#everything was fine a few months ago but its all falling apart

[blonde-fraumell]

It feels like everything is falling apart.

[dear-satan]

together

vendetta!Leon S. Kennedy x fem!Reader summary: you and Leon split up. after a worrying phone call from Chris, you decide to visit your ex at his apartment. warning: Leon's alcoholism & severe depression era, younger reader

"He has not given a sign of life for over a week now. Please if you could check on him, I would be very grateful."

You stood motionless, with your hand raised in the air. Your gaze was stuck on the number 239 glued on the dark structure of the door, which you knew very well, just like what was behind it. You had, after all, lived in this flat for almost two years with your now ex-partner…. Who was the very reason you were standing here.

You and Leon separated about a month ago because of another argument between you. It wasn't caused by anything specific, in fact you didn't even remember the reason why it started, and now you considered your behaviour very childish. After all, the two of you were adults, and at that moment you behaved like complete children, saying the worst things about each other, culminating in your breaking up in anger at the other person. However, you still loved him, no matter how horrible the words he said to you, which is why, after a phone call from his best friend Chris, you immediately threw on your casual clothes and drove to his flat. You were afraid that Leon might have done something extremely stupid considering his alcohol problems and depressive states caused by everything he had been through so far.

You gently knocked on the door listening for any sound, which didn't come. It may be silly, but you still had the keys, which you hurriedly took from your pocket and slipped into the lock, thanking yourself that you had not given them to him at the time.

You stepped inside and the smell of alcohol mixed with the concentrated air immediately reached your nostrils. "Leon?" You closed the door behind you, entering deeper. Most of the living room floor was covered in rubbish and clothes and the kitchen worktop was almost invisible from under a pile of dirty dishes. However, the sight of empty bottles of vodka and whisky crumbling on the table in profusion made your heart stop. It was very bad.

You directed your steps to his bedroom, peering inside through the half-opened door. He lay there dressed only in a T-shirt and boxers. His body was strangely entangled in the white sheets and his chest was rising evenly. He was alive, that was the most important thing.

"What have you done to yourself Leon…" you muttered quietly and the mattress bent under your weight as you sat down on it. You gently took a strand of his dirty hair falling over his closed eyes to then place your hand on his cheek. The stubble scratched the texture of your skin pleasantly as you rolled small circles with your thumb. He looked like a veritable wreck of a man making your heart cry. This guy was the whole world to you and you never wanted him to bring himself to such a state during your eventual breakup.

You froze when a faint purr escaped from his lips. His eyelids slowly began to reveal his beautiful blue irises contrasting with the purple shadows under his eyes.

"What time is it?" as if nothing had happened he snuggled his face into your hand, gloating over its warmth. You sat motionless, watching to see how the connections in his brain would allow him to identify you and assume the appropriate posture.

"Fifteen to six" your voice acted on him like a bucket of cold water. He rose rather quickly, causing a dull ache to set in his head at which he hissed, catching himself. "Are you okay?" the worry was palpable in your voice. You looked at his figure. His eyes were red and swollen and the shirt he was wearing should definitely have been washed at least a few times.

" I'm fine." you were pained by the tone with which he replied "What are you doing here?" he turned his head away avoiding your gaze.

"Leon after all I can see that-"

"How did you get in here?" he raised his tone slightly. Again.

Your expression changed from concerned to much more stern in the blink of an eye. "Not in that tone Leon. I'm here because you're acting like a shit, even though you're older than me." you began crossing your arms over your chest. He also changed his posture and finally looked at you. "You haven't spoken to anyone, and believe it. There are people who care about you." the expression on his face softened "Chris asked me to look in on you…. But as I see it, unnecessarily." You got out of bed heading in the direction you came from.

Tears flowed into your eyes but you, as a strong young woman, did not let a single one flow. You are not going to cry through him again, even less in his flat. You passed all the rubbish and grabbed the handle of the front door with the intention of leaving once and for all.

"Y/N wait." Leon's strong hand caught your forearm. You gave him a really stern look which made Leon crack in front of you for the first time. Tears gathered in the corners of his eyes which he felt, so he lowered his head. "I didn't mean to… I-I…" the tears fell on the light panels "I can't cope without you…"

His legs trembled, probably through lack of any energy. You saw all those junk food wrappers…. After all, Leon really couldn't cope in the kitchen and it was up to you to cook him whatever he wanted.

"Lee." you let him pull you onto his lap and hide his face in the hollow of your neck. His hands tightened on your blouse in turn yours rode slowly down his back.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for everything I said that day." his voice was breaking and he clung to you even more, as if to reassure himself that you were really here. "I love you… I love you so much Y/N. I beg… Don't leave."

Your heart was rumbling and more than a thousand thoughts were swirling around in your head. He was still your Leon and that would never, but never change. No matter what he did, you loved this guy with your full self.

"I beg Y/N.. I promise that-"

"Sit tight already" you smiled to yourself placing a small kiss on his head "You're a damn asshole Leon" he looked at you with a questioning look. You put your hands around his cheeks wiping a single tear falling from his eye. "But I love you so much. We're going to rebuild this together, okay?" he nodded slightly and a sigh of relief came from his lips as you hugged him tightly not noticing how much of a lamentable state he was in.

"Together…"

[stsgooo]

Misclick.

✩࿐ summary: an evening where you feel particularly confident leads to an embarrassing and bountiful encounter.

warning(s): minors and ageless blogs DNI! suggestive talk, teacher!geto au, kinda crack fic, mutual masturbation, phone sex, afab!reader, descriptions of female anatomy, not proof read. wc; 3.2k

pairing(s): geto suguru x fem!reader, shoko x fem!reader (if you squint).

a/n: trying to get practice writing smut and smut adjacent things. please lmk what i could work on :)

divider 1

TODAY WAS YOURS TO CLAIM.

Everything was falling into place for you. The third years were at your beck and call, Gojo hadn’t been a particularly loud problem today, and the set you ordered a few months ago came in.

When you got the notification on your phone, you thought the stars finally aligned and some higher being was thanking you for your hard work. Finally, you would be able to just live and have some fun while doing it.

After work, you practically skipped out of the school, blatantly ignoring Gojo who made some backhanded comment about rainbows coming out of your ass. You had priorities. One of which was getting home as quickly as possible and putting that lingerie set on so you could just lay about with some overbearing sense of confidence. A part of you wanted to be smug, while another, a tiny part of you, worried about what it’d look like.

The sticker less box was sitting against your apartment door when you arrived. The only identifying thing on it was your name address then a big smiley face thanking you for your purchase. Almost scandalized, you quickly brought the box inside and went to your room. Taking a quick shower before putting on the set.

The lingerie set was something you had found together with Shoko on one of your many girls nights. Both of you had been laughing at the obscure designs of some of them, making comments how it would be better to not wear anything at all than a thin piece of fabric. When it caught both of your eyes. The model for it was gorgeous, that’s probably where you both initially got stunted. She was practically exposed right there on the webpage, winking at the camera. You were about to scroll away when Shoko had loudly proclaimed: You would look so hot in that. And your fate had been sealed.

Now, standing in front of your large mirror, you silently thanked Shoko for her amazing intuition. You looked hot and you looked very fuckable.

The lingerie set was a soft purple color, the fabric was entirely lace so it left little to the imagination, but the little dark purple hearts over your nipples gave you some illusion of modesty. The girdle was snug against your upper thighs and the stockings felt almost like silk against your skin.

The sight of yourself in the mirror made you blush, eyeing it all in a new way. You looked amazing.

All things considered, you felt incredible.

Your phone on your nightstand vibrated and you felt a little giddy as you grabbed it. A text from Shoko and three other texts you weren’t going to pay attention to now. You had texted Shoko while you were leaving about the set arriving and she had just responded with an enthusiastic show it to me!!

You raised an eyebrow.

You

do you want to come over or…?

It took one minute for Shoko to respond.

Shosho ❤️

no time. just send a picture please. 🙏 need to see your hotness in all its glory! thx

You

i’ve never taken a picture like that before.

Shosho ❤️

it doesn’t have to be high quality, you’re not in a porno. don’t deprive me of being right.

You

fine. but don’t complain when you can’t see any of the juicy details.

Shosho ❤️

my heart is breaking.

You smiled stupidly at your friend’s behavior and looked to the mirror. You were never exactly one to take pictures of yourself. Shoko practically had to hold you at gunpoint when it came to it. Most of your pictures were of food and whenever Gojo got his grubby hands on your phone to take a million photos of himself and his students. But you were feeling nice tonight, you were feeling like you were definitely worth the cloud space usage being used on yourself for once.

With your little knowledge on lewd pictures, you found yourself in various positions.

First, you had opted into taking pictures of yourself in the mirror next to your bed. The first photo had been you simply sitting with your legs folded on either side of you, your face obscure but the set clear. The next photo was you on your knees, now opting to ghosting your fingers over the bra strap. The last picture was a little more risqué. You had your chest to the floor, your back arched and your ass raised. It was dark in your room but you could just make out the outline of your cunt in the mirror.

You figured the pictures would be enough, but, high on a streak, you switch positions to your bed.

You took only two photos there. One with you looking up at the camera with a wink and a grin, pulling the bra down just shy of your nipple, pressing your legs together. The next one was the boldest. Your face was no longer in frame, with more focus on your body. The bra now gone, an arm thrown over your breasts to hide your nipples, but your legs were spread to show off the little dark patch where your slick was collecting on the underwear.

Okay, maybe you were getting too into it.

After the pictures were taken, you figured that it would be both funny and relieving to send all of them to Shoko. After all, she would probably want to bask in her glory.

You gathered all six photos, typed will this satisfy you? and pressed send, then threw the phone off to the side.

Now, nervousness took ahold of you. There was something jarring about the whole thing. But you tried to remind yourself that Shoko had asked. This would all be a great opportunity to get out of your self deprecating shell. Tonight was about you-

Your phone vibrated and you practically jumped to read whatever response the woman may have drummed up.

It was Shoko, but with nothing you expected.

Shosho ❤️

okay, how can someone naturally sexy take this long to take pictures? don’t tell me you bailed.

Immediately, you were confused.

It hadn’t taken you super long to take the pictures. You briefly convinced yourself that it was simply taking too long to send. But the painfully blank screen on your side was making you sick.

You quickly backed out of your texts with Shoko and into your bank of unread and forgotten contacts. You didn’t have to look far. Right under Shoko’s name with the “Attachment: 6 images” proudly displayed under it. The last person you wanted to send these to.

Geto Suguru.

You and Geto had never really gotten along. You didn't have any ill feelings towards him. In fact, when he first started, you had an embarrassing and rather childish crush on him. He was attractive, extremely pretty, it wasn't hard to feel a little nervous around him. However, he had appeared indifferent towards you. There weren't many opportunities for you to get to know one another, so you had counted your losses and moved on with your life. There was a silent agreement between the both of you, you just never spoke to him unless he initiated first or you really needed something.

But here you were now. Sent him photos where you're practically dripping and you barely spoke to the man.

You were going to kill yourself.

You found yourself returning back to Shoko with tears pooling in your eyes.

You

i misclicked and sent them to geto.

The read read receipt was instant, however Shoko’s response came two minutes later.

Shosho ❤️

i would love to see his face.

You

shoko, this is serious.

Shosho ❤️

has he seen them yet? if not, just try explaining it away.

You quickly clicked the back to Geto’s messages and hoped to see that he was busy and just hadn’t seen them. Your heart dropped further when you saw the read receipt under the photos. It’d been five minutes since he first saw them. You paled and felt like you could just about throw up when you saw the three dots on his side appear, disappear, then appear, then disappear. He was definitely typing up a storm about how inappropriate this was and that they’d be having a discussion with Yaga tomorrow morning.

However, his message was nothing of the sort.

Geto.

?

Nice bra.

Or lack thereof.

Still mad at you about the curses BTW.

You’re seriously going to kill yourself. This was it.

Your face flushed red, embarrassment and shame took ahold of you in an instant.

You

Geto, I’m so sorry. These were meant for someone else, this was a complete accident. Not an excuse, I should’ve been paying attention.

Again, I’m so sorry.

Your fingers shook as you typed out your deeply apologetic message.

Of all the people to accidentally send it to, it was the guy that acted like he had a bone to pick with you. The one guy out of the entire staff that just didn’t appear to like you.

You silently pondered and wished it had been Gojo you accidentally sent them to. He would’ve acted like a pervert and probably teased you about it for weeks on end, but he was friendly. He knew your limits. You feared exactly what Geto would do.

Geto.

You could make it up to me.

Can you call?

You

Sure.

The call came through in an instant, as if he had been hovering his thumb over the button waiting for your response. You answered and were about to apologize profusely, offering to take care of all his assignments for the next two months. You were about to until he spoke up.

“I’ve been thinking,” Geto’s voice was smooth and low on the other end, yet soft. As it always had been. His tone always as if he’s observing something interesting. “I’ve been thinking about you.”

You weren’t exactly sure what you expected from this call, but this definitely wasn’t even in the top twenty.

You blinked, your gaze on the ceiling. “You’ve been… thinking about me?” You repeated slowly, feeling suspicious.

Geto hummed. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about you. About how we barely talk and I was trying to talk to you then… then you send those pictures.” He sounded a little breathless on the other end.

Your heart skipped a beat. “Geto, seriously, I’m so sorry-“

“Don’t apologize.”

You pressed your lips together at his interruption. He was definitely going to chew you out.

He took in a shaky breath, something that was terribly soft and unsteady. It made you tense up, eyebrows raising. "Seriously, don't apologize. You're, uh," he released an airy chuckle, "You're really hot."

You flushed. "Huh?"

"I said, you're really hot." He repeated himself and it was apparent by his tone that he was smirking. Your cheeks burned and you almost felt like your heart stopped completely. "And I've thought that for a while too."

"You have?"

"How could I not?"

You almost felt blindsided by his words. A nervous laugh leaving you. "You've never acted like I was anything worth a second glance." You tried to hide the vague hurt that lingered in your voice, but it was harder than you thought.

You prayed that he couldn't hear it, but it was apparent he had when there was an audibly shift from his side. "I will... I will apologize for that. I will apologize for that right now." He cleared his throat. "Y/N, I'm deeply sorry for how I've acted towards you. I've always thought you were interesting, but I just, uh, there was never ample opportunity for us to talk."

"Apology accepted," only because you wanted to continue to hear his sweet voice like this. And you couldn't stay mad at him. "You're only apologizing because of those pictures, aren't you?"

"No, no, no. I've been wanting to apologize for a while."

You weren't entirely convinced. "I'm sure."

Geto chuckled. "Sure, it was definitely a motivating factor, but I've been wanting to apologize and to talk to you for a while. Satoru keeps calling me a pussy, but I can't help it when I see you. I get nervous." You furrow your brow when you hear him take in a sharp inhale of breath. "I can't lie right now, I'm really hard."

Your heart skips and you feel your cunt give an involuntary clench. "Is that so?" You uttered, your hand subconsciously ghosting over your chest. A featherlight touch that made a slight thrum of your pulse start in your core.

"Y-Yeah," Geto's voice was a breathless whisper, shaky, but still butter sweet. "I couldn't help it when I saw those pictures, y'know? Especially that one of you laying down, your tits looked amazing and I just wanted... I wanted to feel them."

Your fingers ghost over your erect nipple. In response, you gasp softly, your eyes fluttering close. "Geto..." You sigh softly, grabbing your breast.

"Ah, f..." Geto stutters. There's a shuffle on the other end, then the distinct sound of a zipper. His breath is heavy when he seemingly returns the phone next to his ear. "Are you touching yourself?"

Moving your attention to your aching cunt, you roll your fingers over your panty clad clit. "I am now." You breathed.

"Me too."

The thought of Geto stroking his cock right now while sitting on the phone with you, brought goosebumps to your skin. Enough to make your cunt pathetically clench around nothing and for you moan softly under your breath. Was he thick and heavy? Probably. You have no doubt he was endowed especially with his beauty.

As if reading your mind, he spoke, "my cock is aching for you, baby. Barely even touched myself and I'm already leaking-- you got me so worked up. I wish I was there with you so I could fill your tight cunt up." His breath is shuddering and heavy. His voice deep and smooth as he speaks into your ear. "I wanna feel you squeeze around me."

In tandem with his words, you clench around your fingers, desperately grasping around what isn't there. "Fuck me." You choked out.

There's an audible sound on the other end as if Geto's spitting, then there's a squelch, and his panting becomes harder. "And then after, I would eat you out and watch it all spill outta you." His words were slurring together as the pleasure mounted up. But you didn't care as you moaned and mewled in response to his words. "T-Then, I'd do it all over again--- Fucking... squeezing me."

It was almost surprising the noises that emitted from you and your body. Your pussy was clenching and squelching as your fingers worked endlessly and in tandem with the assumed pace Suguru has on his cock. You could feel the familiar ball in your gut tighten and the almost itching feeling in your clit heighten. The image of him burying himself deep within you, filling you up until you were spilling everywhere-- it was almost enough to send you over. You wished to feel his tongue against your clit, the kissing and the licks he place against it. To taste himself and you on his tongue..

You pressed your head back against your pillows, your back arching. "Faster, Suguru." As if he was in the room with you, as if he was the one touching you and not your fingers frantically chasing after your orgasm. "R-Right there."

"Right there? You like it there?" It appeared that Suguru was fully willing to play along with your fantasy. Maybe it was his too. His words a mere growl amongst the moans and pants between the both of you. You pictured his face flushed, his bangs sticking to his sweat covered forehead, and his eyes staring at you from heavy lids.

You wished you could see him.

You clench your teeth as your walls desperately clench and your legs shake. "I-I...I'm so close, Suguru." You resisted the urge to close your legs as the overwhelming feeling inched closer. Your abdomen and your entire body threatening to stiffen up as you came all over your fingers.

"Mm," Suguru's hum was deep, "Me too. I'm going to too."

There wasn't a moment wasted as you cursed under your breath, the familiar wave of bliss washing over your body as you sung his praises. You were barely paying attention as he grunted out your name with a long groan. Too busy with your jolting hips as your rubbed lazy circles over your aching and overstimulated clit. It was good. Just on the phone its was so good and your heart pathetically ached at the thought of this just being phone sex.

Your legs fell limply to the bed and your eyes closed. You weren't entirely sure how you were still holding onto your phone as everything felt so heavy and light at the same time. However, you could hear Suguru trying to recover on the other end.

It took his a few moments, but he finally seemed to regain himself.

"That was..." Suguru cleared his throat, sounding awkward and amused at the same time. "Five minutes... that's a little embarrassing."

"I won't judge." You said without hesitation.

He giggled. Giggled. You felt your heart sputter. "How kind." He stuttered a nervous breath and you felt it all come to a close. So much for more than phone sex. "Hey, I-I've made quite the mess, so I gotta clean up. We'll talk tomorrow before work, yeah?"

"Okay." You breathed, not at all hopeful that there'd be a conversation being had with the both of you tomorrow.

"I was serious when I said I think about you. Some lewd photos don't change that." His tone was serious but tender all the same. "Goodnight, Y/N."

"Goodnight, Suguru."

The call was dropped quickly. The phone being quickly thrown to the side as you pressed your hands against your red face. You ignored the numerous texts Shoko sent asking for updates and hoping you hadn't decided to really end yourself this time over some guy. As if some guy hadn't spent ten minutes on the phone, stroking his dick while you came with his name on your lips.

It was certainly a turn that you hadn't expected. To be pushing your fingers in yourself while Geto Suguru fucked his hand on the other end of the phone. Embarrassment would kill you tomorrow. Awkwardness would weigh over the both of you and Gojo would definitely--

Before you could continue your descent into madness, your phone vibrated again. Thinking it Shoko, you decided to open it.

Instead, it was Suguru.

It was an image attachment and, for whatever reason, you hadn't expected what it was.

It was taken from the back camera, pointing down as he laid down on what appeared to be his bed. His sweatpants were pushed down to his thighs and his softened cock was resting against his abdomen where a pool of cum was. His left hand rested right next to it, also covered in his cum. He was thicker than you imagined and definitely long. This was him soft?

Your eyes widened further as you read his message.

Geto.

Hope you keep that set around for next time x

You were so fucked.

[rise-my-angel]

Perilous Companions

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Length: 24.7k

Warnings: Depictions of violence, mention of suicide, non graphic torture, hostage situations, heavy angst, angst/hurt comfort, trama related flashbacks, smut, oral (m and f receiving), p in v, canon divergence

Notes: This ones a big boy with some big things happening. Not everything will make sense yet as its part of a bigger unfolding narrative, and certain moments are intentionally skipped over for the same reason. Knowledge of the 2nd game not needed as its not canon. A lot of nerves went into making and posting this one, so I hope it doesn't disappoint you. Sequel to Melancholy Interlude, part of the Confused Warmth series.

It was a cruel joke that you were this ill. If you had to trace it back, you think you may have been bitten by a mosquito at some point. Of all the things you could catch, you were falling apart from something as small as a bug bite. You were always scared of being bitten by any sort of insect as a kid after your neighbour had come home from school talking about how you could get sick and die from one bite.

Your only saving grace being that a cordyceps infection didn’t incubate for this long, and as far as you were aware, didn’t result in how bloodshot and feverish you were nor did it result in vomiting a liquid disgustingly close to black. You had guessed for a while that in the old world the man in front of you had either was a scientist or worked somewhere in that field. 

Whatever research your current companion had done though clearly didn’t encompass all illnesses, but at least you finally were sick long enough he wasn’t constantly terrified you’d turn. Neither you or the rambling man pacing above you had any clue what to do about it, but he somehow seemed more worried then you. Looking at the map in his hands as he ran his mouth non stop. 

You had insisted you were fine until about ten minutes ago when you felt dizzy and would have completely collapsed onto the ground if Seth wasn’t there to fail to catch you in time, at least before you hit your head. Travelling with someone wasn’t what you wanted, you had been alone for months but you felt awful when a bumbling, older, tearful man came across you asking for help getting to his wife near Salem. Only to have him confess when you got sick that he was just lonely and wanted company. 

Now you were just too exhausted to get angry. Letting him travel with you as he desperately tried to make you like him despite your very purposeful choice to stay away from any people. Briefly you had wondered if he was a plant, tricking you to walk you into a trap right back to the place you were running from. Part of you still wondered that, but now you were too sick to do anything about it. 

“We’d have to go to every clinic just to see whose there, but that’s way too big to check.” Seth’s messy hair was flopping around with every spin in place he did, the rhythmic movement distracting your already fuzzy brain. “You said no to everything else I suggested, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” 

Your head smacking back against the tree you were currently sat up against shook your spinning vision even more. Squeezing your eyes shut you let out a shaky breathe that burned your esophagus as it flowed upwards.  There was an extremely expired pack of gum a few kilometres back when you were sifting through an old abandoned store front. The bile still coating your mouth had you hating yourself for passing that up now. 

“You sure we can’t go to Boston?” One eye blinked open, a kaleidoscope of orbs floating in your vision as Seth’s figure stood right in the suns path. He was standing with the map crinkling in his hold as he looked hopeful at you. “They have doctors, it’s an actual city they’ll have medicine won’t they? We can get you a bed and everything. We’re practically right there, you can see the walls from the top of one of those hills for god sakes.”

Your fingertips tapped against the grass beneath you as your jaw clenched. Forcing yourself up, the tree worked as a main support for your legs that trembled from the exertion. The man seemingly perked up at your slowly approaching self. He stared at you, your name coming out as a question when you got within a few feet. “Is that a-” 

Jumping back, Seth gasped as you ripped the map out of his hands. Your face flat as your eyes shifted to the side to stop yourself from glaring. “A no...I’m guessing it’s still a no.” 

Your legs wobbled as your vision spun trying to read it. Kneeling down you rested it over a bent knee as your finger followed a path you already were dabbling in planning out. “You ever been in a QZ before?” 

Looking up at him, Seth had a shifting and sheepish face akin to something like guilt. “I spent some time in one for a while, a little bit in Boston.” Your heart skipped a beat, forcing your gaze down to the destination you had in mind willing away the swirling anxiety. “That’s why we need to go though. I have friends there, they can help you- wait where are you going?” 

The beating of your heart pounded erratically. You wanted to be alone for this very reason, you had no idea what kind of friends were waiting for him, or you, in Boston of all places. There was no one you knew anywhere near such an area, so you walked away. In the opposite direction of his suggestion. 

Seth called you again, “I thought you needed to rest.” 

Pace picking up you pulled the other strap of your bag on both your shoulders properly. “I’m going west.” Pairing up with this man was foolish, heading in the complete opposite direction of where you were headed was even more foolish. 

His voice was getting more and more grating. “We just came that way, didn’t we go to Massachusetts for a reason?” 

Heading down a slight hill full of ragged dirt clumps and drop offs only bang around the blurring migraine in your head more. It wasn’t killing you yet, so you just didn’t bother stopping for it. “No, you wanted to go to Salem, I wanted to be alone.” 

Sputtering, Seth wailed his arms as he slipped and tripped over his feet down the hill with a grace that only assured you that he’s likely spent his entire life in and out of some halfway sizable apartment Fedra probably threw his way. “I was just trying to help.” 

Your mind was already made up. You’ve been trying to get out of this state for months and everything kept pulling you back in. But their unwillingness to let you go spoke a different story, the people you’ve encountered since that have tried to trick or lead back to that room you ran from. 

Seth was saying something, but you tried to tune it out until he was too loud. The sun was setting in a gold that shined off of the decay around you. Travelling the outskirts was longer, a much longer path but if you were being honest with yourself? Just because you were more scared of what other people were capable of, doesn’t mean the shrieks didn’t haunt you every time they echoed through the emptiness. 

It didn’t take long for Seth to overtake your strides. Longer legs and too much energy compared to your muscles begging to sit once more. You so desperately wanted to believe it wasn’t true, that maybe just once since that day you could meet one person who you didn’t have to leave your guard up for. But you couldn’t. 

You were the only of your kind they ever seen, and it didn’t matter who told them what. He had his sights set on you and so did everyone else. Were they hoping to pull you back because they were too stubborn to give up? Or were they truly so delusional that they just didn’t care. The arguments you spied on seemed to tell you something divided them greatly but at this point you didn’t have anything to go off of. 

You had enough scuffles with them to know they were willing to be violent to get you. You knew why they wanted you and it was a fate that terrified you. You saw the remnants of what they had before you, and now? It was a fate you knew would be worse. Their willingness to beat the air out of your lungs had you supposing that having you in one piece wasn’t required.

It was only months ago when a few men came across you as you realized that it wasn’t just a small group that were involved. Somewhere along the lines, three men in the fireflies approached you and when you refused to even hear them out? That’s when they left you with a fair few more scratches then you gifted to them. 

Bruised and covered in mud from being kicked down a steep forest hill, you could hear the small group of men on a radio, but their words overpowered in your head from noise. The only words made out from what you could hear past the ringing the fall had smashed into your head. “....I don’t care, just tell say it’s Owen...” 

More static noise blasting out as you sunk your nails into the muddy hillside pulling you upwards onto your knees at least. Biting your lip so forcefully it had cracked and drawn blood by the next morning, you held the cries of pain back as your muscles strained to drag your body behind a tree. 

Tears streaming down your cheeks, you cradled your side now dripping blood from the ripped open fabric once covering you. The other occupied with gripping your shoulder tight as each twitch of your body shot a current of pain through what might be a strain.

Finally a response over their radio rung out, your jaw tensed as you breathed deeply in and out your nose. “..can make it in a few days...yes ma’am....Gran-” Was it the distance cutting his voice off, or was it your own heavy breathing invading your senses? You didn’t know. It was hard to focus. 

You didn’t know if you wanted to go back for real answers, or if a part of you still clung to seeing the man who had his hired thugs strap you to a chair as soon as they got their hands on you. He barley even looked at you like his own, and neither did his partner look at you anything but a specimen. 

You being this sick wasn’t the plan, and you knew making it wherever they were headed in one piece wouldn’t be easy. Not even sure if any of them would be there anymore by the time you got there. They had working cars afterall, and you only had two feet. Already your head was dizzy, but it felt wrong to turn away, leave it alone. You could just run from them, head far North until you reach the border and forget all of this. 

But you couldn't. They should have gotten what they wanted, so why wasn’t it enough? 

Now though, in the early hours of the morning, it was impossible ignore what you had heard the next few subsequent nights. Listening to this man ramble on what was no doubt some kind of radio. Foolish enough to think that you’d feel comfortable sleeping anywhere near him now he assumed he wouldn’t be heard or caught. Sprinkling hints of a deception that became harder to push away. Someone far more collected and confident then the bumbling coward presented to you. It chewed and gnawed in your mind throughout that night. 

He didn’t see you coming, knelt down faced away before having his body grabbed by the back of his shirt and tossed a few feet to the ground. Flipping onto his back, he stood up slowly to see you feet away from him. Exhausted and pushed to an edge. He tried placating it but only got as far as your name before you cut him off. 

“Why do you want me to go to Boston so badly?” You pulled from something attached to your belt, a thick yellow rope long and flopped down to the side. 

Seth’s face slowly melting off it’s aloof bravado. Something deeper inside brewing that you only felt your body tense at. “I don’t know what-” 

The voice waver made you a lot less brave but the force which you shoved it out masked it. “You led me there even after I told you no. What’s in Boston you’re so eager to get to?” 

There was an entirely new man in front of you, someone more poised with sunken eyes. As if whatever this facade was became too useless to keep up. This wasn’t a stumbling fool, but someone hiding too much. “We don’t need to do things this way-” 

You weren’t buying it though. Wrapping both ends of the rope around your hands, but kept low enough to give him hope to talk first. “Don’t make me ask you again, Seth.” 

His voice grew softer, as if to entice the part of you that wanted to grant sympathy. “It’s about you.” His gaze on your covered arm, and your heart beat harder. “I knew your Jerry and your father from the old days. They discovered a problem during testing, but you already had gotten out before he could look into it for himself.” 

You didn’t even need to ask about ‘they’. He knew them, and apparently your guess of some kind of scientist was correct. Both of them treated you like cattle once they had found you. The ghosts hovering over your life. “What problem?” 

“He never told me, and when your father died I didn’t think it mattered anymore. Left Jerry to pick up the pieces without his expertise. He’s replicated the work as much as he can, but the only thing your father told him only made him that much more desperate to find you. He’s a doctor not a scientist.” 

Maybe you should have been angry, upset. Dropping that on you as if you should already have known, but on the other hand it might be for the better. Jerry was cold, and uncaring. Your father was entirely too emotional, perhaps closer to disturbed than anything. “I gave them everything they wanted, what’s he desperate for?” 

The lack of blinking put you on edge even further. A look as if trying to figure out the very thing he was describing. “That I don’t know. Research has been kept under very tight watch, especially now.”

“And my father, what did he say?”

Seth’s eyes glazed with a troubled conflict, and a sorrow in his voice that told you he knew far more then he was telling you. Flashes in his eyes that spoke of a truth that sat unsettled within him. 

“He said this is the end. He said that we are all finished, and he took his own life.” 

The trickery, the trouble in his eyes, how this all kept relating back to that day. Your father taking his own life though? Something inside of you shifted unsettlingly, and not quite a loss for family. If you had even a modicum of faith in your father, you had none in his partner. “What I still don’t get is what you were planning to do with me. I mean what use would someone like me be to a lying con like you?” 

A debate flourished in his head, saying no words as he almost looked through you. The now calmness in the air, quiet and dulcet tones between you echoed eerily in your voice. You needed him to speak, you needed to know. “What do you think your last breath will feel like, Seth?” 

Eyes shutting for the briefest of moments, he let something echo in his veins. Words slipping from him in a level of defeat. “There’s a woman. A firefly-” 

“I’m already running from the fireflies-” Nothing but a bunch of make shift mercenaries playing at a war they’ve never even started to win. 

Seth shook his head, “Not this one. She’s a leader, has real goals she wants We can trust her, she can help.” You instinctively gnawed at your bottom lip, unwilling to believe in him. “Now if you come with me to Boston, I can get you to her.” 

Shaking your head, you bled distrust from every pore. “What’s her name?” 

His shoulders sagged as he sighed. “Please don’t make me tell you that,” the tightening of the rope between your hands squeezed as his eyes flickered from you to it and back again. “Marlene. Her name’s Marlene. She’s a good woman, your father trusted her.”

More then a few seconds passed. The wind flowing through the luscious trees nearby, and the grass grazing along the empty land. The peace nowhere near the small bubble you stood. “Why wouldn’t they have just told you what the problem was. If you worked with them, I mean. Bit odd.” 

Seth’s head tilted, a softness pleading with you as your name murmured from his mouth, “I’m on your side. I’m one of the-” 

Something snapped inside of you. Almost a scream inside your heart shouting at your survival and it consumed your vision within seconds. He wasn’t a fighter, you wrapped the rope around his neck with little defence. 

Within a second you kicked him to the ground, a struggle tumbling in the quiet grass as you flipped onto your back. The pull burning your wrists and your own legs trying to keep him down. His struggles and groans eating away at your hearing. 

You could only look down at your hold for seconds, nothing close to a fight back from a man who didn’t know how seek out for a real fight. Your breathe was forcibly rhythmic, in and out deeply as your head tilted back as you pulled. Breathing the sounds of struggle away as your eyes fell upon the nature.  

The leaves blowing on a tree, large and flourishing in the emptiness that ravaged around it standing tall and bright. The wind flowing like a calm around it like it was wishing to entrance you. Your breathing desperate to keep a deep even as your mind pushed away the burning pull on your wrists. The sight of the trees colours striking against the rest of the field hiding the groans below. 

You took your mind elsewhere, you weren’t strong enough to keep yourself in the moment. A life on the outside didn’t make you capable. It just made the struggling figures on an open ground dragging the life out of a man who knew more then you’d ever know, feel like a kind of memory you couldn’t live with if the trees didn’t exist.

Nothing like that existed here and now though. The barrel sights down to a man who helped play his part in many fights that these people didn’t deserve to be a part of. 

Once someone too sure of his own bravado, now faced you wide eyed and swallowing panic. His hands at first positioned in front of his torso as Joel approached you both, his knuckles turning white from how tightly he was pulling and twisting the coarse rope in his hands. You wanted to see the trees in that rope but you only saw the purple imprints on your wrists that had stayed with you for days. 

But it wasn’t someone tricking you to your death at the other end. It was people you wrapped a new life around, and the only ones who cared about you in return. Owen pleaded. “Come on, please. I’m not going to do anything, do you really need all this?” 

Your hands hesitated, grip on the shotgun so harsh for so long it your arms had started to shake. “I’ll behave, let’s all be reasonable here.” Barrel only lowering enough that it’s aim left the eye line of Owens head. Low enough that he had the gall to leap towards you as if having any chance. Before you could even register how startled you jumped, Joel had grabbed him by the shoulders and tossed him face first into the bar counter beside you. 

Owen’s head up enough to growl in anger, “Fuck you-” only to be slammed down into the wood with a crack of a bone splintering in the air. 

Yanking his arms behind his back, Joel tightened the mans own ropes around his wrists, leaving him just enough room before his circulation, or lacktherof, would turn his hands blue. The mans head yanked back with blood dripping from his nose and smeared down his face and painted the dark surface. Your fingers twitching on the shotgun aimed uselessly to the ground as your shaking breathe vibrated into your very chest as Joel hissed into his ear. “You try anything like that again, I’ll break a lot more then your nose.” 

Owen groaned but said no more. Shoving him towards Tommy, Joel only looked a his bloody face for a second longer before taking four strides over and all but shoving the chair out the mans reach. Stumbling onto his knees, grumbling unintelligible swearing as Joel burned a deep anger into his face and slinking it up to Tommy in unspoken words. 

Tommy himself seemed more hesitant. Taken back by something he had no way of seeing coming. You didn’t know how much of the other week Joel had even told him about. He at the least didn’t particularly care enough for the strangers well being to let him sit anywhere but the cold floor. He was more on the edge of confused, Joel saw you trying and failing to mask the shaking feeling of silent fear and that look washing over your eyes only had his blood run hot. 

Tilting his face to the side, Joel caught your gaze the hard set steel of his expression still peeking a deep concern for you behind it. His brown eyes gestured downwards to the shotgun in your grip, covering one of your hands with his own, the way it overtook your small ones with such warmth had you wanted to flip your palm to hold onto it, but you just let him slide the gun into his own possession. Holding it upright around the short cut barrel. 

Ever the vocal one, Ellie spoke up first. “Who are you?” She was stood still, arms crossed over her chest with a stare that could sear a hole in the floor. Her body now against the table, blocking any view of the towns layout from the strangers prying eyes. Tommy stood to his side, back to the wall and eyes to the door while Joel stepped away from your side. 

Watching him crouch down in front of the man, you yearned for the grace of someone more worthy. A gun to a mans surprised back peering right through whatever facade he would spit out were you not there. You had felt brave until he turned to face you. Owen’s face painted with fearful shock but yours only seethed with undiscovered ire. Whatever in your body that didn’t shake, a tingling flooded where ever nerves were attached. 

Owen’s stare towards Ellie was suspicious. Dots connecting in his head, he raised an eyebrow as he returned her stare. “How about you go first, then I have my turn?” 

“Hey,” Joel’s voice rumbled out tight and controlled, just like his unwavering posture. “You look at me, not her. Got it?” Owen didn’t answer quick enough, meaning not instantly, which only got him grabbed by the jaw, Joel’s fingers squishing parts of his cheeks in like a blooded up fish. “I said got it?” 

Owens brows furrowed in a grumble but he nodded. “Good. Now answer the question.” His kept his promise, he didn’t look back at Ellie. Just you. Empty eyes with a smile that had been smeared onto his skin like a goo. 

“Or you could just tell them, you already know my name afterall.” 

Your nails dug into the skin of your palms, scratching and clawing to keep them from shaking. In a world where you knew how to stand your ground, maybe the words would come up out of your mouth. Only they didn’t and you weren’t standing your ground, you weren’t sure your heart would calm enough to give that chance. 

Joel yanked his head back over to face him, face even sterner then before. “I asked you.” 

No one was impressed with the eye roll. A childish act for a tied up man, “Owen. Like she said.” When Joel didn’t let go of him, only gripped tighter did he remember to act like a grown up. “We used to know each other, had a couple run ins didn’t we?” 

You couldn’t see Joels eyes flit back as if he could see you behind him, but that yearning never left his heart. You were supposed to be at his side, not trapped in place by whatever memory this man dragged into town with him. “This is not-”

“He’s a firefly, or was.” Part of you was happy Owen hadn’t seen you in over a year, missing the slight waver in your voice as you forced it to come out in one go. All three of them had completely different reactions. 

Ellie was confused. A group in her life held a complicated relationship with her, one that she suspected wasn’t wholey truthful with her, but never had the chance to put her finger on it. Tommy was braced for either side of things. His eyes never straying from the sight in front of him but one foot of his stood out towards Ellie, as if to intervene. 

You didn’t need to see Joel’s face to know what he was feeling. Crouched down, his shoulders and back were set and so tense you could see it through his jacket. His hand dropped to his thigh with a thud curled into a fist. Those brown eyes washing over to a black as his nostrils flared as he kept a wild within him. 

No doubt lost in what you have found yourself in many times, flashes of light passing your eyes as images that keep you up at night taunt you. You found yourself pacing towards him, hand reaching out to him, but hovering in place at the prospect of sneaking up on him. But just like you felt with him, Joel didn’t need to hear or see to know you were near him. 

He just felt you already, taking a deep breathe as his back stretched back, giving your hand the chance to simply push forward and grasp onto the back of his collar like he knew you would. “What’s a firefly doing in our town, sneaking up on my own.” Joel was seconds away from bearing his teeth, if he remained just a strange intruder that was one thing. But none of you had any delusions about what having someone like this here could mean. 

“Just looking for a friend is all. Big state you know? Gotta check all the corners.” Joels fist curled in more as you curled your fingers into his collar. The two men eyed one another before Joel made to stand back upright. Letting go to give him space, it was only snatched back by Joel’s empty hand. Keeping it tucked to his chest, to turned so both your sides leaned against the bar. His warm breathe heating the skin of you face still doused from the cold outside. 

Eyebrows raised, you could read the question unsaid. Nodding yes, you bit the inside of your cheek. “Don.” Your eyes on his chest, Joel turned his body partway to gesture Ellie to take the shotgun from him. Sometime later, Joel would feel pride of how confidently she took it into her hold and held it to Owen. Perfect form like he taught her. But now that wasn’t anywhere near his mind. 

His now free grasp held onto your hip and pulled you at an angle, hiding your gazes from the man flickering his eyes around the room. Fingers stretching from under his, you wrapped them into the top of his shirt peeking through. Unable to decide if you could handle being the subject of this kind of intensity from Joel. “Don mentioned travelling with them for a while, I didn’t know he stayed with them after..” 

Joel cupped the side of your cheek, turning you up to his face. He meant to say something, meant to comfort or suggest but your own genuine unease pressed against the heart under his chest. A vulnerability that he spent weeks trying to coax from you from the quiet safety of your room together, but now on display for someone that Joel felt the growing urge to slam face first into a wall, leaving a mark he wouldn’t come back from. 

For only a moment you let yourself feel it. Shutting you eyes, Joels hand warm and soothing in your heart as you let the uncertainty flow over. Letting it drip from you head to your toes, melting off as it reaches the floor. Finally you flickered your eyes up to Joels. “I’ll talk to her.” Joels head whipped around, eyes blazing at the mans suggestion. “I’m not gonna kneel here and spill my guts to all you bozos-” 

The other two pairs of feet in the room both shifted a foot forward. A “Watch yourself” sounding from Tommy at the same time as Ellie’s far less decorum of “Shut the fuck up.” 

Shuffling in place, you could tell Joel was grappling with the idea. A deep protective instinct that threatened to overtake him should anything happen to you. “I’m not leaving you alone in a room with one of them.” 

Your cheek pinched between your teeth just a tad to sharp, your mind salvaging for any hint you have a plan in mind. But you don’t, and Joel knows you don’t. Because he doesn’t have one either. Your eyes drifted to Owens tied up frame, gesturing your chin over in debate, Joel doubled down.

“They’re better talkers then they are fighters out here. I’m not worried what he’s going to do, I’ll chain him to the wall if I have to. It’s what comes out of his mouth I don’t trust.” Something within you sensed something coming. Like the polarizing fear sweeping through you when Don had walked into town was a child’s bad dream compared to what your anxiety begun to brace for. But you agreed. 

That part of you which could no longer pretend as if you felt anything but racing nerves in your veins wouldn’t admit it, but you were eternally relieved to have Joel. You faced people like Owen, the fireflies always them versus you. Always running, stealing and sabotaging behind their backs it would weigh less on your chest to have someone in your corner, helping you up onto equal landing. 

Jaw clenching, Joel’s eyes pleaded a different story. One of a man dreaming of finding a small life with you and Ellie, and having to shove down the urge to burn everything to the ground just to keep you three in that harmony. But the fireflies played a different game. One that burned into Joel’s core, and one that froze yours over. 

Sending a shiver down the length of your spine as his thumb gently rubbed over your bottom lip, he was holding himself back from kissing you. Brown eyes flickering to your lips as his fingertips flexed where they sat on your body as if resisting pulling you into him. 

Sarah echoed in his head. Holding you in his arms on the porch as you told him unequivocally that she would be proud of who he is, but he didn’t feel proud now. Joel felt like control was slipping away from him and the last time that happened it ended in a bloodbath. 

You didn’t like this look on Joel. His handsome features warped by a painful conflict behind, firm and set as if nothing he was preparing to let nothing to get past the stone walls. You wanted him relaxed, soft. The kind of look he gave you that very morning. A smile that you’re not sure you’d ever seen yet. A soft one, a sleepy glaze in his eye and that very thumb rubbing over your bottom lip only then he moved it to help pull you out of sleep with his own lips. 

Anxiety shocking your limbs, jolting them like electricity while Joel was reliving the nightmares the people just like Owen brought on him. That quiet bubble of lips and skin against each other under the sheets Joel wanted you to call your own? That morning seems to not exist anymore. 

One of your hands drifted around, trailing on the inside of his jacket along the thin layer of his shirt, nails tracing towards his stomach as both of your eyes begged for even one kiss. Something to keep you both here and grounded. You weren’t going to give the satisfaction to Owen though. 

So you let yourself out of Joel’s hold. His hand sliding from your waist only until you were to far to stretch out to. Owen’s eyes were far less confident as you approached him. His laboured breathing the only thing in the air as you crouched in front of him. 

“You talk to both of us. Or no deal.” If you were someone else, you would have sounded firm. Sure of your conviction and unafraid of the coward in front of you. Not the weaker almost out of breathe hesitancy it came off as. 

Owen narrowed his eyes at you. “And if I say no?” 

Joel was what you tried to sound like. Deep and threatening, no room for doubt or barter as he came up behind you. “I dump you outside of town face first, hog tied in the snow.” 

Warm large hands pulled you up with one of them now refusing to leave your side. Owen conceded just as Tommy called Joel. Gesturing over to the sight of people beginning to mill about like nothing ever occurred inside the building. The man wasting no time as he hauled Owen up uncaring of the stumble he felt from the aggressive jostle. 

Owen stood crookedly against the bar, as Tommy circled his finger for him to turn around. “Ellie.” Joel beckoned her, a hand out for her to hand the shotgun over. Glancing between it and you, her face fell flat as she rolled her eyes giving it to a tiny smirking Joel at her petulance. 

No sense of personal space as he dove right into the small bag at your side for the ammo he assumed was in there. Loading it for you, he draped the strap over your shoulder. “Me and Tommy’ll handle getting him out of here. You two head back to the house, it’ll take us a while to move him.” 

Owen’s wrists rubbing together at the redness already scratching into them, Tommy added “I got a feeling he’s not against making a scene if we walk him through the middle of the street.” 

Neither you or Ellie were keen on leaving the two of them to handle it on their own, but you gently pushed her forward to grab her jacket. Joel turning you to face him as he cupped your cheek once more. There was something at the tip of his tongue, but it wouldn’t let itself out. A disruption you both felt in your bones just when he was finally putting a life together. 

Gently grasping his wrist, you turned his hand, pressing a kiss to his palm and watching him stiffen and breathe force itself from his lungs harder. A rage inside him that you knew he didn’t want to relive, or even expose you too. You couldn’t form the words, you knew what you felt but your tongue wouldn’t take them in. You just wanted him to know that it was alright.

The disgusting turmoil you brought upon his family hadn’t made him turn you away. His own would never do the same to you. There wasn’t anything Joel could do that would destroy what you were trying to pretend wasn’t a stem of blossoms flourishing into unconstrained winding petals.

But now? Watching Joel share muted words with an agitated Ellie, both struggling to let the other walk away? Wondering if it was mere coincidence that it was Owen who was here, or if you dragged them to your doorstep. 

Your mind far off, preoccupied in the possibilities going unconfessed. If this was your fault, if you brought this on them, then Joel should hate you. You deserved it. No reason could form in your head as to why he should support you, he’d done enough. 

You didn’t know what to bring to this relationship, and now all you have started bringing is burden upon burdens. Nothing to go on, all you could assume was that love wasn’t supposed to be sharing the brunt of the others problems. 

You were selfish for letting him bring you home that day, and he was stupid for going after you in the first place. The gruesome mark on your side should have stayed there. Ripped open and bleed out until you wouldn’t get back up from that blood soaked room anymore. 

Fed up, Ellie grabbed your arm with a shout of your name. Turning you towards her, eyes narrowed in exasperation. “Where are we going? Joel said-” 

Mouth opening then closing, your peeked at the people around you some glancing at the Ellie’s sudden outburst. It didn’t even dawn on you until now how far into town the pair of you had gotten. You couldn’t do this here, not in front of all these people. You couldn’t breathe around a crowd closing in on you. Swallowing the swarming cloud threatening to engulf you. “I need to get something, okay?” You grabbed her hand on your arm, squeezing it for a moment. “It’s important.” 

She didn’t say much as you both walked into the now mostly empty house. You wasted no time, making a bee line to your bedroom as Ellie paced around. Taking in the lack of any feeling home. You had brought hardly anything over. A bag or two at most. Neither she or Joel had much when they arrived, but they finally had started to feel like a home, like a place in the world once long forgotten. You arrived with nothing, and you still had next to nothing. 

Ellie couldn’t help but wonder. Is that what life on the outside was like for you? To truly have nothing to find joy in? The clang of wood caught her attention, dragging her over to your old bedroom. Your body knelt on the ground tearing out part of the floor only to reach in and rag out a small box. “So what are we doing back here?” 

Hands pausing mid movement what would you even say? What Joel was keeping from here was nowhere near the kind of lie you were keeping from both of them. The lie you tried to throw away the day you set foot in this town. Fingers slowly wrapping around loose drawings scattered at the bottom, you shuffled them together, throat tight as you tired to find careful words. 

“Something he might be after.” Head lifting up you saw the question form on her tongue. “It’s complicated. I’m not- I don’t know how to explain it.” Right now at least. 

“You could try. I mean I’m complicated.” Your head dropped again but in a breathy laugh, Ellie always managing to let that bemused attitude slip through no matter what. 

Tilting your head to the side a smirk played on your lips. “Yeah, we seem to be a house full of that.” Slipping the drawings into part of the journal, you sucked in a breathe with your eyes blinking shut for as long as you exhaled. Chucking the box back into the hole you lazily threw the wood down. Nothing left in there to hide under hammer and nails. 

Ellie’s face was stuck in hesitation when you stood back up. Her eyes looking to the journal you pressed tight to your chest then back to your own face trying to appear neutral. “Is that what he wants?” 

Lungs constricted and coiled more in your chest. Best case scenario likely being this was all he travelled here for. “Stay in your room, when we get back.” Your head shaking just once as your face tightened and scrunched up. “I’m not asking Ellie. You’re not going anywhere near him.” 

Her arms waved in the air, voice raising just like outside. “I’m not just gonna hide in my room like a-” 

“You don’t think Joel’s going to tell you the exact same thing?” Inside hoping you weren’t coming across as harsh. But you didn’t know what Owen was going to say, or what was going to happen to get him to say it. Ellie deserved a normal life, and none of this was apart of that. 

The house was silent when you both got back. Not a creak or muffle as Ellie charged in first. An annoyed attitude to match such a flat expression unwilling to even keep the door mostly open. Your grip on the journal adjusting and reajusuting multiple times as if letting for a fleeting moment would sweep it out of your possession. 

Opening the door the rest of the way, you were silent as you watched Ellie stand in the middle of the room. Her body turned towards the only closed door, eyes wider and sunken in with a deeper hesitation then before. You could see Joel leaning back against the counter, arms crossed with eyes harsh and narrow at the same direction. 

“He’s in there?” Half her torso twisting to watch Joel nod once. “Is he-” 

“Still tied up. He’s not going anywhere.” An edge cut through his voice, restraining an emotional you knew was a battle to bury back down. “As long as he’s here you’re going to-” 

Head dropping as did her eyes. “Stay in my room. I know.” She didn’t bother taking her jacket off out here, just step by step towards the hallway there wasn’t even a blink. Suddenly the prospect of staying as far away from him as possible didn’t sound like a punishment. Stopping in front of the door, she looked back to Joel with her teeth gritting in an anxiousness. “What are we going to do with him?” 

There was no response. Joel’s shoulders squared as he exhaled through his nose harshly. Brown eyes just glued between her and the door as his head brewed with thoughts you couldn’t possibly imagine. 

Neither of them said anymore. Ellie turned to open her door before taking one last peek at the shut one not far from her own. Keeping her in the dark wouldn’t last, but right now wasn’t time. Not for Joel, not for you. 

The quiet air didn’t dissipate with her departure. An uncertainty floating between you and Joel, his eyes now following the way yours stared at the door. Unlike Ellie though, your own blazed with a knowing fear. Murmuring your name, Joel gestured for you to come over to him. 

You didn’t reach out for him the way his hand did for your waist. Pulling you closer, Joel stood up straight with a deep breathe. Eyes flickering to the door and back, brows narrowed still. “The hell does he want with you that he tracked you all the way here for?” 

It felt like a blame, even if it wasn’t one. What did you to do drag something else into his life? Your grip on the journal in your hand didn’t go amiss. Nor did your casual shrug fool him. “If he’s still a firefly he either only wants me..” 

“Or that?” Joel raised an eyebrow towards your hands as his own pulled your retreating body back into him. “Hey. I’m not prying, but if you’re in danger I need to know about it. Now.” The sternness in Joel’s voice carved something deep inside you as did the fierceness in his bright eyes.

Your jaw clenched as the defeat just piled up. His eyes followed as your hands dropped to your sides before you tossed the journal aggressively onto the counter behind him, but your arms returned to cross your chest protectively. “They know about me. Like-” 

His large hand squeezing just above where the mark sat on your side. His eyes squinted in confusion at what was in your hands. “What does a book have to do with it?” Heart lurching in your chest, you pried yourself from his hand but found yourself unable to move entirely from his warmth. One palm pressing into your forehead as the other sat on your hip. 

“It belongs to them.” Your chin cutting over to it. Jackson was supposed to heal over those memories, but that wasn’t the plan of whoever watched your life over. “I stole it from them, Owen took it back from me, I stole it from him so on.” Head raising into the air to push the sting in your eyes down even when your shaky breathe gave it away just as much. “Either they only got their hands on the book, or lucky enough to try and drag me to Boston because Marlene just can’t give anything up.” 

“Marlene?” Joel leaned into you, pulling your face to look at him by your chin. Your own lost ones stark against his heating fire as he said your name. “She was the one looking for you?” 

You stammered, watching Joel run a hand over his face. Dots connecting in your mind, your mouth fell open slightly as a tangle of disjointed words tumbled out. “Yeah she wanted me.... and you were in Boston. With Ellie.” A story you knew the details to but didn’t stop to wonder how deeply intertwined it’s words were.

This time it was Joel who fidgeted his body back and forth, jaw so clenched it might snap as both his hands found his hips. “Ellie grew up in there, and that’s where I lived when Marlene got me to take her, or forced my hand was more like it. She was adamant someone needed to get her to one of their stations out west when she couldn’t.”

Joel’s head snapped to you as you started putting it together. “I’m assuming she didn’t specify west meant a hospital in Salt Lake?” 

Running his hand down his face again, Joel finally leaned back against the counter. “I didn’t know the extend of where I was taking her until Ellie mentioned a cure. By the time I got her there, it was almost to late when I found out what the fuck they were about to do.” 

Blood racing in your veins you hated where this was going more and more. “Because she knew you’d never do otherwise. She seem desperate?” 

All you needed was his nod of yes. You felt incredibly stupid. The details Joel had already shared, what Don told you, what had happened what was in the journal itself. That’s why they left you alone after all that time. She found Ellie, and dumped her off with people who couldn’t possibly know what Marlene was handing her off for. 

You weren’t sure how long you had been silent, but Joel cupped the side of your neck urging you to come back to him. You were quicker on the draw then he was. “We need to find out what he’s doing here. Now.” 

Soothing you, his breathe grazed your face as he leaned his forehead onto yours. “I can do this alone, you don’t need to see this.” 

Sliding your fingers up to hold his wrist gently, your eyes as soft as your touch felt opposite of how much Joel’s nerves sat in his fingertips. “You said we’re in this together. So we do this, together.” He took one last moment to hold you against him still with a hand at the back of your head. 

Pulling back he grabbed something you couldn’t quite see from behind him, sliding it into pocket inside his jacket before you could make it out. His hand stayed in the middle of your lower back as you both approached the door. The journal left alone on the counter the reasons to keep it in the shadows leaving you moment by moment. 

It should have satisfied you to see fresh blood now on his face. Two distinct cuts clotting over on his cheek, drifting down to see his frame tied to a chair looped with more then one restraint. Hands bound to the arms of the seat, a redness that too was blood on his fists. You wanted to feel smug at how rough he looked, but it did nothing to soothe the racing of your heart. 

Owen barley looked your way when he saw Joel follow in. The harsh shut of the door behind him making the bound man jump. A rag drenched in droplets of blood and sweat tied around his mouth explained the no noise as you walked in. A sprinkle of suspicion that his newfound red paint was a result of putting far more of a struggle up then he could handle the consequences too. 

The air around the three was charged with such a heavy weight you felt as if it could crush you flat. Your vision as it turning white flashed, the slamming pain skyrocketing from your body to your head as it rattled against the cliff side. The blood on your face felt as if it had never been washed off as you looked at the still red stained ones on Owen. 

Yours weren’t bound to the arms of the chair. No yours were wrapped behind you, phantom sensations of the metal digging into your skin as it gave way to a snapping bone. Memories you’ve never spoken of,  ones you wanted to bury deep. 

Joel had spoken, and you didn’t even catch it. Muffled voices quiet and rumbling as your brain forced itself into the present. You had barley moved from just feet inside the room. Joel stood tall over him with the rag now dragged down from his mouth spitting as the words came out. “What? I can’t just pop by to visit a friend? See an old pal? Isn’t that right? Good ole Don?” 

Snatching his jaw, Owens cheeks smushed together as Joel forced it to lurch forward to his knelt over figure. “Hey, you’re not talking to her. Just me.” His voice was even, but unseen to your place behind him, Joel’s features stood sharp, a dark in his eyes that worked it’s way into his bones from weeks of torment on the people he loves. “Start with what Don was here for.” 

Joel’s hand dropped as he stayed at his eye level Keeping the mans only view of him. The condescension in Owen’s voice circulating Joel’s bloodstream in an angering trail. “Small town living.” 

He gave him no response. A stone walled stare leaving the pure nothingness in the air force someone to fill it, only neither you or Joel would do so. 

“He’s an idiot, who knows what he was doing here. I just haven’t heard from him is all, a guy can’t worry for his friend apparently.” You knew Owen wasn’t stupid enough to believe that. Part of you wondered if he just didn’t realize why Don was nowhere to be found, or if he was dumb at playing dumb. 

Joel’s hand flexed as he turned his head. Barley enough to even look beside him until moving back trying to not shift focus to you. Keeping Owens focus or Joels focus away he wasn’t quite sure of. “This can end right now. But if you keep bullshitting me, I promise you’ll wish it did.” 

Owen opened his mouth and closed it more than once. He was a footman. Strong, not pragmatic. A fear not unlike one you’ve felt countless times in your own eyes doubting himself as Joel stared at him. Only letting a few more seconds pass before Joel’s face twisted in anger. Bracing his palms on his thighs Joel pushed back upright. 

Stepping uncomfortably close into his space, Joel tugged the gag back over his mouth, but was nowhere near done. You couldn’t tell what Joel had pulled from his jacket until rusting pliers braced themselves onto the nail of Owens index finger. 

Tilting his head with an eyebrow raised, Joel was giving him a warning that Owen didn’t take. Just shaking his head with a muffled string of what sounded like petulant swearing. Joel held it to him, breathing heavy as whatever conflict in his head won out, forcing himself to act on that conclusion before a softer part of his subconscious wanted to talk him out of. 

A few years into the outbreak you had watched a number of members from your group screaming not dissimilar to the muffled ones before you. You had been pressed inside the back of a desk. Your only sight the dilapitating square of wall in front of you, but the wood surrounding you felt as it it made it echo. Warped, distorted screams as it was followed by a cracking. One by one the cracks followed screams that rasped into sobs. 

It was a sound and sight that for a while, was the scariest thing you’d ever seen. A body unconscious from either shock or blood loss as scattered puddles of blood and teeth lay strung about. You didn’t dare look how many were left. There were enough teeth on the ground to know not enough to matter. 

You had thought to yourself, never again did you want to be anywhere near something like this. But that was before you were tormented with screams, screeches and searing rips into your skin and clicks that stabbed into your brain until you felt numb to the fear. 

Owen didn’t sound quite like any of it. More like a strained groan trying to push down the agony. Your nails digging into your palm with each silence between Joel’s growling voice. Blood asking to drip down from the nails you still had, unlike the man who took his only chance to speak with his gag off, to try and spit at Joel. Much more swearing came from that rip then whatever your nails scratched into your palm. 

The red made it look worse then it did. Comparing to what the world outside proved it was capable of, Owen would live. Live without having to change who he was entirely. Your side told you not to feel bad and it was a hard voice to ignore. Your forearm throbbing in rhythm. Neither of those were a fate anyone should feel, but you had. And so did she. Those were far worse.

Owen wasn’t just connected to Don, it didn’t just trace back to you, and Joel had enough of keeping that thought out of it. “Look at me. Hey-” He yelled more this time, nostrils flared as he grabbed Owen by the throat to force him to look. 

Owen looked dazed, swallowing hard as his eyes fluttered in and out of pain. “You this embarrassed someone got the jump on you in front of your girl?” 

A roaring current zapped through Joels nerves, his hand tightening his hold on the mans throat. “Fine, you’re in my position. Someone breaking into your home? Rope in his hands, sneaking up on you and your daughter behind your backs?” His voice snarling at the edge of breaking into something Joel could lose control over. 

But you didn’t give either of them a chance. Your footsteps banged into the floor, heart pounding but unwilling to break eyes with Owens attention, now on you as he heaved in pain. Joel didn’t move, forcing his snarling heaves back down.

Hand curling into a fist around the pliers. It didn’t matter what Owen’s plan was. Joel covered all of Ellie’s sides, and so you would cover his back. You didn’t bend down to their place near the ground. You wanted Owen to strain up in the pain to look at you. “You read the journal, right?” 

Joel’s heart tempered down, but didn’t have the willingness to look anywhere but the man bleeding in front of him. Nothing had happened, but the threat was enough. Men like this, people like them? Joel would make sure they had no right to even look at Ellie. They get to keep their lives, their families and there was no comprehension in Joel’s mind to ever appease that they tried to tear apart his for their own gain. Tear his family back to shreds, keep their own when they had no heart or soul as they tried to do it to his. 

Unlike him, you didn’t bother with the intimidation, it was never a word given to you anyways. Letting it your hand brush the wrist attached to where Joel’s was, brushing your thumb over the vein you could reach, Joel finally let the mans airway free. Desperate to keep himself here, it only switched places. You felt his hand, large and close to bruising as he held part of your calf. 

Owen heaved and you let him. He wasn’t a solider, he had no obligation to withstand this, and both you and Joel knew that. You let Joel push Owen to the edge as long as you held him back from the cliff when Joel himself got to close to falling alongside. Broken at the bottom, splayed on jagged rocks you spoke softly to him. 

“Owen. I asked you a question.” He glanced from Joel to you, but finally kept it mostly on you when Joel didn’t move a muscle. “How much of the journal did you read?”

And there it was, his bloodshot eyes jumping to your forearm. In another world, maybe you’d smile, smirk, enjoy the torment. But neither you or Joel did. This was his family, and he was protecting it regardless of the cost. 

Nodding, you didn’t really even register doing, but your eyes sat wide. “It didn’t say anything about this,  I imagine.” One hand slip the side of your shirt up. 

Forearms heal better then the sides of a torso, and yours still looked like a horror. The colour, the scarring still healing with skin bitten and torn into and no disillusion as to what it was from. “Do you think you’re bite will look like this? Or rot to something else entirely.”

Would you do it? No. Humans deserved the fate of other humans. No one deserved what you and Ellie had barley survived. It was more then teeth, it was a blood curling terror like a radiation poured into your body along with it. But Owen didn’t know that, all he knew is someone in the fireflies inflated your reputation to dangerous. And that certainly wasn’t the image of hope Marlene tried to frame it in, no only one other person would have given Owen that idea. 

You wanted to crouch to look him properly in the eye, but you dared not interrupt the iron grip Joel had on your calf. So your fingers curled into the side of his jacket collar, one the front of his shirts were familiar with on quiet, peaceful nights. “Don could have told you if his own bite didn’t tear into his neck. Bring you to him if you don’t believe me.” 

“No, n-no,” There was the crack Joel had broken in. 

“Then tell us the truth. If you’re here for the journal, we can talk about that. But of you’re here for me then that’s a new problem.” 

You could feel Joel’s hand slid up your calf, less desperate and tight but now more all encompassing. A need to feel you there without risking his attention elsewhere. But that didn’t matter. The attention wasn’t about you at all. Owen looked defeated at you before sliding his eyes to the thing you feared putting at risk the most.   

“We weren’t looking for you. We were sent to look for him.” Your fingers curled into his jacket more as your heart beat so fast you felt it in your throat. A penetrating cold shivering from your heart and outward. “Fuck, no one even knew where you were until now I guess. A few of us have been scouting different nowhere towns looking for a Joel Miller. Just a wild fucking coincidence I guess.” 

Joel’s voice was controlled, forcing words out slowly and clearly. Low almost like a whisper. His eyes the opposite as they fell dark and falling down a hole of realization. “Whose us?” 

Owen gnawed at his lip before relenting. “Anderson,” Joel tilted his head needing him to elaborate, but you knew. You knew it was a divine force that kept you from falling back. “You know the doctor, the fucking hospital? We’re not with the fucking fireflies anymore, just got a few of us together when she finally learned your name. You killed her dad, so? Fair’s fair.” 

Joel stood up, the room silent as your head spun it’s contents. Turning to you, his face was lost in an overwhelming blast of emotions. Yours was flushed, a shiver running your entire body as you looked at him.  This wasn’t even about you, and that scared you even more. You couldn’t just walk away to get rid of this for them.

Joel grabbed your wrist on his jacket, holding to keep you close. He seemed to grapple with something before turning to shove the gag back in Owens protesting mouth and dragging you out of the room. 

He pulled you closer to the main room cupping the sides of your face urgently, pulling you into his space as you tried to rationalize it. “She can’t, you..I won’t let her.” 

Joel muttering your name almost commandingly as he almost smoothed over your skin to quell the panic. “Hey, hey- it’s okay eyes on me.” Your nails almost dug into his chest as you shook in his hold with a skin prickling combination of distraught and a back blowing whoosh of determinating protectiveness. “Nothing is going to happen. Nothing’s going to happen to me, not me, not any of us.” 

Your soul felt like screaming on the inside. “I’m not going to lose you, not for this. I won’t leave anyone to-” 

Joel pulled your lips into his, a harsh and rough collision that took not just your breathe out of your lungs but his. His own brushing against yours aggressively, pulling back only enough to have you hear him.

“Together. Anything we do, we’re doing it together. You don’t want to leave me? Good ‘cus I’m certainly not leaving you or her. I didn’t do what I did, only to get ripped away from her as soon as we finally started becoming something.” 

Joel kissed you another time, telling you to stay out here. Just for a minute before turning on the spot and slamming the door back behind him. A sharp anger on his face that you decided wasn’t worth holding him back from. 

Your back pressed against the wall, palms shoving pressure onto your forehead as you realized just who was looking for Joel. If it was her, then she’d come looking for Owen. If Joel didn’t hesitate to go find you the day you took off, then she would come looking for Owen the second it was too late for him to reasonably not come back. 

At some point you had slid onto the floor right next to Ellie’s door. This was it. She needed to know about that day. But it wasn’t what Joel did that was the lie going to hurt, it was the truth you had to come to terms with too. The truth all Joel did, was save her from and the pain he thought he was keeping from her was nothing. 

You could see the journal still sat on the counter at the other end of the room. He’d tell her, then you’d tell them. Somewhere in the back of your head you registered a thud, but it was too faint to drag you back into the light. 

The quiet creak of Ellie’s door however, was just that. She had heard enough to know what was happening in that room, but none of you were disturbed by it. Ellie had been through more then what Joel had done in those last ten minutes with Joel himself. Her eyes were tensely trained on the door when she almost jumped at the sight of you. 

“Fuck, make a sound or something next time.” Laugh, smile give her something but you couldn’t. Everything was about to be laid out on the table, and your nerves were crippled with the nightmare of losing Joel, losing her, for it all. “What happened?” 

Both of your heads shot up as Joel finally came back out. A redness on his hands that you knew were smears of the mans already dripping blood inside, it didn’t look bruised so at least it wasn’t that. You could only see inside the room enough to see the chair awkwardly moved over with Owen muttering to himself along with it as the door shut. 

All three of you looked at one another before Joel looked at Ellie with a seeping guilt in his eyes, “We need to talk.” Ellie’s eyebrows raised in worry but nodded. 

“Not just you. I mean, she needs to know.” Ellie’s face darting between you both now confused, “But you both need to know something else. You talk to her first though.” 

Ellie looked lost and anxious, “What the fuck is going on?” 

Joel’s hand smoothed over the side of Ellie’s head, his heart melting at how instinctively now she leaned into his embrace without realizing. Any of you losing this would be catastrophic. “Give us a minute,” his head gesturing to you. “Then we’ll talk.” Looking between you both, she finally conceded. Joel unable to take his eyes off of her until the door shut completely once more. 

Holding his hand out, he pulled you up onto your feet and gestured to the main room before either of you said a word. Wavering looks swimming in both of your eyes and hearts beating just as loudly as the other. “She-” Joel cut himself off with a sigh, handing his head with his hands on his hips. “I wanted to find the right words first. Not spring it on her like it doesn’t matter how I say it.” A strain in his voice you wanted to honey over.

Though you weren’t sure he was really telling you, not past your nerves. Running a hand down the length of his face as his eyes stayed shut. You were in the same boat, how were you supposed to tell the only family you had how much of a lie they were both sold on. How would they feel knowing you were a sliver of that story? 

Maybe you shouldn’t have unpacked that bag, your old empty house feeling more and more like the isolation you belonged in, but Joel didn’t deserve this feeling. He’d been through enough, he’s done enough. Softly muttering his name, he dropped his hand back to his hip but still was trapped behind his eyes.

This time whispering his name, hands very gently reaching out to cup the side of his face, thumb tracing against the coarse facial hair. His larger hand circled your wrist. “Give me your worst case scenario.” His eyes darting up in narrowing, an incredulous look but you kept your hand softly on him. “What would be the worst reaction she could have?” 

It was clear he’d thought too much of just that, because his answer was instantaneous. “She hates me. I lied to her about all of it, and she resents me for what I did, and for lying to her.” A part of your heart cried at hints of agony his eyes looked at you. “I don’t know if I could handle that. Not now.” 

Joel deserved to hear one thing, but right now you think he needed something else more. It was surprisingly easy to pull such a tall giant man to lean down into you. His hands both squeezing you waist as his forehead rested on your shoulder. Winding one arm past his neck you kept him there as you raked your hands through his hair as the other ran your palm shallowly against his torso down closer to his stomach. His deep breaths the only thing in your ear as you let him feel the worry for just a moment. 

Let him process what’s being forced onto him so suddenly. You didn’t let go of him as you softly spoke into his ear minutes later as his breathing steadied against your skin. “Do you know why that will never happen?” Hands gripped you tighter, you were starting to speak his silence. “That kid loves you. You’re her whole goddamn world even if you can’t see it. She was sold on a lie that got sold onto you. You were the only person who did the right thing, probably one of the only people who ever put her well being before someone else.” 

Joel found enough of a calm to lift his head, steady movements in his chest as he rested his head against yours. Face still twisted and tearing apart with nerves. “I still lied to her.” 

When you first met him, you’d never have said anything close to what came out of your mouth in the firm meaning you spoke. “You lied to yourself, Joel.” His eyes widening, a hurt treading on them that needed to be satiated fast. “When you think about that day, do you see what you did or why you did it- no don’t try to tell me otherwise. Because that’s exactly what I see.” 

Your hands sliding down to his own waist, “There’s not a single time I’ve heard Ellie talk about everything that happened that doesn’t end in her finding a way to tie it back to something you did for her. Marlene wanted to dump her life off on lies, and you kept her from it because you love her. What lie do you think’s going to hurt more? The one you couldn’t even admit to yourself, or the one people like them just for a chance to get her into a slaughterhouse.”  

Pulling your arms away from him, you gave Joel the chance to stand on two feet. The thoughts clearly mixing and repelling against one another as he followed your lead. Giving his body a chance to breathe on his own, his eyes on nothing while the mind behind brewed and boiled. Slowly you stepped away, the time it took getting to where the journal had been tossed feeling like a lifetime. 

Your hand paused as you slid it towards you. Eyes flying over the well used pages stuffed with fresher notes in your own once manic scratchings. Heart felt beating in your chest, you had to do it, but it wasn’t your place to say it. You had to let them be together. They could call you whatever they wanted, but you were still just on your own. Joel was her father now, and that’s the love she’s going to desperately need the most. 

Biting the inside of your cheek, you quickly moved things. Putting your own notes in one pile and storing it right at the front. It had to be done before regret slipped in. Snatching it off the table you didn’t hide it on your person this time. It hung in the hand at your side, as you looked at his face once more. 

No lies between you. Even if it sacrificed the adoration he watched you with. Both of you moved slowly as you handed it over to him, grateful he didn’t open it right away. “There’s nothing I could say that isn’t already in there.” 

Joel’s head tilted as he looked at you with doubt. “Neither of us is trying to exclude you.” 

Nerves burning on fire, you shrugged. “It’s still your life before me. Don’t open it until after. She needs you first, not this.” Watching his eyes bounce between the journal and you, the defeat crawling over sitting heavy in Joel’s stomach. “I think I pretty much summed it up, my notes in the front.” You pointed to the obvious white sheets contrasted against the stained darker ones. “But it’s still all in there.” 

Neither you nor Joel said the words. The grief of losing it before becoming real a fear you needed to steel yourself with once more against as Joel stood before you. Himself holding it back from spilling out of his mouth, especially with that dissonant look in your eyes. 

Selfishly, you have yourself what could be a final indulgence of his warmth. Your hands pressing flat onto his chest wishing those warm brown colour of his eyes would stay with you forever. “You’re not a bad person, Joel. Ellie knows that, so stop thinking that she will.” 

His eyes skipped down to your lips, choosing to pull you in with his fingers under your chin. Small and chaste with the taste of restraint from losing yourself in the other. Pulling back only enough to give you air, “Didn’t realize this is what it would take to get this much out of you.” 

Your heart leaping into a breathy laugh as he too lightly laughed into another kiss. Everyone always had something to say the second you ran your mouth for more than a few minutes didn’t they? 

Control slipping, you had to gently push him back before he let go of it entirely. You didn’t watch as he walked away, didn’t watch as he went into her room. The click of the door was a trigger. The air in the room heavy and constricting, as the walls surrounded you. You couldn’t be in here, you couldn’t listen to whatever would happen it was suffocating you. You didn’t deserve to be anywhere near them, not now, not for this. 

Not sure if either of them heard the front door shut, you walked out into the now significantly darker sky. Lungs filling with air you could stand as if the house was drowning in water. You didn’t get too far, just far enough to throw your back against a brick wall, sliding down as you lifted your head into the late winter sky.

It was a strange thought that passed through you, wondering what she’s heard about you since. If she was still with the fireflies then she knows all to well the man power wasted at trying to get you back.

Like the faces that followed you with every stabbing pain, she no doubt remembers your face perfectly. One of the hands now resting on your knees twitching as it relived a pain. 

The blood dripping down your bottom lip from how hard you bit into it, holding back your voice as the bones in your hand snapped, slipping from the metal handcuffs forcing your arms behind the chair. The chain clanging together as you retched them in front of you, barley making it off the chair as your upper body leaned in on itself, shaking as you snapped the bone back barley staving off a cry.

The darker the sky grew the further down the dilapidated, dripping hall your memory travelled. You had caught her coming around the corner, nearly jumping as she turned to see you. It was easy to see the blood on you was your own, but it was even easier to see what sat on the forearm with the fractured hand. Red skin and stiff hanging at your torso, you had it unknowingly tilted where the ripples of an infection she couldn’t possibly guess was long past it’s prime. 

You didn’t know if all of them here knew, a pathetic excuse of a firefly mid stop with too much empty space for them to even think of how to use it. Hell, at the time, you didn’t know a single of them were fireflies. You just knew him, your father, and now her. Judging by her face, wide eyes stepping back as an urgency fell over her face, she didn’t know the person here was you. The familiarity between you didn’t mean anything close to it’s beginning.

It all took no more than a few seconds. One of her hands reached behind her for what you had seen from the side was a gun as she begun to shout out someone’s name that you didn’t give her a chance to spell out. You had done it before you even heard it, arm stretched as the sound of the shot hit your ears after it already casted blood into her stomach. Something inside you wanted to stay, by the time someone else reached her it could already be too late. 

But that would’ve been your fate if you didn’t leave. You fell into their laps by accident, but wasted no time in trying to find a use for you that didn’t involve keeping you around. It was the first time you stole the only resources they had, you. And the first time having you get away, ate at Marlene’s desperation to force you back from that day onward. You didn’t even know Marlene’s name until that day in the field, but you new who she was all too well now.

Front door slowly shutting was followed by the slight thud of boots against the wood of the porch. Head snapping up you saw Joel looking out with a squint, his shoulders looking less risen and tense then he had all day. You however, shot up so quickly your feet almost stumbled you back over if not for your hand braced against the brick beside you. 

It was too far to see his expression, but it wasn’t always the best way to determine what was going on inside Joel’s head. Let him come to you, you told yourself. Constantly going to him, invading his life, disturbing their privacy was all you provided. 

He had on a different shirt then before, this one looking much warmer then what was on you. Part of you wondered just how long you had been out here alone. If the sky had anything to say about it, it might have been far longer then you knew. 

Now though, being out in the snow? A lack of anything substantial for winter weather having Joel’s eyes look at you, not knowing if in simple concern or judgment. Standing a foot or two away from you, Joel answered the question he saw you open your mouth to ask. 

“You were right.” Your back sagged against the brick, this time though your legs finding the strength to hold you up. “Turns out having your whole life upended hurts a whole lot more then being lied to about getting her out of it.” His voice was shoved out in a gruff kind of pain, his eyes fared no better.  Bright but not in a shine you yearned for, a pain, an upset that sat heavy in his heart. Just because it didn’t devastate their relationship, doesn’t mean it wasn’t devastating in every other sense. 

You swallowed harshly as you nodded. Nothing even in your throat to say, scared to look to long at him, missing the needing stare he gave you that shined in the growing moonlight. Your voice just weak and cracked, “And you?” 

The sigh he let out was loud. Arms crossing his chest he paced to put rest his back against a close by tree. The increased distance between you growing larger, you didn’t know how intentional it was. “I said something when she first told me what Marlene wanted with her. They’ve talked about cures all the time and none of them worked. Everyone wanted me to believe in it, in her so badly.” 

Clenching his jaw you could see the frustration build and build. Making you feel like you understood without any idea of how to comfort it in a meaningful way. “But she’s a kid, not an answer.” 

You yearned to reach out to him, his eyes glazing somewhat as he looked from the night sky, to the ground and back to you as a darker tone resurfaced in his voice. “She didn’t deserve to be treated like some miracle. She needed someone, anyone, to give a shit enough to protect her. Even from them.” 

For once you stood still like a stature while Joel kept shifting his stance or his shoulders. “I don’t know if I even believed it when I went back for her. All I knew is it didn’t matter what they wanted, she didn’t deserve that and I couldn’t live with it.”

Your fingernails chipped away at the brick behind you, “Sometimes desperation makes you dumb. Doing bad things because they deluded themselves into thinking as long as they accomplish something then they can keep feeling as if they’re winning.” Sighing out raspily you hoped he couldn’t hear it. “Couldn’t get me anymore, so the second she found a new one? Getting her on that table was all they a cared about.”

“Even though they knew it wouldn’t work.” Joel pushed up from the tree, letting his hands fall to his belt loops trying to close the distance. “Didn’t matter what the truth was, everyone wanted her to be the one to set all of this right. All I could see was a girl who wanted to have a life. Didn’t matter to me what anyone else wanted, I’m not sure it ever did when it came to Ellie.” 

Silence fell between you, that feeling in your throat coming back up like it wasn’t able to stop. Your heart falling over at the pain filling his features. “I’m sorry.” 

Joel scrunched his face at you. “You’re sorry? For what?” 

Throwing your hands out, you for once found yourself starting any kind of argument. “What do you mean what? How about everything I do somehow keeps coming back to fuck you and Ellie’s lives up.” 

Joel’s own voice started to match in a frustration level. “Wait- you haven’t done anything.” 

Rolling your eyes to the side you struggled to understand what he was even trying to do. “Right, because you’re lives have been so much more peaceful since I showed up and for some reason you just let me hang around no matter what I’ve done.” 

Joel tried to come towards you but you just pushed off the wall and circled around to stay away. “I-”

At least it was growing dark enough that Joel couldn’t see the redness in your eyes. “He came looking for Don, Joel. Don never checked in because I killed him, he never even mentioned them. If he was here looking for you, he stopped giving a shit about you the second he saw me. Maybe if I just let him-” 

Joel’s anger wasn’t at you but it sat visibly steaming on his face as he tried stepping towards you, but you just stepped away again. “No. I’m not even going to fucking entertain that idea-” 

Your head pounded, every modicum of sound screaming as it flowed into your ears. “Well I am, so maybe you should for once, Joel.”

Running a hand over his mouth, you knew he was either going to yell or going to try and come closer, but at the moment you couldn’t tell which one you wanted less. “What do you want from me? Blame you for everything that ever goes wrong? Pretend I don’t want you in my life?” 

If he was growing angry, you deflated it by turning to face him. Not quite yelling, but certainly not quiet either. “No, you’re just supposed to not want me in general.”

His volume grew with yours, as did the sharp features on his face grew twisted and stiff. “Well I’m sorry, sweetheart. You don’t get to just stand there and tell me I’m not allowed to love you just because that’s what you expect out of me.” 

He didn’t realize what he had just said. And neither did you. The only ones who realized what Joel had just said, were the half awake birds on the treetops and the single pair of ears quietly listening from a far off window. 

You pressed your palm to your forehead, trying to will the headache away with the pressure. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Joel. I just-” 

Joel tried to come closer. His heart was turned up tonight, and between earlier, sitting on a way too low to the ground bed for his frame, running his hand soothingly over his what loose strands of hair splayed out from their ponytail as his little girl finally let that insufferably stubborn wall of hers fall down for once and cried into his lap. That everything that had finally brought them together was all based on a horrific lie that duped them both. Neither he nor her having any idea what to feel about it. 

It was too much for him, but nothing compared to the endless turmoil spinning behind Ellie’s eyes as they were laid out what this all truly was. Ellie had been through a lot, too much with him, but for once she let herself react the way she needed. She didn’t do anything, she shouldn’t be brave about it. 

Now he’s standing out in his front yard, watching you float around too many emotions for you to figure out what you even felt. Your voice wavering and how you kept stepping away if he came forward. To Joel, it was his own actions that brought this down on them, yet here you stood trying to force him to put every blame on you for just existing. 

“Can you just listen to me?” 

You wanted everything to stop, your lungs yelling at you and your vision feeling like it wanted to start spinning. “No, Joel-” 

His hands gestured uselessly in the air, “Why not?” hoping he didn’t sound angry, but sometimes he wasn’t quite aware enough to know how he was coming off to people. Especially if airing on the side of losing his temper. 

You told yourself not to cry, feeling a vile embarrassment if you cried in front of him right now. But your throat felt choked up, and barley managed to spit it out. “Because I don’t get it, Joel.” Everything in his face paused, taken back by what was about to spill out of your heart. 

“I don’t understand why you care. I’ve never understood it. I’ve done nothing but get in the way, and you keep just bringing me back when we both know your life would be a hell of a lot easier without me in it. I don’t understand why you keep me around or why you even like me. I just...I don’t get you.” 

Pressure build behind your eyes while the rest of you burned with humiliation. Being with Joel exposed parts of your soul that you never even thought to share with another, but the undeniable shake in your voice as you trailed off was twister of panic and tears that you tried to push down. Pretending it was anger. 

In anyone else, Joel would have taken it in a worse light. But the silence in him as he grappled with just how little you could see how he felt didn’t sit right inside him. He knew part of this between you both was somewhat new to you. What he didn’t know, is that in fact all of it was new to you. 

He was new in every way and now it all swirled on terrifying, your eyes staring at each other until you turned to go back in the house. In your frazzled mind, you hoped maybe Joel wouldn’t yell at you if you were inside. It felt different once you got there though. Countless houses you’ve walked into, abandoned, dilapidated, some in surprisingly good condition. Even your own small one in this very town. But something about being in Joel’s house felt different. Like a warmth spreading through your bones as you walked into the front door. 

Your palms sat flat against the back of the couch, trying to count how long your inhales were and focusing on the exhales. Slowly your heart tapered down, the walls around you stopped shrinking in as you hoped when your eyes opened once more the world would stop feeling like it was tumbling around you. 

Just seconds ago you felt like if Joel came anywhere close to you, that the weight of your emotions would implode on you. Yet as you heard Joel quietly following you into the house, you couldn’t help but follow where he was by the sounds he made as he walked in. 

It all just hit you too fast. Giving yourself no time to process so you chose the worst possible way to react. Too much of your lives were converging together and it kept brewing a storm that you once only had to deal with alone. Now there were actual people in your life who leaving would tear parts of you across the distances between them. The only life that had been in danger since you arrived was your own. Having the forces from yours come down to Joel wasn’t fair. He had no stake in this fight. 

He only did the one thing none of those people had the heart or the guts to do for another. And people like her had no right seeking out revenge for someone who wasn’t anywhere near close to what was toted around. Truly thinking about it, there was another person in this house who you know has his back too. 

Eyes opening you looked over to her closed door, this time at least knowing she asleep. Only time would heal what you finally had to expose her too. 

It was hypocritical of you, how the second two strong arms caged you in against the back of the couch, you leaned back into what you knew was Joel’s warm torso. He stepped in to press you closer to the couch so he could cover your hands with his, fingers linked as much as he could manage in this position. 

His chin rests on your shoulder as you both stand with the other against you, a quiet that is far more familiar and soothing then any kind of arguing. Joel must have been watching you, because as soon as you opened your eyes to speak, he leaned his mouth closer to your ear. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry again.” 

Letting you go, Joel pressed himself more into your back as his hands decide to rest more comfortably on your hips. His nose pressed to your hair you nod in agreement. “Guess I’ve scared you enough, only a matter of time until it was my turn to get it.” 

Your fingers dug into the couch more, but you still leaned into his touch head tilting back at his every move, even though he always found his way back. “I’m not going to bother telling you not to be. We both know listening to me isn’t exactly your forte.” Joel smirking against the side of your head at your face instantly falling in a playful offence. “I need you to listen to me this time, though.” 

One arm slid across your stomach, almost as if he knew your hands were itching to hold onto him in some way. His hold pressing you against him further at the feeling of your nails scratching along his arm slightly. Your nod not enough for him, “Out loud.” 

His heartbeat was so much calmer then yours, clearly having taken his jacket off while your back was turned the single thin layers between you meant you could feel him with every breathe. “I’m listening.” 

Joel’s own eyes were off in the distance, staring at the table he could see through the door frame. The kind of nerves he saw on you felt like an echo of that night. So wrapped up in how sure he felt, that he forgot how unused to all this you were. Not used to the feelings that came with finding yourself so close to someone you didn’t expect too. 

He knew all to well what that was like. The girl he felt in his heart like a father to, laying everything out on the line for. Ellie could look back on that day and joke about it. Trying to make a scene over how mistreated she was anytime he made her do a chore she’d turn back with a hand over her head lambasting the time he so callously threw her entire body into a wall. “Like a piece of meat,” she’d go on like.

Being told she’s nothing but cargo to him, not knowing the pure terror the day he could have truly lost her in more vile ways then he wanted to ever imagine. How it wasn’t the only day either.  A small name he only ever felt pain even thinking about slipping from his lips as he looked at Ellie, unable to deny what they had become and just how deeply both of them wanted to hold onto the other.

It was different for you, but he knew whatever family you had wasn’t even present enough for you to care to share. Spending a lifetime outside any kind of walls or city with any form of order, not until you walked into town that day. You were still getting used to him, just as he had to do with Ellie. 

“Maybe in another life, this might go down differently. Ellie decides she doesn’t trust me, I get caught off guard, or by some miracle that doctor even had a fucking clue what he was doing.” Both his arm around you and hand on your hip squeezed tighter. “But that’s not going to happen. We have each other, sweetheart. All three of us. You don’t deserve to be dragged back into this shit. And I’m sure as hell not leaving this world for that son of a bitch thinking he had any right to cut her open for some cure that doesn’t fucking exist. Who didn’t give a second thought about murdering the one other kid in my life who has ever felt like a daughter to me.” 

You could feel the tensity in his muscles, wanting to turn around you tried to twist but Joel kept you in place. Pressing his lips to the back of your head. “He deserved exactly what you gave him, Joel.” Pausing your minds were both torn between two growing factions, one of which had to be dealt with before the other. “She’ll try to get the jump on us. Think I accidentally taught her the advantage of actually sneaking up on people.” 

Joel’s voice was such a deep and bassy rumble in your ear that you couldn’t help your eyes flutter at the sensation. “Then she tries sneaking up on us. You with me?” Nodding in his hold, he muttered “Good girl.” 

Oh he did that on purpose. As soon as your thighs tensed, Joel smirked into your hair. “Joel, we’re supposed to be making a plan- this isn’t fair.” 

His chuckle was closer to your neck as he traced his nose down your cheek and jaw. “You saying I can’t do both?” The hand around your stomach started tracing over you, the way you’d run your hands through his air he traced over your front. When you didn’t respond right away, Joel’s lips pressed one more kiss right under your ear before nudging you with his nose. “We don’t have to do anything, sweetheart. It’s hasn’t been an easy day. I just want to pull you out of that head of yours.” 

This time as you went to turn in his grip he let you. Your hands finding a home on his waist as he kept his back on your hips. His hair somehow just as light and fluffy now as it was when you woke up that morning. Coaxing you awake with his kiss as your hands found his still messy sleeping hair. 

It was just as lovely now, the yellow tinged lights making the greys highlight the rest of the colour that suited him so beautifully. His eyes treading on a darker lust, but instead of a greedy tinge there sat almost a need. Something softer that not even a year ago he thought he’d never even consider wanting anymore. “What is it you want, Joel?” 

Just like he didn’t expect this to be something he ever would want, he almost would never have guessed how easily you got him to open up to you. He’s not sure he’s ever been like this with a woman, even in his old life. 

But you held nothing but an innocent generosity in your eyes, and Joel wasn’t about to part ways with that either. “Call me needy,” leaning to your face his nose trailed along yours as your eyes slid shut. “But what I want, is to feel how warm and tight you are for a little while.” 

Joel read your body like a book, could feel in the smallest actions, the certain pitch of a tiny gasp or the way your body seemed to tense up and shiver at the same time. You always struggled to tell him what you wanted, but he was working you through that. Joel was perfectly happy to take care of you, typically because what he needed matched what you needed perfectly. 

And talking wasn’t always the easiest way to get either of you out of your heads. Joel trying to lull you into his touch when you still hadn’t let go yet. “But if she-” 

One hand tilting you up to his eyes again,”How many does she have with her, if you were to guess?”

If this was about Ellie, there was no way she’d be involved. She wasn’t apart of the group, and there weren’t many people who would follow her on a revenge quest for the father instead of towards the girl they thought they finally had in their possession. “Maybe one or two others, besides him.” Your head nodded in the general direction. “Probably looked at a few different areas. Couple other smaller communities in the state that they would have looked at first. Likely didn’t realize anything was wrong until Owen didn’t check back in. Maybe a day away from here or so.” 

Joel looked through you as he went over something in his head, you guess you still weren’t that good at reading him. Not knowing what plan he was going over. His eyes met yours finally, dipping down to your lips before slowly dragging them back up. “We’re bigger, means she’s got to be more careful. In other words, you can afford to let me have you for a couple hours. Dead man’s final request and all.” 

Your face fell flat along with a weight settling back down in your stomach. “That’s not funny.” 

He shrugged one shoulder, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Is it?” The unamused look on your face still tinged in anxiety had Joel switch gears again. He didn’t find anything funny in joking about you or Ellie that way, so maybe it was fair you didn’t find jokes about him funny either. “Hey, I already told you. I’m not going anywhere. None of us are.” 

Biting the inside of your cheek you shifted your eyes off to the side before nodding. Feeling Joel press another kiss to the side of your head as he shoved you towards the hall. “Go, I’ll be right there.” 

In his room and in the hall you both lingered on something. Your fingertips trailing over the almost insignificant things on his dresser. Tiny pieces of Joel that if he were gone, wouldn’t really belong there anymore. A thought making you sick to your stomach. You’d rather she come for you, at least they could go back to their regular lives. 

Joels own fingers flipping through the pages. Knelt down he quietly had pulled the journal from where it sat close on Ellie’s bed. He let her discover it, he already knew what it would say, just in details that actually mattered. 

She went through most of the reactions she could, denial, anger, lashing out before she exhausted herself leaving tears the only energy she had left in her. It tore his chest right open exposing his heart to the cold air. They were the monsters and not only did they want to kill him all for a man who tried to take his own girl’s life but now the delusional lies they told themselves left her feeling betrayed and used. 

But it wasn’t just her was it? By some miracle some higher power gave Joel not one, but two things in this nightmare to hold onto. Sometimes it was frustrating, watching you unable to believe what he wanted to give you, but then again he wasn’t much different with Ellie was he? 

Ellie pulled him out of a darkness, and Joel had no intention of not doing the same to you. And he knew damn well Ellie felt the same. 

Standing in his room, it occurred to you that maybe you should try to be sexy, allure Joel to you or anything like that. You felt stupid though even thinking about where to start or if he would just roll his eyes at you for trying.

The door closing knocked a sense into you, realizing maybe he wanted you to be ready by now you almost flinched back before starting to pull your shirt up. Two large hands however covered yours as he pressed himself behind you. “Doing my job for me.” 

Your arms went willingly Joel stopped to pull your bra up over you along with the shirt, dropping it down into a messy pile. He wasted no time in filling his hands up with your breasts, almost kneading the plush skin as your back arched into his chest with a breathless gasp. He didn’t want you like this though, he wanted all of you. 

Using his thumb and index finger he tugged slightly at both your nipples letting you choke a moan back as he moved onto the rest of you. His taller figure leaned over you, the once presumed glare narrowing his features now rung in your head as an introspective train of thought, determined in whatever task even with his arms wrapped around your front skillfully undoing the button on your pants. 

A shiver ran down your spine as his mouth bent to press a feather light kiss to your neck so he could reach lower, dragging the zipper down and grasp the waistline. Your shivering from the winters cold air still floating through the room, you felt your limbs tingle as he mumbled into your neck, “Be good for me.” 

Slowly starting to pull both your pants and underwear down, Joel couldn’t help his greed, pausing to squeeze fistfuls of your ass almost too roughly before continuing to pull them off of you. Before he could do anything else, once you stood bare in front of him, you turned in his hold quickly. 

Sudden movement catching him by surprise, it gave you enough time to already start undoing his belt and zipper. Joel’s own plans caught in his mouth at just how easily you made him so unbearably hard just at your small careful hands trying to pull out his cock before he even has properly touched you yet. 

He didn’t let you get as far as the faint beginning of you moving your fingers to grasp at his own pants before snatching your hands. Your eyes wide as he held them in the air, his eyes dark with a mocking disapproval. “Now what did I say about being good for me?” 

That tingle in your limbs spreading through your heart out into your veins as you bit slightly at your bottom lip at his tone. Your hands fell loose in his grip causing him to switch to approval. Maneuvering you so he now was the one with his back to the bed, he held you at your hips walking you over to the bed. 

“Now, are you going to let me do something for you? Something new?” Your eyebrows raised in question, unsure to what he meant. You thought at this point you had done mostly everything or at least knew everything. 

Living outside of the walls didn’t exactly foster an environment eager to share or teach the fun side of sex, or you know, it in general in your case. “I-yeah.” Boy, how enthusiastic of you. 

Joel only smiled softly though, pulling your chin in to press a soft kiss before pulling you onto the bed with him. Joel the one laying with his back on the sheets, he guided you so your core sat pressed right against the bumpiness that blocked his cock under the open belt. Large warm hands running over and squeezing the plush skin he could grab at watching you slip your fingers to smooth over his stomach under his shirt. 

“Come up here, sweetheart.” 

You both had two different intentions. One being you assuming he means for a kiss, the other using his strong arms to pull your hips off his clothed cock and up his body. Suddenly your soft touch against his skin turned into a much more urgent press against his chest, “Wait, wait-” Joel kept you in place, but his eyes narrowed in concern at your tone. Your question confusing him somewhat. “What are you doing?” 

His tone slow and clear as he worry turned to a bit of confusion. “I’m just trying to taste you, sweetheart. Just like always,” 

Your fingers pressed into him more, causing him to sit up slightly as you looked hesitant and even somewhat embarrassed. “But why would I-” Your eyes casted down at anywhere but his face as you put the not so complicated clues together. “Why would you want it that way? Instead of you know, like we usually...” Christ you couldn’t possibly feel less attractive currently.

Joel raised an eyebrow, letting your hips back down without moving you away, his hands now smoothing over your thighs. “Because I really want my mouth on this pussy, sweetheart.” 

Your body tensed which he didn’t like at all. “Why would you, I mean wouldn’t you find that...” You hesitated on saying gross, having a feeling that wouldn’t be a word to go over well. “...uncomfortable?”

Joel’s hands squeezed your thighs as his head flopped back down onto the pillow. Unable to stop wondering what kind of encounters you had out there. You genuinely just didn’t know what he was trying to do, looking at him in the most confused innocent way he’s ever seen on you. “Jesus fucking christ, you’re going to kill me.” Barely mumbling under his breathe. Sitting up properly, he maneuvered you into his lap. “We don’t have to do it, but I really fucking want to.” 

Your hands tapping at his shoulders, you seemed to drop some of the embarrassment leaving just an uncertainty. “I just don’t get why you’d want to..can’t I just suck your cock?” 

Joel’s head dropping down onto your shoulder as he mumbled even more. Sliding his hand between your bodies, he felt a trace of your wetness, using what he could touch to slide up and rub into your clit. “We can do that if you want. Or we can do both at the same time.” 

This time you smiled, pulling back with a laugh as he joined keeping you from going too far off in his hold. “Okay that sounds even worse for you.” 

He let you get away with it this time. Joel pulled you into his lips, sighing as you let his tongue tease and slide into your mouth as he kissed you. The push and pull of his tongue against yours sending shock waves between your legs adding to what you already knew was making a mess. His kiss and his tongue always making you so lightheaded. 

Taking advantage of how lost you got in his kiss, Joel suddenly lurched forward, sending your back to fall against the rest of the bed as he crawled over top of you. Your hands finding their way to rake through his hair as he kissed you more. 

Joels hands unable to choose a spot to touch you, from your hips to thighs and back to to teasing your nipples, he tucked his head into your neck once more as he kissed the skin there. 

One hand of your leaving his hair, trailing down his broad back to his narrower lower side before sliding under to gently take his cock into your hand. His hands gripping his preexisting hold on your nipples tighter as he groaned. Joel covering your body so much made the angle not easy, but you ran your thumb over hips tip already leaking onto your hand. 

In a move that actually caused Joel’s body to jump, you suddenly smoothed your palm all over the tip of his cock, smearing the precum over it before sliding it down the length you could reach. Enough precum on you to fill the air with the slick sounds of his skin with each stroke. Joel moaned into your neck before trying to smother it with biting a mark into it. He was too long and too thick to cover enough even half of his cock, but your grip was tight and strokes fast but steady. 

Yanking your head to angle for his mouth, you gripped him tighter in pleasure at how his hold on your hair was so commanding.  Biting against your lips this time until you whined in need of a breathe. The feeling of his lips sliding across your cheek to right against your ear. “I want this pussy, not your hand.” 

Sliding own he pushed your thighs out to spread enough for his size. Giving you no warning for how quickly he moved his mouth over your clit. His hands never letting go of your spread legs with a bruising strength, his was shameless in how sloppy he was. Licking at your clit only to almost kiss it as he would your actual lips. The same soaked licks moving down to tease at your entrance, to your clit and back. 

One hand roughly shoved its way to your mound, pressing the heel of his calm into your clit soaked with you and his own saliva and rubbed short quick strokes. As one knee bent with your gasp, Joel used his free hand to greedily hold the soft skin of your waist before licking into you feverishly. 

Your back arched off the bed as a shock stabbed through you, sending a fiery pleasure into every stretch of your nerves. He licked into you with no cohesive pattern or approach, just drinking from you like a man starved for only one need. His rubbing into your clit lost in your wetness form how little he moved away from it, but deep in Joel he knew the slight burn of drier friction on your clit yanked cries from you. 

Your orgasm suddenly hit you with a force, “Oh fuck, Joel-” A white hot train flowing from your clit and soaked right into Joel who only added to the feeling as he moaned into your pussy. His grip already so tight he’d be able to see bruises once he was done with you. 

He never let up, “Fuck, baby.” Mumbling to himself as he licked more inside of you, letting his hand slide down to gather more from your core he realized just how unbelievably soaked you were. His tongue grazing up against a sensitive wall inside of you, he gave you zero time to calm down. 

The wet rubs of two fingers against your clit, harsh pushing and tight strokes the wet sounds filling the air alongside how relentless he tasted you. Your hands tightly grasping the sheets just above your head as your whole lower half arched closer to his mouth. 

Your heart beat widely out of your chest as the pleasure coiled inside of you without ever letting you recover from the sudden burst of your first orgasm. Your legs shook as he kept them bent by the knee, feet flat on the sheets as they were spread as far as he could manage. 

You didn’t even realize when one hand left your hip, his grip so tight it held a phantom sting in its departure. Joel’s own hips lifting up enough to start shoving his jeans down as far as he could manage without leaving your cunt. 

The groan vibrating through your body as he finally was free down to his knees and pressed his cock into the sheets adding to whatever mess he was pulling from you. You didn’t have words this time, just high pitched gasps and desperate attempts at his name that were interrupted by sharp jolts of pleasure almost bordering on pain. 

The flying burn of your orgasm this time felt like a flood passing the bloodstream. A needing warmth engulfing you as the white noise in your ears turned out whatever was passing by Joel’s lips. You missed it the first time, and now the second time. 

Joel didn’t realize it either. He knew exactly the feeling and why it made him take you with such a lack of control but neither of you were in the state of mind that night to hear it. 

You had just barley felt the final shocks of pleasure as Joel pulled from you. His face twisted close to a snarl as he impatiently pulled his jeans off the rest of the way. Grabbing the back of his shirts collar and throwing it beyond sight. 

His chest leading to such a soft stomach made his thick cock stand out between his legs. You touched the skin over his chest near his heart, but Joel couldn’t handle such a soft touch. Not right now. He couldn’t lay there and let himself feel your gentleness without something in his heart snapping. Instead, Joel yanked up your hips and sunk his cock into your folds. 

Your name moaned from his mouth, “Fuck, don’t- oh fuck.” You hadn’t come down yet, aftershocks of your orgasm overwhelmed your system as you felt his thick cock sliding into you. Clenching around him without trying to tease, you were still soaking his cock from your orgasms. 

Joel buried his face into your neck. One hand fisted into the sheets beside your head as he closed his eyes. Your arms wrapped around his neck, you paused mid motion as your rang your hands through the ends of his hair as one arm wrapped around your waist to keep himself tucked inside you but strong enough to keep you from moving. 

It actually took a bit before Joel tempered whatever aggression was overwhelming him. He wanted to do this for you, but now your touch, your cunt, your soft lips always speaking and pressing so sweetly against his? It tugged at his heart just as much as he took over all of your senses. 

The grip on your hair tempered down to cupping the back of your head. Joel moving to consume you in a less rough kiss, but the damage was already done to your swollen bitten lips. The plumpness just like his own without the greedy teeth markings. 

Your heart slowing down, but somehow still hard enough to feel in your chest at his touch. Joel pulled away, tracing his nose along yours. “Turn around for me, sweet girl.” 

Joel gently shushing comfortingly at you at your whine when he pulled out. But you complied. Joel’s mouth was open, panting as his hands clenched beside him watching you go willingly move to your hands and knees. But that’s not the closeness either of you truly needed. 

You sighed at how much more gentle his touch was, moving you up to kneel your back against his chest just like earlier. His cock slid between your thighs, already soaked as it teased between your folds. “Just like that, I’ve got you.” 

One of your arms reaching behind to find a tender home in his now messy hair, while the other laid flat against the arm wrapping around your stomach. “Please,” You leaned your head against his shoulder as Joel rubbed your stomach and hip with his free hand. His brown eyes bright and so much less of a dark lust, replaced with a soft almost desperateness. “I want to feel you. Please? I can still take it, I just want you inside of me.” 

You felt so one note in your brain, but Joel dealt the killing blow when he pressed his lips to yours. Not rough, or commanding, just soft kisses that he struggled to part from. Finally moving to grip his cock, he pulled away and turned your head to look down. 

Joel slid his cock inside of you, not spending a moment to stop and let you adjust to his size. Just one smooth stroke that didn’t thrust into you too fast until you were sat totally full of his cock. “Always slide so well into you,” 

Your eyes squeezing shut at the sight, his cock was so thick watching it slide deep inside you was too much to handle. Your head leaned back against him, lungs stuttering at how drastic he was handling you now compared to mere minutes ago. 

Joel held you tightly against him, burying his face into your neck and shoulder as he started to finally slide his cock almost out of you. Your whimper at the prospect of him leaving you empty poking at something distressing in your mind. 

You weren’t sure he ever kept up a pace this slow. Your pussy so tight and wet around his cock, making the sounds of him pulling and pushing his cock in and out so much louder. How much you’ve already cum so much more obvious as he moaned into your shoulder. 

You couldn’t tell anyone how long you were there. Knelt back against his chest as his cock fucked into you, not even hard enough to call it thrusting. Your chest felt so constricted yet filed with a warmth that would be cozy if his cock wasn’t sliding right up against such a sensitive wall inside of you. 

Inside of you this time the coil was just a slow and calm. But the addition of how tight he already pushed your orgasm too had this build up flutter around you. It just slipped from your lips, the brave face you tried to fake in front of him, in front of everyone crumbled with his squeezing hands and slow slide of his cock inside of you. Something deep in your heart plead. “Stay with me, please. God, Joel- stay with me.” 

Your eyes were shut and Joels arms held you tighter. His jaw clenching, teeth gritted as his breaths came out in rasping pants. He pressed his lips into your neck and whatever part of your jaw he couch reach. “Always, sweet girl. I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere. “

Even as his cock throbbed inside of you as your walls clenched around him, as the burning orgasm threatened to overtake you once more, it all mixed together as you just whispered his name. The drag of his cock along the sensitive walls of your cunt pushed tears from your eyes. 

Gasps and breathless pleas let go of the stinging tears behind your eyes and cried down your cheeks as one final loud and wet push of his cock inside of you had whatever hold you had on him dig your nails into his skin. 

Your orgasm pulling a gasping sob from you. Just one, but loud enough in Joel’s ears to cover your mouth as your pleasure sung into his hand. Joel couldn’t take it any longer. His cock so desperate to burst, he moaned into your neck and finally came.

Your pussy fluttering around him, as his cum spilled inside of you. Thick and to both of you, never ending. He came inside of you more then he could remember, filling you with warm cum that didn’t stop the tears of your need. 

By the time you both came down, you had dropped more then Joel had thought. Your eyes barley open, as your struggled to catch your breathe. Weak nods to his questions, asking if you were with him, what you needed, weak thank yous to him just saying how perfect you fit him. 

He shushed in your ear when he pulled out, never letting both hands off of you and his lips somewhere close to yours. You both laid in bed for a while, both your bare, sweat covered bodies, your lower half a little more wet with cum then what he didn’t bother cleaning from his cock. He held you with his nose pressed into your hair waiting for you to come down before he even thought of getting up to clean you off. 

Your mind was fuzzy and your face felt the aftermath of tears but none of it had any regret. Your eyes were closed, fine with coming down in his arms as you faced one another. Slowly ready to peel your eyes open, you noticed he wasn’t at your eye level, his face in your hair. His breathing enough confirmation he hadn’t fallen asleep. 

You burned between your legs, the mix of rough and soft kept the memory of his thick throbbing cock inside of you. You knew you were covered in cum between your thighs but you didn’t have any reason to want to get rid of it anytime soon. 

You did however ask to do something Joel ignored. Smirking, you suddenly left his gentle pressed arms, down his body. He flipped onto his back reflexively to see what you were doing, before hissing out. 

Licking the tip of his cock before sinking down around the rest. His cock now soft but it still was coated in your orgasm and his cum. Joels moans were stuttering and needy as he cupped the back of your head, still bobbing up and down his length sucking him until his chest was ready to explode. He called your name in warning along with more strings of swearing through hissed teeth, “Jesus fucking christ, baby”, but you already were slowing down the second it bordered too overwhelming for him. 

Your mouth sliding down to press your nose into the coarse dark hair around his cock, before very slowly sliding back, making sure his cock didn’t leave you until you had sucked him clean. Only fair he gets even the slightest idea of how overstimulated he so greedily made you.

Sliding him gently out of your mouth you went to come back up to his level. Your hand cupped his soft length now resting between his legs before your palm moving to his stomach. Chest, and the cupping the side of his face as you rubbed your thumb along his facial hair.

Joel chuckled deeply in his chest, pulling your face to his with fingers pulling your chin as he kissed you. Pushing you back into the sheets with half his body over you as you shared a gentle kiss. “You are such a goddamn brat.” 

You smiled back, letting his tongue tease yours as you tried to find breathes into between the kiss. “Maybe. Just for you though.” 

He nuzzled his nose against yours then pressed a kiss to it. He didn’t say it, he so badly wanted to say it but so much of his emotions came out in times like this. He wanted to tell you in quiet peace, make sure you understand your heart belongs to him for the rest of his life. Telling you now, he didn’t want to risk you thinking it was just to keep you calm or not upset. 

Neither of you realizing he’s already said it twice this very evening. 

Only one of those times did it reach someones brain, but to their dismay, it was neither of you who even heard what came out of his own mouth. 

You spoke quietly into the night. Joel on his back as he kept his arms around you to rest on his chest. Sometimes you sat up enough to look at him properly, ensuring you both understood the plans, backup plans, and what might be the safest option. At least for in his home, in a town of innocent people. 

You needed Joel, but Joel needed you like he never even wanted from anyone else before. The concept of a deep need in his heart to keep a woman like you close in his arms like a lifeline would have been foreign not long ago. But then again, meeting Ellie changed a lot about what was going on in Joel’s head and heart. 

You took your time joining the two of them that morning. Still balancing intruding on what was no doubt an emotional time between those two, and wondering exactly what Ellie would even see you as. 

Joel for his part was as normal as possible, with an underlying closeness both he and Ellie stuck to each other with with a different kind of silent intensity. You did tell him your news would be the actually hurtful one. Ellie stopped moving her fork the second you turned the corner, a stare that almost felt judging but the slightest softening as she sniffed and forced her face impassive. 

Sensing Joel watching her carefully, Ellie glanced up at his flat expression with one eyebrow raised. Her own face falling just as flat. “What? I already used my crying quota for the week. And I’m not getting it all over my eggs either.” 

It wasn’t enough to jostle her, but Joel nudging the side of her head lightly before sharing a more serious glance with you. His eyes nodded over to a drawer in the counter, watching you for as long as he could follow. Neither of you wanting to make a scene about it in front of Ellie. 

Watching the their backs as you silently wrapped the your knife sheath around your waist, quickly covering it purposely with one of Joel’s jackets that sat just blow it on your thigh. He had taken it upon himself to sharpen your usual knife for you, not before stopping of course to comment on how shit it looked. Words of praise towards your equipment he was full of. 

You had found yourself alone with Owen when Joel was distracted. Ellie prompted out of the house from a Maria that gave Joel a knowing look. He had stopped by earlier to talk to them, and she agreed to keep Ellie out with her, purposely around a decent amount of people. 

A spark of need inside your heart telling you that he at least deserved water. He didn’t say much, but his eyes spoke for him. A surprise at being given any hospitality. 

Almost ending up giving him an entire bottle, you watched him with one hand hovering somewhat near his face. Looking between the water and his face, you tilted your head as you considered if you were willing to ignore the part of you that people like him tried to deprive you of. “If I take that off of you,” using your free hand to gesture to his gag, “Are you going to stay quiet?” 

Owen seemed exhausted, nodding his head almost lazily as your chest raised in a deep breathe. “You make any noise, this time I’m just going to stuff it right into your mouth.” There wasn’t much in the way of conviction in your voice, but as you slowly untied the gag he made no sound aside from catching his breath. 

Flipping the bottle against the cloth, you let it soak for a while on the cleanest side where it sat at the back of his head. 

Silence, Joel was used too. He lived in it, too much of it for a long time even. Even through the turmoil in his head, the quiet still helped him stay clear. Listening to any hint of a sound and knowing how to react to it. 

Probably why he didn’t search for you when he found himself seemingly alone in the house. If he had one distraction it was you, and an unshakable need to make sure he could hear or see your every step. The past few weeks had really set that tendency in motion. But he needed silence. And he heard it break. 

Getting the jump on him outside in the world was one thing, but this was his territory. Somewhere he could sense the slightest thing out of place. Joel just raised two hands slightly in the air. He knew it could be a variety of possibilities behind him, so he played ball. For now. “You really think I can’t tell when someone’s in my own home?”  

“Just turn around. Slowly.” 

Joel expected something not quite what he saw. Dark eyes and angry, willing to do anything for that ravaging vengeance inside. But no. The woman behind him wasn’t quite that. As if it was what she wanted to put on but there was an uncertainty in her eyes that made him narrow his. Her face was tense, looking over him with her arm outstretched as much as she could. Either keeping the gun as close to him as possible, or wanting to keep as much distance from him. 

“You live here?” 

Joel’s eyes darkened more at the woman. “You sure don’t.” 

“Just answer the question, you live here right? With a girl? Fucking, what’s her name, Ellie?” 

Sometimes anger worked in favour of the advantage, but not against him. Joel mastered the art of anger as motivation and there wasn’t a single second ever again did he want any of her kind of people saying that girls name. His face steeled at her, hands up almost just for show at this point. “Keep her name out of this. I think we both know who you’re looking for.” 

A realization dawned on her, and it only pissed her off that much more that he was having no reaction of fear. “You’re him right?” Joel cocked an eyebrow but nothing more. “The hospital, that was you right? You’ve got the girl, after everything you’ve done I can’t imagine you’d dump her off somewhere. People usually don’t ditch people they’ve murdered innocent people for.” 

Her own teeth started to grit as she spat her words out with eyes no doubt growing red. “You in the habit of cutting open a fucking child and calling yourself a good person for it?” 

Shaking her head, Joel could hear how hard she was trying to keep her breathing under control, her fingers on the gun twitching slightly and not from any kind of trigger fingers. “No right, you had no fucking right he was a goddamn person-” 

Joel’s hands started to lower, and yet it didn’t make her any more confident. The twitch turned into what looked like her hand shaking. “And she’s my daughter.” 

She shook her head, eyes falling in darkness to something much more complicated. “So what you get your daughter and I have to loose my own father for it? Fucking..people like you...” 

No doubt this was a plan much more confident in theory, because Joel risked a step forward as his face twisted more into something of anger she took a step back. Readjusting her aim with an unsteady arm. 

“Put your hands back up,” 

They remained just barley by his sides, “You think I’m gonna reach for something? ‘Cus trust me you even think about pulling that trigger and I’ll make sure you regret it.” 

Whatever laugh she let out was weak, but the tense look one could mistaken for crazed told a thousand different emotions. “I’m not stupid, I know you don’t have a fucking weapon on you.” 

The one he thought was in the room wasn’t. Getting caught off guard by her after getting caught off guard by it’s lack of presence. Ellie didn’t always put things in the right place after she tries to sneak them away. His voice was low, even, and absolute that it made her hair stand on end. “You really think I need a gun to kill you?” 

You don’t remember Grady being particularly smart. Loyal, good at following orders but missing the basic function of checking a corner. Crouching as he snuck into the room, he could see Owen knelt on the floor, blood on his face, chest, hands and a swollen eye as even his gag was blood soaked. What he didn’t see was you. 

One arm suddenly wrapped around his face, the fabric of it’s jacket shoved to muffle his voice as the other hand pressed a cold metal to the bottom of his head right at his chin. Unlike the shaky arm holding a similar gun at Joel, you had the advantage of having yours at least pressed right against the mans head. Grady didn’t feel the shake in your bones behind the straining muscle. 

Moving him closer to the open door, your heart pounded so harshly that you could throw up from the shaking pressure it put on you. You could hear her yelling, and a dangerously low cadence from Joel, but she was getting louder and angrier. 

And while you had this one and a knife strapped to your side, Joel’s gun sat tucked behind your back only realizing whoever touched it last, didn’t put it where Joel had clearly expected to grab it before being snuck up on. 

He was bigger, stronger then her. But if she shot first then it didn’t matter how much Joel could overpower her. She was yelling more, and so did your limbs shake. You were supposed to help have this under control, but she was looking for blood and Joel’s own gun wasn’t in his hand. 

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t shoot you dead right now you fucking bastard-” Joel must have said something in response, “Her dad for my dad it’s only fair,” 

You couldn’t stand there, you couldn’t let him deal with her on his own. You push an already aggressive dog to the edge, then she’s just going to go for the throat because she can. Plan B it was. Despite not knowing what that entailed. 

A hallway door was kicked open, and following right out was a man Joel didn’t recognize but by the confused anger on her face, she did. Deep down Joel wished the voice was Tommy. There was no hesitation the man could handle himself, and didn’t make Joel feel cold and petrified at having to involve you in this more. 

But you rang a warning shot at a higher part of the wall that had the woman jump in startle. What followed though, was a reaction that in a way reminded him of you. Likely an ironic association, because all that it took was you yell out who you were. Her eyes widened as the hand pointed right at Joel trembled. A washing devastation that surpassed mere surprise, something she didn’t expect and neither had Owen.

The man on the floor pressed himself up against the wall in fear as did a new unsettling emotion come over the woman in front of Joel. But you piled onto something that just dug deeper, 

Your voice almost a shout that shook in what Joel felt in his heart a terrified urgency. “You know who I am Abby, and what I’ll do to Owen and Grady if you don’t bring Joel to me.”

Whatever intimidation she felt from a man she considered a monster, Abby’s entire being shook. Her gun was on Joel but she could barley keep her eyes on him or on Grady just looking at her desperately for help. This wasn’t a normal fear, almost one that was like seeing a ghost she could only hear.

Her yell back was a rasping screech as she morphed her features into too much to keep up with. “You do anything, and I swear to god-” She’d what? Shoot the man in front of her and set you lose on her? 

You needed to scare her. Swallow the dizzying sickness in your head and the bile from eating at your chest. You couldn’t take the chance of her first instinct to act at Joel before you did hers. 

You shook as you pointed the gun at Grady, but you were hidden behind the wall from her sight, and the sting in your eyes couldn’t be used against you. Blood splattered all over the wall behind Grady's head, the booming shot and painted red had Abby flinch back. 

Joel didn’t move. A deep seeded anger at who his life was at the expense of burned his soul, but he didn’t dare risk letting it happen. If Abby was going to shoot, it sure as hell wouldn’t be at him or his own.

In barley a second, you holstered the gun so quick it could have missed and dropped to the floor. The knife at your side flew into your hand, gripping tight as you hauled Owen over in front of you, your knife pressed so much to his throat he made the most inaudible squawks of protest at the sharpness. 

Hauling him up partially on his feet, you pressed with better leverage. “Your boys next Abby- give him to me,” Your voice yelled, so loud it scratched your throat at the strain. It was violent and angry, and you only wished it made you feel it too. Instead you stood, braced against the wall with a knife keeping Owens battered self in your threat as your soul kept shaking and holding back the sting in your eyes. 

Abby’s jaw clenched as she swore, her yell echoing down the halls. “Fuck- okay.” 

It was the only choice for you and her. She wanted Owen back, and you needed Joel. A conflict in her eyes as she looked between the man now slumped over in the hall, and the darkness in a pair of eyes she never truly prepared herself to face properly. 

Abby’s eyes peeled off the sightless body to the open air between it and the door. “We make a trade. I bring him to you, I get Owen back and we leave. Got it?”

You looked to the side, knowing nothing was out the view you could see out the door anyways. “You touch him in anyway and I slit this throat. Got it?” 

One request was shouted back. “Toss the gun.” 

It wasn’t even a second later the gun banged far out on the wooden floor. You it turned out, weren’t the only one with a shaking fear of losing their companion. There wasn’t a soul in that house didn’t radiate that very perilous fear. Joel looked at Abby with his features sharp and penetrating. Her other hand having to rise up and join her hold on the gun just to keep it aimed at him. “This isn’t over you understand me?” 

Abby didn’t appear to know what scared her more. The threat of death you held at Owens throat, or just how terrifyingly cold Joel’s unblinking expression didn’t move from. This was supposed to be easy, kill some guy who shot her father for no reason. But standing here, motioning for him to walk slowly towards the hall? It was made clear that you and Joel weren’t regular people, and this was exposing itself to be something she didn’t remotely prepare for.

It felt like agony standing there, each creak of the floorboard screaming in the terse silence the only indication of life. Owen’s blood was seeping into your clothes and staining your skin at this point and there was next to nothing holding back the pressure behind your eyes. 

You wanted to be someone else. Someone brave, a person others would look at and say is some kind of fighter, someone a kid like Ellie would amusingly call a bad ass. But you stood holding a man at knife point trading his life for the man you love didn’t make you feel brave. Just scared. Scared beyond whatever danger you had been alone in the past, and sick to your stomach that it took up until now for you to feel brave enough to even think that word. 

They were outside the door, but you shook. Grip on the knife so tight you might have started hurting your own palm with the tight grip as you were hurting Owen’s neck with the blade. The bravery wasn’t even in your voice. “Joel first.” 

“Show me him. Let me see him.” 

You were done paying any kind of hero or savior. Instead just tearing the knife away and shoving Owen enough that he stumbled onto the ground. Hands behind his back still too bound to steady him. 

Joel was handed over first. Whatever passed between them unknown to you until a tidal wave hit your heart as you both reached for the other the second he came in view. Joel’s own expression harsh, nostrils flared as his rage was barley contained in his bones. His warm hands gripping your forearms as he looked at a watering overflow of something grander then fear pass your face as you looked him over for anything hurt. 

He cupped one of your cheeks as you took a deep breathe. Joel’s eyes narrowed in question, and you nodded. Hoping the shaking breathe you let you was only audible to one. His hand keeping your touch as it wasn’t leaving one of your wrists, almost keeping your mind back at his side as you turned the corner. 

Neither of you looked like the visage of bravery your actions spoke. Neither of you even tried. Abby’s eyes widened with a taken back sort of shock as she looked at you. A name she kept hearing and denying, but your face that of what she long remembered as a memory. A bite sharp on your arm before watching your gun raise as she fell back to the ground. 

She lived, and kept trying to deny that you could have either. But you both looked at each other, as she held her own gun to you. Resting one side against the door frame just to keep it steady, while your own hand kept the knife painfully tight. 

Joel stood behind you, and you felt him pull up your jacket slightly, resting the fabric to expose what you had hidden away behind you. Abby was staring at you and you back, she didn’t even see Joel’s hands moving near your back. 

Her words slurred together, teeth bordering on gritting from the force. “Give him to me.” 

Joel squeezed your arm holding the knife. Don’t move was his touch. Abby’s gaze continued to plaster all over you, and yours taking her person in, in a capacity she couldn’t possibly even guess now. Blood ringing in your ears hearing the shuffling behind you. Abby kept it on you now, a woman much more a fighter unable to tear her attention away from how entangled your lives became. 

Your own eyes stung. Unable to move or blink, looking at the very thing that confused you. Was her being here what scared you, or how very real losing the one thing that brought you to a purpose was becoming? 

As soon as Joel slightly pushed Owen, Abby snatched him with one arm and yanked him to her side, Owen barley keeping himself up despite his hands now free. Joel having undone them bringing him over. But as soon as he was out of his hand, he reached for your back once more. His arm smoothly pulling the gun, and now aiming it at Abby. She didn’t just try to kill him, now she had her gun pointing at you and it was pushing Joel to an edge he was close to forcing you to let him fall off. 

His instincts were quicker then hers, and he dared her to end it the smarter way, as opposed to joining the mess on the walls behind her. 

Her eyes flickered between the two of you, mind racing with questions not even she could understand at that moment. You weren’t supposed to be here, this wasn’t even about you. Blind to what kind of people she walked in on, she just looked at you and Joel unable to land on what to do. 

You could feel something vile rising in your throat, just as unable to grasp what was unfolding in front of you. Abby had no right to make this about Joel. Either she knew the truth and lost herself beyond the capacity of her own humanity, or she was left in the dark and didn’t care to turn the lights on herself. A fact you couldn’t feel okay with. Your voice was mostly just a whisper once you found the strength to push something forward. “This is really just about your father?” 

You didn’t need to hear the answer to that. You already knew by a confused pain in her eyes. Not understanding what else this could possibly be over. To her it was almost a taunt, her failure she was able to see through, but to you? A memory that no longer felt pushed away. A truth that was fighting tooth and crawl to attack you at your door. 

Owen leaned against her exhausted and bloody. Lowering her gun she glanced down to your arm, it was covered and there was nothing to see though. Remaining you a ghost. 

Her gaze flicked to Joel’s own aim, no shake or tremble to be found. Don described nothing more then some guy had done it, but the inflamed emotions boiling behind Joel’s eyes wasn’t the story she had been sold on. So they ran. Slamming open a back door you not to long ago ran out of just as harshly, also running from these very people but for drastically different reasons. 

 You didn’t register Tommy or Maria coming in, you only had the capacity to feel Joel pull you into his chest. One arm wrapped tightly around your stomach as you finally leaned back into him. Your eyes squeezing shut, you felt Joel gently take your knife from your fingers and put it back in it’s sheath as he spoke to Tommy. 

You grabbed the wrist that wasn’t around you, holding it just as he did when he first came back to you still needing him to ground you to the floor. These weren’t two worlds ever meant to mix. This was supposed to be a solace for him and a breather for you, but you combined your lives and now stood a mess painted with the looming of blood.

Was this your fault? And if not why couldn’t you have done something to actually end this? 

You thought back to the night you and Joel opened up to each other. How the worst emotion you felt was finding out how Tommy blabbed about your feelings for him by the very man you had the such a humiliating crush on. How letting him in was so scary to you back then. 

Would all of this have happened anyways? Or was letting him kiss you that night, pull you into his arms and he yours forever entangling your hearts in ways new to both of you the catalyst? 

If this was all your fault, would Joel end up despising you for not fixing this? 

[thedemonscrawler]

I'm just gonna do this to Ruin

LIKE. YES I KNOW HE DID EVERYTHING WRONG. BUT HAVE YOU CONSIDERED HOW SAD HE MIGHT BE ABOUT IT

Like aaaaa I'm cursed to only like characters when they're losing I guess, and a Pyrrhic victory counts as a loss. I didn't CARE about this guy when he was the main antagonist, and then Eclipse 3.0 chucked him in the back of a car and kidnapped him and I was suddenly interested. And NOW, when everyone is very much upset about Solar, I'm off to the side shaking this bastard around because we finally got some concrete answers to what's going on in his head.

Just! This whole thing-- this is an exceptionally Moon thing for him to have done. To go 'I'm going to completely and totally remove this possible threat from ever occurring, and I'm fine with being the bad guy to do it'? That's some Old Moon kind of thinking. This wasn't a plan he came up with in the past few months, this took him years.

And speaking of years! Fifty years of playing pretend! Of acting like you enjoy hurting people, that you don't care as your body literally falls apart around you. I'm not a fan of the idea that he was never infected, I like the perspective better that he was infected, it just wasn't as responsible for his behavior as he made it out to be-- but still. At some point he had to have gone numb to it for the sake of his own survival.

What does that do to your mentality? Your outlook? What's it like knowing that your whole world was brought to its knees by your creator? What's it like being the only semi-stable person you know for half a century? What's it like realizing that you're also changing, and not for the better?

He's just... so painfully isolated, in a way that Eclipse doesn't even come close to touching.

And! And even after being 'cured'! He's still isolated! Like it was a good thing he WAS up to something-- can you imagine how crushing it would be if he'd been genuinely not doing anything, and he was still treated with suspicion for a solid like 4 months? By probably the most consistent group of animatronics he's had to talk to that weren't infected with a weird virus?

Like, the man didn't get repaired until 3 months after being cured, after Solar made a blueprint in his spare time. He didn't get a bed until Moon felt guilty about rummaging around inside his head-- and tbh I don't know if he ever got to actually use that bed. He let them call him Ruin.

Ruin never had a home in 'our' dimension.

And hhhhngh like I'm not even sure he cares, because he's past the point of caring. He's got one of Sun's worst traits as well, "There's no point in sharing what I'm thinking because no one is listening". He could have approached Moon and Solar with like "Hey okay so I started on this plan to do this thing like 10 years ago, I would like some input" and maybe an alternative could have been found!

But he didn't, because he's alone. He came up with the best plan he could, weighed the risks, and acted on it, all by himself. A single weird Eclipse against 5,000 Creators, because he felt like that was the greatest threat.

And like, lets be real-- Solar's death was 100% a narrative necessity. Otherwise we the audience wouldn't really care that Ruin had wiped so many dimensions from existing, it'd just be a number. That thing of like, you gotta make it personal to have impact. Very good storytelling right there.

(Though from a in-universe perspective, man it must have been an unpleasant shock to learn that of course the only other dimensional refugee was from one of the worlds you had to destroy. Like, come on, what are the odds)

He did something horrible. A multi-dimensional catastrophe to prevent a multi-dimensional catastrophe. He probably accepted the ramifications of it ages ago. He just... utterly lacks any hope, you know? No hope of forgiveness, no hope of improvement. He survived his world long enough to do this thing, and he has nothing else going for him.

He's just waiting for them to finally kill off his body, because he already died years ago.

Anyway I'm desperately trying to find an angle that can be used to maybe pull him out of his coffin here and so far I'm not seeing one qq but maybe future eps will give me something to work off of.

[ohthethingswedoforlove]

Found

Character: Tim Wright/Masky from Marble Hornets

Summary: You might have let your memory grow distant, but he never did. Despite everything, he still remembers. And now he has found you again.

Warnings: yandere character; description of violence and blood; death;

  This wasn't meant to happen.

  There's blood on your hands, on your shirt, pooling on the floor. Staining you. Staining him.

  Just a few days ago, this moment would have been inconceivable to you. He had barely even been on your mind then, just a rather distant memory from your college days, back when you had been roped into helping your friend Alex around the set for his student film project. Well, your involvement had been more out of a mix of convenience on his part and curiosity on yours, but still, it had been a long enough involvement for you to get to know his impromptu film crew a bit.

  And him, well... He was in a similar situation. Being convinced to participate in the movie's production only due to the insistence of his friend Brian and equal amount of convenience for Alex. 

  You admit, you remember the times you all spent together as a group more than you remember the individual people. But they are memories you hold some endearment towards. Even after Alex started to act strange, even after the crew started to fall apart, even after this strange cough started to cling to you ever since you walked out of their set for the last time. You thought you wouldn't remember him much. A face blurred with others you both spent not that much time with.

  But then. Somehow, years later when you started to catch vague shapes following you from the corner of your eye...

  They felt familiar.

  It started a few months ago. You started to feel watched. Followed. And, with a certain flimsy optimism and some reassurance from your roommate, you tried your best to not pay much attention to the feeling. You're just tired, life's been hectic, you should get some sleep. And you're obviously sick! Why else would your coughing fits have gotten worse and more frequent?

  But then you couldn't ignore it anymore. You had started to see its... Face? Whenever you looked over your shoulder as you walked back from work, whenever you looked out a window. It followed you home.

  Its build, the posture, the mannerisms. You knew it. You knew him.

  When you finally got a proper look at him, he was crouching in a corner of your room. Wearing a mask and a strange blot of darkness that shrouded him almost as if it had a mind of its own. And you called him by name like it had been on the tip of your tongue for years.

  "Tim...?"

  What happened next was so fast it became a blur, the only remaining image in your mind was that of his abrupt movements, and the panic as he tackled you to the ground. There had been someone- no, something else in the room too. A presence you didn't and still don't want to understand. 

  You remember screaming too. But, as you finally came to and woke up in an unfamiliar place, you quickly realised that the screaming might have not even been from you.

  And so you're finally back to the present, stained with blood belonging to the corpse on the corner of this abandoned building. You barely recognised them as your roommate. 

  And there he was as well, clinging to you like he's somehow trying to reassure you, or maybe even himself, that everything would be fine.

  He wasn't talking. And for a moment, you wondered if he even could, with the way he sounded so out of breath and pained. Like he was struggling against something.

  You quickly find out what.

  You feel it, but at first you don't see it. The masked man covers your head in a movement that makes you jolt, thinking he was planning on hurting you. But he doesn't. Instead you start having a shortness of breath as he clings to you like his life depends on it.

  You can't stop yourself from violently coughing, whatever is currently happening does not spare either of you.

  Something shifts in this dilapidated place, feeling like it's somehow violently scratching inside your head. You catch a quick glimpse of an impossibly tall "person" in the corner where the corpse of your friend lays, its limbs as if they have been grotesquely stretched. 

  You wish you hadn't. It felt like death. It looked like it, too.

  But it disappeared as quickly as it had manifested in your vision, leaving behind a feeling of dread and emptiness like you never felt in your life.

  The masked man wheezes in pain, but still refuses to let go of you. As he starts to stumble himself into a standing position while dragging you along to stand as well, you notice it.

  Something's missing.

  The body. The body is gone.

  He grabs your face and abruptly forces you to look away from the corner of the room and instead at him. The mask he's wearing does not help with the way you're shaking, but his eyes look so, so familiar. You almost felt inclined to trust him.

  Little do you know how long he has been looking for you. How long he has watched, how long he waited to get rid of that obstacle that lived with you and whose stupidity and naiveté could put you in danger. And look at what just happened.

  Now that he has you, he can help you. He can, he can, he promises he can. And he'll be damned if you're going anywhere that isn't with him.

 Your eyes widen as he pulls something out of his pocket and clumsily flips it open. A switch blade, serving clearly as a warning. He brings it closer to your face, eyes darting to read your reaction, and then motions with his head as if to tell you to follow him.

  You're both still pretty shaken up, but you choose to not try your luck. Instead you nod and he immediately starts dragging you, guiding you out of this abandoned building with the alarming precision of someone who's very familiar with the layout.

  You don't know where he's taking you, but you have a feeling you're not coming back home.

[bridgyrose]

Yang sighed as she clutched a small necklace with a cross to her chest, listening to the last of a sermon as she stood in the back of the church. It was one of the few things that gave her solace over the last few years. With Ruby missing ever since a training mission at Beacon, her family falling apart, Weiss back in Atlas, and Blake off to try to reconcile with her parents, she didnt have much to turn to beyond huntressing and trying to find other ways to keep herself occupied. And church seemed to keep her mind off things enough to focus on herself. Even if she didnt quite believe in the gods that everyone else did. 

As the sermon she listened to finally ended, Yang made her way out of the small church and walked through the streets of Patch. Her eyes went to the kids playing on the streets, the way everyone seemed to go on in life as if they had no worries beyond the grimm. And yet, the grimm was what she worried about the most. 

She paused as she heard her scroll ring, answering it quietly when she saw Jaune’s name come up. “Jaune? What’s going on?” 

“Ozpin needs us for another mission,” Jaune answered. “Weiss and Blake are going to be there too.” 

“What exactly does he need us for?” 

“He hasnt said, but from the sounds of it, its at least important enough to keep secret until he can brief us. Will you come?” 

“I-I need time to think about it. How much time do I have to decide?” 

“Two days.” 

Yang nodded and sighed. “Alright. I’ll let you know then. I have a few things that I need to get in order first.” 

“You know how to get a hold of me.” 

Yang stared at the scroll screen as the call finished, not sure how she felt about going on a mission that even Ozpin wasnt willing to talk about. Sure, not all the missions she took had all the information on what she’d face, but this felt different. Secretive. And yet, she couldnt think of any reason to stay in Patch. No grave for Ruby to care for, she hadnt visited her father in years, Qrow was too busy taking missions and staying in taverns for her to try to find him, but the thought of seeing Blake again… it made her nervous. All the things she couldnt say after Ruby disappeared, the way she shut down and pulled away from Blake…. 

She quietly clutched her necklace once more and quietly sighed. “Maybe I’ll finally find out what happened to you, Rubes.” 

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey Blake, long time no see, right?” Yang said quietly to herself as she walked through Beacon. “No, I cant say that, it doesnt sound right.” 

“You could just tell her you’re sorry for not trying to reach out to her.” 

Yang felt her heart stop as she turned around to see Blake behind her, the words stuck in her throat as she tried to speak. A blush crossed her cheeks as she really looked at Blake, seeing the piercings in her ears and the way she looked after months of not seeing her. “B-Blake… I-I-” 

“Its fine,” Blake said as she walked by Yang. “Its all in the past now anyway.” 

“That… doesnt… mean I shouldnt have tried to keep closer.” Yang sighed and followed Blake through the campus and to the tower to get to Ozpin’s office. “I’m… sorry. I really am.” 

“I forgave you long ago for it. Ruby went missing and it hurt us all. I understand why you pulled away, I just wish you could’ve talked to us.” 

Yang stopped and watched Blake continue towards the tower, thinking about what she had said. Searching for Ruby had consumed her to the point that she hadnt realized just how far she’d pulled away from the others until they had graduated. She slowly started walking again and wiped a couple tears out of her eyes. “I’ll make this up to you.” 

Blake shook her head. “Dont worry about, just focus on what Ozpin needs us for.” 

“And any idea what that is?” 

“Ozpin hasnt told me yet.” 

Yang sighed and followed Blake into the tower, slowly making her way to the elevator. She nearly stopped in her tracks as she looked around, everything still looked the same even after these years. 

“Are you coming?” Blake asked as she stopped at the elevator. “You know how slow it is.” 

“Cant I reminisce about our time here?” 

“If that was what you were doing, I’d say yes. But we both know we dont have time for that.” 

“Ozpin wont mind if we’re a little late,” Yang said as she made her way to the elevator as it opened. “I guess I’m surprised that nothing’s changed around here. The campus, the tower… I figured that something would change.” 

“If only everything could stay the same….” 

Yang winced at the words, her hand reaching out towards Blake’s. She stopped before her fingers touched Blake’s, and then she pulled her hand back. As much as she had wanted to reach out to her, to take her hand to comfort her and to tell her that she was here, it wasnt her place to do so. At least, not yet. Not until she could finally make amends for what she’d done. 

She stayed quiet as the elevator made its way up to Ozpin’s office, her foot tapping on the floor impatiently. Finally, she heard the *ding* the elevator made once it reached the office and the doors opened. She stepped out, only to be met by Weiss with a scowl on her face. 

“You’re late,” Weiss said, annoyed. 

“I’m not that late,” Yang said as she moved past Weiss. “Getting to Beacon took a little longer than expected.” 

“You still could’ve tried to be on time.” 

“Give her a break, Weiss,” Blake half growled out. “She’s here now. That counts for something, right?” 

Weiss rolled her eyes and huffed. “Fine.” 

“Glad to see you too,” Yang said quietly as she looked around Ozpin’s office. Jaune, Ren, and Nora were here, but Pyrrha was notably absent, which was strange on its own. She made her way to Jaune, her voice still quiet as she spoke. “Where’s Pyrrha?” she asked. 

“She’s uh… in the hospital,” Jaune answered. “She was attacked on a mission.” 

“And the reason I requested you six for this current mission,” Ozpin said from his desk. 

“What does Pyrrha being in the hospital have to do with us?” Blake asked. 

Ozpin stood up and placed his scroll on his desk for the group to see. “Pyrrha managed to get a picture of her attacker. I will need you all to keep everything we discuss here secret.” 

Yang froze as she saw the picture on Ozpin’s scroll, her heart nearly stopping as she paled like she’d seen a ghost. The picture itself showed Ruby with her scythe, ready to strike at Pyrrha. “You’re… you’re saying Ruby… hurt Pyrrha? That Ruby’s alive?!”

“She is.” Ozpin picked up his scroll and looked around the room. “I know this is a lot to ask you all, but I need you to find her and bring her in-” 

“How long have you known she was alive?!” Yang interrupted him angrily, nearly slamming her hands against his desk. 

Ozpin paused, then looked away from Yang. “About a week ago after she was spotted outside Mistral. We know she’s not working alone and she targeted Pyrrha because of the powers she has.” 

“What powers?” Nora asked. “Sure, she has a semblance that makes her nearly untouchable, but I wouldnt call that a power.” 

“Its because she’s the fall maiden, right” Jaune asked. 

“I didnt expect her to tell you that, but yes,” Ozpin answered as he pulled out his book of fairytales. “And I must ask you all to keep the rest of what we discuss here as secret.  The maidens arent the only fairytale that has more truth than what you’ve been led to believe.”

[cillianate]

dancin' round the kitchen, in the refrigerator light.

(gif is not mine, credit to owner!!!)

pairing: bucky barnes x fem!reader

warnings: smoking (don't smoke, say no to drugs kids!!), nightmares, slight nudity, a mention of cancer, mentions of torture, mentions of murd3r, pretty much everything winter soldier.

summary: bucky wakes up in the middle of the night after a nightmare and aches to hold his girlfriend.

content type: blurb, one-shot

The bright red text on the digital clock read- 2:37 AM. Bucky sat up panting, his chest gleamed with sweat. As he breathed heavily, he became suddenly aware of the non-existent mellow breathing that would usually calm him down in a time like this. You weren't there. As he patted around the bed looking for you, he became increasingly worried.

Just as he got out of the bed to rummage the apartment for you, a cough comes from your balcony. Realization crossed over him. He padded his way over, donning only blue and white checkered boxers.

There you were, sitting on the railing of the balcony that over looked Brooklyn, a cigarette lodged between your index and middle finger. Your body was covered in goosebumps, made more prominent by your lack of clothing. Only your underwear and Bucky's 'The Smiths, Hatful of Hollow' T-Shirt covered your figure.

"Doll," he said, his voice coming out frailer than he had intended, "why are you up?"

"Buck. Sorry, did I wake you?" You had said, immediately putting out your cigarette.

"No its fine. I just had a nightmare. Woke up and you were gone." He calmed you. He strode to you slowly, planting his hands on your hips once he reached you.

"Oh, i'm so sorry, babe. Do you want to talk about it?" You apologized, gladly embracing him when he folded his head into your neck. The scruf he had grown over the last few months ticked your soft skin, making you let out a soft breath.

"No, it's fine. Same as usual, y'know? I get tortured, I kill someone. Whatever. Just wanted to hold you." He spoke, his deep voice rang through your body.

"It's not nothing, James. But I won't pester you. I'm here now for all of your holding needs." You responded. His eyes now looked into yours as he had separated his head from your neck.

He brought your foreheads together and said, "You should quit, those things are cancer machines."

"I know." And that was that. It was a conversation that had been brought up before, but the idea had always been that, an idea.

There, in the crisp fall air, Bucky held you for what felt like hours. The cold left both you long ago, the others body heat warming their counterpart plenty. The pair of you swayed back and forth as a silent oath of "I have you, and we'll be alright."

"We should head inside, just because I can't get sick doesn't mean I want you getting pneumonia." He said as he grabbed your rosy hand.

"But Buck, i'm not tired." You whined, as he all but dragged you back into the loft apartment.

"Well I didn't say we had to sleep, now did I, doll?" He said smugly, that smirk you'd come to know so well stretching over his tan face.

Bucky let go of your hand as he flicked on the small stereo that had found its place on your counter many months ago.

The soft lullaby of 'Graceland Too' by Phoebe Bridgers graced your ears, being the last song you had listened to from yours and Bucky's mix tape.

Bucky grabbed your waist softly, pulling you into his chest. You wrapped your arms gracefully around his neck as he swayed you slightly to the music.

For the next hour, you and Bucky danced around in the kitchen illuminated by the refrigerator light. Your serene moment soundtrack to songs you adored such as: All I Need To Hear by The 1975, False God by Taylor Swift, and Smoke Signals by Phoebe Bridgers. And though Bucky refused to admit he listened to anything other than Louis Armstrong, he silently loved them too.

Actually, he loved everything you loved. He loved you. He would shout it from any rooftop without being asked. You were his lifeline. The moment he met you, he promised himself he'd do anything to be able to hold you. Now that he could, he wouldn't be silent about it. And he wasn't.

"I love you." He whispered into your hair as he lulled you into relaxation.

"I love you too, Buck."

[minothtime]

You didn't come back wrong, you came back late. Everything around you feels alien. The neighborhood you grew up in is gone, replaced by a facsimile of what once may have been and filled with new things you cannot recognize. The people you loved are all either dead or dying, some of which spent decades waiting for you while others feverishly searched for you in vain. The language you used has mutated - still the same bones, still many familiar words, but every so often you will say something that will make people around you titter and giggle, all the while using vocabulary you struggle to remember. The things you have lived are now history, and when they ask you about things that happened seventy years ago you only have to look back a month or two. The grief you've been carrying for barely a week is now over half a century old, and even if everyone assumes you are fine, you still lock yourself in your room to feel its weight more often than not. The feeling of wonder you could've maybe had is dampened by damn near everything else. You are a shell of a person because almost everything that made you you was left behind, and the few pieces that remain are too busy holding you back from falling apart to be doing anything else. You are here, you are now, but you are not yourself - and you might never be.

[zephrunsimperium]

Two months ago, I watched Gravity Falls for the first time. (I'm a little late to the fandom, I know, but I'm here now, so all is well) After finishing it, like any GF fan, I desperately wanted more content, so I took to AO3 and it was there that I discovered a piece of writing that so enriched my life that I have no choice but to sing it (and @fordtato’s) praises. So here's what I wrote after finishing it; may it inspire you to read Jersey Boy. :) (I did post a bit of this essay as a comment on Chapter 13 of Jersey Boy)

3-4-23

Today, I read a piece of writing that changed my life. I always knew Gravity Falls - and Ford in particular - was something special, but I swear Jersey Boy took everything I wanted/needed and presented it in... literally the most beautiful, impactful writing I have ever seen. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Jersey Boy is about an 18 year old Jewish boy trying to find out who he is amidst the tragedy of his personal life - an abusive father, depressed mother, estranged brother, and peers who labeled him a freakish outcast - and the tempest of a cold society featuring homophobia, anti-semitism, and war. The Stanford Pines it features is THE most realistic, emotionally rich character I have ever come across in any form of media. Because I KNOW what it feels like to try and find who you are outside of your family and I KNOW the dangerous knife edge that perfectionism forces you to walk and I KNOW what it's like to be ashamed and confused by your sexuality.

And three months ago, had I walked into that boxing gym? I would have pulled the trigger too.

And McGucket, my god. If you would have told me after watching S1E2 of GF that Old Man McGucket would make me as emotional as he does now, well, I wouldn't have believed you.

Anxiety is an old friend, good pals with its partner anger. So I have all the empathy in the world for Fiddleford's loosely wired personality featured in the show and especially in Journal 3. While I don't think I have any reason to engineer a memory erasing gun, I do understand reaching for a fidget toy like it's a lifeline and oh BOY do I understand sacrificing everything for someone you love on a dime, letting them tear you apart.

I was worried after reading the first few chapters that Jersey Boy's depiction of Fiddleford had made him too charismatic and confident. But after reading further, it was obvious to me that Fiddleford was Ford's match in complexity; he was just being depicted through the lens Ford saw him; all rosy and angelic, incapable of wrong-doing. And in the end, it made him even MORE dear to me, because hiding your anxiety behind a wall of confident passion and blue eyeshadow (or red lipstick in my case) is all too familiar.

Pretty motifs, expert wordcraft. It's a gritty story, of course, one that doesn't pull punches. And yet, I have to assert that we need more stories like that. Because LIFE doesn't pull punches. Life is cold and cruel and strewn with glass shards...

But there will always be people with Ridiculously Warm hands that make you feel like you have five fingers. Even people with personality aren't fine sometimes, but you just have to keep going and the sun will rise and your shards will shimmer in the light.

And maybe being a freak isn't so bad after all

And maybe the only person who you aren't enough for every second of every day is yourself

And maybe Love really is the most powerful force on earth

And maybe humanity is fucking beautiful

And maybe the only people who need to remember you are the ones you care about because who needs a legacy anyway?

[sabaramonds]

dmdp posting again. hey guys. MANGA SPOILERS !!! ive rambled about this on discord and on twitter in bits and pieces but it haunts me so im going to talk about it again here. so theres this song i heard a month or so ago, turtles all the way down by sammy copley, and every time i listen to it i start tearing myself apart at the seams over the corpse god and his emperor (and once again i will be referring to them strictly as their titles because, again, if you havent read the entire manga and been edged for 80 chapters, it just isnt right...) typical ok this got super long so im actually putting it under a cut this time but 👇 go forth if you want to be subjected to the depths of my illness

anyway!!! i just cant help it. everything about it perfectly encapsulates their relationship from corpse gods perspective. like

im not well as you can tell by the way i havent looked you in the eye im about to lie and say im fine but inside you and i know thats not true but its either this or let my burden weigh on you and that i just cant do so ill choose for the both of us and youll just go along because youve trusted me for no good reason here i am, committing treason force the last page of our story one more boring allegory hope to god youll rise above me; always bite the hand the loves me mine, mine is the unkind kindest cut of all and ill watch you fall

i feel crazy. “but its either this or let my burden weigh on you / and that i just cant do / so ill choose for the both of us” because corpse god doesnt want to burden his emperor more than he already has; his emperor has already dirtied his hands for him. thats already too much. “youve trusted me for no good reason / here i am committing treason / force the last page of our story” because he feels as if he is unworthy of his emperors love and trust and kindness and that aside from what hed done under a foreign necromancers influence, the grief and rage that possessed him to act in violence made him even more unworthy - made him a traitor to his masters teachings, to his emperors affection... even before we got further context for their relationship in the last few chapters of the most recent arc (civil having his #girl moment) i wrote in “the ghost of who you were” that corpse gods escapist fantasy of seeking out a world, or creating one, where his emperor would never have to dirty his hands on corpse gods behalf - or on the behalf of any child subjected to violence by adults who should love them - was an impossible dream he chased in an attempt to outrun the forgiveness of his emperor (though, to his emperor, there is nothing to forgive at all) also “hope to god youll rise above me; always bite the hand that loves me / mine is the unkindest kindest cut of all / and ill watch you fall” so fucking prophetic. to me. about corpse god choosing for both of them (sealing away his emperor and other spirits hed contracted with deep within himself so they could not reach out to him and judge him for what he had done) and the fact he did, indeed, watch his emperor fall; he had done it himself, with his own two hands, as unwillingly as it had been.

and i am aware that its not fair to bring you here then send you on your way you had so much to say and to ask like, “why am i not cut out for the task of loving you forever, of holding you and never wanting less?” well, i can take a guess see, i could choose for the both of us and youll just go along because youve trusted me for no good reason love, no matter what the season; force the last page of our story youre my favorite allegory hope to god that youll forgive me; my mistakes will long outlive me mine, mine is the unkind kindest cut of all and ill watch you fall

ripping my face off as i listen to this song and think about them right now. as we speak. “and im aware that its not fair / to bring you here then send you on your way” like every single part of this. “hope to god that youll forgive me / my mistakes will long outlive me” corpse god binding his emperors soul to him (consensually) only to push him away in the aftermath out of guilt and grief and feelings of inadequacy. his emperor never stopped wanting him, not even when corpse god became one of the undead himself; not even when he was nothing but bones held together by his masters magic, a brain in a jar kept cradled close to his frail, fleshless vessel... in his emperors own words: “no matter what youve turned into, the empire and i are always on your side.” in chapter 80, he says to corpse god, “being alive isnt about whether or not youre dead body. its about whether youre looking to the future or not.” he follows this up by addressing corpse god not by the title he himself had given him, but by his name (BRAIN DAMAGING) (I WAS ON THE FLOOR WRITHING LIKE A WORM)

and i dont know if this makes it any easier perhaps youll find comfort when i say: you and i are nothing more than meteors, never meant to live long past today yes. ill choose for the both of us: youll just go along because you trusted me against your judgement you deserve someone who doesnt force the last page of your story no more boring allegories hope to god youll rise above me, though youll always be part of me mine, mine is the unkind kindest cut of all ill watch you fall now watch me fall

most of the song i feel very strongly reads as corpse gods perspective but “perhaps youll find comfort when i say / you and i are nothing more than meteors, never meant to live long past today” feels like such an emperor thing to say. when you are a child emperor, you are braced for political assassination; when you are from a land where necromancy is a real and thriving art, your fear of death can be softened by the knowledge that if the one you love outlives you (even if their own flesh, too, is long gone) then your voice will still be heard by those who matter. though even then, the emperor is quite a funny guy. he loved corpse god before he was corpse god; he loved him when he was flesh and bone, loved him when that flesh dissolved and he was left as just a skeleton of who he had been; he loved him when corpse god killed him, loved him when corpse god bound them together. and always, he waited for when corpse god would be ready to face him, waited for him to be able to live. because corpse god was not alive before. if we go off of the emperors idea of “being alive” meaning “looking forward”, corpse god was always looking down or looking back; caught in his past, his regrets, his fears. i mentioned what his emperor said in chapter 80. in chapter 81, the opening page of corpse god is him smiling at the sight of his emperors back, thinking to himself: “unlike me, you only ever looked ahead. how could you keep your eyes trained forward on what was to come? i didnt understand at the time (and here, we see corpse god as he once was: face hidden by a bone mask and cowl, unsmiling) but now, i think i get it a little.” he thinks this as he watches his emperor dirty his hands on his behalf once again. he called for his emperor willingly, this time; he asked for his help, not as a subject beseeches their lord, but as a friend. an equal, the way his emperor had always treated him; he is ready to be alive, now. he is ready to look forward instead of past, to accept his emperors forgiveness, his love; to think of himself as worthy returning that love and wait i forgot lol i was so caught up in the insanity of the emperors perspective in those first few lines and segueing into corpse gods growth during the latest arc that i forgot to talk about “hope to god youll rise above me / though youll always be part of me” wanting his emperor to have better than what he does (corpse god) but wanting to always keep part of him with him + “ill watch you fall / now watch me fall” literally he killed his emperor with his own hands (unwillingly) and then his downward spiral in his grief and when he eventually went absolutely bananas on those geldwood cultists giving them a brutal torturous death for murdering the orphan children he was caring for at the time and believing his actions had made him unworthy of the power he wielded and (holding my head) as you can tell i think about this song and about them a normal amount. i think ill stop talking here. for now. i just. oh my god. theyve come so far. the fact corpse god is able to face his emperor now. jesus christ 😭 if you think im bad about these two just wait until i start talking about civil. lol

[your-local-grubdog]

Together in the Storm Chapter 8: Flashback, The Gardens

Story Summary: Olimar is back home once again, ready to rest and recuperate from everything that had happened. Yet the universe keeps throwing unwanted surprises his way, making rest difficult. He just wants to make his (now rather large) family believe that he’ll be okay. Because he is, for he has to be.

Chapter Summary: Olimar's first date with Rose.

Read on Ao3 here or keep reading below!

======

Roughly 20 years ago...

As usual, Olimar felt like utter shit.

He plopped down on his futon, which was currently in bed mode. He barely had anything to his name in this little apartment, all of it of questionable quality. He got this futon from a yard sale, using it only after he had sufficiently soaked the damn thing in bed bug killer. He was still worried it may be a bit of a fire hazard as a result, but he couldn't do much. His dinky little TV was scrounged from a thrift store, costing less than a poko and barely working as a result, its antenna salvaged from his employer's scrap yard. Only the living room was furnished, his bedroom empty. All of his kitchen utensils were from the poko store and already falling apart...

He was alive, though. That was something.

He wasn't sure how thankful he was for that, though.

He was glad that he was given him a few months longer to stay home, to save up and get what little he did have. Maybe it was a sign that Taurus didn't completely hate him after all, at least not enough to happily leave him homeless... he didn't like calling Taurus by his first name like that. It felt wrong, rude even, but he wasn't sure what else to call him. The man certainly was no father.

Desperately wanting to think about anything other than work or that man, he reached for and grabbed his half-busted PDA (also salvaged from the scrap yard, its repairs hobbled together), turning it on. He didn't do too much online but there was one site he liked checking on every now and again. It let him see what precious few free events the city was hosting, providing him with some much needed time out of the apartment that wasn't work related.  After scrolling past countless posts he could care less about, he eventually saw something that caught his eye.

The community gardens have been set up at long last! Volunteers wanted to help us grow flowers, fruits, and vegetables for everyone to enjoy!

At the bottom was an address to where the gardens were, at the heart of a nearby community park.

Gardening... yeah, I can do that. Really, all of his knowledge was pure book knowledge. He had no actual experience in it yet. But hey, no time like the present, right? Sitting up and putting the PDA aside to charge, he decided to head out right away.

======

It turned out that the "volunteer" position was very lax and unofficial, not unless you needed community service hours for one reason or another. Olimar didn't, so he was pretty much free to come and go as he pleased. That was perfectly fine for him - preferable, actually, as he was still getting a feel for his new job and wasn't sure how much time or energy he'd usually have.

So after being handed some seeds and told where they were to be planted, he was more or less just let loose. He ended up spending more time than he expected there, coming back day after day to do many random tasks. There were days he missed, of course, but he was finding himself enjoying this far more than he expected. Which made him feel happier overall. It wasn't perfect - he still lived in that shitty and much too expensive apartment, eating whatever cheap junk he could afford and not burn to a crisp, all while cleaning offices and freight ships for ungrateful superiors for a living and trying to learn mechanics from a rather impatient man. But he didn't feel complete dread when waking up now, he had something to look forward too.

Most of the garden was still very much seeds and sprouts, nothing more. But there were a few full plants brought in, mostly flowers. So, one day, he decided to go ahead and prune the plants. Weirdly enough, he might enjoy this task the most. It was the most meditative, giving him brain space to let his mind wander as he hunted down wilted flowers. So meditative, in fact, that when someone beside him offered a quiet "hello", he flinched from surprise. "Huh? Oh, h-hi!"

The young woman was around his age, with curly reddish brown hair and fur slightly darker than his own. She wore a little bit of make up, just lipstick and eyeshadow from what Olimar could tell, and a pale blue sundress. "Ah, sorry. I just couldn't help but notice how often you came here, I just wanted to say hi. It has been a while, hm?"

"It-It's okay." Olimar stuttered out. After a slight pause so he could process what he was hearing, he rather awkwardly asked "W-what do you mean by "a while"?"

"Oh, I guess you wouldn't recognize me now." The woman laughed as she spoke. "We went to high school together, shared a few classes. We never got to talk too much - probably because I was so scary." That last part was said teasingly, though Olimar still wasn't sure who she was. He only realized who she was when she said her name. "I'm Rose. Rose Tailer-Atwood."

Images of an older teen in punk attire filled his mind, the girl who didn't take shit from anyone and was most certainly the second most terrifying person in that school (the first being some old math teacher infamous for being unnecessarily rude and short-fused with the students). The girl he ran from when she saved him because his dumb ass didn't know what else to do. She was now here, in the gardens, in a modest and very quiet attire suited for a visit to the temple.

"Oh - OH! S-Sorry I uh didn't - yeah, er... s-sorry for darting off after y-you helped me."

"No need to be sorry. I know I was rather intense back then, and that you were... or rather, still are rather timid." She chuckled again. "I'm just glad to see you again."

That made Olimar's brain short circuit. "T-T-To see... me?"

Rose nodded, now examining the work Olimar had done. "Always tried to talk to you, never was able to for one reason or another."

Olimar felt like time was moving differently. He couldn't tell if it was faster or slower or impossibly both, but he didn't quite feel... here, not fully. "Is - is that why you... helped me?"

Rose nodded. "Well, yes. But I would have regardless, you know. They could have seriously hurt you."

"Eh, t-they were just bullies..."

At that, Rose frowned and looked at him again. "Firstly, even that's still a big deal. I know they get downplayed a lot but bullies can mess you up. And secondly, they weren't "just bullies". They... could've done a lot worse."

At that, Olimar looked away. "R-Right, sorry..."

Rose sighed, now gently reaching out to touch his arm. "Hey, it's alright. You're okay now, yeah?"

Define "okay", Olimar thought bitterly, though he said nothing.

"And like I said, I am glad to finally get to talk to you. May I ask what you've been up to?"

"Oh, ah, just work." Olimar shrugged. "Uh, y-you?"

"Trying to find work." she sighed. "Turns out employees don't particularly like punks, only reason I'm wearing this dinky thing and not my jacket."

Oh, that made a lot of sense. Slowly and very awkwardly, Olimar offered a quiet "W-Well it... still looks nice. O-o-on you, I mean. Uh..." What are you doing what are you thinking what are you doing what are you DOING you are out of your league, what are you DOING?!

Rose didn't answer immediately, though she did smile softly. "That's sweet of you, thank you."

Olimar only managed to nod.

"May I see those?" Rose asked, looking at the clippers in Olimar's hands. He silently handed them over and watched as she continued the pruning task he had stopped in order to talk to her. "So, where do you work, hm?"

"H-Ho..." He stuttered, finding it difficult to talk. "Hoco - Hoco.. tate f-freight. I, uh, I-I clean. N-n-nothing great b-but..."

"It's important." Rose finished for him, though that wasn't what Olimar was going to say. "Very important, actually. I know you must hate it, but I think it's great that you're doing it."

"T-t-thanks."

Rose looked over to him with a soft, if worried smile. "Now, would you like to work together to prune these bushes?"

"Y-Yes, please."

======

The two of them stayed quiet for the most part as they worked, though Rose would occasionally ask questions or make comments that Olimar would struggle to reply to. Olimar's head felt foggy, anxiety eating away at his chest as he just... struggled to exist. Not in a way he was used to either, this felt different. He still felt compelled to keep trying despite the fact he desperately wished he'd just shut up for once and stop embarrassing himself. Though, Rose never seemed to mind. Her demeaner stayed calm, her voice sweet and gentle. At worst, she'd get a little worried about him. She was kind, and patient, and Olimar liked being around her. He just didn't like being himself.

Despite of and yet also because of this weird flurry of emotions, when Rose said that it was getting late and that she had to head home, he hastily offered to go with her.

"Go with me?"

"Y-Yeah, y'know... uh, walk... walk with you. M-Make sure you get home okay..."

Rose smiled softly at that. "Ah, I drove here. But you can walk with me to my car, if you wish."

Olimar nodded quickly and silently. He stayed by Rose's side as she walked back to her car, unsure of what the hell he was even doing. He felt so lost and confused and just...

"Hey, think you'll be back here at the gardens?"

"Huh?" Olimar was snapped out of his train of thought. "Oh, uh, yeah! I-I like to hang around here."

"So I'll see you again?"

Olimar felt himself flushing up, which for a Hocotation also included his fur fluffing up a bit. "I-I-I mean... If - If that's what you w-want."

Rose let out a chuff this time, only making poor Olimar fluff up even worse. "Of course. It was nice to finally get to talk to you, after all of this time. I'd love to keep it up."

"S-So I wasn't..." he bit his cheek. Don't say that, idiot. "T-Thank you. B-But there's uh -" he trailed off then, biting his cheeks down harder. WHAT are you doing?!

Rose tilted her head, frowning a bit. "But...?"

Well, fuck. There was no way out of this now. "B-But there's... there's better p-places to, uh, hang out. Than, you know, t-the gardens."

At that, Rose relaxed and smiled. "Oh, of course. Perhaps we can grab a bite to eat tomorrow for lunch."

"O-Oh! Uh, yeah - yeah, that... s-sounds good. M-Maybe at the c-café around the corner?" It wasn't super cheap, but he liked to treat himself when he could. This seemed like a fair reason to spend a little more then he probably should.

Rose giggled a bit at that. "Alright, it's a date then."

Olimar just nodded, not fully processing what was said. It was only after she had gotten in her car and drove away that it finally hit the young man.

"It's a what?!?"

======

Olimar felt like he had a huge pit in his stomach the next day as he stood in the mirror, getting dressed for his date.

He was so so so nervous, he felt sick. His stomach twisted and churned and he felt slightly light headed. He didn't know what the fuck he was doing. Looking around, he knew that this wasn't going to end well for him. If she ever saw this place, she'd know how pathetic he was. For a start, he lived on his own without a shred of inheritance - a great shame on Hocotate. A huge red flag to most as well, not caring for your family. Even if said family never gave you the option to... He was also dirt fucking poor, couldn't take care of her or any of her family, assuming she was the heir. And he was a slob, hardly having the energy to cook or clean after a day of work and being fucking miserable.

All of that is assuming you don't scare her off by how fucking annoying you are, Olimar. He felt even more sick; that voice didn't sound like his own. He knew he shouldn't give the guy any more thought, but... Taurus was right. You shouldn't go. Just stay home. Don't bother trying. What are you hoping to achieve? Why are you working so hard for a world that doesn't want you?

Why are you still alive?

An alarm sound from his PDA jolted him out of his spiral. He needed to walk out the door now if he wanted to be on time. Hastily, he finished tying his tie and slipped on some shoes.

He had nothing better to do, he supposed.

... And he awfully liked Rose's warm smile. As selfish as it was, he wanted to keep seeing it for as long as she'd tolerate him for.

======

Olimar's heart was practically threatening to burst from his chest as he made his way to the café. It was sparely populated, just a few people eating and drinking. Nervously, he found a comfy looking spot near a window. It was slightly warm here, which felt nice. A waiter came over to ask him if he wanted anything, and he declined "I-I'll order in a... A bit, I'm j-just waiting on someone."

He didn't know how much time had passed, to be frank. Everything felt like it was going much too fast yet much too slow at the same time. He looked up whenever he heard someone coming or going, growing nervous whenever it wasn't Rose.

Of course you got stood up, look at yourself. You'd just be a waste of her time, sitting there stuttering like an idiot. She's not coming. No one is coming. You're trapped in that hellish, rickety tower of an apartment complex. No one will wan-

"Olimar!" Someone called, jolting him out of his thoughts. He looked up, feeling relieved yet also more nervous to see it was Rose. She scurried over, taking a seat in front of him. "I'm so sorry, traffic was a little hectic on the way here. You didn't wait too long, did you?"

Olimar could only shake his head. He had no idea how long he's been sitting there, to be perfectly honest.

"Okay, okay good." She sighed, fiddling with her dress a bit. It was a bright, peppy yellow, though she did have a black leather jacket over top it. She was also wearing two small sun-shaped earrings.

She's really pretty, Olimar thought, flushing up slightly.

"This is a really cute little café you've picked out. I always drive by it, but I've never stopped by."

"It's - it's good. They make t-the best cookies."

At that Rose raised her eyebrows, her smile morphing into a slight smirk. "Ah, I see... I'll have to try them."

Olimar, once again, was only capable of nodding. Come on you idiot, you have to say SOMETHING. Thankfully, the waiter came to save him, asking what they wanted.

"Oh, t-the pita falafel sandwich, please. A-And a cup of mint tea." Olimar managed out.

Rose hummed as she looked over the menu in a slight rush. "I'll take the panini-pressed grilled cheese and tomato sandwich, with a cup of coffee." When the waiter nodded and left the two alone again, she whispered in a soft voice "So is that one any good? It was just the first item I saw."

"Oh - oh we could have waited to order if-"

She shook her head. "It's fine. I was late."

Olimar fiddled with his thumbs a bit. "O-Okay... Uh, yeah, I've always liked all their stuff, so... Y-yeah."

Rose nodded, smiling softly. "I take it you come here often?"

He nodded. "Y-Yeah, when I can. I-It's - it's a five m-minute wa..." He trailed off then, stomach twisting. No, no he couldn't just tell her that he lived in the city. Then she'd know he lived alone, with no inheritance. Only assholes ended up like that.

... And people like him, he presumed.

"Five minute... walk?" Rose asked, a brow raised.

Gods fucking dammit, he ran his mouth too much and now he was in a corner. He couldn't lie - she'd find out eventually, and the mere thought of it made his anxiety spike more. Clenching his hands a bit, he quietly admitted "A - A five minute walk f-from my apartment."

He couldn't read any reaction from her, which just made him more anxious. After a pause she smiled and nodded at him. "Must be convenient, hm?"

"... Y-yeah."

"I'm quite impressed that you manage out here, cost of living in the city is rather high from what I hear."

"It - It is..." She was impressed?! Olimar struggled to believe it, maybe she was just trying to be nice? "W-What about where y-you are?" That's a stupid fucking question. Of course it's much better there.

"Reasonable enough. I still live in Teno, where we went to school together."

Olimar was certain that he'd just die right then and there from how tight his chest felt. Thankfully, though, their food had arrived. Olimar could feel his stomach growl as the smell reached his nose - Oh, I forgot to eat breakfast again - and so after thanking the waiter he went ahead and took a quick bite. He then paused, hoping he didn't look like a slob or glutton, but Rose had begun to eat as well.

"Oh, this is good. Thank you." She smiled softly again.

Olimar nodded, trying to smile as well. "O-Of course." An awkward pause, then, "T-The best t-thing they have are... are the p-peanut butter chocolate cookies."

That seemed to gain her attention. "Oh?"

"Think - t-the simple peanut b-butter cookie recipe. Peanut butter, eggs, and s-sugar." He shuffled around awkwardly, though he tried his best to not seem so nervous. "Now a-add chocolate chips."

"Oh, that sounds so good. Simple, but sweet."

"I-I can get - get us some... W-When we're done with o-our lunch."

She nodded eagerly. "I may also have to try making some at home, I'm sure my little sister would adore them."

Olimar's ears wiggled. Should he ask about the cooking or her sister...? He really really didn't want to risk a transition into his own family troubles, so instead he asked "Do you - you like to c-cook?"

"I like it well enough." She shrugged. "It's something to be done - but it needs done, so I may as well try to enjoy it! Really, I mostly just like it when my sister gets excited when I cook." She then laughed a bit, the sound making Olimar flush up a bit.

"S-she sounds - sounds n-nice."

"Oh she's the sweetest little thing. When she wants to be." Rose laughed more then, and Olimar could feel a rather goofy grin spread across his face. "I adore her. Do you..." She then trailed off a bit, pausing. After a moment she asked "What do you like to do, then?"

She knew not to ask about his family. Olimar wasn't sure how he felt about it, equal parts relief and terror washing over him. "W-Well, gardening... For - for one." He said rather lamely, messing with his shirt sleeve. "Uh, I like - like biology. I've been - b-been trying to ID some n-native species."

Her ears wiggled at that. "Oh! That's really cool, actually. Not to put you on the spot, but..." She pointed out the window. "Do you know what that butterfly there is called?"

Olimar turned to it and immediately his eyes went wide. "Oh - oh! There's one in the city - I never thought -!" His oddly longish tail began to loudly thump against the wall, though he didn't seem to notice. "That's a Ruby Hocotation Monarch! They have these beautiful red shimmering wings - " he pointed at the resting insect "- in order to signal to predators that they're poisonous! The caterpillars are similarly poisonous, and also rather pointy. Lots of spikes on them. They're endangered, though, due to habitat loss. I never thought one could do so well in the city, I-" he then froze, panic gripping him. He nervously turned to Rose, his ears pinned back and his tail still again. "A-Ah - sorry, I-"

She reached across the small table to touch his arm, making him flush up again. "It's alright, there's no need to be sorry." She smiled wide, though something about her expression told Olimar she was worried. "You can keep going, it's really interesting."

Olimar felt his fur fluff up more as he blushed hard. "Y-You sure?"

She nodded, then, "Why couldn't they do well in the city?"

"T-Their poison isn't - isn't inherent to them." He began, shuffling slightly. "They need t-to make it as caterpillars. They do so by eating a very specific and evidently very fickle plant. It's also, uh, the only one they can eat. There's so many things about the city that makes it nearly impossible to grow, so the caterpillars have no food, and thus there are no butterflies." He turned back to it, only to find it had flown away. "Maybe that one is here by mistake. Or maybe it's a good sign?" He shrugged, smiling nervously. "Either way I'm - I'm glad I got to see it."

Rose had pulled back a bit now, though she still kept a few fingers on his arm. "Poor things... Guess they gotta make it out here one way or another, though. That one is certainly a little fighter, if nothing else."

Olimar paused for a long moment. He then nodded in agreement. "Yeah..."

They stayed quiet for a few moments longer, eating and staring out the window. It didn't feel awkward, though, just... Blissful, in a way. Olimar loved it; he never wanted it to end. Though eventually they finished their food, and Olimar offered to get them some dessert.

"Sure." Rose hummed. "I'll try those cookies you had mentioned."

It wasn't much longer until they had a small plate of them to share. Rose's eyes went wide in delight as she took a bite out of one. "Oh my good Go- this is amazing!"

Olimar nodded. "S-So much with so l-little..."

"Yeah, I'm absolutely making some. Lilly would go nuts over this."

"I-I'm glad you l-like them." He picked one up to take a bite out of as well. "They're - they're my favorite." He shuffled in place awkwardly again, though he tried to smile.

Rose smiled back, gently brushing over his hand now (which really caused the poor man to loose composure quickly). She then glanced up at the clock and sighed.

"I'm so sorry, my being late has really cut our date short. I'm afraid I'll have to get going now."

"O-Oh - okay." Olimar tried not to let his ears lean back too much. "L-Let me go and p-pay our bill then-"

"Oh you don't have to. We can split it."

Olimar shook his head. "N-No this... Is - is my treat. I picked - picked it out."

Rose paused then before sighing rather dramatically. "Fine. But next time is my treat, then."

Next time. Olimar was too tight chested to argue, simply nodding instead. The two of them stood up together, Olimar heading over to pay the bill. He then walked out with Rose, still nervous as all hell.

"S-So will I see you at the gardens, then?" Olimar asked.

Rose smiled a bit before chuckling. "Yeah. I'm usually there every weekend, though I won't be there tonight. Want to plan our next date when we meet up there again?"

Olimar nodded eagerly at that, immediately feeling silly for it. Rose simply smiled in response, though, even leaning in to gently kiss his cheek. "I'll see you then, okay?"

Olimar had frozen completely. He managed to let out a little "O-Okay." But as Rose turned to leave he was left standing there, his fur fluffed up as if he had just used a hair dryer. His tail had even began to wag again.

I'm going to get to see her again!

[getthebutters]

The Evolution of Love: From New Relationship Energy Beginnings to Lasting Comfort

When I first met my now ex Bubby, the whirlwind of emotions I experienced was enough to send shivers down my spine. The intensity of those feelings left me slightly apprehensive. However, as time marched on, those emotions gradually evolved, and I found myself in a different place. Today, I'm content to see him and spend time together, but that initial fervor of love has undoubtedly settled down. And that's perfectly fine; the initial spark in a relationship is like fireworks—it dazzles briefly before fading into the night.

 In the initial two months of Bubby and me being together, it felt like I was floating on air. It was a brand new experience for me, having never been in a relationship before, and the overwhelming happiness was a delightful surprise. Despite my usual inclination to keep my emotions tightly under control, I made a conscious choice to let go and immerse myself in the moment.

 During those first two months, time seemed to move at a different pace. We created our own little world, blissfully ignorant of the outside noise. We'd lounge around my apartment, basking in the emotional high and sharing an abundance of intimate moments. But then, our first disagreement happened, and it served as a gentle reminder that there was a world beyond our bubble. While our sanctuary remained intact, the outside world began to regain its clarity.

 I wouldn't say that the fight was a major dent in our otherwise smooth-sailing relationship, but it did tarnish the bright sheen of our connection a bit. In the immediate aftermath of the argument, I didn't feel particularly warm and fuzzy. It took about a week to rekindle those feelings, but they were never quite the same—an observation that became apparent only with a bit of distance.

 Now, approaching our six-month mark, our relationship no longer glistens like a pristine sports car fresh off the lot. It's accumulated some well-earned scratches and dents, making it feel more lived-in. For many, this natural evolution might be alarming, and I'm no exception.

 A few days ago, I realized that my feelings for Bubby had lost some of their initial intensity, and I panicked momentarily. The fear of falling out of love with him crept in. After all, we had our fair share of fights and challenges to overcome, which left me genuinely concerned that frustration had eroded my affection. I even contemplated ending the relationship to prevent an unpleasant ending.

 But once the panic subsided, I took an honest look back at our journey. It was undeniable that something had changed. The wild torrent of feelings had transformed into a sense of comfort. The roller coaster ride had transitioned into a cozy familiarity.

 I couldn't help but draw parallels with the way I feel about new gadgets. At first, it's infatuation, with everything about it being thrilling and exciting. However, as time goes on, that excitement evolves into familiarity. Tasks become easier because I've come to understand all its quirks and flaws. Despite the change in my initial fervor, my affection remains unwavering, and I still want it in my life.

 Similarly, I want Bubby in my life now more than ever. As we've grown together, so has our relationship. It's the natural order of things—everything mellows with time, be it wine, puppies, homes, cars, cheese, meat, or relationships.

 Young love is undeniably exhilarating, but it lacks the depth that sustains a relationship over the long haul. The initial rush of a new relationship serves as a temporary adhesive while the emotional bond strengthens. It's a captivating distraction, but it's not meant to last forever. So, by all means, savor it, because it's an incredible feeling. Just be aware that change is an integral part of the journey, and that's perfectly okay. In fact, it's often for the best.

[nathank77]

3/19/24

3:48 a.m

So I've been on methimazole for over a month now.

Thankfully Quest goes back really far, far enough that I can see my thyroid levels and my ast, alt which are liver levels that were taken when I was on methimazole. Methimazole has one side effect that can kill you. It can raise these levels and actually cause death.

I was on methimazole in 2017-2018 briefly for 6 months. There might have been a brief point where I stopped methimazole somewhere between September and January cause my thyroid level randomly went from being in normal range to hyper. The first bloodwork results were hyper. One month later I was normal level. The next month I was severely hyper. The following month I was back to normal. I don't remember if it stopped taking it but I think I did. And then restarted it for my testosterone script bc hulinsky was threatening not to perscribe it to me if I didn't treat my thyroid.... which is inevitably why I ended up finding another doctor willing to perscibe testosterone and then started seeing my endocrinologist for my untreated thyroid a few years ago.

Anyways in January 2018, my alt and ast and Alkaline phosphate all liver levels were incredibly high in that month.

From examining my levels, overtime my Alkaline phosphate was high for quite sometime but sometime during 2023 it was normalized..

My alt and ast was incredibly scary high in January 2018.. and hulinsky canceled my upcoming appt and I stopped the meds immediately and then found a different doctor. I didn't actually stop Methimazole over weight gain. I stopped bc my liver levels were abnormally high and thats what you're supposed to watch closely when on methimazole as it can kill you.

So to summarize, those levels were high then but I was on 20 mg Methimazole once or twice daily. Maybe it was the high dose Methimazole. Maybe I'm one of those people who have their liver levels raise on Methimazole.

I'm on 5mg of it now. A much smaller dose. And we are obv going to monitor my liver levels. I'm hopeful that they stay normal. This is the least invasive option for me to treat my thyroid. And regardless of it cures psychosis which at this point I don't expect it to cause its about the same. Marginally better but every month it gets marginally better...I'm planning to stay on methimazole and be healthier.

Another way I'm taking better care of myself. Regardless of weight gain and or loss, right now it's loss but yea I'm planning to stick the course.

Hopefully my liver levels stay normal.. If they don't I'm going to have to get off Methimazole and then, consider thyriodectomy or Radioactive Iodine... or not treating it....

I do remember I drank semi regularly when I was on methimazole. I don't think it was often but it may have been once or twice. Either way it could have not helped...

I haven't drank so much as a beer since having psychosis. And I won't drink until I recover and months later. So I hope that's the reason why.

I don't want to do radioactive idioine cause then I have to get a hotel for like a week so I don't expose others to radiation but if it was an option I'd chose it to be honest.... I'm going to weight if this is possible. I have no savings. So yea...

I def don't want to do the thyroidectomy. As they removed prob the whole thyroid.. and regardless of if they remove the whole damn thing or part of it. I'll be reliant on medication that'll if I go without I'll actually die.. if I don't have a thyroid. That would be the case for radioactive idioine as well cause it would destroy my thyroid.

The major draw back of removing my thyroid besides not having a thyroid and being reliant on meds is- the surgery involves going around the vocal chords.

Everything would probably go fine but if they ruin my voice I'd fall apart.

I love myself so fucking much and one of my favorite things about myself is my voice. I'd have to try to go to yale if my insurance even covers yale...

Either way I'm jumping the gun. I would also consider letting my thyroid go hyper again as I'd prefer minimally invasive and a hotel room for a week isn't feasible but my vocal chords would be safe and I wouldn't need to recover from a major surgery.

Talking about it helps as I know it could happen but I'm not going to worry until it does. I lived 7 years without treating my thyroid and if it happens I can get off Methimazole and weigh the options over time.

Speaking of my thyroid I haven't noticed much of a difference in anything except three things, my appetite is going down, I get cold more often, and lastly my heart rate does not need metoprolol anymore.

[luxaofhesperides]

yes we shall succeed in getting people to read comics.

I actually wrote that after realizing not many people have read we are robin like so may people ignore what a great series it is and like it’s so important 😭. not just cause im obsessed with duke but like i see so many fics where bruce has amnesia and everything is falling apart and here’s a perfectly good plot line that no one ever writes about cause they don’t know about it 😭

there’s so may what if’s situations i’ve seen people obsess or talk about over here that have canonically happened in the source material. like things that used to be jokes a while ago are now things people don’t even know happened

we will get people to read comics!!! if its the last thing we do!!!

i must be honest, i also have yet to read we are robins but its been on my list for so long!! ive read batman and the signal, which kickstarted my love for duke, but i have been Booster Brained for the past few months lol. i see so many things mention time or time travel and NO booster anywhere... where is my silly guy i wanna shake him around!!!

but yeah there are so many things that have already happened in canon and can be discussed if only ppl knew about them. there are decades of multiple comics, so much has happened in them! like enjoying fanon is fine and all, but refusing to interact with canon means you miss out on so many things

[luciusime]

Apartment 21C, And The Fucker That Lives There

Bad things happened, but they weren't as permanent as Dylan thought they would be. Well, except for the arm. Fuck Monsters, and fuck loosing an arm. Spoilers, of course.

There are tags explaining what this is, but they're at the bottom. I recently finished the audio recording for a book called Fuck Monsters, which you can find on Reddit, YouTube, and Amazon should you feel like checking it out yourself. I liked it alot, made me laugh and then almost cried because how could you do this to my meow meows for real. Now that it's over, I'm writing a sorta fix-it comfort fic. I need them together and whole again. Also my AO3 iffin ya wanna read it there.

The ceiling of Dylan's new apartment is white, except for a little brown spot on the roof he tries hard not to look at. The walls are white too, and as much as he'd like to fill them with something, he really can't think of a single thing to put on them. The floors are bare too; once upon a time there might have been a rug or two, one at the door to clean shoes before you took them off, and one in the bathroom to catch water when you got out of the bath, but even though he'd moved in almost a month ago, he hadn't gotten around to going to any stores but the grocery and liquor ones. There's a tiny voice in the back of his head telling him he should be doing better, living better; but there's a louder one that yells that shitty bourbon is the answer to all of his needs.

He has the basics from his last apartment: the couch, which was brand new when it made its way to his last apartment so now it's mostly fine; his king sized bed, which was a nice bonus from the hazard pay from his last job; his dresser, which served as a kind of bookshelf for a few titles he'd picked up while at a general store getting groceries; all the stuff that went in a kitchen and a tv. All in all, everything he'd need for his "indefinite leave" which headquarters was miraculously paying for.

He hates it.

He hadn't been without a job to do in years, so he'd almost forgotten what he did before. But when he did remember, he discovered it was just more drinking. 'cept he'd had friends to drink with before all this. 

He puts his current read down on the coffee table beside him and carefully sits up, taking a moment to lament his redeveloping ability to roll off the couch before standing. He walks over to the kitchen and grabs a half empty fifth of…something, hell he doesn't know. He'd peeled the sticker off the bottle for some perceived slight while he was shit faced, and he never really bothered to look at the bottles when he bought them, only the price. Sadly, while headquarters covers his apartment and minor living expenses, booze is not among their list of covered necessities. Either way he steadies the bottle against the counter and pops the cork out, tipping his head back as he empties some more of the bottle down his throat. He sets the bottle down as he turns to the fridge.

His hand grasps the handle of the fridge, except it doesn't, and he sighs as he reaches out with his left hand. That too had been a problem for the last two months. Forgetting, feeling it when it wasn't there, face planting into doors and walls and floors when he slips up and forgets. Stopping his falls, of which there were many, had become a serious problem. He almost broke his nose the last time he'd fallen over one of his shoes that he'd left on the floor. He got more careful where he left his things after that.

Looking into said fridge, nothing strikes him as particularly appetizing. There's some sliced pineapple, milk, leftover take out, and some lunch meat. He's about to close the fridge without getting anything, but his rumbling stomach reminds him he hasn't actually eaten anything that day, so he grabs the lunch meat and closes the door with his hip. It takes some maneuvering, but he's eventually able to get his bag of lunch meat and his bottle of booze in his hand before he makes his way back over to the couch. Upon looking though, he decides the couch isn't really where he wants to be, and so he retreats to his room.

His room is dark, the blackout curtains drawn over the afternoon sun and the lights off from when he had left it that morning in a burst of surprise energy to go running. He doesn't bother turning the lights on as he walks over to his desk and sets his goods down to start his "lunch".

By the time he's done, it'd been an hour and he's thoroughly smashed. He'd gone slow with the rest of the bottle, purely because he hadn't had anything to eat that day, and because he literally could not tell you if he'd had water in the last 72 hours, so the buzz is pleasantly spread across his body and not giving him much nausea. His bag of lunch meat had run out about 5 minutes in though, so there he sits at his desk with an empty fifth and a plastic bag of nothing.

His bones creak as he stands and moves over to his bed, sprawling out as far as he can. He lets his hair dangle in his face as his eyes drift closed. For a long while he just sits there, feeling all together as pleasant as he could. It might have been seconds, it might have been minutes, but it was nowhere near hours when for the first time in 2 months, there was a knock at Dylan's door.

At first he doesn't get up, very sure that it's a door to door salesman or something of the like, but then the door is being pounded on and refusing to be ignored. Before he could get up though, the pounding stops, and a tapping on his window starts. Dylan might not have been on an assignment, a hunt, in a while, but two months is in no way enough time to erase the instincts and paranoia that had been pounded into his body during his time as an exterminator.

He crouches low to the ground, slipping the replacement he'd gotten for his beloved gun out from under the bed as he slowly backs up towards his bedroom door, intent on putting as much space between him and whatever was at his 4th story window as possible to buy him some time to think. Well, he was backing up, until another pounding starts at the door, and seconds later more tapping comes from the glass of his window. For a moment he feels something brush across the back of his head, sliding over his shoulders before entering his ears, a whisper of a whisper. He shakes it off and continues out of his room, intent on locking himself in the windowless bathroom so he can call someone from headquarters to make sure they were doing something about the current situation outside of his apartment.

Halfway down the hall however, he freezes as a voice rings out from the front door. It's scratchy and low, like years of smoking makes a voice. It isn't loud, but it projects across the threshold of his doorway nonetheless.

" I know you're in there you motherfucker, open up Dylan," and hasn't he been longing for months to hear that voice one more time, his alcohol addled mind whispers as yet again that force slides over him and into his ear. Once more he bats it off, but this time there's more than just a whisper, and Dylan thinks this might be the point at which he's lost his mind.

" I know this is overwhelming Dylan, but I promise you can open the door, no harm will come to you."

He's gonna scream, he thinks to himself as tears well in his eyes and his mind fumbles over itself to provide any and every monster it can think of that could mimic a voice like that without previous contact with the owner of the voice or someone who had met that voice. He thinks about any and every encounter he has had in the last two months, and the answer he comes up with is emptier than his work email. He grips his gun tighter as he slides down the hallway wall just around the corner of the living room.

More sounds come from the front door, this time not accompanied by the hellish knocking on his window. He buries his head in his knees as once more those voices come from his door. He pulls his arm in so his gun is pointing straight up and his elbow is resting on his knee. He wishes he had his other hand to better block off the noise.

Not real, not real, not real, not real, not real, not REAL, NOT REAL, NOT REAL.

" I promise this is real."

Softly, ever so softly, that same energy comes around him again, this time accompanied by a second less familiar one, and he doesn't know whether that should frighten him or reaffirm that this is, in fact, a monster come to torment him one last time now that he's down on his luck. The second one doesn't hurt though, no, it's just as gentle as the first as they roll over his mind and begin to show him things, to tell him things.

An image of that day, that horrible day, starts to play in his mind. It's from the eyes of someone else, thrust right into the center of the cluster of parasite ridden bodies, and as soon as he heard that smooth voice, like aloe over a burn, he knew that this was a memory from Theodore. He ripped free the first time, crushed Athena and watched as her look of gratitude shifted to nothing as she became a fine mist, watched as Theodore's win became temporary, then nothing at all as the world went black and all that Theodore was was ripped from his chest and made to be a part of the thing. 

Suddenly he's looking at himself, whole except for the wounds to his legs, and at the sight of those he can feel a slight pang of regret that isn't his own. Memory Dylan was propped up against the wall looking on at the destruction and creation wrought around him, and then he was once again subject to Sandra's plan. As memory Sandra slipped away from memory Dylan, part of him wants to beg her not to go, to stay with him as the end came about, but this was only a memory. He felt as that ever steady presence slipped over the thing and found Theodore.

As soon as Sandra started talking he can see Theodore from above, from behind, from in front, from below, from so many impossible angles it makes his head begin to hurt, and then just from above again as that first energy, one he's beginning to grow frighteningly fine with, settles on the best direction to view from. 

Sandra of the memory explained the plan to Theodore, going as fast as she could now that she was fading almost as quickly as her words could come. He understood just as fast, and once more he was a witness to the prowess of his former teammates. In that moment, for a brief second between bouts of grief, horror, and rage it's enough to make Dylan feel stupid, once more inadequate in the face of their genius and ability, and then he's just sad again. The second energy, one he's having to fight not to put a name to in fear he'd be gravely wrong, slides down his skull and over his back in what he thinks is supposed to be a comforting motion. Really it just sends a shiver down his spine.

As memory Theodore ripped himself free from the being's control with the help of memory Sandra, there was no sight or sound, only feeling as he boldly lashed out once, then twice as Dylan failed to hit the first time. Then a third, final lash to close the portal for good. As the world began to fade, Dylan felt as his two closest people began to do so as well, wrapped around each other so as not to truly die alone. 

What Dylan had missed as he was leaving, and the clean up crew had missed as they were coming in, was a single little light, a pure gold wrapped in brilliant silver, drifting down from the air and settling into one of many cracks and crevices of the building, one that no one had bothered to check. Slowly the one light became two, and then none at all. For a moment Dylan thinks they had finally died and found rest, but then the world started spinning, gnashing against reality in little, unnoticed ways. 

2 months, 1 month to wake up and realize they weren't dead, though it was a little longer for Sandra, and another to use that discarded, unnoticed mystery meat to make new bodies. Dylan looks up from his knees and to the door, and with all of his heart he wants to tear it open and gaze upon those two faces, but he knows what monsters are capable of, and he had taken Sandra's ashes back home for her and watched as those things tore Theodore to pieces. But as that familiar energy runs over his mind and the second slips over his body, he can't really seem to bring himself to care. He hasn't had a purpose in two months, nothing to keep him going besides the knowledge that to end himself with the last thing headquarters had authorized him to take would be giving them too much.

As he rips the door open and lays eyes on those two faces, identical to his memory, he reasons that it doesn't really matter whether or not the two outside were monsters, because really, what else does he have to live for. They're frowning as he looks at them, probably on account of the fact they can read his mind and his thoughts were pretty self-deprecating, but that doesn't even matter as he tries to wrestle them into his arm. They eventually start helping by wrapping him in their four perfectly working arms, and he starts crying in earnest once he's surrounded in their very real warmth. If he didn't know that his neighbors were at work he was sure that they would be peaking at the spectacle happening in front of his door, but there's never anyone around during the afternoon. 

One of them, Theodore he thinks, backs them into his apartment and kicks the door shut. Then in a move that is entirely Theodore, he's being hoisted into the air along with Sandra and startled out of his tears. They begin moving towards the couch, but all his mind can think about is how it's too small to comfortably fit them all in a way they could remain touching. He needed them to stay touching. He yanked on Theodore's hair slightly to get his attention before motioning towards his bedroom door. He feels Theodore slip over his mind and is grateful he won't have to talk as his breath stutters over a tearful sob. He gets the message loud and clear, and steers them towards Dylan's room. 

Theodore softly dumps Sandra and Dylan onto the bed before moving to climb in on Dylan's right. Sandra tucks her head into the left crook of Dylan's neck, pinning his arm to his side as she throws hers over him, and Theodore warps as much of the two of them as he can reach up in his arms. Dylan cries for the next 10 minutes, and the two just let him. No judgment, no probing, no words. When he's finally done he keeps his head buried in Theodore's chest so he doesn't have to look them in the eyes. Sandra runs her fingers through his hair softly as Theodore taps little nonsensical rhythms into his cheek. They don't talk, not that night, they just sit there and enjoy each other's company. Dylan hopes they never leave him like that again.

Fuck Monsters, and fuck being alone