ignoremeimnothere

[ignoremeimnothere]

Could you please write a poly! rosekiller based on the song why’d you only call me when you’re high by artic monkey? Preferably with reader being in an angsty will they won’t they situationship with the boys but somehow end at least semi positively. Thank you!

thanks for your request! I've been sooooooooooooo nervous and hesitant to write Evan as a central character and this is only my SECOND TIME doing so and I've made it from his fucking POV so I'm SORRY if I did terribly don't come for me I'm tryinggggggg

poly!rosekiller x fem!reader who they only call when they're high [1.4k words]

CW: descriptions of drug use and being high, discussion of past drinking/drug use, discussions of sex but nothing explicit and no sex happens (sorry y'all lol), Evan's POV and I might've fucked it up I'm sorry, angst? with a hopeful/positive ending

The blunt felt heavy between Evan’s lithe fingers as he stared unseeingly at the door.

Barty had texted you an hour ago, and there was still no sign of you. While he didn’t pretend he had any real business keeping tabs on where you were or how long it usually took for you to get from your flat to theirs, he couldn’t help but keep his eyes trained on the door and his ears on alert for your text tone from his phone.

“Is she here yet?” Barty asked from his current spot, which was laying on his back in the middle of the living room with the low coffee table across his torso and his elbows propped on top of it as he scrolled through his phone.

“Fuck off.” Evan grumbled around the blunt as he took another drag.

“She should - ow, fuck - be here by now.” Barty grumbled as he tried to extricate himself from underneath the table. 

“Then text her again, J, I don’t know what you want me to tell you.” Evan muttered back as he stamped out the joint and stood.

He wasn’t sure exactly what he was standing for, but no sooner was he at his full height did the handle to their door twist before opening and exposing you. 

“Fucking finally.” Barty sighed in relief as he finally stood - the coffee table now halfway across the room from its intended position - and made for you. “Took you long enough, Treasure!”

He pulled you in and began kissing you messily; movements slowed and languid due to his own joint now long gone, though the smoke still sat heavy near the ceiling. 

If Evan wasn’t such a perceptive person, he may have completely missed the pained furrow of your brows when you pulled away from Barty as you disposed of your purse and shedded your jacket. 

But he was a perceptive person, and he did notice the pained furrow of your brows, and he wanted it gone.

“No hello for me, poppet?” He drawled as he stood lazily in front of his chair.

Your eyes met his for barely half a second before flitting away hastily as you took off your shoes. “Hey Ev.” 

“Right to business tonight?” Barty asked you then, tilting his head at you as he began cluing into… something that had shifted tonight. 

You did this often; the three of you, that is. 

Sometimes Barty and Evan would invite you over for some drinks and/or a smoke or two before falling into bed together. Sometimes, Barty and Evan will have already been several drinks or blunts in before they messaged you, which you often quickly agreed to as well.

But it had never taken you this long to show up before, it had never been this awkward when you showed up before, and you had never been this detached before. 

“S’why you called, right?” You replied simply, moving towards the sofa in the middle of the room as you started unbuttoning your blouse.

Which, of course they did, but what the fuck?

“Stop.” Evan said as he grabbed your hand, bringing a stop to your movements as you continued avoiding his gaze. “Would you look at me? Please?”

You let out a small breath and met his eyes - again for but the briefest moment - before your gaze fell somewhere around his cheek. 

“Treasure…if you’re not up to this tonight, we don’t have to do anything. We could just-”

“Just what, exactly?” You asked harshly then, turning in the direction of Barty and pinning him with a severe gaze. “This is what we do, right? There’s usually drinks or drugs, a phone call, and sex.” 

And…while that was technically true…what the fuck?

“So?” You asked when no one had anything to say. “Is that why you called?” Your eyes shifted to the ashtray which had a still semi-lit blunt resting in it. “Got high, check. Called me, check. So, why are we still talking about this?”

“It’s not like that.” Evan tried to argue, causing you to scoff a laugh as you held eye contact with him far longer than you had all night, which Evan would have celebrated were you not using it to glare at him. 

“It’s exactly like that, Ev. Why-” You cut yourself off and pushed the heel of your hands to your eyes.

“Why what?” Barty asked in a soft tone Evan had never heard the likes of before. 

You pulled your hands away from your face to expose an achingly pained expression and tear-filled eyes. “Why do you only call me when you’re high?” 

And even though it came out in a whisper, Evan could hear the no doubt painful tension laced in your voice.

“Treasure…”

“It’s not fair.” You continued; tears falling as you turned to look at him. “All of this,” you said as you gestured between the three of you, “has always been your doing. I never instigated these…romps because you guys are the ones in a relationship. But fuck.” 

“We didn’t- …have you wanted more from us?”

A strangled sort of sob escaped your lips as you looked to the ceiling and grabbed at your hair. “You call and I’ve never once declined, Evan. You call and I come running - how fucking humiliating, by the way - and I take what I can get, obviously. If you invite me over and I get to drink and hang out with you guys for a bit and pretend that I’m not just a fucking booty-call, great. If not, well, at least you guys thought of me, right?” You spat sarcastically. 

“Y/N.” Barty called, looking to Evan like he was just as close to the level of tears as you were. “We- I…I had no idea.”

“Yeah, well,” you huffed a laugh and sat dejectedly on the sofa before placing your head in your hands and resting your elbows on your knees, “now you do.”

The room fell to silence as Barty stared at you in horror, you worked on catching your breath, and Evan wished he hadn’t rolled that second blunt so he could at least have a fighting chance at the absolute fucking shit show this evening had turned out to be. 

“This was a mistake.” You announced suddenly, standing up. “I shouldn’t have come, I’m sorry.” 

Barty made some half-yelp, half-cursing sound as he blocked the door with his body and stared at you defiantly. “You can’t fucking leave now! Not like this?”

“Barty…” Evan warned, not wanting you feeling any more uncomfortable than you clearly already were, though also not wanting you to leave when there was obviously a lot to discuss. 

“No!” Barty shouted back at him. “No. You don’t get to show up here and dump this all on us and not give us a fucking chance to respond.” 

“Dump this on you!?” You shot back. “You created this!”

“Okay, enough.” Evan proclaimed as he moved to open a window to get the rest of the sodding smoke out of this flat, hoping that clearer air and visibility would help him think straight. He turned on a few lights for good measure as well.

“She can’t leave, Ev.” Barty nearly begged.

“Well shouting at her isn’t going to help, is it?” Evan argued as he grabbed some bottles of water from the fridge. “Sit down.”

You and Barty exchanged a glance before looking back at Evan. “Both of you.” He amended as he pointed at the sofa, handing each of you a bottle of water once you were seated before taking his own seat and opening one for himself. 

“Can you give us, like, 45 minutes to sober up so we can talk about this, properly? Please?” He sighed after finishing half the bottle. 

You had your legs crossed and your raised foot was bouncing in the air in obvious nerves, but you graciously nodded in agreement. 

“And you’re staying here tonight.” Barty added, quickly rolling his eyes when you turned to argue with him. “Not for sex, for fuck’s sake. So that you can be here with us and we can fix what the hell is going on in that pretty head of yours.”

You stared at him with your mouth open for a few moments before he - rather aggressively, if you asked Evan - grabbed your hand and brought it to his lips for a kiss before putting it back down on the sofa between each of your thighs, though never actually releasing it from his grasp. 

Yes, Evan silently agreed, let’s fix whatever is going on in that pretty head of yours.

© ellecdc; do not copy, translate, or repost my work anywhere under any circumstances.

[ignoremeimnothere]

this request may be a bit of a long shot, but would you be willing to write a drabble for mouth of september? maybe she gives the boys a scare either by going out and then not coming home at the time she said she would or maybe she faints from not having eaten enough? totally okay if you don’t want to or if you want to use this as a prompt for something else, mos has just been one of your fic series that i think about pretty consistently even two-ish years later.

anyway have a great day and hope you’re doing well jadey <3 love u

I love you! me writing this actually did feel like a longshot but not cos I didn’t love it and not cos I don’t love u, I hope you enjoy it!! been so long since I wrote this !!🩵 fem! 4k words

cw suicidal thoughts/suicidal ideation

It’s cold tonight. 

You blow on your fingers, feeling them warm, stiffness lanced for precious few seconds. You didn’t mean to walk so far from the house, not while the wind is racing like this. The corner shop just seemed to move around while you weren’t looking. You should’ve asked Sirius to go with you, he has a better sense of direction, even if he would’ve complained the whole time about the shit weather. 

Remus would’ve come and not complained, but he was sleeping at the time and waking him felt cruel. James would’ve come, racing around in Lily’s car, but then he would’ve followed you back into the house insisting on making you some supper or a cuppa or something, and what you’d wanted was to be alone. A bar of chocolate wouldn’t hurt either. 

Stupid travelling corner shop, you think to yourself. Stupid me for fucking losing it. Should’ve just stayed home. Can’t even walk to the shop. 

You take a deep breath. You give the streets a wretched, embarrassed glare and flop down onto the nearest bench. Fuck’s sake. Lost and freezing to death. 

If Sirius were here, if he heard what you were thinking, he’d frown at you with that dark pinch to his eyes and tell you to Stop it, now. 

He’s maybe half of the reason you’re out of the house tonight. Maybe all of it. It’s all complicated and horrible and everyone thinks it’s a bad idea but the thing is that Sirius himself isn’t complicated, he isn’t horrible. He’s kind to you in funny ways, and when you’re together Sirius makes you feel like you’re someone worth being kind too, which doesn’t happen often. 

Your self annoyance fades to something more familiar soon enough. Everything goes quiet, leaving you there with your heart, quick and slow beating, can’t seem to choose, and your cold feet. Your socks feel too tight. 

Your teeth start to chatter. You can’t sit here forever. 

(But wouldn’t it be better? If you stayed? Caught cold?) 

If you get poorly from the cold, you’ll feel miserable from the moment you wake up. You’ll be ill at work, which will make work worse. You’ll have to stay in your room so you don’t get one of the boys sick, and that really would ruin your week. Nothing means anything if you don’t get to see your best friends. 

You gather yourself up and turn toward the street you’d just walked down, determined to retrace your steps. 

In the distance, a familiar shape is jogging toward you. 

“Y/N?” James shouts, sounding as though all the breath in the world has been sucked from his lungs. He doesn’t stop jogging until he gets a few feet from you, where he bends to catch his breath. “Fucking hell!” His head snaps up. “Fuck, shortcake, are you alright?” 

You close the distance. “I’m fine.” 

“Are you?” He forces himself to stand, breathing hard as he grabs you by the wrist. “Are you okay? You scared me so badly.” 

You grab his arm back. “I’m really fine, I’m fine, what’s wrong?” 

“You’re what’s wrong, you aren’t home!” James swallows a lump. “You left a note, you’d be home by seven. It’s nearly ten. Remus rang me in a fit ‘cos he didn’t know where you’d gone, we thought–” James gives you an imploring look, though it’s so so sorry at the same time, you feel your stomach twist into a hard knot. “We thought you were having a bad night.” 

“James.” Embarrassment makes you soft-toned. “I’m really sorry I scared you, but I got lost, that’s all.” You don’t really like to lie, only James seems to need to hear it. “I’m glad you found me. I was worried I wouldn’t get home.” 

James gives a breathy laugh. “Oh, good.” 

You’re pulled into a hug. 

“Sorry,” you say. 

“No, it’s okay.” He rubs your back with force. It feels more for him than you, though you don’t exactly mind it. You can pretend as much as you want that you don’t like it when the boys give you affection, but they know it’s not true, and they know it’s alright to give it to you most days. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine as long as you’re fine.” 

“Fine,” you say. 

He pulls away. “Oh, god. Alright, let’s go back to the house. It’s freezing, you’re not wearing a proper coat?” 

“I didn’t plan on being out long.” 

“No?” 

He takes you by the shoulder to encourage you back the way you came. “Just wanted some chocolate,” you say. 

“I’ll get you some.” 

You both know it doesn’t add up. James doesn’t make you say much else, relieved you’re alright, and you fester in the guilt of worrying him so harshly. 

“Where are your glasses?” you ask. 

“I forgot them in the car.” 

“Where is the car?” 

“Remus thought you might’ve gone to the library, you were supposed to take that Sky-Fi back.” 

“Sci-fi.” 

“Right, the space books. He took it to see if you were walking home, I said I’d come this way, and Sirius…” James grimaces. “Not sure where he went. He was already out by the time I got to the house.” 

“How are we gonna find him?” 

“He’ll come back eventually.” 

You stick close to James’ side, dodging crisped up leaves and following him down the dropped kerb and finally onto a familiar road. “Guess I’ve lived here so long, I should’ve known the way,” you say. 

“It’s alright.” 

You bite your cheek for a second. “I’m really sorry, James, I– I didn’t– is it really ten?” 

“…Aren’t you cold?” he asks softly. 

“I didn’t think about it.” 

“I wish you would.” He pokes his tongue against his cheek. “I want to know if you’re having a bad night. It’s alright if you were. If you need more time, more help, it’s okay.” 

“It’s not like that… not all of it. I was walking to the shops, I swear. Just feel so,” —your voice slips into a colour of shame you despise— “weird sometimes. I’m sorry I made you worry. I don’t know why I keep doing this.” 

“Is this a common occurrence?” 

“Not the walk, just. Just this. Making you worry. I didn’t mean to make everybody worry.” 

“Well, I am worried. When you disappear for a couple more hours than you say you will, it’s scary.” James gives you a shrug. “I love you, I’m gonna wonder where you are.” 

“But–”

“I worry about Sirius when he goes to the pub until who knows when, worry about Lils when she does too many hours at work. I worry about Remus every day, his eyes are worse than mine ‘cos all he does is read,” he says with a laugh. “It’s fine.” 

“I worry about you too,” you say. 

“About what?” he asks, stricken. 

“Remus told me you can pop your knee out from your kneecap when you weight lift. I know you think it’s fun and stuff, but that’s scary.” 

“I’m getting fit!” He rolls his eyes. “Lily likes my abs.” 

“Well I liked you when you were soft.” 

James cackles at your poor fake-flirting. “I’ve never been soft, take that back! You know being captain made me solid as a rock.” 

“James?” a voice calls. 

You look up at the same time. Sirius is sitting on the wall in front of the house smoking; he takes a harsh, quick drag and stabs it out so hard that ash sullies his fingers as he stands. 

“Oh,” he says, blowing the smoke from his mouth quickly, his breath a ragged thing as he bounds across the road to hug you. “Sorry.”

You don’t get what he’s sorry for. “It’s okay.” 

He smells so strongly of smoke it’s like he’s blowing it under your nose, but he’s not so sharp to the touch. You falter at being touched kindly, feeling tension in his back as you curl an arm around him. 

Sirius digs his face into your neck. 

“Hey?” you ask quietly. 

He steps back suddenly, an accusing fist held between your two abdomens. “Where have you been?” he asks, and there’s the sharpness to match his smell, scowl turning his grey-blue eyes to pitch, lashes in a furious tangle. “You can’t do that. You can’t just disappear for hours.” 

“I’m sorry–”

“It’s not okay.”

“She said she’s sorry,” James interjects, “maybe let’s leave it?” 

“Being sorry doesn’t erase the last two hours of us panicking, though, does it?” 

“She got lost–”

“James, it’s okay, it’s–” You shake your head. “Maybe you should go inside to warm up? You’re not wearing a coat either.” 

“I was in a rush.” James gives Sirius a warning look. “I’ll make you a cup of tea. Five minutes and I’m coming back out.” 

James trudges up the garden path to the house. You twist your hands together, staring into Sirius’ face, wanting to see every bit of his anger, keeping tabs on all of it so as not to be surprised. You should’ve known he’d run out of patience with you eventually. He’s had to deal with your awful moods more than anyone else. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Do you realise how scary it is to worry you’ve hurt yourself?” Sirius asks starkly. 

You flinch. “It doesn’t exactly feel great for me, either.” 

“That’s not what I’m saying.” Still, he softens. You feel like you’ve cheated. “I don’t understand. You got lost? How far away from the house were you?” 

“I don’t know, I was trying to go to Del’s.” 

“You’re not being honest with me, or any of us. It’s not fair. My heart is like a fucking racehorse,” he says, pressing his hand to his chest, fingertips smudgy with ash, “’cos all I’ve thought tonight is that you’d gone off and jumped off of a bridge or something. I know you wouldn’t.” He lets his hand fall. He quietens. It is almost apologetic, how he slows. “I know you wouldn’t. I knew you’d come home. But please don’t make me think about it.”

He’s gone pale in the cold, his hair in twists and tucked haphazard behind his ears. In his thick bomber jacket and his jeans, he could’ve just hopped of the bike, windswept as he is, but it’s the mark of worried hands having pushed his hair back repetitively rather than the weather, though the longer you stand there in the wind, the more tangled it becomes. “I dont get why you’re so determined to be alone,” he says. 

You don’t want to talk about it. When do you ever? More than ever, you’d like to stalk past him and slam your bedroom door, let him know you’re fine by yourself and seething, let him stay ignorant to you as you squirm in a bed you’ve come to hate. How often do you lay there wishing you could be alone forever? It’s not fair to anyone. It doesn’t make sense. They all love you and you feel sorry for them, ‘cos you tricked them, ‘cos you’re nothing worth thinking about for long. 

Sirius won’t stop frowning at you. It makes the drowning feeling worse. 

“I’m sorry,” you say again, hoping this time it’ll stick. “I don’t know what happened, I just wasn’t thinking. I don’t feel very well.” 

“I know.” He scoffs to himself. You relax at the hint of self-deprecation. “It’s not your fault. I’m fucking furious with you but I know you can’t help it.” 

“Sorry.” 

He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. For saying you’d jumped off a bridge, that’s horrible, but you really fucking worry me sometimes and I’m so relieved that you’re okay that it’s making me horrible.” 

“You’re not horrible.” 

“I’m mean.” 

“You’re not.”

“No, I am. You’re the only person who doesn’t see it. Or at least doesn’t say it.” Sirius rubs his face, scraping a stray hair from his nose. “Sorry for shouting. Here,” —he holds out his arm— “let’s have a proper one.” 

He hugs you nicely, no force to it, less lingering smoke. The scratch of his cheek catches yours, his hand at the bottom of your back, your jacket and shirt rising with every sweep of his touch. You press your closed eye to his hair. 

“Why didn’t you come and sit with me or– we could’ve talked. Could’ve just led in bed, doesn’t matter, I would’ve gone to the shop with you.” He squeezes you, pressing his nose to your shoulder. “I can be morbid. We can be two miserable layabouts together.” 

“I didn’t…” You cringe. “Sirius, it’s not on purpose, I swear. I didn’t do it to make you worry.” 

“I know that, Jesus.”

“Sorry.” 

“It’s fine. I’m just glad you’re home.” 

You pull apart as a car turns onto the street. That’ll be Remus. Another for your troupe of worry. 

“What do you think, is he mad at me too?” you ask. 

“Remus?” Sirius gives you another half hug. “‘Course not.” 

And true to form, Remus climbs out of the car with a fond smile. “Hey, where have you been?” His hair ruffles in the wind, scars turned palest purple in the cold. “You need to learn how to tell time.” 

You let him hug you. “Sorry.” 

“That’s alright, let’s go inside though. Have some tea. Did you eat much today?” 

You ignore the question. “Tea,” you say. 

“Yeah.” 

Remus ushers you down the path to the house, Sirius on your other side like bodyguards. 

“Thanks for, uh, looking for me.” 

Remus takes you by the forearm. “We’ll always look for you. But next time, wake me up first.” 

You nod gratefully. “Uh, okay. Thank you.” 

“Stop saying thanks. It’s alright, Y/N. It’s fine.” 

That’s what you’ve all said, but it doesn’t make it true. 

—

James goes home, though he doesn’t want to. “I can stay,” he says over the rim of his mug, half-pleading, wanting you to ask him to. “We can have a sleepover.” 

You insist that you’re really fine, he has work tomorrow, it’s late. When he doesn’t move, you say, “I feel bad enough that you were out looking for me in the cold.” 

Your voice is pathetic and scratchy and he can tell you’re going to cry, they all can, so he doesn’t push it anymore than that. He goes home, and you go to bed, and Remus follows you up a little bit later with a glass of juice and some thick, buttered slices of teacake. 

“You okay?” he asks, climbing into bed next to you where you’re laying down. 

“Fine.” 

“Didn’t eat much today?” 

“No.” 

“Have the juice, at least.” 

You take the glass. 

Between your sorry sips, Remus picks at one of the slices of cake, steals looks at you, though he doesn’t try to hide what he’s doing. 

“Sorry about today. Didn’t mean to worry you.” 

“You can stop saying sorry.” Remus lets his head tip from one side to another. “I can hear it in your voice that you don’t want to say it. Not that I don’t believe that you’re really, actually sorry. But you keep repeating it because you’re worried I want you to do that, and I don’t.” 

“It’s what I should say.” 

“Well, you’ve said it.” Remus turns to you, all bookish and rakish at once, lovely but tired, and he must be giving you a similar appraisal. “I wanted to be your friend the second I first talked to you. It wasn’t guilt.” He shakes his head. Wasn’t ’cos they’d played that prank on you with the shoe-eating goo, spied on you crying in a school hallway, overwhelmed. “I just liked you, and that was without any sort of knowledge of what you’re like. Now that I know you, I couldn’t be rid of you. Truly. I love you, you know that?” He smiles gently. “Even when you need time and you disappear. Please… don’t really go anywhere though, will you?” 

“I won’t.” You decided a long time ago that ending your life wasn’t in the cards. There are terrifying moments, numb ones, blink-and-it’s over ones, where you feel like it’s the only option you have. But it ends eventually, or it sinks into a background to be forgotten until the next time it aches. 

“Are you eating properly?” he asks. 

“Remus–” You shake your head as he brings a hand to your forehead, like he might stroke your hair. “You don’t have to do this.” 

“You don’t like answering, that’s all.” 

“No, I don’t.” 

“I’ve made you talk much more than you would’ve liked to, tonight.”

“I like talking to you. To all of you.” You rest your head on his thigh. “You really are my favourite people in the world, Remus. I wouldn’t… wouldn't give you up.” 

“Good,” he says, stroking your forehead just a few times. “‘Cos we can’t be without you.” 

Sirius finds you collapsing in on one another a little later and rounds the bed to lay on your other side. He doesn’t bother sitting as Remus did, pulling the blankets up and slipping in beside you without worrying about what parts of you are touching parts of him, nor the slip of your back where your shirt’s riding up, nor how warm it is under the quilt. He grabs the end of your t-shirt and pulls it flat over your stomach, before his hand spreads out there, and you realise half-heartedly that he’s hugging you from behind. The room is barely seeable. Remus is nearly sleeping. Your tea cake went uneaten, left stodgy and dark on the nightstand. 

“This okay?” Sirius asks. 

“Yeah.” 

He burrows nearer, rubbing his nose against the back of your neck, then taking a long breath of you. 

“Are you mad?” you ask. 

“Not anymore.” 

You can’t believe that any of them could love you so much as to look for you. That James would want to stay the night, and that he’d let you turn him away. If you had any energy left in you tonight you would’ve done the same to Remus, and then Sirius. James won’t be happy when he finds out they’d slept in the bed with you and left him out, but he’ll forgive it eventually. None of them should care so much about you, what’s special about you? What’s even really good? What’s worth it? 

Sirius breathes behind you. He doesn’t seem scared to touch you, not worried to lay as close to you as your bodies will allow. His heat sinks into you. 

“Know any poems?” he asks, letting you shift into his back as he pushes an arm beneath you, curling, really holding you to him, a spoon of a hug. 

“What kind did you want to hear?” 

Sirius doesn’t answer. You hold still as his hand begins looping over your stomach. 

“I can’t remember anything right.” 

“Can you guess at one for me?” he asks. 

You stare at Remus’ falling chest. You’re lucky to have good friends. 

“I read one a few days ago, a couple of times, it was only a few lines.” You wait. Sirius doesn’t say anything, so you start to relay the poem slowly, stringing the words together as they come. “The world was a… nautilus shell... And the world was a grain of sand.” Your voice is odd, but the lines come to you regardless. “The world was a honeycomb… And the world was a strip of tender bark.” 

Sirius lets his lips warm your neck, asking softly, more touch than sound, “That was the whole poem?” 

You take his hand where it’s against you. “That’s it.” 

He nods. 

The world was a nautilus shell. And the world was a grain of sand. The world was a honeycomb. And the world was a strip of tender bark. You run through the poem again, three times, tripping over strip and tender and bark as Sirius’ breath warms your nape. 

“Please don’t do that again,” he says. 

“I didn’t mean to–” You force yourself to stay still. “I would never do something like that to scare you.” 

“Nobody in this room or out of it believes that you went on your walk tonight to scare them.” His nose tips down your neck. His hand spreads wider over your stomach. It feels so weird, so warm and rigid. It’s the best touch you’ve ever been given, and it doesn’t matter because you’re so ashamed of yourself —you went on your stupid little walk with at least some bad intent, and your friends noticed because they love you when they shouldn’t bother. This is a stain now, something you’ll remember. “But I can’t take it. Do you get that? I can’t take it. James found you two hours ago and I still feel like I don’t know where you are.” 

“Didn’t mean to.” 

“I know, love.” He actually does kiss your neck then, quiet smack of a real kiss. “I know. I know.” His forehead presses to your shoulder as he settles in. “You’re okay. I’m not mad.” 

“Me neither,” Remus croaks. 

You let yourself relax enough to feel tired. Warmth from either side of you threatens to bowl you over. 

“How are you feeling now?” Sirius asks. 

“Fine.” Always fine. They deserve better honesty. “I didn’t want to hurt myself. Jus’… I needed to move, like, go, and I hate this part. I don’t think it should matter that I’m not– that I don’t feel well.” 

“Don’t get upset,” Sirius says quietly. 

“I’m not.” You sound tight. “When I want to be somewhere, it doesn’t make sense that it matters. In the moment, I don’t remember that you…” 

“Love you?” Sirius asks. 

“I know why you were worried, I promise. I don’t live in a bubble. I know I’m selfish.” 

“Not selfish.” 

“It was, though.” 

“You’re thinking about it like we have a problem with what you did, and it’s my fault because I got so mad, but it’s not really that you did it.” His hand curls shy of your breastbone. “I was mad, but– darling,” —you squeeze your eyes shut— “you’re not on trial. You don’t have to prove your way out of this, all we need to know is if you’re alright now.” 

“Not really.” 

Remus gives a half-sleeping mumble. 

Sirius sits up in bed to look at both of you. “We love you. We,” —he gestures between you and Remus emphatically— “aren’t going to stop. No matter how many walks you go on, how many scares you give me.” He frowns at you sympathetically. “We’re not getting any further, are we?” 

“Sorry.” 

“I’m sorry.” He grimaces, dark around the eyes. “I’m a right prick and I’ve made a right mess of everything.” 

“It’s okay,” you whisper, chancing a touch, terrified you’ll be reprimanded for it but knowing, as you know he loves you, that you’re allowed. The tips of your fingers touch his collarbone. Sharp thing. 

He pulls a jib, lips all up and thinned like a smirk gone wrong. “Love you.” 

You must’ve petrified him. He’s never so open with his feelings, even when it’s half-joking like this. 

“I love you, too.” 

He makes another face. Good enough, it says. 

“Make me hot chocolate?” you whisper. 

“Mm, come on.” He pulls you from the bed by your wrists. “Don’t complain when it’s gritty. I’m not skilled as Remus.” 

“Quite right,” Remus mumbles. 

You hug him quickly before you leave. 

[ignoremeimnothere]

no one talks about the intense pain sirius probably felt when he moved in with the potters. He spent his whole life being the "problem child" and was both mentally and physically abused by his family. To then be accepted with such love and care that the potters provided would have caused this idea that it was his fault to fracture. To believe for so long that your the reason your own family doesn't love you to meeting people who are able to love the exact same version of you as before is heartbreaking.

I'm just says that the adjustment to living with the potters would have been the hardest thing Sirius had to do because his identity broke.

[ignoremeimnothere]

Happy birthday to James Fleamont Potter, who has an ego the size of a lake, but a heart to match it.

[ignoremeimnothere]

My favourite series got a gorgeous update

𝐚 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬 | 𝐣𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫

seven | chapter list

Finding out you’re a princess isn’t half as intimidating as suddenly acquiring a full-time bodyguard. Especially when that bodyguard is disarmingly handsome, charming, and can’t seem to stop flirting with you. 

bodyguard!james, fem!reader, implied chubby!reader, shy!reader, princess diaries au, all characters in their 20s or older, star-crossed lovers/ forbidden romance, slowburn, background wolfstar

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

The whiplash of last night's dinner seems rectified at breakfast. Marlene arrives an hour after you wake up with a basket of farmer’s market produce, glass bottles of fresh juice, a dozen eggs still dirty with a baby feather nestled between shells. She brings cuts of bacon so fat it’s practically pork belly, and all manner of greens for the omelettes. “Gotta keep these working men fed,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’d quite like to know why Sirius Black can’t make his own breakfast.” 

Sirius falls in barely half an hour later, all hardness gone, dressed in slacks and a brown leather jacket, his loose curls pinned away from his face. “I’m thinking of growing a moustache,” he says when he spots you on the sofa. “What do you think? I don’t have much space for one, really, but it would look rather refined.”

James shows up soon enough. You worry he’s angry with you after his quick departure last night, but he says, “Princess, you’re a sight for sore eyes. Mum said she saw a photo of us together in the paper. She’s having it framed.” 

Things between James and Sirius are frosty for all of half a day. 

So for a while everyone pretends the conversation about Baron Riddle never happened. Things go back to normal, driving lessons, self defence, clothes shopping. You keep attending your university classes at the local college upon Remus’ assistance —Sirius will find a way to have them transfer your credits, he says, so long as you finish this year. Two more terms and you can take a break. 

You pretend that everything is okay, and permanent. 

“It’ll be Christmas soon,” James says.

You tilt your head to him but keep your eyes on the burning white of the computer screen, scribbling the last words of a sentence down for your next assignment. Researching isn’t fun, and getting James special permission to enter the college building hadn’t been easy, but he makes your long afternoons bearable. “Do you celebrate?” you ask. 

“I do.” 

“Your mum will be happy to have you home.”

“I’m not going home this year.” 

Your beginning smile is stopped, fading fast. “‘Cos of me?” 

“Because this is the job,” he says easily. “It’s alright. I’ll still speak to her. She’s used to not seeing me. I’ve spent more time away from her than with her, for years.” 

You close your textbook, tracing its softening edges in an avoidance of his gaze. “Well. Well, I don’t really need you, James.” 

“No?” 

You meet his eyes. Careful not to spook yourself. He’s looking at you with little emotion, impossible to infer his mood from expression alone. You don’t know what he means to ask you here. 

“Missing out on time with your family for me, when nobody even knows who I am–”

“That’s not true, is it? You get a fair few stares.” 

“Not because they really know who I am,” you whisper. “It’s like seeing someone you’re sure you’ve met before, but really you’ve seen them on TV. I’m like an odd memory or something.” 

“An odd memory.” 

You turn back to your computer and flick through the journal you’re reading for want of something to do. James twists in his chair with a hand fallen between your shoulders. Your skin tingles under his touch. “I just don’t think it’s good of me to have you when I’m fine.” 

“Do you have me, Princess?” James says, his voice turning soft slow as a taffy pull. 

“You know what I mean.” 

“Yes, I do.” James’ hand comes to rest on the desk beside yours, not touching you, not moving a millimetre. He can be so still, but it’s a stillness that came with practice. He’s as at ease here as he would be at home, trusting his abilities. Nothing that can get you here scares him, not for a second. “I’m afraid I’m yours for the foreseeable future.” 

You fight down a shiver. “It’s not fair for you to miss out on Christmas. I’ll be fine by myself. I would stay home, I promise, you could lock me in and set me free a week later.” 

“I won’t do that,” he says. 

“But you could, and then you won’t miss Christmas or your mum, and–” You realise you’re talking too loudly and tone it down. “And I’ll be fine on my own.” 

“You said, yeah…” 

You stare at the cover of your textbook. “Right.” 

James checks his watch. In his ‘bum bag’ as he calls it, the radio he’d been carrying around on his shoulder when you met makes a concealed crackle. He pulls it out and brings it to his mouth. “Say again?” he orders. 

“We’re waiting outside,” Sirius says, to your surprise. 

“Pads, you’ve actually done something I asked,” James says in amazement. 

“Not really. It’s Remus’ radio, you know I won’t carry them around. It’s ridiculous. I would’ve liked to have called you but you never answer, even if it’s life or death!” 

“It’s never life or death with you.” 

“Cruel. Tell the Princess to hurry her work, she promised we’d go to the cinema and it’s getting on.” 

“She’s done when she’s done,” James says. 

“I’m finished,” you say. 

“She’s finished,” James says. 

“Oh, good. Has she picked what movie she wants to see?” 

“Sirius, can’t we have this conversation in two minutes, when we’re in the same car.” 

“What’s the fun in that?” 

You pack away your things and log out of your account on the library computer. James offers to take your bag, grumbling when you insist on carrying it yourself, and rebelling against you as you descend the stairs into the college’s entrance atrium by holding open every stairwell door. 

“What movie does he want to see?” you ask James. 

“Never mind him,” James says, stilling at the shock of cold that ebbs from the main doors. “Button your coat, lovely.” 

You thought perhaps James would get to know you more and he’d stop using ‘lovely’. There isn’t all that much about you worth such a nice word, but he still says it. He calls Marlene gorgeous practically every morning when she makes his coffee, Lily sweetness or angel or —really, he’s quite fond of Lily. You don’t see her too often; she’s here to take care of diplomatic matters directly involving you, and so she pops in every now and then to gather your signatures or ask an opinion, busy at the embassy. You get this uncomfortable feeling when you see them together, too complicated to name, like fingers curled tight around your heart, squeezing until you’re squeamish and pounding behind the ears. And Sirius makes these jokes you’re too afraid to ask about, little snippy things aimed to make fun of James in a brotherly manner. Our Prongs likes a redhead. I considered going ginger for a bit, but I don’t have the complexion for it. You have no choice but to sit there still and silent until they change the subject. It must be the not knowing them well that makes it hard. 

Just outside of the college, Remus and Sirius wait in the front seats of a rather nice car. 

“Where did you get this?” James asks, stopped too far in the road. 

“Bought it.” 

“Why?” James asks. 

“You said I couldn’t get a bike.” 

“I said you couldn’t get a bike,” Remus corrects. “James said he wouldn’t get on the bike, or sit by your bedside if you drove it into a wall.” 

“You like it?” Sirius asks. 

James gives you a smug, fond smile. “Do we?” he asks. 

“It’s pretty,” you say. 

“She’s gorgeous, Princess! Don’t downplay it like that! Now, are you getting in? Remus has picked tonight’s movie–”

“Get out,” James says. 

“You are not driving my baby,” Sirius says, “I’ve only had her an hour.” 

“I don’t care how long you’ve had the car, if the Princess is riding in it, I’ll be the one driving it. You know the rules.”

“Yes, but you’re the one who makes the rules, and they’re stupid rules, so I suppose this time you’ll be letting me drive, won’t you?” Sirius asks. 

—

“My own car,” Sirius mutters to himself beside you, “can’t even drive my own bloody car. This is worse than the summer I saved for an electric guitar and my mother smashed it into smithereens in the foyer. At least Walburga let me play a couple of songs first.” 

“Walburga?” you ask, grinning. 

“Patron Saint of hydrophones,” Sirius says offhandedly. ”And cunts. It’s why I hate water so much, see, I’m worried mum’s going to deprive me of protection.” 

“Sorry, Princess, Sirius is having one of his days,” Remus says from the passenger seat. 

“I’m being serious,” Sirius says. “Unsurprisingly.” 

“Don’t let me tell Effy who you’ve just called mum,” James quips. 

“Euphemia,” Sirius says quickly, “name of a well-spoken woman. And she is well-spoken, James’ mum, she’s well everything. Well dressed, well kind,” —he puts his hand on your arm and rubs gently, enough affection for the woman in question running through him that it pours into you instead— “she would just love you to death, Your Gorgeousness.” 

“You are having one of those days,” you say. 

“Not sure I know what you mean.” Sirius grins at you, dark hair in his eyes, his irises a pale grey that catches you. “Alright there?” he asks. 

“Your eyes are grey.” 

“If you fancy me–”

“I thought they were brown, is all, like James’,” you say, voice taking a sharp turn into loudness in a poor attempt to move away from what you’ve said. 

“We can’t all have that dreamy mocha brown,” Sirius says. His grin has changed, morphed into a mischief you aren’t yet familiar with. “We all have grey eyes, the Black’s. My mother and father too. Makes sense they would, what with their… similar heritage.” 

Sirius doesn’t volunteer information about his family often, and as he does he squirms. You wonder if he’d tripped into saying it on automatic. You know intimately how that feels. “Don’t worry about it,” you say, “I spent the last twenty years thinking my mum was a drunk and my father an idea. Of course, I know more about my dad now.” 

“Not about your mum?” 

“Oh, no. She’s dead, I think,” you say. 

“You don’t know?” 

Your turn to squirm. “Not really, no.” 

Sirius frowns. His lips part, a concerned platitude no doubt on his lips, but James’ strong voice cuts in, “You can share mine,” he says, “god knows she’s always trying to find another of my friends to parent. She even tried to baby Regulus when they first met.”

“Your brother?” you ask Sirius, remembering some tidbit of conversation. 

“He isn’t exactly versed in accepting affection,” Sirius says. 

“Neither were you!” James doesn’t look away from the road ahead as his arm reaches back. He points ineffectually. “And now look at you!” 

“Get me out of this car,” Sirius says. 

Remus, grey at the gills, murmurs, “I was just thinking the same thing.” 

Remus wars with migraine–motion sickness nausea on the corner of the street. James, having parked and locked the car once you all emerged, stands straight beside you, worry flashing across his face. Sirius has it all covered, patting the space between Remus’ shoulders slowly as Remus says, “Stop smothering me, or I’ll be sick on your shoes.” 

“Finally return the favour, then,” Sirius says. 

Remus groans, bending further toward the ground. 

“Is he okay?” you ask. 

James doesn’t answer for a while. He sweeps his gaze around the streets, cataloguing people and squinting against the lowering sun as it shuttles behind buildings. The evening cold is setting in, lights of the cinema blue-bright white and buzzing just ahead. “Remus will be alright,” he says, sounding like he believes it wholeheartedly. “Just gets sick sometimes ‘cos of the headaches.” 

It really bothers him, all the same. He doesn’t hide it well, the twitch of his fingers to go help, his furtive glances. He looks up and down the road, behind the cars, around you, and always back at Remus and Sirius. 

“How old were you when you first went away to boarding school?” you ask. 

“We were eleven. Why?” 

“I’m just wondering. You’ve been friends for a really long time, then.” 

“Not too long, now, Princess. I’m only in my twenties.” 

“Right,” you laugh, “of course.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Nothing! It didn’t mean anything.” 

He gets a Sirius brand of smile, then. No, not Sirius at all, just a James you haven’t met before, cheeky and funny at once. “Sure it didn’t,” he teases. “You think I’m old. Do I look old to you? I’ll have you know I’m in perfect athletic shape. My mile time is six minutes on the dot.”

“Very impressive,” you say. 

He rolls his shoulders. “Yes, it is.” 

A couple of feet away, Remus has stood tall, a hand covering his eyes. Sirius covers that hand with his own, his laugh carrying across the street. “You’re a mess, Lupin, but you’re nothing I can’t handle, obviously. Get over yourself.” 

“All I said was ‘fuck’s sake’,” Remus says.

“It was teeming with self loathing.” 

“It‘s like I’m stuck together with shit PVA or something, I feel ridiculous.” 

“You’re fine. You are. You’ve never looked so fine, Moony old chap.” 

“Can you stop?” Remus asks, sounding like he doesn’t mind it either way. 

“Sure,” Sirius says anyways, softer now by a thread. “I’m done.” 

“James, should we–”

James goes down with a quiet thump. Your hearing flats out, no sound of him as his arms curl outward and his back rolls —he’s too smart to let his head smack the pavement. 

You aren’t smart enough to move out of the line of fire. 

A weight like a log forced itself into your stomach, slamming your back to a chest. You thrust your head back hard and cry out as a stab of pain rushes through your head, stumbling as best you can away from it, but the arm doesn’t let you go. 

Sudden, there’s another cry of pain, male this time, and the arm is letting you go. You bound two steps forward and spin in time to see James in a fist fight with a masked assailant, punches popped faster than you can track: you see clearly only points of contact, James taking a hit to the chest, to the head, his face snapped sideways as his knee comes up. He puts all of his weight into the motion and kicks, putting some much needed space between the two of them. 

You glance back for Sirius and Remus in a tizzy and come face to face with another black mask. 

You aren’t sure why you do it. Perhaps James’ sense of urgency rubs off on you, all his echoes of why you don’t want to let an attacker take you away from the public eye if you can help it, or maybe it’s knowing James is locked into his own fight and he might not win against another, caught off guard like that. You can’t confess to thinking, only swinging, the power of your entire upper body thrust into a punch that shatters you with pain. 

Before you can see if the punch had any effect, someone is stepping in front of you and hitting him again. Twice, a third time, James hits the masked man until he’s incapacitated on the ground. 

He swings back to you with a harsh breath. Your ears pop. “What the fuck!” someone’s saying, not James, his lips unmoving as he looks you over. 

“…You okay?” he says finally, stepping into your space to hold you by the arms. “You’re not hurt?” 

You flinch as his hand slips down to yours. 

“My hand!” you yelp, pressing it to your chest.

“What about your hand?” 

“I punched that guy!” 

“Did you tuck your thumb into your hand?” 

“Yes!”

“I told you not to do that!” James exclaims, breathless and vaguely pained as he puts his hands out again to take your injured one. “You tuck your thumbnail against the curl of your index finger!” 

“Is it broken?” Sirius asks seriously, stepping over one of your attackers in his rush to be next to you. “Are you okay? Fuck, it looked like a good one, though!” 

“I didn’t think properly,” you say, biting back a whimper as James rolls down your sleeve, your hand shaking terribly in his grasp, “I was just scared–”

“No, I know, it’s not your fault,” James says in a run on, sounding far outside the realm of a professional as he pokes near your pinky fingers knuckle. Your whine of pain makes it worse. “Sorry, lovely. I think you have a fracture. Fuck, you didn’t have to do that, I had it handled.”

“He was gonna grab me!” 

“I know.” He rubs his brow. “Shit, I’m so sorry.” James raises his gaze to Sirius as though he’s going to ask for something, but he pauses. “Where’s Remus?” 

“Turned into a migraine pretty much the second before those guys turned up, I had to sit him down.” 

James holds your arm with both hands. His eyes are browner than anything as he levels your gaze. “I’m gonna fix this, okay? I just need to make sure they aren’t getting up.” 

“Okay.” The pain in your hand gets worse by the second.  

“Okay?” he asks. 

It hurts so badly that tears form, one dribbling hot and fat down your cheek. “Okay,” you say again, wobbling. 

His lips go flat, but he turns away to start cleaning up. Sirius takes his place, wrapping an arm behind your back with a comforting murmur that you don’t quite hear. 

—

James is gone for hours. Sirius and Mikkelson take you home, and waiting for you is a team of doctors and nurses that seem unperturbed to be treating a princess in her rinky dink living room. The craziest part about it all isn’t that you’ve been attacked, or that the two doctors and three nurses are smiley, unhurried but not uncaring, and it’s not that you wish James was there so sorely it has you unsettled despite the rapid pain relief, no. The craziest part is the portable x-ray machine. 

“We could’ve gone to the hospital,” you tell Sirius, leaning back in your kitchen chair as a sweet-faced nurse slips a brace carefully over your injured hand. 

“No, we couldn’t have.” 

“I don’t understand why not.” 

“Yes, you do.” Sirius points at the plate of biscuits by your cup insistently. “Go on.” 

“I can’t.” 

“Just something quick for your blood sugar. Or pressure? One of them. Would you rather have a sandwich?” 

“No.” 

“Princess, please,” he says, giving you a frown you're unused to, like you’re pissing him off and he expects it. 

You grab a biscuit to appease him. 

Remus is wrapped in a throw blanket in your bed, likely sleeping, or perhaps still furious that Sirius had asked one of the nurses to give him a good look. Her diagnosis wasn’t anything new; Remus is suffering in the third stage of a migraine. It’s best he be left alone for a little while to rest. He’s going to be very tired when he comes out of it. 

James hasn’t returned yet. When they first stuffed you to the brim with painkillers, you’d thought morosely that you‘d needed him there, but now you just wonder what’s taking him so long. Who were those men? One of them had grabbed you tightly with intent to drag you away, so where were you going? 

Your flat is growing more crowded by the second. Marlene is in the living room trying to take dinner orders from extremely happy doctors and bodyguards alike, and with her is a stranger, a woman with dark skin and darker hair, black curls piled away from her face. You haven’t asked about her yet. Perhaps Marlene needs help catering for the sheer amount of people. 

“This isn’t exactly incognito,” you say, “all these people.” 

“Yes, well, James wants you to move anyways. And maybe that’s for the best. It’s rather cramped in here.” 

“It wasn’t,” you say. 

He assesses you quietly. 

“What?” 

“It’s alright if you don’t want to move, but you must know you’re a sitting duck here.” 

“I must?” 

“You are not a normal person, and you never will be. James won’t tell you about the things you should be scared of even if he’s honest about the risk, and I was at the mercy of his wrath last time, but I don’t care,” he says honestly. “I don’t. I need you to know that you’re not safe and it’s not because of some invisible maybe, there are real forces at play here. The sooner you move, the better. I know,” —he lowers his voice— “it’s a massive change, and you haven’t had time to catch your breath, but you can’t get comfortable now. And hey, you can keep the flat, yeah? You don’t have to give it away, but things aren’t safe here.” 

“But why not?” 

“It’s the Baron,” Sirius says, serious, quick, glancing at the door, “he’s not just cruel, he’s evil. He’s done things you’d never think he’d get away with, not now. It’s like the dark ages in his courts, the pure bloods–”

“Sirius, what the fuck?” Marlene says, pushing the door until it hits the wall. “Enough. She fucking broke her hand.” 

“And I’m telling her why.” 

“She broke it because she punched someone the wrong way,” the unknown woman says, warm but disapproving at once. “Who taught you to fight?” 

“Uh, it’s self defense,” you say uselessly. 

“James,” she tuts. 

Marlene appraises the nurse where she’s lingering at the counter, putting away her things. “Are you staying for dinner?” she asks, which is mostly sincere, just a tad pushy. 

The nurse says, “No, thank you,” and makes herself scarce. 

“This is Dorcas,” Marlene introduces as the door closes. No explanation to who she is follows as they settle against the counter tops. 

“Hi,” you say softly. 

“Hello.” Dorcas smiles, all signs of her disapproval wiped clean. “How’s the hand?” 

“Hurting.” 

“It’s nothing some rigatoni arrabbiata won’t fix, I’m sure.” 

“Sorry, Dorcas, but why the fuck are you here?” Sirius asks pleasantly. 

“Why do you think?” she asks sweetly back. 

“Usually to fuck me off.” 

“Enough,” Marlene says. “If you’re going to argue, you have two options. You can do it while pulling the tendons from these chicken fillets, or you can do it outside.” 

“Pass,” Sirius says. “I’ll go on as usual, as long as the snake stays quiet.” 

“You’re as bad as.” Dorcas crosses her arms over her chest. 

Sirius doesn’t rise to the bait, despite himself, and Marlene opens your fridge to begin cooking. He doesn’t mention the evil forces in play again, leaving you in your agony to brush it away. You’ll think of it later, or never, whichever comes first. 

“You can go to bed, if you like.” 

“Remus is in there.” 

“He won’t care. Pretty sure he had one of us in bed with him from first year to last,” Sirius says, taking one of your biscuits and eating it in two quick bites. 

You remember your own and put it down next to your cup of tea. Tea is fine, but these boys are constantly plying you with it and you’ve had enough to last a while. And the biscuits —who thought you could ever be sick of biscuits? 

“I’m not tired,” you say. “Maybe I’ll… finish some school work.” 

“Sure. Gonna be okay typing without your hand?” 

You wince. “Fuck. It’s my dominant hand, too.” 

“You’ll be out of commission for a while. Sorry.” 

“It’s not your fault.” You look down at your twinging hand, a slice of shadow banding across it under the table. “I’d rather have a broken hand than be dead.” 

“No one was going to kill you. Is that what Sirius has been telling you?” Marlene asks, glaring at Sirius from over her shoulder, her eyes like blue fire. 

“No,” you say. “He didn’t have to say anything about it to me for me to know I was in danger.” 

Marlene isn’t chastened. “You’re okay. James protected you, and he will again. You don’t need to worry about it, about any of that stuff.” 

“That’s willfully ignorant,” Dorcas says. 

Sirius takes another biscuit. “I actually agree.” 

They’re friendly from then on. You don’t have it in you to be surprised. 

—

James cannot stand London much longer. The police officers are knobs, the roads are shit, and now you’re getting attacked by freaks outside of the loneliest cinema he could find. He’s spent three hours in an interrogation room with a prick and one of the guys who tried to attack you, asking their intentions, who they work for, who they are, and it hasn’t mattered, when he could’ve been making sure you were alright. He gave strict instructions on how you were supposed to be treated and by who, but Sirius doesn’t always listen. What James realised somewhere between leaving you on the side of the road and the police station, is that he has sorely underestimated what needs to be done here to keep you safe. Dorcas might go a ways of helping that along, but he needs advice. 

He needs Mary. Maybe Lily and Emmeline full time. He needs anyone willing to help him. Dearborn, the twins. Reinforcements are necessary. 

He needs to breathe. He can’t believe you broke your hand doing something he should’ve done first. 

“Fucking winded me,” he says to himself, rolling his sore shoulder as he takes the stairs to your flat two at a time. “Wanker.” 

“Kiss your mum with that mouth?” Remus asks lightly. 

He’s sitting at the end of the hallway away from your flat with the window wide open, a cigarette wobbling between his lips. It’s not lit yet. 

“You should stay in bed,” James says, crossing the hall to stand by him. He finds a zippo lighter in Remus’ pocket and flicks it open, holding the flame to the cig, letting the end smoulder. “How is it?” 

“It’s not that bad. Didn’t make me sick.” 

“Wobbly?” James asks, closing the zippo to tuck away in his own pocket. 

Remus takes a deep inhale, hand on the window ledge to steady himself. “Only when I breathe,” he says on the exhale. 

They stand together for a bit. James sort of wants to smoke, it’s not like he didn’t do his fair share in school, but he was lucky it never caught him like Remus and Sirius, who both consider themselves casual smokers. I smoke to celebrate, Sirius said once, and to commiserate. So that’s a few a day, at least. 

Remus is less inclined. James can’t blame him either way. Isn’t he owed a vice while his head rears to implode? 

“How is the princess?” James asks eventually. 

“I can’t confess to seeing much of her,” Remus says, voice light enough to imply that you’re fine. “But she’s spent the afternoon with a fracture and Sirius. I dare say she’s miserable.” 

“Her hand is broken?” 

“Yep. But it’s a boxer’s fracture, it’ll heal in a month.” Remus gets about halfway down his cigarette before he squints at James with suspicion. “You were in a rush.” 

“Just checking you’re okay.” 

“Mm.” He takes another drag before pulling the cigarette from his mouth, flicking a tall line of ash out of the window. “She’s not upset with you.” 

“She should be.” 

“James, you’re such a martyr.”  

He shrugs. “I’m here to protect her and at the very first hurdle I’ve let her down. Actually, the second hurdle, because I’ve already hit her once, so hard she could barely keep her eyes open.” 

“You didn’t hit her, don’t say that.” 

“I did hit her.” 

“With a door.” 

“Yes, with a heavy object.” 

“By accident!” Remus laughs and snuffs his cigarette on the wall outside the window, drawing the butt inside a curled fist. It makes James wince. “You’re alright. Truthfully I think she just wants to see you ‘cos you’re nice to her.” 

“You’re nice to her.” 

“Yes, but I’m not in the best working order right now.” He smiles. “And I’m not like you, I won’t put my arm around her.” 

“Please don’t.” 

“I won’t. I would if she was upset, but she doesn’t seem upset. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” 

“Don’t say it like that!” 

Remus laughs again. “Like what? Stop making me laugh, my head is throbbing.”  

Sirius once made Remus laugh so hard it prompted a migraine, or at least it was conveniently timed. He swore off jokes and being witty for a good two weeks. “Shall I never joke again?” James asks. 

He sounds tired, even to himself. 

“It’s a start,” Remus says. 

“Time is it?” 

“Time to stop being a coward, I think. Little after seven. You’re done?” 

“Done. Too tired to make better decisions.” 

“You know that song by the Rolling Stones, Miss You?” Remus presses his hand to an eye. “Stuck in my head.” 

James loves how much Remus loves to talk to him. It’s stupid. “Guess I’m lying to myself, it’s just you and no one else,” James sing-songs quietly, with an eyebrow wiggle.

“I like your voice more than his.” 

“Charmer.”

They follow one another down the hall to your door, where Mikkelson couldn’t look more bored keeping guard. Poor Mickey with the shit jobs and no company. At least he’s well paid. In the living room, there’s little evidence of the work he’s thought would be done here. No medical waste or mess, each pillow cleanly placed and each trinket of yours where you left it. There’s not much sound, but James cocks a trained ear and listens for everything. A rustle in the bathroom. A breath taken in the kitchen, then another. There’s definitely kissing, he thinks, heaving a horrendous sigh to let the lovebirds know they have company. 

Could’ve been you and Sirius, but he can’t see it happening. 

Marlene appears around the kitchen doorway, ever so slightly pink. “Hullo. Dinner?” 

“Yeah, please.” 

“Sure. Remus, you want something? Chicken soup?” 

Marlene will make chicken soup as most Genovian would, with pastina or acini de pepe, fresh rosemary, thyme, and Parmesan rind shredded over the top. It’s no less delicious than any other dish in her arsenal, but it’s so, so homely that Remus sighs wistfully and James can’t not ask, “Soup for me, too?” 

“Sure. It’s what I made for the princess, poor girl.” 

“She’s in the bathroom?” 

“For a while.” Marlene has the decency to smile apologetically. “You boys like red pepper, yeah?” 

“And Sirius?”

“I don’t know, James, I’m not a psychic.” 

“Right. Hi, Dorcas, how are you?” 

Dorcas appears in the door. James might think she was reluctant if he didn’t know better; Dorcas doesn’t ever do anything she doesn’t want to do. Her smile says something unreadable. “Fine,” she says concisely. 

James trudges away. In the bedroom, Sirius is curled up on your bed asleep. He shakes his head in wonderment and carries on to the bathroom. There’s water running behind the door, accompanied by the soft sounds of under-the-breath cursing. 

“Angel,” he says before he can stop himself, “are you okay? Are you hurt?” 

“James?” 

“Yeah, are you okay?”

“James, I… have a long sleeve top on, and it’s hurting more than I thought with the cast. Can you… do you think Marlene would come help me?”

He shouldn’t — “I can help, angel. Is it hurting? You’re stuck, aren’t you?” 

“Just a bit.” 

Your hesitant voice echoing off the walls makes him chuckle. “I can get Marlene,” he says. 

He’s already turning when you say, “Uh, no, that’s fine. Can you get me out?” 

“Are you sure?” 

“I want it to be you,” you say quietly. 

James doesn’t know what to do with that. He opens the bathroom door and finds you uncomfortably twisted. You’ve tried to take off the sleeve on your injured arm first and ended up with the back of your shirt pulled away from you, pulled up, tight against your neck, a little gap between your chest and the fabric. You aren’t scandalous, barely undressed, but James knows you’re shy about how you look from fittings and intuition alike. He quickly encourages your uninjured hand into the air to loosen the band of fabric from behind your neck, and then easily tugs the entirety of it up your arms and off of you, more careful at your dominant hand. The moment you’re released, he takes the soft sleep shirt you’ve put on the laundry basket and ruches the sleeves. He sews your injured hand tentatively though one sleeve, then the other, before slipping it over your head and pulling it down. His knuckles skim your naked back, and he’s careful not to touch bare skin again. When he’s neatened you up, he holds your side in one hand. “Are you alright?” he asks, frowning. 

“I know it’s just a fracture, but I feel like I can’t use it. Hurts.” 

“There’s no such thing as just a fracture,” he says. “Fractures hurt. Your hand is broken, it’s alright if you can’t move it. Do you need any more help?” 

You shake your head. “I managed the trousers by myself, thankfully.” 

James looks you over and finds himself softening swiftly. He does feel sorry for you. He thinks you’re allowed an allotment of pity. But he also just likes you, and doesn’t want to see you in pain. His colossal guilt doesn’t help. 

The darkness from outside is creeping in. You’ve a shadow on your cheek, another stretching out to your side. Your pajamas are worn —well-loved— a simple black t-shirt with a teddy bear on the chest and blue pajama trousers to match the teddy’s bow tie. You’ve the appearance of somebody who cried for a good hour or two, not so much splotchy or sore looking as simply coloured by the after effects of distress, a tiredness to your eyes that has nothing to do with sleep. You look small, but not in the sense of proportions. Just small. 

“How’s your pain?” he asks you quietly. 

“It’s not bad if I don’t move it.” 

“Try not to, then.” 

“Is everything okay?” you ask. 

“It’s all fine. I don’t have any more answers for you. Please, forgive me.” 

He knows a grudge hasn't crossed your mind. Still, he’s surprised again by your endless goodness, whether you might see it that way or not, your propensity for leniency and how it can be a brave, kind thing, “It wasn’t your fault, it just happened. I can’t imagine what would’ve happened if you weren’t there… Well, I can imagine. I can. And it really scares me.” You press your splinted hand to your abdomen. “Thank you for keeping me safe, James.” 

I didn’t keep you safe, I barely got to you in time, he thinks. He’s in over his head. He’s practically drowning in shame and responsibility and self-obsessed inner turmoil. 

He wants to be his best, for you. He wants to do this well. 

James has no idea how he’s going to do this. 

“You’re welcome,” he says, hiding everything but a stitch of breathlessness from his tone. 

“Did you eat?” you ask. 

In over his head. Drowning, maybe. “No. Did you?” 

“I don’t have much appetite.” 

“Marl’s made chicken soup with little pasta stars,” he says, nodding toward the door. “You’ll love it. Promise.”

“You’ll eat too?” you ask. 

James feels a tightening in his stomach that he wisely ignores. Without answering aloud, he encourages you out of the bathroom to the kitchen, and you both eat.

He’s helping Marlene clear the plates away when you hesitate by the door. Sirius has unceremoniously tumbled from your bed to the sofa when Remus tried to rouse him, begging tiredly to be allowed to stay. You’d said yes without problem. You trust Sirius, and if you didn’t, James thinks you might trust him enough to know who you can be left alone with. Remus and Dorcas have been ferried back to the accommodation by one of the others. Marlene and James are set to leave together as soon as the kitchen is squared. 

And yet you hesitate. 

Haunting the door, James recognises the way one hand flutters, almost squeezes the air, wanting to wring the other but unable.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, trying to use his body as a wall to offer you some privacy.

“Nothing.”

“You can go to bed if you need to, you don’t have to wait for us.” He manages a smirk. “You want me to change the sheets, don’t you? That Sirius Black character is a real heathen, isn't he? I don’t think a day went by when we were kids where his bed wasn’t inundated with crumbs.” 

“He ate in bed?” you ask. 

“Small rebellions.” 

“Remus says you guys shared a lot.” 

“We did. I don’t really know why. I know boys aren’t ‘supposed’ to love each other like that, but we never grew out of it.” James lonely without his mum and dad’s bed to climb into, Sirius realising he could have comfort whenever he wanted, even if he didn’t need it, and Remus, usually unwilling, occasionally doing the work himself if it was what was necessary to sleep again after a bad dream. (And the other, who didn’t often share, but leaves a bad taste in James’ mouth to recall.) 

“And it helped?” 

“Sometimes.” 

You squirm on the spot, but you force it out. “James, will you stay?” You’re apologetic. “I don’t think I can sleep if you go. I’m not scared, I promise, but…” 

James’ voice gets caught behind his teeth. 

“You don’t have to stay. I’ll be fine. But if you don’t mind, you can stay, you can have my bed, if you want, I’d just feel better if it was you.” 

“Of course I’ll stay.” 

You smile. 

“It’s my job to look after you. If you feel better knowing I’m out here on the sofa, then I’ll stay.” He offers a smile usually saved for his friends.

“Okay.” Something in you has gone slack. You’re warmed from the inside out, and so suddenly tired. “You won’t go in the bed?” 

“I won’t take it from you, no. I quite like how you make the sofa up, I’ll just shove Sirius over. I want the pillowcase with flowers and the blanket with fleece underneath, please.” 

You leave to get his provisions. He follows your gaze. It’s why he knows you look back at him as you cross the threshold to your room. 

[ignoremeimnothere]

everyone: Grant Chapman isn’t real so Remus spent 12 years completely alone.

me: NO! He’s real!!! *i say into the mic* HES REAL TO ME. They spent 12 beautiful years together! *being dragged off stage* Now Grant fosters kids with his husband! REMUS WAS HIS LITTLE BIT OF MAGIC. *I am thrown into a padded cell* HES REALLLLLL

[ignoremeimnothere]

coworker!james and his love hate gf meeting his parents by accident? she thinks he won’t own up to her but he’s super proud and calls her his girlfriend (for the first time 0.o) 

coworker frenemies <3 fem, 1.2k

You get the foolish idea to check in on James. Dying, he’d texted, won’t be in. Don’t miss me too much <3

And then, throughout the day, can you ask Remus to answer his phone please lovely, sorry 

Can you make sure my smiskis are all okay

I miss you too much 

Did you see that thing on the news about the goats in Spain ? 

Sometime around three, as you’re preparing to leave, his sporadic texting ends. You and Remus get on alright without James, and a quiet day comes to a close at four. 

“See you tomorrow,” you say. 

“Yeah, see you, have a good night,” he says back. 

You might. It depends on how James is feeling. You go to the shops on the way and wrack your brain for the things he likes. You know he likes cream of chicken soup: he brings it in his thermos sometimes for lunch. He likes freddos, tangerines, melon slices, and everybody likes balsam tissues and painkillers. 

James doesn’t necessarily have to let you take care of him, but it’s a care package. He can take what he wants and bin the rest. You get him some cool patches for his eyes and a box of teabags and consider yourself finished, paying, packing it into a tote, and carrying it back to the car. You get nervous on the road leading into James’ flat building, but Sirius’ car isn’t outside, just an old BMW that looks well loved. 

You pop the button to be let into the building and seconds later you’re opening the door. You make your way up the tight steps to the second floor and then the third, pausing to catch your breath lest you seem unfit just outside the door. 

You raise your hand to knock. James laughs from somewhere inside, loudly, and that laugh travels toward you until he’s yanking the door half off of its hinges.

When he sees it’s you, he grins. “Hello, beautiful.” 

“Hi. You okay?” 

He sniffles, but he doesn’t seem too poorly. His eyes are sore and he has a tissue in hand, but James is nothing if not spritely. “I’m okay, lovely, are you okay? To what do I owe this pleasure?” 

“I brought you sickness survival essentials,” you say, dangling the bag on two fingers between you. “Just in case.”

He gets that look on his face you’re finding yourself on the receiving end of more and more. That You can be so lovely face. Like you’ve done something selfless, and he’s not deserving of it. “Thank you,” he says genuinely, quietly, slipping the bag from your hand and leaning in. You’re expecting the kiss on the cheek, just not the hand under your jaw turning you for a chaste one on the lips.

“Listen,” he says softly, “my mum is here.” 

You pause. “Oh.” 

“My dad, too, actually. She caught wind that I was feeling rough from Sirius and she’s brought it upon herself to come and make sure I’m alright.” 

“Oh. Well, well I’ll just go–”

He shakes his head. “Don’t go. I mean, you don’t have to stay, ‘course you don’t, but you can come in and meet them.” 

“As…” 

“What do you want to be?” he asks. 

It’s probably written all over your face exactly what you want to be to James. It’s the bag swinging from his elbow. It’s what he asked you not so long ago, sitting on the end of his bed with a puddle of nerves in your stomach. Do you want to be… this is the real thing, right? 

You didn’t know what to say, so you’d kissed him, and he’d known it wasn’t a yes or no. 

“Are you sure you want them to meet me?” you ask. 

“Yes.” He strokes your cheek with his forefinger, all gentleness, but then he gives it a squeeze. “Be warned, mum’s heard everything about you, even when I was sure I hated you.” 

“What if she doesn’t like me?” you ask, sickly. 

“She took your side every time,” he assures you. “I just mean she’ll give me a smug look every other minute. And my dad’s just happy to be wherever he is. But if you don’t want to… you know, if you’re not ready, that’s fine. I wasn’t gonna ask ‘cos I was worried you’d say no.” He winces. 

“I’m really worried they won’t like me.” 

“Why wouldn’t they?” he asks, as though the possibility is a pipe dream. 

“James, you didn’t like me.” 

“That had less to do with you and more to do with email politics,” he jokes, “lovely, you don’t have to come in. It’s fine, there’ll be other times.”

It’s his confidence in that that makes you take a step forward. “Do I look a mess?” 

“You’re beautiful.” 

“James, I just went to work, I’ve been up since six–” You give him you’re most pleading look, eyebrows soft and lips a little pouted, “please, just check.” 

James holds you by the shoulders, his gaze moving over you one feature at a time. “Still beautiful,” he says quietly, “you have something in the corner of your eye.” 

“Get it.” 

“I will,” he laughs, “just gimme a second.” 

You gasp as he almost pokes your eye out. 

“James, babe, who’s at the door?”

You’re surprised to hear a male voice and instantly endeared. James, babe, turns away from you, slipping a hand behind your shoulder to force you into the hallway next to him. A dark-haired older man is standing in the door to the kitchen, his smile curious and friendly. “James?” 

“Yeah, this is Y/N,” James says, “she was just making sure I’m okay.” 

“You've invited her in for a cup of tea?” Monty asks, a picture of his son as he gestures for the kitchen. 

“Tea?” James asks, watching you carefully. 

You attempt to hide your nerves with a nod and a smile of your own. “Yes, please.” 

Monty heads back into the kitchen. James runs his hand down your back and lets you step in front of him, bearing the brunt of his mother’s gaze all by yourself. “Hello,” she says, clearly excited.

“Hi.”

James holds you by the back. “Mum, dad,” —you suck in a breath— “this is Y/N. She’s my girlfriend but–” He raises his voice before Euphemia can talk. “It’s not been long, okay?” 

“James, why didn’t you say?” 

“Mum, I just–” James sighs. You go numb with the pleasure of the thing —you weren’t expecting him to say girlfriend. To own up to you completely. “You dropped in unannounced, and we aren’t telling very many people.” 

“It’s my fault, I didn’t say–” You start, tamping down a brilliant smile. 

Monty cuts you off swiftly. “Don’t worry about it, sweetheart. We’re all here now, aren’t we? So, you work with Jamie?” 

“Yeah, yes, I’m on the accounting team.” You relax into James’ touch, letting your shoulder be guided against him just a bit. “I started a couple of months ago.” 

“Almost a year ago,” James corrects. “Should we have that cup of tea?” 

You frown at the scratch of his voice. “I can make it,” you offer. 

Euphemia laughs, James groans, and Monty has a twinkle in his eye you aren’t familiar with. “I can make the tea,” Monty says, “why don’t you lovely ladies sit down?” 

“Does that include me, dad?” 

“Of course it does.” 

[ignoremeimnothere]

[ignoremeimnothere]

love of my life, queen of all things smut and marauders..........I have a request if you don't mind 😈 I was thinking of this with Sirius, but it could truly be whoever you think fits. But what do you think of a fic where reader x Sirius have sex for the first time (FWB, relationship, whatever fits the vibe), and Sirius finishes and moves his attention to reader who goes "oh it's alright, I've never been successful at that part of sex before...." & then it becomes this fun challenge for Sirius who spends the rest of the evening finding out what works for her until he finally gets her off 😃 xoxoxoxooxoxoxo

Thanks for the request and for weathering the long wait gorgeous Elle <3

cw: smut mdni, reader is afab and has trouble with orgasming

fwb!Sirius x fem!reader ♡ 1.2k words

“Fuck.” Sirius’ forehead crashes into yours, his breath hot on your lips. “Are you close?” 

“You should come.” Your voice is tight, strained, though not nearly so much as his. 

“Not before you.” 

“Please, Sirius.” You both moan as he thrusts deeper inside you, your legs squeezing tight around his middle. “Please, I want you to.” 

“I don’t—shit.” 

His brow tenses along with the rest of him as he spills into you. You feel the condom fill up with a heady satisfaction. You run your hands up his back soothingly, until he relaxes into you. 

“Fuck, gorgeous.” Sirius tilts his face to kiss at the slope of your cheek. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I would…you just feel too good, have you gotten that complaint before?”

You laugh. “It’s not usually a complaint.” 

“No, but in this case…” He tuts, picking his head up to look at you. You expect to be self-conscious—it’s your first time seeing each other like this, and part of you is still fighting the urge to cover up and preserve your modesty—but the heavy drag of his gaze only makes you feel admired. “Well, anyways, sorry. How close are you?” 

“Oh, it’s okay.” You smile at him. Your finger traces the line of a tattoo on his bicep. “Don’t worry about it. I had fun.” 

Sirius blinks, and then his brows come down. “Hold on, that’s not fair. I want to get you off.” 

“Sirius, it’s really fine. I’m not…” You hesitate. You and Sirius have been friends for a while; it’s not as though you haven’t shared secrets before. And given what you’ve just shared with each other, you shouldn’t probably be embarrassed, but… “I haven’t exactly been…successful at that part of sex before.” 

Sirius’ eyebrows furrow as though he doesn’t quite understand what you mean. 

“I haven’t come,” you clarify. 

His eyes widen, lips parting. It’s horrendously attractive, worse with him still inside you. “You haven’t?” 

You shake your head. 

“Not ever?” 

You shake your head again. 

“Not even by yourself?” 

“Let’s just assume the answer to all of these questions is going to be no.” He shifts in you slightly, and you squirm. “Can you…?” 

“Oh. Yeah, sorry.” Sirius pulls out of you, looking somewhat awed. “So, forgive me, but what exactly are you getting out of this if you don’t expect to come?” 

You give him a droll look. “I guess I’m just a giver.” 

It’s more true than you let on. You enjoyed yourself more than you expected just now, watching Sirius come, knowing it was the sight of you and the feel of your flesh under his hands that did it. You hope he lets you do it again.

“I don’t have to come to have good sex,” you say in a more genuine tone. “It’s still fun for me.” 

“Right. Right, yeah, but—” 

“Listen, I’m only telling you so you don’t take it personally. It’s not a you thing, it’s just…” You gesture helplessly. “I’m not sure I can.” 

Sirius looks indignant. “I’m sure you can.” 

“I haven’t found any proof.” 

“Well, it’s—there’s a first time for everybody, doll. Can I try?” 

You sit up, drawing your legs closer and forcing him to sit back. “I told you, it’s not you.” 

“It could be me, though.” He grins roguishly. 

You roll your eyes, fighting a smile. “Don’t make this a pride thing.” 

“I’m not. I’m not, babe.” Sirius scoots towards you. He looks at you, sincere. “But it could be any number of factors, you know? Maybe you just haven’t tried the right thing, or there’s a lubrication issue, or something. It would be fun to try.” 

You rub your lips together. “It’d probably be a waste of time. And I don’t want you to be disappointed if it doesn’t work.” 

“I won’t be,” he promises. He crawls toward you on the bed, taking your ankle in hand to tug you closer. Your heart riots at the sight. “Let’s waste some time, gorgeous. I’ve got nothing else to do tonight. And you said you have fun even if you don’t finish, right?” 

“Right,” you admit. 

Sirius grins, flashing canines. “Lay back, then. Let me play with you a while.” 

It doesn’t take long to figure out that lubrication is not the issue. Between Sirius’ hands and his mouth, you’re spilled like warm honey across his sheets in minutes. He bites marks into your thighs, goes from gentle to masochistic to gentle again with his hands on your breasts, curls his fingers inside you so that you make sounds you don’t recognize. All the while, he calls you sweet names rolled up in taunts, making your cheeks burn and your body seem to give up any will of its own. It begins to feel cruel; the combination of who Sirius is and what he can do to you.

But it’s when he uses his tongue that you start to tremble. 

Your hand clamps blindly down on his shoulder, caught between keeping him close and pushing him away. Sirius’ hum, heavy with smugness and intrigue, is a vibration like you’ve never felt before. He takes your clit into his mouth. 

It’s altogether too much and not enough. You shift your hips, gasping, but after a while your breaths even into a steadier pant. You start to adjust to this new pleasure. Just when you think you’ve got it under control, you’re safe, Sirius slips his wicked fingers into your entrance again. 

“There you are.” His voice thrums with satisfaction as he kisses your clit. “You’ve been so good, sweetheart. So patient.” 

“Sirius, I—”

“What?” 

“I feel—” 

“What, pretty girl?” 

“Sirius.” 

“Okay, I’m sorry. I’m being mean.” He nibbles ever so gently at your clit, making you jolt away from him. Your walls clench around his fingers. “You’re just so much fun when you’re worked up like this, I can’t help myself.” 

He curls his fingers into that torturous spot along your inner wall, and what you want isn’t more sensation, but you can no longer find the words to tell him so. You dig your nails into Sirius’ shoulders and squeeze your eyes shut, feeling on the precipice of something great and terrible. Some kind of wreckage. 

“You’re okay, doll,” Sirius soothes. “You’re just fine. You like this, don’t you? Don’t you want to come?” 

With his low, sweet question, you do. You wreck like a ship against the shoreline. Splintering, screaming, crashing and drowning. Sirius laughs like the enemy vessel as you do.

It’s some time later when the stars clear from behind your eyes. You let out a shuddering breath. “Fuck.” 

“Mhm. That’s usually how it goes.” Sirius is all tenderness now. He kisses up your sweaty, overworked abdomen until he reaches your collarbone, where he nibbles rewardingly. “Good job, sweetness. And good job me, if I do say so myself.” 

You open your eyes to peek at him through your lashes. “Aren’t I supposed to say so?” 

He chuckles, pressing a kiss to your chin. “Fairly sure you just did. I wouldn’t have guessed you had sounds like that in you.” 

“Me neither,” you admit. 

“Well, now I’ve got something new to work towards, I suppose.” 

“Sirius,” you sigh. “That was the first time I’ve ever come, and it took nearly an hour. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do that again.” 

“Oh, such a defeatist.” Sirius cups your face in his hands, thumbs moving sweetly down your cheeks as he presses a firm kiss to your lips. “I meant getting those sounds out of you again. But don’t worry, gorgeous, we’ll manage both.”

[ignoremeimnothere]

ᴏꜰꜰɪᴄᴇ ꜰʀᴇɴᴇᴍɪᴇꜱ ᴀᴜ ✦ ᴊᴀᴍᴇꜱ ᴘᴏᴛᴛᴇʀ

you foster a hot and cold relationship with your desk buddy, James, until things start to change, and you both fail to ignore your new feelings. fem, sfw you and James have to share a bed you slip outside of the office you offer the very first olive branch James defends you from a coworker James assures you that you’re pretty James pretends you aren’t cute at karaoke you faint at the office you realise James isn’t fully insufferable you fall asleep on James’ shoulder James forgets why he doesn’t like you you buy James a new smiski for his desk you come onto your period unexpectedly James accidentally calls you lovely you and James get stuck in a lift James hates when people flirt with you James jumpstarts your car, you ogle James is upset when others treat you badly you call James ‘Jamie’ for the first time James antagonises you into a kiss you and James hide your feelings James takes you out for coffee

[ignoremeimnothere]

size difference kink but in the “i grew up being made fun of for being chubby so now the idea of a giant of a man being able to toss me around and tower over me without making my weight a problem makes me really horny” way, you get what im saying?

[ignoremeimnothere]

I just wanna take the time to thank MrsKingBean89 for giving Grant his happy ending. He deserved the world and more but I think he worked hard for his life and he loved it and it is one of the very few comforts ATYD provides.

[ignoremeimnothere]

Is there a survivors group for those who have been through Chapter 89: The Week Before of All The Young Dudes (Sirius’ Perspective) because FUCKING HELL WHAT THE FUCK

[ignoremeimnothere]

the sun was collapsing

▹— joel miller x platonic!reader

▹— summary: joel thought you moving to a college halfway across the country would be the worst thing to happen to his family

▹— a/n: first off. yes this is me projecting. second, this is a miller!kid fic HOWEVER. it is not specified whether reader is adopted or biological etc + there is no reference to looks/resemblance! edit upon finishing: this took a slightly different direction than i originally meant but erm. yeah. let me know if y’all want any more of this!

▹— warnings: reference to a suicide attempt / suicidal thoughts and feelings — it’s the last section of the fic, and if you wish to avoid it stop reading at “You knew that you would never get used to the sound of a gun being fired.”, i will also put *** at the start of it (joel’s, but still, be cautious), negative feelings about going to college, miller!reader (adopted/bio unspecified), regretting leaving home, outbreak day, angst!!, brief use of they/them pronouns

▹— taglist: @rhymingtree @sleepygraves @wnstice (everything) @auggiesolovey @just-kaylaa @evyiione @lemonlaides @fariylixie0915 @faceache111 @randomhoex @canpillowscry @pedropascalsrealgf @star-wars-lover @coolchick333 @soobsdior @rvjaa @sunflowersdrop (pedro)

masterlist

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There had been a pit festering in the depths of your chest since the moment you had finished all of your exams. One which, no matter how many reassurances were provided, refused to go away, refused to allow you a moment of peace, of rest.

Strangely, it had only gotten worse the moment you had received your results, since you had received your acceptance letter, since your place at the college of your dreams was confirmed. As if all your hard work finally paying off was a bad thing, something to dread.

At first, you blamed it on the way Sarah had cried and held on to you for the way your chest caved in on itself. It felt reasonable to assume that your little sister could be the reason for such overwhelming trepidation about your impending departure. After all, you had always worried about her, had always looked out for her as best as you could, especially with everything that had happened with her mother.

When that didn’t explain away the uneasiness in your chest cavity, you shifted the blame to your father. Your dad, who you had looked after for what felt like the entirety of your life, who you had looked to in the best and worst times of your life. The very man who did his best to quell his own fear and worry about your move, just to reassure you, to encourage you.

Joel Miller was a self-made man, who raised two kids, a brother, and a business all in one short lifetime. He was a man who had struggled at practically every turn, and if this college was what would make you happy, was what would give you the head start that he had never received, he would welcome it.

You knew, really, that he would be fine. Your dad had raised you just fine, and he could handle your little sister without you, you were sure. For a brief moment, you had blamed that on the sense of foreboding within you; the idea that they didn’t need you. It didn’t take long for you to realise that they did, and that they would be glad to have you from miles away, rather than not at all.

So, you were at a loss.

It should have been an exciting time, something that you were looking forward to, rather than dreading. This was the start of the rest of your life, the reward for all of your hours spent working for the grades you had received, for the anxiety and stress of school. It was supposed to be a good thing. You couldn’t understand why your chest didn’t seem to get that memo.

The feeling persisted the entirety of the time that led up to your move, outlasting each brief flash of any other emotion. It continued the whole roadtrip up to the college, across multiple state borders, despite the multitude of karaoke covers that Sarah initiated.

Even when Joel and Tommy were taking your boxes up to your dorm room, you could feel it. Hell, when Sarah helped you start unpacking said boxes, it continued.

It was only when you were waving the three of them off, tears blurring the shrinking truck, that you realised just what was responsible for the feeling that had been bugging you for months.

You didn’t want to leave home.

Moreover, you didn’t want to grow up. You didn’t want to be alone.

The realisation was almost enough for you to call your dad, to beg him to come back, to pick you up and return you back home. Almost. Instead, you found yourself walking numbly back up to your dorm room, taking more than one wrong turn in the hallways which bled into one, and sitting down on the mattress which wasn’t your own.

For the next week, you breezed by, drifting along your timetable in some kind of half-there state. It was like you couldn’t fully comprehend that you were on your own.

You phoned Sarah on the fifth day, twisting the wire around your fingertip nervously, as if your little sister would ever ignore your calls. She answered on the second ring — unsurprisingly, given that was about how long it always took for her to answer the phone — and she greeted you with the most joyful call of your name you’d heard for a while.

“Sarah,” You responded fondly, tears immediately welling up in your eyes as you listened to her barrage of questions about your first week at college. “Slow down, Sarah, slow down!” You interrupted when her questions became intelligible over the spotty phone line.

“Sorry, sorry,” Sarah said, not sounding sorry at all. “I miss you. I wanna know everything.” She finished, which you already knew she would. Sarah was a lot like you in that way, curious and determined. You knew she was already thinking of what college she wanted to go to, and just how to get there. If she wasn’t swept up by playing soccer, neglecting her studies, that was.

Regardless, you smiled, just glad to hear her voice. “I know, I miss you, too. Is dad home yet?” You asked, unsurprised by her responding no, considering Joel Miller was renowned for his inability to stay on time, his tendency to overwork himself unrelenting. “Okay, well, you’ll tell him everything, right?”

“‘Course I will,” Sarah responded, sounding thrilled to get to relay such interesting information. She’d no doubt be sharing it with Tommy, first thing in the morning, too. “Now tell me!”

“Okay, okay.” You laughed, before telling her as much as you could about what you recalled of your experience so far. Some of it was embellished, of course, mostly for Sarah’s benefit, though also slightly for your father’s. You already knew he’d be worrying himself sick over you.

That phone call was the only time the pit in your chest lessened, the whole time you’d been at college. As if the smallest dose of home was having a real effect. It only made you miss the house back in Texas all the more.

You felt worse afterwards, somehow. As if the call had been a harsh and unneeded reminder of the distance between you and your family. It had barely been over a week by now since you had left home, and you worried that you would never get used to being so far away. How could it possibly get better? How could you ever settle in when the people you love were so far?

The days afterwards were spent mulling over all of your life choices, spending your time soaking in all the regrets you were beginning to have. Why did you work so hard to get into this college? You were miserable. Not to mention all of the experiences you had missed out on in your determination to get here.

Luckily for you, you finally made your first friend.

He had sat next to you in one of your classes, and finally, after three classes of sitting in silence, the two of you had struck up a conversation.

Strangely enough, the two of you bonded over missing home. He was all the way from Nevada, and shared your debilitating homesickness. He talked a lot about his mother, and his older sister, and it was nice to have somebody to share that with.

Things were starting to look up. Life was a lot easier when you had a friend to share it with.

But all the talking about feeling homesick didn’t actually get rid of the feeling. Your heart practically ached each time you went home to your dorm room, where you were alone, where there was no little sister to come and bug you about dinner, or about dad getting home.

You called again, on the three week mark.

Much to your annoyance and happiness, your uncle Tommy answered the phone.

“Hey, uncle Tommy. How’re you doing?” You asked, the smile obvious in your voice. Even to your ears, it was the happiest you’d sounded since speaking to Sarah, a little over two weeks prior.

“Well, if it ain’t our little ol’ Nerd Miller.” Tommy greeted over the phone, that familiar teasing tone making you roll your eyes. “I’m doin’ mighty fine, kiddo. How’re you gettin’ on?” He asked, tone taking on a more soft note, which had your chest aching all over again.

Still, you shook your head and tried your best to seem as happy as possible, for his sake. “Oh, you know, just learning the ways of the world, n’ all. Where’s dad?” You questioned, not wanting to be rude, but also desperate to speak to the man who had raised you, and who had also missed your calls since you’d been gone.

“He’s out buyin’ some last minute supplies for tomorrow’s job. Keeping himself busy, I’d say.” Tommy replied, before you heard him calling out Sarah’s name, away from the phone. “Hang on, now, Sarah wants to speak to you.”

You wait, listening to the shuffling of the phone switching hands from across the country, endeared by your sister scolding your uncle for taking so long to tell her it was you. They argued for a moment longer, their joking tones familiar, but sounding vaguely different from across the phone line.

Finally, Sarah greeted you. “Hey, little sister! How are you getting on, over there? Tommy causing you trouble?” You asked in return, hearing him yell, some distance away, straining to be heard across the phone. It sent you and Sarah into giggles, and she had to take a breath before she could respond.

“As always. So, have you been to any parties, yet?” She asked, always insisting that you were the Miller child who caused the most trouble. You vaguely heard Tommy yell out a ‘sure hope not’ over the phone. Sarah shushed him, eagerly awaiting your answer.

“No, Sarah, no partying for me! I’ve gotta work hard, make this whole trip worth it.” You said, and though your tone was teasing, your words were feeling more true by the second. You had seen plenty of fliers advertising parties all across campus, even been handed a few as you exited classrooms, but you were uninterested. Your new friend had suggested you go to one, just yesterday evening, but you had declined. You were pretty sure that underaged drinking wasn’t the right way to cure your homesickness.

“You’re so boring. Dad’ll be thrilled.” Sarah laughed, the sound crackling over the line, and you smiled. There was no doubt in your mind that Joel would be relieved about your lacking party life, as much as he said he encouraged you getting out and living. Hell, the whole reason he hadn’t called you was so that you didn’t feel suffocated by him, so that you could live your life without feeling pressure from your old man. “Made any new friends?”

You hesitated, for some reason. “Uh, yeah! There’s this guy in my—”

“A guy?” Sarah interrupted, immediately. And there it was! The very reason for your hesitation. You heard a struggle over the phone, and Sarah was sounding more amused as time passed. “What’s his name? Are you dating?”

“Okay, enough of that!” Tommy said, and there was more shuffling as he presumably snatched the phone off of Sarah. You could hear her complaining through breaks in her laughter, but Tommy was refusing to hand back the phone. “Your old man does not need this one passin’ along details of your dating life, kiddo.”

You smiled, rolling your eyes. “There is no dating life, uncle Tommy. He’s just my friend.” You responded, though your uncle sounded unconvinced. “Anyway, enough about him. About dad’s birthday, next week—”

It was Tommy who cut you off this time, shifting the phone in his hand. “Woah! Don’t you go worrying about that, now. Me and Sarah have got it covered, don’t we, kiddo?” You heard Sarah yelling agreements, though you doubted she even knew what you were talking about.

“Actually, I was thinking about coming home for it. Surprising dad, you know.” You admitted, mostly in hopes that your uncle would help you plot the journey. And he was slightly better at keeping secrets than Sarah was.

“Oh, you just worry about yourself, up there. We’ll look after your old man! You gotta get out there, live your life!” Tommy responded, dismissing your idea immediately, even though he knew his older brother would have secretly loved the surprise. But it had only been a few weeks since you’d left, and if Tommy was honest, he wasn’t sure you’d go back if you came home so soon.

You frowned at his response, eyebrows furrowing slightly. “You mean to tell me that you and Sarah are gonna manage the birthday breakfast, presents and cake? No way dad’ll remember any of it!” You said. For the longest time, you had been the one taking care of that sort of thing. Joel was always much too busy taking care of you and Sarah as well as overworking himself at his day job to sort out his own birthday celebrations.

Sure, Sarah was old enough by now to do this sort of thing, but it was something that you did. Since you were— what? Eleven? You had been the one to do it. Each year, you made Joel’s birthday cake, and either bought his presents or sent Tommy and Sarah out for them. Would they manage it without you? Did you even want them to?

It was the one day of the year where nothing else came first. Not schoolwork, homework, studying, work, not anything. You always made sure that this day was free, no exceptions. What would you do with it now?

“I think we can manage, right, Sarah?” Tommy said, teasingly, clearly not quite realising the significance of the day for you. Joel was your dad, in all the ways that mattered. He did everything for you! Hell, he even moved you halfway across the country, just because you thought it was what you wanted. This was the one day of the year where you got to return that. Where you got to show just how thankful you are for him, even if he did annoy the hell out of you whenever the chance arose. His birthday was the one day where you could get away with buying him gifts, and Tommy wanted you to… what? Stay this far? Be uninvolved?

“Tommy, I—… I always help with dad’s birthday. That doesn’t need to change now.” You murmured into the phone, suddenly feeling left out. It wasn’t a feeling you enjoyed whatsoever, and especially when it involved such an important day.

Tommy tutted, the sound just about crackling through the receiver, and you could picture him shaking his head, all the way back in Texas. “You gotta live your own life now, kid. Can’t be worryin’ about us little people back here. It’s high time you started puttin’ yourself first. Don’t worry about Joel’s birthday,” Tommy said, softer then, less mocking. “Me and Sarah’ve got it, alright?”

With a frown, you responded. “Alright.”

“Alrighty, now we better get goin’, your dad’ll have a fit if I make Sarah late again.” Tommy told you, and you nodded, before cringing and realising he couldn’t see that.

The three of you said your goodbyes, with Tommy putting the phone down soon after, cutting off his yells to Sarah about getting her shoes on. In the silence that followed after, you couldn’t help but feel more upset than before the call. Logically, you knew your family missed you. You knew that they couldn’t wait for you to be home at Thanksgiving, and you knew that they looked forward to your phone calls home just as much as you did. But it was hard. Brief phone calls with them just weren’t enough, and just showed that life was going on for them as normal, whilst you felt stuck.

You also knew that they were trying to give you your independence, that they were trying to let you live your life. Especially Joel. But you were finding, more and more, that you didn’t want this much independence. You wanted your dad to be overbearing and overly interested in your life, because he just wanted to be involved. You wanted your uncle to drive you to and from school, to sneak you a bottle of beer at family barbecues. You wanted to walk your little sister around town, because she was too nervous to go herself.

Everybody you had known back home had always told you that you’d be just fine at college. They had always told you that you were independent enough as it was, that you were practically an adult already, and that it’d be almost no different to home. For whatever reason, you felt guilty to think that they were wrong about you. You needed your family. You couldn’t do everything on your own, it was too much. It was too hard. It was too… lonely.

Where was your support system? Where were the three overbearing family members that would crowd you when you were upset, until you finally felt better? Who would you turn to when you needed a lift all the way across town? Who would you persuade to watch shitty DVDs from the Adler’s with you? Who would save Sarah from the Adler’s clutches?

As awful as you felt about it, you couldn’t help but want your family to feel as incapable without you as you did without them. You didn’t want them to manage without you. You wanted them to tell you to come home.

Part of you was just hoping that they weren’t doing it because they knew you were looking for the excuse to come home. Because they knew that if they asked, you’d come. Without question. Without even a moment of hesitation.

Your phone rang again, and you jumped up to answer it, hoping your dad was finally home, finally ringing you back. “Hello?”

“Hey!” Your newest and only friend greeted, the sound of a party muffling his voice. You sighed, hand over the end of the phone in hopes he wouldn’t hear it and misread your disappointment. “You sure you don’t wanna come to this thing? It’s a lot of fun!”

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It was the morning of your dad’s birthday, and you had barely slept a wink, despite having a class relatively early this very morning. It had been a night full of tossing and turning, full of regrets and ideas about going home at 2AM. In the end, your exhaustion let you sleep when it was nearing 6AM, and your alarm woke you up not long later.

You’d barely managed to refrain from micro-managing Sarah and Tommy, all the way from across the country. Instead, you’d let yourself believe that they’d be able to remember everything, despite your anxiety telling you otherwise. You felt awful enough about not being there for Joel’s birthday, the last thing you needed was to feel guilty about him not getting a good birthday, too.

Not that you thought that Sarah or Tommy would allow that, of course. But Tommy was almost as forgetful as Joel was, and it wasn’t like Sarah could borrow Tommy’s truck like you had, last year. She wasn’t even old enough to drive yet! Surely it wasn’t unreasonable for you to worry, right?

You held off from calling home until it was nearing the time they would be leaving for school and work respectively, in hopes of not making the three of them late. You knew that you’d have to leave for your own class soon enough, but it felt wrong to start the day without speaking to your dad. Hell, your sad breakfast of toast had already started the day off on a pretty low note.

The phone rang for an uncomfortably long time, and you were reaching out to hang up when somebody finally answered. No greeting came immediately, just shuffling over the line, alongside some distant yelling. Finally, Tommy said, “Hello?”

“Hey, uncle Tommy. Everything alright over there?” You asked, brows creased as you listened to the commotion going on within the house, audible even over the crackly phone line. It seemed that the day was not starting off as smoothly as it usually did, no doubt due to your own dad and his persistent snoozing of his alarm.

Tommy yelled something away from the phone before finally responding to your question. “All good on our front, kiddo. How’re you doin’?” He asked, though you didn’t miss how distracted he sounded as he asked.

“Um, fine, I guess. Is dad there?”

“Huh? Oh, hang on.” Tommy replied, before you heard the clunk of him placing the phone down on the wooden table it sat on. There were some crackles that you think were his boots against the floor as he walked away, and you distantly heard him yelling for your dad. “Joel, your kid is on the phone!”

It’s awkward — the waiting, that is. The second hand on your watch ticking away until the minute hand moves, and still, there’s only faint rustling on the other end of the phone. Finally, after almost three full minutes, somebody picks up the phone.

Sarah said your name cheerfully, and you smiled tightly, despite yourself. “Hey, Sarah. How’s it been, sorting dad’s birthday?”

“Oh, not so bad. Made him eggs this morning, because he forgot the pancake mix yesterday. And he’s picking up the cake later! But don’t worry! I’ve got his present sorted.” She rambled, barely pausing to take a breath between sentences. You can imagine that she’d been stressed, trying to sort everything. It’s not as easy when you’re young, and you know that from experience.

“I don’t doubt you for a second. Where is dad?” You replied, eyebrows creased as you waited for her response.

“He’s running late, as always.” Sarah answered, and you could picture her rolling her eyes. She was punctual by nature, and definitely didn’t get that from Joel. He was always too late.

“I’m here, I’m here.” You heard faintly, the words muffled across the line. “You, go get in the truck. We’re late! Hey, kiddo.” Joel said, talking to Sarah before finally addressing you on the phone.

“Hi.”

“I’m sorry to cut this short, but we really are running late. I’ll call you once I’m home, alright?” Joel told you, sounding apologetic and frustrated. He probably missed you — and your annual birthday breakfast — just as much as you missed him.

“Okay. Happy birthday, dad.” You responded, feeling increasingly down. You should’ve never listened to Tommy. Joel’s birthday would no doubt be a disaster without you. And you already knew he was going to forget to pick up his birthday cake before returning home from work. It was the whole reason you always baked him one before he got home.

“Thanks, kiddo.” Joel said, a faint smile audible in his voice. He hung up a moment later, already shouting to Tommy and Sarah before the call was cut off. You frowned at the phone in your hand, your eyebrows furrowed as you thought of your family back home. Moving away truly wasn’t a good idea, was it?

That was what your thoughts were stuck on, for the rest of the day. Even as you proceeded to go to classes and see your few friends as normal, you couldn’t help but feel that pit in your chest getting worse, like you really were making a mistake. It was suffocating, and it felt never ending.

When you finally got back to your dorm room — much to your friend’s dismay, after having left them in the library to do an essay alone — you waited by the phone for your dad to call you back.

But when the phone finally did ring, it wasn’t your dad on the other end. Sarah greeted you the moment you answered, sounding relatively tired. She started telling you about her day, and about how Joel still wasn’t home, despite it nearing the late evening. She also told you about having to go to the Adler’s house, and helping Mrs. Adler bake disgusting cookies, followed by how creepy her mother was. Sarah had always found the old woman to be creepy, with her motionless state and blank expression, but in her words, the old woman seemed even more creepy than usual.

You rejoiced with her when she told you the title of the shitty DVD she’d borrowed from their extensive collection, though. It was one of your favourite things about your dad’s birthday traditions, even though the movie was almost always awful.

The call didn’t last long, because Sarah wanted to get her homework done before the weekend started, so you let her go, and sat in your quiet dorm room, once more. It was lonely, more than anything, and even though you often just sat alone in your bedroom at home, it was different. There was no option of going downstairs to see your dad, or crossing the hall to see your sister.

Eventually, you fell asleep, the dim lighting of your room alongside your poor night of sleep prior meaning that you couldn’t wait for Joel to call any longer.

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The first thing you think when you wake up to a world of chaos, is that you never got to speak to your dad last night.

Even as the world rages on around you, people going insane, reports of an outbreak, shots fired on the streets, you can only think of your family, who feel as if they’re half the world away. How are you going to get to them? Are they okay? Are they alive? What was the last thing you said to them? Did you tell them you love them?

It’s a quick downward spiral, one which you’re only pulled out of when your friend appears in your vision, gripping your arm with relief that is practically palpable in the air around you. He’s covered in sweat and dirt, and you think there’s blood staining his sleeve. Still, it’s a relief to see him, to see a familiar face as the sky turns dark and chaos rages on.

He’s pulling you down the street in the next moment, past the site of a car wreck, with three, four— five cars practically piled on top of one another, one of which is already ablaze. There’s glass and blood and bodies everywhere you look, and it’s a feat that you don’t throw up.

“Robbie, what’s happening? Do you know what’s happening?” You asked desperately, straining to be heard over the sound of people screaming and crying around you.

“I—I don’t know. We need to get out of here, it’s… it’s bad. It’s really, really bad.” Robbie answered, his voice shaking even more than it had when he’d been talking of home, missing his family. You imagine he missed them far more in this moment, just like you did. He didn’t look back at you, but he did lower his hand to your own, rather than gripping your wrist. You squeezed his fingers, breathing through the growing pit in your chest, through the weight settling in your throat.

You’re not sure how long the two of you walk, but by the time you paused, the sun was rising. Half of you is convinced that you’re in some kind of delusional state, delirious enough from your lack of sleep that this is some sort of illusion that your brain is creating. The other half of you, however, knows better. It’s the part of you that keeps that pit in your chest empty, that keeps it all consuming. It’s the part that knows something is very, very wrong.

You kept wondering how this happened. How did the world turn to chaos in a matter of days? Hours? Sure, you’d caught glimpses of news reports following what doctors believed to be some kind of virus outbreak, but that didn’t prepare you for this. It hadn’t seemed so serious yesterday.

Between lapses of silence on your trek with Robbie, he’d told you everything he knew. He told you about how he tried to call his family, about how all the phone lines were down. He told you about his roommate, who had tried to attack him the moment he exited his room. It was only thanks to a few passersby that Robbie had been able to barricade his roommate in their shared dorm.

It was a mass outbreak, it seemed, and clearly, the government had no idea how to handle it. The entirety of the state was in disarray, and there had been orders to shoot civilians on sight. Both of you were terrified of coming across anybody, whether they were Infected or just hostile, neither of you wanted to die. All you wanted was to see your family again.

You knew you never should have come to this college.

Neither you nor Robbie had brought it up, but there was an unspoken question about where you were going to go. Where could possibly be safe? How were you going to get to your families? The two of you lived in opposite directions, so what were you going to do? Split up and try to get back to your home states alone? There was no way to even tell what you were going to find, if you even made it that far. Would your family be there? Would they have left? What if they tried to come to you? What if they were already gone?

There was no way to communicate with either of your families, and the uncertainty was wearing you both down. What if you got to them, and you infected them, somehow? How did you even know if you were Infected? Was there warning signs before you turned violent?

You didn’t know what to do, and it was making you even more anxious. You wanted, more than anything in the world, to be with your dad. A part of you just knew that Joel Miller would know exactly what to do. He would know how to keep you safe. It was the only thing that was giving you any semblance of comfort, the knowing that Joel would look after himself, Tommy and Sarah. All you had to do was find him, and everything would be okay. It had to be.

∘₊✧───── ───── ───── ─────✧₊∘

It was nearing a month since Outbreak Day, as so many had taken to calling it, and everything still felt surreal. You and Robbie had stayed together, and had come across a group of three others who had some supplies. One of them, Benny, was an ex-military man, and coincidentally, he had known your uncle, back in the day. It seemed like too much of a sore subject to ask how, so you refrained. You hoped, however, that if you could manage to find somebody who knew your uncle in the midst of an apocalypse, you’d be able to find him. And with him, would, of course, be your dad and sister. They would have stuck together, you were certain.

Regardless, Benny was keeping you safe. You felt far more comfortable with him than you did the others with him, given he knew your family. There was something reassuring about it.

The five of you were travelling together, avoiding populated areas and sticking to forests and fields to travel when you could. It seemed to be the best way to avoid those who were infected, as many of them were clustered in cities and neighbourhoods. There was more than one time, though, that you came across camps which had been ravaged by the infection. Benny had shot someone on one of these occasions, when she had broke from the tree line and approached you at a run, sobbing through breaths.

You had been terrified at the time — horrified, really, but when you got closer, passing her body, you saw the infection crawling up veins, sprouting from her skin. You weren’t sure if you’d ever get used to the sound of gunfire.

All the work you had put in to get into that stupid college seemed trivial, now. If you thought too long about it, you were almost certain that you would go insane. It didn’t matter how much you regretted all of your past decisions, it would never change where you were. It would never change the fact that you had no idea if your family were okay.

There was no doubt in your mind that you would’ve never survived if it hadn’t have been for Benny. He was strict with you, stopping you from eating anything that could’ve infected you, because he was certain that the mass outbreak must involve some kind of infection in the food supply. He kept you alert at all times, and refused to let you lag behind the rest of them. He kept you alive.

That fact became all the more clear when you when he woke you up, a hand pressed over your mouth. Instinctively, you had panicked, eyes wide and your limbs flailing until you realised who it was, and when he pressed a finger to his lips, you had nodded. You trusted Benny, for whatever reason, he seemed to care about keeping you safe. But Benny had a certain look in his eye that you didn’t like, the furrow of his brow had seemed deeper than usual.

When he pointed towards Robbie, you could see why.

He laid on top of a blanket you had found, his head turned towards you, eyes closed as if he was asleep. But his fingers were twitching, and there was a sheen of sweat across his brow. His skin looked dull, and when you squinted at him, you barely stopped the gasp from escaping your throat. Instead, it had gotten stuck, and you couldn’t breathe as you stared at the Infection raised upon Robbie’s veins.

You had looked towards Benny, and he shook his head. You knew what that meant.

The four of you tried to leave in silence, but Robbie had woken up anyway. He squinted over at you, calling your name in a slurred voice, and his eyes had looked all wrong. Against your better judgement, you turned back towards him, Benny’s hand on your shoulder. “Where’re you goin’?” Robbie slurred out, his voice failing halfway through his words, and he had stumbled to his feet. You had taken a step back at his approach, and he noticed. He looked down at his hands, brows furrowed, eyes taking in the way his fingers had twitched, and he shook his head. “No. No, no, no, no, no!” He had yelled, stumbling around before he had turned back to the four of you. “This ca—can’t be happening.”

“Robbie, I’m—I’m sorry.” You had answered, voice cracking over the words, as you stared at the boy who would never make it home to his family. You had wondered if you would meet the same fate.

“C’mon, kid,” Benny murmured, eyes stony as he had stared at Robbie, his shoulders tense and his hand had hovered over the gun at his hip. “We need to go.” He had said, hand firm at your shoulder as he turned you away from the first friend you had made at the college you’d dreamed of. How had this dream turn into such a nightmare? “Robbie… don’t make me do it. We need to go our separate ways.” Benny had yelled at Robbie, when he had tried to approach the moment your back was turned.

“I’m not infected!” Robbie shouted back, though his twitching limbs and the way he seemed to lack control of his body said otherwise. His eyes were bloodshot, red around the edges, and you had known what was going to happen next. It didn’t make it any easier.

You didn’t look back after the shot went off, after there was a distinctive thud behind you. You knew that you would never get used to the sound of a gun being fired.

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***

Joel Miller tried to kill himself.

He doesn’t know how to respond to the fact that he failed. If he’s honest, he doesn’t really know how to respond to anything. He’s not even sure that anything that’s going on is real. How can it be? How can there be zombies in the world? How can his daughter be dead? How can he have no way of knowing if you’re alive?

It’s all been blurry, after Sarah. Joel spends more than a minute thinking about the fact that there’s an after her. She was meant to outlive him — you both were. And here he is, very much alive, while his daughter is dead, and you may be, too.

The world is turning around him and Joel just can’t get his bearings, can’t get past the pain at his temple, the sound of gunshots. How could he live through a bullet to the skull, when his daughter is dead? How could his daughter be dead?

He’s vaguely aware of Tommy at his side. Joel is vaguely aware of everything, really. He can hear all of the screaming, the crying, the questions, but he isn’t really listening. He isn’t really listening to Tommy begging him for something or other, either. And if he had any capacity to feel anything, Joel thinks he might feel bad for ignoring his younger brother, the man who had relied on Joel his whole life, but he just can’t.

All Joel can do is close his eyes, and watch his daughter die in his arms all over again.

All he can do is hear the sound of the severed phone line upon trying to call you. All he can do is think about how scared you must have been, alone in an unfamiliar state, with no way to get home. All Joel can do is revel in all the ways he failed his children.

What does Tommy expect from him? How could Joel possibly go on when he has just lost the most important people in his life? The only people who mattered? Of course, Joel loves his little brother, and he would do almost anything for him, but this? This is asking too much of him. Expecting him to live when his daughter is… when you could be… It’s all too much.

“Joel,” Tommy says, his voice quiet in the raging chaos behind the curtain around them, and he stares at his older brother as if he’s a stranger. The bandage across his head makes him look weird, and the despondent look in his eyes is one that Tommy doesn’t recognise. “Joel.” He says more urgently, grasping onto his brother’s shoulders, seemingly trying to shake him back to reality. “We have to keep going.”

But Tommy’s urgency means nothing to Joel, who can barely see his brother with the way his eyesight is blurring.

Tommy continues nonetheless, grasping Joel’s shoulders more roughly, unable to rid the image of Joel pulling the trigger from his mind. This was his older brother, the man who had almost raised him, who had protected him at every turn. To see that man so… hopeless, so done with the world, it was jarring, even more so than the apocalypse.

“You can’t give up on me, Joel, we gotta go find them.” Tommy says, getting louder and more desperate as the time passes and Joel continues to look dazed and far away. This seems to catch his attention the slightest bit, and when Tommy says your name, Joel’s eyes clear up slightly. “They need us, okay? They need you.”

It might be true, Joel considers. But he’s not sure what he would do if they found you anything other than healthy and well. If you’re dead, too, then that cements Joel’s failure, ensures his passage to join you.

“Okay,” Joel murmurs instead of voicing anything else, realising through the muddle of his thoughts that if you were alive, he needed to find you. “Alright, Tommy, I’m… I’m here.”

[ignoremeimnothere]

Wow

ＦＥＲＡＬ ＷＯＭＡＮ | 𝕤𝕖𝕣𝕚𝕖𝕤 𝕞𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕥

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PAIRING(s): Joel Miller x fem!OC/reader

RATING: explicit material | 18+

CONTENT: material related to SA, physical violence, captivity, trauma, slave trader, typical canon violence, and explicit sexual content (later chapters)

SA/DV survivors idk bestie you might wanna skip this one unless you’ve got some therapy under your belt already

SYNOPSIS: You are the ex-captive of a slaver group’s ringleader. Now that you are free, you have to navigate your newfound freedom and all the terrifying things that brings. Will you ever be able to feel safe enough again to let others in or will you always struggle with the walls you’ve built over the years to protect yourself? Spoiler: PTSD and trauma are complicated and difficult, but we like “and they lived happily ever after” vibes around these here parts. WORD COUNT: 52.6k (as of chapter 8)

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Chapter 1 - Hungry Dogs Are Never Loyal Chapter 2 - Not Yet Corpses, But Still We Rot Chapter 3 - Most Days I Am a Museum of Things I Want To Forget Chapter 4 - I'm Standing on the Ashes of Who I Used To Be Chapter 5 - I Hold a Beast, an Angel, and a Madman in Me Chapter 6 - I Clung To Your Hands So That Something Human Might Exist in the Chaos Chapter 7 - Your Need Grows Teeth Chapter 8 - The Cicada's Song

[ignoremeimnothere]

Meet Cute

Disclaimer I HATE the ending but I worked through a good few rewrites of this and I'm quite proud with how much it improved from the initial write. It's definitely still shit though. Have I sold it? Usually I can only dedicate one writing session to my stuff, wanting it gone as soon as possible but ya gal is on a mission and dedicated some days. Also sorry y'all but this is on the dark side TW: Death, Suicide and Attempted Suicide

3016 Word Count

You were finally done. It had been a decade of fighting to survive an apocalypse. You wouldn’t have made it two minutes if it hadn’t been for your older brother Arthur who had protected you through it all. It was him who had gotten you both out of the initial chaos, who gave you tough love when you wanted to succumb, had taught you the basics of how to win a fight and to keep yourself fed.

Surviving an apocalypse took unimaginable acts. Arthur taught you this lesson. He was more familiar with violence, having done a stint in the Gulf War. You were the opposite, more on the sensitive side and originally a little hippie-ish. You knew he would always protect you but he also forced you to get your hands bloody early on, you didn't have a choice. Very quickly though you learned that survival requires violence. It was almost comical how simple an apocalypse made life seem sometimes. Hunt the animal or starve. Keep running or get caught. Kill or be killed. 

After hiding in Arthur’s shadows for your entire childhood, your adolescence ragged you out. Now in womanhood you stood beside him. Armed, angry and ready. 

Modern requirements of survival meant going on raids. Rations had now completely run out and what followed would be a scavenge in the next town you found. Your stomach ached, it had been days of running on empty. The daze from going for weeks without a good night's sleep helped to ease the pain. 

The relief of entering a new town relaxed the muscles in your limbs. Rows of houses that looked frozen in time. The only thing out of place were the smashed windows and rotting wood. You’d be lucky if there was anything left but you felt good about the place. The further you got into the neighbourhood the more you noticed how much it mimicked the quiet neighbourhood you had both grown up in.

The first few homes were bare. After a decade of raids you could do this dance in your sleep. Silent, guns aimed, thinking ahead and watching your backs. It was lawl to clear each room of any danger before allowing someone to start rummaging. By the sixth home the brick walls began to look like safety. You hadn’t seen a soul for miles and nothing seemed out of place since you had arrived. 

‘I need a slash’ Arthur’s announcement broke down the last of your act. 

You rolled your eyes moving into the new house alone. Your new found nonchalance took you through the kitchen noisily. The desperation to find something in the cupboards required your full agility, convincing you to shed your pack onto the kitchen table. Nothing in the overhead cupboards, not so much as a crumb in the bottom ones. Slamming the cupboards was meant to make you feel better but did it fuck. 

Patience was a virtue you didn't have a lot of. With Arthur still missing the temptation to stomp up each stair was too strong to resist. Though black and blue, you still had some feeling in your feet. A pair of socks that weren’t missing huge holes of fabric was something you could kill for. Wiggling your feet it became apparent how badly you wanted a thick pair. Hopefully you’d be in luck, socks were not the highest demand of raiders. You had to leave this place with something at least. 

The first bedroom had been a bust, despite it clearly having belonged to a young child you hadn’t the heart to not at least check. You were only onto the third drawer when you thought you heard something. It couldn’t be. A knot began to tighten in your gut nonetheless. The hairs on the back of your neck stood up and you began to feel your heart beating. Silence returned.

History taught you to always trust your instinct. A silent prayer crossed your mind, the carpeted room allowing you to return to the threshold silently. A scan of the hallway detected nothing new. If you could punch yourself you would, Arthur was still outside. Your pack was discarded on the dining table and- FUCK. Your hand ghosted your belt missing the cool metal of your gun. Your breath hitched at the realisation causing a stir from one of the adjacent rooms. You watched with bated breath unsure whether to bolt down stairs or stay as still as you could. Try as you might, the tremble in your arms prevailed. Another commotion came from the room, you made to run but the sound of clicking stopped you in your tracks. 

Fuck. 

It had been a while since you had seen one. Staying in the country for a few months meant that humans were the only monsters you had to worry about. You had thought. You heard it make its way to the door. It's screeching growing more urgent. You didn't dare step back, not even when it jerked from behind the door and into view. Confronted with the monster you could see that it was relatively fresh, the human form still noticeable. The face of a middle aged woman peeked out amongst the fungus. Racking your brain you rationalised that it wouldn’t be as strong as one that had fully turned, and you had killed those before, alone even. You just needed your gun. The painful reminder that you had left it downstairs made your face flush. 

The clickers body contorted, another step and you would have been able to get a clean shot. Your head began to spin with rage. You felt like a fucking idiot, no clue how to manage the situation you had put yourself into. Holding still seemed to buy you time, now would be the best moment to conjure a plan. This thing had been a middle aged woman once, you were a strong fighter, you could take it down if needs be. Bash its skull in. Yeah you had a chance. 

The sound of the front door creaking open downstairs turned your blood cold. You’d hoped the thick tension would have seeped out of the house as a warning to him. Erupting into chaos the clicker moved frantically bolting for the staircase. 

‘RUN’ You scream as a warning.

You lunged after it. Your brother's panicked eyes met yours for a split second before the clicker threw itself down the staircase, screaming as it fell directly onto him. 

‘GUN. GUN.’ Arthur roared as he struggled to wrestle with death.

You lunged down after it, leaping past to find your weapon discarded on the table like a fucking pair of house keys. Adrenaline shook your whole body and a scream clawed out your throat in frustration as you struggled to cock the gun. You knew you had to get close to make sure you didn’t shoot Arthur, he had to stay alive. You returned in a matter of seconds, but that's all it took. Trusting he taught you well Arthur growled as he struggled to shove the fucker off him, battling for distance in order to give you a clear shot. You began to shoot, firing repeatedly until it released its grip. Once you saw Arthur was free you hauled it away from him instantly before smashing its head in with the handle of the gun. Again and again and again until the head became mush. 

The sound of your blood pumping was deafening. It took you some time before you could hear Arthur’s voice but it was only when he shouted your name did you realise he had been calling you. Your sight remained on the lifeless creature sprawled across the floorboards. How fucking stupid could you be, how dead could you be if it hadn’t been for him, was another one close by? You jumped off of it, looking for your pack that was left in the kitchen. 

‘We’ve got to go," you spoke. 

You heard your name called in a tone that stopped your frenzy but it had to be repeated before you had the courage to look his way. Arthur was sat up, hand holding his neck.

‘Move your hand’ You commanded to see what he was poorly holding. 

 He moved slowly revealing a bite mark. The earth stood still in the time it took to hit you. You doubled over as if you had been kicked in the gut. A retch burst out of your mouth

‘Listen to me.’ Arthur spoke to you in the same tone he had the night the world erupted into chaos. 

‘No, no no no no’. You went dizzy, the horrors of the past decade flashing through your mind. 

He called your name again. ‘It’s ok, you're ok. I need you to listen to me.’

A sob broke out of your chest as you met his eye. This side of Arthur was not one you saw often. He had his tough side where your feelings were irrelevant to him, practicality was the priority. His compassionate side, where he let you cry, and entertained your sorrows. He only allowed them to overlap in moments like this. Moments where your life was about to change and you needed to be guided. 

‘You know how to hunt,’

‘Arthur I can’t’ You sounded like a child.

‘You know how to hunt. You know how to fight. You know how to camp.’ He spoke matter of factly. You shook your head squinting your eyes shut. ‘I’m sorry’ His voice quivered, the first time you’d ever heard him do it. He swallowed quickly in an attempt to regain composure. ‘You need to stay alive. You need to head north. That town, Jackson, it must be real. You’ve got to find it. You can survive without me. 

‘Arthur I can’t -’ Your voice breaks again ‘- not without you’.

Arthur pulls you into him, squeezing you as tight as he possibly can without breaking your bones, your grip on him just as tight. 

‘You can, I need you to. I Love you stink.’ He hesitates for a moment. ‘You need to keep moving.’

You pull back, feeling him reach for something. He moves his attention to the gun, your gun, now in his hands. He takes a deep breath before checking the barrel. You sit and watch him unable to detach yourself from the moment. One bullet left, you could almost laugh. 

‘You know I have to’ He speaks to you again, as though you were the same twenty year old who had to grow up fast when the world changed. You knew it too. You wanted to talk to him, trap him in a conversation forever, a constant evasion of what was staring you in the face.

‘I love you," Was all you could choke out, you grabbed him, yanking him in as close as you could. 

He repeated the phrase, returning your embrace. He began to rock you as you shook. There was no way of telling how much time had passed but forever wouldn't have lasted as long as you needed it to. He took your face in his and kissed the crown of your head. You could feel the heat burning through his hands as sweat started glistening on his forehead. A weight swallowed your shoulders as his leather jacket was wrapped around you. Taking your trembling hands in his he put his gloves over yours, giving what he could to ensure your safety.

Your body began to rack with sobs as denial and grief engulfed you. Swallowing another lump Arthur promptly got up off the floor and grabbed the ankles of the monster that had destroyed your life twice. You heard him dragging it out of the house, heard him hesitate before the snow crunched underneath his boots, until they were out of earshot. You went quiet, holding your breath waiting for your brother to reappear in front of you. Hope ruined when you heard the distant gunshot. 

~~~~~~~

That had been three days ago. You hadn’t found the strength to move from that house, all you had really done was cry and sleep. The hunger pains in your stomach had abandoned you, and in a weird way they made you feel more alone. You had debated your next step since your brother told you to continue. Grief had sucked you into its black hole instead and it took until now to have a revelation. 

You simply didn’t want to go on. Your only real purpose in life had become keeping your brother safe, whether or not you ever really had to was another question. That purpose had vanished in the space of a second, and it was your fault. The world was still black and white though. If you let your guard down, you’ll suffer. If you don’t protect your brother, he’ll die. If you don’t want to carry on, dont.

The obvious solution had taken this long to reach you. Logistically it was tricky, you had run out of ammunition, and there was no way you were going to collect your weapon anyway. It would take a bit more effort and courage. The house had a garage which you had searched, not expecting to find much but to your surprise there was a lot of random shit in there. It didn’t take you long to search for something you could use, rope. 

You set straight to work. You thought of your next steps instantly, seeing clearly for the first time in months. There were wooden beams across the ceiling in the kitchen, you laughed. Some middle class house wifes dream home had given you the perfect escape route. You sat down to focus on tying the rope, you forgot the name of it but the memory of your brother showing you a range of knots flashed through your mind. A stabbing pain in your heart returned, it had been tormenting you since becoming alone. The tears begin again as you throw the rope over the beam, securing it. A few tugs left the trap intact. You were not wanting to waste any time, dragging the kitchen chair in place. It had rotted like most of the furniture, you just prayed it wouldn’t give way before you had gotten in position.

You felt a harsh chill rush through the room. Hopefully this would be quick, painless, and would take you away from here. Your adrenaline had returned and with it the deafening ruckus in your ears. You could almost taste the relief. You reached up to grab the rope, the tremble in your arms now completely gone. 

‘HEY’ A shrill voice calls from behind. 

The voice of unexpected company causes your head to whip around. It took a moment for your swollen eyes to focus, A small girl with rosy cheeks and eyes brimming with tears returns your gaze. She struggles to spit out what she’s trying to say. The complication of how to word her question etched on her crinkled expression. Her body jolted with distress.

‘What?’ It came out softly. A step above lifeless. 

She took your curiosity as an offering of help, prompting her to take a breath.

‘Help. Help to get him in here.’ With that she disappeared from view. 

You followed her tentatively. Her desperation pulls you back into reality, with the same urgency of  a child dragging their parents to a park. In the hallway, lying in the same spot you had lost your brother was an older looking man. He wore a flannel under his cargo jacket and jeans Sweat glistened across his forehead despite the icy conditions. When his eyes met yours frustration washed over his face. 

‘Ellie’ Calling her name winds him and his whole body tenses. 

The girl he named busies herself with ripping up a rag she had grabbed from the kitchen. She lifts his shirt haphazardly and shoves it into his wound. He instinctively grabs her arm with force before peeling himself off her. Eyes returning to yours. 

‘Joel I dont know what the fuck to do’ She shouts pushing deeper into his stomach. 

You don't know what to do either, but watching the girl freak out shocks you into taking over. Your grief threatens to suffocate you, as you wish you could trade places with these strangers. Wish it could be you begging for help with Arthur who had a wound that didn’t mean certain death. Instead you took another gulp of air and wordlessly bent down to Joel. You put your hands over Ellie’s, causing the man to tense again. You avoid his glaring eyes as you inspect the wound. He’d been stabbed by the looks of it. Too big and shallow to be a knife. You return the compression that is helping to stop the bleeding. 

‘My Pack, there’s a thread and needle in the zipper’ Ellie returns to the room you gestured to. 

Joel grabs your arm, demanding you to meet his eye. You do and he studies your face for a moment. You were still struggling to focus with how puffed and sore they were. A blank expression remained painted on you. His lips purse as he tries to speak. He doesn't manage to form a word, and you watch as exhaustion washes over him. The lines in his forehead ease as he watches between you and Ellie through the doorway behind. As you feel Ellie return to your side, Joel is out like a light. 

She holds the requested items right in front of your face silently begging you to save the man she was trying to save. You'd have thought it was her dad if she hadn’t addressed him by name. Her expression relaxed slightly, relieved to share the burden of responsibility. She shoves the items at you again, silently asking for you to do something now. You take them from her, the bulletproof plan you were conducting mere minutes ago now the furthest thing in your mind. Your way out could wait. Right now, you were here and you were gonna try your damned hardest to help this girl keep her partner.

[ignoremeimnothere]

omg plsss do more platonic father-figure joel fics comforting the reader please i begggg they are so good

carved over the door

▹— joel miller x platonic!reader

▹— summary: you’ve been hiding something from joel, and he finally found out. his reaction is… not what you expected.

▹— a/n: ok this isn’t even like. close to being a favourite but i think the idea is cute, execution just isn’t great!! to be clear, things like this are NOTHING to be ashamed of, but this is gonna touch on how it can make the person feel!! (EDIT as of july, i have no idea how this fic is looking so please go easy, i haven’t proofread it, only tagged a bit of writing on the end to finish it up, so it’s not great)

▹— warnings: father figure joel, reader is illiterate, r is embarrassed about it, therefore says some bad things, is ashamed almost, so please be wary, cute lessons ensue, swearing, lazy writing at the end, use of ‘sweetie’

▹— taglist: @rhymingtree @sleepygraves @wnstice (everything), @auggiesolovey @just-kaylaa @evyiione @lemonlaides @fariylixie0915 @erensloveinterest @dazedshoon @faceache111 @randomhoex @canpillowscry @pedropascalsrealgf @star-wars-lover @coolchick333 @soobsdior @ilybbg @rvjaa @oliest19xx @pedropepsi @sunflowersdrop @truthfuleeyours (pedro)

masterlist

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Being born into the end of the world probably should have killed you off early. Most kids your age were either dying or dead, or being trained to become child soldiers. It was rare for kids born in the pandemic to live, you had been told. Risks of death were everywhere, from Infected, to FEDRA, all the way to all those diseases you hadnt been vaccinated against.

Survival odds were bleak, to say the least, but you were one of the lucky ones.

Life had put you in the path of the only two good people you knew — Joel and Tess. It was them who had saved you from FEDRA’s clutches, though you had never understood why. They had consistently told you that they only looked out for themselves, so was the way of life in the apocalypse, but each time you needed them, there they were.

There was that time you had an infection, and despite the weather being awful and security tight, Joel and Tess had gone out on a supply run, getting a hold of the antibiotics that had saved your life.

You tried to be useful, hopeful that if you helped them enough, as much as they helped you, that they wouldn’t kick you out any time soon.

It’s why you always took it upon yourself to clean their bloodied clothes, to sew up the tears that would have ruined them, to wash the dishes you all ate your rations off of. It’s why you always made sure to use the coldest water, refusing to take any that may be the slightest bit warm from them. Little things like that would surely keep you at least somewhat helpful.

It’s also why you kept your biggest secret quiet.

You had done your best to prevent them from ever finding out, and had they not decided that you could join them in visiting Bill and Frank, you were sure they never would’ve.

They’d known the two men for a while before you had arrived, and this would be your first time meeting them. Joel usually insisted upon you staying at the QZ, too worried over the journey and the risks it posed for you to attend any of their supply runs, but they seemed… content to let you join.

The three of you would be heading straight to Bill and Frank’s, and then straight back. No pit stops, no detours, just one confirmed route.

Your nerves had been playing up the whole time, causing you to jump at any sound, your hands shaking at the sight of Infected, hell — you had listened to every word that Joel and Tess said, though they didn’t blame you. It was your first time outside of the QZ, and they understood how frightening this could be.

You couldn’t decide if arriving at Bill and Frank’s made your anxiety better or worse.

It kept you quiet the whole time you were there, even as Bill tested the three of you, nodding when the screen flashed green. You stuck by Joel’s side as the four of you set up the table, Bill inside the house cooking dinner.

The four of you finally sat down, with Frank and Tess starting up conversation quickly, before Frank stopped, turning to you and saying, “Oh, would you mind going and grabbing a bottle of Barbera, sweetie?”

He was nice, and you didn’t want to get Joel and Tess in trouble with them by bringing you if you didn’t help them out, so you nodded with a nervous glance at Joel. “Sure, in there?” You pointed towards the house, and Frank nodded with a smile, turning back to his conversation with Tess.

You stepped away from the table, glancing back and seeing Joel looking at you with a quirked eyebrow, frown marring his features. You smiled tightly toward him before opening the front door, stepping inside and following the smell of cooking until you found Bill. “Um, Frank said to grab the bottle of… Bar—Barbera?”

Bill grunted, a grumpy expression covering his face, and nodded his head toward another door. You went through it quickly, down some steps, and you just about stopped yourself from crying when you saw the number of bottles around the room.

By the three minute mark, the stairs creaked, and Joel appeared at the bottom, looking increasingly concerned as he saw your distressed expression. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s—it’s fine.” You replied, your voice shaking slightly, and you looked away from him, continuing to scan all the bottles on the shelves in front of you. The labels meant nothing to you, and you couldn’t help but get more upset by Joel’s presence.

He placed a hand on your shoulder as he approached, and didn’t say a word as he grabbed a bottle up towards your left. He led you out of the room, handing you the bottle and guiding you to where the other three were now settled at the table, food set out in front of them.

“Thank you, sweetie.” Frank said kindly as you set the bottle down at the table, quickly pulling your hands back before anybody could see the shake to your fingers.

You sat through the rest of the dinner quietly, barely able to enjoy the actual nice, home-cooked food through your racing thoughts. You answered Frank when he spoke to you, still knowing that you needed to be polite, but you were starting to feel sick.

When the three of you finally made it home, Joel and Tess had shared a number of concerned glances, eyebrows drawn close together as they murmured between one another, still talking quietly even when you dropped down on the sofa, a sigh leaving your chest.

It stayed that way for the next few weeks, and there was an awkward energy growing in the apartment the three of you shared. With your uncharacteristic quietness, and the way Joel and Tess would converse quietly, as if you hadn’t noticed, something was up.

That much became increasingly obvious when Joel sat you down on the couch you slept on, the crease between his brows as deep as ever.

He said your name nervously, and cleared his throat before he continued, “When we were at Bill and Frank’s, I, uh— I noticed somethin’.”

“Noticed what?” You responded when he didn’t continue, your anxiety leaking into your voice in the way it shook as you spoke, and you knew exactly what was coming. He’d realised your secret — he and Tess must’ve been deciding what to do during all of those talks.

“Fuck,” He muttered, clearly unsure how to go about this conversation, “Don’t… take this the wrong way, but, can you read?”

Your heart dropped to your stomach, and you swallowed nervously. “‘Course I can read, Joel.” You replied, snapping at the man, who just frowned more at your response.

He nodded, and reached into the backpack by his feet, pulling out a relatively thin book. He looked almost remorseful, pulling this out when he knew you were lying, and you hated the way that shame pulled at your stomach, making you feel sick as you looked at the letters you couldn’t make any sense of.

“Y’know, there’s nothin’ wrong with not knowing.” Joel said, voice softening as he looked at your panicked expression.

“Except that you don’t want me around anymore, right? It’s fine, but it’s not good enough. Don’t want some dumbass kid who can’t even read hanging around, is that it?” You snapped, anger firing up in your chest as you stood from the couch, fists clenched at your side as you averted your eyes from the book in his hand.

Your cheeks were burning, embarrassment flooding your expression, and your eyes were beginning to fill with tears.

“What? No, kid, sit back down.” He said, pushing you back to your seat by your shoulders. “Don’t go ‘round making assumptions like that. I’m offering to teach you.”

“Oh.”

He snickered at your response, though he looked almost embarrassed to be making the offer, like he was unsure what your response would be.

“So… you’re not kicking me out?”

“‘Course not. Getting ahead of yourself, there.”

“You really wouldn’t mind… teaching me?” You asked, heart still hammering in your chest as you stared at the man, his face softening at your nervous questions.

In response, he moved to sit right beside you on the couch, and opened the book in his hands. “It’s been a while for me, kid, so go easy.”

You smiled at him, wiping your tears before settling close to his side, head gently resting against his arm to get the best angle of his book. He pointed an index finger at the words as he read aloud, pointing new letters out each time they came up. Some familiar words came up, spelled phonetically, and made sense once you’d learnt the full alphabet on paper, but others made much less sense. Like fight — where did the gh come from?

By the time the two of you had made it through the first chapter, you could recognise letters on paper, know the sounds that the letters made, and even read majority of the simpler words, the ones that came up often.

Tess came home a bit later on, after you had fallen asleep against Joel’s shoulder. She raised her eyebrows, a hint of something like a smile on her face as she looked at the two of you, and asked, “Good first lesson?”

Joel wiped a hand down his face, his muscles tense in his efforts to keep still in order to not wake you, and stay awake himself. “Made some good progress.” He acknowledged, his voice barely louder than a whisper as he looked down to where you were slipping from his shoulder. Tess nodded at him, before heading down the hall to get on with unpacking her backpack.

From then on, these sorts of evenings happened a few times a week, almost always ending with you falling asleep against Joel. Your reading ability improved, and when the two of you finished the short book, you started rereading it immediately, now able to follow along more clearly as the stuttered words flowed more easily, and soon enough, Joel was promising to grab a new book from Bill and Frank’s.

The new words were tricky, when starting the new book, but each time you got stuck, Joel was there to help, and eventually, you got used to reading without his help. Sounding out words you were stuck on yourself, just waiting for his confirming mmhm to be muttered before you would continue on.

When finally, you finished an entire chapter without a murmur from Joel, you pulled away from his side excitedly, looking towards his face and seeing his expression being nothing short of filled with pride. He pulled you back to his side, one arm wrapped around you this time, and squeezed your shoulders before urging you to continue.

Feeling your eyes start to slip, words going blurred on the page, you asked, “Could you keep going?” Without questioning you, he continued from where you left off, reading the words out loud and keeping his arm wrapped firmly around your shoulder.

It was strange, hearing that softness to Joel’s voice, when before these lessons, you’d only ever heard the gruff voice he usually had. It made sense, you supposed, given that he remained rough around the edges for everybody who wasn’t you and Tess, but it made you feel… almost comfortable. It was like a safety net was wrapped around you, like nothing could happen to you if you stayed at his side.

You yawned, eyes still trying to focus on the book that Joel continued to read, his finger subconsciously moving along the page whilst he spoke the words.

It wasn’t long before you fell asleep against him, his voice fading to a whisper when he realised. It became something of a tradition between the two of you, these lessons where Joel taught you, and then eventually read to you until you fell asleep. He didn’t mention how much it reminded him of before, of her. And you didn’t mention how much more comfortable you had gotten since the lessons had started.

No longer were you on the edge of your seat, waiting for them to give you the boot. Now, you finally felt… accepted. In a way you never had been before Joel, before being taught something that wasn’t just for survival.

Strangely, it was almost like you could live, rather than survive. You didn’t voice it aloud, but you suspected Joel felt similarly, if his change in behaviour said anything.