the-oblivious-writer

[the-oblivious-writer]

With Her I Die |33|

Past J.T to Eventual S.S x Female Reader

Chapter Thirty-Three: Clinical Stripping

warnings: references to self-harm/picking at scars, medical/wound care scenes, and arguing (...of course).

note(s): my wattpad comment section had fun with this chapter.

taglist: @morganismspam23 @slutforabbyanderson @serendippindots @mikuley @sleepyjackets @wnbawag @eatingouturmomrn

masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

The stream runs clearer here, away from where the others do their washing and water collection. You've carved out this little pocket of privacy through weeks of quiet negotiation—Shauna suggesting the location, you pretending it was just practical rather than intimate. It's become your ritual, this weekly tending to wounds that refuse to fully heal.

"Shirt off," Shauna says, settling her supplies on a flat rock with the kind of careful precision that makes ordinary moments feel significant. Her tone is matter-of-fact, medical, but there's something underneath it that makes your chest tight with awareness.

You comply without the usual bout of self-consciousness that plagued you in the beginning. The fabric pulls away from skin that's learned to accommodate touch again, learned to accept care without flinching. Progress, Misty would say, though she's not here to witness this particular milestone.

The afternoon light filters through the canopy above, dappling your skin in patterns that shift with the breeze. Shauna's hands are gentle as she examines the healing wounds, fingers tracing the edges of stitches with the kind of practiced familiarity that comes from weeks of repetition.

"They're looking better," she murmurs, reaching for the clean cloth she's dampened in the stream. "The inflammation's almost gone."

You nod, not trusting your voice when her attention is focused so completely on your body. There's something about this ritual that strips away pretense, leaves you both suspended in a space where touch means healing and healing means hope.

Her gaze catches on the jagged scar along your forearm—the one that has nothing to do with fishing accidents or survival mishaps. The one that tells a story neither of you has been willing to speak aloud. Her fingers hover just above the raised skin, not quite touching but close enough that you feel the warmth of her hand.

"You've been picking at it again," she says quietly, and it's not quite an accusation but close enough to make shame crawl up your throat.

The habit is unconscious now, fingers finding the rough edges when your mind wanders to dark places. When the weight of being alive feels heavier than it should. You want to lie, to make excuses, but something about the way she's looking at you makes dishonesty impossible.

"Sorry," you mutter, like the apology could undo weeks of nervous destruction.

Shauna doesn't respond immediately, just begins cleaning around the area with movements so careful they feel like forgiveness. The silence stretches between you, comfortable in its weight, heavy with understanding that doesn't require words.

This is what intimacy looks like now—knowledge without explanation, care without judgment. The scar is part of your history, part of the story that brought you both to this moment by the stream. But it's also something else: proof that you survived your own darkness long enough to find reasons to stop reaching for it.

"There," she says finally, securing the last of the fresh bandaging. "That should hold until next week."

Next week. The promise implicit in those words makes something warm unfurl in your chest. That there will be a next week, another ritual, another opportunity to choose healing over the alternative.

You're reaching for your shirt when the sound of approaching footsteps cuts through the quiet. Both you and Shauna freeze, the intimacy of the moment suddenly feeling exposed, vulnerable. Your fingers fumble with the fabric, trying to cover yourself before—

"There you are," Mari's voice carries that particular edge of frustration that's become her default lately. "We've been looking everywhere for—"

She stops mid-sentence as she and Tai emerge from the treeline, her gaze landing on your half-dressed state with a reaction that's immediate and telling. Her face flushes deep red, eyes widening before she forces herself to look away with the kind of deliberate intensity that only draws more attention to what she's trying not to see.

"Jesus," she mutters, but there's something in her voice that suggests the exclamation has less to do with surprise and more to do with the way her body is responding to the sight of you.

Tai, ever the diplomat, keeps her expression carefully neutral, though you catch the slight raise of her eyebrows that suggests she's filing this moment away for later analysis.

"Sorry," Tai says, though she doesn't sound particularly sorry. "We were checking the snares and heard voices."

You finally manage to get your shirt over your head, hyperaware of the way the fabric clings to still-damp skin. Beside you, Shauna has gone very still, her posture shifting into something protective, possessive. The change is subtle but unmistakable—the way she positions herself slightly in front of you, the set of her shoulders that suggests she's prepared to defend territory.

"We come here every week," Shauna says, and there's steel underneath the casual explanation. "Same time, same routine. Not exactly a secret."

Mari's flush deepens at that, because of course she knows about your weekly appointments. Everyone knows, the same way everyone knows about the careful way you and Shauna orbit each other, the unspoken claim that's been building between you both.

"Right," Mari says, voice slightly strained. "We just... wondered where you two kept disappearing to."

The emphasis on 'two' is pointed, loaded with implications that make the air between you all crackle with tension. You're oblivious to the subtext, focused more on the way Shauna's jaw has tightened, the way her hand has moved fractionally closer to yours.

"Well, now you know," Shauna replies, and there's something almost territorial in the way she says it. Like she's marking boundaries, establishing claims that have nothing to do with medical necessity and everything to do with the careful intimacy you've built together.

Tai clears her throat diplomatically. "The snares were empty, by the way. Might want to try relocating them."

It's a transparent attempt to redirect the conversation, and you're grateful for it even if the others seem reluctant to let the moment go. Mari's gaze keeps drifting back to you despite her obvious efforts to focus elsewhere, her attraction written across her features in ways that would be flattering if they weren't so complicated.

"Thanks for letting us know," you say, because someone needs to acknowledge Tai's peace-keeping efforts. "We'll head back in a few minutes."

The dismissal is gentle but clear, and after another moment of charged silence, Tai nods and turns to go. Mari follows with obvious reluctance, shooting one last conflicted look over her shoulder that makes Shauna's possessiveness flare like a lit match.

Once they're gone, the space feels different—charged with awareness of how the scene must have looked, what conclusions might be drawn. You finish adjusting your shirt, hyperaware of Shauna's continued proximity, the way she's still positioned like a shield between you and the world.

"That was weird," you say finally, because the silence is stretching toward uncomfortable.

Shauna makes a sound that might be agreement, but her attention seems focused elsewhere. On the way Mari looked at you, maybe, or the implications of being discovered in your private ritual. There's something working behind her eyes, some calculation or realization that she's not quite ready to share.

"We should probably head back," she says eventually, but she doesn't move to pack up her supplies. Instead, she stays close, close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from her skin, close enough that the space between you feels deliberate rather than accidental.

"Shauna," you start, not sure what you want to say but knowing that something has shifted in the last few minutes. Something that has less to do with Mari's interruption and more to do with the way Shauna looked when she thought someone else might be seeing you the way she does.

But she shakes her head, a small movement that suggests the conversation will have to wait. That whatever's building between you needs more time, more privacy, more certainty before it can be spoken aloud.

So you help her pack up the medical supplies, your hands brushing against hers with the kind of incidental contact that feels anything but accidental. And if you both take longer than necessary, if the walk back to camp is slower than usual, well—some rituals are worth extending, worth savoring before reality intrudes again.

The promise of next week hangs between you like a bridge, spanning the gap between what is and what might be. Between healing and hoping, between survival and something that looks remarkably like the beginning of living again.

------

Shauna's hands won't stop shaking.

She sits on the edge of their shared bedroll, fingers worrying at a loose thread on her jacket while her mind replays the scene by the stream over and over. The way Mari's eyes had gone wide, pupils dilating as her gaze swept over your exposed skin. The way she'd stumbled over her words, cheeks flushing that telltale red that had nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with want.

The worst part? You hadn't even noticed.

"You're being weird," you say from across their small space, your tone carrying that particular brand of obliviousness that makes Shauna want to scream. You're folding your spare shirt with the kind of deliberate care that suggests you're trying to fill silence, unaware that every casual movement is driving her slowly insane.

"I'm not being weird," Shauna replies, though her voice comes out sharper than intended. The thread in her fingers snaps under the pressure, and she stares down at it like it's personally offended her.

You pause in your folding, those perceptive eyes finally focusing on her with something that might be concern. "Okay, you're definitely being weird. What's wrong?"

What's wrong? The question sits in the air between them like a lit fuse, and Shauna can feel herself teetering on the edge of saying something she can't take back. Because how does she explain the way her chest had tightened when Mari looked at you like that? How does she articulate the sudden, overwhelming need to step between you and anyone else who might see what she sees?

"Nothing's wrong," she lies, because the truth feels too big for the space between them. Too dangerous.

You set down your shirt, and she recognizes the shift in your posture - the way you straighten when you're about to push an issue. It's the same stance you used to take with Jackie when she was being evasive, the same gentle persistence that had made their relationship work despite Jackie's tendency to deflect with humor.

The comparison hits Shauna like a physical blow, and suddenly she's furious - at you, at herself, at the ghost that still occupies the space between them.

"You didn't see it, did you?" The words come out before she can stop them, loaded with accusation and something darker.

Your eyebrows furrow in that familiar way that means you're genuinely confused. "See what?"

"The way Mari was looking at you." Shauna's voice is getting louder now, months of carefully controlled jealousy finally finding an outlet. "Like she wanted to—" She stops herself, jaw clenching around words that feel too raw to speak.

"Mari?" You actually laugh, which is somehow the worst possible response. "Are you serious? Mari can barely stand me most days."

The casual dismissal makes something snap inside Shauna's chest. Because of course you don't see it. Of course you're completely oblivious to the way people orbit around you, drawn by some gravitational pull you don't even recognize you have.

"God, you're so fucking naive," she snaps, standing abruptly. The movement makes the small space feel even smaller, like the walls are closing in around them both.

Your face changes at that, confusion shifting into something harder. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Shauna knows she's picking a fight now, knows she's letting her frustration bleed into cruelty, but she can't seem to stop herself. "You walk around completely clueless while people—" She gestures wildly, encompassing not just Mari but herself, though she can't quite say that part out loud.

"While people what, Shauna?" Your voice has gone quiet, dangerous in the way it gets when you're really angry. "What exactly are you accusing me of?"

The question hangs between them, and Shauna realizes she's backed herself into a corner. Because what is she accusing you of? Of being attractive? Of inspiring devotion you don't ask for? Of making her feel things she's not sure she has the right to feel?

"Nothing," she says finally, but it comes out weak, deflated. "Forget it."

"No." You stand now too, and the small space forces you both into proximity that feels charged with unspoken things. "You don't get to start a fight and then just drop it. What's really going on here?"

Shauna can feel herself spiraling, can feel the careful control she's maintained for years starting to crack. Because the truth is sitting right there in her throat, waiting to spill out and ruin everything they've built together.

The truth is that watching Mari look at you had felt like watching someone else stake a claim on something that wasn't theirs to want. The truth is that the weekly ritual by the stream has become the highlight of her week, the careful tending of your wounds an excuse to touch you in ways that feel more intimate than medical necessity requires.

The truth is that she's falling for you, has been falling for you, and the knowledge sits in her chest like a stone because she knows - knows - that your heart still belongs to a ghost.

"You still love her," she says instead, the words coming out barely above a whisper. "Jackie."

Your face goes very still at that, and Shauna watches something shutter behind your eyes. It's the same look you get when someone mentions Jackie directly, that careful blankness that suggests you're protecting something precious and painful.

"Of course I do," you say finally, and the simple honesty of it hits Shauna like a slap. "That doesn't just... stop."

"I know that." The words come out harsher than she intends, frustration bleeding through. "But you can't live in the past forever."

"I'm not living in the past." Your voice is getting louder now, matching her energy. "I'm trying to survive each day, which is apparently more than you think I'm capable of."

"That's not what I—" Shauna stops, takes a breath, tries to find words that won't sound like accusations. "I just... I see the way you look sometimes. Like you're waiting for something that's never going to come."

"And what exactly should I be looking for instead?" The question comes out sharp, pointed, and Shauna can hear the challenge underneath it.

Me, she wants to say. Look at me. But the words stick in her throat because saying them would mean admitting things she's not sure either of them is ready for.

"I don't know," she says instead, which is both a lie and the most honest thing she's said all night.

You stare at each other across the small space, the argument having stripped away the careful politeness they usually maintain. In the dim light, Shauna can see the exhaustion written across your features, the way this conversation is costing you energy you don't have to spare.

"This is stupid," you say finally, running a hand through your hair. "We're fighting about nothing."

But it's not nothing, and they both know it. It's everything they can't say, every careful boundary they've drawn around their relationship to keep it safe and manageable. It's the weight of competing loyalties, of hearts that want things they're not sure they're allowed to have.

"Yeah," Shauna agrees, because what else is there to say? "Stupid."

You settle back onto your side of the bedroll, turning away from her in that way that suggests the conversation is over even though nothing has been resolved. Shauna follows suit, lying down with her back to you, both of them maintaining the careful distance that's become their norm.

But in the darkness, she can hear your breathing, can feel the warmth radiating from your body just inches away. And she knows that tomorrow there will be another day of careful interactions, of managing the space between them like something fragile that might break if handled wrong.

The truth sits in her chest like an unexploded bomb: she's in love with someone who's still in love with a ghost. And she has no idea what to do with that knowledge except carry it, day after day, like another weight in a life already heavy with survival.

Outside their shelter, the forest settles into its nightly rhythm, but sleep feels impossibly far away. Because some arguments don't end with resolution - they end with the recognition that some truths are too dangerous to speak, too precious to risk losing by wanting more than what's offered.

Tomorrow they'll go back to their careful dance, their weekly rituals, their unspoken understanding. But tonight, the space between them feels like an ocean, and Shauna falls asleep clutching the knowledge of her own heart like a secret too fragile to share.

[the-oblivious-writer]

With Her I Die |32|

Past J.T to Eventual S.S x Female Reader

Chapter Thirty-Two: Under Pressure

warnings: depression, suicidal ideation (mentions of "giving up" and promises not to), and typical animal butchering.

note(s): seeing aphrodite next week... incredibly nervous.

taglist: @morganismspam23 @slutforabbyanderson @serendippindots @mikuley @sleepyjackets @wnbawag @eatingouturmomrn

masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

 The weight of trying to be present feels like carrying stones in your chest. Every conversation requires conscious effort, every smile a deliberate choice rather than something that comes naturally. But you're trying—for Shauna, because of the way her voice cracked when she asked you to promise not to give up. Because the fear in her eyes that day by the lake looked too much like the expression Jackie wore right before everything went wrong.

Your cane taps against the uneven floorboards of the hut you share with Shauna as you make your way to the small window. The sound doesn't grate on your nerves the way it used to. Acceptance, you've learned, sometimes comes in the form of a wooden stick and the admission that needing help doesn't make you weak.

"You're up early," Shauna's voice carries that particular roughness that comes from interrupted sleep. She's sitting up in her makeshift bed, hair mussed and that crease between her eyebrows that means she's trying to shake off whatever pulled her from dreams.

"Couldn't sleep," you admit, settling beside her with less awkwardness than you once managed. The improvement in your mobility is incremental but real—another small victory in a war fought one day at a time.

She nods, understanding passing between you without words. Sleep has become something of a luxury for all of you, but Shauna carries her insomnia differently. Wears it like armor against whatever visits her in the dark.

"Want to talk about it?" The question sits carefully between you, an offering rather than a demand.

"Nothing to talk about." The deflection is immediate, practiced. But you catch the way her hands shake slightly as she pushes hair from her face, the way her breathing hasn't quite settled back to normal.

You don't push. That's something you've learned in your slow crawl back to the living—sometimes presence is enough. Sometimes sitting in the quiet with someone is more valuable than trying to fix what's broken.

The morning routine unfolds around you both with the kind of choreographed efficiency that comes from shared space and shared survival. Shauna pulls on her outer layers while you work your way through the physical therapy stretches Misty prescribed, the ones that don't require equipment or an audience. The ones you can do without feeling like a specimen under observation.

"Better?" Shauna asks, watching you work through a series of careful movements designed to rebuild strength in muscles that forgot how to hold you upright.

"Getting there." It's the most optimistic thing you've said in weeks, and you can see the way it catches her attention. The way hope flickers across her features before she schools her expression back to neutrality.

The tension in camp hits you the moment you step outside. It's there in the way conversations halt when certain people approach, in the careful positioning of bodies that suggests battle lines drawn in invisible sand. Mari and Shauna have been circling each other like wolves for days, and everyone else has learned to navigate around the edges of their conflict.

"—don't see why we have to keep pretending like—" Mari's voice carries across the clearing, sharp with frustration.

"Because that's what we agreed on," Shauna's response cuts through whatever Mari was building toward. "Or did you forget how democracy works?"

You exchange a look with Van, who's standing near the fire pit with the expression of someone watching a slow-motion car crash. The dynamics have shifted since Nat was chosen as leader, power redistributed in ways that leave everyone slightly off-balance.

"This is getting ridiculous," you murmur, more to yourself than anyone else.

"Tell me about it," Van agrees, but there's something careful in her tone. Like she's weighing whether to say more.

The argument escalates, voices rising above the morning sounds of camp life. You can see the exact moment when patience snaps—Mari's posture shifting from frustrated to combative, Shauna's jaw setting in that particular way that means she's done talking and ready to start swinging.

"Enough." Nat's voice cuts through the noise like a blade, sharp and final. She moves between them with the kind of authority that sits uncomfortably on her shoulders but which she wears anyway because someone has to. "Whatever this is about, figure it out without involving the rest of us."

Mari opens her mouth to argue, but something in Nat's expression stops her. The leader thing doesn't come naturally to her—you can see it in the tension around her eyes, the way she holds herself like she's constantly braced for challenge. But she does it anyway because the alternative is chaos, and they've all seen enough of that to last several lifetimes.

"Fine," Mari mutters, but the word carries enough venom to poison a well.

Shauna doesn't respond, just turns and walks away with that particular stride that means she's furious but trying to contain it. You know that walk. Have been on the receiving end of it more times than you care to count.

"I'll go—" you start, but Nat shakes her head.

"Give her some space. She'll cool down."

There's wisdom in that, you suppose. But watching Shauna disappear into the tree line with anger radiating from every line of her body makes something clench in your chest. The urge to follow, to fix, to somehow absorb whatever's eating at her is almost overwhelming.

"Leadership suits you," you tell Nat instead, and you're surprised to find you mean it.

She snorts, but there's no humor in it. "Right. Because I always dreamed of breaking up fights between teenage girls about who gets to decide how we ration soap."

"It wasn't about soap."

"No," she agrees, and something passes across her face—understanding, maybe, or recognition. "It never is."

The day moves forward with the kind of careful normalcy that feels like walking on ice. Everyone goes through the motions of daily survival while pretending not to notice the undercurrents of tension that threaten to pull them all under. You find yourself watching Shauna from the corners of your eyes, tracking her movements around camp like she might disappear if you look away too long.

She's preparing dinner when you finally approach, her hands moving with practiced efficiency as she portions out what little meat they managed to catch. The butchering falls to her now—has since that first desperate winter when squeamishness became a luxury none of them could afford.

"Need help?" you ask, settling nearby with your cane propped against a log.

"I've got it." But she doesn't tell you to leave, which feels like progress.

You watch her work, noting the careful precision with which she handles the knife, the way she's learned to waste nothing. There's something almost meditative about it, the methodical preparation that transforms raw necessity into something approaching a meal.

"Mari's just scared," you say eventually, because silence feels heavier than words.

Shauna's hands pause for a moment before resuming their work. "We're all scared."

"Yeah, but she takes it out on you."

"She takes it out on everyone. I just happen to be a convenient target."

There's something in her tone that suggests this conversation is threading dangerous territory. But you've gotten good at reading the subtle signs of Shauna's moods, the way her shoulders set when she's building walls, the slight tightening around her eyes that means she's holding something back.

"You know you don't have to carry everything yourself, right?" The words come out gentler than you intended, but maybe that's what the moment requires.

She looks up then, meeting your eyes with an expression that's hard to read. "Someone has to."

"No," you say, and there's more conviction in your voice than you expected. "Someone has to lead. Someone has to make decisions. But carrying the weight of everyone's fears? That's not your job."

For a moment, something shifts in her face—vulnerability, maybe, or the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that comes from trying to be strong for too long. But then the mask slides back into place, and she returns her attention to the meat in front of her.

"Dinner will be ready in an hour," she says, and it's clear the conversation is over.

You nod, understanding the dismissal for what it is. But as you stand to leave, you catch the way her gaze follows you, the careful attention she pays to how you move, how you balance yourself with the cane. There's something possessive in that attention, something that speaks to emotions neither of you are ready to name.

The pressure of it all—the careful balance of survival and sanity, the weight of promises made and expectations unspoken—sits on your chest like a physical thing. You find yourself thinking of lyrics half-remembered, something about pressure and ice and the feeling of being caught between competing forces with no good options.

But you're trying. For Shauna, for the promise you made by the lake, for the possibility that somewhere on the other side of all this pain is something that might eventually resemble a life worth living. It's not much, but it's enough to keep you moving forward one careful step at a time.

The cane taps against the ground as you walk away, and for once, the sound doesn't feel like defeat. It feels like progress.

[the-oblivious-writer]

i’d like to believe that was real on like a spiritual level lol jackie coming to her in her dreams to tell her it’s okay ahahah. i love jackie, i’ve also reread the prologue to with her i die a bunch of times bcs that jackie/yn dynamic was so good. u write the yellowjackets so well!!

Jackie's own hallucination is still canon in the 'With Her I Die' au, so they both felt a sense of peace before her demise. But, spoiler, it'll be decades before y/n truly forgives herself for that night.

And thank you! They're so painfully happy in the prologue, before I edit a chapter, I re-read both the prologue and first chapter. It helps me enter the headspace I need in order to focus on the characters of this au - both oc and already made.

[the-oblivious-writer]

It feels wrong to ask this and to be clear I LOVE with her I die but.. I just miss Jackie because I just reread the prologue and honestly it's beautiful so after you finish with her I die would you consider maybe.. doing a 'what if jackie lived' and no pressure at all just something I've been thinking about

Bro, of course!! It's one of the many one-shots/multi-parters I've been working on!!! I love thinking about the what ifs for my series'. Especially when it comes to 'With Her I Die.' I specifically have an au in mind where Jackie, Shauna, and y/n are a throuple that wreak havoc everywhere they go.

[the-oblivious-writer]

I've done some pretty cruel things to the y/n of 'With Her I Die' but I think the cruelest thing I've done was make her truly believe she went out for Jackie that night. Pre-chapter one. She had a dream after the fight; after carrying Jackie back inside and warming her up with the fire and her (y/n's) blankets, they talked. They apologized. They saw eye-to-eye.

"I'm so fucking sorry." y/n had said.

But the dream was so vivd, y/n thought it actually happened. So you could imagine the surprise she was in for the next day.

[the-oblivious-writer]

who knocked you out? should we be concerned?

fucking MOTHER NATURE did.

[the-oblivious-writer]

I had a fuckass black-out that delayed a few updates. (i'm still pissed abt it) I just need to back-up a few files before I can FINALLY get back to a consistent schedule. I'll do everything in my power to make it up to you guys.

[the-oblivious-writer]

Hi there !! I have simply come to say I love your writing and With Her I die has been my favorite ongoing fic series on tumblr rn 🥹 it’s been such a treat to read every update !! Anyways hope you’re having a great day!!

Thank you, this means a lot to me! I love when people reach out to let me know what they think of my work. I want people to enjoy it, so knowing that you love it is awesome. 'With Her I Die' being your current favorite ongoing series is an honor.

I hope you have a great day too!!!

[the-oblivious-writer]

With Her I Die |31|

Past J.T to Eventual S.S x Female Reader

Chapter Thirty- One: To Be or Not to Be

warnings: suicidal ideation, depression, grief, and self-harm ideation.

note(s): i got my period, ugghhgg.

taglist: @morganismspam23 @slutforabbyanderson @serendippindots @mikuley @sleepyjackets @wnbawag @eatingouturmomrn

masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

The exercises are bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit, and you're tired of pretending otherwise.

"Lift your leg. Higher. Come on, you can do better than that." Misty's voice carries that particular brand of cheerful persistence that makes you want to scream. She's perched on a log beside you, clipboard in hand like she's conducting some sort of medical symposium instead of forcing you through another round of pointless movements.

Your leg shakes as you attempt to follow her instructions, the muscles protesting every shift in position. Yesterday's collapse while helping Akilah mend the fence lines still echoes through your body—the sudden give of strength, the humiliating crash to the ground, the way everyone rushed to help you like you were made of glass.

"This is stupid," you mutter, but you keep going because stopping feels like admitting something you're not ready to face.

"Recovery takes time," Misty chirps, making a note on her makeshift chart. "You're doing great, really. Much better than yesterday."

Better than yesterday. The bar sits so low you could trip over it, and maybe that's the point. Maybe this is what healing looks like—a series of small victories so incremental they feel like failures.

Your cane lies beside you on the ground, that rough-hewn reminder of your new limitations. Both Shauna and Misty have been after you about using it more, their voices sharp with the kind of exasperation that comes from watching someone repeatedly make the same mistake.

"You're being stupid," Shauna had said just this morning, her tone carrying that edge of frustration that's become as familiar as breathing. "Use the cane. That's what it's for."

Stupid. The word sits in your chest like a stone, heavy and uncomfortable. Because maybe she's right. Maybe you are being stupid, pushing yourself too hard, pretending you're stronger than you are. Maybe the whole thing—the recovery, the effort, the stubborn insistence on getting better—is just another form of self-destruction.

"Okay, now let's try some stretches," Misty continues, oblivious to the storm building in your chest. "Reach toward your toes, but don't strain—"

"No." The word comes out harder than you intended, cutting through her instructions like a blade. "I'm done."

"But we're not finished—"

"I said I'm done." You grab the cane, using it to lever yourself upright with more force than necessary. The movement sends a spike of pain through your side, but you welcome it. At least pain is honest. At least pain doesn't pretend to be something it's not.

"You can't just stop in the middle of—"

"Watch me."

You're already walking away, the cane tapping against the ground with each step. Behind you, Misty's voice rises in protest, but you don't turn around. Can't turn around. Because if you do, you might say something you can't take back, might let out the scream that's been building in your chest for weeks.

The lake calls to you like a siren song, and you find yourself limping toward it despite the way water has always made your chest tight with fear. It's the contradiction that draws you—the way something so beautiful can also be so dangerous, so final.

You settle on the bank with less grace than you'd like, the cane falling beside you as you fold your legs beneath you. The water stretches out like a mirror, reflecting the afternoon sky in perfect, impossible detail. It's the kind of beauty that makes you ache, that reminds you of all the things you'll never be able to share with the person who should be sitting beside you.

Jackie would have loved this spot. Would have made some comment about how the light hits the water just right, how it looks like something from a postcard. She always saw beauty in things that scared you, always found ways to make the dangerous feel safe.

The thought brings tears before you can stop them, hot and sudden and completely overwhelming. You press your palms against your eyes, trying to force them back, but it's useless. The grief hits like a physical blow, stealing your breath and leaving you gasping.

You're so tired of missing her. So tired of this constant battle between acceptance and denial, between moving forward and staying frozen in the moment before everything went wrong. The frustration builds in your chest like pressure in a boiler, and you know it's not fair—the way you've been taking it out on Shauna, the way you've been sulking around camp like a wounded animal.

But fair stopped mattering the moment Jackie died. Fair doesn't exist in a world where the person you love most turns into a memory, where survival means learning to live with a hole in your chest that never quite heals.

The water laps gently at the shore, and you find yourself thinking about how easy it would be. How simple. Just walk in until the bottom drops away, until the cold closes over your head and the choice is taken away from you. The thought doesn't scare you the way it should. Instead, it feels like relief—like finally, finally, you could stop fighting.

You could join her.

The phrase sits in your mind like a benediction, like a prayer answered. Because what's the point of all this? The recovery, the physical therapy, the careful way everyone watches you like you might break? You're already broken. Have been since the moment you lost her.

Behind you, footsteps approach on the forest floor, and you don't need to turn around to know it's Shauna. Her presence has its own weight, its own gravity that you've learned to recognize.

"Found you," she says, settling beside you with that careful way she's developed. Like you're made of something more fragile than flesh and bone.

"Wasn't hiding."

"No? Because storming off in the middle of physical therapy feels a lot like hiding to me."

You don't respond, can't respond, because the words would come out all wrong. Would reveal too much about the thoughts that have been circling your mind like vultures.

"Misty's worried about you," Shauna continues, and there's something in her voice that suggests she's worried too. "Says you've been pushing yourself too hard."

"Since when do you care what Misty thinks?"

"Since she's the closest thing we have to a doctor, and you're—" She stops, and you can hear the weight of whatever she's not saying. "You collapsed yesterday. Scared the hell out of all of us."

The admission hangs between you like a confession. Because underneath it, you can hear what she's really saying—that you scared her. That the thought of losing you is something she can't bear to consider.

"I'm fine," you lie, because it's easier than the truth.

"Are you?" She shifts beside you, and you can feel her gaze on your profile. "Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like you're trying to kill yourself in increments."

The accusation hits too close to home, and you find yourself turning to look at her. Her face is carefully composed, but there's something in her eyes that makes your chest tight with guilt.

"I'm trying to get better," you say, but the words sound hollow even to you.

"Are you? Or are you trying to punish yourself for surviving?"

The question sits between you like a live wire, dangerous and electric. Because she's right, isn't she? That's exactly what you're doing. Punishing yourself for being here when Jackie isn't, for having the audacity to keep breathing when the person you love most is feeding the earth.

"It should have been me," you whisper, and the words come out so quietly you're not sure she hears them.

But she does. Her hand finds yours, warm and solid and real. "No," she says, and there's steel in her voice. "It shouldn't have. Don't you dare think that."

"Why not? What's the point of any of this if she's not here to—"

"The point is that you're alive." Her grip tightens on your hand. "The point is that you're here, and you're breathing, and you get to keep making choices. Even if those choices are hard. Even if they hurt."

You want to argue, want to tell her that some choices aren't worth making, that some kinds of pain aren't worth enduring. But there's something in her voice that stops you. Something that sounds like desperation, like she's fighting her own battle and using you as ammunition.

"I see the way you look at me sometimes," you say instead, and it's not what you meant to say at all. "Like you're waiting for me to disappear."

Shauna goes very still beside you. "What?"

"When you think I'm not paying attention. You get this look—like you're trying to memorize my face." The words are coming out all wrong, but you can't stop them. "Like you're already grieving me."

"I—" She stops, and when she speaks again, her voice is smaller. "I lost Jackie too. I can't lose you as well."

The admission hangs between you like a bridge, fragile and necessary. Because suddenly you understand that this isn't just about your recovery. It's about her fear, her need to save something in a world that seems determined to take everything away.

"I'm not going anywhere," you tell her, and for the first time in weeks, you try to mean it.

"Promise me," she says, and her voice breaks on the words. "Promise me you won't give up."

The request sits heavy in the air between you, weighted with all the things you've been thinking, all the ways you've been planning to let go. But looking at her face—at the fear and hope and desperate love written across her features—you find yourself nodding.

"I promise," you whisper, and maybe if you say it enough times, it might become true.

The water continues its gentle lapping at the shore, and you sit together in the fading light, holding onto each other like lifelines. Because maybe that's what healing looks like—not the absence of pain, but the presence of someone willing to sit with you in it. Someone who sees the worst of you and chooses to stay anyway.

Recovery isn't linear. It's not a series of exercises or small victories or gradual improvements. It's the choice to keep breathing when breathing hurts, to keep fighting when fighting feels pointless. It's the weight of promises made to people who need you to keep them, even when you're not sure you know how.

The sun sets over the lake, painting the water in shades of gold and crimson, and you lean into Shauna's warmth. Tomorrow there will be more physical therapy, more careful steps toward something that might eventually resemble normal. But tonight, there's this—the quiet acknowledgment that surviving isn't just about your body healing. It's about finding reasons to want it to.

[the-oblivious-writer]

With Her I Die |30|

Past J.T to Eventual S.S x Female Reader

Chapter Thirty: Two Fools and One Finger

warnings: medical trauma, implied past violence, mental health struggles implied, and themes of isolation and captivity (both literal and metaphorical).

note(s): almost to with her die's summer...

taglist: @morganismspam23 @slutforabbyanderson @serendippindots @mikuley @sleepyjackets @wnbawag @eatingouturmomrn

masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

The makeshift cane Misty carved feels foreign in your grip, all rough edges and uncertain balance. She'd been oddly proud of it, fussing over the height and handle like she was crafting something for a museum instead of helping you hobble around camp. But it works, mostly, and after a week of being horizontal, even the simple act of standing upright feels like reclaiming something vital.

Akilah's voice drifts from the small clearing she's claimed as her domain, a gentle murmur that somehow manages to sound both soothing and authoritative. "Easy, girl. Easy now."

You make your way over, the cane tapping against roots and stones, and find her crouched beside what can only generously be called a pen. It's more of a suggestion of containment—branches woven together with strips of fabric and determination. Inside, a small rabbit huddles against the far corner, its dark eyes wide with what you recognize as barely contained panic.

"She's new," Akilah explains without looking up. "Found her caught in one of Nat's old snares. Leg's hurt, but not broken. Figured she might be more useful alive than dead, you know?"

The rabbit's nose twitches frantically, and you can't help but see something familiar in its stillness. That frozen quality of an animal that knows it's trapped but hasn't quite given up hope of escape.

"Smart," you say, settling down beside her with more care than you'd like to admit. The movement sends a dull ache through your side, but it's manageable. Everything's manageable these days, as long as you don't think too hard about it.

"Mari's been asking about you," Akilah mentions casually, her attention apparently focused on coaxing the rabbit closer with a handful of tender shoots. "Like, a lot. Girl's got it bad."

The observation sits between you like a stone dropped in still water. You've been aware of Mari's attention, of course—the way she lights up when you speak to her, the careful way she positions herself near you during group conversations. But acknowledging it feels like opening a door you're not sure you want to walk through.

"She's sweet," you say finally, and immediately feel the inadequacy of the words.

"Sweet." Akilah's tone suggests she finds this assessment both accurate and insufficient. "That's one word for it."

Before you can ask what she means, the sound of approaching footsteps makes you both turn. Shauna appears at the edge of the clearing, carrying what looks like a cup of water and wearing an expression that's become increasingly familiar—part concern, part barely contained frustration.

"You're supposed to be resting," she says, and there's that tone again. The one that suggests she's appointed herself the guardian of your recovery whether you asked for it or not.

"I am resting." You gesture to your seated position, trying for lightness. "Just resting somewhere else."

"Sitting in the dirt isn't resting." She approaches with that particular care she's developed, like you're made of something more fragile than flesh and bone. "And you haven't eaten anything today."

"I had berries."

"Three berries don't count as eating." The cup appears in front of you, and you recognize the familiar taste before you even lift it to your lips. Water, but the good kind—boiled, cooled, carefully rationed. "Drink."

There's something both irritating and oddly comforting about the way she hovers. Like having a personal storm cloud that occasionally rains essential nutrients. You drink the water because arguing takes more energy than you have, and because there's something in her eyes that suggests this is about more than hydration.

"I can take care of myself," you tell her, but the words come out softer than you intended.

"Right." Shauna's voice carries that particular edge it gets when she's trying not to say something she knows she'll regret. "Because you've been doing such a great job of that lately."

Akilah makes a small sound that might be clearing her throat or might be suppressed laughter. "I should check on the other traps," she says, standing with the fluid grace of someone who's learned to read the weather of human interaction. "Can you keep an eye on her?" She nods toward the rabbit, but the look she gives you suggests she's talking about more than just animal husbandry.

When she's gone, the clearing feels smaller somehow. More intimate. Shauna settles beside you, close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from her skin, and the familiarity of it makes your chest tight with something that might be longing or might be dread.

"Mari's been asking about you," she says eventually, her voice carefully neutral.

"So I've heard."

"She wants to know when you'll be well enough to... spend time with her." The pause before the last part suggests there are other words she's not saying, other implications she's not quite ready to voice.

You glance at her, trying to read the expression on her face. It's carefully composed, but there's something underneath—a tension that speaks of things held too tightly. "I can handle Mari."

"Can you?" The question comes out sharper than she probably intended, and you see her jaw tighten as if she's trying to pull the words back. "She's a hormonal teenager who's lonely and looking for something to hold onto. That's not what you need right now."

The presumption in her voice—the casual assumption that she knows what you need better than you do—makes something flare hot in your chest. "And that's for you to decide?"

"I—" She stops, and for a moment, you see something flicker across her face. Something that looks almost like panic. "That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?" You shift to face her more fully, ignoring the way the movement pulls at your stitches. "Because it sounds like you're trying to manage my life for me."

"I'm trying to protect you." The words come out louder than either of you expects, and she immediately looks around as if checking to make sure no one heard. "I'm trying to keep you from making another mistake that could get you hurt."

"Another mistake?" The phrase sits between you like a lit fuse. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Shauna's hands are clenched in her lap, and you can see the way her knuckles have gone white with tension. "You have a habit of throwing yourself into things without thinking about the consequences. The bear, leaving in the middle of the night, the rainy hunting trip, and now—"

"Now what? Now Mari?" You can't keep the defensive edge out of your voice. "She's not some kid. She's been through the same shit we all have. She's not some innocent little girl who needs protecting."

"That's not—" Shauna stops, runs a hand through her hair in a gesture that's become familiar. "It's not about that."

"Then what is it about?"

The question hangs in the air between you, heavy with implications neither of you seems quite ready to name. You watch Shauna's face, see the way she opens her mouth and then closes it again, like she's trying to find words for something that doesn't have a name.

"It's complicated," she says finally, and the inadequacy of the phrase makes you want to shake her.

"Everything's complicated. That's not an answer."

"It's the only answer I have right now." She stands abruptly, and you can see the way her hands are shaking slightly. "You're recovering from a serious injury. You're not thinking clearly. And Mari is—she's not what you need."

"And you are?" The question comes out before you can stop it, and you both freeze. Because suddenly the subtext has become text, and neither of you knows how to navigate this new territory.

Shauna's face goes through a series of expressions—surprise, fear, something that might be hope, and then careful blankness. "I'm trying to keep you alive," she says finally. "Someone has to."

"I never asked you to."

"You didn't have to." The words come out so quietly you almost miss them. "Some things don't require asking."

She's walking away before you can respond, leaving you alone with the rabbit and the weight of all the things you both refuse to say. The animal has crept closer during your conversation, drawn perhaps by the stillness you've both learned to carry. Its nose twitches as it investigates the space Shauna vacated, and you find yourself oddly comforted by its presence.

"Yeah," you tell it softly. "It's complicated."

The rabbit doesn't answer, but something in its dark eyes suggests it understands perfectly. After all, you think, aren't you all just trapped things, making the best of impossible circumstances, trying to figure out the difference between surviving and actually living?

In the distance, you can hear the sounds of camp life continuing—voices raised in conversation, the scrape of tools against wood, the eternal background hum of people trying to make something like home out of nothing like safety. But here in Akilah's clearing, surrounded by the small lives she's trying to nurture, everything feels temporarily suspended.

You lean back against a tree, letting the rough bark dig into your shoulders, and try to make sense of the conversation that just happened. Because underneath all the words about Mari and protection and complicated circumstances, you caught something else. Something in the way Shauna looked at you when she thought you weren't paying attention. Something in the careful way she's been taking care of you, as if you're made of something more precious than flesh and bone.

The rabbit ventures closer, and you find yourself thinking about the difference between being cared for and being managed. About the way Shauna's attention feels both suffocating and essential. About Mari's hopeful eyes and the weight of expectations you're not sure you can carry.

About the way some conversations change everything while appearing to change nothing at all.

The afternoon light shifts through the trees, and you realize you've been sitting here longer than you intended. Your side aches, and you're probably supposed to be drinking more water, eating more food, following the careful regimen of recovery that Shauna has mapped out for you.

But for now, you stay where you are, watching Akilah's rabbit navigate the boundaries of its small world, and trying to figure out how to want something without destroying it in the process.

[the-oblivious-writer]

With Her I Die |29|

Past J.T to Eventual S.S x Female Reader

Chapter Twenty-Nine: A Familiar Film

warnings: injury recovery, guilt, psychological trauma, references to past death and grief, and emotional distress.

note(s): superman had me crying.

taglist: @morganismspam23 @slutforabbyanderson @serendippindots @mikuley @sleepyjackets @wnbawag @eatingouturmomrn

masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

The first thing you notice when consciousness returns is the absence of rain. The second is the way your body feels disconnected from itself—heavy and weightless simultaneously, like you're floating in amber. Everything hurts, but distantly, as if the pain belongs to someone else.

"Hey." Shauna's voice cuts through the fog, soft but insistent. "You're awake."

You try to turn your head toward her, but even that small movement sends ripples of discomfort through your torso. She's sitting beside you, cross-legged on the ground, her hair falling forward to curtain her face. There's something different about her posture—less guarded, more present. Like she's been here for a while.

"How long?" Your voice comes out as barely a whisper, throat raw from screaming.

"Three days." She reaches for something beside her—a cup of water, lukewarm and precious. "You've been in and out. Mostly out."

The water tastes like survival, metallic and stale, but it's the third most beautiful thing you've ever taste. Shauna's hands are gentle as she helps you drink, one palm supporting the back of your neck, the other tilting the cup to your lips. The intimacy of it—this careful tending—makes your chest tight with something that has nothing to do with your injuries.

"The branch?" you ask when she pulls the cup away.

"Misty got it out. You're lucky—missed anything vital by maybe an inch." Her voice is clinical, controlled, but you catch the tremor underneath. "Twenty-three stitches. Could have been worse."

Could have been worse. The refrain of survival, the mantra that keeps you all moving forward. Could have been worse, but it wasn't, and now you're here, breathing, being cared for by hands that know exactly how to hurt and how to heal.

"You didn't have to—" you start, but Shauna cuts you off with a look.

"Yes, I did." There's no room for argument in her voice. "Someone had to."

The silence stretches between you, filled with all the things you haven't said to each other. About the way survival makes intimates of strangers and strangers of intimates. About how she's been sleeping beside you for three days, her body a barrier between you and the dark.

A soft knock at the outside of the hut interrupts the moment. Mari's voice, tentative: "Can I come in?"

Shauna's jaw tightens almost imperceptibly, but she nods. Mari enters the cramped space, and suddenly the air feels charged with unspoken tension. She's carrying something—a small wooden cup, steam rising from its surface.

"I made you tea," Mari says, her eyes fixed on you with an intensity that makes you want to look away. "Well, not really tea. More like hot water with some of those mint leaves we found. But it's warm."

She settles beside you, on the opposite side from Shauna, and the geography of it feels significant. You're the center of something—not quite a triangle, not quite a line, but something more complex and fraught. Mari's presence changes the air in the room, makes Shauna's careful composure feel more deliberate.

"Thank you," you manage, and Mari's face lights up like you've given her something precious. Her fingers brush yours as she passes you the cup, and you don't miss the way Shauna's eyes track the movement.

"I was so scared," Mari admits, her voice barely above a whisper. "When Nat carried you in, there was so much blood. I thought—" She doesn't finish the sentence, but she doesn't need to.

You sip the not-tea, letting the warmth spread through your chest. It tastes like effort, like care, like someone trying to offer comfort with limited resources. "I'm okay," you tell her, and try to mean it.

Mari stays for another hour, filling the silence with gentle chatter about camp life, about the weather, about anything except the way you almost died. When she finally stands to leave, she hesitates at the doorway.

"I'm glad you're okay," she says, and then she's moving, quick and decisive, pressing a soft kiss to your cheek before you can react.

The kiss is brief, innocent, but it changes something in the room. You feel Shauna go still beside you, feel the weight of her attention like a physical presence. Mari's cheeks are flushed as she straightens, and there's something defiant in the way she looks at Shauna before ducking out of the hut.

The silence that follows is different from before. Heavier. More charged.

"She's sweet," you say eventually, testing the waters.

"She's seventeen," Shauna replies, and there's something sharp in her voice that makes you look at her more carefully.

"So are you."

"No." Shauna's voice is flat, final. "I'm not. Not anymore."

Before you can ask what she means, another figure appears in the doorway. Nat, her usual swagger replaced by something more hesitant, more careful. She's been avoiding you—you realize that now. Haven't seen her since she carried you back to camp.

"Hey," she says, and her voice is smaller than you've ever heard it. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I fell down a mountain," you answer, trying for lightness.

Nat doesn't smile. If anything, she looks more miserable. "Can we talk? Alone?"

Shauna's jaw tightens again, but she stands. "I'll be right outside," she tells you, and the promise in her voice is clear.

When she's gone, Nat approaches slowly, like you're a wild animal that might bolt. She settles where Mari was sitting, her hands fidgeting with the hem of her shirt.

"I'm sorry," she says finally. "I'm so fucking sorry."

"For what?"

"For making you go out there. For pushing you when you didn't want to. For—" Her voice breaks. "For almost getting you killed."

The pain in her voice is raw, immediate. You remember the way she carried you, the steady stream of encouragement, the way she never faltered even when you were bleeding out in her arms. "Nat, no. It wasn't your fault. It was an accident."

"Was it?" She looks at you then, and her eyes are red-rimmed, haunted. "Because I remember what happened with the bear. I remember how you threw yourself at it, how you didn't even hesitate. And I remember thinking that maybe—maybe you wanted it to happen."

The words hit you like a physical blow. Because she's not wrong. Because there's a part of you that looks at survival and sees only the extension of suffering. Because sometimes the line between courage and self-destruction gets blurred beyond recognition.

"I remember standing there, watching you fight that thing, and thinking that you were the bravest person I'd ever seen. But also thinking that brave and stupid look a lot alike sometimes." Her voice is getting quieter, more intense. "And then I made you come hunting, even though you didn't want to. Even though you said you didn't want to. And I keep thinking—what if I hadn't? What if I'd just let you stay in the hut?"

"Then we'd all be hungrier," you say simply. "And someone else would have had to go out in the rain."

"But it wouldn't have been you. It wouldn't have been you bleeding out on that hill."

You want to comfort her, to tell her that guilt is a luxury you can't afford in this place. But the words stick in your throat because you understand what she's feeling. The weight of choices, of consequences, of the terrible mathematics of survival.

"I can't lose anyone else," she whispers, and the admission seems to surprise her as much as it does you. "I can't watch another person die because of something I did or didn't do."

"You saved my life," you tell her, and it's the truth. "You carried me back. You didn't let me die out there."

"I put you there in the first place."

"We put ourselves here." The words come out stronger than you expected. "All of us. The moment we got on that plane, the moment we trusted the universe to get us where we were supposed to go. This isn't about fault, Nat. It's about survival."

She nods, but you can see that she doesn't believe you. Not really. The guilt sits on her shoulders like a familiar coat, something she's learned to wear so well it's become part of her shape.

After she leaves, Shauna returns. She doesn't ask what you talked about, doesn't press for details. Instead, she settles back into her spot beside you, her presence a steady anchor in the shifting landscape of recovery.

"She blames herself," you say anyway.

"She should." Shauna's voice is matter-of-fact, but there's something underneath it—something that sounds like her own guilt, her own reckoning with the choices that led to this moment.

"It wasn't her fault."

"Wasn't it?" Shauna looks at you then, and there's something in her eyes that makes you think of breaking glass. "You didn't want to go. She made you go anyway. That's not nothing."

"And if I'd stayed here and someone else had gotten hurt?"

"Then it would have been someone else." Her voice is quiet, but there's steel underneath. "Not you."

The possessiveness in her tone makes your breath catch. It's the first time she's said anything that sounds like she cares whether you live or die, the first crack in the careful wall she's built between you.

"Shauna—"

"No." She turns away, but not before you catch the way her face twists with something that might be pain. "Don't say whatever you're going to say. Not yet."

So you don't. You lie there in the gathering dusk, listening to the sounds of camp settling into evening, and try to map the new geography of your body. The stitches pull when you breathe too deeply. Your shoulder aches where it hit the rocks. But underneath it all, there's something else—a different kind of hurt, one that has nothing to do with falling and everything to do with the careful way Shauna won't meet your eyes.

Recovery, you're learning, isn't just about healing flesh. It's about relearning how to exist in a body that has been broken, how to trust ground that has proven unreliable. It's about accepting care from hands that know exactly how much you can bear, and recognizing that sometimes survival means letting someone else carry the weight of keeping you alive.

In the darkness, Shauna's breathing evens out beside you, but you know she's not asleep. You can feel her vigilance, her readiness to respond to whatever crisis might emerge from the night.

[the-oblivious-writer]

The next couple chapters of With Her I Die are coming later next week (Thursday)!! I would have posted it today but I’m without a laptop which makes it incredibly frustrating. I’m over 1,000 miles from home right now so… yeah. A bit delayed, but i promise those two chapters will come out next week, along with the next couple that follows the original schedule.

[the-oblivious-writer]

With Her I Die |28|

Past J.T to Eventual S.S x Female Reader

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Blood Stained Rain

warnings: injury/blood, references to past death and grief, and emotional distress.

note(s): in which y/n gets a little boo-boo :(

taglist: @morganismspam23 @slutforabbyanderson @serendippindots @mikuley @sleepyjackets @wnbawag @eatingouturmomrn

masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

The rain starts as a whisper against the makeshift roof of your hut, then grows into something angrier. You press your face deeper into the musty fabric that serves as your pillow, willing yourself back into the dreamless sleep that's become your only refuge. But Nat's voice cuts through the steady drumming overhead.

"Hey." Her boot nudges your shoulder. "We gotta go."

You don't move. Can't move. The thought of leaving this small, cramped space—of facing the endless gray of another day—sits like a stone in your chest. "There's nothing out there."

"There's never nothing out there." Nat's voice carries that particular edge she gets when she's trying to convince herself as much as you. "And we're down to our last strips of jerky. You know what happens when people get hungry enough."

The unspoken hangs between you both.

You finally roll over, squinting at Nat through the dim gray light filtering through gaps in the wall. She's already dressed, her bow slung across her shoulder, her hair pulled back in a way that makes the sharp angles of her face even more pronounced. There's something in the way she's looking at you—not quite concern, not quite impatience. Something softer.

"I don't want to go out there," you admit, the words coming out smaller than you intended.

"Yeah, well." Nat shifts her weight, and you catch the way her eyes linger on your face, tracing the shadows beneath your eyes, the way your hair falls across your cheek. "Neither do I. But wanting's got nothing to do with it anymore."

The rain pounds harder against the roof, a relentless rhythm that seems to echo the ache in your chest. You think about Jackie, about how she used to complain about her hair getting frizzy in the humidity. How she'd make you hold an umbrella over her head even for the short walk from the car to the school entrance. The memory hits like a physical blow, stealing your breath.

"Mari's been watching you," Nat says suddenly, her voice carefully casual. "Like, really watching."

You shrug, pulling your knees to your chest. "So?"

"So maybe it's time you noticed someone who's actually here." There's something almost pointed in the way she says it, but when you look at her, she's already turning away, checking her equipment with unnecessary focus.

You mumble something noncommittal, but the words stick in your throat. Here. As if you're not still half-buried in the past, as if every day isn't a negotiation between breathing and drowning. As if Shauna's careful distance doesn't cut deeper than any blade.

The rain hasn't let up by the time you've forced yourself into your damp clothes and grabbed your hunting knife. If anything, it's gotten worse—the kind of spring storm that turns the forest floor into a treacherous maze of mud and hidden roots. Your boots slip with every step, and within minutes, you're soaked through.

"This is insane," you call out to Nat, who's somehow managing to move through the terrain with her usual predatory grace. "We're not going to find anything in this weather."

"Animals gotta eat too," she calls back, but there's doubt in her voice. "And drink. Streams'll be running high—good place to set up."

The hill you're climbing is steeper than it looked from below, the path—if it can even be called that—nothing more than a series of exposed roots and loose stones. The rain has turned everything slick, treacherous. You should suggest turning back. Should insist on it. But something about the set of Nat's shoulders, the determined way she's pushing forward, stops you.

Instead, you follow. One careful step after another, your hands reaching for whatever purchase you can find. The knife at your belt feels heavier with each movement, its weight a constant reminder of the violence you've learned to carry.

"You know what's funny?" Nat's voice drifts back to you, barely audible over the rain. "Before all this, I thought I knew what scared meant. Thought I'd seen the worst of it."

You want to respond, but the words require more breath than you can spare. The hill is getting steeper, and your legs are starting to shake with the effort. Below you, the forest spreads out in muted greens and browns, everything softened by the rain until it looks almost peaceful. Almost.

"Now I know better," Nat continues, and there's something raw in her voice that makes you look up. "Turns out the worst thing isn't dying. It's watching everyone else die while you just—"

The root gives way beneath your foot with a sound like breaking bone.

For a moment, you're weightless. Suspended between safety and consequence, between breath and impact. You see Nat's face turn toward you, her eyes wide with something that might be fear or might be recognition. You see the rocky outcrop rushing up to meet you, its edges sharp and unforgiving.

Then the world explodes into pain.

The impact drives the air from your lungs in a single, violent exhale. Your shoulder hits first, then your hip, your ribs—each contact point a separate symphony of agony. You're rolling, tumbling, the world spinning past in a kaleidoscope of gray sky and brown earth. Something tears along your side, a burning line of fire that makes you cry out.

When you finally stop moving, the silence is almost worse than the pain. Even the rain seems muted, as if the world has wrapped itself in cotton. You try to push yourself up, but your left arm won't cooperate. When you look down, you see why.

The branch—thick as your wrist and sharp as any blade—has driven itself deep into your side, just below your ribs. The wood is dark with rain and darker with blood, your blood, spreading across your shirt in a pattern that looks almost artistic. Almost beautiful, if you can ignore the way it makes your vision swim.

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit." Nat's voice comes from somewhere above you, getting closer. "Don't move. Don't you fucking move."

But you're already moving, or trying to. Your body seems to have disconnected from your brain, each limb operating on its own confused agenda. Your right hand reaches for the branch, and Nat's voice cuts through the rain like a whip.

"Don't touch it! Jesus Christ, don't touch it."

She's beside you now, her hands hovering over your body like she's not sure where to land. Her face is pale, paler than you've ever seen it, and there's something in her eyes that makes your chest tight with fear. Not fear of dying—that's been your constant companion for months now. Fear of leaving.

"How bad?" you manage to ask, though the words come out more like a whisper.

Nat's jaw works silently for a moment. Then: "Bad enough. But not—we're gonna get you back. We're gonna get you back, and Misty's gonna fix you up, and you're gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine."

She's talking to herself as much as to you, but you nod anyway. The movement sends fresh waves of pain through your torso, and you bite back a groan. The rain is still falling, washing the blood from your skin almost as quickly as it flows. You wonder, distantly, if that's good or bad. If you're bleeding out or if the cold is slowing everything down.

"I'm gonna carry you," Nat says, and she's already moving, sliding one arm under your shoulders, the other under your knees. "It's gonna hurt like hell, but I'm gonna carry you, and you're gonna stay awake. You're gonna stay with me."

The lift is agony. The branch shifts inside you, and you can't stop the scream that tears from your throat. But Nat doesn't stop, doesn't hesitate. She adjusts her grip, finds her balance, and starts walking. Each step is a new negotiation with pain, but she doesn't falter.

"Talk to me," she says, her voice tight with effort. "Keep talking."

"About what?" The words come out slurred, and you realize you're having trouble focusing on her face.

"Anything. Everything. Tell me about—tell me about before. Tell me about Jackie."

Jackie. The name hits you like a physical blow, but maybe that's what you need. Maybe pain is the only thing keeping you tethered to consciousness. "She hated the rain," you whisper. "Always said it made her look like a drowned rat."

"Yeah? What else?"

"She used to steal my hoodies. Said hers didn't smell right." Your voice is getting weaker, and you can feel Nat's grip tighten around you. "She'd wear them to bed, and I'd wake up and she'd be—she'd be—"

"She'd be what?" Nat's voice is urgent now, demanding.

"Beautiful," you finish, and the word dissolves into tears you didn't know you were crying. "She'd be beautiful, and I'd think about how lucky I was, but now she's—now she's—"

"Stop." Nat's voice is sharp, cutting through your spiral. "Stop. She's not here, but you are. You're here, and you're gonna stay here."

The camp comes into view like a mirage, wavering at the edges of your vision. You can see figures moving, can hear voices calling out. But everything feels distant, muffled, like you're viewing the world through thick glass.

Nat's voice rises above the rain: "Misty! Akilah! Get out here now!"

The response is immediate. Bodies spilling out of the cabin, voices overlapping in a chaos of concern and instruction. But there's one voice that cuts through all the others, one presence that makes your chest tighten with something that might be hope or might be heartbreak.

"Move. Move!" Shauna's voice, sharp with panic, sharp with something that sounds almost like fear. "Let me see her—"

She's pushing past the others, past Mari whose eyes are wide with horror, past Van who's trying to organize the chaos. Her hands are on you before Nat has even fully set you down, fingers checking your pulse, your breathing, the terrible wound in your side.

"How long has she been bleeding?" Shauna's voice is clinical, controlled, but you can hear the tremor underneath. "How long, Nat?"

"Twenty minutes, maybe thirty. The branch—it's still in there. I didn't want to—"

"You did right." Shauna's hands are gentle as they probe around the wound, but each touch sends fresh waves of pain through your body. "Misty, I need a clean cloth. Akilah, get me water. Hot if you can manage it."

You try to focus on her face, on the way her brow furrows with concentration, the way her teeth worry her lower lip. You want to tell her about the rain, about how it sounds different when you're dying. You want to tell her about Jackie, about the guilt that sits like a stone in your chest every time you look at her.

Instead, you whisper: "I'm sorry."

Shauna's hands still for a moment. When she looks at you, there's something in her eyes that makes you think of breaking glass, of things held too tightly. "Don't," she says, so quietly only you can hear. "Not for this."

The world is getting darker around the edges, and you can feel yourself slipping away from the pain, from the rain, from the weight of staying alive. But Shauna's hands are on you, and her voice is calling you back.

"Stay with me," she whispers, and it sounds like a prayer. "Please. Just stay with me."

And for the first time in months, you try.

[the-oblivious-writer]

With Her I Die |27|

Past J.T to Eventual S.S x Female Reader

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Sour Grapes

warnings: jealousy, references to past trauma, and water-related anxiety.

note(s): this is a pretty tame chapter considering the average chapter i'd put out.

taglist: @morganismspam23 @slutforabbyanderson @serendippindots @mikuley @sleepyjackets @wnbawag @eatingouturmomrn

masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter

The rhythm of your morning routine has become a lifeline—wake before dawn, collect the water containers, meet Mari at the treeline. Shauna watches from her makeshift butcher station, hands stained with yesterday's work, tracking your movements with the careful attention of someone cataloging threat assessments.

She knows about your fear of water. Remembers those late-night conversations from before, when Jackie would fall asleep first during sleepovers, leaving you and Shauna whispering in the darkness. You'd confessed it then—how the sound of rushing water made your chest tight, how you'd never learned to swim properly because even shallow pools felt like drowning waiting to happen.

Yet here you are, containers in hand, following Mari down the familiar path without hesitation.

The irony isn't lost on her. You, who once needed Jackie's hand to walk across the school's decorative bridge over the artificial pond, now willingly trek to the lake's edge every morning. For Mari. With Mari.

Shauna's knife pauses mid-stroke against the wooden cutting board she's fashioned from salvaged cabin debris. The blade catches morning light, throwing brief shadows across her work space—this small corner she's claimed as her own while others share their makeshift shelters. Privacy has become a luxury she hoards, especially when it allows her to observe undetected.

The way Mari's hand briefly touches your shoulder as you navigate the uneven ground doesn't escape her notice. How Mari positions herself between you and the water's edge when you fill the containers, creating a barrier that Shauna used to provide. The small considerations that speak to intimacy developed through shared routine.

"Fucking ridiculous," Shauna mutters under her breath, attacking the dried meat with renewed vigor. The knife strikes wood with each chop, a percussion of frustration she can't quite name.

Mari's laugh carries across the clearing—genuine, unguarded. The sound makes something twist in Shauna's chest, a recognition of the ease between you two that she remembers from before. Before the crash, before Jackie's death, before everything became survival and grief and the complex mathematics of staying alive.

You return from the lake with full containers, Mari steadying you when you stumble slightly under the weight. The gesture is automatic, practiced. Shauna's grip tightens on her knife handle.

"You're up early." Mari's voice carries as she approaches Shauna's station, leaving you to distribute the water among the others.

"Someone has to prep the food." Shauna doesn't look up from her work. "Unless you'd prefer to eat leather again."

"Just making conversation." Mari settles onto a nearby log, uninvited. "You've been... intense lately. More than usual."

Shauna's laugh is hollow. "Intense. That's rich, coming from someone who's been picking fights with everyone for weeks."

"I haven't been picking fights with everyone."

"No?" The knife stills. "Just me, then."

Mari's silence stretches long enough that Shauna finally looks up, meeting her gaze directly. There's something calculating in Mari's expression, a deliberate provocation that makes Shauna's jaw clench.

"You know what your problem is?" Mari's voice is deceptively casual. "You think you own people. Think they owe you something just because you've decided to care about them."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't." Mari stands, brushing dirt from her pants. "Maybe try asking what people actually need instead of assuming you know."

The implication hangs between them, unspoken but clear. Shauna's knuckles whiten around the knife handle.

"At least I don't pretend to be something I'm not to get close to people."

Mari's smile is sharp. "And what exactly am I pretending to be?"

"Helpful. Selfless. Someone who gives a shit about anything other than—"

"Hey." Tai's voice cuts through the tension like a blade. She approaches with the measured steps of someone defusing a bomb. "Maybe we save the territorial pissing for when we're not all dependent on each other?"

Both women turn toward her, aggression temporarily redirected. Tai holds up her hands in a placating gesture.

"I'm just saying, whatever this is about, fighting each other isn't going to fix it."

"There's nothing to fix," Shauna says, voice tight with forced control. "Mari was just leaving."

"Was I?" Mari's eyebrows rise. "I thought we were having such a productive conversation."

"Mari." Tai's tone carries warning. "Come on. Help me check the snares."

For a moment, Mari looks like she might refuse. Then she shrugs, the picture of nonchalance. "Sure. Why not."

As they walk away, Shauna catches Mari's backward glance—not at her, but toward where you're methodically organizing supplies with the careful focus of someone avoiding drama. The look confirms what Shauna already knows, what neither of them will say aloud.

This isn't about survival strategies or resource allocation. It's about the quiet intimacy of shared morning routines, the way you trust Mari with your fear of water, the small surrenders that add up to something larger.

Shauna returns to her work with mechanical precision, each cut deliberate and measured. The meat yields beneath her blade, and she pretends not to notice how the sound of your voice, discussing hunting plans with Nat, carries on the morning air. Pretends not to calculate the distance between Mari's retreating figure and your oblivious presence.

The wilderness has taught them all to be territorial. To guard resources, to protect what keeps them alive. But some territories are harder to define than others, and some resources more precious than food or water or shelter.

Some wars are fought in glances and careful silences, in the space between what's said and what's understood. In the recognition that caring for someone doesn't guarantee their reciprocation, and that survival sometimes means watching from the sidelines while others step into the spaces you once occupied.

Shauna's knife finds its rhythm again, steady and sure. The morning stretches ahead, full of small observations and careful distances. Of watching you navigate the world with Mari's support, while she remains at her station, surrounded by the tools of survival and the weight of unspoken claims.

The meat under her blade separates cleanly, each piece falling into neat piles. Order imposed through violence, sustenance carved from necessity. It's a metaphor she doesn't examine too closely, focusing instead on the work at hand and the careful architecture of not caring too much about things beyond her control.

[the-oblivious-writer]

Hi! I’d love a one shot or fanfic where Rita Bennett shares a cute, domestic moment with a gender-neutral reader who’s similar to Dexter Morgan. The reader has that same quiet, emotionally distant nature and might be hiding a dark secret or troubled past, but in this moment, they’re doing their best to connect with Rita. Maybe something small and sweet, like cooking breakfast together, tucking in the kids, or watching a movie while the reader internally processes what it means to feel love and safety. I’d like it to show how Rita brings out a softer, more human side of them without realizing it, and maybe the reader is a little overwhelmed by how much they care about her. Just something warm and emotionally intimate, with hints of their inner struggle.

Learning to Stay

Rita Bennet x Gender Neutral Reader

One-shot: Learning to Stay

summary: despite your violent past, you find yourself in the gentle rhythm of domestic life with rita and her children.

warnings: implied past violence/murder, references to domestic abuse/child abuse, parental death, trauma/ptsd themes, guilt/self-harm ideation, discussions of violence against abusers, grief/loss of a sibling, and psychological distress.

note(s): i swear this is fluff despite the content warnings.

The kitchen exists in soft focus this morning—sunlight filtering through gauze curtains, the gentle percussion of eggs cracking against ceramic. You stand at Rita's shoulder, watching her hands move with practiced efficiency, and something in your chest shifts like tectonic plates finding new alignment.

"Can you grab the milk?" she asks, not looking up from the bowl where she's whisking scrambled eggs into pale yellow clouds.

Your fingers brush hers as you pass the carton, and the contact sends electricity up your arm—not the sharp, warning current you've learned to associate with touch, but something warmer. Safer. You pull back quickly anyway, muscle memory stronger than rational thought.

Rita doesn't comment on your retreat. She never does. Instead, she hums something soft and wordless while butter melts in the pan, filling the silence with gentle sound. The normalcy of it threatens to undo you.

You've killed with these hands. Felt bone give way beneath knuckles, watched light fade from eyes that once held cruelty. Your father's face, purple with rage and alcohol, had been the first to go still beneath your grip. The memory lives in your palms—rough skin, the desperate scrabble of fingernails, the moment when struggle becomes stillness.

But here, now, Rita asks you to set the table, and your hands remember different motions. Plates arranged with careful precision. Forks aligned just so. The mundane choreography of belonging somewhere.

"You're so quiet this morning," Rita observes, pouring eggs into the pan where they sizzle and begin to set. "More than usual, I mean."

The words lodge in your throat like stones. How do you explain that quiet is survival? That silence was the difference between your sister's breathing and your father's fists? That even now, years later, you measure every sound for threat potential?

Instead, you offer what you can: "Just thinking."

She turns then, spatula in hand, and studies your face with those soft brown eyes that see too much. For a moment, you're certain she knows. About the blood on your hands, the bodies in your wake, the way you've learned to mimic human emotion while feeling like something hollow wearing a person's skin.

But then she smiles—small and understanding—and returns to the eggs. "I do my best thinking in the kitchen too. Something about the routine, you know? It makes space for everything else."

Everything else. If only she knew what lived in those spaces.

The eggs finish cooking in comfortable quiet. You pour orange juice into small glasses while Rita calls for Astor and Cody, her voice carrying the particular cadence of maternal authority. The children tumble into the kitchen like puppies, all sleep-mussed hair and animated chatter about weekend plans.

You find yourself cataloging the scene: Rita's laugh when Cody attempts to steal bacon from the pan. Astor's earnest explanation of a dream about flying bicycles. The way morning light catches in Rita's hair, turning ordinary brown into something that looks spun from gold and honey.

This is what normal families do, you realize. They gather around tables and share meals and speak in voices that don't carry undertones of fear. They exist in each other's presence without calculating exit strategies or scanning for weapons.

"You okay?" Rita's hand settles on your forearm, warm and steady. The touch should trigger every defense mechanism you've carefully constructed. Instead, it anchors you to this moment, this kitchen, this impossible feeling of belonging.

"Yeah," you manage, and it's not entirely a lie. In this space she's created—all soft edges and patient understanding—something in you relaxes for the first time in years. "I'm okay."

The morning unfolds in small intimacies. Rita packs lunches for a planned trip to the park. You help Cody tie his shoes, your fingers remembering the motion from another life, another child who didn't live to wear shoes that needed tying. The grief lives in your ribcage like a second heartbeat, but today it doesn't threaten to consume you.

At the park, you push Astor on the swings while Rita and Cody build elaborate sandcastles. The repetitive motion—pull back, release, catch, repeat—becomes meditation. Each arc of the swing carries Astor higher into blue sky, and her delighted laughter creates something like music.

"Higher!" she demands, and you comply, watching her small hands grip the chains with fierce determination. She trusts you completely, this child who doesn't know what your hands have done. The weight of that trust should crush you. Instead, it feels like absolution.

Later, as afternoon shadows lengthen and the children play on jungle gyms, Rita settles beside you on the bench. Her thigh presses against yours—casual contact that would have sent you fleeing months ago. Now, you let yourself absorb the warmth of her presence.

"Thank you," she says quietly.

"For what?"

"For being here. For trying." She turns to look at you, and her expression holds something you don't recognize at first. It's only when she reaches up to brush an invisible speck from your cheek that you understand: affection. Pure, uncomplicated affection.

The touch lingers longer than necessary. Her thumb traces the edge of your jaw, and you feel yourself leaning into the contact like a plant turning toward sunlight. This is dangerous territory—allowing yourself to want, to need, to hope for things that people like you don't deserve.

But Rita's eyes hold no judgment, no fear. Only tenderness that threatens to crack you open entirely.

"I should help with the kids," you whisper, not moving away.

"They're fine," she murmurs back. "We're fine."

We're fine. The words echo in the hollow spaces of your chest, finding purchase in places you thought had been carved out long ago. The possibility of we exists here, in this ordinary Sunday afternoon, in Rita's patient hands and soft voice and the way she looks at you like you're worth saving.

You think of your sister—bright laugh silenced too soon, small hands that never got to grow bigger. You think of your father—rage and alcohol and the moment you chose her memory over his continued existence. You think of all the others since, the ones who deserved what you gave them, the way you've become something that hunts monsters by becoming one yourself.

But here, now, with Rita's hand warm against your cheek and the sound of children's laughter painting the air gold, you remember what it felt like to be human. To want simple things: Sunday mornings and gentle touches and the radical act of being known by someone who chooses to stay anyway.

"Rita," you start, not sure how to finish. How do you tell someone they've become your sanctuary? How do you explain that their presence makes you believe in the possibility of redemption?

She waits, patient as always, thumb still tracing soft patterns against your skin.

"I'm trying," you finally manage. "To be... better. To be someone worth—"

"You already are," she interrupts gently. "You don't have to earn it."

The simplicity of her acceptance undoes you. Here is grace, offered freely and without condition. Here is love that doesn't require you to be anything other than exactly who you are—broken parts and careful repairs, darkness and desperate attempts at light.

You close your eyes and let yourself believe it, just for this moment. Let yourself imagine a future built from Sunday mornings and shared meals and Rita's laugh echoing through rooms that feel like home. Let yourself hope that monsters can learn to love, and that love might be enough to transform even the most damaged among us.

When you open your eyes, Rita is still there. Still looking at you like you hung the moon. Still believing in possibilities you can barely imagine.

"We should get them home," she says eventually, but doesn't move away. "Dinner won't cook itself."

You nod, but make no move to leave either. This moment feels too precious, too fragile—like something that might disappear if you disturb it too quickly.

Instead, you lean forward and press your forehead against hers, breathing in the scent of her shampoo and the lingering sweetness of morning coffee. This close, you can see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes, the tiny freckle just beside her left temple.

"Thank you," you whisper, though the words feel inadequate for what she's given you. "For all of it."

Her smile is radiant, transforming her entire face. "Thank you for letting me."

And there it is—the thing you've been trying to name all day. Not just love, but the courage to be loved. Not just connection, but the willingness to be seen. Not just survival, but the radical act of choosing to live fully, completely, in the presence of someone who makes you remember what it means to be gloriously, messily, beautifully human.

The children's voices call you back to the present, demanding attention and snacks and help with monkey bars that seem impossibly high. You and Rita separate reluctantly, but the warmth of the moment travels with you as you gather scattered toys and sandy shoes.

Walking home, Cody's small hand finds yours with the unconscious trust of childhood. Astor chatters to Rita about everything and nothing, words tumbling over each other in delighted rushes. The afternoon light turns everything golden—Rita's hair, the children's faces, the ordinary suburban street that has become, against all odds, the closest thing to home you've ever known.

Tonight, there will be dinner around the kitchen table. Homework and bath time and bedtime stories read in voices soft with affection. There will be dishes to wash and lunches to pack and a dozen small rituals that transform a house into a home.

And later, when the children are asleep and the house settles into quiet, there will be Rita. Her hand finding yours in the darkness, her breathing steady beside you, her presence a constant reminder that some monsters get to keep the princess after all.

You carry the weight of what you've done, what you are, what you might yet become. But you also carry this: the sound of Rita's laugh, the trust in a child's grip, the possibility that love might be stronger than whatever darkness you've carried all these years.

It's not redemption, exactly. But it's hope, which might be the same thing.

And for now, walking home through golden afternoon light with your unlikely family surrounding you like armor against the world, it's enough.

[the-oblivious-writer]

It's Only Love

Shauna Shipman x Female Reader

One-shot

summary: what starts as a routine calculus tutoring session in a quiet library becomes something deeper when shauna's academic frustrations give way to vulnerable conversations about trust, fear, and what it means to be worth staying for.

warnings: college/modern/no crash au, established relationship, fratboy shauna x tutor reader, academic stress/anxiety, brief reference to past breakup and self-harm (punching a wall), the label "girlfriend" being thrown around, mild intimacy, and themes of self-doubt and abandonment fears.

note(s): this one-shot is long overdue but better late than never ig. this was originally gonna be an angst/no happy ending but i figured i'd give you a break.

The library's third floor was practically deserted at seven PM on a Thursday, which made it perfect for your weekly tutoring sessions with Shauna. She'd claimed the corner table by the windows weeks ago, spreading her textbooks and notebooks across the surface like she was marking territory. You'd learned to arrive a few minutes early just to watch her ritual - the way she'd arrange her pens in a perfect line, check her phone twice, then immediately look annoyed at herself for the nervous habit.

Tonight was no different. You spotted her from across the room, dark hair falling like a curtain as she hunched over her calculus homework. Even from a distance, you could see the tension in her shoulders, the way her free hand kept fidgeting with the sleeve of her oversized sweatshirt - one she'd definitely stolen from some frat guy's closet, though she'd never admit it.

"Starting without me?" you asked, sliding into the chair beside her.

She glanced up, and you caught that micro-expression she always wore when she first saw you - relief mixed with something softer that she tried to hide behind a smirk. "Figured I should at least pretend to attempt these problems before you see how hopeless I am."

"You're not hopeless." You pulled your own notebook from your bag, deliberately brushing her arm as you reached across the table. "You just think in different ways than the textbook expects."

"Right." She rolled her eyes, but shifted slightly closer to you, her knee bumping against yours under the table. "That's a very diplomatic way of saying I'm bad at math."

The thing about Shauna was that she wore her intelligence like armor - quick wit and cutting observations designed to deflect before anyone could find the soft spots underneath. But you'd been doing this long enough to recognize the pattern. The jokes always came right before she had to admit she didn't understand something.

"Show me what you've got so far," you said, leaning in to look at her work.

Her handwriting was surprisingly neat for someone who claimed to hate the subject, though you could see where she'd erased and rewritten the same equation multiple times. The frustration was evident in the slightly harder pressure of her pencil, the way certain numbers were traced over until they were bold against the page.

"This is where I got stuck." She pointed to a derivative problem, her finger hovering just above the paper. "I know I'm supposed to use the chain rule, but every time I try to work through it, I end up with something completely different than what's in the back of the book."

You studied the problem, acutely aware of how close she was sitting. Close enough that you could smell her shampoo - something floral that didn't quite match her deliberately careless image. Close enough to notice the small scar on her knuckle that she'd gotten from punching a wall freshman year after a particularly brutal breakup.

"Okay, so you've got the right idea with the chain rule," you said, reaching for your own pencil. "But you're overcomplicating this step here. Can I?"

She nodded, and you started writing out the solution step by step, talking through each part of the process. This was the part of tutoring you actually enjoyed - not just the math itself, but the way Shauna's face changed when something clicked. How her eyebrows would relax and her mouth would form a small 'oh' of understanding.

"Wait, so you're telling me I just had to multiply by the derivative of the inside function?" She grabbed the pencil from your hand, her fingers brushing yours in the exchange. "That's it?"

"That's it."

"I've been staring at this for an hour." She shook her head, but she was smiling now - a real smile, not the carefully constructed ones she used in social situations. "God, I'm an idiot."

"You're not an idiot." You bumped her shoulder with yours. "You're just stubborn. There's a difference."

"Oh, is that your professional tutoring opinion?"

"That's my girlfriend opinion."

The word still felt new enough that saying it out loud gave you a small thrill. You'd been officially together for about six weeks now, though the flirting and tension had been building for months before that. It had started innocently enough - Shauna needed help with calculus, you needed the tutoring money, and the math department had paired you up. But somewhere between explaining derivatives and watching her celebration dance after acing her first exam, innocent had stopped being the right word for whatever was happening between you.

"Your girlfriend opinion, huh?" She set down her pencil and turned to face you fully, one leg tucking up under her in the chair. "And what does my girlfriend think about the fact that I've been procrastinating on the rest of this problem set all week?"

"I think," you said, matching her position so you were facing each other, "that you've been avoiding it because you're scared you won't understand it."

Her smile faltered slightly. "I'm not scared of math."

"No, but you're scared of not being good at something." You reached out to play with the drawstring of her hoodie, a gesture that had become automatic over the past few weeks. "Which is different."

Shauna was quiet for a moment, her dark eyes studying your face like she was trying to decide how much truth she wanted to acknowledge. This was familiar territory too - the way she would retreat just slightly when conversations got too close to real feelings.

"Maybe," she said finally. "But can we focus on derivatives before we psychoanalyze my academic anxiety?"

"Fair enough." You grinned and turned back to the textbook. "But I'm billing you extra for the therapy session."

"Add it to my tab."

The next hour passed easily, falling into the rhythm you'd established over months of these sessions. Shauna worked through problems while you provided guidance and encouragement, occasionally stealing her pen to demonstrate a concept or sketch out a graph. The library around you grew quieter as other students filtered out, leaving you in a bubble of soft lamplight and whispered explanations.

You'd always been good at math, but teaching it to Shauna had made you better. She asked questions that forced you to think about concepts from different angles, to find new ways to explain things that seemed obvious to you. And watching her face light up when she solved a particularly challenging problem was better than any grade you'd ever received.

"Okay, last one," she said, pointing to the final problem on the page. "And then I'm buying you dinner as payment for not letting me drop this class."

"You were never going to drop the class."

"I thought about it. Extensively." She started working through the problem, her tongue poking out slightly in concentration. "Remember that night I called you at midnight crying about my upcoming exam?"

"You weren't crying."

"I was very close to crying."

"You were frustrated. There's a difference."

She paused in her calculations to look at you. "Do you always have to be so rational about everything?"

"Someone has to be, when you're being dramatic."

"I am not dramatic." But she was fighting a smile as she said it.

"Shauna, you once told me that calculus was a personal attack on your soul."

"And I stand by that statement."

You laughed, and the sound echoed softly in the empty corner of the library. This was what you'd grown to love most about your relationship with Shauna - the way she could make you laugh even when she was complaining, the way her dramatics were always laced with self-awareness.

"There," she said, setting down her pencil with a flourish. "Done. And I'm pretty sure I actually understood that one."

You leaned over to check her work, nodding approvingly. "Perfect. See? You're not hopeless."

"Don't get carried away." But she was smiling as she started packing up her books. "I still have to survive the midterm next week."

"You'll be fine. We'll do a review session this weekend."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

The library was almost empty now, just a few dedicated students scattered across the main floor below. You helped Shauna gather her things, a process that always took longer than it should because she had a habit of spreading her belongings across every available surface.

"God, I'm starving," she said, shouldering her backpack. "Please tell me you don't have plans tonight."

"Just dinner with my girlfriend, apparently."

"Good answer."

You walked out of the library together, Shauna's hand finding yours as soon as you were through the doors. The October air was crisp, carrying the smell of fallen leaves and the promise of winter. Campus was quieter than usual for a Thursday night, most of the party crowd having migrated to the bars downtown.

"So where are we going?" you asked as you headed toward the dining hall.

"Wherever's still open. I'm not picky when I'm this hungry."

"Since when are you not picky about food?"

"Since I spent three hours staring at math problems and forgot to eat lunch."

You stopped walking, tugging on her hand to make her turn around. "Shauna. You forgot to eat lunch?"

"Don't give me that look."

"What look?"

"That concerned girlfriend look. I'm fine."

But you were already digging through your backpack, pulling out a granola bar you'd thrown in that morning. "Here. Eat this before you pass out."

"I'm not going to pass out."

"Eat it anyway."

She took the granola bar with an exaggerated sigh, but you caught the way her expression softened. This was still new territory for both of you - the casual care, the way you'd started looking out for each other without really discussing it.

"Thank you," she said, quieter now.

"You're welcome."

The dining hall was mostly empty, just a few other late diners scattered around the cavernous space. You found a table by the windows, and Shauna immediately claimed the seat facing the door - a habit you'd noticed but never commented on. She always needed to see who was coming and going, always needed an escape route planned even in the most innocuous situations.

"So," she said, digging into her pasta with the intensity of someone who had actually forgotten to eat lunch, "tell me about your day. And don't say it was fine."

"It was fine."

"I'm serious. I spent the whole afternoon complaining about math. Your turn to talk."

This was another thing you were still getting used to - the way Shauna actually listened when you talked, the way she remembered small details from conversations you'd had weeks ago. It was such a contrast to the image she projected in public, where she was all sharp edges and carefully constructed indifference.

"I had that meeting with my advisor this morning," you said. "About graduate school applications."

"Right. How did that go?"

"Good, I think. She thinks I have a strong chance at getting into the programs I'm applying to."

"Of course you do." Shauna looked up from her food, fork paused halfway to her mouth. "You're brilliant."

"I'm not brilliant."

"You are. And stop arguing with me when I compliment you."

"I'm not arguing, I'm just—"

"Being modest. Which is sweet, but also annoying." She reached across the table to steal a piece of bread from your plate. "I'm dating a genius and I want everyone to know it."

"You're not dating a genius."

"Fine. I'm dating someone who's really good at math and explains things in ways that don't make me want to throw textbooks across the room. Better?"

"Better."

You ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes, the kind of quiet that had taken months to achieve. Early in your relationship, you had felt the need to fill every pause with conversation, as if silence meant something was wrong. But gradually, you'd both learned to appreciate these moments of peace.

"Can I ask you something?" she said eventually.

"Of course."

"Do you ever think about what happens after graduation?"

The question caught you off guard, partly because it was serious in a way that Shauna usually avoided, and partly because you'd been thinking about it more and more recently yourself.

"Sometimes," you said carefully. "Why?"

She shrugged, suddenly very interested in winding pasta around her fork. "I don't know. I guess I just wonder if we'll still... if this will still work when we're not seeing each other for tutoring sessions twice a week."

"Shauna." You waited until she looked up at you. "We're not together because of tutoring sessions."

"I know that. I just meant..." She trailed off, shaking her head. "Never mind. Forget I said anything."

"No, talk to me. What did you mean?"

She was quiet for a long moment, and you could practically see her internal debate playing out across her face. Shauna had always been better at deflecting serious conversations than having them, but you'd learned to wait her out.

"I guess I'm just scared that when we don't have this built-in reason to spend time together, you'll realize that I'm not actually that interesting," she said finally.

"That's ridiculous."

"Is it?"

"Yes." You reached across the table to take her hand. "Shauna, I didn't start dating you because you needed help with calculus."

"Then why did you start dating me?"

The honest answer was complicated - because she made you laugh, because she was smarter than she gave herself credit for, because underneath all her carefully constructed defenses was someone genuinely kind. Because she asked thoughtful questions and remembered your coffee order and had strong opinions about movies you'd never heard of.

"Because you're you," you said instead. "All of you. Not just the parts you think are worth liking."

She looked down at your joined hands, her thumb tracing across your knuckles. "That's very romantic, but it doesn't really answer my question."

"What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know. Something that will make me stop worrying that you're going to get tired of me."

The vulnerability in her voice made your chest ache. This was the thing about Shauna that most people never got to see - how deeply she worried about being left behind, how much energy she spent trying to be interesting enough, entertaining enough, worth keeping around.

"I'm not going to get tired of you," you said. "And graduation is still eight months away. Can we worry about it then?"

"You want to put off discussing our future until the last minute?"

"I want to focus on right now. On this." You squeezed her hand. "On the fact that my girlfriend just survived another calculus assignment and we're having dinner together and tomorrow we get to do it all over again."

She smiled at that, the kind of smile that started small and gradually took over her entire face. "When did you become such an optimist?"

"When I started dating someone who expects the worst-case scenario in every situation."

"I do not expect the worst-case scenario."

"Shauna, you once told me you were surprised I showed up to our second tutoring session because you figured I'd realize you were hopeless and quit."

"That was a reasonable assumption."

"It really wasn't."

The dining hall was starting to close around you, workers beginning to clear tables and sweep floors. You finished your meals and gathered your things, the conversation settling back into easier territory as you argued about which movie to watch when you got back to Shauna's dorm.

The walk across campus was peaceful, your joined hands swinging between you as you debated the merits of romantic comedies versus horror movies. It was an old argument, one you'd been having since your third or fourth tutoring session, but you both enjoyed it too much to actually resolve it.

"I still don't understand how you can watch people getting brutally murdered and call it relaxing," you said as you climbed the stairs to her floor.

"And I don't understand how you can watch the same formulaic love story over and over again and not get bored."

"They're not formulaic. They're... structured."

"That's the same thing."

"It's really not."

Shauna's room was exactly what you'd expected when you first saw it months ago - perfectly organized on her side, with books arranged by subject and clothes hung. Her roommate's side looked like a tornado had hit it, but Shauna had long since given up trying to impose order on that chaos.

"Horror movie," she said, flopping down on her bed and patting the space beside her. "My room, my rules."

"That's not fair."

"Life's not fair. Deal with it."

But she was already pulling up Netflix on her laptop, and you knew from experience that she'd end up letting you pick something halfway through when she got bored of whatever slasher film she'd chosen.

You settled beside her, automatically rearranging yourselves until she was tucked against your side with her head on your shoulder. This had become your default position for movie nights - close enough that you could feel her reactions to whatever you were watching, her grip on your arm tightening during scary parts or her quiet laughter when something genuinely amused her.

"Thank you," she said quietly, about twenty minutes into a movie about teenagers being stalked by a masked killer.

"For what?"

"For tonight. For not letting me give up on that homework. For dinner. For..." She gestured vaguely. "All of it."

"You don't have to thank me for spending time with you."

"I know. But I want to."

You pressed a kiss to the top of her head, breathing in the familiar smell of her shampoo. "You're welcome."

The movie played on, but you found yourself paying more attention to Shauna than to the screen. The way she curled closer to you during tense scenes, the soft commentary she provided when characters made obviously stupid decisions, the warmth of her body against yours.

This was what you'd tried to explain to her at dinner - it wasn't about tutoring sessions or built-in excuses to spend time together. It was about all these small moments, the quiet intimacy of just existing in the same space. The way she trusted you enough to fall asleep against your shoulder, the way you'd learned to read her moods in the set of her shoulders or the tone of her voice.

"Hey," she said softly, tilting her head to look up at you. "You're not watching."

"I'm watching you."

"That's very sweet, but also creepy."

"Sorry."

"I didn't say I minded."

The movie forgotten, you shifted to face her properly, taking in the soft light from her desk lamp casting shadows across her face. She looked younger like this, without the armor of careful indifference she wore in public.

"Can I ask you something now?" you said.

"Shoot."

"What made you decide to trust me? Really trust me, not just with math help."

She was quiet for a moment, her fingers playing with the hem of your shirt. "You want the honest answer?"

"Always."

"That night I called you. When I was frustrated and tired and probably a little drunk." She paused, meeting your eyes. "You could have just talked me through the problems and hung up. But you stayed on the phone with me for two hours, and we ended up talking about everything except calculus."

You remembered that night - Shauna calling at midnight, her voice thick with frustration and something else you hadn't been able to identify at the time. You'd talked about her family, her fears about graduation, the way she felt like she was constantly pretending to be someone she wasn't.

"You listened," she continued. "Really listened, not just waiting for your turn to talk. And you didn't try to fix everything or give me advice I didn't ask for. You just... let me be upset."

"Of course I did."

"Not everyone would have."

"Then you've been spending time with the wrong people."

She smiled at that, the kind of smile that was just for you - soft and unguarded and completely genuine. "Good thing I found the right person."

"Good thing."

The space between you had gotten smaller without you noticing, close enough that you could count her eyelashes.

"We should probably finish the movie," she said, but she made no move to turn back to the screen.

"Probably."

"I mean, I did make you sit through my choice. It's only fair."

"Very fair."

"And it's getting to the good part. The part where they reveal who the killer is."

"Can't miss that."

But instead of turning back to the laptop, she shifted closer, her hand coming up to rest against your cheek. "Or," she said, "we could find something else to do."

"I like that option better."

She kissed you then, soft and sweet and tasting like the chocolate you'd shared for dessert. This was still new enough that it made your heart race, the way she sighed against your mouth when you pulled her closer.

"Much better than the movie," she murmured against your lips.

"Definitely."

You lost track of time after that, trading lazy kisses and quiet conversation until Shauna's roommate texted that she'd be back late. The movie played forgotten in the background, the sound of fake screaming and dramatic music a strange soundtrack to the gentle intimacy of learning each other all over again.

"I should probably head back soon," you said eventually, though you made no move to leave the warm circle of her arms.

"You should."

"Early class tomorrow."

"Right."

"And you have that economics exam to study for."

"I do."

Neither of you moved. Shauna's head was tucked against your neck, her breathing soft and even, and you were perfectly content to stay exactly where you were.

"Five more minutes?" she said.

"Five more minutes."

But five turned into ten, and ten turned into twenty, and eventually you gave up pretending you were going anywhere. This was what your relationship had become - small compromises and gentle negotiations, the kind of easy intimacy that came from actually liking each other as much as you loved each other.

"Next week," Shauna said sleepily, "when we do the review session for my midterm?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we do it here instead of the library?"

"Any particular reason?"

"Better study environment. Fewer distractions."

You laughed, pressing a kiss to her temple. "If you say so."

"I do say so."

"Then here it is."

She smiled against your neck, her arm tightening around your waist. "Good. Now stop talking and let me enjoy my five more minutes."

"It's been more than five minutes."

"Then let me enjoy my twenty more minutes."

"Deal."

Outside, the campus was settling into its late-night quiet, the sounds of distant parties and late-night conversations filtering through the window. But inside Shauna's room, wrapped up in each other and the soft glow of her desk lamp, the rest of the world felt very far away.

This was what you'd tried to tell her at dinner - it wasn't about tutoring sessions or academic schedules or any of the structured reasons you'd first started spending time together. It was about this, about the way she fit perfectly against your side, about the trust implicit in the way she let herself be vulnerable with you.

"Thank you," she said again, so quietly you almost missed it.

"For what this time?"

"For making me feel like I'm worth staying for."

Your chest tightened at the simple honesty in her voice, at the way she could devastate you with just a few words.

"You are," you said. "You absolutely are."

And lying there in the lamplight, her breathing soft and even against your neck, you meant it completely. Whatever came after graduation, whatever challenges the future held, you were exactly where you wanted to be.

Five more minutes turned into the whole night, and neither of you minded at all.

[the-oblivious-writer]

what if i said milo ventimiglia would be making an appearance in 'with her i die' somewhere in the future? then what?

(specifically in this form)