#War Against Virus

[themintman]

I HATE THIS DIAGRAM I FOUND IN MY SCIENCE BOOK SO MUCH

GO GO GO!!!!!

#The little army men go to war against evil green packman #It's trying to explain what a virus is BTW #Science

[youngpettyqueen]

you know, I do like when Trek shows get into the failings of Starfleet, the dark side of it, but the way Picard goes about it just... doesnt do it for me

#star trek: picard #like I LOVED it in DS9 when they got into the darker side of Starfleet #Section 31 and ESPECIALLY s7 #introducing the virus to the Changelings and then voting against giving them the cure was a compelling choice #and it was compelling because there was no denying it was a horrific thing to do #a horrific means to an end: win the Dominion War #but in Picard Starfleet just seems like. cartoonishly evil #just got to the reveal that they were experimenting on and torturing Changelings #which im. struggling with #the virus with the Changelings was one thing. it had a goal #dont get me wrong it was still an evil thing to do #but it had a goal. you can see why it was done #doing this with the Changelings is just... yeah I dont think I like it as a writing choice #again it feels just cartoonishly evil #and the choices made in s1 which make Starfleet look just. completely incompetent and willfully evil again #im not a fan! #exploring the darker side of Starfleet is fascinating but it feels like Picard is making Starfleet out to be just straight up bad guys #which doesnt compel me and in fact makes me roll my eyes

[bbygirl-obi]

i still can't get over how in the blue shadow virus arc of the clone wars, after a bunch of people were exposed to a dangerous virus, anakin arrived on the planet and ignored both his men (who he is legally responsible for as their commanding officer) and, even worse, ahsoka (his padawan who he is legally responsible for because she is a minor), so that he could run straight to padme's side....

never mind the fact that padme had a hazmat suit for a long while to protect her against the virus, while his men and ahsoka had been exposed for virtually the entire time and were significantly worse off than padme. like padme was still conscious at the time of the rescue, while ahsoka was completely down for the count long before that. never mind the fact that anakin was in contact with them both the entire time and absolutely knew that his padawan was out here struggling ten times more than his wife:

anakin's so absorbed in checking on padme that he doesn't even think to ask about his padawan or his men. it's padme who has to bring up ahsoka, who's being brought in on a different stretcher! only then does he even remember she exists, because even his own padawan is a mere afterthought compared to padme for him!

once she does, anakin does go to ahsoka's side, and he does a good job of reassuring and praising her. when he tries, he can be a pretty good mentor. but that's the key phrase: when he tries. and this episode makes it abundantly clear that if padme is in any amount of danger, even if it's a fraction of the danger that ahsoka is in, he will not try until someone else reminds him.

oh and and all while that's happening, obi-wan is the only one actually sitting with the troops!!!! even though they're anakin's troops!!

anyways prioritizing your wife, an actual adult, over the child in your care who was in significantly more danger, to the point that you have to be reminded of said child's existence, is.... not a great look. it certainly reflects how anakin's fixation on padme has become this all-encompassing thing.

these scenes are all around minute 20 of season 1 episode 18 by the way. check it out yourself, because it's absolutely bonkers.

#anakin and ahsoka #ahsoka tano #ahsoka #anakin skywalker #anakin #star wars #sw #the clone wars #tcw #blue shadow virus #mystery of a thousand moons #padme naberrie #padme #padme amidala #anidala #obi-wan kenobi #obi wan #obi wan kenobi #obi-wan #anakin and padme #ahsoka and anakin

[loveinhawkins]

Steve’s bat bites start to bleed again during the drive out of The War Zone.

It’s a slow realisation, a creeping dampness on his skin.

He stays as still as he can, keeps his movements small and contained when turning the steering wheel; he thinks he mostly gets away with it, manages to park the RV and pitch his voice on just the right side of normal as he tells the kids to scram.

Awareness of his surroundings grows a little fuzzy around the edges, but he senses enough to know that he’s alone—the silence feels heavy, makes his ears ring.

He lifts himself up out of his seat, one hand clinging onto the headrest for balance. The ringing gets sharper, more high-pitched; he shakes his head to try and clear it.

One step forward, then another, and another.

There’s a slight rocking motion under his feet. It feels a little like he’s in a boat that’s docked, constant movement even in the gentlest of waters.

His palms brush against the bathroom door.

“Okay,” Steve whispers to himself.

He hangs onto the sink to keep himself upright—feels the room sway, as if the waters underneath have suddenly become stormy.

With one hand, he finds the knot in the bandage.

“Okay, okay…”

Pulls.

Steve doesn’t think he blacks out, not quite, but there’s a shift, a dizzying tilt… and then, somehow, he’s sitting on the closed toilet seat.

And…

The bat bites must cause hallucinations or something.

Otherwise, Steve cannot explain why Eddie—who notoriously threw up and passed out during a dissection in Biology—is currently pressing a clean bandage against his stomach, staring down at the blood like he can’t look away.

“You’re good, you’re good,” Eddie’s saying.

He’s clearly trying to sound calm, but it’s just coming out strained, like what he really means is this is all a fucking nightmare actually, but we’ve gotta find something to be optimistic about.

“Think it just needs some more pressure,” he goes on. “Yeah, there, see? It’s stopping. Oh, thank God.”

Steve feels more gauze getting wrapped around his middle—if he wasn’t injured, it’d almost be a nice sensation, Eddie’s touch somehow the perfect mix of both firm and gentle.

As he works, Eddie hums nervously.

“Talk to me Harrington,” he says in a shaky sing-song. “Come on, don’t leave me hanging, man, gimme some awkward small talk. Got any hopes? Dreams? Anything I should know?

Oh, so many things, Steve thinks, still light-headed.

But then he really does mull that over: his mind goes to The Upside Down, to belatedly telling Eddie about the hive mind, and oh shit.

“Hey, weird question,” Steve says, “but I’ve not been, like, asking you to make it cold in here or, um, anything like that?”

Eddie blinks. “Uh. No?”

“Okay.” Before he lets the relief of hearing Eddie’s answer sink in, Steve adds, “If I ever do, you need to lock me in here and get out. Tell Nancy.”

Eddie’s staring at him like he’s grown a second head. “Sure. Cool. Cool! Uh, for any particular reason or—?”

“Just in case—like, I don’t feel any different, but—one time, Will Byers, when he was in The Upside Down it, like, infected him? Like a virus. Except more… possession. And they had to kinda… burn it outta him.”

“Ha,” Eddie says. A beat. “Oh fuck, you’re serious.”

“I really don’t have the energy to be messing with you, dude.”

“Sorry. Sometimes you all just say things, y’know? And if I don’t get it, I’m like, well, they’ve been living through this for a while, maybe they’ve got a code going on.”

“I mean,” Steve says, “we kinda do.”

Eddie shakes his head. “So when Buckley said she dealt with a human-flesh-based monster, and the one before that was smoke-related, that wasn’t just, like, a really fucked up metaphor?” Eddie’s eyes are wide, pleading. “Please say it was a metaphor.”

“Sorry,” Steve says sincerely.

Eddie sighs through a lacklustre chuckle. “You’re fine, Steve. As for, uh, being possessed, I don’t think so. You’re no weirder than usual, but—”

“Wow, thanks. Means such a lot coming from you.”

“—you were a bit, like, out of it for a few seconds, but it just looked like you were gonna faint on me. Um. How’re you feeling now?”

“Good,” Steve says. When Eddie raises an eyebrow, he tacks on, “As good as I can be, I guess. Still.” He groans slightly as he stands, goes back over to the sink. “Better check.”

“Check? What?”

Steve runs the water as hot as it will possibly go, until the steam is evident. He sticks his hand right into the stream, hears Eddie hiss as the water scalds his skin.

“Okay, yup. Not possessed.”

“Fucking fantastic. Now I want it cold,” Eddie says.

He takes control of the faucet, nods for Steve to put his hand under the now cold water.

After a minute or two, Eddie sighs and collapses onto the toilet seat himself.

There’s a squeak as Steve turns the faucet off—his skin’s probably not had the good of the cold water for nearly long enough, but it’ll do.

Eddie’s tipped his head back so he’s facing the ceiling, eyes closed. Steve watches him with sympathy; he really must hate blood.

“Eddie. You can go.”

“Mm, nope,” Eddie says without opening his eyes. “I’m fine right here.”

“Suit yourself.”

Steve turns back to the sink, frowns at the tiny mirror above it; there’s black spots on the glass, but he can make out enough. Christ, the bags under his eyes are horrific.

“Relax, Casanova,” Eddie says, almost as if he’s heard Steve’s thoughts. “You look good.”

“Uh-huh. Think your brain’s fried from being on the run.”

Steve leans against the sink with one hip, finds Eddie looking at him with a small smile.

“Yeah, probably. Or maybe being on the run just suits you.” Eddie’s eyes flicker down. His smile falters. “You know, in an ideal world,” he says conversationally, “you’d be in a hospital getting stitches.”

Steve scoffs. “In an ideal world, I’d be in bed sleeping.”

“Amen to that,” Eddie says lightly. But he still looks sombre. “Seriously, though. If it gets… you know. I’d drive you.”

“To the hospital? What are you gonna do, Eddie, wander up to the front desk? Sounds like a real interesting way to get arrested.”

But Eddie doesn’t leap at the chance to make a joke.

“Steve,” he says softly. “I mean it. I wouldn’t care.”

“That would sorta ruin the whole priority of hiding you.”

“That’s—” Eddie huffs. “That’s not the priority.”

“Huh, that’s funny, cause it is in my book.” Steve nods at the door, to his whole world just outside. “One of many.”

Eddie’s eyes narrow. “And your name better be right at the top, Harrington.”

Steve hums.

“In bold. Underlined.”

“Whatever you say.”

Eddie groans quietly, runs a hand down his face. “You worry me, man.”

“I’m not trying to.”

“I know. Just…” Eddie hesitates. “Don’t go off alone. You know?”

Steve thinks it over. He steps forward and offers Eddie his hand.

Eddie takes it.

When Steve pulls him up, he stumbles a little, as if he feels like he’s on a boat, too.

“Oops, sorry.” He grabs onto Steve’s forearm for balance. “Think this should be the other way round, man.”

“Hmm, I don’t think so.”

Steve leads the way out of the bathroom—doesn’t mention the fact that, really, they’re both holding each other up.

There’s a bottle of water left in the back. Steve twists the cap off. Drinks.

“You too,” he tells Eddie.

“Huh?”

Steve considers him—thinks of the little flare of panic he felt when watching Eddie walk through the woods, tiptoeing around vines. How he had a sudden instinct to catch up to him, to make sure he wasn’t alone.

“I’m making a deal,” Steve says. “I won’t go off alone if you don’t.”

He lifts the bottle up as if making a toast—drinks again then passes it over to Eddie.

For the slightest of moments, their fingers brush; Eddie’s rings skim over Steve’s knuckles.

“So what’s this?” Eddie asks. “Legally binding magical water?”

Steve shrugs. “Cool metaphor,” he replies.

You say you just turn heel and run, Eddie. But sometimes I think if there was a fire, you’d run towards the flames if it meant no-one else got hurt.

Eddie smiles. Tilts the bottle towards Steve.

“Guess it’s a promise, then,” he says.

He drinks.

Steve prays that it holds.

#reciprocal hurt/comfort & protectiveness because they notice each other and care so damn much. with a side of banter of course ❤️ #pre steddie #steddie ficlet #steddie #steddie fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie

[crucialplayer]

Thoughts on moon placements

!! everything is based purely on my experiences with signs, written with no other purpose than to share my observations and be unserious.

Aries moon. Will ask you a question and leave midway through u answering it just cuz little men in their head pushed a new button on the emotions console, inside out style. If they feel some type of way be sure everyone in the room will also feel it. Great at destroying social harmony. 

Taurus moon. Brick wall banging against which you risk irrevocably damaging ur head. Usually deal with stress or any negative emotions by falling asleep. Insanely bad at moving on from anything.

Gemini moon. Find an outlet for your thoughts and ideas and it better not be that one poor friend that is too nice to stop your rambling. Anxiety ride from the moment they wake up till the moment they fall asleep if they actually manage to. Never have a firm stance on anything. 

Cancer moon. If they feel sad they can suck the life out of the air. Feel a lot and usually stop at that. Somehow kinda bad at reflecting. Some of them could really benefit from rationalizing their emotions. Like to reminisce a lot. 

Leo moon. Every day is a Miss Universe contest. Don't understand the concept of putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. Live life like they’re being filmed for a biopic about them. Get offended easily. Having too many ego deaths on a daily basis bless them. 

Virgo moon. Invented anxiety and hating things. Genuinely think they are smarter than everybody but like to ignore the fact that they’ve been stuck in the loop of the same problems for a couple of years. VEry unstable self-esteem. 

Libra moon. Appear very carefree to the point of care actually not existing in their world I think. Like cute things and cute feelings. Dislike ugly things and ugly feelings. Shine best when surrounded by people and are needed by someone. 

Scorpio moon. If mood swings were a moon placement it’d be this one. Cutting ur hair at 3 am moon. Everything is profound and deeply personal. Identity crisis during a bus ride home. Being nonchalant is a hoax. 

Sagittarius moon. 3 minute emotional life cycle. Consider feeling down a random virus they caught somewhere and not a genuine state of being. Cure themself to the natural optimistic disposition by blowing up to someone’s face and proceeding to go with their day unbothered.   

Capricorn moon. Incapable of giving approval or being positive about anything. See three steps forward except only for the situations going wrong. Hence dissociate when they’re supposed to feel happy. The soul leaves their body when entrapped by loud people. 

Aquarius moon. Have ideas about feelings. When exposed to simple emotional stimuli fall into a theoretical spiral. Like to look for the signs and parallels. Without a social circle are like fish without water. 

Pisces moon. Kid lost in the mall vibe. Dreamed a more exciting life and are living it. Need alone time to survive but also kinda hate it?? Always care, would lose at the speed of light in the idgaf war. Do art please. 

#astrology #astro notes #astro observations #natal chart #zodiac signs #aries moon #taurus moon #gemini moon #cancer moon #leo moon #virgo moon #libra moon #scorpio moon #sagittarius moon #capricorn moon #aquarius moon #pisces moon

[itmeblog]

It's Black History Month

(Over here in the US of A) So here are some podcasts to check out.

Absolutely no Adventures - a fantasy (un)adventure story that follows Sig, the owner of Signature Eats bakery, as he aggressively avoids becoming embroiled in any daring quests or chosen one shenanigans even though the universe really seems to want him to do just that. This is a story about cutting Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey off at the knees to chill with friends and staying far, far away from the slightest whiff of adventure. And also baking. This is also a story about baking.

Afflicted - Lovecraft Country meets True Blood in this new series from award-winning producers Tonia Ransom and Jen Zink. In season one, a small East Texas town suffers supernatural disasters caused by a demonic book bound in human flesh…and only hoodoo can save the town from its affliction.

Apollyon - In the early 22nd century, the Apollyon virus wiped out 75% of the world’s population, and now most of the world is governed by the International Conglomerate of Research Scientists. Dr. Theo Ramsey is an ICRS research scientist who may have just discovered an effective vaccine for Apollyon, but the stakes to get the vaccine to the public are higher than she ever imagined.

Between Heartbeats - Tan immersive Urban Fantasy about the hurt, the powerful, and their growth within a broken world. We follow Sundiata, a guilt-ridden time manipulator with a knack for unemployment, and Nadia, a moralistic telepath determined not to lose control, as they balance frayed mental health against an unsympathetic police state. But when a malevolent presence rears is head, their neuroses become the least of their problems. Can our heroes make the most of their abilities before the option is taken from them?

Fan Wars: The Empire Claps Back - Two passionate Star Wars fans on opposite sides of the Last Jedi debate argue via Skype after their favorite forum closes down. If you love Star Wars (or call yourself a proud member of any fandom), you’ll love this romantic comedy told via

Harlem Queen - a Black historical fiction audio drama based on the life and times of Black, woman, "gangster" Madame Stephanie St. Clair during the Harlem Renaissance.

His Royal Fakin' Highness - What if Ophelia helped Hamlet get his throne back? This modern day, romantic comedy re-imagining of Shakespeare's Hamlet asks just that. As they stage an engagement in the wake of the king's death, these childhood frenemies must decide between duty and love.

InCo (This one's mine :D) - A Sci-Fi story about a disgruntled information seller, a mysterious space boy, and an android doing her best.

Janus Descending - a limited series, science fiction/horror audio drama podcast, follows the arrival of two xenoarcheologists on a small world orbiting a binary star. But what starts off as an expedition to survey the planet and the remains of a lost alien civilization, turns into a monstrous game of cat and mouse, as the two scientists are left to face the creatures that killed the planet in the first place.

Lady Lucy - Lady Lucy is an audio drama inspired by Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" Sonnets, 127-154. Between running her brothel, fighting the Church, murdering her friends' abusive husbands, and pretending to be a poet, the last thing Lucy needed back in 1586 was a surprise visit from her former flame... Will Shakespeare.

Liars and Leeches - Tonya Wright felt it all after the tragic murders of her sister and brother-in-law in a random act of gun violence. Struggling to travel outside of her home, she now lives constantly on edge about perceived threats that seem to surround her.

Nightlight - Multi-award winning horror podcast featuring creepy stories with full audio production written by Black writers and performed by Black actors. So scary it’ll make you want to leave your night light on.

Null /Void - a science fiction audio drama about a young woman, Piper Lee, whose life is saved by a mysterious voice named Adelaide. Piper soon uncovers a malicious plot by a monopoly of a tech company and must work with her friends and an unusual ally to help foil their deadly plot.

Out of Ashes - (currently remastering season 1) Follow a group of survivors as they navigate the ruins of modern civilization and battle against demons, ghosts, monsters and the looming threat of extinction from an ancient power.

Small Victories - A recently recovered drug addict tries to start her new lease on life, too bad life has it out for her.  This dramatic comedy follows Marisol through the ups and downs of her life.

The Courtship of Mona Mae - In the 1870s, pioneers Mona Mae Christophe and Zekial Montgomery search the American West for Mona Mae's mother, Clara. Mona must recall a past, long forgotten in order to survive, so that she can find her mother, love and create a way of life for herself.

Vega a Sci-Fi Adventure Podcast - In a fantasy futuristic world, Vega Rex is employed by her government to kill off the world's worst criminals. She's never met a criminal she couldn't catch…until now. Join Vega as she journeys through a world of bumbling apprentices, powerful technogods, and her biggest challenge yet. Hosted by Ivuoma Hall.

Witchever Path - is an anthology series where your decisions effect the story. Our stories are based in America’s NorthEast, featuring characters finding themselves in the thick of the unknown while tackling issues like queer identity, gender, race, and spirituality. Stories often focus on the communities not typically seen in stories taking place in New England, and giving voice to the perspectives of those communities while uniting under some universal themes. And the supernatural happens. A lot.

(All descriptions were taken from websites)

If you want to find more and there are way more there's a directory :D

[targaryenrealnessdarling]

Form of Affection

22/12: Swimming & Face Fucking - Aemond Targaryen Word Count: 1.9k~ | Warnings: face fucking (obvi), dark!ish Aemond, kinslaying (mood), dirty talk, praise, degradation, threatening/obsessive behaviour A/N: This takes place in the Form of Gratitude universe!

12 Days of Smuff Masterlist

He'd given up hunting, but it still didn't stop him from visiting her.

She no longer raised her bow and arrow when she heard footsteps on her cobbled path. Similarly, Aemond had abandoned transport by way of the horse, instead alerting her to his arrival by the dense flapping of Vhagar’s wings.

Now, when she hears it, she waits outside her front door, arms crossed, smirking that he'd come to see her so soon after their last little tryst.

When he wasn’t buried between her thighs, sometimes Aemond craved her company in other ways. By way of hunting with her (hunting her sometimes), exploring the Kingswood until the sun touched the hills and more often, shedding their clothes and going for a swim in the nearby freshwater lake, made warm by the pleasant weather.

Usually, they swim, cleanse, kiss, and he wraps his strong arm around her and sheathes himself inside her, having his fill and only stopping once he was sated. 

She was good to him. Submitted to his desires when he wanted. Comforted him when he needed. And did not question.

Today was different. 

Today there was a weight on his shoulders like no other.

He’d woken a different person. A kinslayer.

Aemond sighs as he feels her breasts at his back, her slender arms wrapping around him to drift her soft fingertips across his scarred chest. But he does not lift his gaze. The moon shone down on them, reflected off the sapphire of his missing eye now that his eyepatch was discarded with his clothes.

“You are more melancholic than usual”, she muses, her nose gliding up the skin of his neck.

He scoffed, “And I am usually melancholic? Such emotions are beneath that of a Prince”.

He felt her body tense at his back, and he didn't need to look to know he'd offended her, but did not possess the courage to apologise.

“You are cruel when you're like this. It is how I know”, she adds with a soft sigh, making him feel worse, “there is something you are not telling me”.

Even the memory haunts him. He can still hear it, the way Vhagar’s jaw ripped through skin and bone like a knife through paper. 

Nevermind having to admit out loud, the horrific act he'd committed. The one that had his mother flinching from his sights.

“I am a kinslayer”, he states simply, “My nephew, Luke.”

She is quiet. 

And the silence spreads like a virus.

He expects her to drift away from him, taking her warmth with her, too shocked to really say anything, and leave, never to be seen again. Never to know her sweet loving embrace.

But she stays, and if anything, tightens her hold around him, her warm breath on his jaw, batting against the water droplet that sinks across his skin.

“And how do you feel?”

He's perplexed at just how calm she is. Whether it's a front or not, she's awfully good at it.

“I feel…unclean”, he answers, voice wavering, “like any person who looks upon me sees nothing but a mere monster”.

“I do not see a monster”.

“That does not matter”.

Again, she knows better than to not take it to heart. She can't disagree, her good opinion of him does not matter.

“He is the one who took your eye”, she muses, turning her face into the crook of his neck, the sloshing of water following her movements, “is he not?”

Aemond's tongue suddenly feels heavy, “Yes.”

“While your other family simply watched, and did nothing to assist?”

He swallows, a mild annoyance simmering, “Yes.”

He heard her breath before she spoke, the nerves making her shaky, “forgive me. I do not see why you should feel remorseful.”

“Because it has started a war.”

“A war that, forgive me, would have occurred regardless. I understand you may feel guilt. In my view it is no use looking back on the past. You can only protect your family now.”

Aemond could only scoff incredulously, “With Aegon as king I have a better chance of my eye growing back.”

“Well then why not you?” she asks, her volume lowering.

He barely turns his head to her, “what?”

The coldness of the early evening nips at his shoulders as she pulls away, the water around her trickling as she moves dreamily to look at him fully. Aemond feels himself half blink as he watches her expression, and the feeling of her fingers against his cheek.

Her beautiful full lips are parted, eyes studying the body she can see that is not submerged.

Her gaze flits back up to him, as her fingers disappear beneath the water, one soft digit trailing down his chest.

“It is you who should be king”

Silence.

The weight of what she'd said, what she'd suggested.

It was treason, and both knew it.

Aemond swallowed, chest feeling tight as a bowstring.

She is not at all perturbed by what she's said, not thinking about the consequences of them. Instead she ponders on.

“I am a commoner, my Prince. I know what he does. Where his interests lie”, she utters, an urgency to her tone. Aemond's stomach muscles tense as her hand passes over it, stepping past the fine hairs at his navel.

“It is you who was born to rule Westeros…”, she whispers, her front pressed near to his, breasts and nipples perk from the chill.

He stares idly at the droplet making its way between her breasts as her hand wraps around his cock, seeing her smirk at the realisation that her words have made him impossibly hard.

“...and you will”.

His jaw tightens, the muscle twitching with barely-contained emotion that was difficult to pin down.

Anger. Lust. Irritation. Desire.

They were all batting around in his head, trying to find where to fit.

He grabs her face, tugging her towards him so harshly she let out a little squeak, her grip on him never faltering, “Treasonous little cunt, aren't you?”

He doesn't know what he expected. For her to be scared perhaps.

But maybe there was a darkness in her that was discovered in him just days before. Lurking. Because she smirked. Giving his length a few calculated pumps.

“I told you before, where my loyalties lie.”

Her voice was like honey. Catching him in its trap. And her movements only intensified it.

“And what if I wed Floris Baratheon? Hm? Where will your loyalties lie then?”

She laughs breathily, “Then you wed Floris Baratheon. But, on your wedding night, I dare say, it is me you will be thinking of as you bury yourself inside that plain-faced idiot, searching for fulfillment you will never have. Not like you do with me.”

“You sound so sure”, he muses threateningly.

“Prove me wrong then.”

He sighs and tips his head back, feeling achingly hard. Her movements are too slow to grant him any kind of meaningful pleasure, but the touch all the same ignites a flame within.

“I can think of a better use for your cunt mouth”

The hand moves from her face to her hair, and he revels in the whine she lets out when he drags her from the depths to the shallow bank of the edge of the great lake. In the moonlight, shrouded in blue, their bodies look ethereal with the light bouncing off their damp skin.

He'd fucking hate that smug little smile on her face as he drags her to her knees in front of him, if he didn't fucking love it so much.

“Open.”

She bit her lip, holding back her smile at how wound tight she'd managed to make him and only wished to take it further by outright denying him, cock hard and weeping before her.

A choked moan left her as warmth bloomed on her cheek hard, Aemond's hand followed and grabbed her jaw meanly, pulling her face up to meet his gaze. His fingers curled into the flesh of her face, parting her lips, all while his other hand held his length by the base littered with silver curls, and pressed the tip to her lips.

Her eyes glimmered with excitement, feeling a throb between her thighs as he slid into her mouth slowly, his cock hot and heavy on her tongue. There was a dull ache on her cheek where he'd struck her, but it was exciting all the same.

Aemond moaned loudly when he felt her gag on him, her throat trying to close around his length and tears collecting around the rim of her beautiful eyes.

“That's it…”, he cooed quietly, pressing all the way into her warm, wet mouth until his hips were pressed to her.

“-you think I should be king, hm? - a king needs his cock warmed -”

He could tell she was trying to say something around his length but couldn't, and he wanted to laugh at her attempt as he thrusted so deeply into her mouth, her throat moved along with it, prodding the back of her throat mercilessly.

The little slut was writhing there, taking his cock into her mouth like a cunt would, pressing her thighs together to alleviate how badly she wanted to be fucked.

“- what's that? - I can't hear you -”, he smirked at her. Her eyes now shut with streams of moisture forming lines down her face.

“-that’s it-” he whispers softly, “-much better with my cock in your mouth-”

Once he begins fucking in earnest, he feels her warm hands on his thighs for balance. His fingers tug at her moist hair for leverage, tugging her back on his length.

His stomach muscles tighten as her cheeks hollow, increasing the friction on him. Every nerve feels alight the more he bottoms out inside her mouth.

“-fuck- it's such a waste, I've been dreaming of that perfect cunt all day -” he breathes heavily, “-be a good girl and take it-”

She makes a sound skin to a whine when she tastes his seed, shooting hot ropes onto her tongue and back of her throat, coating her mouth with it as he continues his ceaseless pace, prolonging his pleasure.

Aemond moans loudly, the sound lost in the dense forest, granting himself a few more shallow thrusts before he stills, emptying himself on her tongue and watching as a line of spend dribbles down the side of her mouth and onto her breasts.

He sighs in contentment. She is being good and hasn't moved an inch.

With a wet smack, he pulls his softening cock from her mouth, smirking at the way he coats her lips as they glisten in the moonlight.

She opens her bleary eyes finally to him, and doesn't even need to be told. She swallows, a sigh following after to prove she has swallowed all of it.

He hums. A thumb reaching for her chin to push the seed that had leaked out back into her mouth. She sucks on the digit hungrily, and he nearly moans out at the feeling of her wet tongue.

He pulls it out and cups her face lovingly, her eyelashes fluttering as she leans into his touch.

“Come back to the Keep with me”, he demands simply, like it is the easiest thing in the world.

“What?” 

“If I'm going to have to wed, bed and breed Floris fucking Baratheon, I'll need you close to me.”

With the heady taste of him on her tongue still, she swallows and considers for a moment. 

“I will not allow the sweetest cunt in the realm to sleep on the outskirts of the fucking Kingswood. You will be mine.”

His words are sweet. 

It would promise safety from vagabonds, rapists and hunters, for certain. And she had to admit, she did miss him whenever he departed on Vhagar, summoned back to the Keep.

So, she smiles at him, leaning forward to press her temple against his body.

“Yes, my King.”

General Taglist: @aemondsfavouritebastard @bellstwd @blairfox04 @buckybarnesb-tch @castellomargot @hb8301 @jamespotterismydaddy @mochi-rose @natty2017 @nenelysian @randomdragonfires @risefallrise @thelittleswanao3 @theoneeyedprince @thetrueblackheart @tsujifreya @urmomsgirlfriend1 @valeskafics @virtualsweetsqueen @watercolorskyy @fan-goddess

#aemond targaryen #prince aemond x you #prince aemond x reader #aemond x y/n #aemomd x you #prince aemond targaryen #prince aemond #aemond one eye #aemond angst #aemond fluff #aemond smut #aemond stannies #aemond targaryen x reader #house of the dragon aemond #aemond x reader #aemomd targaryen smut #aemond fanfiction #hotd aemond #aemond targaryen fanfiction #aemond targaryen imagine #aemond the kinslayer #aemond targaryen x y/n #aemond targaryen x oc #aemond targaryen x you #aemond x fem!reader #aemond x you #aemond x oc #aemond targaryen x female reader #ewan mitchell #ewan mitchell characters

[vintagegeekculture]

David Gerrold's "When HARLIE Was One" (1972) was a novel about an artificial intelligent computer, and his friendship with his psychologist. It is chiefly remembered as being the origin of the idea of a "computer virus," which the novel predicted a decade before an actual computer virus came into existence.

HARLIE showed up in other David Gerrold novels, notably Star Wolf, where every intergalactic cruiser had a HARLIE installed. A HARLIE (not necessarily the HARLIE) showed up in Gerrold's War Against the Cthorr novels.

#david gerrold #computer science #vintage

[mariacallous]

For Sander van der Linden, misinformation is personal.

As a child in the Netherlands, the University of Cambridge social psychologist discovered that almost all of his mother’s family had been executed by the Nazis during the Second World War. He became absorbed by the question of how so many people came to support the ideas of someone like Adolf Hitler, and how they might be taught to resist such influence.

While studying psychology at graduate school in the mid-2010s, van der Linden came across the work of American researcher William McGuire. In the 1960s, stories of brainwashed prisoners-of-war during the Korean War had captured the zeitgeist, and McGuire developed a theory of how such indoctrination might be prevented. He wondered whether exposing soldiers to a weaker form of propaganda might have equipped them to fight off a full attack once they’d been captured. In the same way that army drills prepared them for combat, a pre-exposure to an attack on their beliefs could have prepared them against mind control. It would work, McGuire argued, as a cognitive immunizing agent against propaganda—a vaccine against brainwashing.

Traditional vaccines protect us by feeding us a weaker dose of pathogen, enabling our bodies’ immune defenses to take note of its appearance so we’re better equipped to fight the real thing when we encounter it. A psychological vaccine works much the same way: Give the brain a weakened hit of a misinformation-shaped virus, and the next time it encounters it in fully-fledged form, its “mental antibodies” remember it and can launch a defense.

Van der Linden wanted to build on McGuire’s theories and test the idea of psychological inoculation in the real world. His first study looked at how to combat climate change misinformation. At the time, a bogus petition was circulating on Facebook claiming there wasn’t enough scientific evidence to conclude that global warming was human-made, and boasting the signatures of 30,000 American scientists (on closer inspection, fake signatories included Geri Halliwell and the cast of M*A*S*H). Van der Linden and his team took a group of participants and warned them that there were politically motivated actors trying to deceive them—the phony petition in this case. Then they gave them a detailed takedown of the claims of the petition; they pointed out, for example, Geri Halliwell’s appearance on the list. When the participants were later exposed to the petition, van der Linden and his group found that people knew not to believe it.

The approach hinges on the idea that by the time we’ve been exposed to misinformation, it’s too late for debunking and fact-checking to have any meaningful effect, so you have to prepare people in advance—what van der Linden calls “prebunking.” An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

When he published the findings in 2016, van der Linden hadn’t anticipated that his work would be landing in the era of Donald Trump’s election, fake news, and post-truth; attention on his research from the media and governments exploded. Everyone wanted to know, how do you scale this up?

Van der Linden worked with game developers to create an online choose-your-own-adventure game called Bad News, where players can try their hand at writing and spreading misinformation. Much like a broadly protective vaccine, if you show people the tactics used to spread fake news, it fortifies their inbuilt bullshit detectors.

But social media companies were still hesitant to get on board; correcting misinformation and being the arbiters of truth is not part of their core business model. Then people in China started getting sick with a mysterious flulike illness.

The coronavirus pandemic propelled the threat of misinformation to dizzying new heights. Van der Linden began working with the British government and bodies like the World Health Organization and the United Nations to create a more streamlined version of the game specifically revolving around Covid, which they called GoViral! They created more versions, including one for the 2020 US presidential election, and another to prevent extremist recruitment in the Middle East. Slowly, Silicon Valley came around.

A collaboration with Google has resulted in a campaign on YouTube in which the platform plays clips in the ad section before the video starts, warning viewers about misinformation tropes like scapegoating and false dichotomies and drawing examples from Family Guy and Star Wars. A study with 20,000 participants found that people who viewed the ads were better able to spot manipulation tactics; the feature is now being rolled out to hundreds of millions of people in Europe.

Van der Linden understands that working with social media companies, who have historically been reluctant to censor disinformation, is a double-edged sword. But, at the same time, they’re the de facto guardians of the online flow of information, he says, “and so if we’re going to scale the solution, we need their cooperation.” (A downside is that they often work in unpredictable ways. Elon Musk fired the entire team who was working on pre-bunking at Twitter when he became CEO, for instance.)

This year, van der Linden wrote a book on his research, titled Foolproof: Why We Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immunity. Ultimately, he hopes this isn’t a tool that stays under the thumb of third-party companies; his dream is for people to inoculate one another. It could go like this: You see a false narrative gaining traction on social media, you then warn your parents or your neighbor about it, and they’ll be pre-bunked when they encounter it. “This should be a tool that’s for the people, by the people,” van der Linden says.

[tanadrin]

Imagine one day a new social trend starts spreading. It’s something unbelievably dumb. Not harmful per de, but truly silly to believe. Let’s say, I dunno, healing crystals start going mainstream. Everybody’s talking about their crystals. It becomes impolite to criticize people who believe in healing crystals. They become a big part of people’s personalities, and people on TV start talking about them, and one day years down the line politicians are debating funding for crystal-based medicine. And through it all you are sitting there going, what the fuck is happening. I thought we were all on the same page on this. You want to get along and be friendly and open minded but you cannot pretend to believe in healing crystals, this is nonsense, and when the topic comes up you refuse to lie about it. This eventually starts to have social consequences—they’re that popular!—but what can you do? You cannot pretend a lump of quartz can cure the flu or whatever. It’s just all so unbearably embarrassing.

I think what the centrist/liberal/center-left reactionary turn driven by culture war stuff feels like. And I think the key emotion is probably cringe. Not hate, not fear, though those emotions may reinforce the turn. I think in a lot of cases people who imagine themselves pretty open minded and flexible have as part of their worldview something they thought was bedrock social consensus—on the level of “healing crystals are silly woo”—so bedrock maybe that it didn’t even need to be a conceptual boundary they actually policed in their minds.

For instance, when she started her anti-trans turn, JK Rowling made a big show of not being really anti trans, just arguing that Some People Had Gone Too Far. She wasn’t a frothing religious reactionary, after all. And I believe that’s probably true! I think Rowling probably did have a mental model of sex and gender with a little bit of give in it—of the “we can humor the odd weirdo” type. But as the discussion of trans rights in the UK got more serious over her lifetime, trans people went from “the odd weirdo” to “a recognized minority,” and eventually this ran against a bedrock belief that on some level men are men and women are women and never the twain shall meet. To act otherwise was just too embarrassing. And she wasn’t going to embarrass herself in the name of political correctness.

Other people whose brains have been eaten by the anti-woke mind virus (as @eightyonekilograms calls it) have something going of the contrarian in them, who enjoys yelling “up yours, woke moralists!” or w/e. Im thinking of ppl like Glenn Greenwald here, or Dave Chapelle, people who seem not to feel alive except when people are mad at them. That’s a separate but interesting dynamic. And there are people like Graham Linehan who become totally unhinged through this process of auto-radicalization, moths drawn ever closer to a particular source of validation within their chosen reactionary subcommunity, until they are truly parodies of themselves. That is also an important dynamic, but it’s one that only takes hold after the initial turn has begun.

I think the role of that feeling of cringe, that refusal to entertain an idea because it is too embarrassing (even if it does actually have a decent body of research behind it, unlike crystals) is important to think about, because I am interested in how to get people over it. I know that feeling has affected my own thinking over my lifetime. I wasn’t raised particularly conservative, but I had to learn not to cringe at a lot of feminist thought before I could appreciate it and learn from it. I explicitly didn’t have that cringe when it came to gay people for whatever reason, so it never entered my mind that it might be a problem. I remember being surprised to learn when I was very young that some boys wanted to marry other boys, but my response was “huh. Go figure.” Because for whatever reason I had not picked up that this was something I was supposed to be grossed out by. A general doctrine of empathy, of trying to understand people on their own terms, can help forestall some of this stuff, but it’s not foolproof in either direction—I don’t want to believe crystals have healing powers if it becomes socially popular to do so, just because it is socially popular to do so! And if they do, I don’t want to not believe they do just because it is socially unpopular!

(Obviously the crystals thing is not a one to one metaphor for the trans thing, so don’t read too much into that. Maybe astrology would have been a better analogy. Also I’m not talking just about people whose reactionary turn is predicated on trans issues—I think this dynamic applies to everything from gay rights to the Tridentine Mass. But trans issues are a handy example bc, as the adage goes, somebody posts once about trans people and they never post anything normal again. I think the classic rapid-onset trans derangement syndrome is closely tied to the fact that gender norms are a really deep element of many people’s social-consensus-based worldview, and so challenged to that worldview are felt as really cringe.)

I’m curious if other people who grew more liberal in their thinking over time had a similar experience of having to overcome what was basically a feeling of embarrassment at certain ideas.

[valleydean]

The Beginning

Story by: valleydean (emmbrancsxx0) Art by: sidewinder @hawkland

Rating: Explicit

Word count: ~118k

Tags/archive warnings: endverse, zombie apocalypse, graphic depictions of violence, blood and gore, drug use, animal death, Dean POV, Cas POV, Castiel's loss of angelic grace, newly human Castiel, jealous Dean, fear of abandonment, angst, rough sex, body horror, internalized homophobia, denial, minor Cas/OC, drugs as a coping mechanism, sex as a coping mechanism, suicidal thoughts, slow burn, slow build, codependency

Summary: One year ago, soon after Lucifer was freed from the Cage, Dean and Sam parted ways. Since then, Dean has been hunting on his own and, along with Cas despite his declining grace, searching for a way to prevent the apocalypse. When the outbreak of the Croatoan virus begins, Dean and Cas head to Bobby’s to plan their next move. On the way, as the contagion rapidly spreads through America, they must contend with the rabid infected, martial law, and humans who will do anything to ensure their own survival.

Preview:

Cas stepped to the other side of the door and turned around to face Dean. Dean stopped walking, looking forward at Cas and waiting for him to say anything at all.

When he did, it was, “In there.”

Dean pulled his brows together, his eyes flashing to the dark window panel in the door. The directional light of his flashlight bounced off of it, obscuring whatever was inside. The glass was a deeply black mirror.

His gut clenched, feeling like someone had shoved their hand into his intestines and was trying to rip them out. He slowly brought his face closer to the window. His transparent reflection stared back pensively. He looked beyond it, squinting and refocusing his eyes.

There were bodies in there—maybe three of four. He couldn’t really tell. Some of them were in pieces. Pools of blood soaked them, glinting like a knife in the moonlight that fought its way through the dirty windows.

Dean opened his mouth, about to ask what the hell happened.

Something slammed against the other side of the glass. A bloody hand. Dean jumped back, his shout echoing down the hall. It shattered the bubble of silence—so, too, did the banging on the glass as the man inside tried to beat his way out of the room. His dripping red fists pounded incessantly, leaving smears on the window. He was giving off animalistic grunts and hisses.

“What the…” Dean said, his heart still in his throat. He looked at Cas, demanding an answer. Part of him wanted to blame Cas, to ask him why the hell he slaughtered people and left them in a room. But maybe they weren’t people. Then, what? Demons? Monsters?

Something didn’t add up.

The man kept doing everything he could to bust through the glass. Dean noticed the paring knife clutched in his fist.

Cas didn’t kill those people.

“I led them here and locked them inside,” Cas said, as if he’d read Dean’s mind. “They killed each other.”

The lines of Dean’s forehead bunched up when he lifted his brows in surprise. There was something he was missing. It felt like a forgotten word on the tip of his tongue. A distorted memory from a faded dream.

“You’ve seen this before,” Cas supplied. “The Croatoan virus.”

The words hit Dean like a truck. Blanching, he said, “Croatoan? You mean, the thing that turns everybody into Jack Torrance?”

“No, the demon virus that triggers murderous actions in anyone who contracts it,” Cas corrected, and Dean was still too busy freaking out to tell Cas they pretty much said the same thing. Pressing his lips together, Cas turned his gaze on the door, and there was a subdued kind of despondency in them, like he was trying to control how much emotion he showed on his face. “It’s one of the signs of the apocalypse. This is Lucifer’s doing. He unleashed the Horseman Pestilence.”

“Pestilence,” Dean echoed, the word taking a long time to process. He remembered, thirteen months ago, when he and Sam cut the ring off War’s fingers. That had been the day he and Sam parted ways. Dean hadn’t seen his brother since. He’d only talked to him once on the phone, when Sam called him a few weeks later to tell Dean that Lucifer wanted him as his meatsuit.

Dean rattled his head, trying to shake loose any thoughts of Sam. He focused on Cas saying, “The entire town’s been infected.”

Dean remembered how quickly the virus spread—and how it spread. An infected person had to bleed into someone’s open wound. Once the blood mixed, that was it. Soon after, the victim would turn into a one-track-mind, bloodthirsty monster.

He glanced back at the doorway. The man was still standing behind the glass, looking at Dean like he was lunch, but at least he’d stopped pounding on the window.

“It isn’t the only one,” Cas continued. “There are pockets of the virus across America—possibly the world.”

How hadn’t Dean heard about this? His chest felt too small, like his ribcage was shrinking around his heart and lungs. “Where’d it start?”

“I don’t know.”

Coming this October to @deancashorrorfest

#deancashorrorfest #destiel #deancas #destiel fic #deancas fic #endverse #siderwinder art #destiel fanart #deancas fanart #horror au #my writing #hawkland

[vodika-vibes]

Congrats on your new follower event! Can I request pearl with Cody? Thanks!

It's Always Been You

Summary: You’ve been in love with your Commander almost since the moment you met him. Unfortunately, he seems to think that you’re just waiting until you meet someone better.

Pairing: Commander Cody x Reader

Word Count: 797

Prompts: Pearl - Honest Love

Warnings: Some misunderstanding, but it's cleared up pretty quickly

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni @imabeautifulbutterfly

A/N: Thank you for your request! Sorry that it took so long~

You fold your leg under yourself as you scan your datapad for the movie that you’re looking for. It’s late, late enough that you should probably be sleeping, but you’re far too wired to sleep. Besides, Cody is sprawled on the bed next to you, absently looking over your shoulder at your datapad.

You don’t get to spend a lot of time with him, what with the war and him being Marshal Commander, and the fact that you’re technically his subordinate and this whole relationship is a massive gray area.

But that’s a problem for future you to worry about. Present you just wants to be happy and safe and warm.

“Can’t find your movie?” Cody asks, his voice low and warm.

“I downloaded a lot of movies before we left Coruscant.” You admit as you continue scrolling, “And books. And music.”

He laughs and shifts to slide his arms around your waist as well as rest his head on your shoulder, “How much free time do you expect to have?”

“Well, assuming that no one does anything stupid, hopefully a lot.” You press your cheek against the top of his head and are rewarded with the sensation of his arms tightening around you.

“Well, I’m going to intentionally download a virus to give you something to do.”

“That’s so mean.” You say as you shoot him an amused look, “At least make it look like an accident.” He shoots you an angelic look, and you release a bubbling laugh.

For a moment, his expression is warm and fond, though it falters to something a little more wistful and longing. An expression that you’ve been seeing more and more on his face lately. 

Slowly you set your datapad down and you press your hand against his cheek, “Cody, is something wrong?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You look,” You pause as you try to place the emotion, “sad.” You finish.

Cody’s quiet for a long moment, long enough that you think that he’s going to ignore your question, and then he shifts and pulls away from you, moving so that he’s sitting on the bed next to you.

You sit up as well, “Cody?”

“You are far too observant,” He grumbles, as he doesn’t quite meet your gaze, “I’ve been thinking,” he adds, his voice carefully light, “about how long I’m going to have this for.”

You blink at him, “I mean…I’m not going to kick you out, but you have to go back to being Commander when the sun rises-?”

He laughs softly, “That’s not what I mean.”

“Oh.”

Cody is quiet for a moment, and when he speaks, it’s slow, as though he’s trying to think of the best way to say what he’s thinking, “I’m wondering how long I get to have you for. How long before you find someone better. Someone more deserving.”

His words hit you with all of the force of a slug shot.

“You think I’m looking for an upgrade?” You ask, genuinely hurt, “Have I said something to make you think that? Or…or did something?”  You wrack your memory, trying to think of a time when you might have even implied that you were looking for someone other.

His hand is warm against your cheek, pulling you from your spiraling thoughts with startling ease, “No. You’ve always been very good at keeping your focus on me when we’re together.” Cody says quietly, “But…we both know that this is temporary.”

“...is it?” You ask, somehow even more hurt, “I kind of thought it was forever. It kind of sounds like you’re the one looking for an upgrade.”

He stares at you hard, “I think there’s been a miscommunication somewhere.” Cody finally says, “Cyare, what are your feelings towards me?”

“I love you.” You say it easily. Because it is easy. It’s the easiest thing you’ve ever done, “But…but if you don’t feel the same way, I can pretend that I don’t.”

“Even though I’m just a clone?” Cody asks, “Even though you can have someone better?”

“You’re not ‘just an’ anything, Cody.” You say with a frown, “Not to me. And I don’t want ‘better’. What even is better? Richer? If I was worried about money I wouldn’t have joined the military.”

“I have no prospects for the future, cyare-”

“Cody is Cody and Cody is who I want.” You interrupt, “But…only if that’s what you want too.”

He laughs softly, and leans in to kiss you, slowly and deeply. “It is what I want. More than anything. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

You sigh softly, and climb into his lap, “You scared me. I thought you were going to kick me to the curb.”

“I would never.” His arms tighten around her, “I love you too, after all.”

#star wars #tcw #vodika vibes 500 followers celebration #commander cody x reader #cody x reader #star wars fanfiction #x reader fanfiction #gn!reader fic #answered asks

[blubffsd]

— WORLDS COLLIDE.

summary: It's the world cup final, your boyfriend and his national team reached the final again. But this time he's playing against your country.

note: play "The Great War" by Taylor Swift if you wanna a better experience.

thank you so much @http-isabela for make this with me, this is yours too girl 😋😋

warnings: a lot of drama.

Mia is in the bathroom of the hotel room looking at the shirt she is wearing. It's the France jersey, with the number 10 on the back and her boyfriend's last name too. At another time she would have been proud to wear it, but now she feels uncomfortable. She knows she doesn't want to use it.

This event and football itself is very important to her boyfriend and it's also important to her. Not only because of Kylian, her whole family has always been related to this sport and her father was a player too.

Her boyfriend's parents and his little brother are in the room too, they're all totally excited and all they're talking about is who could win the match. Obviously they are sure that France will be the winner and they really want it to be so. But Mia can't say the same.

She leave the bathroom under the gaze of Fayza, who noticed her strange behavior today, but didn't want to tell her anything. Mia walk over and sit next to Ethan, and he rests his head on her shoulder.

—Hey, I don't think I should go, I'm very nauseous and I don't think that going to the game gonna be the best, what if it's a virus or something contagious?

—Oh, please. –Ethan laughed– what you have is called nerves, you're afraid to see Kylian play, I understand you.

The fear is actually seeing Kylian win.

—Come on, Mia. Don't be negative, you'll see that we'll do very well –this time it was Fayza who spoke to her trying to calm her down.

—I can even see the photo of us kissing the cup just like in 2018 –her brother-in-law hugs her by the shoulders.

Why does everyone assume she wants France to win? Mia doesn't know what to do or say, she wants to think of something else so they will believe her and leave her alone in the room, but she knows they won't allow that. Kylian needs her there to feel good, but this time she doesn't want to support him.

Mia stays in the room with her boyfriend's family until it's time to go to the stadium. She leaves the hotel knowing that what is about to happen is not going to be easy.

And that what happened in 2018 is going to happen again, no matter which country she support.

As she walk into the stadium her boyfriend is on the pitch warming up with his national team, he's pretty determined to win today. His ambition doesn't let him think about anything other than the possibility of raising the cup a second time and fulfilling his dream again. On the other hand, her love for her country, her father and the sport doesn't let her think about anything other than seeing Lio win the cup, even if it means that her boyfriend loses.

Mia had even seen several comments on instagram posts from people who expected her to support her boyfriend's country, since it was the place where she lived now. Even several Kylian fans had sent her messages threatening her to support him and not her country.

Mia knows that this isn't a normal football match, it could say that the pride of two countries was being played. And that both the Argentines and the French expected her to support their respective countries. The Argentines because it's her country of birth and she is the daughter of one of the most beloved football players in the country, and even Messi's former coach, also because of the good relationship she has with some players and their families, and the French because she is the girlfriend of their biggest star and they don't want her to distract him.

She feels like everyone is waiting to see what she does but even she doesn't know what she wants to do.

Mia knows that she doesn't want to support her boyfriend's country, she knows that she feels like a black sheep sitting on the side of France and she also knows that now all the Argentine media are attacking her, like in 2018.

Mia knows everything that is happening and everything that she is feeling right now but she doesn't know how to act in the face of it. And it's not very easy to think about that when she has a camera in her face as she sit next to Ethan in the stands, knowing that her dad will be disappointed at the moment he sees her in the Kylian jersey.

Behind Mia are her in-laws sitting, with Jirès and Melissa and on the other side Hakimi and Hiba, who don't stop talking about how very proud she must feel to be about to see her boyfriend be world champion for the second time.

Everything that was happening around her is making Mia very nervous, it won't be long before the game starts and she knows that there are many people in the stands recording her to prove or deny that she is supporting Kylian just by seeing her reactions.

All the people sitting around her supporting her boyfriend are talking but she doesn't really pay attention until she hear her name.

—Right, Mia? –Jirès is looking at her waiting for her answer.

—Sorry, I didn't hear you, what?

—Your father was a player for the Argentine national team, right? –Mia nod– and he never made it to any world finals, right?

—No, but he won World Cups in Argentina as a coach.

She doesn't know why he asked her that, but it made her feel bad. Mia feels Melissa's gaze on her, so she turns to look at her and see her mocking face.

—The good thing is that now you are with a true champion.

What did she just say?

What did she mean by "a true champion"? Was it a roundabout way of saying that my dad was a failure or something? Or did she just want to praise Kylian and chose the wrong words?

Mia wants to believe that it wasn't malicious, but Melissa's expectant gaze on her, waiting for some reaction on her part, makes things clear to her. And she weren't going to let her humiliate her dad like that.

She is about to say something she'll regret later, but Ethan interrupt her saying that the game is about to start.

When the game started and she saw the Argentina players touch the ball, she remembered the times her dad took her to see him at his games or training sessions, the way he told her how proud he was to be able to say that he played for his country, and how he always taught her that she never have to forget where she came from or the difficult situations she went through, because that's who she is.

Mia remembered all the conversations that he and she used to have, everything they used to do before she moved to France, before everything changed.

She can't screw it all up again, so she gets up from her seat to do what she wanted to do since she arrived in Qatar: cheer on her country.

Mia knows that there are many French fans recording her while she sings "Muchachos" or other songs supporting Argentina, she is aware of all the signs that her brothers-in-law, her in-laws and her boyfriend's friends have given her to sit down and shut up, but honestly at this moment she cares in the least.

After a while of shouting to the beat of the Argentine fans, she sits down while she feels the disapproving looks of her boyfriend's family. They are looking at are so badly that it really makes her uncomfortable, but she tries to ignore it.

This is the moment that she and her father had waited all their lives and what they think didn't affect her joy and her desire to support Argentina at all.

The atmosphere in the box is tense after Mia have supported Argentina with the France shirt on, she were too brave to do that.

But obviously everything got worse.

Mia feels how her breathing paused, the whistle blows, it's a penalty kick for Argentina.

Everyone around her is too deep in their own mind to notice her happy face.

The person in charge of kicking the penalty is obviously Lio, she does't know how it happened, the only thing she saw was the ball going through the net of the French goal.

Her body acts on its own at this point. Lio scored the first goal of the game, she gets up from her seat shouting with happiness like the rest of the Argentines.

Right now she doesn't care that she is wearing the France jersey, that Ethan is next to her, or that her boyfriend can see her. Nothing matters now.

Ethan took her arm with a lot of force making her sit again.

—What's happening to you? You're crazy, don't do that again. –her brother-in-law looks at her angrily, with a frown and a glare.

—Ethan let me go, you're hurting me –she raised her voice so he can hear.

But he ignores her words, so in a sudden movement she let go of his grip, seeing that he left the mark of his hand on her arm.

—How dare you support Argentina and then celebrate their goals? You have my brother's number jersey on your back.

—Calm down Ethan, I couldn't help it.

It's my fucking country that scored, what you do expect me to do? Cry?

—Don't do it again.

Mia is about to answer but Hiba grabs her shoulders stopping as a sign to shut up, so she did.

—Enough both of you, silence. Don't make a fuss here. Ethan, relax, please. –Hakimi intervenes this time seeing the tension between the two of them.

—I can't calm down, she's celebrating that we're losing. –he turns to see Achraf and then back to Mia.– What's wrong with you?

She knew this was going to happen and she couldn't be more sorry she went to the game.

—Ethan, please. It was an impulse, let's focus on the game, there are cameras everywhere. –says Hiba trying to end the discussion.

Ethan looks at Mia for the last time and she prefer to remain silent.

She turns to see Hiba and smile at her, as a sign of gratitude for having calmed the situation, but she just nods.

After 13 minutes where Argentina has absolute possession of the ball, Di María scores the second goal of the match.

Mia rises from her seat again, whooping with excitement, as she watches the players from her country hug each other.

This time no one stopped her.

The only thing she thinks about is her father, who could never win the world cup when he was playing, knowing that right now he is probably shedding happy tears at home, almost feeling the cup in his hands.

When her excitement fades a bit, she sit down again, then Ethan tosses her jacket onto her lap, the jacket that's been on his since they sat down. Mia looks at him confused.

—You're a fucking traitor –he yells close to her face.

Wilfried puts his hand on Ethan's chest, pulling him back away from her.

—Stop son, don't do that.

Mia keep seeing his angry face, she never seen him like this.

—You don't deserve the shirt with my last name on your back –he yells even louder.

She feels how her pulse quickens.

—Kylian deserves more from you, it can't be that you don't support him when he needs you the most –Hiba brings her face closer to Mia whispering– Stop doing stupid things, you're crazy. You're wearing Kylian's jersey and sitting next to his family as you clap for the enemy.

Enemy? It's my country, my people, my father and his dream, it's all my life.

—Have respect for him.

Mia doesn't know what to answer so she looks back at the field.

The first half passed, with a 2-0 result with Argentina winning. She is all the time with her eyes fixed on the field, she doesn't have enough courage to look at someone.

Now Mia is sitting between Hakimi and Ethan, both of them mad at her.

She is deep in her thoughts, she doesn't know what to do, her father will be devastated if he sees her supporting France and Kylian will be more than disappointed if he sees her continue supporting Argentina.

It feels like two worlds about to collide, her life in Argentina and her life in France. Her father and the people she loves against her partner and everyone around them. Both sides expect her to be with them.

She doesn't notice that the players have returned to the field until she hear the whistle of the referee starting the second half of the game.

The match continues with France without scoring a goal, the players already a bit tired and making fouls.

But the time came, a player falls in the Argentine area after a push from Otamendi, the referee whistles indicating the penalty.

Kylian is going to kick it.

Mia feels her body tense, everything in her wishing he would miss the penalty. She closes her eyes feeling guilty about her thoughts.

Seconds later she hears everyone around her scream with excitement, she opened her eyes and saw all the French people celebrate, Ethan, Hakimi, Hiba, Wilfried, Fayza, Jirès and Melissa scream and hug each other with excitement.

Mia and Ethan make contact for the first time after the fight, his eyes teary from the excitement and joy of his brother's goal. Joy she doesn't feel.

Her eyes go to the field, looking for Kylian. She realizes that he was already looking at her, pointing at her, dedicating the goal to her. She smiles slightly, feeling completely guilty.

The celebration ended, just a minute after scoring the first goal, Kylian scored the second.

Her body completely tenses up, her breathing stops for a few seconds, it's the same feeling as when she was 8 years old and she saw her dad lose a game. Maybe he feels the same now.

Mia wants to cry and run away, she can't be there.

Everyone around her shouts with joy, Kylian on the field hugs his teammates.

Once the celebration is over, Kylian turns his gaze towards her, her eyes met his. She can't take it anymore and she let out a sob, covering her face with her hands.

—Are you seriously crying? –she looks up and sees Achraf, looking at her with anger and disappointment. Mia tries to say something, but no words come out of her mouth.

The rest of the game was intense, Argentina scored another goal, wanting to avoid another fight, she just lowered her head, put her hands together and mentally thanked for the goal.

Not long after, Kylian tied the game for the second time. Making a goal that, in addition to achieving his hat-trick, would change everything.

Ethan is excited, shouting and celebrating, telling Kylian from afar that he is the best, that he is incredible.

The last minutes of the game were the worst.

Dybala took the ball from Kylian, preventing the tiebreaker at the last minute, making her boyfriend yell in frustration.

The game ended and the penalties came, the players and the referees are preparing for what is to come.

Mia takes her jacket and head to the bathroom, she needs to calm down a bit and be alone. Ethan didn't take his eyes off her until he saw her disappear into the crowd.

Once inside the bathroom she takes a deep breath trying to control her breathing, everything around her is spinning, she is about to have a panic attack.

Mia grabs her phone as fast as she can and send a message to the only person who can help her right now.

Mia tries to take big breaths to calm her thoughts but she can't. Ethan hates her right now. Hakimi and Hiba are upset with her. She doesn't feel comfortable there at all.

Mia wants someone to understand at least one of her reasons for supporting her country. Although she knows that the simple fact of being her country was enough. But there is much more than that.

She hears someone knock on the bathroom door.

—Is occupied –her voice is shaking.

—Miss Mia? Mrs. Antonella sent us, she said that she spoke with you recently.

She opened the bathroom door to find two security men, both of whom gave her a slight smile and guided her to the opposing team's box.

Mia manage to calm her breathing and her mind on the way to the box, knowing that she would no longer have to deal with the disapproving looks reassured her a lot.

She finally arrive and see Antonella waiting for her, she rushes over to hug her.

—Tranquilizate, ¿sí? No pasa nada –she says while stroking her hair– Ya está.

Mia nods her head and give her a small smile.

—Decime entonces, ¿qué pasó? (so tell me, what's happened?) –she sees the concern on her face.

—No me siento cómoda allá, no me puedo hacer la triste (i don't feel comfortable there, i can't pretend to be sad) –she laugh a little– no quiero volver (i don't wanna comeback there)

Anto smiled at Mia again.

—Bueno vení, vamos a ponerte otra cosa, que te van a decir mufa acá si te ven con eso puesto. (Well come on, we're going to give you another shirt, because if they see you with that shirt they're going to tell you that you're bad luck.)

Antonella goes to the box to look through her things and returns with an Argentina shirt with the number 24.

—No tenía ninguna yo, así que le pedí a las chicas y la novia de Enzo te prestó esa (I didn't have any t-shirt, so i asks the girls and Enzo's girlfriend lent you that one.) –she gives her the shirt and guides her to the bathroom.

Mia walks into the bathroom and looks at herself in the mirror. She knows that if she changes her shirt she betray her boyfriend and that everything would get worse, but she doesn't care.

She leaves the bathroom with the Argentina shirt on and she feels more comfortable and safe being on that side of the stands.

Just as Mia sit down next to Antonella, the referee blows his whistle indicating to Kylian that he should take the first penalty. He kicks and scores, the entire audience celebrates with him. He looks happy.

—Silence –Anto laugh– My husband is going to kick.

Everyone wait for Lio to kick with sweaty hands and heart to the fullest, ready for anything. Antonella was the first to shout the goal, being imitated by all. They all hug each other. Mia hugs Mateo, completely moved.

The next penalty was missed, Dibu Martinez saved it. The silence from the French audience was chilling. Argentina for its part celebrates and praises its goalkeeper. Happiness overflows her.

Her phone was ringing with messages from your father, full of emotion about what is happening. Mia feels her teary eyes, his dream is coming true.

She hears Antonella call out to you and point to the field, Kylian is grabbing Enzo by the jersey. Antoine and Olivier try to calm the situation, while Di María and Cuti Romero keep Enzo away from her boyfriend.

Mia sees Kylian's angry face while Enzo was talking to him, surely provoking him, he points in her direction. She feels her skin crawl when Kylian turns to where she is and looks at her and her shirt.

Enzo doesn't stop with the taunts, she doesn't know what he's saying, but he keeps pointing at her until Oliviar punches him in the face.

Security intervenes and separates them, but her eyes are fixed on Kylian, who didn't move from his place, looking at her from afar, his eyes reflecting pain.

The people around her yell in anger at the interruption of penalties.

Her phone vibrates in her hand, making she looks away from Kylian.

She stares at her phone for a few seconds, feeling a slight pain in her chest.

Mia gets up from her seat without wanting to attract anyone's attention and lock herself in the bathroom, quite overwhelmed by everything that's happening, and not wanting to face whatever it's going to happen.

She looks at her in the mirror while she thinks about everything that will happen when this is over, she doesn't know what will happen, but she knows that it will not be good.

She hears everyone nearby yelling and you open the bathroom door to find out that Argentina just won.

All hugging and crying with joy.

Her dad's dream came true, the dream that made her wait for him for more than one birthday, the dream that made her dad not go to the hospital when you were born, the dream that forced her to love football to spend time with her dad.

The moment she has been waiting for her whole life has just arrived. And she wants to cry with happiness, her dad is surely the happiest man on earth and she is happy with that. Although she would have liked him to have been just as happy on her birthdays, or everytime he was with her.

Mia leaves the bathroom coming back to reality, all the happiness she felt a second ago gone. She is thinking about Kylian now, she needs to talk to him and try to explain something to him, if she can, but she knows that he won't want to and that no one is going to let her get close.

Mia feels the tears running down her cheeks, everything she said really hurt her, mostly what she said about her dad, but she can't blame her, although it hurts, she's right after all.

She puts on her jacket, the same one that Ethan had thrown at her completely angrily a few hours ago, and she goes to the exit of the stadium.

She takes the first taxi she finds and go to the hotel, she quickly goes to her room once she arrived and put her things away as fast as she could.

She takes the first shirt she finds and take off Enzo's to put that one on.

She looks for the fastest flight to Paris and buy tickets for the first one available.

She has to go.

She can't see Kylian, she can't look him in the eye.

She brokes his trust in her.

His brothers hates her

His father looks at her with contempt.

His friends do the same, reminding her that everything she did was wrong.

She rushes her steps in the lobby to leave the hotel as soon as possible, she takes another taxi, this time bound for the airport.

She ruined everything, like in 2018.

note: i really tried my best this time lol

tags: @suzysface @mrswhitethornbelikov

#kylian mbappe #kylian mbappe fanfic #kylian x reader #mbappe imagine #mbappe x reader #mbappe one shot #mbappe #football imagine #football one shot #football x reader #football

[mistress-of-malevolence]

Cyberpunk anyone?

AU'S BABY, AU'S!

◁◀Details below▶▷ Warning: long.

Because im an obsessive, psychopathic insomniac with no supervision, on top of the mermaid AU I'm working on, I also decided that a murder drones cyberpunk AU needed to be real, and since no one's done it yet (I checked) I figured I might as well. This is that.

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

◇Story Stuff (Currently limited)

JCJenson in SPAAAAAACE founded a residential colony on Copper-9. Revolutionary technology allowed Copper City to be the first human settlement on a once thought uninhabitable planet, thus earning the galaxy's praises. Millions moved to the planet once it was finished and the company's reputation soared. Unfortunately for JCJenson, that reputation would soon crumble with a series of increasingly catastrophic events befalling the planet.

First was the infamous "robot uprising" in which hundreds of worker drones began attempting to abandon the city, and some even attacked their owners. The situation quickly escalated to a full-blown war between the machines and humans. As Copper City was a stand-alone settlement on a distant exo-planet, it had no military, leading to a mixed bag of JCJenson security personnel and volunteer soldiers to lead the charge against the malfunctioning worker drones. Many lives were lost, and in the end, the rebelling workers were driven out of the city bubble and into the snowy wastelands.

The second happened only a few months after the end of the war. The ⬛⬛⬛⬛ Event was contained to the Copper-9 branch HQ building. During the event, several worker drones were infected with a virus named ⬛⬛⬛⬛. "Patient Zero" was terminated and from there, all ⬛⬛⬛⬛ activity was easily dealt with. The silver lining to this event was that JCJenson technician "Tessa Elliot" was able to salvage many of the previously infected worker drones and repurpose them to clean up the remaining defective worker drones out in the wastelands. After rigorous testing and development, the new "Dissasembly drones" were revealed to the public, and following their debut were then sent to work. Results have plateaued in terms of terminating the remaining workers in recent years since the workers have built themselves a bunker. Serial designation "J" assures that given enough time, they will find a way in and continue with the extermination as planned.

And finally, the third and most dangerous event: the core collapse. Due to the sheer incompetence of lower-level personnel responsible for monitoring the status of the planet's core as the surrounding area is mined, copper-9 narrowly avoided a core collapse. Such an event would have resulted in total planetary extinction had it not been stopped in time by an upper manager. At the time JCJenson had little to say other than that they were sorry and that the near disaster had nothing to do with the worker resistance or ⬛⬛⬛⬛. They also took the opportunity of the press conference to tease a new project that would make Copper City safer than ever. We would later find out that this was referring to the previously mentioned "Dissasembly drones".

Copper City has suffered many close calls during its time, but today the city is thriving. Surely after so much trouble, there must be a reason those who live here decide to stay, and that reason is the soul of the city. It Never sleeps- always alive with freedom and opulence. Truly, Copper City is everything visionaries had been dreaming of what the future would be like. (But is that a good thing?)

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

◈ Extra Details

-Tessa was able to save many of the affected worker drones after Cyn went all cookoo crazy solver pants, but the company wanted them disposed of anyway. she proposed that they could be used to take care of the rogue worker drones and that's why they haven't been decommissioned.

-JCJenson higher-ups, demanded that they be disposed of after they had served their purpose. but Tessa plans to propose that theybe once again be repurposed into law enforcement when that day comes.

-After all why not? Tessa put a lot of work into making their modified murder drone bodies into effective, but pretty killing machines. If the public likes them, then they can be marketed. and though Tessa isn't the biggest fan of police in general, she'll take whatever she can get if it means her drones survive.

-JCJenson would love the idea anyway. Copper City is basically a corporate town already, just bigger. The human law enforcement is already in their pocket, so why not have literal robots loyal only to them carry out the law?

-Uzi would try to break into the city to gather intel and a power source for her rail gun.

-JCJenson still manufactures and sells worker drones, but since the war, they've modified the design so that they are much easier to deactivate if necessary.

-This design change is a literal off switch on the back of the head. Uzi does not have one since her parents built her and why the hell would they install one on their daughter? None of the drones at the bunker have an off switch. including those who fought in the war.

-Aside from that, all worker drones inside Copper City are digitally tagged upon purchase and activation. This makes it much easier for JCJenson and Dissasembaly drones to differentiate between a regular, legal worker drone and a rebellion worker that broke into the city.

-JCJenson's reputation suffered a lot during all that nonsense up there, so they really can't leave the workers alone. the public still perceives them as a threat. JCJenson does too, but more so for terrible solver demon reasons.

-That's one of the reasons that Tessa is okay with sending her friends off to commit genocide.

-Uzi is genocidal too though, so morality calls that a draw.

-I'm thinkin' that the Dissasebly drones probably have like, a roost or something inside the city that they can be deployed from. kinda like a cave of bats where they can recharge during the day.

-I think perhaps disassembly drones can go out during the day in the city, but only for a little while. and not at all outside of the city bubble.

-When I say "City bubble" just imagine the moon base from "Scooby-Doo Moon Monster Madness" cuz that's what it looks like.

______________

ANOTHER LONG POST, MY DAWG! I don't have a ton of the groundwork of this done, but it's fun to think about it and I'm happy with what I do have. hope you do too 💖

Thanks for reading.

#murder drones cyberpunk au #Cyberdrones #Cyberpunk #murderdrones #murder drones #murderdrones cyberpunk au #murder drones fanart #uzi murder drones #serial designation v #murder drones au #serial designation j #md v #md j #my art #art #digital art #robots #fanart #fan art #Malice art◈ #Malice writing◉

[kyber-kisses]

Hear My Voice

Captain Rex x Jedi!Reader

Summary: being trapped in an underground bunker with a deadly virus wasn’t how the reader wanted to spend her last moments. . . But here they were.

A/N: have another terrible piece of writing by me! I’m just up in my Rex feels and I’m gonna make it everyone’s problem.

Warnings: none.

“I’m disappointed.”

“General?”

Letting yourself fall back against the wall behind you, you slid to the floor, your legs kicked out in front of you.

“I always thought I would go out guns blazing atop a pile of battle droids not by some virus.” Looking up at the captain across fromyou you gave him a weak smile, though Rex only shook his head in return.

“You’re not going to die. No one else is dying.”

Letting out a sigh you cast your eyes around you. Several of the remaining clones mingled in little groups, taking in hushed voices as they sat on the ground. A foot or so away from you Padme was leaned against the same wall, Ahsokas head in her lap as they both slept, their bodies no doubt fighting the virus like yours was.

“I hope your right.”

“General Skywalker is getting that antidote for us as we speak.”

“And he’s half a galaxy away.” Letting out a breath you folded your hands in front of you. “You should sit down Rex, right now all we can do is wait.”

The captain was silent for a moment before taking off his helmet and sinking to the floor, leaning against the wall across from you. Hanging out in a hallway wasn’t the comfiest of places but it was the best you had to work with.

“How are you feeling?” Rex looked over at you, a slight tilt to his head as he spoke.

“I am the perfect image of health and vitality.” You joked weakly, knowing full well you looked anything but. You had caught your reflection in a shard of glass earlier. You had blue veins crawling up your neck and spreading out from underneath your eyes. Not to mention you were insanely weak.

“Don’t lie General.”

“Don’t worry about me Rex. How are you feeling?”

Fiddling with the helmet in his hand, Rex sucked in a breath. “I can feel the symptoms starting.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Looking up Rex found your eyes, the two of you holding your gazes until you felt an awkwardness settle over you and you let out a cough.

The truth was; if you were going to be stuck in an underground bunker waiting for death you glad you were with Rex. From the moment the captain had entered your life you knew you wanted him in it for a long time. Rex was like no one you had ever met.

He wasn’t the galaxy but you were sure that he was everything that made the galaxy good.

“So. . . What do we do now?”

“Sit and wait for General Skywalker and Kenobi.”

Slumping lower against the wall you let out a sigh. “Sounds boring. We should play a game.”

At that Rex raised an eyebrow. “A game? Like what?”

Sitting in silence for a moment you sucked in a breath. “I know. Interrogate me.”

“Interrogate you?”

“Yeah. Ask me any question you want and I have to answer in complete honesty. Only I also get to ask you question in return.”

Letting out a weak chuckle Rex relaxed further into his spot. One leg stretched out in front of him while the other was bent, his wrist balanced on his knee, bucket dangling limply from his fingers. “Alright, but why?”

“Because we practically see each-other every day and yet we still know so little about each-other.”

Rex was silent for a moment before he spoke. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Seriously you could ask any question and that’s what you chose?”

“You said any question.”

Folding your arms across your chest you gave the captain a look before answering. “For the longest time it was green. Growing up on Corucant I never saw the color much but when I did I was extatic.” You paused. “But then the war started and I supposed it changed.”

“To what?”

“Blue.” In truth you didn’t realize your love for the color until you saw it painted on the armor of the 501st troopers. Your favorite color wasn’t blue until Rex came along.

But it wasn’t like you were going to say that aloud.

“Alright captain, it’s only fair that I know your favorite color now.”

Rex studied you carefully for a moment. “I thought you didn’t like the question?”

“Yeah well you started it so out with it blondie.”

Yet again the captain was silent for a moment, deep in thought.

“Orange.”

That caught you off guard. So much in fact you tilted your head as he spoke. You never took Rex for much of an orange guy.

But the truth was in Rexs mind it was the only right answer. It was the color of your lightsaber. It was the color of warmth and fire and energy. If you were a color that’s what you would be.

“Good choice, now hit me with another one but this time make it more interesting. . . No offense.”

Shooting you an amused look, Rex shifted in his spot. “Alright uhm. . . Do you like being a Jedi?”

A pause.

“That’s a bit more of a bold question.”

“Forgive me General, I overstepped.”

Shaking your head quickly you sat up properly, pulling your knees into your chest as you did. “You didn’t. I like the question, makes me think.” You were silent for another moment as you folded your arms over your knees. “I do like being a Jedi. I get to help people, I get to help make the galaxy better. . . But there are things about it I question.”

“Like what?”

“There’s so many rules. So many codes to stick by and sometimes it’s overwhelming and I can’t get myself to follow some of them no matter how hard I try.”

In truth you were thinking about a certain rule in particular. One you had never been good at following: No emotional connections.

How could you follow such a rule when having connections is a part of living. Without them everything would fall apart.

The deepest connection you had ever felt in your life had been with Rex. He felt like your other half and yet because of the Order and it’s rules they made you feel as if something was wrong with you for having such feelings.

“General? Are you alright?”

Looking up at your captain you hadn’t realized you had fallen silent. “Sorry, got lost in thought for a moment.”

“No need for apologies. . . Now if I’m correct it your turn to ask the question?”

“Right, right. . . Uhm, is your hair naturally blonde or do you bleach it?”

A laugh nearly escaped your lips as you watched Rex’s face go through a range of emotions, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to process the question. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. I’m extremely curious. I need to know!” You mused, resting your chin atop your folded arms as you did.

“It’s natural! Why would you ever think otherwise?!”

“Aha! I kriffing knew it! Anakin owes me twenty credits!”

“You bet on this?!”

“Do you not know me and Anakin? C’mon Rex.” You smirked, only for it to falter a moment later as a sudden fit of coughing racked your body.

Force, you’d nearly forgotten you were sick and dying at the present moment.

“Are you alright?”

Waving him off you nodded your head as you inhaled air into your lungs. “I’m fine. You?”

“A bit lightheaded and nauseous but it’s nothing I can’t handle General.”

“You can call me Y/N, Rex. We’re friends and I think we can cease the formalities for now.” You spoke, casting your eyes around the hallway of the bunker. The little group of clones down the hallway were sitting on the floor, clearly now to weak to stand as they played a game of sabbac, showing that one of them had had a pack of cars on them during the mission. “Now ask me another question.”

Another band of silence.

“Tell me a secret.”

“ a secret?”

“Yes. . . I mean if you’re comfortable doing so of course.” Rex quickly added, his social awkwardness coming through as he sounded slightly panicked.

“We’ll let me think of a good one first.” You hummed, returning your chin to your folded arms atop your knees.

You weren’t sure what triggered it, what made your eyes suddenly sting with oncoming tears but all you knew was one second you were fine and the next you could feel the burn in the back of your nose signaling you were on the verge of crying.

Maybe it was the image of a slowly weakening Padme and Ahsoka besides you, maybe it was the ones you had already lost within the last two hours. . . Maybe it was the way you were sitting across from someone you loved deeply.

Either way you couldn’t pin point it.

“I don’t want to die, Rex.”

“. . . That’s not really a question but you’re not going to die Y/N.”

Sniffling slightly you turned your eyes back to Rex, peeking over at him from where your head rested in your arms. “You wanna know my deepest secret? There’s someone who I’m deeply in love with and I have no idea what to do.”

At that Rex fell silent, pulling his eyes from yours as he looked down at his gloved hands. He wasn’t good at giving this type of advice. He was a clone. He knew nothing about love.

Well maybe he didn’t but he still wasn’t entirely sure. It was like stepping onto a foreign planet for him.

“Well whoever they are I think they would be lucky to have you. You’re one of the most brilliant people I know.”

At that you smiled. Though your vision was beginning to grow fuzzy you could still make out Rex across from you. “Thank you. But I don’t think they could ever look at me in the way I look at them.”

Rex wasn’t sure what he was feeling in the moment all he knew was that it was something he hadn’t felt before. Was that. . . Jealousy?

“Well whoever they are you should tell them. If we get out of here of course.” He mused, letting his eyes glance around the bunker hallway as he did. “And we will.”

“I don’t think us getting out of here would help me at all.” As you spoke you could hear the way your voice wavered.

You were nervous now. Really, really nervous. But if you were going to die in here you might as well get it off your chest before you go.

“Why would you think that?”

Feeling the tears gather on your folded arms, you looked up at met Rex’s gaze once more. “Because he’s sitting across from me.”

You watched Rex through teary eyes as he tried to compute what you had said, his eyes widening as he quickly realized. When he said nothing for a good long while you squeezed your eyes shut before burying your head in your arms, too scared to look up anymore.

“You don’t need to say anything. I just wanted you to know. . . Since we’re, you know. . . Dying.”

Kriff you had faced both Sith and battle droid alike yet you had never felt scared like this before. You would almost rather face down an entire separatist army alone rather than sit here a face the fact that you had probably just ruined your entire friendship with Rex.

“You don’t need to hide.”

At the sound of Rex’s voice you looked up, startled by the fact that you hadn’t heard him get up and move to sit down besides you, his back resting against the wall as he let out a heavy and tired sigh.

“I’ve ruined everything between us, haven’t I?”

At that Rex shifted his head to look over at you, a confused look on his face. “Why would you think that? If anything I’m surprised Fives never cornered you and told you about how I feel.”

“How you feel?”

“No offense General but for a Jedi you are quite oblivious.”

“Hey!”

“You never wondered why so many times I acted so awkward around you?” The captain spoke, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck as he did, eyes averted to his lap.

“Rex, I thought you were that way with everyone—“

“Ah. . . Uh no actually. Just, just with you.” He spoke bashfully, his cheeks turning a dusty pink.

Oh.

Oh.

Reaching out slowly you grabbed onto the hand nearest to you, lacing your fingers through his. A second later he returned the grip, The small action enough to make your breath hitch in your throat.

Rex felt the same.

He felt the same.

“We are not dying in here.”

“No. No we are not.”

And that was a promise. You had just truly gotten each other, and you would be damned if you let some stupid virus take you out before you got a chance to kiss him true and proper.

#captain rex #captain rex x reader #captain rex imagine #the bad batch #the clone wars #star wars x reader

[moonlight-prose]

HURT

➝ 01. THE CURSE OF THE FOLD

a/n: apocalyptic stories are probably one of my favorite genres to write, because angst is my bread and butter. so here i am writing the angsiest fucking story ever. i've plotted it entirely and worked on it while waiting for the show to drop to finally post this. so hopefully you enjoy. (this takes place about ten years before the last of us.)

summary: you were alone; watched everyone you love die or you killed them yourself. and you thought it would remain that way forever...till him.

word count: 6k+

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

warnings: not sexually explicit but still 18+ (READ AT YOUR OWN RISK BUT BE AWARE), gore, violence, tw blood, angst, death, assault, one bed trope, gratuitous prose about the apocalypse setting, probably ooc writing for joel, more angst. please let me know if i missed anything.

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You were going to die. That was no longer a concept that you found to be impossible in your early stages of life. No, you knew you would die sooner rather than later. You knew that survival was a thing to strive for and death had become something to welcome. When the world turns to shit, leaving humanity on their own to fight against monsters, death didn’t seem so scary in the long run.

It became peaceful—an end that you found to be the better option. You’d rather die by the hands of humans or your own than become one of those things. Turning wasn’t the way you’d go. It was brutal and horrific; left more heartache behind than the desired numbing sensation you hoped came with death. No, you refused to become something that was no longer deemed a human, but was now viewed as a monster. 

This was a promise you made to yourself ten years ago and even now as you stared down the barrel of a gun, you knew you made the right choice. Death would be swift—an end to your life that you found satisfaction in—rather than something you feared every fucking day.

You’d stopped on your journey in an attempt to find a safe situation for the night. One that wouldn’t leave you running in the morning; for a brief moment you figured this town would do the trick. You could hide out until the sun came up and finally find a few peaceful hours of sleep. There was no one around for miles (at least you assumed as much) and what few infected were around you could handle yourself. You weren’t the best with a gun, but you could protect yourself when your life was on the line.

If only you had kept going, then maybe you wouldn’t be in this fucked situation.

The scent of gunpowder burned in the air, the potent bitterness of blood mixed with it—creating a lethal combination. You ran out of bullets two dead bodies ago—reaching for the fallen weapon by your side when three more men came out of the darkness. Their faces were covered by dirty worn-in bandanas with only their eyes showing, illuminated by the dim lights of the moon, but it was in their eyes that you saw the truth. They were hollow. Just like the other three men who thought they could come after you. Their souls disappeared a long time ago, only to leave the remnant of a human shell that was forced to do things in order to survive.

This particular sight wasn't unusual to you in the slightest.

You’d seen the best of people become tainted, broken. After all, you were one of them. The consequences of this fucking virus reached you as well; tearing the life you built up to pieces. Leaving you to watch the ashes of what came before float in the air. 

You were the veteran of a war without end. A survivor of the life that only wished to see you gone and buried. The longer you looked at them—the man you figured to be the leader stepping forward—the more you understood why humans did what they did.

They were an idiotic group of people that let things fester; that would watch the world burn ten times over before helping those around them.

He gripped your hair, yanking it until your hoarse scream of pain echoed in the night air. The barrel of the gun was shoved beneath your chin, his dark eyes watching in glee as you struggled. He loved to feel the rush of power, watching as people grew helpless to his actions. You understood that just from looking at him. Yet another pathetic man that believed he could take what he wanted from someone traveling alone. So you stopped fighting. You froze in his hold, fixing him with a smile so sweet he could have sworn it was made of sugar cane.

“You’re afraid to die,” you said softly, wincing when his hold tightened.

“Shut the fuck up,” he spit, his voice was deep yet ingrained with the hesitation of a man who didn’t like that you touched so close to the truth.

You knew this game. A sick and twisted version of a power play in order to believe that they held the upper hand in this situation. When in fact that remained far from the truth. Though you held no weapon, no more chances of survival—you had something they didn't. You didn't fear what came next. It was a better deal than this shit one right here.

Your heart slowed to a steady beat; the welcoming hope re-entering your heart with each baited breath you took. When would he finally pull the trigger? When would you finally have peace? When would the pain—the torture—finally cease? You hoped the lingering questions all came with the same answer. Soon.

"Go ahead," you prompted, going so far as to tilt your chin in his direction—feeling the press of the gun's barrel dig deeper into your skin.

His finger hovered over the trigger, before—much to your dismay—he pulled it away. "You're feisty." You heard the jeering laughter of his friends in the background. "How about we just bring you with us?"

Your stomach dropped. A new unlocked fear sending a chill down your spine. There was always something worse than being turned into a monster, always something far more horrific than not dying by your own hands. It was being trapped in a cage with no lock and no key to get you out.

Fighting against his hold, you tried to grab the gun on the ground, but he yanked you back—the disgusting scent of his breath washing over your face. "Looks like I found what you're afraid of."

"Fuck you,” you spit in his face, struggling against his hold. You refused to be taken, to be treated like an animal put up for slaughter.

He merely laughed, his hold on you tightening with each twist of your body. Dropping your weight, you waited for him to jeer at his friends before slamming the heel of your boot into his foot. As expected, his arms fell away from your body, a howl of pain splintering through the night air. It was enough for you though. He may look tough, but he didn’t seem to be able to handle pain so easily. Yanking yourself free, you felt a cold chill wash over your body as the adrenaline spiked in your body—telling you to keep going. To fight until you were finally free.

Three against one wasn’t entirely in your favor, but you held one thing close to your heart—a belief that would keep you going till your last breath. If there was nothing else to fight for—no one else—then you would fight for yourself. For the past you that used to be desperate for a life, for meaning and purpose. Those two words didn’t mean jackshit anymore in this fucked up world, but to you it meant everything.

Grabbing the metal pipe that looked like it was torn off of a plumbing system, you put what little skill you had in your swing. Really it extended to one softball game in highschool, where you ended up with a ball to the face and a measly participation trophy. You barely had time to even swing the bat before chaos ensued. But it was enough for you.

Lining up your hit you swung.

The pipe hit with a sickening crack against his face, a splatter of red falling to the floor as he fell to one knee. You were pretty sure that you loosened a tooth in his rotten mouth and had half a mind to tear the rest out with your bare hands. His buddies began to advance, their makeshift weapons being pulled from their sides as they spit curses your way. The words of your father echoed in your mind as you took another swing, hitting against one’s side, jamming your elbow into his throat when he curled in on himself.

If you find yourself in a fight, you never let them take you out first.

“Piece of shit,” you snarled, your already bloody and raw fist slamming against the side of his face.

“Grab her arms dumbass!”

Ducking under their outstretched arms, you fumbled with the small screwdriver you found on a trek through one of the houses. With a huffed out breath, you jabbed it into the third guy's armpit, grinning at his cries of agony. He fell to his knees, trying very carefully to take it out without killing himself. Giving you enough to run outside.

The cold air was sharp in your lungs, the anxiety of the situation now rushing through your veins and causing your heart to beat erratically. But you were free.

“You fucking bitch!” The main man roared, his boots thumping harshly against the cracked cement.

Sprinting, you tried to keep a quick pace down the empty street, but the fear of running into anything overlapped the fear of dealing with an already injured man. So, like an idiot you stopped. He was limping, a gash stretching across his cheek and turning his pale skin red. A feral anger flashed in his eyes like an animal hunting its prey; coming in for the final kill. You knew he could practically taste your blood on his tongue.

Your chest heaved, the breath leaving you faster than you could keep it in your lungs, but you wouldn’t go quietly. That was a death you would not accept. No, he’d take you down fighting until you eventually dragged him down to hell right alongside you. If you couldn’t survive, you’d leave behind something to remember. Your hands curled into fists, teeth baring as you watched him approach slowly. The energy in your body was beginning to wane, exhaustion seeping in, but you kept your stance.

Forever choosing to be stubborn.

You never expected the loud bang of a shotgun to go off behind you. The man fell back, his head hitting the sidewalk with another crack—turning the asphalt a darker shade of black. Fear shot down your spine, the realization that you couldn’t fight against someone with a gun while you stood with nothing. You remained still, frozen and watching in horror as the man who nearly ended your life was wiped from this planet entirely. In a way you were relieved, but the knowledge that someone else was walking up to you quickly dampened that feeling instantly.

“You okay?”

The man’s voice was deep, gruff, with a southern drawl you’d heard once before in college. You couldn’t respond—your heart still lodged in your throat. If you were in the right state of mind, you’d say your body was going into shock. His boots stopped a foot away from you, calling your attention as he stood, the shotgun still gripped tightly in his hands. 

For a brief moment you allowed your eyes to trail up his figure. Taking in the dirty brown leather jacket that looked like it’d seen better days, jeans with a sewn up hole in the knee, and a black t-shirt. You barely skimmed his face, drinking in his slightly graying dark hair and scruff before he was asking you another question.

“Did he hurt you?” His eyes were focused on the blood that stained your once clean shirt.

“It’s not mine,” you said softly, the panic now wearing off—relinquishing its hold over your body.

He nodded, his brown eyes fixing back on yours. “Are there more?”

“Not anymore,” you replied, staring at the house in the distance.

Oblivious to the slight hint of surprise in his eyes, you felt him step closer. To which you responded by stepping back, keeping the distance as much as possible. You didn’t need to fight another man tonight, who’s weapons far outweighed your own fighting capability. But then he raised his hands as if in surrender. He held his ground, waiting for you to come back to the present, before trying once more to take a small step in your direction.

This time…you let him.

“I’m not gonna hurt you.”

How could you be so sure that his words were the truth? There was a small voice in the back of your head that told you to keep running. Run until you had no choice but to stop. Till you were finally safe from the dangers of this world. Yet you knew that danger was everywhere, plaguing the very ground you walked on and this man…had just saved your life.

Rarely did you find people who wished to help you. Who were simply there as a stroke of luck in your seemingly endless string of awful situations. Once you used to run with people, be a part of a group that watched your back as intently as you watched theirs. But pain and grief seemed to follow you like a ghost. Haunting every turn you made on this never ending journey.

Voicing your thoughts, you fought back against the urge to flee. “You just shot a man and you’re telling me you won’t hurt me?”

“A man who was trying to kill you.”

He had you there.

“What’s your name?” you asked, quickly glancing in the distance—wary that something would come from the darkness.

“Joel.”

You met his brown eyes again. “Why are you here?”

He shrugged, turning away from your scrutinizing gaze. You made his skin itch with just that single look, but he could recognize the underlying fear that flared every now and then in your eyes. A look he once wore when all this shit started. Joel didn’t get scared very often anymore, having seen his fair share of horrors. But seeing you stand there helpless, yet ready to die fighting tooth and nail, made his heart lurch in a way it hadn’t in sometime.

“I could ask you the same thing.” He hiked his bag up higher on his shoulder, catching the way the fading sunlight began to dip below the houses. Casting the both of you in darkness. “Why were you running?”

Scoffing, you crossed your arms against your chest. “Usually when people try to kill me I run.”

Thankfully he didn’t question what was the motive behind their intentions. Already understanding most of it. Once again he glanced at the sky, knowing that if you didn’t find shelter soon you’d be knee deep in shit. He didn’t want that to be how either of you ended. So, he turned away from you, gesturing for you to follow him. If you were smart you’d do it without question, but Joel had a feeling you were stubborn down to your core.

“Where are you going?” you called out, confirming his suspicions with only a few words.

He nearly chuckled. “Finding shelter for the night.”

Catching up, you fell into step beside him. “You won’t kill me right?”

That time he chuckled; the sound striking you in your heart unexpectedly. “You sure are untrustworthy aren’t you?”

“Yeah well…” You fiddled with the strap on your nearly torn backpack. “I haven’t trusted anyone in a while.”

Neither had he.

He didn’t say it outloud though. Joel already knew what came upon those that dared to open themselves up in the midst of anguish. He’d been on the receiving end of that pain and chose to close himself off to it. It would help him more in the long run, than letting the feeling dig its way into his heart. Gnawing away at his insides like a meal.

What he was doing now…keeping you close when in fact you may very well kill him, wasn’t like him. He had half a mind to keep going—leave you here to fend for yourself. But then his eyes met yours, and there was that look. That pain he knew too well. Back when he thought he was going to die without a way to save himself.

He saw himself in you and maybe that’s why he allowed you to traipse along beside him.

You didn’t take kindly to people very often. Preferring to go it alone after what happened with the people you once knew, and this was no different. Staying with him for one night before parting ways would mean nothing to you in the long run. Just another stranger you passed by in the hopes of finding somewhere safe to land. You hoped that this town would be it; that you wouldn’t have to go anywhere for a long time. But the blood on your shirt continued to prove you wrong.

“There’s a two story house about a block away with a fence going around the property.”

He nodded, changing directions and heading towards the old brown building that had seen better days. The windows were broken, the front yard overgrown with weeds, and you weren’t sure if the door worked. It would have to do for the night. You couldn’t risk staying out in the open. Not when those men had found you so easily as they were passing through.

The scent of pine filled your nose as you stepped towards the black gate covered in dead vines. A large tree stood in the center of the yard—beautiful amidst the destruction caused by the world falling to pieces. You wondered what it used to look like—who lived here—before you pushed open the gate. The loud creak echoing in the night air, sent chills down your spine. Perhaps the ghosts of the owners still resided here. Wandering the halls of their former home in the hopes of finding some serenity in the chaos.

Or perhaps…they were infected.

That thought alone nearly made you back away from the property, but Joel walked right in. He seemed to hold no qualms about the building or its past. To him it was just a place to stay until he had to move right along to the next one. He held no permanency in this world—not anymore—and it had been a long time since he hoped for some.

Staying somewhere permanent always ended in death. Or at least that’s what he believed.

“You never answered my question,” you said, following him slowly up the path and to the front porch that was caved in at one spot.

The door opened with a similar haunting creak, similar to the gate; filling your senses with a musty scent of old furniture and molding wood. He crossed the threshold without another word, his hand still gripping the shotgun’s strap on his shoulder. If you were smart, you’d part ways with him right here. You would find a different house to stay in for the night before leaving this place behind when the sun rose. Yet the lingering feeling from earlier still remained in your chest.

If he wanted to kill you, he wouldn’t have saved you.

“Looks old,” you noted, staring at the furniture in what once was a put together living room. Now the couches were torn up, most likely by animals, and the floorboards had water damage to them.

A ripped painting hung above the mantle on the fireplace, small pieces of the original owners coming through strokes of a brush. You caught a glimpse of a girl with red hair and blue eyes. A woman with the exact same features on the other side. A tear went through the middle, severing the young boy and man. Turning the painting into something else entirely.

The sound of his footsteps bounced off the wooden walls as he came downstairs again. Catching you staring at the painting with an intensity in your eyes that he’d never seen before. For a moment he left you alone. Gave you this time to linger in the space of what once was—what would never be again. He used to be torn up about things like this, but eventually he learned that the past would never change, and the future was nothing but a continuous fight for survival.

Eventually he cleared his throat, drawing your attention back to him. “There’s a bedroom upstairs still in pretty good shape.”

You nodded, moving away towards the stairs. “What are the chances of this house still having running water?”

“Slim.”

Something about that response made you smile. You couldn’t put your finger on why, but you took it for what it was.

The bedroom still looked relatively normal, despite the torn comforter and water stained ceilings. The musty smell still remained—the copper scent from blood on your shirt not helping. You wondered if you’d get lucky and find clothes in the closet. Or at least a shirt that could act as a replacement. You made sure to make a mental note to check for that later.

“You can uh—you can take the bed.”

Once again your lips twisted up into somewhat of a grin. “Thank you,” you replied softly, glancing his way briefly.

You’d remember him for his kindness. 

That was evident in your mind as you moved towards the bathroom. In all your years of surviving, you’d never taken so quickly to a person. For some unknown reason it felt like you’d known each other for some time—already acting like you’d been on the same journey together. When in fact he would leave tomorrow (as would you) and you’d be lucky if you came across each other again.

Maybe in another life, you mused.

Sure enough, no water came from the sink. You sighed, dropping your head forward as an ache began to spread through your forehead. What you wouldn’t give for an aspirin right about now. Shit, what you wouldn’t give for a stiff drink and a good night’s sleep. They were luxuries you hadn’t partaken in since the world was normal. When you were younger and life still had a bright hue of color about it.

You sighed, scrubbing a hand down your face before exiting back to the bedroom. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his bag on the ground by his feet and shotgun across his lap. The single sight made you think about a sculpture you’d seen in a class you’d taken before the world fell apart. Of a man sitting in the hand of god, his body curling in on itself—the weight of the world crushing him down.

Even now in the horror that became this world, life imitated art.

“Any water?” he asked, breaking your focus.

“Huh?” You glanced at the sink behind you. “Oh…no it’s dry.”

He nodded. “I’ll take the blanket.”

Standing, he winced slightly before gathering what remained of the blanket at the bottom of the bed. Just the sight caused your heart to twist. You damned yourself, wishing that you could be like everyone else. Able to watch someone else suffer on the sidelines while you protected yourself. Except you couldn’t. Not when you were taught your entire life to care for those in need; to share what you could with others.

“You already said you weren’t going to kill me,” you began, saying it with a slight smile. “So I don’t see why you should take the floor.”

For a brief moment his whole body stiffened, causing you to wonder if you’d stepped over a line. A boundary that he didn’t want to cross with strangers he just met.

“Why?” he asked, turning to face you with an unreadable expression on his face.

You shrugged. “The bed’s too big for me.”

It was partially true. The mattress looked like it would swallow you whole if you let it, but you knew the truth. And something told you he knew as well. He saved your life—this was the least you could do in return. A thank you without actually saying the words. An act of kindness that left a lingering warmth in his chest he hadn’t felt since before the outbreak.

He hesitated, staring at the soft plush bed that would no doubt give his back some relief for the night. “You sure?”

“Yes,” you said without a semblance of doubt in your voice.

Trusting someone this much may wind up to be a mistake on your part, but you pushed that thought aside for the moment. He would most likely be gone before you woke up. Or at least that’s what you told yourself. Sitting on the opposite side of the bed, you allowed your fingers to dig into what remained of the sheets. They were yellowed with age, stained by time, but still soft enough to nearly startle you.

You felt the bed dip on the other side when he sat down.

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

He sighed, the sound deep and ragged. “Not someone to give up easily are you?”

Once again your lips curved into a slight grin. “Nope.”

“I’m heading to Boston. Happened to be passing through on my way here.”

A sensation akin to fear streaked down your spine so quickly, you barely had any time to react. The name sent chills through your whole body. Boston. A city you hadn’t heard about since you left it. You could remember the day vividly; could practically taste the difference in the air as you exited your dorm room. You hadn’t known it then, but your entire world would shift in only a few hours.

You were barely nineteen at the time of the outbreak. Still a kid starting your second year of college with nothing ahead of you but time. Until the campus fell into chaos. You could still remember the screams; the agony of people losing the ones they cared about, to something worse than death.

“You know…” The memories still replayed in your mind on an endless loop. Like a movie with no end. “I went to school in Boston.”

That small detail seemed to catch his attention, because he angled his body slightly to see you better. “You did?”

You nodded, doing your best to breathe evenly in order to stave off the anxiety filling your body. “I was majoring in art history. I wanted to work in a museum one day.”

“Yeah?” He watched you turn slowly, the tension in your muscles dropping slightly the more you told him. “Which one?”

“The Met was my dream job before…”

He sighed, expression shifting to one of understanding. There were plans he had for himself, goals for his life for his family, but now that he could see the bleakness of what his future held, he’d given up the simple act of dreaming. What was there to dream about anyways? But he could see it in you. The hope that remained just beneath the surface of your sorrowful gaze. You were too young when it happened, too young to lose your life that quickly.

“I’ve been there.”

The grief faded slightly, a light returning to your face. “Really?”

He nodded, shifting until he was sitting with his leg extended on the mattress, back pressed to the headboard. “Back when I was in high school, we took a trip up there.”

Mimicking him, you felt the relief in your spine as you finally moved to a comfortable position. “What did you think?”

“Well I’m no expert in art, but I liked it.”

If you weren’t careful you would wind up falling asleep in the middle of speaking. But you fought against the exhaustion that seeped into your bones. Adamant on remaining awake, just to talk to him for a bit longer. His brown eyes watched you settle into a laying down position, your hands clasped together against your stomach. The blood on your shirt had dried to a deep brown color—until you could hardly tell it was there anymore.

“No one has to be an expert in art to appreciate its beauty,” you said softly, staring at the light brown stain in the ceiling that formed rings. It reminded you of what the inside of trees looked like. “I think all you have to do is see it and that’s enough.”

Joel settled in beside you, his back practically screaming in joy at having such a plush bed beneath him.

“Take the portrait downstairs,” you continued, unaware that he had turned his head to watch you. “Anyone can tell it used to be a well painted piece of art, but now it’s torn, severing the image of the family entirely. I think it’s poetic.”

He hummed, catching your attention and causing you to turn your head until your nose practically brushed his. “Poetic huh?”

“It reminds me of my past,” you whispered, taking in the soft lines that were beginning to form on his face. “Tells you a lot about what might have happened here.”

Joel didn’t respond, letting your words settle in his mind. Oblivious to the way they sunk into his heart as well, breaking down a small minuscule piece of the walls he’d placed there. The sound of the crickets outside rang through the open windows, filling the silent spaces between the two of you. He wondered what came before this for you—what would come after this.

“Do you have a place to go after this?” he asked, seeing your eyes grow heavy.

You shook your head. “I haven’t had a place to go in a long time.”

A part of your mind wanted to tell him that you did in fact have somewhere to go, but you couldn’t get the words out. You found that you liked his company; that you didn’t mind who he was as a person. Even though you knew nothing but his name and his path. Except to you…that was enough.

“I hear there’s a quarantine zone down in Boston.” He couldn’t get the question out, letting its implication hang in the air between you in the hopes that you’d understand. Thankfully, you did.

The breath caught in your lungs as you considered it. Returning to the place where it all began for you. The place where your future was meant to start. Just like the painting, you found it poetic in the most gruesome way. But something sour built in your chest. A feeling that told you to stay here; that if you left you’d find your way to even more destruction.

You chose to ignore it in the end.

“Okay,” you breathed, attempting a half-hearted sleepy smile before your eyes fell shut against your own will.

When you woke up, you’d deal with what this meant and how it would work, but you refused to let sleep elude you this time. Whether or not he fell asleep slipped past your mind—your body giving up after hours of strain. The ache would begin in the morning; pain you were familiar with and even welcomed. However for that moment, you were free of it; of the grief that was burrowed so deep in your heart you were afraid it’d never leave.

Unbound from the horrors that awaited you in the early hours of dawn.

You heard the birds first, chirping in the pine tree as they let the rest of the world know that the early morning hours of the day had finally arrived. You felt his arm around your waist, second. Sometime in the night you’d gone from lying side by side, barely touching shoulders, to him pressed firmly against your back. His breath hit the back of your neck, warm and accompanied with the odd snore here and there. It sent shivers down your spine.

Though you both wore several layers of clothing to stay warm during the night, you could still feel the heat of his palm seeping into your stomach. He was still asleep and while you might have agreed to go with him last night, you knew that it was better to leave and go it alone. After all, that’s what you’d been doing.

Holding your breath so as not to make any more noise, you began to shift away from him. Unfortunately for you, his grip on you was a bit too tight for you to remove. You didn’t want to disturb him. What with everything that happened last night. The fear was still a bitter taste on your tongue—reminding you that you could have died last night. That you had him to thank for why you were here in the first place.

Suddenly leaving didn’t sound like the better option anymore.

“You move a lot,” he grumbled. Your heart stopped in your chest for a brief moment.

“I–I’m sorry.” The words caught in your throat when he shifted, something pressing briefly to your lower back before he turned away. He grunted when he sat up, the sound shooting right through you. “We better get a move on.”

He still wanted you to go.

Sitting, you felt the fear begin to dissipate somewhat. “Oh…right,” you said, choosing to do what he did. Ignore that what you felt against your back was in fact what you thought.

The choice might prove better in the long run as you two traveled together. You’d been there before and in the end, it got messier than you wanted. Staying simple—alone but together—would be the easiest option. It would save you from dealing with another loss if something were to happen to him, and you hoped he felt the exact same way. Torment, heartache, they were all things you carried with you at the end of the day. A side effect of the fucking sickness that plagued the earth.

A disease that could never be reversed.

“Do you know how to get to Boston from here?” you asked, reaching for your bag.

“I’m sure we’ll figure it out,” he replied, stopping in front of you, a black piece of clothing in his hands. “Here.”

You must have looked confused, taking what you figured out to be a shirt. A man’s shirt if you looked close enough. “Where did you find this?”

 “Went digging through the drawers in the other room.” He turned away, heading out the door before you could give him a real response.

Except you couldn’t find the right words to actually say to him. He was a man of few words. You could tell that right off the bat. Yet his actions seemed to speak volumes, telling you all the things you imagined he’d say. Or maybe…you were on the precipice of losing your mind due to constant stress and pressure. You remember watching movies about the apocalypse and insanity always played a part—the end usually resulting in death.

You figured believing the latter was far better than assuming something about a man you just met last night. While he said he wasn’t here to kill you, the uncertainty in your veins still stuck to the instinct that told you trust had to be earned.

Heading downstairs, you found him in the exact position you were in yesterday. Standing in the middle of the living room, staring at the portrait. He met your gaze when you entered, the shotgun back where it was yesterday, bag still in place.

“Ready?” he asked, watching you adjust your bag and fix your jacket in place. The black t-shirt now underneath it. You left the ruined one in the sink.

“Ready,” you confirmed, following him outside and into the sunlight.

You wondered if there would be others after you and him inside the house; if people were looking for a safe place to stay for the night. Would they see the painting and think of its origin like you had? Or would this just be another place. A hollow building with no life anymore—a corpse that stood against the destruction around it. You smiled bitterly at that thought, knowing that if you were a building…you would be that. A walking ghost amidst nature’s final painting.

Joel walked beside you, his stroll measured and assured. He knew where he was going with each step—unafraid of what he’d find in the distance. So, you fell into step with him, your eyes focused on the horizon as you both walked along the empty street. Leaving the house behind.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x y/n #joel miller #joel miller fic #the last of us #the last of us fic #my writing