#part of what C!Tommy IS. fundamentally.

[fanfictilltheend]

❤️‍🔥Violent Heart Part 1: ♪All I've ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you ♫ (or the VERY DARK Stepdad!Mechanic!Covict!Joel x Afab!you one)❤️‍🔥

A/n: It's here!!!!!! 18+ Only. This took me 7 freaking months so you mofos better like, reblog, and comment. This is both my most and least personal fic I've ever written and it is dark and relies heavily on plot (no smut until part 2 but i swear it's worth the backstory!!!!) READ ALL OF THE TAGS DO NOT COME FOR ME UNLESS YOU DID THIS FR FR. This ones for my dark joel fangirlies(guys and NBies) and the daddy issues fam ily ❤️‍🔥 (also not me naming my fic in part after hallelujah by leonard cohen but there is a reason!!!!!!!!!!)

Summary: The story starts with Part 1 where afab!Y/N is a child and Joel is her new stepdad and this story explores their relationship. Themes of abusive family, domestic violence, child abuse, daddy issues, physical violence, murder, stepcest (kinda b/c he is divorced from her mom technically but she grew up with him as her stepdad), infidelity, age gap, and more are explored throughout the fic. PLEASE READ SPECIFIC TAGS (part 2 tags will be added with the release of part 2). Part 2 picks up with Y/N at age 20 and how her relationship with Joel has changed and gets steamier. NOTHING SEXUAL OCCURS BETWEEN Y/N and JOEL until Y/N is 20!!!!!!! Also check out this playlist of music that's in the fic!!!!

Tags (PLEASE READ): Afab!you, stepdad!joel, mechanic!joel, convict!joel, no apocalypse au, Mentions of sex (little detail), mentions of male masturbation, infidelity, domestic abuse/violence, sibling abuse/violence (no one ever talks about sibling abuse but it’s very real), physical child abuse, neglect, allusions to past domestic violence, cursing, brief mention of pedophilia and kidnapping (David), allusions to committing future pedophilia (David), threats, cancer mention, Sarah death discussion, Tommy death mention, murder, prison, mentions of god and religion, fights, general violence, alcohol consumption, using music lyrics to move the plot, daddy issues, use of y/n

Word Count: ~15k

PART 2 (coming soon)

Ao3 Link

Violent Heart Masterlist

Full Masterlist of all my work

Joel Miller is not a good man, that he knows like the backs of his calloused hands. 

He knows loss too, feels it burrowed in the hollow cavity of his chest. Sees it in the face of every little girl he meets. 

The memories sting. 

He knows pain, deep in the depths of his character, down to the fundamentals of what makes him something that resembles a human being. The belts, the bigger hands, the harsh words, and then the grief. The recent Bring back my babygirl! The ancient ¡Basta, Papí, por favor, no Tommy, no Mamá! ¡Por favor no esta noche! The indignity of begging, always reduced to begging to a cruel man, an indifferent doctor, a cruel universe. 

He knows hard work, how to work with his hands. He knows the grit and grease of labor. Sees the cogs turning in the engines he fixes, relates to them. Feels like he knows them intimately because he is one too, chugging along day after endless day. But no one dares fix Joel Miller.

Until…

Her name is Erica and she’d like her front bumper replaced, please. She has long eyelashes and a soothing voice. And she has money too, at least more than he, who is almost broke from the cost of Sarah’s medical bills. She comes with baggage, Joel can tell from looking into her eyes, but then again so does he. And he hasn’t been laid in god knows how long. 

She takes him on a date and he lets her. She reveals she has two kids, but Joel doesn’t care. They fuck at her place while the kids are at school and she wants it soft, like her hands, and that’s how Joel gives it to her. 

A week later, Joel has moved in, which is good because his rent was due and he couldn’t pay it. He still hasn’t met the children.

***

It’s Joel’s day off and he’s sitting on the couch in his new home. His back hurts, but that’s nothing new. He’s got an excellent view of their nice, big backyard with a wooden fence. The kind of home he would have liked to have given Sarah. He sighs. Technically, nothing is wrong.

Then he sees it. It takes him a second to realize what is going on. It’s a whirlwind. He sees the back gate open and two tumbling forms fall over the threshold onto the manicured grass. One form is bigger, a boy of about twelve or thirteen beating the shit out of a much smaller form, fists flying. The other form is a little girl, no more than eight, defending herself like her life depends on it. Perhaps it does with the way he’s going at her. 

This must be the son, Aiden, and the daughter, Y/N. 

He’s a good boy, really, but he has anger issues sometimes. He’s been through a lot. That’s what Erica said, but Joel does not see a good boy. He sees a bully. A disproportionately violent one at that. Nothing that tiny girl could have possibly done could warrant the brutality he sees before him. 

Anger is something else Joel knows intimately, and that is what he greets when he runs outside to end the fray.

“Stop that!” he roars, pulling Aiden off of Y/N.

“Who the fuck are you!?” the boy screams, fury and hatred radiating off of his entire being. 

He continues thrashing and punching at nothing as Joel restrains him.

“I’m gonna kill her!” he screams, his eyes bulging.

“What the hell happened?” Joel growls, still holding onto the livid boy–verging on young man. 

“She ripped up my paper!” he bellows. “For no fucking reason! I worked hard on it!”

“It was a lie,” she says with so much conviction Joel almost flinches.

He looks down at the little girl, her nose bleeding, her right eye turning purple. She has tears streaked down her face, but she is not crying. Her shirt is ripped. The first thing he thinks of when he sees her is Sarah. Of course it’s Sarah, how could he not think of her? But this little girl is different, has a different look in her eye. This look is much harder and feels like she’s lived a thousand lifetimes. He thanks god Sarah never looked that way, but somehow he wants to hear about everything this little girl has experienced. Something twangs in Joel’s chest that he has not felt in what feels like an eternity. 

“It was not a lie, you stupid bitch whore!” Aiden shouts angrily, still fighting back against Joel’s unrelenting grip. “Take that back!”  

“No, you take it back! Dad is not a hero. You could’ve picked anyone to write about and you choose him? After everything he’s done?” she screams herself.

The sound of her voice is powerful but desperate. Joel feels himself needing to know more and bury himself deep inside her experiences.

“SHUT UP!” Aiden yells, finally ceasing his movements. 

A tear falls from his cheek. 

“If I let you go, will you stop whooping your sister?” Joel snaps firmly.

“Get away from me, you stupid cuck!” Aiden curses, turning his energy to Joel. “Who the hell are you to me? Fuck you! I’m out of here!”

He wriggles out of Joel’s grasp and Joel lets him go and Aiden storms back out the rear gate, slamming it behind him.

“You alright?” he asks Y/N.

Joel crawls over on his knees, still upright, closer to her. 

“Had worse,” she shrugs, running a hand through her messed-up hair. 

She wipes the tears and blood from her cheeks.

Joel shudders to imagine what she means.

“He always like that?”

“Yeah,” she nods. “So you Mom’s new boyfriend?”

“Something like that,” he nods back. ”’M Joel. Joel Miller.”

“I’m Y/N,” she says a bit mournfully. “Here,” she continues suddenly, reaching out a small hand to his cheek. She wipes blood (hers) gently off his stubbly face. “Didn’t mean to get ya dirty.”

Joel is nothing short of touched. He wasn’t even aware he could still have such a feeling. His cheeks go rosy pink. His heart pulses. He stares at her delicate hands and notices a long, thin scar on her left middle finger. 

“‘S no trouble, sweetheart,” he hears himself reassuring her. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Could even mend your shirt if ya want. Know how to sew and all.”

He reaches out a large hand, but she flinches at the sudden movement. A dull ache wells up in Joel’s chest. 

“Not gonna hurt you, honey. Swear it.” 

He wants with every fiber of his being for her to believe him, for it to be true. 

She takes his hand.

***

That evening Erica is still not home, working late Joel supposes. It is nine o’clock when Aiden slinks back into the house.

Joel stops him from making his way up the stairs. He is more than familiar with the art of creeping.

“Think you oughta apologize to your sister,” he says as gently as possible. Maybe he can impart some manners onto this unruly child now that he’s calmed down some. “You beat her real bad. You’re much bigger than her.”

“I’d do it again,” Aiden hisses, his eyes cold. “It makes me feel better.”

And then, to Joel, the answer is simple. What do you do with a bully who won’t repent? Fight him back. Show him who’s boss, who’s bigger.

He grabs Aiden by the arm in a flash of anger and drags him up the stairs. The boy screams and flails, but that doesn’t deter Joel. He brings him to the room he assumes is his, the walls covered in sports posters and memorabilia.

“Take off your shirt,” he growls, a familiar fury pounding inside his chest.

When Aiden protests, Joel does it for him, ripping the kid’s shirt nearly in half. Rage floods through Joel’s veins and he can’t exactly place why, but the feeling is very real and bouldering through him at an alarming speed. He knows this feeling, feels strangely at home there.

He undoes his belt and brings the leather end down on Aiden’s back, not the buckle like his father used to do. Joel does have some decency buried deep in his chest. And then he loses himself to the unyielding anger.

“You get ten,” he snarls. “Don’t you lay a hand on your sister again. Is that understood? Now you answer to me.”

No response except for a scream.

“I said , do you understand?” Joel roars, bringing down the belt.

Rage consumes him like a drug. He barely registers what he’s doing. The belt goes down again and again. And somehow, through the screaming and the pain, and the intoxicating feeling of being completely in control for once, Joel’s line of vision wanders to the bedroom door. In all the excitement, it was left ajar and out in the hallway, sitting on her knees is Y/N. Joel immediately expects fear, despair, revulsion. When Tommy would watch him take a beating his face would betray the most acute sense of hopelessness and terror and the waterworks would begin. But Y/N just stares at him unflinchingly, at what he’s doing. She doesn’t cry, she simply sees. Too much for a child, and yet, she watches. She does not intervene, doesn’t even try to. And for the tiniest moment, her and Joel’s eyes connect, and he feels a sense of calm, of comprehension, of recognition in that uncannily knowing gaze. Her irises sparkle and Joel feels…something that he cannot entirely articulate. Seen? Accepted? Understood? Joel knows logically what he is doing is an ugly, vile thing — he has never claimed to be a good man. Practical maybe, but never good. And yet, Y/N sees it — sees him — and she doesn’t look away. She cocks her head slightly, and images of Tommy grimacing in revulsion and fear as Joel mercilessly beat up their childhood neighborhood bullies to the point of unconsciousness pop into his mind, of the haunting look in his brother’s eyes. Even Sarah could not stomach his violent heart when she witnessed him beat up some pervert with a camera that had looked at her funny at the mall. Even though it was for her — to keep her safe. She had stared at him in disgust and pity. She had not seen him then at all.

But now, looking at Y/N, for the briefest moment, Joel can swear he sees something resembling a smile flicker over her serious face. And though it goes as quickly as it comes, he feels the familiar sensation gnawing at the bottom of his stomach: primal and untameable, soft and vulnerable, but fierce and loud at the same time. He feels an inexorable, inescapable sense of care and devotion to this child. But most of all, because she sees him, truly sees him, and does not turn away in disgust, Joel Miller feels the gut-wrenching, unquenchable sensation of love deep in his chest. For the first time since Sarah died on that hospital bed, weak and unwell from the chemo he could not afford, he feels alive . 

***

Things fall into a tentative routine. Every morning, Joel wakes up in bed beside Erica. They fuck the night before more often than not, but always in that same slow way that doesn’t do much for Joel. It’s enough to get off, sure, she isn’t an unattractive woman, but he’s mostly there for the meal ticket and roof over his head. He goes to work at the auto-body repair shop, Erica goes to her job at her law firm. The kids ride the bus to school. He gets home in the evenings before Erica and spends time coexisting with the children. Usually, he kicks back on the sofa, rubbing his sore back, and watches television, minding his own business. Aiden mostly avoids him, doing god knows what in his room. He bullies his sister cruelly and Joel punishes him when he sees fit. Erica knows what he does to Aiden and either doesn’t care or approves. He never lays a hand on Y/N though. She warms up to him slowly, cautiously. Most evenings she sits on the far end of the couch and Joel on the other, but as she gets used to him and sees that he’s not a threat, at least to her, she scoots closer. 

The children’s father is no longer in their lives from what Joel can tell, which is perfectly fine with him. When Joel’s heart does not feel full of lead, he plays the guitar. Y/N sits and watches him. She is a quiet child, but unrelentingly brave. When Joel lets the TV blare, he rarely cares to pay much attention these days, she stays and watches with him, no matter what is on and never complains or asks to change the channel. Blockbuster zombie apocalypse movie? She watches. News special on America’s most dangerous serial killers? She watches. Documentary on venomous snakes? She watches. Should Joel be letting her watch this crap? Who the fuck knows? He isn’t her father. And plus, he won’t admit this to anyone, hardly even himself, but he likes having some company. It makes everything feel…less. And he likes that she doesn’t try to make him speak. Sometimes there are no words and he thinks Y/N understands this. Unlike Erica who yaps every second of the day. But Joel stays polite and plays along. He has to.

But he will not lie, Aiden gets on his very last nerve. There is something that Joel cannot quite place that makes him feel like he has known this boy his whole life even though they are as familiar as perfect strangers. All siblings fight and rough-house. That is normal. Hell, he and Tommy used to fight rough and tumble all the time. But the way Aiden bullies Y/N is something else entirely. And most times, it is unprovoked. And he is so much bigger than she is, growing bigger by the day. 

Joel’s beatings have not stopped Aiden’s anger and sadistic attitudes, but they do make sure that he takes some kind of physical consequence for his crimes. It makes Joel feel better and he thinks it makes Y/N feel better too. And some days he gets so fucking mad at Aiden that he thinks not even god could stop his wrath even if the boy turned into Mother Theresa herself! Okay, maybe that’s extreme, but another part of Joel thinks maybe it’s not. The truth is, though he is loathe to admit it, some days, he is not in control of his anger. Some days he punches so hard, his knuckles bleed and he has to stop for a second to come back to himself. Others he goes so roughly on Aiden that he causes the kid to become bloody and he feels ashamed of what he’s done. But there are other days, very dark days, where he wishes he could do it over and over again. He convinces himself he’s doing it for Y/N and not some other sinister ulterior motive he does not care to dwell on…

One night, a few months into Joel’s new living arrangements, he walks through the upstairs hallway to his and Erica’s bedroom, passing the closed door to the bathroom that the kids share. He has done this what feels like a thousand times before and doesn’t think anything of it until he stops and realizes he hears Y/N singing. 

♪“ Someday, my pain / Someday, my pain will mark / You…”♫ she sings softly.

He can barely hear it over the crash of the water from her shower, but her voice is beautiful. It pulls at Joel’s shrunken heart, deep inside his long-dead chest. Her voice has an eerie quality to it too, almost haunting. He’s not sure of what song it is, but he finds himself wanting to know. Eventually, she stops, and Joel goes to bed, but her voice echoes in his mind for hours as he lies awake in the dark.

The next day, Joel is sitting on the couch when the kids get home from school. Y/N joins him on the other side of the sofa as usual. They watch reruns of some unfunny family sitcom.

“Heard you singing last night,” he finally grunts unceremoniously.

Y/N goes very still.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, avoiding his gaze. “I’ll be quieter next time.”

Joel looks over at her. He realizes she looks terrified.

“Ain’t no problem with it,” he tries to explain, confused. “Thought you sounded nice is all.”

“You tryna trick me?” she stammers, tears collecting in her shimmering eyes.

“What? Trick you? What you crying for, honey? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Joel is genuinely flabbergasted. 

Tears trickle down her cheeks. What has he done this time? he wonders. But he is concerned more than anything. Hell, he hasn’t seen her cry like this since the day they met. Not even last week when Aiden slammed her head into the metal oven in the kitchen (luckily it was off or Joel would have really killed him that time).  

She sniffles, looking conflicted, then collects herself as best she can manage.

“M-my dad didn’t like when I would sing. ‘Specially if he was in a depo…I forget the word…deponition? Deposition? When he was on the phone for work, I mean. If I was being too loud. Or too shrill. He didn’t like that one bit. He’d get mad…” she trails off. 

“The way Aiden gets mad?” Joel asks very slowly, not truly wanting to know the answer.

“Yeah,” she nods after a while. “Except he’s a lot bigger. And stronger. He…he broke my arm once. But it was on accident I think. He got me ice cream after.”

Anger, red and hot, pulses through Joel’s veins. What hadn’t this child endured at the hands of angry men? 

“What did your mother do?” he bites out, almost unnaturally calm from trying to control himself.

“Well, most of the time he’d kinda like hit her around, I guess? But the time he broke my arm was the time she made him leave for good and they got a divorce and all. Aiden says it’s my fault he won’t come around anymore. He was so mad. He loves Dad so much. I don’t understand it though because even though Dad likes him a lot more than me, Dad would still be so mean to him sometimes. Mom says I don’t even know all of it...Promise I won’t bother you with singing though, okay?”

“Sweetheart,” Joel says as softly as his blinding rage will permit. Somehow, when he’s with Y/N, he finds he can control himself better. “I’ll never get mad at you for singing. Or being too loud. Or anything. Never gonna put my hands on you. I’m sorry if what I do to Aiden scares you or made you think that I would ever do such a thing to you.”

“It doesn’t scare me,” she shakes her head. “When you get rough with Aiden, you do it because he did really bad, to protect me. It’s like with you there’s rules that make sense. Aiden chooses to be mean and violent so you choose it back to him. With my dad, it was different. It was like I could breathe wrong and I’d get in trouble. Get in trouble for things I couldn’t control or help. Sometimes I did bad, I know I did, but I also know there were other times where I wasn’t hurting anyone and he’d still hurt me so badly. My dad never got mad at Aiden for hurting me though. He thought it was funny, I think. Sometimes he’d kinda like sick him on me. Kinda how you could a dog.”

Joel doesn’t know how to respond, doesn’t know the right words. He figures he can only show her with his actions who he is and she will just have to learn to trust him. If her father ever enters the house though, he will wring his neck. That’s for certain. Thank God he doesn’t come around for his sake, Joel’s, and the family’s.

“I was just thinking,” Joel finally says. “If ya want, I could learn how to play that song you were singing on my guitar and maybe you could sing it for me sometime?”

“M-maybe we could sing it together?” Y/N asks tentatively, her eyes wide. “Singing in front of other people is kinda scary.”

“I haven’t sung in a while,” Joel sighs. “Might be rusty.” 

“That’s okay,” she grins hopefully. 

Joel wants to take a photo of that rare sight and keep it close for as long as he lives, torn in his pocket or snug in his wallet, he doesn’t care. 

“Joel?” she asks a little cautiously, breaking him from his thoughts. “Can I ask you something?”

“‘Course, kiddo,” he says as gently as he knows how.

“Who’s Sarah?”

His heart stops. His blood runs cold. 

“What? How did you–”

“You were talking. In your sleep yesterday,” she says, shrinking away a little and Joel feels sorry for scaring her again. “When we were watching Dexter . Well, you fell asleep right before. You were snoring and all, but you were also talking and mumbling that name. You sounded sad and scared.”

Joel should definitely not have allowed her to watch that! But that is hardly the point right now. 

His heart squeezes so tight it burns. What was there to say about Sarah – the entire reason his life had had any purpose? His perfect babygirl? The light of his life? 

He could lie. So easily too and Y/N would never know. He could say nothing at all. Hasn’t even told Erica about her yet. Hardly ever speaks to anyone about her these days.

And yet…

“She was my daughter,” he hears himself say softly. “She…got sick. Died of leukemia a while back. She was twelve.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the wallet he was just thinking about. Inside is a tiny school photo of Sarah – the last one she ever took. It’s faded a little, but she’s still smiling so big she could block out the sun. He shows it to Y/N.

“I’m sorry, Joel,” she says and she really does look sorry. 

Not the way his co-workers and customers say it – almost as a reflex – to fill the void in the conversation. Her eyes are shimmering.  

“Nothin’ to do about it now,” he shrugs, running his thumb over the photo paper, softened with age. “But she was so damn special. My whole world.”

He has learned to repress the tears, not to show weakness, that is not hard. Not anymore. But the anger that broils up inside him – the injustice of it all – how he was unable to help her. Unable to save her. He feels almost like a child again, powerless in an unforgiving, unrelenting world. He wants to fight back!

He is so angry he begins to shake and his hands clench into fists. 

He wants to flip over the fucking coffee table – fling it across the room! He wants to punch in the glass of the flickering TV screen until his fist is broken! He wants to–He wants–

He just wants his babygirl back…

A sob, small and foreign rises in his throat, but he pushes it down. 

He thinks Y/N knows though. Can see the vulnerability in his eyes.

She reaches out a small hand and touches his fist, pushes it down gently into the soft fabric of the couch so he’ll stop shaking. It doesn’t entirely work, but he thinks he appreciates the effort.

“I don’t know if this is the right thing to say,” she begins a bit skittishly, still not entirely trusting the hulking, raging man above her. “But I think I would have liked to have been her friend.”

And for the first time since Sarah died, Joel sobs . 

Y/N pops up from the couch and Joel’s heart cries out louder in his chest for her to come back, don’t leave me too as he tries to suck the tears back in. It doesn’t work though and liquid gushes down his cheeks. He doesn’t think he can take the rejection, the loss of her. But thankfully, she returns just as quickly as she went with a handful of tissues stuffed into her small fist. 

“Here, Joel,” she offers. “Here. Don’t cry.”

Joel does cry though. He’s ashamed he’s broken down in front of this literal child, and he doesn’t let out much noise, but he doesn’t take the tissues either. He can’t. 

She’s so sweet though, or maybe it’s because she is truly afraid of him now, of his wrath, he’ll never really know, but she frowns and reaches out a little hand, the one with the scar on the middle finger, and tries to wipe up the tears.

The paper of the tissue tickles his cheeks.

“Shouldn’t havta…” he tries.

“Didn’t mean to make you…” she answers.

A pause.

“You didn’t, honey. That was all me,” he assures her finally.

She lets out a sigh of relief and soaks up the last of the salt water from his face, brushes the tissue gently against his nose. It tickles, causes him to snort. He smirks a little.

She smiles back shyly, she can’t help it, he can tell. 

“You know,” he says thoughtfully after a few moments of silence, sighing deeply. “I reckon she would’ve wanted to be your friend too…”

***

A few months roll by. Things are virtually the same except Y/N seems more comfortable around him now. Maybe it’s because she saw his weakness up close and personal, his Achilles heel —— knows how to coax it out of him now if she has to. Or maybe it’s because she truly trusts him. Whatever the case, she sits closer to him on the couch now, still giving him a respectful foot of distance though of course. 

Once in a blue moon, she sings for him and he tries to keep up with the lilting sound of her high voice. She says she likes his low, deep voice just fine, it’s just she still gets nervous singing in front of other people so it’s still a rare occasion. His favorite is when she sings solo and he gets to strum along for her and really listen. Sometimes her voice cracks in a very specific way that some might find to be a flaw, but Joel would never. 

Aiden makes fun of them and calls them the ‘Von Trapp Family Singers.’ Are they a family? Joel wonders.

One day after work, Joel goes to the library to find some sheet music for a song Y/N likes. She treasures the photo-copied paper like a gift as Joel deciphers the notes he can actually read for her. She color-codes each one carefully in magic marker so she can remember the differences between them. 

The next day, Aiden burns it up with a lighter he has acquired from God knows where. Joel confiscates it – the last thing he needs is this particular child setting fires – and It doesn’t end well for Aiden. He limps for damn near a week. But some days, when Aiden is calm, he joins Y/N and Joel in front of the TV if a sports game is on. He doesn’t sit on the couch though, just the floor. He doesn’t say much to them but does get invested in the good and bad plays of each game, gets sore if his team is losing. On one particularly good day, when the Rangers hit a grand slam, and Joel was actually paying attention, he and Aiden actually high-five.  

Things are going…well? Is that the right word? It is a foreign concept for Joel. For Christmas, he gets Y/N guitar, Aiden a book on boxing so maybe he will redirect his anger into somewhere productive, and Erica a spa-day kit for 20% off that he saw at CVS (he never claimed to know what women want). Aiden is neutral, surprised, he thinks, that Joel even got him a present. Erica is actually appreciative and returns the favor with some new socks and underwear. 

“A practical gift for a practical man,” she says, kissing him on the forehead. 

Joel supposes he appreciates the gesture. 

Y/N, though, is thrilled.

“Thank you, Joel! Got you something too,” she says excitedly, bouncing up and down in her red and white pajamas.

“That’s not necessary,” Joel chides, leaning over to pick up the wrapping paper that was strewn across the living room floor. 

But secretly he is curious. He didn’t think she even had any money of her own…

Aiden opens the cover of the boxing book with disinterest, eyeing the new guitar distastefully. 

Y/N jumps up, leaves the room, and returns with a small plastic baggie in her hands. Inside are little, different bits of colored plastic clumsily and haphazardly cut into tiny, sharp-looking, badge-shaped pieces. One he recognizes is from the top of a yogurt container he put into the recycling the other day, another one from the top of a Gatorade bottle. 

“Here ya go!” 

She shoves the plastic bag into his large hands enthusiastically.

“Thank you,” Joel responds, still unsure what he was given.

It reminds him of when Sarah was young and would come home with some sort of abstract macaroni painting from kindergarten and he would nod and smile knowingly when she explained that of course it was Two dinosaurs getting married, Dad. Duh!

“You could try one on my new guitar,” she offers, a little disappointed when he doesn’t have more of a reaction. “You said you lost most of yours…”

Joel immediately feels guilty and then it clicks. She tried to make him guitar picks! His heart clenches with emotion he can not quite identify. 

He pulls a little orange one out of the bag and accidentally nicks the edge of his finger. Because of the way it was cut, no doubt with uncoordinated child’s hands and a pair of scissors, the edges are much too sharp to serve as an actual guitar pick without damaging guitar strings or apparently Joel’s finger. Dumb kid. But he’s beyond honored anyone would take the time to do such a thoughtful thing for him. 

He hisses softly and sucks the blood off his finger.

“Oops,” she says, horrified. “Shoot. Sorry, I–”

“‘S no trouble,” he interjects dismissively. “Love ‘em. Was my fault anyway. I’mma be honest with you though, sweetheart; don’t think the guitar strings can handle these babies.”

“Oh,” she says softly, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “Oh, yeah, okay...”

She deflates, looking down at the carpet.

Joel selfishly lets her be sad for a beat before swooping back in to be the one to save the day.

“But here’s what I’ll do…”

She looks back up at him with an intoxicating kind of hope in her eyes.

He takes his wallet out of his back pocket and slips the orange pick into the photo slot next to the picture of Sarah. He returns the wallet back into his pants. 

Y/N positively beams. Brighter than the sun, even, Joel thinks.

Aiden yawns purposefully loudly and rolls his eyes. Erica looks touched and maybe even a little proud of her choice in men. But Joel didn’t do it for them. The only reaction in the world he cares about is hers.

Y/N is still grinning, bouncing on the balls of her feet again. But then she does something new: she leans in and hugs him, wrapping her little arms around his waist, burying her face in his flannel shirt, pressing against his tummy.

The world stops for Joel. 

At first, he just hangs there limply, awkwardly. Literally forgets what one is supposed to do in such a situation, but then instinct kicks in and he wraps his arms around her too and squeezes ever so slightly. It’s a more cautious hug than Sarah would have given him – she would have squeezed him half to death – but Y/N is still holding him. Someone small and warm is holding onto him for the first time in what feels like an eternity. And just like that his past is rhyming with his present and it is the most beautiful sound Joel Miller has ever heard. 

Joel Miller is not a good man, no, but maybe, just maybe, he thinks he could be one for Y/N. 

***

Joel tries to be good. He does. His first order of business is stop beating on Aiden – especially in front of Y/N. No amount of violence towards the kid seems to do any good anyway – he still hurts her. And Joel is sick of bandaging her up and wiping the blood from her cheeks; something has to change. Not that he wouldn’t do it a thousand times if he had to. He’d do anything for the girl, that he is sure of. And the truth is, Aiden is close to getting big enough to really fight back. And Joel knows if Aiden really lays a hand on him, he’s not sure he will be able to control himself enough to not inflict permanent damage. And he doesn’t want that. Truly.

So at first, Joel thinks about having Erica send him away to a wilderness camp for troubled children or some such program he sees mentioned on reruns of Dr. Phil. She has the money to do it too. But she won’t send him away. She refuses, loves him too much. Protecting Y/N seems as far down on her list of priorities as ever. She is useless at disciplining him, always has been, so it is up to Joel to find another solution. So the next thing he tries is to set the boy up in boxing classes. This is risky since it might just teach him new ways to hurt Y/N, but at least it will be a place to direct his anger.

It works for a while, to his and Y/N’s immense relief, but that leaves Joel nowhere to take out his anger. He tries to ignore it at first and shove it down, but it starts to come out in little ways. At work, he barks at a customer who locks his keys in the car he’s trying to fix. At home, he shouts at Erica for missing Y/N’s school play. The rage leaks out of him, pours off his entire being. He tries jerking off more to increasingly violent porno magazines to calm himself down since Erica is sure not satisfying him. It doesn’t do enough though, not really. Finally, he tries boxing at the local gym himself, but it is not enough either. Boxing has rules. The first sorry sucker he gets in the ring with, he beats to the point of unconsciousness. Two men have to pull him off to get him to stop. They kick him out immediately.

So Joel tries going to the bar after work with the guys from the shop and drinking a little to take the edge off. That actually helps somewhat. He’s careful about it, never comes home drunk, never drinks in front of Erica or the kids. But what helps the most are the bar fights. He’s careful about that too. Only fights the assholes, which there are many of. Switches up the bars he goes to. But some motherfucker slaps a girl's ass without permission? Joel’s on him in seconds, watching like a predator from the shadows. Some dude throws a drink in the bartender’s face? Joel clobbers him half to death. And sometimes? People in the bar applaud him, even cheer him on. It’s probably because they’re intoxicated, but that’s how he justifies it to himself like he’s some kind of goddamn vigilante. Deep down he knows he is something much, much uglier. But at least he’s not doing it to Aiden, a child. And more importantly, at least it is away from Y/N.

***

One day, Y/N falls sick. It starts out as what seems like a cold with a nasty cough. Kids are little germ factories, Joel knows that. He tells himself it is nothing to worry about – that all kids get sick sometimes. The first few days she lies on the couch like a zombie, coughing incessantly into her elbow and sleeping a lot. She snores ever so slightly which he finds charming. Joel stays home from work with her because Erica has to be in court and they watch lots of nature documentaries and daytime talk shows. 

Then the coughing gets worse and Joel’s brain stops functioning properly and he has trouble explaining why. He feels more on edge, more agitated. Erica takes Y/N to the doctor and comes back with a diagnosis: walking pneumonia. Nothing too serious, lots of kids get it. She is prescribed antibiotics and is supposed to drink lots of fluids and wait it out. But when Erica tells Joel the news of what the doctor told her he is holding a glass of water and it shatters in his large hand, cutting the skin of his middle finger.

“Fuck!” he yells. 

And he cannot articulate precisely why, but he feels good that there is a justified reason to yell. 

Erica wipes his hand and cleans the glass up.

“Gotta go to court again today, honey,” she says like everything is fine and normal. “Can you look after her today? Call in sick? She’s in bed. Going through it.”

Joel nods and she is gone like this whole thing is nothing. Like her precious, living breathing child is not suffering in the room above his head.

He climbs the stairs and enters Y/N’s room. He doesn’t often spend much time there. The walls are painted pink and differently shaped dolls and stuffed animals line the white vanity across from her canopied bed. He does not think he has ever seen Y/N play with any of those specific toys, come to think of it, or express any interest in the color pink (no doubt Erica’s secret passion for interior design rearing its ugly head). He vows silently, one day, to paint the walls any color she wants. 

But there she is, sprawled out in her bed coughing a nasty cough. Something shifts inside Joel at the sound. She looks unwell and weak and so small. 

“Hey, honey,” he says softly, almost robotically. 

Something is not right. He sits on the edge of her bed, feels her burning forehead. He takes her temperature gently with the thermometer that goes in her ear. He feels that weird sensation like he’s been here before even though he has hardly ever entered her bedroom. One hundred and four degrees Fahrenheit it reads when it beeps. Joel swallows a lump in his throat that he didn’t realize was there.  

She coughs pathetically. She looks out of it, her eyes far away. Joel’s heart throbs painfully.

Y/N is mumbling something incoherent now. Joel leans a little closer so he can decipher the words.

He makes out something like: No, Dad. Don’t. Stop, please. Please, not tonight. 

Joel stops breathing. 

She must be delirious from the fever. 

And then she’s crying. Quietly, but crying all the less. And this time, unlike every time he has seen her tears before, she sobs. Actually makes noise, her chest wracked with it. 

Then she coughs so hard she starts to wheeze and it hits Joel so ferociously he practically loses his grip on reality.

When Sarah was sick she had leukemia, a blood cancer. And cancer requires treatment. Expensive treatment. But of course, Joel hadn’t cared. He would have sold every item he owned to save his child, would have traveled to the ends of the earth if he had to, done literally any and everything in his power to protect her. So he paid for most of her chemotherapy with high hopes. Desperate hopes, but high ones. It had been her best shot at getting better according to the doctors. And the thing about chemo is, the side effects can literally be deadly. Joel is not a man of science, but the doctor explained that those drugs kill the bad cells that make up the cancer, but also the good ones. It fucks with your immune system, weakens you. Makes you lose your hair, vomit, and or be so weak you can barely walk. All that happened to Sarah. Joel felt like a traitor taking her to those treatments. Logically, he knew they were necessary, but he always felt like he was the one doing those awful things to her. It eviscerated him, left him raw and empty, and helpless like a child.

But in the end, it was the pneumonia that killed her. Her body couldn’t fight it off. She’d died in a hospital bed, Joel at her side, holding her hand, unable to do a single damned thing except scream .

Y/N coughs again, simultaneously pulling him from his thoughts and throwing him back into them. His heart is pounding in his chest to Do something! But there is nothing to be done, nothing he can do! Why can’t he ever seem to protect her?

She looks up just then, notices him for the first time since he entered the room, still crying feebly.

“He hurt me,” she whispers up at him, her eyes glazed over and glistening with tears. She reaches out for a handful of his dark blue work shirt and pulls it tightly to her. “He hurt me. And I couldn’t–I c-couldn’t…”

And then he is holding her, not quite sure how, but he is holding her trembling body to his chest and he will not let her go. Not for the world, not for anyone. He will not lose this child. He wraps his arms around her, holds tight. He will keep her safe, no matter the cost. 

“It’s okay, babygirl,” he whispers. “I got you.”

***

Joel and Erica get married that spring. They agree on a private ceremony in front of a judge with only Y/N and Aiden in attendance. When Aiden hears the news, he throws a fit, He breaks dishes and punches a hole in the TV set which sets Joel’s teeth on edge. But Y/N is overjoyed. In the end, he and Joel adorn what Joel considers monkey suits and Erica wears a beautiful white dress that accentuates her figure. Y/N wears a frilly pink dress and carries a basket of pink roses. Joel never thought he’d be a married man and yet here he is. He imagines Sarah in attendance too and his heart aches. This is his life now. 

He refuses to wear a ring.

***

Time passes. Long stretches of time where things feel–dare he think it–normal.

 Aiden doesn’t beat Y/N, but begins to get into fights at school. Joel saves his violence for the bar scene which he begins frequenting more often. 

Erica starts working later, gets promoted in her job. Fucks Joel less and less, not that he cares very much. 

Joel goes to back-to-school nights and family cookouts. He teaches Y/N to play the guitar and how to fix car motors. In both these activities, she is no natural, but she tries her best and listens well. She smiles more than he’s ever seen. He drives her to sleepovers and Aiden to boxing practice. He paints her bedroom walls orange.

Things feel stable.

Two Christmases pass.

And then things take a downturn.

***

One evening, Joel returns home from work later than usual. When he arrives home in his truck, he notices an expensive sports car in the driveway. Erica has affluent friends, sure, but he’s never seen this particular car before. Something about that doesn’t sit right with him.

He opens the front door with a creak and Erica intercepts him before he can make it to the dining room table for dinner. She presses a hand to his forearm bulking with muscle.

“Don’t freak out,” she whispers urgently. 

Joel stops and hears the sounds of people eating dinner and a man’s raspy voice speaking.

“Freak out about what?”

He makes his way past her to the dining room. He sees a man he does not immediately recognize sitting at the head of the table, Y/N is flanking one side of the table next to him and Aiden the other. He is conventionally handsome and wearing an expensive pinstripe suit. When he looks up, he smirks at Joel. Joel thinks he looks kind of like Aiden if you were to squint. And then he understands who he is.

“The fuck are you doing in my house?” he growls, lunging forward.

“ Your house?” the man smirks again, unflinching. 

He looks Joel over, examining his mechanic’s uniform, the grease stain on Joel’s cheek. 

Erica grabs Joel. She pulls him back out into the hallway.

“Tell him he’s not welcome here,” Joel snarls, trying to get a look at the man over Erica’s shoulder. 

She pushes him backward gently. Instantly, he is worried for Y/N, for all intents and purposes alone in there with the man who abused her and this entire goddamn family for that matter. He catches a glance at her and she looks terrified . Aiden, conversely, Joel sees, looks like he just won the lottery, staring up at his dad in adoration. Joel doesn’t think he has ever seen him look so happy.

“This is important to them,” Erica snaps quietly. “That’s their father. He has a right–”

“Get him out of here or I’ll kill him,” Joel says deadly quietly. “He what? Doesn’t show up for over three years and you think that–”

“I know that he has a right to speak to them. I am their mother and they need a sense of closure. Aiden needs this. So you will sit down at that table and have an amicable dinner or so help me God, Joel.”

Erica never speaks to him like this. He is shocked.

“Fine,” he snarls after a while, his chest heaving. 

He can hardly think straight while Y/N is in there alone with that excuse for a man. Better he be close to protect her instead of thrown out of the house.

He walks back in with Erica, who sits next to Y/N, leaving Joel nowhere to go but next to Aiden.

“I’m Derek,” the children’s father says, leaning over the food Erica has prepared to shake Joel’s hand. 

Joel doesn’t take it.

“And you must be Joe? The new husband.”

“Joel,” he replies shortly.

He looks over at Y/N who is trying to be brave, he can tell, but deep in her eyes, looks petrified.

They eat dinner in tense silence until Derek breaks it and begins bragging about his golf club record, the latest client he’s been representing, his new girlfriend, Sylvia.

“See, she’s helping me become a better man,” Derek insists with a forkful of steak. “I know I haven’t always been…the greatest of fathers or partners, but she really convinced me coming here would be a good thing. That it would be healing. You guys will meet someday, I’m sure.”

Joel leans forward toward Derek, reeling at the idea that this man could possibly be back in the picture of his family’s life, but Erica reaches under the table and squeezes his knee in a death grip and Joel holds himself back.

Aiden hangs on his father’s every word. Erica looks somewhat intrigued after she lets go of her husband’s leg. Y/N screams silently at Joel, who tries his best to communicate without words that he will keep her safe.

“And I know I’ve missed quite a bit,” Derek continues. “Which is why I brought these. Sylvia’s idea, really.”

He reaches down toward his feet and pulls out a fancy golden gift bag and takes out two presents. He hands one to Aiden and the other one to Y/N. Aiden rips his open excitedly. Inside is a hunting knife with a red handle. 

Great, Joel thinks.

Y/N doesn’t move though, stopped like a deer in the headlights.

“Open it, girl,” Derek sneers.

She looks over at Joel. 

“Go on, baby,” he says softly, heat pumping through his blood.

She unwraps the pink wrapping paper and finds a Barbie doll in a clear plastic box. Joel has never seen her play with dolls at all come to think of it. 

“Isn’t that thoughtful?” Erica smiles cautiously.

“Thanks, Dad,” Aiden says enthusiastically. “Can’t wait to show the guys at ROTC.”

“Good for you, son,” Derek grins. “Serving our country is the highest of honors.”

Joel suddenly tries not to think about Tommy blasted to bits halfway across the world in Afghanistan, his body in such bad condition all that he got left of his baby brother was a finger and two bent dog tags.  

Aiden beams.

“Well,” Derek barks, eyeing Y/N distastefully. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” he taunts. 

Joel sees where Aiden gets it from. This arrogant, bullying behavior. He shifts in his seat, ready to strike if necessary.

“Thanks,” she says very quietly. 

Derek grins in a kind of satisfaction that makes Joel want to go over there and punch his daylights out. He almost does too until Erica kicks his shin beneath the table and he controls himself. 

Y/N frowns. She looks over at Joel, then back at her father. Something ripples across her face, but it goes so quickly Joel cannot assign any meaning to it. But she looks ever so less scared somehow, more angry almost, but not quite.

And then after about ten minutes of somewhat peaceful eating and Derek making Aiden and Erica laugh with stupid anecdotes from his court cases while Joel and Y/N exchange looks, it happens.

Y/N’s hand reaches forward and knocks against her glass of coke. It goes flying over in Derek’s direction and drenches him in the sticky liquid, staining his suit.

“Sorry, Dad!” she squeaks immediately. “Oh my god, I–”

“You little slut!” he roars in response, almost like a reflex, backhanding Y/N across the face with lightning speed and accuracy. “Do you know how much this fucking suit cost!?”

The force of the blow is so strong it knocks Y/N from her chair onto the ground.

Before a coherent thought can even go through Joel’s head he is on the other man, slamming him up against the wall behind him by the throat.

“Joel, don’t you dare!” Erica yells, but it is too late.

Joel sees red and can’t exactly recall what he does next, but it goes something like this:

He squeezes around Derek’s throat and bangs his head backward against the wall a few times. The other man tries to get a punch in, but Joel ducks and kicks him in the balls. Derek crumples to the ground and Joel gives his chest another hard kick. He whines pathetically. 

Aiden gets up then, but Erica uses all of her strength to pull him back before he can get involved in the mix. He resists, shouts something that Joel cannot make out, but Erica manages to keep him from the two men with a great amount of effort and struggle. 

Derek is on the floor now and Joel is straddling him, landing punch after ruthless punch down onto his head. His nose begins to bleed, but Joel keeps punching. 

“HOW DARE YOU?” he roars down at the trembling, gushing man on the floor.

There is so much blood splurting all over his face, dripping down onto his expensive stained suit, and the floor that Derek almost stops looking like Derek. Joel sees Aiden’s face in his features. And then there is so much blood that it could be anyone’s face screaming back at him for mercy. It could be those creepy, asshole men at the bar. It could be the much bigger kid who always used to beat up Tommy every day in the schoolyard. It could be that damned head doctor who let his babygirl die. It could even be his no-good, bastard, alcoholic papá . 

He turns his head ever so slightly while still delivering punches. Erica has Aiden in a bear hug. She is screaming for Joel to stop. Aiden is bellowing something that sounds like, You bastard, I’ll kill you! Get off of him! I’ll kill you! And then Joel sees Y/N still on the floor from where she was knocked. Her face is still turned in the same direction it was slapped into, but she is not crying or screaming. Her eyes are dancing.

They connect with Joel’s. 

He knows he is supposed to be a good man for her, but she doesn’t seem to mind his deviant behavior. He stops then, though, because otherwise he thinks he will kill the man and he doesn’t want Y/N to experience that. He steals a glance at her again and she looks ever so slightly disappointed, but her wide-eyed expression tells Joel that Christmas has come early this year. She sends him a look of gratitude and Joel thinks that maybe he did act like a good man for her after all in the case of this vile, pathetic person who is supposed to be her father. 

 Finally, Joel stands up. He walks over and reaches out a bloody hand to Y/N and pulls her gently from the ground. Even after she’s standing upright she doesn’t let go of him.

Derek gets up after a while, wiping his sleeve over his face to try to tame the excess blood. Joel thinks that maybe he broke the man’s nose. He feels not a shred of remorse. The other man spits on the ground at Joel’s feet and leaves without saying goodbye to his ex-wife or children, slamming the front door behind him.  

Erica is not pleased with Joel’s behavior. Aiden is shouting and screaming. He breaks a plate by throwing it onto the floor with a loud crash. Joel leans over and grabs the knife his father gave him and sticks it in his front pocket so Aiden doesn’t feel tempted to use it. Y/N’s small hand is still in his. 

When Aiden is coherent enough to listen to instructions and all screamed out, Erica sends the children upstairs to bed. 

Joel tries to walk Y/N up to bed to tuck her in, but Erica stops him.

“ Not you,” she growls at Joel. 

She is livid in a way Joel has never seen before. For a moment, he seriously wonders if this is the end of their relationship. 

The kids scamper upstairs and Erica yells at Joel for ages. 

At a certain point, he stops listening. He doesn’t try to argue back. Doesn’t care to. He is actually calm now, though his chest is still heaving from the exertion, more calm than he’s been in ages. He knows that she will never understand why he had to do what he did to Derek. She lives in another reality where his violence is not acceptable if she has to bear witness to it. She doesn’t care about Y/N the way she is supposed to. Never has. Doesn’t know or see her. Not the way Joel does. Has too big a soft spot for Aiden. Tolerated Joel’s violence toward him though like a coward. Maybe deep down she knew he needed some kind of discipline? But when Joel lays a hand on her scumbag of an ex-husband that’s what’s too far? When he hurt her own daughter? When Joel himself was responsible for hurting her own precious son? Where was her outrage then? 

But he voices none of this. Pushes it down. He cannot lose her. Not this house, not the kids, not the financial security. Never Y/N. 

Erica banishes him to the couch for the first time in their relationship. Joel doesn’t mind. 

Hours later, late into the night, he hears soft footsteps walking down the stairs. He rolls over on the sofa to see who is approaching. He wonders if it is Erica there to apologize because he knows her well enough to know by now that she will forgive him eventually. She will forgive anything it seems. But it is not Erica at all.

“Joel?” a little voice asks quietly. “You up?”

“Yeah, baby,” he replies. “You okay? I’m so sorry he pulled that shit on you.”

Y/N shrugs. 

“Sorry I…I didn’t stop it before it happened,” he admits like a secret. 

She shrugs again.

“‘M sorry she made you sleep on the couch and all,” she replies.

“‘S no trouble. I don’t mind.”

“But it’s my fault you got in trouble in the first place.”

“Y/N, you ain’t done nothing wrong,” Joel tells her seriously. 

It’s hard to see her in the dark, but he thinks she’s grimacing guiltily. 

“I just wanted to say…” she begins hesitantly. “Thanks for like sticking up for me and all that. You…you’re the only one who does.”

Joel hides a smile from his babygirl. Something inside him likes being that person for her, he cannot lie to himself. Likes being the one she can count on. 

“You were like some MMA fighter,” she continues. “But then all the blood was like in The Shining .”

One day, not long ago, Joel had fallen asleep on the couch when The Shining came on and Y/N had watched the entire thing out of her own free will. That movie had frightened the shit out of him as a kid!

“I’m sorry if I scared you, sweetheart.”  

“You didn’t,” Y/N replies matter-of-factly.  “I wasn’t scared of what you did for a second…I know that’s messed up, but I kinda wanted you to…” 

She trails off.

Joel understands. 

“I kinda, please don’t get mad, but I sorta knocked the cup over on purpose,” she admits.

Joel’s eyebrows go way up on his forehead in surprise.

“It’s just,” she babbles quickly in self-defense. “Mom and Aiden were like giggling and hanging onto every dumb thing he said and it scared me. I thought they might let him keep coming around and start liking him again. And I also knew he hadn’t changed too. I could tell on account of how he was looking at me in that same mean way he always did. And I also knew you’d save me like you always do and you had this angry look in your eyes. I knew what you would do. I could feel it in my gut…”

“You little shit!” Joel smirks. 

He has to give her credit where credit was due – that was incredibly shrewd. Dangerous, but oh so clever. She played everyone in that room like a fiddle. Joel is honestly kind of proud.

“You mad?” she asks tentatively, biting her bottom lip.

“Nah,” Joel grins. “At you? Never. You shouldn’t have had to let him hurt you to get him away from you, but you protected yourself and that’s the most important thing. If I had to do it over, I would.”

Y/N smiles. 

She’s a fucked up little girl, but Joel is a fucked up man, and they both live in a fucked up world.

“Got your back,” he grunts. “Remember that. Now scurry along back to bed and get some rest.”

“G’night, Joel.”

*** 

Time passes. 

Erica forgives Joel of course and Derek never comes around again. 

Y/N and Aiden grow bigger. 

They go on camping trips and Joel teaches Y/N and Aiden how to fish. Never thought he would see the day where Aiden was willingly listening to his instructions, but the day comes anyway. Of course, the boy’s favorite part is cutting up the bloody fish guts like Joel’s used to be as a child. Y/N likes the part where you wait for the fish to bite. She sits next to Joel on the grassy river bank, the sun shining down on the lazy lake they are camping by, and smiles softly to herself.

Another two Christmases pass.

All the while, Joel is visiting the bar more and not necessarily to drink. His violent streak is getting worse somehow. He thinks, though he’s no goddamn shrink, that it might have something to do with the fact that he and Erica are not having any sex. Their relationship is still amicable and she is still sweet to him, and he tries his best to be to her too, but in the bedroom is mostly crickets. Joel jerks off, of course he does, but his fist is no substitute for a warm body. 

Joel causes such a scene at the bar he frequents the most, that the cops have to be called. He ditches the place before he can get arrested, but he’s getting worried about his behavior. Something must change.

So then come the women. They practically throw themselves at him. Never has he thought he was that attractive until women literally offer themselves up to him on a silver platter after saving them from some drunken creep. Joel had always declined until now. But Joel is only a man. He fucks them rough and dirty (with their permission of course – Joel is not a good man, and a lot of things, but he isn’t a fucking rapist) in the bathroom stalls, in the alleyways. In the moment it feels good and helps him let off some steam, but after he feels guilty. And it doesn’t satisfy him much more than with Erica if he really thinks about it. One thing that Erica has over these women who let him act out his violent self is the look of devotion in her eyes. That’s always the thing that gets Joel to cum in the end when he does get to fuck her.

 He would leave her, she isn’t that special to him if he’s honest, but she offers him a twofold sense of stability he has never known in his life. The first fold is the financial stability that has evaded him all of his days. The second is the feeling of family . Something so mundane and normal. And despite her flaws, she treats him so well – better than Sarah’s mother ever did. And most importantly, he doesn’t think he could leave Y/N. Not now. Not when she looks at him like he is the universe. Not even Aiden whom Joel has (begrudgingly) begun to see the traces of himself in. 

***

This particular muggy, summer day begins normally. Joel goes to work, fixes a Chevy Impala’s fluid tank. And then he walks in with an old, beat-up Honda Accord. 

His name is David, and Joel has heard of him through murmurings and bar stories and whispers at community barbeques. He’s a notorious neighborhood legend, whose house kids cross the street to avoid. He is the boogeyman at the end of the cul-de-sac. 

The story is, though through the many versions Joel has heard some of the details get muddled, that he kidnapped and raped a twelve-year-old girl (that part all versions agree on). Some say he was supposed to have ten years in prison, others say twenty, but whatever the number he got out in one for “good behavior.” In jail, he supposedly devoted his life to God and became a preacher.

Joel doesn’t want to help him, but his boss hisses at him that money is money and he’s going to serve the man whether Joel likes it or not. 

There’s something wrong with the exhaust pipe, so Joel bends down and takes a look at it. He opens the trunk and sees a box of Bibles next to a plastic bag of zip ties. His blood runs cold.

“The fuck is this shit doing in your car?” he growls, referring to the zip ties.

“The Bible is the word of God, Mr. Miller,” David replies, eyeing Joel’s nametag. “Would you like one? I’m always trying to spread The Good Word.” 

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about,” he spits, looking over to make sure his boss is not watching. 

“If you must know, though it’s none of your business, those zip ties are for my garden to help hold up my plants. They are remarkably useful,” David smiles sickeningly politely. 

And that’s when Joel loses it just a little.

He picks up the ties and pockets them.

“Listen here, you pedophile piece of shit,” he snarls. “If I hear about you stepping one goddamned pinky-toe out of line–”

“Hey, Joel!” A little voice calls.

The breath is knocked from Joel’s lungs.

Y/N bounds up to them holding a brown paper bag out of nowhere. 

“You forgot your lunch! Mom dropped me off so you could have it. It’s tuna though. I hate hate tuna. But you’ll eat anything so I hope it’s good for you at least,” she babbles.

“Baby,” Joel says very quietly, his heart thrumming in his ribcage. “Right now’s not a great time. Why don’t you go on home and I’ll catch up with you later?”

Then she notices David. By the fact that she doesn’t immediately leave, Joel determines she has no clue who he is.

“Hello, young lady,” David smiles, eyeing Joel knowingly. “I’m Pastor David.”

“Uh, hi,” she says.

Joel thinks he might actually kill him.

“Would you like something to take home with you?” he asks.

Y/N blinks in confusion as Joel steps in front of her.

“She’ll be going now, won’t you Y/N?” Joel suggests dangerously.

“Here,” David says before she can respond.

He hands her a black-covered bible.

Y/N takes it, looks at the cover, and laughs. Joel and David both look down at her in surprise.

“No offense, ‘Pastor David,”’ she smirks. “But I don’t believe in that shit. Here, you can have it back,” she offers.

He takes back the book somewhat defeatedly. And Joel grins internally.

“Bye, Joel,” she tells him, still smirking. 

She side-hugs him quickly and returns to Erica’s car. 

“How dare you even look at her–” Joel booms at the sad, pathetic excuse for a man once she is out of earshot. 

His hands are clenched into fists and they are shaking. Every part of him is on fire. 

“I think I’ll be going now,” David interjects lightly. “I can see my business isn’t welcome here. You have a beautiful daughter, Mr. Miller. Quite a mouth on her. Shame if something were to happen to her…Oh, the things someone like me could make her believe…”

Joel reaches back his fist to punch, to pummel, to kill, but suddenly, another hand grabs his and holds it in place. Joel’s boss has materialized behind him and is holding him back. Good thing too. It’s probably the only thing that saves Joel’s career and David’s life. 

David winks and drives away as the boss begins to reprimand Joel who is still shaking and fuming.

All he knows is this: If anyone touches his babygirl he will not hesitate to put them six feet under, no matter the cost to himself. He will not hesitate to get blood on his calloused hands. He will not hesitate to kill. And this time? His baby will not sustain a single scratch . He will not wait for her to get hurt before he acts. 

***

Joel wants nothing more than to go home and spend time with his babygirl and wife and even his step-son if he will allow, but there is blood popping and oozing and broiling and churning under his skin like billowing, bubbling lava. If he doesn’t do something about it soon he will explode worse than a volcanic eruption so he heads to the seediest bar he can think of. He makes his way inside and sits right up at the bar, already occupied by a few people. He orders a drink (his usual: whiskey on the rocks) and waits for the impending opportunity for violence he is sure is lying in wait.

He cannot believe the shit that came out of ‘Pastor-fucking-David’s’ sick, perverted mouth and that he almost lost his job over it. He lets that thought charge him up into a rage, his fists clenched so tightly they are beginning to ache in the joints. He cannot believe that disgusting little fucker had the audacity to say that horrible scummy bullshit in his presence when he would do anything to protect that innocent child. He takes a drink of his whiskey and knocks it back in one gulp. He would do anything , ‘Lord’ only knows. He snickers to himself sinisterly. 

And while he’s on the topic, fuck God! When had He ever done a single damn good thing for Joel his entire miserable life except maybe to give him Sarah and then take her away like she was nothing and not the entire light of the universe wrapped into a small, vulnerable person? Joel doesn’t know much about the bible, truth be told, but he remembers a few things from his Sunday school days. He remembers that people are created in the image of God and the stories he remembers most are from the Old Testament which heavily featured a God of absolute rage. Maybe that is the way he is god-like, built of anger and revenge and wrath and the sick, pathetic hunger for power that lurks inside most people. 

But he also remembers Jesus being meek and mild. Joel never understood that desire until he had Sarah and then Y/N in his care. If Joel could snap his fingers and make himself some fundamentally kind and caring man he would, but he can’t. Joel Miller is not a good man. He tried to be for Y/N, he truly did, but look at everything he’s done in the time he’s known her: he used Erica to get financial stability and roof over his head, he’s cheated on her numerous times, he beat Aiden, a child, and everyday the weight of that guilt grows greater as he begins to truly understand how wrong that was, and he beat his babygirl’s pathetic excuse for a father (but still her father) in front of her. He also beat people in bar fights and that time at the gym. And the thing is: is he even a little bit sorry about any of it – except for maybe what he did to Aiden? No, not even a little. And he’d do all of it again if it could mean getting to spend time with his babygirl, Y/N, again. His babygirl who FUCKING DAVID tried to threaten!

And the problem is: who knows what that fucker is capable of? The police and the judicial system let him out after one year which can only be described as a colossal moral failure and a massive miscarriage of justice. It wouldn’t take much for David to really figure out where they lived and grab Y/N and throw her in his trunk like he did that poor other little girl. Maybe that’s paranoid, but Joel knows better than most that when a man wants to do a dark thing he will find a way to do it. Joel does not want to live his life constantly looking over his shoulder as some horrendous pedophile lives freely. 

And then he turns his head to look down at the rest of the fairly busy bar and he sees him . None other than David himself, drinking a beer. Joel cannot believe his luck. It is like all of the light in heaven has aligned to give him such a gift. A part of him is screaming to not engage because Joel is sure he could kill him for what he said about Y/N. But the rest of him is already standing up and grabbing David by the shoulder and–

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get the fuck out of here now ,” he snarls. “Almost lost my job because of you, you sick fuck. You’re lucky I give you a warning and don’t wring your neck on the fucking spot.”  

David turns around, Joel’s fingers digging into his shoulder.

“Proverbs 24:1 and 2,” he quotes calmly. “‘Do not envy wicked men or desire their company; for their hearts devise violence, and their lips declare trouble.’”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means perhaps I will be leaving. I don’t care to spend my time with wicked men such as yourself. And I have many preparations to make for what is to come. How is your daughter doing since we last met?”

Joel’s heart runs cold. 

“Get my baby’s name out of your goddamned mouth .” 

“Hope we run into each other soon,” David grins as he gets off the barstool and dislodges himself from Joel’s grip. “There is a lot I could teach her.”

He turns to leave. Disgusting coward, Joel thinks. He could let the man go. But then what? Live in fear of him? Let his precious Y/N live in fear of him? Joel is tired of living in fear, of resigning to a cruel man in a cruel world, and he will never do that or let Y/N do that ever again. 

And then David leans in so close that Joel can smell the alcohol on his breath and the sweat on his skin.

“Can’t stop thinking about her pretty little hands around my–”

Joel doesn’t let him finish. In that moment he knows what will transpire. He picked this seedy-ass bar for a reason: so that no one will bother to stop him.

He lands the first punch with ease, doesn’t even feel the pain till minutes later. The force of the blow to David’s head is so strong he slams down into the ground. It is so violent that David’s eyelid starts to bleed and the skin around the impact spot becomes puffy and dark. 

David shouts for help, but no one in this place gives a fuck and even if they did everybody knows who he is and what he did so they don’t give a shit two times over. 

Joel continues the assault. Punch after punch reigns down on the other man as blood begins to coat his features. David tries to get a punch or two into Joel’s stomach, but Joel straddles each of his biceps and holds him down so he can continue hitting. The longer Joel hits, the better he feels. This time is different. This time he does not see the features of every man he’s ever hated in the face of his victim. This time he sees only David’s disgusting smirk in his mind’s eye. This time he only thinks about how he is saving Y/N from a lifetime of fear and cruelty. This time Joel will not let his adversary get a strike in first. This time he will be the one to stop the fate of impending devastation that lies in the palms of David’s shaking and broken hands. This time he can save her . 

When Joel is done with his hands, he is panting heavily. He moves on to his feet, kicking the man’s gut sadistically, his trembling hands, his face. Crunch , goes David’s skull. And then he is not moving or breathing.

Joel stops.

A lick of fear trails against the inside of his stomach, but the rage, always the rage warms his stomach like a rush of flames.

So he keeps going. He bends back down and squeezes the man’s throat just to make sure. It’s good he did too because David’s bloodshot, viens-having-burst eyes snap open and David makes a pathetic little squealing noise and Joel squeezes harder, rougher, with more conviction.

In the end, it takes longer than he thought it would. 

Joel only stops when he hears sirens blaring in the distance. He looks up for the first time since the assault started and sees all of the patrons staring at him in revulsion and fear. The bartender actually has the phone in her hand. Joel guesses she was the one to finally call the cops. He guesses he was so sadistic and violent that even this shitty place had seen enough. He thinks to run, briefly, but where would he run to? Everything he has ever wanted in life is now going to be closed off to him. But he saved Y/N and that makes everything worth it. It has to have been worth it.

Joel puts two scarred, calloused fingers to David’s pulse point, as blood (his and David’s) drips down from his knuckle onto the wooden floor and feels nothing.

When the cops handcuff him and take him away, he doesn’t resist. He comes quietly. He cannot ever really be a good man for Y/N, he understands that now, but at least now she and he may know some peace of mind after what he’s done.

***

The time leading up to the trial is a blur. 

Erica pays for an excellent lawyer, but divorces him on the spot. It seems there are some things even she will not forgive, and apparently murder is one of them. She allows the children to see him one last time in cold, sterile police interrogation room. A court-appointed child advocate social worker must be present. They allow him to have his handcuffs taken off for the first time since he was arrested. The kids are told he accidentally killed someone in a bar fight and for legal reasons he leans into the “accidental” part. 

Aiden comes in first. He knew who David was and tells Joel he did the right thing. Joel is surprised. He reaches out a limp hand, dirt caked under his fingernails, and shakes Joel’s for the first time since they’ve known each other and they part ways on good terms.

“You’re not my dad,” Aiden tells him quietly. “But you always put up a good fight to be there.”

And he leaves.

Joel is more touched than he wants to believe.

Y/N’s visit is much more difficult.

“How could you!?” she screams, standing by the door the second she sees him as he sits at the interrogation table, his chair turned toward her. 

At first Joel thinks she means how could he killl another human being. Y/N didn’t seem to know who David was after all. But that’s not what she is mad about.

“How could you leave me!?” she shouts, tears in her eyes. “You’re going to be taken away from me! Mom is leaving you because of this and that means you aren’t like my dad anymore. You’re going to forget all about me and never get to see me again because you killed some dumb man who tried to give me a bible?”

“He was not a good man,” is all Joel can say. 

He can’t be the one to tell her more, hasn’t told anyone how David had threatened her. Not even his lawyer. He doesn’t want to scare her, doesn’t want to admit to anyone he let those words even get to leave that shit stain’s mouth. 

“I don’t care!” she shouts again. “I want you!”

And then she bursts into tears and runs into his chest and Joel holds her against his orange jumpsuit and starts to feel tears trickling down his own cheeks.

“Never gonna forget about you,” he nearly scolds her into hair. “How could you ever think that, baby? You’re my babygirl. I’ll get out one day and come right back to you, understand?”

“But Mom–”

“You’ll be grown by the time I get out and won’t have to worry about what she says. But I’ll tell you this: you might feel different about me by the time your grown up and however you feel I want you to know I’ll respect that. But I ain’t gonna forget about you. Not ever.” 

“Your time is up,” the court-appointed social worker states. 

“No!” Y/N shouts, burying herself deeper into Joel’s embrace. “NO! I’m not leaving! I won’t leave you!”

Joel hugs her back tightly, crying into the top of her head as she sobs softly into his chest. 

In the end, the social worker has to pull her away as she screams.

“I love you, Y/N!” he calls to her as the social worker drags her from him. “Never gonna forget you, babygirl. Remember that.”

All Joel can hear back is a broken wail.

***

Erica attends the trial; the kids are forbidden. Joel’s defense claims it was a drunken accident and goes for manslaughter. Because he killed a known child molester he has no trouble while he waits in jail. He is even considered a hero by some. No one tries to fuck with him and that’s how Joel would prefer it since if he gets into too many fights it will just add to his sentence and he must get out and get back to his babygirl if she’ll still have him. His lawyer tells him not to mention the threats that David made toward Y/N because it will look like more of a reason that Joel would have had to intentionally kill him as opposed to accidentally like the manslaughter plea would have the court believe. Joel listens. He does exactly what he’s told because this lawyer is good and he needs to get out someday for christ sake.

In the end, he gets ten years and his lawyer tells him he could get eight for good behavior.

Eight years, if Joel can manage it.

They take him away to prison in handcuffs. Erica sobs. It is the last time he sees her.

***

Joel always wondered if his temper would land him in prison. Now that he’s here things go surpringly well. He gets a reputation for being the murderer of a child molestor and people respect him, listen to him when he bothers to speak. He keeps things in order and people start to refer to him as the “pod boss.” He also reads a lot in his cell, tries to help people with their cases and appeals if he can. And if someone steps out of line, Joel is more than happy to put them in their place so long as he can avoid attention from the guards, who he actually mostly gets along with to their faces, but behind their backs beats people to a pulp. No one ever dares to snitch on him and he is considered on the right track to get out for good behavior early. 

Time passes — painfully long stretches of time.

He has a lot of time to think, to read. He reads every book in the prison library over the time he is incarcerated. He reads parenting books, self-help books, books on trauma, books on abuse, books on anger management, books on meditation, books on spirituality (nothing sticks in that regard though, he is still furious like God, but less so these days). Somehow his anger has started to simmer down a notch.   

But he worries his babygirl will forget about him, or worse grow to hate him. He’s not sure he’ll survive that.    

Luckily, or he might have withered away and died, somehow Y/N convinces Erica to let her write him a letter once a month and have one call with him on Christmas. 

Christmases quickly become his favorite day of the year. 

Y/N writes him religiously. She talks about how angry she is at him, how she misses him, how she finally fixed the motor on Joel’s old pickup truck, how some boy gave her a love letter on Valentine’s Day, how she thinks of him every day.

Joel never tells her what David said about her, lets her believe he is just some violent, drunken idiot. He writes back how much he misses her, how he read a new book this week, how prison food is shit, how he’d probably greet that boy with a shotgun if he thinks he’s getting anywhere with his babygirl, how his whole heart beats for her.

She’s allowed to send him one photo a year, her most current school photo, and Joel hangs them on the wall of his cell so he can see her beaming at him at his highest and lowest moments along with the tiny picture of Sarah he managed to save from his wallet. 

Aiden even sends him a card each Father’s Day. It never has anything written in it except for whatever stupid pun or text the card came with, but Joel reads between the lines with that one. Each one seems to whisper to him louder and louder, I love you and I forgive you. Joel writes him back, “Thanks, kiddo. -Joel” He hope that conveys the thousands of sorrys he wants to scream from the rooftops and say straight to the boy’s face. He will someday when he gets out. He makes himself promise. He hears from Y/N when Aiden joins the marines. 

When Joel gets to actually hear Y/N’s voice on the old prison phone it’s like the most beautiful sound he has ever heard except for maybe Sarah’s voice. She babbles away about her life and what’s she’s up to and he hangs on every word like gospel. He barely gets a word in, but prefers it that way. Wishes he could hear her singing. Once, when she’s sixteen, and sounds so woefully grown up it hurts Joel’s entire heart, she hums a little absentmindedly and he can’t get the sweet sound out of his head. Her love for him never seems to waver and that is a blessing that Joel will never forget, the only thing he would thank this cruel God for. And of course, his love for her never wavers either. She is the only beacon of light for him in this dark and mundane existence. She is his everything.

***

When Y/N is eighteen and no longer under her mother’s control, she comes to visit him in person. This is the first time they have seen each other in six years. Despite their loving correspondence, Joel is nervous to see her for the first time since her childhood. He worries about how awkward it might be.

When he sees her walking into the dinky little family meeting room, his entire mode of existence changes.

She looks so beautiful, so grown-up. Sure she had always been a cute little kid, Joel always thought that, but now she is a woman. Tears come to Joel’s eyes. When her eyes connect with his, he feels so seen .

He tries to get a word out, but before he can she is running to him, into his arms and Joel has never felt something so perfect in his entire life. He knows he has never felt a love like this before. Not even with Sarah…something about this is different somehow? Joel is not too in touch with his feelings, but he’s trying to be more attentive to them these days with nothing left to do but read about such topics as “emotional regulation” and “mindfulness.” He’ll come back to this thought later though…

Y/N begins to babble into his ear, something about missing him and not wanting it to be awkward, but this is the furthest from awkward Joel has ever felt.

Joel has never been a man of many words so all he can think to say is,

“Missed you, babygirl.”

She grins at that, brighter than all the suns of all the planets in the universe (Joel has been reading about those too) and he laughs for the first time in what feels like a lifetime.

She laughs too, wipes tears from her eyes, and says,

“Missed you too, Joel. More than you know.”

Joel thinks that can’t possibly be true for that is all he has known for the last six years and possibly his entire life: missing her.

She comes once a month, drives an hour just to see him, and she tells him about college and later her very own shitty apartment. Her mother has thrown herself into her work and Aiden is serving his second tour. She makes good grades and has a stable boyfriend that treats her well, she swears. Joel couldn’t be happier for her, except the boyfriend business does make him want to crush that little fucker’s head in for some reason.

***

The last time Y/N comes to visit before his release (eight years to the day for good behavior) (she is 20 damn years old already!) something feels different to Joel. When he hugs her to greet her, he’s suddenly very aware of her body, the curves of it, her softness. Her hair smells so good, he doesn’t want to let go of her and then to his intense dismay and shock he feels himself getting a little excited down south. Immediately, he lets go of her, feeling like a pervert, praying she didn’t and doesn’t notice. He doesn’t see any obvious signs from her and the two sit down (Joel rather quickly) at the flimsy, nailed-down table and they talk of Joel’s impending release. All the while, Joel is trying to stay calm. He convinces himself it was just an accident and that he hadn’t been around any women in what felt like an eternity and that’s what  led him to get worked up. But when Y/N leaves to go home he feels a kind of dull longing in the bottom of his gut. A different kind of longing then what he had felt for a younger Y/N. Joel tells himself not to repress for the first goddamn time in his life and let himself feel. And he does. He feels butterflies and yearning and need, a great big need inside himself. And then he knows what else he feels: the gut-wrenching, unquenchable sensation of love and beneath that, primal, base, and self-loathing: desire . 

In his solo cell (that he has acquired because he is the pod boss and respected) he jerks off to those thoughts, touches himself to those feelings. When he cums unusually hard, he feels an overwhelming amount of shame. Of this, Joel knows, he will never ever tell another soul. Joel also knows he will not hurt his babygirl any more than he already has, intentionally or not, not ever. But then again, being a good, upstanding man has never really quite been in his arsenal, has it?

Tags (LMK if you wanna be tagged!): @toxicanonymity @motelprincess444 @epicrainbowsheep @anama-cara @sheepdogchick3

@denileisariver @lochnymph @mewantpeepaw @fandomdaydreamer @r3dheadedwitch

PLEASE COMMENT LIKE REBLOG IM BEGGING IM PLEADING IM CRYING

PART 2

Violent Heart Masterlist

Full Masterlist of all my work

[ithebookhoarder]

Relationship A - Z: (Alfie Solomons x F!Reader)

A/N: I randomly ended up catching a friend rewatching an episode of Peaky Blinders recently, and may have fallen back in love with this man again. So, it felt only right to finish this, after it sitting in my pile of unfinished drafts for months XD...

Yet again, for anyone who wants to know, I’m using Dameronlogy’s list here for this prompt. You can find it on their blog, or here. Thanks for all your love and support recently. It means a lot.

Masterlist:

A - actions. what sort of things do they do to show they love their s.o? 

Alfie listens which makes you feel special and valued to no end - something he demonstrates over and over again in many different ways. 

For example, if you say something is your favourite then he is sure to order it and leave it on your desk, whether it’s flowers, perfume, or books by a certain author. 

You even catch him one night, reading your favourite book, and can’t believe it when he starts asking you about it at breakfast the next morning, clearly having absorbed every word with great interest. 

And conversely, if you say you don’t like something… well, then it is all but eliminated from your life. Mushrooms? He’ll never let them touch your plate again. A certain cologne makes your headache? NO one at the factory can wear it. You’re allergic to something? Then Alfie will add it to a never ending list of enemies that need vanquishing and god help it if someone dares try to bring it close to you. 

He also shows it by asking about things you’ve mentioned, remembering all your friends and family names, as well as all the drama too (something you know he thoroughly enjoys catching up on, as yes, whether Mindy’s second husband is cheating on her is more interesting than answering Tommy’s letters.) 

B - beginnings. how did the relationship begin? how has it changed? 

However you met, you can guarantee that it took a while for you both to get to a point where you realised how you felt about one another. Alfie would definitely try to woo you though, even from the start. Tipping his hat when he passes you, sending gifts with handwritten notes, and taking you on lavish dates that clearly took time and effort to plan - he is a gentleman in many ways and refuses to treat you as anything less than a lady, even if you continually insist it isn’t necessary. 

C - comfortable. how comfy are they with each other? peeing with the door open close, or would they rather keep the mystery? 

He’d try to keep a line drawn between his work and your home life, but I feel he’d surrender pretty quickly once you start wearing it down. He has walls that he’s built pretty high and it takes him a while to figure out that it’s ok to let someone in every now and then - especially you.  

Soon enough, he’s sharing everything with you, from the sales figures, to other confidential business information. He keeps nothing back and neither do you. It’s a partnership and that makes you both incredibly happy. 

D - dates. do they consider dates to be important? what kind do they prefer? 

Dates are incredibly important to Alfie. They’re his chance to escape the darkness that follows him in his day to day life and to savour your company. They’re also a chance to strengthen your relationship which is the most important thing in his world. 

As for the types of dates, well, Alfie enjoys mixing things up, alternating between quiet evenings at home with you and nights hitting the town. 

E - engagement. how would they propose? who would even pop the question? 

Alfie would propose to you for sure. In fact, he’s probably been planning on asking you since the moment you first agreed to let him take you to dinner. He can see it all in in his head, and has his mother’s ring on standby for the day he finally musters up the courage to ask.  

F - fundamental. for them, what is the most fundamental part of a relationship? 

Loyalty - which I know sounds ironic given Alfie’s history, but it’s different when it comes to your personal lives. You’re not like his business, so there are no muddy waters for you to have to navigate through when it comes to right and wrong. You’re a team and that’s that, first, last, and always. 

You have each other’s back and love each other for who you are, and that’s why Alfie loves you so much. As long as you trust one another then you can handle anything, whether it be business at the bakery, or even hosting a dinner for the local community in your home. 

G - gratitude. how do they show their appreciation for you?

By spoiling you rotten. This could be via services for you, such as foot rubs, making you fall apart over and over in bed, or baking for you. Or, this could also be via material gifts, such as glittering jewels he’s procured from ‘work’ or fine dresses that you know cost far too much for any one person to own. But that’s Alfie. He loves to gift you fine things and watch as you put them on, looking every bit as regal and expensive as a queen - which is just how Alfie sees you anyway. 

H - home. a random domestic headcanon. 

This man can actually bake, which is fitting given his business front. Still, despite his true business ventures, Alfie can actually bake pretty well and loves to find an excuse to break out his mother’s recipes in the kitchen for you. Most days off start with you waking to the smell of something sweet wafting up the stairs, and the sound of your husband whistling as he works. 

He also has a pair of fluffy slippers that he would keep hidden with his life, if it came to it, rather than let anyone other than you know about them. He really doesn’t look so threatening with them on, which isn’t exactly the look he’s going for.  

I - infinite. do they believe their love is endless, or is there something that could break it? 

Alfie is a realist. Let’s be honest. He’s seen too much of humanity and the world not to be. Just because he expects the worst out of everyone in the world, doesn’t mean he isn’t determined to make your relationship work anyway. If he wants something he goes for it and his happy ever after is one of those things. 

It takes a lot of patience and self-work to not always fly off the handle or let the little things blow up into massive issues. You’d have your bumps along the way, especially in the early days, but you’d both find your feet together. In fact, soon your marriage is the gold standard amongst your friends. 

The secret? It’s learning not to see love as something that is either there or not. It’s something you earn, you build, you tend to. You don’t give up on it, no matter what the world throws at you. 

J - jokes. who's the funny one? 

Alfie is funny and often makes you laugh, but I think you’d get your fair share of laughter out of him too. He’s a goofy one when you finally crack through that shell of his, but he can take banter as well as giving it. In fact, the first time he properly laughed whilst at work he made the entire factory floor grind to a halt in surprise. You’d have heard a pin drop everyone looked so scared and confused.

K - kiss. how do they kiss? favourite type?

Alfie may seem like a massive extrovert, and he can be in the right circumstances. But when it comes to you? I feel like this man is private and protective af. He doesn’t like making a massive spectacle of you or your attentions. So, it’s the little kisses that are his favourite. The ones you subtly press to his cheek or hand whenever you’re near him. When you’re sat in his office or in the car together. When you’re lying side by side in bed and fighting the urge to close your eyes and doze off in his arms. They’re a constant reminder of the love you have for him. 

L - longing. who's the clingy one? how are they with long distance? 

Interestingly, I feel Alfie would be the clingy one, even though he is the one most often away from home, travelling for work. He calls you when he can, though, and makes sure to spend a day with you when he returns. 

He also has men watching you to ‘keep you safe’, even if he knows it drives you mad. Still, you put up with it because it makes him happy, making sure to offer each poor sod a cup of tea for their efforts, and charming them each into compliance. 

M - marriage. do they wanna get married? 

Alfie would love to marry you, let’s be honest. The chance to have a fancy wedding with the local community, and everyone witnessing how lucky he is to call you his? He’d be in his element - and the luckiest bastard alive. To call you Mrs Solomons is something he fantasises about nightly, and the ring box sitting in his desk drawer suggests it won’t be long before he asks you either. He would prefer a traditional Jewish ceremony, but wouldn’t insist if you said otherwise. After all, he just wants you to be happy. 

N - nicknames. what ones do they like? 

Sweetheart, Darlin’, Love… he has a lot of nicknames for you, each one depending on his mood. You can often tell a lot about how he’s feeling by the nickname he chooses to greet you with. Like, if he calls you by your actual name, then he’s feeling serious about something. It can be good or bad but he doesn’t use it lightly… just as he keeps ‘Oytser’ and a few other Yiddish terms for special occasions, usually when you’re alone. 

O - over the top. are they ever ott? or are they more low-key? 

This is Alfie. He’s OTT to the extreme. This wouldn’t change when it comes to you. His personality is as big as his empire and you wouldn’t change it for the world. It keeps things interesting, for a start, and you fell in love with him for him, just as he did you. That doesn’t mean, however, that you don’t sometimes wish things were simpler and quieter - especially once Tommy Shelby comes into your lives. That man only eggs Alfie on and makes him all the worse. 

P - picture. what's their favourite picture of them and their s.o? 

It would be something simple yet intimate to be honest, like a wedding photo, or one of the pair of you taken at a company soiree. He loves it because you’re dressed to the nines, wrapped in each other’s arms, and grinning like a pair of love sick soppy bastards. 

Q - quintessential. what is one they would refuse to compromise in their relationship? what's a deal-breaker for them? 

As I said before. Loyalty is everything to him. Plain and simple. 

R - rage. who is the most likely to start an argument? 

… come on. Alfie. For sure. He probably wouldn’t mean to, unlike when he’s with people to do with the business. Oh no, this man would do his very best not to upset you, given that you’re the one person in all the world that means everything to him. However, he’s still him. He still has a temper and a short fuse that all too often blows up whether it’s about not being able to find his cane, or about the fact he may or may not have pissed off an Italian gangster and needs you to flee to some safehouse for a week. 

He’ll take whatever rage you give back to him and can grovel with the best of them. Expect many bouquets, kisses, and angry sex, followed by make up sex is all I can say. 

S - sickness. who gets sick most often? what are they like when they’re sick? 

Given what we’ve seen in the show, I think Alfie would get ill most often. This can be due to his inability to take a day off or get a decent night’s rest in him, but it can also be due to more serious factors like his war wounds. Still, you’re a great nurse and aren’t afraid of ‘Big bad Solomons’, even if he does his best to get out of taking medicines or staying in bed. 

You can be a spitfire when you need to be and when it comes to caring for your husband, then you turn into the most fearsome Solomons in the West End. Scarier men than him have blanched and run away after being screamed at, by you, for refusing to let your husband out of meetings. Even Tommy himself once actually apologised after a dressing down from you, and sent a bottle of whiskey by way of apology. 

T - tattoo. would they ever get matching tattoos with their s.o, or a tattoo for them? 

Alfie would definitely get one for you. He has a lot anyway, but one dedicated to you would be important to him, so that he carries you with him. He’d also probably get it done over his heart, so it is all the more special as he claims it’s a visual reminder of the mark you’ve left on him. 

You make sure to call him a softy, but kiss him anyway once he tells you. 

U - understanding. how understanding are they? or are they a little difficult? 

All things considered, I think Alfie would actually be rather understanding about most things. It isn’t like his world is black and white, and he knows the world can be a complicated and unfair place. Sure, he’s stubborn but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t try to at least see things from a different perspective before deciding he was right in the first place. 

If anything, you’d be the one who is less understanding. By that, I mean, you have patience - the patience of a god damn saint, according to most of your friends - but God help you if Alfie makes a promise and then breaks it. You’ll put up with almost anything but if he makes a promise then he knows he has to keep it, else face your wrath later. 

V - vases. do they buy flowers?

Alfie would buy you flowers all the time. True, he’d normally bark at Ollie to order them for him, especially if it’s for an occasion or if he’s in trouble… he knows exactly what kind of flowers are your favourites and isn’t afraid to send you fields worth if it would make you smile. After all, in a city as grey and metropolitan as London, you savour any bud of greenery or coloured petals. It’s why you’ve come home to the kitchen filled with Sunflowers once or twice, after mentioning that you’d had a bad day… only the best for you, Alfie always says - to brighten your day, just as you brighten his life by being in it. 

W - wandering. do they wanna travel? or immediately settle down? 

He may be known as ‘the wandering Jew’ but Alfie would want to settle down, to be honest. You, him, Cyril and whatever kids you two have in a cottage by the sea in Margate… that’s the dream. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t enjoy taking you to places though, spoiling you with trips abroad every now and then, like Paris on your honey moon, and Italy for an anniversary. 

X - ex. how many exes do they have? any horror stories? 

As king of Camden he would more than likely have a few, but none he’d deem significant enough to tell you about. He’s always been more of a casual fling, kind of guy, until you came along and tipped his world upside down. The only person you’d ever have to worry about rivalling you for his affection has a tail and answers to the name Cyril… and to be fair, you’re pretty in love with him too.  

But if you had exes? Well, it depends on how it ended as to whether or not he has some of his men have quiet words with them in the middle of the night… 

Y - you. favourite thing about their partner? 

Alfie calls you his salvation, and you think he honestly believes that. You accept him for who he is and aren’t afraid of him, which is a minor miracle in itself. You’re patient and kind and all this things Alfie claims he isn’t, which is why he loves you so much - you are the light in his life and he hopes even just being around you is enough to make him a slither less of a sinner. 

That, and your irritating, unwavering optimism… oh, it annoys him to no end how you always smile and find silver linings wherever you look. You also seem to know just about everyone, often whistling and waving as you make your way through the factory like a god damn Disney princess. Hell, even the Shelbys seem to like you which really gets on his wick… but why wouldn’t they? You’re amazing, so he can understand even if he doesn’t like it. 

Z - zeal. how excitable are they? who's the calm one?

It’s Alfie. Come on - this one is self explanatory, even if I like to think you’d balance each other out. He brings out your extroverted side and you help temper his when he gets a bit much (even if you secretly love how excitable he gets). 

[proudfreakmetarusonniku]

I think it’s really interesting how c!Tommy being an annoying little shit masks how much of a people pleaser he is when it’s also a massive part of how he tries to appeal to those around him like. He's gotten positive attention from being an obnoxious dick! People go along with what he does and help him pull dumb pranks. It’s just when he crosses the line people get mad at him, and c!Tommy's an incredibly reckless teenager- he crosses that line a lot because he hasn’t learnt it yet, he’s still pushing boundaries (which is completely developmentally appropriate for a sixteen year old, it’s Healthy and Good because it’s a part of learning how to respect them) but as far as he’s been Shown people find it funny when he’s annoying until it isn’t anymore. c!Tommy wants people to like him he wants to be helpful and funny and he thinks that being a little shit is making people laugh (because like it does) so he keeps doing it.

Like, c!Tommy is a very self conscious character in a lot of ways, it’s just hard to tell because he projects this image of cockiness. But he’s not- he has chronically low self esteem to the point he needed the discs to feel worthy of being alive even at the beginning of the server. And one of those ways he’s self conscious is that he places an unhealthy amount of value in his ability to be helpful and please others. Like, this isn’t to say he’s never a prick intentionally- he is a lot of the time, that’s Also developmentally appropriate and a Healthy and Good thing that teenagers learning social skills do. But the reason he’s “annoying at first” is because he knows about the “at first” bit. It endears him to people, at least some of them, and while he’s very emotionally intelligent and perceptive, he’s still a teenager and goes too far with it a lot.

c!Tommy is strong-willed, but that isn’t because of self confidence- it’s sheer stubborn defiance. Which is a strength in some ways- confidence can be eroded, but you can’t take away that fundamental personality trait so easily. c!Tommy is a character that shifts a lot, trying to appeal to those around him- especially those who frighten him, he has a very strong fawn instinct, as Exile shows- but he’s also a character that's got a strong and consistent personality, due to this stubbornness. He refuses to change who he fundamentally is, even if he tries to use it to seem charming and desperately try and prevent people from leaving, because he’s terrified of being alone more than anything else. His stubbornness just overpowers his fear in all but the most extreme circumstances.

Idk where I’m going with this I just think c!Tommy's a very interesting and deep character who manages to do the “totally different to how he appears on the surface” thing so well because his facade and his true self are so consistent and come from very prominent character traits even if they differ a lot. c!Tommy the Big Man and c!Tommy the insecure people pleaser feel congruent, in a way that Oh c!Dream Was Secretly A Sad Boy doesn't (and I’m saying that as someone who writes an incredibly pathetic wet cat c!Dream)

[antimony-medusa]

I am not sure about the take that the wil-kills-dream scene was about Wil fundamentally being fucked up and not recognizing Tommy as a full person, the revenge-without-knowledge-or-consent thing. I think his actual actions once he snapped back into reality demonstrate that, but his gut reactions being pure destructive rage—I have had people I love tell me they were hurt, and my gut reaction is that sort of incandesent fury. How dare someone hurt these people I love, I am going to destroy them, etc. 

I go protective defensive sibling, not maternal nurturing emotional reaction, etc, and I don’t think that’s fundamentally, ah, self-obsessed? Your gut reactions are your gut reactions, you don’t tend to have a lot of control over them. I am funamentally the person who will punch, not the person who will hug. The trick is then after the bomb has gone off in my head, do I make the situation about me, or do I make it about the person who got hurt. 

I do think that c!wil fell down pretty spectacularly on the “what do you do with your rage” front. He’s very clearly in fixing mode in a way that leads to more problems, he still has a fascination with his own death fixing things, and he’s acting based on certainty that he knows stuff that he actually doesn’t know. He doesn’t know Dream, he doesn’t know tubbo/eret/fundy, he doesn’t know Tommy, he is acting on entirely the wrong conclusions. But his actual actions are the part that demonstrates he’s out of wack, not the fact that his reaction to hearing his brother-figure was hurt and he was powerless to stop it being that he vividly wished he could punish the person who hurt him. 

Yeah I just think the dream sequence was to show like, a bigger reaction than you can do with simple face acting. 

[firesnap]

Twitter having Pogtopia c!Crime discourse in 2022 makes me feel like waaaaay too many people think the angsty head canons and fics about Tommy being Wilbur's caretaker during that entire time were actually canon.

Like, Tommy definitely (particularly after the who are you go away stream) took on trying to manage how bad Wilbur was slipping, but the point is that no one realized Wilbur was slipping until Wilbur couldn't hide it anymore. If you change everything to Tommy holding Pogotpia together from the start it completely destroys the drama of the moment when Wilbur let's everything he's holding collapse. Wilbur showed up at Pogtopia with cradling a little flame of hope. Wilbur sat about building a base with Techno. Wilbur gave assignments for building the redstone and Tubbo's roles and ideas for how to make things functional. He was still trying to stay in control. Tommy was trying but had his own shit going on too (and, in true Tommy fashion, there are the moments like building the Prime path straight to their base and running off when Wilbur was begging him not to do so to remind the audience that Tommy was still a kid and still Tommy regardless of the change of situation).

So painting all of Pogtopia as Wilbur being cared for by Tommy from the start misses the point and looks over a huge part of why Tommy thought he'd failed to save Wilbur and save L'Manberg when it wasn't his fault or his place to do so. Like all that anger and bitterness leading into Exile, and many of the somber moments during Exile, can be traced to "how did we get to this? what did I do wrong? did I not do enough?"

Sometimes, as people, we feel guilt and anger when we're coping with grief. We feel like, despite if circumstance or age or life in general says otherwise, things would have worked out differently if we'd somehow made a better choice. It's a futile exercise of what if, and often makes us think we had more power or control in a situation than we ever did, but that's often how the mind works (and in this case makes a great story). I dunno. Sometimes these discussions really feel like they negate Tommy's agency to make choices that are both kind but not healthy.

He never should have had to care about what was happening to Wilbur. Okay. He was too young to be forced to care about something that complicated. Okay. Sure. We've covered that. It doesn't change that caring is a fundamental part of who Tommy is and why the story exists at all. Tommy never had to care about Wilbur. He had a million reasons to not. But he did. Tommy caring too much about isn't a flaw, but it was tragic. Those can coexist.

[rutadales]

any excuse to rant about music 😌😌 (Spoilers for undertale if u haven't played it)

So first I'm gonna talk about how Asriel/Flowey and C!Dream are incredibly similar characters and THEN I'm gonna talk about how the musical & thematic choices of His Theme really fit dream's character.

A big theme of undertale is grief and how it changes people, and the biggest example of that is Asriel. Asriel is a very kind, kinda naive kid (Dream during the early days) who goes through a very intense trauma which results in him being fundamentally changed that he's essentially a different person (Dream near the end of the smp).

When we the player finally meet Asriel he is painting himself as this incredibly strong, unstoppable monster but as the fight progresses we realize that he just wants to go back. He wants to be himself again and he wants his family back. (literally dream's whole endgame . big happy family big happy family big happy family) but in the end Asriel as to accept that he can't go, he can't become who he used to be and he has to come to terms with that. (do I NEED TO EXPLAIN?????? AHSIDOOSISOFOFKKSJAKSOFOIFIF FUCK)

and the music of undertale is going to reflect this change that Asriel goes through! we first clearly hear the melody for His Theme we hear it as a music box, a soft quiet little song. Then we hear it again in Memory, it's very light and airy here. It sounds happy. Literally Dream before everything went wrong and how he remembers the early days. (Also how the player is shown who Asriel is definitely mirrors how Tommy learns who Dream truly is. Through someone else's memories.)

Then we hear it again in the theme of the game! The melody Undertale is the same as Memory and the music box. The melody here is slower and a lower octave giving it a more melancholy feel to it. This compared with the tune of Once upon a Time and Home that we hear in the song it gives it this very nostalgic feel to it. It also perfectly captures the tragedy of the entire story we're being told during this segment of the game AND DREAM'S STORY!

We also hear this melody in other parts of the game, it's there in Fallen Down (the second song we hear in the game). Asriel and his music is literally woven into every aspect of this game, much like how Dream is woven into every aspect of the smp down to its name.

And when we finally hear His Theme it is this loud, uplifting orchestra with just this misery baked into it. Asriel is literally begging the player to let him have this, for him to have his sibling back during this theme. Dream is desperate to go back to what he had before, to be who he was before but his grief and trauma has fundamentally changed him. He can't go back. And the only way someone is able to get through to him is by understanding and giving compassion, similar to how you're able to get through to Asriel at the end.

Undertale is actually a really good case study for how musical motifs can be used narratively and if u ever want to explain motifs to people I'd definitely recommend undertale lol. Anyway c!Dream is His Theme coded by Toby Fox coded. goodbye

[faebriel]

I thought it was interesting what you said re the for good nonnie, and I’m really curious on what you mean when you say c!rainduo never fully understood each other. Would love to hear abt that!

yea for sure!! honestly it's a big factor of how i personally interpret their relationship. i don't have the vods on hand so this is gonna need an element of "trust me bro" but it's there

i think wilbur and niki were very good friends, but there were fundamental things to how they each operate that the other never really... grasped? it's something that isn't always explicitly said in canon, but always stands out to me. some parts aren't exclusive to just them, but it forms this broader pattern that spans them from day 1 to the end of the server.

the starting key to all this is the manberg-pogtopia era - wilbur is exiled, niki offers help, and he asks her to stay. there's a really telling interaction imo when wilbur and tommy are scampering around manberg (i think they were stealing supplies iirc?) and wilbur and niki have a conversation over in-game chat. wilbur asks niki to stay in manberg, and niki responds in-chat that she will, but she's visibly upset by the response and mumbles as such to herself afterwards. and after that, wilbur kind of falls into a mental pit, and he stops considering niki's safety in manberg until she is literally about to die right in front of him. and then he doesn't explain the "let's blow up manberg" plan at all, so niki is left with the realisation that wilbur tried to blow up manberg, presumably with her in it, without knowing just how quickly he sabotaged his own plan to save one of her lives...

and on niki's side, she's in the same box as everyone else when it comes to not understanding wilbur's issues in pogtopia. she agrees with fundy on nov 16 that wilbur has changed, and he's not the same wilbur from l'manberg anymore - she's still loyal to him, but she (like everyone else) doesn't really piece together that wilbur is suffering from mental problems that have spanned back to the presidency. he's just changed. he's not the same wilbur who was her friend (even if she still looks out for him the same way).

then when niki unearths the TNT underneath the presidential podium, she doesn't say anything or actively try to seek wilbur out (although they were all pretty quickly distracted by techno) - she trusts him, but she doesn't understand that wilbur has been giving off suicidal red flags all day (two of them explicitly onscreen, towards her - leading her to mushroom and giving her the blue, and arguably whatever happened with that coat offscreen) and that wilbur going missing right as she discovers the TNT is there and ready to blow is a massive, massive danger sign. and i mean, why would she. like everyone else, she thought that they won and that there was no reason why wilbur would want to destroy the place anymore. she didn't get quite how far he had spiraled.

it's that seed of misunderstanding that lets niki's feelings fester from doomsday onward. wilbur didn't kill himself, he abandoned her. it wasn't because he was dealing with suicidality, paranoia, delusions and pretty steep mood changes, it was because he actually never cared about her or anyone and all he cares about is chaos and destruction and he always thought she was a stupid, foolish dog at his heel. ghostbur's existence is an offence that tips her entire perception of what is real and what isn't. and when the target of niki's anger - tommy - is killed and revived, she has to shift all that unresolved grief and anger and misunderstanding onto the specter of wilbur.

starting to get into more fanon territory, i think wilbur puts niki on a bit of a pedestal. pre-death, even pre-spiral, the thought that she may struggle in manberg - that she's physically safe (which let's be honest, she was not) and that she will be fine - doesn't even cross his mind. despite being good friends, he never goes to her with his stress and worries as president. post-revival, he hems and haws over his apology to her for weeks before he makes it, and ironically he's been out of her life for so long that he doesn't even know she tried to murder his little brother. niki is a bit more proactive, but she doesn't understand wilbur's nature - largely, she doesn't understand his struggles with mental health (and he never shared them before pogtopia, and in pogtopia he was a whole other kettle of fish, so why would she?) and how it influences his behaviour. wilbur does a lot of shitty things, he does a lot of scheming, but he's never directly trying to fuck her over in the way she comes to believe he did. she was collateral. and that is it's own kind of pain, but it's not the mustache-twirling kind of disdain that she seems to think he had for her at doomsday and when she responds to news of his revival.

anyway. i think that wilbur's apology to her stripped back some of those misunderstandings between them (esp because niki had gone through her own mental health gauntlet by then, and come out with a stronger support network for it), but it was moreso about re-establishing that despite everything else, they still care for one another and that's what important.

[lasnevadaslaborunion]

I think I can articulate my thoughts now that there's the benefit of a few hours distance.

See, I completely agree with many of the criticisms people are raising about this finale. It's clumsy, it's rushed, it's tonally all over the place, it's fundamentally absurd, it doesn't feel complete, the meta nature doesn't seem fully earned, it feels a bit like we were baited with seriousness and then smacked with a massive joke. I wish c!Wilbur's mental health had been addressed with more tact, I wish we'd received some indication that c!Tommy and c!Wilbur can still keep in touch over this new vast distance, I wish Ghostbur could have found a little more peace (or the "alive people don't have ghosts" theory had been confirmed), and I really wish cc!Quackity had replied to his fucking DMs. By conventional narrative standards, c!Wilbur's ending wasn't just an abject failure on nearly all levels, it tossed those narrative standards on the roof and turned them into a background joke. I completely get why people hate or feel betrayed by it.

But even with all these issues, it still worked for me.

The Dream SMP is a ridiculous story. I know, I know, it's practically a cliché to point that out. But I say this not to diminish the emotional impact it has, or to imply that people are silly for being invested. Quite the opposite. Because if there has been any consistent theme in this ridiculous story, it's that getting invested in ridiculous things - laughing over them, crying over them, bonding with the people you love and eventually parting ways without realizing that's what you've done - isn't something to be ashamed of. It's just part of being human. It's something beautiful. And I think it's kind of poetic that c!Wilbur, a character who has always been far too worried about his role in some grand narrative to be healthy, was given the space and the blessing for an unglamorous, anticlimactic, dumb resolution by the very person he constructed this grand narrative for and alongside.

Life is silly and frustrating. It's dramatic when you expect calm, and underwhelming when you expect spectacle. You don't always get the closure or the perfect legacy you want, but life goes on. There's a new desert to explore and pennies found on sidewalks and warm hugs and the feeling of freshly shampooed hair and inside jokes from old friends and widening smiles from new friends and the taste of apples and freshly baked bread and goofy songs screamed out the windows of an old van and the smell of rain and ocean air when the sun finally rises after a stormy night. All that is worth living for, far more than mighty works and deeds.

I know it probably sounds like I'm reading motivational quotes from a TED Talk or a 50 cent self help book, but that really is the way this ending made me feel. Like there's nothing to be ashamed of. This wasn't Wilbur laughing at us, this was Wilbur laughing with us.

I can't logically defend everything about this stream, not even with every cell in my overworked English major brain. And I'm okay with that.

It was a fun ride. Thank you, @sootings.

[aro-throughyourchest]

I think about these fundamental character traits and how in the process you have to reinvent core parts of them to create a happy story

C!Wilbur will always be just a little wrong; a little angry, a little misguided, a little self-centered. He’s two guns pointed at each other and eventually one will shoot. He’s acid and bad tastes in your mouth, but he’s the way a smoker loves cigarettes and what could’ve been a great man, footprints in wet sand, they came from L’Manberg, and now they follow a trail of dynamite.

He’s not a coat over your shoulders, he’s not comfort, his footing and yours will always be a little uneven- he feels guilt and sharp chills in his spine but he’s not honeysuckle, he’s bitter lime. Bitter terrible lime. He loves you, but he’s not brave enough to love himself, no matter how much you ask him to. But he’s his own person.

C!Phil- Doesn’t like these people. Nor trust them. He tolerates them but can barely stand any of them and will have them at an arms length as long as he can stand and will subtly not let them in further. He let in the Syndicate and is only himself when with them or Tommy (and he still, still, is not a fan of Tommy.)

He doesn’t invite others in, he gives them a second chance but nothing more, nothing less. He was invited to this server not welcomed. The way he talks to his own son is guarded and evident.

You can tell one character I’m more mentally ill about than the other

[thatweirdguyinthebushes]

cant answer the ask for some reason so here is the screenshot of it and my reply beneath

[alt text: anonymous asked: Hey, I hope you’re having a good day. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on cpawnduo(i’ve also seen them be called fireflyduo)? I think they’re surprisingly similar in the way they think but they have fundamental differences. They have an interesting dynamic but I don’t see them talked about too often. end alt text.] c!firefly duo is a horrible name im filled with rage everytime i hear it anyways yes c!dream and c!tubbo live in my head rent free and youre right they have a surprising amount of similarities that people dont talk about enough. theyre both the logical, quieter type, obviously, but also they have very similar ideas on things like attachment and morality. in the exile of tommy, tubbo makes two comments on attachment: "They're just music discs. They shouldn't get to dictate the future of an entire nation!" and "The discs don't matter, Tommy! How can you not see that?" He doesn't understand Tommy's attachment to items or things that have, in Tubbo's view, no meaning in anything but the abstract, which isn't something he places much value on. It's unclear how much of this view is something more deeply rooted or in his nature and how much is a response to losing his homes and possessions so often. But either way, it is the most fundamental difference between him and Tommy, besides the obvious "head vs heart" thing they have going on. Dream makes a similar and much more well known speech in the vault of attachments, where he informs Tommy that, having realised attachments were the thing that not only controlled Tommy's actions, but the actions of everyone on the server, he deliberately destroyed the things he was attached to and cut ties with all of his friends. This is obviously similar to what has happened to Tubbo, although in Tubbo's case it was due to outside forces acting upon him and in Dream's case it was deliberate. You can even draw the conclusion that maybe part of Dream's motivation for cutting away his attachments was seeing that it had made Tubbo a slightly more effective leader, even if he wasn't quite good enough at it to be a 'good' one, although I acknowledge that's a bit of a stretch, considering how lowly Dream thought of Tubbo. In the same stream, Dream mentions that "evil is in the eye of the beholder... you're evil to me." This demonstrates Dream's idea that there is no real good or evil, that moral conviction itself is more of a story telling device -- that only the naive (like Tommy and Wilbur) think it's real. Considering how much he makes references to story telling devices/tropes in his monologues, I don't think this is that much of a stretch. Tubbo has similar ideas about good and evil. After their talk with Quackity at the outpost, Ranboo asks his husband if he thinks they're doing something bad, and adds on "am I a bad person because of that?". Tubbo responds with "Right and wrong isn't really a fair way to describe things. Right and wrong depends on which side you're on." The main difference between them, I think, is that Tubbo's lack of attachment to things is mostly about things without practical use. He doesn't understand sentimentality (or, if we're being honest, empathy) very well. But he still undoubtedly has an attachment to people, and although the way he expresses that care is often muted and lacking and not enough, he still does feel it, and makes that clear in the ways that he can, which normally involve rescue missions, a willingness to put his life on the line, and other grand gestures that keep him from having to directly say i love you to anyone. His ultimate goal, even with his lack of real scruples or attachment, is still to look out for and protect the people he cares about. Dream, on the other hand, has cut his attachments deliberately, which includes his attachment and care for the people around him. He deliberately cuts George and Sapnap out of his life, blows up his house, gets rid of anything that doesnt have strictly practical use. His ultimate goal is to have control over other people, as he says in the vault of attachment. If he holds all of their treasured things, and keeps the one thing he could be threatened with (Tommy) locked in prison, then he has complete power. It's even a little pet theory of mine that the reason he immediately resorts to murdering Tubbo is not just for the reasons he states, but because Tubbo, similar to him, doesn't have any physical attachments, and has proven to be willing to give up even his closest ones, like his friends, if he thinks it's for the greater good, but thats a sidenote. TLDR: c!Pawnduo are incredibly fascinating and I wish more people talked about them more, essentially, especially in regards to how similar they are (although it's a comparison that they would both hate to hear).

[the-final-sif]

For the discourse ask game: ❔ and/or ⚖️

Well we're getting spicy so let's do these!

❔- Has c!Wilbur actually made a significant improvement in how he treats other people since his revival?

I'll be honest, no, I don't think so. Not significantly. I think the latest crime boys stream showed that while c!Wilbur might say that he wants to be a better person, and he might mean it, he has yet to make any significant changes to his behavior or approach to problems to actually make progress there.

Like, so he finds out about Exile, right? What does he do? He makes it about himself. He doesn't ask what c!Tommy wants, what would make c!Tommy feel better or heal from the situation, instead, he assumes that he knows best and does what makes him feel like the hero. He's still got that underlying fundamental assumption that he knows best. Whether he means to or not, he treats other people as props in his story. Not human beings with their own thoughts, feelings, and agency.

He might do better in the future, but as it stands, until he figures out how to change the part of him that is convinced life is his narrative and centered around him, his treatment of others won't improve.

⚖️ - Do you think c!Bad would physically intervene to protect c!Quackity from c!Dream, if c!Dream had previously informed him that c!Quackity was his primary torturer? Or do you think the guilt of having allowed the torture would drive c!Bad to be a bystander to c!Dream's revenge?

Tough to say. I think that if c!Dream goes into any details, if he applies pressure, c!Bad crumbles. Bad is already dealing with a ton of guilt for having been a bystander, and if c!Dream leverages that correctly then Bad would be unlikely to be willing to hurt Dream to stop him killing Quackity. He might still try to talk him out of it, but if Dream describes what Quackity did to him, Bad would be hard-pressed to physically intervene.

After all, Bad was a bystander when Dream was getting tortured. He let that happen. He could've done something- something more. And he didn't. Why stop being a bystander now? It's so much easier to just stand. And watch. And be haunted by what you see for years to come.

[piningpebbles]

This is the stream vods anon, thank you for those sources! I was wondering if Jack streamed the 12 July 2022 lore as well, because I would only find Tommy's POV.

no worries, and YES he did!!! i have no idea why he didn't upload it to it's vods channel being it's so fundamental to his character, but i can tell you the basis of what happened from my memory

(i also go into more detail about c!jack's mindset/his actions during that stream on a post i made here)

when tommy and jack last talked about the hotel, tommy claimed that he didn't care about the hotel because he had bigger fish to fry (with fighting dream), and jack knows that that's bullshit-- he plans to blow up the hotel to make tommy prove that he cares about it.

he spreads tnt throughout the hotel, blowing up a couple of floors along with a lot of his personal possessions.

when jack realizes he doesn't have an alibi for committing the crime, he chooses hannah (who was one of the only other people online at the time) to frame for the crime, putting up signs implicating she did it.

tommy and tubbo investigate the crime scene as detectives, and jack joins them in his own detective outfit, playing the act.

tommy keeps saying how "it couldn't possibly be jack who did the crime" which starts to hurt jack, because it shows that tommy never even legitimately saw jack as a part of the hotel, he doesn't even think about jack.

tommy taking all this time to try and figure out who did the crime, but still ignoring jack sets in for jack that tommy doesn't care about him. jack: "so he… does care about the hotel. he just doesn’t care about me.”

tommy, tubbo and jack go to confront hannah about the crime, and while tommy and tubbo build a jail for her to stay in for interrogation, hannah and jack talk and he confesses to doing it.

jack is completely resigned, telling hannah how tommy hurt him, how he wanted tommy to care, and how they never listen anyways so it doesn't matter if she tells them the truth.

jack confesses to blowing it up when they claim nothing bad will happen to him if he tells the truth, to which he gets locked up for questioning with hannah.

he confesses everything to tommy, how he did it to make tommy prove that he cared about the hotel, and by extension, to make tommy prove that he cared about jack and their friendship.

tommy ignores him again, turning to tubbo to talk about dream and how jack and hannah will be punished. jack and hannah escape while tubbo and tommy try to formulate a plan.

hannah and jack talk. hannah asks why he did it and says how, "do you not know what tommy's been through?" to which he responds, "do you know how much he's put me through?"

hannah says she's sorry but that jack went about it the wrong way, that destroying the hotel and most importantly: getting her involved/framed where she was seriously worried she was going to be killed (the punishments tubbo/tommy were talking about) was going too far. (note that jack didn't want for hannah to get hurt, he just needed someone to take the eyes off him, but the eyes weren't on him anyway which just hurts him even more).

hannah leaves and jack crumbles. he starts building a new base before returning to snowchester to get his beloved fox godzilla, who will die on the journey back to the greater dream smp. he decides to instead rekindle his base in the remains of the original Manifoldland, taking one of Ponk's cows with him to try and replace the hole that godzilla's death left.

[bumblebeerror]

🐷 , 🦝 , 💀? :D

Oooo

🐷 - Is Technoblade a good anarchist?

Not in the beginning, depending on how you define good in this context. Was he an anarchist and pretty good at the anarchy part? Yeah solid passing C, was he an objectively good person while being an anarchist? Not really. Was he good at achieving his goals through anarchy? Also no. Now he’s a solid B+, though, I think.

🦝 - Do Crimeboys have a toxic Dynamic?

Yes. God yes. Jesus fucking Christ on a bike, yes. I fully believe they care deeply about each other, but Wilbur has a serious lack of respect for Tommy’s boundaries and feelings, though I don’t think most of it is because Wilbur doesn’t care about them, it’s because Wilbur is a fundamentally broken person at this point. The last stream made me want to put him in a blender and make someone else be Tommy’s older brother figure.

Irl crime boys are immaculate tho, I adore Tommy’s continued attempts at making Wilbur cry over being brothers because I am absolutely that kind of person as well

💀 - Doomsday... just... anything about Doomsday.

GOD OKAY I LOVE AND HATE DOOMSDAY

Like I love doomsday as a narrative. Dream being totally ruthless, Techno being the most merciful one there, Phil being somewhere between vengeance and pity. It’s amazing.

There’s several moments where Techno is like “if you just leave, I won’t hurt you” and I fully believe he meant it. I almost wish someone had taken him up on it and bailed. And he does it more than once too, he tries to get Ranboo to run, and there’s even more than a chance to get away when he tells Phil to start splashing invis on anyone he can. Just. I love that Techno is the only one of all of them orchestrating L’chunkerror who is willing to let people live. Also I love that Dream tells the two of them they can’t die - because if they do the battle will fail - while the defenders lost no canon lives.(except Jack to his wounds or something afterwards I think?)

Phil is proper pissed (in character) for about the first time in his lore, and he’s got so many pithy comments that I’m so proud of him for. “You’re selfish!” “AND YOURE NOT???” And “Since when was this a Philza Minecraft thing?” “Since i was forced to kill my own son, you IDIOT!” Phil is WRATH, fuck angel of death and sending a message and good intentions, Phil enjoyed paving the road to hell, even if Wil makes him feel bad about it after. And honestly? I love that for him. Phil’s lore is usually subtle and ad-lib, Phil’s in character bits are so rare, but he was On His Shit during doomsday and I loved it. His pov is a frequent comfort stream for me. My streamer <3 I’m so proud of him.

Edit: I also love Niki burning the tree. I’m love her so much. I adore that moment of her character even though I have very little scope of her actual lore. And techno congratulating her while having no idea what the tree was was very funny.

On the flipside it was a loss for the fandom because now I have to read the same five Phil and techno neg arguments for the rest of my time here. Nobody even bothers to mention the advanced interrogation techniques, no, my streamer is bad because he blew up a country that used to be run by the blorbos they like

Ty Medusa 💙 sorry I sent you so many 👀

[proudfreakmetarusonniku]

thinking bout the c!dream god humansona au again like… imagine you’re a random person, and you’re suddenly disorientingly plucked from your life, have like thirty languages all shoved into your head at once, and then you’re suddenly forced by a god poorly disguising himself as a human (but no human has glowing golden eyes, no human stares so unblinkingly) to play house with him and you’re punished for not abiding to rules that make no sense for eons straight. to the point where you forget what normal life is like- you don’t even remember what place or time you come from, it’s all mashed together with your fellow captives, you don’t remember any friends or family, and you forget how to act like a person and not as a doll trying desperately to appease a god who can and will use his omnipotence to inflict unimaginable agony if pissed off enough. even if you were sent home, you wouldn’t know how to be a real person and not a play-pretend version again. you’ve bonded so much with your fellow captives you don’t even want to leave, knowing that you’d never see them again. you feel pity more than anything for the god pretending to be a man desperately and pathetically, even if you and him cannot connect on any real level, being more alien to each other than a human would be to an amoeba. you don’t remember your personality outside your assigned role, and deep down you know it’s incomprehensible to even you. you have nightmares every night. and what fills you with the most dread is knowing that these eons of torment, of confusion and pain and of losing yourself, are an insignificant, minuscule portion of the horrific eternity you’ll have, one that'll stretch on past infinity and never fundamentally change. you’ll never meet anyone new never age never grow never die. and the worst part is that each agonising millennia that drags on you find a comfort in that. you forget you’re even captive, you forget there’s a world outside of this cage. and then the realisation hits you and it’s like being torn away from home forever all over again.

this is the experience of all of c!dream's chosen “favourites”, by default. even those like c!tubbo, who he’s completely ambivalent towards rarely even interacts with and entirely chose because he thought c!tommy would like him. this is the least horrifying experience of the 30+ individual people being used as bit characters in a slice of life roleplay unwillingly. and then there’s people like poor c!tommy, who's the favourite and the amount of time he's spent not being constantly subject to both c!dream's wrath and his often incredibly traumatic and horrifying attempts to understand humanity could probably be measured in hours, out of incomprehensible billions of years spent trapped in the world's worst larp. like yeah c!dream is very endearing in this au bc he’s genuinely non malicious but like. he’s also inflicted genuinely unfathomable physical and mental torture for trillions of years on innocent people, some of whom are children (and c!tommy is not the youngest, i mean, mikey b is there so he’s definitely not). like it unironically is a cosmic horror story just a very darkly humorous one.

[hypolimnions]

/ˌhīpəˈlimnēän / noun : the lower layer of water in a stratified lake, typically cooler than the water above and relatively stagnant.

open starters. memes. wanted plots. wanted opps. inspo.

guidelines :

be 18+. minors & personals please do not interact.

this blog fluctuates from low-medium activity with possible periods of absence. writing is a hobby & i try to let myself be relaxed about it.

i ship based on chemistry. i need to get a feel for the dynamic between our muses first! also, many of my muses are on the ace spectrum. please respect that.

i'm not comfortable writing smut on tumblr. a fade-to-black works fine.

i use small text & photo line-breaks. many of my muses are gifless. i truly don't care how you format. this extends to xkit — i cut my posts, but it's not a big deal if you don't. i'm more concerned with writing than aesthetics.

banned fcs : anyone who has passed away, is under 18 in the source, or has explicitly said they don't want to be used. beyond that, if i have a concern i'll approach you.

mun :

i'm rudy. 22, they/it, cst timezone.

i also write oliver quick from saltburn @fawnworked.

feel free to ask for my discord if we're mutuals!

muses :

canons :

brian lackey. mysterious skin. 19. cis male, he/him, sex-repulsed asexual. community college student, mama's boy, blossoming small-town rebel who looks like an incognito boy scout. trying to find an identity outside of his trauma, which sometimes means making questionable decisions. easily plied with liquor &/or chocolate cake. sweet as pie, usually. fc: brady corbet.

tommy gnosis (to family & the government, thomas speck). hedwig and the angry inch. 21. cis male, he/him, struggling with internalized homophobia. up-&-coming pop-rock superstar, alleged plagiarist & perpetual tabloid headline, formerly devout christian going through a very public crisis of faith. self-destructive habits are just part of the "tour lifestyle", okay? fc: michael pitt.

dexter morgan. dexter. 35. cis male, he/him, demisexual. blood spatter analyst with the miami metro PD, hobby bowler & sport fisherman, friendly neighborhood serial killer with a moral-superiority slant. adopted as a toddler; doesn't know what happened to his birth parents. has his own boat, the slice of life. fc: michael c hall. gifs by firetfly.

amalthea. the last unicorn. ageless. cis female, she/it, unlabelled. traveling in search of her long-lost family, finding her footing as a newly transfigured human woman along the way. believes she is actually a literal real-life unicorn & will talk candidly about it. aloof, naive, otherworldly. not prone to indulging in earthly pleasures, unless you count rolling around in the grass. fc: devon aoki.

alan zaveri. russian doll. 32. cis male, he/him, bisexual. ball of anxiety white-knuckling it through life, getting by on sheer determination. well-meaning & sweet but tightly wound with little interest in fun. fundamentally unsatisfied, prone to existential crises and depression spirals. reconsidering everything. fc: charlie barnett. gifs by hannahcommissions.

fandomless ocs :

elliot (ell) winslow. 29. nonbinary, he/they, demisexual. grocery store assistant manager, avid hiker, indie acoustic singer-songwriter struggling to break out. dual US & UK citizenship; was born in england & grew up there until their parents' amicable divorce when he was 12. has a (spoiled) rescue dog, louise. fc: caleb landry jones.

megan tilki. 21. cis female, she/they, straight. liberal arts student, barista, ‘cool aunt’ friend. recent big-city transplant originally from rural minnesota; transferred to a private university in the city in search of independence. really into fiber crafts. close with dax, her older sibling. fc: shannyn sossamon. gifs by stannyramirez.

dax tilki. 25. agender, any pronouns, queer & polyamorous. librarian, zine hound, musician playing basements & friend's houses. vested interest in finding & building local community, whether that be through the underground music scene or the queer scene. quiet but genuine. fc: will toledo.

andrea (andy) edfeld. werewolf. 24. nonbinary, she/it, lesbian. comes from old money owing to a successful family distillery. wanders the country on its parents' dime despite not being on speaking terms with them. non-committal, emotionally volatile. loves westerns, high fashion, & getting into pointless fights. hates full moons, old men, & anything minty. fc: mia goth. gifs by jofridapettersen.

arthur cox. vampire/flesheater (original composite lore). appears mid 30s, actually 1000+. cis male, he/him, unlabelled. ancient malevolent entity incapable of remorse & empathy. given to wild debauchery, positively brimming with joie de vivre for someone without a heartbeat. originates from ancient roman italia. can turn into an eagle-owl at will. fc: jude law. gifs by stannyramirez.

[dracoria-azucar]

The more we explore C!Wilbur and C!Dream’s relationships with C!Tommy the more upsetting the:

“Who am I without you?” - “Yourself.” 

interaction gets. 

Like. We talk about the objectification/dehumanization C!Techno faces, being treated as a glorified secret weapon by his allies rather than a friend, more often than not.

But we really gotta start talking about how C!Wilbur views this kid as some unhealthy extension of himself, bordering heavily on treating him like his lap dog? And the fact that C!Dream has out right stated that he considers the boy to be a personification of conflict and passion that he wants to keep locked away all to himself??

The treatment Techno gets is definitely upsetting but there are certain moments where Tommy is objectified in ways that are viscerally disgusting. Especially considering. That he is a teenager. And being treated that way by people he legitimately trusted and idolized has very explicitly affected the way he views relationships as well as his own sense of self worth.