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illyrian-dreamer · 10 months

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Our girl – Part 3

Summary: Deeming you unfit for a mission, the Inner Circle have betrayed your trust and shattered your life’s mission to avenge you sister. And the two males you love most were at the centre of it all.

Word count: 6.5k

Warnings: Grief/depression

The Spring Court lake had weathered the same depletion as the rest of the state. Empty wooden cabins sat abandoned and unused, the sand had turned grey and the flourishing fruit trees that once aligned it hacked down to stumps. Hybern had drained Spring Court of so much of its natural resource and beauty.

“It’s a disturbing sight, isn’t it?” your uncle muttered, placing two steaming mugs of tea at the table beside you, joining you on the porch. His bark-like skin had weathered and aged since the last time you had seen him, untold sorrows hiding in his deep within the ripples. What atrocities had he witnessed during the war? And what bargains had he had to make to keep his own cabin standing amongst a sea of homes destroyed?

“I’m so sorry Finbark. I should have returned to help you sooner,” you said, your heart clenching as the males eyes warmed with a pain smile.

“I did not write for a reason. I would never want to drag you into this mess,” he said, waving his hand to the desolate land around him. “Not when you were so aligned with an enemy court.”

You raised the mug to your lips, casting your eyes to the lake before blowing on the hot liquid. He was right, you had no business entering Spring Court at a time like that, never mind that you were completely preoccupied with serving your duties alongside Cassian and Azriel. Gods, your heart ached more than it should just at the thought of them.

You cleared your throat quietly, trying not to dwell. “It sparkles the same,” you spoke distantly, distracting yourself. “The lake, I mean. It still sparkles in the way I remember.”

Finbark chuckled, his eyes warming again. “You and Meryl spent so much time in that lake, I remember your parents debating on how they would have to bribe the two of you out of it.”

You forced a smile back, clenching your mug a little tighter.

“It was the same for my cousin’s nephews, they adored playing in the water, they would beg their Aunt to come stay for weeks on end.”

“Whatever happened to them?” you asked, unsure if you could handle the truth.

“Of Alis and the boys?” He paused then, clearing his throat. “They fled to Summer, with some luck and no deniable assistance from your High Lady.”

You had to physically swallow at Feyre’s mention, but the relief was greater to know Finbark’s family was safe. “Well, she’s no longer my High Lady,” you corrected.

“I’m sorry, I don't mean to upset you.”

“Not at all Fin,” you smiled softly before drawing a deep breath. “I know she is a generous and caring ruler, and I’m grateful your family is safe. I only wish I could have done more.”

“I was protected too Y/N. How do you think it is my home is still standing, or that I am here at all? I’m clever, but not that clever,” he winked. “I have no doubt my relation to Alis and your parents kept me well and safe during the war. No wagons found the trail to my home, no one knocked on my door demanding answers or resources, or to pick up a weapon and fight. It was if I didn't exist at all.”

It clicked then – of course. Alis had been Feyre’s maid at the Spring Manor. Feyre had spoken of her so fondly. And you had been so worried for Finbark’s safety, confiding in your High Lady who had merely comforted you at the time, reassuring you that he would be safe. She and Rhys never mentioned their connection, or the magic they spent to keep Finbark hidden. Your heart ached at the reminder of their generosity.

“Y/N?” your uncle waved a rippled hand in front of your face, and you blinked before straightening, drawn back from your thoughts.

Fin sighed with a knowing look. “You don't need to feel guilty about the magic that kept me safe, sweetheart. They wronged you in a very serious way.”

Your eyebrows clenched as you blinked back the sting of tears. “But they are good people Fin, the lot of them.”

Finbark’s hand rested atop of your forearm, his face soft with understanding. “It changes very little, young spark. The damage is all the same.” Your uncle once again waved his hand out to the barren land around you.

You stood now, setting your tea down – you needed to get out of your head. “I will make one more trip to town tonight, there are some homes still without firewood.”

“At this time? You’ve been working since dawn Y/N, why not rest? It’s not as cold tonight.”

But you were already reaching for your axe. The more you moved, the less you would have to think. “It’ll be alright uncle, I’ll return before midnight.”

He didn't say anything further as you sheathed the weapon to your back, heading up the trail to town where the sun had already began to set.

————

It had been five months since you had found home in Spring Court.

At first, you found work serving your uncle’s town. Much of the remaining fae had rural upbringing, with little skill to sustain themselves after their farms, once lush with crops and animals, were destroyed.

Word spread quick of help from an outside court, and when you were sure the locals could stand on their own two feet, you began to travel, finding town after town with more fae in need. So began your course, trailing further away from your uncle’s cabin at the border and nearing the centre of the court.

Magic found you easier here too. Whether it was the exhaustion from a hard days worth of work, or that you rarely had a moment to think about yourself, you didn't know.

Soon enough, you learned to summon your sparks, lighting fires in homes in an instant or heating food and teas for the ill. It wasn’t much, but you had never yielded so much control, and didn't remember a day when you hadn't feared your abilities since Meryl’s death. Finbark was particularly delighted when you showed him your new trick, clapping with a cheer, reminding you of why he dubbed you young spark.

So much of Spring Court reminded you of your sister, and while it had never been your home, memories of pleasant holidays surrounded by loved ones seemed to wait at every garden, field or bubbling brook you encountered. You welcomed those memories, letting grief wash over you when it came, using it to fuel your determination to keep on working. Grief was a weapon of kinds, and you were only now learning to yield it. You would build a better world for those who were left behind, just like you.

And over the course of those months, the land around you slowly came to life. Not from your work alone, but as the fae of Spring Court worked together to heal and rebuild, the land began to give back. The grass was greener and more lush now, flowers blossomed instead of dying at the bud, and trees bristled as gentle breezes passed through their luscious leaves. The land wasn’t yet singing, but it began to hum – it was healing, and so were you. And you were sure somewhere out in these lands, so was its High Lord.

————

“Damn it Rhys! Let us go!” Cassian slammed his fists on the table, silver cutlery and porcelain plates rattling at the force.

Rhys’s gaze was cold as he glared back at the General. “No,” was all he answered.

Feyre fidgeted with her hands in her lap, her dinner now cold where her knife and fork set at her plate minutes ago when tension began to brew. She knew there would be another fight tonight – neither Cassian or Azriel had taken the order to begin training the new recruits at the House of Wind well. It reminded them too much of Y/N, and they had spent five months furious with both her and Rhys for placing them on court arrest, stopping them from scouting Prythian to find you.

“Feyre, please,” Cassian begged, his brow clenched in anguish.

She swallowed, her heart pulling at his pain. “You know we can't Cass, Rhys gave her his word.” The black ink-like marking on her forearm itched at the mention, the symbol of a cross inside a triangle – a treasure and its whereabouts locked in secret. The mark had appeared the same moment Rhys had promised to not trail your location, an identical mark etched to his forearm too.

As part of that promise, the High Lord and Lady had ordered Cassian and Azriel against anything they could do to find you – there was to be no tracking your scent, no using intel from other courts, and no leaving the Night Court to investigate.

Cassian roared in frustration, throwing his head in his hands, gripping at the roots of his hair. “We only want to know she’s safe. If you care for us at all–"

“Enough Cassian!” Rhys bellowed, night filling every void of the room. Everyone froze.

Rhys pinched his nose, the clouds of his magic lower to a thick fog that covered the floor. “You do not question our care for anyone in this family.”

Azriel spoke then, stiff and stoic from his seat. “It is worth the breach of the bargain you made. We will burden the consequence.”

“It’s not just for the consequence, Azriel,” Feyre answered, meeting the Shadowsinger’s hardened stare. “This was Y/N’s choice. How do you think she will feel knowing we have breached her trust again?”

“I will deal with that after I know she is safe.”

Rhys ran a hand over his face before rubbing at his temples. “As I have said countless times, you will not be granted permission to track her.” Rhys’s power tightened then, yanking on a leash he had kept around the General and Shadowsinger’s necks for months.

“How can you do this to us?” Azriel seethed, knuckles white from where the gripped the table.

“I don't know Azriel. Perhaps the same way I kept Y/N grounded when you ordered her unfit to kill Alvar.”

Azriel stood then, his seat thrown back. “How dare you,” he spat, shadows racing towards the High Lord.

Rhys stood too, night magic clashing with shadows, a fight for dominance. “Calm yourself,” Rhys growled, staring the Shadowsinger down.

Mor sighed, swirling the wine in her glass from where she sat, fingers strumming the table impatiently. “Can we not go a single dinner without it turning to a fight?” she said flatly, before drawing a long sip.

Azriel’s teeth drew back to a snarl as he whipped his head to her. “Since when did you become so heartless?”

Mor stood, levelling her brown eyes at the Shadowsinger. “Don’t be a fool, I care for Y/N just as much as you. But I trust in my High Lord and Lady to dow that is right. When was the last time you exercised that same loyalty you swore to this court?” Mor paused before speaking again. “You’ve become undone, the both of you. And you will unravel this family if you continue down this path.”

Feyre threw Mor a grateful look.

Shadows continued to bulk at Azriel’s frame. “She is our love, Mor. Are we not worthy of her whereabouts?”

“No,” Mor said, her voice flat and cold. “You are not. That is your consequence for holding her too tight.”

Azriel’s nostrils flared, his eyes widening as he recoiled ever so slightly. Cassian could not raise his head from where it still hung in his hands, but for a moment he stopped breathing.

Mor softened then, seeing how deep her words had cut. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice still stern. “But it’s true. And I’m tired of having our family torn apart because of a decision that was her right to make. We have to rebuild what is here, what we have left. Otherwise our family will be ruined, and with it our court.”

Cassian took deep, shaky breaths, trying to hold the anguished cry that begged to be released. He had endured months of restlessness heartbreak, and there was no sign of it easing. It was torture.

Azriel looked back at his brother, knowing that pain, feeling it writhe within himself. Wordlessly, he walked to Cassian, clasping a firm hand on his shoulder and winnowing them from the room.

————

It was early one morning after you had set off from your uncle’s cabin, days worth of resources and tools hung from the back of your horse.

The horse was noble, a once well-kept steed that had been abandoned since the war. He had found you in a field, bucking and neighing as you approached. But with a gentle hand to his nose and some soothing commands, he had yielded, reminded of his connection to fae.

Every great steed deserved a name, and it found you instantly – Podie. It was Nyx’s way of saying “pony”, his chubby finger pointed at the array of horses in the stables when you had taken him with your family, the lot of you chuckling at his adorable attempt. Your heart ached as you thought of the child, of how much he must have grown since you had left the Night Court. So you named your horse in his honour, and relished the comfort it was to feel feel that little bit closer to him.

Finbark had waved you off as the sun was rising, and it was only a few hours later when had you entered the trail you had become so familiar with, headed for the next town on your map. The quiet was tranquil in Spring Court, but in that moment even the birds stopped singing, and an eerie sensation swept you over you, the hairs on your neck standing. Podie’s nostrils flared as harsh breaths blew from his snout, his ears twitching nervously.

Something, or someone, was watching you.

You immediately dismounted, not wanting to zap or upset Podie as began power tickling at your skin.

“Who’s there?” you spoke, your heart fastening at the rustle from behind the trees.

For a moment, you thought they had found you, and your heart thundered as you prepared to confront Cassian and Azriel. Would they try to apologise again? Were they here to convince you to return to the Night Court? Perhaps they would go as far to drag you back, kicking and screaming?

Bile rose in your throat as you searched for the peaks of wings or siphons glowing amongst the greenery that rustled. Instead, antlers poked through before revealing narrowed green eyes. Heavy paws padded against the ground as a half-elk, half-lion emerged, prowling towards you.

You startled, fumbling back a few steps, too shocked to find your words. The beast approach, sniffing as sentient eyes scanned you with a knowing look. And as you stared back, you realised quickly who the creature before you was.

Before you could demand it, Tamlin morphed to his fae form, blond hair cropped to his strong shoulders, sharp green eyes fixed on you as he stared you down with a tight jaw.

There was no question of his beauty – Tamlin was incredibly handsome, even with his face fixed with such a stern and threatening stare. He was not cloaked in green as Feyre had often described him, instead he wore brown working pants and a black shirt that were rolled at the sleeves revealing strong, veiny forearms. He was dressed no better than the working class of his court.

“High Lord,” you greeted as you bowed your head, lowering slightly at one knee. This was his court at the end of the day, no matter what he had done to ruin it.

He watched you intently, unspeaking and his face softened ever so slightly, his jaw unclenching only a little.

“Can I help you with something?”

“I’ve come to meet the Night Court emissary who has been assisting in the refuge of my land.” His voice was deep, commanding even after everything he had lost.

“I assure you, I am no longer affiliated with the Night Court. There is no treason to be found here.”

“I know.” He said with a straight face. “I’ve been tracking your work for months.”

You gulped at that. You had hoped to blend in, an anonymous helper with no past and no future.

“Did you think you could enter my court unnoticed?” he questioned, and sharp brown quirking.

You found your eyes narrowing. “From what I was told, your borders had fallen, and your lands used as a place for sanction after the war. I did not think announcing my arrival was necessary, and you were certainly in no position to refuse my aid.”

Tamlin was unmoved at your tone. Instead he ran that pointed green stare down your body and back up again, flicking them to Podie who stood to the side, grazing on some grass, before settling them back on you. “Why?” he asked.

“Pardon?”

“Why have you come to aid my court?”

“I care to help those in need.”

“There are plenty across Prythian in need.” Tamlin was scowling now.

There was a beat of silence between you, only the sound of the heavy breaths that left Podie’s nostrils to fill it.

“What did they do to you?” Tamlin asked. There was no softness in his question.

Now it was your turn to scowl. “I sought your court, High Lord, because I have an uncle who resides by the lake in the south. I knew there was work to be done here, and I had a home at his cabin.”

If your answer satiated Tamlin, he did not let it show, his green eyes continuing to pierce through you. It was a conscious effort not to let your power overcome you in the grasp of his stare.

“Come to my Manor.”

You choked. “Pardon me?”

The High Lord shuffled then, his first natural movement, and you could have sworn a slight blush tinged his cheeks. “My apologies, I’ve spent so much time in my beast form, it’s easy to forget my manners. Please, join me for a meal at my Manor. It’s the least I can do, to thank you for your contributions.”

Your stare on Tamlin harshened. “I did not do it for you.”

Tamlin merely shrugged. “I’m aware. Regardless, I am grateful.”

You had only heard of Tamlin’s Manor through Feyre’s stories, how he had warded the home, trapping her within, hurting her with that uncontrollable rage of his. You had little interest in seeing the place where this occured, a small tether of loyalty to Feyre ignited at the thought.

You may as well have said it out loud, as Tamlin tracked the movements in your eyes before bowing his head.

“The choice is yours, of course.”

You swallowed, observing the male before you. A High Lord would never bow their head for such a thing.

That smallest of behaviours begged so many questions. Was he sorry? Was he ashamed? Was it possible Tamlin had learnt from his mistakes, and had grown to be a better High Lord?

He reminded you so much of the males you once loved – a good heart with mislead direction. If he had shed of his possessive and controlling nature – you craved to see it, you needed to know it possible, even if it was in someone else.

So you realised there was a part of you that wanted to go to the Manor and join Tamlin for an evening, to answer that question alone. You could attend for one meal, just to plug the hole in your heart for a night.

“Alright. I’ll visit your manor,” you said impartially.

Tamlin nodded once. “Is there a time that suits you best?”

You looked back at Podie, waving an arm to the gear and resources strapped to his saddle. “I will spend three days in Rellford to assist with building a new market. With another afternoon of travel I can make it to your Manor in four days time.”

Talmlin nodded again, smiling softly now, the pull of his mouth catching your breath as his handsomeness was further revealed. “I look forward to it, Y/N L/N.” After a low bow, Tamlin was once again a beast, treading away and leaving you to continue your journey.

————

You stood awkwardly at the door to the Tamlin’s Manor, your hand hung in the air, unable to make the first knock.

The gate had willed itself open, and you were surprised to see the exterior well kept, almost immaculate. Rhys had described it differently from his last visit, ivy overgrown and no maids or servicemen to be seen. But a stable boy had helped you dismount on arrival, guiding Podie by his reins with a polite bow.

You smoothed out the skirts of your dress, self conscious of the scent of the horse you undoubtedly carried. You wore a humble frock, feminine and loose, one that allowed for a few hours of riding. The countless bold and revealing gowns you had once loved were left behind at the Night Court, they had no place in the new life you were building. With a final shake of your head, you willed yourself to knock on the large arched doors.

But before your fist made contact, the doors swung open, revealing a maid.

“Hello,” she said sweetly.

“H-hi.”

“Come inside.”

And so you did, taking in the impressive home. Natural light poured in from all around, floor length windows cast open as sheers danced gently as the breeze passed through. Tasteful vases of Spring’s finest flowers decorated the space, with countless rooms joining the space and a grand staircase that led to reveal even more of the manor.

The maid lead you to a sitting room, the space just as light an airy, with no door, just an open archway. This was not what you had imagined at all.

“The High Lord is expecting you, but he apologises as he has a meeting that has run over. He won't be too long, but would like to convey his apologies,” she said with pep. “You can wait here, M’Lady. Would you care for something to drink?”

You silently took a seat at the lounge she had waved at, looking behind at the floor to ceiling bookshelves that aligned the room. It was a tasteful room, and you thought you could spend all day he curled up with a good book.

“No, no thank you,” you eventually said, slow to respond in your awe of the house.

With a bouncy courtesy, the maid left you to be.

Standing immediately, you moved to inspect the books, fingering their spines and muttering their titles aloud.

“Flora and Fauna of the Spring Season. How to Care for Roses and Thorns Alike.”

Your ears pricked as two sets of footsteps making their way down the staircase, and deep voices spoke in discussion.

“I would be grateful for the resources Tamlin. And it’s clear you are mending your court. I would be happy to align with you once again.”

You knew that voice – Tarquin.

“I’m glad, and yes, we are making progress. Though it would be insincere of me to accept any credit. I thank the people of my court, and I have had aid from others too.”

The males passed the open archway to the reading room, Tarquin stopping in his tracks.

“Y/N?”

You froze, book still in hand. “Greetings, Tarquin,” you said thickly, barely able to swallow.

Tarquin cast his magnificent blue eyes to Tamlin for just a moment, and you were sure if you had blinked you would have missed it. You glanced at Tamlin too, who showed no sign of discomfort.

Tarquin was quick to recover from his shock, making his way over to greet you, embracing you with open arms and a quick kiss to each of your cheeks.

“I’m sorry to have heard of your departure from the Nigh Court,” he said, blue eyes fixed on you with a warm, sorry smile.

You smiled back softly, rubbing his arms where they held your shoulders. “That is kind, Tarquin. I am sorry too.” You fought the urge to embrace him again – it was so nice to see a friend.

Tamlin waited by the archway, his hands behind his back as he watched your interaction with passive curiosity.

“And how did you find yourself in Spring?” Tarquin asked.

You shrugged. “I have an uncle here, and I wanted to work to help repair that lost in the war.”

Tarquin nodded. “Yes, Tamlin was telling that he was quite impressed with you. And I must say, it’s encouraging to see how much progress has been made.”

You flicked your eyes to Tamlin who remained unmoved. He had credited you to another High Lord? You blushed lightly, shifting uncomfortably on your feet.

“And what of Varian and Cresseida? Are they well?” you skilfully diverted the conversation.

Tarquin grinned. “Varian is well, and Cresseida is engaged.”

“Engaged!” you burst, a smile so wide on your face as you thought of her. She was always a romantic.

“Yes, she’s quite excited, as is the rest of the family. You will keep your eye out for an invitation to the wedding, yes?”

You blushed again – you were unsure how the news would be received by the other High Lords of your leaving, it was nice to know you were still considered you a friend at Summer. “Of course, Tarquin. I would be honoured to celebrate with you all.”

Tarquin smiled at that, before turning back to Tamlin. “What a jewel you have here in your court Tamlin. You won't take her for granted I hope.” You could sense the warning laced in his tone.

Tamlin lowered his eyes slightly, a small gesture, but in the language of High Lords it spoke volumes. Understanding, submission, guilt even. “I wouldn’t dare of it,” he spoke, hands still clasped behind his back.

Tarquin seemed reassured at that. “I must journey back. A delight to see you Y/N, do take care, and come visit whenever you find suitable.”

You agreed to that, watching Tarquin shake Tamlins hand before leaving the Manor.

“I apologise for making you wait,” Tamlin said with a soft smile. He seemed stiff still, and you wondered if he nervous to host you.

You eyed the High Lord up and down. “Not at all. I’m just… a little surprised to have our meetings overlap.”

Tamlin nodded with understanding. “I have nothing to hide Y/N. It is a lesson I should have learned long ago.”

You nodded at that, looping your arm through Tamlin’s outstretched one as he lead you through to on a tour of the Manor.

————

The meal with Tamlin was far more enjoyable that you had thought it would be, food and company alike. He did not lead you to a dining room, instead, a small table was set in the balcony overlooking the estate, the warm spring breeze gentle as the sun set over the groomed gardens, rows of trees and flowering bushes tinged with orange from the sunset.

The conversation was awkward at first, Tamlin was nervous, and it didn't help that you headed every comment with caution. But after a few sips of wine, and a few jokes exchanged, it seemed you and the High Lord had much in common.

You felt yourself relaxing, joking and laughing with ease. It was nice to chat and enjoy the company of another, something you hadn’t done since Azriel killed Alvar. You hadn't realised that in throwing yourself in work, you had deprived yourself from any true fun. Perhaps Tamlin had seen that, perhaps that’s why he invited you here.

He hadn't asked or pried of your past, only talking of your work with immense gratitude. And when you told him of your childhood memories in his court, Tamlin beamed with pride, his face fixed with a smile and his posture a little more straight. That of course, lead to the conversation of Meryl.

“And what of your sister?” Tamlin asked. “Where does she reside now?”

“Ah,” you said, before drawing a long sip of wine, taking a moment before you could will yourself to respond. “Unfortunately Meryl was murdered by one of Hybern’s own spies.”

Pain sliced across Tamlin’s face, his green eyes panicked before he bowed his head in shame. “Gods, Y/N. I am so sorry.” Blond strands fell in front of his face, his strong hands clasped together so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“Tamlin, it’s alright. It was many years ago, well before the war.”

He looked at you then, his face softening. He knew what you were saying – it was before he allied himself with Hybern. He was not to blame.

“I was a fool to have ever opened my borders to him,” Tamlin said thickly, casting his eyes down.

“I could not agree more,” you replied, before offering him a tight smile. You were certain he regretted many of his choices, but it was reassuring to hear.

“Was your sister’s death how you found yourself as a Night Court emissary?”

You nodded. “That’s right. I was motivated to protect others, and largely driven to avenge Meryl.” Speaking of your past after all that had happened, it seemed to foreign to you now. You no longer knew the girl you were when you had found a home in Velaris.

“It would seem that is still very true,” Tamlin complimented.

“In some ways, yes,” you agreed, unsure if he caught the blush on your cheeks. “But also untrue in others.”

Tamlin waited patiently, but didn't push. The choice was yours to continue.

So you told him of your time at the Night Court, of the decade you had spent training with Cassian and Azriel. You spoke of the extent of your training, and how after a few years friendship had turned to love, and the family had welcomed you with open arms.

Dancing around the details of the Night Court, you were careful not to expose Velaris or other sensitive information – you were not here to damn the court, you were only telling your story.

And as you spoke, Tamlin listened intently without casting judgement, just patiently absorbing your story, nodding where he understood and asking questions where he didn’t. He never pried, nor did he ask for more detail of the Night Court, or of Feyre and Rhys.

Finally, you explained what lead to you leaving your old life behind, how you were betrayed by your loves and wider family, and how your one true shot to avenge your sister was stolen from you.

As you finished, you drew a big breath, and an even bigger sip of wine. You slouched further into your seat, relaxing as you felt free from the weight of bottling your truth for so long.

Tamlin watched you for a moment, before drawing a long breath. “Would you like to know what I think?”

You raised your brows, toying with your glass of wine. “Do tell.”

“I feel you were treated with an utter lack of empathy, and it was cruel to not at least tell you of the mission. I’m sorry that you were hurt in such a way. They are fools to have mistreated you so greatly, and I know this because… not only am I fully capable of such behaviour, but it is so similar to how I had treated Feyre.”

Your eyes went wide at his confession, your brows clenching at the way it made your heart ache.

“I know what it is to love another so fiercely, you stop seeing them as someone, and start seeing them as something. It was a lesson I learned only when I lost everything – my love, my council, my entire damn court. I was vengeful, jealous, and I would have torn the world in half to claim what I thought belonged to me. But I had no one to blame but myself, and I’ve learnt nothing is mine to ever own or control, no matter how much that scares me. In all truths Y/N, I am sickened that so many were hurt and lost for me to learn that lesson, and I’m so sorry that you were hurt for Azriel and Cassian to learn theirs.”

You blinked at Tamlin, swallowing your shock. “That is… a very honest confession.”

Tamlin gave you a tight smile before shrugging. “Honesty is all I have.”

You returned his smile, extended a hand to rest on his forearm. “If you ask me, honesty and trust are the only true currency of this life.”

Tamlin raised his brows then, whether he was shocked by your words or by your touch you couldn't tell. His green eyes met yours, sincerity swarming as he held you in a soft gaze. “Fae like you have known that all along though. And it is males like me who hurt those infinitely wiser, like you.”

You chuckled then. “I’m not perfect Tamlin, far from it. I think all we can do is try to be better, and work to ensure we don't hurt those that we love through our imperfections.”

Tamlin’s eyes warmed. “I think you’re right,” he said softly, his voice almost a whisper.

And maybe it was the wine, or the way your heart swelled at the honestly and sincerity of his confession, but all of the fibres of your being begged you to lean a little closer, to bask in his warmth and comfort, and even press your lips to his.

With a flick of his eyes to your lips, you knew Tamlin felt the same draw to you. He placed a large hand over your own that rested on his forearm. “Y/N, you must know I didn't invite you here to… disrupt, or interfere with–"

“I know,” you interrupted him, smiling softly.

Tamlin paused, eyes darting between yours. “Your company has been a delightful surprise. But I would hate for you to regret–"

“My life in the Night Court is behind me Tamlin. I have built a life of my own, and this is the path I choose.”

Tamlin moved then, a large hand coming to cup your face, his thumb stroking your cheek and he gave you a pained look, as if physically trying to restrain himself. “I don't mean to lecture the more wise,” he said softly. “But if you feel that I can change or grow or learn from my mistakes, don’t you believe Azriel and Cassian can too?”

Your eyes fluttered close, your brow pulling at the weight of his question. “I suppose.”

“And if they have changed, or at least try to, do you think that you might want to forgive them?”

You opened your eyes, holding Tamlin’s gaze with a serious expression. “Forgiveness is one thing. But I will never return to the life I had with them Tamlin, not like that. Too much has happened.”

“Hmm,” Tamlin hummed thoughtfully. He waited a moment, green eyes drinking in your face, scanning your features delicately as you blushed, closing your eyes again to bare the intensity.

When Tamlin spoke again, his tone was a lot more assured. “I can see you have are still in the thick of processing what has happened, Y/N. And for that reason alone, it would be improper to kiss you right now, despite how much I want to.”

You were frowning as you opened your eyes, finding a sorry smile planted on Tamlin’s face.

“You’re a cruel High Lord,” you joked flatly, returning the pained smile and holding the hand he kept to your face.

“I’ll work on that,” he chuckled, pulling both your hands in his before kissing them.

“Come,” he said, standing from his chair and offering you his hand. “I’m yet to show you the gardens.”

————

“Coming!” Amrin barked at the third rapping on her door, the knocks growing more impatient. Slinking into a silver silk robe, she opened the door to reveal Cassian and Azriel, their cheeks more hollow and bags even darker than the last time she had seen them a few weeks ago.

“Gods, you both look awful,” she said plainly before walking further into her apartment, not checking to see if they followed.

“Where the hell have you been?” Azriel grumbled.

“Working from home, if you will.”

“Why?” Cassian asked defensively.

“You know the answer, brutes. All of that fighting and tension, it gives me a headache.”

Azriel scowled, crossing his arms across his chest, shadows stretching across Amren’s apartment with familiarity.

“You’re sensitive at the best of times,” Cassian bit back.

“Why are you here?” Amren spoke plainly, sounding bored by their presence.

Cassian approached Amren while Azriel lingered back. “Help us,” Cassian said.

Amren scoffed. “You know I can’t, boy.”

Cassian’s brows clenched before he moved to his knees, squatting in front of Amren as she lounged in a chair. “Please, Amren, do you have anything? Information from an outside court, or a lead on her whereabouts?”

Amren levelled her silver eyes with his brown ones. “Why do you torture yourself with such questions? Y/N is quite capable of taking care of herself, you know.”

“C’mon Cass, let’s just go,” Azriel said tightly from behind. From the tension in the room, it was hard to remember they were serving the same throne.

“You want my advice? The both of you need to be patient. If it takes her an eternity to forgive you, then so be it. There is nothing you can do to force that.”

“We can't just switch it off Amren, it doesn't work like that.”

“The Illyrian possessiveness, or the hopelessly in love part?” Amren mocked. “Y/N is mending herself, and I applaud that. I suggest you take a page from her book and start to do the same.”

Azriel had already stalked for the door when Amren started to mock, but she called him a few paces shy. “Whatever you took, I suggest you leave it behind,” she said, her tone almost playful.

Azriel froze, before letting go of a gold piece of card, the paper fluttering to the floor as he and Cassian stalked out, slamming the door behind them.

“What was that?” Cassian asked with a whisper.

Azriel hushed him, nodding as he walked forward, waiting until they had made it a few streets from Amren’s home.

“A wedding invitation. For Creseida.”

Cassian’s eyes light up. “Do you think–?”

“Perhaps, but I don't think we’d be welcomed company if Y/N does attend. Rhys and Feyre will surely keep us here.”

“So we keep our walls up. We won’t disclose to know of the wedding, and that way the bargain will never be broken.”

Azriel nodded. “The only risk is Amren, should she mention that I saw the invitation.”

Cassian sighed, running his hand through his long hair. “I sure as hell hope she can keep her mouth shut.”

--------

Part 4>>>>

AN: Omgosh, you guys have been so so patient with this part, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I sincerely hope you liked it, it was so much fun to introduce Tamlin and explore the way he might be healing after the war. Not to mention writing a few wins for our reader?? She deserves it.

Also how the Inner Curcle is just falling to shit without her 💅🏼 I so look forward to exploring the TEA at this wedding.... I always want to know what you guys think, so feel free to drop a comment, and if you'd like to join my general tag list, or just for Our Girl, drop a comment too :) Thank you always for your support <3

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jnkgrnde · 3 months

Text

— safety net

— summary: in which, you and clarisse are new to being in a relationship, so you help guide eachother and get to know eachother.

— pairings: clarisse la rue x black!fem!reader (cabin of choice)

— author’s note: can y’all tell this was rushed cs i really needed to get it out my drafts 🌚

— LINKS TO HELP PALESTINE

clarisse la rue loved you. she knew she did. she just didn’t know how to express it well.

being a daughter of ares and the way she had to mold herself for his approval, she’d learn that love was weakness. she’d learned that love only got in the way of what was really important, and that she didn’t need it in her life.

she didn’t know what she was feeling when she first saw you enter camp. she couldn’t describe the bitterness and anger whenever she saw you with one of the boys from apollo cabin or one of the girls from aphrodite cabin.

she’d heard her siblings talk about these things, how they felt whenever they were around someone their heart deemed special. she didn’t want to consult them, knowing how they’d probably get, so she went to talk to her new best friend silena.

“it sounds like you have a crush on her, clarisse.” clarisse choked. silena just confirmed everything she was feeling was tied to a crush? it felt stupid. all of it felt stupid; it made it sound like they were in third grade again and that was all people teased each other about.

it unfortunately did make sense to clarisse, though. the longing looks she’d give you, the anger that bubbled when she saw you with someone else, the speeding up of her heart whenever she saw you. she didn’t want to acknowledge what she felt, that she out of all people had fell weakness to love, but there was nothing she could do.

silena told her to start hanging around you more just to see what would happen. clarisse protested at first, saying her siblings and the rest of the camp including you would think she was weird, but a couple of nights after the conversation, she started considering it.

it eventually started with her choosing you to be her sparring partner. you were confused and a little flustered, not knowing the reason why she chose you out of all people. “‘cause i wanted to try something different,” was all she told you with a shrug.

it wasn’t hard for you to notice how she went a little softer on you, either. her grip on her spear was loosened a little, her steps weren’t as calculated, almost as if she was distracted. the weird thing was, even after she sparred with you, she still went hard on everybody else.

another thing to strike off the list — silena beauregard watched you a whole lot more now, especially whenever you were with clarisse. all of this had you confused becuase of how random it was.

then came the little touches; her hand would graze your waist or the small of your back, her fingers gently tracing over yours whenever she fixed your stance. she would linger for a little too long whenever it was time for her to leave.

you started staying up late wondering what was happening and why clarisse was doing this. you assumed she wasn’t a person who really… felt love towards people. people knew clarisse as a prideful, arrogant and powerful daughter of ares who always wanted her father’s approval. when you thought of love, clarisse was not the first person to come in mind.

yet, she acted as a girlfriend and protector towards you; defending you when you weren’t there to defend yourself, offered to walk you to your cabin. it wasn’t until a couple months and a lot of yearning later that you confronted her about it.

it was when she was walking you back to your cabin when you finally asked her what was going on. you stopped a few feet so your siblings couldn’t hear. “clarisse, what’s going on with you?” you asked her. she turned to look at you, feigning confusion. “what do you mean?”

“i mean you don’t usually do this. you don’t hang around people and act like you do with me. you don’t touch them like you do to me, and this is all just so sudden. i just wanna know why?” you looked her deep in her eyes. she licked her lips before breathing deeply.

“i like you. i do all this because i like you, y/n, and i’m scared.” she confessed. you felt like you knew why, but you still asked, “scared of what?” she swallowed thickly. “what if i lose you— what if you lose me? you know we can die at any moment to anything, i wouldn’t want to burden you with that.”

your hand came up to her cheek, your thumb gently rubbing against it. “clarisse, if i die solely because i’m a demigod, i’d rather die knowing i loved you for as long as i could.”

clarisse looked at you, just soaking you in. you were still here. you weren’t gone yet. she didn’t have all the time in the world, per say, but she took whatever time she could get.

it was after that night you’d start sneaking into eachothers cabins, hanging out even more around the camp, including after hours. clarisse expressed how worried she was because she never liked someone this much before, at least not that she was aware of.

“clar, it’s okay. i’m new to this to. we can figure it out.” you told her while you laid on her in her cabin bunk. she took a deep inhale, “okay.”

you two expressed what you liked and didn’t like, what your love languages were, what flowers you liked. every day, somehow, clarisse would have a new gift for you. she had one of the hephaestus kids make a necklace for you with both your initials engraved in it. you’d bring her a painted bead for her camp necklace after arts and crafts, and she’d wear it with pride.

everything was new to her, and it was new to you too, but you had each other as guides, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

#clarisse la rue x reader #clarisse la rue #clarisse la rue x you #clarisse x reader #clarisse la rue x y/n #clarisse pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #percy jackson #percy jackson x reader #percy jackson fic

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yelena-bellova · 1 year

Text

Twenty Years Later: Joel Miller x F!Reader - Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven: Almost

Plot: Joel, Ellie and Y/n work their way across Wyoming in a desperate search for Tommy.

Word Count: 12.6k

Warnings: tlou ep.6 spoilers, language, death, loss of a child, angry outburst, trauma, anxiety attacks, 16+

A/N: SURPRISE! One day ahead of where I thought I’d be, swooping in for a dose of bedtime angst 🌙

As always, I have to put that this series is 16+ and I will not be adding anyone to the taglist if your age/range is not specified in your bio. Gotta look out for younger eyes 👀

This chapter and the one that will follow are the chapters. They’re the culmination of this whole frickin’ journey. It’s been so fun to eead your theories about Joel and Rosebud’s breakup, and now you’ll have (some of) your answers. I hope it lives up to what you imagined, or maybe even surprises you. Above all, I hope y’all enjoy 😘

—————

December 2023. Somewhere in Wyoming.

Fuck the philosophers of the pre-Cordyceps world.

Time healed nothing.

If anything, time made pain worse. Because, with enough time to study its victim, the pain could evolve. It could morph into anger, bitterness…much like Cordyceps, it could consume its host until they were shrouded in so many layers of hurt, they became unrecognizable.

Time healed absolutely nothing.

Marlon returned to his cabin, hanging the two rabbits he’d killed on the hook outside the door. The little warmth the home managed to retain welcomed him in, but the inside had changed since he’d been gone.

“Who the hell are you?”

Y/n sat adjacent to Florence, Marlon’s wife, blowing on a spoonful of soup. “A deep admirer of your wife’s cooking,” she answered.

Marlon stood confused at the door, slowly removing his jacket.

“And the gun.”

The old man turned to see another stranger, this one a man, emerging from the kitchen. He had a pistol drawn on Marlon.

“And you?”

Joel shook his head, carefully moving towards Marlon, “Just someone passin’ through. Take the gun out, two fingers only, put it outta reach.”

Marlon obeyed, dangling his pistol off his fingers and setting it on an end table. All the while, Y/n sipped her soup.

Marlon looked to Florence, “Why didn’t you shoot them?”

She nodded across the room, “The gun’s all the way over there. They didn’t hurt me by the way.”

“Yeah, I got eyes,” Marlon walked to his chair, he’d already deemed Joel as a very minor, if at all, threat.

“He won’t shoot you,” Y/n interjected, not once looking up from her bowl, “He threatens everyone he meets.”

Joel’s hardened stare landed on Y/n’s face, her casualty was greatly undermining him.

“You made ‘em soup?” Marlon gestured to Y/n’s meal, along with Joel’s untouched bowl that sat on the coffee table.

“Yeah, I did,” Florence answered, “It’s cold out.”

Y/n reached across and touched the woman’s arm, “And it’s lovely, Florence. Thank you.”

Joel sighed in exasperation, “We’re lookin’ for my brother.”

Marlon scoffed and removed his baseball cap, “Well, I ain’t seen him.”

“I haven’t told you what he looks like,” Joel replied.

“He look anything like you?” Marlon asked.

“A bit.”

Marlon shrugged, “Then I ain’t seen him.”

“They’ve got a girl with them,” Florence nodded up the stairs.

“Can I come down now?” Ellie called from above, overlooking the ground floor.

Joel and Y/n answered at the same time.

“No.”

“Yeah.”

Their eyes flicked to one another, Joel’s frustrated, Y/n’s calm. She was done playing the gunslinging traveler when unnecessary.

Ellie, always siding with whichever of them gave her what she wanted, bounded down the stairs.

“Ellie,” Joel reprimanded, as if it would do anything to stop her…

“Ooh-wa,” Marlon chuckled, looking to his wife and Y/n.

“What did I just say?” Joel said as Ellie joined him.

“Joel, come on,” she replied, aiming her handgun at the couple, “They’re like, a thousand.”

Marlon ran his eyes over Ellie, “Who’s this little psycho?”

“Never mind her,” Joel leaned forward, pushing his map across the table to Marlon, “I need you to tell us where we are.”

“If you got a map, why’re you lost?” Marlon asked.

“Must’ve missed all the street signs in the enormous fucking forest,” Ellie shot back.

“Ho-ly,” Marlon smiled to his wife, the two of them sharing a laugh.

Joel glanced over to Ellie, she was mirroring his posture, his tone…she was trying so damn hard to be like him. “We’re somewhere here,” he pointed to a spot on the map, “Exactly where? And your answer better be the same as your wife’s.”

Marlon’s eyes flicked to Florence, “You tell ‘em the truth?”

“Yeah,” she replied.

“Are you tellin’ me the truth?”

“Yeah.”

Marlon leaned forward and pressed a finger to a spot on the map. It wasn’t the answer Joel was looking for.

“Well,” he holstered his gun, “You found a great place to hide, I guess.”

“Hide?” Marlon chuckled deeply as Joel settled on his couch, “Came here before you and your wife were born, sonny. Get the hell away from everybody.”

“Not his wife,” Y/n was quick to reply before taking another spoonful. It had been three fucking months of assumptions and both Joel and her were exhausted by them.

Florence turned to Y/n, “I didn’t want to.”

“Eh,” Marlon waved his wife off and looked to Joel, “Listen, I didn’t mean to upset you about your brother but if you’ve come this far, then you know what’s out there. You seen Cody?”

“Yeah, got close enough,” Ellie answered from the arm of the couch, “It’s crawling with Infected.

“Yeah, Laramie,” Marlon listed off, “And Wind River Reservation. Anywhere people used to be. You can’t go there no more.”

Y/n set her soup aside and leaned forward on her elbows, deciding it was finally time to take the conversation seriously. “So you’ve never heard the name Tommy Miller?”

“Nope,” Marlon answered.

“What about the Fireflies?” Ellie asked.

Florence nodded, “We get those in the summer.”

“Not the bugs,” Ellie replied, thoroughly put out, “The people.”

“There are firefly people?”

Y/n joined the joke and gestured down the length of her body, “In the flesh.”

Marlon, Florence and Y/n shared a laugh, Joel couldn’t tell whether he was more annoyed or disappointed.

“You got any advice on the best way west?”

“Yeah,” Marlon leaned forward, “Go east,” he ran a finger along a stretch of water on the map, “But you never go past the river here. Ever.”

“What’s past the river?” Ellie asked.

“Death,” Florence answered, “We never seen who’s out there, but we see the bodies they leave behind. Some Infected, some not,” she turned to Joel, “If your brother’s west of the river, he’s gone.”

Joel and Y/n’s eyes met across the table, both trying to conceal their worry under Ellie’s ever-present gaze, but knowing they could share it with each other.

“You’re not gonna scare us,” Ellie said, confidently.

Florence nodded towards Joel and Y/n, “Scared them.”

They quickly buried their anxieties under blind determination. Whatever lay across the bank, it didn’t matter. They had to believe that Tommy was both alive and well on the other side.

Filing out of the cabin, Joel and Y/n marched ahead of Ellie.

“You don’t seriously believe them,” Ellie half-stated, half-asked.

“They’ve lived here a long time,” Joel replied, trudging through the snow. He could feel his heartbeat speeding up.

Y/n turned around to see why she couldn’t hear Ellie’s footsteps following theirs. The girl was unhooking one of Marlon’s rabbits, “El, come on, don’t steal their food.”

Ellie was undeterred as she swung the game over her shoulder, “They don’t know anything. Never heard of the Fireflies.”

“Yeah, they wouldn’t have out here,” Y/n stretched her arms out around her to the snowy expanse, “Doesn’t mean you have to steal t-“

Y/n’s words faded in Joel’s ear, a steady ring filling the space. It was happening again.

Joel stumbled forward, resting a weak hand on a piece of the cabin’s fence, his breathing became labored. His thoughts began to spin with worst case scenarios in all their various forms that could become reality, if what lay on the other side of the river was real. Every nightmare his mind drummed up ended with Y/n or Ellie d-

“Joel,” Y/n called, she was the first of them to notice. She walked to meet him, “Joel.”

“Joel?” Ellie echoed, she’d had yet to witness one of his episodes, “Joel, are you okay?”

“Shut up,” he said, verbally waving Ellie off.

“Holy shit, are you dying?” Ellie continued.

Joel shook his head and shut his eyes, trying to block them out, “I’m okay.”

Y/n wasn’t so convinced, she laid a firm grip onto Joel’s shoulder. “Joel, c’mon.”

“Okay, but are you okay?” Ellie asked again.

“I’m fine,” Joel insisted, wishing desperately that Y/n would remove her hand, but not possessing the strength to shove it off, “I’m fine.”

“No, no, but are you?” Ellie wouldn’t stop, why couldn’t she stop? “Because just a reminder, that if you’re dead, we’re fucked.”

Y/n’s gaze darted to the girl, “Ellie-“

That was enough to bring Joel back to Earth.

“I said I’m fine,” he pushed, contradicting his words with his palm pressed to his chest. “It’s just the…cold air all of a sudden.”

Y/n let her hand slide off his shoulder, wholly aware that he was lying. The episodes had been occurring more and more over the last few weeks, they seemed to be getting worse the closer they got to wherever Tommy was or wasn’t.

Joel refused to ever tell her what triggered them, hell, he had barely figured it out himself. What he did know was that he couldn’t deal with what lay at the core of them all. That would have required an honesty he hadn’t possessed in twenty years.

“All right, uh,” Ellie was the first of the three to bounce back, “So let’s go find Tommy and the Fireflies. It’s gonna be easy,” she slid between the fence and called back to them, “All we have to do is cross the river of death.”

Joel and Y/n were left on their own, the former waiting to catch his breath, the latter waiting on an explanation.

“Would it have killed you to back me up in there?” Joel asked, his usual sour mood replacing the small glimpse of vulnerability.

“Yeah,” Y/n’s watched him bury the lsat thirty seconds, denying her an answer once again, “‘Cause that’s our biggest problem.”

She slid through the fence after Ellie, leaving Joel to bring up the rear of their group.

The last three months had been trying, but not in the ways Joel and Y/n might have thought at the beginning of their quest. They could only stay silent with each other for so long before they had to talk, and they’d reached a place where they weren’t at each other’s throats any more. While the snow had frozen the earth, their anger had melted…

Leaving all the underlying emotions to fill the vacant space.

The physical distance they kept hadn’t changed, but the unspoken chasm between them was beginning to cave in on itself. With each passing day, it was growing harder and harder for Joel and Y/n to pretend like they didn’t need each other.

In every one of Joel’s attacks, his guilt slammed into him like a tidal wave, threatening to drown the life out of him. So many people he’d let down and when he opened his eyes, he was staring into the face of one of them. One look at Y/n caused everything he’d told himself about her over the years to follow the undertow out to sea.

Y/n, in all her righteous rage, was beginning to do the impossible…she was starting to understand why Joel had done what he’d done to her. She’d spent twenty years cursing his name, a constant boil in her stomach that bubbled whenever she thought of him, but there’d always been a voice in her head reminding her of the ‘why.’ All of Joel’s actions from Outbreak Day on had been driven by a deep pain inside him. That inkling was starting to spread through Y/n’s mind, the dye well on its way to consuming the whole brain.

In a perfect world, they’d have come to one another, humbly, and talked it through. Instead, they held their grudge, with its dying flame, as the barricade between them, hoping that it sparked once more.

—————————

In the fall, fires had been a luxury, but as winter rolled in, they became necessary to make it through the night.

Y/n and Joel sat on opposite sides of it, Joel adding another layer of duct tape to his boot and Y/n stitching up a busted seam in her leather gloves. It was the apocalypse’s version of domesticities.

Ellie was above them, having scaled a rock to get a good look at the stars. A green glimpse of the Aurora Borealis waved through the midnight blue sky.

Joel whistled for her eventually, “Come down from there. You’re gonna break your neck.”

Ellie reluctantly returned to the ground, choosing to sit close to Y/n and watch her mend her glove. The two of them had grown closer over the past three months. Joel would never let his guard down wholly for Ellie, but Y/n was more comfortable letting the girl see her as she was.

“Ahh,” Ellie said, spotting the flask Joel was taking a swig from, “Can I have some?”

“No,” Y/n and Joel said in perfect harmony.

“What? Just to warm up,” Ellie clarified, “C’mon.”

Joel’s eyes flicked to Y/n, who knew she couldn’t hold old world rules to their situation. Her gaze falling back to her handiwork served as Joel’s answer.

Ellie took the flask, made sure to give a little ‘cheers’ to Joel and took a drink. She grimaced as it ran down her throat, “Yep,” she strained, “Still gross.”

Ellie held out the flask to Y/n, who shook her head. The thought of being anywhere near where Joel’s lips had been unsettled her.

“So I’ve been thinking,” Ellie started after a short stretch of silence, “Let’s say we find the Fireflies, it all works, they draw my blood and put it through some of their fancy machines and make a cure.”

Joel’s brows furrowed in confusion, “Okay.”

“Then what?” Ellie asked, “Like, what do we do?”

“Oh, it’s ‘we?’” Joel replied.

“Yeah, the end of this partnership comes as soon as we get to the base,” Y/n pointed between herself and Joel.

Ellie nearly rolled her eyes, “Okay, fine. Whatever, you. Separately. You can do anything you want,” she looked to Joel first, “Where are you going? What are you doing?”

Joel glanced at the sky, to admit his true answer would kill another piece of the remnants of his heart. “It’s never been an option,” he cleared his throat, “Maybe…”

For a split second, he saw it all again. His old house. Tommy in the kitchen, raiding their fridge. Sarah at the table, doing homework.

And Y/n, somewhere in the middle of it all, laughing and looking to Joel with a softness that both uplifted and settled him.

“An old farmhouse,” he lied, “Some land…a ranch.”

Y/n stared down at her needlework, knowing that each word was a lie.

“Cool,” Ellie replied, oblivious to the history surrounding her, “What kind?”

“Sheep,” Joel answered, it was the first animal he could think of, “I would raise sheep.”

“Sheep,” Ellie repeated under her breath.

“They’re quiet,” Joel continued, his stare falling on Ellie, “Do what they’re told.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Ellie got the hint, “So just you and a buncha sheep. Romantic. Is there…” her eyes swung between Joel and Y/n, “Room for anyone else in the pens with you?”

The assumptions made by strangers that Y/n and Joel were a couple were enjoyable compared to Ellie’s constant attempts to push them together. They were getting more frequent and less subtle.

“I go back to work after this, El,” Y/n said, finishing up her last loop, “Doubtful I’ll be getting back to Boston any time soon, so I’ll probably stay at the camp out here.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Ellie shook her head, “I asked what you wanted to do. Out of anything, anything in the world.”

Y/n stopped her stitching, staring down at the needle, wondering if she poked herself hard enough, if she’d be able to draw blood. Would she be able to feel the prick? Or was she just numb enough that physical pain couldn’t touch her?

Joel had noticed that Y/n was beginning to slow down more. On the move, she was as fast as ever, but in the quiet moments between, there’d be times where the world was in motion, and she was perfectly still. It was like she was somewhere deep, deep in her mind, waiting for whatever hold had come over her to break and allow her to return to reality.

Y/n swallowed thickly, her past life flickering before her eyes like a movie montage. Sharing a beer with Tommy while watching a Cowboys game. Painting Sarah’s nails for her with a color the girl had stolen from Y/n’s bathroom. Laying in bed with Joel, deep in the pillows and listening to him sing softly over his guitar…

Her dreams were dead.

“I want to work,” she answered, it wasn’t a total lie, “Help people. If I stop for too long…then what the hell am I doing?”

Joel wished he didn’t recognize the underlying sentiment, that if she stopped moving at an inhuman pace, the grief would consume her. But he did, because it was the same way he lived his life.

Y/n clipped the thread with her teeth, beginning to tie a knot, “And what about you? What are you gonna do after you save the world?”

Ellie gave a small smile as Y/n nudged her with her shoulder. She turned her gaze to the sky, specifically the very visible moon. “It’s probably because I grew up in the QZ. Behind you, there’s ocean and ahead of you there’s a wall,” her smile grew the longer she stared at the stars, “Nowhere else to look but up. I read everything I could in the school library. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell…” Ellie sat forward with enthusiasm, “But you know who my favorite is?”

“Sally Ride,” Joel and Y/n both answered, it wasn’t hard to guess.

“Sally fuckin’ Ride,” Ellie slapped her knees, enunciating her point, “Best astronaut name ever!”

Whatever levity had come over their campsite faded quickly, Y/n watched as Ellie’s passion turned to sobering…grief? Guilt? She was hard to read sometimes, the innocence of youth and the scars of rushed adulthood creating something entirely new.

“It’ll work, right?” Ellie asked, “The vaccine?”

“It’s a little late to start wonderin’,” Joel responded, his hands folded over his stomach.

Ellie looked down at her lap, unable to look either Y/n or Joel in the eye. “I tried…with Sam.”

“Tried what?” Y/n asked.

“I knew he was infected,” Ellie confessed, “I rubbed some of my blood into his bite. I know,” she hurried, trying to stop Joel’s anxious admonishment before it came, “I know, it was stupid, but I…” she looked back down at her lap, “I wanted to save him.”

Y/n diverted her gaze to the fire, feeling the warmth of it deep in her belly. Not a day had gone by where she hadn’t thought about Henry or Sam. It had taken her a full day after their deaths to even be able to speak. The sorrow in Henry’s eyes before pulling the trigger on his own life haunted her. The pain of understanding still lingered in her chest, coming out to play every once in a while and remind her that no matter what she did, no matter how hard she worked to be a good person…she couldn’t erase what she had done.

“Well, I reckon it’s a lot more complicated than that,” Joel plainly answered, “Marlene, she’s a lotta things, but…she’s no fool. If she says they can do it, they can do it.”

Ellie absorbed his answer before turning to Y/n, waiting for her reassurance.

Y/n pulled herself out of her grief, barely quirking the corners of her lips up. “It’ll work,” she replied.

Ellie seemed to accept both their responses, letting silence fill the space again until she decided it was time to end her day. “How’re we splitting up the watches?”

Joel sighed, Y/n’s gaze already waiting for him when he looked up at her.

“We’ll do ‘em both,” he answered, “Get some sleep. Dream of…” he capped the flask and exchanged it for his rifle, “Sheep ranches on the moon.”

Ellie nodded, grabbing her sleeping bag and walking to the deeper part of their hideout, “I will.”

Y/n fitted her repaired glove back on her hand, tucking them under her armpits for extra warmth. This was the hardest part of each of the day/ When it was just Joel, her and the unmentionable divide between them.

Joel tried to distract himself, gazing up at the moon and focusing on tracing the constellations around it. But the self-discipline he tried so desperately to maintain concerning Y/n was slipping, his eyes using some uncontrollable part of his mind to drift over to her.

Y/n was struggling to keep up her stoic decorum, the urge to let her and Joel’s conversations warm growing stronger and stronger. It was natural in their mutual isolations to wish for someone to talk to. But with him in front of her, the figurehead of the past she wanted so desperately to go back to…she craved a piece of a memory, any memory, that only he could give her. A short hit of dopamine to get her through the next day.

“So, Tommy,” she began, it was the only part of their past she could safely return to.

“What about him?” Joel asked.

“Is he…” Y/n chewed on the inside of her cheek, trying to phrase the question right, “Is he still…Tommy?”

Joel sighed, the memories of two decades ago mixing with the last version of his brother he’d seen. “He’s still a pain in the ass, if that’s what you’re askin’.”

Y/n gave a very small smile, “But he’s still him?”

Whatever she was looking for, Joel couldn’t give her. None of them were like they’d been twenty years ago, except maybe her. She had managed to keep her humanity intact. He was darkness in both their eyes. As rough as he’d been on her at the beginning of their journey, now, he didn’t want to shatter her illusion about perhaps the one person left on the planet she loved.

“Yeah,” he replied, “He’s still him.”

Y/n nodded, deciding not to ask anything else and let the moment stay pleasant. “I can take first watch,” she volunteered.

“No, you go ahead,” Joel shook his head, “I’ll wake you up.”

“Okay,” Y/n replied, too tired to fight him. She grabbed her own rifle before unrolling her sleeping bag on her side of the fire, stretching out under it and using her arm as a pillow.

Joel kept his eyes off of her until the even rhythm of her breaths told him she was asleep. Then, and only then, did he let himself watch her, trying to combat the various fears that filled his head. She was there, in front of him, alive and well.

But how long could he keep her like that?

—————————

Even in his sleep, Joel couldn’t find rest.

A barrage of images, flashes of colors and echoes of screams, played through his mind. When he startled awake, like every morning past, all he could feel was an overwhelming sense of loss.

The gun was gone.

This was it. His grand failure.

He bolted upright only to find Ellie, a few feet away, standing guard with his rifle.

“Still mumbling in your sleep,” she stated, “I woke up early. You and Y/n,” she glanced over at her still-sleeping guardian, “Were passed out, so I took second watch.”

“You gotta wake one of us up if that happens,” Joel snapped, quickly getting to his feet and crossing the distance between him and Y/n, “You can’t do things like this.”

“But I can,” Ellie smiled, “‘Cause I just did.”

Joel crouched down, shaking Y/n’s arm lightly in an effort not to startle her, “Hey.”

All credit to him for trying, Y/n still woke with a gasp. It was her basic programming.

“We’re fine, we’re fine,” Joel was quick to reassure her as she rolled onto her back.

Y/n scrunched her eyes, blinking the sleep away from them, and sat up. It was daylight. Joel hadn’t woken her up for her watch, again.

“My fault,” he accepted the blame she was getting ready to place on him before continuing his conversation with Ellie, “We’re responsible for you, okay?”

“Then don’t fall asleep,” Ellie challanged, “I was quiet, I checked my six, I looked for tracks, I found the high ground and I kept watch,” she explained as Joel approached her, “Like you taught me to. What can I say, man? I’m a natural.”

Y/n scoffed as she unzipped her sleeping bag, “And you’re not cocky about it at all.”

Joel held out a demanding hand, taking the rifle from Ellie, but accepting that she’d done the job right. “You wake us up next time,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Ellie replied, smugness evident in her tone and on her face.

Without another word, Y/n and Joel collected the few things they’d unpacked, smothered what remained of the fire, and the three of them resumed their hike to an unknown destination.

—————————

Even if they’d have been warned in graphic detail what lay over the River of Death, it wouldn’t have changed Joel and Y/n’s minds. The only way to Tommy was to risk their lives crossing, and they did so with very little hesitation.

Ellie, bless her soul, had found plenty of ways to keep herself entertained on the way, including trying to teach herself how to whistle and requesting hunting training. Joel still wouldn’t budge on the latter.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Ellie started at some point in their hike, “And I think I figured out what happened between you two.”

Joel and Y/n tensed up as they walked alongside one another, Ellie’s cleverness worked against them most of the time.

“Obviously, you two were a thing way back when in Texas,” she explained, adding a twang to the state’s name, “And then at some point, you guys break up. The ‘why’ was what was tripping me up, until I realized, boom…there was somebody else.”

Y/n forcefully exhaled, wondering whether the theory was more preferable to the truth.

“Now, I can’t quite figure out which one of you would’ve slipped up,” Ellie continued, “But even if you didn’t cheat with them, there was someone who got in between you enough to equal a big fight, throwing things at one another, screaming how much you loved each other and eventually ending with you swearing never to speak again. Which is why you two were ready to kill each other when you met in the QZ.”

Joel was near reaching his boiling point, fighting the pull to spin around to Ellie, wave a finger in her face and explain exactly how the situation had gone down. But the reality of those words finally escaping his lips and taking up space in the world was an unbearable thought.

Y/n was near breaking too, feeling the cracks in her chest begin to spread. She needed off the topic if she was going to be able to take a breath. “What the hell kind of stories were you checking out in between astronaut books?”

“Whatever,” Ellie brushed it off, “I know I’m right.”

Thankfully, she let the subject go as soon as they closed in on an old, out-of-usage dam. The water still gushed through it and into the river.

“Dam,” Ellie punned.

“You’re no Will Livingston,” Joel remarked.

“Yeah, yeah, but who is?” Ellie smiled, “So that made electricity?”

“Yeah,” Joel answered, predicting Ellie’s next question, “Don’t ask me, I don’t have a clue.”

He resumed their walk, Y/n and Ellie trailing behind.

“You know, you could have just made something up,” Ellie said, “I would’ve believed you.”

The three of them hiked a half hour more before coming up on another side of the river, or perhaps, an entirely separate one.

“Look at that river,” Ellie remarked, “It’s crazy blue.”

Y/n and Joel were hardly paying attention, both in their own separate thought bubbles. Any time the subject of their past relationship was brought up, it reset the clock on their comfort with each other and took at least an hour to warm back up to one another.

“Hey,” Ellie spoke up, “What if this…is the River of Death?”

The adults stopped in their tracks, the thought hadn’t dawned on them after the victory of crossing the first body of water. Joel whipped out their map, Y/n came to join him and the two of them examined it carefully.

“Fuck,” Y/n mumbled under her breath, pressing a hand to her temple.

“We don’t know it yet,” Joel quickly said, walking ahead a few steps to get a better view of their surroundings. Y/n followed closely, with Ellie on their heels.

A noise on the hill above them caught Y/n’s ear, her eyes lifting from the map to see a group of riders coming straight for them.

“Joel,” she shook his arm forcefully, bringing his attention upwards.

At the first glimpse, Joel grabbed Ellie’s free hand, Y/n taking the other, and they bolted for the forest. There were enough riders to circle them in, aiming their rifles at them and cutting off any escape route they could have found. They were fucked.

“Get behind me,” Joel told Ellie and Y/n, only the youngest of the two listened to him. The three of them held their hands up, “We ain’t lookin’ for any trouble, we’re just passin’ through.”

“Drop the guns,” one of the riders ordered.

Slowly, Y/n and Joel slipped their rifles off of their shoulders and placed them on the ground.

“You,” the same guy nodded to Ellie, “Take five steps back.”

“We can talk through this,” Y/n said, her voice gained strength the moment Ellie was addressed.

“How about you shut the fuck up?”

“Okay,” Joel spoke quickly, his hand instinctively flinching towards Y/n’s as she was threatened, “Easy,” he looked behind to Ellie and said with a low voice, “You’ll be okay.”

Ellie backed up reluctantly, her eyes darting between the riders, Y/n and Joel.

“You been near any Infected?”

“There’s no Infected out here,” Joel answered the man.

“The hell there ain’t,” the rider replied, whistling immediately after. One of them walked a dog, a German Shepherd, forward. He was barking wildly. “Last chance for a bullet. If you’ve been infected, he will smell it, and he will rip you up.”

Y/n and Joel’s blood ran cold.

The dog came forward, sniffing from Joel’s boots up to his torso, and deeming him safe. He went through the same motions with Y/n before walking back to its keeper. Joel and Y/n felt the same hesitant relief, could they really make it out of this?

“Like I said,” Joel said, “We’ll just move on.”

But life wasn’t that merciful to them. “Now her,” the rider nodded back to Ellie.

Y/n turned to face the girl, Ellie’s eyes widened with childlike fear. There was nothing Y/n could do to help. The second she raised her pistol, she’d be dead. They’d know they were hiding something and they’d shoot Ellie too. But if she stayed perfectly still, resting all of her hope on a blind theory, maybe…just maybe…

Joel wasn’t thinking hardly as rationally as his ex. His ears began to ring, his heart began to race, all his senses blinding him with terror as the dog approached. He was helpless again, his hands tied behind his back as he watched someone he cared about die a slow, meaningless de-

Ellie giggled.

Y/n huffed a sigh of relief at the sound, her and Joel turning to see the dog licking Ellie’s face. She fell back onto the snow, laughing and scratching the animal’s neck. When she smiled up at them, Joel and Y/n felt the oxygen return to their lungs.

The rider whistled for the dog to return, “You just bought yourself ten more seconds. What are you doin’ out here?”

It took Joel a few of those seconds to come back to his surroundings, “We’re just lookin’ for my brother. That’s all, nothin’ more.”

“Ho!”

The rider to the left of the one threatening them nudged her horse forward, stopping a few feet closer to Joel and Y/n. “What’re your names?”

“Joel,” he answered.

“Y/n.”

The woman looked them over, her bandana covering all but her eyes. “I can take you to your brother,” she finally said.

Joel’s lips parted in shock, instantly tilting his head to gaze over at Y/n, who wore the same surprise. Tommy was alive.

The woman called back to one of the riders, ordering them to go retrieve the two extra horses they’d left to graze. They were brought back, saddled and all, and Joel, Y/n and Ellie were directed to get on them.

Y/n jumped on one first, her and Joel both helping Ellie onto the rear of the saddle.

“You hold on and you don’t let go, alright?” Y/n said, wrapping the reins of the bridle around her fist. It had been a long time since she’d ridden.

“Mm-hmm,” Ellie hummed, locking her arms around Y/n’s middle.

Joel promptly mounted his own horse, nudging his them closer to ride alongside Y/n and Ellie.

“Let’s move out,” the woman called to the group.

They rode about fifteen minutes, galloping further west. In the distance, a building could barely be made out. The closer they got, the more Y/n and Joel could tell it was a fort. The party slowed as they approached the gate, two riders getting off their horses to help open it up. Joel and Y/n followed without question, despite having a dozen.

Y/n’s breath caught at the sight inside the walls.

It was a town. A proper fucking town.

Unlike the QZ, the place they were looked whole, kept up. The buildings weren’t crumbling, they stood firmly planted in the ground. All around them, people were strolling, not running. Children were screaming in play, not in fear. There were even snowmen lining the outside of one of the storefronts.

Y/n wanted to look back at Joel, to make sure he was seeing it too. She instead kept her eyes forward, scanning over her surroundings in awe.

Joel was entirely confused, but otherwise occupied by checking each and every face they passed to see if it was Tommy. Eventually, the sounds of construction instinctively brought his attention to the side of a building where two men were hard at work. The second silhouette, a tall, thin, dark haired man, didn’t require an extra second of examination. Joel knew it was his brother.

“Tommy,” he shouted.

Y/n followed Joel’s line of vision and let out a hushed gasp.

Tommy looked up from his work, scanning the group for the familiar voice. His eyes fell on his brother, shock freezing him for a few seconds before he began to climb down the scaling.

Joel slid off his horse, his steps quickening as relief flooded his body. Tommy strode towards him, the two of them meeting in a solid, long overdue, embrace.

Tommy laughed into Joel’s shoulder before pulling back to get a good look at him, “What the fuck you doin’ here?”

Joel took a breath, taking in their surroundings, “I came here to save you.”

Tommy’s brows furrowed while Joel exploded into a fit of laughter, the two of them pulling each other back in.

Y/n wound her leg over her horse, dropping to the ground and handing Ellie the reins. She kept her distance as she watched the brothers reunite, a sharp pain running through her chest she hadn’t felt in two decades. But when Tommy opened his eyes, gazing over Joel’s shoulder, he straightened up.

Tommy looked between his brother and Y/n, dumbfounded by the sight of them in the same vicinity. He broke away from Joel, walking the distance before matching Y/n’s quickened jog, and lifted the woman into his arms.

As soon as Tommy embraced her, Y/n’s long-held tears began to fall.

“What the hell?” Tommy asked, his mouth muffled against Y/n’s coat.

Y/n was too overwhelmed to explain anything.

“I tried,” Tommy rushed out, having held onto those two words for twenty years, “I tried to find you, I couldn’t.”

“I know,” Y/n sniffled, “I know.”

Cleared of any wrongdoing in her eyes, Tommy held Y/n a little tighter and pulled her off her feet. She laughed as she cried, digging her face into the denim of Tommy’s jacket.

If Joel had thought he could handle the reunion, he’d been wrong. The sight of his brother and his ex, so thrilled to be in each other’s presence again, split him. It was the first time in three months he’d seen Y/n genuinely happy, so full of joy she was brought to tears.

Joel could feel his own eyes growing wet.

Tommy set Y/n back on the ground, keeping an arm around her shoulders and looking to Joel. When Y/n and Joel’s gazes met, there was no trying to hide any of what they were feeling. It was a heavy moment, but a joyous one, and they had to sit with it.

“Y’all must be starving,” Tommy said, “Let’s head to the mess hall, give us some time to talk.”

The rest of the riders trailed off, leaving Joel, Y/n, Ellie, Tommy and the dark skinned woman who had led brought them there. Y/n and Joel remained on foot with Tommy, though Y/n kept a hand on Ellie’s reins all the way to the mess hall.

Inside, the woman Tommy introduced as Maria, made special effort to get Joel, Ellie and Y/n hot plates of food. Weeks of mostly rabbit had them shoveling their meals into their mouths, none of them even asked what they’d been served.

“There’s more if you need it,” Maria offered, her and Tommy sitting across from the threesome.

Joel looked up from his plate, “Thank you, ma’am. It’s been a while since we’ve had a proper meal.”

“Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever had a proper meal,” Ellie interjected in between bites, “This is fuckin’ amazing.”

Y/n took her eyes off her plate to shoot Ellie a raised eyebrow.

Joel’s southern upbringing turned him white with shock, he quickly looked up to Maria. “Sorry. Ellie, let’s mind our manners.”

Tommy smiled at his brother, it all sounded very familiar…

Ellie looked across the room, spotting a girl watching her from behind a wooden beam. She glared back at her curious stare, “What?”

Y/n pressed a finger to her temple, “Ellie…”

“What’s wrong with you?” Joel asked.

“What about her manners?” Ellie replied.

“She was just curious,” Maria cut in, “Kids around here don’t usually look or talk like you.”

“Right…” Ellie was unimpressed, “Well…maybe I’ll teach them. And I want my gun back.”

“They also aren’t armed,” Marie replied, the group had been forced to check their guns at the front door.

“You know what?” Tommy jumped in, “Uh, I think maybe y’all got a little off on the wrong foot.”

Ellie gestured to the woman, “She was gonna have her guys kill us.”

“Well, we gotta be real careful about who we let into this place,” Tommy explained, “But it’s all bark. We’re just tryna scare off those who might wanna try us is all.”

“Well,” Ellie returned to her plate, “You’ve got a couple of 90-year olds shitting themselves out there.”

Joel and Y/n’s heads turned at the same time, “Ellie.”

“They say that you leave dead bodies laying around?” Ellie continued her tirade.

“Those are the people that tried us,” Maria said.

“A bad reputation doesn’t mean you’re bad,” Tommy stated.

“Not always at least,” Maria added, staring right at Joel.

The tension at the table was palpable, Joel, Y/n and Ellie all wating for Maria’s glare to soften. That wasn’t going to happen.

“Ma’am,” Joel’s voice firmed up, while still retaining its southern pleasantness, “We’re grateful for your hospitality and all,” he looked expectantly to Tommy, “But it’d be nice to have a moment here, maybe just for family.”

Family, and whatever Y/n and Ellie were.

Tommy was half holding his breath as he leaned forward, “Well, um,” he took his wife’s hand, “Maria is family, actually.”

Y/n nearly had the wind knocked out of her, thankful she didn’t have a piece of food in her mouth.

“Oh, shit!” Ellie put together the pieces, “Congrats.”

Joel couldn’t take his eyes off of their clasped palms, painfully transfixed by the bands around their fourth fingers.

“Yeah,” Y/n added, quickly trying to adjust to the idea of Tommy as a husband, “Congratulations.”

“Joel,” Ellie lowered her voice, “Say congrats.”

It was going to take a hell of a lot more time for Joel to absorb the news. “Congrats,” he attempted.

It wasn’t that it was awkward, it was that the ever present dagger in Joel’s heart suddenly twisted.

“Well, how ‘bout a tour?” Tommy suggested, eager to exchange the tension for some fresh air.

“Great idea,” Y/n replied, wiping her mouth off and rising before anyone else. There was a pit of anxiety slowly and steadily building in her stomach and she needed to walk it off.

They were quick to find out that the heart of the town looked even nicer than the edge.

“We settled here about seven years ago,” Maria told the group, “Just a handful of us back then,” she pointed down the middle of the town, “That section was already a gated community, so we built the rest of the wall out from there. Stopped most of the raiding parties, but we still find pockets of them.”

Joel, Y/n and Ellie stayed in a horizontal line behind Maria and Tommy, the foreign environment causing them to want to stick closer together. Unwittingly, Ellie was once again being made the barrier between Joel and Y/n.

“And you said Infected?” Joel asked.

“Yeah, but usually smaller colonies,” Tommy answered, “Wandered off from the cities. All this open country out here…” he looked back to his brother, “It’s a turkey shoot. I still got my 700, but I found a variable power scope. Sub-MOA. Can headshot those fuckers from a half-mile out.”

Ellie’s ears perked up, “Can you teach me how?”

“No, he can’t,” Joel was quick to shoot down the idea.

“How do you keep off the radar?” Y/n asked, “I mean, using all these resources, how has FEDRA not tracked you guys down?”

“Carefully,” Maria answered, “Being in the middle of nowhere helps. Not advertising what we have, staying off the radio.”

Tommy snuck a look to Joel, who had come up alongside him. There was the answer he’d been waiting three months for.

“House of worship,” Maria continued to talk through the buildings, “Multifaith. School. Laundry. Old bank works as the jail, not that we’ve needed it.”

Joel’s eyes drew upwards to the electrical lines, “And you draw power from the dam?”

“Got that workin’ a couple years ago,” Maria answered, “After that, sewage, plumbing, water heaters…lights.”

“This place actually fuckin’ works,” Ellie remarked as she walked, leaving Joel and Y/n behind.

If Y/n thought she’d gotten a taste of normality back at Bill and Frank’s house, this felt like some sort of starvation induced hallucination. Except there was food in her belly and ice cold air in her lungs, it was all real.

Tommy and Maria led them towards the agricultural section of town, rows of greenhouses and animal pens lining their way.

“Hey, Joel, look,” Ellie pointed to the heard of sheep ahead of them, “Baaah,” she laughed before turning to Maria, “So are you, like, in charge?”

“No one person’s in charge,” Maria responded, “I’m on the council, democratically elected, serving 300 people, including children. Everyone pitches in. We rotate patrols, food prep, repairs, hunting, harvesting.”

“Everything you see in our town,” Tommy gestured around them, “Greenhouses, livestock, all shared. Collective ownership.”

”So, uh,” Joel figured, “Communism.”

Tommy was quick to scoff, “Nah. Nah, it ain’t like that.”

“It is that, literally,” Maria turned to her husband, “This is a commune. We’re communists.”

Tommy stopped short as the realization hit him, Joel and Y/n trailing behind purely to watch his full reaction.

“Easy there, soldier,” Y/n smirked, patting him on the shoulder while Joel matched her expression.

Rejoining Maria and Ellie, where Ellie was petting one of the horses poking their heads out of the stables, Maria changed subjects.

“Well, I’m sure they’d like a shower, some new clothes,” she addressed Tommy, “We can put them in the empty house across the street from us.”

“Yeah,” Tommy nodded, looking to Joel and Y/n, “It’s a decent place. Pretty much untouched since ‘03, but it’s the heat goin’ in it. Could do worse.”

“Oh, trust me,” Ellie spoke up, “We have been.”

“We’ve been doin’ fine,” Joel defended them, nervously rubbing his hands together. He needed to talk to his brother, just them.

Y/n was absentmindedly tapping her foot, matching Joel’s energy. The town itself was lovely, and Joel was bearable, but there was something about the combination of the two that was making her feel uneasy.

“Well,” Maria picked up on the mood, “I’ll take Ellie over there if you three wanna catch up?”

“Uh,” Y/n raised her hand quickly, “I’d actually love to join you.”

Tommy started to speak up, he was more than curious as to how Y/n and Joel had reunited. One look at the readiness in Joel’s eyes to be without her ceased his tongue from moving.

Ellie, however, had started to require both Joel and Y/n’s presence with her. Without one, she was restless. “Joel…”

“You’ll be fine,” Joel reassured her as he and Tommy walked off. He managed not to seek out Y/n’s eyes, it felt like the first time in days he’d had any control.

Y/n expected that parting from Joel would give her instant relief, but even when Maria led her and Ellie to their lodging, it didn’t come. In fact, the more distance they put between each other, the deeper Y/n could feel the anxiety within her. She was miserable with him and unsettled without him.

The house Maria assigned them was lovely, modest yet welcoming. Y/n nearly felt her heart break walking in, feeling the warmth of the air flood her body. It was like stepping back in time, a piece of seemingly meaningless history preserved perfectly.

“I’ll leave some clothes on the bed for you,” Maria told Ellie, pointing up the stairs, “First door on the left. There should be a towel and soap already there.”

Ellie looked expectantly to Y/n.

“I’ve got a few things to grab over at my place,” Maria said, “Maybe Y/n could help me?”

“Go,” Y/n nodded to the girl, “I’ll be back.”

Ellie filed upstairs, leaving Y/n and Maria to themselves. Maria made sure to lock the door on her way out, handing Y/n the key after.

“There’s only one, so don’t lose it,” she noted, leading Y/n across the street to her and Tommy’s house. The house felt much the same as the other one did, a few differences in designs, but nothing spectacular.

Maria began to rifle through a closet near the downstairs bathroom while Y/n meandered through the living room.

“Y’know, Tommy told me about you,” Maria called from across the room, “I’ve only heard your name once or twice. Every other time, he just referred to you as Rosebud.”

The nickname sent a sickening pain through Y/n’s stomach. “Oh, yeah,” she tried to play it off nonchalantly, “He gave me that nickname the night I met him and…”

“Joel?” Maria finished, popping her head out to try and get a read on Y/n’s reaction. She had a lot of feelings regarding her husband’s brother.

All Y/n felt capable of doing was nodding, blindly feeling around for the chair closest to her. She wandered the room, her eyes drifting to the fireplace before scanning her way up and-

Her heart stopped.

Sat on the mantle was a chalkboard, two names and two dates written across it.

Kevin - 4/3/00 - 9/29/03

Sarah - 7/20/89 - 9/27/03

Negative emotions always tended to stay right below the surface, regardless of the cliches about burying them. They were easily accessible under the right conditions, and if the wound was deep enough, it didn’t take much to trigger them. Y/n was already on the edge, teetering between holding onto the last bit of anger that had fueled her the past twenty years and collapsing under the weight of her grief.

Sarah’s name decided her fate.

And she crumbled.

—————————

“Those things I did, Tommy, those things you judge me for…I did those things to keep us alive.”

“We did those things,” Tommy pushed back, “And they weren’t “things’,” we murdered people. And I don’t judge you for it, we survived the only way we knew how…but there were other ways. We just weren’t any good at ‘em,” he paused, preparing himself for Joel’s reaction, “But I do judge you for what you did to Y/n.”

Joel sighed, he couldn’t take it. He physically could not handle discussing that day with Tommy.

“Joel, you l-“

“I know what I did,” Joel’s voice rose, he held up a hand more to calm himself than anything else.

“And now, twenty years later, here she is,” Tommy gestured to the door as if Y/n was right outside, “Do you even know where she’s been? What she’s been through? ‘Cause I don’t! And I’d have liked to know.”

Joel’s anxiety was beginning to bubble in his stomach, the vines climbing up his throat, ready to choke the life out of him.

“Have the two of you even talked about it?” Tommy asked calmly, his own emotions on the verge of showing.

Joel gripped the bar counter so hard, he thought he might snap the wood. He rolled the cold glass in his palm, trying to hold onto anything he could, as if it could save him from being sucked back into the vortex that was the past…

—————————

September 28th, 2003. Austin, Texas.

Cordyceps.

It was the only word people were capable of saying.

Cordyceps.

One little strand of fungi had taken out the entire world.

Joel, Y/n and Tommy ended up quarantined at a triage clinic. It was deemed one of the only “safe zones” for non-infected citizens. Dozens and dozens of people, crammed into a tiny building, practically sleeping on one another.

Joel had yet to string more than two words together since Sarah’s death. He was nearly unreachable. It was tragic enough for a parent to lose a child, it was another thing to cradle your daughter as she bleeds out in your arms.

Y/n felt like she was moving through cement, unable to fully comprehend what was going on around them. Her grief was overwhelming her, leaving her no more than twenty minute interludes between fits of wailing. But with Joel completely decommissioned, she was forced to rise to the occasion and take charge of their situation.

She returned from another attempt to reach her parent’s house, her cell phone getting no reception. She’d also tried the pay phone and Joel and Tommy’s phones. Nothing.

Y/n settled beside Joel in their corner of their hallway, it was nearly empty on account of it being the middle of the day. Most people took their walks around then. Tommy had volunteered to go out on patrol with a couple other veterans that were there.

“I still can’t get through,” Y/n started, hugging her knees to her chest, “Tried my parents, Annie, Jason…” she thought of her siblings, “Nothing.”

Joel didn’t even acknowledge her presence, he just kept staring down the hall.

“I have to get up there, Joel,” Y/n finally said, the thought had been keeping her awake all night, “I have to find them, make sure they’re okay.”

Many people assume that grief is but one emotion; sorrow. A deep sea of pain that you are thrown into without a floatiation device. But those who have never experienced it know not of the vastness of grief. There is anger, there is frustration, there is betrayal, there is jealousy…all of which can change you into an entirely different person.

And Joel was slipping away by the second.

“Joel, I have to go,” Y/n spelled it out in simpler terms for him.

Nothing.

“And I can’t go alone…” Y/n continued, worried that he had completely shut down. She rolled onto her knees, taking one of Joel’s cheek into her palm, “Joel, I need you.”

Joel stared forward, motionless.

Y/n was flying blind, unsure of how much was too much talking or how little she was supposed to be acknowledging Sarah’s death. But the world was, quite literally, falling apart. She couldn’t navigate the wreckage on her own.

“Joel,” she whispered, “I know it hurts-“

“Don’t,” Joel turned to her, the speed of it causing Y/n to pull her hand back, “Don’t.”

Y/n’s eyebrows came down in confusion, “Don’t what?”

“Don’t you act like you know what I’m feelin’,” he snapped, tears filling his eyes.

Of all the reactions, Y/n couldn’t have ever predicted this one.

“Joel, I was there too,” she replied, keeping her tone gentle, “I was-“

Joel pointed his finger at Y/n, their faces inches apart. “I’m her father,” he gritted through his teeth, “You were a bystander. They are not the same.”

Y/n inched back, bracing her body with her hands. He’d never so much as raised his voice at her.

As much as she wanted to let him grieve, she couldn’t let him descend into hostility. She wasn’t sure if her tactic would hurt him further or allow him to see the truth, but she couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“Joel…” she began, he was back staring numbly at the wall again. Y/n drew a shaky breath, the memory was so fresh in her mind, she could still hear Sarah’s voice. “She called me mom.”

If there was one thing about Joel’s reaction to his daughter’s death, it was the sheer delirium it threw his brain into. Much like Cordyceps, it was ripping through every cell of his body, changing the fundamentals of every inch. Whatever reaction he may have had to the news of Sarah’s decision had been poisoned by what he was allowing her loss to do to him.

He locked his hands together, gripping them so hard his knuckles turned white. Shutting his eyes, he let his head drop between his arms and took a shallow breath. “No, she didn’t.”

Y/n was afraid his mind was slipping away from her. “Joel, she did,” she continued, trying to push past the lump in her throat, “I went upstairs to bed a-and she called out for me.”

“She didn’t,” Joel repeated, his hands practically shaking with rage.

“Joel,” Y/n began, reaching up to touch his arm.

“NO!”

Joel jumped to his feet, his shout echoing in the empty room. He’d scared Y/n enough for her to fall back against the wall.

“She didn’t fuckin’ say it,” Joel aimed his finger at his girlfriend again, “You weren’t her damn mother.”

Y/n stared up at him with tears in her eyes.

“Doesn’t matter if you wanted to be,” Joel kept going, “Doesn’t matter if you tried. You weren’t. You were some fuckin’ woman livin’ in her house.”

Y/n got to her feet, trying ever so hard to be patient with Joel’s grief. But she wasn’t going to allow him to take her last normal moment she’d had with Sarah away from her.

“You weren’t there,” she argued back, “It happened, whether or not you want to believe it,” Y/n pointed a finger at her own chest, “She chose me.”

“You’re fuckin’ lyin’,” Joel growled, spinning away from Y/n and putting his hands to his hips. He couldn’t look at her.

Y/n was entirely lost, praying that Tommy returned soon. She couldn’t manage Joel in this state on her own.

Joel couldn’t see straight, let alone think straight. Only one thing seemed to ring true in his mind; Y/n was lying. She was a liar. She was lying about his dead daughter. What kind of monster would lie about a dead child?

Like a snowball rolling down a mountain, Joel’s delirious realization began to make sense, leaving him with only one course of action.

“I’m done.”

Y/n could barely register the sudden shift, from anger to calm. “What?”

Joel turned back to her, sweeping his hand through the air, “I’m done. We’re done.”

The air thickened suddenly, the stakes of his statement as important as the next breath Y/n drew.

“Joel-“

“No,” he shook his head quickly, “This is over. I’m not gonna stay with you when you’re lyin’ about my child-“

Y/n took an urgent step forward, reaching out for his arm, “Joel-“

“You don’t get to try and make yourself feel better about her now that she’s g-“ Joel choked on the word, flipping back to grief for a mere second, “Oh, God…”

Y/n was on the verge of panic, he was completely out of his mind. “Joel,” she urged, “Don’t do this. Take a breath and-“

Just like that, he was engorged in rage again. “Don’t. Don’t fuckin’ touch me, don’t even fuckin’ look at me.”

“Joel,” Y/n cried, her tears streaming down her face, “I love you. I’m here and I love you.”

Through the haze of insanity, Joel could feel her words. They wrapped around him, cradling him close to the warmth of her chest. He could almost feel something again, something pure and safe…it nearly pulled him back to shore.

Nearly.

Joel crossed the space between them, lowering his voice to a growl, “Well, I don’t love you.”

If there was an exact moment to point to as to when Y/n’s heart shattered, it was then. The force of Sarah’s death weighed so heavily on her chest, she was convinced she was in the midst of a heart attack. But when two tragedies occurred, so close together, it was always the second one that broke a person beyond repair. The second is unexpected, pushing you into a new level of grief you didn’t think you could feel. That was the one that could drive you to madness.

Snot and tears mixing across her lips, Y/n shook her head. “You don’t mean that,” she mumbled.

“I do,” Joel replied, his voice so full of confidence, “You’re a fuckin’ liar.”

Y/n felt like she was drowning, kicking and flailing under the waters, trying to find some way to make Joel believe her. To pull him out of his delusions.

The two lovers stood in the hall of the clinic, squaring off in a battle neither one of them knew how to fight. Their heartbreak was manifesting in completely opposite ways.

Scanning her face once more, to remember in the years to come, Joel turned on his heel and walked away from Y/n.

“W-wait,” she trembled, quickly following after him, “Where are you going?”

“To find Tommy,” Joel said, his fists curled at his sides as he marched through the clinic.

“Joel, stop,” Y/n begged, trying to keep up with his pace, “Joel!”

Joel made his way outside, where the clinic was still accepting injured civilians. All around them was tragedy, while one was unfolding between them.

“Joel,” Y/n called again, six feet behind him, the grief in her bones slowing her down, “Joel, you can’t go out there. Tommy said-“

“Don’t tell me what my own brother said,” Joel practically shouted, refusing to look back at her. He needed a quick escape.

Scanning the makeshift parking lot around them, he spotted an F1-50. He stalked towards it as if it were prey.

“Joel,” Y/n called in between her sobs, she was more terrified for him than anything else.

Once he got to the truck’s door, Joel slammed his fist without hesitation through the glass window.

“Joel!” Y/n cried, watching the blood begin to trickle down his knuckles.

Joel reached through the shattered window, felt around for the lock/unlock button on the door and clicked it. He threw the door open and got inside, the glass on the seat cutting through his jeans and into his thighs.

Y/n surged forward, Joel’s absolute insanity was becoming real. He was actually leaving her. She took hold of the door handle, “Joel, don’t. Don’t,” she hyperventilated, “I can’t do this without you. I can’t. I can’t.”

Her pleas began to crack the ice around his heart, just enough for him to allow another gust of icy wind through his chest. He became indifferent to her cries.

Joel slammed the door shut, the force of it pulling Y/n forward.

“Joel, don’t do this,” she sobbed, clinging to the side of the truck, “I love you. I love you. We can get through this. We can get through this.”

Joel felt around for the keys, finding them conveniently left in the ignition. He switched the truck on.

Y/n’s chest heaved, her window for reasoning with him closing. “No, Joel. Don’t do this! I love you, please, don’t do this.”

Joel’s body trembled, some sane part of him knowing that was he was doing was inhumane. But grief’s noose tightened around his throat, reminding him that the sicker state of mind was where he belonged now. His heart was nothing more than a liability now.

He pressed down on the gas pedal.

“No,” Y/n yelled as the truck shifted, she was practically tripping in the dirt trying to move with it, “Joel, don’t! Don’t do this to me! Please! Don’t do this to me!”

Joel ignored her cries, turning the truck towards the open road.

“Don’t do this,” Y/n shouted, her voice straining and fluctuating with her tears. If he didn’t stop soon, she wouldn’t be able to keep up with the truck. “Joel!”

The final cry did it, Joel couldn’t handle any more. He pressed down further on the pedal, jolting the truck forward.

Y/n was able to catch one last look at him, a final glimpse at the man she loved with her whole heart, leaving her as if she was nothing more than a dead body already. When her hand slipped from the truck, Joel having sped up to escape her, she knew he was forever lost to her.

She stopped running, screaming into the cloud of dirt he’d left, “JOEL!”

Y/n watched him steer the truck out of the clinic’s lot, pulling onto the dirt alongside the road and driving off. Her wet eyes followed the blur until it was completley out of sight.

That was when she fell apart.

She dropped to the ground, screeching like a wounded animal, clutching the ground underneath her fingers. She screamed loud enough for a clinic staff member to rush out, reaching out to help her. Y/n wrenched out of their loving grip, shrieking for them not to touch her. She didn’t want their oxygen masks, their sedatives or their counseling.

Sarah was gone. Joel had abandoned her. If this was death coming to collect her, she would go willingly into its embrace.

—————————

December 2023. Jackson, Wyoming.

Y/n dropped to her knees in the middle of Maria and Tommy’s living room, clutching her stomach.

“I think I found everything,” Maria announced, walking out from the closet and spotting Y/n. She rushed across the room, kneeling down beside her.

Silent sobs turned to violent ones, shaking Y/n’s body with a force she hadn’t felt in twenty years. Unlike that fateful day, Y/n allowed Maria’s caring arms to wrap around her as she wept.

“I’m sorry,” the kind woman said, pressing close to Y/n’s ear.

There was nothing anyone could say to put any of the pieces back together. Every part of Y/n’s grief over Sarah’s death, Joel’s abandonment, the choices she’d had to make after she was left on her own…it was all coming to the surface after three months of repression. The physicality of her sobs exhausted her less than the act of holding herself together in front of Ellie and Joel.

Five minutes or a half hour, Y/n wasn’t sure how long she spent on the floor, Maria cradling her as if she were a child. At some point, the tears stopped and she was once again aware of her surroundings.

“Tommy told me all about you,” Maria said, still holding Y/n, “About your family. How good you were with Sarah.”

Y/n sniffled, fighting the urge to gaze back up at the girl’s chalk-written name. It would only send her back into tears.

“It doesn’t matter what happened between you and Joel,” Maria continued, clearly she knew a lot more than perhaps she should have, “You helped raise that girl. Far as I’m concerned, you should feel a mother’s grief.”

A mumbled cry bubbled from Y/n’s lips. Every day she felt the loss of Sarah like that of a lost limb, the phantom pain constantly pulling at her body.

—————————

“I’m gonna be a father.”

Tommy’s words paralyzed Joel, he physically lost the sensation of his heartbeat, his breath…it all stopped, allowing grief and bitterness to fill the hollowness within him.

“To be honest, I’m scared to death,” Tommy lifted his glass to his lips, “But I don’t know, uh…” he smiled, “I feel like I’d be a good dad.”

Joel wanted to scream, he wanted to punch a hole through the fucking wall to counter the pain of the universe’s cruel slap.

“Guess we’ll find out,” he replied, reaching for the bottle of whiskey and refilling his glass.

“‘I guess we’ll find out?’” Tommy repeated, practically indignant as he looked to his big brother, “That’s all you got?”

Joel settled against the bar, keeping a firm stare on Tommy, “What else am I supposed to say?”

Tommy got to his feet, exhausted by bearing the brunt of Joel’s grief. “Just because life stopped for you,” he said, “Doesn’t mean it has to stop for me.”

Much like after losing Sarah, Joel was acting purely on emotion. The world had ripped away everything from him, and here Tommy was, with everything he’d almost had.

“We’ll grab some supplies and be out of your hair in the mornin’,” Joel bit out, turning from his brother and grabbing his jacket. He burst outside into the cold air.

—————————

“I, uh,” Y/n sniffled, trying to collect herself, “I should get back to Ellie.”

“Don’t worry,” Maria said softly, “I’ll take care of her. You take a moment to yourself.”

Y/n practically scoffed at the idea, she hadn’t had a second to herself in three months. But the tension within her was so great, she didn’t have the will to fight Maria on the offer.

“Thank you,” she laid a hand on Maria’s arm, letting the woman help her to her feet.

Y/n stumbled out into the cold, trying to absorb the sound of the children’s playful screams, the crunch of the snow under her boots, the feel of her breath slamming back into her face each time she exhaled…she’d had anxiety attacks before. Taking stock of your surroundings was supposed to help.

Except she was too far gone for coping strategies, she needed alcohol and she needed someone to talk to. Someone who understood.

On their way in, Maria had led them past a bar, and Y/n felt like a bloodhound, tracing her way back through the crowds to find it. The world may have changed, but she knew she’d find exactly who she needed at the counter with a thing of whiskey in his hand…

—————————

Joel stumbled out into the snow, leaning up against a metal lightpost. His breath was catching, his heart pounding out of his chest, the tinnitus flooding his ears once again…

Once upon a time, Tommy’s life had been his. He’d had his daughter, so bright and beautiful. A home that they’d made their own, despite the wounds that had led them there. And Y/n, his Y/n, the missing piece of his and Sarah’s life, a ring nearly on her finger…

And as much as he wanted to blame Cordyceps for losing all of it, he was hardly faultless.

He’d had twenty years of guilt soaked isolation, trying to convince himself that what his grief riddled self had thought was truth. Y/n had to have lied for him to continue on with life, because he couldn’t face the alternate. He couldn’t believe that he had abandoned her for no good reason…

It was a conclusion he’d come to weeks ago, the more time he spent with her reminding her of who she really was.

Across the way, there were families gathered around the Christmas tree. Joel’s eyes mindlessly drifted over them, catching on one woman’s silhouette. Her head of curls, the weightlessness of her voice…in his panicked state, it was Sarah.

He took clunky steps forward, chasing the illusion that his daughter was standing in front of him. He wanted, needed to believe it to be true. There had been some terrible mistake, they’d abandoned her body too soon and by the grace of God, she was-

A small child ran up to the woman, revealing her true face.

Joel stopped, his heartbreak pulling him back to reality. This was how far his mind could take him under the worst circumstances. He was convincing himself that his daughter was still alive and twenty years prior, he’d convinced himself that the love of his life was a liar.

It was grief that stood every chance at breaking him.

—————————

Y/n crossed through the middle of town, spotting the Christmas tree and the surrounding crowd singing and chattering around it. She couldn’t handle the sight, ducking into the bar as quick as she could.

Tommy turned around, glaring at the door, ready to rip into Joel further. “Oh,” he muttered, putting away his anger at the sight of Y/n, “Thought you were Joel.”

“I’m thankful you’re not,” Y/n remarked, walking to the counter and spotting the open whiskey bottle. He was everywhere she looked.

She reached over the counter and grabbed a glass, filling it a little over halfway, “You two not getting along?”

Tommy sighed, rolling his glass in his palm. “Complicated,” he answered, “But I’m preachin’ to the choir, aren’t I?”

Y/n bristled, lifting the glass to her lips and letting the burn of her throat force her into feeling something.

“Maria’s pregnant,” Tommy blurted out.

Y/n’s arm fell to the bar, the glass hitting it hard. To say she was shocked would have been a gross understatement.

Tommy smiled up at her, “That so hard to believe?”

“Well, you gotta cut me a little slack here,” Y/n replied, dazed, “The last time I knew you, there was a new girl every week. I was kinda half-convinced you already had a kid.”

Tommy chuckled, he’d missed her so much. He considered Y/n another loss from Cordyceps, though it chose his brother’s grief as its medium.

“I…” Y/n pulled out the barstool next to him and sat down, her mouth still agape, “How do you feel about it?”

“Good,” he nodded, “I think. Maria’s already been a mom before, but…I really do think I could be a good dad.”

Y/n rested her hand on Tommy’s wrist, drawing his eyes to her. “You’ll make a great dad,” she said, proud and with a smile. It was the first good look at him she’d gotten. Though he sported a few more wrinkles and scars, a mustache now hanging over his upper lip, his eyes still held the same sparkle.

Tommy beamed back at her, laying his hand over hers. The warmth shared between siblings still flowed between them.

“So that’s why…” Y/n glanced at the door, absentmindedly pointing outside.

“Yep,” Tommy turned back to his whiskey.

“Oh,” Y/n murmured, so caught up in the beauty of the news that she hadn’t thought about how Joel might have reacted.

“Can I ask you somethin’?” Tommy asked.

Y/n shook her head with a small smirk, “C’mon, it’s been twenty years but you don’t have to be formal.”

It wasn’t formality, it was handling gasoline near a wildfire.

“How the hell are you two doin’ this?” Tommy asked, setting down his glass to give the topic his full attention.

In her anxious state, Y/n hadn’t stopped to think that Tommy would bring up the very thing she was running from.

“There were…” Y/n cleared her throat, “A lot of threats the first few days. Lots of hate. Mostly from me. But we had to…come to some sort of truce if we were going to get through this.”

“Joel told me you’re with the kid,” Tommy cut in, “She’s not yours?”

Y/n snorted, “No. But she’s…” she paused, unprepared to unpack what Ellie meant to her, “She wasn’t going with Joel unless I came with. So really, she’s to blame for all this.”

Tommy chuckled, taking a quick sip before repeating the same question he’d asked Joel, “You two talked about what happened yet?”

Y/n shrugged, feeling the weight of twenty years in her shoulders, “What’s there to talk about?”

“I think there’s everything to fuckin’ talk about,” Tommy replied.

The seat was suddenly digging into her thighs and there were electric currents in her legs. Y/n slid off the barstool, trying to take slow steps around the bar counter to deescalate her body’s nervous energy.

“How long did it take him to tell you what happened?” Y/n asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

“Ah, the full story?” Tommy said, shaking his head slightly, “All I heard when I got back from patrol was you two had broken up. I finally got it all pieced together after about two years. Gave him hell for it too.”

Y/n’s smile was filled with frustration, she threw back the last of her whiskey.

“I looked for you,” Tommy said, reiterating what he’d said at the gate, “I mean, I combed every fuckin’ inch of that place tryin’ to find you. I wasn’t gonna leave you.”

“I know,” Y/n replied, slipping behind the counter to pour herself another glass, “I figured that out at some point. That you wouldn’t have gone along with that…”

Tommy watched Y/n’s face carefully, a new emotion covering the expanse every few seconds.

“You don’t actually believe what he said, do you?”

Y/n poured a shot of a random liquor, “Why shouldn’t I believe him?”

“C’mon,” Tommy turned to her, “He was out of his mind with grief, we all were. He wasn’t thinkin’ straight.”

“I’m sorry,” Y/n raised a hand to her head, “Are you defending him?”

“Hell no,” Tommy gave a firm shake of his head, “I’m tryin’ to make you understand that he lied. He was lying. He didn’t stop lovin’ you, he-“

“Stop,” Y/n forcefully set the bottle down on the counter, some of it spilling out the top, “Stop. I don’t want to hear it.”

Tommy settled down in his seat, unaware he’d lifted off it while talking.

“You have no idea what I went through after he left,” Y/n struggled, her voice threatening to cease up, “What I had to do…” she sniffled, unable to hide the tears, “And then he came back. He fucking came back, and I haven’t been able to escape him for three months.”

Staying silent and still, Tommy allowed her the space to purge everything out of her system.

“And now we’re here,” Y/n gestured around them, her voice growing watery, “And it’s so fucking beautiful, I could cry. Look at me, I am,” she paused, squirming under the pressure of the sob building within her, “And it’s killing me. It’s killing me. To be here, to see you, to see all that…”

Y/n ran a hand through her hair, leaning against the counter. All that they could have had.

“I can’t,” Y/n held up a shaking hand, “I can’t…be near him right now. Because all I see is her, is us…and it’s fucking breaking me.”

Tommy looked down at his glass, wondering whether or not he was about to push too far. “That doesn’t sound like hate to me.”

Y/n’s bottom lip trembled, she knew exactly what it was. And she’d have rather died than admit it.

“Well, it needs to be,” she whispered.

——————

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ohraicodoll · 1 year

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Teeth

Joel Miller x f!Reader (Feral Reader as you’ve all lovingly called her) The Last of Us (show/game) 4.5K Words (3rd POV) Part II to Monsters Summary: “Only Joel could make offering to get her off sound like a business transaction. But the intention was clear. This wasn’t intimacy, wasn’t passion boiling over, wasn’t romance. It was bodies and tactfulness and practicality.“ Warning: 18 + Minors DNI. Smut, pwp, mentions of violence, enemies to fwb, can be read standalone Part I | Part II

The house was too quiet.

So often on the road, they’d taken to sleeping in whatever buildings they could secure, alcoves in the woods, even an old run down vehicle on the side of the road occasionally. But this time they all got their own rooms, beds, to sleep in and instead of being comforting it made her anxious. She was used to the sounds of nature going on at night, the steady breathing of her companions, the slight vibrations of the world around her. There was nothing in the cabin but silence. They’d strategically picked rooms, Ellie taking the master bedroom as that was the farthest away from the entrance with hers and Joel’s closest to the front door. If someone went through the effort of getting through all the defenses and fences and managed to get inside, they’d have to get past their rooms first. Except not even that because she was awake and laying on the floor in the living room. The bed had been too soft, the walls pressing into her too much. Caged. So she had grabbed the blankets and pillows and thrown them on the floor on top of the couch cushions she’d yanked down. All where she could have a good vantage point of the front door, pistol resting beside her head and knife under the pillow. It was better, but still not the same.

All the clothes in the house were too big, no matter how tight she knotted the drawstrings, so she’d forgone pants and had thrown on an oversized shirt while her pants dried in what the previous owners had deemed the “laundry room.” The blankets were warm but a little itchy against her bare skin and she sighed. It was hard to relax, to take advantage of the amenities. The need to constantly be prepared for anything a humming nerve under her skin. She tried to calm herself, to focus, to slow the constant stream of thoughts going over the previous day. Finding the group, the bullet graze on her shoulder, the look of pure uninhibited rage as Joel caved the man’s skull in with his bare fist. And then the feel of that same hand in hers, rough skin against her own, and the warmth of Joel’s thighs against her body. “Except you’re wrong if you don’t think I like seeing you on your knees for me.” She wasn’t an idiot. The man was attractive and had been since the day she met him, no matter how much he set her teeth on edge and made her want to wring his neck. They were the same, hackles raised and maws snapping at every turn. She didn’t feel the need to play nice and hide who she was. He never batted an eye at her lack of hesitation towards violence, never looked at her fearfully or disapprovingly for shooting or stabbing first. She’d been around others before, had seen the way they skittered away in fear as if in a blood haze she’d go after them as well. Joel Miller was a survivor and knew that the world was ugly. And sometimes you had to match that ugliness to see the next day. He would have been the type of man that had intimidated her when she was younger. Too gruff, hardened, assured with his cocky attitude and rare smiles. Nothing like Harry. She’d been bashful before, wanting to break out of her shell but unable to take that leap. Not a leader, not a go-getter. Not quite the best at social interaction, at interacting with men specifically, words never coming easily. She would have blushed from one look from the Texan. The world wasn’t made for blushing anymore though and that was twenty years ago. That girl was dead. She was just wearing her skin. A skinwalker. A monster wearing a human form. The Outbreak had changed them all.

Now it was hard to feel anything. She felt tiny sparks of amusement from Ellie when she tried out new jokes to get a reaction, concern as she took note of the weight that seemed to be on the young girl’s shoulders, affection watching her take in every new surrounding, irritation when Joel bossed them both around. Rage and anger were the easiest to feel, so she took aim at the older man. Like poking a bear if only to feel the exhilaration of being chased. She felt most alive in the middle of a fight and when Joel’s eyes were glaring into her, teeth snapping at her. Staring up at the ceiling, the slight creak of a hinge caught her ear from down the hall followed by almost silent footsteps. Too heavy to be Ellie, too quiet for the girl that blew through life like a tornado. No, she watched and waited as Joel came around the corner, the lantern she had left lit in the corner of the room illuminating the frown tilting his lips down. The sweatpants that hadn’t fit her fit him perfectly, settling loose and comfy on his hips while the faded shirt stretched snuggly across his broad chest. She could see the telltale signs that he’d been running his hands through his head, the slight curls in disarray and silver catching the light. If he had been asleep, she couldn’t tell. Maybe he’d heard her leave her own room. He always did seem to know when she was moving around. “What’re you doin’ out here?” he grumbled quietly, the sound rough and low. The darkness hid his eyes from her but she knew he was probably glaring. Still annoyed over their exchange earlier most likely. She blinked at him then went back to staring at the ceiling, “Bed’s too soft.” My mind won’t shut off, the room is too quiet, the walls are too close, I don’t like sleeping alone anymore. The words were there, buried underneath layers of skin. Joel grunted, scratching at his chin and the patchy beard there before placing his hands on his hips and taking her in. He could tell when she was bullshitting, she knew that, but he wasn’t about to call her out on it. They didn’t do feelings, didn’t confess their fears in the dark. It was practical and that’s how they both liked it. So she reasoned it was in the name of practicality that he sighed and walked over. Because they had shit to get done the next day and he’d gripe at her if she was tired and couldn’t pull her weight. He nudged her side with his foot, the silent command to scoot over, and rather than be a brat and stare him down she did so. The cushions were wide and worn down, big enough for both of them and weren’t entirely uncomfortable. Better than what they were used to sleeping on. Odd sleeping arrangements weren’t new, the three of them pressed tight together like sardines trying to fit in whatever small safe space they could find. So it wasn’t exactly odd for him to be pressed close to her. There’d been many nights she’d fallen asleep to her cheek against his shoulder blades and Ellie wrapped around her back. Maybe he had come out to the living room for the same reasons she had. She wasn’t sure but wasn’t about to ask. Joel placed his own gun on the ground next to his side of the cushions, carefully kneeling down and lifting the blanket up to get underneath. She could feel his pause more than she could see it, could hear the slight curse under his breath, “You wearin’ any pants?” “Does it look like it?” He shook his head, jaw clenching but continued climbing in beside her. The apocalypse did away with a lot of things like modesty and politeness. She didn’t care, had gone and helped him in only a towel earlier because she was already there and wasn’t going to take the time to change just to tend to his hand. Practical. He shifted beside her, getting comfortable under the shared blanket and laying on his side facing away from her where he could still hear from his good side. There was a moment where his arm went under the pillow and he paused, pulling out the blade while giving her a look before moving it beside him. Never surprised, always annoyed. The heat from his body made up for having to share the blanket, warmth radiating from him and seeping into her. She hadn’t moved, eyes still glued to the ceiling though now her concentration was mostly on the slight sound of Joel’s breathing next to her, the way his back muscles shifted against her arms, the anxiety lessening now that she wasn’t alone. “You’re thinking too loud,” his voice growled next to her, bare feet brushing hers as he adjusted. “That’s not a thing,” she replied, very much still awake. Joel sighed and looked at her over his shoulder, “You gonna go to sleep anytime soon or should I go back to my room?” Rolling her eyes, she met his gaze in the dim lantern light, his irises practically black, “You act like I’m not trying to sleep. Brain’s too wired. Feel free to go back if all you’re gonna do is complain, I didn’t ask you to sleep in here.” He huffed, facing away from her and let the silence take back over.

This time the silence felt weighted, a heavy tension as they both acknowledged that neither of them were sleeping. Using his own words, she could hear him thinking loudly and it kicked up her nerves. She was extra aware of his heat, the press of his back against her arm, the slow and steady way his breath filled the air. It made her sensitive, made the world around her seem to vibrate. Joel was the one to break the silence again, the words deep and rough with his accent, “I can help, if you want…Distract you so you get to sleep.” Her heart sped up, the sound like a raging river in her mind. Her skin was tingling. “How so?” she could hear her own voice get huskier as she whispered back, the barest sound slipping out. He turned to look at her again over his shoulder, gaze heated, “You know how.” She did. Had more than once imagined his mouth on her, fingers slick with arousal and touching her- “Didn’t seem that into the idea earlier when you damn near bit my head off,” she scoffed and tried to ignore how every nerve was on fire. How he had been the one to bring it up and what he was offering. Joel didn’t say anything for a long minute, the memory of her on her knees and his fingers digging into his own thigh fresh. It’d been to rile him up, be a dick to him as he was being to her, but it wasn’t exactly not an invitation. She’d fucked worse to alleviate the tension, to say thanks, to satisfy a need. “Then maybe you weren’t listening correctly,” he grunted, “You want help or not? The window’s closing fast.” Only Joel could make offering to get her off sound like a business transaction. But the intention was clear. This wasn’t intimacy, wasn’t passion boiling over, wasn’t romance. It was bodies and tactfulness and practicality. She nodded, eyes on the ceiling. “Gonna need it out loud, darlin’,” he muttered lowly. Darlin. Not Starshine or Red or Hey You. It was a new one. “Okay,” she whispered and chewed on the inside of her cheek. She didn’t look at him, didn’t try and gauge his reaction or the look on his face. As unaffected as she was trying to come across, her heart was in her throat. It’d been a while, a good long while since someone else had touched her and it was Joel of all people breaking that dry spell. He turned over on his other side to face her and she could feel his eyes, the way they burned into her skin, “Turn over.” She didn’t argue, didn’t bristle at being ordered, simply faced away. It was better this way. It was too intimate to let him see her face, to watch his, and that wasn’t what this was. His chest was flush against her back and she could feel his breath against her neck, hands finding her waist as one of his knees pushed between hers. She expected him to be rougher, quicker, more methodical but he was soft and slow, taking his time. His fingers skimmed over her sides and down to her thighs, finding the hem of the worn shirt then the large expanse of bare skin. His palm was rough against the smooth skin and she bit down on her lip at the contrast in texture, finding she liked the feeling. Then the tips of his fingers were playing with the band of her underwear as his nose dragged along her neck, hot breath almost causing her to shiver. He slid his fingers along the thin straps, hand brushing against her heated skin and she could feel the edge of the bandage on the back of it. The bandage covering the split knuckles and sliced skin from him beating a man to death.

That kind of rage wasn’t supposed to be a turn on, but it had been. The old her would have been terrified, traumatized, backing away from him out of fear but not the person she was now. He had her back, had watched out for her and been there in the second she had been blinded by her overwhelming need to protect Ellie.

Joel had her. She pressed herself back into him and could hear his swallowed groan as her ass rubbed against his groin, at his obvious arousal pressing against her. He didn’t speak and neither did she. Only the sounds of their quickening breaths filled the silence of the living room and then a barely audible gasp as his fingers finally slipped underneath the cloth and found her center already hot and wet. He trailed along her slit, gathering the arousal soaking there, and spread it around, encircling her clit. He took his time, going slow, getting to know her and the sounds she desperately tried to keep locked inside her. She’d been quiet back in the day. Never been one for dirty talk or loud moans. Maybe because she’d been bashful and inexperienced and easily embarrassed. Soft, breathless, throaty. Now it was more out of instinct, survival, control. There wasn’t much she could control in the world but herself and any noises she made were for her to decide if she wanted them to be heard. So she swallowed the moan that strained to leave her lips as Joel circled her clit even more urgently, lightning shooting through her. His hand was large, so much bigger than hers. His whole body could probably wrap around her completely, cover her up and shield her from everything around them. Joel was a solid wall behind her and as his finger finally dipped inside, she gripped the pillow tightly in a clawed hand while the other dug into the bicep stretched across her. He curled inside her, thumb pressing down on her clit, and she clenched her teeth against another moan, throwing her head back. Salt and pepper curls tickled her chin and then his mouth was on her neck, hot and wet with teeth and tongue. She could smell him, gunpowder and musk and pine. Distinctly Joel and she bit down on her tongue hard, welcoming the slight tinge of copper in her attempt to keep from drowning in him. Another finger entered her and she almost sobbed at the stretch. The coil inside of her was winding tighter and tighter with each stroke, each slow pump, as he managed to tease a part of her that had her delirious with pleasure. He was methodical, precise, bringing her to the edge then pulling back to bring her back down to the shallows before building her up again. It was the perfect kind of torture that had her pushing into hand, searching for more. Her nails were making indents in his skin from how hard she was digging in, struggling to keep herself in control.

At last a gasp slipped through her lips unbidden. A crack forming. The small sound seemed to almost snap something in Joel. He cursed, pressing his forehead to her shoulder, before yanking her until she was on her back with his hand still down her panties. Before she could question him, his mouth was latched onto her neck and he was pressing deeper into her all the way to his knuckles, no longer going slow, no longer keeping her turned away from him. Their legs were tangled, thigh between his and hips pulled wider, and she could feel the hard length of his own arousal rubbing against her. She didn’t stop to wonder if this was about practicality anymore. If this had been part of the unspoken arrangement. Not when his mouth had inched down the collar of her shirt and he was pressing teeth into the small stars along her collarbone, worshiping the slip of skin. No, her hand reached out and pressed against his sweatpants, feeling him and taking in the way he hissed against her skin and jerked into her hand. Her back arched off the pillows as pleasure grew and their heated pants filled the room. Joel’s beard was scratchy against her skin and she knew there would be red marks all over her neck and across her chest but she didn’t care. His teeth nipped sharp spots of pain into her skin and then he would soothe the spot with his tongue. All while his fingers pumped in and out of her, the slick sound dampened by the underwear he’d shoved aside. Her own hand gripped him through his sweatpants, feeling his weight and length, mouth almost going dry at the size. He didn’t protest, didn’t say anything when she slipped her hand under the band of pants and past his underwear, feeling the hot velvet skin of his erection and passing a thumb over the tip to collect the moisture there. Instead he bit down harder and jutted into her hand, rocking and thrusting faster into her. Fuck, he was big and onehanded she stroked him the best she could, blind in the dark and moving in time with him. She was close, could feel the coil going taut and her breath coming out faster and faster. Her own face pressed into his shoulder, feeling the tight muscles in the arm holding himself over her. He almost seemed to shiver as she dragged her mouth along his skin then bit down, groaning open mouthed onto him as her orgasm crashed hard and unyielding. She didn’t slow down, didn’t release him, even as her body felt loose and HER breath came out in shaky pants. No, she had him and wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to take control over the smuggler. She stroked from tip to base, massaging him and drawing out his grunts with each movement. His fingers pulled out of her and gripped her thigh, smearing her own arousal all over the skin and digging in tight enough to bruise. “Fuck,” Joel hissed into her neck and she let go of the pillow she had been gripping with her free hand, combing through his hair and running nails along his scalp. She wanted to tear him open with her claws, rip away the hardened shell he’d built around himself and climb into him. Force some vulnerability to the surface in the same way he had with her. Revenge maybe, but the word didn’t feel right. He pushed himself up and finally met her gaze, their breath mingling as their eyes found each other in the dark. She wasn’t sure what he was looking for, felt almost more exposed than when his fingers were deep inside her. But she didn’t break her stride, didn’t blink or look away. She met him head on and it reminded her of that first day they had met. Saving Ellie, killing that man with a baseball bat, equal amounts of fury and brokenness meeting the other. A mirror. Joel grit his teeth and she watched the words “fuck it” shape on his lips but never forming sound before his lips were on hers. She hadn’t been expecting it. Kissing was for intimacy and this wasn’t that. But the kiss wasn’t gentle or soft or tentative, instead a clash that shook their bones. He was trying to devour her and she was trying to dominate him, his weight pressing down into her fully. She moaned into his mouth and hooked a leg around his waist, trying to draw him in as close as possible with her hand still tangled in his hair. She couldn’t define his taste. It was…Joel. Earthy and sweet and intoxicating. His tongue discovered every crevice of her mouth, sliding along hers, and she tugged at his hair until a hiss danced along their lips. Kissing Joel Miller was dangerous in its addiction. Her lungs burned and she thought she could taste copper, blood, but she couldn’t get enough, wanting to swallow every innocuous sound that left his throat because they were the only pieces of himself he let go of freely. She palmed his member, massaging it and feeling how desperate he was for release, before finally pulling away enough to whisper against him, “You can either fuck my hand or you can fuck me, Miller. What’s it gonna be?” He groaned as she squeezed him harder, hips jerking, “Jesus Christ…” Then his hands were tugging her underwear down in answer and he was on top of her fully between her thighs, lips bruising while she released him and helped yank his sweatpants down. It was frantic, hands clawing, teeth biting. A desperation she hadn’t felt in a while, only akin to when things were life or death and she was fighting for her life.

Practicality had gone out the window and she wasn’t sure when it had happened. She felt alive, sharp and bright, and that had her fully pulling him to her, feeling him slide along her wet core heavy and pulsing and so fucking good. Joel braced himself with an elbow beside her head, muscles straining, hand gripping her hair tightly to keep her lips against his. His other fist pumped himself, sliding against her clit and drawing breathless moans into his mouth. There was no discussion about going slow, about making sure she was ready or stretched enough for him. That required a level of care, affection. No, that wasn’t them. Inside he hitched her leg higher around his waist and pushed into her fast and rough. Both of them groaned at the stretch, at the way he filled her completely, teeth swallowing the sounds. It never left their mouths, wasn’t for the world to hear, simply passed from one to the other like a secret. Her arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him flush against her as he started to move. The proximity had him grinding against her, the rough hairs at his base adding friction and sending sparks through her. It was fast and bordered on painful, but it only heightened the feeling for her. She didn’t want him to be gentle with her, didn’t want to be handled like a doll.

She needed to feel something even if it was pain and god, if the man didn’t cause every single inch of her to alight with fire. “Fucking hell,” he whispered against her, the words a growl as he broke from her mouth and pressed his forehead to her shoulder, “Feel so fucking good.” His thrusts were beginning to lose their rhythm, going faster and harder as if he was aiming to tear her in half. She only wrapped both legs around his waist, hooking them at the ankle, the silent promise that she was fully along for the ride until the end. “This better than me on my knees, Miller,” she hissed, fingers tightening on his curls. He gripped the back of her head and drove deeper into her almost in answer, “Shut the fuck up, darlin’.” There was a reply on her lips but it never managed to escape, his lips crushing hers as they both began to hit the edge. She pulsed and tightened around him as her orgasm hit her like a freight train, lightning searing every nerve and dragging Joel down with her. He came hard with her, his warm release filling her and coating both of them as he fucked her through the last waves and aftershocks of their climax. Their breathless pants wrapped around them and painted their lips, a few centimeters apart but not fully pulled away from the other. She could feel him twitching inside of, was drowning in his scent and that familiar whiff of sex that clung to them. Even with his weight bearing down onto her, she felt good, filled to the brim, awake. Joel groaned, forehead against hers, sweat trickling down his neck and into the collar of his shirt, “Fuck.” “Ditto,” she mumbled, trying to catch her breath, releasing her tight grip on his hair and sliding it along his bag. He almost shivered at the slight caress. “I should have pulled out,” he frowned, brow furrowed as reality started to sink in. “It’s fine,” she answered heavily and fell back fully against the pillow, neck stretched beneath him, “Can’t get pregnant. Plumbing don’t work.” Her sentences were stuttered, short and to the point as a clear indication that it wasn’t a topic she wanted to elaborate on. It was the smallest admittance of something personal, a rarity between them, and he filed it away in the back of his mind.

He nodded and lifted himself up, only giving her a small warning before sliding himself from her. They both groaned at the sensation and loss of warmth, laying on their backs side by side under the blanket. The air was much cooler on their sweat slicked skin and in the back of her mind she was thankful that at least she’d get to take a shower in the morning. A second later though, her thoughts were cut off when Joel grabbed her and tugged her closer into his side, her arm across his chest. She froze, not quite expecting him to even acknowledge her after the deed was done, much less want to touch her. His ankle was still wrapped around hers and the threadbare shirt was soft under her cheek, his hand resting on her shoulder. “Didn’t take you for a cuddler,” the words lacked their usual mocking tone or bite, bordered on unsurety. This was out of her comfort zone and she was stiff, in unfamiliar territory with the smuggler. Sex and rage she knew, but not…whatever this was. “Shut up and go to sleep, Red,” Joel’s eyes were already closed, breathing relaxed and even. He wasn’t rising to take the bait, all the fight gone out of him. Biting her lip, she sighed. And true to his word, she followed him into slumber quickly after, leaving the new aspect of their relationship to ponder in the daylight.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x oc #joel miller x feral reader #tlou #tlou fanfiction #tlou fanfic #the last of us #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us fanfic #raicodoll writes #fic: monsters #fic: teeth #Feral Reader Series #I guess that's what we're calling it now lol #OC: Red #joel miller #series: feral

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evita-shelby · 3 months

Text

They didn't know we were seeds

Chapter 3

Cw: violence, murder, death,

@justrainandcoffee @call-sign-shark @emotionalcadaver @peakyswritings

Tigris is the only person allowed with her in the stockyard where she is to prepare for her last moments on this earth.

The arenas are specially done in advance for the games, the entire thing is usually attributed to the Head Gamemaker and only used for this momentous occasion. Afterwards it is a tourist attraction that pays for itself because to the Capitol this is entertainment.

Eva's Launch Room is not like her room back at the tower nor even the cabin on the train. It is a dressing room where she will go to her televised death at the 61st Hunger Games. Eva hopes it’s not Dustin nor Laurie who kills her. Nor Lacey from 8, nor Daisy from 11, nor any tribute she made sort of friends with this week.

The tracker had been injected into her forearm. Breakfast was eaten by her almost entirely because Tigris only eats raw meat like a real tiger. Tigris who never felt human and became a tiger despite her family’s protests.

Eva has little family to speak of.

Her cousins married and moved away, and Eva’s aunt would follow after now that her husband is dead from cancer and the last mouth to feed is here in the capitol awaiting to be slaughtered. Olivia is a strong woman; she won’t be like her only sister who couldn’t cope with losing her children.

Some say Eva resembles her more than her dead mother even if she doesn’t have Olivia’s auburn hair. But both were tall, deemed beautiful by all those who know them and shared the sharp brown eyes everyone in their family inherited from Eva’s grandmother.

No one stood in Olivia Souza’s way not even death. This last part Caesar had liked, said she should aspire to be more like her aunt.

And if she is to be like her aunt in that regard, Eva asks Tigris what other strategy the mystery girl from twelve used to survive.

“She ran away from the bloodbath just like your mentor did. Her sponsors kept her fed and she used all her tricks to stay alive. She only killed one person. The rest was just a disease in the arena.” The tigress whispers as if it were illegal for them to speak of a previous game.

When Eva is raised onto the arena, she laughs while a voice countsdown the seconds and she takes a look around to plan her escape while Dustin plans to take the hunting knife put amongst the temptations of the cornucopia.

Maybe Dustin wasn’t wrong in thinking he could win them, Caesar in his bubblegum pink hair had said she was selling herself short and he was right.

They are in a desert, just like the one her district shares with part 2 and 5.

Just like home.

Eva doesn’t stick around once she’s secured the meager offerings nearest to her before running as far as she can from this.

Dustin made a mad run to the weapons and paid the price for it when the careers overpowered him, she doesn’t know who killed him and doesn’t want to know. And yet she’s foolishly hoping it wasn’t Laurie as she hides in the overgrown grasses having tripped over something on her way to the thicket of trees that she knows only grow like that near water, even if you must dig to find it. There isn’t much place to hide, most trees do not grow tall in the desert and the tributes are picked off like flies by careers and other tributes alike.

There had been one who ran in her direction only for her to lose her footing and bash her own head on the many rocks hidden under the grass, the arena is as inhospitable as a real desert meaning it will have all those critters that don’t need man to be lethal.

Eva crawls on her hands and knees careful to avoid the ants, the scorpions and the snake hole she tripped on until she reaches the first of the trees. A scraggly mesquite bleeding sap and enough pods to see her through the night until she can find the source of its water.

There is an oasis where the careers will take over with their supplies as they always have, but her backpack ---which she kicked the boy from eight in the balls for--- has a metal canteen for water, a spigot and iodine. It has a good enough sleeping bag that might be useful for the cold desert night, some food she could make last a while with her foraging and only matches for a fire.

She needs a weapon, but she can make do with what she has while the killing dies down and whoever sponsors her sends her a gift. For now, she stuffs herself with the sap and the pods as the canons go off.

With not much here to give them cover, the toll is rather high and the display on the false heavens feels unending. Twelve have died just today.

Tomorrow morning there will be more canons, not from murder or even the animals in the desert, but from hypothermia. Eva will be lucky if she sees morning.

But she does and is rewarded with a tiny little runnel that is enough for her to fill her canteen and nourish the wildflowers, some prickly pear cacti or two and the trees she uses for shelter. The girl fills her backpack with what she has foraged before making a suitable walking stick from the tree she slept against.

She could stay here, hidden and safe until the Gamemakers corral them to get the games going, Eva thinks as she finds a pinyon pine with enough leaves and branches for her to hide in for tonight. Desert trees don’t grow very tall but this one is old enough to cover her and have some pine nuts despite it being late mid July.

Eva sets her first trap, on a cactus that she knows not to tap water out of she leaves the spigot knowing someone is bound to drink from it.

Three more during the night and its barely dawn when she hears the laughter from the career pack led by Laurie and his golden sword. They are hunting down tributes going by their talks. The girl from One laughs at her own jokes about the boy from 5 begging for her to spare him.

Only nine tributes left. Both tributes from 1, 2 and 11 who hailed from the southern part of her district, the boy from 4 who stayed behind to defend the oasis, the boy from 9, and Eva.

Eva would be casualty number 16.

“I told you Evie would survive, 10's part desert, remember.” Laurie acts as if he isn’t here to kill her.

The boy gives her that same charming smile he gave her when they first met at the training center and extends his hand to her. “Hi, gorgeous, how would you like to join us?”

He is counting on her losing.

Despite the growing animosity between them, Tigris is the last person alive who truly knows the man before her.

Coriolanus is so confident that Laurentius will take after his brother and win that he never considers Eva could kill the entire career pack with the poisons she can make with the flora of the arena.

Her grandmother was an apothecary, her mother as well and now she put her lifelong knowledge of living in a place like that with her healing training to the test. Even the trainers were impressed with her skill.

Now as the girl who snagged herself an alliance with the leader of the pack yesterday, she is safe from the others. Especially from the tributes who look down on her for being from a poor district and know her hold on Laurie Nelson spells death to them.

The spigot she left had tricked the boy from 9 and the girl from 11 because all the water from the runnel had dried up the day Eva left her trees. These two deaths happened while Eva lacked for nothing in the safety of Laurentius’ arms. The boy gave her the long hunting knife Dustin tried to fight him for and she gave him a kiss on the cheek.

She will make the games interesting, interesting enough for her to rack up sponsors and bets.

“Nelson may be able to keep her safe from other tributes, but can he save her from the Gamemakers?” There is a bit of blood from his sore on the drink and some on his lips that curve into a snake like smirk. It disgusts her along with the smell of the roses.

Grandma’am’s never smelled like these artificial yet real creations that fail to hide the rot in Coriolanus’ soul.

“We shall see, Coriolanus. It is only the fourth day, and these games can last up to twenty days.” The feline woman hides her distaste for the smell of his roses well enough to get him to think her ploy to turn Eva into the ghost of Lucy Gray was just a way to secure sponsors for her new ‘pet.’

Eva lives to see Laurie kill the girl from his district when they try to drown Eva and the career pack officially dissolves at the sixth day. Eva Smith somehow convinces Laurie to destroy the stockpile of supplies ---after stealing what they will need--- and leave his former teammates to starve or risk meeting them at the Feast that will surely come.

On the Seventh Day, the snakes come out exactly like the ones Coryo Snow once tampered with to save Lucy Gray Baird just as the Feast is laid out in the arena.

#evacore #jack nelson x oc #hunger games au #peaky blinders fanfic #tigris snow

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misstycloud · 1 year

Text

Stranded

Yandere islander x fem reader

——————-

The first thing (Y/n) heard when she woke up was the chirping of birds. The energetic creatures seemed so sing their heart out, despite it being the early hours of the day. She wondered if he heard it too, he probably did. He was always close by. He didn’t want her to get any ideas after all. She cursed her trusting nature, it was her own fault for getting there. If only she hadn’t gone with him and instead tried fending by herself, maybe she would have been free. (Y/n) knew she most likely would have died had she attempted navigating through the jungle by herself, but she’d happily take that chance if it meant getting away from that man.

He, the one who’d forcibly taken her against her will. The one who forces his affection and care on her, not understanding she doesn’t want his care. It was hard for him to understand of course, since he didn’t even speak her language. The man didn’t speak at all, in fact. The only sounds he made were grunts, or whimpers to show he was sad. His growls were far the worst, it was then she knew he was angry and it was never a good sign. It was so strange seeing him that way. A human acting like a ravenous animal. She trembled at the memory.

‘It’s been quiet for a while now. Maybe he isn’t here?’

The young woman thought hesitantly. If she was wrong, I’d cost her. She had tried escaping before and it was never pretty and if she started walking around outside, he would think that’s her intention. She really didn’t want to run into him, but she desperately needed to relieve herself. Taking a chance, she raised her head from her sleeping position and took a look around the room. The wooden walls had many cracks in them, a sign of aging. The real alarming feature was the deep claw marks embedded into it. Making anyone who saw it think one of the island wild beast had tried tearing it apart. There wasn’t much inside the little hut besides blankets, fabric wrapped around feathers for home made pillows, and some self carved bowls filled with food and water.

After listening a second time and not hearing anything, she got up and slowly approached the entrance. There was no door dividing the outside from inside, instead it was a simple cloth hanging down the opening. Pushing it aside and checking in both directions, (Y/n) didn’t see her captor. Carefully walking outdoors she relished in her success. Maybe she’d be able to go without his interference. It was such a bother the way he always needed to be right there, next to her. Even when she had to relieve herself, he stood there not far away. It was utterly humiliating on her part. Her captor didn’t seem to care however and she’d found out the hard way that he didn’t deem it embarrassing. From time to time he’d do it in front of her as well, implying it’s natural. While the woman understood that it was it did not meant she felt comfortable with it. But she did recognize he grew up in a different way. On the island things were different, more primal and underdeveloped.

As she stepped outside (Y/n) glanced around her in case the man stood somewhere nearby, watching her. Hurriedly she rushed to blend in with the large vegetation existing everywhere on the island. If simply she could do her business and sneak back in and pretend she still slept. When she slept was the sole time he let her be, and the only time he dared leave the hut to hunt among other things. To be honest, (Y/n) wasn’t sure what he actually did when he wasn’t with her. Some sort of island business she guessed, not like she particularly cared though.

When the youth had reached far enough from the cabin she searched for the perfect spot. As she did, a sudden noise sounded behind her, scaring the girl. Nervously looking toward the direction the sound came from she saw nothing out of the ordinary.

‘Maybe it was an animal?’ She hoped, but her logical side told her that it wasn’t an animal. ‘No, he’d never let one close enough to me.’

As (Y/n) turned back again she was met with a wall. Knowing it wasn’t really a wall, she glanced up and could make out a pair of eyes staring down at her, through thick black hair. She began walking backwards but didn’t get far because then two arms wrapped themselves around her and with her evident protests, lifted her up in the air. Carrying the young woman back to his home the tall man observed while she pleaded with him in that foreign language of hers. It was fast and odd sounding, nothing like his own tongue.

“No, wait please! I need to pee.” Sadly the captor didn’t understand her request and brought her back inside.

There he laid her down on the bed of blankets and pulled one over her, making sure to cover the whole body. After brushing of some free dirt, he nodded in satisfaction and proceeded to stand back up, walking over to the food bowls. This frustrated (Y/n), she didn’t want to sleep. She wanted to go to the bathroom. Or find the most bathroom-y bush she could out in nature. Not having the energy to do anything else she decided to just comply and turned her back to the man, attempting to fall asleep; it however did not come to her. As she laid under the blankets, (Y/n) thought about when she first got to the island. Since she didn’t have anything to track time, she couldn’t be sure of how long ago it was. Perhaps a month or two? Maybe even half a year.

It had been a bright day, when the sun stood high in the sky. Blinding all those who looked up. (Y/n) and her family had boarded a cruise. They all felt that they needed some family time and a fine cruise seemed like a perfect vacation; and it was. At least in the beginning. The family had much fun in running around exploring every inch of the ship, the shops had quite interesting products and souvenirs as well, not to mention the almost godly buffet. It was supposed to be a relaxing and fun trip. So why did it all go so, so wrong? There wasn’t supposed to be a storm. There wasn’t supposed to be cheer panic. The ship wasn’t supposed to sink, and her family defiantly wasn’t supposed to sink with it. Why did only she survive? The young woman had watched Titanic but never did she think it would be her reality. The storm had also hit during nighttime, everyone was asleep by then. (Y/n) and her family included. She had been woken up by her mother frantically shaking her. She told her there was a storm and something had gone terribly wrong.

‘’The cruise is sinking!”

Those were the last words she’d hear her mother say. If she knew it would be the last time they ever saw each other, then she would have said she loved her and couldn’t have wished for a better mom. They all ran up on deck, tried to get on the lifeboats. Because of the violent rocking created by the high waves, the first in the (L/n) family to go was her older brother. The water caused him to slip and then suddenly the waves were there to drag him down into the dark water. When (Y/n) realized her brother had just been taken away, she cried more than she ever had previously in her life. Her beloved brother, who had always been there and supported her through out her childhood. Now he was gone forever. Her parents begged and urged her on, saying she must live and that they couldn’t lose another child. So they continued running towards the lifeboats, crashing into other people in the process. Screams were everywhere, all were terrified. At first (Y/n) thought she and her family were lucky, they managed to board one of the boats. She believed they’d be able to survive despite the harsh circumstances. But she was wrong. It didn’t take long for the rest of her relatives to disappear too. A big wave had hit the boat, and dragged it under water. It was the last thing (Y/n) remembered, she must have lost consciousness after that.

Waking up on a strange beach scared the shit out of her. By some miracle she’d survived the catastrophe and drifted ashore and island. During then, day had begun and the ferocious storm was nowhere to be seen. Like it’s never happened at all. Devastated at the loss of her family, (Y/n) decided to wander along the beach, hoping to find at least one other person still alive. Not knowing for how long she roamed around without food or water, the woman finally collapsed on the sand out of exhaustion.

The second time she awoke in an unfamiliar place, the feeling of softness surrounded her. Struggling first to open her eyes, she blinked at the bright light and hissed in pain. There was an underlying headache too. Carefully sitting up, (Y/n) examined her enjoyment suspiciously. It was a small house, quite outdated she would say. She was laying in some sort of bed, but it had no Madras and in its stead was a bunch of cloth piled on each other to make it thicker. The pillow looked like it was also poorly hand made. Still, she was given a few blankets too use as sheets so she wouldn’t be cold.

‘Who brought me here, and moreover where am I?’

Now that she had rested a bit, (Y/n) was able to think more clearly and she wanted to know who found and saved her life. As she speculated over it, loud footsteps could be heard from outside. Scared, she hid under the fabrics and kept quiet. The footsteps were close enough to know its owner was now inside the small home. For a while (Y/n) just laid there under the blankets in silence. But she wasn’t the only one being quiet, for her companion did not make anymore sounds either. She wondered if they were still inside if if they’d left. There was one way to find out, and that was to check for herself. Before lowering the sheets enough to be able to scan the room, she braced herself with a little motivational speech inside her head, then lifted the fabric and screamed in surprise

“Aaaaaaaah!”

The scream of pure terror was so strong it surely echoed over the entire island. The source of that fear being the face hovering literal centimeters over her own, looking directly into her eyes. At the loud shriek, the figure above instantly pulled back at a safe distance. Breathing heavily she put a hand over her heart and tried to calm down. When believing herself to be abundantly calm, the castaway forced herself to finally look at the figure who had been continuously staring at her while simmering down. Studying it she realized it was a person, a man to be exact. It was a bit hard to notice at first because all of his hair had grown out to an absurd amount. Hanging down his back like a dark thick, tangle mane, making him appear wild. In contrast to his hair, the eyes were a pair of amber gems. Never had the girl seen that colour on someone before. She had to admit they were rather beautiful.

Tired of her adamant staring the unfamiliar man crawled forward, towards (Y/n). Because she hadn’t a clue to who this man was, she backed simultaneously to his advancing. This did he not appreciate, for the next second he landed atop of her.

“Ooof!” She cried. Looking up, the strange man’s face was nearing hers.

‘Is he going to kiss me?’

Turning her head away from him, she hurriedly exclaimed. “No, don’t kiss me, I don’t kno-ugh!” What she got was not a kiss. The man had intended to stuff her mouth with something sweet. Taking the thing out of she saw that it was some kind of fruit.

‘He gave me food?’

She gazed up at him and saw that he was observing her as well. Hesitantly she asked. “Is..is this food, for me?”

The stranger tilted his head, seemingly unable to understand her question. Maybe he couldn’t speak? Or perhaps he could, but it was a different language. Making an eating gesture to signal her inquiries, he nodded approvingly. So it was for her, then. (Y/n) took a bite out of the fruit and was amazed at its delicious juice. The fruit didn’t exist in her country so she wasn’t sure how it would taste but it surprised her how much she liked it. It had a fresh savory taste. Her eagerness could also be a result of wandering aimlessly on the beach for god knows how long. When the woman finished the fruit, the man who’d saved her was already prepared with a new one in hand and immediately gave it to her. It continued like that for a while, (Y/n) chewing on the food and him just sitting there, waiting for her to finish before pushing another towards her face. As she ate, she peered over at her saviour and examined his facial expression. His wore a neutral face showing no anger and no happiness either, which made it impossible to know if it’s a good sign. But with his evident hospitality by feeding her, she assumed he liked her enough to not murder her.

That was how she met Adir. It wasn’t his real name, it was one she’d chosen to call him since he never disclosed what he went by. She recalled reading a book where a background character name was Adir, meaning ‘strong one’ or ‘courageous’. Build like a mountain with arms as thick as her whole torso, she thought the name suited him well. Adir was nice to let her stay with him, even though he knew nothing about her. Like, what if she was there to kill him? Mind she would’ve failed horribly, but still. When the first week in his hit had passed she came to a conclusion that Adir wasn’t a man of conversation; he roughly uttered around ten words, and all in a language she didn’t know. It was not one she ever heard before, it’s completely foreign. The two of them worked passed the language barrier and found that they got along quite fine.

The first week he didn’t seem very interested in her, only making sure she didn’t die when she roamed outside. One day she had wanted to explore the jungle for a bit, getting to know your new enviourment had been drilled into her skull by her grandfather from a young age. He was one of those grandpas who loved nature, camping and fishing. During the summer he would sometimes bring her with him, and it’s be just them since no one else in the family were interested. Her dad excused he had work that needed to be done and he was terribly sorry he couldn’t join in on the fun; she assumed he’d been forced on enough adventures in his youth to sustain him a life time. Her grandmother and mom weren’t interested, and preferred to stay at home where they could care for other things. (Y/n)’s brother always lied and claimed the teacher gave them too much homework; if he didn’t get to it he wouldn’t finish. As the youngest and the only one not ‘busy’, (Y/n) got the role to accompany her grandfather on the weekends, and she quite enjoyed it. Despite what the others felt, she liked hanging out with him. Being out in nature and having fun with whatever you found.

What she found in that jungle was very much not fun. What she had run into was a freaking tiger! The feline must have stalked her while she unknowingly wandered through the bushes and trees. It managed to swipe her stomach with its claws and it would’ve defiantly killed her if it weren’t for Adir. He rushed forward and tackled the beast and attempted to hold it down. Shocked, the young woman witnessed a man wrestle the animal with his bear hands. The tiger succeeded in getting Adir wounded too, but it was like he didn’t notice; or maybe he didn’t care. Feeling blood ooze out from her gash she pressed her hands on it to stop the bleeding. A couple meter from were she lay, Adir was fighting tooth and nail. Ultimately he won by strangling the tiger, discarding the body and throwing it to the side. Adir quickly rushed forward to (Y/n)’s side, helped placed hands on her stomach. Afterward he had carried her back to his hut, and dressed the wound.

While he cared for her, she noticed he’d become very nice to her. Of course she was grateful for his protection before, but he still felt closed off, as if there was a barrier between them. Now he met her gaze more often, spent time near her and generally interacted frequently with her. It must’ve been the fact she got hurt, he also did; though it appeared it didn’t affect him a lot. Could be because it’d happened previously, when (Y/n) looked passed all that tangled hair she could see an astounding amount of scars littering his arms, legs, and some parts of his face. The consequent of living out there. Adir’s behaviour changed further from there. He started spending near all of his time together with her. She also began seeing certain signs. His touch lingered longer than usual. His consistent staring. Never leaving her alone. It was clear he did not like when you refused him, she knew for sure when remembering certain events. One of them were during the time she first realized his attitude changed and her wound was almost healed.

Having been bed redden took a toll on (Y/n), and not wishing to be stinky and dirty much longer, she decided to find a lake where she could bathe. The only one of them who could navigate through the vegetation was Adir, therefor she resolved in asking him. The man was sitting right outside skinning a rabbit he’d caught. Normally (Y/n) would’ve looked away at the gruesome sight but after living with Adir for a while she had gotten used to it.

Tapping gently on his shoulder, she said. “Do you know where I can bathe?” while making swimming gestures in hope he’d understand what she meant. He merely gazed up at her with a blank look.

‘How can he not get it, I thought this sign was universal?’ She couldn’t help but think, when suddenly he stood up, towering over her smaller form. She jolted back from her position in fright. Geez, couldn’t he move a little slower. Another thing she’d noticed relating to the man; he was incredibly fast. Even though he was big and brawny, he apparently has speed on his side, too.

Adir beckoned her to follow him and she did, together they stalked through the vast vegetation until they reached a small lake. Multiple kinds of flowers grew around and in the water; in all sorts of colours and variations. Collectively they created a magnificent view. Dipping her toes carefully into the water, checking the temperature and after approving; continuing wading deeper. Despite the water being significantly warmer than it would’ve been in her home country, it was still a bit chilly but she recognized she’d have to get used to it, whether she wants to or not. A rustle sounded behind her and she promptly turned around, only to see Adir sitting calmly on a rock a couple meters from the lake watching her intently. What was this? She thought he left after directing her to the right destination, he didn’t have any other reason to be there. Also, she very much didn’t enjoy the way he started at her. While she wasn’t completely naked yet and still in her shirt and shorts, she wasn’t sure if it’d have stayed that way for much longer.

“Um, are you gonna stay there?” She asked even though she knew he wouldn’t answer. Adir said nothing as usual and kept looking at her. “Can you not look, please.” Keeping her voice light she hoped he would get it and not offended by it. Getting up from the water (Y/n) approached the big man and pulled gently on his arm, trying to signal for him to leave her alone. As expected, the giant didn’t move an inch. “Come on, go!” Being pulled and pushed around was something Adir disliked greatly, he started to become irritated at the action. He frowned and grunted while yanking his arm back.

Staying was something he needed to do in order to protect the woman he found on the beach, and he didn’t understand why she was resisting him. He saved her before and then she seemed thankful, but now all of a sudden she had decided she wants him gone? That wouldn’t do, not at all. Grabbing one of (Y/n)’s arms, he forced her into to the water and started splashing her. Water got into her mouth when she tried to talk and breathe, so she quit her attempts to halter his actions after a few tries.

Afterwards he’d dragged her back to the cabin and covered he in blankets, trying to force her to sleep. When she resisted, he pushed her down and held her there until she stopped struggling. The man became worse subsequently and it was obvious what he wanted. For some reason he began thinking of her as a romantic partner and when she rejected him he’d just put her to sleep, like it’d help. It probably did in a way, because when she awoke later she was a lot calmer than previously. He showed his affection by feeding her those delicious fruits, and making her gifts from multiple different things he found. It could be a little wooden figurine he’d carved himself, or giving more types of fruit to try. Though he didn’t say much, he made it clear he liked physical touch. At night or just in any situation, Adir wrapped his arms around her and held her long enough for her legs to fall asleep. During nighttime he slunk down beside her in the bed and cuddled her.

If (Y/n) tried to escape he’d bring her back with him and preform his ‘sleep tactic’ on her. It was after her eight escape attempt she realised that she’ll never get rid of him.

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A/n: so this kinda sucked. But it’s because I’m busy and don’t have time or energy to write a proper ending to this :(

Sorry,

#bad relationships #male yandere #obsessed #oc #possesive #short story #toxic #yandere #yandere oc #Adir #island #exotic #stranded #ship #cruise #family death #storm

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aheathen-conceivably · 2 years

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The girl’s name was Summer, and as they walked through the forest Isaiah asked her questions to try and distract her from her bouts of tears. He knew that if he ever lost Daisy, he would be just as distraught, so he wanted nothing more than to calm her, even if it was only a little.

As the sun began to inch toward the horizon, her crying grew less frequent, and the two of them actually began to enjoy their walk rather than look for Summer’s lost dog. She was telling him about her job hunting mushrooms in the forest to sell at the local market, a pastime that she and her mother had devised to earn themselves enough to buy groceries during the war, when Daisy ran forward, ignoring Isaiah’s cries.

The two teenagers began running after her without a second thought, sprinting through the woods together, both shouting the dog’s name.

When they entered a clearing Daisy stopped, barking happily at another dog who was sniffing forlorn at the edge of the trees. “Milou!!” Summer yelled, running to the dog and falling to her knees as soon as she reached it.

As Isaiah looked on, petting Daisy’s head gratefully, Summer brought her forehead down toward Milou, as though she were silently conveying some sort of relief too emotional for words. After a moment that way, she stood up, and the dog trailed behind her gleefully. Smiling, Summer walked over to Isaiah, stopping to kiss Daisy on the nose on her way over.

“I can’t thank either of you enough. Milou…” she said, choking up again and then clearing her throat, “My father gave me Milou when he was just a puppy. Last year he volunteered to go to France, even though he hadn’t been called up yet. Our family was from there, so I guess he felt the need to defend the land. Well…I never saw him again….my father. They deemed him missing in action but I know that….I know that he died in the war there and now Milou is all that I have left of him. I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost him too.”

With a mixture of happy and grief-stricken tears in her eyes, Summer leaned over and kissed Isaiah on the cheek, making him brush profusely. “I live up the hill,” she said as she pulled away, “Please come by my cabin next time you and Daisy are in the Bramblewood.” Then she smiled kindly and disappeared back into the trees, Milou following loyally behind her.

Part 2/2

#early 1917 #ts4 decades challenge #sims 4 decades challenge #sims 4 historical #ts4 historical #sims 4 legacy #ts4 legacy #sims 4 story #ts4 story #the darlingtons #1910s #wwi era #isaiah darlington #summer darlington

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ghostiewriter · 2 years

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summary: Riven is the last person Musa expects to show up at her doorstep, bloody and injured and in desperate need for help. Or, day seven of ghostie's spooktober spectacular.

read here on ao3.

Musa never really thought she would understand, let alone experience, the horrors of war before she turned twenty.

But there were also a lot of things she had never considered.

She didn’t think she would ever be able to handle large groups of people without going insane. She didn’t think she would ever find a group of people who would understand her powers and the control she had over them, let alone be able to call them her friends. And she didn’t ever think there would be a time where she would consider her powers more so a gift than a burden.

And now her powers seemed to play a vital part in a war she didn’t fully understand. A war that started long before she was born, that she feared would continue on after she died. A war that nobody should fight in, let alone children who didn’t think they would have to face anything this goddamn terrifying beyond missed assignments and strict teachers.

Musa knew that she could have returned back to Melody. She could have returned home and stayed with her father in what could be their last few months of normality before the war reached other realms, before the war corrupted everything they knew and loved.

But she didn’t because she couldn’t.

She couldn’t turn her back when she knew she could help, when she knew that her friends would be fighting for the same cause she believes in.

The return of Rosalind had fucked a lot of things up for the Winx girls. They had very few people they could trust, even fewer people who could actually help them out and it was truly a miracle they had managed to escape Alfea considering the stronghold it had become as the war rose.

They knew it would be best for them to split up, to hide between the remaining realms and to gain the supporters they needed to have a fighting chance against Rosalind and her army. They had limited contact with each other, not wanting to risk being found or caught.

It was too much. God, it was far too fucking much but they didn’t have any choice when they were the otherworld’s only hope.

Deeming it far too risky for Sky or Bloom to show their faces, Musa had taken the decision to hide away in the depths of Eraklyon’s woods, travelling between different cities and towns in hopes of gaining allies.

It had been over three weeks since she had spoken to the others, over three weeks of no contact and no idea how her friends were doing. She didn’t know if they were alive or well or if they had even made any progress in their mission.

But she just had to have faith they were okay, just like they had to have faith she was okay.

Maybe it was the weeks of seclusion, isolation and no real human interaction beyond late nights in dodgy taverns and creepy, hidden settlements.

Maybe it was her own comfort in being alone for most of her time and letting her guard down.

Maybe it was the fact she was halfway through her dinner and the knock on the door was certainly not something she expected.

Musa reached for the dagger hidden under the couch pillow to her right, gripping the handle of the weapon with a familiar hold. She kept her eyes on the door, slow and precise steps making her way through the small cabin as she ran through her mind on the handful of people who knew where she was.

Her mind came up blank with who could be behind the door.

Her purple eyes shone through the dimly lit cabin, tendrils reaching out for any emotion she could feel beyond the wooden door. And all she could feel was a strong, suffocating and bitter feeling of agonising pain.

When she ripped the door open, dagger still in hand and ready to use, she was not expecting to see Riven standing on the other side.

She also didn’t expect to see him practically slumped against the side of the door, arms clinging on to his shredded torso and his face looking paler than any person’s should be. He looked exhausted, there was blood soaking his clothes and she wondered how close to blood loss fatigue he was.

“I didn’t know where else to go.”

Musa had seconds before his body slumped towards her, forcing her to drop the weapon and catch his sagging body before he landed on the floor. It was awkward and difficult as she manoeuvred them through the small cabin, her dinner forgotten on the table and her focus on the bleeding boy in her arms.

She had him on the bed, wasting no time in removing the rest of his ruined armour so his bare torso was on display. Her eyes widened at the sight of his wounds, deep and wide and still fucking beleeding.

Musa rushed to the bathroom, returning with a bowl of water and the shitty first aid kit she had hidden under the bathroom counter. She made quick move of cleaning the wounds, trying to keep as much pressure on them as she could but Riven wouldn’t stop wriggling.

“It’s going to be okay,” she told him, words fast-paced and slightly breathless. “Just…stay with me, okay?”

“Fuck!” Riven hissed, something mixed like a whimper and a cry. “I-I…shit, it’s too…too…too much.”

“Just stay with me,” Musa repeated, gripping his hand and letting the tendrils of her powers reach out to him. She didn’t falter when his cries died down to soft whimpers, his body fell slack against the bed and his eyes closed as the exhaustion hit.

Musa bit her own tongue, trying to focus on the open wound that desperately needed her care instead of the pain racking through her, every inch of her body on fire. Her eyes welled up and her brain felt it was going to burst, but she didn’t stop.

She couldn’t stop.

Musa was slumped against the bed, head leaning back and her eyes falling shut by the time she had finished patching him up. Yet, even in her own exhaustion and desire to sleep until the sun rose once again, she couldn’t get rid of the lingering voice in the back of her head on how Riven found her.

And why he even trusted her to show up at her doorstep.

There was no secret that Rosalind sunk her claws in the boy’s mind before they left Alfea, despite how hard Sky fought to get his best friend back. He became a shell of the person he was, a robot under Rosalind’s control. Even his mind was blank and lacked any real emotion when she tried to break through.

But it was different now.

His mind and emotions were loud and raging and erratic as they had once been before. He was like the Riven before, the one she meant at the specialist training ground months ago. But there was something else, a lingering fear with a stench so strong that even when he was fast asleep, it was still there.

As she turned her head to look at the boy fast asleep on the bed, chest moving with slow and deep breaths, she knew two things for sure: Riven was back to the way he once was and he had purposefully sought her out.

And yet, she couldn’t help wonder why the fuck he was in Eraklyon and if it was the same reason he showed up at the brink of death.

Musa sighed as she leaned her head back, brown eyes focused on the wooden ceiling above her. She knew she wouldn’t get any answers until he was awake.

So she sat there, confused and tired and unsure what other mysteries this war would throw at her.

#ghostie's spooktober spectacular #rivusa #fate: the winx saga #winx club #riven #musa #rivusa fic #rivusa fanfic #rivusa fanfiction #fate: the winx saga fic #fate: the winx saga fanfic #fate: the winx saga fanfiction #fate fic #fate fanfic #fate fanfiction #winx club fic #winx club fanfic #winx club fanfiction #my writing

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paranoid-spotlight-everest · 1 year

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Do you think Eliza and Bia would get along bc I do

Ehhhhhhh......

Given that Bia has a very rough relationship with the Apollo cabin and Will was actively trying to kill her for a while, I'd say it's a bumpy road, but Eliza is the first to accept her.

Or you can make the following canon.

Eliza gets into some Hijinks and gets herself accidentally kidnapped by the Titan Army. She can escape at any time bc (reason here) but she's curious and hangs around anyway. Bia, was just going on a stroll with her fiance's adopted brother/son, Tyson, in the Labyrinth. Definitely not to ask for his blessing, no way.

And then they stumble on a demigod wearing prison orange. Like any good enemy leader, she takes the girl under her custody, and is polite when she puts the girl in handcuffs. She doesn't involve Tyson because he's a neutral party.

Eliza goes peacefully, bc she does not like the look of that huge battle-axe, and doesn't want to ruin Tyson's super important undercover mission.

Of course Bia starts the recruitment spiel, "Aren't you tired of (Luke's points here)" and then asks who her godly parent is.

"Apollo" Eliza answers, because what's the harm?

Soon the cuffs come off.

And then have a long talk and get to know each other and Bia complains about her dad bc she does that with everybody. Bia is so proud of herself for recruiting someone so easily, making a new friend, and securing her fiance's family's blessing! Bia is having such a good time and she has friends! She's across the country from the creepy Titan palace, and she feels so free and excited! If she's acting more like her old self than the Titan Army general then that's for her to repress, thank you very much.

And look, Eliza knows this lady is a threat to everything she holds dear but her stories are so cool!!!!! Bia's kinda trauma dumping, Eliza's kinda trauma dumping, it's cool. But eventually, after Eliza's finished the peanut butter cereal bar Bia gave her, she has to tell her cool new (but also ancient) older sister that no, she can't join the Titan Army, her friends are all at camp half-blood, plus she likes the mortal world how it is, thanks.

"And, ummm, can I ask you a question?"

Bia looks significantly less open and friendly. In fact, Eliza is reminded that this woman is a general, with a large battle-axe, staring at her, seeming unimpressed. Eliza probably should have asked before she rejected her, but oh well.

"Ask, young matriarch." Matriarch isn't quite the right term, but she seems to be a strong capable leader of her household, and Bia wants to give the proper respect.

"You don't mention Apollo in any of your stories, but you act as if you know him, know his true nature, why? And if you're a goddess, why don't you act like one? Not that- You just don't act like any goddess I've met! And why haven't I heard of you?! And if you seem so nice, why are you fighting against us?!" The questions all explode out of her, bc ADHD.

And we'll, that makes the task Bia's been psyching herself up for easier, because Eliza's broached the topic herself.

And Bia tells her it all. Trusts her with her entire tragic backstory.

As she tells her about being exiled, she wonders whether Eliza would have been deemed not good enough. This girl is so strong and sweet and brave... but Eirene did everything right. She existed for the gods. Was Apollo's perfect daughter but of course not good enough. She watches Eliza's face drop and crumple, her eyes grow glassy, and pushes through the weak, hurt parts of herself to feel a cruel pride.

Although she glosses over pretty much all Kronos stuff, because that would make the Titan Lord's actions seem worse than they actually were. The girl would get the wrong idea.

Eliza doesn't stay quiet. "WHAT THE FUCK?!" After the exile. "TARTARUS?!" She has Thoughts.

Bia ends with the question of why.

"I do this, young matriarch, because Apollo deceived me, betrayed me, wronged me. As with Zeus, and the other Olympians," Eliza marvels at someone wanted by the Olympians still saying their names without fear. "I will do whatever I must to avenge myself."

It's the first time in years that Bia has called Eirene herself. "I did not deserve to be thrown out of my home and into hell. But I don't just fight for myself anymore. I fight for all my family. I fight for demigods who deserve support from their parents, who deserve to live and grow into adults, who deserve love, not to die for an immortal's errand." And Eliza hates, hates, how Right that sounds. How Just. Because (insert fun trauma here, like a monster attack or being unable save someone injured by the TA).

Bia... understands. She respects Eliza's decision, because she sees her as a sister, as family. "My offer is always open. And if you're half as brave as you seem, I will always be proud to call you my sister."

And if, as she watches Eliza leave, she whispers a blessing to the demigod's back, it might be because she sees herself in the girl.

And she knows what Apollo did to her.

Post war, she and Eliza are besties. Sisters. Always getting up to Hijinks together.

#woooooooooooooooo that took a while #hope you liked it!#tell me if there's something I should add #something Eliza should say

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i-used-to-wear-the-fedora · 1 year

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Flayed Neil AU, Run and Hide

It wasn't until they were on the other side of Hawkins before Billy pulled the Camaro over to the side of the road. Panic still coursing through his veins as put the vehicle in park. Glancing at his rear view mirror just to make sure they hadn't been followed.

"What the hell is going on?" Max asked for a second time as she noticed how panicked he still was. "I thought you were at your friends house. Neil said-"

"Yeah well Neil was fucking lying." The teen snapped. "And that *thing* that attacked me wasn't Neil."

"Wasn't Neil?" Max's friend asked and Billy threw his hands in the air.

"Is there a God damn echo in here? Yes! It wasn't Neil!"

"You sound crazy." Max spoke, but Billy shook his head.

"You didn't see his face. His eyes-they just went completely black. And his veins were pulsating, I don't know what the fuck I saw. But whatever the fuck that thing was, we can't go back." Billy Hargrove didn't cry but God he felt like he might start any second now. The two girls in his backseat shared a weird look. "What?" The girls turned to face Billy. "You know something, don't you?"

"I-"

"Shhhh." The strange short haired girl shushed Max, but that made the blonde angry.

"Don't you shush her, you know what's going on, don't you?" The girl stared at him with wide eyes and he slammed a fist against the dashboard of his car. "Fucking answer me!"

"Hey!" Max yelled back at her step-brother. "You don't get to yell at her like that asshole."

Billy frowned, taking a few deep breaths before letting out a sigh.

"Okay, fine, whatever. I...I'm sorry." He gritted out. "But could you tell me what the fuck is happening?"

"Wow...ugh..." Max gaped. Billy knew why. He rarely ever said sorry to anyone except the old man. She turned to the other girl and asked. "Should we tell him?"

"Need to go somewhere safe first." She said before pointing. "Go all the way down to Sinai and take a left. We can hide at the cabin."

Billy thought for a moment, unsure if he was actually going to take directions from a kid, but then again....what other options did he have?

Having seen The Evil Dead multiple times, when Billy came to a stop next to a cabin in the middle of the woods with apparently no one around, he was a little uneasy.

"This...is safe?'' He asked as he followed the preteens out of the car. "This looks like Ed Gein's vacation home."

"Her dad's the chief of police." The younger girl rolled her eyes.

"That doesn't exclude him from having human skin paraphernalia." Entering the small cabin, it was a slight relief to see no human skin lamps or anything. The mounted deer head was probably just another weird Midwest thing he didn't get, like walking tacos or tornado warning tests every month.

Wandering around the small cabin space, he saw it was a mess. It reminded the teen of the house just after his mom left. Neil refused to clean the house, and he called Billy a pussy for picking up after himself. A mess. But this one had significantly fewer beer bottles and looked a lot more....lived in. In a good way. The teen's foot stepped on something soft. Looking down, he saw one of those ugly Trolls dolls with neon pink hair. Making sure the girls weren't in the living room anymore when he leaned down to pick it up. He had a couple of them when he was younger, but like most things from his childhood, they ended up in the trash after Neil deemed him a man at ten years old.

"Hop's not here." Max called out as she re-entered the living room. Billy jumped, hiding the Trolls doll behind his back. "What was that?" The redhead asked when she noticed the movement.

"Nothing." Billy shoved the troll doll in his back pocket, underneath his red handkerchief. "So....what do we do now?"

#stranger things #fanfiction #stranger things au #billy hargrove #eleven #max mayfield #flayed neil hargrove

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spaceblobvoid · 2 years

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Twilight Steddie AU Chp 1

Turns out my wattpad is working again wooo! so this in there and also here cause why not anyways without further ado... (Updates every wednesday)

Steve’s Pov

I’ve never given much thought to how I would die, but dying in the place of someone I love seems like a pretty good way to go. So I don’t regret my decision to leave home. My parents are never home, always away on a business trip or vacation. It’ll be nice living with my family. I’m moving in with my uncle Jim, and his daughter Jane in Hawkins Indiana. When I was little my parents would send me there every summer. But then he adopted Jane and my parents deemed me old enough to look after myself at age 11. Living with them will be better than being alone in my parents big empty house. I doubt they’ll notice I’m gone. And I’m excited to meet Jane, and be in a new place. This will be a good thing. Right?

Hawkins is a lot smaller than California, population 3,809 people. The weather here is a lot colder already. I might not miss a lot about home but I will miss the heat. Jim says the weather here gets just as hot as California but only in the summer. My uncle Jim is the chief of police here. I remember when I was young he would sometimes take me on patrols for minor cases. I remember the summer before he adopted Jane, a kid went missing. Wonder if they found him.

The car ride to Jim’s cabin from the airport was long and mostly quiet. “Your hair’s longer,” Jim said. I lifted my chin off my hand to look at him. I then ran my hand through it. “Yeah I let it grow out more, at school kids called me Steve The hair Harrington” Jim chuckled. I smiled and went back to looking out the window as we pulled up to the cabin. A flood of memories from the summers I spent here came rushing back. The cabin hadn’t changed a bit. Only some aging had seemed to occur. I got out of the car and so did Jim. He opened up the trunk and We grabbed my bags. “Jane’s excited to meet you” Jim said as we made our way up to the cabin. “I’m excited to meet her,” I said with a polite smile. He unlocked the door and we walked inside. “Jane’s at the mall with her friend right now, she’ll be home soon. Oh and your old room is uh hers now but you got the guest bedroom now I hope you don’t mind” Jim spoke again. I smiled and nodded. I don’t mind at all, after all who am I to mind. I haven't been here in years. We walked up the stairs and he led me to my room. My old stuff from when I used to visit was in a box by the bed. There was also a dresser and desk and some empty shelves for books or records and tapes. The room was quite plain aside from that. Jim put my bags down and walked to the door frame. He stood in it for a moment. “Well I’ll let you get settled in and everything.” And with that he walked off. One of the best things about Jim, he doesn’t hover. I placed my bags down and unzipped the first one. I emptied it out on the floor and opened the dresser. I picked up my t-shirts and other clothes, folding them and stashing them away in the dresser as I did. I heard a beeping noise outside and looked out my window. A black Camaro was there and three people stepped out. A girl with a brown curly bob, a girl with long red hair and a guy. A guy with curly strawberry blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. The guy took out a cigarette and offered one to Jim. Jim refused and the guy lit one and took it to his lips. My cheeks flushed a bit at the sight of him. You could tell this guy had muscle because of the way his shirt hugged his body. I tore my eyes away from him and went down stairs. I walked outside. “Thanks for giving Jane a ride Billy,” Jim turned around to see me join the group. “Oh Billy this is Steve you remember him don’t you, you too would play together when you were younger.” I waved and held my hand out for him to shake. Billy looked at my hand and took it with his. “Nice to see you again” I said. He nodded and gave me a smile. “Steve this is Max, Janes and friend and of course Jane” Jim pointed to the red haired girl then to the brown. Max waved, hugged Jane and said goodbye. She climbed into the car and so did Billy. “Hi Steve,” Jane said to me. I took my eyes off the now far away car and replied. “Hi Jane.” We all walked inside the cabin.

We sat at the dinner table. Jim had grilled some chicken and Jane made a salad. It wasn’t much but it was better than the microwave meals I used to force myself to eat back home. “What’s California like?” Jane asked. “Hot” I said, taking another bite of chicken. We continued eating in silence for a bit. “My friend's son just moved away for college, they said they were gonna scrap his car but I offered to take it off their hands. It’ll be here tomorrow” Jim said and went back to focusing on his food. “Oh wow, thank you” I said smiling. The rest of the meal was eaten in silence.

It’s the first day at my new school. In the middle of the semester. Great. After stopping by the front office to grab my schedule and a map I wandered through the halls trying to find my classes. “Steve Harrington right?” I look up to see a pretty girl with a curly brown bob and big blue eyes smiling at me. “Yup, that's me,” I said. “Nancy Wheeler, here to show you around and ask a few questions for your feature in the school paper” “oh a feature I don’t need that I can just-“ Nancy shook her head and walked with me. “Nonsense, it’s school news, and don’t worry you won’t be in the front page.” I shrugged and agreed.

In gym class we played basketball. And it turns out Billy is in my gym class and he’s a really good basketball player. The band was also in the gym, rehearsing. I’ll admit I’m a little rusty with basketball. I’ve played before at school but that was last year. I also was team captain of the swim team but basketball isn’t swim. I threw the ball and hit one of the kids in the band. Maybe I’m more rusty than I thought. “Oh shit I’m so sorry” I said running over to them. “It’s okay, at least you apologized,” the girl looked at me and squinted her eyes. “You're the new kid right Steve?” I nodded. “Do you want me to get you ice or something?” I asked. She shook her head. “No it’s fine, I’m Robin”. From across the gym coach yelled, “Harrington stop lollygagging” I turned to see him waving me to come back. “See you around” I said and ran back to the coach.

At lunch I sat with Robin and her friends, Jonathan, Argyle and Nancy. “Me and my family lived in California for a bit before we moved back here,” Jonathan said. “Oh cool” I said. I decided I wasn't hungry and pushed my lunch away. The group talked about random things. My mind wandered and I looked outside to see a group of people walking towards the empty table in the cafeteria. There was a pale guy with curly brown hair. A couple of others and some kids, a scrawny tall pale boy with short dark curly hair wearing a shirt that read Hellfire Club on it. There were two other boys with brown curly hair that was sort of long and a cap that said thinking cap on it. And boy with bowl cut. Then the last one walked in. He was handsome, he had big brown eyes that seemingly sparkled. Long dark curly hair and wicked grin. He got tk the table and gestured something to the group which made them laugh. “Who are they?” I asked. “That's the hellfire club, they play dnd and are kind of freaks.” Robin answered. Nancy elbowed her. “Be nice Robin, Mike and Will are in the club” “Who’s Mike and Will?” I asked again. “Nance’s little brother Mike and Jonathan's little brother Will” Argyle replied. I nodded and looked back at them. “The leader is Eddie Munson, Hawkin’s Freak” I made eye contact with Eddie, he winked at me and smirked. I looked away a little pink and bit my lip. "Don't waste you time he just likes making a scene." Jonathan said. "Wasn't planning on it" I said. The group moved on the conversation but for the rest of lunch my thoughts were consumed by Eddie Munson.

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nann-the-explorer · 5 months

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Arianna watched the mass of tentacles and mouths lumbure towards her. The whispers rose in volume at Ituith’ryiel’s question.

“I don't know, they started just after I got free of Nann's mind. at first I couldn't understand them but now…”

She listened to the voices repeating their words again, goosebumps rose on Ituith’ryiels skin. Maybe he didn't want to know the answer after all.

Arianna spoke suddenly, in a language she didn't remember ever learning.

“it's hungry. In a dark silent place… something about… nothingness. It doesn't make much sense.”

Ituith’ryiel needed to go and think, there would be time to deal with the girl later.

“Ituith’ryiel please be careful… “.

For some reason, she looked concerned for him. Something he was sure she would amend if she knew he was about to eat her. A tiny part of he sighed, there was no way he was glad he didn't have to kill her. Was there? His inner question was interrupted by an angry voice.

“what in hells depths were you trying to do this time!?”

Nann was awake, great.

Arianna felt exhausted, she turned and walked back into her room, shutting the door and locking it. She climbed under the sheets and closed her eyes. If she hadn't wanted to talk to anyone before, now she really didn't. She buried her head Into the pillow trying to drown out the whispering. She had hoped after relaying their message, that they would go. Things were rarely that simple.

She fell into an uneasy dream.

Ras wandered the forest, he smiled to himself. Andrei had vanished but there were traces of her all over the forest. Footprints, snapped twigs, yes she was fast but she needed to be more conscious of what was around her.

A twig snapped, off to his left, Ras leapt into the nearest strong tree and waited. Sure enough Andrei crept past his hiding place. He watched her for a while as she pet the grass and laid her jacket down. She had an air of confidence about her that was attractive. Nann flashed into his memory. He smiled to himself, she was sweet and mischievous. He was surprised at kissing Andrei. Perhaps he was too flirty with her. Worry nagged at Him. Why did he feel like he was missing something?

Andrei grinned when she heard Ras approaching.

“Hey stranger.”

„What did you just do to Geiger?“

Nann was fuming. It was one unacceptable thing, that he still wanted to go after Arianna, but that he began to hurt their comrades in this way to achieve that was beyond every reason.

With a rather clumsy motion, Nann tried to pick up Geiger from the opposite cabin, where he went right through the door and hit the wall. But it was a rather awkward sight, as the small sailor tried to pick up the massive man. Geiger was awake and thankfully not severely injured besides some scratches from the wooden splinters and a really bad headache. He smiled at Nann, glad, that they had came back from the depths of their mind to take over their body again. At the same time, he felt horrible, since he deemed himself not innocent in that matter, he was the one, who send Nann into unconsciousness after all.

Ituith’ryel observed the two humans interacting, but was not fully listening to Nann’s rambles. He knew, he did something horrible, at least from the human sight. In his world, this was merely some kind of playful bullying … then again, humans were so fragile.

He drowned out Nann’s rambling, his mind wandering back to the voices he had heard from Arianna. It highly unsettled him, albeit he didn’t knew yet what to make of it. Something nagged at the back of his mind, some hidden memory, that didn’t quite want to surface yet. Another thought took forefront. Could this be somehow connected with the vision they had in the cave at the beginning of this rather straining mission? The creature, that spoke the same language? The other Yadaldh’re that lived in the tunnels under the island? He had to think more about it, he had to talk with Yicth’ararc about it. But first, Nann demanded his attention back …

*You damn bastard. You will apologize to Geiger and Arianna … now!“ Nann spoke in the same way, they used to scold their children and he knew, there was no way to wiggle himself out of this.

That would surely would turn to be the most awkward moment in his long life - apologizing to a being he had preyed on. Someone who had told him to be careful even a minute ago. Someone, he wasn’t all too sure about killing anymore.

Ituith’ryel sighed.

„Well, I guess, you won’t take a „No“ for an answer, wouldn’t you …? Then let me at least change into a more … suitable … form.“

Andrei hadn’t tried much to hide the traces of her little hide and seek game - she wanted to be found after all. But even with a little more effort, she was sure, he would have found her own enough. So, she could at least make it a little more comfortable for the two of them as she took her jacket of and lay down in the grass.

Her heightened senses were fun to play with, she could already hear him approaching from far away, his movements silent and graceful, but she was attuned to the faint pats of feet on the soft earth nonetheless.

With a grin, she greeted him, rising from her position and circling him closely, measuring him like a predator would with his prey. She could sense his heartbeat, the relaxed rise and fall of his chest, and even the smallest twitch in his muscles. It was like reading a book and she searched for a specific page - the telltale signs of him wanting her. Her hand followed her trace around him, slowly wandering over this abdomen, observing his reactions. Andrei was pretty sure, he could sense her growing arousal, the way her breath hitched and her skin radiated a certain heat. Words were not needed now, her body conveyed her wishes more than enough. And she knew, if he decided to indulge himself with her, he would let her know it one way or the other.

Yicth’raracs gaze had changed and he had frozen in movement. If he would have had something resembling eyebrows, they would have been severely furrowed right now. As fast, as Ituith’ryel had attacked Geiger and Arianna on the ship, he had stopped his actions … and Arianna had talked about whispers, about nothingness. What kind of whispers? Yicth’ararc shivered, his ethereal body reacting in a way it hadn’t in eons. It was like a ripple, that crept through the vast dark room Tostain stand in, but the knowledge as to why remained elusive to him yet.

Where Yicth’rararc lacked in the ability, Tostain’s brows surely furrowed now.

��Hey, what’s up? What is happening on the ship? Is Arianna in danger? You told me to lend me more of your power … so do it already!“

Yicth’ararc’s head tilted sideways in an abrupt motion, his gaze unfocused as if his mind just stopped working somehow, lost in a see of memories as he scanned for something specific. This was not good. With another sudden movement, he snapped out of this trance and looked at the sailor.

„Ah, yes, yes … you’re right.“

Yicth’arac lifted one of his clawed hands with that awful long fingers and looked at it absently, pondering what to say.

„But you don’t have to worry for that elven creature on the ship. She is safe for now … whereas this world and even our realm may not anymore …“

Tostain didn’t even have so much time as to think of a proper answer to that as Yictararc’s hand shot forward, grabbing his whole face, covering it completely. A suffocating feeling befell Tostain as his vision blacked out once again.

„When you wake again, I will follow you closely … and we need to find out, which horror from the past decided to grace us with his unwanted presence."

#arianna the druid #nann the explorer #oc roleplay #roleplay

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sweetdreamsbuck · 2 years

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Okay Mir I know this is mean but like what would happen if Bunny got lost in the woods during a snowstorm while Lumby was at work.....

lost in the woods

beefy!lumberjack bucky x f!reader (lumby x bunny au)

wc: 4.8k

warnings: angst, gross fluff and body worship, a very very very needy scared and hopelessly in love lumby

a/n: yes like the most amazing Disney ballad to ever exist. thanks for always ruining me so sweetly, col. not edited or proofread, all mistakes are my own. happy spring babes xx

𝐢 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞, 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲, 𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤. 𝟏𝟖+ 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐝𝐧𝐢

“Last storm of the season is always the worst, bun. Make sure you stay inside, can’t have my bunny gettin’ lost on me– or frostbite. Alright, pretty girl? Can’t love you the way I need to if you’re not safe and sound.”

God, you should’ve listened.

But the snow just looked so joyous as it fell, surrounding the trees sprouting with their new buds and blossoming flowers. The passing of winter to spring was always the most exciting time to be living in the middle of such a grand wood– but it was your first time; your first time living in Bucky’s cabin.

Sure, you’d caught glimpses of the beauty of it in the beginnings of your relationship– on those mornings you’d slept over, awaking happily to the vision of a sweetly snoring Bucky and the comfort of the forest’s morning hymnal. The sight of flowers dangling on the very edges of tree branches, slowly opening and embracing the rustle and song of the rest of the forest life; the painting you’d find yourself inside of after a few weeks, the trek from your car to his front door littered in petals of vibrant pinks and whites, of dying cones and senseless berries– some still dancing towards the forest floor– drowning all paths in the proclamation of spring’s arrival. But now, you were experiencing the end of winter and the start of spring firsthand; there was no chance you’d ever grow tired of it.

Maybe your Bucky was wrong– there was no way this last snow could be deemed anything short of magical and whimsical, let alone “the worst”.

But he was never wrong. Especially not when it came to his bunny.

The itch to tug on your winter gear one last time at the sight of soft flakes was too great– a thick pair of Bucky’s socks and an oversized thermal loosely clinging to you under your parka and sweats before you could reason against it.

Staring at the falling snow, secure and safe underneath the warmth of a blanket cuddled in your favorite chair perched at the window was nothing compared to feeling it– having it sing and whistle past your ears; to have it fall and tease against your lashes; against the frigid apples of your cheeks; along the flush of your numbing lips.

It was easy to lose track of time while dancing in the middle of such wonder.

It’s how you found yourself, unaware of how long you’d been aimlessly walking, now struggling to find a way back home, fighting to hold your footing and to keep your eyes open at the incessant prickling of the metastasizing crystalline snow pellets hitting roughly against you. Each pierce of the rough snow hitting the skin of your face, bouncing around your heavy outerwear and sending unpleasant tremors and tingles along every inch of your body confirmed a terrible truth– you could hear your mistake loudly and with a bold punch.

The darkening of the sky was fading eerie, sealing your fate further and further into the fervor and strength of the last winter storm Bucky warned you about.

Well shit. What now?

Your phone.

Your hands shakily move to free your cell from the confines of your sweats. Struggling to hold the phone with numb hands, to see the screen in the middle of such a blizzard growing angrier and harsher by the second, you manage to unlock the device and click on Bucky’s name.

Service was terrible in the middle of the woods, but it seems luck felt it in her heart to hand you a little bit of reprieve from the trouble you'd managed to get yourself into; 4 bars of reception and a working dial tone that would save you from this mess.

But it seemed luck was also in a business of mockery– your own negligence besting you, phone battery lingering on 3%.

Come on Bucky, please pick up the phone. Pick up pick up pick up–

“Hey bunny,” his soothing voice greets you in a delighted sigh, “you have no idea the day I’m having. I’ll be home soon and I just need to feel my swe–”

Concern that you’ll freeze to death prompts you, cutting off Bucky’s silky voice viciously with the chattering of teeth and stuttering words, “B-bucky, please, I need you! D-don’t know where I am ‘nd I need you. P-please Bucky, I’m in the–”

And then the comforting sound of his breathing stopped.

Silence– only the unrelenting whir of the snow gusting around you and the melody it rang out within your jaw.

Of course, your phone would die.

You’re fucked. Alone, lost, shaking, and freezing from the inside out in the middle of the forest that brought you a life filled with warmth and Bucky. How ironic.

Maybe if you tried to find your way to the lumberyard… it was only a few miles from his cabin. If he could do it, so could you.

But Bucky had lived here most of his life.

The chance of you finding that path was as slim as the chance of you finding the road back to the house.

A crippling realization hit you when that sharp left turn at the large evergreen you could’ve sworn was a sign of the path leading to Bucky’s cabin just happened to be a tree that looked familiar.

Turning, you were met with the same fate– harsh wind and unforgiving snow, row after row of high and brooding evergreen trunks, of thickets and a now white forest floor, mocking you in their pious stature.

Every inch of this damn forest looked exactly the same.

A few more turns, a few more furious swipes at the snow fogging your sight, a few more hazy visions of ginormous bark that were perfect carbon copies of the one next to it.

Moving in frantic circles, your brain tries to keep up with the ominous thudding of the adrenaline coursing through your veins. But even your brain couldn’t seem to form coherent or quick enough thoughts, your eyes and limbs fighting to keep your body moving in any direction.

You’re growing tired– exhausted.

Keep your eyes open. Keep moving. Follow your footprints.

That’s what Bucky would say.

It could’ve been seconds, minutes, hours– time was as lost to you as you were. Scrambling to find sight of something you knew, pushing yourself to the brink of a psychotic break trying to find some semblance of something you recognized.

Your hopes of following your own trail were cleanly wiped by the unrelenting fall of the harsh snow, sight of your presence in the woods something out of an old ghost tale– with every next step, snow would fill the one preceding it.

Tears of fright welled in every avenue of your body that was ridden with nerves and a pulse, unable to breach the surface in any motion of exhale against the harsh cold biting at every last ounce of your warmth and moisture.

The sky began to grow still, your once hazy vision clouding over entirely and closing your eyes entirely to the storm encompassing you. The turmoil– inner and out once raging vivaciously, now a distant nagging of a far-off memory.

Maybe the forest floor would be a good place to lie down for a bit.

It’d feel soft, comforting– to feel the soft kiss of winter bidding you her sweet farewell. Bucky’s two favorite sights– the falling snow and you. His precious bunny, blanketed and sheltered in a rage of a frozen squall.

And then you hear it.

A faint howl, sharper and straining the more it seemed to breathe. A heady affliction of burning desperation– of a blood-curdling yell. Growing louder and louder, surrounding you in bursts of wind and harsh pellets hitting against your numb skin.

Your name– screamed, frightfully over and over, breaking and cracking in boiling anguish each time its bellow pierced the dark sky.

“Oh fuck, come on bun! Please, I gotta find you! Please… bunny, where are you?” a harsh cry wails, a sound so chilling you never would’ve thought your Bucky could make it.

“B-bucky?” it takes all of your remaining strength not spent on keeping you right side up to whimper out, screaming in the lowest part of your throat.

His large frame hurtles towards you, shaking hands hastily ripping his big jacket off of him as his bloodshot eyes devour your trembling form.

“My sweet girl, oh fuck– Bunny you’re– shit. You’re okay, I gotcha. I’m here bun, can you keep your eyes on me, hmm? I’m gonna get you home, but you gotta keep your eyes on me. Come on, need you...” he pleads.

Y-your jacket Buck, youcan’t give–

But your shaking was too great, your words strewn together and clinging to your dry tongue as your body finally goes limp.

Y’can’t, you'llbe cold baby…

The words never had the strength to leave your mouth.

His coat was already wrapped around you, your body secure and suffocated in his strong but wobbling hold before you could even bat an eye in recognition. Your eyes struggle to stay parted, vision of snow and dark greens whizzing past you, all around you in a hazy blur as Bucky runs.

Immobile, unfeeling, and unable to do anything but lie quaking and crushed in Bucky’s tormented embrace.

Your frozen nose rests harshly pressed on the spot just below his ear. The frigid temperature of the air and of that leaving your body in brutal waves hardly touches him.

It simply doesn’t matter– holding you close to him as he jets back to the safety of the cabin is all he can let his body and mind dwell on.

He nears the clearing leading to the cabin, somehow managing to pick up an even greater speed. Your body clings to him from the great force alone, your limbs asleep and thankful for the assistance.

“Gotta get you warm, gonna take care of you… gotta make it all better. You have to let me, please bunny...” his faint voice whimpers against your temple, more for the sake of his own sanity than yours.

“Please bun, I need you…” a broken whisper.

“M’kay Buck,” your voice pushes through chattering teeth as the warmth of the cabin immediately greets you. Shutting the cabin door with his leg, he swiftly runs towards your bedroom, “m’fine baby…”.

If your voice actually spoke, he ignores it– his hands move in a fury of lightning to strip you of your soaked layers. His pained nerves ignited with tremors of the thunderous hiccups of his breathing hardly delay him from the task at hand. Before you can open your eyes again, he has you cradled against his unclothed chest, pressing a warm towel up and down your wet skin.

When did he get undressed?

A mumbling mantra of concern breathlessly leaves his lips and soft cries continue to rack his body, still overwhelmed with grief even though he has you, alive and only a bit shook up in his arms.

He entangles his legs with your thighs, pulling himself around you, cocooning the thick duvet adorning your bed around your shaking form.

His tears brush against your face, his lashes and the stubble of his beard dripping them down your skin in unrhythmic plops. “Bunny, my precious girl– it’s gonna be okay. I’m sorry… m’so sorry bun…”. He rubs his hands up and down your body, trembling but trying to get a normal pulse of warmth back in your body.

His lips quiver along your temple, soft pecks of his concern meant to soothe you– but acting in penance of his own torture.

The only thing that could turn Bucky’s world upside was currently playing out in real-time. He could’ve lost the love of his life inside a world she only knew because of him. He almost did.

“Oh my sweet girl, please,” he sobs, a whimper lost against the base of your neck.

Your fingers finally have a bit of feeling back in them, slowly crawling their way out from under your stomach and up to his chest. They shake slightly, unable to press any harder than with the most feather-like reverence, ghosting softly over his warm muscles. “Baby, I’m ‘kay, m’right here,” your lips lazily make out, tickling faintly against his collarbone.

He pulls you tighter, his hands moving to warm the length of your spine. His head shakes against you, a disheartened sob leaving his mouth. “I love you more than anything, bun. I’m so sorry…”

You tap your fingers against his chest gently, attempting to leave a soft kiss against his neck. A pained whisper of I love you Lumby, teases up the column of his throat and sends goosebumps along his neck and past his ear.

His eyes close, breathing in the feel of you alive in his arms, allowing him the time he needs to process everything as warmth finally begins to thaw you.

He clings to you a few minutes longer, feeling every inch of skin he can rub his hands along to prompt more heat to flow through you. His tears never cease, but they quiet– the true torment of the situation, succumb to plaguing his mind with guilt.

Bucky allows himself a few more moments of this quiet shame, breathing softly against your neck and the curves of your face.

When you’re finally able to move in his arms he shifts, removing himself from the bed and wrapping the blanket around you. He presses a shaky kiss to your forehead, a tear dropping against your chin.

“Bucky?” you watch as he moves to the bathroom across the hall, hearing the knob to the bath faucet turning on. He fiddles around with a few of the drawers, a few of the cabinets, setting up the bath and room to his liking while ruminating in the painful stew his mind has him soaking in.

He returns to your shared room, a tub of body butter and a soft towel in hand. Placing them gently next to you on the nightstand, he removes the duvet and towel from your body, remaining silent and keeping his eyes downcast the whole way.

You reach for him as best as you can, the chill of the air causing you to desperately miss the warmth only his body seems to bring. But he always seems to know what you want, gathering you tightly in his arms and carrying you into the bathroom.

The room is dimly lit with a few of your favorite candles and incense, perched unceremoniously on the corner of the tub. The faint scent of your body wash fills your nostrils, floating in the air as it bubbles contently in the swell of the water. You pull his face towards yours, begging to meet his stare.

Tears rest as radiant as ever in the breath of his eyes, wells of love and sadness pooling deep. He bends at the hip slightly with you still cradled in his arms, eyes still not meeting yours as his hand tests the temperature of the water before placing you in it. The heat of the water immediately quells your remaining shakes, replacing them with a shudder of relief and a sigh of welcomed air.

Kneeling, Bucky grabs your shampoo and scoops some into his palm, working it gently against your scalp, massaging any tension away he could manage. He knew nothing of how to care for your hair– not the way you did– but he needed to do this.

For himself, for you, for the terrible thought of never having taken the time to try and almost having the opportunity ripped from him.

He pays close attention to your body; to the way the bubbles cling to you in delight as you melt under his fingertips; the way the water encases you in such still protection. He can’t meet your eyes, he won’t. He needs this. He presses a sigh to your temple as you curl close into his bicep, letting him rub your scalp.

His hands scoop up water and work their best to rid your hair of shampoo, anxiously wanting to wash all traces of the remnants of the frozen hell you got trapped in. “Feels s’nice, Lumby,” you whisper. His eyes flutter to meet yours, his face unchanging of its somber expression.

Bucky stands up, placing one foot into the tub before the other, staring down at you for a moment before taking you in his arms, positioning you between his legs. He brings your back to his chest and your hand to his lips, painting your skin in kisses from the palm of your left hand all the way up to your right shoulder. You sink into his touch, letting him feel you in whatever way he needs.

“Wanna talk about it?” you mouth against his forearm, your hand gently scratching up and down the muscles of his hard thigh.

He clears his throat, shakily sighing before his scratchy and hoarse whisper breaks the air, “Have you ever felt like you lost the ground you were standing on? I never– I’ve never felt my heart stop beating the way I– I swear. I… do you know what that was like? Hearing you? So afraid; so hollowed by a sound I have nightmares of? The wind. I know that noise. That’s how I knew bun– what was going on. I was already on my way to find you before you could… I just knew. And when the line cut out, I ran. Straight from the yard, I dropped everything. Only a mile or two, but I had to. I’d never… never be able to live– I can’t even…” a pained breath cuts himself off, prompting him to squeeze his arms tighter around your stomach and inhale through a deep sob, his calloused hands unmoving but trembling firmly on your hips.

Grounding himself– the close proximity of your body against his in the heat of the soothing water, not enough. He breathes in the smell of your neck, of the spot behind your ear as his lips quake against your skin. The need to confirm you were there– the need to feel you there, alive and breathing under his watch is all that could help him breathe right now.

“You don’t understand just how my world turns for you; how my heart beats for you. I felt it– true pain, bunny. Never felt anything like that in my life. I still feel it.”

“I’m right here Bucky. I’m so sorry I ever went out there… you told me not to and I di–” the force of his shaking head cuts you off, a troubled whine vibrating roughly into the skin of your neck.

“Don’t do that. I’d never blame this on you, ever. I should have that part of the woods marked off, I should’ve been home sooner. I almost didn’t even go in today, I shouldn’t have. I should–” you turn yourself in his hold to cradle his face between your hands. His eyes tightly shut as tears roll down his cheeks, the water sloshing and spilling around you both.

“There’s no way I’m allowing you to ruin yourself by thinking of how you could’ve prevented this. I shouldn’t have gone out in a storm, Buck. But I’m here, and you found me. Right? You saved me, baby. I love you– and you have me.”

He shakes his head as best he can while held between your palms, not wanting to miss your gentle touch for a second. His hands smooth up your sides and shoulders, shifting his position in the tub to envelop you wholly, needing to ease the ache of his chest.

After a few minutes of conditioning your hair and peppering gentle kisses along your shoulders, against the crook of your neck; thankful sighs against the shell of your ear; after wandering hands massage body wash into your skin, he brings your lips to his for a lingering kiss.

“Come on bun,” a whisper pressed to the side of your mouth, “lemme love you. Gotta take care of you.”

He stands out of the tub first, drying himself off quickly with a towel before picking you up, wrapping you in a fluffy blue one. He sits on the toilet lid holding you in his lap, letting the material wrapped tightly around you soak up all the water it can without having to let you leave his embrace.

He presses a kiss to the back of your head and you pepper his hand cradled around your stomach with sweet pecks. He squeezes you tight, sighing into the towel covering your back.

He places you on your feet in front of him, dragging the towel over the remaining dampness of your skin. Bucky looks up at you, grabbing your chin and pulling gently at your bottom lip with his thumb. His eyes drink in your face; the plump curves of your cheek and the soft lines of your nose. The dip in your upper lip and the crease of your eyes.

A sad smile taints his face, moving forward to press a kiss against your stomach. He stands, hooking his arms around your waist and carrying you to your room. His hand taps at your thigh gently when turning into your doorway, prompting you to wrap them around his waist.

“Grab that towel for me, bun,” he whispers. You lean down gently from his hip and grab it. Taking it from you he lays it against your bed, kissing your hand that gave it to him, placing you down on it.

You lay watching him as he grabs the body butter from the nightstand, gathering some and quickly warming it up in his palms.

He starts down at your feet, rubbing soft circles into your skin, moving up to your ankles and making sure not even a centimeter goes untouched. His lips meet your shin, following the movements of his hands.

“You don’t know what you mean to me, I love you so much, it hurts. I need you,” he breathes against your knee.

“Can’t ever scare me like that again, please bun, can’t handle it,” he grabs your hand, massaging at the tension of your wrist and palm, tracing all the lines and tips of each of your fingers.

“These fingers,” he kisses them gently, moving to your other hand to do the same. Grabbing more lotion and repeating his actions, rubbing over your knuckles with a firm thumb and a soft ghosting of his lips.

“This stomach,” he kneads reverently. Causing you to squirm as he kisses every fold, bump, curve, and mark that makes up his favorite mural he longs to study again and again. His hands massage the skin of your ribs, lips pressing open-mouthed kisses. He moans softly, trailing his hands down over your hips. “These hips– make me fucking crazy.”

Bucky’s lips slow their motions, nose nudging against the divots and swell of your skin, teasing himself more than you. His hands travel down, encircling each thigh firmly.

“Fuck– these thighs. Need these thighs, so fucking perfect,” he whimpers. His lips worshipping with feather-soft precision and hushed sighs of his love. He can't help but get overwhelmed, working his mouth a bit harder, hands firmly grasping your thighs and pulling you closer to his pleading lips.

“Your shoulders... this spine that keeps my sweet girl whole,” he wraps his arms under you, kneading from your tailbone to your upper back. “Need you, need all of you,” he pulls you close by your hips, angling you upwards and kissing the pudge of your stomach.

Tears trail your skin, his words affecting you more than he’d ever know. “Need you too, Buck. I love you so much.”

“So fucking soft. So good for me,” his low whisper praises against your belly.

“Bucky. I…thank you. I’m so in love with you. More than anything, more than you’ll ever know,” he gathers you in his arms, sitting up in the bed and moving you to his lap. Your arms circle themselves around his neck, his lips caressing the skin of your right arm with tender kisses.

“I know, bunny. I need to love you forever. There’s no way I won’t– but I just really need you to know that, bun,” his hands wander up your spine, pressing you tightly against him. His lips embrace the skin of your sternum. “The way I need to love you is necessary. You’ve ruined me, given me such life. I’d do anything for you.”

“Lumby?” your fingers trace up the curve of his chest.

“Yes, sweet girl?”

“I could use a kiss–” his lips meet yours before you can blink. A squeak escapes you, a giggle of surprise teasing up your throat and urging you to thread your fingers through his damp locks, drawing him closer.

His lips move against yours, tender and desperate, cradling you in his hands and stealing all the breath from your lungs. A low moan sounds from the back of your throat, his tongue caressing your mouth as your fingers scratch at his scalp. He whimpers against you, lost in the feel of you.

“How’s that?” he breathes against your lips. His lips press earnestly along the length of your mouth. “Need a few more? I think you do, bunny,” his hands wrap around your jaw and neck, tilting your head and holding you where he needs you.

“Perfect,” he mumbles, your eyes flutter open to take in his appearance. His eyes are tightly shut, cheeks pink and wet with a few stray tears. You thumb them away, grabbing his face protectively between your palms.

“Never stop, Bucky,” you kiss along his reddened cheeks.

“If today means you’ll finally let me keep you wrapped around me all the time now, I might have a heart attack.”

You throw your head back in a loud laugh, crinkles forming at the squint of your eyes and flutter of your lashes. You burrow your face in his neck, an open-mouthed kiss snug at the base. “What do you mean, now? As if any other time is any different,” your sweet giggle teases at his ears. “Anything you want, baby. Just don’t ever like seeing you so upset… I’ll do anything to make sure you’re never like that again.”

He lets out a deep groan, his hands tracing along the expanse of your thighs. “Shouldn’t have said that bun. Now you’re never leaving this bed ever again,” he swiftly grabs you, gently pushing you until your back is against the mattress. His hands stroke and squeeze at your flesh as they work up and down your thighs, claiming your hips and up the swell of your stomach.

His lips meet your skin, softly scattering kisses along the journey his hands have taken the last hour until his lips meet yours.

He hovers over you, his arms caging you under him as his fingers trace the curves of your face, “Now that I think about it, I need a kiss for every second of this awful day I had. Need you to fix it,” he dramatically pouts, “so I can love you better... yeah. I need as many kisses as I can give ya. You’re not leaving this bed until I’m feeling 100% better, which definitely will be a really, really, long time.”

He mimics crying, a loud and stupid noise meant to make you laugh, blaring loudly from his chest and into the space of your bedroom. He continues, a few of his own giggles and boyish laughter seeping through his theatrics. "I'm never leaving you alone again," he sighs.

Adoring hands trail down your body as his plump lips follow suit. “Gosh bun, can’t even fathom the thought that this perfect body had to bear the cold today…these thighs. Are you sure you’re okay?” he smirks, a teasing glimmer filling his reverent ceruleans. “Are you sure you’re feeling warm enough? These thighs look a bit cold to me… we can’t have that.”

“Bucky…” you giggle.

“Bunny…” his hands spider along the stretch marks mapped out along the skin of your belly and hips. “Come on, they’re freezing bun!” he traces soft circles into the crease of your thighs, tiny tingles and a teasing tickle erupting in shivers. “Look, they’re shaking…” he grins triumphantly, knowing just how to perfectly play your body against you. “They’re begging for my attention. Come on bunny, I need to feel ya, please,” he whines. “Ya’know I can’t say no to ‘em. Uhnn,” he groans, “you’re always just laying there looking so pretty, s’not fair,” he kisses his way down your stomach, painting gentle strokes of love along every inch of you.

His lips turn into a smirk the closer he gets to the swell of your thigh. His teeth trace down your lower stomach, nipping and mouthing at the sensitive skin at the top of your legs. Bucky sighs happily for the first time all day, laying against the cushion of your thigh, turning his head to look up at you. The look in his eyes nearly sends you back outside, deep and lost in the middle of the forest– only now, numb from head to toe with nothing but his heated adoration for you.

“Need a few kisses with these thighs, bun. I’ll get my sweet girl warm in no time...”

#bucky #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #Bucky Barnes x f!reader #bucky x f!reader

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