#for a new start that lucille is CERTAIN will make their lives better

[samuelwinchesters]

Lucille: Take ‘em off I wanna see your baby browns.

[leverage-commentary]

Leverage Season 3, Episode 2, The Reunion Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Jonathan Frakes: Hello everyone I'm Johnathan Frakes.

Michael Colton: Michael Colton.

John Aboud: John Aboud.

Aldis Hodge: This is Al Hodge.

Chris Downey: Chris Downey.

John Rogers: Am I sexual chocolate if you’re Al Hodge?

[Laughter]

John Rogers: It's John Rogers.

Aldis Hodge: Sexual chocolate is coming up.

John Rogers: Executive Producer of this particular episode, along with Chris Downey. And those other gentlemen are the writers and director down at the end. Welcome to The Reunion Job. Boys, which we always ask in the opening sequence, where'd this episode come about?

Michael Colton: The- initially you guys told us you wanted to do a high school reunion episode. And I think all you had was ‘they go undercover at a high school reunion’ and I think you had the end beat of the dancing.

John Rogers: Yes.

Michael Colton: At the dance. 

John Rogers: Right, yeah.

Michael Colton: And so from that we started thinking, you know, who would be a good villain for this episode? Someone who high school meant a lot to.

Jonathan Frakes: You talked over my Bourne Identity opening!

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Sorry. Frakes why don't you tell us about the-

Jonathan Frakes: No, I got my-

John Rogers: Where'd that particular opening come from?

John Aboud: Bourne Supremacy.

Jonathan Frakes: I'm kidding. Bourne Supremacy.

John Rogers: Bourne Supremacy.

Jonathan Frakes: Carry on.

John Rogers: That was a very aggressive style.

Jonathan Frakes: Where’d you get the rest of this story?

John Aboud: Well as nerds, we were able to channel the rage of a software magnate. Why would a software magnate be bad in the Leverage universe? Well maybe he's supplying his software to some very bad people overseas.

Michael Colton: Well right at the time we were writing this, there was the Irianian- the aftermath of the Iranian elections, so it was actually in the news that this kind of thing could be happening.

John Aboud: And this episode aired on the one year anniversary of that election. And around- and the protests.

Michael Colton: There was enough propaganda.

John Rogers: It was actually funny, we did get one phone call that's like ‘are we gonna get in trouble for like- can we be open to litigation?’ I went ‘if one of the most evil regimes on earth wants to sue us, I don't really see that as a problem.’

Michael Colton: That would be good press for the show. Iran sues-

Jonathan Frakes: Any publicity is good publicity.

John Rogers: Exactly. Now who's playing our victim here? Did a great job.

Jonathan Frakes: That's Ricki Bhullar.

John Rogers: Yep, fantastic job. And now Frakes, why don't you tell us about that opening? What- cause it was a very different opening than what we usually do.

Jonathan Frakes: Well I think what we try to do with each of our cold opens is to either pay an homage or, in other words, steal stylistically from a show. 

Chris Downey: Yes.

Jonathan Frakes: From a Hitchcock show, or from you know-

John Rogers: It lets you know what the rest of the shows gonna be like.

Jonathan Frakes: Well- hopefully. Or that you just feel like the story of this show is in this particular style. That was a Bourne Supremacy rip off. 

John Rogers: Yes.

Jonathan Frakes: How many shots can we get? How fast can we cut it? How fast can this action happen? And it has that vibe of international espionage.

John Rogers: Yep. Also that room was great, it was built totally on set. That was actually just a two wall set, wasn’t it?

Jonathan Frakes: That was a three-wall set, but we shot the shit out of it.

John Rogers: Yeah.

Chris Downey: And then so you put your energy into that and the rest of the episode you sort of coasted? Is that- you sorta let it…?

Jonathan Frakes: Yeah it's an approach I've found very useful.

[Laughter]

Jonathan Frakes: Now.

John Rogers: Now.

Jonathan Frakes: Who do you think that- oh!

Everyone: Woahhh!!! 

Michael Colton: There we go.

Chris Downey: And reveal.

John Aboud: Didn't see that coming.

Michael Colton: That worked really well.

John Rogers: It did; it did. Johnathan Frakes knows what he’s doing. Yeah and this was also part of the mandate for the opening of the third season, where we wanted to start opening it up into international stories. Kind of open up the Leverage universe in a way that, you know, this is a fictional universe wherein certain rules apply. And it’s close to ours but you know we wanted to start seeing the ramifications of crime world and politics.

Jonathan Frakes: It also suggests the backstory of a lot of these characters has been, in fact, international.

John Rogers: Yeah.

Jonathan Frakes: So that they have experience with all these things. It makes them look, or appear to have more experience than-

Michael Colton: Right.

John Rogers: And sometimes people ask where we get the cases, and we’re kinda establishing here there's a lot of-

Jonathan Frakes: ‘I'm inside your head!’

John Rogers: ‘I'm living rent free.’

Aldis Hodge: Yeah, haha.

John Rogers: You know, kind of establish there's a community of people out there who take freedom of software, the internet's role in being free of government regulations and rules and internationalism very seriously, and Hardison is part of that group. That's part of the hacker group he fell in with.

Aldis Hodge: Yes indeed.

John Rogers: And that's how he knows this guy. That's his background.

Jonathan Frakes: ‘Yeah that's right, we are here to inspect your restaurant.’

John Rogers: Also based on a real spy safehouse that came up in research. But with better locks I think that one had. Ah this is crazy. How'd we get the roach?

Chris Downey: That’s a digital roach.

John Aboud: Digitally inserted.

Michael Colton: It's a real roach, but that plate was not there, it's like the whole thing.

Jonathan Frakes: More discussion about this cockroach than there was about the script!

[Laughter]

John Rogers: We tried to be a little robotic cockroach that went poorly. It went actually too well because it killed.

Jonathan Frakes: What about the real cockroach that we had that nobody liked? Cause it didn’t-

Chris Downey: Oh look at that! Boy that's great.

John Rogers: I think the close up was the real one, that one digital. 

Chris Downey: Is that one digital?

John Rogers: I love this, and the little.

Jonathan Frakes: Yeah, this tees up later. 

John Rogers: Yep.

Jonathan Frakes: They don't get much to do together, it's nice to see those two have a little beat.

Michael Colton: I feel like there's a lot of improv in this scene with you guys.

John Aboud: Absolutely.

Aldis Hodge: Yeah this- you know, anytime you get me and Christian in a room together it's over.

[Laughter]

Aldis Hodge: It's like ‘script, what?’ We just talk. 

John Rogers: Yeah, we’re just pretty much superfluous. Maybe next year without writers.

[Laughter]

Jonathan Frakes: That was how-

John Rogers: And that was a great way of using Jessie by the way.

Jonathan Frakes: How to make an entrance.

Chris Downey: We’re running out of ways for her to get out of a duct. I mean I feel like is there-

John Rogers: You know what? I just I may be speaking for-

Jonathan Frakes: Cirque du Soleil in town next year.

Chris Downey: We need to watch and take notes, cause there needs to be something new.

John Rogers: I may be speaking for a certain percentage of the audience, but anytime we have her in black jeans and that leather jacket coming out of a duct it's a good day. Really, the dismounts- really now you're really.

Aldis Hodge: I'm glad you said it, cause I was about to.

Jonathan Frakes: How about this shawarma?

John Rogers: I love the shawarma, by the way.

Jonathan Frakes: Who doesn’t?

Aldis Hodge: That shawarma was disgusting though, it was cold and greasy.

John Rogers: You can't shoot around hot shawarma.

Chris Downey: Prop shawarma was not?

John Aboud: Prop shawarma.

Aldis Hodge: Prop shawarma.

John Rogers: Don't eat the prop shawarma.

John Aboud: Don't recommend.

Jonathan Frakes: Not much room to move in this location as I recall, remember this place?

John Aboud: It was very narrow.

Jonathan Frakes: It feels as narrow as it was.

John Aboud: Hard to maneuver.

John Rogers: What was it? Was it a real restaurant we redressed?

John Aboud: It was a Hawaiian barbeque restaurant.

Jonathan Frakes: Real restaurant, Hawaiian barbeque.

Michael Colton: That's right.

John Aboud: And the production had to buy them out for the day, so there was a lot of the-

Jonathan Frakes: Are we happy with the yellow choice on the inside of the van?

[Laughter]

Michael Colton: It's a little late to be asking that.

John Rogers: Yeah, I think we might want to change that. Could you fix that in post? Could you just go and… And yes it's the first time- when do we air this? Episode two or three?

Chris Downey: This is second- this is first night.

Michael Colton: First night.

John Rogers: That's right even though we shot it- did not shoot it second, it aired second. And that was re-establishing- that was establishing the new Lucille.

John Aboud: That's right. Near and dear to Hardison's heart.

John Rogers: This is also fun is that- it always amazes me the amount of international espionage that is actually kept in notebooks. 

Jonathan Frakes: Yeah.

John Rogers: No, the people-

Jonathan Frakes: Old school.

John Rogers: Old school. Yeah, but people- 

Aldis Hodge: It keeps them off the radar.

John Rogers: Yeah. You can, you can burn it. You know it can't be hacked, it can't be stolen.

John Aboud: Now that dishwasher, I believe he was also in the prison- in the Jail Break Job?

John Rogers: Oh so this is the jail- it's the job.

John Aboud: In my mind the backstory is: he's on a work release.

John Rogers: Oh that's right.

Chris Downey: Already fell into the wrong element.

John Aboud: Yeah, right away.

John Rogers: Well he doesn't know, they don't tell him.

Chris Downey: His parole officer is not doing a very good job.

John Aboud: Right away, right away.

Jonathan Frakes: The victim. Now we get the villain Arye Gross. Very reliable character actor, been doing it for years. 

Michael Colton: You worked with him…?

Jonathan Frakes: I worked with him on Castle. Recommend him to the gang and he nailed it.

Aldis Hodge: Nice.

John Rogers: Your career is banterific. Eliot, of course, learned to make amazing tea, and that is English Breakfast from his samurai master when he studied for 18 months. [pause] Wait no that was Wolverine.

[Laughter]

Jonathan Frakes: Now whose idea was this to add this whole sequence?

Michael Colton: Well this is all based on NLP which means neuro linguistic programming. And all this is actually based on a guy named Derren Brown, who is British. And what would you- what would you call him? A magician slash-

John Rogers: He calls himself a mentalist, but he uses like a quotation marks around it because he duplicates the effects of charlatans by using psychological techniques.

Michael Colton: You can look him up on YouTube. Look up Derren Brown and NLP and there's stuff he does that is, we sort of basically ripped off for this episode.

John Rogers: Yeah ‘D-e-r-r-e-n’. Yeah, the primary one being he hires two advertising guys to come to his office and give him a campaign- a possible campaign for a children's zoo. They do the sketches and then he reveals his own sketches he did hours earlier and they're almost exactly the same. And then he reveals the visual cues he planted along the way into their head. And that really was the crux of this whole thing.

Michael Colton: And the one where Simon Pegg from Shaun of the Dead has- sits him down and asks him what he wants for his birthday, and he says he wants a bike.

John Aboud: BMX bike.

Michael Colton: But earlier he had written down he had wanted something completely different.

Chris Downey: A leather jacket, I think.

Michael Colton: A leather jacket! And throughout this whole discussion he was just doing cues to get him to say bike. It's kind of amazing.

Aldis Hodge: Wow.

John Rogers: It was also fun to kind of get into the mechanics of- it's easy with a grifter character to say they're just natural at it. To get into the intellectual work that Sophie does in her job.

Chris Downey: And also the idea of hacking into someone's head. I think that's what made this-

John Aboud: Wanted to establish that up front.

Jonathan Frakes: How infuriating it was that it was this character who [unintelligible].

John Rogers: Yeah, and also the fact that once you guys came up with the whole hacker/villain- the whole hacker theme, that really led us to the other material. 

Jonathan Frakes: And here we are, Dubertech.

Chris Downey: And this a great location too, this is very-

Jonathan Frakes: On the campus of-

John Aboud: The community college.

Jonathan Frakes: The community college in Portland.

John Aboud: It’s a great building.

John Rogers: The digital overlay on the sign.

John Aboud: It's a theater, actually.

John Rogers: A lot of digital signage.

Jonathan Frakes: It's the theater department, ironically.

John Rogers: It looks evil. 

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Got an evil vibe to it. This was a lot of fun and this was one of the- one of the times that we took something we could do in a beat, and turned it into almost the entire act. We have broken into someone's office in like half a scene.

Jonathan Frakes: Yeah.

John Rogers: But sometimes you just.

Jonathan Frakes: What we go through to get the fingerprint.

John Rogers: And it's great. And sometimes you find ways to do- you find stuff you want to do, you want to explore and kind of revel in, and that's the fun of this show. You know there's no real template to this show. So if you have an act where you have a bunch of cool stuff you wanna showcase, you can. Yes, tons of fun.

Jonathan Frakes: Boom.

John Aboud: We wanted this to be a real showcase for Hardison. 

John Rogers: Yes.

John Aboud: Because obviously we're dealing with his world. We are in the world that he knows well, and we really liked the idea of him confronting this 1980s technology. I think that was one of our initial pitches to you guys-

John Rogers: Yes.

John Aboud: For an episode.

John Rogers: I think that- you pitched that as a freelancer.

Michael Colton: Our pitch was Hardison hacks an ENIAC.

John Rogers: Yes.

John Aboud: In a museum.

Michael Colton: And that became a TRS-80.

Chris Downey: An abacus really.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Yeah a giant, giant vacuum tube. Yeah and that blended right into this. No, that was- and by the way, if you're gonna pitch a Leverage, pitch a high concept, don't come in with a procedural. You know, ‘he has to hack a 60 year old computer’, I love it, you know. That was an easy one.

Chris Downey: And this is great, I mean how great did they dress this set?

Jonathan Frakes: I love that we [unintelligible].

John Aboud: The music was-

John Rogers: It's the music.

Michael Colton: The set’s great but it’s the music that put us over the edge and sold it.

John Rogers: Yeah Joe LoDuca again giving us that 80s synth pop vibe. It was fantastic. And Aldis you’re great here just the total shock and horror.

John Aboud: This take is wonderful.

Aldis Hodge: This took me back a couple years. I mean, this stuff was older than me but still.

John Rogers: Thank you, thanks for reminding us of that.

Chris Downey: We love to confront Hardison with old technology. Audio tapes things like that.

Jonathan Frakes: He’s appalled here.

John Aboud: His horror.

Aldis Hodge: He's offended, he's insulted.

Jonathan Frakes: And there it is!

[Laughter]

Aldis Hodge: This takes me back to when-

Chris Downey: Look at that.

John Rogers: Five and a quarter right there, baby.

Aldis Hodge: I used to run off of floppys though, I still remember those.

John Rogers: You were a baby though.

Aldis Hodge: It took like 10 hours to upload a page.

John Rogers: Yep.

Michael Colton: We used to use the war games. The phone doesn’t-

John Aboud: War dialer.

Chris Downey: They used to be on cassettes too.

John Rogers: Yeah they used to be on cassettes.

Jonathan Frakes: What was this computer called?

Michael Colton: TRS-80. Although I don't think we could say that.

John Aboud: We weren't allowed to.

Michael Colton: Yeah, it's just generic 1980s computer.

John Aboud: For clearance reasons.

Jonathan Frakes: I remember part of our prep was the ebay version of the TRS-80 that we shopped for, for two weeks trying to find the one that was actually going to be programmable.

John Rogers: Yeah. Yeah apparently Tandy Corporation has a problem with us saying that freedom is oppressed in Iran through the use of their product. Oh we’re the bad guy? That’s some sort of brand infringement I guess.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: I love the caricature- oh the caricature kills me!

Chris Downey: I didn't even notice that! The caricature of him winning the chess trophy.

John Rogers: He was twelve!

Michael Colton: Well they had photos all around of Arye Gross from that era.

John Aboud: From his personal archive.

Jonathan Frakes: With the hair. When he had that big John Hughes hair.

Michael Colton: The pre-Soul Man. Old stuff.

Chris Downey: That is pre-Soul Man]. He's great in Soul Man, by the way. Soul Man is-

John Rogers: That's a great little shot, by the way. That's kind of an iconic shot of Hardison being distracted and annoyed while Parker quietly freaks out next to him. It's just a nice vibe.

Jonathan Frakes: ‘How much time are you really gonna spend in here after I told you that the bad guys are on the way?’

John Rogers: Yeah.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: But they saw the bad guy in the sweater vest on the way in. I mean, they're not that intimidating.

John Aboud: They knew they could take him. They knew they could take him.

John Rogers: What do you think the origin for the- oh that's great.

Chris Downey: Oh that’s great!

[Laughter]

John Rogers: A locked off comedy frame people!

Chris Downey: It's a locked off comedy frame.

John Aboud: Yep.

Jonathan Frakes: The third in three shows!

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Can't go wrong. This was fun, by the way, the- this one when he says ‘it's adorable you still think there's privacy’.

Jonathan Frakes: Isn't this where some of our regulars drink when we do the 360?

John Rogers: Yes, yeah, we drink and we shoot it, too. But you guys had found out- who- was it Albert cause he was a journalist he knew that you could buy people's yearbooks?

John Aboud: Well he did that all the time at People.

Michael Colton: That’s what it was, yeah.

John Aboud: As a celebrity journalist he would go buy people's yearbooks. And it was the easiest thing in the world.

John Rogers: And there's actual services out there that will help you buy the yearbooks of different high schools. There's an enormous amount of creepy shit in this episode.

Aldis Hodge: Your embarrassment is on sale.

[Laughter]

Michael Colton: Here's where we bring up the Roman Room, which a lot of people thought we made up but is just another-

John Aboud: By a lot of people you mean Tim Hutton.

Michael Colton: Yes.

John Aboud: Thought we made it up.

Michael Colton: Just another curious thing from the mind of John Rogers.

Chris Downey: It's just one of your many hobbies.

John Rogers: One of my many hobbies.

Michael Colton: Memorizing everything.

John Aboud: Memorizing disconnected pieces of information.

Chris Downey: What was last season, whaling?

John Rogers: It was whaling. I remember I made you that scrimshaw-

Michael Colton: What, you memorized famous whalers?

John Aboud: Wow.

John Rogers: No. I am- a hobby of mine is memory techniques, and I use the Roman Room, and we wound up using it here. And it was just a great way- if we're gonna hack- the big problem was why do we need to go to this high school? We can go to this high school without this guy. Well no, we need context. Well what's the context? Well… It was interesting how this episode kind of organically came up. It was the flashback, it was the 80s thing. And that was that he was using, like I do, he was using his Roman Room for his passwords. And the- actually yes they did not believe this. I was up visiting them and I wound up doing the complete works of Shakespeare based on my high school gym in order to convince Tim that I was- that this was a real thing. 

Aldis Hodge: Right.

John Rogers: Aldis you were in the limo that night, that's right. The- we didn’t take Colton or Aboud with us.

John Aboud: Well it coincided with Comic Con.

John Rogers: There you go that's right. Yeah this is, by the way, a really easy memory technique, you can learn it really quickly and with a little bit of practice and imagination. The key is making everything as filthy as possible.

Jonathan Frakes: Seriously?

John Rogers: Has to be obscene.

John Aboud: Ahh, there you go.

John Rogers: Actually Chris Downey made me not use him in my Roman Room techniques because he was distrubed by the fact that I was having him have sex with people and things.

Chris Downey: Yeah.

John Aboud: Well he knows what goes on in that room.

John Rogers: He knows that the Roman Room is a horrible place.

Chris Downey: And John you'll be at the Allentown Marriott this week doing the Roman Room technique, won’t you? Doing it on your tour.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: If you'd like to advance yourself in business or socially. If you’d like to amaze salesmen and other people in your company.

[Laughter]

John Aboud: Whenever you see those signs on a light posts that say ‘make money from home’ the number rings at John Rogers home.

John Rogers: I'm not just running a TV show. I'm running a lot of small businesses out of my garage. Oh was- was that the Psych yellout?

Michael Colton: Oh that was- it in this scene where we talked about what's on his Netflix queue. 

John Aboud: That show Psych.

Michael Colton: I wanted Turk 182 to be on his Netflix queue but that was rejected.

Chris Downey: It’s a little too meta.

Jonathan Frakes: I thought it was Rockford?

Chris Downey: It is Rockford.

John Rogers: Well it is Rockford, we went with Rockford and Psych- we added Psych in the end cause Psych had given us a nice little shoutout in their show.

Michael Colton: I think Sex and the City was thrown out there.

John Rogers: Why Sex and the City?

Michael Colton: I think it was an improv, wasn't it?

John Aboud: Humor?

Aldis Hodge: It was an improv.

John Aboud: Humor. Cause it was funny.

John Rogers: Nothing funny about Sex and the City.

[Laughter]

Aldis Hodge: Very serious show.

Jonathan Frakes: Not that Gina likes to do accents.

John Rogers: This was a lot of fun.

Chris Downey: This was the tour de force.

John Rogers: And the difference- and what's great is watching this with the sound off is watching her physicality change and the smile, yeah, that character smiles and the other one is angry, yeah. It's lovely. And this is also one of those ones where it originally started much more complicated and turned into ‘let’s just have Gina talk, she can do the accents’.

Jonathan Frakes: We cut it all together, let her do the two characters.

Chris Downey: In, sort of, the Facebook era, one of the things I think helped this episode was that you are kind of confronted by people from your high school all the time that you have no recollection of.

John Aboud: Right, right.

Chris Downey: So it really sort of helped the idea that they could actually bomb into somebody's high school reunion as other people and they would just be accepted.

Michael Colton: Yeah this is kind of The Social Network of Leverage episodes, I think it's fair to say.

John Rogers: But before The Social Network- they stole this from you right? The Social Network is stolen from you.

John Aboud: And Facebook, the idea for Facebook.

[Laughter]

Michael Colton: We came up with Facematch.

John Rogers: This is the skype of evil.

Chris Downey: We got the finger pyramid of evil going too.

John Rogers: He's got the finger pyramid of evil.

Aldis Hodge: That was scripted right? Finger pyramid.

John Rogers: The finger pyramid of malfeasance I believe, this is the Skype of evil. 

Jonathan Frakes: Wait heavies right, there's heavies in dark clothes behind him.

John Rogers: Yes exactly I like to think he prepped it ‘alright let's Skype this- wait turn off the lights!’ I can't.

Chris Downey: Oh I love this.

Michael Colton: This turn here is fantastic. After he hangs up with them.

Jonathan Frakes: Unafraid to milk.

John Rogers: And also one of the things I like about- that you guys did in the script just wanted the general attitude you want to give the villains - ahh there you go - is nobody’s a villain in their own head.

Michael Colton: ‘Larry Duberman?’

John Aboud: ‘Larry Duberman?’

[Laughter]

Michael Colton: It took so long, but it worked.

Jonathan Frakes: And we stayed on it! We kept it all in. 

John Aboud: You did.

Jonathan Frakes: Confidant actor.

John Rogers: Yeah somebody said if schadenfreude is the pleasure of other people doing worse than you, what is the German word for delight in doing better than everyone else but not being able to come out and say it? The Germans should have a word for it. Yeah it's pretty impressive- that's a great match for Tim by the way, was that an actor or did we pick an-?

John Aboud: Stock. It was stock.

John Rogers: It was stock, wow.

Aldis Hodge: Now whose stock photos because there were some fugly people in there.

John Rogers: We went to fugly.com.

Aldis Hodge: All right. 

John Rogers: That’s where we got that stock.

Aldis Hodge: I'm just saying there’s a select few you didn't know exactly.

John Rogers: Well it's also 80s hair.

Aldis Hodge: There’s that.

John Rogers: 80’s hair was just a nation making a bad choice.

[Laughter]

Michael Colton: Evil speech of evil.

Chris Downey: Oh here it is. It's the slow push in on the evil speech of evil.

Aldis Hodge: You gotta get in his nostrils, nice and tight right up there.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Well it's a 40 ft screen; it's a different look when they're on TV.

Chris Downey: And now here we go!

John Rogers: Now where was this?

Chris Downey: And now we're off!

John Aboud: Actual high school.

Michael Colton: This was an actual high school.

John Rogers: They let us redress, and yeah fantastic.

Jonathan Frakes: This is the gym of- what's the high school called? Hall? James T Hall High School?

Chris Downey: Now how many days were you here at the school?

Michael Colton: We were there-

John Aboud: Three days.

Michael Colton: Three, I think.

John Rogers: You managed to get all this done in three days?

Jonathan Frakes: Well the exterior was stock, and not our greatest effort.

John Rogers: Still pretty good.

Jonathan Frakes: This is- here we go!

John Aboud: Here we go.

Michael Colton: Now this was unused-

John Rogers: This was unused footage.

Aldis Hodge: Unused footage from the first season.

John Aboud: Season one.

Chris Downey: Using every part of the animal.

Aldis Hodge: Yes indeed. It’s probably one of my favorite scenes I've shot.

John Rogers: By the way, that is fearless of you. Not a lot of actors would go in the braces and throw on the-

Jonathan Frakes: Aldis is fearless.

Aldis Hodge: Very much so.

John Rogers: Throw on the hat. You really did manage to spot-weld Will Smith and the other guys from Fresh Prince into one character there.

[Laughter]

Chris Downey: Alfonso Ribeiro, you mean?

John Rogers: Alfonso Ribeiro. That's the Fresh Prince of Alfonso Ribeiro right there. And this is great that we-

Jonathan Frakes: Eliot pre-hair.

John Rogers: Eliot pre-hair.

Jonathan Frakes: Like wait a minute.

John Aboud: Still the same guy, he looks to camera.

John Rogers: Well it's a flashback.

John Aboud: He looks to flashback camera.

John Rogers: As one does.

Chris Downey: That's good man, that's a good match.

John Rogers: I also like the dialogue fix. Cause it was originally the dialogue-

John Aboud: Brutal punch.

John Rogers: Where we actually lay in that he learned about the knives in context not from a murderous Guatemalan, but from a sexy Home Ec teacher.

Chris Downey: Sexy home ec teacher.

Jonathan Frakes: He's the one who doesn't get to go to the high school.

John Rogers: Ooh yeah that was fun.

Jonathan Frakes: It was easy to take that guy out with one shot.

John Aboud: Little minion did not deserve the brutality of that one punch.

Chris Downey: But it's also nice like-

John Rogers: You know what he knows he's screwing the Iranian kids. He's an accessory after the fact.

John Aboud: It's true, he's complicit.

John Rogers: Absolutely more than complicit, he's an accessory. And therefore worthy of scorn. Ah this was again the Joe LoDuca score. Amazing.

Aldis Hodge: This the song that's playing in this scene right now is the band that Dean Devlin was in.

Chris Downey: Oh that's right. What’s the name of Dean’s band?

John Aboud: What was the name of that band?

John Rogers: Nervous Service.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: This was Dean’s band from the 80s. 

Aldis Hodge: Sure it wasn't Dean and the Devlins? 

John Rogers: No, no, that was his 50s band. And that's Beth in the badger suit right?

Aldis Hodge: Yeah.

John Aboud: Yes.

John Rogers: Yeah that is Beth.

John Aboud: Yes, spoiler warning.

Chris Downey: Well they've seen it already.

John Aboud: No, they haven’t.

Michael Colton: This is like their sixth viewing.

John Aboud: I only watch Leverage with the commentaries on.

John Rogers: Really? Interesting.

John Aboud: Yes.

Michael Colton: You don't know what happens in this one?

John Aboud: Nope. No clue.

John Rogers: That would explain why your pitches were so weird first year.

John Aboud: Well then Rogers drinks, right? And we do a zoom to see he pours the alcohol into the glass. 

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Oh yeah this was a lovely bit of scripting, by the way, on the NLP on this, guys. Very subtle.

Michael Colton: Yeah it's subtle it’s incredibly tight knit it’s-

John Rogers: And great dress. Is this Aboud or Colton on this scene?

Michael Colton: It's mostly Colton.

Jonathan Frakes: It's Grace Peltz! Look at Peltz in the middle of that shot.

John Rogers: That was a nice frame up on that shot.

Chris Downey: Look at that right there.

John Aboud: That's an actual Arye Gross high school photo in the row below.

John Rogers: Are you really?

John Aboud: Yup Lawrence Duberman, first one on the second row.

Aldis Hodge: Yup.

Jonathan Frakes: And here’s how it happened.

John Rogers: All you have to do is insert one page. Who doubts the evidence before their eyes? Where’s Arye Gross?

John Aboud: He's cross eyed. First one on the second row.

Aldis Hodge: That's really him?

John Aboud: That's really him.

Michael Colton: Now what kind of alphabetical order is this? Grace Peltz above Larry Duberman.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Oh, the honor society had their own photos.

Michael Colton: Oh there you go. That’s computer club.

John Rogers: One of these days you gotta learn to just lie quick.

Chris Downey: You know how to retcon.

Michael Colton: Most of those names are from my high school. Jack Lebowski. I used my-

John Rogers: Don't say that, people have to sign forms for that.

Michael Colton: My high school girlfriend is in there.

Jonathan Frakes: Boom.

Chris Downey: Here we go.

Jonathan Frakes: Don't always get a ninja zoom into the socks and sandals.

John Rogers: He's enjoying that way too much.

Chris Downey: He is. Cleaning pools. I love that- I love that about him. Former quarterback now cleaning pools.

Jonathan Frakes: Tim owned Drake.

John Rogers: Yes.

Jonathan Frakes: He totally owned Drake Macintyre.

John Rogers: He really was enjoying that. There really was a moment you saw Tim kind of like ‘I wouldn’t mind cleaning pools. It’s nice and quiet’.

Michael Colton: Mandy Babson. 

John Rogers: Yep.

Michael Colton: What do his pins say?

John Rogers: I don't remember.

John Aboud: One of them said ‘I'll wash first’.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Wha- why? Why would you have a pin that said that?

Chris Downey: Not blondie or something?

John Aboud: That's the kind of guy you are. They were all slogans. Oh my voice is really giving out.

Michael Colton: Maybe you should stop talking.

John Aboud: Apologies to the home viewer.

John Rogers: Just let Colton- he’ll be honest about who did what.

Michael Colton: Yeah.

John Rogers: There's no way he’ll-

John Aboud: How can that go wrong?

John Rogers: Yeah. And it was also fun coming up with the idea that: of course there's a villain. Everyone has a narrative in their head, everyone had the villain in high school. You know the person who made their life hell. Unless you were the villain.

Jonathan Frakes: There he is! ‘Oh Doucherman!’

John Rogers: I'm glad we got that past Standards and Practices, cause Doucherman really was-

Michael Colton: The whole episode was built around Doucherman.

Jonathan Frakes: Whole episode.

John Aboud: It really would’ve fallen apart.

Michael Colton: It's the first thing we started with.

Aldis Hodge: All you thought about at first, and then you built the story around it.

John Aboud: It came later.

Aldis Hodge: ‘Doucherman, hmm we need to write a show’.

John Rogers: And she anchors it with a touch every time, nice acting, nice use of space.

Chris Downey: Who's that guy?

John Aboud: That guy was wearing a kilt! That guy was wearing a kilt.

John Rogers: I know, I saw him in the opening shot.

John Aboud: In the opening shot you can see he was wearing a kilt.

Chris Downey: Good variety of alumni characters.

Michael Colton: You know when I was on Twitter when this was airing to watch it, and Tim was- I thought it was very flattered he was just repeated ‘Douchermans got lady parts’.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Yes over and over again. He loved that. This was also fun showing Hardison scrambling. There's just some stuff you can’t prep for.

Aldis Hodge: Well Frakes, that was the first scene we shot for this episode, but it was also in the middle of shooting another episode the same day.

Jonathan Frakes: Same day in the van, here’s what’s gonna happen.

Aldis Hodge: I remember all that banter.

Chris Downey: That was the violin stuff.

Jonathan Frakes: Well this was the double up day.

Aldis Hodge: Double up day. All that banter was- I'm not even gonna lie I learned that right then and there in like ten minutes. Because I was on the other episode-

John Aboud: It worked.

John Rogers: You were on the other episode.

Michael Colton: Well you were on the violin.

John Rogers: Other episode was a giant part.

Aldis Hodge: Really shoot five pages just straight out? ‘Ok guys!’

John Aboud: Who’s this guy?

John Rogers: And there's our line producer!

Jonathan Frakes: There's our producer Paul Bernard as Schmitty!

Michael Colton: Star of the show.

Jonathan Frakes: I will tell you, he did have the 80s hair, that's not a haircut.

John Rogers: That's just what Paul Bernard looks like.

Jonathan Frakes: He works in that hair.

John Rogers: He works, he plays in that hair. That’s not stunt hair people.

Michael Colton: Is it true TBS is interested in a Schmitty spin off? Is that happening?

John Rogers: Yeah I think we might do ‘Here’s Schmitty.’

[Laughter]

John Rogers: ‘We’re up to our necks in Schmitty.’ We haven’t decided yet.

Chris Downey: I think there was a reality show in which somebody- they had hidden cameras and people led-

Michael Colton: Someone made like a 2020 special about someone who- some woman who didn't want to go to her thing so she hired a- I think it was a stripper.

Chris Downey: I think it was a stripper.

Michael Colton: To play herself.

Jonathan Frakes: At her high school reunion?

Michael Colton: At her high school reunion.

John Aboud: She coached the stripper through an earpiece-

Chris Downey: Yes.

John Aboud: As she was watching on a video feed.

Michael Colton: While she was watching Hardison-style in a hotel room.

Aldis Hodge: Doesn't it seem like it takes a lot more effort than just showing up?

John Aboud: Just go to your reunion.

Jonathan Frakes: Here's the Roman Room!

John Rogers: Turns out not. See you're young, you still remember what these people look like. You have to remember after 20 years everyone's kind of- what's the great line from Grosse Pointe Blank? Swollen? Everyone just doesn't quite look like what they used to.

Aldis Hodge: I'm young, but I'm an actor, but I don't remember a damn thing past 5 minutes ago.

John Rogers: ‘I don't remember other people, I'm an actor’.

Aldis Hodge: Hey.

Chris Downey: It's fun, too, seeing Eliot typing stuff.

Michael Colton: Ten go to twenty stuff.

John Rogers: It was- and this was actually fun too, we were originally developing this trying to figure out what the hell Eliot was doing and then we realized just put him over there. For once he's gotta- yeah. Also allowed us to do the fight in an interesting way. This- god all high schools do look alike.

Jonathan Frakes: Yeah this high school is perfect. The shiny floors, the lockers. We said, ‘We’re looking for a broom closet.’ They said, ‘Well what about the broom closet?’ We said ‘Good, that'll be fine.’

[Laughter]

John Rogers: ‘That'll absolutely work!; And by the way Gina seems to really enjoy when her character doesn't like Tims character. She seems to be digging in a little bit more, I'm just saying. Yeah the utter scorn of the good looking asshole is fantastic. Oh we're past that. That was the-

Michael Colton: This is fun also ‘cause so much- I mean just ‘cause the nature of the show often Tim’s or Nate’s character is playing the shady businessman and this is totally opposite.

John Rogers: Yeah this is a low status character.

Chris Downey: He doesn't do a lot of low status.

John Aboud: He's not worn a hat like this on previous jobs.

Aldis Hodge: I just saw one of the other buttons said ‘I’m a handyman’.

Chris Downey: Is that what it said?

Aldis Hodge: One of them yeah. The yellow one.

Chris Downey: ‘I’m a handyman’.

John Rogers: The bright green one says ‘if you can't be handsome be handy’.

Michael Colton: There's very few of his characters where he can wear that necklace.

Jonathan Frakes: ‘I should give you my card’.

Aldis Hodge: The necklace is questionable.

John Rogers: Questionably- is it a surfer? Or what is that?

Aldis Hodge: It's a surfer, man.

Chris Downey: Oh is that what that is?

John Rogers: He's still a Boston guy, so I don't know what he's wearing that for.

John Aboud: Well he's around water all the time.

John Rogers: That’s true.

John Aboud: Pools.

Chris Downey: That's right.

Aldis Hodge: He's a great surfer in his mind.

John Rogers: The great surf pools of Route 9.

Aldis Hodge: Surfer in his mind.

John Aboud: Uh-oh what is this?

Chris Downey: Someone is coming down the stairs.

John Aboud: What’s this what’s this?

John Rogers: Oh yeah, the lovely Kari Wuhrer.

Chris Downey: Now uh MTV? I mean best known-

John Aboud: Oh absolutely.

John Rogers: The sliders, the-

Michael Colton: What’s it called?

John Aboud: Class of ‘96.

Michael Colton: Remote Control. 

Chris Downey: Remote Control, that’s right.

Michael Colton: That was a formative influence on me. So I was very happy when I got to work with her.

John Rogers: Yeah, she's fantastic, by the way. She’s really sweet, worked her butt off and just-

Jonathan Frakes: Also happens to be married to our UPM [Editor’s Note: Unit Production Manager]. 

Chris Downey: But certainly we’re not giving away parts to people connected to the show!

John Aboud: No no.

Jonathan Frakes: Otherwise Jeanie Francis would be on the show by now.

[Laughter]

Michael Colton: I did not know-

John Rogers: She didn't want to work with you, that's the problem. We called here and-

Michael Colton: I did not know she was married to the Leverage team until after she was cast. Her audition was great.

Chris Downey: She was.

John Rogers: Well that's the- Jim Scoura, her husband, the UPM, plays of course the assassin in the finale, in the summer finale.

Michael Colton: It's a double assassin household.

John Rogers: In our heads actually they are married in the Leverage verse; they’re like the bad Mr and Ms Smith.

John Aboud: Neither one of them can actually complete a kill.

John Rogers: They just- but they work hard, they get a lot of-

Jonathan Frakes: Watch them roll down these lockers.

Chris Downey: Was Jim here for this sequence?

Jonathan Frakes: He avoided this scene.

John Rogers: Interesting.

John Aboud: Stayed in the office.

Michael Colton: Stayed with the kids this day.

John Rogers: Having your improbably hot wife all over a good looking actor is just-

John Aboud: Why improbable? Why improbably hot?

Jonathan Frakes: Watch this, watch Tim with these- is this where he does the-

Michael Colton: That’s coming up.

Chris Downey: Oh man.

Jonathan Frakes: The stuff with the-

Aldis Hodge: Did this in one take right? Just one take.

Chris Downey: Jeez she's devouring him. This is like an episode of V!

[Laughter]

John Rogers: She’s gonna unhinge her jaw any second now.

John Aboud: And here we go.

Jonathan Frakes: Oof what a surprise that she'd have it there.

John Rogers: It's a warm key.

Jonathan Frakes: Look at Tim! Look at Tim working those props!

John Aboud: Battling the brooms.

Chris Downey: Nothing like-

John Aboud: And then he stands back up.

John Rogers: Come on the doors right there. 

Jonathan Frakes: Come on, come on. Tried and true.

John Rogers: ‘And now I'm gonna go kill a dude.’

Jonathan Frakes: Lucky for us, Beth is in the building.

John Rogers: Yep. This is a real broom closet, that's great. How did you have room to shoot in there?

Jonathan Frakes: Went for the big broom closet.

John Rogers: Ah there you go, as opposed to the little one. Also this is a recurring bit: how Parker will just dump food everywhere. It actually turns out to a plot point in the Rashomon episode.

Chris Downey: Apparently we can have food.

Michael Colton: We can if it's chicken wings. They had like three giant trays of chicken wings.

John Rogers: Ahh good spark welding effect. Thank you, thank you props and special effects, appreciate it.

Jonathan Frakes: This works great, actually.

John Rogers: Yes that was better than the lightsaber through the door in the Star Wars prequel.

[Laughter]

John Aboud: That’s a low bar sir.

John Rogers: Well it's still- it's a feature bar I'll take it.

John Aboud: Feature bar.

Michael Colton: ‘I’m for clean fun’. That's another button,

Chris Downey: Is that what it says?

John Aboud: That’s another one, another button.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: The one on the left is haunting me, I can't quite make out the one on the left.

Aldis Hodge: It says- wait.

Michael Colton: Can we enhance?

John Rogers: Stop and enhance, enhance, push in. 

Michael Colton: Push in.

John Rogers: And yeah,this was a lot of fun just zooming in on- cause lets face it, not a lot of women can edge Gina Bellman out of that situation.

Jonathan Frakes: I know, and throw wine on her!

John Rogers: Yep.

Chris Downey: And the fun of this was having them revert to their high school personas and being offended by the cheerleader muscling in on her. I mean right? I mean this is- that's what-

Michael Colton: It's called subtext.

John Aboud: Seeing Sophie confront a mean girl.

Chris Downey: Yes.

John Rogers: Yes. It's great everyone had- everyone had their thematic little hook in this. One of the reasons we originally were attracted to the idea, even a year earlier, was because high school is that period where just the shell isn't on yet.

Chris Downey: And a high school reunion-

Jonathan Frakes: Had you done this before where the con men get conned in the middle of their con?

John Rogers: We play around with it, but rarely in this particular thing. Rarely this particular style.

Chris Downey: You mean an assassin showing up late in the episode?

Jonathan Frakes: No, no, no, I mean two con- our con and another con trying to duke it.

Chris Downey: Oh right.

John Rogers: Intersecting? Two Live Crew kinda.

Chris Downey: Well Order 23 we had a guy pretending to be a Marshall and he was an assassin.

John Rogers: Yeah but not a- those are the crucial- the crucials of surveillance photos.

Jonathan Frakes: Oh, she's on Interpol!

John Rogers: You need a half turn, you need a glasses-

Chris Downey: By the way you never see somebody eating spaghetti in surveillance photos.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Well what are the odds that when you see that person they'll be eating spaghetti? You really don't want that on the wanted photo. That you can't recognize a killer without the spaghetti. You want a spaghetti free context.

John Aboud: ‘Here, eat this.’

John Rogers: ‘Oh, you're that person!’

John Aboud: ‘We've got our man!’

Jonathan Frakes: Mission Impossible.

John Rogers: Yeah great little three way walk, nice.

Jonathan Frakes: Boom. ‘You go this way I'll take this way’. Taking a long time to get through that door.

Chris Downey: Really is. It's a really thick door.

John Aboud: Very secure door.

Michael Colton: They stopped for a break.

Jonathan Frakes: Thick door they established that early.

John Rogers: This, by the way- this is great. Not a lot of guys could land this joke. ‘The health inspector?’

Michael Colton: Was that in the script or was that?

Jonathan Frakes: That was on the day.

John Rogers: That was on the day, that was an improv, right?

Michael Colton: Yeah, Chris did a lot of improv in this scene. Entire fight was improvised.

John Rogers: And that was fun, too, is coming up with the- I remember ‘ok what’s- what’s from the 80s you can hit people with?’

Chris Downey: Oh that's great.

John Rogers: This is a great fight.

John Aboud: First take on that smash.

Chris Downey: Oh that's great.

Michael Colton: Oh I know, ‘they give trophies for chess’ was Christian’s.

John Rogers: That's right.

Chris Downey: Yeah.

[Silence]

John Rogers: Sorry mouthful of Irish whiskey.

[Laughter]

Chris Downey: Yeah this is a great fight oh and the bowling trophy.

John Rogers: The bowling for chess. 

Jonathan Frakes: There’s no prop he doesn't flip!

[Laughter]

Aldis Hodge: He flips everything.

Jonathan Frakes: Am I right?

Chris Downey: Or twirl.

Aldis Hodge: He’ll flip a table.

Jonathan Frakes: Never found a prop he couldn't twirl.

John Rogers: And that's interesting, because on the big screen, you cut from the dude sort of cracking his neck behind Christian, and it's a slam cut into two people kissing. For a second I'm like ‘what the hell? Wait what the hell is going on here? Oh alright.’

Jonathan Frakes: Here's something we've all looked forward to. The fox fight in the girls dressing room.

Michael Colton: Well that- when we were writing the high school show and we came up with this character we knew we had to have a girl fight in the locker room.

John Aboud: And where was that silencer?

Jonathan Frakes: Gina resisted, and then ended up saying, ‘When can I do this again?’

John Rogers: She loves fighting, you see.

Chris Downey: She does.

John Rogers: You're always worried you're going to get hurt fighting, but the stunt people know what the hell they're doing, everyone’s super safe and you wind up just having fun. And also that was a big thing, you know Sophie’s character is not a killer, she has to cheat.

Chris Downey: Oh and the shoes!

John Rogers: The shoes come off.

Jonathan Frakes: Now it's real. Boom.

[Laughter]

Chris Downey: And there's another locked off comedy frame!

John Rogers: And then the cross.

Jonathan Frakes: Locked off comedy!

John Rogers: The cross cutting between the two fights was a lot of fun. And yeah, she could probably take her if she didn't have the fire extinguisher. It- Kari’s frustration in ‘what the hell are you talking about’ here is hilarious, actually.

Jonathan Frakes: These stunt doubles are quite good, this is intercut nicely.

John Rogers: Yup it is. And- 

Chris Downey: Oh and she uses a gun, look at that.

Jonathan Frakes: Yeah, look at that.

Michael Colton: Yeah, but she missed.

John Rogers: Yeah that's the problem, silencers are really useless anywhere over 10 feet. She should've unscrewed it but by then she'd be gone. 

Jonathan Frakes: Woah, woah, woah. 

John Rogers: And this is a great- actually of the early episodes this season this was one of my sort of favorite sort of character twists is that Drake actually has an arc. 

John Aboud: Right.

John Rogers: You know no person is without redemption, including Drake. Oh yeah.

Aldis Hodge: And the taser!

John Rogers: And the taser. Again, crucial for the finale for us to plant it that soon.

John Aboud: Her weapon of choice for the season.

John Rogers: Yeah catering. We originally had her lowering from the ceiling, and then that was just crazy. Used the taser. Oh the hug, that's nice.

Jonathan Frakes: Oof.

John Rogers: Oh the- and then the double turn this, is this is dense. This one’s actually got a lot going on in this act.

Michael Colton: I have no idea what's happening now.

[Laughter]

John Aboud: Truly lost.

John Rogers: Is this the fourth act? This is the fourth act

John Aboud: I think we're in act nine.

John Rogers: Yeah this is the fourth action act, and there's an awful lot of story going on here.

Chris Downey: Oh here we go. 

John Rogers: And what I kinda like here is where Arye Gross is playing not just angry, but hurt.

Michael Colton: Yeah.

John Rogers: It's like ‘I thought all my high school dreams had come true and now you're lying to me.’

Michael Colton: He's great in this. 

John Rogers: Genuinely never- can't go wrong with a shot down the gun.

Jonathan Frakes: Nope. Reliable.

John Rogers: Gonna react to it? Nope, just go to the reverse.

Jonathan Frakes: Go out number one.

Michael Colton: Bang.

Aldis Hodge: Commercial, people.

John Rogers: Remember, a guy pulling a gun for the act break is always better than a guy leaving with a gun. And now we do- what's sad is this was the plan. That's- when you think about it this is the most convoluted possible way to get this information in this guy’s head. I don't mean sad in a bad way, I mean this guy really just has no chance whatsoever. And yeah the mixture of like ‘I’m a villain’ and- this may be the saddest villain we’ve ever had.

Michael Colton: Well I was watching this with my sister, who said- this scene happened, she's like ‘oh I feel bad for him’ then he has a line about ‘cause you brutally beat the Iranian’ then she's like ‘oh now I don’t feel bad for him.’ It was the perfect-

Chris Downey: You're like, ‘Ooh I'm glad I put that in there.’

John Rogers: It's a little- it is sometimes a little funny that you know you realize television very much leads you through the emotions of the show. So it’s- you sorta feel like an idiot resetting the emotions as a writer but it’s important. You know you're in a contract with the viewer.

Jonathan Frakes: Well we’ve been in the school for two acts. 

John Rogers: Yeah.

Jonathan Frakes: Absolutely true. And the hacker getting hacked we've forgotten about that.

John Rogers: Yeah 42 minutes is- what is it, average American attention span is like 10 minutes? Which is why act length is probably just about right.

John Aboud: ‘Nice try fake Drake’.

Chris Downey: Fake Drake.

John Aboud: And he pointed out that that sounded a little like a Batman villain.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Fake Drake.

John Aboud: ‘Very well Fake Drake.’

John Rogers: The- and again, these are people- these are professional spies. These are people who are hired to take care of people like Eliot.

Aldis Hodge: So it's okay for them to get hurt.

John Rogers: So it's okay for them to get beat up.

John Aboud: For his arm to bend that way.

Aldis Hodge: Yeah we don't feel bad for him, no.

John Rogers: I love the ASCII art there. 

John Aboud: Yep, yep.

John Rogers: I love that he would go to the effort of making an ASCII manticore. Cause that's not easy. And you can't have an intern do that cause it's your secret logo.

Chris Downey: Yeah.

John Aboud: I think that probably took Derek all of five seconds. And then it even animates! It even animates when it dies.

John Rogers: x o x o x o yeah. Again, he would've had to do that. So at some point Arye Gross' character had to have gone, ‘What if somebody hacks this? I should put a death animation in just in case.’

Chris Downey: Yeah well you want to know that it's gone.

John Rogers: Yeah exactly. Made unaware.

Jonathan Frakes: This is the fifth Beatle, played strong in this show.

John Rogers: Yeah Derek Frederickson. And of course manticore based on various intercept methods that you can use. And that's kinda tricky is social media is both a tool of insurrection and makes you vulnerable. As soon as you network with other people it's a weakness.

John Aboud: We talked about Carnivore I think wasn’t that the-

John Rogers: Yes, that was the FBI one.

John Aboud: Was the decryption.

Chris Downey: Now how long did it take to ‘Badger 85’? ‘Cause you had to find ways to implant it.

Michael Colton: That- actually that was kind of fun because we had to figure out ways to use the word ‘badger’ or ‘85’.

John Aboud: For this.

Michael Colton: Yeah.

John Aboud: For this sequence.

Chris Downey: For the flashes.

Jonathan Frakes: There was a wonderful alliteration in this.

Chris Downey: ‘Five years’.

John Aboud: ‘Wasn't all bad-ger brain hold onto every detail’.

John Rogers: And there's the badger. You gotta remember that badger.

Aldis Hodge: AKA Beth.

Michael Colton: ‘I already ate, five months’.

John Rogers: I've had this dream so many times.

[Laughter]

Michael Colton: ‘You hacked me?’

John Rogers: And now the meltdown. We don't really give them a gloat here, we don't really give them a gloat.

John Aboud: He pre-gloats.

Aldis Hodge: With the Fred Flinstone run out.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: That’s a chess club run.

Chris Downey: He was in the chess club.

John Aboud: Schmitty.

Jonathan Frakes: Can’t believe we’re out of beer.

Chris Downey: ‘Out of beer!’

Jonathan Frakes: Never happened to Paul.

John Rogers: I don’t think that was a line, I think we just ran out of beer on set.

[Laughter]

John Rogers: Oh Larry Duberman, millionaire, the stress has gotten to him, he's melting down. I'll take him away.

Jonathan Frakes: Here's where we toyed with having our favorite FBI guys in this.

Chris Downey: We almost did but the scheduling didn't work. But we tried to have-

Michael Colton: Yep.

John Rogers: Again always the pain but real humans are attached to these roles. They don't wait around for us.

Chris Downey: Taggert and McSweeten.

John Aboud: Doucherman!

Aldis Hodge: Doucherman.

John Aboud: So disappointed.

Chris Downey: Gave him a nice shot there.

John Aboud: So disappointed.

Jonathan Frakes: He's a friend, he gets a good close up.

John Rogers: That's good.

Jonathan Frakes: And this- I love this end. I love this.

Michael Colton: This is what the show started with.

John Rogers: We held onto this end for two years.

Michael Colton: This was all we had.

John Aboud: This is the image from which the episode sprung.

Michael Colton: From whence it sprang.

John Aboud: Yep.

John Rogers: Like the head of Zeus.

Aldis Hodge: It's a red party cup.

[Laughter]

John Aboud: I love that shirt. I love that shirt. I do love that shirt.

Chris Downey: Is that what that is?

Aldis Hodge: Yup yup.

John Aboud: Red party cup.

Michael Colton: Which is a line-

Chris Downey: Oh I want that.

Jonathan Frakes: And he gives it up to. This actor gives it up again.

John Rogers: Yeah, well didn't we put cayenne pepper in his eyes?

Jonathan Frakes: No we did not.

John Rogers: Oh we don't do that anymore? Alright. No he was-

Aldis Hodge: It's how we motivate our actors. They go hard.

John Rogers: Absolutely fantastic work. 

John Aboud: I made him cry.

Aldis Hodge: It’s cause you called him fat right before you shot it.

John Rogers: That's a big part of the show by the way, the victim isn't just pathetic.

John Aboud: It was the insults that did it.

John Rogers: That was a spinoff, too, we talked about - Mandy and Schmitty.

John Aboud: Mandy/Schmitty.

John Rogers: Unwittingly getting involved in cons.

Michael Colton: Schmitheads.

Jonathan Frakes: Mandy was thrilled to get to play a girl with big boobs cause she had just had a baby, so she never had boobs like this before. So she was thrilled to be asked-

Chris Downey: I'm sure she can enjoy hearing that on this.

[Laughter]

Jonathan Frakes: Lana[?] told me this for sure.

Michael Colton: They look wonderful.

John Rogers: The- and this was fun. The whole idea that they were so convincing at the con and so charming-

Jonathan Frakes: Yeah that they become-

John Rogers: You could've done an entire subplot like that. 

Chris Downey: Oh look at that.

John Rogers: I think that's you  know that's a good day for Schmitty, he really lost track of his friends, and he's just happy to know Drake’s doing okay.

Jonathan Frakes: And you can't miss the beer bowl, John Hughes. Thank you very much.

John Rogers: No he- and this is Joe LoDuca giving us- and we originally wanted words and then he gave us the melody as a sample before he put the words on and realized we don't want words.

Chris Downey: No, yeah, that's perfect.

John Rogers: This is perfect. This sounds exactly like an 80s tune.

Aldis Hodge: Now which one of your guys' high school dreams is this, here?

John Rogers: Dancing with Gina Bellman?

Michael Colton: Dancing with Tim Hutton?

[Laughter]

Aldis Hodge: Becoming prom king after like 85 years.

Jonathan Frakes: I love the callback to these two characters, in these costumes, in this place. I think this is lovely, actually.

Michael Colton: Magical.

John Rogers: This is fantastic. This is one of my favorite endings. It really is.

Aldis Hodge: Bit of redemption for what they’ve gone through.

Jonathan Frakes: No, but it’s in front of all these people. Their pasts-

John Rogers: Yeah, and she's not gonna tell him the name, but she's-

Chris Downey: And high school reunions like we said are full of, like, emotion. I mean it's just that’s what's- it kinda takes you back so it’s-

John Aboud: Well and of course what we liked was that Parker never experienced this stuff. So to her it's an alien world and by the end-

Chris Downey: And here's the shot.

John Aboud: This is it.

Jonathan Frakes: Well the metaphor of her feet being off the ground. Here we go bring it on.

Aldis Hodge: Yup.

Michael Colton: Oh yeah.

John Rogers: Yeah, just never actually touching the ground.

Aldis Hodge: I'm just that strong, I'm holding her up.

[Laughter]

Chris Downey: That is great.

Aldis Hodge: Oh yeah.

Chris Downey: And of course look! The one who- the one guy who didn't get to have any fun.

Jonathan Frakes: ‘I don't get to go.’

John Rogers: ‘Did anybody ask if Eliot's okay? Is Eliot alive?’

Jonathan Frakes: Sorry buddy.

John Rogers: Pissed off Christian is a funny Christian. And then pan up and then find both of them. Oh I love this shot.

Jonathan Frakes: Excellent use of the crane.

John Rogers: This is kind of the whole reason to do- yeah. And-

John Aboud: Fan favorite, gonna call it.

John Rogers: Fan favorite, yep.

Chris Downey: Yeah.

John Aboud: Calling it yeah.

Chris Downey: Both of your episodes guys have endings of real-

Michael Colton: The rest of them are shit, but the endings really land.

Chris Downey: But I'm saying-

Michael Colton: Stick the landing.

John Rogers: Gotta hold on for the ending of Colton and Aboud episode.

Chris Downey: I’m trying to pay you a compliment!

Jonathan Frakes: Makes you wanna put in another DVD doesn't it?

John Rogers: Yes, yes, you should go-

Jonathan Frakes: Let’s watch another episode!

John Rogers: You should go watch another episode right now.

Jonathan Frakes: Go run to the fridge, get some stuff, put another one in.

John Rogers: Get some stuff. If you're pantless that's cool we’re pantless.

Michael Colton: You’re saying for douchbags to go hard.

Aldis Hodge: If Hardison-

Michael Colton: We wrote two endings-

John Aboud: Fake it- we fake it well.

Michael Colton: That are actually heartwarming.

Chris Downey: Very heartwarming.

John Rogers: Well you were given one of them.

[Laughter]

Jonathan Frakes: Thanks for watching.

Aldis Hodge: Peace people.

[pilvimarja]

You got any little mudane Daniel hcs you want to share with us? 🥺

Mundane headcanons, eh? 😊 Some of these are probably pretty common in the fandom, but let's see.

I think adult Daniel makes an effort to hide his accent, especially at the country club, but it gets more pronounced when he's with his family or when he's really excited or upset. Like I love how it pops out in that scene in season 2 or 3 where he's shocked to find Kreese at Miyagi-do and says something like "this is what it's come to? Breaking and entering?"

I like to think that Ali taught Daniel how to kiss. Because it looked like he was pretty bad at it when they started dating 😅 But the kiss with Kumiko the following summer was much better!

He's into show tunes! And he's always enjoyed watching musicals with Lucille.

Teenage Daniel didn't really care what he looked like when he left the house, but adult Daniel has a proper skincare routine. I don't know how big the age gap between him and Amanda is on the show, but if it's as big as Ralph and Courtney's, Daniel probably feels some pressure to look good for his hot, younger wife. Which is why he also dyes his grays, though Amanda (and Johnny) wishes he didn't.

He's not fluent in Italian, but he uses random Italian words in his everyday speech, especially when he's swearing 🤬 or trying to be charming 😏 Lol Johnny's probably on the receiving end of many angry Italian rants!

He's great in the kitchen and he's got several notebooks full of his Nonna's old recipes that have been in the family for generations and you do not share them with anyone whose name isn't LaRusso!

He's a big mama's boy which is very sweet, but sometimes it causes small rifts between him and Amanda, because both she and Lucille are strong-willed women who clash from time to time (though they always make up) and Daniel is reluctant to get involved and take sides.

His old knee injury keeps him from demonstrating certain moves when he's teaching the kids, and his knee gets a little stiff and achey when it's rainy.

I headcanon that Lucille moved back to the east coast and that's also where most of the LaRusso family lives, but Daniel likes to host them on big holidays like the 4th of July and Christmas, because he wants to share his good fortune with his family.

I think Mr. Miyagi's death hit Daniel really hard. He barely remembers the funeral and struggled to get out of bed for weeks, and I don't think he *really* dealt with the loss of his mentor/father figure and his grief until his trip to Okinawa in season 3. Reuniting with Kumiko and having her read those letters to him finally gave him some closure.

As outgoing as he is, Daniel never had another close friend like Mr. Miyagi. (Though he's obviously got Amanda) None of the people he meets at the country club know the real Daniel and even though he's friendly with all the people who work for him, he's also their boss. So I like to think that once they get through all the bullshit and trauma of their youth, Johnny is going to become Daniel's new best friend (and obviously something more if it's a Lawrusso scenario). Because Ali was right, they're more alike than they realize 😊

[walkerwords]

“The Savior Sessions” Part 21 of 33 - Negan x GN!Reader

IMAGE CREDIT: AMC/SKYBOUND

SERIES MASTERLIST

Summary: The months after the blizzard were full of bliss, but now the reader needs to get back to work. What happens when Judith finds a mask belonging to one of Alpha’s people? What does this mean to the survivors? How is the relationship going with Negan?

Word Count: 5512

Warning: Swearing, Fighting

Song I Wrote To: “Battlecry” by Jordan Mackampa

Note: So yes, there is the time jump in this! However, throughout the next chapters, I will reference some flashbacks from both Negan and the MC’s POVs. Remember from now until the end, we are changing a bit from season 10, but there will be some of the bigger moments present. With the new episodes coming up, I just want to make it clear that this story will finish with “Certain Doom” I have no plans to continue the plot into Season 10C or Season 11. ALL ASL IN ITALICS

————

Winter wasn't easy.

Food stores were low and with the Kingdom out of commission and the forests barren, it was a harsh few months. The snow came in waves, blanketing the ground with fresh white powder only to be turned to slush and ice with the rain the next day.

At least there was one good thing to come out of it.

Negan was out of his cell when it got to be too much on certain nights.

Whenever a particularly cold front came through, he was granted permission to stay at your place for the night as long as you returned him to his jail in the morning. Provided that extra blankets and warm food were supplied, you agreed to the terms.

Those cold nights became the very thing that held you together. Negan has been right, body heat was incredibly beneficial. Every waking moment of the day, Negan was on your mind. His hands, his body, that damn smile of his too. However, while you enjoyed the sex and the feeling of him asleep beside you, you were in love with the conversation just as much.

You also began to learn more about his life before the Apocalypse. His life as a gym teacher, his love of vintage t-shirts, and even some things about Lucille as well. Never did you bring her up on your own, but you also never shot him down when he did either. Just as he never told you to not talk about Sasha.

Sasha became a regular topic when you began talking about the past. You missed her so much and all you wanted was to keep her memory alive. Talking about her to Negan helped with that. He would then tell you about his time with the Saviors and how he actually liked a lot of the people who he worked with.

Simon was an asshole, but Negan admitted that he was one of the smartest men he had ever met. Dwight was a nightmare at times, but still, Negan oddly admired his heart.

You weren’t surprised to learn some of this, but you were shocked to learn just how protective and jealous he could be when he wanted to.

Daryl had finally moved back into Alexandria with Lydia, Daryl moving into the Grimes’ basement, and Lydia into your guestroom. You would spend as much time with Daryl as possible whether it was for personal reasons or because you were still on edge about the Whisperers.

This didn’t go unnoticed by Negan who was starting to get suspicious. He even asked you if you and Daryl had once been involved.

“You’re joking, right?” you asked when he had brought up the subject one day as he was helping with repairs to one of the walls.

“Is that such an odd question to ask?”

“Kind of,” you said. “Negan, Daryl is like a brother to me. We’ve never...absolutely not.”

“I just find it hard to believe that you never found yourself being with anyone since this whole shit show started.”

“Didn’t have much of a chance,” you had said. “As I have said before, I’m better off alone.”

“Yeah, well don’t expect me to leave you alone any time soon, alright?” Negan had said as he finished his job. You had nodded, but something was telling you that he couldn’t keep that promise, nobody could keep promises anymore.

Your injury had fully healed just as Negan said it would, but it left an angry scar that still stung on the colder days. It wasn’t pretty, but none of your scars were, they were just part of the new world and you had to get used to them.

You were trying to stay positive as the months went by. Rosita eventually had her daughter, Judith became a stronger fighter, and you were starting to get nervous.

Everything was too calm.

It seemed that the Whisperers had gone underground for the harsher months of winter. However, like all predatory species. They would soon be returning to their hunting grounds, you were sure of it.

Domestic life was starting to be too much. Your nightmares were getting worse and on the nights that Negan lay beside you, he would wake you with a hard shake in order to be able to snap you out of sleep. You would never tell him what plagued your dreams and he never asked, but you knew he wanted to.

You also knew that he wanted to move forward with you and start thinking about a future together. However, you also knew that if that were to happen, you would need to leave Alexandria. Nobody, no matter what he did, would accept Negan as part of the family and you didn’t blame them.

Still, you wanted to be able to hold his hand as you walked through the streets and kiss him in the rain, but he was still Negan and while you got to play normal on certain nights, the cell was still his home.

It was months after the blizzard that you began planning. You began to stash bags in your house. They were filled with canteens, extra clothes, extra gauze, and when you were able to get it, non-perishables. After so many years of feeling as if you had put down roots, you were slipping back into survival mode because if you had to, you were ready to leave with him.

You loved your family, but you couldn’t live without Negan. Not anymore and not after Alpha had taken so much away from everyone. You thought back to what you had told Daryl that night when he came to visit you in the infirmary after the blizzard. You had told him that you would fight for your family even if it meant betraying Negan.

Now, you knew that wasn’t true. Negan was your life now and nothing was going to make you stop fighting for him.

And while you wanted to spend every moment with Negan, everyone knew war was imminent. Even though Alpha, Beta, and their people had gone quiet, you and everyone else knew they were still out there and so, you began to prepare.

Coco, Rosita’s daughter was just a few months old when Daryl interrupted your babysitting duties to tell you that he had spoken to Cyndie and Rachel. It was time to get ready to fight their enemies.

When Daryl announced that he would be taking people to Oceanside to prepare and learn to fight in formations with new weapons and with new strategies, there were immediate volunteers. Siddiq, Eugene, and Ro were going to be staying behind with Gabriel, but Judith and RJ would be going with their mother just as Aaron would be going as well.

You didn’t get much of a choice. You had to go as you were second in command when it came to security. You were also going because Michonne wanted time to continue the training you had been doing with her, honing your skills with your sword.

Negan wasn’t thrilled when he found out you would be leaving, but you promised him that it wouldn’t be for long and that it was necessary. You spent the night before leaving in the cell with him, curled into his side as he lulled you to sleep. You told him you would be coming back soon and asked if he could look out for Lydia when he could.

You immediately pulled Lydia under your wing. You trained her, using the new staff Alden had made for her. It was much like the one Henry once used. You taught her how to hunt and track while she helped you move around the Dead as if you were invisible. Being able to learn from one another solidified your bond quickly.

Lydia was a naturally curious young woman who wanted to hear stories about everything. You told her everything from the farm to meeting Jadis’ people for the first time. When she asked how you met Negan, you had told her one night in the quiet of your living room. Lydia had been patient the entire time as she listened.

When you were finished, she had exhaled deeply and then reached over and took your hand in hers. “I guess we both care about people capable of horrific things,” she had said and that line had stuck with you. It replayed in your head even now as you stood behind a barricade on a white sand beach, prepared to fight.

—————

Every inch of your body was coiled to a spring as your sword weighed heavily in your hand.

Aaron led the charge, he and Alden using the metal shields to stay in formation as they moved towards the old boat. Judith struck a waterlogged Walker that tried to drag itself up onto the shore. Returning to her position between you and Michonne, her wakizashi poised for battle.

Ezekiel and Jerry pulled open the door of the ship and the Dead spilled from the rusted wreckage. Walkers weren’t as sophisticated as Whisperers, but they did act as great decoys and practice for fighting the enemy.

Daryl walked along the edges of the main battle, observing and making adjustments when needed. The archers were behind, ready to fire when ordered and then, there was your group. You, Michonne, Judith, Ezekiel, Magna, and others kept your weapons raised, ready to strike.

For months, you and Michonne practiced whenever you could. She taught you different ways to hold your blade, how to use it to block, and most importantly, how to kill. Walkers were easy, but you had yet to fight an actual armed enemy.

While you wouldn’t give him a weapon, you were practicing your fight skills with Negan whenever he was in your home at night. This was more for his benefit than yours, but the two of you would take turns in practicing hand-to-hand.

Lydia would watch on with curiosity as you and Negan exchanged punches and holds. Negan would then give her tips on how to move with her weapon, how to keep balanced, and even where to strike on both Living and Dead threats.

That training came in handy now as you and Michonne moved forward, swinging your swords. The sun glinted off the metal as you fought back to back, taking the Walkers down by removing their heads from their shoulders.

Daryl joined the fight as soon as the Walkers began to overwhelm the fighters. His dual knives cut through the Walkers easily. You were so used to seeing Daryl fight long-distance with his bow just as you once excelled at with your rifle, but this was a whole new Daryl.

There was zero hesitation in his strikes and you had to keep focused on your task so you didn’t get too distracted. Moving to cover Michonne, you slashed out at a pair of Walkers who were moving in on Kelly. With a single strike, their rotting heads rolled from their bodies.

A sharp sound came from behind you as Daryl shoved a knife into a Walker’s head that tried to grab you. You didn’t have time to thank him before Alden’s spear soared over your head and you ducked. The weapon found its target and you kept moving.

Taking out the remainder of the Walkers took some time, but between every fighter on that beach, you dispatched them cleanly and without incident. The final Walker that stumbled on the beach approached you and with a hard swing, you cut its head into two, your blade sliding right down the center of its skull.

With a hard pull, you removed the sword with a huff. As the body fell to the ground, you rested your blood-soaked blade on your shoulder, trying to relieve the fatigue that plagued your biceps.

Daryl, who was standing just a few feet away, watched as your weapon lay against your shoulder and it was oddly familiar. He watched as you dropped it back down to your side, but he saw it. It was hard not to. It was as if you were holding Lucille and not Jesus’ sword.

There were still a few left inside so you jogged up to help Ezekiel clear them out as Aaron began calling out orders. Once you finished working through the remaining Dead, Ezekiel let out a tired breath.

“Nicely done,” he said and then offered his hand for a high five. You obliged and tapped your palm to his.

“You too,” you said as you scraped the blood off your sword. You then noticed that he was looking at you with a tilted head. “What? Do I have Walker blood on my face?” you asked, worried.

“No, I just noticed something,” he said.

“What’s that?” you asked.

“You seem happy,” Ezekiel said.

“I am,” you said. “I didn’t think I would be able to feel this way after what happened at the fair, but all I feel is this underlying aura of happiness.”

“Are you worried that that is a bad thing?”

“I feel almost guilty to feel happiness after everything that happened. It almost feels inappropriate to feel any sense of joy, you know?”

“I do know,” he said sadly and then you immediately felt horrible.

“Your Majesty, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” you trailed off when he raised his hand.

“One, you don’t need to address me with that title,” he said. “And two, it’s okay. I miss him every day, but I can also understand that he would want me to smile on occasion.”

“Henry was a good boy,” you said, reaching out to grip his hand. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” he said, squeezing back. “I also know that many people aren’t happy with whom you’ve chosen to love.”

“Ezekiel…” you began, but he was already speaking.

“I don’t care,” he said. “I do not care who he is. I have just missed your smile. If Negan is who it takes for you to get that light back in your eyes, so be it. I think we have all missed that even if you haven’t realized it. I know what he’s done, but I know that you also know as well.”

“I do, but I can’t help but love him.”

“And that’s okay. It’s...unorthodox, but it’s okay. The heart wants what the heart wants, (Y/N).” You didn’t hesitate to reach out and hug the man before you. If that was the way that he thought then perhaps there would be more hope for those who disagreed with your new connection with the former enemy. However, there was also the realization that many would begin to shun you just because of your relationship with Negan.

In that rust-filled ship hold, you smiled at the king who had just lost his kingdom and realized that perhaps he understood at least that part of Negan’s past. As Negan once said, he knew what it felt like to lose a kingdom.

————

On your way back to the main area of Oceanside, you ran into Luke.

“Call on line two,” he joked as he handed you the radio. You immediately knew what he meant and with a roll of your eyes, you took the walkie from him and began walking away from the masses.

“What do I owe this pleasure?” you asked.

“I have to admit,” Negan said on the other line, “I feel like a teenager sneaking into the basement to call his secret love.”

“Some things never change then,” you said with a laugh as you found a boulder to sit on as you watched the waves crash against the shore.

“No, they do not,” he said and you could tell he was smiling. That thought sent a jolt into your chest.

“What did you do to get this privilege?”

“I may have paid off this kid, Brandon,” Negan said.

“With what? Tomatoes?” you asked, amused.

“Nope, just a little life advice and maybe some instructions on how to make moonshine,” he said smugly.

“Hilarious,” you deadpanned.

“You love it,” he teased.

“Mmhmm,” you said.

“Tell me about your day,” Negan said.

“We’ve been working on battle formations,” you said. “Daryl thinks that we need a stronger defense.”

“What do you think?” Negan asked.

“I think that someone needs to find me a gun so I can take Alpha out,” you admitted.

“Easy, Darlin’,” Negan said.

“Why? Why can’t I want the bitch dead?”

“Oh, you definitely can. I just think that perhaps you may wanna think it through before going all Terminator.”

“In order to do that, I’d need a gun and we are out of bullets,” you said and then your hand found its way around your neck where the old shell casing Daryl had given you hung on a chain.

“I wish I could help,” he said and then you sighed, leaning back on the boulder.

“You are helping,” you said. “You’re keeping me sane.”

“That’s a first. Especially cause I specifically remember you telling me that I drive you crazy. I think you were on top that time.”

“Wow, you are such a romantic,” you said, but you were smiling nonetheless.

“I am the best at romance, trust me.”

“Always do,” you said without hesitation.

“God, I fucking miss you,” he said.

“I miss you, too,” you said as you watched Aaron take down another water-logged Walker.

“What else is going on?” Negan asked.

“Carol is comin’ back today,” you said, turning your gaze to the horizon.

“I’m sure Daryl is thrilled about that,” he said.

“What do you mean?” you asked.

“Ah, come on, don’t tell me you haven’t noticed those two? I clocked it the first time I saw them together.”

“There’s nothing going on between Daryl and Carol,” you said with a dismissive scoff.

“Right, and I’m the damn Pope,” Negan said.

“No, you’re not. The hat wouldn’t look good on you,” you argued.

“Uh, I look good in everything, (Y/N). Don’t lie to yourself.”

“This is true,” you agreed, trying not to smile.

“Speaking of,” Negan said. “What are you wearing?”

“And we are changing the subject now,” you said.

“Buzzkill,” he countered.

“Perv,” you shot back.

“Oh, shut up, you know you love me.”

“Lord help me, but I do,” you said, smiling to yourself.

“Knew it,” he said. You smiled, but then turned the conversation onto something else.

“How’s Lydia?” you asked, worried about the teen.

“She seems okay,” Negan said. “I talked to her this morning. She misses you,” he said.

“Yeah, I miss her, too,” you said. “I’ll be home soon, though. Is anyone messin’ with her?” you asked, concerned she was going to be met with the negativity that should only be reserved for her mother and her former family.

“Just the odd dirty look behind her back so far,” Negan assured you. “Nothin’ she can’t handle.”

“You don’t know that,” you said. “She hasn’t had to be around people beside Whisperers. Let alone people her own age.”

“Well, she’s got you now, so I know she’s gonna be okay,” Negan said gently and you let out a breath, letting his words soothe you.

“Just please keep an eye on her when you can please,” you asked him.

“Don’t worry, I got her,” he promised. You were relishing in the sound of his voice when you realized that you needed to get going. You were then wishing for a time machine to go back to when unlimited minutes were available on cell phones. “What are you thinkin’?” he asked.

“That I should get goin’,” you said with a sigh. “I know Luke wanted me to help him set up dinner with Jules.”

“Who’s Luke again?” he asked.

“Uh, the violin guy. New group,” you explained.

“Right…” Negan trailed off.

“What?” you asked.

“Nothin’, just… Is he keepin’ his hands to himself?” Negan asked and you couldn’t stop the grin that spread across your face. So, instead of calming his nerves, you decided to have some fun.

“Nope, he is definitely not,” you said nonchalantly. “In fact, we’ve already had a steamy make-out session and Cyndie has agreed to marry us at sunset. Daryl is giving me away and Jude is gonna be the flower girl. I think it will be a wonderful ceremony. I’ll send you a piece of cake.”

Negan was quiet for a moment and you figured he was either rolling his eyes or staring off in the distance as he sighed deeply. Eventually, he pressed the talk button and said, “You really need to work on your sense of humor.”

“And you need to get back to work before Brandon realizes that you don't actually know how to make moonshine,” you said.

“Fine,” he sighed. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“See you soon.”

“I love you,” he said softer and you leaned your head against the radio.

“I love you, too,” you whispered back, and then, static returned to the channel.

You let the radio rest in your hand for a moment as you thought of him. Being together for all those months without any break was almost like living a different life and now it felt alien to be away from him.

Hopping off the boulder, you began to head back to find Luke. “Who was that?” Jumping at the voice, you turned to see Connie and Kelly behind you. 

“Jesus Christ,” you swore, signing as you did. Connie snorted. 

“Nope, just me,” Connie signed and you couldn’t help but laugh. 

“Well, who was that?” Kelly asked. 

“Nobody,” you said with a shrug, but after knowing the sisters for a while now, you knew they saw right through your bullshit. 

“Right,” signed Connie. With a sigh you relented.

“It was my boyfriend,” you explained. Connie and Kelly both raised their brows at that. 

“Why do I feel like that wasn’t a positive reaction?” Kelly signed to her sister. 

“Because,” Connie began, “they are with Negan.”

“Who’s Negan?” Kelly asked you and then you told your story. Connie had to remind you of a few signs such as “baseball bat” and “murderous widow”. You managed to finish without straying from the main train of thought and when you did, Kelly whistled low. “Shit,” she said. 

“Tell me about it,” you said. 

--------

After helping Luke and Jules set up the fire pit, you went in search of Aaron, but you found Daryl and Carol first. 

“Look who’s back,” you said as you approached Carol. She reached out to hug you tightly.

“Good to see you,” Carol said. 

“You too,” you said with a smile and then tapped your fist against Daryl’s. It was then that Negan’s comment came back to you. You couldn’t help but try to see what he was seeing when he looked at the duo. Perhaps he was right after all. 

“What?” Daryl asked

“Nothing,” you said quickly, but he was still looking at you with narrowed eyes through his messy hair. 

“Right,” he said. “We were just talkin’ about Maggie.”

“Anyone heard from her lately?” you asked as you began to walk beside them. 

“Not yet,” Daryl said. “She has been checking in less and less lately.”

“Are you worried?” you asked and then turned to Carol, “Is he worried?”

“He’s Daryl,” Carol said, causing the man on her left to roll his eyes. 

“I hate when the two of you are together,” he muttered and Carol hooked her arm in his, playful leaning her head on his shoulder.

He let her of course and you could just hear Negan saying, “I told you so, Teach,” in your mind. You hated when he was right. 

“You worried about her findin’ out about Negan?” Carol asked and you shot Daryl a look. 

“Yeah, I told her,” Daryl said. “You ain’t really making it a secret.” 

“Guess not,” you sighed. “I don’t know, Carol. I don’t really want to imagine what her reaction would be. The woman scares me enough.” 

“Ya weren’t that close,” Daryl said. 

“Close enough,” you said.

You and Maggie had an odd relationship. While you were close with both Glenn and Beth, you and Maggie were never particularly close enough to be considered good friends. You had each other’s backs and you cared for her, but you never really knew what she was thinking. 

“I think she’d hit you,” Carol said casually. 

“Thank you, Carol. Your support is incredible,” you quipped and she just gave you a wink. 

“Come on, we have bigger things to worry about, right?” Carol asked. 

“You got that right,” Michonne said as she jogged up to you three. She carried something in her hand and when she raised it, Carol froze at Daryl’s side. It was one of the Whisperer’s masks. “We need to talk.”

--------

“It washed downstream,” Rachel said as she looked at the mask on the table. You and the leaders were standing around one of the tables in the main meeting room trying to figure out what to do next. “It could have been from months ago.” 

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” said Michonne. 

“Thoughts?” Carol asked, looking at her friend. 

“It could be something, but it could be nothing.” 

“We’ve agreed to her damn borders,” Daryl said from his spot next to Cyndie. 

“Which we shouldn’t have done,” you added. 

“I agree,” said Carol. 

“And then what? She kills more of us?” Michonne said. “It’s not that simple and you know it.” Carol was quiet then, stewing in her own thoughts about the woman who murdered her son. 

“We need to tell Hilltop and Alexandria,” Enid pointed out. She and Alden had taken on roles of leadership along with Ezekiel at Hilltop. 

“I’ll go call Gabriel,” Daryl said as he grabbed the radio and left the room to contact Alexandria. You were staring at the mask before you and you remembered a moment from a few months ago...

It was the middle of the night and you were out walking the streets of Alexandria, trying to shake off your nightmares. The weather was better so Negan was back in his cell. You had begun to walk to him, only to be sidetracked by the sound of the windmill. You stood there in the dark, staring up at the moving blades and a feeling crept up your spine.

It was almost as if someone was watching you. Scanning the darkness, you only saw shapes that were slightly illuminated by the moonlight. Still, that feeling followed you as you continued to pace around the community. Eventually, you found yourself at the stables, stroking the horses to calm yourself. You had been able to not think about the Whisperers for moments at a time, but in the dark of night, you could only think about the way they moved and the way they whispered to one another. 

Looking down at that mask with its hollow eyes now made you feel sick. It was as if it was a message from Beta, telling you that he always knew where you were, where Lydia was. While Alpha scared you, Beta was who your nightmares were about. Alpha was smart, cunning, and ruthless, but Beta was her sword and Beta was going to be the one that struck first, you were sure of it. 

“(Y/N)?” Enid said, snapping you out of your memory. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” you said, not looking at her. “Excuse me,” you said before following Daryl out of the room and back into the fresh air of Oceanside. 

You didn’t look back as you kept moving towards the water, taking in deep breaths of the salty air. You tried to focus on the waves and how they crashed into one another on the shore, but it was hard to think of anything that didn’t send your heart into a panic.

Your hand gripped your sword at your side and you felt as if your fingers were about to break, but you tried to steady yourself.

It was just a mask.

Except, it wasn’t.

You felt a nudge at your back and turned to see Dog standing behind you. Connie was walking up behind him, giving you a friendly smile. You smiled back, scratching Dog behind his ears. 

“Are you okay?” she asked. 

“Fine,” you said. 

“I did not mean to call your boyfriend out like that earlier,” she said with a frown. You waved her off. 

“It’s okay, Connie,” you said. “He’s not a secret, at least I’m trying not to make him that.”

“He is lucky to have someone who cares for him that deep,” she signed. 

“Thanks,” you said, turning your eyes to the setting sun. Connie got your attention again as she began signing. 

“Are you going home?” she asked.

“I might have too,” you said with a sigh. “I don’t like Lydia being there alone.” 

“She is a good kid,” Connie said. “I can see that you care about her.” You nodded, agreeing with Connie’s statement. You also knew that Connie had a soft spot for the teenager as well. She had been with Daryl when they rescued Lydia and Henry from the Whisperer camp and brought them back to Alexandria and then the fair. You also knew that Connie felt guilty for what happened to Henry, you all did. 

“I’m not sure how that happened,” you said. “We just connected.”

“You know,” she continued, “you would be a great parent.”

“Easy there, Connie,” you said with raised brows. 

“Just saying,” she said with a shrug. It wasn’t as if you hadn’t thought about it before, becoming a parent. You knew that your friends had done it. Maggie, Rosita, Aaron, and of course Carol, but you never saw yourself in that light. At least not until you found Alexandria and began to take care of Judith when Rick was still around. He trusted you with both of his kids and then Aaron did as well with Gracie.

As a teacher, you loved teaching and taking care of kids, but after Elliot’s death, you shied away from the possibility of ever taking care of one of your own. However, now, with Negan in the picture, perhaps taking care of one wouldn't be that bad. Especially if it was Lydia. 

“Does he love you?” Connie asked after a moment. 

“He does,” you answered easily. “But it’s complicated.” Connie shook her head then. 

“There is a reason that the past stays behind us, (Y/N),” Connie said. 

“Not after what he did,” you said with a meaningful look. 

“Nobody is a saint. That was taken from all of us as soon as the first Dead began to walk.” Connie then reached out and took your hand, squeezing it tightly in her own. 

“You’re wise,” you said and Connie scoffed and then let go so she could use her hands again. 

“No, I just know how to see people in a different light,” she explained. 

“How?”

“I try to see them as people who make mistakes, and not mistakes masked as people,” she said and you smiled at that. 

“Thanks, Connie,” you said and you really meant it. 

“Anytime.”

-------

You were heading back towards the cabin that you were sharing with Daryl and his dog when you ran into Judith.

“Are you leaving?” she asked, concerned.

“Tomorrow,” you said, already having decided that you would ride for Alexandria the following morning. Judith frowned then, her attention on her boots. “What’s wrong?” you asked.

“I’m worried about Negan,” she admitted.

“Why?” you asked, kneeling down so you could see her better.

“People are angry,” she said with a sigh. Her hat was low as she tried to avoid your eyes. You reached out and pushed it off her head, taking her shoulders in your hands. She looked at you with those eyes that reminded you so much of Shane. Regardless of what that man did, he helped make an incredible kid and you saw him in her eyes every time.

“They’re mad at Alpha, not Negan,” you assured her, trying to soothe her nerves.

“I don’t think that matters,” she said, kicking at a loose seashell.

“I know,” you said, brushing a piece of hair off her shoulder. “It’ll be okay. I know you care about him.” Judith nodded and then moved forward to wrap her arms around your neck, resting her head against the junction between your neck and your shoulder.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“For what?” you asked, squeezing her back as she held you

“I like that you see him as a human being,” she said and you nearly cried at her words. You just held the little Grimes back.

“I always will,” you promised.

“No matter what?” she asked.

“Yeah, kid. No Matter what.”

Tags: 

@cameronsails @lucillethings @stark-dreams 

@amaroho​ @thanossexual​ @yes-sir-hotchner​ @boom-bunny​ @delusionalteenagewhispers​ @scootankle​ @ritajammer21​ @writteriguess​ @tea-atfive​ @jennydehavilland​ @waspyyy​ @yespleasejayhalstead​ @hoemadegrace​ @writingdeadangel​ @huffledor-able541​ @pulplorrd​ @felicisimor​ 

[snootsnoot-fiction]

One Minute

Pairing: Negan x Reader 

Word count: 1.5k

Warnings: Smut, daddy!kink, dom!negan, sub!reader, teasing, and a sprinkling of fluff just before the smut.

Requested: Can I request a one shot with Negan and reader, where the reader is sat on Negan's lap and grinding against him. Negan tells them to stop but they grin and act like they're doing nothing wrong so Negan grabs their hips and tells them they have a minute to cum and they can't touch themself. Whether or not they succeed I'll leave it up to you.

Author's note: First official fic for tumblr, pretty proud of it :) I had fun writing this purely just because of the enjoyment I get knowing how the smutty stuff affects certain people ;)

Summary: Negan has had a stressful day, and you decide to be a little naughty..

The apocalypse was as unexpected as any other extinction-level event. The only difference with this one was that it had failed. The surviving human race slowly but surely banded together, creating several communities throughout America at least. Negan was the leader of one of these communities. He was the leader of The Saviours. 

Negan had entered this new world in one of the worst ways imaginable. The loss he had suffered changed him, but perhaps for the better with what the world had become. He soon formed a group, led by him and his precious Lucille. A notion that eventually turned into a whole community that didn't dare disobey him. The Saviours took over other communities. Some of which suffered losses of their own after initially denying them.

The Saviours leader was never unreasonable. He had a desire to help keep the human race going. His men and women were not allowed to kill innocents lest they were prepared to face consequence. As he had said before, people were a resource. Children especially were off-limits. Despite his rough and cold nature, Negan did have morals, and in the long term, he was trying to help keep the human race from going extinct. 

Hilltop, The Kingdom, and the Garbage People were all under his thumb. The most recent addition was Alexandria. None of that was what mattered at this moment in time. In this mess of an apocalypse, he had found someone. Someone worth doing all this for on a personal level. It was little over a year ago now that Negan and some of his people were out for no other reason than the man had needed to let off a little steam after an especially stressful day. It wasn't long after he decided to separate from them that he stumbled across a figure lying in the darkness of the perfect little hiding spot. 

At first glance, he wouldn't have thought you were an adult - you were curled into a ball, making yourself look smaller than you actually were to begin with. Becoming aware of a new presence, you soon scrambled around to face him with almost wild eyes. Negan knew you couldn't have always lived like this, but you had long enough. Your hair was as wild as your eyes, you remained quiet for a fair while before finally speaking, and so dirty he could safely assume that anyone that would have known you wouldn't have recognised you. For the first time in a long time, he just wanted to help with nothing else in mind. There was just something about you. 

It took some time, but Negan eventually persuaded you to come with him. You figured there was nothing else to lose now. Whatever happened as a result of coming with this man, you knew it could only be beneficial for you. You didn't like suddenly being surrounded by other people, but with Negan next to you, nobody dared act against you. With the realisation of this, you came to feel safe in his presence. When you arrived at the Sanctuary, you were fed, cleaned, and soon back to good health. Though it took you a while to relax. Until then, you spent a lot of your time with the man that found you. 

After a particularly annoying visit to Alexandria, Negan came back to the Sanctuary feeling more than a little stressed, but otherwise happy to be home. Dismissing his men, the man himself made his way to his bedroom. You weren't there. You must be interacting with one of the people you took a shine to, or perhaps getting some fresh air. He knew you liked to actually get out and go for a walk every so often. Resting Lucille against a wall, Negan threw his jacket onto his bed and sat in the comfy chair next to it, letting his eyes rest a moment.

A couple minutes later, his eyes flew open at the sound of footsteps. You had just walked in, and the sight of you made the man's lips twitch in a soft smile. 

"C'mere baby…" he held his arms out, gesturing for you to sit on his lap. You smiled at him warmly as you happily approached, sitting on him, lying back against him with your head on his shoulder as you looked at him. 

"Daddy needs a hug." He spoke in a near whisper as he wrapped his arms tightly around you for a few seconds. Meanwhile a pleasant little tingle went down you at his use of the word daddy. Negan knew full well the effect such words had on you, but it was natural now, and he loved it almost as much as you clearly did. 

This man had an effect on you like no other human ever had before. While making you feel as safe as can be, he simultaneously could make you quake at the knees until you were an absolute mess. A mess he always cleaned up for you. Despite the hug, your brain started working the same way it always did when he used pet names in private. Humming appreciatively, he let go, resting his arms on the chair. Not before giving your hair a soft stroke. As he relaxed, sighing happily, that's when you knew exactly what you were going to do.

Slowly at first, your hips started to grind. Just a little to begin with, but you sucked in a silent breath at the small amount of friction you already felt. Negan could immediately tell what you were doing, but he didn't do anything for a few seconds. 

"Y/N… stop…" his voice was low, but you weren't stopping, and his excitement was only growing.

"Stop what?" You spoke softly as you looked back at him with a grin. A grin that instantly told him your intentions. You slowly but surely increased your pace, trying to stop the whimpers escaping you with some success. It wasn't until his pants were painfully restrictive that he finally acted. Hands flying to your hips, he gripped tightly and held you in place. The sudden action made you yelp, and you looked back at him with a bite of your lower lip. 

"Oh no, don't you act all innocent now." The stern tone made you flush as warmth spread through your lower body. He had used his authoritative tone. You knew you were in trouble now.

"But daddy.." you whimper as your hips struggled, making you more and more  desperate for friction.

"No." Negan's voice made you go quiet. "Look at me." His demand had you whipping your head back around, and the look in his eyes could have made you actually melt if he didn't have such a secure hold on you. A moment of silence passed - excruciating for you - before he finally spoke. 

"One minute." At your slightly puzzled expression, he continued, "You have one goddamn minute to get yourself there /without/ touching yourself, or you won't be getting there at all tonight."

You were wearing a thin pair of pants with no underwear, but you weren't sure if you'd be able to reach that peak. So you pouted. The look on Negan's face did not change. One way or another, he would be allowing himself to get there. Whether you did was on you. 

"One minute is all you're getting for being naughty." Before you had the chance to respond, he gave a thrust of his own hips to make you start, also forcing a small moan from you. With your hips free of the man's tight grip, they began grinding again, whimpers now falling freely. At first, you were unsure of what to do with your hands. You wanted to grip your own legs until your nail broke through the material of your pants, but you couldn't. 

When the familiar feeling began building in the pit of your stomach, your hands suddenly found themselves gripping the arms of the chair until your knuckles went pale. Whimpers and needy, desperate moans fell from your lips like a waterfall. Negan could feel his own need, but he wasn't going to get there with his pants still on. 

You were almost there. The build up was intense. You wouldn't have gotten this close so quickly if it wasn't for the lack of action recently. You wanted to explode in the best way because of this man. Moans of "daddy" escaped you seconds before Negan had his hands on your hips again, holding you still. Struggling more than before, you let out needy whimpers. You had gotten so close, and now that high was fading away.

"Minute's up." Negan's voice was gravelly with his own need. Though you didn't turn around, you pouted in response. Suddenly your back was flush against him. One arm still wrapped tightly around your waist, he had pressed the other hand to the bottom of your neck as he pulled your body right against his.

"I might let you cum…" Negan whispered darkly into your ear, making you visibly shiver in delight, and you whimpered obediently, desperate for release. "If you promise to be good, and not touch yourself while you suck my dick." Flames shot up your cheeks at his straightforwardness. He knew full well what you would do.

"I promise daddy.." the words came in a whimper as you gained control of your hips, clambering off Negan's lap. You could only hope he would let to reach your own euphoria...

@lemonboy-milo

[pinktintedmonocle]

Dedicated Followers of Fashion - A Cobra Kai Lawrusso Fanfic - Chapter 2

“I found that shirt”, Daniel said, feigning casualness.

“What shirt?” asked Johnny, plonking himself down in his own chair.

“The pink one”, Daniel replied.  He stood up slowly, bracing himself against the desk as the room threatened to start spinning.  “The one you said – that you said – ah – from the photo album.”

When a look through an old photo album leads to Daniel unearthing a certain pink shirt, things heat up between him and Johnny when they both get drunk at the dojo.

Trigger warning: some description of one of the characters having issues accepting their sexuality.

May 1985

“So I’ve gotta go into the office this morning, just for an hour or two, but I’ll be back by lunch so we can go to the mall, get you some new clothes.”

Daniel made a noise of protest around his mouthful of eggs.  He swallowed and took a gulp of orange juice.

“But I’ve got plans, Ma! I was gonna go round to Mr Miyagi’s, learn some new moves, feed the fish.  And the clothes I got are fine, honest.”

“Your clothes are not fine, Daniel; all of your pants are about an inch too short in the leg, and look at that shirt!” said Lucille, gesturing to Daniel’s red checked plaid, “Those cuffs are supposed to come down to your wrists, not your elbows!”

Daniel slumped back in his chair, clamped a hand to his heart dramatically and groaned.

“But I don’t wanna go shopping, Ma!”                                          

“Then quit growing”, said Lucille with a grin.  “Come on, it’ll be fun.  I’ll treat you to a burger and a milkshake from that place you like.  Hey, why don’t you invite Ali?  I haven’t seen her around in a while.  Everything OK with you two?”

“Oh yeah, we’re just peachy. But she’s – er – she’s got family stuff on this weekend”, Daniel lied.

“Alright, well it’ll just be the two of us then.  It’ll be nice to have a bit of mother-son bonding time, you can fill me in on everything that’s been going on with you lately.”

“There’s nothing going on with me”, Daniel said shortly, a slight flush on his cheeks.  He pushed back his chair and stood up.  “Look, I better go tell Mr Miyagi I can’t make it this afternoon.  I’ll see you later, Ma.”  He barrelled out of the door, leaving it open.

Lucille shouted after him, exasperated.  “Alright, but we’ll meet back here at 12.  And don’t be late!”

**********************************************************************************

“Alright, so you need some new pants and shirts.  And what about underwear, do you need new underwear?”

“Ma-”

“Well do you?”

Daniel shrugged, looking down at his feet and scuffing the floor with his shoe.  “Yeah, I guess”, he muttered.

Lucille pulled his head up by the chin, looking at him with concern.  “Are you OK, Daniel?  You’ve been in a mood all day, didn’t even finish your milkshake.  Those Cobra Kai boys aren’t giving you a hard time at school again, are they?”

“No, Ma.  They’re not even in Cobra Kai anymore-”

“Then what is it, huh?”

“What it is is that my mother is stood in the middle of a store with people all around tryin’ to talk to talk to me about underwear.”

Lucille dropped his chin and rolled her eyes.  “Alright, smartass, I’ll shut up.  Come on, quicker this is over with quicker we can go home and not worry about shopping again until you hit another growth spurt.”

They walked through the store, picking out a new wardrobe.  (Daniel had tried to fill the basket with nothing but camo pants and plaid shirts, but Lucille had laughed and put most of them back.  “How about we try and get you a few clothes that you can wear together that actually match?” she had suggested.  “Matching, matching, who cares about matching?” Daniel had protested, but had still allowed his mom to pick out a few pairs of jeans and a couple of plain shirts.)

“OK, I think that’s nearly everything we need – oh, look at that!”, exclaimed Lucille, smiling brightly as her eyes caught on something over Daniel’s shoulder.  “That shirt would look so nice on you.”

She walked past Daniel and he turned to see her picking out a rose pink shirt and peering at the label. “And it’s your size too, perfect! Alright, let’s find the cashier’s desk and then get outta here-”

Daniel reached into the basket and plucked out the shirt.  “I’m not wearing that, Ma.  Aren’t there any other colours, like, um, blue or something?”

Lucille looked at him, brow furrowed.  “Well yeah, there might be – but look, what’s wrong with this colour?  It brings out your eyes-”

“But it’s pink ma, and I’m – I’m not – look, I can choose my own clothes, OK!” yelled Daniel, hands curling into fists.

Several people in the store turned to stare.

Lucille took a step back, shock etched onto her features.  “Hey, hey, don’t you talk to me like that, young man!” she shouted back, voice steely.  “I don’t know what’s got into you lately but I don’t like it, you hear me?”

Daniel suddenly deflated, fists uncurling, shoulders dropping, and for a second he looked as if he was about to cry.

“It’s nothing”, he said, swiping at his eyes fiercely with the back of one hand.  “I’m sorry Ma, really I am.”  He put the shirt back in the basket.  “It’s just a shirt, it’s fine, it’ll be fine.  Oh hey, I think the cashier’s desk is this way-”

He lolloped off on his long legs and Lucille had to almost run to catch up with him.

**********************************************************************************

They loaded up the car with their purchases and drove home in silence, Daniel fidgeting with a loose thread on his shirt and staring out of the window.  When they were nearly home, Lucille spoke.

“I wish you’d tell me what’s going on, Daniel”, she said softly.  “You know you can tell me anything.”

I can’t, Daniel thought, I can’t tell you this.  He looked at his mom and smiled tightly.  “Yeah, I know mom, but it’s nothing.  Really.”

“OK”, said Lucille. “OK”.

Daniel could see that she didn’t believe him, but mercifully she didn’t ask him any more questions.

 May 2019

“Oh, you’re so tiny!” laughed Carmen, taking a sip of wine as she giggled.  “And that outfit!  That’s certainly something…”

Amanda grinned. “Yeah, thankfully he outgrew his plaid and camo phase before we met.  Not sure we would’ve got past the first date if he had shown up wearing that.”

“Hey, it was a look!” Daniel protested.  “I’ll have you know I got plenty of dates in that outfit back in Jersey!”

The two women laughed, leaning against each other as they continued to study the photo album, while Johnny smirked.  Daniel rolled his eyes and took another sip of wine.

It was two weeks until the tournament, and Daniel and Amanda had invited Johnny and the students round to their house for a meal to blow off a little steam after months of intense training.  Amanda had also invited Carmen (“I need another person here who isn’t a teenager or a man-child, otherwise the evening will end with me throwing someone through a window, never mind Kreese), and they had all sat outside, enjoying the late evening sun and eating and laughing.

Eventually the kids had sloped off to Daniel’s home dojo to admire Hawk’s new hair colour (purple), and discuss teen drama (Daniel had gathered from the conversation over dinner that Demetri was in a relationship with a blonde girl called Yasmine despite the fact that they apparently hated each other and spent most of their time denying they had anything to do with each other.  He had caught Johnny’s eye while Demetri told his story and Johnny had held his gaze for just a moment before they both quickly looked away).

The adults had then retreated to the kitchen to polish off a bottle of wine or two (or beer, in Johnny’s case), and after a while Daniel’s childhood photo albums had somehow materialised.  After laughing themselves silly over the plaid/camo combo, Amanda and Carmen had continued to make their way through the album, getting to prom (“Look at that suit!” cackled Amanda), and then to Daniel’s trip to Okinawa.

“I thought the village I grew up in in Ecuador was rural, but this is something else”, said Carmen, flicking through the photos.  She paused at a picture of Daniel and Mr Miyagi, standing outside Yukie’s house. “I like your shirt here, Daniel. Definitely an improvement on the plaid”.

“Oh yeah, pink is definitely your colour, LaRusso”, said Johnny, and Carmen nudged him.

“Don’t be mean, Johnny”, she said.

“I wasn’t!” protested Johnny.  “I meant it!”

“Really?” Daniel asked lightly, taking another sip of wine, tone casual even though his heart was hammering in his chest.  “Not like you to compliment me, Johnny.”

Johnny’s face flushed. “No, I just – I just meant it’s not completely awful.  Not like most of the clothes you wore back then.  Or now, to be honest.”

“How about we talk about something that isn’t my fashion sense”, said Daniel, picking up the album and closing it firmly.

“I think you mean ‘lack of fashion sense’”, said Amanda teasingly, leaning in to kiss him on the check. She stretched her neck and grimaced. “Why don’t we go and sit somewhere more comfortable?”

“Good idea!” Daniel said brightly.  “You all go into the living room and I’ll grab some more drinks.”

As soon as the others were out of sight the smile slid off Daniel’s face and he leant heavily against the kitchen counter.

“But it’s pink ma, and I’m – I’m not -”

“Oh yeah, pink is definitely your colour, LaRusso”

It had been over a month since the almost-kiss and he and Johnny hadn’t talked about it.  There had been a few times when Daniel had thought Johnny was on the verge of mentioning it, but he had always just opened and closed his mouth a few times before clearing his throat and starting to talk about something else entirely.  Daniel, for his part, had no idea how to even approach the subject.  Hey Johnny, remember when you put on that ridiculous jacket that made your arms look amazing and then rubbed up against me and spun me round and then freaked out when I leant in to kiss you?  You wanna talk about that?

“Hey babe”, said Amanda, and Daniel started as he looked up to see her in the doorway.  “Just thought I’d come and give you a hand with the drinks.”

He looked at his wife, the woman who had stuck by him through thick and thin for the last twenty years, and felt a surge of guilt.  He pushed it away and clapped his hands together.  “Right, what do you and Carmen want?  Another bottle of the Cabernet Sauvignon?”

“Yes please”, said Amanda, picking up the glasses while Daniel fetched the bottle.  “And grab another Coors from the refrigerator for Johnny.”

Daniel took out the beer and followed Amanda into the living room, plastering on a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

**********************************************************************************

A few days later Daniel told Amanda over breakfast that he wasn’t feeling so good.  Amanda had taken his temperature with the back of her hand and frowned.  

“Well, it doesn’t feel like you’ve got a fever, babe, but maybe you should take a day off from the dealership.

“Thanks”, he said, smiling weakly.  “I’m sure it’s nothing, probably just a twenty-four hour bug or something.”

“OK, well, just take it easy, yeah?”

“I will.  I’ll just go back to bed, try and get some sleep.”

Daniel had lain in bed until he heard Amanda leave for work and the kids leave for school before he jumped up and made his way to the storage room at the back of the house. It was packed full since he had moved everything out of the dojo and into this one room, and he spent a good half hour clambering over old chairs, kids’ toys and pool noodles before he found the two cardboard boxes he was looking for, tucked away in a dusty corner.

Both boxes had ‘1985’ scrawled on the side in black sharpie, and Daniel picked them up in turn before pushing the lighter box back into its corner.  He knew what he’d find there – a white gi with a faded black snake on the back and blood stains on the sleeves – and he wasn’t quite ready to deal with that one yet.  He would have to, one day, but currently there were more pressing demons he had to face.

He opened the heavier box and started to pull out piles of clothes.  He had kept almost every bit of clothing from his first trip to Okinawa, folded up neatly and all stored away together, every piece infused with a memory he never wanted to forget.  He smiled fondly as he took out the jeans, red shirt and black vest that he wore down at the docks with Mr Miyagi when they practised the drum technique, followed by his red silk kimono with the black and yellow embroidered bonsai trees, thinking of the O-ben festival and the fight with Chozen.  Eventually he found the rose pink shirt and held it up, shaking it out.

It was paler than when he’d first worn it, bleached by the sun.  There were a few loose threads but overall it still in fairly good shape. He stared at it as the memories came flooding back.  There were the good ones; mooching through Tomi village with Mr Miyagi and waving to Kumiko as the little girls giggled shrilly, and then there were the bad; the department store, the feeling of panic that had welled up in his chest when his mom had picked it out, the irrational fear that somehow she knew the secret he had tried so hard to conceal.  After a minute Daniel placed it down on the floor, then re-folded all of the other clothes and packed them away until only the pink shirt remained.  He knew the sensible thing to do would’ve been to pack it up as well, push the feelings back down, but instead he left it out and put the box back into its corner without it.  Then he washed, dried and ironed it and placed it in his gym bag.

**********************************************************************************

The week before the tournament Daniel and Johnny stayed late at the dojo, sitting on the deck and sorting out some last minute details while munching on burgers.  (“I get to pick the food tonight”, Johnny had said, “and I don’t want any green stuff.”  “You’ve got a pickle in that burger”, Daniel had pointed out.  Johnny had removed the pickle and thrown it at him).

After eating they did a final assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of their students (Miguel had eventually convinced Johnny to let him fight with the blessing of Carmen, and he and Sam were placed in joint first in their rankings, with Hawk coming in a close second.  “I think Demetri could stand a good chance” Daniel had said and Johnny had rolled his eyes. “A good chance at what, getting his arm broken again?  I think Bert’s got a shot though; he may be small but that kid can kick”.  “Oh yeah?” Daniel had grinned.  “Remind you of anyone?”  “No”, said Johnny), and after an hour of furious scribbling (on Daniel’s part), Johnny had stood up and stretched, his t-shirt riding up a little to expose a strip of taut stomach (Daniel had turned his head, pretending to be very interested in a rock).

“I need a drink”, Johnny declared, walking towards the house.

Daniel thought of the pink shirt in his bag.  “I’ll have one too”, he called after Johnny.

A minute later Johnny emerged with two stubby brown bottles clutched in his hands.  He sat back down on the deck and handed one to Daniel.

“Thought my taste in beer was beneath you, LaRusso”, said Johnny as Daniel twisted off the cap and took a gulp.

Daniel grimaced, nose wrinkling in distaste.  “Yeah well, you’ve worn me down.  It is disgusting though; I don’t know how you drink this stuff.”

Johnny barked a laugh. “It’s an acquired taste.”

“Acquired through what?”

“Through drinking nothing else for thirty years”, Johnny replied with a shrug, uncapping his own bottle and flipping the lid behind him.  It landed in a bush.

Daniel raised an eyebrow. “I hope you’re going to pick that up later, Johnny.”

“What?  No, its fine, I’m sure it’s recyclable or some shit.”

“You mean degradable and no, it’s not.”

Johnny just shrugged and took a long pull at his Banquet.

Daniel side-eyed Johnny as they both drank their beers, watching as Johnny swiped a strand of tousled blond hair out of his too-blue eyes before his gaze tracked lower, noting the way Johnny’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, then lower still to take in the broad shoulders, muscular arms and firm chest visible under a tightly fitted t-shirt.  He looked away, feeling his cheeks redden.  

They spent another hour or so grading students and discussing tactics, during which Daniel managed to drink another three beers (those tiny bottles don’t last long) and it was almost dark in the garden when Johnny drained his own beer and rubbed his eyes.

“I should go”, Johnny said, although he didn’t move.  

“You’re not driving”, Daniel said firmly, lips pursed.

“I’m barely drunk!”, Johnny protested.  “I’ve only had six beers!”  He waggled a finger under Daniel’s nose.  “And don’t talk to me about drunk driving, LaRusso, you’ve gotten into a car with me when I’ve had way more than this.  I don’t know why you suddenly care so much.”

“I care because we’ve got the tournament in a week from now, and if you end up dead and the kids are too grief stricken too fight and Kreese takes over the valley it’ll be all your fault.”

“Whatever”, said Johnny, “you can just say you’d miss me, LaRusso.”

“In your dreams, Johnny”, Daniel answered, rolling his eyes.

I do miss you, I’ve always missed you.  I missed you thirty-five years ago, and I’m missing you now, even though you’re right here.

Daniel felt something brush his hand and he looked down to see Johnny’s own hand resting next to his on the deck, pinky fingers touching.  He glanced up and they stared at each other for a beat before they both pulled back at the same time.

“I’ll call us both a cab”, said Daniel, clearing his throat.  “You can leave your car here and I’ll pick you up tomorrow before training.” He half expected Johnny to protest, but instead the blonde just nodded.  

“Right.  Well, we should go inside”, Daniel continued. “It’s getting cold out here.”

Johnny got up and Daniel followed suit, but he had only taken two steps before his feet seemed to stop working and he nearly fell off the decking.  Johnny caught him, strong arms encircling his waist, chest pressed flush to Daniel’s back, and Daniel was reminded of the night a month ago; the way the denim scratched over his skin, the warmth of Johnny’s body.

“Easy, LaRusso”, Johnny murmured in his ear and Daniel shivered slightly at the sensation of Johnny’s breath on his neck.  “Banquet will do that to you when you’re not used to it.”

“I’m fine”, Daniel insisted, head spinning, suddenly aware of how drunk he was, “You can let go of me.”

“You sure?”, Johnny asked, and Daniel briefly considered feigning another dizzy spell to stay in Johnny’s embrace for a little longer, before firmly shaking his head and pushing Johnny’s hands away.

“I’m good, really”, Daniel said, vaguely aware that his speech was a little slurred.

Johnny moved away and Daniel just about stayed upright, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“Jesus, Johnny, how do you drink that stuff every day and still have a functioning liver?”

“You’ll get used to it, LaRusso”, said Johnny, walking into the house.

“I seriously hope I don’t”, Daniel muttered, following Johnny inside.

Johnny headed for the bathroom while Daniel stumbled over to his desk and sat down heavily.  He fished his phone out of his pocket, squinting against the glare of the screen, and pulled up the number for a taxi company. Then Johnny walked back into the room and Daniel found himself placing the phone face down on the desk without making the call.

“I found that shirt”, he said, feigning casualness.

“What shirt?” asked Johnny, plonking himself down in his own chair.

“The pink one”, Daniel replied.  He stood up slowly, bracing himself against the desk as the room threatened to start spinning.  “The one you said – that you said – ah – from the photo album.”

Johnny frowned.  “The one from the 80’s?”

Daniel licked his lips. “Yeah.”

Johnny scoffed.  “Oh yeah?  You gave me shit for having my old clothes and you’re still hoarding all of yours?”

“For sentimental reasons only, Johnny.  I don’t wear them on a regular basis.”

Johnny pointed a finger at him.  “Hey, my clothes are timeless.  Did it fit?”

“Did what fit?”

“The shirt”, Johnny said, swinging his legs up onto his desk and leaning back, hands behind his head.  “It probably does, you’re still as much of a shrimp as you were back then.”

“I don’t know, I didn’t try it on”, Daniel replied, and he knew he should go, call a cab and get out of there, but the cheap beer was making his tongue loose.  “But I could do.”

Johnny fixed him with ice blue eyes.  “You got it here?”

“Yeah.  Yeah, I do.”

Johnny was silent for a moment as his tongue darted out to wet his lips.  There was an expression on his face that Daniel struggled to read in his hazy state, half fear and half something else, as if he was trying to decide whether to run away from something or towards it.

“Go get it then”, Johnny said eventually, and Daniel just nodded and walked unsteadily into the next room to fetch it, making a detour to the bathroom on the way.  He half expected Johnny to be gone by the time he got back, but the blonde was still there.  Daniel stood awkwardly in the middle of the room and waved the shirt around lamely in one hand.  

“You gonna put it on?” Johnny asked.

“I will if you take your dirty shoes off my desk”, Daniel shot back.

“It’s my desk!”

“Yeah, but I bought it.”

Johnny grumbled but removed his feet, and Daniel unzipped his tracksuit jacket and pulled on the shirt over his workout top.  He stretched out his arms, waggling his fingers and feeling a little smug in spite of himself.  “Still fits!”

“Yeah, but can you button it?” asked Johnny.

“Yeah, I think so.  It might be a little snug with this top on underneath-”

“Then take it off”, Johnny instructed, and his voice was so direct, so commanding, that Daniel obeyed without thinking, tugging off both the shirt and his top.

I wonder if that’s a trick he learned from Kreese, Daniel mused, before he suddenly realised that he was topless in front of Johnny Lawrence who was staring at him, eyes wide.  He quickly pulled the pink shirt back on and hurriedly buttoned it up.  It was loose when he got it and it still mostly fitted, but he was also a beanpole with an almost concave stomach when he was sixteen, and he’s definitely filled out a little since then.

Johnny just looked at him for moment and Daniel fidgeted with the hem of the shirt, not quite able to meet Johnny’s eyes.  He heard the scrape of a chair being pushed back and when he glanced up Johnny was standing, that fight or flight look on his face again.  He moved forwards and Daniel followed suit, closing the gap between them until Johnny was close enough to reach out and touch Daniel’s chest, dragging his fingers down to where the buttons were a little snug around Daniel’s waist.

“It’s nice”, Johnny murmured.  “It’s soft.”                                              

“Yeah”, Daniel whispered, leaning into Johnny’s touch.  He swayed dangerously as he did so and gripped Johnny’s arm to steady himself.

“It’s different, for you”, Johnny breathed.  “Not blue.”

“That”, Daniel said, prodding a finger into Johnny’s chest with his free hand, “is your fault.”

“What is?”

“The blue.”

“How can a colour be my fault, LaRusso?”

But Daniel didn’t answer; he just made a noise in the back of this throat and pressed their foreheads together, feeling Johnny’s hot breath on his face as he moved just a little closer, lips almost touching-

Daniel’s phone rang shrilly, and he and Johnny sprang apart.  Daniel threw himself across the room to his desk and grabbed it, breath hitching as he saw the name on the screen.

“It’s Amanda”, he said hoarsely, and glanced up at Johnny.

Johnny looked nauseous. “You should get it.”

Daniel answered the call.

“Hey babe”, said Amanda, and Daniel tried to respond but his throat was suddenly tight and he couldn’t quite form the words.

“Daniel?” asked Amanda, and there was a hint of panic in her voice.  He cleared his throat and forced the words out.

“Hey.  Everything OK?”

“I was just about to ask you the same thing.  It’s pretty late; I was starting to get worried, thought Kreese might’ve decided to pay you a visit.”

“God, no, I’m fine, really. Just – just had a few beers with Johnny, lost track of time.  I was just about to get us both a cab.”

“OK, well, see you soon. Love you.”

“Yeah”, said Daniel, turning away from Johnny.  “Love you too.”

He hung up and immediately ordered two taxis.  He walked over to the refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of water and took a long drink from it, trying to clear the alcohol induced fuzz from his mind.

Johnny was stood against the wall opposite Daniel, pressing himself into it as if he hoped it would magically open and swallow him up.  Silence hung between them, heavy and oppressive, and Daniel knew that if he didn’t say anything Johnny wouldn’t either.  But he also knew that if they didn’t deal with this soon the next time they were alone with a few drinks in their system would likely end with either him or Johnny just pinning the other to the floor, and not in a way that had anything to do with karate.

“We need to talk about this”, he said softly, and Johnny’s eyes met his.

“The cabs will be here in a minute-”

“Not now”, Daniel replied.  “But soon.  After the tournament.”  He half expected Johnny to deny there was anything to talk about, but instead the blonde just nodded.

“Yeah.  After the tournament.”

Daniel looked down and realised with a jolt that he was still wearing the pink shirt.  He turned away, quickly taking it off and pulling his workout clothes back on.

He had just finished changing when the glare of headlights shone through the doors.  He and Johnny made their way outside and got into the two cars, exchanging a brief lingering glance before they went their separate ways.

Daniel slumped down in his seat as the car wound its way out of the driveway.  He stared out of the window as the city lights flashed by and found himself thinking about that day at the mall with his mom all those years ago and a similarly awkward car ride home, looking out at the same streets and trying and failing to not think about the same thing, of blue eyes and blonde hair and strong arms that would pick him up and pull him in and never let him go.

[deanwinchesterswitch]

Becca’s Reblog Challenge

I am participating in a reblog challenge hosted by @beccaanne814.  This is my weekly update for the challenge

It’s been a helluva week, go read some awesome fanfics!

Dean Winchester’s Witch Reblog Masterlist

2)

What Dean Needs - @idreamofplaid. Author’s Summary: Sometimes being a hunter hurts Dean’s soul, and the reader knows he deserves so much more.

Golden Cage -Chapter.09 - @smol-and-grumpy. Author’s Summary: She’s a spoiled little princess — at least that’s what people say. Her father is the King of all Kings, the man who everyone fears. Then, along comes Dean Winchester, the one guy who manages to see into her soul, but — — is Dean really who he says he is?

Second Chances-Part 2 - @waywardbaby. Author’s Summary: He is a man starting new, seeking a second chance after everything he ever loved was lost.

My Brother’s Girl (3) - @cockslut-padalecki. Author’s Summary: When Dean returns from Purgatory, he hopes to be reunited with his long term girlfriend Y/N and Sam after five long years without them. But when he shows up at Sam’s door unable to locate her, Dean realises he doesn’t need to look much farther to find her. She is a woman running away from her past, trying to forget and make a new beginning. Their paths cross at “Second Chances”, a bar that may very well mean its name and help both of them find exactly what they’re looking for.

3)

Domestic - @thinkinghardhardlythinking. Author’s Summary: Sam and Dean spend the day running domestic errands and doing chores with the reader.

Hairbrush - @watermelonlipstick. Author’s Summary: Fluff where Dean helps an injured (long haired) reader

One Night Only (23 in 1) - @thoughtslikeaminefield. Author’s Summary: While on a job in the middle of America, Dean enjoys a rigorous night of mutual gratification with a local art student.

Missed You - @impala-dreamer. Author’s Summary: None (Drabble)

4)

Cold - @jensengirl83. Author’s Summary: Dean and the reader have been together for a while, but when she lets certain words slip in a intimate moment between them, can their relationship be saved?

Everything’s a Seger Song - @carryonmywaywardcaptain. Author’s Summary: On a night out at the bar, you try to convince Dean to do karaoke. He ends up putting on a performance you never would have imagined.

Illicit - @negans-lucille-tblr. Author’s Summary: Illicit - adjective - forbidden by law, rules, or custom. And that’s the thing about illicit affairs, and clandestine meetings and longing stares - It’s born from just one single glance, but it dies, and it dies, and it dies a million little times

Good Morning-Chapter 4 - @smol-and-grumpy. Author’s Summary: Dean Winchester, owner of Dean’s Beans is living a humble and quiet life. Roasting beans and selling coffee in his little shop is what makes him happy. When she walked into his shop four months ago, his life changed, but is it for better or worse?

Bring It On Home - @thoughtslikeaminefield. Author’s Summary: Let’s pretend Dean wouldn’t be terrified to welcome love into his life, or he’s confident that he can protect it.

For I Have Sinned-Part 2 - @negans-lucille-tblr. Author’s Summary: The Winchester Correctional Facility for Insubordination and Sexual Deviance; a place to cleanse all the troubled girls.

When Stars Align - @thinkinghardhardlythinking. Author’s Summary: Dean and the Reader had a slow burn friends to lovers start but there is still much to discuss as he surprises her with a trip away.

5)

Assassin - @impala-dreamer. Author’s Summary: None (Drabble)

Port in the Storm-Chapter 6 - @wayward-and-worn. Author’s Summary: The angels have kept the Winchesters busy for a while. However, Dean’s mind keeps wandering back to her. And when a Winchester has his mind set on something…

6)

Golden Cage -Chapter.10 - @smol-and-grumpy. Author’s Summary: She’s a spoiled little princess — at least that’s what people say. Her father is the King of all Kings, the man who everyone fears. Then, along comes Dean Winchester, the one guy who manages to see into her soul, but — — is Dean really who he says he is?

Crazy On You - @thoughtslikeaminefield. Author’s Summary: You’ve had a shitty day, but this beautiful, unfamiliar boy will make it all better.

Life on Tour-Chapter Six-Dallas - @waywardbeanie. Author’s Summary: Jensen Ackles had starred in Supernatural for the past 15 years, a television show that transformed his life. Now that it’s coming to an end, he has to decide on his next adventure, one that will take him on tour with his band, Radio Company. ��Y/N is a small-town girl making a name for herself, documenting life on the road for some of the biggest bands in the world. Will this decision be one that changes the course of their lives forever?

7)

Come As You Are - @whatareyousearchingfordean. Author’s Summary: Dean takes Y/n dress shopping for a hunt, both of them blissfully unaware of where it will lead.

A Little Help - @smol-and-grumpy. Author’s Summary: Nursing a child is not easy, at least when you still have a hard time controlling your milk. Lucky for you, Dean’s more than willing to help.

Enthralled - @covered-byroses. Author’s Summary: A hunt for a witch coven goes awry.

8) Heart of a Hunter-Act 3.5 Masterlist - @muchamusedaboutnothing. Author’s Summary: All of the training and studying has finally paid off and you’re on your first official hunt with the Winchesters. A creature is wreaking havoc in a small town, a young man is missing, and, as if that’s not enough, you realize you’re not the only woman with an interest in Dean’s heart.

[mastrmiscellaneous]

Capture the Flag

Summary: Clara, Justin, and Lucille play Capture the Flag, and a secret is revealed.

Word Count: 7898

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Peters siblings had only been in Camp for a week. Well, five days, but their friend Clara Ostá, an unclaimed girl the same age as Justin, kept saying a week so they eventually just went with it. They had learnt a lot in that time, about themselves, about their new friend, and about the world they lived in.

Justin had picked up Archery extremely quickly, shooting a full twelve arrow round and earning a full mark of 120, all bullseye hits. He had tried to learn how to use a sword, and though he was light on his feet, and was strong and accurate, it just felt unnatural. Especially when he watched Clara. She was basically a master already, easily taking on the best of the best in camp, even when they were much older than her. He had also started training one on one with Chiron, learning how to control his Plague Bearer powers. At first, he thought his powers were awesome, and he felt they made him feel incredibly powerful. However, he had quickly learnt that the exact opposite was true. His cabinmates were openly fearful of him, acting obviously careful around him and hesitating before asking him to participate in anything with them. That was certainly not the best feeling for the boy, but at least he had Clara and Lucille, they did not fear him. Although, his powers were getting stronger, and he was quick in learning how to control and direct them. Justin just kept to himself and practiced his favourite activities in camp.

Lucille was having an amazing time in camp now she had settled in with her new siblings. Her first night in the Hephaestus cabin was rough, being without a familiar face, and the noises of all the machines in the room scared her, but she was comforted by her eldest sibling, Beckendorf, who explained the intricacies of their cabin, and stayed awake by her side until she fell asleep. Lucille liked Beckendorf, he was kind and smart, he helped her in the forge, teaching her how to create machines and weapons, as well as assisting her with organising materials specifically for her. Since most of the tools and drawers were colour coded, and Lucille is unfortunately red-green colour-blind, the special organisation was greatly needed. She loved making things, and she was incredible at it.

Clara was enjoying having some closer friends at camp. She had to admit, she struggled making friends. Over the year she had stayed in camp, she had greatly struggled to get close to people, struggling with adapting to the English language when talking to other demigods, and just generally being awkward around people. She had never been good with people, being home schooled by her uncle back in Greece until she was seven, when her and her mother moved to the USA, where once again she struggled to make friends. She was not used to other kids, and she could not speak English at the time. Once she got to camp, it was much easier to talk to people, Chiron and Mr D being a great platform to have a proper conversation. They had some good alone time together, as she had private lessons with Chiron, Just like Justin.

English was a confusing concept for Clara. She struggled with understanding certain idioms, like the difference between a work week and full week. Her mother had never used those idioms, and her dyslexia made learning English quite the struggle for her, so certain things are much harder for her to wrap her head around than others.

One thing Clara could get her head around though was the concept of her favourite activity in Camp Half Blood: Capture the Flag!

Friday finally came, and Clara bounded out of the Hermes cabin and right over to Justin, who was tiredly emerging from the Apollo cabin, rubbing his eyes to get used to the bright summer morning.

“Kaliméra, Justin!” She half shouted as she jumped to a stop in front of her friend, smiling wide. Evidently, Justin was not used to this level of excitement, somehow, as he fell back in surprise, a very unmanly squeak escaping from his throat as he tripped over the bottom step.

“I’m gonna assume that means good morning.” Justin chuckled as he quickly got back up to his feet, with the help of an apologetic Clara. “What’s got you so happy?”

“You are really going to need to learn Greek at some point.” Clara elbowed Justin in his side, making him squirm. “But not right now! It’s capture the flag night!”

“It’s what now?”

“Michael hasn’t told you?!” Clara was utterly disgusted. How dare he not tell Justin about something so extremely important! Justin shook his head, and she went into a tirade of explaining the game to Justin as they walked to the mess hall for breakfast. Justin seemed quite confused at the whole thing, silently deciding he would ask his cabin mates (he’s still uncomfortable calling them his siblings) at breakfast. He was struggling to follow along with Clara’s explanation, as she kept going on unrelated tangents, and he was pretty sure she was speaking an odd mix of Greek and English, so definitely hard to follow. Eventually they got to the mess hall and parted ways, sitting at their own tables, Justin first heading over to the Hephaestus table to greet Lucille good morning.

-----------------

After Breakfast, Lucille came bounding over to Justin and Clara, who were standing at the base of the stairs leading up to the mess hall. Justin was asking more clear questions about the game tonight, now he fully understood what was happening. Lucille half tackled his brother into a strong hug. Despite the fact that the pair had only been at camp for a week, and that she was only 8 years old, she had grown much stronger from her lessons in the forge. The girl excitedly expressed her interest in the game tonight. The concept was fascinating to her, a mix of the classic game she plays in Phys Ed at school and the battles she heard of in history class. The excitement was overwhelming.

However, Justin’s excitement was depleting at the thought of his baby sister participating in a game as brutal as this, as it was described to him. He promised his mother he would protect her, but apparently he was way in over his head about that. Clara was not help, she just shrugged, explaining everyone took part, it was no big deal. Justin respectfully disagreed on that point.

The boy wanted clarity, so he marched along to the forge with the girls at his heals, with the clear aim of talking to the head of the Hephaestus cabin. He barged into the dark room, cluttered room, bumping into a girl around his age and quickly apologising. Lucille ran off to the end of the room to an oddly neat workbench, the tools organised by type, size, and fit, labelled with symbols that match a chart on the wall. The symbols and chart were clearly not written by Lucille, her handwriting was incredibly messy, and this person’s was quite neat and easy to read. As her companions marched over to her bench, she started fiddling with a device she had been working on, a matt bronze mess of metal and wires, vaguely shaped like the body of a bull, the size of a game controller.

“Lucille, where’s Beckendorf?” Justin asked his sister, but she was already deep in concentration.

“I’m right here.” Sounded the cheerful yet deep voice of the large, eldest child of Hephaestus. Justin turned to face him, relaxing at the comforting smile the cabin leader wore. “You got one hell of a sister here, Peters. She’s an amazing inventor, wonderful with tools! And her ability with magic, wow! Impressive for someone so young!”

The young man’s smile was so sincere, he was certainly incredibly proud of his little sister. He ruffled the girl’s hair, snapping her out of her trance, and she beamed up at him. Justin straightened up and puffed his chest out, making Clara chuckle. She muttered something about him being defensive over his sister. Justin just stood on her foot in retaliation. To be fair to her, his confidence tactic was useless in this case, as he was barely eyeline with the blacksmith’s shoulders.

“I know, Lucy has always been great with tools. You should see her in the shop back home! She’s better at the repairs than mom!” Justin bragged about his sister, making her beam and wiggle happily in her seat.

“I don’t doubt that.” Beckendorf said, glancing between the three with a warm, calculating smile. “What can I do for you?”

Justin suddenly remembered why he was in the forge in the first place.

“Yes! Right...” Justin gathered his thoughts and straightened back up. “I wanted to talk about Capture the Flag...”

“Worried she’ll be caught up in too much action?” Beckendorf crossed his arms and leant back on a cluttered workbench, shifting some miscellaneous tools. Justin nodded, pulling on the hem of his camp shirt. Beckendorf continued, “Understandable. The game can get pretty... intense... however! The Hephaestus cabin tends not to do too much face to face fighting. We make the tools for our team, make traps, that sort of thing.”

“She’ll be out of danger?”

“I’ll make sure of that. She’ll stay by my side. Not just because you’re asking, but because it’s her first game and she’s pretty young, I would also prefer she stays out of the action. For now, at least.”

He said that last part with a wink at Lucille and a smirk. He ruffled her hair once again, and wordlessly passed her a tool, a long and thin thing that looked like a screwdriver that buzzed like it flowed with electricity, which Lucille apparently needed because she immediately continued with her work.

“Well... that seems good then.” Justin immediately felt awkward. It was clear the Hephaestus cabin was very different to the Apollo cabin. These people clearly cared for each other, and protected each other. The Apollo kids, however? Ever since Justin had been told about his status as the Plague Bearer, his cabin mates seemed uncomfortable around him. Like they didn’t want to get close to him. “I can live with that.”

“Great! I’m glad you and Lucy are ok with that. I wouldn’t want to make either of you uncomfortable. You’re her brother too, I respect your opinion.” Gods, how is he this great?

The two talked for another couple minutes, as Clara moved to Lucille’s workbench and talked to her about what she was making. Lucille explained that Beckendorf was teaching her the basics of metalwork and electrics, so she can develop her pre-existing skills with tools and apply it to things like making weapons and armour, devices, anything her gigantic mind could think of. The young inventor clearly had no qualms about bragging, as she presented her draw of already finished products, some magical, some not.

“Beckendorf said I’m special! I can do magic stuff good, and really quick! Even he can’t do what I can!”

This kid has a lot going for her, as long as this level of support and ego was retained.

After a while, Justin and Clara left the two creators to their devices, Beckendorf saying he wanted Lucille to help him with some cool traps for the game tonight. That, and Clara was insisting on taking Justin around and helping him prepare for the game, insisting he was not ready enough. Justin was a little offended by that at first, but as soon as she pointed out he had only been there a few days, and even though he has a good power set, and a near perfect aim with a bow, his practice was minimal and head definitely not prepared for a battle, even a fake one.

Therefore, Clara took him to the arena, which was mostly empty. According to Clara, classes here would not be starting for another two hours, so they had time to tune Justin’s instincts. Now, since Justin did not have ADHD, he did not have the upper hand on a fast-paced battlefield like she did. It was clear Clara had spent years in camp, away from a proper school, because she did not see her Dyslexia and ADHD as something that was annoying or difficult, but as her greatest strength. Well, that, and her intellect. When on the battle field, Clara had the ego of Narcissus, and honestly? She deserved it. She had brought Justin to the arena to train with other weapons, explaining variety was always a strength. It will always improve something, be it your strength, agility, accuracy, or just improve your ability to take in your surroundings. Clara said that was the most important one. If you can take in your surroundings quickly, a plan can be formed just as quick, which is always important when your life is in danger of monsters.

First, Clara sowed Justin how to use a sword. She pulled her camp necklace from under her shirt. It was the same as everyone else’s necklaces, a simple leather chord with a single white clay bead with a golden fleece hanging from a pine tree daintily painted on, a smaller clay bead, more crudely made and only possessed by a couple people at camp, painted a dark blue with a silver bow. There were two other things on her necklace, personal belongings Clara was yet to explain to anyone. One object Justin recognised as a rune, a dark stone oval with chipped, rounded edges, and carved and painted silver in the centre was a symbol; a deep curved line at the top, with a circle in the curve, and a straight line in the middle under the circle, with two lines horizontal under the circle and curve in the middle of the rune, and finally a diagonal line at the end of the vertical line on the left side of the rune. The final object on the necklace was a celestial bronze bar, about an inch long. This is what Clara reached for, pulling it from it’s connector to the chord and spinning in through her fingers. A celestial bronze sword grew with a slash of orange light. It was a simple weapon, about 50cm long, one solid peace of metal, with a leaf shaped blade and a simple trapezoid shaped guard, and a rounded pommel. On the guard was a familiar shaped carving, the same owl design that was painted atop the door of the Athena cabin. It was truly a beautiful weapon.

Clara twirled the sword around as she wandered over to a wrack of weapons, carefully picking out another sword; a simple celestial bronze sword with a black leather grip, about a metre in length. She gestured for Justin to follow her to the centre of the arena and she handed him the second sword.

“So, I know you’ve been focusing on archery and controlling your powers, but having a variety of skills really helps. It means you can at least defend yourself when in a pinch.” She got into a ready position and gestured for him to copy. “Now, I just want you to defend yourself, don’t think about attacking me.”

“Wait, wha-”

Justin could not finish his sentence because Clara had already slashed out with her sword, which he parried clumsily. She may have the shorter weapon, but she sure knew how to use it. She moved with ease, flowing like a dance, but as quick as tornado’s wind. Justin tried to defend himself and get away from her. He jumped over abandoned chariots, stood behind weapon stores, climbed up and down the steps and seats of the arena, and rolled on the floor to avoid her expert attacks. His breath was quick, and heart racing. Justin felt hyper aware about his surroundings, taking in all obstacles and the slightest movements made by Clara, be it her eyes moving or a shift in footing. He felt aware, and felt alive.

Clara tripped Justin and he rolled over, landing on one knee. She slashed her sword down in a diagonal line, and Justin let his instincts take over. He slashed his sword in the opposite direction with all the force he could muster. The swords collided, bronze on bronze, sparks flying and forcing Clara’s hand backwards, making her stumble back a step. Justin leapt to his feet and held the point of his sword under her chin.

Both of them were breathing long, tired breaths. Clara smiled at Justin, proud of her student. Justin chuckled and dropped his sword away from her chin, pointing it at the floor.

“So,” Clara spun the sword and it shrank back to the one inch bar that she reattached to her necklace charm. “How do you feel?”

Justin thought for a second, still smiling. “Alive... Energised. That’s the most aware I’ve ever been in my life.”

“Good. Now, in a real battle, you should try and fight back, but this exercise develops consciousness. Being aware of your surroundings. What a true warrior needs to survive.”

“I can tell! That was,” Justin made a vague, excited gesture. “wow! How di you know all this stuff?”

Justin regretted asking that question as soon as the last word left his lips. Her proud, excited expression shifted quickly. She looked down at her feet, letting her long, dark hair fall in front of her face, and she fiddled with the rune on her necklace.

“My mama taught me...” Clara took Justin’s sword and wandered off to put it back on the wrack. Then, she walked over to the stands and sat down, slumped over and leaning her elbows on her thighs. Justin sat beside her and checked to see if she was ok. She instead explained what was wrong.

“I haven’t seen my mamá for a year know. We had some problems… Mamá is very similar to a demigod. Attracts monsters, has fought a lot. She has a duty to Olympus she will not rest on. She has a pretty rough past, too, so living with her is… hard. She has her issues. that, along with moving across the world to a place I didn’t speak the language, and my powers and increasingly growing monster attacks, it just got tense at home. One day, I got a letter from my father, telling me to come here. I felt bad at home, so I left.”

Clara sighed, her shoulders sagged, and she took in a long, shaky breath. She sat up straight, brushed her hair out of her face, and attempted to be subtle as she wiped tears away from her eyes and released her breath.

“She used to train with me. She’s the one who taught me how to fight, how to use a sword. Everything I know about the ancient world, the gods, monsters, I learnt from her. I just miss her is all…”

Justin could only sit there and listen. This was something he had never anticipated. Sure, he knew a good deal of the demigods here in camp either had no mortal parent or family, or just simply did not have a good relationship with their family. He expected Clara to be the same. Just, he did not expect this exact situation.

“She knows I’m safe. I’ve called her a couple times since coming here. Not often though.”

She sniffed and shifted in her seat, hugging her legs and resting her head on her knees. Justin had no idea of what to do. Emotions were not something he was good with. He could write them into a song, but comforting someone who wasn’t Lucille? It’s a stretch. He needed to learn how to do that. So he asked a question instead.

“You said she’s similar to a demigod. What’s that mean?”

Clara inhaled sharply, as if she had forgotten she said that and revealed something she shouldn’t have. She laughed awkwardly and looked at Justin, panicking to think of an excuse.

“Well, you know- you know how your mom can see through the mist? it’s basically like that!” Clara laughed awkwardly, voice higher pitched, and her accent flaring up strong.

“My mom is far from a demigod.” Justin said monotonously. “Impressive, sure. She also fought Mormo, but I would not compare her to a demigod. What’s really going on?”

Clara gulped deep, and sighed, once again fiddling with her necklace. She mumbled to herself in Greek. Justin caught the odd word, it sounded like she was cursing herself out because of her slip up. Finally, she looks at him again and explained.

“It’s complicated. you know I come from Athens, moved here when I was seven. My family is an ancient one, dating back in the record for a little under three thousand years. When the Romans started invading Greece, the gods feared for the safety of their secrets, and Lady Athena proposed a plan. Grant a family of mortals clear sight, give them her blessing, and a job to protect the secrets of Olympus, items of importance to the gods, titans, heroes, and monsters. Kinda like a librarian with access to weapons. That is what my mamá is. A Guardian of Athens, Kidemonás, champion of Athena. The job brought a lot of… issues for mamá. I am one too.”

All Justin could do was hum a sound that vaguely sounded like ‘woah’. That was certainly not something he expected. Clara panicked and continued.

“It’s supposed to be a secret. No one, not even demigods, know about the Guardians, or the Chambers we guard. it is too dangerous. you can not tell anyone about this! I should not even told you!”

“Ok!” Justin blurted out. “Ok, I won’t tell anyone. I promise. I swear on the Styx I won’t share this secret.”

Clara’s blue eyes went wide. she was shocked he would go to that length, as to swear on the Styx for her. It’s extreme, he could get hurt if her told. Suddenly, she launched at him and engulfed her in a tight hug, hiding her face in the crook of his neck.

“Thank you…”

“No problem. anything to make you feel safe.”

----------------

Soon enough, after Clara and Justin had continued their training for another two hours, fine tuning Justin’s instincts and physical abilities, practicing his war archery and quick shooting, lunch was going to be served and classes start up in the arena soon. So, the two friends excited the arena and went to their cabins to change their shirts and have a clean to rid themselves of sweat before eating. They finished up a little early and went to the forge to watch Lucille work.

They reached the forge and got a few non-serious glares from the children of Hephaestus. Justin was incredibly confused by this, but Clara explained it was because this week the Hephaestus Cabin was on the Red team for Capture the Flag, whilst the Hermes and Apollo Cabins were on the Blue team. They’re just playing around with a friendly rivalry.

Lucille was very eager to show off her work of the day. She and Beckendorf had made a crude wind-up bronze bull. The metal was awkward and scuffed, and the movements were very robotic, but it was incredible work for an eight-year-old. The four demigods got to talking, telling Justin and Lucille about the team system, each cabin’s general rolls in the game, and Beckendorf giving a purposefully vague description of what they were planning for the night. All Justin and Clara knew was they had some interesting toys to play with this evening.

It was not long before the horn announcing lunch sounded throughout the camp. They made their way to the mess hall, and Justin spent his lunch watching his friend and sister. Clara seemed pretty comfortable at the Hermes table. She knew a lot of people, she talked and laughed with them, though the sadness in her eyes left behind from the conversation about her mother never truly left. Lucille was incredibly happy with her table. She laughed and bounced in her seat, eagerly talking about whatever was on her mind with her siblings, and they all engaged well with her. He loved that she was happy.

Although Justin was happy for the girls in his life, he was also incredibly jealous. His cabin mates were not the most fun to be with. At least, they were with him. His power, his curse, scared them. As it should, Justin had been learning to control his power with Chiron, and the centaur had said he was incredibly powerful, more powerful than any Plague Bearer he had seen through the centuries. Justin did not mind his power, he thought it was pretty cool, as long as he can control it. The only thing he didn’t like was the fear and stigma from most people it brought.

After a long, quiet lunch, Justin met back up with Clara and Lucille for a quick chat before Lucille was swept away back to the forge to make devices for the game. Justin explained to Clara he would love to continue training, but he has a private lesson with Chiron now, but he offered to let her watch so she wasn’t alone. She accepted, and tagged along, Chiron in his full centaur glory leading the pair to a large opening in the woods, far from anyone else, the sounds of the camp distant and quiet.

Chiron was particularly sharp today, warning Justin that even though he has learnt quickly the past few days, he needed to make sure to control himself else he could seriously hurt someone. Chiron was pleased Clara had tagged along, asking if she would be ok with sparing with Justin so he could learn to keep his cool under attack. Clara agreed, removing her sword from its hidden form on her necklace, and Chiron handed Justin the bow he had been using and a quiver filled with celestial bronze arrows. They spared for a while, Chiron giving orders, telling Justin how to relax his muscles and mind whilst also keeping his guard up when being attacked. After an hour, Chiron stopped the fight and beckoned Clara to come close, and he bent down to whisper in her ear. Clara looked shocked at first, but smirked when she made eye contact with her friend.

“If you insist.” She said. The tone of her voice mixed with her accent made him shudder.

“Justin, we will be turning up the heat now. Clare will be using a… special power of hers to make the fight more intense.” Chiron nodded at the pair to get into sparing position. “Remember, stay relaxed, think clearly, keep your breath steady. Now, go.”

Justin nocked an arrow, and started to freak out when he looked up at Clara. Her normally icy blue eyes were now a silvery storm grey, a faint silvery blue glow encased her body, a little brighter around her right shoulder. she had a stormy, terrifying look to her. The contrast between her dark skin, the pale aura surrounding her, and the grey eyes was startling. Her playful smirk had disappeared, replaced by a tight straight lip, her eyebrows furrowed tight and her eyes in a fixed steel glare. It looked unnatural, her eyes usually darted about, taking in her surroundings, but the fixed eye contact she held now was unmoving. Her grip on her sword was so tight her knuckles paled, her muscles tensed. She charged.

Her speed was unmatched, and ferocity insane, and it was nothing like how she fought that morning. She was incredible then, but this? This was outstanding, terrifying, pure ability and skill. Justin struggled to keep up with her, his need to take an arrow from his quiver, nock it, pull back, aim, and loose was just too much to do when she was so quick and strong. His emotions and stress were flaring up, and Chiron could see it. He yelled to the boy to remain calm, keep steady, he can fight it, but Justin struggled to believe that. He was so new to this, and Clara was just too good. His stress was getting stronger and strong until finally…

He ran out of arrows.

Justin panicked, and instinct took over. He turned to Clara and caught her charging. He reached out and flexed his fingers. Clara stopped. Choked.

Justin had put her into a major coughing fit. A minor affliction, but enough to stop her surge. The glow of her power flickered and dimmed, eventually disappearing altogether, her eyes turning back to their normal ice blue. She dropped her sword, keeling over coughing, barely able to catch her breath between fits. Justin panicked, relaxing his hand and repeatedly muttering a sentence Chiron told him to repeat in times like this.

“Don’t hurt them, let them go.”

Clara finally stopped coughing, gasping for breath and dropping to her knees, panting heavily. Chiron trotted over to her and knelt down, placing a hand on her back and giving her a water bottle Justin could not figure out where he was keeping. She attempted to catch her breath, and sipped the water bottle for a couple minutes, and Justin just stood there, panicking. He really did not mean to hurt his friend, and he really hoped she would not hate him after this.

He almost jumped to the ground in front of her once he regained his composure. He worriedly checked on her and asked questions, making sure she was ok and knew he did not mean it. After a couple minutes, Clara regained her composure and smiled at Justin.

“Dude, that was awesome.”

“What?” Justin said, shocked.

“I knew Plague Bearers were powerful, but wow! That was rough! you can do better? So cool.”

Justin stared at her blankly for a moment and burst out laughing. “You are so weird.”

Clara shrugged and giggled to herself, “Yeah, but you like it!”

The pair laughed for a moment, ignoring the strange, confused stares Chiron was shooting them. Clara lightly coughed between laughs, but overall was recovering pretty well. Chiron dismissed the pair and told them to relax and regain themselves before Capture the Flag.

-------------------

Justin and Clara sat at a table in the middle of the horseshoe of cabins, a bit of a distance from the basketball court. They talked lightly as they regained their strength, Justin consistently apologising and making sure she was ok, which was met with a lot of eye rolling and insistence that she is ok. She’s a fighter, she’ll be fine. They remained like this until finally Justin gave in to his urge and finally asked what that power was.

Clara chuckled and reminded Justin of the conversation they had that morning about the Guardians of Athens, then went on to remind him Athena offered to bless the mortals set to protect the Chambers. That power was part of the blessing. It enhances her senses and abilities. Clara explained that it felt like time slowed down, so she could take in details of the battle field and react quicker. She explained that the blessing resided in a mark on her skin, a pale birth mark on the back of her right shoulder in the shape of an Athenian coin. A pale circle, with the same owl shape that was carved into her sword, above the owl to the right was an olive branch, and beside it on the edge of the circle the letters AOE on the left side. When she activated her blessing, it would glow a blueish silver, the blessing changed her eye colour to that of Athena herself, and the aura encased her body. She had learnt how to control it vaguely when she was with her mother, but Chiron and Mr D had given her private lessons on her family’s position and the powers she held. Well, her Guardianship was the main focus of her lessons, she was also taught how to control her other powers, the ones she inherited from her unknown father. She refused to tell Justin about them. He let it go.

-------------------

The games were finally beginning. Dinner was shorter than usual, the excited demigods eager to fight each other in the woods at night whilst also attempting to locate, steal, and escape with a long piece of red or blue cloth.

On the blue team, they had the Athena, Apollo, Hermes, and Demeter cabins. Justin was pleased her was on Clara’s team, she could explain things to him better than anyone in his cabin, at least. On the red team was the Ares, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, and Dionysus cabins.

Before the two teams separated and marched off to the woods, shouting war cries and praying for glory, everyone was given armour and weapons. Justin realised he would never get used to metal armour. He struggled with the straps on the shoulders, Clara having to fix it for him, so it did not hang off his body. She also adjusted the straps on his sides, muttering to herself that he had a lot to learn. Her armour was perfect, tight yet moveable, no hanging straps and just enough space between her body and armour to fit two fingers in. Absolutely perfect. Justin could not help but admire Clara’s perfection in this. She had clearly been doing this for a long time, everything came so easy to her. Though Justin could chalk this up to her connection with Athena (as he understood it, her whole thing was cleverness and being good in battle, so Justin guessed it would pass down to her kids, and by extension a Guardian like Clara), Justin chose to believe that she was just that good. She looked amazing too, her armour fit her perfectly, and not just because she knew how to wear it. In her usual clothes, like her camp shirts or the sweaters she wore, he could not really notice anything about her, except perhaps her toned bronze arms, that he definitely didn’t stare at, no way! However, in the armour, he could see her figure, as her armour fit perfectly around her. Her armour was clearly made for her, as she had a fortified shoulder guard on her left, and it was flexible around her body, partially leather, partially metal. Obviously, she still had a lot of developing to do, but she was already beautiful. Anyone could tell that she was going to be an absolute looker, mistakable for a daughter of Aphrodite, when she was older. It fit around her toned body nicely. She quickly tightened her armguards and pulled out her camp necklace before looking at Justin properly.

In short, the boy was a mess. Clara had to hold in a bit of laughter looking at him. his skinny, untrained form struggled to fit into any armour properly. This size fit the best, but still not great, as Justin was rather tall for his age, so the armour made for his height also provided room for some muscle, and the size down didn’t reach low enough to cover his whole torso, so there was no hope in finding anything perfect until he toned up a bit. Luckily, since he is an archer, he was allowed to wear mostly leather armour, so it didn’t look as bad as it would if it were metal. Especially when he put his quiver over his shoulder, that fit much better and tightened his leather vest. As she stepped back to look at her work, She did notice his awkward smile, and his drumming fingers on the riser of his bow, and acknowledged that behind the cluelessness and idiocy was a skilled and intelligent and cute guy. Not cute as in she liked him! cute like he’s a lost puppy. yes, that.

Lucille, on the other hand, was a hilarious sight to behold. They clear did not have armour small enough for her, so she remained helmetless, and her too-big chest plate hung off her body, Justin wondered how she would be quiet and sneaky with the amount it shifted when she moved, and she was moving a lot. Her excitement was showing incredibly, she bounced on her feet and had her gloved hands balled into fists, shaking them in front of her chest, her toothy smile beaming in the evening light. She stood beside Beckendorf, who had a sack slung over his shoulder, his other hand on her shoulder and talking to Clarisse, the Red Team’s leader as the head councillor of the Ares Cabin.

Finally, the two teams set off, dividing and heading off to their chosen base. The blue team headed to the North Woods, finally stopping about 50 yards away from the beech. The cabin leaders split off and gave out tasks. The Athena cabin was to split in half, team A moving along the forest line across the beech, and team B loop around the other end, towards Zeus’ Fist. That was apparently the most likely place for the Ares cabin to put their flag. The Apollo and Hermes Cabins were to combine and work together, splitting into groups of two, one from each cabin, and those groups would be split in half, team 1 being defence, and team 2 being sent straight ahead as a diversion attack. Finally, the Demeter cabin were to stay with the flag, using their plant manipulation to protect the prize.

Justin and Clara teamed up, and were sent away to the middle of the forest, adjacent to Zeus’ Fist and across the river. The two plant themselves hidden in a relatively thick section of the woods, sitting back-to-back, looking into two different clearings. They sat in silence for a while, listening and watching for movement, ready to battle despite the fact the game hadn’t officially been called to start yet. They still had a couple minutes for that. but they could never be careful, especially if someone else decided this was a good spot to hide. Finally, they heard the horn sound in the distance. The game begins.

Clara and Justin listened out for any sound coming close, Justin had an arrow knocked in preparation, a knife strapped to his side in case he needed a close combat weapon. Clara had drawn her heirloom sword, holding it close to her chest in hopes of hiding it in the bushes. Not soon after the horn blasted, the pair heard footsteps nearby their hiding spot. Well, Clara heard them and infirmed Justin. Her battle senses where a lot stronger than his. Whether that was a Guardian thing or something she inherited from her father, she wouldn’t know. Clara glared into the near distance, waiting for any sign of movement, Justin followed her gaze and readied his bow. He had a pretty good shot from where he was.

A positive: Clara was right, someone was indeed coming towards them.

A negative: ‘someone’ actually meant seven people. a small group compared to the entirety of the Red team, and Justin had never been too good at math, but he was pretty sure seven was more than two.

the team consisted of three Ares kids and two Hephaestus kids. Five strong and skilled demigods against one amazing swordsman and a novice archer. Sounds like a fair fight.

Clara quietly pulled out an arrow from Justin’s quiver, and pulled out a ball of strong from the gods only know where. she tied the end to underneath the flights of the arrow and looked at the path the Red Team demigods were walking on. She muttered to Justin,

“Shoot that log there.”

Justin complied, silently shooting at the log with the arrow she had modified. The team of five jumped a little at the sudden sound.

“What was that?”

“Who’s there?!”

“Come on guys, it was probably just a squirrel or something. it’s gone now, and do you see anyone? let’s just get this flag.”

And at that, the five walked in the direction of Justin’s arrow. Just when the five were two feet away, Clara pulled tight on the string, and the front two kids tripped, faceplanting the dirt. the other three readied their weapons and the tripped two attempted to get up, but Justin acted fast, quickly knocking and arrow and shooting at them, the arrow digging into the sleave of the first guy’s tshirt, pinning him to the ground. The other one got to his feet, but was only in a crouched position by the time Justin had knocked another arrow and loosed, catching his baggy shorts, and knocking him down. The other three locked onto the bush Justin and Clara were hiding in, and Clara took her chance. She charged, brandishing her sword, and attacked the three. Now, for any normal fighter, this would be a terrible decision. A suicide mission, in fact. But Clara is no normal fighter. once the three had realised what happened, Clara had tripped one, who rolled back onto their front and jumped back to their feet, but she had moved on to the next, quickly disarming him, then onto the third, who put up a good fight. The second guy, an Ares kid, picked his sword back up and charged, but Justin leapt out of the bush with an arrow knocked and quickly loosed, the arrow reaching its mark in the blade of the sword, pushing his arm to the side so he didn’t hit Clara. He charged to the guy Clara tripped, a Hephaestus kid, and kicked his back, pulling an arrow out of his quiver and stabbing it into the ground through his loose tshirt. The last Ares kid fighting Clara was putting up one hell of a fight, the two experienced warriors matching each other’s energy perfectly. That was, until the Ares kid tripped Clara. She rolled to the side, avoiding the blad that was stabbed into the ground, and when she landed on her feet, she smirked. Her ice blue eyes glowed a stormy grey, and her shoulder lit up under her fortified armour, the light quickly encasing her whole body.

Her Blessing of Athena.

The Ares kid looked panicked; he had clearly seen this before. Though his unearned confidence quickly returned, and he attacked, slashing his sword down on Clara, who parried with so much force, the kid was knocked backwards. Clara leapt to her feet, swinging her sword around to build momentum and beating down at the guy, who could only stumble backwards and block as many attacks as he could. Clara was far too fast and far stronger than this guy, and it showed. Far sooner than the Ares kid wanted, Clara disarmed him. Shooting his word into the trunk of a tree, she tripped him, slashed at his chest plate, knocking him with more force into the floor, and winding him horribly. Soon, the whole team was pinned to the ground, winded, or just given up. Clara laughed a little, looking down at her work, and acknowledging the arrows pinning people.

“We make a good team!” Clara said cockily, her eyes returning to normal, and her glow fading.

“Yeah. yeah, we do.” Justin said, a light blush filling his cheeks.

“Come on, let’s go find more groups.”

At that, the two ran away in the same direction, back towards their team’s flag, in a quest to find more people to fight. Justin was starting to see why Clara loved this so much. It was incredibly invigorating.

--------------

Clara and Justin truly were an amazing team. The managed to take down two more groups soon after their initial fight, using Clara’s blessing, her strange, mysterious powers inherited from her unknown father, and Justin’s insane accuracy and a limited version of his new powers. Somehow, Justin managed to control himself enough to just give his opponents a bit of vertigo, enough to make it easy to knock them down with a slight push, and they would not be getting up for a little while. The two were energised, ready for anything, and perfectly in sync. The two dashed off after their second battle and stopped in a small clearing to catch their breath.

“You’re doing good, Peters!” Clara panted smiling wide, her eyes now permanently grey her energy rises. “Improved a lot, you’re gonna be an amazing warrior after more training!”

“Thanks.” Justin said through deep breath and a wide smile. “You’re pretty awesome yourself.”

The two smiled softly at each other, but that smile dropped immediately when they both felt a metal clamp around their legs. The initial contact hit Justin’s left leg, and a split second after wrapping around his right. The opposite happened for Clara. The two saw a celestial bronze wire shoot up from the ankle clamps and attach to a branch on a tree, then shooting the two upwards and stopping quickly, leaving them hanging from the branch.

“What the-”

The two heard a familiar little giggle, and a more booming chuckle they recognised.

“You two walked right into our trap!” Beckendorf walked out of the shadows with a bouncing Lucille at his side.

“Lucy??” Justin exclaimed, slightly laughing along with his sister, impressed at her work.

“Caught you!” She exclaimed, pulling her tongue out at her big brother.

“Yeah, you did.” Justin Smiled at Lucille, then looked to Beckendorf, who had his arms crossed and looking between the girl and their captives, clearly proud. “Did you make these?”

“I helped! It was super cool!”

“She did really well.” Beckendorf said. “She’s an amazing worker.”

“Yeah, she is.”

“Hey!” Clara exclaimed, a little annoyed but mostly joking around with them. “Can you let us down?”

“Go on Lucy, what do we do if we let them down?” Beckendorf patted her shoulder and she looked up at him, reminding herself of the script she had been given. She stopped fighting and puffed her little chest out, trying to put on a serious face, but she was still so happy for succeeding, her serious face breaking into a smile.

“Only if you…” she paused for a moment, to think. “Surrender! and be our prisoner!”

“Oh, that’s the deal, huh?” Clara smiled. “Are you up for a compromise?”

“Depends on what it is.” Beckendorf shrugged.

“Let us go, you run off, we wait a minute before also making a move.”

“No deal. Looks like you’re gonna be swinging there for a while!” He said in a sing-song manner.

“Then what do you propose?”

“We let you go, but you betray your team and join us.”

“Yeah, I’m not gonna do that.”

Justin attempted to gulp; Clara was really screwing with their chance to escape. But just before Beckendorf could respond, three Red Team soldiers ran past holding the Blue flag.

“Looks like you’re going to be hanging there for a bit.” Beckendorf smiled cockily and chuckled. He turned to Lucille, “Hey Lucille, guard these two for me?”

Lucille nodded enthusiastically, and Beckendorf ran off shouting back to Lucille to remember how to release them.

“You do know how to release us, right?” Justin said, unsure.

Lucille just sat down, staring at her brother and friend, and needed, taking out a small remote and waving it in the air. “Just have to press one button… umm… I think this one?”

“Lucille!!”

[lovemesomesurveys]

Do you have any tan lines? Nope. Have you ever wished you could stop time? Yes. I’ve also wished I could speed it up. Is there any pictures on the wall you're in? Yeah, there’s several. Who was the last person who called you? My mom. Did you make any money today? No.

Have you ever fallen and twisted your ankle? No. What was the highest place you've ever jumped from? I haven’t jumped from anywhere. Have you ever gone swimming in a river? No. Ever been so unfortunate to slip on wet rocks? Nope. When was the last time you got completely soaked by rain? It’s been a long time. One of the times that comes to mind is when my mom, aunt, a former friend, and I were at an outdoor festival and we got caught in an unexpected rain storm. It just started pouring down hard and we were not prepared at all. We had to run back to our car, which was parked a good distance away and yeah we were absolutely soaked. 

Is there something you really want to buy at the moment? I’d love to be able to book a beach vacation getaway. Would you ever consider culinary school? No. I’m not a cook and have no interest in trying to become one. Do you ever watch the clouds, to see if they look like objects/animals etc? I did when I was a kid sometimes. When was the last time you didn't want to get out of bed? That’s me everyday. It’s a real struggle. Are you excited for anything coming up in the near future? No. My foreseeable future consists of more doctors and appointments and struggles and spending most of my time in bed. Speaking of dancing, do you know any real dance moves? I know them, but I can’t do them. Do you save cards from your birthday/x-mas, etc? Yes. What was the last souvenir someone got you? A shirt. Do you have a favorite remix of a song? One of my favorite covers is Adele’s cover of George Michael’s “Fast Love” that she preformed at an award show in honor of him after he died. I can only describe it as hauntingly beautiful. I really wish she would have released a studio version of it. When was the last time you printed something off? I don’t recall; it’s been awhile. Are you one of those people who can learn music/songs by ear? No, I wish. There was a guy in my piano class I took my senior year in high school that could do that. It was really cool. Has the power gone out recently? No, but I have a feeling it will happen soon. It always does when we have a lot of triple digit degree weather, which is what this week has consisted of. Do you like driving at night? I don’t drive, but I like nighttime drives. Like, whenever I travel I love leaving really early when it’s still dark out. It’s a different experience. Does seeing roadkill make you sad, or just grossed out? Both. Does wearing heels make you feel sexier? I don’t wear heels. What do you think is the most saddest sounding instrument? The piano can sound that way. What day do you go back to school (if you're in school)? I’m forever done with school. When was the last time you've gone shopping with a friend? It’s been a few years. Do you ever go out to dinner with your Mom? We haven’t physically gone out to eat for dinner in quite a long time.  What is your favorite kind of salad dressing? Ranch. Have you ever bought fireworks? Not me personlly, but my dad and brother do every 4th of July. Do you really pay attention to the ratings on movies? Sometimes, but I ultimately decide if I want to see it or not. Have you ever snuck in to a theater/dance/bar etc? No. If given the chance, would you go to Ireland? Sure. Who was the last person/website to send you an email? I don’t feel like checking. Has your phone ever rang and scared you? Yeah. I’m such a jumpy person anyway. If you have a cat, does it ever "converse" with you? I don’t have a cat. If given the chance, would you ever fly in a fighter plane like the F-16? No. Are you afraid of standing on the edge of hills/skyscrapers/cliffs etc? Uh, YES. Do you have a favorite species of wild cat (tiger/lion/cougar etc)? No. Do you support the funds designed to protect endangered animals? (Like WWF). I haven’t done much myself to support them, but I’m glad they exist. What type of a drunk are you? (Obnoxious, calm, emotional, violent, etc) I was a chatty drunk. I feel like I was annoying, ha. I was also the sad drunk. Do you have an absolute favorite name (boy or girl)? I love the name Alexander. Are you good at pronouncing foreign words? Uhh, depends. If you're not already, when do you plan on getting married? I don’t want to get married. Can you tolerate the smell of cigarette smoke? Nooo. It honestly makes me sick, like I get lightheaded and dizzy, I get nauseous, and I get a really bad headache. When listening to music, do you usually tap your foot etc to the beat? I sometimes tap my fingers and hands. Have you ever literally cried on a friend's shoulder? No. Was there something that "made your day" today? It literally just turned midnight, so today is just now starting. Do you have a favorite kind of chocolate bar? White chocolate. Are you happy that it's summer? Ugh, no. It’s hot and miserable. Is there anything that you should be doing right now? I’m about to make my nightly bowl of ramen.  Has anyone had expectations that you just couldn't live up to? (finishing this a couple hours later...) That’s how I’ve been feeling. Are you currently in a relationship? If so, how long have you been dating? Nope. Would you ever consider being a DJ at a party if you were paid? Nah. Have you ever tried those electric toothbrushes? Wow, this question makes it seem like they’re so futuristic and rare lol. Yes, I use electric toothbrushes. Are you or anyone you know devoted to "being green"? Not overly so, no. When it comes election time, do you vote (if you're old enough)? Yes. What was the last movie you watched that was on TV? I watched Fear 1994 on Netflix recently if that counts. How long have you had an account on bzoink? I don’t have an account on bzoink. Do strapless bras work for you? I don’t like them. I only wear them if I have to, like with a dress. Do you have a favorite hair elastic that you use almost always? No. Has anyone told you that they wanted to marry you/ were planning on it/etc? No. When you were younger, did you have a yoyo? I did. I couldn’t do any tricks, though. What was the last video game you played, if any? Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Has anyone ever called you nerdy? Yeah. Have you ever had to call 911? Yes. Has there ever been a tornado near where you live? No, fortunately. Are you a rollercoaster addict? Noo. I’m a big scardy cat. Do you feel comfortable enough to wear short shorts? No. I’m very self-conscious about my legs. About my body in general, really. If you have iTunes, do you find the Genius recommendations helpful? I don’t even recall what that is; I haven’t used iTunes in almost 10 years. Are you quick at looking up numbers in phonebooks/ words in dictionaries? Phonebooks, wow.  I haven’t used a phonebook or actual dictionary in yearsssss thanks to the Internet/Google.  Have a favorite actor/actress from Old Hollywood? (Marilyn Munroe, etc) Lucille Ball. Out of Biology, Chemistry and Physics, which are you the best at? None of those. Is there a friend you can always talk to about anything? I don’t have any friends. Can you stand spicy foods? Not anymore. :( It’s gotta have like barely anything like McDonald’s or Taco Bell mild hot sauce type of stuff. It’s wild because I used to be obSESSED with spicy food. I put hot sauce on everything and had a high spicy tolerance. Then a few years ago I developed a sensitivity and I can’t even have red pepper flakes now. It sucks. What's your opinion on people who stretch their ears? Hey, do what you want. I’ll admit the really stretched out lobes freak me out, though. Do you think tattoos are expressive art or unattractive? To me they can be either one, it just depends. What is your school mascot? -- Do you find black and white photos to be pretty? Yeah. Food you make doesn't taste as good as food made by others, true? Sometimes. Especially foods like sandwiches for some reason. I think they’re way better when my mom or a deli makes them.  Is there a certain color that doesn't look good on you? I don’t think I look good in anything, so. Have you ever heard anything interesting about Nova Scotia, Canada? Not that I can recall. Have you ever seen a bear in the wild? No, thankfully. Do you know when you will get to see your significant other next? I’m single. What's the book you're currently reading? ”Such a Good Girl” by Willow Rose. Is your room currently a disaster? No. If going to a concert, do you prefer it to be outside or in a stadium? Definitely in a stadium.

Do you have a case for your camera? I use the camera on my phone, which I do have a case for. Can your cellphone take a beating? I’ve dropped it a few times and so far so good. Is there a month you prefer over others? October and December. Do you ever buy lottery tickets? Just a couple of times. Can you recall the most disturbing movie you've ever seen? A Clockwork Orange is one. Are you more of a tape or a glue person? Tape. Of course, it does depend on what I’m doing. In some cases, glue is the better option.  Has anyone you know gotten mono? Not that I know of. What is/or was your graduating year? I graduated UC in 2015. Have you had a weird dream lately? All my dreams are weird. Have you ever gotten an autograph from someone famous? Yes. Do you own a pair of slippers? No. Do you ever watch VHS movies anymore? No. I don’t even recall the last time. Has your computer ever decided to completely erase itself? No, but I’ve lost stuff because of viruses back in the day. :(

Only when the power goes out do we realize how much we rely on it, true? It definitely becomes quite apparent quite quickly. Have you ever picked an apple off the tree and eaten it? No. Can you say yes / no in different languages? ”Si” and “No”, ha. Are you good at styling your own hair? No. Especially not anymore since I just don’t have the motivation or energy to do anything with my hair, which is why it was always up in a bun. I finally just cut it really short and have been wearing a cute wig if I go somewhere cause that’s all I can to do right now. I am sad, though. It was so long.   Out of the traditional superheroes, which one is your favorite? The Scarlett Witch and Iron Man. What color is the shirt you're wearing right now? Black. Have you ever been lost? Physically and figuratively, yes.

[naughtyneganjdm]

The Guest - Chapter 28

Summary: As the world turns to chaos, Joel & Y/N desperately try to get to Negan while Negan is dealing with everything that is going on with Lucille.

Characters: Negan, the reader (OC), Joel, Lucille, etc.

Warnings: Swearing, angst, blood, killing, etc. 

Notes:  Please make sure to read the notes at the end of this chapter. It's kind of important for the ending, so once you're done be sure to read those!

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20333263/chapters/70098489

“I really would rather you let me go with you,” Joel proclaimed walking into the bathroom as Y/N got ready to go see Negan. It was almost noon and that was the time she had agreed to meet Negan today at the home they shared together before Lucille had gotten sick. “I know that this is something that he asked you to do and you want to do it alone, but after what happened the other day…I don’t think you should be alone. I can wait in the car or something.”

“Joel, I’m going to the house and then I am coming straight home. I promise you that,” Y/N muttered, setting her brush down while looking at him in the mirror. His green-hazel eyes were locked on hers and it was clear that he was uncomfortable with this. “I will text you when I’m there and I will text you when I’m leaving. Just finish packing everything up for tomorrow. Soon, we’ll be at your cabin and everything will be fine. It will just be the four of us and we won’t have to worry about everyone else.”  

“I know. I just can’t help, but worry about you,” Joel moved in behind her while she stood in front of the mirror. The warmth of him near her caused her to smile and she leaned back into his chest when she felt his arms wrapping loosely around her. Joel’s hands slid carefully in over the small swell of her abdomen and she lowered her hands to caress over his. “I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you or the baby.”

“We’ll be okay,” she promised with a sigh when the sensation of his lips teasing over the side of her neck was felt. Closing her eyes tightly, she took in the warmth of him and giggled when the roughness of his short beard teased over her skin. “I’m tough as nails.”

“You certainly are,” Joel agreed with a laugh. “Are you ready to tell him about the baby?”

“It’s time,” she insisted with a nod, knowing that she had beat around the bush more than she should have. It was obvious she was pregnant at this point and Negan would be living with them now. It would be extremely hard for her to continue to hide it. It would also be wrong not to tell him. She already felt bad enough about everything. If she didn’t have Joel to help her through all of this, she was certain that the world would have swallowed her whole. “I love you Joel.”

“I love you too sweetheart,” Joel assured her, nuzzling his nose against the inside of her neck before pulling back slowly. Y/N turned in his arms to face him and reached out to cup his face. “Just keep me updated. I’ll make sure to close things up here and finish getting all that we need.”

“Sounds good,” she tipped up on her toes to kiss over Joel’s lips. She took her time, knowing that it was nice to have someone who worried about her like Joel did. Even if she may have thought he was a little too nervous about everything that was going on, she appreciated the gesture that he wanted to keep both her and Negan safe. “I’ll be back soon.”

“And I’ll be waiting,” Joel muttered moving out of the restroom. When they made it to the living room, she watched him turn on the television to put the news on.

“You probably shouldn’t be watching that because you are already nervous enough,” she reminded him and Joel gave her a worried expression. The last few days she had managed to convince him to leave the television off. Grudgingly, he agreed to it, but it was clear that it didn’t help him calm down. “If it makes you feel better, that’s one thing, but I think the news has you tense since the thing with Negan happened.”

“Well, I promise as soon as we make it to the cabin tomorrow…I’ll ease up on the news,” Joel took a seat on the arm of the couch to watch what they were saying. “It’s almost noon. You should probably get going.”

“Love you,” she brushed her fingers through his hair before sliding her palm down the side of his face to tease her fingertips through the rough hair covering his face. Stealing another kiss from him, she sighed heavily and shrugged her shoulders. “I’d be lost without you.”

“The feeling is mutual honey,” Joel whispered against her lips, closing his eyes while she slowly kissed him over and over again.

“I’ll be back,” she squeezed at his hands in a supportive grasp and backed away slowly. Giving him a wink, she headed for the door and left for the house she had been living with Negan in previously.

There was an incredible amount of pressure she felt on the way over to the house. Guilt was the number one thing she was feeling. For so long she kept the pregnancy from Negan because of what Lucille asked of her. Undoubtedly, she thought Negan would be mad at her for not telling him. It was something he deserved to know and now she knew that. She just wondered if it would be something she would blurt out immediately or something she would wait to say. It scared her to know what his response to it would be. It was either going to go really bad or really good depending on how he was probably feeling.

When she got to the house it was disappointing to see that Negan wasn’t there yet, but the best thing she could do was go in and start grabbing the things that she thought they may need at the cabin. She also pulled some boxes from the garage and began to pack up some of the things she was certain that they could just put into storage. Knowing that she was pregnant, she wasn’t trying to pack anything too heavy just in case. It was best that she could help any way that she could though. There was no reason to put all of the moving on Negan’s shoulders after everything he had gone through.

When she made it to the mantle, she reached for the photo that was on top of it of the two of them together. Dragging her thumb over the side of the picture frame, she couldn’t help feeling an incredible amount of sadness while looking at it. There were genuine smiles and happiness in the picture making her think about what they had before it all fell to shit. The way she felt about Negan was so pure and so real in the past. She would have done anything for him then because he was her everything. In her life, Y/N would probably never feel the kind of love she had for Negan again. He was her first and it had felt like it would be the end of the world if she had lost him. There was no doubt that Negan was her world back then. Everything back then seemed easier and as close to perfect as possible. It took some bad things happening for her to realize that her relationship with Negan wasn’t as perfect as she always thought it was. Waking up to reality hurt, but she knew that she loved Negan and that was never going to leave her.

Reaching for the bag she brought with her, she put the frame in there. She knew that wasn’t something she absolutely needed to bring with her, but she wanted it. Having something that showed their original happiness together was something she felt she needed and wanted. Having proof that something was perfect for them would serve as a good reminder.

After a while of going through things she started to notice that it was quite a while past noon and she wasn’t hearing from Negan. Pulling out her phone, she tried calling Negan to see if he would be coming soon and didn’t get a response. Instead of worrying, she just imagined that Negan was still preparing to leave with Lucille and sent him a text as well.

Taking her time, she grabbed some of the things she knew she wanted from the house. When she stepped outside the sound of someone screaming caught her attention and she looked across the street to see that the neighbors seemed to be in a fight. It seemed to be a very physical fight and she didn’t know how to react to seeing it. The husband had the wife pinned down to the grass. It was strange because in all the time living there, they didn’t seem like those kind of people.

“Hey,” Y/N called out, clutching to her bag that was beside her. Keeping her mouth shut and moving on may have been the better choice in this whole situation due to her being pregnant, but she couldn’t just let this continue to happen. “That’s enough, let her go.”

The neighbor continued to ignore her and she could hear the wife pleading for help before making a strange sound, “Let her go! I’m going to call the cops if you…”

Y/N found herself going silent when she saw the man lift his head and turn to look over his shoulder at her. What she saw caused Y/N to stop dead in her tracks. The man’s lower face was covered in blood and it made her stomach immediately turn. Looking beneath him, she could see that it looked like the husband had been biting on the woman’s face.

“What the hell?” she backstepped away from him, reaching for her cellphone that was in her pocket. Slowly the man began to rise and she held her hand up in the air as if warning him to stay back. “I’m calling the police.”

An overwhelming sense of fear flooded through her as a long line of blood dripped from the man’s lips and there seemed to be pieces of flesh hanging from his mouth. This was a man she had met several times in the past and she was absolutely certain that his eyes were brown, but there was a blue-white tint to his eyes that made her nervous.

In the distance something sounded like an explosion and it made her jump. It pulled her attention away from the man for only a second when she saw the smoke. Moving backwards, she noticed the neighbor making his way toward her and she headed slowly toward the car.

“Stay back,” she muttered again, but her warnings did nothing as he continued to advance her. Attempting to grab the keys, Y/N watched the man lunge at her and she moved quick enough toward the other end of the car so she could use the car to her advantage. “Listen, I don’t know what’s wrong with you…”

A growl erupted from the man’s throat and she quickly moved around the car when he moved for her again. Bracing her hand against the car she now noticed at the corner of her eye that the woman the man had been attacking started rising to her feet. There were large amounts of flesh missing from her face to the point that she could see her teeth from the gaps in flesh.

“Fuck me…” Y/N scrambled back toward the house when the woman began making her way over toward the house where she was. Just when she reached the door a gasp fell from her throat when she felt a force grabbing a hold of her ankle making her fall to the ground. Thankfully she was able to brace her fall on her hands so the fall didn’t affect her body. Just beyond her, there was a small shovel that she had been using to garden the last time she was living at the house. Reaching for it, she felt the weight of the man moving over her and she swung her hand back managing to hit the man in the face with the small shovel. It caused the man to jolt back, but almost immediately he turned to look at her and she could see she caused a massive gash over the side of his face, but it didn’t affect him at all.

“Hey!” she heard the next-door neighbor scream out when Y/N braced her hand firmly over the center of the man’s chest when he attempted to pin her down and his wife was approaching. Was this the virus that Joel had heard about on the news? The man next door had drawn the attention of the wife and she watched the wife take off after the man. What the hell was happening? “Get off!”

Trying to use all the power she had in her body, she pushed as hard as she could into the center of the man’s chest, but he was overpowering her. The blood from his lips was dripping onto her clothes and his mouth snapped over and over again. He was trying to bite her just like he had done his wife. If she reached for the shovel again, she wouldn’t be able to brace him away from her so she felt like she was stuck in this position. Desperately she wanted to overpower him, but no matter how hard she tried, she felt him continue to lower in closer to her.

In the distance she could hear the neighbor that attempted to help her screaming. Obviously, he was being attacked just as she was, but it didn’t sound like he was better off. The man was getting exceedingly close to her and there was nothing she could do to stop him. The sound of him snapping his teeth together every time he attempted to bite her caused her to flinch.

“Stop!” Y/N attempted to scream out and just when it seemed like the man was going to overpower her completely the sound of loud clank filled the air. The power of the man above her weakened and she managed to shove him off of her and to the ground. Immediately someone was reaching for her and pulled her quickly to her feet.

“Get behind me,” Joel’s thick southern accent filled the air as he clung tightly to the tire iron that he had hit the man in the head with to get him off of her. Y/N grasped tightly to Joel as the man he had hit with the tire iron slowly began to get up. There were growls coming from his throat and when the man lunged at them again Joel swung the tire iron once more bashing the man upside the head. It caused the man to hit the ground hard and Joel’s chest was rising and falling heavily when he looked down at the man.

“Joel,” she called out to him seeing him looking to the man he had just attacked. The tire iron he had used to hit the man was covered in flesh and blood from the strength of the hit that Joel had delivered. There was a sense of shock over Joel’s face because it was clear he had just killed the man that had attempted attacking her. “Joel!”

“We uh…” Joel lifted his head, finally clearing his throat when he took notice in the distance that multiple people now seemed to be being attacked. Joel moved before her in a protective stance and he nodded toward the house. “Where is Negan?”

“He’s not here,” she answered with a worried breath and Joel reached for her hand. Desperately she reached for the bag she had dropped as Joel began to lead her toward the SUV he had brought while still clinging tightly to the tire iron in his other hand. “Joel, we have to wait for Negan.”

“Sweetheart, the only reason I’m here is because there is some really bad shit going on and the news is what told me about it. All you have to do is look around right now to see how bad it is. We can’t sit here and wait for Negan,” Joel insisted moving her to the passenger’s side of the SUV while hurriedly moving and trying to pay attention to the environment around them. When he got her in the car, he immediately closed the door and ran to the driver’s side. Looking in the back, she saw that Joel had put Ghost there when he left the house. Once Joel was in the car, he set the tire iron down by her feet and then began to fumble with his seatbelt. There was no doubt that he was panicked, but he was doing his best to stay calm, likely for her. “We need to get the fuck out of here right now Y/N. People are being attacked everywhere; they are saying people are sick. That this disease is causing people to come back from the dead.”

“What?” she blurt out with a confused sound. The idea of that was ridiculous, but Joel threw his bloody hand up in the air. “They are dead? How is that possible.”

“You know, I really didn’t stick around to listen to the how. I just got my ass over here and I reckon it was great that I did,” Joel’s nervous southern twang made her realize how all along Joel was right to be scared and nervous. There was nothing but regret when it hit her how wrong she was to make him feel like it was ridiculous for his worries and fears.

The sound of something hitting the side of the SUV was heard and Joel looked to see the woman from across the street hitting at the door over and over again. Loud barks and growls were heard from the back seat from Ghost as it scared him and it made their dog go immediately into protective mode. Blood was smearing over the window as Joel fumbled with the keys to get the SUV started up.

“Ghost,” Joel reached out to try and touch the dog to keep him calm while working with getting the hell out of there. Ghost instead focused on the immediate threat and continued to growl at the woman outside the car. Y/N’s heart was pounding inside of her chest, reaching to clasp to the tire iron that Joel had thrown beside her feet. If someone were to get in, she would have to think fast, but a breath of relief filled the air when Joel got the engine started.

“We need to find Negan,” she demanded taking in the scenery around her. With seeing so many people getting attacked, her first thought was how unprotected he would be while being at the hospital.

“Baby, this is happening everywhere,” Joel informed her, recalling the information that he did manage to catch from the news. Immediately, he put the SUV in reverse and pulled out of the driveway so fast that it caused the woman to drag while she was grasping to the car. When Joel slammed on the breaks, it was enough for the woman’s grip to release on the door and she rolled into the middle of the street. Joel stopped long enough to see the woman slowly rise in the middle of the street. The fact that half her face was just about missing, yet she still kept coming made this feel like a horrible nightmare. Something you would only see from the movies. Joel slammed on the gas and plowed through the woman which caused Y/N to let out nervous yelp when the car bounced as they rolled over the woman. Joel tried to keep a straight face while he drove down the street, but she could see that his arms were shaking. “I’m getting you and the baby to that cabin. This is happening everywhere. As soon as I heard what was happening, I got in the SUV to come and find you. I almost didn’t make it to you Y/N. I left the address on the refrigerator door with his name on a note. If he comes looking for us, he’ll probably see the note.”

“We’re getting Negan,” Y/N repeated her words making Joel glance over at her from the driver’s seat. There was a sense of panic flooding his body and a look in his eyes that she had never seen before. Joel was always her strength, so the fact that he was scared meant something big. While she knew he was scared, she couldn’t just leave Negan. Not after everything that happened. “We can’t just leave him Joel. I don’t know what’s going on, but this…this is…”

“Feels a whole hell of a lot like a horrible fucking movie,” Joel answered, clinging tightly to the steering wheel. “People are eating people Y/N! We need to get to the cabin immediately. No on is there. It will be safe and we can lock ourselves in until someone gets this all figured out. You were almost killed.”

“Joel, I love you, but I’m not letting Negan stay here,” Y/N reiterated reaching for her phone again to attempt to call Negan.

“Y/N, he’s at the hospital. If he’s not here and he’s not answering his phone, there is a good chance that…” Joel cleared his throat uneasily and he let out a nervous sound. “I don’t want to think like this Y/N, but there is a strong change he’s not here anymore.”

“Don’t say that. Negan is alive and we’ll find him. You need to go to the hospital,” she felt her heart pounding inside of her chest at the very suggestion that Negan might be dead. “We can’t leave without him.”

“The hospital is probably the most dangerous place to go right now,” Joel tried to insist again giving her a quick look before returning his eyes to the road. There was panic and worry in her eyes. Her whole body was tense and he knew that she was worried about Negan. More than anything, he wanted to put her first. She was what was important. While he loved and cared for Negan, he knew that going to the hospital would put Y/N in danger, but she was hearing none of it. His jaw flexed and he slammed his eyes shut. There was no way she was going to let him leave without then trying to find Negan.  “Okay…okay. We’ll go get Lucille and Negan, but as soon as we get them…we’re leaving.”

“As long as we have them,” Y/N felt her bottom lip trembling as she continued to try to call Negan over and over again. With him not answering his phone, she found herself scared. Scared that something actually did happen to him. Joel was right. If he wasn’t at the house and he wasn’t answering his phone, there was a big chance that he wasn’t here anymore. God, she hoped that wasn’t the case.

Taking notice of the mayhem that was going on around them, Joel wasn’t wrong. It looked like the world was ending. How had she been this completely oblivious to the world around them? While she hadn’t left the house in a while until today, she never took the time to even acknowledge what might be happening.

This whole time she thought Joel was kind of being ridiculous with how nervous he had been, but outside the SUV seemed like a horror movie that was taking place. Had she been so stuck inside of herself that she was actually missing that all of this was happening?

Clasping tightly to her phone, she looked to Joel and saw that he was still tremoring. The expression on his face looked like he was mortified and she reached out to place her hand over his thigh to give it a firm squeeze, “Are you okay?”

“I just killed a man Y/N and I’m sure I killed the woman I ran over,” Joel retorted with a nervous look, taking notice of the blood splatter that was over his hands and arms. “I mean…I’d do it all over again to keep you safe, but…I don’t know what to think. I killed two people.”

“They were going to kill me Joel,” she reminded him, reaching across the SUV to caress over the side of his face. Joel’s face was pale and he let out a shuddering exhale. “You did what you had to in order to keep me safe. You also just said these people were dead Joel. I know that’s hard to understand because I don’t even get it, but maybe they were already dead.”

“I know, I know…” Joel nodded trying to shake the feeling that he had from killing the person that had attempted to hurt Y/N. “I’ve just seen three people die recently and two at my own hands. This is just…a lot to take in.”

“Baby, I’m not sure that we could consider them alive in the first place,” she repeated trying to keep him in the right headspace so he didn’t have a meltdown over what he had done. Right now, they had to find Lucille and Negan. Negan was the father of her baby and even though she was head over heels for Joel, she still loved Negan too. They couldn’t leave him. They had to at least try to find him. “We’ll get Lucille and Negan. After we find them, we’ll go to the cabin and we will stay there for however long this needs to pass over. Everything is going to be okay.”

There was a fear that what she was saying was wrong. She wasn’t sure what she was going to find when they got to the hospital. All she knew is that she needed to find Negan and he needed to be okay. She had to convince herself that everything would be fine on their ride over to the hospital. Over and over again, she thought it to herself. They would get to the hospital, grab Lucille and Negan, then go to the cabin. That’s just had to be how it was going to be. If she thought anything else, she may have fallen apart and that’s not what they needed to happen.

----

Leaning forward in the hard-plastic seat he was in; Negan had his eyes locked on Lucille. The hospital had her on a ventilator to help her keep breathing after she had ended up in a coma. When she became unresponsive the day before, Negan had thought the worst. He felt blessed to still have her here with him but having her like this broke him. It seemed like the hospital thought there wasn’t much hope to have in Lucille waking up, but Negan didn’t want to believe it.

“Hey beautiful,” Negan spoke, reaching out to grab a soft hold of Lucille’s hand thinking back to the conversation they were having before she became unresponsive. Swallowing down hard, he prayed that she would wake up. That somehow, she would manage to be able to pull through and be able to live just a bit longer to be with him. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her yet. It was too soon. “You gotta open those beautiful green eyes for me. I love you so much.”

Getting choked up in the moment, Negan had his eyes hooked closely on Lucille hoping that maybe talking to God would actually help him. At least this once. He didn’t get to say goodbye. He didn’t get to do so many things that he wanted to with Lucille and this was so extremely hard. Lifting up enough, he pressed a kiss over her temple and felt tears burning at his eyes.

“I need you to know that you are everything to me,” Negan whispered in her ear, squeezing his hand firmly around hers. “I’m not perfect…I never was. Fuck, I’m a piece of dog shit in comparison to the rest of the world. You deserved so much better than me…so much better than this.”

Negan caressed his rough hand over her bald head feeling the warmth of his tears sliding down the side of his face. His body was shaking uncontrollably and he was at a complete loss of how to handle everything going on. For so long he tried to coach himself for a moment like this, but when it actually happened, he found himself losing control. Nothing could ever prepare someone for something like this.

“Did I do this to you? Is this my fault? Did God do this to me to punish me for all the wrongs I’ve done?” Negan almost whispered, pulling her hand up to his lips so he could deposit a kiss over the back of her hand. “If I would have been with you and not off screwing around, could we have found this cancer sooner? Would we have been able to catch it so it didn’t come to this? If I hadn’t upset you so damn much with my actions would you have been strong enough to fight this?”

Negan let the what ifs swallow him whole in his thoughts. More than anything he blamed himself for all of this. This was everything Lucille asked him not to do in blaming himself, but he couldn’t help it, “Baby, you have to beat this. Please…”

There were sounds of crashing outside the hospital room and Negan looked over his shoulder toward the door that was closed. People were being loud and Negan swallowed down hard while keeping Lucille’s hand still firmly in his. Truthfully, Negan didn’t care what was going on out there, but it sounded like a warzone. Whatever was going on, he had to drown it out and keep his focus on Lucille.

Turning his attention back to Lucille, it didn’t take long before the hospital door slammed open and a young male nurse was standing at the door breathing heavily. Negan looked over at the man, seeing the panic that was flooding his features.

“Sir! We’ve evacuated the hospital. This area is not safe! You need to come with me so we can get you out of here,” the nurse was breathless and Negan let out a disgusted breath, looking to Lucille who was still in the same state she was before.

“What? Why the hell would you do that?” Negan snapped, sliding in closer to Lucille’s hospital bed and he shook his head. If they needed to evacuate, what could be done to help Lucille? Why weren’t there more people to help them get Lucille out of there? “What can we do to help get her out of here?”

“You don’t understand mister! Have you not seen what’s going on out there?” the nurse desperately reached for Negan’s wrist and Negan powerfully pulled himself away from the man. “She is too sick to move. We can’t take her with us. There is nothing we can do for her.”

“Fuck that! What kind of hospital suggests leaving their sickest patients behind?” Negan snapped with a scowl pulling himself away from the younger man as the man tried to get Negan to come with him. What exactly was going on anyways that made the male nurse want to pull Negan away and leave behind Lucille anyways? “I’m not fucking leaving my wife.”

“You have to understand this is very serious. You could die!” the man blurt out in desperation trying to draw Negan toward him. Swatting the man’s hand away from him, Negan was having none of it.

“Get your fucking hands off of me! I’m staying here with Lucille. I’m not leaving her; do you understand me?” Negan snapped and the younger man stepped back from Negan with a disappointed, yet terrified look. “She needs me. More than ever and I’m not going to abandon her.”

“Fine, but I am telling you, it’s not safe here anymore sir,” the nurse explained with a shake of his head and he looked back into the hallway where there was still clearly drama happening by the loud sounds filling the air, but Negan wasn’t even sure what was happening. “Save yourself.”

The sound of an explosion went off as soon as the nurse left and Negan flinched looking toward the window of the hospital to see that there was smoke outside of the window. Immediately the smell filled the air and Negan let out a tense breath. Getting up slowly, he moved over toward the window and saw that one of the cars outside the hospital had been set on fire.

“Fuck…” Negan swallowed down seeing the large groups of people seemingly chasing after those that were outside the hospital. There were roars, screams and growling that suddenly reminded him of what he had seen with Joel the other day. From below one of the people looked up toward the window he was at and their eyes connected with Negan’s. They were pale blue-white and Negan could feel his heart pounding inside of his chest. “Those people…there is something wrong with them just like the other day.”

Another loud crashing sound was heard and Negan jumped looking to see that the door was left open from when the nurse had left. People were running down the hallways and Negan could see blood actually staining the floors from some that were running. Stepping closer to the door, he could see a teenage boy stopping when he spotted Negan there.

“Run man! Run,” the boy suggested and Negan grasped tightly to the door. Slamming the door shut, Negan braced his body in front of the door and felt his heart pounding. The adrenaline was flooding through his body and he didn’t know what the hell was happening.

“Fuck? What the fuck?” Negan surveyed the hospital room and knew that he had to keep both him and Lucille safe. Scrambling to the dresser they had in the hospital room, he pushed it in front of the door. It caused the television that was on top of the dresser to fall over and shatter against the floor, but he didn’t care. He had to keep them safe and that’s exactly what he was going to do.

----

Glancing over at Joel, Y/N watched him fumbling with the radio and when he fell upon a news channel, she could hear that the newscaster was talking about the dead coming back to life. They mentioned people who got bit were turning into these angry mobs that were attacking others. This had to be a bad dream. This was too much to comprehend.

Letting out an overwhelmed breath, she lowered her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. Joel noticed her discomfort and reached out to squeeze over her knee supportively. Joel was fucking terrified and it was clear by the expression over his features. He didn’t know how to respond to all of this happening, but he was trying to be strong for her.

As the newscaster spoke over the radio, Y/N felt the world spinning around her. This all sounded like a joke, but as she lifted her head to see their surroundings, she knew this was real. This wasn’t some elaborate joke; the world was falling apart and some strange infection had caused all of this to be happening from what it sounded like.

When the name of the hospital that Negan was at with Lucille was mentioned, Joel quickly turned the radio up. They announced that it was being evacuated because of the immense amounts of people being infected and attacked. Joel swallowed down hard, his eyes lowering as he tried to take in that kind of information.

“If he was being evacuated, he would have told me, right?” Y/N tried to reason with Joel and Joel nodded. Instead of letting his fear eat away at him, Joel continued to drive toward the hospital knowing that he thought this would lead to a poor discovery, but he was going to do what he could to help get Negan. “He has to still be there.”

Joel said nothing, just continued to speed to the hospital and avoid the traffic accidents as well as the people that were clearly infected trying to get to them. When they finally pulled before the hospital, Joel stopped the car seeing all of the dead bodies that covered the front lawn. The fear that flooded Y/N’s face upon seeing it made Joel tense up. This was already not looking good.

“Keep your eyes open, let me know if you see him,” Joel prayed to God that Negan wasn’t one of the bodies out there. Continuing on their trail, Joel pulled further into the parking lot, but spotted a group of what he assumed to be the infected and he slowed down. There was another car making its way through the parking lot which seemed to catch the groups attention. Immediately the mob made an attack on the car, jumping on top of it to try and get the person that was inside. “Fuck, fuck…”

“Joel, what are we going to do?” she was desperate for an answer as Joel pulled off onto the grass and they heard the sound of another explosion. In the rearview mirror they could see a fire and Joel drove around the hospital until he found a smoking entrance where the workers would go out back. Joel took a look around, thankful to see that this was a place that didn’t seem to have many people near it. “Joel?”

“Listen to me,” Joel reached for the tire iron that by Y/N’s feet and he grabbed a hold of it. “I’m going to go in there. I’m going to take the stairs to try and see if I can find Lucille and Negan. If I find them, I’m going to bring them back with me. If I don’t come back and someone comes after you, you take the car and you get the hell out of here. Do you hear me?”

“I’m not going to let you go alone,” she refused his suggestion as he leaned over her and popped the glove compartment open. When he opened it, she saw a handgun there and Joel reached for it to give it to her. “What the hell?”

“Do you know how to use this?” Joel reached for the gun knowing that the safety was still on and he undid it to make sure it would be ready to use in case she needed it. Nodding toward the gun, he needed to know her answer and he could see that she was turning pale. “It’s pretty simple, it’s just kind of a point and shoot thing.”

“Joel, I’m not leaving you go in there alone,” she refused, lowering the gun down while reaching with her other hand to hook it around the back of his neck. Urging him in closer to her, she met his lips in a desperate kiss and heard Joel let out a frustrated sound. “I’m coming with you.”

“I can’t let you do that Y/N. If someone bites you or someone hurts you…” Joel refused her offer, his voice coming out scared and shaken. “I have to do this on my own. I will find him for you. I promise. If he is in there, I will find him, but if I don’t come back…”

“Joel, don’t say that,” she shook her head trying to hush him and Joel bit down firmly on his bottom lip. “We’re doing this together.”

“We can’t Y/N! You are pregnant and we have to keep that baby safe,” Joel insisted with a firm tone and she threw her hands up in the air.

“If I can’t defend myself and my baby now, then I never will be able to,” she pointed out with an angered breath, looking around to make sure that the two of them were still okay at this point. “You need me, I need you. The best thing we can do is stick together. Separating puts the two of us at a greater risk.”

“But with the car…” Joel responded with a loud exhale and she threw her hands up, still keeping her fingers tightly grasped to the gun. Swiftly Joel reached out to get her to lower hand that the gun was in and he gave her nervous head tilt. “Watch where you wave that sweetheart. I took the safety off.”

“Joel, we just saw someone get attacked in their car. It didn’t help. I wouldn’t leave you…” she muttered, her eyes tearing over while she looked out at him. “I can’t lose both of the men I have in my life. Please…”

“But Ghost,” Joel looked back over his shoulder to see their young dog in a state of discomfort himself while he kept himself on watch. Ghost was moving from window to window to make sure they were alone and Joel shook his head. “He needs you.”

“Pull into the bushes over there,” Y/N directed and Joel looked over his shoulder to see the area she was talking about near the door. There was a garden there and he couldn’t believe that he was actually going to listen to her, but he did. Turning the SUV back on, he pulled the car where she directed him, hoping to keep it covered enough until they got back. “Are you ready?”

“Fuck no,” Joel’s southern drawl was higher pitched than normal to show how truly nervous he actually was. “Listen to me before we do this. You stay on my ass. Do you hear me?”

“On your ass,” she repeated with a nod and he shook his head.

“No matter what happens or what you see, do not run ahead of me and do not stay behind,” he continued his rules and she felt her heart pounding. Her pulse was felt in her temple and the world felt like it was spinning around them. “We’re going to take the direct route we did the last time we were here. We’re going to go up the stairs and directly to Lucille’s hospital room. You keep that gun up, you stay on alert. If you see someone, you let me know. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” she immediately responded and Joel closed his eyes. It almost seemed like he was doing a prayer before they went and that was kind of against everything that Joel was. Joel never was big on God and praying after he lost his daughter, but now he clearly thought they needed it.

“Let me get out of the car first, then I will come around for you. Do you understand me?” Joel ordered and she nodded. She wasn’t going to fight him on this. They were doing this to come and get Negan. Joel had a plan and she was going to follow it without bickering. It was better than anything she could have came up with.

Joel looked around the area to make sure they were alone before he quickly pulled himself from the car. Cautiously Joel walked around the SUV and looked around the area while grasping tightly to the tire iron at his side. When Joel began moving toward her side, she pulled her seatbelt off and looked behind her to see Ghost watching them.

“We’ll be back baby, I promise,” she muttered reaching out to brush her hand in over the side of Ghost’s face. When Joel opened her door, she quickly moved out and kept quiet when Joel raised his hand up to hold a finger over his mouth to tell her to stay silent. When she was out, Joel closed the door behind her and made sure to the lock the doors hoping to keep Ghost safe inside.

Swiftly moving toward the exit that went toward the stairwell, she gasped when they moved into the door to see multiple bodies before them at their feet. They were torn apart and there was blood everywhere. Joel reached out to cover her mouth with his hand when they heard the sound of feet not too far off in the distance. Things were broken, lights were flickering and the halls seemed to be destroyed. How did this all happen so fast?

----

“Jesus,” Negan heard the sounds of the all-out destruction that was clearly going on around them and he kept his head down. With having the dresser in front of the door, he hoped that would be enough to keep him and Lucille safe. Lowering his gaze to Lucille, he felt his chest ache while staring down at her. “I guess it’s probably for the best that you are sleeping through this.”

Looking over his shoulder he thought about the movies he had seen over things like this. There had to be some truth in them, right? Maybe the government would be coming to help. That’s what always happened, right? Negan didn’t even know what he would consider was happening, but this had to be something the military would come in and fix. They would likely end the terror that these people were causing and fix what was going on.

“This should all be over by the time you wake up,” Negan began to mutter when he looked to the heart monitor to see that it was flat lining and he felt his heart skip in his chest. Pulling himself forward, he prayed this was just a malfunction with the machine because of what was happening at the hospital. Scrambling to his feet, he reached out to place his fingertips over the side of her neck in search of her pulse. When he felt nothing, Negan let out a shuddering whimper and he stared down at her Lucille. “No…please…no…”

Negan tried touching Lucille, attempting to shake her awake. When nothing happened and he touched over the side of her neck again he knew that she was gone. She had died.

“No…no…” Negan shook his head over and over again, the pure agony filling his entire body as he began to cry uncontrollably. The overwhelming emotions that he was feeling made him let out a wail. A flush of warmth flooded his body and he felt like in that moment he could die right there. “Lucille…”

Lowering down over her, Negan rest his head against her chest, his fingers grasping tightly to the blanket that was over her body. Sobbing over her, Negan felt his body shaking and he wished like hell this was the worst possible nightmare his mind could come up with…that any moment he would wake up and this would all be fake, but the longer he cried the more he realized that this was reality.

“I’m so…so…fucking sorry,” Negan whimpered lifting his head, reaching out to grab a hold of her hand. It was becoming cool to the touch and Negan felt his bottom lip tremoring while he stared down at the woman he loved. Regret flooded through his body as he stood up, reaching with one of his hands to caress over her forehead. “I love you so much. So very much. I am so sorry…”

Negan didn’t know what to do with himself. What could he do at this point? His world was ending around him, “I promise I will always love you. You didn’t deserve this. You never deserved this. Damn it…I am so sorry…”

Over and over again Negan tried to pull himself from his emotions, but he just felt himself breaking more and more, “You were the answer to my prayers Lucille when I was younger. My dreams came true when I got with you…”

Negan heard the sounds of more screaming outside his window and he let out a sound of dread, “I would give anything for me to be in that position Lucille. I swear I will always love you…I don’t…I don’t know what I’m gonna do. You are my…everything.”

A loud explosion was heard and it drew Negan’s attention as he looked over his shoulder toward the window again that was at the front of the hospital. Moving toward it after releasing Lucille’s hand, Negan saw someone was inside of a car and large mob of the people that had something wrong with them were attacking the car. Watching them pretty much tear the person apart as soon as they got them out of the car, Negan could feel his stomach turning. They tore that car apart like it was nothing and the person they tore through like butter. What the hell was happening?

“Fucking shit…” Negan had his eyes locked on the window as he watched what was happening. Seeing them tearing apart the person had Negan thinking about the other night. Would that have happened to him if Joel wouldn’t have saved his life?

Watching the scene, Negan saw the mob start to eat the parts they pulled apart from the person and Negan let out a disgusted breath. Gagging, Negan reached up to cover his mouth with his hand in an attempt to stop himself from getting sick.

The sound of movement happening behind him drew Negan’s attention away from the window and he looked over his shoulder to see that Lucille’s body was moving. Standing there, his body was frozen in the moment as she reached up for the ventilator to rip it from her mouth and her throat. Blood began to pour from her mouth and her nose and Negan felt the room spinning around him. She struggled in the bed and Negan watched her pull herself too far. The struggle had caused her to fall over the side of the bed, hitting face first against the ground. With how hard she hit, it made Negan jump and immediately stepped forward.

“Lucille?” Negan muttered her name and slowly moved around the bed to see Lucille on the floor before him still seemingly trying to move. There was blood on the floor and instinctively Negan lowered himself attempting to help her. “Lucille? Are you okay? I thought you were—I swore you were—I thought you died.”

Reaching out for her back, Negan caressed his hand in over the center of her back helping to try to get her to her feet. There was a sense of relief that was flooding his body knowing that she was moving, but at the same time he didn’t understand what the fuck was happening.

“Lucille?” he repeated her name and almost immediately her head snapped back to look at him over her shoulder. He could hear her gurgling while almost growling. Stumbling backwards, Negan saw that her eyes were exactly like those that were down in the parking lot that were attacking people as well as just like the man that had attacked him the other day when he was with Joel. Blood covered the lower half of her face and she had chipped a few teeth in the fall. “No…”

Falling on his bottom, Negan was just out of Lucille’s reach as she attempted to reach for his ankle. She was growling, her pale colored eyes staring out at him as she clawed for his ankle. Negan watched from where he was knowing that she couldn’t move her legs since she had been bed bound for weeks. Negan sat sprawled out on the floor motionless while he watched her trying to pull herself toward him.

Turning his body, Negan reached out again for her throat to attempt to feel for a pulse. Her hand grasped at his arm, trying to pull it to her and he still felt no pulse.

“This can’t be real,” Negan refused when he realized there was still no heartbeat. How was she animated while being…dead? “That’s not possible.”

Pulling his hand away, he attempted to move her again, but she snapped her jaws at him making him gasp when she had just missed him, “Lucille, do you remember me? Honey? It’s me…Negan. Your husband.”

Another terrifying growl fell from her throat and Negan realized in that moment this was no longer his wife. She had become whatever everyone else was out there. Tears slid down his face as he watched her like this. This was cruel to do. She deserved so much more than this. She couldn’t even die peacefully. Whatever was happening affected her too and it killed him that this had to happen to her.

Negan reached out to place his hand in over the side of her face and she still attempted to try to bite him. Leaning in, Negan pressed a lingeringt kiss over her forehead and felt his heart broken over what happened, “I am so sorry this happened to you…”

Getting up slowly, Negan continued to watch Lucille attempt to pull herself to him. Tilting his head to the side, Negan didn’t know what to do. Hearing the sound of a vibration, Negan looked beyond Lucille to see that she had knocked his cellphone off the area he had it charging. There was no point in trying to reach for it because if he did Lucille would undoubtedly bite him and get a good chunk out of him.

Throwing his head back, Negan let out a long shallow breath. What was he supposed to do now? When the vibrating continued, Negan looked down to see the phone again and upon seeing Y/N’s name flashing, he realized where he was supposed to be right now.

“Shit…” Negan swallowed hard knowing that he had just lost Lucille and he lowered his head knowing that he was supposed to be meeting Y/N quite some time ago. Back stepping away from Lucille, he felt his heart breaking knowing that this was going to be his goodbye. Having this be his last memory of Lucille was going to stick with him forever and not in a good way. “I love you Lucille. I always will.”

Watching the woman he loved become some sort of monster would haunt his memories for life. Lucille was the last person that deserved something like this and he had no idea what was causing this to happen to people, but he damned the world for letting it happen to her.

Backstepping toward the door, he knew that he had to leave, but it was so hard to say goodbye. Take in a shallow breath, Negan tried to coach him to getting the nerve to leave the room. Turning toward the door, he reached for the dresser knowing that it was now or never. Managing to shove the dresser away that he had pulled in front of the door in the first place, Negan knew he had to make a run for it. Pulling the door open enough, he made it out into the hallway to see that it was covered in blood. It was torn apart and things were absolutely destroyed. In a matter of hours this all seemed to happen and he couldn’t believe it ended up like this.

“Help!” Negan heard the sound of someone screaming out and he looked down the hallway to see the boy he had seen earlier. The boy had managed to bury himself behind one of the gurneys while a woman and a man were attempting to attack him. They reached out for the boy try to claw and scratch their way to him while growling. “Please help!”

“Fucking hell…” Negan dropped his head back knowing that he should have just made a quick escape, but he couldn’t leave the boy. Clutching tightly to the wall he could see that the boy’s eyes were hooked on him, desperate for some kind of escape. Quickly moving for the boy, he reached to grab at the shirt of the woman that was dressed like a nurse. Yanking her back, he shoved her aside and watched her hit the floor hard. The man’s pale eyes hooked on Negan and Negan felt the power of the man shoving him against the wall making him grunt. “Son of a bitch.”

“You have to aim for their heads!” the boy screamed watching Negan attempt to punch the man, but it just kept him coming. “You gotta bust their heads open or they just keep on coming. I’ve seen one get shot five times. It’s the only way!”

“What?” Negan snapped bracing his right arm over the man’s chest letting out an aggravated sound. This all sounded so fucking ridiculous, but he took advantage of what the boy was saying. Using enough strength, he shoved the man forward and reached for the fire extinguisher that was beside him. Quickly whipping it out, he heard the clink it made when it connected with the man’s head. “Fuck!”

Hitting the man over and over again in the head, Negan watched the blood and the guts spray around them. In those moments, he didn’t think about what he was doing. He just did it. It was only when it was over that it hit him what he truly had done. His body was shaking when he carefully pulled himself up from the floor. Before he could even acknowledge what he had done, Negan noticed the nurse begin to approach him again. When she started lunging herself at him, Negan used the power he had to swing the fire extinguisher at her too using the same strength until her body was completely lifeless.

Negan stood there frozen, his breathing heavy finding himself completely mortified. He couldn’t catch his breath. This was all happening so fast and Negan didn’t know what to do. What had he just done to protect this young boy?

“Thanks mister. Are you okay?” the boy called out and Negan looked to his hands seeing that they were covered in blood. His body shook when he realized what he had done and Negan shook his head.

“No, I’m not fucking okay,” Negan snapped feeling his jaw flexing while he thought about what he had done. “I just fucking murdered two people. I’m a fucking murderer…I can’t believe…I don’t…”

“You can’t be a murderer when you killed someone who was already dead man,” the boy spoke up and Negan looked to the boy confused after he had slid down the wall and dropped down to the floor. His body couldn’t comprehend what he had just done and he was absolutely mortified with himself. “These two were dead on the ground when I showed up. You did nothing wrong.”

“I don’t understand,” Negan stammered, his eyes searching the boy’s trying to find rhyme or reason to what was happening. “So, they’re all dead? Their just…mindless monsters now? Not living people that are just sick? They are trying to…”

“Eat us man,” the boy interrupted him with a disgusted sound. “This has been all over the news for days. Hell, weeks if we would have listened to them about the virus and the riots. The dead are taking over mister. Where the hell have you been?”

“I’ve been a little preoccupied,” Negan thought about the weeks upon weeks he spent beside Lucille’s bed with her sick. Sitting there with the boy staring down at him, Negan cleared his throat and let out a tense breath. Thinking about Lucille made Negan let out a saddened breath. He couldn’t just leave her as one of those mindless monsters, but there was nothing he could do about it. There was no way he could end her. He didn’t have the strength. “Hey kid? There is a room a little ways away. It’s right across from the elevator. There is another one of them on the floor next to the bed in their room. Do you think you could…handle that for me? I’m just…a little beat.”

“I mean…yeah, sure,” the boy gave Negan a weird side eye glance before nodding slowly. The boy reached for the fire extinguisher and Negan pressed his back against the wall. He lowered his head when the boy moved down the hallway and Negan felt his heart breaking. Part of him wanted the boy to stop, hoping that somehow they could fix Lucille, but she was dead already and Negan knew it. So, the best he could do was put his head down and just let it happen.

Minutes passed before he heard footsteps returning and the boy had the fire extinguisher at his side, “Was she your wife?”

“What?” Negan lifted his head and he could see that there was as sense of sadness over the boy’s face.

“The same thing happened to my mom today. There was something wrong with her heart and when she died, the same thing happened. I was like you, I just…I couldn’t do it,” the boy explained and Negan felt his fists clenching when he thought about what happened with Lucille. “I figured that the woman in there, that was your wife.”

“Listen…” Negan felt the urge to scream at the kid, but he pulled himself up slowly and let out a frustrated grunt. “We’re all having a shitty fucking day here. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“I think the main stairway was clear. That was how I got up here,” the boy informed Negan quickly following Negan not far behind while he tried to keep up with him.

“Well then we better get fucking moving,” Negan knew that he had to leave Lucille and make sure that everything was okay with Y/N. The fear that both the women he loved turned into one of those things flooded his mind. “So, move it along.”

----

Continuing to stay quiet, Y/N carefully followed Joel up the steps of the stairway. Joel was being cautious as they tried to avoid stepping on the bodies that were in the stairway. She couldn’t believe that it had gotten to this and that so much had been happening. Maybe she shouldn’t have told Joel to stop watching the news because then maybe this could have been avoided instead of them walking right into this. Joel was right when he said something was going on, but she had refused to listen to him because she just didn’t want to believe it. Now she regretted it.

Surprisingly they seemed to make it up the stairway fine, but by the time they got to the floor Lucille was on, they could hear screaming and things being tossed on the floor above them. Not taking a chance, they both quickly moved out of the stairway and into the hallway.

Clinging to Joel, she could see that before him there was a woman and a man with their heads bashed in and it made her gag at the sight. A fire extinguisher was thrown to the side and Joel clutched tightly to Y/N.

“Stay close to me,” he instructed once more and she listened. Her body was pretty much pressed up against his back as Joel led her toward the room he knew that Lucille was in with Negan. When Joel reached the door, he held his hand out and pushed it slightly open with his palm. When he saw something, he immediately turned to her and attempted to block her from seeing. “No…don’t…”

“What is it? Is it Negan? Joel?” she attempted to push through Joel and he tried to keep her from going into the room. When she managed to get around him what she saw made her heart break when she saw the bloody mess of what she knew to be Lucille beside the bed. The sight caused her body to go weak and just drop, but Joel had managed to catch her in his arms when it happened.

“Baby, baby…” Joel attempted to reach out to touch Y/N seeing that she was crying from what she had seen with Lucille. Pressing Y/N against the wall, he attempted to keep her on her feet and he shook his head. “Sweetheart, I know…it’s awful, but you can’t…we can’t have you pass out and lose yourself here. We have to get through this.”

“But it’s…” Y/N felt tears sliding down her face seeing what had become of Negan’s wife and she felt her heart breaking not only for Negan, but for Lucille. It caused flashes of memories of the beautiful woman that she had interreacted with in the past to flood through her mind. “It’s Lucille.”

“I know baby, I know,” Joel reached out to pull her head in against his chest and he attempted to try to comfort her in a way that was somewhat quiet. “It’s awful and I promise we will talk about this when we are out of here, but right now…we have to focus, okay?”

Joel reached out to caress over her face when she pulled back enough to look up at him and she looked at the opposite end of the bed, “Is Negan…?”

“I’ll look, okay?” Joel hushed her, moving over toward the other end of the bed thankful to see that nothing was there. When he moved back around the bed, he could see that Negan’s phone was underneath Lucille’s body and he carefully reached for it. Holding it up, he showed Y/N that was why Negan wasn’t answering her calls. “He doesn’t appear to be in here sweetheart.”

“Then he could be alive?” she tried to reason and Joel shrugged his shoulders. Sliding her hand in over her abdomen, she thought about the baby and how far they had come in their relationship with Negan. “We have to find him.”

“Okay…” Joel looked down to see that she was touching her stomach and he leaned forward to press a loving kiss over her forehead. “Come on…”

Walking through the hallway, Joel felt Y/N following him closely and they looked in the common areas that they would find someone in the hospital. Heading for the vending area, Joel was about the turn the corner when he felt the power of someone plowing into him making him hit the ground hard.

“Jesus!” Joel heard the sound of the tire iron hitting the ground and sliding out away from him. Reaching his hand up, he pressed his palm in over the center of the person’s throat that was trying to attack him seeing that they were clearly infected while blood dripped down Joel’s arm from the person’s mouth. The sound of things knocking over was heard and Joel lifted his head to see that more of them were approaching down the hall. “Y/N, get the hell out of here!”

“No,” she shook her head scrambling to try and get Joel’s tire iron so they could save bullets. Joel let out a frustrated grunt as he attempted to get keep the distance between him and the infected man over him. When she went for the tire iron, one of the infected pulled themselves out from under the vending machine and it caused her to fall back onto her bottom. Their lower half was missing, but somehow, they were still managing to pull themselves toward her and Joel. There was no way she could reach the tire iron now with that thing near it.

“I said get the hell out of here,” Joel let out a roar and she contemplated what he was saying before pulling up the gun that Joel had given her. Joel took notice that the other infected was directed right for him and he tried doing his best to turn the one that was over him in that direction. “Y/N! Get out of here.”

Pulling the trigger after aiming, she felt her body jolt and watched the torso that was crawling toward Joel immediately stop when she had managed to shoot it in the head. Scrambling to her feet, she moved swiftly beside Joel and shot once at the one struggling with Joel. It missed and hit it in the neck making her let out a frustrated sound, but it knocked it back enough for Joel to shove it aside. Joel reached for the tire iron and began to beat it in the head over and over again making her let out a shocked sound with how easily Joel had been able to fall into the violence of it all.

When he was done, she could hear him letting out a shaken breath and he dropped his upper half letting out a strained sound while he rest his forehead down against the ground, “God, what have I done?”

“Joel, they aren’t…alive,” she tried to reach for him seeing that there were more of the dead approaching them. There was no time for him to have a meltdown with more coming after them. Grasping tightly to his shoulder, she attempted to pull him up. “Joel?”

“I’ve killed two people…fucking maybe three after hitting that woman with the car,” Joel felt his body shaking while he slid back on the ground taking note of the blood that was covering him. “I…I don’t know…”

“Joel! I just killed one that was half a body. There is no way that a human being could live through that! You heard the news. They are saying they are the dead coming back to life,” Y/N tried to assure Joel seeing that he was having a melt down over the fact that he had to kill several of them. “I know we are both going to have a lot to talk about, but we need to find Negan or else we’re going to get killed. We need to move, I’m sure the gunshots will attract some of them.”

Joel said nothing, just swallowed down hard and pulled himself up from the ground. Reaching for the tire iron again, Joel almost threw up seeing the brain matter that was on it. Shaking it, he tried to get some of it off before nodding toward the main staircase.

“Let’s go that way,” Joel suggested, quickly grabbing her hand and leading her down the stairs. They did their best to make their way through as much of the hospital as possible, but they were coming up short. “Baby…I don’t think he’s here.”

“Joel, then maybe he went to the house,” she thought back to where Negan was supposed to meet her. “Maybe he went back to the home to look for me or maybe he’s at his home.”

“I want to look for him baby, but we’ve almost died…” Joel began knowing that he was upset that they weren’t able to find Negan too, but he didn’t want her or him to die while doing it. The desperation in her eyes made him nod and he swallowed down hard. “Okay sweetheart. Let’s get out of here and go to those places to see if we can find him.”

They moved back toward the entrance they came through, but when they saw people standing by the entrance, Joel let out a frustrated noise and led her in another direction. He was doing his best to keep the both of them alive without getting attacked. Heading for the front entrance, Joel could see that were tons of what seemed to be infected toward the front along with a few people near the doors.

While Joel was surveying the area, Y/N looked over her shoulder to see that the pharmacy door was opened. Yes, they needed to get out of there, but seeing all the medicine and the supplies in there made an idea pop into her head.

“Joel, we should grab some things,” she reached for his arm and watched him look back to see what she was talking about. “I know you packed things, but we never know if we find Negan what kind of shape he will be in. If we’re in that cabin for a long time, it’s probably for the best if we grab more supplies.”

“That’s a good idea,” Joel recognized that she was right. He only had one first aid kit that he packed. It was better for them to get some things just in case. Checking the hallways, he made sure they were safe before moving into the pharmacy. Surveying the area, Joel noticed that there was a pile of pillowcases on the shelves. Grabbing one, he tossed it to Y/N and took one for himself. “Grab whatever you think we’ll need.”

Hopping over the counter of the pharmacy where the pharmaceuticals were, Joel went for the pain medicine and hooked his arm around the bottles. Making sure the pillowcase was open wide enough, Joel swiped his arm forward and dropped them inside. Looking things over, he dumped some antibiotics into the pillowcase as well. Before he knew it, the pillowcase was full of things that Joel thought would be able to help them. About to hop back over the counter, Joel noticed a group of prenatal vitamins before him and his gaze lifted to Y/N. Watching her gather multiple things, he swallowed down hard and shoved all of the vitamins he could into the pillowcase. If they were going to be stuck in the cabin for a long time, these were something that she would definitely need.

“I feel bad robbing a pharmacy at a hospital,” she announced when Joel set his pillowcase on the counter. The clanking of the pill bottles caused her to look back and she watched him hop over the counter to get back to her. “Are we awful for this?”

“Baby, I’m not sure that’s something we should worry about,” Joel hushed her when he heard the sound of feet shuffling in the hallways. “Did you grab what you wanted?”

Looking, Joel noticed that she had grabbed an extra pillowcase where she had filled two of them instead of just the one, “I’ll take that as a yes?”

“All of this seems useful Joel,” she knew that she had grabbed so many different kinds of things, but it all seemed necessary.

“No, you’re right. I wish we could take more,” Joel moved toward the entrance of the pharmacy and eyed things over to make sure that they would be safe when they went to find another exit. “Come on sweetheart.”

Grabbing the two pillowcases full of supplies, she stayed close to Joel and could sense that he was trying to come up with what to do next.

“We have to go toward the parking garage,” Joel led her eagerly out of the building, but the moment that Joel pushed the door open the sound of a large explosion went off making Joel’s body slam into the brick wall of the hospital. With how hard he hit the wall; Y/N immediately knew that was something was wrong. A pained roar fell from his lips as he lifted his head once he hit the cement ground. “Fuck…”

“Joel,” she scrambled to him looking over her shoulder to see that two cars had clearly hit each other in the distance. When the explosion went off after one of the cars set fire, the power from it had thrown Joel back. Joel lifted his head to look at his ribs. “What happened? Is something wrong?”

“I think,” Joel went to pull himself up and he let out a long wail, dropping back on the ground. His face turned red and his neck was straining. Setting the pillowcases down, she tried to tend to him, but he was in agony. “I think I fucking broke my ribs.”

“Let me see,” she lifted the bottom of his shirt to see the bruising over Joel’s ribs and Joel let out a wince when he breathed. There was no doubt that he was injured and badly. It was hard, but she was going to need him to move. “Let’s get you back to the car.”

“Okay,” Joel nodded letting out another wince when they managed to get him to his feet. Just breathing hurt incredibly much as they made their way back to the SUV that they had hidden in the back after grabbing the pillowcases of supplies. They had to be quick, but when they returned Ghost was eager to see them. Even with clearly broken ribs Joel had moved to the driver’s side after getting her safely inside. His arm was wrapped firmly around his ribs while the other worked to get the car started. “Where are we going first to look for him?”

----

“Kid?” Negan saw the boy going to walk off out the front and he waved him down when he noticed the mob of people in the distance. “Where do you think you are going? I don’t really think it is safe for you to be going anywhere on your own.”

“I have to get home mister. It isn’t safe to be out here anymore,” the kid stammered with a grunt and Negan threw his hands up in the air.

“In case you haven’t noticed, these fuckers are everywhere,” Negan nodded toward the parking garage and he waved the kid toward him. “I don’t know how far away your home is.”

“Are you offering me a ride?” the boy stammered and Negan nodded his head dramatically.

“Yeah, why the fuck do you think I’m mentioning it?” Negan grunted feeling his attitude getting the best of him. “You stupid or something?”

“I could use a ride,” the boy followed Negan toward the area Negan had parked when he had first gotten to the hospital in the parking garage. Just as they rounded the corner the loud boom of an explosion knocked them both onto the grass making Negan let out a tight groan when it happened.

“You okay kid?” Negan blurt out, looking to see the boy slowly pulling himself up from where he landed. Negan turned on his side and looked beyond them to see that it had drawn attention of some of the dead that had gathered together in the front of the hospital. Cussing to himself, Negan pulled himself up and let out a tense breath. “Fuck, that hurt.”

“What was that?” the boy looked as he followed Negan around the corner. Staring out at the parking garage, Negan saw that two cars had hit and one of them had clearly started on fire which is why the explosion happened. “Can we still get in and out of the parking garage?”

“Yeah,” Negan waved the kid on when a few of the dead had walked by. Attempting to get to the know the boy, Negan started a conversation with him. It was better than thinking about what he had lost in Lucille. When the boy noticed Negan was cracking jokes, he had asked Negan if he was okay since his wife had died. Yeah, Negan was acting weird, but if he didn’t…he wouldn’t be able to make it through. “The car is over here.”

Just as they turned the corner to get to Negan’s car, Negan heard the sound of the boy yelping and Negan turned on his heel to see that one of the dead had grabbed the boy and was biting his wrist. Quickly moving forward, Negan saw another one come out of nowhere, pulling the boy between two cars.

“Fuck,” Negan tried to move between the cars, but when he stepped forward, he could see that the two had absolutely torn into the boy and Negan knew that it was no point. There was no way that he could save him at this point. “Damn it.”

Getting into his car, Negan turned it on and looked at the time knowing it was hours after he had promised to meet up with Y/N, but hopefully she was still at their home and hopefully she was safe.

----

“Are you okay?” Y/N watched Joel as his face twisted in agony while they drove back to the home she had shared with Negan. Instead of being honest, Joel simply nodded and continued to drive. “You’re so full of shit.”

“I’m fine,” Joel grumbled and she reached into the back knowing that she had seen Joel pack the first aid kit he had bought for the trip. Quickly pulling it open, she pulled out the icepack that was inside. Squeezing it, she heard it pop and then began to shake it to activate the icepack. Placing it over Joel’s abdomen made him growl out in pain and he leaned forward trying to clearly still focus while he drove. “Son of a bitch…”

“Joel, you’re really hurt,” Y/N pointed out, reaching for the pillowcase full of medicine that was inside. Digging around, she found some of the pain medicine and quickly pulled it out. Popping open the lid, she deposited two in her hand and held them out for Joel. “Take these.”

“What are they?” his nose wrinkled while looking down at them and she held her hand out further. Instead of questioning things, he took the medicine and threw them into his mouth. Swallowing down the pills was hard to do, but he managed and let out a hesitant sound.  

“They were pain pills Joel. Should I be driving?” she inquired looking him over while he was clearly in tons of pain. “Is it safe for you to be driving?”

“I’ll be fine,” Joel assured her when he pulled onto the street that he had originally found her earlier. A nervous breath fell from his throat when he saw how much the street had already gone to shit since they had left earlier. “We have to be quick going to look for him.”

“Joel, I don’t think you should go in there…” she looked over at him and she shook her head. “I’ll take the gun, I’ll do a quick sweep and then come back to the car.”

“I can’t let you do that,” Joel pulled into the driveway, his eyes connecting with the body of the man he had killed earlier and his face turned a pale shade of white.

“Raise the tire iron Joel,” she ordered and Joel gave her a glare knowing that he had definitely broken at least a few ribs. Breathing and talking were hard, so he knew that moving would be hard too. “We’ll be fine. This one let me quickly run through and if he’s not in there, I will run back out and we will go to his home with Lucille. There we can both go together.”

“Fine,” Joel grunted looking around the area. “Be fast.”

“I’ll be right back,” she ran into the home after quickly getting out of the SUV. Moving through the first floor she heard nothing and heard the sound of something upstairs. “Negan?”

Moving back toward the stairs she could see that one of the infected had made it into their home and made it up the stairs. Waiting for him to come down the stairs, she led him around the couch before taking advantage and running up the stairs. Upstairs she found absolutely nothing and let out a tense breath. Looking on the dresser, she saw the camera that Negan had used with them several times and she reached for it. Grabbing it, she knew that it was impossible that Negan was there. Heading back down the stairs she was able to slip past the man and made it back to the SUV.

“You scared the fuck out of me,” Joel announced when she got back into the car and he was breathing uneasily. “I thought something happened.”

“I’m alright sweetheart,” she reached out to brush her fingers through his short hair and she shrugged her shoulders. “Negan has to be at his home. That’s the only other place I can think of him being.”

“Guide me and I’ll get us there,” Joel went to pull out of the driveway, but he took notice of the car she had originally driven there in the driveway. “Is there anything from your car that you need before we leave because I think this will be the last time we come here.”

“Everything I need is right here in this bag,” she looked down at the bag she originally brought with her that was at her feet. Opening the bag, she put the camera she grabbed in the bag and then looked at the picture she had snagged earlier in the day of her and Negan. “Let’s go.”

----

As Negan drove to his home that he shared with Y/N, the image of that kid dying replayed in his head over and over again. Part of him felt responsible for that boy dying. He should have kept the kid closer to him, so he was really focused and upset. It took him a while to leave the hospital after it happened because it was hard to get his car through the parking garage without getting jumped by the group of dead that had developed at the hospital.

“Jesus Christ,” Negan knew that he had been stuck in that hospital for a very long time, but he never realized how bad this would truly be. How did everything fall to shit like this in such a short amount of time and he had no idea? When he pulled onto the street he had the home with Y/N, he could feel his heart pounding inside of his chest over and over again. It looked like a riot had taken place on that street and he began to panic.

Pulling up to their house, he saw that her car was in the driveway. The most worrying thing was that the front door of their home was open. His adrenaline spiked wondering if she was inside and hurt. Reaching in the backseat he grabbed his bag that he had left there from work that he had never taken out. Pulling it open, he grabbed the baseball bat that was inside and clung tightly to it. Getting out of the car, he closed the door and took notice of the body that was in their front yard. The head was smashed in and Negan hoped deep down that she would have known how to protect herself and this was her work.

“Y/N!” Negan called out her name heading inside of the house. Listening he could hear some rustling near the laundry room and he headed in that direction. A shocked sound fell from his throat when he saw one of the dead turning to look back at him in the hallway. Taking his bat, Negan began beating the guy until he was completely static in movement. Blood was splattered all over their hallways and Negan was breathless from what he had done. Hopefully the blood that was on the infected man’s face was not Y/N’s. Wiping the back of his hand over his face, Negan let out a grunt and pulled back away from the scene. “Y/N?”

Hearing nothing in return, Negan ran up the stairs toward their bedroom. A frustrated breath fell from his throat when he realized that she wasn’t there. He hoped that was a good sign, but after all the destruction he had seen, he didn’t know if he should be positive about it yet.

Getting down the stairs, he double checked the entire house and took notice that a few things were missing and he didn’t know if that meant that she had grabbed things or someone had came into their home to steal things, but they were more so personal things so he was hoping that it was her that was here.

There was a gap on the mantle above their fireplace and he moved to it to see one of their photos was missing. Reaching for one of the photos that were left, Negan tilted his head to the side and saw it was one they took on the beach together. He was kissing over the side of her cheek and she was laughing. Smashing the frame, Negan heard it shatter and he reached for the photo to shove it into his back pocket. If he was going to leave the house, he wanted to have something to remind him of a happy past that he once had.

Thinking of something, Negan moved over toward the phone and decided to try to call her on the cell phone he knew she had. He didn’t have his phone, but if he called her from their home maybe she would answer. At least he hoped so. Attempting to try to call her, he noticed there was a dead dial tone and he let out a frustrated grunt. Throwing the phone aside, his anger was flooding through him. Of course, the fucking phones weren’t working. How else was he supposed to get ahold of her? There was only one other place that he knew he would likely find her.

Heading back to his car, he stopped when he saw her car. Reaching for the door to check if it was open, he noticed that it was locked. Lifting the bat and swinging, he shattered the window and reached inside to grab the hoodie that she had left in the car. Pulling it out of the car, he lifted it to his face and took in the smell of her. It made him scared to think that she might not be around anymore and he decided he was going to take this in memory of her just in case. Setting it in the passenger seat when he got in the car, he made sure to drive up and down the street a few times to make sure she wasn’t there before heading over to Joel’s home.

When he arrived at Joel’s home, it was shocking because the street had been known for having good homes, yet now most of the homes were on fire and Negan found himself nervous. He didn’t want anything to be wrong with either Joel or Y/N. Pulling into the driveway, Negan took notice of the fact that car he had been in with Joel previously was in the driveway still. Heading up the walkway toward Joel’s home, he realized that the house had already been broken into and Negan grunted. Clinging to the baseball bat at his side, he pushed the front door open and stepped in.

“Y/N?” Negan called out her name, hearing nothing on the other end. “Joel? Ghost?”

Negan tried screaming out loud enough to get some kind of response, but when there wasn’t anything in return, he felt an ache in the center of his chest. God, he hoped so badly that he would be able to find them here. The fact there was no sign of any of them made him feel better in the sense that he hoped they were all together and alive, but it was still terrifying. Joel’s car was still in the driveway and so was Y/N’s at the other home? How would they get away without their cars? In a way he was happy to not find their bodies, but he was still terrified as to where they could be.

Knowing that there was a chance they were upstairs, Negan moved swiftly through the hallways to push open the doors. Every single room was empty and he thanked God for that. Then again, he wished he would have found them hiding and waiting for him. Needing him to help them in their escape, but each room had him come up empty. Going to open the door to the last room, Negan heard the sound of something downstairs falling over and he felt his adrenaline kick in. Was it them?

When he got downstairs, he noticed that it was one of the dead that had probably found its way inside and Negan let out a frustrated sound knowing it was probably his screaming that drawn it to him. Using the bat, Negan did what he had to do before going back outside onto Joel’s porch. Dropping down, he reached up to pinch at the bridge of his nose.

How could both of their cars still be around, but neither one of them were? He had been certain that he would be able to find them, but now that he was here, he realized that was far from the case and it upset him. What was he going to do if he lost both the women he had loved in his life all in one day?

----

“Sweetheart,” Joel groaned moving through the upstairs of Negan’s home he shared with Lucille while Y/N was downstairs looking through things. Joel moved out of the bedroom and his arm was still firmly wrapped around his ribs. “I don’t think he’s here.”

“Joel, he just…we…” she began and Joel could tell that she was starting to break down from all of this. Earlier in the day she was hopeful that they would be able to find Negan, but now that they were here, it was clear that she thought he was gone. They couldn’t find Negan and her mind was lingering to the idea that he was dead. “He can’t be dead Joel.”

“Baby, I know…” Joel moved down the stairs toward her. Joel reached his arms out enough to hug her, a pained sound escaping his throat when it clearly hurt him doing it. “I wanted to find him too. I wanted everything to be fine and I wanted us to be able to run off with him and be safe at the cabin.”

“I never even got to say goodbye,” she felt her heart breaking realizing that there were no answers to her question as to what happened with Negan and she could feel her heart breaking. There were so many things that she wanted to say to Negan and so many things he deserved to know. Yet here there were and they were likely never going to see him again. When she began to cry, she felt Joel cupping her face in his hands while trying to comfort her. “This is so fucked up Joel. Everyone I know is likely dead now. My parents, my friends…the father of my child.”

“I’m so sorry,” Joel frowned, his own eyes tearing over when he thought about how he had gotten Negan to agree to come with him tomorrow. Maybe if he would have picked a sooner time, they wouldn’t have been in this situation. It was eating him alive to know that he could have potentially stopped this from happening. “I should have just grabbed you guys that day Negan was attacked. I knew something was wrong.”

“There is no way you could have known that this would have happened,” she tried to reason with Joel seeing that he was angry at himself for what clearly happened. “You would have never known this was going to happen Joel.”

“Yeah, but if I just convinced him that day to come we would be together and we wouldn’t be without him,” Joel frowned, lowering his head and she could tell that he was upset like she was about not being able to find Negan. “I wanted to save him too Y/N, so fucking much. I never wanted to go through what it would feel like to lose someone I cared about again and yet here we are. There was nothing I could do to save Negan for you and I am…so sorry. It hurts knowing that I saved him the other day only for this to happen. I wish this wasn’t the case, but…”

“Joel,” they both cried together when they realized that they had both lost someone that had meant something to them. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“The only thing I think we can do is go to the cabin. I left the address on my refrigerator. I told Negan the area it would be in. I would think if he went to my home, maybe if he is still here, he will find it,” Joel shrugged his shoulders and he threw his hands up in the air. “We can’t keep waiting because the longer we wait…”

“The more likely we are to end up dead,” she lowered her hand to slide it in over her abdomen. The last thing she wanted was her baby to end up dead. Not after everything she went through. This really wasn’t the life that she wanted a child to grow up in, but she didn’t have a choice at this point. “We should go.”

“I am so sorry we couldn’t find him,” Joel apologized and he lowered his head letting out an uneven breath. “I cared about him too, very much.”

“I know,” Y/N acknowledged feeling Joel swiping at her tears with his thumb when they took a minute to themselves. Everything ached and Y/N felt miserable knowing that she likely lost the first love of her life. The one thing that she was completely scared of having and coming to terms with at the end of the day. “We should go.”

“I love you,” Joel frowned, tipping forward to press a loving kiss against her temple before brushing her hair away from her face. “I promise, whatever happens from here on out…I will do whatever I have to in order to take care of the both of you. Nothing…nothing will ever hurt you. You have my word…as long as I’m alive, I will always fight for you. I love you Y/N and I will do everything in my power to protect you.”

----

Pulling into the driveway to his home at the end of the night, Negan had spent the last few hours looking for any kind of sign of Y/N and Joel, but there was nothing. His hope had completely been drained of him and when he got home, he didn’t care at this point how things were. In his mind he had lost everything that had meant anything to him today and it was the worst day of his life.

Moving up his driveway he could hear the sound of something scrambling around outside beside him, but his baseball bat hung down at his side and the last thing any person alive or dead wanted to do with him was fuck with him right now.

Once he got inside of the house he shared with Lucille, he covered the doors of his home and the entrances to make sure that no one could get in. The blood on his body made him uncomfortable and he headed for the bathroom. Pulling his clothes from his body, Negan dropped each piece down the hallway and by the time he got to the bathroom he was completely naked.

When he got a look at himself in the mirror, the blood that was covering his body and staining at his flesh from soaking through his clothes caused him to let out a shuddering breath. Negan’s head tilted to the side when he looked at himself. Flashes of Lucille filled his mind and he winced. He thought of all the blood, all the people he had killed and all those he had seen killed. It was like a nightmare come to life and he didn’t want to believe it was real, but it was.

Reaching out, he ran his fingers over the mirror dragging them down it, staining the mirror with the blood that was still covering his fingers. All the frustrations of today built up inside of him and he swung his fist out hitting the mirror with all the power he had. The mirror shattered and immediately Negan could see that there was blood dripping down his hand from what he had done.

Instead of caring, Negan moved for the shower and pulled the door open. He turned the shower on and stepped in under the warm stream of water. It was almost so hot that it was burning at his skin, but he didn’t care. He needed that pain. After everything he had been through today and over the last few weeks, he wanted to experience the pain. He wanted to know that he was alive and this all was real.

Taking the longest shower he had in a very long time, Negan was very observant of the blood that swirled around the drain from his body. It made him think of all the blood that he had dealt with and how easy at the end of the day it was for him to kill the dead. Originally, he was mortified, but after everything that happened…after what happened to Lucille, Negan just found himself full of rage.

Once he was done with the shower, he moved for the medicine cabinet and pulled it open to gather a few things to clean up his hand that he had cut when punching the mirror. After that, he moved through the house naked without a care in the world until he stopped at his closet. Reaching inside he grabbed a pair of gray pants and pulled them up his long slender legs before reaching for white t-shirt. Once he was dressed, Negan moved back down the stairs and headed for the kitchen.

Pushing through the drawers, he pulled out a US Map and headed for the kitchen table. Opening the map, he spread it all out. Making sure that New York was his main focus, Negan surveyed the cities before heading for the fridge. Grabbing the marker on the top it, he moved back to the kitchen table and circled New York.  

Looking at the cities, he fingered over the map until he found the city that Joel had told him the hospital was in. Circling the city, he took a minute to look for the water areas that were near the city. Circling each area, he knew that Joel told him his cabin was on the water and figured if he could find the bodies of water, if Y/N and Joel were still alive that would be where he would find them. Hopefully they escaped and got away from this hell. That was what he had to think. It was the only way to help him keep going. The idea of them alive would be the only thing that would keep the survivor instinct alive inside of him.

After marking all the areas, Negan folded the map up and put it in his back pocket. When he was satisfied with what he had done, Negan moved back into the hallway where he had deposited his bloody clothes from earlier. Bending down to pick up his pants, Negan searched his pockets to pull out the photo that he had snagged earlier of him and Y/N. Moving around the bottom floor of his home, Negan surveyed the photos of him and Lucille together before grabbing one of those as well.

Negan gathered what was important for him to survive on a journey as well as the two photos to keep the memory of those he loved alive inside of him. Heading to the garage, Negan put his things in his car and then pulled the car out of the garage into the driveway. Gathering all the wood that was left in his garage from pervious projects that he had never finished, Negan went to each opening to his house and began to board it up. He didn’t want anyone breaking into his home and stealing things that meant something for him and Lucille.

Once he had everything boarded up and all the stuff he wanted to bring with him, Negan packed up the car and got in it. Reaching for the map he had marked off, Negan set it up so he could see it and let out a tense breath. He was heading to New York in attempts to find Y/N and Joel with hopes that everything would turn out okay. Reaching for the hoodie that he had grabbed earlier from Y/N’s car, he pulled it to him. When he did, he watched a piece of clothing fall from the pocket in it and he reached out for it. Grabbing a hold of it, he saw that it was red scarf and he let out a tense sound. At least he had these things to keep him going. There had to still be something to fight for and right now, that was finding Y/N and Joel.

With nothing else to live for, Negan vowed that he was going to search all the areas of New York that were by the hospital Joel told him about in order to find Y/N if it was the last thing he did because damn it, he wasn’t ready to believe that she was dead too. Not now. Not ever.

----

PLEASE REASE --  SO! Here is the deal. I have had SUCH strong opinions about this story from EVERYONE. There are some people that love Joel & Negan with the character. There are those that only like Joel or Negan with the character. I've decided that because so many people love this story and it means so much to certain people that this story is going to be a choose your own ending story. You will have the choice to pick from three different endings. You can read them all. You can read one or two. Whatever floats your boat. When I post the endings, I will post all three endings at once and it will be labeled clearly for you to chose from. Make sure to read the name of the chapter and the summary so you pick the ending that you want. this is a weird thing to do, but I wanted to make everyone happy to the best of my abilities. Thank you so much for reading this story and the next time I will be posting will be the end (s) of this story. Thank you so much for sticking with me this long.

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Tags: @slutlanna976  @nubbinrobin @oreostars  @fuckthis-and-fuckthat @jennydehavilland @felicity291 @de-gabyconamor @ibelongtonegan @smallsadjellyfish @labyrinthofheartagrams  @msjamesmarch @thebeautysurrounds @hotfornegan @redmercysugar @caprithebunny @iluvneganandjamie @ninamarietwd​ @tuttifuckinfruitty @emoryhemsworth @a-girl-interupted @akumune @stoneyggirl @xsarcasticwriterx

[weshallc]

This is so exciting, can’t wait to see what happens next! (No, I honestly do forget)

Berns Night (Revisited) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Call the Midwife AU (Crown Jewels, everyone but Paddy and Bernie at Mount Busby)

Chapter Three: OF MICE AND MEN

“The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men. Gang aft agley. An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain. For promis’d joy!”  To A Mouse by Robert Burns 1785.

“Liars and Lovers Combine Tonight, We’re Gonna Make A Scene.” The Captain by Biffy Clyro 2009.

The largest reception room at Mount Busby Farm would have once been very grand, with Queen Anne furniture and Regency coffee tables. The only thing that remained unchanged was that the original fireplace still gave up warmth and light provided by nature, and the windows let in the light from the same star constellations and the same moon.

The Two Loves preferred antique furniture of a later period and in their 80s comfort was paramount. The room was stocked with love seats, chesterfields, recliners. bean bags, generous cushions, and a rather charming gold settee that suspiciously looked pre-war. Just no one was sure which war. Everyone mocked it, but everyone fought to sit on it as it was very comfy. Patsy often talked about replacing it, but Delia wouldn’t hear of it. “You don’t throw your memories out with the rubbish and there are more memories than just ours hidden within these cushions, Cariad.” That was always the end of it.

The most current occupants of that particular settee to be making memories were Tim Turner and Lucille Anderson. Phyllis looked over at the awkward teen, who was no longer as awkward as he had once been. He sat comfortably chatting to his companion, both of them laughing at intervals. Lucille often finishing Tim’s sentences or him proclaiming, yep that’s it or knew you’d get it when they appeared to reach a level of understanding.  Of course, when she asked the student nurse about her new friendship, she would just reply, brushing the older nurse off. “Oh, he is a dear boy; He makes me laugh.”

He was certainly doing that from where Matron Crane was sitting on a leather tan Whitworth dining chair, probably by Frank Hudson.  Years of heavy lifting before the introduction of patient hoists and transfer boards had taken their toll on the matron’s back. It was why she had found herself in a more managerial role much earlier than she would have planned. She looked at Student Nurse Anderson and thought maybe the NHS was in more tender capable hands than the shitstirrers would have them believe.

“I am wondering if we should start,” youth minister Tom Hereward was on his feet. “I am not sure how long baby will sleep in a strange house.”

“I have been called many things in my time, but not sure strange is one of them,” laughed Delia.

“Oh, I have Deals, it’s fine,” reassured Patsy.

Tom turned pink. Trixie leaned over to him, “They are joking,” and sat back onto the giant purple pouffe she was sharing with Valerie. “I know, I live here. I have to put up with it all the time.”

“So. Erm who is in charge, who has the most authority here.” Tom was still trying to create some sense of order.

“Well, Julia is the vicar,” chirped in Bobby, trying to offer her husband some support.

“But this is not the church,” Rev Julia responded with a warm smile.

“Another shock there then, it’s all coming out tonight, Patsy.” Delia couldn’t help herself when she had an audience and a bottle of Prosecco was being passed round.

“Matron Crane is on the council,” Lucille reminded everyone.

“No, I don’t think that matters lass, it’s not a council matter.” Phyllis shook her head.

“Well, someone needs to take the lead,” Tom said with a hint of irritation.

“I will!  On the authority that I am a young woman on her only night off of the week,” struck up Val, “but I have agreed to come here and discuss plans for Bernie’s birthday instead of having two for one sex on the beach.”

“It’s a cocktail, and its happy hour in the Fourteen Teacups on a Tuesday,” Trixie interpreted for everyone.

“That’s ambitious having a happy hour in the Teacups, isn’t it?”  said Fred, who had managed to wedge himself into a deep red Chesterfield.

“Yeah, apparently Ursula gives you the right change, that’s why they call it happy hour,” Tim smirked.

“As I am representing the Crown. I will continue,” said Val and she did, “we want to put on a Burns Night for Bernie’s birthday like in the old days. Now Tim has told us Paddy is half Scottish.”

“Why isn’t he here?” asked Bobby.

“Well, he said it would look suspicious if he left Bernie on her tod behind the bar on a Tuesday night,” Vi explained sitting on a scarlet love seat next to Fred.

“Yep, in case our two Tuesday night regulars rush the bar at once,” snorted Val.

“I think it’s more that it would look suspicious if he actually just left Bernie alone for five minutes,” Trixie corrected.

Lucille felt Tim squirm in the seat beside her. She knew he thought the world of Bernie, but didn’t like to hear her relationship with his father discussed in public. This was inevitable being a small village with one pub, one church and two of the village's most popular inhabitants linked to both. She tried to ease his tension.

“I think it’s lovely, just shows as my grandma used to say there may be snow on the roof, but there is still fire in the grate.”

As everyone surrendered to laughter, Matron shared a smile with the vicar, both of them confirming Lucille might be familiar with the saying, but maybe not its meaning.

Delia was the first to keep a straight face, “But they are only bairns, wait until they are mine and Pats age then the fire may need a little bit of stoking.”

“Yes, Deals, but remember we have never required the use of a poker.”

Val swiftly continued, “Paddy doesn’t wish to be involved.”

“Why?” Reggie asked, perched on his wooden stool.

Val motioned towards Tim, who was still recovering from the last topic of conversation.

“Because it would look ridiculous, his words not mine.” Tim continued, “and I quote, Wilf had the works, I would look like I was trying to pull a stunt to impress Bernie by looking like I was dressing in drag and taking the piss.”

Tim looked at his knees, and Lucille gave one a quick squeeze. She knew this wasn’t easy for him.

Everyone else also looked at their knees. The mood was solemn.

“We can all understand Paddy’s reasons.” There were a couple of nods and sighs in response. “But we aren’t putting up with any of that nonsense,” Val added with a grin.

This was met with a very large and unanimous cheer.

“Well, I’ve already looked up the Turner tartan,” Trixie handed an iPad over to Patsy via Val.

“That’s very smart,” approved the artist.

“Sorry I hate to throw a spanner in the works, but how are we going to afford all this?” butt in a pensive Vi.

“We’ve already thought of that,” grinned Delia, ”Mount Busby will cover the cost of the costume.”

“That’s very generous,” sniffed Evie, who had nearly dozed off in a leather recliner.

“Not really,” explained Patsy. “I have a friend that works for Kilts 4 U and they are very interested in looking into the possibility of making an alpaca lined sporran.”

This was news to Reggie who followed anything relating to his charges with great interest, “What’s a sporran?”

“It’s where he keeps his spare change,” Fred enlightened, or at least tried to.

“It’s the little purse that men wear at the front of the kilt, Reggie,” Violet elaborated. He seemed reassured by this.

“So anyway, in return for a few samples,” Patsy continued, “my friend will be happy to hire out the full regalia for the evening.”

“It’s not long now until Burns Night have you got some sort of prototype ready?” quizzed Evie.

“Lady K is working on them as we speak. She loves nothing better than fiddling with a bit of alpaca wool,” Delia replied gleefully.

“Lady K?” Phyllis queried.

“Yes, she is very creative,” reassured Trixie.

“I don’t doubt it, Trixie, but she is one of Bernie’s clients. What if the lass sees what she is up too”

“Don’t fret Phyllis,” Patsy interjected, “I find that Antonia is much less forgetful when she has an occupation to challenge her and I am certain she won’t let the cat out of its proverbial bag.”

Jack sat on the floor accidently banged his head against the fire surround he was leaning against, “Can’t imagine Berns thinking; oh look Lady K is sticking bits of alpaca wool to a man’s bag he hangs in front of his todger. That must be something to do with Paddy and my birthday”

Vi was quick to admonish Jack, but when even Tom started to laugh, she decided to let it go.

“What about the little knifey thing they keep in their sock that he stabs the Haggis with?” Fred was beginning to get excited.

“Sgian dubh,” corrected Vi.

“All part of the traditional dress,” Patsy added a tone to her voice to reassure everyone that she had thought of everything.

“So that’s the gear sorted. Me and Reggie are in charge of the beer. What else?” Fred’s eyes were wide, thinking they actually might be able to pull this off.

“Well, myself and Evie have created a menu, pretty much on the lines of what we used to do in Wilf’s day.” Violet opened a small notebook and put on her reading glasses.

Clearing her throat she read, “Cock-a-leekie soup, Scottish salmon and tattie scones or scotch egg for starters.”

“Cock a what?” shouted up Jack.

“Chicken and vegetable soup to you, young man. There will be a just vegetable option too.” Violet’s voice began to take on the air it adopted when addressing an audience. “Then we have the Haggis or vegan Haggis, neeps and tatties and a whisky sauce.”

“What about those that might not wish to partake in the Haggis?” Tom asked nervously, as he might.

Evie spoke up before Vi could respond. “There is always the Fourteen Teacups for the likes of those that don’t wish to have Haggis. It’s a Burns Night. If you don’t want Haggis, then stay at home and order in a pizza.”

“What’s for pudding?” Bobby struck up, squeezing her husband’s hand.

“Cranachan which is raspberries, cream, oats and whisky, or Clootie pudding with whisky sauce or whisky ice cream or a Scottish cheese board with oatcakes.”

Murmurs of approval were aimed in Violet’s direction.

“That’s a lot of whisky?” Lucille remarked.

Violet agreed, “Yes, we need just a house whisky for everyone for the toasts Val, I will leave that to you, but you need to pay the piper with a good quality malt.”

Silence broke out in the previously buzzing, over occupied living room.

“Piper!” Several people groaned at once.  

Fred, who was not going to let anything get in the way of this Burn’s Night declared, “Look, we will just have to bung on a recording.” Turning to Tim and Jack, he said, “You lads look up the Red Hot Chilli Pipers on your phones.”

Tim reached for his phone, swiping the picture of Lucille and him with Alpaca Colin. But Lucille touched his hand, making him hesitate.

“I don’t think that would be very suitable, Mr Buckle going to all this trouble with such a delicious menu and Mr Turner all dressed up in the finest regalia and then having some squeaky din coming out of an iPhone.”

“Your right lass, it just won’t do,” supported Phyllis.

“Well, does anyone know a piper?” Fred replied wearily.

“Surely we can find a professional one online?” contributed Julia

“A professional piper that’s free on Burn’s Night at this late notice,” chided Phyllis.

“I know a piper.”

The voice came from the back of the room. Everyone turned to look at the slight dark-haired woman sat on a dining chair. “Well, I think we all do.”

“Do we, Jane?” Julia asked.

“Yes, the busker that stands outside the town hall in Appleby Thornton.”

Everyone started talking at once;

“I only go into town every second Tuesday to get my hair done.”

“Same here I only go through if I have a doctor’s appointment.”

“Well, it’s the cost of the parking isn’t it, it’s free at Tweaven Retail Park and more shops.”

“You can get it on t’internet delivered to your door.”

“I haven’t been since Marks and Spencers closed.”

“Debenhams is closing next week such a shame, that shops older than me, always been a department store in Appleby Thornton.”

“It was one of the first in the country to have a lift, you know.”

Jane cleared her throat. “There are a lot of good things about Appleby Thornton that are not always obvious.”

“Here, here!” chimed in Val, “there is still a Primark.”

“Oh well, let’s be grateful for small mercies,” stung back Trixie.

Much to Delia’s disappointment, Val bit her lip. The ex-nurse and market gardener loved a full house. She cherished her quiet times with Patsy too, but she was the more sociable of the pair. The farm was large enough for Patsy to have her office and art studio and not be disturbed while Delia fussed the alpacas with Reggie. Trixie moving in had been Patsy’s scheme, but Delia was the one who had benefited most from their new project, even if she would never let their new employee know she was a project.

Delia enjoyed listening to Trixie’s anecdotes and gossip. She felt reconnected with a world that was moving so fast. The Two Loves were business women and technology hadn’t passed them by.  It was the music, the celebrities, the trashy telly that Patsy despised and Delia loved that made having Trixie and her friends around delight Delia.

Delia’s carer probably wasn’t as up-to-date with pop culture as Trixie and her friend. Val was now a frequent visitor to Mount Busby, as she and their new lodger had struck up quite a friendship. Nurse Bernie always looked a bit behind the door when the other two were in full flow about some reality TV show.

But since Trixie had moved in, Nurse made Delia’s blood pressure check the last visit on her rounds and she drank tea, sitting and chatting with Trixie. Bernie didn’t need to watch Love Island. She had her own romantic paradise in Poplar-on-Tweaven and Delia couldn’t be more happy for her.

Val had bitten her lip, her new friend was still a bit of an enigma to her. She did know Trixie might talk as if she had been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but in the last few months she had gleaned enough to know that spoon had been tarnished sometime ago. So in spite of all her bravado, Trixie was as familiar with Poundland as she was with Prada.

It was Julia who cut through the chatter. “I believe I am familiar with the young man you are referring to. He has a small dog with him if I am right?”

“Yes, Reverend.” Jane was beginning to believe she had dreamt the piper and maybe also Appleby Thornton.

“He’s rather good, as I remember.”

Jane was beaming as she nodded.

“So problem solved,” Fred rubbed his hands together with glee, “tot of whisky, a bowl of water for the pooch, bob’s your uncle, sorted”

“No, it certainly is not.” Trixie’s tone caused everyone to alter their gaze, “this man is a professional musician surely, if he has a regular spot he has a license. I am sure Chummy is well acquainted with the gentleman and his story. We can ask her.”

Inspector Noakes had been unable to attend the meeting because of work commitments, and Peter’s Tuesday evenings were spent running a youth football team that Jack and Timothy had both enjoyed being a part of. Alas, Tim had become too rangy and prone to injury, and Jack had become too lazy and prone to chips.

Trixie continued, “He deserves an appropriate wage for his efforts.” She turned to Val. “I believe the Crown has an entertainments licence.”

Val nodded and smiled reassuringly at her friend, “Paddy does, leave it with me and I will also make sure he and the mut are fed and provided with transport both ways.”

Trixie relaxed and shared a smile with the aromatherapist sitting at the back of the room. “Do you know his name?”

“Kevin.”

Fred let out a huge sigh. “So we are all sorted then?”

“It would appear so,” replied Lucille, grimacing at Tim.

“Apart from Dad.” groaned Tim.

Followed by an echo of sighs.

“Leave your dad to me, Chick.” winked Val.

[jebentnietalleen]

Temerate 💞💞 (love me some sadness)

temerate - to break a bond or promise (ao3 link)

sometimes he forgets how long they have known each other, eliott and him. but then, something happens, and he is reminded again.

right now, he is reminded by the way he knows exactly how eliott got that scar just below his right knee. the same knee that is currently resting besides his own while they are sitting on a blanket in the park, waiting for the rest of their friends to show.

he knows how he got that scar, because he was there, watching him climb a tree when he was 9 and lucas was 7, trying to rescue a cat that seemed to be stuck. they hadn’t known each other for long back then, lucas had just moved in across the street and really looked up to eliott. here was his new neighbor, this older boy who was willing to climb a tree to rescue a cat, and he actually wanted to hang out with lucas. he didn’t understand it, but he didn’t dare question it.

it turned out the cat wasn’t stuck at all, it happily jumped out of the tree once eliott almost reached the branch it was lying on, and as a result eliott’s grip faltered and he fell down. hard. lucas did the best he could to distract his new friend, making jokes and giving him all the cuddles he needed. it wasn’t until he told eliott that he thought he was the bravest boy he knew, that eliott stopped crying, his eyes glistening in a different way.

it made his cheeks warm up and he didn’t know why, all he knew is that he was glad to have helped in a way. to have been able to make eliott feel good. it’s a feeling he’s been chasing ever since.

it’s part of the reason why, once eliott told him many years later that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he looked eliott straight in the eyes and told him: i’m not just saying this because of your diagnosis but i need to make this clear: i’m not going anywhere, i will always be here for you. even if you don’t want to talk, even if it is too much sometimes and you need some space, i’ll be there when you do want that.

because it was true, he wasn’t going to go anywhere, he would always care about eliott no matter what, and a small voice inside his head told him that maybe he cared a little bit too much, but he didn’t mind. he was fine just being his friend, it was more than fine, it was amazing. and he truly needed eliott to understand that nothing he did or said could change that for him, because eliott looked so scared when he told lucas about his episodes, scared like he was afraid lucas would think differently about him. they made a pact, that night, that no matter the circumstances, they would always check in with each other and be there for the other. and most importantly: they would always, always be honest to each other.

when lucas came out to him, a few months later, eliott truly kept to his promise. he did everything he could to make lucas feel safe and comforted and most importantly, normal. he even told lucas that he wasn’t sure how to label it yet, but that he definitely was sure he likes both boys and girls. it made him feel a little weird inside, but he wasn’t sure why, nor did he know if it was a good kind of weird or not. not until later, when he realized that somehow, he had started to like eliott. like like.

that’s when it dawned on him, it was both a good kind of weird and a bad kind of weird. a good kind of weird because eliott liking both boys and girls meant that maybe, one day, eliott could see him like that. the bad kind of weird was caused by the fact that he was pretty sure eliott would never see him like that.  

but sometimes, sometimes he thought, maybe… when they go out to a club with everybody and eliott always asks lucas what he wants to drink first, always takes him by the hand and pulls him on the dancefloor, always dances a little bit too close to him, the scent of boy and aftershave and pure eliott heavy in the air as they move to the music, making him feel dizzier than any alcohol could.

or when eliott hosts a movie night and makes sure to get all the snacks lucas likes best, even when bas keeps complaining that ‘salted popcorn is a crime to humanity’.      

and even now, while they are sitting next to each other on lucas’s blanket, he thinks to himself: why does eliott never bring a blanket? why does he always sit on mine and not on someone else’s? but in the end, if he is honest with himself, it’s not enough, not really. those are all signs that eliott is an amazing friend, and that lucas is one of his best friends. all those little gestures are by no means a love declaration.

that fact gets proven once again when eliott starts to talk about a girl he met, lucille.

‘she works in that café i always go to when i need to write; you know? around the corner from my place.’

lucas nods. he does know. he loves to come with him and work on his thesis while eliott works on his own projects. he didn’t realize eliott had been going without him.

‘she’s so nice, i went by on my own this week because i really needed to get some work done, you know, minimal distractions. and when i went to pay my bill, she asked me about what I was working on and we got talking. we ended up exchanging numbers.’

eliott leaned back as he talked, lying on the grass, eyes closed. lucas was grateful for that, giving him some moments to gather his thoughts and get his face together.

‘oh, that’s… great, eliott.’

he knows how he sounds, and he knows that eliott won’t buy it, but he just. he can’t pretend. it stings. this is the moment he has been dreading for so long, in the back o his mind he has been waiting for it, really. the moment eliott would find someone he is interested enough to actually date, not just a quick hook up.

eliott blinks up at him then, raising a hand to shield his eyes when he looks at him. ‘hey, what’s wrong?’

lucas quickly shakes his head, turning away. he bits his lip in a futile attempt to get himself together.

‘nothing.’

eliott kicks his ankle lightly, ‘if this is about me wanting to work without a distraction, i’m sorry. i didn’t mean it in a bad way, you’re the good kind of distracting. i just… had a deadline. i’ll make it up to you, i promise.’

a part of him wants to scream, wants to shout ‘can’t you tell that I am in love with you?! that you’re breaking my heart as we speak?’ but a bigger part of him knows that will only fuck up what they have.

‘yoooo lulu!’

sometimes, he really fucking loves bas. like now, for example, when him and arthur come strolling through the park towards their blanket, beer and music on tow.

‘yann texted just now, he’s on his way. how’s it hanging?’ bas high-fives them both before settling down across from them.  

thankfully, eliott changes the subject, telling the boys that lucas was getting cranky because of the lack of beer. it doesn’t take long before arthur and bas jump onto the ‘favorite stories about cranky lucas’ bandwagon, and all is well in world again. if he gets a little more drunk than usual because he feels eliott’s stare linger the rest of the night, he can’t be blamed.

~

when he gets home that night, stumbling and squinting, he falls asleep faster than he has in months. he sleeps a dreamless sleep, and is brutally awoken the next morning by his phone pinging again and again.

rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he reaches for it. his heart beats faster and faster when he sees that it’s eliott.

lucas, i don’t know what i did wrong but i do know that something isn’t okay. this is the first time i feel like you aren’t keeping to our promise. please let me know what’s going on, i hate seeing you like this.

oh god, now eliott thinks he did something wrong. he needs to set this right, now. lucas dials his number immediately.

‘hi’ eliott sounds scratchy and a little nervous.

‘uhm, hi. i’m sorry, i was being an ass yesterday. can we maybe meet up? in say, an hour?’

lucas doesn’t have a game plan, but figures it will come to him when he sees him. it might be time to fess up. the thought terrifies him as much as it sounds like it might be a relieve to finally have it out in the open. get it over with.

‘sure, that sounds good. i’ll come to yours?’

the thought of him opening up to eliott while he is in his own room doesn’t sound like a good idea, he much rather be able to leave when things get awkward.

‘no, uhm, i think it’s better if i come to yours.’

‘okay. i’ll see you soon then.’

he takes a deep breath, quickly gets himself ready, and goes.

~

when he gets to eliott’s apartment, he feels like he’s having an outer body experience. someone is ringing the bell, yet he can’t believe it’s actually him that’s standing there, about to come clean about his feelings.

here goes nothing.

the door opens up almost right away, it’s as if eliott has been waiting on the other side. he’s got dark circles under his eyes, the kind that makes lucas’s hands itch, makes him want to reach out and smooth all the lines and worries out of his face.

‘hi, come on in.’

eliott walks into the living room and sits down on his couch, waiting for lucas to join him. he does.

‘right, so, first of all, I’m sorry for reacting so stupidly yesterday-‘

‘you’re not stupid’

‘please, eliott, it was stupid. and i didn’t say i am stupid, now did i?’

‘okay, okay’

‘as i was saying, i am sorry, i don’t really know how to say this other than to say that i freaked out. i am happy that you met someone you like, eliott, i really am happy or you. i just… i don’t know, it was a lot to take in, i guess.’

‘wait, lucas, i think you got the wrong idea. yes, i met someone, and she is nice, but i don’t like her like that. i just like her because we got some interests in common and it’s nice to talk with someone who knows exactly why i would be thrilled to finish a certain piece of writing.’

oh. oh.

‘oh. i mean. okay, i get that, yeah. wow i feel… really stupid now.’

he feels all his blood rush through his cheeks as he tries to get up.

‘wait’ eliott grabs his arm and gently tugs him back onto the couch, his hand lingering, not letting go. Lucas doesn’t dare to look up at him.

‘can i ask… why was it so hard for you? imagining me falling for someone?’

lucas lets out a big exhale before he forces himself to look eliott in the eyes.

‘are you really going to make me say it?’

eliott looks back at him, a sea of emotions floods his face, ‘i think i really need you to, yes.’ He whispers.

and this is it. the moment he has been dreading but that he can no longer avoid.

‘because i’m in love with you, eliott. crazy, desperately in love. i really don’t want this to ruin our friendship because you’re without a doubt the most important person in my life, so please don’t freak out. but yeah. i’m in love with you.’

he breaks their eye contact when he sees eliott’s panicking look and starts to fidget with the hem of his shirt instead.

‘fuck.’ it comes out in a rush, and lucas hates it, hates hearing eliott like this, hates the fact that he is in this alone, hates everything about this situation.

‘i’m sorry, okay. i understand if you maybe need some time alone or if you want a break from hanging out with me or whatever.’

‘lucas, that is the last thing i want.’

the sureness in eliott’s voice makes him tilt his head up in confusion.

‘it is?’ his voice is fragile, but he doesn’t care, because. maybe.

‘yes, of course it is.’ eliott takes in a deep breath before he continues, ‘i’m in love with you too.’

the words sound foreign to him, like he can’t quite believe it’s real, that eliott truly is telling him he feels the same, but his heart wants it so bad. he can feel his smile take over his entire face.

they look at each other, then, both stunned by the sudden turn of events, before they both burst out into laughter.

‘wow. we really are idiots, huh?’

‘i guess we are.’

he scoots over a little bit until he can feel eliott’s knee against his own, eyes scanning his face until they land on his lips. in the end, he doesn’t know who makes the first move, and in the end, it doesn’t matter. in the end, it’s lucas and eliott, lips sliding together, hands tangling in hair, sparking a new hope inside of him. they’ve got a lot of time to make up for, and as eliott pulls him into his lap, he somehow knows that he is thinking the same thing.  

[bulletballetarchive1]

💍 Rings 💍

SO, this started off as something I wrote in third person. Then, because I was showing it to English Professors I rewrote it in 1st person. Which was my first time writing anything in this narrative. The only other thing I want to point out is that rather than New York, I placed The Littlejohn Family in the Midwest because I hoped the locality would better resonate with the audience. And with that said here we go!!

                                                              . . . . . . . . . . . .   I have found that with my increasing age, those around me expect me to be a walking contradiction. Of course, they would never say this out loud, but I have watched as young women wait with bated breath anticipating for words of wisdom to emerge from my lips. I have also watched as some of these very same women then expressed surprise - astonishment even, that I am capable of recalling years long behind me. 

The ability to recall my days spent within the walls of Julienne have brought on many gazes of wonder. But nothing brings forth an abundance of questions more than the fact that I can recall my grandfather with the same clarity.

Even as I keep to myself, the sight of menthol cigarettes neatly packaged and placed atop shelves reminds me of billowing smoke drifting through his dining room. A place I spent much of my childhood studying in. 

Then, there are times when my heart swells with warmth when I see men like my husband conceal his silver locks with a flat, rounded cap. Unless Granddaddy was working in the barbershop or, if he was within the sanctity of his own home, a hat would always stay perched on his head. Yes, it was his trademark.

But, even among the woolen flat caps, the menthols, and the strong Southern twang revealing his Alabama roots, one of the things that I will always closely associate with my grandfather would be his rings. Grandaddy possessed so many rings, but I was not given permission to do anything except look on. Once, great admiration had been tied to my yearnful gazes. However when Ms. Bedel moved in, my days of secretly caressing thick, metallic gold ended. Like granddaddy, she too, is a person I will never forget. 

In our early days together, my grandfather’s lover told me that she was not my mother and in that very same breath, her eyes narrowed as she further asserted she would never be my mother. Despite this, she fulfilled the needs my seven year old counterpart required when it came to maternal care. 

Ms. Bedel, in my eyes, was a woman who was never truly appreciated by those around her. I know that she certainly wouldn't have been by today’s standards, either. Because even in my time as a child in 1961, there were whispers of how she was too strict. Too reflective of the period that cultivated her.

Her full name was “Lucille Tallulah Masters-Bedel.” At the time, I did not know how a person could have two last names, but later I would find that ‘Bedel’ came from her deceased husband. This was not necessary for me to know at the age of seven.

During my adolescence, a child was to stay in a child’s place: seen, not heard. Boundaries that children manage to cross today were intolerable in my time. 

Being the ever obedient child I was, I never thought of doing anything other than what I was told. Appreciation factored into my blind ignorance and how could it not? Ms. Bedel was the one who bathed me at the end of each day. De-tangled my hair. Ensured I clasped my hands together and told God of my utmost gratitude each night. But even with this said, I have no doubt in my mind that each day I spent with Ms. Bedel, the more she came to love me.

My belief would be silently proven in how she provided me with the loveliest dresses. She made sure Granddaddy would use his hard-earned money so that I remained a well-groomed girl, decent for both neighbors and distant cousins to lay their eyes upon if they happened to see me run errands. I can even remember believing Ms. Bedel once purchased me the dress of my dreams.

It was all white with a delicately laced-collar. Lilac flowers in bloom decorated the fabric gorgeously. With my anklet socks and patent leather shoes, the pious women of the community would coo over me, sweetening my self-image by calling me names such as baby doll.

There came a point in which I had the honor of being among Ms. Bedel’s jewelry. That evening I was almost trembling in her lap. Watching intently as Ms. Bedel clutched onto a small key and inserted it into the jewelry box slot I could feel my heart pounding. With a turn the box was open and treasures were revealed right before my eyes.

As I had mentioned, I was an obedient child. If someone said, “don’t do that,” I would not engage in whatever was before me. If somebody said, “don’t speak,” I would never open my mouth. So being given permission to trace rings and necklaces and earrings with my little fingertips filled me with the utmost delight. 

While basking in this privilege, I realized there existed differences between a man’s ring and a woman’s.

Granddaddy’s rings were thick accessories of solid colors, more often than not the dimmest shades of silver and gold. It was almost as if they were old decorations that lost what could once make them shine. There were a few bumps and prongs, but frankly, there is nothing else I can say that compares them to the mesmerizing jewels in Ms. Bedel’s prized jewelry box.

“Where do these come from?” I couldn’t help but ask. “Child, everything you see before you has a story.”  I thought I would learn about the source of the beautiful little rocks in Ms. Bedel’s necklace, or where on earth the little diamonds in her rings came from. I was too ignorant to recognize the wistfulness that hung in my elder’s voice.  “During the Harlem Renaissance, I held a man named Aliki Eliopoulos in the palm of my hand. He was bronze, Greek, and we thought we could make it through the odds.” The brief huff that blew from Ms. Bedel’s nostrils was strong: “one night, he found me after the curtains closed and he presented this. This necklace is dear to me…I suppose because I never quite knew where Aliki went.” Pointing out another piece of jewelry was not needed as Ms. Bedel rose whatever called to her the most.

“This engagement ring - not a wedding ring - engagement, was given to me by my first husband. To accept it would mean I would make a vow for him. He knew of my past, and knew that even if I couldn’t right my wrongs, I could try to start over with his name.” 

Again, she expanded her chest with her second mighty huff. During that moment I wondered, how can this woman seem so disillusioned yet keep each belonging? Belongings that provide her with such unpleasant memories? Where does the hatred end and the sentiment begin? 

“True love is a concept,” Ms. Bedel said, the resentment never leaving her tongue. “The idea of that sort of thing existing is new, too. People don’t realize that...but Delores.”

“Ma’am?” I replied. For no particular reason, I was stricken with fear in how she said my name. All I had known was that she said it with such sharpness that surely my own faults were on the verge of being mentioned - whatever those faults may have been.

“Do not follow in my footsteps.” 

I believe Ms. Bedel was sixty-six at this time. The same age I am now. Ironically

enough, I feel I can understand her without even having the full pieces of her story. My grandfather was a lover of women who were respectable and clean. Women who would not taint his image by being well-known throughout the city for scandalous tales. 

I will never say that Ms. Bedel was not a woman who presented herself with high caliber. She sang opera long before becoming involved with my grandfather. She possessed clothes in her closet that continued bearing their tags. Perhaps it was loneliness that brought my grandfather to her, but that I do not know for certain. All I know is that at the end of the day, Granddaddy felt Ms. Bedel would be the most appropriate woman to guide me through my adolescence.

Still, to think back on the many statements - the way her eyes fixed on me, lets me know she was not a pinnacle of virtuous deeds throughout her life. 

However, at that particular moment as a child, all I knew was that I disliked the heavy silence her statement brought. It became my intention to steer away from talk of vows and purity so as I refocused on the piled riches, I noticed an emerald glistening among gold and rubies. The longer I stared into it, the more I noticed that it had lighter streaks. Appearing and disappearing depending on my movement. It was like thunder and lightning had been coursing within it.  “Ms. Bedel...where did that ring come from?” I asked.  “This -” she lifted it, studied it. “This belonged to my mother.”  “Did her husband give it to her, too?”

“My mother was never married.” With that unpleasant remark came another pause that I felt lasted forever. When Ms. Bedel spoke again: it was clear and amazingly without strain, “she hailed from a place in the South that was so unimportant that it can’t even be defined by a name.” She paused, asking me: “Do you know what slave labor is?”

Even in my discomfort, I nodded.  “What is it then?” Ms. Bedel did not believe I had a wealth of knowledge. I knew it just from the strength of her gaze.  Timid, my fingers slid against the hardwood of her dresser. Not knowing any better, I began recalling how at the age of five Granddaddy decided it was time I learn how Africans - not even colored people, but Africans - were chained like dogs and brought to America. After that, they were bound to pick cotton all day under the sun. That was slave labor, my young mind decided. 

“What Africans had to do...” I answered, just barely connecting my gaze with her own.  “No.” My idea was correct, but wrong.  “My mother may not have been picking cotton, but she did live under those horrid conditions. After I was born, my mother bundled me up and took me with her as she journeyed North. Of course, being a colored woman, she didn’t have the luxury of driving or possessing a fortune to get her there in an instant. She worked as a maid here and there until she reached New York...and there was one woman before that.” She paused, “We were in Kentucky…” Ms. Bedel refrained from speaking yet again, hissing: “I hate Kentucky...and I will never forget that woman as long as I live...she,” Ms. Bedel’s lips were curling, “she was downright nasty. “That woman sat so high on her horse, that she had my mother feeding her baby through her teat.”  My face was surely pulling in disgust. I did not understand what was said just the right amount to be puzzled, but I understood enough to be both bewildered and uncomfortable.  “From time to time, my mother would take little things from her house. Sugar, flour. Things that wouldn’t be missed. But before we left Kentucky and never looked back, my mother thought she deserved something more in return, and this ring was it. And after my mother passed on, this has been with me ever since…” Suddenly Ms. Bedel took on a soft and tender tone, it was as if she placed her past behind her. “Try it on.”  Not only was I soothed by a far more preferable tone, but I was also elated. Yes, it felt as though I was ascending to new heights. My high emotions would soon leave as the ring was placed on my finger, limp.  “Oh…” Ms. Bedel’s lips pushed out, sympathetic. “It’s too big for you…”  “My fingers are too little…” I felt like I was an infant, helpless and insignificant.  “Maybe.” Ms. Bedel took my hand into her own, covering it in love. “One day you’ll grow into it.” It was not shortly after this, but in gradual due time that when preparing me for an outing, Ms. Bedel would retrieve one of the necklaces from her sacred box and fasten it around my neck. In some cases, it was to enhance my church dress, or to simply show I was a colored girl of high esteem as she and I walked to a show downtown.  Each time this was to occur Granddaddy would part his lips, sneering that Ms. Bedel was making me into a ‘fast’ girl. Originally, his disdain was ignorable. As the sole man in the house, if Ms. Bedel disagreed - and I, as a result, found a voice to also disagree: I could exit the house, beautiful. 

Unfortunately, the days of the feminine rule Ms. Bedel and I shared left when cousin

Winston moved in. Although Winston and Granddaddy were separated by generations, their “masculinity” gave them a higher sort of power. If Granddaddy thought I was fast and if Winston thought I was fast, then it was so. From that point on, shiny gems would never again be around my neck.

I did not like this change. Prior to my aunt placing Winston in Granddaddy’s custody, I would receive comments from adults of how “lonesome” I must have been as an only child. I never thought I could be lonely, not when I had Granddaddy and Ms. Bedel’s company. In addition, I was also quite aware of the luck I possessed, because never did there come a time when I argued about what belonged to who.  While the alterations that occurred in my childhood home were minimal at best with Winston’s arrival, they were quite jarring all the same.  Breakfast was smaller, lunch and dinner too. I also had to be tolerant - patient - when Winston sat by my side, giving his own outlandish variations to the personalities of my beloved dolls. His rough housing even led to the tearing of Marilyn! And even though tears fell on my pillow that night by sunrise, I forgave him. One of the most noticeable changes was in how Ms. Bedel began to seldom speak to me. I thought it would be wise if I did not speak to her, as I acknowledged not just her body language but the dryness of her voice. The change that occurred was not my fault. Ms. Bedel simply detested my cousin.

In her eyes however, I was different. Different in the sense that when she met my grandfather, she met me too, and therefore knew what would come if she decided to move in. Winston was unlike me, not just due to gender or behavior, but because she never agreed to provide for him. Still, I did not know this. Instead, there were many days where I wondered if I had done something to evoke her coldness, but in truth I just didn't know of the hostile conversations taking place between the adults of the household. Some of my days were better than others, but the moment I made my greatest mistake came from one of my worst.  I returned home with low spirits after school. It did not matter that it was Friday as the memory of Lucinda Carter’s wrongdoing remained fresh in my heart and mind.  I will admit that in my childhood I more often than not felt an intense desire to be accepted by my peers. I was well-aware I had been viewed as the perfect, ideal child by my elders, but to those in my classroom I was thought of as little more than an old woman, masquerading as a child. During the occasional moments they were willing to overlook my small, shifting eyes and unusual silence, I was filled with jubilance.  With the little friends I had, I joyously followed to play Duck, Duck, Goose. With Lucinda circling us, I could feel the tension build. Each moment was thrilling. No one knew who the Goose would be, and I even speculated that it may be Thomas or Claude who would chase us around the courtyard. I did not expect Lucinda’s palm to fling into my face as she declared I was the wild goose. And what a fool I was, trying to rationalize the assault. I understood it was a part of the game. But I knew that with the way Lucinda usually treated me, it could not have been a giddy mistake. Still, I did not say anything to the teachers. Tears no longer slid down my cheeks by the time I climbed the concrete steps of my home. At that point, I began to think of the things that made me happy, and in that moment it occurred to me the last time I felt at peace was when I was among Ms. Bedel’s treasures. This is what brought me to her side, rather than confiding to my grandfather of the humiliation that occurred to me on this day. “Ms. Bedel,” I began meek and soft, “can I see your diamonds?" My first crime of that day was not realizing how Winston was among her. I was not aware Winston’s eye size doubled at the sound of diamonds.  “Yes you may.” All I knew was that Ms. Bedel looked greatly unhappy that I approached her, “but put everything back as found. Do you hear me? Everything, Delores."  “Yes ma’am.” And with that, I was on my way, embarking on my second sin.  After retrieving the jewelry box I navigated to the private sanctuary of my bedroom, shutting the door. Any other time I would not have done this, but it felt relieving to know that I was keeping to myself. Alone. Laid out on my wooden panels, I observed every pearl, opal, and amber gem. In this solace, I could not wait until I had my own collection of jewels to possess when womanhood approached, for surely everyday would be spent in happiness.  “Delores!” The sound of Ms. Bedel’s voice ripped me from my adult fantasies. Before I could rise to my feet and ask ‘ma’am?’ she opened my door, scolding me once more: “you better keep this door open, young lady. I don’t know who you think you are, secluding yourself away from the world! You are seven years old!” She did not have to curse at me as I hear some mothers do their children. She did not have to strike me as a reminder that she and my grandfather’s words were the law. I already felt the harsh sting of shame and humiliation coursing through me, and so although she did not keep watch on me with a critical gaze after ensuring I kept my door open: when she told me to put everything back, I did so - with the belief I had gathered everything.  It was my fear of further disappointing her that ruined my judgment. 

Saturday was fine, Sunday was as well as we attended church like a prim and proper family. It is horrible to reflect on the change that came a mere few hours after our worship.

“Ever since you took that boy in he’s been nothin’ but trouble!  He wasn’t even sick on Tuesday, he was connin’ you!”  This was not an argument that could be ignored. It was clear as the siren of an ambulance: both Winston and I could hear the clashing of our guardians echo through the walls. Ms. Bedel’s fury summoned Winston to crouch outside our elder’s bedroom. I was tempted to steer him away and convince him to mind his business until all was calm, but I was also taken by the enragement.  “I didn’t know you was a doctor!”  “I was with him that entire day!” Ms. Bedel shouted, “I could see him running and jumping and just actin’ a fool! Maybe if you weren’t trying to keep up with these young men out here-” “Woman!” I jumped at Granddaddy’s raised voice, “You don’t know a THING you talkin’ ‘bout!”

Hearing the heavy thud of Ms. Bedel’s feet, I wondered what if the door swung open and the nosiness of Winston and I would be displayed before her eyes. Surely we could never live it down. 

“Look -- damn you Amos, look!” However, she did not open the door. Ms. Bedel was elsewhere in the bedroom, and I could only assume she took a stance by the dresser. “My ring is gone! I know that he took it and he sold it to some...some-”

“Some what?” Grandaddy snapped. 

“Some hustler!” 

My knowledge of the streets were limited, but I knew the title she used for Winston was not right. “You should have seen him - the way he was looking when Didi had mentioned I had diamonds. I could just about read his mind!” 

“He’s nine years old, who does he know? If he took it, he prolly gave it to some lil’ girl!” 

“Amos! Why are you defending that heathenistic-”

“Shut up!”

“No good-”

“Dammit woman, I said shut your mouth!”

“Ungodly grandson of yours!” 

There came a sharp sound. The sound of skin hitting skin. It was stronger than how Lucinda hit me, that I knew.

However, this was not a new sound for Winston. In contrast to his excited face, I was cringing as if I personally witnessed Granddaddy’s powerful strike.

“You hard headed woman.” He hissed, “y’ain’t gonna keep standing here and keep callin’ my grandson outta his name. Y’got one more time t’do that and I’ma drag you outta here. Keep on talkin’ about some itty bitty ring. Keep on.”

“It was my mother’s.”  “Your mama was the thief you’re makin’ my grandson out to be. Your mama wasn’t nobody.”  

At that point, Winston was stretching his legs and placing his palm against the door knob. I decided that if Winston would get himself in trouble for getting into the adult’s business, so be it, but I personally would have no part in it.  But the truth of the matter is, by not prying I spared myself from the sight of my grandfather - a man who was more commonly stern whilst simultaneously doting, in a state far different than what I was accustomed to. I knew he was in the wrong - he was terrifying me, just to overhear him in this private moment. But what would I do if I looked at him? Caught him in whatever dominant position he stood in? Then, I heard Ms. Bedel weep.  

“I hate you.”  As she continued to weep, my heart broke. “You old bastard - what makes you think that I have to be with you? I don’t have to be with you. I accepted your granddaughter, willingly, I never had to do that for you. Then you put that grandson on me, and...and I’m too damn old to be going through burdens like you! Get away from me! Go on!”  Don’t go… I can recall thinking, I can recall wanting to act out: to cry and scream, but instead I was biting at my bottom lip, thinking: Don’t go. I felt shame at that point, too. Incredibly small, irrelevant. A burden. Now, I was willing to peep through the door like Winston, treated to the sight of Ms. Bedel moving faster than I had ever seen her. Apathetic and rough, she tossed the jewelry box on the bed, grasped at her coats, blouses, and furs. 

“Where do you think you’re goin’?” Granddaddy had the audacity to ask, as if he had not personally told her to remove herself.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?!” I did not know where the ring of Ms. Bedel’s mother had been. Truly, I thought it was in the box as it needed to be. The truth of the matter was that it was under my bed, somehow knocked there by my little feet as I spent my Friday evening admiring it all. But never would I have stolen from a woman I respected. At this moment, I did not think of my own potential mistakes, but I did think about letting my tears fall and what it would have been like if I rushed into Granddaddy’s bedroom, asking him if she could stay. “Move, move!” My surely disastrous idea never came to be as Winston grabbed my shoulders the same time Ms. Bedel’s feet came our way. Before I knew it, we were scurrying like small, brown mice to my bedroom. It was very likely Ms. Bedel saw it, but hadn’t possessed enough care to say anything.

“When y’find that damn thing,” Granddaddy followed her, not caring about our wide eyes. “You can’t never come back here. Never!”

“I don’t plan on it, Amos!” 

Ms. Bedel would only return to Granddaddy in the pursuit of her fine china. Shortly afterwards, I believe she left Dayton to return to New York.

This would be the first memory that brought me pain and discomfort: something I could not dwell on because it was too harsh. At some point, my grandfather realized that the woman he loved was forever gone, because he would issue cold gazes to Winston. Asserting that if he took her ring, he should speak up. Each time, Winston claimed innocence.

As the months came and went, so did the severity of the emotional wounds of that day. Never would we forget the disaster, but we had to shoulder it and proceed on with our  life. Though, one day, I would find something shiny below my bed. Like a calling, the light green streaks requested for my attention in an abyss of darkness. As I cupped it and brought it to light: that fateful day would hit me all over again.

Needless to say, as a teenager I spent many of my days wishing to turn back time. I wished that I could have considered that maybe it was I who made a mistake. Then, I would run to my bedroom, I would search up and down until I found that emerald ring and both of my guardians would enter a state of calmness. This was my fantasy. But silent, I would keep this ring. Though I would never wear it. Not even as eleven became thirteen. Or thirteen became sixteen. Or sixteen became eighteen.

Always, this ring was to be hidden. Forever my secret.

Even now, it is in my own jewelry box. And though Ms. Bedel’s mother stole it - and I in a way inherited this ring through the tradition of ‘stealing’ it, have never worn it. It has always felt taboo. Instead, what I do is keep it safe. 

I am blessed to remember things as well as I do, yet precise memory can be a curse. 

[queerchoicesblog]

A  Life So Changed (SC Titanic, Zetta x Adele Series, Ch. 15)

So, folks, here’s the new chapter of the series. Thank you so much for your support, hope you enjoy it!

Little disclaimer-favor: especially since the tags don’t seem to be working anymore, if you do enjoy it, please consider supporting the author & sharing this. A little gesture that means a lot!

Also, this chapter contains reference to THIS FIC I wrote about James and Zetta inevitable confrontation not showed in the original book.

Word Count: 2000+

Zetta x Adele Tag: @storyscaped​ ​ @storyscapefanficarchive​ @marmolady​ @animus-and-anima​ @hayley-carter19 @escako​  @everlastingchoices​ @indescribablechoices​ @ahrielstuff​ @bornonawdnsday​ @nazario-sayeed​  @h-doodles​ @adele-serda​ @marlcasters​ @brightpinkpeppercorn​  @michelleconnoly​ @charliejane-blog​ @ghost-of-yuri​  @choicesgremlin​  @lanzhansguqin​ @orange-elephants​ @wonder-falcon​

Zetta x Adele Series Tag: @eternal-langdon​ @nydeiri​

➡️ Ch. 1, Ch. 2/1, Ch. 2/2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6, Ch. 7, Ch. 8/1, Ch. 8/2, Ch. 9, Ch. 10/1, Ch. 10/2, Ch. 11/1, Ch. 11/2, Ch. 12, Ch. 13, Ch. 14

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What follows that night is a feverish dream. The following months flow in a haze as days blend into each other. New York, my apartment...all is familiar yet ever distant. As if I'm back home and somewhere far away simultaneously. I'm here and I'm not here.

Moving on is tougher than I could have possibly imagined. Sabine and Richard take care of me with tender compassion, doubling their usual efforts: it's heartwarming, truly. It leaves me wondering what I have ever done right in my life to deserve such adoration and, most importantly, affection because it's genuine concerned affection what I see in their eyes when our eyes meet. Sabine immediately added a newfound touch of sweetness to her proverbial efficiency and joins me at the breakfast table more often these days: sometimes it happens that I am not in the mood for talking and we sit together in complete silence. At first it made me nervous but my little Napoleon doesn't seem to mind: she would offer me a smile and gesture to the coffee pot or the plate filled with slices of my favourite bread and my nervousness melts away replaced by a sense of comfort. Richard visits me more than usual and invites me to join him for a walk at Central Park: "you always say how much you love that place, let's go together...it will do you good" he suggests, smiling sheepishly and offering me his arm. Just like Sabine, he doesn't mind that at times I fall quiet and melancholy takes over me. He would gently stroke my hand resting on his arm and keep walking at my side. One day, as I took a seat on a bench, he picked a flower, a gorgeous little daisy, and pinned it to my hat. He smiled at me and gave my hand an encouraging squeeze before taking a seat beside me. He's surprisingly sweet, sweeter than I deserve, and more mature than I thought when we first met. Richard never once mentioned nor complained about James. He would have every reason and right to question me about him after the secret letters my nephew sent him, asking for money. He never did: the day after our arrival, he even asked his friend John to make sure Mr. Eisler and his valet were safe in their New York apartment. Richard is probably waiting for the moment I'm ready to have that conversation. How could I never be ready for it? Yet, I must, I must confront my nephew: what he did is too hurtful and serious not to come with harsh consequences. Before I send a note to James, I share with Richard my decision: as much as I have little desire to see him now, he's still family and I have at least a moral obligation to him, the old oath I made to Theresa, so I will grant him a generous monthly income. I will set a few conditions, which include no more letters or inappropriate requested to Richard and no more interferences with the marriage under the treat of a legal action from my lawyers. I explain my fiancée the hideous scheme my nephew planned, omitting some details, and I assure him that I was in the dark about the letters: I knew nothing about them and I'm deeply ashamed and sorry he went this far. Richard listens to me carefully and gives me a painful smile as he take my hand into his. "I knew, Zetta. I always knew and I didn't suspect you when I received them, not even for a split second" he sighs. "I trust you, my darling". He just worried about me and he is still concerned because as much as it pains him to say that, my nephew seems dangerous and he has no sympathy for him. I assure him we won't see him anytime soon: after what he did, the things between James and I will never be the same. I don't even know if I will ever be able to forgive him. I repeat the same words to Jaime a few days later and having such a conversation with him is one of the toughest thing in my whole life. I'm angry and disappointed as I speak, wounded in the deep yet tortured by the familiar affection refusing to die inside me. When he close the door behind him, full knowing I don't know when we will see each other again, my heart breaks and I fall sobbing on my knees. My little prince is gone. There is a big fuss in town about the Titanic hearings: American and British authorities are investigating the disaster and the White Star Line company is covered with shame. The hearings are held in New York at Waldorf-Astoria Hotel so I try to keep updated. I spoke to a committing magistrate too: he asked questions about that night to see if I could provide valuable information for the official investigation. It turned out I had none or at least very little to offer him, aside from reporting the questionable decision of lowering half-empty lifeboats and the stubborn refusal to go against it of many officers, like the one I yelled at on the deck. I sign my deposition, which adds up to many others he gathered since the inquiry started. I don't need to testimony at court, he said, he has tons of other witnesses reporting the same issue and he will just add my deposition to the documents to be sent to the judge. "You can go, thank you for your time, Miss Serda" he smiles, vigorously shaking my hand. He praises my heroism but I don't know what he's talking about. Apparently, other witnesses claimed that they owe me their life or saw me protesting on the deck. I'm no hero, I think as my mind runs to the young steward who stayed behind, down in the belly of the sinking ship to keep the light on and give us all a chance to survive. I think his name was Charlie. A few weeks after the beginning of the hearings, about the end of May, I receive a letter from Lucille. She hadn't hear from me since our arrival and she's worried about me, she writes. She had sent me letters but I answered none. She profusely apologises for not waiting for me as she promised but "they had no choice, the chaos was mounting": she hopes this won't be the end of our friendship. Hoping so, she renews her invitation: Richard and I will be her most welcome guests if we fancy joining her and Cosmo for dinner at their apartment whenever it suits us. I don't know how to feel about this. Under different circumstances, it would have filled with joy, maybe relief after all we've been through, now...now things are more complicated than that. Unlike me, Lucille and Cosmo were asked to appear at court during the hearings to verify certain details. They had been all over the press ever since the news spread and I wonder if I'm being a bad friend "abandoning" her in a time like this. The press predictably feasted and is still feasting over the disaster: tragic stories, eye catching headlines, shocking revelations, heartwarming and heartbreaking pictures from the pier: ça vien sans dire, the touching embrace between me and Richard - "reunited lovers" as the caption said - made it to the front page. As weeks went by, my brief appearance was replaced by the new scandal involving nothing less than the Duff-Gordons, not only my personal friends but also a couple of incredibly famous socialites. When I first read it, my heart sank while Richard declared himself disgusted by what journalists write these days. Rumor has it that Lucille, sitting with her husband and secretary on Lifeboat No. 1, commented to her Laura something like, "There is your beautiful nightdress gone" in the aftermath of the sinking. When the Titanic disappeared to the bottom of the sea and poor souls were freezing to death in the ocean, begging us on the lifeboats to come back and save them. I still hear their screams in my nightmares. There's more though: reportedly Cosmo had bribed the lifeboat's crew not to return to save swimmers out of fear the vessel would capsize; he handed checks to them on board of the Carpathia. But Lifeboat No. 1 was designed to carry 40 passengers. Only 12 people were on board when it was lowered unlike the one I was on, filled beyond its capacity. How could an half-empty boat capsize? They could have saved so many lives that night! The thought made my stomach turn to the point that I feel almost nothing when I see the pictures of them during the inquiry: Cosmo looking grim and tensed in his seat and Lucile dressed in black, a mourning dress with a veiled hats, entering the court. I know better than to trust rumours blindly...but I know them. I've known her for ages and, as much as it hurts to say, I can't completely rule out the possibility that for once the press was right. Maybe I'm wrong but I can't vouch for them this time. And doubt is an uncomfortable thing... The final report by the inquiry is more generous than me and clear their names, even if - I'm sure - the general public will be less forgiving. Anyway, Richard is quite fond of the couple, we will surely go visit them... I do not pretend to be fine after what happened on my birthday's night -the sinking, James' betrayal, but I can conceal. I know how to conceal, if need be, in public, in front of people who cannot understand. I'm an actress, a great actress after all. But I feel numb, a ghost of my usual self. During the day I try to keep myself busy. My renaissance requires hard work and commitment as well as a good plan. Sabine and Richard are excellent helpers: I need new projects to work on to make my comeback and an efficient daily schedule to prevent me from drowning in my sorrow. I may conceal it but I dread the time when I have nowhere to run and my mind races back to that memory that fills me with excruciating sadness and guilt. My sweet revolutionary. At night I drink sherry and write letters to Adele. They're passionate, melancholic, tearful. I throw them away in the morning: my words flow on the paper but they ring hollow in the daylight. I don't know what I am supposed to write her. What should I tell her? What could possibly excuse my silence as times go by? I wish I could speak freely what's inside my mind but it's unbelievably difficult. More than she deserves, probably. For some time I tried to convince myself that our little romance on the Titanic was mere attraction, a secret affair favoured by the circumstances: two women growing close, Adele's protectiveness, my heart susceptible to women's beauty and charm just like hers. We found each other and it happened. That's all. But her memory lingers, it never fades away. Never. She always finds a way back to me. At night or during the day, by accident. She's everywhere even if this isn't a place she belongs to. She's in the announcement of a referendum for women's suffrage in Michigan: I read the news and think how excited she must be about it. Maybe she knows it already but I feel a silly urgency to send her the page of the newspaper: your dream may come true after all, see, my love? She's in a gorgeous dress I see hanging on a mannequin in a boutique and I know would fit her perfectly. I have to refrain myself not to buy it and send it to her with a sweet note because I don't care if she needs it, I just want her to have it. She needs beautiful things in her life too. She's in a witty joke I hear in a fancy cafe: I laugh and turn towards Sabine to say "Oh Adele would love this humour" but words die in my throat. When I turn, my cheer has turned into a grimace. Adele isn't here. I don't even know her address here. The thought pains me. I could ask Sabine to find it, I could visit her...but I find myself wondering if it would be the better judgement. I'd give up half my fortune or even more to know about her, even just a quick update. Is she fine? Is she still hurting? Did she and her sister settle down safely? Does she have nightmares at night? She looked so defeated and forlorn on the Carpathia, it pains me to remember seeing the light in her eyes flicker. But maybe this way it will be easier for her to move on. To forget me, if that's what we must get to, no matter how much it hurts. Sometimes I drink myself to a stupor to break the spiral of such thoughts and I'm quite ashamed of myself when Sabine finds me like that in the morning. I mutter nonsense excuses I don't owe her - but I feel like do, she's not a maid, she's my friend - as I hold onto her since I can barely stand on my feet at times and I burst into tears whenever she says: "You have nothing to apologise for, Madam" I do, though. I should - no I must apologise to Adele and Hileni too for disappearing and abandoning them on that pier. I must tell Adele how things really are, how I miss her, it's unbearable... So it's no surprise then that when Richard announces me his idea to postpone the grifter story project I've been working on in favour of a new one, "an homage to the Titanic tragedy", my mind comes find her once again. The project is a wise mix of ambitious opportunism - the sinking is still the talk of the town and people will love it - and genuine concerns. He says I'll not only play the main heroine but also pick the subject, he will just help assessing the script but he wants me to be the one calling the shots on the story to tell. I believe he feels it might be somehow therapeutic for me, aside from the alluring detail of having the star Zetta Serda co-writing an announced success. I consider it for a while, but in the end I write down the Carrem sisters story. I'm fully aware that the picture will hardly be able to bring back to life what it truly happened, the grandeur and the terror. I'm experienced enough to know that the audience can take only that much of the tragedy: they wanna cry and say that they felt as if they were there but they would scream and leave the room if I showed them the truth. A giant ship collapsing in front of you, officers shooting to maintain orders, stewards stubbornly denying desperate passengers their only chance to jump on a lifeboat and to survive, the screams of those who floated in the chilly waters and the dreading silence that followed their unmerciful death. They will never take that much. On the contrary, they will likely enjoy the story of two sisters separated and reunited, prevailing over the impending tragedy threatening to kill them both. It's an heartwarming story with an happy ending and the right amount of pathos and hope. It's also the story of my love that I'm writing down on paper and hand to the posterity. When I present it to Richard, he loves it. He himself couldn't have found a better story, he says, barely containing his excitement. I explain quietly that it's a true story, I just changed the names in respect of the real protagonists of this story. I can only hope Adele won't hate me for this when she sees it. Hate me even more than she's probably doing right now, I frown. I can only hope she will understand.

[giogiohcs]

Smartass.

Jackass.

Chapter 8

Summary: A 12 year old must survive in a brand new world, a world where the dead walk and eat the living. She thought she was all alone and she preferred it that way but unfortunately a certain jackass with baseball bat has taken a liking to her.

The group marched through the familiar forest, their steps crunching the leaves under them. Negan hummed quietly in a tune before turning his head to Davy.

“So Wavy Davy what were you doing in that fucking repair shop?” He asked curiously and he swung Lucille over his shoulder. As Caterina and Negan seemed relaxed, Davy’s eyes were still scanning the forest anxiously. For better or for worse, ever since the beginning of the apocalypse, he kept to the roads and never ventured into nature.

“I was just resting there for awhile. I’m actually heading to DC.” Davy explained, Caterina for the first time spoke up.

“Why? There’s probably tons of the dead ones there... More people there are, the more undead there are.” She whispered plainly, at this point of the apocalypse, if you didn’t know that basic rule, you were already dead.

“My family is there, they’re safe and they’re waiting for me.” Davy huffed, Negan and Caterina exchanged looks with each other. Negan then lifted the final branch in their way. It revealed a row of cars and trucks all parked in a circle, making a barrier around a large camp site. Negan set Lucille to lean on one of the cars and smacked his hands for their attentions.

“Wavy Davy, my friend: Welcome to the closest thing to paradise in Armageddon.” He announced then turned to Caterina with a bow.

“If you will do us the fucking honor.” He asked with a his usual grin. Caterina resisted rolling her eyes and took out a set of keys from her pocket. She then jiggled one of the keys into the car in front of them, probably the oldest out of all the cars, a busted up 1950 Chevrolet Coupe. And with a dramatic twirl, she flung open the car door with a mocked enthusiasm and bowed back to Negan.

“Ladies first.” She said as she left the door open for him. Negan bellowed out a laugh and roughly patted her back with a gloved hand. She resisted wincing.

“Hahaha.. ‘ladies first’...” He shook his head as he crawling into the car then exiting on the other side, Davy followed suit then Caterina. Inside the camp was a large camping tent, a fire pit, camping chairs, and a tall lean tent that stood in the corner. Davy marveled at their set up, it’s better than any other place he’s seen so far.

“Aaaargh-“ Davy jumped in surprise and fell to the ground, there two dead ones were coming at him, he scrambled to get behind Negan and Caterina.

“Jesus- Davy-! It’s alright, no need to go to pee pee town. These fuckers are chained up and they can’t even bite a chunk out of you.” Negan explained and pointed to the dead ones’ lack of jaws, teeth and hands. Davy jumped to his feet again but had a healthy distance from the undead.

“What the hell? Why do you guys have them here, man?” He asked, his voice going up a few octaves which made Negan want to laugh but he kept to his usual grin.

“Their mine.” Caterina suddenly explained, Davy looked between her and the undead.

“Why w-“

“They’re my parents.” She interjected him with a blank face before turning around and resting her backpack on the ground as if he had asked nothing. Like it was normal. Davy felt a wave of guilt wash over him. He kept his eye on the undead as he joined her and Negan with unpacking.

“It’s getting dark soon, we should build a fire so we don’t freeze our balls off while there’s still a little light left.” Negan suggested, Caterina opened one of the cars and took wood from the pile they had stashed in there. She carried the pile she had in her arm to him and graciously took the wood from her. Negan began to build the fire while Davy sat on the opposite side of the dead ones, eating a Snickers bar, probably a stale Snickers bar. He cautiously eyed the dead ones. His eyes turned to Negan who seemed to looking for something.

“Damn it, are you fucking kidding me?” Negan exasperated, he was pulling at his pockets, Caterina’s backpack, and some of the cars.

“What are you looking for?” She asked curiously.

“I must’ve dropped the fucking lighter in Davy’s car.” Negan sighed, Davy took out his car keys before tossing them to him. Negan caught them and quickly left the camp to the darken woods to find his lucky lighter.

Which left Caterina and Davy alone, along with her ‘parents’ who quietly moaned and did little to rattle their chains. A couple moments of silence went between Caterina and Davy before he spoke up.

“So- uh- what happened to them? If you want to talk about it of course...” His weirdly formal speech didn’t sound nice with his heavy Californian accent. He gestured to the dead ones. Caterina stared at him for a minute, complementing whether or not to say anything.

“Those... They’re not actually my parents, if that’s what you’re wondering..” Her voice got quiet, as night started to fall, the woods got even quieter too.

“I just call them that because they protect me and stuff..” She explained before Davy had a chance to ask. But then he had another question.

“Then what happened to your real parents?” He asked, Caterina then gave him a look, he couldn’t quite describe it. But he could tell she wasn’t in a talkative mood anymore.

“What happened to yours?” She rebuttaled quickly, why did she have to answer all of his questions?

“They’re in DC... waiting for me. That’s why I’m going there.” Davy repeated but she shook her head at him.

“They’re dead like almost everyone else is.” She grumbled and put her knees to her chest. He almost wanted to glare at her but she was just a kid...

“In DC... my parents are in a safe zone, the zone is called Alexandria. The military made it a couple years ago to be some type of self sustaining community or something and now my parents are there, surviving.” He emphasized his last word. A couple of moments passed between them.

“...Are you serious? There’s communities still?” She asked, Davy nodded his head.

“But how do you know that it hasn’t been overrun already? What if hordes of people went to that place and the dead ones came with? How do you know?” She interrogated, Davy’s eyebrows scrunched in frustration.

“Then why don’t you come with a find out with me?” He challenged, she looked taken back by it. Caterina began to think about it, the pros, the cons of leaving. Everything is good right here but for how long? If there really was a safe-zone, there would be military there, guns and food there.

“Alright, I guess it’ll be better going somewhere than just staying here...” She whispered, a hint of a smile gracing her lips.

[lallemanting]

59!!!!

ah kat! thank you for sending this in, sorry it took me awhile lol 💛 hope you enjoy!!

#59 from these autumn prompts: scary movie // also on ao3

Autumn is undoubtedly Eliott’s favorite season. The weather is cool and crisp, but not freezing. There are vibrant reds and oranges and yellows, coloring the world in shades of sunset at all hours of the day. The food is warm and rich and decadent, the stuff that clings to your bones a bit and makes you feel at home. 

Not to mention it makes a beautiful backdrop for a certain boy that never seems to leave Eliott’s mind these days.

He and Lucas have been teetering on that line for a while now is the thing. Eliott can’t help but notice the looks, the constant texting, the occasional flirting that took a while for him to catch onto. He’s always been a bit oblivious when it comes to that stuff, generally making the first move, making himself clear and letting the other person catch up.

But with Lucas it’s different. Eliott’s had a bit of a crush on him since he first transferred to his school – has always appreciated his deep blue eyes, the way his hair seems to have a mind of its own, the fierce loyalty he shows his friends. But at the time, when Arthur had first introduced him to Lucas, when he had welcomed Eliott into their friend group, Eliott hadn’t wanted to risk losing the only friends he had. Not to mention he’d still been with Lucille. So he hadn’t done anything about his feelings, just letting them stay there, close to his heart.

But a few months ago, things began to change. Or maybe it’s just that Eliott started to pay more attention. 

It was something Basile had said actually, that had made him start to wonder. They’d all been sitting at a café – Eliott, Lucas, Yann, Arthur and Basile – and Lucas had gotten up to grab another coffee. Bas had asked him to get him a snack and Lucas had told him to stop being a lazy piece of shit and get it himself. But then he’d turned to Eliott and quietly asked him if he wanted another coffee too.

Eliott hadn’t really thought anything of it at first, but Bas, annoyed at Lucas’ lack of empathy at his apparently growling stomach had leaned across the table, whining as Lucas had made his way to the counter. “Why does Lucas always do nice stuff for Eliott but not for me?”

Yann had shot Bas a glance, his jaw clenched. “Because you’re an idiot.”

That had made Bas go off on another tangent about how everyone was always mean to him, but it had made Eliott think. And the more he thought about it, he realized that Lucas did tend to treat him differently than everyone else.

Lucas was nicer to him, more attentive, paid him more compliments, invited him to more things. And maybe, hidden there in all of that, there had been some flirting. 

(But Eliott had always been bad at subtlety, so he wasn’t really sure. When he wanted something, he tended to go for it, lay his cards on the table in a way that really couldn’t be ignored. He’s never really had to do this before – play it safe.)

What Eliott does know though is that he treats Lucas differently. A good different. 

Because the thing is Eliott knows his heart beats faster when he sees his phone light up with a text from Lucas, is well aware of what he’s doing when he compliments Lucas just to see the way his cheeks blush in beautiful shades of pink, seeks out every opportunity to be near him, touch him. 

But he doesn’t know what it means for Lucas.

Maybe that’s the problem – it’s only ever been this surface-level stuff. Friendly banter, gentle flirting that could seem unserious, light touches that could mean nothing. And maybe it’s supposed to be like this, maybe Lucas wants this to be the extent of their relationship, but Eliott knows he’s falling and he’s falling fast. 

He can’t figure out if Lucas is falling too. 

It’s timing, after all. The timing has always been off. When Eliott first met Lucas, he’d been with Lucille, and even though he’d immediately noticed Lucas, it wasn’t like he could do anything about it. And then they’d actually started talking and it turned out they got along great – better, in fact, than Eliott had ever gotten along with anyone before. 

But he sorted out his feelings too late, much too late. By the time he ended things with Lucille for good, the subtle flirting had just become part of their relationship and Eliott had somehow managed to become Lucas’ friend instead. 

It wasn’t that Eliott didn’t like being Lucas’ friend, but these days they walk the gentle line between friendship and what could be and it drives Eliott crazy.

They’re sitting at lunch one day towards the end of October, just the two of them. Eliott is trying to focus on his food, he really is, but there’s a bright yellow tree just outside the window they’re sitting by and the sunlight is streaming in at just the right angle and from where Eliott sits, Lucas looks like he’s been lit in a heavenly glow.

So when Lucas says something, Eliott has to ask him to repeat it.

“I asked what you were doing on Friday,” Lucas says casually. 

Eliott nearly chokes, his heart skipping like it does every time Lucas asks him to hang out. (Because maybe this time, it might mean something different.) “I don’t think I have plans.”

“Want to go to a movie?” And Eliott can’t help the way his thoughts spiral out of control at Lucas’ question. A movie? Just the two of them? 

He’s slow then, testing the waters, trying to figure out just what this is. “Uh yeah, sure. What movie were you thinking?”

“Well, there’s that new horror film you know, for Halloween? Thought that might be kind of cool.”

And there are two things Eliott knows with absolute certainty: 1) he hates scary things, especially horror films and 2) he’d go anywhere if Lucas asked him. So unfortunately for him, he’ll be going to this movie.

“Yeah, sounds good,” Eliott says like he’s not at least a bit hesitant to have to sit through an hour or two of intentionally scaring himself. But it’s fine, better than fine actually, because he’ll get to spend time with Lucas.

Lucas smiles at him, taking another bite of his sandwich. “Okay I’ll come by your apartment around 7? And we can take the bus to the theater together.”

Eliott’s mind is racing and he can’t believe that this might finally be what he’s been hoping for but then –

“We’ll meet the rest of the boys there since they live in the opposite direction.”

And oh, Eliott tries hard not to pay attention to the way his heart drops at the mention of the other boys. He likes them, he does, but this means it’s a friend thing, a platonic thing. It means it the same as it always is.

– 

On Friday Eliott finds himself sitting there in the dark theater, trying to keep his attention on the screen. He’s trying to focus on the idiot family walking into their (clearly haunted) house. He tries to listen as the father reassures his family that the rumors aren’t true, the house is just old. But the thing is – and isn’t it always this – Lucas is there, sitting so close to him their knees are almost brushing, and Eliott is finding it hard to pay attention to anything else.

It’s heartbeats and breaths and gentle knees. A glance as Lucas offers Eliott more popcorn, a little shake of his head to say no, the settling back into the seats, fingers inches from each other.

And Eliott is dying.

But it can’t be like this, he won’t survive the two hours in the theater like this, so he turns his attention back to the screen, trying to get invested in the movie (even if he knows he’s going to hate it).

And it’s just his luck that as he turns his attention back, focuses all his energy on the story unfolding in front of him, something black and dark and scary with a gaping mouth and dead eyes pops up on the screen and Eliott nearly screams.

It’s this, Eliott hates this feeling of losing control over his reactions, his body kicking into fight or flight mode, pulse racing, muscles frantic. He needs to be grounded.

So without thinking, in the split second that it takes for his eyes to catch up with brain, in the moment it takes between the fear and the recognition that it can’t hurt him, Eliott reaches for the one thing that makes him feel safe: Lucas.

His hand finds Lucas’ and then he’s clenching Lucas’ fingers tightly in his own, his shock from the scare making him lose his ability to fight the urge to hold Lucas’ hand, the urge he’s been pushing down for months.

He squeezes Lucas’ hand. And Lucas squeezes back.

It brings Eliott back into himself, that feeling of Lucas’ hand responding to his, pressure that anchors him, touch that sets him on fire. He glances over at Lucas and Lucas’s face is split into a wide smile as his eyes finds Eliott’s and he’s laughing, chuckling at Eliott being scared by the movie. Because to Lucas it’s no big deal, he watches these movies all the time, they don’t surprise him.

Eliott rolls his eyes and he’s very aware of Lucas’ hand in his, the feeling of skin on skin, reveling in his touch. But then he’s remembering that as much as he’s wanted to do this, they don’t do this. They don’t hold hands. It crosses their unspoken line, bends their informal rules too much.

And the last thing Eliott wants is for Lucas to feel uncomfortable. So as he turns around, eyes trained back on the screen, he moves, just a little, to let Lucas’ hand drop from his own, go back to that space of platonic friendship with a dash of flirting. 

But as he relaxes his grip, moves to bring his hand away, his eyes trained on the movie in front of him, he feels Lucas’ hand chase his, grasping it again and lacing their fingers together.

Eliott can’t breathe, he really can’t. They don’t hold hands. And they certainly don’t hold hands like this. It’s the line, the one that’s been drawn for so long – you can flirt, but only just. You can touch, but not too long. Interlacing fingers are not part of the game they play.

Eliott gasps at the contact, reveling in how good it feels to have Lucas’ palm against his, fingers intertwined, knitted together under the armrest, resting on the scratchy fabric of the seats. He glances back towards Lucas, looking for a sign, something that will tell him why Lucas is doing this, why now. But all he finds is Lucas looking stoically ahead at the film on the screen, though maybe the hint of a smile plays at the corner of his lips. It’s too dark to see clearly. 

And Eliott could panic. He could snatch his hand back, break the contact rough and sharp, stay behind the line that’s become his comfort zone, scared that moving outside it might change their relationship irrevocably for the worst. That he might lose Lucas, his deepest fear realized, ending up alone.

But now Lucas, it seems, is pushing that line a little farther, pressing on the limits of what they’ve allowed, testing to see how Eliott responds. And if this is his chance to make his case, Eliott can’t let it slip away.

He pulls their joined hands onto his lap and lets them rest there, tracing shapes with his thumb. He turns back to the screen and normally he’d have to look away, normally he’d be hiding his eyes, fear gripping his chest, heart beating rapidly as he watches terror unfold.

But a different kind of fear has taken its place, with Lucas there, hand in his. But this fear is lighter, more exciting and daunting. Less fear really, and more nervousness, his mind racing quickly thinking what is this, what does it mean? And there aren’t answers yet and there can’t be, not really, as they sit in the dark, fingers laced. 

In the end, Eliott doesn’t watch the movie really. The pictures flash in front of his eyes, but his heart is beating so loud it drowns out the screams and creepy music echoing from the speakers. For a moment, Eliott almost laughs to himself at the setting because he’s always been a hopeless romantic, has imagined holding Lucas’ hand like this for so long but it’s never had this backdrop – no matter how fitting for an October evening. 

But it doesn’t matter really, because sitting like this in this moment, the only thing Eliott knows is the fire burning in his chest, Lucas’ gentle touch the spark that set it aflame.

–

When the credits roll and the lights begin to come up Lucas finally lets go of his hand. They must have been sitting there like that for nearly an hour. But Eliott gets it –  the light always makes it harder.

Eliott is also a little grateful because the last thing he needs right now is for one of the other boys to see and ask about it. It would undoubtedly become a thing and Eliott doesn’t think he’d be able to keep of his facade of being only interested in Lucas as a friend if he gets hit with too many questions.

So when the lights turn on, Lucas pulls away and Eliott lets him go. 

As they all make their way out of the theater, Eliott finds himself in a daze, his head swimming, his heart bursting, nervousness piercing his chest. And he looks to Lucas for the next move, for what comes next, only Lucas isn’t looking to him.

In fact, Lucas doesn’t look at him at all as they walk out of the darkened room, down the hallway to the lobby and eventually out the doors onto the sidewalk. Instead, Lucas runs up to whisper something to Yann and then they’re joined by the rest of the boys loudly talking about the parts of the movie that scared them or were particularly gross, as Eliott trails behind. 

Out on the darkened sidewalk, out in the cool night air, the fire that had been burning is starting to wane and Eliott feels his confidence and excitement failing him as Lucas continues to ignore him. Sure, Eliott wasn’t expecting a frank discussion of what happened in front of everyone else, but maybe just a glance, something to let Eliott know it affected Lucas as much as it affected him.

As they all stand there saying their goodbyes, Eliott starts to panic. Because this is where they head off in separate directions, where Eliott and Lucas generally head to their area of the city, and the other boys go the other way. 

And Eliott had thought they’d be heading back together, him and Lucas, but Lucas is standing off to the side, whispering with Yann and maybe, Eliott thinks, he’s trying to find a way to stay over at Yann’s so he can avoid the awkward walk home with him. 

Eliott’s thoughts are spiraling a little out of control when Yann suddenly gives Lucas a look and shoves him gently in Eliott’s direction. 

“Come on boys,” Yann says loudly, clapping Arthur and Basile on their shoulders. “Let’s head out.” He nods in Eliott and Lucas’ direction, where Lucas has ended up standing closer to Eliott, his back to him. “See you two later.”

And then the other three are turning up the sidewalk and heading out into the darkness, leaving Eliott alone with Lucas. His heart is beating so fast, Eliott is scared it might burst out of his chest.

He just needs to reassure Lucas, he thinks, make sure he knows they can still be normal, that it doesn’t have to be anything more, no matter how Eliott feels. He opens his mouth to say that when Lucas whirls around.

His eyes meet Eliott’s for the first time since they left the theater and there’s something new there, that Eliott can’t quite place. It’s not bad, but it’s strong, determined. He smiles gently at him. “Can I walk you home?”

Eliott nods.

It’s not a particularly long way to either of their places. The bus is quicker, but Eliott and Lucas had both gotten in the habit of walking home when it wasn’t too far and there wasn’t a certain time they needed to be somewhere. They could take their time that way, hang out for just a little bit longer. Or, at least, that was always why Eliott had suggested walking.

They walk in relative silence through the dark streets, night falling earlier and earlier with each passing day. It’s rained since they’d gone in for the movie, the cobblestone streets reflecting in the light from the lampposts, and leaving the air cool but fresh, a slight mist swirling. Eliott takes a deep breath. He loves nights like this.

They’re walking side by side, and despite Eliott’s fear, Lucas isn’t really keeping his distance. Their shoulders are close, their hands closer, and Eliott can’t help but notice the warmth of Lucas’ body next to him. 

Eliott wonders if he should say something. There’s silence, yes, and it’s not necessarily uncomfortable, but he also doesn’t want to go home without at least talking about it. He turns words over in his mind trying to knit them together into something smooth and cohesive, something to mask his nervousness, his feelings, as they get closer and closer to his apartment.

And they’re walking so close it’s bound to happen and maybe, Eliott thinks later, it was intentional, but their knuckles brush as their hands hang at their sides and Eliott feels the fire light up again.

So it’s not his fault, really, when he reaches for Lucas’ hand again. When he grabs Lucas and tries to intertwine their fingers like they had only a little earlier in the evening. 

Only he feels Lucas stiffen slightly at his touch, pulling his hand away and then Lucas stops moving, rooting himself to the concrete sidewalk.

All Eliott can think is shit and then he’s feeling slightly nauseous as he turns to face Lucas where he’s stopped on the street, bracing himself for what he’s sure is coming next. Kind, gentle words that will inevitably break his heart.

And when he turns to face Lucas, he finds him staring straight at him, his face slightly contorted, a little frantic. Lucas takes a deep breath and Eliott suddenly loses the ability to speak.

But luckily it seems like Lucas has also been thinking of things to say on their walk because he’s taking another deep breath as he looks at Eliott.

“Eliott,” he says quietly, his voice small in the darkness. “When you held my hand in the theater, were you holding it because you were scared or because it was my hand?” 

And Eliott wasn’t really prepared for a question, and certainly not that one. He swallows, his eyes flickering over Lucas’ face, trying to discern why he’s asking.

“Eliott,” Lucas repeats and Eliott knows he can’t get away without answering.

Eliott shrugs, his hands finding the pockets of his jeans as he tries to keep Lucas’ gaze. “I uh...well,” and it’s now or never, “I just wanted to hold your hand.”

And Lucas is still looking at him, but he’s burning brighter, if that’s possible, as Eliott speaks. Eliott feels the words hang heavy, because for the first time, Eliott has intentionally crossed that invisible line they’ve drawn, has been clearer than he’s ever been before about how he feels. And he hopes Lucas hears him, he hopes it wasn’t a mistake.

Lucas isn’t saying anything again, and his gaze drops to the floor as he takes a deep breath. Eliott is just starting to regret saying anything at all when Lucas looks back up at him and something is there that wasn’t before.

“Fuck it,” Lucas whispers, his eyes blazing, and then he’s taking the last two steps towards Eliott, grabbing his face and kissing him quick, pressure barely there and then gone again.

Eliott’s eyes go wide, and he has no chance to respond, the pressure of Lucas’ lips against his own barely there long enough for his brain to register it as something other than wishful thinking.

When Lucas pulls back, his hands stay on either side of Eliott’s face and he’s looking at him like he’s waiting for some sort of reassurance that they’re on the same page.

And even though Eliott’s imagined confessing his feelings to Lucas hundreds of times, he’s not prepared for this, was never prepared for Lucas to make the first move, so the shock takes over and his mind goes blank as his heart soars.

He can’t believe this is finally happening.

Only, maybe Lucas can’t tell what he’s thinking because suddenly Lucas’ warm hands are gone from the side of his Eliott’s face, and moving instead to cover his own as he steps away from Eliott.

“Fuck,” he moans, hiding his face in his hands, “I am so sorry, Eliott. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He moves his hands, letting his arms drop to his sides, but he’s looking at the ground. “I just, I don’t know, I let myself get excited when you held my hand and…”

“Lucas,” Eliott whispers, as his brain catches up with him.

“Fuck,” Lucas says again. “I’ve just had a crush on you for so long and Yann was saying…” He manages to lift his eyes then, locking onto Eliott’s. “Well it doesn’t matter what Yann was saying. It’s fine if you don’t feel the same–”

Eliott doesn’t let Lucas finish. He can’t. Not when he’s looking so sad under the yellow glow of the streetlamps, his hair messy from the wind, his cheeks pink from the cold (and a little from the moment, Eliott thinks). He reaches out, one hand clasping Lucas’ wrist and he pulls him close, the other hand reaching up to brush along Lucas’ cheekbone, moving to wrap around the back of his neck.

And then their lips are touching again, only this time it’s stronger, more sure, because Eliott knows. I’ve just had a crush on you for so long.

It takes a minute for Lucas to catch up but then he’s relaxing in Eliott’s embrace and he’s kissing Eliott back, strong arms wrapping around Eliott’s waist, pulling him closer. They sway into each other on the sidewalk, lips moving, Lucas grasping at the front of Eliott’s jacket, Eliott cradling Lucas’ face in his hands.

It’s like a dam has opened and Eliott can’t get enough. He pulls back from Lucas slightly, laughing, unable to stop the smile that’s spreading on his face. 

“So if you couldn’t tell, I have a crush on you too,” Eliott says, letting his thumbs dance across Lucas’ cheeks.

Lucas grins at him, shaking his head slightly. “I think I got that,” he whispers, closing the space between them again.

Lips touch, mouths open, and the line, the one they drew for so long, is smashed to pieces. But they don’t think twice as they leave it shattered there on the sidewalk. With Lucas’ hand in his, for real this time, Eliott thinks there something to be said for breaking rules.