#something something if they dig your grave they better dig mine too

[tawaifeddiediaz]

it’s completely insane to have the parallels of buck and eddie watching the other being rolled away into a hospital — not knowing if he’ll live, not knowing if what he did was enough — while expecting/urging everyone to work past their capacity to keep him alive btw

[seullovesme]

cockwarming w/ ahn yujin

pairing ⥬ g!p!ahn yujin x reader

genre ⥬ smut

warnings ⥬ possessive + jealous yujin

(nsfw under the cut) cockwarming series

yujin never liked seeing you give someone else your full attention when she was right there, ready to be smothered with love. her glare settled on the smile of that person's face as they intensely watched your lips move while you talked. those lips were only hers to look at, and the fact that you were just letting someone look at you the way only she should, bothered her.

she held back from interrupting your conversation, until she saw you sneak a glance over her way, a mischievous glint in your eyes as your lips curled into a smirk. so you were testing her? okay, if you wanted to play that way, then yujin could too.

you clenched your fists, digging your nails into your palms as yujin scooted farther back into her seat. the sensation of her rock hard cock stretching you out was enough to make your eyes roll to the back of your head, and the way she put her hands on your thighs from behind did not help. you bit your lip to contain the noises you wanted to let out, but you knew the consequences would be grave if you disobeyed yujin’s order to stay quiet.

she knew you liked being loud and letting you sounds of pleasure ring through the whole room, hence the reason why she was punishing you like this. just as you were getting used to having her buried deep inside of you, she pushed in deeper (as if she wasn’t already deep enough), causing you to squeak out a moan.

your eyes widened at your mistake, feeling a rush of nervousness rush over you. yujin hummed, “i thought i said total silence… what about silence do you not understand?” her words were enough to make you tremble, but her tone was so gentle, a complete contrast.

you took a breath and opened you mouth to speak, but as if she could sense that you were about to say something, she cut you off. “ah, ah, cock sleeves don’t talk, do they?” yujin reminded you what you were supposed to be, just her little cock sleeve for the night. after all, you did push her to her limit when you knew better.

you shook your head ‘no’, making sure to respond to her even without being allowed to speak. yujin smiled at your response, feeling proud that you were being so good for her. “good, for a moment there i thought we forgot how to behave. no talking and no moaning. just keep my cock warm and i’ll think about letting you cum, alright?” you nodded again, trying not to focus on how well she fit inside of you. yujin continued to caress your thigh softly, “that’s my good cock sleeve. only mine.”

not edited :P

[bipanicoverthegravessiblings]

Can I make a request?

Can we see Andrew with Reader and Ashley with Reader (separately) raising their own children? How do you think what kind of parents they would be?

I have thought about this a bit too much—

Ashley and Andrew Graves x Reader with their children

Andrew Graves

In all honesty, Andrew never really intended on being a father

He’s already raised a kid (Ashley), and he didn’t exactly want to do it again

Until you two had your first child

Andrew was hesitant to hold them at first, generally a bit discomforted by the idea

But after the doctor pretty much forced the little creature into his arms, he felt a wave of warmth.

Andrew was going through a lot of emotions in that moment. Anxious, overwhelmed, scared- by god he was petrified in that moment. But also strangely….

Calm….and- happy almost.

He cracked open his eyes, peering down at the tiny person that had been shoved into his arms. They stared back.

He turned his head down to look at the child a bit better, and a smile snuck its way to the corners of his lips.

How strange, he pondered. He’d only just met this little thing and he already loved it. He was expecting to feel dread. Dread for having to raise another kid, like he spent most of his own childhood doing. Deep down the dread was still there…

…but it was suppressed with warmth.

From early stages of the kid’s life, Andrew was a mess

He baby proofed everything (if a bit too late, cause when preparing he saw no need to)

He was always on high alert whenever the baby started crying, definitely not helping the situation by hovering over your shoulder and demanding to hold his child

Speaking of hold, you were worried the baby would never learn to walk with how much Andrew held them.

Playing with toys? Andrew would be sitting on the floor with the baby on his lap

Feeding? Who needs a high chair when you have Andrew to hold the baby while he spoon fed them

Miraculously though, he managed to set the baby down enough times for them to learn how to walk

Andrew still insisted on holding them, but it was thanks to you standing your ground that he held off to let the child actually learn

Overprotective is best way to describe Andrew as a father

In a way it worked out for him

The child always needed their daddy when something was wrong

And Andrew relished in this

Any other children the two of you had, Andrew’s protectiveness dialed down just a tad

But it was very clear who the favorite parent was

Ashley Graves

Ashley had never wanted kids before meeting you

To be honest, she kind of hated them and gave you no indication that she would want any

Until all of a sudden she was more than eager to have children with you

It was like someone flipped a switch in her head, on a dime she was suddenly thrilled with the idea

Though unbeknownst to you, it was just another way of keeping you with her..

Ashley’s fingers played with your hair, twisting and swirling strands as you laid asleep with your head on her chest. Who needed a pillow when you had two wonderful pillows attached to your beautiful and loving partner!

Her fingers paused as she stared down at your sleeping form. You were so lucky to have her, in all honestly. She was always there for you, always listened to your troubles, always showed you just how far her love for you went.

She lowered her lips to place a soft kiss on your forehead, her hand gliding down from your hair to rub gentle circles in between your shoulder blades.

“You’re mine dear…” she wrapped both arms around you, her nails daring to dig possessively into your skin, “And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

During the early stages of the baby’s life, Ashley kept her distance

She didn’t like the crying, she got frustrated trying to feed or change them, and she didn’t really start playing with them til they could sit up on their own

It was a juggle for you in all honesty, having to give the baby and Ashley enough attention

You were so exhausted that most nights you’d be out cold on the floor surrounded by baby toys

Ashley didn’t start to help til the baby was a toddler, and you’d be lying if you said you wished she’d stay out of it

The two of them were menaces together, Ashley’s bad habits would rub off onto the impressionable kid, and any bad behavior Ashley would reward with words of praise or hugs

It was a lot of back and forth til you two reached mutual ground on what they should let the kid get away with

You both were content with just one kid, you didn’t want to go through the exhaustion of the early days again and Ashley didn’t want to risk neglecting the second one.

For as terrible of an influence as she is, she did grow to genuinely care for the child

[anintriguedintrovert]

It's just lazy writing honestly. Saying that you want to develop a "mature relationship" between two characters and killing off the female character to fuel man pain is such a tired and dirty trope.

And from his own words in that article - caryl falling in love is "obvious" and "easy" and such a "TV book of tricks" (again - all of these words could have different interpretations.)

Like, my dude, "friends to lovers" is an old but gold timeless trope for a reason. UNLIKE, introducing a female character and killing her to serve the male character's man pain (if that is the route they are in fact taking - I would rather her live or have her death serve some larger/meaningful purpose - bcoz yes...i can't imagine Daryl and Isabelle together - they have known each other for two months and most it has been her lying to him/manipulating him - my man deserves better BUT I also want female characters to be treated fairly) Forcing a relationship between her and Daryl so that the audience would feel more for her when she dies - and completely reducing her death to prop up Daryl is NOT the way to go. Give her a meaningful arc and real/clear/grounded motives and emotional depth.

Also - can we like backtrack here for a minute - saying that making Caryl romantic would be too easy - is like the most ridiculous thing I have heard in a while. Besides the fact that they are both incredibly complex and layered characters of their own right (the best to come out of TWDU imho) - their shared journey is such a gold mine in terms of potential - there is angst, real emotional stakes and conflicts, so much freaking build up that was already established (I mean the entire s10 arc was basically the angst-iest fanfiction to ever fanfiction) - and underneath it all - a bond/understanding/love that is so revered by so many (even the non-carylers). AND - the chemistry between the actors is the perfect cherry on top of this fantabulous sundae. I mean, u can create a whole rom com and a half out of it.

The easy route is pairing Daryl up with a character like Isabelle. Because it doesn't take much creativity or much thinking honestly.

In short, if you are going to go with a TV trope - plz don't put your bets on something as tired and tedious as reducing a female characters death so that the man can cry a few tears. Go with the tried and tested and timeless dynamic so many ppl root for (I mean - I only recently joined twitter to get updates on the Book of Carol - and twdcaryl has been trending for like three days straight now - and that Entire hype is created by carylers- they are out there dissecting every teeny tiny bts pic that we get from s3 - and creating fan art and just non stopping talking about it.)

I only finished twd a few months backs and since then, have been obsessed with this dynamic. I can't say I have hopes for canon. And I have never once interacted with this fandom beyond liking posts and devouring caryl fanfiction from so many talented writers here. But this article just seems like the dumbest decision ever (like why dig your own grave)

Me about Caryl...

[delusionalwriter02]

helloooooo

i love your insta series! could you make ranpo’s gf p.2? my obsession with him is just 🥹

Insta as Ranpo's GF p.2

a/n : hey love! thank you so much for your request, Ranpo is one of my favorite in BSD so LETS GO

<3 liked by Yosanugirl, Ranthebestpo and 285 others.

Yn_theoneandonly : he's a BABY

Yosanugirl : why is he hiding ????

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : we had dinner, he said my cooking was GOOD, he ATE THE WHOLE PLATE and now it's 2am and I found him in the corner with TAKEOUT

↳ Yosanurgirl : ...... why are you mad ?

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : because there is leftovers and this child decide it's better to ORDER

↳ Ranthebestpo : BUT I WAS HUNGRY

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : THEN EAT MY DAMN FOOD THAT I COOK WITH SO MUCH LOVE THAT IMMA STRANGLE YOU WITH IT

↳ Yosanurgirl : well it's my time to leave, i'll leave you to it Ranpo, hope you don't die

↳ Ranthebestpo : my sweet and dear and adorable little pancake please understand me, I was craving so hard those noddles

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : I MADE NODDLES FOR DINNER

↳ Ranthebestpo : but I didn't crave YOUR noodles

↳ Daze_i : for somebody SO intelligent, you're a real idiot, IT WAS THE MOMENT TO TELL HER YOU LOVED HER NOODLES BUT YOU WANTED TO SAVE THEM FOR TOMORROW AT WORK ???? SO HER COOKING BRING YOU STRENGTH AND ALL THIS SHIT

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : YOU SHUT UP AND YOU RANPO YOU'RE ON SEX BAN FOR THE REST OF THE MONTH

↳ Ranthebestpo : WHAT

↳ Daze_i : can't save you now friend, good luck soldier, you didn't shine but you'll die with dignity

↳ Yn_theoneandonlt : I SAID SHUT THE FUCK UP DAZAI

<3 liked by Gintonic, Yosanurgirl and 638 others.

Yn_theoneandonly : at least somebody likes my cooking @.Yosanurgirl

Yosanurgirl : he's a fool for not treating you like the goddess you are

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : 100% agree

↳ Ranthebestpo : you know I can see those comments right ...?

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : GOOD

↳ Ranthebestpo : dearrr i'm sorry for last night, I LOVE your cooking but the craving was so strong, I couldn't resist

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : you SHOULD CRAVE MINE

↳ Ranthebestpo : BUT I CRAVE YOU

↳ Gintonic : right now buddy ? in front of everybody ?

↳ Ranthebestpo : THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : so you don't crave me ?

↳ Ranthebestpo : THATS NOT WHAT I MEANT EITHER yes I crave you so hard and your cooking too but last night I didn't

↳ Daze_i : Ranpo I swear shut up, you're digging your grave

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : yes you are

↳ Ranthebestpo : AM I REALLY PUT ON A SEX BAN FOR NODDLES ???????????????

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : yes you are

↳ Ranthebestpo : LIFE.IS.NOT.FAIR

<3 liked by p0e, Gintonic and 583 others.

Yn_theoneandonly : Karl always been a better deal anyway

p0e : he's the best, a real gentlemen

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : he's much more elegant than some peoples I will not name

↳ Yosanurgirl : Karllll I want a flower too

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : no. only me. right Karl ?

↳ p0e : you do realize he can't respond ?

↳ Yosanurgirl : I don't care let me live my dream

Ranthebestpo : NO THAT'S TOO MUCH ONLY I CAN GIVE FLOWERS TO MY GIRLFRIEND

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : I don't belong to anybody

↳ Ranthebestpo : I didn't say anything for the sex ban, I never reacted when strangers offered you drink because at least we made economy but RIGHT NOW IT'S TOO MUCH, FLOWERS IS SOMETHING PERSONAL

↳ Yosanurgirl : well you DID said something for the sex ban

↳ Ranthebestpo : STOP RIGHT NOW, MY GIRL IS MY GIRL and I certainly won't let a RACCOON STEAL MY GIRLFRIEND

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : I repeat, I DON'T belong to ANYONE

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : and Ranpo if you're that mad, OFFER ME FLOWERS ??????? YOU DID IT ONCE

↳ Yosanurgirl : you're a loser

↳ Ranthebestpo : FINE tonight I will offer you the greatest night of your life, the sexban WILL BE REMOVED AND WE'LL STOP THIS COMEDY

↳ Daze_i : wow, I never saw him THAT invested

<3 liked by Daze_i, Gintonic and 764 others.

Yn_theoneandonly : I fear 5 months of economy went into this trip

Gintonic : and all of that for a sexban

↳ KunikiDA : It's really not the reason, he actually planned it during the last 4 months I think ?

↳ Gintonic : REALLY ??

↳ Daze_i : yeah he was like "whats the best restaurant, the best hotel, what can you do in Paris ?" nonstop

↳ Gintonic : that's actually really cute

↳ Daze_i : for such an important demand, he did things right

↳ KunikiDA : Yes, it was strange seeing him like that

↳ Yosanurgirl : A DEMAND ????? HE'S ASKING HER TO ?????

↳ Yosanurgirl : OMG MY BABIES WILL MAKE MORE BABIES THAT WILL HAVE THE SAME NICKNAMES

↳ Gintonic : that's such a strange way to say it

<3 liked by p0e, Daze_i and 735 others.

Yn_theoneandonly : call me Mrs.Edogawa

Yosanurgirl : CONGRATS MY GIRL

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE IT HE TOLD ME HE PLANNED IT FOR 4 MONTHS ??????

↳ Yosanurgirl : AND WE THOUGHT HE WAS JUST MAD LMFAO

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : I'M SO DAMN HAPPY OMG I CANT EVEN FIND THE WORDS

↳ Yosanurgirl : I CANT WAIT TO PREPARE THE WEDDING AND THEN WE'LL CHOOSE YOUR WEDDING DRESS

↳ Yn_theoneandonly : it's a damn dream like what did I do to deserve SUCH A MAN

↳ Ranthebestpo : just being you is enough my love

↳ Gintonic : so cheesy but adorable

Daze_i : CONGRAT MY BOY YOU DID IT

Hey! I love writing proposals I think I did it in almost all of the part.2, hope you liked it ? Thank you so much for your request!

with love <3

[witch-and-writer]

Something is wrong with A-Zhan! [EXTRA]

A-Zhan really did throw himself to the ground, pouting and wailing and weeping, and refused to go back home without his Wei Ying. Lan Qiren never felt this embarrassed in his life! Even Lan Huan and Wei Ying seemed clueless as to what to do.

“A-Zhan, stop this and let’s go home.” Lan Qiren tried to speak calmly, he really did. It was just really hard with almost everyone looking at him with pity and annoyance.

“NO! WANT WEI YING!! MINE!” 

Lan Qiren almost popped a vein.

“Ah. Lan Zhan, don’t cry. A-Ying can just stay here. Please don’t cry.” The child this tantrum was over, Wei Ying, tried consoling A-Zhan.

“NO! Go home with Wei Ying or not!” Never in his life had Lan Qiren thought that Cangse’s child would be better behaved than his precious nephew whom he raised with only the best of himself and his sect.

“A-Zhan, be reasonable.”

“No! Want Wei Ying! Shufu said to get what A-Zhan likes! Lying is forbidden! Breaking promises is forbidden!” 

Lan Qiren really did dig his grave by not thinking of the loophole in his words. Yet, who could have thought that A-Zhan would take such a sudden liking to a street child, much less the child of Cangse Sanren?! 

As A-Zhan kept wailing on, with his brother and his Wei Ying trying to get him to calm down, a crowd of people gathered, whispering about how badly the child was crying and how the ‘father’ was inadequate. 

As much as Lan Qiren wanted to tell them that he was not the ‘father’, but rather their uncle, he also wanted this to be over as soon as possible.

“Okay, A-Zhan. We’ll take Wei Ying home with us.” ‘Now stop your tantrum and get going!’

The speed at which A-Zhan brightened and stopped crying was phenomenal. 

He immediately attached himself to Wei Ying, who didn’t seem to mind the clinginess and walked ahead of Lan Qiren and Lan Huan.

“Let’s go, shufu, it’s time for dinner. We need to get new clothes too. Wei Ying, wear my clothes until then.” A-Zhan rambled about getting this and that for Wei Ying as Lan Qiren stared at the two kids’ backs.

���A-Huan, since when did your brother become so eloquent?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know either, shufu.”  

“Let’s hope I don’t regret this.”

This is an extra from this fic of mine. Set right after chapter 1- arriving with two, leaving with three.

[jacksprostate]

(Part 5, previous)

I end up in the cafeteria, staring at nothing. Mastication is the first step of eating. After getting food. After bringing it to your mouth. After the food has leapt into your hands, you can bring it up to your teeth full of cracks and holes, and you can fill them with pulverized chicken and rice and assorted steamed vegetables. And you swallow. And you’ll do this until you die, whether that’s in three, five weeks, or when you’re seventy-eight. Four days or so, if you don’t drink water. I wonder if Tyler has water, locked in the cage of my mind. I wonder if hallucinations need food, or if there’s some other sort of nourishment he needs. That I haven’t been managing to give him. I know he’d like to chew.

Maybe Tyler was onto something, walking around feeling like a bigger dick than God himself.

That night, I sleep like the dead, and I dream of it, too. The movie set of Paper Street yawns above us. I’ve got Tyler in my hands, his hair tight between my fingers as I fuck his throat. I’m curled over him. I’m giving something up. I’m more powerful than I’ve ever been. Tyler Durden has tears in his eyes and my cock in his mouth, and he’s not biting down. Not yet. There’s a heat to the world, and maybe it’s not ever. I feel drunk. He’s quiet.

We’re at fight club, a crowd of howling monkeys around us, and I won. Tyler’s on the ground, looking at me with pride over his shoulder. I’m pulling him apart and sinking inside. I’m fucking my best friend into the concrete. He’s not making a sound.

We’re in my cubicle. I have a large knife, and I’m gutting Tyler like a fish. And I’m burying my dick in him, and he smiles at me. His intestines writhe as I pull on them, hauling his body to me with each thrust. They want back in. I want back in. He’s warm to the core and cooling.

On top of the Parker-Morris building, I’m fucking a hole through Tyler’s shaved head. A cock is your gun, your gun is a cock, an explosion in one direction and I’ve blown mine though his skull. Pulling the trigger, over and over and over. His brain droops out of the hole. Twitching as cum and blood oozes out. Little bits of bone stick to his fried neutered testicle scalp. Rocky mountain oysters. I can see the head of my cock poking out when I fuck in. Out. In. His eyes are empty on me as I move my hands from his jaw to his temples and dig my fingers in. His brain is like plush velvet. It’s better than his throat. Better than his ass. Better than his guts.

Tyler could not cut a hole in himself better than the one I made for him.

I wake up with a rash on my dick from the pillow jammed under my crotch. They don’t bother with high thread counts, here. Might as well be steel wool.

I eat.

I take my pills.

I’m led to the visitation room.

Marla calls me, her voice floats to me through the aether to come out tinny on the telephone.

“Have you heard from Tyler recently?”

Out of the grave enough for speech and she already wants to butt back in.

I want to tell her, I don’t have any words for her. No messages. I’m sorry. My jaw could have rotted off, for all the use it is, and I stay silent.

“I found this new support group. You’d like it. Tyler could be your boyfriend.”

I’m the only one who’s left. Only Marla and I would know the truth if I smeared it like that.

I want to tell her that I hope she’s having a good time, in the real afterlife. That she’s not stuck some place like I was. I don’t want to ask about it. I don’t think we’ll be going to the same place. Marla might not be a good person, but I’m worse.

Regret and remorse don’t mean shit when you can barely even feel them. It’s cruel, how I’m keeping her ghost around. I was haunting her until death and I can’t even stop after.

[kingthunder]

beautiful one

When death came for Astarion, he was looking the other way.

It was almost poetic, he thought as the second Gur knife plunged into his back. He’d been looking the other way for so many years as Baldur’s Gate’s most crooked magistrate. Why not die like that too? After they were done brutalizing him, they left him laying in the fetid alleyway outside the wine bar, soaking in a pool of his own effluvia. A despicable little part of him thought, At least they didn’t touch my face. He was far past fear. Far past pain. Floating somewhere empty and cold. Two breaths away from the end.

“Hello beautiful one. How would you like to live forever?”

A cold voice. A cruel voice. Familiar?

Astarion opened his eyes. Found two red fires staring back at him. Exhaled for the last time.

“Please.”

The teeth at his neck barely registered.

~*~

After some timeless time of blackness, Astarion claws his way out of his own grave.

Knuckles broken from punching through the lid of the coffin, nails torn from the digging, mind reeling from the panic of waking up six feet underground with no heartbeat. By the time he heaves himself out into the moonlight and collapses he’s sobbing, big choking gasps that have him clutching his belly, making sure it’s whole (it is), because the one thing he remembers is the slice of a blade and the wet drop of his own intestines onto his feet.

“Took you long enough,” a high, cold voice says. “Get up.”

Astarion gets up.

He retches as he does, vomiting dirt and congealed blood into the grass. He feels queasy, empty, wrong.

"What am I?" Astarion says, cradling his useless hands. He has to inflate his lungs on purpose first because besides having no heartbeat, he has no breath. Half the air escapes through the holes in his neck and his words come out weak and wheezing. 

"You are mine."

At that, Astarion looks up. There is a man before him, short and slender like a dagger. His clothing is finer than anything Astarion has ever owned, all velvet and satin and intricate lace. It looks horribly out of place in the ivy-choked tangle of this graveyard. When he smiles, his teeth are too sharp.

"Let's not mince words," the man says. "I am Cazador Szarr, vampire lord of the night court of Baldur's Gate. I am your master. You are my spawn."

Cazador Szarr. Astarion knows the name. He thinks he knows the name. He gropes for a context, but the memories of his life before waking tonight are fracturing like a broken mirror, endless small reflections that show nothing at all, and he can't find the right shard.

He inhales, wheezes, inhales again. "I'm a vampire?"

"No, my beautiful one," Cazador says. 

He steps close enough to run the back of his hand down Astarion's cheek. Astarion shudders. He can smell the blood thrumming under the other man's skin. A deep emptiness yawns in him and he licks his lips, his tongue catching on his teeth, his… fangs. Merciful hells. Mindlessly, he turns his face into Cazador’s touch, seeking the thin skin of his wrist and the blood singing there, it smells so good, better than wine, better than anything he’s ever tasted—

"Hungry?" Cazador says, an edge of menace in his gentle tone.

Astarion whimpers. Hunger. The emptiness is hunger.

"Thou shalt not drink the blood of thinking creatures," Cazador says as if he's quoting something. "This blood is not for you. Never for you. Do you understand, my beautiful one?"

Astarion doesn't understand, not really. He shakes his head. Cazador pulls his hand back and slaps him.

"You will answer me when I speak to you."

"Yes," Astarion says. His head is ringing. Cazador slaps him again, and he feels his skin part where the heavy signet ring glances off his cheekbone.

"You will address me as master."

"Yes, master."

"Be still."

Cazador thumbs thoughtfully at the wound he's just made on Astarion's face. Leans in and licks it. Astarion can do nothing. His master told him to be still and his body obeys even as his mind rebels. Cazador's tongue is cold and wet. Like a worm. Astarion wants to scream.

"You're bone dry, beautiful one," Cazador says. "Come, let's get you home and fed."

Kill him, Astarion wills his broken hands. Snap his neck. Bite his tongue off so he cannot speak or ever put that flaccid worm on your body again.

"Yes, master," Astarion says. He follows meekly behind as Cazador strides off.

He never even sees his own headstone. Looking the wrong way, as usual.

[looptroupe]

HI GORGEOUS!!!!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TELL US ABOUT YOUR WIPS AND AUS IM REALLY INTERESTED 🙏🙏🙏

Foams at the mouth

I’m in the middle of writing up a whole HC post for someone asking about a highschool AU but I’m gonna take this opportunity to sidetrack the conversation towards something I’d love to genuinely see from the series… a HEAVY (film) noir lean. Think: Bogart, Framed, Gilda, Vertigo… probably pushing the era back 40’s, 50’s way (Maybe even some 30’s lean in there, if I could get away with it) instead of the general 60’s vibe Lupin has going for it.

I think there’s a TON of potential there. I mean, I’m aware something like this was pitched (and never picked up, sigh…) so there IS sentiment there, and the idea has been thought about, but instead of TWCFM’s ‘serious Lupin’ I’d love to see a true noir ‘serious Lupin’. I think you can put these characters into a serious setting without making them straight up evil, and I’ll be honest, I think it would be way more appealing than the stuff they’ve been releasing lately (besides Zero. I have to admit that I loved Zero).

I’d want the gang to actually feel like criminals, though. Cutting shady deals in illegal bars, Lupin running his mouth to big players about whatever new heist he has up his sleeve. I’d take them back to being Miyazaki-esque ‘living paycheck-to-paycheck’ rather than ‘insta-rich Lupin funding his hedonistic spirit’ because I think that would work better in this universe: Lupin is constantly getting them in hot shit with the big leagues because he can’t keep his mouth shut. Jigen has shot ten guys this week who have come knocking at their hideout’s door looking for trouble. Goemon’s sick of digging graves and is antsy to finally be who he dreams of being. Fujiko’s got her eyes on a bigger prize, like always.

Zenigata’s an underpaid beat-cop-turned-inspector who has been trying to climb the ranks for a long while. He’s ambitious, but a little too soft for his own good: he’s hopeful in a way that most of the guys in his squad aren’t, and that makes him the perfect candidate for when the commissioner has to shill a shitty 9-5 case on an unsuspecting worker. A file lands on his desk, and he flips through it with this eager fire, like he’s just been asked to take on the world, and Lupin and his gang smile up at him from the pages.

Lupin is a crook, he learns. Part-time petty thief, full-time smooth-talker: a man with a legacy to live up to and not a whole lot to show for it besides a reputation as a lady-killer and a particularly long unpaid tab at the seediest bar in town. His sticky fingers have landed him in more trouble than they’ve gotten him out of, and recent reports say that he’s managed to get under the skin of the most notorious once-criminal-now-film-director in town… the very criminal that underhandedly paid Zenigata’s boss to start an official investigation in the first place.

Jigen is a gun-for-hire. Babysitter, bodyguard, hitman… whatever you need, he’ll do, however begrudgingly. He’s not a guy you mess with: and his reputation is actually pretty good in criminal circles. He’s well-respected and well-liked. Or, he was, until the monkey-faced man at the bar implicated him in a crime he didn’t commit. Now, he’s babysitting without pay, and he’s starting to get a little sick of having to put bullets into the faces of old friends who decide his bounty is worth more than his loyalty. Figures.

Goemon’s a man slightly-less-out-of-time. A famous Japanese-American film star, he’s known world-over for starring in Samurai flicks alongside his leading lady, Fujiko Mine. The thing is, Goemon is classically trained in swordslinging, and when Lupin offers him an opportunity to be the very person he’s been portraying on screen, he’s more than happy to throw his reputation away. He never cared much for fame, anyway. There’s just this one little hitch: he’s enamoured with the sword he last used on set, and he won’t take no for an answer when he asks Lupin to retrieve it for him.

Fujiko has her eyes on a prize a little more exciting than Zantetsuken: the film empire she’s helped build herself. The tabloids can’t get enough of her, and she knows that a marriage to the most famous director the world has ever seen might just secure her a place in history. The thing is, the man she’s trying her best to seduce has stopped paying her attention since his beloved priceless-antique-turned-prop-sword went missing, and she’s determined to get it back for him. Because what would make him fall quicker? Ah, there’s just one catch: Lupin is kind of charming, and the life he’s living is… exciting. Tempting. Fujiko likes playing with fire, but she’s starting to get a little too close to this one particular flame. The heat has her cheeks burning… Or maybe that’s Goemon’s doing.

They’re a strange little bunch, the Lupin Gang. But man, do people have a habit of underestimating them. Zenigata included. Because what he thinks to be a simple case of theft soon turns into something more sinister as the layers of movie-magic veneer begin to peel away. Maybe Lupin was onto something, targeting this guy, and maybe this hotshot director isn’t quite as reformed as he says he is.

He went to court recently, after all. Say, how much did he pay the judge to overturn that guilty verdict? Zenigata would like that sum as a pay rise once this has all blown over. That, and some fresh smokes.

((Mmm someone should hop on board and help me develop this I think. Could be a fun little exercise on the side… if it’s up anyone’s alley >:) ))

[just-wublrful]

post hole

Lines Standing in for Religious Conviction, Gregory Orr | Law of Holes, Wikipedia | starktulhu | Turing Test_Boundaries, Franny Choi | Line Without a Hook, Ricky Montgomery | Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky | How To Let Go Of The World, Franny Choi | The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath | What Resembles The Grave But Isn’t, Anne Boyer | heavensghost | Law of Holes, Wikipedia | 4x07 ‘Underground’, Bojack Horseman

[ID: An assortment of quotes, lyrics, and photos from various sources.

1. Truth of it is: I was born / With an empty center. // When I find myself there, / It’s often despair. / But now and then it’s Zen.

2. The first law of holes, or the law of holes, is an adage which states: "if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging." Digging a hole makes it deeper and therefore harder to get out of, which is is used as a metaphor, that when in an untenable position, it is best to stop making the situation worse. More generally, it advises how one should solve problems of their own making.

3. A color photo of a pond that is mostly covered with a pale green algae. In the center, the algae has been cleared out in a circle, and the dark water looks like a hole or pit. Surrounding the pond is lush vegetation and trees.

4. // at what age did you begin to suspect you were alive // all things birth / their own opposites / the hole grew / & grew & there / i was / filling it / & therefore the hole / & therefore me / &therefore & / so on

5. Because there is something and there is nothing / There is nothing in-between

6. "and your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing. Isn't that fearful? Isn't it fearful that you are living in this filth which you loathe so, and at the same time you know yourself (you've only to open your eyes) that you are not helping any one by it, not saving any one from anything! Tell me," he went on almost in a frenzy, "how this shame and degradation can exist in you side by side with other, opposite, holy feelings? It would be better, a thousand times better and wiser to leap into the water and end it all!"

7. here. I can love and love his arms helping mine make something other than dirt and watch that love bleed straight into the space between us and then of course. It falls. Into a tunnel and gone.

8. The floor seemed wonderfully solid. It was comforting to know I had fallen and could fall no further.

9. the grave, getting out of the hole eventually; sometimes falling into a hole and languishing there for days, weeks, months, years, because while not the grave very difficult, still, to climb out of and you know after this hole there’s just another and another; sometimes surveying the landscape of holes and wishing for a high quality final hole; sometimes thinking of who has fallen into holes which are not graves but might be better if they were; sometimes too ardently

10. Have you ever gotten everything you ever wanted? / No. But once I got very close. / What happened? / I don’t know. Everything disappears. Even dreams. I suppose I just flew too close to the sun.

11. The second law of holes is commonly known as: "when you stop digging, you are still in a hole."

12. I am! I’m a pit. I’m a pit that good things fall into! End ID.]

[effervescentdragon]

This is gonna be a rant bcs i havent done one in a while, it went feom too hot to too cold way too quickly, i havent fought with anyone in a while and im itching for it, and im sick an tired of certain things im seeing popping up recently despite there being many, many posts about it that summarize it all very succintly amd more eloquently than im about to, but fuck it im adding mine too.

Two main points. Numero uno.

You are not entitled to fandom spaces being catered to you.

Ive seen younger fans do this all the time, and i could go very ad hominem about what i think of youmger generations and what kind of internet experiences and spaces they've been raised in, but i wont. I will say that predictive algorithms and that scourge on the web tiktok have done irreparable damage to a whole genrration that expects content to just be presented to them on silver plates without them having to move their thumbs even a bit to search for what they want, alongside erasing what little critical thinking and reading skills theyve already somewhat had.

But thats not the point of this rant. My main problem here is when someone comes into a space, lets take an example of a discord server, and then starts whining how "all these older people are here too".

Firstly, fuck off. And i say this most empathetically - if something is not to your liking, literally just leave. Fuck off. Nobody wants you here. Go find a place that caters to your needs better instead of expecting this already existing space to bow down amd change to suit your needs. Thats not hkw this works, not how life works, not how anything works. Your entitlement is unfounded, has no geounds, is childish and frankly extremely disgusting. Go make your own fucking space then, one that you can tailor to your needs instead of expecting the space to warp to suit you. You are nothing in this context, and you are entitled to nothing, except basic rules of polite conduct that ar3 expected of everyone by social contract of interacting with other people in a space.

Point numero dos.

Fuck your ageism and fuck your idiotic assumption that there is an arbitrary age when you should leave fandom because you're "too old" and "it's creepy".

The world is not restricted to the young. The world is not built for the young only. Joy is not restricted to the young. YOU ARE NOT BETTER B3CAUSE YOU'RE YOUNG. I would in fact argue the opposite, because obvious lack of life experience (especially when compounded with the fact that most of the experience most of you even have are limited to online spaces and not the actual outside world) shows itself in both your ignorance about the (fandom) history and with your conpletely misguided sense of entitlement i already spoke about.

What even is the age to be enrolled in fandom? Does life stop after 20? 25? 29? Or god forbid, *gasp*, thirty? Thats basically both feet in the grave, isn't it?

Do you even hear yourselves? Because unless you have forwknowledge or plan to die when you come to [insert arbitrary age here], you are still going to be living after that. Will that moment, that birthday be the time whrre you go "right. im too old now. i should erase all the joy ive gotten feom fandoms up until now b3cause im too old and fandoms and fandom spaces are only for young people, which i am not anymore. bye bye".

What the everloving fuck. Do you think young people are the onse who built fandoms? Do i have to drag out star trek spirk housewives? Do i have to reference diana duane? Do i have to dig through a million posts on this godforsaken website that tell you about communities of people of all ages coming together to enjoy things and make fandom spaces as wonderful as they are?

Do you think you can only enjoy life up until [insert arbitrary fucking age here]? Do you think life stops after 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, if you're lucky to live that long?

What the everloving fuck is wrong with you???

Instead of sending stupid 😭 emojis about people being older than your 18 years of age and still enjoying things, go read a bit on fandom history. Log off fucking predictive algorithm pages, stop scrolling, read a fucking book, go touch a cow, smoke or touch some grass, talk to actual fuking people and not just bemoan existence of older people in your tween echo chambers.

Get a fucking life, adapt, and/or leave the rest of us alone. The world does not revolve around you, and if you keep insisting it does, well. We older generations have no problem with blocking. We value ourselves too much to disrupt our joy with childish whinings of entitled assholes.

[jumpywhumpywriter]

A Life in the Hands of the Enemy -- Villain reluctantly saves Hero's Life part 4

Warnings: violence, bleeding, near-death experience, captivity whump, cruel Villain whumper

Amber stayed quiet. Zack's frustration bubbled to the surface. All he wanted was an explanation. Was that too much to ask for?! With a growl, he suddenly reached out and pushed her against the wall, pinning her there, before digging his fingers straight into one of her bandaged wounds.

An agonized scream of pain tore loose from her, and she doubled over, coughing violently and shaking all over.

"Let's try again, shall we?" Zack's voice dripped with venom.

"OKAY, okay! You win..." Amber rasped weakly, head drooping. "The enemy I faced... was like no one I've ever met before. He was so, unnaturally strong..." She trailed off, gaze growing distant and foggy. "His power... he had powers like mine. Which should be impossible, considering he was merely human. Only people like me have that kind of magic potential." She leaned back against the wall with a wince to rest.

"He wasn't alone, either. I walked straight into an ambush. And his henchmen... there were only three of them, but they were strong. Strong as I was. And I..." She hesitated. "I... I got in over my head, okay?" She finally spat.

"Huh. And I never thought I'd see the day a normal human laid you low..." Zack scoffed.

A long silence fell between them, before Amber spoke again. "If I may ask... Why did you save me?" She croaked, changing the subject.

"Because I've seen you fight before... I've fought you before. I know how powerful you are. And how much it takes to truly hurt you. So seeing you so gravely wounded... I knew that whoever inflicted the damage must have been pretty darn strong." Zack got up and started pacing.

"And the problem is, I'm smart enough to know my own limits. I accept and acknowledge that you can usually beat me in battle. In the past I've only escaped you because of sheer luck, nothing more, hard as it is to admit. Which means... that if someone strong enough to nearly kill you is out there, I better make sure they're not my enemy. And if they are..." He paused, fixing her with a grave look.

"I might need extra firepower to eliminate them. I might need a weapon like you."

"I'm not a weapon," Amber spat. "I'm a person with powers that can be used to either help or hurt."

"Power is power." Zack shrugged indifferently. "Basic point is that saving you might be worthwhile for me. On any other day I wouldn't care less if you live or die... but now, we might have a common enemy, one that I may not be strong enough to take out on my own. I look forward to seeing how the situation plays out."

"And how do you plan to proceed, now that all cards are on the table?" Amber challenged.

"I'm going to see if I can track down this new character, determine for myself if they are friend or foe. Who knows, maybe I won't need you alive after all! How fun would THAT be?" Zack cackled darkly, a loud, cruel sound, before becoming serious again. "Oh, and one more question... how did you find me? The alley you were in was only a block away from my hideout. If that's a coincidence, I'll be darned. Were you trying to find me to help you or something?"

Amber averted her gaze, shifting uncomfortably.

"Answer me!" He snapped, and she winced.

"Fine. Yes, I knew where your hideout was. I also knew I wouldn't make it back to my headquarters, as injured as I was. My only hope was to try and make it to your hideout and beg for help, pathetic as that is. I've been keeping tabs on you for longer than you realize," she replied, lifting her head to meet his eyes.

"W-What?" Zack sputtered. "That's impossible! My security is impenetrable!"

"Clearly not, because the proof is sitting right in front of you." Amber gestured meaningfully to herself.

"Then why not strike sooner? If you knew where I was hiding, why didn't you attack?"

"Because I had larger threats to deal with at the time. So I had to prioritize. Also, I couldn't risk you moving to a new location. I knew where you were, so I decided to let you stay there until I could find time to swing by. Didn't imagine it would be quite like this, though." She let out a single wheezing laugh but clutched her side at the pain it cost her.

"I'm not sure if I should be offended that I'm not higher on your threat list." Zack folded his arms over his chest and glowered.

"Believe me, in the kind of life I live, you're the least of my worries. Fighting you is a walk in the park compared to some of the other villains I'm up against."

"Mmhmm..." Zack tapped his chin thoughtfully. "And why me?"

"What?"

"Why did you come to me for help? I mean, what were you thinking?"

"I wasn't," Amber admitted grimly. "I only knew I was too injured to make it back to my headquarters, and your hideout was the closest place I knew of. I obviously couldn't show up at a random civilian's house. Imagine the chaos that would cause." She shuddered.

"...So your plan was seriously to just hand yourself over to your greatest enemy and hope they didn't kill you?" Zack gawked at her in disbelief.

"Pretty much. And it worked, didn't it? I understand your thought process. I know how you work. You're an analytical thinker. Always analyzing possibilities and outcomes, inquisitive by nature. I hoped that you would want to keep me alive for questioning, thus creating internal conflict between killing me or satisfying curiosity." Amber quirked an eyebrow. "Your mind is your greatest tool, but also your greatest weakness. You're more predictable than you think."

Zack was seething mad, but also deeply unsettled by how accurate it was. She knew him better than he thought.

"Hmph. Clever," he snorted. "You're lucky my curiosity won out in the end."

"I suppose I am," Amber answered smugly.

He bristled even more. He hated it when people agreed with his barbed remarks. Took all the satisfaction out of it. He spun on his heel and started stalking out of the room.

"H-Hey! Wait! You can't leave me here! My team members will be searching the whole city for me! And if they find me here--"

Zack cut off Amber's protests with a raised hand, turning back to look at her with a smug, wolf-like grin. "I don't think I have anything to worry about. They don't know where my hideout is, do they?" Her reaction confirmed his suspicion. He was always five steps ahead.

"Ha! I knew it! You're not the only one who does their homework. You like to categorize information on your enemies by yourself, leaving your 'team members' out of the majority of your plans. They don't have a clue I live here, do they?" He laughed at her dry scowl. "Classic uno-reverse." He chuckled to himself as he turned and walked out of the room, even as Amber shouted threats after him.

"You're in MY house, so you better follow my rules! Keep yelling, and I'll gag you!" Zack called over his shoulder. He smiled at the immediate silence his words created. She knew him well enough to know he wasn't joking.

⏪️ Back Next ⏩️

Masterlist

[thelastofharrington]

the hard with the soft

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

A/N: hello! this is my first joel fic that i've ever written! i'm really excited about it and made this whole blog just to post it lol. there is plenty of smut in this so mdni! let me know what you think :)

summary: Falling in love with Joel Miller was something that happened to you little by little, and then all at once. To say the chemistry was immediate would be a complete lie. At first, you couldn’t even tell if he wanted you around, let alone wanted you in his bed. No, when he rescued you that day from one of Bill’s well-laid traps, you were certain he would never see you as anything other than a nuisance. A pest he had to take care of. 

Oh how wrong you were.

tags: praise, porn with context, slow burn, mutual pining, joel is soft on the inside, reader is down bad fr, non-canonical, rip bill and frank, takes place a year/two years after the show starts, love in the midst of an apocalypse is beautiful y'all

word count: 7k

i hope you enjoy!!!

Part 1: The Stumble, 1 Year Ago

You were hungry. Starving, even. You had been left behind from your group of outcasts three days ago (or had it been four? You were too exhausted to keep track of the time) when you twisted your ankle and couldn’t keep up the pace. You weren’t overly friendly with your most recent pack of ragtag survivors, mostly seeing them and each other as a mere means of survival rather than company. You hadn’t known friendliness or love from your packs since your parents got bit five years ago. Your parents couldn’t have known that three years after they brought you into the world it would fall apart, nor did they know they would both die protecting you from that same world they blindly brought you into. It’s been hard, but you’ve made it through and it actually was your birthday this week, the big 24. What a way to celebrate – being abandoned by the only thing keeping you safe and becoming walking bait for any clickers nearby. But still, you had fairly good spirits all things considered. Until you fell into an eight foot hole. 

It was in this hole that you realized a couple of things:

You’ve stumbled upon a domesticated piece of land. Someone somewhere near had the time, safety, and resources to dig an eight foot hole. 

If your ankle wasn’t sprained before, it was definitely sprained now considering how you landed on it.

You might have just fallen into your grave.

It was a series of progressively worse realizations, to say the least. 

Time had already felt like a concept out of your grasp for the last 20 years, but now there was truly no way of knowing if you had been down there 20 minutes or two hours when a shadow was cast on you. A man-shaped shadow. A man-shaped shadow with a gun. 

The gun was pointed right at you, the sun casting a halo around this giant man’s head. He towered over you as he held his stance firm and still. No one said anything as you both stood, unwavering. 

“I come in peace?” You finally choke out, unsure of what you could possibly say to save your own life right now. 

He doesn’t move, just croaks “How’d you find this place?” You notice the fragments of a Southern accent, nearly lost to the wear and tear of an apocalypse. 

You clear your throat and try to muster up the courage to speak with conviction. “My group abandoned me when I twisted my ankle early this week. I’ve just been aimlessly wandering.” You pause, unsure of if the next sentence will be your last, “This ankle of mine really hurts by the way. Your hole here isn’t really helping, considering I landed on it.”

You see him move his head out from behind the gun and look down at you slightly, then he moves back to position. “Are you armed?”

“No, I’m barely legged.”

He does not laugh.

“That’s something we call a joke, you know, since I can barely walk and all.”

His weight shifts again and he finally puts down the gun. “I’m going to help you out, but after that you better see yourself out of here. I don’t want any more of this and I don’t want any of your friends wandering this way either.”

“I don’t have any friends. I don’t have any family. I’m just me.”

He scoffs, “Sure, kid.”

“I’m also not a kid. I’m 24 years old and I’m hungry and my ankle hurts and why do you even have this hole anyway?!” You notice yourself turning hysterical but you don’t even care. You’re unarmed and you’re hungry and you’re all alone for the first time in a very, very long time. This man holds all of the power to help you and you’re not going to give up until he does. 

He doesn’t respond immediately, but when he does it’s in the form of him reaching down into his utility belt and pulling out a rope, and throwing you the other end. “You get one meal.”

You didn’t even know a meal was on the table, so you hobbled your way behind him as fast as you could. You ended up at a white, well-kept house behind an industrial strength gate. “How the hell did you find this place?”

He doesn’t answer right away, making you worried that you said the wrong thing somehow. Finally, when you’ve reached the front door, he huffs “It belonged to a friend.”

================================================

Part 2: The Fall, 6 Months Ago

That one meal turned into two days which turned into a week which turned a month which turned into six. You owe most of your thanks to Joel’s 14-year-old companion (contraband?), Ellie. She was instrumental in convincing Joel to allow for you to stay. If it weren’t for her, the first dinner would have easily been your last. But she was so taken with you and excited to have another girl let alone someone under 30 hanging out with them. Not that she didn’t adore Joel, or him her in his own little ways. But you were just such a breath of fresh air to her that Joel couldn’t help but allow for you to stay. 

Your role in their little group wasn’t quite clear. Joel did all of the hunting and patrolling necessary to keep this little slice of paradise exactly that, paradise. Ellie’s only job was to stay safe, and you decided to pick up the slack wherever you could. Dishes, clothing repairs, cooking dinner. Ellie didn’t need a nanny by any means, but you basically became a live-in housewife. With none of the perks, despite your daydreaming.

The last six months had been tumultuous for you to say the least. The presence of Joel constantly by your side made a lot of things very difficult. Like focusing, or keeping the weakness out of your knees, or the heat out of your dreams. He was hot, there was no denying it. If he hadn’t been waving a gun in your face the moment you met, it probably wouldn’t have taken you until the end of your first dinner to realize this. But not only was he hot, he was stoic. He was still and firm, a guiding light in this uncertain world you and Ellie both came of age in. He had a cold exterior, but judging by the way he treated Ellie, and eventually you, you knew there was some warmth bubbling beneath the surface. You knew he carried immeasurable hurt on his back, Ellie had told you about his daughter, Tess, Bill and Frank, and that was only the things Ellie knew. Who knew what was in the even further past of this sturdy man. The big, beautiful, brooding man who took care of you and Ellie despite his best instincts. 

You had only very recently gotten over your sprained ankle, taking a full 12 weeks to heal from the severe sprain. This was another saving grace for you in the beginning. Joel liked to pretend that he was heartless, but he still didn’t have the heart to send you on your merry way with only ¼ of your appendages working to their full capacity. He tried to kick you out after your first dinner despite Ellie’s whining, only to be able to only stomach three of your hobbling paces out the door. 

“Oh for God’s sake get back in here why don’t ‘ya,” You remember him sighing.

He took such good care of your ankle, at night when you’re all alone you can still feel the way his calloused fingertips massing you so gently. The hard with the soft; the essence of Joel Miller. 

“Does this hurt?” He asked four weeks in, as you sat for your nightly ankle exam. Starting your very first night, after dinner he would take your foot into his lap and exam it and massage it carefully for upwards of 15 minutes. You weren’t a doctor, but you knew enough to know that a nightly exam was excessive and unnecessary. But even at the very beginning you knew this was his way of showing you that he cared, that he wanted you safe. It was around this time that you realized that Joel had a soft spot for stragglers, for the outcasts who just needed somebody. Between you and Ellie, that much was clear, and it just made you fall faster for him than you thought possible. 

This realization and the true weight of it didn’t come to a head until one day where you decided to go out and try and collect some berries from the woods on the other side of the gate for a pie you wanted to make Joel for his birthday. You had seen him do it a million times, you thought you could get away with it. Until you heard that sound. 

Everything was fine, you had collected your blueberries and you were on your way, and then you heard it. You hear it before you see it, but soon enough you see it all the same. You had your gun with you, but your reaction time was nowhere near as fast as Joel’s was. The clicker starts stalking your way when you lose yourself to your impulses and just start running. You know better than to scream, but you get close. You run and you run and you’re looking back to make sure you’re not going to get caught when you smack into something six foot and massive. Joel’s chest. After you make eye contact you look up and make eye contact with him. He’s silently fuming, fists white knuckling around his gun. 

You go to speak when he stops you, “Don’t.” He whispers right before he shoots the clicker dead with no hesitation or struggle. The walk back to the house is silent, and not because he’s afraid of being found by the clickers. 

The slam of the front door is the first sound you’ve heard in minutes. He whips around and you swear you can see smoke coming out of his ears. “What the hell was that?!”

“I-” You start.

“You know what? I don’t want to know. I can’t hear from you right now.”

You say nothing.

“That was so completely careless! Do you not understand how we do things around here? You stay, I go. It’s as simple as that.” He’s pacing at this point, waving his hands wildly as he works through his anger with you. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

You pause, “I thought you didn’t want to hear from me.”

He stops pacing and looks at you, “Ha ha ha very funny. You’re a real smartass, you know that? If I hadn’t been there God knows what would have happened. You could have gotten killed!”

You look down at your feet, trying to hold back tears before you look back up. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to do something nice for you.”

He sighs, physically decompressing. “Well you went about it all the wrong way. I don’t need anything nice from you, you do enough around the house and with Ellie anyway,” He pauses, “I don’t know what I would have done with myself if you had gotten hurt.” He says this last part in a whisper under his breath, barely able to look at you.

“But it’s your birthday!” You choke out a sob. You’re so mad at yourself for putting yourself in danger and upsetting the man who saved your life six months ago. 

“What? No it’s not.” He says, confused.

Then, a lightbulb goes off for both of you as your jaws drop and you yell in unison, “ELLIE!”

Turns out, Ellie just wanted some pie.

================================================

Part 3: The Catch, Present Day

A lot can change in six months. But also, a lot can stay the same. You’ve grown very accustomed to the life you live here, in this big beautiful house, with your small makeshift family. Ellie is 17 now and makes Joel take her on test drives in Bill’s old truck around town. Joel has definitely gotten used to having you around, and even converted Frank’s old studio into a bedroom for you a couple of months ago. A real upgrade from living on the couch for the first eight months. 

Life is pretty standard, all things considered. You’ve heard more stories about the men who ran the house before you and you think they’d be happy to have people like you living a life like this in the home they built together. It’s a beautiful thing, to have some normalcy in a world fallen apart. 

You spend a lot of time with Ellie, who has developed a crush on one of the QZ traders. She’s tall and lean and tougher than all hell, you can see what Ellie sees in her even if you’re personally afraid of her. This realization on Ellie’s part has prompted a lot of impromptu sleepovers in your art studio turned bedroom, almost all of which are ended by Joel standing in the doorway going on about keeping quiet out of respect for your elders. You have to remind him every time that you too are an elder.

It’s also the summer time which means there’s lots to do outside. You never really learned how to tend to a garden so Joel’s been teaching you how to take care of the one Frank started all those years ago. You two keep it up with the seeds you get from trading with those select few still at the QZ, and it’s been a really special time between the two of you. It also doesn’t hurt that he prefers to work in the garden shirtless. 

“Hello? Hello? Are you even listening to a word I’m saying?” 

You snap out of the trance you were in from watching him hoe or row or whatever it is he’s doing with that gardening tool that makes his arms and back look like that. “What? Sorry, I zoned out.”

“You’re never going to learn if you keep daydreamin’ like that.” He gruffs before starting his spiel on strawberries all over again. 

You really can’t get a read on him. Sometimes he treats you as an equal, someone who has a shared interest in their work and in the safety of Ellie, but other times he treats you like you’re a toddler that can’t help but knock their head on the corner of a coffee table. He claims it’s because he doesn’t want you hurt, which you admit gives you butterflies, but if anything between you is ever going to transpire (like you desperately need it to), he can’t see you as just some kid. You’re turning 25 next week, dammit. You deserve some respect. But you’re just not sure how to get it, how to make him see you as a true equal. Someone he can rely on, put his faith into, and even care about on a deeper level. 

The opportunity of a lifetime presents itself one day in the form of something actually rather unfortunate. Joel finally gets hurt.

It’s a pretty normal day until then. You and Ellie practice driving, you journal, listen to some old records. It’s too hot to spend too much time outside, but you definitely make sure to check on the strawberries considering the lecture you got from Joel last week. It’s midafternoon when he comes straggling in, clutching his left arm in his hand and seething through the pain.

You immediately jump up from the couch, “Oh my God, what happened?”

He sinks down on the chair next to the piano, not looking at you. “Nothing, just go get the first aid kit.”

That answer is nowhere near good enough, but you go and get it anyway. Ellie is out in the backyard and doesn’t hear the commotion. When you return with the first aid kit you press on, “You have to tell me what happened so I can know how to treat you.”

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat as you kneel in front of him, opening the kit. “It’s nothing, just gonna need a couple stitches.”

You pry his right hand off his arm and see a deep gash on the bottom of his forearm. It’s not too long, but it sure is deep. “Jesus Joel, what the hell happened?”

He shifts and sighs once more, whispering something under his breath that you can barely hear.

“What was that?” You ask earnestly.

He whispers again, slightly louder this time, but he’s talking too fast to make out what he said. 

“Joel, come on. What happened?” You’re tending to his wound now anyway, but you really do need to know. 

He sighs, bringing his free hand up to pinch between his eyes. Avoiding eye contact with you he finally says, “I was walking back from trading when I saw a flower. I wanted to get that flower for you for your birthday. With my shears in one hand, I leaned down to get it, and I lost my balance and I tripped and I fell on top of the shears and they stabbed me.” He pauses, “There,  you happy? Now that I’ve humiliated myself…” He trails off. 

You’re too stunned to speak. You just keep staring at him, unmoving.

“If you’re not going to fix this up, give me the kit so I can do it myself,” He huffs at you.

You swallow and smile at him, trying to find the words. “Joel Miller, you secret softie. You maimed yourself in the pursuit of trying to do something nice for me, the girl you claim not to want around.”

He locks eyes with you for the first time during this conversation, “I never claimed that.”

Silence hangs in the air for a moment until you clear your throat and turn your attention to the wound at hand (or should you say, at arm?). “Let’s get this stitched up, ok?”

“If Ellie asks, tell her I did something super manly and tough to get these stitches, ok?”

You let out a laugh and nod, “Sir, yes sir.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s been three days since Joel hurt himself trying to do something nice for you and it has not left your mind even for a moment. You’re laying in bed wide awake, tossing and turning wondering what this could mean. I never claimed that he said so earnestly to you. I never claimed that. The four words echo in your brain like a megaphone. It’s been torture being around him as if nothing has changed. As if you haven’t changed on a molecular level after those four words rearranged every fiber of your being. It may be nothing, but it also could be something. It could be the that takes what you’ve been craving for almost a year to leave your daydreams and become a reality. Maybe he meant it in a friendly way, maybe even in reference to your working relationship of raising Ellie and keeping her safe. But if that were the case, why did it feel like all of the air in the room stood still? Why did he look to you like he was a puzzle that only you could solve? 

Cordiality be damned, you had to know the answer. 

You sneak out of bed and up the stairs, careful not to wake Ellie in her room on the first floor. Joel may be modest, but he still took the primary bedroom upstairs when they moved in. You avoid the creaking steps up the stairs artfully and end up at his door. It is only at this point you realize how crazy this is. You’re standing outside his door in the middle of the night with no plan and, frankly, no pants on. This is a recipe for disaster that you’ve quickly talked yourself out of. You go to turn around when the door swings open, Joel looking alert. His body visibly relaxes when he sees that it’s just you, and then tenses once more as his eyes trail down our body to the long length of your bare legs. 

“What are you-” “Sorry I was just-” You say at the same time.

You laugh, trying to break the tension. “Sorry, I was just leaving.”

“What are you doing up here, Y/N?” His body was pressed up against the side of the doorway, blocking it almost entirely with his broad stature. Shoulders resting on the side of the doorway, arms and feet crossed, he looked in no hurry to get you out of there. 

“It doesn’t really matter, I answered my own question. I’ll just head back downstairs,” You go to walk away when he grabs your arm lightly, turning you back to face him.

“Must’ve been some curiosity if it’s keeping you up at night.” You’ve never heard him talk like this. Not just the words he was saying but how he was saying them, they were smooth and slow and rich like molasses. It instantly made your mouth dry up and your knees weaker.

“I um, I was just wondering-”

“Yes?” He prompted, his hand still on your arm. Had he ever touched you before this? Surely you would have remembered the heat. 

You look him in the eyes and see a glint, even in the darkness. This spark of something gives you the courage to move along. “I was just wondering what you meant by saying you never claimed you didn’t want me around.”

His hand drops from your arm and the heat is replaced by an instant rush of cold in his absence. He looks away from you and doesn’t speak. 

Fearing you said the wrong thing you cower and turn to walk away once more. How could you have been so stupid? This isn’t just a matter of personal politics, this is a matter of survival. You have no one besides Joel and Ellie and if you get kicked out for bringing feelings into what is a basic need for shelter, food, and water, you will never forgive yourself.

You’re almost to the stairs when you hear him rumble, “I just meant that I have always wanted you around.” You whip around and see him looking at you, his gaze trailing down your body and then all the way back up again. “I want you here. Always have.”

Not moving towards him you speak, “Then why do you act like I’m some sort of helpless child? Why do I not have any real responsibilities? I could be out there, with you, trading and gathering intel. But instead I get, what, strawberries?”

“You don’t get it.” He looks down and shakes his head.

You walk back over to him, softly, so as not to spook him again. “Then help me understand.”

He looks at you with a softer gaze this time, “I keep you here, away from all of that, because I can’t risk you getting hurt,” He pauses for a moment before continuing, “It would kill me.”

You’re stunned. “Joel,” You start before he lifts a hand and cuts you off. 

“And I give you things like strawberries because I want you to have a chance at a good life, a simple life. One I can’t promise you forever but can promise you for right now. One I know you don’t even remember having.”

Your heart is beating immeasurably fast inside your chest. You never considered that these menial tasks were actually normal, and good. Cleaning up after dinner, growing strawberries, talking about crushes with Ellie. In the midst of wanting to prove yourself, you completely forgot to take stock of all that Joel had given you already. All the things people dream about in this day and age. 

You reach a hand up to touch his face, “Thank you. Thank you for giving me something good,” You pause, “I wish I could give you something good in return.”

He leans his head into your hand and closes his eyes, letting out a contented sigh. He turns his head to kiss the palm of your hand, “You are my something good,” he says so low you almost miss it. 

But you don’t miss it. You hear it loud and clear. You hear him loud and clear for probably the first time since you’ve met him. He is stoic and strong and brooding and brave, but he is also caring and thoughtful and safe. He is the hard with the soft, and he’s been giving you both all this time right under your nose. 

You decide to do something risky. You lean in for a kiss. You put your hopes for survival at the back of your mind and for the first time in forever you prioritize living.

It doesn’t take more than two seconds for Joel to pick up on what you’re doing and reciprocate. His arms immediately move from crossed over his chest to around your waist, pulling you deeper into the kiss. He pulls you so deep you cross the threshold of his bedroom, kicking the door shut on your way in. 

“Be quiet or you’ll wake Ellie!” You half scold, half giggle as you make your way towards the bed. 

“Sorry!” He giggles back. Joel Miller. The Joel Miller giggled into your lips. You could hardly believe your ears. 

If his words were like molasses, his kiss was just as sweet. Not too pushy, but with enough force to let you know that he was in charge. He guides you to the mattress with his body and his mouth, making you feel like you’re flying. You’re sprawled out with your legs over the edge of the bed when he finally pulls away and stands before you. 

You look up at him with hooded eyes and heavy breaths, “Why’d you stop?”

He runs his hands through his hair, “I just never want to forget this.” And he dives back down to you, not giving you a moment to respond. 

When he comes back his kiss is still sweet, but with a heat you’ve never experienced before. Granted, all of your past experiences were minimal, probably in the back of an abandoned, decaying car, and in the midst of an apocalypse, but you knew enough to know that it didn’t normally feel like this. 

You part your legs so he can insert his body between them, propping his arms on either side of your head as he kisses you deeply. You wrap your legs around his waist and pull him closer to you, needing as much of him on you as possible. 

“Somebody’s eager, huh?” He asks you between kisses.

Your resolve is officially broken, you’re laying it all out on the table. “You just have no idea how long I’ve wanted this.”

He pulls back to look at you, “Oh, I think I have an idea. You tend to have a staring problem, darlin’”

Your face flushes instantly. He lowers his lips to your ears and whispers, “I do too, I’m just a little more subtle with it.” He places kisses on your neck and then trails back up to your ear, “Your body drives me crazy, baby.”

Suddenly his hands are everywhere. One is up by your head so he keeps his balance while the other is trailing up and down your chest, your stomach, your neck. He’s everywhere all at once and it still isn’t enough. Your legs are still wrapped around his waist so you buck up to create even more friction than there already was. 

“Easy there, baby, I’ve been waiting an awful long time for this, I want to take it slow with you. Gotta treat you right.” He pins your waist down to the mattress with one hand. “Let me take care of you, baby.” His look is so sincere all you can do is nod. “Good girl.” 

With that, he takes his hand pinning you down and runs the tips of his fingertips along the waistline of your underwear, teasing you. You whine.

“Patience baby,” A kiss on the cheek, “It will be worth it, I promise,” A kiss on the other cheek. Then his fingers are tugging them down inch by inch until you’re completely bare to him from the waist down. “So pretty,” He says, almost to himself. 

Before you have time to acknowledge what he’s said, the same gentle fingertips that were teasing you a moment ago land on your most sensitive spot, creating a feeling of pleasure unlike anything you’ve ever known. Your body somehow tenses and melts into the mattress at once as he works you slowly but surely. 

“How does that feel, baby?” His voice is rough around the edges but soft at its center, he genuinely wants to gauge your reaction, as if your whines and body language weren’t enough. 

“Itfeelssogood” You slur out, hands gripping the sheets on either side of you. 

He kisses your neck, “Good. Now,” He moves his finger to your center and thrusts it in, moving his thumb back to your clit. “How does that feel?”

He’s working you up so good, you feel like you’re floating. His pace is the perfect mix between rough and conscious, never taking his eyes off you for even a second. You can tell he’s loving this as much as you are, and not just because you can feel his erection through his boxers. 

You moan as he works you before answering, “Joel it feels so good.”

“Such a good girl for me, so wet and ready. Is this what you were thinking about when you couldn’t sleep?” He whispers in your ear as he picks up the pace. 

You can feel something building deep inside of you, something you haven’t felt in a long time, and never at this magnitude. It’s coming on strong and fast, you can almost reach it. “Yes, this is what I was thinking about. I was thinking about your hands on me.”

“Mmmm that’s what I like to hear baby, what else were you thinking about?” He grabs one of your hands and brings it to his boxers, “Were you thinking about this?”

You moan and nod your head, he’s continuing to pick up his pace and you’re getting closer and closer. 

“I want you to cum for me, gorgeous. Please cum for me.”

You throw your head back and moan again, “I want to cum for you.”

“Just focus on how good it feels baby, you’re so close I can feel it. Be a good girl for me.”

And just like magic, you’re there. It hits you like a freight train and your whole body is consumed. You’re tensing and writhing and it definitely isn’t normally like this, but you’re just so overcome with emotions for this man and pleasure and all of the things that drive a girl crazy. 

He coaxes you through it with lots of reassurances and hair pets, and then finally you’ve come down. “Thank you,” You say as he brushes some hair out of your face.

“Don’t thank me yet darlin’, I’m not done with you yet.” And with that, he hauls your body up to the head of the bed, making sure your head is all settled on the pillows. He sits back on his knees and takes off his shirt, nodding at you to do  the same. You’re left completely bare and he in his boxers alone. You’re mesmerized by his body. Age normally should have broken him down, but for him he seems to have only been built up. You had seen him in the garden but this, this was something entirely different. He was raw here, with you. 

“This is what I meant by you needing to be more subtle. You don’t need to undress me with your eyes, baby, you just gotta ask.” He stands up and drops his boxers, revealing himself to you fully for the first time. He’s big. Like, real big. And thick. You don’t let yourself dwell on the mechanics for more than a moment, but you do wonder how it’s going to fit.

He gets back in bed and hovers over you once more, “Are you sure about this? We can stop at any time.”

You nod your head, “I’m sure. Never been more sure about anything, actually.”

He gives you one more kiss, a firm one with the promise of a good time. You run your fingers through his hair and tug slightly. He moans into your mouth. “You sure are an eager one, aren’tcha?”

He grabs his member and lines it up with your center, teasing you slightly. You wince at the sensitivity from your previous orgasm. “You ok?” He asks gently.

“Yeah, just a little sensitive. But I’m ready. Please fuck me, Joel.” The words even surprise yourself as you say them. You’re not the best at being direct about what you want, but right now all you can do is rely on pure instinct. 

He chuckles darkly before lining himself up once again, “Your wish is my command, sweetheart.”

And just like that, he’s fucking you. Long, hard strokes that never feel like too much too fast. Just right. You feel the fullness of him immediately and it’s so divine you can’t help but arch into him and moan. Your fingers fly back into his hair as he thrusts into you with such precision, he hits your G-spot every time.

“Is that good for you, baby? Tell me how it feels.” He grunts as he pounds into you expertly.

“I love it, baby. I love it,” You’re breathless as you try to find the words to describe the way he’s making you feel.

He takes one of your legs and rests your ankle on his shoulder, opening you up even more than you thought possible and deepening the angle of his already deep thrusts. You try not to scream, so you grab a pillow and put it over your face.

He rips it off almost immediately, “Oh no, sweetheart. No hiding from me. I want to see your pretty face when I make you cum on my cock.” 

You’re so incoherent you can’t even respond to his filthy words. You just moan in response and grab the sheets on either side of you.

He changes his pace a couple of times, switching from slow and long to fast and shallow, but it never feels out of place or off rhythm. He is just somehow so in tune with your body that he knows exactly what you need when you need it. 

You’re whining and moaning when he lowers your leg and gets his face up next to yours. His hand moves down to  your clit and he starts massaging it while he continues to thrust into you. “You’ve been such a good girl tonight baby,” He says through his own labored breathing. “Coming up here in your little panties practically begging to get fucked. Such a good girl.” You moan so loud he covers your mouth with his other hand, “I love hearing those moans baby but you gotta keep it quiet if you want me to keep going. And I know you want me to keep going.” 

You nod and he removes his hand from your mouth and sits back again, watching you from above. “Play with your tits while I make you cum.” You do as you're told, loving the feeling of his eyes fixed on you while you do exactly what he says. 

Once again, you feel something building inside of you. The combination of him inside you, his fingers working their magic, and his eyes on you makes it nearly impossible to resist the feelings as they come on strong. 

“I’m gonna cum,” You whine. 

“Do it baby, cum for me” He picks up his pace and you can tell he’s getting close himself, can tell he’s chasing something. 

It only takes a couple more seconds before you finish in an explosion of pleasure. You’re so out of it as you come down you barely register him pulling out and grabbing a tissue from the side table. What a gentleman. 

You’re both laying there in silence when the gravity of what just happened finally hits you. You just had sex with the one person that stands between you and certain death. This could ruin everything. You move to get up and go back to your room when you feel an arm on you, pulling you back down. 

“Stay,” He pauses, “Please stay with me.”

You smile softly at him and lay back down, but this time he wraps you up in his arms and spoons you. You can feel his breathing on the back of your neck and his calluses on your arms as he holds you. He starts tracing little circles on your skin with his thumb while he hums. 

“That was amazing,” You say, finally breaking the silence.

“Yeah, um, sorry if I came on too strong,” He pauses, “Haven’t done that in awhile.”

You turn around to face him and you rest a palm on his cheek, “It was perfect. You were perfect. I um, I just hope this doesn’t change anything?” You nervously finish.

He looks startled. He quits rubbing circles on your skin and moves back. “Yeah, no. No, it doesn't have to change anything.”

Clearly, you’ve struck a chord and you don’t know why or how. But you do know that you need to fix it. 

“I just, I know we’re in a precarious situation and I don’t want you to feel like our relationship has changed at all.” You begin.

He sits up fully with his back against the headboard, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Joel?” You join him up against the headboard, covering yourself with the blanket.

He sighs but doesn’t look at you, “If I had thought everything would stay the same I wouldn’t have done what I just did. I wouldn’t have opened the door and I certainly wouldn’t have let you in.”

You’re stunned and you’re scared, having no idea what he’s talking about. “What are you saying?”

Finally, he looks at you. “Dammit Y/N what if I want things to change?” He doesn’t raise his voice at all, but his tone is stern enough to send you aback. 

“What?”

Another sigh, “What if I want things to change? What if I want somebody who is going to be there for me at the end of the day in my bed? This world isn’t permanent and I can’t promise you forever but I can promise you for now. For now, I want this. For now, I want you. And I’m gonna keep wanting you until the thing that stands in the way of me and death itself disappears.” He pauses, “So yeah, maybe you don’t want things to change but I do. Sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear.” He looks away from you again. 

“Joel, I-”

“I don’t want your pity. I get it, I’m just some old man with a 17 year old basket case trailing behind me and you’re young and beautiful and just had an itch to scratch. We’ll continue with business as usual in the morning. Good night.” He flips over onto his side away from you. 

You huff. This is ridiculous, you think to yourself. You tap him on the shoulder.

“You should probably go back to your room, Y/N.”

You tap him on the shoulder again. 

He flips around to look at you, “What more could you possibly want from me?”

You cross your arms over your blanket covered chest, “What makes you think I wanted things to stay the same?”

“Gee, I don’t know, probably the part where you said ‘things don’t have to change’?” He says sarcastically as he sits back up to face you. “Wonder where I got that crazy idea.”

“I was just saying that in case you didn’t want anything to change! I’m totally at your mercy with everything, including my survival here, so sorry for being cautious.”

He doesn’t say anything, but his mouth does fall open in shock a little bit. 

“Joel, trust me when I say I’m not taking pity on you when I say I want this too. I can’t promise you forever but I can promise you for now, and for tomorrow, and for the next day and the day after that. I choose you and I choose Ellie and I want this. I want you. I want to be the one that is there for you at the end of the day.” You smile at him and grab his hand, “You’re my good thing too.”

His face softens and he grabs your joined hands with his other one and leans over to kiss you on the cheek. You lean into it and giggle as he begins peppering a bunch of kisses all over your face. The hard with the soft, that’s Joel Miller.

“Let’s go to bed, shall we?” You ask him as he leans over you, caressing your face.

“Yeah, let’s go to bed.” He gives you one last kiss on the cheek and spoons you once more.

That night you dream of strawberries. Just fields and fields of strawberries. 

[offorestsongs]

heart-shaped locket

ship: oc x canon (Rook x Lysander)

summary: Lysander, anxious about their imminent separation, has an idea.

a/n: so. uh. this is something i briefly mentioned in their ship intro but i wanted to kind of expand on it so i wrote a small ficlet. enjoy, i guess

“Whatever’s the matter, mon coeur? You look uncharacteristically serious.”

Most people would have called Lysander serious, no matter the situation ― it was sweet that Rook could tell the difference between his usual lack of expression and an actual grave matter. It only made Lysander’s heart felt heavier.

“Oh― I―” Lysander was sure in his ideas when inviting Rook over, but now, seated on the old couch in the Ramshackle lounge, so close that their knees were touching, all the earlier confidence seemed to have fled his body.

He felt Rook’s hand on his cheek, warm and secure. He leaned into the familiar touch, more on instinct than anything else, but still refused to meet Rook's gaze.

“I so always want to hear what you have in mind.” Rook smiled. “So?”

Well. In that case, Lysander had no other choice. And besides, he knew well all of his doubts were unfounded. If anyone would like the idea, it was Rook.

“It's nothing bad or anything—” Lysander said, digging around in the pockets of his thick woolen cardigan. “It's just that… The summer holidays are almost here. And then you'll go on your internship afterwards and I'll stay here and…”

Finally, somewhere between a stray embroidery needle, some loose change, a button that he was meant to sew back to one of his blouses for forever and a crumpled note that Ace had passed him during class (a stickman drawing of Deuce half asleep on his desk), Lysander had fished out the exact thing that he was looking for.

“I just thought it would be nice to have something more, uh, physical to remember each other.”

On Lysander’s open, outstretched palm lay two identical heart-shaped necklaces. They were plain, silver in color, and clearly not bought first hand. Time had dulled the color, making it lose its shine. It was all Lysander could afford, yes, but truth be told, he liked the vintage, time-bitten aesthetic of it better. More romantic, he thought.

Rook had picked one of them up, already clearly delighted.

“Ah!” With a soft “click”, the heart locket popped open. “Now we can carry photographs of each other close to our chests. Marvellous! What a romantic idea, mon fleur!”

Lysander’s cheeks flushed pink. “Uh. Well. I mean. You can do that too if you want to but, uh, actually I had something different in mind.”

Suddenly, the dirty-gray fabric of the couch was the most interesting thing in the world to look at.

“Now you have me intrigued.”

Still not looking at Rook, from his other pocket Lysander took out his belowed pair of sewing scissors. They felt cold and heavy in his hand.

“I actually thought we could put there, uh, you know, our hair. I thought it would be sweet, to carry a part of you over my heart, no matter where I go. And… and to think that you're doing the same. That way, it's almost like we're not separated at all.”

Before Lysander ever had a chance to felt embarrassed by his words, Rook's lips were on his, kissing him breathless.

“Yes!” Rook said with all the enthusiasm only he could master. “Truly a beautiful idea, mon cheri! You really must share a part of my heart, to think of such things.”

Lysander smiled faintly. His heart was still beating like it was trying to escape his ribcage, but a sense of giddy happiness came over him. Of course his anxiety was all for nothing.

He put the scissors in Rook's hands. “Well then… you could cut mine and I could cut yours?”

[ganymede-princess]

The Craving | Jack Conroy

PART 2

ship: Jack Conroy x fem!OC

warnings: mentions of death, brief description of healed frostbite

summary: Jack meets a musher girl on his first day in Alaska.

word count: 2826

a/n: I am actually extremely proud of this so I hope somebody reads it haha

written by @ganymede-princess

Living in the Yukon, you get used to craving. You crave warmth, food that doesn’t come from a can, a bed with a real mattress and a roof over it, the sight of a fresh face and fresh conversation. I had been out there for nearly seven years by the time I met Jack Conroy, and nearing my seventeenth birthday too. I stood at the edge of our camp, watching the prospectors stumble out of the narrow passage at the top of the pass, like rats spewing from a drainpipe. He caught my eye then, beet-red and fresh of face, dressed warm, but not warm enough, his eyes glazed with exhaustion and wonder. He reminded me of myself the first time I climbed the Golden Staircase, back when snow still glittered like pixie dust, and my father’s promise of a gold seam to call our own didn’t ring hollow as the wind through an empty mine. I knew Conroy instantly; the mirror of his father, the man who raised me better than my own. I kept my head down as he looked around, knowing he was there for Alex, but not wanting to face it. The Yukon would turn that boy hard as ice before long, and I didn’t want to watch it happen.

As he traipsed over to us, I crossed my arms and glared at him. Go home, Conroy. I thought. Go shack up somewhere warm, and be happy. He didn’t look at me once, so consumed with his mission. I shielded my face and retreated to the tent. The coffin was easier to face than Alex breaking his heart. Despite my reluctance, I knew I would not have minded taking him on. There were few young people so far into the mountains, except the few kids at the Tlingit village along the trail, but we never stayed long enough to get to know them. The boy could become my companion, of sorts. We would take him north-west from Dyea to Klondike, then set him loose to find his way to the Conroy claim to spend a few months frantically digging into the hill; and go home colder, hungrier, and poorer in spirit. I wouldn’t even have to see it break him. Alex wasn’t like that. He was a pragmatist. He and Skunker knew how to mush, and they took me on because I was the best scout you’d ever need, thanks to my daddy’s training. This boy was a city slicker, and the best he could offer the team was a morale boost, and Skunker was already too cheerful for Alex’s liking. We couldn’t take him. He’d be a dead weight. I tried to close my ears to his charming, eager voice as he tried to butter up old Larson. Soon enough, Alex stepped into the tent and nodded for me to help him lift the coffin. I set my teeth and heaved it. ‘Heavy’ doesn’t begin to cut it.

“Who’s in there?” Conroy asked, puffing a white cloud as he tried to catch his breath.

“Name’s Dutch.” Alex caught my eye and nodded in acknowledgement. I said nothing.

As sweet as his cold, dead daddy, Jack Conroy helped me lift the box. He waffled on in a voice tense with effort, about maps and letters, and gold dust in an envelope his father sent him on his deathbed. My heart ached at the thought of kind old Scotty, dying alone in his claim with that grey lump of diphtheria in his throat. We found him frozen one winter a few years past, and I left a bundle of purple lupines on his grave. My eyes started to burn and something in my throat thickened as I finished tying up my corner of the sled. I pushed past Jack to tie his side. He stumbled, his shoes struggling for purchase on the packed snow. Wolfish fury passed over his face as he regained his footing, then he calmed and went back to pleading his case.

“Everybody finds a little gold dust.” Alex assured him. “That’s what keeps you digging. But you have to strike it, and your father didn’t. Go home and find a regular job. You wouldn’t last a day out here.”

Something odd happened then. I caught the boy’s eye, still glimmering with hope, and realised three nuggets of truth at once: one; this boy was no stranger to craving adventure, glory, and a namesake, but craving food, craving heat? He had never wanted for these things in his life. Two; he had that grit in his teeth that showed the true conviction of his words. He would try to journey to the Conroy claim, with or without our help. And three; I had never known craving until I craved him.

“I’m a good worker, and I just want what’s mine.” He insisted, his soft voice strained in earnest as he trailed Alex’s heels. “I’m asking you to give me a chance.”

“Skunker!” I slapped the old man’s feet, sending him thrashing into wakefulness. You better back me up here you stinkin’ old bastard.

“Damn, what is it?” He exclaimed, limbs flailing as he leapt to his feet. “Alex!” He breezed past both Jack and me, still dazed with one foot in a fancy. “I was dreaming you, me, and Dutch was livin’ it up in Frisco! ‘Lil Quinn at a real college, the works!”

“Get the dogs ready.” Alex said coldly. This was his way.

“I hope Dutch appreciates this ride.” Skunker bemoaned, ignoring Alex’s crotchety comment and making no attempt to hide his annoyance for my sake. I damn well agreed with him. “‘Cause you shoulda died at your digs!” He hit the coffin with his fist. “Saved us a trip back.”

“Are you going near my father’s claim?”

“Scott Conroy’s son!” I called after Skunker. He turned on his heels, a half sceptical look on his face.

“What? Lemme see that face, kid.” He got up in the boy’s face and grabbed him by the chin, inspecting him close with beady eyes. Jack held his breath against the smell. “My God, Alex, he’s the spittin’ image of his old man! And I knew ya pa well. Clarence Thurston.”

“Jack Conroy.” Skunker slapped him into a frenzied handshake.

“You throwin’ in with us?” I knew I could trust old Skunker to have my back. I didn’t even have to plead a case for him.

“Yeah, I’d like to.”

“No.” Alex said simply. I knew this wouldn’t be easy.

“No? You’re taking him with you and you’re not gonna take me? He looks half dead already!”

I giggled. The first laugh I’d had since my daddy kicked the bucket. I slapped a mitten over my mouth to hide it and slipped away to wake up the dogs while Skunker bartered some gum out of him as an apology. Our wheelers, Fritz and Fatty, stirred and wagged their tails as I ran my hands through their fur, whining and baring their teeth in greeting.

“Hey, don’t worry about him.” Skunker assured him, waking up Digger and George, our swing team. “He’s just tired, that’s all.”

“Yeah, or he knows there’s gold out there and wants it for himself.”

“Woah, boy! You got the harness on the wrong dog.”

“Conroy.” I spoke up, meeting his hostile stare and forcing a calm over my body despite how flustered I felt. “If there’s one man you can trust in this damn place it's Alex Larson.”

He scoffed, seeming to ignore my words entirely, and rounded on Alex.

“Listen, if you don’t wanna take me, I’ll go by myself. I’ll get rich by myself too.”

“I think he’s crazy enough to do it Alex!”

“Skunker’s right.” I left the wheelers and sidled up beside him. “The Yukon will swallow him whole, we gotta take him.”

“Quinn, we can’t take him just because you think he’s cute.” Alex put on a shit-eating grin and tapped my arm with his glove.

“It’s not jus’ that.” My face heated up, but I saw no sense in denying it if it was already that obvious. “He’s got a musher’s spirit in him, even if he is green as snow peas, and I don’t wanna find him dead in the woods come summer and know we killed him.”

“Come on, Alex, he’s Scott’s boy!” Thank you Skunker! “Look at him, huh? How much trouble could he be?”

He cast a final sceptical glance at Jack, but conceded. Skunker winked. I stared him down for a second, admiring the swoop of his dark blonde hair, then let my lips twitch into a curt smile.

“I’ll take you as far as Klondike. Fall behind, and I’ll leave you where you drop. Understand?” Alex was all talk, as usual. Even if he wasn’t, he would realise soon enough that leaving this boy in the snow would mean signing two death papers at the Klondike post office.

“Yes, sir.” Jack beamed. At the sight of his smile, I felt the craving stir again, paired with a healthy portion of despair. I knew a virile young man like that would never make do with a musher girl who had lived amongst men so long that she had nearly become one, and often felt more dog than person; but to travel beside him for a while would be a gift.

Alex retreated to the tent to nurse his regret, and Skunker went out to the tuck tent to get some minced meat for the dogs. I went back to playing with the pack, settling beside them and letting the six team dogs crowd around me and vie for my attention. Jack came to sit beside me, eying me as cautiously as the dogs. The thin, agouti bitch who laid at the edge of the group got to her paws and came to watch him with her ice blue eyes. Her body was relaxed, though she let out a deep rumble

“Connie.” She turned her ear to me, but kept her eyes hard on the boy. “He’s a fine boy, he won’t hurt me. He’s Scotty’s boy.” Her ear twitched back up at Scott’s name. “Heel, Connie.” She stepped over to me, eyes always trained on Jack. “Sit now, girl.” She did. I reached over and laid a hand on Jack’s shoulder, stroking it like I would a dog. “Now do the same to me.” His eyes flickered to me, hesitant, but he did as I said. Connie cocked her head, then pinned her ears back and wagged her tail. “See girl, he’s alright.”

“Can I touch her?” His voice was full of wonder.

“You have to ask her. Give her your fist. Gentle now.”

Slowly, he raised his fist to her. Their eyes met. Connie froze, and for a long moment I thought she might bite him, but then her body relaxed and she licked his hand, then his arm, and soon she had climbed all the way on top of him to lick his chops. He giggled and squirmed under her weight and collapsed onto his back.

“Connie! Settle down, girl, he ain’t for eatin’! I know he looks tasty.” I wrapped my arms around her middle and lifted her off him.

“Thank you,” He puffed, clambering off the snow. “Um…”

“Quinn.” Meeting his eyes was almost painful. They were so blue, like a clear day when the sky reflects on the snow so bright it’s almost blinding.

“Ah, thank you, Quinn.”

I looked away and stroked down Connie’s hackles. Setting my teeth together to keep from chattering. Nerves make the cold so much harder to bear.

“How’d a girl like you wind up out here?”

“You noticed, huh?” I raised my eyebrows. “Not many folks do these days. I got used to being called ‘son’ years ago, on account of my boyish charms.” To his credit, Jack chuckles, though I was sure that must have been the first joke I’d told anyone but Connie-dog. “Doesn’t help having a boy’s name, neither.”

“I think Quinn’s a fine name for a girl.” He said it earnestly enough that I managed to spare a glance at him. “And I knew you were a girl as soon as I saw you.” I said nothing, only squished some snow between my fingers to hide my squirming. I almost wished he hadn’t seen me at all. “‘Cause I’d never known a boy to be that pretty.”

“Now, Jack-” I started, my embarrassment trying hard to fester itself into anger. Well, ain’t you living proof to the contrary?

“It’s the truth!” He shifted closer to me, and I shifted away in return, bringing my knees up to my chest and pulling my scarf over my nose. “So how did you end up out here?”

“Mushin,’” I gave him a sidelong glance. “Been out here with my daddy since I’s ten. It’s how I make my living.”

“Who’s your da- your father, who is he?” His face reddened, making me giggle. I hid my face in my knees to cover it.

“Who’s my daddy?” I lean a little closer, enjoying being the one to make him squirm. “Well, he’s a fella by the name o’ Ysbrandt Maarschalkerweerd, but ain’t nobody this side the Atlantic can pronounce that, so they jus’ called him Dutch.”

“Oh.” He took a moment to digest it. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, that’s life.”

“I-I suppose?”

“It is. People just up and die out here sometimes.” I pushed away one of the team dogs from licking up my ear without checking who it was. “It’s not so bad.”

“You don’t miss him?”

“Not as much as I miss yours.” I admitted. “He was more of a father to me than my own ever was.”

“Really?” He leaned in, brow furrowed in contemplation.

“Yeah. He checked on me a lot, and one time- musta been about thirteen- I stayed with him at the claim for nearin’ six months while daddy and Skunker mushed supplies up to Nome. That’s when he bought Connie-dog for me. We went down to Klondike a fair bit to watch the fiddlers, see, and one time there’s a little boy sellin’ puppies. Turns out ol’ Colton’s lead bitch got knocked up by a wolf while they were out in the woods. Cost your daddy a whole dollar, but she’s been an asset ever since.”

“Wow.” He stroked the brindled fur between her eyes with reverence.

“It’s right we take you to Klondike. I think if you live an honest life out here- you stay true, you never rob, or hurt your dogs- your bones turn into a new gold seam when you die. Your pa never struck gold, but he might have made some for you.”

“Huh.” He looked thoughtful.

“Don’t let this place kill your kindness, Jack. You might leave some gold behind.”

“I won’t.” He noticed the scepticism on my face and added more emphatically: “I won’t.”

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“Eighteen and still a green lil’ bean.” I shook my head. “You need better gear ‘n this. C’mon.”

He followed me dutifully to the sled where I dug around in my pack and produced my spare scarf, wool trapper hat that I usually wore under my coonskin, and a spare pair of fur cover-gloves to wear over his mittens.

“When you’re out in it, keep a scarf around your nose and mouth.” I pull the glove off my left hand with my teeth and show him the stub of my pinky finger, the missing tip on my index, and the hollow gouged into the pad at the base of my thumb. “‘Else you’ll lose ‘em like my fingers.” His eyes widened. “Wear these gloves over your mittens. I don’t have another coonskin, but you need more’n a baker’s cap to protect your ears. Tie it under your chin so it don’t blow off. You do that, you keep up with the sled, an’ you respect these dogs, and you’ll make it to Klondike with nothing missing.”

“Will they bite me?” He casted a nervous glance at the pack.

“No, but if you try anything abnormal I’ll bite you. They call me Dogtooth up at the Tlingit camp ‘cause a boy tried it on wi’ me and I bit square through his pecker.”

“Really?” He cringed, taking a step back.

“No.” I put my glove back on, smirking. “But you believed me, which gotta count for somethin.’”

“Did not!” 

“Did too!”

“Fightin’ already?” Skunker called out, hobbling along with two buckets full of fish.

“No, Skunker!” I waved him off. “Did too. Now come feed the puppies ‘fore they starve, get in their good graces.”

I turned to walk away, but Jack caught my shoulder and pushed himself flush against my back. I felt my heart quicken in that terrible, delicious rhythm as his lips brushed my ear. Every inch of me trembling with a craving like I had never felt.

“Did. Not.”

[sirloozelite]

Beniko and Shan - Best Friends

Theron: Lana, is that my mug you’re drinking out of? Lana: No, it’s mine. Theron: It... looks just like the one I have... Lana: You don’t have one like this anymore.

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Lana: Met a dumbass today. Awful. Theron: You looked in a mirror? Lana: ...someday you will have to answer for your actions and the Force may not be so merciful.

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Theron: Let's just agree to both say we're sorry on the count of three. Theron: One... two... three. Lana: ... Theron: ... Theron: See, now I'm just disappointed in both of us.

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Theron: Everybody shut up, I'm thinking. Lana, patting them on the back: Well, don’t think too hard. I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.

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Lana: Ah ready for another fantastic day of being better than Theron. Theron: Hey!

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Lana: Honestly, I am so evil. So full of darkness. I feed of the souls of the living I strike fear into- Theron: You sleep with a teddybear. Lana: He’s my SECOND IN COMMAND IN MY ARMY OF DARKNESS!

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Lana: *sees someone doing something stupid* Lana: What an idiot. Lana: *realizes it's Theron* Lana: Wait, that's MY idiot!

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Lana: She's the girl of my dreams! Theron: You say every girl is the girl of your dreams. Lana: I have a lot of dreams.

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Lana: If I was married to you I would put poison in your coffee. Theron: If I was married to you I’d drink it.

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Theron: So, you lied to me? Lana: That depends on how you define lying. Theron: Well, I define it as not telling the truth. How do you define it? Lana: Um, reclining your body in a horizontal position?

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Theron: "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves." Lana: ... Lana: What a stupid fucking quote. Lana: I'm killing way more than two people, idiot.

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Theron: I failed my safety training course today. Lana: Why, what happened? Theron: Well one of the questions was "In case of a fire, what steps would you take?" Lana: And? Theron: Well apparently "FUCKING LARGE ONES" isn't an acceptable answer.

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Theron: Lana, you're my best friend. Lana: Best friend? BEST friend?! Bitch, I'm your only friend. Lana: I'M THE ONLY ONE CAPABLE OF TOLERATING YOUR DUMB ASS!

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Theron: Did you have to stab them? Lana: You weren’t there. You didn’t hear what they said to me. Theron: What did they say? Lana: "What are you going to do, stab me?" Theron: That’s fair.

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Theron: Any advice before Lana and I fight? The Outlander: Don’t wet yourself in public. Theron: Not the kind of advice I was looking for!