#you didn't say gun but it was implied so just in case

[ask-the-totally-real-peppino]

Hello, i'm cheese anon's evil (not really) alter ego, theorist anon and i've come here to tell you my theory or uhh... actually personal hc of what happend to bruno (headcanons are like theorys but less fancy shut >:[), (i tweaked it a bit to fit your context just a tad better as i have some ideas with how you portrayed bruno (or well part of him))

SO. First of all i have to say i liked the uniform you gave bruno, very cute tbh, but more than pizzeria it's giving ice cream or candy shop thb, not that is a bad thing just saying so uhh fuck it pizzeria no more he runs an ice cream shop now in me mind

OK WITH THAT OUT THE WAY NOW WE FR THIS TIME.

Ok so. Once upon a time this italian guy called Bruno runed an ice cream shop with his wife, pizzahead saw how succesful they were on their own and said "shiiid imma need that" so he made a deal with the happy couple. BUT then he tried to bribe and trick them into giving up pretty much all rights to uhh.. i don't have a name for the ice cream shop actually lmao, just think of amything. anyways, they said no bc the ice cream shop was something they hold very dear to them, they have been saving for this for literal years and risked it all to get it running so who would want to give it all out like that really? But pisshead can't accept a no for an answer so what did he did? He just killed them in the spot. If they aren't gonna sing these papers might as well just kill the guys so they stop growing you know? He cannot afford ANY sort of competition (even tho he sells horrible pizzas and they are a fucking ice cream shop). But then he realizes "shit i fucked up imma get sued" so he just tried to recreate bruno using his brain as a base, couldn't replicate the wife tho, he accidentally shot her in the brain without thinking he would have to clone her too oops.

Anyways they go thru the cloning process but uh oh the clone isn't perfect, guy doesn't even remember who he was. The solution? Lie that they sold their shop and flew out the country with the money without telling anyone, aslo they changed their numbers you cannot find them ^-^. Btw the shop closed down literal months after he "acquired" the shop, the ice cream was bad it tasted like pizza :(.

That gets us to today, pizzahead now found some new guy to torment and since he had the clone laying around he just kind of managed to make it change looks so it can look like peppino and then used them as a boss on his tower.

Ok i'm done talking :] hope you like this mess of a theory imma go, cheese bitch wants to take control again mkay bye was a plessure to speak to ya'll <3

(Ohohoho, Theorist Anon! What a delight to read!

I cannot confirm nor deny your theory, but I will say that part of it is pretty spot-on! And it's generally an interesting story regardless!

Just some silly and goofy pizza man absolutely snapping and killing a couple bc he's a jealous bitch, and then he goes 'whoopsie daisy' and remakes one of them, and uses them to torment another guy??? Incredible

If dear Cheese Anon allows you to return, I'd love to read any more theories you have! (And I will continue to smugly grin as I do not confirm nor deny them)

ALSO, I totally get the ice cream shop vibes from the outfit, not intentional, but it is very funny to imagine Pizzahead taking over a non-pizza related place and making bad pizzas or pizza-flavoured ice cream!

Who knows! Maybe the tower warped Bruno's Ice Cream to Bruno's Pizza, bc it is Pizza tower and not Ice Cream tower hehe

Also, Pep does love ice cream, but that's maybe unrelated!)

[gxlden-angels]

I don't know how many of you watch/listen to Belief it or Not but I love his concern about a USAmerican pastor bringing a gun on stage for a message cause my old pastor openly bragged about being armed all the time

[zepskies]

Headcanon: Sleepwalking

Pairings: Dean Winchester x F. Reader, Beau Arlen x F. Reader, Soldier Boy/Ben x F. Reader, Jason Teague x Reader

AN: @jackles010378 This one's for you, hun! 😘

Tags/Warnings: 18+ only. Mainly fluff, implied sex, nakedness

HC: How Dean, Beau, Soldier Boy (Ben), and Jason would react to you sleepwalking.

Dean Winchester

At first, Dean can't understand why you hesitate to sleep with him after, well, sleeping with him.

Did he read you wrong? Is just this something casual for you? The thought makes him swallow, jaw clenching, but if that's how you want it...he can try to be okay with that.

Seeing the hurt he's trying to bury behind his eyes, you settle down beside him in bed and stroke his cheek. You assure him that you're staying. Even though in the back of your mind, you're hoping and praying.

Please, God. Not tonight...

It happens around 3:00 in the morning.

Dean feels you stir on your side of his bed. He's a light sleeper at the best of times, so he turns to see you tossing the covers off your half-naked body and getting out of bed.

"Where're you going?" he says, playfully trying to grab your hand. But you slip right out of his hold without answering him, padding to the door and leaving the room.

Still half-asleep, but now thoroughly bewildered, Dean's brows furrow, and he gets up to follow you. You would never walk out of a room wearing just his shirt and nothing else, your bare feet slapping the floor with every step. He hopes Sam isn't up and about at this hour.

It takes him a while, but Dean finds you in the kitchen. There you seem to be trying to put together a bowl of Cheerios. The box is already on the counter. You're opening cupboards and leaving them open, your hands searching for a bowl.

"What'cha doin' sweetheart? Little midnight snack action? I can get behind that," Dean says.

You don't even seem to hear him. Dean watches you grab a mug instead of a bowl...and the orange juice instead of milk.

It all goes downhill from there.

"I did what?" you exclaim the next morning. "See! This is why I didn't wanna tell you."

You cover your face in your hands in mortification while Dean rubs your back, chuckling so hard he can't even breathe. You smack him in the stomach, but it doesn't stop his wheezing. He kisses you on the cheek to placate you.

"It's okay, baby. I didn't know coffee grounds and O.J. went so well together."

Beau Arlen

The first night you stay over at his air stream trailer, you warn him ahead of time while you sit beside him on the narrow bed.

"Just so you know, I um..." Getting out the words are difficult. You give him a wan smile in embarrassment, but he's listening intently, waiting for you to finish.

You sigh and decide to bite the bullet. "I tend to sleepwalk."

Just as you predicted, Beau's brows shoot up in surprise.

"Really?" he says, a smile starting to curve his lips.

Your lips twitch at a smile as well. "Yes, so I don't wanna hear any wisecracks. It runs in my family, unfortunately."

"Wow, a whole family of sleepwalkers, huh?" he muses, rubbing a hand over his bearded chin. "Gotta say, I'd like to see that--"

You cut off his chuckling with a shove of his shoulder.

But that night, Beau is startled awake when you trip over his shoes left on the floor, beside a small pile of his clothes and yours that you two hadn't bothered to pick up.

You aren't hurt too badly -- just a bruised forehead and very confused the next morning.

But from then on, Beau takes your condition more seriously.

Every night, he makes sure his place is clean and organized so you don't trip on anything.

He puts a child lock on the door in case you try to open it while sleepwalking, and he keeps the sliding door to the bathroom open in case you need to get in there.

Most importantly, he locks his guns away in a safe inside his nightstand.

His objective is making sure you're safe and comfortable whenever you're with him.

Though he can't help teasing you a little bit (a lot) when you rearrange his entire sock and underwear drawer in your sleep, perfectly folded and color coded.

"Well, thanks very much, darlin'," he grins.

You shake your head, covering your warm, blushing face.

"Shut up."

Soldier Boy (Ben)

"What the fuck?" Ben wipes his bleary eyes, but he still can't believe what he's seeing.

He watches in bewilderment when he finds you in the kitchen in the middle of the night. Completely naked. Frying up some bacon to go with your toast, apparently.

Not that naked cooking doesn't appeal to him. In fact, the sight of you from behind -- your hair loose over your shoulders, the curve of your waist and the gentle swell of your hips, bare ass and legs, and the hint of side boob while your hands move deftly with the pan and silver utensil...

It's arousing, even erotic, making his cock twitch in his sweatpants.

And it actually fits pretty well with one of his fantasies that he's been wanting to try out with you.

But this is also more than a little fucking strange. You're usually dead to the world until at least 9:00 a.m.

"Sweetheart, what're you doing?" he asks. He approaches you from behind and rests a hand on your lower back as he peers over your shoulder, but you don't answer him.

When a large spark of grease pops in the pan, you barely even flinch when it hits your arm and burns you.

Instinctively, he knows something's wrong. He grabs the pan out of your hand and hooks an arm around your waist, pulling you away from the crackling grease. He turns off the stove and steps back with you in his arms.

"Hey, are you hearing me? What the fuck's going on here?" he asks.

Your eyes seem glazed over, until he (gently) slaps at your cheek.

"Hey."

Finally, you blink faster a few times, take a deeper breath, and glance up at him. "Hey..."

Your brows furrowing, you look around the room in confusion. Your eyes widen when you look down at your naked body. You gasp and cling to his arms. "What the hell?!"

"Were you fucking sleepwalking?" Ben asks, his lips twitching in amusement and incredulity all at once.

"Oh my God, you tell me!" you exclaim. This has never happened to you in your life! What the hell is going on?

He leads you back to the bedroom, and after putting your pajamas back on, you inspect the pill bottle on your nightstand. Ben gave it to you to help knock out the spell of insomnia you've been having.

After reading the list of side effects, you toss the bottle at your man's chest, even knowing he'll barely feel it.

"This is the last time I let you give me Ambien!"

Bonus! Jason Teague

What the hell did you take? Jason wonders, as he tries to keep you from unclipping your seatbelt.

The two of you are on a plane halfway to France on vacation.

You're a nervous flyer, but you just woke up from a dead sleep after taking that little pill an hour ago.

And you're apparently "feeling happy," in your words, your head rolling onto his shoulder with a giggle.

"Jase," you stage whisper (loudly). You raise a finger and swirl it around the air. "My face is hot. I'm hot. I'm hot for...you."

You tweak the tip of his nose.

He laughs a bit nervously, despite his genuine amusement. A mother looks their way with a raised brow. She puts a pair of headphones on her little boy and gives him an iPad to focus on. Jason shoots her an awkward smile and wave. Then he focuses back on you.

"Okay. Sweetheart, I like the enthusiasm, but I think you just need to sleep off the rest of whatever this is," he says. He grabs a blanket to cover you with.

"Hmm, okay."

Eventually you settle down and snuggle into him. He smiles in relief, soothing a hand over your hair and pressing a kiss to your forehead. He soon falls asleep himself.

When he wakes, you're no longer sitting beside him. His eyes popping open wide, he sits up and leans out of the aisle. He doesn't see you at all in the first class cabin.

Jason shoots up out of his seat and hurries down the other way, through the curtain where business and economy sit.

Sure enough, a flight attendant is following you up and down the aisle trying to get your attention, but you don't even seem to be hearing him.

"Ma'am? Can you hear me?" the attendant tries. He seems to be getting frustrated. "There's turbulence, miss. It's not safe for you to be--"

Jason hurries to you and grabs your arm just as the plane begins to tremble and shake. He knows there's something wrong if you're not freaking out right now. You should be clinging to him like a koala, not wearing a blank expression on your face as you glance up at him.

"Aw shit, you're sleepwalking," he realizes breathlessly. What the hell did you take?

He knows you told him, but now he feels guilty for not really listening as he and the flight attendant help you back to your seat.

Once you're clipped back into a seatbelt along with him, Jason sighs in relief now that he knows you're safe and sleeping more peacefully. Looks like you two are going to have an adventure before you even get to Paris.

He fishes out the little bottle from your bag and reads the label.

Xanax. Jesus Christ. One thing's for sure, Jason is throwing it out when you guys land.

You'll thank him when you wake up.

AN: 😂 I had more fun than I thought with this one! Let me know what you think, and if there are other characters you'd like to see the next time I do one of these headcanons. 😘💜

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[arachine]

*slides a big fat twenty your way* uh how about a part two of that non traditional family dynamics with gojo

dinner and a disaster . . .

synopsis :: when your oldest daughter is at that age where boys are starting to become the focal point of her universe, you bring out the big guns — which in this case, unfortunately happens to be her father (who is not exactly the best when it comes to disciplining his little girls).

or, in other words, you and gojo play good cop bad cop.

genre :: fluff

contents :: co-parent!gojo, mentions of alcohol, heavy dialogue, time skip (the girls are 14 and 12 respectively), gojo is in distress !!!!

note :: link to part 1 + link to part 3

it's 10 pm when you text gojo about the latest happenings going on in your household.

it's also 10:01 pm when you answer his incoming face time call.

he's wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket, laying down on his bed with a pillow under his chin and a hand propped up to support his head—he's comfortable, to say the least, and 100% tuned in to hear about whatever it is that you just texted him.

"is this what you've been doing all day?" you query with a laugh. there's a brief look of confusion etched onto his face before he picks up on what you were implying. rolling his eyes, he scoffs.

"it was my day off," he pouts, "can't a man relax in his fuzzy blanket?"

you squint teasingly at the screen, then nod slowly before mouthing an 'uh-huh'.

"i didn't call you to get berated about my choice of blanket!"

"okay, okay! i'm sorry," you grab a napkin from your nightstand, waving it like a white flag of surrender. "such a baby..."

"says the one who could never take...you know what, i won't finish that."

"smart man," you smile. "i want to be mad at you sometimes but it's almost kinda impressive how easily you can change the atmosphere...i mean, wow! it's record-breaking, truly."

"ha...ha. alright. i overstepped my bounds, i get it. can we just...can we just get back to our daughter? i'm starting to regret calling you on my day off—which, by the way, was going so great."

"great, love that we're on the same page," you give him a thumbs up through the screen. before you can get into the nitty-gritty of the situation, you take a brief pause to prepare yourself for the dramatics about to ensue—because if you know anything about gojo satoru, you know he's definitely one for the dramatics.

"when i tell you this...i want you to stay calm, keep a level head, and most importantly, i want you not to scream," you say, opening your mouth again to emphasize the last part, "and it's important that you especially won't scream, okay?"

gojo mulls it over before committing, "i don't know...it depends on what you're gonna tell m-"

"just—just promise, gojo," you interrupt, clearly agitated.

"alright, i promise."

"okay, so there's a boy..."

you're mid-sentence when gojo's eye starts to twitch.

"and she's expressed to me that she wants to go on a date with him." when you finish, you're half expecting him to yell, and half expecting him to end the call. but he doesn't.

in fact, he's so still, you're almost convinced he's frozen, but then he begins to smile. slow at first, and then all at once. it's creepy, you think, something straight out of a horror film.

"i know this was a lot of information to process, are you...okay?"

"pfttt, what? of course, why wouldn't i be?"

"well, you look scary. maybe i shouldn't have told yo-"

"SHE WANTS TO WHAT?"

and there it is. gojo satoru, king of dramatics.

"my little girl, my baby, my princess. she's only 10!-"

"she's 14."

"same thing, how could you let this happen?!"

"what happened to not yelling?! you promised!"

"oh be serious, i made a vow to you 14 years ago and look where we are now," he whisper-yells, trying (and failing) to contain his voice.

"dammit, you're right...well, at least we're on the same page! we both don't want this date to happen." when you take another glance at the screen, gojo's no longer laying down on his bed, but up and pacing around his room like a mad man.

you watch him for awhile, and when he doesn't seem to be coming back any time you soon, you call his name, "satoru."

"what?!" he turns to the phone. glaring at him, you wait for him to check his tone. "sorry, what?"

"i was thinking tomorrow you could come over for dinner? it'd give us a chance to talk to her about it...so that it's not just me telling her no."

"so, what i'm hearing is that you want her to hate me too?"

"no, i'm saying i want us to be a team. so, can you come over tomorrow? can you do that?" you ask, raising a brow.

"yeah, i'll be there."

at the same time the oven alarm goes off, gojo arrives. you can see his car pull into the drive way from where you are in the kitchen, and you mentally curse yourself for not getting ready sooner.

"fuck, uh okay," you throw your oven mitts, "hon, can you get the door for your dad? i need to go upstairs and get changed."

the youngest gets up from her place on the couch, "sure, wait...dad's staying for dinner? what's the occasion?"

you're halfway up the stairs before you stop, "enough questions, please. just open the door, thank youuuu."

ambling from the living room to the foyer, she opens the front door. gojo smiles, and immediately lifts her up into a bone-crushing hug that only a dad could give.

"hey bug, missed you," he squeezes her, much to her behest.

"ugh, dadddd, put me down," she drawls, pawing at his chest. gojo frowns and puts her down, putting a hand over his heart as if he were shot.

"you used to love that, you know."

"yeah, when i was like five."

"are you not?" he teases, but she's not amused. he nudges her arm annoyingly until she begins to smile. "there we go, punk. now can i have a real hug? you're hurting my feelings."

like a true pre-teen, she rolls her eyes and reluctantly trudges over to him, then opens her arms up for a hug. at this stage, you've noticed that hugs are okay, but only when it's on their own terms—and you especially can't initiate them when their friends are around (you learned that the hard way).

when they pull away, gojo takes his shoes off and wanders through the house. "where's the other brat at?"

"upstairs."

gojo nods, "uh-huh...where's your mom at?"

"right here." gojo hears you before he sees you, and then he lifts his head up to see you at the top of the stairs standing behind the banister. before you make your way downstairs, you waltz over to your daughter's room and knock on the door.

"hey, dinner's ready. come on downstairs. somebody's here to see you." as you begin turning around, the door flies open and out comes your moody teenage daughter.

"who is it?" she queries, following behind you like a duckling.

from where he stands at the bottom of the staircase, gojo raises a hand and waves.

"hey, scrub."

"dad? what are you doing here?" your oldest questions, but still goes in for a hug.

"your mom invited me over for dinner, that cool with you?"

she nods, then turns to her sister. they exchange a knowing look that, if translated, would be: something's definitely up. they wait for you and gojo to head to the kitchen before having a quick debrief.

"you definitely did something," the youngest side eyes.

"wha-why would you think i did something? you're the one failing a class," she rebuttals.

"ok well...this isn't about me! they only get together when one of us does something. don't you see? they're teaming up...this is an intervention."

the oldest pinches the space between her brows, "i can see why you're failing english now, because the way you just jumped to conclusions like that is actually insane."

dinner goes by without a hitch. for majority of it, you spend the time talking about work, school (which seems like a sensitive subject because the youngest wouldn't look either of you in the eye), and the plot of this hbo show with adult kids who're trying to take over their father's company.

gojo brings it up, of course, and jokingly says that the show was written with him in mind. he asks the girls if they'll fight over who'll inherit the company when he dies, and it turns into a i'm the better daughter debate.

when it gets a little too rowdy, you have to remind them that this is all hypothetical and that their father is a menace who likes to cause chaos whenever possible. gojo pouts and says you're no fun, but quickly fixes his face when he sees your pointed glare.

"come help me with the dishes," you say, and then disappear into the kitchen.

the two of you fall back into old habits. you wash the dishes, he dries and sets them on the rack. it feels like it did in the beginning, only this time, he'll be leaving when the two of you set out to do what you originally intended.

"dinner was nice," he says after about 10 minutes of comfortable silence. he doesn't look up, doesn't even make a joke about your cooking (which, you were totally expecting him to do). instead, he just continues drying the plate you handed to him.

"you know, you're welcomed to come again. you don't always have to be away in that apartment all by yourself," you start, choosing your words carefully, gently. "the girls like eating with their dad."

"i like eating with them too. i guess i'll start coming by more often then."

you almost miss it but there's a smile on his face, and it's genuine. instead of pointing it out, you savor the moment.

your reasoning for his coming here was to talk to your daughter, but it was also to get him out of the apartment. see, you were sneaky like him too, and what he didn't know wouldn't kill him. to you, this was just hitting two birds with one stone.

when you finish up, the two of you discuss the plan over for what seems like the 100th time.

"so, we're gonna go in there and be cool about it, okay? we won't hound her. we're just gonna tell her like it is, and then let her down gently. got it?"

"got it."

"after you," gojo extends his arm.

"wha-ugh, fine."

as you lead the way, gojo has to keep a hand on your back to keep you from turning back around. so far, you've attempted to retreat five times—you're two feet away from the kitchen entrance.

"will you just go?" there's irritation laced in his tone.

"okay, just stop pushing me."

"no promises, keep walking."

you sigh, but heed his request. with a hand still on your back, he guides you all the way to the living room. the girls are watching tv but quickly avert their focus when they notice you standing next to the couch with a freakish smile plastered on your face. gojo whispers in your ear to be cool and you immediately gather your wits.

"mom...your face...dad what's wrong with her face she's scaring me," the youngest pauses the tv.

"sweetie, will you go upstairs for a minute? your dad and i have to talk to your sister."

seeming to be catching on, she gets up from the couch and says a 'told you' to her sister before running upstairs. you and gojo share a look.

"what's up?" she asks, still weirded out.

"you see, well...we've been talking and..." you start, "your father has something he wants to tell you!"

gojo snaps his head towards you, gasping in the same motion. "hey, what the hell happened to being cool?"

"no promises, remember?"

"oh, you litt-"

"dad."

"sorry, uh, shit. i wasn't prepared for this. this wasn't the plan," he begins, "so, i heard there's a boy...and...you're at that age where boys are cute..."

she looks at the two of you in abhor and groans. gojo pauses briefly, but you encourage him to continue.

"and i've come to understand that you're interested in one and want to go on a date?"

"yeah."

"oh...okay well, i—we just don't think that's a good idea. you're 14, in school, and honey, you're so young...you have your whole life to be interested in boys."

"wait, what do you mean 'we'?"

"your mom and i talked about it and-"

"mom said she was fine with it."

gojo smiles in shock and then blinks, once, twice, three times.

"we'll be back," he announces, pulling you by the arm to the kitchen.

when you get to the kitchen, he releases your arm and pinches the skin between his brows. it takes all of about five seconds before he erupts.

"'we're a team, satoru', 'we're in this together', bullshit! you wanted me to be the bad cop, didn't you?"

"not initial-"

"didn't you!"

"okay, sorry! i may have...gave in when she asked, but i figured you'd be able to tell her no!"

"why would you think that!? she's my little girl!"

"she's my little girl too!"

gojo walks over to the cabinet and pulls out a glass. "i can't right now, i need a drink. what do you have?"

opening another cabinet, you pull out a bottle of pink whitney. gojo sucks his teeth. it was such a girl drink, but it was all you had so beggars couldn't be choosers. shrugging, he raises his glass for you to pour the drink into.

grabbing another glass, you sit down and join him.

"we've been had, huh?"

"how is that?"

"because we both can't say no to her."

gojo raises his glass to his lips and swallows it all down in a few gulps.

your daughter goes on a date the following week, and gojo starts looking into trackers.

© arachine 2023

[honeygrahambitch]

"Where did this come from?" Hannibal asked. His hands were busy washing Will's hair. A bruise on his temple drew his attention, making him brush away the foam to get a better look. "It wasn't here yesterday."

"A guy we arrested showed some resistance. He hit me with the barrel of his gun." Will explained. His eyes were closed and he was almost purring in Hannibal's hands.

Hannibal made a disapproving sound.

"Shame you arrested him. I can't go after him now."

"You do realize you can't chase down every guy who touches me, right?"

"One can always try." Hannibal answered honestly and continued massaging Will's scalp.

"I never hear about stuff like that from you." Will suddenly said and opened his eyes.

"What kind of stuff?"

"About the people that do anything to you."

"That's because the people who do anything to me don't get to live too much, darling. I take care of them myself."

"Of that much I am aware." Will said and pictured the way the Ripper case file kept getting thicker and thicker on his desk. "It would be nice if you didn't. At least sometimes."

"Are you implying that you want to play the knight in shining armour? For me?"

"You're stupid." Will concluded. "But yes. Sometimes you are too elegant with these individuals. And I get it, that's your thing."

Hannibal hummed thoughtfully.

"You got me curious. I might take your offer."

"Do that."

*

"Alright. Now, let's discuss what the victims have in common." Jack said, looking through a few pictures.

Will's phone rang just when he was about to reply.

"Sorry." He apologized and was about to reject the call. Hannibal's name flashing on the screen made him do the opposite.

"Hey." Will greeted him.

"My dearest." Hannibal started. "There is a gentleman here at Walmart who left his shopping cart in the parking lot. Right in front of my Bentley."

"That... sounds annoying?"

"And agonizingly rude."

Will smiled thinking of the funny choice of words. He found it adorable that Hannibal had called to share that with him. Then it sunk in. He remembered about their discussion last night.

"You're at Walmart where exactly?"

"In Quantico. I wanted to pick you up later."

"I'm on my way. Don't let that son of a bitch go." Will said and hung up.

That was it. His knight in shining armour moment. The looks he earned from everyone in the room were mixed and confused.

"Sorry, I need to go. It's important."

"Of course. The serial killer can wait." Jack concluded as Will was already leaving the room.

*

"Hey." Will said as soon as he parked his car. "You."

"Huh?" The man who was already very bored with the conversation he was having with Hannibal turned his head towards Will.

"Yes, you. Grab your shopping cart quickly and put it where it should be."

"And who exactly are you? The shopping cart police?"

"I will be your worst nightmare if you don't do as I say. Trust me, this is me being nice."

"I'm not doing anything." He said and started walking towards his car. Will did not quickened his pace. He memorized the car plate and watched the man leave with a content smile on his face.

"That was me being nice." Will told Hannibal who looked like he was watching his favorite movie.

"I am looking forward to what will happen."

"Good." Will said, then kept on his shining armour. "Are you alright?"

"Bothered by this incident but I am slowly becoming more and more enthusiastic."

*

"I hope you understand why I also asked Dr. Lecter to consult on this case." Jack said as soon as Will and Hannibal arrived at the crime scene. "It's quite peculiar."

"The man was found dead in a shopping cart at Walmart. His liver is missing. The cut is quite sloppy so definitely not the Ripper." Jimmy explained.

"Was it really that sloppy?" Will asked unamused by the feedback.

"I mean, it shows that our killer has no medical training whatsoever. But he's good enough. Meticulous."

"What do you think, doctor?" Will asked, ignoring Jimmy.

"The crime scene shows high class. Power. It has something sensual to it. I would say that the killer must have been quite disturbed by a very specific behavior caused by the victim."

"What exactly?" Jack asked confused by the specific choice of words. He knew better than to question Hannibal.

"Maybe the victim left his shopping cart in the parking lot?" Brian suggested making Jack roll his eyes.

"I'm sure it's deeper than that."

[railingsofsorrow]

Emily Prentiss x reader with the song “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”.

They’re dating and an unsub takes reader (reader can be part of the BAU or not) and it’s like a switch goes off in Emily’s brain and she doesn’t hesitate to do anything to get reader back. When Emily gets reader back they see that side of Emily for the first time and is scared of her because they’ve never seen Emily like that. Bonus if unsub makes reader see what Emily does to get them back to try to make reader hate Emily.

who's afraid of little old me?

[emily prentiss x reader]

summary: Emily didn't know she carried so much rage inside of her until she saw bloody fingers around your neck and a gun pointed at your temple.   She should've seen it coming.

pairing: emily prentiss x f!bau!reader w.c: 2.9K warnings/content: case-related violence: blood, gun, gunshot wounds, fainting; flinching; a hint towards police brutality (implied); mentions of psychopathy (implied); language; discussion about committing murder to someone; crying; insomnia; protective emily; angst; fluff.

A/N: hello anon, here's your request. sorry for the delay, I hope you like it :)

[part of “the taylor swift anthology”] 

navi

masterpost

cm masterlist

[requested]

[press play]

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❝ if you wanted me dead

you should've just said. ❞

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Emily.

. . .

Emily!

She woke up with a start. Hyperventilating and shortness of breath, her chest was tight like someone was pressing their hands on it. She couldn't breathe. Not until your hands were touching and comforting her in a way only you knew how to do. 

Then, and only then, would she inhale and feel the air entering her lungs.

But two days ago, it wasn't like that. Two days ago, she didn't have you by her side in bed, whispering her name and making her feel safe, which was what she should be doing to you. You were the one who had been kidnapped and held hostage for a week. 

Two days ago, Emily almost lost you.

━━━━━━━━━

[Two days ago]

Smoke came out of the car, blurring her vision as she tried to approach the vehicle. 

She had taken off her earpiece a while ago, bothered by her team's voice blaring through her ear begging for her to not move forward without backup. 

Right. As if that was such an easy task for her to do. Absolutely not. You had been taken a week ago by a woman they've been chasing for two weeks. A witness. She had been right under your noses the whole time and from the moment you walked into her house to get her statement, you'd become prey to her sick games. 

I should've seen it coming.

It's what echoed through Emily's brain non-stop. 

I should've seen it coming.

When you're on the job, you bottle up your feelings as much as you can in order to focus on cracking the case and saving lives. 

Hotch was stern and had that tough exterior that made people think twice before uttering a word, in fear of saying something wrong. He was an unexceptional Unit Chief for the Behavioral Analysis Unit and an even greater friend to Emily. He taught her everything she knows about how to be a good leader and taking that spot that once belonged to him for years was a tough choice. Emily didn't know how she would ever measure up to Aaron Hotchner, but she did know how to lead given her experience in London and that was a start. 

Something he had told her once, about letting people in, because they were too much alike on that point.

“When those people say they care, it's usually because they do. When you're on the field, you're coworkers, they're your team. But off the field... you're allowed to let go. They're your friends, Emily. We all are.” 

Hotch was trying to tell her not to compartmentalize everything. He was advising her to trust her team, her friends, because she deserved it and she wasn't all alone anymore. 

She believed that.

She believed she wasn't all alone anymore the moment you walked into her life with a smile and a plate filled with delicious chocolate chip cookies made by you. That was your first day of work, the first day she saw you, the first time she heard your voice, and the first moment she believed in love at first sight. 

Emily would let go when she was with you. She would be vulnerable for the first time in decades. She trusted you with her entire being. 

The issue with people that bottle up their feelings, is that they're a ticking time bomb. They hold on for as much as they can, maintaining that harsh exterior and unlimited control, until that control is lost and the fire is set. It explodes. No warning. No previous announcements. It just happens. 

Emily didn't know she carried so much rage inside of her until she saw bloody fingers around your neck and a gun pointed at your temple. 

I should've seen it coming.

“Megan, let her go.”

Your eyes were locked to Emily's unwavering figure, you sought her eyes but she didn't meet yours, not even for a second. 

Your hair was matted with blood and dirt. The blood belonged to you, you've lost count of the fights you had pulled to get out of the hell you were put in. You were most definitely concussed as well, though the headache was barely a pang in the back of your head. Adrenaline was responsible for keeping you standing until now. Once it wears out, you're certain you will collapse in exhaustion and dehydration. 

“Why?” The woman whispered in your ear, causing shivers to went down your spine. Her cheek was rubbing against yours. She was asking you why she should let you go. 

You know one wrong move can send a bullet straight to your brain and you didn't feel like dying tonight. Especially not in front of Emily. 

You admired her professionalism on the field. She'd never deviate or hesitate, always certain about her next move. You were proud of her. Of who she became. Proud of how she let you in in her life. 

Emily rarely got mad. She would lean towards annoyance and pout when something didn't work out the way she wanted. She would be the one to calm you down when you were mad, actually. 

Now, holding a gun with her gaze set on Megan Gilbert, there was profound anger and determination set in her eyes. 

She wouldn't look at you. 

"Did you see the damage she did to my partner?" She tightened her hold on your tied hands, pulling at them causing you to wince. "Agent Prentiss, are you playing a hero or an assassin today?"

"Stop it," you hissed. You knew what she was doing and you weren't so sure Emily would hold herself back much longer. 

"I think your team will call it overkill, won't they?" Megan didn't even show any sadness over the death of her brother. She wasn't capable of showing emotion. "So many bullet holes in Adrian's head... Tsc tsc tsc. Are you gonna tell them it was self-defense? That's what you all do, isn't that right?"

"Shut up!" You attempt to hit her head with the back of yours, but you barely graze it before she pulls you forward, throwing you on the floor as you groan in pain because of having landed in your right arm in an awkward position because of your tied hands.

"There it is, you have her," Megan drawled out. You have trouble turning over with both your feet and wrists tied up, but you did it. Emily is still pointing her gun at her, her ponytail slightly undone, you see sweat traveling down the side of her face, but she's unmoving, certain. "Now what, Agent Prentiss?"

She looked at you for a glimpse of a second as you fell, taking a step in front of you to make sure Megan wouldn't try anything. She wouldn't, not with her there. 

"Emily." You croaked out, voice rough, begging.

The room was filled with a daunting silence. The outcome could only go two ways: Megan Gilbert successfully arrested or with a bullet wound to her head. Judging by Emily's current demeanor, you were leaning towards the latter option. You didn't want that. Not because you cared any bit for Megan, but for how that would affect Emily if she pulled that trigger. 

"Em." You called her name again, trying to free yourself from your restraints. Megan had clearly lost her momentary infatuation with you after noticing Emily's reaction at seeing you hurt and she was successfully using that in her favor. Emily was her target now. Not you. Which was why she didn't let go of her gun. 

Damn it, Emily. Look at me, don't do it. Don't do it.

"You have her," Megan repeated, tilting her head with her gun wavering around the room with a laugh. "But you don't really have her, do you? Not now, not anymore." Your breath was shallow and you didn't know how much more you were able to keep yourself awake. The adrenaline was starting to wear out. "Because what I did... it will haunt her forever. I left beautiful marks on her body so that she could look in the mirror and see them- see the art I've made. Which, honestly, was a favor. She wasn't that salvageable before-Fuck!" 

You flinch back as the loud sound of the gunfire echoed throughout the room.

“Don't you ever, and I mean, ever—” Emily said through gritted teeth, pausing in between each word. “... talk about her again.” 

You looked away as she sunk her shoe into the bullet wound on Megan's leg. A maniac laugh escaped from the woman's mouth. 

“Oh, that's nice. Have I hit a nerve?”

“Emily.” You leaned back with difficulty, coldness crawling up on you. You could barely feel your legs anymore. You could barely feel anything. 

Something seemed to click in Emily's mind, bringing her back to you. When she turned around, her heart sank and she felt herself immediately running towards you, calling out your name so you would give her some sort of response. Anything. Your eyes were shut, your clothes ripped and dirty, a nasty cut on your lip. 

“Hey, I'm here.” Emily brushed your messy strands away from your face, her eyes analysing the number of injuries you had. Megan was still provoking her by the time the team came in through the door, groaning as they pulled her up forcefully. You looked away at her bleeding leg, earning a sound of mocking pity from her.

"You feel sorry for me, pretty thing?"

Emily turned back to glance at someone and spoke with an icy tone that made you inch away a little bit. You weren't scared of her, never. But anything caused you to flinch and god did you need to lie down and sleep, just sleep. "Get her the fuck away from here right now." 

Your name was called repeatedly and you didn't understand why if you were right there. Until you understood the reason why everything was so dark and the last thing you felt was somebody holding your head before you collapsed.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

❝ the scandal was contained    

the bullet had just grazed 

at all costs, keep your good name

you didn't get to tell me you feel bad. ❞

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Em.” 

You asked, leaning against the wall. Arms folded across your chest. The living room carried the cold breeze from the night air, which meant that the kitchen window was open.

You know you closed it before going to bed, but the curled-up body on the couch told you who was responsible for opening the window.

“Baby,” you whispered, brushing her dark strands away from her face. “Why are you sleeping on the couch?”

She cracked one eye open, which made you sniffle a laugh. Then, she fluttered both of her eyes open, taking your hand that was caressing her cheek to intertwine with hers. 

“I'm not sleeping.”

You raised a brow. 

The corner of her lips twitched, “I can't fall asleep and I didn't want to bother you so I came down here.”

You shook your head, leaning down to kiss her forehead before standing up to close the kitchen window and then coming back.

"I told you." You perched on the edge of the sofa and she silently gave you space to come closer. You pulled your knees to your chest and squeezed next to her. Emily chuckled into your neck, wrapping her arms around your middle. "...to tell me when you couldn't sleep. I don't want you to be alone." You let out a sigh when she stayed quiet. "Em, you gotta talk to me."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

❝ is it a wonder I broke? ❞

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"I scared you." 

With furrowed brows to express your confusion, you grab her hand to pull it to your chest. 

"What do you mean?"

"When I found you..."

You quickly turned around to face her. "Emily-"

"You were already scared and I made it worse. It-it wasn't my intention, but the only thing I could think of was finding you to bring you to safety, which is something that I failed to do before."

"No, Emily. You didn't fail," you said softly. Your heart breaking as a tear traveled down her cheek, "that wasn't your responsibility. You had no way of knowing what she was going to do. None of us did. Em, it wasn't your fault."

She sniffled, shaking her head. "I should have known better."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

❝ then say they didn't do it to hurt me. . . but what if they did? ❞

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You cupped her cheeks, forcing her to look at you. Her eyes were misty and you wanted more than anything to make her feel better. She shouldn't be crying because of you, that was the last thing you wanted. 

"Listen to me," you said, thumb grazing her jaw until it reached the back of her ear. She leaned into your touch. "I'm right here, that's what matters. What happened wasn't your fault, I do not blame you, you understand that?" You kissed each of her cheeks, tasting the salty tears that were dripping down like rainfall. 

You also felt the need to clarify something. "I never saw you like that," you admitted carefully. "You wouldn't listen to me and I was scared that whatever you did would affect you later. I didn't want you to do something you would regret. I wasn’t scared of you, baby."

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❝ if you wanted me dead 

you should've just said.

nothing makes me feel more alive. ❞

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Emily leaned away from you and you felt as if you had been burned. She sat down, drying her tears with a shake of her head. Then, her voice echoed through the silence in the living room. 

"I should have killed her. That's what keeps me up, that's what's affecting me. I should have ended there so she couldn't hurt you anymore."

"Emily." You sighed heavily, your frustration growing. You turned on your back to face the ceiling. 

"She almost killed you," Emily said in disbelief. "How can you sleep when she almost-"

"But she didn't, I'm here." And who says I’m sleeping?

"But she almost did!"

"And you wanted me to live with the fact that you would have killed someone for me?" You snapped. "I wouldn't sleep soundly, I would've questioned every decision I've ever made if I had been responsible for that. You're being selfish."

Emily blinked at you, studying your face quietly before diverting her attention back to her hands on her lap. You didn't understand and as selfish as it was for her to say that, you didn't almost lose her, she almost lost you. She would have never forgiven herself if she wasn't able to find you in time or if she couldn't find you at all. Just the thought alone made her stomach churn. It would have killed her.

Emily picked at her nails, "Right." 

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

❝ so I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street 

crash the party like a record scratch:

who's afraid of little old me?

you should be. ❞

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You stared at the ceiling for a few minutes before you glanced down at her, gaze filled with sadness. "Can you please just... hold me?"

You didn't understand. But you didn't have to. Emily would do anything to protect you at all costs. She couldn't bear the thought of losing you or letting anyone hurt you. She promised herself that she would never let that happen again. She would make sure of that.

So when you asked for a hug, you were very much aware that she needed it more than you.

Your girlfriend's demeanor shifted to something softer, warmer, something you knew and needed. Not a revenge-seeking person. You didn't want revenge, you wanted to be in Emily's arms and help her get a good night's sleep for once. You wanted her to let you do that.

"I love you." She said in your neck, rubbing a hand across your arm tenderly. "I'm sorry." I'm sorry I didn't find you sooner, I'm sorry you got hurt and I didn't stop it.

"Just hold me." You curled your legs around hers, bringing her body impossibly closer to yours. "I love you too, Em." It was the last thing you said before darkness enveloped you into something calmer and lovely, instead of the awful nightmares from two nights ago. You knew that you were safe in your apartment, with Emily close to you and Sergio creeping around the living room as he noticed his moms’ presence in the living room. 

It was the first night since you came back home that Emily was able to sleep without jerking awake frightened, out of breath. The first moment she didn't fear almost losing you.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

❝ I am what I am cause you trained me

so who's afraid of me?

so who's afraid of little old me? 

you should be.❞

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[friendly-neighbourhood-wet-cat]

Guys what if I did a thing.

Biker!Red and Rich Girl!Chloe au

TW just in case: Implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced gun violence, minor descriptions of injuries.

-

The Isle and Auradon are two neighbourhoods, separated because Auradon's mayor, Beast, doesn't trust a single person in the Isle.

Chloe is a part of the Charming Family, owners of the most successful company in Auradon. However, she doesn't want to be. She loathes the idea of everyone treating her like a dumb little rich girl who isn't capable of taking care of herself.

So, she sneaks out.

She secretly goes to parties in the Isle almost every night, craving the adrenaline rush that comes with disobeying her parents. But one night, Chloe gets a Iittle too bold.

She drinks too much, and before she could even blink, some random dude was pinning her to the wall of a secluded hallway, and touching her a little too confidently.

Enter Red.

She has been here for a whole excruciating hour, pointedly avoiding her mother while also working out a money deal for her. She was waiting for the guy to come when she heard a hushed argument coming from a nearby hallway.

As soon as she sees what's going on, Red threatens the guy to let go, and he only does so when she flashes the revolver tucked in her pants.

All Chloe can do is stare up at her saviour as she asks if she's okay, too drunk and gay to say anything. Chloe calls her brother, Chad, to pick her up since he's the only person who knows about her nightly endeavours.

The two talk for a bit, and Chloe finds out that maybe she isn't as educated on the world as she thought she was.

She finds out that everyone in the Isle is suffering, whether it be horrible living conditions, gun violence, abusive home situations, or anything else.

As the mysterious (and very attractive) biker walks away, she recognises the symbol on the back of her black leather jacket.

The Wonderland Gang.

An infamous biker gang that meddled in illegal activities, but the cops were too scared of them to do anything.

Red's mother, Bridget, was the leader is this gang, known by everyone else as the Queen of Hearts.

Contrary to popular belief, Bridget was actually a good mother. She and Red just didn't see eye to eye on most things, and then there was also the responsibility of keeping up their reputation.

Chloe didn't dare tell her parents about her encounter with the biker, knowing they would most likely never let her out of the house again. So, she simply tried to forget about it.

That didn't work, obviously.

She kept having dreams about the girl, it seemed like she couldn't get her out of her head. Her brother was too smug as he watched her fall apart, knowing exactly how uselessly gay his sister was.

A painful week later, as she was walking home from another night out, her wishes were answered.

She heard someone coughing in an alleyway. The coughs sounded like a wet gurgle, making Chloe sick to her stomach. She looked for the person frantically, and eventually found them slumped over a dumpster.

Lo and behold, it was her.

Her face was badly bruised, and with the way she held herself, Chloe guessed her ribs were, too.

She immediately got her out of the alley, and walked her to her house. Initially, her parents were hesitant, but after seeing the state Red was in, they knew she needed help.

Red woke up the next day in Chloe's bed, panicked and wary.

Chloe calmed her down and explained the situation, to which Red replied that she had to go or her mother would kill her.

Chloe didn't want to let her go - whether it was because she was still injured, or because she simply liked her presence, she didn't know - but Red couldn't be stopped. As she was about to hop out of the window and climb down to the ground, she gave Chloe one last look.

"The name's Red, by the way."

-

Aaaand, that's all I got! Obviously, I'm not guaranteeing that I'm gonna write this, since school is starting very soon, but if enough people beg me, I might try something. Hope you enjoyed this!

[venerawrites]

reader and vi reunite after the bridge fight in caitlyn's room, and while caitlyn is out talking to her parents, reader and vi end up making out on caitlyn's bed...!!! (WITH INCREDIBLE HESITATION ON VI'S END BECAUSE VI DOES LIKE CAITLYN AT THIS POINT BUT IS ALSO SO GLAD TO SEE THAT READER IS SAFE. READER ALSO HAS A VENDETTA AGAINST CAITLYN AT THIS POINT SO READER GETS LOWKEY LIVID AT HAVING FOUND VI IN THE ENFORCER'S ROOM)

author's note: I may have screamed a little when I saw this request because this idea is just *chef's kiss*! Thank you so much for requesting and I hope you like it!

warnings: nothing explicit, but it does get a bit heated toward the end, so just in case ... 18+ implied, MINORS DNI!!

Red.

That's all you could see, as you peeked through the window of Caitlyn Kiramman's bedroom. Blinding, raging red, which threatened to consume you whole and make the last thread of self-control in your body snap. Your fingers involuntarily twitched next to you, grazing the handle of your gun. A shot from here would be pretty clean, it would take that enforcer girl out straight away. One less problem for you to worry about...

Suddenly Caitlyn stood up from her bed, shaking her head while saying something to Vi. You couldn't hear her words, but a few moments later she started heading toward the door before quietly exiting the room. The pink-haired woman buried her face in her hands, running her palms up and down the bruised skin.

A few moments passed and you held your breath, trying to make out the voices coming from the open window downstairs. You leaned your head to the side, squinting your eyes as if that would help you hear better. And it must've worked, as the loud screeching of both Caitlyn and her mother arguing reached your ears.

"This whole family is a bunch of morons", you thought, rolling your eyes. Taking out the knife from your waist you pushed it between the window frame and the sill, wiggling the blade till you heard a soft click. Your fingers froze and your eyes flew immediately to Vi, checking for any reaction. She, however, seemed to be so deep into her own thoughts that she paid no mind to the soft sound that came from you breaking the lock.

Slowly you lifted the lower sash only as far as to give you enough space to squeeze into the room and with one swift move, you lifted your body with your arms, quietly dragging it inside. Scanning the room with your eyes, your whole face twisted in distaste.

Every single object in the room was worth more than all of your belongings put together, and probably more than what the majority of the people in Zaun owned. But, of course, what else could you expect from the daughter of a Councillor?

"Huh... Didn't know the rich spoiled girls were your type", you hummed, tilting your head to the side while still observing your surroundings. The sudden words startled Vi and she immediately jumped from the bed, assuming a fighting position, which relaxed as soon as she saw you.

"You...", her brows furrowed, while her eyes drank your form sitting at the window still. Once upon a time, you were everything for her - her safety, her heaven, her muse, her future... She often thought that no matter what happened, you were going to be a constant in her life. Something that she knew was hers and would always be hers.

But things and people change, and, damn, Vi should know that better than anyone else. Nothing in the Undercity was the same as it was before she was thrown in prison, and that included you. What was once the person she could confine all her secrets in was now a stranger, a mere ghost of her best friend and first crush.

"What are you doing here?"

You finally acknowledged her, your purple gaze boring into her face. "High on shimmer", noted Vi in her mind, and her fists clenched by her sides. Just like Powder, you have fallen a victim to Silco's manipulations and twisted games. He took both of you in after the explosion that night and has raised you both as his daughters, molding you into the perfect weapons of destruction. He gave you a second chance and the opportunity to start all over - something you both craved, needed even. But while Powder Jinx found comfort in her guns and trinkets, you found the same feeling in Shimmer.

"I am here for you, silly", your tone was dry and mocking, almost as if the purpose of your visit should be obvious. You swung your legs over, lowering them to the ground, before taking a few steps toward the pink-haired woman.

"I am here to take you home."

Home. The word caused a shiver to run down Vi's spine and while her brain screamed for her to step back, to create a bigger distance between you two, she stood frozen in her spot. Once she was within your reach, you lifted your hand gently placing it on her cheek and rubbing your thumb against it. Even now, when you were all grown up, she was still towering over you, and you had to look up, searching her eyes with your own.

"You are going to come home, right? To Jinx? To me?", you pressed, leaning closer.

Vi gulped, fighting the urge to lean her face against your hand. You used to do that a lot when you were younger and she was feeling stressed. Always treating her with such gentleness and love, making her feel way more beautiful and deserving of you than she actually was.

Now it was... different.

Your hands were rougher and there was no affection in these purple eyes of yours. Quite the opposite - there was something dark, something sinister, which was making her scared. Perhaps Ekko was right - you did not belong to her anymore, you belonged to Silco. The irony of you calling her sister Jinx also did not escape her - she remembered the days, when you would hug the child and scold Mylo, whispering sweet words into her hair and promising her it's not her fault that your little raid ended like this and that she would never "jinx" anything.

"You need to go."

What was supposed to be a command came out like a broken plead. The small smile that you had on your face quickly dropped and you furrowed your brows, the movement of your thumb against her cheek stopping.

"But I just got here", you let out a dry chuckle, before stepping around Vi and plopping yourself on the large bed behind her. The feeling of the satin sheets felt so smooth, that you could not fight the urge to lean back and sink in their comfort. Closing your eyes, you stretched your arms above your head and sighed in satisfaction. So this is how the rich bastards from Piltover lived, huh?

"Caitlyn will come back any second-"

Vi was interrupted by the angry huff that left your lips when you heard the enforcer's name. Your body suddenly raised in a seated position, a newfound spark of anger and frustration written all over your face.

"Why did you not look for me?"

The woman raised her brows confused.

"What?"

Your position shifted once again so you were now on your knees, leaning forward while glaring at her with a mix of hurt and fury.

"You claim you came for Jinx, but that is not true, is it? You came with a damn enforcer to look for that weird crystal!", your voice became louder and louder with each word, "And not even for one second you thought about me! You didn't even care if I was dead or aliv-"

A large hand pressed against your lips silencing you. Vi, which so far looked somewhat composed, was now having her lips twisted in a snarl.

"Don't you dare!", she growled, her voice low and bitter, "I turned the whole city upside down to try and find YOU and Powder! Every single day, every damn minute I thought of you and prayed for you to be alive! So don't you dare saying I didn't care!"

Her fingers trembled against your mouth and her grip loosened. You watched her head fall down while she took deep breaths, trying to calm the storm of emotions that was swirling inside of her chest. On one hand, she knew she should not entertain your little games. You were not the sweet and kind-hearted girl you were years ago, and the way you fought Ekko was proof of that. On the other hand, however, the memories of her love for you kept flooding her mind, making it hard to distinguish what were her real feelings and what was just fragments of her imagination.

Pulling her hand away, she kneeled on the ground next to the bed, pressing her forehead against your leg.

"The only reason why I survived all these years in prison was because of you. I thought...", she got quiet for a few seconds, trying to choose the right words. She had so much to say, so much to share, but were you actually willing to listen?

"I thought that if I ever had the chance to see you again, it would be just like it was years ago. That we would pack our stuff and leave this cursed place forever. I imagined us in a small house next to a coast somewhere, waking up late every morning, because none of us could let go of each other's warmth. Our house would have a small garden, full with all the flowers and vegetables you told me you wanted to grow."

As you listened to her, your expression gradually softened and your hand found its way to the top of her head. You gently stroked her short locks, the image of what could've been slowly coming together in your mind.

"We would also have a dog... and two cats, because you love cats. You would make me a blueberry pie for my birthdays and I would start a local job, so we can save money to go and visit one of these tourist islands you kept reading in the newspaper about", Vi stared at the blank wall ahead, mind lost in this imaginary life. She had dreamed about it so many times, sometimes it felt almost real.

Your fingers stopped massaging her scalp and instead slid from her hair to her jaw, lifting her face, so she could look at you. And then, just for a moment, you were the same girl Vi remembered and fell in love with. There was the same gentle smile on your face, the same loving touch, the same mischievous spark in your now strange eyes.

"Who said we can't still have that?", you whispered, grazing her lips with your thumb, before leaning toward her, "All you have to do is come home, Vi... Come with me and I will be yours. Only yours."

The lie fell so smoothly from your lips and while she knew you were not sincere, she pushed her doubt and mistrust aside, instead choosing to cling to your promise and allow herself to believe there was still hope.

Pushing herself from the floor, she grasped your face in her hands before pressing her lips against yours. The kiss was nothing like the few sweet pecks you had shared before - now it was messy, harsh, and rough, a battle for dominance between you and her. She slowly climbed on top of you, while pushing you back against the mountain of pillows on the bed, not breaking the contact even for a second. Her hands gripped your own, slamming them above your head, while she continued to suck and bite your bottom lip. Filled with a new dose of adrenaline, you let her take control, while arching your back and trying to get as close as possible to her.

Suddenly, the image of Caitlyn flashed in front of her eyes and she pulled away, panting heavily. She shouldn't be doing this, especially not with you and especially not here... Before she can let go of you completely, however, you wrapped your legs around her waist, bringing her back to you.

"Vi...", the name sounded like a sinful prayer falling from your red and swollen lips, "I missed you so much!"

Against her better judgment, she closed her eyes, pressing her lips against yours once again, this time licking them with her tongue as a request for her to finally be able to taste you. And once you granted your permission, she didn't waste even a second, exploring your mouth and satisfying her craving. You whined and moaned below her, moving your body under hers in a way to try and get as much skin-to-skin contact as possible. She stilled her tongue for a few seconds and you immediately grabbed the opportunity to suck on it, while rolling your eyes in pleasure.

Her hands released yours and instead, they grabbed your hips, trying to control your movements. Her mouth started pressing open-mouthed kisses against your jaw, slowly sliding down your neck and you could do nothing else, other than turn your head to the side and give her more space.

Somewhere deep inside, Vi knew this was wrong. You were not hers anymore and no matter what sweet promises you made, you were never going to turn against Silco. Zaun was a place where you thrived, why would you ever escape from there? And while she was trying to hold onto your past memories together, she couldn't lie to herself anymore by saying her heart still belonged to you. Because it didn't. There was a good and kind girl, who liked her and accepted her for who she is.

And what did Vi do? Make-out with her ex-crush on her bed.

You, on the other hand, did not have any internal struggles or questions about how morally right or wrong was your current situation. As you stared at the door, which was slightly open, your eyes locked with those of Caitlyn and you couldn't help but grin at her, burying your hands in Vi's hair while she still marked your neck.

She was yours. Only yours.

cc artwork: JunNing Chen

[jiyansthesis]

LEON KENNEDY (post-re4) x reader

summary — you and leon never thought what would lead to the two of you fucking would be a surprise zombie and an aphrodisiac

note — a little something i had in the drafts for a while. i was gonna post it when re4make came out but i totally forgot. might as well post it while im getting traction on my other leon post ^^

tags — smut, aphrodisiac, basically in public, rough, overstimulation, fem bodied reader, fem implied pet names

i am not responsible for any minors that interact + nsfw below the cut

not proofread

"we're gonna get our asses kicked," you groaned, focusing on the scope of your gun which you used to survey your surroundings.

"no, you're gonna get your ass kicked. i can hold my own," leon shot back, trailing ahead of you.

there was a red wash over the two of you as you ran down the hallway, attempting to look for some vials before they get destroyed by the zombies lurking around.

"you don't happen to know where these serums are, do you?" you questioned, a zombie coming out the shadows only for you to quickly aim and fire your gun at its head, it immediately flying backwards to land lifelessly on the floor. "this is like some bad game of whack-a-mole. except without the hammer. and the moles are zombies. and we could possibly die. i'm getting tired of it."

"do you ever stop talking?" he opened a door, revealing a room with cabinets of liquids and something that looked like a chamber with a glass window.

"adding a bit of fun into this mission, leon. i can't just walk around shooting zombies and not have something to say."

he grunted, and went over to the cabinets, grabbing a container of blue liquid.

"this is it. i'll get all of these, you keep watch." you nodded in acknowledgement, considering the fact that leon was your superior.

you peered out the hallway you had come from, saw that it was clear, and shut the door, locking it.

then you decided to go into the connecting room, just in case something was in there.

the red emergency light was still messing with your eyes, and so you turned on your flashlight, scanning the room.

there were more bottles of substances. but it didn't look like the blue ones leon was getting. these ones were a reddish-pink, and had a certain glow to them. you stepped closer to it to examine it, but you swung around as soon as you heard a growl. you unsheathed the dagger around your waist.

the blade lodged in the zombie's throat, your reaction time saving you as usual. it crumpled over, but bumped into the display, causing the cases to break.

you thought it was a liquid, but it was like you could see the cloud of fumes rise from the broken vials. quickly you put a hand over your mouth and nose and ran out the room, but not before you caught a whiff of the strangely sweet, almost sugary flower smell.

you shut the heavy doors behind you, and let out a gasp of air. leon looked towards you, hurrying over as you fell to your knees.

"hey, you alright? what happened?" he held onto your arms, lifting you up and placing you in an office chair.

"th-there was a zombie. i killed it and it. . . it bumped into these flasks of pink stuff." your hands went to wrap around your stomach, a cramp suddenly appearing.

"pink stuff?" he asked

"yeah," you grimaced with pain. "there was this thing that came out of the broken tubes. it was like a gas or something."

"and how are you feeling right now?"

you felt immensely uncomfortable. there was a cramp in your lower abdomen and it felt like something was dripping out of you. your legs squirmed, not liking the feeling of your wet panties.

"i can-can't explain it." you stammered out. you think you know what were in those things, but you didn't want to make it awkward for you and leon. of course, you've known him since raccoon city, and congratulated him when he came back with the president's daughter. but you knew damn well you guys weren't this close.

even if you desperately wished you were.

"it hurts there?" he gestured to your hand over your abdomen, you nodded.

"it might've been something toxic." he glanced around the room at all the computers, lucky enough to find one that was unlocked.

you heard him type away as you shut your eyes. the pain was becoming excruciating, and you didn't know why you felt your crotch throbbing.

not only that, but your thoughts were bunching up, and you couldn't think straight. what were you here for again?

"hey, i think i know what it is." you felt him nudge you. "but you might not like it."

"i think i know what it is too. doesn't take much thinking to find out." you winced as you shifted in your seat.

he raised an eyebrow. "you know?"

"it's obviously an aphrodisiac. there's no other explanation." you slurred out.

"well, it's not a normal one. normal ones wear off with time, but this one. . . you need something for it to wear off. or you might die."

"die!?" you exclaimed, ignoring the pain of you suddenly standing upright. this definitely cleared your mind. "for fucks sake, leon. i didn't want to die from a fucking drug today!"

he let out a breath of air. "it's easily fixable. but i need you to trust me." his voice got a bit more husky.

"i always trust you, leon." you assured him. he hesitated, and slowly lowered you back down on the seat.

his fingers ghosted over the waistband of your tactical pants. "may i?" he looked up to you. never in a million years would you have thought you'd have leon kennedy under you.

you could already tell what had to be done for you to get rid of this feeling, and you gave him the okay. well, at least you get to have one of your fantasies out the way while also avoiding death from aphrodisiac.

he pulled down your pants, quickly followed by your underwear.

"didn't think to tell me about what was happening down here?" he smirked. "you're so wet."

you whined at the cold air, and urged him to hurry up and stop teasing you.

he followed your request, and instead of inching in his fingers like you'd expected, he immediately latched onto your dripping cunt, and you arched your back.

"leon, fuck!" you moaned out, a hand immediately going to grab a handful of his hair.

he hummed in amusement, leading you to clench your thighs around his head. leon quickly moved his hands to grab your plush thighs and spread them apart, locking them in place no matter how hard you tried to escape it.

it was like he wasn't even thinking about the aphrodisiac. it was all for his and your pleasure, rather than as an extremely awkward and embarrassing task that had to be done. or he was just too good at the job at hand.

every stroke of his tongue had your legs shaking, and you pulled at his hair every time he sucked on your clit too hard. it felt like a few minutes before you felt the buildup of something in your stomach, quickly overshadowing the pain you had previously felt.

"leon, m' gonna-"

his hands left your legs and went straight to your pussy. "make a mess for me, baby," he said as your hips bucked up violently and you let out what was almost a scream.

you panted, and you thought that at this point you'd be satisfied, the pain would be gone, and the two of you could put this all behind you and go on your merry way.

but you were wrong. it was like it got even worse.

your thoughts were scrambled, and all you could think about was the bulge in his pants. and it definitely wasn't his gun.

"why'd you have to do. . . all that?" you stammered out. you also realized he called you baby. your cheeks became even hotter.

"can't get my gloves dirty. and i wanted a taste." he winked. "are you feeling better?"

you shook your head, involuntarily grinding against the seat. maybe if you imagined it was his thigh. . . you wouldn't have to ask him to fuck you senseless. you were already shameless enough, with the fact he had just finished eating you out like his final supper, and the effects of the aphrodisiac were not helping.

just the sound of his voice and his smell was enough to send you into a frenzy.

"do you need some more help?" he began unbuckling his pants.

"yes, need mo' help," you whined. you never thought what would get you into leon s. kennedy's pants would have to be a mystery sex drug in a science lab. if you knew, maybe you would've done this way beforehand.

you almost drooled at how big he was. you would've put your lips right around him at that moment, but he was already lining himself up with you entrance.

"you ready, princess?"

"jus' hurry up," you moved your hips closer to him, sliding the tip inside which caused you to whimper. deciding not to let you suffer any longer, he slammed the rest of his throbbing cock inside of you. with every thrust he did, you were a whining, blabbering mess.

"does that feel good?" he whispered in your ear, sending shivers down your spine. you could tell that the effects of the drug were making you more sensitive.

"s' good leon," you threw your arms around his neck and brought him down for a kiss, which he quickly reciprocated. he was biting on your lips, his tongue occasionally slipping through your lips.

"i fucking love the sounds you make," he got out once the two of you broke away for air. it was like he was feral and had the aphrodisiac himself, pounding into you without giving you time to breathe.

"fuck, leon, don't stop," you could feel tears streaming down your face as your mouth gaped wide open to let out all your noises.

no doubt you were attracting monsters, but that didn't matter when you had this hot man you've been pinning for for years making you dumb on his cock.

he admired the way he had you already clawing for whatever you could grab a hold on, which was his back, and the look that you gave him.

he'd wanted to fuck you for so long, although that developed from him falling in love after the events in raccoon city. you'd kept him sane, believe it or not.

thank god he had this reason to finally have you under him.

"you gonna cum for me, yeah?" he began relentlessly hitting your g-spot, which had you screaming. he left open-mouthed kisses down your neck.

you didn't answer. or well, you couldn't with how he practically fucked the breath out of you.

not receiving an answer, he quickly took you out the chair and placed you on top of the table. you whined as he pulled out, but were quickly shut up by him thrusting inside of you again.

and just when you thought it couldn't get any better, the new angle caused him to almost brush up against your cervix. his hand made its way to your tummy and pressed down on the slight bump, making your hands fly up to cover your mouth.

"hey, pretty girl. i want to hear everything." he persuaded you to place your hands to stabilize yourself on the office desk.

"i-mm, i think i'm gonna make a mess," you warned.

"you gonna come for me? good girl," he praised, and with those words he hungrily pressed his lips to yours, devouring your sounds of ecstasy as you convulsed with your climax.

you started feeling overstimulated, the pain and sensitivity mixing in with the pleasure.

"le-leon, jus' cum in me," you pleaded, feeling your third climax coming already. maybe it was because you were practically intoxicated, or it was because you haven't had sex in so long, but you were almost self-conscious about how short of a time it took for you to cum.

"yeah? you want me to fill you up baby? do i make you feel too good?" a pool of your cum was pooling on the desk.

"yes! wan' you to, wan' you to," you trailed off as he grunted and let out a few soft, low moans, and you felt a warmth seep inside of you.

slowly he pulled out, which still had you twitch, and he looked almost apologetic about that. he searched the place for something to clean you up with, before ripping a piece off an abandoned lab coat, and slowly wiping you up with it. the table on the other hand, required the whole coat to wipe up.

he helped you put your pants back on as you regained and put your thoughts back in order.

"holy shit, we're at least twenty minutes late from meeting up at the extraction point," you checked the watch on your wrist. the two of you scurry to grab all your things as well as what you came here for, and went on your out the building. leon then called chris, who was pissed about the time delay.

as you left, it was strangely silent, as if the two of you had scared the monsters away rather than attract them.

"never thought that'd ever happen," you admitted as the two of you made it outside and to the rendezvous.

"never thought i'd fuck you during a mission in the middle of nowhere." he agreed. "how about dinner later, pretty girl?"

"isn't it a bit late for that?"

"it's never too late to take a lady like you on a fancy date. you deserve it." he shouted as the wind from a helicopter overtook your hearing.

"hmm, i'll think about it!" you grinned, saluting. "nice work out there."

"if that was my real job, i'd be doing it all the time."

[deanscherrypie420]

🅟🅞🅚🅔🅡 🅕🅐🅒🅔

A/N: Its finally here! I know it took a while, IM SORRY. the weekend was super busy so I didn't get much writing done. If you enjoy it, please follow and like :) Xoxo! <3

Characters: Spencer Reid, Reader Y/N, Emily Prentiss, Penelope Garcia, David Rossi, Derek Morgan.

Pairing: Spencer Reid X Reader

Warnings: FBI, violence, descriptions of murder and assault, guns, blood, injuries, mild description of injuries, arguments, alcohol, criminal stuff, bit of angst, happy ending, sexual tension, oral fixation, praise kink, NO SMUT - IMPLIED SMUT, storyline not properly followed. (Let me know if I missed anything!)

Summary: Being a new agent on the field wasn't easy, especially because Dr.Reid was tormenting you all the time. He'd been out of prison for a year now, but you suspected that it had something to do with why he didn't like you. After confronting him, you discover a lot more than that.

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She was sitting at the round-table talking with Emily when a group of people slowly flooded in. She stood up next to Prentiss and smiled. "Everybody, this is SSA Y/L/N, she'll be joining us on our investigations as a full time agent." The woman introduced her, making Y/N smile more. She stuck out her hand and met the team, taking a specific liking to Penelope.

When she reached out to shake the last man's hand, she received only a dirty look instead. Her brows furrowed and she gave a half-amused, yet puzzled expression. "Sorry, Princess. Didn't realize you were a germophobe." She teased, pulling her chair out to sit back down.

"Didn't realize we were getting a new assistant. No offense, but you'll probably be gone within a week, Princess." The man snapped back, his hands laced together across from her. She scoffed and bit her lip, nodding slowly as she looked him up and down. This douche.

The room went silent for a moment before Garcia explained the case they were working on. Young women were being held and tortured in Sacramento, California. They were dumped in national parks and landmarks after having their throats slit. The photos were gory and she cringed, an uncomfortable expression evident on her face.

"Gross." She muttered and Reid's head popped up, "If you can't take it, that would be a shame. Maybe a different field would be ideal for you." He responded and she quirked a brow, a grin on her face.

"Trust me, I can take it. Thank you so much for your concern, but it's not necessary." She said as she stood up, collecting her file and leaving the room.

Derek whistled and laughed, rubbing the back of his head. "Well, shes a hotshot." He joked, nudging Reids arm and getting up, grabbing his file as well. Slowly, everyone made their way out, grabbing their go-bags and meeting at the jet.

Y/N was sitting next to Jennifer, Emily sitting across from her and Rossi next to Emily. They were laughing and making brief conversation, Morgan leaning against a small table next to their chairs and butting in.

Reid cleared his throat and interrupted them, "We should be discussing the case, not playing games with the newcomer." Emily's eyes widened, turning to look at him.

"We aren't playing games, we are welcoming her. If you have something to say, Spencer, please. We're all ears." Her words weren't a recommendation, they were a warning. Y/N let out a small chuckle and nodded. "Yeah, Spencey, share with the class." She cooed, and his jaw twitched.

"You're a bitch." He stated before Jennifer got up and yelled at him, pulling him into the other room. Y/N just laughed quietly and Morgan took JJ's place. "You are one interesting woman."

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"Son of a bitch!" She shouted as she tumbled to the floor, blood seeping into her shirt. Morgan and Emily ran after the Unsub, leaving Reid and her alone. She groaned as she gripped her shoulder, her head slamming down onto the concrete.

"Stop complaining." He ordered as he pulled her hand away, taking off his coat and putting an uncomfortable amount of pressure on her shoulder. "Ow! Asshole! I'm sorry, should I be celebrating the fact that I got shot?" She spat at him and he grabbed her jaw with his free hand.

"Shut up. I don't wanna hear anymore from you." She scoffed at this, shaking her head slightly. "Look, I know you have trust issues or something 'cause of prison, but don't take it out on me." Her eyes shut tight as pain pulsed through her arm, a guttural sound clawing at her throat.

He cursed, blood spilling out of her wound quicker than he anticipated. He undid her vest and removed her jacket, leaving her in a white t-shirt. He pushed the short sleeve up and tied her jacket around the crook of her arm, taking his own off and tying it around her shoulder and under her armpit.

"Gee, thanks for stripping me, Agent." Y/N hissed, tears pooling in the corner of her eyes, just like the blood pooled beneath her. He didn't respond, just kept applying pressure. He had his hands clamped around her, stopping both the entrance and exit wound from pushing out more blood.

Before she knew it, an ambulance arrived and loaded her up. Spencer insisted he stay with her on the ride, even though the team didn't think it was a good idea.

She took off her oxygen mask and glared at him, "What are you doing here. I don't like you." She choked out and he snapped his attention back to her. He grabbed her mask and shoved it back onto her face, making her cough slightly.

"Stop talking, you're hurt. We're gonna take care of you." He had a hurt look in his eyes; he looked damaged and concerned, like it was his job to keep her safe. It was such a switch from how he was acting earlier, she figured she was hallucinating because of the loss of blood.

"Take care of me?" She murmured through the mask, her head beginning to pound harder as she grew more lightheaded. He nodded slowly and carefully grasped her arm, sliding one of his hands down to enclose hers.

"Yeah, you'll be okay. I'll make sure you're okay." He promised,

"I'll take care of you."

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She woke up in a hospital bed with Penelope by her side. Y/N smiled as she was engulfed in a hug. "Oh goodie! Thank goodness you're awake! We missed you- I missed you!" The woman exclaimed in excitement as she pulled away, standing next to Y/N with her hands on her hips.

"How long was I out for?" She asked with an amused laugh and Garcia gasped. "Only for like two days!" Y/N laughed again, wincing slightly from the pain in her shoulder. The two talked for a moment, Penelope celebrating their win.

"Wait, why are you out here? You're never on the field." Y/N questioned, but before her friend could answer, Rossi stepped into the room and cleared his throat. "Glad to see you're okay, kid." He smiled and she noticed the rest of the team quickly piling in after him.

"Oh lovely. I have fans." She teased and the group laughed quietly to themselves. The laughter was short lived, more serious expressions returning to all their faces. Y/N let out an awkward laugh and raised a brow.

"Why are you all looking at me like that?" She questioned and Emily stepped forward. "We almost lost you." Derek chimed in quickly after, walking over and squeezing her non-injured shoulder. "We're just glad you're alright." She smiled in response and then rolled her eyes dramatically.

"I'm fine alright, lets not start a sob fest. Why don't we go to Rossi's when I get out of here and celebrate." She suggested, not enjoying all the attention. The group supported the idea, all of them getting distracted by planning and talking.

Y/N noticed Reid in the corner of the room. He looked like he was zoning out, lost in thought about something. She studied him for a moment before he looked up and sneered, a distasteful look on his face. Shortly after he swiftly walked out of the room without anybody noticing.

What the hell?

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At Rossi's house everyone was having fun. After a cooking lesson, lots of wine and liquor, and bunches of laughter, they decide to play a game of poker. Y/N excused herself before they started, making her way to the bathroom. She locked the door behind her and touched up her makeup. She ran her fingers through her hair and then fluffed it up, a small smile crossing her face.

When she opened the door to leave, she was met by Spencer. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her into a different room, which she quickly identified as a guest bedroom. "The fuck is your problem-?" She yelled but was quickly silenced by his hand over her mouth, his palm pressing hard onto her lips.

"We need to talk. I'm sorry I've been so rude. I was under a lot of stress and was upset with you for no reason. You didn't deserve that." He explained quickly, sounding nearly out of breath. She nodded, her hands squeezing his wrist.

His brows furrowed and his hand relaxed a little bit against her face. "Keep your voice down." He instructed before sliding his hand down. It found its place under her jaw, his fingers lightly wrapped around her throat.

"It's fine I-I guess? I'm just a little confused as to why you're telling me this now." She let out a quiet laugh, her eyes locked with his. He licked his lips and thought for a second.

"Because... Because I figured I would have to apologize first. You deserved an apology." His thumb traced the edge of her jaw as he spoke, chills sweeping over her back.

"First? What do you plan to do second?" She questioned, her breath hitching in her throat. He grinned down at her, his hand tightening slightly.

"This." He stated before leaning down and kissing her, their tongues quickly intertwining. His body pressed her flush against the wall. Her hands cupped his face and pulled him closer. His hand tightened around her neck in response, making her moan into the kiss.

He pulled away and bit his lip, both of them panting quietly. She was about to speak but he pacified her, sliding two of his fingers into her mouth. She subconsciously began to suck on them, staring up at him as her tongue slid in between his digits.

He chuckled and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead as he slid his fingers deeper. She moaned again, the sensation earning a quiet groan from Spencer.

"You're gonna go out there and have fun. Play your little game, I'll even help you if you get stuck, but..." He paused, moving his fingers deeper into her throat. She gagged and bit down on his fingers, a few tears forming around her eyes.

"I'm gonna touch you whenever the hell I want. You're gonna be a good girl for me and not let anybody know, yeah?" His tone was condescending, a fake pity-grin on his face as he watched her squirm.

She nodded and he slid his fingers out of her mouth, a string of saliva connecting them together. He licked his fingers clean and then reached under her dress, wiping his fingers dry on her panties. She whimpered and her head fell back. He leaned forward and kissed her again, this time a bit more rough.

After he pulled back he nodded to the door and she turned to leave. He gave a gentle slap to her ass as she walked out and she bit her lip to stifle a yelp. When they entered the room JJ rolled her eyes and laughed.

"Jesus, it took you forever! Spence, we're gonna play poker, I'm assuming you want to kick our asses." She said, earning a laugh from Morgan and a scoff from Emily. "Nuh uh, he can't win every time!"

Spencer just shook his head and smiled, placing his hand discreetly on the small of Y/N's back, letting her know to sit down somewhere. She sat down on the floor across from everyone at the coffee table.

"I'm just gonna help this one out. I heard she's not the best." Reid explained, purposefully trying to embarrass Y/N a bit. She bit her lip and exhaled, not wanting to cause a scene. "Yeah, yeah. Just get over here and help me." She bickered as she pulled a blanket off the couch, covering her legs with it.

"Oh, I will."

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A/N: I hope you guys enjoyed! Sorry it took a few days. This was super fun to write, even though it is a bit rushed... If you enjoyed please feel free to follow, reblog and comment! Kind comments are always appreciated <3

More criminal minds fics are coming!

xoxo

[sundrop-writes]

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!

[hi-i-just]

Details about transformers one I noticed:

1. D brushes off the dirt off of Orion.

2. It seems that only the miners use the trains — meaning only the cogless use public transport since cogged transformers can simply go where they like. Is it possible that some places were off limits to the cogless bc the trains do not go there?

3. What tells a lot about a person is not what they just say, it's also what they don't say. A lot of people do note upon D-16 being "content" or even "happy"/perfectly fine with the system, with his biggest issue is that he's not the one in charge, but this bit of dialogue make it clear that isn't the case:

Orion: aren't you tired of being treated like we're nothing?

D-16: *beat* He had every right to hit me. I interfered.

Yes, D tries to justify the system, but he also intriguingly didn't answer Orion's question. We don't get to hear is opinion at all, and he instead deflects. And more interesting, is that Orion seems to have picked up on this and changed the subject, going for levity.

4. Despite Darkwing dropping them down to sub-level 50 hard and having a very loud exchange within the cramped room, B-127 didn't react to them at all. In fact, it took a while before he responds, and even then he starts off with a presumably angry rant before unmasking himself and says his first coherent line — "You're real!"

It's heavily implied due to B's extensive isolation, he's had hallucinations before — I think he ignored the commotion at first bc he assumed it was another hallucination, tried yelling angrily to "scare" the visions away, but when Orion and D still remain, it finally clicks to B that they're real people and not made up by his mind.

5. Starscream's voice is incredibly hostile and vicious when we first meet him, but when B reveals they're the High Guard and Starscream starts explaining what he and the group has been up to, his voice took a calmer and more reasonable tone.

6. Also, shout out to Starscream's unspoken competency — he managed to keep the High Guard alive and intact for 50 cycles, all the while evading ruthless searching from Sentinel and Airachnid, occasional surveillance from the Quintessons, surviving the turbulent surface, and operating on inconsistent sources of energon via train raids. Those are genuinely some pretty tough odds, but they're all still up and going.

7. When Elita and B tries to stop Megatron, Megatron pointedly sheathes his fusion cannon and instead opts to fight them hand-to-hand . He doesn't even summon his other gun on the other hand. Considering he doesn't hesitate to use whatever firepower he has to fight Optimus, it's heavily implied that at that time, Megatron doesn't want a repeat of accidental misfiring and has no intentions to kill the two despite them going against him.

8. D-16/Megatron is really, really good at catching punches — he caught Darkwing's punch in time and stop it dead in its tracks as D-16, and he does the same to Optimus as Megatron. It's implied that D-16 is quite strong with fast reflexes.

9. Continuing on that line of thought, the fact that mining requires the miner to have fast reaction time and reflexes is why Orion and D-16 was able to survive Iacon 5000.

10. Soundwave transforms through a front flip, Shockwave transforms through a cannonball dive, Starscream transforms like most flier types do via twisting his body.

11. The High Guard is comprised of mostly proto-Decepticons, while the cogless miners were comprised of mostly proto-autobots. When the siege of Sentinel's tower starts, and the High Guard starts to get overwhelmed, they're rescued by the miners. So, Autobots and Decepticons worked together to take down a tyrant once upon a time. And then, it won't take long before they became enemies.

12. Considering the Quintesson war raged for thousands of cycles before Sentinel's reign interrupted it, it's quite likely the High Guard are all thousands of cycles old in minimum. Megatron is approx 50 cycles or less. Make of that what you will.

13. D-16 had his fellow miners as co-workers, acquaintances, or even friends — people he grew up with, many of whom would end up as future Autobots. All of whom he would inevitably clash against eventually.

[sleepyconfusedpotato]

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that Farah and Alex don't know what happened in Las Almas and the 141.

Alex said, "Heard you died in a tank in South America."

-> He heard. He doesn't know the whole story about how he died or who supposedly killed him. It didn't even cross his mind that Graves personally knows the TF141.

"South America", Las Almas is in North America. That means what Alex heard is indeed just a rumor. He doesn't know how, who killed him, what happened, or anything. He and Farah don't know any specifics at all. Nada. It's possible that Farah had only just known Graves when he entered that room.

Now here's the kick : Look at Graves' and the Shadow's face + body language beside him as soon as Alex said it :

They were alert. The shadow behind Graves looks like he's ready to aim his weapon.

Graves then quickly settle it down by saying "Well I'm not in it." (As soon as Graves took control of the situation, the shadow behind him eased up a lil')

Then Graves asked :

THAT is Graves' way of finding out how far Alex knew about his death, or possibly what he did. At the same time, he's determining his attitude/approach towards them based on the answers that would be given.

Had they known that Graves massacred a whole town to find Ghost and Soap, that would for sure change his attitude towards Graves. There's no way in hell that they'd act so casual like in the cutscene if they know.

-> If Alex had shown any hostility or any sentence that implied anything about the Las Almas massacre, Farah would 1000% turn hostile and change her view towards the Shadow Company, and Graves might proceed with a different, possibly more violent approach, and the alliance would go poof with guns blazing. (Because come on. Farah's country was basically massacred by Barkov, same as what Graves did in Las Almas)

LUCKILY THOUGH, things went according to Graves' way. Farah cut the conversation short, saying that they have their own battles and have no time for rumors. The scenario went on, Farah and Alex continued to be oblivious about Graves' grave crimes (hah).

TF141 didn't have any convo about Shadow Co. at all to Farah and Alex. I mean, they were busy with their own businesses, the people that was hunted by Graves (Ghost and Soap) was not as closely connected with Faralex compared to Price and Kyle, plus as far as they know, Graves was a case closed. (They had no reason to converse about Graves anyway during the Atomgrad Raid)

(If Price and Kyle was the one hunted down in Las Almas, the story might go differently 👀)

With SC fighting Makarov's Konni Group, SC would for SURE appear in MWIII no doubt. Now Graves need to make sure that Faralex NEVER know about the Las Almas incident.

We'll see how it goes~

[crepes-suzette-373]

There is a panel that I didn't bring up in my "Ichiji's thuggish language" analysis because I had doubts about it. But with Kizaru's dramatic speech in the newest chapter (1124), I'm feeling a bit more confident about my analysis so I'm just gonna mention this now.

(still a bit nervous about jumping the gun, but hey, my theories are just for fun)

Sanji's bros don't really talk often enough, but the impression I'm getting is that for the most part Ichiji is the only one who does not use slang/informal language.

There's two times where he says words that sounds rough/informal/not polite. One is when they all got caught in candy (see the linked analysis above), and the other one is this:

The way he says "I've got to go (to my brother's wedding)" is 行かなきゃ. This is very casual/informal. The more polite form should be 行かないと or 行かなければ (the latter is the more formal one).

Originally I had wondered if maybe I was wrong, and this means that his rough talk is not a big deal after all. But the latest chapter reminded me of the trope of "someone who has been putting on an act gets provoked into anger so strongly that it breaks the mask and their real self comes out".

I'll go back to Kizaru in a bit, but following that line of thought, then this might mean that Ichiji is genuinely so angry that his fake polite attitude dropped, just like what happened in the candy scene. In that case, he's not just intimidating the guy. He really meant it when he said that he needs to go to the wedding and this fight holding him up is upsetting him.

Following that, if being held up makes him that angry, it possibly implies that when he says this ⤵️ he wasn't being sarcastic, but he might have actually meant it too:

Why, though? That remains to be seen, but there's strong suggestion that really weird stuff is happening here. (More exhibit of weird stuff in my list, scroll down to the Germa specific stuff)

Hiding this just in case of spoilers/you're not caught up yet.

So in chapter 1124, Akainu calls up the Marines at Egghead and Kizaru picks up because everyone else are still downed by haki. Akainu accused Kizaru of slacking, and Kizaru exploded. Having to obey the higher ups' orders to get rid of Vegapunk had really hurt him.

Kizaru was using his typical casual/somewhat playful manner of talking at first. Dragging out the end of the words (imagine something like "you knooooowww") and using omae-san お前さん (informal) to say "you". But then the way he talks changes. He drops the dragging words, and switched to using temee てめェ (super rude) as "you" as he went ballistic on Akainu.

Also, the translation seems to go for a more polite term, but Kizaru calls Akainu kusogaki クソガキ. It's probably more precisely "shitty brat". He really got mad.

Anyway, Kizaru has already dropped the dragging tone a few other times when he gets serious. This gives me the impression that Kizaru's "cheery" act was fake. This laid back unserious goof act is the typical trope of someone who is actually dissatisfied with life, but adopts this personality because they see no possibility of changing, so they might as well just go with the flow. I see this pretty often in manga or games.

He was already like this when he first met Vegapunk (as shown in the flashbacks), so it's very likely that he's already given up for a long time.

I have no proof of that though, so for now at the very least we know that his friendship with Vegapunk is genuine and he was faking a lot of his behaviour during Egghead.

So, is Ichiji hiding something else? Without any additional info, all that's "provable" with the above panels is that Ichiji is actually more aggressive than he lets on, but has to pretend to be polite because of his status. There's other little gestures that do give off the impression that he's hiding something else, but there's nothing clear yet.

With other superficial similarities with Kizaru (constantly wearing sunglasses + light/laser beam attacks) added on top, the parallel is kind of intriguing to ponder.

[candysweetposts]

Episode 8 review (long af)

I want to start this by saying that I will include some talk-points I saw in other posts and that I don't hate the people who made them just the opinions and that we shouldn't fight each other but try to reach the company for improvements. Let's go! This includes spoilers btw.

The episode itself was pretty bad just because the premise was... I guess childish. From the moment I finished Ep 7 and saw the preview for Ep 8 I thought about a moment from HSL, specifically Ep 12 where Candy (Lynn) spies on Lysander to see his back tattoo. When I played that episode I was a teen and I thought it was exciting. Our Candy was also a teen so we can say that what she did was more justifiable since teenagers do crazy stuff all the time. Plus, Lynn's intention was pretty innocent, she just was curious about this boy's tattoo that happened to be on his back. Here is completely different. I am not a teen anymore, and neither are Ysaline or her co-workers. They're probably in their late 20s (at least some). I find this scenario a bit too much for a bunch of adults. I don't care that they're friends, friends should respect each other's boundaries. A good friend wouldn't pull this kind of shit. They all acted as if they were going so see a magic trick or a concert or a famous person, not their friend naked. Why would you want to see that? Just because he "implied" that he's fine with it? What did they expect would happen? Did they though he would laugh out and be like "Haha, you got me" fully naked? This feels like what a bunch of bullies would plan to do with someone. The rest of the episode was ok-ish but having all around this weird stuff it makes me hard to like anything about it. I must admit that there were moments when we would talk about other stuff and it was truly ok and nice, but this is like finding the needle in the haystack.

This goes back to what BV originally planned for this season, to be set in high school. I bet this was a concept for an episode when that was still going. Would be more ok if these people were teens? Maybe... or maybe not. Do you know why? Because most of us are adults and that's why BV made a game with mostly adults having adult life with jobs and stuff and let's not forget... NSFW. And as an adult, I know better than spying on a naked man is creepy and illegal.

Now let's talk about the characters.

Let's start with Roy. He was very nice in the whole episode. He tried to play along but it really looked like he was uncomfortable at some point. And I bet if he could, he would tell others more firmly to stop but he's just such a sweet guy and probably endures for the sake of his friends. He's always sweet and even when he pulled the prank on everyone he even had the idea for all to play with water guns. He acted so nice. We love you, Roy! <3

Speaking of his BFF Devon who just disappointed me. I really thought he would be the first to speak up against this, not the one who started it. I get you're like bros and stuff but AGAIN, do you want to see your bro naked? And if yes, why? Do you have something to confess? What's so funny about embarrassing someone? I didn't get a good look at this route so I can't tell how he is with Candy, but this is not ok. Please, make this better BV.

Thomas. He was an absolute menace. Going from childish remarks to planning all of this to acting like he's in a spy movie (I didn't mind that part but CONTEXT). As I get to know him more and more I realize that he's more of a villain. Knows stuff about people and uses that against them. I get that he's like Mr Robot, but at least in his case, he did what he did because he thought he was doing something good. Thomas just likes to fuck with people. I get it, his moment was pretty cute and moments with him and Candy are cute generally, but let's not sweep this thing under the rug. He likes to lie, remember? I really hope this was a one-time thing. Pls BV. Like he has based moments and this runs it.

Amanda did really grow on me in this episode. Like if before I couldn't stand her now I'm on her side. Whatever you need girl, I'm here for you. She was the first one to step in and say no which was nice. She also said some other nice stuff to us proving she's a girl's girl. I hope this is not a one-time thing because if she goes back to her bad attitude the next episode I'll just hate her again. Sorry!

Jason was very himself this episode. Nothing to note. I liked his moment but I hate how Candy went overboard and basically imagined them making out. What? Is this how you develop feelings for a person? By fantasizing about kissing them? That came out of nowhere. I mean yeah, she could talk about how he makes her feel and stuff but straight up imagining a fanfic on the spot? And I hate the direction his route goes. Candy always being in distress and vulnerable, and this gentleman shows up to save her. Cool, but when do we have a mature moment... and not that kind of mature. I guess we have to wait and I hope it's worth it. I want to know about him more. What's with his dad and mom, his family in general, his past, you know. So let's stop doing weird shit and start exploring these characters BV.

Girl 1 and 2 were very not nice. They just went along with the plan, especially Elenda, who... let's just say I don't like how she's presented most of the time. I get she's s fun bubbly girl, but idk... it's just the situation that makes it worse not her as a person. Brune... You're asking what's wrong with Roy? What's wrong with you?

The illustrations were fire. I must admit, I love them. I see a lot of improvements. The lighting and colors blend very well. Props to the artist/(s?). My favorite is, you guessed, Thomas'. Yeah, he always has nice illustrations. Although, I don't get the whole going naked with him on the beach. Like, we barely know the guy. Same for the others, except Amanda, because she's a girl.

Now, let's talk about the community response. I feel like, at first, everyone was pretty upset, and rightfully and some were just "We're not that upset because it's just a game guys, shut up. You're just hating". Well, of course, some are going to exaggerate but most of us have valid reasons to be upset. Saying that this is just a game and we should leave if we don't like it it's just straight up BS arguments. I've seen this argument everywhere and I am sick and tired of that. I won't leave no matter what because not only do I love this game, but I also love the community and everything that makes it. It's not just a game, it's something I invested time and money and I won't let that go to waste. Also, I can use the same arguments against those people. Most of us here want to just enjoy this game and chat about it. Stuff like this will appear all the time. Let's just say what we have to see and hope the game gets better. And you're lucky I don't remember every single one of these people's arguments because I would said more. Also, WE KNOW that MCL is not representative of reality or that is has some sort of educational purpose. We're not asking for realism, we're asking for a decent plot. It's that so hard to do?

Lastly, BV made a pr response on the forum where they said that they saw the backlash and that they can't do anything about the episode or the other episodes but that will improve in the future. I.. I want to believe them. Truly. So, please, for the love of God, don't pull this sort of stuff again. Ok? Please.

That being said, Thank you for reading this. It was quite long, but I like writing long ass texts. Sorry!

[judesmoonbeauty]

Jude Jazza Route Theories Pt. 2: Hidden Rooms, Burning Smells & Human-Trafficking ☾.

MDNI - Solely for brief mentions of sex CW: Brief mentions of SA, Child abuse, Death.

This is another post I also delayed for months, and it's a bit more of an odds and ends post. I had these notes written, but got busy translating and they just stayed stuck on paper. Then I had a nice chat with @shatcey the other day which reminded me about Jude's Crown’s S-Rank 95k Bonus Story story.

Under the cut due to event and route spoilers. As usual, this is just for fun, it's nothing groundbreaking, and we can't be dogmatic.

Burning Smells: “Shit, that burnin' smell...” - Jude Jazza, Crown’s S-Rank 95k Bonus Story

To my knowledge, this is where we are first introduced to something very odd - a Jude who doesn’t like burning smells. In this scene, a merchant whom Jude has collected evidence against for human-trafficking, started a fire within his own mansion to get rid of evidence. He intended for Jude and Kate to burn with him, so the two run for their lives as usual. Interestingly, we get a bit more insight about this vague statement at a later event……

“The smell when I smoke reminds me of that stuffy ass room. All the smoke n’ the fumes, n’ the gloom in the air would make me cough up a lung.” - Jude Jazza, Roger Barel’s Past Records-Record No. Four

This didn't hit me until I was writing this post, but I love how I Cybird expounded on that tiny morsel so many months later, and yet there's still not a lot of info. While it's implied the room Jude was in was filled with cigarette smoke (and for all intents and purposes, it probably is just cigarette smoke), Cybird doesn't explicitly state what type of smoke was actually in that room. It only says that cigarette smoke reminded him of it.

And if you think about it, cigarettes would just be an easy way for Jude to have access to the smell of smoke (which he uses to feed his hatred and vengeance).So, it could also be something like fumes and smoke from a furnace? Something that would constantly be spreading and harming them versus the potential intermittent smell of cigarette smoke. Maybe not though.

Regardless of the type of smoke it was, it’s both a source of trauma and a motivator for him, and he abhors it. Now about this room he was in.....

Hidden Rooms: So far we know that he was in a dusty attic (from his first BD event), and then this stuffy room that was filled with smoke.

Going to back to the mansion that is on fire in the 95k story, Jude wants them to escape by means of climbing down a drainage pipe from the fourth floor, but Kate tells him to do it alone, fearful the pipe won’t support them both. She explains that there maybe a hidden passage way to a detached outbuilding, where it’s rumored a sickly child the couple had at one point lived inside. When they reach the the wall that divides the mansion with the outbuilding, Jude says:

“……It's somethin' you often find in aristocratic mansions. They’ll dig underground and make somethin' like this.”

Now, how would he know this? He’s not an aristocrat. True, it may be that it’s something he’s noticed on Crown missions such as, Ghost House Report. In that mission, they find Anne’s skeleton in an under ground basement that’s hidden beneath the first floor staircase. It could also be that he worked as a servant in an aristocratic mansion and saw things no one should ever have to see. However, I feel like in Jude’s case, it might be……

Human-Trafficking: “Now, if ya were just buyin’ ‘n sellin’ guns ‘n other dirty shit that’d be fine. But don’t ya remember the contract ya signed with me? When I toldja, NO human traffickin’.”- Jude Jazza, Wrapped In Wicked Romance, Premium End

From the very beginning, we know at least one thing about Jude, and it’s that he HATES human-trafficking. In fact, majority of his personal missions involve this disgusting practice, and that point is further driven home in Ellis’ route. In chapter 13 of the route, they find 12 children who’ve been abducted by a lunatic, and Jude is absolutely furious about it.

A quick side note, before they discover the children, Jude tells Kate that it’s never acceptable to lock up a child without food. To me, it solidifies other evidence that Jude may have been a victim himself along with his sibling(s)/mother. Oh, and it also contributes to his medical records stating that he suffered from malnourishment!

There are ton of theories that I have about how he and his sibling(s)/mother were sold if that was the case.

Simple street abduction. There could’ve just been a bunch of bad guys looking for a quick buck and sold children to earn it. Ellis’ route has something similar happening.

Jude and his family may be from another country who were sold to someone in England. (I’m using First Class Ticket, Dark IF, and Guard IF as a basis for this.)

Jude and his family may have been offered up as collateral by their parent/guardian at an illegal gambling den. (Jude’s & Nica’s versus SE is what makes me think this).

Jude and his family may have been born into captivity by a mother who was sold to someone, and assaulted.

Jude’s mother may have been a prostitute who snagged herself a nobleman customer, and thus he was born and was simply mistreated within the home, and/or was found by the father later on and shoved into a cage.

Or, his mother may have been the one who disappeared after being sold, and he was simply left to live on the streets and earn a wage any way he could.

Final Theory? It's kind of hard reigning it all in, but I think Jude and his family may have been victims of human-trafficking in a nobleman’s home. There must've been constant burning smells of smoke that irritated baby Jude's lungs (who already suffers from seasonal asthma). This no doubt contributed to the illness of the other two who were with him as it seems they had trouble breathing too.

They may have been starved (as supported by Jude's medical record of suffering from child malnourishment), assaulted (physically and sexually), and/or at least exposed to the indulgence in vices such as drugs, sex, murder games (as Jude's mentioned once before in an event or Ellis' route...I can't remember where exactly), and other things…..we will stop at that because I can’t bear to think of what they may have had to endure or witness.

Assuming, Jude was locked away in a mansion like that as a child himself, I think it’s plausible that he escaped the mansion using his wit, not necessarily the way he did using cigarette smoke in the story, but somewhere along those lines:

Without putting the cigarette in his mouth, he held it out toward the underground passage. Then, the cigarette smoke trailed into the passage from the back of the hallway. “…..Thankfully, there's some air flow. Looks like there's an exit on the other side.”- Jude.

Of course, little Jude could’ve also climbed out a window and down the drain pipe if he was making his way down from a dusty attic instead, and I wonder…..was his family (?) able to make it out too, or was it too late by that point?

What we do know is that Jude escaped that life, and he even went to a public school (which is a paid school for the wealthy and the aristocratic). According to Past Records, it was either a scholar or a doctor who supported Jude in this endeavor.

Why? Why did they fund Jude's schooling? A selfish one? A genuine one? Did they notice how intelligent and clever Jude was, and decided it would be a tragedy if his brains were left to waste in the slums? Did they meet Jude while he was locked away? Did they meet Jude on the street? These are questions I want to know.

Again, this is just what I think could’ve happened. Let’s see how wrong I am! Please feel free to add-on to the theories.