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rileysluvr · 11 months

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cliché jealousy trope except i suck at dialogue and ghost is a manchild in this but i still love him anyways!! nsfw <3

“Gaz is about to set the rack, if you’d like to join, Lieutenant.” You leaned one hand on his table and twisted your pool stick in the other, bending down to be heard over the loudness of the building.

Something about the way his title rolled off your liquor-smoothed tongue in that syrupy, almost meddlesome tone, had him swallowing thickly under his balaclava. He leaned back against the wall, toying with the glass of a thin line of bourbon in his gloved fingers. He made sure nobody got a peak of his face when he lifted the fabric for a drink, and despite your efforts and lingering eyes on him throughout the night and years that you’ve known him, he would continue to remain a mystery on that end.

“You really enjoy playin’ that nonsense with them?” he glared over at Soap and Gaz, downing shots and flipping the glasses upside down on the table as they waited for your return. You looked over your shoulder, and Soap threw his arms up to ask what was taking you so long. You returned to Ghost:

“I do. No harm in celebrating, Sir.”

“I’ll consider, but try not to make a scene out of it, Sergeant. You know those boys ‘ave got a hard-on for you.”

“Is that such a bad thing? Maybe tonight one of them will get lucky,” you smiled. Your words were uncharacteristic of you, and he was drawn back a bit in a mix of amazement and bitterness. He looked past you once more and Soap and Gaz were beginning to grow impatient.

“Don’t let me hold you back. Go on, I’ll watch.”

You pushed yourself from the table with a toothy smile, and returned to the game. You went up against Gaz, while Soap helped you to position yourself as you claimed to be relatively new to the sport. ‘Ladies first,’ and you broke the game, the end of your stick striking the white ball. Soap hovering behind you to guide your hits, and you got stripes, leaving Gaz stuck with solids. With each turn, Soap leaned heavier into you, hands staying on yours and your hips for longer to adjust you. You’d be a dirty liar if you said you didn’t enjoy his big arms around you, and his Scottish accent whispering tips directly into your ear. In full transparency with yourself, he had you worked and shuddering, and if your Lieutenant wasn’t already fuming with the last words you left him with, he would be sure to rub them in your pretty face later and have you gasping for air as the thought of another man, let alone member of Task Force 141, touching you had surely slipped from your memory.

You sent the white ball rolling into the black ball, pocketing it with the help of Soap and you dropped the stick on the table, both leaning up and cheering, embracing each other in a hug. You squeezed his waist as he praised your victory in your ear. Gaz was emulous, not so much because of his loss, but of the way you celebrated with Soap. Though, it was short-lived when you were pulling away from Soap and making your way over to him. You walked around behind him, placing your hands on his shoulders and massaging them lightly. You leaned up on your toes to whisper, “Good game, Garrick,” and he sarcastically crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. You dropped with a residual hand on his bicep, and you spoke to the two men, “You two play another round, I need to speak with the Lieutenant.”

Gaz mourned the loss of your hand as you walked across the bar and back to your Lieutenant. You clocked that he hadn’t touched his drink, or barely moved an inch since you were last there, as you slid into the booth opposite of him.

“You made quite the show.”

He spoke up before you could, an obvious change in his tone; disappointed and dropped down a notch from his already impossibly intense voice.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lieutenant,” you teased, but he was clearly not in the mood. His brows pulled together, distraught. How could you not know what you fucking did? To him?

He immediately relaxed his face. “Drink this, we’re leaving.” He pushed his glass towards you, the small amount of brown liquid sloshing with the movement, and he stood from the booth.

“We’re leaving?” you nearly scoffed out loud. Eyes staring down at yours when you caught his attention, he towered over you with the new dynamic. “I’m having fun here, Sir.”

“I noticed. Practically givin’ ol’ Johnny a fuckin’ lap dance over there.”

You definitely weren’t, and you took offense to his crudeness, but you also wouldn’t argue with him, a superior, and mentor - the only reason you were where you are. “And what am I supposed to tell them?” You nodded over to the pool table you came from.

“Make somethin’ up. Or don’t say anythin’ at all.”

He abandoned you at the table and walked to the bartender. As he pulled out his wallet, you watched in worry, knowing you had fucked up. You weren’t just going to leave without saying goodbye. You downed the little remaining bourbon in his glass with a wince before standing to tell Soap and Gaz you were leaving. Some bullshit reason and apology that you yourself could barely understand, your mind being everywhere else in that moment. Ghost paid cash for the drinks the three of you had racked up, plus some more for the boys to have a good rest of their night. He shoved his wallet in his back pocket and met you at the door without as little as a nod to the others.

“We’re stayin’ at the hotel across the street. You got a problem with that, Sergeant?”

He spoke to you like you were a little kid. You shook your head, and followed him out the door when he muttered a quick ‘good’ and nothing more.

The walk to the hotel was dead silent, and the ride up to the room was ten-times worse. You disrespected your Lieutenant, and while you couldn’t tell if you were actually in the wrong, or if everything was being blown out of proportion, the consequences would remain the same, whatever they may be.

The elevator dinged, doors opening up to the modern suite that the Captain had rented for the Lieutenant. The Sergeants never got rooms nearly as luxurious, on the rare occasion of being stuck in a different city for the night. Ghost’s palm landed on the small of your back, walking you both into the room as you gawked at the tall ceiling and fully glass walls looking down on the city. You stopped in your tracks to admire the view, though Ghost’s form passing you quickly snapped you back to reality. He began taking his jacket off when you finally broke the silence.

“…I’m sorry, Sir-”

“You disrespected a direct order.”

He tossed his jacket over the back of a chair, along with his wallet onto the table that went with it. He could barely face you, now unhooking his gun holster from his belt.

“I didn’t think you were serious.” Your voice was minuscule compared to his, but still held on to some confidence.

“‘Course I’m bloody serious, _____.” He brought his handgun down onto the table harshly, noise lining up with the peak incline of volume in his words.

Your name through his teeth struck your heart like a dagger, never sounding dirtier. He walked closer to you, watching his space.

“You think I wan’ t’watch another man touch you? Let alone Soap? And you fuckin’ let him?” he pried, allowing his tone and the likely apologetic answers in your mind to lecture you for him. “Bloody hell, _____, you’re testing me.”

“I said I was sorry, alright? It won’t happen again.”

He scoffs, turning away and back to his stuff on the table. He wouldn’t let up. “Bet it fuckin’ will.”

His words replayed in your mind. ‘Another man’? As opposed to who, himself? And his demeanor the entire night, practically screaming at you to focus. You relaxed in your stance, your next words coming off a little too straightforward.

“You’re jealous.”

“What?” he snapped, trekking towards you in an instant. For a man who appeared as unbothered as himself, he tended to pace quite a bit when he was angry. He halted once you were faced with his chest, dark squinted eyes set on your devilish ones.

“You don’t want ‘another man’s’ hands on me, you just said.” You pried, and pried back, trying to get a reaction. “That’s why you’re doing all this?”

He stayed silent. You took a risk and snaked your hands to the sides of his waist, tugging at the fabric and looking up at him.

“It’s called jealousy, Sir.”

“M’not jealous…trying t’teach you a goddamn lesson.” He lied; he was all sorts of jealous, and possessive with you, but he’d never admit it to you or himself. He stared down at you, dumbified by your actions.

“So you don’t like me?”

“I don’t appreciate it when you act like anyone knows you better than me.”

“Well, you know me best,” your hands trailed up his chest, to the base of his neck, where the fabric of his balaclava ended. “Wouldn’t’ve brought me to your room otherwise.” His skin was on fire under yours, and his mind abandoned all sense of reasoning once you called him out. “…But I barely know you.”

“You’re really goin’ to make me do this?”

“If it’s what you want.”

He let out a frustrated sigh, giving it some time. His choice was obvious—not even close to needing any deliberation—but he relished in the sight of you biting down on your lip, heels rolling back and legs flexing in anticipation.

“Oughta be the death of me, Kid… Take it off.”

He shocked you with his sudden leniency, while his voice did remain the same amount of gruffness and authority.

You tilted your head, “Really?”

“If it’ll help you sleep at night. Don’t make me regret it.”

With a smile, you slipped your fingers under the fabric and dragged it up his neck. Gently pulling it over his jaw, unveiling his dark stubble and pinkish lips. His eyes stayed on yours as you scanned every detail on the lower section of his face. The end reached his nose and you folded the fabric over the bridge of it when he suddenly grasped your wrist with his gloved hand and muttered a breathy ‘stop’. He didn’t give you much time to think before he was leaning down, pulling you in with his other palm on the nape of your neck. He kissed you deeply, and you moaned on his tongue out of stupefaction. You couldn’t say exactly how long you two stood like that, drunk on the released tension and few sips of alcohol from earlier. You pulled away, and your eyes met.

“Thought you were going to let me take it all the way off, Sir.”

“Always been a greedy girl,” he dragged, before drawing you into another kiss, much hungrier than the previous. He began to walk you back towards the bed, and you trusted his path and blindly went with it. You giggled, stumbling over your feet and, consequently, words.

“Can’t help it. Wanna see all of you,” you smiled.

The backs of your knees hit the mattress, and he pushed both hands lightly on your shoulders to get you to sit down. He got on one knee in front of you, and you swooned over the view.

“Go on.”

His words were simple, but you grinned dumbly at them. You reached your fingers out and slipped them under the fabric of his balaclava once again to pull it all the way off, discarding it to the mattress beside you. You’ve seen him without it a few times throughout the years, but his strikingly good looks always took you aback. Short hair that matched his beard in color, and the bump on the bridge of his nose. Dark circles under his eyes he usually had covered with the black greasepaint of Ghost’s look, a half-inch, horizontal scar right in the middle of his eyebrow that complimented the one on the opposite cheek. You’d never gotten to examine his face this close-up, so you couldn’t help but stare. You pulled him back up for one more kiss before he was back to his knees.

He untied your boots for you, throwing them to the side before he hooked his fingers under the waistband of your cargoes and harshly pulled them off from under you. You gasped at the cold air hitting your thighs, mostly in pleasure from his uncaringness for the formalities, and roughness with your plush body. You could even consider it desperation, manhandling you like you were not but a feather in his grasp, still, more valuable than any prized possession a man could own. He soaked in every inch of your skin he uncovered before you were only left in your panties, black, and laced as if you wore them for him, and the long sleeve, wooly shirt that matched his, and he absolutely reveled in the sight of you.

He really shouldn’t be doing this; you’re still young, and his responsibility, and he’s your superior - it’s wrong, written out in every language. Even a blind dog could see it. But he needed it. He needed you, so bad, he couldn’t even recognize himself in his thoughts. And you were just so fucking pretty, and witty and smart, a perfect soldier. He’d end up dead if he were to ignore it any longer.

He rolled up his sleeves before pulling you closer to the edge of the bed, simultaneously lifting your legs to hook over his shoulders. Your stomach was lit aflame, sweet butterflies and lively, strident sparks on burned wicks fighting for dominance. The eye contact this man held, you swore you would be a giggling puddle on the ground if it weren’t for your profession; still, it showed through in your blinding smile, painfully obvious, and it struck him with something he could only describe as a longing infatuation, so incredibly uncharacteristic of him it almost made him sick.

His beard against the bare skin of your thighs already had you squirming under his hold, and his bourbon-tainted breath only made it worse when he spoke.

“Such a pretty, little cunt of yours, Love.” He looked you in the eyes, “Are you gon’to let me taste it?” he hummed, and you leaned back on your elbows. His dirty words sounded native on his tongue, in that gruff, Manchester accent of his, the same one that had you dizzy when he was barking commands over the comms device in your ear.

You couldn’t have been more attracted to him than you were at that moment. You always admired his maturity, the experience he had over you, so you could only learn from the best. His strength and confidence in the field had you head over heels, and seeing it carried over to the bedroom, his prioritization and utter devotion to you, was a sight for the history books. While he saw his age as a flaw, you knew he’d be the only one to treat you right, and you wanted nothing more than for it to be mutual.

“Please, Sir.”

“Please, what?”

“Just- eat me out, please,” you whined. “Taste me.”

His lips pulled tight and curved at one corner. “Atta girl.”

He left messy kisses all up and down your inner thighs that encased his head, some leaving behind marks that would be there the next morning, as a reminder. His heavy palms, cold against your natural warmth and with bruised knuckles, massaged at the plush fat of your hips and below, and he finally landed his lips on your soaked-through panties.

You gasped at the first contact of his mouth with your clothed cunt, followed by the sweet moans and swears spilling from your swollen lips and slack jaw from the feeling of his rough tongue and the heat of his mouth painfully close to your center. The bump of his nose relentlessly teased your clit, and after one-too-many pleas from your breath, he wasted no time in slipping your panties down your legs and to the floor next to him, and shoving his tongue where you needed him the most. You watched on with dazed eyes, utterly drunk on the sight, while his couldn’t decide on what to focus on, your pretty sex-face or the messy cunt in front of him, wanting both engraved in his mind forever.

You tasted better than what would be described as heaven, and he could be like this for hours if he wasn’t so badly off, further straining his jeans with every noise you made, every second his eyes were on you. He had to take care of you first, warm you up for his taking, because he actually cared.

His tongue worked at your core like any task given to him; effective and efficient, and with the same rigorous aptitude he carried through the most important parts of life. You came apart under his mouth and grasp, the air filled with a mix of your pointless begging and sweet praises as to how well he made you feel, along with his occasional groans and hums from your taste and attempted grinding in search of more. He fed you everything you needed, but you couldn’t help but want more. More of him, his touch, the feel of being his.

As if he could read you, he granted your wish by bringing a hand to your cunt, and he slid two of his fingers in you without warning, maximizing your pleasure and overwhelming your every sense. Unable to hold yourself up anymore, you fully leaned back on the mattress, hands coming up to your chest to grope yourself through and under the fabric of your shirt. A heavy, tattooed arm on your lower belly weighed you down as you fought to arch your back, to find more within his mouth, cum faster, anything, as his two fingers slid in and out of your tight cunt, matching the pace of his tongue.

“You think any’ve those mutts could do this to you?” he mumbled, about the soldiers back at the bar, vibrations of his voice having you feeling more depraved than ever.

“No. Never,” you panted. “Only you, Sir. It’s only you- shit…I’m your girl.”

Your hand flew to the back of his head, the other finding his on your belly. He laced his fingers with yours, squeezing tight as those beautiful, soft moans spilled from your lips, uncontrollable and needy.

“That’s right, Love…you’re mine, and I’ll be yours here soon enough…just cum on my fingers for me, yeah? Can you do that, Sweetheart?”

You squeezed your eyes shut, nodding an “mhm” as you rolled your head back against the mattress, attempting to find solace with the pressure in your head growing stronger by the minute. With labored breathing speeding up, the thick rope in your lower belly finally tore, and you came hard on his fingers like he asked you to, pleasure intensified by the heavy weight of his hand on your gut. Your nails clawed at the nape of his neck, the pain combined with the warmth of your cunt pulling guttural moans from his throat as he helped you through your high. You whined when his tongue left you, a smug look on his face you couldn’t even see, and again when he pulled his fingers from your cunt, humming in satisfaction.

“Look at that, Love.” He stood from his position on the ground, eyes scanning over your body, height towering over your form. “Fuckin brilliant. You want t’taste yourself?”

You sat up and leaned back on your palms with straight elbows, a wave of dizziness hitting you despite your leniency as you moved, and you nodded, with big eyes and a fucked-out expression from just his fingers and tongue alone.

He brought his soaked hand to your face and shoved the digits between your lips. You opened graciously for him, and he pressed the pads of his fingers down against your tongue, your lips tightening around him. You moaned around him at the tangy taste of your messy arousal, and the overbearing space just his fingers took up in your mouth.

“You like it?” he asked, almost mocking you. He pulled them out of your mouth once your tongue had sufficiently cleaned them, and a short-lived string of your drool followed.

You stood from the edge of the bed, a stupidly-bright smile on your lips. “Mhm. And I like you.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Your fists locked onto the front of his sweater, leaning into his frame and spinning him one-eighty.

“How much?”

“Can I show you?”

You pushed him to sit on the edge of the bed, and he more than complied.

“You may.”

You gave him a sweet grin and climbed onto his lap, thighs encasing his much larger ones as best you could. His palms immediately found your waist, and he hummed. You littered his face and jaw with kisses as you reached for the bottom of his sweater, pulling it up and over his head and discarding it to the floor, leaving him shirtless and you speechless. Broad shoulders and frame built of muscle naturally obtained through his line of work, scars ranging from all sizes and causes scattered across his torso. Abs still prominent even when slightly slouched and not flexing, and the squishy pectorals you knew you’d be falling asleep on tonight, wrapped in the blanket of his big arms.

You engulfed each other in another kiss—deep, sensual, and downright desperate—as your hands trailed down his neck and chest, finding the buckle of his belt and pulling the leather apart. The sounds of metal clashing together rang heavily in your ears, and his breathing was jagged. You eagerly undid his jeans and finally pulled his boxers down far enough to pull out his hard cock, shamelessly gawking at the size. His desperation showed through his sighs and strengthened grip on your waist as you wrapped your smaller fingers around his thickness, his brows knitting together and eyes prying shut at the limited touch. You swiped your thumb over the wet, swollen tip of him, and he just about lost it right there, grumbling a quiet swear and tensing his shoulders.

A distraction, or his downfall, he curled his fingers under the hem of your sweater. He asked with his eyes, and you answered by raising your arms and letting him take it off, his cock falling against his stomach. You sat perched on his lap, in nothing but your bra, and for once, taller than him. His lips connected with the flat area of your chest above your breasts as you held the back of his head, and he looked up through his eyebrows. He didn’t have to ask for you to reach behind yourself and undo your bra, and it fell and you pulled it to the side, allowing it to join the shirts on the floor. His mouth was immediately on your sensitive bud and after a moment, the other, and you felt the phantom of cool liquid pour down your back once the cold air of the room made contact with where his hot mouth was. You held him close, something of a motherly instinct washing over you for this behemoth of a man, dominating killer and all suddenly gone. You had Simon Riley, rather than the Ghost you were familiar with.

You took his cock in your hand and raised your hips, sinking onto him, letting him feel you in full, pulling a long and loud moan from each of you. You adjusted to his size for a moment, catching your breath, and he latched his lips onto your neck when you started to move, marking you as his. The stretch burned wonderfully; you had never had anyone even close to his size, and your belly fluttered fiercely because you knew he could tell.

You rode him sweetly, like you were the one taking care of him this time - the insatiable feeling of being on top of a man of his making, the same man you’ve seen snap bones and necks like they were twigs, ruthlessly torture an unfortunate accomplice with no complaint, and end the lives of helpless soldiers of the opposition with no remorse. Nothing could beat looking down at his agape lips and furrowed brows, twisted in the pleasure that only you were giving him; you relished in the explicitly nurturing power, and you’d do it til the day you dropped, if he would allow you.

He consumed every inch of you with his eyes and hands what his lips couldn’t reach, enthralled by your entire being, on him, with him, after knowing you for so long. He wondered if you’ve wanted this for as long as he did, and for a moment, he had completely forgotten about his responsibilities, his soul focused entirely on you, and your needs only. Those needs of yours, being to fulfill his, and just finally be his.

You took his right wrist in your hands, dragging it up your waist and chest, and brought it to your neck. He rested his calloused fingers on your skin, loosely wrapped just under your jaw, and you urged him to be harsher, to squeeze. A craving look in your eyes, virtually screaming at him, ‘go on, punish me.’

punish me for misbehaving at the bar, disrespecting your wishes even if they were unfair and selfish. punish me for not seeing it earlier, for thinking anyone else could have me in any way. show me whose girl I am, and will always be.

He would never turn you down, nor would he deny that he wanted it just as much, despite the gut feeling of guilt clawing at him through skin and muscle. He tightened his grip, feeling the throaty vibrations of your moans amongst the pads of his fingers, and you smiled with the small victory over him.

“Fuckin Christ, Sweetheart. You enjoyin’ this?” he taunted, panted, almost, and you saw right through his words; he enjoyed it, too, supported by his flexing muscles, labored breathing, and willingness to comply with the dynamic in the first place. You nodded feverishly, whimpering under his weakening gaze.

The sight had him crumbling; his hand dwarfing your neck, rough skin and veins and all, having yours appear to be the silkiest, most fragile object one could lay their hands on. While he wouldn’t, he could, so easily squeeze tighter, strip you completely of your breath and blood flow, crush you, and the idea had him lightheaded, hungrier, and you squirming around him. Needy, and desperate to redeem yourself.

He wanted to gain his control back, be the strong mentor you always knew him to be, the one to never give a second thought to his actions, think too long or get attached, compromised. But by God, did it feel good to let you take him, take care of him, and the needs he tried so hard to suppress. Deep whimpers faltered in his throat, unruly in their attempted and, only partially failed, escape.

“This is what you wanted, right, Sir?” you nearly pouted, small hands doing their best in grasping onto and clawing at the thick arm that led to your throat. You felt your thighs becoming weaker, shaking as you tried your best to keep going, make him proud. “Make sure I’m yours for good? Fuck some sense into me I needed so bad? ‘Cause it’s working…I’ll be yours for however long you’ll have me, Sir,” you devoted, eyes big and innocent.

“Fuckin hell, Darling,” was all he could muster up, stuttering slightly as your cunt took him so well, squeezing vigorously in addition to your already there tightness.

With his hand at the base of your throat, his other arm wrapped tightly around your waist, continuing to aid you in riding his heavy cock, back and forth with the lazy raising of your hips a mere inch or two from his lap. He brought you down and his lips engulfed your swollen ones, tongue bullying yours as the hand on your neck kept you in place to his liking. Rougher, meaner than before. Ravenous, desirous and aching, and you fed into his craving like the good girl you were, wanting nothing more but to please him.

He pulled away to rest his forehead on your shoulder, eyes glued shut and hot breaths fanning your skin as he could no longer control the groans emitting from deep in his throat. You were so good, your small body on top of him, riding him, and he knew he wouldn’t be lasting much longer.

He twisted his body, and yours with his, held tight to his chest, and he laid you down on the bed, pushing you further up and situating himself above you; like you were not but a featherweight toy, made to be molded into any position of his liking. He hungrily slid his cock back in your cunt with a groan, you a moaning mess, and he buried his head in the crook of your neck, hot breath having you struggling and failing to keep still. Your hands found his back, nails digging into the skin encapsulating pure muscle, moans amplified with the new angle at which he was rutting into you. His hand had abandoned your throat to grope at your breast, momentarily pinching the painfully sore bud between his rough fingertips.

Your moans became more unraveled by the second, blindly nearing your second high of the night as he continued to hit the deepest point in your womb, the friction of the stretch of his cock and pelvis against your cunt driving you up the wall in ways you never had experienced before. The tightening of your cunt around him, combined with the dragging of your nails down and between the blades of his shoulders, had him seeing galaxies, with you at the center of each of them. He twitched inside you, leaving you drunk on him, and him only.

“Cum inside me, please, Baby- whatever you do, don’t stop. Please, wanna feel you,” you whined, and he raised his head slightly to look you in the eyes, hips slowing.

‘Baby,’ you had called him, unintentional but undoubtedly sounding right in your voice, and it sealed the case of your dynamic, future and present. He was so used to Sir, Lieutenant, Ghost…he’d forgotten what it was like to be addressed as an actual person - a lover, with whatever names you would assign him. And to let him cum inside you? He would’ve never imagined it, actually being able to claim you as his own, or allowing himself to do something so risky. Funny, considering his job.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, just trust me, Baby- fuck, m’so close!”

“Fuck- call me that again, Love,” he unwinded, damn-near begged. He resumed his pace, wanting nothing more than to please you, gut feeling dizzier than ever.

say it again, please, say it again. i’m yours, i’m your baby- christ, how the fuck are you doing this to me?

You smiled at the request; the older man, stronger than the meanest bull on riding day, wants to be babied by his junior. Simon Riley — possessive and deadly, was actually a man who wanted nothing more but to be held, be had, by the willing girl he knew so well.

You would’ve started much earlier if you knew.

“Of course, Baby, making me feel so good,” you said through shaky moans, and he groaned against your shoulder, movements becoming sloppier. “Gonna make me,” you choked, “…cum on your cock, Sir…and I want you to cum with me, please? Give me everything you have, Baby- fuck!, you’re so good for me.”

Your hands moved to cradle his head as you spoke, his groans uncontrolled against your soft skin, almost whimpering, and your whines erratic as he hastily rutted into you with shambolic thrusts, refusing to cease. The zipper of his jeans grinding against your inner thighs drew to you pain, but you couldn’t be bothered whatsoever, so consumed with him, and reaching both of your highs, and nothing more - you’d be lying if you said a part of you wasn't enjoying the pain, and wanted more, as long as he was at the other end to deliver. He mumbled incoherently in your ear, back muscles flexing and his cock twitching inside you every time you squeezed around him, until the coil in your stomach finally snapped, washing over and you came quickly on his cock with a pornographic moan. His arms and pace weakened, the tightness of your overworked cunt and voice sending him spiraling into his own high of the night, and he spilled his warm cum deep in your pussy, there to stay. Nails clawing down the sides of his torso only making it all the more pleasurable, shown through the choked moan directly against your ear, having your entire body shivering under him. It all hit you without a moment to think, leaving you both winded, catching your breath, actually smiling, as he could barely hold himself up on his forearms above you.

He kissed from behind your ear and down to your collarbone, soothing each of the red, swollen marks he peppered your skin with. You giggled lightly when his lips grazed the most sensitive parts between your shoulder and jaw, arms coming up to wrap around his neck. He swore if a laugh, or face, could save lives, prevent bloodshed, it’d be yours.

“Can we stay like this for a bit?” you asked, almost in a whisper for the close proximity.

He muttered back, “I’d crush you if I let my arms up.”

“Wouldn’t be such a bad way to go,” you joked. His heart swelled, uncomfortably, and somewhat painfully.

He adjusted to his knees and pulled his cock from your cunt, the loss of his size making you whine into the sex-filled air, and he groaned lightly. The sight of his hot cum spilling to your thighs already had him hard again, and he fought his desires for another round with the sense that you both needed to rest. After a moment, he shoved his cock back in his boxers and zipped his jeans, standing from the bed.

You, too, sat up, bringing your legs together as you leaned on your elbows, shivering with his cum seeping out and staining your thighs. “Will you at least lay with me?”

Oddly, your words struck him like a dagger; something he hadn’t prepared himself for, both the concept and the impact of it.

“Need t’check on the boys at the bar.” He reached for his sweater on the floor, and you frowned. “Y’know what happened last time I left them to make it home on their own.”

You smiled as you recounted the memory; the drive to the police station and back, the relentless teasing and cleaning duties that followed as they clung to their foreheads in hopes of relieving the nasty hangover they endured.

“They’re grown men, Sir. I’m sure they can handle crossing the street and finding their rooms on a few pints,” you quipped.

He spun his sweater in his hands, and you could tell that, deep down, he didn’t want to leave in the first place.

“...I suppose you’re right,” he admitted, ditching the sweater once more.

You smiled giddily as you watched him return to the bed, around the side you were closest to. “I am about a lot of things.”

He got on the bed, slotting himself on his knees in front of yours. His hands on your knees, pushing them apart, just a bit. “Don’t get cocky, little girl.”

“I learned from the -mph- best-! Fuck, Simon!” Your sentence is strangled by your giggles when his fingers are suddenly between your upper thighs, unapologetically teasing your sensitive nerves as he collected his cum on the tips of his middle and ring fingers.

He brought them up as he taunted, “Is that right?” and he shoved his two fingers in your mouth without warning, watching your body jolt and eyes light up in shock. He quite enjoyed the view of you taking in his fingers, a little too much. “Where’s all that bite gone now, Darling?”

You savored the taste of him, paying no heed to his jeering, and instead your doe eyes returned a bashful, surprised look as you moaned audaciously around his thick fingers.

He pulled them from your lips with a pop, smirking at the expression on your face. he’s so pretty when he’s happy.

“You’re an asshole,” you laughed, failing to keep yourself in a serious, scornful manner.

“Is that any way to talk to your superior?” he jokingly ridiculed, and you rolled your eyes. An assertive hand on your jaw pulled you in for a gentle kiss, plump and pinkened lips meeting his.

“Is it protocol to fuck your Sergeant whenever you’re feeling a bit jealous?”

“Only when she doesn’t listen.”

He moved to be next to you, and you naturally gravitated to half-laying on him, head on his shoulder and a palm flat on his chest as he wrapped an arm around you. Softly, as to not break you, or himself, despite you holding him so tightly, trying to be as close to him as you possibly could without actually cracking open his ribs and crawling inside.

“Maybe I should do it more often, then.”

He scoffed. “You’re annoying, y’know that?”

“Yeah, well. You’d hate me if I wasn’t. You like the challenge.”

“That’s true.”

You’d settle for listening to his breathing, and him the same for you, attempting to not think about what was to come next, and instead actually be in the moment, and what just was. An impossible feat, of course, but it wouldn’t change what had happened. And neither of you would want to, ever.

His eyes landed on the balaclava at the corner of the foot-end of the bed, flat and straight and almost like it was placed with the intent to taunt him. Remind him of what he had abandoned, to be with his Sergeant. His Sergeant, who was far too young, and naive for him. His Sergeant, who, unrealistically, wanted him just as bad as he wanted her.

#cod mw2 #simon ghost riley #simon riley #ghost x reader #simon riley x reader #ghost x female reader #simon riley x female reader #simon riley smut #ghost smut

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lackadaisycats · 6 months

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Hi Tracy, i wanted to ask a somewhat personal question. How do you deal with losing beloved pet? I recently lost my 9-year-old tortie a month ago to kidney failure and GDV and even though i still got three other babies to dote for (and they're all lovely), it's really hard to feel as much love as i did with my tortie. She was my first cat and was incredibly loving and patient with, helped me immensely while grieving for my father's passing a few years ago.

With her gone, it really does feel like a lot of me also went with her. It makes living very hard. I made tiny sculpture and wood soldering in her memory but i don't really know how to deal with the actual emptiness inside me. Sorry for the word vomit but i figured since you also lost a precious cat before, you might have insight for this situation

I'm so sorry for the loss of your beloved tortie.

I don't have any special skills for dealing with death, really, but I suppose I can speak a bit about personal experience.

I think it's natural to feel a yawning emptiness when something so intimately intertwined in your life - a constant companion, a source of joy, something around which your daily schedule is structured - is suddenly gone. It can be a very lonely sort of grief too, as the loss of a pet doesn't generally come with the same community and ritual that human death does. To others, your dear companion was perhaps just an animal. Not to equate it with human death in the broader scheme, exactly, but it can mean personal devastation, compounded by being alone in coping with it. Societally, we probably do ourselves some significant harm believing we must rapidly "get over" losses like this.

There's no getting-over-it that I know of, anyway, but there is the knowledge that the nature of grief changes over time (it sounds like you're no stranger to that). The stormy waves that knock you about with the immensity of the loss gradually give way to more placid waters. The sadness remains, but grows gentler and maybe sweeter even, because it creates a quiet space to reflect on the pet that enriched and graced a chapter of your life with their presence.

In the meantime, while awaiting some peace, I personally find there's an analgesic effect to making the feelings of grief actionable. The meditative nature of art and the act of memorializing a companion animal won't fill in that void, but it can help you start to process and accept it, to find a way to transmogrify it into a repository for your feelings and memories of love. I'd say keep making sculptures, make a scrapbook, draw a picture of her - anything, if it puts you in a different state of mind as you're doing it.

Looking after animals that are in need of care and attention in the moment, even if you feel emotionally distant, might help you regain some footing too. Setting up shelters for feral cats and fostering rescues are some things I like to do. There's a sort of grounding, self-rescue interwoven in focusing some energy on the living.

Most of all, grant yourself time. Do yourself the kindness of not feeling bad about feeling bad. Mourn without believing you must rush to find a cure for the sadness.

If, however, you are suffering or finding it impossible to function day to day, please do reach out to seek qualified counseling.

#cats #pet loss #grief #lackadaisy #death

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coltermorning · 7 months

Text

Of Love and Loss Ch. 3 (RDR2 Fanfic, Arthur Morgan x F!Reader, 18+)

Summary: You and Arthur are both faced with decisions that will change your lives.

Author’s Notes: Chapter three of this one.

Tags: Arthur Morgan x reader, high honor Arthur Morgan, minor character death, loss of parents, blood and injury, grief/mourning, survivor guilt, strangers to lovers, slow burn, eventual smut, graphic depictions of violence

AO3 Link

Of Love and Loss

Three: Hunger and Desperation

Word count: 2307

You awoke like it was your first breath, startled into your body, taken back by the feeling of being alive. You sucked down air and felt before you saw. But seeing came on quickly, and with it brought panic.

You were laid in someone’s wagon.

Everything came flooding back to you. It took you a moment of lying there before you could find the strength to move, to lift yourself, to escape. Only you couldn’t. You looked down at the immense pressure at your side to see that your torso had been wrapped in bandages. They delayed your movement enough that the pain wasn’t unbearable. But it was close.

“Welcome back, miss.” A rough, gravelly voice. A gray and red haired head sticking up and obscuring the light pouring into the wagon. A stranger. Was there no shortage of them?

It took all you had, but you pushed up onto your hands. You meant to get up but couldn’t before needing a break. A breath.

“Arthur got you stitched up well enough. He’s not exactly our finest, but you should live to see another day.”

Arthur. The name rattled around your brain a moment before landing on the man who had brought you here—under the watchful eye of all these people. The thought made your skin crawl. Just like that, you found your strength.

You got up and worked through the pain, ignoring the protests of the man and pushing past him. The drop down from the wagon seemed a mile, but you did it anyway and allowed a small cry to escape before you were shuffling away—your best attempt at a run.

“Miss! I really don’t encourage-”

“What the hell’s going on?” The lone voice you knew, the one you didn’t want to hear. Because it was the only one that could stop you.

You continued on, blindly running into the trees, trying not to trip when your vision blurred.

The men behind you squabbled before you heard footsteps. They gained on you so fast you almost laughed in pity for yourself, unbelieving you had ever let yourself get so weak.

There was a hand on your shoulder in seconds. You shook it off and kept going. Even when its owner said, “Hey, I’d stop if I was you, lest you hurt yourself worse.”

You could only feel panic rising in your throat at where you had woken up. Around all those people, inside a wagon. How dare he bring you there. The feeling of the wagon wood digging into your back, your side, the world coming down around you—you tripped up and crashed to the ground without warning, the woods rushing up to meet you.

“What did I say?”

You felt hands hook under your arms, drag you back to a sitting position. You couldn’t do a thing to stop them. You felt like you would be sick again but knew you were beyond the capability. Too empty.

Rough hands steadied you, bringing into focus the same man you wished more than anything you had turned down. You could be lying dead with them now if you had.

“You okay?” he asked. “Are you in pain?”

Always. Your blank stare must have given you away. “Lie back then, let me have a look at you. Make sure you didn’t pull your stitches.”

You did as he said, the soft, enveloping ground like a final resting place. You wished it were.

The pressure in your side heightened as the man pulled at your bandages. You couldn’t make out what he was doing when he got them undone, too busy being accosted by memory to care. You wanted to crawl out of your skin so as not to feel that wagon against your back again.

“Looks fine. You’re lucky. Really could have hurt yourself.”

Lucky. What was the opposite of luck? What was this feeling clawing to be free from your chest? It gripped you like a vise when he spoke. “Let’s get you back-”

“Don’t touch me.”

He paused, one hand hovering over your still-open bandage cloth.

“How could you.” It was a breath, all the energy you had left poured into the hurt of those words. Not a question but a declaration.

“What, save your life? Ride you all this way, keep you from getting yourself killed?” The anger in his voice made you want to melt away into nothingness. You shut your eyes. He sighed like he always did, like he didn’t have the patience for this. “Look, I know you don’t like it here with these folk, but they’ll help keep you alive. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

Did you? Truly? The fact was you were too hurt to cling onto life for your parents’ sake. Too broken. You hadn’t factored that into your decision to come here.

You must have been quiet too long for the man’s liking. He scoffed, making you look at him as he stood. “Stay here then, see if I care. Ain’t my job to make you see sense.”

He was right in that at least. You watched him walk away, back toward all those wagons. Each step of distance made your chest well up with sadness. It wasn’t that you were ungrateful. You just couldn’t do this. He was pushing you to live too hard and too fast.

You laid there contemplating what to do. If you truly wanted to live, there wasn’t anything he or any one of the people in that caravan could do for you. It would have to be your decision, your strength. But it was a difficult task when you had such little strength left. Like hanging off a cliff, holding on with two fingers while the world urged, up.

Would you climb or let go?

You looked down at the cloth wrapped around your middle. The fall could have killed you, but it didn’t. The wound could have too. All manner of things—the wrong man finding you under that bridge, an animal sniffing out the carnage. The ride here, these people. You could be dead ten times over. But you weren’t, and your parents were, and there had to be a reason for that. They wanted better for you. You wouldn’t have gotten here if that wasn’t true.

You recalled the last conversation you had with them and felt guilt creep in and make a home within you. You had been arguing over the trip’s outcome, what happened once you reached Nebraska. They were trying their best not to admit it, but they wanted you to stay there without them when they went back home to Montana. They insisted the new place would grow on you, that you wouldn’t want to leave when the time came. You were trying to spell it out for them—you wanted to die on the land you were raised on, keep the homestead running after they were long gone. Had that been too much to ask?

The conversation was cut short when your father had mentioned dinner. Then darkness fell, and with it, the whole world.

You shut your eyes tight against the memory. It had felt like being ten years old again. The whole trip had with all the decisions being made for you. But this was your decision now. The first time out from under their heavy-handed guidance, would you trust their judgment or spite them?

As eager as you were to do what you wanted, you knew your answer. Owing it to them wasn’t enough anymore—you had to want it for yourself. You had to want to live, because doing them the favor didn’t give you the strength to stand up, walk back into that camp of people and prove it. It was all in your hands now. And your parents didn’t raise you to quit when things got hard.

You were a living legacy. What would the world see when it saw you?

You opened your eyes. You were defiant at your core, stubborn and true to your word. You had taken the stranger’s hand, you had held onto the edge of the world. You would not falter now.

Through gritted teeth, you sat up. You swallowed your fear and tightened your bandages. You rose to your feet. The world swayed, but you stood firm. All thought of obligation behind you, you took the first step.

You would live.

“She’s your responsibility now, Arthur.”

“In case you ain’t noticed, she don’t want me around. Any of us for that matter, and I ain’t forcing her to act otherwise.”

Hosea leveled Arthur with the same knowing look that never failed to rile him. Like he knew better. And maybe he did, but that didn’t make the situation any less impossible.

“So what, you’re gonna leave her out there? Let her die?”

“I’ll help,” Arthur shot back. “But I ain’t convincing the woman to live.”

“Arthur,” Hosea chided. “It ain’t about-”

“Leave it, you two,” Dutch said, ambling over. Arthur was ready to argue with him too, his anger having nowhere to go until Dutch nodded his head toward an approaching figure. You. You looked miserable, curled in on yourself whether from pain or embarrassment Arthur couldn’t tell. He was willing to bet on the latter given that you wouldn’t meet anyone’s eye.

“She ain’t talking. To me at least,” Dutch said.

Hosea looked to Arthur, though he wouldn’t meet his gaze. He didn’t have to look to feel that knowing attention. Instead he watched you shuffle over with your hand over your bandaged side. When you were finally close enough, you stopped and stared at him like no one else was there.

“Take me to Nebraska.”

Arthur’s eyebrows shot up at your nerve.

“Please,” you added.

He had already considered it when you asked the first time and had already thought better of it. Colorado was easier.

“Why there? Why not just-”

“Family’s there,” you interrupted.

Tired of talking in circles, Arthur looked to Hosea for help. He shrugged.

Dutch spoke. “I thought you said you didn’t have family.” You flinched at his voice but otherwise ignored him wholly, eyes planted on Arthur. Why he had had the fine idea of rescuing you in the first place when this was what it landed him…

“Just come with us. It’s a hell of a lot quicker, and we won’t starve to death in the meantime. Or I can let you off at the next town.”

You shook your head as soon as he got the words out. He felt his patience nearing its end.

“Forget it. Stay here or find someone else to take you then, cause I done more than enough already.”

“Arthur,” Hosea chided.

“What?”

“He’s got a point, Hosea,” Dutch said. “We need him here.”

Hosea studied you long enough that silence took over. It seemed to make you uneasy—you finally met the old man’s eye.

“Why don’t you take her?” Arthur muttered to him.

“Now, hold on. I ain’t having him going out and getting killed on account of-” Dutch started before Hosea held up a hand, silencing him.

“I can take her. What do you say?” This to you. Whatever hopes Arthur had of you accepting plummeted when you met his gaze again. You were afraid, eyes wide like an animal’s, pleading.

“You should go with him,” he assured you. “He’s a whole hell of a lot easier to get along with than I am.”

You shook your head and whispered, “Please.” And damn you for looking so helpless—it tugged on something deep within Arthur he normally had a better hold on.

“If I say no…” he started, wondering how desperate you really were. “What’s your plan? Running off on your own?”

Tears started to form in your eyes. And again he had that nagging feeling—the want to help where help was needed. The same feeling that had made him take you all this way.

“Please,” you said again, this time with the hint of a sob in your voice. Begging him.

Arthur tore his gaze away. He couldn’t stand that.

“Take her, Arthur,” Hosea urged.

“We can’t spare him,” Dutch replied. “We need him here.”

“John can scout,” he shot back. “And anyone can hunt as well as he can.”

“Hosea…” Arthur met his eye, unspoken words passing between them. He was tired of being pushed to do these things, to do the right thing. At the end of the day, none of it would matter. They were still a bunch of no-good outlaws. But Hosea didn’t budge. And Dutch didn’t argue. And you were starting to cry.

He took a long breath. “Fine.” The way your eyes lit up made him add, “But I got preparations to make before we start off.”

For the first time, a smile crossed your face. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, don’t mention it.” You turned to walk away, and Arthur was left feeling like an idiot. “Goddamn Nebraska,” he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“You know it’s the right thing,” Hosea said.

“I know it is, and I also know it’ll take me months to get back to you lot. Not to mention the trip she and I could both die on in the meantime.”

“You’re savvy enough,” Hosea said. “Your hunting could use a little work, but that’s nothing a little hunger and desperation can’t fix.” He slapped a hand on Arthur’s shoulder and smiled. “It’ll be good for you.” Before Arthur could argue that particular nonsense, Hosea left him standing there. He rounded on Dutch for help.

“He’s right, you know. Infuriating as always, but right.”

Arthur brooded as Dutch walked away too. He wondered for the first time in his life what those two fools would do without him. But, it seemed, he was about to find out.

_________

Chapter four is here.

tag list: @tommys0not0beloved @ultraporcelainpig

#arthur morgan #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x female reader #high honor arthur morgan #rdr2 arthur morgan #rdr2 fanfic #rdr2 #fanfic #writing

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criticallyacclaimedstranger · 10 months

Text

When It All Falls Down [a Frankie/Joel x f!reader fic]

Read on Ao3

Fandom: The Last of Us / Triple Frontier

Ship: Joel Miller x you/reader, Frankie Morales x you/reader (cishet f reader)

Tags/warnings: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, major angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Use, Grief/Mourning, Death of a loved one, Assault, Blood and Injury, executions, Implied Suicide Attempt, Miscarriage, Loss, frankie and joel are both soft but in very different ways, cunnilingus, fellatio, piv sex, bad sex good sex all is sex, choking, pls tell me if I missed anything this one is a lot.

Summary: You live in the Boston QZ, trying to get by, when you become involved with a certain Joel Miller.

Words: 14,098 (oops)

A/N: Holy cow I started writing this almost six months ago when the show started! It was meant to be a very different kind of story but as it dragged on, it changed. Now I'm just happy to have finished it. I don't know if this fic is a dead dove but I just want you guys to be safe. Be aware that it's pretty heavy and there is definitely not a super comforting happy ending. But there is a certain kind of closure. Read at your own risk and let me know if I missed a warning.

Darkness lies thick around you when you stumble into the tiny apartment that is your so-called home. Exhausted yet wired, you take your time washing, and having a drink, knowing you can't fall asleep anyway until you take the two pills you got from the dealer with the salt-and-pepper hair and beard. He has an aura of danger around him, but you've never felt afraid so far. You carry an assault rifle, after all. He's surely armed as well but yours is fully visible, and your fatigues and ravaged face will let surely let him know that you are a force to be reckoned with.

Eventually, you find yourself drawn towards the narrow bed. You pick up the bottle of liquor that was no doubt made in a toilet, shake out the precious pills from a small plastic bag in your breast pocket, and down them with some generous gulps of the piss-colored liquid. It burns its way down your throat, warms your belly, and with a deep sigh, your collapse on the bed. As you look up at the ceiling, you see the flaking paint dance before your eyes, not from the drugs and the alcohol, but from sheer exhaustion. You turn onto your side and press your eyes shut and make your brain go blank.

Almost asleep, you hear the front door open and close. Too groggy to care about making sure it's not an intruder, you immediately recognize the footsteps anyway. They echo the tiredness you feel in your body, and the mattress dips heavily when your husband lies down next to you. You scoot back clumsily, longing to see him. His face is lined with the same hard years as yours is, but he has managed to preserve a glow of humanity in his kind eyes. You love that for him, and now you find yourself smiling.

"Hi," he smiles back, touching your cheek with calloused fingers.

"Hi."

"I missed you."

"Are you okay?"

You nod, and a sad kind of mirth flashes by in Frankie's eyes.

"Liar."

"I feel better now that you're here."

"Me too."

You raise your hand to his cheek, mirroring his gentle caressing of your skin. His scratchy beard is growing long enough to almost cover the bald spots along his jawline, but your thumb finds them nevertheless.

"Will you shave tomorrow?" you ask, feeling an inexplicable desire to see those spots, kiss them like you used to back when the world was normal and he kept his facial hair a little tidier.

"Just so that you can point out to me that I'm unable to grow a beard?"

"That's not it at all..."

"We'll see, sweetheart. Now sleep."

You touch your forehead to his, and only then can you let yourself be dragged under by the pills.

///

The sun is beating down from a clear blue sky. Your mouth is filled with cotton, and it doesn't make it any better that the smoke from the burning bodies is somehow finding its way to your tower. The smell of burning flesh should make you gag, but it doesn't, not anymore. The smoke, however, irritates your lungs.

"Goddammit," you hear Peters, your guard partner for the day, cough behind you. "We need a big fucking fan."

"Rain would be better," you reply, looking around you, seeing nothing but blue skies.

"Rain just impregnates the smell into the clothes."

He's right, of course, but you still wouldn't mind rain. Looking around you in the guard tower, you stop when you notice movement some distance away. Frowning, you stop still and wait to see it again.

"You got something?" Peters asks, having noticed the change in your posture.

"I got something," you confirm in a mumble. He lifts his rifle to look through the scope, searching for a moment before finding it.

"That's a goner," he shakes his head as he lowers the weapon. You grab the walkie at your belt and call it in. Soon after, a trio of soldiers appear on the other side of the wall. They close in on the wandering figure and shot rings out. You watch indifferently as the figure drops where it stands. Shortly after, your walkie crackles, and the kill is confirmed.

Peters coughs again, and the day continues in the same manner.

When you're relieved of your watch, your closest superior wants to speak to you.

"FEDRA HQ is sending us more soldiers," he tells you, ”So we won't be needing you at the moment. Report at the job office."

You merely nod. There is nothing to say, and you know that you were on watch duty by necessity only. You were never a soldier, Frankie was. When the world went to shit, he taught you everything he knew, and he knew a lot. You went from never having touched a gun to a weapons expert in six months. Your sinister competence was probably the only reason you were still alive.

You relinquish your rifle, missing the heavy weight of it in your hands, and change into civilian clothes. There is no hurry to take a new job, nobody is keeping tabs on you, but you are used to keeping busy. The alternative is going back to your so-called home and spend the rest of the day doing nothing by yourself. And that is not an option.

You draw the worst number imaginable: arrival clinic. The place where new arrivals either get checked for infectious diseases, or receive a lethal injection that kills them immediately. You'd much rather be burning bodies. At least those are covered, and already dead. It's a lot worse trying to avoid looking a person in their despairing eyes right before you stick a deadly needle into their arm.

It's just a job, you remind yourself as you're changing into medical scrubs and a face mask. You've done it before, so you just nod at the medical officer and start to make yourself useful. The uninfected ones have to undergo tests that you find intrusive, but you don't think about that.

A new patient is rolled in on a gurney: a young woman. She's softly sobbing, a sound which does not affect you, but then you hear the quiet whimper and realize that she's holding a swaddled baby in her arms. You stop still, stomach dropping and filling with ice.

"The baby is sick," the medical officer explains briefly, and you know what that means: there's something else ailing it, not infection. You see the officer prepare a syringe, and know what it means: the mother is infected, and must be disposed of. Despite how revolting you find your actions, you still take the baby from the protesting mother.

"No, please, I have to hold her, she's sick, please, don't take her from me..."

You swallow hard, unwanted images flashing through your head. It becomes a little difficult to breathe as you take the baby out of the room, ignoring the mother's pleas that are turning louder and more desperate. You look down at the baby and see from its dull eyes that it is not well. Unswaddling it, you find that it is looking malnourished, and is burning up with fever. The thermometer reveals a temperature of 103.

It's a miracle this baby is still alive, but you can tell it won't be for long.

You leave it in the plastic bassinet and re-enter the procedure room, where the mother is dozing off. Her face is shining with tears. She's younger than you, maybe the same age you were when...

"The baby?" the officer asks without looking up.

"High fever. Dehydrated and malnourished," you tell him bluntly. He nods.

"Better to let it go to sleep. We don't have the resources anyway."

You don't question it, you just prepare the injection and administer it yourself. More fuel for the fire that's stinking up someone else's lungs now.

///

It's dark when you're let off your shift. On heavy feet, you drag yourself home. No interest in food or hygiene, you plop down on the threadbare couch and start to drink. For every time you raise the bottle to your lips, the sound of the crying mother is turned down a little in your head. You decide to not stop drinking until either the bottle is empty, or Frankie comes home. Luckily for your liver, Frankie arrives not long after.

Blearily, you look up at him, expecting scorn but receiving sympathy. How does he do it, how does he remain so humane?

"Rough day?" he asks quietly. You rub your neck with a joyless bark.

"Every day is rough now."

"I'll get you your pills."

He comes back with two of them, but you shake your head.

"Three," you mumble throatily. You crave oblivion tonight.

"Not with liquor."

You grunt in dissatisfaction but accept the two pills, down them with yet another gulp of toilet booze, and relinquish the bottle to Frankie. He puts it to the side table and offers you his hand.

"Come on, let's go to bed."

He holds you as the world dances, kisses your clammy forehead as he lays you down on the bed.

"I'm not up for this anymore, Frankie," you tell him quietly, speaking words that you can barely allow yourself to even think. "I'm not strong enough."

"Of course you are," your husband tells you gently, stroking the hair out of your face. "You are way stronger than I ever was. You were always the backbone of our family, my love. You suffered through all those years when I was overseas. You held everything together when I was on my coke adventure. You found the strength to forgive me and take me back."

You giggle drunkenly.

"That sounds like a kids' movie. Francisco's great coke adventure."

He scoffs. "Not a movie I'd let my kids watch."

Your mirth disappears just as fast as it came, and now your eyes fill with tears. Being reminded of kids with Frankie breaks your already shattered heart.

"She would have been fifteen now..." you start to sob, hiding your face in the lumpy pillow. Frankie sighs deeply.

"I know. I miss her too. I think about her every day."

Your body starts to shake as you remember the lifeless weight of your baby in your arms.

"I don't want to do this anymore," you break down, shaking and crying into the pillow as your hands fist into the sheets. "I'm done, I can't do it!"

Frankie watches you patiently as he softly caresses your back, letting you cry it out without saying anything. It's not your first time and it won't be your last.

When you finally fall asleep, your head aches from both the crying and the beginning of a hangover, and you have lost your voice from screaming into the pillow.

///

The days keep coming, one after the other, with never-ending relentlessness. You go to your designation at the clinic, put your work in, return home, sometimes by way of the rations office. When you run out of pills, you seek out the man who resembles a graying yet still fierce watchdog. Meeting him in a secluded backyard, you ask for the usual amount but find out that he's all out.

"When are you getting more?" you ask, fingertips tapping together in your pocket at the thought of the sleepless nights you are sure to have until you can get your hands on more drugs.

"Unclear at the moment."

"When will there be clarity?" you bark, annoyed at the non-answer. He towers above you, as if reminding you of his size.

"Do we have a problem?"

"No," you mutter, in no mood to start a fight despite your desperation. He nods in agreement.

"Good." He pauses, before adding: "Check back in a few days."

Abruptly, you spin around on your heel, and leave. On your way back to your apartment building you notice after a while that you are being followed. Slinking into a narrow passage between two buildings, you hide behind a couple of trash cans, crouching low as you pull a knife from your boot. You don't have your gun; bringing it with you to work is too risky, you would be arrested if a FEDRA agent found it on you.

The sounds of voices and heavily booted feet come closer. At least three men are talking amongst themselves about you. One voice sounds familiar: it belongs to an absolute asshole who has been on you before for working for FEDRA.

Shit. You press yourself against the cold wall, hoping they'll pass by. You have no chance of fighting them all, and you don't want to know what they'd do to you if they got their hands on you.

You are about to find out. The steps come closer, and then one of them is standing right in front of you. You slash at his legs, feeling the impact before he kicks at you, his boot hitting your arm that you managed to raise to shield your face, but the momentum brings your arm up to your face, and you're knocked down on the ground. The knife clatters somewhere next to you but you don't know where, and in the next second you're curling up on your side, gasping for air from the kick you received to your stomach.

"You fucking cunt!"

The pain is blinding but when the second kick comes, you manage to wrap your arms around the foot. Twisting your aching body, you pull your attacker down. Next thing you know, you are being battered with kicks from several feet, and you make yourself as small as possible, try to protect your head.

You are pulled up and slammed into the wall. Spitting blood, you try to focus your gaze on your assailants, but your vision is blurry and impaired by a quickly swelling eye.

"You'll regret this."

Hands close around your neck, cutting off your air supply. Panic rises in you, floods your limbs, making you kick and flail with your last ounces of strength, choked protests pressing out between your lips.

Your salvation comes not from your fighting, but the chain around your neck.

"What's this?" The grip loosens a little, fingers pluck at the chain.

"There's someone coming." Another voice warns. "Finish her off."

The rings on the chain around your neck get pulled out from underneath your shirt and you start kicking again.

"Is this gold?"

A snap, and the chain breaks. The familiar clink of the two rings in the palm of someone else's hand makes you furious.

"Give them back!" you scream, but the words only come out as hoarse whispers. You throw yourself at the shape closest to you but only fall to the hard, cold ground as the assailant side-steps your pitiful attack. You receive one last kick to your ribs before the sound of heavy boots running away thunders in your ears.

"Fuckers," you croak, fumbling to get up, but failing as your ribs and stomach hurt too much.

New footsteps close in, the accompanying crackle of walkie-talkies telling you it's probably FEDRA. You think you recognize one of the voices but by the time the agents are with you, you have lost consciousness.

///

Ten minutes is the total amount of time that you were willing to spend in the clinic after you woke up. A fractured rib and countless bruises as well as an eye swollen shut and a bleeding lip is not enough to keep you in one of the sad hospital beds. The physician shrugs and dismisses you, and when you stumble out onto the street, Peters from guard duty is waiting for you.

"Figured you wouldn't stay," he shakes his head and starts to walk alongside you.

"You don't need to escort me."

"No, I don't. But I choose to do it."

You walk in silence for a few blocks before glancing at him.

"Did you catch them?"

"Do we ever?"

You grunt, your aching head already trying to plan for how to find them yourself. You need those rings back. Gold has no worth today, not like it used to, and the rings mean nothing to anyone but you. The loss of them is like a void in your chest, and your neck feels naked without the chain.

"You okay?" Peters asks.

"Sure."

"I saw the medical officer. You don't have to come in for a couple of days."

"That was unnecessary. I need to work."

"You can barely stay on your feet."

He's right, but you're not going to give him that. Reaching your apartment building, you just tell him bye before slipping through the front door. Almost succumbing to the three flights of stairs, you eventually reach your front door. Not until you are on the other side, locking the door and sliding the deadbolt, do you allow your body to sag, the tears to rise.

The physician gave you pain pills, and you down them with alcohol, all at once. Then you drink until you pass out on the bed.

It's late morning when you wake up, head throbbing, body immovable in its soreness. You blink at the sunlight, groan and turn your face away from it.

"My poor girl."

Frankie's voice is soothing right next to your ear.

"I lost them, Frankie," you whisper, unable to open your eyes and look at him. "Our rings."

"It doesn't matter. You're alive, that's what matters."

"It matters to me."

"They're just items."

"Symbols of our love."

"I loved you before I put a ring on your finger, and I love you after it's gone."

You start to sob, each one tearing through your body like a bullet through flesh.

"I know you're hurting, baby, but you gotta keep going." Frankie's encouragement is quiet and sad: he knows how hard it is for you, how unbearably tired you are.

"You can do it." He wraps his arm around you, very gently so as not to hurt you, and his lips are wonderfully cool against your hot forehead. "I know you can."

Sleep returns to temporarily release you from your pain.

///

"Frankie, she's not breathing!"

"Lemme see."

You cradle the still baby against your chest: the chest in which your heart has stopped beating. You're barely breathing yourself anymore, at least it doesn't feel like you are. If your baby is no longer breathing, how can you?

Frankie checks your child for a pulse, his grim face slowly falling apart when he realizes that which you don't want to acknowledge: that the fever has finally taken your daughter away from this burning world.

Halfway to the nearest town in which you had hoped to find a doctor, he turns the pickup around and return to the Millers' ranch, where you had taken refuge as soon as the cities started to empty because of spreading infection. You hug your baby to you the whole way. When you come back, William and Benjamin step out on the porch. They know how far it is to the nearest town, and that your early return only means one thing.

Frankie starts to dig a grave in the backyard that very same evening. You stand next to him in the twilight, still holding your child. When it's time to put her in the ground, the tears finally come.

///

The empty hollow in your chest is a stark contrast to the mind-numbing soreness of your body. How you manage to get out of bed and use the bathroom is beyond you. Returning to bed with an unopened bottle of moonshine - your last one - you force yourself to remember the dreamed memory of how you lost your daughter. In dark moments, such as this one, you think that it was for the best. What kind of a world is this to raise a child in? A fever is a lot less dramatic than getting bitten, infected, shot, burned. At least now she got to go to sleep peacefully in your arms. You buried her. Benny played a song on his old guitar and sang with a quivering voice. It meant so much to you.

The following year was hell. Frankie was just as heartbroken as you were, but he was the one who kept the marriage alive. Every time you pushed him away, he held you tighter. When you finally appeared from the tarry, stinking hole of grief, you discovered that you loved him more than ever. Loss makes some couples grow apart, but you had grown together. It was your salvation.

You take a swig from the bottle and grimace. Your head is pounding, and you can't remember the last time you ate anything. Alcohol poisoning is starting to feel very real, but you find it hard to give a shit. What more is there to live for, really?

Hunting down and killing those assholes who took your rings.

The thought sobers you up enough to put the bottle away. Sniffling from the pain, you heave yourself up from the bed, drag yourself to the bathroom where you vomit almost neatly, like it was planned all along. Avoiding your reflection in the mirror, you turn on the water in the shower, undress, and step into the cold, slow drizzle. You stand there until the shower runs out of water and you are shaking. Slowly, wincing with pain every time you move a muscle, you dry yourself, put on clean clothes, and leave your apartment.

The heat of the afternoon sun feels good, but you don't reflect on it as you limp with purpose through the crowd moving on streets of the QZ. Your stomach complains of hunger, and you're dehydrated, but the mission at hand is more important right now.

You find the drug dealer at work, burning bodies. The lower half of his face is covered by a kerchief against the smoke and smell, but you'd recognize those shoulders anywhere. Without hesitation, you walk up to him as he makes his way from the pyre to the back of a truck. You can see the dead bodies stacked there, like logs. Or spoilt meat.

"I need to talk to you."

He recognizes you, and there is a split second of dismay when he sees your beat-up face before he squares his shoulders and looks at you with disinterest.

"I don't have anything to sell."

"It's not that." You step in front of him when he tries to get past you. "You know where I can find the people who did this to me."

Even with his mouth covered, you can see the tightness in his lips.

"Why would I help you?" He pushes past you, and you glance towards the armed FEDRA guard further away. He's not paying you any attention, so you follow the man to the truck and watch him lift another body from it.

"I have no idea," you confess, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the dead weight in his arms. It's easier to just think of the bodies as firewood, not the physical home of a once living person.

"I'd be in your debt," you try. He barely even looks at you.

"There's nothing I want from you."

"I can get you drugs," you tell him quickly. It's not a good idea, you're fully aware of that: every supply and every pill in the medical center is zealously accounted for, and you don't even have access to anything worthwhile. But he doesn't need to know that.

"I work at the clinic," you explain, now in a lower voice so that not one word will carry over to the FEDRA guard. The man stops, now eyeing you up and down.

"Why would you risk it?" he wants to know.

"I really need to get my hands on the men. They took something from me."

He grunts, leaning his weight on one leg and hooking his thumbs through the belt hoops of his jeans as he considers your offer. Eventually, he nods.

"What did they look like?"

///

Two days later, you're working in the clinic when FEDRA brings in man they found wandering outside the quarantine zone. He's middle-aged and a little malnourished but seems to be in otherwise good condition. He's brought in in handcuffs, and the agent leading him in gives you a little headshake.

The man's infected. You purse your lips, annoyed at the agents for not just shooting the man on the spot. Why do they have to bring them in here, where you have to pretend like they're not just about to die?

"How do you feel?" you ask lightly. "Any fever? Nausea?"

"I'm tired and hungry, I've walked for days - "

"You'll receive a meal and a bed shortly," you interrupt, grabbing the scanner so that you can check the man's status for yourself. The field agents sometimes bang up their scanners, so you don't trust them to give a correct reading.

The scanner's red light seals his fate. You hold the device away from him so he won't see it. Not that it matters: he must himself know that he's been bitten.

"I'll just give you a little shot of antibiotics," you tell him, turning your back to him as you prepare a syringe. "It's standard procedure for new arrivals."

You hear a shuffle and a broken gasp, and swing around to find him on his knees, looking up at you with fear in his eyes.

"Please," he implores you, "please don't kill me, I beg you, please!"

You swallow hard and nod at the FEDRA agent, who steps up and secures the patient so that you can administer the injection.

"I don't want to die."

Your hand starts to shake as his words start to move the sharp pieces of your broken heart around in your chest.

"I'm not ready to die."

Your throat feels constricted, but you manage to pump the entire dose into a vein, and the man grunts. You watch his eyes get sluggish, and take a step back when he slumps forward. His body twitches a couple of times before it lies still.

You tear off the mask and hurry out of the room, hurry down the dwindling corridors until you reach the back door. You burst through it and take a deep breath of the fresh air in the mid-morning sunshine. Your heart is chafing in your chest, which feels smaller than normal.

I'm not ready to die.

Leaning against the wall, you press your eyes shut and try to focus on your breathing. In, out. Calmly. Frankie's voice haunts your memories. You can do it, baby, I believe in you.

Someone is approaching, so you snap your head up, your fist closing and ready to swing.

It's the drug dealer.

"I found them," he informs you without preamble. "Are you free tonight?"

"I'm free now," you tell him, desperate to get away from the clinic. He nods, and you ask him to wait fifteen minutes. Returning inside, you tell your supervisor that your injuries are bothering you. Once you receive a permission slip for the rest of the day, you change your clothes and leave.

Your guide is still waiting for you outside, arms crossed in front of his chest, face set grimly.

"Did you get the drugs?" he asks you when you come out. You shake your head.

"It needs planning."

"You've had two days of planning."

"I'll get to it, okay?" you snap, and he yields. It is a little strange to you that he would help you without any guarantee of payment, but you don't dwell on it. What matters is that you're on the move towards justice.

You follow the smuggler, who introduces himself as Joel, through the busy streets towards the blocks out of reach for FEDRA's concern. The crowd thins out, leaving only individuals of questionable intent and suspicious gazes. You don't feel unsafe, though: there is something very reassuring about having Joel walk in front of you, like his broad shoulders serve as a barrier between you and the bad things surrounding you. He moves with confident wariness, staring down anyone who dares to throw an unfriendly glance at the two of you. Finally, he stops outside what looks like a former bodega, and turns to you.

"There's three of them," he informs you shortly. "In the back room. Not very bright, but armed. You carrying?"

You pull out your handgun from the waistband of your pants. You've carried it since the attack, damned be the consequences if it were discovered on you. Joel nods, produces his own gun, and clicks the safety off. You do the same and follow him into the building. He moves surprisingly silently for his size and heavy boots, and you do your best to match him as he leads you through the derelict space to the back door. He gestures for you to cover him from the side, then counts down by holding up first three fingers, then two, and finally one.

Then he kicks down the door and fires a warning shot as he enters the back room, where three startled men scramble for their weapons. You crash in, immediately shooting one of them in the knee.

"Don't fucking move!"

"On your knees," Joel commands them. The one that you shot is already writhing on the floor, and the two others raise their hands as they kneel. You recognize the leader immediately, and his features tell you that he knows that the day of reckoning has come.

"Where are they?" you demand, pointing the gun at him.

"What?" He has the audacity to even ask you: he and his companions took nothing from you but two rings on a chain. Everything else you ever had, including love, your sense of security, your sense of self, were taken years ago.

"The rings!" you roar, coming close enough for the barrel of the gun to touch his forehead. "The rings you fucking took from me, where the fuck are they?"

"I sold them!" His voice is growing panicked.

"To whom?"

"I don't fucking know, it was just some guy!"

"The QZ isn't big enough for you to not know every single fucking lowlife that crawls these streets," you point out. The guy starts to shake.

"I promise, I don't know!"

You don't even think: your trigger finger makes the decision for you. The shot rings out as your hand jerks back a little with the recoil. Warm blood stains your fingers, and you point the gun at the next guy.

"What about you? You don't know either?"

"I don't know, I swear!"

You shoot him too. The last one is the one with only one good knee. Putting him down is an act of mercy, but he holds out his hand as you turn to him.

"No, wait, wait!"

You fix him with your gaze as well as the gun, and let him speak.

"I don't know his name, but I think he's FEDRA. Thin guy, around six feet, light hair, blue eyes."

Your nostrils flare as you recognize the description. Lowering your gun, you turn away from the man bleeding on the floor.

"What are we doin'?" Joel demands, but you click the safety back on, a new purpose forming in your mind.

"We are not doing anything," you tell him. "I don't need you."

You walk out of the building. A gun goes off behind you, telling you that Joel put the last assailant out of his misery.

///

Peters is on a smoke break outside the FEDRA headquarters. He nods when he sees you, and without wasting any time, you march straight up to him. You push him roughly, sending him back two steps.

"Where are my rings?" you demand, resisting the urge to reach for your gun. Peters' eyes narrow.

"If you want them back, I need something from you."

"What?"

"Meds. Drugs. You work at the clinic."

You stare at him, your hatred spilling into your features, letting him know just how much you despise him.

"You must know I can't just waltz in there and fill a shopping bag."

"That's your problem," Peters shrugs. "Get me pills, or you won't see the rings again. Moreover, I'll report you for killing the men that attacked you."

"How do you know I killed them?"

"You just told me."

You bite your jaws together as you realize that you've been had. Peters smirks.

"I thought you were smarter than that."

You can't stand to look at him one more second, so you turn around and leave.

///

The night is long when pain keeps sleep away. You toss and turn, your brain working feverishly overtime in trying to figure out how to get out of this mess. You remember how Frankie wanted both of you to stay clear of any kind of organized attempts to keep the new status quo, or the opposite. He was a contender for becoming a FEDRA agent because of his military background but refused to serve a government that shackled and killed people. Yourself, you could have joined the Fireflies, but he didn't want that either. It's just best to mind our own business.

You did that for a long time, and you still lost your daughter. You took every precaution when leaving the Millers' farm to make it on your own with Frankie, and still...

He comes to you in the small hours of the night when your brain can no longer tell the difference between reality and delusion. His familiar smell invades your nose and comforts you, and his strong arms gather you to him, to his steadily beating heart.

"You went and got yourself in quite a pickle now, corazon."

"I know, I know. You told me so."

"I did. Still, for what it's worth, I'm sorry."

You sigh deeply. "Me too."

"You'll figure it out," he states matter-of-factly. Of course you will. You have to.

You sigh again and reach your hands into his hair, those soft curls that you have loved since day one.

"I want you, Frankie," you mumble. He kisses your forehead.

"You know we can't. We can't risk it."

He was always the careful one. You were on the pill when society collapsed, and you didn't exactly think to pack them when you had to flee your home. Whenever you raided a grocery store, Frankie would always check for condoms. When there were no more to be had, you had to resort to other ways to pleasure each other. The world may have gone to shit, but you still wanted each other. What you and Frankie had was a once in a lifetime thing. You could not not want each other.

"Just use your fingers?" you suggest throatily. "Your mouth. Like you used to."

"Why don't you do it to yourself, sweetheart," he coaxes you with equal amounts of honey dripping from his voice. "Let me watch."

He kisses you, teasingly, longingly. It has been ages.

"Let me watch you, baby..."

"It's not the same."

It was that objection, spoken years ago, that led to the penetration that resulted in a pregnancy. Your daughter had been dead for three years and the need to be with Frankie, really be with him, had grown too great. Your cycle was unreliable, and you figured that the risk was low.

Low risk, your ass. You got pregnant on the spot. And lost the baby only a few weeks later, the day you had to put a gun to your husband's head and pull the trigger.

I'm not ready to die.

That's what he said, as if you were any more ready to lose him. To lose him was unfathomable. But he had been bitten and had to beg you to put him out of his misery.

I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry I'm making you do this. But someone has to. God, I'm not ready to die.

Tears begin to fall, and your body starts to shake. You roll over onto your back and sob out loud. Frankie is no longer with you, and all you have is a battered body, a broken heart, and a huge problem to solve.

You have to survive.

///

The medicine storage room is only accessible by key card and code. Only Craig, the physician at the arrival clinic, has both. You track his movements for the next two days, hoping to find some fault in his routine. When none presents itself after those two days, and you know that time is short, you try something new. Complaining of lingering pain, you earn a prescription of painkillers, but he won't release more than a couple at a time to you.

When you get ready to leave for the night, you throw a glance through the open door to Craig's office. He's sitting there; a middle-aged, bearded man, in a circle of light cast by the desk lamp, deep in paperwork. It's funny that medical staff should have paperwork even now.

"Good night," you say tentatively. He looks up, nods at you.

"Good night. Lock the door behind you. I sent the guards home."

You nod, and when the door clicks shut behind you, you have a plan. But for that you need Joel.

Still limping, you look for him in the deserted back alleys where the light faded already before the sunset. When you finally find him, he gives you a look that could almost be described as a smirk.

"You have my drugs?"

"Almost," you answer, squaring your shoulders that are dwarfed by the sheer wall of deadly that constitutes Joel's upper body. "I need your help."

"You're racking up quite a debt."

"I need your help to break into the clinic and beat the physician into giving us the drugs."

You state your business with the confidence of someone who has planned this to the very last detail, but the truth is that you don't really have any idea of how to do this. You're out of options, and you can't burst in there on your own, guns blazing. You need help, and you don't have anyone, not even Joel, but you have to convince him somehow.

He crosses his arms in front of his chest and raises an eyebrow at your bold proposition. "Are you on some kind of suicide mission?"

"I'm in trouble. I need those drugs, not just for you."

"I don't associate with desperate people. They get sloppy."

You purse your lips, angry at yourself for letting your despair shine through.

"If I don't get help, there will be no drugs."

He looks at you with narrowing eyes and for the first time you feel small next to him. You are at his mercy, and he knows it, and you don't like it one bit.

"It's not just about the drugs," he finally says, "there's something more. It has to do with those guys that we killed."

His eyes see right through you. "You know who they sold your rings to."

Fine. "He's a FEDRA agent, and he threatened me. If I don't get him drugs, he'll turn me in."

"Fuck." The curse comes out as a sigh.

"So if you don’t help me, they're going to kill me, and you won't get anything at all," you point out. Joel shakes his head.

"I need more than that. What are these rings? Why are they important?"

Now it's your time to cross your arms and glare at him. However, there is no beating that stone cold face. You could stand here until the end of time and you wouldn't win a staring contest with Joel.

"Me and my husband's wedding bands," you finally admit, defeated. "I wear them in a chain around my neck. They matter to me."

You expect him to scoff but to your surprise, you are instead served the hint of a crack in his grim facade. He looks down, seemingly at his left wrist right in front of his chest. The edge of a wristwatch peeks out from underneath the fraying cuff of his jacket.

"Okay," he finally nods. "Let's go."

///

The plan is simple. You will wear masks, get in with your key, surprise Craig, and force him to use his key card and code to open the storage room. A knock on the head and he hopefully won't remember much the next day.

"Can you walk without limping?" Joel asks as you pull the FEDRA-made balaclava over your head. Not surprising to you, he had managed to produce two of them very quickly. He doesn't explain and you don't ask.

"Don't worry," you tell him curtly and take out your gun. "Come on."

The clinic corridors are dark and silent, but you know that Craig will be in his office. His sleep deprivation manifests in dark circles under his eyes each morning, as well as in the way he cherishes his big mug of surrogate coffee every day, like it was a delicious Guatemalan roast. He has no family, barely any conscience either, but he has always shown a weary patience with you when you started working at the clinic. Not a chatty type, but then neither you.

The light spilling out the open office door tells you that he's still working. You gesture towards the door and Joel shows with a nod that he's understood. Quietly but quickly, with your heart thumping in your throat, you make it to the door. Joel makes himself known first, his tall and broad form claiming the entire doorway.

"Let me see your hands. And stand up."

Slowly, Craig obeys, but when Joel tells him what he wants, the physician is not moving.

"Did you not hear me?" Joel growls, but Craig doesn't move a muscle.

"I'm not giving you drugs."

Shit. You didn't count on him being a hero. Not knowing what to do, you hold back a gasp when Joel walks around the desk and smacks Craig in the face with his gun.

"How about now?"

Spitting blood and trembling from the shock of the sudden assault, Craig nevertheless shakes his head.

"No."

Joel growls again, and grabs Craig by the collar. Dragging the man after him to the corridor, he looks in both directions. "Which way?"

Craig doesn't answer, so you nod to the right. Joel sets off, pulling Craig with him. A tearing sound is heard when a piece of his shirt fabric breaks from Joel's rough handling, but Joel doesn't blink an eye. You follow, cursing under your breath. Just fucking give him what he wants, Craig!

Joel stops at the door to the storage room and shoves Craig against it. "Open it."

"No." The word is spoken in a small voice, but it is a no nonetheless. Joel cocks his gun and puts it to the older man's forehead.

"Open it."

You suddenly feel sick. This isn't right. This isn't how you wanted to do it. You push your hand down his pockets, finding the key card, and you immediately scan it by the door, but without the code, the door doesn't open.

"The code," you ask him, but he only shakes his head. You shove the gun under his chin.

"Don't be a hero."

"I'll die before I give you the code."

"Let me oblige you," Joel growls. "I'm counting to three."

You look into the physician's eyes. You may not know him, but you can see that this is a man who has made up his mind. What traumas does he carry that makes him so eager to part with his life? Maybe this end comes as a blessing to him?

"Fuck!" you exclaim and slam the gun against the side of his head. With a heavy huff, Craig sinks into a heap on the floor, blood seeping out of a cut on his head. Joel looks down at him, then turns his dark face to you.

"What is wrong with you?"

"All of this!" you hiss before turning around promptly and starting a brisk march down the hallway, away from the situation, out and as far as you can get. You don't know if Joel follows you, and you don't stop, except to dispose of your balaclava into a trash can halfway home.

Frankie is nowhere to be found as you pace your small apartment all night, waiting for FEDRA agents to come and arrest you. When the first rays of morning light come in through the window and nobody has been at your door, you collapse on top of your bed, and sleep restlessly for three hours.

Showered and with clean clothes, yet still looking half dead, you venture out of your apartment. You don't really want to but know that you have to make an appearance at the clinic, see how Craig is doing, what the consequences of your break-in are. You have a lie to serve about why you're late and are ready to serve it with a straight face. When you arrive at the clinic, however, nobody is interested in questioning you. There is blood at the entrance, and extra guards who check your credentials before letting you in. You walk through the halls towards Craig's office, fearing what you'll learn, what more lies you'll have to come up with to explain why you didn't come to work in the morning.

It turns out that nobody cares about your absence: everyone is more concerned with the assault and subsequent death at the clinic last night. Slowly, you begin to understand the picture, even if you can't understand it.

Around midnight last night, a man and a woman broke in, threatened the physician, then rendered him unconscious with a nasty blow to the head. He woke up by a gunshot, traced it to the back door, and found a dead man holding the gun he recognized as belonging to the masked man who threatened him. This dead man has been identified as Jeffrey Peters, a FEDRA agent.

Peters. Discreetly, you make sure that there's a wall behind you, and lean on it to make sure you'll stay on your feet.

"You okay?" Craig asks you, and the FEDRA agents all turn to you. Shit.

"Yeah..." You make a show of rubbing your forehead and sighing deeply. "I did guard duty with Peters."

"How well did you know him?" one of the agents ask, and you shrug.

"Not that well. We didn't talk much about ourselves. He seemed nice enough, though."

"Was he punctual? Reliable?"

You hesitate. "He... sometimes, a couple of times, he'd ask me to cover for him, and he'd disappear for a few minutes or so."

"While on duty?" another agent prompts. You nod.

"I always assumed he went to piss or something."

"Would you have thought him capable of something like this?"

You swallow, your hesitation real as you try to navigate these tricky waters. How do you raise suspicions about Peters without expressing a dislike for FEDRA?

"I think that his training made him capable of many things," you finally saw, eyes cast down.

They buy it, and you're let off the hook together with Craig. You apologize again for being late, blaming headaches and pains, and get the rest of the week off.

You immediately start to look for Joel. When darkness brings another night over the QZ, you still haven't found him. Instead, you find your local bootlegger and trade in a ration coupon for two bottles of something not-quite-clear that you're positive has a high enough alcohol level to kill off whatever germs it most probably contains.

The liquor tastes vile, and you long for the carefree emptiness that the pills provide, but at least you pass out soon enough. The nightmares you have are of Frankie and the bullet you put in his head, again and again and again you're forced to relive the terror, the guilt, the absolute devastation of having to first kill your husband, then live without him.

When you wake up the next morning, your anguish is only trumped by your hangover. It takes you half the day to get out of bed, shower, dress, and eat without getting sick. When you finally venture out it's late afternoon, and you are on a mission to find Joel. A nagging suspicion about him is making you uneasy, and you need confirmation, even if you have no idea what to do with the knowledge.

You finally find him hanging around the usual alley where you know that he deals. He's performing a quick transaction with a young, haggard-looking woman, and you wait at a respectful distance until she's gone. Joel's gaze follows her before fixating on you, and you see his hand quickly stuff some coupons into his pocket.

"You're dealing?" you demand at once. "Where did you get the stuff from?"

"Another source came through."

"So we beat Craig up just for fun last night?"

Joel gives you an almost disdainful look. "It was your idea."

Your head is pounding, and you feel the bile rise. Fighting to keep it together, you turn away from Joel and rub your palms over your face.

"Did you kill Peters?" you ask, your voice subdued beneath your hands.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"He complicated things."

That's for sure. You take a deep breath, will your stomach to settle, your head to cease spinning. Slowly, you raise your gaze to Joel.

"How did you do it?"

He folds his strong arms in front of his chest and dips his chin a little as he regards you.

"You sure you want to know?"

You nod. Yes, you're sure. You need to know.

"I told him your plan and said I needed his help to execute it. He jumped on it at once. As soon as we had broken in, I took his gun and shot him. I left my gun in his hand and put my balaclava on him, then left the scene. The doc soon raised the alarm."

Joel tells you this matter-of-factly, like he was talking about a walk on the beach. But there is still one issue he hasn't addressed, and now you have to.

"The rings," you remind him. "My rings. Did he have them on him?"

"Yes."

Your heart almost stops. "Yes?"

Joel sticks his hand in his pocket and fishes out the gold chain. The two rings clink softly when he places them in your trembling hand. They feel warm from his body heat, and for a moment you can almost feel Frankie's touch on you.

"Thank you," you whisper throatily, closing your hand to keep the rings safe. "Appreciate it."

Joel only grunts.

"I'll get you the drugs," you promise. "Somehow."

"Forget about it. You don't have to."

You look up at him, surprised and wary. Nothing is free in this world, and Joel is a smuggler. There is no way he wouldn't want anything for his troubles. You're indebted to him, no matter what he says, and you hate that feeling of him having something on you.

Joel's dark gaze offers no answers. You pocket the rings and don't know what to say. Lingering in front of him, you almost feel like you did when you were 12 years old and finally had the opportunity of talking to your crush. The feeling mixed badly with the relief of having your wedding bands returned to you, and before you know it, your lips are pressed against Joel's.

Joel is completely unresponsive, so you step back almost as quickly as you advanced. He's like a statue, cold and still, and you suddenly just want to cry from how much you miss normal human interaction, even just a hint of goddamn kindness.

"Sorry," you mutter before slinking away, neck bent in shame and confusion. You head towards the small apartment that was never a home but that you call home because what else would you call it? Sometimes you think that it must be easier for young people who know of nothing else but this world. At least they don't know the loss of, say, sunny Sunday morning breakfasts, exchanging relaxed, loving smiles across the table before leaving the coffee cups and hurrying back to bed...

The heartache is physical, intolerable, and makes you hurry. You need to get away from people, hide between the four walls with peeling wallpapers that surround your designated living area. If you're going to break, you have to do so privately.

As soon as you've locked the door behind you, you reach into your pocket and take out the chain. The rings look as familiar as ever: you know every scratch in the gold as well as the little indentation in Frankie's from that time when he caught his hand in the car door. His ring finger was saved by you still had a hard time getting it off his finger as it started to swell. The rest of his fingers required a visit to the ER. He never wanted his ring fixed. Frankie believed in letting things age as they were, with scars intact.

You slide your ring on your finger, finding it doesn't fit anymore, not only in size, but it also looks foreign on your finger. You sigh deeply and fasten the chain around your neck instead. The liquor bottle comforts you when the pain becomes too much to bear. You drink slowly, mindfully, because you know that drinking yourself into a stupor only makes you pass out. You need the in-between, that special place where you're awake but lost to substance. That's where Frankie is.

He comes before long, sighing deeply as he stands by the bed and watches you in the dusk.

"Missed you," you mumble, reaching for him. Frankie, however, doesn't move.

"You need to snap yourself out of this," he tells you gently. "Baby, you need to - "

"I need to survive, I know," you cut him off. "You always tell me that. I'm surviving."

"Survival isn't just about not dying," he reminds you. "You need to move on, my love. You have to move on."

You blink slowly, trying to focus on him. Has he always been this hazy?

"What're you talking about?"

"I think we should stop doing this."

You jerk up into a sitting position. The room spins, as does your stomach.

"No! Frankie, no, I can't do this without you!" Tears begin to run down your cheeks. Frankie shakes his head and looks at you in the same way as the first time he worked up the courage to ask you out: chin down, warm brown eyes shyly peeking at you. Now, however, he just looks infinitely sad. The trembling smile he gives you rips your guts out.

"You've been doing this without me for years. You can do it. You're strong, baby, you're so strong."

"I don't want to," you weep now, snot mixing with tears on your upper lip. "Frankie, don't make me do this."

"I don't want you to live in the past."

"There is no future to be had."

"There is always life."

He sits down next to you and lets you cling to him. He kisses your hair, caresses your back, lets you cry it out against his threadbare flannel, soft and worn down.

"I loved you since I first saw you," he tells you with longing and regret in his deep voice, "and I loved you until the end."

You want to tell him that you love him too, beg him to stay for his love for you, but your throat is too constricted for words. You cling to him, desperate for one last embrace, to smell his skin, thread your fingers through his soft locks, feel the scrape of his mustache on your lips.

"Let me go," he implores you. "You need to let me go, sweetheart."

"No..." you keen helplessly, pathetically, "please, don't make me do this...!"

"It's okay, baby."

"No..."

"It's okay. You'll be okay."

You don't know when he leaves. The next time you open your eyes to look through a curtain of tears at the room, he just isn't there anymore.

///

Joel's observant eyes follow you when you hurry away from the alley where he deals. Normally, he doesn't pay his customers too much attention, but there's something up with you.

He hasn't seen you in a week, and you look like you've been on a bender for the entirety of that time, and only now woke up, cleaned yourself enough to show yourself in public without attracting too much attention, and then went out to get more shit to fuck you up. Your eyes are bloodshot and unfocused, and he can smell alcohol on you. Your body language is so different: you are hunched up, neck bent, and your eyes fastened on the ground.

You want more pills than usual. When he lies about not having any more, you pull out even more ration coupons. He should say no. He has a terrible feeling about what you're about to do with those pills. Even if he's wrong, he knows approximately how many coupons you get each week and month, and you're giving him pretty much everything you have.

He should say no, but he doesn't. It's business, and those coupons are worth a lot.

Still, he watches you leave, then starts to follow you through the crowded streets of the Boston QZ. He keeps a distance but realizes soon that you have no idea - or don't care - if you are being followed. You bump into people, dig your hands even deeper into your pockets, and let yourself be pushed to the side by an angry passer-by. Still, you walk with a sad kind of purpose until you reach a run-down brownstone and disappear inside. He enters not long behind you and stands still in the foyer, hearing your heavy steps work their way upstairs. Finally, steps along the floor, then a door.

He stands in the foyer for a while, wondering if he should find out which apartment is yours, and see that you're okay. In the end, however, he decides against it.

You're not his problem. Now that all the unpleasantries with the clinic are over, and both of you seem safe from suspicions, he's definitely not getting entangled with you again.

Still, he lingers in the foyer, shifts his weight from one foot to the other while scowling at himself. Finally, he leaves the building and marches away. He has shit to do. He has his own survival to think about.

One block down, he turns around.

///

The rapping on your door makes you jump, and you pull out your gun as you go to look through the peep hole. Seeing Joel, your first thought is that he's coming to kill you and take back his pills, the pills that are waiting on your bed.

"What do you want?" you want to know.

"Just open the goddamn door or I'll break it."

You doubt he'd do something like that, but you still open the door. Joel fills the entire doorway with his broad frame, looking past you into the room. He doesn't even seem to care about the gun you're holding. When he sees the pills on your bed, he takes a step in, and that's when you point the gun at him.

"Don't take another step."

"I need those back." His voice is nearly toneless but you can hear a warning in it.

"I'll shoot."

"I've seen you pull a trigger, you would've shot me already if you wanted to."

He walks past you as if you were but a child who didn't want their toys taken away. When he reaches your bed, you realize that you're really going to lose your way out.

You throw yourself on him, pushing him down onto the bed, and start beating his broad back with a knuckle and the gun. For a moment, he grunts and curls up, but then he seems to find himself, and turns around and grabs your wrists with an ease that's nothing but frightening. He twists your wrists, and you drop the gun, your face distorting into a grimace until you keen from the pain. That's when he releases you, takes your gun, and releases the clip as well as the one in the chamber.

You lie on the bed, panting from lingering pain, your aching hands pressed against your chest, and watch him gather the pills. He doesn't look at you, barely even acknowledges you, except for when he leaves your coupons on the sheets. You feel cheap, used, discarded. Shame burns in your throat, and you just want him to leave, go and let you be alone with your misery.

Instead, he sits down on the couch, grimacing a little when his back hits the backrest. You got in some good hits.

You glare at him. "You got what you came here for, now get the fuck out."

He regards you with a slightly tilted head, even puts his arm up on the backrest, claiming his space with spread legs and a comfortable recline. You think in that moment that you hate him fervently.

"Are you a good shot?"

"What?"

"I said, are you a good shot?"

You stare incredulously at him as you slowly sit up. "Why?"

"Just answer the question," he barks. You shrug.

"Not a great one, but I get by, I guess."

"Rifle?"

"Yeah."

"I could use you on an expedition."

"Are you offering me a job?"

He leans forward, forearms on his knees. "I need a lookout. You interested?"

You chew on your lower lip, still suspicious and frankly, a bit confused. He waits patiently for you to come to a decision.

"Okay."

///

There is something about being outside the walls of the QZ. The air is fresher there, more breathable, more oxygenized. There's greenery, the whole city of Boston is swallowed up by nature. It's heart-breakingly beautiful how when a civilization falls, another takes over. The civilization of trees, animals, plants. Some part of you applauds the reclamation, roots for the trees, so to speak.

Liberating though it may feel, the world outside of the QC is also incredibly dangerous. But with Joel on your side and your former experience of traveling with Frankie, you learn how to navigate the overgrown streets and decrepit buildings.

Coming back from the first run - a shorter one to look for an alternate way through a particularly nasty block - he asks you if you've had military training. You just shake your head, but you can tell that he still is curious about your use of hand signals, how you handle the rifle, your military abbreviations.

"My husband was," you finally offer, not taking your eyes off the road. "Special forces."

Joel grunts in acknowledgement, but neither one of you speak any more until you reach the QZ at nightfall.

"I might need you again," Joel says once you're back inside the city walls.

"You know where I live."

He holds out a small, crinkled slide lock bag with pills, but you shake your head.

"I'd rather not have those around," you tell him quietly. Even if you long for the oblivion the pills can provide, you have decided - for the time being - that you don't need them.

Joel immediately pockets the pills, like he's afraid you'll change your mind. He then nods at you before disappearing into the shadows. You go home, and you sleep better than you have in ages. Still, the lumpy pillow is wet with tears when you wake up in the morning.

///

On the fourth run, you save Joel's life. You're his lookout, perched on top of a smaller building, while he clears out debris in an alleyway. The sun is high and sweat runs down your forehead. You wipe it away and then you see him: a man holding a baseball bat, slowly creeping up on Joel from behind. Mechanically, you take aim and shoot. Joel jumps at the sharp sound of the shot, and the subsequent groan from the man who slumps down onto the street makes him turn around. The man's head is blown to bits, and Joel quickly looks through his backpack and pockets for anything useful. He then looks up at you, gestures for you to keep looking - the gunshot could attract unwanted attention - and goes back to what he was doing, confident that you'll have his back.

You realize that in a very short time, you've become somewhat synced with him. You noticed early on that Joel has impaired hearing on his right ear and therefor wants his right flank covered in dangerous areas. He has bad knees, so you help out with heavy lifting from the ground. He doesn't talk much, but he gives you the last piece of jerky when your stomach growls at the end of your break.

He reminds you of Frankie in that sense. Frankie would also wordlessly see to it that you were comfortable, both before and after the outbreak. He would give you the best couch corner and get you your favorite snacks. He would have you take the last sip of water and stay awake all night so that you could sleep. And he never expected anything from you in return.

The comparison hurts, but you didn't use to think about Frankie at all during the day. He was a bittersweet pleasure saved for the night, for the pills and the alcohol. Now you're thinking about him in the harsh light of day, whenever your gaze rests on Joel's broad shoulders a second too long.

And yet, Joel is nothing like Frankie. You late husband kept his softness, his humanity, even after the loss of your daughter. You don't know what Joel has lost, what he has done, but you can tell he's been through shit. Well, so did Frankie, and Frankie never changed.

Joel is a cold hard killer. You find yourself wondering if he was always that. He has a military background, that much you know now, but what did his hands do when they didn't hold a gun?

Joel has made his way through the clutter in the alleyway, and you climb down to continue forward with him. He grabs you by the upper arm and when you startle, he releases you with his hand sliding down your arm, surprisingly softly.

"Thanks," he says gruffly, and you nod. So that's what his hands can do when not busy beating the life out of someone.

The two of you walk on, attentive of your surroundings, and very aware of the other's presence.

When you return to the QZ with the first light of the morning Joel stops you just a you're about to part ways. His hand rests heavily on your shoulder as he seems to look for something to say.

"You did good," he finally says. You search his face in the hopes of finding something more, but he is as closed off as ever. You finally put your hand on top of his. His fingers flex at the contact but stay where they are. A few moments pass by with the two of you just staring at each other and when Joel doesn't make the first move, you finally do. Your lips are on his, seeking a response that takes some time. When your lips part to let out the tip of your tongue against his pressed-together lips, his hand moves to the back of your neck, his big palm cupping you there roughly. You didn't expect him to be so rough from the way he had caressed your arm before, but it feels right. His tongue meets yours, forces it back into your mouth as he devours you, dry, chapped lips that taste of sweat stealing your breath away with the kiss that never ends, or maybe it's just one kiss after another that picks up before the previous one is over.

When he finally lets you draw breath, you're almost light-headed. He's still holding you by the back of your head, but now his fingers are gently stroking over your scalp. A tremor runs down your spine, and you make up your mind.

"My place is not far away," you tell him quietly. He just nods, then follows you through the empty streets to your apartment and into your bed.

///

He's not there when you wake up. You didn't expect him to, and you feel nothing but relief.

Last night, this morning, was a disaster.

You get up and step into the shower, the cold water making you shiver as you scrub yourself with a rough piece of soap. The events of the early morning replay before your inner eye, and your cheeks burn with chagrin.

He was rough. You welcomed that. Tenderness would have reminded you too much of Frankie, and you couldn't think about him. You ripped each other's clothes off, and Joel did his best to get you off, using his fingers and mouth. But he was in too much of a hurry, and you were stuck in your head. Eventually you just pushed him away and asked him to fuck you. You even turned around so he could take you from behind. So neither one of you had to look at the other, in case you suddenly found yourself wondering what you were doing there.

Muffling yourself by hiding your face in the sheets, you took the backshot as silently as you could, enduring it rather than enjoying. You wanted it, but you found yourself distracted by thoughts of unwanted pregnancies, and found yourself unable to relax. Your tension led to greater friction, his big cock struggling to fit in, and after having assaulted your clenching pussy for a few minutes, you sucked him off.

Neither one of you were satisfied, and you fell asleep by sheer force of will, because it was the only way for you to escape the situation.

Stepping out of the shower, you dry yourself off before wrapping the threadbare towel around you. Your fridge is empty because you haven't been to collect your rations, and you slam shut the fridge door with a frustrated sigh. Your last remaining liquor bottle stands on the shelf. You haven't touched it in a while, but now you grab it and unscrew the cork. A deep line between your eyebrows, you drink deeply, savoring the heat of the drink going down smoothly into your belly. Leaning against the countertop, you rub your forehead and sigh deeply.

This went to shit faster than green grass through a goose.

It was only supposed to help you release some tension. It was only because he touched you like that. It was only because he gave you the rings back. It was only because when you shot that would-be assailant, you imagined for a split second what life would be like if you hadn’t seen that assailant in time, and Joel would have died.

It was only because you missed the touch of another human being.

Inhaling deeply, you will yourself into facing yet another day. It doesn’t matter. Joel doesn’t matter. You’ll survive.

You go to the clinic, you perform your tasks, you return home with rations, but the bottle is more interesting than food. You eat dutifully, however, before emptying the bottle and cursing the fact that it was your last one. Just as you’ve decided to try to get hold of more alcohol, there is a knock on the door. Sober in just a second, you grab your gun and approach the door, craning your neck to look through the peephole.

It's Joel. Frowning, you open, letting him see you’re holding your gun.

He barely raises a brow. “You can put that down.”

You do, but keep the door ajar, staring at him with distrust.

“What do you want?”

He shrugs. “Wanted to see if you were alright.”

“I’m fine.”

He nods, then looks down the hall before fastening his gaze on you again.

“Can I come in?”

“What for?”

He pulls out a flask from his pocket and shakes it seductively. It’s full. You consider this for a second, then open the door and walk back into the apartment. Joel follows, closing and locking the door behind him. You take one corner of the worn down couch, he takes the other.

He brings not only the bottle, but also pills. You accept one – a lot less than your usual dose – and down it with the real bourbon from his flask.

“That’s good,” you nod when passing the flask back to him. Joel nods and takes a swig.

“I know a guy.”

“You know a lot of them, don’t you?”

He grunts, unwilling to admit the extent of his network. You’ve met a handful of people during your runs together. None of them ever introduce themselves, and neither do you.

“What about girls?” you ask boldly, the substances starting to mellow you out. Joel raises one brow quizzically.

“I know where the FEDRA agents go when they want to let off some steam,” you continue. “Do you go there as well?”

He shakes his head. “Not my thing.”

“Don’t you fuck at all?” you ask, the booze and drugs slurring your words slightly. “Maybe that’s why your pity fuck last night was so miserable.”

He bristles a little at that. “I’d be inclined to say that it wasn’t all on me.”

“No,” you sigh, “it was me as well.”

Silence descends with the two of you staring at the ceiling, at your own hands, at anything but each other. When you reach your hand across the couch, Joel gives you the flask. You take a large swig, and Joel glares at you.

“That stuff’s hard to come by.”

“I’m sure you have your ways.”

“At some point my ways won’t be enough anymore.”

The conversation is stilted, unnatural. You lean back and sigh deeply, your eyes closing.

“Why are you here, Joel?”

He takes the flask from you, and you hear the cork screwed shut. He then shifts closer, his body heat radiates towards you. You keep your eyes firmly closed and startle when you feel his fingers brush over your cheek. Next, his lips. They slowly cover your skin to your lips, which separate so that he can close his lips around your lower one when he kisses you. Bourbon mixes with bourbon and the intimate flavors of the self when the kiss deepens. Joel slides his tongue in, intimate as if it were finding its way into your slick cunt, not your mouth. It’s met by your tongue, eager and shy at the same time, unable to decide whether to wait or advance. With a calm confidence, Joel takes control, kisses his fill of you, peels raw the sensitive skin around your mouth with his sharp bristles.

His hand comes to a rest on your thigh, fingers loosely spread over the flesh until you put your hand on his and press down. He breaks the kiss, and you feel his shallow breaths right in front of you.

“Look at me,” he demands in a low voice. Your eyes flutter open to meet his: dark as the night but not frightening in any way except in intensely they seem to yearn for love and affection, if only for one fuck.

“You’re drunk,” he states.

“Yes,” you confirm, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what I want.”

“What do you want?” His hand burns on your thigh.

“I want… I need you to fuck me, Joel.”

He makes some kind of noise, a guttural croak, maybe a growl, and presses his lips to yours again. Now you let yourself react more, your tongue meets his in a powerful dance, your hands run up the sides of his waist, ribcage, and back to pull him in. Your eyes are closed again, you don’t want to see anything, you only want to feel. He pulls his mouth from yours to instead bite and lick your tits, hands cupping and discovering and pinching. When he attaches himself to one nipple and sucks hard, you keen loudly, your head lolling back to meet the wall behind the couch. You find his hand on your breast and redirect it to the base of your throat. Joel only pauses his ministrations briefly before continuing, his fingers closing around your throat for a gentle but firm squeeze. You whimper encouragingly as the light pressure on your windpipe cuts off all intrusive thoughts, allowing you to focus on the pleasure instead.

When your breasts are dappled with marks left by Joel’s lips and teeth, he releases your throat and stands up. You blink up at him, worried for a moment that he grew tired already, but your eyes catch the thick outline of his cock at the front of his jeans, and then he offers you his hand. You take it, and he pulls you up, crashing you into him, back against his lips, and as you kiss you unbutton his denim shirt, rid him off it unceremoniously, then take his t-shirt off. You make no time to admire his chest and stomach, don’t allow yourself any musings on the physique of a middle-aged, hard-working man. You simply duck your head to bite his nipples, suck and nibble just as he did to you. Joel grunts, his fingers slipping through the hair at the back of your neck before taking a hold and pulling your lips off him. You cast a wondering glance up at him, but he’s already maneuvering you to the bed. Not unkindly but with a demand that you appreciate, he pushes you down on the bed, then locks your gaze as he unbuckles his belt. You mirror him, unbutton your jeans and push them down your hips as he does it, and then you’re naked before him, and he before you. Your eyes flicker down to his stout cock fighting gravity as it strives upward. Involuntarily, you start to salivate, your mouth remembering the challenge of fitting as much as possible of that thick cock in it. Your cunt is dripping in the same recollection, and you swallow, your legs separating as you show Joel what you have, your fingers trailing down to part your lips and rub your clit. He inhales sharply before leaning over you to roughly turn you around. He then gets onto the bed, gives you a surprising smack on your ass, and then you feel his bristles and lips against your sex, from behind, as his hands knead your ass cheeks. You yelp in surprise and instant gratification before muffling yourself against the mattress as your whimpers turn into moans, rising in volume the tighter your core winds itself. Lick after slurping lick, you let go of everything but the sensation, your ass in his hands, your cunt pressed up against his face, your clit throbbing from his constant rough care.

Joel’s name is on your lips when your climax breaks free, but you press your lips together, press your eyes shut, press your hand over your mouth as your legs kick and your body trembles. Your walls have barely stopped fluttering around empty when Joel shifts and moves up your body, positioning himself. Your cunt is wet, but his cock still sears through you as he pushes himself in, balls deep with one thrust. Your breath gets stuck in the back of your throat, your scream stops before it’s even out, and then your lungs compress when he lays his entire weight on you. You expect him to pound you into the mattress but instead, Joel starts a slow, deep grind, and it's almost more brutal because he’s deep, so thick, so heavy, and you don’t want him to stop. Your mewls are pitiful, the sheet are half inside your mouth, there is no room to move and when Joel grips your throat again, there is barely any room for breathing, either.

And yet, you want more of it. You want him to choke the life out of you, want him to crush you with that broad, heavy frame of his. You want him to blow you apart, tear you up, fuck you so deep that all there is left for you to do is survive. Survive this slow, all-consuming fuck, the one you wanted last night but couldn’t have because you were thinking too much. Now you’re not thinking at all, but you still have two braincells that cooperate enough to tell you that he’s about to bust when his breaths turn quicker and huffier against your cheek.

“Don’t come inside!” you squeak, and Joel heeds your wish. He pulls out just as quickly as he entered, and you feel him spill on your ass cheeks, hot and sticky.

You feel empty and cold when he climbs off you. Moving your extremities gingerly, as if expecting them to fall off, you slowly curl up on your side. Joel pulls the covers over you and you’re too dazed to dwell on it. Instead, you let sleep take you away.

///

��You talk in your sleep.”

Your head snaps around to find Joel still in your bed. You have just woken up, stretched, and noted that it’s still dark outside, so you decided to sleep some more, if nothing else then to try to suppress the beginning hangover that you feel just behind your frontal lobe.

“What do I say?” you ask, not sure if you want to know. Joel waits until you’ve settled, then turns onto his side, facing you.

“You talk to someone you call Frankie.”

The name hits you like a sledgehammer in the face, and you feel shattered. Murdered. You haven’t heard that name said out loud in so many years…

“He was my husband,” you whisper, like you were afraid that if you talk about Frankie to anyone, he could turn out to be nothing but a figment of your imagination.

But he’s not. You still wear the rings around your neck to prove that Frankie was real, very real. But his touch has faded from your skin, even if your love for him hasn’t left your heart.

Joel doesn’t say anything, but you can sense the grief in him, burdensome and harsh. You wonder what dead loved ones he carries with him, but you don’t ask. Instead, you inch closer, find his shoulder, and rest your head on it. Your head is heavy, a headache waiting just around the corner to break out, but you feel strangely safe like this. You don’t know anything about Joel, but you trust him.

“Go back to sleep,” you tell him, as if you were old lovers, used to sharing a bed, of falling asleep in each other’s arms. You’re not, however, you’re very new lovers indeed, and Joel is hungry for more. He kisses sleep away from you before mounting you and fucking you with the same slow, steady devastation as earlier. Except for moaning, it is a silent affair with no other communication than the direction of limbs into their right places. He has your legs on his shoulders, hands on the back of your thighs, pressing your legs impossibly down so that you’re almost bent double, trapping you between his rock-hard cock and a sharp spring in the worn-down mattress. Each profound thrust pushes the breath out of you, along with a moan, and shoves the bed against the wall with a low knock that you somehow want the neighbors to hear.

You’re furiously rubbing your clit and when the orgasm rises as a dark shadow to swallow you whole, Joel releases your legs and curls his fingers around your throat instead. You cum hard, mouth open in a silent scream, and in the next second Joel pulls out and paints your pussy and hand with strings of hot cum.

He goes back to sleep with one arm around you. It is not the soft embrace of a lover but the possessive shackle of a broken person who has found someone equally broken to take away their pain, tiny moments at a time.

You raise your hand to your neck, and press at the skin. There’s a bruise forming there, you know. You press it softly, feeling your pulse in the tenderness. Right next to it, the rings are softly clinking against each other.

You don’t think you’ll ever take them off. But you also think that it’s time to stop taking those pills.

#joel miller #frankie morales #joel miller x reader #frankie morales x reader #joel miller x you #frankie morales x you #my fic

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your-alien-friend · 6 months

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I don’t like that they killed Izzy, but I don’t think they did it for the wrong reasons like many others have said. But I also don’t blame them for feeling that way. Sure, the show is full of old, queer, kinky, disabled characters. But Izzy is the only one we get to see reckon with that in real time (besides maybe jim but that is done really quickly with minimal discomfort).

I’d argue he’s among the most important queer rep in the show because he does struggle with those things. Ofmd created a wonderful world where aside from little peaks of the outsiders views here and there, everyone is accepted. I love that and would not have the show any other way. It was so important for me to see people like me be treated as just… normal. But there does create a kind of dissonance with relating to those characters because we don’t live in that world.

That’s where I felt Izzys presence allowed them to excel in that respect. He let them paint a complete picture. Ed and stede remind me of my early teens, the discovery of an attraction that feels right in a way nothing else ever did, the sweetness of that first true love (along with the ups and downs of homoerotic friendships lmao). They’re the experience you have with another person. The crew of the revenge remind me of getting older and finding community, the safety and camaraderie and relief you get with that. They’re the experience you have with a community. But Izzy, he reminds me of myself through all these stages. He is all the self hatred, the misplaced aggression, the isolation. And then he gets to be the beauty, and acceptance, and levity that comes with truthfulness to who you are. He is the experience you have with yourself.

And that’s exactly why his death is so devastating. He was such a heavy lifter.

I think there’s also something to be said about Con O’Neil opening up about being a queer man himself and experiencing some of Izzy’s journey with him through the show, and perceiving him loosing that as well.

So yeah I think it’s a big loss that outweighs the narrative benefits. And I think we all have a right to mourn that. But I don’t think it’s fair to throw around all these baseless accusations at the creators. While there’s more nuance to why loosing Iz is such a big deal, this is undeniably not because of writers being against who he was. It’s the classic archetype for his character type, you sin, you make amends, you die. I do think maybe more input from queer writers could have prevented him not being fully appreciated outside of his ‘literary’ function, but that’s speculation.

I’m sad and angry too. But I’d rather focus on what we were given with Izzy and all the work Con O’Neil put in to fully flesh that out. Their story really is a monument to how community and fiction can change lives, and just how closely the two are intertwined.

And I’m grateful for what Izzy got to be. He could have easily been thrown away as the bad guy but instead he got to be so so much more. I’m glad we got to see that, even if his end wasn’t befitting of his journey.

Anyway rip Izzy Hands you were a real one and I’ll love you forever. Everyone else stop bullying David Jenkins I’m in your walls.

#tldr: the nuance is nuanced #sorry for the weird formating I had to copy paste from my notes cause tumblr ate the first try of this post #now TWO hours have gone into this bc I couldn’t remeber what I put the first time #anyway I did it cause it took me a while to pick apart my feelings about this and I wanted to help others struggling with doing the same #bc these conversations are important to have #nothing exists in a vacuum #a show is never just a show #anyway I study anthropology if that adds an credit to this #probably not tho but whatevs #ofmd analysis #ofmd meta #ofmd spoilers #ofmd #ofmd s2 #our flag means death #con o'neill #izzy hands #discourse #noah rambles

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theforgottenmcrmy · 1 year

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Solace (Ser Harwin Strong x Reader)

᯽ Please note that this is an overall part 12 of the series “Growing Strong”. The masterlist, and part 1, can be found HERE . ᯽

Pairing: Ser Harwin Strong x Tyrell! Female Reader

Warnings: GOT typical sexism, canon divergence, mentions of previous death of characters, and near tooth-rotting fluff

Summary: Following the tragic fire at Harrenhal, you retreated back to the safety of Highgarden, where you, Harwin, and your family have lived for the past several years. But there are loyalties owed to those outside the walls of your family’s ancestral home, and a letter from an old friend coaxes you all to rejoin the wider realm once more.

A/N: *me, looking at pictures and GIFS for Highgarden inspo for this part*: “I want to go to there”

Welcome to time line of episode 8, everyone. I don’t plan on mentioning this super specifically in the story or anything, but I am tweaking the kids’ ages a bit from the books (and show(?) honestly, the show is harder to track this) before the actual start of the Dance. I pictured Jacaerys/Derrik as being around 16-17 years old, and Lucerys/Selwin around 14-15 years old by this point.

Thank you the support🖤 I hope you enjoy this longer chapter that contains what I would argue a lot of fluffy moments. Hopefully this can start make up for the week break and the angsty chapter that was the last one.🥲 I’m also going to be posting a family tree shortly, which will hopefully clear up any confusion about all these whacky relations.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!🖤

To Lady Y/N Tyrell of Highgarden,

My dearest friend, I hope you have been well since you last wrote. I sense a change in the seasons is upon us once more, and I urge you and the rest of your family to take good care of your health. I fear the accrual of more reasons to dread this time of year… As you know, it is nearing the anniversary of the passing of two individuals who were close to my heart.

My Good Sister, Lady Laena Velaryon, is still sorely missed by all who knew her. Although, I must admit that I am most fortunate to see her vibrant spirit live on in her daughters, the Ladies Baela and Rhaena, whom I have come to view as my own.

And then there is my late Lord Husband, Ser Laenor Velaryon. For all our differences, he was still my husband, and the man whose name my eldest sons bear. He had a good heart, and, at the end of it all, we had a true understanding of one another. I cared for him deeply, and I find myself still mourning the loss of him to this day.

With the memories of their passing beginning to occupy my mind once more, I am constantly reminded of the loss that you and your own Lord Husband endured around this same time of the year. As always, I continue to extend my sympathies to you and your family at this time.

Lord Lyonel Strong was a good man, and perhaps an even better Hand to our King. I am certain my father still feels his absence at Court, despite the speed at which his Lady Wife, Her Grace the Queen, filled the vacant position on the small council.

In remembering each and every one of these losses, I am also reminded of just how long it has been since I have had the pleasure of sharing your company. Make no mistake, writing letters by raven has proven more favorable than years of silence, I assure you. But, and perhaps selfishly so, I often find myself recalling the light that you and your family’s presence provided to me and my own.

I am no stranger to dark times, and I fear neither the old or new gods are yet through with me. If I am presented with an opportunity for happiness, I will happily jump at the chance to secure it. Vipers will be vipers, and whether the words they speak are true or not, they will always speak them through forked tongues. The years have made me far less agreeable to bend to their will.

It has been too long, my friend. I would like to invite you, Lord Harwin, and your children to come visit in Dragonstone. Prince Daemon and I would be happy to host your family for as long as you desire. Our boys are almost men now, but I think they would all greatly benefit from rekindling the friendship from their youth. One day, you and I will be gone from this world, and they will rule in our stead. If the gods are kind, that will be many years from now… But, as a cost of my position, I am aware that I have gained many enemies. I shall be more at ease when the Stranger comes to claim me if I know our sons will never find anything less than faithful allies in one another.

I eagerly await your response, and hope to see you soon.

Sincerely,

Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen

There were few places in the entire world that were able to bring you more comfort than the familiar gardens of your home.

As alluded to by the name, Highgarden boasted many. Different areas of the expansive grounds housed different types of plants, each needing various degrees of care that only the most dedicated and well compensated gardeners held the entire knowledge of. The magnificent castle that was your ancestral home had been built in the center of them all.

The roses live among roses.

When an immediate member of the ruling family passed, it was tradition for a plant or flower that they favored, or which otherwise symbolized them, to be planted in their memory. Your mother, the only daughter of the Lord Meadows of Grassfield Keep, had a particular fondness for daisies. When she passed, your father planted many of those flowers across the gardens, and all by his own two hands. In turn, your father had long since decided that, in true Tyrell fashion, a new golden rose bush should be planted after his passing. You and Derron had seen to it that his wish was carried out. However, gods bless him, Derron had not lived long enough to convey to you what he wished to be planted after his own passing, so you had to make that decision on your own.

Derron’s passing marked a significant change for House Tyrell, and had changed the outcome of your own life forever. After some consideration, you opted with something a bit more imposing than daisies or roses to honor his memory: a birch tree.

The lure of the birch tree was that it was constantly changing in appearance with the seasons. You loved watching the visual transformations every few months. The gardeners had complimented your choice, noting that the birch tree was believed to symbolize new beginnings and growth. It had been fitting. Perfect, even. It grew at a decent rate as well- after approaching nearly two decades after Derron’s passing, the tree absolutely towered above you, and had come a long way from the tiny sapling you had once planted.

Derron’s tree was planted among others in a certain section of the gardens you had always tended to favor. The shade provided by it and surrounding trees was a welcome escape from the warm sun, particularly in the summer months. And, as the location was tucked away from the main garden path, it also allowed you ample privacy. You loved your home and those who resided within it with all of your heart, but you also had come to appreciate whatever small moments of peace that you were able to find for yourself. Doing so did wonders to clear your mind.

And it was clarity that you desired above all else at that moment as you idly ran your thumb across the letter that you’d received. Correspondence from Princess Rhaenyra was not an uncommon occurrence by any means; you wrote to another frequently. But the contents of this particular letter, which had been delivered by raven that same morning, had your mind bogged down with many thoughts.

There was excitement at the prospect of reuniting with your old friend after so many years. There was elation at the thought of the joy it would bring to your sons to see the Princes Jacaerys and Lucerys once again. But there was also concern… Worry about the potential threats to the solace you and Harwin had worked so painstakingly hard to craft for your family in Highgarden following the horrific tragedy that was the fire at Harrenhal.

You sighed tiredly, and leaned your head against the back of the tree.

…

The sound light giggles drifting over from the main garden path yanked you from your contemplation. But you recognized the sound immediately, and happily welcomed the interruption.

You rose to your feet, pocketed the parchment into your skirts, and made your way out into the open with a noticeable spring in your step.

Standing on the main cobblestone path was a young girl, still a tiny bit of a thing, clutching the hand of her nanny. When she saw you, her comfortingly familiar eyes lit up, and she reached out her small hands in your direction.

“Mama!”

“Mother,” Nanny Bryna corrected her, though you could tell she restrained herself from using the full extent of her sternness.

You beamed, and swiftly pulled your daughter up into your arms. The young girl threw her own arms around your neck in a near vice-like grip as she settled in your hold, but you didn’t mind in the slightest.

“Forgive me, My Lady,” Bryna apologized sincerely. “We did not mean to interrupt you. Lady Luciya was a bit finicky this morning, and I thought a small walk through the gardens might soothe her.”

You looked to Luciya expectantly, awaiting her response to her nanny’s words. The girl was young, with only her third name day occurring in a few months time. But despite her youth, Luciya was already as quick as a whip, and you had no doubt she knew exactly what it was that Bryna was referring to.

However, all your daughter could give you was an entirely pitiful look.

… As if such a sweet face could possibly be “finicky”.

You laughed at Lucyia’s front of innocence briefly, before turning your attention back to her nanny. “There is nothing to forgive, Bryna. I will take her for now.”

Bryna nodded, before giving you a small curtsy.

As her nanny walked away, you turned your attention to your daughter once more, and lightly tapped her on the nose with a single finger. “Now, Sweetling, what is all this business about you being unpleasant this morning?”

Luciya gave you a sheepish smile, before turning and hiding her face in your hair.

With Harwin’s curls, your eyes, and a combination of the pair of your remaining facial features, Luciya was the perfect balance of you and your husband. She reminded you each so very much of the mothers that you and Harwin had both lost at a young age. Luciya was small, but lively. She was quick to learn, just like Derrik had been; Bryna had already begun to work with her on reading and writing. And her sweetness rivaled Selwin’s at that age; though she was not immune to foul moods, her disposition was almost always more pleasant than not.

Luciya had been… unexpected, in a sense. After all, more than a decade after Selwin’s first name day had passed by the time she was born. But she had been no less welcomed for it. It was immediately clear that the young girl was the perfect final addition to your small family. Luciya had stolen the hearts of everyone she met, yours and Harwin’s included chief among them. Even your eldest children were taken with her; Derrik enjoyed reading to her whenever his studies and training allowed it, and Selwin had been taking her on short horseback rides around the castle grounds before she was even able to walk.

You ran a light hand over her curls absentmindedly for a moment, when all of the sudden, a brilliant idea struck you. You leaned in close, and gave her a conspiring smile. “Shall we see what your father and brothers are up to?”

Luciya withdrew her face from your hair, and with a bright smile of her own, nodded enthusiastically.

Given the hour, and the fact that it was such fair weather, there was only one place Harwin and your sons were likely to be. The clanging of clashing steel confirmed your suspicions the closer you drew to the training yard.

The yard was filled with various men, almost all donned in training armor or yielding blunted weapons of some sort. A large portion of them were gathered in the middle, watching with intrigue as two individuals who you couldn’t see just yet sparred with one another.

Much closer to you and Luciya, you spotted Derrik.

If Derrik looked like Harwin as a boy, it was even more apparent now that he was a young man. His curls had become less wild with age, but they were still present. He was broad shouldered, and though he was still young, you knew he could make a formidable opponent, if he ever needed to be. He was well trained with a sword, as Harwin and Highgarden’s master at arms had seen to that. When Derrik was not training with weaponry, Derrik and his tutors had exercised his mind with just as much fervor. He studied a great many subjects- history, philosophy, languages- and he enjoyed them all.

In another life, perhaps Derrik might have sought to become a maester. In your opinion, he had demonstrated the patience, wit, and motivation that would suggest success in such an endeavor. His grandsire, Lord Lyonel, had once chosen that path. As Harwin once told you, your Good Father had managed to forge six links on his chain before the death of his older brother forced him to abandon the pursuit for the sake of the Strong family. Similarly, as Derrik stood to inherit a great holding of his own one day, that fate of a maester was not his to claim.

Derrik was perfectly well rounded, as a wise young lord ought to be, and, though he was occasionally stubborn, he was wise beyond his years. You and Harwin couldn’t have been any prouder of him.

Your eldest son was tight lipped as he nocked an arrow and pulled back the string of a bow. Ser Corbus Crane, Highgarden’s master at arms, watched him diligently.

The arrow soared through the air and struck the target…. But a fair way down from the center. In fact, it was nothing short of a miracle the arrow had managed to strike the target at all.

With Harwin and Ser Corbus’ oversight, Derrik had become a decent swordsman for his age. But as of late, Derrik had developed a more serious interest in cultivating skill with a bow as well. This pleased you; not only had you been taught to shoot from a young age, but your father and brother had been as well. Seeing your eldest son take an interest in upholding the Tyrell family tradition gave you joy.

“Straighten your bow arm,” you instructed him, giving Derrik a small start as he had yet to realize your presence. “And hold firm. You are losing some of the tension halfway through your draw.”

“I advised him of the same, My Lady,” Ser Corbus chimed in.

You gave the man an apologetic look.

Derrik gave you an understanding nod. With a small sigh, he nocked a second arrow and drew back the string. This time, he adhered to the advice of both you and his tutor.

The arrow struck the target just shy of the center. Luciya clapped enthusiastically, causing her older brother to shoot her a grin.

“Perhaps you should listen to the advice of Ser Corbus more often,” you suggested purposefully to Derrik, though you were unable to completely conceal the pleased smile on your lips.

Derrik bowed his head in mild embarrassment. “Yes, Mother. My apologies, Ser Corbus.”

“There is nothing to forgive, My Lord. But, My Lady- I think the young lord could benefit from some additional motivation,” Ser Corbus proposed, looking at you knowingly. “Mayhaps you join us sometime, My Lady? Shooting round for round with Lord Derrik here may do wonders to encourage the lad to sharpen his aim.”

Embarrassment fled Derrik’s face, and instead, he looked downright amused at the proposal. In truth, the idea appealed to you as well.

“I suppose I can spare some time in the name of improving my son’s learning, though it may be a few days before I am able to accommodate that request,” you agreed heartily. You glanced about the training yard, before turning to Derrik and inquiring, “Where are your father and brother?”

“Yield! I yield!”

Your attention was drawn back to the middle of the training yard as the exasperated exclamation rang out. The men who had gathered there muttered amongst themselves, while several others clapped at the display. Eventually, they dispersed one by one, revealing none other than Harwin and Selwin as those who had been sparring in the middle of them all.

Selwin was on his knees, his training sword having been knocked aside. Harwin tossed down his own blunted sword to the dirt before extending his youngest son a helping hand.

Once Selwin was on his feet, Harwin patted him on the back reassuringly. “You held your own for longer than I thought you would, lad.”

Selwin allowed a small smile to slip at his father’s praise, though he looked a bit hesitant to immediately accept it. “Truly?”

Selwin looked every bit like the men of House Tyrell, save Harwin’s hazel eyes. He was tall, just as tall as Derrik actually, and lithe. Despite lacking the same broadness as his father and older brother, Selwin was still dangerous with a sword in his own right, and even at his young age. He had never come to share the same love of learning as Derrik, not by any means. That was a bit unfortunate… You and Harwin would have loved for your son to squire with another lord or knight of high regard, but as Selwin was to inherit either Harrenhal or Highgarden one day, such a luxury could not be afforded. Thankfully, Selwin was understanding of this, and he had continued with his lessons dutifully, despite his lack of enthusiasm for them. However, true light only ever seemed to shine in Selwin’s eyes when training in the yard, riding throughout the grounds on horseback, or exploring along the riverbanks of the Mander.

Selwin was charming too, at festivals and parties alike. He could make conversation just as easily with those many years his senior as he could with the youngest of children. His sweetness from his childhood had carried over to his teenage years, something you were grateful for, and he seldom had an unkind word to offer to or about anyone… unless someone ignited that infamous temper he had inherited from Harwin, that was.

Though he still got along with his older brother, Selwin was not very much like Derrik at all. But you and Harwin were still just as proud of him too.

“Now, Dearest, is it wise to ‘rough up’ our youngest son in such a manner?” you called over to them teasingly.

At the sound of your voice, both Harwin and Selwin looked over as you approached them. The pure love and warmth in Harwin’s eyes as they fell on you never failed to make your heart skip a beat, even after all these years.

“I am afraid you are mistaken, My Love,” Harwin disclaimed politely, taking a step towards you to meet you half-way. “It was our son who was giving me the go of it… for a little while there, at least.”

You pursed your lips and fought off the urge to continue the playful bickering. Upon seeing her father, Luciya reached out to Harwin with grabbing hands. He smiled and immediately lifted her from your arms. You let him do so willingly.

“Selwin, we should be on our way soon,” Derrik called over from across the yard as he handed his bow over to Ser Corbus. “Maester Thomos will be cross with us if we are late for our accounting lessons again.”

“Now, we wouldn’t want that,” you commented, looking back at Selwin.

Your youngest son looked about as excited at the idea of an hour of accounting lessons as you would have expected him to be. However, you all knew that if Selwin was to be a lord with a keep of his own one day, an understanding of finances could only be beneficial.

You tilted your head along encouragingly to him. “Go on, now.”

Selwin still looked less than thrilled, but with a nod to you and Harwin, set out across the courtyard to join his elder brother. You watched the pair of them meet up and head out of the training yard altogether before you finally turned back to Harwin.

“Now, Sweet Girl,” Harwin said, readjusting his hold on Luciya and lifting her so that their matching eyes were level. “Not that I am upset by it, but what might you and your mother be doing out here?”

“As I believe Bryna put it, our daughter was acting ‘finicky’ this morning,” you relayed, taking a step closer to them. You ran a light hand over Luciya’s back soothingly.

Harwin frowned at you, feigning shock. He demanded, “Who? This Sweet Girl?”

Luciya smiled at him; the sight was a perfect mirror of Harwin’s own.

Harwin declared firmly, “Another mistake must have been made, Lady Wife. For it could not have been this little lass.” While Luciya was mesmerized by her father’s animated speech, she had failed to notice his spare hand mischievously reaching up. She was sent into a brief fit of giggles as Harwin’s fingers danced across her ribs. “Our daughter is not even capable of being anything less than content, I can assure you.”

You hummed in slight protest, but played along anyway. “But of course not, my Lord Husband. Our daughter is perfectly well behaved, always.”

“Good,” Harwin huffed half-seriously, dropping his hand and allowing Luciya a moment to catch her breath. Then, he placed a quick kiss on her cheek, earning yet another giggle from her. “I am glad we are of the same mind on this matter, My Lady.”

You rolled your eyes good naturedly.

Harwin made a show of surveying the training yard, before looking back at your daughter. “Now that your brothers are gone,” he began, speaking so softly that only you and Luciya were likely to hear him, “Shall we venture down to the kitchens? I heard they brought in several baskets of fresh fireplums this morning…”

Luciya’s eyes lit up at the mere mention of her favorite sweet.

“Harwin!” you scolded him half-heartedly. “‘Tis not yet midday. That would hardly be appropriate.”

“Fireplums?” Lucyia echoed, glancing between you and Harwin with a questioning look and a small, but undeniable, pout forming on her lips.

“It would be a shame to break her heart, My Love,” Harwin acknowledged pointedly, giving you a similar pouting look. You wanted to curse; your husband knew exactly what he was doing.

You tried to hold steadfast, you really did, but between the pleading look from your daughter and Harwin, the battle was a lost cause. Sighing defeatedly, you agreed, “Let us go find some fireplums, Sweetling.”

Luciya clapped gleefully. Smirking victoriously, Harwin put his free hand on the small of your back to guide you as the three of you left the training yard in search of a tasty late morning snack.

After a particularly tasty and fulfilling dinner, the soft crackling of the fire was nearly enough to lull Harwin to sleep.

Still, he trudged on.

As Harwin sat at his designated desk in your joint study, his hands began to ache with each letter penned upon the parchment before him, and his fingers began to tremble on the quill in his grip from sheer fatigue. Seeking a quick distraction, his eyes rose and flitted across the room, over towards the fireplace.

It took you and Harwin a significant amount of time to be comfortable with the ideas of open fires following the fire at Harrenhal years ago. Even now, neither you nor Harwin were comfortable with fires being fueled or stroked any further than what was necessary to keep the flames alive. But the season was beginning to change once more; the pleasant heat of the day had begun to give way to the chilly air at night, which left neither of you with much of a choice in the matter.

Fire was a necessary evil, Harwin thought to himself bitterly.

The firefly pin still rested on the upper left corner of his desk, where it had sat for the last several years.

You had presented it to him the morning after the fire at Harrenhal. A suspicious man, who had been apprehended sometime in the night, and dead by his own hand come the morning, had had it pinned to his cloak. You had sworn to the gods that the firefly pin looked familiar, and Harwin was inclined to agree. He had seen something extremely similar to it as well… somewhere. Harwin knew that to be as true as he knew his own name. But, for the life of him, Harwin couldn’t place where he had seen it before.

It was extremely suspicious, and Harwin was left with more questions than answers.

How had the fire started? Was it truly an accident, or was there a darker reason behind it? There were only so many things one could attribute to being a part of some dreaded curse… But if the fire had been intentional, who would have had the motive to orchestrate such a terrible act?

Lord Lyonel was a man who did not have a single enemy, at least not any that Harwin knew of. His father was a good natured, if plainly honest, man. And while you and Harwin had inadvertently made yourselves targets within the Red Keep due to your relations with Princess Rhaenyra, Harwin doubted that the reach of the vipers within would be able extend to that of his home, Harrenhal. And he doubted even more the capability of a mother, though a Queen she may be, to knowingly conspire to murder your children.

For a time, the unwavering need Harwin felt to deliver justice on behalf of his father had all but consumed him. A man driven nearly mad, he ceaselessly sought explanation to questions that may never be answered, due to the sheer nature of the event. He had questioned countless people, and had probably dolled out a few too many undeserved threats.

His sisters were quick to dismiss the entire thing as an unfortunate, though coincidental tragedy. Even Larys, through the letters by raven, suggested it was an accident. With the various new construction projects, as well as the simple fact that Harrenhal had burned once before, he argued it was not too difficult to imagine that someone mishandling a torch, or some fallen spark from a bedroom flame, could have quickly set the tower ablaze.

Harwin had even asked your opinion on the matter. He could tell you had been reluctant to say anything that might encourage his incessant inquisition, but still, you conceded that, despite the many reasons one could argue the fire truly was an accident, you were more hesitant than his siblings to declare it as such.

It was only the love he bore for you and your sons that had pulled Harwin back from the brink of instability. And Harwin did not care to know the version of himself he’d been during the weeks following the passing of his father ever again.

Finally tearing his eyes away, Harwin looked over to the side of the room next, and immediately noticed that you too had taken a break from your own writing to stare into the flickering flames. As you sat at your own desk, which was positioned adjacent to his own, Harwin watched you contentedly, and he bit the inside of his cheek to contain his smile.

You looked just as tired as he felt, but there was an overwhelming warmth that flooded his heart every time he laid eyes upon you, no matter what state you were in. The feeling had not given way to time, despite over fifteen years of marriage. Harwin hoped it never would.

But, as if you felt his eyes on you, you suddenly regained focus, and slowly swiveled your head to glance over at him. Unrelenting, Harwin offered you a small, coy smile. He was not embarrassed to have been caught staring at you, not at all. Why be embarrassed that he was married to the most gorgeous, intelligent, brave, and enchanting woman in the whole realm? Rather, Harwin couldn’t help but feel humbled, and, truthfully, a little bit satisfied with himself that you had attempted to steal a glance at him.

You returned his smile easily, the gesture looking completely love-stricken. Harwin did not know if it was even possible for the love you felt for him to run deeper than the love he felt for you, but he did not doubt your intentions, nor your willingness to try.

After a moment, your focus returned to your own letter that you were in the midst of writing.

Not a day went by that Harwin didn’t find himself thanking the gods for your shining presence in his life. As far as he was concerned, every moment spent with you was time well spent. However, quiet evenings like this had come to be some of Harwin’s favorite opportunities, and he looked forward to and relished every moment he could.

Thankfully, most evenings seemed to progress the same as of late. After dinner, it was typical that Derrik and Selwin would excuse themselves to partake in whatever hobbies pleased them before retiring for the evening, whilst Nanny Bryna would offer to put Luciya to bed. It created a perfect opportunity for the two of you to relax and unwind from the day together, and catch up on any correspondence or other business that needed tending to.

It was no secret, nor did Harwin try to disguise it as such, that hours of writing business correspondence, drafting agreements, and maintaining general communication with his steward in Harrenhal, Lord Dannis of House Chambers, was one of Harwin’s least favorite aspects about having inherited his family lordship. In fact, it was probably the second worst aspect about the whole inheritance, with the first having been the loss of his father.

Harwin supposed he could have let Lord Dannis carry out his duties for him... Dannis, the uncle of the current Lord of House Chambers, Everan, was experienced, and had served Lord Lyonel faithfully for many years. But Harwin could not bring himself to sully the memory of his father by letting the knowledge he had been able to impart on him before his ultimately passing go to waste. And, given that Harwin and your family had not had even a semi-permanent residence at Harrenhal since that dreadful fire, maintaining his lordship through communication with Lord Dannis was his only option. The memory of the fire was still so haunting for each of you… no one was likely to return to Harrenhal for some time yet.

…

All personal qualms about the tedious writing aside, Harwin would never vocalize discontent with spending your evenings in the shared study. You would have confined yourself to the room for several hours anyways, as was what you deemed necessary to keep up with your own family duties… But it was clear to each of you that the evenings were far more tolerable when you shared them with each other.

Harwin’s eyes continued to linger over you as a look of concentration crept over your face. The feather of the quill in your hand flickered with your sharp and precise movements. He felt his chest warm with pride. For someone who had not been raised to inherit Highgarden, or taught how to properly manage the responsibilities that came along with such a claim, you certainly did not show it. You had taken nearly every letter, audience, charitable work, and all other duties in stride. Harwin was almost, almost, envious of how natural it all came to you… But he always felt more pride than anything else.

… And, Harwin had to admit that seeing you, his beloved wife, hold such a commanding position of power was very entrancing.

Harwin was pulled from his thoughts by the sounds of rustling fabric coming from the sofa on the other side of the room. His eyes followed his ears, and the smile on his face shifted from one of flirtatious amusement to one of great fondness.

Of course, there were some nights when you and Harwin were not truly alone in your study.

Luciya was snuggled into the plush cushions of the sofa quite happily, her curls splayed about the pillow beneath her head without care. As soft snores slipped from her mouth, it was evident that she was blissfully unaware of anything else going on in the room. As far as you and Harwin were concerned, you were content to keep it that way. The gods had gifted you both with Derrik and Selwin, who brought honor upon your houses in their own ways. But Harwin was inclined to believe that the pair of you had been truly blessed with the addition of your daughter.

Abrupt, though gentle, knocks sounded on the door.

You bid the individual on the other side to enter in a soft tone, so as to not disturb Luciya.

The door opened slowly, and in strolled Lord Elwood Meadows.

The brother of your late mother had served your father and brother dutifully as Steward of Highgarden. Whilst serving you, his performance had been no less exemplary. In fact, the more the Lord Elwood aged, the more dedicated he became to his duties as Steward. Lord Elwood was practically the Lord of House Meadows in name only; his eldest son, and your cousin, Lord Theo, had been ruling over the family seat of Grassfield Keep in his father’s absence for quite some time.

As Lord Elwood came to a stop, his attention naturally shot over towards the sofa first. He visibly fought the urge to smile upon the sight of his sleeping grand niece. Then, he looked between the pair of you with purpose. “It would seem as though Lady Luciya has exhausted herself for the day… Mayhaps it has something to do with the fireplums that have reportedly disappeared from the kitchens?”

You and Harwin gleaned at each other knowingly at your uncle’s suggestion. Amusement was written over both of your faces.

Then, Lord Elwood offered, “Shall I call for Bryna, My Lady?”

“Thank you, Uncle, but that will not be necessary,” you assured him, resting your quill in the nearby ink pot. “We are to retire soon.”

“Very well, My Lady… Well, my apologies for the lateness of the hour, but Maester Thomos informed me that two ravens have arrived since dinner. And, since you have yet to retire, I thought you might care to receive the messages.”

“You thought correctly, Uncle. Thank you for bringing them to us at once.”

Lord Elwood crossed the room and deposited the small scrolls in your hand. With one more charmed glance at Luciya, he nodded to the both of you staunchly and exited the study. The door shut softly behind him.

Harwin watched you with interest as you glanced at the seals of each of the scrolls in your hand. You rose from your seat and strolled over to him, handing him one of the scrolls wordlessly.

The seal on the scroll was one Harwin recognized well.

Malvales.

The sigil that Harwin’s brother, Larys, had taken for his own since having been appointed as Master of Whisperers was an easily identifiable one. Harwin broke the seal without a thought and opened the scroll, reading the words upon the parchment promptly.

As Harwin read line by line, you gently sat on his lap. Undeterred by your actions, Harwin’s focus continued to be on the letter in his hand, but his spare arm came up to wrap around your waist, steadying and holding you close. You made yourself comfortable, and then broke open the seal of the second letter to begin reading as well. For a few quiet moments, nothing but the crackling fire and the snores from Luciya could be heard in the room.

But then, you sighed.

Harwin had just finished reading. He looked up at you worriedly, noting the seal still clinging to the one edge of the parchment. It was another one that he also recognized well.

Grapes.

There were very few individuals who used that seal that would have written to you with kind intentions.

He inquired, “From the Arbor?... Is all well?”

You nodded in response to his query, though your eyes never drifted from the letter in your hand. “Yes, it is only from my aunt… She has written to inform me that her granddaughter, Celesse, is traveling to King’s Landing. It seems that she, along with her cousin, Joanna Lannister, are to be taken in by the royal household as ladies in waiting for Princess Helaena.”

Harwin watched you carefully for a moment, waiting to see if you would say anything further that would indicate your opinion of the news. When you said nothing, he noted offhandedly in a light tone, “Dangerous place, is it not? For two unescorted ladies to roam about, all while serving a princess of the realm?”

Harwin’s teasing to what was once your own circumstance did not go over your head, and you looked at him with mock offense. “It is truly a preposterous notion, isn’t it? Young ladies and a Princess, eating, singing, dancing, and otherwise passing the time until they catch the attention of a suitor? The horror.”

“There are some strange men among the Red Keep, My Lady.”

You hummed. “I’ve met a few of them… In fact, there was this one-”

Harwin rolled his eyes and mumbled under his breath, “Oh no-”

“I heard that he could pull a fully occupied carriage all by himself,” you recounted dramatically. “I also heard that he once single-handedly closed the courtyard doors of the Red Keep when the chains had broken-”

“Now those are truly ‘preposterous’ notions, My Love. Complete fabrications of-”

“And, do you know what they called him? This infamous man?”

Harwin pursed his lips. You merely smiled at him, clearly amused by your own theatrics.

“... Breakbones?”

“No,” You scoffed, and reached for him, lightly cupping the side of his face closest to you. Softly, you corrected, “They called him my husband.”

Harwin bit the inside of his cheek once more. Even as a young man, when pretty women of all sorts started to pay him mind, he had never, ever considered himself one who was capable of blushing. Or one to be unnerved by the presence and words of any woman.

But you were not just any woman. You held his heart, confidence, and happiness all in the palms of your hands.

You placed a brief, though undeniably sweet, kiss upon his lips. When you withdrew from him a few seconds later, Harwin immediately found himself wishing you had not.

“But do not fret, Dearest,” you assured him, swiftly returning to the original topic as you lowered your hand from his face. “If Lady Celesse is even half as conniving as her father, I am sure she will fare in the capital just fine.”

Your cousin, Garrett Redwyne, once a second son, was now Lord of the Arbor. A few years past, the Stranger visited your family again. In one swoop, fever had claimed your uncle by marriage, Lord Gilbar, and your other cousin, Jeran, Garrett’s older brother. Jeran, foolishly, had never married, nor sired any legitimate heirs of his own by the time of his death. Unfortunately, that meant that the family seat passed on to his younger brother.

Harwin knew that the turn of events did not sit right with you. And frankly, things did not sit well with him either. It did not seem fair for someone who had so cruelly tried to prey upon a young woman in grief and steal her family’s birthright to then be rewarded with a title and holding of his own. Like you, Garrett had not been born to inherit the family lordship… But the gods had deemed it so, just the same.

And yet… Harwin dared to venture that there was another matter about your cousin that upset you even more. Not even a year after your brother’s passing, Garrett had taken a woman to wife- one Cerelle Lannister. Harwin could tell from the short time you had spent with the young woman in King’s Landing, you had enjoyed her presence. At the time of Derron’s death, his betrothal to Lady Cerelle had been imminent.

Not only did Lord Garrett become Lord of the Arbor, but he had also wed the woman who, in another life, might have been your Good Sister.

“What does your brother say?” you asked him then, discarding your scroll upon his desk.

“The usual,” Harwin answered at once, happy to see you had opted not to dwell on the thought of your cousin. “He has inquired about the state of the family, and as to how the children are.”

“That is kind of him,” you acknowledged sincerely. “I would suggest you write back to him and extend an invitation for him to visit and see the children for himself… But I believe we both know what his response would be.”

A regretful declination.

Not but a week after the fire at Harrenhal, Larys had been appointed to King Viserys’ small council as Master of Whisperers. It was an honorable appointment, but the position occupied so much of Larys’ time that, while Harwin, you, your sons, Lilyan, Eyla, and their families gathered at Harrenhal to lay Lord Lyonel to rest, Larys had been bound to King’s Landing by his duties… At least, that was the reason he cited in a letter to Harwin. Harwin suspected Larys’ failure to attend might have also had something to do with his brother’s feelings about the passing of their father. Different sorts of people grieved in different ways, and Larys had always been a bit of an outlier. But Harwin loved his brother, and did not beseech him for his decision. Even if his absence was greatly felt at the funeral.

“My brother’s duties keep him confined to the Red Keep, My Love,” Harwin reminded you. His arm around your waist tightened, holding you closer to him. Harwin pressed a light, nearly teasing kiss on the back of your neck. He smirked to himself as you shook off a small shiver in response. “Just as our duties keep us bound to Highgarden.”

At this, you stiffened in Harwin’s hold. “That reminds me,” you began, rising from his lap, though not without Harwin making a half-hearted attempt to keep you restrained as you were. “There is something else I wished to speak with you about.”

At the seriousness of your tone, the playful smirk fell from Harwin’s lips. “What is it?”

You hesitated. “These were not the only ravens we received today… There was a third. I received the letter this morning.”

Harwin picked up on your hesitation immediately. He coaxed encouragingly, “Whatever the burden is, share it with me. Who sent it?”

You said nothing, and instead reached into the pocket of your skirt. The third scroll was withdrawn from the fabric with a natural flourish. Harwin took it from your extended hand curiously, and opened it at once.

As he began to read the letter- one that he quickly realized was from Princess Rhaenyra, no less- he glanced over at you out of the corner of his eyes on the occasion. As he devoured line by line, you began to pace nearby.

Once Harwin was done reading, he understood why you appeared so visibly nervous.

“Well?”

Harwin contemplated his next words with significant caution. “‘Tis an… interesting offer, I suppose. What do you make of it?”

“It would not be King’s Landing, but it would be close.”

Dragonstone was a lot closer to the capital than Highgarden was. Too close for Harwin’s liking.

“We left King’s Landing for a reason, My Love,” he reminded you patiently. “The gossip, the rumors? Our- my- presence threatened Princess Rhaenyra’s credibility, and it put all of us in danger.”

“I recall all of that, as you know.”

You spoke the truth, Harwin had no doubt of that. But the thought of what might have happened to you, or your children, had your family stayed in the capital, still troubled him deeply. His father had alluded to you, Derrick, and Selwin being taken away by the headsman. Harwin would rather fall upon his own sword than risk that nightmare becoming a reality.

“I cannot put you, or the children, in danger,” Harwin told you firmly. “I would never dream of commanding you, or declaring what you may or may not do. But I must protest at the idea of endangering you all for the mere sake of a social visit.”

“I know, Dearest,” you promised, your tone lightening at the growing traces of distress you detected within his words. “I know you would not have us put ourselves in danger. And I would not have you put yourself in danger, either… Neither would Princess Rhaenyra.”

Harwin got the funny sense that you were not finished with your thoughts. “... But?”

“But,” you continued, confirming his suspicions, “if the Princess knows of the… delicacy, of our situation, it makes me question why she has extended the invitation at this particular time. After all, though we frequently exchanged letters, it has been years since we have all seen one another.”

None of you had seen the Princess, or her sons, since you fled King’s Landing prior to your return to Harrenhal. And Harwin had to admit, the timing of the invitation was a bit peculiar. Why now?

“I have my suspicions as to why Princess Rhaenyra decided that now is an appropriate time,” you confessed then. “I still have some connections to those who frequent the Red Keep. The rumors report that the King is weak, Harwin. Very weak. They say he could pass any day now… And I suspect Princess Rhaenyra has heard the same.”

…

Damn.

Harwin could think of many, many reasons as to why accepting Princess Rhaenyra’s invitation would not be wise. Reasons that he was certain you could easily deduce as well. However, he would have had to be cruel to outright reject the offer, when he knew that accepting it may mean bringing some comfort to an old friend. You still considered Princess Rhaenyra as your oldest and most trusted companion. Besides the fact that she was to be Queen one day, Harwin held her in very high regard as well, and was also fortunate enough to call her a friend. Gods, years ago, he had loved Princess Rhaenyra’s sons as though they were his own… And perhaps part of him still did.

Both you and Harwin had lost your own fathers, whom you loved greatly. How could Harwin make any serious arguments for declining Princess Rhaenyra’s invitation, when accepting it would allow the both of you to offer her comfort in this trying time?

…

But King Viserys, gods be good, was not gone from this world yet. And the Hightowers still had sizable control over the Red Keep and its inhabitants. The thought of being so near King’s Landing still made Harwin wary.

And the thought of leaving Highgarden at all made him greatly uneasy.

As if you could read Harwin’s rapidly racing thoughts, you ran a light hand through his curls. Despite his worry, Harwin leaned into the familiar and comforting touch.

“I understand your fears, Dearest,” you assured him softly, but sincerely. “And I share them as well. But we cannot stay here for the rest of our days. Highgarden may be a refuge, yes… But it was never meant to be a place of solitude. There is an entire realm outside of these walls, and many others whom we have loyalties to.”

Harwin, who had closed his eyes at your gentle ministrations, opened them once more. There was no need for him to verbally admit your assumption was correct. You had seen right through him, as you almost always did.

Since the fire at Harrenhal, the pair of you had created a peaceful life for yourselves in Highgarden. Within the castle walls, you, Harwin, Derrik, Selwin, and now Luciya, were safe. For years, it had seemed as though no evil could touch you here.

Highgarden was a solace.

… And while Harwin wanted so desperately to keep that solace, and protect you all, he was not a fool. He knew that such a blissful dream, no matter how wonderful it was, could not be sustained indefinitely. You were right- the two of you owed allegiance to others who did not reside in your ancestral home. Besides King Viserys, the most important of these allegiances was the one to Princess Rhaenyra.

Harwin sighed, and rose to his feet. He felt your eyes on him with every step as he walked across the room and over towards the sofa. When he reached it, he leaned down, gently took Luciya into his arms, and sat upon the cushions where she had been snoozing away a moment before. Not deterred in the slightest, Luciya continued to sleep while she subconsciously shifted around to make herself comfortable in her father’s arms.

You were quick to follow, and took a seat beside him. You tucked yourself into his side calmly. When you were settled, Harwin tilted his head to rest upon yours.

For a few moments, the two of you silently watched your daughter, with Luciya resting her head on Harwin’s one shoulder, and you resting your head on the other.

He remembered how scared he was when Luciya was born. With Derrik and Selwin, he’d been nervous with the idea of parenthood… But they were his sons. Harwin had been able to take some comfort in the knowledge that he could raise them with a similar loving upbringing that he had experienced as a child. Studying with maesters, training in the yard with the master at arms… He had an understanding of what Derrik and Selwin would face.

But a daughter? That was a completely different and uncharted territory. Harwin had sisters, and nieces now as well, but nothing compared to this. Harwin had not been prepared to have his heart shared by two women, but that is what had come to transpire. Thankfully, Luicya had been merciful to him in this regard- she had only ever asked for attention, and love. Things Harwin was more than willing to give her, and in plentiful amounts at that.

Harwin wanted to give your daughter the world.

… Which, in a queer way, may have meant that she ought to actually see some of it.

A hazy vision of Luciya on a sandy shore flashed across his mind. The sound of her laughter ringing out amongst the crowing of seagulls rang faintly in his ears.

Harwin pressed a kiss to the top of Luciya’s head. “... She will enjoy the sea, I think.”

You lifted your head off his shoulder slowly, and looked at him with wide and slightly watery eyes as you realized the deeper implication behind his simple words.

To Dragonstone.

After a swift kiss to Harwin’s cheek, you placed your hand on Luciya’s back, your fingers brushed against Harwin’s as you did so. “She will. And Derrik and Selwin will enjoy seeing the Princes again.”

“The Princes,” Harwin echoed blankly. “Gods, it has been so long… They must be nearly men by now.”

You smirked. “As are our sons, Harwin.”

Would Jacaerys and Lucerys even recall him? Harwin hoped so. Despite the passage of time, he still harbored a fondness for them. And he would have been lying if he denied worrying about them over the years. Despite his faults, losing Ser Laenor in such a tragic way, only to have the role of a father filled promptly- almost too promptly- by the likes of Prince Daemon Targaryen?

That would have been a rotten lot for anyone, let alone young boys whose fates were already precariously hanging on with little more than the unyielding love from their royal grandsire.

… But the more Harwin thought about that, the more quickly he was coming around to the idea of visiting Dragonstone. Having spent a decent amount of time in one another’s presence during their time serving the City Watch, Harwin had seen sides of the Rogue Prince he could only hope that the young Princes Jacaerys and Lucerys had not yet heard of. While Harwin may have had his own opinions about how he approached fatherhood, he would never deny that Ser Laenor Velaryon was an honorable man, even if it was in his own way. On the other hand, Harwin was not sure Prince Daemon even knew the meaning of the word.

The idea of the young Princes following after the likes of their now stepfather bothered Harwin. They were older now, and though not yet fully grown men, they were indisputably no longer children… But perhaps it was not so late that Harwin could offer himself as an alternative fatherly figure?

If the Princes even still wanted to view him as such, that was.

But, once again, you soothed his worries with your calming words.

“I am certain that the Princes will be pleased to see you too, Dearest.”

Luciya yawned in her sleep, breaking the tension of your conversation. A light laugh escaped both of you.

Then, Harwin reaffirmed, “If the Princess requests our family’s presence on Dragonstone, she shall have it.”

There was a strange feeling in the air… a sense that the lives of your family were about to change in a dramatic fashion.

If only the two of you had known then just how drastic the changes were going to be.

“I will write back to Princess Rhaenyra with our answer,” you informed Harwin. “But I daresay that can wait ‘til the morrow.”

Harwin rose to his feet, and you followed suit. However, he must not have done as well of a job concealing any lingering concern as he had hoped to. As he took a step towards the door to leave, you reached out, and placed a hand on his arm, halting him.

“Everything will be alright, Dearest.”

Harwin gave you a small smile, feeling peculiarly bittersweet. “I know, My Love. Highgarden has been a refuge… But I know I will find solace wherever I am, so long as I am with you.”

A/N: Poor, naive Harwin. Bless him.🖤 He just wants to see the good in his brother, y’all. I’m sure that definitely won’t come back to bite him in the future or anything-

Thank you for reading!🖤 Next part will probably be at least a 2 parter again, but it may even be a 3 parter, depending on how long it ends up being and what plot points I choose to include in it.

But before then, I’m going to try and see if I can put together a couple little headcanons/blurbs later this week, so if that’s something you’re interested in, keep an eye out for those😊 I definitely want to take a crack at more headcanons of Harwin with the kiddos, but also running the Reach and just general married life with Harwin, so we’ll see what happens.

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sarabwawahm · 1 year

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"The longer you live, the more you forget."

Summary: Marceline is still haunted by glimpses of her past.

Time heals. An undeniable truth, despite her wanting to scream and holler about it being wrong. They still hurted, all those discarded scars of heartbreak, but they were scars nevertheless.

Time certainly heals, and Marceline had all the eternity.

The tales of her long, long life distracted her, and she went on endless adventures just to keep it this way. She discovered new people in a new world, became so invested in it that sometimes she even wondered if her past was real, if it wasn't a prolonged dream she had while sleeping in Tree Trunks' field, if her life hadn't always been a happy mingle of fun and occasional reminiscence. She had no proof, after all, that it indeed happened. Her supposed Simon, the formerly genius scientist, had became a madman. She lost Hambo due to her bastard of a boyfriend..and her..

No. She was no illusion. Her voice would come to her in daydreams and nightmares. It was a memory, a memory she cherished and forever will. The loving voice would utter a sweet Linlin and the mighty Vampire Queen would gasp in pain. She no longer denied her loss, nor was she always mourning, but she had yet to accept. She very likely wouldn't. Not when her name was in the back of her throat, ready to call for her younger-big sister whenever something was too much to handle. Not when ocean eyes would stare back into her own in the soft blue flames of her stove before they turned red. Not when her ghost phantomed her thoughts if she lets them wander, omnipresent in the back of her mind and constantly prepared to resurface.

Marceline walked down the nighty beach, unbothered by the loud cries of the waves as she dragged her toes in the sand. For such a nocturnal hour, the place was pretty lively, a strangely familiar crowd formed to celebrate as if conflicts never existed. In contrast, Marceline felt a gloom growing within her, as if she slowly approached a cursed fate by her aimless stroll. She didn't bother, her emotions taking the little reason she had left and letting her feet lead her to a wooden house planted far away from the commotion. She frowned slightly, feeling a sudden urge to enter it. Never one to hesitate, she did, stepping in and forcing her eyes to get used to this random, complete, change of scenery. She wasn't surprised. This was Ooo, anyway, a land of abnormalities.

What shocked her, though, was the odd nostalgic feeling this space gave her.

A foggy weather. Fallen buildings. Eerily empty streets. A post-apocalyptic air.

Infantile giggles, and three figures could be distinguished amongst the chaos.

-"Sing it, Tricy! One more time!", the black haired little girl spoke.

-"Oh, Linlin, don't you think we sang it plenty of times?"

Marceline's breath hitched, and she instinctively inched closer to the trio. Simon's soft expression gleamed in the campfire, his aspect holding remains of sanity and his hair barely having strands of white. He stared fondly at the two girls, amused and warmed by the joy of his proteges.

-"Please, My Sister!", little Marceline extended the plea, using the name she knew the older girl loved.

Beatrice looked at the girl in her lap with breaf awe, before she hid it behind layer of playfullness, chuckling at her sister's innocent insistance.

-"Alright, alright. One last time!" Little Linlin cheered at that, then snuggled her head in the Beatrice's neck. It felt like home.

The voice started singing, and the adult vampire, standing a tad nearer to the group than she was previously, watched longingly as the melody she knew by heart was murmured again.

'Thank you, i'll say goodbye soon.'

As the continuous loop of words emerged her.

'Though it's the end of the world, don't blame your self now.'

As a buried hope stired up within her.

'And if it's true, i will surround you..'

As the bittersweet dream filled her with an unbearable comfort.

'And give life to a world'

As she craved what the verses promised.

'That's our own.'

#adventure time x reader #adventure time oc #character x oc #marceline #ice king #platonic!reader #adventure time

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rolangf · 6 months

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—OCS AND VILLAIN SONGS

hey what’s up you guys welcome back to my channel— i did this post on my old blog ages ago which is unfortunately lost to time now and i wanted to do it again. so this has gotta be like, the third time some of y’all are seeing this but. fuck it we ball.

born from a post made by @unholymilf a loooong time ago that as more or less a question of if ur oc was a boss fight, what song would be playing and it struck me so here is ALL of my brain worms, including some new ones from the last post!

ANDIE— le soleil est près de moi; air.

POV: you’re bleeding out as andie is standing over you, burning white hot, hotter than the sun setting behind her. she is passionate and… reckless, and will swear this was self-defense. even if she struck first. even if she didn’t blink. even as she watches the life leave your body.

BIANCA— tricycle express; gaspard augé, mr. oizo.

POV: bianca is white knuckling her steering wheel, swiping her car against the side of your own for miles down the freeway. she is gonna run you off the road. she absolutely will; it’s unavoidable, and she’s gonna laugh while she’s doing it. this is the song she’s listening to.

CELESTE— vision; m83.

POV: “you will die soon. sooner than you were supposed to, now.” celeste deadpans as she hovers her hand over your forehead and waves. she makes a show of it, though her clairvoyance doesn’t require as much. you wish you had listened to her and thought better of asking in the first place. “it will be violent, and painful. give ares my best. leave my temple.” but you didn’t, and now it’s too late. your fate is sealed.

ELVIRA— old river; orville peck.

POV: you’re stiff, hairs on the back of your neck standing up. you’re being watched. this is a different kind of observation than the one you’re used to— the seeds constantly run surveillance on you, but this doesn’t feel as passive. you’re being hunted. and when you dare to turn on your heels to see elvira standing behind you with a crossbow bolt nocked with your name on it, you almost wish jacob was here to kill you instead. somehow, you know it would be more merciful.

OSLO— pennsylvania furnace; lingua ignota.

POV: oslo isn’t the deputy anymore. they’re the judge. eden’s gate is up a member who is worth a million and the resistance mourns a million more.

FAUSTINA— beyond the horizon; olivier deriviere.

POV: faustina is the last line of defense between you and the mother church. she’s a penitent, too, you must understand. the consecrated red ribbons she’s wrapped in are suffocating her the longer she takes to excommunicate you and she will try every prayer at her disposal to stop it—to stop you.

JEN— krack; soulwax.

POV: jen is chasing you through the fib building after she snitches on your whole operation to the iaa. you are an enemy of the state, but more importantly— you’re an enemy to agent jennifer daniels. she wants you dead, and you will be soon enough. especially if it’s up to her. and as of right now, she has you cornered in an interrogation room with nowhere to go and a gun to your head.

LOTTIE— arsonist’s lullabye; hozier.

POV: hawkins is ablaze, and lottie is at the scene of the crime staring into the flames.

LINDY— señor (tales of yankee power); jerry garcia.

POV: there’s barely anyone left to call a gang, and dutch knows as much. but he won’t admit it— that would require him admitting guilt for the losses, too. and he should be so lucky he’s still breathing; lindy wants to empty an entire revolver clip into his thick skull but knows she wouldn’t live long enough to feel the satisfaction. so she does the next best thing, and turns her back. there isn’t anything left for her, anyway. she would risk a lifetime of looking over her shoulder over having to look at him.

MAGS— change (in the house of flies); deftones.

POV: you’re being experimented on in an umbrella sanctioned lab and in walks mags— who you thought was on your side. after all, well fed devils behave better than famished saints. but not this one, she’s much worse.

MILDRED— god unbounded; uboa.

POV: you have just returned from the dead because some weirdo with a god complex and a proficiency in reanimating corpses decided that she needed the practice. and now that’s your problem, because you definitely have come back Wrong. but you’re back! surprise!

NICOLE— heart in a cage; the strokes.

POV: you’re witness to an absolute bloodbath as nicole goes crazy on the field. she’s completely lost herself, she isn’t in control anymore. she was always dangerous but now she’s lethal. she’s already gotten some of her own killed, and somebody needs to take her out before it gets worse. she’s a wild animal. and to her, you’re fresh meat.

SIBYL— summit song; nicole dollanganger.

POV: she drowns you in her scrying pool and you are never heard from again. it’s your own fault, really— anna henrietta told you to leave her be and you didn’t listen.

ROSALIND— goodbye; soap&skin, apparat.

POV: she begs mike for the coordinates of where it happened and he doesn’t budge. he never will. he doesn’t trust her not to take a shovel to the earth and dig him up. so in her state of delirium, she walks through the desert and screams and cries and repents. and becomes her own biggest villain.

ODETTE— graveyard; midnight syndicate.

POV: odette quite literally haunts her family estate, left to fall into disrepair. she’s a grief stricken wraith born of despair who brutally attacks anyone who dares step into her tomb. she’s a master illusionist even in death, so if you choose to fight her instead of just leaving, just make sure you first remove the mirrors from the wall.

okay whew that was a TASK but i’m gonna make this a tag game cs i wanna see Y’ALL make ur ocs evil and give them a soundtrack so hehe @florbelles @unholymilf @shellibisshe @ghostfvcker @benwishaw @loriane-elmuerto @leviiackrman @jackiesarch @rosayoro @statichvm @teamhawkeye @bloodofvalyria @red-nightskies @confidentandgood @simply-jason @scalpelsister @devilbrakers @lxmbert and you!

#fr tho like. i loved this post the first time i made it and i think abt it every day #so i had to remake it #back and better than ever tho too #god bless #oc: andie la croix #oc: bianca vionetti #oc: celeste #oc: elvira hawke #oc: oslo avery #oc: jen daniels #oc: faustina #oc: lindy carlisle #oc: lottie byers #oc: nicole moore #oc: mags hightower #oc: sibyl delauvéy #oc: rosalind tyler #oc: mildred malice #also sorry rosalinds is kinda fucked up i just had that vision in my head for so long it’s unreal #um. if you even get this far in the tags sjbdajnska #hi #also elviras little blurb is meant to be that you (reader) are the deputy #if that didn’t come across that way #don’t worry abt what faustina’s pov is #it’s blasphemous related sorry that games lore has me in a headlock #yes the faustina song is from another game already what of it #i am cheating w rosalinds song btw #if u even care #oc: odette haliçi

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copiousloverofcopia · 8 months

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Exciting news Primo lovers! I couldn't help but write the next installment of Potpourri early and guess what? IT IS LIVE!!!!

Thank you all for all your love and support! Once I reach either 100 fics on AO3 or 1500 followers on here, whatever happens first, I will be doing a fic giveaway. More details to follow but anyways thank you all so much for reading!

Please if you like my work, share it!

Potpourri

During his retirement, Papa Primo Emeritus falls in love with a new Sister of Sin who has suffered a tragic loss. While the new sister settles into the Abbey, Primo can’t help but grow more infatuated with her. Promising to give her everything she desires, but can he win her affections when she still can’t let go of the past?

Chapter 7: Honeysuckle

Also available HERE on AO3! Haven’t started yet, start from the beginning HERE!

Definitely NSFW below the cut

Guinevere lie awake in her bed, staring up at her hand. Tracing the lines of her palm as she held it out before her. Hand illuminated in the moonlight that flooded in from her window. Her mind still lingering on the feel of Primo’s hand on hers into the early hours of the morning.

It had been such a long time since something as innocent as holding hands had affected her so. Fuzzy memories of middle school puppy love, swirling in her mind. Her heart, racing at the thought of it. Wondering if she would ever return to a time when love was a magical thing—one that brought her happiness and not pain.

She knew it was Primo. He was the one making her second guess. The one who made her wounded heart feel as if it might be capable of healing for the first time. The one who felt like he might change everything.

Gwen closed her eyes, the tears beginning to form from beneath her heavy lids. Swallowing back the knot in her throat at the thoughts that accompanied her. She rolled over and buried her face in her pillow. Thankful that no one would notice just how tear stained it had become.

Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t help but imagine it. Allowing herself to envision a life with him. A life of romantic glances from across the table, shared laughter over things no one else could possibly understand, and if she was lucky, a child who had her smile and his Emeritus eye.

She pressed harder into her pillow. Heart aching as she mourned the loss of things she never had. Sniffling back and her lips quivering as she tried to stop herself from crying. Then suddenly a hand settled atop her shoulder.

“Gwen?” Fiona asked, her voice full of concern. Gwen looked up from the sanctuary of her pillow. Catching a glimpse of Fiona’s worried face. “Are you ok? I can hear you crying.”

“I’m ok, just having a rough night is all. I will be fine in the morning Finn. Go back to sleep.” Gwen insisted, wiping away her tears and sitting up beside Fiona on the side of her bed. Fiona put her arm around her. Letting out a heavy sigh before telling Gwen something she hadn’t quite expected to hear.

“I say give him a chance Gwen…it's no secret he gave up his life for yours. What more love and devotion could you ask for.” she reasoned. Gwen said nothing, only staring blankly into the darkness of the room. Fiona, giving her a final pat on the back before returning to her own bed. Guinevere left to contemplate the heavy words still thick in the air.

Love and devotion, Gwen thought to herself. The words, though heavy, felt light as they reached her heart. Drying her eyes of tears, resolved to return to the comfort of her bed. Her mind, still on the feel of her hand in his.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“It is so good to be back.” Copia cheered, raising a glass to the room full of siblings and clergy members. All of them clinging to his every word. The energy jubilant and bright as Copia was welcomed back into the Abbey’s bosom with open arms. “Thank you all for coming…truly it has been an honor to serve you all. To serve Lucifer. But like all good things, it has come to an end and now I am home with you all. My friends and family. Please now let us all raise a glass to the Ministry for their efforts and praise Satan for this beautiful party here tonight si? May he walk with you all in darkness—leading you from the light.”

“Nema!” called out the crowd. A sea of crystal glasses, all practically spilling over with the finest of Italian wine, clinging together as the celebration continued. The Great Hall, sparkling in glitz and glamor from the royal blue and Rose gold adornments of the room. So much beauty as far as the eye could see, but for Primo, his eyes never once left Gwen.

Her hair was pulled up into a loose bun. A few curly tresses, trickling out and framing her face. He could stare at her all night. The way her black dress hugged the curves of her breasts and hips was sinful. Sending Primo into a constant fit of adjusting himself in his chair, praising Lucifer for his being able to remain seated at the table.

“Is that her?” Copia asked him as he came to sit down beside him, Primo’s eyes still locked on her. As good a sign as any that this was the case.

“Si, that is Sister Guinevere.”

“She is very beautiful fratello…and if I know you, and your tastes, then she must be beautiful inside too.” Copia smiled, giving Primo an approving pat to the back and taking a sip of red wine from his glass.

“She’s the most beautiful creature that I have ever seen.” Primo professed as suddenly his eyes were met with Gwen's, honey-colored and sparkling.

"Well, I will tell you one thing…she'll give you a beautiful child." Copia smiled, watching the two of them stare from across the room. Both of them, so enamored, it was a wonder to Copia how they’d been able to remain apart.

"Fratellino, would you be offended if I took my leave?" Primo asked him. The glint in his eye telling Copia all he needed to know.

"Of course…give her my best." he replied, sending Primo off with a wink as he got up from his chair. Leaving the massive head table with a nod of his head. Approaching the far-right side of the room where she was sitting. Fiona and a few other siblings sitting beside her at the lavish table. Covered in its center by deep blue roses and hints of golden alchemilla.

"Sister Guinevere, would you do me the honor of accompanying me? I have something I wish to show you." He asked her, holding out his hand for her to take.

"Promise you won't try anything." Gwen playfully jabbed, though inside her nerves were firing from all sides.

“I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.” he said, both of them beginning to laugh. What a sweet laugh it was, one Primo thought could be matched by no other.

"Then of course Papa." she told him, taking his hand as he helped her out from her chair. Gwen glanced back for only a moment. Fiona sent her a smile and a wink. The whole Abbey, watching on as Gwen left the hall on the arm of the first Emeritus son.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Where are we going?” Gwen asked him as Primo led her down a part of the Abbey she had yet to explore. Their hands held tightly together as they turned the corner. “Oh my—” she began as her question was answered. Eyes widening at the sight before her. “What…what is this place?”

“This, amore mio, is my most sacred of places.” he explained, leading her inside. It was the glass-walled, crystalized wonder that was his greenhouse. A magical place that led out to the massive garden on the southern side of the Abbey. Primo’s well-tamed foliage and flowers, tended to by his own two hands, laid out for passersby to admire. They were, however, only able to peer at them through the glass, Primo himself the only one ever allowed inside—until tonight.

Gwen was in awe of it. The spray of botanical life—greens and hues of reds, pinks, and yellows all like all swirling together like a painting. She squeezed his hand, looking over to him with excitement written all over her face. Her smile, hitting Primo’s heart—hard and fast. She looked happy for perhaps the first time ever. Seeing her this way was one of the best things Primo had ever experienced.

As he led her inside, they could see the small specks of light from the fireflies that floated in from outside. Their glow like stars spread out across the night sky. Gwen turned to face him, clearly overcome with emotion. “It’s so beautiful.” she told him. Reaching out to allow the small bug to land on her. Crawling along her palm until it once again took flight.

“Not as beautiful as you–the flower I cherish most.” he told her as they passed under the honeysuckle-covered trellis. Blooms of pastel pink—their insides a rich red. Strikingly beautiful and their scent enticing. A sweetness from inside, one that Primo imagined would be like something else he’d longed to taste.

The inseam of his pants was beginning to tighten as the thought of it sent his blood racing. The need to bury himself between Gwen’s legs. Tasting the sweet nectar from inside her. Pleasure pouring from her, into his willing mouth—it was almost too much to bear.

He struggled against his thoughts, trying desperately to calm them as he watched her taking it all in. Wonder and excitement in her eyes. Primo pulled her closer towards him. His eyes gently falling upon her face. Watching that tell of blush hit the apples of Gwen’s cheeks.

He wanted to kiss her so badly. To take her in this, the place he loved most when suddenly he watched as Gwen’s gaze changed. Primo, wondering if she could feel it too. A moment where they both longed to kiss the other.

“I must confess cara. I—I have imagined this moment between us. Though my mind could never have conjured just how beautiful you would look right now.” Primo confessed. Gwen felt it, that much was true. As much as she wanted Primo, the ache in her chest and the urge to run and leave him behind lest she be hurt was so strong. She began to cry, feeling overwhelmed with all the emotion stirring inside her.

Primo gently caressed Gwen’s cheek, feeling the warmth of her tears as they hit his hand. His palm, filling with the pain that lay inside her. She looked up at him, seeing the compassion and love in his eyes. Wanting so badly to allow herself to do as her heart desired—to show him how much she felt it too.

“I—I think I need to go.” Gwen sniffled back and wiped the tears from her eyes. Pulling away from him and collapsing into herself. Her eyes, drawn to the traces of petals and dried leaves that graced the ground.

“Why mio fiore, is it something I said?” Primo asked her. Gwen looked back up at him, pained to think he blamed himself for her upset. She was so scared to speak her truth. So she took in a deep breath and tried her best to muster the strength of will to tell him. Knowing in her heart, he deserved at least that.

“Oh no Papa…it’s not you…you have never done anything but be kind and compassionate with me. Hell you've even given me back my life, binding yourself to me…something I can never repay you for…or for one ever imagine you wanting to do but…it’s just—it’s just because of the way I feel around you…it…it might make me lose control.” she confessed. Primo lifted her face, urging her to look at him once more. Smiling softly down at her as he watched more tears well in her eyes.

“Would that be so bad cara mia? To allow yourself the reprieve? To let go and let things happen as they may?”

“It scares me. I don't think my heart can take any more.” she answered.

“I want nothing more than to make you happy Guinevere. I would never hurt you…never.” Primo vowed as he pulled her close once more. Kissing her deeply—passionately. Gwen, quickly melted into his arms. Held by him in a way no one had ever held her before. His hand, gently tangling in her hair. Holding her close to him. His devotion, on full display as her inhibitions fell to the wayside. Losing herself in the comfort of his arms.

They pulled away reluctantly for a moment, staring into each other's eyes. Mouths open and breathing heavy as Primo spoke again. “In case I hadn’t made it perfectly clear before amore—I am desperately in love with you.” Primo said, as his hands fell from Gwen’s shoulders to the small of her back. She turned her head, a bit shameful as she struggled to hear the words.

“How can you be in love with someone who’s so broken?”

“You’re not broken Guinevere…You never were.” Primo assured her as a single tear fell from her eyes. He gently wiped it away as their mouths met once more. Tongues dancing in sweet serenity, surrounded by the light of the fireflies and the sweet smell of the honeysuckle.

They spend several moments getting lost in each other's arms. Primo and Gwen, both lowering to the ground, just out of sight of possible onlookers. Primo hovered over Gwen. Basking in her radiance as he hung above her. Gwen, settling into the ground beneath her. Allowing Primo to explore her. Kissing over her mouth, her jaw. His soft lips, traveling to the delicate line of her neck. Hand, sliding gently over her breast. Tenderly kneading it as he brushed ever so slightly over her sensitive nipple. Gwen closed her eyes with the sensation. Her soul, practically ascending from her mortal coil as she felt Primo free her breast from her dress—drawing her nipple into his willing mouth.

“Ah…mmm…Primo…” she moaned, finding her hand creeping over the back of his head. Holding him to her breast as she felt the steady heat rising from between her legs. Occasionally feeling the swell from Primo’s cock as it rubbed against the inside of her thigh. Already writhing beneath him, her tousled hair collecting an array of petals from the ground. The fall of the loose strands, making her even more desirable to him.

“I want to taste you, to savor every drop of your desire—say you will allow me.” Primo begged as he positioned himself between her legs. On his knees as he waited with bated breath at her word. Permission to descend upon her.

“Yes, yes…” she whimpered, wiggling out from her panties as Primo pulled them down from her legs. Painfully slow as his fingers caressed the gentle skin of her thighs. Fingertips dimpling them as he waited for them to part.

“Spread them for me, please…” he groaned, his desire mounting. Gwen allowed her legs to fall open. Revealing her swollen, wet folds. Waiting and ready for him. Gwen, desperate now to feel his touch once again—his love.

“Oh fu—” Gwen moaned out, working quickly to cover her mouth as Primo’s lips grazed over her clit. The swollen bud, throbbing at the sensation. Her insides too, pulsing with the anticipation of him inside her. His tongue, rolling over her and traveling up through her folds. Settling once again on her clit.

Primo, gently sucking and licking as Gwen’s grip on his head tightened up. His ministrations drawing her ever closer to release. He lowered his mouth, his tongue teasing at her folds, the tip of his nose pressed against her clit. Primo brought two of his fingers carefully inside her, working her until he had unlocked her orgasm.

“Ah…oh…Primo!” Gwen called out as he absolutely devoured her. Lapping up every drop she had to give. A smug smile on his face as he emerged from between her thighs. His face paint smeared delightfully across his face.

“I need you amore. Please say you’ll have me.” he begged, his cock leaking withs need. Gwen reached down to feel him. Her hand full of his desire, a bit in shock of his size. She left out a shaky breath and she dragged her fingers back up to the zipper. Pulling it down to allow Primo’s hard cock to be free of the confines of his paints.

“You weren’t kidding.” she chuckled, steadily panting and biting her lip as she allowed herself to look at it for the first time.

“Absolutely not.” Primo growled as he brought his lips back to hers. His cock hanging out freely between them. Gwen took it into her hand, both of them gasping a bit as she stroked him. Mouths, still touching, wanting not to part.

“Take me.” Gwen spoke against the tenderness of his lips. The words soaring through him as he grabbed her, rolling her to straddle him. Gwen panting, filled with excitement and joy for the first time in as long as she could remember. Watching Primo’s loving eyes cover her body with their gaze. Knowing how badly he wanted her—needed her. It was intoxicating.

Gwen helped Primo find his place just at her entrance. Her eyes, rolling back in his skull as she allowed him inside her. His well endowed cock, slowly spreading her open. Her body, tugging against him—already desperate for him to fill her.

“Cazzo, ti senti così bene... come per magia. Ti amo cara, così tanto!” Primo groaned, stifling his moaning as he felt her squeezing him around from inside. The throbbing of her walls was almost too much. Primo, working hard to contain his orgasm, wanting to last as long as he could. Hoping that he might be able to cum with her.

“Ah…ah…ah!” Gwen mewled as she rode him. Her thighs pressed tight against his as she rose up and fell onto his shaft. Both of them, creating more heat and humidity between them than the greenhouse ever could. Their efforts, hot and sticky—yet slow and deep.

It wasn’t long before Primo could feel her insides begin to shake—to quiver. Her resolve, falling fast as she began to cum. He worked fast, flipping her back onto her back and pulling her up over his lap. Sliding into her with ease and continuing to thrust steadily deeper and deeper as she came. The fluids of her satisfaction, leaking all around his cock.

“Si amore, now cum for me again…Show me how good it feels.” Primo moaned, relishing the feel of her cunt pulsing around him.

“Ah…oh my god…”Gwen cried out as he drove his cock deeper inside her. Primo gripped tight to the moist flesh of her thighs. Holding them up as he thrusted into her with intention—worshiping her.

“Amore…mmm…I—I’m going to cum.” Primo groaned, feeling himself beginning to give way.

“Wait! No, no…don’t!” Gwen cried, pushing back against Primo, forcing him out from inside her.

“Gah…” Primo groaned, already too close as his orgasm came bursting through him. Pulling out just in time to spill his seed over her belly.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Gwen and Primo lay together in the greenhouse. Held still but close together as they remain content even in the silence. Both still breathless and drained. Gwen snuggled up closer to Primo. Resting her head on his chest as Primo played with her disheveled hair. The golden-brown locks, flowing like sand through his fingers.

Gwen hoped he wasn’t upset. She knew how badly he wished to cum inside her. She just couldn’t risk it. Unable to let go of the fear that lingered on.

Thankfully Primo didn’t mention it as they lay together under the glass ceiling of the greenhouse. The stars in the night’s sky, shining down upon them. Gwen would push the thoughts away again. Burying them down for the time being—waning nothing more than to enjoy this moment between them.

“I think you are the most wonderful man I have ever known Papa.” Gwen whispered as she nuzzled into the small patch of hair on Primo’s chest. He brushed her hair behind her ear, watching her head raise up to face him, an exhausted, but content smile on her face.

“And you my dear are like thunder—a roar amongst the heavens.”

Notes:

mio fiore- my blossom

Cazzo, ti senti così bene... come per magia. Ti amo cara, così tanto! -Fuck you feel so good...like magic itself. I love you dear, so very much.

#Potpourri #ren writes #Primo x gwen #primo x oc gwen #primo x sister of sin #Primo x Guinevere #Primo #papa i #papa emeritus i #ghost #the band ghost #ghost fic #ghost fanfic #ghost fanfics #ghost fanfiction #the band ghost fic #the band ghost fanfic #the band ghost fanfiction

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astronomodome · 1 year

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Alright I was asked to make a list of all the The Garages songs I associate with life series things so I have done that

A few notes:

Songs are in no particular order (mostly just sorted by album as I was going through listening to them all)

All song titles (in color) are links to the respective songs, so you can listen to them :3

These songs are all worth listening to but my absolute favorites are marked in orange

Let me know what you think! I’ve been waiting so long to talk extensively about this :)))))) <- going to explode

list is below the cut because this got loooong

Astro Astronomodome’s Garages Life Series Playlist:

Eyes in the Dark- *gestures vaguely* how am I gonna live with these eyes in the dark when they’re following me around and they’re following you around 👍 and there’s nowhere you can go that they’re not there 👍

Jaylen Hotdogfingers Settles The Score- limited life winner martyn in thy little wood I am so normal about you <- lie

Godspeed- TIES sending off Skizz… see you space cowboy

Curse of Crows- third life grian-core, you know, when he was green and couldn’t actually kill but he and scar were going around being vaguely threatening. You could maybe use the crows in this as a metaphor for red life scar. Also birds

Relief Pitcher (Leave It On The Field)- Extremely strong vibes but I’m not sure of what. Maybe last life martyn? In the final battle? Idk. Maybe every martyn. I ljke him. (anyway this song changed my brain chemistry permanently so it deserves a place in the list regardless)

rooting for you- I’m delusional, bdubs is a species of plant, and ethubs is wlw. what is a nature wives

we had a season- ok this is THE desert duo song. No song will ever end of double life we’ve-spent-so-much-time-dancing-around-each-other-and-now-we-have-nothing-left-but-each-other desert duo as hard as this song. I have a very detailed AMV in my head of this so you know I’m right. It’s even a duet… ‘we had a season, we had a year/between when I died and when I reappeared’ (there’s almost exactly a year between grian’s last third life episode and scar’s first double life episode. I checked for this reason specifically and it killed me instantly) PLEASE just listen to this one ‘I had my reasons, I had my fears/I had my pride (I still had tears in my eyes as I died)’

dead ringer- just as the previous song is The desert duo song, this is The red king ren song. It slaps and the vibes are perfect. ‘my skin is made of energy, my blood is made of fire/I am what will happen when your best-made plans backfire’

hexed- very much post-3rd life watcher grian. pretty self-explanatory

The Alternate- ‘I’m new but I’ve seen so much/I’m old but I was not there’ do I even need to say it. Gem-as-Cleo and Lizzie-as-Pearl (‘I’ve done this once before’)

gamer grindset- yeah this is The Life Series Joel Song. you can fight me on this but you don’t have to because I know I’m right

a leap of faith- reminds me of scar. nothing in particular it just has similar vibes

haunted- ok now this is a Real watcher grian kind of song. ‘my body is a temple/for the gods of other men/wielded as a weapon by foes I swore I’d never be again’ ok. edgy bird moment

she’s dead and i’m someone else- this one requires some interpretation but I’ve always seen it was team BEST mourning the loss of bdubs. However it could also be applied to almost every ten in the life series that lost a member early lol

Mike Townsend (feels the shadows call)- specifically last life shadow alliance martyn but any martyn in general fits. he’s having a bad time

INCINERATE- just like. Being on your red life in general and the bloodlust and manic energy that brings. 😛 (edit after the finale: OKAY I KNOW THERES SO MANY LIMITED LIFE MARTYN SONGS BUT THIS IS ALSO ONE OF THEM ‘I know how to win this/I don’t need to play your games/I’m just gonna dance now/I’ll show you how to deal with pain’ ‘every day’s getting worse and we’re starting to choke/‘cause the water in the air is getting stuck in our throats’ LIKE COME ON MAN)

Sidelined- limited life skizz you will always be famous ‘am I just another wash-out/am I damned to go out swinging/I can’t hear you from the dugout/is there anyone else singing for me’ I am singing! I am singing for you skizzleman!!!!!!!!!

Firewalker With Me- the song. The myth. The legend. It’s just such a great song and it’s about life series grian’s curse of killing the people he cares most about. Grian is a parker if you think about it <- mentally ill (special note- ‘nobody deserves to be called a curse/but if you’re gonna resist I’m happy to make things worse’ is grian accidentally getting jimmy final-killed first in limited life btw)

We’ve Got History- not to be that guy but desert duo. Ok

New Year, Same Me- martyn.

The Return- the start of a new life series! Seeing old friends again! Missing friends who couldn’t make it (cough cough martyn missing ren in limited life cough cough)! Playing the game! Living and loving despite the horrors!

A Horrible Mistake We Will Make Again And Again- grian grian grian. Grain. The bird boy. Also easily one of my favorite Garages song titles. ‘If I don’t know the limits, how am I gonna break them?/If you think that we’re kidding well then you’re sorely mistaken’

The First Ain’t The Last- canary curse activated! Honestly the entirety of this album is just the average life series lmao ‘and one day you’ll wake up/and from the ashes a phoenix will rise/and she’ll hit like a champ/and burn out bright before your eyes’

The Ballad of Unremarkable Derrick Krueger- another one that definitely has life series vibes (and is just a really good song) but that I just can’t place. I want to say Tango honestly because he always has been somewhat painfully mediocre and has famously always final-deathed in underwhelming and meaningless ways

Rise- this is the Cleo song. Epic. Thank you Cleo :) Joe can be the monitor in this scenario I think he’d be good at it

RIV- does anyone still remember that part of martyn’s last life lore where the mysterious voice was promising that he would get to see jimmy mumbo and impulse again if he followed its instructions? Well……

Hell’s Game- Blaseball is a death game and this song leans into that so naturally it fits pretty well with the life series as a whole. Would make a great AMV

5am Shift- Ok bear with me here. This doesn’t really fit Pearl other than the song title (lol) and maybe you can make some parallels to cleaning lady Pearl but it gives me her vibes. Plus it’s just a whole jazzy banger and one of my favorite songs so it’s going here anyway :)

Nullified- for the end of limited life. pretty self-explanatory ‘wasted all my minutes/trying to stay alive/and look where it got me/I’m just the last one nullified’ honestly worked better before the actual finale because martyn was more manic about it than this song would imply

STRIKEOUT!- life series mumbo my horrible wet cat. this song is a little weird but it suits him I think

The Tug- they never left the desert.

SUN 2- obligatory flower husbands song for all the flower husbands enjoyers out there. Time to go cry I guess

flooding/drowning- big impdubs moment. Or honestly just any of bdubs’s life series exes reminiscing… ‘and you’re angry when the energy rises to meet you/like the life rafts are disrespectful to the sea’ is the most life series bdubs thing I’ve ever heard

REMEMBERTHEM- very good and classic anti-watcher song. If c!martyn was just a little more aware of his situation I think this would fit better (honestly a lot of good garages songs just don’t fit very well because we haven’t quite reached the ‘let’s kill the watchers’ stage of the lore yet lmaooo)

Nothing Happens Every Day- tfw when no life series 🥺 could also be martyn because he loves to kill <3

historic season nine party time speedrun and associated records- mean gills vibes. a nice quiet evening in the coral isles, reminiscing

Mike Townsend Is A Disappointment- I’m so sorry Jimmy but it fits too well

Bonus! Hermitcraft-adjacent songs:

Storm’s Raging- moon big. the long, slow, inevitable end of the world. Bdubs looking up at the sky as it falls on him. the lyrics kick ass as well: ‘there were days when it all seemed never ending/when all you could hear was the forecasts, the fear/and the sound of the cloudline bending’ (and the way it speeds up at the end……. omg)

howling at twin moons- s8 scar. I will not elaborate

alaynabella hollywood- ariana griande <- wait who said that

golden- rentheking arc I love you :3 viva la revolution

Sincerely, The Collateral- hermitcitizen song tbh

Beep or Bleat- despite the EXTREMELY zedaph-coded song title this is actually end-of-season 8 tango moon landing-core. ‘do we possess a soul/does it exceed the speed of light/can it escape black holes/do we still have a chance to fight’

Nut Economy- another rentheking arc song. You can tell when I started watching HC from this can’t you. Well. Royal emeralds I miss you :(

Morning is Coming- HONESTLY if I had the ability to make AMVs this would be top of my list. It’s just so… so much. Escaping moon big at the end of season 8… I know it’s overdone at this point but it’s rotating around in my head all the time. What does it say about me that there are two moon big songs here and they’re both my favorites…

fourteen days is not enough for my screams to reach your ears- another tango lost in space at the end of season 8 song. it messed me up ok

psychoacoustics- I love convex* *DISCLAIMER: 99% of the convex knowledge I have comes from fan interpretation alone. Alternatively I could just be really trying to manifest a zedaph villain arc

oliver mueller (is a hero)- docm77 for several reasons which will become apparent almost immediately

hello world- grumbot I love you :] (putting in a different version so you can tell what the lyrics are without subtitles and I’m sorry because this version of the song is somewhat worse. they just start singing godspeed in the middle of it for some reason and like I’m not complaining I love that song but also why) (here’s the original version)

the entire kansas city breath mints team failed the bar exam- hermitcraft. no elaboration is necessary

#trafficblr #limited life spoilers #life series spoilers #sillyposting #astro's garages brainrot #life series

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terriblyrenderedenigma · 1 year

Text

Fuck it. Woe, Darth Maul be upon ye-

Rant about loving maul hours, taken from a sexy man tourney between friends. I got a little deep with it but the man deserves so much, he's seen so much shit bro. Anyways. Eat up fellow maul stans. Part 1 of 2 (I wrote a lot) Warnings: None. (I think)

''I find you as transfixing as the stars and as alluring as a song and oh how sad it is that I cannot bring myself to feel worthy of ever being in such a presence that is so perfectly yours. I'm not worthy of it, not worthy of you. Not worthy of your gaze. Not worthy of your time, or heart, or to exist near you. You are too perfect for someone like me. Too perfect for my pathetic breath to be wasted upon you and yet I cannot help but mourn what could be. What could be if I was yours. If I were good enough, if I could please you. It's all I want, but I know I'm not enough. I never would be, never will. But still I think about your grin, in all its malicious intent and all meanings between. I can only hope on day you will smile at me, endearingly as if I've spoken something amusing, or done something that entertains you. I think about the touch of your palm within mine and dream of its warmth and the chance to trace the beautiful darkened lines that adorn your flesh. I imagine the chance of you loving me. And as soon as I catch myself I reel. There's no way you would take someone like me to be at your side. So insignificant and imperfect. I watch you from afar and daydream guiltily. How foolish of someone like me to admire someone like you so strongly...'' -Part of a love letter to Maul I have been unexpectedly caught in a snare. Fallen into a trap so intricately woven that even the most genius of men and hunters elite would never have seen coming. Love. Love, my enemy. Love, my friend. I cannot tell between the two which this may be. Perhaps both. Darth Maul is a dangerous man. A slave to the darkness, a servant to a faithless master. He could tear my heart from my chest without a second thought and yet I feel like deep in his own being he would feel regret for it. Survival in the universe is harsh. The dark and the light fight for dominance, for victory, every second among the stars. He has lived and breathed hatred. Survived on rage alone for years and years. It's the only thing he knows It's the only thing he has been allowed to know. The universe has not been kind to him, and every step of progress he takes is eventually uprooted. For every one of his wins, he faces a loss far more extreme. Truly, I feel like he is a man with a hidden gentleness that must be nurtured back to life. What family he did have, he loved until they were ripped away from him by the cruelty of fate. Though he is harsh and such a thing seems foreign or trivial to him, his affections manifest through loyalty and trust. He is careful to guard himself, so maybe he just needs someone to break down his walls, help his heart heal from the transgressions of fate against him, show him that there's more to life than the darkness he drowns himself in. He needs someone he knows won't turn their back to him, someone he can trust with his life. I don't want to change him, I just want to be someone he can be vulnerable with because goddamn does he deserve it. There's no way you can be strong and hardened for your entire life without needing some kind of a break. Regardless of all that, Maul Is a man who's loyal. Cunning, almost genius. Yeah. He's mean, rough around the edges, but he's capable and gets things done. When he has a vision he sticks to it and takes charge. He never ever lets his anger take ahold of him, he doesn't let it ruin his plans. He will execute every step of his life with deadly precision, and quickly deals with anything in his supervision that may be running astray. He's snarky and speaks his mind with no fear of consequence. Even then, every move he makes is calculated perfection. He has a respect for women even if they're an enemy to him. Anyways, say we get this man a little therapy, say we do get him to be gentle and vulnerable around a close friend, or at the very most, a lover...What next? To Be Continued... -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Damn you tumblr text limit.

Part two will be shorter, a short description of the kind of lover maul is, at least romantically. If spice is demanded, I shall produce results.

See yall in like ten minutes with the last little bit.

Ciao~ -Enigma

#darth maul #maul #maul opress #maul fic #darth maul x reader #darth maul x you #darth maul x oc #savage opress #star wars clone wars #star wars #starwars rebels #star wars art #sw art #sw au #tcw

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freetheworms · 2 years

Note

Perhaps "I love you" as a promise for the prompts? 💚

hiiiii wren <3

a million thank yous for sending this and also your patience because it took me soooo long to write this lmao (life is insane, what else is new!!!) but finally it's done! idk what it is exactly but here! for you!!

(Geraskier, 1.2k words, warning for MCD i guess? reincarnation tho don’t worry)

**********

Geralt names all his horses Roach.

It is strange, he knows. He’s been told, even, that it’s too boring, too impersonal, too cold, and yet still he does not change.

“Don’t you think it’s a disservice to the love of the last Roach? To name them all the same?” Jaskier had said after that third winter; the first time Geralt had spotted the bard from the back of a new young mare with the same old name.

(Well. Truthfully, the first thing Jaskier had said upon introduction to the new steed was, “Geralt, not to alarm you, but you do know this is an entirely different horse, right?” but Geralt doesn’t feel much like laughing just now.)

Geralt had merely grunted in lieu of an answer, and blessedly, Jaskier had shrugged and prattled on about some colleague or other that had wronged him over his winter at Oxenfurt. He hadn’t yet learned to push his fingers into the cracks of Geralt’s armour.

Good. Better Jaskier not ask about the why.

Because the why is something even Geralt himself doesn’t quite know how to name.

The why is the way his mother left him all those years ago; doomed him to a life of loneliness and loss that doesn’t follow him, but begs him to ride along the soft curve of it’s back. The way he accepts time and time again because at least it’s something to hold onto.

The why is his brothers lost. The family he was never meant to have, but now mourns in the dark of the night when no one can see him. The men that did not return to the keep one winter or another, no word, no warning, no goodbye. The children they were, are, could never be, will never stop being.

The why is Geralt, just a few years on the path, holding axii to that first mare’s coat, gritting his teeth against the flood of emotions he’s been told he no longer has. It’s the way his shoulders shake as her heavy head lolls in his lap, no pain left in her, but neither any life. The way that suddenly, he’s never felt more alone.

The why is the way Renfri had looked at him, all dark eyes, pleading for something Geralt couldn’t give her, let alone himself. The way he’d watched that look bleed out across his trousers, the cobblestone, sink into his skin. The way he’d refused to play the game and yet somehow lost anyway.

The why is Jaskier.

The why is having known, the moment he’d met him, that this would be a pain to end all pain. That this was going to crush him beyond all recognition, and worse still, leave him standing. Whole and wholly emptier than ever before.

The why is something about pain and loss and having no control over either. Something about a life so long you’re afraid to live it, for fear of the holes it tears in your soul to leave love behind. Something about the lies we allow ourselves in order to keep living.

***

“Geralt, darling?” Jaskier asks now, so many years later, “Why do you name all your horses Roach?” His eyes are just as blue as ever, though his lashes now are silver as they catch the midmorning light.

Geralt’s grip on his bard’s frail hand tightens almost imperceptibly. He doesn’t want to talk about this. Not now. He wants to run. He wants to hold tighter. He wants to fall apart right here in this chair and let his love put him back together again. He wants to lie.

But he owes Jaskier this.

And so he takes a deep breath, and he says, “I have spent my whole life losing. I couldn’t bear to lose her too.”

(“I can’t lose you,” he doesn’t say. He thinks maybe Jaskier hears it anyway.)

“Oh, my dearest,” Jaskier sighs, a small smile on his lips. His voice is like rain after a long drought. “You have spent your whole life loving.”

Geralt thinks about that for a long moment. “I suppose you could say I have,” he says at last. “Love, and loss. One and the same when you live a life like mine.”

“Ours,” Jaskier corrects.

“A life like ours,” Geralt concedes, strokes a thumb across the back of Jaskier’s weathered hand.

Ours.

“And what a life it has been,” Jaskier breathes. He sounds tired, nostalgic, alive. “A life by your side. I wouldn’t change it for the world, my love. Would you?”

He’s thought about it. Really, he has. He’s spent countless nights by the light of the fire, watching Jaskier breathe, pondering this inevitable loss; wondering whether he’d be better off having never loved at all.

(There’s a poem in there somewhere, he thinks, but poetry has always belonged to his bard, and so he leaves that thread alone.)

“I wouldn’t,” he says finally, and he’s almost surprised to find that he means it, even after all of this pain. “Of course I wouldn’t.”

Jaskier beams at him then, like Geralt himself has hung the moon. “See, I always knew you loved me under all those—” he gestures with the fingers of the hand Geralt isn’t holding like a lifeline. The movement is slow and stilted. “—lovely muscles,” he finishes with an exaggerated wink that deepens the crows feet around his eyes.

It’s a joke, Geralt knows, but he has to be sure. “You do know though, don’t you? That I—“

“I do,” Jaskier interrupts. “Oh Geralt, my love, of course I do. My only regret is that I’ll hate to leave you.”

Gently, Geralt raises Jaskier’s hand to his lips and kisses it softly, willing it to convey all the things he could never say out loud.

(I hate it too. Please don’t go. Take me with you.)

The silence stretches out between them, and Jaskier’s eyes slip closed. His heartbeat is faint now, even to witcher’s ears, and Geralt steadfastly does not go to pieces. He holds Jaskier’s hand a little tighter.

Not yet, not yet, not yet, he silently pleads. He is still pleading when Jaskier cracks his eyes open and says, so quietly that were he human, Geralt isn’t sure he’d have heard it, “Before I go, will you promise me one thing, my love?”

“Anything.”

Jaskier grips Geralt’s hand as tight as he dares and looks, for all the world, as if, of every word he’s ever written or uttered, this may well be the most important. “Will you promise to find me? In my next life.”

“That, and every life after,” Geralt says, because he knows this is his last chance to say it. “High and low, my lark, I will search for you. I will love you, always and forever.”

The rapture that washes over Jaskier then is so palpable that Geralt himself feels awash with it, despite everything. “I love you,” Jaskier says, and it’s almost an echo. “In this life, and the next.”

And then, with a sigh of relief, and Geralt’s hand firm in his, Jaskier is still.

***

Geralt names all his horses Roach.

It is strange, he knows. But when he once again meets a travelling bard with bright blue eyes and a flower for a name, all those years after he made a quiet promise, he finally knows how to answer his question.

The why is knowing that goodbye is not always the end. That no matter how many times they say it, the love is never lost. That the love of the last does not cheapen the love of the extant, no matter the name.

The why is Jaskier. Always and forever. In this life, and the next.

#geraskier #gracie writes #geraskier fanfiction #geralt x jaskier #the witcher #witcher fanfiction #geraskier fanfic #witcher fanfic #twn #geralt of rivia #jaskier #julian alfred pankratz #ive been meaning to write a fic about geralt naming all his horses roach for MONTHS now #and ive also been thinking in circles about this prompt so. i figured why not combine!

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the-random-phan · 1 year

Text

A Fresh Start (Quite the Introduction)

Danny Phantom x The Magnus Archives

Potentially a one-shot series. Or not. Idk yet! For now it's one standalone chapter :)

Word Count: 3,518

Ao3

FFnet

Summary:

Danny wasn’t exactly in the best position in his afterlife. Functionally immortal, and the biggest fish in such a small pond. There was no challenge to life. Just an endless repeat of motions. So when Clockwork offered him an out, he took it. It was a simple offer. Clockwork would open him a portal to a new universe, where he could try again at another life. A different life. This world was different from his own, down to the very fabric of existence. It was amazing how quickly he got dragged into the supernatural right after universe-hopping. He must be a magnet for this kind of stuff.

Story Start!

Danny… wasn’t really sure where he was. He knew how got there, of course. Clockwork wasn’t exactly subtle.

With his friends and family gone and buried years ago, Clockwork was one of the few who Danny maintained a relationship with. Along with Frostbite, and of course Pandora. Even a few of his old childhood rivals had weaseled their way into his inner circle. But time passed, and ghosts faded.

The loss of Ember had hit the hardest and was still the freshest in his mind. She had achieved her dream of stardom. She got all she had ever wanted. And she had nothing more to keep her ‘alive’ for lack of a better word. With a smile on her face, she followed Skulker into whatever came after the afterlife.

It seemed like everyone on the planet had mourned her. There had been candlelight vigils, and her name was said more after she faded than it had ever been while she was… present. It’s what she would have wanted, more than likely.

Even Vlad had faded. When Maddie died, Vlad’s obsession died too. He was sent into a spiral, one that his ghost half never quite recovered from. He could have kept living, but every moment was a tortuous pain. His core had never been that stable to begin with, and it was tearing his human half apart just as quickly as it healed. Vlad lived longer than a human ever should, but he eventually succumbed.

Dani was still kicking, but she and Danny hadn’t talked in decades. She never aged, always looking around 12 years old. It made it hard to live for hundreds of years when people thought you a child. She traveled the world still, wanting to see everything before it changed with the tides of time. She’d crawled every inch of the globe again and again.

Before, in the beginning, she would weasel her way into various families adopting her, but after the 12th big brother died, she took a break. And never went back to it. Some of the families even knew of her condition and took her in anyways. But they had drifted apart. They just didn’t mesh very well. He was still far too human for her.

Amity Park didn’t exist even anymore.

So the culmination of all this is to say, Danny wasn’t exactly in the best position. Functionally immortal, and the biggest fish in such a small pond. There was no challenge to life. Just an endless repeat of motions.

So when Clockwork offered him an out, he took it.

It was a simple offer. Clockwork would open him a portal to a new universe, where he could try again at another life. A different life. This world was different from his own, down to the very fabric of existence.

“You won’t be quite the same,” Clockwork had explained.

“And neither will I. It is true that I exist there- I must exist everywhere, in order for a where to exist. But that… self, is quite different from this one. My powers as they exist here are an entirely different form, as here the rules are different. My being had to mold itself to these rules for my self to exist.” There, Clockwork had paused to see if Danny understood.

“Each universe has a Clockwork, but they’re all different?” He’d replied.

“Yes,” They’d nodded.

“The one you’ll interact with is quite different from myself. Very… large. Even with your existence it would take billions of years before you could grow to truly witness it.”

“That sounds… eldritch.” Danny wondered aloud. Clockwork nodded in affirmation.

“A good way to put it.”

“As my charge, you will be under the jurisdiction of my counterpart. That way I can still see you. Your own powers will surely change, and mold to fit the rules of the world you enter. It is… quite a lot.” Clockwork’s tail flicked anxiously.

“The humans there refer to it’s being as ‘The Eye.’ I’m sure you see the irony to the Observants.” Clockwork frowned, most likely remembering the pushy eyeballs.

“But it is only one of many beings that are quite similar.” Now there had been a mischievous glint in Clockwork’s eyes.

“Any more than that, you’ll have to discover yourself.”

With that, they’d risen from their chair. Clockwork assured him that, should he manage to die in that universe, Clockwork would pull him back before it could happen. And when Danny was truly done, Clockwork would do the same yet again. No matter what, Danny would still have a tie to his homeworld. For that, he was grateful.

Within minutes (why delay when you have eternity?) Danny had stepped through a portal into the unknown. He shivered with excitement.

~~~~~

So, here he was. Wherever ‘here’ was.

Danny was glad Clockwork had warned him about his powers because as soon as he stepped through the portal all sensation from his core had abruptly cut off. He highly doubted it existed here. The way Clockwork had put it, this universe sounded very different from his own.

…Except for the landmarks, it would seem, because Danny was staring right at the London Eye. Ironic, given what Clockwork had told him.

It was probably the old spirit’s idea of a joke. It did get a chuckle out of Danny.

There would, of course, be time for sightseeing later. Much later, because Danny’s stomach was growling in a way it hadn’t for millennia.

He shuffled through his pockets and found some bills. Hardly pocket ‘change’ as there was at least a thousand dollars there. Danny had inherited Vlad’s belongings, and money wasn’t really an object for him anymore. At least, back home. Here, he only had 2,000 dollars to his name. In a country that didn’t accept dollars.

Luckily he was in a tourist area. It didn’t take much asking, before he was pointed in the direction of a place where he could exchange currency. Luckily they accepted it. Which turned out to be around 1,600 pounds. He had no clue how much that meant, really.

Why had Clockwork put him in the UK, of all places? Why not the US? Not like Danny would legally exist in either place, but at least there his money would’ve worked.

Danny didn’t have time to debate Clockwork’s thought process as he had an upset stomach to deal with.

Food. A restaurant, or maybe a convenience store? Something cheap.

Danny wandered for a bit, getting even more lost than he had been before. The tourist attractions and sight-seers gave way to tight housing and apartment complexes. The places by the tourist areas were all way overpriced, or at least in Danny’s opinion. He’d asked the man at the place where he’d exchanged his currency, and he gave Danny a small pamphlet with some example conversion rates. The date on the pamphlet told him it was 2016.

Danny stopped briefly in front of a shop window to examine his appearance. Danny had stopped aging in his early twenties, but he looked even younger than that. Maybe, 19? His hair wasn’t as long as it had been. It was just barely pulled back into a ponytail. Wisps of black hair streaked with white framed his face. One of his eyes was the usual blue, but the other was a bright green. The only thing it didn’t have was the glow. He looked to be a combination of his human and ghost halves. That made him glad, that he still had all of himself. Even if he didn’t maintain his different forms. But that made sense.

Finally, Danny stumbled into a small store he vaguely recognized the logo of (a lot of things can change in thousands of years, okay?). He rummaged through what was on the shelves and grabbed whatever was most appetizing, and cheap. A lot of junk food. But oh well. He could worry about his feature health after he filled his stomach.

Danny wandered up to the register with a basket full of stuff. He counted the amounts and pulled change from his pockets. He counted the strange currency under his breath. When was the last time he had even used physical money? Which is to say he was quite distracted, and jumped seven feet high (figuratively) when suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder.

“Shi-” Danny cut himself off. The money from his hand scattered across the ground and he stumbled to pick it all up.

The intruding stranger bent down to help.

“I’m terribly sorry,” The man apologized. He handed Danny some coins, which is when he finally got a good look at the man.

He was short, squirrelly. His black hair was slicked back, and streaked with white. Much like Danny’s, ironically enough. He had a small, pencil-thin mustache. He looked almost like a cartoony villain. Then Danny kicked himself for thinking that because it was wrong to immediately label someone like that. He’d gotten too used to his thematic rogue gallery.

“I simply wanted to introduce myself. Elias Bouchard, at your service.” The man- Elias- held out his hand. Danny stuffed his money back in his pocket and returned the gesture. Elias shook his hand and then pulled him to his feet.

“I dunno why you’d want to talk to me,” Danny replied. He effortlessly put on a generic British accent, so as not to stand out as a foreigner. Language was one of Danny’s big interests. It had never failed to keep him entertained, which was a rarity. He spoke hundreds of languages, even some that had died out millennia ago in his own world. And ones that probably didn’t even exist here yet. Hm. He wasn’t sure if Ghost Speak would work here, or if it would only die out on his tongue. Something to test.

It was Danny’s turn in line, and he walked up to the cash register. He hoped Elias would take his turned back as a sign he didn’t want to talk. But sadly, Elias did not get the hint. Or he simply ignored it.

Danny offered the cashier his money, but suddenly there was an arm in what looked to be a very expensive coat stuck out in front of him. Elias grinned at Danny as he offered the cashier his card. She looked at Danny as though to ask what was going on. Danny just shrugged, and with an eye roll she accepted the card.

If this dude wanted to take time out of Danny’s day, why not let him pay for it.

“You just seem like quite the interesting person…” The pause was asking for Danny’s name. He hesitated to reply. This felt rather like a dealing with the fae. Like as soon as Danny offered his name, he’d regret it. But of course, the fae weren’t real. He was just being paranoid.

“Danny.” He replied curtly. He accepted his bags from the cashier and made for the door. Elias trailed after him. Outside of the store, Danny simply chose a direction and walked. Elias didn’t even look twice.

This was becoming bothersome.

“Danny… Is it short for something?”

“Nope.” Danny popped the ‘p’. Elias made a sound of interest.

“I don’t suppose I could ask for your second name?”

“Nope.”

“Well, Danny. I don’t suppose you are looking for work, are you?” What? Danny leveled Elias with a Look.

”You lingered for quite a while over the prices in the store.” Elias explained casually. He stuck his hands in his pockets. It did nothing to offset his formal attire.

“What would you say if I was?” Danny asked suspiciously.

“I have a… vacancy, you could call it. Well no- not technically, but we could make one. If you’d like the position.”

“What kind of ‘position’ is it?”

“An assistant, of sorts. Basically librarian work. Sorting, organizing. A bit of research. Rather easy.” Elias waved a hand in the air, as though to wave off Danny’s concerns. Huh.

Danny was rather lacking, but he wasn’t sure this offer was trustworthy. Elias himself didn’t seem trustworthy, for all of his candy-coated exterior. Danny could just feel that something was wrong. But he was desperate, honestly. He wasn’t looking forward to where he was going to be sleeping tonight. Meaning, he didn’t know where. Maybe he could get this Elias to take him in for a night.

If push came to shove, Danny could still defend himself. Even without any powers.

“Your assistant?” Danny dug further. If he was even going to consider, he needed details.

“Ah, no. You’d be assisting the Archivist. Head Archivist, I mean. Jonathan Sims.”

“He works under me. I pop in from time to time, but mostly he and his team are on their own.” Elias explained.

“What’s this place called, again?”

“Why, The Magnus Institute of course. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of us?” There was a glint in Elias’ eyes as his gaze met Danny’s. Danny felt like he was being… investigated? There was something more to Elias’ gaze than simple curiosity. But Danny kept his face neutral, and didn’t let Elias get anything more than what he was willing to offer. Which, right now, was an intrigued but wary teenager.

Danny was considering the offer seriously. Elias wasn’t even asking about any credentials, which of course he didn’t have. The biggest holdup was the man himself. But if what he was saying was true…

“If you’re in a hurry, we could even sign the paperwork tonight if you’d like. Even paid in cash, if that matters to you.” Elias offered. This had bad deal written all over it. But Danny was curious. It’d been a while since he’d been curious. Genuinely. What was this guy’s deal?

“Where is this place?”

“We’re already here.” There was a predatory glint to Elias’ smile.

Sure enough, they were. Elias must’ve guided them there. Danny hadn’t even paid attention to where they were going. He didn’t realize Elias had taken the lead. Hm.

It seemed to be a rather unassuming building. Obviously old, but nothing on the outside directly revealed what it was. Aside from a small, metal placard next to the front doors.

‘The Magnus Institute Est. 1818’ it read. So, that was legit.

“Ah…” Danny began.

“What is it, exactly, that made you so interested in me? We just met.”

“I saw you. Simple as that.” There was something beneath that smile. Ghosts didn’t tend to layer themselves like this, they were a lot more straightforward. Danny wasn’t sure who was more intrigued by the other, him or Elias.

“Let’s not dilly-dally, I’ll show you around and we can get things sorted.” Elias stepped up to the front doors and Danny followed dutifully behind. This was either gonna be really fun, or… Danny wasn’t sure quite what, yet. And that sent a thrill up his spine.

~~~~~

“Would you like to meet who would be your coworkers first, or get the paperwork sorted?” Elias questioned. They’d already toured the Library and a place called “Artifact Storage.”

Immediately Danny had been enamored by the rooms full of creepy -haunted?- objects, all carefully categorized. Elias hadn’t said exactly the nature of how the items were cursed, but he’d told Danny about a few things. Small items, mostly of inconsequence. He suspected that Elias was trying not to scare him off. Which, fair. But also Danny couldn’t help but want to know more.

Particularly about how Elias had steered him away from the bulletproof case of books.

The Library had been a bit of a let-down, but the Artifacts had drawn Danny in. He wanted to stick around, to see some of the effects for himself even. It was amazing how quickly he got dragged into the supernatural right after universe-hopping. He must be a magnet for this kind of stuff.

Danny didn’t want to get cold feet and back out of this.

“How about we head to your office?” He decided. Elias nodded and off they went, through hallways that Elias seemed to have memorized even better than the back of his hand. He was truly in his element.

Danny managed to keep up with the brisk pace, and soon enough they were walking through a door that said ‘Elias Bouchard, Head of The Magnus Institute,’ The title made it seem like Elias was way too high on the ladder to be picking up ‘employees’ on the street. But, oh well.

It was his funeral. Danny had already been to his own once before and it hadn’t been as enjoyable as one might expect.

Inside the room Elias immediately went to sit behind the desk. Danny took a rather uncomfortable-looking chair that sat in front of it.

Elias started to root around in the desk drawers and pulled out what he wanted with a flourish. It was a thick packet of paper, presumably the employment contract.

“Your title will be Archival Assistant, rate is 15 quid an hour. Though it may very well go higher depending on your performance. Typical week is Monday through Friday, nine to five. You can find more details about sick leave and vacation on the front page.” Elias spouted off details rapid-fire. Numbers flew past Danny’s hand but he managed to grasp it for the most part. If he remembered correctly, 15 quid was around 18 dollars an hour. That wasn’t too shabby, especially just starting out. When he had no qualifications. Why was Elias giving him a chance, again?

“You’ll have to head over to the financial department every two weeks to receive your pay, until we can get your bank account sorted.” At that, Elias gave Danny a pointed look as though to say, ‘I know more than you.’ Which in any other situation Danny would know wasn’t true. But in this world, it very much was.

Elias spun around the packet and produced a pen for Danny to sign with. He pointed dramatically at a dotted line.

“Just here.” He said with a smile that did not meet his eyes. Danny was getting some bad vibes from this.

He pulled the packet out from under Elias’ finger and began to leaf through it. Elias buzzed unhappily but didn’t say anything. Danny wasn’t so stupid as to sign something without knowing the contents. He leaned back lazily in his chair but didn’t venture quite so far as to put his feet on the desk. That was a bit too cocky, even for him.

But Danny very quickly got bored of all the legal jargon that whooshed over his head. Law had never been Danny’s strong suit. He tried his best to seem like he was comprehending the words, if only because it looked like it was making Elias sweat.

One page in particular stood out to Danny. Unlike the rest, he could comprehend it. And oh boy. Oh this was so shady. Danny loved it.

The page detailed how, were the head of the institute to die at the hands of an employee of the archives, those employed there would be terminated. The language was very… loose. Danny could tell what it meant though. It stood out on the page as though plain as day.

It sounded like a dead man switch. Why would an employee want to kill Elias? Why had he built that into the paperwork? Certainly something like this wasn’t simply part of this world. It was out of left field in contrast to how Elias had spoken this far. Danny could only wonder what the method would be. How could Elias ensure that those in the Archives would die if he did?

Then again, this man was absolutely entrenched in the supernatural of this world. He was at the center of a paranormal hub. Danny already knew that eldritch beings existed. Mysterious causes of death weren’t exactly outside of the range of possibility, But also, Danny couldn’t die here. So it was a moot point. It left him to wonder, though. And that was a dangerous thing.

On the same page was a paragraph saying that the head of the Institute could not be held accountable for any damage to one’s person or belongings due to supernatural causes. Which wouldn’t be all that strange, were it not on the same page.

“What are you playing at here, Elias?” Danny used the man’s first name on purpose. He looked startled for just a moment but schooled his expression very quickly.

Elias stood from his chair and planted his hands on the desk so that he was lording over Danny. He plastered a very smug smirk on his face.

“You can sign it or leave. It’s up to you.”

“But I doubt you want that, do you, hmm?” That sounded very much like a thinly-veiled threat. Huh.

Danny schooled his expression into a grin much the same as he signed on the dotted line, ‘Danny Fantom’. A fitting mix of his names, for his mixed-up appearance.

Elias’ smirk spread into a toothy smile. He held out a hand, which Danny took in kind.

“Welcome to the team.”

#danny phantom #dp #tma #the magnus archives #crossover #elias bouchard #i love to hate this man #clockwork dp #nonbinary!clockwork #dp x tma

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