#The fic was already 13k before the +2 happened
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I just want everyone to know that writing sex scenes is the bane of my existence and I regret every single life choice that has led me to this moment
And, before you ask: No, it's not Who Holds the Devil.
But is it Yo Han and Ga On?
Yes, yes it is.
And I cannot BELIEVE how kinky and oblivious Ga On manages to be, both at the same time. He'll definitely be the death of me (and Yo Han) before this is over.
Just...
ლ(ಥ益ಥლ)
#Amethystina Writes#Look#I just wanted to write something short (by my standards) to get back into the swing of things#So I figured a 5+1 would be a good idea#But when I finished that I felt like there was something missing#So I added a +2#And that +2 has now devolved into a sex scene#And it's becoming quite long#The fic was already 13k before the +2 happened#And now it's pushing 18k and I'm not even done#I have so many regrets#Save me from myself#But hey#There will be a fic I guess?#If I can bring myself to post it because sex scenes give me performance anxiety#In short:#*incoherent screaming*
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Born lucky, under a bad star.
Summary: Joel has always been lucky, in the worst of ways.
Pairing: Joel Miller x f!Reader
Word count: ~13k (sorry)
Warnings: game!Joel, major spoilers for tlou part 2, angst with a happy ending, major injuries and recovery, anxiety, depression, relationship healing, mentions of death, mentions of violence, suicidal ideation
Disclaimers and A/N: Though this fic was based around some events in tlou part 2, almost all of the canon after the divergence from the canon timeline is thrown out. This fic is also based entirely around game events, characterization, and canon. This is honestly one of the most difficult things I've ever written. It took months and many many drafts, but I'm very proud of her. I hope you love her too, she was a labor of love.
As always, thank you for reading! I would love to know your thoughts! Please please please, be sure to leave feedback!
Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red.
- Kait Rokowski.
The lights of the clinic are so bright they’re blinding.
Your hands are still shaking, covered in Joel’s blood. It’s been hours since you returned to the safety of Jackson’s walls but there’s still a frantic, frenetic energy in the air. Everyone is shaken. It feels a little like a thousand year old tree has been felled, like a giant has been swung at and leveled, like something monstrous and infallible has been brought to its knees.
You’ve seen it happen before. Rebar right through his belly. It should have killed him. It would have killed anyone else. You’ve pulled more bullets out of Joel than you would care to count, and swaddled him in probably several football fields worth of bandages over the years.
Still, nothing like this.
Because Joel has always been lucky, even when he hadn’t wanted to be.
Lucky, in all the worst ways.
That fucking rebar, you think bitterly. It should have hit at least one organ, should have severed his fucking spine. But it didn’t. He walked it off, really, mostly, at the end of it all.
This though — to see him tortured, beaten, bleeding to death slowly—
Your edge of your vision tips black, like your mind is already refusing to go back to that room, like you’ll pass out if you think of it for too long.
A part of you wonders if maybe it’s your fault. Maybe you forgot to stick lavender in his pocket before he left that morning, like you always do.
Someone pushes the door open, snow swirls in against the tile. Voices, rising and falling. The cold that rolls through the tiny waiting room is frigid.
It’s still so red, his blood, even dried and crusted around your fingers and up your wrists.
Tommy is still bleeding and even Maria hasn’t been able to convince him to sit down and let someone look at him. No, all attention needs to be focused on his brother. Anyone with any medical know how, has to be with Joel.
You agree.
Tommy, you, anyone else—can fucking wait.
Ellie is sitting next to you, looking just as numb and shocked as you feel, her fingers twined with Dina’s.
The chatter reaches a crescendo. Something about the worsening storm, something about tracking folks with that big of a headstart through a storm like this one, something about the rapidly deepening darkness, night coming on, something about well who could do something like that anyway? Who the fuck would we even send?
The quiet that follows is painful.
Joel.
Joel is the one you send. Joel is the one that could get a job like this one done, the one that could track people through a blizzard with a dogged determinism, with pragmatism and infallibility.
“What did they want?” Someone asks the room at large. You aren’t sure who asks, you can’t make the shapes in the room resolve into people you know. “Why us? Why Joel? They wanted something right? Who were they?”
You and Tommy look at each other, Ellie makes a half muffled, pained sound beside you. Joel crossed a lot of people, maybe there wasn’t any sense in guessing.
No one answers. You look at your hands again and wonder if the crimson will ever fade.
Someone says your name and you look up. A coat is tugged over your shoulders. You didn’t realize you were shivering and you don’t know what happened to your own coat. One of the patrolmen is looking at you, his name slips your memory but Jesse is standing behind him, Maria on the other side.
You feel the ghost of Ellie’s hand against your arm. Odd, you think distantly, because she hates you. She has for a long time.
“What happened?”
You look around, but Tommy isn’t where he’d been standing just a moment ago. Did they ask him, too?
There’s a dark hole in your memory.
“I don’t know.”
And it’s the truth.
There’s no one more dedicated, more involved, in keeping Jackson safe, than Joel.
Aside from Tommy, maybe.
Joel is an effective killer, like an executioner with a mission. It’s the thing that scared Tommy the most about his brother, and it’s also the thing that had kept him alive long enough to get his second chance in Jackson. It’s the thing you have always loved most about Joel, the violence born of necessity.
And, you suppose, that’s what he’d been. Dispatcher, destroyer.
Protector.
At the heart of it all, the meat of it is, that it had always been that with Joel. It had always been in the name of protect, provide, survive. He never shied away from telling you of his days as a hunter, or, something close to a hunter. And even then, it was keep Tommy alive, it was survive until Boston, it was we needed fucking food.
Survive and provide and protect.
Joel.
Jackson had been wary of him, at first. The stories of his dealings with infected and raiders alike at odds with the way he moved in the commune, with kindness and a certain gentleness, a competency and dependability, with something so soft in his gaze when it came to that little girl he arrived with.
That reticence and worry had dissolved as quickly as it had come.
They describe him as quiet and funny, because he’s prone to good natured teasing. They describe him as fierce and short to anger, because no one can say a word about him or his. They describe him as wonderfully dependable, ask Joel for something on a supply run and you would have it in short order; sigh about the state of something in your home and it would be taken care of, fixed, the very next day.
Jackson loves Joel.
Especially that softened up, gentle creature that had emerged in the wake of everything that had happened between Boston and Jackson. Joel had always had a soft interior, trotted out in brief glimpses over the years, but the shell he wore had been so thick and sharp it was near impenetrable, nearly unknowable.
Ellie is around plenty in those first couple of weeks after. She even takes to sleeping on the living room couch. She doesn’t say much to you or Joel, hardly anything at all, but she’s there and you figure that’s what matters. It seems like she isn’t sure what to say, and desperate for the connection that nearly shattered.
The first few days when Joel comes home from the clinic, someone knocks on the front door every couple of hours and you open it and have the same conversation over and over and over again. It’s always people worriedly asking after Joel’s wellbeing, dropping off food, expressing their anger that something like this could happen to one of their own, that it could happen to someone so widely and wildly beloved.
When the knocks finally stop coming, and you can convince Tommy to go home to Maria, before Maria has to walk over and collect her husband again, you take the stairs slowly up.
You’re exhausted. You hardly sleep and when you do, you have nightmares of Joel. Formless, mind numbing dreams that you can never remember when you wake up gasping. You aren’t sure if Joel dreams of it, too. He’s always mumbled in his sleep, eyes flickering behind closed lids, so it’s hard to tell.
And he hasn’t really been coherent enough, awake enough, to ask, anyway.
“Hey,” Ellie says when you round the doorway into the bedroom, lowering the comic book in her hands. She’s beside Joel, sitting on your side of the bed, back against the headboard. “Sleeping again.”
“Was he awake?”
“A little. Drank some water.”
Despite the tension of the last few years, you know she’s thinking of another time that Joel had slept a lot, injured and only half alive.
Now isn’t like then, but in some ways, it’s worse.
You nod and take a seat at the edge of the bed by her feet. “That’s good,” you reassure her. “It’s a good thing that he’s sleeping. He needs it.”
Ellie just holds up the comic in her lap and then jerks her chin at the box on the bedside table, Joel’s glasses and book about space pushed aside. “I, uh, found them in the study.”
You shrug. “He always picked up any he found on supply runs.” You watch her from the corner of your eye and then shift your gaze to Joel. The slow rise and fall of his chest is reassuring in its steadiness, though you hate how still he is.
The skin by his temple is puckered and red, the stitches a neat little row up to his hairline. It still looks raw as a live nerve, the swelling extending to his eye, purple and shadowed in a dark bruise that trails down his cheek and jaw.
“He never said—” She stops and shakes her head. “So stupid.”
“Well,” you scoot closer and pat her extended leg. “You didn’t exactly want to talk then. We tried giving them to you, once. Left them outside your door. They got a little rained on.”
“Yeah,” she says, mouth twisting to the side. “Some of them are. . .can’t fucking peel the pages apart.” In that moment, she sounds like that little kid you left Boston with, being told not to touch something and doing it anyway.
That might have been when you fell in love with Ellie, watching her snap at Bill, and watching Joel react like any father would. It had come back to him so quickly, so naturally.
There’s a long pause in which Ellie flips rapidly through the comic book and doesn’t say anything, her fingers nervous. She looks how you feel — exhausted. “Why don’t you go get some sleep in your own bed?” You ask, reaching out to twitch a fallen lock of auburn hair behind her ear. “You’re just across the yard. If anything happens, you’ll know.”
She looks up at you, eyes flicking over your face. “I was fucking mad at you too, you know,” she whispers suddenly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
You drop your hand and shake your head before looking back at Joel. He sleeps deeply now, deeper than you thought possible for someone like him, even drugged and injured.
There’s a knot tangled in your chest, that only tightens further with her question. “It wasn’t my place. He didn’t. . .he didn’t say anything to me about it for a long time, either. Wouldn’t explain what happened while we were separated. He told me the same lie. And you were going to be mad at me, too, no matter what. It had to be between the two of you.”
“And you think he was right,” she accuses hotly.
“And,” you level your eyes to hers, “I think he was right.” You dip your head. “I wouldn’t change anything, Ellie. I wouldn’t. You know Joel wouldn’t either. You matter more than that.”
Her bottom lip trembles for just a second. “Even knowing this happens?!” She gestures around the room, maybe just the situation at large.
Some of the tension knotting up your shoulders bleeds away. “He’s still here. It’s not too late.” She glances away and sucks in a harsh breath. You wait until she meets your eyes again. “And Ellie, it is not your fault. It’s not. None of it.”
“It almost was.” Her voice is strained. “Too late.”
You shrug. “He knows you care. Trust me, he does.”
She scrubs roughly at her eyes with the sleeves of her hoodie. “Yeah, uh, well, I’m still gonna sleep on the couch.”
“Why don’t you just stay right here, then? With Joel?” You ask and stand. “I’ll take the couch tonight.”
It is the ultimate admission of how scared she is, that she does not argue, doesn’t even try to.
For the first few weeks after the attack, Joel is in and out of consciousness. He sleeps much more than he’s awake.
And, it’s hard to tell, at first, why he’s sleeping so much. The pain medicine? That carefully doled out, nearly impossible to come by miracle drug — was it just knocking him out? Was he just sleeping because that’s what his body needed? Or, was it something deeper? Brain damage?
“He’s fucking. . .old!” Ellie says to you one morning around a mouthful of toast. It’s kind of odd, how easily she’s taken to old routines. And how weird the old routine is, because the third piece of your puzzle is missing, sleeping. “Old people take longer to heal, right?”
Right.
But he’s also Joel. And he isn’t that old.
It feels wrong, that he’s so still and silent.
“It’s not—” Her fist opens and closes. She sets down the toast in her other hand on the plate and turns, pacing the length of Joel’s kitchen, fidgeting with her fingers as she goes, white morning light slatting over her. You eye the toast. It’s hard to get her to eat, these days but you figure most of one piece is better than nothing. “His leg. It’s not infected or something, right? We’d know if it was.”
“It’s not infected,” you agree. When your own hands start to shake, you set down your mug, afraid to drop it or spill hot tea all over the floor, and make Ellie even more anxious in the process.
You don’t like to talk about it. You don’t like to think about it. The memories are like a hot brand.
The staircase creaks with the heavy thud of footsteps, before Tommy appears in the kitchen archway. You’ve always thought Tommy and Joel resembled each other, but now you see similarities in the kinds of expressions they make, too, the quirks in their movements that only siblings could share, and Tommy is sometimes a little hard to look at.
“Heading out?”
“Yeah, he’s, uh, sleepin’ again.” He leans against the doorway and crosses his arms over his chest.
Ellie doesn’t say anything, just slips past Tommy and heads up the steps. Tommy looks after her and then back at you. “She won’t say it but she doesn’t like leaving him alone,” you explain.
Tommy nods and then pushes away from the door to settle at the kitchen table. “Well, I don’t like the idea of it either. Good she’s with him.” He tips the chair onto its back legs and tilts his head. “How ya holdin’ up?”
“Probably about as good as you are.”
He huffs a bitter laugh. “Yeah. Maria told me you want off partols.”
You swallow and look away from him as you take the seat across from him at the table. “I - I know we’re down people already but I can’t. . .Tommy I can’t even look at the goddamn gate without feeling like—” You shake your head. “I just don’t think I can do it. I’d get somebody killed.”
“All right,” he says, not unkindly. “We’ll figure it out. It’s okay.”
A burn starts at the back of your eyes so you stand again and swipe your fingers against your cheeks. “You want coffee before you head out?”
“Nah, save that for Joel.” Then, “How you think this is gonna go? When he’s awake more?”
“I don’t know. You’d know better than me.”
Tommy laughs. The chair scrapes against the linoleum as he stands. He looks tired, and worried. It’s an odd look on him. It isn’t like Tommy at all. You and Tommy have always bonded over teasing Joel. There’s none of that now.
“Like hell. You’ve spent the last fifteen years with him, not me.”
“He’s your brother.”
“And you’re the love of his damn life.” He pauses and leans on the counter next to you.
That makes your mouth twitch, the pleasantly warm feeling in your chest consumed in the next second by a lancing pain that can only be an approximation of grief for someone and something that still breathed.
“I just can’t help worryin’,” he continues. “This might be enough for us, but not for him. If Joel can’t ever do anything again—”
“He just needs time, Tommy,” you cut him off quickly. Not able to stomach the thought. “We’ll figure it out. He’ll figure it out,” you say with more conviction than you feel. “We can probably figure something like a prosthetic out. People have been making them for thousands of years. We can do it. It’ll be fine. But it’s going to be different.”
Tommy’s right. You’ve spent the last fifteen years with Joel. You aren’t sure who you are without him anymore. You aren’t sure you know how to get along without him anymore. And you never want to have to find out. “He’s alive,” you finish with a nod. “Everything else, we can figure out.”
He nods. “You think we shoulda went after ‘em?”
“Maybe. But this is more important.”
Before he goes, Tommy wraps you in a hug. “So long as you and that girl stick around, it’ll be all right.”
“Ellie’s been playing the guitar up there,” you answer.
He nods and pulls back, one big hand clapping down on your shoulder. “See? Things might be all right yet. Always told Joel she’d come around eventually.” He releases you and heads toward the door then. “And get some sleep. Y’look terrible,” he calls over his shoulder. “Orders from Maria.”
For the first time in weeks, Joel wakes with some semblance of clarity. The bedroom is warm and dark, the tiniest pool of light washing over the form next to him from a little light plugged into the wall.
It’s the nightlight he found for Ellie when they first got to Jackson and her nightmares gave her more grief than she cared to admit to.
His whole body aches. He feels sick.
The sharpness of the pain is disorienting. He’s only been awake in brief, muddled flashes, the dulled fingers of drugged pain lancing through him and consuming most of his thoughts. He’d only been awake long enough to eat or drink or be helped to the bathroom like some kind of damn—
He remembers Tommy at his bedside. He hears the ghost notes of music in the air, your voice in his ear, the gentle slide of warm fingers over his skin. He remembers Ellie reading aloud, curled on her side next to him, like she used to do when she was younger, like when they’d stop for the night on the road.
That can’t be right, though. She hasn’t done that in years. She wouldn’t do something like that. Not anymore.
You’re next to him now, face tilted against the edge of his pillow. It’s hard to make you out in the dark, the shape and slope of your features hidden in the dim light.
When he says your name, you twitch, the slightest wrinkle to your nose, the tiniest spasm of your fingers against the sheets. “Darlin’,” he tries again. His voice grinds, catches and snags around his teeth. It feels like he hasn’t spoken in years.
He reaches for you and it’s agony, because his shoulder must be broken. His ribs contract painfully right, like the shrapnel of the bone is digging up into his lungs, piercing his heart. But your skin is soft and warm, pliant, beneath his fingers. It smells like you’ve been burning sage again. He wants to burrow his fingers beneath your skin, you’re so warm.
The cut of your cheekbones are sharper, the angle of your jaw reminds him of winter in the QZ, winter traveling with you and Ellie. Discolored circles line the space beneath your eyes like little hollows. You look exhausted, wan.
You blink, slowly at first, then more rapidly. “Joel?” Your voice is a whisper, like the dark is stealing it away.
Your fingers slide through the backs of his against your cheek when you shift closer, so careful about it, until you’re pressed to his side. “Joel,” you repeat, eyes sliding shut, forehead against the edge of his sore jaw.
He breathes you in, the warm scent of your skin, the smells of hearth and home, lavender and sage and woodsmoke. He closes his eyes for just a second when you shift up and tilt your forehead against his, breath whispering against his chin. “Joel.”
“You all right?” His voice still sounds rocky but clearing it doesn’t seem to help any.
Slowly, you sit up, hand still in his when you pull it away from your face. “You’re asking me that? You’re kidding, Joel,” your voice creaks. You’ve never really been a crier, but there’s a thickness in your mouth, softening out the vowels and snapping at the consonants. “Are you - We didn’t want you to be in pain. But you’ve been sleeping for so long, we gave you a lower dose so that—”
“I feel okay,” he interrupts your fretting, sweeping his thumb against the back of your hand. “Considerin’.”
You swallow and nod. “Hungry?” You glance at the window, where a gray, pale morning light is starting to leech into the room, the color of dirty snow.
“Yep.” He wishes you’d keep your eyes on him. “If you’ve got somethin’ ready.”
“We have anything you want,” you assure him. “Anything.”
Joel nods and attempts to push himself up next to you, chest and shoulder aching something awful. He bites back a groan but it still pushes past his teeth.
“Careful,” you say sharply. Before he can protest, you’re up and around the bed, one hand behind his back. “Your shoulder is broken in a million places.”
“A million?” He grunts.
“Three.”
“That ain’t a million.”
You don’t laugh and your hand doesn’t move from his back. “And broken ribs. Now lean back.” He does as you ask, real careful about it so you don’t worry.
An odd feeling creeps up inside his chest, dulled by the lighter dose of pain medicine coursing through his veins. It ain’t just a sick feeling, but something else. A helplessness, maybe. It feels wrong, in more ways than one.
Joel becomes acutely aware of what he already knows, every single injury, the graveness of them. He knows about the broken shoulder and ribs that had to be reset, torn skin that had to be stitched together, that he has internal bruising but by some miracle no internal bleeding. His face throbs suddenly, his temple tight with pain. He feels his heartbeat behind his eye and in the swelling in his cheek.
And, the worst of it, leg amputated to just above the knee. Sick crawls up the back of his throat. He doesn’t dare look.
The feeling in his chest swells until it chokes him.
Helpless, useless — something hard and fanged digs into his mind. It feels like grief, but what is he supposed to be mourning, exactly?
Everything, maybe.
His whole damn life.
“I’m fine,” he grunts suddenly. Sharply. “Quit fussin’.”
He feels like fucking crying.
“Just - shut up, Joel,” you snap back. “You almost fucking died.”
A fist curls around his throat, warm and tight. He almost can’t breathe through it. “Yeah,” he croaks, voice breaking the word in two.
“Yeah,” you snarl. “So shut up and let me fuss.”
You turn and leave before he can say anything else, footsteps rapidly descending the stairs. Voices trundle up, creased and folded, rising but muffled. You’ve always been mean when you got scared, ever since Joel can remember. You were mean as hell when he first met you, a hissing kind of frustrated, new to the QZ and new to trying your hand at smuggling.
You’ve softened up over the years. He hasn’t seen you like this in a long time, maybe not since you got separated in Salt Lake City.
More footsteps, this time heavy, stomping, coming upwards.
Ellie appears in the doorway a second later. Her hair is messy; her eyes are wild. She’s in sweatpants and a shirt that’s too big for her. She looks tired but unharmed. The knot tangled up around his lungs eases just a little. “Hey, kiddo.” He tries not to sound surprised.
Her eyes flick over him and then away. She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t leave either. Instead she picks up a book from the corner of the dresser and settles in the chair across the room.
A firm but unyielding presence.
He closes his eyes, tips his head back against the wall, and tries to push down the feeling of failure rising in his throat like a tide.
Joel’s fingers are clumsy.
He can’t walk, can’t work, can’t do much of anything without irritating every ligament and tendon and bone in his body.
But even worse than that, he can’t remember how to play the guitar.
And nothing makes him feel so helpless as that.
Even after not playing for twenty odd years, the notes and the placement of his fingers on the strings and frets had come back easily to him, almost like he’d never stopped playing at all.
Now, it doesn’t.
In part his shoulder is to blame. Even nearly healed, it’s stiff. But the other part of it is that he can’t remember how to play. Every note seems wrong, and he can’t decide if he’s hearing it wrong, if there’s something wrong with his hearing, his perception, or if the note really is just wrong.
Ellie plays for him, instead.
It’s easier than talking. Neither of them are really good at that, anyway. He’s just glad she’s around at all.
He can’t help but think of that last conversation he’d had with her on the back porch, that she wants to try to forgive him, even if she thinks she might never be able to. He supposes this is her way of trying her hand at that.
Sometimes he wonders if it would be like this if he hadn’t almost died, if he wasn’t collecting sympathy from everyone like there was some kind of shortage. Maybe that conversation on the porch would have meant nothing, otherwise.
The thought hurts him, no matter how glad he is that she’s there.
One evening, pretty late, as snow peppers down through the early winter black that curtains the window, she stops playing.
The living room is quiet, aside from their breathing and the crackle of flames in the fireplace.
“I was going to invite you over to watch a movie.”
The metallic twang of the last note she plucked hangs in the air.
“I was - I was going to fucking ask you to watch a movie with me. That night. One of those dumb action movies you like. Like the ones we used to watch, remember? Curtis and Viper 2.”
She doesn’t look at him. She stares at her fingers, idly, nervously, twisting the tuning pegs of the guitar. “Think I saw that one before,” he answers, voice a little choked. “Pretty good.”
Ellie rolls her eyes and doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. “Yeah, you would think so, old man,” she replies eventually but still doesn’t look up, her mouth twisting to the side. “I just - don’t want you to think I’m only here because you—” She shakes her head, and props the guitar against the wall before she stands and paces the room twice, toying with her fingers in that way she always has. “I never wanted anything bad to happen to you. Even when I was really mad.”
“Ellie,” he says but she doesn’t seem to hear him. “I know.”
“Anyway, I meant what I said.”
“Ellie.”
“I wanted things to get better. I wanted to try. I was going to.”
“Ellie.”
She spins suddenly toward the front door, one hand on the back of her neck, rubbing awkwardly. “I gotta get going.”
“Kiddo.” This time she turns and finally looks at him. The scent of pine and smoke fills the room. The red of the flames flash across her face, so serious and anxious.
When they first came to Jackson, they spent a lot of nights on the couch together. His neck always ached the next morning from sleeping upright but he’d never complain about it. Then the distance between them had grown, and he doesn’t know when the last time something like that had happened.
But that same distance is slowly shrinking now, even if things might never, never be the same again.
So many times when he looks at her, he still sees that fourteen year old kid. He’d had the same problem with Sarah, looking at his twelve year old and seeing her at five and eight. It was just how it went, being a parent.
“I know, Ellie,” he reassures her. “I do. It’s all right. Even if you didn’t mean a word of it, it’s all right. I meant what I said, too.”
And even though she said she needed to leave, she nods and sits down again. She plucks a few notes out on the guitar when she pulls it back into her lap.
“D'ya still wanna watch it?”
She does.
Joel is whittling.
It is decidedly not going well.
He’s too distracted for it. He never realized how much pressure settled on his shoulder, how much it pulled at the muscle around his ribs, from doing something as simple as this, and he doesn’t like the nausea that comes with the pain.
But it’s something he can do, so he does it.
It’s snowing outside again, wind raking against the siding, rattling the window panes. There’s a thin stream of air coming in around the window’s frame, cold.
His hands are chapped and raw, blood pooling at the seams of his knuckles.
The fix would be easy enough, but everything he needs to do it is in the basement. And the basement is a near impossible location for him to reach, so he puts up with it, hands growing more frustrated by the second because he wants to fucking fix it.
You use the office, his work space, often enough, and it’s one thing for him to be cold and uncomfortable, but another thing entirely for you to feel that way.
But he can’t make it down to the living room without help these days, let alone down two flights of stairs to the basement, and then back up them, too.
“Joel?”
He glances over his shoulder to find you standing in the doorway. You have a pair of shears in your hands.
“Still want me to cut your hair?”
He wants to do it himself. But you’d offered earlier, because you’ve been doing it for him for a long time, for years and years now. And he’d always liked it because your hands are kind with it and you’re better at doing it, anyway. But now it just feels like one more thing he can’t do for himself, one more thing he’s relying on someone else for, and that makes guilt and shame choke him.
Joel can’t seem to do a damn thing, not for himself, but, worse, not for anyone else either.
“Joel?” You ask again when the silence stretches until it’s uncomfortable. “I don’t have to; you can do it yourself.”
He shakes his head. “No, it’s all right, darlin’.” You start forward when he labors up from the chair, teeth gritted, but quickly stop when he meets your eyes, warning you away with a glance.
You don’t say anything else, just back out the door and pad down the hall to the bathroom.
He isn’t sure if your feelings are hurt or not, all his focus directed on hauling himself upwards and then limping down the hall with one crutch under his arm. Feeble threads of pain lance up his leg, centering in his joints, the hinge of his knee. The space under his arm is sore too, from the crutch, even wrapped in cloth.
Joel is used to pain. He’s used to temporary aches, the sharp stab of healing wounds, the quick rip of a bullet or knife through skin, chronic pains from age and long healed injuries. On cold days, his side aches something fierce, like that rebar never really came out of him.
But this pain is different, without origin, and he’s having a hard time adjusting to it. Or maybe he’s just having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that this is not a healable injury, at least, not in the way he wants it to be.
For the rest of his life, he will be disabled. He’ll never get back to himself, never be what he once was.
The bathroom light is gold. It washes his skin into a better color, not so pale and strained and pained looking.
He hates looking in the mirror now. Joel never considered himself particularly good looking, never thought about it much, really. And, for most of his life, looks haven’t really mattered anyway.
But seeing his reflection now is a reminder of his failures. It’s a reminder of everything he can’t do.
His whole body is nothing but reminders.
He is a patchwork quilt of scars.
He doesn’t know how you can stand to look at him. But you just brush your hands through his hair when he leans the crutch against the counter and sits heavily on the stool you dragged upstairs.
The bathroom is thick with the scent of lavender and earth. Every winter it turns into a makeshift greenhouse, all the plants that can’t survive the winter dragged inside for the season.
The feeling of your hands through his hair is soothing and the tension in his shoulders slides away.
“I can do it myself,” he grumbles, despite himself, and without conviction when you run a comb through his hair.
You hum under your breath, not really paying him any mind. You know he doesn’t really mean it. Even if he feels like a fucking burden for it, it’s something you’ve always done for him, so it’s a little easier for him to accept. “I know. I like to.” You tilt his chin up and Joel steadfastly avoids looking in the mirror. “Besides, I’m better at it. You take to it like it’s a hack job.”
The trim doesn’t take long, since he keeps his hair longer anyway. It’s mostly an excuse for you to rake your fingers through his hair.
“The window needs fixin’,” he says when you slide in front of him and set about trimming his beard without asking. That’s fine, too. “I know you been, uh, kinda cold in that room.”
“It’s not so bad,” you say when you finish with him, brushing your fingers against his cheeks and then through his hair. You smile, eyes crossing his face, tracing his features like a well known map, before you twitch a lock of hair away from his forehead. “You gonna fix it for me or what?”
“Mighty big ask of ya,” he grouses, irritation itching at the edge of his mind.
You’re still smiling faintly, touching his face, the curl of hair behind his ear, the scar along his hairline and then the one over his nose.
“I just can’t see how,” you say and Joel almost snaps. He wants to. He wants to say you don’t fucking get it, that you don’t want to get it, that it’s different now. He wants to say he’s not the man you’ve always known, that shit ain’t as easy as it’s always been. He can’t do shit for you, anymore, and isn’t that the reason you’ve stuck around all these years?
But then you continue. “I left that damn caulking gun on the side table three days ago.”
“You what?”
You shrug. “Thought you might have noticed it too. And I’ve always been so bad at that stuff.”
The guilt that settles in him is heavy, but familiar. The shape of it is different, but it's still like shrugging on an old coat, it’s so natural and intimate.
He must be destined for some kind of failure, born under a bad star, something.
Everything he touches falls apart, no matter what he does. Everyone he holds dear, leaves him, one way or another, somehow. His mama, Sarah, and then Tommy, and then Tess. Most recently Ellie, though maybe things there were being mended. Maybe you were next, soon as you came to your senses.
Joel has spent most of his life taking care of people. And when he wasn’t taking care of people, he was moving, working. He hardly ever sat still. He didn’t have time to sit still.
Not before the outbreak, and certainly not after.
Even in Jackson where the pace of the world is slower, he was always busy. If he wasn’t on patrol, he was on wall duty, looking after Jackson’s security. Or, he was fixing something for someone, building something, helping with the horses. If he wasn’t doing any of that, he was improving his house, he was working on a new carving, he was playing the guitar.
Healing up, it’s involved a whole lot of sitting still and feeling useless. It had involved a lot of other people fussing over him.
A lot of sitting still and feeling like he was failing everyone he knew. Like he had already failed everyone he knew. For all the effort he put into it, it would never be enough. He cares wrong, he loves wrong, and now he can’t even do that.
He fails you in this, too. Of wishing he could accuse you of all the things he thinks of himself.
Joel knows you think of it too, you just haven’t gotten frustrated enough with him to say it yet. You haven’t had the full weight of his broken, uselessness on you, yet.
That day will come. There’s no way it won’t, because he can’t do for you what he’s always done, what he was put on this god forsaken earth to do. The one thing he’s always been able to do. Not just for you, but for everyone. Ellie, Tommy and his family, Jackson at large.
It’s always been the thing he could point to and say look, this is why I am like this, this is why you need me, why I’m around. You survived because of me. Because I made sure you did.
So he’s not worth much now, really, and all the promises he made you and all the promises he made to himself, he can’t keep them anymore. And isn’t that why you stuck by him all these years? Despite all his shortcomings?
“Sorry, darlin’,” he cups your face in his hands, smoothes his thumbs over your cheeks, the hinge of your jaw. “I’ll get right on fixin’ that for you.”
“I know you will. Thank you, Joel.” The full weight of your head tips into his hands, and your eyes slide shut. His hands are large against your jaw, scarred and calloused, harsh. Reminders, maybe, of what he used to be. He looks at the hollows beneath your eyes, the raw, worried skin of your bottom lip.
You don’t sleep anymore and when you do you have nightmares. You hate to leave the house. And sometimes you flinch even when nothing is happening around you, like memories are snapping at your heels.
He did all that to you, too. Terrible gifts he’s given and can’t take back.
When he glances back up to your eyes, you’re staring at him, a worried, anxious kind of look lodged there that he absolutely hates.
“What?” He asks, smoothing his thumbs over your cheeks and then the delicate hinge of your jaw.
“Nothing.” Your eyes shift away from his, and you twitch in his grasp. He already knows what you’re about to say, because you’ve never gotten better at saying it, just like him. He doesn’t need you to say it, but you do anyway, and he hates how much he likes hearing it. It’s like a ray of golden sun. “I love you, Joel,” you murmur and hook your hands around his wrists.
For a long time, you just look at him, the silence is heavy with unsaid words, but he isn’t sure which of you is the one not saying something. “That enough?” He eventually grunts. “For you?”
You frown. “Why wouldn’t it be? Do you think it’s not?”
It shouldn’t be. All those promises stack up in his mind again, everything he can’t keep.
“It shouldn’t be.”
You pull his hands away from your face with a shake of your head and lean in to kiss him. Your lips part softly against his, the hitch of your breath sweet against his mouth. The heat of you is so close and intoxicating, it’s something he never wants to have to give up, not when your thumbs are pressed to the pulse in his wrists, and not when you taste like apple, honey.
He shakes one of your hands away to wrap his arm around your back and pull you closer, until the warmth of your body is pressed securely to his chest. Your tongue slides against his, teeth nipping gently at his bottom lip. Something warm floods his cheeks and his chest goes tight.
When you pull back, you tug on a piece of his hair then touch the blush pinking on his face. “You look real handsome, Texas.”
He tucks his forehead against your collarbone, and you fold your hands against the back of his head. “It’s enough,” you say. “Always has been.”
The next day, he finds that most of his tools have been relocated upstairs, either to one of the cabinets in the living room, or to the office upstairs.
Either way, he no longer has to traverse two staircases down and back up.
He isn’t sure when you had the time to do it, or why he didn’t at least hear you doing it.
Joel’s chest swells with love for you, right alongside the guilt that does nothing but grow.
He fixes the window.
Some days are easier than others.
He has good days and bad, and some of the bad days are worse than others. He sows the feelings up inside himself, cocoons the bad away inside his chest. It’s easier that way. And it’s necessary now. It’s just another thing you’d have to deal with.
He’s never been good at saying the things that needed said, anyway.
He tries not to snap at you. He’s trying not to get mean, and he can’t just walk away like he used to be able to when his mind got messy. But he’s been failing because he wants you to fight with him, wants you to hate him.
Joel wants you to say that he fucking failed, that he’s been failing his whole life at the one thing he was supposed to be able to do. The one thing he’s really good for.
“Stop it,” Joel snarls one day in the spring, when you offer your hand down the steps to the living room.
He doesn’t mean to snap at you like that, but he doesn’t take it back either. He’s in too much pain. And he doesn’t want to admit it.
The smile slips off your face as you step back from him, a stoney expression sliding over your face instead. It’s routine, you helping him, and maybe that’s the problem. He grits his teeth, that look reminds him of Boston, reminds him of the time before you used to trust each other.
“I ain’t helpless.”
You raise your hands and take another step back, looking away from him as you do.
The breeze that comes in the landing’s open window is cool. It isn’t quite warm enough for the window to be open but the house needs airing out after such a long winter, such a hard winter. The air is crisp with the scent of pine and the lavender hung in dried clumps above each doorway.
“I know, Joel.”
When he looks at you, you visibly brace yourself.
A wave of self-hatred so hot it burns immediately follows the guilt. But it also doesn’t stop the angry, frustrated pulse beneath the surface of his skin, pressing against the back of his teeth.
“I don’t know why you didn’t just leave me there.” The words are bitter, poisonous. Accusatory. “You should have left me to fuckin’ die.”
Whatever you might be expecting him to say, it isn’t that. Your breath catches hard.
You can be cruel, too. He waits for your anger, the burn of words he deserves to hear, something mean and hateful but true.
But the words don’t come; your anger doesn’t come. You just look tired and empty, sad.
You pace the landing, the soft shush of your footsteps echoed by the creaking of the floorboards. Your silence pricks at him. He wants you to scream at him, blame him, for failing, for being so fucking stupid.
“What if it was me?”
Your voice is so low, he almost doesn’t catch your words.
The quiet of your footsteps come to a halt. “What if it had been me, Joel? It could have been. It could have easily been me. They knew who you were. We’ve done a lot of the same shit. We’ve made a lot of the same enemies over the years.”
Your hands are shaking, your breath comes in quick little pants. The acrid, bone aching feeling of cresting anxiety and panic floods the little landing. “Me and you and Tess, we were kind of a package fucking deal. So, what if it was me?”
The breeze sliding through the open window feels different now. Colder, older, more brutal.
“That’s fuckin’ different and y’know it,” he snarls.
“Why?” Anger floods your face, the curl of your fingers harsh against your arms when you cross them. “Why would that have been different? Because you think I always need to be taken care of?”
He doesn’t answer. He looks away from you, but he can’t go anywhere. He’s at your mercy and you both hate it.
Joel leans heavily against the wall, his right hand curling around his left wrist, a nervous, anxious tick he’s never been able to shake.
“Tell me,” you beg. “Say it, Joel. How is it different? Why?”
He shakes his head once, slowly, and doesn’t look up at you. “You can say it,” you continue, your voice eerily quiet. “You never trusted me to have your back.”
That ain’t it at all.
It’s not your failure. It’s his, in every single way. He doesn’t blame you or Tommy or Ellie or anyone else. He doesn’t believe for a second that you don’t know that.
It would have been better, probably, if he died.
He doesn’t understand the guilt you feel.
He can’t take care of you anymore, can’t protect you anymore.
Worse, he can’t do that for his kid.
If he’d died, maybe that final sacrifice would have been enough to make up for everything else. Maybe it would all just be done.
He’s the one breaking promises, not you, just like he always has been.
Sometimes, when he thinks of Sarah, he can only remember her final moments. He can’t think of anything else but her blood, how red it was in the dark. He can’t think of anything else than what could have been. He can only see the halo of that mounted flashlight glaring into his eyes, his own voice pleading. Please don’t.
If he’d just been shot, he would have died first, he wouldn’t have ever known how bad he failed in that moment. He would have died first, like a parent was supposed to. No good father should ever outlive his kid.
Maybe, this had been his second chance, to finally die first.
Born lucky, bad star, like always.
So, what would he do, if it had been you? He’d have taken care of you, just like you’re doing for him. But that is not anathema to him; that is just how things are supposed to go. It wouldn’t have been a failure.
He’s no use to you anymore, no use to anyone.
He doesn’t say any of that.
Instead, he nods.
“You’re right.” He shrugs and pain splinters across his shoulders. “It would have been different.”
Your expression flickers blank and you turn away. It would have been easier to stomach if you screamed at him, if you slammed a door.
But you’re just quiet.
Once, during the late autumn, when you were traveling with Joel and Ellie, you noticed Joel wasn’t eating.
Food was in short supply. None of the houses or buildings you looted turned up anything edible, and wild game had been elusive for weeks as the weather turned wetter and chillier.
You’d noticed him doing it a few times before, but nothing like then. Joel would dole out carefully rationed food and not allocate any to himself. The bags under his eyes deepened. His temper was shorter. He’d gotten pale and hollows appeared in his cheeks that meant he hadn’t been getting enough. Joel had always been huge, broad and strong and tall, with thick arms and thighs, but when he dropped weight, it always showed in those little hollows first.
Then, one evening, after clearing out a barn of infected, he’d stumbled, hand to his forehead, pale as you’d ever seen him. “Christ,” he’d mumbled.
“Joel?” Ellie’s voice had pitched up with worry. She’d looked at you, and said, “He hasn’t been eating.” The words were all a rush, accusatory and begging for you to do something.
“Ellie—” He’d growled.
“I know she’s right, Joel,” You’d interrupted with a snap. “You think we wouldn’t notice? You think I wouldn’t notice?”
He’d gotten pissed off and marched off into the woods to the stream to refill your canteens. You’d given him a wide berth for several hours, making the newly cleared barn into something livable for the night with Ellie. When dark had started to set in you went after him, boots crunching through frozen leaves.
He’d been sitting by the creek bed, an inscrutable expression on his face. “We ain’t got enough,” he’d said, not looking at you. “You and Ellie need it more. I’m fine.”
“But you're not. You can’t just not eat. You can’t take care of us if you aren’t okay, Joel.”
The air had smelled like earth and decaying leaves and stagnant water and ice. The scent reminded you of better times, of apple cider and cinnamon and new beginnings, of autumn fairs and coffee shops.
You’d sat behind him, pulled him against you for just a moment, chin on his shoulder, and said, “It’s all right to let me look after you, too.”
You figure that even with the change in circumstances, things are still like that with Joel. He’s always doing the metaphorical equivalent of making sure everyone else eats first, even if it means he’s starving.
He’s never been one to give up or give in or let go. When Tess was bitten, Joel hadn’t wanted to leave her. He’d wanted to stay and fight. To fight a useless and unwinnable fight. That mindset was never going to fade.
You don’t speak for a few days. Guilt swallows the whole of your heart and leaves you dry and empty. Joel blames you, you think, even if he won’t say it.
He comes to you late one night.
It’s dark and the bedroom is overly warm. He sits heavily but without help at the edge of the bed. He’s getting better at that, even if he doesn’t think he is.
His hair is longer and it falls into his face when he leans over you, fingers against your forehead and temple and then your cheek.
“When I was real young,” he says. “My dad died. We didn’t have much money and my mama worked all the time.”
You turn on your back and try to make his face out but his expression is unreadable.
Joel hardly ever talks about his folks.
“I got my first job when I was fourteen, to help with the bills. Money was better on account of half of it not bein’ drank away, but we still needed the cash.” Joel pauses and you scoot over. It takes a minute for him to find a comfortable position with you but when he does, he continues. His voice echoes against your ear, the beat of his heart pounds against your cheek. His chin rubs against your forehead, one large hand splayed across your shoulders.
“Since she worked so much, I was always takin’ care of Tommy, of damn near everything else. And my mama, too, sometimes.” He swallows, and you feel the bob of his throat against your forehead. His chest is warm beneath your cheek, even through the two layers he always wears. “So I knew I was young when Sarah came along, but I didn’t really feel it. I took care of her and her mother, ‘til she went her own way. Just the way I always had.”
The rise and fall of his chest is steady. He cups his free hand around yours and tucks your palm against his heart.
“I know I’m not easy, in any sense of the word. I never have been.” A heavy tug of shame weighs his voice down. “Too mean and bitter, I guess.” There’s a long pause, and you want to protest but you’re sure if you interrupt, Joel won’t finish saying whatever it is he needs to.
“So anyway,” he continues. “I try to make up for it. By doin’ what I always have, even if it means I end up alone. I wouldn’t change anything. I don’t know what I’m good for if—” His hand slides up your spine, thick fingers resting at the base of your neck. “And I can’t do it anymore. Can’t take care of ya. So, it woulda been different, if it had been you. Because it’s you we’re talkin’ about.”
Joel goes quiet after that. His palm continues its nervous path over your spine. The bristles of his beard are soft against your temple. The rhythm of his breathing is still slow and even, but you feel the prickle of nerves in the way he touches you.
It isn’t easy for Joel to say the things he feels, even to you, even all these years later.
His body is so familiar to you, so warm and strong beneath you. Comfort, in short, in its purest form.
You aren’t expecting him to say any more, but he does. “Things. . .they always have a way of fallin’ apart, in the end.”
When you lift your head, he doesn’t look at you. You press a finger against the edge of his jaw, turning his head gently until his eyes meet yours. “Joel,” you touch your forehead to his. You aren’t good with words either, but you try. “You are more than that. More than what you can do for people.”
He’s quiet for a long time, eyes fluttering closed, his breath a calm pool against your mouth. “And I’m more than that? To you?”
“Joel, if I only wanted some guard dog, I would have gotten one that could listen better.”
He snorts, and a little of the tension melts away. “Yeah, I reckon you would have.”
The dark is a warm cocoon of things less easily said in the light.
“Yes,” you say quietly after a long, peaceful silence. “Joel. You’re so much more to me than that.”
It’s late spring again. The Wyoming air is mild, and heavy with the scent of blooming life.
Sage grows in dense clumps up in the mountains, deep between the ridges of the sharp peaks. The smell of it, earthy and crisp, chases itself on the breeze, all the way down to Jackson. It twines with the smell of flowers painstakingly planted along his front path.
Arrowleaf. Goldenrod.
Lavender, right by the mailbox, courtesy of some superstition held onto from before the outbreak.
It’s thick, cloying, pungent.
It’s overripe, rotting. It smells like death.
It’s making Joel fucking nauseous.
He squeezes your arm, a warning without words that he needs a break.
It’s the smell.
It’s the sun and the gentle breeze.
He tells himself the sick, crawling pain mixing sourly in his stomach has nothing at all to do with his newly fitted prosthetic leg.
Slowly, without a word, you turn and guide him back through his familiar backyard to the porch.
He sits heavily on the steps, just inside the cool pool of shade, and pulls in deep breaths that rattle in his lungs and do nothing to stave off the dizziness, or the pain.
Your hand slides up and down his back before your palm settles against the back of his neck and urges his head down between his knees.
Joel feels like a fucking kid. His hands are shaking.
“Damn thing is useless,” he growls after a minute when the nausea passes and he can lift his head, because it’s the only thing he can do, because it’s goddamn humiliating.
Everything is, these days.
You just bump your shoulder into his and hum low under your breath, used to his attitude, used to his bark that only sometimes has a bite.
You’re patient with him, but tough, not willing to indulge his foul moods. “It’s just something you have to get used to,” you assure him. “It’s not going to be like before.”
Joel doesn’t want to admit that he wants to take the prosthetic off. It’s like admitting defeat before he’s even gotten a chance to fight.
And he’s tired.
Exhausted, really.
“Hey,” you dig your nails into his wrist. He meets your eyes, pragmatic, practical, his match in everything. “We aren’t supposed to go at it so hard anyway, remember? You did really well.”
He doesn’t want to admit that, either, that your praise washes pink in his veins, that he likes to hear it, thrives on it. If he’s doing right by you, good in your eyes, things can’t be awful as they might seem.
That’s what he latches onto. Your pride. Your acceptance.
“This was just the first time, Joel,” you continue. “You’ll get the hang of it.”
He ain’t so sure about that, not with the way his leg aches. A leg that isn’t even there anymore, chopped off right above the knee, to save his life, apparently. It’s part of why it hurts so goddamn much. Feels like he’s pushing his calf into something it can’t fit in, like the long gone meat and bone are getting ground up into his thigh.
But if he gets the hang of it, then things will be better. He’ll at least be able to move on his own. He might be able to find some way to work again. Wall duty was looking pretty good, because all you really have to do is sit there and watch the horizon and be able to shoot pretty well.
There is hope in the future. There is hope in you reminding him of that, realistic to a fault, pragmatic to your core.
And unlike Joel, you’ve never had it in you to lie.
Joel tightens his hand on your forearm again, pressure on your sun warmed skin. It’s a poor substitute for the thank you that you deserve. You seem to get his meaning though. Your hand feathers through his hair again and the sun doesn’t feel so abrasive, and the smells of spring don’t seem so weighed down by death.
“Ellie’s coming for dinner,” you offer. “Said she’s got a movie or a game or something that she wants to show you.”
Yeah, so maybe the day ain’t so bleak as he thought it was.
“All right.”
You offer him a hand up, and slip your arm behind his back. He carefully drapes his arm around your shoulders, mindful, even now, of his weight against yours. “What a strong thing you are,” he comments, not able to stop the corner of his mouth from twitching. You look so determined.
It’s the way you always look, when put to task.
You roll your eyes. “Lucky for you.”
“Lucky for me,” he says, soft about it.
The stairs are the worst part of getting back inside, but it's much easier than it had been before.
It’s a relief to collapse into the couch and take the prosthetic off. The phantom pains still ache and stretch painfully tight, like the skin is being pulled taut, like there was a knot that just needed massaged out. He grits his teeth and represses the urge to reach down and rub sore muscle that no longer exists.
It’s a relief to collapse into the couch, even if guilt punches him in the chest for it.
It’s an even bigger relief when you press yourself into the space next to him. He doesn’t know how you stand it sometimes. How you can look at him and still not hate him for every mistake he’s ever made.
“Knee always fuckin’ bothered me anyhow,” he comments, turning his head so his words brush against your temple. “Don’t gotta worry about it gettin’ stiff now, I reckon.”
You reward him with a snort, the scrape of your fingernails against his cheek, a kiss.
It’s easier to get around, with the prosthetic that he hates.
But he’s slow. Slower than he’s ever been in his whole life. And sometimes, most times, it frustrates him.
Being able to walk is one thing. It’s a fine thing. But he needs to be able to do more than that. Run, fight, shoot. A fucking pipe dream. But he’s back to building, carpentry, and that’s something at least. Something useful.
Joel has tried asking you about that day, because he doesn’t remember a whole lot besides the pain. But your chest goes fluttery with panic, the rise and fall of it unfamiliar to him. You don’t get nervous. You never have, not over anything.
But when he asks about that day, you mutter something about Tommy and blood, and he can’t get anything else out of you. Tommy does the same, eyes cast to the side, thumbs hooked in his belt, foot starting a nervous rhythm.
He doesn’t understand what’s wrong with either of you, what the goddamn problem is.
In some ways, Joel’s always thought you were tougher than him, a balance of brutal and rough and unforgiving with softened sweetness. Bash the skull of a hunter in with a metal pipe, then use your unsullied hand to stroke back Ellie’s hair, to offer help to strangers, to pat the nose of your horse gently.
He would never want to be on the other side of the wrath you kept wrapped up inside your heart.
But, now, you don’t leave Jackson anymore. You haven’t been outside Jackson’s walls since that day.
Tommy tells him you can’t even bear to take a shift on the wall, which mainly comprised of sitting at the top of the wall and doing a whole lot of nothing, looking at the horizon, shuffling your feet to keep warm.
It’s unlike you. You love to patrol, just like him.
That’s his fault, too. Your nightmares, your sleeplessness.
Ellie plays the guitar for him, even after he gets the hang of it again, even after he’s walking on his own again, the chords coming back to him easier and easier. They don’t have to talk much, that way.
She’s still mad, but he almost died, and she’s willing to try with him.
She comes over for dinner. She always brings a movie.
It gets easier.
And slowly, by the end of the summer, she smiles when she sees him.
He’s gotten the hang of walking again, which is never a sentiment he thought he’d have about himself. Joel always assumed he’d be killed before something like really old age could set in, or something like this, a disability he doesn’t want to learn to live with.
It’s rained recently and the yard smells like perchitor and the ever present mountain sage. The grass is just a little muddy from the many loops around the yard. “You’re going to fall and break your neck, old man.”
“Breakin’ my neck can’t be much worse than what it is right now. We ain’t goin’ around the yard anyhow. Now c’mon, put your shoes on, kiddo.”
“It’s still raining,” she complains.
“Means no one’s outside to see me humiliatin’ myself.”
Ellie only rolls her eyes but does it anyway. He doesn’t need a hand anymore, but he’s shaky sometimes and despite your best efforts he’s still refusing a cane. But he also hasn’t been using the track in the yard in weeks.
That, and he actually has somewhere to be these days, figuring out better security for Jackson, looking after the patrol teams, assessing who was ready to be put into rotation. Managing is what he should be calling it, though he doesn’t care for it. He and Maria butt heads too often for it to be anything close to enjoyable.
When they pass the mailbox, Ellie points to the lavender. “I never thought to ask about it before. It’s everywhere. Some nailed above the door and everything.”
“Some kinda thing about protectin’ the home,” Joel explains. “Far as I remember, it protects from bad energy. Somethin’ like that.”
“I thought that was sage?”
“Sage you burn,” he explains. “And we get plenty of that too. Whole damn house smells like it.”
“Seems like the kinda thing Dina would do,” she says and then seems to realize who she’s said it to. But she doesn’t change the subject. “Didn’t take her for the superstitious type. Doesn’t seem like it really works anyway.”
Joel shrugs. “She was before the outbreak, I guess.” He watches Ellie from the corner of his eye. She’s steadfastly not looking at him, but she also doesn’t usually say so much to him. “Didn’t have reason to think of it for a long time. Lavender wasn’t exactly in high supply in Boston.”
Ellie nods.
“She used to, uh, put some in your backpack when she knew you was goin’ out. Same with me, always put some in my pocket.”
There’s a long silence. Jackson’s streets are oddly empty in the pouring rain. Lights glow in the windows; inviting, homely. “She didn’t have to do that.”
He shrugs and his shoulder only aches a little for it. “It’s just the kinda thing parents do, even if it don’t make any damn sense.”
“Yeah,” Ellie agrees as the turn toward the center of Jackson. “You wanna stop in the Bison?”
“Sure,” he agrees. “For a minute.”
“Full schedule?” She teases. “Aren’t you supposed to be in your sunset years?”
“Well, gotta have something to fill up the days, kiddo. Maybe one day you’ll actually be able to keep up.”
She just scoffs and rolls her eyes. "Yeah, whatever."
Joel tries not to smile.
Being mobile again, busy again, feels good.
It feels good, but it also means he’s in near constant pain.
He tells himself it’s good, that pain sharpens him, makes him better.
Until he’s slumped on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night, heaving his guts up from the ache in his leg.
You find him there, sweaty and panting, with a glass of water in hand. Joel pushes himself upright against the wall with a sigh as you close the lid of the toilet and flush it before sitting beside him on the cool tile.
“You’re overdoing it again,” you say, not unkindly.
“I ain’t tryin’ to,” he mutters and takes the glass of water when you offer it to him.
“I know.” You cover his free hand with yours. “Wanna get up?”
You smell faintly of peppermint, burned incense.
When he shakes his head, you stretch to flip the light switch over your head. He’s plunged into darkness, alone, for just a moment, before you settle again. The warmth of your head against his shoulder feels stolen.
For a long time, neither of you say anything. He breathes through the pain still crawling around his knee, the phantom flesh of his calf.
“I was a goddamn fool,” he whispers into the silence. “You know what I was thinkin’ that day?” He’s not sure where the words come from, the confession. It feels a little like the words are being pulled up out of his body, yanked right from the center of his chest.
“Tell me,” your nose is warm when it bumps against his collarbone.
“‘Bout Ellie. How I’d want someone to help her, if she needed it. So I helped that girl. Almost got all of us fuckin’ killed.”
You don’t answer, not at first. But eventually, you lean into him and say, “If you want me to blame you, I won’t. I will never find fault in kindness.” Your thumb strokes his knuckles slowly. “Never. Especially not yours.”
He brushes his mouth along your hairline, skin silken against his mouth. “Y’know when we was on the road, I was sure you’d get us killed. But y’always knew when to trust someone. How much to trust ‘em.”
“I. . .” you start and then trail off, fingers squeezing around his. “I was always lucky, and I always knew I had you at my back. If I messed up, you were always there.”
His eyes have adjusted to the darkness of the bathroom, and when he meets your gaze, he can see the glaze of tears in your eyes. You suck in a shaking breath and clear your throat but don’t continue. “And I’m sorry I wasn’t there the same way.”
“This ain’t on you,” he says. “Don’t think that. It’s me. It was a long time comin’ somethin’ would catch up to me.”
You settle in against him, one hand digging into the sore muscle of his thigh. The heat feels like, the flex of your gentle fingers even better. The pain that doesn’t exist fades just a little.
“And for the record, darlin’, you were there the same way.”
It’s autumn again when you go back onto the patrol rotation. There’s frost on the windows and on the spikes of overgrown grass in the front yard. He just got back from a night watch on the wall.
You’re taking his old routes with Tommy, and you don’t tell him about it until the morning of. Not a fucking soul breathed a word of it to him, and he’s the one figuring out the goddamned rotations.
And Joel realizes though he’d been worried about you not wanting to leave Jackson anymore, not even being able to go near the gates, he was glad you hadn’t wanted to. It meant you were safe. Even if he couldn’t keep you safe anymore, the walls of Jackson could.
“I’m not doing this with you right now,” you say before you leave, pretending like he can’t clearly see your hands shaking before you walk out the door.
He follows you onto the porch. He can’t remember what he says, just that you look upset and then hurt, just that you don’t say goodbye when you walk away and that you probably don’t have lavender tucked into your pocket like he always did.
“Please.” A word he hardly ever says, a plea he never gives into.
He says it to your retreating back as you pass the mailbox, but you either don’t hear him or choose to ignore him.
Maybe he didn’t say it at all.
That day is hell. It’s long and pocketed with anger and anxiety. If something happens to you, he isn’t sure what he’ll do. He doesn’t like that you left him upset.
Maria doesn’t entertain his outburst about it when he finally corners her after looking for her all morning. “She was ready.”
“I didn’t even know we were considerin’ sendin’ her back out!”
Maria just levels him with a glare that could freeze hell over. “That isn’t up to just you. And why do you think she didn’t want to tell you?”
He’s at the stables with Ellie that evening when you come home, waiting. It’s cold and his leg is aching something bitter and awful but he doesn’t move and Ellie doesn’t suggest going back home because she knows he won’t hear it. Dina stops by and he listens to them talk. Ellie’s face softens when she looks at Dina, cheeks a soft pink in the fading light, ducking her head and fidgeting with her fingers.
Joel tries not to pay them any mind, but it's hard not to find endearing.
When you and Tommy get back, it’s full dark. He wants to throttle his brother for not telling him you were going back out on the trails, but it’s too cold for much of that. All thoughts of strangling Tommy fly from his head as soon as he sees you, because you have a smear of blood on your cheek and down your neck.
“Goddamn it, what happened?” He demands, hands against your face before you’ve even fully dismounted.
“I’m fine.”
“That ain’t what I asked,” he sweeps his thumb over your skin, flakes of red shifting to the ground. The knot in his chest tightens as he watches it flutter through the air. “What happened?” He growls again. “Tommy?”
“The usual, Joel,” you pull his attention back to you. “It was just cleanup. A couple of infected. Nothing.”
“Uh huh,” he tilts your face one way and then the other.
“Just some splatter.” You shrug and smile at him; your mouth twitches, and he realizes you’re teasing him.
“Splatter,” he repeats flatly. “That ain’t funny. You ain’t funny. C’mon, let’s go home.”
Ellie and Dina have disappeared with your arrival but they aren’t far; he can hear their chatter as they walk along the street toward the center of Jackson, the echoes of their voices reaching back towards him. “I’ll deal with you later,” he says to his brother.
Tommy just raises his hands and says he’ll stable the horses. But he’s grinning and maybe that’s a good thing. It’s been awhile since his brother has seemed himself. It’s been awhile since the two of you have given him grief together.
“Leave Tommy alone,” you say as you walk toward Rancher Street. You seem steadier than you had been that morning, more confident, more yourself. It isn’t a long walk back, even with his leg, though he limps worse than usual because of the cold. You wrap an arm around his waist, your fingers digging into his back pocket, body warm against his side. “We did good together today.”
“Mhm. I’m sure you did.”
“You mad at me?”
“I wish you’d tell me,” he murmurs. “When you’re goin’ off to do somethin’ stupid. I need you to talk to me. Worried the whole goddamn day. You ain’t exactly in practice out there anymore.”
You hum and then nudge closer to him. “Put your arm around me.”
“I’m fine,” he grunts, maybe a little harshly.
“Joel,” you laugh and nuzzle your face against his shoulder. “C’mon. I’m cold and I had a rough day. Put your arm around me.”
So, he does. And he leaves it there until you’re in the bathroom, sitting on the counter in front of him, lavender plants stacked in the sink behind you once again as the colder weather sets in.
This is better. So much fucking better, than the other way around. This is right.
He cleans the blood away, finds the swell of a bruise on your shoulder and a cut lengthways over your collarbone.
It’s easy enough to take care of. It isn’t as bad as what he’d been imagining all day long.
He’s well in practice for this sort of thing, for bandaging and assessing wounds.
“Sorry,” he says as he works. “For this mornin’.”
“Mhm.”
“I worried all day. Not much I can do now, if you get into a spot of trouble.”
“I handle myself fine. Tommy was there. He’s a good partner out there.”
Joel grunts, dabs rubbing alcohol along the cut. “He is,” he agrees reluctantly. He supposes if you had to go on patrol with anyone, he’d prefer you go with his brother.
You touch him as he works, fingers patting over his jacket, the collar of his flannel, the frayed edge of the t-shirt beneath that. “I had to go back out, Joel. You would have argued with me and I can’t be afraid and useless forever.”
“Useless,” he scoffs and unspools a length of bandage. “You don’t know nothin’ about that.”
“Joel,” you say softly, exasperated. “Baby, you don’t know what it was like that day. I thought you were already dead.” Your voice trembles and you have to swallow harshly before you can continue. “Helpless and useless doesn’t even begin to cover what I felt. What I still feel.” You shake your head and cup your fingers around his. “I dream about it every single night and I still don’t really remember what happened. That scares me a lot.”
He slides his thumb along the gauze, your eyes wide and worried when he meets them.“I’ll never be who I was, sweetheart.” His voice sounds mournful to his own ears.
“You’re exactly the same man, Joel. I’m just happy you’re here and alive and you’re worried you aren’t alive the right damn way.” You shake your head. “I can’t ask for much more than what I have. Than what we do. Me and you. Ellie back in our life. A home. Food. Family. You,” you touch his jaw and smile. “Still here. Still taking care of me.”
There’s a lump in his throat, hard as a stone. “Yep.” He coughs in an attempt to clear his voice but he sounds just as wrecked when he speaks. “Patrol musta been real good to y’today.”
You just laugh, and the sound of it is wet. “Yeah. It was. I thought it would be terrible but I missed it.”
“I know you did.”
“You should come on a ride with me sometime,” you say slyly. “I bet it’d feel good to be back in the saddle. You’ve always been a good shot from the back of a horse.”
He has.
Maybe he should.
💞 If you made it this far, thank you for reading! Comments and feedback are so appreciated. 💞
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Sterek Fic Rec - November 2022. Wow, lots of things happening this month so I didn’t get through all my reading as quickly as I usually do. Sorry for the delay. Here’s the next round of fic recs!
Something New Is Going to Happen by dragon_temeraire (1/1 | 4K | Teen)
Stiles accidentally discovers that their school mascot is super cute.
Kiss me if you must by raisesomehale (1/1 | 2K | Teen)
Derek is wrapping up the announcement on the Elves that have come into town when Stiles gets a text from Danny, asking where he is, and that if Stiles isn't there when his shift comes, he is passing any kiss induced diseases onto him.
OR
The one where Stiles has a shift at the kissing booth and everyone secretly wants his dick.
On Building an IKEA Den for an Alpha Werewolf. by orphan_account | podfic by churkey (2/2 | 13K | Mature)
Senior Prom is coming up, and Stiles doesn't have a date. Additionally, Derek has an unfurnished apartment, and no one to take him to IKEA.
Wrong Number by greenleaf (1/1 | 9K | Teen)
Even wrong numbers can get it right sometimes.
...Or one where Stiles dials the wrong number and keeps forgetting to change it, while Derek ends up going along for the ride and sees Stiles four times before Stiles meets him.
It's In Our Lungs, Our Blood by xxjinchuurikixx (1/1 | 9K | Explicit)
“It’s… it’s amplifying urges. Primal urges influenced by thoughts my wolf has already had.”
“So… so, do you want me? Did you… before?”
“Yes, Stiles. Always.”
“Then let me help.”
*
Derek gets hit by some sex pollen, and only Stiles can work it out of his system.
seems to me it's chemistry by HalfFizzbin (1/1 | 4K | Teen)
Awkward Nerd Derek has been crushing on Handsome Jock Stiles since forever—so getting paired with him on a Chemistry project is definitely the best/worst thing that's ever happened to him.
Why the hell does it have to be a Dämonfeuer? by Winchesterek (1/1 | 916 | Teen)
Stiles is a Grimm hunting a dragon.
Scent Marking For Dummies by Hatteress (goddammitstacey) | podfic by sallysparrow017 (1/1 | 8K | Teen)
Stiles is almost used to being chased around the school by werewolves at this point. Having to share a bed with Derek freaking Hale, on the other hand, is just needlessly complicating his life.
Shelter by five_ht | podfic by chemm80 (1/1 | 7K | Explicit)
After the rave, Stiles can't go home, and Derek doesn't want him to.
Wolfed In A Good Way by LadyDrace (1/1 | 2K | Explicit)
Stiles and Derek make out. Derek accidentally goes wolfy. Stiles is a HUGE fan of this.
princecharmingwinks special mention (Soft Derek kills me in the best way and the dialogue in this fic made me melt!)
Vodka happened by GreyHaven (1/1 | 6K | Teen)
5 times Stiles has no brain to mouth filter and turns into a malfunctioning octopus, and 1 time Derek does. Featuring drunk Stiles and pining Derek, a giggling fit, lurid blue vomit that costs Derek a car, a vodka incident and a kiss.
I’ve been listening to a few more podfics now (ensuring I also comment on the wonderful fics themselves as well!) so if I have listened instead of read, I’ve included both in the recommendation so everyone can take their pick.
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WIPs GAMES: What are on my words?
shout out to @vicsbasement who tagged and recognize my works! Yes, I used to be a writer back in 2019-2020 and wrote mostly about brocedes and anime, but since lewis lost the championship, I lost the entire mood to write about rpf driver and then boom! charlos happened, i was like -- okay let's do this again. English is not my first language and I'm still learning about expressing emotion, writing about "show but don't tell", and obviously with grammar.
Here's some work in progress. (my inspiration came from song lyrics. That's why I like to create a driver's playlist. I also reflect on the real-life events that happen to me or the people surroundings me) . Feel free to ask me more about the details;
Charlos 1655
a series, and they said the relationship is easy:
1st -> Enchanted by the Prancing Horse / EBPH for short. (E) (kind of like a 5+1 thingy about ... (secret hehe) I am currently working on the fifth part, and it's already 13k words :D
2nd -> Alphabet of Hearts (M) (TW!!!!! like real TW!) (one of my proudest stories I've written so far? chaptered about 8. I am currently working on chapter 5 (what's all about the five XD)
these series are written mostly in Carlos's POV. big big big thanks to @f1amboyant because they are encouraging me to try writing in new POV i never tried before. I love this series I've been working on for a year, so I hope I can convey the message to the reader and have much recognition <3
(since i'm more comfortable writing in Charles POV, because I feel like Charles and I share many similarities in terms of family and struggle, that's why my Charles characterization sometimes resembles mine. It also makes Ocean and Engines fic a big hit in my "start again writing career", because it was actually from a real event.)
one-shot: take a chance with me. (Planning on to be a continuation from ocean and engines. this ' series ' uses NIKI albums as it is representing my real-life experience, but I couldn't state it explicitly :D)
Brocedes
Spring Day -> The last stories from 4 Season Heal Of The Wounds : Between Love and Amends (4SHOWL) Series!! Omg, I can't believe I'm nearing the end of this whole series... part 1 has already been uploaded (the timeline was vaguely set before charlos series)
there are 2 unpublish explicit wips of brocedes and I CAN'T PUBLISH IT BECAUSE I'M SO BAD AT WRITING SMUT? It's soo flithy, the filthiest I ever write and READ. So yeah bye those fics going to stay inside the bins forever.
++ I am still determining how long this fic going to be finished, but I'm planning to release EBPH at Christmas, because.. well maybe I'm just eager to share with you all.
that's all! ciaooo ~~
#my wips#current wip#work in progress#formula 1#rpf#charles leclerc#carlos sainz jr#charlos#1655#brocedes#4406
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20 Questions for Fic Writers Game
i wasn't directly tagged but i have put off the open tag from @ejunkiet long enough and i'm also bored, so since i'm sure a ton of people have already done this i won't tag anyone, but if you do it i want to see it!
1 - How many works do you have on AO3?
an even 40.
2 - What's your total AO3 word count?
just shy of 170k, which absolutely blows my mind because it doesn't seem like that's possible.
3 - What fandoms do you write for?
previously hawaii five-0 and teen wolf, but i'm currently attempting to write for red, white and royal blue.
4 - What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
all are teen wolf except one, but in order: (Waiting) Until the Sky Falls Down on Me; Today and Every Day; I'm Gonna Give All My Secrets Away; Man, Interrupted; and it's my (pants) party and i'll cry if i want to. this gives a pretty comprehensive idea of what i'm about lol.
5 - Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
i'm usually very good about it but they used to build up and i get anxious thinking about responding to all of them lol. but i love responding to them when i can!
6 - What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
i don't really do angsty endings? i just went back and checked every ending and if it's not entirely happy it's at least hopeful lmao. i don't think it's in me to do angsty endings.
7 -What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
i've got a lot of happy endings but i'm gonna have to go with The Comedy (Is That It's Serious) because that fic was really just me dealing with my mom having and then beating cancer and that kind of feels like the happiest ending.
8 - Do you get hate on fics?
i never gotten hate, but i did get someone telling me to make changes now that we knew what happened in canon (i speculated about sibling names) and it was just a weird thing to suggest.
9 - Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
i have, but it's not my most favorite thing to do? i have to be in a very specific mood and it has to be necessary. i don't think i can write pwp lol. i don't think i've written smut that wasn't some form of connection/expression of love.
10 - Do you write crossovers?
i don't. i do enjoy a good crossover though!
11 - Have you ever had a fic stolen?
one was posted to goodreads during that whole fiasco and i had it taken down, but man did the comments on that hurt lol. i don't write because i think i'm particularly good at it, i do it for fun. so yeah that kind of sucked but occasionally i was like "yeah that's fair lol"
12 - Have you ever had a fic translated?
not to my knowledge, but i'd love it!
13 - Have you ever co-written a fic before?
i haven't! i'd love to someday. i think i do my best when i can collaborate/bounce ideas off someone.
14 - What's your all time favorite ship?
i mean in terms of bookmarks, 1000% sterek. firstprince is very much up there. kastle is my all time favorite het ship and i'll never forgive the fact that we didn't get them outright confessing their feelings. never. mcdanno is there too. (i made a lot of friends from the mcdanno fandom.) once upon a time i'd have said destiel but that fandom really tainted that for me.
15 - What's a WIP that you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?
hahahahahaha i talk about this one on a semi-regular basis, but i have like 13k of a post-series Person of Interest fic that i'm probably never gonna finish but it's got some really good shit in it. i've thought about reworking it to make it an au for another fandom but it's so deeply reese and finch that i'd have to rewrite every piece of dialogue. and it would require people having seen the show because it won't make any damn sense without it. (i'd consider sharing it though.)
16 - What are your writing strengths?
introspection and character analysis, for sure. i love just kind of flaying a character open and digging into their thoughts and feelings and what motivates them. the most fun. also writing really off the wall shit. it hasn't failed me yet lol.
17 - What are your writing weaknesses?
any kind of worldbuilding. i also don't think i'm particularly good at smut but i'm also not using cringe euphemisms (the worst one i've ever read was "chocolate star" and i'll let you imagine what that was describing, if i have to know it so do you) so i'll say my smut is at least passable lol.
18 - Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?
i mean, it's fine? i don't really think about it much except when i have to go all the way down to the notes section to figure out what's being said and then jump back to where i left off. whatever happened to doing that thing where you hover over the phrase and the translation pops up above it?
19 - First fandom you wrote for?
first fandom i ever published for was teen wolf. first attempt at anything was criminal minds. it didn't go well.
20 - Favorite fic you've written?
so going back to 16, the things i had the most fun writing were, for introspection, definitely Written in the Scars on Our Hearts (about all the ways a person can be touched either physically or emotionally), and for off the wall, Got Your Body On My Mind (I Want It Bad) because that venn diagram joke is some of my best work. the comments section was so great lol.
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For the get to know fic writer asks:
1, 6, 10, 12
Hope you've had/will have an awesome day :]]]]
Thank youuuu for ze ask!
Do you prefer writing one-shots or multi-chaptered fics?
Generally I prefer writing multi chapter fics because it means I can *really* dive into so many aspects of a character and how they would react when faced with different situations. It's this exact reason that I can sometimes carried away with oneshots that focus on character growth (I.e spiderverse and the new years wip) I do love writing silly little oneshots tho, as a treat
Do you have your work beta'd? How important is this to your process?
I have a lovely beta reader who helps me out in a lot sticky situations but I don't go to him with every fic of mine so I wouldn't say it's an overly important part of my process. I'm a very independent person and I also hate asking for help so I'll only bombard mez if I REALLY need advice or if writers block is killing me. (Or if I just really want her to read something and I don't wanna ask lmaoo)
Cltr+f "blinks" on your WIP & copy paste the first sentence/paragraph that comes up
Wip from my new years fic, Counting Down The Years (its currently at 13k words...)
-----
“You guys are so cute,” the waitress commented as they prepared to head out, finally showing something other then resentful boredom in her voice. Probably because she can go home now, Jesper realised, but he was ultimately more bothered by making sure his face didn’t heat up any more that it already was to think about her.
Wylan laughed, sounding much less freer than it had a moment ago, and said, “oh no, he’s just my best friend.”
Jesper winced before he could stop himself.
-----
Hehe
how does receiving or not receiving feedback/support impact you?
Like a lot of authors i thrive on receiving feedback and support for my fics and can often get demotivated when there's a lack of support, but I try to tell myself that attention does not determine my worth. One of my most popular fics only started getting attention 2 months after I published it for example, and now it has over 10k reads. Cowboy au had crazy attention for the first chapter and then suddenly it all disappeared. It's just how the public happens to be on the moment of updating and not that my writing has suddenly gone terrible.
Thanks vm for the ask! And uh, let's hope tomorrow will be a better one!
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tagged by @malcolm-f-tucker, ty! my fic writing output comes from a varied and bizarre set of source materials...we both will just have to deal with that i guess
Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written fewer than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway!
le finestre son questa - don giovanni - 1.3k - mar 2 23
Your lady had a difficult evening: you’re not sure what happened, exactly, but you helped her dress for a masquerade before she left, and she returned hours later looking more frustrated and tired than she had when she’d left.
2. (currently still untitled. sorry) - don giovanni - 3.7k - feb 28 23
He wakes to the sound of steady beeping and the vague humming of electronics and machinery. Then, bright fluorescent lights, which he squints against the moment he tries to crack his eyes open. Then, the pain.
3. e buonnotte a tutti - don giovanni - 13k - feb 11 23
“Saint Anthony’s? Really?”
“Yes, really. Punch it into the GPS already.” Giovanni sinks a little lower into the passenger seat and fumbles with his dress shirt buttons.
4. 25th annual solesian national spelling bee - fantasy high - 26k - last updated dec 25 22
“Adaine, I swear to the gods, open this door at once.” The elder Abernant sister pounds her fist on the locked door to the library.
5. deh vieni a consolar il pianto mio - don giovanni - 3k - oct 24 22
The dining room is a mess, with bits of food and shattered porcelain strewn about the floor, and the faint haze of smoke hanging in the air.
6. skeleton in the closet - oklahoma! - 9.4k - may 22 22
“Beth, stay on the path. And stop swingin’ the dinner pail like that.” Clara scolds her little sister, who, from a few paces ahead, turns to give her a scowl.
7. starlight - oklahoma! - 34k - last updated may 13 22
Crickets chirp in the cool night outside. Laurey sits on her bed, trying to enjoy a quiet night in for herself.
8. dance you all over the meadow - oklahoma! - 945 - may 7 22
“Slow down, you’ll trip.” Laurey’s grip on Curly’s arm tightens, and she feels his on her shoulder tense. “What are you in such a hurry fer?”
9. l'astuto cacciator - giulio cesare - 2k - feb 27 22
“Enough financials for now,” Cleopatra orders, waving a hand to her attendants. Papyrus records of tax and grain are swept clean from the table and swiftly replaced with platters of fresh dates, olives, and figs for the queen and her advisors. “Tell me of the Romans.”
10. awake in a lonely room - oklahoma! - 1k - oct 10 21
Old Eighty is hitched to the fence in the front yard. Her eyes are sleepy and bored.
tagging: @tragedyposting @kingfisherkink @grasslandgirl @pearlandbrine @druid-for-hire @leporellian and @theresa-of-liechtenstein...regrettably i'm not sure who else among my mutuals writes fic at all so i may have to leave it there short of 10 ;;
#sasha speaks#tagged for me#tag game#malcolm-f-tucker#ty#looking at it all laid out like this. EMBARRASSING!#gd it is so funny though seeing that one (1) fh fic make the list i forgot i updated that. with the first chapter in like two years. in dec#remember when i used to write mostly for d20. remember when people read my fics. lmao#also on my ao3 there are technically two other fics between numbers 8 and 9 on this list#but i posted them like two years after i actually wrote them so i went with the order closer to when i wrote them for this#my single giulio cesare fic on here is killing me sorry. what's cringer the 4 don g fics the 4 ok! fics or the One (1) baroque opera fic#which itself makes up exactly half of the fandom tag.#i honestly can't tell.#honestly the fact that i wrote for d20 at all is the outlier here going by fandom size. the only period of my fanfic ''''career''''#when i actually had consistent readership LMAO#anyway.#next on the list is another fucking don g fic. and a figaro operas fic. both are stewing in my brain atm#also one very vague idea for a cabin pressure fic but. i wouldn't count on that one anytime soon. unless someone really goads me on#let the poet bless this round
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Do you have any fics where Dream and George are roommates in boarding school?
only the first 2 fit for roommates + boarding school au :/ third one isnt exactly boarding school but its close and the rest r either boarding school aus or roommate fics
boarding school au
— pine hill by angelbeachcat (teen | comp. | 66k)
Academic rivals Dream and George get stuck sharing a room for their senior year at Pine Hill Academy. Dream doesn't have time to waste arguing with George; they already do that plenty during Robotics meetings and every other situation where the two of them are forced to work together. He's got more important things, like football and college to worry about. When George begins to disappear at odd intervals, Dream finds himself more concerned than he thinks he should be.
— oxford comma by newyorknine (teen | wip | 2k+)
Dream cuts class one too many times and finds himself shipped off to boarding school.
Arriving halfway into the school year, he’s assigned George as a roommate; it’s hate at first sight. But at the edges of their vitriol, a more complicated feeling lingers.
— l’appel du vide by angelbeachcat (explicit | wip | 67k+)
In a desperate attempt to reconcile the relationship between himself, his parents, and God, George agrees to attend a faith-based residential program for misguided youth. There, he is made to share a room with Dream; troubled, enigmatic, and supposedly dangerous.
— you're saying what you want right to me (no filter on your mouth) by honkdaddyy (explicit | comp. | 17k)
Dream moves to a boarding school and meets George on his third day there. They immediately feel a spark and start out an arrangement some would refer to as friends with benefits. What happens when Dream catches feelings for the pretty brunet who he's supposed to be messing around with, no strings attached?
— Soft Spot by graciegirl2001 (teen | comp. | 1k)
Dream’s roommate brings a kitten home to their strictly no-pet dorms.
— What Makes Your Brain Tick by isntitcrazy (mature | comp. | 13k)
George has never been kissed before. Dream offers to play a game with him in an effort to change that.
#dnf#dreamnotfound#dnf fanfic recs#dreamwastaken#georgenotfound#dnfao3tags recs#anon asks#trope request#boarding school au#roommates#wait i was supposed to queue this NOT POST IT WTF
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We are excited to introduce our next shining star for the Creator Spotlight... @radkoko!
This is a member’s only activity where we reach out to one of the talented people in our community each month to find out all about them and their kakairu creations, and then show them off to the world!
We hope you enjoy learning about Rad & her creations as much as we did. Please give her some love ❤️
Pronouns: She/Her
Type of Creator: Writer & Artist
Where to find her:
AO3
Tumblr
Read the exciting interview below the cut, or on the forum!
If you would like a chance to be in the spotlight too, the only thing you have to do is be a member of the kakairu rocks forum, and be a creator; and we will contact you, ourselves!
1. How long have you been creating KakaIru fanworks?
Over 10 years. First published fic was Dear Captain. I have one older fic on a lost AFF account, that has KakaIru as a background couple, but not sure how much earlier that was, maybe a year or two. My artwork has been a lot more recent, I would draw for fun sometimes, but I started drawing more KakaIru stuff in just the last 3 or so years.
2. What are you working on right now?
A redux of that original fic, now a multi-chapter pirate epic! Ok maybe that’s overselling it, but it’s 13k, and only about half done…
3. What is your favourite trope to create for?
I love hurt/comfort, domestic fluff, and any kind of AU always gets my heart. Also as a specific KakaIru thing, I love Iruka getting to tell Kakashi off, so if there’s any time he can do that, I want to make it happen.
4. Which of your creations is your favourite, and why?
That’s hard, I could say my new fic, but I’ve been talking about that one too much so I’ll go with my Resisting and Giving In pair of fics. It was one of my most ambitious fics and even though it was only for a few weeks I liked leaving a story on a bit of a cliffhanger.
5. Do you have any WIPs you’re excited about?
I said it before but I’ll say it again, Pirates! I’m very excited for this fic, I just gotta finish writing it. I want to share it, but want to get a little further before I start posting so that I don’t leave readers hanging for too long while I finish it up. I guess I do have another in progress fic which is inspired by The Proposal, where Kakashi lies saying that Iruka is his fiancé, when he’s actually just his assistant. And Iruka’s “family” (the Sarutobi’s) find out and they have to come home and fake their relationship for the weekend of Asuma’s birthday party.
6. Do you have any original characters? If so, tell us about them!
No OCs that I use in my KakaIru fics, but I have a character called Kotsuki and I use her as my character/name when I create characters in most video games.
7. What was your hardest piece to create, and why?
Date Me! I loved writing that fic but it was my first Big Bang fic and I’m not really that great on a deadline… I had a first draft already written, otherwise I don’t think I would have finished in time. However it’s still one of my favorite final pieces because one of the first KakaIru artists I started following did a piece for that fic and it just makes my heart happy.
8. Do you have any favourite scenes from something you’ve created?
Maybe a sneak peak from the pirate fic? I have some art that would suit the scene, too.
The storm raged on around them. Waves threatening to tip their vessel. The sky lit up as the lightning danced in the darkened clouds. The crashes of thunder surrounding them, almost deafening.
Iruka steeled himself and ran up to the quarterdeck where the pirate captain was still casually observing the fight.
“Leave my ship alone!” Iruka yelled over the dissonance of activity.
He swung his sword towards the man hoping to catch him off guard, but had no such luck.
Their swords clashed mimicking the thunderous crashes as the lightning sparked around them.
9. Where does your inspiration come from?
Two things really give me inspiration. One is drawings or images people share, I love imagining the story behind that one frame. Second is movies, TV shows, and books; I love taking the same basic plot and thinking of how Kakashi and Iruka would react in a similar situation. Something like Teaching the Impossible was inspired by Jane Eyre, and Date Me! was from a K-Drama called Her Private Life. Both a similar concept, but not necessarily a direct recreation.
10. Which of your creations is the most meaningful to you, and why?
Teaching the Impossible is probably one of the most meaningful, mostly because it was my first big fic after a long break when I was focusing on another fandom. I’d taken a step away from KakaIru and it was the one that brought me back.
#Creator Spotlight#kakairu.rocks#creator interview#talented creator#kakairu fanfic#kakairu fanart#kakairu#kkir#kakashi x iruka#hatake kakashi#umino iruka
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AU - Time Travel Masterlist 2
part one
3 Steps Back (ao3) - RavenOfRao
pepper/tony
T, 135k (WIP)
Summary: In Peter’s professional opinion, the world had gone to shit.
When Tony had snapped, bringing back half of all life and stopping Thanos, everyone thought that the world would go back to the way it was. But nothing ever works out so nicely, does it?
————
When Peter is given the chance to go back and save everyone, he is sent back to before Civil War. All alone, Peter must find a way to save the avengers, and the world. Shit.
all the ways in which we won (ao3) - jbsforever
T, 13k
Summary: Four months after Tony’s funeral, Peter comes home to find a mysterious box on his desk. The universe, it seems, is done waiting for him to move on.
It gives him another option instead.
Ásgarðrian Galdr (ao3) - Valerie_Vancollie
T, 479k
Summary: What if Loki was able to warn his past self, so he did not lose control during his regency and was able to act as he normally would? What if he had been able to remain calm and in control of himself, and the situation?
“How?” Loki demanded.
“Betrayal,” his future self stated simply, rage clear in every syllable. “But you must control your reaction and come to see me, or you will repeat my mistakes and we will miss an opportunity to take control and alter things in our favor.”
It would have changed everything.
Been There, Blown That Up (ao3) - GwendolynStacy
T, 68k
Summary: After Loki’s defeat and his fall from the portal, Tony starts preaching about a murderous purple titan out to get them in the depths of space.
Wait. What?
On the other side of the universe, Nebula loses her cool approximately two seconds after laying eyes on Thanos and finds herself on a wild chase through the galaxy. Now, where exactly was that pathetic piece of rock Terra again?
Born Of The Same Impulse (ao3) - GwendolynStacy
T, 82k
Summary: Barely five minutes into the past and Tony has already taken care of Ultron, thus prevented Sokovia, thus – hopefully – made sure that the Civil War would never happen. All things considered, he was doing pretty well!
Then he just had to look up his fellow superhero turned time traveller on the internet.
Iron Through Time (ao3) - Genuka
tony/stephen
T, 44k (WIP)
Summary: Waking up in the middle of the Expo battle because the Infinity Stones thought it would be a good laugh was not how one Tony Stark thought his day was going to go. He had just snapped his fingers and expected it to kill him. Being tossed right back into combat with outdated armor, panicked civilians, and Jarvis sounding in his ears was disorienting. At least he had Rhodey and a baby Spiderling who would believe him?
Oh who was he kidding, this was a disaster! But Tony Stark would be damned if he wouldn't take advantage of this latest weird twist to his life!
Hi ho Silver away!
Look to the Past to Find Your Future (ao3) - Stuckonstuckony (adoctoraday)
bucky/tony
E, 46k
Summary: Tony takes a detour to the 40’s after defeating Thanos thinking it’ll just be a quick stop before returning to the future. And then he runs into Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes and everything changes.
Never odd or even (ao3) - memoriaeterna
T, 80k
Summary: Time. Space. Reality. It’s more than a linear path. When faced with the impossible, magic does the unthinkable. Now bearing the words of their worst enemies and greatest allies as the markers in pursuit of three different ends, the question is whether they can accomplish what they came back for without jeopardizing each other?
Or: A group of time travelers unintentionally ending up in the same past to fix three separate future problems is a recipe for disaster.
Peter and Morgan’s 40-Year-Long-Day (ao3) - thisMarvelousLife
T, 26k
Summary: Morgan is far too clever for her own good. She knows that the infinity stones can do anything, so surely they’d let her see her dad again.
Peter never planned on using the stones, he just wanted to keep Morgan out of trouble.
(The time-travel fix-it fic in which Tony lived his life with his kids from the future showing up at random intervals thanks to time stone shenanigans)
phoenix (ao3) - OnlyForward
pepper/tony, tony/stephen
G, 39k
Summary: tony stark comes back to life after everyone’s memory of peter parker disappears in the battle at the statue of liberty. he’s the only one who remembers peter, is decidedly not happy about the fact he’s the only one, and promptly vows to fix it
yeah it’s a no way home fix it fic ft. irondad and spiderson okay
the reactions of a dead man (ao3) - agloeian
T, 67k
Summary: Loki wakes up in the past with all the knowledge he needs to stop Thanos ever coming to power in the first place. This somehow doesn’t stop him from getting into trouble.
A Post-Infinity War Time Travel Fix-it Fic.
Time Falls Away (ao3) - NotEvenCloseToStraight
bucky/tony, steve/peggy
M, 79k
Summary: The Battle of New York: Tony flies himself and the nuke through the wormhole and when his suit shuts down and he starts to fall, he knows he's going to die.
But then he wakes up in an alley in Brooklyn, two strangers staring down at him in confusion and Tony is sure he is dreaming when he shakes hands first with pre-serum Steve Rogers, and then Bucky Barnes.
Trapped in 1942, Tony befriends Steve, and falls in love with Bucky but America is at war, and Bucky and Steve ship out to join the cause.
Tony knows all the stories about the Howling Commandos and knows what’s coming for the soldiers, and has to live through history as first Bucky falls, and then Steve disappears.
Tony is left alone in the 40's, crying himself to sleep in the house he had shared with his best friend and his lover.
But then he wakes up on the pavement in New York, the Hulk roaring in his face, Steve staring down at him, and he has to wonder if it was all a hallucination.
When Tony fell through the sky, did he fall through time as well? Why does Steve act so cold towards him? Were he and Bucky really that happy together?
Did it all really happen, or is Tony in love with a life he can only have in his dreams?
to memory now I can’t recall (ao3) - Etharei
steve/bucky
E, 102k
Summary: While on a mission storming a HYDRA facility, James Buchanan Barnes touches one of the many strange alien devices collected by the Red Skull. He does this, in fact, twice— in the past, and in the future.
Next thing he knows, Bucky Barnes is opening his eyes in the 21st century, which is full of great gadgets and coffee, and at least includes his old pal Steve. (And, inexplicably, a different Stark.) Meanwhile, the Winter Soldier finds himself in the middle of World War Two, helping Captain America hunt down HYDRA (which is at least familiar), pretending to be Bucky Barnes (which is not), and figuring out the very noisy group of soldiers who call themselves the Howling Commandos.
Try, Try Again (ao3) - mak5258
pepper/tony, mj/peter
N/R, 89k
Summary: Peter fell asleep headed to orbit in 2039 and woke up fourteen again the summer of 2015, given a chance to try to change the future.
(Basically my spin on the time travel fix-it. Forewarning that there are character deaths, but they mostly come back.)
We Will Foresee Obstacles (ao3) - blackwatchandromeda (avenris)
T, 11k
Summary: Post-Endgame fix-it fic because I refuse to accept that part. Contains plenty of Ironfam, with a healthy dose of May, Ned and fake time travel science.
Whatever it Takes (ao3) - StarryKnight09
T, 89k
Summary: Peter’s struggling to cope after the loss of Mr. Stark. Everyone keeps telling him it’ll get better and that he needs to move on, but Peter doesn’t want to. He can’t envision a life without his mentor. So when an idea comes to him, he doesn’t hesitate, no matter how crazy it is. He’s going to get Mr. Stark back.
“What exactly are we going to do?” Ned asked.
“Whatever it takes.” Peter answered.
Wish We Could Turn Back Time (ao3) - Girlinpink44
pepper/tony
T, 64k
Summary: With a snap of his fingers, Tony Stark finds himself with the chance to change everything. Armed with foreknowledge and his found family, can he figure out a way to stop Thanos before he snaps? They say hindsight is 20/20 and Tony is about to find out how true that really is.
Z to A (ao3) - memoriaeterna
wanda/vision, pepper/tony
T, 88k
Summary: The moment of disorientation was nothing compared to the next thing he saw. He was standing in the midst of an airport, looking directly at a girl with the familiar red leather coat. The mutual recognition was instant. Leipzig.
Or, Peter and Wanda sent back in time to stop the inevitable. Good news: they are not alone. Bad news: who and from when.
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Question for people who write/read time travel fics where there’s a past and future version of the character both existing simultaneously: how do you differentiate who’s who? Do you write “the past/future [name]” each time or come up with nicknames or what?
Also, I’m writing it from 3rd person omniscient in some chapters, so the perspective/thoughts could change within the same scene, and both past and future versions would of course think of each other as the “other [name]” and of themselves as just “[name],” so how do you clarify whose thoughts they are without it being clunky or confusing?
Any tips or ideas even if you don’t read/write these fics would be super appreciated!!
#camp nanowrimo starts#in 2 days??? oh my gosh#I've already written a decent amount of it (some out of order tho and I need to work out the details of why the time travel happened)#but I may need to rewrite some#and before I get too far into it I'm hoping to figure out how to handle this#rwby fanfic#fic advice#quinpost#and yes it's an oscar pine time travel fic#bc I've yet to find one where both oscars exist and I CRAVE for Past Oz and Past Oscar to meet our current Oscar#and I know nanowrimo is typically for writing novels but this is camp nano so why not use it for a fanfic?#never written more than one-shots so this is exciting! I'm already loving re-reading what I have#I've already got... *checks word doc* over 13k words lol
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Hello!! Just a few days ago I stumble upon your blog and I'm wondering if you have some recommendations for Hybrid AUs, much appreciated if it is an OT7 and completed, but if so I will still be so thankful. (I just need some cure from the stress that modules brings) Thank You in Advance (◍•ᴗ•◍)❤
🌷 Hello! welcome to my mini fic-reading land. I’ve actually received asks for Hybrid AUs (I pinned the requests in the navi) but I just have a very messy draft.
But to help you with your stress, I think I can share a few of my ongoing reads (sorry they won’t be complete but they’re OT7). But, I added completed ones I could remember too (●'◡'●)
*note: will edit this later and organize this per member - maybe add other fics I’ll remember*
Fic Recs | BTS Hybrid AUs
→ A Place Called Home @agustdakasuga - OT7 x Reader
series [27/27] | 88k | Hybrid AU, Poly AU, Soulmate AU, Romance Humor | Fluff
Having saved your own injured hybrid, you were determined to try and help any other hybrid that crossed your path who needed saving. But being a vet in a small hospital wasn’t enough for you. You wanted to do more, you wanted to make a difference. You wanted to give them a home.
→ If I Can Never Give You Peace @candlewaxandp0lar0ids - Jungkook x Reader
series [3/?] | 17.6k+ | Mafia AU, Enemies to Lovers | A (so far)
It starts like quite a few stories do, in your world. Girl meets boy, who happens to be a hybrid, girl buys him at an auction where hybrids are sold, boy falls in love with her, girl gets bored of him. Then it’s not so typical anymore, when the boy ends up forced into illegal fighting rings, until he makes a wrong move and her father decides he needs to be killed.
Where does that leave you? Well, you’re the one who handled Jungkook’s fight and generally organized his life, and, when the girl’s father, your boss and mafia leader, tells you he wants him ‘put down’, you’re the one who has to get it done. Except, instead, you let him escape, and everything turns out fine.
🌷ggukkienote: I am so hooked on this (because I am a sucker for Mafia AUs too). This is such a great story and the OC is really different from the usual OCs. Very interesting.
→ Eunoia @wishesunderthestars - OT7 x Reader
series [15/?] | 100k+ (I just assumed this, masterpost doesn’t have wc but it’s 6k per chapter or more?) | Director!Reader, hurt/comfort | fluff, eventual smut
You are a world famous director and you have dedicated your life to your job. You have everything you could ever dream of; wealth, recognision, talent, your friends and family. But loneliness ins’t cured by success. So what happens when you somehow rescue seven hybrids? Can they fill the void?
→ Restitution @cloudteawrites - OT7 x Reader
series [7/?] | 48k+ | slow burn, poly, mystery, romance
when an estranged uncle leaves you his massive fortune you wonder if the universe is playing a joke on you. when that fortune comes with seven hybrids, you know for sure that it is.
→ Lacuna @barbika1508 - Jungkook x Reader
series [42/42] | 324.3k | Hybrid AU, check for TW | Fluff, Angst, Smut
Lacuna - (n.) a blank space, a missing part
Y/N just wanted to go back home, to enjoy her peace and quiet away from problems and people. But typically, her luck strikes as she stumbles upon a horrific scene of two guys mistreating an already beaten down hybrid. Will she take matters into her own hands and help him? Or let someone else help along the way???
🌷 This is on AO3 and I got a recent ask about author’s tumblr. So if you prefer AO3 you can check their profile
→ A Hundred Percent Human by wrienne- OT7 x Reader
series [12/?] | 88k+ | Hybrid AU, fluff, angst, smut |
In which you (reader) are forced to take care of seven hybrids in a twist of fate. Drunk and down on life, you finally decide to deal with the house and the unsavory business your mother left behind. However, to your shock, you find that seven very different hybrids are included with both the house - and the business. Seven hybrids you never even met before - even less agreed to take care of.
🌷 This is on AO3. I don’t normally reco AO3 since my blog is focused on tumblr fics but someone sent an ask about this so I’m including it
→ Inferiority Complex @starlightauroras-writes - Jimin x Reader
series [10/?] | 88k+ | political themes, themes of abuse (hybrids) | A, S
You had never liked hybrids. You disagreed with their very existence, and you never wanted to have anything to do with them. And then one day, you discovered a hybrid who was more scared of you than you were of him, and everything changed as you realised you were the only hope he had…
→ Sanctuary @chimchimsauce - Jimin x Reader
series [16/16] | 20k | Wolf Hybrid!Jimin, Barista!OC, feat sanctuary staff Taehyung, hurt/comfort | F, A
YN is a young girl, bright and ambitious, but due to her busy schedule, she's been unable to make any real friends. When an ad for Saint Mary's Sanctuary catches her attention, she never expected her life to be changed by a certain hybrid named Jimin.
→ Summer Nights @marginalmadness - Jungkook x Reader
series [4/4] | 23k | Hybrid!Fantasy, Romance | F, S
A freak weather anomaly leads to a chance encounter with a rabbit-hybrid, and your kind nature results in you gaining a small, fluffy lodger, who questions your taste in television shows. It’s won’t be for long...will it?
→ Risk it All @/httpjeon - Jungkook x Reader
series [5/5] | 8.3k | hybrid au, alpha wolf!jungkook | A, F, S
ripped from your family, you find yourself in a warehouse filled with predators. just your luck, you’re right across from a caged alpha wolf.
🌷 (I linked Chapter 5 because for some reason others couldn’t find this chapter so they thought it’s still incomplete)
→ Outro Love is Not Over @kiirokero - Hoseok x Reader
series [12/?] | Daycare Teacher!Hoseok x Single Mom!Reader
You are the single mother of a beautiful 6-year-old golden retriever hybrid who you named Yunho. But you’re a human. You can’t show him the ropes of being a hybrid, and you can’t teach him things the other moms can. So, when a handsome German Shepard hybrid comes into your life, helping you and guiding Yunho in a way you can’t, you can’t help the cozy home he sets up in your heart.
→ It Takes Two To Make A Thing Go Right @imaginethisbts - TaeKook x Reader
two shot [2/2] | 11k | dom/sub themes, heat cycles | S
What’s better than one dogboy lover? Two dogboy lovers. But when Tae and Jungkook seem unusually clingy, it can only mean one thing. That time of the month has snuck up on you and your dogboy lovers do not want to share.
🌷 Also try their other Jungkook hybrid series Out of the Blue
→ Peculiar Park @daydreamindollie - OT7 x Reader
series [9/?] | 38k+ | imagines, slice of life | Writer!Reader, Psychologist!Reader, imagines | fluff
you’re a successful hybrid writer and psychologist who takes in seven hybrids on one stormy night after finding one of their pack stealing from your garden
→ Yeouiju @nomseok - Namjoon x Reader
one shot | 33.7k | Mythical AU, Hybrid AU (if you squint), suspense | A, F, S
you find an ancient stone in the middle of the mountains and bring it home with you, oblivious to the consequences of taking a dragon’s yeouiju.
→ Beautiful Stranger @/nomseok - Taehyung x Reader
one shot | 19k | circus AU | A, S, F
your dream is to take care of animals for the rest of your life in the big city, making sure that they’re cared for. but you stumble upon a malnourished, rare tiger in your local circus, and you can’t help but want to take care of him.
→ Evolution of You and I @readyplayerhobi - Jimin x Reader
one shot | 10.2k | kind of epistolary (letters), chat, childhood friends | F
For 15 years, Park Jimin has been in your life in some form. From childhood penpal’s to the closest of friends now, you can’t imagine your life without him even if you’ve never actually met him in person. It doesn’t help that you’ve fallen for him, even across the distance that separates you. But what happens when you finally meet up and you discover he’s been keeping something secret?
→ Fish are Friends @httpjeon - Taehyung x Reader
one shot | 10.2k | seahorse hybrid!taehyung | A, S, F
after moving to the seaside, there is a dreadful storm. when all is clear, a man washes up on shore…only he isn’t quite human.
🌷 you know seahorses mate for life and it’s the male that gets pregnant? Interesting huh
→ Pink Panther @gimmesumsuga - Seokjin x Reader
one shot | 13k | boss-employee | F, S
The one where your boss, Kim Seokjin, tries to show you how beautiful you are.
→ Ragdoll @ausblack - Jimin x Reader
series [17/17] | Hybrid AU, College AU | F, A
As you were studying to obtain your medical & veterinary degree, your professor came up with the idea of organizing an internship - where you found yourself side by side with a sick hybrid that needed nothing other that complete care.
→ Jagged + Catnap @opaljm - Jimin x Reader
one shot + sequel | 18k | jaguar/black panther!jimin, sand dune cat!reader, mutual pining, friends to lovers, established relationship (sequel)| S, F, slight A
The pretty little sand cat hybrid Jimin has been in love with for the past year experiences her first heat and Jimin would love nothing more than to be the one to guide her through it and breed her with his kittens.
🌷 there’s also a possible spin-off for Taehyung (Eye of the Tiger)
→ Owner @jessikahathaway - Jungkook x Reader
series [6/?] | 17.4k | Fake Dating AU, Hybrid AU, based on Kimi Wa Petto (Japanese anime) | F, S, A
With your mother hounding on you (no pun intended), you decided to get a little help from a hybrid, who was also in need of assistance.
→ Loving Him Was Red + Somewhere Only We Know @userseok - Jungkook x Reader
series [3/?] | 12.8k+ | enemies to lovers, childhood friends (sorta), college au, jock!jungkook, unrequited love (for OC) | S, F, A
you’ve been chasing after jungkook for years. after a harsh verbal altercation between both of you, you decide to leave him alone and pursue a relationship with someone who seems genuinely interested in you, thinking he would never return your feelings.
I would like to recommend the catalog of these writers:
@ditttiii - so I realize I’m following them on AO3 when I realized the fics looked familiar 🤭. They have an ongoing series called Enchanted to Meet You which you might want to check out if you like Soulmate AUs too! I recently reblogged a Jungkook two-shot comfort fic (hybrid au too) so I recommend going through their masterlist!
@aroseforyoongi - who I discovered because of Gossamer (KTH). It was completed but I think it’s up for re-write/re-post? You can try the others:
Navy Blue - Jungkook [completed]
Forever Yours - Yoongi [one shot, prequel to Navy Blue]
Let Me Love You- Jungkook [one shot]
@magicalsalamander - another favorite author of mine I just feel like I’m reading a great tale every time I start on a series or one shot. They have great fics with supernatural themes too
Rabbit on the Moon - Jungkook | if you’re in the mood for police officer Jungkook [6/6]
The Act of Persuasion - Seokjin | if you are in the mood for Single Dad AU x Arranged Marriage too [one shot]
Firefly that Guards the Fox - Taehyung | if you are in the mood for mystery [11/12 - just epilogue left]
Kitten’s Little Flame - Yoongi | if you like BF to Lovers between dragon and a cat [6/6]
There’s more so please check their Masterlist
@hollyhomburg - I just love Of Fire and Love (hello dragon!yoongi and baby!jungkook? 🥺) But you can check:
their masterlist of all their hybrid fics
Dance to This series which I’ve added to fic recs based on an ask about stories that include members/readers with disability.
Don’t care if it Hurts - Jimin | this is probably my favorite (again I’m a sucker for Mafia AUs) , guard dog hybrid!jimin [12/13, just epilogue]
@angelicyoongie - I got hooked after reading their stories on AO3 but they have tumblr too! Check their masterlist for ongoing hybrid fic (Abundance - OT7) but these are completed ones:
Desolate - Yoongi, grumypy cat hybrid [14/14]
Out of the Woods - Namjoon, wolf hybrid, strangers to lovers [3/3]
@worldwidebt7 - if you like webtoons! I read parts of Jungkook’s webtoon and I think currently we’re on Yoongi’s story. Access it here
@jincherie - One of the first hybrid fics I remember encountering is Inheritance (MYG). Other fics:
Perihelion - Hoseok, college, roommate, enemies [2/?]
Butterfingers - Namjoon, teacher au, this is cuuuute READ IT if you’re looking for something fluffy [one shot]
4 o’ clock - Taehyung, single dad au (I included this in the singel dad fic recs too) [3/?]
Under the Bridge - Jungkook, found jungkook under the bridge [one shot]
@whitesparrows97 - a writer I discovered because of a Yoongi soulmate fic but I found that they also have other hybrid fics:
Cat’s Cradle - Yoongi, bestfriend [5/5]
Underdog - Taehyung, shifter, brought home what she thought a stray dog [5/5]
@foxymoxynoona - and what would my reco be without foxymoxy? So they have tumblr but their works are on AO3. I’ve listed their current works here but I didn’t include their completed works which are must-reads:
Sugar Fairy - Jungkook, mating, adopted hybrids [48/48]
A Sea of Indigo - Jungkook, ex-fighter [48/48] ⭐⭐⭐
@therealmintedmango - They have a whole masterlist of their hybrid!au fics. I recently finished Kingdom Come and I always remember Jimin from King (for some reason)
@joonbird - check their Zodiac Hybrid Masterlist of one shot per member
There are more (usually one shot per member) but I’ll probably put them in another Fic Rec List for Hybrid AUs. Sorry this list is kind of all over the place (not even organized per member 🤭). But good luck with your modules and I hope these help!
(❁´◡`❁)
#🌷 chats#anon#bts fic recs#bts fanfic#bts x reader#bts hybrid au#OT7 x reader#jungkook x reader#yoongi x reader#taehyung x reader#hoseok x reader#namjoon x reader#jimin x reader#jungkook fic recs#yoongi fic recs#taehyung fic recs#hoseok fic recs#namjoon fic recs#ggukkiereadingcollection#bts smut#bts fluff#au:hybrid
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Is there any good one piece fanfic that you would reccomend to read?
SO MANY LETS GO
“stared at the sun and the sun smiled back and called itself pirate king (or: loyalty, on the high seas)” - by grainjew, a loyalty focused series of oneshots that absolutely devastate me every time I read it. My favorites are but the eternal pose points East (Lech L’cha)” and “a certain calmness” and - okay if I list anymore I’ll just list the entire series oops. Highly recommend!
In Which Higuma Doesn't Get To Get Drunk, Even Though He Really, Really Wants To - also by grainjew, Luffy goes back in time and everyone bullies higuma, delightful one shot, 2.5k.
The King's Will - my last rec (for now) by grainjew, a one shot focusing on Rayleigh and Luffy training on Ruskaina, and the application of conquerors haki, 2.3k, very, very good.
How it Should have Healed - by Wordlet, 36k, a hurt comfort series about Luffy’s numerous injuries over the years, and his crew taking care of him. Extremely sweet, hurts my heart, luffy please learn to take care of yourself, 100/10 reread all the time.
Coming Into Focus by DemonsLOver, 4k, focusing on Luffy’s trauma after Marineford, EXTREMELY good, I reread this one a lot as well.
Being there - by chali, 45k, another Luffy post Marineford fic that I love, focuses on his trauma and wounds left over in varying aspects and with each individual crewmate.
wish by spirit and if by yes - by midnightluck, 32k, in which sabo and ace reunite and they may have some issues but everything turns out alright in the end.
more under the cut!
Chasing Flowers by taizi - 4.7k, the Strawhats leave out gifts for luffy and he just has to follow, outsider pov, one of my absolute favorites of taizi’s fics!! Actually just gonna say rn go read all of taizi’s one piece fics, everything is so very good.
Already Forever by taizi - 1.8k, another of taizi’s fics that devastate me, nami realizing that the way luffy works will never be understood by any one else, really, really, really sweet.
Sea Shanties by Milo - 13k, luffy focused series of one shots, and the first one devastates me. zoro/luffy but it’s not romantic just platonic and this made me cry 100%, its just. So soft. Chapter 2 is with brook annd chapter 3 is with shanks and oh,,,, oh its so good. One of my absolute favorites of all time.
Twin Flames by SoccerSarah01 - 66k, a Marineford fix-it in which Sabo remembers, he and Ace call themselves not just brothers but twins, and everything changes. This is by Sarah whom I love and I 100% cannot rec this fic enough its so, so, so good. asl brother focused and the way the brothers are written im just the watery eyes emoji.
I'll be by your side (forever, always) by SoccerSarah01 - 1.5k this also by Sarah is another fix-it in which Luffy takes the blow for ace, and there aftermath and it hurts but ohh,,, its so sweet
Wind Beneath My Wings by SoccerSarah01 - 11.8k, last rec for me rn by Sarah, essentially the asl brothers celebrate Makino’s birthday and everything is good and wonderful and soft <3
Rising suns, free waters by Amazaria - 5k, vivi and shanks talk at mariejeoise fic how can you not fall for that like. Oh god the concept is so good, and amazaria executed it perfectly!!! 100% recommend, stays very true to the characters, and their like for one straw hat luffy.
Serendipity and other ordinary miracles by Amazaria - 2k, also by Amazaria, Straw Hat loyalty and discussion of dreams thats just so, so, so good. it hurts my heart, but luffy loves his crew and they love him so everything is okay.
All that we've yet to lose (burning, burning bright before us) by Amazaria - 1.9k, usopp and Gear 2’s effects on Luffy, dear god this makes me cry, like. Holy shit. Also some very good nami + zoro bonding in the background like!!! cries.
Who Knows (what could happen) by Chromi - 87k, the only unfinished fic on here but im putting it because HOLY SHIT! Essentially the journey of Ace and the Spades from Sixis to the Moby Dick, Ace/Deuce incredibly good writing I cannot stress that enough and also pining. So much pining. Deuce you are so gay. This fic is very lovingly and well written, does err on the more mature side than the rest of the fics I have listed here (just look at the tags) but not explicit by any means. Chromi also has like. Tons more ace/deuce fic, and I highly recommended checking out her Take My Breath Away [Tumblr SFW Prompt Fills] series!
Synthesis by KBstories - 4k, in which even Luffy has a breaking point and that breaking point Is sabo, but his friends won’t let that happen. I reread this fic so much and it’s so fucking good like all of KBstories like,,, cries??
I have so much more but I already procrastinated on the stuff I have to do today by writing this so - if u want more come back for round 2 and send another ask - in addition, check out the bookmarks of all these authors! I guarantee that you’ll find all the fics I would have recced that way haha. Enjoy!
(Also - Im sure u know as u sent me this ask, but I am also on ao3! My big works include Sea of Monsters, in which the east blue is the weakest sea because it is the demon sea, crown the king (with bloody flowers) in which luffy has hanahaki for the ocean, mother mother ocean (I have heard you call) in which luffy has the voice of all things from a young age, make a choice (turncoat hero), in which garp chooses his grandsonns over justice, and dearest brother (who you are) in which ace and sabo remember inn Alabasta and everything is okay. You can find my ao3 at Whirlybird70!)
#op#one piece fic rec#whirlywhat#whirlyanswers#bounty buddy#grainjew#taizi#soccersarah01#amazaria#kbstories#chromi#wordlet#demonsLOver#opfic#fic rec#rec#one piece rec
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magnus fic roundup
as tma comes to a close, i thought i'd post some of my favorite fics to come out of this fandom. most of these are classics, listed in no particular order.
A Weather In The Flesh by @cuttoothed | 3K | S1-S4 | Jon/Martin | Complete
"There is a span of years where Jon doesn’t touch anyone other than the occasional hand shake. It’s not so bad. He’s never been someone who’s needed physical affection."
Jon has never been any good at making people want to stick around.
↳ this is such a well-done exploration of jon’s character and his relationship with touch, and i’ve re-read it at least five times. sweet and sad and phenomenally well-written.
in the chillest land and on the strangest sea by imperfectcircle, singlecrow | 20K | Safehouse, S1-S4 | Jon & Daisy, Jon/Martin | Complete
Jon remembers a statement he read years ago given by a Jesuit priest, who said that the shortest prayer he knew was, just, fuck it, as in fuck it; it's in God's hands. He takes Daisy's hand and trails on after her.
or; hope is a thing with feathers.
↳ hey, you wanna fuckin..... feel things? read this.
The Magnus Institute vs the 21st Century: a series of emails and IMs by shinyopals | 26K | Series | S3 | Pre-Jon/Martin | Complete
The Magnus Institute hires a Data Protection Officer. He sets about diligently booking in meetings, writing policy documents, and training all the staff in the importance of confidentiality. Now if only he could get hold of the Head Archivist, who seems to have vanished again...
(Jon is only trying to save the world, but apparently some people think he should still be doing his day job.)
↳ i’d be surprised to find people who haven’t read this series, but it’s the definition of “the magnus archives is a workplace comedy”. also, alasdair stuart has actually read some clips of this on Twitch, so that’s a fun bonus.
Bell, Book, and Candle by yellow_caballero | 102K | Series | S3 into S4 | Jon/Martin | Complete
In accordance with the Ride or Die Pact of 2009, Jonathan Sims can call upon Georgie Barker at any time for aid with no strings attached. Despite their rocky history, their childhood friendship, and Jon’s barely recovered alcoholism, this pact is sacred and must be upheld.
Georgie Barker may regret this. She may regret it when she discovers that the world is full of monsters and eldritch gods and dickhead managers. She may regret it when a punk rocker who should be dead collapses on their doorstep, a teenager again who needs their help. She may regret it when her stupid ex-boyfriend starts selling his soul for knowledge and the ability to keep his new family safe.
But she probably won’t. Georgie isn’t scared of anything - not a Clown’s apocalypse, not the apocalypse that Jon is destined to begin, and not Jon’s own loss of humanity.
Maybe she should be.
↳ if you’re looking for an everyone-lives-no-one-dies-happy-ending fic that also happens to be massively chaotic, look no further.
The Reverb in These Holy Halls by @wolftraps | 98K | AU, S1-S4 | Jon/Martin | Complete
Undoing the apocalypse would have been enough for Jon, if all his people survived. Without them, Jon's only recourse is making it so it never happened in the first place. He's going to do better this time.
↳ quintessential time travel AUs. plot-wise, i feel like these can be difficult to write, but op does a fantastic job of tying things together in a way that makes sense. plus, it’s just fun to read.
jon sims v the nhs by @thoughtsbubble | 12K | Series | S3 | Complete
Joan Bright has a new patient. He's carrying an old tape recorder and is covered head to toe in scars. Jonathan Sims looks dangerous, but Dr Bright has dealt with all sorts of atypical individuals. She has no reason to be nervous.
Right?
↳ if you’ve ever thought “hey, jon should probably go to therapy”, then 1) you’re absolutely right and 2) this is... probably what would’ve happened. prior knowledge of The Bright Sessions is not required. also, apparently, this fic is written by the showrunner of The Underwood Collection? wild.
Family, Found by Dribbledscribbles | 9K | S4 | Complete
It’s Basira who catches onto it.
The collective shift that seems to come over them when heading in or out of the Institute. Not just the oppressive sensation of being observed, their every move catalogued for the voyeuristic cravings of some unseen Eye(s). That feeling remained with them even when they left the Institute these days, but it was always stronger inside its walls. That wasn’t the change. Nor was it the point.
The point was: making life worse for Jonathan Sims.
↳ i think being part of the avengers fandom circa 2012 has given me permanent found-family-trope brainrot, but you know what. jonathan sims can have a little happiness, as a treat.
Road to Damascus by @titanfalling | 107K | Series | S4 | Jon & Tim | Complete
n. an important moment of insight, typically one that leads to a dramatic transformation of attitude or belief
Or, in which Tim becomes an avatar for the end of all things.
↳ tim dies and then he doesn’t. there is catharsis and world building. just....read it.
Come, Change Your Ring With Me by @backofthebookshelf | 29K | S3 | Peter/Jon, Jon/Martin, Peter/Elias | Complete
The Lukases demand the Archivist marry into the family, and the Institute relies on them too much to say no. Peter is smug. Elias is fuming. Martin is suffering. Jon thinks this might be tolerable if only Peter would hurry up and leave him alone already.
OR, the soap opera we call an Archives revolves around Peter Lukas this time.
↳ superb evil-bastards-in-love content, feat. martin pining, tim being obnoxious, and jon being... well, tired, mostly. i will literally never get tired of how op writes peter.
creatures that i briefly move along by @dotsayers | 16K | Series | AU, Post-S4 | background Jon/Martin
Mr Sims was so weird, was the thing. Miss Grant always said calling people weird was rude, and Anna sort of agreed, but she didn’t know what other word to use to describe Mr Sims.
He’d only been in with the class for a few days, really, and half of that he just sat at the back listening, but that didn’t stop her from making a swift judgement. 5BG had had student teachers before, back when they were 3ST, and they’d been uniformly normal.
Mr Sims was… actually, Anna had a better adjective. He was interesting.
↳ i just.... love teacher!jon fics. this series delivers.
Once Bitten by @apatheticbutterflies | 1K | S4 | Jon & Daisy | Complete
Jon Sims has always been a jumpy kind of guy. Nervous. Twitchy. Daisy used to think it meant he was guilty. Turns out he was. Just not of what she’d thought.
Daisy learns how to peel an orange.
↳ daisy and jon’s relationship is an example of an instance where i’m happy to say “fuck what you wrote mr. jonny ‘chocolate torte of tragedy’ sims, i want them to be friends”.
pins and needles by mutterandmumble | 13K | S1-S4 | Complete
He’s got a reputation to uphold anyways; an uptight, rigid reputation that dictates the way that he interacts and functions and is such an integral part of him that he can’t let go of it anytime soon. He likes his safety nets. He likes his contingencies. He likes his privacy, and everything around this place right down to the walls seems to have ears, so he’ll stay tight-lipped up to and beyond the threat of death.
He’s good at that.
In which Jon takes up embroidery and bumbles through life the best that he can.
↳ out of all the introspective jon pieces i’ve read (and there are many), this one stands out. maybe it’s the symbolism or the characterisation, or maybe it’s the fact that i have an embroidery kit lurking in the back of my closet along with a hundred other half-pursued hyperfixations. whatever. this is excellent.
sleeping in by @ivelostmyspectacles | 5K | S2 | Jon/Tim | Complete
“Who are you trying to convince?”
Jon gives up, letting his head sag against Tim’s shoulder. “I don’t know.”
aka Elias gets tired of Jon and Tim's bickering, sends them away for a "team-building" weekend trip, and is sure to book them a room with only one bed
↳ this has everything you’d need from a “oh no there’s only one bed” fic. someone please get these men therapy.
if you try, sometimes (you get what you knead) by @ajcrawly | 3.5K | S1-S4 | Jon/Martin, Tim/Sasha | Complete
It starts with an abundance of boeuf bourguignon and ends up as a team tradition.
Food and love in uncertain times.
↳ more found family fic, this time with a diverse og!archival staff and food as a metaphor for love. hurt in all the right ways. made me hungry in the process.
#tried to keep this shortish but i might just make a part 2#people in this fandom are crazy talented#tma#the magnus archives#tma fic recs#fic recs#long post#txt#mine
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Hello! I was the anon who asked you what alta blogs I should follow like a week(?) ago. You said to come back to show you my fic so I wanted to ask for some advice. I've never really written anything before, and I have no idea at what point I should start posting it (ive written ~4 chapters now). Does posting while youre still writing motivate you to keep the story going? Part of me is worried it will just stress me out, part of me wants to get it out there already so im not the only one who knows it exists! How long should it take to write a chapter? How frequently is it reasonable to post updates? I have no idea what im doing. Any pro tips?
OLLO!
So nice to officially meet you! There are so many more seasoned and advanced writers out there that might offer you better pro-tips, but I will help you where I can, so thank you for reaching out!!
WOW! You have 4 chapters written?! That’s amazing!
My biggest PRO-TIP is to please, please, please – HAVE FUN!!!! The point of writing fanfiction is to enjoy yourself. I truly believe writing for fun should be a no pressure, creative outlet for people to explore their mind and flex their wonderful imagination!
I’ll try to answer the questions you sent me.
Does posting while I am writing motivate me to keep going?
YES!!! I have actually never even contemplated writing the entire story and then posting it chapter by chapter… It does seem like a rather efficient way to do it though, lol. I do have my very first WIP that is 4 chapters along and I know I will never post it because I decided to go in a different direction and write something else… So if you think you might lose momentum by keeping it all for yourself then please, post it! (Just space out your updates)
How often should you update?
Correct answer? Whenever the fuck you want.
I personally like to post my updates every 2ish weeks (I think every WEEK is the shortest time I would go between updates) but sometimes they pop up sooner and sometimes they take WAY longer lol. This is why Tumblr is great because I can update people how the chapter is coming along and I don’t mind if people ask me when the next update will come (I love the attention and I NEED IT!)
How long does it take me to write a chapter?
Depends… I am an unusually fast writer. I have a system that I have created for myself that works, but I am a human being and I have a life outside of my fanfiction and sometimes things happen in it that takes time away from writing. Sometimes I just don’t FEEL like writing right now, or sometimes I am stuck at a spot and I need a fresh day or a new environment to get through it.
The important thing is to enjoy your life and not let yourself get stressed thinking that you should be writing, or you should be updating your story…. No. You SHOULD be enjoying your damn self. <3
Different chapter lengths will take different amount of time…. I do not know how to write a chapter under 8k…. I just can’t & most of my chapters hit from 10k-13k and it takes me 2 weeks to write, edit and post. But everyone is different and it might take you a month to write a 3k chapter and that is O K A Y!!!
However long it takes you to write a chapter is how long you should space your updates even if you have the heads start. So if it takes you a month to write a chapter (no matter how many words it is) then do your updates once a month. It just makes it easy.
OKAY.... Here is my MOST IMPORTANT PRO-TIP……
Please try not to play the comparison game! It is the most dangerous game you can play with your writing. So my BIGGEST advice is to not compare what you wrote to what anyone else has written. Kudos, comments, collections, all the crap is great but what is really important is that you are enjoying what you are writing and you are having fun. No everyone is going to read your story and that is OK!
If writing ever became stressful for me and I wanted to stop, I would. (Nervous laugh to the two people I came to in the middle of the night screaming I QUIT!!! & they talked me off the deleting ledge, THANK THEM THAT LIAB STILL EXISTS lol)
If writing ever becomes a thing in your life that stresses you out or makes you feel upset about yourself then TAKE A BREAK! OR QUIT! This is your life and you being happy is the number one thing.
It does help to have someone, ANYONE that you can talk to about your complaints or frustrations (it is just nice to have someone to talk to and vent about things – or bounce ideas off of…. Or beg for them to design your characters outfits because you just can’t dress yourself, much less the fictional characters)
Final TIP!:
The only other advice I have is if people comment on your writing, comment back! I am probably TOO engaged with my readers haha… but it is one of my FAVORITE parts about writing fanfiction. I love to get comments like “I NEVER COMMENT BUT AHHHH!!!!” & I take my time to respond to each one individually. So if reader interaction is important to you, then make sure you participate with your readers and make them feel special and appreciated.... because they deserve it. (I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!!)
(I would seriously write my stories JUST for the few people that comment and tell me that my words touched them somehow and they felt things from reading. I can think of specific usernames that made me go AWWWWWW... worth it.)
Well…. That is my rambling answer. I hoped it helped? If you need anything else feel free to DM me and I will try to assist you in anyway I can!! <3 Have a wonderful day! I am excited for you!!!!!
#Ask#writing advice#more like rambling writer#Still feels weird to call myself a writer#But I FULLY believe writing fanfic makes you a writer#Just not me#I am the exception#I am just some person rambling on the internet...#fanfic#I am excited for your story!#You should be excited too!!!!#WOHOOOO!!!! I think I said the words stress like 40 times#Oh & seriously thank the people who said “stop being crazy ssreeder don’t deleted your ao3 account#Remember when I was sad?#Yeah#I was going to burn this bitch down#BUT I DIDNT!
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Author Spotlight: soldouthaz
Don’t forget to show the author to leave kudos and comments to show the author love!
like it’s a game
Words: 32k
there is little harry hates more than truth or dare.
and louis.
let me carry your weight
Words: 28k
louis is fresh out of a bad relationship with someone who made him feel awful about how he looked. on his journey to better himself, he meets harry - the ridiculously attractive and fit personal trainer.
make this feel like home
Words: 43k
The house on West 28th Street in London is twice the size of Louis', more expensive than the price of all of his house and car payments combined, and is falling apart at the seams.
give me love
Words: 41k
Despite being an omega, Louis’ always had a blatant dislike of alphas.
Or, Louis doesn't feel like a good omega, Harry doesn't remember how to be an alpha, and they figure it out together.
tall stories on the page
Words: 5.7k
harry's tired of being interviewed by people that only care about the same pointless gossip.
louis is a nice change of pace.
Part 1 of drabbles
makeup drawer
Words: 4.1k
harry’s excited and nervous about wearing makeup for the first time publicly. louis is his supportive makeup artist.
Part 2 of drabbles
golden slumbers fill your eyes
Words: 5k
“I just want to sleep,” he croaks, hands twisted in the front of Louis’ shirt, “S’all I want, Lou, I just want to be able to sleep.”
“I know,” he says, stroking Harry’s hair and shushing him.
And he’s still worn out, mind heavy from the turmoil of his failure, but Louis never fails to make him feel better. He rests his forehead against his and exhales, finally letting his eyes fall shut.
harry has insomnia and louis helps him through the ups and downs.
Part 3 of drabbles
you’re safe like springtime
Words: 4.5k
And it's bad enough that he's trapped in the library during a storm, but it's infinitely worse that he's stuck in the library during a storm with his teammate and sworn enemy - Harry Styles.
Part 4 of drabbles
living for your every move
Words: 2.8k
Being around Harry is always exciting. Louis swears he’s always discovering new things that he’s never felt before when he’s around him. He gets a shiver down his spine when Harry puts his hand on his lower back, an unexplainable warmness when he presses a deep kiss to the skin of Louis’ cheek. His heart feels like it beats ten times faster and he sometimes wonders if Harry can feel it when it does, when his words slow and his throat drops into his stomach because he simply doesn’t know what to do with the onslaught of sudden desire.
Already from just thinking about him alone Louis can feel his skin heat up again, the familiar tremble in his movement. His brain feels hazy around the edges when he closes his eyes and tries to picture how Harry looked only moments ago when he’d kissed Louis goodbye out front of his flat.
His lips had been soft just like they always are, thin but thorough as they met Louis’. A swipe of his tongue and a hand on the back of his head, another at his waist, the taste of the sweet wine from dinner still heavy on their taste buds.
But it always stops there.
Part 5 of drabbles
your biggest fan
Words: 9k
Just like everyone else, Louis has a few habits that he can’t seem to break. Guilty pleasures, rather. His nails are perpetually short because he can’t quit biting them, the bottom of his shoes scuffed from tapping his foot constantly. Sometimes his leg gets a cramp from bouncing it so often underneath his desk. That isn't too bad, he reckons, just some average teenage coping mechanisms.
And also, occasionally, minor instances of theft.
Part 6 of drabbles
baby blue
Words: 39k
Harry Styles takes his time coming out to greet them. Louis only knows what he’s seen on file and what he’s heard them talking about, but he fully lives up to the image he had inside of his head.
He saunters down the front steps of the farmhouse in his Levi’s, brown snakeskin boots curving out from underneath the denim Louis’ sure he had specially made. He’s got on a plaid button-down tucked into the jeans because of course he does, curls spilling out from either side of his cowboy hat around his sunglasses and country-tan skin.
“Harry Styles,” he drawls, extending a hand to Louis’ manager, “Pleased to meet ya’ll.”
nothing worsens, nothing grows
Words: 102k
and he sits there quietly with harry’s headphones in his ears while his eyes begin to close, totally unaware that he’s listening to the soundtrack of harry falling in love with him.
or, another roadtrip au featuring harry as the misunderstood hipster, louis as the bitter psych major, liam as the one with the secret boyfriend, and niall as the one who just wants everyone to be happy.
what’s mine is yours to make your own
Words: 39k
sometimes, the closest harry ever feels to home is louis. it's their shared hotel rooms on tour, their shoes toed off in the doorway next to each other, jackets hung on the same post.
it's everything he doesn't notice until it's been taken away from him.
Part 1 of look after you
forgive the urgency, but hurry up and wait
Words: 53k
Louis' going to do better. He’s going to have all of the uncomfortable conversations and the relationship talks. He’s going to make himself be a good boyfriend.
And he’s got absolutely no idea where to start.
Part 2 of look after you
call if you need me
Words: 10k
If anyone asks later on, Louis plans to tell them that it’s all Niall’s fault.
you know what they say
Words: 10k
nice guys always finish last.
until this blood runs cold
Words: 13k
In a town as small as Louis’, everybody knows everybody and gossip spreads faster than the wildfires that rage on just outside their backdoors in the sweltering heat of summer. When something happens here everyone knows about it within seconds. Neighbors call neighbors and notes are left on doorsteps, old telephone lines ringing until there isn’t a single person who is left in the unknown.
So it’s definitely hot gossip when a vampire moves in across the street from him, the very same one who’s just become Louis’ boss.
the way this river runs
Words: 27k
It’d be so easy to just open his mouth and plead with Harry, to scream I’m sorry until his voice disappears, but he can’t. Be it his pride or his ego or his insecurities, he just can’t do it. The worst part is that he knows Harry would probably forgive him.
But Louis doesn’t want phony forgiveness. He doesn’t want Harry’s soothing words and pity embrace, thinks he might just break altogether if he was offered them. He feels like he’s made of glass recently and it’s to the point where he kind of wants to tip over the edge, just to see if he’d shatter. Just to see who’d be there to pick up the pieces if he did.
Louis is provided a chance to start over. He takes it.
sky’d be falling and i’d hold you tight
Words: 6.3k
it's too much to handle at once but louis needs it this way - needs harry to tether him back to the earth before he floats away from it completely.
or before there is no more earth left at all.
an au based on the song by jp saxe and julia michaels
Part 1 of song fics
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this is my story, this is my song