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tootiecakes234 · 4 months

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“Hey Katsuki”, you scream from the your bedroom.

“What” he yells back at you from somewhere else in the house.

“Where ya at?”

“In the game room.”

So you get up and head that way. When you enter he’s sat in his gaming chair with his headset on.

“Hey bub…. Hey guys” you say loud enough to be heard through his headset.

“Yea yea. They all said hey.” You knew Kirishima and Kaminari were on the other end. Maybe even Mina too cuz she wasn’t texting you back.

“Kit-Kat, I’m getting hungry. Do you know what sounds really good for dinner?”

“What?” he questions without taking his eyes off the screen.

You walk behind him and slide your arms around his neck and nuzzle into the back of his head. You’re trying to butter him up because you know he’s not gonna wanna make what you’re craving.

“You remember those dumplings you made from scratch a while ago?” You ask with your voice dripping in as much sweetness you can muster.

“No.”

“No you don’t remember or no you’re-“

And he interrupt you before you can even finish. “No im not cooking that. There are frozen dumplings in the fridge.”

“But Sukiiiiii, those aren’t as good as the ones you make. The flavors aren’t the same and yours are so crispy and doughy. Pleaaasseee.”

“Hey you assholes shut the hell up. No ones talking to you.” He responds to his friends in the headset. “You want her to have ‘em, bring your ass over and make ‘em”

“I’m not doing this. You idiots hold on.” And he pauses the game and turns around to face you and removes his head set.

“Look we can order takeout if you want, but I’m not about to make freakin dumplings from scratch cuz you have a craving. I’d have to go to the store and get ingredients and taking the time to make the wrappings. ‘S too much.” He tries to explain to you in a rational way .

“I knooowww…. I’d go to the store with you though and I’ll help you make them…. Pretty please” you whine and stick you lowere lip out just a little with your eyes as pleading as you can make them.

Katsuki rolls his eyes and throws his head back.

“You don’t get whatever you want just because you pout at me. Spoiled ass. Not today. Maybe sometime later this week.”

You didn’t actually think he’d tell you no. He usually never does. Maybe you are spoiled. Still makes you sad though.

So you put on your big girl pants, tuck your lip back in and give him a soft “ok” before you lean down and press a soft kiss to his lips so he knows you’re not upset with him.

He is allowed to say no.

“Is Mina on the game with you guys?” You ask him when you pull back.

“Yeah she is.”

“When you get back on can you tell her to stop being a bitch and answer my phone call. I have tea to spill.”

“I’ll tell her.”

And with that you head toward the door and leave.

Once you’re back in your room it takes Mina about 3 minutes to call you and you start catching her up on everything.

You guys stay on the phone for about 30 minutes before she has to go.

After that, you bury yourself in the blankets and start reading the manga you had lying on your nightstand.

Before you can really get into it, Katsuki is walking into your room and going into the closet.

“Get your ass outta bed and get dressed before I change my goddamn mind.”

“What?” You ask because now you’re confused.

“You said you were gonna go to the store with me to buy all this shit so get your ass up and let’s go.”

“Kats you don’t have to, it’s fine.”

“Look ya spoiled brat, if I gotta tell you to get up one more time we are gonna be in here fightin.”

And the smile that breaks out on your face. You hurry and get outta bed and rush him. “Awwwww my sweet boy”

“I swear to god, I’m this close to letting your ass starve.”

And you wrap your arms around him and start kissing everywhere on his face. When you pulled away he has a deep frown on his face but you can see the sparkle in his eyes that he gets when you’re super happy.

You pull away and scurry off to get dressed.

He really needs to start saying no to you and meaning it before you really lose the understanding of the word.

Katsuki Masterlist

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chaotic-iguana · 9 months

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Refuge | chapter three.

series masterlist | previous chapter | next chapter | general masterlist

chapter three: damning rebirth

wordcount: 3.8k - my longest work yet lmao summary: what if reader and joel were married before the outbreak? warnings: angst, estrangement, anger, violence, sad, its like centered around finding yourself again, reader and joel are both quite complicated broken ppl im trying to do them justice, not much joel he’ll be in the next chapter i promise.

You didn’t speak to him for weeks after that first afternoon. You’d run out of words to say. You stopped speaking to his brother, too, for keeping you in the dark; ignoring Maria’s justifications, the constant droning of “…he did it to keep you safe, you know? So you wouldn’t leave Jackson’s safety and run after Joel. You could have died. Sarah’s death would have broken you, like it broke him, and you should be thankful that…”

You tuned her out after a while. It was getting tiring coming up with rude adjectives to describe how wrong she was in your head. There was no fight left in you to even protest, so you just left the room while she was talking. You loved her, but there were days you thought she just enjoyed hearing herself talk. Which she was extremely welcome to do, but with the acknowledgement that you would rather walk into a bloaters' den unarmed than sit through it.

Tommy had lied to you, kept the truth about your family from you, and no matter how many ways he spun it, it wouldn’t change the fact that when your first fucking words to him were asking about Joel and Sarah, he had looked you in the eyes and lied through his goddamn teeth when he said he didn’t know. He could go crying to Maria all he liked. You’d need a while not to recoil with disgust every time you saw him no matter how many times you got told to stop acting like a child. When Tommy realised the extent of your anger, he attempted to remedy it by telling you everything. Sarah getting shot on outbreak day - you still winced when he said it- and Joel’s time in the QZ, with a woman called Tess. You didn’t even know what to make of that. You probably couldn’t unpack your feelings about it if you tried. How he found the girl you’d gotten alarmed by - the job he got, how he took her in, how he lied to her and why she won’t look at him now.

You didn’t even bother forming opinions about any of it, let alone voice any. Thinking was futile; your thoughts or ideas or opinions or offense wouldn’t change anything, would they? You continued the same monotonous routine you had established for the past year or so since you arrived to Jackson, this time with even fewer occasions of leaving the house for a party or drink.

The shop and your bedroom became your life, the only people you spoke to were those looking for books. You’d collected them for years in the hope that if the outbreak ever got under control, there would be literature somewhere for humanity to remember what it used to be. Or perhaps a relic, serving as a legacy for a species long gone. Something, just to yell at the world and all those to come after, that you were here, even when you weren’t really. You hadn’t quite been here since the day the world had ended. Since the day you had lost everything. And now, twelve years later, all of it just came crashing back.

The pain was as if someone had crawled into your flesh, peeled your ribs back, and plucked your heart out.

Sarah had become less of a person and more of a concept to you over time. The intangibility that very literally gave you strength when you lay bruised and beaten, held down and overlooked by snarling strangers. She had been your salvation; your everything. Losing her wasn’t something you had truly came back from the first time around, suppressed guilt and fear and worry gnawing at the back of your mind. The reappearance of all of it, overshadowed this time by crippling guilt, was a cruel albeit welcome one. You wanted to feel bad - because much like Joel, it was what you deserved. You had failed - not only as a mother but as a wife, too. You should have just gone home on time that fucking night, but life got in the way as if often used to back then. All those little things that got blown out of proportion like work and deadlines and projects and careers didn’t even matter now. You should have come home. You should have been there.

You didn’t even want to imagine how Joel felt. To you, the ache was a phantom limb - trailing you wherever you went, interwoven with your shadow. To him, it was a stain on his hands that he never seemed to be able to rub out; he could always see a tinge of crimson coating his fingers, ever since that night.

Neither of you could look the other in the eye anymore.

Yet, even after all of it life simply went on, stuttering but still relentless in its proceedings. Pink, jagged scars marred the flesh of time as it stretched around the metalwork of the lives you had fought to keep, yet lost the worth of anyways. Fate is seldom kind.

It wasn’t too peculiar, this distance. Ironically, even after all these years, you both understood the other perfectly - as if each thought either of you had, each feeling you felt, was respected and loved and relayed by the refuge of your marriage, still. You understood that he was too ashamed by his self-proclaimed failure to speak to you, and he understood that the loss had so wholly devoured you that you wouldn’t have the strength to look in his eyes and be reminded of hers for a while.

The song and dance continued, the delicate persuasion of ensuring not to jolt the fragile existences the other had created for themselves. Joel didn’t come near your bookshop, and you didn’t go near Tommy, lest the words ‘family dinner’ be spoken into existence. Truly, he was idiot enough to suggest it. As if all that your currently brilliant (more like fractured) relationship with your husband (was he still? what about tess?) needed was a dinner with his brother, his sister in law, and the kid he had apparently adopted, lied to, and was now in a rough spot with. Gotta love reunions, no?

In another life, you would have stepped in. You would have spoken to either of them - perhaps even made more of an effort to include Ellie in your own life to ensure that after all she had been through, she wouldn’t feel alone even when she wasn’t doing well with Joel. In this life, though, you couldn’t bring yourself to care. Joel acted like a selfish, moronic liar, sure. But if this kid couldn’t see, that at his very core, he was just plain scared - that he practically shook in his (adorable) cowboy boots anytime someone mentioned what happened to Ellie - then, great, she deserved Joel not realising that it was her decision to save humanity; to pay the price, to do what it took; entirely independent of him, or anyone else. You tamped down on the cynical part of you sneering at the romantic heroism of it all. The world knew now, better than before, how selfish man was. How utterly human, for Joel to struggle to separate his feelings for his own daughter and the one he had taken in; for Ellie to be too caught up in her own view to even consider what Joel was going through. It was almost like one of those plays you used to enjoy reading - like a Greek tragedy. The hamartia of both heroes was humanity alone.

They’d come around, eventually. Joel and Sarah always did, too.

The irony lay mostly in the fact that you had spent a decade craving him - his comfort and his warmth. The kneading of his large hands on your back after a long day; the scratch of his stubble when he nuzzled into your neck from behind. The years you didn’t have him were spent with only him in mind; a mindless worship of the love you had. Now that he was within reach; close enough to grasp and curl your fingers around, to sink an burrow into; you were… lost. The desperation; the wild frenzy with which you had remembered only them through the years - to have lost one now leaves you clueless about what to do with the other. The cracks that have made their way into your heart - the ones tainting your soul - you see them reflected in him, too. Your first look into his dark eyes told you that he, too, has done too much to be standing here today; that his first kill, too, had been the man he once was. No wonder you can’t bear to look at each other anymore. The grief - not only of what you have both lost, or what you once had, but the grief of who you both used to be - rears its ugly head in any room you find yourselves in together. Look at me, it screams. Look at what the years have done to me. I can’t recognise myself in mirrors anymore. I don’t see who I used to be. I was so beautiful. I was so good. Look at me. Look at me. Look-

Is this how the angels felt when they fell? You’d never know - there were no angels; there was no God. What divinity would allow for any of this to happen? This joke, this mockery of nature. You never were religious, but fumbled prayers had found their way into your vocabulary every night when you didn’t know where Joel and Sarah were. You - who had never even stepped into a church had prayed.

You must have forgotten there was nobody sitting in the sky to listen.

You had made your peace with the mutual decision to avoid him and the girl - not only because you didn’t even know how to start apologizing to her-but because you were content with the mere knowledge that he was here, that he was alive and breathing.

Tommy’s guilt worked in your favor, ensuring that he didn’t try pairing you and Joel up for patrols - likely fearful of the fallout that might occur (but like, what could even happen? another apocalypse?) but the comedown of that meant that you were paired up with Fred, instead. A man who infuriated you to no end, one who found it extremely interesting that you were once married, that you have a child. Had.

His ceaseless questions made you want to rip your hair out, but you refrained - if only so he wouldn’t have another reason to put his arms around you to try ‘calming’ you like last time. He was a bastard, but you didn’t have it in you to challenge him just yet.

Your answers to his enquiries were grunted or simply monosyllabic, your irritation clear as day in the set of your jaw, the slant of your brow. Nevertheless, like the dumbfuck he was, he persisted. So then how was this your fault?

It had been a decent morning. You’d gotten up early in time for the patrol, taken a shower, drank some water and arrived at the stables. But as you stood outside, you could hear the commotion of people inside - boisterous cheering and laughing as if one would hear in a pub. Interest piqued, you inched your way to the entrance of the barn silently, trying to understand what was going on.

“…fuckin’ whore’s been leading me on for like half a year, turned out she was married the whole time. Dodged a bullet, though. Nearly lost her shit when he told her that her kid died. Went completely apeshit and ruined my goddamn shirt with her snot- nearly clawed through my arm, too. Feel bad for the poor husband, had to yell at everyone to get out just so he could calm her crazy ass down. Everyone’s lost someone, lady. Get over it, right? Plus, girl that age wouldn’t have done too well at a QZ, know what I mean? Wouldn’t have gone untouched, anyways.” He paused for them all to laugh at the supposed comedic gold in his words - him and his little pack of primitives - and all you could do was stand there, glued to the spot in shock.

The fucking audacity. Leading him on? You fucking tried your best to get him to stop talking to you, stop touching you - and you didn’t claw at his arm because you were crazy, you did it because you were fucking panicking and some idiot was making it worse by caging you in. And that was brushing aside what he said about Sarah. No, that had you seeing red, chest heaving.

Fuck, the old you would have broken his nose on the first day. Never is too late to do the right thing, is it?

Just like before, a laugh was forming in your chest. A giggle at first, before you were chuckling, clapping a hand to your mouth and horrified with your own humour. The joke here was priceless, though. See - the world had ended, God was dead, and you were worried about being lightly reprimanded? Fuck that, and fuck him. You hadn’t let yourself feel fear out there. You hadn’t let yourself feel despair, and you sure as hell hadn’t let yourself feel hope. Joel’s arrival forced you to confront all the pain you had ignored. This cunt of a man was managing to unearth all the anger you had neglected, too. His fucking funeral.

Your tongue sat agitated against your teeth in anticipation, waiting to give way to the venom lacing the words in your brain.

Fury sparked in your blood, washing away all your hesitation. Fragmented, she etched herself into the ring of black that blew out your pupils; the unfaltering thumping of your heart in your chest. The threads of your fate were now in her slender, silhouetted hands, and all that was left for you to do was obey. Not that you had a choice.

Before you could so much as blink, you had burst into the crowd. Fred’s eyes widened at the wild snarl on your face, begging and apologizing.

He was unaware, though, of just how sick you had become of apologies. Tommy’s apologies, Joel’s apologies, Maria’s shitty ones, and then the sympathetic apologies you’d been getting from customers because apparently word of Sarah and her role in your life had spread like wildfire throughout Jackson. Joel wouldn’t have shared it, nor would Tommy- not when he knew you were two seconds away from breaking his nose just weeks ago. That left the kid Joel bought-Ellie-or Fred. And something just told you it wasn’t the girl. You’d trust Joel’s judgement blindly any day.

His empty sorrys fell upon deaf ears, his trembling voice cracking as he repeated them over and over.

You grinned, baring your teeth.

“Hello, Fred. Hello, everyone. Having a party and I wasn’t even invited?” You pouted mockingly. “Y’ know what I personally think is absolutely, knee-slappingly hilarious?” You paused, watching their curiosity grow as they fell hook, line and sinker for the cheerful façade, furrowing ther brows in question and stepping in closer. “How untouched you look, asshat.” Your grin dropped just as you rocked back on your heels, surging forward within a split second while throwing all your weight into your fist.

Just as it collided with the asshat's jaw.

“What the fuck were you thinking? You’ve been…frazzled since Joel came back, fine, but I cannot excuse your behaviour just because I know you or because you’re family. This was absolutely out of line, is that clear?” Maria stopped her pacing to turn to you, expecting a justification or an apology. You offered neither. When you refused to so much as look up from your split knuckles, she threw her hands up, huffing at her husband, who was leaning against the table sheepishly while wincing every time her voice rose as she yelled at you.

The door swung open and Joel practically stumbled in, eyes searching wildly until they landed on you curled up on a chair with your hands in your lap. Did news seriously spread that fast, even now? Guess people don’t have much to do when the world has ended.

“Look- I know, I know you went through a lot. At first, you were spacey and Tommy told me to just leave it alone. Then, you got the bookshop and you just spent all your time there or on patrols, never even trying to integrate yourself here, and I’ve let it go because he-“ a finger in Tommy’s direction, “-begged me to. Let go of your little…tantrum with Ellie, too. I watched Tommy mope around and I said nothing even when you refused to accept that he hadn’t told you about Joel, for your own good.” Tommy flinched, but she went on. “I just can’t do it this time. You broke Fred’s jaw, you know? He is a contributing, well-liked citizen in Jackson. Not a recluse. I didn’t believe you’d done it until I saw the state of your hand. You’re always so quie-just-just give me one fucking reason you would punch him.” She was panting by the end, her chest falling rapidly under the weight of her own tirade.

Joel had planted himself directly between you and Maria, as if trying to protect you from the onslaught of her words. He looked more apologetic than you did, hands extending towards her while he took a deep breath, attempting to placate her.

“Maria-now just wait a damn minute, she wouldn’t-“

Was he defending you? When had that happened? When had you become this-this blubbering, weak version of yourself that Joel had to protect?

The cold, unforgiving numbness loosened its grip; fear, guilt but most strongly, shame coiling in your gut. Maria was right, in her own fucked up way. You had retreated so far back into yourself that all that was left within your grasp now was mere tendrils of who you used to be.

Sarah would have been proud of me for punching the bastard, though.

The thought rang in your mind as you raised your head, squared your shoulders. Took the stutter out of your voice, and looked Maria right in the eyes.

“Your contributing, well-liked citizen said Sarah was lucky to die. That she wouldn’t have gone untouched in a QZ. Whatever the fuck that was supposed to mean. And thanks to how well liked he is, I didn’t get a chance to tell you that he’s been touching me for months. That he took advantage of the fact that I was too fucking broken to say anything, to anyone. It’s not like you would’ve believed me.” You watched both Millers’ faces harden, brows furrowing as fury began sinking her talons in their flesh. Joel looked murderous, jaw set at that angle you knew meant he was livid. Good. You had been, too. Tommy looked shocked, anger painting his features, and his wife just looked terrified, eyes darting from you to Joel, wide and panicked. It made you smile at her, the curl of your mouth dripping with condescension and mockery.

“Maria, I’m so sorry you’ve had to overlook this many…grievances, let’s call them. I’ll work on my attitude here, I promise. I’ll go to book club and gossip about my husband and my dead daughter. I’ll do my hair and cut my nails and smile at people who don’t fucking deserve it. Hell, I’ll even forgive Tommy.” You pause, nodding at him, watching the relief in his eyes. Smile dropping, you meet Maria’s gaze again.

“But here’s what I won’t do- I won’t stand in a room with that asshole again without breaking all the other bones in his body. I won’t stay quiet next time his hands are on me - I’ll snap his fucking neck. Anyone else with anything else to say about Sarah - even if it’s just goddamn condolences - will find themselves in a similar predicament. Is that clear?” She blinked at you, mouth wide open at the radical transformation in you as you spoke, taking so long to nod that you doubted she’d heard you at first. You didn’t blame her - you’d folded in on yourself, made yourself small these past few years. Become meek: looking at the floor, wringing your hands; doing absolutely anything to avoid confrontation or issue. You’d been too tired to fight or stand on your own two feet, and everyone had focused on the wobble in your voice; the wet lining in your eyes; the shake of your hands, and just decided that just because you chose not to challenge them, you weren’t capable of it. Fuck that.

Joel’s eyes shone as he looked at you, chin dipping in acknowledgment as he, too, had a stunned look on his face. You just shrugged back at him, swinging your legs and getting up, walking out of the house without so much as a glance over your shoulder.

The flame that had forged your spirit - the fire burning in your veins, the one snuffed out long ago - flickered back to life. Dim, shaky, practically translucent - but ignited.

And fuck, it felt good to be back.

hello loves, as always - thank you for reading. comment your thoughts or find me on ao3. stay hydrated and have a great day! taglist (let me know if you want to be added/removed): @imherefordeanandbones, @theywhowriteandknowthings, @josephquinnswhore, @breakfastatjoels, @millerscoffee, @nostalxgic, @sscorpiiio, @pedrosaidsheispunk, @its-nebuleuse, @sofiparallel, @mandoisapunk, @bastardmandennis, @pawnshopb1ues. dividers by me! series taglist (same rule: message/comment to be added or removed, no hard feelings): @spookyxsam, @obscurexsorrows, @planet-marz1, @lunxramour, @anavatazes, @joeldjarin, @stunkbiggu, @joels-darlin, @casa-boiardi, @noisynightmarepoetry, @chiogarza, @jasminedragoon, @daddy-din, @moonlightdivine, @stickthegremlin, @jamesmasbone, @avampiregf, @amanitacowboy

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