#and catch up on some fic

[emkini]

For Hearth and Home by @sword-and-stars has been giving me brainrot for the better part of a month

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Get Souped!

[astrobei]

hi i love your fics and I was wondering if you had any byler fic recs

thanks

hello there! in all honesty, i have not had the time to read a lot of byler fic as of late, but it’s been a while since i posted some recs so i’ll drop a few that i’ve enjoyed recently! as always, i do endorse every fic in my bookmarks to the highest possible degree, so always feel free to look through those for new reading as well <3

say it with your hands by pseudologia (@hellfiremike) — will is a new employee at the movie theater mike works at, and mike starts thirsting over will’s hands to a degree that’s downright detrimental to his employment status

GOD. this fic. i gushed in their dms immediately after finishing it because this might be my favorite modern will characterization of all time, and this is coming from someone who has a million and one takes on modern era will byers. this fic just checked all of my boxes — from the summertime romance to mike’s painfully in-character teenage angsting to will being a frequenter of star wars reddit threads and an enjoyer of sufjan stevens. and the TENSION. oh god the tension. i’ve read all their fics probably three times over each, and i also highly recommend like i am home again, a college au set during a halloween party which made me stare at my phone refreshing ao3 hourly until it updated, and can this be a real thing (can it?) wherein mike and will reunite in a gay bar. enough said

landslide by chamb3rs — the party’s senior year of high school

i don’t often reach for chaptered fics since i usually have such limited reading time, but i’m sooo so so happy i stumbled across this one. there have just been very few fics that have touched me like this one did. i blew through this in one sitting a few weekends ago and subsequently experienced the full range of human emotions (and then some) all in the span of a few hours. everything about this was perfect — the will pov, the weird liminality of transitional periods, the party and byhop family dynamics, down to my favorite portrayal of theeeee jennifer hayes in any fic ever. on top of all of that, this fic perfectly captures the heartbreaking euphoria of being in love with your best friend, and all the ups and downs that come with it. i crawled out of the ao3 tab covered in blood and my chest was hurting and i was shaking and i had damn near chewed my own arm off — and then i sent the link to my friend 10 minutes later and watched her experience the same exact thing like a train wreck in slow-mo HAHAHA

what a time to be alive by passerine_in_jade (@newlesbianprideflag) — will disappears and haunts mike from the upside down

i’m forever a total sucker for a good haunting metaphor, so it’s absolutely not a surprise that this fic is appearing on this list. the premise for this was so so so cool and interesting, and it’s another chaptered fic i’m glad i had a little extra time to read. the way the author had me rooting for mike and will the whole time even though half of the pairing was offscreen for a large majority of the fic is a highly commendable feat. mike’s unyielding loyalty to will and will’s constant faith in him felt so true to their canon selves, and there were so many moments that were so quiet and intimate and tender that i really felt like i was intruding on something. good good stuff

that’s what you get for falling in love by harriet_vane — will gets his first boyfriend in college, and mike, ever the ally, has very normal feelings about it

i want to preface this by saying that this fic is rated m, mostly just for mentions/allusions to sex, and one largely non-explicit portion of a scene in the last chapter. if that’s not your cup of tea, it’s easy to tell when it’s coming up and to skip past it without detracting from the plot, but i think it would be a greater detriment to not rec this fic at all, because it has quickly made the list of my favorite byler fics of all time. something about this take on jealous mike especially resonated with me — his inner monologue is simultaneously hilarious and depressing, and his obliviousness regarding his feelings for will feels so true to life without being overdone or cartoonish. you can tell just how much they really care for each other, and the conflict in this actually made me start crying because it felt so visceral and so fundamentally them. you can tell this author really understands their characters, and the love put into this fic is soooo palpable. it’s the kind of fic where you want to bonk their heads together to knock some sense into them, but you are helpless to do anything but hold on as you’re swung along for the ride.

finally, i try not to just rec fics written by my friends, but my recent reading list would be incomplete without these two wonderful additions:

the way you love me by strangeswift (@strangeswift) — byler exes (absolutely heartwrenching edition)

i’ve been hearing abby talk about her ideas for this fic for the better part of a year as she worked on it, and she actually edited and posted the first two chapters while i was visiting her! and by god is this world a better place with her byler exes concept in it, because if you want angst, you’ll never have to look further than her ao3 page. something about the way she writes will in this fic just makes my heart shrivel up and die in my chest — his quiet resignation, the bitterness (always love a good bitter will byers moment) and the Longing that never quite went away. mike’s characterization is also top notch, and you can really feel the chemistry between them during every interaction. at the time of me posting this list, chapter 4 is not yet up, but trust me when i tell you guys it’s going to soooooo be worth it. :-)

the end is here by bookinit (@bookinit02) — a speculative byler-centric season 5

if you’ve been following my blog for any amount of time, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that haven’s canon rewrite series is hands-down my favorite series across any pairing and fandom. her creativity with her season 5 concepts never fails to astound me — from the scripts she’s been working on as an alternative to the episodes she rewrote for s1-4, to her ideas for possible plot lines, and just incredible writing all around. i’ve had the privilege of reading through her scripts before she posts them to her blog (definitely go check them out) but special privilege bias aside, it takes soooo much skill to create such a visually powerful story in a medium that allows for such little narration, and the corresponding chapters just totally pushes it over the edge. pre-s5 required reading for every byler, and 100000% my new canon if the show doesn’t pan out

this definitely is not an exhaustive list because i have a million and one fics on my to-read, and one day i will get around to reading them all, but i hope there is something on this list that strikes your fancy!!

[starflungwaddledee]

little guy big city! 7 inch plushie magolor had a fun time on our errand yesterday. he even finally got to do the classic "oh nooo the statue of a Creature is eating me"!

[largedenominationsplease]

my favorite thing about finally getting into the x files you ask? 30 years worth of top tier msr fic 😌✨

[sodafizzyart]

Meant to draw something more explicit but I couldn’t get through the exposition

[total-drama-brainrot]

TD World Tour AU, where Noah doesn't tell Owen that Alejandro is an eel in London... In Area 51, Noah is accidentally splashed with an alien truth potion (which wears off after a few days) and he talks to Owen... Owen asks Noah what he truly thinks about Alejandro, and Truth-Potion Affected Noah says this: "I have mixed feelings for Alejandro. He's a brilliant, interesting guy and I like him, but I don't trust him. He's like a slippery eel dipped in grease, swimming in motor oil. Basically, Heather with social skills. Wait a minute, why am I telling you this?!"... What if Alejandro secretly heard Noah call him all those conflicting things + Alejandro also learns that Noah is affected with an alien truth potion? 👽

Alright, you got me. I'm an absolute sucker for truth potion plots, especially when the character(s) effected by them are usually either pathological liars or incredibly secretive- of which Noah absolutely falls into the second category, given he shares so little personal information.

I'll gloss over why Noah declined to shit-talk Alejandro in London (though there's so many ways this change in behaviour could be justified) since the focal point of this hypothetical centred around their time in Nevada, so let's start from the beginning of the Area 51 challenge.

Area 51:

Before we start, it'll have to be established that no one was eliminated in London. Let's say that the majority vote went towards Duncan (team CIRRRRH voted him out immediately because they found his re-admission to the competition unfair, I guess. I imagine he'd also vote himself, if not as a plan to escape the competition he'd been actively skiving from, then just as an act of spite) but Chris instead claimed it was a rewards challenge- much like he does in Greece- because he doesn't want to let Duncan slip away again so soon.

I see no reason to alter the first part of the challenge- the sneaking into Area 51 portion- since team CIRRRRH's course of entry is fairly straightforward. Noah's presence doesn't make much of a difference to how it would play out; the majority of them throw their rocks and run, Owen gets lasered over the fence and Owen-napped, ect ect.

When both teams have managed to make their way into the Black Box Warehouse, Noah immediately suggests they should prioritise rescuing Owen. Tyler's quick to agree, since he's a firm believer in the "no man left behind" mentality (and he probably makes a not-so-subtle jab towards Noah for his chance of tune compared to London, where both he and Owen did leave Tyler behind) leaving Duncan and Alejandro to split from the group- Duncan in search of Gwen, and Alejandro just takes the opportunity to finally be free from his 'incompetent teammates' and prioritises finding an artifact.

Noah and Tyler come across the contraption Owen's trapped in, Tyler punches it in a futile effort to break it open, and the face hugger cube drops into Noah's hands. This is where the point of divergence comes into play; Tyler has his E.T. moment with one of the face huggers, but Noah- who's a tad bit more observant than Alejandro, and used to dodging surprise attacks from his various older siblings (and Izzy)- anticipates his own face hugger attack and promptly starts a game of cat-and-mouse with a taser alien hot on his heels.

The commotion of which attracts the rest of his team. Alejandro and Duncan arrive on the scene to see Tyler being electrocuted by an alien and Noah running in circles evading another.

Duncan attempts to rip the face hugger from Tyler's face, finding success at the cost of sending Tyler trampling into Owen's captive contraption (essentially taking Alejandro's canonical place in this scene) and inadvertently freeing Owen.

Meanwhile, Alejandro swipes up the nearest box he can find and snags the alien chasing Noah, who's still very loudly panicking as he flees, and succeeds! The alien is swiftly captured into the box, netting team CIRRRRH their artifact, and Noah promptly goes careening into the nearest tower of junk in his face hugger-fuelled hysteria. This causes another box to topple from the peak of the tower, landing directly on Noah's head and spilling its contents onto the bookworm- glass vials filled with a mysterious, luminescent cobalt blue liquid shatter into pieces drenching Noah in whatever they contained. (i.e. truth potion.)

Owen has his false-amnesia moment, characterised by his Joker makeover, and Alejandro enacts his revenge post-hypnotic suggestion after being addressed as "Al" one too many times.

Noah, understandably, swiftly objects to Owen's treatment and demands that Alejandro snap him out of it. Alejandro concedes, and Owen's brought back to himself. At least, for a moment, before the fatigue of having his mind messed with sends Owen into near-catatonia (the same as canon), meaning he has to be ferried through the Warehouse and back to the Jet by Alejandro and Duncan.

Things carry on canonically from there; Noah's just sort of there for the most part, though there'd be a minor hint to his newfound proclivity for honesty. Something along the lines of him giving an uncharacteristically honest answer to Owen as to who he's voting- Tyler, of course, since he was the one who ultimately threw the challenge for them... and also because Tyler still holds some resentment towards Noah for what happened in London, and Noah feels guilty about it every time he looks at the jock. Wait, why did he say that?

Sometime between this and the elimination scene, Noah wipes the truth-goop off of himself, but not before the effects have already started.

Tyler's voted out, yada yada yada.

The Jet:

Thus begins the start of "Picnic at Hanging Dork". Team CIRRRRH, consisting of just Alejandro, Duncan, Owen and Noah, are slumming it up in the Economy Cabin. Alejandro tries to rally his team by asking how to break apart Courtney and Heather's tentative co-operation. Owen suggests having Alejandro seduce Heather, since it worked for both Bridgette and Leshawna. Duncan makes his "Babe Olympics" comment. Noah pipes up that playing with someone's feelings is pretty scummy, even for someone competing for a million dollars.

Alejandro takes Noah's reluctance towards his methodology poorly; he hadn't spoken up before, when Alejandro had utilized the same strategy against other girls- and even Owen noticed that, so surely Noah did too- so why was he to outwardly against him using the same tricks? Duncan agrees, and offers ''his'' idea of having Alejandro flirt with Courtney to throw both her and Heather off their games (since Heather has an obvious crush on Alejandro), and things follow canon.

Then, the scene between Alejandro and Courtney happens. Noah scoffs at the display from the side lines, prompting Owen to ask him why he's so against Alejandro's plan.

"I mean, you never said anything before, when he flirted with Bridgette and Leshawna." Owen comments, light-hearted in nature but with an underlying questioning tone.

Noah's eyes flicker with a cobalt glow, easily mistaken for a trick of the light, and he speaks without even thinking.

"Yeah, because I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Bridgette was happenstance, and Leshawna's whole deal could've been a coincidence, or some massive misunderstanding. But this?" Noah extends an accusing hand out towards a smug looking Alejandro, then pans it over to a flattered Courtney, "He's outright toying with Courtney's feelings after she was cheated on in front of an international audience. It's scummy."

Owen nods in understanding, momentary contemplation evident in the pouted curve of his lips, and he chimes in.

"Does that mean you don't like Al?"

"I never said that."

"Well, how do you feel about him, then?"

Again, a flash of blue light against the hickory backdrop of Noah's eyes, and he responds thoughtlessly.

"I guess I have mixed feelings about him. On the one hand, he's slippery, like an eel dipped in grease, swimming in motor oil. He's like if you took all of the worst aspects of Heather, wrapped them up in a pretty package, and gave them social skills..." He holds his hands out before him in a scale-like manner, with the left tipped downwards and tie right raised by his chin. Then, the two hands swap positions.

"And on the other hand, he's brilliant. I've never met anyone as talented as Alejandro; he's smart, he's athletic, he's funny. It's almost unfair just how perfect everything about him is- even his face is perfect. It's ridiculous! Infuriating, even. It's so hard to dislike him, even when I know he's bad news, but that doesn't mean I trust him."

Owen stands slack jawed beside his best friend, both impressed and stunned at the raw honesty of Noah's tirade. Noah, now a little more aware of himself, realises that he's said more than he intended to- more than he thinks he's ever spoken in one go throughout the entirety of Total Drama. He's not usually one for speeches, after all, let alone honest ones.

He's always been the type to play his cards close to his chest, so why...?

"I, uh, didn't mean to go off like that."

And he also didn't mean to admit it, either. What was going on?

The look Owen gives him is, in a word, vivid. The blonde has a shit-eating grin stretching across his face, a sort of elated smugness practically glowing from his features.

"Sounds like someone has a cruuuush!~"

What? No? No! Not at all, where would Owen even get that idea?!

Noah splutters to correct Owen's assumption (to disastrous results, because he does sort-of has a crush on Alejandro, so the truth potion doesn't allow him to outright deny it), and in his preoccupied state he misses how a calculating pair of sage green eyes never seems to stray from him.

Alejandro has a lot to think about in regards to a certain cynic, it seems.

[dipplinduo]

Fun fact about me: April 18th is my birthday! :)

And part of what I wanted to do to celebrate this year was to give back. Introducing * ~ a dipplinshipping birthday oneshot ~ * :

Rating: T

Summary:

Today was Kieran's birthday, but it was the last thing that mattered to him. In fact, he vowed it would never matter to him again. Instead, he would focus on things that would keep him strong: his battling, his strategizing, and his crown as the Blueberry Champion. His sister and the Elite Four won't stop asking him random questions, though, and if anyone brings up Juliana any more than they already have since she arrived as an exchange student, he's seriously going to lose it. But...why can't he stop thinking about her? And why is everyone acting so suspicious?!

A bittersweet birthday celebration fic for anyone who's had complicated feelings about their birthday. <3

Take this as a thank you to all of those who have followed my work and/or my Tumblr blog. I wouldn't have imagined having the support of this wonderful community on my last birthday, and I can't even begin to describe how encouraged and inspired I have felt to write since finding you guys. I have never written this much for this long, consistently, and your constant feedback and comments seriously brighten my day more than Juliana brightens up Kieran, LOL. Hope you enjoy this! <333

(And yeah, this fic is the "event based idea" that this poll was about. I thought it was so funny that some of you thought it was gonna be some devastating angst LMAOOOO. That's for after TTPD releases, tysm for the bday gift Taylor.)

[ryouverua]

So it just occurred to me that all the anti-Monokuma ‘weapons’/electrobombs have Miu’s cartoon mouse symbol plastered on them, and Monokuma is *afraid* of mice. I don’t know why it took so long for me to piece that fun little detail together (maybe because the fear of mice is only really mentioned in SDR2??) but, huh. That’s pretty neat actually.

[nasykuching]

I found you among the stars

[fastcardotmp3]

watcha reading?

here we go! I went a long stretch where I wasn't reading much fic at all but I've been catching up lately (the past week fjdkslj) (I've been tagged in this a couple times I think but I can't recall by who I've just had this draft in progress for a while I'm SORRY :/ )

Anyway, It's About Old Friends by @fragilecapric0rnn - endlessly complex and such a feast of character dynamics and the way they shift and change and grow over time, I cannot recommend this one enough, it's the post-UD When Harry Met Sally AU that you NEED in your life

god has never loved a woman the way I do by @judasofsuburbia - the second part in a wild west au series that is so full and real and unbelievably tender that I simply don't know what to do with myself about it. For both parts (Steddie pt. 1 and Ronance pt. 2) there is so much beautiful rumination on the nature of choice for these people and the simultaneous risk and worthiness of choosing each other like. help me???

and they were roommates by @yournowheregirl - I've only read the first part in this series but I can't wait to dive further into it. Ronance finding that no matter how nervous they were to actually go after each other there is actually so much natural simplicity to touching and feeling and kissing and!!!! joyful PWP for the girls it's what they deserve

never made it to graceland by @cheatghost - beautifully, gorgeously, perpetually ominous first chapter with such perfect Eddie-isms and Munson Family Moments and prose, just the first chapter alone has me feeling deeply fulfilled while still so ready for more. I am a lover of "the world ended but we're still here" and this is already giving me that in DROVES please join me in scratching at the walls about it

I Look to You to See the Truth by @sharpbutsoft the Erica Sinclair coming of age in her freshman year of college-slash- lesbian self discovery story of my DREAMS featuring your favorite idiot4idiot steddie and dearest robin and overall what a delight from start to finish

P.S. if you read and enjoy any of these, spread the love by letting the authors know! the community of fandom thrives when we talk to each other 💜

open tag for anyone who wants to join in on this! say I tagged you and share your newest faves with us, I wanna see 'em!

[feroluce]

Lucid Dreamer (2/2)

part 1

Gepard stalls almost a week before he finally goes out to the safehouse, and it takes him a couple days to find it because Sampo didn't have the time left to be wasn't super specific about the location. But he does find it.

It's pretty bare bones, really. Gepard knows that was probably to be expected, but… It feels crushing, when he realizes there are so few personal things here. It's nothing specific to Sampo. Just some food, some medical supplies. A cot and a heater and a lot of mismatched blankets. Nothing to remember someone by.

But he does find the letters, in a metal box stashed away under the bed.

There are two for him. Three for Natasha, and two for Seele. One for Hook, one for Serval, one for Pela, one for Bronya.

Bronya's is mostly business. They knew each other from the whole Stellaron incident, but not much beyond that, and the incoming catastrophe is a more pressing matter. Seele's is actually two copies of the same letter, and Gepard realizes why when Seele is so angry she rips the first one up without reading it. He gives her the copy a couple days later, and she slinks off without a word.

Pela seems completely normal after hers is delivered, but Gepard knows better than to trust that. The next day, he finds her asleep in bed with Serval, bottles abandoned on the floor, both their eye makeup smeared and running and Pela's glasses horribly smudged and crooked on her face. Serval doesn't read hers in front of him, but she's clingy with Gepard, Pela, and Lynx for quite a while after. She throws herself into her work a lot. She insists the heater from the safehouse is busted and she needs to keep it. It's too dangerous for use by someone who's not an engineer. Might burn their house down or something. Gepard doesn't argue.

Hook's letter is short, with easy to read words. The rest of it is actually a treasure map, and she and the moles spend the next several days running through the Underground, finding hidden candy and toys. Hook asks them when Sampo is coming back, because one of the marbles she found from his map looks green, just like his eyes, and she wants to give it to him. Natasha shoos Gepard out of the clinic before he can even begin to think of an answer.

Natasha refuses to let him see what's in her letters, which ok, fine, he'll respect that. He hears from Bronya who heard from Seele who heard from Natasha herself though that one of the letters was a map and the other a catalogue, with all of Sampo's hidden "warehouses." Gepard promptly marches himself back out to the frontlines, where he can turn a blind eye. If a ton of stolen goods suddenly enters the black market, and if the orphanage and the clinic suddenly have new supplies, well, technically that's none of his business.

Gepard goes to bed, curls up under mismatched blankets and closes his eyes.

He doesn't dream.

One of Gepard's letters was also business, like Bronya's and Natasha's. He and Bronya follow everything meticulously, down to the letter, because there has to be some good to get out of all this, there has to be. Gepard can't let it all be for nothing, it would bury him.

And so the catastrophe passes. Not without casualties, and not without a lot of damage and destruction. But Belobog survives.

And after that, time just kind of…goes on. Gepard has been a part of the Silvermanes since he was old enough to enlist. The Fragmentum had gotten so much worse in the years before Welt sealed the Stellaron. He knows the statistics, it is literally his and Pela's jobs to keep track. He knows when he sees a face everyday in the camps and then it's suddenly gone. He's not unfamiliar with things like grief and loss.

He still catches himself checking the trashcans and the supply crates and soldiers' footprints sometimes, though.

But there comes a night where Gepard goes to bed, holding the mismatched blankets to his face, and he dreams. And it's strange, it's off, it sticks with him. Sampo doesn't look the same. He's thinner. His muscles have atrophied. He looks like how Gepard has seen soldiers after months in the hospital.

The most unsettling difference is there's a scar across the left side of his head, Gepard can see it over his ear, peeking out past his hairline, carving towards his cheek. Sampo is always careful about his face. Gepard once saw him dodge a Fragmentum monster and literally let it cut across his neck just to keep his face clear. He wouldn't let that happen for nothing.

Their actions in the dream itself aren't new. Sampo seems tired, run down and worn out, but he announces his presence with aplomb by lobbing a bunch of smoke bombs off the rooftops and sending his soldiers scrambling. Same shit, different day.

The new part is what he says when Gepard chases him out to the edges of the camp, tackles him into the snow. Gepard pins him to the frozen ground to detain him and Sampo doesn't even fight it, just looks up at him like he's seeing sunrise for the first time in months.

"I'll be home in one week."

[ohraicodoll]

Moments in Domesticity HC

Joel Miller x Feral Reader x Ellie The Last of Us (Show/Game) Feral Reader Masterlist Anon Requests: --“I'm loving all the domestic joel x red x Ellie content. So can we get an insight into how red and joel deal with ellies mood swings? I feel like after settling into Jackson, she will ease into teenage normalcy. I can see red trying to be helpful but just ends up in sleeping in the stables 💀💀💀“  --“Have you thought of red and joel and ellie in jackson 5 years later? like just domestic stuff. they’re all integrated and jackson has been their home for awhile...” --“I NEED to know how Joel would feel/act if red actually left them to go back to the wild, maybe in a jealous fit or something else. I’m begging u” Here’s a long list of different moments! I’ll be touching on stuff that happens after the first couple of years in a different fic, but these touch on stuff that don’t need full fics!

Despite Joel’s concerns, Ellie does make friends though it takes a while. The older kids are only required to go to a few classes a day and then have various jobs they’re suppose to do and she does bond with some of the other teens who think she’s cool. She’s different and when she tells them she’s killed Clickers and survived a Bloater, it cements her as a bad ass amongst them.

Ellie is quiet those first few weeks. They don’t push it but it’s the start of Red leaving little trinkets for her. A lava lamp she found, posters and books and sketch supplies. 

Red knows that Ellie is suspicious of the story Joel told her. Sometimes when the girl pokes, tentatively asks her about the hospital, she glosses over it. Says that she had been knocked out and didn’t come to until the “raiders” were attacking and she helped Joel fight their way out. They just had to get Ellie out. The truth is in there, under the blurry faux details, and it makes it easier to lie. 

There will be a day where she knows Ellie will push for the truth and all she can do is prepare for it. 

Defending Red helps draw Ellie out of her shell. That protective streak over both of them. More than trinkets and Joel trying to use board games and small tokens of the past, Ellie’s need to feel useful and protective is what does the trick. 

Spending time in Jackson with the animals and food and all the new helps as well.

Jesse is older and has taken more of a leadership position over the teens and it helps that when he’s on patrol and Joel is in the group, the older man gives him pointers. Joel notices sometimes how he stares at Ellie and keeps an eye on the boy.

He ribs Ellie about it over the next year or so until it’s broken to him that it’s not boys his kid is into, but girls. Which makes him suspicious of every teenage girl that was ever over in his house.

Joel finds his footing easier than them both. He becomes a valuable member of the patrols and goes back to helping with construction, the skills coming back easily. Though sometimes it’s hard watching Tommy have the life he thought he would have. Married with a baby on the way. His little brother is now the one in charge though he still can’t measure the 2x4′s worth shit and sometimes is dumb as bricks. It hurts but he’s proud of him.

It helps when he comes back home and Ellie is complaining about dumb homework at the table and Red is sitting on the countertop in the kitchen, trying to read the faded instructions on the pasta box. He’s needed in other ways.

There are mornings where Joel and Red get to sleep in. Those are usually the mornings where she is woken up by the slight push of the door opening and then a heavy pouncing on top of her before getting covered in slobber. Joel grunts and curses, covering his face with the comforter and Red tries to duck away from dog breath as Ellie cusses out, “Oh shit, Bowie no! Shit shit, sorry!”

“Ellie, what the hell did we say about bringing the dogs in?” He’s not as angry as he wants it to be, just annoyed as the heavy 80lb dog jumps around on the bed then flops down in between them like a second child. Bowie grins, trying to lick Joel, leash still attached.

“I was just walking him and forgot something in my room and needed to come inside real quick to get it but then he looked like he wanted some water and-”

Red only chuckles and whistles before signaling the dog off the bed, Bowie doing so immediately.

Waking up to dog kisses isn’t the worst. It happens more times than they can count, especially when Ellie is walking the puppies.

Swimming lessons start once the weather warms up. Tommy joins them to show where their usual swimming spot is. Him and Red sit a little higher up on a ridge edge and watch as Joel tries to show Ellie how to move her arms and feet. She clings to him like a toddler even though the water isn’t that deep and sometimes he has to support her stomach to keep her afloat while she gets it.

Tommy makes jokes from above at Joel’s expense, grinning at the comfort of hanging out with his brother and his kid again. That is until Red shoves him off the ridge and he hits the water face first.

If he still wasn’t slightly terrified of her, he’d splash her back.

There are progressive steps forward and some steps back. Joel and Ellie argue, both pushing and testing their boundaries with each other. Red and Joel fight, one not use to people caring about her and the other sometimes too protective. Ellie and Red fight, one desperately clinging to the other in fear of being left and the other worried the closeness will only hurt her. No one knows how to properly handle their emotions. 

They always make up. A tentative offer to take Ellie out to practice shooting the rifle. Joel trailing his fingers through Red’s loose hair, kissing the crown of her head softly. A book of pressed flowers given on the porch, the book Red has been keeping in her bag for years. The first pages are her journal from the beginning of the Outbreak before it stops. All peace offerings. 

Joel is a helicopter parent. When Ellie begins group patrols, he knows exactly who is leading the group and interrogates them after to make sure nothing went wrong and she is doing what she’s supposed to. He knows when she starts hanging out with new friends, like Jesse and Dina and Cat. Ellie is starting to go full-teenager so he tries not to let her know he’s doing it. 

Red catches Ellie making out with her first girlfriend Mia in her room. She doesn’t know what to do, only freezes and backs away slowly then walks back down the stairs. She doesn’t tell Joel.

When Ellie starts going over to friends houses, staying over often or going to hangouts, they relish in having their own space for the first time in a long while. Joel has every intention of fucking Red against every surface and wall, but only manages the couch before someone knocks on the front door. Tommy thinks Joel is going to shoot him for even asking if he can do a night patrol. Red may well murder him if Joel doesn’t.

Joel knows he has to take his time with Red, but patience isn’t a strong suit of his. He missteps a lot, tripping on invisible landmines. Her parents. Her sister. Harry. Those years after the Outbreak but before he met her. She freezes up sometimes and he knows the landmine has gone up in his face.

But she sometimes she drops fragments. Mentions that her father died in the initial chaos though there is nothing sad in her voice. Her mother’s is always mentioned in disdain. That things between her and Harry had been complicated in the year or so before the Outbreak. That things were tense with her family. The way she clams up when asked if she was with a group is it’s own hint. He doesn’t push, can only apologize and soothe the shrapnel damage of his mistake. 

There are days when Ellie is just in a mood. She’s snappy, easily irritable, gets sent home early from work duty for behavior (which in turn means Joel gets after her) leading to her being a ball of teenage rage at everyone. Red stays in the kennels those days because it’s easier dealing with a group of dogs than an angry teenager. Jamie, the head vet she sometimes works with, says it’s all part of raising a teenager.

They skip the monthly Jackson gatherings often as their time in town stretches on, though Tommy does bug them to go and actually be a part of the community. Red isn’t keen, especially after her dress experience with Maria, but Joel makes sure to stay at her side every time after. He doesn’t admit that he doesn’t mind going if only because he gets to stand with her, his arms around her waist and swaying slightly to the music, and making sure every man in town knows she’s his.

He doesn’t remember how the conversation leads to Red at the construction site. They’re working and the mention of her name comes up then her last name and instinctively, without thinking, Joel mentions it’s Miller. He can see Tommy’s head whip towards him, but neither of them say anything. 

When Joel finally fixes the guitar, he plays for them. His heart is in his throat but he tries to play it off as casually as he can. Ellie’s been in a mood and thank god, he sees her loosen up afterwards. He promises to start teaching her and once a week they have guitar lessons on the porch. Those are Red’s favorite nights.

They’re having family dinner at Tommy’s one evening when Maria asks teasingly if she needs to get Red some birth control. She freezes and it’s like she’s a trapped animal, breath shaky and panic in her eyes, before biting out a simple, “No.” It’s a little awkward and they try to play it off, moving on. That night he can see the nail gouges in her thighs from her own hands. Joel doesn’t know the full story, but knows her inability to have kids isn’t a natural occurrence. He’s seen the ugly scar on her lower abdomen enough times. 

Outbreak day is a bad day for everyone. The streets are quiet, everyone’s faces drawn. The town hosts a yearly memorial to honor the day and world they lost, but they don’t go. It’s the first year Joel doesn’t drink himself dumb if only because he doesn’t want to freak Ellie out. The teenager doesn’t have a tie to the day, being born long after. But she knows about Sarah and knows both her parental figures faced something horrific. So she does what any kid does and tries to lighten the mood. They play every board game in the house and Ellie picks the best puns and gently asks what Sarah’s favorite things were. It helps a little.

Some nights they get more bits of the lighter Red. They play the record player constantly but some days, the days when maybe one of them finds a new couple of vinyls, they’ll have a night where they each take turns playing their favorite. Red and Joel will drink a bit (and maybe let Ellie have some) and the teenager will grab Red’s hands and force her to dance with her. Joel soaks in the sound of their laughter and it’s like Red is so many years younger. He takes turns with each other them, spinning Ellie around and teaching her to two-step and dancing with his partner to the slower songs. He loves her through rage and violence, but he is at her mercy when she lets him have the fragile bits of herself underneath it all.

Once upon a time, giving someone that kind of control over him would have terrified him but he hands himself over willingly to her now .

Ellie’s first birthday in Jackson is small but they’re still getting use to things. No one knows the exact day she was born, but she knows the day that was on her papers in FEDRA school so they go with that. Joel gets food from the Food Hall and Red tries very very hard to follow a brownie recipe from one of the ladies in the shop. Joel plays her something on the guitar and, in true to them fashion, her gifts are a new revolver, another pun book (though unfortunately not by Wil Livingston) and the news that Brownie the puppy is hers to keep in the kennels.

Red sings for them for the first time that night.

Joel makes plans for a bigger birthday next year.

Danger still exists. It never goes away and Joel wonders if he doesn’t want it to, really. There’s still a thrill when his brother grabs them both to deal with raiders. Seeing that sharpness in Red come alive and the lack of hesitation as she pulls the trigger or draws her bow. The baring of her teeth when she stabs her knife.

He’s seen her tear through a whole group to save him during a patrol. Seen her rip out a man’s throat with her teeth to get to him when they had him trapped. Joel wonders at the broken part of him that enjoys it, seeing her covered in blood and completely feral and knowing it was all for him. 

Every time after, clean or tinged red, he loses himself and fucks her so hard his name is a chorus from her lips and there are gouges down his back from her nails. They were still monsters deep down but it didn’t feel like such an awful thing anymore.

It’s roughly a year and a half later when Ellie comes home with a large bandage on arm. Red is the one to see it first and after being assured she wasn’t injured, the outline of a large tattoo is unveiled, covering the bite there. 

She gets it, gets the fear of Ellie having to hide her arm because they’re afraid someone will shoot their kid. But seeing the tattoo churns something in her gut because it means Ellie’s letting go of that part of her identity as “the immune girl”. And while it should mean something good, that she was moving on, she knows hidden rage when she sees it and it’s deep in the teenage girl. It’s less a letting go and more the identity being ripped away from her.

It takes a bit to calm Joel down. He knows it was Ellie’s friend Cat that did the tattoo and the dad part of him rears up, telling her he doesn’t like her hanging out with that girl. It’s fear, they all know it, because the tattoo also means she showed Cat her arm. 

It’s a rough week. Ellie moves into the converted garage behind the house. 

Red feels unequipped to handle Joel’s fear and Ellie’s rage and all she can do is be there for both. She helps Ellie to decorate the garage, the same as when they first moved into the house, silently there at her side. At night, she prods and pushes Joel until he takes his emotions out on her with bruising fingers and rough kisses. Violence and sex are a comfort she knows well.

Joel and Ellie make up in their own awkward tentative way. Reminders about guitar lessons and dinner plans, requests to help fix the door and some of the walls in the garage. Red wonders if raising a teenager is like this for everyone.

Red goes missing for two days. Both of them panic and raise hell, searching everywhere for her. Ellie’s never seen Joel so out of control. He interrogates every patrolman at the gate roughly and it takes Tommy intervening to keep him from beating the shit out of a few. 

She checked out a horse and left, her bag missing from the first floor room. Ellie feels a knot in her throat and her mind plays on repeat “everyone always leaves” but Joel is pushing her bag into her hands and they off to the stables. Tommy and Maria don’t try to stop them. Red’s already been gone a whole day.

They search for her beyond the walls, calling out for her and checking their usual spots. The worst comes to mind of her getting hurt, getting taken by raiders, getting bit by infected. Because in Joel’s mind, Red would never willingly up and leave without a word. He can’t let that possibility sink in. Even if she did, he’d find her and drag her back to him.

They find her that evening. 

Her eyes are puffy and red and there are scratches all over her arms and hands. They look self-inflicted. She looks as wild as the first day they met her, huddled at the base of a large tree and hair all over the place. Joel approaches her cautiously, like he knows to when she’s more animal than woman, but it’s Ellie that goes straight up to her and hugs her around her waist without hesitating. Because she knows why. 

The book of pressed flowers Red had given her had journal entries that stopped right before the flowers began. The last entry had a date and the words “me, Harry, and Annie are going on a run tomorrow” in it and Ellie knows. 

Like a wounded animal, Red tried to hide her pain. The nightmares and the screams and the sounds in her head became too much and she had to get away. Sometimes all she could hear was her sister’s screams. But they dim in Ellie’s embrace and she lets herself come to the surface enough to hug her back and then lean into Joel when he joins them, kissing her head and holding them tightly. 

They'd always find her and protect her when she needed to shatter.

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[revelisms]

Excerpt: Six Years

Vi wrestles with the realization of how much her sister has changed—and how many unwanted parallels she sees between Silco and their father. From a work-in-progress set after heron blue.

In some ways, she was still so familiar. Her perpetual nest of a living condition and geriatric sense of humor; her inability (refusal) to tend to her hair, herself. Yet, in so many ways, she's nothing like the girl Vi remembers. 

A shell. A stranger.

Jinx—a name that doesn't belong to her sister, that christens a girl who spits at the name Powder; whose body bares sinew and steel, wears yellowed stains at her chipped fingernails and speaks a drawl decades beyond her years—isn't a child, anymore. 

Eleven years, enmeshed in each others' days and nights; eleven, that Vi had always been with her. 

Powder's rock and shield. Powder's everything.  

Then the cannery had happened. Stillwater had happened. That monster had happened—

A monster whose gait she could pick out from a crowd: hears prowling over the floors now, above the jukebox and the metal tickings and her sister's self-directed rambling—a heavy-heeled th-thumping up the varnished steps, his coat a devil's whisper against the walls.

Vi steels herself. Beside her, Jinx prattles on. 

"Y'ever thought of fighting in a ring, sis?"

Th-thump, th-thumping over the dark floors.  

"You'd be the scrappiest scrapper in the Underground. Bet they'd call ya the Red Devil—or Lead Lettie—or Sourmouth Suckerpunch—"

She stares, unblinking, plastic squeezed beneath her thumb. Through the sliver of her sister's cracked door, a polish-slick boot wades through the shadows. Stills.  

"What you really need," Jinx says, with a lax crook of her screwdriver, "is a pair of Vandie's old gauntlets—that'll set'em right."

Vi swallows. The hall's dark devours the wraith on the other side of the door: shrouds all but the unearthly cat's-eye that tips over the leather at his shoulder, burning like a funeral pyre over a rotting corpse. 

"Yeah," she says, stiffly. Comb-teeth bite into her palm. "That's all I need."

His stare lingers—three-four-five beats—before it flits to the floor, trails over the blue tangled within her fingers, traces its mess back to the girl lounged beside her. Jinx stays worlds away in her tinkering, head lolled against the floor. She wrenches another screw into place.

"It's late," Jinx huffs, without needing a glance. "I know."

Silence, for a moment. Then Silco agrees, "It's late, indeed."

Jinx scowls. "One'ta talk."

If the shadows weren't playing a trick on her, Vi might have thought he'd smirked. But that bastard never smiled—never did anything but glare over his paperwork, around the vile plumes of his cigars: eyeing her hyena of a sister like a stray in need of a meal, and Vi like a bull ready to charge. 

Signing a blood-pact to his enterprise (their city's scheme for fiscal independence; her sister's unfathomable choice for a homestead) had done nothing in the way of trust. He'd taken an overseer's scrutiny to her, from the day she'd put her name in ink: a dead-eyed panopticon hounding her every waking hour, as though she'd never left that molding cell.

On one hand, a part of her reasoned, he had a right—sizing up her methods, as he would any new recruit; strategizing where best to slot her in the arteries of a drug-machine already years on the march. A more cynical thread knew he was laying his cards flat and playing the long game. Slouching back, idly, with eyes unblinking, to find any reason to put her under his heel.

She stares at the unmarred side of his face: a dim halo in a coal-blackened sea.

Eleven years that she'd been with Powder.

Six—nearly seven, now—that Jinx has had this snake at her side.

From the doorway, his shadow gravels, "I take it you'll be off soon." 

"Soon as the bell chimes." Jinx flits her wrist, pinkie-promise. "Not a rhyme later—cross my hearts and hope to snore."

Silco makes a low chuff at that: strange, quiet, bemused. A not-quite laugh, like Dad used to do. 

For a moment, a breath tangled in her throat, Vi sees him. 

He was tower of a man, thin as a string. His voice itched with smoke-pocked lungs and dreams that glittered like the stars. He kept chewing tobacco sweetened with cinnamon under his tongue, and he wore the mines on his clothes; gave hugs that made one's soul feel like it'd been wrapped in down-feathers; made the moonlight seem like nothing more than hand-sculpted glass: some beautiful thing he'd spooled on a thread and hung up there for all to see.

He'd been everything to her—her image of whistle-toothed optimism, her laughter, her guiding light—until he wasn't.

Freckles smattering her cheeks, her unruly hair the color of redmilk tea, a younger version of herself had shrieked over the idea of having to share her plates, pillows, toys with some snot-nosed little girl—a blue-haired, rambunctious, wailing thing—a sister. She'd stomped her feet and thrown fits over it. Told Dad, flat out: I don't wanna have her!

He'd stood slouched over her, hands bracketed at his thin waist, a glitter in his pale eyes, and chuffed. You'll do great, Lettie. His smile always pulled a touch crooked at one corner: a sincerity that, without fail, made her believe him. 

She'd always believed him, then. 

She was too young, too naïve not to.

Staring into an empty threshold, into a shadowed hall, a ghost of footsteps thudding down the dark floors, Vi fights to forget their father's voice. To block out the echo of a rasp no part of her wants to compare to it. To ignore the remnants of smoke on the air—tower of a man, thin as a string, heels heavy-footed from those damn mines—that belonged to a man she'd sooner wring the neck of. Wouldn't dare put in the same vein of everything their father was.

(Complicated. Self-loathing. Hellishly tempered. Kind.)

[suashii]

omg hi hello happy sunday :3 i hope u are all well and that the sun has come out to kiss u on the cheeks ! ! ☀️ it’s been a bit so i haven’t checked in recently. . . despite that i hope everyone has been taking care of themselves! ᡣ𐭩

[thatonegayship]

I loved the cowboy comic so much that I wrote a oneshot for it. https://archiveofourown.org/works/50934235 🥺 your art is BEYOND amazing, ty for the food

INCREDIBLE!!!!!