#comfort chapter 5

[ancuninfiles]

Comfort pt. 5

Screenshot by @lavendarr00

6.7k words - F/M - Astarion x F! Named Tav (Nym) - 18+

Summary: Nym's forced time away from her homeland - The High Forest - teaches her many truths within mere days; truths that she likely would have otherwise never come to know.

Tags: smut, fluff, angst, p in v sex, creampie, cockwarming (if you squint), vampire bites, needy/desperate astarion, past refrence to trauma (or something), hurt/comfort, OC is autism-coded

MASTERLIST (The other chapters and other works)

Read on AO3 (Recommended)

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟓: 𝐁𝐞 𝐀 𝐁𝐨𝐝𝐲

˚₊‧⁺˖✮•:•:•:•:•☾☼☽•:•.•:•.•✮˖⁺‧₊˚

Nym woke up in Astarion’s tent, feeling anxious and groggy from the blood loss. She stretched her arms into the air, releasing a deep, eye-watering yawn.

Beside her, Astarion lay with his eyes closed. Nym sensed she might have disturbed his trance, but assumed he needed to get more rest and was still attempting to do just that.

She scratched the nape of her neck, trying to brush her tangled hair with her fingers, a result of days without proper care.

With a slight grimace, she crawled gingerly towards her overstuffed pack, determined to locate the simple wooden comb procured just the day prior.

In the depths of her bag laid a jumbled assortment of yesterday's acquisitions, among them a fresh ensemble of lightweight leather armour for Nym. Comprised of a supple suede top, a flowing poncho, and loose-fitting trousers, the new attire promised both comfort and improved mobility for battle.

Nym’s stomach fluttered with anticipation as she envisioned herself adorned in the new garments, feeling the enhanced freedom of movement they would afford her in combat.

After rummaging through the contents of her bag and extracting her daily attire, Nym resumed her search for the elusive comb. Once retrieved, she swiftly donned her clothing, mindful this time to dress before exiting the tent, determined not to repeat the awkward encounter of revealing herself to her companions without their express consent.

She was striving to fit in and adjust to the new environment, and despite the discomfort of being away from her usual surroundings, Nym found herself cherishing this time outside the High Forest.

While she was living in the High Forest, she had been utterly ignored by most for her entire life; in contrast, here she was chosen to be a leader. The prospect still confused her, but she was becoming more accustomed to it with each day.

Maybe I'll stumble upon a book on leadership during our downtime, she mused.

Nym gagged as a wave of nausea hit her; she knew that she had to use the amulet, lest she would feel sickly all day.

With a whispered incantation, a blue light enveloped Nym, accompanied by the faint sound of wind chimes. As the magic took hold the light and sounds faded, leaving her feeling as refreshed as after a restful night's sleep.

Rising ungracefully, Nym emerged from Astarion’s tent to discover Gale already tending to the fire, diligently engaged with the cookpot.

A surge of apprehension swept over her; the prospect of establishing boundaries with Gale filled her with unease. Her gut instinct told her to simply brush aside the issue and feign normalcy - though that desire warred with a more practical one: facing the uncomfortable topic directly in the spirit of open communication. 

Contemplating her options, Nym weighed the possibility of confronting him head-on the next time he made advances, opting to let him be the one to broach the topic first; but, the thought of his potential reaction to her rejection twisted her stomach into knots. What if he dislikes me afterward? Or worse, what if he gets angry? 

Nym shuddered, attempting to banish the unsettling notion. As murky memories from her time in the High Forest resurfaced, her breath caught in her throat and her muscles tensed. Recognizing the need to divert her attention, she resolved to find a distraction.

In regards to Gale, Nym acknowledged her limited understanding of him thus far. There remained a chance that he might view her rejection as an opportunity for personal growth, or some such realization. I'll deal with that when the time comes, she concluded, hoping fervently to avoid that conversation altogether. But she had a feeling that crossing that bridge would likely be inevitable.

"Good morning!" Gale called cheerfully, snapping Nym out of her spiralling thoughts. "Fancy some eggs?"

Nym realized she had been standing tensed up, staring at Gale's back for far too long. She was grateful to be pulled into the moment by his seemingly kind voice and demeanour.

Her voice cracked as she squeaked, “Yes, please!” 

Barefooted, she waltzed to the logs by the fire with her comb, socks, and boots in hand, sitting adjacent to Gale, shimmying her socks and footwear on. 

Gale cracked two eggs in the pan and started scrambling, causing Nym to grimace; she loved eggs, but couldn’t tolerate the texture of scrambled eggs - even the thought of the sponginess touching her hard palate made her feel nauseous once more.

Gale, ever observant, couldn't help but notice Nym's fidgeting as her gaze lingered on his scrambled eggs. "Not a fan of scrambled eggs, I gather?" he inquired, casting a thoughtful glance towards her, squinting against the sun's glare as he tended to his culinary creation. "No worries, my friend. These are for me, then. My apologies for not checking with you first."

Nym breathed a sigh of relief, feeling a wave of comfort wash over her. "I hope I'm not causing too much trouble," she murmured apologetically, averting her gaze.

"Not at all," Gale reassured her, his tone lightening. "I feel rather at home while tinkering with food over a flame. It's a bit of a relaxation ritual, one might say." With a flourish, he transferred the scrambled eggs onto a metal plate, seasoning them with herbs foraged from the surrounding woodlands and a pinch of salt. "And how do you take your eggs?"

At that moment, Nym found herself pleasantly surprised by Gale's genuine kindness. Despite their minimal interaction since the crash, save for a brief encounter on the beach and her lingering appreciation for the book-like scent that seemed to emanate from him, his considerate gesture touched her, and eased her previous worries.

Gale is safe, Nym thought, like a mantra in her mind. I am safe.

Nym smiled and exhaled before pursing her lips to the side in thought. “Would it be too much to ask for boiled eggs?”

“Not at all! Actually, I have a kettle of water that I had boiled for tea earlier, it will make the job quicker, you see.” Gale began organizing an iron pot over the fire, and pouring the hot water into it, followed by two eggs.

Nym had always thought Gale was handsome, but this act of service made her blush shamefully. It made her want to cover her face and scream, the way he went out of his way to make sure that she would eat. Gods - was Gale going to put a wrench in her plan? 

She felt some strange obligation, as if she was meant to be already devoted to Astarion - for Nym was nothing if not a woman of her word. She responded to the odd pang of guilt by methodically dispelling the physical sensation -  the unwanted thoughts dissipating as she shook them away, starting from her arms, through her hands, and finally to the very tips of her fingers.

If Gale noticed her shiver, he didn’t say anything.

Nym took a deep breath and finally began to comb her hair, careful not to rip or tug at her sensitive scalp. Her hair was coarse and black, with undertones of copper that only revealed themselves in the sunlight.

As Nym worked through her knots, her attention snapped to Astarion as he leisurely emerged from his tent, adorned in his freshly acquired leather armour. His physique still struck her, his broad chest, narrow hips, and sharp jawline a picture of perfection in her eyes.

Nym shot her head away from the pale elf and closed her eyes tightly, continuing to work away at her locs. Fuck, she thought. It wasn’t fair that her mind kept going there. She wanted both of them, and she felt like she was going mad at the thought of it. 

Yet, the memory of Astarion's distress, his tears, weighed heavily on her conscience. Caught between conflicting emotions, she felt trapped, uncertain of how to handle her overwhelming desires - or whether she should even address them at all.

Suddenly, a soft thud on the log beside her interrupted her thoughts.

“Hello, my sweet.”

Again with the pet names, Nym noted inwardly, feeling the familiar tug at her heartstrings. This man seemed to possess an uncanny ability to stir something within her, yet she remained resolute in not letting it show. With practiced ease, she slipped on her figurative mask as she finished combing her hair, causing it to poof out around her.

"Oh, hello Starry," she greeted, though her smile failed to reach her eyes.

Astarion cocked his head, regarding her with a quizzical expression.

Shit - he knows.

However, Astarion didn’t press further, and instead, he handed her a book - one of the books that she had nicked from the Dank Crypt: Wood Elves of the High Forest. 

“I thought we could do a bit of reading, keep our minds occupied.” Astarion smiled roguishly while Nym took the book from him.

 “How does a braid sound, Nym?” Shouted Shadowheart from across the camp, making her way towards their cohort.

Nym turned her head to Shadowheart. “Oh, hi! Good morning Shadowheart,” Nym beamed.

Nym entertained the idea of having a braid, imagining the pleasant feeling of keeping her hair from touching her dewy back amidst the sweltering heat. “Please - if you don’t mind,” she responded, nodding graciously with a smile.

Nym felt it odd to be pampered so, and she made a mental note to find a way to return the favour.

As Shadowheart positioned herself behind Nym, Nym passed her the comb, and Shadowheart retrieved a few hair ties from her pocket.

Nym opened her book, casually leafing through the pages and landing on a page about a quarter-ways through. While the Cleric uncomfortably tugged at her hair, she brought the open pages closer to Astarion.

She traced her fingers beneath the text, silently inviting Astarion to follow along.

“The wood elves, also known as Or-tel-quessir, descend from moon elves, wild elves, and sun elves who preferred woodland sanctuaries after the turmoil caused by the Crown War.”

“Wood elves are level-headed creatures, and arousing strong emotions from them would prove difficult.”

“Yeah, all except for me apparently,” Nym chuckled awkwardly. 

“Wood elves often exuded an air of aloofness in contrast to their Tel-quessir brethren, their rugged demeanour detracting from their charisma.”

“Wood elves, being culturally polyamorous, would find much friction in romantic relationships with High elves who have a reputation of being strictly monogamous. Many hypothesize that said relationships are destined for dissolution, leading to a scarcity of offspring between the two races.”

Nym pondered, her lips pursed in contemplation, the final paragraph stirring discomfort within her. A quick glance at Astarion revealed his furrowed brows, a subtle unease washing over her as she noticed his clear perturbation.

Halfway done with her braid, Shadowheart tilted Nym’s head to the side. “What’s this?” Asked the cleric, concern coating her tone.

Nym’s eyes widened wildly and she slapped a hand to her neck, remembering the scabby bite marks that she unfortunately forgot to treat with a healing potion before leaving Astarion’s tent this morning.

“Nothing,” said Nym. Her body tensed rigidly, breath catching in a sudden stillness.

“If I didn’t know any better, I would guess that you’d been bitten by a vampire with those two suspiciously placed puncture wounds right atop your jugular vein,” Shadowheart pressed.

Nym’s face began to turn red from the lack of oxygen, her eyes fixated on a pebble near the fire and her lips tightened into a thin line. 

There was no chance she'd break Astarion's trust by spilling the beans on his condition - even if that meant taking a vow of silence.

“He's a bloody vampire!” shouted Gale from across the fire, causing Nym’s eyes to snap up and scan the wizard who now stood staring daggers at Astarion.

“Vampire spawn, to be more accurate,” Astarion clarified, standing to match Gale’s fierce demeanour. Astarion quickly collected himself, sighing and opening his posture. “Look - I’m not going to hurt any of you, I swear.”

Nym’s vision was quickly becoming spotty with black and purple, and the last thing she heard before collapsing backwards and falling unconscious was a murmuring from Gale that was distorted by the ringing in her ears.

˚₊‧⁺˖✮•:•:•:•:•☾☼☽•:•.•:•.•✮˖⁺‧₊˚

“It’s probably the blood loss,” Gale protested.

“Gale, would you relax? You’re only going to distress her more; besides, her blood levels are completely normal.” Shadowheart held Nym’s head that had fallen back into her lap, her eyes slowly blinking back into lucidity.

“I second that notion - I too would appreciate the wizard’s silence,” Astarion said, kneeling next to Nym and placing a cool and soothing hand on her forehead.

As Nym stirred awake, her head lolled back, a warm smile gracing her lips as she locked eyes with Astarion, who leaned in with concern. She found herself nestled in Shadowheart's lap, the worry in their eyes melting into reassurance at her awakening.

Astarion brought his hand to her cheek, caressing it affectionately and stroking her cheek with his thumb. "Your dynamism definitely keeps things interesting, darling."

Nym felt slightly embarrassed in her current predicament, and she wasn’t sure whether or not she was permitted to speak on Astarion’s affliction yet. 

“Astarion - I,” Nym started. “May I?” 

She hoped that Astarion could infer what she was trying to communicate with the few words she spoke and the pleading look in her eyes. 

Astarion nodded at Nym. “I’ve already told them, so share what you wish - though I do thoroughly appreciate your burgeoning loyalty. It does wonders for my ego,” he said, smirking waggishly, still holding Nym’s cheek.

Nym gave a brisk nod and straightened up on the log, heels pressing into the earth as she rested her forearms on her knees. Taking a deep breath, she prepared to address their group, her half-complete updo falling slightly as she lowered her head.

She adjusted her posture, bringing her knees together in the hope that a more proper posture might inspire her teammates to take her more seriously.

“Astarion is a vampire spawn, but he won’t hurt us,” Nym assured them. “He and I - well - we have an agreement.”

“How long have you known, Nym?” Asked Shadowheart.

“Since the first night. . .” 

“And you didn’t think this was pertinent information to share with the rest of us?” Shadowheart prodded, her face screwed up.

Nym turned to see Shadowheart better, who sat on her knees behind her. 

“Well - no,” she scoffed. “He’s very well-mannered - and well-fed.” 

She pointed her nose to the sky snobbishly.

“Clearly,” Shadowheart remarked, shooting a piercing glare at Astarion.

Nym clenched her jaw tightly, remembering how guilty Astarion had initially felt about their little arrangement. 

He coughed a nervous laugh, saying, “Look - I'm here in the spirit of openness and honesty.” 

But Nym knew - despite the invisible wall he'd suddenly put up - that Astarion felt he was a burden; and she wouldn't stand for anyone guilting him for something he couldn't control.

Nym grunted, balling her white-knuckled fists. “Erg - you’d all better stop fighting about this. I told you, he won’t hurt us. I’m sure if he wanted to, he would’ve by now.” 

A smirk danced upon Astarion's lips at Nym's defence.

“Shadowheart,” Nym began, rising to confront the cleric, “you said it yourself; my blood levels are normal. What’s the issue with a couple of minuscule - and consensually inflicted wounds? Forgive me, but I’m failing to see the issue here.”

A moment of silence enveloped the group until Gale interjected. "She speaks the truth."

"What?" Shadowheart exclaimed, her confusion evident.

“We all have our burdens, one way or another,” Gale explained calmly.

A sardonic chuckle escaped Astarion. "And here I thought the wizard lacked insight. Well then - I stand corrected." He reclined, resting on his hands.

Nym looked over to Gale appreciatively, quietly huffing. She really thought Gale might’ve had it out for Astarion after the whole incident at the beach, but she was delightfully taken aback once again by his courtesy today and it caught her off guard.

In a way, Astarion’s snarky remark described precisely what she was thinking, too.

“Fine. As long as he keeps his fangs away from my neck, I suppose I can accept him,” Shadowheart stated, her scowl turning into a cheeky grin. “Besides, we need each other, and having a vampire spawn on our side doesn’t sound half-bad.”

Relief flooded Nym. Now that Astarion's secret was out in the open, he could use all of his weapons in battle, filling his belly even more. 

Many things about Astarion pointed toward a tortured past; from figuring out that he had never been full before, to the way his walls came up seemingly automatically at times, and even the distant look that periodically painted his face during their most recent coupling.

Nym yearned to understand him more intimately. Though she had few friends in the High Forest, she was well-acquainted with its cats; Astarion reminded her of a feral one. With feral cats, you begin by tossing them fish from a distance, gradually earning their trust until, one day, they begrudgingly accept the fish from your hand, convinced that it poses no threat.

Furthermore, if you were lucky enough, the cat might even come into your home and never want to leave once having a taste of true safety - away from the threat of potential predators.

Nevertheless, Nym was excited to watch Astarion fight whilst making use of his fangs and sanguine appetite.

She pondered what to say next, deciding on how a good leader might respond to all this. Perhaps something to boost morale. “You are all - very - er - good boys . . . and girl,” Nym stated clumsily.

The group fell into awkward silence, all eyes on Nym, who grinned nervously.

“Aha,” Astarion was the first to break the silence with high-pitched laughter. 

“Nymsy, my dear - I can’t tell if you broke the tension or made it worse - either way, we’d ought to set out for the day now that that’s sorted,” he said, standing to wipe the dirt from his hands with a handkerchief pulled from his pocket. 

What? Was that an insult or simply a jest? 

Nym didn’t respond as Astarion stood up and adjusted his weapons and Gale handed her a plate with two peeled and salted boiled eggs.

“You are also quite the good girl,” Gale uttered happily, his features relaxed, eyes searching for Nym’s.

Nym’s face flushed as she grabbed the plate, releasing a small “Thanks,” as her eyes trailed up to meet his.

Shadowheart scoffed. “Would you two get a room,” she complained, continuing her work on Nym’s braid.

A quiet thud could be heard coming from the treeline behind her, causing her to flinch and spin her head around.

It was Astarion, who had thrown one of his daggers at a tree and was about to throw another.

Is he mad? Was it something I did?

Nym realized that she had to eat her breakfast before she started feeling sick, assuming that she may have been the cause for Astarion’s negative shift in mood.

˚₊‧⁺˖✮•:•:•:•:•☾☼☽•:•.•:•.•✮˖⁺‧₊˚

The cloudy day dragged on, and Nym would’ve been lying if she hadn’t admitted to herself that she’d been periodically choked up throughout it. At times, she’d found it difficult to focus on the tasks at hand, including during a battle with two tieflings who had captured their gith friend. 

One of the tieflings had smashed the pommel of their blade into the side of Nym’s forehead, causing her to bleed and lose her balance. Her blood dripped rapidly into her eye, filling her sclera with a red fog and muddying her vision.

Astarion swiftly stabbed through the tiefling’s throat before proceeding to raise his voice at Nym. “Get up, damn you!” He yelled while Gale took care of the other tiefling.

She hadn’t even realized that she had fallen to her hands and knees until Shadowheart was above her healing her. 

She felt utterly useless - yet, as she stood at the helm of her motley crew, she couldn't shake the lingering doubt that gnawed at her core like a relentless predator. 

What could she possibly offer that they couldn't procure with greater finesse? In the symphony of her insecurities, the discordant notes of self-doubt played on, a haunting melody that echoed through the corridors of her mind.

I’ll never be good enough - 

“It seems she’s had quite enough,” Gale interjected, rescuing her from the abyss of negativity once more.

“Tchk - if this leader can’t even face two tieflings, how do we expect her to help us in any other manner?” Lae'zel's words cut through the air, sharp and direct.

"Hah! Spare me," Astarion scoffed, "The one who ended up caught and caged by those tieflings has the gall to lecture us about leadership, while our own leader risks life and limb to save your ungrateful hide."

So he’s not mad at me? Then what’s going on with him? Nym wondered.

"One should refrain from casting stones while dwelling in glass abodes, as the saying goes," Gale quipped seriously.

Shadowheart rolled her eyes. “This is why I suggested that we leave the gith to her fate,” she stated, still kneeling beside Nym.

Nym couldn’t fathom why Astarion, Gale, and Shadowheart were all on her side in this issue, especially after she’d shamefully fallen in battle.

“She’s right, in part. You all deserve better,” Nym conceded, her voice trembling slightly with emotion. “I will try to do better, in future. I’m sorry.” 

Though her voice wavered, she knew acknowledging her shortcomings might help diffuse the tension and ease the harshness directed towards Lae'zel, whose prowess in battle aboard the nautiloid hinted at her potential in future conflicts. 

She also hoped that her statement didn’t come off as too self-loathing, because she knew that too, would be burdensome.

Thankfully, her speech quelled the impending conflict for the time being, and Lae'zel made way to camp as the rest of their group continued to the grove once again in search of answers to their tadpole problem.

˚₊‧⁺˖✮•:•:•:•:•☾☼☽•:•.•:•.•✮˖⁺‧₊˚

The clouds had cleared by the time they reached the grove. This time, they made note to speak to every vendor before continuing on.

Astarion managed to steal quite a few arrows, and other items that were more easily accessible to take while Nym distracted the sellers by making conversation and purchasing the items that were too risky to nick.

She was able to acquire three more scrolls of Lesser Restoration for her “project” with Astarion through the vendors.

Nym knew that she should gather a couple more scrolls, just to be safe. She tried to hide the scrolls in her pack before Shadowheart or Gale were to notice; the fewer questions asked the better.

One of the vendors, Ethel, stood out among the crowd, an elderly woman with a weathered visage. Without much consideration, Nym divulged everything about their parasitic affliction, much to Astarion's evident amusement.

However, the reaction from the rest of the group was less jovial, their disapproval clear.

“I suppose we didn’t learn our lesson the first time around? Shadoheart interjected with a tight-lipped expression.

“To give grace, Nettie was trying to kill Nym,” Gale interjected dismissively. "But we must exercise more caution about our condition - something was. . . unsettling about that woman."

“She seemed positively demented, I’m just curious to see how this unfolds,” said Astarion with a cheeky grin.

“You’re something of a free spirit, I think, Astarion,” said Nym, nodding curtly and heading toward their next destination.

Astarion fastened his pack and walked behind her as the rest of the group followed suit. “It takes one to know one, darling,” he said, catching up with her and flashing a wink in her direction.

Nym stifled a giggle, acknowledging the camaraderie they shared.

Except for moments when he was upset with me, Nym thought, still reflecting on her day critically. 

Nonetheless, in the event of a confrontation, the four of them could easily manage an encounter with a single elderly woman - of that much, Nym was sure.

˚₊‧⁺˖✮•:•:•:•:•☾☼☽•:•.•:•.•✮˖⁺‧₊˚

The horizon had all but snuffed the sun’s light, and Nym was elated to have found a total of five scrolls of Lesser Restoration during today’s journey.

She and Astarion sat across from one another in his tent, as Nym excitedly organized all five scrolls between them.

“There,” she said, hovering her hands over the scrolls. “Five will be enough I think.”

Astarion’s eyes and mouth fell wide open, his words seemingly caught in his throat. “You’re - serious about this?”

“Yup! I believe that the results of this experiment will become fundamental knowledge for you, and possibly other spawn, depending on where our lives take us.” Nym paused. “I mean - where your life takes you.” 

Astarion’s expression rapidly morphed into a composed, devilish grin. Crawling towards Nym, he positioned his lips near her ear and snaked his hand up and under the back of her shirt, splaying his fingers possessively. “This is quite the gift - darling,” he murmured, his voice resonating at a low timbre that sent a chill down Nym’s spine and his breath tickling her lobe.

Astarion nipped at her ear, coaxing quiet moans from her throat as she began to melt in his gentle grasp.

Astarion sat back on his knees, the sudden loss of contact making Nym droop, unbidden. As usual, even the slightest physical affection caused her eyes to become heavy with desire.

Astarion neatly placed the scrolls off to the side of their bedrolls. “You’re sure you want this,” asked Astarion, offering her one last chance to withdraw. 

“Huh?” Nym replied, snapping out of her reverie. Nym then scrunched her eyes shut and nodded enthusiastically. “Of course! For the pursuit of knowledge.” 

She beamed. “Er - and if you want to use all of my body while drinking from me, I am - of course - impartial.” She gazed away, avoiding eye contact as a warm blush crept up on her cheeks.

“Just impartial?” Astarion cooed, wrapping his hand around the back of Nym’s head and gently lowering her onto the bedroll. His eyes roamed over her face, finally settling on her lips with a composed precision that seemed almost too controlled, as if savouring the moment with deliberate care.

Astarion crashed his lips into hers fervently, seeking entrance with his tongue and eliciting whines from Nym.

Nym reciprocated, closing her eyes and letting Astarion take control of her mouth as he climbed between her legs, gripping her waist.

He continued to massage her exposed waistline tenderly while placing chaste kisses in a line from her cheek, to her jaw, and then her throat where he would begin to suck her tender flesh into his lips without drawing blood.

Nym felt him holding back, reminding her why she felt so incredibly safe around him. She didn’t want to impose her desires, but her knees came up and her hips tilted upwards, unbidden.

Astarion groaned into her neck, his mouth disconnecting with a pop as his hips rocked into her warm core. His hand journeyed south, teasing just beneath the waistline of her pants.

“You seem more than impartial,” Astarion groaned with a sweat forming on his brow, becoming breathless.

It was true that Nym desired more, and she knew that if his hand were to travel any lower, he would find her weeping quim as evidence of that. 

However, Nym felt Astarion’s hardness as he rutted against her, and she could tell how painfully tight his strays must be.

She witnessed the desperation of the handsome elf lying between her legs, noticing how he carefully avoided letting his hands wander too far. It intrigued her that a vampire spawn of two hundred years - finally free in a myriad of ways; to bask in the sun, darken doorways unbidden, and bed whomever he wished - displayed such restraint when it came to intimacy, seemingly valuing her word a great deal; or at least a great deal more than most of her previous partners who would’ve surely plunged their fingers into her nethers - and elsewhere - by now.

“Just admit it, my dear. You wish to feel me inside you - don’t you?” Astarion whispered, nearly moaning the last words as his fingers softly nudged below her belly and his hair grazed the side of her face.

The idea of retorting with “But you want me, too,” crossed her mind, but she was unsure how those words would sit with him.

Opting to protect his pride, Nym gave in with a “Yes,” and a, “please - I want you.”

Astarion took to her response by swiftly pulling his shirt over his head, before closing in on Nym’s lips with a hasty smooch. 

He stood to remove his pants and his length sprang free, its tip glistening with seed already. 

In the meanwhile, Nym removed her loose top and baggy pants with a flourish, readying herself for what she knew was to come.

“How do you want me?” Nym asked considerately, coming up on her elbows.

Astarion loomed over her and gestured his hand over her body. “You’re perfect right there, my love. I want to see that pretty face of yours when I. . .” He paused, breathing deeply, “unravel you.”

He descended on Nym, kissing her all over and inserting two digits into her entrance, palming her clit with practiced ease. Astarion made a satisfied sound when he felt how wet Nym was, and Nym gritted her teeth to try and stifle her cries while he brought his teeth to her breast, taking her mound into his maw.

He ran his tongue along her pebble and curved his fingers into her hole, pumping languidly. His teeth punctured the flesh on her breast and he began to suck vehemently, his voracious sounds sending vibrations through her body.

Just as she began to quiver around him, he lifted from her bosom, watching as her jaw slackened. He stroked her inner walls, prioritizing the tight circles he was creating with his palm on her nub.

He looked at her with an intense crimson gaze, his usually tamed hair clinging to his forehead. Astarion’s mouth was stained with her ichor, making him appear feral and wild - two things she typically thought him to be the antithesis of.

Nym was panting, completely lost in his touch and trembling wantonly. 

Amidst the haze, she reached for his face and cupped his cheek in a lover's gesture. When her palm made contact with his face, his expression relaxed and he placed a sweet kiss on her wrist.

His hand sped up, coaxing more cries from Nym. Her orgasm crested and Astarion adorned a satisfied smile, watching Nym’s hand fall limply to her side.

Nym lay panting and twitching transiently while Astarion removed his fingers only to insert them into his mouth. His eyelashes fluttered closed as he cleaned his digits, humming around them. 

He freed his mouth of his hand, a string of saliva connecting them for a moment. “Delicious,” he purred.

“The night has only just begun - and I have other means of making you come undone,” Astarion cooed, leaning into Nym’s ear once again. “And other things I’d like to make you cum on - if that’s quite alright with you.” His voice bore a deep husky tone that nearly made Nym faint once more.

Unusual for Nym during intimacy, she found herself unable to speak. She could all but ogle pleading eyes up at Astarion, his chest muscles rippling with each adjustment under the candlelight.

Astarion positioned himself between Nym’s thighs, kissing her face all over and thrusting teasingly between her folds, an affection that made Nym’s heart flutter. She had so many sexual partners in the past; she had slept with some women, and almost every man her age in her village, many partners of hers falling between or outside the binary of “man” or “woman”. Despite having been made to cum by so many peers, and even having been cleaned up for after trysts, never had she felt this continuous connection and admiration from someone that she shared a bed with.

It felt right - which in turn made something within her scream and tear away at her walls of self. She felt an immediate urge to snuff the screaming, to smother it into silence; but as Astarion thrust inside her at last, the proverbial screaming increased to a fever pitch. 

Astarion pulled his face from Nym, who had started sobbing with a trembling lower lip. He immediately stilled. Panicked, his eyes were round and his brows canted up. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his tone low and serious.

Nym brought her forearms to cover her eyes and swipe the tears away. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that she had to ruin this moment with Astarion because her brain concluded the ludicrous notion that she’d only been a warm body to everyone.

They liked me,

They finally liked me . . .

They wanted me around.

But no matter how many times Nym tried to reaffirm her counterfeit beliefs, the truth was ripping and tearing a gaping hole into her fermented soul.

Before she could think better of it, the words slipped from her lips, “Do you like me?” 

She trembled, removing her arms from her tear-riddled eyes.

Astarion looked upon Nym, his lips parted and his hardness still seated deep within her. “I - yes, Nym.”

“But am I . . . more than just a warm body for you?” Nym asked. She felt she already knew the answer if she were being honest with herself, but she just wanted to hear it come from him.

Astarion paused for a moment, blinking at her in stunned silence. His face changed into something pained before he settled himself on his elbows, his face mere centimetres from Nyms. 

“So much more,” he stated firmly.

“Are we . . . friends?” Nym said in a whisper, her wet brown eyes boring into Astarion’s crimson stare.

“At the least,” was the last thing Astarion said before diving for her mouth in a possessive kiss. 

Nym’s lips matched his with passion, unlike any other time they had kissed before. She brought her arms around his back and pulled him close to her. Nym felt ridged scar-like bumps on his back with her fingers, and she massaged his skin delicately. 

She pulled away from the kiss to breathe, as her nose was slightly stuffy from crying.

Astarion gazed at her adoringly while she caught her breath and then pulled her up onto him as he sat back on his heels, her knees resting on either side of him as he held her body close, still filled with his length.

The shifting in positions stirred Astarion within her slightly, causing her to clench around him, her breath picking up pace as she became accustomed to her new placement upon his lap.

His arms wrapped under hers, holding her close. Simultaneously, she encapsulated him, softly tracing along the scars on his back with her fingertips.

“Do you wish to stop?” asked Astarion.

Nym’s lower lip came out in a pout. She didn’t want to stop, she just wanted to feel better - to know that the person she was making love to wanted her for more than -

. . .

Her mind turned to fog, her memories swirling away like a colourful chemical oil spill in mud as she lolled her head forward, inhaling the scent of bergamot and rosemary.

“It won’t change anything between us, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Astarion reassured.

Nym felt oddly calm, aware of what she had just experienced yet unable to fully grasp her peculiar recollections and fragmented emotions.

“No - I want you, “ Nym pleaded, “don’t stop.” 

She couldn’t entirely fathom it, but somehow she felt seen by him; almost as if he understood her paroxysm just now on a deeper or more personal level.

Ultimately, Nym wanted to feel better, and in that moment the way Astarion’s body connected with hers simply felt right.

It seemed he needed no further reassurance, as his hands trailed down to Nym’s bottom, lifting her before dropping her back down on his length prudently.

Nym carded her fingers through his curls while she began moving in rhythm with Astarion, his shaft reaching into her deeply. 

She exhaled a breathy sigh, holding onto his shoulders for balance while she rode him, the subtle and typically imperceptible stubble on his face grazing her on the skin near her collarbone.

His breath came ragged before he fell back, calculatedly pulling Nym with him.

Nym searched for his lips and she pressed them with hers firmly while he brushed his fingers in her hair and then guided her head to the side, disconnecting their lips and exposing her neck to him.

The way his fangs grazed her throat made her shiver, all while Astarion’s pace slowed with one hand in her hair and the other grasping her hip.

His teeth punctured her tender flesh, and his arm that wasn’t in her hair hooked around both of her upper limbs as well as the small of her back, fastening her to him. 

Once he was fully latched onto her, she could feel him sucking and groaning into her neck, his sighs vibrating his entire chest and reverberating through Nym.

Astarion held her taut, using his position to piston into her with great abandon while taking long sips of her lifeblood. 

The initial pain of his bite always faded quickly, turning into something pleasant within just a few seconds. Nym felt Astarion grow harder and larger as he drank from her; this always happened when he supped while they were intimate. Not only that; his flesh grew tepid, and sometimes even warm against her.

How his already large member grew even larger inside her made the pleasure nigh unbearable, as she could feel his cock making contact with every inch of her walls come every thrust.

She was so close again, and as if he could taste it, he removed his fingers from her hair and snuck them to her clit, halting his gulps while he expertly readjusted but not unsheathing his fangs.

A few strokes of her bud sent her crashing into her second orgasm and milking Astarion with her core.

Astarion seemed to follow her thereafter as he removed his hand from her pearl and bottomed out, fully thrusting into Nym and holding her tightly against his hard ivory chest. 

Breathless, Nym could feel herself being filled with his seed, the affection in his grasp and the blood loss causing her to feel weak.

With a grumble, Astarion replaced his possessive latch with the warm and soothing flat of his tongue, followed by his lips which kissed her tenderly. 

Nym, recalling their plans for their experiment, perked up with the little energy she had left, “Why did you stop drinking - what about our experiment?”

Astarion sighed, his head falling back to the bedroll. He looked somewhat frenzied with blood coating his chin. He thrust into her once more, a sigh catching in his throat. “Not tonight.” He massaged her scalp and loosened his grip on her torso. “Just - stay with me, tonight.”

Nym’s heart skipped a beat at his words, and she wondered if he heard it; she hoped he did. Nym knew not if Astarion desired to put off their experiment and have a simple night for his own sake or for Nym’s. Perhaps it was for both of them, but it was a gesture that she didn’t expect and it made her stomach flutter with delight.

This time, the aftercare felt tired, and something about it felt more genuine. When they rested, they held one another closer than ever before, as if keeping something big and scary from taking one another away.

Nym caressed the large protruding scars on his back, and only hoped that someday he would feel comfortable enough to talk about them. Until then, she would simply hold space, just as he’d done for her tonight - a gesture she was wholly grateful for.

Chapter 6>>

˚₊‧⁺˖✮•:•:•:•:•☾☼☽•:•.•:•.•✮˖⁺‧₊˚

The plot thickens o_o

and apparently so does Astarion

I hope you are all enjoying my nerdy lore dump, I honestly have been loving doing research and getting to share my findings with you in such a fun and engaging way! <3 love you!

Illustration of Nym by me:

[the-kr8tor]

On These Metal Tracks I Lay Myself Bare

Pairing: Cowboy! Hobie Brown x fem! Reader

Word count: 6.5k

Tags: Use of Y/N sparsely, no specific physical description of the reader, CW food mention, CW guns, TW violence, CW injury, Cowboy AU, wild west AU.

Our Place in the Middle of Nowhere Masterlist

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CHAPTER 5 >>> CHAPTER 6

The train station is packed with people, all finely dressed, waiting along the tracks, their luggages weighing heavy in their hands. The place smells of iron and steel, sweat soaked wood and rough leather. Your eyes wander around the station, domed ceilings loom above, carvings of horses and birds decorate the chestnut wood. Sunlight filters through the cracks, rays of light acting as a spotlight to the ornate building. It's a busier train station than the town you were in, the city you've stopped in is huge in comparison to the little towns you've passed by. The station is full of ticketing booths, lines stretching a few feet away that are full of impatient passengers. You look across the train tracks, seeing parents chastising their children, hearing hurried murmurs from husbands, holding their wives’ hands even though the luggage in their hand slows them down. You look at Hobie's gloved hand that's resting upon the ticket booth, you stare at it longingly, eyes getting glossy by the minute.

He's taking you home, and just like back home, you have no say in it.

A train whistle echoes, a signal of its metallic arrival. Its steel body creaks as it stops, its copper inlay is slowly turning green, and there's rust around the wheels. Soon, the station fills with smoke, dark tar belching smoke that sticks to your lungs as you cough. You feel a warm hand on your back, in a second you look back, the warmth is gone.

“You alright?” Hobie asks, lighting up a cigarette in-between his lips.

“It's the smoke,” you say, scratching at your throat that he cannot keep looking at for the scar in his neck throbs at the memory from the mundane act.

“Alright,” without a second thought, he takes his freshly lit cigarette from his mouth and then flicks it away from you, embers fly off in the distance just before it lands on the dirt outside.

You feel like the golden light in the summer. “I was talking about the coal smoke from the train. But that works too, thank you.”

He scoffs, a small smile ghosting over his lips. “Right, didn't do it for you, I did it for myself. Heard it kills people y'know.” Nudging you, he doesn't expect for you to shuffle away. Blinking, he avoids your eyes, “that's our train, it's an overnight one so we can rest in our cabin.” He tugs you in by the sleeve of your coat that's tucked in between his middle and forefinger, guiding you towards the waiting doors.

“That's good.” You follow, eyes trained on his back lest you get lost.

As much as you don't want to go home, you still don't want to leave him despite your mind telling you to forget about him and just leave on Cherry and wander around the west like a tumbleweed caught in the wind. You'd probably last a week.

Hobie stops by the doors, waiting in line with the other passengers. You flick your eyes downwards, his fingers wrapped around your sleeve, not taut, just holding you close to him as the crowd grows. So close to your own hands, yet so far from your heart.

“Tickets?” The man clad in a blue uniform asks, Hobie shows the pink papers and the man nods.

You enter the train car, it's a cute little thing filled with blue velvet curtains with golden tassels, and carpeted floors that run towards the end of the car. On your left are filled with little cabins, with clear windows that you can see through inside. It's big enough for at least four people, five if possible, though it would be a tight fit. The hallway is already small enough that only two people could walk side by side, you'd like to walk side by side with him, unlike now that you walk behind him, behind his shadow that gathers around you like dandelions in the spring.

“This is us,” he stops at cabin number three, opening the door with a creak, he leans away to let you enter first. Closing the door behind him, he pulls down all the curtains so that wandering eyes can't watch your every move. It's bad enough that there's a bounty on both of your heads, you don't want gossiping passengers peering inside.

There are four collapsible beds on each wall, all held by golden ropes, bed sheets in rich red cloth, pillows fluffed to perfection and blankets neatly folded. Hobie scooches in between you and the beds to close the top bunks so that there's more space for his tall frame. He has taken his hat off not for politeness but if he wore it inside it'll be squished by the low ceiling. Then there's the large window that sits across the door, before you could take note of the people outside, Hobie shuts the curtains close.

“What do you think?” He asks, taking his jacket off with a flourish. “It's not even close to the ones back home but it'll do for now. We'll be train hopping to get our scents off the lawmen.”

“It's nice— wait, train hopping?” You sit down on one of the beds, the mattress is surprisingly soft under you. “Please don't tell me we'll be jumping from train roof to train roof.”

Hobie chuckles, copying your actions, sitting across from you. Back resting against the wall, comfortably slouching. “Think you can handle it?”

“God, no.” You can't help but rest your tired head upon the goose feather pillow.

“Good, because we're not doin' that, love.” Again, he copies you. Arms tucked under his head, eyes above the ornate ceiling. “We’re not gettin' off at the last station, so we'll be ridin’ with Buck and Cherry for a bit and then to another train station. Confuse the wankers with our brilliant wiles.”

You lift your head off the pillow, and in turn, Hobie turns his head to look at you. “Wait, what about the horses?”

“They'll follow the train.” He smiles.

“Follow? Like they have our scents?” Hobie laughs, not teasingly, no, it's full of endearment, chuckling softly, but it flies over your head.

“Don't laugh. It's a genuine question.” You roll your eyes with slight amusement.

“They're in the back carriage,” he tamps down his laugh but his smile stays.

After that silence prevails in your cabin as the train slowly chugs on, sharp whistles piercing your eardrums, and the hum of machinery bringing you back home. You want to speak to him, to finally tell him of all your concerns about going home, going back to them. But most of all, you want him to speak to you about everything, to tell you how he was faring for the last five years, and how he became such a terrifying figure to outlaws. You want him to just…talk, and make up for lost time. You gather the courage, but just as you were about to speak, he no longer lies across from you. Hobie is sitting on the bed, body facing the door, hands busy with oiling his guns.

“Hobie…I—”

“What is it?” He flicks his eyes briefly to you, his tone was sharp, but he didn't mean it, blaming it for his own worries and fatigue. He'd say something about it but you're already facing away from him. Back turned, blanket shielding you from him.

“Nevermind,” you mumble into the covers, falling into a deep slumber where the conversation happened in your dreams.

This goes on for three days, hopping from train to train, from busy cities to dead empty towns. You barely speak, talking only when Hobie asks you something. It's like you're back at that empty mansion, with only the plants to talk to.

Hobie silently hates it, he doesn't know what to make out any of it. You seem hungry so he gives you a can of strawberries, you look tired so he lets you sleep without him saying a word. When goosebumps appear on your arms he gives you a blanket, when you're nervous, lips bitten until it's bleeding, he leaves you alone to calm yourself down. None of it works, he misses your chatter that has kept him sane the entire journey. The silence gives him time to think though, a situation that he despises since nothing good has come out of all the thinking.

—

The rest of the journey goes without a hitch, except for that one bit where Bucky was stolen by an outlaw while you and Hobie were buying train tickets. You panic while he sits and waits. People look at you like you were a mad woman pacing back and forth, hand petting Cherry, voice whispering your thoughts to the poor hitched horse. And Hobie just…stares. After what seemed like forever, or fifteen minutes, Bucky returns, riderless, still has his saddle on his back, and seemingly chipper. Turns out, Hobie trained Buckeye to throw off would-be thieves, and this time, Bucky found a convenient ledge to throw this particular man off. You and Hobie quickly ushered both horses into the back just in case a sheriff comes looking for a murderous horse.

You've been seeing a few familiar faces in the crowd of travelers, the same children that's tugging at their father's coat, the same old couple that helps each other up on the platforms. Some have taken notice of you too, to which you smile politely at them while they wave kindly at you.

—

It's another warm humid day, another train to ride in. You don't bother to look at the interior this time, only deciding to sit on the cushy seat you were assigned to, sliding inside the booth, eyes already staring longingly at the outside world. Hobie once again tries to speak about something— anything to try to get you to finally speak your mind, but his rapid pulse tells him otherwise. So he clamps his mouth shut, deciding to sit across from you instead of sitting next to you like he wanted to.

He feels eyes on his form as he picks mud off his spurs, raising his head, he comes face to face with a freckled child staring at him curiously with her big blue eyes. Her tiny hands are curled around a teddy bear, her fiery red hair is tied into a neat ponytail. You notice her a second later, smiling softly at the child.

“Hello,” you greet kindly, and the girl scampers back to her family's seat, hiding her blushing face behind her mother's skirt.

“Sorry about that.” Her mother apologizes, round pregnant belly prominent as she tries to coax her daughter out. “This is Clementine, she's a bit shy.”

“That's alright,” you speak on behalf of Hobie. “Hi, Clementine, my name's Y/N, and this is my companion, Hobie.” The second your eyes meet his own, Hobie's breath gets stuck in his throat.

“Say hello, Clem, be polite.” The girl's father playfully pokes her side. Blue eyes hidden behind rounded glasses.

“Hi,” she says in a small voice, giggling when she looks back at Hobie.

“I think she has a crush on your husband.” Clementine's mother chuckles, patting her daughter's back for a job well done.

“My husband?” Panic sets in your chest until you see her gesturing towards Hobie. “Oh,” you chuckle shakily, fists bunched around your trousers.

Hobie notices, he doesn't say anything about it. He takes your reaction as something else, so to keep your embarrassment at bay, he tells the couple otherwise. “Not her husband. Just escortin’ her.”

The air becomes awkward. “Oh,” the mother rubs her belly, smiling gently. “Sorry, you two just look like a good pair.”

Her husband taps her shoe with his. “Just like us, eh, sweetheart?” The wife shakes her head with a bashful smile, bringing a grin to the man's lips. You start to think that this is what marriage is supposed to be. Caring, loving, clinging onto each other in the best way that doesn't stifle or choke, just love in its most natural form. It's unlike any marriages you've seen and experienced back home. “So where are you folks off to? I'm guessing south? We've been seeing you two around since Valentine, it's nice to have some company during the journey don't you think?”

Hobie doesn't sense malicious intent from the parents. “Sure, whatever you say, mate.”

“You're not from around here aren't you?” The little girl listens to the conversation, head moving from side to side whenever someone speaks. “That's alright,” she laughs softly, rummaging for something in her bag. Hobie has his thumb pressed along the side of his gun. “I can tell you'll be good neighbors,” she hands you a small jar of honey, it's bright yellow and clear, you wish you had some tea to go with it. Hobie breathes a sigh of relief. “Here you go!”

“Oh no thank you, we can't possibly take it.”

“Please do.” The husband says, “we used to have a colony of bees, but we had to sell them all before we moved.”

“We have dozens of unsold honey, we're honestly just looking to get rid of it before we get to our destination. They're heavy, y'know.” His wife finishes for him. “Clem, can you give it to sweet Y/N for me?”

“That's so kind of you.” You smile, nodding. “You're moving to the south?”

“Okay.” She happily takes it, walking across the aisle to you and Hobie. Unsurprisingly, she gives it to Hobie instead of you. “Here you go.” She copies her mother.

Hobie takes the jar with trepidation. “Thank you?”

You quiet down a laugh while Clementine’s parents guffaw across you.

“Oh she's in love.” The mother says, arms raised to embrace her daughter who welcomes her touch. You can't help but feel a pang in your heart at her love for her child. “And yes we're going to be living there with my in-laws. Rent has gone too high in the west, y'know.” You nod along, making friendly conversation.

“Wish I had tea,” you hear Hobie mumble. You smile softly at his words.

—

It's been a couple of more trains, and more smoke in your lungs, you start to feel like your hands are starting to smell like the steel that you now know as your temporary home. The scenery outside your window has changed. From grassy dusty plains of tumbleweeds and windmills to rolling mountains that rise up high with large looming trees that shield you from the sun. Soon your view will be full of the southern charm, but you don't look forward to it, being there means that you're closer to getting back to the place you dread.

You've grown quite close to Clementine and her little family, even the other familiar passengers that are heading the same way as you are quite fond of you as well. You eat breakfast with them, have afternoon tea, and have even introduced Cherry and Bucky to the children. They've lovingly named them both ‘horsies,’ to which you'd always giggle at.

Clementine has latched onto you, you teach her about plants and flowers, and have her draw them for you just like you've sweetly described it to her. But when Hobie's near, she opts to be his shadow for the time being, following him everywhere until her mother calls her back. Hobie is half annoyed that he can't find the time to speak to you, but he's glad that there's someone as a mediator between the two of you or he'll start vomiting out words that may or may not make the situation worse.

Your back aches at the lumpy mattress that you've unfortunately landed into. You can't help but give up the assigned cabin for you and Hobie to Clementine and her family since the beds are much more comfortable in that cabin. So you offered to exchange it, citing that the mother, Florence, you've come to know, needs it more because of the growing baby in her. She gratefully gave you another jar of honey for your sacrifice.

Hobie enters the booth, heavy boots thumping against darkened wood, spurs clicking, footsteps rolling along like a thick heavy fog of loneliness.

“Where were you?” He asks even though he's afraid that he'd be overbearing. His worries win over him.

You grip the spine of the borrowed book, knuckles tightening, eyes drawn downwards to the written word that spells out ‘grief.’ “I visited Cherry, I don't want her to be lonely.” You barely look at him.

Hobie flexes his hands not out of anger, no, out of fear of losing you, this time, just like the last time he did, he doesn't know why or how he could even lose you. He sits down across from you, bed creaking from his weight. He tries to play as the nonchalant cowboy like he always had for the past five years.

“Clementine was lookin' for you.” *I was looking for you. “Cherry won't be lonely, she has Bucky with her.”

“Bucky hasn't been much help when all he does is look at her. Not much of a conversationalist.” You flick your eyes over to him, flashes of anger and hopelessness are melted into your irises.

“Maybe Bucky just doesn't have the words.”

“And maybe Cherry just wants to talk to him.”

“That fuckin’ horse,” he laughs, you don't find the humour in his words. But he clearly does. Your anger flies over his head. “that horse is already worth half of your bounty.” His words are a sharp sting in your arteries. “If she actually speaks she'll be worth it.”

“And what if she doesn't? That she's not worth your damned money?” You toss the book aside. Anger seeping out of your pores. “You'll sell her after you bring me in to my aunt?” Your voice breaks, and you hate yourself for it. “Am I just that to you? A bounty?” The dam breaks, and everything you've kept to yourself bursts open.

“That's not—” The heart that he has sewn together breaks at the seams.

You abruptly stand up, tears pricking your eyes. Inhaling, you stare down the man you love. The only man you've ever loved. “You are not what I hoped to find when I escaped on that ship.”

Before he could say something, anything, you disappeared into another train car, and amidst the metallic halls.

—

Another grueling day, another steel cage to get into. The train whistles as it comes to a stop, you've grown acclimated to the smell of burning coal, you let it coat your lungs as you enter the train with Hobie silently trailing after you.

Your eyes are glossed over, red and swollen from the sobs you've let out over the course of the last sixteen hours. Hobie hasn't talked to you since then, always looking at your back, face unreadable. You pass by familiar faces, you don't acknowledge them. You're tired, bones aching, muscles twitching from lack of sleep and water. Head thrumming, you enter your designated cabin like a doe who has lost its way.

There's a sinkhole underneath your feet, slowly it eats at you, up to your shins and up your thighs, coating your flesh in mud and dirt. You don't tug at him anymore, the small ember of hope in your chest has diminished, instead, you let the ground swallow you whole— letting it suffocate you, letting it drown your lungs in soil.

Just like he did on the first train ride, there's four beds on each wall, but instead of an empty space in the middle, there's a little foldable table. You close the top bunks and lay down on one of the bottom ones, head heavy against the soft pillow. You feel his presence behind you, and then a cool steel atop your bicep. You flinch away, thinking it was a barrel of a gun.

“I figured you're thirsty.” He says, hand hovering above your shoulder in an attempt to calm you down. The train whistle rings out, and the engine whirrs and starts up as more smoke bellows outside your window.

You take the flask, sitting up to take a drink. He sits across from you, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped in front of him.

Hobie sees the glow of your ring, he instinctively brings his hand up to his own that has made its home around his neck; hidden behind his clothes, finding comfort in its gilded form, the closest thing he can get to you.

“Why do you still hold on to me? After all these years?” He asks, eyes swirling with unknown emotion.

“Why did you let me go?” You answer, and that was the end of the conversation. Then it hits you, he truly doesn't love you anymore.

—

Night comes, and with it your sadness comes flooding through you, getting in the corners, slithering around every crevice— it has memorized your form and made it its home.

Weirdly enough, Hobie hasn't left the cabin, his lingering presence doesn't stifle you, unlike the man back at home who watches you with piercing glares. Even with your fury, your mind still finds comfort in Hobie.

He hears your almost silent cry, he wants to hold on to you, to brush his palms on your cheeks, to wipe away the tears and press his lips against your own. But he can't, or you'll think that he didn't mean it, that he only did it to make you calm down. It would be a cheap satisfaction for the both of you.

“I didn't let you go, I had to go.” He suddenly says above the quiet cutting of an apple in his hand, leaving pieces of it on your side just in case you want it. His voice doesn't waver, perhaps he has been saying the exact words to you in his mind for the past five years. You still have your back turned facing him as the deep rumble of the train goes on. “I was young and stupid. I was forced—”

You suddenly turn towards him, sitting up on the lumpy mattress. “And I was young and stupid too, yet I knew in my heart that running away with you wasn't foolish. Was it stupid to you? Escaping with me? That you'd rather run away, alone, to another country than be with me?” The memory of a young you waiting for him with your luggage in your grip has you seething.

Hobie matches your anger, hunting knife pausing on the red apple. “Did you hear what I said?” He angrily skins the fruit, slicing and dicing at its flesh. “You have no idea what I've done to survive. I have endured a lot to be where I am now—”

“And what of what I endured?!” You stand up, taking your bag, rummaging through it. “I'm truly sorry for whatever happened to you— but how could I apologize for something that I don't even know?” You toss the letters on the desk after struggling to take it out of the bag. “There! The letters that were sent back to me because I had no idea where you would be! Read them, and you'll know of the things I've endured. Unlike you who would rather look at me with contempt than tell me why I deserve that horrid gaze.” You gasp for air, he lets you speak, his own anger dissipating, fear once again encompasses him. “I thought you were dead, everyone kept telling me you were, but I didn't believe them. It's been years, my hands are raw from— I mourned you.” You pause, watching your golden ring glow in the lampshade. “Do you know how much that hurt? To start to believe their words? To lose hope? I didn't know where you were but you knew where I was and yet, not a single fucking letter went my way.”

Hobie stares at the letters spilled all over the table, apple juice seeping into the yellowed paper. He takes one, the oldest looking one that has its edges burned. Breaking the wax seal, he reads as he listens to your words coated in venom and grief.

“One letter, Hobie, and I would've understood. Then I wouldn't have come after you if you just told me you didn't want to be with me anymore.” You nod, “and now you're bringing me home, to the same people who would rather keep me locked up and tell me lies. I don't know how your letter got in my possession, but now I know that you didn't mean anything you wrote in it.” For five years you've asked yourself, ‘was it me?’ ‘Was I the reason you left?’ you never got the answer to your question, so now you ask him finally. “Was it me?”

Hobie raises his head to look upon your sorrow, his hand shakes at the act they've done to you the second he escaped. He had thought they'd leave you alone, that they'd finally let you go once he was gone and forgotten; but he never thought it would get worse, the hurtful words and slaps on the wrists were nothing compared to what they've done after that night he was almost buried alive— the night you tried to escape with him. His mind draws the scene, blood coating your knees, your pained cry as your aunt jabs your hands with the tip of a fountain pen. And then her words of hollow apologies as she heals your wounds so that it wouldn't scar. You're filled with them, invisible to the eye, but not to you, the only person who has felt every single torturous wound.

‘It's terrible,’ you wrote, ‘not ever seeing you again.’ And he agonizingly read it. No, it wasn't you, it was them, them who would rather commit murder just to mimic what he had. Hobie can't form coherent words at what he just read, anger and sadness piercing his veins like a poisoned arrow of guilt.

You sniff, wiping the tears in your eyes as he just stares back at you. His hands shakes, paper crumpling under his tight grip, he needs to bring you home. But not there, not at the gilded cage he left you in.

The cruelty of memory has plagued you, you try to remember, you reminisce, but did it actually happen? Did all his love for you even happen?

“You don't have to keep reading,” you say solemnly, “it doesn't matter now, we're nearly there.” With a slide of the door, you leave.

—

After the twelfth tear stained letter, with his own tears flowing down and leaving moistened webs on the paper, he has had enough. His eyes always seem to see the same words now, ‘was it me?’ ‘Are you alive?’ and ‘When will you come back?’ Hobie hasn't even made a dent on the letters, barely reading half of the pile of longing you've left. Hobie's mind swirls into different emotions, going through every scenario where he didn't run away, where he came back for you while clutching his still bleeding throat and body covered in moist soil.

He was foolish to try and push you away, to hold you at arm's length, to only look at you like he has let the poisonous words thrown at him by the very same man that gave him the scar curl around him like blackened smoke that stains his clothes. He thought that wanting you back would bring nothing but hurt, especially that he thought that he didn't deserve it. To want is his demise, to have you again in his arms is his folly, but what a wonderful folly it would be.

How could he do all of that to you when his scarred flesh is in the shape of your name.

He pockets the letters, tucking it inside his waist coat, right above his heart just to feel your words through them. The door opens with a click, and he walks towards your direction like a compass built inside him that always points towards you. His fingers glide along the scar on his neck, raised skin felt through his gloves as he walks from carriage to carriage. Where there's open air in between, cool breeze stinging his moistened cheeks. Then he stops at the edge of a crowd, a jaunty tune plays from a traveling musician, playing for a scrap of coins in the corner. People gather around the brightly lit bar, alive and happy, and there you are standing as if you're frozen in time. As if he's seeing you just how he left you.

Amidst the familiar faces within the crowd that gathers in the small bar to converse, he stares at you, and by some miracle, you stare back at him, meeting his jade eyes that are surrounded by a sickened red. There's a soft, ghost of a smile on your lips, even after what you've told him— eyes full of love for the same man who has your heart in the palm of his hands; gentle, caring and yet unknowingly the only person that could truly hurt you the most without the painful slap of a wooden board against your back. It brings him back in time, under the cloudy gas light and the whir of the metal machines whose maw opens and closes to reveal heated metal— His mouth opens and he says the exact same thing that he has been saying every single time his eyes meet yours in secret— ‘meet you back at home.’ He utters, a promise kept under the smell of unlit gunpowder and cheap champagne that your aunt always buys to placate the workers. And you say the same words back without a bated breath— ‘wait for me.’ You almost cry out into the crowd, you'd scream it if it weren't for the forbidden relationship. It has been like that through every cheap congratulatory milestone the factory and your aunt has thrown. You don't speak to him, but your longing eyes do. He doesn't come near you, but his hand would always gravitate towards your velvet clad hand. ‘No one else knows.’ ‘No one else knows,’ those words echo in your mind like a root taking its place. Yet, someone saw, it only takes one good pair of eyes to see the growing love between you— ‘no one knows,’ he mirrors, but one does. It only takes one to set off a domino effect, an effect that would lead to his attempted murder, and to your demise that he isn't fully privy to. ‘No one knows,’ ‘no one knows,’ you whisper to yourself as you pack your bags to escape the life you haven't got a say in. No one knows, and yet, one did, and that one got your love's neck slashed and buried alive in the same soil you once kissed above on, under the same tree that you were supposed to meet in.

He wondered why you didn't show up, but the one that knew did. No one knows, and the one that did lived in your house, ate your food, shared a bed with your aunt— a story told through a letter from a man he once worked with, a man who now has one eye, a man that helped dig him out of the shallow grave they've put him in, waiting to bleed out in the earthbound soil. A dangerous letter that he had burned in the fire from anger. He wanted revenge, but you would be the cost. So he survived and killed, and survived again, always seeing you in the corner of his eye, always hearing your almost forgotten voice when he's on the edge of sleep. He survived and now he's here, meeting with your eyes amidst the crowd once again— with the evidence of his survival curling around him like a heavy rope, and your own hovering above you like a grey cloud that threatens to spill, yet he still utters the same words above the murmuring happier crowd, “meet you back at home.” His throat closes in around the words, almost screaming it to the crowd.

A tear slips from your eyes that are full of woe, and you say the words back, quieter, unsure, yet, the love is still there— “wait for me.”

Hobie breathes for the first time, his feet carrying him around the crowd, weaving through bodies to get to you while you stand still, waiting for him, watching as he desperately trudges to get to you.

You look just like how he remembered, standing by the oak tree, waiting for him even if his hands are stained black from grease— you'd still hold his hand. Now his hands are soiled in crimson that drips onto the floorboards, and yet you still hold your hand out towards him. He would atone for his sins if that's what you'd ask of him, but no one would grant him his penance, he has accepted that fact long ago. Only your touch could mimic it.

Hobie finally makes it to you, now he stands in front of your form, now he notices your hand grasping his own. Featherlight, unsure, if he'd reciprocate, giving him enough time to shake you off. But he doesn't, instead, he holds on to you tighter as he leads you outside of the noisy carriage and away from prying eyes, what he should've done all those years ago.

Hobie tugs you out of the hole that has consumed you.

Silently, you follow him, squeezing his hand twice to let him know that you're right behind him without him looking over his shoulder to inspect. You feel his fingers run along the ring on your finger.

The sound of the metal wheels are loud in your ears, steam rolling off in waves as it warms your back. It's dark out, the moon above guiding his path while he opens the other door leading towards the last carriage that carries horses and baggage.

The moon has always been a comfort to you. You thought in those years without him that he'd be staring at the same moon as you, that at least you've still got a connection with him. Even if you weren't sure he'd be alive to look up at the sky. Arms suddenly envelopes you, hands cradling the back of your head to keep you close to him, face hidden in the crook of your neck.

You're the first one to speak while you tentatively raise your arms to embrace him back. He's warm, warmer than you remember. “Do you mean it?”

Hobie sniffs, diamonds rolling off his cheeks, a promise falling from his lips, “yes, I'll bring you home, my home.” He molds himself to the shape of you once again. An act that you've been trying to attain since the beginning of the journey, now you're both perfectly aligned with each other, heartbeats synching and full. “I'll tell you everything, everything you need to know.”

“Just the ones you're willing to tell, Hobie. I'm so sorry for yelling those words at you.” You hold his head in your hands, gentle, caring, cradling him like you're holding the moon. Guiding it upwards so you could stare at his viridescent eyes that's full of hope for the first time in years. But the gnawing in your mind draws too close to you. “They'll never stop, they will keep hunting us down.” A sob breaks through your throat, “You have to bring me to them.” Tears flow out of you, “or we'll never be at peace. You'll never be at peace.”

The horses neigh behind you, Cherry huffs while Buckeye just stares at the scene. The carriage rattles for a moment before Hobie leans, laying his forehead atop yours, squeezing the soft skin on your nape. He closes his eyes, inhaling you in, you almost crumble in his arms. You've dreamt of this day, dreamt of holding him like this once again.

“You're my peace.” he whispers, “They can try to ruin that peace, but I'll stop them. I'll kill them if I had to.”

“Okay,” you close your eyes, just as he opens his own. “Take me home.”

“‘m sorry,” he kisses your forehead, lips lingering, a heavy kiss that brings you back to life, mending all your doubts. “Let's go home, yeah?” Leaning away, his eyes dart over to a man coming your way, he doesn't find it suspicious, but then the stranger brandishes a gun, raising it over your head. “Y/N—!”

Your body flings off to the side, hip hitting harshly on the corner of a crate. Then a loud cackle of a gun goes off, the sound bouncing off the walls, gunpowder flying over head, hiding Hobie from your vision. You yell his name, but you can't hear your own voice from the ringing in your ears.

Everything happens slowly in your eyes. Smoke spreads as you see Hobie still standing and unscathed, gun raised, barrel aimed at the man's head. Said man runs towards him like a bull, making Hobie miss his shots. Yet the man still shoots at him, slower than Hobie but just as deadly. Hobie leans his head slightly to the side, effectively dodging a bullet. You scamper towards Cherry, lifting yourself up, waiting for the right moment. And then you slap your precious horse, making her kick before he could reach Hobie. Cherry's deadly kick hits the perpetrator right on his back, where a sickening crunch can be heard. The sheer force of the kick has dust flying off his body, and now he lays motionless on the wooden floor.

“Fuckin' hell.” Hobie gawps at you, smile spreading across his lips. “You alright?” He walks over to you, or tries to while Cherry gives one last kick towards the dead man.

“Yeah,” you nod, patting Cherry, Keeping her calm. “It's okay, girl. I'm so sorry.” You coo at her, Hobie goes around the horse to hold you. “Are you—?”

His arms wrap around your waist, lips smashing on yours. You inhale and it's already over. Even if it was quick, it wasn't a cheap satisfaction, it's everything. He pats your cheek affectionately, beaming at you, holding you close. “You're brilliant.” His thumb rubs softly where you hit your hip on the crate, a silent apology.

You smile, heart thumping loudly like an engine. “It was all Cherry.”

“Should I snog the horse now too?” Hobie says smugly, eyebrows raised in amusement.

“No, preferably just me, for now at least.” You tap his chest, bashfulness encompassing you.

“Nah, it's you until the end, love.” He clicks his forehead against yours, making you chuckle.

A scream rings out from the other carriage, hurried footsteps bounding away. “Do you think—?”

Hobie reloads his gun effortlessly, giving the spare one to you. “You're a better shot than me anyway.” He takes one last look at you, as if this is the last time he'd ever set his eyes on you. “Whoever they are, I'll cut through them. Cover my back?”

“Always,” You nod, taking the silver six-shooter, “then we'll go home after this.”

He grins, hope in his eyes. “Home, you'll love it there.”

“Let's cut through all of them then.”

[softpascalito]

I To Dig a Grave I Chapter 5 I

Summary: Twenty-one years after the outbreak, you come to Wyoming looking for something and end up in Jackson after a stranger saves your life.

But he doesn't stay a stranger.

Turns out Joel Miller is looking for something too. It feels like a fresh start. But when bad luck seems to follow you, Joel is the only one to turn to, forcing both of you to confront your feelings about your pasts- and each other.

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader Rating: Explicit / MDNI Word count: 20k+ Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Age Difference, Smut, Explicit Content, Grief/Mourning, Mental Health Issues, Canon-Typical Violence, Chose not to use Archive Warnings, Tags to be added

AO3 LINK // Series Masterlist // Playlist

notes: between writing this and the voice memo of pedro on omars new album? im in the trenches. sending all of you lots of smooches for the recent comments and feedback, please know that i do a lil jump every time i see someone has commented <3

this fic will deal with heavy topics. please note that it doesn't use archive warnings and tags will be added as we go in order to avoid spoilers. each chapter will have detailed warnings in the end notes on ao3.

Chapter 5 – The Wake

‘I don’t mind so much being haunted by a dead ghost, but I resent like hell being haunted by a half-dead one.’ — J.D.Salinger, Franny and Zooey

The typewriter is fixed by the time you get up. But before you can sit down and ponder how to begin your speech, Joel forces you downstairs for some breakfast. He has somehow gotten his hands on orange juice and refuses to let you leave the table before you’ve had two glasses and some toast.

Eventually, he clears his throat. “We could grab some of your stuff today, if you want.” He pauses for a moment, searching your face. “Or I could, if you prefer to—if you’d rather stay here.”

The thought of going back home seems unbearable. The thought of Joel leaving you alone seems almost as bad.

“Can’t we do that tomorrow? I’d rather—I want to finish the speech. And we’re leaving in a bit.”

“Okay,” Joel mumbles. “Okay, yeah, we can do it some other time.”

You both head back into his workshop upstairs afterwards. He’s laid out some paper and pulled up a more comfortable chair for you. He settles down on his own and watches as you hesitantly begin to type, occasionally glancing out of the window. It’s begun to snow again, the thick flakes drifting against the other side of the glass and beginning to pile up on the windowsill below.

“If it keeps snowing like that, they won’t be able to prepare the grave, will they?”

Joel stares at the book that's spread out in front of him, determined not to let your eyes meet.

“I’m sure they’ll figure it out.”

They're not the words he should be saying. But they are the only ones able to push past his throat and flow into the open.

***

“Watch out for the steps, they’re frozen over.” Joel closes the front door behind himself, taking his first breath of cold air. It’s still snowing and he watches as the first flakes settle on your coat. He hurriedly pushes his gloves onto his hands and follows you down the small flight of stairs that leads to the street.

You place your feet carefully, partly because you would not find slipping and landing on your butt entertaining and partly because your body feels like it belongs to someone else again. You automatically turn to your left but Joel catches your arm before you can begin to move down the street. He jerks his head to the street ahead of you instead, the one that follows along the walls of the graveyard. They seem to have gotten much taller than they were a few days ago.

“We can get to the church through here,” Joel says, his hand squeezing your arm before he lets it go. “Less people.”

“Good point,” you agree quietly and begin moving again, this time across the street and past the green house on the corner. Joel follows your lead, putting himself between you and the graveyard, his broad form shielding you from view.

Which is a stupid thought, you think after a few moments. It's not you he is trying to hide. You are the one he's hiding something from.

You slow down a little, making Joel glance back at you. As his hand nudges yours again, you notice that his gloves are the same ones he wore when you met. A little more worn down maybe, but still the same leather, the same shade of brown. And here he is, still saving you, even if in a completely different way.

“Come on. We’ll be late.” Joel pulls on your hand lightly and you begin walking again. You don’t let go of his hand though. He doesn’t mention it.

When you pass the large metal gate that opens to the cemetery, you automatically turn your head. “It’d be quicker through here.”

Joel's head swirls around at that. “No.” You almost think you feel a slight tremor in his hand as he shakes his head. “I think it's better if we stay on the street for now.”

His hand is still in yours so you don’t find it in yourselves to argue, even if you find the cemetery quite beautiful. It feels less like a cemetery and more like a small park, with high trees and benches, a small oasis from the occasionally busy life in Jackson.

You can’t really tell if you’ll still find it beautiful once Lane's name will be carved into one of the headstones.

The two of you walk in silence for the remainder of the way. As you reach the far end of the church and when your gaze moves past the library shed tucked away to the side of it, you make a mental note to check in there once you’re done. You try and distract yourself by keeping your eyes on it, thinking about which books you could take home to pass the time with, trying to make a mental list.

But as soon as you step over the holy threshold, you can’t name a single one. The scent of burned down candles and wood greets you.

“I think I may pass out.”

Joel instantly switches his hands, wrapping his free arm around you, no doubt ready to catch you if your knees do give out. “Like right now?”

“No, I—I've just—never done this before,” you choke out. You’ve seen Infected and bodies and funerals. But there’s never been a wake. People just die and rot in this world. 

You suddenly feel like you want to cry and desperately try to pull yourself together. If this is the last chance to say goodbye, you want to do it with grace and you want to do it right. For Lane’s sake.

You take a shaky step forward and Joel takes the hint, moving you further down the hallway and stopping in front of a door to the left that is slightly ajar. His arm is still around you, his hand resting in yours.

“Want me to wait here?” His voice is low.

“Is she in there?” Your voice is equally quiet, matching the somber atmosphere around you.

Joel takes in your features for a moment before giving a slow nod. “Yeah. Yeah, she’s in there.”

“Can we go in together?”

You are certain you do come near to passing out when you step into the room, pressing your body against Joel’s, unconsciously using him as a shield. There is a small table full of candles to your left, a stained glass window half covered by snow at the far end of the room and two mismatched chairs to the right.

You do not see any of it. The second the door opens, your eyes are on her.

She’s bedded in a wooden coffin with white sheets. Her skin is almost as pale. The stark contrast that draws your eyes in is her hair. Ocean blue, the tips already losing their color.

Joel looks down at you, carefully and slowly disentangling himself from you. “Would you like a moment alone?” The small nod is all he needs to see, squeezing your hand once more before heading back outside, leaving the door ajar.

It suddenly strikes you how still she is. A body, usually so full of life, decorated by countless miniscule motions. The corners of her lips turning upward, the anxious turning of the silver rings on her fingers, a strand of hair falling into her face.

You move closer. You sit next to her. You stroke her cheek. She looks like she’s sleeping very deeply.

Joel lets out an involuntary sigh as he steps back out into the hallway. They managed to get the blood out of her hair, covered the right side of her head with a pillow. It almost looked comfortable. And he feels like he can breathe again. It’s a much better sight than the one in the cabin. You shouldn't have to remember her wounds. Only her face.

But he finds that he’s glad to get a moment alone. Because unlike you, he knows exactly what her temple looks like under the dainty, white pillow.

He sits down on one of the wooden benches lining the hallway, making sure to keep his movements quiet. Not because there is an enemy around. But because the wooden structure around him takes him right back.

He hasn’t been to a service in forever, not even before the outbreak. But the high ceiling and the stagnant air still make him automatically lower his voice, making him feel like he’s all of eight years old again and dressed for Sunday service with his parents somewhere just outside of Austin.

He hasn’t had time to consider how to do this, a small voice in the back of his head says. He hasn’t considered how the hell he will get you through this in one piece, if he is the one that should be doing so. There is so much baggage in him, tucked away into the dusty corners of his house, that he’s surprised you haven’t found it yet.

He stares at the floor and wonders if it had been easier for him to move on if he’d been able to say goodbye in a pretty room, surrounded by candles and lacy pillows, with high ceilings above. And for a split moment, he allows himself to imagine the hair resting on white sheets not to be blue but dark brown and curly.

Joel is leaning against the wall of the hallway when you finally emerge from the room, managing a weak smile. He stays quiet as you step towards him, raising your arms to sneak them around his body while you bury your face in his chest.

You can feel the exhale of his lungs below you as he sighs, bringing his arms around you and pulling you into him.

It comes so naturally now. The way he rests his chin on the top of your head, your hair tickling his graying beard. The feeling of your face pressed tightly into him, clearly having found a place where you can hide from the questions you already know people are asking.

Joel's hand caresses your back in gentle motions. His voice remains as quiet as it was earlier. “Did you say goodbye, darlin’?”

“Yeah,” you mumble into his chest, giving a shaky nod. “Yeah, I did.”

“Wanna take a break and go back in? Or come back later?” he offers quietly. He knows exactly how hard it is to let go—to walk away from the last piece that they leave behind when they leave the earth. The body holds so many memories.

“No, I think—I think it’s okay.” Hot tears have gathered in your eyes and threaten to spill into Joel's shirt. “I think I said goodbye.”

Joel quietly coos at you for a few more moments before he begins leading you back outside. He’s content to leave the church behind that feels so laden with bad memories despite it holding none.

You're just leaving the small hallway and passing back through the church when he abruptly moves you to his side, putting a small amount of distance between you. His arm is still wrapped around your waist but it's less strong, merely enough support to keep you from falling back.

“Oh. Hello, you two.”

Your breath hitches in your throat as you stare at the woman in front of you. She has short hair that's tied in a neat bun. The lines and wrinkles on her face seem to have increased rapidly since you have last seen her. She's wrapped in her black winter coat, one that is slightly too big for her small frame and almost reaches her knees. You realize that all her clothes are, in fact, black, even if some are slightly faded.

You feel Joel shift again beside you. “Ma’am.”

With a quick motion of your free hand, you wipe your eyes. It feels silly to be crying in front of her. You’ve lost a best friend.

She has lost a daughter.

“Mrs Moss, I’m so sorry—I meant to come by, I swear,” you blurt out, hoping that you sound as honest as you are. The tears threaten to come back.

“It’s quite alright, dear. I know it can’t have been easy for you,” she says gracefully. “And it’s Deborah, I’ve told you before. Eleanor’s friends are—” For a split moment, you can see something twinkling in her eyes before she corrects herself, carrying on as if nothing happened. “Eleanor’s friends were always welcome in my house.”

Your heart feels like it’s stopped. Eleanor. You almost forgot that Lane wasn’t her real name, despite it feeling more real than Eleanor ever has. You try and remember the story behind it and you’re certain it had something to do with her grandmother but you can’t recall the entire thing. You make a point not to ask.

The woman in front of you stays quiet. Her eyes wander between you and Joel for a moment, sending a completely different kind of discomfort through your body.

“Well, I’d like to go inside now,” Mrs Moss announces quietly and Joel and you shift to the side to let her pass. She gives you another sad smile in passing. “You’ll be there for the ceremony, won’t you? Eugene came by this morning. They are clearing the receiving vault out today.”

Joel tenses next to you, his grip getting a tiny bit tighter. You just stare blankly at the woman in front of you. “Receiving vault?”

You bite down on the inner side of your cheek.

“Oh, it’s what they call that small building. Of course, once spring comes around, we’ll bury her properly.”

Mrs Moss does not seem to realize what she has just set into motion or that all of these details were complete news to you. She gives Joel a small, polite nod and continues down the hall.

The taste of blood fills your mouth.

You don’t hold hands on the way back.

***

You brush past Joel the instant he opens the door and, while he is still stripping off his gloves, hurry into the small bathroom at the end of the hall. It’s rarely used and has become more of a makeshift storage room if you’re being honest. A few plastic containers are piled up next to the sink and you squeeze around them before letting your tired body sink onto the toilet lid.

You can hear Joel hesitate in the hall, his heavy boots on the wooden floors audible through the thin door. You can't see the way his face is scrunched up in worry—and guilt. The guilt that threatens to swallow him whole as he briefly glances at the small cupboard under the stairs, one of the few that is locked. He knows you won’t check there.

With a small sigh, he follows down the hall, hesitating in front of the bathroom door. He leans against the doorframe, his gaze fixed on the floor.

“I meant to tell you.”

No reply comes. But he can hear your breath, the small squeak of your shoes as you move your feet on the toilet seat. You’re pressing them to your chest as tightly as you can.

She won’t be buried. She will be stored in the back of some shed like something you plan to forget.

“If I’d known she’d be there—” Joel shakes his head despite knowing that you can’t see him. His hand flies to his face, pinching his nose as he closes his eyes, trying to find the right words to make you understand that he needs to do this, that this is his job. He’s supposed to protect you. And he failed miserably, letting you walk right into Lane’s mum with no clue about the arrangements.

“I would’ve told you in time. I swear.”

The hand leaves his face and instead gravitates towards the doorknob. He pauses for a moment, the metal cool under his touch. “Honey, can I please come in?”

“Fine,” you press out, keeping your gaze fixed on the plastic containers below. You don’t want to look at him. Mainly, you don’t want him to look at you.

Joel gets to his knees, unable to suppress the small groan as he does so. He hesitantly reaches out to place a hand on your knee, squeezing a little. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I thought it was—not the right moment.”

“Okay.” You nod, determined to punish him with as many one-worded sentences as you can. Today has been one bad surprise after another and it’s entirely his fault—except you know that’s not true. But you’re not ready to place the blame on the person who may deserve it—you’re not ready to think of Lane with anything but fondness and longing. And maybe, a tiny part of you pipes up, one that you’d much prefer to be quiet, maybe you know that Joel will take the blame if you place it upon him, that he would proudly carry your hate like a crown and still let you eat his food and still let you sleep in his bed.

Your eyes meet his and he looks so miserable, broad shoulders still wrapped in his winter coat, his hair slightly wet from the melted snow and his eyes. His eyes, begging, asking to be forgiven.

The thoughts of blame and hate are gone in an instant. Instead, the tears that you didn’t allow to come in the church and all the way back home, finally spring up in your eyes.

“I didn’t think—when that man died last year in the winter—” you choke out, the thoughts forcing their way into the tiny bathroom. “They buried him, he got a grave—”

Joel brings his free hand up to your face just in time to catch the first tear rolling down your cheek and wiping it away, his calloused hand smoothing over your skin.

“Darlin’, he was sick. You know that, right?” Joel keeps his voice low and soft and his motions slow. Like he is approaching a sick animal, trying not to startle it.

You didn’t know that he’d been sick, to be truthful. But you also don’t see how that made a difference.

It’s almost like Joel can read your mind. He tilts his head a bit. “They knew he was gonna pass, sooner or later. They dug his grave in the fall.”

You can’t help the sob that escapes you at that. Because it’s a horrible, horrible thing, digging a grave for someone who is still alive. And because it’s a horrible, horrible thing to not be able to.

“No one dug—'' You think you feel snot running down your face. “We didn’t know—No one dug a grave for Lane—”

“Yeah,” Joel agrees quietly, his voice filled with a heaviness. “No one dug a grave for Lane.”

No one knew she’d need one.

Joel lets you cry, even when his knees are screaming at him to get off the bathroom tiles. He pats your arm and wipes your tears. He doesn’t try to cheer you up or make you see the bright side or, worst of all, tries and tell you that Lane is a better place. You both know her place was here.

He lets you wear yourself out from crying before he asks if you want a bath and, following a shy nod, scoops you up in his arms and carries you upstairs into the bathroom, the one you actually use.

The small moment of hesitation after he’s set you down on the edge of the tub is his way of asking for permission. You give a tired nod.

He lets you undress and climb into the tub while he begins to heat the water, insisting on placing a towel below you so that the porcelain won’t be too cold on your skin.

It doesn’t take long until the air in the room is comfortably warm and steamy and the faint smell of jasmine and cotton fills the air, replacing the lingering one of old buildings and grief. You feel like you’re transported back to the first time you were curled up in Joel Miller's bathtub, the first day you’ve ever spent in Jackson.

“Lean a little to the side,” he instructs quietly, lathering the top of your head with the shampoo and working it into your hair. His fingers are scratching circles into your skin, making you feel like he’s washing off all the things you’d like to see disappear down the drain. The sorrow and the pain. You don’t touch the guilt yet.

“Do you remember the last time you did this?” you mumble and hear Joel hum behind you as you continue. “I wouldn’t let you cut my hair.”

“You also called me an asshole.” You are glad your head is slightly lowered so that Joel can’t see you smile. Then again, you have a feeling he knows.

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

His fingers work around your head, gently tilting it into whatever direction he needs to reach every part of it. He surprises himself when he speaks up.

“You know what you looked like?” Your head perks up slightly at that, attempting to turn around but Joel guides your head back with a gentle motion. Because he doesn't want shampoo to get into your eyes. Definitely not because turning around would mean seeing—

“Tell me,” you insist, despite keeping your gaze forward now.

“No, nevermind, it’s—it’s silly.” He tries to brush you off but you aren’t having it.

“Joel. Come on. Please?”

He can see you’re on the verge of turning around again and reckons it’ll be easier to just answer your question instead of having to deal with all the thoughts he is so successfully pushing away.

“You looked like a fawn. Curled up, trembling. Waiting on someone.” “I wasn’t waiting on anyone.”

“I know you weren’t.”

You sit in comfortable silence, tilting your head back as Joel pours warm water over your head. He steps back into the bedroom to grab some fresh clothes, leaving you to wash your skin and dry off by yourself.

“They’re not much but they should do until we get some of yours,” Joel mutters as he hands you one of his worn shirts. You pull it over your head, each part of it a bit too big on your body. The collar is draped slightly to one side, making your soft skin peek out from under the fabric.

Joel smiles weakly, trying so hard to avert his gaze. But not enough to miss you struggling with your hair, attempting to pull the still wet strands into a bun.

“C’mere,” he instructs, taking another step towards you and reaching around your head to take the hair tie from your hands and carefully gathering all your hair in his right fist. You’re left there without distraction, without anything to do except stare up at him, so close that you can make out the gray hairs in his beard and the small scar that decorates his nose.

“There we are,” Joel mutters, securing the hair tie before hesitating for another moment as his gaze shifts down to your face, your eyes meeting.

He’s looked at you hundreds of times. So he’s not sure why, at this moment, his lungs suddenly seem to stop working, drowning in the softness of your eyes that seem to be completely focused on him. For a split second, he thinks he sees your gaze flicker downwards.

One of his hands finds a strand that escaped his grip before and he tucks it behind your ear, his eyes never leaving yours.

“You still look like that sometimes.”

He is so close. If one of you leaned just a tiny bit forward—

The moment is over as suddenly as it appeared. Joel drops his hands a little too quickly to be casual about it, taking two steps back. Like he’s gotten too close to something dangerous.

But you're not dangerous, a small voice in the back of his head says. You’re just a fawn.

He cannot touch you. He is certain of one thing: He would find a way to ruin you.

***

A few months ago, being back in Joel’s bathroom would've been your favorite thing in the world. And it’s still good and comforting. But it’s not the same.

You give yourself to brief illusions. That this is your first day in Jackson, that you don’t know anything about the man beside you except his name and that he carries his gun in the back of his jeans. That you will be taken to your new home in a few days and meet your roommate, the one with blue hair you’ve already spotted around town.

But you know it won’t happen. You had another shot at life here, the chance to do and say all the right things this time. And you failed.

You can feel the mattress dip beside you as Joel crawls under the thick covers. It’s nice to feel the heat of his body next to yours, to feel him shelter you with what he can. He sleeps on the side that is closest to the bedroom door, leaving you tucked away to the more closed off one.

But it never makes you feel trapped. Quite the opposite. Anyone who hopes to reach you will have to pass by him. You wish that grief too could be politely turned away or chased off with a drawn gun. But it seeps through the cracks of the old wooden house, drifting through the hallways, spreading its arms and placing itself right on your chest.

The thin curtains are drawn but you can still see the faint shimmer of the snow that’s stacked up outside, reflecting the lights of the few lamp posts that line Rancher Street. You move your head just enough to be able to stare at the silhouette of the window, wondering if any of the candles next to Lane are still burning or if she’s already shut away in the receiving vault, without any light at all.

Joel sighs softly beside you, his gaze following yours and lingering there for a few moments. “Want to talk about it?”

You both know what but you still find it an odd question. You do talk to him about Lane, more than anyone else even. He’s not touching you and something tells you that it has to do with what happened in the bathroom before. Just that nothing actually happened, you tell yourself. But you don’t dare to bring that up. Defense is better.

“Talk about what?”

“About whatever is keeping you from closing your eyes,” he mumbles quietly, his eyes back on you. “I know it ain’t easy but you need a few hours of sleep at least.”

“She’s there when I close my eyes,” you whisper into the quiet room, tensing slightly at just the idea of it. Of her. You don’t understand how something you love so much can feel so unwelcome in your head.

“I didn’t know you had bad dreams,” Joel muses quietly.

“It’s not that. But she must feel so alone. And confused,” you whisper, curling up a little more into yourself, as if that will protect you from the images that keep forcing themselves to the front of your mind.

“Honey, she’s not—she doesn’t feel those things anymore, okay?” Joel sighs beside you, hesitating for a small moment before reaching out and lightly rubbing your shoulder. “I promise it’ll get better once you get the ceremony over with.”

You both stay quiet for a few moments, both thinking about graves and funerals and those you’ve lost. There are so many you’ve lost.

“Can I ask you a question?” you pipe up, your voice trembling a tiny bit. You’ve never outright asked him—only taken what information he gave willingly, which was very little.

“If you promise to try and sleep after.” Joel chuckles quietly, leaning back into the pillows. The small laughter dies on his lips as he hears your question.

“Did you have a funeral for her?”

The small intake of breath to your right tells you he didn’t expect this. You immediately feel your stomach give a lurch as you sit up slightly. “Sorry, you don’t—I shouldn’t have brought it up—”

“No.” Somehow, despite his voice being very quiet and low, it’s strong enough to make you fall silent in an instant. You bite your lip as you try and make out Joel’s face but it’s too dark to do so without moving closer and you’re afraid that one more misstep will have him either running off or throwing you out of the house.

“It all happened very fast, with Sarah.” His voice quivers a tiny bit as he says her name. “We were lucky to make it out at all. Tommy took—He got us out.”

Maybe it’s your tired mind playing tricks on you, but Joel doesn’t sound like he feels very lucky about having made it out. You can’t blame him. Some part of you, too, feels like you should have been with her, in that cabin. Should be with her in the vault. That there should be two graves waiting to be dug instead of one.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, again, because apparently you are not good at finding the right words and you feel just like you did in front of Mrs Moss earlier today, just that this is Joel and that is precisely what makes it so much more difficult and so much worse.

“It was a long time ago,” is all he says.

To your surprise, the quiet that follows is not uncomfortable. Maybe because he feels that you understand, at least partly. Or maybe you’re just two very tired people, glad to have each other to hold on to.

After a few minutes, you can feel him turn towards you in the dark, opening his body up so that you can shift a bit closer, the excuse about the night being so incredibly cold dying on your lips when you feel how readily Joel wraps his arm around you, pulling you into him. You press your face into his chest, taking a deep breath that actually makes you feel like breathing comes a little easier. Your hands sneak around him, holding on. Always holding on.

A small sigh leaves Joel’s throat, his voice so low you can barely hear it.

“Let’s get some sleep, little fawn.”

thank you very much for reading! if you like this fic, please consider supporting me by rebloggin or liking or whichever buttons you prefer to press <3 if you have any feedback, it is also very welcome!

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Chapter 110 is 13 pages long welcome to hell!!! so in a lot of ways this is just more fuel for a theory that I've had for a few weeks now, that's only gotten stronger with each recent season 5 episode, which is that the last episode of the season is gonna end on 110, and that Asagiri/Harukawa and Bones have been collaborating to make this happen, specifically because it's a major turning point that would be the only good place to end the season on.

When we started getting especially long chapters again (like from 25-35ish pages, with the exception of 107.5, the last two being some of the longest we've ever had), at first I just assumed that Asagiri/Harukawa got freed up from some other obligations they'd been having to cause the extremely short/half chapters, like promotional stuff for the anime/Beast movie, or working on light novels. But then 109 happened, with the "supposed" death of Dazai, and heavy emphasis at the end on how literally everyone is at their lowest point right now, and I got to thinking. 11 episodes is a strangely specific number for an anime season -- why not 12, or 13, or even 10, like you'd usually see? Why have we gotten suddenly gotten two 35 page chapters out of nowhere, that's almost unheard of at this point? They're both beautiful chapters, don't get me wrong (as always), and maybe A/H simply just didn't want to cut them in halves because they felt like the full emotional impact wouldn't hit/that there were no good cutoff points in them, but you can't deny that it's surprising, after all the shorter chapters we've been getting. Why has the anime been going at such insanely breakneck pacing for the most part ever since around the Sunday Tragedy chapters, even more so than it has in the past? So much so that it feels dangerously close to overtaking the manga?

Well, maybe, just maybe, it's because..... Asagiri decided a long time ago that whatever happens in 110 is the only point that feels "season finale"-worthy enough, in an arc that still isn't anywhere close to being completely wrapped up, and so both the manga and the anime have been specifically coordinated to reach that part within 2 and a half weeks of each other?

I've seen a lot of people now think season 5 will end with 109, and as much as my sadistic side would find that hilarious, I honestly don't think they'd do that and realistically don't want it to happen; it'd be so cruel to cliffhanger the anime for years like that, and just doesn't feel like a season cliffhanger BSD would do, a series that is ultimately hopeful and uplifting. Seasons 2 and 3 had a positive, conclusive ending; the only reasons seasons 1 and 4 didn't was because they're technically not really full seasons of their own, and are more like the first cour of another "season" that also came out that same year (seasons 1 and 2 both aired in 2016, so they're more like one big season, and seasons 4 and 5 have both aired this year, so they're also more like one big season, again taking into account how episodes 12 and 50 are not satisfying finales like episodes 24, 37, and hypothetically, 61, are). I really can't see season 5 ending with Dazai and Fukuzawa's supposed deaths, Sigma being unconscious and maybe close to death, Atsushi being vulnerable and limbless again, everyone we love still vampires, and the entire world being basically doomed; that's just too depressing and not like BSD at all. However, having said that, if it doesn't end there, there really isn't any good place to end the season before that, either, that feels in any way satisfying or like a finale at all. And so, to me, that only leaves after 109: chapter 110.

I think things are really gonna turn around next chapter. Like I said, everyone is at their lowest point right now, it cannot possibly get any worse, the framing of Dazai, Fukuzawa, and sskk at the end of 109 is telling us that; this is the time for the heroes to finally start winning again, with Aya being so close to pulling out the sword, and for all the thematic reasons other people have talked about to death that I don't need to go into here again. This upcoming chapter being so short again makes a part of me wary of 110 being "the one", so to speak, I won't lie, but at the same time, it's very possible that it needs to be that short because that's all the final episode of the season will be able to reasonably fit in, since it's already gonna be VERY close if they do make it all the way to 109. And at the end of the day, I don't doubt at all that Asagiri and Harukawa can make these the most monumental and game-changing mere 13 pages ever if they wanted to; a chapter does not at all need to be extremely long in order to be an important and impactful one, even if short ones we've gotten in the past haven't felt the most important.

An additional thought I've had, though this is much more crack territory than all this already is, is that since we know from Anime Expo that a Stormbringer movie at some point is highly likely (judging from Asagiri's reaction when someone brought it up), it's possible that chapter 110 and thus the final episode will involve the long-anticipated return of Verlaine and/or Adam, or at least some other major reference to Stormbringer, that would naturally and smoothly lead into a Stormbringer movie to explain things to people who haven't read the novel. It would make a lot of sense, especially since the s4 OP has the Old World sign behind Chuuya, which might be a hint that this has been in the works ever since seasons 4/5 were first in planning with Asagiri. We also know that Dazai and Chuuya's voice actors apparently struggled to record their lines together this season, which probably relates to 101 and possibly 109, but it could be 110 too.... I could be very wrong, as I'm no expert on this kind of thing, but I kinda doubt they would bring Chuuya's actor in for just the vampire growls, and Asagiri placing heavy emphasis on Chuuya's importance this season in that one interview gives me the impression that he's talking about much more than just 101/109. But that's the least solid evidence I have, that's just mostly based on vibes I get.

So basically, I think a lot of factors -- the unusual episode count, how close the anime is to catching up to the manga with three whole episodes left, the seemingly arbitrary recent chapter lengths, and the climactic events of 109 -- can tell us that 110 might be a very, VERY big deal. Again, there's of course no way this arc is anywhere near close to being finished, with so much left to address and resolve, but since it is currently incomplete in the manga, unlike the previously adapted arcs, if the anime was going to adapt it at all, they'd have to find a place that feels satisfying enough to end this season, knowing there won't be more anime for a long time after this, and so I think they specifically planned for that, from both Bones' and A/H's sides. 10 episodes might not have been enough to reach that point, but 12 or 13 might have been too many it wouldn't have been if Bones actually decided to slow down and let the story breathe the way it needs to, but this post isn't meant to criticize the anime, so maybe 11 was just right. And maybe Asagiri and Harukawa specifically pushed to make recent chapters longer than usual, in order to make sure that the manga reached the story content in 110 the monthly release right before season 5 was to end.

Is this just copium? Absolutely. Am I going to look like an absolute clown in two days when this post ages like milk? Probably. But the evidence is There, so let me just enjoy my delusions until Sunday, okay 🥂🫡

[thusspoketrish]

New Chapters | The Art of Getting By

NEW CHAPTERS: Chapters 5 and 6!

EXCERPT, Chapter 6:

Louis leans in then, his tone callous, and says, “Well, maybe your feelings don’t matter as much as you think.” Harry trembles, suddenly feeling nauseous. How often had he felt that way because people constantly dismissed him? His concerns were always brushed off, sometimes with dire consequences…Voldemort, Draco, Snape, Finley…it’s all rushing back to him now. It’s as if he’s reliving the same frustrating experiences, only this time, it was in a sterile, suffocating room filled with strangers. The anger, the sense of betrayal, the helplessness—all hits him at once. “Fuck you,” Harry hisses, a cold anger threatening to settle in the centre of his chest. “It’s clear you don’t care about what I think, but guess what? We would all be fucking dead had I not acted out on my paranoia! So you listen to me, Louis. You have no idea what it’s like to be in my bloody shoes, constantly being doubted and called crazy! I’ve saved lives because I trusted my instincts. And I’m sick of people like you belittling me—!” “Freeze!” Sarah nearly shouts, startling Harry. She steps forward. “Okay, let’s take a breather; try to diffuse that surge of anger. Count to four while you inhale, hold your breath for four counts, then exhale for four counts, repeat. Both of you.” Harry shifts his weight from one foot to the other, closing his eyes as he tries to focus on breathing. He goes through a few rounds before the sharp edge of his anger begins to dull. He opens his eyes, noticing Louis' expression seems softer. Sarah nods. “Excellent. Unfreeze!”

Read The Art of Getting By on AO3, here.

Please mind the tags and warnings.

_________________

I need to give another shoutout to my glorious beta, @youknowyoudid for the phenomenal work she's been doing in triple checking over these chapters!!! Thank you!!! x

_________________

Image Text:

The Art of Getting By

Chapter 5: The Wilhelm Scream Chapter 6: Folded, and Unfolded, and Unfolding

Written by Trishjames and Edited by YouKnowYouDid

[whump-tr0pes]

Honor Bound 6 - 29

This is a series. Start here, continued from here.

This is a sequel to Honor Bound, Honor Bound 2, Honor Bound 3, Honor Bound 4, Honor Bound 5, and the prequel Vera.

AO3

Masterlist

Contents: themes of someone else's self-harm, past attempted murder

~

Vera had to admit that between Gavin recovering from his captivity in Crayton, Edrissa’s attempt on his life, and the rest of the family’s anxious wind down from the hell that had been the past month, she hadn’t felt like she’d been getting any rest at all. And that wasn’t even mentioning the utter ass she had made of herself last night when she had seen Isaac’s scars and gaped like a dickhead – even grabbing his arm and pulling up his sleeve, baring the new cuts for everyone in the room to see. It didn’t take a fucking genius to know that Isaac didn’t want her to do that. She couldn’t even be mad at him for hiding the cuts all this time, because she had proven his fears right by reacting in the exact way he feared she would: like a fucking dickhead.

Still, she had known. In the back of her mind, in some small, frightened, cowardly corner of her heart, she had known all along. She hated herself for letting him suffer in silence and having the goddamn stones to tell him to his face what she suspected, and that she was here for him, and that she was sorry he was hurting so badly. He was her best friend in the entire world, and she had let him suffer in silence for an entire month, maybe longer, thinking he was completely alone.

There was nothing to do about that now, though. And she still hadn’t given enough thought to what she was going to do about the fact that Edrissa had tried to kill Gavin a few days ago.

“Fuck,” she spat, eyes fixed on the ground in front of her as it disappeared under each footstep.

Gray made a soft, inquisitive sound. “If I ask what’s going on, will that make it better, or worse?” They chuckled and cast a gentle smile at her.

She heaved a sigh and shook her head. “Neither,” she huffed. “It’s just…” She tossed her head and forced herself to look around at the surrounding forest, at the blaze of gold and orange leaves among the dusty green pine trees as she and Gray made their way into town. At least the trees gave her something else to think about. “…I sort of thought things would get easier once we got here. But things have felt like kind of a shitshow since we arrived.”

Gray nodded sagely. “Except for Gavin being missing and possibly dead,” they said in the wryest imaginable tone.

Vera snorted. “Yeah, that’s true. Except for that. Unfortunately for Edrissa.”

Gray winced. “Yes… that came as a surprise to all of us, I think.”

“What, her trying to kill Gavin? Or her still wanting him dead at all?”

“Both,” Gray said. “I have to admit, both of those were a surprise to me.”

“We don’t have to talk about Edrissa,” Vera grumbled.

Gray was quiet for a long moment. The leaves crunching under both their feet seemed impossibly loud in the silence. Then they said, “We will have to talk about it eventually. And… I feel that talking about it to you will be more… constructive than talking to Isaac.”

Vera let out a snort. “Yeah, I’ll give you that.”

When she didn’t continue, Gray lifted an eyebrow at her. She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she huffed. “Yeah. It’s… a problem.”

“I’m assuming she hasn’t mentioned anything about trying to murder Gavin again to you,” Gray said delicately.

“Like she would if she was planning on it,” Vera grumbled back. Louder, she said, “No. Nothing. But, she’s been less… jumpy. And she’s met with Sam, which is good I think.”

“They’ve always been a bit of a stabilizing presence for her,” Gray said with a smile. “Although, I’m glad they’re staying with us and she’s staying with you.”

“Yeah,” Vera responded. As they left the forest behind, gravel crunching under her boots instead of leaves, the vague echo of voices replacing the velvety whoosh of wind through the trees, she found her voice lowering in volume. Her eyes darted between the buildings of the tiny main street of Laporte. Even though she had been in town a few times at this point, it still felt so foreign to think of this place as her new home. A few people looked up as the two of them approached. They smiled and waved. Awkwardly, Vera waved back.

“Howdy, Gray!” one of the townsfolk said.

Vera’s throat tightened. As much as she disliked the idea of people knowing who they were, she knew Isaac must hate it.

Her thoughts went to Gavin. He must know what it’s like to have everyone around you know exactly who you are.

Fuck, it’s gonna be rough, learning to live here.

“Hey there, Sabine,” Gray said back, warmly.

Vera glanced up at them, at the relaxed line of their shoulders, the easy curve of their smile. She wondered how much of that was a veneer meant to calm, to exude comfort and alleviate threat. She had never known Gray to not be good with people, never known them to not be the kind, beating heart of their family. They were the family, for as long as it had existed. It had started with Gray. It had always been Gray.

How many lives have they saved, just by being calm, being kind?

Are they saving our lives now?

Vera tossed her hair over her shoulder and followed them closely as they headed for the post office. That was the whole point of this walk, anyway; that, and the two of them discussing Edrissa and whether or not she was going to try and murder Gavin right under their noses again.

Fuck, running from death was so fucking exhausting. She was so, so ready to be done.

Gray led her to the post office building and pushed the door open. She followed them in and looked around. The building was large, far larger than the post office needed to be. While the building seemed to be some sort of gathering space with a few empty tables and chairs pushed against the walls, the post office took up only a small corner. There was no desk, no attendant, just a few shelves mounted on one wall in the corner, with bins on each shelf that had writing on them in black marker. Vera’s lips trembled as she read the names on some of the bins.

Kiernan Byrne

Barnes family

Rosa Garcia

Meredith Hughes

Vera Novak

Tori Nasser

Gavin Uriah

Kali Sind—

“Kali!”

Vera jumped, but there was a smile in Gray’s voice as he greeted the woman who entered the post office. She barely came up to Gray’s chest, but she reached up and squeezed their shoulder when she reached them. There was a hard, weathered look to her, from the crow’s feet on her suntanned face to the worn flannel tied around her waist, but there was an unfailing kindness in her eyes that had Vera’s shoulders relaxing immediately. She recognized in this unfamiliar woman the same familiar warmth that Gray shared wherever they went.

“Good to see you, Gray,” Kali said, and there was an unmistakable twang in her accent.

“This is Vera,” Gray said, gesturing at Vera. Kali wiped her hands on her jeans and shook Vera’s hand once. The grip was firm, but Vera felt in the woman’s rough grasp that her fingers could probably crush Vera’s hand with barely any effort.

Kali released Vera’s hand, giving her a smile. “Good to meet you,” she said, no-nonsense like she was stating a simple fact. “I’ve been meeting your family over the past week and I’ve gotten about half of them.” She chuckled and barked out a laugh. “We usually don’t have this many arrive at once. It feels like you’ve about doubled the size of the town!”

Vera blinked. “No way. You have… You have to have a lot more than—”

“I know, I know,” Kali said, laughing to herself. “But ten at once… lord, it does feel good to have so many new people to meet.”

Vera shuffled her feet and glanced between Gray and Kali. “Well that’s… good,” she said lamely.

Kali seemed totally unbothered by Vera’s lack of ability to come up with anything better to say. Without missing a beat, but without Vera feeling the slightest bit like she was the reason why the conversation wasn’t going anywhere, Kali turned to Gray and said, “I was hoping to run into you.”

Vera’s mouth went dry. She glanced at Gray and spotted, for a fraction of a second, a confirmation of what she feared: tightness in Gray’s mouth, the slightest delay in their next breath. “Oh?” they said.

“Oh, relax, nothin’ bad,” Kali said gently. And suddenly – amazingly – Vera believed her. “Was just wondering if you had any outgoing mail and wanted to remind you that we don’t exactly have, ah, mail service.” Again she let out that loud laugh, and Vera found herself smiling, too. “I don’t think I ever actually told y’all that if you want to send something out, you just drop it in the bin here and it gets sent out every two weeks with the same guy who brings the mail in.” Kali gestured to another basket nearer to the door, one that was labeled: outgoing mail.

Gray smiled and nodded. “I didn’t know that, thank you. Actually, I—”

The door to the post office opened, and someone Vera didn’t recognize walked in. Still, from Gray’s reaction – the flare of nostrils, the sharp intake of breath, the clench of one hand into a fist – Vera suddenly wished she had a weapon on her for this walk into town.

This woman – whoever she was – had dark hair pulled back into a braid, and dark eyes that belied a steely, merciless coldness that made Vera’s stomach churn. She was older than Vera, probably closer to Gray’s age, but she strode into the building with the muscular tension of a cat stalking its prey. Her mouth was creased in an expression of permanent contempt. And for some brief, inexplicable reason, Vera longed to slap that smirk right off her face.

“Afternoon,” Gray said, and fully turned their back on her.

Vera blinked, baffled.

The woman snorted and sauntered aimlessly into the post office, not seeming to look at anything.

“You need something?” Kali said, the warmth in her voice not faltering.

“Oh, yeah, Kali, but it can wait,” the woman said. “You seem like you’re in the middle of something.”

The condescension in the woman’s tone made Vera’s teeth itch. She cracked her neck and threw a glance at Gray. They were studiously looking at the floor, out the window, at their cuticles, anywhere but at the woman who seemed utterly committed to wandering the corner of the building dedicated to the post office. The rest of the building stood open, unused, but she didn’t seem interested in that. She stalked around the three of them like she was… doing it on purpose.

“Well,” Gray said through thin lips. “Thank you so much for your time, Kali. We won’t keep you. Thank you so much for filling us in. I’m sure we’ll see you around.”

Kali’s mouth turned down at one corner. “I understand, Gray,” she said, gently, as if something was passing between them that Vera did not understand. She reached out and squeezed their forearm. They laid their large, delicately fingered hand over her tiny one, and turned to go.

“Sorry,” Vera spat, her gaze flicking among the three of them in turn. “But what the fuck is going on?”

The woman snorted and rolled her eyes. She made her way over to the wall of mail bins and reached into one, pawing around in it before her hand emerged again, empty. “Aw,” she pouted.

Vera blinked. The woman had reached into the bin with Rosa Garcia written on the side in big, black letters.

“Wait,” Vera breathed.

The woman turned, clearly trying – and failing – to hide an impish grin. “There it is,” she sighed.

Vera shook her head and blinked again, shook her head again. “Sorry, I… wait. No.”

“Vera,” Gray said, “This is, ah. This is Rosa. The… the Rosa. And, before you ask, and I have asked…” Gray ground their teeth and threw a look of pure hate at the woman who stood at her mail basket wearing a childish, self-satisfied grin. “…we are not allowed to kill her.”

Continued here

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[animasolaoriginal]

(5) I n n o c e n c e L o s t

He finds her in a brothel of all places. A chance encounter, but one that will change his life – and hers – forever. – or: A story about a cowboy who falls in love with a prostitute, who happens to be so much more than that.

GENERAL TAGS: NSFW! Explicit! Size difference, age gap, slow burn romance. Cowboys, outlaws, prostitutes. Historical inaccuracy. Horses, guns, violence.

Chapter 1▫️2▫️3▫️4▫️5▫️6▫️7▫️8▫️9▫️10▫️11▫️12▫️13 ...

Chapter 5: The Doubts

m!OC x f!OC -- WORDS: 5.3k -- READ ON AO3

when a man questions everything

Chapter 4 -- Chapter 6

5

It's been one of the stupidest ideas he's ever had. Taking her away, bringing her here, leaving her alone. Exposing her to the real world. All on a whim and a warm sensation in his stomach.

Now the anger sits like a burning stone in his guts, barely contained, but he refrains, for her sake, as he holds her in his arms, this tiny body pressed to his, curled up on his lap, feet tugged beneath his thigh, knees poking his side, arms in a chokehold around his neck, breasts squished between them. She's shivering, sobbing quietly, hot tears dripping down his neck.

He can't believe he left her. He should have known better.

His exhale is rough, making strands of her hair fly. His arms tighten around her small frame, his large hands splayed on her cold skin. He's going to kill whoever touched her, whoever tried to – A grunt escapes him, and he buries his face in her hair, holding down the rage that's threatening to consume him.

The image of her lying on the ground like that, left behind by whoever he's scared away, has burnt itself into his brain. He's heard the muffled scream over the bubbling of the creek, he's rushed back, hearing her call his name in nothing but sheer panic, and in his own panic, he didn't see who fled the scene, it was too dark, his senses clouded by his own fear. Of losing her. Of not being able to protect her.

And he has failed her.

He may have prevented worse, but she has still been assaulted, in the camp he has thought was safe for her, but he should have known better. These other men, except Mitch, shouldn't be around a young girl like her. None of them. Especially Steve. But Ben has been blinded by how the other women of the camp dealt with the degenerates, how they've accepted that Steve had changed (or so they'd hoped).

Was it Bill? Was it revenge for the broken nose? Joe for being told to shut up? Or Bob, avenging his friends? Was it Ben's own fault for bringing someone this young (and beautiful) into their camp? A former prostitute who may never be able to get rid of that stigma? Keira's kid...

Something hot curls inside his stomach, hot and heavy, lurching upwards like bile, burning at the edge of his throat, forming a lump, making it hard to breathe. He holds her closer, pressing his face into her hair and neck, trying to breathe her in, feel her warmth, soak up her tears. “I'm so sorry, baby,” he growls hoarsely, pressing his eyes shut to keep the burning down.

Her hands move into his hair, gently up the curve of his head, pressing into his scalp, her sobs have gone quiet, her chest no longer rising and falling rapidly against him. Her shaking breath hot on his neck, trembling lips so close to his own rapid pulse. “Not your fault,” she mumbles into him, a soft hum against his skin.

A groan escapes him, and he slowly loosens his tight embrace around her, gently placing his large hands on her upper arms, pulling her back to look at her. Her fingers slip from his hair, resting on his shoulders as she looks at him with reddened eyes, glistening, wide. Long lashes clumped and wet. Cheeks splotched with red. Lips, full lips, parted and trembling.

He wants to grab her face and press his mouth to hers, kiss the sorrow away, distract her from the raging turmoil inside her pure soul. But he only looks at her, his eyebrows furrowed, forehead creased, lips tight. Her trembling fingers ghost over his neck, fingertips touching his jaw, as if she tries to ease the tension in his face – when it should be him who should ease her tension.

“Tell me what you saw,” he says darkly, his voice a low rumble in his throat.

She swallows, licking her lips, her fingers rubbing over his bearded cheeks as she stares at his mouth instead of his eyes. “I... I don't know, it was dark, I saw a face, but I can't remember... can't...” Her voice breaks as a sudden sob emerges from her quivering lips.

He inhales sharply and pulls her back against his chest, his large hand splayed on her bare back, warm and reassuring. A shudder rushes through her. “Anything?” he mutters into her hair.

“No,” she croaks. “M'sorry...”

“Don't apologize,” he growls, moving his hand up her neck and into her hair, feeling the soft strands gliding between his calloused fingers. “It's okay...” It's not okay. He has to find the bastard who did this...

While his mind starts imagining all the possible ways of how to punish and destroy (and kill) her attacker, Nebbia shifts on his lap, her knees slipping on either side of his hips while she leans against him, and it's when she winces that the fantasy of skinning the fucker alive dissipates from behind his eyelids.

“You're hurt,” he groans quietly. It's not a question this time. “Let me see you.”

She leans back, biting her lip, raising one hand to wipe at her eyes. His hands are on her upper arms as he pushes her gently off his thighs, making her stand on trembling limbs. She's so tiny as she stands before him, completely naked, nestled between his legs, her arms raised instinctively to cover her chest, shoulders slumped.

“Let me see you,” he repeats softly, watching her closely. “Please.”

She takes a shuddering breath and lowers her arms, clenching her hands to fists at her side. His eyes start their journey over her slender body. There are a few scratches on her cheek (he raises a hand and traces his finger over them carefully), her lips are a little swollen (his thumb presses against her bottom lip), a bit of dirt is caked to her chin (he scratches it off with his fingernail).

Moving her hair aside, he lets his hand wander over her shoulder and down her arm, long fingers sliding over her delicate skin. She shivers, but doesn't move, lets him touch and see her. His eyes wander over the small mounds of her breasts, there's a bit of mud between them. He reaches up, but hesitates, looking into her face, waiting for confirmation. Her chin jerks into a nod.

Gently he moves his palm into the valley between them, rubbing at the dirt, then slowly, carefully, almost hesitantly, puts his large hands over her small breasts, feels their warmth, their weight, their texture, feels her nipples harden under the touch, poking against his palms. He gives them a gentle squeeze, nothing more, then brushes the earth off her skin, and moves on, reluctantly.

His hands slide along her sides, into the dip of her waist, following the swell of her hips, down the length of her legs, fingers brushing over the creases between her rear and the back of her thighs. He sees goosebumps rippling over her skin in the wake of his touches. She stands perfectly still, watching him with bated breath. His eyes wander towards the small patch of hair between her legs, the gentle slope of her mound, vanishing out of sight.

“Can I... see?” he whispers barely audible, his voice a low hum in the air, his hands on her thighs, thumbs nudging them apart slightly. She hesitates, her hands relaxing at her sides before she puts them on his forearms, applying enough pressure to show him that she allows it. She opens her legs only a little, but enough for him to see the rest of the swell of her mound, her soft pink skin, seemingly untouched. “Did... did he touch you... here?” he croaks out, his thumbs inching closer to her sex.

“No,” she whispers. “Not... with his hands...”

Something hot rushes through his gut. He clenches his jaw, closes his eyes for a moment. Her hands tighten around his forearms, pulling at them. Slowly, he looks up at her, meeting her gaze. Her eyes are clearer now, lips no longer trembling, cheeks still flushed a deep red.

He exhales loudly through his nose and looks back down, his eyes skimming over her front. “Turn around,” he then mutters, and slowly, she complies, shuffling in front of him until he can see her backside – and the bright red hand print on her ass cheek. A hiss escapes him, that hot thing inside him growing, convulsing. A curse slips off his tongue. He's trembling in pure rage at the sight, at the image of how she got this mark. Remembers the muffled scream he's heard. I'm gonna kill that bastard!

Carefully, to stop the shaking, he places his hands on her hips, thumbs tracing the curves over her rear, gently trailing the edges of her red skin. She winces slightly, and he takes his hand away, his eyes wandering up the gentle curve of her spine to her long hair falling over her shoulder, covering her shoulder blades. He pushes it away, and pulls in a sharp breath through his teeth.

Another red mark between her delicate shoulder blades, almost completely recognizable as a boot print, wider front, narrower heel, there's even a little cut from where the spurs dug into her soft skin. That fucking bastard. His breath is quickening, shaking badly, his hands grip her waist and pull her towards him before he presses his face into her back, inhaling the sweet scent of her skin, the warmth, the innocence.

Closing his eyes, he fights the anger boiling within. His arms snake around her body, pressed to her flat stomach, holding her tightly. He feels her hands rubbing over his rough skin, how she breathes deep, moving against him with every rise and fall of her chest, quiver of her belly.

After a moment of silence (while his mind draws up more scenarios of possible punishment), he inhales deeply and gently pulls her back onto his thigh, careful not to put her weight on the tight, possibly burning skin of her ass cheek. She turns and leans her shoulder against his chest, looking up at him, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth.

Ben leans down and presses his lips to her forehead, taking another deep breath, inhaling her scent, filling his lungs with her sweetness instead of the suffocating heat of the anger radiating through his body. He cages her in gently, one arm loose around her side, one hand resting on her leg. He wants to tell her that he'll avenge her, do horrible things to the man that assaulted her, but he doesn't want to scare her, disturb her even more.

So he just watches her, hoping to give her reassuring looks instead of dark stares of doom. He can't really control the deepening of the creases on his face, the furrowing of his brows. The longer he looks at her soft face, her innocent eyes, her delicate body, trying not to think of the tainted spots, the slower his heart's beating in his chest. The calmer he becomes.

“Are you tired?” he utters in a deep grumble. Her eyes wander over his face before she nods.

He nods as well, slowly moving to stand up, get ready for bed, when her hand closes around his wrist. “Can I be on top tonight?” Her voice is soft, barely audible, and it immediately makes his heart beat way faster again. Even more so when he notices the deep blush on her cheeks, the slight twinkle in her eyes.

Hazy memories of warm, soft skin fill his mind, a steady heartbeat against his ear, the gentle rise and fall of a chest, nimble fingers digging into his hair, massaging his scalp, as he falls asleep on top of her small body, pushing her into the bed.

“Anything you want, sweetheart,” he gives his affirmation with a low hum of his voice, a soft smile creeping up on his lips.

It is completely dark now as he lies in bed, flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. Nebbia's slender frame lies right on top of him, stretched on her stomach, face buried in his neck, arms cradling his head, legs tucked between his own, breathing softly, sleeping deeply. He feels his cock throbbing beneath her, pressed against her stomach, warm and cozy (and hardening), and every little twitch of her body only excites him more.

His hands rest on her lower back, tempted to slip lower and grab onto her plump ass cheeks, but every time he wants to move them, the image of the hand print on her soft skin comes back like a stab to his side, and he only groans softly and eventually moves his hands up her back and curls them around her shoulders.

She's insisted for him to sleep naked – well, she hasn't objected when he has stripped in front of her, only blushed a little more, but once he laid down on his bed, she hasn't hesitated long before she has climbed over him and onto him, pressing her soft skin against his hard body. He is surprised how open she is, how easy it is for her to be naked around him, to just enjoy the other's warmth without making it sexual. Something that's quite new to him.

He's noticed fairly soon that she seems to seek him out whenever she can, always staying close, close enough to touch, always looking at him, watching him. They've only spent one night and one day together, with emphasis on together, at all times (except that horrible one time he's left her alone).

It's strange to think he was practically a loner before he met her, preferred to roam the wild on his own, with only Thunder keeping him company (if there weren't any heists or robberies to execute, of course). Now he needs to constantly see her, touch her, have her near him, just as much as she needs him, apparently. Protecting her has become the most important thing. Even more so now that he's failed her once.

It will never happen again.

It may be even stranger that despite having her naked body lying on top of his, the urge to do unspeakable things to her is barely there (of course it is still there because he can't really control the reactions of his body, the warming of his guts, the twitching of his cock, the itching of his fingers, he's only a man after all), but a shift has happened, from wanting to grab her and dominate her, to hold her and show her that he is more than a big strong man. That men can be more...

More than the monster who almost –

Inhaling sharply, he shifts slightly beneath her, his hands rubbing along her slender shoulders. A little breath escapes her, hot against his neck. He tries to relax, shut off his spinning mind, but it's harder than usual. There's a bottle of Bourbon on the dresser by the bed, if only he could reach it, drink the thundering thoughts away.

But he doesn't want to move, doesn't want to wake the sleeping girl on top of him. So he focuses on her, on the soft noises she makes, the little shivers rushing through her limbs, how deep she breathes, her chest pressing into his, her stomach moving against his dick. How warm she is, warm and soft and so frail and fragile. Needs to be protected. Taught about the cruel world he dragged her into.

And the cycle repeats itself...

A sigh breaks out of him, and he can't stop it. His heart feels heavy with emotions, with fear and doubt and... affection. He's never felt this sober before, this clear, and he hates it. He doesn't want to question himself, not now, not ever. But those are the loudest thoughts. The doubts.

What are you doing? Why is she here? Why did you bring her? Is it just because she looks like Keira? Keira, who broke your heart, who left you to rot in that cell, destined to be hanged, if it wasn't for Mitch breaking you out? If anything, why are you torturing yourself with the memory of Keira that comes up every fucking time you look at this girl? What the fuck are you doing?

What will you do with her? What were you thinking? Promising her a better life, when your own is just as unstable as the flow of clients stumbling into the brothel you saved her from. You can't protect her forever, you failed her once already, in this very camp, the one you thought was safe! Turned your back and bam, the next horny bastard was onto her.

A bastard you cannot kill because he is part of the fucking group.

Breathing hard, he squeezes his eyes shut, trying to force the voices down. His hands slip from her warm body and clench into the sheets of the bed, knuckles turning white, the tension in his arms so bad he's shaking. His heart beats faster, the anger sitting in his gut like burning coals.

Suddenly there are soft little hands on his hard face, hesitant fingers dragging over his beard, the scraping sound causing his eyes to flutter open. Nebbia looks at him, leaning slightly over him, holding his cheeks as she tilts her head, eyes small from sleep, lips parted slightly, face flushed.

“Ben? What's wrong?” she whispers, her voice like a soft little hum in the air, a buzzing in the atmosphere. He closes his eyes again, focusing on it, on her touches, on her breathing, how close she is. How warm.

“Nothing,” he growls from deep within his throat. She exhales loudly against his cheek as she rubs her face against his beard. The warmth of her breath is right there on his dry lips. He's tempted to lick them, then lick hers, kiss her deeply, pull her closer, roll her over, sink himself into her –

“You seem so tense, are you not comfortable?” she breathes against him, the hum vibrating through his head, disrupting his intrusive thoughts.

“I'm fine, darling,” he whispers back, opening his eyes. Unclenching his hands from around the sheets, he flexes them, then brings them back to rest on her body, and she shivers when he does. One lies heavy and wide on her lower back, just in the dip of her spine, the other moves up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear before he gently caresses her cheek with the back of his finger. “What about you?”

Her eyes are on him in the semi-darkness of the room. She inhales deeply, nuzzling her nose against his cheek. “I'm... better,” she says softly, her fingers tracing along his jawline. He watches her closely, his jaw clenching when she touches it. “Ben?”

“Hm?” he hums deeply, his hand slipping along the back of her neck up into her soft hair.

“Why do I feel so safe with you?”

The question makes him pause, stops the whirling thoughts immediately. He tilts his head slightly to better look at her, before a dry laugh escapes him. “You tell me, kid!”

She scrunches her nose at the name and raises an eyebrow. “I mean it,” she says quietly, her small hand resting on his shoulder as she leans up a little. “You look... so intimidating, you're big and tall and strong, and... I am not, and yet I feel... comfortable with you. I mean look at us! Second night in a row, lying together like this!” she adds, waving her hand around. “I've never slept naked before, and most definitely never shared a bed with a man, whilst being naked!”

He chuckles slightly, watching her as she speaks, her voice a gentle murmur despite the excited, almost outraged tone in it. A warm feeling floods his insides. His hand moves up to cup her face, his thumb wiping at her warm cheek. It feels familiar. Comfortable, like she said. Strangely so. Is it just because she is Keira's kid? Does the connection come from that? Or is there something else?

Has it really been twenty years since he last saw Keira? Or less?

His eyes grow a littler harder as he looks at the girl lying on top of him, at her small, round face with those big green eyes, now almost black in the darkness, the high cheekbones, and her long wavy hair falling over her shoulders as she leans on her elbows to look back at him. The shape of her lips, the arch of her eyebrows, the soft baby hairs at her temple. His fingertips trace her features, taking them in.

She looks like Keira. She is beautiful. Because she looks like Keira?

A soft smile grows on those full lips when his thumb wipes at the corner of her mouth, and he notices something else. Something Keira didn't have. A barely there dimple in her cheek as the smile gets a little wider. He frowns slightly, tracing the little indent, while something cold creeps down his spine.

The strangely familiar dimple disappears under his finger as the smile vanishes from her lips. “What is it?” she whispers.

“Huh?” he grumbles and blinks, clearing his throat. “Uh, nothing,” he says quickly, lowering his hand to let it rest next to his body. His other hand is still on her lower back, warm and mindlessly caressing her soft skin.

He should stop. Right now.

Nebbia looks at him curiously while she shifts on top of him, her stomach pressed against his (unfortunately still hard) cock. Stop. Oblivious to his thoughts (and arousal), she keeps squirming, rubbing against him until she leans on her elbows, one on either side of his head, her fingertips brushing along his temples as she slides them deeper into his hair.

“Penny for your thoughts?” she whispers, her face closer to his now, her breath ghosting his lips, her eyes boring into his.

Ben only shakes his head slightly, sighs. “No thoughts, just tired,” he replies in a low hum.

She keeps looking at him, her fingers mindlessly massaging his scalp. He closes his eyes, leans into the touch. Relaxes. Doesn't think about that stupid dimple. Breathes deeply.

The bed creaks slightly when she moves again, shuffling down until she rests her head on his collarbone, one hand still buried in his messy hair. He feels the other rubbing up and down his chest before she slowly settles down, stops moving, stops grinding against him, and it's only her soft weight on him, barely there but still noticeable, warm and comfortable, enticing.

He shouldn't be thinking like that. But he can't help it. It feels too good. She feels too good. And he wants more...

But for now he is content with just lying beneath her, giving her the comfort she needs, enjoying the fact that she feels safe with him, despite barely knowing him. Despite knowing what he told her about himself. Despite everything.

There is a creak. A quiet noise in the silent night, amidst the chirping insects and croaking frogs, the bristle of the wind in the trees, the occasional hoot of an owl. The creak of a floorboard. Right outside his door.

He's barely slept anyway, but it still startles him awake. Inhaling deeply, he realizes the girl has changed positions and is now lying curled up against his side, just a heap of limbs and long hair, snuggled tightly against him, a small hand resting on his hipbone.

It feels wrong to move away, wrong to let her hand slide down his skin until it plops onto the sheets, but he has to move. Quickly. He gets out of bed, as quiet as he can, and taps towards the door. The creak beneath his own foot is almost as loud as a gunshot. He freezes, and there's a faint echo on the other side of the wall.

His heart is racing inside his chest. A shiver rushes down his spine. Something is off.

This was not the creak of someone walking by, trying to get back to their room. This is someone sneaking around, trying not to make any sound. And none of the people living in this house are very considerate when it comes to making noises. This feels like danger.

Without moving his feet, he reaches his hand out to the doorknob, holding his breath, listening. He sees Nebbia out of the corner of his eye, moving slightly, pulling her knees firmer against her chest, smacking her lips quietly. If she wouldn't be here, he'd grab his gun and barge through the door, scaring whoever creeps through the house away or stop them with a quick shot between their eyebrows. He wouldn't hesitate.

But now he does. He can't harm her, give no one the chance to harm her. His fingers stretch more, and with a little jolt of his body, he presses the knob in, locking the door. Not a second later, he sees it rattling slightly, the attempt of a turn. Someone's clearly there, and someone wants to get into his room specifically.

His hands are itching. For violence. Whoever dares to disturb him in the middle of the night has it coming. But he stands still, every muscle in his body tense, waiting, listening. Through the broken window comes a soft breeze, chilling his bones, raising the hairs on his arms. Then he hears it: footsteps, outside, shuffling through the dry grass.

He tenses even more, his hands clenched to fists, his eyes wandering from the window to the door back to the girl on the bed. His mind is racing. Mitch's words come back to him. ...if you bring any of those people here, if you bring trouble to us... Fuck.

They found him. Her. How is that even possible? No one has seen them escape, it's been the middle of the night. But someone must have recognized him before, drunk at the bar, asking for their newest... has seen him walking up the stairs, to her.

It's been a whole day since he left with her. Since her room has become vacant. Someone must have put two and two together. Fuck. Stupidest idea ever! He clenches his jaw, listens, looks around, waits. It's quiet, too quiet. He is so tense.

The sudden creak of the floorboards outside his room startles him, makes him move, create a creak of his own. The footsteps outside stop as well. The tension is weighing him down immensely. Nebbia coos softly in her sleep. He looks towards her, his heart hammering against his ribs, his fists tight. Whoever is in the hallway outside is leaving, a quiet noise in the silence of the night.

The stairs squeak, the hinges of the front door moan, then nothing. Outside it's quiet, too, only the insects, frogs, the wind.

Scouts, he thinks frantically, listening closely. And they've found him. But is a closed door evidence enough that he has the girl? That she's here with him? It's their only hint. He went into her room and now her room is empty. It's too obvious to hope those idiot henchmen won't put two and two together.

He walks towards the window, looking down, sees nothing, hears nothing. His mind is spinning out of control. He has to leave. Can't endanger the others. His people aren't the faint of heart, they can fight back, but what for? So he can have this girl here with him? (Keira's kid.) Is it worth it, risking an assault on their camp? Because of one girl?

It would be for him, but the others won't see it like that. Mitch is already pissed. And he is too, at himself. For not thinking straight. Bringing her here. Taking her away from them. He should have known their greedy fingers would span this far.

He turns away with a sigh, looking back at the sleeping girl on his bed, curled up, sleeping softly. Her face is hidden under her hair, her body coiled up, knees pulled up to her chin, arms around them, spine bent in a delicate arch. Even in the darkness he can see the slightly different colored hand print on her round ass cheek. Anger flashes within him.

That decides it. They're leaving. She can't stay here, among predators, and he won't let her go back to that brothel, exposing her to even more predators. Inhaling deeply, he starts dressing, quickly, quietly, giving her some more minutes of peaceful sleep. Once he's done, he packs the essentials, some provisions, ammunition, a spare gun, then grabs the duffel bag from under his bed, checks the contents.

He has to be prepared, and he has no idea if they'll return here. Or where they'll even go. But preparation is key, so he nods at the state of the rifle and the shotgun, the pack of arrows and the bow he's carved last summer. It's his hunting gear, and it can't be bad to have this with him, knowing he'll be the hunted now.

Adding a few more shirts and pants, he stuffs the bag and throws it gently towards the door, then fills his pouch with some of the trinkets on his shelves. Lighters, razors, the pack of coffee. He hesitates as his fingers close around the bottle of Bourbon, but then he packs it as well. The nights might get cold. He even grabs another one from inside his dresser.

It takes him only a few minutes to pack, and when he's done, he slowly walks to the bed, puts a knee on it and leans down, his hand extended towards the sleeping form of the girl.

She shifts slightly, smacking her lips again, so peaceful, so innocent. His fingers slide over her hip, up her side, brushing her hair out of her face. She doesn't deserve this life, running away, hiding, afraid to be found, but they have no choice. He gently grabs her upper arm and shakes her a little.

“Sweetheart, wake up,” he whispers into the night. She stirs, issuing a quiet groan, loosening the grip on her knees, unfolds slowly in front of him. Her eyelids flutter before she opens one eye and peeks up at him, licking her lips.

“Ben?” she mumbles, her voice heavy with sleep.

“Come on, get up, darling,” he says softly, brushing his hand down her arm and grabbing her hand. “We gotta go.”

That wakes her. Her eyes fly open, and she stares at him, her lips parted. “What?”

Chapter 4 -- Chapter 6

End notes: So, doorknobs, right? Lemme just say: I am not American and all my knowledge of American culture (and things) comes from TV, movies, internet videos. I have never used an American doorknob in my life, our doors have handles that you push down to open a door and a key in a lock beneath it to lock the door, but if my “research” is correct, American doorknobs have a “button” in the knob that locks the door, but I do realize that might have been a newer invention and they also just had locks and keys in the Western times, so, this might be a very historically inaccurate thing, but I've warned you about that in the tags, just wanted to point it out myself.

Hmm, sorry to take from the suspense and drama of this chapter with something as irrelevant as doorknobs. Oh well.

So, to bring you back: Danger is afoot! Will they manage to escape? And what's up with Ben's revelation of how long it's been since he last saw Keira, Nebbia's mother? Uh oh...

Picture credits to their respective owners. I don't own anything. I gathered these from all around the Internet. If you see your picture and would like to have it removed, please tell me!

Thank you for reading! Next chapter on Friday!

AO3 -- MASTERLIST -- INSPIRATION POSTS

[steddie-fanfic-recs]

hold me oh so close (you're the sanctuary)

by hitlikehammers

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationship: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson Characters: Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington, Wayne Munson Additional Tags: Post-Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2, Everybody Lives, Eddie Munson Lives, Established Relationship, (but you know: more the kind where Eddie's deep in love), (but also waiting for Steve to find the white-picket-fence girl of his dreams?), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Love Confessions, Good Uncle Wayne Munson, But Consider: Eddie Spills His Guts To His Long-Suffering Very Excellent Uncle About These Concerns, Who Maybe Doesn't Point Out That One Steve Harrington Walked In Mid-Baring-Of-Eddie's-Soul?, Featuring Apple Pies as a Metaphor, (same with picket fences), Happy Ending Words: 8,174 Chapters: 2/2

Summary

“He feels so much and I,” Eddie exhales, surprised by how little it shakes, but maybe that’s a sad thing, just proves how much he’s accepted the facts and is still…here. Feeling all of this and willing to accept the devastation that’s already drawn in his cards: because Steve is worth it. More than worth it. For just a second of everything he’s felt across these months: Steve Harrington is worth the whole heart in Eddie's chest, so if that’s the cost, then: fuck. Worth the price of admission and then some. “I’m not what he’s looking for, though, not for always,” Eddie lays that out plain, because he means it—Steve cares for him, probably loves him in a way and it's such a good way; Eddie doesn’t doubt him when he talks around the word, and doesn’t think too hard on how he doesn’t say it straight out. Because: “I’m not what he’s waiting for, what he deserves,” Eddie shrugs, and if he hugs himself a little for it, then, fuck off: the trailer’s new but the draft’s still a bitch. “He’s waiting on that apple pie kinda life, that picket-fence love, y’know?” --- Or: Eddie maybe bares his soul a little to Wayne. Odd, then, that he forgot Steve was coming over. And has his own key.

[lagingersnapz]

Some Rain Must Fall - (Fallout Fic) Chapter 5: When The Dust Settles

Chapter: 5/?

In the past, Lucy finds out what the Ghoul's plan is for getting the head back.

In the present, the Brotherhood has paid a visit to the settlement, and Lucy gets a harsh reminder of what life on the surface is like.

Characters: Lucy MacLean/Cooper Howard(The Ghoul), Dogmeat(CX-404), Original Characters

Word Count: 4781

Warnings: Violence, Swearing

Author's Note: I realized I never even put an author's note on the last chapter. I was in a hurry to post it. Word count took a little bit of a jump this chapter. I can't remember what my longest is, but I don't think this is the one. We are getting close to when I really started to feel like I was telling my own story, rather than trying desperately to fake knowing how to think of how to write a story. I had been in a writing slump for years before trying this fic, and it took me awhile to find my writing voice again.

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Ao3

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The Ghoul reached down and clamped a gloved hand around Lucy’s arm, hauling her to her feet. Lucy tried to grab her tranq gun from where she had dropped it on the ground. It was empty, and wouldn’t help her, but she would have still felt better if she had managed to have it in her hands. Unfortunately she wasn’t quick enough, and the Ghoul kicked it off into the bushes. His free hand came up and clamped itself onto the back of her neck, and he started hauling her off along the shore while she sputtered in protest, trying to comprehend what was happening.

“Wait!” she cried out, as the Ghoul pushed her roughly against the trunk of a thick tree.

“Hands,” he said. His voice was calm, too calm, and Lucy felt herself breathing hard, nerves twisting her gut.

“No, you don’t have to do this.”

The Ghoul’s hand left the back of her neck, bracing his body against hers to keep her in place, and now he was grabbing for her hands. Lucy tried to hide them between the tree and her body, but his arms were longer, and he simply ran his hands along her arms until he found her hands, dragging them out. He looped a length or rope around her wrists, pulling tightly. Lucy looked down at her bound wrists, but didn’t get a lot of time to contemplate them, as the Ghoul was now dragging her along by the rope that tied her wrists together.

The dog followed along, barking the entire time, clearly not approving of what was going on, but unsure of what to do about it. The three of them emerged from the brush onto a concrete walkway that had partially collapsed into the water. At the edge of the walkway was a winch. The Ghoul continued to march on for awhile until he reached it, then he spun around and wrapped the rope around her waist until her hands could barely move from waist height.

“Please!” Lucy continued to try and beg, not sure how she could talk him out of whatever it was he had decided to do with her. The Ghoul apparently didn’t care, and continued trussing her up, including tying her to the winch and adding an anchor to the ensemble for good measure. Lucy’s heart sank as he positioned her on the edge of the collapsed walkway. He was going to drown her! He was going to push her in, tied to an anchor, and let her drown. She couldn’t figure out why, other than some sick form of entertainment. She didn’t know where the head was and had told him as much.

“Stop, please!” Lucy tried again as the Ghoul bent to tie her ankles together as well. “My dad, he’s an Overseer! H-he got taken by raiders, and I need that head to get him back. If you help me find him, he’ll do whatever you want.” She didn’t know if what she was saying was true. The last person to hurt her had been Monty, and he had been drowned in a pickle barrel by her father over it.

Planting a hand firmly in the middle of her shoulder blades, the Ghoul gave a hard shove, and the anchor did the rest, dragging Lucy down into the irradiated water while she shrieked. As soon as she hit the water she was trying to pull the anchor off of herself. Her arms could reach up almost enough to grab the rope, but not quite. Her mouth gaped open, seemingly of its own volition, and bubbles escaped back up to the surface. Water filled her mouth and nose. Lucy tried opening her eyes, but it was so murky she could barely see the outlines of things.

The few seconds she spent in the water felt like an eternity, but then the rope at her back tightened, and she was hauled back out of the water, gagging and coughing, water, snot, and spit mixing down her face as her eyes and sinuses burned.

“Stop. Stop!” she managed to wheeze out. “Torture is wrong!” Water ran in streams down her face from her hair, and as she tried to suck in more desperate lungfuls of air, she managed to breathe in more water, sending herself into another coughing fit.

“You know, they used to do these thangs called ‘studies.’” Lucy barely heard the Ghoul’s thick southern drawl over the sound of her own gasping and coughing. She tried to turn her head to see him, but he remained just out of view.

“Why, you couldn’t open a newspaper without readin’ about one study or another.”

The rad meter on Lucy’s Pip-Boy started going crazy, and she managed a glance down, seeing the meter was maxed out.

“Anyway,” the Ghoul continued from behind her, “this one particular study came out, said that torturing a person? Don’t do shit.”

The click of the winch was the only warning Lucy got before she was sent, shrieking, back into the water. Her hands came up again, trying frantically to pull the rope off of herself, but as before it remained sturdy, and all she could do was hope he would bring her back up again. If he was trying to kill her, why didn’t he just leave her down? But apparently he didn’t consider this torture, either. This second time felt longer than the first, whether it was or not, and when the winch started to haul Lucy back up, she felt herself not only gagging, but throwing up the water she had swallowed. Her boots slipped on the wet concrete, and she couldn’t seem to find her footing.

“Made sense,” the Ghoul went on, as if he hadn’t interrupted their conversation to drown her a little bit. “I mean, a man hurts me, I wouldn’t wanna do him any favors. And yet the practice of torture failed to vanish from this earth.”

Lucy hadn’t heard him move over the sounds of her own choking, but suddenly the rope behind her tightened, pulling her more upright.

“In fact, as time marched on, I’ve personally noticed a decided uptick in the amount of torture being doled out across the board.” As he spoke, she felt him pulling something off of the back of her vault suit, and was oddly glad she couldn’t see what it was. She heard and saw the dog jump up to catch whatever it was in its mouth, though, so it must have been something made of something edible.

“Sir, please, I need the head.” Lucy figured by now that pleading wasn’t going to get her anywhere, but with the rest of her body tied down, her mouth was the only tool she had available, and she couldn’t just sit and quietly let him kill her. “It’s the only way I can get my father back.”

“My point is,” the Ghoul said, completely ignoring her, “if you ask me, them studies, they was right. Torturing a person don’t do shit.” He walked back as he spoke. Lucy managed to twist and get a glimpse of him. She expected a grinning villain, taking pleasure in her pain. Instead, he didn’t look like he was thinking about anything in particular. His face was neutral.

“Then why… why are you doing this?” Lucy still hadn’t gotten her breath back, and the words came out more as gasps.

“Well, I ain’t torturing you, Sweetheart. I’m using you as bait.”

The winch clicked again, and Lucy screamed as she went face first back into the water, a new and horrifying revelation made clear to her. The thing that had grabbed her before, that he had called a gulper, that had taken the head from her… He was trying to lure it back out. And he was using her to do it.

***

“Why are they here?” Lucy whispered, crawling out of the bed and reaching for her holster and gun. She was still dressed in a nightgown, but it didn’t seem like there was time to change just now, so the nightgown would have to do. Suddenly she was having flashbacks to fighting raiders in her wedding dress, and the memory made her nauseous for a moment.

The Ghoul and Ellie waited for her to put on the holster before gesturing for her to stay low to the ground and follow Ellie.

“I don’t know, hun,” Ellie whispered. “Maybe something to do with Moldaver’s group up at the observatory. Maybe for you two. We just don’t know.” She led the two of them to a closet, which was open, and the floor inside was a hatch, which was propped up, showing a set of wooden stairs leading down into the darkness.

“The kids are already down there,” Ellie explained, and Lucy could hear the sounds of sniffling down below.

“Wait, maybe we can help,” Lucy said, turning back to Ellie. The Ghoul’s arm caught Lucy around the waist as he started to haul her wordlessly down the stairs.

“Best thing you can do to help right now is to hide down there.” Ellie offered her a tense smile. Lucy threw an irritated look at the Ghoul, but his face was stormy in the dim light of the hallway. Lucy ground her teeth together and turned, letting herself be ushered down the steps. Behind them, the hatch closed, and the closet door clicked shut.

“I don’t like this,” Lucy whispered to the Ghoul, but all he did was grunt in response. “We could be helping them,” she pressed.

The Ghoul shushed her and then looked around. There was a lamp in the small room, its light on its lowest setting, casting dark shadows over the children assembled there. There was only 5 of them, so Lucy figured the other houses must have had similar setups for the other residents to hide in. Kelly and her brother were huddled against one wall, and Kelly was holding him in a clear effort to comfort the much smaller child.

The faint creak of a step made Lucy turn, and she saw the Ghoul going slowly up towards the hatch, stopping at the top of the steps to listen.

“Can you hear anything?” Lucy whispered, moving up the stairs to him.

“Can’t hear shit,” the Ghoul said, then put a hand back and gestured for her to be quiet. Lucy didn’t know if his hearing was better than hers or not, but between being underground, and also inside a closet, everything she did hear was muffled beyond understanding. 

Time passed by agonizingly slowly as they waited for some sign of what was going on outside. Lucy was about to suggest that they leave the hideout when a scream loud enough to cut through the doors sliced through the air, and something rumbled nearby. And then came the unmistakable sound of gunfire. Lucy tried to shove her way past the Ghoul, while below them the kids started to scream and cry.

“We have to help them!” Lucy’s voice was frantic. She couldn’t see what was happening, but she had seen what happened to the observatory. She knew exactly what the Brotherhood was capable of.

“Only thing goin’ out there is gonna do is get you killed,” the Ghoul snapped.

Lucy noted that he didn’t say it would get them both killed. Only her. Because he wouldn’t go out there, no doubt. Lucy tried to shove him out of her way. “I have to try!”

The Ghoul rolled so he was sitting on a step, almost reclined back against them while Lucy tried to crawl over him. He was grabbing at her wrists with his hands, and Lucy remembered him trying to subdue her to use as gulper bait. Her heart hammered harder in her chest.

“Damn it, Sweetheart, look at me!” the Ghoul finally managed to catch her arms, though his hold on her was awkward at best. Lucy still stopped moving. She was straining to look at his face, but the light was so dim she could barely see it reflecting in his eyes. Outside, the sounds of gunfire continued, along with screaming and yelling.

“One vault dweller isn’t gonna turn the tide of whatever is happening up there.”

Lucy moved to try and get away from him, but he let go of one of her arms and grabbed her roughly by the chin instead, making her look him in the eyes again.

“If you or I coulda made a difference, she wouldn’t’ve put us down here. That woman wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t’ve survived this long if she was.” His voice was a harsh whisper, and his hand was rough against the skin of her face. She hadn’t noticed that he hadn’t put his gloves back on. It was just like the time she’d bitten off his finger. But this time, they were supposed to be allies. They were supposed to trust each other, at least a little bit, right?

“We need to help get those kids quiet, or when the commotion dies down out there, they stand a good chance o’ hearing them, and then we all die.”

Lucy bit the inside of her cheek, wanting to argue, wanting to fight him, to go outside and at least try and help. But what if he was right? He hadn’t lied to her so far that she knew of. He had always been honest to a fault, even when they had been on the worst of terms. Cruel, but honest. Tears sprang up in Lucy’s eyes, and she sniffled, but stopped squirming to get past him. The Ghoul let go of her chin first, then her arm, and Lucy eased her body back off of his. She hadn’t realized how close they had gotten, but it made sense. It was a narrow stairwell, after all.

Down in the hideout, the children continued to whimper and cry. Lucy made her way over to them, shushing them gently and drawing them in towards her. They didn’t know her, other than Kelly and Nate, but all of them accepted her as she sat down on the floor with them. The Ghoul took a much more practical approach. He found the few blankets that were down in the room, and he covered the huddled group in them to help muffle the noise.

It quickly grew stifling under the blankets, but Lucy did her best to stay put and to be comforting. She knew tears were running down her face, but they hadn’t taken the lamp under the blankets with them, so at least the children wouldn’t be able to see her. The surface never failed to prove its brutality. They had found a settlement of good people, and now those people were seemingly being wiped out.

It took awhile for the sounds above ground to die down, and it took even longer for the Ghoul to decide that it was time for him to go out and see what was what. Demanding Lucy stay down with the kids, he took Dogmeat out with him. Lucy, of course, had no intention of listening to him. As soon as she heard the hatch close behind him, she moved to follow. Waiting a moment for the Ghoul to walk away, Lucy pushed on the hatch as quietly as she could, and found the Ghoul standing, waiting for her, staring down at her, simultaneously frustrated yet unsurprised.

Lucy didn’t have time to be amused by his reaction, or to be embarrassed for being caught so quickly. All other feelings she might have had gave way under a crushing wave of shock. The house around them was partially collapsed, wood singed from some sort of energy based weapons.

The Ghoul moved slowly, keeping low, and Dogmeat and Lucy followed. She was too shocked to ask him anything anyways. They traversed the wreckage of the house and finally emerged into what had once been the fields of crops, but were now scorched out fields of destruction. Corpses littered the ground, and the other two houses that had once sat by the one they sheltered in here similarly destroyed.

Feeling her stomach heave, Lucy covered her mouth as she looked around. “Why…?” She wasn’t even sure what to ask. All the questions swirled around in her brain like a tornado. There seemed to be no reason for what was in front of her. Even if the people had been guilty of some crime, the thorough destruction of the houses and the crops made no sense. Not when resources were already so scarce up here.

“‘Cause they could,” the Ghoul said in an enviably even tone. Lucy stared at him.

“Doesn’t this affect you at all?” she demanded, trying to keep her voice low in case any of the Brotherhood were still lurking about.

“Well, it definitely means we can’t stay here, which is a bit inconvenient.” The Ghoul used the toe of his boot to roll over a body, and Rob’s face stared up at them, eyes glassy, a hole burned through his chest. Lucy gasped as the sight, horrified even more by how calm the Ghoul was being about all of it. She wanted to go over and check for a pulse, but the man was clearly dead.

Close to Rob was Ellie, laying on her side, eyes closed. For a second, Lucy felt a spark of hope, but it guttered and died when she knelt down and put her fingers to the woman’s neck. Which had died first, she wondered? Had one of them seen the other murdered? Or had they been killed at the same time? Did they believe their children would be safe in their hideaway, or did they assume, at the end, that they would be killed as well?

“There has to be someone alive,” Lucy choked out. The Ghoul grunted and continued his slow walk around, taking in the carnage. There were marks in the dirt where other bodies had fallen, but been dragged away since. Lucy was horrified to feel a sense of justice in that. At least the Brotherhood had had losses too. As soon as the thought swept through her mind she felt sick again. Wilzig had told her that to stay on the surface she would have to adapt and become a ‘different animal altogether.’ Was that what this was?

Lucy made her way around, checking bodies, and found that none of them showed signs of life. When it became apparent that the Brotherhood was gone, at least for now, she thought of the children in the hideaway, and her theory that the other houses must have had similar spaces.

“We can’t let the kids see them this way,” she said quietly to the Ghoul, who was picking out supplies from the destruction like he was just off on a visit to a supermarket.

“Well, we ain’t got time to bury them all, either.” He picked up a gun and looked it over before dropping it back onto the ground when it apparently didn’t meet his standards. Lucy didn’t bother answering him. Instead, she went back to the hideaway, opening the hatch and calling down to the kids.

“Hey, it’s, um… It’s not very good up here. Can you stay down there for a bit?”

After a few seconds, Kelly appeared at the bottom of the stairs, blinking up at her. “We’re getting real hungry. And Nate’s messed his pants. Joel might’ve too.”

“Right,” Lucy said under her breath. “Okay, you can come up… But stay in the… house.” She didn’t know what else to call it. It was a ruin now, but at least there didn’t seem to be anyone dead inside. The kids shuffled up the steps slowly, most of them on all fours. Kelly came up last, the oldest of the bunch that had been down there. When they emerged, Nate immediately started wailing at the sight of their ruined home.

“Kelly, can you quiet him down? We don’t know how safe it is for sure yet.” Lucy felt terrible asking the young girl to comfort the wailing child, but she needed to see to the other houses. Kelly was looking around, eyes wide, but she nodded, and gathered her brother into her arms, trying to get him to cry into her shirt to muffle the sound.

Lucy slowly backed away from the group of children and went to the next closest house. She was surprised to find the Ghoul already over there, clearing away debris and knocking on the floor, checking for a hatch. Eventually they found it, and when it opened, a few more survivors came crawling out into the light. A woman in her twenties, like Lucy, but with a baby clutched to her chest, and a teenage boy with a girl around Kelly’s age. The woman looked around, and Lucy expected her to cry at the sight, but instead her face closed down, going blank. She almost looked resigned, like this had been inevitable.

The third house’s shelter had partially collapsed, killing an elderly man who had been down there, but another young mother and her child were still alive, along with the freshly widowed older woman. Their reactions all varied. Some were angry, some despairing, and others blank faced. A second search of the grounds recovered another survivor, trapped under the rubble at the back of the house.

Searching for the survivors had taken the better part of the day, and Lucy helped put together a makeshift shelter in the hideout of the house they had been in. They gathered what food they could, and blankets. The water purifier was damaged but still mostly functional, so at the very least they would have enough water. The shelter served as a makeshift food storage, so there were canned goods available. But that wouldn’t be enough. There were too many mouths to feed and not enough hands left to feed them. Lucy knew she wasn’t going to be able to leave them like this.

***

Cooper took a deep hit from his inhaler, looking up at the night sky. It was surprisingly clear, and the stars shone brightly. It was a beautiful sight, and reinforced in his mind the idea that what happened here really didn’t matter in the grand scope of things. The universe would just keep going on. He heard Lucy coming up next to him, but didn’t turn to look at her.

“You gonna be ready to leave in the morning?” he asked.

Dogmeat was curled up at his side, and he was resting a hand on her head. He wore his gloves again, but he still gave the dog a little scratch. He could feel Lucy stare daggers into the side of his head. Finally he looked at her.

“What do you mean? We have to help these people.” She gestured back at the house.

Cooper scoffed. “These people ain’t our responsibility. Kid under the rubble heard it all go down. Says the Brotherhood came down on this settlement because there was records tying them to Moldaver’s people. Didn’t have anythin’ to do with us.” He had known this fight was coming, but he was still surprised at how frustrated he already was by it. Why wasn’t she learning? This young woman had been through a hell of a lot since she had popped out of her little vault, so why was she still so damn set on helping people?

“So? Just because it wasn’t our fault doesn’t mean we have no responsibility, no obligation to them. You can’t just turn your back on people in need.”

Cooper ground his teeth together. “I certainly can. And if you plan on traveling with me, you’re gonna have to as well, because I am leaving in the morning.”

Turning back to look at the sky, Cooper hoped that was the end of the conversation. A hope that ended up being a vain one.

“I’m not leaving.” Lucy’s voice was firm, and Cooper had to admit he was impressed by her conviction. It had taken him awhile to get used to the cruelty of the world too, after it had all ended. But he had learned, and he had no doubt that so too would she.

“Guess I’ll be sayin’ goodbye to you in the morning, then, too,” Cooper said with a sniff.

Lucy stood in silence for awhile longer, then spun on her heel and left. Cooper was happy for the peace and quiet, though the twinge in his chest was a little annoying. It almost felt like guilt, which would be ridiculous, because he had given up on guilt a long time ago. The things he had done to survive up here, the things he had done so he could see his family again... If he found Janey and she ever found out about any of them… Well, she might see her daddy as a monster. So, Cooper would just have to do his best to not let her find out. Guilt was a fool’s emotion up here in the real world, and Cooper wasn’t a fool anymore. Under his hand, Dogmeat heaved a sigh.

Morning came quickly, and Cooper finished getting his stuff together. As the sun crested the horizon, Lucy emerged from the shelter. She was dressed in her vault suit again, god knew where she had found it, though the arms were tied around her waist, leaving her arms bare and her torso wrapped in a simple tanktop. This one wasn’t white like her old one, however.

“Changed your mind?” Cooper asked, already knowing her answer.

Lucy shook her head. “No. I’m helping them. With or without you. It’s the right thing to do.”

Cooper felt a pang in his chest. Was he… was he disappointed that she had chosen these people over him? His lips twisted into a scowl. “Good luck, Sweetheart.” Turning on his heel, Cooper started to march away, his saddlebags slung over his shoulder, Dogmeat trotting at his side, though she stopped periodically to cast confused looks over her shoulder at Lucy.

Cooper managed to resist looking back until he made it to the edge of the settlement, and when he did, he really wished he hadn’t looked back at all. Lucy was standing in the same spot, watching him go, but she wasn’t alone anymore. Even from that distance, Cooper recognized Kelly’s silhouette. She had reached up and taken Lucy’s hand in one of hers. The other one rubbed at her eyes.

All at once, Cooper felt the breath stop in his lungs, and it wasn’t Kelly standing there with Lucy MacLean anymore, but Janey. He could see the outline of her small frame, and her beautiful dark hair. She was watching him leave her. His thoughts flew back, over 200 years, to when he had handed Janey over to Barb at the entrance to a vault, only for the guards to start pushing him back out while Barb watched. Janey looked between her parents, clearly confused. He saw her lips form around the word ‘mommy,’ and could almost hear the question in his ringing ears. And then the elevator doors had closed. It had been his last view of his daughter… Until now, at least, when the specter of her memory settled like a shroud around Kelly’s small shoulders.

Cooper realized he was breathing harder. His eyes felt hot, and he blinked the feeling away.

“Motherfucker,” he hissed quietly to himself. Lucy turned away from him, her hand still clasped in Kelly’s, and the two of them started back towards the shelter. Was he really considering this? Going back? They had already lost two days to this nonsense. There was nothing he could do for these people, and as far as he knew there was nothing Lucy could do for them either. So why was she so adamant that she needed to stay? And WHY was he considering staying now too?

Dogmeat whined and licked at his gloved hand as he stood in silence. Cooper growled, rubbing his other hand over his face and pinching what would have been the bridge of his nose if he'd still had one. He desperately wished for a cigarette just then.

“If that little vault dweller wants me to help, she better have a fuckin’ plan,” he snapped. Dogmeat’s tail started wagging, and she barked, taking off at a run back in the direction of the shelter where Lucy and Kelly had disappeared. After a few more seconds of hesitation, Cooper followed, retracing his steps back to the ruined house, back to the shelter and the settlers, back to Ms. Lucy ‘Hazard’ MacLean.

[ancuninfiles]

A little snapshot of Nym in Comfort Pt. 5

I also just wanted to let you all know that if you haven't read Comfort yet because the writing in the first chapter is too shit, I have good news for you. I have been heavily revising the first chapter, and it is going to be MUCH better. I'm hoping that those of you who were turned away from it will give it another try once I fix it! Thanks again for the continued support, I hope you all grow to love Nym as much as I do.

[mummersblade]

Jon (AGOT) and Arya (ASOS) doubting if Robb will take them as they are, a deserter of the Night's Watch and a young girl forced to kill to survive

Jon (AGOT) and Arya (ASOS) knowing they would be unconditionally accepted by one another

Jon (ADWD) and Arya (AFFC) seeing each other as home

[grimaussiewitch]

Oh the urge to make a danganronpa au with the life series cast.

I have ideas but I need to wait until there’s a winner so I can have the 6 survivors and debate on who’s the protagonist, probably the 6th winner tbh. And so I know if there’s more new players or not.

Anyway I already have an idea for two murders, chapter 1 killer I know who and who possibly died (although the victim might be too obvious) and I know who’ll be the chapter 3 killer but I don’t think people will like the characterisation I have…

Yet again I need the series to finish before I make my decision lmao.

[kunikidas-lost-glasses]

Nikolai saving Fyodor - Fyolai Drabble

HEAVY SPOILERS FOR BSD SEASON 5 AND ESPECIALLY FOR BSD SEASON 5 EPISODE 11 UNDERNEATH

Nikolai didn't gave Dazai and Fyodor poison in this. There was some other stuff in the injections but no poison. He just wanted to make the game more interesting and funky/entertaining.

Important to note: This drabble is connected to my BSD Fix-It AU with the only change being the circumstances under which Nikolai saved Fyodor and the reason why Dazai told Atsushi to write down that Fyodor would lose his ability.

It's not needed to necessarily read my other post in order to understand this post.

It's only important to know that the ADA managed to obtain the page and that Dazai told Atsushi to write on it that Fyodor would lose his ability. He knew about the consequences it would have and while he hoped that Fyodor was gone for good, he wanted to make sure that if he would really somehow manage to come back, he wouldn't try to start a war again, not trusting him at all.

This AU works with the theory that Fyodor is highly influenced by his ability.

TWs (PLEASE take them seriously): Mentions and descriptions of blood (a lot of blood), descriptions of injuries, panic, crying (a lot of crying), medical procedures, descriptions of being in pain, mentions of fever, mentions of getting sick, mentions of the medical procedure of stitching up/suturing wounds, descriptions of treating wounds, descriptions of struggling with loosing the ability to use one hand, descriptions/mentions of utterly neglecting oneself, slightly implied depersonalization/derealization, slight mention of feeling numb, mentions of death, mentions of being heavily influenced by something, short slight mention of one of Nikolai's graphic crimes (they were mentioned when the ADA took his case), mention of scars

Maybe a bit ooc. (I understand the characters I swear. I just enjoy writing stuff which is a tiny bit ooc to allow more fluff to happen. However I tried to make it not extremely ooc though.)

(I did bend the rules of legitimacy/reality a bit in regard to treating the injuries in order to make this possible as well as a bit more easier to write.)

It's all hurt/comfort tho and it does have a lot of fluff towards the end. I promise.

Word count: 6341 words in total

He didn't know what came over him but before the helicopter crashed into the tower of the prison, Nikolai used his ability to drag Fyodor into one of his portals.

Dazai and Chuuya didn't notice him using his ability.

As soon as Chuuya and Dazai left, entering the prison one more time in order to get Sigma out of there, hoping that he would be still alive, Nikolai hectically opened up a portal himself and used it to rush into one of his many hideouts in which he had teleported Fyodor

Nikolai had never felt so glad about all the different little hideouts he had everywhere where Fyodor would be in case he needed him for a plan.

Searching a hotel room where he could try to save the Russian would become quite difficult and bringing him to a hospital while both of them were wanted criminals (one of them on the run and one of them officially pronounced dead to the public) wasn't something he could do.

Nikolai wasn't thinking clearly anymore when he arrived in the shabby little house which he called his hideout and which he had purchased under one of his many many fake identities.

In fact, he wasn't really thinking at all anymore. At least not what he would normally think.

He always expected that if he would ever see Fyodor dying, he would be filled with a sense of relief, a happy and freeing feeling, knowing that he finally reached his goal and became free.

However now this wasn't the case at all.

The only things he felt were panic and some kind of denial.

He couldn't believe what had just happened. In one minute he was chatting with Fyodor who was sitting well and alive in the helicopter, his mind already filled with excitement, imaging their upcoming new game which would have something just between them and the next minute Fyodor had been stabbed in the stomach with a metal bar which was pinning him in place, his white prison suit was covered in red, thoroughly soaked with his own blood while his body was shaking and his voice was filled with pain.

Never once had Nikolai seen Fyodor in this much pain, never once had he seen the emotions of his dear friend written so clearly and openly all over his face and not once had he himself felt so awful before. Not once has he felt such fear while his own life wasn't in danger at all.

He had felt utter sadness and heartbreak before, yes. But not such a nearly hysterical panic.

It was deep, painful sadness which ran through his veins, squeezing his heart together when he had noticed that the eyes of his childhood friend with whom he had lived together on the streets and with whom he fell in love became more hazy, losing all the light in it and when his tiredness and mature character which came from all the trauma he already had to go through since a young age slowly turned into a harsh cold personality.

Nikolai could do nothing when Fyodor's ability started to take over his friend more and more as they grew older, influencing his mind and with that his personality as well as his actions thoroughly, seemingly merging Fyodor Crime and Punishment until Fyodor slowly became a part of his ability himself. Cold, cruel and harsh.

He could only watch as Fyodor started to act and when Punishment would take over completely for short periods of time. He was unable to do anything, knowing that the ability itself was just as intelligent as the one who wielded it.

Still, he knew exactly when Fyodor, even though his mind was still heavily influenced, was coming through more and still he knew exactly that the goal was to get rid of all ability users and with that all abilities came from his Fyodor.

Surprisingly, he couldn't bring himself to love Fyodor any less, despite his more cold and cruel personality.

The sadness however, still ran deep.

But he had never felt any panic and fear like this. Not when his own life wasn't in danger.

He had expected that the moment he would see Fyodor dying would bring him joy but the expected joy was a feeling of panic and denial which clouded all his mind and made it hard to think straight and instead of feeling a sense of victory upon seeing Fyodor's face twisted in pain, he felt sick to the stomach when he saw him spitting out a concerning amount of blood, feeling like vomiting himself.

If he could think straight, he would have possibly wondered why his mind wasn't acting up, refusing to try to treat his friend in order to reach his goal but now, he only could think about saving his friend, hoping that it wasn't too late.

He rushed into the bedroom in which he had placed Fyodor on the little bed, nearly tripping twice on his way due to running so fastly through the hallways.

Upon finally reaching the bedroom, seeing his friend, he felt his heart sink.

By now, Fyodor had fully passed out, his body lying limp on the bed. His face was covered in cold sweat, his hair sticking to his forehead and the now visible large stab wound was bleeding like crazy.

If Nikolai wouldn't have been used to seeing very disturbing things, he would have probably vomited but even now he still felt incredibly sick, not due to the injury but from seeing his dear friend like this.

For a short moment, he stood next to the bed like frozen before quickly bending down to check if Fyodor was still breathing and if he still had a pulse.

He knew that the chances were slim and he nearly didn't dare to check but he had to.

Upon feeling a faint pulse and upon feeling Fyodor breathing even though it were small and uneven breaths which he took, he felt like a giant weight got lifted off his heart, which felt like it was close to shattering in thousands of pieces, breaking beyond repair anyways.

However, he still couldn't feel real relief until he knew that Fyodor was in a stable shape again.

He knew that he had a lot to do now, knowing that he was still alive but he had barely any time due to Fyodor bleeding out at a rapid speed from his stab wound but also from his injured hand and the wound where Sigma had shot him.

Trying to frantically stop the bleeding through applying pressure to the wound, Nikolai remembered the trick he did with Sigma when the latter was bleeding out from where he was shot.

Sigma's injury had been way smaller, he had lost much less blood and he wasn't in such a bad shape as Fyodor at all but he knew that doing this trick once again, would at least give him some more time.

Carefully, he pushed Fyodor into his portal before looping him through the two portals which he had opened up, slowly letting some blood flow back into his body.

This time, he was much more careful than he was with Sigma and it didn't bring him any kind of entertainment at all.

He also reduced the distance between the two portals to being as small as possible, not wanting to let Fyodor fall through the air longer than needed.

After being sure that Fyodor had more blood in his body again, he quickly lifted him back on the bed, using his ability once more to grab the box in which he stored all his medical supplies from the bathroom, not wanting to waste any time and not wanting to leave Fyodor's side.

As soon as he held the box in his hands, he placed it on the bed, opening it with shaky hands and grabbing one of scissors inside of it in order to cut open the prisoner suit in order to treat Fyodor.

After cutting the remaining parts of the upper half of the jumpsuit open, he grabbed a cloth from the bathroom with his ability, pressing it onto the wound, trying to stop the bleeding while trying not to worry about the fact that Fyodor didn't even flinched or made any pained noise upon Nikolai putting pressure on the large wound on his stomach.

Nikolai himself was only taking short hitched breaths anymore as he watched how the previously brightly colored cloth slowly got soaked in the blood of his dearest friend, turning more and more red with every passing second.

After some time, of trying to slow down the bleeding and after using the portal loop a couple of times more to give him more time, he finally had the bleeding a bit under control which meant that he now came to the part he feared the most.

Nikolai had treated many wounds before.

He had been the one to clean and stitch up Sigma's wound while they were in a hotel on the way to the prison.

He didn't really feel scared that day. He knew that he had already treated and stitched wounds of his own already so why shouldn't it work with Sigma's wound.

Sigma himself wasn't really scared either. He had been lying on the bed, looking like all the life had been sucked out of him, the realization that his casino was really gone and that all the people in it were dead had crashed down on him, shortly after their little conversation after he had woken up again after falling from the Sky Casino.

If anything, Nikolai had been more scared of Sigma's clearly upcoming breakdown which was brooding inside of him, even if he was still feeling numb at the moment.

Nikolai also hadn't been scared when he had treated his own wounds, stitching them up himself.

He had done it multiple times as a child living on the streets in the Ukraine until Fyodor joined him, insisting to treat Nikolai's wounds.

Hell, he had even skinned a person before and didn't feel scared. Numb yes. Like he was watching it happen in a movie theater, yes. But not scared.

However now his hands wouldn't stop shaking and his breathing became even more quicker and hitched but he knew that it was the only way to save Fyodor.

Noone else besides him would treat his wounds. They had nowhere else to go.

He hectically grabbed the little chair which was standing in the room, pulling it next to the bed, sitting down on it, removing his now bloody gloves, putting on some medical gloves which had been in the box as well, placing everything he needed to start treating the wound properly on a new cloth on the bed, taking a needle into his hand.

Taking a deep breath, he told himself quietly that he had to pull himself together now and that he had done this many times before but that his hands had to stop shaking now or else he would mess it up.

It was one of the few times Nikolai genuinely prayed.

Nikolai didn't know how long he treated Fyodor's wounds and his hand but it felt like hours.

He made use of all the medical knowledge he had from books and from Fyodor himself as well.

He had asked his friend a couple of times before about random medical stuff, simply because he wanted his friend's attention and because he had wanted to talk with him and he had never been so glad about the fact that he asked him about it and listened to him before.

After he finally dressed the wounds, putting multiple layers on them before wrapping them all up in clean white bandages as well as after wrapping the hand up, he felt all the energy which mainly came from his panic as well as from his sheer willpower and his wish to save his friends life fade out of his body, his body practically slumping together on the chair as he still somewhat propped himself up, elbows on the bed and his head leaning against his hands.

The silence around him felt both defening and calming as he only now realized how quiet it was.

Only his own and Fyodor's hitched breathing were the only noises in the room.

While taking a couple deep breaths, he realized that he really did it, that Fyodor's life was (for now) pretty much saved but also realized what he just did, that he saved him instead of killing him, realizing that Sigma was right when he once told him that Nikolai was unable to kill Fyodor, that he needed him and was still attached to him too much to kill him off and that he still loved him more than anything but also, upon him finally coming out of his panicked state, tears started to form in Nikolai's eyes and he was by no means able to stop them from falling down his cheeks.

He was too tired and felt too much to even think about stopping them and like that, Nikolai sat next to the bed on which Fyodor who now looked like was sleeping if one ignored the sweat on his face, the hitched breathing and the thick bandages, was lying, crying more than he ever cried before.

He cried for more than an hour, his mind a mess and everything from the past weeks crashing down on him.

Eventually he didn't even knew if he cried because of the relief after saving Fyodor or because he was so mad at himself or maybe because he realized how deeply wrong he was or maybe because he felt so torn apart but he still wouldn't stop crying. The tears continued falling down his face and he felt like he would never stop crying.

Eventually he did though.

After the crying finally quieted down, he felt more worn-out and even more like all his energy and life got sucked out of him.

Everything hurted, he had a pounding headache and light hurted in his now swollen red eyes while his face felt like it was about to explode in general.

Slowly sitting up again, slumping against the backlean of the creaking chair, he let his gaze wander over Fyodor and the bed.

There was blood everywhere on the bed and on his medical supplies, the room was a mess, used cloths, cotton balls and tissues were lying around everywhere, his own purple now reddish stained gloves were lying next to the bed and Fyodor somehow still looked breathtakingly beautiful.

Nikolai just hoped that Fyodor would handle it well, especially because of his anemia or else he would have to steal some blood transfusions from the nearest hospital.

It would be no problem. He knew how to do it, he knew Fyodor's blood type for whatever reason he couldn't recall anymore by now and after what he had just done, a blood transfusion was nothing compared to it but he knew all the risks which came with one and it was really something which he had never done before unlike treating a wound (even though he has never treated such a large and drastical wound before and even though he had usually never saved lives before) so it was really something he only wanted to do if there was no other way anymore.

Besides this he wanted to draw as less police attention to his surroundings as possible so he wanted to refrain from committing any crime but if he had to do it for Fyodor he would do it without having to think about it twice.

He looked with tired and nearly empty eyes at the scene before him for quite some time before he scratched together all the willpower and energy he had left in his body to drag himself out of his chair in order to clean up a bit.

He cleaned the room and the bed a bit up, carefully cleansed all his medical supplies if he would need them again in case of an emergency and washed his hands which were stained with blood from when he tried to stop the bleeding earlier.

Afterwards, he fully got Fyodor out of his prison clothes and dressed him into some lose pyjama pants of his own.

They were way too big and way too long for him but he didn't wanted to let him lie there in either a torn apart bloody prison jumpsuit or just in his underwear.

He also put him some of his warmest socks on, not wanting to let the other freeze before placing multiple blankets on top of him.

He didn't wanted to put on a shirt on him since he needed to frequently change his bandages and also in case he quickly had to do something on the wound again but he also didn't wanted to let Fyodor freeze or get sick on top of all so he gathered all the blankets he had lying around or which he had stored in his portals, placing them on top of Fyodor.

He also put his hand on a spare pillow so that it would lay a bit higher, knowing that it would help for a better blood flow but also reducing the risk of Fyodor accidentally touching it in case he would start to move. And Nikolai wanted so badly that he would start moving soon.

Seeing Fyodor's body lie there so limp, made his heart sink each and every time he looked at him again.

His hand was beyond fixing. Nikolai did his best but it was so injured that he probably only could move it and the fingers a little bit.

It still worked but he most likely could never use it as much as before.

After everything was done, Nikolai sat on his chair next to Fyodor for the next days, holding his injured hand gently, looking at him, monitoring his breathing, checking his overall shape and looking out for him him general without a break.

Only when he felt close to passing out he would force himself to get up to drink something and to nibble on a slice of bread or whatever random "snack" he would find but he couldn't really eat anything. He didn't want to eat anything.

The only thing he wanted was Fyodor to wake up. To look at him again with those hypnotizing purple eyes of his in which he could get lost ever since they met and to speak to him again.

He would even be fine with Fyodor telling him that he would kill him. He just wanted him to wake up and to hear his soothing deep voice with the heavy Russian accent which he loved so much.

Just like when he cleaned the room and dressed Fyodor, watching over him he felt like in some kind of trance. Everything just passed by. He was caught up in his thoughts, thinking about Fyodor, about Punishment, about what happened, about his childhood, about their shared childhood, about his ideology, about freedom and his love.

He never noticed when he fell asleep. Sleeping and being awake kind of blurred together.

Often he would dream about Fyodor and about them as children on the streets. How he once took care of Fyodor in another cold and cruel winter when he got sick, shoplifting medicine and holding the shivering Fyodor in his arms as he sat on the ground the empty side alley in which they always slept, his panic rising the higher Fyodor's fever got and about how he wrapped his own coat about Fyodor in a desperate attempt to keep him warm and shield him from the cold which surrounded them even if that meant that he would freeze himself. As long as he could help Fyodor he was happy.

He dreamt about how he prayed while Fyodor's fever was the highest it had ever been and he dreamt about how he cried in happiness when Fyodor started to eat, talk and walk around again, finally feeling better.

He dreamt about them dancing around. He dreamt about the prison about the helicopter he dreamed over and over about Fyodor's pained expression but he also dreamed about how they would sometimes lie together in the bed of Fyodor's apartment at night, holding each other after Nikolai came over to Fyodor's place once again after having a nightmare, Nikolai listening to Fyodor's steady heartbeat, neither of them saying a word, only hugging each other, knowing that there will never happen more between them than this. A faint reminder of how close they once were as teens trying to survive.

He dreamt of purple eyes, cold but gentle and soft bony hands, black hair and the sound of a feather quill scratching over paper as well as flickering screens with the purple symbol of the rats.

He dreamt about birds and freedom.

The days would pass like this, Nikolai never leaving Fyodor's side for longer than a couple of minutes until one day after nearly a whole week, Fyodor's body tensed up, his face twisting in pain for a second, his breathing becoming quicker before he managed to open his eyes a bit, blinking a couple of times before his eyes fully focused on his surroundings.

Nikolai stared at him with wide eyes, not really daring to believe that what he was seeing was real and not a dream.

Upon gaining more and more consciousness, Fyodor sucked in a sharp breath due to all the pain he felt but his mind was still too clouded to really register where the pain was coming from.

He didn't recognize his surroundings so he moved his head a bit to look around but seeing who was sitting next to him wasn't something he would have expected at all.

Upon seeing Nikolai sitting next to him, staring at him with wide eyes, a mixture of happiness, relief and disbelief written all over his face, Fyodor's own eyes widenth.

He was the first one to break the silence between them, Nikolai seemingly not daring to do anything, still not really believing what was happening.

It took him a lot of energy but he managed to say Nikolai's name, his voice being awfully hoarse and sounding fragile and weak.

As soon as Nikolai heard Fyodor call out his name, he left his frozen state and tears welled up in his eyes.

Fyodor looked at him in shock upon seeing the other tear up, still not really being able to fully wrap his head around what happened and that he was alive but despite his mind being all messy, he tried to squeeze the other's hand out of reflex, only to realize that he couldn't really move his hand before a piecing pain shot through his body making him flinch hard, causing another wave of pain to roll through his whole body this time and not only through his arm.

After the pain got a bit less again, he finally realized that his stomach and his shoulder were covered in thick heavy bandages which were neatly wrapped around him as well that wasn't wearing any prison clothes anymore.

The memories of what happened before he passed out came back as well and while he had been so sure that that was it, he was now lying here and since he could tell that this wasn't any official hospital or an infirmary at the prison he knew exactly who brought him here and who saved him.

Upon realizing all of this, he looked at all the blankets covering him before looking back at Nikolai with such a soft yet pained gaze.

It was then when he saw how awful Nikolai looked. He had lost a lot of weight, there were deep dark shadows under his eyes, he still wore his clown costume, just the hat, the card covering his eye and his gloves were missing but it looked messy and there were blood stains all over it. However since Nikolai didn't seemed to be injuried at all, Fyodor could tell that it was all his own blood which was still all over Nikolai's clothes, showing him that he hadn't even changed after cleaning up, hurrying next to his side again to stay with him.

His white hair was a mess as well and looked like it hasn't been combed since days. Even his braid which was usually done all neatly and accurate was a mess, strands of hair being out of the braid here and there and the bow at the end of the braid seemingly trying it's best to hold the last remains of the once braided hair together.

Nikolai was pale and looked more worn-out and tired than Fyodor had ever seen him and to his surprise, he felt his heart sink upon seeing his friend like this.

He wanted to say something, asking Nikolai what he had done but before he could say anything, Nikolai cried out that he hated him, tears starting to fall down.

Fyodor was caught off guard at first before a soft smile spread across his lips and he managed to say "Thank you Koyla" before he tensed up again, another wave of pain making his body feel like it was getting stabbed in the stomach all over again.

Nikolai stared at him in disbelief before gently lifting Fyodor's bandaged hand to his own face, cradling it and holding it softly against his cheek, looking at Fyodor with a wobbly smile before breaking down crying once again, not letting go of Fyodor's hand.

Fyodor just looked at Nikolai and for once he did let himself feel how painfully in love he himself was with Nikolai.

Normally he tried to suppress it, denying himself any kind of love he felt towards the other but now he couldn't bring himself to even just try to do so.

He was glad that he woke up to Nikolai sitting next to.

He couldn't say anything to Nikolai as the latter cried, since the few things he said already took out all his energy so he just lied there, looking at the other with a small smile.

Eventually Nikolai pulled himself together again, carefully laying down Fyodor's hand on the pillow again, however not letting go of it before asking him a couple of things about how he was feeling which Fyodor answered with either nodding his head or shaking his head.

In the following days, Nikolai would continue to take care of Fyodor, gently propping him up against the headboard of the bed, feeding him soup and other more nurturing dishes he would cook for him as well as making him drink a lot of water and tea.

He also made him regularly take iron supplements and fed him sweets every now and then to help his body to recover from the blood loss.

They didn't talk much. Fyodor couldn't talk much anyways but it was off-putting to see Nikolai so quiet and drowned in thoughts.

Fyodor knew that he had to leave him alone with his thoughts now and that he himself had to sort this battle between his humanity and his ideology out for himself.

Nikolai would change his bandages and the covers of the blankets regularly and kept a close eye on the wounds.

The wound were Sigma shot Fyodor in his shoulder healed good and quickly but the wounds on his hand and especially the large stab wound were healing slowly but luckily, neither of them showed any signs of an infection.

Fyodor did his best to appear put together when Nikolai was changing the bandages but sometimes he couldn't prevent himself for making pained noises, flinching hard or tensing up, hashly sucking in the air.

Nikolai never made any comments on it but he often looked at him with a worried and apologetic expression.

He hated feeling so weak and vulnerable and he was horrified of Punishment lashing out an Nikolai whenever he was in a lot of pain since it tended to lash out when Fyodor felt threatened or in pain so he was often lying there utterly exhausted after Nikolai exchanged the bandages, partly from the pain but mostly from trying to keep Punishment at bay in his weakened state.

He felt Punishment rage inside of him every single day and he found himself having the urge to get revenge on Dazai and Chuuya and the whole ADA.

However one day, just when his body was in a good enough shape for him to slowly start to get up again he felt the harsh feeling of Punishment inside of him as well as the influence it had on him disappear completely in just one moment.

It didn't fade away slowly, it was like someone had just flicked off a light switch and turned it off.

Suddenly he regained his whole consciousness again, his mind which always was a bit messy and foggy due to Punishment's influence suddenly feeling completely normal again.

He didn't really know what happened but the disappearing of his ability made unable to leave his bed even more again.

All the memories of what happened crashed down on him besides of parts where his ability had taken over completely, and the guilt was eating him up alive.

In addition to that, he had to fully readjust to having his full consciousness back.

Mostly however, he had to wrap his head around the fact that he was only Fyodor now. Not Crime, not Punishment, only Fyodor.

He felt the rage and the twisted thoughts disappear and it made him both utterly relieved and scared.

It was like a part of him got taken away but he didn't felt less whole now. If anything, he felt like himself again despite the guilt eating him up alive and it confused him more than anything.

Nikolai was there for him the whole time. He wouldn't leave his side before and he wouldn't leave his side now.

When he had entered to room, seeing that Fyodor stared at him in disbelief and fear, his eyes not being hazy anymore and lacking all the coldness but now being filled with light again, Nikolai would have nearly dropped everything he had been holding at that moment out of disbelief and shock himself.

He immediately recognized those eyes and at first, he didn't dare to believe that for whatever reason, Punishment was gone for good now.

Nikolai himself, was having a battle with his mind over all this time and slowly he let himself believe that he could be together with Fyodor while being free at the same time.

Nikolai knew by now that Fyodor returned his feelings and he knew that he would wait for him until he was ready and Fyodor did wait.

He waited until they were both ready to finally put into words what they were feeling all those times before, taking the step to finally get together.

Fyodor recovered slowly but aside from the time after losing his ability where he got worse, he was recovering steadily.

Nikolai, who had put his clown attire away by now and who slowly started to eat more again as well as started to somewhat take a bit care of himself again due to Fyodor refusing to eat until Nikolai ate something himself, helped him the whole time.

He continued to feed him, he changed the bandages, made sure that bed and room were clean, after Fyodor was able to sit up again for a few minutes without being in too much pain he would gently wash him every day, he brushed his hair making sure that it wouldn't become matted, he changed his clothes regularly and when the time came he helped him to slowly sit up without leaning against the headboard for support again, he helped him to move around in his bed to scoot over to the edge of the bed, sitting on it and placing his feet on the floor again for the first time since weeks if not months and eventually he helped him to stand up again, taking his first few wobbly steps again.

The first time standing up again was nerve wracking for both of them.

It had been painful to sit up on his own with only a bit support but it was much more manageable than when he first tried to sit up.

He couldn't stand lying in bed any longer.

Nikolai had been looking at him, his eyes filled with worry while he was firmly holding Fyodor's healthy hand with one, and his forearm of the other arm with his other hand.

After getting used to the feeling of sitting up and after the first row of pain got lesser again, Fyodor looked at Nikolai and nodded, him being as tensed up as the other himself, before using all his energy to drag himself out of his bed and up on his feet with Nikolai's help.

His weakened legs were shaky and wobbly and he immediately felt like passing out, his anemia making him see black and flimmering colors for a second but before he could fall, he felt Nikolai wrapping one of his arms around him, careful not to touch the wound on his stomach, steadily holding him and preventing him from falling, letting him slump against him until he was able to see something again a few seconds later.

His legs were shaking, his breathing became faster and he was clinging with his healthy hand to Nikolai as if his life would depend on him but he felt more genuinely happy than he felt since a long time, finally being able to stand again.

However, he quickly had to lie back down again upon the pain and the exhaustion becoming too much, making him feel dizzy and like his legs would give out on him any moment.

Nikolai himself had a big smile and teary eyes as he told Fyodor that he did great, feeling relieved due to seeing how well Fyodor was recovering and that he would be able to walk at least short lengths again being written all over his face.

He also helped him to slowly move his hand more again but just as he had suspected, Fyodor couldn't really move or do anything with his hand anymore.

Teaching himself how to write and how to handle a weapon with his non dominant hand wasn't that difficult for Fyodor but he did struggle with doing daily activities with mostly only one hand and he grieved after not being able to play the cello anymore.

Nikolai tried his best to cheer him up whenever he saw that Fyodor was getting frustrated again because of his hand or when he sensed that he became upset when listening to music including a cello again.

After getting up again for the first time, they would continue to train getting up and walking around again.

The first few times, Fyodor had to hold onto Nikolai and often wasn't able to take more than two or on good days three steps before his legs felt like they would give out again and before the pain coming from the large stab wound became too much again.

However after quite some time had passed, he was able to walk around more freely and without having to hold onto Nikolai as much again.

He was still shaky on his legs, walking quickly became exhausting and painful after a while but he got better and better.

It still took a very long time until he was able to fully get out of bed over nearly a whole day, to walk around and do things completely on his own but Nikolai was there for him the whole time and he continued to be there for him even when Fyodor had fully recovered just like Fyodor was always there for Nikolai when the other needed him.

When the large wound was finally so well healed that Nikolai could finally pull the stitches out, he did try his best not to tear up again, the process reminding him of how he was desperately trying to save his dearest's life but also showing him once again that he did manage to save him, reminding him of how far they came.

After they finally got together after Nikolai was ready and after they both were both in a much better state, both physically and mentally, Nikolai would often kiss Fyodor's injuried hand, holding it as gentle as possible if Fyodor either was upset because of it again or if the chronic pain which developed from the injury became worse again.

Fyodor would always have two large and messy looking scars and a fully scarred hand now but Nikolai didn't mind. He would always tell Fyodor that he looked beautiful, despite all the scars which the other hated so much and he would frequently kiss them whenever he got the opportunity to do so.

After Fyodor had fully recovered and was able to live more independently again, they moved out of the little shabby hideout to live a quiet life underground in a small but cozy house under fake identities and in a different country, far away from where everything went down.

Due to Punishment being gone, Fyodor had no desire to start another war or to get revenge on the ADA anymore.

He just wanted to get as far away from anything which reminded him of this time as it was possible.

He craved to start a new life together with Nikolai, far away from all the things which reminded him if the past.

They might still had a long road of recovery and redemption in front of them but they both felt happier than they've ever been and their relationship was a true and honest one, based on a deep and mutual understanding for each other and based on utter and deep running love which would never end.

If you read all of this, thank you so much! I love u <3

I hope you liked it!

[16woodsequ]

Nobody:

Me: *gets to chapter 4/5/6 of my multi-chapter fic*

Me: *cracking knuckles* Alright, time for something utterly tragic.

[steddie-fanfic-recs]

I just want your extra time (and your kiss)

by ChristinMKay

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationship: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley/Vickie, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington & The Party, Minor or Background Relationship(s) Character: Steve Harrington, Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley, Vickie (Stranger Things), Dustin Henderson, Mike Wheeler, Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Lucas Sinclair, Will Byers, Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan Byers Additional Tags: Post-Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2, Post-Vecna (Stranger Things), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, Sharing a Bed, Hurt/Comfort, Getting Together, patching up wounds, Sexuality Crisis, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Gay Eddie Munson, Fluff, 5+1 Things, First Kiss, Recreational Drug Use, Shotgunning, Sharing Clothes, Sexual Tension, Platonic Soulmates Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Slow Burn Words: 48,722 Chapters: 6/6

Summary

“And here I thought you were popular, Harrington,” Eddie puts on a fake, confident grin once he has put the bottle down. “I expected at least one of those hot dates you keep having to be here.” He manages to keep his leg from bouncing, but his thumb is already rubbing over the damp label on the beer bottle, peeling it off. “Well none of us are that comfortable with crowds these days,” Steve shrugs. “And honestly, I’d rather just hang out with the people that matter.” Five times Steve almost kissed Eddie and the one time Eddie beat him to it.

[the-orange-tabby-cat]

GIF by loregifs

Wings Of The Dawn | Chapter 5

Joel miller x fem!reader

Summary: You are Jackson's librarian, a doll with a good heart, that has your life changed when a handsome man decides to take his kid and start again in your small town after completing their cross country journey. Having a hard time ignoring Joel's dark brown eyes, you find yourself wishing to have him close as you both navigate through love triangles, teenage drama, city gossip, and ghosts from both of your pasts. This is a comfort fic filled with slow burn and small town dynamics. Chapter summary: Elie's actions make everyone faces their own demons.

read on AO3 | fic masterlist | masterlist | playlist | next chapter

Rating: 18+ (no smut on this chapter)

Warnings/Tags: Described self harm (burning), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Slow Build, Friends to Lovers, Age Difference, Small Town Dynamics, No use of y/n

Chapter Word count: 7,5k

｡˚🐾₊˚

CHAPTER 5

Laid down on the ground, a blonde girl observed the other side of a valley with her binoculars. In her back, a rifle carefully put just waiting for any signal of trouble. Her eyes scanned the site, meter per meter, trying to find an intruder between the trees.

"C'mon, Pawpaw, you got this." Her teenage voice was no more than a murmur. A few seconds passed and a louder bang resonated. Getting the rifle in her hands in one quick move, Nath closed one eye and watched with the other through the receiver sight.

An old Asian man appeared in her perimeter, making a loud birdlike sound with his mouth as he stared at the top of a mountain searching for her. Exhaling the breath she didn’t know she had taken, Nath put the rifle on her back and sprinted in the man’s direction. Getting there fast, he smiled as soon as she arrived.

“The cabin is ours, bug. It’s mostly intact, raiders haven’t come this far yet.” He hadn’t smoked a cigarette since the outbreak happened two years ago, but his voice was still hoarse in the memory of the man he once was. His small brown eyes were so similar to his granddaughter, only changing the color.

Pulling Nath gently by her shoulders, they walked to the cabin in a comfortable silence. The 15 year old was proving to be fiercer than her size and gaining her grandpa’s respect, or at least that's what she hoped for. They had been living in the woods since the summer of 2003, mostly due to the fact they were already camping at the outbreak eve.

Alcohol had been in the family's DNA, with her parents owning the winery after Pawpaw decided to retire and move to Montana. Mom and dad were in France promoting their brand as their teenage daughter spent a summer weekend in the north with grandpa and grandma. Camping was grandma's idea and she was also the first to turn, after eating a 7-Eleven sandwich. Nath’s parents never got able to say their goodbyes.

The cabin became Nath’s temporary favorite home from the ones they lived in over the years. The color of the wooden walls, Pawpaw’s shadow play late at night, his loud snore that echoed from his room to hers. Everything at the cabin made her forget that once they walked through the front door she was holding a rifle and shooting every son of a bitch who crossed their path. It was far from comfortable, but it was theirs in a world where she had to grow too fast.

At early hours in the morning, a 34year old Nath couldn’t think of anything except the wooden walls of the cabin as she observed Ellie and Joel leave through Jackson’s gate. It was the morning of Ellie’s fifteenth birthday, they went out for a little trip that was expected to last four days. She couldn’t remember Pawpaw’s exact age when she was fifteen, in her hazy memory he could be older than Joel, but it didn’t matter: she was thinking nonstop about her past these days.

Ellie was always in a ponytail, teenage Nath had her short hair in a baseball cap. Ellie liked Converse, teenage Nath too. Ellie was constantly delivering puns, Nath had a collection of graphic t-shirts. Joel traveled the country getting rid of everything and everyone that could hurt Ellie, Pawpaw made a huge effort to keep Nath alive. Joel had blood on his hands, Pawpaw too.

Pawpaw’s face was slowly getting blurred inside her head. Without a picture of him, it was hard for her to remember all of his features. Was his nose a button or slope? Were his eyebrows sparse or dense? She couldn’t see it anymore, it was mostly gone, except for his eyes.

Whenever she looked in the mirror she could see him if she focused on the eyes. The face of her mother was long forgotten, a ghost she couldn’t place anymore in her life, Nath knew that the sand blonde hair and dark blue eyes were from her side of the family tree. But the thick layer of straight lashes and monolids that made the blue of her iris unexpected, as if it shouldn't be there, was her grandpa's features. She almost wanted to see dark irises in herself, not the blue from her mother’s heritage, perhaps like this she wouldn’t forget his face. Pawpaw had eyes so dark they were almost black, just like Joel’s. Nath felt she was so similar to her grandpa from her quick thinking to her cruel ways when hurt, Ellie was Joel’s mirrored image in both want and need.

Maybe this is why she felt unsure as the girl left the city for another road trip. Now that she was an adult, the weight of the years they spent having blood on their hands in the name of being safe and sound became bittersweet. Did Pawpaw kill those people to protect her or to feed the beast inside him? Did she kill for safety or because something was wrong with her? She wasn't sure anymore.

She didn't want to find out.

You had said goodbye to Joel and Ellie with a smile, the museum was your idea of family bonding after a tough week for them. Ellie, of course, had no clue of the surprise on her way, but seeing her happiness of roaring the wild again filled you with love. Joel wanted to make a big thing, fifteen was an important age to be. You saw it as an opportunity to reinforce Jackson as their home and he took it with tenderness from the planning until the execution.

Everything seemed in place until you started to walk in the Bison's direction with Nath by your side and noticed the silence.

“Is something wrong?” You tried but Nath was in another world, not paying attention. With your hand on her shoulder, you intended once more. “Are you okay?”

“Huh? Yeah,” she shut it and walked a little ahead of you. Three years in Jackson and it was the first time you saw Nath like that.

“Are you sure? You are quiet.” Jogging a bit, you got closer and spoke with a soft tone. Her eyes weren’t watching what was in front of you, but far away.

“I’m good, Doll. I need to work.” She left you as she entered the Bison, slow pace and shoulders down.

As you were alone, you analyzed all the recent events searching for clues.

A week ago, on a Saturday morning after the movie night, the council meeting had Nath’s blood burning, she was unable to contain herself. The last ten minutes were a back and forth of loud arguments.

"Esther? She doesn't live inside the city walls, why her?" Her eyes were full of rage at Maria's, who didn't back down and devolved with the same intensity.

“She is my friend and we share similar points of view, from everyone here, you should be the one understanding it." She raised her voice and moved her eyes at you, who blushed timidly.

“Dolly lives inside the city, we must have some rule about it. Edwin?” Nath crossed her arms in front of her, getting angrier.

The old man opened a notebook with the council rules, the town’s only official document. Gliding up his glasses, he shook his head. “It says all citizens, not a word about their living condition.”

You weren’t sure that you wanted Esther for the next months as Maria’s interim, it meant she would move to town and see Joel more. Not that he ever mentioned her, but their first meeting was still on replay inside your head whenever someone said Esther’s name, his questions about sheep made you uneasy. Oh God, he only questioned the woman about her occupation, why were you so upset? It’s just sheep.

“Great. When will she start?” Nath rolled her eyes, frustrated at the lost battle. Maria still hadn’t opened the smuggling route, forcing you and Nath to preserve the resources you had.

“Next week. She knows all my opinions on our current topics and will keep me updated, so don’t try to take her to your side ‘cause she won’t fall for your bad schemes.”

"Maria, enough," Alfie spoke in a baritone getting looks from everyone, including Maria and Nath. “Can you both stop attacking each other like that? We have more important things to do than whatever this is.”

For the first time in a while, you looked at Alfie for more than a moment. He was different, wasn’t gleeful or with a smile on his lips. His facial hair had changed with a strong mustache above his lips that seemed out of place. His sweetness was not so evident giving you a shiver up the spine, what had happened to him?

"Let me get crystal clear then: Esther is my interim, but she'll be my eyes. I expect all of you to treat her if she was me, this includes you, Nathalie." Maria's tone was firm and decisive. Her eyes stayed aimed at Nath for a second, who just sighed.

“Yes, ma’am.” Nath’s words finished the conversation.

You didn't understand how or why, but Maria was getting angrier as time passed by. From the pregnancy announcement to the seventh month, she was gaining more weight on her body as well putting some in her words. Feeling your eyes on her, Maria glared at you in a silent “don’t try me” that you promptly accepted.

After the meeting, you were at the library’s main room updating the board with all the current lending. Still thinking about the council’s mood, you turned around to face Joel, who was putting the last shelf he made together.

“Is Maria okay?” You asked chewing your bottom lip, the lines between Joel’s brows got deeper.

"I think so, why? Something happened at the council?" Closing the distance, he walked to the balcony and put his hands on it, somewhat near yours.

“It might be nothing, but I feel her getting more…” You searched for words while moving your hands in the air. Joel kept looking at you with curiosity. “Intense. Makes sense?”

“Pregnancy can be tough, if she wasn't acting like it then it would be worrying. Those final months are the worst."

"Huh, you seem to know a little too much about it." Walking back to the shelf, Joel stopped in his tracks as if he got caught, but you continued without noticing it. “Have you been pregnant yourself?”

“Very funny. Don't you have books to separate to put on this thing? I'm almost done." He cut the subject, hoping you wouldn't dig too much into it. You just smiled and got a book pile on your arms.

He hadn't paid attention to Maria but would watch Tommy up close. Joel left the library and met Tommy for a patrol together. He had finished the dam amends and was ready to be his brother’s partner. It would be his first real patrol, once again in the role of the protector.

You said to him, as he walked to your doorway last night, that he "must be used to the patrol's routine after so much time on the road with Ellie", but you were oblivious to his fear of completing the journey. The motif for the cross country travel or why Ellie kept using a bandage on her forearm, you saw what he wanted you to see. In a Miller way, Tommy was doing the same with him.

The plan was easy: take a look at an old hotel a few miles off Jackson, make an inventory of what they found, eliminate some runners, and travel back. From the gate opening to the woods up the mountain, Tommy was nonstop speaking.

“I like William or Loretta, like grandma, but Maria needs more convincing." The man was babbling with a smile on his lips, one that didn't reach his eyes.

“William Miller sounds a little off, too much Ms," Joel replied waiting for his brother’s reaction as they dismounted their horses.

“Hum, I guess so. I also like Dylan, from Bobby. Maybe we could have a first and middle name, why not?” He kept going, not looking Joel in the eye, an old childhood habit whenever he was lying.

“Still quite early for it. Maria is what now, entering the third trimester?” With their guns in hand, the brothers were about to enter the first block of the hotel. Joel opened the door for Tommy, who hesitated a little before entering.

Following behind, Joel took a good look around. It had been at least months since someone walked by the area, let alone stayed long. A rich dust layer was all over the place making the air dense, breathing was hard as they went further from the door, but didn’t stop Tommy from speaking still. Opening every door in a long corridor, the brothers found nothing until the kid’s playroom. Tommy was mute.

At the corner, Joel saw something shine under his flashlight. A guitar. He crossed the room and examined the instrument and its shoulder strap, just to see that it was in good condition. He made a promise to Ellie that hospital day, to teach her how to play, he could now pay at least one of his debts. Tommy was apathetic as he walked from toy to toy, forcing Joel to observe a little further and recognize what was behind his eyes: fear.

"Let's head back to the main room, c'mon," he jerked his head in the direction and Tommy silently followed.

Tommy was sat with his gun in his lap, while Joel started to search for a rag inside his backpack. Unable to ignore the tension in his brother’s shoulder, he started.

“The feeling won’t go away, it’ll stay with you forever.”

“What feeling?” Tommy asked with one elbow resting on his knee.

“Fear of fuckin’ it up. Don’t bullshit me, I can see in you.” The brothers shared a glance. Tommy sighed and scratched his mustache.

“I thought I had it in me. That I was so sure I was a natural.” Shaking his head, the younger Miller continued. “Third trimester, I didn’t know how to name it before you said it. It’s roughly seven months, anytime soon my child will be here and I feel like one. Guess you were right when you said we would find out if I’m a good dad. I already know: I’m not.”

“Parentin’ isn’t about perfection. You’ll learn as you go. It’s about love, keep ‘em safe.” Joel retorted calmly, taking the rust chords of the guitar. “Sometimes we need to make hard choices for their own good, even if it means to sacrifice ourselves for it.”

“What happened at the hospital?” Joel hadn’t spoken about Salt Lake City with Tommy. He knew at some point they would have to talk about it, but the memory was too fresh. His hands were still stained from all that blood. His brother gave him time to process it, but now the scenario was different.

The guitar fretboard had a silver butterfly engram at the third fret. Even if a butterfly, the intricate design was much more realistic than anything Sarah had. It didn’t belong to the smiley girl from his memory. Joel started to clean it up, making himself comfortable in his chair.

"I don't know what happened," he started with a huff, like an anecdote. "I was supposed to take her to the Fireflies and walk away. You go halfway across the country with someone... She needed her immunity to mean somethin'. Maybe I was starting to buy into that whole cure business. Maybe I just wanted to do right by her.

"And then we made it. We found the Fireflies. And because of her they were actually going to make a cure." Still cleaning the fretboard, Joel nodded his head down looking at the ground. "The only catch, it would kill her."

"Jesus Christ, Joel." After a second, Tommy stared at Joel, in his eyes a deep sadness. "What'd you do?"

Joel lifted his eyes from the ground to meet his brother's. His brows furrowed with an intense gaze, just to be once more soft as he got back to his previous task.

"I saved her." Joel had meant when he said that sometimes sacrifice is necessary. In that hospital he sacrificed the last part of his soul to allow Ellie to keep hers.

"Goddamn," Tommy exhorted with his head down. "That's... Huh, that's a lot. What does Ellie know?"

"I told’er they just ran some tests." Joel pondered for a fraction of a second, just to say in the same direct tone. "I told her... Her immunity meant nothin'."

"And she believed you?" Tommy asked trying to picture the scene.

Joel stopped cleaning, shook his head a little and got back to the task.

"Didn't say otherwise."

-

Ellie was outside Cat's house not sure what to do. Should she knock? Wait until she crosses the door at some point in the day? There wasn't a manual on how to date when immune. She wanted to see if the girl had turned, she hadn't slept thinking a “what if” in the back of her head.

Riley was her first kiss and turned during the night. She mixed her blood with Sam's and he also turned. What if they hadn't turned because of a bite, but because of her? Seeing Cat alive and well was all she wanted. She couldn’t care less that it was so early in the morning with the birds chanting still.

She waited outside the house until Maria came by the corner. To avoid further questions Ellie hid in the front yard bush. The woman stayed inside for a long time, making her feel beyond uncomfortable in her hiding spot. When she finally left, Ellie got up on her feet and stretched.

“Most people knock, you know,” Cat said behind her with a playful tone, gaining a scream from Ellie. The girl chuckled happily. “What are you doing here?”

Fuck, she hadn’t planned that far. “I freaked out at night because I’m immune and not sure if I can give you cordyceps through a kiss, came by just to check if you’re alive” wouldn’t be a nice move. Thinking fast, she opted for a regular.

“I’m following Maria. Nath asked.” Cat eyes lingered a bit on the floor, her smile no longer genuine, but she accepted the excuse. “Gotta go, tell her what I saw.”

“Wanna hang out later?” Ellie turned around, thinking a second too long about the proposal. Cat was fidgeting with her hands as she waited for a response.

“Yeah, why not? See ya,” she quickly said and strolled down the pavement, not seeing the big smile on Cat’s face.

Joel went on a patrol with Tommy, so the only place left for her on a Saturday was the Bison. The bar was crowded, most people waiting for their orders. Seth was grabbing one by one as Nath was somewhere in the kitchen. Crossing the counter, Ellie found the blonde woman trying to unclog the sink.

“Goddamn, shit.” Nath cursed twisting her lips and moving the siphon, or whatever she was doing. Ellie had no clue what was going on. When the woman got up, she smiled. Across her chest, her t-shirt said "University of your mom, 1969", she was in a good mood. “Please tell me you came here to say you got scared last night, had nightmares and shit.”

“Scared? Nah, but yeah about the nightmares part. What the hell are you doing?” She leaned against the kitchen wall and observed. Nath had gloves on while maneuvering a white galloon by her side.

“This is caustic soda. It’s an acid, burns shit. I have a little from the previous bar owner, when the sink gives me hell I put it and boom, all solved.”

“Why gloves?” Ellie saw how carefully Nath moved around the galloon, almost afraid of it.

“It burns skin too. Not the best feeling in the world, I got burned smaller than you. Trust me: you don’t wanna see it." She answered while she poured the acid down the sink.

“You have a scar? Show me!” Nath rolled her eyes at the response but took her gloves and moved close to Ellie.

"We need to find you a hobby, you're a weird kid." On her back, a small scar with irregular skin. It was a little puffier than the rest, but mostly imperceptible when not looking at it. Ellie’s mind flashed a thought.

“That thing did this?” Nath nodded, wrinkling her nose.

“Believe or not it used to be on my stomach, not my back. I was maybe five or six, don’t know. My dad was using this bad boy in the sink, I got too curious and some spilled on me. I can still remember the smell.”

“Did it hurt?” Ellie insisted, but Nath didn’t notice her tone, too focused on getting back to the normal service velocity of the Bison.

“Like a bitch!” She shouted going back to the counter, leaving Ellie alone. “Alright folks, Seth cooks and I take your order. We’re only two so keep that in mind, especially you Sam. I swear to God, if you order a salad I’ll kick your ass out of here and straight to Chad’s garden.”

Using the crowd in her favor, Ellie took the gallon with her and walked faster back home.

Cat was alive, which was good, at least someone wasn’t affected by her curse. But if her body didn’t make others get cordyceps, how would other people react when she remove her bandage? Would they freak out or understand? Nath’s scar was fine, the irregular skin pattern was different from the smoothness of other areas.

Ellie wanted to not live in fear of getting caught. She knew the risk she had only existing in this world, she saw people being murdered for less. Joel made her sleep with the bandage too, in case something happened during the night. He was constantly worried about her safety.

At the kitchen sink, Ellie remembered Nath said it would hurt. Making a quick plan, she got something to bite so she wouldn't be heard, a gag. She took all the bandage off and put it aside, taking a final look at her bite marks. They were over a year now, from Boston still. She thought that if she took those marks from her body she could also start over in Jackson.

Feeling courageous, she prepared the scene. Gag herself, extended her right arm above the sink tub, and counted from five to one before pouring the acid. As soon as the liquid touched her skin, she screamed in pain.

The teeth marks leaving one by one as the skin burned, the acid danced around hurting every part of it. Her screams were evident, but so was her pleasure of not being able to see the old scar. Behind her, the door opened, but she didn’t notice.

Joel stepped inside and felt right away the eerie atmosphere of the house. Screams entered his ear channel, he moved as he tried to find the sound’s origin. He could hear Ellie behind it.

The screams were muffled, but still there. Joel increased his pace, trying to get to her faster. Finally, he entered the kitchen to his horror. Ellie was holding out her arm, some acid burning her skin with a sizzling sound.

"What are you doing, baby girl?" He pleaded as he saw in her forearm where once were marks of bites now third-degree burnings. Opening the faucet, he forced her to stay put down the water.

"I'm leaving this behind!" Ellie took her gag out with the other hand and cried out, loudly and fast.

With heavy tears down her face, his stomach churned seeing how far she went to forget about her immunity. He kept her arm under the water flow, sure that his gripping would leave bruises behind, all because her smile wouldn't fade away.

-

The nurse came searching for Nath at the Bison late in the afternoon. When she heard "Ellie" and "burning" it was enough to make her sprint to the clinic. Joel was in front of Edwin's door, looking like a kicked dog. Next to him a white galloon that she recognized right away.

“Why is that here?” She questioned already knowing the answer, just to be cut by Edwin taking Ellie out of his office. The girl had unshed tears in her eyes. “What have you done?”

Ellie looked down, and went to Joel’s side, finding refugee in his arms. The man had puppy eyes, Nath wondered how her face was at that moment.

"She might have a fever, it's normal in burn victims. Chad will make a paste for it, use it at least three times a day. The bandage must be changed every time she uses the paste. The skin is too sensitive, it has bubbles and pus, it might leak, but under any circumstance she can peel it off." Edwin vomited his words, or did Nath want to vomit? Her mind was blurry.

“Thank you. We’ll follow it.” Joel confirmed, Ellie still quiet and looking to the ground.

When Edwin left, Nath walked to them. She could hear Joel speaking something, but her eyes were focused on Ellie who looked so small.

“Nath, did you hear me?” Joel tried again, in his voice rage. “I said you need to lock down these things. It’s too dangerous.”

“Got it. Can I speak with Ellie? Please.” She asked not knowing why. The kid was still looking down, avoiding her gaze.

“I think you already did too much. We’re heading home.”

With Joel pulling her by the shoulder, Ellie left the building, but not without locking eyes with Nath seconds before the door closed. She tried to remember where she saw those eyes and their emptiness, just to remind of her own mirror reflection.

-

The soft breeze caressed your face, gently waking you up. Near you, the orange tabby cat slept in a C shape, softly snoring. You petted his fur while humming, Sunday mornings were the best for a long time, it was your time to be lazy. As a kid, you hated Sundays because it was the day of the Lord, the longest day for you.

Susan, your mom, would dress you up in your best Sunday dress, doll you up with a ribbon in your hair. The morning would be for sermons and church devotion, no one could escape. Jason would get a brief relief when playing his guitar at the church’s band, but you had only your imagination to help you out.

From your bed, you wondered if your imagination would be enough to ignore the fact you would only see Joel the next day. Most nights you would daydream about a future with him before sleep. His body searching yours through the night, waking up with his strong arms around you, curling his hair between your fingers… Your mind was always drifting to him. You could spend a day without him, right?

Wrong, a little after lunchtime you found yourself walking to his house thinking about every possible excuse. “I made more food than needed because I’m used to have lunch with you”, “I was nearby and decided to say hi”, “just checking if Ellie needs more books” etc. You had it under control but forgot all about it when Joel came to answer the door with puffy eyes.

“Are you okay?” Your hand was cupping his cheek in an automatic move, he closed his eyes for a second before looking anywhere but your face.

“Now isn’t a good time. You should go.” His tone was serious, you understood right away he wanted to kick you out. And you would respect him, if his hand hadn’t clasped your wrist in a soft move, not a rough one.

“Tell me about it during lunch, you need to eat.” His fingers were still on your wrist, holding you close. Your thumb caressed his cheekbone. “Please.”

His eyes saw yours and allowed you to get in. You took the lead and went to the kitchen, hoping he would be right behind. Preparing the table from the memory of the candle night, you made a motion for Joel to sit down, which he did quietly.

“Start from the beginning. What happened?” Joel inhaled and stayed quiet for a few seconds. You could see the engine inside his head choosing how vulnerable he could allow himself to be. Trying to act naturally, you served him a plate and sat next to him, not in front.

“Ellie got burned really ugly during my patrol with Tommy.” His brows deep furrowed, mouth corners chewing nonstop.

“Is she alright? Do you need anything? I’m so sorry.” Your voice was delicate, doing your best to not get Joel startled, despite the urgency to get the puzzle pieces.

“She’s resting at the guest house, Chad made her a paste. She’s okay, tough kid.” Joel said to you, but it was clear he tried to assure himself of it.

“Joel,” you started and he looked at you with those puffy eyes. Your heart broke a little. “How did that happen?”

“She found some acid,” he didn’t offer you more as he avoided your eyes.

“She did this to herself on purpose?”

With a small nod, Joel made your mind race. You didn't insist on it but remembered Ellie's bandage and tried to connect the dots. Why a smart kid like her would do something like this? Joel was beyond sad, there was something he wasn't telling you. Accepting the level of vulnerability he was willing to share with you at the moment, you placed your hand on his knee.

“I don’t need details, just to know if you both are okay. She is medicated and resting, what about you?”

“What about me?” He asked you back as if he didn’t matter. Your hand squeezed his knee.

“You’re stubborn as a mule. C’mon, eat.” Removing your hand from his knee, you and him fight in a staring contest. Feeling defeated, Joel got his fork and started to eat, gaining a smile from you. “My brother used to tell me that we need to be healthy in order to take care of the sick. Eat, be healthy.”

"Your brother seems smart." Joel's eyes were a little less dull watching you smile.

"He is, most times, at least. Older brother, gives nice advice, but uses none." You shrugged while looking up. "Bet Tommy would say the same about you."

“You here to help or to roast me?”

Laughter filled the room as you both banter. At some point, your legs touched under the table and no one made a move, enjoying each other proximity. You wanted to pet his hair, to kiss his temples and say that everything would be alright, but you knew better than that. Instead, you washed the dishes for him in a small gesture of tenderness.

"You have a week until her birthday. Already got all the items you need?" Drying your hands, you posed next to Joel who was drinking coffee while standing up near the sink. You tried to ignore how domestic the afternoon was.

“Yes, even the tape with the Apollo 11 launch. Still not sure how you got it, but thank you.” It was Eugene, but had you omitted this detail. “We won’t take the trip no longer, but I appreciate your effort, sweetheart.”

You took a second too long to understand the meaning behind his words, focusing on his southern accent saying a pet name. It made your cheeks get hotter, Joel was a man of direct words, most times not even saying your name. You were sucking your bottom lip when realized everything he spoke.

“What? No, why not? You put so much effort into it, she'll love it!” Joel shook his head at your words. Stubborn motherfucker.

“Too dangerous. Can’t hike with her like that.” His tone was dead serious, not giving space for a retort, but you opened your mouth anyway.

“Is her feet burned? Her eyes?” You asked seriously, he shook his head again. Putting both hands on your hips, you continued. "You took her all the way from the East Coast to Wyoming and now, when you both have a roof above your heads, family, and friends will you deny her mundane actions like a birthday surprise? You kept her safe before, you'll do it again. Fuck, I can go with you if it means you'll do it."

Joel raised his eyebrows ready to argue back, but you pointed a finger in his direction. You had no real intention of traveling with them, wanted to be their time together, but maybe it would help to convince him. After a few seconds, he accepted defeat.

“If she gets worse or something happens in the meantime, we’ll stay here. Final words.” Taking another sip of his coffee, Joel was still worried.

Embracing the intimacy you had developed with him up to this point, you got closer and put your head on his shoulder.

“If, if, something happens I'll be here still to help you think of a plan B. But I want to see you leave through that gate with her next Saturday.”

“Want a rest from me at your library?" He teased with a smile. You raised your head from his shoulder to look into his eyes.

"Who said I won't be at the gate waiting for you to get back?" Your tone and grin were playful, teasing, but the weight of his eyes on yours showed something more. Deciding to not see too much between the lines, you put some space between your bodies. "I have to go, need to feed the cat. See you tomorrow, okay?"

Joel nodded, taking the final sip from his coffee as you walked fast through the backdoor. Taking a gulp of air, you saw Nath leaving Ellie’s guest house. Paler than normal, she was trembling a little. You made a motion to go to her, but she ran away quickly before noticing you.

In a weekend full of emotions, you were left with your thoughts: what happened to your small town where everyone was always aware of each other business? You wanted answers, not just questions.

-

A week later, a few hours into hiking, Joel tried to clear the air with Ellie.

She had spent the week between the burning and her birthday healing, both her body and spirit. You came once more to the house, this time to visit her with Cat. He pretended not to see Nath there two times as well, despite his momentary anger towards her Ellie liked the woman’s company. Tommy and Maria kept dining with them, his sister-in-law even tried to light up the mood with jokes. Ellie was getting better, but the kitchen scene was in a loop inside his head.

“Why did you do it?” Joel started, just to notice how directed he was. Heart talk wasn’t his forte.

“Do you really wanna know?” Fortunately, Ellie was just like him, bad at translating her emotions into words. He stopped walking and nodded in her direction.

Ellie looked at his chest, her brown eyes a little lost. Joel did the same when under pressure.

“My immunity doesn't mean anything, right? The fireflies didn't find a use for it, so why have its scars permanently on my body? I wanted to feel normal. Free.” Joel’s heart sank.

His lie made her hurt herself. She mutilated her body in the hope of forgetting her wish to have a meaningful life. He felt ashamed for keeping his lie for so long.

“How are you feeling about it now?” He pointed at her right arm.

“I’m free. My body won’t hold me back anymore.” Her smile was so big, her eyes shining bright at him.

He wanted to hug her, to say sorry and tell her the truth about that day at the hospital. To ask her forgiveness and reinforce that he did to protect her, that none else mattered at that moment. However, the only thing he could hear from his mouth was:

“Let’s keep walking.”

-

Saturday at the Bison was the busiest, but Nath couldn’t care less. Since the moment she said goodbye to you, after watching Ellie and Joel leave the city's gate, her body was on autopilot while her mind kept going back and forward on seventeen years of memories with her grandpa. She lost count of how many sandwiches she made, of the faces that came to the bar, nothing else had space on her mind.

She avoided her reflection all day, ignoring her eyes in particular. The day went slow or too fast? Not a clue, except that when she went back to the bar lounge the doors were closed. Seth was putting the chairs above the tables, getting ready to clean everything.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Nath asked angry, no longer in a playful manner with him, just pure anger in her body.

“Protecting you. Go home, kid.” He ignored the venom behind her words, still cleaning the place.

"I don't know what are talking about. You have five minutes to put everything back in its place." She started to march towards the door, but Seth's voice made her stop.

“He was the same, letting everything simmer inside until it was no longer possible to ignore. It wasn’t your fault.” Unbothered, he didn’t glance at her once. Nath could feel her throat getting tighter.

Not saying another word, she decided to go to the bathroom to throw some water on her face before opening the bar again. When she turned around, her eyes passed by the counter and saw a small package with an “N.” written. She opened in a tentative to ignore what was inside her head, but the moment she saw Pawpaw’s baseball cap the tears rolled down her face.

"He wasn't perfect, but he loved you." Seth was next to her, with a broom in his hands. She looked into his eyes and saw acceptance and a safe space. He had listened to all her grandpa’s stories, he knew the other side.

She threw herself at Seth’s chest and allowed herself to mourn for her younger version, to what happened to Ellie. He held her tight until there were no tears left to cry.

-

You hoped Tommy's calculation was right. Cat was covering you at the library while you waited in front of Jackson's gate for Joel and Ellie. Four days went fast, especially with Nath’s good mood back. She was using an old baseball cap every time you saw her without further explanation, but you learned to accept odd behaviors from day one.

It was the afternoon of the fourth day of their travel, at any time Joel and Ellie would cross the gate. You wanted to validate what you said in their kitchen, it seemed important. Your impatience was evident, walking from side to side until the gate opened.

Ellie was in a good mood, laughing at something, but Joel didn't care much, his eyes focused on yours as soon as he saw you. Sprinting to them, you hugged Ellie before talking to Joel, knowing it would be a longer conversation by the weight of his stare.

“How was the birthday surprise? Did you like it?” You asked biting your lower lip, Joel’s hand at the top of Ellie’s back. Once more you felt strange with how domestic it was.

“Dinosaurs, man! They were massive! And the space section? Blew my mind!” She spoke fast, laughing, but then something crossed her mind and made her run from you while shouting to Joel. “I have to talk with Nath about the movie night! Jurassic Park!”

You chuckled, but when your eyes met Joel’s there was the same weight back.

"Hi," you tried and he said back. Somehow, your bodies moved in sync as you walked down the street. He told you with a little more detail about Ellie's reaction to the museum, filling your heart with joy.

You had been there two times, once prior to the outbreak on a family trip where your father used this moment to explain how the science went against the Bible’s creation story. You wanted to see the dinosaurs, but Albert’s lecture became your only memory. The second time with Nath and Eugene, a year before, to erase the first visit of your head. It worked.

“I’m gonna hop in the shower, have some sleep. Talk with you tomorrow, okay?” He stated leaving you at the library door. You agreed without a trace of doubt: he spent the week between Ellie’s burning and the actual birthday seeing you more than before, if it was possible.

Before heading home, Joel got closer and kissed your cheek so low his lips touched your mouth’s corner. Goosebumps appeared at the back of your neck, a wave of pleasure went through your body. Not thinking twice, you grabbed Joel’s wrist and gave him a peck before he could take another step.

He replied by putting his hands on your waist and kissing you back. Your hands traveled up to his shoulders, palming his broadness. His mustache tickled your face, the softness of his lips made a gentle pressure in yours. It was everything and more that you hoped for.

As he broke the kiss, the weight of his stare became something else. Tenderness, maybe? Or lust? You weren’t sure, except that you wanted everything held there behind his dark brown eyes.

“I have that Springsteen album you’re crazy about. Want to come by tonight and listen to it?” With a smile, you hoped for a yes while his hands were still at your waist. Joel nodded, his smile dimple showing up.

When you entered the library, you would still feel his body impression in yours. You were too blissful to notice Cat walking back from the window.

“My dad's mustache makes so much sense now," she stated looking at you. Shit, Cat was playing cupid between you both. As you opened your mouth to say anything that could save you, she continued with a grin. "The heart wants what it wants, am I right? He’ll survive and grow a better facial hair, I hope.”

Your heart wanted Joel and no one else.

Leaving the library earlier than usual, you made your way to the house in quick steps, feet almost floating above the pavement in such a hurry. Trying to focus, you organized one, two, and too many times the house. The orange tabby cat was looking at everything curious, unaccustomed to your rapid pace.

You put your favorite Beatles song on replay while you showered, still in a good mood. Another album that Jason got you growing up, I've Just Seen A Face was a song that you would hum to yourself while moving from site to site, much to Jason’s despair. “I got you their whole discography and you choose this one to be your favorite? I failed to raise you", he would tease.

Your hurried moves of getting ready for whenever Joel showed up (you forgot to settle a time) mimicked the song's fast rhythm, just like the lyrics translated everything you had built up since that first meeting at the Tipsy Bison. Jason didn't understand the ways to someone's heart, but you did. At least you hoped for it.

Separating Springsteen's Born In The U.S.A., you took another look around the house and realized you would have to wait, impatiently, for Joel. Checked your breath, your hair, your underwear – even if you weren’t planning to go that far tonight, ate something and kept humming the Beatles’ song until a knock at the door echoed.

Your heart sank as you opened the door, green eyes staring at you instead of the dark brown eyes you wanted. Alfie stood at your door with his brows furrowed.

“Hello, Dolly.”

“Alfie, what are you doing here?” Your politeness forgotten, what if Joel saw the man there? Could he see something more behind it? He would show up at any given moment.

“Need to talk with you. It’s important.” He tried, hard on the eyes and making a motion asking permission to come inside. “It’s about Maria. She is up to something with Nath, I need your help with it.”

"Wait, what do you mean?" Your curiosity was piqued, a split second forgetting about Joel.

“I mean she’ll try to take Nath’s spot at the council. Now, can I come in?” A chill went down your spine. You remembered Maria's words about Esther's presence at the council, of how she wouldn't fall for Nath's "bad schemes".

Making space for him to get inside, your eyes scanned the street once more in search of the dark brown eyed man. It was still somewhat early in the night, you knew Joel wouldn't forget your invite, but for this moment the only pair of eyes inside your mind was blue ones.

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