to respond to him, but were stopped by the sound of gyuvin choking on his sobs as he sat on the couch. gunwook’s voice attempted to comfort him, “i know it hurts, but you and i both know ricky would rather be put out of his misery than stay infected.”

“i could have prevented this all, wook, that’s the problem.”

“don’t do that to yourself. he wouldn’t have let you stay with him no matter the circumstances,” gunwook reassured him, “let’s go see about a bath for you and clean up, yeah? maybe that’ll make you feel better.”

their voices faded away as they headed upstairs. you gripped onto hanbin tighter, fists balled into the fabric of his jacket, letting out your own cry. you wouldn't blame gyuvin if he hated you for the rest of your time together. you would be angry if the roles were reversed, so you couldn't even fault him for that.

“y/n, i think maybe we need to do what gyuvin and gunwook are doing and get you cleaned up,” hanbin was gentle with you, pulling away from the hug slightly to get a better look at your face. his thumb came up to wipe the fresh tears away from your eyes, and you found solace in how nicely he was treating you. 

you sat there for a moment, relishing in the feeling, before you pulled out of the hug to avoid getting overwhelmed with any more emotions, shrugging your jacket off to rid yourself of the reminder of what you’d done not even an hour ago. you sat down on the toilet after putting the lid down and allowed hanbin to get a shower started, your entire body going numb in the process.

at this point, you hoped an infected would take you.

viiii.

you felt unusually warm, though you weren’t complaining in the slightest. sighing softly, you shifted around on the mattress beneath you, tired eyes attempting to open but failing miserably. an arm was slung lazily around you, soft breaths of the sleeping boy in front of you the only thing able to be heard other than the rustling of the blankets.

you finally gained the energy to open your eyes, at least halfway, and you were greeted by the sight of a peaceful looking hanbin, his hair sitting beautifully across his forehead and his lips curled up slightly in the corners. 

your heart felt like it was found to beat out of your chest. You had cuddled with both him and taerae a number of times throughout your attempts to survive, but never like this. you were the only one in the room with the dark haired boy, eyes trained on his serene face and your stomach doing backflips.

hanbin took a deep breath, his eyelids fluttering open, and he gazed at you with a quiet chuckle. he parted his lips to speak, voice deep and raspy from having just awoken from his slumber, “good morning, sleepyhead.”

“i don’t think i’m the sleepyhead here,” you giggled, poking your index finger into his chest, “i was awake way before you were.” you paused before asking, “how did i end up in your bed, anyway?”

though he woke up with a slightly playful demeanor, it quickly faded with a frown that tugged harshly at his lips, his brows creased and his eyes searching yours, “i figured you were too out of it to remember. you had a really rough night trying to grasp the fact that you killed ricky. taerae had fallen asleep relatively early and i just offered for you to sleep in here so you didn’t have to be alone.”

you were so caught up in the bliss of feeling safe and warm you almost forgot about ricky. 

hanbin caught on quickly to your mood change and to the fact that tears instantly glossed your eyes over. he reached his hand out, calloused thumb collecting the liquid as it dropped down onto your cheeks.

“you did what you had to,” he reassured.

all you had to offer him was a sad smile, “it definitely doesn’t feel like it. i wouldn’t be surprised if gyuvin doesn’t talk to me at all, i know if the roles were reversed i wouldn’t say a thing to him.”

he opened up his arms for you, inviting you to snuggle deeper into his chest. you obliged, allowing the boy to hold you while soft sobs erupted from your lips. quietly, he said, “once he realizes you did it out of good intentions he’ll come around. i know he will.”

you nodded, trying your best to convince yourself that what he was telling you had some sort of truth to it. you closed your eyes and relished in the boy's embrace, fearing that he would be able to hear how loud your heart was beating while you laid with him like this. you felt his lips graze your forehead, his warm breath fanning across your skin as he said, “i have something i wanted to tell you.”

you opened your eyes back up at his words, looking at him inquisitively, “what's that?”

“i know now might not be a good time, but i just wanted to tell you that i have a c-”

he was interrupted by the sound of knuckles rapping against the door to your shared room, “hanbin?” taerae’s voice called from the other side. 

the door knob twisted and he swung it open, beginning to step into the room before stopping dead in his tracks at the sight of the two of you cuddled up together. his posture was still and something unreadable flashed in his eyes, his tone monotonous as he spoke, “apparently i’m interrupting something, but i just wanted to let you know that gunwook is almost done cooking breakfast for whenever you decide to join us.”

with that, he shut the door rather harshly in his wake, the sound of his heavy footsteps receding down the stairs the only thing filling the silence he left behind. sighing, hanbin was the first to speak, “i assume he’s in one of his moods.”

“probably so,” you agreed with a nod, “i’m going to head down and attempt some sort of damage control. maybe we can finish this conversation later?”

hanbin nodded, “okay, i’m going to change my clothes and i’ll be down after that,” he replied offering you a soft, reassuring smile as you slipped your boots on and opened the door. 

once you reached the dining room, you took note of taerae’s hostile attitude as he shoved scrambled eggs down his throat, his facial features set in a deep scowl. he looked up when you entered, shoving his chair back, the legs scraping harshly against the floor. the boy rose to his feet and stalked past you, spitting, “i’m going on a walk.”

“you can’t go alone, it’s too dangerous,” gunwook called out in an attempt to get taerae to stay within the confines of the farmhouse. 

taerae scoffed, “i don’t think i fucking asked.”

he stepped out onto the front porch and began walking down the gravel driveway, his hands shoved into his pockets as he did so. you heaved a sigh, “i’ll go with him. i think it’s me he’s upset with anyway.”

“just be safe, we can’t afford to lose anyone,” gyuvin’s voice was quiet, but you still gave him an appreciative smile before following taerae out the door. 

you broke into a jog to catch up with his long stride, finally managing to walk beside him. you grabbed his arm, stopping him in his tracks. searching his eyes, you asked, “what’s wrong? did i do something?”

a look of annoyance adorned his face as he shook your hand away, “when i said i was going on a walk, i meant /without you/.” he started walking again, this time his pace much quicker than before in an attempt to get you to go back to the house. however, you were just as stubborn as he was. you stood your ground and continued following him.

“i don’t think it’s very fair for you to be in a pissy mood with everyone and not give a reason as to why,” you snapped, now gaining his full attention as he whipped around to face you, anger evident in his eyes. 

“you’re joking, right? /i’m/ the one being unfair?” he scoffed, “that’s rich coming from you, y/n.”

you gave him a dry laugh, rolling your eyes in the process, “i don’t even know what i did.”

“go ask your new boyfriend, i’m sure he could know.”

“so that’s what you’re upset about? we literally just shared a bed,” your futile attempt to reason with him went in one ear and out the other as he turned his back to you again and trudged onto a path in the woods, his fists balled up beside him. 

he suddenly stopped in a clearing, his shoulders tensing and his head bowed as if he were contemplating something. he sucked in a breath, though you didn’t expect him to raise his voice at you, “i don’t think you’re capable of understanding signs that are put directly in front of you and it’s so fucking frustrating!”

“i genuinely don't know what you're talking about taerae, please just tell me so we can fix it,” you shouted back, “it's not okay to just yell at me and not give a reason why.”

taerae closed his eyes and took a deep breath, almost as if to calm himself down, and in a completely different tone he said, “i just feel like you and hanbin are excluding me. it's obvious you two like each other and i just feel like an outcast now.”

“first of all, i doubt hanbin likes me back,” you started, holding your hand up to hush him when he tried to interrupt you, “and second, i’m sorry if we have made you feel that way. i never want you to feel sad because of something i have done, so i will do better and fix it.” 

taerae nodded, “i’m sorry for yelling at you.”

“it's okay, if you have any other issues just come to me like this instead of getting mad and storming out,” you playfully scolded, beginning to walk back toward the house. hanbin was stood in the doorway watching the two of you, a fond smile on his face. 

taerae leaned over, whispering in your ear, “he's crazy about you, trust me.”

you blushed a deep red, smacking him on the arm, “stop it!”

“just speaking the truth,” he shrugged matter-of-factly, unable to suppress the grin on his face as he bounded up the stairs and greeted hanbin, returning to the dining table to finish up his breakfast.

you stopped outside, locking your gaze with hanbin's, trying like crazy not to blush or make it obvious that you were flustered. he was quick to ask, “is everything okay now?”

“yeah, he just needed calmed down,” you told him, laughing as you said, “i’m shocked we didn't get attacked by infected with how loud he was yelling.”

“maybe he scared them away,” hanbin mused. 

hanbin allowed you to enter the house first, muttering something about how you should have grabbed a jacket because it's freezing out, and you playfully bantered as you sat at the table with the rest of the group. you were across from taerae, who gave you a knowing look, and you had to look away from him.

it was comical to watch him try not to yell because you kicked him under the table.

x.

your group had made the decision to stay at the farmhouse until you ran out of resources. its owners never returned, never fended you away from their property or supplies, and you sure as hell didn't want anyone else to take it from you. besides, if you could be stable there for a bit, it would give ample time to rest and complete your journey to seattle when it was warmer outside.

spring came quicker than you'd hoped, but while the weather was still unpredictable, you didn't plan on going anywhere. instead, you build a functioning garden to at least try and sustain yourselves as much as possible, opting to grow some vegetables. you mainly took care of them, which is where you were currently, your hands deep in the potting soil in an attempt to move a few of your crops around to some bigger pots you'd found in the shed a couple days ago. 

your heart jolted in your chest when a figure crouched down next to you, but soon relaxed upon seeing it was hanbin, offering you a helping hand, “i always feel bad you're out here doing this on your own most days.”

“i don't mind it, really,” you shrugged, scooping up some dirt in your hand and patting it around the plant to stabilize it in its new home, “it brings a little bit of comfort, reminds me of the days before the outbreak.”

he nodded in understanding, helping you finish up what you were doing before he quietly asked, “wanna go for a walk?”

you weren't sure why he was suddenly asking this, but you could use a break to stretch out your legs. you you wiped your hands off on your jeans to shake the excess dirt off, and then ran them under the water spigot to clean them as much as you could. hanbin opened up the gate after you signaled you were ready, allowing you to go first and step down onto the path you used to walk down to the creek in the woods.

a comfortable silence fell between the two of you, the quiet chirps of the birds filling your ears and the cool breeze ruffling through your hair. it was peaceful, and you had to admit, it was bringing you a sense of happiness you hadn't felt in such a long time. 

hanbin stopped once he got to a clearing, settling down on a patch of grass by the water and patting the spot next to him for you. plopping down almost instantly, you quirked an eyebrow up at him, questioning, “is there any particular reason we’re here?”

while you expected him to say he just wanted to make sure you were giving yourself a break, he surprised you by answering, “yeah, actually, there is.”

you cocked your head to the side, silently urging him to go on. he nervously swallowed, finally turning to face you, a sudden confidence dancing in his dark irises, “you know that conversation we were having a couple weeks ago before taerae threw his tantrum?”

“yes?” you answered hesitantly, not entirely sure where he was wanting to go with this. you felt the butterflies in your belly begin to dance when you took note of the way his eyes briefly flickered down to your lips, but it was over as soon as it happened. 

“well, um, i just wanted to finish that conversation, because it's been bothering me for a while and i just need to get this out.”

his burning gaze met yours, a fond smile curling up the corners of his mouth. you could feel your heart begin to beat in your chest, praying to god he couldn't tell how visibly flustered you were. he reached his hand up to brush a strand of your hair out of your face, parting his lips to speak, “i have a crush on you, y/n, i have for a while.”

while it was a simple confession, it was something you would treasure for the rest of your life. it was a breath of fresh air amidst chaos and fear, something that made you feel like you were floating for the first time since the outbreak. you felt stupid smiling so big, but to mask your hint of embarrassment, you told him, “i have a crush on you too, bin. i feel like it's been obvious.”

“not really,” he said, “i could kind of pick up little hints, but it was nothing too major. you honestly held it in well, i was worried you wouldn't return the feelings.”

“well, i promise i do.”

hanbin took your relaxed stance as a sign cup your cheek with his hand, inching closer and closer, finally muttering, “can i?”

you timidly smiled, feeling a blush creep onto your cheeks, “of course.”

without any hesitation, he closed the distance between the two of you, melding your lips together perfectly. you weren't sure if it was because he was hanbin, and he was perfect already, or if it was because this moment had been anticipated for so long by the both of you, but it was everything you could have ever asked for. he filled you with warmth and made you melt into his touch. your eyes fluttered shut, relishing in the moment before he broke away, his forehead pressed against yours, “i can't wait to do that more often.”

“me either,” you smiled, leaning forward again to steal another kiss from him, “i think i could get used to it.”

the two of you decided to scrounge around and look for any useful supplies before you went back to the farmhouse. you found a canteen and a gas lantern by the water, assuming someone had left it there - whether it was on purpose or not, you'll never know - and attempted to find anything else before you began your trek back up the trail to the farmhouse. 

you began laughing the moment you caught sight of taerae on the front porch a “thank fucking god” erupting from

his lips the moment he saw your fingers intertwined with one another. he said something along the lines of it being painful to watch the mutual pining and no one making a move. you nudged him playfully, admitting to him that he was right. 

your group would be leaving out within the next few weeks, and you anticipated everything seattle had to offer you, and you could only hope it would be as good as this.

it was close.

xi.

saying goodbye to the farmhouse was a lot harder than you hoped it would be. while you knew it was for the best, it killed you to leave running water, a thriving garden, and cozy bed to sleep in every single night. you knew you would have those things in seattle, but the remainder of the traveling there was going to be difficult, mainly because you'd all gotten spoiled on the luxury of not worrying about where you'll be staying. 

you set out on the rest of your journey early that morning, backpacks filled to the brim with supplies and plenty of food and water to get you through what you hoped would only be a week. you didn't run into many issues along the way, and had made an agreement to meet on the outskirts of the city if everything went wrong; and you hoped it wouldn't. 

the air was thick with humidity, and the feeling of grime caked on your skin wasn't something you missed by any means. you were filled with hope upon seeing a metal sign on the side of the road, and while it was rusting and filled with holes, you saw the words outlines clearly in white, highly contrasting with the green background.

seattle, 1 mile.

you gave hanbin’s hand a firm squeeze, peering up at him

through your lashes, and feeling tears sting at your eyes. you were finally almost to the place you would call home, where you could get as normal of a life as possible, and you'd be able to do it with your friends and boyfriend. maybe, just maybe, it was finally your time to have something really good happen for you. 

“what kind of food do you think they make there?” gyuvin asked, earning laughs from most of the group, and you all began to make small talk of what was to come, unknowingly picking up your pace. 

the sun was beginning to set, casting a beautiful glow across the horizon, and illuminating the sight in front of you. it was breathtaking, and making you all the more excited to finally get inside the safety of the gates that lie ahead.

but the harsh reality was, in this lifetime, nothing good lasted forever. 

something felt off as you approached the edge of the city. there were no signs of life to be found; you were greeted with empty streets and eerie silence. taerae stopped in his tracks, eyes frantically searching the map, a mantra of “no, no, no” falling from his lips at a million miles a minute.

“what's wrong?” gyuvin inquired, peeking over taerae's shoulder to see if he could figure it out himself, but to no avail. taerae folded up the map in frustration, shoving it in his back locked, and turning to the group to say, “there is no settlement.”

gunwook’s voice held a hint of worry, “why do you say that?”

taerae chuckled frustratedly, spinning around with his arms wide open, motioning to the deserted, crumbling city around you, “we went exactly to the place you said those people told you to, and here we are, with no other person in sight,” he quickly met gazes with you and hanbin, “we're completely doomed.”

“maybe we can try going back to the farmhouse, we were doing so well there,” hanbin suggested, attempting to bring some sort of level headedness to your current situation, but taerae was far from receptive to it. 

he began walking around, his behavior growing a little more irrational. he turned around, pointing at gyuvin and gunwook, who both adorned bewildered looks, and stated through gritted teeth, “this is all your fault, i knew we shouldn't have listened to you.”

“kim taerae!” you intervened, catching the attention of the dark haired boy, a glint of anger evident in his expression, “you are being a little ridiculous, we can figure something out.”

“no, we can't,” he scoffed, “we traveled miles and miles and miles to be greeted with nothing, i feel like my frustration is completely justified,” taerae allowed a yell to rip through his lungs, the sole of his boot loudly stomping on a bent “welcome to seattle” sign that had made its home on the crumbling concrete beneath you. 

before anyone could hush him, or ask if he was stupid, the resonating sound of infected filled your ears, but it was unlike anything you'd ever heard before. it sent panic shooting straight to the pit of your stomach, and it wasn't long before the filled your line of vision completely. 

hundreds of them.

the five of you began to run, desperately trying to stick together, but it was proving to be a lot more difficult than you thought. you heard hanbin holler a “split up” before you headed off into different directions, gyuvin and gunwook together one way, and your original trio the other. you clung to hanbin's hand for dear life, keeping careful watch of taerae to make sure he was keeping up. 

you were all too soon met with a fork in your path, and hanbin was quick to think on his feet, letting go of your hand and pushing you toward taerae with an apologetic smile, quickly telling him, “make sure to keep them safe.”

you let out a cry, “hanbin, no!” but it was too late, because he was taking a pipe and banging it on a dumpster nearby, gaining the attention of the infected that had been hot on your trail, and pushing his legs to move him faster down the alley and out of your line of vision. 

you attempted to run after him, but taerae grabbed your arm and pulled you back. you shook yourself from his grasp, screaming through your tears, “we can't leave him, taerae,” a sob raking over your body, “please!”

“hanbin will be fine, y/n, he always is,” taerae reasoned with you, “he'll make it back to us and you know it.”

before you could argue with him anymore, taerae was grabbing your arm again and dragging you along with him, attempting to find the edge of the city again. your legs were burning with each push you made to keep running, and by time you finally made it to a clearing, your lungs felt like they could collapse at any given moment. 

you desperately looked around, trying to find hanbin, or gyuvin and gunwook, and your eyes finally settled on the trembling figures of the two brothers on the ground up ahead, panting hard and trembling from the realization of the events that just occurred. 

you caught up to them, but before you could say anything, you turned around to face taerae, finally allowing the rage you'd managed to keep at bay during that mess to unleash itself on him, “i cannot believe you would put our whole group on jeopardy like that,” you stepped toward him, palms of your hands meeting his chest and shoving him backwards, “you made hanbin feel like he had no choice but to sacrifice himself so we could live, you know that right?” 

taerae’s mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, not knowing what at all to say to you. scoffing, you said, “you are so fuckinh selfish.”

with that, you stormed off, ignore everyone’s futile attempts of getting you to calm down. the three ended up following behind you, making sure to keep your remaining group together as night approached, and you eventually stopped and set up camp for the night, but refused to utter a single word to taerae. 

you could only hope hanbin would survive the night.

— — —

you and the other three waited on the outskirts of the city like you planned, anxiously awaiting hanbin’s arrival to your small camp, if it ever came. it had been hours now, and you were still not speaking to taerae, now having graduated to refusing to look at him. his attempts at apologizing to you were futile, because he knew sorry would never be enough to heal the ache in your heart and the constant worrying on your mind.

as the morning sun broke through the sky, you sat in front of the smoldering fire, knees drawn up to your chest and eyes stinging with fresh tears. gyuvin was sat down next to you, his hand rubbing your back in a comforting way, his presence greatly appreciated, but you had a hard time croaking anything out.

a flash of brilliant red came into your vision, causing you to finally tear your gaze away from the ashes before you, seeing a rain of fiery glitter shimmering down from the sky in waves. you blinked a few times, wondering if your mind was playing tricks on you, but gyuvin had stopped rubbing your back in return for staring at the sight before you, mouth agape.

it had to be hanbin.

you began silently packing your things into your backpack, gyuvin closely following suit, but you were interrupted by taerae’s voice piercing the silence, “what are you doing?”

“what's it matter to you?” you snapped, managing to look at him, nostrils flaring in annoyance. he held his hands up in defense. muttering, “i’m just trying to watch out for you, y/n.”

you stepped toward him, teeth gritted and your patience with him wearing dangerously thin. you pointed to the color illuminating the sky, your words assertive, “that could be hanbin, and i’ll be damned if you stop me from going to look when you're the reason this happened in the first place. whether you come or not isn't my problem, but if you want to prove you're worthy of forgiveness, you’ll come with.”

you turned on your heels, back now facing him, and met the determined gazes of gyuvin and gunwook, who signaled they were ready to follow you back into the heart of the city.

you trudged onward, careful not to let the thudding of your boots draw attention to you, and glanced behind your back, taking note of taerae following suit. good.

it wasn't long before you made it through the entrance to the forgotten city, and you slunk against walls to keep a low profile in case a hoard of infected were still nearby. you felt your heart beating in your throat, a layer of sweat now coating your forehead in anticipation for what was to come.

another flare was lit, this time much closer to where you previously were. you dashed across the street from one alley to the next, taking note of the same dumpster that hanbin had hit before he ran on his own path. you figured following it wouldn'td hurt, and led your group onward through the maze of rubble, the stench of the flare smoke now filling your nostrils.

before you could take another step forward, gunwook grabbed your hand and pulled you back down into a crouch, his finger pressed over his lips before he pointed ahead, a bus in the distance, but a crowd of about 15 infected surrounding it. they seemed desperate to get something, and as your eyes trailed up, you realized it was someone.

hanbin.

he looked up, a wave of relief washing over his face upon seeing the four of you few yards away from him, and you fought back your tears as you made a cutthroat motion to the other theee, quietly creeping along the edge of the road, planning to sneak attack the infected.

taerae was the first to leap forward, twisting an infected’s neck with a sickening crack. its body crumpled to the ground, falling entirely lifeless within an instant, and it didn't take long for the rest of you to follow in his footsteps. you swung forward, your motions eerily similar to when you killed ricky months back, blood sputtering out from the infected and soaking through your clothes.

but this time, you didn't care. you continued your actions, the putrid smell of iron and rotting flesh violating your nose, but within a few minutes the crowd was gone, and you were surrounded by bodies on the road. you quickly entered the inside of the bus, noticing there was only a few seats left inside, and a previously made shelter from someone else having been made in the back.

taerae pulled the doors shut to prevent any other infected getting inside, visibly relaxing once he realized your group was safe for now. hanbin slipped down from the top of the bus, his hair disheveled, and exhaustion evident in his expression and body language. you moved forward to give him a hug, but he stepped back, shaking his head at you.

you felt your stomach twist in a knot, “hanbin?”

his next words were ones that would have made you fall to your knees if he wasn't standing directly in front of you, “i got bit.”

it felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the small space, the entire group falling into a dreadful silence.

you blinked back tears for millionth time in the last few hours, swallowing harshly as you met your eyes with his, desperately trying to see if he was pulling some cruel joke. you laughed, “no, no that's not possible! you're fine hanbin, you don't have to pull my leg like that.”

his frown only deepened, and he took a step forward, pulling the sleeve of his jacket up to reveal a gnarly wound on the inside of his forearm, the resemblance of teeth marks deeply penetrating his skin. blood oozed from the gashes, and the flesh surrounding it appeared as though had already begun to rot away.

“what are we going to to do?” taerae asked, and you almost turned around to slap him, but somehow managed to contain yourself.

hanbin’s expression said everything you needed to know. his next sentence was quiet, and had the nobody there been completely still, you wouldn't have been able to hear it, “i’m going to have to take care of it myself, i won’t let the virus take over. i don't want to be one of them.”

“hanbin, no,” taerae said, “we can't just let you kill yourself, there has to be another way.”

“but there's not, taerae,” hanbin’s tone was gentle but firm, “there's no cure, and i won't be able to handle being one of those disgusting creatures,” a tear raced down his cheek, “i have no other choice, unless one of you do it for me, and i would never ask that of you.”

you didn't feel like yourself as the gears turned in your head, before you finally asked, “can we at least say goodbye?”

his eyes softened, and he nodded in return. you let the others go before you, gunwook and gyuvin going first, thanking him for allowing them to tag along, and always making sacrifices to make sure everyone else was taken care of.

you didn't miss the sobs shaking taerae’s body when he went, their hug the tightest one you had ever seen. “i’m so sorry” moving past his lips repeatedly, and hanbin kept reassuring him quietly. the two had a quiet conversation, hanbin’s gaze intensely staring into taerae in what you assumed was advice on how to move forward.

and then it was your turn.

your legs felt like jelly as you collapsed into his embrace, his arms sturdy and the scent of his cologne having barely lingered on his clothes as you burning your face into his chest. you could feel him breaking down, and the two of you cried more than you ever have before. he pulled back a little bit, pressing a deep, loving kiss onto your lips, and you could taste the salt of your tears mixing in between.

he looked at you, adoration in his eyes, as he whispered, “i love you, y/n.”

your bottom lip quivered, and you were barely able to get out an “i love you” in return, relishing in your final moment with him. you shifted a bit, slipping your dagger out from the inside of your sleeve. you pushed it between his ribs, hearing him softly grunt in pain, and a quiet “thank you” coming from him.

he grew weaker by the minute, and you helped him lower to the ground. laying him down on his back and settling down next to him, your hand coated with the warm bloom spilling from his body. your free hand reached up and pushed his hair out of his eyes. thumb moving down to collect his tears as his eyes fluttered shut and the breath left his body.

your pained weeping echoed throughout the barren wasteland around you, and you wanted so badly to turn back time, to do something differently, because if you did, he would still be alive. you'd still be searching for seattle.

but seattle wasn't real, and the boy you loved was taken from you by the very thing you hated the most.

[g1rld1ary]

kiss me on the dance floor ; remus lupin x reader

➻ yayay first remus fic !! happy valentines!!!!!!! (my fav holiday <33)

➻ word count: 2071

➻ synopsis: you and remus keep meeting when you have to hold your friend's hair back at parties; it turns out to be effective bonding time

➻ warnings: alcohol & being drunk, drug use/being high (minor), mentions of vomiting, swearing, kissing, fluff

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

You liked parties a very normal amount. You weren’t massively into drinking or staying out all night every night, but you liked to dance and you liked spending your weekends with your friends, so you ended up at most of the parties thrown around Hogwarts. The best of these were the ones thrown by the Gryffindors; they had the best music, the best booze, and usually the cutest boys.

On one fateful Friday evening you were attending one of the aforementioned Gryffindor parties — this one specifically in honour of Halloween. You and your group of friends had all decided to go together, coordinating outfits to be Charlie’s Angels from the muggle television show. Looking and feeling good you’d all enjoyed the party to its fullest, spending the long hours of the night dancing and drinking. That was, until your best friend, Jen, began to appear more shaky than upright, and you knew exactly what was coming.

You grabbed her hand and led her through the crowd, mercilessly elbowing guys out of the way when they tried to start conversation.

“Hey, where’s the bathroom?” You shouted at James Potter, who pointed you along to a hallway leading off into relative darkness. You tried to hurry the both of you along, hoping to spare your friend the embarrassment of vomiting all over the Gryffindor common room, and you could have kissed the ground for making it in time if it wasn’t so grimy. The crisis directed your focus until you were absolutely sure Jen had made it over the bowl and her ponytail was safely in your hands. After the urgency had somewhat worn off your eyes could take in the rest of the room, noticing there were already two inhabitants in the room, one hunched over the sink.

Remus Lupin was the one holding back the other’s hair, which gave you a pretty good indication it must have been Sirius Black. Remus was already looking at you when you locked eyes and you gave him a tight-lipped smile.

“Hey,” He said, patting a hand on Sirius’ back to soothe him.

“Hi,” You replied. You’d never spoken to him properly before despite being in school together all these years, but you supposed now was as good a time as any.

“How are you liking the party?” Remus asked and you almost laughed.

“Well the party itself is just fine — the Gryffindor music is almost always better than Slytherin’s EDM shit. Can’t say I’m as pleased with my current job, though.” You seemed to have amused Remus judging from the snort he released and you felt a flash of pride.

“I’ll take your compliment, it’s almost always my records James puts on for parties,” Then he lowered his voice to a stage whisper, “But I never lend him my Bowie records — they’re basically my children.”

“That’s not true, Moons,” Sirius interrupted, momentarily pulling his head up, “He was playing my Zeppelin tape before.” Remus gave him a smile similar to one you might give a child when you know you need to acknowledge what they’re saying but knew they were talking complete nonsense. You decided to focus on Remus’ earlier statement.

“I love Bowie!”

Once you’d found some common ground the conversation was easy. You sat for almost half an hour, the two of you chatting lightly whilst feeding your respective friends water and waiting until they were ready to be upright again. You almost dreaded leaving the gross toilets, your unexpected meeting with Remus becoming the surprise highlight of your night. You hesitated at the door.

“We should get going. The rest of our friends are probably worried,” You trailed off awkwardly, unsure of how to end your acquaintance.

“It was nice talking to you,” Said Remus, “Despite the, uh,” He gestured at the location. You laughed, nodding.

“Well, if you’re anything like me, I’m sure I’ll see you next time.” With that you and Jen said your goodbyes, waving at Sirius and Remus before darting into the crowd to find the rest of your roommates.

You saw Remus again sooner rather than later. Not at the Slytherin party the next Friday — the Marauders refused to go on principle — but at the Ravenclaw one the weekend after to celebrate their quidditch win. This time he was comforting Peter, not Sirius, and you didn’t even know the girl you’d accompanied into the bathroom. You were pretty sure she was a year or two below you, but you didn’t want her to be all alone while she was drunk.

Remus smiled softly as you explained that to him, getting so invested in your storytelling that he momentarily loosened his grip on Peter’s sandy mop. You both winced at the dull thud of his forehead hitting the toilet bowl. He simply laughed, which in turn made both you and Remus laugh, states possibly heightened by substances but you weren’t admitting anything. Your laughter subsided and you looked at Remus quietly, scrutinising his face. You liked talking to him, he wasn’t nearly as mean as his resting bitch face or the rumours made him seem. In fact he was quite nice, complimenting your outfit and giving you pointers when you started whining about the essay you were procrastinating.

It started to become a habit, the two of you meeting like that at parties and ending up hiding in the toilets for longer than was strictly necessary to take care of your respective friends. After three instances you were pretty confident you could even call him a friend, the interactions lasting outside of the singular moments at parties.

The first time he’d acknowledged you in the light of day with a wave as you passed him in the hallway you were too stunned to return it, only able to spare him a backwards glance when he had already passed. You had to ask the roommate you were walking with if it was even directed at you. Remus, in turn, was on the verge of humiliation when he thought he’d totally misread your interactions for something more than just necessity, quietly devastated when you didn’t return his greeting and interpreting it as you not actually wanting to be friends.

You managed to ease his worries the next time you bumped into him, a shy but excited “Hi, Remus!” when you passed him entering your shared potions class. You didn’t stay to watch his friends make a ridiculous fuss over the minute interaction, Sirius in particular knowing exactly what was going on. But you were glad you were becoming real friends nonetheless, the prospect of possibly talking not in a greasy toilet sounding very appealing.

Despite the introduction of small ‘hellos’ and waves when you crossed paths, your schedules were hardly aligned, so most of your relationship was confined to the parties you attended. Neither the Marauders nor your own friend group were ignorant of the two of you becoming individually more eager to attend these parties, and you could have sworn they’d started exaggerating their drunkenness to get you two to spend more time with each other.

A Valentine’s Day party in February had you dressed in your prettiest pink and white dress, the Gryffindor common room the perfect venue for a red-themed party. You’d been enjoying the party itself; you’d come up with a game where you guessed which music belonged to which Marauder — the best tracks were always Remus’.

When Jen tugged on your arm saying she was feeling sick far too early in the night you raised an eyebrow, but you weren’t going to be the arsehole who let her be sick on her own. And so you participated in the near-weekly ritual of steering her through the crowd towards the bathroom you were now well acquainted with.

For the first time in a while you were the first two in there. You stared at Jen curiously. She wasn’t exactly retching over the toilet despite the act she’d put on earlier. You were just trying to figure out how to ask the question when the door pushed open, and in walked Sirius and Remus. You could have sworn Sirius had winked at Jen, but you were too enamoured by Remus to be focusing on anyone else. Sirius at least had the decency to commit to his performance, leaning over the sink, occasionally groaning half-heartedly.

You and Remus took your customary places next to each other, periodically rubbing your friends’ backs lightly. You made light conversation with him, enjoying the way he got when he was high. His eyes became softer, hazel shining through as he locked eyes on you. Your favourite was his smile though, dopey and eliciting easy giggles at every joke you made. You were engaged in a passionate conversation about aliens when Sirius groaned louder than his pre-vomit sounds.

“Merlin, would you please just kiss already! Moony’s mooning over you!” He cried, and you watched as Remus face flushed an adorable shade of red. You assumed yours probably matched, but you were at least handling it better than the boy across from you, who looked like he wanted to drop dead in that moment. You couldn’t contain your giggle, slapping a hand over your mouth to try and lessen Remus’ embarrassment. You set your eyes on Sirius instead.

“I’m not kissing anyone in the fucking bathroom, no matter how cute they are.” You chanced a wink at Remus, then followed Jen out of the bathroom, trying not to betray how flustered you were by your own actions.

The two of you giggled all the way back to the rest of your friends, who were promptly filled in on the story and let out similar shrieks. A glance over at Remus’ friends showed them already looking at you, James Potter with a delighted expression on his face. You turned away and missed Remus’ friends hyping him up, Peter handing him a full-looking shot for confidence.

The next thing you knew, a hand slung around your shoulder. You looked up, smiling when it was the slightly dazed frame of Remus Lupin, giving you a fond grin.

“Wanna dance?” You were surprised at his request, everyone knew Remus Lupin hated dancing. And yet, here he was dancing with you to Pink Floyd as your friends made kissy faces when he wasn’t looking. You were just happy to be spending time with him not on the bathroom floor.

You were about four songs in and you could tell that Remus was tired but you were still puzzled as to why he hadn’t sat down yet. You were pretty sure even his high was wearing off which would ordinarily be an indication it was time for him to leave. But he was here. For you. You were about to question him when he leant down so his mouth was right next to your ear, sending shivers down your spine.

“I know you said you wouldn’t kiss me in the bathroom, but how about a dance floor?” You could feel your jaw drop open.

“I… would say that dance floor is a green zone.” You smiled. You watched him return it, so close you could see every fleck of colour dancing around his eyes. He closed the distance first, scooping you up into his arms and kissing you with such fervour you could only imagine how long he’d been waiting for it. You returned it just as eagerly, swiping your tongue across his bottom lip to deepen it as you’d daydreamed about in class just days ago.

A frightening yell came from behind Remus and you both pulled away to investigate, rolling your eyes when it was just Sirius — clearly smashed but surprisingly wholesome in his celebrations of you and Remus finally taking some action. His heavy hand clapped Remus on the shoulder, rambling nonsense that emphasised how long it had taken the two of you to bite the bullet. Both of you ignored him, stuck in ignorant bliss, sneaking kisses between bouts of laughter.

All in all, it was a pretty decent Valentine’s Day — not actually needing to clean any throw-up was just an added bonus.

[katsu28]

☕️ bradley ‘rooster’ bradshaw and "you know we need to talk." "about?" "i don't know...last night, maybe?"

bradley "rooster" bradshaw x mitchell!reader, mentions of vomiting, mentions of pregnancy, 1.9k

You shouldn’t have been here at Rooster’s place at this time of night. You should’ve been asleep, in bed, but instead you were here, knocking on his door in the middle of the night, all because you’d just discovered something not even two hours ago that would change the trajectory of not only your life, but probably Rooster’s too. 

It took a while, but he finally pulled open the door after your incessant knocking, rubbing his eye furiously as he peered out at who the hell was knocking on his door at three in the morning.

His hair was a riot, brown curls sticking out every which way, eyes bleary. He’d been asleep—of course he was. Anyone in their right mind would be. Except you weren’t really in your right mind right now. You were damn near close to losing it, trying your hardest not to spiral. 

“Y/N? What are you—why are you awake? What’re you doing here?” He yawned, scratching his chest groggily. When you didn’t answer, just stared at him like something was wrong, he gave his head a quick shake to wake himself up a bit. “Are you okay? What—come in, come inside, please.” 

You obliged, stepping past him and over the threshold into his apartment wordlessly. 

“Can I make you some coffee—no, coffee would probably be bad right now. Tea? Water?” He offered, gesturing you towards the kitchen. You settled at one of the barstools in front of the counter, leaning on your elbows, folding your hands. “Not really sure what this situation calls for. Seriously, are you okay? You look…not okay.” 

“I’m pregnant.” You blurted. Well, there went easing into the conversation. Bradley’s eyebrows flew sky high. But wait, there was more! “And I’m pretty sure you’re the father.” 

He blinked at you owlishly, utterly and completely dumbfounded. “Pretty sure? How sure is pretty sure?” 

“Entirely sure, actually. You’re the only guy I’ve been with in a really long time, so either it was a ghost, or it was you.” 

That was something you’d been wracking your brain for since the second you saw the three lines on the test. One night, four or five weeks ago, after some sort of celebration at the Hard Deck that you couldn’t even remember now. 

You remembered leaving the bar with Rooster, taking him home with you, kissing him a lot. It was entirely consensual, that much you could recall. But anything after that up until when you’d first started to feel icky was a blank.

You honestly didn’t even consider the possibility that you were in fact pregnant until your friend suggested it yesterday. Which is why you took the test. Never did you once think it would turn out positive.

It wasn’t that you didn’t think Rooster would be a good father. In fact, out of everyone you’d hooked up with over the years, he was probably the best option. Not that you really had any option, at this point. It was simple, plain as day. You were pregnant, and Rooster was the father. 

Rooster made a face. “Okay, gross. But you took a test? And it was positive?” 

“No, it came to me in a dream.” You snapped, glaring at him. “Yes, I took a test! I took three—all positive!” 

“Alright! Okay, that’s—wow, okay. That’s definitely…something to take in.” 

“I don’t know what to do.” You said quietly, staring hard at the marble countertop.

“Look, it’s late, we’re both tired. We don’t have to do anything right now, we don’t need to make any decisions right now. We have time.” He replied, shaking his head. We. He kept saying we, like he was planning on sticking around. You weren’t sure how to feel about it. “Why don’t you stay the night here and we can talk about this more in the morning?” 

You shook your head quickly. “No, I can’t, I have to be home to set up for the party—oh my god, the party! My dad.” 

“Your dad? What—Y/N, I’m pretty sure he’ll understand. Mav’s more modern than you give him credit for.” 

“Understand? Understand what?” You asked incredulously. Then you got what he was trying to say, and you let out a humorless laugh. “Rooster, we’re not telling him. We can’t tell him!” 

Your dad’s birthday party was tomorrow, and there were so many things you had to set up and do, this was probably the worst time for you to deal with everything going on right now. It wasn’t every day Pete “Maverick” Mitchell turned sixty. You needed everything to be perfect, and this brand new unexpected news was definitely not that. 

Rooster could tell you were starting to panic a little from the weight of everything, so he just went along with what you said, reaching over the counter to cover your hand with his. “Everything is gonna be fine, okay? Just get some rest. Please. Tomorrow’s gonna be a busy day, and you need to sleep.” 

You nodded distractedly, barely registering him guiding you towards the guest bedroom and settling you into bed. And maybe you were more tired than you thought, because your eyes fell shut on their own accord, and you were out like a light before Rooster even had the chance to close the door behind him. 

-------

The party was going great so far. There was food, music, all your dad’s Navy buddies. Everything was running smoothly, and you definitely weren’t thinking about your conversation with Rooster last night, or the fact that you left his house before the sun even rose to avoid talking about the situation even more. 

That was a lie. You couldn’t stop thinking of it, even as you smiled at every one of your dad’s friends jostling him about how old he’d gotten to be completely unaware of the surprise party his daughter planned for him. 

With every conversation about what you’d been up to in life lately, you thought about Rooster. The look on his face when you broke the news to him. The way he must’ve felt when he woke up and you were gone. He was probably mad at you, and you honestly couldn’t blame him. 

Like he knew it was him on your mind, Rooster materialized next to you, busying himself with browsing the drinks in the cooler to make it look like everything was normal. “Y/N.” 

“Enjoying the party?” You asked casually, crossing your arms over your chest. Rooster scoffed softly. 

“You know we need to talk.” 

Your smile wavered for a split second before returning in full force. You glanced over at him briefly, flicking from his very serious face then back to the party. “About?” 

“I don’t know…last night, maybe? You left before I woke up.”  

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“Bullshit.” 

“Nothing happened last night, Rooster.” 

“So you’re telling me you’re not pregnant right now.” 

“Keep your voice down.” You hissed. Rooster shot a pointed look at you and you caved, grabbing him by the arm and yanking him towards a more secluded area of the backyard. “You wanna talk? Fine. Talk.” 

“You said the baby was mine. That’s not just something I can forget, Y/N.” 

“And I’m not asking you to forget, I’m asking you to leave it alone for now. It’s my dad’s birthday, Bradshaw. Can’t we just let him have the day before we blow up his entire world?” 

“Okay. Yeah, that’s fine. Dropping it for now.” Rooster conceded, holding his hands up in surrender. In reality, all he wanted to do was figure things out, but he could admit that this wasn’t quite the best place nor time to do it. “What can I do to help you right now?” 

“I think I’m gonna be sick.” 

“Whoa, hey, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to stress you out any more, I just—” 

“No, Rooster, I’m—” You felt the bile rising in your throat alarmingly quick, and before you could even your sentence, you scrambled for the nearest bush to throw up. 

“Oh shit!” Rooster lunged forward, gathering your hair out of your face back towards the nape of your neck as you let it all out. You felt the warmth of his hand on your back, rubbing smooth circles along your spine. 

“Fuck.” You groaned, bracing your hands on your knees. “Please tell me no one saw that.” 

“Uh…” Rooster’s voice was hesitant and you turned your head, only to be met with the one person you didn’t want seeing you like this. Just your luck that even up there in age, that Navy instilled situational awareness never faded. 

“Honey? You alright?” Your dad looked beyond worried, and before you knew it, you were sat down on the living room couch with your father fussing over you, fluffing your pillows, covering you with a blanket, the works. Rooster was hovering over in the corner. 

“Dad, I’m fine! I probably had some bad oysters or something at girls’ night yesterday.” You sighed, ducking away from his attempt at feeling your forehead. As much as you didn’t enjoy lying straight to his face, telling him it was most likely a pregnancy symptom was definitely out of the question. “Go back, enjoy your party, please.”

“I should really stay, what if—” 

“I’m in good hands, Dad. Rooster’s got me covered.” 

“I’ll take the best care of her, Mav, don’t you worry.” 

“No doubt in my mind you will.” He clapped Rooster on the shoulder, giving him a sharp nod. He turned to you. “Drink something. Eat something. I’ll check back in later. Love you, sweetheart.” 

“Love you too, Dad.”

After waving everybody back to the festivities with assurances that you just needed to lay down for a bit and would be just fine, Rooster reappeared in the doorway a little while later, this time bearing gifts. 

“Crackers and ginger ale. Eat them, they’ll help.” He insisted, letting you take the plastic cup from him. “Stole them from the cooler and snack table. Who knew an old man’s birthday party would have just what I was looking for?” 

You managed a meager smile, but when you took a tiny sip of the soda, you found that it actually did help a bit. “How’d you know what I needed?” 

Rooster rubbed the back of his neck, pressing his lips together with a haphazard shrug. “My mom. When she got sick, they always seemed to help with the nausea. Made sure we were always stocked and ready for whenever she needed it.” 

“I wanna keep the baby, Rooster.” You blurted. Rooster nearly choked on his own saliva in surprise. 

“You—you do?” 

“And I want you to be there every step of the way.” You continued, fidgeting with the stray thread at the edge of your blanket. He took a seat next to you on the couch, rubbing his hands over his legs nervously. “Only if that’s what you want, though. I’m not trying to force your hand or baby trap or anything like that. It’s your choice, completely. But…I’d like it if our kid knew their father. In whatever capacity you’re comfortable with.” 

“So, like co-parents? Or…more?” Rooster said slowly, gauging your reaction with wide, almost nervous eyes. 

“I’m open to more.” You replied. Maybe you were reading too much into it, but he seemed to look very pleased with that. “I don’t know what this is gonna be like, for either of us, but I like to think we’ll get through it all. Together.”

He nodded, sliding his hand into yours and squeezing. “Together.”  What that together entailed, you weren’t all too sure. And although you were nervous as hell about what laid ahead, you were looking forward to finding out.

follow @katsu-library to be notified when i post new fics :)

[rafeysbafey]

⭒to the rescue⭒

⭒summary. rafe comes to your rescue when drunk.

⭒warnings. fem!reader, drinking, cursing, slight angst if you squint, fluff, protective rafe

⭒word count. 654

you were attending one of topper’s parties, usually with rafe but this time with sarah, getting drunk and dancing your worries away.

she had persuaded you to come along, labeling it as a girls night, but you knew the real reason why she wanted to come.

and plus rafe was doing work for his father, so why not?

but things had started going downhill once you downed three…four? shots. the alcohol running through your veins as you felt your confidence shoot through the roof.

all was fine, dancing with sarah and making friends with the random girls around you, until some touren decided to test his limits with you.

“i s-said stop,” you slurred, shoving him against his chest in a weak attempt to get this random boy away from you, sarah backing you up by shoving him in the side.

“topper!” sarah yelled, trying to grab the kook’s attention while keeping an eye on you, your eyes fluttering shut as your body swayed.

“cmon, i’ll show you a good time.”

you tried not to vomit, the smell of beer and whatever god awful musk he was wearing suffocating your scent.

“i-i have a boyfriend,” you mumbled, body relaxing at seeing topper and kelce approach the situation. kelce quickly grabbed the guy before sarah dragged topper over.

“leave her the fuck alone, bro” kelce spat, shoving the guy as topper quickly took out his phone to dial your boyfriend.

rafe let out a groan at the sound of his phone going off, his attention taken away from the scattered papers covering his desk.

“what, topper?” he snapped, annoyance clear in his voice.

“u-uh, we have a problem,” topper started off, moving away from the phone for a second to yell something in the background, only ticking off rafe more.

“spit it out, topper. i don’t have time for this-”

“y/n is like- wasted. and some touren won’t leave her alone.”

that was all rafe needed to know for him to leave tannyhill, forgetting about the piles of paper work ward was forcing on him.

when he arrived, it wasn’t hard to miss his girlfriend who was drunkenly fighting with kelce and topper.

“you said he was coming!” you whined, throwing your head back as you leaned into sarah.

“y/n he is-”

“hey, baby,” rafe called, grabbing your attention as your eyes shot in his direction, a drunk smile making its way on your face.

“rafe!” you gasped, stumbling to him before throwing your arms around him, “i-i’ve missed you!”

“i’ve missed you too, baby,” he chuckled, pulling you away to fix your messy hair, strands sticking to your forehead.

“i heard there was a boy problem here?”

your eyes went wide as you gave him a pout, tears threatening to spill, “i didn’t d-do anything!”

“oh i know, shh it’s okay,” he whispers, frown on his face as he runs the pad of his thumb over your cheek.

“i’m just here to get you home.”

your frown was quickly replaced by a smile, letting rafe bring your figure closer to his.

he felt warm and smelled good, bringing immediate comfort to the situation.

“thanks top for calling,” he said, grabbing the boy’s attention, “and kelce for helping. you too i guess, sarah.”

sarah gave her brother the finger before letting you two head back, rafe’s arm wrapped firmly around your body as he fished for his keys.

“can we get food?” you mumbled, rafe helping you into the passenger seat before buckling you in.

“it’s 1 in the morning, gorgeous.”

“pleeeaaaasssseee,” you whined, giving him your best puppy dog eyes. he let out a sigh before tucking a piece of hair behind your ear.

“i’ll make you some pasta, how does that sound?”

you gave him a peck on the lips, your smile making him melt on the spot.

“i love when you cook for me,” you sighed, rafe rolling his eyes before shutting his door and joining you a few seconds later.

“oh! what about milkshakes?”

“don’t push it, sweetheart.”

[can-of-w0rmz]

It’s always so interesting to me how so many people tend to look at protagonists’ reactions in 19th century gothic media and immediately slap a label on them as “over-dramatic” or “weak”, when in reality I don’t think we (as a society) know what we’re talking about. I think our society is collectively desensitised to concepts, and what I mean by that is that the concept of a story like Dracula or Frankenstein isn’t something that we’d ever bat an eye at because it’s been so ingrained into our very understanding or the concept of basic modern horror premises that we no longer appreciate it for what it is, and I’ve been guilty of it too. So a lot of people take the protagonists reactions to their circumstances, and paint it as melodrama or even worse, get high and mighty and claim that if THEY were in that scenario, they would NEVER do something so stupid, right?

But I need you to take a minute to actually think about the positions these characters are in. We’ve become so desensitised to these concepts, but if we were actually in those positions in real life we would probably not be able to handle them half as well as some of these characters. For example, Dracula. Sure, guy goes to stay in spooky castle, client turns out to be a vampire, pretty standard, easy to point at Jonathan Harker’s decisions and blame him. Oh Jonathan, don’t you know walking through an abandoned castle when your client tells you not to is bound to get you hurt? Don’t you know going to a remote area with villagers crossing themselves every five seconds is dangerous?

But actually think about this. You’re a solicitor, you have a fiancée back home and you need this job. You meet your client, he’s a little creepy, you feel unsafe, but you need this job. What are you going to do, turn back and tell your employer you couldn’t do it because the vibes were off? Obviously not. You suck it up. Then slowly, your world starts collapsing around you and slowly getting smaller as you find yourself trapped inside this man’s house and you slowly come to the realisation that you are being held captive in the house of a creepy old man who has access to all the rooms in the house, including your own, and can enter it at any time, in a secluded area far away from everyone, and with no hope of reaching out for help. He has the power to do anything to you, and you’re completely helpless, and does. You are going to die there and none of your loved ones will ever know what happened to you. Your abuser might even fabricate your identity or conduct a lie to ruin all memory of you forever. Then things get worse, and you realise that your abuser and captor isn’t even human. Throw in the infanticide and assault scenes, and that is a horrifying scenario, and I don’t think some people fully recognise that when they read it.

The very same with Frankenstein, oh haha, Victor gets ill often, look at him fainting every five minutes, what a whiny bitchboy, right? But Jesus Christ, again, think about this scenario that he’s in properly. My guy digs up corpses, brings them to his dorm room and stitches them together, only for him to bring said corpses to life and watch his inanimate amalgamation of dead bodies come to life in your house. Now again, imagine cutting up corpses and sewing them together. If you can’t manage that, imagine a friend of yours came to you and told you that they’d been stealing corpses, cutting them up, and sewing them together, and they now have an 8ft tall giant amalgamation or corpses in their room. Now imagine going to their house and seeing that amalgamation of corpses. Good luck not passing out and vomiting all over their bedroom floor, and extra good luck not needing extreme psychiatric care afterwards. Again, corpses. I’m willing to bet half the people here have never even seen a corpse, and this isn’t even freshly-dead-grandma-in-the-coffin, these are decomposing and rotting corpses of real human beings. Observed. And some corpses cut up. And pieced together. Into a giant corpse. Genitalia included. Intestines included. Everything else included. And then that corpse then starts killing everyone you’ve ever loved and you have the added guilt that it IS it’s own person and you’ve abandoned it.

Which of course, could lead me into a whole separate rant, on how I believe that Victor’s flaw doesn’t lie in his horror at his own actions, and his fainting and illness and whatnot, but rather at his deliberate avoidance of the consequences of those actions – (horrifying as they may have been to come to terms with, his avoidance ultimately led to the mental distress and death of tons of completely innocent people, and his avoidance, however difficult, was still very much wrong and Victor is still very much to blame for it) – as well as the mania and obsessive justification he kept using to reach that goal. Although again, it could be argued there was avoidance in that as well – Victor pasting clinical lenses over all his actions, ignoring his family and friends, which ultimately all caught up with him. It’s my reading that Victor isn’t to blame whatsoever because he’s “over dramatic” or that “whiny”, he has every right to be severely traumatised by his experiences, however much his own fault they may be, he is to blame because at every turn where he could have faced his actions and confided in a friend or likewise, he did not, and it led to the deaths of everyone he loved. Except for Ernest, who likely then had to live with the death of his entire family.

But that’s a side rant – my primary point is, I genuinely do not remotely believe that authors in the past were really any more “emotional” or “melodramatic” than we are today. The only difference is that because the premise of these plots have been so deeply engrained into our society, we do not understand how horrifyingly traumatising these situations are by nature and dismiss them out of hand. Dracula did not exist yet when Dracula was being written. Frankenstein did not exist yet when Frankenstein was being written. Don’t come looking to read old gothic literature expecting a camp B-list horror film, and then call the characters over-dramatic when they react like average actual human beings to absolutely horrific scenarios.

And what’s more with regard to general more open affection between friends in older books, no it isn’t unrealistic, we’re all just cynical assholes now. (There’s a limit, obviously. Some characters are just raging homosexuals and there’s no other explanation. “His form so divinely wrought and beaming with beauty” my ass alright now just admit you had gay sex and be done with it)

[wosoamazing]

Accident

Summary: Kyra accidentally hurts you resulting in a concussion

Warnings: Injury, Vomiting (Once)

A/N: Just a short-ish one, not my fav, hope you like it. Also I'm still working on the beach/body image fic, its just taking longer than expected.

You, Kyra, and Charli were just messing around after practice when Kyra accidentally shoved you into the goal post, causing you head to hit it quite hard. You kind of just stood there in shock while the two others stared at you not knowing what to do, before you dropped to the ground, sitting crossed legged holding your head in your hands as you began to cry.

“Charli, go get Steph and the medics” Kyra order bending down putting a hand on your shoulder, which you shrugged off. “No, go away.”

_____

“Charli what’s the rush?” Steph said when Charli got to them slightly out of breath and panicked.

“Kyra hurt Y/N,” with those three words Steph was sprinting to you.

“What?” more girls turned around at her words.

“She shoved her as a joke but then Y/N’s head hit the goal post and it kinda bounced back off the goal post and now, she is crying”.

“We need some medics over here” Sam yelled before following Steph.

“What’s wrong with Kyra? She’s crying” Caitlin spoke, and with that more girls were headed over along with the medics.

_____

“Hey Y/N, it’s me, can you lie down for me?” Steph said as she reached you, with Steph’s help you laid down on your back.

“Hey Kid, what’s wrong?” Sam asked as she reached you.

“I-it H-hurts” you cried out. “Where does it hurt?” she asked trying to get more information “M-my head, h-here” you said through tears as you pointed to your left temple area, where a slight bump was already forming.

“Okay, it’s okay, we’ve got you and the medics are coming,” she said reassuring you.

The medics came over and moved Kyra and some of the other girls out of the way, but Steph and Sam stayed either side of you, each hold one of your hands.

Kyra started crying at the scene evolving around her when she cried out “I-I’m sorry, i-it was an ac-cident,” Sam looked up to her before reassuring her “It’s okay Kyra” she then looked at the other girls “Can you guys maybe go check on Charli and help Kyra, oh and keep Tony updated. We have it all covered here” they all followed their captains orders and dispersed.

After the medics did some more checking they spoke to Sam and Steph “She’s definitely got a concussion grade 1, maybe grade 2, we’ll talk to Tony but it would be good if she could stay in your room for the next few nights as she will need someone to keep an eye on her and well….,” she tapered off both of the older two women knew she was suggesting the fact that you wouldn’t want to share a room for Kyra for the next few nights after what happened, before she continued “and we will check her out again tomorrow, I think she is still slightly in shock. She may get some nausea, or she may throw up but it’s only a concern if she throws up more than twice a day, and make sure she drinks lots of water and stays off screens. Oh, and wake her up roughly every four hours to check everything is okay and call us if you need anything”.

“Thank you,” Steph and Sam both chimed before helping you get up. They both took you to their room and you had a quick shower while Steph sat on the toilet she insisted she stayed their while you showered encase you fell, and you didn’t have enough energy to fight back, Sam quickly went to your room to get you some clothes and a few of your things you might need for the next few nights before returning, Sam handed you some clothes which you got dressed into and then they helped you get into bed, both finding a position either side of you before you leant on Steph and quickly nodded off.

“Were they in there?” Steph asked moving her gaze from you over to Sam who nodded her head in response. “How was she, well they?”

“Charli was alright, just a little sad that this one got hurt, but Kyra was still crying Caitlin, Mini, Alanna and Macca were trying to calm her down, when I walked in she deffo started crying more, well the glare I got from Mini told me that, and she kept saying she was sorry, I feel kind of bad but I mean they shouldn’t have been messing around”

“Yeah, I think we should tell Tony not to punish Kyra though, I think hurting her friend was punishment enough, she seemed really upset on the pitch” Steph said softly.

“Yeah, I know, I think all three of them learnt a lesson, we always tell them to be more careful because someone will get hurt, and well…” she replied motioning towards your figure lying between them.

“Hey, can you wake up?” Sam said slightly nudging you. You thought it must’ve hit the four-hour mark but when your eyelids eventually rose from their place you saw 6 figures scattered around the room, making you unsure as to why you were woken up. Kyra was hiding behind Caitlin who was trying to coax her out of her hiding, she was sniffling every now and then. “Kyra just has something she wants to say to you, is that okay?” Sam informs you; you were unsure why so many people needed to be in the room for her to do so but you just nodded which was a mistake as a sudden wave of nausea ran through you, but it quickly subsided. That was until Alanna and Macca slammed the door behind them, Tony wanted an update and they said they would go, the loud thud of the door and the vibration of the room made you feel like you could be sick at any moment.

“Go ahead Kyra,” at Sam’s words the nausea increased, and you were about to be sick, you gaged.

“I think I’m going to be-” “Someone the bowl from the bathroom,” but it was too late the contents of your stomach were all over your shirt and the bed, and you burst into tears, Kyra cried at the sight, knowing that this was her fault, even if she didn’t mean it, her push was the reason you had a concussion and why you had just been sick. Mini came back with the bowl, sighing at the sight, but still handing the bowl over just encase.

“Are you all good or do you think you’re going to be sick again?” Steph said after a few moments, she was rubbing your back trying to calm you down, in any other moment that you were crying this hard she would’ve given you a big hug, but in this current situation she didn’t really want to do that.

“I-I think I’m g-good” you said through sobs.

“I think we’ll let you be and come back later,” Caitlin said as she put her hands on the now also sobbing Kyra and lead her out the door, Charli followed quickly behind, and she gently shut the door behind her.

“Here, I’ll help,” Mini said as you were tugging at your shirt trying to figure out how to get it off, Steph and Sam had already gotten up and were trying to deal with the bed.

“I-I’m, I’m sorry, I d-didn’t mean t-too” you sniffled, you truly didn’t mean to create such a mess, the three women gave you sorry looks before Mini said, “It’s okay, but Y/N/N it isn’t your fault, come on let’s get that shirt off hey,” she helped you get your shirt over your head without transferring anything from your shirt onto you, she was oddly good at it but you supposed having a toddler would mean she had some practice. “Also,” mini started as she looked over to Steph and Sam, “you can have Harper’s room, we are trying to sleep train her, so Tony gave us a second room, but we don’t need it as much as you guys do.” Your two captains smiled at her offer and thanked her profusely.

As the four of you left the room, with two suitcases in hand to head down to your new room you saw the cleaners walking down the hall, Sam mouthed a sorry at them. The new room was only a few doors down and as soon as you entered you climbed into its fresh bed, and the others got sorted, helping Mini move Harper’s stuff out. After a little while they both climb back into bed with you, this time making sure they keep the bowl close by, which in the following three days you didn’t end up needing. Steph and Sam had taken turns going to training so someone was always with you while you were still recovering and Kyra came to apologise and said she should’ve been more careful, you accepted her apology and agreed with her. Thankfully three days later you were cleared and deemed safe to go back to training, and it was safe to say there was no more messing around between you, Kyra and Charli, well at least on the pitch, and near any poles.

[topazy]

Blood moon

Pairing: Scott McCall x reader

Warnings: Swearing, smut

Chapter: 7.02

You step into the kitchen and drop the glass of orange juice from your hand as you jump backwards, startled by the figure leaning against the island in the middle of the room. So much for werewolf reflexes. Since the sleepover Wyatt was at got canceled, you had awkwardly suggested everyone regrouped at another location. As much as you cared for Lydia, you didn’t want your son near anything that was going on.

“Jesus McCall, haven’t you ever heard of knocking?” You huff, looking down at the sticky liquid spreading fast across the floor. You grab a handful of kitchen rolls and dab at it before the juice runs onto your cream carpet in the next room.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to- Sorry. I just wanted to see if you were okay,” Scott said. He sighed, noticing you were avoiding his gaze. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine.”

Scott puffed out his cheeks, feeling defeated already. “I don’t usually ask when it comes to you and Isaac, but what’s going on? He left kind of abruptly.”

You re-enter the living room fidgeting with the silver band on your middle finger, the pad of your thumb feeling the small rubies on it. “Guys, I hate to do this, but Wyatt’s coming home, and I don’t want him around... whatever this is.”

Scott looks up at your alarm. “Why, what’s wrong?”

“He’s fine; his friend's mom just texted and said one of the kids started vomiting, so everyone’s gotta go.”

Isaac yanks his jacket from the back of the coat hanger. “I’ll go get him. Take him to the arcade or cinema.”

“He still needs to have his dinner.”

“Then I’ll take him for pizza first,” Isaac slams the front door behind him when he leaves the house.

You cock your head to the side, looking up at Scott, still irritated by your brother. “He’s just... he's got an issue with his girlfriend. Where did everyone else go?”

“The animal clinic.”

After all this time, no matter what changed throughout the years, Deaton’s vets was the safe place you and your friends gravitate towards whenever times are tough. A small smile creeps onto your face as you think about the times as teenagers when your pack would gather in the same place.

“What’s so funny?”

“I was just thinking how, after all this time, we still go to the same place for help.” You squeeze Scott’s shoulder. “Did I ever tell you I’m proud of you for becoming a vet?”

“Uhh, you have,” he chuckles. “But it means a lot coming from you, no matter how many times I hear it.”

“Are you staying here until Wyatt gets home?”

“Yeah,” he pulls his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll just let Stiles know I’ll catch up with them later.”

—

“Daddy!”

“Hey, little man.”

Smiling, Scott picks Wyatt up and kisses his cheek. “Where did Uncle Isaac take you?”

While your son fills his father in on all the fun games he played at the arcade, Isaac mumbles an apology as he walks by. He places a stuffed toy on the kitchen counter; it looks just like one I had as a girl. “I’m going to be out for the rest of the night,” he says. “I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but Stiles asked if someone who’s werewolf could spend the night in case he needs help with Lydia.”

“It’s probably for the best that someone is there for her. I think Scott was going to meet them at the vets.”

“Actually,” Scott walks over with Wyatt now sitting on his shoulders. “I was going to put this little monster to bed once he has showed me his new toys.”

Scott wasn’t outright asking, but from his tone, you knew it was a question. You smile, although he was a good dad. Scott never got to spend the same amount of time with your son as you did, which made him feel guilty. “Sure, but first he’s going for a bath.”

—

You yawn into the back of your hand, not wanting to interrupt Scott and Wyatt playing before bed. You curled up on the couch to watch a film. You’re starting to doze off when Scott comes back down the stairs and sits next to you, much to your surprise.

“Is he asleep already?”

“Yeah, probably a sugar crash.”

You reposition yourself on the couch so Scott has more space; the thick fluffy grey blanket covering your lap slides down at one side, revealing. Noticing, Scott pulls on the bottom of your nightgown, “cute.”

Your nightgown was light pink, silky, with little stars and moons on it.

“Don’t tease.”

Smirking, Scott lowers his head till your lips meet. At first the kiss is soft and gentle, but it quickly becomes heated. Feeling his hand on your bare thigh, your legs part, and Scott begins rubbing at the most sensitive spot through your underwear.

“Oh,” you slap your hand over your mouth to stop making noise.

Scott kisses your neck while sliding two of his fingers inside you, muffling his own groans. Just as you go to unzip his jeans, you open your eyes and notice the blinds had opened slightly and were now open, and something was outside looking in.

Abruptly, you push Scott’s hand away and jump to your feet. He stares at you alarmed, “Shit, did I hurt you?”

You shake your head, “There’s someone outside.”

“Keep an eye on the doors.” Without needing any further explanation, Scott sprints upstairs and then quickly runs back down with Wyatt in his arms. “Is it still there?”

You do your best to discreetly peek out of the window; at first you don’t see anything, but then you notice there’s a white mask left laying on the grass. “Not that I can see.”

He hands you Wyatt, who was still half asleep. “We gotta run for the car. Once we are inside, call Stiles and tell him we are going to the clinic, then call the police.”

You didn’t have time to ask questions, but something had scared the hell out of Scott as well.