#and he would of ended up bleeding out next to a dying Echo right before they transcended and HONESTLY IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whatsk-poppinhomies · 2 months

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Pairing : Joshua Hong x F!Reader TW : it's angsty ; he's still not the gentleman Shua we love ; but he's better than the last part ; reader is wounded ; mention of guns and gunshots ; lots of talk of blood in the first half ; nobody dies though! ; happy ending ; Word Count : 1.8k Request : Anonny : Your stories are so good! My fav is When it’s Done with Joshua! Are you going to do a part 2? I’m dying to see what happened! A/N : I did not forget this request! I reread the first part, and lemme tell ya, I'm so excited to write part two!

The gunshot echoed through the small alleyway that you had run off into, it was loud and it pierced your ears like a firecracker had just gone off right next to your head. A warning shot you were sure of, probably from one of the guards that you had slipped away from. It wasn’t until you felt the sudden heat in your shoulder and the soaking of the shirt that you were wearing. You looked at your arm and saw the blood stain spreading through the fabric, and it was only once you had realized that it wasn’t a warning shot, that you had been shot, that you felt the agonizing burn and the pain that seemed to radiate and hit every single receptor in your body. It was all you could feel.

You dropped to the ground, practically crawling to hide behind a dumpster that was pressed up against one of the many abandoned buildings that you and Joshua had once scavenged in. With one hand clasped to your mouth, you reached your other hand to your back, gently pressing your finger against the spot where the bullet had gone straight through your skin. It hurt like a bitch, a pain that was indescribable, so bad it made you black out momentarily.

This was it, you were sure of it. You’d bleed out behind the dumpster because you just had to prove a point to the asshole who was being whisked away to somewhere safe. It was ironic, but you never made the best choices, and this was surely, without a doubt, the worst decision you had ever made in your life… Which now seemed to be very close to over.

“Dammit! Just let me go!” Joshua fought with the guard who was clearly becoming more and more annoyed with each push that was landed against him, so annoyed in fact that he finally threw up his arms, allowing Joshua to run past him.

He didn’t know the first place to run to, and to be honest, he didn’t know if he’d be able to find you. Part of him was actually terrified of what he would find if he did come across you. The gunshot had been so loud, it was close, and he knew that you couldn’t have made it far from the group before the shot had been fired.

What was he so afraid of? Why hadn’t he just let you in? It’s not like he didn’t have feelings for you, it’s not like you hadn’t found a way to weasel into his heart and make it seem like it was only beating for you. Who was there to put the act on for? Everyone else in the world that he thought had mattered were most likely gone now, you were all he had left… And now he was scared that he’d be truly alone in this world.

There was no one around, no one that could possibly be a threat, not that he could see. But you were also nowhere to be found either. Had someone taken you? The thought alone had his blood boiling, thinking of someone else laying their hands on you, hurting you… He shook his head, his fingers running through his hair to brush it out of his face. He couldn’t think like that. You had to be around here somewhere.

A small whimper, one that would have gone unheard if the city were alive with pre-apocalyptic sounds, cars and muffled voices would have drowned out the quiet whine that came from the alleyway that he had just walked past. Without a second thought, he turned down the alley, his legs picking up speed to carry him to where the sound had come from.

Tear stained cheeks and swollen eyes glanced up at him, but he couldn’t stop from looking at the bright red liquid that colored your hand and your shirt, dripping down your arm and pooling onto the dirty ground beneath you. “Oh my god…” Was all he managed to say as he crouched down in front of you, pulling off his jacket and pressing it against your wound.

“You came back…” You whispered, although he wasn’t sure if your voice was so low because you were trying to be quiet or if you were just losing so much blood that you were becoming weak. “Why did you come back? You could have been safe…” You continued to speak, and it’s like he could see your heart rate picking up, the blood pouring more quickly now from your wound as you got more worked up.

“Shut up.” He hissed, trying his best not to upset you, but you needed to calm down or else you’d lose too much blood, and that would mean he’d lose you, and he wasn’t about to let that happen. “You’re so stupid, why would you run off like that? Now both of us are back where we started.” He muttered, and your head dropped, but not only that, you shifted away from him, away from his touch, away from the jacket that was being used to try to stop the bleeding.

“You didn’t have to come back for me.” You mumbled, your knees curling up against your chest as if you were trying to make as much space between the two of you as physically possible. “I’m sure your good karma meter has reached the top by now, you didn’t have to come back.” He just couldn’t get things right, he just kept upsetting you, even when he wasn’t trying to. “You can leave now, I’d much rather not annoy you with my dying.”

“You seriously need to stop talking.” He urged, watching as, what could be, the remaining blood seemed to squirt from the bullet hole. “I’ll tell you why I came back, but I need to make sure you’re okay first. So just… Shut up long enough for me to try to help.” Your eyes rolled, but he didn’t really care for it, as long as they weren’t rolling to the back of your head. He could deal with your sassiness, it meant you were still alive.

He carefully got you up off the ground, making sure you were steady on your feet before leaning over in front of you. “What are you doing?” You asked, but he didn’t have time for your questions, and he knew damn well that your time was very limited, so he reached back, wrapping his arms around the bend of your knees and hoisting you up onto his back. “What the hell?!” You shrieked, but your arms immediately wrapped around him to hold on. He liked the feelings of having you close to him like this… It wasn’t intimate in any way… It was just close, and if the situation weren’t so dire, he would have loved to hear you laugh and maybe even squeal with delight as he carried you around.

“If you walk, you’ll lose even more blood. Just… take a nap… I’ve got you. I’ll keep you safe… I promise.”

///

Joshua sat in the little chair beside the bed where you were laying, it was uncomfortable, but he didn’t mind it, and it almost seemed like he had become one with the chair considering he had refused to leave as long as you were still in there.

The fact that he had managed to catch up with the group of survivors was a miracle, although the guard that he had pushed around didn’t seem very pleased at his reappearance. Once it was realized that you were injured though, one of the other guards pulled you off of Joshuas back and carried you the rest of the way.

From the moment of arrival at the “base camp”, at least that’s what they called it, he never left your side. The nurses and doctors that had been saved from nearby hospitals had all come to look at you, taking turns to make sure you were healing okay. You had lost so much blood though that they were basically telling him to say his goodbyes when you first arrived.

Still, even though you were okay, you were far from healthy. You were beyond weak, and it seemed like all you could do at this point was sleep, and while it scared the hell out of him, the doctors all tried to reassure him that sleeping was exactly what your body needed right now, especially since there wasn’t much else they could do outside the hospitals.

So he sat, and he waited, he waited for hours, days, it felt like weeks that he just sat in that chair, dozing off occasionally just to be jolted awake thinking that he heard you move only to see the doctor walking in to check on you again. He had many questions, but none of them he wanted the answers to.

A little yawn, and then the quietest curse had him opening his eyes from the little catnap that he had begun to take. You were sitting up on the makeshift hospital bed, your face in what looked to be a permanent grimace as you rolled your shoulders and tried to stretch. “It’s gonna hurt worse if you keep doing that.” He commented, finally feeling all the tension wash away from him seeing you awake.

“You’re still here…” You said, as if finally noticing that he was in the room with you. Your head tilted to the side as you looked at him, your eyes narrowed, questioning his presence.

“I’ve been here the whole time, I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”

“How long have I been sleeping?”

“Too long.” He said flatly, finally getting up from the chair and stretching. Even though he had occasionally taken a small walk around the camp, a majority of the past 3 days he had been in that chair. “How are you feeling?”

Your eyes followed him as he got closer to the side of your bed, his hand reaching out to touch yours, but hovering just above it. “Uhm… stiff… Sore… Disoriented. Why are you still here?” Your hand moved away from his, but he wasn’t scared anymore. He wasn’t going to hide his feelings from you, he wasn’t going to push you away. You were staying with him, and while he had acted so annoyed when the roles had been reversed, you were now stuck with him.

“I’m not leaving you… Ever.” He emphasized the ending, his hand coming down on top of yours and giving it a light squeeze. “Now that I know you’re okay, and we’re both safe… I shouldn’t have kept it to myself… But I need you with me. I’ve always been scared of losing you, since the second week of meeting you. Now that I’ve almost actually lost you, I never want to go through that again.” He leaned in, kissing the top of your head as his hand lingered on top of yours, his thumb brushing across your knuckles and sending goosebumps across your skin. “I’m sorry for being an asshole, I’m sorry for making you feel unwanted… I’m sorry for causing this… Will you ever forgive me?”

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neostriatum · 10 months

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Thermodynamic equilibrium

[Dreamwidth]

He held his general's life in his hands. It wasn't the first time, and all he needed was to keep his grip.

Another droid goes down, and he flexes his hand, feeling the creaking of his armor as the plastoid fractures just the slightest bit more under the stress. Obi-Wan is behind him, panting silently – he only knows this from the press of his general’s side against him, staying propped up by sheer force of will despite the hastily-staunched wound in his side.

There wasn’t enough bacta, having passed his off to another trooper while he was en route to Kenobi’s rendezvous point, the crackling comm message still echoing in his ears as his HUD keeps a running tally of casualties on the field. Despite the numbers increasing at a regular rate, they were making good time in their battle plans. It was a typical exfil mission of a Jedi that had been working on a Separatist-held territory, with Skywalker working from Coruscant to ensure the end point of the Jedi’s travel was secured.

If it were earlier in the war, it would have been a riskier strategy, but many norms had been thrown out of the airlock. Shifting as he heard a sound, Cody tapped on his helmet, adjusting his screen settings to look around the bend of the bombed-out building he and his general were using as cover. The smoke from the competing cannons from both armies made it hazardous to see much, and from the suppressed rasping of his general, worse to breathe. He licked his lips, worried even as he exhaled to steady his pulse.

The way looked mostly deserted, and he took a moment to check on Kenobi, moving carefully so they always kept a continuous point of contact. Still, even the smoothest of transitions still made the man tense in pain, and he resisted the urge to hold the other close, not needing a connection to the Force to know their pool of relative safety could be disturbed at any moment. Kenobi leaned wearily into his chest, one hand on his ’saber and eyes holding the vague glaze that told him the general was using said Force to hold himself together and act as lookout at the same time.

Cody wished he could admire his general’s dedication to be useful, but right now all it made him was frustrated and heart-sore, knowing from harsh experience that any Jedi – and particularly Kenobi, with his history of throwing himself into the Force as its acting hand – sustaining such active contact in a war zone could result in potentially permanent neurological damage. He almost wished he had listened to the medics about what to carry with him, but between the accoutrements as commander and navigating an entire systems army, medical devices that could monitor and ward off seizures fell distressingly low on the list.

“Koyaci, Kote,” Kenobi murmured, the man’s lips dry even as his eyes were nearly luminescent with the Force, pulling the thought straight from their latent bond. He wanted to choke on a laugh, unsure if it would morph into a sob, choosing instead to press around the edges of the wound to see if it had bled beyond its bandages and wondering how many he could plaster on top of each other before his general truly risked bleeding out. A hand laid over his, ’saber between them and carrying a hum audible even to his Force-deaf ears, “All will be well. We need to move.”

He nodded, inhaling sharply and considering the HUD read-out of his own vitals. There was going to be bruising on his hands regardless, but so far he had avoided anything warranting true medical attention. Checking the power on his blaster reflexively, he shuffled Kenobi closer to him, readying them to make the next point in their path back to the battalion. Nothing stood out even as his skin prickled in uneasiness. Clear enough.

One finger resting at readiness on the trigger, Cody led them through the slowly-settling haze, footsteps on uneven, broken ground muffled by the distant din of dying clankers and the reverb of cannons. Kenobi’s laboured breathing was his timepiece, calculating how much time they had and the rate they needed to move as he kept a firm grip on his general’s hand. The reciprocal grip was barely there, but it was there, and he gripped onto that hope like a lifeline.

It was obvious, now, when they were about to run across a droid. The place was deserted enough that there was only the cursory patrols, clanking metal alerting them more clearly than a HUD or the Force ever could. He kept his blaster at the ready, having surreptitiously dialed down the power in favour of silence and picking his shots carefully to disable them. Without fail, the combatants fell in a heap of sparking metal, and he let the satisfaction drift across his bond with Kenobi, bolstering the both of them.

They were pushed into a delicate balance of stealth and a dwindling clock, Cody stopping as often as he could to check on the blood-sodden bandages and murmuring a little prayer when necessary. Sometimes Kenobi even mouthed them along with him, a wisp of air that might have passed as speech if he were unencumbered by trying to keep them both alive to the rendezvous point. A part of him wishes that he didn’t need to wear his helmet – but then, he only ever took his helmet off when he was assured of the safety of the situation. This was no battleship painted in their colours, sailing amidst a fleet of their own and protected on all quarters.

He had miles to go until they could sleep, curled around each other and safe even from the bustle of the infirmary. Kenobi brushed a thumb weakly upon his own, both of them having reduced to holding hands as Cody focused on making sure they were cleared to shuffle across each uncomfortably open space. The next point in their path is within eyesight, faintly obscured in the artificial gloom, and he squeezes the hand in his, gesturing with a tilt of head toward it.

Defining signals had long since passed, and he knew the message was received for Kenobi to brace himself, the tight inhale his only response before he’s quickly scouting the area as he half-drags the general with him. One hand is held aloft and aiming instinctively in front of him in a loose, narrow sweep.

Kenobi must shift wrong, he must, because he gasps, the noise distracting him from the steady clank-clank-clank of an incoming droid patrolling. The loss of Kenobi's hand in his is as rattling as the three shots he fires on muscle memory alone, gripping tightly onto the corner of his mind that contains everything he cherishes about his general. He prays once more, knowing it’s the only thing that would stick until they were back under the tender wings of their troops, and takes his eyes off the next sight line to look for Kenobi behind him.

On some miracle, a currency he’s not willing to barter in, Kenobi isn’t thrown entirely to the ground. A couple hurried steps forward is all it takes for him to reach the other, one arm scooping around Kenobi's side and rucking the man close enough to imagine the thundering heartbeat that must surely echo his own. He glances quickly ahead, a scan for danger that proves no immediate concern, and then beside him to the sight of Kenobi's clenched jaw and furrowed brow.

Alive, though. Cody can work with that.

They’re out of bacta patches, bandages, and creative improvisation, so instead he clamps his hand on Kenobi's side, applying pressure with strength of desperation alone. It draws a shudder from his general, and he wants to sympathize, if he had any room in his situational assessment for a gram of weakness. He doesn’t, though, all of it being used up on allowing Kenobi his.

He grits his teeth, wishing he at least had the forethought to switch overlays on his HUD to better see through the gloom and the digital beacon he had set up on the battlemap. They weren’t there yet, and his vision was hazed in solar diffraction, the amber colouring muting extraneous tones.

Regardless, they’re still too far in the open to think too much. He briefly tightens his grip, enough to rouse Kenobi, vocoder transmuting the murmur to a whisper of voiced static, “Are you ready?”

Kenobi shifts in his grip – too easily, he thinks, and muffles that thought down along with its accompanying swell of panic – but finally assents with a nod that could well be a loll of the head. He takes it, knowing there wasn’t enough time to clarify matters, and mentally goes through the remainder of their route again, designating checkpoints with only mild despair that each stop would be in easy eyesight of each other. Still, it was better to take small steps that were more likely to succeed than large ones with a high chance of failure.

The next hideaway structure was close, and Kenobi made a good game of it, steps stealthy even as their cover was burned away by bright sunshine poking through the haze. He refused to look backwards, memorizing the feel of his general’s shoulders nestled into the crook of his arm as they snuck forward, his gaze alert to any unusual movement.

He didn’t want to say it was too quiet, but- But. Cody had already switched his pistol to his off-hand, and that required more concentration than he was willing to allocate when it came to compensating for his aim. They had only the scarcest of dust in the air to hide them, whisper-thin shadows that coiled around their boots and eddied in their steps. Beside him, Kenobi was still breathing.

It took him a moment to realize he was murmuring to himself, an unconscious bid to keep the general with him. Names rolled off his tongue, memorized in order, a long line of those marching ahead that stretched far back into his youth. They were weighted with grief, with that dangerous edge of wishful thinking. Nobody ever marched alone in this war, ghosts of their brethren invisible to the realities of the day but nevertheless clearing their way. He sucked in a breath, refusing to falter in the litany as he refused to falter in delivering his general to the rendezvous point.

Another droid nears them, loud in its chatter as it patrolled. The increased security was disconcerting for the problems it borrowed, but relieving in that he knew the ship’s radar would be able to track the shift in troop movement from orbit, changing their countdown to something more in their favour. The change in plans occurred swift as thought, both of them moving in sync as they decided to sneak up on the droid. Cody had the feeling that this was one of the last droids for a while, and also that it was Kenobi who had that feeling. He could almost feel himself grin, “Not always bad feelings, are they?”

Kenobi’s smirk was in his subdued voice, keeping pace with him in belying easiness even as his words were thinly spoken, “Statistically likely, my dear.”

They proceed to the next checkpoint, without visible haste but unrelentingly. Their shuffle step was muffled only by the ambient noise, one more rock kicked down the road along with many others. He wanted to tell himself that they were getting closer to their destination, but he knew that it was only a fact when they had already arrived.

The latent ping along their bond buoys him, the quiet affection tendrilled beneath the subtle nudge in his mind reminiscent of early morning tea and studious reflections of incoming orders. It has the entirely expected benefit of warning him of the next patrol – something that makes him want to smile fondly, Kenobi always keeping watch wherever he could – and Cody takes advantage of the blooming rays of sunshine at their backs to disguise them from the cheap and mass-produced optical sensors these droids had, a practiced wind-up that made the delivered punch all the more satisfying for the fact that it dropped like a sack of tarpa roots.

He rotated his wrist, feeling the ache reverberate down from their rush fleeing to another minuscule checkpoint to their rendezvous point. The silence was relative, and he kept one ear cocked to the fractured sound of his general’s breathing, hoping it wasn’t a timer that ran out before they could flag down a trooper. “Cody,” Obi-Wan whispered, ensnaring his attention without any special tricks at all. He turned in the loose circle of his general’s hold, one arm firm over the man’s armor and carefully away from the wound he deeply suspected was escaping its impromptu bandaging. The other’s eyes were beginning to glaze, making his heart pick up its pace. Before he could speak – probably something stiffly concerned, unused to handling Obi-Wan's injuries at such a severe level without some back-up better than creativity – his attention was riveted to the hand in his, a lethally defensive weapon pressed between their grips, “Will you- will you take care of him?” Looking back at Obi-Wan made his eyes ache, as much from the vulnerability as from the bright rays of the sun his helmet had trouble filtering out from the shadows of his general. He licks his lips, too slight for the muscle ticks to be picked up by his HUD, gives a short nod, “We take care of our own,” he said, knowing by Kenobi's sigh that his sentiment was understood. As Anakin was Obi-Wan's family, and as Obi-Wan was… was his, that made Anakin Cody's family by proxy. He grips the lightsaber in his hand, feeling the pulse of its heart in time to the fluttering beat of its holder, feeling at once at peace and uneasy at the belief in him, “But you're going to tell him yourself, understood?” Obi-Wan nods, exhaling as he slumps against him, “Understood, Commander. Get us out of here.” He presses his head against his general, knowing he would have followed that order even if it were never voiced. They either made it out together or not at all, his mind decided long before he knew Obi-Wan could smile at him with weary wryness, fingers wet with his own blood latching on to Cody’s armor in a bid for another moment of strength. His HUD was ticking off his general’s vitals, scattered from their baseline and sent to languish in the background of running data fed to him from their environment, “I have you.” A brilliant smile, eclipsing the waning late afternoon sun before fading away on the heels of Obi-Wan's wavering consciousness, “You do.”

Taking in a sturdy breath, he recollects their position, eyes sweeping across their surroundings and the HUD alike. He spends the interim time with a firm grasp upon both his general and the man’s weapon, attention split to try and reconnect his helmet to the trooper ’net, leaning on the tendril of Kenobi's mind in his own, as sure as if their hands were still twined lazily together. It’s difficult to carry him the last klick with the sound of his helmet running through the ’net diagnostics he ordered it to run in the background, the ion cannons and other artillery having obscured the connection until the dust could settle.

He can hear Obi-Wan's thoughts in the back of his head, a subconscious murmur that let him know there was more to the man than a weakening pulse and bleeding wound. It made him grip the ’saber tighter, feeling like a part of his general’s soul was there in his hands, vulnerable crystal encased in steel – very much like its wielder, a reassuring beat of energy he could coordinate his worries to.

They had been working to triangulate some sort of signal, patching through different protocols for noise and trying to get a match on voice patterns they had on record. Skywalker was busy in Coruscant, and they couldn’t even borrow R2 at the moment. The trooper rubbed his fingers together, setting them back on the keyboard to try another route, a brother next to him working on a map as data was fed in live. Commander Cody was with the general, so the situation was either a waiting game or an emergency they hadn’t planned for.

A ping came in on his headset, and he tapped it to let the message go through, “This is Trooper Iron. Name and message, please.”

“Trooper Whoop here,” There was static crackling on the line, and Iron tapped a few controls, smoothing the connection out, “We’re seeing a dust cloud about ten klicks east of us, unusual activity.”

He glanced at his CO, tilting his head and adding the other to the line as the Captain stepped forward. Heart thumping, he inhaled, “Captain Sixes is on the line. Want to repeat that?”

“Sir,” Whoop’s verbal salute was crisp over the comms, “We’ve got a dust cloud about ten klicks east and unusual activity. Permission to check it out?”

Iron shared a look with Sixes, aware that the general chatter in the Comms room had dulled as soon as the conversation had registered. It was unusual activity, especially as the battle was winding down – the only thing missing was their general and commander. His captain looked at the map next to him, the trooper obligingly turning his chair so their CO could get a better look. A twitch of lips, and the captain tapped his own comm, “You have a go, Whooper. We’ll send someone to rendezvous with you.”

He grinned at the pleased “Sir” in Whooper’s voice, leaning back into his chair. Iron clapped a hand on his shoulder, “Good work, troopers.”

There were no shortage of volunteers to fetch their officers, but someone had to make sure the lights were still on at home, as General Kenobi was fond of saying. Beside him, the map was swiftly updated.

Ten klicks didn’t seem like that great of a distance, if one discounted the middling ravine that took a couple of hours for the engineers to pop a bridge over. Whoop couldn’t help the bounce in his step as he walked over to Booker, watching the trooper patch the signal from Comms over to a mobile unit that boosted its range. “Are we gonna be able to reach them with that?”

“Soon as I’m done getting through all the interference,” Booker replied, pointing to where the bridge was, all freshly unrolled like one of those luxury carpets in the Senate that Skywalker was gossiping about one time. Theirs was cooler, though, he decided, settling his hands over his rifle as he watched the faint flickering of the lights bobbing on the bridge nearly in time with Booker’s one-handed typing, “I’m adjusting the signal buoys so we can get a direct line between the commander and comms.”

Way cooler, He thinks smugly, wanting to let out a small whoop at it. With the way the nearby troopers tilted their helmets at him in amusement, he figured they knew.

His comm crackles in that particular way that lets him know Booker is running a diagnostic and hooking them up to a patched terminal, “Aaaand we have a go, sir. Whenever you’re ready.”

This time he doesn’t stop the delighted sound, one loud whoop! as he pats his rifle, striding forward, “Let’s get ’em home!”

At the ripple of identical whoops echoing out as half the troopers packed up and fell in line, he grinned. Best bridge ever.

When his comms clicked in, Cody almost startled. Almost, because if he did, he might have dropped his general, and that was an absolute no-go. Instead he hauled in a breath, meeting the faint, quizzical tug through the Force resounding through the ’saber in his hand.

“Almost there,” he murmured, keeping the unlit blade at the ready position, scanning for any last-minute clankers that might pop in on them, “Just got a ping, might be closer to our pick-up than I think.”

Obi-Wan spared him a delicate snort, both of them knowing that Cody rarely misjudged a distance. The man had been slowing down in incremental steps, breathing so steady it had to be intentional. He tamped down on his worry, not wanting it to swamp him with the fatigue that he was keeping at bay with positive thoughts. It was slow going, but at least they didn’t have much of a reason to be out of breath.

He tilted his head closer to Obi-Wan's for a moment, counting the breaths. Not too much of a reason, anyway.

The temperature gauge in one corner of his HUD registered the climbing temperature, mostly through the tint of infrared he had turned on a couple of check-points back, when the dust had first begun to settle. It wasn’t on so much for the clankers as it was his general, a quicker way of tracking vitals than trying to see how much blood was soaking through the compression bandage. The method was also better for his sanity, as well, despite how often he and Kenobi had cracked jokes about it being one of the first casualties, right next to their senses of humor.

Both of them were relying more on the Force now to communicate, silent as it was with Obi-Wan's focus being riveted to managing his wound and being conscious enough to drag his feet after Cody’s slow gait, so he had only the most marginal of ideas that he was walking with the living instead of someone with one foot already set to march. It made the crackle of static on his comms, a precursor to a rigged communication line being patched through, breath-taking.

“Commander?”

Exhaling roughly, he flicked his eyes to the gleaming icon in the corner of his HUD, activating the incoming line, “Name and rank.”

He supposed his clipped adherence to protocol could be forgiven, given the whoop of delight that served as both an answer and an identification. It made him grin, broad enough to confuse his HUD, “Good to hear you, trooper. Got a medic on hand?”

There was a murmured shit on the other side, “Sure do, Commander. How many do you need?”

Obi-Wan stirred in his arm, noticing that their usual was different but not entirely cognizant of why. He shushed his general, fingers aching with the need to curl around the man, to be safe in their quarters. He did one last visual sweep of the area, knowing they were within eyesight of the rendezvous point. It would have to be good enough.

Just in case, he lit the ’saber, the familiar, protective blue held in front of the both of them in deadly form. It wasn’t a true Soresu, but the spirit of it was encapsulated in the way Cody was unaltered in his protection of Kenobi, a bubble of determination that could not be broached.

“Just the one, Whoop,” Cody replied, holding Obi-Wan close, “We’ll see you there.”

Author's Notes

Written for the 2023 @codywanreversebang, based upon @artbowls' wonderful art piece , alongside fellow writer @thejediandthemandalorian (their fic here). Both were fantastic to work with!

Do I know what a tarpa root is? Nope. It's completely made-up, pretend it's a Space Potato.

I really enjoyed the new OCs, troopers Iron, Whoop, Booker, and Captain Sixes - hopefully I'll have some opportunity in future works to add them in.

#star wars #codywan #my stories #codywan reverse bang

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paperbackribs · 3 months

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A Tarnished Copper Boy (7

Previous | Next | Ao3 Last chapter, Eddie cared for a concussed Present Steve while giving him advice on how to check in on Max after she took down Billy.

Chapter 7: A Smouldering Ember

In the fading light of the late November afternoon, Eddie’s white van rumbles to a stop outside his trailer, the crunch of gravel beneath the tires echoing through the quiet air of Forrest Hills.

Contentedly tumbling out of the driver’s side, he bounds up the short stairs to the front, his breath visible in the crisp air. The sky behind him is painted with the darkening hues of orange and pink, a softening blur of colours leaving behind the daylight clinging to the horizon.

Eddie affectionately pats his pocket full of cash while unlocking the door and hums Girl Gone Bad with feeling because he don’t work for free either. He’d managed a couple of modest deals at his bench in the woods behind the school, but it was Alex Tinsley who had nicely tipped him over into the area of flush, despite making Eddie drive out to meet him at his place in Brookside Heights.

But home deliveries incur an asshole tax, whether the asshole in question knows it or not and Eddie is pleased with the productiveness of his day.

He steps through the door and nearly smacks his face into the floor when he sees Steve standing in the middle of the living area, still clad in Eddie’s soft navy sweats and Dio shirt from his last visit.

The cheerful melody of the Brady Bunch signals the end of the show playing on their boxy television and Steve pulls a toothbrush out of his mouth, flecks of white at its corner. He lights up, grinning, “Hey, Eddie.”

Eddie clinically runs an eye down Steve’s body, looking for hints of a spreading stain but the clothes are too dark to make out any signs of blood. He carefully hangs his key up on the hook, the bile-coloured ghoul figurine cheerfully swings in the air and silence fills the room except for the chattering from an insurance advertisement. Eddie thinks about what he wants to say next.

Steve shifts uneasily, nearly spearing his foamy toothbrush through his locks as he starts and stops pushing his hair back. “Uh, sorry for making myself at home. The morning breath was starting to get to me, and I found an unopened pack under the sink.”

“Steve,” Eddie says, approaching the other boy and circling him: nothing that he can see on his back either. “Do you have something to tell me?”

“I won’t do it again?” Steve is visibly confused and twists to meet Eddie as he huffs in frustration. “Steve, you left a spill of blood on my bed before you disappeared last time. Are you standing there, brushing your teeth, while you bleed out?”

Steve’s expression shifts to shock, “No! No, why would I just walk around the place if I was bleeding out? That’s insane.”

“I don’t know,” Eddie retorts, closing the distance, “You tried to convince me to leave you on a toilet floor three weeks ago while you were puking your guts out and unable to stand without me holding you up. I’m not sure I trust your judgement.”

Steve pouts, “I was fine, wasn’t I.”

Eddie throws an exasperated hand into the air, “That’s not the point! You were unwell and you didn’t let me help. Did you even tell your parents?”

Steve scowls at him for a moment before turning to stomp away to the bathroom. Eddie finds him gargling and spitting out a mouthful of water, he glares at Eddie over his shoulder. “They weren’t in Hawkins, and I was fine.”

Eddie props himself against the door, a blockade against what he’s decided to call Slippery Steve. “That’s worse. You get how that’s not better, right? I spent all night thinking about the ways that you could have been dying, brain swelling and bleeding inside that thick skull.”

For sure Eddie had looked up concussions after that day and he had been horrified at the ways Steve could have ended up damaged or dead. “You could have seized up or vomited in your sleep. And you’re saying that no one was with you?”

Steve concentrates on washing his toothbrush, thumb carefully running over the bristles until the water runs clean. He drops the stick into the holder, alongside Eddie’s and Wayne’s, not looking at Eddie. “They’re not here half the time anyway and there wasn’t anyone to call.”

Eddie flashes back to earlier today when he had watched Present Steve snag a corner table in the cafeteria, away from a stormy Tommy and laughing Billy, and definitely not with Nancy and—according to the rumour mill—her new boyfriend, Jonathon Byers. It’s 1984, Steve has no friends or girlfriend, and his parents aren’t around. Well, fuck. Eddie runs a rough hand over his face; Steve looks wary, so he’ll let it drop for now.

“Okay,” he says placatingly, “Just. Show me your injuries so I can know you’re okay? I’ve been going half out of my mind with worry. Thinking you landed back in the 1860s or something and some Confederate soldier was going to stick you further.”

Steve smiles hesitantly, “Actually, there was a big increase in nurses during the Civil War, so I probably would have been taken care of either way.”

“How do you even know that?” Eddie blinks, caught off guard by the random trivia.

Steve shrugs shyly, “History was the only interesting class besides gym.” He looks down before obviously deciding to play along with what he thinks of as Eddie’s nagging.

Pulling the t-shirt over his shoulders, Steve draws the material from the back forward, the muscles in his forearm flexing. Eddie would normally appreciate the sight, but he’s taken aback by the battered appearance of Steve’s torso.

The splotchy darkness of new bruising is giving way to the sickly yellows and greens of healing skin, and three angry lacerations curve over his sides, two on the right and one on the left. Each is covered in strong black threads neatly stitched, keeping his tattered skin safely closed.

An uneven breath knocks loose from Eddie’s lungs. He’d expected something. Had feared the worst, but his imagination hadn’t prepared him to see the physical proof of Steve hurt, injured in ways that had needed proper wound care. He leans in further as he tries to work out the little pockmarks that surround the worse of the injuries like he’d been torn into by the hooked beak of a bird of prey.

The tear on his left is about an inch long and sits low, closer to Steve’s hip and it looks like he popped one of the stitches. A dried line of blood curves to smear over his soft-looking belly to trail under the navy sweats. His shirt must have ridden up while sleeping and smudged the newly opened wound against the bed.

Hands hovering over him, Eddie feels a bone-deep relief that Steve—if not exactly at the pinnacle of health—has at least been seen to by a doctor. Eddie can admit now that maybe it was more of a deep smudge than a spill on his sheets, but it still had been enough blood that he hadn’t been able to properly wash it out, therefore he was right to have been concerned.

But he wants to take care of Steve further, Eddie realises with chagrin at himself. He’s been fretting and worrying for weeks now and has had no place to funnel that energy.

Steve lets out a surprised grunt as Eddie solidly grabs his hand and drags him into his bedroom. With a careful push, Eddie directs Steve to sit at the edge of the bed.

“While I’m happy to be given an invitation into your bed again, I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”

Eddie rolls his eyes at the relentless flirt that Steve apparently is, even when only around another guy, and snags the green case with the white cross on its front in the corner of his room. Using a hand on Steve’s knee to balance himself as he kneels down on the carpet in front of him, he pushes Steve’s legs apart and positions them into a more convenient position for Eddie to lean in and access his torso.

Flipping through the first aid book that is surely overdue at this point, Eddie easily finds the section he knows by sight now. Still, he confirms what he needs first before pulling out the two colour-coded modules: purple for dressings and bandages and lime-green for cuts and wounds.

“Eddie,” Steve says uncertainly above him.

“One moment, Steve,” Eddie murmurs, counting out what he needs: gloves, antiseptic wipes, scissors to cut the non-adhesive dressing, paper tape, and butterfly bandages. For lack of a cleaner area, he lays out his supplies on the inside of the large canvas case.

As he starts to look up, Eddie realises that he’d kicked Steve’s ankles to splay on the outside of Eddie’s body, creating a heady v of his muscled legs and setting Eddie’s eye line right at crotch level.

Once again struck by how badly sweats fail to hide away the soft bulge nestled under the thin cotton, Eddie averts his gaze, looking up only to be caught in Steve’s eyes. They've become darker while he was looking away and his breathing is a little heavier.

Right, Eddie chastises himself, Steve's dealing with painful injuries and Eddie is daydreaming about pitching forward and putting his mouth somewhere it has no place being.

“Okay,” Eddie says with a false brightness. “It looks pretty good.”

Steve’s mouth drops a little before choking out, “It does?”

“It does,” Eddie confirms, getting his proverbial footing back under him now that he has a purpose. He holds up an enclosed wipe, the white paper stamped with a blue version of the ubiquitous cross sign. “We just need to clean the worst of it and then cover them with bandages to keep down the risk of infection.”

“Right,” Steve sounds disappointed.

“I’ve got this,” Eddie tries to reassure him. “But did you get them wet when you had a shower…” Eddie thinks back, “Last night?”

Steve lightly touches above one of his stitched tears, “I tried to keep them dry, y— they said that I should keep them from getting water on them. But I was too tired to do anything about bandages.”

Eddie nods, thinking about the pile of used dressing he had found in the trash can the next day. At least Steve hadn’t reapplied the dirty ones over his exposed flesh.

Eddie leans forward, ignoring everything to steadily clean across the tears and gashes, a wet amber reassuringly spreading under the small square of the wipe onto Steve’s skin. If Eddie can see the antiseptic being applied, then he can almost hear the dying gargles of any nasty bugs before they dig in and become infectious.

Eddie gently pinches the skin together over the popped stitch and draws the butterfly bandage over it, keeping the healing edges sealed together. Finally, he cuts the appropriate lengths for the dressings and tapes them over the wounds, making sure to cover the angry-looking pockmarks too.

Steve had kept silent for the most part, his stomach sometimes reflexively flinching, and he’d only let out a soft exhale here and there, but when Eddie looks up the red of his lower lip testifies to Steve having bitten down any sounds of pain. A twinge of sadness runs through Eddie, reminded of a similar attempt at swallowing down his cries while in Eddie’s arms.

“All done. You want to lie back?” Eddie asks sympathetically.

Steve nods shakily, “Yeah, that wasn’t as bad as getting stitched up, but it was… yeah, painful.” He waits until Eddie gathers up the rubbish of his leftover supplies and moves away to tidy the bag before standing up and settling against the headboard.

Eddie cleans up, carefully noting in his checklist the items used, and walks out into the living area to turn off the still-running television. He stops by the kitchen briefly and hands Steve a glass of water when he returns, who nods gratefully and takes a sip.

Eddie hovers before deciding fuck it, Steve’s a big boy. “Do you want a joint? Dull the pain a little?”

Steve grimaces, shaking his head ruefully. “No ever since the—” He cuts himself off, rolling his lips before starting again. “I was drugged and beaten once. I can’t get high without flashing to the other so, no. No drugs. But thanks, I appreciate the offer.”

Eddie’s knees give out and he lands by Steve’s ankles, reaching out to clasp a hand around one like it’ll keep Steve anchored here in time where there are no monstrous beasts, human or otherwise. “Jesus H. Christ. What is your life?”

Steve lays a reassuring hand over Eddie’s knee and if that doesn’t make him feel guilty, he doesn’t know what would. His stomach twists in on itself, here Eddie is nearly getting into scrapes with Tommy and Steve is being a hero, saving kids from racist dickheads and escaping hell.

“It’s okay, that was a while back. I’ll take a smoke though, if you’ve got one.”

Swallowing his self-flagellation, Eddie swiftly reaches for his pack of Winstons—this, he can manage. The gentle glow of the low lamps catches the glint of the plastic covering the red and white box.

Eddie positions himself to the left of the bed next to Steve, the old mattress creaking as he settles. He offers it and a pink plastic lighter while securing the ashtray on his lap so Steve doesn’t have extra to juggle.

Steve gratefully takes them from him and Eddie gazes around the bedroom, taking further comfort from being surrounded by his sanctuary. It had been a homey space when this was Wayne’s room — scattered with a few photographs and smelling of cigarettes and the leather notes of his aftershave. Compared to how Eddie had carefully shaped his room afterwards though it had been practically bare and impersonal.

Now, the room is filled with the life of a high school student: notepads, textbooks and messes of pens and pencils; flooded over with his love for fantasy and D&D: figurines and paint pots, magazines filled with modules and adventure outlines, stories written by Eddie himself; and overflowing with his passion for music: the inherited acoustic guitar resting against an amp, his sweetheart, the red Warlock, pinned to place of pride next to the mirror, the scattering of loud posters for Judas Priest, Dio, and Metallica taped across the walls, carefully positioned with precision but designed to give the room a vibrant, chaotic feel. All of it culminating into a restless energy to match the thrum that runs through Eddie’s chest.

However, the figurative warmth of his refuge does little to stave off the literal chill of the autumn air, the last month of fall readying itself to give way to winter.

As Eddie shivers again, he reaches over the side of the bed to swipe a grey hoodie discarded on the floor. He pulls it over his head and, as he tugs the sleeves over his hands, he thoughtfully eyes Steve’s thin t-shirt. “Do you want one too?”

Steve shakes his head, looking down at the crumpled pack in his hand, “Nah, I run hot.”

“Good to know,” Eddie waggles his eyebrows and feels a flash of triumph as Steve’s lips kick up before he pulls out a cigarette. “Are you sure it’s okay, you’re nearly out.”

Eddie peers over, unsurprised to see three lonely sticks in the old packet. “Go for it, I really only smoke when stressed or feeling social.”

Steve lights the cigarette, bringing it to life with a slow, deliberate drag that paints the dim room in the warm glow of its burning tip. The red cherry of the cigarette becomes a focal point to Eddie, a fiery ember dancing in the quiet.

Steve’s neck tips back, throat bobbing as he releases an exhale, a billow of smoke cascades from his lips, weaving sinuous patterns of flying serpents into the still air.

As the tendrils of smoke die away, Steve’s face smoothens, the lines of tension ease and the ever-present weariness etched into his features seem to fade.

“Same,” he finally says, in response to Eddie’s smoking habits. “I quit for Robin. She threatened to replace my conditioner with hair dye, and I know she’ll wait until I let my guard down and actually do it.” He chuckles, the deep sound rising affectionately from his chest. “I know better than to tempt her.”

The balloon in Eddie’s chest—made buoyant from the building pleasure of spending time with Steve, of having him all to himself, at finally being able to take care of him after weeks of anxiety—abruptly pops. Suddenly a smoke sounds like a wonderful idea, just peachy. He plucks the cigarette from Steve, ignoring the damp tip slick with Steve’s spit and steals a drag for himself. Takes comfort in the accompanying rush.

Steve artlessly continues to explain, “Not worth the risk incurring her wrath, really. Though,” he adds roguishly, “I think I could pull off being a blonde.” Steve flips his head so he’s looking up at Eddie, a swathe of hair falls over his forehead and one gleaming eye. “What do you think, Eddie? Good boy gone bad?”

Eddie’s exhalation gets caught on a cough, the smoke spits out roughly and he shoves the cigarette into Steve’s hand with a neutral hum. He can’t help himself though and once he’s swallowed the jagged ends of his breath he asks, “Would Robin like it though? Got to look good for the girlfriend, Steve-o.”

Steve blows smoke out through a confident smirk, “Nah, best friend. Platonic with a capital P.” He pronounces it with a smack of his lips, before forming a humoured pout. “She thought I was confessing to her once though.”

Steve snorts, amusement evident in his tone. “Wrong weirdo from school,” he says mysteriously, laughing as he looks across the room but obviously lost in memory. “She shot me down pretty quickly. Would have been a crash and burn too if she’d been right.” Steve mimes a plummeting plane with a flat palm before making a goofy explosive sound. “It was one of the best conversations on a toilet floor I’ve ever had. Got me a best friend out of it.”

Traitorously, that balloon starts to inflate again, the rising feeling feeds Eddie’s comically injured expression. He lays a dramatic hand against his heart, the other still holding the ashtray. “I’m insulted, Steve. I thought we had something beautiful in that boys’ bathroom.”

Steve slyly grins at him, “Our time together will always hold a special place in my heart.”

Eddie snorts in response but Steve leans in, more closely than necessary as he ashes the cigarette over the tray on Eddie’s lap. There’s a mischievous spark in his gaze, a subtle glint inviting Eddie into understanding his words. “But what could I do? You refused to take responsibility for the baby: I had to be daddy.”

Eddie freezes momentarily, something unbidden unlocking at the back of his brain until the absurdity of the moment flies through him and he starts laughing.

The sly shadows in Steve’s eyes retreat, as does his body; leaning back with a small smile while Eddie’s chortles start to fade. “Here,” he pushes the remains of the cigarette into Eddie’s hand, “I shouldn’t have too much or I’ll never stop. I’ll survive to reach 1986 only for Robin to hang me by my balls.”

Eddie amiably takes a last drag before stubbing it out, placing the ashtray on the floor by his side of the bed. “She sounds caring? In a terrifying way.”

The remnants of Steve’s smile lingers, a soft brightness that Eddie wants to trace. Steve wriggles further down the bed, leaning back and moving one hand under his head, only wincing a little at the stretch of his injuries. His biceps flex underneath the black t-shift which rides up, exposing a sliver of tanned stomach with a hint of hair dusted over it. Eddie curls his fingers over the itch to reach out and touch.

“Yeah, she’s great,” Steve says. “A polyglot; do you know what that is?” Steve looks up at him eagerly and Eddie is filled with an unbearable fondness, liquid soft like ink seeping through porous paper, leaving delicate, precious ribbons in its wake. Eddie nods silently, words momentarily leaving him.

“I didn’t,” Steve confesses like polyglot is a normal part of everyday conversation. “She speaks Spanish, French, Italian and Pig Latin — just because she wants to.” His pride flows clearly through his words, excited to share his friend’s accomplishment like a schoolboy telling his parents about his first friend on the playground. Made through shared opinions on milkshakes and shaken on spit palms.

It causes that ink to spill further, infusing Eddie’s voice with an indulgent warmth as he teases Steve. “Oh, yeah? I’m not sure Pig Latin counts.”

“It should,” Steve retorts. “If I can claim English then it should count as a dialect.” Steve sounds indignant on Robin’s behalf like he’s had this argument before. His enthusiasm tapers off, gaze lifting to the ceiling in quiet reflection. “Honestly, she’s too good for me. She’s going to get out of here and become, I don’t know, the president of the UN or something.”

“Are they presidents?” Eddie needles, hoping to provoke back that energy Steve suddenly lost. “Sounds like one of those jobs that has a British feel. You know, like Prime Minister or — Prime Master of the World,” Eddie calls out the title grandly, like a WWE announcer and Steve giggles.

“No, definitely president,” Steve finally says. “Do you know the first one was actually a Nazi POW? He came back from that to lead the leaders in defining human rights across the world. That’s cool.”

Eddie eyes him, “You really do like history.”

Steve breaks eye contact, shy again. “Still barely passed my classes. Could never keep the dates straight in my head.”

Thinking of a coming test, Eddie groans in sympathy but Steve sighs looking tired again. “Couldn’t really keep anything straight in school.” The lines on his face deepen and Eddie can’t control his curiosity, “How long have you been in this war? I mean, before you landed here.”

His lips pursed as he decides what to share, Steve says, “Not long, really. I shouldn’t call it a war; it was barely a battle, only a handful of days while we scrambled to keep each other alive.”

Eddie frowns at him in doubt, wondering at the lengths that Steve will go to minimise his pain, whether it be whimpers or tears or admitting to a hellish experience.

“But they were an intense few days,” Steve concedes. “And it’s also been this sporadic attack since ’83. We’d be getting back to our lives, settling back into normality and then bam,” Steve makes a fist and smacks it against the bed, “Here we go again.”

He releases his clenched fist, running a hand through his hair, allowing the bronze strands to cascade freely around his head. “I’ve gotten to the point where I can’t sleep unless I have a bat under my bed.”

“You must have been okay the other night,” Eddie says, thinking of when they had slept together in the same bed. “I didn’t hear you get restless.”

“No offence, Eddie,” Steve says with humour, “But I don’t think an atomic bomb could have woken you the other night.” A subtle interplay of emotions ripples through Steve’s expression before he relents with a faintly surprised mien, “But you’re right — it was probably the best sleep I’ve had in a while. Maybe I felt like I could rest for a moment because you were there. I’ve slept better with Robin in the same room too; it helps, I think, to have someone I trust with me.”

An image of himself observing Steve while he slept flashes through Eddie’s mind. At the time motivated a little because he liked looking at his handsome face, but also so he could watch over him a little longer and make sure that he didn’t disappear. Playing sentinel to the soldier.

Eddie chews at his lip, he’s been thinking about this, has had no choice but to think about it. If Steve is popping in and out of time, with no rhyme or reason other than to land in Eddie’s living room, then he can’t go wandering off like the lonely samurai Eddie had initially envisioned.

“Well, since you’re stuck with me and there’s not much space in a one-bedroom trailer, do you want to keep sharing?”

Steve’s open expression becomes faintly quizzical, quickly overtaken by a wary air. Despite remaining still, Eddie senses Steve withdrawing, distancing himself behind a swiftly forming wall. “To be honest, I thought that was the plan anyway. If I’m cramping your style or, I don’t know, it’s too weird to share your bed with another guy, I can get out of here. I don’t want to overstay my welcome; I’ll figure something out.”

“No,” Eddie’s hand flies out to grab Steve’s hand, intertwining their fingers before he even recognises that he’s done it. Steve’s stiff shoulders relax back onto the bed. “No,” Eddie repeats. “I think you should stay here from now on, it’s the safest option and I’m…” Eddie falters, words uncharacteristically failing him. “I’m happy to share a bed.”

The moment feels unjustifiably serious to Eddie, like he had peeled back a wet layer of his heart exposing the meat that beats inside. He deliberately moves past it with a teasing joke, “Especially if it’ll help with those luggage cases you call bags under your eyes.”

Steve scowls, though his hand squeezes Eddie’s. “You keep calling me ugly and I’ll start taking it personally.”

“Actually,” Eddie says, “I said you couldn’t be hot all the time. I think that’s a very different thing.”

Steve smiles smugly and Eddie realises that he’s been had, “As long as you know, then.”

His cheeks burning a little hot, Eddie glances away, taking a long moment to look about his room; the sanctuary that he can now extend to Steve, helping him to relieve at least one burden in his uncertain life.

He glances at the bedroom window, the curtains half parted to reveal that dusk has given way to night. In the distance, he can hear Millie Anderson shouting for her sons to come in for dinner and the yowl of a cat calls for its compatriots in the chilling dark. Soon the amber, yellow, and red of fallen leaves will give way to the deep greens of winter, sheltered by cloudy skies that only allow the smallest peek into the blanket studded with distant stars above. Eddie will miss them until they come back in the Spring.

Reminded of a similar constellation, Eddie looks over at Steve only to find him asleep, face soft and lips parted, breath falling rhythmically. A small hard knot releases in Eddie’s chest, unravelling an unacknowledged fear. Eddie realises that he’s been expecting Steve to disappear any time he looks away. Now, he watches his sleeping face, relaxed but for those two little creases still gathered between his eyebrows.

Eddie starts to stroke his thumb gently over Steve’s hand, fingers still intertwined with his own. Like a small miracle, the furrow releases and Steve lets out a contented sigh. Eddie watches over him for a long time before he falls after Steve, sleep taking him in her warm embrace.

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#steddie #time travel #stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #a tarnished copper boy #paperbackribs writing

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just-some-person-with-a-blog · 1 year

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Joel finding Ellie after David short exploration draft.

Hearing her echoed screams, seeing the smoke, the fire, nothing had hurt like this, not since Sarah, not even Tess. Nothing had felt like this before. This prolonged terror coursing through him, knowing instinctively he wasn’t going to make it in time. He wasn’t going to make it in time again. He was going to fail her like he failed Sarah. Hold her body, broken and bleeding, knowing every touch just caused more pain, more suffering for his girl, for his girls. Because she was his now. Not just some job, not cargo anymore, his girl, and she was dying he was sure of it. That’s all those screams could mean, she was hurting she was burning and it felt like he was burning to, inside out, the flames keeping her in bellowing out of his own chest. But then the doors opened. A figure emerging from the flaming building, smoke billowing out around her waist, sinking towards the ground in heavy clouds. And now he understood. He had felt the fear before, because nothing felt quite like this. Relief tanged with burning fear through his bones, his very blood surging through his veins with renewed life. Nothing was going to live up to the feeling of seeing Ellie, trembling, covered in blood and bruises, limping dazedly towards anywhere but where she was, alive. Alive and breathing. Chest moving, lungs filling with precious air. And finally, finally he reaches her, both their steps heavy in the snow, and he reaches knowing that nothing will feel right until he can feel those breaths against his own chest, feel her heartbeat next to his. But as his hands reach their destination, she screams. Alarm filling him, engrossing his brain in fog as he looks around for the cause, until the acute realization hits him, this all occurring within seconds, that’s she’s screaming because of him. He’s touching her and she’s screaming, and he knows by God as his witness, that whoever placed their hands on this girl, on his girl, making her scream with fear in her eyes she hadn’t even had facing guns, facing clickers, would die. Painfully, bloody and screaming to the end with no mercy to be found. But that anger had to go, so he held her face, so gently in the way he thought he had forgotten by now and choked out, “It’s me. It’s me.” Trying to calm her thrashing body, repeating it like a mantra, “It’s me. It’s me,” until her violent shaking ceased and clarity returned to her eyes, but his hands wouldn’t leave her. Cradling her face trying desperately to let her know she was safe, it was him, not whatever monster she had been trapped with. “Hey, look,” desperation filling the empty gaps between his words as his tone lilted upwards, disguising his need to dissolve into his own breakdown. “It’s me…It’s me.” And God, now that clarity has found her eyes, her body nullifying her fight and flight, the fear, the terror was what he was prepared for. Not this. Never this absolute trust mixed with horror haunting her face. “He…” She said, trembling threatening to return in full force. “It’s okay.” He mutters out bringing her to his chest, tucking her face into his shoulder, taking her to where she belonged, where he knew for certain she was safe. Tucking her away from whatever had happened, hiding away both their grief stricken faces, because he had to be strong. He had to be strong for her, and he couldn’t fall apart, at least not now, not when she needed him the most, covered in blood, shaking in pain and fear. With his hand placed with care on the back of her neck he utters “It’s okay. It’s okay baby girl. I got you. I got you.” And he did. It had been hours, maybe days she had been gone, and he had done things he thought he would leave in the past, but with his own striking clarity he knew that he would do anything for this girl. Anything to keep her safe, keep her laughing, keep her breathing. She wasn’t Sarah, and she didn’t need to be. She was Ellie. They were both his girls.

#the last of us #tlof #tlou spoilers #joel the last of us #ellie the last of us #joel and ellie #my writing

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outshinethestars · 2 years

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Growth in Winter (Daredevil fic)

Matt’s fairly certain that he would have killed himself if so many other people hadn’t had the same idea.

Foggy blipped. Foggy blipped, and so did Theo and exactly half of the whole Nelson clan. Claire blipped, Jessica blipped, Danny blipped, Luke blipped, Frank Castle blipped, even Spider-Man blipped, and that last hit unexpectedly hard. It was just, damn, kid couldn’t be more than sixteen. Called himself the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. New York just couldn’t have nice things, huh.

But Karen hadn’t blipped, and Father Lantom hadn’t, and his mom hadn’t. Matt was lucky, he knew, he was lucky.

That night, Matt went up to the roof and did nothing but listen. Understaffed hospitals were swamped with people dying, from car crashes and plane crashes and people whose caretakers had disappeared. Matt had never heard so much grieving before. It was too loud and too quiet at once and his city didn’t sound like his city anymore with half the universe gone.

And Karen came and put a hand on his shoulder, and he leaned into her touch. They just sat there until morning, and Karen said, “We’d better get to the office. I’m sure there are loads of people who need a good lawyer right now.” And really, Matt was lucky.

But Matt would have killed himself, or gotten himself killed, thrown himself at every armed idiot he could find, until sheerly by the laws of probability, he ran into a fight he didn’t make it out of. Except that next day, the suicides were reported on the news, and the numbers were staggering. And then there was more grief, and every suicide bred copycats, and Matt didn’t have time to self destruct, he didn’t have time to pick fights.

Every night Matt listened. He learned to recognize the sound of too many pills being poured out by trembling hands, what a heartbeat sounded like when a mind had decided to end its beating forever. He listened still for the sound of a gun cocking, but now he heard it echo in lonely apartments, ran towards it and listened to the bang that followed, broke into homes with the smell of blood in his nose and called 911 and did his best to keep them alive till they got there.

He got very, very good at breaking into buildings quickly, and very, very good at first aid, learned what to do when someone’d poisoned themself, shot themself, hung themself. He went out every night, and there was so much death, and so much of it was quiet, he missed so much, and he came too late as often as he didn’t, but if he saved one life it was enough, it had to be enough.

He prayed. He prayed so much in those first few months, prayed like he hadn’t done since he was a kid. Because when a fourteen year old girl slit her wrists in a public bathroom, and he had already done everything he could to stop the bleeding, and was just waiting for the ambulance to come, there was nothing left to do but pray, pray like he meant it, humbly. Because there was nothing else left in his power, and no one was listening but God. (“Oh, God,” he had heard her say, “Oh God, that’s a lot of blood. Shit, I didn’t, I didn’t mean it. Daredevil, they, uh, they say you can hear people. Daredevil, I fucked up.”)

(She lived. That girl lived, and that was enough. In the quiet of a city more than halved, that had to be enough.)

Nelson and Murdock and Page without Foggy felt like a hole in his chest. They still were in the supposedly temporary office above Nelson’s Meats, and Matt hadn’t realized how much he’d gotten used to the sound of it, of the bell that rang every time a customer entered Nelson’s Meats and Theo’s cheerful voice. Nelson and Murdock and Page was too quiet, painfully so. The space was too big without Foggy’s warm presence to fill it. So they disbanded. He and Karen packed everything up into boxes and left. Karen wanted to go back into journalism anyway. She was good at it, and the world needed people who knew how to look into darkness and put hope into words for them.

“I’m moving in with you though,” Karen informed him, “I’m not letting you go down a depression spiral again.”

Matt might have protested that, but, first of all, it was true, and secondly, he knew that Karen was secretly terrified of facing this new, broken world alone.

He might have turned in on himself anyway, might have buried himself in night work, because it was so immediate and so much simpler, and didn’t remind him so acutely of Foggy, if it weren’t for Marci Stahl.

He was having weekly brunch with his mom, when it occurred to him that Marci really didn’t have anyone apart from Foggy.

“What are you worrying about now,” Sister Maggie asked in the reproving tone that used to make Matt’s insides turn to slush with guilt when he was a kid. But Matt just smiled.

“Nothing,” Matt said, “Just thinking about mothers, and how you’re not a shitty one.”

Later, Matt looked up Marci’s asshole parents in the registry. They’d both been blipped.

He hadn’t seen Marci since Foggy’s funeral. It’d been a group Nelson funeral, because no one had the energy or time these days to grieve individually, and it seemed like at least half of what remained of Hell’s Kitchen was there. She’d cried at the funeral, even with everyone watching, and Matt had kept his distance, wrapped up in his own grief. He’d left early. He’d always found the Nelsons overwhelming when they were out in full force, turns out they were even harder to bear now, halved and grieving. Marci wasn’t in the same circles as the Nelson clan, she’d been alone at the funeral.

“Welcome to the orphans club,” Matt said to Marci by way of greeting when he showed up at her apartment. Because just because the world had half ended didn’t mean they were going to suddenly stop being assholes to each other.

“If you’re here for Foggy’s ghost, I’m gonna have to break your poor catholic heart, ‘cause souls aren’t real,” Marci said, case in point.

Matt walked in without her permission, but she didn’t slam the door in his face. (And she would have. She wasn’t above banging a door into the nose of blind man, it was one of the things Matt liked best about her.)

“Got anything to drink in this fancy place of yours?” Matt asked.

“Drank it all,” Marci said. She smelled like it, though she wasn’t drunk now. She also smelled like she hadn’t been sleeping much, and like she’d been crying. You’d never guess it from her voice, and Matt was willing to bet you couldn’t guess it from her face either.

Matt thought that’d always been the main reason Marci hated him, his ability to always read her, smiles and makeup be damned.

Matt bumped into the coffee table in a pointed sort of way, to remind Marci how rude it was of her not to tell him where it was, and Marci grudgingly told him where the couch was without actually inviting him to sit down.

Matt sat and Marci sat, and they were silent together for a little while, before Marci seemed to gather herself up and said, “So I hear your cute little law firm’s finally gone under. I always told Foggy he could do better, but I suppose he always thought it was his friendshiply duty to keep you afloat.”

And Matt said, “I’m still in business. So if you ever come across any clients too innocent for you to give a shit about, feel free to send them my way.”

Matt didn’t stay at Marci’s long. It smelled like Foggy, still. Matt hadn’t expected that somehow. The office didn’t, really, or at least, Matt was so used to how the office smelled that all he noticed was the absence of Foggy. Matt didn’t stay long, but he stayed a little while.

And he kept coming back. He couldn’t exactly put his finger on why, and he knew Marci couldn’t fathom it. It was just that Foggy was gone. Foggy was gone, and Matt remembered when Foggy was all he had, but Foggy was gone and Matt still had people, half the world was gone, and Matt was left with a hole in his chest and his city swept out from under his feet, but he hadn’t been left stranded. But Marci only ever had Foggy, really. And Marci could manage on her own in law school, and she could manage on her own as a career driven corporate shark, but no one could manage on their own in the apocalypse.

So here was Matt, some shitty consolation prize, her dead boyfriend’s best friend, here to drink her fancy bourbon and replace it with shitty beer, and taunt her like they used to do in college, because neither of them knew how to care about someone precious to them without being terrified they’d be taken away.

Matt would talk about his cases sometimes, all the ways he was helping people, and Marci would reply with snarky comments about all the money he wasn’t making, and he would ask about Marci’s cases. But Marci would reply, “To hell with my cases, I’m off the clock. And anyway, what does any of it matter these days?”

And then Marci was coming over to Matt and Karen’s sometimes to berate Matt at his place instead of hers. And then Karen and Marci were bonding (mostly over Matt’s inadequacies and self-destructive tendencies) which was a development that Matt observed with a vague sort of horror. And then Marci was going over Matt’s cases and telling him he was an idiot, and all the ways he should be doing his job better. And then, somehow, there was a new office with a new plaque on the door that said Murdock and Stahl.

Matt and Marci were both the perfect balance for Foggy. Together they were something that, in Karen’s words, should be banned by the Geneva Convention. But Matt knew how to seem friendly and approachable if he put in the effort, and Marci knew how to seem open and relatable if she put in the effort, so they managed well enough not to turn their clients away screaming. And when it came to their opponents, well, more than once they made the opposing counsel cry.

But before all that, Matt sat Marci down and said, “Look, if you’re going to be partners with me, there’s something I need to tell you. I didn’t tell Foggy and it really fucked him over and almost destroyed our relationship, so.”

And then he told her about Daredevil, and the super senses and all the rest of it, and at the end Marci said, “Huh. You know, it’s insane how not insane that all sounds,” and then, “I knew it! I knew you kept running into things on purpose to guilt-trip me for being a shitty seeing-eye-friend.”

And Matt said, “So, are you going to report me to the police, or?”

And Marci said, “Murdock, you idiot, I literally just said the f word. Come on, don’t get all mopey on me, don’t we have penniless orphans to selflessly rescue or something?”

So every night, Matt went to work and he helped people, and every morning he went to work and he helped people, and the whole world was too quiet and too loud at once, and the whole universe felt wrong, off balance so that Matt always felt he was half a step from falling, but Matt was too busy living for anything else.

Time went on. Slowly the suicides ticked down, the grief less raw, the permanence of the world sinking in. Slowly, crime ticked back up, organized crime reconsolidated, criminals who had taken time off for a while for their own grief, and out of respect for the dead, went back to the streets, as life went on for them like everyone.

And Daredevil was left alone in the city. The defenders were gone, spider-man was gone, even the Avengers were dead or had abandoned their posts.

Captain America had put down his shield and stopped fighting. He’d started some kind of group therapy thing. Karen said that the world now needed a listening ear more than a punch in the jaw. Matt wanted to know why the hell he couldn’t do both. Karen said that just because Matt believed in working himself to death and hadn’t prioritized his own mental health a single day in his life didn’t mean he should expect other people to live that way. More publicly, and in print, she said that Steve Rogers didn’t owe the American people anything, and that he had every right to live his life as he chose. Matt agreed with her completely on that score, but he still thought that what Steve Rogers’ mental health needed most was a good kick in the pants.

But regardless, that left Daredevil. Matt still didn’t leave Hell’s Kitchen, mostly, because he did prioritize his mental health sometimes, (thank you very much, Karen) and he knew full well that trying to solve all of New York’s problems was a straight road to insanity for him. So Daredevil stayed in Hell's Kitchen, but he stayed in Hell’s Kitchen. Through all the chaos of rebuilding a society halved, he was there. He was there through those first few months of suicides, and he was there when all of New York’s various criminals and criminal empires tried to take advantage of the world’s crumbling social infrastructures. He was there in dark alleys and lonely apartments, and no suffering was ever too small, and no odds were ever too long and nowhere in his little pocket of the world was too poor or crime ridden or generally overlooked to be within his notice. When all other heroes seemed to have abandoned them, there was Daredevil, with blood on his knuckles and a snarl on his lips, yes. But Matt never forgot the specific sound of a pill bottle being poured out too many at a time, or a gun cocking in a room with just one heartbeat, and the people, his people, never forgot it either. Matt learned the feel of blood on his hands with no one to fight. He learned how to talk, those times he came soon enough, or those minutes waiting for an ambulance. Learned to find that small frail seedling of hope, and hold it frailly in his hands. Because the world was hard and cruel, and bigger and stronger than you were, but still you had to get up. And you could get up, you could. Not just because you had to, but because it was worth it. He said it, over and over again. Not in words always, but in actions, in listening. Life is precious, no one is alone, not really, life is worth living, life is worth living, life is worth living , so many times, in so many ways that even he believed it.

So when it seemed like all the superheroes had abandoned them, the people of Hell’s Kitchen had Daredevil, and they knew he would come when they called.

And so, to Matt’s bafflement, New York fell in love with Daredevil during those five years after the blip. Because even for the people outside of Hell’s Kitchen, Daredevil was hope, Daredevil was still fighting, Daredevil was still with them, Daredevil never, ever gave up.

Afterwards, you could tell who survived the blip (and they were survivors, every one of them who made it through those five broken years) because if you asked who their favorite superhero was, almost every one of them said Daredevil.

(For five years Matt worked and he lived and he wasn’t alone. For five years he fought with a hole in his chest that eased but never shrank. And then Foggy was back. The world broke all over again because it wasn’t used to being so full anymore, and everything was so loud from the celebrating and the sheer mass of people that Matt had a headache for over a month, but none of that mattered because Foggy was back , and Matt was so damn lucky he wasn’t sure how to believe it.)

#daredevil (TV)#fic and fic-like things #my stuff #Matt Murdock #Karen Page #Marci Stahl

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nuk-terrible · 3 years

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um, why is there a hand on Bellamy’s chest?

#the 100 #Bellamy blake #Clarke griffin #also LMAO at Eliza's face here its f*cking hilarious alkhfakjdksaj #no but really who's hand is that and why does it seems like it's from a scene that got cut...#let me get my tinfoil hat on right now so I can talk about how this is probably Sheidheda's hand and they both were supposed to #get taken Bardo to be healed from their wounds #but instead something went down bts and they reshot the scene so Bellamy died #to get rid of the actor because rumor is he got fired #which would explain why Bellamy never had any kind of closure with Octavia or Echo... because those scenes between them in the Bardo cells #were never meant to be their last scenes together #😳😳😳#and if Bellamy was going to survive then he would have had Levitt's role in the finale being the bridge between the two groups #and he would of ended up bleeding out next to a dying Echo right before they transcended and HONESTLY IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE #WHY IS THERE A MYSTERIOUS HAND ON BELLAMY IN THIS SCENE????

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rubysunnday · 3 years

Text

bloody hands | k.b

A/N: this is my first time writing for ye old kazzle dazzle and i'm terrified, lol (i'm also shit at summaries)

Summary: Kaz never feels the need to explain his entire plan. He knows that, whatever happens, it will inevitably go according to plan. But when his plan goes wrong and Y/N is injured, Kaz is suddenly forced to comprehend with the skeletally hand of death once again.

"So, was the gunfire part of the original plan?"

Kaz shoot Y/N a withering look - one that would have anyone in their right mind turning around and running. Y/N just beamed at him.

"No, it wasn't," Kaz replied, glowering at her. "Jesper shouldn't have started so early."

"He's on time," Y/N reminded him.

"For Jesper that's early."

"True."

Y/N and Kaz ducked back behind the wall as bullets whizzed past them smashing into the houses behind them.

"So, we are being fired at because you couldn't be bothered to explain the full plan," Y/N said, trying not to glare at Kaz.

"No, we're being fired at because Jesper's timing is horrendous," Kaz snapped.

Jesper, as if summoned, suddenly appeared at Y/N's side, sliding to a stop on the slippery cobbles. "Right, that's that, then."

Y/N narrowed her eyes. "What -"

She was cut off being a tremendous explosion from inside the warehouse they'd all just being chased out off. Smoke billowed into the air and flames rolled up into the sky. The men who had been firing at them all exclaimed and ran off to the warehouse, leaving the alley empty.

"Well, you could have done that sooner, Jes," Y/N muttered stepping out from behind the wall.

"Well, of course, but then what's the point, love?" Jesper asked, winking at her,

Y/N began to laugh but was cut off as a more gunshots echoed through the street. She ducked and Jesper pulled her behind a barrel as he fired back at the lone gunman, hitting him in the shoulder as he ran off.

"You alright?" Jesper asked, panting. He glanced at Y/N who was nodding, albeit shakily.

"I'm fine," she said, peeking her head over the top of the barrel and slowly standing up. "Nearly died, but I'm fine."

"You didn't nearly die," Kaz drawled, walking over to them.

"We all nearly died, Kaz, all because you can't explain any plan in full detail!" Y/N yelled. "Inej almost got stabbed!"

"But she didn't," Kaz replied, glancing up at the roofs where Inej was inevitably haunting.

Y/N glanced over at Kaz and let out an exasperated sigh. "Would it kill you to actually explain a plan in whole? It would make our lives so - ah."

She cut herself off with a gasp of pain. Y/N lost her footing as she stumbled forward. and Jesper grabbed her, wrapping one hand around her waist, the other snaking around to rest on her back.

"Hey, you ok?" Jesper asked, his dark eyes full of concern as he supported almost the full weight of Y/N.

Y/N glanced down at her side and noticed a dark patch spreading from just under her right breast, staining her waistcoat. She raised a shaking hand to the blood stain and let out a surprised gasp as her hand came away wet with blood.

"Oh."

The sight of the blood on her hand seemed to push her over the edge and Jesper exclaimed as her legs buckled. His grip tightened as he caught her and gently lowered her to the cobbled street, kneeling down with Y/N and putting her head in his lap.

"Inej!" Jesper yelled, unable to see where the Suli girl had vanished too.

Kaz stared as blood dripped onto the cobble stones. His mind was still watching Y/N yell at him for being him. It wasn't meant to happen like this. His grip on the crow's head of his cane was almost crushing and he could feel the tiny, delicate beak cutting into his hand through his gloves.

Y/N was dying because of him.

If he'd told them what his actual plan was or if he'd just told her.

Y/N's hand was pressing against her right side, Jesper's hand covering hers as he helped put pressure on her side. The blood was seeping over both of their hands, staining them red.

Inej suddenly appeared out of the shadows, hurrying over to Y/N's side in silence. She unwrapped her scarf from around her head and began wapping it around Y/N's side as Jesper moved Y/N's shaking hand away from the wound. Jesper carefully lifted Y/N up as Inej meticulously wrapped it around, trying to slow the bleeding.

"We need Nina," Inej said aloud as she tied her scarf in a knot, securing it around Y/N's side. She looked expectantly over at Kaz.

Kaz was clenching his jaw tightly. He forced himself to swallow the fear and the mental image of Y/N lying next to Jordie on the Reaper's barge. "She's at the White Rose. Bring her to the Slat."

Inej nodded. She cast Y/N a worried glance before she climbed up a drainpipe and vanished into the clouds, leaving no sign she'd ever been there except the now bloody scarf around Y/N's side.

"Jesper, your face looks weird without a smile on it," Y/N said softly, her left hand finding his, their fingers entwining.

Jesper forced himself to smile down at her. He smoothed back her hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. "Sorry, love."

Y/N's eyes fluttered shut and Jesper moved his bloody hands to either side of her pale face, shaking her as gently as he could.

"Hey, hey, stay with me, love," Jesper said, not so gently, as he tried to keep her conscious.

Y/N blinked her eyes open and looked up at Jesper, the world spinning around her, the buildings around them looking even drunker than usual. "Hey."

"Hey, beautiful," Jesper replied, stroking her cheek with his thumb, both of them choosing to ignore the fact that Y/N's blood was all over Jesper's hands and was now on her face.

Kaz felt a pang of jealously rush through him. Jesper could comfort her and carry her to safety. Inej could hold her hand and hug her. Nina could heal her and touch her without feeling like she was about to pass out.

Kaz wanted to run to Y/N. He wanted to kneel down next to her and hold her hand. But he couldn't. He physically could not force himself to.

As he stared at her, at the woman he'd taken for granted for so long, he just saw her dead, lying on the street like Jordie had. The nightmare spiralled from there as he remembered the Reaper's Barge, the cold, bloated body of his brother. The hands. Drowning in a sea of rotten bodies.

No.

Y/N wasn't dead. She was still alive. She was still awake and wasn't dead.

A small voice inside him added the word yet to the end of his sentence but he refused to listen to it.

"Jesper," Kaz said, his voice rougher and croakier then usual. "We need to move her to the Slat."

Jesper recognised the pain and unfiltered emotion on Kaz's face. It wasn't normal to see his boss so openly show emotion but when Y/N was involved, Kaz was an unknown entity.

The man would never admit to himself that he had feelings for her. Kaz was in denial. He refused to acknowledge the emotions inside him. But he'd taken Y/N for granted. He just assumed she would always be on his left side, walking just behind him.

"Ready?"

Jesper's voice snapped Kaz back to the street and he looked at Y/N, her skin pale and sweaty, her hands shaking. Kaz nodded, gripping his cane tightly.

"Right, love, your knight in shining armour has arrived," Jesper said, a teasing tone to his words that didn't quite reach his eyes.

Y/N chuckled softly as Jesper moved to her side, his arms going under her legs and then around her back. Y/N let out a groan of pain and squeezed her eyes tightly shut as he lifted her up. She dropped her head onto his chest, feeling the warmth radiating from him, the soft material of his coat rubbing against her face.

Kaz's cane clicking against the cobbles was the sound Y/N focused on as Jesper carried her towards the Slat. She wanted to fall asleep, to just close her eyes and burrow into Jesper's jacket for warmth. But Kaz's cane kept clicking and Y/N focused on it, the sound alone reassuring her of his presence.

"Hey, don't doze off on me," Jesper said, glancing down at Y/N as her eyes shut.

"I"m not," Y/N said softly, her eyes opening sluggishly and looking up at Jesper as she re-wrapped her arms around his neck. "I'm not."

Jesper squeezed her leg as he noticed her eyes droop slightly, her head dropping back against his shoulder. "No sleeping on the job, Y/N, Kaz will have your head."

Y/N's laugh was weaker and Kaz felt a pang of pain in his chest as he looked over at her. She was dying. She couldn't be dying. But she was dying.

Kaz forced himself to reply, playing along in an attempt to keep Y/N awake. "You fell asleep on a job once, Jesper, and yet you're still here. Unfortunately."

Jesper let out a bark of laughter and Kaz caught Y/N smiling, albeit small. Good.

"We're nearly there, love," Jesper said quietly, spotting the towering, drunkenly slumped shack that was the Slat.

Y/N hummed a response but the blood loss was beginning to hit her. Her sight was speckled by black dots and her ears were filled with a high pitched ringing.

Jesper glanced down at her, noticing her silence ."Y/N, hey, stay with me, darling, we're almost there."

Y/N wanted to reply. She wanted to reassure Jesper, because she could hear the thinly disguised panic in his voice, that she was still with him but she was so tired and her eyes weren't letting her stay awake.

The urge to sleep won over her need to reassure Jesper and her eyes rolled backwards. Jesper felt Y/N's arms slip from around his neck, limply hanging to the sides, as she lost consciousness and felt panic grip his entire being.

Kaz slammed open the door to the Slat and the Dregs loitering around looked up, hands flying to weapons.

"Nina!" Kaz yelled, his voice doing a fairly good job at hiding his fear, his worry, the panic that Y/N was dying.

Nina rushed out the side room and met them halfway across the room, eyes running over Y/N, the blood seeping through Inej's scarf, the blood on Jesper's hands, on Y/N's hands.

"Quickly," she said, ushering Jesper into the room.

There was a table set in the middle of the room and dozens of candles had been lit to provide enough light in the dark room. A large, heavy oak chest of drawers was shoved up against the window and Inej was hovering against the far wall, her eyes locking onto Y/N's body as soon as Jesper carried her into the room.

"On the table, Jesper," Nina ordered, opening a drawer, numerous bottles clinking as she rummaged around.

Jesper gently set Y/N down on the table, carefully laying her down and moving her arms to rest on the wood. He took his jacket off and bundled it up, lifting Y/N's head up and setting the material underneath her head.

Kaz stood in the doorway, hands tightly wrapped around his cane, the metal beginning to cut through his gloves and into his hands. In any of building, in any other city in the world, he would've looked like an omen of death.

He forced himself to stare at Y/N as Jesper helped Nina unwrap Inej's scarf from around Y/N's side.

Kaz shuddered as his mind shoved Jordie to the front, the feeling of his brother's cold, bloated skin against his, drowning him. He was drowning in Jordie; in Y/N dying on the table in front of him.

Nina was muttering to herself as she worked, one hand around Y/N's wrist, the other holding a pile of gauze to her side. Kaz watched her intently and could see her counting Y/N's heartbeat as she tried to stop the bleeding.

Which is why, because Kaz was watching Nina with such intensity, that when Nina paused her muttering and looked down at Y/N, her eyes slowly widening, did Kaz feel his own heart shudder and almost stop.

Nina let go of Y/N's wrist, dropping her hand onto the table. She brought her hands together, her first two fingers overlapping each other, and then brought them down onto Y/N's chest.

It was as if Kaz could hear Y/N's heart slowing down and not speeding up. He watched as Nina repeated her movements, determination and panic and fear written on her face as her eyes welled up.

Kaz swallowed and felt the ocean overwhelming him again. He saw Y/N staring back at him, lifeless and dead just like Jordie. Her beautiful eyes staring emptily back at him, void of life. He'd failed her like he'd failed Jordie. The most important thing in his life was dead.

Inej was frantically praying, clutching her knife, Sankt Alina, tightly. Jesper was still for the first time since he'd carried Y/N in, his eyes red with tears as he stared at Y/N's limp, bloody body.

Kaz took one look at Nina and saw the dwindling hope in her eyes, the tears streaming down her face and turned around, walking out the room, his cane clacking loudly against the floor.

Nina sobbed and repeated her movements one more time, desperately trying to get Y/N's heart to start beating again. She'd saved Matthias in the middle of the ocean, during a hurricane, she could save Y/N.

Nina brought her hands down on to Y/N's chest once more with, perhaps, more force than needed. She kept them there and willed the organ inside her friend to not give up.

To keep going.

Second by second, Nina felt it slowly begin to beat again. Nina kept her hands on Y/N's chest, scared that if she moved even an inch it might stop beating again. Second by second, the colour began to slowly come back into Y/N's skin and Nina sighed, dropping her head in relief.

Inej let out a happy sob and closed her eyes, praying to her Saints once again and thanking them.

"Jesper, come here and wrap her wound, stop making that face, it's a bullet wound, you'll be fine," Nina snapped, glaring at Jesper when he balked at the thought, all thoughts of death and misery gone, their usual banter slowly returning.

Jesper walked around to stand next to Nina and took a clean wad of gauze and drenched it in alcohol. He pulled Y/N's bloody shirt up and gently pressed it to her side. His other hand reached up to Y/N's face and with a clean, damp cloth, he began wiping the dried blood off her skin.

"Oh, Saints, Kaz!" Inej exclaimed suddenly, making Jesper and Nina jump. She flew out the room like a breeze and dashed up the stairs to Kaz's office where he'd inevitably retreated.

Kaz was stood hunched in front of his mirror, his gloves off, his head hung. Inej walked in slowly, making sure to announce her presence by stepping on the creaky floorboard by the door.

"Don't," Kaz said, his voice croaking and Inej realised that he was crying. "Don't say it."

"Kaz," Inej said softly, slowly approaching him.

"No, Inej!" Kaz snapped, whirling around to stare at her. His eyes were red and his hair was a mess and his hands were shaking. "I took her for granted. I never," Kaz took a deep, shaky breath in, "I never told her or even showed her just how much..."

Even now, even when she was dead, he couldn't bring life to the words. They sat dead on his tongue, poisoning him. He hated his brother for making him this way. Hated Ketterdam for being the way it was. He even hated Y/N for being so fucking perfect that he had to fall in love with her. He was a fool so desperately in love that it scared him endlessly.

"Kaz," Inej repeated, slowly, gently, laying a hand on his arm.

The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up but Inej made sure to place her hand on the part that was still covered. Kaz flinched but didn't tell her to remove her hand or move back.

"Kaz," Inej said again. "Y/N isn't dead. She's alive. Nina brought her back."

Kaz turned his head and locked eyes with Inej. He didn't say anything but Inej understood. She nodded, reassuring him that she was being honest.

Perhaps, if Y/N hadn't been around, they would have fallen in love. Maybe it would be Inej he was crying over. Maybe it would have been Inej lying there, injured. Maybe Kaz would have torn the city apart to find the man who had injured her.

But he had Y/N. She was alive, three flights of stairs below, with Nina and Jesper at her side.

"I'll find him," Inej promised, dropping her hand from Kaz's arm and pulling her hood up.

"Leave some for me," Kaz said lowly, his eyes following Inej to the window. "I feel like ripping an eyeball or two out."

Kaz slowly limped down the stairs to Y/N's bedroom. He could hear numerous voices from inside and hesitated outside the door. Kaz Brekker, Bastard of the Barrel, heistated.

"Kaz, just come in already!" Nina yelled from within.

Kaz rolled his eyes and opened the door. "Stop spying on me, Zenik."

"It's difficult not to when your heartbeat is so loud," Nina replied, raising her eyebrows knowingly.

Y/N snorted and Kaz looked at her. She was sat on her bed with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Jesper sat next to her, his arm around her shoulders. Y/N was half leaning on Jesper and half on the wall and looked so alive.

Inej had found the man who'd shot her and, together, they'd ripped the man's eyes out, slit his throat and thrown his body onto the Reaper's Barge. It had helped quell the ghosts threatening to haunt him once again but they hadn't truly abated until Kaz had gotten to look at Y/N and see her talk.

Y/N gave him a smile and Kaz nodded back at her, trying to hide his relief at how alive she looked.

She was alive. She wasn't dead. She wasn't Jordie. She wasn't going anywhere. She was still here, with him, in Ketterdam. And he wasn't going to let her go.

"There's blood on your shoes, Kaz," Y/N said, gesturing to his black shoes with her head, her voice almost startling him.

Kaz looked down and eyed the single drop with distaste. So there was. A single drop. All that was left of the man who'd shot her.

Y/N laughed at the look on Kaz's face. "He looks like he just sucked a lemon," she said to Jesper, albeit loud enough for Kaz to hear too.

"No, that's his normal face," Jesper replied, smirking as he winked at Kaz.

Y/N laughed, throwing her head back. Her hair fell over her shoulder and her eyes sparkled in the dim, orange light of her room. Her laugh was like music to him.

And Kaz Brekker realised with a sudden, painful thud that he was completely and utterly besotted with her.

#shadow and bone #shadow and bone imagine #shadow and bone x reader #kaz brekker #kaz brekker x reader #kaz brekker angst #angst #six of crows imagine #six of crows #six of crows x reader

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theotheroccassionalfanficwriter · 3 years

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Cryo Archon!Childe fucking his wife on their wedding night and he gets her pregnant? and he's a little yandereish like the way you write him? your work is sublime

Thank you~! I had fun writing this since I never once entertained Childe being a cryo archon but the image of him having the signature tip dyed hair was simply o(*////▽////*)q

In Snezhnaya with Love

Summary: Cryo Archon's most treasured and beloved possession was not his gnosis, but the Tsaritsa that was protected in the depths of the Zapolyarny Palace.

Of the current Seven, the Cryo Archon, the Tsar of Snezhnaya was famed for his glorious victories in the battlefield, a once human who vanquished gods when meeting gods and slayed demons when meeting demons. All Snezhnayans held their Cryo Archon with high regards, loved him and respected him for all the battles he had won for himself and that of Snezhnaya. They tell the story of their Archon, the second to ascend among the Original Seven, whose battle prowess was second only to Morax of Liyue.

Though no one knew their Tsar’s once mortal name, their were many monikers he went by at the times he paraded himself as a mortal; Tartaglia of the Harbingers when in Snezhnaya, Childe when in Liyue, Herrscher in Mondstadt, Wakasama in Inazuma, Le Seigneur in Fontaine, Bhagavan in Sumeru, and Kasike in Natlan. Thus, the people of Snezhnaya found no need to discover their Archon’s once name.

And you were one of them, you had no need nor want to know the Cryo Archon, the Tsar, beyond what he wanted his people to know. All that mattered was that you loved him just as your fellow countrymen did. Though you were no devout follower of the Tsar, despite your status as the heiress of 10 Noble Houses of Snezhnaya’s high society, you still carried yourself like one.

You were after all graced with his element, and your Uncle Pulcinella’s position in the Harbingers ensured that you brought no shame to the prestige of your bloodline and your status as a Cryo Vision Holder. You were the embodiment of your Archon’s ideals, Strength not only to protect one’s self and family but also to challenge the Divine.

It was the price you willingly paid to enjoy the privileges your vision and status granted you. Perhaps in another world you would have gone on and married someone not out of love but out of duty, but such thoughts flew out of the window that one summer day in Morepesok.

It had been a vacation for you, a rare moment of freedom from the prying and judging eyes of the world. You had been allowed to roam free in your Uncle Pulcinella’s vacation villa in the rural seaside village. It was one of the top tourist destinations in Snezhnaya, a town seemingly stuck in time, where the rest of Snezhnaya was filled with towering buildings and skyscrapers of metal and light, Morepesok retained the traditional houses of Snezhnaya.

A rare glimpse of the past long gone. It was during this trip that you had your fateful encounter with the young man, his orange hair with sky blue tips that gently swayed in the cold wind, and his piercing blue eyes that had taken your breath away.

He smiled at you, curious and just a touch of arrogance that let you know he knew he was handsome. Your cheeks flushed not from the cold but from embarrassment.

“Hey there, girlie~!” He called out as he trotted towards you, his hunter attire letting you know he was one of the hunters of Morepesok.

“He-hello” You greeted him back, soft and shy. Stuttering as you felt your heartbeat quicken with each step that he took towards you.

“Don’t you know it’s dangerous in this area?” He asked you, eyes glinting with cold amusement and something in you wanted to rise to his unspoken challenge.

“Oh? Was there?” You replied, “With this being part of my uncle’s villa, I doubt that there is anything here that would be dangerous to me…”

His smile fades away and you continued, “Of course even if this part of the woods is no longer a part of his villa, other than our beloved Tsar’s ire, I would be the most dangerous creature out here.”

You punctuated your words with the masterful and powerful display of your control over Cryo. The frostarm lawachurl heading towards your location toppled over, the top of their head bleeding out from the spikes of cryo that burst out from their forehead. Their dying cry had the man before you looking back and his laughter echoed in the desolate winter forest of Morepesok.

“Hahahaha!” He laughed, hands on his stomach as he bent over “Amazing, comrade! This is the first time I’ve ever seen Cryo be used in such a way! Not even the Tsar was said to be that ruthless!”

You smiled at him, sweet and pleased at his praise, “Perhaps, our beloved Tsar has yet to meet an opponent that would make him use such cruelty.”

“Interesting, I’m Ajax of Morepesok. And you...must be Pulcinella’s treasured niece” His smile turned more genuine offering his hand to you he added, “Something tells me would get along most splendidly.”

And as you gave him your hand, he brought it close to his lips, kissing it gently and you knew, as the distant sound of the waves crashing into the shore sounded in the forest, that your first defeat was in the hands of this charming young man.

And it was your sweetest defeat, you spent most of your days in his cabin, an inheritance from his deceased family, your time split between sparring with him and going ice fishing. Each moment spent made you stronger, Ajax taught you in every weapon he knew. Each touch that corrected your stance sent shivers down your spine.

And neither of you shied away from the inevitable. His touches became less innocent, less sincere in teaching you. And you took every opportunity to have skinship with him, from taking advantage of the gentle cold air to asking for his help in reeling in the ridiculously large fishes in Morepesok.

Despite the never ending cold of Snezhnaya, the distance between you and Ajax slowly melted away with each shed of layer between the two of you. In his cabin, you were just a young maiden in love, and he was just your strong lover who sheltered you from the harshness of the world.

The domesticity of your everyday life with him lulled you into a false sense of comfort, the mornings and afternoons spent with him would come to an end. Maybe, it was the knowledge that you would never be able to return to this time, or perhaps it was your reluctance to be forgotten so easily that led to this point.

The moment Ajax had kissed you against his door, you had shed all pretense of propriety. You kissed him back, tongue entangling with his as his hands ventured down and began divesting you of your clothes. Neither of you stopped kissing as your hand went to his pants and unbuckled his belt, his hydro vision dropping to the ground in sync with him removing your top that held your cryo vision.

You broke off to breath and found your neck being kissed as Ajax lifted you up and you let out a surprised gasp. Your arms automatically embraced his neck as he brought you upstairs and into his bedroom. You had no chance to look around as he gently placed you atop his soft bed.

His lips trailed down from your neck to the center of your chest down to your groin, leaving a soft trail of kisses before he began to eat you out.

Outside the window of his room, snow fell harshly and the windows softly shook with each gust of wind. Idly you wondered what had made the Tsar rage about but this thought was lost to the lust and pleasure of your love making with Ajax.

You laid on his chest, utterly spent as he curled his arm around you and gave you soft kisses atop your head. Neither of you spoke, unwilling to face the reality of your departure. But you were never one to falter from the things that you didn’t like.

You were always moving forward. Bravely facing whatever comes your way, be it life or love. So you broke the silence, because it was what you believed you owed him.

“I’m enlisting in the Fatui” Your voice soft, “This would be most likely the last time we would meet.”

You felt his hand on your waist tighten before it relaxed. You looked at him and was greeted by his warm smile.

“But not definitely” He said and your heart ached because you knew that even if you met him next time there was no chance for anything more.

“Ajax, the next time we meet, I will no longer be as I am today.”

“...”

His eyes grew cold and you found yourself underneath him, he looked at you darkly and foolishly you still found yourself lost in his beautiful eyes.

“We will meet again,” he said, voice hard and steely “and no one would be able to take you away from me.”

His kiss was hard and biting, cold and passionate, and for a moment you believed him.

“Promise me then,” You begged him as tears gathered in the edges of your eyes as you surrendered to him once more “promise me that you’ll wait for me, that you’ll fight for me and I’ll return to you and fight for you.”

“I promise” Ajax smiled, his coldness and anger melting away as he showered you with all of his love. Leaving traces of himself on you, marking you to proclaim his rightful ownership of you.

Enlisting in the Fatui and joining their ranks hadn’t been easy with the additional expectation being brought by your familial connection with one of the current Harbingers, and with that the hatred and envy of others. You didn’t care for it though, thoughts of Ajax and the life you’d have with him making it easier for you. Then again, the Fatui was a place where strength was respected and it was something you had in spades, from fighting abilities to scheming. You didn’t have the best leadership skills but that was something that could be slowly learned.

All in all, you had gritted your teeth, bore the difficulties, and slowly but surely made your way up in the ranks and into being a Harbinger. Innamorati, they called you and you it was a name you proudly wore. A name bestowed upon you by your beloved Cryo Archon, the Tsar with his bright orange hair and deep blue eyes that reminded you of Ajax.

It was surprising to see such a familiar and beloved face in that of the beloved Archon but you had learned to hide your emotions. But even as you walked away from him and went home to celebrate, the unmistakable pull you felt didn’t allow you to delude yourself completely.

You needed to see Ajax.

The trip to Morepesok was faster with the portable waypoint Ajax had made you. An easy temptation to meet him in the middle of your enlistment but one you never took. You wanted to prove yourself, and at the same time show him that you’d never easily cave, be it for him or for something else, you would keep your word. And maybe that was why the waiting figure of your Tsar, in Ajax’ clothes, had shaken your heart.

The winds howled and snow fell harshly, each step he took towards made you tremble whether it was from trepidation or something else you didn’t know but as he took a strand of your hair and held close to his lips you couldn’t help but call for him,

“Ajax?”

You felt at loss, not knowing how much of the days you spent with him were true, not knowing if his words had been meant. You wouldn’t be able to take it if it wasn’t.

“Yes, my love?” He asked, gently and comforting as he took you into his arms and held you tight enough that it hurt.

You didn’t know what to say, unable to put your feelings into words so you buried your face into his chest, held him just as tight with your trembling hands and begged him to understand what your heart wanted.

You never noticed how you remained unaffected by the cold, despite the howling winds and harshly falling snow that surrounded you. All you could think of was the feeling you held tightly as Ajax carried you inside his home, up to his bedroom and slowly but gently began to undress you.

You made no protest beyond the need to have your hand held by his. He had laughed, soft and gentle, at your clinginess but no less than pleased at it.

“I’d need my hand to properly undress you” He said even if he had no problem tearing your clothes off.

You gave him an unimpressed glance but nonetheless leaned close when he moved to take your panties off, you snuggled closer to him, holding his hand tighter. You felt your panties drop to your feet and you moved to take it off them. Ajax pushed you to sit and the bed, finding it adorable and pleasing how you easily complied.

Trusted him so much that you made no protest beyond the soft pout when he untangled your hands. He gently rolled your black thigh highs off your legs, raising one leg high to slowly and teasingly slide it off your smooth legs.

He smirked at seeing your pussy twitch ever so often, knowing that you were surely having lewd thoughts. So he pulled you closer by your legs until your pussy was just a scant few centimeters away from his face. Your breath hitched and you unconsciously wanted to close your legs but his hands stopped it and began the process of taking off your remaining thigh highs. The process barely took a minute but it felt so long that you were ready to beg him.

When your thighs were freed from your thigh highs, you spread your legs, fingers going towards your labia and spreading it wide for him to see.

“Please?” You begged, voice soft and cute as you showed him your glistening wet pussy.

And Ajax, had never been one to deny you. Spoiling you with gifts and affection until you were drunk and dizzy from it. His mouth pressed close to your cunt, tongue licking the outside, circling your clit before it made its way in. He ate you like the sweet treat that you were, holding your thighs securely as you writhed on the bed with pleasure, moans growing louder and louder with each passing minute until you were crying for release.

He was relentless in teasing you, calloused hands teasing your clit before stopping when you were on the edge of your orgasm.

“Ajax~” You cried his name, moaning and panting as his fingers fucked you “please le—ahh!”

“Aren’t you my most devoted Harbinger?” He teased, “Surely you can hold on until I order you to come?”

You nod your head with slight hesitation but it was something Ajax could forgive seeing how you were feverish with want and your earlier words of begging for his cock.

His fingers went in and out of your pussy, each thrust accompanied by the squelch of your slick, his saliva and the hydro that coated his fingers. Your pussy loosened with each passing minute as he alternated his attention to your sweet cunt and your cute clit.

When he had deemed you loose enough, he stood up and freed his cock from the tight and uncomfortable confines of pants, he let his pants and briefs drop to the floor before he climbed the bed and in one smooth motion, plunged his cock into your waiting wet pussy.

“Cum” He ordered and you did, voice a sweet melody to his ears as he fucked you through your orgasm, the loud creaking of the bed and the sound of the head board as it repeatedly slammed on the wall made you aware of your situation, as the haze of lust slightly lifted.

It didn’t do much beyond making you want to hold his hand which Ajax did, held your hand as he repeatedly rammed his cock into your pussy, slowly reaching your depths with each thrust of his cock until he let out his cum inside you, spilling it deep inside your pussy that Ajax knew that there wasn’t any impossibility you wouldn’t end up pregnant.

He softly fell on top of you, caging you beneath him as you hugged his muscular back and simply existed in that moment. His cock remained inside of you and the feeling of being connected in such a way, on having all of him touching your skin, the soft sound of his ragged breaths and his scent mixing with the smell of sex that pervaded your nose anchored you in this precise moment.

Where the world felt like it had melted away leaving the two of you alone. Neither a monarch and his subject nor a god and its believer. Just you and him, as lovers.

“Did you really mean it?” You asked, soft and preparing for the worst.

“Yes,” He answered, voice equally soft as he squeezed you tight, he continued “I meant every I love yous I said to you, every promise made.”

He kissed you on your neck, on the vein that betrayed your heart’s quick pulse. He inhaled your scent which he had missed so dearly, remembering the nights he had spent thinking of you, wondering what you were doing. The nights he laid awake missing your warmth on his side, the afternoon naps where he held you close to his heart.

He watched from afar as you slowly and steadily made your way up in the ranks, each battle won and lost that slowly shaped you into a Harbinger. He thought of the days that made him want to simply steal you away, lock you in his room until you forgot your family, your duty, and only had him in your mind.

But he stopped himself, he knew that doing so would make you lose the shine that had entranced him, he would lose the you that he came to love. The you that was bound by duty both self-imposed and ones imposed by society. So he waited, until the day came when you stood before him, surprise hidden well but he was Ajax, he was your Cryo Archon, he was your lover whom you eagerly wrote every week.

So he knew your tells better than anyone else, knew the moment it clicked in your mind, saw the trepidation behind your eyes and Ajax wouldn’t have that. He had promised you after all, and he was one to keep promises.

Even if one day you wanted to leave him, he wouldn’t allow you. He had a promise to keep after all.

In the depths of Zapolyarny Palace was a room where the Tsaritsa, the Tsar’s most beloved wife resided. It was a room filled with splendor and grace, the best and most beautiful artworks and gadgets decorated the room.

It was a room that the Tsar loved the most, and thus it was the most important room in the Palace. The best of the Fatui sans the Harbingers guarded the doors that led to the halls of the room. It was strictly guarded and meant to ensure that not a single thing would be stolen from the room.

It was after all where you resided, a place where the Tsar designated as his home. His personal haven from courtly matters and godly duties. And today was no exception, every day you spent on the room was reliving your wedding night.

The soft silk sheets that you felt on your back, the white lacy lingerie that you wore underneath your wedding gown. It’s tiny slits that showcased your exposed and erect nipples, the your cum filled pussy that dripped with your husband’s thick cum that was always replenished multiple times in a day. The soft clink of the chains that held your wrists and had your legs spread widely. The familiar sensation of your collar that held your Cryo vision, a mark of his favor and love, a seal that ensured you would remain his until you drew your last breath. The soft cotton of your blindfold had enhanced your other senses beyond compare, making you hyper aware of everything that was happening in the room.

The familiar footsteps on the warm carpet of your bedroom, the familiar rustle of his clothes as it fell softly on the ground, cape first, shirt second, belt next and lastly his pants. His warm calloused hands gently caressing the insides of your thighs.

The same routine, repeated every day at different times since you married him. You couldn’t tell how much time had passed since he blindfolded you, how long you had spent with him, the days blurred as he never removed your blindfold.

He took you apart every time and mended you back, fucking you over and over again until he felt satisfied, until your pussy felt raw, until you were begging him for sweet release, until you lifelessly laid on his chest enjoying the feel of his hard cock being warmed by your cunt.

Your apprehension melted away with each fucking, with each release of his seed inside you, until you could only demand more of his time, more of his attention, more of his cum filling you up.

You loved when he was rough with you, the harsh and loud clinks of the chain as you moaned wantonly, begging him to cum inside you, to use you as he saw fit. And each time he went along with your wishes, fulfilling each and every demand you asked of him.

You kissed him with everything that you were, unrestrained by duty or dignity, only knowing what you want as you rubbed your naked and marked body against his, you weren’t the dignified or noble Tsaritsa the public knew. In this room filled with the most prized treasures of the Tsar, you were his most precious slut.

A slut that opened your legs for him alone, a slut that presented your ass and pussy to him with eager eyes hidden by a blindfold. A slut that couldn’t wait to be filled to the brim. It was his duty, his calling as a husband and as your lover to fulfill your needs, to ram his cock again and again inside your loose pussy that held so much of his cum even when your stomach was already showing.

It was his duty to ensure that you, his lewd wife, would be filled with his cum, from your pussy, to your asshole, to those pretty pink lips that eagerly wrapped itself on his cock. He loved how you didn’t care where he fucked you in the room. He loved how different you acted depending on whether he was ramming his cock inside you on the bed, or fucking you in front of the window.

He loved the way you moaned when the table digged on your hips, the way you grasped at the cover as he slid his dick in and out of your loose pussy, cum spilling down your thighs and pooling on the floor. He loved how slutty you could get when being fucked in the bathtub, water sloshing as you repeatedly slammed your pussy down his cock, moaning loud enough that some of it undoubtedly could be heard behind the thick doors of your room.

He loved the sounds you made, pleased and eager, as he fucked your mouth in front of the fireplace, your naked body sitting on the floor while a Cryo dildo repeatedly slammed inside your pussy.

He loved you when your stomach began showing signs of pregnancy, growing big with each passing week and yet you remained unaware, or perhaps you paid it no mind.

He couldn’t tell if you were genuinely happy with the arrangement but as long as you remained by his side, happily doing what he wants, whispering I love yous and adoration in his ears. Eagerly kissing him good morning and good bye, Ajax didn’t put any thought on it.

On the ninth month of your pregnancy, the blindfold was taken off, you looked at him with love and the unmistakable look of longing.

“I missed you!” You told him, eagerly running up to hug him, and plaster your entire naked body, cum dripping down between your legs, to his.

He laughed at you, amused and loving and gently held you close, “You shouldn’t run so quickly, you’re carrying our child after all.”

You nod, and look at your bulging stomach, hand instinctively rubbing it.

“I hope this child will look just like you!”

“Is that so?” He asked a pensive look in his eyes as he rubbed your stomach.

“Yes! How lovely would it be to see a child version of you? A mini-you calling me mother!”

He smiled at you fondly, pleased to know that you still loved him. He kissed you lovingly on your lips and whispered, “As you wish.”

#childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #genshin impact childe x reader #cryo!archon childe #genshin impact x reader #yandere childe x reader

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burnyouwithacigarettelighter · 3 years

Text

part i, autonomy in your coherence | c.g

With something like time that runs round with the world — ignoring it’s inhabitants and stealing things that you’d hidden away for safekeeping — you’ve taken up the hobby of art, furiously sketching faces that are six-feet under.

The skill is beautiful and horrific all the same, watching like a person with amnesia as the portraits begin to lose their depth, the freshness, the personality that came free with who you’d chosen to print on the page.

You’ve forgotten your feelings for Carl, because he didn’t feel the same.

You just wished you did a better job at it.

WARNINGS: mentions of death, suicide ideation

this is a continuation of watch you burn away and i recommend you read that, first! this is also part of a series, so here is the masterlist if you need it!

(cross-posted on ao3!)

Your father once told you he had a patient that died from heartbreak.

“Your heart can’t really break, though, right?” You’d said. A doctor for a father and a laboratory technician for a mother made you more than aware of things, seeing through the myths and pretty white lies of figures like Santa and the tooth fairy.

(They had gone through with it anyway, because although their child knew, it was a gateway to normality in such a busy home.)

Your father scratched his chin, unsure how to respond. “My patient had died from a broken heart, though the process wasn’t as simple as it’s term name. A broken heart — the nonliteral meaning — can be the cause and the domino toppling to many things that could lead to death.”

“Like what?” You’d said with little admission into the conversation, having been flicking through a novel you’d picked up a while back (which featured a one eyed pirate and his partner who’d ended up dying in the end — not that you knew, yet, at least.)

“I don’t know, er,” Your father swirled his coffee lightly, gesturing wildly with his free hand, “Mental health issues, for one. Erratic actions, depression, a lost sense of self. Obsession.”

“Huh,” You muttered, looking up at your father for the first time. “A lost sense of self? Really?”

“What is your father teaching you?” Your mother said, stepping into the kitchen with a questioning expression. The conversation ended there, without so much as a thought after.

You wish you pried your father for further answers. What you’d give to get the workaholic of a man to dump his duo psychology medical major thoughts unto you with little care.

The knowledge would be gold in your time of need, when pulling and pushing distance further between you was like venturing through a field of thorns.

(Perhaps you just missed your parents. But that couldn’t be it, right? They’d died and you had lived, their blood on your hands and the gun in your fingers, their glazed over eyes and your own that nearly matched, cold and willing without a drop of emotion.)

But you’d gotten through it for him— without him. Without anyone, quietly harboring scratches and bleeding from the field with little effort.

If someone asked, you would tell them with full and honest confidence that you harboured no more attachments. You were a naive teenager, running through your feet and over yourself for something that was just a crush.

Crushes are — in their whole singularity and purpose — temporary.

They are brief, and momentarily something that causes ripples and waves in your thoughts, just the slightest mention or faint sight makes you detour down a road of sickly sweet dreams and fantasies.

He was first love (like? You didn’t love him, no, it was a crush and it was something for the unattainable and the inappropriate — in which with full truth, he was.) so you poured the honey glazed remembrances and rose coloured lenses over your memories, because he was a first love, and you know that those were cracks in the heart, growing vines and constricting the part that was him — the part that’d always, always be there, without a doubt.

(However much you didn’t want it to be.)

The leaves and the venomous flowers that sprout in decaying grooves come with age, and you are older now.

You bear fresh scars that litter your entire being and wear newly buried bones of people who were once not just that, the dirt still sitting in the crevices of your nails, and you seem to forget their voices with each passing day.

More and more, the faces look like reference art rather than a taken from life picture, which was all telling them to sit still and watching their eyes crinkle at the edges when you show them the result, voices echoing and asking if they could have it.

Everyday, as it has become a peevish habit like biting your nails or obsessively reminding yourself your stove is off, you draw pictures of everyone.

If you are close enough with them, you ask the subject to sit and model for you, analyzing every breath and laugh they take when you crack a joke or engage them in meaningless conversation just to see how the light hits their brows when they raise, the shadows pooling in their aging lines.

Everyday, you wish and hope and even fucking pray that their portraits continue to be something of anxious routine, rather than trying to dump their image out of your head and onto paper so you can see their faces one more time.

His image seems to change with each moment he sits in for you, once a face with two piercing blues, then a patch and eyes that looked at the dusty wooden floor, and later, someone who looks at you straight, something that told you he was a survivor, who bore his battles proudly, the scar on the right of his face sitting ruggedly and bewitchingly.

You draw him, exactly the way you see him, and when you show him the picture, he laughs, and says “You made me look too pretty,” and you shake your head, “It’s exactly the way I see you.”

You do her, too, upon request. When she sits, you draw her almost like it was professional, drawing the curvature of her face with exact precision, intense shading, marking the features she holds. The dip in her nose, the straight of her hair.

(You often forget who you’re drawing in these moments, and when you step away from the canvas you’re hit with whiplash. It’s subconscious, the way you do these things to please him, wanting to see so clearly how his face spreads delicately with delight.)

It takes a little while for you to convince Ron. When you first propose the drawing, he gives you a confused face, before walking off to do shooting practice. He’s gotten better with the gun over the years, and doesn’t respond when you tell him you know why.

(His mother didn’t come out of it alive, and his brother didn’t come back without harm. The younger boy was alive, but would grow up with only his brother by his side and one less limb to account for.)

The second time, he makes a snide comment, albeit with no bite, about how ‘you must be a horrible artist, to ask me of all people to model for you.’

The third time, you’ve dragged him to the small office you makeshifted for the drawings in the garage. He studies every slit of paper you’ve ripped out of your book, the unfinished sketches or yet-to-be painted canvases piling up against the walls. Complete works sit proudly on your wall, displayed for the world to see.

His hands hover over the paints sitting on your desk, charcoal, dirt, sticks, paintbrushes, handmade dyes, wallpaper cut-outs.

“Why?” Ron says curiously.

“‘Why?’ what?” You echo, fiddling with a fork you grabbed from the kitchen, splaying out a thick lather combination of beet dye and cement onto your finger to check the consistency.

“Why do you draw these portraits? I get the others because,” He says, leaving the words “because they’re dead” hanging in the air between you two in mutual and regretful acknowledgement, “But you draw these everyday. You drag Carl and Enid off, or just sit on the benches and draw Maggie and Glenn knee-deep in the dirt.”

You sigh a dreadful breath, wiping the rest of the beet-cement mix onto the page with the pad of your fore-finger. “We’ll forget them one day.”

He looks at you, unblinking. The dead, the gone, and the soon to be long forgotten only existed in your memories, in your words, and when the time came that the world had moved on and stopped, they would cease. Their whole memory relied on the living, nothing about them able to reach and grasp life on their own. Memory was all that was left, and it was all you could do to wash away regret.

“And the rest?”

You bite your tongue hesitantly, your movements rigid, “You see their portraits. Everyday they get less and less coherent. When — when time comes , these drawings will be the only thing getting me by.” You whispered.

The ball had dropped. Coping and grief in it’s big and ugly form, preying on your conscious hungrily, taking shelter in your largest worries. Claws sunken in your flesh, the monster was a thing that felt like it would never go away, because it would loom right alongside death itself, watching and waiting for the moment they’d deemed someones time to have been enough.

(It would never be enough. Enough meant they’d pop in from next door and ask to borrow something, enough meant they’d swipe dirt across your face to make you angry — enough meant they would come in everyday and sit for their portrait once more.)

A creaking on the floorboard caught your attention, eyes watching as Ron’s feet walk to the corner of the room, before hopping onto the wooden seat with little effort.

“I’m not going. I never will. But — do it anyway. I’d… like to see how I look on paper.” He said cheekily, picking up a thin pencil off your desk and handing it out to you.

So you did. Seconds turned to minutes and minutes snowballed into hours in the dim lighting of the garage, asking the blond to turn his body, stretch his head and make different expressions, fulfilling and destroying the little worm of worry sitting in your head.

When you’re done with the charcoal, turning it around for Ron to see and to inspect, he asks, “What about you?”

“And what about me?” You say. His questions never make sense without further discussion, but the boy always has to wait for you to pry and ask him to elaborate.

“You don’t have any drawings of yourself. You’re the artist, the photographer, the one who makes these things that will stay longer than the memories and the words — so what about you?”

It’s rare that Ron delves into his emotions and the things he really means, but when he does, it’s something that stays, for a long while.

“I,” You didn’t have an answer for it. You weren’t one to do a self-portrait, it not being the same as having someone to sit and take from. “I don’t want to.” You finished simply, an ice cold realization coming to reality in you.

“Why?” He says the same words as before, but the words hold a heavy weight.

“I don’t know.”

You knew.

Maybe one day, you’d wished that you’d wash away like seafoam on the beach. You wouldn’t leave a single portrait behind of you, and the memories and the words were left mum behind his lips, because you knew how he got in a loss.

Quiet and unfeeling, it was so selfish of you that you’d counted on how he got in that state to leave you behind, neglecting you like the fruits of your memories you’d never get to bear.

Ron’s gaze bore into you like he knew exactly what you were thinking, telepathically taking in every thought you’d conveyed at your dispense.

“You should.” Is all he says, before stepping off the wooden stool and out the door.

What was wrong with you? You feel so… entirely foolish. Obsolete. Embarrassing.

You walked past the remnants of those who were gone everyday, obsessively creating canvas over canvas of them and the only thing you could think was that you’d wish to position yourself beside them?

This world was catching up to you, and fast, but you’d just have to run faster than it could.

#twd #carl grimes x reader #carl grimes #chandler riggs #angst #the walking dead #twd x reader #the walking dead x reader #the walking dead carl #carl grimes x you

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slasherholic · 3 years

Note

Could you please write more about being the colletors favorite, but maybe you try to get away from him, and he hunts you down? can be nsfw i love your writing for him :3

didn't end up being nsfw but I’m not opposed to writing a second part

synopsis: bad things happen when you disobey asa. terrible things happen when you disobey him like this.

contains: gender neutral reader, depictions of torture, threats of torture, fear play, drugging, body horror, depiction of a panic attack. not as dark as it could be but still quite dark.

Asa Emory x Favorite!Victim!Reader | One More Chance

Of all the victims displayed around the hotel, none haunt your mind like the dolls.

That’s what you’ve named the people he rearranges beyond recognition.

People with their arms and legs amputated at the joints, bolted to walls or hanging by chains from the ceiling, kept alive with IV bags and feeding tubes forced down their stomach. Some have sewn shut eyes or a sewn shut mouth. Some have body parts that are not theirs, stitched to places they have absolutely no business being. Some are peeled wide open. All seem conscious and alert when his footsteps echo past.

They never live long. Within a week or two, they wither, inevitably. From infection, organ failure, malnutrition, shock — or, you would assume, pure anguish. Even so, you’ve seen how he tends to them to make them stay alive. These creatures are his flower garden; he waters them diligently and makes sure they have fresh soil. When they die, he preserves them in the lobby in grand glass tanks.

You’ve been in the room before when he carries out the procedure. He likes to make you watch. The most obedient ones get sedated, but some just get restraints. A lucky few die during the operation — but the ones that live through the torture are rendered shattered, broken, docile husks. His breathing creations. His timid dolls.

Ironically, it was in the lobby that you were caught. You had been so close to the door, so blinded by adrenaline that you nearly crashed into the thin razor wire stretched wall-to-wall just feet in front of you. One moment’s hesitation to make a choice, to risk flaying yourself alive and bleed to death, or surrender and be tortured for days — and his dogs were upon you. The door to your escape had shut.

He called off the dogs. He knelt by your head, knife in hand. He seized you off the tile, by your hair. And slashed your cheek so hard you felt the blade scrape bone.

You started screaming for help. For anyone. The door was right there. Someone might hear you.

The dolls preserved in the tanks all around watched.

He slapped your face with such force your thoughts stopped.

You felt the furious jab of a needle into your thigh.

And now, you’ve woken up restrained to a cold steel table.

All his surgical equipment is spread out on the metal countertop nearby. The large figure in all black stands with his back toward you, putting on a fresh pair of gloves.

You notice the thick dotted lines drawn in blue marker beneath your elbows and knees. A moment later, when your thoughts come sludging back, you realize what he’s about to do to you.

Your face goes cold and tingly and your hands seize up. You wheeze and sob and wheeze. There are black spots bursting across the ceiling, eating your vision away.

Between breaths, you plead and beg him no and no and no.

You’ll never try to get away again. You promise. Please one more chance. You mean every word of it down to your bones.

His hand alights on your cheek where he grips you softly. His fingers are warm through the nitrile. He strokes your face where he sliced you and you feel the stitches in your skin. He’s already cleaned and dressed the wound.

Brushing your mouth with his knuckles, he presses a finger firmly to your lips; quiet.

You obey him without thought. You can’t shut your mouth fast enough. Sucking in huge breaths, nostrils flaring rapidly, the crying won’t stop. The panic is only mounting.

Maybe if you’re good, if you obey his every command from here on out, he’ll do it while you’re asleep.

He comes back and stands over your head. He holds up a needle. Flicks it to get the air bubbles out. Squirts the plunger a little, and liquid spurts into the air. Some lands on your cheek. It’s cold. You cry harder.

Fear of death compels you to try and save yourself one last time.

He doesn’t have to do this.

Your lower lip quivers so terribly you can hardly get the words out.

You’ll never try to get away from him again.

You’ll do anything he wants from now on, you’ll never run away.

Please just one more chance.

He stands above you, needle in hand, looking at you the way he did the first time he threw you down in that trunk, just before he slammed the lid shut.

The needle plinks on the steel table as he sets it next to your head. His palm comes down on your cheek and he gives your face a few gentle, goodbye pats.

He picks the syringe up again and slides the needle into the base of your neck.

Weeping freely, you don’t say anything more as he strokes your hair, wiping your tears as they come.

It’s a different drug from the kind he uses to put you to sleep. Though your body feels heavy and relaxed, like you could melt through the table and into the floor, your eyes don’t feel the need to shut. He intends for you to be awake for it.

Your heart is beating so fast it must be about to burst.

You’re going to die before he even makes the first incision.

You can feel yourself dying right now.

You don’t realize he’s bent down next to your face until his mouth is very close to your head, so close you can feel the heat of his breath. Fingers ghosting gingerly along your scalp, he pets your hair in soothing, circular motions, while his voice trickles into your ear;

“Ready to behave?”

Yes. You nod furiously. Tears fly down your cheeks. Yes.

“There’s still going to be a punishment.”

You know. You’ll have it. You’ll take anything but this.

You whine through gasps, “Mhm — Mhm — Mhm—”

“Alright butterfly,” he interrupts, “one more chance.”

Straightening up, he wipes your tears away with his thumb.

He takes an alcohol swab from his pocket and cleans the marker on your elbows and knees away.

You continue to weep silently as he undoes your restraints. You don’t have the strength to think.

Scooping you up beneath your armpits and knees, he lifts your limp body off the steel autopsy table. Gripping you close, he carries you out of the room. When your heavy head falls against his chest, you are unable to do anything about it at all.

#asa emory #the collector #the collection #asa emory x reader #slashers #horror #fanfiction #writing #reader insert #darkfic #tw: torture

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thewalkingdead-imagines · 3 years

Text

TWD - Negan Imagine ~ “Hunted”

Imagine about the third episode of Season 11

Summary: After Negan and the Reader manage to escape the massacre, they are forced to team up with Maggie and Alden to fight the Reapers that are relentlessly hunting them.

Screams echoed through the night, loud and blood freezing screams, one after one until they combined into a harrowing orchestra. Your heart was pumping against your chest, so violently that you could feel your pulse throbbing in your throat. It was dark, except for the flashlights that had fallen to the ground, dropped by those who were fighting for their life, and the dim, cold moonlight which gave the forest an eerie look that fit the horrific scenes in front of you. The Reapers seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time, clothed so dark their bodies melted with the darkness of the forest and allowed their bright, grim masks to flash up anytime they moved, and they moved fast. Panting you gripped your knife tighter, expecting to be forced to use it within the next moment, while the panic in your body grew further as you tried to find Negan and Daryl with his dog within the darkness. “No”, you could merely hear a voice scream, pushing you to turn around to find its source, only to see as one of your attackers slit Cole’s throat, blood gushing from the wound as the Reaper held onto his shaking, dying body and suddenly looked up, directly at you through his mask. Your instincts pushed you to run, while the picture of Cole’s slit throat haunted your brain and filled your body with nausea. You found yourself ducking and running away from knives that were thrown your way, escaping them just by pure luck as you finally saw Daryl running over the street, followed by dog as he got away from the massacre while you were still caught in its midst. You could hear voices, shouts, screams that ordered anyone who was still alive to run while your mind was still clouded with the panic of finding Negan, and finding him alive before these masked psychos could get to him. And then, out of nowhere a sudden, way too familiar scream shook you to the core and made your panic skyrocket within seconds. Your fright fueled brain was putting your deepest fears into pictures, forcing you to see Negan in the very same position as you’d just seen Cole, blood gushing from his throat, shaking and dying. You saw Negan dying in front of your inner eye. Over and over again, within the seconds it took for you to turn around and finally find some odd sense of relief as you saw Negan clutching a wound the side of his leg, injured but alive, before he looked up and his eyes connected with yours. You found yourself running towards him, guided by the fear and panic that had nevertheless a strong hold on your body, and the rest, everything that happened right after you reached him was nothing but a blurry mess. You didn’t know who got away, you didn’t know who died, you didn’t know anything besides the fact that you had to escape now or your life would end tonight in this forest.

You kept running besides Negan until your adrenaline started to slowly ebb away and you could realize how much your muscles were hurting, exhausted from running, and feel your heavy breaths rupturing through your throat as if they were tearing crannies into your windpipe. By then, when the blurry mess started to turn clear again, you found yourself reaching the edge of the forest while the first, cool, bluish dawn light was filling the air. “We should be good for now. Those assholes were so fucking busy with their goddamn massacre there, I’m pretty sure by now they didn’t follow us”, Negan said, breathing heavily as you slowed down and found yourself panting, trying to catch your breath as the initial relief that you’d felt by finding Negan alive, got replaced by the worry as your eyes fell on the wound on his leg and the bloody fabric of his pants around it. “I need to take care of that, I can’t even see if it’s still bleeding or not, I-” “I know but we need to find some shelter first, just in case. We can’t stay out in the open like that”, Negan said, shaking his head while his chest was still shaking with the thick and heavy breaths that rumbled through it. He didn’t wait for an answer of yours, he instead just moved in to pull a thin black scarf from his pockets, just thick and long enough to wrap it around his thigh. “Negan-”, you started up again, trying to reach out to him as he shook his hand and groaned as quiet as he could keep himself as he pulled the knot on the binding tighter. “It’s fine, I can hold out for that long”, he said, trying to milden your concern, even though you could tell that he was hurting, “Let’s just get out of here.” You nodded, realizing that there was no sense in protesting before you moved to the forest’s edge, onto a large parking lot that was scattered with old, rusted and partially burned out cars. A shivering breath fell from your lips as you looked around, first seeing the buildings of a small town that laid behind another line of trees before your glance swayed to the closest building at the other side of the parking lot. A large store, maybe even a mall, at least that’s what it looked like from afar. “That one should be good”, you heard Negan say as he nodded towards the building, “The faster we get out of sight, the better. Easier to hide in there too.” Slowly, you started to nod, still trying to catch your breath and calm down, and keep your head from driving you nuts. “Well, then let’s get in there.”

Much as you’d expected, the place was a small mall with a large open lower area, that was merely stuffed with some empty shelves, shopping carts and mannequins and had broad stairs in its midst that lead up to the second floor. There were about three shops up there that were as empty as the lower area, though some of the shelves outside of the stores where here and there stuffed with some shirts, pants and other random things. You moved past the shops, trying to find a lockable room that would allow you to find some more safety before you saw Negan nudging your arm softly, grabbing your attention as he nodded towards the end of the second floor’s gallery. There were three doors, two situated on the wall right from you, the other one laid on the adjacent wall that was a straight shot from your spot. You nodded, starting to move forward before you heard Negan bite down a groan as he put kept walking, as fast as usual but clearly not without hurting, before he caught the worried look that you were throwing him. “I’m okay, Baby”,he said, still walking, nearly strutting towards the end of the gallery. “No you’re not”, you huffed, your eyes fixated on the binding around his thigh. You weren’t sure what it was, but the wound kept you worried. You’d seen Negan with worse, and you knew he was tough, but the existence of this injury kept on reminding you of the small timeframe between hearing his scream and seeing him alive. The pictures were still in your head, and they wouldn’t go, so instead of leaving you alone, the panic of losing him found it’s constant reminder for you within this goddamn wound. “Let’s just see if we can open one of those”, you heard Negan say as he gave you another soft nudge before he started moving again. You ended up going for the side with the two doors while Negan headed for the singular one, only to find both of them locked before you heard a whistle fall from his lips. “Bingo”, he said, looking over at you with a grin as he nodded inside,”We didn’t find a random storeroom nor some employee locker room, fuck no, we got the big boss’s room.” Quickly, you moved over to him, looking into the office that was still stacked with full bookshelves at the wall and a large desk in the middle that looked like it had once been made from some expensive wood but was now merely there to collect some dust. The desk chair seemed to be gone. “Wait”, you mumbled as Negan already stepped inside before you quickly rushed over to the nearest shop, grabbing a whole stack of the last, left over shirts before you hurried back over to him. “What the-”, he started, furrowing his brows as you already cut him off. “You need something cushioned to sit on”, you grumbled, stepping inside before Negan closed the door behind you and let out an amused sound. “Alrighty”,he chuckled as you moved into the back of the office, towards its window front and started to lay out the shirt over the hard wood floor to form a provisory mattress, until you heard the sound of something heavy screeching over the ground. Looking over your shoulder you saw Negan pushing one of the smaller bookshelves in front of the door, groaning lowly while some blood started to seep through the scarf on his thigh. “Negan-” “It’s okay”, he cut you off, breathing deeply through as he gave the shelf one last push to fully cover the door before he nodded down to the binding,”You’re gonna patch it up all nice ‘n new anyway right?” With a sigh, you nodded, and watched Negan move over to your side and plop down onto the cushion, leaning his back against the wall before he adjusted himself a bit to give you some space on the makeshift mattress. “Here we go”, he grumbled as you pushed your bag on the floor, settling your quiver and the bow right next to it before you starting to grab what you needed from your backpack. With a thick gulp, you set down the supplies beside him and started to slowly and carefully loosen the scarf around his thigh, still unable to see how deep the wound actually was and whether he was still bleeding. “Okay, I need you to push the pants down”, you mumbled while you tried to fight your mind that kept trying to push the pictures of Negan’s bloody and dying body back into your consciousness now that you started to see more of his injury. They were the same, each time you saw Negan in Cole’s place, wheezing as the blade slid along his throat and cut it while more and more blood was gushing from the open wound. This mission was even deadlier than it had seemed at the start, the chance of dying was larger than ever and your fears were starting to get the best of you now that your exhaustion was making you more vulnerable. “You just wanna get a glimpse at my dick, don’t ya”, you heard Negan cut through your intrusive thoughts, pushing you back to look at him as unbuckled his pants and he shot you a grin, clearly trying to lift the mood until he saw the look on your face. “Sweetheart”, he mumbled, reaching out to caress over your arm as your eyes fell back down to the bloody fabric,”Hey, look at me.” “I just-”,you chocked out, starting to feel your nose tingle as tears started to blur your view, filling up your eyes whether you liked it or not ,”When I heard your scream-” You cut yourself off, trying to swallow the thick lump in your throat while your head kept on replaying this imaginary scene that brought blood freezing shivers down your spine. “When I heard your scream I though for a moment-”,you mumbled, cut off once again as you tried to breathe deeply through but nevertheless felt as the first tears rolled down your cheeks,”I thought-” “Shit, Darling”, Negan mumbled just as your voice broke again and he reached out to pull you in,”C’mere.” “No you’re hurt, I need to finish this”, you protested only to feel his grasp tightening gently as he shook his head. “You can finish this in a moment”, he said, his voice was growing softer and warmer now as he nodded towards himself, ”Just come here for a sec.” Finally, you allowed him to pull you in and settle you against his chest, cradling you as you felt his arms wrapped around you in a warm embrace. “There you go”, Negan mumbled, reaching up to caress his hand over your hair as he leaned down to press a kiss to the top of your head. “I was so scared”, you sniffled, hugging him back as you felt another bunch of tears rolling down your cheeks,”I can’t lose you.” “You won’t”, Negan mumbled, before a soft laugh fell from his lips ,”I’m a tough son of a bitch.” Just as he heard another sniffle falling from your lips he tightened his embrace a little and moved his hand to brush the tears from your cheek and caress his thumb in circular motions over your skin. “Seriously though”,he mumbled with a small sigh,”I was scared shitless about you too, not gonna lie, but we’re a team, right? And we’re together and we look out for each other. Everything’s gonna work out just fine.” You forced yourself to nod, hoping that those words would finally push those pictures out of your head, while you stayed huddled up to him and cuddled closer into his warmth, trying to fill your head instead with impressions of Negan’s touch and scent. Slowly, you started to calm down as he continued to cradle and caress you, holding you until your body had entirely stopped to shake and had relaxed, before he shifted slightly “Look at me”,he mumbled as you slowly started to peel yourself out of his embrace to glance up at him as both of his hands reached up to cup your face and ensure that you kept your eyes focused on him,”It’s gonna be okay.” Slowly, you started to nod before he pulled you in for a kiss, caressing his lips slowly but relishing over yours until you started to let go off him to finally take care of his wound. Before your glance could fall down to brush over his injury, you could see Negan’s lips curving into a grin while he opened his belt for good and pushed the zipper of his pants down. “You wanna see my dick after all now? As a lil’ treat before you get to work?”, he chuckled, wiggling his brows suggestively but playfully as you leaned in to shove his chest softly, unable to keep a laugh from falling from your lips while you finally seemed to loosen up and managed to shoot him a grin back. “Oh definitely.”

Much to your relief, the wound wasn’t deep, the knife that must’ve caused it had brushed him, creating a nasty but most definitely easily treatable injury that hopefully wouldn’t bleed again once he would start moving. After you had him wrapped up and had stashed your supplies back into the backpack you found yourself back in his arms, trying to nap for just a little while to refill your energy. You’d been up and about for over a day, and going on without just a bit of sleep, would turn you unfocused and inattentive, and that was the last thing you could use outside. “Did you see the others get away?”, you finally heard Negan say as you sat upright again on the provisory mattress and stretched your worn limbs. “I only saw Daryl and dog run away”,you mumbled, sighing as you shrugged your shoulders,”I’m not sure about the others...I just saw them kill Cole, but there was so much screaming.” Slowly, Negan started to nod as he held your glance. “I’m sure Daryl and the fur dude are fine”,he said, giving you a gentle smile and he winked at you,”Those are tough sons of bitches too.” You nodded now, just hoping that they had found safety somewhere else before the question that had been sitting in the back of your heard slipped from your lips. “What now? Where do we go?” “I-”, Negan started only to be cut off by a loud clattering sound that echoed somewhere within the mall through the emptiness. Negan pressed his index finger on his lips as his eyes widened and darted at the barricaded door. Slowly, you got up on your feet and moved carefully towards the entrance, hearing as Negan got up with a stifled groan as well, just as another clattering sound sounded up through to you, and you couldn’t tell if it was closer or further away than the one you’d heard before. “Reaper wouldn’t be that fuckin’ loud right?”, Negan mumbled as he moved in beside you, keeping his voice low just as the clattering sound was followed by curses that sounded oddly familiar. “That sounds like Alden”, you said furrowing your brows as you leaned in closer, barely believing your ears as Negan started to grip the edge of the small shelf. “Let’s take a look”, he grumbled, just as you reached out to him to stop him from doing something just yet. ”Well what if it’s one of those psychos after all?” ”Well do this as quietly as possible. I lift this side and you take the other...quieter than pushing this fucker over the ground”,he said, settling himself behind the other side of the shelf and laced his fingers around the top board,”Let’s hope its Alden, safety in numbers right?” After another second of pondering you nodded, finding yourself agreeing with him before you helped him to lift the shelf slightly to carry it as quietly as possible to the side. Slowly, you saw Negan opening the door, just enough to glimpse through it, and merely moments later his face started to relax. “It’s him.” ”Alden, hey”, Negan called lowly out, loud enough for Alden to hear who was limping past the stores, along the railing of the gallery too keep himself steady, though not too loud to alert anyone else who could potentially be within this building as you made your way over to him. Alden nearly shot around, eyes widened as he stared through at you through the dim light before his face started to relax and a sigh of relief fell from his lips. “Oh god”, he mumbled as you were about to reach him, watching as he gripped the railing tighter,”Thought you were one of them for a moment.” Your eyes fell down to his calf that was sporadically bandaged with some piece of clothes that he must’ve ripped off and that served as explanation as to why he’d been so boorish and loud before, he was simply just trying to keep himself upright and going at any cost, and had knocked over some mannequins in the process. “Where have you been holding up?”, he asked, furrowing his brows almost a little confused as Negan nodded over his shoulder towards the door at the end of the gallery. “Found an office at-” With that, Negan got cut off by footsteps that echoed through the lower area, loud and dull, a sign for you to move back and hide until you knew who was the source of these sounds, but that part was quickly taken from you as you heard Alden call out to the figure that he was seeing down below. “Maggie!” There was no holding back once he saw her, no way of bringing him to slow down as he rushed down those stairs despite his injured leg and towards Maggie. You hung back, still on your way down the stairs but by far not as fast as Alden, and from one moment to another, that seemed to pay off in the most harrowing way possible. A loud scream echoed through the tall hall of the mall as you saw Maggie suddenly falling to the ground behind one of the empty shelves, disappearing from one moment to another as a dark figure pushed her below them and another stormed towards Alden, trying to grab him and tear him away. ”Fuck”, Negan cursed, looking around only to realize that those two figures seemed to be the only attackers as you both started to run, more than aware that you couldn’t let what seemed to be the last rest of your group become victim of those customized psychos as well, “I get her, you get him.” It didn’t need more than that for you to run towards where you’d seen Alden last, reaching towards your gun to fire it as soon as you needed it but much to your shock, he nor his attacker seemed to be anywhere close. Cursing to yourself you rushed through the shelves, heart pumping up your throat, trying to search for them without ending up with a knife in your back while you could hear the turmoil that was going on somewhere on the other side of the shelves with Maggie, Negan and the other reaper before it suddenly got quiet. Your heart seemed to skip a beat for a moment, scared for Negan before a loud curse that fell from his lips, stressed but relieved, lifted some of the tension off your body before it got put right back on as you spotted Alden, struggling below his attacker. Your gunshot echoed through the mall, loud and eerily as you heard the reaper groan, though he stayed much to your shock on top of Alden, still attacking him. Your eyes widened as you realized that whatever armor he was wearing underneath his dark clothes had protected him from worse, provoking you to go for another shot but just as you leveled the gun with the reapers head, the figure threw something back at you, something smoking, something that was about to go off. ”No!”, Negan’s voice echoed through to you in the very moment you felt him grab you and pull you behind another shelf to the ground with him, right next to where Maggie was hiding as the smoke bomb went off and turned your surroundings into a smoke filled mess. Wheezing you fought to keep your throat and lungs clear of the fumes, while Negan continued to hold onto you until the moment the smoke slowly started to clear and he could be sure that you were fine. And just then, just when your view was free of the fumes again, you heard Alden’s pain filled groan echo through the mall that promised nothing good, and your feeling was proven right. The reaper was gone, escaped through the smoke but he’d left Alden severely wounded and writhing on the ground, somehow trying to keep himself sitting upright when you found him. “Can I see”, Maggie asked as she kneeled down beside him, worry clearly sounding through her voice as she nodded towards his bloody shirt. “Sure thing, boss”, Alden said, biting down his pain as Maggie slowly started to lift his shirt and revealed two large, bloody wounds along his stomach that truly didn’t look like anything you could properly treat out here and with the supplies you had on your body. “Not good, huh”, he said with a weak chuckle as Maggie’s eyes looked up from his wound. “Can you walk?” “Not gonna know till we try”, Alden retorted quickly and before you could even start to say something and determine where and how you were gonna treat him before anything else happened, Negan’s voice echoed through the emptiness of the mall. “Wow wow stop”, he scoffed, irritatedly looking down at both Maggie and Alden,”You can’t seriously say that we keep going.” “We gotta keep moving”, Alden merely said, wincing as his heavy breaths put a strain on his fresh wounds while Negan shook his head again. “Wait, what exactly is the plan here?” “The plan doesn’t change. We need that food”, Maggie said, and while you were very aware of the fact that you depended on that food, you knew that it wouldn’t get you anywhere if you weren’t gonna arrive there alive in the first place, “We get to the radio tower, find the supply house and wait for the others.” “She only saw Daryl and his dog get away. What if the others are dead? How are we supposed to get that food when it’s just us against those psychos?”, Negan said as he nodded towards you, sighing deeply as he ran his hand over his beard stubble before he looked back down at her ,”Listen I know theatrics Those people, they just told us exactly how insane they are. We can’t be on a road, we cant be on any road that they could use. It’s a shit plan.” “Then you tell me a better one that doesn’t starve us all!” ”We still got some arrows left and we can set traps, so if we move further out, away from those psychos we’d have a chance to hunt and gather things”, you chimed in, simply trying to make her budge at least somehow. These people were hunting you, and every step deeper into their territory, every step closer to that radio tower, only made things more dangerous. ”That won’t be enough”, she said, shaking her head as a thick sigh left your lips while you watched Negan gulp thickly down. “Listen we’re on your side, we wanna get that food but we don’t wanna get us all killed in the process.” ”There’s no other way but taking that risk”, she retorted, and while you wanted to say something, argue against her, you didn’t have anything in your hands that would persuade both Maggie and Alden of a change of plans and so you were left to stare down at her as she nodded at Alden,”So if you’re on our side, help me with him.” You made it out of the mall and down the road behind an old car workshop with Alden until you deemed it safe enough to try to stop the bleeding as best as you could and patch him up while Negan and Maggie acted as lookouts, scanning the area for reapers and keeping an eye on the few walkers that stumbled around on the parking lot not too far from you, as you worked on him. ”That’s all I can do for now, we need to find some shelter earlier or later though”, you sighed as you stuffed the rest of your supplies back into the backpack and pushed Alden’s shirt down over the fresh bandage that was partially already turning red as some blood soaked through it, “You need to rest or this will only get worse.” He didn’t say anything, and you knew he did so because you were right. He wanted to keep going, no matter what it took, no matter if it would make his state even worse than it already was. ”It’s 10 miles, it’s further than I thought”, you heard Maggie say behind you as she moved up, a map in her hand that she looked up from as Alden already started to nod, way to eager to move considering his injuries. ”We better get going”, he said, trying to get himself up on his feet as Maggie grabbed his arm and Negan moved in to take the other, only to hear Alden huff. ”Holding your hand isn’t gonna help me walk any faster”, he grumbled, eliciting a chuckle to fall from your husband’s lips as he grabbed Alden’s arm a little tighter nevertheless. ”Yeah? Does the though of one of those things ripping your face off do it for you?”, he said, gesturing with the crowbar in his other hand towards the dead while you moved up to swing your backpack back over your shoulders. ”If you’re scared, why don’t you make yourself useful and go kill ‘em?”, you heard Alden comment back, already starting to piss you off again before a sudden, loud scream ruptured through the air, and instead of escaping whatever had caused this scream, Maggie and Alden picked up their pace and pulled Negan right with them. ”Really? So we’re just gonna go toward the screaming? Cool”, he called out, just as irritated as you before you rounded the corner and got why Maggie was so eager to follow the scream. “Agatha!”, you could hear her yell, letting go of Alden the very moment she saw the women fighting three dead that had been the cause of her loud, shrill scream while you caught up on Negan and the shorter man to take Maggie’s place. Just as you propped Alden up you could see the last one of the three walkers fall limp to the ground, while Agatha panted as she waved for Maggie to follow her as her voice echoed over the parking lot. “Maggie, it’s Duncan!” You didn’t need to hear much more, nor see much more to know what the tone in her voice meant, and merely a few minutes later, the Reaper’s attack claimed another victim with Duncan as he succumbed to the wounds from the massacre in the woods. It got quiet after that, eerily quiet but the plan didn’t change, even though Maggie had just lost another one of her own, and you asked yourself how many more of her people had to die for her to start to overthink her decision and be open to other plans. Without Maggie’s approval, you’d neither have Alden nor Agatha’s vote which pretty much meant that no matter what kind of plan you would cook up with Negan, you had to ran it past her first, and that truthfully annoyed the hell out of you. Hours passed. Hours after hours of walking that lead you from abandoned roads into the hilly forest and let you end up in one of the small valleys that laid between each of the small hills, changing Alden’s bandages for the second time while Maggie and Negan stood further up on the hill to your right, keeping an eye on the small herd of walkers that was stumbling through the forest and kept you from moving straight through it. If you weren’t careful, the dead would become as much of a threat as a living, and turn that plan even deadlier than it already was. “Is it still as bad as before, Doc?”, Alden asked as you finally pulled his shirt back over his freshly bandaged torso, knowing too well that you didn’t have the best news for him as you looked with a worried look up at him,”Be honest.” “All this moving around doesn’t give your body any time to fix itself...that bleeding isn’t as mild as I hoped it would be by now”, you sighed as you started to pack up the supplies you just used on him and looked back down on his shirt that was soaked with fresh and dried blood ,”It’s better but it’s a bad idea to keep going more than we have to.” “But-” “Which each step you take you put your body under more stress and more tension on those wounds”,you cut him off, giving him a serious look as you somehow tried to bring your point across,”You need to rest, not just here in the middle of the damn woods but somewhere where we got some shelter…as soon as possible.” Alden gave you a disappointed but still stubborn look and deep down, you knew that he was gonna try to just keep going and go through with this plan no matter what. “I’m trying my best, okay? But the circumstances are far from optimal”, you sighed as you sporadically wrapped up your things and watched Alden nod as you got back on your feet. “Thanks.” “All good”, you said, giving him one more look before you moved up the small hill to your backpack to start and get rid of the bloody old bandages and pack up the remaining salves and bandages for later. Glancing up over at the other hill, you checked up on Negan, though you merely saw him as he stood behind Maggie, partially hidden behind some trees, before you got back to work, though only until you heard closer coming footsteps behind you that promptly came to a stop. “Are you really treating him as well as you can?”, you suddenly heard Agatha say behind you, an almost spiteful tone in her voice as you turned around to her with a look of confusion on your face that was very close to turn into anger. “What?” “You could just as well put on an act and just let his wounds get the best of him”, she said as she glared at you, the usual arrogant look on her face that she almost seemed to put on whenever she looked at you. “Seriously?”, you asked with a bitter, dry chuckle, irritated and pretty much annoyed already. You were helping while she just sat there and watched, and now, she was trying to make you the bad guy? Fuck that. “It’s not that far fetched”, she said, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she tilted her head and kept her eyes focused on you,”He clearly isn’t on your side, so this would be your moment to get rid of him, and I don’t think you got many scruples” “You don’t know me, at all”, you retorted quickly, just trying to shut this pointless conversation down. You obviously weren’t besties with Alden, but you weren’t trying to kill him. It would be the dumbest thing to do. Safety was found in numbers after all, and just wasting medical supplies only to give him a shitty treatment was nothing but stupid. “Oh I know people like you”, she chuckled, as you could hear the condescending tone in her voice and just decided to get back to packing your things. This was unnecessary, and you weren’t gonna use your energy for shit like that when a deadly threat was basically around every corner. “Sure thing”, you just answered as you placed the last bandage back inside the backpack before you heard her voice once again. “People like you are traitors, backstabbers who turn on their group soon as a better opportunity waits for them”, she said with a snide tone in her voice, pausing before a huff fell from her lips,”Or a warm bed.” You knew what she was suggesting there. Fuck, that last part had been thrown at you before, and not just once. Abandoning your group for some dick. And it was ridiculous. It always had been and you weren’t gonna let someone who had been in Alexandria for literally one day lecture you about the things that happened in your and the community’s past. She wanted to egg you on, and a part of you didn’t want to give her that satisfaction, but you weren’t gonna let that sit on you. “Ah okay, so Maggie told you her side of the story, huh?”, you said, finally turning around again to face her with a cold glare,”See, you don’t know everything that went down back then, and you sure as hell have no clue what happened ever since in Alexandria.” She seemed almost startled that you were suddenly talking back, though the arrogant glance stayed stuck in her eyes as you raised your voice again, far from done yet. If you were gonna shut this down, you were gonna do it properly so this shit would end once for all. “I don’t think they’d make a backstabber who turns on their group soon as a better opportunity waits for them into part of their council and head of the infirmary”, you said, calm but as snide as she had been just now, “Thing is, you don’t know me, no matter if you think you do. You don’t. I’m treating Alden and I’m treating him as best as I can out here, that’s it.” With that you just turned around again and zipped up your backpack, without giving her any chance to respond and just as you heard her footsteps starting to descend away from you just as heard Maggie’s voice echo through to you, while you turned around and saw her helping Alden up. ”C’mon, let’s go. Walkers are coming closer, we need to move.” A word and a blow, since truthfully, you weren’t wild to fight the dead on top of fighting the living. The groans of the walkers were a constant but low noise, still so far away that they weren’t much of a threat and you wanted to keep it this way. You were walking in the front by Negan’s side, Maggie, Alden and Agatha were somewhere behind you as you made through the rolling forest, up one of the soft hills and hoping that you’d find some shelter away from the living and dead threat rather sooner than later. “What went down there with Maggie’s last lil’ minion?”, Negan asked as you’d put just enough distance between the both of you and the three others so they could only hear your voices, not the words you spoke. “Just the usual bullshit”, you sighed, shrugging your shoulders before you saw Negan raising his eyebrows at you, clearly interested in hearing more details ,”Said I wasn’t treating Alden as best as possible since I wanted to get him killed anyway...I tried to just brush it off but she kept on going so I...I ended up shutting her down, this shit is messy enough already I don’t wanna keep on fighting unnecessary arguments.” “Yeah”, Negan nodded with a sigh, nodding slowly as you glanced over at him. “Did you talk to Maggie?”,you finally asked, glimpsing back for just a second to check that they were still out of earshot,”It looked a bit like it from afar.” “Mhmm”, he grumbled with a quick nod and catching as you raised your brows expectantly at him. “Just the usual bullshit”,he repeated your words as he shrugged his shoulders, though he kept talking nevertheless ,”People don’t change, I don’t change and I’m just lying to everyone and maybe even myself about it, I’m not one of you, that kinda shit.” “Oh wow”, you let out a bitter chuckle, shaking your head,”So she can change and turn all dark and twisty but you can’t change for the better, sure thing Maggie.” A thick sigh fell from your lips as you climbed up the small hill while you felt the anger that had ebbed away since your encounter with Agatha boil up again. “Just keeps on getting more hypocritical”,you grumbled, grabbing your backpack’s belts to pull it closer and adjust it ,”She’s been gone for years and hasn’t done shit for us all this time. I’d say you’re by far more one of us now than she is, she should get off that fucking high horse of hers.” “She’s just trying to find reasons to keep on shutting my plan suggestions down”, Negan sighed, shaking his head slightly as a frustrated sound fell from his lips,”Deep, deep down she probably knows that she’s lying every time she opens that mouth.” You nodded in agreement, well aware that Negan was speaking nothing but the truth, though it didn’t make that situation any better. “Let’s just concentrate on what comes next”, he added, shrugging his shoulders as he shot you another glance,”Maybe we can think up some plan that’s better than her’s. “Yeah”, you mumbled as you moved along the trees, looking down at your feet to not miss and trip over some of the tree roots that were buried out of sight underneath the dried leaves, before you heard a startled breath falling from Negan’s lips. “What the fuck”, you heard him curse, enough to make your glance shoot up and land on a burned out corpse that was tied to a tree merely a couple feet up hill from you. It looked like whoever had been the person behind the scorched walker had been gutted before they’d been burned, actually so severely that the dead was only now starting to move, trying to move its cracking, scorched jaw. Slowly your eyes moved up from the tied up walker to the sign above its head, a wooden plank which bore the inscription “JUDAS” that had been carved deeply into the wood in big letters. “Those assholes are insane”, Negan scoffed as he stared at the burned walker, shaking his head as you could hear the others’ footsteps catching up with you. “What the hell”, Maggie cursed while your eyes stayed fixed on the scorched walker, though you could catch Negan glimpsing over his shoulder at her. This was another sign for her to realize that these people were a bigger threat that she likely wanted to believe to be true, though you already knew that she would refuse to believe it. And just as you heard another rattling groan rumble through the burned skeleton, you heard those of the dead that were still able to walk and hunt you come far too close and turn the low groaning noise into a loud, bone chilling one. “Fuck”, Negan cursed as you turned around and watched him already strut towards the walker who’d managed to stumble closest, burying his crowbar into its head as Maggie tried to pull Alden with herself further up the hill while Agatha rushed further down to get the next closest dead. You found yourself doing the very same, trying to kill the closest ones off one by one while you kept some distance to those who were still a little further off, just so you could buy enough time for you and the rest to outpace them. At first, it worked, putting a trail of dead walkers behind yourself until those who were still up on their feet, groaning and with jaws snapping at you started to become more and more. “Shit”, you cursed to yourself as you gripped your knife tighter, hearing Maggie and Alden struggle somewhere behind you while the threat in front of you grew bigger. “C’mon, we need to keep running, this is fuckin’ senseless”, Negan called out as he dropped his bloody crowbar from yet another walker skull as he found your glance and merely waited for you to nod until he started to rush up the hill, towards Maggie and Alden. You did the same, trying to take big and fast steps so you could just help move Alden faster that would hopefully turn out to be a faster tactic than killing those walkers that just seemed to keep coming and coming, seemingly spawning anew out of nowhere each time you’d taken down one of them. “i got this”, you heard Agatha call out, her voice mixing with the deads’ groans and the squelching sound of her knife each time it buried into a skull as you watched Maggie shake her head and nearly panicky look over her shoulder down at the other woman. “Agatha, come up here! We need to move”, she yelled as you reached them and saw Negan hooking Alden’s arm around his shoulder to push him up with him, just as Maggie let go off his other side and rushed towards Agatha who was starting to get surrounded by more dead. She had to run now, or she was doomed. But instead of doing just that she kept on fighting the dead trying to take them out while you moved in to get to Alden’s other side and prop him up, trying to just keep going and hope that Maggie could make Agatha catch up with you. You couldn’t keep on losing more people if you wanted this whole thing to work out, regardless of what you thought of them. Cursing under your breath you tried to drag Alden along with you, just taking it step by step before a bloodcurdling scream made your glance shoot back behind you and find exactly what you’d deep down already expected. A large batch of flesh was ripped from Agatha’s arm as she screamed in agony, somehow managing to kill the dead who’d just served her death sentence as Maggie screamed for her and rushed closer, panicking and just trying to keep the dead off of herself as well as they started to swarm the dark blonde woman. “For fuck’s sake”, Negan huffed, shooting you one more glance before he let go off Alden and stormed down the hill, fueling your body with fear and adrenaline as you held onto the shorter man, still walking while your eyes were fixed on your husband. “Agatha, no!”, Maggie screamed again just as you saw Negan grab her instead, starting to pull her away instead of trying to fight the dead as well which was senseless at this point, there were just too many, and there was no way to save Agatha anymore at this point. You watched her scream for her leader to run, as she yielded her knife around herself, though more and more walkers swarmed her and grabbed her, tore at her. “No! No, let go!”, Maggie screamed as Negan just kept pulling her with himself, out-powering her clearly while you only saw Agatha starting to be pulled to the ground, surrounded by a half dozen dead by now whose groans and biting sounds mixed with her screams that send shivers down your spine and just kept on echoing through the forest even though her figure had vanished underneath the walkers who were tearing at her body. And with that, with that it were only the four of you that were left to pull off this mission, and you had no fucking clue how that was supposed to work against the psycho killers who turned these days into a real-life horror movie.

It had to be an hour, maybe even two after Agatha’s bloody end that you found yourself walking along one of the roads that wound itself through the forest, further and further towards the radio tower that was still far off. You’d needed to take little breaks for Alden in between, trying to make sure that he could keep on walking and wasn’t putting too much strain on his wounds, and that costed time. “We should get back in the woods”, Negan said with a sigh as you passed a burned out car on the street, nodding back towards the bushes and trees beside the road that would hide you from any threat, alive or dead, that would easily spot you out in the open. “The road is faster”, you just heard Maggie say, and you were just about to speak up as you heard Alden say something that surprised you. “He’s right, the woods give us cover”, he agreed with Negan, gulping thickly as he bit down harshly to keep himself going and refrain from giving into his pain. A sigh fell from your lips your reached a curve in the road, hoping that Maggie would just give in and let the majority decide for fucking once before you saw her nod down the side of the road, at a path that lead down the hill and ended at a small, wooden church. “He needs to rest...Let’s get in there”, she said, nodding at Alden as he started to quickly shake his head. “No, we have to keep moving.” “No, you need a break”, she retorted and you actually found yourself agreeing with her, he’d actually needed a longer break a whole while ago and truthfully, so did the rest of you too. You didn’t argue her suggestion this time and stepped merely a few minutes later into the abandoned church, that was thankfully no sanctuary for some stray walkers and was only stacked with some wooden benches and a few shelves at its end. “Rest here for a while and then get back out”, Maggie grumbled as she helped Alden sit down on one of the benches on the right side of the church while you plopped down on the left side, close to one of the windows so you could keep a bit of a lookout, just to be sure and just to calm yourself a bit as well. Negan strolled over the squeaking wooden floorboards, picking up one of the old, torn up bibles that laid on the floor, huffing as he looked at it before he tossed it onto one of the shelves and looked over at Alden and Maggie. “I know what you’re thinking the answer is no”, she growled, narrowing her glance at Negan as he let out a deep sigh. “Well we cant keep going like this. He can’t keep going like this, not unless you change that plan of yours”, Negan said as he gestured towards her, “So you either gotta let us work up another plan that lets us take him with us, or-” “He’s right Maggie, I’m slowing you down”, Alden cut Negan off, only to be shut down by Maggie herself with a glare. “No, we’re fine”, she said shaking her head as she let herself fall next to Alden who was about to protest again. “Maybe now, but it’s gonna get worse. I’m dead weight.” Your eyes swayed from the blonde towards Negan who moved in to sit down next to you, shaking his head with an unnerved look on his face as she shifted over the worn down wood. “How’s your leg doing?” you mumbled, trying to direct the conversation towards something else for once as you nodded towards his thigh. “Better”, he mumbled, with a nod, looking up at you to give you a weak smile as his hand reached out to wrap around yours and give it a small, warm squeeze, while you could hear Maggie and Alden still discuss with one another, though you were trying to not put your focus on them right now. “Good”, you said, squeezing his hand back as you leaned yourself against the backrest, somehow trying to give your body some rest. “The supplies, Maggie, look at me the supplies are the only thing that matter now”, you heard Alden say, clearly defeated by now, “What if it doesn’t work what then-” “It’s not that easy”, she interrupted him, while you watched Negan’s glance scan over the windows and the dusk light that fell through it, a clear warning of the time that just kept on ticking. “The sun is going down, Maggie you have to make a decision”, Negan said, turning around to look at her as she stood up from her spot on the bench and glared at him through teary eyes. “Its easy for you isn’t it”, she spat as she stepped over towards your bench, without breaking glances with Negan once,”Being reckless with somebody else’s life. But you don’t get to decide who lives and who dies anymore.” You thought you didn’t hear right. You seriously thought you hadn’t correctly heard what she’d just said and as the realization kicked in that she truly meant it, your pulse started to go up. She was reckless. She had been ever since you left Alexandria. She was a reckless fucking hypocrite. You could feel your pulse pounding up in your throat again, fueling the fury within you. She’d become one of the very few people who managed to rattle you out of your usual levelheadedness and get your anger from 0 to 100, and that meant a lot. “Its your fault that we’re here, it’s your fault, because you destroyed everything we built”, she continued to spat, and that was it for you, that was a line that she’d overstepped and you weren’t gonna stay sitting here while she was insulting your husband. “You’re a fucking hypocrite”, you snapped, getting up on your feet as Negan’s hand tucked on yours. “Hey, it’s not worth it-” “No! She cant keep on treating you like shit”, you said, looking down at him, fully aware of the fat that if roles were reversed, you’d be the one tucking on his hand now to hold him back. It didn’t matter now though, it didn’t matter as you turned back around to glare at the woman in front of you. “He is being reckless with lives? Are you even listening to yourself? As far as I can remember were you the one who just let Gage die down in the metro without batting a fucking eyelash”, you said, as she stared at you with angrily furrowed brows, and hell, you weren’t done yet, you were just getting started. “You just need a scapegoat to put all the blame on because you can’t handle that those deaths that happened out here are on you. If Negan hadn’t done what he did, you wouldn’t have even had a community and people to come back to. Losing Hilltop would have happened with or without Negan, it wasn’t in his hands. Stop acting as if he went in there and put the place on fire all by himself. He was just there, and was forced to play along, shoot an arrow or two just so he could gain enough trust and kill that psycho bitch, so all those people could live...Hilltop was a painful loss that had to be taken so so the rest of us could live. You have no idea what we went through during that time and you have no fucking right to judge nor throw those things at him after he just saved your life, not once but fucking twice.” Silence. She didn’t say anything, mostly you thought, because she truly didn’t have anything to argue back with, and a part of her truly didn’t believe the things that she said. Just like Negan had suggested earlier. So instead of saying anything more she stomped back to the bench that Alden was still sitting on and sat down on it, huffing as she shook her head and stared out of the window to her right. “You still have to decide, Maggie”, you heard Negan’s voice echo through the church and just then Maggie started to stir again, grabbing her backpack and grasping supplies from its inside before she placed them next to Alden and with that, you knew that she’d made a decision. No new plan. And Alden had to stay behind. A barricaded door, a new bandage around Alden’s torso and about a half hour later, you finally slipped out of the church and stepped into the small field in its front, watching as Maggie said her goodbye’s to Alden until you’d hopefully come back, before a soft nudge on your arm made you turn around and look at Negan within the warm dusk light, that set a strong contrast to the exhaustive and eerie tension that was hanging in the air. “We’re gonna be fine, Sweetheart...one fuckin’ way or another, we’re gonna be fine”, Negan said as he caressed over your shoulder, forcing up a weak smile onto his lips as you slowly started to nod. You hoped that he was right. Fuck, he needed to be right.

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dizzydancingdreamer · 3 years

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“Corn Syrup, Like in Carrie” | The Mikaelson Boys

Hey my lovelies this is my fic for @hellotvshowtrash ‘s March Prompt Challenge— I hope you all enjoy and especially you, Ash! I literally wrote this in a few hours so I hope it isn’t terrible; I wanted to make sure I actually submitted this month though because you put a lot of hard work into making fun things for us. I haven’t written for these boys in a while so this was nice :)

Description: Y/n drags Kol into a plan that is more dumb luck than actual planning— is it even a question that he would be willing to help?

Pairing: The Mikaelson Boys x Female!Reader

Warnings: Mentions of blood and death but in a casual, funny way (sadistic but funny), this might be the grungiest thing I’ve written to date

Word count: 1.99k (it’s literally 1999k, I pushed this as far as possible)

Tags: Fluff, a lil angst if you squint (squint is used loosely here)

Prompt: “This plan of yours is going to get us killed. Of course I’m in.”

Kudos if you get the picture easter egg!

“You want to do what now?”

She huffs but the wicked smile on her face carves through the annoyance— of course she isn’t actually exasperated with him.

“You heard me Kol— I want to scare him!”

The brown eyed vamp rolls his eyes but his own grin is just as cunning. She can see the spark in his eyes, that little glint that lets her know everything she needs to know— lets her know that he’s in.

All in.

“You know that’s impossible darling,” he toys, his smirk too coy for a man over a thousand years old. “Klaus doesn’t get scared.”

She laughs— that’s what he thinks.

Kol’s brows push together, the glint growing alongside his smile, his sharp teeth poking into his lip. “I know that look— that look is never good.”

She meets him where he leans against the countertop, hopping up beside him and wrapping her arms around his cool shoulders. “Oh it’s good alright, Kol-y. I think you’ll like it very much.”

He turns towards her, running his nose across her jaw, peppering a few kisses against her skin before tilting his face up. “Well out with it then, darling— what’s the plan?”

She giggles, pressing her lips against his quickly before pulling back, pecking the vampire’s nose when he scrunches it. She shakes her head at his puppy dog eyes— easily distracted, that one is.

She leans down, whispering her idea into his ear, her chest blossoming with warmth when he shivers against her lips. She can’t tell if it’s because of how close she is or because he likes her plan— both, most likely. When she finishes speaking she nips his ear, tugging gently before releasing him. He groans when his ear meets the cool kitchen air, twisting to push between her legs.

He leans down, pressing his lips against her again. She can taste the mischief on his lips, tangy and sharp— someone has been eating blackberries again.

“You’re a menace darling.”

“Hmm—” she hums her agreement against his berry lips— “I learned from the best.”

He chuckles and this time she shivers, his lips trailing down her neck. “Is that so?”

She pushes against his chest, trying to regain some of his attention. This is important. She slips her fingers into his soft hair, knitting them between the strands and tugging until his baby browns meet her gaze. He sighs, his smile less menacing and more longing than moments ago. He raises his brow, his eyes flitting to her neck before going back to her eyes— are you going to speak or can I go back to what I was doing?

She huffs.

“Are you in or not, Mikaelson?” She grinds out as he tugs against her hand, just barely nipping at her sensitive skin.

He groans when she pulls her throat away from his ministrations, finally standing straight again. His hands slide up the sides of her neck, smoothing against her jaw, fingers hooking behind her ears.

“This plan of yours is going to get us killed, darling.” His soft grin sharpens as he speaks, the glint resurfacing in his eyes. To her it makes him look beautiful. It makes him look dangerous. “Of course I’m in.”

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

“Alright,” Kol announces, his cheerful voice drifting from the entrance to the compound to where she lays in a heap next to the couch. “He’s coming down the street now— I can hear him on the phone. I think he’s talking to Elijah.”

She can’t see the vamp but she knows that the mirth in his voice is much too extensive considering what they are about to do. Oh well. She raises a hand— she can’t speak with the blonde who’s now on their street hearing— signalling for him to get into place—

—and for him to dump the bucket of corn syrup, red dye number five, and just enough of her blood to make it smell real all over her body.

It goes on warm and sticky, scarily similar to actual blood, drenching the t-shirt she has decided to sacrifice. It’s for a good cause, she has to remind herself. Her skin itches where the mixture clings to her and she has to keep from giggling, her shoulders shaking. This had better work.

Kol’s boot nudges against her butt, tsking as she swallows another giggle. “Get with it darling— he’s almost here.”

She nods, splaying her limbs out in a way she imagines a dead— or almost dead— body would look. She doesn’t have to imagine too hard.

“Good job,” Kol whispers. “Billy Loomis would be proud.”

She smiles quickly at the reference— part of her plan was making him watch Scream with her.

“He’s here— let’s do this—“

The end of his sentence is cut off by a yell— his yell. They have to cover the sound of her heartbeat somehow. She can only keep her heart so steady and she’s not trying to give herself away before the fun has really begun. Thank heaven Kol has a good pair of lungs— and that he doesn’t need to breathe.

“Yeah I just go ba— Kol?” Like with Kol, she can’t see Klaus but she can hear him and the way his voice falters in confusion.

“Brother—” the way Kol’s voice hitches at the end of the word makes her almost break character. Someone sign this man up for an Oscar immediately— “I don’t know what happened. I left to get some of that ice cream she’s always talking about and— and—”

Klaus doesn’t speak but over Kol’s scarily astute acting she can hear commotion on the other end of his cellphone. Elijah— jackpot.

A double prank.

“Elijah give me a minute— Kol, what happened?”

Klaus’ heavy boots thunk against the concrete, the vibrations radiating through her cheek where it presses against the ground. His steps are almost as thundering as his voice, both echoing through the open space.

Kol plays along with his brother’s anger, matching it with his own. “I just said I don’t know!”

“What do you mean you don’t know! Look at her and tell me what you see—” his words stop, the air punctuated by a loud crack, no doubt the sound of his Iphone shattering into a hundred pieces.

Oops.

Suddenly there are hands on her back, nudging her softly, pulling at the sticky fabric of her t-shirt. You’re going to have to do better than that to wake the dead, babe. His hands get steadily more frantic— and more slimy— dragging the blood concoction into her hair as he checks her scalp and neck for injury. She holds her breath as his hand wraps around her jaw, lifting her face gently.

“Fuck, Kol, why is she bleeding so much?”

Kol only screeches in answer— again, she almost loses it. Klaus must not like that answer very much because he curses under his breath. Well, under his breath is a relative term. She is sure the entirety of Bourbon street hears the F-bomb he drops. The word is accompanied by the sound of her shirt being ripped in two. Here we go.

She feels a whoosh of air against her now revealed skin, steeling against the shiver that creeps up her spine at the cold air. Soon there is another pair of hands on her, sliding down her slick arms. She can picture the dyed corn syrup staining Elijah's dress shirt and the glare in his dark eyes when he realizes she has teamed up with his brother to wreak mayhem.

“What’s going on? What happened?” His sultry voice is worse than the cold air— and much harder to stave off.

“I don’t know—” both Klaus and Kol speak in unison, Klaus taking over for the both of them— “but there isn’t time to find out right now.”

Before she has time to process his words her body is being flipped over, her back pressing into the icy, sticky concrete. It takes all of her strength not to squeal at the contact. She hears a noise much too juicy for her liking before a warm artery is pressed against the seam of her lips. Perfect!

“C’mon love, please—”

When her mouth fills with a thick, metallic substance she breaks, springing forward and coughing wildly, making sure to swallow a good amount before hacking the rest up. She runs an arm across her eyelids, trying to unstick them but only managing to coat her eyelashes even more.

When she finally manages to peel her eyes open, spitting the last of Klaus’ blood out of her mouth, she is met with the faces of two shocked vampires and one vampire who is laughing his ass off. Kol’s laughter is infectious— especially because she’s been holding back giggles since the start of their ruse— and soon she is joining him, laughing so hard she falls backwards again into the goo.

For a moment there is silence— only the sound of her and Kol’s laughter— before it gives way to Klaus’ deathly calm voice. “What the hell is going on here?”

She pushes herself up on an elbow, flashing him a scarlet drenched smile— she would give anything to see her crimson teeth right now. She runs her tongue over them to enhance the point.

“Did I scare you?”

His eyes flash with black. “Did you scare me—”

“Yes, you scared us!” Elijah’s red hands wrap around her forearms, hauling her into his chest without a care for his white shirt. “May I ask why?”

Elijah’s chest shudders, his arms curling around her waist. He wasn’t lying— he’s terrified. He smells like cooking oil and metal but she doesn’t care— he’s too warm for her to mind. His lips press against her forehead and she almost feels bad.

Almost.

A hand wraps around her hair from behind, yanking her back from his brother’s chest. “What Elijah means to say is can we demand why? Why you would try something like that?”

She dips her head further back, squinting up at the furious blonde. “Oh you already know why, love.”

He rolls his eyes, his jaw clenched but leaning down to brush his cheek against hers regardless. “Indulge me anyway.”

She tilts her head, skimming her tacky lips against his stubble. “To make a point.”

“Oh yeah? And what point might that be?”

“That I am fragile—” she pulls upright, turning in Elijah’s arms and dropping the cheshire grin— “that you can’t protect me all the time—” she pushes forward, crawling onto Klaus’ drenched lap— “that I need to be like you.”

He sighs, his forehead dropping against hers, his hands curling around her jaw. “This again?”

Her arms hook around his neck, fingers tangling in his blonde hair. “You know I’m right.”

Klaus’ shoulders slump, his golden eyebrows knitting together. “Does it have to be right now?”

“Your blood is already in my system.”

“You’re going to be the death of me, you know that?”

She smiles back at him, leaning in for what she hopes is one last human kiss. “Shouldn’t I be the one saying that?”

He only sighs, shaking his head as Kol laces his fingers with hers. She turns to the brown eyed vamp just in time to see him pass her a mischievous wink.

It is the last thing she sees before the world around her goes dark.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

She wakes feeling significantly less sticky than she had when she blacked out— and significantly more hungry. She can’t remember the last time her throat was dry like this. Is she catching a cold? She shifts slightly, her elbow piling into a pillow underneath her. The pillow grunts.

Not a pillow.

Kol rises beside her, pressing a hand to her chest until she falls back against the mattress and then rolling on top of her, sinking his face against her neck. The words he mumbles into her skin make her dead heart stop in the best way.

“I told you that plan would get you killed.”

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ray-ray-writings · 3 years

Text

Period Piece-SBI Au

This is a SBI x gn!reader in the SBI Au where Techno, Wilbur, Tommy, and the reader are all siblings with their father being Philza. For this particular imagine, the reader is the youngest of the siblings. This is a bit Wilbur heavy because I have written Philza heavy SBI, Techno heavy SBI, and Tommy heavy SBI but not Wilbur and I was feeling soft for Wilbur sooo….. Oops.

This is gender neutral but it is about the reader getting their period for the first time so there’s that! Hope you enjoy!

Masterlist here

Y/N starts their period at the worst time possible, the one time that Philza isn’t home… but their three brother’s are.

Y/N’s POV

Sunlight flooding in through my window forced me awake. I let out a groan before flipping over to try and fall back asleep. A sharp pain caused by me flipping over ripped through my stomach causing me to let out a soft whimper. “What the heck” I whimpered to myself as my hand shot to my tummy and rested gently on the aching muscles. “What is wrong with me?” My stomach had never hurt like this before… Maybe it was something I ate last night… It may not be sitting well… Maybe I should go to the bathroom.

Carefully, not wanting to hurt myself further, I lifted up the blankets and slowly slid out of the covers. I let out a shiver as the air pricked at my exposed skin, but I marched on. Slower than I have ever moved before, I made my way out of my room and down the hallway to the bathroom.

The cool tile on my bear feet caused me to shiver as I shut the door and locked it behind me. Slowly I made my way over to the toilet, pulled my pants down, sat down, and began going to the bathroom. (That was so awkward for me to describe lol). I let out a sigh of relief as so of the pressure from my stomach released as my bladder emptied itself out… But not all of the pressure and pain was gone.

After a few more moments, I decided that nothing else was going to come out so I wiped. Once I was done, I moved to stand up, but something on my hand caught my eye. My eyes widened as I examined my hand and found that the normally clean flesh was now covered in blood. “What?” I whispered out, unable to stop the panic from building in my chest. My eyes scanned my hand even harder, searching for the cut that could have caused this bleeding, but found nothing. Then it hit me, maybe this wasn’t from my hand.

My gaze left my hand and scanned downward, stopping at my underwear. I couldn’t stop the small scream that ripped from my throat at the sight of my clean underwear soaked in blood. My breathing picked up as my heart pounded inside my chest. This is it! This is how it ends! I’m dying! I must be dying! Why else would I be bleeding… Down there.

A pounding on the door startled me out of my spiral. “Y/N?” I heard Wilbur’s panicked voice screech from the other side of the door. “Are you okay in there? What’s happening, why did you scream?” It was at the sound of my brother’s voice did I realize what a predicament I was in. Dad had to go to work today. Like real actual work in an office building. Usually he can stay home but he had a meeting he had to go to in person… I was home alone with my three brothers.

Tears blurred my vision as a sob escaped my lips, “I think I’m dying Will. I’m bleeding.” I called back. Thinking about it now, that probably wasn’t the best word choice, but I was panicked and Wilbur’s panic made me panic too. “You’re bleeding? Open the door! Let me in so I can help.” Another sob escaped my lips, “Can’t. Stuck.” I answered, not wanting to risk getting blood everywhere.

“Why the hell did Y/N scream?” Tommy’s brash voice questioned out loud. “Tommy, now is not the time. Please, go back to your room, or go to the living room,” Wilbur practically begged. I could tell Tommy was about to retort but Wilbur spoke again before Tommy could get a word out, “Tommy… Please,” the sincerity in Wilbur’s voice must have really shown Tommy just what situation we were in because I didn’t hear another word from him, only footsteps walking away.

“Techno get the key from Dad’s room,” I heard Wilbur order from beyond the door, “Stuck. Where are you stuck Y/N?” “Toilet” I whimpered. My mind was too far in overdrive to give more than one word answers. “Okay. How are you stuck?” Wilbur questioned, the panic in his voice slowly decreasing at my answers. If he knew what was wrong, he could help better when he got in. “Bleeding” “Where are you bleeding from?” A small whimper escaped my lips as I thought about the answer. I couldn’t tell him that, could I? That’s a bit embarrassing and a little too TMI even for my older brother. But still Wilbur prompted again, “Where are you bleeding Y/N?” his soothing voice called. I took a gulp and a deep breath before answering. “Down there.”

There was a pause from the other side of the door as Wilbur took in the information. “Down there?” I let out a small whimper in confirmation. “Y/N” he breathes out softly, “did you start your period?” Period…. Period. That word sounded familiar. I could vaguely remember someone mentioning something about it once… “Y/N?” Wilbur’s soft voice asked, gently pulling me from my thoughts. “I don’t know” I answered with a hiccup. “Maybe… What’s a period?”

The jingle of keys sounded from the hallway as I assume Techno returned with the key that would let Wilbur in. “Can I come in?” yep I was right. “Yeah,” I sniffed quietly, reaching up and wiping the tears away from my cheeks. I had already screamed bloody murder and scared the hell out of my brother, he might as well see me like this.

“Techno, run to the store and get some pads and medicine would you?. I’ve already texted Niki and asked what to get, she’ll send you a list or some pictures… Please” Wilbur asked softly, still in the hallway. My heart melted slightly at the words. He texted Niki? To ask her what to get? I knew he couldn’t text dad because of work, I just didn’t expect him to ask him to ask Niki instead.

The soft click of the door unlocking echoed through the bathroom before the door opened just a crack, enough to let my curly haired brunette brother in before the door clicked closed again. Wilbur kept his eyes focused on the ground as he shuffled over to the cabinet, grabbed a towel, before offering it to me. “Here, in case you want to cover yourself.” He said softly. My fingers gently wrapped around the fabric before unfolding it and placing it over my lap, making sure that everything was covered. “Okay. You can look now,” I told him, my voice equally as soft.

Wilbur’s eyes lifted from the floor to my face, allowing me to see the soft blush that coated his cheeks. “I’m sorry that dad isn’t here to help you with this,” he apologized awkwardly causing me to shrug. “It is what it is… Do you know what a period is?” I asked, hoping to get some answers. The blush intensified on Wilbur’s face as he nodded at the question. “Can you explain it to me… I mean you don’t have to if you don’t want to it’s just-” Wilbur held up a hand cutting me off before I could ramble more, “It’s okay, Y/N. I can explain it to you.”

And so he did. Wilbur took the time to carefully explain what the hell was happening to my body. He was extremely patient with me as I asked questions, trying to understand. Wilbur did a really great job that by the end I felt a bit more satisfied with my understanding of my own body.

“How do you feel now?” Wilbur asked softly once our little conversation was over. “Fine… Better… But still a bit gross. I think there’s a bit of blood… everywhere down there ya know?” I answered honestly, again already wayyyyy past the point of being embarrassed. Wilbur let out a small chuckle and shook his head, “No. I don’t know. I’ve never had a period before.” The two of us shared a laugh about that. “But, I could run you a bath if you wanted,” he offered up, pointing to the tub. I gave him a soft smile and a nod. “Yeah, I’d like that. Thanks bubby.”

Wilbur quickly turned around and began running the water. Once he was sure the temperature was just right, he put in the drain plug, put in my favorite bubble bath, and turned back around and headed to the exit. “Wait” I called out, stopping him. “Could you… Could you stay? Please? Like sit on the floor looking the other way? I just… don’t want to be alone right now.” Wilbur’s gaze softened as he nodded, “Of course kiddo.”

Wilbur looked away as I stripped out of my pajama shirt and bloody pajama bottoms and slipped into the bath. Keeping his eyes trained on the ground, he sat next to the tub, but completely faced forward so he couldn’t see me. I let out a content sigh as I sunk into the warm bubble filled water, the ache and pain in my stomach slowly fading away as the warm water soothed the muscles.

We were silent for the most part, just enjoying each other’s company. At one point there was a knock on the door. Wilbur quickly got up to answer it. The rustling of a plastic bag sounded throughout the tiled room letting me know that Techno had returned from the store. “Techno got the stuff. I can show you how to put the things on if you want.” I was slightly surprised at the offer. I didn’t expect Wilbur to know how to be able to do that… Then again, he’s Wilbur of course he knows how, he knows how to do just about everything.

But I agreed and so Wilbur picked up the underwear that Techno had also brought and carefully showed me how to apply the pad to the undies before gently setting it back on the counter. I mentally laughed at the situation we were in. Never would I have thought I’d be here, in a bathtub while my big brother Wilbur, showed me how to put on a pad. But here we are… Funny how life is like that sometimes.

Once I was ready to get out, Wilbur handed me a towel before finally leaving the bathroom to give me some privacy while I dried off and got dressed. I did so quickly, carefully putting on the undies so as to not disturb the pad… okay that sounded weird haha. But I silently thanked Techno for picking out my favorite sweatpants for me to change into. I almost cried at the shirt he picked out for me. It was one of Wilbur’s hoodies. The one that was even too big for him, so that when I pulled it on it swallowed me whole and encased me in his scent. I couldn’t help but take a deep breath at the calming aroma. Even though I don’t always show it, I really do love my brothers.

Leaving the bathroom, no one was in the hallway so I made my way down to the living room. Again, tears pricked in my vision at the sight. Pizza and soda were laid out on the coffee table with plates and cups sitting next to them. My brother’s sat on the couch in front of it, chatting softly. “You guys didn’t have to do this” I spoke softly causing all of their heads to snap to me. “We know… We wanted to” Wilbur told me gently. “Speak for yourself. I was a part of this for me!” Tommy jumped in, reaching forward and grabbing a plate, piling it high with pizza, before sitting back and stuffing his face. Wilbur elbowed him for the rudeness, but I couldn’t help but laugh. Of course Tommy would say that. “Come, sit. Eat” Techno said, holding his hand out beckoning me forward. I wasn’t going to argue with that.

I settled between Wilbur and Techno with a plate of pizza and a cup half filled with my favorite soda. I didn’t eat as fast as I normally would, not wanting to get eating cramps on top of the other cramps that would soon occur. But the four of us sat there on the couch together for a while. At one point, Tommy jumped up and put on a movie. After that, it was an unannounced and unofficial lazy day.

We were on the couch the whole day watching movies, only leaving to go to the bathroom or get food from the kitchen. At one point, the cramps began. Wilbur noticed my wincing and quickly jumped to get the cramp medicine that Techno had picked up. He put the pills in my hand and explained how often I could take it before also giving me a drink. After taking the medicine, I laid on my brother’s. My feet resting in Techno’s lap, my middle in Wilbur, and my head in Tommy’s.

At first, Tommy complained, claiming he didn’t want to cuddle, but when I tried to move, his hand quickly found it’s way in my hair and scratched my scalp soothingly. “I guess you can stay here” he grumbled in distaste, but I could tell he felt really happy about being included. Wilbur’s warm hands rested on my stomach and slowly began to make soothing circles, easing the cramping muscles. Techno’s hands began to work wonders on my feet as he subsciously gave me a foot rub. With all that affection and warmth, it was no wonder I fell asleep.

That’s how Philza found us that night when he came home from work. The gentle calling of my name woke me from my sleep. I carefully peeled my eyes open and found my father’s soft complexion smiling at me softly as he sat kneeled in front of me, his hand petting down my hair softly. “Hey kiddo. I hear you had a pretty big day today.” He whispered softly. I let out a small hum as I looked around and found that I was still lying across my brother’s laps, all of them still asleep. “How did you--” “Techno texted me when he went to the store. I’m sorry for not being here for it and I’m really really sorry I didn’t educate you better before it happened either,” Dadza apologized, looking genuinely sorry for it. “It’s okay… Wilbur did a pretty good job at taking care of me…” I informed him. Philza’s gaze flickered from my face to his oldest middle child, “Yeah? Of course he did. I always know I can count on him… I was going to offer to order pizza for dinner but it seems I’m a little late.”

I giggled softly at that as Dadza looked around at the empty pizza boxes still laying on the coffee table. “Yeah… But we could get Chinese,” I offered up slyly, hoping he’d agree. His chuckle told me everything I needed to know, “Chinese it is… I’m going to let you nap a bit. I have some work I have to do, but once I’m done I’ll put the order in… Sound good?” “Sounds good,” I confirmed. Dadza gave me another smile before leaning over and pressing a sweet kiss to my forehead, “I love you so much honey,” “I love you too dad.” Dadza paused for a moment more before standing up, removing his hand from my head and leaving the living room.

I let out a small content sigh before carefully rolling over and snuggling myself closer to my brothers. One of them let out a groan, Techno I think, but settled immediately, letting me burrow even closer to them.

Periods suck. There is no doubt about it. They hurt and stain your clothes and can be embarrassing and make you feel overly emotional. But I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. My brother’s dropping everything to help me. Wilbur getting over his embarrassment to take care of me. Techno getting over his social anxiety to go out and buy me things. Tommy getting over his obnoxiousness so I could relax with all of my brothers… No I wouldn’t change this for anything.

There you go! I really hope you enjoyed! If so, be sure to leave a like, maybe even a reblog or reply telling me your favorite part!!!

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meliorist-midoriya · 3 years

Text

to you, to the world, to my love (you’re all three)

synopsis: midoriya has always had too much love to give in a world that loved to take. you’re just hoping that he has enough left for you in the end.

pairing: midoriya izuku x reader

genre: fluff with a touch of angst

warnings: some insecurity

word count: 2.5k

notes: happy valentine’s day, everyone! this is my contribution for the pocuties server collab, based off the greek types of love, of which i had the honor of receiving izuku and decided upon agape please help yourself to the box of chocolates they’re offering for valentine’s, there’s a wide selection of chocolates handmade by talented creators, so i’m sure you’ll find something to your taste! tbh i only managed to finish this fic because i was watching chan’s valentine’s vlive and i was in a super soft mood ;3;

extra: agápe - the ancient greek concept of selfless, universal love.

“Making his debut in the pro hero scene, Pro Hero Deku is blazing a trail straight out of UA—”

“—Pro Hero Deku solved an astounding 30 cases in the past month—”

“Deku’s popularity is skyrocketing, rivaling that of—”

“Hero Deku—”

“Deku—”

“Pro Hero Deku has swept the hero rankings to come out on top as Number 1!”

With a resolute ‘click’ of the remote, the reporters’ overlapping voices cut off as the TV screen faded away, your lonely reflection staring back at you from the blank screen. You, curled up on your empty couch, in your empty apartment with the clock striking what should have been dinner. The TV was only there in an attempt to drown out the crushing silence, the white noise—hellbent on filling the space his presence had left—was deafening.

That attempt failed.

Horribly.

If anything, it just made the sense of wrongness permeating the air even worse.

(That TV recap of his best moments didn’t help as much as you hoped it would.)

Being alone in this apartment felt… off. As if someone had gouged out what should’ve been there, the ghost of a presence settling a chill into your bones that ran far deeper than just plain loneliness. The foreboding grief of what could be, the fear that you’d resigned yourself to the moment you agreed to follow him on this path, the selfishness gnawing at your conscience every time you saw him run out the door to save the next person, to solve the next case.

Things like an All Might coffee mug sitting primly next to yours on the drying rack, garishly yellow “tufts” staring back at you with a cracked vengeance. (You’d apologized profusely to him that day, promising to buy him another one. He’d just smiled over his cracked cup of coffee, telling you not to worry about it for the hundredth time.)

Things like his haphazard mess of notes and scrawl spread out on the kitchen counter, the pen sitting next to the half finished page. (You’ve long since learned to leave his notes be, they’ll be tidied up once he’s done… if he’s ever truly done.)

The filled queue of movies and pile of DVDs you’d picked out together, giddy over plans to watch the next time he had a free night. (You remember pretending not to notice him trying to slip another hero documentary near the bottom of the pile, distracting you with talks of popcorn and the night that was supposed to be tonight.)

Deku. The man the world adored, clinging to his promise like a lifeline in times of need.

Midoriya Izuku. The man you loved, who promised you the world.

“It’ll be okay, I’m here.”

His soft promise echoed both in the battlefield and in your darkest hours, a close mirror to a hero of a generation past, yet it was different. It was his own. Comforting, personal, and wholly him. The public, weak and grasping for new support, latched on to the small sliver of hope his hand offered and he just kept giving, giving, giving. It never seemed to stop, and you were scared.

He was a man with a bleeding heart with all the love to give and more. To the civilians, to the villains, to anyone in need.

Now, you needed his promise more than ever. A reassurance whispered into reunions and the thousandth hospital visit, over fresh scars and searing kisses. A promise that he would come home. You didn’t want to think of all the times he came so, so close to breaking that promise, even before you two had made it, before you two had even promised yourselves to each other in your UA days.

You pulled the blanket a little tighter around you, staring down at your phone with no real intent in mind as you scrolled. The video playing one of his interview clips (bashfully reciting his “catchphrase,” how cute) cut his voice short as you scrolled past to move on to the next, wincing at the next tweet on your timeline. Him, battered and bloody, as he pulled a child from the aftermath of the battle he’d just won.

You still need to wrap that new mug you got him as a gift. You still had to listen to him bounce his ideas off of you. You still had to move that hero documentary to the top of the pile. You still—

“Hero Deku saves 30 people, no casualties,” A soft murmuring of the headline shattered the silence, and you smiled to yourself, giggling at all the replies joking of how he threw himself into the fray a little more responsibly and singing their praises.

It’ll be okay.

“Ugh, those reporters are at it again.”

At your best friend’s exasperated groan, you followed their gaze over to see— ah.

A small swarm of reporters had worked their way into the fans crowding your boyfriend, their press badges reading every tabloid magazine on this side of the city and prying questions falling off their tongue like poison. From what you could hear over their overlapping clamoring, they were trying to dig into his private life.

Again.

Deku, the darling of the masses, all sweet smiles and sincere words amidst his strength. Deku, the number one hero with the tightest lock on his private life, which came as a surprise to both everyone and no one.

It was a given, considering his position at the peak of hero society.

It was also a complete shock, considering his tendency to ramble into tangents that had his PR team withering.

Which seemed to help in times like these, now that you thought about it, laughing to yourself as you watched the reporters’ expressions darken in defeat the longer he continued to talk around their questions. Quite a long stretch from stiffly standing on the practice stage at UA all those years ago, frozen from nerves. You idly mused to this to yourself, taking a sip of your drink as you dragged your gaze back over to your best friend.

“Did you choose this cafe because it’s right along Izuku’s patrol route?” They stiffened, and you couldn’t help but laugh at their obvious intentions.

“Maybe, or it could’ve been just a coincidence.” The next teasing jab was halfway off your tongue when they cut you off before you could give into the urge, the words dying in your throat. “When was the last time you saw him anyway? I know you two live together but Todoroki told me he practically lives at the agency with how swamped they are. Are you okay?”

You purse your lips, staring down at the ice swirling around in your cup as you idly stirred it round. As if the sloshing liquid could whisper the answer you wish you knew.

“...Yeah.” They cocked a brow, and you took another sip to try and delay your time. “It’s not like either of us can help it. Izuku’s number one, so this was bound to happen.”

(The clamoring from the reporters grew ever louder. Persistent, that bunch.)

Their expectant (doubting) gaze was met with your own steady one, and you smiled. Whether it was out of consolation or resignation was anyone’s guess.

“We’re okay, I promise.”

You should really be getting to sleep.

Really, you should.

At least, that’s what you’ve been telling yourself for the past several hours, tossing and turning in your bed with nothing but winter-cold sheets and a gnawing loneliness to keep you company. You know you should be sleeping when the clock on the bedside table reads an ungodly hour and there was work to be done in the morning. You know you should be sleeping when the moon disappears from the night sky and leaves you with nothing but the city lights to dimly illuminate the dark room.

You really know you should be sleeping when you hear the front door click open, Izuku shuffling around the apartment to get ready for whatever minimal amount of sleep he’d get before he had to be up and running soon after.

Despite this, sleep still refuses to come, and you don’t bother pretending to be asleep when he slides into bed next to you. Instead, you turn over and curl into his chest, stifling the guilt that bubbles up when he jumps in surprise.

“Something keeping you up?” Oh, he sounds so tired, and part of you wishes you could just make it all go away. The weight of the world rests heavy on his shoulders, and deep down, you wonder if you’re part of that burden. You curl a little closer, as if trying to smother the thoughts that crashed upon you, spilling over the crack in the dam that only widened the more you spoke.

“Jus’ a little lonely, is all.” Your voice is too quiet, brittle, and you pray to every deity that would listen that he would drop it. That he wouldn’t take on yet another burden when he was already carrying Altas’s share of the world.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

Of course, the gods are hardly ever so merciful—to them you are just another wishful mortal in the realm of the holy and damned—and Izuku’s hand rests on your cheek with a tenderness that makes you want to cry.

“...Why?”

The confusion that falls over his expression (gaunt, tired, and God, should you even be doing this right now?) is immediate, and he tilts your face up to meet his gaze with yours, like he could find the answer in city lights dancing over your face. His thumb strokes soft patterns over your cheek—as if brushing off the layers you’d built to protect your soul—and you lean into his soft touch with a sigh.

“Why what?”

The words spill from your lips unbidden, your hesitations softened by the comfort of his touch, the sudden drowsiness, and the emotion that near overwhelms you.

“Why do you still try to do everything yourself? When there’s so many people out there, ready to support you?” His breath hitches in shock, but it’s too late to go back now. You reach up to hold the hand cradling your cheek, distantly remembering a time when he was too insecure of his scarred and crooked hands to even hold your hand.

He’s come a long way, indeed.

“I love you, Izuku. I just don’t know if that can hold up against your love for the world.”

Something in his gaze softens, to your surprise. His smile is even softer.

“What would you do if you’re both?”

“Wh— Izuku—”

He continues, and you listen, raptured by his words spoken into the glow of the blue hour.

“Yes, I know that at the end of the day, peace and safety has to come first, but—” His smile widens into something bashful, a smile that never failed to send butterflies scattering through your heart. “—who says you can’t be right along with them?”

He bumped his forehead with yours, smiling emerald eyes gazing into your own with such love—dizzying and overpowering and so, so warm. With the steady thrum of your heartbeat matching his, you found yourself falling even deeper once again.

“You know me, I can never compromise when it comes to what’s important to me.”

You laugh, something watery, as he presses a kiss to your forehead, temple, cheek, with a last, smiling kiss on your lips.

“How greedy.” He laughs into your lips, pulling away to hold you closer.

“Just for you.”

There’s so many things you could’ve said, as you watched the rest of the night sky fade into the deep blues of dawn. But, you decide, the comforting silence was best left as is, only broken by one resounding comfort.

It’ll be okay.

“You know, it would’ve been nice to know that you had taken the day off before I had that whole guilt spiral last night.”

“It turned out okay though, didn’t it?” He turned back to flash you that cheeky grin of his, half-hidden by his winter coat and backed by the glow of the setting sun. You just rolled your eyes with a laugh before jogging to catch up to him, slipping you hand out of your pocket to interlace your fingers with his.

“Yeah, it did.”

The walk was silent as you two strolled down the familiar path, winding down after a whole day spent with each other. It was romantic of him, now that you thought about it, to take the whole Valentine’s Day off just for you. You hummed as you leaned onto him, giddy and content at the thought.

In love, if you were to be so bold.

(Granted, he had to wear a mask and a cap the entire time to hide from the prying eyes of the public, but you made do.)

The sight of aged, familiar scenery pulled you from your musings, and you tugged at his hand to grab his attention, pointing at the quaint bench surrounded by bare gingko trees.

“Hey, wasn’t this the park where you confessed?” At your words, he froze and glanced over at the familiar scenery, eventually burying his face into his free hand with a groan once the old memories clicked in his head.

“Oh, don’t remind me. It’s still embarrassing to look back on.”

“What? I thought you were cute!” You laughed, nudging him to follow as you led him over to the small park, brushing off the dust to sit on the bench before patting the space next to you. Izuku obliged, and you almost automatically curled into his side, as if by habit.

“Did we really walk all the way here from the station?” His disbelieving tone made you look up at him, his expression one of nostalgic awe, before casting your attention back to the aged scenery, humming in agreement as you idly picked out what’s changed and what’s stayed in the years that have passed.

“I guess we never really forget, huh?”

“I forgot the sunset looked the best from here.”

“I hope you didn’t forget all the memories we made here.” He tore his attention from the sunset to gape down at you, scandalized.

“Of course not!”

“Really?” He arched a brow at the teasing lilt to your voice and the mischievous grin playing at your lips, “So you didn’t forget accidentally firing an Air Force shot at me when we first met because you were training?”

He buried his face in his hands again with another embarrassed groan.

“I hoped you would forget that, at least!” You just laughed, hugging him closer as if to console him from your teasing. Before long, the atmosphere settled back into a quiet reminiscence, indulging in the nostalgia of memories past in this little park. The silence that was once deafening alone, now softened by the comfort of his presence at your side.

“We’ve made so many memories in this park, huh?” At your soft hum of agreement, he continued. Was his voice shaking? “It wouldn’t hurt to make more, would it?”

“What do you me—”

Your question cut itself short as you saw what he held out to you.

A little velvet box, sitting open in his hand. You dragged your suddenly watery gaze back up to Izuku, his once bashful smile now wobbly with nerves.

So familiar in this little park, yet so new.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.”

It was just a small walk down memory lane, the street lights blinking on one by one in the wake of the fiery sunset as you two walked the familiar path together. Yet there was something buzzing anew in the air, humming through your soul as you held out your hand to the sun, admiring the way the gem on your ring finger sparkled in the fading sunset. In the other, you interlaced your fingers with his.

Yeah…

You caught Izuku’s soft gaze, smiling and in love.

We’ll be okay.

#pocuties collab #midoriya izuku x reader #midoriya x reader #bnha oneshot #mha oneshot #bnha x reader #pocuties

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outshinethestars · 2 years

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Growth in Winter (Daredevil)