#and using old shit to deflect isn’t it

[luckheist]

bruh

[yelena-bellova]

Twenty Years Later: Joel Miller x F!Reader - Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen: Carry You Home

Plot: Ellie and Y/n do their best to save a wounded Joel and survive on their own.

Word Count: 8.6k

Warnings: canon-typical violence, language, blood, injuries, hunting, reference to smut

A/N: Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy…these chapters suck to write for 2 reasons…1: D*vid. 2: We’re getting so close to the end that I want to cry 😫 I’m going to miss this show so much!!

As always, this series is 16+ and I will not be adding anyone to the taglist if your age/range isn’t in your bio. Gotta look out for younger eyes 👀

I hope y’all enjoy this blend of fluff and angst and laughter. I’m going to try to get 14 out on Sunday, but no promises. Read on!

——————

“Protect him.”

Tess’ dying words had echoed through Y/n’s mind more times than she could count. The sentiment had travelled with her across the county, an ever-present passenger on their journey.

And now they were haunting her.

Ellie and Y/n had managed to get Joel into the basement of an abandoned house, laying him down on an old, dank mattress. Unfortunately, he had woken up by then and was feeling the full force of his wound.

“I know, I know,” Y/n tried to soothe him as he screamed, bent over his abdomen. The tourniquet had done a subpar job at stopping the bleeding. If it had been a river, now it was a stream. “Hold still,” she looked to Ellie, “Press down on the wound. Hard.”

Ellie had found an old towel in the kitchen upstairs and tore off a strand.

“Squeeze,” Y/n instructed Joel, who was already squirming in pain, “Hard as you need.”

Joel had lost enough blood for the world around him to spin, the only things in focus were Ellie and Y/n’s faces.

Y/n nodded to Ellie, who pressed down on Joel’s wound, causing him to choke on his own breath. His hand shot out, reaching for Y/n’s arm and crushing it in his grip. She turned her face downwards to hide the grimace of pain.

“Ah, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Ellie cursed as Joel writhed beneath her hands.

“Keep going,” Y/n ordered, blindly reaching a hand out to push Joel’s shoulder into the mattress, “Honey, c’mon, I need you to work with us.”

Joel winced, digging his head back into the bed. Out of all the injuries he’d sustained over the years, this was the worst. Not just because of the searing pain stabbing through him, but because it was the one that was going to take him out.

He was dying, and neither Y/n nor Ellie could stop it.

“Leave.”

They both ignored the word.

“Leave,” Joel strained through it again.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Y/n stated, watching Ellie’s hands, “He’s gonna say some weird shit.”

“Go,” he continued.

“Shut up, Joel,” Ellie’s breaths quickened in quiet panic.

“Take the gun-“

“Joel, shut the fuck up,” she yelled.

“Ellie,” Y/n said forcefully, the girl’s hands were slipping. She pushed them off and held the rag down on Joel’s wound.

With a last surge of strength, Joel reached out and grabbed Ellie by the collar, yanking her to face him.

“You go,” Joel whispered, “You go. You go north. Y/n-“

Y/n shook her head, shutting out the reality of their dire situation. “Stop,” she said without looking up.

Joel was undeterred, “You go to Tommy.”

“Stop,” Y/n gritted out, her hands hanging over his stomach with no plan of action. She wasn’t even sure what there was to be done. At best, she was only stalling Joel’s death by a few precious minutes.

When she finally dared to look up, her gaze fell on Ellie, whose eyes were misting as she stared down at Joel. He shoved Ellie back, releasing her from the burden of caring, and let his arm fall at his side.

Joel managed to turn his head, letting his eyes wash over the woman he loved, had never stopped loving. Kneeling over him and covered in his blood, he thought back to how she’d looked the night they’d first met. Her eyes untouched by cynicism, her laugh deflecting no hidden pain, her smile striking him like lightning and giving him a new pursuit in life; to bring enough joy to her life that her lips were forever turned up.

Now he was going to break her heart. Again.

He thought of their last night together, spent cradling each other’s bodies underneath the sheets in Jackson. How his skin had remembered the feel of hers the moment they touched, how his lips had recalled the roads they used to travel across her like he would an old hometown street. Though bathed in the tears of their sins and all they had lost, he had been reborn at the first kiss. He had a standing reservation in hell, but he could go knowing he’d felt the touch of an angel.

“Rose…” Joel strained out, the word tasted like sweetness.

The four letters burned in Y/n’s ears, sending a new wave of fear through her. “No,” she finally looked to Joel, “This isn’t how it happens.”

“Rosebud,” he pushed with a surprising calm to his tone.

“Joel, no,” Y/n fought to keep her sobs down, “This is not how it happens. It’s not.”

Joel’s hand shakily slid up her arm, needing to feel her as he told her, “I love you.”

Y/n squeezed her eyes shut, the strength of her grip on the towel faltering as she forced them open to look at Joel. Despite his impending death, there was a peace that filled in the lines of his face, one that only graced those who were on their way out.

“No,” Y/n whined, her voice unable to carry further than the distance between them. She reached up to stroke his hair, taking his cheek in her other hand, “This isn’t how I want to hear it, Joel. Please.”

Once he’d said it, he couldn’t stop. He was making up for twenty years in twenty seconds. “I love you. I love you…” Joel drew a shallow breath, “You go. You take her,” his stare gripped her, nearly choking the will out of her, “Go.”

For as prominent as Joel’s abandonment had been in her life, Y/n had done her fair share of leaving. She had left Sarah’s body, at least it had felt like leaving, when they’d sought shelter in the triage clinic. She had left her parents, panicked at what she had done, in the spots where she’d taken their lives. She had left Tess to die the worst way a person could, even if she was only following orders. Her life had been one abandoning after the other, and now she was being asked to abandon the love of her life.

In her haze, Y/n hadn’t even remembered Ellie was there. It wasn’t until she felt Joel’s thick coat being slipped over his body that she realized the girl was making her choice. She would decide, for once in their time together, to heed Joel’s words. And as her boots slapped against the stairs, she was also making Y/n’s choice.

Unable to force the words she felt like a sweet sickness inside her soul, she dissolved into tears, pressing her forehead to Joel’s. She didn’t think even if they’d had twenty years ahead of them that she’d have ever found to words to describe the depth of her love for Joel Miller. It stretched two decades of euphorias and tragedies. It was stronger than her hate or his violence. It was forgiveness and redemption and all-encompassing in its triumph over the worst of their persons.

Y/n sniffled, nudging Joel’s nose with her wet one and letting her mouth hover over his as if she could breathe life back into him. Joel took it, letting his eyes fall shut and savoring the the last of her lips he’d ever feel.

Joel had spent twenty years trying to detach from who he’d been, his old skin a constant reminder of all that he’d almost had. Y/n had spent twenty years trying to find her way back to her humanity, desperate to redeem herself. Without ever knowing it, they had been running back to each another, one step at a time.

Protect him.

Perhaps Y/n had only kept her promise to Tess in the beginning out of obligation. But now, now the words were as true as if they’d come out of her own mouth.

Joel had left her once.

She’d be damned if it happened again.

Y/n broke from Joel’s lips, rushing to her feet and bolting for the stairs.

From Joel’s point of view, it was the last he’d ever see of her. There was a duality that Cordyceps had forced on anyone who prioritized survival over anything else. Joel had meant every word with the force he’d said it, he wanted Y/n and Ellie safe. But he also knew he was dying, something that, despite all he’d wished over the years, he wasn’t ready to do yet. He had Ellie, this beautiful, unexpected gift of a child, who depended on him as if she was his own. And now he had Y/n, the miracle that he’d let slip through his fingers, returning to him with the same perfect timing she’d first appeared to him. He wanted to stay, to cherish and protect them like the man they made him feel he could be again. And if that wasn’t in the cards for him, he at least wanted to hold their hands as he faded out.

As Joel watched Y/n head up the stairs, he let a single tear fall down his face. He’d had one last night, one last kiss, and one last ‘I love you.’ It wasn’t a lifetime, but it would have to be enough.

When Y/n got to the stairs, Ellie was nowhere to be found. Was she already saddling the horses? Was it that easy for her to let Joel die?

“Ellie,” she called through her tears, bursting through the door, “Ell-“

The girl rushed past her, one step ahead, raiding cabinets and drawers.

Y/n felt herself breathing for the first time in an hour.

“What do we look for?” Ellie hurriedly asked.

“Something,” Y/n flung a empty cabinet door open, “Anything. We need to get the wound closed up.”

They searched high and low, in every room, until they met in the kitchen. Ellie dove for a set of drawers while Y/n scoured more cabinets.

“It won’t open,” Ellie groaned, pulling against the handle.

Y/n ran over, squeezing her hands next to Ellie’s and tugging with her. “Pull,” she breathed, the two of them shifted all their weight backwards.

The drawer’s internal mechanism released, the momentum they’d built throwing Ellie and Y/n to the ground. The contents were scattered from the drop.

“There’s nothing here,” Y/n panted, on the verge of frustrated tears.

“W-wait,” Ellie breathed, her hand sliding across the linoleum floor to grab something. She held up a rusted needle and thread to Y/n.

“Yes,” Y/n gasped, she took the supplies into her shaking palms. She wished she hadn’t used the last of her own days before, but they could make do with what they had, “Yes, this’ll work.”

Stumbling to their feet, they ran back through the door and down the steps, bringing salvation with them.

Joel was trying, trying to hold the rag to his wound, hoping it made his death a little less painful, but his strength was fading. His whole body shook with shivers, even his lips trembled from the cruel mixture of shock and the cold. He could feel himself slipping away, so much so that he was convinced the thudding footsteps he heard were hallucinations.

Y/n and Ellie kneeled down on either side of him, their faces illuminated by the last bit of light peeking through the clouded basement window. His saviors.

Ellie threw Joel’s coat off of him, catching her breath as she reached for his hand.

Y/n leaned down, interlocking her fingers with his other hand and brushing the hair from his face. She pressed a determined kiss to his clammy forehead, willing him to stay alive a little bit longer.

Joel would never admit to them just how much he’d wanted them to stay. He summoned what was left of his strength and tried to squeeze both of their hands, letting them squeeze back. They were going to fight this, and they were going to do it together.

Ellie reached for the towel and peeled the cloth off Joel’s wound. The bleeding had slowed, but was far from stopping. They had to move fast.

In the midst of their panic, Joel softly reached for Ellie’s cheek, pulling back halfway when he lost his strength. It was a moment none of them noticed in their mad rush.

“Honey,” Y/n began, pressing one more kiss to Joel’s skin, “We gotta get it closed up. It’s gonna hurt like a motherfucker,” she moved Joel’s hands to grab her forearms, “So you fuckin’ squeeze, and try to stay still for us. Okay?”

Ellie quickly thread the needle and tied a knot. Y/n wished she could spare her the pain of having to stitch Joel up, but Y/n was the only one who’d be able to hold him down and keep him relatively calm.

“Keep going,” Y/n directed Ellie, “I’m gonna try to keep him still, but you don’t stop, even if he moves.”

Ellie nodded, apologetically seeking Joel’s eyes one last time before turning to his abdomen.

Y/n put both her hands to Joel’s shoulders, bracing herself for what was to come.

“Go,” she said,

Joel let out a sickening groan as Ellie thread the needle, the pain giving him strength enough to squeeze Y/n’s arms so tight, she couldn’t help but wince. In his daze, he could sense he was hurting her, but couldn’t fight past that which his own body was bringing him.

Tears sprung to Y/n’s eyes as she forced Joel down into the mattress, taking the searing heat in her shoulder as a good thing. It meant Joel still had enough fight inside him to push through.

“I know, I know, I know, I know,” she muttered as Joel threw his head to the side, trying to hide his grimaces from Ellie, “I know, honey. Just hang on.”

Joel’s vision was going dark around the edges, the pain dulling all his senses. The only thing strong enough to cut through was Y/n’s voice.

“I’m here,” Y/n assured Joel, his eyes fluttering but fighting to look at her, “I’m here. I got you.”

“It’s stopping,” Ellie announced, still hard at work.

Y/n wasn’t able to sigh in relief yet, Joel had finally lost the battle and had slipped into unconsciousness. She’d expected it, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t still filled with dread.

It only took Ellie a few more minutes to finish sewing Joel’s wound, Y/n helping her to tie a clumsy knot at the end. They dabbed and tried to clean the blood off him as best they could before laying his shirts back down. When they were done, they slid off their ankles and onto the concrete, watching the rise and fall of Joel’s chest.

“Is he…” Ellie began before realizing it was a stupid question.

Y/n was fighting off the same thought, wondering if their efforts would be enough, or if it was a losing battle.

“I hope so,” she whispered, it didn’t matter to her if fate was calling Joel Miller home. She would rage against it regardless.

The next hour was spent waiting and watching. Ellie, eventually, went upstairs and collected their backpacks.

Y/n kneeled above Joel’s head, her hands resting over each of his ears. She combed her fingers through the ends of his hair, not trying to wake him or soothe him further into sleep, but simply providing what little comfort she could to both of them.

Ellie clunked down the stairs with their packs and sleeping bags, depositing them on the floor. She had spent the last three months watching Joel and Y/n fight, and the last week watching them drift back together. This was new. She hadn’t seem them vulnerable, on the verge of losing one another when they’d finally found some sort of peace. She didn’t have twenty years of experience, but she understood why Y/n was hunched over, cradling the man, who didn’t even know she was there.

Ellie settled against the wall, working up the courage to speak. “How’d you guys meet?”

It was perhaps the only thing said in the moment to make Y/n smile. “At a bar,” she answered, remembering the night like it had just passed, “A guy hit on me, couldn’t take the hint that I wasn’t interested…Joel threw a punch, Tommy threw the next…” she nearly laughed, “Then they threw him out.”

“So…he’s always been like that,” Ellie commented.

Y/n soothed a thumb over Joel’s cheek, the skin was so pale it almost brought on a fresh batch of tears. Or maybe it was the reminder that they’d once lived in a world where violence wasn’t a necessary evil. Where Joel’s laugh was an every day occurrence. When he kissed her as if it was the last time he ever would, with the end nowhere in sight.

“No,” she whispered over the lump in her throat, “He wasn’t.”

Ellie sensed she was getting to close to shattering what was left of Y/n, and she couldn’t do that. She needed one person left to look to, to hold her hand through these impossible problems. She rubbed her hands together anxiously, nearly choking on the words she wanted to say.

“Riley.”

Y/n dragged her eyes away from Joel to look up at Ellie, “What?”

Ellie drew a shaky breath, “Riley. She was my…she was my friend,” she rubbed her knuckles together, “She got infected and…”

All of Y/n’s longing told her to stay with Joel, not to move from her spot, no matter what. But her duty was to both him and Ellie, and she knew where she was needed at the moment. She inched her hands off of Joel’s head and crawled over to Ellie, coming to sit next to her against the wall.

“I knew Riley,” Y/n admitted, hugging a knee to her chest.

Ellie’s eyes widened, “You did?”

Y/n nodded, “She only joined a few weeks before…” she trailed off. Marlene had been the one to find them, Y/n had been back at base. But she’d met Riley, had even tried to take her under her wing before the fatal night at the mall. “She was fucking fearless,” Y/n shifted gears, “And fun.”

���Did she ever mention me?” Ellie asked after a beat of silence.

“No,” Y/n replied, looking over her arm to Ellie’s expectant stare, “I think she wanted to keep you safe,” she cracked a smile, “Bloodthirsty demons that we are.”

Ellie’s lips turned up the slightest bit, but they fell just as quick. It was one of the first times she had allowed herself to grieve her best friend, and there was something about the setting that made it all hurt worse. Across from her, Joel lay on the brink of death. To her side, Y/n was sitting with her in worry and in comfort. The last two people on the planet that she loved.

Y/n’s maternal instincts caught the change in Ellie’s demeanor just before she broke. She slipped an arm around her shoulders as the first tears fell, Ellie willingly sliding into Y/n’s side and curling her face into her body. It was the first time Ellie had allowed anyone, apart from Riley on that dreadful night, see her fall apart, and Y/n didn’t take it lightly. She pressed a kiss to the top of the young girl’s head, reminding herself that the journey had started out the two of them, and if even if tragedy intervened, it would end with the two of them.

—————————

Deep into the night, Y/n stayed awake, telling Ellie she’d press on until morning. The girl needed a break from the world.

Joel stirred a few times, letting out a moan or blindly reaching to clutch his wound. Y/n was there each time, holding his hand and soothing him back to sleep. Around what Y/n guessed was 3AM, he stopped slipping in and out and just stayed out. His ragged breaths, creating a steady rhythm in his stomach, were the only thing reassuring Y/n that he was still alive.

While Ellie was awake, Y/n held it together as best she could. But under the cover of dark, she allowed herself to fall apart, her fear for Joel’s life swallowing her whole.

“Do you remember that trip we took to the beach?” Y/n whispered, hanging over Joel’s head, stroking a hand over his hair as her other one cupped his cheek, “For our anniversary? Sarah’s graduation?”

In her weaker moments over the years, Y/n had drifted back to the memory. It was the last time she could remember feeling truly free and yet it was also the first time she remembered feeling tied down. Stuck in the space between Sarah’s dad’s girlfriend and a parent, between Joel’s love of one year and his potential wife. She wanted them both back; the liberation and the duty.

“Remember that night?” Y/n asked Joel’s unconscious form, she’d always wondered how she could recall the exact feel of the hotel sheets. The exact trail of her skin Joel’s lips had traveled. Which of his t-shirts she’d been wearing. “I made you promise that…” Y/n trailed off, bristling, “It sounds so fucking stupid now.”

“No matter how much I hated you,” Y/n slid her thumb against Joel’s cheek, “I couldn’t hate you enough to stop loving you. I tried, my g-“ Y/n chuckled softly, “I tried so fucking hard. Couldn’t do it.”

Her tears were building now, the more she exposed, the more the threat of loss became real.

“I waited twenty years, Joel,” she whispered, her throat tightening up on her, “Twenty fucking years, not knowing if you were dead or still hanging on. And then I got you back,” she sobbed once with nostalgic joy, “I got you back. And I can’t lose you before I get to love you again.”

Y/n lowered her head, dropping her lips to Joel’s ear, her voice barely audible, “Because I do. I love you. I love you so much it…” she bit back a cry, not wanting to wake Ellie, “It fucking hurts. You can’t just…you can’t just come back to me and then leave. You can’t do that to me. To Ellie.”

“I need you to fight,” Y/n begged, tears freely flowing down her cheeks, “I need you to fight so fucking hard, you need me to carry you the whole way to Utah, and I will. I’ll do it. I just need you there.”

Y/n choked on her sobs, digging her forehead into the mattress and letting them shake her. All her losses in life had been so sudden, she’d never had to watch a life hang, the pendulum swinging between a second chance and death. It was tearing her apart.

She wiped the snot and tears away on her jacket sleeve, the same sleeve that was painted with Joel’s dried blood. She leaned back over Joel, pressing the gentlest of kisses to his forehead. Y/n had heard stories of miracles, of voices at hospital bedsides being the thing to bring people back from death’s edge. She’d lost faith in that sort of thing after the loss of her family, but in the throes of worry, nothing was off the table. She’d stay up all night, telling Joel how much she loved him, if there was even a chance it would reach him.

—————————

For two days, Ellie and Y/n kept watch as best they could. With no medicine, there was little they could do to help Joel’s, now infected, wound.

Y/n finished up feeding snow to the horses, moving robotically from the garage to the basement. She hadn’t gotten more than maybe two hours each day. It didn’t feel right to rest when Joel was clinging to life.

She came downstairs to see Ellie kneeled next to Joel, placing one of their last pieces of rations on his chest.

“He wouldn’t want you doing that,” Y/n said softly.

Ellie sniffed away the cold air, “Yeah, well…”

If the terrible series of events was doing anything, it was showing how deeply they cared about each other.

“I’m going to go out real quick,” Y/n announced, heading to pick up her rifle, “Try and find us something to eat.”

“I’m coming with you,” Ellie jumped to her feet.

“No, you’re not,” Y/n replied, “You’re gonna stay here and watch him.”

“I can’t fucking do anything for him here,” the girl gestured down to Joel’s body, “If I can hunt something then…”

Y/n already knew what she was trying to say, she was desperate to feel in control of something. Hunting was a great way to make you feel like you had some power over the world.

“Okay,” Y/n sighed, “Twenty minutes.”

Ellie moved across the room to grab Joel’s rifle while Y/n crouched down and kissed his forehead.

“We’ll be back soon.”

The two of them filed up the stairs, both of their hearts unsettled at leaving without Joel. It was one thing to see someone with no fighting skills or survival techniques be taken down, but to see someone like Joel battling for their life was a quick way to make someone feel entirely exposed. And Y/n could feel the full weight of the responsibility they’d shouldered together the last three months.

Y/n drew her rifle into postition as her and Ellie exited through the front door, Ellie struck a similar stance. They moved down the driveway into the street, scanning for footprints in the snow that didn’t exist. They’d made the right decision to hide in the abandoned neighborhood.

Ellie and Y/n made their way to the forest, trudging through the snow and huffing patterns into the cold air.

“Remember what Joel taught you,” Y/n instructed, keeping her voice low to not spook any animals, “Regardless of what your instincts tell you, pull slow.”

Ellie’s eyes were already drifting ahead, having spotted a white rabbit thirty feet away from them. She glanced over to Y/n, who nodded for her to go ahead. Y/n felt better keeping her gun aimed at the space around them anyway.

Just as Ellie was setting herself up, the rabbit ran off. Ellie took off charging the way it had run.

“Ellie,” Y/n gritted, the worst thing to do when tracking an animal was to chase it.

Ellie tripped on a branch, falling face first into the snow.

Y/n came over and extended a hand to the girl, pulling her up to her feet. “Word of advice…if an animal’s running, you don’t go after it and make more noise.”

“Yeah,” Ellie exhaled, wiping the snow from her face, “I got that.”

“Come on,” Y/n hitched her rifle back over her shoulder, “Ten more minutes.”

The two of them walked a little further, eventually hearing a clicking noise that sent them both reaching for their guns.

Ellie hit Y/n’s arm, guiding her attention to a patch of trees providing shelter to a full-grown deer. Y/n gestured for her to take the nearest log and the shot. It felt like a good idea to keep Ellie as distracted as she could and maybe give her a much needed victory.

Heeding all of Joel and Y/n’s advice, Ellie lined up the shot perfectly and-

BANG!

The deer wailed, limping away into the depth of the forest.

“No fucking way,” Ellie muttered.

“Come on,” Y/n pulled her free hand and the two of them sprinted off after it.

There are certain moments in life that, with hindsight, stick out as forks in the road. If Person A hadn’t have made it to Point A, then Person B wouldn’t have found them and both their lives, good or bad, would be forever altered because they didn’t meet.

Y/n and Ellie couldn’t have known what they were running straight towards.

They tracked the blood trail of the deer 1/4 of a mile before hearing two male voices. Y/n threw her arm out, catching Ellie and holding a finger up to her lips. The two of them drew their rifles and very carefully stepped around the snowbank. Sure enough, there were two men standing over their now dead deer.

Y/n inhaled to speak.

“Don’t! Drop your rifles! Now!” Ellie yelled.

The two men carefully removed their guns from their backs, the taller of them keeping one eye on Ellie and Y/n.

“Turn around,” Y/n ordered, her gun locked on the tall man, while Ellie took the shorter one.

“Any sudden moves,” Ellie threatened, deepening her voice to make her words more convincing, “I put one right between your eyes. Ditto for buddy boy.”

Internally, Y/n grimaced. Ellie was going to get them killed with a poor imitation of Joel.

“You two are quite the hunters,” the shorter man said, his hands held in the air, “We didn’t even hear you coming.”

“Flattered,” Y/n replied, unimpressed, “But this is where you two walk away with your asses still attached and we take what’s ours.”

“Okay,” the man said, making no effort to move.

“Just go!” Ellie impatiently yelled.

“A-all I ask is ten minutes of your time,” the man continued.

“Did you not get that that was a warning?” Y/n muttered, extending her foot ever so slightly to make it look like she was taking a step closer.

“Please,” the man didn’t budge at her non-verbal threat, “Just ten seconds. My name is David. This is my friend, James. We’re from a larger group: women, children, and we’re all…very, very hungry.”

“We’re from a large group too,” Ellie lied, drafting the lie quickly in her head, “Also hungry.”

David sighed, “Well, even so…” he gestured to the deer, “Ya can’t drag this back just the two of you.”

“We’re fine,” Y/n finished the conversation. The world was dead, yet somehow misogyny was still alive and well…

“We’re not asking for charity,” David clarified, “W-we can trade you for some of the deer. What do you need? We have…boots-“

Ellie’s rifle lowered ever so slightly, her voice coming back to its childlike pitch, “Medicine? Like, for infections.”

“We do,” David replied, surprised they’d hit on something so fast, “Back in our village. You’re welcome to follow us.”

“Yeah,” Y/n wasn’t so quick to believe that it was just that simple, “That’s not happening.”

Ellie picked up her gun-slinging persona again, “Buddy boy can go get it. He comes back, you get half the deer. Anyone else shows up, I put-“

“Put one right between my eyes,” David finished for her.

“That’s right,” Ellie finished, sensing that at some point, she should have let Y/n take over the talking.

David turned to James, leaving his hands hanging in the air, “Alright, go talk to Howard. He’s got a case with some penicillin. Bring back two bottles and a syringe.”

James looked stunned at David’s request, as if killing the two women was the obvious option.

“It’s not code, James,” David added, “Do as I said.”

Y/n’s rifle remained trained on James, waiting for him to make the right move. The man kept his eyes on her the whole time till he could safely jog back into the forest.

“Ten steps back,” Ellie ordered David, her and Y/n marched the man backwards, “Keep going.”

Once he was past the deer, Ellie kneeled down to pick up David’s rifle, unloaded the cartridges while Y/n kept her aim fixed on him.

“That your dad’s gun?” David asked, “He the one who’s sick? That’s why you two are out here on your own?”

“This is not a Starbucks,” Y/n bit out, “We are not chatting over a latte. All you need to know is that one wrong move, and your village goes hungry a hell of a lot longer.”

The words hurt Y/n as she let them fly, she didn’t feel cut out for Joel’s intimidation tactics.

“Well, look, uh,” David looked behind them to an old cabin, “It’s a four mile round trip back to our settlement. It’s gonna be…a while before James gets back. I have some oil and matches in my pack, we could,” he gestured to the cabin once more, “Take shelter. Start a fire.”

It wasn’t the most obscene idea, Y/n thought. She didn’t plan on lowering her gun at any point, and if Ellie and her were going to make the trip back carrying half a deer with them, they needed to save the strength the cold was stealing from them.

“You bring him with us,” Y/n decided, nodding towards the deer.

David nodded back, a smile on his lips that Y/n couldn’t decode. She just knew she’d seen the same expression on the wrong kind of men before.

—————————

David tended to the fire he’d started in the middle of the cabin’s living room, sitting back down and warming his hands. Ellie and Y/n sat across from him, rifles aimed and ready to silence him.

“You know, you two really shouldn’t be out here on your own,” David said, his voice soft and concerned.

“Says the man with two rounds pointed at him,” Y/n remarked.

David shrugged, “Fair enough. So what’re your names?”

Ellie frowned, shaking her head in reply.

“It’s hard to trust strangers, I know,” David stated, “But I honestly mean you no harm. And for what it’s worth,” he opened his hands, “There’s room for you two in our group, if you want.”

“You’re inviting us to join your Hunger Club?” Ellie retorted, “Thanks.”

“It’s true, we’re hungry,” David admitted, “But we’re still here. I’m a decent man, just tryna take care of the people who rely on me.”

Y/n gave a nonchalant shrug, “Okay, so you’re the leader of a ragtag group of survivors. That’s nothing special.”

“Wasn’t my choice, it was theirs, but” David replied, “Yes.”

“They “chose” to follow you?” Ellie replied, “Is this some weird cult thing?”

One half of David’s mouth quirked up, “Uh, well, you sorta kinda got me there, I am a preacher, but just pretty standard Bible stuff.”

Ellie smiled to herself and glanced up at Y/n, who had already tuned out of the whole topic.

David looked between the women, “What?”

“The whole world ended, and you still believe that shit,” Ellie replied.

“I actually started believing after the world ended,” David corrected the girl, “Before that, I was a teacher. Math. Taught kids about your age.”

“So you went from teacher to preacher because, what? It fuckin’ rhymes?” Ellie fired back at the man.

David nearly laughed, “Yeah, exactly.”

Ellie smiled, just a little bit, keeping her aim on David but loosening it. He didn’t seem like much of a threat to her. Y/n, being older and having seen a lot more shit, was less convinced.

“But seriously,” Ellie prompted him to continue his story.

“Well, I found God…after the apocalypse,” David told them, watching Ellie more than Y/n, “Which is either the best time or the worst time to find Him, hard to say. But when the Pittsburgh QZ fell in ‘17, Fireflies and FEDRA…I left with a few others, and th-that’s how I ended up with our flock.”

“This is a long fucking way from Pittsburgh,” Y/n replied, perhaps it would have been a comment coming out of anyone else’s mouth, but it was an accusation from hers. There was something about him she didn’t trust.

David chuckled, “Yeah, we’d settle somewhere and then raiders would come, so we’d move again. And as we wandered, we picked up new people along the way until…” he glanced around him, “We ended up here.”

“Well, your luck had to run out sooner or later,” Ellie commented, the choice of words wasn’t lost on her or Y/n.

“Hm? Luck?” David rearranged his face the way some pastors did before jumping in the pulpit, “There’s no such thing as luck. No, I-I-I believe everything happens for a reason.”

Ellie and Y/n both shared a restrained smile, dodging the attempted sermon like it was a bullet.

“It does,” David insisted, grinning back at them, “I can prove it to you.”

“Okay,” Ellie agreed to his attempt.

David sighed, settling into his makeshift seat a little deeper. “We didn’t expect this winter to be so cruel. Nothing’ll grow. Game’s been hard to find. So I sent four of our people to a nearby town to-to scavenge what they could and only three of ‘em came back. And the one that didn’t was a father. He had a daughter just like you,” David pointed to Ellie, “And her dad was taken from her.”

Y/n slowly connected the dots, one step behind David but ten ahead of Ellie.

“Turns out…he was murdered,” David continued, “By this crazy man. And get this, that crazy man…was traveling with a little girl and a woman.”

Y/n was up on her feet, eye peering through the viewfinder, instantly.

“You see?” David smiled unsettlingly at Ellie, “Everything happens for a reason. James, lower the gun.”

Ellie spun around on her heels, both her and Y/n finding James returned, his handgun aimed straight at Ellie. They switched positions, Y/n’s weapon trained on James and Ellie’s on David.

“She is the one that killed Alec, isn’t she?” James asked.

“She didn’t kill anybody, neither of ‘em did,” David corrected, “Lower the gun.”

James and Y/n squared off, Y/n’s breath hanging on the edge of her lungs, just waiting to pull the trigger and release. Reluctantly, James lowered his pistol.

“Did you bring the medicine?” David asked his friend.

“Yeah, but-“

“Throw it to them.”

James hesitated, “David…”

Y/n’s back was turned to the preacher, but his silence indicated his seriousness. James reached into his pocket and tossed the small package at Y/n and Ellie’s feet.

“Back up,” Y/n said from between her teeth.

James did as requested, moving away from the medicine. Y/n moved closer to the man, letting him stare down the barrel of her gun while Ellie grabbed their trade.

“I know you’re not with a group,” David called, his voice creepily calm, “You won’t survive for long out there. I can protect you.”

They didn’t need to hear any more. Y/n fell behind Ellie, keeping her gun trained on the two men while the girl made a run for it. She thought to shoot them, be done with the whole thing and ensure their safe getaway. Except David had talked too much about his position in their town, they’d have twenty people after then instead of two. It was easy math.

As soon as she was certain David and James wouldn’t pick up their weapons, Y/n bolted into the forest after Ellie.

—————————

They made it back to the house, sweaty and out of breath.

Y/n shoved Ellie through the front door, fearfully scanning the street once before shutting and locking the door. When she got in, Ellie was already making for the basement, where Y/n followed her to.

“Are they gonna find us?” Ellie panted, sprinting down the stairs.

“I hope not,” Y/n replied, wishing she could give her more assurance they were safe.

Joel had barely moved since they’d left, his head having lolled to the right a little. Y/n knelt down at his shoulder, picking up a piece of rag to wipe the sweat from his brow. His body was working overtime to beat the infection.

“How the fuck do I do this?” Ellie loaded the syringe with the first bottle of penicillin.

“You put it either in the wound or around it,” Y/n instructed, an invisible question mark appearing at the end, “I don’t know, I’ve never dealt with a wound like this.”

Ellie considered her options, rolling Joel’s bloody shirt back and getting a good look at the gash. “Fuck it,” she muttered, just before inserting the needle in the middle of his wound.

Joel’s breathing quickened, his abdomen clenched a few times at the sensation, breaking through his unconsciousness. Y/n was there, pressing a kiss to his slick forehead, ready to hold him down if he woke.

“Okay,” Ellie said under her breath as she extracted the needle.

“Good job,” Y/n reassured her, “Penicillin’s fast acting. He should start to improve.”

“H-how do you know that?” Ellie asked, placing a worried hand on Joel’s forehead to test his fever.

The truth was, Y/n didn’t know anything. She was floating on a life raft in the middle of the ocean, adrift from any and all sense of safety. But she wanted to take solace in medicine, in the science of twenty years ago that a little dosage could stitch the body back together. She was choosing to believe.

“I don’t,” Y/n replied honestly, stroking Joel’s hair and peering up at Ellie, “But I have to have faith in something.”

“What, like the guy who wants to kill us?”

Y/n nearly bristled, “No, not exactly. I don’t believe everything happens for a fucking reason,” she looked back down at Joel, her lips quirking upwards briefly, “But some things…some things, definitely. And I don’t believe that we’d go through all the hell we have just to lose now…”

Ellie sighed, nervously rubbing her hands together as she watched Y/n tend to Joel. It came so easy to her guardian, to care for both her and the man who had abandoned her. Ellie’s walls remained so sky high, she wished that she could simply surrender to the warmth in her heart without fearing it as weakness.

She walked around to the other side of the mattress, sinking down onto its edge and laying down next to Joel. She carefully placed her hand on his chest and rested her head on his broad shoulder.

Y/n knew it was difficult for Ellie to open up, that the connection they’d formed back in Boston was like some eclipse that only came every hundred years. She’d watched Ellie slowly peel away at Joel’s defenses, until it was impossible for either to deny they cared about one another. Y/n wished desperately that Joel was awake to return the gesture, to encourage her vulnerability.

There wasn’t enough room on the mattress for all three of them, and Y/n didn’t dare ask Ellie to move an inch. Instead, she brought Joel’s hand up to his chest and laced her fingers through his. She rested her forehead just above his heart, the soft thudding against her skin filling her body with hope that he’d keep fighting. That he wouldn’t leave them.

Joel, slipping in and out of consciousness, wasn’t aware of much going on around him. But somewhere in his slumber, he could sense the warmth that was wrapped around him. He wasn’t chasing any white light, calling him home, but he chased the heat, leaning his head into it. He knew he was safe, so long as he could feel the warmth.

—————————

But there was no improvement the next day.

Joel’s wound had stopped bleeding, but his fever had yet to break.

Y/n knelt over Joel’s abdomen, sucking the second dose of penicillin into the syringe and injecting it. He didn’t so much as make a sound, that worried her.

Ellie sat on the edge of the bed and watched, waiting for some miraculous transformation to occur that would make Joel shoot straight up and return to his normal, grumpy self. If Y/n was honest with herself, her sleep-deprived mind was also waiting on something similar.

“Thought you said it was fast acting,” Ellie remarked, more bitter with the medication than Y/n.

“It is,” she answered, she was fucking exhausted, “But it’s not magic. He took a fucking…” Y/n let her hand fall against her lap, “Whatever it was. That doesn’t heal overnight.”

They didn’t want to say what they were both thinking.

“Come on,” Y/n sighed, rising to her feet with a groan, “Let’s go serve breakfast.”

The two of them filed out the garage, Y/n going to lift the squeaky door and Ellie carrying out a bucket. They gathered handfuls of the freshly fallen snow and brought it back to their horses, it was all they could offer them.

Y/n looked out on the neighborhood, her fingers nearly twitching in anticipation. They’d left tracks on their way back from the woods. If David decided to come after them, it might not be hard to find them. Then again, if he was a preacher, he could have subscribed to the believe that God might exact some sort of revenge on them rather than dirty his own hands.

“What are you thinking about?” Ellie asked, coming to stand by her side.

Y/n sighed, not wanting to consider dying any more. “How tired I am of fuckin’ snow.”

“You and me both,” Ellie remarked.

Without another word, Ellie leaned her head against Y/n’s shoulder. Y/n interlocked her fingers with the young girl’s and they stood in silence, drawing strength from one another.

A flock of crows cawing, flying away from something, broke their peace.

“Get back inside,” Y/n ordered, stepping into the street and following the direction the birds had fled from.

“No fuckin’ way,” Ellie argued, chasing after Y/n. It was wasted breath, telling her not to do something.

Y/n led them through a line of trees, staying low as they walked along a wooden fence. Through the shrubbery and snow, Y/n could spot several bodies a few hundred feet away and the tips of the rifles they carried.

David.

Neither of them dared to say a word, Y/n pushing Ellie backwards and hurriedly sneaking them back across the street to the house. They ran into the garage, quickly and quietly shutting the door behind them, before bolting through down to the basement.

“We gotta draw them away,” Ellie said, on the same wavelength as Y/n, “If they’re after him.”

“We ride back towards the university,” Y/n finished the thought, if there was a fight to be had, that was the best battleground.

Ellie slid across the basement’s floor, smacking Joel’s chest and shaking him by the arm, earning a gasp in return.

“Joel,” she urged, “Joel, wake up.”

“Joel,” Y/n called, she was already grabbing her rifle, “Joel, come on. Wake up!”

“He’s not fucking moving,” Ellie panicked, running off to her backpack.

Y/n took her place, grabbing Joel’s face in her hand, “Joel, I need you to fucking wake up. We need you. Now.”

Everything hit Joel’s ears as if he was underwater, three layers of sea between him and the words. The familiar voices were speaking urgently, in desperate tones. He found the strength to open his eyes, two tiny slits offering him a blurry view of Y/n.

“Keep them open, Joel,” Y/n urged, “Keep them open for me,”

Ellie returned with Joel’s knife, placing it in the hand across his chest, “Okay, okay, look at me. There are men coming, okay? We’re gonna lead them away from you, but if anybody makes it down here, you fuckin’ kill them. You got it?”

Joel’s eyes were beginning to glaze over again.

“Joel,” Y/n slapped his cheeks a few times, feeling him slipping from them, “Do not fall asleep right now. Stay the fuck awake.”

In the end, there was nothing else her or Ellie could do. David was coming and they had to act fast.

Y/n pressed a final, urgent kiss to Joel’s brow, before leaping to her feet with Ellie, praying that he was weakened rather than dead when they returned.

“We gotta block him in,” Y/n said as her and Ellie ran up the stairs, “Grab the china cabinet.”

The two of them maneuvered the hutch in front of the basement door, blockading the entrance as best they could. They ran out to the garage, quickly saddling both their horses and shoving the door back open.

“You ride in front of me the whole time,” Y/n ordered as she mounted her horse, “And if I go down, you don’t stop. You ride back to Tommy, got it?”

Ellie was ready to argue to the death on the point, “I-“

“You ride back to Tommy,” Y/n repeated, feeling the weight of what she was telling Ellie to do. It was the same one Joel had felt two days before.

Ellie rode out first, with Y/n bringing up her rear. She had her pistol off its holster and the rifle across her back, ready to do whatever necessary to keep Ellie and Joel alive.

They rode out the backyard, cutting past a few houses before coming out on the end of the street David and his men were creeping down.

“Hey, motherfuckers!” Ellie yelled just before her and Y/n began to fire. Ellie was shooting to warn, Y/n was shooting to kill.

As soon as the first bullets flew, making the men jump, Y/n and Ellie galloped off the same way they’d come from the university. Ellie listened and stayed ahead of Y/n as they rode. With each foot they gained, a new surge of determination flooded them both that they could make it. Y/n rotated on her horse and prepared to take another shot-

BANG! BANG!

One well timed bullet to Ellie’s horse sent the girl flying, landing harshly in the snow. The horse’s failed body tripped Y/n’s animal, she clutched the reins as she was thrown off, rolling into the snow as her spooked horse ran off.

“I got ‘em,” one of the men yelled.

“El,” Y/n grunted, belly crawling to Ellie, who managed to roll over onto her back. She was in a daze from the fall.

Y/n reached back for her rifle, scrambling to her feet as the crunch of boots began to surround her. She raised her gun at the first set of men, firing one bullet through one of their legs and sending him to the ground. She wasn’t quick enough to swing behind her and avoid the butt of one of their guns being driven into her head.

“Fuckin’ bitch,” the man muttered as Y/n fell.

It was a battle to stay awake through the dizziness, but Y/n managed to get to her knees, shielding the men from getting any closer to Ellie.

“Do it,” the same man who’d clubbed Y/n decided.

Even though they were her last moments, they didn’t feel like it to Y/n. She reached beside her to grab her pistol and cocked it. After twenty years of fighting, she wasn’t about to stop just because death and her were face to face. Not for Joel and certainly not for Ellie.

A shot fired into the air stopped the situation from escalating any further.

David came forward, standing over Y/n and Ellie. He cocked his head towards two of his men before Y/n, his disciples each grabbing one of Y/n’s arms and dragging her back.

“No,” she screamed, kicking wildly as David kneeled down beside Ellie and reached down to take her pulse, “Don’t you fucking touch her!”

David glanced up at Y/n, nearly amused by how aggravated she was. He removed his hand from Ellie, holding it up where she could see it. “Two of you with me,” he ordered, “Drag the horse,” he moved to pick Ellie up.

With all her strength, Y/n slammed her boot down onto one of her captor’s feet, causing his grip to loosen in the agony. She freed her arm and punched the second man at his temple, making him stumble backwards. “No!”

Y/n marched forwards, shoving David’s hands off of Ellie’s body, “She’s my fuckin’ kid.”

David watched every move, thoroughly evaluating the woman in front of him. He removed his hands and stood to his feet slowly, adhering to her demand.

Y/n brushed the loose strands of Ellie’s hair off her wet face, the sight of her unconscious nearly incapacitating Y/n with fear.

“The rest of you go door to door,” David continued his orders, “You so hungry for vengeance? Deliver it.”

Y/n’s head had barely turned before she caught herself. It was better for them to think Joel was up and about and that she had nothing to worry about. Internally, she felt fear spread to the very tips of her fingers.

David began to lead the way as Y/n lifted Ellie into her arms, beginning the two mile hike back to David’s community. She didn’t know what fate they were being marched towards, but she knew one thing.

She’d burn down the whole fucking town before she let anything happen to Ellie.

TYL Taglist: @bachiracore @stolenxkissess @kayleezra @the-wistful-reader @allthesesonsofbitches @goth-detectives365 @trippovert @rh1nestonecowg1rl @emiliaserpe @khaleesihavilliard @frietiemeloen @gracie7209 @dorck26 @thegirlnextdoorssister @alanis-altair @mariwinns16 @whosscruffylooking @endofthexline @alexiaricciardo @eonnyx @pedrosmexicangf @scarlettequinn @ao-sleepy @toinfinityandbeyonce2 @deanlovescassie @turmoil-ash @sorrowjunky @kpopslur @xxlilyxx90 @midgetpottermills @presidential-facts @scoopsnini @tubble-wubble @jamesdeerest @burninggracesandbridges @star-wars-lover @lucyhotchner @cococola-cocaine @witheringhqarts @fall-writes @alwaysdjarin @xxmoonn @emilia-the-artist @wand-erer5 @boneyarrd @lizard-zombie @themultifandomofmadness @cassidylea123 @paleepeaches @mxltifxnd0m @kettlekatie @ultimate-cinephile @gloryekaterina @caramelkatsukis-bitch @whovianayesha @memeorydotcom @deadunicorn159 @get0ut0fmyr00m @siriuslymooned @emmyeed @superbreadsoul @hellu-people1 @ourautumn86 @inas-thing @noraapple05 @givemylovetoall @luvwanda (tags cont. in comments)

[inmyheaddd]

golden - jameson hawthorne’s birthday

a/n: two posts in one day because it’s our husbands bday!!! lots of averyjameson just for u liv 🙈 wc: 1.3k taglist: @heartwithsimplenotes @thecircularlibrary @x-liv25-jamieswife @whatsamongus

@anintellectualintellectual @wish-i-were-heather @littlemissmentallyunstable masterlist

this year was jameson’s golden birthday, turning 22 years old on the 22nd of august.

avery wasn’t even sure if he even knew what a golden birthday was, but she decorated accordingly to it nonetheless.

for him, another birthday was a subtle reminder that nothing was permanent, and everything changes, no matter how much you don’t want it to. 

knowing this, his only plan for the next day as he went to sleep was to spend as much time with the people he truly loved. not some big event with hundreds of people coming, mostly just because of the hawthorne last name attached, like he had done years before. 

“jameson, wake up.” avery smiled as she nudged his shoulder, sitting on the edge of the bed. she had been up for 3 hours now, preparing everything. 

he didn’t wake up, so she resulted to peppering kisses on his face. 

as his eyelids fluttered open, avery pulled back and her smile grew.

jameson’s brows furrowed momentarily as he sat up, leaning against the headboard and stretching. 

he looked around the room, seeing golden glitter roses, balloons, and other decorations all around the room. his eyes found their way back to avery, who had a gentle smile on her face. 

“good morning, birthday boy.” avery whispered, and jameson leaned in to kiss her. 

as he pulled back, he couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the way their room looked.“heiress, how— why did you do all this?” 

she let out a small chuckle, “why wouldn’t i?” 

jameson had a million thoughts swarming though his head, half of them on how much he loved avery, the other half on how much he didn’t deserve her. 

he deflected his inner thoughts by leaning in so that his lips barely grazed avery’s, “well, do i get a birthday present?” 

“oh, you have no idea,” there was a hint of playfulness in her voice, she lingered for a moment, but then she pulled back, standing up and holding her hand out for jameson. 

“what? let’s go.” she said in a fake cheery voice, trying to not laugh at the way jameson’s jaw was slack. 

his lips turned up in amusement, before taking ahold of her hand with a sigh and letting her lead the way. 

his eyes were wide as he took in the whole place. she decorated the whole house, flower trails, food, she had even made a riddle game for him to solve. 

he quite literally stopped in his tracks, “heiress.” 

her head turned, “yeah?” 

he took a step forward, “do you know how inlove with you i am?” 

avery smiled, her head slightly tilting to the side as she hummed for a second, “hm, i have a pretty good idea.” 

they spent hours together, but it felt like mere minutes. 

jameson was now on top of avery, pressing lights kisses to her neck that left her laughing and squirming underneath him. her phone went off, again, and again, until it finally registered in her mind. 

“oh shit, it’s 4:30. we have to go!” she got up from the couch, then started scrambling for something in the drawers. 

jameson got up behind her quickly, “what’s going on?” he asked curiously, slightly breathless. 

after repeated mumbles of “where is it” and other swears, avery pulled a blindfold out. “here, wear this.” 

jameson grinned at her and chuckled, “isn’t this bedroom use only?” 

avery rolled her eyes jokingly, before reaching up to tie it on him herself.

“bossy, i like it.” he muttered, and when avery hit his shoulder in response, his grin only widened.  

“and here i thought getting older meant becoming more mature.” she murmured, slightly thankful jameson couldn’t see the flush on her face. 

somehow, he seemed to know anyway based on the way his tongue poked the inside of his cheek. 

“come on, let’s go.” avery dragged him outside to the car. 

5 minutes into the drive, jameson recognized the routes they were taking. 

“we’re going to the House.” he didn’t phrase it as a question. 

“yes, we are.” avery hadn’t expected otherwise, “just wait and see. patience is a virtue, jameson.” she remarked sarcastically.

“well, the thing is, avery. i can’t wait and see, can i? because my vision is currently obstructed by—“ 

“ugh, you’re impossible,” avery groaned, as she hit his shoulder once again. his nerves lit on fire as he felt her hand settle on his leg, a smile finding his face. 

there were lights all around the exterior of the hawthorne house, some rainbow, some white, some golden, and balloons everywhere. there was even a car out front with a large bow on it. 

the second avery and jameson came through the door, there was a chorus of “happy birthday!”s.

jameson laughed out loud as he took off his blindfold.

nash was holding his twins, cheering, and xander popped a party popper. max was there too, and she blew one of the party whistles with libby. avery moved to stand with them, clapping and cheering along with everyone with a smile never leaving her face.

grayson walked up to him, placing a hand on his shoulder, “happy birthday jameson.” there was a faint echo of the little kids they once were; grayson solemnly congratulating jameson, silently wishing him good luck before he met with their grandfather for his next project, and knowing he was next. 

jameson pulled him into a side hug, patting his back hard twice, “thankyou, gray.” they would never be those kids again, and jameson wasn’t sure too if he was happy or sad about that. 

3 hours later, too many drinks to count, and one very interesting group karaoke of taylor swifts “22” later, everyone had decided it was time to cut the cake. 

“you see, we’re the same age now, so i don’t have to listen to you anymore.” jameson yelled atop the music that was still blasting, 

“jameson, i’m still older than you.” grayson’s voice was more leveled.

“you’re 22, i’m 22. we’re equals, gray.”

“i turn 23 in 4 hours.” he deadpanned. 

“are you 23 though?” jameson questioned as he poked at his shoulder.  

xander was watching the interaction between them, surprisingly, silently, placing another snack in his mouth.

“jameson. i’m telling you again, go and cut your birthday cake, and put the glass down. people are waiting.” grayson took a step away from jameson’s

he couldn’t help but mess with his older brother longer. he wouldn’t take this singular day where they were the same age for granted, he never did. 

hes done this every single year, ever since he could remember.  

“everyone’s having fun!. i know you’re dying for the cake, but be patient, grayson, you’ll get your owncake soon enough. don’t worry!” grayson rose an eyebrow, and jameson continued. 

“i respect my elders, but you, my dear brother,” he pointed at grayson, “are not my elder. besides, you haven’t said please yet.” he said as took another sip of his champagne.

grayson took a deep inhale, pinching his nose bridge. 

before he had the chance to speak again, avery approached and jameson’s attention clearly diverted as she placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“the twins want to try the cake, and nash just found the camera we were looking for! let’s go and cut it now, yeah?”

“oh, of course, heiress. let’s go.” he smiled down at her and took her hand. 

grayson stood there silently, almost in disbelief, and xander snorted.

avery’s brows furrowed as she looked between the three of them, jameson simply shrugged. “i don’t know what their problem is.” 

as they walked off, jameson turned around briefly to shoot grayson a grin. 

by the end of the night, they’d taken around 70 polaroids, used 4 different digital cameras, and xander tried (and failed) to use grayson’s camera.

jameson and avery were back home, curled up in bed. he kissed her forehead softly as she snuggled closer. “thankyou you for today,” he whispered.

“you don’t have to thank me.” 

“i do, though. i think…” he trailed off, trying to find the right words “maybe without realizing, all the birthday wishes i had made before were all about you.” he paused, “they all led me to you.”  

avery lifted her head to meet his eyes with a light laugh, “i never took you as the sappy type, but i kind of like it on you.”

jameson chuckled and turned his head to the side before turning back to her, “it’s a special occasion, don’t get used to it.” 

she let out a giggle before pressing a kiss to his lips, “happy birthday, jameson.” 

jameson smiled, his arm wrapped around avery’s waist as he pulled her closer. “with you here, it truly is,” he murmured.

[corazondebeskar-reads]

you know you never stood a chance - chapter one

you know you never stood a chance series

one: you know you never stood a chance

series masterlist | next chapter

qz!Joel Miller x f!reader

Word Count: 2k

Summary: When QZ!Joel finds out you're planning to take up prostitution to earn enough rations for your sick sister, he makes sure he's the first one to pay you a visit.

Warnings: Prostitution, dub-con due to power imbalance, Joel Miller is bad at feelings, kind of mean!Joel, p in v sex, unprotected sex, oral sex (f receiving), inexperienced reader, mention of cordyceps, brothel

Originally written for Kinktober 2023 - Day 9: Cumshot/Prostitution from this list by @absurdthirst

also on aO3

“Come in,” you called through the door, trying for your best laid-back, confident voice.

It wasn’t very successful. Joel rolled his eyes and opened the door. You were knelt on the bed, looking soft and demure—except for the way you were wringing your hands.

And the way the sweet look fell off your face when you saw him.

“What are you doing here?” You snatched up a pillow, hugging it over your torso like he hadn’t already got a good look at you through the sheer fabric.

“Gardening. What do you think I’m doin’ here?”

“This isn’t funny, Miller. Get out.” You grabbed another pillow and threw it at him.

He deflected it away from his face. “Jesus, woman.”

“You’ve had your laugh; you can go now.” You stared at the dingy Berber carpet of the shitty old motel room. It had probably been shitty before the whole world fell to pieces. The peeling wallpaper had sickly yellow stains to match the cigarette burns that pockmarked the single tufted armchair in the corner.

“Didn’t laugh,” Joel said gruffly, tossing something at you.

You had to drop the pillow to catch the bottle of water, nearly fumbling it, and looked up at him. “What’s this for?” you asked warily.

“It’s for drinkin’.”

“Ha ha. Look, can you not—don’t fuck with me right now. Why’re you here?”

It’s then, as you took a careful sip from the bottle, that Joel got a good look at your outfit.

Periwinkle tulle had been sewn roughly into an approximation of a dress, like something out of a Victoria’s Secret magazine had been poorly described to a seamstress who had never heard of lingerie. Actually, now that he thought about it, there was a good chance that was exactly what happened.

It had crooked, lacey ruffles on the top and bottom and did not suit you in the slightest. “What the hell are you wearin’? You raid a JoAnn’s?”

“Hey, I tried my best,” you said, bottom lip quivering.

“Ah shit, sweetheart, I didn’t—”

But you smirked. “Wow, you were really about to apologize, weren’t you? I shouldn’t have cut you off; go on, I want to hear Joel Miller say ‘sorry.’”

“Wasn’t gonna,” he scowled.

“Right, sure. Anyway, nah, they got a box of this shit in the office. I don’t know who makes it, but they want us to look extra dolled up or something.”

“Take that shit off. I can’t do this with you lookin’ like that.”

The smirk slid off your face. “Can’t do what?”

“Can’t fuck you, sweetheart. Isn’t that why you’re here? I paid for ya’, after all.”

Your stomach churned like the angry sea you had only read about in Moby Dick. You felt about as well as a sailor might have, too. It’s not like you had any misunderstandings about what would happen if you worked a shift at a whorehouse. But with your sister sick and unable to work, you’d been out of food for two days. So.

He looked at you with something too close to pity, so you pulled the dress over your head and threw it on the floor, staring right at him and daring him to say anything. And he did, but it wasn’t what you were expecting.

“You got pretty tits, sweetheart.”

“Thank you… ?”

“What was your plan here? What if it wasn’t me? You just going to let some old creep come in here and do whatever he wanted to ya?”

“And you’re not an old creep?”

He rolled his eyes and sat down on the chair, tugging at his boots. “This ain’t your first time, right?”

“Obviously not,” you snapped. It wasn’t. But he didn’t need to know there had only been the one time. You hadn’t found the experience worth repeating, but the guy seemed pretty happy so you figured you could just lie there and let them do whatever.

“You know how to suck cock?”

You flushed and shook your head. He rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands, rubbing at his forehead for a few seconds.

“Okay, alright. ‘Nother time, then.”

You were too nervous to clock what he said. He rose and walked over to the bed. You looked up at him with wide eyes, and he knew he had to wreck you. He couldn’t walk out of this room without ruining you for every other person who dared to lay hands on you.

He set his hands on your hips, and you flinched, so he rubbed soothing circles with his thumbs until you relaxed a little. When you had adjusted to the weight of his heavy palms, he slid them and cupped a breast in each.

“Damn, sweetheart. These are real nice.” He fondled them like that for a minute, enjoying the heft in his palms, before rubbing his thumbs over your nipples. He was rewarded for his efforts when a small moan slipped out of you.

He tore his eyes away from your chest to check your expression. Though your lips were parted and eyes glazed, you still looked afraid. “S’all right, honey, I’ll go slow.”

He leaned down and took one nipple into his mouth while he rolled the other between his fingers. You moaned again, louder this time, and he took that as permission to give the other breast the same treatment. When you finally started to ease up, to lean into his touch, and he felt more assured that you weren’t about to cry, he stepped back.

“Turn around, hands and knees.”

The apprehension filled the lines of your face quickly, but you turned around, relieved he wouldn’t make you look at him.

He ran a hand across your bare back, pushing your shoulder blades down with one hand and your knees apart with the other until you were arranged how he liked. You tensed, holding your breath and waiting for him to push in.

Instead, you felt a gentle hand on your mound. He cupped it before parting your lips, sliding his fingers through. You were damp, but nowhere near wet enough to take him. Not without a whole lot of pain, at least.

“Got a real pretty pussy, too. You’ve been holdin' out on me.” He circled your clit with the pad of his middle finger for a few seconds, watching you squirm, before he pulled his hand away.

“Anyone ever tasted you? You ever taste yourself?”

You shook your head.

“Shame.” It was a puff of hot breath over your cunt, followed closely by the warm, firm pressure of his tongue.

You wailed. You might have been embarrassed if it hadn’t been the best thing you’d ever felt, beating the record he had set seconds ago with his finger.

He didn’t ease you into this. It took no time at all for his skilled tongue and thick fingers to pry an orgasm out of you. He had worked one finger in you by the time you fell apart, but it wasn’t going to be enough.

You wriggled when he didn’t let up, trying to lurch away, but he pulled you back with a hand on your hip. “Hang on, let me open you up good.”

It was intense, and you were loud, swearing up a storm. When he eased another finger inside, you pushed back against his hand, grinding your hips. He sucked on your clit, flicking it with his tongue, until you came again, this time with a low groan pulled from deep in your chest, sinking back onto his fingers. He slid another one in, pumping furiously until the second orgasm turned into a third, and you were shaking apart.

“That’s a good girl,” he murmured, stroking soothingly along your spine and drawing his fingers from you. He wanted to push them between your lips, to watch your eyes go wide as you sucked your juices from him, but decided he better not push you too far. Not today, at least.

“You ready for me?” he asked, unzipping his jeans and letting them fall around his ankles.

“Please, Joel.”

And goddamn, if that wasn’t the sweetest sound. “Yeah? You want my cock now?”

“Please, please fuck me, Joel.” You were pushing back against him, grinding your ass against his erection.

“Alright, sweetheart, I’ll take care of ya.” He held you in place with one hand and notched the fat head of his cock at your entrance.

You cried out as he pushed in slowly. “Oh my god. What the fuck. Why are you so fucking big?” You didn’t even mean to be complimenting him. The one dick you had before had certainly not felt like this, like you were being pried apart.

“You gotta relax, sweetheart, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“That’s easy for you to say; you’re not being — oh fuck,” you broke off as he pushed in further.

“Not being what, honey? I didn’t hear ya.”

“Not being fucking split in two by some fuckin—”

He knocked whatever insult you were gearing up for out of you in a strangled breath as his hands gripped tight to your hips and pulled you back on his cock.

“Almost there, don’t worry. I gotcha,” he murmured, reaching around to rub at your clit. It didn’t take much to get you off again, and when your body shook and convulsed, he slid his cock in all the way.

He had planned on giving you a moment to adjust, but you started gently rocking yourself back and forth on it like a fuckin’ handwritten invitation. He began pulling almost all the way out before slowly sinking in, letting you part around him. His groan had you arching your back.

You thought he’d fuck rough. It might have been easier if he had. When you realized he was serious about it, that he had paid real fucking ration cards for access to your body, you figured he’d use you, cum, and leave.

Instead, he took you apart with precision. You wondered if he was a musician before, the way his fingers seemed to know right where to go, just how to thrum your body to draw out sounds you didn’t even know were inside you.

The rhythm he set was fluid and deep. You felt like you might explode, each stroke leaving you with fewer coherent thoughts. He hefted you against his chest, thrusting up into you and reaching around to your breasts.

It was a little overwhelming. Your whole body electrified, just the brush of his arm against yours sent waves of too much too much coursing through. All the while, his hips rolled into you, and yours mindlessly sought him back.

He was getting close, his thrusts a little sloppy. He held you to him with one hand cupping a breast and slid the other down to press against your clit. “Cum on my cock,” he growled in your ear.

It didn’t take long with the steady pressure and the way his cock nudged something inside you that made you twitch with every thrust. When you came, he shoved you down into the mattress, pulling out to cum over your ass.

You must have dozed off for a minute, because the wet washcloth landing on your back brought you abruptly into the world.

“Clean up, drink that, and get outta here.”

You glowered at him, head spinning from the sudden shift. He made you off-kilter and vulnerable, which was not an option, so you snarled back, “What, you think you’re my only client? I’ve got other men to fuck today, Joel.”

He finished tying his boots and stalked over to you, bending down to get in your face. “No, you don’t. You’re gonna go home like a good girl. And next time, you come straight to me. Understood?”

“What?”

“You still cockdumb? Poor thing.”

“Fuck off, Joel.”

He pressed the water bottle into your hands. “Next time you need cards this bad, you don’t come here. You come to me.”

“I’m not taking your handouts, Miller.”

“I’m not offerin’em. But you keep comin’ here, doin’ this? You’re gonna catch something worse than fuckin’ cordyceps. Or get yourself knocked up. We can make this same little arrangement if you need to.” He tilted your head up to face him. “Understood?”

“Fine,” you spat.

He stood up. For a moment, you thought he might say something else, but he just shook his head and left.

next chapter

*title from "Stood a Chance" by Taking Back Sunday

[hugheses]

these are just some thoughts after seeing ur post on the hockey thigh thing btw, and i hope you hear me out. you being a lesbian (im bi and i have a gf currently), which is something you emphasise a lot, and not being attracted to these dudes doesnt make this whole parasocial archive any less weird or creepy. i'm not here to shit on or invalidate your passion, because obv its something you care about deeply from how much your scour the web for all these old things, even of their mother when she was young. and genuinely, thats pretty cool, i work in archival and i have a lot of respect for that with the effort you've put into it.

but i think you are encouraging others to imitate this blog and culture, when it comes to other players who aren't as in the media as the hughes family. like i agree that its part and parcel of the job as athletes who represent a multitude of things like ur franchise ur family etc, but i feel like we just shouldn't proliferate this. i know people on twitter are unjustly harsh and oftentimes critical to the point of meanness, but i think some points they share are valid. just bc its on the internet, doesnt give us the permission to do stuff ykwim? like imagine just going up to the hughes and giving them a scrapbook of every media moment from their mothers childhood, to her college, their dad, and them as kids and now as adults. thats just straight up weird. and don't even get me on the sexualisation, i get they are adults but isn't that just basic respect?

i know having an internet community is rlly important to some, and im sure ur followers would still give you that support u need even if you dont constantly supply them with these media things, or dangle ur secret archive like a carrot over them.

hoping you have a great day

you clearly put a lot of time and thought into this, so i will give you that same level of consideration back. i think you have some misunderstandings about me, hockey fandom, and fandom culture as a whole.

first, the lesbian thing. admittedly tumblr search is very broken but according to it i’ve mentioned the word lesbian twice on here, as a disclaimer for why i might not be the best person to understand what male attracted people find hot. it's possible it's come up a few other times but it’s definitely not something i "emphasize a lot". it's somewhat ironic that you bring up you being bi and having a gf in what reads to me like a deflection on your critique that i say i'm gay too much, when you seem to think me saying i'm a lesbian is bc i'm trying to deflect on sexualizing these guys. which admittedly is the most confusing part of your entire ask. is this solely about the thigh ask? if you’re worried about "basic respect", hockey fandom is probably not the place for you. i know i don't like seeing 500 reader insert posts every time i open anyone's tag, which is why i have related terms muted and block people who don't use them. however this is very much a part of hockey fandom and i’m aware of that. on the flip side, the unfortunate reality is that hockey players are some of the nastiest misogynistic men on the planet who generally do not see women as actual human beings beyond mommies, maids, and holes. if i WAS sexualizing these men 24/7 i would feel well within my rights to do so, and could make an only slightly ironic argument for it being feminist praxis. if jack hughes can ask girls to flash him, i can have a little sexualization, as a treat. 

calling me weird and creepy isn’t actually negated by following up with saying you're not trying to shit on or invalidate my passion and you respect the effort i put into it. if you think i’m weird and creepy, you’re allowed to feel that way, but actually own it if that’s what your opinion is.

you imagined this scrapbook scenario and then say that it’s weird. i agree, that hypothetical thing would be weird. good thing i’m not doing that, will never do that, and take many efforts to have a strong fourth wall and keep this blog separate from the people it's about. i am a firm believer in keeping fandom private and secluded! that's why im not tweeting all of this and tagging them. 

it’s a big leap for you to assume that i do this because i "need support". not that it matters, but i do all of this because i find it fun and i’m being generous with people who do not have the time/resources/know-how to find this stuff on their own. there's nothing wrong with finding a community online, but i had one before doing all this. in fact, all of this has been really more trouble than it's worth in terms of harassment vs kindness lmao. some people on here have been lovely to me, but i’m beyond the age where i need virtual validation from strangers. you’re right about one thing, i do dangle my secret archive like a carrot, largely for petty reasons because of a few specific assholes. 

you seem to think i’m the only person who does stuff like this. update/archival accounts are very common for musicians, actors, even like... tiktok influencers. were you not online when people hacked an airport security cam feed to watch one direction sit and do nothing? everything ive ever posted on here has been available to the public. i’m just good at finding stuff. even within this smaller sports fandom on tumblr, i have been inspired by OTHER BLOGS who were doing this before me and go way harder than i do. i didn’t invent the concept of collecting information and images about public figures like you seem to think i did, but thanks.

if you want to critique fandom culture as a whole, go right ahead, but i ask that you keep the sanctimonious lectures out of my inbox, especially when they're based in assumptions. any one of these things could have been questions i would be willing to chat about if you were actually curious about me and what i do. i in fact have lots of opinions that might surprise you on many of these things you mentioned. but i will have those conversations with other people, who talk to me with the respect and dignity that i deserve.

[obstinaterixatrix]

Usopp asks sanji to write out the recipe of a favorite dish of his and let him borrow the kitchen to make it but sanji keeps Observing and Hovering

set vaguely after arlong park I guess??

—

Despite what anyone on the crew might think, Sanji isn’t actually against having other people in the kitchen. Working in a restaurant means working with a bunch of assholes who know how to sauté shit without setting themselves on fire. But while the bastards on the Baratie could barely be considered chefs, they were still—technically speaking—chefs.

He doesn’t miss the cacophony of steel and iron, of stupid banter, of order after order after order. He doesn’t miss elbowing past Patty on the way to the fridge, or heckling some dipshit’s new recipe until it’s actually worth serving, or cleaning with the geezer at the end of the day.

What he does miss is working with someone who knows how to hold a knife.

“That’s not how you fillet a fish,” Sanji says. Once he’s sure Usopp’s not in danger of accidentally cutting himself, Sanji reaches over to reposition Usopp’s hand, finger off the spine of the blade.

Usopp makes a face, probably torn between deferring to Sanji or spinning some story to brush him off. They’re still feeling each other out—it’s been a weird leap from ‘reluctant waiter and picky customer’ to ‘crewmates bound by the whims of their idiot captain.’ In the end, Usopp nods, carefully cutting into the pike while holding the knife in his new and improved posture (smart choice, less chance of losing his grip and a finger).

“You’re not cutting close enough to the—“

“Do you not want me here?” Usopp blurts out. “In the kitchen, I mean,” he clarifies, and for a second it looks like he’s going to continue, but he. Doesn’t. No backpedaling, no deflection, no convoluted over-explanation, which—isn’t Usopp supposed to lie? That’s his whole thing. Sanji knows that much, at least (but not much else).

“I’m trying to be nice,” Sanji says, eventually. To his own surprise, he means it. “If I didn’t want you here, I would’ve kicked you out.”

“…Oh.”

Usopp continues filleting the pike, and Sanji doesn’t point out the bones that are stuck in the pieces.

Alright, so, the thing is. Spending nine whole years surrounded by thugs will apparently have an impact on someone’s social skills. Which doesn’t matter with Luffy—he doesn’t really care about what Sanji says (unless it’s about food). It doesn’t matter with Zoro—Sanji doesn’t give a shit about that mosshead. And with Nami-chan, Sanji doesn’t have to think—a single glimpse of her radiant beauty is so soul-stirring that Sanji’s simply helpless against the flood of praise that springs forth ❤️

So how the hell is he supposed to talk to someone like Usopp?

Thankfully, it’s not a question Sanji has to consider for too long—Usopp clears his throat, taking the lead.

“I actually did this a lot before joining the crew,” he says, which—knife technique aside—sounds plausible.

“Yeah?”

“I must’ve grilled a thousand—no, ten thousand fish,” he continues, which sounds like bullshit. “By the time I was eight, the whole island was lining up for a taste of the great Captain Usopp’s legendary fire-grilled fish! Using spices foraged from the forest and fish caught by spear, not even the most refined palate could resist the food I poured my heart and soul into! But you see—” and here, he smiles, bright but somehow bittersweet, “I’d only cook it for my loyal crew and the princess we’d all sworn to protect.

“Now, as astounding as my own recipe was, I’m man enough to admit when I’m beat. And yours beats mine, no contest. So someday, I’d… like to cook it. For my old crew.”

It’s impressive, the way Usopp manages to be blindingly honest while lying his ass off. Sanji’s not quite sure what to make of it. If anyone else was feeding him this crap, he would’ve told them to eat shit, but…

…

“Hey,” Sanji says. “Tell me about your old crew.”

And, with a wide grin, Usopp does.

(The fish comes out fine. A little over-seasoned, but edible. They’ll work on it.)

[banannabethchase]

Perspective and Parallax - also on AO3

~

During the Dynamite after Blood and Guts 2024, Matt walks in on Nick and Mox.

~

A continuation and reworking of my tumblr ficlet the original of which can be found here from July 2023, because sometimes I make weird choices. Title from Death of Me by PVRIS.

~

“I’m sorry!” Nick isn’t sure what he’s apologizing for exactly, but Matt’s stumbling is enough to tell him that, at the very least, he should be.

“I don’t want to look at you right now!” Matt’s got both hands covering his eyes like he’s a little kid as he backs out of the room. He crashes into a wall and keeps walking, making a weird little whimpering sound. Nick has never felt so weird as when he’s hopping to pull his sweatpants back on while he brother storms out of the room. Mox is in the corner, buttoning up his jeans and chuckling.

“What’s so funny?!”

“Matt’s fuckin’ face,” Mox says, easy as anything. He does up his belt, and Nick feels even worse than he had when he’d accosted Mox and asked for a quickie in the janitor’s closet at the end of Blood and Guts. “I’ve never seen a man look that old-conservative-lady-seeing-an-interracial-gay-couple in my life.”

“I - Matt’s not racist or homophobic,” Nick says, stomping through the door. He can tell Mox is following him by the thunking of his boots on the hallway tile. “That’s not it.”

“No, I know he’s not - it was a metaphor, Nick, fuck.” Mox takes a few big steps to get up next to Nick. “I’m joking. I’m trying to make it light.”

“We don’t need to make it light, we need to fix it,” Nick huffs. “Last week we, along with our friends, were beating the shit out of each other. Now, he walks in on us having sex?” Nick shakes his head. “This was a bad idea.”

“Hey.”

Mox’s hands on Nick’s shoulders are weirdly grounding, and Nick finds himself breathing again. “Matt’ll live, Nick. You’re allowed to get yours when you want to. Plus.” He offers a smirk. “Y'all won, didn’t you? Maybe this is just you taking your prize.”

Nick wrinkles his nose. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“Yeah, I heard it as I said it.” He sighs. “Whatever. BCC, Elite, we should all get dinner and make up, you know?”

Nick considers it, rolling the idea around in his head. “That could work,” he says carefully.

“And I can feel you up under the table,” Mox continues. “Hey, you like edging? This is kinda like edging.” He wiggles in his jeans. “Maybe we tease each other at dinner and then fuck like crazy back at the hotel.”

Nick considers it. “Yeah. Yeah, I like that plan.”

Mox’s grin goes predatory. “I’m gonna wreck you tonight, Young Buck.”

Nick blushes for a full ten minutes.

~

He has to wait until Kota, Kenny, and Adam have already left the room before talking to Matt.

“What?” Matt asks in what Nick considers an unnecessarily bitchy tone.

“Be nice for once,” Nick snaps.

“Why, so you can go off and get laid at work again?” Matt folds his arms over his chest.

Nick rolls his eyes. “I wanna see if you want to get dinner. I mean, we. All of us. BCC and Elite.”

“You want to do dinner?” Matt asks, frowning. “Really? Now?”

“Of course now,” Nick says, unable to meet Matt’s eyes. “When else do you eat dinner?”

“That is not what I mean,” Matt says, planting his hands on his hips. “Are you going to explain why you were getting your brain effed out by Moxley during drinks or dessert?”

“I’m not – shut up!” Nick throws a book at Matt, who aptly deflects it. Jerk. “It’s over, right? We won? So BCC and Elite dinner. To, I don’t know, bury the hatchet.”

“I’d like to buy the hatchet in Mox’s brain.” Matt picks at his shirt. “I don’t like the idea of him effing my younger brother.”

Nick thinks his eyes are going to roll out of his head if Matt keeps this up “Like you’re the person who would be asked for permission to do anything ever.”

“Hey!”

“You aren’t even taller than me,” Nick says. He stands to enforce the point. “Come on, you got back with Adam and nobody complained about that.”

“Adam and I,” Matt says, beginning to pack furiously, “did not try to kill each other.”

Nick stares. “You called him the next great wrestling tragedy.”

“I was emotional, and he forgave me,” Matt says, throwing his hair over his shoulder. “I haven’t decided if I’m going to forgive you.”

“For what?” Nick asks. He’s got the last few things in the room in his arms and throws them toward his luggage. “Getting laid?”

“For effing the enemy,” Matt says. He looks disgusted, but that kind of makes this more fun, in Nick’s opinion. “It’s going to take some time for me to get over this.”

Nick resists the urge to strangle Matt, and instead settles for saying, “Sure it will.”

~

Matt’s acting like he has completely forgotten all of his negativity by the time they’re halfway through dinner. He and Bryan are sharing old Ring of Honor stories while Claudio pipes in from time to him, his hand folded over Yuta’s. Adam and Yuta are discussing the merits of some German philosopher from the 1800s while Mox interjects from time to time to make sex jokes. Kenny, sitting next to Nick, is interpreting the conversations at lightning speed for Kota, the two of them comfortably touching and cozy to watch.

Nick, on the other hand, is not part of the conversations. He’s trying to be, but he can’t.

Because Mox’s hand has been in his lap since the first round of drinks and sodas came out, and he’s doing everything he can not to blow at the table.

“Nick, you can’t let him get away with this,” Yuta says, looking exasperated. “Do you know who Kant is?”

“Uh,” Nick says, searching his mind, “is his name a hint?”

Mox snorts so hard he starts coughing. “No,” he chokes out, “no, not in the way I think you’re thinking.”

Yuta rolls his eyes. “Mox is plagued by dumbass brain. Anybody who says Kant is the king of Enlightenment philosophy needs to get their head shoved into a toilet.”

“Are we doing that again?” Claudio asks, frowning. “I was assured the Ring of Honor nonsense hazing practices were long gone.”

“Nah, it’s because Mox is being a dick,” Adam says cheerfully. He’s being a gentleman – his hand is on top of Matt’s on the table. Not slowly, rhythmically, rubbing, changing up the patterns right when Nick starts feeling like he’s hurtling toward the point of no return. It’s a nice restaurant, close enough to fancy that he wore the spare jacket he keeps in his luggage, and coming in his pants before dessert feels like something that would get him, at the very least, in trouble with Matt.

“Oh!” Claudio says. “Then I’d be delighted to harass him.”

Nick laughs, but then Mox squeaks and he cuts into a gasp.

Adam eyes Nick, head tilted to the side, brow furrowed. “Are you feeling okay, Nick?”

“Yeah,” he says. He clears his throat. “Yeah, I’m good. Why?”

“Your face is all red,” Matt pops in. “Are you alright?”

That’s when he realizes: Adam knows. Matt told Adam, and Adam knows, and this is a cruel joke to ruin his life.

“I hate both of you,” Nick says, as firmly as he can get, and then he turns to Yuta. “Tell me more about how Mox is stupid.”

Yuta lights up. “Oh, god, last week in the gym he fell off the treadmill, and –”

The conversation shifts, Mox starts using both of his hands because he needs to emphatically defend himself, and Nick, briefly, has some relief. But he’s still painfully hard.

Dinner is great, which is annoying because it means Matt was right again, and now Nick is sharing crème brulee with Mox, who won’t stop looking at him.

“You know what this looks like?” Mox says, taking a spoonful.

“No,” Claudio says, firm in a way that makes Nick’s whole deal even more difficult to manage, “none of that. This is a nice restaurant.”

Nick giggles.

“I was going to say it looks like glass on the top,” Mox says, rolling his eyes. He turns a burning gaze onto Nick. “What did you think I was going to say?”

“Nothing,” Nick says. His mother didn’t raise a man who backs down. “What did you think I thought you were going to say?”

“Can you two flirt somewhere else?” Kenny asks.

“That’s hilarious, coming from you,” Bryan says, but Nick doesn’t feel like he needs to bite back. It doesn’t sound as cruel as he would have predicted just a few weeks before.

“Sorry for being happy.” Kenny interprets and Kota beams.

“Bryan,” Kota says, “you are hilarious.” He presses his lips together, the smile in his eyes, and it’s clear there’s a joke in the back of it. Kenny laughs, then Kota, and with Bryan it’s a domino where they’re all laughing and smiling. It feels strange. But it works.

Nick’s finishing up his last bite, and Mox’s hand slides back into his lap. He can’t survive it again. He really can’t.

“I have to go to the restroom,” he says, putting his napkin on his chair. He tries to angle his hips away from everyone else at the table, because he knows it’s obvious. He also intentionally doesn’t look at Mox.

Yuta, though. Yuta’s looking at him a little too knowingly and he tears his gaze away. He gets to the restroom and checks the stalls. Empty.

He whimpers and leans against the wall, trying his best to will his boner away. Every brush of fabric is torment.

The door swings open and Nick, panicked, almost shoves the door closed.

“Really worked up, huh?” Mox asks, grinning. He pulls something out of his pocket.

“Presumptuous,” Nick grumbles, but he’s already bending over the sink and pushing his jeans down. “I hate you. I need you to know I hate you.”

Mox shrugs, winking at him in the mirror. “However you like to say it, baby.”

“You suck,” Nick grumbles, but when Mox’s fingers find his hole, he relaxes almost immediately.

“You like the edging?” Mox ask, and his fingers glide easily. Nick’s pretty sure he’s still a bit open from earlier.

“No,” Nick says, hesitant to touch his dick. If he does, this might be over far too quickly. “I hated it. Get in me.”

“I think you had fun.” Mox meets Nick’s eyes in the mirror, and then Nick glances to the main door. “Don’t worry about it, Nicky. Locked it already.” Mox winks at him when their eyes meet again. “Now, what did you want again?”

“Get in me,” Nick repeats. “I hate waiting. I don’t like edging, I barely like you, and I, like, really want to come.”

“You barely like me?” Nick almost falls over as Mox’s hand wraps around his cock.

“Shut up,” Nick demands. “Stop – just – now.”

“You used to be so well spoken,” Mox says, but he finally gives up the fight and pushes into Nick, who slumps against the sink.

“This isn’t gonna last long,” he whimpers, circling his hips. It gives him friction in every place he wants it. “Just – please?”

“Course,” Mox says, and he grins at Nick in the mirror. “Ruined your night enough. Now I get to ruin you.”

Nick scoffs, blowing his hair out of his eyes. “Yeah, right. I’ll walk out of here looking better than I came in.”

“That’d only be true if you let me come on your face.”

Nick groans, and it’s only mostly from the stupid joke. “If you stop talking, this will be better.”

“Will it?” Mox asks, and he picks up the pace. He leans in, meeting Nick’s eyes again, hips moving rapidly and Nick’s resolve failing, “I think you like it when I’m messing with you.”

Nick comes with a weird little hiccup, the knowledge of them still being in public strong enough to keep him from getting loud, and he feels Mox pull him close, a hand on his lower belly, as he groans and grunts. He whimpers, trying to both pull away from and move closer to Mox.

“So – fast,” Nick mumbles. He’s not sure how to convey what he actually means with that. There’s nothing left in his brain.

Mox chuckles, nuzzling into Nick’s neck. It’s oddly sweet. “You think you were the only one worked up out there?” he murmurs. “I’ve been hard since I touched your leg, baby. This wasn’t all for you.”

Nick sighs, adjusting his pants and trying to maintain an ounce of dignity as he mops up his mess under the sink with paper towels. “Okay,” he says. He’s still trying to get his head on straight. “Maybe I do like edging.”

He’s grinning at Mox, about to lean in for a kiss, when the door swings open.

“God, you – not again,” Matt slaps his hands over his eyes. “Are you two in the middle of – why didn’t you lock the door?!”

“Yeah, Mox?” Nick says, too dopey to be annoyed. “I thought you locked the door.”

“I thought I did too,” Mox frowns. “Either way, Matt, we’re done, so you can stop with the dramatics.”

“Stop with the – I am not being dramatic!” Matt throws his hands in the air, pauses, then pulls his hands to his hips. “I just think that it’s really weird to be forced to walk in on your brother getting railed twice in one day, is all.” He wrinkles his nose. “Did you plan this? Was this planned?”

“Not the parts involving you,” Mox says. He’s washing his hands, and Nick fights the urge to laugh. “Though it added some flavor.”

“Ew,” Matt says. Nick’s never seen him this prissy before. He didn’t realize Matt could get worse. “I don’t want to know about – ew.”

“You have a dirty mind, pretty boy Buck,” Mox says.

Nick kicks at Mox’s shins. “Hey!”

“You’re pretty bird Buck,” Mox says, like it makes any sense. “Don’t get jealous. I like you better.”

“Hey!”

“Can you leave?” Nick asks. He levels his best glare at Matt. “Like, now?”

“I have to pee,” Matt says. “Which is what this place is for, if you didn’t know.”

Nick rolls his eyes. “Come on, Mox.”

Nick reaches the table first, with Mox hanging around the bar drinking a water to kill some time. Adam eyes him.

“What did you do?”

“What? Nothing.” Nick tries to blink innocently. “Me?”

“You,” Kenny says, and his high horse happens to be Kota’s lap, “are a terrible liar.”

~

Mini Playlist: HATEFUCK - Pussy Riot, Slayyyter WET DREAM - SNOW WIFE Don't Blame Me - Taylor Swift Death of Me - PVRIS

[inthelittefrost]

“Why did you leave? Martyn asks out of the blue one night while the two were tasked with baking treats for jingle jam.

Rt hummed. in reality, there's a million and one reasons why. It traces back to one person though.

“There was the dude, Will, I was assigned to watch over him. Eventually, I grew attached. He reminded me of what it meant to be human again. Not in a way I've felt since I was taken” rt explains while rolling out the Jafa dough.

“Would i have met him?” Martyn questions, grabbing the bucket full of cookie cutters. damn, Lewis for having a massive collection.

Rt makes a 50/50 gesture with his hand now covered in flour. “You might have. He's done MCC before.”

“Didn't you do MCC? I swear I saw you there once.” marytn asks, carefully judging each one to find out what would be best for these jaffas.

“Yeah, I used to. Grian almost killed me there.” Rt says casually like that isn't a big deal.

“He did what?” Martyn blurts out nearly dropping the bucket full of cookie cutters.

“Apparently he didn't realize I deflected. Didn't turn out so well for me” Rt says while doing air quotes.

“Damn, dude that's rough. Have you made contact with your old friend?” Martyn interrogates.

“Nahh. why would I? I was just a fool assigned to Watch over him. It's better to keep my distance.” Rt mutters. 

Meanwhile, Wilbur has lost something. However, for the life of him, he can't remember what. Tallulah’s flute is drying outside, Tallulah herself is right next to him, he has his keys on him, and his guitar case is over on the bed. Possible he left something in there?

“You know Tallulah, I feel like I've forgotten something,” he mutters looking over the case. Tallulah follows his gaze, making quick work of the latches.  Only then does Tallulah then pulls out an old Warcoat from the depths of Wilbur's guitar case. Or at least it was a war coat. Now it's the remains of one used to protect Willbur’s precious guitar.

“OH SHIT RT” 

[bakudekublogblog]

chapter two of promises kept is up!!

[link to full chapter here]

In a way, it almost feels like they’re under house arrest again. All of the other students come and go as they please, and are all kept plenty busy participating in the restoration efforts. Every single one of them is needed somewhere: whether it’s clearing debris, building temporary shelters for unhoused people, or working to keep people fed and clothed, they all have somewhere to be. Izuku and Katsuki have to wait for the doctor’s approval before participating in any strenuous activity and every single one of their friends has been informed to keep an eye on them to enforce this. 

Aizawa comes down to lecture them about not leaving campus, either. Apparently they’ve gone so viral that the media is hounding the school for any word from either of them, and any sudden appearances could send the press into a frenzy. Aizawa advises that they stay indoors as much as they can. Which is fine. Katsuki is surprised that he doesn’t really mind being forced to stay inside and out of sight. He supposes nearly dying forces you to relax about small inconveniences like that. And besides, Izuku has a million ideas of how to keep them occupied. 

“Do you remember this game?” Izuku asks, eyes bright with excitement as he boots up his ancient GameCube. They have it hooked up to the TV in the common room and are getting ready to play now that breakfast is finished. 

“I remember you suckin’ at it,” Katsuki allows. Izuku glares at him and he screws up his face in indignation as he chucks a throw pillow at Katsuki’s head. Katsuki deflects it with his elbow, grinning. 

“Well you’re going to help me beat it,” Izuku says, huffily. He hits Start and selects the first save slot titled ‘BKDK.’ Katsuki’s eyebrows shoot up into his hair. 

“Is that our old save file?” he asks, incredulously. 

Izuku sends him a bashful look. “Maybe.” 

“Sap,” Katsuki accuses, but he settles on the couch right next to Izuku, so close that their thighs squish together. Izuku hands him a controller with a smug little grin. 

It takes them an embarrassing amount of time to remember how to use the controls, and they end up having to start a new game altogether to replay the tutorial and refresh themselves. Soon enough they’re laughing and cursing at each other. “You’re doing that shit on purpose!” Katsuki roars. The Game Over screen blares at them meanly.

“I’m not, I’m not!” Izuku cries. 

“That’s the third time you’ve died right there!” Katsuki protests.

“It’s hard!”

“No it fucking isn’t! Watch this,” Katsuki says, snatching the controller out of his hands. 

He scowls furiously as he tries to concentrate, but he’s uncomfortably aware of Izuku’s eyes on him. What the fuck? Dumbass should be paying attention to the screen so he gets this platforming puzzle right. Here comes the tricky part now, all Katsuki has to do is dodge the fire-ball, jump over the gap and—

And he dies in the exact same spot Izuku did. In the exact same way. Izuku laughs so hard that he keels over and rolls off the couch. 

“Okay, maybe it’s hard,” Katsuki mutters. Izuku chokes on his cackling, going red in the face and wheezing.

[READ MORE]

[beck-nightengale]

Character Ask for Jade the Prophetess

So I'd been ticking away at that old Enderal Character Ask for some weeks and finally had time to finish it, and lordy was that a lot of questions with a lot of answers...

Have some lineart/expressions that my friend (please commission her, she's amazing) did for my girl if you're just passing by:

But yeah. This thing ended up being a lot of words - more words than what is probably necessary (I'm justifying it because she's a novel character that much of her backstory will be re-adapted to, anyway). Even with all of this, there are still a lot of side details left out, but... I figure my Ask Box is open if anyone is curious about any bits in particular.

Grab some tea if you're down for that.

Warning for spoilers (obviously), child/domestic abuse, cannibalism, eye scream, mental illness, addiction, and the usual Enderal fuckery that's on full steam ahead. (I guess this should be a given, but hey you never know.)

1. The basics – name, age, etc…

Her original name was Jehoel Gris. She started using “Jade” shortly after her family was killed because of, you know, Reasons. Distancing herself from her old life, for one. Second, it had come at the suggestion of an old Aeterna woman, who helped her to recover from the injuries she got after the Masked Men tried to burn her alive with her parents. This also prompted her to try to pass as human once she was on her own. Reinventing yourself can be pretty simple when you are already a nobody.

Age-wise, she is 32. Her birthdate is 14th of the Winter Star, 8202. So not very old, but old enough to have Gone Through Some Shit.

2. Describe their appearance.

Thanks to the Aeterna blood from her mother’s side, Jade is pretty dang tall, standing at 6’4” (195cm). Because of this, she slouches when she sits and generally carries herself in poor posture to make herself appear smaller than she actually is. Even then, her attempts are not always successful around those who can recognize the more subtle hints of her Aeterna features or catch a peek of her ears in her hair, but those traits are pretty subdued for the most part. She tries to pass as half-Qyranian/half-Nehrimese, which she might actually be a quarter of both. We just don’t know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also she has freckles on her face, which aren’t always visible on her darker skin (it’s no mystery why her father didn’t believe that she was his child, really). Got some dark as fuck rings under her eyes from chronic insomnia. Her left eye is blind and pearl white in color, with some visible central heterochromia in her right, in which the outer iris is a storm-grey turning light brown/hazel towards the pupil.

3. How do they like to dress?

Generally prefers comfort over style, though she isn’t averse to dresses when wanting to look her Sundas’ best, which is rare. Purple is her favorite color, but she has very few opportunities to actually wear it. Her wardrobe varies a bit depending on the occasion. If she’s ever feeling particularly pretty, she’ll wear some flowers in her hair.

For the most part, she avoids outfits revealing too much skin, especially her hands, arms, and back, and she always wears gloves during her day-to-day activities. Not because she is modest, though...

4. Do they have any markings (scars, tattoos, birthmarks)?

The reason she covers her body with long sleeves and gloves would be the fact that it’s covered in scars. She’s not particularly self-conscious about her body, as she’s been intimate plenty of times without much trouble before. But she does feel that they make most people see her in a certain way (particularly pity or concern) that she would rather deflect more often than not. It’s also kind of hard to spin entertaining yarns about your childhood abuse or the time you barely managed to escape being burned alive by a cult, so she’s more likely to make up lies about where they come from than tell the truth.

Other scars just happen to be products of past scuffles and misadventures during her time as a street urchin and slave. Most notable are the severe burns left on her back, left shoulder, and behind her right leg.

Her face is not so easily covered up, and neither is Jade inclined to. After all, it’s an otherwise pretty face. She doesn’t care for helmets or masks to hinder her vision in the one good eye she has. The scar and blindness came from a particularly brutal incident, back when her father was first trying to teach her to hunt so she could be of more help on the farm. When she failed to hit a rabbit at a distance, he lashed out several times with the lower limb of a hunting bow. After a point, the left side of her face was swollen, and the eye came near to popping out entirely. Though it was salvaged with a combination of her mother’s healing salves and magic (which reduced what would have been severe disfigurements for the rest of her life), the eye remained permanently discolored. This event also may have left Jade comatose with some brain damage, had it not been for her mother’s healing, but it was also a turning point for how much abuse she could take, mentally and emotionally (and elaborated more on in later questions).

The remaining facial scars she has left are from the stitches where the skin had been split open from her father’s other… episodes. Her mother did what she could to heal Jade’s most grievous injuries, which led to her falling so sick with Arcane Fever so frequently that, on many days, she couldn’t even get out of bed. Jade didn’t fully understand the extent of Arcane Fever at the time, however, and just equated the memory with Light magic = bad.

5. What are they like? Describe their personality (use whatever tools you like- MBTI, D&D alignment, astrological signs, Hogwarts house, words/phrases):

Pre-Enderal, she’d probably be chaotic neutral; she did a lot of bad shit, but mostly out of survival. Post-Enderal and lots of character development later, she’s become more chaotic good, where she’s trying to be a better person than she was (or at least present herself as such) while still giving zero fucks about the law.

Moreover, Jade is the epitome of the type who masks their depression and deep loathing towards herself in humor and sarcasm, which seeps through self-deprecating jokes. And you can damn well bet that she hated when the Father called her out on this when she was working with Tharaêl, too. She wears all kinds of proverbial masks in hopes that no one can see the madwoman she fears she truly is.

See, ever since she was a child, she always had a peculiar connection with death, especially after the incident where she lost sight in her left eye… or so one can presume. Whether she truly heard the whispers of the dead or if it was the product of a shattered psyche, it’s hard to say. She kept the frequent visits of voices and phantasms to herself after her mother expressed fear that the girl’s mind just broke as a result of her father’s torment, or that she had suffered irreparable damage from her head injury. Most of the time, the voices she heard would go away on their own if she ignored them long enough, anyway. Since then, she always believed that people would think her mad if they got too close to her, started noticing the little ticks that always make her seem “off” – an ill-timed laugh, a hollow smile, talking when there’s seemingly no one else around. It was very wild how easily folks believed her when she started having her premonitions and experience with the dead after arriving on Enderal.

As an urchin child, she learned how to survive on the streets via thievery and fraud, until she was eventually caught and sold into slavery. The noblewoman who purchased her had taken an interest in her potential in burglary and violence, as she had a knack for both. Jade had no qualms when it came to killing in self-defense, which hardened her when it came to death in general (even though she may or may not have been haunted by those she killed for a time). This skill, coupled with her unassuming appearance and youth, made her an oddly effective hatchet person. If she wasn’t subjected to hard labor (which consumed the majority of her years as a slave), every now and then she was tasked to neutralize “threats” her master suspected of “plotting against her” – she was very paranoid, and a bit of a madwoman in her own right. As she grew into her adolescence, Jade just started seeing the killing as tiresome as any other chore she did, one in which she took neither joy nor despair, provided that she could shut the ghosts out.

6. How would they describe themselves?

“Hi, I’m garbage.”

7. Education level?

Smarter than one would think from a former farm girl, slave, street urchin, and possible madwoman – a fact which she uses to her own advantage, sometimes using reverse psychology-esque tactics by pretending to be dumber than she actually is. Not many would suspect a smooth talker out of her with the way she curses, but she’s maxed out in Rhetoric for a reason. Between her rather crass manner of speech, she can be remarkably well-spoken and thoughtful when it comes to matters she’s passionate about.

During her years as a slave, she was surprisingly given a basic education in reading and writing, which opened up a lot of avenues for Jade as she got older and would sneak some books to read during her rare downtimes. This is also just an excuse for how she’s able to speed read through all those skill books. Like, goddamn.

8. What are they proud of in themselves? What are they embarrassed about?

Jade would be hard-pressed to claim she takes any pride in the things she does, but she has developed the “fake it ‘til you make it” attitude to an art. Think you might be losing your mind? Pretend you’re sane until it goes away or no one notices. :)

Also she has shamefully high confidence in her seduction skills – she knows she’s got a pretty face (blemishes and all) and she uses those assets in her favor. It was especially useful when she was in the market of scamming and thieving, as it was possible to get away with all the gay crimes by flashing that charm and wit.

Of course, her seduction doesn’t always land. Her response to rejection is less than graceful.

9. Do they know any languages other than Inâl?

Some phrases from the Aeterna, Qyranians, and Kiléans she’s met, but not really fluent in anything. Linguistics isn’t her strong suit.

10. What, if any, aspects of their mother’s culture influenced them growing up?

Not much, since Jade was pretty ignorant of Aeterna culture and beliefs. Her mother always seemed to try to put that part of her past behind her when she had arrived on Nehrim as a refugee. Esme was shocked by how little Jade knew about her own kind.

11. Name a song (or a few) that remind you of them.

Oof, it’s hard to name a few, but I’ve got a whole playlist of songs for my Prophetess. Girl With One Eye by Florence & the Machine has always been my anthem for Jade as a character (she’s based off of a protagonist from one of my old novels/D&D character I played ages ago – more on that here if you’re curious), but it is hard to choose between that and Hated by Life Itself, Again, Arsonist’s Lullabye, and Little Talks as her one song.

Her OG!book iteration also had her own official songs (and In My Mind is still pretty fitting for her when you get down to those lyrics, goddamn), so… there’s that, too (and yes, I find the title of her theme to be hilariously and unintentionally appropriate, considering the “canon” ending I go for her Enderal version).

12. Speaking of songs, can they sing? What is their voice like? How about instruments?

Well, she’s no minstrel, but she doesn’t mind humming a tune or singing a tavern song she learned while on the road. She doesn’t have an ear for drums or flutes, but she enjoys strumming on a lute if she gets her hands on one (which may or may not be a residual character trait from her modern iteration, who was a violinist).

She likes to dance as well, despite the fact that she constantly derides herself for it by claiming she has “two left feet” and is overall a terrible dancer. She kind of is, but she likes it anyway.

...I also just really like dancing mods. They give me life.

13. What was their life like before coming to Enderal?

As indicated in previous answers, she was in a very bad way. A fugitive, runaway slave who had attempted to kill her master after reaching a breaking point, and ended up with a bounty on her head that prevented her from living in one place for too long. She did at some point have a few relationships (the longest one lasting three years), but her issues with trust, commitment, and fear of her own sanity rarely ever kept her around the same people. Her first experience with love didn’t end very well, and she’s had not much more than a series of shallow flings ever since.

I do have a timeline of “life events” that I mapped out that I’m still picking at off and on (and will also be adapted to a new novel series), but an abridged version of her life before Enderal can be described as: A walking natural fucking disaster. She had a bad habit of losing herself in drogae and casual sex as a way of coping with the night terrors in her sleep and her questionable mental state when she was awake. Had it not been for Sirius, she would have sniffed dust into an early grave.

14. How did they decide to leave Nehrim?

She didn’t. Her plan was pretty much to die alone in a gutter somewhere in her war-torn homeland. The only reason she left was because Sirius wanted her to come with him to start a new life.

15. Describe their relationship with Sirius.

Tense at first. They met as slaves, and then ran into each other again as runaways, where they were nearly recaptured by slavers. Their captors wanted to cash in on Jade’s bounty, and as such she was more heavily guarded than Sirius – a situation which the two readily took advantage of.

After that, they ended up sticking together. Sirius thought that she needed a friend, even after all of her efforts to try and keep him at arm’s length, and Jade figured it couldn’t hurt to have someone watch her back sometimes. For whatever reason she couldn’t understand, he never gave up on her; he often tried to make her see herself as someone capable of a lot of good, rather than a total lost cause. It just made his death hit that much harder, as she felt personally responsible (elaborated on more in #36).

Initially, she only told him a little about her past out of necessity, due to him frequently waking her up screaming in her sleep. But as they grew closer and developed a genuine friendship, she began to open up to him more in earnest. They were a dynamic hobo duo for eight years, which is the longest Jade ever stuck by someone, so they went through a lot together during their time on the streets.

16. Who do they blame for what happened to their family?

Herself. It was she who sought help when her father’s abuse had escalated to him finally attempting to drown her in the pond outside their home. She only survived because her mother had finally intervened, only to collapse from her Fever. Jade ran off on her own to get help and found some members from the Creator’s Temple, which only led to them condemning the entire family instead. Her sister died when the Masked Men set fire to their house, while Jade was strung up alongside her mother and father. She escaped with her life, but sustained severe burns in the process that left permanent scars.

The reason as to why the Masked Men executed the family is unclear in the game. For Jade’s story, it was because her father’s downward spiral into insanity led to cannibalism during a particularly poor harvest season, in which food was scarce. He murdered a local half-Qyranian man who he always suspected of being the biological father of his daughters, then forced the family to unknowingly consume him. The Creator’s Temple caught wind when more travelers were disappearing near the farm, confirmed it when they investigated the house, and saw the entire family as “tainted”. Thus, no one was to be spared.

At the end of the day, Jade believes that if she never sought help and somehow had just done things on her own, then her mother and sister would still be alive. Since then, she’s struggled to ask for help and would try to do things on her own that she really shouldn’t.

17. Apart from stowing away, have they ever broken the law?

Oh, she was a literal criminal long before being a stowaway. Even if you don’t count the fact that she’s a runaway slave, she’s wanted for the attempted murder of her master, who was starting to get cozy with some members of the Creator’s Temple. That triggered Jade’s aforementioned breaking point. For about eleven years, she’s been a wanted woman, evading bounty hunters and the law alike.

Asides from that, she’s committed several kinds of theft and fraud in order to get by, as her situation in Nehrim made it very difficult to make an honest living. She didn’t mind stealing food from racists who wouldn’t sell to an Aeterna wench, too.

18. How honest are they? Under what circumstances would they lie?

Funny thing about that. Jade is a natural-born liar, and can easily spin yarns to sidestep the truth. This is likely to come up if ever questioned about her scars, where she’d be quicker to claim she got them by wrestling a bear (which is absolutely not true) than she is to share her life story of child abuse and otherwise unsavory life events.

That isn’t to say she’s incapable of telling the truth. Far from it – Jade speaks her mind on many occasions. Certain times she’d make use of that silver tongue of hers would be if the life of someone she cared about was on the line, or if she kept her mouth shut because she genuinely gave a damn about hurting someone’s feelings. Though she has a long history of self-sabotage, she’s got some people that she’d really like to keep in her life right now.

19. Worst memory(s)? Best memory(s)?

Her worst memory was the night her father tried to kill her. We’ve already covered that in 16, so moving on.

Her best memory was when she first took her sister out into the forest to explore some of the prettier sights of Ostian together, escaping the mess that was their home life. I imagine they had a very close bond and Jade was very protective of her, and wanted them both to have moments where they could just be kids together. They made promises to leave the farm and explore the world together. Obviously did not happen.

20. Fight, or flight?

Flight. More often than not, her first choice is to run from her problems than to confront them.

21. Describe their combat style.

Pre-Enderal, dual-wielding daggers or old-fashioned fisticuffs were always her weapon of choice. And she was not against fighting dirty, such as throwing sand in the eyes of her targets, hitting them in their weak points, or kicking someone while they’re down. She was never a heavy-hitter, and preferred discretion to get the upper hand. If all else failed, she’d just book it and run.

Since her magic awakened, she’s taken to Elementalism as her main weapon, namely shock and frost-based spells (her pyrophobia prevents her from dabbling in anything fire-based). She uses daggers – now enchanted – as backup when her mana is low.

Eventually, she delved pretty deep into Phasmalism. Now she prefers to enlist the help of her ghost pals to deal with the close-quarter battles while she keeps a distance with magic.

22. Have they ever killed before? What is their reaction to combat?

Absolutely. The High Ones didn’t call her a murderer because they were being metaphorical. Her first kill was in self-defense when she was a young urchin child, and killing just got easier and easier the more it was asked and expected of her. For the entire decade she had spent as a slave, she had very little qualms about the occasional murder. Her only boundary was that she never, ever hurt children, and she held those who ever did in contempt. It would be impossible for her not to think of her little sister and live with the consequences.

Of course, all the death opened a whole barrel full of trauma for her. Back then, she was frequently “haunted” by those she killed, and it would take some time for her to elude her own phantasms, or at least make living with them more bearable so that she didn’t have to see or hear them screaming all the time. But since arriving on Enderal, the chaos that were once her thoughts have become eerily quieter. Well, save for the visions she now has. Those are new.

23. How do they react to having magical abilities? Do they use them?

After her magical talent blossomed, Jade went hard for Elementalism (save for fire magic), but she dabbled in spells from some of the other classes as well.

The only school she actively refused to entertain is Light Magic. Too much negative association around it after watching her mother’s health deteriorate to Arcane Fever, due to how much healing was necessary in her childhood. Watching the health of someone she loved rapidly decline like that just had a way of wrecking her with guilt.

Since taking to Phasmalism like a fish to water, Jade tends to employ the help of the dead to make up for her particularly lackluster skills in combat. Yera Shadowsong was her first ghost, who she was quite delighted to meet and keep her company on her travels. Others she enlisted were Kilana Hammerblow, Denna Frostheart, as well as the Starling Navigator and Aeterna Ambassador. Having actually known and witnessed the tragic death of Zar’ah firsthand, Jade ended up relying on her the most in future battles, as well as accompanying alongside her on the road when she had no one else to talk to.

Even if the echoes don’t seem fully cognizant of their existence, it nevertheless became Jade’s mission to try and extend them some degree of freedom and compassion. Whether they understand her or not, she finds herself interacting with them as though they were fully realized, living people, in an effort to try and draw out some sliver of their former selves. It’s a work in progress. Somehow it also makes her feel a little more sane just having sounding boards she can vent to when no one else is around.

24. What do they think of Enderal?

Hated it with the passion of a thousand dying suns. As someone who abhors religion, she had to bite back her heretical opinions whenever anyone spoke of the Paths or the Lightborn. After passing the umpteenth corpse hanging from a tree, and imagining that it would only be a matter of time before one of those corpses would become her own, she started trying to find a way to leave the country altogether.

After a point, she did develop a fondness for the land and some of its people, especially after the Nehrimese invasion led to raids and murdering civilians, which reminded her all too well as to why she left her homeland. She may have conflicting feelings about the country, but the common people sure as hell didn’t deserve that.

25. Did they do the Biggest Egg Hunt Ever quest?

Yup. She didn’t care much for the Starling prophecies, but Kurmai asked nicely. It also helped that he paid her and she needed money.

26. How do they feel about joining the Order? What do they think of Arantheal?

Oh, she hates the Order and everything they stand for. Her first instinct upon meeting Arantheal and learning about the Cycle was to get as far away as possible. This brought her to seek employment with the Golden Sickle so she could afford a ship out of the country and, later on, attempting to convince Dijaam to let Jade join her back to Kilé. It was only when those plans fell through, and her witnessing what the Red Madness had done to Mendelus and other civilians firsthand, did Jade return and ruefully accept Arantheal’s offer.

On that note, it did make certain parts of his speech during her and Calia’s inductions as Keepers extremely awkward by making it sound like she sought the Order out of a sense of purpose and duty – she really didn’t. Hell, she even initially told Firespark that she had no interest whatsoever in what the Order was doing. Overall, she finds Arantheal to be insufferable and too self-important for her liking. She never fully trusted him or agreed with his leadership. To her, he didn’t extend aid to the common folk as nearly as much as he should have, including his refusal to make the death of the Lightborn public knowledge to his people.

27. What is their opinion of the gods (or lack thereof)?

Though not one to preach her beliefs (mostly out of what bit of self-preservation she has, as many would deem her views as blasphemy), Jade has a very strong personal hatred for religion and would be, by all accounts, an atheist. As much of an atheist as one can be in a world where living gods have walked among mortals, that is. If you ask her, there is no afterlife, and there sure as hell ain’t no “Eternal Paths” waiting for her when she dies. When you die, you die. The gods have done nothing for her or her family, and her father even used the name of the “Creator” to justify abuse. And so she felt less than nothing when rumors of the gods’ deaths began to circulate, and she felt satisfaction and vindication upon those rumors being confirmed.

Of course, she knows better than to casually share her ideology in a theocratic country like Enderal, but appreciates engaging with other like-minded individuals, such as those who participated in killing the gods like the Nehrimese mages. While she can get along with religious people well enough, she prefers that they just keep their piety to themselves or at least not try to convert her. It won’t work.

Interestingly, she was surprised by how tolerant and understanding Calia was when it came to her views on religion, as she didn’t once try to argue or invalidate Jade’s experiences. This made her appreciate the other woman that much more and start to develop a closer relationship early on.

28. Wine, or pipe?

Pipe. Always pipe. Since discovering Peaceweed, she’s found that the stuff happens to help her sleep and calm her thoughts, so she smokes pretty much regularly now.

29. Do they spare or arrest Hallys, the farmer-turned-bandit in the quest, Deus Ex Machina? Why?

Against her better judgment, she actually agreed with Calia to have Hallys arrested, namely because she learned that he was initially lying about where he got the money from and that he actually stole it from the Undercity’s food bank, which pissed her right the hell off. While she felt for his situation, it didn’t justify screwing over the poor, who were much worse off than he and his family.

Though finding out that he had been executed at the gallows so soon after made her regret that decision. To her, that wasn’t justice, and it sure as hell didn’t endear her to trust Ark’s Tribunal to handle similar situations afterward.

30. What are their feelings and opinions about the Undercity?

It feels a little too close to home for her, as she often lived in similar piss-poor conditions when she was homeless. Like it shouldn’t exist, but it does, and she understands why and how all too well. From time to time, she’ll hand out coin and food to the children running errands or just looking like they need some help.

31. How do they react to the beggars of Ark?

When she has the coin to spare, she’ll sometimes offer some pennies. And she’ll always pay a kid delivering a message whether they ask for it or not. It wasn’t too long ago that she was in the same boat, and appreciated what little a passing Samaritan could provide. She got that Gift of Charity perk.

32. Where and how do they spend their time when in Ark?

Early on she started visiting the Undercity because she likes mischievous things it felt more familiar to her. Plus she found a small little hiding place tucked away for when she feels the need to abscond from “civilized” society. While down there, she frequented the Dust Pit to watch the fights, not really phased by the brute violence.

On the surface, she spends much of her time in taverns when she has coin to spare or feels like hanging out with Jespar. She also spends time with Calia in the bathing house or hanging out in the courtyard of the Sun Temple in between missions, since Jade became was quickly taken by Calia and wanted to help her open up more, all whilst getting to know the other woman better.

33. What would they do with three wishes?

I did the wishing well quest after finishing Angel and All the Dead Souls, so I imagine the first wish was for Calia not to leave her, the second was for Jespar not to hate her for the shitty things she said back at him. The third was for a sweet new dagger. Guess all three technically came true.

34. How do they feel about death? Do they fear it?

Death is a natural cycle of life. For the last handful of years, she was fully ready to die, anyway, and believed that there was no great afterlife or paradise that would follow. In more recent times, she’s become quite fond of being alive, though she wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice her life to save the ones she cares about.

35. What (else) do they fear?

As mentioned earlier, she has a profound fear of fire, and actively avoids using flame-based magic despite being very proficient in Elementalism. At most, she’ll use fire-enchanted daggers.

Additionally, she has developed thalassophobia to a degree since being shipwrecked, feeling anxious around large bodies of deep water, and a dislike for swimming. I kinda headcanon that she never even met Nessah/Sister Pride when working with the Rhalâta, let alone took her heart, because it required her to dive underwater for a long period of time, so she had no qualms with bringing a different heart to the First Seer instead (not that Jade would’ve killed her. She found Nessah’s notes, and she wasn’t about to execute a woman clearly suffering from mental illness for a group she didn’t care about). You can also bet that she noped right out of the Brotherhood of the Kor questline as soon as it required a “breathe underwater” spell to delve into a submerged temple. So yeah, she just told Mirella, “Sorry, lady, your son is dead” because it was the most likely truth, anyway. ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ

Above all else, however, her greatest fear is insanity – a fear that the High Ones exploit the hell out of by constantly making her question her perception of reality and whether or not this all is just a fever dream of her dying consciousness. It helps very little that she already had a predisposition for madness, never knowing if her “connection with the dead” was real or a byproduct of her trauma. Remembering how her father descended into madness and cannibalism has a way of making her doubt her own sanity.

36. Do they have any secrets?

Quite a few doozies, actually. Prior to coming to Enderal, Jade had an addiction to dangerous drogae. And it was because of this addiction that she ended up in the situation she is in now, a fact that she is all too ashamed to admit to anyone. Even worse, she blames herself for what happened to Sirius because of this fatal flaw. Not only did she have proclivities for blowing whatever scraps of coin she earned to feed her addiction and other bad habits, which could have gone to paying for a ship out of Nehrim, the only reason Sirius chose to stow away with her, rather than sign on to the crew like a right proper lad, was to keep an eye on Jade while she went through the motions of withdrawals. He also stowed away with her to make sure that she didn’t get caught screaming in pain or waking from night terrors.

Similarly, signing onto Rocio’s crew wasn’t an option for Jade in the first place, due to being a runaway slave with a bounty on her head for the attempted murder of her former master. Despite trying to push him into leaving without her, Sirius refused. And now he’s dead. It’s impossible not to feel responsible for that, and for robbing her friend of the second chance at life that he so badly wanted.

Since becoming an Emissary, she’s found that her addiction has been miraculously “cured”, though she still gets uncomfortable around heavy drogae such as Glimmerdust. This resulted in her snapping back at Jespar in the Silver Cloud when she caught him using the stuff. Despite knowing what he was going through, Jespar wasn’t the only one who said very regrettable things that evening.

In addition to substance abuse, she also keeps her history of mental illness to herself, ashamed of what others would think if they knew she might be mad. Much of her prior ticks and instabilities ended up troubling her less and less once she became her “idealized self” on the shores of Enderal, anyway – the voices are dulled, and her mind feels a little more at peace these days.

While part of her felt that she should be grateful not to have to wrestle with her addiction or madness every day, the implications of a sudden recovery after losing her only friend scares her more than anything. For now, she has never shared this secret with anyone, not even her new companions.

37. How is their behavior around people they like? People they dislike?

Jade is very blunt and open about her feelings and has been noted to say whatever’s on her mind by more than one person. This can be for good or for ill depending on who she’s with – if she likes someone, she has no qualms blurting out the things she likes or finds attractive and appealing about them, or telling them what she feels they need to hear. If she doesn’t like them, then she’ll still speak her mind regardless of whether or not it hurts their feelings. She may even come off as abrasive or just downright rude. If her dislike runs deep enough, she won’t want to be in that person’s presence at all.

38. What is their relationship with the companions? Who, if anyone, did your prophet romance?

There were a few she became close to – some more than others.

Jespar: They got along pretty quick, since they shared very similar views on life, the Lightborn, and relationships. Jade has had Romance Gone Wrong in the past and didn’t quite want to see Jespar that way at first, either. It may or may not have helped that she made quite a few passing comments and propositions with him that amused him a bit. I headcanon that they had some FWB-type flings and then just never talked about it again, because Jade has her own hangups on relationships and monogamy. There were some feelings there on both sides, but were never realized until it was too late. (Side note: She decided to give him her own affectionate nicknames, such as “My Lord” because he kept calling her “Fair Lady”, and “Snowberry” because of his hair and he’s a goddamn fruity boy.)

Calia: Conversely, Jade just couldn’t resist and caught the feelings here. She tried to push them down until they died, but she grew more and more fond of her friend as time went by. It helped brighten some of Jade’s more cynical views of the world knowing that people like Calia existed, and wanted to change it for the better. In a sense, the two complimented each other in helping the other learn to enjoy life the way neither of the women allowed themselves to. In the end, she romances Calia, but I like to think they had more in-depth discussions on relationships and where Jade stands with them before they made things official. Due to her own struggles with her sanity and being constantly at war with what darkness lives in her own mind, she related with Calia on a very personal level, which became the foundation for their relationship to grow during and after the game’s main storyline.

Dijaam: Immediate crush, oh no. Jade worked with the Golden Sickle prior to accepting Arantheal’s deal, and maybe in no small part due to her weakness for Kiléans, Jade ended up being very smitten with Dijaam (while also quickly becoming very resentful towards her current employer’s “Path abidingness”, misogyny, and racism). She admired Dijaam’s determination and drive, and even suggested that they leave Enderal together. Too bad the Kiléan pulled the “wham, bam, thank you ma’am” at the end of the day. Oh well. Not the first time that’s happened to Jade. (Dijaam is probably still alive somewhere out there.)

Esme: Like a younger sister. In fact, Jade suspected her sister would’ve been around the same age, and turned out much like Esme if she were still alive. When she first met the fellow Aeterna woman having a hard time at the Frostcliff Tavern, Jade was immediately inclined to lend a hand. The two became closer throughout their search for her former companion, and though Jade feared the worst after a while, she didn’t want Esme to lose hope that she would see Tara alive and well. When the truth came to light, Jade did her best to comfort Esme. Before they parted ways, Esme gifted Jade a family heirloom – an amulet, which she continues to wear thereafter. (I also like to think that Esme was able to find a ship to leave Enderal before the end and is still alive.)

Tharaêl: One of her deepest regrets. To say that their relationship was turbulent would be an understatement. Much as Jade was on board with his cause to kill the Father for experimenting on and murdering innocent children, she grew equally frustrated with Tharaêl’s hypocrisy and uncompromising demeanor. Witnessing his regression to his childhood trauma was also not much unlike episodes she once struggled with, which made her try to empathize with him more. Killing Zar’ah was the straw that broke the camel’s back for her, however, as she did not believe that the mercenary deserved to die and that Tharaêl’s justification for it was bullshit. Still, she resolved to help him kill the Father, who was much worse in her eyes. But, when at that cliff’s edge, she could not bring herself to tell him the right words that could have saved his life. It is a moment that still haunts her long after his death, as she realized some time later that they were not much different. Her silence was his death knell.

39. Was there any non-companion character that they were close to? That they particularly disliked?

There was a quick connection when it came to Merrâyil and the Nehrimese mages, the former due to their shared history as slaves and experiences being Aeterna in a country like Nehrim, and the latter for their shared disdain towards religion and feelings about their homeland. When visiting the Sun Temple, she spent quite a bit of time with the group, particularly pestering Firespark and hanging out with Lishari. She was also deeply affected by Rynéus, as she saw much of her little sister in the boy and wanted so badly to save him. Failing him was like failing her sister all over again.

As for dislikes, she couldn’t stand Maél Dal’Loran, even if she found some of his deeds, such as providing support to the Undercity’s Pest House, to be noble. To Jade, Maél as a person was judgmental, racist, and plain impossible to work for. She ended up resigning from the Golden Sickle after gathering the ingredients he had requested. It doesn’t help that Jade’s first love was a Kiléan woman (not Dijaam), so she was not endeared by his anti-Kiléan sentiments.

40. How do they feel about myrads?

Though flying one for the first time freaked her out, she was immediately enamored with them. They’re majestic, adorable, and worthy of adoration and respect.

41. What dreams or ambitions did they have before coming to Enderal? What about afterwards?

Literally none. Her “dreams” were to crawl into a hole and die somewhere alone, until Sirius had convinced her to try and find a second chance for herself in Enderal.

Afterwards, she decided to just play it by ear. Her wanderlust developed the more she learned about other countries, and she decided she wanted to travel the world someday. Maybe use her newfound Arcanist abilities for good by saving lost souls with her Phasmalism, and figure out a way to rehabilitate the echoes into regaining their sense of self, rather than merely being slaves to the Phasmalist.

42. Do they like cities? Or do they prefer the country? Is there a region of Enderal that they like or dislike more than the others?

Despite always struggling with the noise and chaos of cities before, Jade had to adapt to them at an early age in order to get by. After a point, it just became a necessity, as cities were the easiest places to find places to make money.

She did learn to appreciate them more, to an extent, finding herself people-watching when seeking potential jobs (or marks). But if she could so choose, she would much prefer to live in the countryside.

43. What do they do to lower their considerable stress?

Staring at the underside of a desk until she feels better after a mental breakdown. :)

For real, though, some coping mechanisms are less healthier than others. Some times she’ll blow off steam by practicing her magic, or venting to one of her Phasmalist ghosts (especially Deanna, Kilana, and Zar’ah). Others she’ll get blackout drunk and end up in strange places (or strangers’ beds) she doesn’t remember going. Casual sex sometimes helps, too. Sometimes.

More recently she’s taken to smoking Peaceweed on the regular, which she finds calms her down a good deal. This method is marginally better.

44. Describe their perfect day off.

Dragging Calia out to more social situations, such as playing cards together with Jespar at the tavern (while Jade resists the urge to use her sleight of hand to pull fast ones on the group). In general, she just wants to spend time with her favorite people together. Other than that: Enjoying scenic locations with companions, such as beautiful sunsets, aurora borealis, and peaceful scenes off the beaten path. She absolutely loves Goldenforst. Anytime she can get a hot indoor bath, especially with Calia, is also a good time.

45. List three of their favorite things. Three things they hate?

Loves: Peaceweed, good brandy, animals (she really doesn’t have a particular favorite kind, but she does cry a little inside when a rabid wolf or fox forces her to kill it).

Hates: Cooking meat, swimming, and fire. For obvious reasons.

46. What’s in their pockets?

She gonna pop some tags,

Only got twenty pennies in her pocket–

...

Just a lot of junk, really. Don’t ask how many Endralean sugarbraids she has stuffed in there.

47. Pets? Mounts? Treasured possessions?

Two cats that are more like strays squatting at her house when she first bought it, but she doesn’t mind; she enjoys their company.

She also has a donkey she named Butterstuff and she loves him even if a big Aeterna woman does look kinda silly on a wee donkey.

For treasured possessions, she almost always wears the heirloom Esme gifted her. She might have a bit of a hoarding problem with useless junk, but that amulet is pretty and it means something to her, dammit.

48. How are their cooking skills?

Not good. Most of the stuff she makes is cheap and quick since she could never afford anything fancy before. She can make a decent enough vegetable stew and flatbread, but it doesn’t get more gourmet than that. Either she eats things raw/plain while on the go or she buys much yummier food while passing by vendors (love, love, love those date cakes).

49. Do you consider any particular quest or side quest to be definitive for your prophet? Which one(s) and why?

Other than the big faction ones like the Rhalâta and Golden Sickle: The Voice in the Water is an important quest for Jade, since it kind of explores her (possible) “experience” with the dead by just how natural it felt to be guided by a ghost that she knew wasn’t a product of her insanity. She felt particularly invested in helping to put the spirit of Pentas’ wife, Nira, to rest by seeing the ones who destroyed her life to justice. This quest opened Jade up to the possibility of being able to help people with her new gifts.

A Touching Effigy is also a good one, given that certain elements catered to some of Jade’s distaste for nobles and child killers. Ultimately she sided with Andrasta, because she can forgive killing useless nobles, but not Rhys for killing children in the name of his religion. Though she did (kind of) convince Andrasta to hold off on the murder for a while, mostly so she doesn’t get caught and worry her daughter. Never said Jade’s morals weren’t questionable.

50. How forgiving are they? For example, if they were yelled at in a brothel after searching high and low for this little sh*t, how would they react?

She can forgive well enough if the other party expresses genuine regret for their actions. For example, she easily forgives Jespar because she understood what he was going through, and she was just as much a little shit at the time (and was already tense being around Glimmerdust and a very high, very distressed Jespar). Really, she has a higher tolerance for friends who verbally lash out in the midst of their emotional turmoils, because she gets it – really. Jespar and Calia? Yeah, she got them. If it’s one thing that Sirius taught her, it’s that you don’t give up on friends, not even on their bad days.

There are few things that she just can’t and will never forgive. From her perspective, anyone who has ever hurt a child is the literal scum of the earth. Because of this, she was unable to think of the right words to save Tharaêl, just like how she failed to convince him to spare Qalian because she just couldn’t. And if she had done what Tharaêl had done, she knows that she wouldn’t have been able to live with herself, either. Maybe she could forgive Tharaêl someday, but she could never save him.

51. What do they think of the Veiled Woman?

Initially she really, really hated the Veiled Woman. Hated what she did to Sirius, hated what she did to Esme and Tara, and especially hated that oracular bullshit way of talking in the same vein as the Aged Man.

While she never could fully understand the Veiled Woman, Jade wondered if her motives for doing what she did was because she had some hope to end this particular Cycle. For that reason, and giving humanity a chance, Jade can’t bring herself to completely hate the Veiled Woman, either.

52. If they had been a victim of one of the black stones, how would it have affected them? What would they have used its power to accomplish?

Oh no, a black stone would likely amplify her pre-Enderal (possible) insanity. It would twist her sense of justice for the dead by turning her into a Phasmalist who would abuse the specters she wanted to protect by outright enslaving them, all for the “greater good” when it came to punishing those she deemed evil. Essentially she wouldn’t have been much better off than Adila, except with more actual dead souls at her disposal.

53. What was their reaction to the Black Guardian’s revelations? Do they accept or reject his offer?

Man, she shut the Black Guardian down faster than a speeding ticket. First of all, because she believed he was full of absolute horseshit, such as claiming the High Ones were powerless despite their ability to directly possess others through more than just the Red Madness. Second, she saw through his manipulations, sensing that eons in isolation several leagues under the earth while watching civilizations rise and fall would have various ways of fucking with your head. Like knows like, and Jade has an intimate understanding when it comes to madness. Moreover, she knew a delusion of grandeur when she saw one.

More than anything, though? She had literally zero desire to become a “god” as the Black Guardian had defined it. Due to her hatred for religion and the Lightborn, she refused to become the very thing she so despised. From where she stood, she didn’t even believe there would ever be such a thing as a “humanity with no ego”, as it would be impossible for her to control the hearts and minds of an entire civilization. Even if she could, she wouldn’t want to, since freedom of choice is important to her. In her mind, she thought it was better to give the current human race a chance to learn from the Order’s mistakes and remove the High Ones from the game for good, rather than lead a new civilization down the same path and just repeat the Cycle all over again. The Veiled Woman must’ve seen that there was some worth in this world if she had intervened when she did.

Ultimately it was one of the few times where her “fight” superseded her “flight” instincts. Jade also didn’t act super surprised when the Black Guardian revealed that she had been dead since she woke up in Enderal, because she kind of figured it out already (or suspected that she was just balls-to-the-wall crazy this entire time). She just didn’t know what to make of the whole truth that she was a projection the High Ones created to perpetuate the Cycle – other than to keep fighting it.

54. How does their story end?

Bittersweet. While she consumed the Dreamflower elixir before the end (and didn’t agree with Yuslan’s very random interpretation of the elixir’s effects), her choice still came at a great cost. She lost many friends in the destruction of Enderal, including Jespar. Now she and Calia are on a mission in Qyra to try and save the rest of humanity together.

Since there’s a possibility that Dijaam and Esme are still alive after their questlines, I like to think that they run into each other in Qyra at a certain point... because fate or some shit. The idea of a story where these four women (and the ghost of Zar’ah who totally became Jade’s main backup. Maybe she can finally figure out how to make Phasmal ghosts more “alive” someday) band together to save the world just delights me.

55. Do they change over the course of the story? In what ways?

For sure she does. In the beginning, Jade is a cynical, sarcastic little gremlin who doesn’t trust anyone any farther than she can throw them. She’s the very definition of the Reluctant Hero who doesn’t accept the big main quest immediately, and even tries to run away from her responsibilities the first chance she gets. It also doesn’t help that she was absolutely terrified at first with how her little “ticks” and addiction were just miraculously no longer plaguing her as much anymore, so she was already starting to question her own reality.

As Jade got to learn more about the people on Enderal and form actual friendships throughout her journey, her fondness for this world and desire to save those that live in it grew. While part of her was in the “oh, well, let the world burn” camp, she became that person less and less as time went on.

In Qyra, much about her changes as well. She becomes more driven and serious. Calia had to cut off most of her hair while rescuing her from the rubble of Ark, so not only does her hair stay shorter after that, she also no longer attempts to hide her Aeterna features (such as her ears) like she used to, mostly out of respect for the Jade who died at sea. Rather than slouching to try and appear smaller, she stands tall. The particular “treasure hunter” garb and the blue scarf she wears are little things to honor her memory of Jespar, to whom she had promised she would do her best to save humanity.

But her nightmares become significantly worse, as they are now frequented by a certain “incomplete” High One that takes the form of the Endralean civilization that fell prey to the Cleansing…

56. Anything else you’d like to share about them?

As implied in the last two responses, I had this nightmare fuel concept up my ear not too long ago: What if the Cleansing triggered on Enderal did give birth to an incomplete High One, but now it’s pissed that it never got to finish and is trying to meddle in the efforts to reconstruct the Beacon successfully? The idea of a High One actually consisting of your former allies, including the companion that didn’t survive, is just a brand of horror that I can’t resist… Not to mention really sticks a fork in Yuslan’s theory about the Dreamflower trapping you in an “Elysium where everything seems to go your way” (really, I think he was just trying to dissuade the protagonist from brewing an elixir that would obstruct his plans for revenge. I like to imagine he simply came up with the dream theory on the spot because the flower had “dream” in the name, so it was like the first thing he could think of).

Inevitably, a branch where the Endralean High One is trying to drive Jade into a Mad Prophet would throw a wrench in her and Calia’s efforts to save the world, and they’d have to go through the wringer for their romance to survive. In the end it will, but there’d definitely be some trials and tribulations in which Jade will one day have to open up about her well-guarded secrets. She would also be driven to try and save those who were consumed by the Endralean High One, whatever that may entail.

…I may or may not write an actual fic on this concept someday because I love suffering, but it has been so long since I have ever written a fic so who knows. You’re welcome and I’m sorry.

[holocene-sims]

next // previous

july 7, 2021 1:15 p.m. grant's house

[colm] wait, how do you have this recipe then?

[grant] i literally don't know. i found the note with it when i moved to los angeles before and, uh, it just said "xoxo, your boyfriend" at the bottom. like i know vaguely where it came from but my memory stops there.

[grant] now stop deflecting!

[colm] you first.

[colm] but alright, alright. you know the basic shit about my life, right? single mom, dad out of the picture, three siblings all with different baby daddies, and no other family because they disowned my mother for getting pregnant with me as a teen. the white trash experience. but wait, it gets worse.

[colm] my mom’s oldest brother was kind of still there, but not in any real fashion. more like: “sure, ellen, i suppose your son can sit at the back table at my pub and watch hurley on the television until his sisters are done with their after school activities and can walk them home.”

[colm] bastard. hey, ellen, i know you’re nearly homeless and your nine year old son is reading on the internet at the library how to make macaroni and cheese for dinner for all of you while you're busy waiting tables, but i won’t come over to babysit or nothing.

[colm] still, he let me over in the afternoons and was nice enough to teach me how to pour beers and such when i was the right age to do it, so here i am.

[colm] it’s really the only skill i have. despite my degree in philosophy, i was always a terrible student. i have the worst dyslexia known to man and my other jobs in the past were doing security at an airport and moving furniture. real impressive. so, this is miles better in pay and for my sanity.

[colm] besides, if we’re getting real emotionally squishy here, i was so lonely all the time growing up. nothing’s better for your social life than your mom always out working, no other family around, and having to turn down your friends’ invitations to hang out most of the time because you have to look after your siblings.

[colm] going to my uncle’s place was the least lonely place i ever was because all the old men who came as regulars felt bad for me and would talk to me. mostly about sports, but i like sports, so that was fine. i suppose you could say this place i own makes me feel a little less lonely as well.

[grant] i'm sorry things were so–

[colm] ahh, cut that shit out, it’s fine! i'd rather the man with a mammy who beat him not apologize to me about my childhood. i'm over it. fucking sucks but whatever. at least my guardian wasn’t my biological father. that piece of shit’s in prison for life for murder.

[grant] mur–

[colm] he got in with organized crime because he was broke and out of work. oh, and he was way older than my mom. surprise, surprise. classic stab city in the 90s. he actually tried to murder my mother once after she broke up with him, too. that day's hard to forget.

[grant] man, that sounds pretty bad. like egregiously bad. major childhood trauma bad.

[colm] old ellen’s alive.

[grant] uhhhhh, well, some person out there isn’t.

[colm] people.

[grant] oh.

[grant] oh my god.

[grant] anyway, uh, i was just going to say that i'm sorry you suffered. you deserved to have your needs met and you deserved stability and safety. i know nothing can be done about the past but that’s not a fair way for a child to grow up, even if your mother has reasons and explanations for it. and you don’t have to minimize it on grounds of other people’s experiences. bad is just that: bad. it’s not the sad childhood olympics here.

[colm] i really don’t care. i left all of that behind when i came here to live with shannon. you all are very nice to me. you’re my replacement family. you all mean a lot to me.

[colm] maybe replacement sounds bad...but, ah, well...

[colm] i can't believe i'm telling anyone other than shannon any of this bullshit. i feel absolutely disgusting.

[colm] sometimes when i was younger i'd look at other families and wish i had that. i used to wonder what it was like to have a family, and i suppose i finally understand. and it's nice.

[grant] i'm glad that you know we love you. you are a part of us. you are family. hell, i love you dearly. you're a great friend and a great person and you make shannon happy, which is important.

[grant] do you ever talk to your family? like your biological family?

[colm] yes and no. i invited them to the wedding and clearly you know they came. you were there. the only one i talk to often is molly but it’s because they’re the youngest and, well, the most like me, so i try to steer them away from making the same mistakes as me. that is, please don’t become a delinquent and please tell someone you think something’s wrong with your brain when you think there is.

[colm] my mother just pisses me off. i know she loves me and always has but she tries so much harder to show it now that i'm an adult and i can’t stand it. it’s overbearing. it's like, where was all this affection twenty years ago, ellen? and my other siblings...one’s fine, the other i don’t get along with.

[colm] don’t go apologizing about that either.

[grant] i won’t. but i get it. family relationships are complicated. siblings are difficult sometimes.

[colm] do you have–

[grant] i have two sisters. and yes, i don’t talk about them, like, ever. now continue what you were saying!

[colm] don’t get me wrong, i love all of them. i'd die for them. i might not want to talk to them much but i'm not disloyal or nothing. but because i love them, i reserve the right to admit when they’re obnoxious or what they’ve done wrong. it’s a disservice to all of us to lie and say i'm so happy with them and that we get along swimmingly.

[grant] so...you’re admitting things weren’t great.

[colm] i'm alive and not all the way fucked up. that’s good enough.

[colm] but thank you. i know you mean it. you’re like shannon and you say it because you care, not because you pity me, which is what a lot of others do. i do appreciate it.

[bandedbulbussnarfblat]

Damn Your Love, Damn Your Lies chp 9

here is the latest chapter of read it below

Daniel gets back to reading.  Eventually, he has to stop.  Claudia, Charlie, Lestat, the incinerator.  It’s too much.  

“Vivid writer, isn’t she?”  It’s Louis, who crept in from resting.  “A singular style.”

“Anne Frank meets Stephen King,” Daniel says, then gets ready to start recording.  “Session four, Louis de Pointe du Lac, and the child vampire, Claudia.”

Daniel pulls off his glasses.  “So, it begs the question, where were all these diaries in 1973?”

Louis glances at him.  “Scattered.  One in New Orleans, another in Paris.”

He’s lying.  “Bullshit.”

Louis walks over and sits in a chair in the sand pit near the tree.  He crosses his legs and closes his eyes.  “Claudia was…everything.”  His eyes open and he looks at Daniel.  “I loved her unconditionally.  All the noise, the chaos, the crisis of my former existence, silenced.  The simple joy of her hand in mine.”

“You had a daughter.”

“I had a daughter.”

Daniel gets it.  Daughters and fathers can be complicated things.  “I’ve got two.  The love is kind of…”  

He doesn’t know how to describe it.  It’s the all encompassing love that makes you want to get your shit together and be a better person.  The kind that understands you waited too late to try.  But he’s not going to think about his daughters.

“And if you were to come across their diaries and learn, in detail, how and when you failed them, would you share those failures with a brash young reporter you met at Polynesian Mary’s?”

Daniel chuckles.  Louis makes a point.  “It’s funny.  I’ve been dreaming about old Mary’s ever since you sent me the tapes.”

Louis rises and gestures to the books.  “Where have you reached?”

Was that a deflection?  Interesting.  Something to ponder later.

“1923-ish.  Her date with Charlie.”

Something flickers in Louis’ eyes. “Ah.”

Daniel pushes his glasses back on and looks at the journal.  “And his bones-”

“Cracked black and his face turned to soup,” Louis finishes.  Daniel pulls his glasses back off and studies him.

“Charlie’s death ushered in one of the darkest eras of our lives,”  Louis continues.  “The oh-so-delicate balance of our oh-so-delicate household was shattered.  The fantasy of happiness burst.  Claudia was…”

“A band-aid for a shitty marriage?” Daniel supplies.

“I was going to say…” Louis starts, then turns his back to Daniel “...something else.”

Daniel waits for Louis to continue.  Louis goes and sits down.  “But yes…that’s almost certainly what she felt like.”

Daniel doesn’t exactly know what to say next, but Louis throws him a curveball.  “Rashid will be joining us later.  That won’t bother you, will it, Daniel?”

Hadn’t he started this saying no third parties?  Then again, he’d also started this saying he was straight and Rashid came in and wrecked that?  So why not this?  “Ah, no.  It’s fine.”

“Yes, I thought you might say so.”

Daniel narrows his eyes.  “What does that mean?”

Louis gives him a look too innocent to be sincere.  “Nothing, Daniel.”

Daniel doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just holds up the diary.  “I gotta get back to reading.”

Louis makes some small noise in reply, then stands.  “I’ll leave you to it.”

Daniel watches him leave and takes a deep breath.  Does Louis know?  He can read minds, and Daniel has been thinking of Rashid quite a bit.  A bit too much, to be honest.  He’s letting himself get distracted and sloppy.  And he still doesn’t know what Rashid’s end game is.

Daniel reads and takes notes on his laptop for the next hour.  Then he decides to go to his room and catch a nap.  His sleep schedule is fucked from interviewing a vampire.  And Rashid keeping him up demanding sex hasn’t exactly helped.  

He drifts off easily enough.  Daniel doesn’t remember opening his eyes or leaving his room, but he’s standing in the living room now.  Louis and Rashid are standing together on the balcony, Louis looking at Rashid seriously.   Daniel moves a little closer, hoping to overhear something before they notice him.

“How long do you plan to keep this up, ‘Rashid’?”  There’s something strange about the way he says Rashid’s name that Daniel doesn’t understand.  Is it not his real name?  Does Louis have him using a fake name or something?

“As long as I can,” Rashid says, though something in his posture is different now.  Less deferential.  He goes still and sweeps his eyes across the room, passing over Daniel as though he were invisible.  

Daniel holds out a hand and he can’t see it in front of him.  What is going on?

“Do you feel that?” says Rashid.  “That’s the second time I’ve felt it.”

“Hm?” 

Rashid ignores Louis’s questioning look and closes his eyes.  Daniel feels like he’s been shoved in the chest.  He wakes up, jolting up on his bed and breathing hard.

What the hell was that?

[hournites]

I think there’s been a glitch

Hournite s3 fic 

~.~

Beth was relieved to find Rick sitting on the Pit Stop couch at exactly the time she had asked him to meet her. His knees were splayed open, both arms draped over the old peeling leather, taking up far too much room than one human possibly needed on a three-cushion sofa. Beth nudged his knee inwards pointedly, settling down beside him. The protrusion under his shirt was not subtle at all, the base of the hourglass sticking out in full view. Beth ran her tongue over her teeth, willing herself not to stress over Rick’s obnoxious display. 

“You wanted to talk?” 

Beth smiled when he did, shuffling in closer. The worn sofa sunk under her weight, dipping her to the point she was now brushed against Rick’s jeans. “I did, yes.”

“Cool.” One of his arms still over the back slid down, hovering just above Beth’s shoulder. She wondered if Rick was planning on putting his arm entirely around her, then didn’t have to wait much longer to find out. She turned towards him, curiously. They’ve sat many times here before, never quite so close or comfortable. “I wanted to talk to you about what I found when I scanned you earlier today with the goggles.” She got the results after double-checking with Dr. McNider an hour ago. They were not good. 

His brows furrowed. “You scanned me?” 

“Yes.”

“Why?” 

“I wanted to check your brain functioning.” 

“Why?”

“Because,” Beth started cautiously, dragging out the word. She didn’t want to have this discussion at all, but she knew that if she didn’t, it would only lead to more harm. “You’re not the same.”

“Huh?”

“Look, adolescence is an at-risk time for developing substance abuse. I know you don’t drink on the job, but I also know you have been prone to drinking alcohol before too.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Addiction has a hereditary predisposition, right? Your uncle is an alcoholic. And your dad…Well…Mr. Dugan implied he might’ve had an issue that he recovered from, too. So it’s a serious concern. A chronic brain disease needs to be taken seriously.”

“Addiction? What addiction?” Rick frowned, perplexed. “What are you talking about?”

Beth let out a shaky breath. “Rick, I am talking about the hourglass! The way you have not let go of it once since you took the limiter off. Why haven’t you?”

He shrugged. “It makes me feel good.”

“That’s what users say about drugs,” Beth replied gently. “But the problem with drugs is that they can damage your organs.”

“By your logic, the hourglass has always been a drug. And I’ve been using it for over a year. I’ve never had any issues with the hourglass before.”

“Yeah, but I see the change in your behavior and mood,” Beth explained. “You’re chasing a high.”

“A high?” Rick scoffed. “It’s not a high. I’m not trying to get stoned, I just don’t want to feel like shit. The hourglass makes it easier to just…” He stopped abruptly and started over. “I used to feel so tired all the time. I feel alive now.” He must’ve caught her reaction to his casual admission of depression and backtracked. “I’m not-I’m not-It’s not that I was, y’know.” 

“Rick,” she whispered urgently. “Were you depressed?” 

“No offence,” Rick started curtly, though not completely unkind, “but you’re happy nearly every day of your life. It isn’t hard for you.”

Beth bristled. “Is that an insult?” The words sounded cold, but not with the way he was starting to smile. Beth couldn’t tell. It felt like he was deflecting. “Because that’s not exactly true.”

“No!” Rick laughed and his mood changed. “No, no. Not at all. I mean, if anything, it drives me crazy, a bit.”

“Crazy?”

“You’re like the sun. It’s what I like about you. I want to feel that all the time, not just when I’m with you.”

“It’s what you like about me?” Beth repeated. She knew that was the least important bit of information in that sentence but she was still stuck on that phrase.

“Yeah.” A funny expression passed through his face, a light chuckle, a slight raise of an eyebrow. “I like many things about you.” The arm around her squeezed her shoulder. In spite of the difficult conversation, ill-timed butterflies erupted in her stomach. 

“Do you?” fell out of her mouth. Beth blinked, telling herself to stay focused on the task at hand, no matter how distracting Rick was right now with the bombshells he dropped one after the other, sending her mind in disarray. I feel alive now. You’re like the sun. It’s what I like about you. It drives me crazy. 

“Never mind, don’t answer that right now. Thank you,” she said, placing a hand on his bouncing knee. “Really, thank you, but I really think that if this is true, we should look into you seeing someone to help you.”

“Seeing someone?” The corners of his mouth lifted into a slight smirk. “I’m seeing you. You’re the doctor, right?”

“I mean, like, a therapist,” Beth struggled out, having an abysmally hard time continuing with the earnestness etched upon his face. “Not just me. If I could help you alone, I would in a heartbeat.” 

Beth’s eyes flitted around the Pit Stop loft, summoning the courage to be loving but firm with her assessment that she thought it best that Rick take a break from the JSA. 

“But I’m not qualified for the help I think you need. I think, especially after Matt left you, Rick, you’re burying everything that’s happened to you. And it’s a lot, I know it’s a lot, and that’s not your fault, okay? I’m not blaming you, but I don’t think that being Hourman 24/7 is going to be an adequate fix, especially–” She stopped her passionate intervention when she glanced back up at him. Rick was right there, eyes on her face, but not exactly computing a word she was saying. 

She was expecting his typical anger or frustration, or for him to simply get up and walk away. Not stare at her. “Are you even listening to me right now?”

“No. Sorry.” Rick shook his head. “I was too busy looking at you.”

“Looking…at me?”

“It’s hard to focus when you’re like this,” he admitted. “Especially when you’re looking this pretty.” 

Her entire speech flew out the window. Beth’s gaze dropped to her lap. Warmth flooded her cheeks and her breath hitched. “You think I’m pretty?”

“Yeah,” Rick said softly. “I really do.”

“What were you telling me?” he said again after a silence. He pinched the space between his brows with a frown, trying to focus. “I’ll pay attention this time.”

Beth blinked hazily at him. His inability to concentrate was a side effect that clearly coincided with the brain scan this morning, but why was she spacey, mirroring him? What was he doing to her? Why was she immobilized? 

“I.” She cleared her tight throat. “Um.” 

“Listening,” he murmured. 

“Rick?” she whispered.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“What were you saying?” 

“I-I don’t know.” 

This was a train wreck. Beth’s heart was ramming against her ribcage. Her mind puttered uselessly around in circles at the shower of compliments and the look of pure adoration seeping into his clear hazel eyes. She didn’t know what to do with herself. The arm around her shoulder now felt like fire. Beth has never had a crush. She didn’t even know she liked Rick in this all-consuming, sinking-in lava, too late for rescue, way. Did people go their whole lives feeling like this?!? How was Beth supposed to function?

He chuckled again and moved, completely oblivious to his new startling effect on her as he leaned closer, reaching out with his hand. Beth froze, not breathing as Rick caressed her face, brushing his calloused fingers against her, sweeping underneath her frames.

“Wh-what?” she breathed. “What are you doing?”

Rick produced the tiniest curl on the pad of his index. “You had a lash under your eye.”

Beth stared at the fine strand of hair. “Oh.” Rick leaned back, proud.

“Rick?” Beth willed herself upright, voice strangled. “I have to go.”

His brows creased as he formed an uncharacteristic pout. “But you called me here.”

“I know I did. But I forgot about something at home,” she lied. “So now I’ve got to go.”

Rick stood up when she grabbed the pouch with her goggles. “Do you need a lift?”

“No, it’s alright. I can walk.” She needed the cold evening air to slap her in the face. Hopefully, the briskness will shock her out of this floating state and her senses will return. Then she can march right back in here and finish the job to kick Rick off the team like she was supposed to do. 

Not fall in love with him! 

“It won’t be safe. There’s that killer on the loose. It’s dark.”

“I got here fine,” she reminded him, “I’m Dr. Mid-Nite, working in the dark? It’s kind of what I do.” She let out a relieved sigh, glad to know her thinking capacity wasn’t totally fried, finally stringing together some proper sentences again. ”I’ll wear the goggles.” 

Rick seemed to get her hint that she wanted alone time. Still, he asked. “Can I follow you with my car?” 

“No, Rick.” She blew out an exasperated breath. 

Beth didn’t want him to be driving that car. She wanted him to see what the hourglass was doing to his cardiovascular system. But now she could barely stomach the kindness and concern creeping into his tone, and she didn’t even know how much of it was real. Was this a cause of Rick’s messed up inhibitory control? Or was his VTA and amygdala’s synapses firing up all his pleasure centres with Miraclo euphoria?

“Here’s what I will do,” Beth said, reaching for her phone. She linked her location app with his for the night, sending an instant notification to the cell he carried stuffed in his bag on the table. “Now you don’t need to worry about me getting home.” 

Beth made it down the stairs to the first floor, and Rick saw her out. He opened his arms as the 2-car garage door rumbled upwards to reveal the moon-lit Main Street. Beth paused mid-glasses switch, squinting at him with her myopic eyes. When his arms stayed outstretched, she realized what he was waiting for so expectantly. 

A hug. 

He wanted a hug. 

Beth hugs Rick sometimes. It wasn’t all that unusual. Usually after a terrifying JSA scare or a long-weekend without seeing him. But now, she hesitated. The hourglass base was blurry, but Beth was hyper-aware of it sitting snug against his waist there. 

“Oh,” she said delicately, stepping back. She finished putting her glasses away and rested her goggles up in her hair. “It’s just that you’ve said so yourself; you’re very strong.”

Rick found that amusing rather than offensive. “I’m not going to crush you.”

“If you’re sure?” 

“I promise.” 

Beth stepped forward, then did so again, wrapping her arms around Rick’s waist and squeezing his torso tightly, allowing herself this moment. Her head rested against his shirt when Rick enveloped her. This was longer and more heartfelt than any quick fleeting hug hello. True to his word, Rick was impossibly gentle with her, hands smoothed over the back of her jacket. And that warmth from before blossomed as her stomach performed summersaults and handsprings, sucking her in again, bad. Beth never wanted to pull away. 

“Goodnight, Beth.”

“Goodnight.”

Beth scurried down the road, walking quickly on the sidewalk past the Pit Stop and the library and the fluorescent-lit diner. She was back to the drawing board, and way in over her head. Not only was Rick blissfully unaware of the emotional turmoil he just caused her (or was he?), but he was far more deep in this hourglass dependency problem than she had expected, too. And now she had to be the one to convince Rick that the adrenaline rushing in his veins was only generating an artificial joy? And now she had to tell him that his blood might toxify if he continued to live this way? And now she had to tell him that he needed to go back to his one-hour of Hourman a day routine if he didn’t want to damage his brain?

And now she had to stand and walk and breathe and talk and sit and fight next to him knowing that he maybe sorta liked her?

And now she had to solemnly accept that she more than liked him, too?

SENDING VOICE MEMO TO DR. MCNIDER.

Beth gasped, realizing she’d been ranting and venting through her vexation out loud for any and all Blue Valley night-owls to hear. 

MESSAGE RECEIVED!

CHUCK CALLING. 

Oh, Beth was so doomed.

[scarlet-moonlight]

HEARTSTEEL members (+Alune) and the Overwatch characters I think they would main/What type of player they are (I need to cope with the shitty games Ive been getting recently and I’m doing it by combining my two biggest hyperfixiations at the moment), semi serious and not serious at the same time lol, a lot of these are based on my own personal experiences playing this game (Especially Kayn)

(Also I’m using the black/bold for Ksante because tumblr doesn’t have yellow and purple for Alune because while I think pink suits her, Kayn already has it and no member uses purple)

Ezreal

-Kiriko and Moira main. Only picks the female characters because they have the cutest skins. Never actually healing you, and if he is, its only so that he can get ult and then solo DPS the entire team even though it never works out. Still 1v5’ing the enemy team even without his ult because he thinks it can look good on his tiktok montages (Yes he’s one of THOSE TikTok Moira’s) Went absolutely ballistic over the LE SSERAFIM skins and only spams their emote all game

Kayn

-Junkrat main, loves doing that cool thing that Junk players do where they jump into a group of enemies and ults RIGHT in the middle of them. Loves playing payload maps on defense cause he can spam the attackers spawn gate with mines and traps as soon as the game starts (That little shit) Very toxic in voice chat, will take his time to tbag every player he kills so it can look good on the kill cams, spams the “its snowing” voiceline everywhere (Overwatch players, you know what I’m talking about) will absolutely flame his supports for not healing them when HES THE ONE JUMPING INTO THE ENEMY TEAM IN THE FIRST PLACE (And yet only plays quick play/arcade modes because competitive players scare him lol)

Sett

-Ana main because she reminds him of his mama Unlike Ezreal, he actually knows how to heal his team. Occasionally finds himself tossing a nade at nothing accidentally or even worse, pressing Q out of panic and nano boosting the Lucio or smth. Got flamed by his teammates (*ahem* Kayn) and still feels really bad about it. Almost always caught in a 1v1 against the Widow or Ashe he thinks he can win (He does not) Never actually uses his scope and just shoots at people randomly to heal them, cause he’s too lazy to practice his aim.

K’Sante

-Zarya main, fits his vibe for some reason. He actually knows how to defend his team. Started off as a casual player, (isn’t that much of a video game person in general,) but liked how everyone else had fun on this game and wanted to do better for their sake. Got surprisingly good at it too. Very smart with his bubble and grav placements. The only one who actually plays the game normally, I swear.

Yone

-An old man who does not have time for video games, only plays because Ezreal and Kayn roped him into it and he couldn’t say no. Super basic, only playing Soldier 76 because that was the first character given to him by the tutorial and he’s too lazy to practice anyone else. Pretty good with his aim and left click but just…does not do anything else besides that. Does not sprint to try and chase people, does not use his Helix Rockets, does not use his biotic field, just..stands there spamming left click cause thats all he knows how to do.

Aphelios

-Casual support enjoyer by day, tryhard Genji and Hanzo main by night. Does the most INSANE Dragonblades with Genji, nano boost or not. Flanking entire back lanes with just his dash alone, deflecting ults like no tomorrow. Knows every map, every shortcut, every health pack location, its TERRIFYING. Even more so when he’s playing Hanzo, WILL one shot you from the most bullshit corners you didn’t even know existed WILL two tap you with storm arrow (Sometimes just one) and WILL somehow get at least a 3k from an extremely well placed Dragonstorm. Its insane. (Also he plays Kiriko as a support but with the way he kills people with her, you think he was playing a sniper. Ezreal could only dream to be like him)

Alune

-Mei main. Also just out of vibe. Almost always spending money on her favorite skins and emotes for her (Sprinkles is her personal favorite) Also a casual player. Really good at sniping with her secondary fire though, so watch out. Ults are also super satisfying. Knows the best places to throw them to at least freeze the entire team for its duration. Ice Walls are always perfectly timed to protect you from ults, including several RIP-Tires from Kayn (Much to his rage and anger) Has some scary combos with her ult and Genji blade from Phel.

[gorgeousgalatea]

Transformers Prime is an extremely good series and the only Transformers work I’ve ever finished in full but I will always just come back to what a fantastic romp the first season finale/second season opening storyline was.

Like. So you start out with an Autobot-Decepticon team up, which is always very juicy, wherein they have to fix Megatron’s latest fuck up stop Unicron, who is not only incredibly evil and powerful but also the core of planet Earth itself so his mere awakening will mean planetary extinction and also knock Megatron down to number two and he’s not gonna stand for that shit

So there’s Stakes. And then you find out that in Megatron and Optimus’s rife and tumultuous past,  Megatron was a gladiator who rose up against an oppressive regime and inspired nerdy admin Orion Pax to join his ultimately successful revolution, which only turned to civil war and ruin when Orion Pax was chosen over Megatron (on account of his megalomania and...Megatronness) to receive the power of the Prime Matrix, making him their new leader Optimus Prime and granting him the knowledge and power of all the Primes before him. This Matrix, they soon realize, is the only thing powerful enough to stop Unicron.

Optimus heads into battle ready for this sacrifice to kill him and Megatron heads into battle super willing to finish the job if it doesn’t and after some homoerotically charged nostalgic back-to-back combat, Optimus sacrifices the Prime Matrix to stop Unicron and saves the day!

But sacrificing the Prime Matrix doesn’t kill him. It just gets rid of all his knowledge of the Primes.

Including Optimus.

So Megatron’s standing there, cannons charged over the body and then to his surprise who wakes up but a very confused nerdy admin Orion Pax, asking his good old buddy and pal what’s going on. And Megatron’s not going to not take advantage of something like this. So he just. Tells Orion that the Autobots are evil and takes him back to the Decepticon base. It’s not like Orion’s gonna argue, they’re buds.

What follows had enough shenanigans to be satisfying but I would’ve killed for it to last another six episodes.

Megatron hasn’t done this (entirely) for kicks and giggles, he needs Orion’s Nerd Skills to decode some things and he knows the lie isn’t sustainable, but he does have to bully his entire base into living with the fact that the enemy leader is just kinda chilling there, affable and clueless.

Orion does ask why the name Decepticon is so evil. Megatron comes up with the admittedly clever deflection that it was slanderous propaganda they appropriated.

The Autobots keep trying to rescue their leader and Soundwave (who is absolutely terrifying in this continuity) has to put his considerable power to use basically playing a hybrid of Portal and keep-away so they don’t blow it before Orion finishes decoding.

And then what actually ruins the whole thing is Starscream--who had been banished for Starscream reasons--just fukkin. Sneaking back onto the base to raid the fridge having missed the last few storylines and having a total conniption over running into Optimus Prime on the way there. Orion tearfully asks if Megatron would lie to him and Starscream just laughs for like fifteen seconds straight. When some Decepticon grunts try to off Orion realizing the jig is up his defenses automatically kick in and this poor sweet bot is so perplexed to realize he’s fully armed and able to fight his way out.

It’s wonderfully told and so absolutely ridiculous, I love it so much.

[lazarusweptt]

「 casey deidrick 〳 cis man 〳 he/him 〳human —— brotherhood of the five 」 well, well, well… if it isn’t jeremy gilbert, the 32 year old who’s best known around the city for his lazarus complex. keep this between us but i’ve heard that they’re aligning with the mystic falls gang; can you believe that? i guess it makes sense seeing as they are quite stalwart & self-sabotaging. let’s just hope that little alliance doesn’t go sour…  

BASICS

name: jeremy grayson gilbert

nicknames they go by: jer , j

age: thirty-two

species: human / hunter ---- brotherhood of the five

sexuality: bisexual & biromantic

pronouns: he / him

gender: cis man

family: miranda & grayson gilbert ( parents ) , elena gilbert ( sister ) , jenna sommers ( aunt ) , john gilbert ( uncle ) , alaric saltzman ( former guardian ) , stefanie salvatore ( niece ) , elizabeth & josie saltzman ( adoptive family ) , damon salvatore ( brother-in-law )

likes: junk food , watching trash reality tv with caroline , stealing from chain stores , takeout , true crime , knives , shitty vampire / werewolf movies , storms , long showers , grunge music , quiet nights outside , sex , marlboro reds , singing in the shower , video games , art

dislikes: supernatural bullshit , bad tippers , crowded spaces , dressing up , mystic falls , seafood , funerals , being unkind to children / animals , vulnerability in himself , capitalism , math , deflecting responsibility , empty threats , shit food , family legacies

QUESTIONNAIRE

what words or phrases do they overuse?

calls people ' dick ' frequently ---- particularly damon and tyler.

are they more optimistic or pessimistic?

pessimist

are they introverted, extroverted, or ambiverted?

introverted

what bad habits do they have?

' borrowing ' small things from friends , smoking , nail biting , biting pens / pencils , binge drinking , grinding teeth , lip biting , recklessly independent in some regards , loyal to his own detriment , not responding to messages , ignoring his health , shoplifting

what makes them laugh out loud?

caroline , lizzie , shitty things happening to shittier people , dogs

how do they display affection?

small acts of service , physical affection , unquestioning loyalty , protectiveness , defensiveness , cooking , thoughtfulness

how do they see themselves?

a mess. a work-in-progress. a weapon. a tool. a hunter. a ghost. a memory. a what-if. a walking cemetery. a haunted house. a cautionary tale. a guardian. a sacrificial lamb. a weakness. a twice-made mistake. a slaughterhouse. a regret. a victim. a perpetrator. an unwanted legacy. a dead woman's hopes. a lost cause. a lesson in perseverance. a story of survival. a not-dead-yet.

strongest character trait?

stalwart : reliable , loyal , hardworking

weakest character trait?

self-sabotaging : hindering or undermining one's own well-being

how competitive are they?

very , but specifically in insignificant matters. more salient things are met with greater levity.

what is their greatest fear?

loss : loss of loved ones , loss of control , loss of autonomy , loss of identity , loss of affection

what quality do they most value in a friend?

loyalty

what are their pet peeves?

rudeness to customer service reps / waitstaff , bad tippers , littering , lack of boundaries , scraping silverware , cutting lines , unsolicited advice

if they could change one thing about themselves, what would it be?

lack of emotional / mental stability

why are they aligning with whoever they’re aligning with?

love , predominately. seconded only by an incredible lack of self-preservation.

what are their goals here in new orleans?

keeping his family alive.

PLAYLIST

damn these vampires by the mountain goats / sorrow by the national / broadripple is burning by margot and the nuclear so and so's / the curse of the blacked eye by orville peck / pursuit of happiness by lissie / i'll die anyway by girl in red / drunk drivers/killer whales by car seat headrest / the freshmen by the verve pipe / body terror song by ajj / the funeral by band of horses / welcome to eden by samia / sober haha jk unless by hospital bracelet / saint bernard by lincoln