#we're not gonna talk about how long it took me to hunt down all those links sdkjahfs

[aychama]

L: I told you to leave me alone

R: I know Sir, but I'm your advisor and I (unfortunately) have to supervise you too.

Raymond sighed as he read the papers in his hands while following Leshy.

L: Do you think I need your supervision? I was doing just fine before you arrived. I'll continue to do so. Leave

R: I can't. We still need to go over a lot of things, we're far behind schedule to discuss real matters which is urgent, I need you to sign the agreement of imported goods from Anchor Deep and the people in the neglected villages are revo-

L: Fine! How many!?

R: Pardon?

L: How many papers, Raymond?

Leshy turned to him with a momentarily anger. To him, Raymond was simply, yapping.

R: Uh, about... 1, 2, 3...

He began counting, sounds of the paper coming to Leshy's ear.

R: 86 papers, sir.

L: Well good luck to you with that. Just copy my signature.

R: Wait, me? Sir I can't just decide on the matters of the whole kingdom!

L: Aren't you my "advisor"? That's your thing, to decide.

R: Yes, I give advice! I don't rule over a kingdom!

L: Too bad so damn sad, I don't feel like listening you talk about dumb problems I won't be paying attention to anyway.

Leshy chuckled a bit and walked towards his work room. Raymond followed right behind, a bit panicked by the king's nonchalant decision. Leshy closed the door behind him, Raymond nearly making it inside.

R: You can't just ignore it! I promise it won't take long... Don't you care about your people? They are suffering! They are doing their best but barely surviving with what you let them have! Not only that, you've added taxes when I was gone!

L: My people are doing fine. You're worrying too much for something so lame, Ray. If I'm really that shitty of a king, go on. Fill my "so important" papers. And I thought you were smart enough to think that.

Raymond rubbed his temples after setting the papers aside. He took a deep breath. Leshy just sat one of the comfortable chairs and leaned back.

R: (God, I prefer hell over trying to convince this man child to do anything) It won't be long before everything breaks down to chaos if you continue to neglect your duties, sir.

L: ...

R: Maybe the other crowns were right about you after all...

Leshy immediately got up and turned towards Raymond.

L: What did those old bastards say about me?

R: Just the usual sir.

He smiled. Good thing Leshy was, well, blind.

R: That you were too young and naive to understand how a kingdom works. The red crown even said he was surprised that you haven't got hunted by your people.

L: That... Grim faced cat! You know what!? I rule my kingdom just fine! I'm the best king out there! They wish they were me! I can rule their kingdoms along with mine if I wanted!

R: Yes sir. You could...

L: Read me the damn papers Raymond! I'm gonna finish these papers faster than any of those living corpses!

R: (Works every time)

___________________________

It was night time when they were able to finish all those papers. Raymond had lit a candle long time ago to read better and Leshy seemed to listen.

R: This is the last paper... It's, it's over

L: Finally, for fuck's sake...

The worm yawned and leaned back. Raymond put the papers in order and set aside, before leaning back like his King.

R: Sir your profanity.

L: Ray I'm too tired to care.

R: You're right... I should be too tired to ask.

L: What's the time?

R: The moon is up by a hand. It's too late.

L: You don't say.

The advisor yawned and drank a glass of water. The King on the other hand rubbed where his eyes should be. It was rare but, sometimes, his eyes would bleed again, his wounds so easy to tear open. The cat panicked at the sight, immediately his tiredness vanishing by worry that overtook.

R: You're bleeding!

L: Don't-

Leshy hissed at him when Raymond tried to touch his face so he backed away. Raymond looked at the blood with sadness for his King.

R: Does it... Does it still hurt? Does it hurt bad?

He asked with a shakey voice as he reached for Leshy's face again. Surprisingly, the short tempered king didn't pull back the second time. He leaned to the touch, to the feeling. Raymond's palm got bloodied as he wiped it.

L:Not anymore. Not like the way it used to...

R: It's good... I think. Is it just pitch black..?

L: People assume so. But no. My vision is my thoughts. I can see just, not in the way you'd expect

R: How so? How can you just- See?

The King chuckled at the advisor's weirded out question.

L: I already know what something looks like. I know colors, I know shapes, I know sounds, the materials, the feelings. And, if you know it like I do, it feels like your whole imagination is your sight.

R: That's... Not as bad as I thought

L: You think about going blind?

R: No, heh, of course not... I think about, how hard it must be for you.

L: You think about me? Now that just makes me shy~

R: My King-

Raymond gave a tired and short giggle as he blushed. Even though he hated his job, he didn't hate the worm necessarily.

L: What? Can I not be curious about why you think about me Ray?

R: With all due respect, that's not the point, sir. I work for you, it's natural that I worry for the one I'm working so close with.

L: And somehow I'm someone you must worry for? The levels you bring me down to.

R: You make it sound like everything is just fine! Is there really nothing bad about being blind?

L: There are bad sides of it of course

R: Like what?

Leshy smiled, putting his hands on top of Raymond's.

L: Knowing I'll never actually see you

AU8WUW8UQOAPAAJUDJDAAAAAAAASAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

HELLO???? THIS IS SO GOOD?!?!?!?!?! How dare you send me this awsome gift as an anon 😭😭😭 Thank you so much omg I didnt think such a simple drawing would inspire someone to write something like this!

THANK YOU ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[thegoober010]

HI POOKIE COULD YOU PLS WRITE BF/GF HEADCANONS FOR ADAM AND LUCIFER AND LUTE OR FOR SOME MHA BOYS PLS I LOVE LOVE LOVE YOUR WRITING STYLE 🫀🫀

OMG YES POOKIE 😻😻!!!!!! ALSO I WAS THINKING I COULD DO BOTH HH AND MHA JUST SEPERATE >:D!!!! SO THESE WOULD BE THE HH HEADCANONS AND IF YA WANT MHA HEADCANONS JUST TELL ME WHICH CHARACTERS ALSO OMG TYSM I APPRECIATE THAT WAAAAAAAA 💗💗

ALSO I SAW YOUR OTHER INBOX AND DW I WILL ADD VOX BUT HES GONNA GET HIS OWN POST BECAUSE ITS IN ANOTHER LIKE ASK SO YUH ANYWAYS TEEHEE TIME FOR SOME HEADCANONS MFS 🗣🗣🗣!!!!!

TW/CWS -> none just SWEARING IG BUT ITS HH SO LIKE-!??!?!?!?!? YUH TEEHEE

GENDER NEUTRAL READER LIKE ALWAYS 😻😻

✞ Adam (aka Dickmaster) ✞

You two first met completely on accident, you were just chilling at an ice-cream shop and as you were walking out looking down at your phone- all of a sudden you bumped into some huge dude. You looked up at him about to say some shit until you realized IT WAS FUCKING ADAM WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!? It was a whole ass jumpscare fr

Notices your shock and asks if you want an autograph or some shit and from there you two just start talking (mostly talking shit about other angels/winners if we're gonna be honest)

You two almost immediately become friends as you talk shit over some good ice cream. And after a while you two give each other's number and hang out often! (he definitely brags about it to Lute as well)

Sometimes yall hang out with Lute or your own friends but most of the times it's just you two! And you both mostly gossip, make plans for the future, or do some stupid shit on impulse (like doing those stupid prank videos and almost committing a crime on accident in the process)

Definitely needs a lot of time to actually get attached to you. After Eve and Lilith he needs to build a lot of trust in order to actually get attached to someone, and in order to fall in love is a whole different story. He closes himself off to long-term relationships, going after mostly just hook-ups, he doesn't want to go through what happened before, in all honesty he's a bit- not scared but mainly hesitant- to get into actual long-term relationships due to what happened with Lilith and Eve. He'd rather chase over one-night stands/hook-ups as he believes they provide a 'good enough service' to fill up that emptiness in his love-life.

You two honestly got along super well, he was a bit surprised about it even, it was much easier for him to get attached to you than it was for well quite literally anyone else. Hell even he was surprised by how close you two got in such a short amount of time!

Oh you definitely have to confess first, it's not cause he's shy, oh hell no this mf is FAR from shy, he would not hesitate to flirt with you in public, but because he mostly doesn't want to risk you not liking him and things becoming awkward since he actually.. valued the friendship a lot, surprising I know, he didn't act on impulse and instead thought before he acted around you. So you'd definitely confess first, but if you 'took to long' in his standards then this mf would just go up to you one day and be like "Oh yeah btw I like you lmao wanna make-out" or some shit like that

Hear me out. Possessive. Like once you two are together this dude is POSSESSIVE AS FUCK. Genuinely, he wants- no- NEEDS all your attention on him at all times. He hates it when you're focusing on something else like some new post your favorite influencer made, or when you're cooking/baking something, he hates it. He's a bit childish in this sense but can you blame him?? After what happened with Eve and Lilith he needs someone who can give him as much attention as he'll give them.

PDA Police are on the HUNT for this dude I swear. He is not hesitant to show that you're his partner, in fact when you two finally make it official this dude announces it to anyone he passes by while walking, like actually some random winner will walk past you two and all of a sudden he wraps his arm around you and grabs the dude and says "Hey did ya know we're together YEAH WE'RE OFFICIAL I KNOW!!" while having the widest grin ever. He definetly enjoys having you around whenever there's meetings with Sera or with anyone else on that matter, he drags you along with him and gives you hugs/cuddles in public, definitely asks to make out in public (I mean what do you expect it's Adam- 😭), gives you pats on the head and sometimes if he's feeling nice he'll give quick kisses on the forehead or cheek. As I said the PDA police are AFTER him

You two have what yall call gossip dates and it's just where you two go back where you first met and gossip, somehow the dates always end up rather romantic??? Yeah gossiping turned to romance I know-. But you two find it super fun

You probably help out in managing the exterminations but don't even THINK about going yourself. After they found the decapitated angel he will NOT risk you going, plus it's not like you even could go since you're not one but just in case you thought about asking his immediate answer is "No??? What???" bro is not going to risk it.

One time he got really drunk. like. REALLY drunk and he took one look at you and went "Damn you're fine asf let me get that number" and you just stared at him before you laughed your ass off "Adam.. we're already dating you have my number" "oh... WE'RE DATING?" and he was in pure shock for a good hour or so before he passed out, you made sure to record everything though and as soon as he woke up the next day you showed him the video (let's just say he wasn't too pleased watching it but he wasnt shocked either or angry)

✞ Lute ✞

You two met while at a party by some winners and it was ment to be some heavenly welcoming party (although what people were doing there was anything but heavenly... anyways!!) While Adam was busy getting girls Lute stayed behind and was sitting on the couch obviously bored until you came by. You were pretty bored too and just sat with her, you two somewhat knew eachother due to you two meeting at other parties but yall never talked fully... until that day

Honestly you two were chill, at first it was quite awkward trying to talk but after a bit you two got along so well it was almost as if you two were best friends or something!

You two bonded over your shared hate for hell-born and sinners as well as how you two were basically at the top of your work force, she never mentioned what she did but there was a point in time where you mentioned being one of the top people at work and she mentioned she was as well!

After that party you both exchanges phone numbers (while Adam was making a huge deal out of it, I mean she does get asked for her number often but irs not often when she actually gives it to someone ya know)

Adam definitely makes her hang out with you, like whenever they have free days hell go out with Lute and try to find you so that you three can hang our and once he finds you he leaves you two by finding some excuse like "Oh yeah uh I gotta go uh feed my cockroach be right back" (jk he won't even make an excuse mf will just go)

Lute and you honestly don't mind yall just chill, and at some point as you two hung out one day you could see she was just staring at you... it was so random too like you just noticed randomly and all of a sudden she just confesses calmly and you're left there like "WHAT????"

Once you two make official just know that she's gonna be around you almost ALL the time. Ya know how she's always by Adam's side?? Yeah expect that for yourself but 10x more. And it's not like yall even have to talk no shell just be there and yall can be quiet as hell its super chill

Not much into physical touch by if you're into hugging and PDA then shell allow it but only to a certain extent. She's more of a gift giver and acts of service person!

Definitely does random work for you even when you don't ask. Oh you mentioned not wanting to do laundry? Boom!!! Done!!! Oh you just saw some donut and really want it? BOOM there ya go donut in your hand!!! Oh just woke up and dont feel like cleaning?? BOOM!!!The entire house is cleaned!!!

She tells you about the extermination and at one point you ask to go with her she'll definitely say no. She is not risking you dawg do not even THINK about begging 😭😭

I dont feel like shes much of a cuddles person but if you begged her to then she'll say yes as long as shes the big spoon

(Ima be fr I don't really have many hcs for the angels theyre a bit difficult for me fr ☹️☹️😔😔)

Lucifer Morningstar

You two met cause of Charlie, you were a sinner at the hazbin hotel, not really because you seemed redemption more like you seemed just a place to sleep in. But hey a member is a member!

You were the one who mainly had to come up to him first since this mf is not good with conversations at all, he's awkward as hell , fidgety, very random, and also he's pretty blunt so if he started a conversation he'd probably say something stupid on accident to you and get you mad or awkward so it's definitely best for you to start it... so you did!!

After what happened with him and charlie and their reconciliation that's when you started talking to him and you two... well it actually took a while for you to get comfortable around eachother but once you were you both were just talkinga bout random shit you like mostly him rambling about his creations, what his dreams were and so on and for you, you mostly jus talked about shoes you used to enjoy when human and such.

Lucifer isn't one to dabble in love as much as he used to. After Lilith and Eve left him he kinda just didn't want to get back into it, plus each one of his relationships not only failed but were with women who had been promised to Adam so that caused a lot of trouble at times within his relationships and also heaven itself. So he'd rather not get back into such mess but after you came into his life and listened to his ramblings and were just so nice to him he couldnt help but fall head over heels!

Oh it is so obvious when he starts liking you, he starts talking to you way more and fooling around, inviting you over to his place and giving way more pats on the back as well as 'jokingly' flirting with you. You quickly inferred he had a crush on you due to his new sudden strange behaviors

One day you just suddenly ask him if he likes you romantically and hes like.. SHOCKED. Like genuinely bro's '😦'. He's stammering and can't even form a sentence before he just nods quickly and you give him a smirk like "lol I knew it anyways i like you too so dw abt it." And then BOOM you're OFFICIAL!!!

Dont expect too much from him for the first week or more, he's still getting used to the fact you like him and is getting used to being official with someone again. He feels all fuzzy and warm inside damn he can't even talk to you without feeling like he about to throw up from happiness while being around you- it's kinda funny sometimes

You help him out a lot with his loneliness and since you two are together expect him to be very physical such as with hugging and cuddling, although at first he's not too into it later he gets really into hugs and such, afterall he's gotta make up for all those years where he hasn't been hugged or really touched in any way whether romantically or platonically bro is touch-starved

Bro his face will start heating up if he gets a small peck on the cheek or lips fr my mans cannot handle such affection without going crazy 😭🙏

He definitely makes you rate his little inventions, usually from a scale of rings like the scale of 1-7 how would you rate his ducks!!

Due to his depression he does have days where he acts rather off, bit you understand its not his fault its just that he's going through things and that's okay plus it's not like you aren't going through some things lets be fr, you two help ecahother a lot whether it's through helping eachother with some trivial home tasks or by helping eachother on your healing journey, you're there for eachother

Bro definitely asks if you wanna get married in the span of 4 months while being together. If you say no then he asks lies some other day until you say yes and he can plan when to do his proposal. But if you say yes immediatly just expect him to start making preparations for the damn honeymoon already 💀💀

You and Charlie become super close like REALLY close after she finds out about your relationship with her dad :)!!

Honestly one of the most healthy relationships you've ever been in fr, least toxic relationship in hell besides charlie and vaggie + angel dust and husk 😭

[final-girl96]

Broken World: Chapter Eight

Month Later

I was getting ready to go into the city with Glenn, except this time we would be taking a group with us. Andrea, Morales, T-Dog, Jacquie, and unfortunately Merle. Daryl had decided to go out on a solo hunt yesterday and was still gone. Glenn had reluctantly agreed to take more people with us to try and get more stuff that the group needed. We were running low on food. Fortunately, we had an unlimited amount of water with the lake. We just needed to make sure we boiled it before using it. “Hey, is it okay if I come in?” Shane asked from outside my tent. “Yeah, I’m just getting my pack ready.” I looked up when he walked in. “What’s up?” I asked.

“I wanted to talk to you about Merle," he said. I stood up from my cot and swung my pack onto my back. "I'll keep an eye on him. I have my cuffs, so if I need to handcuff him somewhere until we're done, I will," I chuckled. He huffed out a laugh and nodded his head. "He needs to pull his weight around here since he didn't go out hunting with Daryl. He seems like he wants to be in charge, and the rest of the group won't be able to handle him if he decides to try and take over."

I completely understood what he meant. Merle liked to think he should be in charge of everything. He doesn't like how things are being run. I agreed to help Shane with keeping the group in order. I guess we were kind of the leaders of the group; the people who made the hard decisions. "Don't worry about Merle, I can handle him. I know how he thinks and what his telltale signs are when he's about to do something stupid."

After everyone was ready to go, we headed out. Since there were seven of us going and we didn't want to take a vehicle so we decided we would just walk; we were only a few miles outside of the city. It was still early in the morning, so as long as we got in and out with no problems, we should be back by dinner time. Glenn and I have been doing the run together and we haven't run into any problems, but with five other people with us, and one of those five being Merle Dixon, it might take longer than usual.

We were currently in a department store looking through everything. When the outbreak happened and when the city started to be overtaken by walkers after the military lost control and they bombed the place, people hid in the buildings to get away. Some people took refuge inside them instead of going to the FEMA shelters. So there was a good chance we would find cans of food and other useful things. It didn't hurt to check supply closets for toilet paper and clothes were always needed. It will be getting cold in another month or so.

"You hurt my baby brother when you left. I always told him you never cared about him." I let out a sigh and turned around to look at Merle. "You don't know what the fuck you're talking about, Merle, so shut your trap and do something useful for once. You're in a group and that means you pull your weight or you get kicked out." He scoffed and moved closer to me, reached his hand out, and picked up the badge around my neck. "This ain't gonna save ya now, sugar tits." I wrapped my hand around his and bent it back towards his wrist. "What the fuck did I tell you about touching me?" He forcefully pulled his arm out of my grasp and sneered at me. “Your time is coming,” he said, then he walked away. Before I could put too much thought into what he meant by my time was coming, there were gunshots from outside on the street. We all gathered in the middle of the store before running for the stairs that led up to the roof.

We looked over the edge of the building to see a man on a horse running down the street with a large group of dead stumbling after them. Unfortunately for him, they were cut off by more walkers, and they took the horse down. We watched as the man crawled away from the walkers that tore into the poor animal. The man crawled under the tank that sat in the middle of the street below, and for what felt like hours, we waited. There was no doubt in our minds that he was dead, that was until he popped out of the top hatch, looked around, and then quickly closed it. He was stuck inside a death trap surrounded by a sea of dead.

"What do we do now? The streets are crawling with walkers!" Andrea said. "We help him. He obviously didn't know that the city was overrun," I said. I turned and looked at Glenn. "What do you say? Think we can get him out of there and back here without anyone getting hurt?" I asked. Glenn walked around to the other side of the building, looked down at the alley before coming back over, and looked down at the street clogged with walkers. "Yeah, I think we could do something."

He came up with a plan, telling everyone exactly what he was going to do and what he needed us to do, then he got on the handheld radio we had to keep in contact with the group back at the quarry. He tried all the stations until we heard the voice of a man come through. Glenn talked to him and explained what to do and where to meet him and when he was finished we headed back the stairs, into the store, and to the back where the loading docks were, to the door where maintenance would have come in.

Glenn went over the plan one more time before we walked out the door and took care of the few walkers that were I'm the alley. Then he headed for the stairs on the building across from us. He would take them up to the roof and go down the other side to an alley that was blocked off from walkers, and that would be where he'd meet the guy. We could only hope that this guy made it and Glenn would bring him back here safe.

[thetruearchmagos]

WIP Questionnaire

Thank you kindly for the Tag, @theprissythumbelina !

1. What is the first part of your WIP that you created?

Well, the Setting, probably, which as an answer works for just about any of the WIPs I could name. In theory you could argue Gustav and the Magician, individually and as a 'set' of sorts, technically predate my coming up with the 12 Worlds, but the form they took then has only passing resemblance to their current incarnation.

2. If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

Ooo, well, I've been thinking I'd probably see about getting something original made, or making something myself as a side thing. I mean, I kinda envision a lot of my WIPs as serial animations in my head anyhow, so I've put more thought into this question than reality is ever likely to require.

3. What are your favorite characters that you made? Why?

Well... You know how big this list could be. I love all of them, and at any moment which forces / allows me to dig deeper into any single one of them makes me love them even more. Still, my final choice is an obvious one: Gustav Johann Schmidt, who's been in it since the very start, and who's voice has by now almost become my own whenever he comments on some facet of his world in the same way I would.

4. What other pieces of media do you think your fan base would share?

Hmm, well, I've always thought this would go down two tracks. First of all being the classic 'Techno Thriller' crowd, the sorts who like tanks going boom and spies under deep cover: I'd go with things like The Hunt For Red October and Red Storm Rising, both being stalwarts of the genre which have absolutely been personally inspiring. The second track goes down the wider book / writing community, or at least those looking for 'genre fiction' and all that, who might discover the 12 Worlds more on its fantastical or worldbuilding grounds than for its techno thriller nature: I don't really 'understand' what I'd mean by this cohort myself as much, but I guess it could include series like ASOIAF, possibly.

5. What has been your biggest struggle with your WIP?

Well... If we're speaking in the past tense, as far as things that have already happened go I'd put forwards "making sure the worldbuilding exists and isn't utterly contradictory", since there's too little writing down so far to count for a big struggle. Dates are hard, and measuring things on the order of decades to a century leaves me with a lot of uncomfortable dead space on one hand, and a bunch of events clustered together on the other. Untangling this has to happen before the writing does, to me, and it's gonna be hellish.

6. Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

Uhh... Technically, Snake In The Sandbox (Gustav's third and least brought up WIP) features two animals! One's a snake which literally scares G's shirt off when he finds it in his tent, and the other's some sort of desert lizard the 18th Corps adopts as its mascot.

7. How do your characters get around? (Ex. Trains, horses, cars, dragons, etc.)

Oh, probably their respective combat vehicles more than anything, though long distance stuff gets done by plane / aeroship, and getting between Worlds means ships for everyone. Non military types might get their own car, or plane.

8. What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

Technically brought this up already, but the answer's worldbuilding. It's always worldbuilding. Though within that category, I'm technically supposed to be writing up a piece on the UC' policy towards Goilac / Nouvoulouis pre SSAW, but... I have been having a lazy weekend.

9. What aspects (tropes, maybe) of your WIP do you think will draw people in?

Big flashy boom booms and cunning military tactics, strategy, and leadership on the one hand for sure, but I'd like to think the depth, history, and life that exists within the 12 Worlds might have some appeal to readers.

10. What are your hopes for your WIP?

Published novel, or really a few considering how many there are already for the 12 Worlds. Then... Well, I think I've got a few ideas in me for the Setting yet.

Anyone fancy a boardgame?

And that's that! Tagging @athenswrites @hessdalen-globe @caxycreations @sanguine-arena @vyuntspakhkite-l-darling @thatndginger and anyone who'd like to take part!

[raccoon-eyed-rebel]

Part 14

Masterlist

Series masterlist

Part 13 🍂 Part 15

Pairing: Syverson x ofc

Series summary: Life with Sy, what more can you wish for? The most amazing husband and father to a whole litter of cute little kids... Sometimes you wonder "how did you get here?"

Chapter warnings: SMUT, NSFW, 18+, MINORS DNI, oral (f receiving), p-in-v sex, unprotected sex,

Word count: 2.6k

A/N: Releasing the next chapter because Sy smut really is the best thing to read before bed, and mygirl @keanureevesisbae deserves it! (And just so you know; I almost owe her 18, too. So we're just gonna keep going...)

@deandoesthingstome @geralts-yenn @omgkatinka @summersong69 @diegos-butt @beck07990

“Ow! Fuck!” You weren’t made for hiking. Or camping. Or generally just being outdoors.

“What’s wrong, Sugar?” Sy looked back at you.

“My foot is stuck.” Why did it always have to be your foot? And why did it have to be stuck? You looked up at Sy, who was laughing. Of course he was, jerk. Somehow, you managed to get your foot out from between the roots of the tree they belonged to. No, the first few hours of your first ever camping trip hadn’t been able to convince you that this could be fun. In order for that to happen, it would have to get a lot more… fun. It was a short walk back to the clearing where your tents were. Seeing those again made you feel the urge to kick them. You didn’t, because you were afraid they’d collapse, and you would have to go through all of that again, and that was something you definitely didn’t want to do. While setting up camp, you’d decided you definitely weren’t outdoorsy. In fact, you were barely so much as outdoors-ish.

The whole debacle had involved almost taking Sy’s eye out with a tent pole (accidentally), Patrick making a bad joke about how you shouldn’t have to take revenge for Sy poking you and Julie hitting Patrick over the head with a tent pole (intentionally). In the end, you had to switch with Patrick and finish putting up their tent with Jules, because Sy tried to explain how everything worked, but couldn’t do so without talking to you like you were five years old. At least, that was your interpretation of his tone – Julie later told you that he was really just trying to help, and carefully suggested that you may have been a bit too embarrassed to hear that. She may have had a point, but that didn’t change much about your experience.

Now that you were finally sitting down, you were starting to like this. It was a really beautiful place.

“Is it always this quiet?” you asked curiously. Somewhere this pretty was bound to attract more visitors, right? It was as if Sy could read your mind.

“It’s private land. Belongs to a friend of our dads. He’s fine with us camping here as long as we don’t make a mess of the place, and we give him a call upfront,” he explained while he stared out over the small lake.

“That’s mostly so he won’t accidentally shoot us,” Patrick said. Both he and Sy laughed at the expression on your face.

“Excuse me?”

“He likes to hunt on the property.” That was a disgustingly simple explanation to you, and your face must have shown that because Sy and Pat were still laughing.

“Who likes to hunt?” you said, voice dripping with revulsion. Jules made a face at you while subtly pointing at the men who were with you, and your eyes went wide.

“Not for sport, Jules, you know that,” Sy said to her. He looked and sounded annoyed. It took the guys a while to answer all of your questions, and you ultimately concluded that – although you were glad that Sy wasn’t a ‘hunting trophies in the living room’ kind of guy – the shock value of finding out was bigger than your aversion to the hunting. Besides, there was a tiny piece of you that definitely felt something at the thought of Sy… You tried not to think about that…

“Wait, you said he likes to hunt on the property…” There was confusion on your face. “How big is the property?” Apparently, the man owned the lake you were currently looking at. And a whole lot of land around it.

“What can I say, Sugar,” Sy said to you as he laughed at your continuous surprise, “everything’s bigger in Texas.”

You spent the afternoon reading and writing. It had been a while since you had actually used pen and paper to write, but it was nice. The view of the lake was amazing, it was sunny and hot – which made it hard to concentrate, because Sy didn’t feel the need to keep his shirt on. After a while of trying to focus on your writing, failing, and letting your thoughts drift freely while watching Sy, it didn’t take much for him to convince you to join him for a swim. Pat left as you walked towards Sy, which confirmed any inkling you had about this being a setup. The water was so clear you could see to the bottom, and the temperature was nice. Sy was on his way over to you, and you met him halfway, which seemed to surprise him.

“You’re a good swimmer, Sugar,” he said. Did he actually sound impressed? Were you actually a good swimmer? No one had ever called you that before…

“I’m Dutch,” you said, “they won’t let you stay in the country if you aren’t.” With a few strokes, you were out of his reach, leaving a bewildered Sy behind. You made your way around the rocks that obscured part of the lake from view at your campsite and climbing up on one of them, feet dangling over the edge. The afternoon sun was hot, but the breeze over the lake caused goosebumps to appear on your wet skin. Just as you had closed your eyes to bask in the warmth for a bit, you felt hands near your hips. You had struggled to climb onto the rock you were sitting on, Sy pushed himself up with ease, one hand on either side of your hips. He kissed you quickly before dropping himself back down into the water. He must have been standing on a ridge of the rocks you hadn’t been able to reach, because he raised himself up a little and folded his arms over your thighs. You ran a hand through his wet hair. It was longer now, and it started to show hints of curls, especially when it was wet, which really made you hope the buzzcut was history for good. Impatient hands suddenly grabbed your knees and pushed them apart so his broad chest could fit in between them. Sy wrapped his arms around you and laid his head down on your thigh. It was nice, having his head in your lap, stroking his hair, taking in the sun… You hoped the two of you would spend some time like this, but teeth on your thigh and the mischievous eyes that looked up at you proved he had different plans.

“Sy, no,” you protested quietly, pointing in the direction of your tents. Sy smirked at you as he raised a finger to his lips, gesturing you to be quiet. “What if they come here?”

“They won’t,” Sy said as he pulled you closer to the edge of the rock, careful not to hurt you on the relatively smooth but still gritty surface, “I have a deal with Patrick.”

You didn’t get a lot of time to wonder what kind of deal – let alone ask him – because the soft kisses he pressed to the inside of your thigh distracted you. Sy was barely touching you, and you were already struggling to keep quiet – but so was he. His beard tickled your skin as he explored your thighs with his mouth, careful not to leave marks on you, though you were pretty sure he secretly wanted to. You bit your lip to stifle your moans as he pressed his thumb against your clit. Without thinking, you opened your legs wider, giving Sy full access. You rolled your hips into his thumb, already desperate for release, which made him chuckle softly. The pressure on your clit disappeared, and you whined. It wasn’t long until a finger worked its way into your bikini bottoms and lightly brushed along your slit, which had you shivering.

Deep breaths were the only thing keeping you from moaning loudly every time something Sy did sent jolts of electricity down your spine and into your core. There was just no way you weren’t absolutely dripping right now. The possibility of being caught – or even just heard, because you were pretty sure Pat and Jules already knew exactly what you were up to – added to the excitement. Sy finally decided he had enough of teasing you and pulled your bikini bottoms to the side. You leaned back on your elbows, trying not to overthink the fact that he had a very clear view of your exposed pussy right now. As he pushed his finger between your folds, he kept his eyes locked on yours. A smug smile spread across his face as his digit slipped into you with ease. You let out a soft moan when the second finger slid in just as easily. For a short but heavenly moment, he pumped his fingers into your core. You were surprised when you were met with that familiar feeling you knew would eventually grow into an orgasm – which made it all the more infuriating when Sy’s fingers retreated.

He raised himself up again, leaning over you to kiss you, dripping water all over you in the process. It startled you; the sun had warmed your skin nicely, and the water felt cold - and tickled as the little droplets rolled off you. The kiss was deep and passionate, and you whined as Sy pulled back way too soon. He looked at you, and his voice was low and deep when he spoke.

“C’mon, baby, tell me what you want.” He shook his head when you tried to put a hand against his chest to push him down. “I wanna hear ya say it.” Fuck. Your stomach was suddenly filled with a tornado of butterflies. Much to your surprise, it made you even hornier than you already were.

“Sy, I-I,” you couldn’t finish your sentence. Sy was no longer looking at you, but had focused his attention on your neck and chest, softly kissing your exposed skin and biting your nipples through the fabric of your bikini. He paused for a moment to answer you, shaking his head slowly as he did.

“Sugar, are ya gonna make me miss out on eatin’ this sweet li’l cunt o’ yers, just ‘cause ya can’t use your words?” The way he said it did something to you. What he said did something to you.

“Please, baby,” you whispered, on the verge of begging, “I want you to eat me out.” As soon as the words were out, his lips were on yours.

It was a brief kiss, followed by the next thing you had never imagined you would find so extremely exciting: “Atta girl, Sugar.”

He disappeared back into the water, and you immediately felt two hands on the back of your thighs, pushing them further apart. His tongue was on you in no time, focusing solely on your clit. Sy’s steady rhythm had you flat on your back within a minute, squirming and covering your mouth with your hands to keep the noise you made to a minimum. You turned back to taking deep breaths as Sy continued to push you towards your climax. You lasted longer than you had expected; each time you were close to coming, your breath pulled you back down again. It was a delightfully frustrating dance of ebb and flow. Of course you couldn’t last forever, and a little extra pressure from Sy’s tongue gently nudged you into bliss.

“Whoa,” you whispered. This was different. Normally, orgasms were falling, breaking down into waves of pleasure that crashed back into reality with brutal force. This was much more like sliding down a steep slope – much less violent but every bit as intense. Sy’s mouth stayed on you until your body relaxed completely. Then, you felt water rain down on you again, and you opened your eyes to find his face hovering over yours.

“Was that good?” It was a redundant question, but very sweet, nonetheless. You didn’t speak – you couldn’t. Instead, you just nodded, which was enough of an answer for him. He kissed you again, gently and slowly, while you took your time coming all the way back down. Reality hit you hard, starting with a very acute awareness of Sy’s hard-on pushed up against your naked pussy. Your entire body instantly screamed for one thing, and one thing only.

“Sy, I want you,” you murmured into his mouth, “now.” He groaned and rolled his hips into you when you said it.

“Can’t,” he breathed, “condoms.”

“I’m on the pill.” That, and you knew you could trust him. You studied his face as he considered your request: His eyes weren’t able to hide his desire – not that his cock didn’t give that away – and the slow-spreading smile gave away his decision before he said it out loud. He let himself sink down again and, from the looks of it, found somewhere he could stand.

“C’mere,” he said as he reached for your hand. You followed him into the water and let him pull you into him, wrapping your arms around his neck and your legs around his waist. He struggled for a moment to position himself like this, but you soon felt his cock pushing against your entrance.

“Tell me if it don’t feel alright, Sugar,” he murmured as he pressed his lips against your neck, “water ain’t ideal.”

You couldn’t deny that; it definitely made things on the outside a bit less slick, but Sy took his time and moved slowly until he was all the way inside of you. His moans were different, somehow, restrained. You suspected he would have been louder than usual if the circumstances didn’t force you to stay quiet. Actually, you didn’t suspect it, you were fairly sure; your reaction was the exact same. There was something about this; not the fact that you were in water, or even because you were out in the open, but because this was skin on skin, and something about that was really intimate. Sy kept his thrusts shallow and his movements slow so he wouldn’t hurt you, and you used your legs to meet him with every move. After a while, you started to wonder if this was even doing anything for him. It took a moment to gather the courage to ask him. The semi-apologetic smile said enough; it really wasn’t. Sy wouldn’t be Sy, however, if he wasn’t quick to tell you that it didn’t matter.

“You know I want it to feel good for you, too,” you said softly as you stroked his cheek. If there was anything you had proven over the past four weeks, it was that you cared about his pleasure as much as he did about yours.

“I know, sweetheart,” he grunted, “alright, tell me if somethin’s off.” His pace became faster, and his thrusts harder.

“Oh fuck, Sy,” you said softly as he laughed. The way he was fucking you right now made your head spin. You buried your face in his neck, fighting to keep your moans low while he kept going. Finally, his breathing changed, which told you he was close. He kissed you, the sound of his moans muffled by your mouth as he filled you up with cum. After a moment, Sy wanted to pull out, but you stopped him. There was nu reason to, now, no hurry.

“No, stay.” It sounded almost sleepy when you said it, and you wrapped your arms and legs tighter around Sy. He held you for a while, but eventually he suggested you should make your way back to the tents. He was right, because apparently, your friends had started to miss you.

“Hey lovebirds, get back here!”

[mattnben-bennmatt]

Ben Affleck, at the top of his game

Entertainment Weekly (11 January 2022)

The actor-director has seen fame from both sides now — and he's ready to talk (with Matt Damon, and us) about it.

By Leah Greenblatt

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It's one of those endless blue-haze days in Los Angeles, and Ben Affleck is leaning back on the diving board of a borrowed Bel Air estate to catch the sun, his long torso arced like a bell curve. For a moment it seems like he might actually fall in, bringing a precariously perched photographer and several yards of creamy, expensive-looking knitwear with him. But his balance is better than it looks: Affleck, 49, has walked the plank many times before, and tumbled from greater heights than this. He's also climbed back up again, a story of outsize stardom and second chances played out in the public eye for nearly three decades now.

After a mid-career swerve toward directing films like Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and Argo (for which he won Best Picture), the actor has returned to his first love, turning in fresh, revelatory performances in Ridley Scott's medieval epic The Last Duel and George Clooney's warmhearted drama The Tender Bar. To mark the occasion, Affleck's erstwhile creative partner and oldest friend in the business, Matt Damon (it's been 24 years since they took home their Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Good Will Hunting, how do you like them apples?), sat down to discuss life, love, and all the roles — School Ties, Armageddon, and yes, even Gigli — that made the man. —Leah Greenblatt

MATT DAMON: Ben Affleck, it's great to see you here today.

BEN AFFLECK: Hey there, man! Welcome to the red carpet. Before we get into your project, who are you sleeping with?

[Laughs] Well we're here to talk about The Tender Bar, a movie directed by George Clooney which you star in. I guess I first became aware of it when you called me very excited that you read a great script that Bill Monahan wrote and George offered you a job. I promptly called George and he said that it was because you were cheaper than me. But as the month went on, I started to wonder if he was telling me the entire truth.

He told me that you argued too much. "I got tired of dealing with Damon's bull----. You're gonna do what I tell you, right?"

How was I going to just take his notes and not say anything? But you said you received some of the best direction of your career from Georgie, so I was wondering if you could help people understand what that means.

Well, first of all, because you'd worked with George, I had worked with George, I knew him well and liked him quite a bit. You've always been very smart about picking great directors, and lucky that good directors have picked you. I feel like you really understood that very early on and how well it served you, and I remember George being somebody about whom you just raved.

So aside from being deeply jealous and developing a sense of inadequacy and self-loathing, I did think, "Oh, that would be nice one day, if that happened to me." So when he just called me out of the blue — you know how rare it is that a finished, wonderful script shows up with a really great director, and all you have to do is to just basically be conscious and sentient and say yes.

I mean, especially today, right?

Yeah, I knew that this was kind of mine to screw up. I couldn't imagine there wasn't a long line of people that wanted to take this part, so I really respected his confidence and faith in me, and I wanted to do well for him. I wanted to do it for myself. There's an emotional scene in the end where I give the kid [Tye Sheridan] a car, and every time I read the script, I cried. So I showed up and I really got ready and did my thing. We did the first take and I thought, God, this is it. This is all working. George came over and he said, "Yeah... Giving a car to someone is supposed to be fun."

That's what he said?

I was like, "Right, yes, of course. I've been playing it completely wrong." Other directors can talk to you for an hour and a half and it doesn't seem clear what they're driving at, whereas George has this gift of succinctness and insight. But also just being directed by somebody who's done this job that I've been trying to do for, I don't know, 30 years, is such a comfort and a relief.... My dad worked in a bar, as you know. All that stuff was very familiar to me. So my only concern was, "Should I be working harder than this? It shouldn't feel this smooth."

I've always said, as an actor, your only excuse for not being good is "I didn't know what movie I was in."

It's interesting, because that was the very first thing George did. I mean, a director's job in large measure is tone. Is it more comic? More serious? For me, every time I work with a director that I really admire, and even some I don't — I can learn from negative examples, too — but I just feel like I become a much better director.

I remember Francis [Ford Coppola] sold these little cigars at his winery that are called Carmine Thrifties, they're named after his father. And on the side of the box, it says, "Steal from the best." Which brings me to my next question: Is there anything you're going to carry forward into your own directing coming out of this experience?

I think it's hard to overestimate the degree to which a director's attitude, openness, comfort, generosity pervades the set and sets a tone. George does that better than I do. And he was enormously respectful of the degree to which I take very seriously my need to be there with my children for my half of the custody. I mean, he bent over backwards. You didn't have to be there until midnight every night [or] obliterate the rest of your life in order to do this. Because he's got this spectacular wife, he's got his children, he's got a very rich, full life. He's got to sell coffee—

He sells tequila, too.

Tequila and coffee. That's no joke.

He's got you in the morning and the night.

I'll tell you what I want to be. I want to be George Clooney selling coffee and tequila. Because that really frees you up to do the movies you want to do.

So speaking of awesome actors, I've been tasked with going all the way back to the beginning of your career.

Don't be afraid to relieve yourself of some of that burden, if it feels unduly burdensome.

I take my job very seriously here at Entertainment Weekly.

That's what I'm afraid of.

But before we go back to where it started, let's talk for a second about where you are. Do you attribute it to just, "You play in traffic long enough, you're bound to get hit by some cars?" Is that why your performances are so good of late? Like what you did in The Way Back and The Last Duel. It's full, it's rich, it's invested. It's right. And you're not reaching.

Thank you. That means a lot. Sometimes people will go, "You know, you've really gotten better as you were older," which sometimes feels like "You're not that bad-looking in person! You're not as stupid as I thought you were!" I have some performances as a younger person that I really liked. I knew [Good Will Hunting's] Chuckie Sullivan. I felt an affinity for Ned Alleyn in Shakespeare in Love, and really connected with the character in Chasing Amy.

Changing Lanes! You were great in that one.

That's where I met Bradley [Cooper], actually. Starting off, you have these ideas about success. You know, my mother made $28,000 a year. So I would be like, "How could I justifiably say no to this?" Just not understanding the value of turning things down. People talk about your choices and I want to say, "Well, it's not like I was passing on Scorsese movies." Like, "No, Marty, I'm good. I'm going to do Surviving Christmas." Part of our fates are controlled by the opportunities we have in terms of material and directors.

Absolutely.

That's a big one. And then also, I've always felt more comfortable playing characters that weren't the traditional kind of protagonist. You do this much better than I do, and it's not a backhanded compliment because you find a way to make characters interesting and flawed and real. Because you can't, as a storyteller, alienate the audience from your protagonist. Then you're just watching a movie about somebody you're either judging or don't like or don't believe. And that just blows the whole thing up.

It's deceptively difficult to play the leading-man role. It's like Denzel [Washington], you just can't help but like him and want to be him and admire him. That's a level of being interesting so that you draw people in. One of the nice things about getting older, if you're lucky, is you stop bulls---ting yourself and you start going, You know, I actually know where my feelings are. And the more I figured it out, the more accessible that was. I know what painful is and I know what disillusioned is and I know what ambivalent is, I know what nostalgia is.

Right.

I had a really nadir experience around Justice League for a lot of different reasons. Not blaming anybody, there's a lot of things that happened. But really what it was is that I wasn't happy. I didn't like being there. I didn't think it was interesting. And then some really s---ty things, awful things happened. But, that's when I was like, I'm not going to do that anymore.

In fact, I talked to you about it and you were a principal influence on that decision. I want to do the things that would bring me joy. Then we went and did Last Duel and I had fun every day on this movie. I wasn't the star, I wasn't likable. I was a villain. I wasn't all the things I thought I was supposed to be when I started out and yet it was a wonderful experience. And it was all just stuff that came along that I wasn't chasing.

My only thing is that now I live in fear every time I do another movie, I'm like, Do I still feel that, am I still good? I'm afraid it's going to go away, you know? 'Cause it's elusive. But I'm happy now. I'm feeling it now. And I do think I've gotten better. I think people generally get better with the age and experience—

Some might not. They might get in really bad, corrosive habits.

If you're smart, you learn from people who are really good. And I think our friendship helped kind of inculcate that knowledge in me. We were very generous and open with stuff. Being around other people that you liked and respected and were smart just made you better.

You said to me and I've always repeated it — I mean this is when we started writing together, you were 20 and I was 22 — really starkly, you were like, "Judge me for how good my good ideas are and not how bad my bad ideas are."

Everyone's got bad ideas. Like David Fincher, who is brilliant, every now and again, you go, "Hmm, I don't know." But then you find out he has the humility to go, "Oh, huh."

I remember that with the Coen brothers, more than once. One of them would come up and give me a note after a take and then the other one would be off talking to another actor and would come up and give me the exact opposite note. And without fail, I would always say, "Joel, Ethan just told me the opposite thing," or "Ethan, Joel just told me to do the opposite thing." And no matter who it was, the second guy would say, "Oh yeah, do what he said." [Laughs]

Let me ask you a question about the business before I start running these old movies by you. Given The Last Duel, which I'm drinking my tea and shamelessly promoting with a Last Duel mug that I made...

Did you hand-paint it? Matt Damon, hold the mug!

Obviously it was a box office failure. But interestingly enough, it's number one on iTunes. So it means that there is an audience, just one that was unwilling to go in the middle of a pandemic to the theater. How does that make you feel, coming out with another drama — did COVID just accelerate something that was going to take 10 or 15 years, or is it coming back?

You know, I won't hedge, because that's always boring. I will say, when The Way Back came out, it was released the week they closed the theaters [for the pandemic]. But even before then I knew this movie about grief and a child dying and alcoholism and recovery is just not going to get adults in the seats. We were just talking about Narcos: Mexico, Succession, Mare of Easttown. There's these amazing things being done on streamers. Roma! It's not just some formulaic TV procedural like when we were kids. And you could only watch it like my dad, on an 11-inch black-and-white TV.

If I had to bet, a drama like Argo would not be made theatrically now. That wasn't that long ago. It would be a limited series. I think movies in theaters are going to become more expensive, event-ized. They're mostly going to be for younger people, and mostly about "Hey, I'm so into the Marvel Universe, I can't wait to see what happens next." And there'll be 40 movies a year theatrically, probably, all IP, sequel, animated.

The Last Duel really clinched it for me. I've had bad movies that didn't work and I didn't blink. I know why people didn't go — because they weren't good. But I liked what we did. I like what we had to say. I'm really proud of it. So I was really confused. And then to see that it did well on streaming, I thought, "Well, there you go. That's where the audience is."

Heading back into a time machine now—

If I thought I was going to be held accountable for these movies 20 years later...

Thirty years, dude. Thirty. Let's start with School Ties because that was the first time we did a feature film together. What do you remember?

I knew my nine lines back to front. I loved every day I was on a call sheet, every day I got to come to work. You were there, in Boston. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

Even by the dump in Lowell. Remember?

We literally were next to a dump and thought we were kings. I knew I was playing the one s---ty anti-Semitic bully character, so I figured it was probably not going to be great for me career-wise, but I loved it.

I wasn't in this, but Dazed and Confused, that was your first time working with and meeting Rick Linklater and all those guys.

He was a model to us as we looked around and thought for the first time, "Maybe we can make our own movie," you know? You can do Reservoir Dogs or Slacker or Clerks or Do the Right Thing. People were kind of working outside of the system, and that was inspiring.

Look, it's a bunch of 19-year-old kids shooting nights in a party scene in Texas. So it was barely distinguishable, the time at the hotel and the time on the set. I got to know Matthew [McConaughey] when he was first starting out. Rory [Cochrane], I stayed friends with him, he was in Argo. Anthony Rapp and Joey Lauren Adams and Renée Zellweger, it was just an abundance of riches.

And then it bombed. Bombed! Nobody saw the movie, but it got great reviews. I remember there was a [former EW film critic] Owen Gleiberman review saying "Once every decade..." and I thought this was hyperbole. But it ended up being true, it's a real cult movie that people still talk about and I'm glad to be a part of it. And again, I was the single unappealing character in a movie of enormously appealing people. So not a great career strength. [Laughs]

Well now, speaking of DIY filmmaking: Mall Rats. You obviously have got to talk about Kevin [Smith], but maybe fold them all in because you've got Chasing Amy, too.

I was, once again, playing the bully, running around, throwing people into their lockers. But I liked Kevin. He's funny and smart and charming. We got along.

Kevin also saved Good Will Hunting. This is not a small side note. He is the reason Good Will Hunting got made. We were dead in the water, all the offers had evaporated.

I promised him I would thank him if we ever got an Oscar and promptly forgot. And then I told him, "If I ever win again I swear to God I'm going to thank you." Forgot again.

Kevin and Gus [Van Sant, Good Will's director] and Robin [Williams] were equally important. And I think Francis [Ford Coppola] vouched for me with Robin.

God, he was a wonderful guy. And funny! It was the first time I ever got to hang out with somebody that talented and that famous. I remember walking down the street in Boston with him, he had done Good Morning, Vietnam and Awakenings and Fisher King and all that. And all everybody in Boston would say was "Nanu, nanu."

Yeah.

Mork from Ork.

Mork! But he did do that — he would just do take after take after take because that beautiful brain of his would always come up with something different to do.... So from there, I remember when you got Armageddon. We got split where people went, "Oh, well, Ben's the big movie guy. And Matt's the serious guy," because I did Saving Private Ryan. But the fact was that we were desperate to get another job, and I would've happily taken Armageddon. You would've happily taken Saving Private Ryan. I remember I was shooting [The Talented Mr.] Ripley in Italy when that thing opened, and it was a massive hit. That was a terrific cast.

Yeah, Bruce Willis, Owen Wilson, Billy Bob [Thornton], Mike Duncan. This was real Hollywood, which I felt like I had never seen. They dug out two stages of Disney for huge asteroid craters, and I didn't even think about the fact that the basic premise of the movie was totally absurd.

Why are they training oil drillers to be astronauts rather than astronauts to be oil drillers? You would think the learning curve would be somewhat more steep on the oil-drillers-to-astronauts route. But it was fun and the right time. It's funny, Bruce dropped out of a movie, and as the deal for dropping out of this movie that wasn't working is that we get to put you in two movies, and they put him in Armageddon and The Sixth Sense.

Oh my God, really?

Yes! And I was a little naive about the opinions people would form about me. Or Michael [Bay] and Jerry [Bruckheimer]'s focus on aesthetics, like, "You guys gotta go to the tanning bed!" They made me fix my teeth and work out and be sexy. Be sexy, how do I do that? "Go to the gym!" Running in the gym and putting oil on my body and stuff, and it just turned out to be a long-form version of one of those male topless calendars, in a garage, carrying a tire, kind of greased up. Michael had a vision of a glistening male torso in the oil, and he was like, "That's going to go in the trailer and sell tickets!" And you know, what can you say? We could have made, I think, 400 Chasing Amys for what we made Armageddon for.

It's funny because that's the one movie of mine that my kids have watched and they'll kind of all admit to liking, even though they relentlessly mock it and me. "What are you, driving a tank on the moon?" But they had fun, you know what I mean? They won't even watch The Town. So there you have it.

My kids won't watch my stuff, either. All right, wow, they have a lot of movies they want me to ask you about.

Skip to the ones that are interesting.

Let's touch on Gigli because it's directed by one of our favorite directors, Marty Brest. Where does it sit with you now?

You know, it's an interesting thing because it was a really easy choice. I loved Midnight Run. I loved Beverly Hills Cop. I loved Scent of a Woman. Marty's obviously enormously gifted. There's no question in my mind that this was a guy I wanted to work with. There was wonderful stuff in there. There are things where my daughter will be like, "This is ableist and disgusting," and okay. The way we see stuff has changed a little bit, or a lot in some cases. And there are things that seemed they could work at the time and don't in retrospect.

But really, the truth about that movie and what it taught me was how much everything around a movie sort of dictates the way people see it. But for being a movie that's such a famous bomb and a disaster, very few people actually saw the movie. It doesn't work, by the way. It's a sort of horse's head in a cow's body. And the studio at the time, because I had begun having this relationship with Jennifer Lopez, which was selling a lot of magazines and appeared to generate a lot of enthusiasm, they just predictably latched onto, "They want a romantic comedy. They want the two of them together. More of that!" And it was just like that SNL sketch: "Bad Idea."

But even movies like The Sum of All Fears that worked commercially but didn't have any depth to them, I didn't do anything particularly interesting in them. [Gigli] didn't work and we did five weeks of reshoots, which we knew were not gonna work. It was a movie that didn't work.... Interestingly, I learned more about directing on that movie than anything else because Marty is a brilliant director, really gifted. It's not like it's worse than all... there's a bunch of horrible movies and in terms of losing money, I've had five movies — at least! — that have lost more money than Gigli has.

It's just that it became a story in and of itself. The funny name, the Jennifer Lopez romance and overexposure of that, it was kind of a perfect storm. And I remember talking to Marty the Friday it came out and I was like it's just spectacular, it's a tsunami, it couldn't be worse. This is as bad as it gets.

I thought my job was to be a cipher. I can see now how people looked at me and thought of this person as some callow frat guy who's cavalier, or has too much. It engendered a lot of negative feelings in people about me. There's that aspect of people that I got to see that was sad and hard, it was depressing and really made me question things and feel disappointed and have a lot of self-doubt. But if the reaction to Gigli hadn't happened, I probably wouldn't have ultimately decided, "I don't really have any other avenue but to direct movies," which has turned out to be the real love of my professional life. So in those ways, it's a gift. And I did get to meet Jennifer, the relationship with whom has been really meaningful to me in my life.

I remember you saying to me at that time — probably around the opening weekend, and I never forgot it — you said, "I'm in the worst possible place you can be. I can sell magazines, but not movie tickets."

Yeah. I remember feeling like it was the worst of both worlds. I always viewed it that the tax you paid to get the chance to do this work was to sacrifice your private life, and people were going to have license to make sport of you to some degree. And I didn't go into it blindly. I knew that Sean Penn and Madonna were a tabloid story when I was young. I knew that could happen. Jennifer and I happened to be together at a time where the whole industry of celebrity journalism, if you want to call it that, sort of exploded. But I thought, "S---, this is really not how I had hoped to go, where I'm going to be, what? Famous for being an a--hole or a failure and not able to work?"

I can't think of a worse outcome. Because I've never found any virtue in fame at all. I've probably gotten out of a couple of [traffic] tickets. I've gotten reservations at restaurants. But the whole point was to be able to do this job. That was it. Otherwise, what is it worth? It's corrosive. It changes the relationships you have with other people. But one of the things that time showed me is that it is those moments of crisis or pain or perspective that are strong enough to make you go, "F--- it. Well, this doesn't work. I've got to do something different." I've definitely learned more from failure than I have from success.

Yeah. Well, we're not ending on the note of failure because the postscript to the story is, after 2006, you became a world-renowned director. You won an Academy Award for Best Picture, which is really the highest mountaintop in our business. I'm wrapping this up because I'm late for dinner. My kids are staring at me through the window.

I know how it goes.

But you've had a remarkable last decade and a half that is culminating with some of your best acting work that you've ever done and The Tender Bar is another example of that. And I dare say your writing is pretty damn good. I was really proud of the work you did on The Last Duel.

I love you, man. I want you to do all my interviews. Are you cheap? [Laughs]

I'm free, actually. I'm free.

To be honest... Thank you. It's true, it ends on a much happier note. Not easy and not always smooth, but good. I don't know that that would've been possible for me alone, doing this job in this world without somebody I grew up with who I loved, who I knew loved me and had my back, who believed in me, and whom the popularity of my movies or what people said about me wasn't going to change what they thought about me.

This friendship has been essential and defining and so important to me in my life. There were a few critical times, which are private and I don't want to share, but where your support was so profoundly meaningful to me that I don't think I would've been able to be successful without it. So let me take this opportunity to thank you—

—in a Zoom interview. [Laughs] Congratulations on another great piece of work, and I hope people go see The Tender Bar. We've just got to get people to see the movies.

Well, that may go away, but we'll always be good. And we'll finally have figured it out when we hit the dinner-theater circuit.

We're each a fan club of one for the other. All right, man. I love you.

I love you, buddy.

[x-authorship-x]

You know, weirdly, the JA books never actually bring up the attachment thing. That's something that's more in the movies, and perhaps not so weirdly only aimed at Anakin (which does suck for him, because he didn't really understand it and no one explained it in a way that made sense, leading to even more communication issues), but no in the books they like actively push Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon to bond and whatnot. It's just that Qui-Gon has a lot of guilt/shame/trauma from Xanatos - which Obi-Wan purposefully triggered twice at one point, oy vey, but that book was it's own special brand of crazy - and Obi-Wan was burned by being sent to Bandomeer and was given some self-esteem issues as a result. He also has a hard time reading Qui-Gon sometimes, especially at first. So the emotional constipation is all their own lol. And it does get a lot better over the course of the books, too. They learn to read each other, but it's kind of a slow process.

A lot of Obi-Wan's rollercoaster childhood stuff was pretty beyond anyone's control too. He's such a danger magnet, I swear to god. You leave him alone for like five minutes and he's being kidnapped or joining a cult-like militia or getting attacked by people they thought were trustworthy. Qui-Gon at first does tend to leave him alone in some place they think is safe (or safer than where he's going at any rate), but after a few missions he's practically ready to attach a child leash to Obi-Wan just so he's always in grabbing range lol. Obi-Wan's also really stubborn, which is not always a great mix when people are like "please stay where it is safe, we're literally begging you", and he's like, "no :)" lol. This seems to follow him to adulthood too, in the movies, so I imagine Anakin's padawan-ship (and Cody's entire stint as his commander, r.i.p.) was pretty similar lol, just marginally safer because he's the one on rescue duty. Obi-Wan's saving grace a lot of the time is his ability to make friends really easily, and they often come to his rescue when a jedi can't. All of which is fun, because that means there's so much hurt/comfort potential!

Oh yes, they definitely need so much therapy. Like individually and as a pair. Even a dose of plot-convenient truth serum would do, frankly. So much could be cleared up so fast if they just talked to each other. But that's pretty much par for the course when it comes to most media featuring communication issues, I think. Thank god Inoichi is like, emotionally healthy and pushes Shisui to be too. You have no idea how relieved I was when like Inoichi took one look at Shisui in No Tomorrow and immediately knew he needed help and was ready to give it. It pretty much instantly sold me on their relationship, ngl

(Also, you're totally fine, I wasn't complaining I was just like, I need to make Torship knows, you know? Like at least 95% of fandom who write about Obi-Wan's childhood stuff haven't actually read the books they're talking about, they get what they know from other fanfics, so it tends to be a weird echo chamber that doesn't match up to canon. Which is a shame in this case, because those books are so fun and add so much to the characters, and would add a bit more variety to what I typically see. But you actually like parent-child bonding stuff so my very tired brain was convinced you Needed To Know and got excited to talk about it. Which is also why these have both been so long; I never get to talk about this stuff and am kinda infodumping at you, my bad 😅)

Hahaha your tired brain was right, this is super interesting! I'm gonna go hunt down found family qui-gon-obi-wan fics now...

Obi-wan is so willful and his luck is just comical 🤣🤦

("which obi purposefully triggered twice" oh for gods sake they all need rattled 🤦🤦🤦)

The whole reason I even picked Inoichi to mentor Shisui (just a name-drop back in 2019 for In The Eye of The Beholder) was because I asked myself 'who would they trust to monitor a ticking time bomb?' And the answer was immediately 'interrogation therapist'... Inoichi's decision to do that by gentle parenting was just natural lmao honestly one day I WILL write a inoichi and Shisui master-padawan fic just for the sheer comedy of Inoichi showing everyone else how it is DONE 🤌👏

Also I am... aware that I'm focusing on a fandom that 95% of my followers/readers probably aren't interested in so there's not a lot of activity on that front, plus I don't have any mutuals to talk about SW with so... info dump away, anon! This is nice :)

(I like reading info dumps anyway, haha, I'm the kinda person who tries to get people ranting about their interests on purpose :) )

Thanks for all this really cool insight, have a great day/night ✨

[tenpintsof-sundrop]

Hey everyone!! For those of you who don’t know, this is the only Hiatus Fic that Star didn’t have the inside scoop to read beforehand, so this is her genuine first reaction, and I fucking love it. 

I have to say right off the bat that the ‘I’m gonna need twelve more of these little blonde bitches’ meme actually made me snort laughing omg. I did not even make the connection that both of their little sister figures are blonde and I love it so much omg. 

So here comes the bullshit lmao. I genuinely wonder if anybody else reads or enjoys any of these exchanges. But we have fun. 

Star: "this fic will spoil Seasons 2 through 5 if you are watching the show for the first time and haven't seen those episodes yet (I am looking at you, Star)" do I look preeeetty ? 🫣

Sunny: you always look pretty <3

Star: "mentions of canon injuries - Daryl being shot with his own crossbow and then being shot in the ear by Andrea" which should not be as funny as it was to me

Sunny: Andrea shooting him in the head is so weirdly funny omg. Especially compared to stuff that happens in the later seasons, the early seasons are a fucking comedy omg 

Star: "If there were anymore left of me - I'd give it to you" so we start with OFFENSE MOVES ALREADY

Sunny: ALL THE LYRICS OF THE SONG FIT SO WELL IT’S FUCKING CRIMINAL OMG 

Star: "people you would die for, kill for if needed" and I hope we do :3     KILL THAT IS !!! NOT DIE !!!

Sunny: well if you want to- (whump alarm blaring) 

Star: "hold back his drunken brother Merle from getting into a fight with Shane" FREE HIM !!!! WHOEVER GETS THEIR SHITS ROCKED !!! I STIL WIN !!!!

Sunny: this actually made me laugh so hard omg. Let two of the worst characters fight for my amusement just to see who gets beaten up harder 

Star: "The knife on your belt was heavy with memories of him, ached with the ghost of his touch" is there any more space on the "lines that chill me to my very core" jar ? ... we can get a bigger jar !!

Sunny: every time you say stuff like this I get SO FLATTERED OMG. like I am actually a good writer? My metaphors are actually efficient? Keep feeding me treats omg 

Star: "took down the deer - as you skinned it, gutted it, and portioned" you could Not Yellowjackets me, I was not build for this, I don't even think the desperate need of survival would help me become more useful in this situation ;-;

Sunny: I love writing about Daryl teaching the reader to hunt because it’s such a ‘brutish’ part of Daryl but it shows his love for people. Feeding people, providing for them is his love 

Star: "It was strange to think that things had been so different not that long ago" I love how you use flashbacks in your fics SO MUCH !!! YESS WE'RE SAD AND NOSTALGIC AND REMINISCING ABOUT PAST MOMENTS !!!! GIVE ME THAT NARRATIVE BABIEEEE

Sunny: like I was saying in that one post, Saw is one of my huge creative influences, and they have SO MUCH NON-LINEAR STORYTELLING. And I love how it works - revealing things to the audience when the audience needs to know them and not in the order that they happened works so much better for a story, in my opinion 

Star: "you felt more words form in your mouth and spew out your lips before you could stop them" MOTORMOUTH/CHATTERBOX/CHRONIC NERVOUS YAPPER!READER !!!! YOU ARE EVERYTHING TO MEEEEE

Sunny: Chronic Yapper Y/N x Speaks So Few Words Daryl - a match made in heaven 

Star: "“Come on! Bring the ball back!" A MÍ NO ME GRITAS !!!!!! What the hell, Carl? i thought you were cool

Sunny: early seasons Carl’s entire job was to be annoying lmao 

Star: "And you did believe that Daryl would be the one to find her" *looking you directly in your eyes* you are very mean to me, I'm very SENSITIVE ABOUT THIS PLOTLINE

Sunny: catch me cackling and rubbing my hands like a cartoon villain over this lmao 

Star: "Especially because once Sophia was found" ☹️ "you wouldn’t give a shit to talk to him or be around him any more" you have a weird way of saying i would kiss you on the mouth with tongue, Daryl 

Sunny: this is why I love writing from Daryl’s perspective, because he is such an emotionally warped and unreliable narrator, but he is convinced that he is being 100% logical at all times. It makes him so much fun to write omg 

Star: "You had it in your hands for all five seconds, and now - he had been thrown off a horse and shot by the damn thing" SKSKSKSKKS LEAVE ME ALONE, I DIDN'T CURSE YOU !!!!

Sunny: again, this was just funny for me to write lmao 

Star: "even if he was greeted by a bullet from Andrea, believing he was a Walker" I don't why this scene is so funny to me !!!!!! homeboy looked so AWFUL and TERRIBLE, he got mistaken by a WALKER !!!!! it's a little funny looking back !!!

Sunny: the early seasons WAS A COMEDY. Like especially when Glenn was like “HE’S WEARING EARS” with so much concern in his voice. Like yeah, Glenn. Sometimes people wear ears. You wore a cape covered in guts. It’s called Fashion, sweaty 

Star: "He didn’t want to point out that this was a growing problem. That it would pull his focus during the run for the medicine" *shaking him by the shoulders* having a home/someone to come back to is the whole gODDAMN POINT

Sunny: you are SO RIGHT. Also one of my favourite Daryl moments EVER is when Daryl finds out that Bob almost died for a bottle of booze (because Bob is an alcoholic) and not because Bob has any meds in his backpack, and Daryl says in the most low, gravelly, ‘I am resisting the urge to murder you so hard right now’ voice “If you take a single sip before any of those meds get to our people, I will beat your ass into the ground”. And I SOOOOO resisted the urge to re-write that moment with Daryl thinking about Y/N and bringing up their name during that moment. But I couldn’t think of a good place to put it where it wouldn’t mess up the flow of the fic. AAAAAHHH 

Star: "You turned back and gave him a big smile and blew him a kiss... he couldn’t help that his form of affection in return was to flip you off. You loved it just as much" im bashing my head through a (very flimsy) wall, THE OPPOSITES !!!! WHEN THEY ATTRACT !!!! (these two Will be the death of me)

Sunny: I loved writing their dynamic SO MUCH. cause moments like this are just so much fun to write 

Star: "Just as you had in life, you dined on parts of him that he would never get back, stole his life force with no consideration as to how he would ever get it back" BRING ME THAT FUCKING JAR !!!!

Sunny: I !!!! AM !!!! BLUSHING !!!!

Star: "We had to perform CPR on Y/N for an extended period of time" ooohh every single rib is broken baaaabieeee

Sunny: I don’t think so? Because they were performing CPR with intubation and pumping a bag. So the brain is fucked but the ribs are in tact!!!

Star: "Come on. Come - o-on. You know I can’t do this on my own" this is fine, im gonna be okay... im gonna eat my OWN HAND and THEN I'm gonna be okay

Sunny: that is the whole POINT. The whole middle of this fic makes you wanna eat your own hand and then you get to the relief <3 

Star: "He used to belong to someone. That was how Daryl felt now. Used up and dead. Nothing but a past tense in someone else’s life"

Sunny: I am SO. FLATTERED. That you pointed this out because this is literally my favourite line of the whole fic. This is one of my most favourite lines that I have written in a LONG TIME. and I am so glad that it stands out to other people too <3 

Star: "Even if you didn’t know it, you had been feeding Daryl lies the whole time. And those lies had ruined him" mentally complex characters when i catch you, WHEN I CATCH YOU

Sunny: abused and traumatized characters who are so used to being hurt that being loved ruins them WHEN I CATCH YOU 

Star: "He sure as hell didn’t believe that someone like Merle would be an angel" SKSKKSKS oh yeah, he took a SLIDE down, Saint Peter was THAT sure

Sunny: oh YEAH lmao 

Star: "You had to feel naturally suspicious of him and his stack of polaroids" KSKSKSKS THAT IS A LITTLE CREEPY YEAH

Sunny: this is EVEN FUNNIER because you don’t know the context. Aaron wanted to recruit Rick’s group for Alexandria, so he took pictures of the community to highlight the good aspects of it - the high, fortified walls, the gardens, the apple trees, the solar panels, but he didn’t take any pictures of the people and Rick found that really suspicious. And they thought that Aaron was going to try luring them into some kind of trap, so Rick tied him up and made him eat the apple sauce that he brought for Judith to prove that it wasn’t poisoned, and it’s literally the dumbest funniest scene of Rick trying to force feed Aaron like a child and Aaron whining about it because he just DOESN’T LIKE THE TASTE OF APPLESAUCE. It’s such a comedy 

Star: "A new group came in yesterday, while you were gone" SHE'S GONNA SEE THE CROSSBOW !!!! AAAAAAAAAAA !!!!  AND NO FUCKING DOUBT IT'S DARYL'S CAUSE OF THE STICKER !!!! AAAAAAA THE SURPRISE TOOLS THEY'RE HELPING US OUT !!!!

Sunny: I LOVE SEEING THIS SHIT PAY OFF. YESSSS 

Star: the section is too big to copy and paste here BUT !!!! Olivia mentioning members of the group in a not so positively light and us seeing cute memories of them !!!!!! DO YOU THINK ME MAKING ME CRY IS COOL ?????

Sunny: this was so much fun for me because a huge theme of the show when the group first enters Alexandria is that they’re ‘scary’ toward the people who live within Alexandria. They are dirty, they’re bloody, they’re carrying a lot of big guns, it’s clear that they’ve murdered people before. So I wanted to drive home that for Y/N, the people in Alexandria are scary - they’re nosy, they’re too personal, and they’re unwillingly to get their hands dirty. And for Y/N, those dirty people talking through the gates are FAMILY. They are kind, welcomed faces. It’s flipped 

Star: "You ended up at one of the last houses on the lot, rounding the corner when you finally spotted him" THIS ENTIRE SCENE IS SOOOOO GOOD !!!! IM ACTUALLY SCREAMING AND THROWING UP RIGHT NOW

Sunny: I HAD THIS SO PERFECTLY PLANNED IN MY HEAD. I am sooo obsessed with the visuals of dirty Daryl sitting on the perfectly clean porch skinning a possum, which would freak out everyone in Alexandria, and reader is like “YESS THAT’S MY MAN” 

Star: "Why would you ever think that?” You sniffled weakly in return. “You had this for good luck" IM GOING INSANE !!! THEY'RE EVERYTHING TO ME !!! THEY'RE ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT

Sunny: writing them was so much fun omg 

Star: "Sophia?” Carol gaped." SHE IS ALIVE !!!!! OH KY GOD !!!! AAAAAAAAA!!!!!! YOU THINK MAKING ME CRY IS COOL ?????? OH KY GOD SMAMKAAJNn DUDE OF COURSE SHE'S HERE !!!! THIS IS A STORY ABOUT HOPE !!!!! DID YOU PUT THIS IN FOR ME ?????? IS THIS WHAT YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT ???? I can't believe I fucking called it ans THEN FELT STUPID AND SILLY FOR HOPING im actually crying now, you're such an asshole SKKSKSKSKS I kept scrolling down and thinking "this feels like the end of the fic, of her and Daryl finding each other, why is there such a big chunk left?" FOR SECRETS !!!!! FOR SECRET SURPRISES !!!!

Sunny: this means I have done my job!!! And I have done it well!!! I hated how TWD got into a habit of killing off characters for shock value, so I wanted to spite that by showing a ‘dead’ character to be alive for shock value. And it’s so much fun. There is SO MUCH ROOM FOR SURPRISES in the back half 

Star: "Can’t get five minutes of damn peace ‘round here" SKKSKS you're lucky Andrea didn't give you a full eternity of peace, bucko

Sunny: this actually made me SNORT omg. I wish I would have thought for Reader to say something like this to his face. MISSED OPPORTUNITY 

Star: "It would become a pattern so utterly predictable throughout your relationship. You were so direct and so stubborn that you learned how to play him like a fiddle" ZMSKKSKKS LOOOOVE THEM

Sunny: it’s literally the perfect relationship dynamic 

Star: "I could just make a necklace out of ears. That would be very fashionable.” THEY'RE JUST SO- *heavy breathing*

Sunny: and like it was SO MUCH FUN TO WRITE. I love writing dynamics like this omg 

Star: "Crying. Distinctly - the sound of someone crying... You had been riding for less than an hour, and fuck - there she was" HOW THE FUCK DID YOU WRITE THAT FIRST HALF AND TRICK MEEE !!!! IT WAS JUST THE PERFECT AMOUNT OF VAGUE THAT IT NEEDED TO BE !!!!! TO TRICK UUUSSSS !!!!

Sunny: USING YOUR PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS AGAINST YOU, HELL YEAH! Because I skipped over the part of the canon where Sophia would have been found in the barn with the preconceived notion that Sophia died during that part of the canon, only to reveal that she is ACTUALLY ALIVE. It’s very satisfying as a writer to see this succeed omg 

Star: “I thought you were gonna leave me.” IIII !!!! WOULD NEVER !!! *looks pointedly at Sheriff Stupid and his Bastard Deputy*

Sunny: SHERIFF STUPID AND HIS BASTARD DEPUTY. One of these days I am gonna use this in an actual fic and I will have you to thank this is SO BRILLIANT OMG. and it made me laugh SO FUCKING HARD 

Star: "The first time you hit the Walker somewhere in the middle of its torso, and the second time you locked onto two disgusting yellow eyes - and you jabbed the knife right between them" SOOOO FUCKING COOL !!! SOPHIA TELL YOUR MOM HOW COOL I WAS !!! SHE NEEDS TO KNOW !!!!

Sunny: (Sophia: … what? Can we just GO HOME PLEASE) 

Star: "So he was aggravating the wound and simply ignoring the consequences. Very predictable for him" he's nothing if not consistent

Sunny: he really is omg 

Star: "Maggie and Glenn (who had hugged you so tight upon seeing you and refused to let go for nearly a full minute)" I LOOOOOVE THEEEEMMM

Sunny: GLENN IS A HUGGER !!!! I need a hug from him so bad omg 

Star: "Dude, I’m just happy to be eating something that’s not from a can" omg lesbian !! hiii *waves excitedly*

Sunny: I can’t wait for you to meet Tara in the canon YOU’RE GONNA LOVE HER SO MUCH OMG 

Star: "Carol smirked. “That’s always your story, isn’t it?" she's been invested in this relationship since DAY ONE BABY !!!!

Sunny: who’s a bigger shipper of them, Carol or Michonne??? 

Star: "He peered around you then, and eyed Sophia heavily with a look that made you all too certain your next move" listen i know the prison falling was Not Great but I did get to kill a pedophile today.... a win is a win

Sunny: I did not think of it this way, but hey A WIN IS A WIN 

Star: "And you know, him being cute is just a bonus" KSKAKSKSKS MAKE THAT GROWN MAN BLUSH, WE'VE EARNED IT !!!!

Sunny: Daryl would be so bashful when it comes to this kind of stuff and I LOVE IT. I love how we can make someone who murders people and guts squirrels BLUSH 

Star: "Is it your bare ass?” Abraham joked, clearly at least a bit drunk" MAYBE SO !!! SKSKSKS reader's like "you know it" *hi fives him* and they immediately become best friends

Sunny: … now they’re all picturing what Reader’s ass looks like 

Star: "If you’re done snuggling up next to Rick on the living room floor" KSKSKSKKSKS

Sunny: again, this was one of my favourite lines to write lmao 

Star: "You kept me fed and sheltered and warm, and I don’t know how much I could thank you for that" 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Sunny: this is the whole BASIS OF THE FIC. the soul being fed by hope and the body being fed by hunting and survival, sharing things in a relationship that keep you going forever. That love comes in many different forms and love is what keeps you going 

Star: "Through the window, he saw it there perfectly - the red cardinal that you had gifted him with for luck" i think you pavloved me into crying whenever I see that fucking bird now

Sunny: when my mom pavloved me into getting excited whenever I see birds outside like an old lady and that largely inspired this fic so YOU’RE WELCOME 

Star: STOP SMILING !! I KNOW IT WAS ON PURPOSE !!!! EVIL WOMAN !!! EVIL !!!

Sunny: and I was SMILING SO EVILLY WHEN I WAS READING THIS OMG. I am just sooooo happy to know that this fic had the impact that I wanted it to. It feels like such a huge accomplishment as a writer.

Heaven's Gate

Daryl Dixon x Gender Neutral Reader

If there were any more left of me - I'd give it to you.

Summary:

Hope. Not the fragile, delicate thing that everyone mistakes it to be.

Hope is stubborn, and grows inside of you long before you ever realize its purpose there.

Hope can't be crushed by a thousand pound tank or torn apart as easily as concrete walls can. Hope is balanced on the backs of songbirds, it whistles quietly in the wind, and it brings you right where you need to be (even if you don't know it).

Daryl Dixon x GN!Reader. Strangers to Lovers/Lovers Reunited. Emotional Angst, Hurt and Comfort, Fluff. Set during Seasons 1-5.

Word Count: 24,200

The Walking Dead Masterlist | AO3 Link

Detailed warnings and author's notes below the cut.

...

Warnings: the reader character in this fic is completely gender neutral - there is no mentions of the reader's genitals, their clothing style, or their general appearance, and I did not use any gendered terms to refer to the reader whatsoever; a few times the term 'they' is used in conversation, but I tried to be clever and make it so that it could be referring to just the reader or the whole group, interpret it how you want; it is possibly implied that the reader is younger than Daryl, but it's never explicitly stated (when I was writing, this I had in mind that they do have an age gap but I didn't want to state so to leave it more open-ended) - the main focus is the reader being less experienced with survival skills and more 'citified', which is the case for a lot of the characters at the beginning of the apocalypse; there is a lot of TWD themes in the fic - death; canon typical violence, hunting and killing animals for food, killing other humans in order to survive, killing walkers, gun violence, mentions of food scarcity, the general emotional depression that comes with being surrounded by death and being on the brink of survival, mentions of Merle being racist and sexist (the fic does not contain him saying any slurs or performing any actions in alignment with this, it is a background element); there is mentions of canon plot points and this fic will spoil Seasons 2 through 5 if you are watching the show for the first time and haven't seen those episodes yet (I am looking at you, Star), mentions of 'fate' and 'good luck' as concepts; bird symbolism (that may not be accurate to the general recordings of these symbols and are just things I have learned from my personal life), mentions of religion - mentions of the reader praying to 'any god that will listen' (the reader is not religious to one specific religion, but believes in prayer) (yes all of the spiritual concepts in this fic come from my personal life lmao); mentions of canon injuries - Daryl being shot with his own crossbow and then being shot in the ear by Andrea; mentions of stitches for medical purposes; use of the term Y/N (I am nothing if not a traditionalist); mentions of alcohol/characters drinking (Beth and Daryl at the moonshine shack) - implications of genetic alcoholism and how it plays into Beth and Daryl's interactions with alcohol; passing mentions of Daryl smoking cigarettes; mentions of Daryl's abusive past (non-detailed); Daryl describes the reader as 'beautiful' in his personal narration; mention of reader having an abusive father (a father who is 'similar to Ed') (this is not described in detail); mentions of suicide (performed by a non-named character not during the time of the story) (also mentions of Daryl having suicidal ideations due to hopelessness when the prison falls); mentions of taking things off of dead bodies because those things are useful for survival; I think that's it.

A/N: I re-wrote the summary like four times cause I actually have no clue how to summarize the essence of the fic. But I hope this fits well. This is way more about the emotions than it is about what's actually happening in the fic. I am really proud of this fic and I hope that you guys like it.

...

Daryl Dixon was someone who came into your life quietly. 

When that original group first made camp at the quarry around Dale’s old RV outside of Atlanta, trying to escape the epic traffic jam and the chilling after effects of the hellish bombs that had been dropped on the city, everyone thought that it would only be temporary. Everyone thought that it would last a few days, at most. Everyone held onto the comforting delusion that it wouldn’t be long until the world got back up on its feet again. 

You certainly never thought that all of the people within that camp would become a second family to you - people you would die for, kill for if needed. 

When you first saw Daryl, he was trying to hold back his drunken brother Merle from getting into a fight with Shane. You didn’t think much of him then - perhaps you wondered why he stood up for someone so sour and surly, but you knew that the loyalty of blood related family meant too much to some people. That he was likely willing to do far too much for someone who would never return the same favors for him. (And you turned out to be right.) 

These days, you thought of Daryl Dixon with increasing frequency and a mixed bag of emotions that you struggled to carry. Bitter nostalgia being at the top of that list. 

When you woke up on this particular morning, you thought of him as you gathered your hunting gear. You heard his quiet, gravelly voice in your ear telling you to travel light, but reminding you that the items you should take would each be important and serve a planned purpose. The knife on your belt was heavy with memories of him, ached with the ghost of his touch. 

You thought of him as you tracked a buck’s steps through the dirt. You thought of him as you crept through the woods, feeling equal parts peaceful and dangerously pensive. You thought of him that night as you sat beside a gently crackling fire, the flames warming you only beside he had taught you how to start one. You thought of him as you eventually took down the deer - as you skinned it, gutted it, and portioned  exactly how he had taught you. 

Stepping under a stream of hot water after three long days out in the woods was one of the most satisfying feelings you could have ever conceptualized. The bottom of the tub quickly became muddy with a combination of blood rinsing off your skin (from when you had cleaned the deer), and the general dirt you had gathered on you from the hunting trip. You let the heat of the water relax your tired muscles, and tried your hardest not to let your mind wander back to something you couldn’t have. 

But you missed Daryl so damn much. 

It was strange to think that things had been so different not that long ago. 

… 

The quarry was an oddly beautiful place to be during one of the darkest times in your life. 

It was the definition of breathtaking - crystal blue waters, bright green grass, nothing but open space to let the sun shine down on you. None of that city stink from the piled-up, rotting corpses. This far away from Atlanta, it was easy to forget why you were all gathered here, camping out night after night. It was easy to forget that this was about survival and it wasn’t a simple summer vacation. 

Well, it was easy to forget when you weren’t actively staring down that city full of corpses. Which is something that you tried your best to do - forget. You tried to focus on the task in front of you, tried not to let yourself get too bogged down with dread at the idea of the end of the world. 

You knew that the others likely would have called you foolish because of it. But you had to keep your head up in order to keep going. It was how you survived. 

Currently, you were playing a game with the kids - a makeshift game of kickball with an inflatable beach ball that you had gotten for them during your last trip into the city. You were one of the only people that Glenn trusted to go with him. Mainly because you had lived in the city before everything had ‘gone to shit’ - before the bombs. So you knew it well, and you could have his back. 

When Carl accidentally kicked the ball past you, you rushed to get it, and you became slightly hesitant when you saw that it had landed at the feet of Daryl Dixon. He was in deep concentration, gutting and cleaning one of the many squirrels that he had recently caught, his fingers stained red with blood. You had never seen animal butchery in person before, and it did make you slightly squeamish. You had only spoken to him a handful of times, most of those conversations less than four words each, and he was one of the only people in the camp that you were still slightly weary of. 

His generally stoic nature and his brother - his mouthy, racist, sexist asshole of a brother - didn’t exactly make him approachable or friendly. Though you weren’t exactly sure if Daryl agreed with everything that his brother did and said, or if he just stood by the man because he was family. You still took caution, approaching him like you would approach a supposedly tame bear. Very carefully. 

“Sorry,” You quickly apologized for possibly disturbing him as you rushed to grab the ball, and he spared you only a harsh sideways glance as you picked it up. 

“Ain’t nothin’.” He shrugged, his words coming out as they always did, in a quiet grunt. 

Feeling an awkward lull come over you as his intrusive gaze continued to stare you down, you felt more words form in your mouth and spew out your lips before you could stop them. 

“I was just playing kickball with the kids,” You quickly explained, gesturing to the small grassy area about ten feet behind you where Carl and Sophia were standing, waiting for you. 

Daryl’s eyes strayed curiously there, clearly listening, and you continued. 

“I got them this ball when I went on that run with Glenn. And some other things, too. Coloring books, stickers, fake tattoos. Sophia insisted that I needed one,” You chuckled awkwardly, sticking out your hand to show Daryl the glittery blue tattoo of a butterfly that Sophia had put on you. 

He grunted, nodding in reply. 

You weren’t expecting him to speak any further, and it surprised you when he did. 

“‘s good.” He mumbled. “Makes ‘em happy.” 

In the back of his mind, he considered adding on some sentiment about ‘kids being kids’, getting to have fun during such a dark time - but he stopped short. He didn’t want to annoy you with the conversation that you were clearly only partaking in out of social nicety. Politeness that a world falling apart no longer needed. 

You nodded, flashing him a smile. “Yeah.” 

“Come on! Bring the ball back!” Carl shouted, distracting you from the interaction, causing you to walk away without another word. 

Daryl watched you playing with the kids for a few moments - laughing and running around with them, somehow so carefree in a world that was determined to fall apart. He wondered if you had always been like this, or if being around kids just brought that out in you. He wasn’t sure which reason made you better in his eyes - and he certainly wasn’t sure why he thought about it for so long. 

Why he thought about you for so long. 

He had to shake himself back to reality and go back to cleaning his kills. 

…

“Daryl!” 

You called out his name as you jogged up toward the stables, and he stopped in his tracks, waiting for you to catch up with him. 

“Daryl, hey.” You greeted him with a small smile. “Rick told me you’d be up here.” 

He grunted in reply. “Yeah. ‘m gonna take a horse out. Make better ground t’ look for the girl.” 

Your stomach clenched at him mentioning Sophia. 

The group was supposed to be headed out towards Fort Benning - supposed to be finding refuge at the hopefully safe military base. Instead, you were all setting up camp at the very reluctant Hershel Greene’s farm, not straying too far from where you had lost one of your own in the hopes of finding her. 

But that was why you had come to talk to Daryl in the first place. 

Sophia had become like a sister to you in the few short months that you had known her. And though everyone else kept telling you it was deeply unlikely, you were hopeful that she was alive - that she would be found. And you did believe that Daryl would be the one to find her. 

“How’s the trail?” You asked. “Do you think you know which way she headed? You - you can be honest with me.” 

You hesitated on the last part. But you did want his honesty more than anything. You knew that he was never one to sugar-coat things. Even if you hadn’t told him that, he would give you the truth. 

“Trail’s a little muddy.” He said, doling out that honesty. “‘m gon follow the river. It’s her biggest landmark out there, so she’ll probably be somewhere round it.” 

You smiled at him. And then, you remembered - 

“I brought you something.” You noted, reaching for the back pocket of your jeans. 

Daryl watched with quiet curiosity as you pulled out a piece of paper - when you showed it to him, he quickly realized that it was a half-used set of stickers. 

“These are some of the stickers that I got for Sophia,” You explained. “My mom always used to tell me that cardinals are good luck.” 

You peeled off a sticker of a bright red bird with a pointed head and a black pattern that resembled an eye mask - as much of a nature man as he was, Daryl was never one for bird watching. He didn’t care about identifying certain species of birds unless he could shoot and eat them. But he quickly reasoned that this must be the cardinal that you spoke of. 

“Give me your bow.” You said, shoving the rest of the sticker sheet into your back pocket again and holding out your hand expectantly. 

“I don’t need no luck.” He replied, voice full of snark. 

In a sense, he thought it was… sweet. You were trying to share some of that brightness with him that the kids got every single day. But he didn’t need you marking up his crossbow with a dumb little sticker. Especially because once Sophia was found, you wouldn’t give a shit to talk to him or be around him any more. 

“Just give it.” You replied - equally snarky, equally stubborn. 

Daryl sighed and tugged his bow’s strap over his head, presenting it to you. You placed the sticker on the bow’s handle, in one of the places where it wasn’t as worn down from him holding it. 

“There,” You said, giving it back to him with a smile. “Now you’re all set.” 

It was more for you than it was for him - a token of good faith and protection. The idea that you could do something to bring Sophia home when you felt so powerless. 

Daryl let out a harsh sound - somewhere between a laugh and a sarcastic snort as he walked away. “Thanks.” 

“You’re welcome,” You replied brightly, edging into a sarcasm of your own. 

He resisted the urge to flip you off, believing that you were too sensitive to take it as a joke. 

You watched him off for a while, seeing him disappear into the stables before you left to do your own chores. As you scrubbed at laundry, you sent a prayer to every god you could think of that your new little sister would be found alive. 

… 

Daryl felt like a dumbass. 

When Daryl was laying on the harsh, rocky ground after the horse had thrown him, with one of his own arrows digging into his side - he wanted to laugh at the fact that you had supposedly ‘blessed’ his bow with ‘good luck’. He had owned and used the bow for years previous, and not once had he ever been injured by it. You had it in your hands for all five seconds, and now - he had been thrown off a horse and shot by the damn thing. It was the definition of irony. 

While he laid on the ground, struggling for breath, bleeding from his wound, drifting in and out of consciousness - he spotted a flash of bright red above him. 

He managed to pry his eyes open long enough to properly focus on it, and - 

It was your damn bird. 

A bright red cardinal had landed in one of the trees above him, staring down at him in a seemingly taunting manner. 

‘My mom always used to tell me that cardinals are good luck.’ 

“Good… good luck… my ass.” Daryl huffed out, still spiteful even if he was exhausted and losing blood. Even if no one else was around to hear this verbal jab. 

His head lulled to the side, and before his eyes could drift closed as he truly succumbed to the blood loss, he spotted something else - a bright floral fabric, and some strings of yarn that definitely didn’t belong in the muddy creek bed. Once again, he forced himself to focus on it, pushing through the heaviness that threatened to overtake him. He realized in a heart-jolting moment that he had seen the object before. 

It was Sophia’s doll. 

He turned back to where the bird was still sitting on that branch above him. 

“Any… any chance you can lead me to the girl?” 

Perhaps it was the dizziness of his injury talking, but he could have sworn that the bird tiled its head at him - as though quizzically asking: ‘what girl?’

It was the spite that kept him conscious, the idea that he would get to laugh in your face when he got back and tell you how unlucky your ‘blessing’ had been. But it was his desire to find Sophia and bring her home that truly got him up on his feet again. 

… 

Your bird didn’t lead him to Sophia, but it did get him back to the farm before he completely collapsed from his injury - even if he was greeted by a bullet from Andrea, believing he was a Walker. 

Because of that bullet sharply colliding with his head, he didn’t remember to tell you about that bird finding him laying in the creek bed until much later. It didn’t come back to mind until the group had truly settled into the prison, after welcoming in the people from Woodbury when the ‘war’ with the Governor was seemingly over. He only thought about it that night when the two of you were up late on watch because he had seen another cardinal on one of his runs that day, and he was telling you how much the damn bird had annoyed him. 

Daryl wasn’t someone who believed in luck, but he knew that the story would entertain you nonetheless. And it did. 

In fact, it entertained you so much that it caused you to plant a confident hand on his shoulder and lean in for a kiss - sealing your mouth against his, trapping any noises of surprise in his throat as he stood frozen, pinned against the guard rail. 

He only truly had time to take in what had happened - to process that sweet, perfect kiss after you had chirped a ‘goodnight’ to him and left. You mentioned something about going on a morning run with Glenn and Sasha to scope out a place with more supplies, but his ears were still beating with blood and he barely heard you. 

He had to get used to it then - being yours. But he found that even though the hand-holding and the hugging could be a bit embarrassing at times - he liked it. He liked having someone taking care of him as much as he tried to take care of others. And though it was something he had desperately tried to deny because of your stubbornness and your sharp tongue - he liked you. He was beginning to love you in that dangerous way that was going to get him hurt. 

But he would deny that. And he would do anything to stop that from happening. 

And that was one of the most dangerous parts about it. 

… 

It wasn’t just you that he was willing to die in order to protect. Daryl had gotten dangerously attached to life at the prison. For the first time in his life, he felt as though he had a home. Family, friends. As soon as Hershel told them about the veterinary college, about a place where there might be medicine to combat this strange flu that had suddenly struck his home and the people in it - he knew he had to get a group together. 

Before he went outside to get the car ready, and make sure he had all the equipment inside it, he stopped by your cell. It would be rude not to say goodbye. 

His stomach dropped when he heard coughing. 

“Y/N-” He spoke your name in that alarming tone, concern so ripe in the single word as he pulled aside the curtain you had hung across your door for privacy. 

You cut him off before he could say anymore. 

“I know.” You said, your voice annoyed and slightly strained from the illness clearly running through your body. “I need to go into Cellblock A for quarantine. I’m - I’m on my way there now. I’m just gathering up some stuff. My sketchbook and some novels. I’m guessing it’ll be boring as shit in there,” 

Daryl nodded, and moved to step into your cell, wanting to place his hand on your forehead to check you for a fever. He wanted to know how bad it was - how much time he had to get back with the medicine. 

“Don’t come any closer.” You said abruptly, raising your hand to keep him back. “I don’t - don’t wanna get you sick too.” 

Hesitantly, he stayed where he was. 

He knew that you were right, and he knew that it was weak of him - but he found himself craving the affection that he previously found annoying. He had been hoping that you would hug him before he left. 

“‘m goin’ on a run.” He said. “Hershel told us ‘bout this old veterinary college - he said there’s medicine that could help.” 

“Medicine for dogs?” You heaved out a laugh, strained and full of crud in your lungs, collapsing to sit on the edge of your bunk. 

Daryl shrugged. 

“Apparently it’s the same as medicine for people.” Then, after a moment of you staring at him with uncertainty, he added on: “He gave us a list.” He assured you, patting his breast pocket, where that list was currently sitting. 

You nodded. Naturally, you trusted Daryl. You had to, after everything you had been through together. 

Then, you turned to the bag that you had been packing up and took out a sketchbook that looked familiar to Daryl - one that he often saw you doodling in. You flicked through a few of the pages and then ripped one out, presenting it to him with an extended arm. You covered your mouth and nose with your shirt, seemingly for the assurance that you wouldn’t breathe on him so that he could come and fetch this from you. 

He took one step closer and grabbed the paper, and you coughed into your shirt as he stepped back and inspected the drawing. He wasn’t surprised to see that it was a beautifully drawn sketch of a cardinal - shaded red with what he guessed were smudges of lipstick. He was almost sure that you had picked it up at one of the houses the group had stayed in during the long winter after they had to abandon the Greene farm. 

“For - for luck.” You told him between more coughs, letting your shirt down to smile at him. 

He knew by now not to attempt rejecting the symbol. He wouldn’t say that he believed in it - but he believed in you. And he wanted to have you with him. So he folded it up and tucked it into the breast pocket of his shirt, right next to the list that Hershel had given him. 

“You’re a fool.” He griped, half-winded, only half meaning it. 

You smiled brightly at him, your face clearly tired from feeling so ill. 

“You love me.” You replied with utter certainty. 

He rolled his eyes. He didn’t want to point out that this was a growing problem. That it would pull his focus during the run for the medicine - that he would be distracted thinking about getting home and getting that medicine to you. 

“Now go on and get,” He told you, motioning toward Cellblock A. 

You gathered your things and got up, making a wide berth around Daryl as you walked down the stairs. 

“And I don’t wanna hear nothin’ about you bein’ heroic neither.” He called after you, shouting at your back. “You’re gonna go in there n get your ass t’ bed, ya hear me?” 

You knew it was his way of caring - wanting you to rest when you were sick. 

You turned back and gave him a big smile and blew him a kiss - something he often remarked upon as being ‘childish’. He hated that it caused a flutter in his stomach, and he couldn’t help that his form of affection in return was to flip you off. You loved it just as much. 

… 

That was the last time you spoke to him before the prison fell. But it wasn’t the last time that he spoke to you. 

When he got back, you were unconscious - you had to be bagged by Hershel to help you breathe, and the medicine helped you survive. Just barely. Daryl held your hand and begged you to live, and eventually he had to be distracted away from your unconscious body by Maggie so that he wouldn’t simply sit there the whole time and mourn. She reminded him that they all had jobs to do, and he made a few rounds of the prison, busying himself with chores to help everyone else get by so that he wouldn’t drive himself insane at your bedside. 

And that’s what he had been doing when the Governor rolled up with a thousand pound tank and shot their walls down. 

He knew that his love for you would come back to bite him in the ass one day. 

…

Daryl got out with Beth. 

He almost couldn’t stand her bright, big eyes staring at him, waiting for answers - her chirpy little voice, prodding at him, demanding that they ‘follow the trail’, telling him that they needed to go look for everyone else. Telling him that he was a tracker, that he could find them. As if it was his damn responsibility just because he had the skills to get it done. 

It was all too reminiscent of you, telling him that he could find Sophia. That it was a ‘when’, not an ‘if’. All too hopeful, all too damn certain. 

Perhaps that was what got him off his ass and doing what he did best - reading the dirt. 

“What’re you doin’?” He asked, staring at the girl curiously as she went to one of the bushes and rushed to pick berries from branches. Had she not gotten enough to eat that morning? 

“They’ll be hungry when we find them.” Beth told him confidently. 

Of course. That undefeatable streak of optimism. 

Daryl knew that blueberries weren’t your favorite - but he should have something to give you. He would be too busy tracking the footprints to properly hunt for squirrels or rabbits and clean them for you. So, he found himself pulling a large bandana from his back pocket and offering it to Beth - something to hold the berries in to keep them safe as an offering for you. 

“Here.” He grunted at her. 

Beth smiled at him. 

It was one of the last smiles she gave him for a long time. 

When they came across those bodies splayed out beside the tracks - any sense of hope was crushed inside of him. The picture you had gifted him was heavy inside his breast pocket, and he hated that tears threatened his eyes - even if he carefully looked them over to confirm it, and he knew that none of those bodies belonged to you. There was no trace of you there. 

It was just a cold reminder that even if the others had gotten out of the prison, they could be dead. They likely were dead. 

The days started to blur into each other, and Daryl couldn’t get you off his mind. 

One hazy evening, as he and Beth both stared into the fire with dead looks on their faces, he took the drawing out of his pocket and unfolded it. 

For good luck. 

He didn’t believe in luck - because it didn’t exist. The world was fucked. Nobody was lucky. You and your good luck were dead. 

He tossed the drawing into the fire, ready to burn it up along with anything he had ever felt for you. Only a moment later, when the corner of it had barely caught, just barely turning black, Beth snatched it out. She stomped on it with her boot, successfully saving it. 

“Don’t do that.” She hissed at him. 

Daryl snatched it from her, and crumbled it up, tossing it aside. He let out a harsh grunt, but refused to look at her. 

“That was from Y/N, wasn’t it?” She posed. 

He could feel her imposing stare as she waited for an answer. 

He didn’t give her one. 

Just because they had an unspoken agreement to help keep each other alive didn’t mean that he had to participate in stupid conversations with her. 

“You can’t burn up the past. You can’t burn your love for people just because you think they’re dead.” Beth sighed, tired and defiant. “You can’t burn up memories. We’re gonna find them. Y/N, and Maggie, and Michonne, and - and everyone. We’re all gonna be together again.” 

Daryl scoffed. “Yeah. Cause that’s gon’ happen.” 

Beth rolled her eyes, but didn’t speak any further on the subject. 

After she had fallen asleep - when the fire was dull, Daryl picked up the crumbled ball and smoothed it out again. The charred corner hadn’t even touched your bird. He felt like a fool doing it, just as much of a fool as he accused you of being, but he folded it neatly - well, as neatly as he could. And then put it back into his breast pocket again. 

But that was the thing - Daryl wished that he could. He wished he could burn up those memories. He wished that Beth was wrong. 

He wished that you would stop haunting him. Then he wouldn’t have to feel like this anymore. 

… 

When Daryl sat up in camp that night with his back to the trunk of a tree, he did not intend to fall asleep. He honestly did not think he was capable of doing so - even with the exhaustion so deep in his bones, he was used to going without sleep. He was used to trudging on much like the Walkers shambling around them - upright, puffing shallow breaths, but barely there, barely conscious. These days, he felt as though sleep was a luxury. 

As the fire died down, Beth turned over with her back to him, curling an elbow under her head, the only thing separating her from the dirt. She no longer bothered with the mockering of grunting out ‘night’ as an acknowledgement that she was trying to go to sleep (because she stopped saying ‘goodnight’, long ago, even at the prison, because those were few and far between). 

Daryl supposed that he was staying up to keep watch. They did have the cans and spare car parts scattered around on lines to make noise if any stray Walkers wandered near their camp. He knew that he slept light, and this would be more than enough noise to wake him if he did fall asleep. 

With his eyes locked on her back, he wondered if Beth slept at all these days, or if she simply laid down to fake it. Maybe so that she wouldn’t have to look at him anymore, even for a few hours. Sometimes, he would notice the grip on her knife beside her head go a bit laxer, and believe that this was a true sign that she had actually managed to drift into unconsciousness. Still, even if she wasn’t sleeping, he should keep watch. 

Daryl hadn’t intended to fall asleep. 

Daryl’s consciousness was jolted suddenly - his entire existence shaken by the feeling of someone - something grabbing his legs. When he looked down, he saw the blur of a snarling Walker crawling up his body. He panicked, his heart thudding hard inside his chest. Naturally, he reached for his crossbow beside him - grabbing, hands shaking, grasping at air. 

It was gone. It wasn’t there. What the hell? 

One of the cold hands grabbed his shirt, forcing him to look back down the length of his own body at the beast. When its head snapped up toward him, he was filled with a colder kind of shock. 

It was you. 

Though your once beautiful features had been tainted with rot, yellowing teeth, and your laughter filled eyes had turned sour and rotted like putrid eggs - he absolutely recognized that this was you. 

He sucked more gasping breaths, and reached for the knife on his belt, but - that was gone too. 

Then, somehow - you let out a dark, harrowing laugh. A laugh that shook everything he was, that somehow managed to echo through the trees and rattled the ground underneath him. An utter mockery of his entire existence. 

“This is all your fault, Daryl.” You spewed, your rotting mouth spilling out horrible, black blood. “You did this to me!” 

Then, in an utterly horrifying moment, you reached down and tore into him - your weak, dead hands easily ripping into his abdomen, and before his very eyes, you ripped out his guts so that you could consume him like a perfect, bloody feast. Just as you had in life, you dined on parts of him that he would never get back, stole his life force with no consideration as to how he would ever get it back. 

You didn’t care how he would survive without you. 

Daryl awoke with a start - the sound of the cans clanking at the edge of their small campsite forcing him back to reality with a harsh jolt. 

His fingers wrapped around his crossbow where it was seated between his knees within seconds. Before his sleep-sticky eyes were even fully open, he had the loaded end pointed at the source of the sound - a tired, messy-haired Beth, who was wandering back into camp with her hands full of something. 

“Told you not to go wonderin’ off.” Daryl barked at her easily, hating how his heart thumped in his chest with residual ‘fight or flight’ instincts, even though he knew that she was of no true threat to him - still partially spooked from the horrible dream that he would never tell anybody about, ever. 

He slumped back against the tree, keeping a careful eye on her as she came back to her place beside him, already spouting her surly argument against him. 

“I saw some berry bushes over there.” She whined quietly. “Daddy taught me what’s safe and-” 

“Don’t matter.” Daryl grunted in return, hating that he felt a sensitive pang inside of him at the mention of Hershel. “I told you: don’t go nowhere without me.” 

Beth let out a sharp sigh. “You’re such an asshole.” 

He was. 

Nonetheless, she silently slid some of the berries his way, carefully contained on the bandana that he had given her before for such berry-picking purposes - and nonetheless, he ate them. 

Later that day, when he was prowling the woods with Beth at his back, hoping to score something a bit more substantial for dinner - his eyes landed on the faded splotch of the cardinal sticker that you had put on his crossbow during his time spent looking for Sophia. His thumb traced it idly, and he knew that Beth was dying to ask about it, but held back. 

He knew then that he would never be able to escape your ghost. 

… 

Daryl wished that he could burn up the memories. He wished that you would get the hell out of his head. That if you were dead, every last trace of you would just die. 

He couldn’t stop thinking about the last time he had seen you - back in A block, after he had brought back the medicine. 

… 

He thought it was a victory - getting the meds back to the prison. He thought that it was simple. If he got to the veterinary college, got the meds that they needed, got the run group back in one piece - he thought it would be a win. He knew you. You were a fighter. You would hold on long enough for him to get back. He had to do all the guesswork. He had to keep everyone going on the road. 

If anything, he knew that you would be doing the exact opposite of what he had told you - you would be up and about, shuffling through the makeshift ward, feeding the people the hope that you grew and doled out so well. That was your job. He just had to do his. 

Maybe it was that stupid, foolish hope infecting him like the illness had infected you - but he truly thought that getting the medication and getting back would be the only complicated part. 

“Hey, Doc, how we doin’ in here?” Daryl asked, stepping to lean against the mouth of the cell that you had taken up temporary residence in.  

Of course, he was calling Hershel ‘doc’ with a joking air. The man loved to tell everyone now that he wasn’t actually a doctor - but few actually listened. They trusted his experience and the way he spoke with wise authority more than anything. 

Hershel used a stethoscope to listen to your lungs, and then looked up at Daryl, his face firm and unreadable. Daryl didn’t like it - but he was still being strung along like a fish on a hook by that foolish, bitter hope. 

“Y/N is doing a lot better than before.” He said, placing a gentle hand on your forehead, checking your temperature. “The meds have helped to take down the fever.” 

Daryl nodded. “Tha’s good.” 

Hershel gave him a serious look. “I like you a lot, Daryl. So I don’t intend to lie to you.” 

Daryl’s stomach clenched up - grabbed by a fist of nerves. 

You were alive. You were breathing - Daryl confirmed this, locking his eyes on the gentle up and down puff of your chest. What else could possibly be wrong? 

“Our friend here is showing remarkable signs of improvement, as is everyone who received the medication that you brought back. You have done a mighty service to these people, Daryl.”

Daryl knew this wasn’t simple praise for the work he had done. This was the sunshine before the storm - it was an omen. He could feel the ‘but’ coming before Hershel spoke it. 

“But,” 

Of course. There it was. 

“-I have to warn you.” Hershel sighed. “We had to perform CPR on Y/N for an extended period of time.” 

Daryl’s eyes cast over your face, fixated on your peaceful, unconscious form. His ears became fuzzy, filled with blood, and he could hardly focus on more of the older man’s words as he explained your condition. Explained how you had been deprived of oxygen for a few minutes - how you were at risk of brain death, and Hershel had no way of knowing what the state of your brain activity was without the proper equipment. If your brain wasn’t active enough, you would never wake up again. 

All they could do now was to sit and wait for you to wake up. If you were going to wake up at all. 

Hershel left Daryl alone with you, and he perched himself on the edge of your bed, his ass shuffled in tightly by the edge of your hip, struggling to find purchase on the edge of the small bunk. It was much like you had done to him after he had been haphazardly shot by Andrea. He took your hand in his, his eyes still focused on your unconscious face - at least you looked peaceful. 

With a large knot forming in his throat, he attempted to speak. 

Even though he was unsure if you could hear him - he couldn’t contain what he had to say. 

“You’re an asshole.” He mumbled out. Part of him was expecting to get a reaction out of you. To mock you into waking up. “I went through all that damn trouble to get those meds, and you gone n croaked on me while I was gone?” 

Your face didn’t even flinch. 

You were so damn still. 

For the first time since he had met you - not laughing, not smiling, not loudly voicing your chirpy, hopeful sentiments. So still. 

“Nah, that’s bullshit.” He growled out, his voice growing louder as his frustration grew inside of him - as he became more determined to wake you. “You’re gonna wake up. Wake up!” He shouted, his words echoing painfully off the walls. 

In the next cell over, Maggie heard this and became distracted from dabbing a wet cloth against Glenn’s forehead. He was still drifting in and out of consciousness, still too sick to fully take this in. But it caused Maggie to strain her ears, listening in on what happened next. 

“You’re gonna wake up. You’re gonna-” 

Daryl was startled when he found himself choking on his own words. He sucked in a sharp breath, and despite his best efforts, a sob rattled his chest, and a hot tear rolled down his face. 

“Why do I gotta to everythin’ around here? You set me off into the woods lookin’ for Sophia like it was my damn job. Make everythin’ my damn responsibility. I had to teach you everythin’. I had to teach you how to start a damn fire - what kind of simple asshole doesn’t know that?” 

He swallowed thickly. 

Truly, he wasn’t angry at you. 

It all came down to one thing. 

“Come on. Come - o-on. You know I can’t do this on my own.” He choked out, his face shrinking into a sob. “I can’t do this on my own.” 

He turned more toward you, laying himself down gently so that his face was pressed into your chest. He turned his head - laying his ear against your chest, listening carefully for your heart beat. It was there - thumping along steadily. 

Hershel had warned him that your breathing wasn’t the problem. Brain damage would keep you from waking up because your nervous system wouldn’t be active again. 

If you didn’t wake up, would you still turn into one of them? 

According to what Jenner had told them at the CDC, maybe not. 

Maybe you just be like this forever - stuck somewhere in the middle. Some hollow thing for Daryl to scream at that would never answer back. 

“You gotta wake up.” Daryl choked out. Knowing that only you would hear, he gathered up the bravery to speak out his next words. “I - I love you.” 

In the next cell over - Maggie heard all of it. She was holding Glenn’s hand, wondering what she would do if she were in Daryl’s shoes. She now had muddy tears in her eyes, listening to Daryl plead to you to wake up. Hearing Daryl - someone who had been so stony and tough in her eyes before - cry for the first time - it hit her hard. 

So it got her up; she kissed Glenn’s hand and told him that she would be back later, and he mumbled something incoherent back. 

“Daryl.” 

Maggie felt guilty when he jumped up - clearly alarmed by her presence at the opening of the cell, breaking his bubble of alone time with you. He began to frantically wipe at his face, obviously afraid to be vulnerable in front of her by showing his tears. After all that they had been through together - he still wasn’t willing to show this weakness in front of her. 

He only grunted in acknowledgment of her, staring hard at the floor instead of looking up at her. 

“These people need water. And they could probably use a good meal after all this.” Maggie told him. “I know you wanna stay with Y/N right now, but - come on, we all got jobs to do.” 

Daryl nodded. “Right. You’re right.” 

They did have jobs to do. But of course, the main reason she reminded him of the chores was to distract him. To keep him from going insane at your bedside, waiting for you to wake up. 

And that was the last he had seen of you before the Governor blasted a hole in A Block with the tank. 

…

When Daryl and Beth got to the moonshine shack, it truly came to a head. 

Daryl didn’t want to play the stupid game - he just wanted to drink in peace. He wanted to get shitfaced and hopefully pass out, actually. He wanted to have a good, booze-induced heavy sleep so that he could spend one night not plagued with spotty sleep and nightmares of your death - seeing your face painted in his mind as a nightmarish, growling dead thing. One night where he didn’t stay awake and stare at the back of Beth’s sleeping head because he couldn’t bear to close his own eyes. 

He didn’t want to play the game, but he did anyway. 

It got out of hand. 

Instead of trying to calm down, he rode the wave, leaning into the only existence he thought he knew - he turned back into the sputtering, bitter asshole that had once protected him so well. The hard shell that had kept him from getting his feelings hurt when the world had been cruel to him before. When Beth stabbed the Walker in the head, ending his game, he grew all too worried that she had figured him out - that she would try to get him to talk about his feelings. 

“What the hell did you do that for?” Daryl howled. “We was havin’ fun!” 

He knew it wasn’t true. Nothing about this was fun. 

“No, you were being a jackass!” Beth easily corrected him. 

She was far too much like you. Too direct. Never one to dance around the point instead of saying exactly what she meant. 

“If anyone found my dad-” 

Daryl was eager to cut off her additional reasoning, not wanting to think about it - he couldn’t add the mental image of a turned, dead-alive Hershel to his nightmare rotation as well. 

“Don’t!” He barked back, making her swallow up her words. “That ain’t remotely the same!” 

He had to convince himself of that fact. This random Walker pinned to a tree wasn’t family. At least - it wasn’t the same because it wasn’t his family. 

Beth gave him a tight-jawed look, staring him down with those large, knowing eyes. In that moment, he could hear your voice in his head, telling him exactly what she wanted to say. 

‘It’s someone’s family, Daryl. That Walker used to be someone. He used to belong to someone - he used to be important to someone. You need to consider that.’ 

Instead, Beth countered with something a bit more broad. 

“Killing them is not supposed to be fun.” 

She scolded him like a child, and he felt intensely small in that moment. He hated it. 

“What do you want from me, girl?” He warbled out, barely able to find his voice. 

He barely had anything left to give. 

He was a shit protector - as he had proven, unable to stop the prison walls from collapsing on top of you. Unable to hunt down the Governor - unable to keep him from rolling up to the gates with a fucking tank and blowing your house down. 

He was a terrible tracker - unable to find any of the people they had lost from the prison. He couldn’t provide anything for Beth that she couldn’t get for herself. She was more than capable. She was likely only with him now to stop him from going off into the woods and laying down to die. It was likely out of some mental obligation towards you, because she fully believed that you were still alive. 

He didn’t have anything left to give. 

After a moment of Daryl waiting with baited breath, she gave an answer. 

“I want you to stop acting like you don’t give a crap about anythin’.” She announced firmly. 

That would be difficult for him. Because currently, that was the only way he was surviving. He gave way too much of a crap about everything - and turning it all off was the only way he got through. 

“Like nothing we went through matters.” She added on. “Like none of the people we lost meant anything to you. It’s bullshit!” 

It was bullshit. 

“Is that what you think?” Daryl countered sourly. 

He cared too much about all of them. It all mattered too much. 

If he turned that switch back on - if he let himself care again - it would break him. 

“That’s what I know.” She whispered tightly near his face, all hot drunken breath. 

“You don’t know nothin’.” He spat back bitterly, absolutely assured of this fact. 

“I know you look at me and you just see another dead person.” Beth dueled on, determined to make her own point. “I’m not Michonne, I’m not Carl, I’m not Maggie, I’m not Glenn…. I’m not Y/N.” 

She knew that mentioning your name was sensitive, but she did it anyway, as if hoping to evoke some positive emotion out of Daryl. As if hoping to wake him from his dreary hopelessness. She hoped that mentioning you among the list of people that she still concretely believed to be alive would shake him, make him believe it too. 

She noticed that Daryl refused to make eye contact when she said it. 

When he didn’t say anything about it, she continued on. 

“I survived, and you don’t get it, cause I’m not like you or them - but, I made it.” 

She spoke passionately, determined about the point. If she had made it - someone who used to be so soft, someone who still needed to be protected - then why hadn’t everyone else made it? 

“And you don’t get to treat me like crap just because you’re afraid.” 

Somehow, among all that, one singular point stood out to Daryl. 

“I ain’t afraid of nothin’.” He grumbled back. 

To him, it was a horrid accusation. 

He had already lost everything that was important to him - what could fear possibly do to him now? 

Fear was the stupid, idiotic thing that had held him back in the first place. It had kept him from going after the Governor alongside Michonne. It had kept him tethered to the prison, stuck to your side watching you to make sure that you were safe. And look what it had gotten him. 

Nothing but ruin. Nothing but ashes. 

Beth looked contemplative for a moment, and Daryl hoped that she would finally just shut up. But then, like an unstoppable, sickly bile - the words came spilling from her lips. 

“I remember.” She announced. Before he could wonder what she was talking about, she continued on. “Back when you first came to the farm. The way you were - out combing the woods like a madman, looking for a little girl that wasn’t even yours. You never gave up hope, not once.” 

Daryl swallowed down his own words. 

He wasn’t some damn fool. He wouldn’t even begin to call it hope. He called it the truth - a little girl lost in the woods shouldn’t be hard to find. Like he had told Andrea at the time - it was the backwoods of Georgia, not the mountains of Tibet. It wasn’t the way that everyone else made it out to be. 

“Maggie told me that you cried when Y/N wouldn’t wake up.” 

Beth added on - to Daryl it felt like a mockery, a clever prodding at his vulnerability. But to her, it was just another observation. 

“That’s why you’re not out there, followin’ the trail. That’s why you’re not even botherin’ to look. You would spend months out there tryna find Y/N if you actually thought-” 

“Shut it.” Daryl grunted, cutting off her words. 

“You are afraid, Daryl.” Beth told him - and chills went through him as he realized that she had seen right through him. But like a prey animal staring down a predator, he kept stiff eye contact, trying his hardest not to let her know that he was weak. “You’re afraid of findin’ nothin’. And now you’re actin’ like it’s my damn fault.” 

When he didn’t speak up to make any apologies for this, she snidely added on:

“God forbid you ever let anybody get too close, right?” 

“Too close, huh?” Daryl reared back dully, gearing up for another fierce charge in the argument as things got all too personal. “You know all about that. You lost two boyfriends - you can’t even shed a tear. Your whole family’s gone, all you can do is go out lookin’ for hooch like some dumb college bitch!” 

He knew that he was being unjustly cruel to her - that on some level, he was taking it out on her just because he could. 

But he couldn’t let her talk anymore about him and his fucking feelings. Especially not about how he acted around you. God forbid that big precious four letter word came up. He needed to pull the knife out of himself and turn it around onto her. 

“Screw you! You don’t get it.” She easily snapped back. 

“No, you don’t get it!” He roared out, quickly growing tired of the seemingly pointless back and forth. “Everyone we know’s dead!” 

Beth looked icy shocked by the statement, but quickly argued against it. 

“You don’t know that!” She screeched bitterly at him. 

“Might as well be!” He yelled back. “Cause you ain’t never gonna see ‘em again!” 

Finally, they had come around to his entire reasoning - the whole fact as to why he had so faithfully given up. Even if they weren’t dead, he believed that he might as well operate on the assumption that they were. 

Of course - Beth was operating on the opposite mindset. Killing time, getting by, surviving until she believed that she would inevitably be reunited with her sister, and the other members of their newfound family. 

Beth let out a whimper as the truth of it hit her - as she fought past it. Battling internally as a small voice in the back of her mind said: ‘he might be right’. 

“Rick…” Daryl hesitated to list more people. Even now, he hesitated to say your name. “You ain’t never gonna see Maggie again!” 

It was a bitter personal attack, but he was putting on that hard outer shell - hoping to get Beth to become just as cold as he was. If she gave up, then she would leave him alone. She would stop trying to inject that stupid, putrid ‘hope’ into him. 

But of course, that infallible hope could not be stomped out of her. No matter what. 

“Daryl, just stop!” She begged quietly, and then - she reached out for him. Attempting to give him some comforting touch. 

The last time he had been touched by someone was when he had held your hand without you even knowing, staring at your unconscious face, waiting for you to wake up. Aside from that - a gentle pat on the shoulder from Hershel, assuring him that everything would be okay. 

But both you and Hershel were dead now. 

Daryl’s touch was a disease that he would not let Beth catch. 

He whipped away from her quickly, and turned to face the dead Walker that was still pinned to the tree. 

He used to belong to someone. 

That was how Daryl felt now. Used up and dead. Nothing but a past tense in someone else’s life. 

“The Governor rolled right up to our gates.” Daryl’s throat clenched tightly around the words. He could barely speak about it, but it was true. “Maybe if I… I wouldn’t’ve stopped lookin’. Maybe it’s cause I gave up? That’s on me!” 

He was supposed to keep you safe. He was supposed to keep everyone safe. 

He had failed. 

“Daryl-” Beth choked out, trying again - but she didn’t have anything to follow up. She couldn’t find anything to combat this particular chasm of self blame. 

“Your dad… maybe I coulda done somethin’.” He choked on a sob, and tears clouded his eyes now. 

It was his attempt at an apology. But he hadn’t even begun to forgive himself yet - so why the hell would Beth forgive him? 

Hershel’s death had been his fault. Your death had been his fault. 

The others… even if they were alive, their home was destroyed and now they were vulnerable to a cruel world. And it was all Daryl’s fault. 

Daryl finally broke down in sobs, and he didn’t have enough energy to fight off the touch when Beth leaned into him, hugging him from behind. 

He couldn’t muster up any more breath to better apologize to her for all he had done, but he hoped that it was implied. 

… 

Things were a bit more smoothed over later that night, when Beth was drunker and Daryl had sobered up some. 

“Is it always like this?” Beth sighed, staring out at the grass with a delighted smile. 

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what she meant. She was clutching a half-filled jar of the moonshine like it was precious, her eyes glassy - obviously no longer fearful of going blind because of the stuff. 

“You’re lucky.” Daryl remarked. “You’re a happy drunk.” 

Beth let out another contented sigh, and then after a moment, and another sip of the moonshine (which she was taking down without hesitation now), she spoke up again. 

“You’re wrong.” She told him calmly, seeming very confident in this fact. 

Daryl was tired of talking, but too curious not to reply. 

“Bout what?” He asked. 

“They’re not dead.” She told him. “They’re out there somewhere. All of them. And we’re gonna find them.” 

Daryl wanted to believe her. Some tiny part of him wanted to embrace this as truth. But at this point - it felt too much like fiction. Without his family standing in front of him, pure proof that they were alive and well - he couldn’t let himself partake in that paper thin hope. He couldn’t let himself get high on the hope only to come crashing down from that high in the worst way. He couldn’t let himself be hurt again. 

He only grunted in reply, staring at the worn floorboards of the porch, hoping the conversation would naturally frazzle out. 

Of course, Beth didn’t let that happen. 

“Come on,” She said in a nagging tone. “You don’t really believe that Y/N is dead, do you?” 

Daryl wasn’t sure what he believed. 

Before this, before the dead had risen up and walked the earth, he had spent his whole life focusing on truth. Concrete truth. 

For as long as he had been alive, that truth had been hopeless. His father had beaten him, his brother was an asshole, what little he knew of his mother was a drunken slur ultimately engulfed in flames. He had fended for himself most of his life. He never knew hope or optimism. He never spoke of luck or brightness or tipping the odds in his favor. 

Not until he met you. 

You laughed so genuinely; you sang the praises of looking on the bright side and blessing people with good luck. And he found that at times - he started to believe you. 

But having the Governor roll right up to their gates and blow apart their home wasn’t exactly conducive with everything you had been preaching. Having you sick and likely dead under a pile of concrete, unconscious and crushed without even knowing it wasn’t exactly in line with the ‘good luck’ that you supposedly had. 

Even if you didn’t know it, you had been feeding Daryl lies the whole time. And those lies had ruined him. 

Daryl couldn’t hold out hope that you or anybody else that he had known and loved from the prison were alive. 

“Don’t know.” Daryl grunted in reply. He kept his answer vague, not wanting to stir up another argument with Beth. 

“Yes, you do know.” Beth chuckled lightly in reply. 

Still ever the optimist. Still so damn certain. 

Daryl grunted again. Even if he didn’t agree with her, he wanted the day to end calmly, at the very least. 

“Can I see it again?” Beth asked, suddenly changing the subject. 

Again, this was a confusing little whip for Daryl - something that clearly only made sense to Beth in her own drunken mind. 

“What?” Daryl replied. 

“The picture.” Beth answered. “The one you tried to burn.” 

Daryl felt a pinch of guilt surge over him at the thought. Oddly enough, this was the one time he would be willing to admit that Beth was right - you can’t burn up memories. He was still glad to have a token of you with him, even if he would never get to see you again. 

“It was Y/N, wasn’t it? That drew it.” Beth added on, her words slurring slightly. She lifted the mason jar of booze to her lips again and Daryl was tempted to snatch it away from her. Something in the back of his mind reminded him that he wasn’t her chaperone - she was an adult, and if she wanted to get drunk enough to have a nasty hangover, then that was her choice to make. 

Instead, he found his hand drifting to his breast pocket and reaching to take the picture out. He presented it to Beth, who put down her drink to unfold it. She stared at the picture fondly under the brightness of the moonlight, tracing a finger over the slightly faded details. 

“You know… my daddy used to tell me that a cardinal is like an angel.” Beth said, recognizing the bird from her father’s teachings on the farm. “Someone - someone you loved who passed away, watching over you from heaven.” 

Daryl found this to be a nice thought. He could imagine Hershel’s voice in his head, saying something like this while pointing to the bird among the trees. 

“Y/N said they was good luck.” Daryl replied. 

It was the first time in a long time that he had gathered the courage to actually speak about you aloud, and he found a painful tugging in his chest because of it. 

Beth shrugged. “Same thing.” 

It was this thought that kept Daryl going for a long time. The idea that even if you were dead, you were watching over him somehow. He sure as hell didn’t believe that someone like Merle would be an angel - but you, you definitely were. And even if it was a waste of your eternal life, you would be determined to watch over Daryl - to make sure that he was safe, well-guided. 

You would make sure that he was lucky. 

That thought alone carried him through the long journey to D.C. 

It was something that lingered in his mind as the group hunkered down in a random barn - as he spotted something carved into one of the wooden beams holding the place up. Even though it wasn’t colored, he could have sworn that the long tail and pointed head of the silhouette indicated that the carving was meant to be cardinal. Of course. 

Who knows who had stayed in the barn before them - if it had been left there by a weary traveler, or even put there by someone who had used the barn before the Turn. But Daryl could have sworn that you - your ghost, your angelic hand - had led him to this very spot. 

It was a thought that gave him strength as he held the doors up - helped to keep them from caving in while the storm raged outside. 

Your luck, and your damn bird - you would keep him safe. 

When they reached Alexandria, and they were forced to give up their weapons - Daryl spotted your bird perched on the fence. Bright red, with its pointy head cocked sideways at him. All too knowing, staring at him like it wanted to say something. Just like it had been when he had fallen off the cliff out in the woods when he had been looking for Sophia. 

Oddly enough, it made him feel safe giving up his crossbow - perching his precious weapon on top of the fully loaded cart before the awkward, bespeckled woman wheeled it away. 

Rick was still weary of this new place after everything that had happened at Terminus, and Daryl understood. He followed Rick’s lead. Especially because he couldn’t tell Rick that he had a good feeling about this place because he saw a damn bird. Even if he was feeling such foolish things, he knew that he couldn’t speak them aloud. 

(He couldn’t speak them aloud to anybody but you. And well…) 

But even if it was just in spirit, he felt you there. He knew that it was the home you had chosen for them. 

So Daryl entered the strangely clean suburban home that Aaron had picked out for them and tried to imagine himself truly living there. He tried to think of Alexandria as his new home now. Because he knew that it’s what you would have wanted for him.  

… 

You were tired.  

You had just gotten back from a three day long hunting trip - three whole days out in the woods, killing small game while tracking a deer in order to shoot it and haul it home. 

For a while now, home had been a town called Alexandria. 

Well, you wouldn’t necessarily call it ‘home’. 

Alexandria was a great place to live, sure - but to you, home was a certain redneck bowman who often stank of cigarettes and dirt and had to be reminded to wash his hands before eating a meal. Home was the gentle grunt he gave you in response to a variety of questions, the scratch of his beard on your skin as he kissed you. 

You couldn’t think about him for too long - because you would get homesick. 

Since the prison had fallen, since you had escaped nothing more than debris and a crowd of Walkers - you had been moving from place to place, drifting. A lot of the time, you used the skills that Daryl had taught you during your time together in order to survive. 

When you found Alexandria, it felt like a dream. 

At first, you questioned why a shiny gee-golly boy in a blue rain jacket was trying so hard to ‘recruit’ you. You had to feel naturally suspicious of him and his stack of polaroids. But then you remembered what Daryl had said about bringing people back to the prison - bringing new people in wasn’t just about pity. There was strength in numbers. It became very clear to you very quickly that Alexandria needed fighters - they were bringing people as a tactic. 

You leaned into it. You proved to them what a good asset you were. You doubled down on using everything that Daryl had taught you in order to earn your place in the closed off community. 

You hunted and brought back game for the people there to eat, you used the skills Daryl had taught you to maintain the cars for runs and even fix-up ones that had been previously out of commission. You were widely liked by the members of the community, and Deanna often called on you for advice about dealing with Walkers. You had been on a few runs with their crews, but you preferred to stay close to town, to keep an eye on things. 

The hunt you had recently taken - three long days out in the woods. That had been for you. Something you had learned with Daryl was that hunting could be intensely peaceful. Maybe it was because it was time you spent with him - time when the two of you didn’t need words, just soaked in each other’s presence. Maybe you missed that too dearly. But you needed it to be just you and the trees, the focus on the craft that he had taught you. 

No closed-off bottle town politics. No smiling and nodding and pretending to care when the others complained about asinine things like the water from their showers going cold too quickly. Complained about being bored. To you, boredom was a blessing these days. 

No men sniffing around you, firing off increasingly poor attempts at flirting, believing that you were single even though you couldn’t tell them otherwise. It was difficult to explain to anyone in town that your heart belonged to someone that you hadn’t seen in a long time. Someone that you didn’t have the room to believe was dead. 

So after spending a few days in the woods, enjoying the peace alone, and bagging a deer and a few rabbits in the process, you came home. And currently you were in the shower, cleaning up - it was a blessing to even have a shower, to have perfectly functioning running water. A three day hunt could create a hell of a stink. 

Stepping under a stream of hot water after three long days out in the woods was one of the most satisfying feelings you could have ever conceptualized. The bottom of the tub quickly became muddy with a combination of blood from where you had cleaned the deer, and the general dirt you had gathered on your skin from the hunting trip. You let the heat of the water relax your tired muscles, and tried your hardest not to let your mind wander back to something you couldn’t have. 

When you got out of the shower, you felt wonderfully refreshed. You were still bone tired, and part of you did want to rush home and crash right into bed. But you had other things to do first. You had to check-in with Deanna, and go by the school before you could even think about going to bed. 

Olivia - ever kind and thinking ahead - had set out a change of clothes for you. She had seen you run upstairs to the bathroom covered up to your elbows in blood after you had asked her to stash the deer meat in the pantry’s freezer. 

You got dressed, and then went down to the pantry looking to make sure that she had taken the deer meat out of the plastic container that you had stored it in and put it into some plastic freezer bags to store it properly. She was squeamish around blood or raw meat - she had thrown up the one time that you had tried to teach her how to gut a rabbit, but you were hoping to wean her off those fears. 

Olivia was a nice girl. You knew that eventually, she would need to get her hands dirty in order to survive. It was a miracle that she had gone this long without doing so. When she told you that she still carried around a cellphone in her pocket - one that had long been dead and useless - you got stuck somewhere between paralytic shock and maniacal laughter. 

But it was just a mark of how untouched Alexandria was. How much they needed someone like you. 

“Olivia?” You called out gently when you hit the bottom stair. 

“In here!” She called back. She was in the armory rather than in the pantry - likely counting bullets to redo her inventory in order to avoid touching the bloody deer meat. 

You rolled your eyes at the thought of it and walked into the room, which was lined floor to ceiling with guns, the entire town’s supply. You were also casually pushing back against Deanna’s rule that nobody should be allowed to carry within town, but she had yet to truly hear you out on it. Your eyes fell upon a large cart that Olivia had parked in the middle, one that wasn’t usually there. It was filled to the brim with a variety of weapons. 

“What’s this?” You asked. 

“A new group came in yesterday, while you were gone.” She informed you, staring at the notebook she had in her hands - the one containing her inventory. “Deanna wanted me to make a list of their weapons. Well - the weapons they surrendered. I wouldn’t doubt if one of them is still hiding a knife in their shoe or something. They seem uber shifty and paranoid.” 

She said this with a dreary chuckle - the kind of nervous laughter that told you she was feeling weary of these people. 

A strange feeling came over you. A haze - tingling, from your head to your toes. A feeling almost as if you were about to faint - while at the same time, intense adrenaline was pumping through your whole body. You took a more careful look at the weapons gathered on the cart. 

A sword. One with the distinctive white leather sheath. A gun that you easily recognized as a Colt Python. A military knife with a knuckle guard… and perched right on top - a crossbow. The sight of which almost made your heart stop. 

“Maybe you could help me with this?” Olivia asked, motioning her pen toward the cart. “You know I don’t know the names of guns and stuff.” 

Clearly, she was trying to get out of bagging the deer meat - but that dropped off your priority list as you tried harder and harder to keep your hopes from swallowing you alive. 

“Sure.” You replied, knowing that it sounded terribly strained in your throat - joy and tears battling terribly inside of you. 

You gathered your breath, and forced your concrete legs to move. You stepped toward the cart, and timidly stroked a finger across one of the bolts that was strapped to the top of the crossbow. 

After a moment, you finally gathered the courage to ask the question. 

“So - can you tell me more about the group?” You asked, your throat clenching around the words, so damn dry all of a sudden. “Did you happen to catch any of their names?” 

“Come on,” Olivia sighed. “You know I’m no good with names.” 

Of course. 

The one time when you needed her to be paying attention, she hadn’t been. Where the hell was Aaron when you needed him? 

You could have been wrong. This could be nothing. It could be a coincidence. 

You wouldn’t let yourself get your hopes up - not until you knew. 

“Well - what were they like?” You asked. 

Olivia picked up one of the guns, inspecting it before she wrote down something in her notebook. It took her a moment too long to answer. You became dizzy with agitation, unconsciously holding your breath while you waited for something. Some proof. Something. 

“They were… strange.” She shrugged. “They reminded me of you when you first came here. But… you can tell they’ve been outside for longer.” 

That didn’t answer your question. So you moved on to another one. 

“How many of them was there?” You asked. 

“Maybe a dozen, I guess.” She answered easily. “It’s the biggest group Deanna has ever allowed in. I don’t know why, though. Aaron seems to really like them, but I didn’t get to talk to him much before he went home.” 

She wrote down something else, and then she continued - seemingly not noticing the way you were staring at her with an intense glare, hanging on her every word. 

You needed to know. 

“There was kids with them. A baby, and a young boy. A teenager, maybe? He was wearing this brown cowboy hat, that looked like a sheriff’s hat, kind of? I guess he got it off some cop.” 

‘My dad says that I get to wear the hat because I’m in the club.’ Carl’s small voice excitedly announced to you, pushing the too-big hat up over his eyes as it sagged down from how fast he had run toward you. 

‘What club?’ You countered curiously. 

‘People who have been shot and survived.’ 

‘Woah… okay. You probably shouldn’t go around saying that to people.’ You chuckled in return, trying to play off the casual morbidity. Knowing that ‘and survived’ was the important part. ‘Cool hat, though, kid.’ 

‘Thanks!’ 

As the memory from Hershel’s farm played over again in your mind - you remained frozen. Your voice was caught in your throat, seized by tears and shock - but all you could do was stand there as Olivia continued talking. 

“And their leader is this really grumpy guy. He kept… staring at me. His eyes were so cold… it was almost creepy. I could hardly see his face past his beard.” 

‘And, uh, I got this for you.’ Michonne chuckled, extending her arm out toward Rick, trying her hardest to gift him the electric shaver. ‘Your face is losing the war.’ 

The words evoked another memory from you - Michonne making jokes about Rick’s beard being overgrown, trying to get him to trim it down. Now, you couldn’t picture him without one when you tried to remember him. 

“Here, take this.” Olivia picked up the crossbow and put it in your hands. “Can you help me with the rest of these guns? I don’t know how to unload them. I need to take inventory of the ammo.” 

Your eyes were fixated on the crossbow in your hands - you ran your thumb over it. 

You had almost forgotten about it. 

Trying so hard to push down the memories, to forget - it had almost slipped your mind. The marking you had left on Daryl’s crossbow that made it so uniquely yours. The blessing of good luck you had marked him with when you had sent him to look for Sophia. 

The cardinal sticker that you had put on his bow. It was faded now, but it sure as hell was the one you had put there. 

In the back of your mind, you could still hear Daryl’s snarky voice snarling about how he didn’t need luck - but it had gotten him this far, hadn’t it? 

All at once, your nervous system shook, your body prickling up fiercely with goosebumps as the realization truly hit you. 

Daryl was here. 

Daryl was right here in Alexandria. 

He was alive. He was within arm’s reach. 

He was home. 

“Daryl.” You mumbled quietly, your voice still choking on it - it was a name you hadn’t spoken in so long. 

“What?” Olivia asked, turning around to look at you, clearly confused. 

“Daryl.” You spoke it louder. 

You looked to the door, and before you could take a moment to explain or even put down the bow - your legs were carrying you with a great urgency. 

He was close by - you were going to find him. 

“Daryl!” 

You screamed out this time, your voice echoing through the streets of Alexandria. Random people going about their day stared at you, but you didn’t care. You continued sprinting down the street, looking for that familiar face that you knew had to be close by. 

“Daryl! Rick! Michonne!” 

You screamed out the names of the people you knew would be with thim, and then your mind became fixated on him - on seeing his face again, on hearing him call you an asshole with a smile. Fueled only by joy, you pushed past your previous tiredness, determined to find him. Your cheeks began to hurt before you knew you were smiling and your legs pumped harder as you ran. 

“Daryl! Daryl!” 

You weren’t even sure where you were going, but you knew he would come to you - he would be there soon. 

You ended up at one of the last houses on the lot, rounding the corner when you finally spotted him. 

It was something you had pictured in your mind a thousand times. 

One of the quaint porches of Alexandria - so clean, so white, so picturesque - finally dirtied up by his presence. Olivia made you gut your kills in the back because she didn’t want it to disturb people, but Daryl didn’t know the rules, or just didn’t care. His hands were already covered in the blood of the possum that he was skinning - careful, meticulous, doing it right. His gaze focused downward in pure concentration - much like he had been on the day you had first properly spoken to him. 

Dressed in all black and still dirtied from the road - he was a sight for sore eyes. 

And he caused you to pull in a sharp, shattered breath as you began to cry outright now. Hot tears of relief, joy, love streaming down your face as you laid eyes on him for the first time in so long. 

His head snapped up at the sound of it, and his eyes widened beyond the splintering bangs that hung beyond his brows - hair longer than the last time you had seen him. His hands froze their movements, still hanging onto the half-skinned possum. You gripped tightly onto the crossbow, holding onto it tightly like an anchor, drifting at sea. 

You knew that look - his jaw gaped, his eyes swimming with intense emotion - shock, most of all. He was frozen. 

He was looking at you as though you were a ghost. 

In Daryl’s eyes, you might as well be. 

The last time he had seen you - you were dead. Or dying. 

It was all the same to him. 

He genuinely couldn’t believe that you were standing right there in front of him - alive, clean, beautiful as ever, holding his crossbow. It was like a dream. 

“I think I have something that belongs to you.” 

Hearing your voice again - it was oddly startlingly. You motioned toward the crossbow - his crossbow, that you were holding for some reason. 

His entire body was filled with concrete - he was frozen. 

“Daryl, is that possum so much more interesting than me, or are you gonna come on over here and give me a damn hug?” 

Yes.

That was what finally got him up - he tossed the possum aside because it would never be more important than you, and he rushed off the porch, rushing toward you. You dropped his crossbow in the grass and when he pounced on you, his arms encircling you for the first time in such a long time - you finally felt like you were home. He squeezed you in a bone-crushing way, and you squeezed him right back - feeling a strange kind of comfort from the smell of sweat and dirt and cigarette smoke coming off him. 

It was so Daryl. It was so real. 

You heard gentle sobs in your ear and you realized that he was crying too, so overwhelmed by the emotions of seeing you again and not too proud to hide his tears now. You didn’t notice and didn’t care that he was getting blood all over your clean shirt, gripping you so tightly with his possum-skinning hands. It was just another assurance that all of this was real and not another stupid daydream. 

“Goddammit.” He croaked out, his face shoved so tightly in the crook of your neck, soaking your skin with his tears. “I thought - I thought I lost you.” 

Pressed so close to his chest, you saw the yellowing corner of the paper sticking out of his breast pocket. You couldn’t help but to raise your fingers to fish it out of his pocket. 

“Why would you ever think that?” You sniffled weakly in return. “You had this for good luck.” You teased him lightly, pulling away slightly to wave the folded piece of paper in front of his face - both of you knowing exactly what it was. 

He let out a weak laugh in response. 

“You’re still a damn fool.” 

That was all he managed to reply before he put both hands on either side of your face and pulled you in for a kiss. It was unlike any other time he had kissed you before. This wasn’t chaste - it wasn’t a simple kiss signifying that he cared about you, that he was trying, but affection simply wasn’t his thing. 

This was gravity. 

This was passion, this was love. This was this kiss of a man who had nearly ended himself because he had realized in horror that his entire world had hinged on you. And now that he had you back, he wasn’t going to waste a single second treading around feelings, hung up on simple things like the fear of affection. This was a kiss from someone who needed to show you that you were his whole world, and now that he had you back, he would move mountains just to see you smile. 

It was a kiss that easily had you moaning into his mouth, made you dizzier than you already were, stole breath from your already weak lungs. 

He held you tight to his lips and he poured every single ounce of emotion into that kiss - telling you how sorry he was for all the time he had wasted, telling you how much he had missed you, and most importantly - telling you how much he loved you. 

“Daryl, please tell me that you’ve showered by-” 

The stunning moment was sorely interrupted by another voice, one you distinctly recognized as Carol. She opened the front door behind you and stuck her head out, ready to scold Daryl - but she promptly cut off her own words when she saw you. You pulled away from his lips at the sound of her voice and whipped around toward her, and instantly a smile cracked your face, broad and unbroken. 

She was staring at you with utter shock. 

“Carol.” You said her name warmly, greeting her as an old friend. 

You couldn’t help it - you jumped forward and embraced her in a hug. It was only then that she loosened from the shock and let her own arms fall around you, hugging you back, and she was able to speak again. 

“Y/N.” She said your name quietly in return. “What - what are you doing here?” 

“Um… returning Daryl’s crossbow.” You chuckled, motioning to the bow that you had dropped with numb arms before you had ascended the steps, rushing toward him. “But you know… I think I have something for you too.” 

Naturally, Carol looked confused - and you chose to show her what you meant rather than to explain. 

… 

You brought Carol and Daryl to a house in the complex that functioned as the school. They didn’t know that yet - and you asked them to wait outside as you rushed inside and boisterously disrupted the beginning of the afternoon class. 

The teacher began telling you off, but you didn’t care. 

Daryl and Carol were theorizing about what you were doing, half ready to go in after you when you stepped out the door with someone in tow. 

“What’s so important? We’re supposed to start reading King Lear today and I can’t miss-” 

Both of them looked up at the mousy voice and instantly recognized the streak of sandy blonde hair - a bit lighter now from exposure to the sun, topped on someone a bit taller than they remembered. 

“Sophia?” Carol gaped. 

A daughter she had said goodbye to in her mind, someone that she couldn’t keep hoping was alive. Somehow once again, standing right there in front of her, fully alive and well. Once again - all thanks to you. 

“Mom?” 

Sophia broke out of your grasp and ran from the door into her mother’s arms, and Carol quickly embraced the girl who was almost as tall as her now. Carol was unable to hold back her tears and you knew that it was a swelling of perfect emotion as they hugged each other so tightly. Daryl petted a gentle hand over Sophia’s hair as he looked at you fondly. 

You couldn’t imagine a more perfect day. 

Carol used a hand behind Sophia’s back to wipe some of her own tears from her cheeks, still not letting the girl go as she looked at you with a wet smile forming tightly across her face. 

“I should have known she’d be with you.” Carol choked out - her way of thanking you for taking care of her daughter. Clearly scolding herself for not keeping the faith alive that Sophia would be okay. 

“We’re BFFs.” You said, unable to hold back a smile. “Of course we’re gonna stick together.” 

… 

You thought back to the day you had first taken on the title of Sophia’s BFF. 

The two of you had been close since the group at the quarry had first formed. It was unfortunate, but Ed reminded you of your own father, and you found yourself gravitating toward Sophia because of that. A natural instinct kicking in that made you want to take care of her because you understood what she was going through. You knew that Carol had to take care of herself, had to keep her own head above water, and she said that she was always appreciative of your help. 

You knew that Sophia appreciated having you around, being treated with gentle caring and a certain kind of maturity that she needed from an older sibling that she didn’t have. You didn’t always treat her like a child - you talked to her like a person who needed to be listened to, who had her own feelings that needed to be heard. 

Especially after Ed’s death - when she was feeling conflicted about the partial relief of being freed from her father’s abuse but oddly missing him at that same time. You were more than happy to listen to her and give her honest advice. 

When she fled into the woods off the highway that day, Daryl had to physically hold you back to keep you from running into the tail end of the herd yourself. It would have been stupid for you to blindly run after her, especially considering that, at that point, you didn’t carry a knife or any other weapons on you regularly. You would have been running after Sophia with nothing but your bare hands and your best intentions. 

It would have ended up with you both dead, and in the end, you thanked Daryl for holding you back. 

Which was why you trusted Daryl greatly to find her. You trusted his skills and his abilities, and especially his judgment. And you silently cursed Andrea for almost shooting his head off and putting him out of commission in that search. Especially considering the fact that Shane and even Rick were clearly losing hope in ever finding Sophia alive, and it was clear that they were ready to call off any search efforts. They were ready to abandon the Greene farm and leave her out there to die. 

So after Daryl’s wounds had been treated, when he was resting in his tent, you decided that it was high time to get the search back on. Of course, you had to wait for Andrea to leave, after she had apologized to him and left him with one of Dale’s crappy books as entertainment - something you knew wouldn’t help him much, because he was far too much of a hands-on busy body to sit around and read. 

But you didn’t dwell too much on thinking about that. Instead, you stepped into the tent next without being invited, determined to get his advice so that you could pick up the search for Sophia where he had left off. 

Daryl’s eyes snapped open where he had been lightly dozing off and he glared at you - it wasn’t malice or true anger, instead, simply light annoyance. 

“Can’t get five minutes of damn peace ‘round here.” He grumbled out as you invited yourself fully into the tent and without speaking a word to him, came right in and sat down on the edge of his cot. 

He instinctively scooted away from you. He could have said that it was because you had aggravated soreness in his injured side where he was still stitched up. But truthfully, it was because he wasn’t used to having you (or anyone) this close. Though he also couldn’t deny that the simple warmth of your body - the gentle heat of your ass pressed up against his thigh from you having to sit so close on the small cot - it was nice. 

But he couldn’t think too much about that right now. 

You obviously weren’t as caught up on the simple act of closeness. You weren’t as mindful of being this close to another person. You were someone who thought nothing of hugs and other simple forms of affection - something that you did regularly with people you considered friends, like Glenn and Lori and Dale. 

Instead of thinking at all about how close you were sitting to Daryl, you dropped your bag at your feet and began rooting around inside of it, looking for something. A moment later, you pulled out a map, which you held in one hand and shoved tightly in Daryl’s face. 

“Show me where you found Sophia’s doll.” You ordered stiffly. 

Daryl grunted at you, chewing on one of his nails for a moment before he replied. 

“What good is that gon do?” He asked. 

You didn’t know how to track or follow a trail. You weren’t the outdoors type. If he sent you off looking for her, he’d probably have to go off into the woods looking for you next. 

You sighed and rolled your eyes. 

“Maggie is saddling one of the horses for me right now.” You explained. “You know that Shane has already given up, and Rick is about to.” 

You cleared your throat, trying to hide the quiver of potential tears. 

Daryl knew it wasn’t the kind of grief that everyone else held when talking about Sophia - you weren’t afraid that she was already dead and you would be combing the woods looking for a Walker to put down. You weren’t looking for closure. You were more terrified at the aspect of Shane and Rick giving up when someone you viewed as a little sister was still out there. You were afraid that she might be abandoned when she was still alive and had a chance to be rescued. 

“You’re not goin’ out there by yourself.” Daryl declared firmly. 

Predictably, he then tried to sit up - as if he would somehow accompany you in his severely injured state. But he didn’t make it very far off the cot before he let out a sharp wince of pain. Something he tried his hardest to conceal out of an ingrained toughness, so you knew that his pain had to be a lot worse than he was leading on. He fell back down instinctively and gripped a hand to his side, taking in sharp breaths as he tried to ignore the pain. 

“Well, you’re not going with me.” You griped sarcastically, motioning toward his injury. 

“Screw you.” Daryl replied, tossing up a middle finger - frustrated by his circumstances more than anything else. 

“Look, I’m gonna go whether you tell me where to pick up the trail or not.” You announced, firm and finite in your conviction. 

Of course. Stubborn. 

Daryl glared at you again. 

“And I’m not gonna drag your ass around with me,” You added on. “I just wanna know where you would search because before you got hurt, you were the best man for the job.” 

Daryl wanted to hate the snide, back-handed compliment - he wanted to hate your stubbornness and your inability to take ‘no’ for an answer. But he knew that you were going to keep to your word. You were going to do this with or without his help, and his help would be invaluable to someone like you. 

So, for some stupid reason, he folded to your will. 

(It would become a pattern so utterly predictable throughout your relationship. You were so direct and so stubborn that you learned how to play him like a fiddle.) 

“Gimme that damn map.” He grumbled out, finally folding to your infallible will. 

“Here, I have a pen. You can mark it down for me.” You announced brightly, giving him a chirpy smile as you got your own way. 

You reached back down to your bag, looking for the aforementioned pen, and Daryl bit his tongue. The fact that you even needed a marking on the map to remember what he was going to point out to you was a huge red flag for him - a sign of just how naive you were when it came to the woods, tracking, finding someone lost out there. 

He was already mentally preparing himself to go looking for you later. (He just hoped that this would be a good thing - that even if you got lost yourself, you would take some supplies to Sophia and help her survive a bit longer until he could get both of you back home.) 

He took the red pen that you handed to him and stiffly held the map, trying to ignore the gentle waft of floral soap coming off you as you leaned more into his personal space. More and more into his personal space, clearly trying to better pay attention to what he was showing you as he pointed to the landmarks on the piece of paper. 

“Found the doll down ‘round here.” He said, marking a small red X on the map. “I figured that she mighta dropped it when she was crossing the creek up somewhere here, and it washed downstream.” 

“Oh, okay.” You said. “So you think she’s on this side of the water?” You asked, pointing to a heading of your own. 

“Prolly.” Daryl nodded. “She gotta be close by the water cause it’s her only real landmark. You better stay close by the creek, got it? I don’t need to go in those damn woods lookin’ for your ass too if ya get lost.” 

“I’m not gonna get lost.” You sighed, snatching the map from him. 

“Make sure you don’t spend the whole time on the horse.” 

He added on, determined to give you good advice if you were determined to go out there. In the back of his mind, he was surprised that you knew how to ride a horse, but he didn’t bother to bring it up. Instead, he continued speaking about the topic at hand. 

“She’s little. It means she could be hidin’ somewhere down low. Caves, ditches, even down in the bushes. She could be passed out somewhere from the heat and you might not see her if you’re perched up high on that damn horse the whole time.” 

You nodded, soaking up all the information, determined to take advice from someone you knew was better versed in things like this than you were. 

“Anything else?” 

Daryl looked thoughtful for a moment. 

Then he reached off to the side for his own bag, holding in another pained wince as he stretched out his injured flesh. He batted away your hands as you went to help him, and his hands came back with a large knife - his hunting knife, sheathed in the cover that he often wore on his belt. You had never seen him without it, and you were surprised when he extended it out toward you - clearly wanting you to take the knife, even if only temporarily. 

“Daryl, that’s yours, I can’t-” 

“Shut up and take it.” He growled quietly. “This is gonna be better to you out there than any gun. And not just cause you’re a piss poor shot.” 

You rolled your eyes at the paper thin insult, but still hesitated to reach for the knife. 

“The woods are damn quiet, and if you run into a Walker, you gon need somethin’ quiet to take ‘em down.” He explained. And then, with a fair amount of cheek, he added on: “Come on. It’s for good luck.” 

You let out a sharp nasal sound that could have been mistaken for a laugh, and then you reached out and grabbed the knife, tucking the holster onto your belt. 

“Maybe I don’t need luck.” You stated, getting up and making your way toward the mouth of the tent. “If I run into a bunch of Walkers, I could just make a necklace out of ears. That would be very fashionable.” 

You winked at Daryl, and he flipped you off - though you knew he didn’t mean anything harsh by it, seeing as it was paired with a small smile that he was unable to hold back at your comment. 

“Asshole.” He mumbled under his breath. 

“I heard that!” 

(For some reason, this made him smile harder.) 

… 

Despite what Daryl believed, you were comfortable in the woods. 

You had spent a lot of your childhood camping - he likely would have called it ‘glamping’ (if he knew what that word was). Your family spent a lot of weekends in an RV, driving off to remote areas to go fishing or so that your father could go hunting. You spent a lot of time off in some cabin deep in the woods with no TV reception, playing around in the trees with a stick, making mud pies for fun. 

You knew the reason that you seemed so naive in Daryl’s eyes was because you spent all those childhood experiences very hands-off. Your father was a wicked control freak of a man who never let you touch anything, despite how many times you voiced wanting to learn. 

He insisted that your family have ‘happy’ family outings - he insisted that you get your ass in the boat while he was fishing, he insisted that you eat the game that he shot while out hunting, he insisted that you get out in nature because it was what he had done as a child. But he would never let you touch a fishing rod, he would never let you hold a gun to hunt or set a snare. He always told you it was because you were ‘too stupid’ and you would inevitably mess things up. 

So before Daryl had started teaching you the basics, you didn’t know how to read a map, you didn’t know how to start a fire, and you had been learning how to fix vehicles only because of Dale. Your mother was the one who insisted that you learn how to ride a horse because it was something she had learned during her childhood. (It had spawned a wicked argument between your parents that you didn’t want to think about.) 

But nonetheless, you felt comfortable by yourself in the quiet of the woods. It was a quiet you had come to enjoy throughout your childhood. 

It was why your ears immediately picked up on something - a particular noise - standing out from that quiet. The gentle thrashing of cicadas, the quiet bustle of leaves in the breeze, but then, something else. Crying. Distinctly - the sound of someone crying. 

You hopped off the horse that Maggie had given you and tied the saddle to a nearby tree, taking Daryl’s advice to get off and having a look on foot. 

And sure enough - you soon came to a small cliff, at the base of which there was a small rocky indenture that could have been considered a small cave. It was something that you might have passed by when perched so high on the horse. 

When you crouched down and got even lower on your hands and knees- 

“Sophia?” 

You almost couldn’t believe your luck. You had been riding for less than an hour, and fuck - there she was. 

She was curled up with her back to you, likely crying out of upset from being separated from her mother for so long, being scared and alone. Even covered in dirt - you recognized that blue tee shirt that she had been wearing when she had run off. And it’s not like there would be some other little girl hiding out in these woods. 

“Sophia.” You called her name a little firmer, in case she hadn’t heard you, or she was fatigued from the whole ordeal and needed a little extra jolt to awaken her attention toward you. It was then that her head turned and she gazed at you with two large teary eyes. 

“Y/N?” She hiccuped sorrowfully. “Wh-where’s my mom?” 

“Your mom is waiting for you,” You grinned at her, extending your arms out to invite her toward you - and she began crawling out to meet you. “Everybody set up camp at a farm just off the highway so we could look for you.” 

“I thought you were gonna leave me.” She sobbed, sitting upright and jumping into your arms - you couldn’t help but embrace her in a tight hug. 

Relief flooded your system, and though you knew that she was scared, hungry, and definitely dehydrated by now, you couldn’t be happier to have her in your arms - alive. To know that Carol would feel the same relief in such a short time. 

“Nobody was gonna leave you.” You assured her. 

You hated that it was a partial lie. But of course you weren’t going to tell her about Shane’s pessimism and Rick’s liability to fall for the ramblings of his best friend. They would all feel foolish when you rode back with her on the horse. And you would be happy to prove them wrong. 

Then, something else came to mind. 

“Are you hurt?” You asked, pulling away from the hug to inspect her. A secondary terror spiked your system. If she had been bitten - you didn’t know that you would be up to the task of ‘doing what needed to be done’ as Daryl had put it. 

“My ankle.” She said, motioning to her foot. Upon further examination, it was swollen so tightly that it looked more than painful, cartoonishly bulged over the edge of her shoe. The sight of it made you wince. “I fell down.” 

“Okay, well - one of the people at the farm is a doctor. So he’ll be able to fix you right up.” You smiled at her. “But you didn’t get scratched or - you didn’t get touched by any of the Walkers?” You asked, wanting to be sure. 

“I hid from them.” She assured you. “I was running away, and - and I got lost, and I couldn’t find my way back, and that’s when it got dark, and-” She broke into more sobs, and you reached out to hug her again. 

“It’s okay.” You assured her. “It’s okay, I’m gonna take you to your mom now.” 

“Look out!” Sophia screamed this in your ear suddenly, pointing a finger to something behind your back. 

Your heart thumped in your chest, panicked, and then, with an instinct you didn’t even know you had, you reached to the handle of the knife - Daryl’s knife on your belt. You pushed Sophia away, whipping around in order to jab the knife toward the danger. 

The first time you hit the Walker somewhere in the middle of its torso, and the second time you locked onto two disgusting yellow eyes - and you jabbed the knife right between them. Within seconds, all the movement in the Walker went limp, and it fell to the ground - and you let out a huff (not even fully knowing that you had been holding your breath) as you pulled the bloody knife out of its skull. 

“I got it.” You said, feeling victorious as you looked over your shoulder toward Sophia - who was shell-shocked and very tearful once again. “Let’s just… get on the horse and go back to the house, okay?” 

“There’s a horse?” 

You gave Sophia your canteen and she drank the entirety of the water during the ride back, and by the time the sun was setting, you were emerging from the trees with her sitting on the front of the saddle. 

On top of the RV, Dale and Andrea were having a dispute about who was supposed to be on watch. One especially heated after the debacle of Andrea accidentally shooting Daryl in the head. 

“Just give me - give me those! Give me those!” Andrea snapped, taking the binoculars from Dale. 

The man acquiesced to her fierce will, and he nodded, putting his hands up in surrender as he walked toward the edge of the RV to descend the ladder. 

Andrea put the binoculars to her face and looked out upon the fields, and what she saw shocked her more than the bloodied Daryl that she had mistaken as a lone Walker. 

“Oh my god.” Andrea gasped. 

“What?” Dale whipped back around, obviously thinking that something was wrong. “What? What?!” 

Andrea took down the binoculars and turned to Dale with a look of pure shock. 

“It’s Sophia.” 

… 

A short time later, everyone was gathered in the living room, an odd air of dread and tension having fallen over the group. It seemed that nobody else shared your joyous relief, as they were all anxious to hear it from Hershel’s mouth that Sophia was going to be fine. It was a case of waiting for the other shoe to drop, of course. 

It wasn’t long before Hershel came out of the downstairs bedroom to grace everyone with the news. 

“How’s she doin’?” Lori asked, practically trampling the man before he even had a chance to close the door behind himself. “Is she gonna be okay?” 

“Well - the girl is quite dehydrated after the adventure she’s been on,” He said, pressing that word, using it quite liberally. “But - after some IV fluids and rest, I don’t see any reason why she won’t make a full recovery.” 

Lori burst into tears. The previously silent room became a muddle of relieved sighs, delighted chatter, and more tears - and the joy you had somehow been suppressing exploded inside of you tenfold. As you looked around at everyone hugging and celebrating, you realized that there was just one person missing from the scene. 

The man who had made it possible to find her in the first place. 

You knew that Daryl should be resting because of his injuries - but what he should be doing, and what he usually did weren’t two things that often coincided. You wandered out the front door while everyone was distracted by the exchange of hugs and the general relief of the whole situation, and you weren’t surprised to find Daryl sitting in front of his tent, poking at a low-flamed fire with a long stick. 

You were slightly surprised to see him sitting up - but if you weren’t mistaken, his shirt was licked with blood on the side where his stitches would be underneath. So he was aggravating the wound and simply ignoring the consequences. Very predictable for him. 

“Hey.” You greeted him casually as you walked up. 

He didn’t bother to take his eyes off the flames, and after a quiet moment, he quietly spoke. 

“She okay?” He croaked out - his typical meditative speech. No more words than he needed. You liked that about him. 

“She’s great.” You answered. “You were right. She’s gonna eat a good meal and sleep in a warm bed tonight, and she’s gonna wake up next to her mother. She is gonna be more than fine.” 

If you weren’t mistaken, the small flinch at the side of his mouth - something that could have been taken for a tic in his cheek muscle - it was a genuine smile at the idea of Sophia actually being okay. A smile at something actually turning out well for the group. 

“And it’s all thanks to you.” You added on, taking the opportunity to give him genuine praise where it was due.  

Daryl shook his head. “Nah.” 

“Come on.” You sighed, crossing your arms. “You pointed to a place on the map, I went there, I found her. That’s all you.” 

Daryl rolled his eyes. “Maybe you’re just lucky.” 

You knew he was being snarky, but you couldn’t help leaning into it. 

“I am.” You grinned at him. 

He sighed harshly, shaking his head. He resisted the urge to argue, not wanting to ruin the general air of happiness at Sophia coming home alive. 

“But the knife did help.” You had to admit it - he had been right about forcing you to take it. You took it off your belt and extended it out back toward him, and he hesitated for a moment, perhaps wanting you to keep it for your own protection - and then he took it back. 

“Told ya it would.” He grumbled quietly. 

Before you could form some clever reply, you heard the front door of the house open once again, and you were surprised when Carol came marching toward you. You thought for certain that she would be attached to Sophia’s side after such an ordeal, but soon enough, she was sweeping you into a tearful hug. 

“Thank you.” She wept into your shoulder. “Thank you, thank you so much. You found my daughter - you brought her home.” 

“Oh. I…” You weren’t really sure how to respond. “It wasn’t all me. Daryl told me where to look. He was the one who followed the trail.” 

Again - you had to give him the credit where it was due. 

“Of course.” Carol nodded, pulling away from squeezing you and moving toward Daryl. 

He jumped up from his camping chair so fast that he knocked it over, nearly tripping over himself in an effort to escape her thankful affection. A tense silence fell over the three of you as he gripped at his side, and he stared her down with wide eyes like a deer caught in a hunter’s cross-hairs. 

“I got stitches.” He mumbled out, clearly looking for an excuse as to why he couldn’t be hugged in the same way. 

“Okay.” Carol replied meekly. “I still want to thank you for everything that you’ve done for my daughter.” 

“Yeah.” Daryl nodded. “Welcome.” 

…

Even if Daryl didn’t know it then, helping to bring Sophia home truly cemented his place in the group. If it wasn’t a truth in everyone’s eyes, it was you whispering it to them, hammering home the fact that he was more than worthy - not as some kind of politician, but because you truly believed in him. 

And while you spent time rooting for him, he became an iron clad wall behind you. He continued teaching you every single skill he could, imparting all of his knowledge. And while you had insisted on returning his knife to him, he realized that a bothersome nuisance was that you didn’t have a good knife of your own. 

And he needed to make sure that you got one. 

Things were always subtle with him. He never went out of his way to make it seem like he was intentionally being nice to you or giving you a gift. He always made it seem like it was a coincidence - a side effect of whatever else was happening at the time. If the two of you went hunting together, he was teaching you because it was practical, because he had to. 

If he picked a flower out of the ground and tucked it behind your ear, it was because he claimed you smelled bad and it would dampen ‘the stank comin’ off you’ - not because it was meant to be any kind of affectionate gesture. If he made sure that you got a little bit extra on your plate that night, it was because he didn’t like the particular kind of game he had picked up, or because he was giving you ‘the worst parts’. Not because he was trying to make sure that you ate more in order to stay healthy and keep from going hungry. 

So when he gifted you a hunting knife of your own, it was entirely by mistake, of course. 

You didn’t know that he had been on the lookout for one with the intention of giving it to you for weeks. He wanted you to be able to protect yourself, and to be able to gut and skin your own kills properly now that you were learning to hunt. And in order to do that, you needed a good knife of your own. 

It just so happened that he found the perfect one while the two of you were out on a formula run for Little Asskicker. The kid was only a few days old and had lungs like a professional opera singer, wailing loud enough to shake the prison walls every few hours, and she was going through enough formula to fill up a mac truck. At least, that’s what it seemed like. 

The stuff that Maggie and Daryl had gotten just after she had been born had only lasted about a week. So now, you were out with Daryl once again, raiding a small rest stop that the two of you had seen nearby while out on a hunt. 

So far, the trip had been pretty successful. 

After struggling to get through the heavily padlocked and gated front door, Daryl boosted you through a higher up back window - which left you impressed by his strength and slightly afraid to fall on the other side (and then grossed out by the state of the bathroom that you ended up in). You got the gate up from the inside and found the keys to the padlocks on the dead owner (sitting in his office chair with a bullet in his head beside a very typical scrawl on the wall about hopelessness that you tried to ignore). And soon, Daryl unlocked the chains and then the two of you were in. 

Turns out that the security had been a deterrent for other people, and the place was relatively untouched. The two of you made off like bandits. Medicine, bandages, canned food, bottled water, juice, and of course - plenty of baby formula. Daryl even found a spare car battery that would work for one of the vehicles, and a half full can of gas. 

You were celebrating your haul with a handful of jellybeans each, smiling to each other, when Daryl noticed something. The molding corpse of the owner, now nothing but dried out skin husking against the bones with tattered old clothes rotting on top - had a very nice leather knife holster on his belt. 

Some things really do withstand the test of time. 

He necked down the rest of his candy, and as he chewed, he stepped into the office and you cringed as he reached for the dead man. 

“What are you doing?” You asked. 

“Thas a nice knife.” He mumbled in return, causing an awful crunching sound as he peeled the holster off the corpse. 

You had to admire him - where everyone else saw decay, he saw possibilities. 

He took the knife out of the holster and admired it for a moment, and sure enough - it was a damn nice bowie knife. It would need to be sharpened, but things like this last a lifetime. It would be perfect for you. He took out his bandana and wiped it off a bit, getting off any of the decay or dead skin that the previous owner had gotten on it, and then, he turned to you. 

“Here.” He said, holding it out to you. “You need one.” 

You did have a knife on you - a small pocket knife that Maggie had lent you for the trip out. Though you knew it was a nice gesture in Daryl’s mind, you were slightly hesitant to take something that had come off a corpse. 

“No, I don’t-” You huffed, trying to deny it. 

Next, Daryl did something that entirely shocked you, causing any protests to easily die off in your throat. 

He stepped forward, crowding into your personal space with his tall, looming presence - hot, sweaty skin lurking on every inch of him, warm breath that lingered partially with cigarettes and the sugar he had just consumed becoming absolutely apparent under your nose. And then, he lifted up the edge of your shirt, causing sharp tingles all through your body when his knuckles brushed across the bare skin of your hip as he forcefully slatted the holster onto the edge of your pants. 

His eyes were sharply locked on your hip, refusing to look at you, busying himself with securing it and then straightening the fabric of your shirt behind it so that you would have easy access to it in case you needed it. But your gaze was hard locked on the side of his face, only inches from yours. And you knew that he could feel how thick the air had gotten between the two of you. That he hadn’t missed the tiny gasp you had let out the second his skin had brushed against yours. 

“Daryl-” You said his name quietly, a whispered prayer, and before you could wander any further into dangerous territory, he easily cut you off. 

“There.” He grunted out, stepping back, breaking off the tedious moment. “Now you got one.” 

Before things could swim any further into that murky territory, he moved back to the bags the two of you had packed full of supplies, forcefully busying himself with taking them out to secure onto his bike. 

That moment left you thinking about his hands for hours after, days after - and you still thought about that moment occasionally when you used the knife. 

Strangely enough, you didn’t work up the courage to kiss him for the first time until much later, still lingering with the belief that he might reject you, even after that heated moment. 

…

It wasn’t long before news got around to the rest of the group that you and Sophia were in Alexandria, alive and well. You were greeted with many tight hugs, excited chattering, and you were introduced to the new people who had helped the group along the way and seemed to have cemented themselves into the family now. 

Quickly the idea came about that everyone should gather for a big family dinner - much like the one that was held to celebrate Sophia coming out of the woods alive and well. 

Even though it was something that had peeved you earlier, ultimately you were glad that Olivia hadn’t put the deer meat in the freezer, because it meant that you were able to treat everyone to something fresh. On top of that, when you had first arrived in Alexandria, Aiden had gifted you a few bottles of wine with some cheeky line about ‘sharing’ them with you whenever you wanted, and they had been gathering dust in a cabinet somewhere - so you could think of no better occasion to open them. Soon, you were all sitting in the living room of the house that Rick and company had been sleeping in - sleeping bags and blankets cleaned up in favor of a jumble of mismatched tables and chairs thrown together to make a long dining table that would fit the entire group. 

Surrounding the table was the whole group - Rick, Michonne, and Carl who was holding sweet little Judith on his knee (someone you had been so excited to see again). Beth and her new friend Noah (who were not-so-subtly holding hands underneath the table). Maggie and Glenn (who had hugged you so tight upon seeing you and refused to let go for nearly a full minute), their new friends Abraham, Rosita, Tara, and Eugene. Sasha, Bob (who looked happier than ever somehow) and Tyreese. 

And to round out the table, Carol sitting close by to Sophia with an arm wrapped lovingly around her daughter. Daryl was sitting next to you with a hand so shamelessly on your thigh - something that he never would have done before that you absolutely loved. As you looked around, all you saw was family - even in the people you didn’t fully know yet. You knew from Glenn and Beth’s words that the new people were nothing but good - and that was more than good enough for you. 

Radiating through you was nothing but pure joy. You truly didn’t know how things could get any better than this. 

“Well, I would like to propose a toast to our host,” Abraham said, rising up out of his seat and raising the plastic cup that he had filled with wine toward you. 

“Technically, Rick is our host,” You reminded him, nodding toward the man who looked so odd when he was clean shaven. It felt so strange to see his naked face. 

“Hey, this has only been my house for a day.” Rick replied with a shrug. “You can take full credit for giving us the best damn welcome wagon ever. This is a pretty fine spread you managed to put together on such short notice.” 

“Well, in my book, anybody who brings such good grub and such prime booze is the host,” Abraham argued lightly, giving a grin. “Plus, you were crawling around in the woods and shot down this buck so we could eat it. That deserves a thanks.” 

“Well, you’re welcome.” You shrugged in return. 

Everyone else raised their glasses in a slightly disorganized chorus of ‘thanks’, and Abraham accepted this and sat back down. You felt almost too humble and too embarrassed to accept it. You didn’t think that providing food for your family was all too big of a deal. 

“Dude, I’m just happy to be eating something that’s not from a can.” Tara added on with a grin. 

“I’m just happy that we’re all together again,” Bob replied with a smile. 

“Cheesy.” Sasha scolded him lovingly, rolling her eyes. 

“Well, I’m not the only one deserving of thanks.” You shrugged, feeling a need to deflect some of that embarrassment. “Daryl taught me how to hunt.” You explained, giving him a pat on the thigh to affirm the credit in his direction. “I wouldn’t even know how to hold a knife properly if it wasn’t for him.” 

Carol smirked. “That’s always your story, isn’t it?” She mocked you gently. “‘Daryl showed me the map.’ ‘Daryl taught me how to build a fire without matches.’ ‘Daryl taught me how to hotwire a car.’” She said, performing a mocking imitation of your voice. 

Sophia let out a gentle laugh at this, having heard this plenty of times from you while on the road together. 

This time, you could see Daryl shrinking back into his seat slightly with embarrassment, his eyes purposefully fixated on his empty plate instead of looking at anybody else around the table. 

“Well, it’s true.” You replied. 

… 

You thought back to a time shortly after you and Sophia had escaped the prison alive. You had tried looking for the others, and found nothing but the stalled prison bus, surrounded by corpses. The two of you were tired, broken down, starving - luckily, you and Daryl kept some hunting supplies outside the fence for when the two of you went hunting, including the spare crossbow that he had fixed up to teach you with. 

So you had managed to snag a few squirrels and gut them just as night fell, and you started a fire with the flint and steel with minimal difficulty as he had taught you. 

“Daryl taught you all this stuff, huh?” Sophia wondered aloud as she watched you put the flayed squirrels, now skewered onto sticks, over the fire to be cooked. 

“Yeah.” You confirmed gently. “I’m certainly glad he did.” 

You didn’t let yourself wonder where Daryl was, if he was okay. You couldn’t imagine that someone like him would be easily taken down by Walkers, not with how you had seen him handle himself. Anybody could be blown apart by a thousand pound tank or smashed by falling concrete, even if they were as skilled and vigilant as him. 

But you refused to let yourself think about it. You refused to worry about going back to pick over ashes just to have some confirmation - because there wouldn’t be any. You had to believe he was alive, or not even think about him at all. 

You had to take care of Sophia. 

A rattle in the leaves behind you caught your attention, and you grabbed your crossbow without any hesitation. You whipped around and pointed it toward the source of the sound, and soon found yourself staring down a random man. He didn’t hesitate to walk closer to your makeshift campsite, clearly unafraid of you even with your weapon raised. 

He was obviously someone who had been outside a long time - his clothes dirty and tattered, his teeth rotting as he gave you a filthy smile. 

“What do we have here? Hmm?” He greeted you in an oddly calm way - perhaps his attempt at mocking kindness. 

A general sense of unease caused all of your hair to stand on end. 

“Sophia,” You called her name gently, getting her attention, and in a moment, she was at your back, standing behind you while you stayed guarded. 

“Y/N-” She said your name quietly, grasping at the back of your shirt. 

“It’s okay.” You assured her, keeping the man locked in your sights as he came to fully stand in the light of the fire that you had made. 

“Oh, it is okay.” The man chuckled. “I assure you that I don’t mean any harm.” 

He gave another filthy smile - not just dirty by the color of his teeth, but something deeply unsettling that made your stomach twist with disgust. 

“I’m only looking for a kind person to share the night with. Perhaps I can share the warmth of your fire, and we can make friends.” 

He peered around you then, and eyed Sophia heavily with a look that made you all too certain your next move. 

You pulled the trigger on your bow and shot him, the arrow landing perfectly in the hollow of his neck - he sputtered on his own blood for a moment, and then fell to the ground. You felt regretful that Sophia had to witness it, but you knew that sadly, during her time at the prison, she had seen similar or even worse things. 

Once you were sure that he was dead, you walked over to his corpse and pulled out the arrow, and stabbed him in the temple with it to make sure that he stayed down. And then, almost hearing Daryl’s voice in your ear telling you what to do next, you began looking over his corpse for anything useful. His backpack held a few cans of food, and the knife on his belt wasn’t too bad. You gave it to Sophia and reminded her to tuck her shirt behind it as her mother had instructed. 

After you dragged the body far enough away so that it wouldn’t be an eyesore, the two of you enjoyed some canned spinach alongside the squirrels for dinner. 

…

“He knows a lot of very practical stuff and I’m lucky that he’s taught me so much.” You added on, not even realizing how much praise dripped through your voice as you spoke about Daryl. “It’s a huge reason that me and Sophia survived out there for so long. I was able to get us food and fix vehicles for us to get along because of what Daryl taught me. Back at the beginning of all this, I would have been so helpless and… probably dead if I had gotten stranded out there by myself.” 

You felt Daryl’s eyes on you, thoughtfully fixed on the side of your face, and he gently squeezed your thigh. It warmed him to the core to know that he had given you a gift - that he had kept you and Sophia alive with the proxy of his knowledge and skills, even if he couldn’t be there to protect you and provide for you himself. In a way, he had kept you fed and safe all that time. 

It was so sweet that you felt a devilish temptation curling up in you. 

“And you know, him being cute is just a bonus.” You added on with a grin - knowing that it would tickle him with embarrassment that you had loudly, affectionately announced this in front of the group. 

And it worked. 

“Aw, shove it.” Daryl scoffed, reaching up to shove your shoulder. 

But you didn’t get very far away, didn’t get to fall off your chair completely before he took the hand off your thigh and wrapped that arm around your neck, pulling you close and smothering your cheek in a few beard-scratchy kisses, making you cringe and smile all at the same time. 

This was a brand new, openly affectionate side of Daryl that you had never seen before. He had missed you for so long and he certainly wasn’t wasting making up for lost time. 

Fuck, you really loved him. 

“You know, Dixon, I never woulda guessed that you off all people would be saddled up.” Andraham commented. 

“Yeah, you never mentioned Y/N before,” Rosita added on, clearly curious as to why Daryl had never mentioned you. 

Beth gave Daryl a very knowing look as he reached for his glass of wine and finished it off, and Daryl felt lucky when someone else spoke up before he could. 

“We all saw it coming. Him getting ‘saddled up’, that is.” Michonne added on with a smile. “Carl owes me a Baby Ruth, though.” 

“The over-under was two years,” Carl hissed quietly in reply. 

Rick glared at them, and any further discussion about this bet was silenced. 

“You never told us how you got out.” Glenn piped up, suddenly curious about this. “The prison was utter chaos, if I had known that someone else was alive in A-Block, I would have-” 

“It’s not your fault.” You pressed. “It’s actually a really crazy story.” 

“Well please - do tell.” Sasha said. 

… 

Chaos. Noise. 

Being woken from the deepest unconsciousness of your life, still coughing up ugly yellow mucus and nearly having large chunks of the concrete ceiling fall on top of you due to an apparent explosion - definitely not one of your best days. Your vision was a clumpy haze due to the sickness you were still battling and you had to forcefully, bloodily rip out the IV that Hershel had put in you in order to try and navigate through it all. You climbed over the fallen bits of the building, stumbling around with a dizzy, weak body to climb down what was left of the stairs and partially falling down to the ground floor. 

“He - hell - o?!” Your efforts to call out for help were damped by coughing and the general chaos around you - the sounds of more explosions and a hail of gunfire that you could barely form panic over because your head was pounding and you still felt so fucking ill. 

You needed to find Daryl. You needed to find somebody. 

The prison bus. That was the plan if things ever went wrong. 

You moved toward the exit and found that the main hallway was blocked by more debris, but a splintering path that you knew led toward the library wasn’t. Even in your hazy state, you remembered the fact that Carol had a very large trunk in the library filled with emergency supplies. Water, dry rations, and knives that she had been teaching the kids with. Even if you couldn’t get to the bus, you could get those supplies and get out on foot. The others would likely be camping somewhere along the highway when the bus eventually ran out of gas, so you could catch up to them - eventually. 

It was the best plan you could come up with on such short notice, so you stumbled your way toward the library, and as soon as you opened the door - another explosion rocked the building, causing one of the tall, unsecured bookshelves to come tumbling down on top of you. You ended up flat on your back with the large shelf crushing you, leaving you as perfect bait for Walkers that were likely being lured by all that noise outside. 

Though you were already weak from illness, you did try to move your arms - and you found out that only one of them wasn’t completely pinned down by the shelf. It was a completely futile effort to try and lift the thing off yourself. Between the weight on top of your lungs and the way the illness had weakened your system - you soon passed out. 

When you drifted back into consciousness, the noise had greatly lessened. There was the faint growling of Walkers - cordoned off unintentionally in some other area of the prison - but there were no more explosions, and no more gun fire. 

The first thing that caught your eye was something bright red. You focused your eyes to focus, and you quickly realized that it was a picture of a red cardinal. A hand-drawn sketch on the front of a book titled ‘Birds of North America’ that was on one of the other shelves. It was tipped perfectly into the line of your vision, as if meant for you to see. 

Before you could futilely try to lift the shelf off yourself again, you heard a voice. 

“Hello? Is anyone in here?” 

You quickly recognized who it was. 

“So-Sophia?” You called back, barking out another cough that strained your words. Luckily, she heard you. 

You were soon greeted by the sight of her legs rushing toward you. Though you had no clue how such a waifish girl would ever be able to lift the bookcase off you, you were at least relieved that you were no longer alone. 

“What happened?” She asked, kneeling down to speak to you. 

“Stupid thing fell on me.” You wheezed quietly. “I came in here looking for your mom’s stash. I’m guessing you had the same idea?” 

“Yeah.” She confirmed. “Can you get this thing off you?” 

“Yeah. I was just having a leisurely lie down underneath a bookshelf.” 

Sophia rolled her eyes at your sarcasm. 

“Guess I’ll just leave you here then.” She remarked, battling back with her own sarcasm, clearly having no intentions of doing so. 

“Well you might have to… I have no clue how you’re gonna lift this thing off me.” You admitted quietly, hating how defeated you sounded. 

“I think I have an idea.” 

You were curious what she meant, and you couldn’t quite see what she was doing as she stepped out of your eyeline and made some noise, shuffling around to grab something. Then she came back with a long wooden beam - a shelf she had broken off of one of the other fallen bookcases. She stacked up a few of the books, making a hinging point, and then stuck the beam underneath the bookcase and somehow - using all her bodyweight, she was able to push it off you for long enough for you to crawl out from underneath it. 

“Thanks, kid.” You smiled at her as you sucked in greedy breaths. 

“Glenn taught me that.” She smiled back. “He said it’s basic physics.” 

“I’ll remember to thank him when I see him.” You said. 

… 

Sitting at the dinner table, you then turned to Glenn. 

“That reminds me,” You said. “Thanks for that.” 

Glenn chuckled. “Happy to help.” 

“Okay, okay, I’ve just one question,” Rick piped up. “Why did you have a stash of weapons in the library, Carol?” 

Carol took a long sip of wine, pointedly avoiding the question. 

“Oh shit, he never found out about storytime, did he?” Carl chuckled, obviously directing this question toward Carol. 

“Storytime?” Rick echoed, eyeing his son heavily, clearly confused. 

You cut them off, not wanting to get Carol in trouble for her proactive teaching a bit too late. 

“Okay, let’s all just be happy that we’re together and that we’ve had a nice meal.” You said. “I’m not doing dishes. You guys have fun with that. Come on, Daryl, I’ve got somethin’ to show you.” You made your exit, getting up from the table and hoping he would follow - which he did, making way to push out his chair. 

“Is it your bare ass?” Abraham joked, clearly at least a bit drunk. 

“Abraham!” Rosita chastised him with a gentle smack. 

“What? I think it’s cute that Dixon’s all shacked up.” He replied with a chuckle. 

“You’re lucky he doesn’t punch your lights out for that one.” Tara remarked. 

“Nah, you’re safer with Y/N around.” Maggie commented. “He gets all soft when he’s around Y/N. It is cute.” 

“Oh, if you think this is cute just wait til I tell you about what they were like back at the prison.” Michonne added on. “He used to bring Y/N dead squirrels like a cat dropping dead mice at someone’s doorstep. I have no clue how such an odd form of flirting actually worked.” 

“Well, some people like dead squirrels, some people like toothpaste.” Rick replied. 

And that was the last of the conversation you heard before you closed the front door behind you, going off down the street with Daryl in tow to show him your place. 

When you took him up the porch of another manicured house and opened the door, he quietly croaked out: 

“This ‘ur place?” 

“Yeah.” 

You told him, shoving your boots off, not wanting to get dirt on the clean rugs inside. Daryl felt a bit strange taking his shoes off - knowing that his overly worn socks had holes in them, but still, he followed suit. He knew you wouldn’t judge him for something as petty as his socks having holes in them, after all. 

“This is where me and Sophia have been living. But there’s always room for one more. If you’re done snuggling up next to Rick on the living room floor,” You couldn’t let another opportune joke escape you, and Daryl rolled his eyes. 

“Asshole.” He gently scoffed. 

Though the two of you had never slept in the same bed together before. And he couldn’t help but to love the idea of being curled up next to you at night. He found that he also loved the idea of waking up next to you every morning - especially after going for so long without seeing your face. You walked up the stairs and he couldn’t help but to follow you, and he was surprised when you didn’t lead him to bed - but instead, went to the back of a hallway, and pulled down a latch. 

This unleashed some stairs that led to the attic, leading the two of you up even higher. He found himself shamelessly admiring the view of your ass as he followed you up the stairs, and when he emerged into the dark attic (only lit by a few strokes of moonlight coming in through the small window) - he was surprised by what he saw. He had to crouch down on his hands and knees to be comfortable, and he quickly adjusted to sit down on his ass as you had. 

It appeared that you had built a watchtower of sorts up here. 

There was a telescope set up in the small window, and off to one side, there was a cork board with a hand-drawn map of the surrounding area, a few notebooks sitting in the corner that you likely wrote down observances in. Posted on the cork board - there were names of all the residences in town, and you had written down certain traits beside each of them. Along with a hand drawn map of the town itself and names on the houses, indicating where everyone lived. 

“So you’re gettin’ paranoid?” Daryl joked. 

“No.” You scoffed. “Besides, you should know that a healthy level of paranoia is necessary these days.” 

It was in that moment that it truly hit Daryl - you had taught him to be hopeful, even if he hadn’t fully known it at the time. And he had taught you to be less naive, to be firmer in order to survive. The two of you were only alive, only able to have the privilege of being in each other’s presence now because you had accepted those pieces of the other person that kept you alive. 

“Ain’t that right.” He replied. “Why did you wanna show me?” 

You shrugged. “I thought you might like it.” 

Daryl couldn’t hold back his grin - one of the most genuine smiles you had ever seen come from him. He did like it. He liked that he had made a little fighter out of you. But at the same time, nothing had snubbed out the perfect spark that he had fallen in love with. Your smile, your laughter, the brightness in your eyes - somehow, it was all still the same. It made him love you even more somehow. 

“I guess I also wanted to thank you.” You added on. “I meant what I said before. You taught me so much - I would have been clueless without you. I would have starved to death and been blind, and lost and stupid without everything that you taught me.” You declared passionately. “You kept me fed and sheltered and warm, and I don’t know how much I could thank you for that.” 

Daryl began to get choked up, and he hated that for the second time that day, more tears swelled in his eyes. 

He knew that in a different way, you had kept him fed, sheltered, and warm too. You had kept his soul from dying out in those woods - you had kept his spirit fed on the idea of hope that he never would have conceived as something real before he had met you.

He couldn’t bring himself to put it into words. So instead, he found himself reaching out toward you. He put a firm hand under your jaw and guided you toward him; you easily fell limp to the touch and let yourself be guided toward his mouth once again. 

This was much less of a surprise than the earlier kiss. This was much warmer, like sinking into the hot shower had been earlier that day. Only this was much, much better. You let out a gentle moan as you let yourself feel it, simply enjoying the tingling sensation throughout your body, gripping into the lapels of his vest, crawling forward to sit in his lap as your mouth embraced his. 

After a moment, you pulled away. There was only one thing on your mind, one incomplete thread that you had been thinking about since you had lost him at the prison. 

“I love you too.” 

Daryl grunted in reply and pulled your mouth back to his. 

For once in his life, he didn’t feel like a fool for letting himself hope. 

That night, Daryl went to sleep in your bed. 

For the first time in far too long, he got to wake up knowing that you were alive and well - he had the privilege of being greeted by the sound of your even, calm breaths. You slept on his chest long after he awoke, and he let you. He was greedy and starved for your touch, soaking in the feeling of your warmth half on top of him, nosing over the top of your head to enjoy your natural scent mixed lightly with the smell of soap. 

As the sun rose over the walls of Alexandria, Daryl noticed a streak of red flash by and land on the roof of a house beside yours. Through the window, he saw it there perfectly - the red cardinal that you had gifted him with for luck, the symbol that had guided him all the way here, all the way back to you.  

He couldn’t help it, then - he grinned to himself. 

The next day, he found one of those picture frames that Aaron had gifted the group with that they largely had no use for, and he put your picture of the bird, still singed on one edge, inside of it. 

A while later, when the two of you were out on a run and he had a bit of time on his hands as you fell asleep - he edged a stick n poke tattoo into the skin of his forearm, outlining the bird as best he could with his very little artistic talent. When you saw it, you giggled - and he assured you that it was because he liked the look of it, most definitely not for luck. 

He didn’t need ‘luck’ anymore - not when he had you.

...

A/N: This is a stand-alone oneshot, and there will not be a follow up or a 'Part 2'. I have always intended for this to be a stand-alone story, so please do not ask for a follow up or a sequel in the comments. If you are going to comment, please comment about the material that has already been written. If you want to see more TWD fics from me, I have some posted on AO3 (which is linked in my pinned) but I don't currently have any of my other TWD fics posted on Tumblr. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this!

[excelsior-dreamer]

1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 13 Andrew, All For The Game

clara i’d die for you

1. What was your first impression?

I’d been hearing about him from the fandom long before I read the books, so I was like. cautiously fond? He was such a bastard in the first book but I had sort of been forewarned about why he was that way so I also understood? idk I had a very mixed reaction to him

2. Any striking characteristics or moments of them that come to mind?

This man is. so endlessly loyal oh my god. It’s part of why he’s one of my favourite characters - I’ve always been a sucker for characters who care more about their friends/found family than themselves (yes it’s the projection leave me alone)

3. What is the most appealing quality of them to you?

See above!

7. How would you summarize the character in a sentence?

Knife cat

9. What do you think is this character’s greatest fear?

I think Nora said heights but I’m gonna call bullshit bc have you seen the way this man reacts to vulnerability?? Hello???

13. What are your favorite fanfics with them?

Clara if you’re looking for fic recs I’ve already given them all to you lmao. But! Trust Fall (And Welcoming Arms) and Doe & Josten: Deductionists by @spanglebangle, Therapy Session,  It’s Not A family Without Love, and My Brother Under the Sun, by @agapantoblu, Where Everything Is Good by iaquilam, Knives And Spoons by @annawrites, and When I Cry, It Never Laughs by Idnis are the ones that come to mind immediately

[hogarthwrites]

one thing leads to another chapter 3

pairing: samuel drake/femme!reader (m/f)

genre: romance, smut, slow burn

words: 736

summary:

You and Sam get to know each other and he begins to feel things he hasn't felt in a while.

chapters: 1 2

You rubbed your eyes as you read the passage in front of you over and over. It was way past 5 PM, and you chose to work overtime to avoid thinking about how lonely you were. 

Sam had stayed as well, reading at his desk, but as he watched you struggle to focus, he got up to make coffee.

“Here,” he placed the mug on the coaster on your desk. 

“Thanks,” you gave him a small smile as you sipped the hot drink. “I needed that.”

Sam grinned as he pulled a chair up to your desk. “Don't work yourself too hard, kid. We don't have a due date.”

“Holden’s not gonna ask about it?”

“Eh, Victor will deal with him,” Sam shrugged. “Trust me I've worked with worse rich assholes before. At least I know Holden doesn't know how to use a gun or a sword.”

“Weirdly specific, but okay,” you chuckled. “How long have you been doing all this, Sam?”

“Hm,” he sighed as he looked up. “Since I was a kid. Had a long stint in jail, but it hasn't stopped me.”

“Jail?” You raised an eyebrow and you leaned closer. “What the hell did you do?”

“It's a long story.”

“I've got time,” you said a little too enthusiastically. Truth was, you liked being around Sam and you really didn't want to go home yet. “It's just 7 PM.”

“Guess it won't hurt to give you a recap,” Sam chuckled. “Buckle down, it's quite a ride.”

You faked putting on a seatbelt, making Sam laugh before he started. That's how you learned about how he “died” in Panama, and that his brother has been doing treasure hunting gigs with Sully while Sam was stuck. 

You listened in awe as Sam told stories of Henry Avery and the adventures he had with his brother in Scotland and Madagascar. It was almost hard to believe.

“Hard to believe, huh?” Sam read your mind. 

“A little…” Your eyebrows furrowed. “So all that treasure is just gone?”

“Not exactly.” 

Sam stood up and you watched as he walked to his desk. He kneeled next to you.

“Hold out your hand.”

You held it out and he placed a few doubloons on your palm. They shined in the dim light.

“No way,” your mouth dropped. “You're telling me these are actual pirate doubloons?”

He just smiled and shrugged simply. 

“It helps keep the business afloat when times are bad,” he took them in his hands again. “This is our little secret, okay?”

You nodded, feeling proud to share something with Sam.

“Good girl,” he winked before he hid the doubloons again.

“Shouldn't you keep those in a bank or something?”

“Don't trust ‘em,” Sam sat back in his seat. “Don't worry I hid the rest somewhere else.”

“Thank you for sharing that with me,” you said softly. “Promise I won't tell anyone.”

“I hope so,” he laughed.

“But also, you can talk to me, Sam,” you added and he gave you a different look. An almost curious look. “I know it must've been difficult all those years locked away.”

“Thank you.”

Sam felt a warmth in his chest. When was the last time anyone talked to him like that?

“Oh, right,” he stood up again and walked to your desk. “My birthday's next weekend. It's not exactly a party, but we're gonna have a get-together at my place.”

“I’ll bring a present.”

“If you must know, I enjoy motorcycles,” Sam smiled. “But seriously, you don't have to.”

“Come on,” you nudged him with your foot. “It's your birthday. It should be special.”

“Well, here's my address, may I?” He picked up your pen and your sticky note pad and scribbled away. “It's gonna be at 8.”

“Can't wait,” you took the paper back. Sam’s handwriting was loopy like a doctor’s, and he drew a little heart on the bottom. 

“And with that,” Sam put his hands on his hips. “I must ask you to please go home and rest.”

You chuckled and glanced at your watch. 10 PM. Darn it. You gathered all your stuff and stood in front of Sam.

“Well, this is goodbye.”

“Message me when you're home safe, alright?” His eyes were soft as he looked at you.

“I will,” you smiled at him before turning to the door. “Goodnight, Sam.”

“Goodnight,” he replied softly as you closed the door. 

He really liked you.

[jasper-pagan-witch]

Cards to Spells

This is gonna be a long post on how I turn Magic: The Gathering cards into pop culture magic spells, so sit down, get some water, and prepare to deal with a lot. If you're not interested in this post, press "J" on your keyboard and it'll take you to the next post. If you're on mobile, sucks to be you. I will not be tucking this under a "read more" on my blog because I don't want it to be completely lost if the post or my blog is deleted in the future.

This post is part of my ever-growing MTG pop culture series. Remember to check out the MTG wiki to get familiar with the Colors and the lore. Take what resonates and works for your practice.

Big thanks and appreciation to my buddy @kaosmage, sole proprietor of the @strixhaven-biblioplex, another MTG mage who is helping me carry this niche ass magical practice. Thanks, Faust, my dear brother in magic.

My other two bits of frantic thanking go to Rabbit of @will-o-the-witch and @jumblr-protector-golem fame and to Bree of @breelandwalker and published author fame. Their stuff really helped me in the Planeswalker section.

Please note: While the in-game term is "mana", I use the term "energy" in my magical practice.

Selecting Your Card

For the purposes of this post, I challenged my follower discord server to give me colors for each primary card type: Artifact, Creature (I asked for two, actually), Enchantment, Instant, Land, Planeswalker, and Sorcery. I then took these and headed to Scryfall, one of the most complete MTG card searches available to me, to select cards from three of the four most recent sets (Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, and Streets of New Capenna).

As a personal flex, I mostly utilize Common and Uncommon cards, especially those usually overlooked in my collection because of their...unfortunately sub-par gameplay in our house rules. You aren't restricted in any card you might use as the basis for a spell or working.

There are two exceptions to the rarity and set rules I put in place, but that's because I was given a challenge mode for my planeswalker card and my land card.

Artifact: Hedgewitch's Mask (Innistrad: Midnight Hunt)

Image description begin: A digital scan of the "Hedgewitch's Mask" card from Magic: The Gathering. It is an Artifact: Equipment card for 1 White mana. It gives the equipped creature plus one power and plus one toughness. It makes it so the equipped creature can't be blocked by other creatures that have power four or greater. It costs two of any mana to equip. The flavor text reads "In Kessig, even celebration wears a fearsome face." It depicts a young human witch wearing a bone mask with antlers and twigs on her face. The twigs bear many small orange candles that are burning brightly. She stands among orange leaves as part of the Harvesttide celebrations. End image description.

My challenge for this card's development was for a White card. Originally I was going to use the Lion Sash from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, however that's a Rare card and I'm sticking to mostly Commons and Uncommons. (The Lion's Sash would make a great protection enchantment for a scarf or headscarf of any sort.)

After studying this card and musing over the concept of a protection tool, I will be deciding to create a protection enchantment to go on a face mask, because we are STILL in a fucking pandemic and it's only gotten worse in my local area. Faust also recommended that it could boost confidence and intimidation for those seeking to fight injustice. Both of these things - seeking justice and protection - fall neatly into White's philosophy, so we're all set to keep going!

Our next step is to gather our tools. For this spell, I would use the Hedgewitch's Mask card itself, my enchanting board (which I've talked about before in this series), a facemask (likely a white one), a White-aligned crystal associated with protection (for energy; I would likely use snow quartz, selenite, or moonstone), a chant or sigil meaning "protect me while I fight for justice", and possibly a marker if I would go the sigil route.

If you don't feel connected to crystals, you can draw on your own energy if you find yourself aligned with White energy or you can figure out what plants, locations, or other tools are White-aligned. Common alternatives may include casting the spell on a plain or small hill, using air- or earth-aligned things, or using foods like rice or rosemary.

Regardless, we only need one White source, so we're ready to go! I would place the energy source on the board, then put the mask and card down below it. Then I would channel energy from the source to the mask, repeating the chant (if that's my route). After that, if I wanted to do more, I would draw the sigil on the corner of the face mask, away from where I would be breathing it directly.

And with all that said and done, then you have an artifact of your own - a facemask for protection and to help you stand against injustice.

This casting pattern is one of my default go-to's when I need to cast an MTG spell - enchanting board, energy sources, energy moving, chant. I've generally found that telling the energy what it's supposed to do works very well in my magic.

Creature (Servitor/Thoughtform): Mage's Attendant (Streets of New Capenna)

Image description begin: A low-quality digital scan of the "Mage's Attendant" card from Magic: The Gathering. It is a Creature: Cat Rogue card for two generic mana and one White mana. It has a power of three and a toughness of two. When it enters the battlefield, the caster creates a Blue Creature: Wizard token with one power, one toughness, and the ability to pay one mana and sacrifice the Wizard to counter a non-creature spell unless the caster pays one mana themself. The flavor text of the card reads "Crime sometimes makes unlikely allies into lifelong friends." The image depicts a cat humanoid woman in an expensive-looking red jacket and white pants with a sword resting on her shoulder. Behind her is an archway with people coming down to join her. The closest one is likely the Wizard. End image description.

As someone who loves creating thoughtforms and servitors, I figured I would share my approach to that when I do one based off of a card. As I call myself a Wizard, this card makes perfect sense to me as a protection servitor.

Now, the difference between a servitor and a thoughtform as I understand it is sentience. A thoughtform may have a mind of their own, with their own thoughts and feelings, but a servitor may not. So what we're doing here is getting two servitors for the price of one - one that will go down first, and then the second to continue to protect as the first one goes down.

So for this one, I would opt for a White energy source associated with protection (again, snow quartz is usually my go-to), a Blue energy source associated with protection (which would be my beloved sodalite; this one is for the bonus Wizard), and a third energy source of any color. It could be my own energy (I associate myself most with Blue, Black, and Red energy in my magical workings) or it could be another source with a color I want to draw in - another White source to double down on the protection, a Blue source to help boost the Wizard, a Black source for a ruthless streak, a Red source for more power, or a Green source to double down on the community aspect of having several servitors in place for one job.

The first thing I do is design the activation and dismissal phrase, usually along the lines of the flavor text of the card. Since these two are tied together, I would give them the same phrases: "Unlikely allies, I call you for aid." for activation and "Lifelong friends, thank you for your help." for dismissal. I would give them their job in no uncertain terms and close any loopholes I could find with the wording that would make it backfire.

Since I'm not actually casting this, I won't go through the whole process of me dramatically laying across the table like an exhausted lawyer while between one and nine deities just watch in the background. But closing all of the loopholes can get so, so tiring.

Following that, I would then decide what things help them gain power. Repeated use? Leaving the card in the sunlight or moonlight? There are many, many methods available.

Finally, I would pump as much energy into the creation of the servitors as possible, bringing them into being.

Creature (Spell): Forge Boss (Streets of New Capenna)

Image description begin: A low-quality digital scan of the "Forge Boss" card from Magic: The Gathering. He is a Creature: Human Warrior for two generic mana, one Black mana, and one Red mana. He has a power of three and a toughness of four. Whenever you sacrifice one or more other creatures, he deals two damage to each opponent, but this ability only triggers once per turn. The flavor text is a quote that reads "Big furnace like this can reduce anything to ash. You got something you need reduced to ash?" He is a well-beareded man with a partially-shaven head and he's ominously holding a shovel as though he intends to use it as a weapon. He is dressed in a very dapper manner with a white button-up shirt, black trousers, a striped vest, and leather work gloves. End image description.

Yeah I used a multicolored card instead of a monoRed one. Sue me (please don't actually, I'm small and don't have much money but I WILL cry and that's a threat).

Anyway, I've decided that this card is perfect for a banishing where you've tried everything else you possibly could and none of it seems to be working fast enough. This is the full "make an effigy, burn it, scatter the ashes, SHIT UPON THE ASHES" song and dance.

So how are we gonna do this? Well, I happen to be the lucky type that lives in a house with a functioning wood stove, and also I'm a pyromaniac (you may be surprised to hear that many firefighters are). I also happen to have index cards. With that in mind, look at that, we have a Colorless source (the taglock, the future human-shaped index card), a Red source (fire), and a Black source (seething hatred). We could round the fourth one out with your own energy (provided that you're more energetic when you're pissed, like me) or through the invocation of another entity on your side (while religion and angels are typically White-aligned, demons Black-aligned, and fae Blue-aligned, individual entities may vary; always talk to them first and figure out if they even want to be involved with casting this spell).

The most important component of a spell like this is fire safety, so make sure you have a proper class fire extinguisher (the NFPA recommends at least a class A extinguisher for wood and paper), fire-resistant gloves, and other tools for working with a wood stove or other fire source.

Doodle your little human figure on the index card. Write as much information about the target as you possibly can manage.

Now, using tongs or fire-resistant gloves, pick up that index card and light that fucker up! Set it down safely in the wood stove and chant or repeatedly think something to the effect of "I am the Forge Boss. Fuck outta my life. Eat shit and die. Leave me the fuck alone. Go fuck yourself."

Watch it burn, and just let the energy leave to fuck up the person's life until they leave yours.

This is great on a psychological level as well, because by burning something representing the person you want to get rid of, it helps you release your anger and channel it into something destructive that doesn't involve physically hurting yourself or anyone/anything you care about. It's great for relief is what I'm saying.

Enchantment: Witness Protection (Streets of New Capenna)

Image description begin: A low-quality digital scan of the "Witness Protection" card from Magic: The Gathering. It's an Enchantment: Aura card for one Blue mana that enchants a creature. Enchanted creature loses all abilities and is a Green and White Creature: Citizen with base power one and base toughness one named Legitimate Businessperson. The enchanted creature loses all other colors, card types, creature types, and names. The image shows a cephalid, which is a squid person not unlike Cthulhu, with various white magical masks floating around their face. They're turned to the right, looking down at their hat and cane. The crowd around them is going to the left, none the wiser to the cephalid's machinations. End image description.

Can you tell that SNC has a chokehold on me? That was a rhetorical question.

Looking at this card, the first thing that came to mind for me was a personal ward that makes you an energy vampire. This would be an offensive protection, draining others to reinvigorate you. Yep, we're going the baneful magic route.

So what we're looking for are Blue energy sources that can be used for baneful and beneficial magic. And lucky for us, there are two that stick right out to me: blueberry thorns and amethyst.

There have been way too many spells in these examples that require speaking, so let's switch it up and make this a nonverbal enchantment. We're gonna sit down with our tool in question (if you're using blueberry thorns, you may want to seal them in a small jar with a corkscrew lid instead of unleashing them in your pockets; they're easier to clean up and move that way) and focus on them. Focus on how they're going to help us draw energy from around us into ourselves to keep us going through the day. Once the energy has felt properly spun around and around (or whatever a properly enchanted item feels like to you, if you feel energy) or you're just tired of sitting, put your little energy straw into your pocket and go about your day.

Naturally, this will draw ANY energy into you. The rancid vibes of your shitty boss. The weird backrooms of your work where three people have gone missing. Your creepy coworker. But hey, we're here to make an energy vampire enchantment, not to actually cast it. We're just here to see how I'd make the card work.

Instant: Season of Renewal (Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty)

Image description begin: A digital scan of the "Season of Renewal" card from Magic: The Gathering. It's an Instant card for two generic mana and one Green mana. You can choose one of two effects. The first returns a creature card from your graveyard to your hand. The second returns an enchantment card from your graveyard to your hand. The flavor text reads "Pavement ripped like paper as the ancient kami awoke from her long slumber beneath the city." It depicts a spirits that looks like a human woman, if not for the repeating faces going down her chest and turning into what appears to be a centipede-like body. She is unburying herself from concrete and reaching up to hold large bird-like entities that have come to join her. End image description.

The image is a little freaky of this card, not gonna lie, but that's kind of the point of the kami in Kamigawa.

Faust and I went back and forth over this card for a good ten minutes before we finally settled on a spell for reconnecting to one's roots. The thing is, the two abilities of this card? Very anti-Green. The returning an enchantment thing is very Blue, which is one of Green's enemies, while the returning a creature thing is Black, which is Green's other enemy. We tossed several ideas, like an infinite magical feedback loop or a spell to reconnect with nature in the city (which I am very not qualified to write as a wizard in bumfuck nowhere), back and forth until I settled on the reconnecting one.

And if you ask me, the first thing that comes to mind as an energy source for this is rosemary, which has often been used in rememberance and memory spells. It's Green-aligned by virtue of being a plant, but also brings in a note of White, useful for nostalgia.

Faust then pitched to me the idea of something mossy, leading to me frantically typing moss agate in all caps in our Direct Messages, because I love me some rocks. But you could also use literal, actual moss if you happen to have that. I don't know if people just fucking...collect moss, but I live in fear of the thought. Moss and moss agate would both also be Green-aligned.

Okay, point being, we now have two Green sources (though one is Green-White) out of the way. So now we need the third source, which is going to be another fucking taglock! This is going to be one for you, something that helps one connect with their roots; whether that's the roots of their craft, their childhood, their land, or their ancestors.

So if I were casting this, my next step would be to channel energy from the rosemary and moss agate/actual moss to the taglock. Then, I would keep the taglock around me while I researched or thought deeply about my roots. (I'm not gonna say meditate because I am in the anti-meditation squad on account of "that doesn't work worth a shit to me".) This spell would basically become a focuser for me - it would give me something to focus on when I have too much energy and need to spend it somehow.

Where instants differ from sorceries is that instants are "cast ahead, activate later" while sorceries are "sit down and do the whole spell in one place". Instant spells I make will often serve like activated enchantments, while my sorceries tend to lean heavier on things like divination.

Land: Gingerbread Cabin (Throne of Eldraine)

Image description begin: A slightly grainy digital scan of the "Gingerbread Cabin" card from Magic: The Gathering. It's a Land: Forest card that you can tap to add one Green mana to your mana pool. It enters the battlefield tapped unless you control three or more other Forests. When it enters untapped, you create a Food token. A Food token is an Artifact token where you can pay two generic mana, tap it, and sacrifice it in order to gain three life. The image shows a candy house made mostly of gingerbread and lit up in a few places by lanterns. It's held up in a forest with huge trees by some roots that create a platform for it. More candy serves as mushrooms and foliage around the cabin itself. End image description.

Lands are a little trickier to design spells for. In my practice, they're mostly used for storing energy. But because this is a non-Basic Land (it's not named Forest and it doesn't have the Basic supertype), we have a little more play and give.

And I dunno about y'all, but a gingerbread house in the woods makes me think of making food tastier. Home cooking (hopefully without an evil witch trying to eat children) and happiness around the hearth. Food-based magic and the act of cooking itself are both already Green-aligned, so we're in business to jump in!

What we're looking for here is a small chant or thing to repeat in one's head, like "As I turn this house into a home, I cook blessings into this food." Something to help you get in the mindset of making the food more pleasant, something you can build up over time in the same kitchen, something short and to the point.

And, well, my theory is that the more you cast a spell or say a chant the same way, the more it'll stick and the less it'll take out of you because it's already built up. Like laying down bricks for a basement.

Planeswalker: Karn Liberated (New Phyrexia)

Image description begin: A slightly grainy digital scan of the "Karn Liberated" card from Magic: The Gathering. He is a Legendary Planeswalker: Karn card for seven generic mana. He starts with six loyalty counters. His plus four loyalty counter ability is that target player exiles a card from their hand. His minus three loyalty counter ability is that he exiles target permanent. His minus fourteen loyalty counter ability is to restart the game, leaving all non-Enchantment: Aura permanents exiled. Then Karn's controller puts those cards onto the battlefield under their control. Karn is a large metal humanoid that looks to be in very rough shape. His metal is dull and covered in bumps. He's non-gendered but prefers he/him pronouns for convenience. End image description.

Okay, firstly, FUCKING HELL. All of the Colorless planeswalker cards at this point (three Karns and two Ugins) are rare or mythical, so no actual card to work with here because I ain't shilling out twenty-four to sixty-eight United States dollars for a card I'll only use for magic instead of play, no thank you!

Secondly, let's address the golem thing. On account of video games not understanding that golems come from Jewish folklore and religious history, they tend to just use the word "golem" for any metallic humanoid. You're lucky if they maintain the protective connotations of the word. So despite Golem being a Creature type and Karn being a Golem in canon, I just refer to them as Constructs (which is another Creature type so I don't understand why it's so fucking hard to not be a dick). Rabbit, a most lovely Jewish witch in my circle of the Internet, recommended this article from My Jewish Learning if you're interested in learning more about golems.

Okay, now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's address Karn himself. And yeah, he uses he/him pronouns, mostly for convenience, so we're gonna honor that. Anyway, this card is from after he got away from the Phyrexians and got back to his right mind. While it wasn't an abuse situation (try mind control and evil oil), this card could be a basis for a spell to aid in escape from such a situation.

On account of Karn not getting away on his own (it took at least one planeswalker's self-sacrifice, rest in peace Venser), this spell would likely be for helping someone else escape an abusive situation and calling for outside aid. We've got seven energy points we need to fill up, so let's get to work!

Let's crack open some other folks' spells for inspiration. Bree has two interesting ones of note in her book "The Sisters Grimmoire volume 1": The Bear (from Snow-White and Rose-Red) and The Glass Coffin (from the fairy tale of the same name). The Bear is for protecting yourself from harm and abuse and calls for a small cloth bag, a bear figurine, and five different herbs. The Glass Coffin is to bring opportunities for escape or rescue to someone trapped in a bad situation and calls for a red apple, a bucket or pitcher of water, an empty bucket, and whole cloves.

There's a note that Bree wrote in The Glass Coffin spell that I want to reiterate:

It must also be said that practical advice and emotional support do just as much, if not more, for people in difficult situations than spells do. Help them however you can without putting either of you in danger. ~Bree NicGarran, The Sisters Grimmoire volume 1

So now we've got an idea of where spells like this tend to go. I'm thinking of a aiding prayer, something to open up opportunities, and protection out the wazoo. Since any color of energy can be used in this spell, we're not limited by that.

Let's see, I have a few correspondences written in my grimoires from my own research. Basil is easy to get a hold of and is used for moving forward, opportunity, and protection and is aligned with Green. Oregano is protective and boosts or enhances spells and is also Green-aligned. Your energy can account for any color or even Colorless itself. A prayer to another entity for aid will line up with the color or colors most closely related to that entity.

But that still only leaves us with four of the seven energy sources we need. And no matter how much energy you personally pump into it, you're still only going to count as one energy source in a spell like this. So I recommend making the last three energy sources into individual taglocks that will double as your spell focus. The more closely related these are to the person you're opening up opportunities to, the better.

And I'm predictable, so I would be using my enchanting board to help direct the energy to the taglocks. As I direct energy, I like to have a chant or order I repeat, so I might go "escape, be safe, escape, be safe" over and over again.

My prayer may read something like "Lady Athena, protector of the city, please help [insert friend name] get out of their abusive situation without bringing them to harm" or "Lord Apollo and Lady Artemis, protector of children, please help [insert child name] remain safe in their abusive household and guide them to ways of escape". It will inevitably vary based on who I'm asking and what I'm asking for.

Overall, this would be a very energy-intensive spell and would require a lot of moving parts.

Sorcery: Winterthorn Blessing (Innistrad: Midnight Hunt)

Image description begin: A digital scan of the "Winterthorn Blessing" card from Magic: The Gathering. It's a Sorcery for one Green mana and one Blue mana with the Flashback cost of one generic mana, one Green mana, and one Blue mana. It puts a plus one power and plus one toughness counter on up to one target creature you control. Then you tap up to one target creature you don't control, which doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step. Flashback means that you can cast the spell from your graveyard for a little more mana, then you exile the card. The picture shows several spirits inhabiting a tree-like creature with a deer skull and antlers on top. They are wandering through the trees together.

As I said up in the instant section, what separates an instant from a sorcery in my practice is that instants have a spell, and then an activation later, while sorceries are spells that you sit down and do all at once.

And yes, I did opt for a multicolored card instead of a monoBlue one, deal with it. We're doing a strength spell for this one! Not pictured is me sending a picture of this card to my buddy Faust yelling "What the fuck do I do about the flashback cost?"

So, strength spell. Green is great about strength, especially communal strength. And Blue is here for...some reason, this honestly does not feel like Blue's wheelhouse. Counters are usually a White thing, and instants and sorceries are spread across all of the colors. Anyway, let's just move on.

There aren't many things I'd associate with Blue that can cover strength - Green's got plants out the wazoo for it (basil, cinnamon, oregano, parsley, sweet pea) but Blue ain't got jack diddly dip squat shit. What Blue DOES have, however, is tea. That's right, we've got a tea spell! You thought I was just gonna use the enchanting board this whole time, didn't you? Well, uh...you're mostly right, bUT STILL-

Anyway, if you've been here a hot minute, you may remember the Tea Discourse that started because I admitted that I microwave the water for my tea. I'm sorry to tell you all that I have since gotten a kettle yet haven't drank anything but water and milk since then.

What we're gonna want is a tea that tastes good when you add cinnamon to it, because I am unhinged and cannot be stopped. My go-to tea of choice is honey vanilla chamomile herbal tea because black teas launch me into orbit and my resting heartbeat already registers as a heart attack.

So what we've got here is the base tea for Blue and then the cinnamon for Green (and also Red, which is also good for strength), so now we just make up that tea and focus on strengthening ourselves.

But wait, what about that Flashback cost? After all, the graveyard is where things go after they're done for.

Well, if you make your tea in a tea bag, you now have a strength-focused used bag of tea that you can use in another magical working. If you don't drink all of the liquid, I guess you can save some of the tea for later strength magic? I dunno man, it fucked me up to think about reusing tea.

In Conclusion

What have we learned here today? Well, a few things:

The way I break down spells is complicated and will give you a headache if you try to follow my exact methods because even I don't know what I'm doing.

I will shamelessly shill for other people's books. I am once again reminding you to go get The Sisters Grimmoire volume 1 from Bree's shop and keep your eye out for when volume 2 drops.

Colors go brrr.

Working on pumping out eight spells across two days will give you a migraine like you wouldn't believe, and I didn't even technically finish writing these spells! These are just notes and ideas, most of 'em aren't complete!

Streets of New Capenna went off on the 1920's aesthetic, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty went off on the cyberpunk aesthetic, and the two Innistrad sets went off on the spooky aesthetic.

Karn deserved better.

[natswritingz]

Sexting next door / Sam x Reader

Note : This is my first fic in I don’t know how long, I tried my hardest so I really hope at least someone can enjoy this lol, also might be typos!

Words : 2.4k

Warnings : Sexting, exchanging pictures, dirty dirty talking, talk of oral/penetration/dry humping, swearing, lots of stuff.

The last week had been occupied with a hunt which ended with the three of you searching the woods for an old cemetery, laying all the buried souls to rest. Working with the Winchesters made the gigs easier. You found some joy in their presence, especially around Sammy.

You guys obviously had crushed on eachother, Sammy made the most moves while you took them as innocent jokes. You just didn't want to complicate anything for anyone.

You all had just got back to the motel, while the brothers shared a room like always, you got your own right next door. Your phone sat next to you as you pried off your dirt caked boots, hidden graveyards were something else. The device chimed with Sams assigned ringtone, you grabbed it in eagerness.

"You get settled in?"

You smiled at the text, he knew how to make you feel special even if it's a simple check in. You struggled with a response that sounded natural, typing then deleting, you finally wrote one and went with it.

"Yeah, just got the boots off lol"

"Are you getting anything good on the tv?"

"Nope, nothing"

That was a lie, you haven't even looked at the tv yet, but he didn't know that. You began unbuttoning your grimy top, feeling the cool air nip at your skin while the material still hung on your shoulders. You bit your lip as you typed another text to follow your previous one.

"Finally getting out of these clothes too"

You locked your phone quickly with embarrassment, you couldn't believe what you just sent. He was your friend, but the entire day he had been constantly flirting which made the temptation even harder to resist. The phone chimed after what felt like ages.

"Me too, I was able to get the shower first"

You read the text through squinted eyes, terrified to read his response with fully opened eyes. Your mind trailed to the image of him without anything on, the warm water running down his toned body, it made your heart race.

"Just about to get in"

You nervously pulled at your lip while intently watching the screen.

"Maybe I should hop in too, hot water sounds amazing right now"

"Do it, I'll keep you company ;)"

The wink confirmed it. He was leaving an opening for you to accept or decline before pursuing anything more.

"I'm taking off my clothes right now, what are you doing?"

"Turning the shower on, already undressed"

"I wish I could see that"

He opened it and hasn't responded in a while, you completely fucked it up. You cursed at yourself before seeing the tiny text bubble come up and disappear a few times until one finally came in.

"I wish I could see you take off those jeans, I could not stop staring at your ass today. All I wanted to do was pounce on you, you've been all I could think of."

You gulped at his message, this was would be your first time sexting, you were already loving it. You felt yourself getting excited at his message, reading it over and over. You pulled your shirt off the rest of the way.

"You were looking? That's very unprofessional of you, Sammy. If only I knew, I would've been 'accidentally' grinding against you all day."

Both of your tones suddenly changed, it wasn't the laid back no-period texts you normally exchanged, it was dirty and intriguing. You couldn't wait for him to respond.

"If you had done that, I don't think I would've been able to control myself."

"What would you have done? I would've loved to feel you press against my ass, I'm clenching my thighs just thinking about it."

"I would've pulled you into the nearest room and commanded you to grind against me until you came in your pretty panties."

You groaned at the thought, Sammy made dry humping sound hot, he could probably make any sexual act sound compelling.

"How do you know what panties I wear?"

You found yourself completely wrapped in texting back and forth you forgot about your plans to shower. Deciding to get comfortable, you leaned back onto the comforter. You were invested in where this was going, a shower could wait, unlike this.

"I've done your laundry and seen you in your undergarments before. I think I pretty much know everything about you, Y/N."

"I'm imaging my lace covered pussy grinding against your bulge covered by your boxers. It would feel so good to have you rub against me. I'd be soaking through my panties you could definitely see it dampening both our cloths."

You wanted to get dirtier so you tested the water, you wrote the first thing you thought of. It may have been a little too forward but your lust clouded all rational thinking.

"Jesus. My imagination might not be doing this scenario justice, I think we'd have to try it out next time we see eachother."

The elation in you grew with each suggestion.

"And when will that be?"

"If you keep it up, soon. Have you stripped yet?"

Sam was a great dom, he wanted everything to be in his control and you couldn't help but like it. You could trust him with control.

"I've been so busy with our little daydreams, I forgot I was even going to shower. Laying in bed still partially clothed."

"Take your pants off now, then give your ass a nice spank for me. Make it sting."

You followed his orders, placing the phone to your side as you lifted your hips to remove the jeans. You held the phone again as you flipped, now laying on your stomach, you used your free hand to rub on your cheek before giving it a sharp smack.

"Both are done, I'm thinking this might leave a mark?"

You raised your phone in a rush of confidence, snapping a photo of your ass and the handprint that reddened with time, attaching it to your message, and sending it without any hesitation. The mark was not as big as Sam could do and you dearly wished it was his hand instead.

"Fucking hell Y/N, I was not expecting that. You're making me want to come over right now to fuck you senseless."

"What do I do next? Still have my panties and bra on."

"Take your bra off baby girl, play with your nipples till they're both hard. Pinch them, flick them, be rough with it."

It was easy for you to follow his words, you found yourself loving his demands and dominance, you could keep following them for hours. You held yourself up with an elbow, you pinched the tip hard between your fingertips, rolling them slightly for more stimulation. You moaned with each uncoordinated flick.

"They're feeling so sensitive now."

You attached another picture, your tits in frame with your now erect and red nipples. After his reaction with the last one, you wanted to get more from him.

"So so perfect. Picture I'm there, sucking and biting on them. My warm breath fanning your soft skin. I want to make you feel good."

"You're making me feel good right now, I can't believe we're actually doing this."

"We can stop whenever you get uncomfortable, I want you to be good with all of this."

His message made you smile through the lust, he really did care about you. It wasn't the most ideal timing, but you could easily get worked back up again with his skills.

"Sorry, never wanna stop this <3"

You shook your head with a small laugh as you flirted.

"Good, me neither. You still have your panties on like a good girl?"

"Haven't taken them off yet, you haven't told me to."

"Sounds like someone's enjoying being bossed around, huh? What if I told you to suck me off, would you do it?"

"I'd let you throat fuck me. I want to gasp for my breath when you finally pull from my mouth."

"Your lips look perfect for my cock, I want to see them wrapped around me as I thrust into your mouth."

"I want you to be as rough as you can, Sammy."

You flipped over to your back once again, your hand dipping into your undies, rubbing soft circles over your clit as you awaited another message. You wanted to invite him over that instant but you had to resist the urge, sexting was fun and a good first step for the two of you.

"I've finally entered the shower, I'm stroking myself to the pictures you sent me. Kinda hard keeping the phone dry."

You laughed a little to yourself at the end of his message.

"Your turn?"

Not that your heart hadn't been pounding the entire time, your recent text made it even faster. You bit your lip in anticipation, you couldn't lie to yourself, you've always wondered what he was packing. And just like that, you revived a picture. Your jaw clenched at his size and width, you weren't entirely sure you'd be able to fit him if you ever got to doing this stuff in person. It was hot and impressive.

"How am I going to fit all of you? I don't think any amount of wetness would prepare me for you."

"We'll make it fit princess, I wanna see your warm pussy stretch around me. Fuuuck, I want you so bad Y/N."

"I want you bad too, maybe our next session can be face to face. I can't imagine how you'll make me feel when I have your hands on me instead of my own."

"You touching yourself right now? I don't remember telling you to stop playing with your tits."

"I couldn't take it anymore, I was aching for some relief."

That was true, your pussy throbbed for attention to the point it hurt to not touch yourself. No one else had this affect over you, making you soak through your lace like nothing.

"Fine, you can touch yourself as long as you don't cum until I allow you, and take it easy, I want you to enjoy this."

"Yes, Sammy."

You slowed down, rubbing slow circles on your aroused clit. Everything was heightened and sensitive, what was he doing to you?

"I'm touching myself, paced instead of rushed. I wish this was your hand. Not gonna lie, I constantly think of how good your large hands would feel on my body."

"Where?"

His response was immediate after he quickly read your message, considering what he told you just a little ago, you knew he was getting off to your little conversation.

"On my ass, in my pussy, around my throat. Even you holding my hands above my head or behind my back sounds like a pleasure. I want you to touch and explore every part of me."

The typing bubble appeared just as it did when he responded to every other text, this time you cut off his response with another one of your own, you wanted to get him really worked up.

"For future reference, I'd probably cum instantly with your tongue on my clit and your fingers in me as deep as they'd go."

You weren't a newbie when it came to sex, you knew what you wanted in the bedroom. Being a hunter and constantly hopping town to town, you had your occasional one night stand to release the stress that came with your job.

"Oh really? You want me buried in you while tasting you all at once? I can do that for you princess, I've been wanting to taste you. I'd eat you out till you came on my tongue then I'd make you kiss me, deep."

"You already know I'd return the favor."

You referred back to your message you sent not long ago about going down on him.

"We haven't even talked about getting to the main act and you've got me almost cumming. I had to slow my pace in order to not finish."

You smirked at his reply, biting your lip with a small groan as you still touched yourself. You were hoping you had the same effect on him that he had on you.

"Let's get onto the main act then. How'd you want to fuck me?"

"I can think of a few ways... But I most definitely want to see myself slide in and out of you. I want to enjoy every bit."

"Maybe my hands holding onto the back of my thighs while laying on my back? Everything would be on display."

"I could put your legs up on my shoulders and get really deep in you. Wouldn't that feel good?"

"I'd be seeing stars. And I would not be able to walk afterwards. Feeling you brush against my cervix repeatedly with your big cock, you're gonna fill me so good."

"Y/N you're gonna make me cum. Speed up."

With his permission, you started to rub faster. You moaned loudly, forgetting about anyone else in the seedy motel.

"Fuck, keep moaning."

You blushed in embarrassment, he could hear you from their rooms bathroom which definitely meant Dean could hear you, the strangers on the opposite side didn't concern you. You allowed yourself to moan with each lap, not holding back the cries. You went on for a minute before diverting your attention back to the phone.

"Imagine how much louder I'd be with you inside me."

"I've been thinking about all the noises you'd be making the entire time. You sound so hot. Are you close?"

"Yeah Sammy, I'm almost there."

Your breathing pattern became rapid and harsh, small wines escaping your lips as you played yourself to perfection.

"Beg for permission to cum."

You groaned at his response.

"Please let me cum, please Sam, I'm not sure I can hold it."

It was hard enough holding back your release but even harder to beg with one hand.

"You can cum baby, just cause you've been so good."

Your body released the tension, the relief rolling in as you came in your panties, finally. It hit you hard, your hips shaking as you moaned louder than earlier. You couldn't deny it, you never orgasmed like that when you were doing it solo.

"I couldn't help but finish to your moans"

His response was like his usual ones, not so formal and more playful. You could get used to seeing both sides regularly.

"We should do this more often, or try it in person, either one"

"I am 100% on board with that"

If for some reason you wanna be notified when I post a new fic, leave a comment to be tagged and your username will go here!

[jj-babebank]

Camp Willowdale / JJ Maybank AU / PART 2

Synopsis: Camp Willowdale is buzzing with new campers. It’s Caroline Windsor’s first year as a camp counsellor after attending the camp as a camper for ten years. Little does she know that this year Willowdale Lake is going to be a little different from what she is used to it being…

Warnings: future chapters may include curse words, mentions of drugs, mentions of alcohol, mentions of sexual activities, mentions of death.

Pairings: JJ Maybank x fem OC

Part 1 can be found here. xxx

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Part 2 -

Lunch was over and Pricilla organised the boys to go set up the objects for tomorrow night's scavenger hunt around the camp grounds. The boys had drawn the groups their pairs would be in charge of before leaving and JJ and Caroline had gotten Teens 2, whereas Sarah and John B had gotten Teens 1, which meant that, for better or worse, their groups would be partaking in a lot of activities together, seeing as they were both in the same age group.

The girls were given the job to set up the seating area where the bonfire was going to be, so Sarah and Caroline stuck together as they made their way towards the clearance where it was going to be held.

"Can you believe I got paired up with JJ Maybank?" Caroline sighed.

"Beats Routledge by a thousand, I can promise you that," said Sarah, still extremely disappointed, "At least Maybank looks like he takes care of himself."

Caroline chuckled at her comment. John B had also grown his hair out over the years and it was now down to his shoulders.

"He does seem like he is... in touch with nature," Caroline remarked and Sarah laughed genuinely for the first time since drawing the boy’s name out, "Maybe they won't be that bad to work with, besides, it's only nine weeks, what could go wrong?"

Sarah seemed to think for a second before her lips curled into a devious smirk, "Hey, didn't you used to have, like, the biggest crush on Maybank?"

Caroline's cheeks turned red immediately, "I don't know what you're talking about," she mumbled quickly.

Sarah started laughing, "You totally did! You lucky, lucky bitch! I wish I got paired up with my childhood crush! Instead I get to spend my last summer before moving away with snot-nosed, bug-eating Routledge... Why was the Universe on your side and not on mine?"

They walked behind the rest of the girl counsellors towards the bonfire area. When they arrived, the logs that Pricilla had informed them would be stacked up in a convenient for them to move around way, were all scattered across the ground. The pillows that were meant to go on top of them were also in disarray. All the girls looked around in confusion.

"Surely this couldn't have been the wind?" one of them said.

"Surely this was the boys." said Sarah matter-of-factly, "I'd bet 50 bucks that Routledge had something to do with this."

All the girls turned to look at her in confusion.

"What?" she protested, shrugging her shoulders, "You know I'm right."

Caroline rolled her eyes, "Boys or not, we better sort this mess out before sundown, we have cabins to set up as well."

The girls agreed, Sarah being skeptical but also finally giving in, and little by little, they set up the bonfire area. It took them a little over two hours before they started making their way back to the cabins, which they were supposed to decorate with welcome signs for the arriving campers.

Since Sarah and Caroline were both in charge of the oldest groups, their campers were meant to be sharing two cabins - one for the boys and one for the girls.

"Let's split up, I'll do the boys and you do the girls," Sarah offered, nearly shocking Caroline, "Try being as quick as you can. Meet me back out here in 15 minutes tops." she ordered before scurrying up the steps into the boys’ cabin.

Caroline rushed into the cabin next door, pleasantly surprised by Sarah's sudden determination to get work done. As she was arranging the banners and posters on the walls and ceiling, she couldn't help but think that Sarah must have had some sort of ulterior motive to being this enthusiastic about working. Sure enough, she was right.

She had barely taken a step out of the girls' cabin when Sarah spoke up, "Took you long enough. Now let's go find those stupid guys."

The sun was setting and the woods had gotten a bit chilly as Sarah lead Caroline towards where the male counsellors were supposed to be. After setting up the scavenger hunt objects, they were supposed to set up the archery area. As they were getting closer to the archery grounds, the two girls could hear the laughter of the boys in the nearby distance. Sarah pretended to gag yet again.

"Quick, around here," Caroline pulled Sarah behind the small hut where they kept all of the camp's archery supplies. From their spot they could see the guys quite clearly and could hear everything they were saying, "Remind me again why we're doing this?" Caroline whisper-yelled at Sarah.

"Because I'm still furious about their little prank," Sarah explained, "Which is why I want to prank them back."

"How are we gonna do that exactly?" asked Caroline, "By eavesdropping?"

"A good villain is one that knows the enemy's weaknesses," said Sarah, "First we listen for a bit, and then we make a plan."

Caroline couldn't help but smirk at this new side of Sarah she was seeing. She much preferred this Sarah to the constantly whining, gloating Sarah she had gotten used to over the years. Plus, being somewhat of a daredevil herself, Caroline couldn't help but find the idea of pranking the boys back exciting.

"Can you believe I got paired with Jenna Kinley?" one of the boys, Kelce, said, "Not only are we supposed to work together, but we're also meant to be taking care of babies..." he face palmed himself.

The other boys laughed.

"C'mon, Johnson, 10 year olds are hardly babies," said another one of the boys, Topper, "Besides, working with Kinley will not be nearly as scandalous as working with Hague!"

JJ spoke up next, "Aw, don't be like that, Top," he said, "Madison's not that bad!"

Topper scoffed at JJ, "Easy for you to say! You and Routledge got paired with the best girls out of the bunch! And you got the teens groups!"

Sarah and Caroline smirked at the remark.

"Boys, boys, boys," came John B's voice suddenly, "Let's put this topic behind us, I'm sure you'll all be glad to hear about what I managed to sneak into our cabin." all the boys were now staring at John B in anticipation, "16 bottles of pure, fine whiskey, m'boys. Safe to say, tonight will be a ball."

"Bingo..." Sarah and Caroline smiled mischievously at each other, the perfect prank idea forming in both of their heads.

They quietly made their way back to where all the cabins were and sat at one of the patios.

"So here's the plan," said Sarah, "We sneak into their cabin, raid Routledge's luggage and steal his bottles of whiskey. Let's go now!"

Caroline stopped her, "No, no, not now!" she hissed, "They're gonna go to their cabin before dinner and Routledge's gonna want to show them his stash! We'll sneak out during dinner. Oh, and, I suggest we throw a party of our own to this occasion."

Sarah smirked at Caroline, "I like where you're going with this, Carrie," she said, patting Caroline's shoulder before standing up to go into their cabin, "Not bad for a nerd."

Caroline sighed, there was the old Sarah again.

~~~~~~~~

“Windsor!” Caroline heard a voice behind her call out, “Been paired up for a whole day now and we still haven’t the chance to talk!”

Caroline turned around to find a beaming JJ smiling at her. Had he come over from the boys table specifically for her? She could feel her cheeks beginning to burn slightly.

“We can talk,” she said quickly.

JJ took a seat next to her on the long bench. She could feel the heat in her cheeks become even hotter. JJ didn’t seem to notice her nervousness, or awkwardness.

“How’s life been then?” he asked.

Caroline took a deep breath to soothe her nerves, looking up, only to find a smirking Sarah crossing her arms across from her at the table.

“Just the regular, nothing too special,” she said, frowning quickly at Sarah before turning to face JJ again, hoping he hadn’t noticed Sarah’s behavior.

JJ jokingly frowned, “Nothing too special? I heard you got accepted into Charleston University, that’s like super special.”

Caroline cringed internally, “Did you happen to hear anything else by any chance?”

JJ smirked, “Not sure what you’re talking about,”

Caroline wasn’t sure if he was being serious or not but she pretended to not be bothered.

“Well I hear you’re throwing a party tonight,” Caroline crossed her arms in front of her.

JJ smirked even more, “Where’d you hear that from?”

“Why?” she tempted, “Is my source wrong?”

“Hardly,” JJ bit back, standing up, “So perhaps I’ll see you there.”

With that he walked back to where the other male counsellors were sat, giving one last look at Caroline, smirk never leaving his face.

Sarah started laughing loudly, “Looks like someone’s got their eye on little Carrie,” she teased, “Lucky, lucky bitch.”

Caroline rolled her eyes at her, “Bullshit,”

Sarah leaned over the table to whisper to Caroline, “I like the way you handled the situation, we’re definitely going to be there, on more occasions than one.”

Caroline looked at her watch, “Shit, it’s getting late, we better go now!”

And with that, they snuck their way out of the Wildcat Lodge and towards the boys’ cabin.

“Crap, the door’s locked!” Sarah cursed.

Caroline looked around. One of the upper windows seemed to be open. This gave her an idea.

“Sarah, do you still do cheerleading?” she looked at the girl, a plan forming in her brain.

Sarah raised an eyebrow, “What’s that got to do with anything? And duh, how else would my legs look this good?”

Caroline’s lips turned into a grin, “Give me a lift.”

Sarah’s eyes widened, “Excuse me?”

Caroline nodded her head towards the upper window and Sarah whined, “Why’s it always me?”

Silently, they rushed into position. Sarah took her stance, her hands ready to lift up Caroline’s body. Caroline balanced herself on Sarah’s shoulders as Sarah readied her hands to push her up. In one swift motion, Caroline had pulled herself in through the upper window and was now inside the cabin. She immediately went to the door to unlock the handle from the inside so that Sarah could let herself in.

The two girls looked around the space. It was dark and the only light penetrating into it was the one from the lamps outside. Three pairs of bunk beds were sitting there, covered in unpacked suitcases, boxes and bags.

“Great,” sighed Caroline in annoyance, “How are we ever going to figure out which one’s Routledge’s?”

Sarah took a better look at all of the bunk beds again, her eyes landing on one with a particularly large suitcase with a Green Peace sign on it, “My guess is that it’s that one.”

They went over to the suitcase and Sarah nervously leaned over it, “Eurgh, bug eating Routledge better not have live animals in there,” she said as she quickly ripped open the zipper, flinching away as soon as it came undone.

“That’s it!” Caroline excitedly said, “Help me pick it up!”

The suitcase contained three changes of clothes and a large box filled with unopened bottles of whiskey, just like they had heard John B brag about by the archery area. The two girls combined all of their strength to lift the heavy box off the bed and made their way towards the door, when they heard a loud thumping sound from the back of the cabin. Something heavy had fallen in the corner of the cabin that was unlit by the outdoor lamps, making both girls slightly jump and nearly tip over the box full of alcohol. They squinted their eyes in the direction where the sound came from, however they couldn’t make out anything in the thick darkness.

“What was that?” Sarah said nervously.

“Whatever it was,” Caroline said, leading them out of the door, “We can’t wait around to find out.”

With that they were out of the cabin, closing the door behind them and making their way back to their own cabin quickly.

They hid the box inside the storage room and decided to sneak back into the Wildcat Lodge, so that nobody would question their whereabouts.

There was half an hour left until the end of dinner service as Sarah and Caroline sat back at their designated table, trying to draw as little attention to themselves as they could.

“Do you think someone saw us in there?” whispered Sarah so that only Caroline could hear.

Caroline shrugged her shoulders, “I really hope not, but I did get the weird feeling that we were being watched once we heard that noise,”

Sarah shuddered, “Yeah, major heebie jeebies in there. Glad the boys got that cabin and not us.”

Caroline rolled her eyes, “Relax, Sarah, worst case scenario is it was just one of the guys and he saw us stealing tonight’s party supplies.”

Sarah raised an eyebrow, “I swear to God if it was Routledge -”

“If it was Routledge, he wouldn’t have let us get away with it,”

“Shit, Carrie, you’re totally right!” Sarah unwillingly raised her voice, “Who do you think it was?”

Caroline shrugged again, “Honestly? I don’t think it was anyone, I just think something happened to fall down on its own.”

“Hmm… You’re probably right again.” Sarah turned to look at the big clock on the wall, “We’d better get going, we’ve got to get ready for that party you got invited to!” she winked at Caroline, smirking.

Caroline looked towards the boys table where JJ was already looking back at her, a smile dancing on his thin lips. She met his eyes and a faint blush appeared on her cheeks. She decided to give him a little wave to which he happily waved back.

“Hello?” Sarah’s annoyed voice broke Caroline’s focus from JJ, “Are you coming or what? I want us to look good for when we see the guys’ disappointed faces tonight!”

Caroline sighed and followed Sarah out of the Lodge. Tonight was going to be interesting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: I know I only just uploaded the first part, but I want to establish the Camp Willowdale universe as fast as possible so that the actual story can take off and it does in the next part. I'm going to create a taglist for people who have shown interest in the story thus far, so if you want to be included, make sure to leave a reply so that I can include you in the next part.

Also if you haven't noticed so far, this story, aside from fun and romantic, will be quite campy so I hope you're into that. We've also got quite the mystery coming up so stay tuned for that as well x

Alsoooo please give me some inspiration on who I can base Caroline off, I'm kind of leaving her up to the reader's imagination so that you can just imagine yourself as her, but ideally I'd like to have someone who's picture I can use for future photos. I've got my mind set on Maia Mitchel, but feel free to drop recommendations too.

Anyways, let me know what you think this far and feel free to check out the rest of my works in my masterlist. xxx

Part 3 here

[yami-kada]

Mission 2

Recently I read a fanfic on AO3 called Interlude - Class 1-A by @itslivybear and was inspired a bit to write a fic based on that! Well really I got inspiration for a single line (you'll know it when you see it) and then had to write a whole thing to be able to share that one line, but oh well. This is my first time writing a chatfic or even any BNHA content at all, so I hope it doesn't suck! Thanks to @shadesofflame for being an awesome beta!

(Quick FYI in this AU M*neta and Bakugou are replaced with Shinsou and Monoma, sorry for any confusion. Also a name guide can be found at the bottom.)

RockSolid: Um, so.

RockSolid: Remember the missions during the Sports Festival?

PurpleGrape: Oh hell yeah.

PurpleGrape: Still cherish the look on that bastard's face.

Spoderman: jehxgjc Kiri I got it on video!!!

JazzHands: You've had video of the capture of the bounty this whole time and never showed us???

LSD: I thought we were friends Sero!

Spoderman: omg no not that I totally would have shared earlier if i did

Spoderman: im talking about That.

RockSolid: no Sero don't tell them!

RockSolid: it's embarrassing!

PikaCHU: Tell us, tell us!

NYOOM: Kaminari-kun! If Kirishima-kun wishes to keep his privacy, then it is our duty as his classmates to respect that!

Spoderman: ok but consider: he already gave them a major hint and they are about to POUNCE

BreadIsPain: As a witness as well, I must say that Kirishima was si attirant que j'ai failli m'évanouir~*

RockSolid: thanks, I think?

MOMo: To paraphrase Aoyama, he is essentially saying you were very manly, Kirishima!

RockSolid: aw thanks bro!! Don't believe you but thanks!

Spoderman: you take that lack of confidence back I have evidence right here that says you are super fucking manly!

LSD: ok please now we have to know so that we can show Kiri how great he is!!!

MOMo: I must admit that the commentary seen thus far has me rather curious as well.

RockSolid: You guys…

RockSolid: alright then, I'll tell you!

Spoderman: sweet ill pull it up!

RockSolid: bro don't you dare! my story, I get to tell it!

Spoderman: oh yeah of course bro!!

Spoderman: but if after you wanna show it then i am READY.

JazzHands: This is very sweet and all but I am very thirsty for this TEA.

RockSolid: on it!

Kirby: Kiri you've been typing for so long that I'm getting Izuku vibes here.

GreenGrape: Hey!

RockSolid: sorry! this is harder than I thought!

Spoderman: want me to start it off?

RockSolid: you know what, sure.

Spoderman: aight so,

Spoderman: Council, what qualifies as capturing the bounty?

GreenGrape: Guys no the bounty is over please no more bounty-hunting Kacchan.

MOMo: Your objection is noted and overruled, Izuku.

MOMo: For your question, Sero, I do not believe we ever set specific limitations on what qualified, but I was under the impression that it was limited to the Sports Festival. Why do you ask?

Spoderman: just double checking

Spoderman: because my bro here just totally shot both missions out of the park!!!

LSD: gaSP!!!

JazzHands: bOTH?!

RockSolid: no not both!! we have no confirmation for either, technically!

Kirby: Technically? What do you mean by that?

RockSolid: ahhhh ok so Sero and I were eating lunch in the courtyard because it was nice out, right?!

RockSolid: and we were chillin, being bros, birds were singing, all was good.

RockSolid: and then we heard a small explosion before the bounty walked in at the other end of the courtyard and started kicking at the wall.

PikaCHU: omg so angy.

RockSolid: and like fine, we can tune him out, just try to act like he's not there, you know?

RockSolid: But then he started yelling at random people in the courtyard, just acting pissed as hell.

PikaCHU: oMG so ANGY.

RockSolid: and that's just not manly at all, you know? going off on people like that just because you're in a bad mood.

GreenGrape: Yeah… that's Kacchan for you.

RockSolid: so he's making his way around the courtyard now, like everyone needs their daily dose of asshole for him to be happy, and the closer he got the more annoyed I got.

Spoderman: here it comes!

RockSolid: and eventually I get up, because I have had just about enough, and walk right up to him.

RockSolid: he doesn't see me coming, because he was too busy yelling at some girl, and I get right up behind him.

RockSolid: and then I just called out to get his attention, and spun him to face me while making sure I end up between him and the girl.

RockSolid: and well I told him off a little bit and got him to back off then left in a hurry.

RockSolid: and that's it!

Spoderman: oh no you don't

BreadIsPain: Oui! Monsieur Kirishima, you must tell the climax with just as much zest as the build-up!

Spoderman: what he said! no skipping out on the best part!

RockSolid: but!!!

Jacked: No buts, mister. We're all way too invested now for you to back down.

RockSolid: :(

RockSolid: fine! you win!

RockSolid: so uh when I got his attention, I also got my hand onto his shoulder, and used his surprise to knock his feet a bit off balance and pulled him back, but then I ended up with him in my arms and could tell he was about to start yelling so I just…

RockSolid: you know…

RockSolid: flirted?

LSD: oh my GoD this is great!!!

PikaCHU: Hell yeah Kiri! Go get yourself a manz!

RockSolid: I'm not getting a man! He's probably going to kill me the next time he sees me!

Spoderman: i dunno, it took him a good long while to reboot after what you said there

Spoderman: you might have a shot

PurpleGrape: Well if you're not going to get a man out of this, mind telling us what you said so I can bait him next time he tries to be an ass?

RockSolid: uhhh…

RockSolid: I'm nervous.

BreadIsPain: If you will allow me, I shall finish your tale off dazzlingly!

RockSolid: Thanks Aoyama.

BreadIsPain: Bien entendu!

BreadIsPain: While holding him in his arms tightly in a dip, faces inches apart, Monsieur Kirishima leaned impossibly closer to emphasize his point.

RockSolid: oh god I regret everything.

LSD: Hush, it's getting good!

BreadIsPain: With a growl to his voice and his eyes burning above a smirk, he said "You know, you're damn cute when you're angry, but you'd be downright sexy if you shut the fuck up." Then he straightened up to fling the lost soul to the side, and saunter off like the devil was guarding his back, leaving the bounty terribly confused in his wake.

PurpleGrape: Whoa.

PikaCHU: Holy shit?!

RockSolid: what is that description?!?!?!

JazzHands: Kiri that was PERFECT oh my god?!

LSD: It's ART is what it is!

Spoderman: don't forget how red the guy was! Kiri was cool as a cucumber but the other guy couldn't stop blushing after seeing his face!!!

MOMo pinned a message

RockSolid: Yaomomo!!!

MOMo: My apologies, Kirishima, but I felt it only right to ensure easy access to your most manly moment.

LSD: Yeah Kiri! Then one day we can all look back on this and celebrate how everything started!!

RockSolid: How what started???

LSD: E v e r y t h i n g

RockSolid: @Spoderman bro hide me I’m scared.

Spoderman: hey guys, wanna see a GREAT video?

Spoderman: the stars are our main man, Kiri, and the bounty!

PikaCHU: hell yeah!!!

Jacked: Lay it on me.

PurpleGrape: Sure.

JazzHands: Do you really have to ask????

RockSolid: but I already told you what happened!

RockSolid: why do you want to see me being so embarrassing?

PikaCHU: bro we all appreciate you so much of course we want to see you being manly!

LSD: Just from what you all said there is no way you don’t look great in that vid, Kiri!

PikaCHU: gotta give support where support is due!!

PurpleGrape: They’ll all bully Sero into showing them one way or another anyways, might as well give in now.

RockSolid: but...

BreadIsPain: Nous devons vous montrer à quel point vous brillez et dissiper ces pensées douteuses!**

MOMo: I could not have said it better myself, Aoyama!

RockSolid: I don’t even know what he said though?!?!?!?!?!?!

Spoderman: Kiri.

Spoderman: Bro.

Jacked: Well shoot he’s using proper grammar and everything.

Spoderman: Rude.

Spoderman: Anyways Bro.

RockSolid: yeah?

Spoderman: You are epic. This video shows you being epic. And putting an asshole in their place.

Spoderman: You have nothing to be ashamed of, and every reason to be proud. So please let me show the video so that everyone can appreciate you like you deserve bro.

RockSolid: bro…

Spoderman: Bro.

RockSolid: bro -

Spoderman: Bro?

RockSolid: bro!

Spoderman: aight everyone down to the common room its up on the big screen

Spoderman: i have popcorn too

Jacked: Not even gonna question that.

LSD: Finally!!!

JazzHands: Yuss!!!

BreadIsPain: Je vais regarder avec enthousiasme!***

MOMo: As will all of us I’m sure, Aoyama!

RockSolid: Thanks guys!

RockSolid: Now get down here and watch me maybe get a man!

Translations:

*so attractive that I almost swooned.

**We must show you how much you shine, and dispel those self-doubting thoughts!

***I shall excitedly watch!

Guide to names:

GreenGrape - Izuku

PurpleGrape - Hitoshi

CopyCat - Monoma Neito

MOMo - Yaoyorozu Momo

datBoi - Asui Tsuyu

JazzHands - Hagakure Toru

NYOOM - Iida Tenya

SnowWhite - Kouda Kouji

LifeIsPain - Tokoyami Fumikage

BreadIsPain - Aoyama Yuga

Kirby - Uraraka Ochaco

LSD - Ashido Mina

PikaCHU - Kaminari Denki

RockSolid - Kirishima Eijiro

RipHarambe - Ojiro Mashirao

IcyHot - Todoroki Shoto

MuffinMan - Sato Rikido

Octodad - Shouji Mezou

Jacked - Jirou Kyoka

Spoderman - Sero Hanta

[corysmiles]

IT IS TIME FOR ANOTHER ENTRY IN THE POTION AU!!

This is full of nothing and fluff, so prepare lmao

After a while, they began organizing group dinners, where they would all meet up in the evening and eat together. It took a bit of convincing Tommy's parents, but they accepted more easily when they realized it was just between close friends. Wilbur was already living on his own so it was no problem and Phil always was a free spirit. 

And so, at least once a week, they met up at Techno's abode to spend the night together.

Tommy was elated to see all of the furniture now 10 times his size, and all the objects and decoration. "We're gonna have to try and play Hide and Seek, big man. Because this looks like the best fucking playground!" Wilbur, meanwhile, was looking in awe at the whole thing. It felt weird to be so not rightly scaled, but he got used to it soon enough.

Phil was the most surprising of all, due to the fact that he wasn't surprised at all. Even unbothered, in fact. Techno wondered if he was faking it to make him feel better, but everything seemed honest. For someone who claims to never have interacted with giants, he acted as if this was his everyday life. One day he wanted to ask him about that, but he figured those were not the time.

And so they would gather around, bringing each a part of the meal so they could enjoy together. 

Sometimes, techno would drink the potion and join them, other times, he would stay at his regular size and simply enjoy the conversation. It was fine like that, Techno liked it. And his friends didn't seem to mind so it was perfect. (Well, Phil kind of minded, but he was always like that whenever he as much as looked at the potion so that wasn't really anything to go by.)

But it was nice, Wilbur would even bring his guitar from time to time, noticing Techno had a violin. He hasn't touched the instrument in a while but seeing Wilbur play the guitar, it was very tempting. 

"You should try and play again, Techno! We could even make a duet! That would be fun"

"Maybe one day, yeah… but I would need to practice, it's been years."

"Well I don't know violin" Phil perked up "but I'm around Tommy almost everyday, so I'm used to bad sounds" he chuckled

"WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN??"Tommy argued, baffled, which made the other three laugh. 

"But yeah, I think I'm gonna try to play again, it could be fun."

"How did you even get a violin this size? Are there giant shop owners ?"

Techno crackled at that "Na. I made it myself. Took a while, but I'm proud of the result."

Wilbur made an "ooohh" before returning to his meal with a smile. 

It was pretty quiet for a while, everyone enjoying the silence before Wilbur perked up again. 

"I'm wondering, are there giant animals? Like cows or chicken? How do you eat?" 

Phil's fork almost dropped on the plate and looked at Wil with wide eyes, while Tommy added "hey yeah! You never eat with us when you're all big, how come?"

Techno smirked a bit at the question, and his hand reached for a counter. "Actually" he said, grabbing and showing an object they knew all too well "This is why I brought the potion in the first place." 

Wilbur looked confused, but kept smiling, while Tommy exclaimed "wait, really?!?" 

He chuckled "yeah. If creatures like that exist, I never found any. So I started hunting and eating stuff at human size, so when the potion effects wears off, it's like I ate a meal my size. That's how it started, pretty funny when you think about it."

Wilbur laughed a bit "yeah, who would've thought it would lead to this."

"Not me, that's for sure" techno confirmed.

The rest of the meal was spent in comfortable silence. Yet he could feel another question lingered in the brunette's tongue. Carefully, he bopped his hair with one of his fingers, and ruffled his hair gently, which made Wilbur laugh. It wasn't holding yet, but he was getting better at the whole contact thing. "What's stuck in that head of yours, Wilbur?" 

The other continued to laugh a bit even after techno stopped, and he sheepishly smiled. "Well, I have a question, but it might come off as very rude, so I don't know if I should ask."

Phil turned to Wilbur, with an almost scolding glare "wilbur, don-" 

"It's alright, Phil." He lifted a hand before turning his gaze towards Wilbur "ask away."

"Well… About the, hm… myths. Is that… is any of it true?" He finally said, clearly trying to word it inoffensively. 

It was vague enough that Tommy didn't know what he was talking about, and Phil stayed silent, though his brows furrowed. 

Techno bore a small, earnest smile. There was something that could be mistaken for sadness, but it wasn’t quite. 

"Maybe a long time ago, but not that I know of. Giants heard of it too, but from tales and legends taking place so long ago the line between fiction and reality is a huge blur." he couldn't blame Wilbur for his curiosity, and he was surprised the question didn't even make him nervous. He was glad. Very glad. 

"And I didn't meet a lot of giants in my lifetime, but none of them did it, so yeah. Maybe it was true at one point, but I think if it still was, humans would clearly be aware of it."

Wilbur hummed, satisfied with the answer. He took another bite of his meal "yeah, I mean to us, it's only a myth, so it makes sense. Thanks." 

"No problem?" Techno had an amused smile on his face. Wilbur was a weird one sometimes, asking the weirdest or scariest things with only a childish smile on his face. 

Tommy turned to look at wilbur, then technoblade, then wilbur again, before speaking “What the fuck are you two talking abou-”

“Nothing” They hummed in unison. 

--

Eventually, the night fell completely and it was time for the humans to go home. They waved goodbye and walked toward the exit, but before they walked through the door, Wilbur turned around sharply and prompted "Can I sleep at your house tonight?" 

Techno, phil and tommy were all taken aback. "You can go home if you want" he reassured the two blonds "I just really like Techno's house." 

"Uhh" techno hesitated. It's not like Wilbur was in any danger, he was careful not to fall from heights… and he would be dead sooner than letting his friends get hurt. 

"You don't have to, if you would rather sleep alone" the brunette was quick to add once he saw the small tension in Techno's stance.

"I think it'd be fine. I spent nights at your house after all, it's only fair. Yeah, you can stay." Techno settled on, earning another bright smile from the human. 

After a couple of minutes, it was just the two of them. It was a bit awkward, seeing as it was the first time Techno was at real size on a one on one. But Wilbur didn't seem to see it that way, enjoying the view. 

"Want me to join you down there?" He asked. 

"Nope! You don't have to worry about a thing!" Wilbur simply replied, grabbing on a drawer handle and slowly making his way up. Techno was quick to put his hand below in case he fell.

"You could have warned me!" Techno complained, to which the other simply laughed a quick "sorry". Not stopping at all. 

After almost falling only twice (and techno almost getting a heart attack two times), Wilbur made it onto a safe platform. The two sighed,one from exhaustion, the other from relief. And he laughed again.

"Tommy wasn't lying. This house really is an amazing playground." He stated, earning a snort from Techno.

"Did you want to stay at my house so you could play with the room without any remark?" He asked, amused. 

"Maybe" Wilbur admitted. “But I also like to spend some time with you. You’re always a comforting presence.” 

"Pff, yeah, right." Techno tried to ignore the warmth coming for his cheeks and ears. “You’re just saying that so I help you with something.” 

“No, no, I mean it, techno. You’re a good friend.” And when he turned to meet the human’s face, it was a simple, honest smile. They stared at each other for a moment, unspoken words being said. Unspoken promises being made. 

Techno stared at his friend’s eyes and saw: not fear. Not méfiance, not worry. His eyes were full of acceptance. Filled with joy and curiosity and wonder. It was the first time he had ever seen such an expression, and yet this look was dedicated to him. Wilbur had waited for them to be in absolute intimacy to offer him this moment.

A good friend.

Techno laughed. Quietly at first, but it grew and grew until the sounds filled the whole room. Wilbur could probably feel the vibration through his whole body but he couldn’t stop. The brunette soon joined in and happiness filled the entire room for god knows how long. Maybe it was two minutes, maybe it was an hour. 

The laughters quieted down eventually, and Techno noticed the fond way Wilbur looked at him. The warmth quickly reached his whole face as he failed to keep a neutral expression. He coughed to wash away his awkwardness. “What- what with that face?” 

"Nothing. It's just nice to see you less restrained." Wilbur smiled "you're always so careful when we're all together." 

"Well, I have to be careful around humans." He hummed, pointing a finger at his friend "you're so small."

"Eh. You couldn't bruise us even if you tried" wilbur shrugged off. "But it's nice! We should do this more often if that means I get to hear your laugh like that more."

Techno cursed himself for the smile that wouldn't wear off. 

"Yeah… maybe we should."

-Written by @melissa-s23 please send them love!!! I love the fluff so much

[bookofmirth]

I haven't read ACOSF yet, and tbh I'm rather rusty with the characters but it was really interesting to read your opinion on Elain! I feel there's a lot of complexity to her. And how she presents herself as well because as you said we literally have no chapters from hers or Lucien's POV and I think that's the important point to note because right now we're all just guessing and assuming her to be like Feyre, but she's not. People deal/show their traumas in different way and l think people expect Elain to deal with it as Feyre did. But, Feyres trauma and Elains are very different!

I don't really know what I'm saying. But I read your answer and it made me go 'oh... Huh!' in a good way, it sparked my curiosity! So thank you! But I think Elain perhaps is the most complex person with their trauma. I know people say 'oh Nesta is so different' but (I specialised in drama therapy so I love psycho analysis) and what Nesta did is self destructive to prevent relationships to avoid hurt or more emotions that she doesn't want to acknowledge (in my opinion!)

Elain just shuts down. She doesn't drink, she doesn't screw, she just remains in her garden which in itself says a lot! That's a very grounding way to handle trauma and not a lot of people are aware of that side!

So yeah I don't know what I'm saying but I think it's a really interesting discussion!

I have so many thoughts about Elain! This took me a few days to get to because i knew I had a crapton of thoughts. So this is basically me using this ask to explain the way I see Elain post-acosf!

There are three important scenes in acosf off the top of my head: when Elain talks with Nesta and they fight, and then with Nesta and Feyre and she gets mad and leaves, and then Feyre and Rhys talk about her in their chapter. We’re getting a lot more information about her, and for me, it wasn’t so much about who she is, but why we don’t know who she is.

So far, what we’ve had is Feyre’s and Nesta’s POV. Even when Feyre and Lucien tried to help her in acowar, they were unable. So we’ve never had anything about Elain from someone who didn’t grow up with her and experience the same trauma (such as becoming destitute, their mother’s death, their father being beaten, the Cauldron, etc.)

The sisters do handle it very, very differently. And I think that at this point the fandom consensus is that Elain runs away from her problems, but I actually disagree, and partly because of what you mentioned - that she isn’t using those self-harming, destructive coping mechanisms. Nesta was avoiding her problems, hardcore. It’s absolutely possible that Elain avoids things, but I don’t think that she just runs from all of her problems because:

Elain grieves her father. Openly. She tries to accept the fact that it wasn’t her fault and that she couldn’t do anything about it. (See: her going to his grave in acofas, her first talk with Nesta in acosf.) Elain does not run from her grief, she doesn’t pretend it doesn’t exist, and she doesn’t hide it from others. As one of the most defining events we’ve seen her go through in the series, that’s a pretty big deal.

Elain does not cling to unhealthy coping mechanisms. There could be ways that she does this that we are unaware of. She does seem like the type who would be really, really good at making people think she’s okay, all while she’s silently imploding. But we don’t know that yet?

Elain does not isolate herself. 

However, Elain definitely needs to deal with some stuff! She definitely needs to deal with Lucien, and she needs to have an actual talk with Nesta because I don’t remember a single satisfying resolution between those two in acosf. Not like Nesta had with Feyre. 

I have this idea that is purely based on Elain’s line in acosf:

“I went into the Cauldron, too, you know. And it captured me. And yet somehow, all you think of is what my trauma did to you.” (pg. 233)

And then Feyre tells Nesta that yes, Elain was right. 

This is so so so sossosososos important. I cannot emphasize it enough. Elain is used to putting on a fake, smiling face because she doesn’t want the weight of her sisters’ concern. She has been pretending to cope for so long - and tbf, she seems to have been doing better than Nesta - that people not only forget that she has suffered, but she doesn’t feel like she can even express that suffering.

Emotional labor often means negating one’s own feelings in order to acknowledge or tend to someone else’s. And that is Elain’s major role, in the series. Feyre has been caring for everyone’s physical wellbeing (hunting), while Elain’s role has been to care for everyone’s emotional wellbeing. But, like with most emotional labor, it has gone unnoticed.

I’ve made posts about emotional labor in the past (four years ago!!!!) but I’m gonna spare you the link because a lot of it was about a ship that’s no longer a ship, so here is the relevant content:

What I am talking about is the regulation of emotion - any time that you give comfort, are especially attentive to someone’s needs, stop thinking about how you feel in order to focus on how someone else feels, try to cheer someone up, make sure that they are taking care of themselves, try to allay their insecurities, etc. Basically, helping them with any sort of emotional distress.

You know those posts you’ve seen, about women protecting men’s egos constantly? Or about making time for self-care? Or about recognizing toxic relationships? That tell you “if X is being demanded of you in a relationship, get out”? Those are ALL about emotional labor, broadly speaking. They are warning you not to do more than you can handle, more than you need to do, because it can be harmful to you.

If you have ever been expected to make a person or people feel better any time you are around each other (including when they are angry, upset, anxious, ill, frustrated, insecure, etc.), you have performed emotional labor. Pretty much everyone has done this at some point, unless you are a completely insensitive jerk.

Notice, though, that I said expected to and any time you are around them – this is where the problem comes in for YOU. This is not about just being there for a friend.

Making loved ones feel better is fantastic. Seeing people be polite and kind to one another makes my heart shine. That is not a problem in and of itself. That can be seen as emotional labor, but there are no requirements on you in those circumstances. This is something you are doing of your own free will.

The problem, again, is when this is expected, constantly, over time. Now, in my experience, the expectation is not necessarily coming from the other person. One of the problems with this type of labor is that not only do others expect women to perform these tasks, but women expect it of themselves.

It’s super easy to see this – who is expected to take care of a child when they fall? Who is expected to baby-sit? Who did you want when you were sick as a child, mom or dad? Who is expected to be sensitive and pay attention to others’ emotions?

For more info on this idea specifically, read Of Woman Born by Adrienne Rich. As a woman, I realized how much work I had been performing and how much it was harming me and I just… got real upset. She comes at this mostly from what a woman’s role is expected to be within the family, and might actually be a bit outdated in that respect because I feel like family structures and dynamics are shifting (that is a totally un-academic evaluation of the situation, don’t quote me on that), but still, it’s really informative.

While I was doing some research for this post I came across a peer-reviewed article about nursing and basically, high amounts of emotional labor led to anxiety and burn-out in those performing it. It literally will cost your mental health – not to mention your time, energy, attention, and it often requires you to ignore your own needs (this last part came from me, not the article). On the other hand, high levels of emotional intelligence (being able to recognize your own and others’ emotional states) meant less emotional labor (and therefore less anxiety & burn-out). One of the most important things to realize is that while you are taking care of someone else’s emotional needs, your own are frequently unmet. That is why it’s important to recognize this in yourself, not just in these characters.

So where does Elain fit in? Elain is the #1 emotional labor provider of the family, and she is about to freaking SNAP. I know, because once I realized how my trauma was hidden in order to spare someone else its consequences, I fucking SNAPPEd. I’ll also spare you the personal details, but Elain hasn’t been “okay”. She hasn’t been “boring”, or “nice”, or “chosen” Feyre over Nesta. She has literally been unable to express herself because (and I am NOT blaming Nesta or Feyre or her father one bit) her family’s emotional state has been so fragile, there hasn’t been room for Elain to feel or express her emotions in years. 

In the feysand short, Rhys says:

I wonder if everyone has spent so long assuming Elain is sweet and innocent that she felt she had to be that way or else she’d disappoint you all.

And that completely tracks. Everyone has gotten used to Elain being not just “nice”, but being the emotionally predictable one. The one they know they can go to for a smile. The one they can count on for never, ever making them realize that she has been through Some Shit Too. And being that person is exhausting.

When Feyre thinks about Elain not using Lucien’s gloves, 1) she still has them, otherwise she couldn’t think about Elain not using them, and 2) I like to see the gloves as something that she will come to use, once she realizes that she can feel and express those emotions without it causing a breakdown in the family. Right now, she just wants to feel. And she can’t do that emotionally, so she’s doing it physically. Once she heals and finds a better balance, she won’t need to resort to physical pain. (Which, lowkey has me thinking some other thoughts, but.... maybe later.) But anyway, once Elain does go through her very own special journey, I fully expect her to welcome those gloves. She won’t need physical pain to feel anymore.

Not to mention my completely unacademic and non-professional opinion that people will judge a nice women harshly for being rude once, but accept a woman with a history of rudeness for just “being that way”. It’s another way that Elain may feel trapped in her “nice girl” persona. I think she started out that way - kindness and light and generosity is 100% in Elain’s character in the first place. It’s not as if she went into the Court of Nightmares and suddenly Cassian thought, “wait, she fits right in to this shithole of depravity”. No, he still thought the literal opposite. It’s just that once people get used to you doing all their emotional labor, they will continue to take advantage of it, even if they don’t realize its cost.