#love like an apocalyptic event | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nezuscribe · 2 years

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𝖔𝖓𝖑𝖞 𝖑𝖔𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖘 𝖑𝖊𝖋𝖙 𝖆𝖑𝖎𝖛𝖊

summary: when a disease turns the world into an apocalyptic landscape, you join a group in order to survive. you find yourself drawn to a certain blue-eyed man for no explainable reason. though the two of you have your own pasts to deal with, the two of you grow closer and closer together. after all, it seems as though you’re the only lovers left alive

pairing: gojo satoru x fem!reader

genre: post apocalypse au, strangers to friends to lovers, slight angst, fluff, smut, some hurt comfort, inspired by some of the events from the last of us

word count: 16k+

warnings: 18+ mdni, some heavy-ish themes, mentions of suicide, smut, heavy making out, fingering, vaginal penetration, cum eating, slight begging, gojo is a teeny bit of a dick but overall just doesn’t know how to handle emotions

note: i did take some inspo from the last of us, so if you see something you might recognize, it’s because i most likely based something off of it. nothing too major though, but the infected here are like the ones in the game/show. i don’t want any comments saying i stole the idea bc i stg i’ll just combust

also a thank you for @jadeisthirsting for beta-reading again, love her!

You were glad that chocolate bars survived the apocalypse.

Those, along with chips (you don’t look at expiration dates anymore), crackers, and protein bars seemed to stand the tests of time.

The abandoned convenience store was harshly run down. The glass was shattered, and you could hear the crunch of shards underneath your boots whenever you walked up and down the aisles. Vegetation took reign in most of the area, and vines grew alongside the walls and the counters. Weeds sprung through the cracks in the floor and long blades of grass peeked in from the outside.

A lot of the aisles were already ransacked from those who came before, but you had to admit that this place was in much better condition food-wise than all the others you had seen. You loaded your cart with whatever you could find; cereal, bars, chips, instant ramen, jerky, really anything that wasn’t perishable by your standards.

You also made sure to stock up on medical supplies while you were here. Antiseptic, rolls of bandages, needles for stitching, medical tape. You were able to find a bottle of disinfectant and some rubbing alcohol, so you spent a couple of minutes cheering over the small victory.

The rays of sun that peeked through and washed out certain parts of the store a quiet orange made it seem more serene than it actually was, and you took your time as you leaned on the cart handle, walking slowly as you tried to pretend like you were just shopping for amenities like you would years ago, without the fear of the outside world trying to hunt you down the moment you stepped out.

Under your breath you hummed a soft tune, letting your fingers run over the empty shelves as you looked around.

Many opened boxes littered the ground. None of them were to your benefit so you just stepped over them, tapping something on your arm to keep your mind busy. It was only noon, so you had a couple of hours to waste before it got dark.

Though you had the hunting rifle near you in case anything popped out in front of you, you liked to pretend that there was no danger when you rounded a corner. It saved a little naive part of your mind to imagine that everything was normal when you knew that it wasn’t.

“...yeah, no, no, I agree, I just…”

You stopped in your tracks, air hitching in your throat as you went rigid upon hearing the muffled voices.

“I heard the bunkers in Kyoto and Osaka fell…radio transmission,” It was a female voice, that much you could make out. But assessing the sound of feet shuffling on the floor and the other sounds, you knew there had two be at least two people, maybe even more.

You couldn’t even remember the last time you had heard somebody speak. You tried to remember, raking your mind for when it was, and it must have been months ago, maybe even a year, and that was just a small encounter. You doubted the guy even saw you. And this is far worse, they closed and you have nowhere to hide without making a sound. They could be raiders or scavengers. One of them could be infected without the other's knowledge. Millions of thoughts ran through your head as you tried to rationalize with yourself.

“What happened to the one in Nara?” This time it was a male voice, and much closer than before. They were probably only a few aisles away until they reached you. You could feel your heart beating uncontrollably fast, rattling against your ribcage as your mind faltered on what to you.

“They’re not letting people inside. They deter anybody unless you have a pre-bought cabin there.” The first woman replied, and you could hear some glass clanking as she kicked an empty beer bottle (from what you could deduce), across the floor.

“How do you know so much?” Another male asked. Three so far, you made a mental note as you tried shoving all your food and things in any pocket you could find, shoving the big bottle of rubbing alcohol down your shirt to nestle on your bra. You didn’t risk your life trying to find this place just to have some strangers take the things you so desperately need.

“They play messages on the radio at night. If you didn’t go to sleep so fuckin’ fast you might hear something useful.” The first girl said, but there was no bite to her voice. She even chuckled, and you swore one of the other guys laughed too.

“Why can’t we just stay where we are? We haven’t seen any infected here.” Four. This time it was another girl's voice. So far, two females and two males. You were severely outnumbered. You doubted you were that skilled, even in all your years, to surpass four people.

Deciding to leave a few bars behind, you gingerly moved past the cart, making sure not to make a sound as you tiptoed across the broken bottles and glass. You held your breath and tried to hold onto your jacket, not wanting anything to fall out.

You tried to phase out whatever they were saying so you could stay focused. You squinted your eyes as rays of the sun blinded you when they peeked through some cracks in the ceiling. You shuffled slowly and precisely, your heart quite literally beating in your throat as moved around the debris on the floor.

You could see the double doors, both open as you let out an inaudible sigh of relief when you saw them, a promise that you weren’t going to die right here when-

CRUNCH.

You stopped, eyes slowly falling down to the comically large piece of glass under your foot, now shattered into a million pieces as you stop breathing. You wait for abated second, thinking nobody heard until you heard some clattering coming from behind you.

“What the fuck was that?” One of the girls asked, her laughter long gone from her voice as her question rang through the store.

“I don’t know…wait here…”

You could run, it wasn’t that far to the door, but you were frozen in your place. It was like when…you couldn’t even think about it. Your mind blanked, your limbs not moving despite your brain willing them to do something, anything.

It felt like that day all over again, the weakness and fear that overtook your mind and body as you shook, your legs cramping, your hands shivering as your eyes darted around, your lips clamped between your teeth as blood roared in your ears.

You wondered if you’d been faster or more agile something may have gone differently. But really, no matter what you were wouldn’t have altered the fact that you saw a blur of clothes from your peripheral, craning to look to your right as your eyes meet bright blue ones.

Your brows furrowed when the two of you locked eyes, your chests moving up and down as you looked at the weapon in his hand, drawn out, pointing at your head as you blinked, mind going into overdrive as you let out a heavy sigh of air.

He looked angelic and you wanted to smack yourself for that being your first thought. His hair was artic white, tainted a bright yellow as the sun shined over him. He had a sturdy jaw and a tall frame. Long and delicate fingers clutching onto a weapon, getting ready to pull it out the moment he saw you.

Sure, you could blame it on the fact that you hadn’t seen a man for over three years, but you knew that even despite your blurry and confused judgment he was better looking than most of the guys you’ve seen most of your life.

There were a few seconds where neither of you said anything, not really knowing what to say as you shifted ever so slightly on your left foot, not knowing if you ran to the door he’d shoot you in the process.

“Satoru?” A girl came in from behind him, looking at him and then to where his gaze fell until she saw you, a small aurora of surprise taking over her features.

“Stay with Geto,” The man said, his voice harsh as his eyes narrowed on you, his face unreadable but cold nonetheless as his focus never left your every tiny motion. Taking in all of your features, your clothes, your skin, your eyes. Anything that could give away that you were infected.

Your eyes darted from him to the girl to his side, not knowing who to look at. The person with the gun pointed at you or the one who stared at you as if you were an artifact, a token she hadn’t seen before.

“I’m not a threat,” You say after a couple more seconds of unbearable silence, your voice hoarse from barely using it anymore. You rub at your throat, wincing a little as you put your arms up to show that you have nothing in your hands, “I swear I’ll just leave and nothing else.”

The girl stayed where she was, gnawing on her lip as she shoved the man's arms with hers.

“She seems fine-”

“Seems doesn’t mean she’s not infected.” He snapped, never taking his eyes away from you as he pulled his elbow away from her grasp. His voice had a bite to it, sending chills that traveled down your spine. He had no emotion on his face, clear of anything human.

“I-I’m not infected.” You retaliate, taking a tentative step forward, watching as his grip on his gun became tighter, and taking a step back as he pushed the girl behind him. You put your arms up again, worried you were playing with fate as you slowly and carefully put your bare arms under a ray of light, making sure he could see your actions. You tugged on your sleeves, pulled down the collar of your shirt, and showed him your calves, anything to prove that you weren’t bitten.

“See…?”

You waited, his stare jumping from your face to your arm, different gears in his head turning as he debated what to do.

“‘Toru, she’s not infected,” The girl said, trying to nudge his hand so he’d lower the weapon, “She’s right, she’d be in pain right now if she was.”

But he didn’t move, his jaw ticking as he shook his head, seemingly still not believing you.

“How do I know you all aren’t infected?” You snapped, angry, as you tried to hide the quiver in your voice. They could be and they’re doing well to hide it.

“We’re not.” He said, his voice steady, confident, and not carrying any trace of a lie.

“What’s taking so long?” Another voice joined the three of you, a man, the same in height as the one in front of you as he clasped a hand on his shoulder, his brow cocking in surprise when he saw you. His hair was a stark black, pulled into a bun behind his head. Some strands had escaped and fallen out. He seemed far more easygoing than the man next to him, though. His eyes were brighter and his smile was genuine. He looked over to the side as the girl shrugged, worry lacing her features as he drummed his fingers in her arm. He looked back at you, giving you a tiny smile, “What’s your name sweetheart?”

“Doesn’t matter if you’d just let me go.” You said, your voice mirroring the white-haired man, the new guy’s lips pulling into a little grin as he let out a deep laugh.

“Drop the gun ‘Toru, she’s fine.” The new guy said with a laugh, stepping forward as you took one back, your lungs squeezing together tightly as you went to grab the weapon strapped on your back.

He raised his hands as you had seconds ago, trying to show that he wasn’t intending any harm as he took another step forward. The playful look he had on his face melted away, forming to something softer as he took in the cuts that littered your cheek and knew, the way your eyes darted from his hands to his face to detect any danger.

“Hello,” He started with a careful smile, not wanting to scare you off, “I’m Geto, but my friends call me Suguru,” He pointed to the girl behind him, “Vera even calls me dumb bitch-”

“Only when I’m mad!” She argued, shooting you an apologetic and embarrassed smile when she realized you were there too, and he snorted, continuing.

“And the blue-eyed freak is Satoru. Anna’s back there, somewhere. Swear we don’t mean any harm. He’s just,” He glanced behind him at the man who was slowly lowering the gun, his face still clearly telling that he was weary of you, “Cautious.”

He held out his hand, far larger than yours, for a shake.

You tilted your head to the side, eyes squinting a little bit as you tried to make out just what he was trying to do.

But you dropped your hand from grasping onto the leather strap of your weapon, your fingers stretching, itching for some human contact as you debated for a little bit. Surely but slowly you brought your hand to his, softly clutching it to see a smile overtake his features.

“Y/n,” You reciprocate with a small smile of your own, your chapped lips not used to the feeling. His fingers were long as they overtook yours, calloused, but human. They gave yours a gentle squeeze, almost as if he could tell, and you have one back. Something that you never realized you had missed up until this very moment, “My name’s y/n.”

He said your name once under his breath to commit it to memory.

“You going anywhere specific?” He asked, his hands crossed across his chest as he waited patiently for you to answer.

You swallowed dryly, in desperate need of some water as you pointed somewhere north.

“Heard there’s a camp somewhere in Takayama…you?”

He chuckled, nodding as if he couldn’t believe your words, looking behind him as the girl you guessed was Vera let out a small laugh too. The blue-eyed man, Satoru you deduced, stayed stoic, not giving anything away.

“By any chance are you talking about that one camp that has running water ‘n shit?”

You nod, not trusting your voice anymore as you blink.

“Nice,” He cocked his head in the direction of his group, the second girl, Anna, now walking in to see what the fuss was about, “That’s where we’re going too. Or at least, trying to. Care to join?”

You quickly learned that this group was different from your old one.

They were serious, sure, but everybody was given the predicament. They were on guard at any sudden noise, guns drawn and ready, but they still acted like you guess they would have back in their old lives. They made jokes, laughed at each other's stupid mistakes, and spent the days and nights filling the silence with whatever they could.

It was jarring, really, seeing how your old group of six never laughed nor had a moment of naïve fun, but you were far more fond of this than that.

“Damn, so you’re the youngest one here then?” Geto asked one day as you five trudged through an abandoned city. You looked up, mouth parted in slight awe as you took in the strange sights; abandoned skyscrapers, some tilting over a bit. Many were severely destroyed by the bombings. There were large craters on the ground, concrete slabs, and building chunks that fell into them. Geto nudged your side, snapping you from your trance as he waited for you to answer.

“Oh, um, yeah, I guess,” Your cheeks heated up in embarrassment, “Only by a little bit though. I was about to graduate high school when it started and I guess that was like what, five-ish years ago?” You couldn’t distinctly remember, time had just become a construct after so many months.

Vera and Anna had begun talking about how old they were when it started, and you had gotten roped into the conversation.

“You’re the baby of the group now!” Anna exclaimed, pinching your cheeks with a giggle as you laughed softly, looking down at the cracked concrete beneath your feet as your backpack thumped on your back with every step you took, “It's good though,” She whispered in your ear, “You can use it to get out of chores.” You snickered at that, rolling your eyes but thankful for the tip.

You found out that Anna was only a couple of months older than you. Then came Geto, who was a year older than you two, Vera was around as old as him, and Gojo was two years older than you.

“Wait, so you’ve been traveling alone all these years?” Anna was the one to ask as she walked closer to you, her brows pinched together in confusion,

You could have sworn it was an unspoken rule not to talk about the past unless somebody brought it up directly.

“No, no,” You shook your head as your nose wrinkled at the thought, “I was part of a bigger group. But we,” You looked away, at nothing in particular as a sharp pang ran through your chest, “We split up a while ago. That’s when I went solo.”

She nodded in understanding, pulling her hair back as she tied it up, fanning her face at the heat. The sun was beating harshly on your face, sweat prickling at your hairline as you squinted through the bright light.

“Was it hard?” Anna asked, clearly not picking up on your reluctance to the subject.

You swallowed, feeling like a part of your chest was heavier than it was seconds before as you cleared your throat.

“I, well,” You shrugged, stammering a bit, “A little bit, but I learned how to-”

“How’d you get your food?” She cut you off. You could tell she wasn’t trying to do any harm, her eyes shining with childish curiosity but it didn’t do anything to hide the fact that it quite literally felt like your throat was closing up.

“I would hunt or find whatever I co-”

“So you like being part of a group?”

“Yeah-”

“Did it ever get lonely?”

“Anna,” Gojo cut her off, his voice not loud but commanding enough to get everybody's attention, speaking for the first time in what seemed a couple of hours, “Calm down.”

Her eyes darted from you to him, finally noting the overwhelmed expression that you were trying your best to hide as she muttered out a quiet sorry. She moved to talk to Vera, and you were thankful that it wasn’t awkward as you went back to looking at the buildings.

You gave him a small nod, grateful, but he only blinked, looking away as he went back to listening to whatever Geto was telling him. You huffed out a small embarrassed laugh, not putting much thought into it as you kicked a pebble across the ground, feeling the wind tickle your cheeks as you tried to hold back the sting of tears in your eyes.

Gojo didn’t say much, even after you joined their group, and Vera told you it was normal and not to take it to heart. So you didn’t try to talk much with him, not wanting to push and prod at any of his boundaries. But he was nice otherwise, in his own ways. He took the night watch, letting you guys sleep, and insisted that he was fine with it. He was attentive, always giving the rest of his food to Anna when she complained about how hungry she was. He was cautious, as Geto would put it, but you couldn’t blame him. You were cautious too.

Did it ever get lonely? Her question rang through your mind. It was stupid, you’ve only known her for a short amount of time. Hell, you’ve only known these people for a couple of weeks but it felt like she had dug a hot iron into your chest with the simple query. It was pathetic, really, but it was that thing where the more you tried to stop yourself from crying the worse it became, and that seemed to be true right now.

You fell behind a little bit, not anything much, but enough so that you were by yourself as you looked up. You found it easier to control your emotions as you blinked back the tears, not wanting to wipe them away in case anybody noticed. In front of you, you could hear Vera and Anna arguing about something minuscule, smiles still on their faces as they playfully banter back and forth.

The wind began to pick up a bit, your eyes watering even more as you blinked back the fat tears that were threatening to fall and roll down your cheek, biting your lip as if that could make it stop.

“Everything alright?”

Your head whipped to the side to where the voice came from, a little surprised to see Gojo walking next to you. His hair was tucked behind his ears, hands in his pockets as he waited for your response.

As you blinked in shock a small tear fell, and you quickly wiped it away with the back of your hand, no use in hiding it now as you nodded, lips quivering a bit as you sniffled. You could count the number of times he had spoken to you on a single hand, so you hid it by looking away. Your cheeks heated up under his heavy stare, not used to it, especially from him.

“Y-yeah, I’m good.” You said as you exhaled shakily, not having the guts to look at him as you just stared directly ahead of you at the three heads of the other members of the group. But you weren't good at masking the lie as you watched from the corner of your eyes as he pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to you.

Looking at his outstretched hand you saw a tissue and your eyes darted to him in questioning.

“It’s not poisoned, y’know.” He told you, his voice slightly less monotone as you let out a watery laugh, tentatively taking it from him as you whispered out a hushed thanks.

You blew your nose as quietly as you could, feeling bad as you threw it to the side of the street you blinked again, hoping this time you could do a better job of controlling your pesky and fragile emotions with somebody next to you.

There was a silent beat as neither of you said anything, wringing your fingers together as you tried to look for an explanation for all this. It was stupid, childish, and downright embarrassing, but you still couldn’t find the words to justify anything.

“Anna can be like that. You learn to live with it.” Gojo finally said, interrupting your train of thought as he spoke. You could tell he was slowing down his pace to match yours, his long legs taking shorter steps and you almost laughed at the sight.

“It’s okay,” You said, rubbing at your eyes again as your nose wrinkled again, “I’m just not used to being…”

“Bombarded?” He said, finding the right word as you nodded with a small chuckle.

“Yeah… that. I know it’s stupid. I don’t even know why I’m…” You trailed off, wiping at your eyes with your palms as you took in a shaky breath, “It’s just been a while since I’ve talked this much, so I’m still trying to get used to it…sorry.” You let out a little hiccup, missing the way his lips almost pulled into a smile at the sound.

“Don’t apologize,” He said, shrugging as he kicked a piece of broken asphalt across the sidewalk, “It’s not your fault.”

You went to open your mouth to say something back but Geto waved his arms, motioning the two of you to the rest of them as he pointed to something on the ground.

“Oi, Gojo, come check this out. I don’t know if this is a cordyceps or a regular mushroom.”

And you glanced at the man next to you one more time but he was already jogging forward to see what the fuss was about. It didn’t matter much, it shouldn’t have, but you couldn’t stop the way your little heart fluttered pathetically at his words. You quickened your pace, shaking your head at the thought as you joined the group once again.

But as much as you tried you couldn’t get his final words out of your head. It’s not your fault. How you wish it were true. If only he knew, he’d probably eat his own words. Swallow them up so that they were never spoken into existence because it was your fault. But you couldn’t say that now.

You hated that time between day and night more than anything.

When the crickets chirped and the sky became darker than it should have, casting a shadow over the ground. The stars were freckles across the sky and the light breeze didn’t distract you from the fact that clickers could be a stone's throw away from you without you ever realizing it.

The abandoned apartment complex they decided to spend the night in was definitely in better condition than the ones surrounding it, but even with the extensive search you guys did up and down to make sure it was clear of any danger, you still felt a little nauseous as they set up base in the lobby.

Your sleeping bags were sprawled out on the marble floor lined with dirt. You had your backpack next to you, your gun within arm's reach. Next to the fire was an array of cans to pick from, but you weren’t hungry, not in the slightest. You could barely stomach anything after Anna’s bombardment of questions that left you a quiet mess, and being surrounded by people in the dark just made it worse.

“Hungry?” Vera held out a can of preserved peaches but you shot your head, biting back the sick that made its way up to your throat at the thought of eating. You could feel her eyes burning on the side of your face but she didn’t press any further, eating as the two of you listened to Geto talk about his plan for reaching the camp in Takayama.

He was the more animated one of the two males. He talked with his hands, his face contorting in different ways as he conversed with Anna. Gojo sat on the side, watching the flames dance across the rocks, his blue eyes lit a color you’ve never seen before as he listened in his own way to the conversation.

“I saw you earlier,” Vera whispered as she leaned in closer to you, throwing the empty can aside as she wiped the corners of her mouth with a napkin, pointing to Geto so your attention could stay on him while you listened to her, mostly not to draw any attention from the others as she tucked her hair behind her ear, “Talking with Satoru.”

Your brows furrowed in confusion, looking at Vera but she nudged you to look back at Geto, continuing.

“I know he’s not the easiest person to warm up to,” She said with a shrug, picking at her nails as he glanced at you with a soft smile, “He used to be, before all this. I can’t really blame him for being on guard-” You nodded in understanding and she softly chuckled at your response, “But he cares.”

About what? You wanted to ask but didn’t want to prod too much.

“So you knew him before?” This was an easier one to answer, and she nodded, cracking her thumb as she rested her head on her arm. The light from the little fire Geto made casted red and orange shadows on the highlights of her face, and she seemed younger here (she wasn’t even old). Her wrinkles were gone, eyes were less full of stress.

“Yeah, he lived near us. Us, being me and Geto.” She quickly said to save you the confusion. Huh, you thought to yourself, no wonder they were so close.

“So you all grew up together?”

“Yeah,” Her lips pulled into a soft smile, eyes creasing around the edges as she sat in thought, “From elementary school up until university. Geto and Gojo were even doing pre-med together.”

You almost wanted to laugh at the thought.

“I know, it’s weird. I can’t even begin to think of what they’d be like as doctors. But their parents wanted them to do it, so they just went along with whatever they said.”

“What were you doing?” You asked, not even trying to focus on Geto anymore, finding her stories far more interesting. After some time you quickly learned that Vera had much to say when she wanted to, she was just selective when she did.

“I was planning on becoming a teacher. It pissed my parents off, but I liked it.” Her words were soft, almost as if thinking about it brought back better memories. And you bet it probably did, a future she once wanted now far away from her reach.

“And Anna? Did she grow up with you guys too?”

She shook her head, stifling a yawn as her eyelids drooped a little bit.

“No, we met Anna along the way. She and Emi were close though,” She said, rubbing at her tired face, dragging it down as she tried to fight the sleep threatening its way through her body.

Emi?

You watched as her eyes widened slightly, looking over at you to see if you caught the name and she sighed in obvious disappointment, mad at herself for the slip-up. Mumbling something along the lines of shit to herself as she blinked quickly.

“Don’t - don’t ask,” She shot you a look and you dared to go against it, her face once lined with empathy turned stone cold, threatening even as her voice loomed its way through your bones, “Don’t say anything about that. Okay?”

You nod, muttering out a soft ok, almost too scared to answer her loudly as she nodded, clearly not happy with it but knowing there wasn’t much else she could do.

So you didn’t press it, pretending like you heard nothing as you nodded along to whatever Geto was saying. Though nothing could hide the fiery spark of curiosity that came with the new name, one you had never heard here before.

You wondered why she tried to hide it.

That night you couldn’t sleep.

You’d toss and turn, turning your pillow around to see if it would make a difference, but nothing was able to lull you into a tranquil state of being.

The apartment would creak and groan sometimes, the stories above you stable enough not to collapse, but weak enough to freak you out from shutting your eyes as you stared at them. The crystal chandelier overhead was overrun by dust, and it would sway a little when the wind from outside picked up.

After a couple of minutes, you gave up, huffing in annoyance as you rubbed at your sleepy eyes, wishing they would just work with the rest of your body and sleep, but that was a pathetic attempt and didn’t work.

You got up, careful not to make a sound and disturb anybody sleeping around you, and looked around, looking for somewhere to sit that was safe and peaceful enough to help ease your mind.

Moving as if you were about to step on a bomb, you found the reception desk, the paint peeling, and the wood corroding. It gave you a good view of the main apartment entrance, so you felt more comfortable there having a view of almost anything.

Resting your back on it you let out a heavy sigh, your chest moving as your head fell back, thudding against it softly as you played with your fingers.

“Why’re you up?”

You almost yelped but controlled the urge as you jumped in your spot, eyes darting around till they found a faint mop of white hair to your left. He was prodding at the last embers of the fire with a metal pipe, moving them around as they made soft crinkling sounds with his every move. You wondered to yourself, both in shame and worry, how you had somehow failed to miss that.

“Were you watching me?” You whispered, wincing as you tried to lower the volume, scoffing at that being the first thing that came to mind.

“I am on watch duty.” He said, his voice tinged with a bit of sarcasm as his brow raised a little bit. You could barely make him out with your limited vision, but you could tell from where he was standing that he was only a couple of feet away from you.

“You didn’t answer my first question.” He reminded you after a beat of silence, his voice low as he tried not to wake anybody up.

You yawned, shrugging as you picked up a rock not to your thigh, moving it around in your hand as your fingers ran along its smooth and imperfect crevices, its cool touch calming you down a little bit.

“Can’t sleep.” You responded after a bit of thinking, but it really was the truth. Maybe a simplified version of it, but it caused him to let out a quiet scoff, obviously not satisfied with your lazy response.

“Insomnia or bad dreams?”

You laughed a bit, your lips quirking at the edges as you clicked your tongue against the roof of your mouth.

“You would have made a spectacular doctor.”

He took in a sharp breath of air and you laughed, stifling your giggle with your hand. His reaction telling you he obviously didn’t want that knowledge to be spread around.

“Swear to god, that’s all she told me though.” You say, holding up your hands as if a pledge of your honesty though you doubted he could even see it. You heard him snort, obviously not buying it but not saying anything about it as he pushed at the coals around a little more.

A small rush of wind moved the dust and twigs next to you, the whooshing sound somewhat tranquil as it filled the silence. It wasn’t awkward like you thought it’d be, but it wasn’t comfortable either. It was a place right in the middle, but it was better than your past three interactions with him.

You tried to squint, trying to make out his features. He was attractive, that much you could admit. Even if you met him before seeing a man became a rare occurrence you would have had the same thought. His frame was sturdy, lean, and tall. He filled out his clothes rather nicely, and his face was passive and a grimace away from forming a scowl, but you could tell he once used to laugh a lot more if the smile lines told you anything.

You wondered if the name Emi had anything to do with him losing his smile.

“Tell me something about yourself then.”

A shocked laugh threatened to bubble out of your throat at his sudden statement.

“W-Why?” You stuttered out with a laugh, confused as you shifted where you were sitting, tilting your head a little bit to the side, wishing he’d move so you could see clearly just who it was you were talking to.

“You know too much about me,” He said as if it was obvious, shrugging his shoulders as he set the metal pipe down gently to not make any noise, “I don’t know anything about you. Other than you can’t sleep and are learning to talk more.”

A part of you wondered if he was being genuine or trying to be snarky.

But you just snorted, rolling your eyes at the absurdity of this as you threw your hands, looking up as you thought for a second for something interesting yet boring enough to shut him up so you could have some quiet time.

“I can only eat semi-sweet or dark chocolate. Milk’s a little too sweet for me.”

You could hear a snort in response, probably the first you’d ever heard from him as he shuffled around a little bit, his shadow moving a little bit closer to where you were sitting. The ray of moonlight illuminated part of his face, his white lashes fluttering against his cheeks as you watched him rest his chin on the palm of his hand.

“Seems like we’re complete opposites there,” He admitted, his lips threatening to tug into a smile, but he controlled it as if he didn’t want you to see that part of his hidden emotions.

“Then I’ll give you any milk chocolate bars I find.”

He huffed, a part of his lip caught under his teeth as he considered the thought.

“Is that good enough for you?”

He shook his head quickly, comically as you sighed, some sleep finally settling in as you rub at your forehead. You could feel the headache coming from a mile away.

“Need something more personal,” He retaliated, moving a little bit so that he wasn’t putting all his weight on his arms, his toned chest moving as he resituated himself. You tried to not make it obvious that you were staring, “What’s your favorite color?”

“Well now you’ve gone too far,” You say with a little laugh, the most genuine one you’ve had in a while. You miss the way his face almost mirrors yours, the edges of his lips threatening to pull up into a grin as you smile. “I like yellow.” You finally answer, your smile faltering as you think back.

“Any particular reason or do you just like the color of piss?”

“I had this perfume bottle, I got it for my birthday when I was twelve. The actual perfume smelled disgusting but the bottle itself was this glass-stained yellow, a soft yellow that I haven’t seen anywhere else.” You explained, bringing one leg up to your chest, and wrapping your arms around it to steady yourself.

“What about you?” He shook his head, waving his pointed finger around, clearly not answering a question yet.

“No, still on you. Where were you when this all started?” Gojo asked, and the jump from the previous question to this one took you off guard. If you were counting correctly he had two more facts above you than you did for him, but you indulged him, having nothing better to do with your time.

“At home. I was watching TV with my dad when they broadcasted that signal,” You paused, the memories flooding back as you tried to blink them away. The car, your neighbors who were already infected, “You?”

For a second you thought he wasn’t going to answer but he shifted, running a hand through his hair as he whistled quietly, thinking.

“I was in a lecture hall.”

“For your doctor lectures?”

He chuckled, for the first time since you’ve known him, shaking his head as he eventually nodded, knowing that you were probably never going to give up the information. You watched as he rested his chin on his palm, the new angle giving you a better view of him and you felt your cheeks heating up under his gaze.

“Yeah,” He couldn’t fight the smile anymore, his face turning softer as he smirked, “For my doctor lectures.”

“Go sleep,” He said after a heavy beat of silence, his voice softer as he watched you wipe at your eyes, a big yawn escaping your mouth as you blinked tiredly, “It’s almost morning.”

You shake your head, wondering why a part of you was disappointed that he was right. As you stood up, wiping the dust from your pants as you shuffled your way around some bricks, finding your way back to your sleeping bag (with more difficulty than you’d like to admit), and threw it over your body. You could feel his eyes burning on your back, but you shut your eyes and pretended that you were asleep.

A couple of weeks after that night and you wondered if you had somehow passed a test.

While he still didn’t speak much to you, he wasn’t cautious nor weary when he did.

Gojo still didn’t laugh or smile much, but his little grin was less guarded when you spoke to him. Maybe it was to save you the pity of your awful jokes, but a part of you felt happier knowing he warmed up to you a bit.

“You just haven’t heard these puns yet,” You argued one day, pulling out the book you found when you scavenged through an abandoned store about a week ago. It had water damage and some of the words you could barely read, “Okay, okay, what about this one? 3.14% of sailors are Pi-rates. Huh?” You looked up at him, wiggling your eyebrows only to see him with a disgruntled look, staring down at you as he shook his head in disappointment.

“None of these should have been published.” He argued, and although he sounded disgruntled, there was an edge of him holding back a laugh.

“Oh, I like this one!” You exclaimed with a giggle, Vera looking back at the two of you as she smiled to herself, nudging at Geto so he could see too, “What do you use to cut a Roman Emperor's hair?” He didn’t say anything for a second so you lightly kicked his shin, waiting for an answer.

“I don't know, scissors?” You grinned, shocked at how close he was.

“Almost, the answer is Ceasers,” You revealed with a giggle, showing Gojo the book as he sighed, rubbing at his forehead in faux annoyance. You put the book in your back pocket, careful when you fold it, wanting to save the rest for later, “Don’t worry, I’m saving the best for last.” You patted the pocket as he laughed, excusing himself as Geto called for him to check something out on the map. Your foot almost slipped when you walked on some grass, wet from the rain last night, and his hands soft out to grip your elbows, steadying you as you thanked him. Your skin felt like it was on fire from where his lingering touch was, and you looked away, hoping he couldn’t pick up on the embarrassment.

“Y/n, can you come here for a ‘sec?” Anna called your name, ushering you over as you looked around to see her walking a little bit behind you. And you made your way over to her, readjusting your backpack as your shoulder sunk a bit from how heavy it was.

She offered you a small smile, though you could tell she was thinking a lot of things through. You noticed that when that line appeared down the middle of her brow, it meant that she was deep in thought. That, or she was mad. But with the way her fingers danced on her arms in discomfort and her eyes darted around the rest of the group, you wanted to bet that she was going through it.

“What’s up?” You finally asked, just hoping there weren't any more questions about how difficult it was traveling alone.

“I’ve seen that you and Gojo have gotten closer, w-which is great! Don’t get me wrong!” She sputtered, shooting you a quick grin that didn’t quite meet her eyes, “But I feel like I should let you know…”

When she didn’t finish you raised a brow, wondering what could possibly be so bad.

“Do,” She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she shook her body, deciding to just get it over with, “Do you remember that one night? In that apartment lobby?”

You almost laughed. How could you forget?

“Yeah…vaguely,” That was a fat lie. It was all you could think about in these following weeks. Your conversation with both Vera and Gojo plagued different parts of your mind for different reasons.

“Listen, I couldn’t help but overhear ‘Ver, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but…” She trailed off, gnawing on her lip as her eye twitched, “I heard her say Emi and I know she brushed it off but I feel like you deserve to know about it. You’ve been with us long enough so that I can trust you with this.”

Was it really that easy? You didn’t say anything, hoping the slight excitement and anticipation on your face wouldn’t scare her away as you gave her the time she needed until she continued. She took in a deep breath and started.

“I’d known Emi for a long time now - gosh, probably over a decade at this point. She was nice, but she had her own flaws, but she was my only friend so I ignored them. When this,” She motioned her arms around you, “Whole thing happened, she was the only one I had. We were planning on going to a quarantine zone in Tokyo but it fell almost immediately, so we just went wherever we could.

“We met up with those guys a couple of months later. Maybe two, two and a half years ago?” She thought back, shaking her head because it wasn’t important to fixate on, “And they took us in. They were all really nice, including ‘Toru.

“After a while, he and Emi got closer, and for that while, it was just a fling that would pass the time. But they cared for each, it was pretty obvious. Or from what she told me, it sounded like they did. But,” She bit her cheek, playing nervously with her fingers as she looked up at you, “it was hard. They fought. A lot,” She gave a humorless laugh as she looked back on it, “Day in and day out. They fought over the smallest of things. I swear, I don’t know how-” She stopped, apologizing as she got back on track, “Anyways, what I’m trying to get at is that one of these fights got bad. I can’t even remember what it was about. Food? Maybe clothes? Doesn’t matter. It got big and they said some shit neither of them meant, but Emi left. She said she was leaving, but nobody believed her. She always said shit like that. But she did, she left and we didn’t see her for a couple of days.

“‘Toru was really worried, never seen him so scared before. He went out looking for her and came back a week later. He told us she was bitten, late in the stages of infection. He said he had to…” She trailed off, voice catching in her throat and you quickly looked for a tissue, as she gratefully accepted it.

“I see the way you try to make him laugh, I know, but Emi took that part of him. He wasn’t the same after she left, and I don’t think he ever will be. So just - don’t get your hopes up when you’re around him, okay?”

“I, um, okay…?” But you didn’t even know what you were agreeing to. You just knew that Anna nodded, thankful that you heard, and the two of you made your way back to your group. Maybe it was the way your face had lost all the laughter it had just a couple minutes ago, or that Anna somehow managed to see what you were trying to do, but Gojo glanced at you, his brows furrowing together in slight worry.

You don’t know why the information affected you so much. It could have been just from how shocking it was to hear it, or the fact that Anna could tell that you were trying to get him to smile more. It made sense, the more you thought about why he was the way he was, but you still felt a part of you crumbling at the thought. Even if you never met Emi, you couldn’t definitely feel her presence after she was gone.

What? He mouthed, altering his steps so that he could weave around Geto to get closer to you. But you shook your head, reassuring him to stay where he was as you gave him a curt nod and a smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes.

It’d be over soon, you told yourself. After you get to the camp in Takayama, it’d be big enough to go your separate ways. You’ll forget the last five years, forget everything you’ve gone through, and start something new.

If not, you’d rather just get bitten and get this hell over with.

“What’d she tell you?”

Gojo cornered you when they were all asleep, the tall trees surrounding you casting shadows over his face. You didn’t light a fire this time, Geto saying it’d be safer if you just used flashlights instead. You knew the infected had bad eyesight, relying on sound more than anything, but that didn’t mean raiders couldn’t see.

There was no point in lying, he’d sniff it out immediately if you did, so you shrugged, glancing to the side as you blindly moved around leaves, trying to be quiet to get away from the group in case any of them were awake.

“Nothing important,” You muttered, glad it was dark for once so that he couldn’t see your reaction and vice versa.

“Bullshit,” His voice was low, your eyes slightly widening in surprise at his reaction, “Wouldn’t have been nothing if you looked like that afterwards.”

Though you could barely see anything, you could feel his presence. He took up a lot of space, and you could practically feel how his hands were only a little distance away from yours. His fingers were inches away from your wrist, and you knew that because when you moved you could feel the light indent, a slight burn as if he’d set your skin aflame.

“Nothing important to you.” You specify, crossing your arms across your chest as you heard him scoff, his jaw ticking as he prodded at his cheek with his tongue. If only your past self could see you now, arguing with a man who you thought only ever had two emotions he used on and off.

He waited, hands on his hips as he tapped his foot impatiently on the ground, hanging his head down for a second until he looked back up.

“Green.”

You pause, brows creasing as you huff out a laugh.

“What?”

“Green,” He repeated, “That’s my favorite color.” When it dawns on you what he’s doing you have to contain the giggle that slipped past your lips, covering your mouth when your hands as you continue to laugh.

“Why’re you laughing?” He asks, his voice genuinely confused as you laugh more, holding onto a tree trunk to steady yourself, “W-what?” But you hear the soft inflection of a laugh in his voice now, almost as if he is trying to control it as you wave your hands, trying to make it stop but you just hit his hands in the process.

“So you refuse to tell me and you hit me in the process?” Any seriousness has dropped from him completely and you laugh through your hands, trying to apologize but your cheeks hurt. It wasn’t that funny, really you don’t know why you’re reacting this way, but it’s that feeling when you start laughing, and it grows out of control for no reason.

“I-I’m sorry!” You wheeze out, trying to find his hands to apologize but he brings them to your mouth. It was dark so you couldn’t see, but his eyes darted around, suddenly realizing how loud you were being.

“Sssh, be quiet.” He hissed out, and you giggled again, licking the palm of his hand as he gave a muted yelp, bringing it close to his chest as he wiped it on his pants. He looked back up at the outline of your shadow, glaring.

“You’re a fucking child, y’know that?” He groaned, but his words didn’t quite match what his face was because his eyes softened at the sound of your laugh, carefree as you failed at trying to control it.

“Admit it, I’m funnny,” You drawled out, laughing as you hunched over a little bit, waving your finger around somewhere near his face, “You’re laughinggg because I’m funnny.” You stated, tugging on his fingers playfully, and he snorted, gently swatting your hand away as he sighed.

“You’re insufferable is what you are.” Is what Gojo finally landed on.

“Tell me something more personal and I might tell you.” You poked his chest, repeating his own words back to him as you leaned back on the tree. You had no intentions of revealing what Anna told you, but you wanted to see how far he’d go to know.

“You’re impossible,” He muttered, running a hand through his hair, debating whether or not it was even worth it to tell you something when he knew damn well you weren’t going to give any information up.

“I’m scared.” He heaved in a sigh and you cut him off with a chortle.

“Everybody’s scared-”

“Of ending up alone.” He finished, brow raising as your laugh quickly died down, some fort of satisfactory grin that didn’t mirror the gloom in his eyes made its way onto his face as he asked, “What? Cat got your tongue?”

“No,” You quickly say, rubbing at your jaw as you take a set back, easing on the trunk as you duck your head down in embarrassment, crunching some dead leaves under your boot, shame riding up your bones as you lamely shrug, “Just wasn’t expecting that.” You mutter, looking up at him from the corner of your eye.

He chuckles, taking a step closer, his breath hitting your cheek.

“What? Expecting me to say spiders? The dark?” You can feel his slender fingers a hairs distance away from your arms, careful not to touch you, but still close enough that you could feel the heat radiating off of him.

“No,” You shudder, both from the cold and from him, “Thought you were ‘gonna say med school or something.”

He lets out a big groan, hands gingerly gripping your elbows as his head falls on your shoulder, fighting his smile as you laugh again, muffling it with his coat as you gently pat his back.

“Where do fruits go for vacation?” Your hand stalled on his back, feeling his slumped form take in a deep, steadying breath.

“Where?”

“Pear-is.” You heard him mumble something on your shoulder, giggling as he shook his head in mock dismay. But this was different than all the last times, you could tell. His back shook a little, and he refused to look up.

You didn't comment on the tears that began to stain your shirt, or his quivering chest every time he breathed. So you wrapped your arms around his back, squeezing a little bit, feeling his arms snake around your waist as he tugged you just a little bit closer.

Even though it didn’t feel like a lot of time had passed, it had almost been six months since you began traveling with them. The journey would have been far faster if any of the cars worked, but Takayama was only a few weeks away. According to Geto.

Gojo walked up next to you, shoving something in the pocket of your coat. You look at him from the side of your eye, digging it out to see a chocolate bar as he looks away, a little smirk on his face as you lightly elbow his side.

“Can literally hear your stomach begging for something,” He teased, his face stoic but his voice lighthearted as you laugh, grateful even if you didn’t show it as you opened it up, noting that it was dark, telling him thanks with a mouthful of chocolate.

“Want some?” You offered, holding the bar out as he declined, shrugging, “Suit yourself.” You muttered, mouth full of the sweet as you finished the rest of it. He felt his eyes lingering on your lips stained with the chocolate as Gojo dryly swallowed, averting his gaze as he looked somewhere else, his cheeks colored light pink.

“I think we’re the chosen ones,” Geto stated, walking around freely as he pointed to all of you including himself. Your group made it out of the forest a couple of days ago, so he’s been living his life, trying to enjoy the run-down towns as much as he could before you went into the forests again until you reached Takayama.

“God, you’re so fucking stupid Suguru,” Vera said, shoving past him as she rolled her eyes, taking a bite out of her protein bar as she shared a knowing look with you, the two of you laughing as Geto tried to explain himself.

“No, no, hear me out. Aside from me, you and ‘Toru, y/n, and Anna come from different places. But we all somehow found each other, and as a group, are going to the chosen place.” He concluded, wiggling his eyebrows as everybody else just groaned as he went on another one of his tangents.

“No, really, think about it,” He tried to catch up to her pace, walking backward so that he could also look at all of you when he spoke, “We’ve all been picked through natural selection. These past five, six, years and we survived them. We-”

He stopped, and all of you stopped in your tracks when you heard the dreaded sound.

Clicking. Groaning.

“Oh fuck,” Geto stopped, everybody, drawing out their weapons as you tried to figure out where it was coming from. Your heart was rattling inside your ribcage, your hands fumbling as you tried to find your gun. It had been so long since you’d encountered an infected that you were naively beginning to think that they had just disappeared.

“It’s okay,” Gojo muttered, glancing over to you as he held his hand on yours, trying to calm your shaking down a bit, “You’re ‘gonna be okay.” He was so sure of it that you almost believed his words.

But long gone was the carefree attitude as the clicking got louder both in volume and in amount.

“Shit,” Gojo looked over to Vera, “How many d’you think there is?” The clicking got louder, your fingers trembling over the trigger as you looked at the abandoned city hall, finally locating where it was coming from. He told you that she was the best shooter they had, and she was far more confident in taking clickers and runners down than anybody else was.

“Too many,” She called back, eyes darting from everywhere, looking for somewhere to escape from, “Fuck, we ‘gotta split.” You guys were in an alleyway, stuck between taking the road and going through a hole in one of the walls. But from where you could tell, taking the road was only going to direct you toward the infected. The wall still gave them an opening to wherever you guys planned to run from, so in some way, you were cornered.

“What?” He called out, taking a step back, his brows furrowed in confusion, “No way, we can’t-”

“Listen to me. Here, take my map,” She threw it over to him and he caught it, mouthing confusion but she shook her head, “Suguru and I can hold them off for right now, but you take Anna and y/n. If we can’t find-”

“We’re not going to fucking leave!” He shouted back, raising his voice to be heard over the number of infected, his cheeks tinged pink as you nodded, not trusting your words as you felt your stomach churn.

“If we can’t find you, meet us in Takayama! Don’t look back, just keep running north!” She motioned down the street, “I can radio with Anna, don’t worry!” She was trying to shove him but he wouldn’t move.

“Vera, I’m not leaving you guys-” But he was cut off by an animalistic roar, everybody’s attention shooting back to the noise, his words dying down in his throat as you saw a glimpse of the infected.

You would never get over the way they looked. You thought you’d be used to it by now, but it never fails to make your hands clammy and you're overall nauseous. They had large fungi popping out of their cranium, their clothes all battered and bloody. They ran so fast that you wondered if they were created just to outrun the human race, but now wasn’t the time for it. All you could hear was their and Vera’s screams.

“Satoru,” She took his arm, holding it in a tight grasp as her eyes darted from him to them, seething from between her teeth, “Take them. Don’t - don’t regret it like you did last time. You couldn’t… but…you can save them. Go. Please.”

He glared at her, eyes hiding a different meaning than what his face showed, nostrils flaring but he stopped. He pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead, muttering out a barely audible I’m sorry, looking at Geto as he gave him a small nod, holding his position down as he waited to buy you guys some time.

He grabbed your wrist, urging Anna to follow him as Vera and Geto began to block you guys.

“W-wait, no, no, let go of me!” You tried to wrangle out of his iron grip but he was insistently dragging you away as you kicked, your eyes welling up, fear overtaking your body as they ran, coming closer and closer to the five of you as Gojo tried to lead you through the hole in the wall.

“Go with him, please, we’ll be okay,” Vera urged as Geto began firing, memories, similar moments cursing through your mind as you got the worst sense of deja vu. You almost felt like collapsing had it not been for Gojo’s steady hand, leading you away.

You cried out for them one last time but he already pulled you through, Anna not too far behind as you held onto him for support, your mouth open as you looked back at him, slowly beginning to realize what happened.

A couple of hours later and you couldn't feel your legs, wordlessly putting Gojo in charge of finding a house to stay at to stay the night.

It was in some run-down town, but many of the homes are still standing. It was probably some of the best pieces of architecture you’ve seen so far, meaning that most of the paint was still on and the furniture wasn’t entirely moth-eaten.

The one Gojo picked was at the end of a cul de sac, seemingly standing unharmed. Vines grew uncontrollably from the sides, and the house was caked with dirt, but you’d take it. He scooped it out, making sure there weren’t any infected hiding in any of the dark rooms, but he gave you two the okay signal and you camped out there for the night.

It was stocked with water and canned food, some chairs knocked down and carpets scrunched up as if the previous owners were trying to leave in a hurry. All the rooms seemed fine, and you just picked a random one as you threw your bag in, not caring as you made your way downstairs to where the rest of them were.

You found them in the living room, the shutters closed, hints of the afternoon sun peeking through. Gojo glanced over at you, his eyes running over your body, quickly scanning to make sure you weren’t hurt.

You made your way to a chair, rubbing your hands over your face as if that could wake you up from this living nightmare.

“They’re okay. They’re gonna be okay.” Anna said, more to convince herself than the rest of you, nodding as she said it again, but with no confidence. It wasn’t night yet, but Vera still hadn’t radioed in, anticipation deep in your throats as your wall stared at the portable radio Anna placed on the coffee table.

Gojo sat there, his legs spread out, an elbow on each knee as he rubbed at his mouth, eyes distant, lost, as he stared at nothing.

You could only imagine how he feels. No matter the sorrow you felt, he felt it tenfold. You’d only known them for a couple of months, a year at most, but he’d known them their entire lives. His shoulders sunk as if the guilt he was feeling was already pushing down on him.

Even though you didn’t know much about Emi, the hurt he carried from her was visible and inevitable. You didn’t know just how much something like this would change him if he’d ever forgive himself if something were to happen to them.

You cleared your throat, not able to bear it anymore as you shifted uncomfortably in your seat.

“Despite whatever happens, I just wanted to say thanks for getting us out. I don’t think I could have walked, let alone fought, so…thanks.” You address Gojo, watching as Anna nodded in agreement, shooting him a smile that quickly died down when she saw his face.

He dropped his hands, his eyes shining with a different sort of gleam as you took a step back, your brows and eyes squinting at the odd look.

“Vera and Geto might be dead. They might be dead because I was too fucking scared to stay and do anything to help. We don’t know where the fuck we are… and you’re thanking me?”

You stuttered, confused as you shared a glance with Anna as she slowly moved from her seat.

“I-I, well, I’m not trying to undermine what they did,” Your head tilted, your voice gentle, knowing that he was surely dealing with every possible ounce of guilt and anger under the moon right now, wishing you just stayed quiet. But you’d already opened your mouth so you had to continue, “I’m just saying thanks because you helped us. That’s all-”

“Help,” He repeated, giving an emotionless laugh as he stood up, shaking his head as his hair followed his every movement, “I ran away. I didn’t help.”

“‘Toru, she’s right, just - just calm down, come on,” Anna interjected, her eyes darting from him to you, offering you an apologetic smile on his behalf.

“She has no idea what she’s talking about. Fuck,” His voice broke, looking away as he tried to wipe his tears, “It’s like….” He didn’t finish but you knew he was going to say It’s like Emi, judging from the way Anna tried to comfort him.

“You’re,” You said slowly, not wanting to anger him any more than he already was, “You’re right. Most of the time I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I understand, and I know it’s not easy and-”

“You know? You know? Fuck y/n, what do you know? What could possibly make you understand?” You’ve never seen him like this, never had the honor of having his words cut you, sawing at your skin until they made you bleed.

You scoffed, not knowing if he was being serious, but he stared at you waiting for an answer.

“Let me see,” You give a meaningless laugh, wiping at your eyes, trying your best to not cry in front of him, not wanting to show him that his words didn’t affect you the way that they truly did, “I thought I was allowed to understand after my dad killed himself. Or maybe it was when my friend tried to kill me because I ate her fucking can of tuna,” You paused, choking on a sob, “O-or when my group left me in the middle of fucking nowhere, saying I was dead weight,” You sniffled, your voice wavering as you shook your head, pointing a finger at Gojo’s chest as you stared at his blank face.

“Just because you’ve been through shit doesn't mean that I haven’t. So - so don’t tell me that I don’t understand, because I do. It’s just, I don’t go treating people I know like shit just because of it.” A tear trickled down your cheek, hanging on your chin before it splattered on the ground.

Your chest heaved, hands trembling as you heard Anna mutter a muffled oh my god. You didn’t want pity, you didn’t want any of their sympathies. But after so many years of carrying it around silently just for him to say that you don’t understand opened up the floodgates.

You went to say something else, opening your mouth before you shut it again, lips wobbling as you shook your head, ducking it as you made your way for the stairs. You tried to zone out Anna’s calls for you to come back as you found the room you assigned yourself and shut the door with a loud slam, rattling the house.

Anna came by, asking if you were hungry, but you just brushed her off, saying that you’d come down to eat later.

It was true, you couldn’t stomach anything right now, but you didn’t want to see anybody after that.

You paced around the room, doing anything to occupy your mind and get rid of the thoughts coursing through your head. You packed your bag, which wasn’t even yours, you wanted to guess that in the rush of leaving you accidentally packed Geto’s because yours sure as hell didn’t have a pack of cigarettes and condoms in it, (you’d put all your money on the fact that him and Vera were hooking up), unpacked, and re-packed it. You folded some clothes lying around, washed your face with the water from the bottles you found, and tried to freshen up. Your eyes were still a little puffy and red, but you knew it would go away quickly.

You looked through the closet and did anything you could think of. You didn’t really have the heart to take anything, knowing that somebody cared for these things at one point, but you snooped around, having nothing better to do.

From what you could deduce, a teenager probably lived in the room. Band posters were plastered on the walls, the bed had some stuffed animals still left on it. You could remember the initial broadcast saying to take only what was necessary, so it made sense why the closet was mainly empty but the other aspect of the room seemed untouched.

You looked at some of the books they had, pulling them out of the shelves as you read the titles. Some you knew, some you didn’t. The window adjacent to the bookshelf showed you an outside view of the neighborhood, the moon shining bright as you relied on that and your flashlight to move around.

As you went to put a book back you heard a knock at your door, startling you as you dropped the book on the ground. You grumbled in annoyance, glancing at it and then back to your book.

“I’m still not hungry,” You called out, bending down to grab it as you sighed, “But thanks,” You put it back where it was, wiping at your face as you navigate around the bed, going to open the door to let her in, “Hey, have you heard anything from…” You trailed off, not expecting to see a taller figure in Anna’s place.

You met his eyes, the same ones that managed to knock the air out of your lungs. His gaze softened upon the sight of your face, but you wouldn’t let that dictate your feelings. No, you refused. So instead, you quickly gathered yourself, squinting your eyes as you went to shut the door, not quick enough as he was able to wedge his foot in between, whimpering a bit as you still tried to slam it shut with it in the way.

“Ow, fuck, wait,” His hand gripped the side of the door, and you rolled your eyes, sniffing once as you let him open it himself, knowing that he’d just find another way inside if you blocked this one, “Listen,” He invited himself in, a hint of pleading in his voice as he looked at you, “Anna got Vera’s message. They're,” He sighed, his shoulders sagging a bit, “They’re fine. Little shakin’ up, but they’re gonna be okay. Said to meet up with them at the camp.”

Your eyes and mouth slightly opened, your anger with him disappearing for a second as you smiled softly to yourself.

“That’s great,” You breathed out, not knowing how to handle this, almost all the stress leaving your bones as you gave yourself a moment to relax, “Great news.” You gave him a curt smile, glancing at the door, wondering if that was all he came here for.

His eyes traveled from your face, stalling on your puffy lids as he slightly grimaced. He looked around the room, noting all the décor, posters, and memorabilia. You could tell he was struggling to find something to say, opening his mouth only to close it just as quickly.

“Thanks for letting me know,” You start, your hands hovering over his chest as you try to push him out, “But I wanna be by myself right now, so…” You nodded to the door, waiting for him to get the hint and go.

“Are you leaving?” He asked suddenly, his brows furrowed, creasing down the middle as glanced at your face at your packed bag behind you. You saw his lips trembling, hands moving up to gently cup your elbows, almost as if he needed to, or else he’d crumble over.

“What?” You look back confused as to what he was talking about, shaking your head, “I was jus-”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, I’m sorry, so so sorry sweetheart, I swear, I d-didn’t know you went t-through all that shit,” His voice cracked, his legs moving faster than his body as you backed up against the bed, alarmed at his sudden change in mood, “Even if I did, I-I should never have said that to you. I’m so fucking sorry, please, I didn’t mean anything I said. I was talkin’ out of my ass and being the biggest fuckin’ dick ever.” Gojo’s voice trembled as if he was on the verge of tears as you almost tripped, glad the bed was behind you as you fell onto it, the springs squeaking at the sudden movement.

You watched as a giant of a man sank to his knees, grabbing your hands and holding them to his chest as his eyes watered, his lip wobbling as he almost pleaded for you to look at him and to hear what he was trying to say.

“Look, I’m really, really sorry,” He crouched down, rubbing his thumb over the back of your hand, “Please don't leave. I’ll shut up for the rest of the way there and you’ll never-”

“I’m not leaving,” You say with a small laugh, confusion laced in your voice, “I was bored so I packed. ‘S not even my bag, think I got Geto’s or Vera’s on accident.” You shrugged as you watched his face change. Morphing as he shut his mouth, his hands still trembling as realization washed over him, slowly only leaving embarrassment.

“Really?” He asked, still not letting go of your hands you nodded slowly, heart beating rapidly in your rib cage as you waited for him to say something else.

“Oh...” He the relief on his face is replaced with something different, “Okay,” He took in a deep breath, slowly letting go of your hands as he looked at the floor, some of his hair falling in his face as he finally looked back up, giving you a small apologetic smile, “Sorry, I didn’t…” He couldn’t finish, moving quickly to stand up, mumbling something to himself as he went for the door, stopping seconds before he opened it.

“‘Toru?”

His fingers danced over the doorknob, not turning back despite his every nerve telling him to look back at you. But deep down, he knew that if he did, it would all come crumbling down. That the wall he built so highly for himself would crack, and he’d have to face the realization that he cared for you. Cared so deeply for you that seeing your face, your eyes puffy from crying because of his words would be worse than if a scolding knife was to pierce his heart. Because no matter how hard he tried to convince his feeble mind that you didn’t matter to him, you did, and he could no longer hide behind a mask and pretend that you didn’t.

“Now that I think about it I think you would have made a shit doctor.” You say, crossing your arms across your chest as you watch him turn around, his lips red, looking like he’d been repeatedly chewing on it.

His hand fell from the doorknob, taking three quick steps to get back to where you were, his hands quickly going up to hold your face, eyes scanning yours as if waiting for you to say anything. But you couldn’t, not with the way he was staring at you. He always did a spectacular job of whisking your words away from a single glance.

“You drive me crazy,” He muttered, his nose almost touching yours as your hands traveled slowly up his back, feeling your heart beating in your throat, “Whenever I see your face,” His thumb runs over the corner of your mouth, eyes falling on your lips, “I don’t what to do. And then you open your mouth and I don’t know if I want to laugh, cry o-or kiss you. And,” He sighed, a hand going behind your head so that you could look up at him, “I don’t know what I’d do without you. Without your gorgeous face, your pretty eyes, your laugh, your kind, kind heart. I’ll spend a fucking lifetime making up for all the shit I’ve done if it means you’d forgive me.” He was a breath away from your lips, if either one of you were to make a single movement it’d be over.

“Relax,” You say with a little laugh, your lashes fluttering on your cheek as you take a step back closer to the bed, “I’m not gonna make you grovel or anything. But if you’re offering something as forgiveness…” You trail off, not knowing how to word words as you push his head closer to yours. Your fingers play with his hair, tangling them back and forth to make little curls, your head moving on its own as you try not to give a stupid giddy smile.

He leans in, finally closing that pesky gap between the two of you as you let out a little gasp until you melt against his chest, slowly working your lips against his.

It’s hot, you don’t know how else to describe it. Weeks, months even, of pent-up tension are adding up here at this moment.

He’s so gentle when he cradles your face, afraid you’d crumble away if he held you with any more pressure. But his kiss is anything but, aggressive and fast, not wanting to slow down as he tried to commit the feel of you to memory.

He nips at your lips, now plumper and shiny with spit, pulling away slightly as he cradles his face to yours. His hands tug you into his body, cradling your jaw as he smiles, his eyes lidded as he looks down at you.

Your hands are on his chest, slightly tugging at it as his smile grows, his cheeks all blushed out as you giggle, somewhat intoxicated by the feel of him. You’d imagine what he’d be like, sure, but the way he kissed or looked at you was nothing your imagination could have ever conjured up.

“Swear to god, if I ever say stupid shit you slap me, okay? Knock some sense into me,” He muttered, holding your cheeks, looking at you as if you had strung up the moon and the stars, and you probably did if you told him so.

“‘M not gonna hit you, maybe just tell you some stupid puns till you realize what you’ve done.” You tease, watching as his head disappeared, your laugh turning into a muted moan as he licks a stripe across the expanse of your throat, gently biting down on your pulse point as he soothed it with a sloppy kiss.

“‘Toru,” You can get out, collapsing on the bed as he gingerly pushes you onto it, feeling lightheaded as you watch him kiss down your arms, your hands, any area of naked skin he could find. It was exhilarating the way his lips felt on your skin.

“You ‘wanna take that shirt off f’me?” He muttered, hands traveling up your stomach, nimble fingers dancing under the cup of your bra, “Or d’you want me to stop?” He’s slow and patient as you quickly shake your head, already getting to work at shedding off anything stopping him as he chuckles slowly, the sound just causing you to grow even wetter. You expertly unhook your bra from your chest, watching as it falls down into your lap, suddenly aware that your top half is fully bare to him.

But he doesn’t say anything, his body almost malfunctioning at the sight of your bare tits. You almost go to cover them, conscious of his heavy stare, but he gently grabs your wrists, pushing them aside as he moves closer to you, his breath hitting your collarbone as he stifled a groan.

“Fuck,” He says, not even fully paying attention as he quite literally goggles at your breast, his fingers tugging at your nipples, thumbing at them until they’re slightly swollen, letting his hands run over them as he feels his cock straining in his pants, “S-shit, you’re so fuckin’ perfect.” He whispers, glancing up at you only to see your head thrown back, finger grasping his as you try to make him work faster, pushing them down to the buttons of your jeans as he chuckles, patting your waist once as if to tell you he understands.

He gets to work, quickly getting them off of you, your underwear with it, eyes darkening as he notes your slick between your two puffy lips, gripping onto your thigh with every possible amount of self-restraint he has.

“If you don’t hurry up I’ll just tell you a bad pun n-now to get it over with. Fuck just - just touch me already!” You threaten, glaring at him as he snorts, fingers traveling up to cup your cunt as you suddenly gasp, your teasing tone dropping at the euphoric sensation.

“Where?” His thumb slowly rubs at your clit, using some of your slick as he goes at his own pace, enjoying how you paw at his biceps, gripping onto them with every ounce of strength you could muster, “Here?” He asks, using two fingers to pry your pussy lips apart, nearly coming in his pants as he did so.

“This what you want, sweetheart?” He asks, his pointer finger traveling up your slit, gathering all of your wetness as he groans, slowly pushing it in, testing your limits as you let out a wanton moan at the feeling.

“Yes, yes!” You cry out, your hands gripping the sheets. He doesn’t need to be told twice to know that you’d probably wring him out to dry if he doesn’t pick up his pace.

But he wants to be slow, not wanting to hurt you as he pushes it in, inch by inch, until he curls it, your eyes rolling back, holding onto his wrist for dear life as you wait to adjust to it.

“F-feels so good, hmm!” You squeal, your lips barely opening as he pushes the second one in, your words cut off by another moan, whining for him to go faster. You’ve been deprived for so long that you can’t even feel embarrassed at the needy way you yearn for him and his skilled fingers and touch.

You’ve only ever been with one guy before, and he knew nothing about the female antonymy so you don’t really have much to compare him to, but Gojo knew what he was doing. He listened to your every sound, noting which places made your toes curl and eyes cross, becoming more and more familiar with your body. His white hair fell into his face as he paid attention to you, glancing up at your face every now and then to smile, wanting to make sure that you were okay.

“Yeah? You’re squeezin’ me so much, fuck,” He starts pumping them in and out, the motion enough to make you go crazy, whining out pathetically as he picks up the pace a little bit, his thumb going to find you, “This pussy’s fuckin’ perfect, fuck, and she’s mine, y’hear?” He asks, only pumping into you faster, his thumb on your clit mirroring his ministrations as you cover your mouth with your hand, not wanting to be so loud that your cries could travel through the walls.

“F-fuck, just yours! Promise!” You say, agreeing to anything he said, babbling nonsense as you feel your stomach clench, your back arching as he takes in the beautiful sight of you sprawled out like this, wanting to take a mental image to commit it to heart.

“Hmm, ‘Toru, I’m gonna, fuck, gonna…!” You can’t even finish your sentence, mewling at the way his relentless motions never stopped.

It’s only a couple of seconds before you cry out, his other hand clamping to your mouth to muffle your moans, seeing white as you fall back onto the mattress, your chest heaving with every breath you take as your orgasm runs through your body. It was the most intense thing you’ve ever felt, your walls clamping down on his fingers as you creamed around them, your legs shaking as you moaned out his name.

He stops, a shit-eating grin plastered on his face as he watches you struggle to catch your breath.

“So fuckin’ stunning,” He says under his breath, bringing his fingers shining with your essence up to his lips as he sucks them clean, his eyes fluttering shut at your tangy taste, “Taste amazing too, sweetheart.” He takes his fingers out of his mouth, crawling up to your body, tapping on your lips so that they’d open. He pressed his fingers on your tongue, watching as you sucked on them, your eyes never leaving his. He moans, taking them out before he almost embarrasses himself by coming on the spot.

But he stops when he feels his pants tighten around his crouch, wincing because he clearly didn’t think this through enough. His dicks feels like a heavyweight in his pants, and he can feel the strain.

“What?” You sit up, worry lacing your features as you balance on your elbows, “What’s wrong?” You're now freaking out inside, thinking that he’s starting to regret this, or that he was drunk off the euphoria and now the realization is settling in.

“I don’t have a condom, and the only ones were in-”

“Geto’s bag?” You say with a chortle, pointing your chin at where the said bag was sitting, “Yeah, I know.”

Gojo chuckles, patting your cheek as he presses a kiss to your lips, almost not wanting to break away as he tastes everything on them. The chapstick you put on that morning, the chocolate he gave you. Fuck, he can even taste your cum on them, and you have to give his chest a little nudge so that he doesn’t forget what he was going to do.

He’s agile as he goes through the pockets, almost doing good at shedding off his clothes, grinning in triumph when he finally locates the pack. It gives you some time to really take in his features, gnawing on the inside of your cheek as your eyes rake over his torso, his defined chest that shines with sweat. You try your hardest not to linger longer on his dick, your mouth going dry at the sheer length of it. Despite him prepping you just a few minutes ago you still wondered how you’d be able to take him.

“If you stare any harder you’re gonna make me blush.” He says, smirking as you discover you’ve been caught in the act. But the way he laughs boyishly at you quickly looking away makes up for it.

“If you weren’t so pretty I wouldn’t be staring.” You counter, tracking him as he makes his way back to the bed, ripping the condom wrapper with his teeth as you swallow, moving so that your head rests on the board behind you as he grinned.

“Me?” He cocks a brow, taking a couple of seconds to put the condom on his dick, his mushroom tip leaking with pre as she sucks in a breath at the feeling, hoping he wouldn’t nut too fast and embarrass himself when he was finally in you, “I’m gonna need you to take a hard, long look in the mirror then sweetheart.”

You giggle, your eyes wrinkling around the edges as your cheeks glow. He moves above you, his own face plastered with a goofy smile at the sound of your laughter. He’d bottle it up if he could, save it for the days when he really needed to hear it.

“No! I really mean it, you’re like, so fuckin’ hot, liked unbelievably hot.” You smile as he pecks your lips, grinning against his as he shakes his head in adorable defiance.

“And I really mean it too,” He counters, his nose pressed against yours as you can’t help but bring him in for another kiss, your tongues meeting each other as he laps up your taste, kissing you so harshly that it knocked the wind right out of your lungs.

When he pulls away a line of spit is connecting your lips to each other. Yours are swollen, almost bruised, but you welcome the slight sting, knowing what it was all for. After all, his are swollen and pink, so you slowly became drunk at the sight of it.

His eyes travel to your tits and down to your stomach, gripping your waist as he kisses your collarbone, his hand gingerly rubbing up and down your skin, causing goosebumps to lie in their wake.

He lined himself up with your entrance, your breath hitching in your throat as you felt his tip prod at your walls, and he groaned at the feeling, only imagining what it’d be like when he finally pushes through.

“J-just fuck me already,” You whisper, your words circling through the two of you, “Please.” You add, and he shakes his head, knowing you’d never have to ask him when your honeyed words drove him to a near point of insanity.

“Don’t have to beg sweetheart,” He says, pushing himself fully in, the two of you moaning out loud at the feeling.

You clamp down tightly on his dick, and despite him going in as slowly as you could he could feel you clenching around him. Your walls stretched to accommodate his size, and the slight pinch mixed with the godly feeling of having him fill you up almost caused you to pass out.

“Shit,” He can barely get it to pass his lips, finally bottoming out in your as your legs circle around his back, pulling him closer to your sweaty body as he places a hand near your head for leverage, “You’re so fuckin’ tight, squeezing me like that.”

“Mmm, s’cause you’re so b-big,” You whine out, your nails raking down his back, leaving angry red lines. He stills, clenching his teeth as he tries to calm down, slowly pulling out before he slammed back into you.

“Fuck!” You moan, holding onto his waist as he pistons into you, his dick shining with a mix of your own cum and wetness, glimmering in the limited light the moon offered.

His hips slanted against yours, balls hitting your ass as he moved fast, like something in him just snapped, and he couldn’t hold back anymore. His dick could reach that part in you that just made you see stars, hitting it repeatedly until you swore your back could take it.

“Oh, god, you feel so fuckin’ good, fuckkk,” He drawls out, his head falling into the crook of your neck, panting as his hands curled in the sheets, “You’re gonna be the fuckin death of me sweetheart,” He moaned against you, pressing sloppy kisses wherever he could. He trailed down your collarbone, all the way until he suckled on your breasts, pulling away so that he could give each equal attention. They glimmered with his spit, your areolas swollen from his constant motions.

“Umph, ‘Toru, s’too much, o-oh!” You cried, the new angle he was at reaching even further and you questioned just how empty it was before him. He dragged through your walls, his thumb down at your clit, rubbing little circles as your eyes shut, too heavy with lust and you couldn’t even look down anymore, gripping onto his arms to stay afloat.

“Just like that, perfect,” He talked you through it, one hand on your tit, the other busy with your clit, looking down to see his dick disappearing inside of you, going feral when he watched you becoming undone because of him, “Fuck, you’re such a good girl for m-me, y’know that right?” And you dumbly nodded, not able to speak, unintelligible words tumbling out of your mouth instead.

You didn’t expect your release to build up so quickly just after you had your last one, but Gojo was too good, an expert in knowing what places would scratch you in just the right way. You felt the coil in your stomach tighten, your legs wrapping around him as you pulled him in even closer, tilting your head up so you could bring him in for another wet kiss.

“M’gonna, fuck ‘Toru, m’gonna…” But you couldn’t finish, moaning against his lips as you came on his dick, his thumb not slowing down on your little nub as your legs shake from the feeling, eyes crossing as he smiles at the way you clamp down on him.

“There you go, fuck, you’re so tight, fuck, I don’t think I’m gonna,” He tries to slow down but he can't, “Shit, shit, shit,” He stops, shooting his load into the condom as his hips stop, his chest heaving manically as he almost collapses onto your chest, your tits pressing against him as he takes a second to catch his breath.

The two of you can’t say anything, your hands wrapped tightly around his neck as you try to loosen up your body, your hair damp, the room stinking of sex and sweat as you try to come back to your senses.

It doesn’t even feel real, but you watch through hooded eyes as he rises, pulling out of you as his dick hangs limp. He tugs the condom off, hissing at the feeling as he ties it, chucking it at a trash can he found near the desk as he looks back at you, giving you that same debonair smile that still managed to make your heart race despite everything.

You throw a hand over your face, trying to hide it as he chuckles, giving your hips a firm squeeze as he kisses the side of your ear.

“I’ll be back, gonna get you some water ‘n clothes.” He says, tugging on his pants as he throws on his shirt laying across the floor, not bothering with any boxers as he winks at you, chuckling at the way you groan in embarrassment, tugging the covers over your naked body as if he hadn’t just seen you in your birthday suit.

“And bring me some chocolate!” You call out, peeking your head out as he nods, shutting the door behind him as you look around, still trying to fathom what just happened.

He reappears minutes later, one of his tees in hand, and a bottle with a bar in the other. He makes do with cleaning you up with a towel he found, wetting it with some water as he gently rubs it over your sensitive skin, apologizing when you wince, kissing the spots that are still tender.

You're almost tapped out, too tired to see the lovesick look in his eyes when he pulls the shirt over your chest, laying you back down on the pillows as he rubs at your forehead, thanking his lucky stars for being able to see you look like this; so carefree and happy.

There’s a lazy smile on your lips as you tug on his hand, not doing much work as you pull him closer to you. Although the bed wasn’t made to accommodate more than one person, he’d be damned if he let this opportunity slip through his fingers.

“Did you watch Star Wars?” You ask sleepily, holding his hands as you play with his fingers, hearing him snort at the fact that you were still keeping this up. But you still wanted to make him pay, even if he just gave you two of the most earth-shattering orgasms you’ve ever received.

“Used to, why?” He turns you over so you could face him, bringing up one of his fingers so that he could carefully trace out your features.

“‘Cause Yoda only one f’me.” You barely get out, giving a little giggle as he pretends to hate it, still kissing your cheek as you slink against his chest, the rhythmic beat of his heart lulling you to sleep.

He follows you shortly after, his soft snores filling the room as you two sleep soundly. But in the dark, before he lets the sleep take a hold of him, he promises himself that he’d never let you go. He’d take you to Takayama, or wherever the fuck was necessary to keep you safe. He wouldn’t let you cry again, wouldn’t want to see the tears that stained your cheeks because he swore he’d never been in such pain seeing you like that. You were his other half, and no amount of cheesy puns, terrible jokes, or loving questions was going to change that fact. Because he knew that once he held the world in his arms he wouldn’t trade any fucking thing to let it go.

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writing-with-sophia · 1 year

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Common character motivations

Revenge - seeking to get even with someone who has wronged them

Love - driven by romantic feelings for another character

Greed - motivated by a desire for material possessions or wealth

Power - seeking to gain control or influence over others

Justice - motivated by a sense of fairness and a desire to see justice served

Redemption - seeking to make up for past mistakes or wrongdoings

Curiosity - driven by a desire to learn or discover something new

Duty - motivated by a sense of responsibility or obligation to others or a cause

Ambition - driven by a desire to achieve a specific goal or succeed in a particular endeavor

Fear - motivated by a desire to avoid danger or harm

Guilt - driven by a sense of remorse for past actions or decisions

Jealousy - motivated by envy or a desire to possess what another character has

Betrayal - motivated by a sense of betrayal or desire for revenge against someone who has betrayed them.

Ambivalence - a character who is conflicted or uncertain about their goals or desires

Freedom - a character who seeks to escape from a restrictive situation or society

Fame - motivated by a desire for public recognition or notoriety

Identity - driven by a need to understand or define who they are

Family - motivated by a sense of loyalty or obligation to their family or loved ones

Discovery - driven by a desire to explore or uncover hidden knowledge

Patriotism - motivated by a love for their country or a desire to protect it

Rebellion - driven by a desire to challenge authority or the status quo

Artistic expression - motivated by a need to create or express oneself through art, music, or other creative endeavors

Religion or spirituality - driven by a desire to connect with a higher power or to live according to certain beliefs or values

Altruism - motivated by a desire to help others or make the world a better place

Atonement - driven by a need to make amends or seek forgiveness for past actions

Nostalgia - motivated by a desire to return to a simpler time or relive past experiences

Status - driven by a desire for social or professional standing or recognition.

Insecurity - driven by a need to prove their worth or gain acceptance from others

Legacy - motivated by a desire to leave a lasting impact or to be remembered in a certain way after they're gone

Survival - driven by the need to survive in extreme circumstances, such as a natural disaster, war, or an apocalyptic event

Belonging - motivated by a desire to fit in with a certain group or community

Love of knowledge - driven by a passion for learning and acquiring new information

Addiction - motivated by a compulsion to engage in a particular behavior or activity, such as drug use or gambling

Inciting incident - motivation driven by a specific event that triggers or sets the character on their journey

Fear of death - driven by a fear of their own mortality or the mortality of others

Intimidation - motivated by a fear of others or a desire to intimidate others for personal gain

Envy - driven by a desire to possess what others have or to be like someone else

Manipulation - motivated by a desire to control or manipulate others for their own benefit

Protecting others - driven by a desire to protect loved ones or innocent people from harm

Sense of duty - motivated by a sense of responsibility to fulfill a particular role or obligation.

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punkshort · 18 days

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Welcome to Shortie's Joel Miller masterlist! Below is a mix of pre and post outbreak stories, most are 18+. Thank you for reading❤️

The Way We Were [complete]: You worked for Joel and Tommy a few months before the outbreak. When the outbreak happens, you and Joel get stuck traveling the country and keeping each other safe. Neither of you spoke about the feelings you had for one another pre-outbreak, and in a post-apocalyptic world, it seems like survival should be your only focus. But feelings can't be ignored forever.

Look What We've Become [complete - sequel to TWWW]: You are tasked with taking a young girl back to her family while trying to salvage your relationship with Joel after certain events cause the biggest strain either of you have ever had to face.

I'll Be Home for Christmas [on-going]: Having just caught your fiancé cheating on you, you decide to come back home from the big city to Austin for the month of December to try to figure out your next step. You had no idea you would be getting more than you bargained for with the handsome single dad who built your parents' house.

Somewhere to Run [complete]: You move to a small town in the middle of Texas to escape your past and start over. You don't expect to fall for the town's handsome sheriff.

I Know Who You Are [complete]: A fall on patrol causes you to lose your long term memory, forgetting the identities of your friends and loved ones. You have to learn all over again how to survive in a post-apocalyptic world, and you learn things about yourself along the way.

Roommates [complete]: Your roommate, Maria, introduces you to her boyfriend's brother. You hit it off immediately, but when you find out the true nature of his profession, you both decide to remain just friends. But once the four of you eventually move in together, things get... complicated.

Swept Away [in progress]: Detached, closed off, and hardened by failed relationships (romantic and otherwise), hotel mogul Joel Miller is looking to expand his empire to an exclusive tropical island off the coast of Fiji. The problem is, he's not the only one looking to stake his claim in the tropics. The owner of the island, a family man first and foremost, invites all the bidders to the island for a month long retreat to help him decide which mogul will be crowned the winner. And to make himself look more appealing, Joel hires you to accompany him as his significant other. But it's strictly business... right?

I hate when you're right: After a heated argument with Joel, you finally convince him to leave Jackson so you could explore a store for new clothes, and what happens could change your life forever.

Have a Good Night: Every week like clockwork, the same devastatingly handsome man comes into the grocery store where you work to buy flowers. It's not until he asks you out when you realize the flowers aren't for his wife or girlfriend.

Night Shift: It was a relatively quiet night in the emergency room until a handsome contractor gets admitted and adds some excitement to your life.

Hard to Handle: One year after Joel cheats on you and gets someone else pregnant, you run into him for the first time.

Five Senses: You catch Joel sneaking off to do something in the middle of the night and curiosity gets the best of you.

A Deeper Purpose: Living in Jackson during the apocalypse doesn't do anything to curb your desire to have a child. The problem is, most of the men in town are unavailable... except for one.

-> Love at First Sight: Joel helps you through your delivery.

-> A Deeper Meaning: Now that your daughter is born, Joel is itching for another but you are still feeling a little discouraged with the way your body looks. He quickly puts an end to those feelings.

Come Fly with Me: You and Joel have fun in the cockpit.

Something Unexpected: It's been ten years since you lived in Texas, and of course the first week back, you run into a familiar face from your past.

First Impressions: When your heater breaks in the dead of winter, you get more than you bargained for when Joel Miller arrives to fix it.

Flinched: The day after Sarah died, he flinched.

#joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fic #joel miller smut #joel miller fanfic #joel x reader smut #joel miller tlou #joel tlou #joel x reader #the last of us hbo #the last of us angst #the last of us fic #the last of us fanfiction #joel the last of us #the last of us

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thelastofhyde · 1 year

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i. the likeability paradox.

pairing. joel miller x fem!reader

synopsis. joel miller is not a man who strives to be liked, with a chip on his shoulder and a scowl on his face, until his world is flipped on its axis when the pretty young thing living under bill and frank's roof, with an irritatingly unwavering smile and the literal sun shinning out her ass, says those five damned words: i don't like you, joel.

warnings. no use of y/n, enemies to lovers, slow burn ( i have several oneshots planned for this couple ), unrequited love ( except you will never catch joel miller admitting he feels anything beyond grief, hunger and exhaustion ), pining, poor communication no communication, no seriously joel is down bad it's actually disgusting and highkey 🚩toxic🚩 but luckily red is your favourite colour, sunshine!reader, grumpy!joel aka canon joel, kinda perv!joel ( if you squint ), implied queer!tess, undefined age gap ( reader implied late-20s ), descriptions of canon-typical violence, smut ( oral- f receiving, fingering, degradation, panty stealing, hair pulling, dirty talk, dubcon due to intoxication, joel kinda gives her a wedgie at some point and honestly i don’t know what i was hoping to achieve with that, discussions of a lacklustre sex-life pre-apocalypse ). reader is a) hinted at being shorter than joel but it’s not central to the plot and b) described as lithe but the meaning intended is graceful, not thin!

word count. 12.9k

hyde’s input. half-way through, the regret of choosing to write this from joel's pov started to settle in but lmao i was too far in to not commit to the bit. don't come at me for the fact the timeline or events may not seem plausible with canon, i just wanna write this silly little depraved fic about joel in peace :( anyway, enjoy my first attempt at writing for tlou, forming a prayer circle rn in hopes that this doesn't flop because i will cry and you will hear about it

taglist. @kayleezra @newavenger + add yourself to the taglist here !

read on ao3 ! ( capitalization available )

distaste is not new in the life of joel miller.

in particular, one that is loaded, aimed and fired directly at him. he is not a likeable guy, often by choice and rarely by accident. the years of pain from a bleeding wound have now scarred over into nothing but an empty shell of the man that once was, from a world that no longer is, and he’s tried little to fill himself back up.

if anything, he’s made himself more empty.

rid himself of feelings, that which saves him the weakness of appearing sympathetic. discarded the need for luxuries, for which he’d scarcely cared for prior to his world ending. lay to rest what was left of the optimist inside him, leaving behind the danger of hope for it to rot with the rest of the infected.

an apocalyptic world brings out all sides of man that one would never dare to engage with in normal civilisation. joel learned swiftly that he was built to endure, quick to evolve and adapt to the new world order. the man who once worked his hardest to keep the peace among his neighbours, smiling that little bit wider on days he’d catch them scowling to themselves in hopes of brightening one part of their day for even a simple moment, would be at odds with the man who wears a heavy layer of enjoyment when met with the scowling glances and the hushed voices, all the watch out for that miller guys passed between cowardly members of fedra and the keep away from mr. miller's lawns spoken harshly from mother to child becoming music to his failing ears.

this plague of fear-driven dislike keeps him alone, how he likes to be, no one to lose and nothing to be taken. somewhere along the years the idea of safety in numbers has morphed into an illusion, something people say and never truly mean, to distract themselves from a reality more bitter than a snowstorm: in times of survival, people become dead-weight.

“so that’s all i am to ya, huh? dead-fucking-weight?” his brother’s voice still echoes in that damned space he calls a home, weeks or months or years since the day he’d departed for something else, somewhere else, leaving joel to do what joel does best: endure.

somehow, silence was easier than telling the man he’d taught to tie a shoelace, to shave his beard, to tune a guitar that he was the dead-weight, doomed to drag all those who remained too close down into his pit of despair.

she was an exception, his tess, buried 5-feet-under in her own swell of darkness, nothing but the tips of her fingers stretched out above her head to feel the sun upon her skin and keep her from going that last foot deeper. they’d made a home for themselves in one another, one where he keeps them fed, and she keeps them safe, and neither of them keeps the place clean.

she never asks for more, and he never offers it, both content to survive without the weight of affection smothering them. contrary to the belief of any misfortunate soul who’s encountered the pair within the quarantine zone, she is the one who holds the leash, tugging joel along close by her heel and keeping him from wandering off into the wild to surrender himself to a feral lifestyle.

which lands him here, sat at a table playing happy family, each time he dares to snark out a few words being met with the sharp kick of tess’ foot against his shin.

“... and then,” frank struggles over a cough, so excited in his story-telling that he fails to separate taking a breath from taking a sip of his wine. with a roll of eyes and a disapproving grunt, bill’s no more than two seconds away from clapping down on his back, urging the other man’s wind-pipes to unblock and welcome back airflow. “otis dragged his muddied self over the whole house. we were finding paw-prints for days!”

joel’s unamused, too keen to think of what a nuisance that would be. as if incapable of feeling the buzzing energy of disinterest, the german shepherd drops its head further up his lap, begging for a morsel of anything that sits atop the table.

“which means i was cleaning paw-prints for days.” bill, the only one at the table besides himself who wears the looks of a cynic, grumbles out before shovelling what remains on his plate into his mouth.

frank is quick to shush him.

“i’m sorry, again, bill,” he doesn’t mean to break eye-contact from the mutt at his thigh, but the voice calls to him like a siren calls to a ship in the night, like a flame dances and seduces a moth into its brightly burning touch of death, a spotlight in the dark which promises- or threatens- more light to come. “i’d no clue there was a storm coming till we were already a good few miles away, and there was nowhere to take cover to wait it out.”

there you sit, parallel to him.

the sun rests lower in the sky as time carries you all into the late noon, its rays a beacon of light bursting out just behind your head, painting you in the glow of the golden hour and staining a mockery of a halo above you. it hurts his eyes, this brightness that you so easily bask in, forcing him to squint and deepen the frown on his face.

you catch him with his sights on you, at some point, and the smile you meet his scowl with has him cursing at the sun, and the moon, and every star that sits between.

the threat of a great war looms in the air as you rush to rise up and help clear the table of the remnants left behind- none of which joel can account for, mouth to keen and body too starved to skip out on enjoying the mundane luxury of a fresh, home-cooked meal. the battle ends swiftly as you surrender to bill’s hardened stare, and frank’s disapproving head-shakes, and tess’ own plan of action to simply force you down back into the seat you’d been sat in- the one you always sit in.

“you, sit. no one should have to clean up the food they made.”

they get no fight out of him when they insist he’d done enough catching the so-called food.

silence casts its shadow over the table, dampening the light and painting you both in a mockery of greyed tones- truthfully, it is the disappearance of the sun hind a large cloud that causes such a thing.

being alone, with you, is something joel’s never mastered. the affliction of your presence is so much greater when there’s no one else to balance out your natural shine- the kind that has his head spinning and his cock aching-, no one but him.

were he not a sick bastard, he’d try harder to not make you sad.

something bumps his hands, ripping him out of his moral self-condemnation. the dog meets his gaze, eyes a widened mess of puppy-dog pleading that punctuates its existence with an impatient whine.

just like your owner, he finds himself thinking and not saying- never saying-, yet to find your bark.

the ball’s a sticky mess of slobber and dirt, and joel touches it all the same, throwing it up in the air once, then twice, before tossing it across the yard. he’s slumped back in his chair by the time he registers the dog’s departure, a ball of dark fluff bouncing its way across the garden, and all the man can think is fuck, he’ll be feeling the effect of that throw on his shoulder come the morning.

the pain is not enough to stop him from tossing the ball again, and once more, and then yet again, sending the dog in a never ending loop of chase, grab, retrieve- a parallel to his life of wake, survive, sleep.

“he likes you,” you never leave things the way he wishes them to be, bursting his bubble with the vocal reminder of your presence.

as if on queue, prompted by your addressing of it, the dog drops its interest in joel, and the ball, and the chasing, tail wagging uncontrollably by the time it reaches your side. standing on its hind legs, it collapses the front of itself into your waiting lap, and joel watches how you wrap your arms so easily around something that could cause you harm.

to envy a creature that licks it own shit off its ass is a new low for joel.

“thinkin’ he might like ya more, sol.” the nickname rolls off his tongue with ease, the safer option than uttering your name, a vice and virtue he’s only permitted himself in idealistic fantasies that play out in his own troubled thoughts.

“most people do,” whether you mean to make it seem like you’re degrading his very existence or not, he’s unsure, but it rouses a chuckle out of him.

he takes note of how you don’t protest the name he’s branded you with, not like how you’d fought tooth and nail against it every other visit he and tess have made.

“you’ve got a whole load in common, you know? i think that’s got something to do with his fascination-”

“how the hell’s a man like me got somethin’ in common with a four-legged mutt?” there he goes again, making that smile slip down your cheeks with a simple use of his voice. it helps as much as it hurts, frown loosening up and eyes no longer strained beneath the bright shine of your visceral optimism.

“well, you’re both... hairy,” he restrains himself from reacting, washing down a laugh with the help of the dregs of wine that lay collecting at the bottom of his glass. he’s let his appearance grow more rugged over the past few months and your noticing of this brings an unwanted warmth to his aching bones. “and have the most kickass women in your lives to stop you from dying.”

he’s interested to know what life would be like under your protection.

discovering the answer brings the threat of pain, and loss, and an openness to vulnerability he can not afford himself, so he takes the safer option: “‘s easy stayin’ safe when you live in this fantasy land. doubt your mutt’d last any longer than a day out in reality.”

with you as its protector.

he doesn’t say it and, still, it somehow hovers in the space between you both, a heavy, syrupy implication that slips down your throats and threatens to suffocate you. he watches you choke on it, coughing on his cruelty and feigning it to be a simple clearing of your throat. your eyes glue themselves on the dog, delicate fingers smoothing over the well-groomed hairs down its back.

survival has turned him into a man who knows when to seize an opportunity, and this is one he takes with both hands, basking in the simplicity of staring, watching, observing you without the crime of being caught.

but i could keep you safe.

he toys with the danger of uttering such a thing aloud. it’s not the first time he’s thought it. truthfully, he’s unsure when it first nestled its way into his mind.

his memory, which ails him more than it aids him these past years, would have him believe it was way before the dog had even appeared, back when it was just bill, frank and you. a few whiskeys in and a campfire lit for you all to gather for warmth around- why you’d all chosen to sit out in the gardens on a winter’s night joel remains unsure of to this day-, it was frank who’d prompted the question. “where were you all when... this started?” tess went first, braver than most people he knows, sharing stories of a version of herself he’ll never meet.

he never imagined her working in a bank.

bill, with reluctance, took the next step, keeping his account factual and to the point. “was shit-faced drunk and getting my stomach pumped.” he’d been quick to skim over the story of the young nurse who’d guided him to safety out the hospital, losing her own life in exchange for his survival. she was barely out of school. “i knew her dad, bit of an asshole, but boy, was he proud of his baby for graduating.” frank couldn’t let him swim too deep in his thoughts, afraid a current of guilt would trap him and drown him in the depths of it, and so he raised his own voice and began his tale.

joel had always been a good listener. being a single parent to a teenage girl required him to be, or so... she would have had him believe, nights at the table set for two spent listening to the playground he-said-she-said gossip. years later and he at last prefers things this way, a rare gem of safety found in the act of saying nothing and hearing everything- that his hearing will allow. all this to say, he’d tried his best to pay attention to frank’s impassioned retelling of his heroic misadventures that had lead him to the unintentional arms of bill.

but you weren’t smiling.

he watched you, you watched the dancing flames, face stoic and drained of that natural shine his eyes had only just started to be able to gaze upon without the threat of being blinded by such light.

the desire crept up on him like a tiger to it’s prey, hiding in the far off bushes until the opportunity to strike presented itself and the feeling lunged for joel’s back, gripping him in its claws and piercing his ribcage with its gnashing teeth. with each bite, it plagued him with the delusions of a wandering mind, imagination left free to run laps around his head with visions of you from another life, another time, another set of people gathered round a dining table. he’d wanted to hear about the ones you’d lost, and comfort you with all the things he hated hearing (“you’ll keep ‘em alive, in spirit and memory!” “those we remember never truly die!”). he’d needed to bend a knee and swear a vow to be the one to stand between you and death, to fight for your survival on your behalf. ‘could keep you safe. there, then, the thought did cross his mind.

he’d washed it down with a swig of lukewarm, flat beer.

“-could fix it, you know. i’m good with my hands.”

he almost chokes on his own breath.

i'm good with my hands, it swims in circles round his mind, replaying and echoing off the walls of his skull. and he knows- oh, how he knows- that he’ll be replaying it in those moments of solitude for the next few nights, weeks, months- however long it may take till he forgets the way such thought-provoking words sound on your lips.

“what?” the question leaves him harsher than he intends, drawing an enemy line between you both with the foul sound of it. in the corner of his eye, he swears he sees you flinch backwards, physically recoiling from the disdain-filled bullet he fires in your direction.

the mutt in your lap retreats, hackles rising as it turns to face joel once more.

he sees it, in the dog’s brutal protectiveness over you, this similarity you claim exists.

“your watch, it’s broken.”

“hadn’t noticed,” he’s retreating into his own space now, mentally and physically, scraping the legs of his chair against the ground as his mind works to strengthen those walls that threaten to crumble so often in your presence. “don’t need ya to fix it.”

you pull a face, brows furrowing and lips pouting. confusion.

“don’t you want to know the time?” you ask, as if time could ever be relevant in a rotten world where down is up, and up is down, and joel miller is not the overprotective father to the most delicate creature the god he’d stopped believing in had gifted him, just to force him to watch as life snatched her away.

“i don’t keep it for the time.”

you smile, and this one’s a killer, piercing straight through the cages of his ribs to carve itself into his withered heart.

the german shepherd relaxes with the rebrightening of your aura, shaking out the tension from its body before sauntering its way back over to joel, ball in mouth and tail wagging excitedly, as if it hadn’t just contemplated having its first taste of human flesh.

he’s throwing the toy in a matter of minutes, enjoying the repeated run and retrieve game, and the renewed silence that comes along with it. nature sings its tune with rustling leaves, cawing crows, and pounding paws. it’s almost so easy to leave your offer, your words, his broken watch in the rearview mirror of this otherwise pleasant afterno-

“ooh, so there’s a story to tell!” you’re blinding him with your excitement, lithe limbs leaning forward in your own chair in an attempt to reach closer, table between you be damned. “i’ve never heard any of the joel miller backstory, this should be-”

“i get that likin’ everyone is your thing, but would’ya give it a rest?”

nature falls silent.

skies grow dull.

you juggle sadness.

there’s a crash that comes from within the house, followed by the unmistakable sound of tess’ sailor mouth, cursing whichever delicate dish she’s broken into smithereens with the help of her accident prone hands. the dog’s lain itself down upon the grass, ball between it’s paws as it begins to bite, and chew, and break it under the pressure of its canines.

joel wonders what the mutt’s practicing for.

“sure,” then, with the return of your voice, all sounds resume, harmony upon planet earth once more. only, the gates have been shut in his face and joel finds himself forced to watch as everything unfolds from the outside, an unwelcome visitor forced out into exile with the fungal freaks and the inhumane. “but you’re wrong. i don’t like everyone.”

“‘s that so.” his eyes roll. the hole he’s dug for himself sinks deeper, casting you higher up on the pedestal joel will always be wiling to place you on.

“yeah,” you’ve risen out your chair, gifting him the view of how the fabric of your dress dances above your knee, a final twist of the knife in his heart that he lets you pierce his flesh with each time he surrenders himself to your existence. “i don’t like you, joel.”

the hours come and go, but your words linger like a bad tattoo, shamefully engraved into his skin and banning him to a life of noticing the horrendous thing each time he passes by his own reflection.

we’re staying, for tonight. tess had called the shots, and he’s been learning not to argue when she gives him one of her stern looks, biting down on the comments he’d wanted to make of the dangers of being out of the qz for too long, which would likely earn him nothing but a shrug and the reminder that they both were off duty the following day

the nights are beginning to grow darker as winter grows nearer, leading bill and frank- mostly frank- to excuse themselves to bed, bidding the two visitors with a final reminder to make themselves comfortable in whichever room they can find. if only joel could remember which door leads to yours.

the two women in his life remain awakened, passing a bottle of wine between each other as you both converse back and forth, catching each other up on one another’s life, satiating that craving for mundane gossip.

tess recounts the scandal of the poor boy who’d been caught sleeping with a fedra agent’s wife, you whisper that frank and bill had been fighting again recently. the memory of being ambushed by raiders- now dead raiders- comes to life once more with the help of tess’ voice, while the promise to uncover what exactly bill and frank were hiding from you as of late is sealed in your words.

at some point, he lays himself to rest atop the couch, legs stretched out and arms crossed over his chest, ignoring the squeeze of the fabric over his forearms as the too-small flannel struggles to contain the muscles forged by the need to survive. at another point, he’s lulled to sleep by the lullaby of your mingling voices, a safety blanket draping itself over his tired body and enveloping him in the comforts of having that which he struggles to care so little for, so near him once more.

-n’t tell me you’re a virgin.

the words are muffled as the man slips back into consciousness, a frown coming to rest on his forehead as he battles against the demons urging him awake, the nightmarish memories of car crashes, and soldiers, and so much red chasing him away from the sleep he longs for so badly.

a protest rings true in his head and his ears.

was gonna say. knew you were young, but not that young.

it’s the sound of your laughter that awakens him fully, saving him from the tortures of his own mind.

“god, no! me and my ex, we... a few times. it was alright, i guess. i just, yeah, there’s not much to miss.”

he’s unwilling, unable to reopen his eyes, curling in on himself as he rolls over onto his side. a groan slips past his lips, one he’s hoping tess and you will dismiss as nothing more than the sleep-filled rambles of a dreaming man.

neither of you make any acknowledgement of him.

“not much to miss?! sweet christ, you’re breaking my fuckin’ heart.” he’s learnt over time the common traits of a drunken tess. each word becoming an exclamation, curses becoming more frequent, and that irritating habit she’s picked up of imitating his own accent. there’s no need to bother opening his eyes, joel’s already sure he’ll find his companion with flushed cheeks and glassy eyes. “i’d give up a hand for some head!”

you must do something, pull a face or shake your head, for the sound of tess’ renewed shock fills the room. he wonders, as the sound bounces off the walls, how late into the night it’s grown.

late enough that the cicadas singing outside the window are now accompanied by the hoots of an owl.

“you’ve got to be shittin’ me.”

“it bores me!”

“it bores you!?”

the couch beneath joel creaks as he shifts once more, turning his back on you both as the ability to contain his laughter grows harder with each word you exchange and each gasp tess gives. the last thing he needs is to be caught eavesdropping on your sex life like some dirty old pervert.

the crueler part of his mind replays your voice, i don’t like you, and the knife twists in his guts this time.

you like tess. love her, even. it’s been that way since the first time you’d met the duo, eyes giving one look over the woman before the smile on your face grew even wider, voice as sweet as honey sighing out finally someone with a pair of boobs, i’m bored of the sight of my own. joel’d gotten caught up in the thought of how he’d never tire of such a sight that he’d failed to acknowledge your greeting towards him, catching just the moment you drew your outstretched hand back to your side and offered him an understanding smile.

maybe that was the moment you decided you didn’t like him.

“must not have been doin’ ya right,” the bottle of southern comfort is working its wonders on the older woman, accent growing further and further from its true nature with each glass she nurses. joel hears the faint sound of ice smacking against glass and knows it must be yours. you’ve always struggled with liquors, slipping as many ice cubes as you can manage into a glass in hopes that they’ll eventually melt and water the alcohol down. it’s oddly endearing, you think no one has noticed. “this fella of yours.”

joel has no right to despise the idea of you and some fella.

he does so, regardless.

“well,” he imagines the shape of your meek smile and the way you shrug your shoulders. “we were each others firsts.”

“that’s no excuse! trust i left mine cryin’ into her pillow the first time i went down.” tess and he have a silent agreement to never speak of the nights joel would take refuge on their beaten-up couch while tess indulges herself between someone’s thighs in the bedroom. no discussing the sounds she pulls from her concubines, no addressing the wet patches left behind to stain their shared sheets, and definitely no speaking on how his hand winds up stained in his own cum.

you scoff and follow it up with a saccharine laced giggle, so sweet its bound to rot your teeth if you even attempt to hold it in. “what, are you offering your services?”

this he likes less than the image of you with some fella, the thought of having to lay upon a mattress on which tess had raised you to heaven while he once again remained locked out in the dark leaving his skin crawling with unwarranted rage.

“‘as sure as i am that you’re sweet all over, ‘fraid to tell you i like my women a little older than you.”

he knows he should do the same, should lust after those women his own age who shoot him carnal looks in the streets of the qz. it should be skin his own age that he longs to taste, and eyes who’ve seen as much as his own he wants to stare into, and lips as cruel as the ones he owns that he fights off the urges to kiss. but he can’t, and he won’t.

and you’re the one to blame.

you, with the glow of a thousand suns. you, with the hands that tend to flowers instead of corpses. you, with the gentle nature he’d have to spend the rest of his days fighting off every other living thing just to protect.

his own self being the first he’d need fight.

joel wonders what he’d missed in his hours- if it had even been so long- of rest, how the playground gossiping dissipated into reminiscing the pleasures of supple flesh and the sins of unfulfilling lovers. sleep steals him away once more before he can find the answers.

the next time he awakens, he’s drowning in a plight of cruel memories, a cold and brutal ocean of faces, places, and traces of the ephemeral sentiment of happiness he’d possessed once upon a time, back when the price of letting one’s guard down was not so high.

he’s learnt, with time, that losing her comes in waves. some small, meaningless little things, that ripple joel’s surface and coast gently over his dirt ridden skin. others, tsunamis. big, angry, all imposing. they’re born in ground-shaking explosions of grief, building speed, and height, and weight the closer they grow to crashing over him.

amidst the passing of time, he’s tried to keep himself busy in his awakened hours, to keep his mind occupied and avoid thinking about her too much. but the waves always come back, no matter how hard he tries to fight them or swim away from them. they catch him off guard, crashing over him when he least expects it. in the middle of a raid, lost in thought and standing ten inches deep in grime, blood, infected, and suddenly the weight of her absence will hit him like a ton of bricks.

the currents grow more violent whenever he closes his eyes.

this evening, it had been a minuscule wave, yet it’s damage still leaves him with sweat slicked skin. he reenters the land of the living choking on his own fear and shooting up-right, hardly registering his surroundings till his feet hit solid ground. the gentle, barely-there croon of a sinatra record punctuates the room alongside the dim glow of a lightbulb which flickers with the threat of expiring and leaving naught but the moonlight to wash over the dark of the night. across from him is tess, nursing a half-emptied cup against her chest and wearing tired eyes. snoring comes from below him, where joel finds he’s a mere foot away from having stepped upon the sleeping dog, curled in on itself and laying soundly by his side.

you take up no space of this room.

neither the dog nor the drunk pay him any mind as he pushes up onto his creaking knees, stretching out his limbs in a fight to undo the tension in his aching bod. languid steps carry him out into the hall, where he freezes under the self-questioning of where he’s going.

there are three answer to this: where he should, where he could, and where he would.

he should find himself a bedroom, perhaps be ostentatious enough to rid himself of those stale clothes and let the warmth of running water wash away the sins he’d committed throughout the day. a good night’s sleep, atop a mattress where springs do not dig into his back and the sheets are clean as could be, it would do him good.

he could head towards the kitchen, quench that thirst that he’s awoken with, cottonmouth and a headache to go with it too. perhaps he’ll find himself something to eat, indulge in the luxury of readily available food just this once, he’s sure frank wouldn’t mind. bill definitely would, but that’s not something he’ll need care about when he’s miles out and heading back to the qz.

he would try find you, open whichever door it is that leads into the haven that must be your bedroom. he imagines its clean, and organised, and smells of some syrupy lavender that is bound to nauseate him as he smothers his face into your bedsheets, eyes shut, and mind relaxed, the threat of those violent waves no concern to him as he anchors himself with an arm around your warm skin. skin he’s never felt, yet he stands firm in his belief it must be the most soothing thing to touch, as gentle and inviting as the heart it keeps safe within it.

i don’t like you, joel.

those words stop him from trying.

he tells himself it’s for the best.

with a mind of their own, his legs have made the choice for him and deliver him outside the opening to the kitchen. he swallows down a gulp of his own saliva at the prospect of a glass of water. the door’s already half-opened, and joel nearly thanks christ for it as the fear of waking anyone with the squeaking of the handle is eliminated. the darkness of the night encompasses the room, even with the moon’s shine reflecting off every surface it touches: the counters, the knife stand, the metal drawer handles, the refrigerator.

the refrigerator.

it’s open, a blue light shining out of it and illuminating anything it its proximity. a subtle beeping noise rings from it, and suddenly joel’s back in his thirties, dead-beat yet well-intentioned brother stealing the food off his own plate as he beckons his pre-teen daughter back into the kitchen.

keep leavin’ this open and it’s a job you’ll be gettin’ this summer, not a dog.

she never lived long enough to get either.

he catches something move beneath the artificial light. cautious at first, it’s all the more startling to find the object of his ire and the embodiment of his desire stood leaning back against the countertop, a glass full of orange liquid pressed to a mouth that parts and welcomes in the sugary sweet delight.

“why aren’t ya sleepin’?” the words rasp out his throat, catching and scratching on the parts of him that still yearn for something to wet his tongue with.

beneath the light, you shrug, “could ask you the same thing, texas.”

he curses tess for teaching you such a nickname.

he curses himself more for the way you saying it twists up his insides.

you’re teasing him, smile a little looser and eyes less focused than he’s used to seeing. whether you’re tipsy or simply delirious with exhaustion, joel remains unaware.

he grunts, daring to take a few steps further into the kitchen. the door behind him closes over and give the illusion of the space becoming smaller, tighter, more compact.

“i asked first.” you laugh, at him. full on chest-rumbling, hand over your belly, head thrown back- so abruptly it nearly crashes against the corner of the opened cabinet door. the corner of his mouth is curling upwards before he can catch himself. he hopes the refrigerator light shows less of him than it shows of you, bare legs, and messed hair, and pointed nipples all on display for his undeserving eyes. “‘s so funny, huh?”

“nothing, nothing,” he successfully fights off the urge to follow the drop of orange juice that spills down the side of your mouth, over your chin, down your neck, disappearing beneath the collar of your dress. perhaps he is not as successful as he believes. “just never heard the joel miller say something so childish. you’ve usually got your panties all in a bunch if someone so much as looks at you for too long.”

you make way as he inches closer, sliding yourself over to rest against the island counter. a fragrance of things he can’t quite pinpoint, but enjoys nonetheless, wafts in his face as he travels down the path to the sink. uncouth and unbothered, joel opens the tap and cups his hands beneath the stream of water.

“you know there’s a cupboard full of glasses right next to you, right?” you call out behind him as the man brings water to his dry lips, splashing and just about guiding his head beneath the stream. the thirst does not budge. he hums an acknowledgement of you, yet continues with his method.

by the time he switches the water off, you’ve made yourself busy, back facing him while you work at something atop the counter, a consistent chop-chop-chop filling the silence that settles between you both.

“i’m making soup,” you state, like there’s nothing quite more logical you could be doing at whatever-o’clock in the morning it is. “make sure you take some with you when you leave. tess said she’s been fighting off a cold the past few days, need you to keep her warm and fed for me.”

would you do the same for him, if you knew he’d been the one to catch that damned cold in the first place? four days of just about coughing up his lungs, and not a single soul- not even his tess- had offered soup, nor warmth, nor sympathy. he’d not needed it, until now, when he hears you gifting it to someone else.

i don’t like you, joel.

of course you would do the same. not because you care, nor because doing otherwise would way heavy on your conscious, but because you’re nice. nice in a way he’ll never be, has never been. patient, welcoming, comforting, warm. all words that spring to mind when one thinks of you. they violently oppose the closed-off, angry, dark cloud that had rolled in years ago and casted it’s shadow over joel’s entire persona.

he straightens his back, weight shifting from one foot to another as he contemplates you from behind. the sway of your dress as you move has him in a trance, beckoning him closer before he can even realise he’s taken a step. his hands drip water onto the floor in a rhythm, and the record player sings in the distance as a reminder of tess, and your sweet out-of-tune humming fills the empty kitchen with a brightness greater than the moon, but that’s not what joel hears.

i don’t like you, joel.

over and over, you taunt him without even trying, nailing the words into his head and heart, impaling him with your sweet condemnation. you’re not the first to say it, to his face or otherwise, yet you’re the first to evoke such a reaction out of him, to leave a lasting impression hours after you’d declared such a thing.

and, suddenly, joel’s angry. at you, at himself, at the sound of that damned knife in your hand slicing down onto the chopping board. the fog of his ire blurs his vision, rendering him to move blindly through the night.

only when he finds himself looming over you from behind does his vision clear.

a hand meets the curve of your hip and you gasp, leaving joel to wonder if it’s because the shock of his cold, damp touch or, simply, because it’s his touch. without a thought spared, he firms his grip, fingers squeezing tight enough he feels your flesh bulge between each one, a bruising promise joel gifts you.

you may leave your marks emotionally, but joel’s will always be physical.

“why,” he pulls in a breath, loading up the will to keep his voice a low rumble, a quiet disturbance in the night for no ears but your own to hear. “don’t ya like me?”

if not for the pause in your practiced movements, knife stilling midway through slicing a carrot, he’d believe you’re unaffected by his proximity. “why do you care?”

he scoffs, “i don’t.”

“hmm,” this hum is far less delightful than the way you’d been following along to whatever melody tess was playing in the living room. “sure sounds like you do.”

“yeah, well, i don’t,” he insists, and he swears he almost feels the way it only digs deeper the hole he’s created for himself.

joel knows he cares. it’s been burning at his skin and itching on his mind since the moment you’d welcomed yourself to a little bit of unfiltered honesty, dropping the perfectly poised and eternally polite mask you’d worn since the moment he’d first met you, an attitude he loathes as much as he anticipates surrounding himself with it each time he’s tugged along for the trek to bill and frank’s.

what joel doesn’t know is why he cares. there’s nothing to be desired about him, no traits to respect and certainly no looks to admire. he’s near crafted his entire being in a way that makes sure of this, the more undesirable his presence is, the less likely he is to be approached, be it by other people or fate itself.

maybe there was a part of him that had wrongfully imagined you being the exception.

instead, you’re stood barefoot in the latest of hours, knife working away the vegetables in front of you, dress sticking to skin beneath his damp hand, and you don’t like him.

not one bit.

joel grabs at your hips harder, his free hand curling round the shape of your left forearm. his feet shuffle forwards, until there comes a point where one would struggle to make out where you end and he begins. his chest pressed to your back, his muscular legs trapping your soft thighs, his forehead digging into the side of your head so intensely it threatens to shatter both your craniums and leave nothing but dust made by bones blown into smithereens.

he inhales, and finds you don’t smell of lavender.

“for the record,” he watches your movements over your shoulder, entranced with the back and forth sawing of the knife through unidentified vegetables. ‘s like how i sliced that raider’s throat, he thinks, and instantly regrets it. no part of him should ever be compared to you. “i don’t like ya either.”

he’s lying through his teeth, hoping you don’t notice.

the knife never ceases its movement. back and forth, back and forth. chop, chop, chop. blurs of greens, and oranges, and more greens cover the counter before you. it’s oddly soothing, this repeated and unbroken pattern, reminding joel of times he’d found comfort in the mundaneness of cooking a meal after an emotionally exhausting day. perhaps, this has the same affect on you, a momentary lifejacket to keep yourself afloat amongst the waves that haunt you awake.

the hand on your forearm travels, mind of its own, drawing up the shape of your shoulder with featherlight touches that contradict the way his nails dig deeper into the the skin you hide beneath the waistline of your dress.

“that’s not news,” you must think he’s blind to the hitch in your breath when his fingers slip over your pulse-point.

it’s his turn to respond with a hum.

“you only like yourself,” words more untrue have never been spoken before the man who’s every moment is spent drowning in his loses. his wandering touch halts. “a little selfish, if you ask me. but, that’s just what i think.”

this strikes a nerve. fury commands his hand into a fist and fingers find themselves tangled in the tresses of your hair. the realisation of how surprisingly soft it feels barely finishes registering when he’s pulling on it, dragging your head along with, till it lays flat on his puffing chest and your eyes stare up at him. “d’ya know what i think?”

even upside down, your beauty is striking.

“no, unlike you i don’t care what you think about-” joel tugs on your hair once more.

“i think you’re a brat. a silly little girl who thinks she can smile and get away with murder.” you could. he’d forgive you as you soak your hands in the blood you draw from him. knife in the heart, bullet through the brain, bat to the face, he’d slip away easily from this life if only to have you smile as he goes.

“you’re hurting me,” you whine, joel growls.

animalistic, beastly, a rabid animal sinking its claws into its defenceless prey. his gaze dances over your features, catching himself before he can sink deep into your captivating eyes, tracing the shape of your mouth, slipping down the peaks of your collarbones.

your dress- red, a colour joel miller will no longer associate with bleeding wounds and stained weapons- sits tight on your chest, squeezing the swell of your chest beneath the fabric, and gives away all your secrets.

“you like it,” he speaks in awe, unable to pull his eyes off the two stiff buds that poke against the red fabric.

“no, i don’-” dampness follows wherever his hand goes, fleeting as he makes the journey around your waist and up your side, crawling higher and higher to where he can feel your heart beating from within your chest. “joel.”

he retightens his grip on your hair, aiding you with the way your curve your spine and force yourself deeper into his uncaring, ungentle, enamoured touch. whoever joel had been in a past life must have moved mountains or performed miracles to grant him the luck to be holding you this way, the fingers he’d gifted with nothing but the cocking of guns and the feel of his own pulsating lust now expertly tweaking at one of your stiff nipples, all thoughts of the fabric scratching at your sensitive skin dissipating into the abyss as he realises you’re enjoying the pain.

“heard ya, earlier, in the living room,” at the time, he’d been mortified to be overhearing such intimate words between you and tess. the blood that insists on rushing to his crotch now wants you to know, to hear the admission of guilt be spoken from his own mouth. “ talkin’ bout your past.”

he doesn’t specify.

he doesn’t need to.

you give away your shock with parted lips, widened eyes, frozen eyelashes, pupils staring up at him like a wounded fawn he’s about to take his first bite out of and, hopefully, it won’t be the last one.

“tess turned you down,” the hand on your chest switches sides, donning your other breast with some much needed attention. his hand must still carry residue of the water, for you gasp and shut your eyes in the shock of his touch, your own fingers shooting up to scratch at his wrist. near convinced you mean to push him away, the pressure against his hand that pushes deeper into his unholy affection has him realising otherwise. “i wouldn’t.”

you say nothing. joel pulls harder.

“too bad i’m-” you cut yourself off as he presses himself closer to you, your poor hips bound to awaken with bruises from the counter he’s got you pressed against. with a distance so small he can hear your teeth grind, joel watches you like a hawk. the twitch in your brow, the flutter of your eyelids, the bobbing of your throat as you silence what he imagines would be an otherworldly kind of moan, a whine he’d let kiss his ears and wind up poisoning himself with the torture of it replaying in his head each waking moment till he kicks the bucket, once and for all. the want to see you fall apart evolves into a need. “too bad i’m not offering you the chance.”

joel miller is a hot blooded man, at his core, weak to emotions and vulnerable to the warmths of flesh. with notches on his bedpost and a tally of lives beneath his belt, he sees little wrong with taking what he needs.

“who said anything about an offer?”

the descent to the floor is far from graceful, with bitten back groans of pain as clicking noises resound throughout the room while his joints bend and break in an effort to get him where he needs to be, where he’s needed to be for far longer than merely this exchange on kitchen grounds: on his knees for you.

a part of him would prefer it if you weren’t wielding a butchers knife.

the other part wishes you were facing him, eyes full of that repressed anger, hatred and discontent you likely harbour for him as you point the blade down at him and threaten to paint the floors with his blood. you’ve yet to do that, and so he takes it as his queue to progress.

smoothing his hands up your legs, he admires the landscapes of your body from this angle, with legs longer than any tree in the amazonian jungle and curves with peaks that resemble the mountains of the himalayas. arriving at the top of your knees, the hem of your dress both welcomes and conceals his touch, inviting him into the wonderful world it hides beneath it yet denying him the privilege of feasting his eyes on your paradise, an island of safety amongst the open ocean of his mind.

your breathing is measured, precise, too rhythmical to be natural, the subconscious action now turned into a practiced routine you mean to maintain nonchalance with. perhaps you’re yet to realise that, while he may remain indifferent to those that surround him, joel knows how to read people. and, right now, you’re a whole novel of lust, awaiting for someone to open up your pages and drink in every lyrical prose you promise to tell.

joel finds purchase mid-way up your thighs, hands sliding around to the front of them to grip the buttery smooth skin and ground himself in the reality he kneels before.

you breathe in, you breathe out.

one knee buckles, ever so slightly, the weight of you collapsing into his welcoming hold. he revels in the feeling of supporting you, in every meaning of the word, thumbs not even waiting on a command from his consciousness to begin soothing your tingling skin with a gentle back and forth movement to match the knife in your hand.

inhale, exhale.

your legs straighten once more, a hand of his winds its way back out from under your skirt and shoots up to grab your free one, dragging it down his pits of desire.

“hold,” he’s parched all over again, mouth drier than the texan wastelands on a hot summer’s day. all he can do to survive is peel up that infuriatingly soft, red fabric of your dress, skin unveiling itself to his hunger struck eyes. with the skirt bunched up, he shoves it into your awaiting palms, pinning your hand against your own waist. “don’t move.”

where he expects protest, he receives more breathing.

lace covers your skin, a delicate shade of a colour his eyes can’t quite distinguish in the dark of the night. one flicker of his sight to the very core of your body and he notices it, that tell-tale sign that you’re enjoying this little display of attention, despite what your measured breaths may have him believe. a wet patch, your wetness. the stickiest, sweetest of honeys that only a woman like you can possess, and a man like him should never bare himself witness to.

curiosity gets the better of him- one day, joel hopes, this will get him killed- and his touch is reaching for the lacy fabric, fingers curling themselves in the waistband of your panties and the fabric that covers your right asscheek before curling his hand into a fist, tugging upwards.

in and out, shaky breathing comes from above.

the lace pulls tight on your delicate skin, no choice but to nestle itself in the slit of your cunt as two pretty soaked lips peak out from each side. a heady smell he can only begin to describe as stiflingly sweet, tongue-tingling tanginess hits his nose. he makes sure to take a deep breath, letting the blood rush straight to his head- the one that sits packed uncomfortably in his tightened trousers.

delectable as sin, you keen back into his fist, back curving ever so slightly. there’s a tremor in the hold you have on the fabric of your dress. joel basks in the visual affect he’s beginning to have on you, no need to doubt if the fabric of your underwear rubs at your likely aching clit. he wonders if the sting of the lace digging into your skin hurts. he thinks it must hurt.

his fist curls tighter, pulls higher.

“ah,” at last, a ripple in your surface. though you still wield a knife, the carrot you’d been failing to chop rolls off the counter and onto the floor, lost somewhere in joel’s peripheral vision.

“shut up,” he grunts, like it doesn’t make his balls throb to hear you whine. “people are tryin’ to sleep.”

you scoff, and for a moment you seem to have rediscovered your composure. “tess is drunk as a sailor, and the old men could sleep through nuclear warfare.”

“‘s that an invitation to see how loud i can get ya,” he’s still caught in the way you mold against the lace, slickened skin carrying a reflection of the moonlight. this, he thinks, is what all them poets were writing about in their prose of love and beauty. “or a challenge?”

“it’s an invitation to stop lecturing me on volume control,-” you catch yourself, he realises, right before you can gift him some nickname a sweet girl like you would never use. asshole, dickhead, bastard, he’s heard them all and, still, he wants them on your tongue, in his mouth, condemning him for all the brutish, oafish ways he masks his obsession for you.

as coquettish as it may be, painting a picture worthy of a front-page on some playboy magazine, the sight of lace becomes a nuisance he no longer holds the patience for. so he strips you of it, hand moving to pull the garment down, down, down the length of you, till it hits your ankles. he awaits no movement of your own, taking it upon himself to lift each of your feet individually out the leg-holes.

it’s merely impulse that has him shoving the soiled lace into his back pocket, though he’s sure he’ll make use of them on lonely nights.

“you’re drippin’” his proclamation is ego-driven, pride swelling in his chest as he takes in the full sight of your bare heat. the view is a little obscured from behind you, but with the right amount of tilting of your hips at a certain angle and the widening of your legs, he’s bound to sit front row and centre for your private show. “‘s actually a little pathetic, sweetheart. is it cause ya like it when men get mean wit’ ya?”

he can imagine the way you’d roll your eyes at his words, and it has him thinking about how you’d look with your eyes rolling back for different reasons, reasons he’s about to gift you.

but first, he curls one hand around your ankle and tugs the limb along as far as he wants it. much better, he now faces no blockage in the path up to your slit, freely letting his wandering hands ascend to his newfound heaven. perhaps he’ll revisit the life of gospel, if you promise to be the altar he prays before.

cool fingers to warm skin, you swallow a gasp a little too late for joel to not notice as he drags the tips of his middle finger up the length of your slit. soft, puffy lips part for him, until he presses against that special button that’s bound to turn on your engines.

rolling his finger over your clit a few times, he refamiliarises himself with the female anatomy, with your anatomy, memorising each soft bump and meaty lump he finds along the way.

it happens so sudden, and unwillingly, the way his mind switches to thinking of tess. he wonders what exactly it is she does to those poor things she sends home on shaky legs, where she even begins to touch them. joel imagines she makes use of what she has and starts with her fingers.

so he does the same.

working over your slippery wetness, he coats the tip of his middle finger with it, till he finds what he’s been searching for: the gateways to your heaven, your entrance. he breaches your walls with that single digit and somehow that’s enough to have you squeezing around him so tightly he wonders if blood still manages to flow to his digit.

two, three, four pumps of his hand and he’s introducing his pointer finger too, pressing them both into you to witness the ways you mould around this wider stretch, the lips of your cunt a pair of cushions his knuckles collide against each time he fucks his fingers in.

“so now you shut up. ‘s the matter, huh?” he’s contradicting himself and he doesn’t even care, too busy focusing on curling his fingers inside you, delighting in the feel of that spongy tissue they press against. “am i too borin’ for ya?”

“you’re the most infuriating man i’ve ever- oh!”

a tongue meets skin.

the knife clatters onto the counter.

you lurch forward.

his hand pulls you back.

“tess was right, ya know?” he can still taste you on his tongue, nothing more than a simple lick over your slit and your salty pleasure already seeps deep into his veins, staining his very being with the memory of his new favourite flavour. he pulls his fingers out, slipping them up to your clit. three little taps to the pulsing bud- tap, tap, tap- and he’s slipping them into his mouth, tongue working overtime to clean up every last drop of you that coats him. “that boy of yours wasn’t doin’ ya right.”

the common sense that screams at him to not feel envy over some ex-lover, someone who was likely barely even an adult at the time and no longer appears to be around, is no match for the green eyed beast that commands him to tell you, without using words, that he can do better- touch you better, protect you better, fuck you better, if you’d just let him.

‘could keep ya satisfied.

that’s a new thought, one he’s never needed before yet never wanted more, a burning ache to be worthy of your trust, affection, lust. he’ll never forget the first time he thinks it, mouth salivating at the sight of you.

“is this the part you say some cheesy line straight out a porno? what ya need is a man, a man like me!” the softness of your giggle is still sharp enough to cut through the tension, god it’s never sounded sweet, and joel finds himself freely smiling into the darkness, yet still too stubborn to laugh at the deep voice you attempt to imitate him with.

“well, was you who said it,” his mouth finds it’s way back onto your soaked heat, taking his time to work his tongue up the length of it, his saliva mixing itself in a nasty cocktail with your wetness. he imagines the air is cold against your skin, and that you like it, memory of those hardened nipples hidden beneath the fabric of your dress. “but if ya insist.”

diving in head first had always been his style, from his first lover to his last, and to now, knees aching on the kitchen floor. the tip of his tongue dances round your clit, tantalising you to grind your hips to the rhythm of his sinful touches.

licking into you, he’s reminded how much he enjoys that swelling in the chest that only comes from bringing another pleasure.

he’d not been a perfect lover, far from it, but he’d liked to believe at one point he’d been trained by only experience that comes with age, years of touching wrong and kissing badly to learn the right ways to make those he shared a bed- or a counter, or a backseat, or a club bathroom- with see angelic white as they writhed and squirmed under his touch. you’re lucky to have him now, matured by past lovers and broadened by age, with all the knowledge he needs to open your eyes to how a man pleasures, kisses, loves.

he’s out of practice, sure, with recent years adding notches to his belt that were merely frantic, unexpected, barely undressed run-ins with strangers, in strange places, cock barely getting a moments affection before he’d be spilling his seed and tucking it, limp, back into the confines of his trousers and locking it away beneath a zip.

what a perfect excuse you are, for joel to remaster the arts of lust.

it’s messy, wet dripping down his chin and staining itself into the stubble of his growing facial hair. it’s noisy, his mouth openly groaning depraved joy into your warmth as you sing him a song of sweet euphoria, slowly building towards that crescendo on the horizon. it’s animalistic, barely human as he revokes all earthly needs such as rest, and food, and socialising, his mind, and soul, and heart, and cock all screaming in unison to spend whatever days he shall possess on his knees before you.

and all the while you writhe and wriggle, some times running away from him touch, other times rutting so far back into him that you threaten to suffocate him somewhere between your warm thighs, and sugar sweet cunt, and the two well-rounded globes of your ass.

his only saving grace is that he can’t see you.

hearing your pretty whines, and hand-muffled moans, and heavy intakes of breath is enough to curse him for the rest of his waking days, condemned to wander the wastelands of earth knowing the noises you make on the brinks of pleasure, with a touch-starved man satiating his hunger for flesh and blood with the sugary sins of your soaked cunt.

burrowing deeper into you, his consciousness rips through the fog of his lust to curse out his perversions as the tip of his hooked nose bumps against the puckered entrance of your ass. it does nothing to stop him tearing his tongue away from your clit, flattened as he drags it over the expanse of your cunt, and over your taint, and up the crack of your behind.

“n- ah,” you can’t deny him while sounding so eager for more, the tip of his tongue now circling your back entrance, mimicking the treatment previously given to your little pearl. “no, don’t, not there.”

next time, he thinks, we’ll try that next time.

sights returned to his previous desires, he works to rip every sigh, and every whine, and every dirty little song you’ll grace him with. the sound of whatever record tess has put on in the other room becomes a safety blanket, dousing you both in the warm protection of not being overheard.

and, then, he does it, he makes the ultimate mistake.

his eyes flicker to the left and he finds himself faced with the stove that sits within bill and frank’s- and, by an extension he does not enjoy to remember, your- kitchen. there’s little that’s remarkable about the appliance, just your standard, everyday oven that he’s sure you’ve spent countless hours cooking up those comforting meals he’s come to anticipate each time tess tells him they’re due a visit.

except, the oven door is made of glass.

glass which now paints the most pornographic masterpiece for no eyes but his own. you, with hands gripping the island’s counter like your life depends on it, and the skirt of that goddamn dress he’s envied all evening for the way it got to rest against the warmth of your thighs now bunched up in your tight grip, and your head thrown back, curving your spine in a way that has him wondering about the other ways he’d be able to bend and break you beneath his touch.

and then there’s him, down on his knees like a devotee laying himself down to worship his goddess, face burrowed in the space between your legs, mouth devouring you from behind with the help of his hands, the same ones that had strangled a man less than a day before and reigned fire down on countless others for years, that now grip the meat of your thighs to pull you back onto him, fucking his tongue into your sopping heat.

the image will haunt him more than the face of any man he’s killed.

“d’ya touch yourself, sol?” you don’t answer him, but that’s okay. in a sweet change of pace, joel miller’s perfectly fine with talking enough for the both of you. “yeah, bet ya do. late at night, right? once you’re all alone in bed. ya seem like the kind who can make herself scream.”

you back into him, smothering him under the weigh of your body. becoming his holy grail, he drinks from you like it’s the key to eternal life, and what a way of living this would be, time disregarded as nothing but meaningless while your bodies melt together in the heat of passion.

fucking his fingers back inside, he becomes frantic beneath the need to make you cry, fall completely apart with only his hands to hold you together. “let me do the honours this time though.”

you don’t scream, can’t scream, hand over mouth muffling whatever profanities and theatrical proclamations he rips from within you with the stroke of his agile tongue, the only muscle of his that’s yet to develop aches and pains. he imagines that will no longer ring true once he awakens past sunrise.

he’s unsure how much longer he works his tongue over you, slipping and sliding through the liquid pleasure, but it ends with fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him away and tilting his head up.

you’ve never looked more holy, moon casting it’s shine around you, eyes glossed with unshed tears, lips parted and swollen from the pressure your own teeth had bitten down on them with. your expression, he can’t quite read. not sad, not happy, not mad.

your eyes catch on something, abandoning his own for something closer to the floor, to which he follows and finds exactly what you’re staring at: the evidently dark patch that now stains the front of his jeans.

the discomfort of trekking back to the qz will now be tenfolds worse in the stains of his own pleasure.

“joel...” his name is nearly a beg, a prayer, an invitation. hand still in his hair, you tug, pulling him upwards off the ground. legs open wider and back arches deeper, a seductive sight that your body pleas for him with.

he swallows a groan, knees alleviated at last from the floor, and presses himself against you once more. strong arms crush you in an embrace, pulling you back into him as his head slips to rest against your shoulder. he’s capricious with the way he lets himself litter a few wet kisses over your neck, breathing in the smell of you.

“that,” you grind back into him, a torturer who takes his aged body as her victim and toys with his barely recovered cock, the cum in his trousers sticking uncomfortably to his skin. he pulls tighter on your body, grounding himself in the weight of it against his own to find the sanity to finish his sentence. “shouldn’t have happened.”

joel hopes no one awakens as he slams the door on the way out of the kitchen.

people once spoke of how the only certainties in life were death and taxes but, nowadays, the words don’t ring as true and the guarantee of life with taxes has morphed into something else entirely; a reality where death and time go hand in hand. as sure as tomorrow will arrive, death will come too, eventually. not today, however, and joel miller finds himself stood throwing a ball back and forth for a dog.

it chases and retrieves, trailing it’s happy self all the way back to him only to spit the ball down at his feet, siting and waiting to repeat the process once more. there’d been a time where this is all he’d wanted: white picket fence, dog in the yard, home-cooked meals filling a house with warmth.

that dream seems so far away now, even as he stands within it.

he cracks his back, huffing out a groan. “no, not again. my back’s fucked as it is, buddy,” with no one around to witness, joel lets himself crouch down onto his knees- both popping obnoxiously as he does so- and rakes his hand over the german shepherd’s head. it whines and makes an attempt to nudge the ball against him, protesting in the only way it can. a scratch to the ear does the trick to distract the animal, to which it tilts its head and forces itself deeper into his blunt nails. “not so bad, are ya? huh?” never in a million years did joel think he’d be talking to a dog when him and tess had set out for their routinely visit to the bill and frank’s. never would he have thought that would be the least shocking event to unfold on this trip.

he hears you before he sees you.

“you planning to make your knees familiar with every surface of this place, texas?”

he tries to rise, he truly does, but the four-legged foe he’d been petting mere seconds ago betrays him the instant it catches sight of you, charging past him and knocking him over in the process, ass to floor and head to sky.

the world above is a storm of greys, clouds swallowing one another with a looming threat of danger on the horizon and not a lick of the sun’s warmth seems to make its way through.

so instead, it sends you.

peering over him from above, hair a tangled mess, eyes a wreck of under-bags and sleepless tears, the collar of your jumper lowered just enough at this angle that he can see a tease of cleavage, you radiate a brightness like no other, more dangerous to his naked eyes than uv ray could ever be. he’s squinting again, frown etching itself on his forehead with the threat of becoming permanent soon. a few more years and his face will be nothing but frown lines and crows feet. at the very least, he considers, i’ve survived long enough to wrinkle.

the smile above him is worth a million laugh lines, a kindness laced within it that matches perfectly with the hand you hold out. when he does nothing but stare at it, you wriggle your fingers, enticing him to take a hold. he does most of the work, truthfully, but you play a part in pulling him back to his feet. upright once more, he can’t help but bask in the way he’s able to physically look down on you.

“thanks for tiring him out,” you’re the first to talk. you’re always the first to talk, and he curses you for it. “won’t need to walk him as far tonight.”

a queasy feeling overtakes him at the thought of you walking the dog alone at night, nothing but the moon to light your way. he’ll need to remember to tire the dog out next time he visits. “no problem, thanks... for feeding tess and i.”

“no worries!” you’re so kind, so good, smiling at him with a cheerful chirp in your voice. he can’t wrap his head around how you can bring yourself to treat him this way. “oh, actually, that’s why i came out here, i was looking for tess-” of course you were, when would you ever be looking for him? “hold on!”

you shoot off back inside so quickly that otis just reaches the doorway by the time you return. with an idle pet to his head as you pass by, joel once again sees, in the way such little affection can have the dog so elated, that resemblance between them you’d spoke of. in your hands, you carry an array of containers full of food- soup- each filled to the brim.

“i wanted to give you these, before you guys leave,” you’re explaining yourself, and joel wonders if it’s nerves that bring you to need constant babbling to fill any gaps of silence. he can’t imagine how he could make you nervous and therefore that thought is quick to be discarded. “i know the journey up here and back can be long, consider them a token of my appreciation towards you both for-”

“why don’t ya like me?” he cuts you off.

pathetic, he knows, but he can not stop himself, a deer caught in the headlights of your brightly burning, too-good-to-be-true, too-pure-to-be-fake personality.

you show no signs of hearing him, smile unwavering as you continue to hold out the boxes to him, “there should be enough to last you a few days, if you watch your proportions.”

it’s too much for him to handle- the food, the smiles, the sweetly glistening eyes-, and joel just has to know, needs an answer before the heat of his confusion consumes him entirely in its flames and leaves nothing but his smoking remains.

so he tries again, louder.

“why don’t ya like me?”

“and i’d probably say you’re best to heat it up, especially for tess,” you ignore him, again, lips stretching what can only be described as uncomfortably wider. “winter is sure coming in faster than last year, isn’t it?”

he grabs at your arm, fingers curling round the swell of your bicep as he speaks through gritted teeth, "answer me." like a frightened dog backed into a corner, he bares his teeth and yells his bark.

"for someone who doesn't care,” you try his patience, knowingly or not, and his grip tightens. you don’t flinch, welcoming the sting of his blunt and bitten nails against your flesh. “you sure do talk about my opinion a lot."

"answer the damn question, girl.”

“or, what?” you’ve got him there, he’ll admit, holding no real plan as to how to punish your silence. “you gonna give me the same treatment as last night?”

had he known you’d be so unabashed to mention the events on the kitchen floor so flippantly, as casually as one would speak about the weather, he’d never have dared to get on his knees. truthfully, he’d not given things a second thought, disregarding the later for the now, living in the moment with caution thrown to the wind over what the morning would bring. perhaps he’d hoped you’d been intoxicated enough to dismiss the memory as a nightmare, maybe he’d wished you’d keep away from him to free him of the volatile grip you have on his soul.

instead, you stand tall, proud, eyes fiercely staring back at his own as you challenge him to retaliate, mock you with none of those saccharine smiles you hide harsh tones behind.

joel says nothing.

“how about this, let’s make a deal, like the ones you and bill make.” inching closer, crowding in on his space and forcing him to take note of the smell of freshly cleaned clothes mixed in with your own fragrance. clean, warm, inviting, scents he’d never given meaning to before now. “you get me something, i’ll tell you what you want to know.”

he grunts out a response, hands meeting his hips as he juts out one knee, the shifting of weight between feet a perfect distraction to the rising tension in his worn-out jeans. “what d’ya want? ‘cause if it’s somethin’ like a gun, think again. i ain’t messing with none of bill’s strange politics on you havin’-”

“a dress.”

“a dress?” the statement has him quirking his brow, burning questions swimming in the depths of his eyes as he stares back at you.

“yes, and don’t look at me like that!” it’s hypocritical, he believes, for you to berate him for the looks he sends you when all you do is cast stones his way with your gaze yet shake him to his very core each time you smile. “i need a new one, my favourite one got ruined whilst making soup.”

unaware he’d even began to lean closer, joel’s quick to recoil, as if your words are bullets and his skin the target you hit on the bullseye every time.

“joel!” his name resonates from somewhere in the house.

neither of you dare to break eye contact. again, his name is yelled. this time, he manages to identify tess as the owner of the voice. habits have him used to running to her whenever she calls, but habits have never been caught between the choice of tess or you.

his feet remain glued to the ground.

tess yells once more and, though you speak up, you don’t dare look away. “think you might be needed inside, macho man. your missus is calling.”

“she ain’t my-”

“you two just gonna stand and stare at each other all day, or will you help a woman out already?” tess enters the scene somewhere behind you, a blur of her familiar shape standing out the front door.

only when your head spins and he no longer finds himself lost in the black of your eyes does joel take her in completely, hair clearly damp and complexion a little paled by her hungover body. in her arms, she struggles with the weight of a folded table. you approach first, he follows, his two hands aiding in carrying it out into the front yard as you retighten your grip on the boxes of soup in your arms.

“i should probably,” laying the containers down on the now unfolded table, you fidget with the sleeves in your hands, eyes downcast with something he can only read as guilt. he decides he much prefers the fire they hold when you berate him. “go check on the food, before it burns.”

you’re in the door and out his sight before he can so much as ask you to stay.

tess and him hit the road by noon. earlier than predicted, later than he’d wished for. the bite of cold already marks the air, despite the sun heating the world with its rays. he walks a little ahead, feigning ignorance to the repeated coughing coming from tess and racking his brain for answers.

answers to why he’d never noticed how hoarse she’d been sounding till you pointed it out. answers to what awaited them both upon returning to the qz. answers to when will be their next chance to visit the safe haven bill’s created. answers to why you don’t like him.

i don’t like you, joel.

it motivates him to walk quicker, faster, racing to put as much distance between himself and that damn kitchen floor, miles upon miles not enough to rid him of the dull ache in his knees that goes hand in hand with the throb within his too-tight-jeans. if he were alone, he’d break out in a sprint. but tess is here, he’s not alone, and home will simply have to wait on the passing of time to drag him back to it.

till then, he needs to find a dress.

#joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #joel miller oneshot #joel miller fic #pedro pascal smut

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oliepatolie · 2 months

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So I’ve just arrived in Vienna. Suitcase filled to the brim with friendship bracelets, bright-as-a-fucking-planet mirrorball bedazzled cowboy hat, and all that stuff. We found out about the concert being cancelled right before boarding. I’ve spent the flight by holding hands with people I’ve never met and doing breathing exercises with a random girl who was so, so terrified to fly but went anyway.

Tell me why does it all feel apocalyptic.

I know cancelling was the right choice. I cannot even imagine being there tomorrow and something happening. I am so glad I get to be furious and disappointed and safe. In light of what happened in Southport, I consider my bitterness a privilege. But I can’t help but feel very aware that this event does not exist in a vacuum. Why can’t people celebrate their thrills safely and, pointedly, why can’t girls express their joy and personify their girlhood without a threat of being stabbed or blown up.

I can understand not liking an artist. I cannot understand feeling such visceral hatred towards a demographic purely for the songs they listen to and the bracelets they exchange. I can’t help but feel like a goddamn target purely because of my gender and interest that is highly associated with my gender in mass media.

Oh how I love being a woman. Or something like that.

#eras tour #eras tour vienna #taylor swift #vienna n1 #why does it suck so goddamn much

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indie-ttrpg-of-the-week · 7 months

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Trans made TTRPGs

Due to… recent events that I would rather not talk about, today's post is a highlight of different tabletop games made by trans peeps! These games are fantastic in their own right, of course, but you can also know that they were made by incredibly cool and attractive people

(Also, these are flyover descs of the game, they'll get more in-depth singular posts later, this is because I am lazy)

Perfect Draw is a phenomenal card game TTRPG that was funded in less than a day on backerkit, it's incredibly fun and has simple to learn hard to master rules for creating custom cards, go check it out!

Songs for the dusk is fucking good, pardon my language, but it's a damn good post apocalyptic game about building community in a post-capitalist-post-apocalypse-post-whatever world. do yourself a favor and if you only check out one game in this list, check this one out, its a beautiful game.

Flying Circus is set in a WW1 inspired fantasy setting full of witches, weird eldritch fish people (who are chill as hell), cults, dead nobility, and other such things. It's inspired by Porco Rosso primarily but it has other touchstones.

Wanderhome is a game about being cute little guys going on a silly adventure and growing as the seasons change, its GMless and very fun

https://weregazelle.itch.io/armour-astir Armour Astir has been featured in here before but its so damn good I had to post it twice. AA demonstrates a fundamental knowledge of the themes of mech shows in a way that very few other games show, its awesome

Kitchen Knightmares is… more of a LARP but its still really dang cool, its about being a knight serving people in a restaurant, its played using discord so its incredibly accessible

https://grimogre.itch.io/michtim Michtim is a game about being small critters protecting their forest from nasty people who wish to harm it, not via brutal violence (sadly) but via friendship and understanding (which is a good substitute to violence)

ok this technically doesn't count but I'm putting it here anyways cuz its like one of my favorite ttrpgs of all time TSL is a game about baring your heart and dueling away with people who you'll probably kiss 10 minutes later, its very very fanfic-ey and inspired by queer narratives. I put it here because its made by a team, and the expansion has a setting specifically meant to be a trans "allegory", so I'll say it counts, honestly just go check it out its good shit

https://willuhl.itch.io/mystic-lilies

Mystic Lillies is a game inspired by ZUN's Touhou Project about witches dueling powerful foes, each other, and themselves. Mystic Lillies features rapid character creation and a unique diceless form of rolling which instead uses a standard playing card deck.

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/141424/nobilis-the-game-of-sovereign-powers-2002-edition I… want to do a more general overview on Jenna K as an important figure in indie RPG design, but for now just know that Nobilis is good

https://temporalhiccup.itch.io/apocalypse-keys Apocalypse Keys is a game inspired by Doom Patrol, Hellboy, X-men, and other comics about monstrousness being an allegory for disenfranchisement. Apocalypse Keys is also here because its published by Evilhat so its very cleaned up and fancy but I love how the second you check out the dev's other stuff you can tell they are a lot more experimental with their stuff, this is not a critique, it is in fact a compliment

Fellowship! I've posted about this game before, but it is again here. Fellowship has a fun concept that it uses very well mostly, its a game about defining your character's culture, and I think that's really really cool

Voidheart Symphony is a really cool game about psychic rebellion in a city that really does not like you, the more you discover for yourself the better

Panic at the Dojo is a phenomenal ttrpg based on what the Brazilian would call "Pancadaria", which basically means, fucking other's people shit up. Character Creation is incredibly open and free, meaning that many character concepts are available

Legacy 2e is a game about controlling an entire faction's choices across time, its very fun

remember to be kind to a trans person today! oh also don't even try to be transphobic in the reblogs or replies, you will be blocked so fast your head will spin

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celebrate-rise · 2 months

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------------------------------------------------ LET'S CELEBRATE RISE'S MOVIE SECOND ANNIVERSARY!!

----------------------------------------------------------------

FROM AUGUST 4TH TO 6TH

Make posts about how much you love Rise during this THREE DAYS event!! I'll reblog them!

Transcript under the cut!

DAY ONE - AUGUST 4TH

Theme: Pre-Movie

Make posts about what happened before the movie came out! Share your love for the series!

Ideas:

Pretend this is your first time seeing the trailer and react to it;

Say what you’d like to see in the movie;

Share art, fics, character analysis, GIFs, videos etc… from the series;

Talk about your favorite things from the series! ---

DAY TWO - AUGUST 5TH

Theme: The Movie

Watch the movie and make posts about it! Share your love for the movie!

Ideas:

Pretend this is your first time seeing the movie and react to it;

Say what you liked most;

Share art, fics, character analysis, GIFs, videos etc… from the movie;

Talk about your favorite scenes! ---

DAY THREE - AUGUST 6TH

Theme: Post-Movie

Make posts about what happened after the movie came out! Share your love for AUs, what ifs and more!

Ideas:

Say what you’d like to see in a season 3 / comic continuation;

Share art, fics, character analysis, GIFs, videos etc… about what happens post-movie;

Thoughts about what happened in apocalyptic future.

_________________________ 00:01:35 ━━━●───── 01:22:47 ⊜ ᵖᵃᵘˢᵉ ↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺ ⁿᵉˣᵗ ↠ _________________________

WHAT TO DO:

Use the tags: #SaveROTTMNT #UnpauseROTTMNT #SaveRiseOfTheTMNT #RiseOfTheTMNT #ROTTMNT

Watch the movie on AUGUST 5TH

Tag this blog, so I don't miss your entry: @celebrate-rise

---

RULES:

No NSFW

No shipping

No drug use

No hate for any TMNT version

Gore must be hidden under a read more and / or content warning

Use the Rise tags and @Celebrate-Rise so I don’t miss your entry!

I’ll be reblogging all posts that follow these rules! ---

QUESTIONS:

Do I have to follow the pre / post movie schedule?

Not necessarily! It’s more of a theme and to give people ideas, but any post is welcome as long as it’s about loving Rise!

Can I post old art?

Of course! You can post / reblog older things you made!

Who is running this?

I’m @ROTTMNTS3When on Twitter!

This event is happening on twitter too @CelebrateRise!!

If you have more questions, I'll happily answer them!

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kyuuumie · 17 days

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random sfw billdip headcanons (⁠｡⁠•̀⁠ᴗ⁠-⁠)⁠✧

headcanons below the cut (๑◕◡◕๑)

🌲 - dipper often reminds bill that he’s human and will die eventually, to which bill either scoffs, claiming he’ll just drag dipper back from the afterlife, or outright avoids the topic, unwilling to even entertain the idea.

⚠️ - bill loves showing off his vast knowledge of the universe, but dipper constantly questions and challenges him, which secretly delights bill because dipper’s curiosity is one of the things he adores most.

🌲 - dipper spends nights pouring over ancient texts and magical lore, while bill lazily hovers over his shoulder, correcting dipper’s translations or making fun of the humans who wrote the texts.

⚠️ - bill’s idea of a date is often something surreal, like visiting a nightmare dimension or exploring dreamscapes. dipper complains at first but ends up being intrigued by the strangeness.

🌲 - dipper is prone to overthinking and insomnia, so bill, who doesn’t need sleep, often floats around the room narrating absurd dream stories or weird facts to help dipper relax.

⚠️ - when they argue, bill tends to get loud and dramatic, sometimes altering reality to prove his point, while dipper stays calm and logical, which drives bill crazy.

🌲 - dipper has a fear of thunderstorms, and although bill doesn’t fully understand why he would be afraid of something harmless, he awkwardly tries to comfort dipper, sometimes making the thunder quieter or altering the storm to be less frightening.

⚠️ - bill will sometimes alter reality slightly, like changing the color of the sky to match dipper’s favorite shade of blue or making stars form constellations spelling out embarrassing messages of love.

🌲 - dipper struggles with trusting bill fully, always keeping one eye open for tricks, but deep down, he knows that bill wouldn’t harm him at this point—if he wanted to, he already had plenty of chances.

⚠️ - bill often has fantasies of apocalyptic scenarios where he and dipper rule over a broken world together, though he’s never shared it with dipper because he knows how much dipper values the world’s stability.

🌲 - whenever dipper has a nightmare, bill immediately senses it and dives in, reshaping the dream into something less scary, though he often makes it weird and chaotic instead.

⚠️ - bill gets incredibly jealous when dipper spends too much time with other people, making passive-aggressive comments or causing minor reality glitches as a sign of his displeasure.

🌲 - dipper constantly acts as bill’s moral compass, reminding him that not everything needs to end in chaos or destruction. this creates a strange dynamic where bill tries (and often fails) to tone down his destructive tendencies for dipper’s sake.

⚠️ - bill warps time whenever dipper is about to miss something important, like giving him an extra few hours to finish a project or study. dipper gets annoyed because it’s technically cheating, but he appreciates it.

🌲 - dipper sometimes struggles with the moral implications of being in love with someone as dangerous as bill, but he ultimately decides that love isn’t always black and white, and his feelings are genuine despite the risks.

⚠️ - bill constantly tries to make deals with dipper, offering outlandish rewards in exchange for little things like affection or time together. dipper always refuses, but bill keeps trying, purely for fun.

🌲 - dipper isn’t afraid to call bill out on his more questionable behavior, and though bill laughs it off, dipper knows that bill respects him more for being able to stand his ground.

⚠️ - bill struggles with human etiquette, often forgetting small social norms. dipper has to remind him not to laugh maniacally in public or avoid turning a small argument into a reality-warping event.

🌲 - dipper finds it hard to express his deeper emotions around bill, knowing that bill thrives on control and chaos. but in rare moments, he lets his guard down, and bill responds with surprising tenderness.

⚠️ - bill tries to cook for dipper but ends up using ingredients that are barely edible. dipper appreciates the effort, even if the food is... questionable.

🌲 - dipper’s natural curiosity sometimes drives him to ask bill questions about the darker aspects of the universe. while bill is more than willing to indulge, dipper always keeps a careful boundary between curiosity and crossing into moral grey areas.

⚠️ - bill sometimes reads dipper’s thoughts and responds to them before dipper can even say anything, which dipper finds both unsettling and endearing.

🌲 - dipper has become so desensitized to the supernatural that bizarre occurrences, like reality warping or bill’s eldritch transformations, no longer faze him.

⚠️ - bill often hints at his ability to make dipper immortal, teasing him with the idea of an eternity together, though dipper isn’t sure if bill is serious or just messing with him.

#billdip #gravity falls #headcanon #bill cipher #dipper pines #proship

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youryurigoddess · 11 months

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The summer that was never supposed to end

You’ve probably noticed how in Good Omens 2 Crowley’s eyes are brighter, more saturated, as if glistening with liquid gold. We’ve already covered his hair. And it’s not only the visual aspect of him — even in objectively stressful conditions, Crowley appears mature and put together, way cooler and more protective than before. Even his faults are heavily romanticized in the past and present scenes, reminding of the S1 body swap, when Aziraphale projected his love to him on the way he played the demon in Hell.

It’s not just the demon. The whole season is more vibrant, bolder, filled with sunshine. Just like a summer that was never supposed to end. Like a memory of a loved one seen through the eyes of someone who thinks of them every day until the end of the world.

S2 seems ridiculously saturated, whimsical, and full of red and gold, just like a certain demon. Aziraphale not only painted his bookshop in his image, but literally colored the whole world in Crowley’s colors. It was such lush and saturated and blooming with warmth and hazy light.

It’s either that all the newest events are just another memory seen through a certain angel’s eyes, or said angel actively made it appear this way — as in, his feelings grew so strong that they’ve started to warp the reality around him. And it’s a well-known fact that Aziraphale has a tendency to affect his surroundings, either unconsciously, when his presence in the bookshop literally lightens up the sky seen through its windows, or very much consciously, when he takes over the position of a master puppeteer and manipulates people with or without the help of his miracles.

S1 was more dramatic and apocalyptic, but not particularly gray — at least not as much as the color grading typically used in portrayal of similar apocalyptic narratives. S2, at least as seen through Aziraphale’s own La Vie En Rose lens, is vibrant and saturated. And those colors drastically fade in the heavenly light of the elevator during the credits, suggesting that they won’t be as visible in the course of S3.

But I don’t want to ramble about the apocalypse sandwich and the three-act structure here, so let’s circle back to S2.

Good Omens 2 was really set in a summer that was never supposed to end. But it did, autumn crept in, and there was no chance of hearing the nightingales sing. They all had left by the time an angel and a demon finally kissed.

In the most literal sense: the very last nightingales usually migrate from the UK to their wintering grounds in Sub-Saharan Africa in the first days of September.

Aziraphale was right that nothing lasts forever — and the passage of time on Earth is marked by subtle details invisible to the immortal eyes.

The main thing about autumn migration is how sudden and hard to predict it is. The birds start disappearing gradually, often without notice, until at some point they are no longer here. Much like the angel leaves the bookshop — their shared nest — to spread his wings and fight.

And it was basically announced on the poster.

Can you see the migratory formation of birds up in the sky? It looks like Aziraphale is the last one to get off the ground and fly.

#Yuri is doing her thing #good omens #good omens 2 #go2 spoilers #go2 meta #good omens meta #no nightingales #in the most literal sense #ineffable husbands #ineffable divorcés #crowley #aziraphale #your friendly neighborhood eldritch horror might be messing with more than your life #the summer that was never supposed to end #the good omens crew is unhinged #everything is connected

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air--so--sweet · 3 months

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So, Aidan Gallagher was the last cast member to wrap on season 4, and he wrapped several days after everyone else which I've been presuming means we're getting some apocalypse flashbacks but I've just had another idea.

We see Lila and Five travelling to what looks like the original apocalypse, what if they see young Five in the apocalypse? I think it could be really interesting as I don't think any of the other characters fully appreciate what he went through (well, Luther appreciates what it feels like to live in total solitude). Especially when he came back looking exactly like he did when he ran away, but with an adult consciousness instead of a teenage one. It makes it very easy to forget he got stranded and had to learn how to survive in an apocalyptic wasteland as a literal child. While grieving everyone and everything he has ever known.

And I think for Lila to be the character to witness that, as someone who has quite an antagonistic, but also incredibly loving relationship with Five (I was going to say though neither would admit it, but actually I feel both of them had dropped almost all pretense of hating each other at the end of season 3. I don't know if either would verbally express love for each other but in the same way I don't know if either would verbally express love for anyone) would be incredibly affecting. Especially as, unlike his siblings, she never knew teenage Five, she has always known him as an adult who looks like a teenager. I feel like for Lila to witness firsthand the brutality Five experienced alone in the apocalypse, and to realise he was really just a child, especially now that she has a child herself...well I think it would be truly upsetting for her but also giver he a deeper understanding of Five and just how important his family is to him (and family is what Lila desires and values most in the world too).

But also, it will make her realise how similar Five's experience was to her own. Because both were caused to suffer at a young age by the Handler, Lila by having her parents murdered, Five by being left in the apocalypse for 45 years when she could have plucked him out at any point, and then exploited for her own gains with little to no care given to how it sould affect them. Five says The Handler made it so he couldn't belong anywhere, that she made him a killer; she more or less did the same thing to Lila.

Most theories I write are just 'Oh this would be cool if it happened' or 'Look at this ridiculous idea I had', but, now I've imagined it, I'll be really disappointed if we don't see Lila and Five witness younger Five in the apocalypse. Damn...

Also, while writing this it occurred to me that, if the scene where Lila is crying is in the subway, which is looks like it is, maybe she isn't crying because something happened her daughter or Diego (as most of us presumed), maybe it's related to her seeing something The Handler did in another timeline. Or maybe it's just the emotional impact of seeing The Handler in the flesh again, knowing Lila loved her and saw her as her mother, and The Handler was happy to murder Lila in cold blood when she realised she couldn't manipulate her anymore. That's bound to fuck you up. (To be be clear, because I think how I phrased this suggests we'll definitely see The Handler again, I have no idea if we will or won't but with the hopping of timelines it's a possibility.)

Or maybe Lila sees what The Handler took from her, what life would have been like if she grew up with her parents. Or again, the effect of just getting to see her parents alive and in the flesh. A train always stops in the same places, it can't just change course or route like any other vehicle. Maybe the subway allows you to move between timelines/time travel but only as an observer. You can't change or effect any events and therefore can't interact with anyone as a result. Imagine the pain of seeing your parents you thought you'd never see alive again and not bring able to interact with them in any way. Or maybe she has to witness their murder again knowing she can't do anything to stop it. It would be a really interesting parallel from their relationship in season 2 to have Five comforting Lila over the death of her parents.

#the umbrella academy #tua #the umbrella academy season 4 speculation #the umbrella academy season 4 spoilers #five hargreeves #lila pitts

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ballad-of-the-lamb · 6 months

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Would love to understand how Narinder gained their bone like limbs in the Ploxilamb AU Or were they secretly a god in that world too~?

alright here's a small proxilamb loredump for those who don't drop by streams;

This universe is set in a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk type setting (think a bit like how ergo proxy does it's cities but on a significantly higher population scale) and i feel like some context is to back it up. We will be following along with the plot of the original game very Vaguely. There are no more seasons, the lands outside of the dome cities are barren, the land is dying, and unable to be made into proper homes. The lands inside the domes are cities erected from what remains of the god's old domains.

The gods then warred for a long, long time. Extraordinarily long. Alliances made, betrayals happened. The final ones to prevail were the hive cities that made up the megacorporation 'BISHOP'. The last of the Old Faith.

Narinder was one of those old gods, yes. His bone arms are left over examples of this divinity, as well as his shadowy appearance & wispy tail. That and the special pin that his crown now takes on in appearance to be more subtle.

The Lamb became Narinder's favored, and was given a mock pin that looks exactly like Narinder's except the eye being their favourite color. It is a little way to show not only connection, but the Lamb's importance to Narinder in particular.

When the events of the game start plot-wise, we are no longer following along w/ normal lamb. We'll be following along w/ the AI Lamb 'Lambert' made from the copy of the Lamb's brain that they made together one drunken night.

#proxilamb #munpost

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taexual · 9 months

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sleepwalking ● 15 | jjk

pairing: jungkook x fem!reader

summary: due to unfortunate circumstances, you ended up managing your ex-boyfriend’s band. you thought you’ve both made peace with it, but suddenly he’s very eager to prove to you that first love never dies.

genre: rockstar!jungkook / exes to lovers

warnings: explicit language, SLOW BURN, ANGST (including some miscommunication due to alcohol & descriptions of anxiety)

words: 10.9k

read from the beginning ○ masterlist

chapter 15 ► i had the whole damn world and i gave it all away, what did i think i would save?

Waking up on a good day was not a pleasant experience for Jungkook. But waking up that morning in Tilburg felt a bit like having his brain pulled out through his nose with a metal hook.

The bus was dim—was he on the bus? How did he get here in the first place?—and the slightest light coming from the skylight made his eyes sting. His head seemed to split in two, and his whole body felt as if he had deliberately allowed a lawnmower to run over him.

So this was a hangover, then.

He hadn’t had many of those in his life, which of course, did not indicate how often he drank. Maybe he had lost his ability to drink without getting really drunk. Or maybe he drank so much that even this ability wasn’t enough.

“You awake?” a voice asked, and the kaleidoscope of sharp echoes in Jungkook’s head forced him to retreat further into his bunk.

“Why,” he uttered, each word like fire in his parched mouth, “would you yell?”

A chuckle in response helped him identify the speaker as Hoseok.

“You’re the only one still sleeping. Everyone else is getting pancakes for breakfast,” he said. “Do you want to know what ‘pancake batter’ is in Dutch? Word on the street is, pronouncing it three times in front of the mirror will kill you.”

“I will kill you,” Jungkook retorted, “unless you can bring me some water. Please?”

Amused, Hoseok walked to the back of the bus where the mini-fridge was. He grabbed a bottle and brought it to the younger member before settling on the edge of his bunk.

“Here,” he said. “Why’d you drink so much last night in any case?”

It took incredible effort for Jungkook to sit up, but he managed—while groaning and moaning, and glaring at Hoseok each time the older boy chuckled at his exaggerated struggle.

Jungkook took the water bottle and emptied half of it in one gulp, but it didn’t make much of a difference. The bitter aftertaste lingered in his mouth, and every word he spoke still felt like acid.

“I can’t remember,” he said, even though something inside of him told him that this wasn’t true. Apart from the pain, he also felt this heavy unease—as if he had an apocalyptic event scheduled for this afternoon, and he needed to prepare for it, hence the excessive drinking. “I’m sure I had a reason.”

Hoseok assumed as much and he asked, “did something happen?”

“I—” Jungkook interrupted himself when he threw his head back to finish the rest of the water. This didn’t help either, and now his stomach felt uncomfortably heavy. He said again, “I don’t know. Can’t remember.”

“I saw you leave the venue with—”

“I remember that,” he said quickly as if he was afraid to hear the conclusions Hoseok had drawn after seeing him leave with you.

“Where’d you two go?” Hoseok asked.

“To this park,” Jungkook said, squeezing his eyes shut and rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers as he tried to bring last night back to him. He remembered kissing you. Unless he’d dreamt that, of course. Both options were likely. Neither was acceptable to say out loud. Weakly, he continued, “uh… I don’t really—we talked there.”

Since Hoseok did not know what had really happened between you and Jungkook at that park, he followed up with the logical question, “did you have a fight?”

“No, we…” Jungkook sighed. Another memory returned, this one more vivid than the kiss he thought he remembered—which was a shame. He would have preferred the kiss. He opened his eyes and looked at Hoseok questioningly, “Namjoon called her. Yoongi’s laptop?”

“Ah, yeah.” The older boy laughed. “They went to McDonald’s and left it there. Then they got so wasted, they forgot about it.”

Jungkook snorted weakly. “Idiots.”

It gave him great pleasure to say the word, because for once, it wasn’t him who was being described here.

“Just like you, huh?” Hoseok teased nonetheless. “Seems like everyone had a reason to drink last night.”

Jungkook ignored the gentle jab and focused on remembering you.

“Did you see her this morning?” he asked.

Hoseok nodded.

“Did she seem angry?” Jungkook continued, hoping for a clue about the rest of the night. The last thing he seemed to remember was the truck stop. He was alone in his memory, but he assumed that was because you hadn’t returned from finding the missing laptop yet.

Jungkook didn’t think you had gone drinking with him last night; he seemed to remember—or just assumed—that you had left before he got drunk. And he realised that he knew why he got drunk – he was worried about the bet and how he would tell you.

He thought he remembered talking to someone about this last night, but it couldn’t have been you, because he recalled being called “son.” It must have been someone else at the bar, then. Maybe the bartender.

But what happened afterwards? Did his chest hurt so much because he still hadn’t told you?

“No. She didn’t seem angry,” Hoseok said. “But she’s never angry with me because I never give her a reason to be.”

The teasing smile on the older member’s face made Jungkook grimace. “Good for you.”

Hoseok chuckled because he didn’t get to see Jungkook like this often. Usually, the entire band was wiped out with a cursed hangover, and Jungkook was the one obnoxious ray of sunshine in the room. Hoseok and the others always thought this was unfair. Clearly, this morning was a welcome change.

“She seemed okay,” Hoseok said. Then, more seriously, he asked, “you think you did something? Besides getting drunk, I mean.”

The younger boy exhaled and watched the bedding on his bunk for a minute. It was black and seemed even darker in the shadow inside the bus. It did nothing whatsoever to jog his memory.

He was worried that he had done something very terrible. Not worse than having made the bet in the first place, but terrible nonetheless.

What if he’d missed his chance to tell you and someone else had told you first? Probably not Sid, because he may have been an absolute dickhead, but he needed to win the bet fairly to be satisfied. But what if—

Taehyung, he thought suddenly.

Taehyung knew. What if he’d found you while Jungkook was in the bar?

You tell her or I will, Taehyung had said to him back in Amsterdam.

What if he had told you everything because he couldn’t bear to keep it to himself any longer?

Jungkook had seen how distressed the bassist was. He had noticed how he kept avoiding his eyes when they were in the same room.

Groaning, Jungkook pressed his palms to his forehead and strained to remember something. Did he talk to you after you returned with the laptop? What did he say? More importantly, what did you say that left him half-paralysed with this unidentified worry?

“I… don’t really…” Jungkook tried to cling to a memory and see what happened next, but his thoughts remained muddled. Did he kiss you in the park before or after you told him about your parents’ tumultuous relationship?

“Did you drink together?” Hoseok enquired, slipping into investigator mode as he crossed his legs on Jungkook’s bunk. He thought he was being helpful, but Jungkook felt pressured into giving answers that wouldn’t reveal too much—you’d rubbed off on him, he supposed. Or maybe he just didn’t want to upset you any more than he may have already had. “Or did you get drunk after she left to find the laptop?”

“After. I think,” Jungkook said. “I was driving before.”

“Driving?” Hoseok repeated, visibly surprised.

Jungkook waved his hand dismissively. “Long story.”

Hoseok noticed that Jungkook was struggling to speak in longer sentences, as evidenced by his colourless face as he shrank away from the skylight. He decided to quit questioning, assuming it was a hangover that plagued the younger boy.

Instead, he shared his last memory, hoping it would be helpful: “I think I heard you come back. At about nine.”

It was not helpful.

Jungkook frowned and asked, “you were already awake?”

“Well, Namjoon and Yoongi caused a scene on the bus earlier,” Hoseok explained, shrugging one of his shoulders. “They woke everyone up and I couldn’t really fall asleep after that.”

“Oh.”

“But I can’t help you with anything else. Sorry,” he said, biting his lip. “Maybe once your hangover wears off, you’ll remember.”

Jungkook lowered his head because it started to burn when he attempted to shake it in response.

Stubbornly, he mumbled, “I’m never hungover.”

Hoseok was about to laugh but he managed to contain it to a soft snicker. “Well, you’re hungover now, so I don’t know what to tell you.”

“What time is it?” Jungkook asked.

Hoseok had to check his phone first.

“Eleven,” he said.

“Eleven?” Jungkook repeated, his mind fighting against him as he tried to piece the timeline together. “I only slept for… if you saw me at nine, then I only slept for—wait, and you said you hadn’t slept at all?”

Hoseok shook his head, but looking at his phone had distracted him. Truthfully, he hadn’t told Jungkook everything he knew.

He had seen Minjun half-carrying a drunk Jungkook onto the bus at around eight-forty this morning. Hoseok remembered the time because his phone had died about a minute later, and he didn’t get to finish the Falling in Reverse album that he had been listening to on a loop that night.

Minjun’s presence might have sparked a memory, but Hoseok decided not to mention it. He preferred it when Jungkook’s friends weren’t involved in the situations that Jungkook seemed to have forgotten about, and he didn’t want the younger boy to go looking for said friends right away.

“Get something to eat,” Hoseok said, getting up from the bunk. “Pancakes. That’ll help you.”

Eating didn’t sound terrible, but it wasn’t that easy. For one thing, standing up seemed almost like a Herculean task right now—Jungkook was only slightly exaggerating here: he could extend a hand. But a leg? Not so much. And walking was probably completely out of the question.

“Yeah, fine,” he said as he lowered himself face-down onto the mattress, preparing to get out of the bunk—either by crawling or rolling out. “But I need to wash up a bit first. Somehow.”

“Yeah, that’d probably be good,” Hoseok agreed. “You reek of a bar.”

Jungkook glared—more at his pillow than at Hoseok—and mumbled, “thanks for the help.”

“Anytime!” Hoseok said with his usual good-natured laugh. He watched Jungkook try to stand and decided that the younger boy had brought this on himself, so it would do him good to find a way out himself, too. Approaching the door of the bus, Hoseok added, “I’ll wait for you outside. Don’t hurt yourself!”

Straining and grunting, Jungkook managed to wash up, despite his almost unbearable headache and the cramped bathroom of the bus—it was, really, just a toilet and the smallest sink imaginable. He slammed his knees into the wall twice and kicked himself in the shins one and a half times.

He could still taste the whiskey in his mouth, and he thought he could still smell it on himself as well—he’d need a proper shower, maybe several, to get rid of that—but he felt a little better. The improvement was barely noticeable, but it was there, and he got off the bus with a lighter step.

He wondered if the restaurant outside only served pancakes, as Hoseok had advertised, or if they were also prepared to make some other dishes, such as the greasiest, oiliest chicken possible.

When he got off the bus, hoping to find out, he first spotted Hoseok who was lifting his chin and pointing forward, gesturing for him to go on.

Jungkook turned his head and immediately saw you standing right at the entrance of the restaurant. He forgot all about Hoseok and the food.

Right away, he felt an odd sensation in his stomach; something that transcended worry and turned into outright terror. He watched you for a minute, almost petrified. His feet refused to budge as if his body remembered last night better than his mind.

You noticed him in the middle of your conversation with Luna. You saw him freeze first, then eventually start to walk towards you. Right after your eyes met, you looked back at Luna briefly and turned to enter the restaurant without a second glance in his direction.

This was, of course, hardly the reaction Jungkook had been hoping for because one of your last interactions that he could remember with questionable certainty was a kiss.

The horror inside him grew. Something must have really happened last night—something so horrible that his mind chose to drown in alcohol rather than remember it.

Maybe he had found you after Taehyung had talked to you last night, and he’d attempted to make amends, but he was too drunk to tell you everything he needed to tell you…

He had to find out. He had to fix it.

Jungkook walked past Luna, gave her a quick nod hello—and cringed in pain when he moved his head, therefore missing the glare she gave him—and went in after you.

He called out your name, then touched your shoulder. You turned around very slowly, almost reluctantly. He suspected that if he hadn’t touched you, you would have ignored him altogether.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

You gave him one look – maybe even less than that – and turned away, taking a small step to the side to escape his touch.

Before you looked away, it seemed to him that you hadn’t slept at all. He knew you well enough to recognise that. He also knew you well enough to recognise the obvious disapproval on your face—as if you were talking to Sid and not him.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

What happened last night?

“I don’t have time,” you finally said, and his panic deepened.

“Please?” he asked, trailing behind you as you walked towards a table by the window in the farthest corner from the entrance. You’d chosen it as your workspace, but Luna had persuaded you to have breakfast with her and the boys first.

Right away, Jungkook spotted Taehyung, Luna and Yoongi on the other side of the restaurant—all three of them were watching Jungkook follow you.

“I appreciate the manners,” you said as you walked, “but I still don’t have time.”

Close to despair, he whispered—as if your friends could overhear your conversation from across the room, “d-did something happen last night?”

This finally made you turn around and look at him.

Suddenly, he wished you hadn’t.

There was a look in your eyes that reminded him of something. He couldn’t quite place that look, but he felt his chest tighten so much that his heart could barely fit inside, the beating violent and terrified.

It wasn’t anger that he saw when he looked at you. It wasn’t contempt, either. Nor disgust, nor revulsion—it wasn’t anything he had expected to see.

It was a weary disappointment—as if you had been worried about something for a long time, but still hoped it wouldn’t happen, and it did. It happened. And Jungkook realised in horror that he was probably what you were worried about.

“No,” you said, deciding that it wouldn’t do either of you any good to argue here. It scared him, this split-second decision that you made. He wanted you to shout at him, he wanted to see the fire in your eyes. He was afraid of the emptiness he found in them instead. You finished, “nothing significant happened at all. Not last night, or any night before.”

Your words disturbed him. It sounded—and his head began to pound much harder than his heart—like you were talking about all these weeks in Europe. All that the two of you had done together.

He swallowed the concern on his tongue. He still felt half-drunk and three-quarters hungover, so he didn’t know if the assumptions he was making were a result of a hangover paranoia or if he’d interpreted everything you’d said correctly. Honestly, he didn’t even want to know. But he had to ask.

“W-what is that supposed to mean?”

He realised he was clinging onto a tiny, pitiful hope that he’d seen the look in your eyes in a distant nightmare and not right in front of him at the truck stop last night. It seemed more and more unlikely the longer that he waited for you to speak, but while he breathed, he hoped.

“It’s supposed to mean that you need to get something to eat and join the rest of your band,” you said, picking up your coffee cup from the table next to you. Jungkook noticed that there was nothing else on it, just a stack of papers, your laptop, and your phone. “I have work to do.”

Suddenly, he wanted to pause this uncomfortable exchange where the two of you stayed quiet about more things than you expressed. He wanted to tell you that it was you who should have got something to eat. He wanted to remind you not to overwork yourself.

But the way you looked at him was an alarming indication that it wasn’t his place to say these things to you anymore.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck—

“Did you…” Jungkook tried to choose his words carefully. “Did you talk to someone last night? After we got back from the park, I mean?”

You looked startled somehow as you swallowed your coffee and set the empty cup down. Then you gave him a smile with not one bit of humour or kindness behind it, and he felt the skin on the back of his neck prickle with horror.

You did talk to someone. And he made the mistake of asking who it was.

“I didn’t talk to anyone important,” you finally said.

That was enough to confirm all of his foreboding senses.

“You know,” he concluded breathlessly.

Looking away instead of acknowledging his vague—but obviously correct—statement, you picked up your belongings from the table.

“I know enough to see that you need to eat and then sleep this off,” you said. “You smell like a bottle of Jack Daniels.”

You tried to walk past him, but Jungkook moved to block your way.

“Who told you?” he pressed.

You raised your eyebrows at the question.

“Are you—okay.” You closed your eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. You tried to phrase your next words as tactfully as possible, aware that you would have a large audience if you raised your voice here. “It’s a little mind-blowing to me that you think the issue here is who told me. And it’s a lot mind-blowing that you dare to ask me that.”

Uncomfortable under your affronted gaze, Jungkook blinked and looked away. His heavy head was slowly dragging him to the floor, and he leaned against the table for more support.

“I—I’m really sorry,” he said, not daring to look at you again because the emptiness in your eyes was so discomfiting that it felt almost unnatural. He realised, painfully, that he’d taken all of your timid glances for granted. He missed them now—so much.

But as soon as the apology was out of his mouth, he immediately remembered that he had said the exact same words to you. Unfortunately, he had said them to you many times before.

This could have been déjà vu.

It could have been a memory from weeks ago.

But it also could have been a memory from last night.

Now you were hesitating. You didn’t know what he was apologising for specifically, and you suspected that he didn’t know, either. Then you finally nodded your head.

Jungkook worried that you’d come to a decision—a final one, to make up for all the previous times you’d claimed this was final but hadn’t meant it.

Now you looked like you meant it.

You didn’t offer him any relief from his misery and gave him no hints of what had happened after you returned from the park.

Instead, you said, “eat something,” and walked around him.

He didn’t stop you this time. He knew he couldn’t.

But he also knew that he would find you as soon as he figured out how you discovered the truth and whether he talked to you after that.

You joined Yoongi, Taehyung, and Luna at a table in the annexe of the pancake restaurant, right next to a wall-sized window with a view of the vast, completely empty fields of green behind the building.

“Everything okay?” Luna asked as you sat down in the remaining empty chair by the table, next to Yoongi.

You were uncomfortable with everyone’s eyes on you. You knew they’d witnessed the exchange you’d just shared with Jungkook, but you didn’t know what they thought they saw.

“Absolutely,” you replied in a manner so manufactured that they could all tell it was insincere.

While you pretended to be interested in the food that your friends had ordered for you, Yoongi glanced at everyone by the table one after the other.

“Is, uh, something wrong?” he asked, fixing his gaze on you. “With Jungkook?”

“No,” you said. Again, with a noticeable bitterness. “Some tension, that’s all.”

Yoongi was still processing your revelation about Reconnaissance. Yesterday, he had told you that you didn’t have to tell anyone else about it, but he wasn’t sure if he’d really meant it. He assumed you could guess as much. And now he was starting to think that you’d told Jungkook about it, after all.

Carefully, he asked, “did Jungkook get mad at you for not telling him about… things?”

Yoongi wasn’t very good at being discreet. You saw Taehyung frown as he looked up at you.

Taehyung was understandably confused. He thought it was Jungkook who hadn’t told you “things.” Why would he be the one getting mad?

“No,” you said to Yoongi. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be mad here. But it’s fine. I just—I’m not even—I just need a minute.”

Huh, Taehyung thought to himself as he continued to eat in silence. You were obviously seething. Something must have happened.

He had suspected that Jungkook was going to tell you last night when the two of you left together (and, naturally, Taehyung went to find Luna right after witnessing your exit, so he could finally calm himself down). But if Jungkook told you—what the hell was Yoongi on about?

“Well, wait a second,” Yoongi pushed, also very confused. “What do you mean? Why are you mad?”

To him, it seemed like you were prepared to handle the news about Reconnaissance on your own. He thought it was possible that Jungkook had reacted very negatively when you told him and he’d said something upsetting. He knew the vocalist would be unhappy if he found out that you were getting offers to leave Rated Riot.

That would explain—sort of—your emotions. And if that was the case, Yoongi was prepared to interfere.

“Did he say something to you?” he asked. “If he’s upset about this… possibility, then I can talk—”

“Yoongi,” Luna cut in with a rushed whisper. “I don’t think this is about Reconnaissance.”

She was quick to figure out that you had told Yoongi about Nick’s offer—it wasn’t difficult, considering Yoongi was about as vague as a treasure map with a giant X on it. She wanted him to drop the topic before you were forced to admit that this was actually about Jungkook’s bet.

Luna could tell from your body language when you saw Jungkook—and from the way you were about to bend the fork in your hand right now—that you finally knew about the bet, too.

Taehyung, on the other hand, remained simply baffled.

He knew about the bet, sure. But he looked up from his plate again, and correctly guessed from the frowns on everyone’s faces that he was the only one who did not know about this Reconnaissance business that Luna had just mentioned.

“Reconnaissance?” he asked. “What about Reconnaissance?”

He appeared to enjoy saying the band’s name and seemed oblivious to your cringing every time he said it.

You looked up at Luna first—her eyes were wide as she realised that she shouldn’t have mentioned the band outright. To make matters worse, it suddenly occurred to her that you didn’t know that she and Taehyung knew about the bet, so you must have been confused as to why she would divert the topic so suddenly and plunge you straight into a different awkward conversation.

But before she could apologise, you turned to Yoongi, who lowered his head as soon as he met your eyes. He realised that he couldn’t ask Luna what she’d meant—what else could you and Jungkook argue about?—because there was a more important discussion waiting to happen.

You cleared your throat.

“Nothing important,” you finally said. “Their manager contacted me the other day about an open position in their staff, but I told him I wasn’t interested. I mentioned this to, uh—to Luna. And to Yoongi, too, a few days ago.”

You chose not to reveal that Maggie and Namjoon also knew about this, so Taehyung wouldn’t feel as left out as you assumed you had just made him feel.

There were several things that Taehyung struggled to process here. He tried to look at his girlfriend for help first, but Luna purposefully made herself busy by drinking her orange juice. Then he glanced over at his bandmate, but Yoongi turned his entire body away from him to look out the window.

Clearly, neither one of them wanted to explain why they weren’t questioning you about this, so it took Taehyung a minute to find his words.

“But this is…” he started, then paused. “It’s big!”

“Yeah, I—well, you know,” you said while knowing that he didn’t know. You felt guilty and uncomfortable having to explain this right after he found out that you’d kept it from him. “I-I’m happy here. I like what I do. I would—I’d have far less responsibility, but a lot more pressure if I went to work with them.”

Taehyung considered this.

“It would be a great opportunity, t-that’s true,” you added, sounding increasingly uncertain as you spoke. “They’re million-dollar sellers. But I don’t—I want to reach that level with you guys. Not join someone who’s already at the top. Where’s the fun in that?”

You smiled as you finished, hoping to soften the impact of the news. Taehyung finally allowed his muscles to relax a little as he leaned back in his seat and took a sip of his iced tea.

“I see,” he said, placing the glass back on the table. “Okay. So, you’re staying. Right?”

You were on the verge of responding—because you thought you’d just be repeating yourself again—but then you stopped.

You said you were happy here.

You said you weren’t interested in leaving.

But you didn’t, technically, say that you were staying.

You’d said it to Maggie and Luna, and then to Yoongi and Namjoon. But that was before you allowed yourself to confront your feelings for Jungkook while he just tried to win a bet against Sid.

And now you were hesitating.

When you eventually nodded, the assurance from your lips sounded far less convincing. “Mhmm. Yes.”

Silence settled at the table until Luna, still feeling guilty about the slip-up (she would apologise to you as soon as the boys were out of earshot), changed the topic to something completely unrelated: namely the sights she thought would be interesting to see once you were in London.

You hoped to avoid discussing Reconnaissance again, but Nick’s offer had suddenly gained more weight in your mind.

As you returned to your designated workspace after breakfast, you remembered the pros and cons list that Maggie had suggested back in Oslo.

The pros of leaving Rated Riot and joining Reconnaissance had expanded dangerously following your conversation with Jungkook last night.

You worried. You didn’t think you would actually leave, at least not just because of this ridiculous bet. But the more you thought about it—and the more you remembered that Jungkook’s friends were right around here somewhere—the more you couldn’t help it.

Would it really be so terrible to continue your career with a band that had a massive following and did not have your ex-boyfriend as a member, and his good-for-nothing friends as a persistent shadow?

Contrary to what Hoseok had promised and what he had expected himself, eating didn’t make Jungkook feel better. If anything, it only made him feel more irritated.

As he mindlessly chewed the pancakes—which were probably delicious, really, but they tasted like napkins in his hungover mouth—he went over the conversation he’d just had with you.

Again, he arrived at the same conclusion: you knew about the bet.

But everything else in his mind was speculation.

He might have talked to you after you found out, and he might not have handled it very well.

He might not have talked to you after you found out, which was just as bad.

He realised then, with a sinking feeling in his cotton-filled stomach, that he might have also been the one who told you about it.

That would have almost been good, he’d meant to tell you—but when he was sober. And, ideally, without forgetting about it the next day.

He hoped desperately that this wasn’t what had happened. But he needed to know for certain.

He had concluded earlier that only one other person could have talked to you about this, so he pushed his plate away and looked around.

He didn’t spot Taehyung here anymore. But Luna was standing by the cash register.

He stood up and approached her right away.

She didn’t look particularly pleased to talk to him, and Jungkook quickly surmised that she knew about the bet, too. He fully expected this since Taehyung considered her mind an extension of his own. Now, Jungkook thought, he had even more reasons to talk to him.

Luna informed him that Taehyung had felt tired and returned to the bus for a short nap. She said she was waiting to grab some dessert for him.

Jungkook couldn’t thank her for the information quickly enough.

Acting solely on instinct, he ran out of the restaurant, flung open the bus door, and marched inside. He was glad to see that the bus was empty except for Taehyung lying in his bunk.

“Did you tell her?!” Jungkook fired immediately. He wasn’t sure if he’d meant to sound so accusing—he was simply frantic to learn what was hiding in the dark spots of his memory.

Flinching at the sudden shouting that he managed to hear over his music, Taehyung opened his eyes and sat up. He paused the song on his phone and raised his eyes.

He didn’t have to ask what Jungkook meant.

“I didn’t tell her anything,” he said as he pulled his earpods out of his ears and slid them back into their case.

“I saw you talking to her after the show last night. Did you find her and tell her later?” Jungkook demanded through agitated, heavy breaths. “You were with her and Luna at the restaurant just now.”

“I didn’t see her after you left. And all I said to her after the show was that she should talk to you,” Taehyung explained, displaying more patience than most people would under the circumstances. “And I didn’t really talk to her much at the restaurant.”

Slowly—because he was fuming, and the entire bus was red—Jungkook accepted that this was most likely the truth. Your response to him changed after last night, not after the concert. He assumed it was because you’d talked to someone while he wasn’t there, but maybe Taehyung wasn’t that someone.

Again, he remembered Sid. He could still ask him, he supposed, even if he doubted that Sid told you.

But there was a very big problem with this plan. If Sid found out that you knew about the bet, he would immediately amplify all of Jungkook’s problems by claiming that someone broke the rules of the bet—even if Sid was the one who told you.

He’d organise a manhunt, Jungkook didn’t doubt it. Or maybe he’d just blame Jungkook straight away—never mind that the bet ceased to exist to Jungkook the moment he barged into Sid’s room in Amsterdam, and demanded they ended it.

No. It was better to keep Sid out of this.

Jungkook swallowed and shuddered faintly when he felt the bitter aftertaste of everything that he’d drunk last night.

“Did you tell anyone?” he asked Taehyung.

Looking down, Taehyung brought his tongue over his lips. “Well...”

“Anyone other than Luna, I mean.”

“No. You asked me not to. I only told her after I assumed—”

“Okay, well,” Jungkook cut in, guilty suddenly, about forcing his friend into this. “C-could Luna have told her?”

“She could have,” Taehyung admitted. “But she was with me the whole night. And besides, she agreed that it should be you who tells her. That’s what I thought you were going to do last night.”

Jungkook shut his eyes and exhaled so deeply that Taehyung could feel it on his face from two metres away. “I don’t… I was—it would have—”

Interrupting his miserable struggle to construct a full sentence, the older boy reiterated, “we didn’t tell her. Honestly, I assumed that you did.”

Taehyung had had doubts before, but seeing Jungkook’s uncontrollable frustration right now convinced him that you must know about the bet.

Still, Jungkook’s confusion confused him.

It had to be Jungkook who told you. Who else could have?

“Well, I was—” Jungkook swallowed before charging, “actually, wh—what—what right did you have to tell her to talk to me? After I specifically asked you not to tell anyone! She obviously understood that something’s up.”

Taehyung looked offended at the outburst.

But Jungkook couldn’t control himself.

The longer he stayed away from you on the bus, the more he hurt. The more he understood that none of this mattered—not who told you, not what he said to you afterwards.

What mattered was this: he had made the bet. And you knew about it.

And now he wasn’t sure what would happen next and the guilt and the fear and the hurt could not fit in his chest anymore. He desperately needed a real, tangible something to blame his pain on. He needed someone else to be at fault.

“Something is up. And she’s our manager,” Taehyung said. “And you clearly need… managing.”

Childishly, Jungkook retorted, “you don’t know what I need.”

“You told me, because this was bothering you,” the older member said. “I was trying to help you do the right thing.”

Jungkook frowned so deeply that a permanent wrinkle was slowly beginning to form on his forehead. Then, he finally relaxed his face and stopped moving altogether—to breathe instead. And to think.

Perhaps, he thought as he rushed to inhale and exhale as if he was being pursued by the invisible horrors that he had battled last night and this morning—perhaps the look in your eyes that he’d seen today hadn’t come from a nightmare, after all.

It couldn’t have been Sid who told you. And it wasn’t Taehyung. It wasn’t Luna.

You looked at him like it was him.

“It—it must have—it was—” He inhaled and held his breath for one, two, three seconds. “You’re right. I-I must have told her. It was—I did—I-I told her.”

Taehyung watched as acceptance darkened Jungkook’s already hopeless eyes.

“I was really—I still feel kind of drunk, but I was even more wasted last night,” he continued, staring at the floor. He was breathing so rapidly now that he could have powered every streetlight in this whole city if they ran on oxygen and not electricity. “Maybe I was the one who told her. No one else could have, and it—it should have been me anyway, but I—it was—”

“Okay,” Taehyung said, quickly realising the direness of the situation. He put an arm around the younger boy’s shoulder. “Why don’t you sit down?”

Jungkook hadn’t realised he was standing.

He didn’t feel Taehyung lower him onto his bunk, he didn’t feel the soft mattress underneath, he didn’t feel his friend’s hands around him.

All he felt was an oddly familiar tremor taking over his body—as if he’d already been here, shaking uncontrollably in another life.

Taehyung was aware of the predicament that Jungkook was in. Really, he was. But, honestly, he was proud of him for telling you the truth. He probably shouldn’t have felt this way, considering that telling you about the bet was common sense, but he couldn’t help it.

He was glad that Jungkook had chosen honesty—even though Taehyung hadn’t really given him a different choice, and the truth had made the younger boy nearly transparent as his shoulders hunched under his friend’s touch.

Taehyung wanted to believe that this honesty, despite how much discomfort and pure pain it brought Jungkook, signified growth. And with growth came the decision to choose better friends.

However, telling you about the bet and then forgetting about it? That was bad. Taehyung didn’t want to imagine how bad.

He sighed, releasing one breath in the time that Jungkook released ten.

“Maybe you should talk to her. When you’re a little more put together,” Taehyung suggested, hoping that a clear plan of action would calm Jungkook down.

“She won’t talk to me,” he said, and his breaths grew more ragged.

“Ah.” Taehyung raised his head knowingly. He needed a moment to compose himself before he admitted that he knew this would happen—and that Jungkook deserved this silent treatment just a little bit. “Yes. Well… That—that was to be expected, I would think.”

Despite his words, there was a comforting warmth in Taehyung’s eyes that Jungkook missed because he was too preoccupied with fighting his inner demons. He remembered something else—a sharp tension in his lungs, much like the one he was experiencing right now, as he struggled to contain everything that he was inhaling: revulsion and regret, despair and dread.

He had told you. He couldn’t remember it exactly, but he knew he had.

Jungkook managed to raise his eyes.

“W-what—what do I do?” he asked in between breaths.

Taehyung sucked his lips in. “I have no idea.”

Jungkook groaned as he ran his shaking fingers through his hair and pulled away from the other boy.

“For fuck’s s-sake,” he hissed, then took another unsteady breath. “You could—you could try being more helpful, you know.”

“You could try giving me less attitude, you know,” Taehyung returned. “Considering your position.”

Jungkook scrunched his nose irritably but refrained from arguing. His breathing began to slow as he shifted his focus from regretting the past to fixing the future.

“Fine,” he said. “Sorry. Please help me figure this out.”

There wasn’t much that Taehyung could have helped him with, and they both knew it. What Jungkook really needed was just encouragement that this wasn’t over yet. That he could still do something and hope for a positive outcome.

Taehyung contemplated this for a minute. A part of him honestly thought that this might be over. But as much as he valued honesty, he knew that sometimes it wasn’t the best option.

This was one of those times.

Not to mention, there were two sides to this coin.

The first was that you and Jungkook had known each other for years before you began to work together. Taehyung virtually knew nothing about your relationship prior to Rated Riot. He knew nothing of your history together. Maybe there was potential for resolution, after all.

However, the other side of the coin was this: you had an incredible opportunity to work with one of the biggest rock bands in the world. And even though the vocalist of this band was prone to alcohol, he was not prone to toxic friendships—at least as far as Taehyung knew. Not to mention, you hadn’t dated anyone in Reconnaissance, which had to be a massive plus after all that had just happened here. And so, although you said you would stay with Rated Riot, no one would have blamed you if you left.

Taehyung sighed.

This was a very, very unpleasant situation, to say the least.

“Alright. There’s something you should know,” the older boy finally said. “I don’t know if it’s going to be helpful for you, but, um… sh-she got an offer to work with Reconnaissance.”

Jungkook heard the way all the sounds inside the bus and inside his head and even inside his chest suddenly ceased, leaving only a faint buzzing.

He wasn’t sure what was buzzing. Maybe he hadn’t realised he was screaming.

“Wh—what?” he asked after a loaded minute. “She—what? When?”

“I don’t know,” Taehyung said. “I just found out today.”

“So, she’s—what? She’s leaving?”

“I don’t know.”

Jungkook got up from his bunk and spun around, restless all of a sudden, as he ran his fingers through his hair again, messing it up even more. “Fuck.”

Taehyung gave him a moment to process this.

“What do I do?” Jungkook repeated, his breathing uneven again. Taehyung tensed when he heard the panic return to his friend’s voice. He stood up, but couldn’t reach Jungkook as he paced away from him on the bus. “What the f—what do I say? S-she won’t talk to me. Fuck.”

“Give her some time, then,” Taehyung said—quickly. Because he could tell that Jungkook was approaching a concerning new level of distress. “She just found out about the bet. This must have been quite a shock to her. It was shocking for me, and I have nothing to do with this. So, imagine how she must feel.”

“Okay. But it’s—what if she—”

“She’s not impulsive,” Taehyung cut in, guessing the younger boy’s concern. “She won’t just get up and leave. But if you keep pushing right now while the—” He clicked his tongue, looking for a more sensitive word. “—while the shock is still fresh, then you might end up pushing her towards the wrong decision.”

That sounded reasonable. Painful and terrifying, too, but reasonable, nonetheless.

Jungkook slid his hands down his face and spent a minute inhaling and exhaling in two-second increments. Then he nodded and looked up at the other boy.

“Yeah. Okay,” he decided. His head still felt like he had stolen it from a bronze sculpture—heavy, yet completely empty. But he thought he was gradually getting used to the pain. “You’re right. Okay. So, I should wait, right? Just… wait?”

“That’s what I’d do,” Taehyung said. “Wait.”

And so, waiting was what Jungkook did. For exactly six hours.

By then, everyone had already returned to the bus for the trip to Cologne, and the French bus driver had finished half a pack of cigarettes. You were unaware that it was just you and Jungkook left outside—you were still on the phone with the other roadies—and Jungkook used that to his advantage.

Anticipating your usual excuse of being too busy, he prepared in advance and spoke to the bus driver to find out the scheduled departure time. He learned that he should have enough time to have a proper conversation with you or, at the very least, address some of the drunken confessions that he must have made last night.

He had promised himself to hold off speaking to you in hopes that his mind would clear and he could remember a bit more—anything other than this suffocating misery that still kept him in a relentless chokehold today. But that promise was in vain.

He couldn’t wait.

“I need to talk to you,” Jungkook said as soon as he saw you come out from behind the bus.

Just as he had expected, you shook your head. “Now’s not the right—”

“We still have twenty-five minutes before we leave,” he said.

“It wouldn’t hurt to be ahead of schedule,” you argued, but he refused to move, so you couldn’t reach the bus door. “The equipment team had already left. We have to—”

“Please. Give me five minutes,” he said. “Please.”

As you were beginning to look away from him, your eyes involuntarily lingered on his face for a moment longer, and you felt your heart make the decision for you. You’d give him five minutes.

Really, the ache in your chest was just an excuse, as you realised in a fleeting moment of sober clarity. Your mind didn’t want to walk away from him, either.

He looked hurt—he had no right to look that way, not after what he’d done—but the look in his eyes still cut into your already wounded heart a little more.

You couldn’t remember if he had looked like this last night. All that you could see after he told you about the bet were the dangerous ripples of the ground beneath you and the unyielding darkness surrounding you.

You’d listen to him, you decided. That was all that you could still offer him.

“Fine,” you conceded, realising that you had a weakness, and it was standing right in front of you.

Jungkook inhaled—he’d managed to get his breathing under control in the past few hours—and straightened.

He’d seen this before, he thought. This moment that hadn’t even happened yet already echoed in his mind like a forgotten passage from a book that his grandmother had used to read to him—about heartache and the eventual happily ever after. He was too young for those books, really, he just wanted to be in grandma’s room longer. But he remembered the glistening tears in her eyes as she turned the last few pages, and he, too, found himself rooting for the people in the book.

Surely, then, if this was the painful part of the story—the part where the two characters couldn’t look at each other at the same time—then you had to be approaching the conclusion? The happy ending that he found himself dreaming about for the first time in Paris?

All that was left for the two of you was to resolve it all.

“I was very drunk last night,” he started. “I should have told you the truth before I got drunk, but the way the night unfolded… it didn’t work in my favo—okay, that—that sounds like an excuse. But I want you to know that I had the intention to tell you all along. It wasn’t something that I decided on a whim after I had some drinks.”

“Hmm.” You were staring at your shoes before you pursed your lips and glanced up at him. “And, uh, what about the bet? Was that something you made on a whim?”

Something very unpleasant churned in his stomach. He felt queasy.

“I did,” he admitted. “I was—it was—I thought it would prove a point.”

“Did it?”

“No. All it proved is that I made the wrong choice of caring about what my friends thought of me, when I should have cared about what you thought,” he said. His jaw was clenched, but his face was soft and almost fragile. You looked away again. His words sounded clumsy when you weren’t looking at him, when he didn’t know if you heard him. “I-I’m sorry. I swear I meant it when I said I loved—”

“Look,” you said, crossing your arms over your chest. “I don’t really see the point of this conversation, so maybe—”

“Okay—okay, just—listen,” he said in a hurry, raising both of his hands to the back of his head in a desperate attempt to keep himself together. Reluctantly, you returned your gaze to his. “I-I wanted to say that you can ask me, or say anything to me. I want to talk. Give me a chance to explain.”

“I don’t have anything to say to you, though,” you said, and he felt his heart fall and thrash in the cavities of his chest like a frightened, dying fish out of the water.

He tried to remember if this was what you’d said to him last night—this brutal declaration that you’d run out of words—perhaps right after he told you about the bet.

It would have explained why he felt smothered the whole day—as if your decision to talk to him directly influenced his decision to breathe.

“Okay,” he said, swallowing something sharp in his throat. “Well, what about Reconnaissance?”

Your eyes widened for less than a second before you composed yourself. It confirmed to him that everything Taehyung had said was true.

“How did you—?” you began to ask, but Jungkook didn’t let you finish.

“Taehyung told me. You didn’t—you told everyone, but you couldn’t tell me.”

Despite the twinge of guilt in your stomach, you still thought this was an unfair accusation. You hadn’t told everyone. And Jungkook was the last person who could have reprimanded you for keeping a secret.

“This has nothing to do with you,” you said.

“How—” he started, then cut himself off with a scoff. “You’re leaving, and it has nothing to do with me?”

“I’m not—I’m still here, aren’t I?” you countered, changing your mind about making a promise to stay when chaos roamed free in your mind.

Jungkook recognised the hesitation in your eyes. He felt his anger grow at the possibility that you were genuinely considering this.

“Yeah, but for how long?!” he accused. “I thought—I thought we were finally on the same page about everything, and—”

“Oh!” you exclaimed; the single syllable so full of irony that he stopped talking immediately. “On the same page, are we? Okay, then, let me see if I got everything right here.”

There was that fire in your eyes—the one that he had wanted to see.

He felt equal parts terrified—because he couldn’t predict what you’d say next—and hopeful—because you were finally talking to him—as he watched you instead of replying.

“You made a bet with Sid about us,” you said—short and sharp. Jungkook thought he flinched, but he hoped you didn’t notice.

“Yes,” he said. “And I—”

“He said we wouldn’t get back together, and you said we would.”

Jungkook nodded, his throat suddenly too swollen to speak.

“And if you lost,” you continued. “You had to give up your Katana.”

“Mmhm.”

You paused here, frowning. You weren’t sure if you’d forgotten this part or if he hadn’t mentioned it last night.

“And if you won?” you asked.

He felt an unpleasant warmth wash over him at your question.

“I’d, uh—I would have gotten $10,000,” he admitted, his eyes darting between you and the ground. “And, you know. Uh, also you.”

“Ah.” You nodded. “Double win, isn’t it?”

He cringed at the sarcasm.

You continued to watch him with narrowed eyes, but you couldn’t really see him, blind to everything but the raging fury that swirled inside you, pounding on the walls of your chest to get out.

It wasn’t even the bet that you were mostly angry about, not really. You were angry about his choices in general. About his constant need to do whatever his friends told him to. About his utter lack of ability to stand up for himself—and for you.

You were angry that you were back to where you started, back on the doorstep of his dorm room four years ago, when you said you were done, and he did nothing to stop you from leaving.

You were sure you’d had a point you wanted to make when you brought up the bet a few minutes ago, perhaps to counter his attempts to blame you for not telling him about Reconnaissance. But you didn’t want to make any points anymore.

You didn't even want to speak.

“It really sounds fun,” you commented dryly. “Shame you didn’t win.”

“Y-you’re—but I-I don’t care if I win or lose,” he stammered, anguished by your dismissive tone. “That’s why I told you about it. The bet was a mistake. But I can’t turn the fucking time back, even though I really fucking want to. So I’d rather tell you and lose it than win it and lose you. There’s nothing I want more than—I’m—I just want to be honest. And I was honest. Every time I told you how I felt, I meant it.” He inhaled, rushing to get all his words out before he truly lost you—he saw the way you positioned your body away from him as soon as he mentioned honesty. “I was drunk when I told you about the bet, I know. I shouldn’t have been. But I told you, and—”

“See—no,” you cut him off. “You don’t get to feel good about that. You forgot that you told me.”

“I…” his sentence broke off. “I-I did. Okay. That’s true. And I’m sorry. I was really—I was drunk.”

“You’re always fucking drunk.”

You finally turned away as you groaned and allowed the wind to tangle your hair around the hood of your jacket.

You were exhausted of these same old excuses: either he was drunk, or he was with his friends. Sometimes both.

You thought you’d walked away from all of this four years ago. How had you ended up back in the exact same place? Why did you think it would be different this time?

Sid was still here. And his endless games were still here, too.

“Oh.” You remembered suddenly and turned back around. “Was this what the Paris trip was about? When we went to Kihyun and Chloé’s wedding? Is that why Sid didn’t want me to go with you?”

Jungkook closed his eyes. “It’s, uh… yes. It’s sort of what started the, um—the whole thing. But it wasn’t—I actually wanted to go there with you, it wasn’t—”

You hummed, cutting him off—as if you were a teacher, giving him a test, and he was a student, answering every question correctly, but letting you down every time he opened his mouth anyway.

You didn’t say anything else.

Jungkook thought he was going to burst into flames.

He could tell that you didn’t want to listen to him when he said he loved you. In fact, you made a conscious decision not to hear him.

He was horrified to realise that these past few weeks and all the conversations, all the unsaid words that you finally said, all the closure that you’d welcomed after years of evading it—all of it had evaporated after last night.

You refused to remember these moments, refused to believe that they were real.

He wasn’t just back to where he started when this tour began—back when you wouldn’t accept his confessions. When you tried to explain his feelings for you using the circumstances: a different continent, too many forgotten memories, too much time spent together. And you were right, in part, to have your doubts. He really hadn’t told you everything. But everything that he had told you, he’d meant it.

But now he was much farther back—at the very last row, merely observing your silhouette as you climbed on stage and introduced yourself in a cold, detached voice. Like he didn’t know you. Like he hadn’t spent the past seven years loving you.

One bet. One fucking bet.

And now he was scared that there was nothing else left.

Gripping the stitching on the sides of his dark grey jeans, Jungkook said one more time, “I’m sorry.”

You were looking down as you repeatedly nodded your head—each nod a new dagger in his chest.

“Thank you for that,” you said, letting the sentence falter.

It was clear that you’d meant what you said—you had nothing else to say. He would have liked to hear anything, really, except for the silence that followed.

“W-what can I do?” he asked, afraid that the conversation—that all of your conversations— had come to an end.

You frowned—all of your conversations had come to an end.

“What do you mean?” you asked almost incredulously.

“Well, you’re clearly mad, and—”

“No,” you said. “I briefly flew over mad last night when you pulled me out of the bus at six-thirty in the morning. Now I’m back to normal.”

Biting his lip ring and pulling it into his mouth, Jungkook stayed quiet for a few seconds.

He had expected this to be awful, meaning you’d be angry.

He hadn’t expected this to be worse than awful; meaning you’d stand here, looking at him with a straight face and hollow eyes, almost daring him to apologise again.

Now it’s finally too late, your posture was saying. You fucked up one too many times.

You truly weren’t mad, he realised.

You’d given up.

“And w-what—what is ‘normal,’ exactly?” he asked finally, even though he feared the answer.

You hammered the final nail into the coffin that he’d built himself.

“I’m your manager,” you said. What a great eulogy. “You should get back on the bus. We’re leaving soon.”

He knew he needed to apologise again, but nothing he said seemed to make a difference. You weren’t hearing him—and, honestly, he understood why.

But a part of him still felt frustrated. You had kept something from him, too. There was a risk you’d leave—forever—and he needed conditions; something he could do to make this right. To make you stay.

It was a stupid bet. He never should have made it. It was bad, but in comparison to his feelings for you—and yours for him, before he ruined everything—he didn’t think it was significant enough to make you consider leaving your job.

“You’re right,” he said. “You’re my manager. And you can’t—you can’t leave the band.”

The determination in his tone made you pause.

“I can’t?” you repeated, your eyebrows drawn together in a defiant frown. “And who would stop me if I said I was leaving?”

Fuck, Jungkook thought in a sudden panic. That was not what he should have said. Now you might really leave.

Taehyung had warned him that he might push you towards the wrong decision. And he was doing exactly that.

“You—you know what I mean...” he faltered, discouraged by your resistance. “I-I fucked up, I know that. Tell me how to fix it.”

“There’s nothing to fix,” you said. “Get on the bus.”

He stood still. “Is this how it’s going to be from now on?”

“It’s going to be like it always was,” you said. “Get on the fucking bus, Jungkook.”

He didn’t. You were so close to him now that he could smell your perfume and the apple scent of your shampoo. He remembered himself years ago, hoping that one day, apples would stop reminding him of you.

Now he knew how outrageously absurd it was to hope for this when he was convinced that all versions of him—across all universes—always immediately thought of you whenever they tasted apples.

“Don’t—you can’t start treating me like everything that happened between us didn’t happen,” he retorted—with all the anger that he had at the thought of never having you this close to him again.

“What happened, exactly?” you snapped. “You’ve clearly never bothered to be honest with me for one second until last night, never bothered to even think about me, because you—”

“I thought about you all the time, though!”

“Yeah, because you had no other fucking choice!” you rebutted. “If you didn’t think of me, you would have lost the bet. None of it was genuine—”

“I lost the bet because I was thinking of you,” he defended, furiously waving his hands around.

“Oh! That’s so considerate!” Your laughter was rigid and bitter. “Maybe it’s me who should apologise. I’m so sorry I ended up being the reason why you lost the bet.”

He dropped his hands, groaning. Once again, he realised how terrible he was at telling the truth, and how splendid at saying all the wrong things.

“Don’t—don’t be like that,” he asked, agitated.

You glared at him. “Like what?”

“Just—difficult.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” you said. “I’ll make this very simple for you: we’re done talking about your shit.” You pulled back from him to turn around. “Get on the fucking bus. I have more important things to do.”

Immediately, Jungkook grabbed both of your hands to stop you from leaving.

You turned back to him with wide eyes, and your stunned stiffness gave him enough time to properly wrap his fingers around your wrists.

“Is that your plan, then?” he demanded. His hands were cold, but his grip was loose enough for you to push him away—but the challenge in his question made you wait, frozen in place. “You’re just going to walk away again? Start working with a different band so you won’t have to think about your feelings? Won’t have to face your fears of trying again? That’s your solution for everything, isn’t it? Just fucking walking away.”

He'd touched something—there was a raw wildfire in your eyes now, nothing like the flames he’d seen before.

You yanked your hand out of his grip and took a step back.

“You know what?” you said. “It is. It is my solution to everything. And you want to know something else? This bet isn’t even the worst thing. And that’s the worst thing—the fact that this is just another bullet point in an endless list of shit that you and your friends have done. So, yes. I am walking away. I should have never even come back in the first place.”

Jungkook felt the ground beneath his feet tremble unsteadily at your words—much like his hands by his sides.

Back in Amsterdam, you’d told him that you forgave him for not realising how many mistakes he’d made in your relationship. He’d seen a glimpse of a second chance that night in your hotel room.

He was aware of his never-ending list of mistakes now. And still, he made new ones.

“I’m—I’m sorry, I—”

“Get on the bus,” you said, turning around to face the empty parking lot instead of his apologetic face. “I still need to call the other drivers and check in with the rest of the crew.”

You were doing your job. You were still talking to him. He should have been glad.

Instead, he couldn’t force his legs to move or his heart to keep beating.

“I… Can—can you just—just tell me that you’ll stay with the band,” he pleaded.

Your shoulders were straight as you stood with your back to him, your hands clenched into distraught fists by your sides. He’d once jokingly tried to teach you the proper stance in a fight. Really, it was you who should have done the teaching.

“Get on the bus,” you repeated.

His distress was relentless. “I will. But we have to talk about—”

“We don’t have to do anything,” you argued. “I think it’s better if we stop having conversations unrelated to Rated Riot altogether, if that’s alright with you.”

He watched your back with unwavering determination. “It’s not.”

“Tough. Get in.”

He needed a minute to convince himself to quit arguing, to drain the fight out of his chest. Then another minute to steady his breathing enough to turn towards the bus.

As he approached the door, he looked back at you and caught the way you had glanced at him over your shoulder. There was a dampness in your eyes from the heavy wind. He saw it right before you turned away again.

He swayed lightly on the steps of the bus. “Please, just—”

“Don’t,” you said, and your shaky voice turned the word into a warning rather than an order. “Just get in. We’re done talking.”

With your back still turned to the bus, you heard Jungkook climb the steps, seemingly hesitate once more, and then finally walk inside. The automatic door slammed shut behind him with a dull thud that was almost as loud as the defeated beats of your heart in your chest.

Alone in the parking lot, you finally exhaled all that you’d kept inside and then some. You wanted your lungs to feel as empty as your chest.

For just a minute, you couldn’t be Rated Riot’s manager.

For just a minute, you needed to be yourself and by yourself as you squatted, hugging your knees to your chest.

Your laboured breaths made you rock on your feet slightly as your chest rose and fell at an increasing pace, but you resisted the throbbing hurt inside—you couldn’t cry. You wouldn’t.

In a minute, you’d have to check on the band and make sure all of them were on the bus before leaving for Cologne.

In a minute, you’d have to face Jungkook again and talk to him as if nothing had happened.

You squeezed your eyes shut.

The bet was hurtful. But what hurt even more was your own choice to let it all escalate to the point where losing it all again hurt. Still wanting him, even now, hurt. His unchanging priorities—his friends first, everyone else second—hurt.

You didn’t want to talk to him as if nothing had happened. But you had to.

Maybe it was for the better. The bet was a cold shower, jolting you awake and reminding you that trying again never worked.

And really, perhaps you should have seen this coming. You knew that this was just another one of Sid’s games that Jungkook had willingly participated in. Truly, this was nothing new in your experience and hardly different from Sid dropping Jungkook off at the grimiest bar in town and sending you on a scavenger hunt to find him—night, after night, after night.

You stood up with a sharp inhale.

You’d had enough.

If Jungkook wanted to continue playing, he could do it by himself. You refused to be a part of it again.

However, ending things with Jungkook and ensuring that he didn’t win this bet didn’t feel like your win, either.

It felt like you both lost.

chapter title credits: bad omens, “the fountain”

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