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atinylittlepain · 1 year

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Unexpected Expectings - A Joel Miller Story

Joel Miller x pregnant!f!reader/pregnant!f!oc

Joel Miller Masterlist

It's a horrible idea, even living somewhere as safe as Jackson. But it's all she wants. Will Joel be able to accept her decision? Or will she have to do this alone?

warnings | 18+ heavy angst, descriptions of pregnancy symptoms, SMUT, decisions around pregnancy, Joel is an asshole :/

.....................

She knows it’s foolish. Stupid really, and maybe even a death wish. It isn’t certain, but it might as well be. Her period has been missing for three months now, and since she’s been living in Jackson, there’s no other reason for its absence other than one glaring option. That coupled with the rolling nausea that has been rocking her these past few weeks makes her as close to certain as she can be. She’s living in a post-apocalyptic world, and she’s pregnant.

She and Joel had been so careful, or at least she thought so. She had even figured out how to track her periods, maneuvering around them to create the least possible chance of something like this happening. Yet, it was becoming painfully clear that they hadn’t been careful enough. The first month, she thought it was just a fluke. The second month, she started to panic when the so-called morning sickness started showing up at all times of the day. Her first instinct had been to hide it from Joel. She knew his past, the loss of his daughter Sarah that had left him shattered, and she knew that a pregnancy would be the last thing they needed. While things were a little different in Jackson – even Maria had just had a perfect baby boy with Tommy – she and Joel had lived harder than most of these people. After their time on the road transporting Ellie, they couldn’t help the skittish streak in them, waiting for the other shoe to drop, another catastrophe, and they were always keeping an eye on the horizon, ready to leave when things went sideways. And they certainly couldn’t do that with a baby in tow.

She should have taken care of it right away, gone to Maria who’d know women in the community that could help. The mountains were rich with herbs and plant medicine, and there’d surely be a way to take care of the situation with the right knowledge. But, something was keeping her from doing it, from ending it, and she couldn’t figure out what the hell it was. Maybe it was some sort of hormonal cocktail already bonding her to this question mark of a child, but all she knew was that she kept stealing wisps of moments alone in which she’d lift up her shirt and settle her palm over her stomach.

It hadn’t been too hard to hide it at first, she and Joel were passing ships during the day, each busy with patrol shifts. When the nausea hit, she’d found ways to subtly excuse herself and find somewhere to quietly wretch until the feeling passed. It was exhausting, but the alternative option of Joel finding out and possibly having an aneurysm seemed a lot less appealing. But as time kept passing, the reality that she’d have to handle the situation or tell him the truth became more pressing. It happened one morning as they were showering together. Joel had been grazing his rough hands along her body, palms splaying along her sides as she pressed her back into his chest, head tilted to rest on his shoulder. He had hummed in her ear, fingers skimming over her stomach to graze the underside of her breasts.

“Civilization looks good on you, honey. Finally got you eating proper and you fill out so nice.” He had emphasized his words with a harsh squeeze to the swell of her breasts, but she had stilled in his hold, her eyes blowing wide in fear. She had quickly recovered, turning in his hold and distracting him with a sloppy blowjob, but once they got out of the shower and started getting dressed, she had hung back, waiting until he was already heading downstairs to finally look in the mirror. It was subtle, but her stomach was obviously swollen, the hint of an arc, and her breasts were also feeling different, heavier in her hands.

That was a month ago now, and each day since she had told herself it will be the day she confronts Joel with the truth, and each day, she keeps on hiding it from him. But it was certainly getting harder. She hadn’t really let him touch her since that morning, opting for chaste pecks and quick slips out of his grabby hands and she could tell Joel was getting more and more frustrated at the distance. He did however let her off the hook for her uncharacteristic distance when he found her hunched over the toilet and heaving out the contents of her stomach. Morning sickness had been continuing to mount, and it had become all but impossible to hide it. When he asked her what was wrong with a panicked worry washed over his face, she chalked it up to food poisoning, an answer he reluctantly accepted before getting her a glass of water and helping her lay down. But food poisoning doesn’t last for weeks.

When she wakes up the next morning, Joel already gone on an early shift, she knows that by tonight, he needs to know the truth.

The first thing she does that morning is head to Maria’s house. Her mind is a fog of thoughts as she knocks on her door, but she’s quickly shocked back into reality when Maria opens the door with her little boy on her hip. The sight of the mother with her child takes her breath away, and she unconsciously brings her own hand to ghost over her stomach before quickly jerking her arm down to her side and digging her nails into her palm. Maria offers her a smile, but confusion settles in a crease between her brows.

“Hey, Joel said you weren’t feeling too well yesterday. Are you doing alright?” She sighs, trying to find the right words but failing as she wrings her hands on Maria’s doorstep.

“Um, hey, I-I’m fine, but– can I talk to you about something?” Maria’s eyebrows raise slightly, but she nods, shifting to let her come in before closing the door behind them. They sit down on the sofa in her living room, and her eyes immediately catch on the small memorial to Sarah and Maria’s own son that rests above their fireplace. She feels her throat tighten at the sight, but quickly shifts her focus back to Maria, who’s gently cooing at her brightening boy. She can’t help but smile at the sight, but Maria glances up at her, reminding her that she isn’t here for small talk. She clears her throat, taking a sharp inhale before speaking.

“There’s no good way to say this so I’ll just get it out. I’m pregnant.” Maria’s jaw falls slightly, her eyes wide, the only sound breaking the suffocating silence are the light coos of her baby. She takes another deep breath before continuing.

“It’s Joel’s, obviously. A-and I’m pretty sure it’s been three months?” Maria finally nods.

“Ok. What do you wanna do?” It’s such a simple question, but it’s the first time she’s talked about this with anyone, and she can already feel tears pricking her eyes as she stammers out a response.

“I– I wanna say that I don’t know– but– I– I do. I wanna keep it– so bad. I-is that crazy?” Maria’s wide smile is a huge relief, and the laugh she lets out washes away any uncertainty she had.

“No. It’s not crazy. Not at all. If anyone is tough enough to do it, it’s you.” Just then, Maria’s boy lets out a shrill giggle that startles them both, making them laugh and share a warm smile. She can see a streak of worry cross over Maria’s features, though, and the woman sighs.

“I have to ask. Does Joel know yet?” Her smile quickly fades, a deep frown settling as she looks down at her hands, shaking her head.

“I’ve been battling in my head about it until just now. Wasn’t even sure he was gonna need to know anything. But I guess now he’s gonna have to find out.” Maria purses her lips, seeming to think on it for a moment.

“Well, I’ve known Joel long enough to understand that this might not be easy. But you don’t have to do it alone. I know– we’re all supposed to have dinner together on Friday– Tommy and I and you and Joel and Ellie. What if you told him then? Amongst family.” She feels tears threatening to spill again at Maria’s idea, and the woman is quick to take one of her hands and offer a reassuring squeeze.

“You are family, you understand?” She smiles, nodding jerkily as she swipes away her tears.

“Thank you, Maria. Just– thank you. That means a lot to me.” They share another smile, but she can’t help the anxious thoughts burrowing into her head.

“It’s just– I’m worried I won’t be able to hide it until then.” Maria furrows her brow and she sighs under her gaze.

“I’m having terrible morning sickness. Honestly, whoever decided to call it that is an idiot because it’s all day. I just don’t think Joel is gonna keep buying the excuse of food poisoning until Friday.” Maria nods at her words.

“There’s a tea I can show you how to make. I drank gallons of it when I was pregnant with this little devil. Why don’t I come back to your house and I can show you how to make it?” It’s less a question and more a direction as Maria’s already standing with her boy still on her hip, walking into her kitchen to gather whatever she needs to bring over with her.

…

When they get back to the house she shares with Joel and Ellie, it’s quiet, no one home yet. Keeping her baby slung to her chest, Maria sets to work, showing her the herbs she’s combining to steep in a pot on the stove.

“Honestly, I’d just keep a pot brewing with this all day. The stronger the better in this case.” She nods at her words.

“Thank you for helping me with this. It’s just been so exhausting, it feels like it’s only getting worse.” Maria smiles knowingly, lightly stirring the pot of brewing tea.

“Well, they say strong morning sickness means strong baby. I’ve also heard that having a lot of morning sickness is a sign it’s a girl.”

“Who’s having morning sickness?” The women both jump, startled by Ellie’s sudden presence in the kitchen. She quickly stammers out an answer, trying to cover their trail.

“H-hey, Ellie bean. No one has morning sickness. We were just talking about Maria’s pregnancy, that’s all.” By the squinting look the girl gives them, she can tell Ellie’s not quite buying her answer.

“Uh, ok, but Maria had a boy.” She glances at Maria, who looks just as confused as she feels.

“What’s that?”

“Maria had a boy. And she said that having lots of morning sickness means it’s a girl, so I don’t see how you could’ve been talking about her pregnancy– is something else going on?” Before she can come up with a reply to Ellie’s skeptical question, a punch of nausea washes over her and it’s all she can do to hinge over the edge of the sink before she’s emptying what little was in her stomach into the porcelain basin. When she rights herself, swiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Ellie’s eyes are wide and her mouth is hung open.

“No way–”

“Ellie–”

“Are you for real right now? You’re pregnant?” She shushes the girl’s exclamation, holding her by her shoulders and looking her square in the eyes.

“I-I am, but, Ellie, you can’t tell anyone–”

“Wait – it’s Joel’s, right? That was a dumb question, of course it is– wait, does he know yet?” She sighs, offering the girl a small shake of her head and Ellie’s face falls.

“A-are you not keeping it or–?”

“No! I am, I am. I decided I am.” She glances behind her to Maria who gives her a small smile of support. Maria steps forward and both women place a hand on Ellie’s shoulders.

“Ellie, she’s gonna wait to tell Joel until this Friday. When we’re all together as a family. But until then, you can’t say a word to anyone.” Ellie’s eyes widen again and she lets out a huffed laugh.

“Oh shit. Joel is gonna freak the fuck out. You do realize that, right?” She sighs, letting her hand drop from the girl’s shoulder.

“I do. Which is why I’m waiting to tell him, ok? Joel can’t know anything until then.”

“What can’t I know?” All three of them let out startled yelps, turning to see Joel coming in through the back door. Shit. When none of them answer his question, he huffs, putting his hands on his hips.

“Hey, what can’t I know?” Ellie’s eyes dart nervously between her and Maria, but both women are still too stunned to figure out how to respond. Unfortunately, Joel’s eyes wander to the kitchen counter, where Maria had left the book she brought over. She had offered to lend it to her, an old tattered copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting. If the title didn’t make it obvious, the picture of the very pregnant woman on the cover certainly did.

It’s as if she watches it in slow motion as he shuffles over to the counter, picking up the book and inspecting it. He holds it aloft, peering back at the trio who have all still failed to pick their jaws up off the floor.

“What’s this doing here?” His gaze shifts from Maria, to Ellie, finally to her. She can barely meet his eyes with her own, still swimming in her mind for how to answer him. Ellie’s the first to break the silence, stepping in between her and Joel.

“Listen, old man. You don’t get to be mad at her, alright? It’s bad for the baby.” Joel’s face immediately slackens, the book falling from his hand with a heavy thud as it meets the floor. She grits her teeth. Jesus christ, kid, so much for not saying anything. Maria speaks then.

“Ellie–” The girl whips around, a panicked look on her face.

“Oh fuck. I’m sorry–” They’re startled again when Joel brings a heavy hand down on the counter, the sound reverberating through the kitchen.

“Somebody better tell me what the fuck is going on, right now.” She squeezes Ellie’s shoulder.

“It’s ok, Ellie. Why don’t you go with Maria? Joel and I need to talk.” He huffs at her words but she keeps her attention on Ellie and Maria, both of them giving her a weary, questioning look. She just nods, ushering them out of the kitchen.

“Go. I think we need to have this conversation just me and him.” The pair finally acquiesce, Ellie muttering another sorry before she turns back to shout over her shoulder at Joel.

“You better be nice, old man. If you hurt my future sister you’ll have to answer to me.” She winces at the girl’s words. It definitely didn’t help the incredulous look that had wiped over Joel’s face. She finally turns back to face him fully, wringing her hands. He huffs again, shifting in his work boots as he peers at her.

“You better start explaining yourself. Is it– are you–” She lifts her chin, trying to be confident under his scrutinizing look.

“I am, Joel. I’m pregnant.” His features slacken again and he rakes both his hands through his hair, letting out a low curse.

“Is it– is it mine?” She chokes on a breath at his ridiculous question before letting out a humorless laugh.

“Why does everyone keep asking me that? Of course it’s fucking yours! What kind of question is that?” He sighs, scrunching his eyes shut and shaking his head.

“I’m sorry– I just– it just came out– fuck. I know that– I know it’s mine.” He scrubs a hand down his face, glancing at the pot on the stove.

“Is that what this is for? Maria told you how to take care of it?” It’s her turn to scrunch her face at him.

“What? No. Joel I– I’m going to–” He holds up his hand, cutting her off.

“No.”

“Joel.”

“No. Don’t say what I think you’re about to– don’t tell me you wanna keep it.” Something in her crumples at his words, so she does what she does best when she’s under attack. She gets pissed. She gets up in his space, her sudden heated change in demeanor seeming to catch him off guard as she jabs her finger into his chest, making him stumble back until he’s leaning against the counter.

“I’m not telling you I wanna keep it. I’m telling you I am keeping it.” He scoffs at her words, hulking over her even as she tries to stand her ground.

“Well then you’re not as smart as I thought you were. Are you really stupid enough to think this is a good idea? This–this mistake? That’s ridiculous. And don’t expect me to play house with you either because I want no part of this.” She’ll deal with the pain his words are sending shivering through her bones later, but for now, she sneers at him and gets big with anger.

“Fine. I’ll do it by myself if I have to. But you’re not gonna take this from me, Joel Miller, even if it means losing you.” She sees something flash behind the ire in his eyes and she thinks it’s the same hurt she currently feels squeezing her heart. But it’s gone in an instant, Joel huffs before shouldering past her and storming through the house and out the front door. It’s all she can do to hold herself up on the counter as the first sob racks her body.

…

She has no idea where Joel stomped off to, and she doesn’t want to be around to find out when he gets home. With a backpack stuffed with whatever she thought she might need, she stumbles out across the street, back to Maria’s house. The bright sunlight of mid-afternoon stings her tear-worn eyes and she scrubs harshly at her face as she waits for someone to answer the door. She’s caught off guard when it’s Tommy who opens up to her knocking.

“Oh– Tommy, I– um– I–” Before she can stutter anything out, the man is gathering her up in a hug that makes her let out a small “oof.” He pulls back, guiding her into the house and quietly closing the door.

“Maria told me. I’d like to say congrats, but I also think I’m gonna have to apologize for whatever dumb shit Joel pulled when you told him.” His words make her let out a breathy laugh, but then she falls apart all over again. Tommy rubs her arms as more sobs break, guiding her over to sit on their couch. She digs the heels of her palms into her eyes, shaking her head.

“I’m sorry– I-I can’t stop f-f-fucking crying today.” Tommy offers her a sad smile, sitting down next to her and squeezing her hand.

“I’d say that’s a fitting reaction. If you wanna cry, then you just cry, alright? Now what the hell did Joel say when you told him?” She sighs, a long shudder running through her as she finally glances up at Tommy.

“He said it was stupid– that I want to keep it. Called it a mistake.” Tommy huffs, a deep furrow of frustration settling across his face.

“Well, my suspicions are confirmed. Joel’s acting a fucking fool. Did he storm off?” She nods and Tommy lets out a dry chuckle.

“He’s predictable, the old shit. You already know this, but he’s a reactive asshole. I can guarantee he’s already starting to feel bad for all that garbage he said.” She nods, a wave of exhaustion passing over her that has her leaning back into the couch and tilting her head up to look at the mottled ceiling.

“I know that. But– I don’t– this is different from anything else.” Tommy looks at her questioningly and she sighs.

“I just– I think this might be it, Tommy. I think it might be too much for him.” Her eyes are fixed on Sarah’s name scrawled on the chalkboard atop their mantel. He rests a hand on her knee, giving a reassuring squeeze.

“Well, then Joel is an even bigger idiot than I thought. Look, I have a pretty good idea of where he sulked off to. Why don’t I go talk to him?” She shakes her head, eyes hazy in resignation.

“No, I think it’ll only upset him more. Whatever conclusion he gets to, he needs to come to it on his own.” Tommy sighs, but nods at her words.

“And you? What’s your conclusion?” She brings both her hands to rest over the slight swell of her belly.

“I’m prepared to do it alone if I have to. God– I don’t think I’ve wanted something this bad in a long time.” Tommy smiles at her words, giving her knee another squeeze.

“Right on, mama. And, Joel or no Joel, you aren’t gonna do this alone. Maria and I, we’re here for you. And Ellie too. Pretty sure that girl is gonna knock his lights out if I don’t beat her to it.” She can’t help the warbly laugh she lets out at that and it feels like the biggest relief after such a shit day.

“Thank you, Tommy.” The man nods.

“No need for thank you, not when it comes to family.”

…

Tommy shows her up to their spare bedroom and she conks out nearly as soon as she lays down, the day she’s had finally catching up to her. When she wakes up, the room is a wash in the orange haze of evening. She can hear quiet laughter floating down the hall through the cracked door of the room and she follows the sound to find Maria and Ellie in the nursery, sprawled on the rug as they play with Maria’s boy. Ellie is on her feet in an instant, wrapping her up in a hug and whispering a meek “I’m sorry” into her collarbone. She rubs the girl’s back, pulling away to offer her a small smile.

“It’s alright, Ellie bean. It’s gonna be alright.” Ellie nods, her eyes glancing down to her stomach and she can’t help but laugh at the girl’s suddenly very nervous demeanor. Ellie’s eyes whip back up to hers.

“Can I– um– could I–” She cuts off her stammering, grabbing one of her hands and laying her palm over her stomach. Ellie’s eyes widen.

“There’s not much to feel yet, but–”

“Woah, s’already, like, round. That’s so fucking weird, man.” She snorts at Ellie’s words.

“Gee thanks, kid. That makes me feel a lot better.” Ellie huffs, letting her hand fall away before looking back up at her.

“Is it really gonna be a girl?” She glances at Maria who’s now standing with her boy on her hip.

“Well, I guess we won’t really know until they’re here. Whoever they are. But I have to admit I’d kinda like a girl seeing as I already have some experience in the area.” She nudges Ellie’s shoulder and the girl laughs at that, eyes crinkling up. Maria sidles up to the pair, leaning and whispering in a fake conspiratory way to Ellie.

“Did you see the way she threw up? Definitely a girl.” They share another laugh, and it’s almost enough to quell the twinge of pain she’s still feeling, Joel’s name pulsing in her mind like a second heartbeat. But she’s quickly taken out of the fog as Maria ushers her and Ellie downstairs to help with dinner.

…

Dinner is lovely, save for the glaringly empty chair at one end of the table. She can tell that they’re trying to keep her mind off it, off him, asking her all kinds of questions about the baby that is now most certainly not a question mark, but a firm exclamation point of a yes. Ellie asks her if she has thought about names and while she honestly hasn’t, she’s surprised by how quickly she has an answer.

“My sister’s name was Olivia, but everyone called her Libby. I think that might be nice since everyone’s so sure it’s gonna be a girl.” It’s sad, but it’s also sweet, and a gentle silence falls over the table as they all take in her response. But they’re startled out of the moment when a quick set of knocks on the front door rings through the house. She knows it’s him, she just does, and her eyes dart anxiously to Tommy’s. Tommy clears his throat, softly muttering “excuse me” as he stands and walks out of the room towards the front door. They’re all holding their breath as he opens it, but something in her snaps when she hears Joel’s voice.

“Is she here?” She can hear the shuffle of Tommy’s boots, most likely as he stands in the doorway to block Joel’s entrance.

“Hello to you too, brother. What exactly can I help you with?”

“Tommy, please. I-I need to talk to her.”

“Are you just gonna spew more bullshit at her? Because if that’s the case then I can’t let you see her, Joel.” She can hear the frustrated huff that Joel lets out, can even picture the scrunched look he probably has on his face right now.

“Look, I went home and she wasn’t there. Is she here or not?” She glances at Ellie, a worried look pinching the girl’s features, and she does her best to offer her a reassuring smile, but it’s hard to be convincing when her own stomach is twisting in knots.

“Brother, you oughta be ashamed of yourself for what you said to her. How could you? After everything you two have been through together? It’s fucking ridiculous.”

“You couldn’t understand, Tommy. What it meant for me to lose–” Tommy cuts off Joel’s words, an anger in his voice that’s new and raw.

“Don’t you dare say I can’t understand. I lost her too, Joel. But at least I’m not a fucking coward like you. Sarah would be disgraced by the way you treated her today.” There’s a shuffling of boots, and then Joel’s harsh words.

“Watch it.” She’s heard enough, getting up and hurrying out to the front door. She finds the men nose to nose, sneers stretched across their faces. When Joel catches her out of the corner of his eye, he immediately slackens, shrinking back from Tommy. She’s amazed by how small he seems as he looks at her, his eyes heavy and glistening. She tentatively steps forward, angling herself between the two men. She does her best to seem confident, tilting her chin up at him

“What is it, Joel?” He clears his throat, opening his mouth but then seeming to think again and pursing his lips in a thin line before he finally speaks.

“Um– I– can we talk?” His eyes keep darting down to her stomach, the small swell now slightly defined under the fitted t-shirt she’s wearing. She had been hiding in his large flannels over the last few weeks, but she figured there was no longer reason to now. Tommy goes to speak, but she glances back at him, a silent confirmation that she has this under control. He nods, sending one more glare toward his brother before shaking his head and slipping back towards the dining room. She turns back to Joel.

“I’ll listen to what you have to say. But I can’t promise you anything in return.” He nods, wiping his palms down the front of his jeans. He goes to speak, but his eyes glance behind her, and she turns to catch Maria, Ellie, and Tommy leaning out from the end of the hall and peering at them. She huffs.

“Here, let’s go on the porch and you can say what you wanna say to just me.” She steps out, not missing the way he flinches as her stomach brushes past him. He sits down on the bench seat and she chooses to lean against the porch railing across from him. His brow furrows.

“You should sit. Need to stay off your feet now.” She’s stunned into laughter at his words, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Are you serious? Joel, what do you care? Last I checked, you wanted nothing to do with this.” She brings one hand down to rest over her stomach, fixing him with as hard a look as she can muster. He sighs, resting his elbows on his thighs as he leans forward and hangs his head between his shoulders. His voice is a murmur, but she can still hear what he says in the quiet of the quick-darkening evening.

“That’s not true.” She huffs.

“What’s not true?” He tilts his head up, finally meeting her gaze. She can see the tears threatening to fall in the corners of his eyes.

“That I don’t want anything to do with this. That’s not true.” She scoffs, scrunching her eyes shut in frustration before looking at him again.

“Well, I’m sorry if that’s a little hard to believe coming from you. After you told me you wanted no part in, what did you say? Playing house with me? You sure know how to keep a girl guessing, Miller, I’ll give you that.” He takes in a harsh breath, running a quick hand through his hair and shaking his head.

“I know what I said– I-I wasn’t talking sense– when I– when you– fuck– you scared the living shit out of me, you know that?” The pained grimace on his face makes her soften, leaning back into the railing, waiting for him to continue. He sighs.

“I just– we were careful, right? We were always careful. How could this happen?” She tenses up.

“You better not be saying this is my fault, Joel.” He blanches, shaking his head.

“N-no, no. It’s just– never in a million years did I think this would happen. I was shocked when you told me. And it’s no excuse for the way I spoke to you and I’m sorry, I really am. But I just don’t understand how you’re not fucking terrified right now because I am.” She lets out an incredulous laugh at his words before looking back at him.

“You think I’m not terrified right now? You think I wasn’t terrified when you walked out that door? You think I haven’t been terrified for the last three months trying to figure out why I want this baby so bad when I know it’s probably the dumbest idea I’ve ever had? I must be good at hiding it then, because I’m so fucking afraid it makes it hard to breathe sometimes.” A heavy silence falls between them. Joel clears his throat.

“Will you please sit down, honey?” She sighs, a weariness settling back into her bones, but she gives in, sitting down next to him on the bench. There’s a few inches of space between them, and Joel rests his open palm there. She takes the invitation, letting her hand tangle with his. Relief washes over her at the feeling of his thumb brushing along her knuckles. He lets out a ragged sigh.

“The thing is, I do want this. With you.” She turns to look at him and he offers her a sad smile.

“But I don’t know if I can do it. Tommy’s right. I’m a fucking coward, darlin. And I’m scared that I can’t be what you need.” She shakes her head, looking at him questioningly. He squeezes her hand.

“When I lost Sarah– it destroyed me– and I told myself that I’d be in pieces for the rest of my life. Hell, the only reason I didn’t lay down and die right then was Tommy. I needed to protect him, to keep going for him.” He pauses for a moment, taking another shivery breath before looking at her again.

“Then I met you, and that damn kid. And I tried so hard not to care, but fuck– you were it for me and I knew it from the start. And I kept going for you, and for Ellie.” He scrunches his eyes shut, shaking his head slightly.

“We have a good thing going here. But you and I know better than most that it can change in a flash. And if– it’d be the end of me– if I lost you, o-or this piece of you and me. Fuck– my mind’s been racing all day with images of you– with a baby– with our baby. And it takes my breath away how much it scares me– and how badly I want it.” He finally opens his eyes, tears dipping into the worn lines of his face. She reaches up to swipe a stray one away from the arc of his cheek and he leans into her palm.

“Well, it sounds like we’re both scared, but we both want it. So, I guess it’s good we’re on the same page finally.” He huffs out a laugh at her words, a smile ghosting at the corners of his mouth. Truthfully, she’s not sure what to say. But she has a moment to figure it out as Joel wraps his arm around her, pulling her up against him and letting her settle into his side.

“Joel, I know you feel like you have to protect us. But this isn’t one sided. We’ve made it this far because we’ve done it together. We’re a team. I told you I’d do this by myself if I have to, but fuck– I don’t think I can do it without you. But I know we can do it, scared shitless, together.” He brings his hand to cup her jaw, skating his fingers over her cheek, and he gives her a firm nod.

“We’ll do it, together.” She leans forward, pressing a hard kiss to his lips around her splitting smile and she can feel his own grin in the way he kisses her back. For a moment, all that matters is the way his hand holds her face, the way her palm presses into his chest, and the way they keep kissing like they’re trying to steal each other’s breath. And then they’re promptly jostled out of the moment by a muffled voice resounding from behind the window they’re sitting in front of.

“Ugh, gross!” They both jerk away from each other, glancing behind them to just catch a flash of Ellie’s face before she’s dipping out of sight. They look at each other for a beat, before dissolving into disbelieving laughter. Joel shakes his head, hugging her tighter to his side and laying a kiss in her hair.

“That damn kid.” She snorts, looking up at him.

“I mean, we’ve already got a little practice with a child of the apocalypse. What’s one more, huh?” He huffs, before dipping down to kiss the sly grin off her face.

…

They return home together, after a rather tense reconciliation between Joel and Tommy that ended in Tommy telling his brother that he’d be “checking in to make sure you’re not being an idiot.” Maria had brought down her pack for her, telling her that she had tucked a few things in it that might be helpful, before shooting a weary glance at Joel that communicated plenty without her having to say anything.

When they enter the house, Ellie turns on her heel, wagging her finger at Joel and making him stumble back in his tracks a bit.

“Listen here, old man. She may have forgiven you, but I got my eye on you. If you pull any more of your weird, grumpy bullshit, you’re gonna be answering to me, alright? We need to create a stress-free environment for her, and all your scowling nonsense ain’t gonna fly.” Joel grumbles, letting out an exasperated huff of her name, but she’s already putting a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder, getting her to stand down.

“Don’t worry, Ellie. I’m pretty sure I can handle the old man.”

“Hey–” Joel scoffs in protest but she shoots him a look over her shoulder that makes his mouth promptly shut. She turns back to Ellie.

“Maria said they’re playing a movie tonight in town. I bet Dina will be there helping out with the little kids. Why don’t you go–” Before she can even pose the question, Ellie’s already shrugging her jacket back on and heading out the door with a hollered “I’ll be back!”

Watching the interaction, Joel looks exhausted, like he just ran a marathon. She grins, sidling up to him and rubbing her palms up his chest.

“How the hell do you do that? Does she come with a remote that I don’t know about or something?” She laughs, shrugging at him.

“Maybe I’m just a natural, Miller.” That earns her a crooked smile from him as he cups her jaw in both his palms, dipping down for a quick peck. She squeezes his shoulders before turning to head upstairs, he close on her heels.

They move without needing to speak, falling easily back into their normal routine, letting water warm up for a shower as they peel off their clothes from the day. She suddenly feels nervous, being bare before him. She had been dodging their usual routine, bathing alone to keep him from noticing anything. It’s the first time in a month since he’s seen her like this, and things have certainly changed since then.

She tentatively steps into the bathroom, his bare back facing her. When he hears her he turns around, eyes instantly roaming across her body. He doesn’t let his eyes linger on her belly, instead focusing them back on her face, an unreadable expression across his features. She feels nerves settling cold in her throat. He looks like he wants to say something, but instead lets out a low hum before turning and getting into the shower. She follows, stepping in front of him with her back facing his chest. She jumps slightly when his hands come to her sides, ghosting up until they run along her shoulders and down her arms, his touch disappearing just as soon as it came. They take to the task of cleaning off silently. Joel is gentle as he washes the soap from her body, but she can’t help but notice how his hands maintain a noticeable distance from her stomach. The longer it goes on and the longer he won’t touch her there, she can feel herself wilting, finally shrugging off his hands and leaving him in the shower. He calls out her name as a question, but she’s already wrapping her towel around herself and stepping out of the bathroom.

She knows it won’t be as simple as telling each other that it will be alright. She knows that Joel is having as much a hard time with this as she is. But she would give anything for him to touch her, to fully acknowledge what they have created together. She sighs, shaking her head of these thoughts as she rummages through her backpack for the clean clothes she had stashed in it. What she first finds, however, is a small bottle of what looks like oil with a note wrapped around it from Maria.

Stretch marks are a bitch. This helps. -M

She smiles at the note, unscrewing the cap and carefully smelling the contents. By the scent, she guesses it must be rosehip oil. She figures people must be collecting the wild blooms further up the mountain, processing them down to oil. She’ll have to thank Maria tomorrow.

If she was being honest, she hadn’t really looked at herself, not since last month. She had been trying so hard to hide the reality of her changing body that she had concealed it from even herself. Still holding the bottle of oil, she steps in front of the time-mottled mirror that hangs on the back of their closet door. She drops her towel, letting it pool around her feet and takes in the sight of what is now clearly a bump. She smooths her palm down the expanse of her stomach, taking in the curved path in the mirror before twisting to the side to see the obvious arc. She notices the silvery lines spidering across her hips there, lines that are new. Lines that mean growth. Lips parted in awe, she twists this way and that, fully taking in the foreign sight of her body.

The sound of Joel clearing his throat startles her out of her reverie and she turns her head to see him standing in the doorway to the bedroom with a towel slung around his hips. She’s frozen where she stands, pinned under his heady gaze that finally seems to be taking all of her in. His eyes catch on the bottle she’s still holding, looking back up at her with a question across his face. She smiles lightly, holding the bottle up.

“It’s from Maria. For stretch marks, I guess. Didn’t think I’d still be worrying about those after society collapsed.” It’s a lame attempt at a joke as Joel continues to study her. She still can’t figure out what he’s thinking, something she’s not used to. He clears his throat again, meeting her gaze.

“Do you want– could I– um– can I help?” Those three gruff words settle the aching worry in her chest. She smiles, nodding at him and he pads into the bedroom, his eyes not leaving hers as he settles on the edge of the bed. She shuffles over to stand between his legs and hands him the bottle. His eyes only break from hers when he looks down to unscrew the cap and pour some of the oil into his palm, rubbing his hands together to warm them up.

She can’t help the shiver that runs through her when his hands find purchase on her hips, rubbing small circles that start to get larger as he smooths over her sides. She rests her hands on his shoulders as he works, pausing only to pour more oil out into his palms. He hesitates before letting his hands lay on the actual swell of her stomach, but when he finally does she lets out a sigh that makes him smile. He’s impossibly gentle as he rubs the oil into her belly, lips parted in concentration. She tilts her head, dipping her cheek to her shoulder as she watches him. When he meets her gaze again she can see that his pupils are blown wide.

“Does this feel good, honey?” She hums, nodding lightly, drawing another smile from him as he finishes his ministrations. He rests his hands on her hips, pulling her closer to him as he drops his lips over her stomach in a sweet kiss, letting his mouth linger over her skin. The vibrations of the words he murmurs into her skin send another shudder through her bones.

“Beautiful. You’re fucking amazing.” She sighs out his name, carding her fingers through his hair to tip his head back to look up at her. She dips down to meet him in a kiss, his hands squeezing and encouraging her onto his lap as they dissolve into tangled tongues and swallowed sighs. Joel pulls away, letting his mouth trail down her neck, over the tops of her breasts and she arches into his lips. He sighs into her skin.

“Been missing you, darlin. But I guess now I know why you were slipping my hold all the time.” She grins, pressing a kiss to his forehead as he rests his chin in the valley between her breasts.

“You had me worried for a second there. Thought you were trading me in for a newer model.” She scoffs, tugging lightly at his hair to crane his face back up towards hers so she can steal another kiss from him.

“Not a chance, old man. You’re stuck with me.” He groans at the name she calls him, squeezing at her ass where his hands have now wandered and making her yelp.

“Let’s just see if you’re still calling me old man when I’m done with you.” With that, they meet in another rolling kiss, and it’s an awkward shuffle as Joel shrugs out of his towel and they inch up the length of the bed until he’s finally laying back with her straddling his hips. His cock is hard, resting against his thigh and she can just feel the tip of him grazing her backside as he brings his hand to her hip, drawing his fingers through her folds and making her whine out his name. She cants into his palm as he dips his fingers into her entrance, collecting the slick that’s already pooling there and drawing it up to her clit to press firm circles into the nerves there. Her hands find purchase on his chest as he starts to work her over with his fingers.

“Look so perfect like this, honey. Like a fucking painting.” Her eyes screw shut at his words, a whimper of his name on her lips as he starts to pump two of his fingers into her, his palm grinding into her clit with each pass. It’s certainly different, being astride Joel with the bump now all but in the way, and she feels stunted in her movements against his hand, like she can’t quite draw the pleasure from her hips that she’s looking for. Joel seems to sense her frustration, his hand stilling for a moment to instead rub circles into her hip.

“What’s wrong? What do you need, darlin?” She huffs, digging her chin into her chest as she feels a flush of embarrassment creeping up her neck.

“I-I don’t know– fuck– it just feels– weird.” She gestures vaguely to her stomach and Joel’s eyes widen, fingers flexing into the plush of her hips.

“Did I hurt you?” She’s quick to shake her head, thumbing at the frown across Joel’s face.

“No– it just– it doesn’t feel like it normally does– I don’t know– I feel awkward.” Joel lets out a long exhale, bringing one of his hands to graze along her jaw.

“It probably isn’t going to feel like it normally does, darlin. But we can figure this out, alright? Wanna make you feel good.” His words send a shiver up her spine and she nods.

It takes a bit of trial and error, but they both settle with her on her side and Joel pressed up behind her, the warmth of his chest spreading against her back. He runs his palm down her side, stopping at the plush of her thigh and encouraging her leg to hitch back over his, spreading her open a bit more for him. From there, he slides his hand between her legs, again finding a rhythm as he dips into her, crooking his fingers in a way that has her gasping as she digs her nails into his forearm. Her hips stutter back into him as he continues to fuck her with his fingers and she can feel his throbbing length pressing against the swell of her ass.

“That’s it, honey. Just relax. Let it feel good.” She whimpers his name, already feeling the pleasure settling heavy at the hilt of her spine, ready to pour over at any moment. She’s definitely more sensitive than usual, her hips jerking every time his palm presses hard against her clit. She cranes her neck back into his shoulder and he lays a kiss to her temple.

“Will you come for me, darlin? Please? Let me see you, huh?” She gives him a jerky nod, scrunching her eyes shut. With one more pass of his hand over her clit the pleasure bursts as she clenches around his fingers. She lets out a pant of his name as he fucks her through her high, squiriming in his hold as the sensation becomes nearly too much to bear. He finally relents, drawing his palm up her side before taking the heavy swell of one of her breasts in his hand and squeezing lightly. She groans at the feeling and he shushes her, laying kisses in her hair.

“So perfect, darlin. Did that feel good?” She sighs, craning her neck to meet him in a tangled up kiss.

“Yes, Joel. Wanna feel you. Let me have you, please.” He huffs into another kiss.

“You’ve got me, honey. Whatever you want, it’s all yours.” She turns back in his hold, hitching her leg back along his thigh as he draws his cock through her folds. They both sigh at the contact and her mind goes fuzzy when he notches the tip at her entrance. She’s realizing that it really has been a while, and just how much she missed this, missed him.

He slowly rolls his hips forward until he’s pressed flush with her, stilling like that as they both pant at the feeling. His voice is slow and thick in her ear, sending chills down her neck.

“Fuck– I missed this– missed you so much, darlin. Fucking made for me.” She keens under his praise, arching back into him.

“Joel, please– need you to move– p-please–” With a murmured “I got you” Joel rolls his hips again, slipping away to only spread her open all over again, a little more force in the way he grinds into the plush of her ass. It’s a jolted rhythm, both of them desperately chasing pleasure as he finds a slow but deep pace that she swivels back into. The sound is positively obscene, her arousal slicking each of his thrusts, their shared, broken gasps, the creaking of the bed frame. Joel brings his palm down to rest along the undercurve of her belly, his fingers dipping to circle her clit.

“M’sorry, honey– fuck– already close– will you give me one more? Let me feel you, c’mon, I know you can.” Each pant of her breath is his name, a chant as he tips her over the edge again. She flutters around his cock, throwing her head back into his shoulder. He’s not far behind her, thrusting once, twice, before his hips are stilling against her ass, his warmth washing through her core as he comes with a ragged cry of her name. He presses his damp forehead into the nape of her neck as they both catch their breath. She grabs his hand, tangling their fingers together.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to–” She cuts him off with a squeeze to his hand, a wry smile sliding across her face that he can only glimpse over her shoulder.

“I think it’s a little too late to worry about pulling out, Miller.” A beat of silence, and then he’s laughing gruffly into her back.

“Gonna be the death of me, woman.” She winces slightly when he pulls out and he turns her over in his hold, eyes scanning her worriedly.

“Are you hurt?” She shakes her head.

“Just a little sore. It has been a while, huh?” Joel grimaces, stealing a quick kiss.

“Never letting that happen again. I’ll tie you to the damn bed if I have to I need you so bad.” She sputters out a laugh at his words, brushing his dampened hair out of his face.

“Don’t think that will be necessary. You know I’m all yours.” He smiles, bringing his palm to the expanse of her belly, the warmth in his touch radiating all the way to the tips of her toes.

“I’m all yours, darlin. I love you.” Her eyes still widen when he says that. He’s only said it a handful of times, and it still catches her by surprise. She smiles, brushing a light kiss to his lips.

“I love you, Joel.”

…

They get cleaned up, again, but this time, Joel’s hands practically can’t stay away from her belly as they rinse each other off.

She curls into his side once they get back into bed, tracing patterns into his chest as he runs his palm up and down her arm. Joel sighs.

“So, Ellie said something about a sister? Do you think it’ll be a girl?” She cranes her neck to look at him, a grin crooking on her face.

“I don’t know. What do you think?” Joel studies her face for a moment before letting out a huff.

“I think we need another Miller boy in this house. You two already gang up on me. We gotta even the playing field.” She can’t help the laugh that bubbles out at that and he quirks a brow at her.

“What? You don’t think it could be a boy?” She quickly shakes her head, stifling her giggles.

“No, no, it’s not that. I just– do you really want a boy that bad?” He purses his lips.

“I mean, I wouldn’t mind a little more testosterone around here. But, I just want him or her healthy. Want you healthy.” She smiles, pressing a kiss to his chest before lifting up to kiss his lips.

“We will be, Joel. As long as we do it together, it’s gonna be alright.” She settles back down onto his chest, but can’t help the giggle that jolts through her thinking about what he said. He jostles her in his hold.

“What?” She sighs.

“Nothing, I’m just happy is all. Go to sleep.” He huffs, but seems to accept her answer, settling into a silence that eventually dissolves into his soft snores. She can’t stop thinking about how funny it is, how badly he wants a boy.

She just knows it’s a girl, and she knows that this sweet little thing is gonna have grumpy Joel Miller wrapped around her pinky finger from the moment he lays eyes on her. Besides, three against one sounds like pretty good odds to her.

#joel miller smut #joel miller angst #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x reader #joel miller #joel miller fluff #tlou fanfiction #tlou #the last of us #unexpected expectings

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gngkook · 1 year

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phoenix | prologue

summary: it's the year 2025, and the world has been ravaged by a new disease. what was intended to be a cure for cancer has turned into a fatal, contagious virus that has wiped out over half of the world's population. with scarce resources and the world left devastated, the remaining survivors turn on each other in a desperate attempt to salvage what little is left.

genre: post-apocalyptic au, strangers to enemies to lovers, angst, fluff, smut

pairing: jungkook x reader

word count: 1.8k

warnings: mentions of death, implications of sexual assault, use of weapons (bow and arrow), description of dead bodies, mentions of hunting

note: so, this is the prologue! i haven't edited it that much i only read over it once, so i'm sorry for any mistakes! as always, if you have questions, feel free to send in an ask!

also, if you want to be in the taglist for the future chapters, please leave a comment, message me, or leave me an ask!

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prologue

You gradually rouse from your sleep, the sound of raindrops softly pattering against the leaves of the trees that encircle you. You blink a few times, clearing the sleep from your eyes, and stretch your neck before pushing yourself upright from the tree trunk you rested against. Tilting your face upward, you allow the rain to wash away the last remnants of drowsiness.

Night had passed, and a new day had begun.

You had grown accustomed to the forest during your stay of the past few weeks. It was tranquil, with only the wildlife for company. You had no desire to go back to civilization, or at least what it used to be. It brought back too many painful memories and served as a pointless reminder of the past. However, you would make an exception and return when you needed to replenish your supplies.

Looks like today’s that day

You sigh as you hoist the bag of supplies over your shoulder, and pick up your trusty bow and arrow, which had become your sole means of defense in this new world. You slide the arrows down your back, securing them in place, and take a firm grip on the bow with your left hand before beginning your trek to the nearby town.

You stride through the dense forest, carefully retracing your steps where you marked the trees to ensure you won't get lost. The morning is eerily dark, with heavy clouds obscuring any light from penetrating the thick canopy. However, you pay it no heed, your thoughts consumed solely with surviving another day. Eventually, the path leads you out of the forest and into a vast meadow that overlooks ruined buildings and demolished roads.

The sight triggers painful memories of the tragic event that wiped out most of humanity. The disease had come suddenly, spreading rapidly all over the world, and there was no time to develop vaccines or a cure.

Your mind drifts back to your last day with your family. You had just returned home from your first semester in college, and your grandparents were home to greet you. You spent the day talking to them about your college experience and your upcoming 19th birthday that you would've celebrated with them. You hadn’t realized then that those were your last moments with them.

The virus took lives quickly and without mercy. One wouldn't have realized they were infected until the virus began to disrupt their bodily functions. The virus started with the limbs, paralyzing the entire body, followed by the brain, causing unconsciousness, and finally, the heart, ceasing the flow of blood and resulting in death. The aftermath was catastrophic with increased rates of car and airplane crashes, buildings collapsing on civilians, and roads being destroyed. The disaster wiped out most of the world's population, leaving only a handful of survivors.

Including you.

Being alive in this world is harder than being dead. It’d only been a few months since that day and most of your days now consisted of you stocking up on food, water, and other survival necessities. Sometimes, you practice hunting in the forest with your bow and arrow to prepare yourself in case you run into other humans.

You cannot rely or trust anyone anymore. The scarcity of resources has pitted the remaining survivors against each other, creating a dangerous environment for any encounter. You are aware that some have joined forces to increase their chances of survival, but you steer clear of them. Their sheer numbers and superior weaponry make it unlikely that you would come out unscathed. Nevertheless, at times, you yearn to be part of a group. Life would be more bearable if you had others to share your struggles with. However, fear and apprehension holds you back. You have no desire to discover what these individuals are like. They are not the same people from before the outbreak. They have changed since then, and you are not willing to risk staying around to find out.

You knew that going into town was a risky move as you were more likely to run into people there compared to the forest. However, you had always been good at staying hidden, and you planned to use that skill to your advantage.

You start steadily moving down the meadow towards the direction of the town. You’d been here several times before to replenish on supplies from the old convenience store near the edge of town. As you approach, you notice the telltale signs of decomposing bodies scattered about, and you quickly wrap a piece of cloth around your nose and mouth to filter out the putrid odor. You make a conscious effort to avoid looking at the bodies, not wanting to confront the gruesome reality of how devastating the disease had been.

When you arrive at the front of the store, you pause and peer inside. The lack of electricity makes it dark, which also means that you would be vulnerable if you were to enter.

Just make it quick

Determined, you bolted into the dark store, scanning the first aisle as you reached for your bag hanging on your shoulder. Grasping multiple bottles of water with one hand and your bow with the other, you swiftly tossed them into your bag before moving to the next aisle in search of any edible food. Your breath became heavy from the adrenaline of sprinting as you gathered the supplies you needed. However, you couldn't forget about the medical supplies, so you hurried towards the pharmacy section of the store. In a rush, you grabbed anything and everything, not having the luxury of time to discern what was necessary. The eerie silence and darkness only added to your growing anxiety.

Once you were sure you had everything you needed, you quickly zipped up your bag and made your way towards the entrance to exit the store. As soon as you stepped out into the open, you let out a sigh of relief. You were not particularly scared of the dark, but being in the store made you feel more exposed than you would have liked.

Turning in the direction back towards the forest you came from, you start heading back up to the meadow. Your mind was still reeling from the anxiety that you hadn’t noticed the presence behind you until—

“Well, look what we have here,”

His voice was raspy and gruff and his grip on you tightened as you struggled to break free from his grasp.

“Haven’t seen a woman in so long. Looks like I got lucky today,” He rasped. You couldn't ignore the sinister tone in his voice, and the implications of his words were not lost on you. You knew that if you didn't find a way to escape from him soon, the consequences could be dire.

The old man abruptly spun you around, exposing his rough and rugged face, but before he could do anything else, your instincts took over and you delivered a swift knee to his groin.

“Fuckin’ bitch!”

He groans and releases his grasp on your arm.

You didn't have much time left, so you quickly readjusted your grip on the bow and reached for an arrow, taking careful aim at his heart while he was still recovering from your knee strike. You pulled the arrow back and released it, hitting your intended target with precision. Moving quickly, you retrieved the arrow from his chest, where it had not lodged too deeply, and thrust it back into your quiver with the rest of your arrows. You didn't care if there was still blood on the arrow; you would just have to clean it later.

Your immediate priority was to put distance between yourself and the danger you had just encountered. You didn't want to take any chances by running back in the direction you had come from, fearing that there might be more men like him waiting for you. So, you chose to run in the opposite direction, not caring if you were running out of breath or becoming dehydrated. Your sole focus was to put as much distance as possible between yourself and the danger that lurked behind.

After running for what felt like an uncertain amount of time, you eventually found yourself gasping for breath and in desperate need of water. You spotted a nearby tree and leaned against it for support, placing your bow beside you. You focused on slowing down your breathing, allowing it to gradually return to normal. Then, you rummaged through your supply bag until you found a bottle of water you had grabbed from the store earlier. You opened the cap and took several large gulps, feeling the cool liquid quench your thirst and relieve your dehydration.

You took a few moments to calm your racing heart before taking stock of your surroundings. You were in a part of the forest you had never been to before. The trees were tall and thick, and the foliage was dense, making it difficult to see too far ahead. You knew that you had to keep moving, but you also needed to rest a bit longer.

You sat down on the ground, leaning your back against the tree and closing your eyes for a moment. The events from earlier replayed in your mind, and you couldn't shake off the fear and adrenaline that still coursed through your body. But you knew that you couldn't afford to dwell on it for too long.

You toss the empty water bottle back into your bag and stand up, taking a few moments to collect yourself. As you go to pick up your bow from beside you, you freeze when you hear voices in the distance.

You strain your ears, trying to make out what the person is saying. You cautiously pick up your bow and adjust your grip on it, preparing an arrow in case you need it. As you move in the direction of the voice, you tread carefully, trying to remain silent. Your eyes scan the surroundings, searching for any sign of human presence.

You suddenly spot a flash of dark brown hair and your nerves start kicking in. You grip your bow tightly and point an arrow in that direction. But before you can shoot, a hand covers your mouth, muffling your screams. The distinct smell of chemicals instantly fill your nose but you don’t have time to react.

Your eyelids begin to feel heavy, and your fingers loosen their grip on your bow and arrow until they fall to the ground with a dull thud.

“Jungkook! No!”

You hear another voice faintly yelling in the distance before your vision fades to black and your senses go numb.

#jeon jungkook #jungkook #jungkook fanfic #jungkook fic #jungkook x reader #jungkook smut #jungkook x you #jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #jungkook imagine #jungkook au #jungkook bts #bts fanfic

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puddleorganism · 8 months

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Pondering a new rancher au (yes the giant fucking bird is Jimmy) - rambling/explanation under the cut

[Image IDs:

ID 1: a digital drawing of Jimmy/SolidarityGaming and TangoTek, in which Jimmy is a massive approximately 20 foot/6 meter tall bird-like creature. He’s standing idly (to show off his design) with a nervous smile on his face. He has a long neck and long legs that make him look like a dinosaur, but he is covered in light golden-brown feathers and has wings. His wings are huge, the primaries/tips sticking out behind his back. They’re modeled after a turkey vulture’s wings. He’s got a grey hooked beak that is mostly covered in feathers. He’s also got long tail feathers that look just short of skimming the ground. His legs are dark grey with huge talons. All over his legs, wing tips, and tail feathers is a dark grey ash. Tango’s sitting cross-legged on his back/shoulders, hunched over and looking at one of those map books you usually have in your car. (Note: the next image is of Tango, so to avoid redundancy I’m going to describe his appearance better there.) /End ID 1

ID 2: a digital drawing of TangoTek, a humanoid with fire for hair and a long, thin tail tipped in fire; like how a lion’s is tipped with fur. He’s standing idly (again, to show off his design) with his hands in his pockets. He’s got light tan skin with freckles on his nose and wrist. He’s got what look to be black scales on his ears - which are long and pointed - cheeks and nose that have glowing orange cracks in them like burning wood. He’s wearing a red handkerchief over his nose and mouth and has red-tinted goggled pushed up on his forehead. He’s wearing an off-white sweater, a worn leather jacket with red accents, grey cargo pants and black boots. He also has a pale gold and brown messenger bag slung over his left (the viewer’s right) shoulder and back behind his arm. He’s also got two scuffed, worn pins on his jacket; a small, round yellow one and a tiny polyamory flag. He’s also covered in ash - even more so than Jimmy - to the point where his boots, sweater, and handkerchief are stained with it, and are almost more grey than their original colors.

ID 3: simple digital sketches of the above characters. From left to right they are: Jimmy laying down with his head bowed, and Tango standing on his tiptoes to lean against Jimmy’s head. Both their eyes are closed and their foreheads are pressed together. The next is of Tango with his goggles on and looking confused at the map book, which is folded in half in his hands. Jimmy is leaning over his shoulder to look at the map as well. Two question marks float by Tango’s head. The last is of Jimmy standing upright, one of his talons held up near his chest. In his talons he’s holding Tango who seems surprised and is kind of doing that thing that cats do when you pick them up under the arms. This sketch is captioned with the word “hold”. There’s also a small bit of wing from a drawing that’s been cropped out in the corner. /End ID 3

/End IDs]

Ok rambling time!

So it’s set in a that was similar to the modern day, but after in a post-apocalyptic world (recent enough that they both would’ve known the world before). Not a zombie apocalypse or anything, though. There may be Foes but probably not.

I’m not exactly sure what the apocalypse that happened actually is yet, but it’s left the world an ash-covered wasteland with few ruins and even fewer survivors (survivors being organisms in general, not just humans). I want the landscape to be kind of surreal and bizarre, but I haven’t decided if that’s because of the apocalypse or not. Maybe it was just Like That lol.

Anyway, one thing you may want to know more about, is why the hell is Jimmy a giant bird? And the answer is: I like giant birds. In all seriousness though, he’s cursed! Don’t know why. He was a normal ass dude. Now he’s a bird.

Tango might also be cursed? Depends on how edgy I end up wanting this to be lol. He might be an undead wraith or something who knows.

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morallyinept · 5 months

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Summary: Joel Miller comes back into your life unexpectedly after a gap of thirty years, and stirs up all kinds of memories and longing. Now, as you're stationed on an outpost for five days alone with the man you stupidly let go of all those years ago, you have a chance to confront him about your past life together and all the things you wished you’d said and done.

But Joel’s different now, and you know you need to tread carefully. Joel Miller is not the same man you once knew in another life.

A slow burn romance set in the post apocalyptic world, approx. twenty or so years after the initial Cordyceps outbreak.

Pairing: Post-Outbreak Joel Miller x MatureF!Reader (No name or physical description of reader. However reader is of a similar age range as Joel; in her late forties/early fifties. Joel is slightly older at 56.)

Chapter Word Count: 5.1k

Series Masterlist

☝🏻See Series Masterlist for full smut warnings & triggers in this story. Chapters that contain smut or triggers will be highlighted in the chapter notes below. 👇🏻

Chapter notes: Descriptions of an animal kill. Mentions and descriptions of suicide/self harm. Tiny mention of smut. You and Joel open up further, with a heavy chat.

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Previous Chapter

Joel switches on the walkie-talkie and you both wait in suspended silence.

He remains sitting forward; his left elbow on his knee and the other on the arm of the wicker chair. His fingers tap and fidget restlessly, you notice.

You sit back fully in your chair and keep your eye on the green light. Waiting for it to pulse. Waiting for it to crackle into life and deliver bad news.

You can’t help it, years of ingrained pessimism have bludgeoned your optimism down to a flat nub.

It feels like an age before the time passes through midday and Joel switches off the walkie-talkie just after seventeen-past the hour.

“No news is good news.” He reminds you, glancing at your anxious face pulled tight, and you smile faintly, grateful for the ebb of reassurance, even though it barely makes an indent.

Your mind drifts to Kelper and Max in the main group, heading towards the horde with Tommy. To Sal, who’s in the second group bringing up the rear with the explosives. And to Guthrie locked down back in the commune, praying for you all incessantly no doubt. You wonder how he can still have faith, after everything.

You hope they’re hitting their marks, that they're okay and this God forsaken plan of Kelper’s goes off without a hitch.

You rub at the back of your neck and yawn and it doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Why don’t ya take a beat?” Joel nods over to the cot and the thought is too tempting; you’re tired and feel your eyelids become heavy and swampy.

“Mm,” you agree.

You stand and kick off your boots after unlacing them. The heat in the shack from the sun only makes you more sleepy, and you flake on the cot foregoing any blankets.

You roll onto your front, your head facing the wooden wall. Up this close you can make out the fuzzy fibres in the dark, splintered wood, and your finger runs over the rough surface, back and forth a few times.

“Did you miss me, Joel?” You put out there, pausing with the dull pang in your gut waiting to drop. “When I left, I mean.”

The question had been gnawing away at everything inside you. Now that you’d asked it, you weren’t sure if you wanted an answer.

You know it was a cowardly move; leaving whilst he was at work. Shoving your possessions into bags quickly and removing all trace of you from his life.

You keep your eyes closed, it's better if you can’t see his expression. Especially when his face is knotted up again, like you assume it will be.

You’re pretty sure it's a question that's winded him and it makes guilt sprout like moss somewhere when he doesn’t respond.

Why do you keep torturing him with this, and yourself?

“Sometimes,” he whispers, his voice travelling over towards you.

You hold your breath, your body tensing.

“Sometimes it felt like I never stopped.” You hear the wicker in the chair creak as he moves inside it. “Even if you drove me fuckin’ nuts.” Joel concludes.

You smile, opening your eyes. “I did, didn’t I?” You reply, your shoulders jostling a little as you chuckle.

“I liked it. Kept me on m’toes.” Joel husks from the other side of the room.

“I know.” You confirm, your smile dipping. "Do you..." You trail off and steady your breaths as they find an increasing pace. "Do you ever wish you could just go back, do it all over again?"

"Before the Outbreak?" He queries.

"Yeah. If you got a second chance, would you do it all differently?"

You hear him take in a deep, contemplative breath. "Some of it."

You hear more shuffling in the wicker chair and close your eyes again. You breathe out slowly trying to swim out of all the muddled thoughts pulling you under.

Were ya missin' me too, darlin'?

You can hear him as though he's right beside you. Feel the warmth of his breath in your ear, his lips nipping gently on your earlobe as his scruff tickles the skin on your neck. Feel his swamping hand that’s burning on your thigh as he squeezes and then runs it up your hip, towards your stomach.

Thick, rough fingers trailing along your navel gently, leaving goose bumps and making your nipples peak as he strokes with a featherlight touch around them, under your top, in giddy, teasing circles.

You moan out, biting your lip. Pushing back into him to be met with the swell of his hardness pressing into your ass, and his grunts braiding through your hair as he slowly grinds into you.

“Joel…” You hum, burning up. You turn over in the cot to find his lips, searching for the heat of them.

But you’re met with nothing.

You sit upright, dumbfounded and perplexed as you rub sharp, crusted sleep from your eyes.

You glance over to the wicker chair to see Joel slumped in it. His arms crossed over his chest and his head lolled to one side. His eyes are closed and he snuffles gently. He’s asleep.

Licking around the inside of your cotton mouth, you glance at the clocks that all read past four in the afternoon. The light still floods the shack and it feels stifling.

You sit forward, contemplating whether to wake him or not. Joel looks content, if not for an aching neck to suffer from later.

You smile, observing him and the way his mouth is downturned and pursed under the greying fuzz smattered above it. It suits him, you think. Ageing.

He appears more beautiful now than you remember, and you soon start to feel like you're burring up from the inside the longer you stare at him.

You stand, stretching out, reaching for a bottle of warm water, when you hear it.

You stop, the sound of it rendering you frozen on the spot and your heart racing.

It’s the sound of your own name passing from Joel’s lips in a soft, sleepy moan.

It comes and goes.

Bleeding into your subconscious like a dream, or more of a hellish nightmare lodged between the sinew and muscle.

This time it's the blood from the buck that stirs that sleeping giant.

One moment you're focused on the task of deboning the flesh from a blunt hunting knife that you'd recovered from one of Joel's knapsacks. The next, you're frozen, hunched over the infant carcass of stained, wet fur and reliving through it all over again.

You see it all, hear it in surround sound. Even smell it; the ripeness of it, the rot. Drawn to it like a fruit fly to fetid garbage.

You try to rationalise it; convince yourself that it's just some malignant trauma hovering over you, not done with roughing you up yet and that it’ll settle soon. But it’s hot, searing mercury in your veins, heavy mustard gas in your lungs that chokes you.

Nothing's affected you like this before, like this loss has. Well, that's not strictly true. Losing Joel is right up there. The scars of that run deep, deeper than the one on your wrist.

You glance at it as you carry on with the task at hand, physically shaking your head as though you could empty the incoming white noise out of your ears if you shake hard enough.

But it's still there.

You regard your hands soaked and slippery in the claret. It's so bright, fresh. The metallic scent of copper is tasted on the back of your throat as you breathe in and swallow it down.

You're not sure how it started, how it all went to shit in a blink of an eye. How you were complacent and allowed yourself a few moments of respite; to believe that everything could be alright.

You can see it clearly as you scrunch your eyes tight; willing yourself not to go there, but you do.

It always pulls you under.

You're walking with a basket, laundry maybe. Or is it something else? You look into the basket in your hands, but you don't see it, there’s just a void. A hole where a memory should be. What was in that damn basket?

You pass smiling faces, working hands and chatter. Laughter, such an alien sound, but full of promise and hope. These are your people, people who owe you their lives, but you're insistent they don’t. They really don’t.

The camp is thriving despite its lackadaisical appearance. Clusters of tents, makeshift tarpaulins wound around branches. Old RV’s being picked clean of pipes and bulbs.

It’s a good place to pitch up, rest for a while. Probably one of the better places Kelper has managed to settle you all. It's the longest time you've had to stand still, to soak in the peace. To let it all start to peel away in thin papery layers from your skin as you shed it.

Then you hear it.

Screaming. A single wail at first, but then more; more are mutating into a chorus of shrieks and panic that seem to be coming from all directions like sharp, precisely aimed arrows.

You drop the basket. Or maybe you throw it down, again, you can't be sure. All you know is that once you hear it, it's discarded.

You start forward towards the screaming, pulling your gun from your back waistband. Instinct fuels you to aid; it’s all you run on these days.

Then you see it.

The blood. It's on their faces as they dash past you, scrambling. On their arms and legs. You don't realise it right now, but the blood is from bites; flesh torn apart by teeth that infect.

It spreads quicker sometimes. Other times it lies in wait, hours of slow torture as the fever turns you out.

You're firing. More gunshots are heard echoing tinny around you. You take a couple out, but more rear through the camp.

Then more, then too many. Herds of them. You've never seen a cluster this big, this co-ordinated. They just keep fucking coming.

You remember being paralysed as they swarmed in like locusts, devouring everything. Taking everything from you in literal moments. You watch helplessly as faces you know are pulled under, devoured.

You try to shoot them, knowing it's too late for them; to end their suffering as a last kindness. They would want that. They would understand.

But your aim is sloppy. They're getting closer. Your gun jams. Shit. There's too fucking many.

Run.

RUN!

A hand yanks you backward, so hard that you're sure your socket has been wrenched out. You grip tightly onto Kelper who drags you away like you weigh nothing; a clumsy kite on the end of flimsy string.

Something clicks in you, brings you back as Kelper screams at the others to run. Some of them do. They scatter like marbles dropped from a little boy's pocket. No clear direction. They run straight into their deaths, with flailing arms and you can't save them.

Stop! You’re going the wrong way!

You run too. Your lungs are on fire already as you yell at people you pass and can't hear your own voice. You reach out for them. You latch onto one, Guthrie.

You toss your gun in exchange for his hand and he keeps that frantic pace with you. He trips, falls and cries out as you lose your grip on his sweaty fingers. You go back for him as he scrambles up.

A bullet passes so close by your temple and hits the infected sprinting for you both. It's thunder cracking in your ears and leaving a tinny din.

You turn to see Kelper aiming and hollering at you; he’s all teeth and spittle at the mouth. A rabid rottweiler unleashed with hackles, barking crazed and panicked.

You run. You and Guthrie together. You follow Kelper, footsteps stampeding as he dashes towards the treeline. Losing them in the camouflage, good idea.

You fucking run.

Your ankles are snapping at you to relent, every breath you suck in feels like liquid fire. You glance over your shoulder to see Max and Sal bringing up the rear. Their faces bloodied and you can hear Guthrie's exhausted moans as he keeps pace with you.

You drag him along. You make him work through the pain. He can't stop. You won't let him stop. You can’t lose another. You won’t.

Stray infected chase you. Kelper points to a clearing where it dips a few yards out. An opportunity to take those bastards on.

He glances at you and you know. You just know it has to be done.

You shunt Guthrie down the hill and he slips, rolling and yelling out. Max dives down after him. Kelper pulls Sal to him. She practically flies around the trunk as he pauses with her in his grip.

You pick a spot and get ready. You reach for your gun behind your back to realise you don't have it.

Fuck.

Seconds. You have seconds to react. Blood thuds inside your ears.

You don't remember, but you lunge.

Teeth are snapping at you as you grapple with the infected. Skin a sallow grey and fungal rot in a sickly pale orange; even its scleras are a disgusting hue.

You remember the smell. The stench of its breath as it comes for you.

You slam it backwards, reaching blinding for something, anything. Your fingers graze a rock and you pummel its head with it and keep going, long after it's dead.

Long after it no longer has a face to haunt you.

It takes Max and Kelper to pull you off as you scream ferally at it. The other infected that chased you have already met a similar fate, and the five of you are left standing there on the edge of the camp, hidden and listening to the sounds of your extended family die.

You pull them away, with Kelper; the sounds of their screams whistling in your ears.

Max wants to be a hero, wants to go back for them. And you love him so much for it, but you can’t let him. He tries to fight against you both, a small tussel, but stops when Sal speaks.

There's no-one to go back for. Her voice is cold, empty. She knows it too.

You walk for hours.

Until the sky is darker and the ringing in your ears stops, or maybe you just learn to accommodate its petulant wail. You walk until the blisters in your boots are plentiful and burst.

Until Kelper spots an old farmhouse up ahead, isolated in the vast fields and valleys.

You and Guthrie keep watch whilst the others do some recon. His arm is busted up pretty bad from the fall down the slope. You apologise to him as you tear a strip from his shirt and create a makeshift sling, and he tells you it's alright; a broken bone is nothing in the grand scheme of things. That you did good. That God was with you.

And it's at that point you crack. Fissures start erupting inside you uncontrollably.

You pace away, you don't want him to see it. Any of them.

You don't know where you’re going. You can't feel your feet anymore and you're blinded by tears that won't cease. You try to remember your mantra. Try to remember how you're still here and they're not.

Eventually you walk into something soft, warm. Arms pulling you tight. Telling you he’s got you as you sob, and your cut to shreds and exhausted feet finally give way under you.

He falls with you, settling into the ground and mourns the loss with you.

You don't know how long you and Kelper stayed out in the grass that night. All you know is that you never let go of one another. Even when you fell asleep amongst the tiny bugs.

You stand up; your back aching from being crouched for so long over the buck's carcass, and stare down at the bloodied meat you’ve salvaged from it.

And then it hits you and makes you feel unsteady on your feet. A renegade choke slithers up from the back of your throat and out into the open as your eyes mist over.

You know it with resolution, with utmost conviction.

The loss you suffered that day was insurmountable. The loss you suffered when Raiders came and took more than just scavenged possessions from your people still cuts deep.

The losses since the Outbreak have stacked up against you, that some days you don’t think you can physically take anymore.

Enduring and surviving is taking its fucking toll. The pain garnered from those losses will remain with you always. More scars.

But, as you stand here zoning out into abject realisation and determination, you know that there is a loss that trumps all of that.

And you feel wretched for even comparing them.

A single man for all that bloodshed and carnage? All those innocent lives lost? It's a heinous and selfish thought. One that rises bile to the back of your throat as you try to cough it away.

But you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that losing Joel again would be worse than anything you've endured and survived through. Worse than anything else that's possibly coming for you next.

And you can’t lose him again now that you’ve found him.

You just can’t.

After Joel’s annoyed rantings about you not waking him finally cease into incoherent mumblings, you both settle down to eat some of the venison that you’ve cooked.

Whilst he was asleep, you took the opportunity to hack the buck up outside; a messy job that left your top splattered with blood and your mind stained with rattled recall.

You washed up discreetly in the alcove, replacing it with another simple, long sleeved top from your pack, and then later laid the meat into pans cooking it tenderly.

The sounds of sizzling as the meat cooks stirs Joel at just past six in the evening.

You both sit down to eat as the approaching dusk begins to infect darker blues into the sky.

You share the remainder of the focaccia bread and you watch as Joel winces as his neck aches. He rubs at it listlessly.

“Ya should've woken me.” He pouts again, as he shovels in another mouthful of meat, chewing with a deep frown.

“You needed the sleep.”

“I should’ve been on watch,” he grunts. “Not fuckin’ sleepin’ with a bent up neck.”

You shouldn’t have been moaning my name either, is what you want to say, but you keep it to yourself. A secret that elates you as it thrills.

Your mind can't help but to wade into conjuring up images about what it was exactly that he was dreaming about. You try to contain the small smile ebbing as you chew, but it’s difficult - it pours renegade across your lips anyway.

“S’not funny.” Joel gripes. He reaches for some water still patting at his neck.

“I’m not laughing at you.” You state with a flat mouth free of curves or bends.

He eyes you carefully as he puts down the water bottle.

You clear the chipped plates when you’re both finished, and put the remaining cooked meat inside the Tupperware box. It’ll keep for a day or two.

Joel gets up and disappears outside, and you make the most of the few minutes of silence. Silence that is always somehow interrupted by wayward thoughts or unflinching desires as of late.

You think back to your dream earlier of being wrapped up on the cot with him pressed up against you, and it suddenly feels hotter inside the shack, even though the cooler air of the evening seeps inside now.

Your mind swims with his hands. His hands that were on your hips at the Hootie And The Blowfish concert he took you to as you swayed against him, mouthing the words of the songs into the air.

How his large palm would squeeze your thigh in the passenger seat fondly and you flare at the thought of him rising it higher and higher, until his fingertips would probe the edge of your panties that were always soaked for him.

The taste of his thick, salty fingers as you’d kiss and suck each one gently whilst he lost all his breath and sense of being, drowning in you.

A longing sigh settles in the back of your throat and chokes you.

Joel returns a few minutes later, zipping up his fly as he pulls the door shut behind him, and you turn away feeling as though you’ve been doused in gasoline and set alight.

He slouches down back in the chair and sighs listlessly. His hand is rubbing again at the back of his neck as he peers out the small window.

He tries to crack it out, bending his head from side to side and growls under his breath when it doesn’t release.

“Want me to massage it for you?” You offer after he grunts in frustration again.

His brown eyes dart to you as though you just shot him in the gut.

Your own mouth is appalled at the suggestion, and the origin of it, but the mutiny in your chest spurs you on.

“Might stop you complaining?" You suggest, standing and not giving him much of a choice. Or yourself, for that matter. Driven on drunk autopilot as you're there in a blink of an eye.

He caves, nodding hesitantly and scooches his chair forward a little.

"Ya sure?" Joel questions, a small voice that cracks like glass, flows out of him. His eyes are furtive, widening and he looks acutely terrified. His posture is suddenly more rigid, if such a thing were possible.

You nod like it's nothing, but it’s everything. A small reassuring smile greets him behind a skull of chattering teeth.

You step behind him, flooded with gumption, despite the fact your body is yelling at you that this is probably a disaster waiting to happen.

You feel him hitch a breath as soon as your skin makes contact with him. Yours does too. It stops time, space and gravity no longer exist.

Coherent thought dissipates and you're left with a head full of iridescent bubbles, floating with them. The sweat beads at your neck, you feel your spine pull tight. You clench between your legs.

His neck is hot and red from the constant pawing at it; the skin in his hairline feeling rougher and bobbly with large pores and coarser hairs, as your fingers sink slowly into it.

You press your thumbs at the base and wiggle them around in slow moving circles, applying gentle pressure.

Joel groans out immediately; a noise that is all too familiar to you, and so uniquely new. His shoulders instantly deflate.

“That’s the spot, huh?” You smile, wrangling it all out of him.

“Fuck,” you think you hear him murmur, as you knead and roll your thumbs across the top of his spine.

“Ya too good at this,” Joel says after a few minutes. You can see he has his eyes closed in the window’s reflection.

You beam, enjoying that he’s enjoying it, as you’re all fingers and thumbs, albeit with a tremor in them.

“Ya used to do this thing, you’d scratch ya nails into m’head.” Joel lets slip through a deep sigh.

“You remember that?” You ask, smirking.

“I 'member a lot,” he groans, as you push your fingers up the back of his scalp, snaking to his crown and then dragging them down again. Letting your nails rake through his salt and pepper waves and scratch against his skin.

“Yeah... like that.” Joel whines; a long, laboured husk pulling from his chest that causes devastating explosions inside of you, ten million Hiroshima’s.

You continue circling around his crown, behind his ears, to the front of his forehead, and back down his nape where your fingers knot around his unruly curls.

You let your dexterous digits run through the silk of them. You see goosepimples flood across the back of his neck and you pulse.

You could just lean forward and plant a tender kiss there. You can see yourself do it in your mind's eye; taste his skin, and you lick your lips unconsciously.

“God, I fuckin’ missed this.”

It makes you fly to hear it, fireworks sparking inside your core. The hairs stand up on your arms and your own scalp tingles. A deep ache pulls on your clit as you squeeze your thighs together again and try to stifle your own groans.

“Yeah?” You manage to swallow.

He nods slowly, pushing his head back into your fingers to get more of them. Chasing the sensations that leave prickles all over his scalp, running down his spine and into the end of his hardening cock.

“Feels good?” You prompt.

“So fuckin’ good, darlin’.” He croons with his eyes closed and jaw slack. "I could fall asleep again."

Joel Miller is literal putty in your hands. A stark contrast from a few minutes ago when the grump wouldn’t stop griping into the air. Now he’s languidly panting into it with soft breaths that move up in octaves when you find a good spot that makes him melt further.

Your hands slip down onto his broad, thick shoulders and knead with the pressure there, working him out. You’re no professional, but the amount of knots in his shoulders pains you a little.

He’s been holding on to a lot of tension for so long.

Your brain wanders off to wondering about how he releases some of it. The back of your own neck becomes saturated as you linger in that wanton territory of Joel with those hands wrapped around his large, thick cock and grunting as he comes.

You wonder if he still makes the same face...

The sting of you biting down onto your lip pulls you out of that illicit thought. You can't help it; touching him again, finally having your hands on him, brings it all back and makes your need physical and corporeal. It's been so long.

Joel sighs out again; the sound speaking to the ache between your legs, communicating with it as you feel it more intensely.

More contented hums follow from him, putting invisible smooches on your skin as they land on you and flower.

And then Joel reaches for your right hand, pulling it round to his face and goes to run his nose against it, inhaling the natural perfume of your skin.

An action driven unconsciously in that dreamy moment of his hedonism and own need. You're certain he's going to kiss you there.

But he stops.

You hitch your breath at the contact of his hand on yours, so familiar, and yet so new. His hand is so warm, a little rough on the fingertips that grip gently around your wrist.

You close your eyes as you feel his breath waft over your palm.

Then you freeze when you feel his fingers push up your sleeve and catch him staring at the scar on your wrist as it’s revealed.

It’s long, puckered and massively obvious. The skinny, zagged pink line is vertical and was once dangerously deep.

Joel twists in the chair, the sound of the wicker slicing through you. His brown eyes are back in that alcove of his frown as they ward up at you questioning, swimming in fury, and it instantly becomes too much.

You snatch back your wrist, breaking all contact with him as the dreamy spell shatters in reflective shards at your feet.

“What happened?” He asks gently, tentatively.

You can still feel it, the strange lack of any pain sensation; just the release of pressure as the blade slid up and into your wrist with ease. You’d thought it would at least sear or burn. That you’d scream out in agony as it ripped apart the fibres of your sinewy flesh.

But you didn’t. Instead you just watched, with some acquired peace; peace that you’d longed for so desperately at the time, and welcomed it, as you slowly bled out. It felt like you were high, floating almost.

Kelper had saved you, the bastard. You’d beaten against his chest, crying and cursing him for doing so, but in hindsight, you know why he did it. It was so you could save him later. Save the others.

Even save yourself in some way.

And as you breathed life back into his body, you understood that it was just a cheat’s way out of this world. Although the world was scorched and desolate, there was still love and connection to be found.

And that was fucking worth living through it all. Had to be. Because there was fuck all else.

You swallow thickly, unsure of where to begin, how to revisit that fertile ground that you've dug up and re-soiled over again and again.

“The same thing that happened there,” you swallow, tapping your right temple at him, and Joel senses the damage it would cause the both of you if he digs around that grave site, so he presses no further; just leaves withered roses on the ground before walking away.

Instead he sighs, and the frown that is so moulded into his features returns. “Ya needed me, so many times n’ I wasn’t there.” Joel utters.

The scar, not leaving his sight, taunts him of his failures to protect yet another person he’d cared about from all the rot in the world.

“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” You sigh gently. "Supposed to, anyway."

You turn your wrist around and look down at the scar that you used to loathe. You try to remember what your skin looked like before it was there and you come up blank. It feels like it's always been a part of you, even before it was physical.

“I haven’t felt strong in a long time.” Joel whispers out, and your head turns to him.

Jaded from years of craggy, cemented trauma, a hardened shell like the shirt pulled taught on his back sits heavy on him; even if it crushes him most days.

It's impenetrable, solid steel. Nuclear bomb proof. But you just witnessed him take the weight of it off for a second, lighten the load, and it leaves you paralysed to hear him say it.

In your head, you’re yelling at yourself to rush forward and scoop him up in your arms. But you sense he probably doesn't want that. Wouldn't know how to accept it and it pains you further.

“You’re stronger than you know. That’s why you’re still here.” You say, weakly. It's hard to believe that yourself some days.

He drops his head, his hands now a thick, clumsy ball of knots inside his lap and mulling over your words. He offers no words, but just the subtle shaking of his head as though you're wrong about that.

“Joel, I have to tell you something.” You begin with a little hesitation. But you can’t keep this from him. Not now.

He looks up at you with some mild concern. “What?”

You roll your lips over one another; they’re dry, chapped and don’t taste like your own anymore. You feel your heartbeat quicken.

“Tommy told me about Sarah.” You reveal in a low tincture.

You see Joel's cheekbones flex by his ears as he grinds his teeth. “I figured he might.”

His own voice is toneless and it makes your bones ache to hear no music in it.

“I know there’s nothing I can say-”

“I can’t,” he says, holding up a large palm and shaking his head.

“You don’t have to.” You confirm. “You don’t ever have to. And I’ll never…” You trail off. Perhaps you should heed him and actually stop as you fumble around your words.

“You can say it.” Joel nudges you, his eyes sinking further back into his skull.

You sit in the other chair beside him, dragging it close.

“I’ll never understand what it’s like. What it’s been like for you, without her."

"Ya never had any?" Deapite his warning, he asks you, and you shake your head.

"I bet she was incredible… But I do understand why-” you tap your scar, and he looks at it with a deeply etched sadness drawn on his face. “-Why you tried to make it stop.”

His expression makes your eyes water and you tell yourself to not falter, to not crack or break when he needs you now.

Endure and survive. Endure and fucking survive!

Joel reaches for your hand, resting it upright on his knee and trails his index finger lightly across the trench of the scar. It makes you shiver as you both watch him do it.

You feel the warmth flood through your body at breakneck speeds. Live through the way you shudder as your spine resets itself and you swallow like you're choking, dying.

He's killing you with a bare, featherlight touch and you can't abnegate yourself from heading to the light.

"Sometimes... it feels like we were never there. Was a dream, that life. I dreamt it. All of it. I dreamt her up... Must've, to have been so happy, so content. So fuckin' unprepared." Joel sniffs. "Then we just... lost it all. Everythin'. N' for what?"

His eyes find yours, his face softens and his fingers continue that gentle, heady contact. And you both sit there for what feels like an age, not speaking whilst he familiarises himself with your own pain.

"This ain't survival. This is fuckin' Hell. And I couldn't even..." You hear him whisper to you as he shakes his head recalling his own failure. "I flinched. The bullet missed. I don't know why. Somethin' kept me here. Punishin' me."

You soon feel your fingers brushing against his wrist, and then interlocking with his digits. You both squeeze tightly against one another and neither one of you falters that grip.

Not even for a second.

Not even when your palms sweat and your fingers ache under the crush of him.

“I wish ya both could've met.” He utters, head bowed in the direction of your scar, and you see a single tear drip from his face and land on the thigh of his worn jeans. "She would've liked ya."

You squeeze his hand tighter, and he squeezes back.

You don't say anything, because honestly, what can you say? Mere words are destitute. He carries more anger, more remorse; more guilt than a human being could ever drag the weight of behind them. It's crushing him on the daily.

Joel Miller had already crossed over into Hell and eternal damnation the moment Sarah was taken from him. He'd lost his baby girl. Ripped from his arms as he’d yelled at Tommy to help him frantically as she slipped away from her daddy's embrace; bled out all over him and he'd never felt more helpless. More alone.

He'd resided in that Hell on a daily basis; adding to his heavy life sentence with the onerous deeds he'd committed since. Heathen atrocities, blood stained hands, and stacks of faces haunt the darker trenches of his mind. Joel can never escape them.

There were things - depraved and animalistic things - you could never know about Joel, for he would never burden you with the horrors of their weight. Some of it's from a selfish point of view; he wouldn’t be able to stand the pity you’d tarnish him with.

Or the forgiveness.

He’d carry it all himself and save you that pressure, save you from the nightmares soaked in an iron tasting sweat. He'd been lost for a while, knuckles sheathed in the crimson of the innocent.

He had wielded a scythe and dealt the cards in the House’s favour. Death's bitch, who refused him an easy way out when he'd finished with him.

He’d done heinous, despicable things all in the name of survival and base instincts, that he was inherently ashamed of; carried demons that wouldn’t let him rest or sleep as they clawed at his face continuously.

And when he looks at your scar, it’s another thing to add to the pile of calcified bones that have mounted up behind him.

He should have been there for you. Should have fought harder to find you. Tore up the world in his search. He should never have let you fucking go in the first place.

You can’t pull him out of that fiery torment, walk across the hot coals and lead him out by the hand, not fully. Your comprehension of it wouldn’t even begin to pierce through that layered steel.

But you offer a moment’s calm in the swirling hurricane as you reduce it to a gentle breeze. You stop that ice from creeping up into his heart and denying it of it's beating.

You silence that voice that convinces him he's going to die, alone.

You squeeze Joel's hand and offer a moment or two for the hellfire to stop burning him and blistering his skin. You take his pain and pull blood soaked threads from it, finally speaking in a language that he can understand and respond back in fluently.

For a moment, you squeeze back. And that’s more than Joel will ever be able to ask for.

To be continued...

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onlyseokmins · 16 days

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$$60 billion (part 2) • l.s.m.

How did a legendary bounty promised for turning in the wasteland's most infamous outlaw transform into a sick, little inside betting joke amongst your traveling companions? Though you have no idea why they're doing it… you sure as hell don't want that very same gunslinger comrade worth sixty billion double dollars to know anything about it either — but oops — looks like he already does! Damn you and your temper, some unhelpful lip-loosening alcohol, and one no-good, sorry excuse of a preacher you sometimes think of as a friend.

Pairing: outlaw!lee seokmin x fem!reader Genres: smut (minors dni!), trigun!au, action!au, apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic!au, space western!au, slight enemies to comrades to ??? !au, angst, fluff, they're dumbasses your honor 🙏 Warnings: swearing, blood, guns, injuries, medical tingz, destruction, mentions of knives, violence, unsettling space western things, slight body horror and hints at altered dna, weird religious cults, mentions of eating/food, alcohol, threats, bets among friends, tame-ish alien/monster/plant sex (????? listen it'll make sense - think of him like howl's bird form on steroids idk), mating, possessiveness!, marking, bruising, jealousy, smelling/scent kink???, wet messy sex uwu, wing kink (??? listen i was gonna explore it more but decided not to ok??), BITING (bc it's me), mechanical/robotic fingering???, gagging, bulge kink, oral sex (explicit male receiving and brief fem. receiving), seokmin's dick is like SLOPPY TOPPY LORGE w/ a mind of it's own, lowkey forgot how to write smut sorry </3 WC: 13.2k of 32.7k | Part 1 | Read on AO3 A/N: this is for the Now that's 90's - A Seventeen collab and loosely based off/inspired by the Trigun anime/manga! You do not need to know it as I manipulated a whole lot of elements for my own narrative but beware of various spoilers if you do go ahead and check out the series after reading!! I hope everyone enjoys the conclusion and please check out the other writers in this amazing collab ❤️PS, I know nothing abt chess lmaooooo but let me know your thoughts and feel free to ask any questions regarding this au's intricacies!! This part might get a little confusing because of a flashback!! (starts right after the italicized paragraph and ends with "...in this moment...")

The silence is palpable.

"Does it hurt more to get stabbed in the back or shot?"

Only the continual rustling sound answers your philosophical question. Not that you actually care because you weren't really expecting a reply.

So, you keep talking.

"I think it would be more painful to get stabbed… but it would take longer to heal from a gunshot wound."

There's a brief pause in the motions behind you. But the quiet resumes, though the practiced skill of a needle threading through your skin quickens. While the local anesthetics Tonim's doctor supplied is doing its job for the most part, you swear you can still feel the tug of flesh being sewn together.

Or maybe you're just thinking too hard.

"Look. I'm… I'm sorry."

If tension could personify itself right at this moment, it would do so with ease, given how heavy its presence currently sits in the room. A low voice finally speaks up, gravely and roughened after such a long period of silence and the hairs on your neck rise.

"Are you really?"

"… Yes."

A heavy sigh — one burdened with all the worries of the world — follows. You wince and then tremble, wishing you could turn around. It's easy to guess what he's thinking but god, do you wish you could see his face to confirm. The fear of the unknown paralyzes you.

"I seriously am."

"Doubtful. I know you only asked me that question to subtly say you'll be okay and heal just fine but it's not that simple."

The callousness in his tone and the sharp way he says your first name makes you want to shrink down, shrivel up, and quite frankly die on the spot. Gritting your teeth, you succumb to the apparent silent treatment until the snip of scissors signifies your surgeon has finished treating you.

You think twice about your options upon hearing the click-clack of medical supplies being put back into the first aid kit. Then you think, "fuck it!", and use your good arm to keep the fabric of a spare t-shirt pressed against your chest and shift so you can face the man who just rather aggressively threw a handful of unused alcohol prep pads back into their designated slot.

"I'm super duper, utterly, and truly apologetic, Seok."

The gunslinger heaves another grand exhale of irritation. He doesn't even so much as glance at you, frowning sourly down at the roll of gauze in his hands instead. The temptation to reach out and touch him — soothe him — is strong but you decide against that (for various reasons) and resort to huffily pouting instead. Amazingly it seems to work, because he notices right away and folds way too easily without much of your sway, finally facing you with a reluctant but serious expression.

"Then what did you learn?"

Your gaze lowers, eyelashes fluttering while you drown in your feelings of shame and wrack your brain. The urge to toy with the silver chain around your neck is strong though you resist the tick and hesitantly answer instead.

"Um, that I need to fortify my mental block better?"

"Try again."

"Uh…"

"How about the way you're not supposed to play the hero?"

The tin of the trauma kit rattles as Seokmin slams his left hand down on the bed, leaning menacingly toward you. Though narrowed, his eyes seem to glow. You can't help but whimper at the intense ire dancing in those irises paired with his sharp tone. Like the desert's suns, it simmers and radiates off of him with rays of heat that you can easily feel given how close he is.

"I'm, I'm sorry!"

"No, you're not," he states sharply though the rigidness in his body relaxes after your squeak of another apology. "You almost died!"

You'd defiantly cross your arms if you could. "Between the two of us, you were most at risk of dying."

"Was not! And we both know my chances of injury are much, much lower than yours."

"You can't lecture me and flex your stupid powers this time! It's different 'cause Jihooon was fuckin' with my mind."

The harsh bitterness is more so directed at yourself and the damned Crimsonnail than Seokmin. But as usual, you vent all your frustrated emotions out on him, especially whenever he brings up the fragility of your mortality. You both stare stubbornly into each other's eyes, thinking back to what happened and what could've happened.

Lina's protected. The Tonim residents were all immobilized. Seungcheol, Seungkwan, and Mingyu are in good spirits. You are safe.

A burst of air rushes into Seokmin's lungs, relief filling him as he idly scans your figure for injuries. Casually reloading his revolver just in case, he beams as you approach. The mirrored expression of victory on your face accompanied by a hand reaching out causes his whole body to shudder in pleasure. There's nothing he'd like more than to intertwine his fingers with yours.

Instead, he settles for returning your enthusiastic fist bump. Nudging his shoulder against yours, Seokmin chirps out, "Good job, partner!"

"Partner?"

"Yeah, partners."

You shake your head like you can't believe him, amusement tilting up the corners of your lips. He wants to tell you everything, all of it. But his ears catch the faint click of a contraption behind him and he looks over his shoulder just in time to see Jihoon's crossbow assemble.

Joshua looks mightily displeased but makes no effort to put a stop to the Crimsonnail's actions. Seokmin can only thank his lucky stars that Soonyoung remains in a catatonic state. Dealing with a ginormous worm so soon after being in its stomach a couple days ago was not appealing in the slightest.

The fingers of his prosthesis splay out, cybernetic arm lowered and extended outwards in front of you as you turn around as well. He knows you hate unwarranted protection but you'll have to forgive his instincts this time. Nevertheless, he trusts you. And as Jihoon opens fire, Seokmin leaps into action, expecting you to do the same — only to do a double-take when you don't move despite a flurry of nails breaching the air.

Your eyes remain unfocused. Glazed over and cloudy, posture tense but still. He sneaks observatory looks your way from afar while firing Geranium. Round after round, breaking nail after nail to prevent any harm befalling you. A maniacal laughter rings out and Seokmin freezes, putting two and two together.

Then he snarls.

Jihoon must've sicced his killing intent — a nasty ability to project and create illusions of destruction in someone and break their will — on you. Cursing, he starts making his way closer to you, inwardly reaching out to you and begging that you'll break free of the blonde-haired man's clutch on your psyche.

You're obviously more than capable. He knows this. But your movements are sluggish, slowly releasing Sirocco from your grasp. The empty pistol lands on the sand with a muffled thud and Seokmin's pretty sure his heart mimics it. A look of terror and horror spreads across your facial features, surely subject to something awful within the confines of your own mind.

And while you're experiencing visions of things you fear coming true, he's stuck in the vivid reality where they do.

You spin around with a wild look in your eyes — full of rage and anguish. He stumbles back as you teeter one foot at a time toward him and in the distraction, a nail pierces right below your shoulder blade.

Someone wails behind him.

You scream.

Seokmin rushes forward. But he's tackled suddenly to the ground and ends up flat on his back. Completely winded and left with his vision smarting, blinking in confusion at the blurry double halos that definitely shouldn't be around the duo of suns in the sky.

Then your face comes into focus. And god, forget the suns — in all your glory and in all your fierceness, you shine brighter than them all combined — hallucinations be damned.

It takes a bit of wrangling around, given how you try to wrestle and pin the man down. The clunky gun you're waving around goes off several times, harmlessly lodging bullet holes into the sand cushioning around Seokmin's head.

"Stop it, you're gonna hurt yourself!"

Moving and lashing out like a wild animal before it's fully sedated, his words don't come through the hellish haze Jihoon's trapped you in. You pull the trigger with no regard for the injury to your shooting arm.

Bang!

He dutifully counts each round fired, multitasking between that and the effort it takes to contain your struggling movements. Once again, thanks to the overpowered strength of his prosthetic, the man's finally able to sit up with you secured in his arms to cease any further movement.

"Lovely, lovely mayfly," he murmurs. The stable cybernetic hand gently feels around the impaled shoulder while a trembling thumb rubs your abnormally chilled cheek. "C'mon and snap out of it, pretty."

Not a spot of recognition in your blank glare. His eyebrows furrow as cold metal presses in between them. Seungcheol is cursing, Mingyu and Seungkwan are shouting loudly. Jihoon gloats.

But none of that matters. Seokmin drowns all of it out by diving in the pooling depths of your empty irises. Searching, calling, begging. Biting his lip, he delivers a quick slap and pleads, "Come back to me, love."

And like a mist that rises after dawn, you return to him. Your stunned grip on the gun falters, the final bullet rattling in its chambers. The pained expression on your face slices open his own heart but its shredded form takes flight in utter relief.

You're back. You're going to be okay — he'll make sure of it. And even if you don't know it, you're his and he's yours.

"Y-you're dead," you choke out and all he can do is smile despite feeling like he's on the verge of crying. Elation, anger, guilt, hope, longing, worry, joy — all of it turns and tosses within him like a rustling flurry of winged creatures struggling to break free.

So, he smiles at you and grasps the barrel of the old pistol aimed at his forehead. "I know, mayfly."

Jihoon howls in fury. Joshua finally steps forward, striking a military pose with his hands behind his back. Composed as ever, his voice remains its deceptively sweet self compared to the harsh jerking movements he's subjected upon the gray-eyed man via telepathy.

"You've crossed the line, lost number thirteen."

"Don't call me that!"

It's no surprise that the pecking order in Dokyeom's henchmen sowed seeds of dissent. Though Joshua was simply a right-hand man, he remained the only unnumbered member, proving the lack of disposability DK saw in him versus the others.

"Know your place."

"Which has always been at the top! But because of you — !"

" — The top of those already at the bottom, perhaps. Respect your superiors and your orders, Crimsonnail. You were not to lay a hand upon Master Dokyeom's brother. Ever."

"I didn't!"

"Or a member of his little group." His indifferent gaze swept over Seokmin protectively cradling your body. "This voids our involvement and nullifies any further implementations of the game."

Joshua would thank his lucky stars that the humanoid typhoon is letting them leave scotch-free if he was a decent man. Unfortunately, he's not — already considering what punishment to enact upon Jihoon per his master's orders. The Crimsonnail feels a shiver down his spine, further enhanced by Joshua's frosty, disdainful look of disapproval as he telepathically drags Jihoon to the car.

Still, it's a good thing Seokmin's a pacifist by nature, that he's more preoccupied by your well being than anything else. Your brow begins to bead with sweat, the pain of your wound finally sinking in past the adrenaline rush wearing off. Black circles dance in your blurring vision, the gun falling from your grasp as you droop forward and rely on the unerring sureness of his support and the safety within in it.

Seokmin knows he needs to get you medical help right away, and it's the only thing he can focus on. There's no time for exchanging a blow with a blow nor the faintest idea of revenge.

Not yet. Not now. Maybe never if it means putting you in harm's way.

Was he really going to give up following the bloody trail to hold his brother accountable for the unspeakable crimes he's committed? Throw away the blank ticket Rem spoke about? All for one person?

The questions all swirl around in his head like a nebulous mass. And like a newborn star — one that's been long in the making — the answer is crystal clear and shining bright as you sit in front of him now looking devastatingly beautiful to him despite all that's happened. Most importantly, you're safe.

But all he can say in this moment aloud is, "I'm sorry."

For a multitude of reasons. So many of them. You seem to spot something in his eyes, frowning ever so slightly.

"You don't have to apologize for anything. I'm fine."

"I almost lost you."

"But you didn't."

"…I know. And I'm so fuckin' glad."

Seokmin runs his fingers in a distressed manner through dusty, matted strands of reddish-brown strands. Immediately drawing attention to the dirt, grime, and dried blood coating and dulling the cybernetic's buzzing glow.

"That's gonna be a pain in the ass to clean."

He appreciates the subject change, shooting you a lopsided grin. "Yeah, tell me 'bout it."

"Let me help."

You get up before he can protest. A tactical way to coerce him into worrying about helping you rather than arguing. The coy part of yourself is applauding the method, especially when the calloused flesh of his palm splays against the bare skin of your lower back in the name of support as you both walk to the bathroom.

That same part whispers naughty temptations to drop the t-shirt covering your chest, press up against him, and see his reaction. But your reasonable, reserved side is too held up on various other matters to give in.

Sadly, you find out you can't offer as much assistance as you would've liked. But Seokmin seems heartened by just seeing you up and about and close to him. Plus, you make use of your idleness while he washes in the sink by reaching for the few stocked amenities you can reach with your good shoulder above it when he asks for them. And you receive a heartfelt smile in return.

"I probably should've just showered."

You shrug. "You still could."

"Nah, it's fine, I can do it later. What about you, though? You're going to need help with those stitches."

"What a roundabout way to say you want to bathe together, Seok. You could've just asked."

Maybe you expected him to splutter nervously or protest fiercely at the tease. You certainly don't expect him to just shake his head — silver earring flashing in the vanity's dull lighting — and chuckle.

"I'm being serious, goof. Besides, it's not the first time I've seen you in the tub."

"What?" you squawk and his grin doesn't falter. In fact, it turns into a smirk.

"I'll go get Sherry. Lina's gonna want to see you too, she wouldn't stop crying about her pretty savior getting hurt."

You frown. Was he still going to dodge The Talk™? And did he think you were really just going to him out of your clutches that quickly?

"We still need to chat. You promised."

His eyes flash. "… And you don't like promises."

Yes, that was exactly why. He knew your history. Still, you refused to back down.

"No, I don't. But I like you… and, and most of all, I trust you. I just want the truth, Seok. Even if you think it'll hurt me, at least be honest. Trust me back. I promise it'll make it less painful if you tell me why you thought I wasn't serious. So, please…"

Don't let me down.

It's unspoken, but he can clearly hear it in your tone. A battle-worn sigh escapes so you try to lead him and finish with a question where he can give a more straightforward answer.

"… How long have you known? About the bet, I mean."

Despite wavering between semi-alertness and bordering the edge of losing consciousness, you're aware of Sheryl's presence as she bustles around with Seungkwan and Mingyu to clear out an empty room above the saloon temporarily used for patients. Seungcheol waits outside the door with you two, a cigarette loosely dangling from his lips.

When Sheryl leaves, she sneaks a peek at the way your face buries into Seokmin's neck, how the man carefully assesses the rest of your body for injuries. His touch is gentle, the cybernetic arm coated in blood as it holds the nail in you steady. He'd been adamant about being the one — the best one — to treat you. Smiling, she hands Seungcheol a couple of double dollars and the pastor raises an inquiring eyebrow.

"For that little game of yours," the woman whispers knowingly and gestures to the two who just exited the room and Seokmin hurriedly heads inside. "They told me all about it."

You lift your head to glare at Seungcheol and then your other comrades as you pass, wondering if this was some sick form of revenge for pulling one on him and if Sheryl was so keen to set you up with someone in the same way pompously done for her. But your shoulder feels like it's on fire so rather than reprimand your stupid, back-stabbing friends and slump back wearily against Seokmin.

He's a simple man who certainly can't hide a silly smile at the unconventional snuggling. Lifting his chin, he then tilts his head questioningly to the money in Seungcheol's hands. "You're still doing that bet?"

"Haf'ta win the lasses 'n hopeless romantics over 'n have 'em rootin' fer ya."

"Y-you know about the bet?"

Seokmin hushes you with a low murmur, words muffled by the press of his lips to the crown of your head. You can't make out what he says, but the timbre is soothing enough that your eyes close.

"Gotta make that sixty billion somehow if we're not turnin' ya ass in."

"Fair enough!" The wanted man laughs and closes the door with his foot.

His cheerful demeanor then dropped to focus on the proper procedures to treat your wound and that's when the silence settles in, soon followed by the weighing air of unresolved tension between you. And now, you're continuing the determined path to fully speed-run ahead and break it, though he shrugs nonchalantly at the question.

"Known for a while, to be honest."

"Seriously? I thought it was a secret!"

"C'mon, you know how bad Cheol is at keeping them."

"Yeah, right," you roll your eyes. "That man takes things to the grave — literally!"

"You're too hard on him." Seokmin leans toward you, bracing himself with an arm supported by the sink and brown eyes sparkling with humor. "Think about how much you've learned about him."

"Against my will, too much…"

"Which means I'm right."

"… I guess you do make a fair point."

"Of course. He's a completely open book once you peel back that damn protective hardcover of his."

Still, you sniff disdainfully and frown. "I swear, you're the only one who sees him like that."

"Like what?"

"Like…. unafraid, unconcerned, unbothered by all that he is, all that he's done, et cetera."

"Why not? He's done the same for me. Besides, I've said it before but he has those eyes, you know. Kind."

Ah, and that's what gets you to resign with a small grin. It's just like Seokmin to see only the good in people.

"And you're not all that different," he continues with a broad, knowing smile. Immediately you bristle and he clarifies, "from me." Some part of you momentarily wonders if you spoke your thoughts aloud or if he just simply knows them that well. "As loath as you are to admit it, you care for him. Most importantly, you trust him."

Though your face sours at the thought, you don't retort right away. Sure, Seungcheol is a trusted ally. And maybe the motivation to free Jeonghan from the control of the Eye of Joshua wasn't solely because it was simply the right thing to do. But also because it might brighten the dull spark and leave one less bloodstain on the hand of a man who bore the burdensome weight of all sins like a cross on his shoulders.

Then you wave away those thoughts for now. "So, is that why you thought I wasn't serious on how I feel about you. 'Cause of the bet?"

"No, because I never knew the full extent of it. But… if you're saying it had to do with your feelings, then I would have to say yes — though I find it hard to believe any bet's worth my bounty."

"Oh." Your cheeks heat at unwittingly giving it away.

Seokmin smirks when you avoid his gaze, and he moves in even closer. "No one has sixty billion double dollars just lying around, mayfly."

"You're just saying that so no one turns you over to July."

"Well, you won't do it, will you?"

"You don't know that," you fire back, intending to heighten your defenses that only weakly falter because you're still not looking at him.

"But I do."

"Yeah? Prove it!"

Ooh, a challenge.

And one more step closer.

"Because you care too much about the man you like to put him behind bars."

Your eyes dart back to meet his, ready to squint reproachfully only to widen at how the gunslinger's face is only a breadth away from yours. Breath hitching, you desperately want to whine out in irritation but it comes out in a low whimper. Seokmin's canines flash in the bathroom's dim lighting.

"That's not, that's not fair." The wall pressing into your bare back keeps you from retreating and the hand keeping the t-shirt covering your chest feels how your heartbeat speeds up. Your skin is on fire, only the cool temperature of your locket and its chain preventing you from utterly exploding after the plaintive admission of, "You already know everything. But…"

"But…?"

The unconscious action of biting into your lower lip only gets realized by the way it keenly draws Seokmin's eyes. Electric blue flashes against brown irises yet they darken to almost black with the sudden thrill of desire that rises to the surface. He's so close, you can feel his breath caress your face, and you swear you hear it deepen into a low grunt before he raises a brow for you to continue.

"But… b-but I don't know…a single… thing."

Seokmin has forever believed Rem's take regarding the ticket to the future always being blank. For him, it's always been an unknown path forward that he's let lead him wherever and to whatever destination.

He holds himself back, just enough to utter the (practically what should be unneeded) words of reassurance, "It could only ever be you — and it's always been only you — that I could be in love with so much, mayfly," and then he's eliminating the meager distance between the two of you. For the first time, he stamps that blank ticket with an assuredness of the future and outcome he's never had before — with a kiss.

Cradling the back of your head with his cybernetic prosthesis, the other cups your cheek and then trails down to your collarbones — but no further than appropriate. His mouth, though, disregards the very notion. A teasing tongue repeatedly runs across your bottom lip to smooth out the indents caused earlier by your teeth then naughtily pokes and prods its way between, eliciting a sweet gasp from you he absolutely devours.

Your whole body shudders with happiness, eagerly surrendering to the man's wild, possessive fervor as he passionately steals the breath out of your lungs and stakes his claim on you by leaving behind shiny kiss-bitten lips. Seokmin only draws away, panting, to admire his handiwork, light-headed and dizzy with delight.

"I love you," he reconfirms with his forehead resting against yours and nose tickling your own, "… partner."

Breathlessly, you joke back after placing a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth. "Love you too, partner."

And that was that.

With your shoulder injury on the mend and the other members of your little ragtag group nursing their own bumps and bruises, you all decided to spend one more night in Tonim — much to Lina's delight. While she merrily bounced from one 'hero' to the next, you playfully reminded Wonwoo that he still owed you some free drinks. You were eager to take advantage of the fact and he was more than willing to accommodate.

The tavern that originally held a subdued, slightly hostile air to it when you first arrived was now filled with an unfettered joyous harmony. You're so easily swept up in the ambiance of such high spirits and jubilant townsfolk as mug ales filled to the brim get passed around and clinked together, you fail to notice Seokmin's sudden withdrawn nature.

Not until the next morning do you first realize something's off.

"You're sure about this?"

"Oh, no. Not you too, Seok."

You'd already flipped off and shoved away a complaining, terribly hungover Seungcheol and finally got rid of the watchful, fretting gazes of Seungkwan and Mingyu. The duo had been hovering around you with concern ever since you downed a full glass of alcohol last night. While you generally just let them be and were quite thankful not to wake up with a pounding headache, you certainly weren't above crushing all of Mingyu's pudding cups if he meekly asked one more time if you were okay or needed help.

Seokmin leans against the open door frame as you pack. The pulsating glow of lost technology flickers in your peripheral and keeps you aware of his quiet presence. Part of you had always wondered if the ever-running currents of lighting synced with the flow of blood through the rest of his body.

The gunslinger doesn't speak, and you wonder why. And though you'd like to flatter yourself and entertain the notion that he's watching you — while other times that may be true — you don't feel the weight of his eyes trained on your motions. It wasn't like there was much to stuff in your bag, the satchel's leather cracked, faded, and well-worn after all these years of use through the desert and everything you truly value remains strapped some way to your body. So once you're finished, you inquisitively peek over in his direction.

Brown eyes are trained on the clunky gun on the mattress — the same one you'd pressed against his head. It's also the exact same pistol Chan had spent his adolescence restoring and repairing. Left unnamed unlike the honorary grave Seokmin had helped you prep before leaving the ruins of Ivywood behind. Meanwhile, his gaze darts to linger in contemplation on the chain around your neck before his eyebrows furrow, emphasizing the drawn out features and dark circles beneath his eyes.

"You look tired, you doing okay?"

"Yeah, just haven't been… sleeping well."

Frowning, you step toward him. Although he doesn't back away, his entire posture stiffens. "Will you be able to make the journey?"

He snorts, gesturing to your shoulder you're trying not to move too much. "Isn't that what I'm supposed to be asking you?"

"I'll feel better at the border."

Seokmin nods understandingly. "The weather will align well."

Within the sandstorms that relentlessly swirl near the Melca Border Sea of Sand, hides the only SEEDS floating ship that survived the Great Fall and you have to get the timing just right to reach it. It's home to a large community of humans, and most importantly, it's what you would consider a true home to you and Seokmin. Already, your energy restores — excited at the prospect of getting to relax in a place you trust and people you truly enjoy being around.

"Jun can take a look at my shoulder."

"That's true, it would be good for him to do."

"And I'm sure Hao's going to want to check your arm, maybe fashion some fabric that's not only bulletproof but also nail-proof."

"He's gonna give us both a scolding."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

You share a look of fond chagrin. Even though Seokmin's well over a century older than Juhui and Minghao, they were direct Earth descendants aboard a ship full of lost technology and geniuses in their own right. Those facts alone gave them all the confidence and utter audacity to more often than not, act like fretting toma mothers over the two of you.

Nonetheless, you appreciated them with all that's remaining of your heart.

The trip to the Melca Border wasn't a straight shot from Tonim but it wasn't as far as you thought. A bittersweet farewell to Wonwoo, Lina, Sherry, and the rest of the townsfolk was to be expected. Though their sorrow weighed you down, the knowledge that you were parting from them with good memories and the expectations to visit again kept your steps light-footed.

Seokmin remains zoned out the entire time. You bulk it up to his normal reaction whenever something emotional was on the horizon. Returning to Melca held a grand spread of wonderful, warm memories with a scattering of dreadfully sad ones too. Though the floating ship's defenses have been bolstered to the max over the years, the terrible events weren't easy to forget.

But they were incidents in the past and it's thanks to the intellect of the two who greet you at the entrance of the ship that their defenses continue to improve. Luida proudly stands behind them, accompanied by Brad and his wife.

"Greetings, weary travelers."

"We're no strangers, Luida," Seokmin protests against her formality.

The elderly leader's playful grin smooths out the wrinkles lining her wise face. "Welcome home, children."

It's a simple phrase but one that fills you with inexplicable warmth. Hansol might be the son born of her own body, but no one is immune from her maternal instinct. She beckons for everyone to come inside where the main quarters lie and the growing crew population will certainly be enthusiastic upon hearing about your return.

Seungcheol, Mingyu, and Seungkwan trail after without fuss, also elated to be aboard the familiar floating ship. You smile with genuine delight and step forward to follow while Minghao takes one look over his wire-rimmed glasses to survey Seokmin's dusty figure and elegantly tilts his head knowingly in the hallway leading to the technology laboratory. Glittery, colorful beads woven through the long strands of his two-toned hair clink in time with the movement.

It's hard to hide the snicker that escapes as you watch Seokmin trudge after Minghao like a scolded puppy. Your glee at someone else's suffering doesn't last long when a gentle hand clasps your shoulder. Wincing at the pain, you meet Junhui's puzzled look before his eyes narrow.

"You're hurt," he says, disappointed but not surprised, and leads you away to the med bay. It's exactly what you expected, in fact, the main reason behind why you're here — and yet, you sulk and whine petulantly just because you can.

"Not my fault that the only way to get here is by timing everything right to jump into a sandstorm and then onto a flying platform."

After instructing you to lie down on the medical bed and cutting the fabric of your shirt without fanfare, Junhui clicks his tongue. "You only come to visit when you're hurt."

"Not true!"

He concentrates on disinfecting and resewing the torn stitches in the tender flesh around the parts of your wound that are still healing. His tone borders on slight resentment but the concern weighing in it smoothes it all over.

"And yet most of our time spent together is only when you visit so I can patch you up."

"It's not like that."

"I know… but I would've met you elsewhere."

"Boring."

"Can't you courteously pretend to care about yourself out of consideration for those who worry?"

"You'll go gray at such a very young age if you stress all the time, Jun."

He shakes away silver bangs that threaten to impede his vision, unamused. "And you'll end up buried under the sand next time."

"Sounds cozy."

"I swear —"

You wave his growing ire away. "Seok takes care of me just fine."

"Yes," Junhui's cat-like smile causes your metaphorical hackles to raise. "He does care deeply about you."

"I'll punt you into the fifth moon and give it a second crater with your body."

"Now, now… violence is never the answer."

"Violence is the only reason you have a job!"

If you weren't as close as you were, perhaps he'd be offended by your claim. Instead, he kicks you out (after ensuring you're indeed in relatively good health), leaving you to laugh victoriously. Then, you set off to the technology lab in good spirits, hoping to catch Seokmin and commiserate with him.

Instead, you find a lone Minghao sitting refinedly amongst all the tech with grace and poise. He was in his element. Fiddling with and poking at a well-worn, familiar cybernetic tech with a thin silver instrument, he simply raises an eyebrow to acknowledge your presence.

"Did you fit Seok with a new arm?"

"But of course," the man sighs wearily, "despite my best efforts, my darlings always return home to their father with quite a beating."

"… Then you'll hate what I'm about to tell you."

"No, I cannot fashion you a pierce-proof trench coat. However, I will acquire some stronger material… but there better not be a next time."

You purse your lips and pout. It often seemed like Minghao worried more about his inventions than the people using them, though you knew that to ultimately not be true.

"So, he already told you what happened."

"Oh, yes… he told me everything." Heterochromatic eyes suddenly meet yours, sharp with a spark of amusement. "See, I almost didn't want to give him the latest modification but…"

"But…" You repeat warily.

Junhui was always mischievous, though most of it only ended with harmless pranks. On the other hand, Minghao's sarcasm-filled humor rarely made an appearance, and when it did, it usually delighted in the sickest of satisfactions.

Yet, he simply shrugs, evasive as always. "I think you'll like its improvements."

There's something foreboding about that statement, but he ushers you away under the pretense that he needs to concentrate. And shortly, you find yourself stopped by curious passersby or familiar faces in the hallways to the main quarters. Since your last visit, a multitude of passengers have a lot to share and update you on. By the time you reach your own pod, you're socially exhausted.

Sleep came easy but finding Seokmin did not. The SEEDS ship was already big in the first place and additional construction enlarged it further. An itchy, achy feeling pooled inside your gut on the second evening you'd been unable to catch sight of him. Finally, you acknowledged the bitter truth — he was avoiding you.

You had to come to terms with how delusional it was to think that once everything was out in the open, the scattered puzzle pieces would magically fall together in their rightful places. It should be easy, right? It's what happened in those cheap novels Junhui dug out of an abandoned pod in Melca back in the day. He'd given them to you as a birthday joke — Minghao sighing and handing over your real present (the first bullet-proof trench coat) — but you'd actually read through all the cheesy, steamy piles of romantic drivel.

Seungkwan, ever the cynic, and Seungcheol — who's naturally a heathen — quickly destroyed the slim spark of hope of ever hoping to feel those flutters in your gut. Meanwhile, Mingyu was someone precious and wholesome with a romantic outlook on life underneath the great muscular physique he'd gained from carrying that heavy concussion gun around.

You often wondered why they never tormented him like they did to you. But despite his indomitable stature, the emotionally soft man's tears were the most powerful weapon in his arsenal. Even if he didn't quite realize it, his comrades certainly were aware.

And Seokmin… well, if you knew how Seokmin felt about romance, you wouldn't be stuck in the position of wondering why the fuck he was avoiding you.

Again.

"Where is he?"

"Good morning," Mingyu greets the following morning, cheerful as ever. "If you're still hunting Seokmin for sport, he said he's feelin' a little sick!"

"Sure."

"No, he really is." Seungkwan refutes your aggressive eye roll with a gentle shake of his head. "Loverboy hasn't come out of his room for days and when I almost knocked the door in earlier, he finally responded only to sound like a dying toma."

Your face contorts into a morbid combination of concern and irritation, shifting between the two expressions. "Probably 'cause he stayed out all last night!"

And with a dramatic huff, you glower at the pastor seated in the cramped corner of the floating ship's kitchen area. Seungcheol deemed it was cooler, darker, and the farthest spot in the enclosed space from any of your misplaced wrath. He smiles, the white stick between whiter teeth jollily flicking up and down at you, taunting.

He reveled in the knowledge of being safe since he'd been the only one able to provide any information on the humanoid typhoon's whereabouts. The pastor — who still enjoyed a late-night smoke to cure some of his insomnia — considered it his saving grace to catch sight of the fellow gunslinger slinking through the shadows in the halls. Apparently, Seokmin had been sneaking outside the past few nights and remained resolutely ever-elusive during the day.

"Should go see 'im. Yer all antsy and 'm bettin' he's missin' his… mayfly."

"Oh, go fuck yourself," you snarl and storm out, missing the man's bark of laughter before he continues contemplating the best way to siphon money during a confessional.

The unfaltering stomp of your combat boots is the background beat on your walk to Seokmin's pod. His halls aren't far from the kitchen area and yet each footfall feels like a step into the unknown, the lights above seeming to grow dimmer the closer you get.

Why was he acting like this?

Did he regret everything that happened between you?

Was something wrong?

Would he shut himself away from you?

Worry and anger swirl together, mirroring the vortex of sand you had to pass through to get here. Seokmin's never shut you completely out before but you're familiar with his reclusive acts when things get too much. Too close. Too emotional. And you're afraid to be the catalyst to another spiral.

So, you knock. Harsh, loud, and ultimately unforgiving if ignored.

"Seokmin, open up! I know you're alive!"

A mutter of "Barely," carries through the door before he clearly answers with a curt, "I'm not feeling well but I'll be fine."

"Open the door."

Silence.

"Please."

The silence continues — and your temper flares. "Don't make me go get my bag and grab my lock-picking set!"

You can hear sounds of cursing and some rustling around before the door slowly and reluctantly opens, Seokmin hiding in the shadow it casts.

"As you can see, I'm quite fi —"

Both a coughing jag and the firm push of your shoe interrupts his confident statement. "Sure hope you weren't about to say you're fine!"

A faint smoky scent permeates the pod. You cough and pause to let your vision adjust to the darkness. The first hint toward Seokmin's unusual behavior because he thrived in the sunlight, no matter how weak the sunrays that reached the floating ship were. Then second, you blink in wonderment at the black heaps littering the bed and floor.

Feathers. Everywhere.

Reminiscent of the time you'd broken Seungcheol's ridiculously expensive pillow against Mingyu's bulky bicep during a good-natured fight with Seungkwan's assistance. But instead of an explosion of brown and aqua toma plumage causing you all to sneeze, these were inky dark like the night sky and resembled piles of soot against the pod's stark white backdrop.

You whirl around to find Seokmin retreating to the corner of the room, hands slamming on top of the dresser for support. His back is to you with two thin wings jutting out from it. Feathers rustle as he pants, shoulders coinciding up and down with the motion of the wings.

"Seok, how did… how did this happen?"

It's not fear that causes your voice to tremble but worry. The appearance of his natural Plant form is no longer shocking. In fact, the more you see it, the more you find it eerily beautiful. Probably similar to those who believe them to be messengers of a higher power. But he's only ever transformed in dire situations — either due to stress or the rare exhaustion of his superhuman abilities against stronger foes.

He doesn't reply so you take a cautious step forward. An animalistic growl erupts from his throat, followed by a pained groan. You gasp as he shakes, protrusions rupturing from the lower parts of his shoulder blades. Two more wings burst out and unfurl below the trembling ones already quivering on his back.

So that's how they hide and reappear.

"Is it 'cause you're sick? Choi said you've been staying out all night. You could've caught a cold or something's in the air. Never know what's floating around here." You babble as you frantically search for signs in the mirror above the dresser for any hints to what's caused this.

Seokmin's bent over and you note what should be brunette roots of hair are now pitch-black too. Closer and closer you creep until you can make out each bead of perspiration trickling down his neck and how they coat every bare part of his body in a sheen of sweat.

Then his head snaps up. An eye — unshielded by the black fringe of his red-brown tipped bangs — narrows to glare into your widened ones. A tempest of electric blue rages within it. Like the hottest type of fire, it burns more than you could ever expect in a vortex of one prominent emotion.

Desire.

An involuntary shudder overtakes your whole body, and you unconsciously bite your lip. Seokmin slumps back down, granting respite from that ardent azure glow.

"Sick," he snarls and laughs, strained. "Sick in the head, that's for sure."

"How… how can I help? What can I do for you?"

"Get out."

"Seok —"

"I'm serious, mayfly. For your own good. Leave."

"My own good?"

"I'll, hah, I'll explain… explain it later."

Your arms cross. "Oh, really? Or will you avoid me again? Like you have been for the past several days?"

"I haven't —"

"Don't you dare feign indifference! I'm not stupid — we talk about our feelings and then you retreat. Just be honest with me… please."

You promised.

He sucks in a very deep inhale through clenched teeth, seeming to regret it instantly because his grip on the edge of the dresser is hard enough to crack the strong material. Glowering at your reflection again — not daring to acknowledge your very real and extremely close presence in the room — Seokmin bares his sharpened and widened incisors in a snarl.

"We will talk, mayfly, please believe me. Now's… hah… just not great timing with… with what's happening."

Irritation easily gives way back to worry. "At least tell me what I can do for you. Should I get Jun?"

"He can't do anything. Gotta just… work it out of my system."

"Work what?" You frown, knowing how rare it is for the medical specialist to be stumped.

"It's not for certain…" Four different wings flutter in agitation at various speeds. "Not a lot's known about Plant physiology," his mouth turns downward, "even I don't have a thorough understanding."

"Is it a disease?"

"Wish it was that simple."

"You're talking in riddles and running verbal circles, Seok."

"… Dokyeom and I are independent Plants. Likely the only ones, well, you know — still functioning. Alive. When Rem found us, research was obviously done."

You know the story very well and nod. "And had been conducted before."

"'Course thanks to Rem, it wasn't as invasive but there were, hah, occasional talks. Theories. And then, of course, before us twins, there was…"

"… Tesla."

A Plant with a lifespan of only two-hundred and thirty days.

Seokmin swallows. "Tesla. Yes. I recall bits and pieces. Hypothesized with Luida and company… Outside of Dokyeom following the unethical methods humans sometimes conduct for experimentation," he snorts at the irony, "it's thought that Plants… can copulate… with a mate… of their, hah, choosing."

"Really?" Your eyebrows raise, intrigued. "That's a brilliant discovery!" Then they furrow. "Wait, are you saying that this," you wave your hand to gesture at his current form, "is because… you're, er, ready to… mate?"

He holds his head. "… Yes."

"Oh, okay. So, you need like… relief? A mate? Should I…?"

Your questions hang uncertainly in the air, unfinished because you're really not sure what you're supposed to even offer. A sarcastic smirk graces Seokmin's lips, condescending in the sort of way that's aimed more at himself.

"What kind of man do you think I am, mayfly?"

"A very, uh, Planty one for sure."

"Better than leafy, I suppose."

"Though you are quite… feathery."

Finally, he turns toward you, a wry and defeated smile on his weary face. His wings stretch outward and curl back in, elegantly waving toward you as if drawn in your direction. You can't help but smile at the object hanging from a cord around his neck.

"You still keep that old thing around?"

He looks at the golden cartridge and chuckles. "It's special."

"Me holding a gun to your head was special?""Meeting you will always remain a treasured memory, no matter the manner of how it happened." Seokmin falls quiet, lost in thought before hesitantly asking, "Did I not mention Plants mate for life? Well, at the very least, I know I do."

"Oh." Your astonishment reveals itself in a breathless gasp. There's no escaping that all-consuming, fiery cerulean gaze. "So is this the first time you've been… ready to, uh, mate?"

"No, I'm used to the way these cycles come and go. But this for sure is the worst bout yet."

"… Why?"

You hold your breath. He takes a step forward. Then another.

He's so close, if you leaned the slightest bit forward you'd press up against each other. Somehow, with an overwhelming sense of shyness guessing the underlying thoughts and what his answer will be, your eyes roam his bare upper chest and torso.

If you could caress him you would. All the shiny black feathers adorning his wings and the occasional ones sprouting along his forearms pointing to his Plant abilities. Each scar along with every bit of metal or his body's naturally grown wood that replaces chunks of lost flesh. He's kept them as reminders of when he's failed humans, though you've seen them only as when they've failed him. He shivers, like he can feel it, as if he knows what you're thinking and you questioningly re-meet his burning stare as he shoots you a wane smile.

Sheepishly, he rubs where the cybernetic arm attaches to his shoulder. Many have turned away in disgust or mock pity at the disfigurements. Yet despite the true abomination he looks like right now, there's only ever been pure empathy and acceptance he doesn't deserve — all from you.

"Conscious consent and reciprocation."

Your lips turn upward, joy causing your soul to unwittingly sing. "Does that mean… I'm your mate?"

"No."

It's like Gunsmoke completely collapses, and you're left twirling without footing in space. Seokmin matches your fallen expression with one of his own.

"What? Wh-why?"

"Don't get me wrong, it's —"

"I swear if you say 'It's me, not you'…"

He rather adorably tilts his head. "How did you know?"

"It's a typical cliche," you roll your eyes, "just give it to me straight, Seokmin. Is it 'cause I'm human?"

"… It's not that simple, and this isn't something trivial. It's — hah — it's a huge commitment." The use of your given name indicates his seriousness. "A lifetime one. For me, it's only ever been you… and it will always be you for as long as I live, which could be your whole lifespan! And I don't, hah, I don't know — hell, it's taking everything I can not to tear a dead man apart, let alone what I'd do if you'd change your mind, want something — someone else."

"You're doing it again, projecting and underestimating my feelings for you."

"It could be the effect of my pheromones, mayfly. We don't know every —"

"That's right! We don't know! So we have to trust each other and see."

"It's —"

"Let's not subject ourselves to the hypothetical. And what do you mean by dead man?"

Seokmin's jaw tenses, fingernails digging into numb skin. His wings waver, like they're considering cocooning around him for protection. But their tips simply flutter as if soothed by an unseen force, preventing them from enclosing completely.

Teasingly, you lean toward him and squint. "What else aren't you telling me, Seok? You pick a side hustle up that involves the deceased like Choi?"

He snorts at the audacity and doesn't take the bait. Instead, unfamiliar but still achingly familiar irises dart to your neck, tracing the silver chain laying against your skin. A dull sort of sadness fizzles out those blue fires and you clasp the shape of the locket beneath your shirt in realization.

"He was a boy, Seok. A boy I grew up with for a short period, one that felt like a brother to me."

"… You said you loved him."

"When?"

"… To Cheol. After you first met him."

"That would've been so long ago? How do you even remember that?"

He sighs, heavily. "It's not easy to forget. Your voice was so warm, so gentle, so in love when you admitted it."

"Love can mean different things! And I assure you, my feelings for you differ greatly from how I felt about him. And… he's… he's long gone, Seok."

Guilt burns in his eyes. "I know. Which makes me all the worse."

"No, it doesn't." You shake your head, a resigned smile resting on your lips, and hold your arms out. "'Cause I understand and forgive you. And most importantly, I love you."

It's uncertain if those words break or restore him, but the hard rigidness in his body melts away, sagging in a semblance of relief. Then he rushes forward into your waiting embrace, wings helping to propel him forward until they wrap around and press you to him tight, tickling areas where his arms aren't squeezing around you.

"And I adore you, my lovely mayfly."

You groan. "When will you stop calling me that?"

"Never," he snickers and you feel the curve of his lips as he comfortably nuzzles into the crook of your neck. "For as long as you're mine."

"Yours?"

"Mine."

"Sucker."

A chaste kiss brushes the lower tip of your ear. So ticklish and unexpected, you pull back with a giggle and playfully swat his shoulder. And just as he's about to dive forward and prove your little comment correct in retaliation, you burst into full-on laughter that leaves Seokmin to settle his hands on your waist with confusion crinkling his brow.

"What?"

"So that's why you were always having a deathly staring match between my childhood memorabilia?"

"… Was not."

"You — the most sentimental loser ever — definitely were!"

He pouts momentarily, the cute jut out of his lower lip quickly transforming to a devious smirk. "You'd bet on it?"

"Totally." You place your arms around his neck, bringing your bodies closer again and matching the charge of electricity with a clever tilt of your lips. "I'd win, too."

"And what's on the table?"

"Sixty billion double dollars, of course."

"That so?"

"Mhm, and it seems like someone's bounty matches that worth."

Seokmin quirks a brow. "Seems like you want me on the table."

"Winner takes all?"

"Mayfly, I've always been yours."

"Sap," you laugh again.

A bright grin certainly declares your delight in victory, though your partner in crime uses the distraction as an advantage for his earlier loss and wastes no time. Diving in, a sharpened canine grazes your pulse point, automatically causing your head to tilt to offer easier access. Two left wings sweetly swoop down for support, feathered tips tenderly brushing your forehead.

The heat of his tongue placates the dragging scratch of his fangs. Though it sears you alive, heating your entire body from the tips of your toes, swirling in your core, and concentrating beneath Seokmin's lips on your skin.

When reaching that cold, familiar necklace you treasure so much and he can't help but loathe, it's seized between his teeth before he registers the action. Tugging it away from your neck like a dog, you wonder if he'll even shake it like one. His eyes follow the length of the chain, focusing on where the locket pops out above your chest.

You raise a questioning brow. "You gonna just play with my jewelry or take my clothes off?"

"Oh," Seokmin whispers, jaw dropping, and suddenly stands stiffly at attention.

You watch, entranced by the bob of his Adam's apple as he visibly gulps. Large, calloused hands — so practiced in undressing you for baths and patching up wounds — falter as they skim along your sides in a fleeting touch. Smiling encouragingly, you intertwine your fingers with those of his prosthetic while leading the other one beneath your shirt, the rough flesh of his palm blisteringly hot against your stomach.

"Is this okay? Can it help calm your Plant powers?"

"Yes… but that means… giving yourself to me… forever."

"Can't think of anything I'd enjoy more."

Confident, you trail kisses up his jaw to his cheek, stopping near his ear. Playfully tugging at the earring hoop as you pull away. Then you break away and bend over, shimmying off your shorts in one smooth motion. Stepping out of them, next goes your top. As each fabric hits the floor, Seokmin's eyes become more lidded, heavy with want. Smoldering. Desiring.

Four black wings fan out and stay as rigid as his stance. As if they're waiting with bated breath. And when you finally stand bare before him, he sheepishly drags his gaze to the floor with a flustered smile.

"I'm the one naked and you're embarrassed?" you tease and his posture relaxes.

"Because you're a vision to behold."

"Says the one who looks like an angel."

You back up until your knees hit the side of the bed. Like those morbid tales that depict curious listeners following a luring call to their demise, Seokmin's only a step behind you. He doesn't dare let his eyes stray further from your own, a goofy grin on his face.

"Consider this my fall from grace then, mayfly."

Gingerly, you sit on the edge of the mattress, waiting for his next move. He towers over you in this position. Formidable in appearance yet oh-so-gentle when picking up your left hand to kiss your knuckles and rub his thumb across its faded scar. Another smooch gets placed to your inner wrist and you hold your breath at the passion in those blazing cyan depths that refuse to look away. Then, a cautious touch to your shoulder urges you onto your back. Obediently, you lay down and a bunch of stray loose feathers fly up into the air upon impact.

"Beautiful," he murmurs.

The clothed knee resting between your legs helps his arm support the weight of his body hovering above you. A tentative hand slides down from your shoulder to your hip, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Caressing every scar, memorizing each color and swirl of ink decorating your skin, and erasing any insecurities or blemishes you see in yourself. Cold digits draw whimsical shapes and tickle your abdomen, stopping above your pelvic bone.

"May I?"

"Of course."

Seokmin rejoices in your consent by littering your collarbone with love bites. And his touches move lower, tender despite their mechanical nature. Warmth blossoms and flows under every surface of your skin Seokmin's traced, coiling and settling in a pulsating — almost painful — heat rupturing between your legs.

Only he can be the one to relieve this ache which he precisely aims to do. A simple, single brush across sensitive folds instantly has your breath hitching, shaking beneath him.

"Are you alright?"

"Mhm… yes."

He audibly gulps at your unexpected whimper of ecstasy, reluctantly tearing away from watching amorous bliss overtake your facial expression to the wet heat detected by his pointer finger's sensors. A feral growl rumbles in his chest at the debauched sight of desire beginning to dampen your thighs — the trace of what he's been smelling from you now overloading every single one of his senses as he coaxes more to flow from you. Seokmin's more than thankful for his enhanced vision and the glow of cybernetic technology baring your most intimate parts to him.

Guided by an instinctual impulse, he eases a finger inside. Your back automatically arches off the bed, eliciting a sweet gasp of delight. The cool touch of the digit seized tightly by the pulsating walls of your cunt slowly warms as it adjusts to the welcome intrusion. He soothingly brushes the knuckle of his middle finger across the soft outer flesh of your pussy to relax its grip. Eventually it lets up enough to let him explore further and deeper than your own have ever reached.

"I'm… I'm not sure how best to please you," Seokmin admits, drinking in your every reaction to his curious ministrations. "But there's this urge, this need, to make you feel good. Prep you properly for my… my entry."

By pure accident, he strokes a rough patch of nerves that makes your eyes roll back, hips lifting at the sensation of wanting more of whatever that feeling was, and your quiet noises melt into a loud, needy moan.

"More," you plead, "touch me more, Seok."

He eases his other finger inside without question, grunting at the squeeze that almost prevents him from moving to where you want him the most. But unlike the rest of his quivering body, the prosthesis remains steady, still, and patient. Waiting until it can bully itself and a third finger past your entrance's vice-like clench.

You start pulling on your breasts, trying to alleviate the tingling in them. Seokmin observes with a keen eye and a toothy, fanged grin. After a bit, he leans down to let his tongue trace the underside of one mound, leaving behind a saliva trail shining in the unconventional lighting as he tends to the next. Alternating with playful nips and naughty tugs to your nipples whenever your grip on them falters from the overwhelming pleasure.

So attentive and eager, soon you're writhing beneath him as you hit your peak. One hand grips your hip tightly, surely to leave a bruise with the way it cramps. His other doesn't let up, well-oiled mechanisms continuing to pump in and out of your trembling pussy until you whine from the overstimulation.

His wings fold protectively around both of you like a canopy as you share a tender kiss. Dazed and happy, you tenderly brush back black bangs and play with one of the feathers that's sprouted near the hairline above his ear. He shivers.

"Let me take care of you too."

"Are you sure? What about your shoulder?"

"That's the least of my concerns right now."

"I can still…"

"Later. First, I want to help you."

Suddenly, Seokmin's shy again, flushed cheeks darkening. "I… I think I'm a little different… down there so it's okay if you don't want to… or get scared."

"It's not like I've seen enough dicks to compare whether what you're packing is normal."

The both of you share a goofy laugh that eases the presumed awkwardness. He sits back to unbutton his pants but you stop him.

"May I?"

You might as well have knocked the air out of his lungs. He stares at you wide-eyed and then emphatically nods, finally clearing his throat to squeak out, "Sure."

Ignoring the aftershocks of your earlier orgasm, you sit up and kneel in front of him. Intent on a few minor distractions, your mouth and hands start at his shoulders to work their way down. Imagining you have the power to heal the damage dealt to his body and soul through tender touches.

You see a sad sense of beauty and justice in the patchwork of metal bolts and bark. And as you apply marks of love that bruise and blossom between them, he lets out a content warble. You're quick to undo the button of his pants, both of you gasping at the utterly wet mess seeping through the material when you tug the zipper down with your teeth.

He lifts his hips to help and once he's just as naked as you do you take him in. Anatomy was meagerly touched upon during your days at the convent, so truthfully all you're aware of at the sight of his heavy cock is the need to be filled with it.

And the closest thing to take him is your mouth, jaw already aching before you even open it. Almost reverently, your hands wrap around to stabilize it. Seokmin hisses pleasantly at the contact.

"You don't have to —"

He's cut off by a groan as you inquisitively suckle the tip. The copious amounts of slick smearing from it and down the base taste sweeter than Seungcheol's lollipops and you moan heartily, causing his thighs beneath your elbows to tense at the vibrations.

"Oh, mayfly."

A wing caresses your cheek that bulges as you take more and more of him, Seokmin's hands tearing at the sheets. The tip of another wing tantalizingly drags down your bare back. Your hands begin to explore, finding the puffy edges around the slit from which the thick cock emerges from. His hips jolt upwards at the contact to sensitive tissues, causing you to gag.

"Ah, 'm sorry!"

While he whispers repeated apologies, you're only compelled to take him further. Slowly you get used to the stretch, but no matter how much more you're able to squeeze down your throat there's still enough of his length for both of your hands to play with. It gets easier the more aggressive you get, his cock seeming to respond to your vigor in tandem. Soon you're lost to the haze of whether you're bobbing your head up and down or it's swirling languidly in your mouth on its own accord.

Seokmin's hips stutter but you feel the tremor first pulse against the inner walls of your throat. His cock throbs as you pull off of it, hollowing your cheeks and parting with deliberately powerful suction. A loud pop releases its tip and your hand supports its weighty girth falling forward. You dig the nails of your free hand into the muscle of his quaking thigh, ducking down to teethe at the puffy slit from where his cock must emerge.

Moving on to licking and dragging the point of your tongue along the sizable vein lining the underside causes Seokmin's low groans to turn into a high-pitched trill. Once you reach the swollen, leaking head and nibble on the hard glans, it spasms wildly and finally erupts. From the top slit seeps sweet syrupy fluid that readily overflows into your awaiting, open mouth.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," he blabbers.

You'd reply that there's no need for gratitude, perhaps you'd thank him, but the viscous release keeps spilling out. Rivulets trickle well past your lips and coat your chest. Although still in a euphoric daze, his eyes flash with sharp satisfaction. Instantly possessive at the sight of your bare body decorated so erotically.

His wings snap open — filled with purpose — and your face is pressed down into the mattress. Surrounded in a smoky musk as the angelic monstrosity it belongs to and destined to be your mate hovers above.

Your voice comes out hoarse as you raise up onto your elbows and spitefully spit out a black feather. "Do those wings of yours prevent you from being topped or something?"

"I'll let you find out another time, partner," Seokmin huffs, laughter evident despite his apparent breathlessness. He steals a tender kiss, pleased grunting at how your lips — shiny and swollen — taste of him. "But for now…"

Like an anchor, the tech material warmed by your shared body heat and passion winds underneath your hips, keeping them raised. A calloused, ticklish touch roams traces your spine. He draws an occasional spiral here and there as he goes, mindful of your wound, until firmly pinning the nape of your neck to the side, creating the perfect arch of your back.

"I think you'll like this," Seokmin says as if he isn't liking the view below him.

But for you, straight ahead lies the dresser's mirror. It reflects the full manifestation of an independent Plant poised to devour a human in the most intimate sense. The fearsome size of his cock lies heavy on top of your ass, leaking droplets of arousal all over your backside.

"Will it fit?"

"Of course, you are mine to claim and take." His hips just forward and you both moan. "I think we're both wet enough to try."

"I trust you."

"Let me know if it hurts in any way and we'll stop right away, mayfly."

Many troupes of desert-traveling dancers have mesmerized you before. Yet even they can't compare to the graceful and smooth motion of Seokmin releasing your neck to align his tip with the entrance of your cunt and slowly bullying his way in.

Tears of pain mixing to unfathomable pleasure blur the vision of your mouth widening to let out whines and moans. "Seokkie…"

"Mhm, mayfly… my love… my mate."

Finally, the front of his thighs are flush against yours. Hips pressed tight against your ass. Fully sheathed inside your tight hole, neither of you have ever felt such intensity before. He surrenders his body weight on top of yours, hands braced outside of yours clenching loose feathers and silk sheets. The outer heaviness matches the intensity of what your pussy struggles to accommodate.

"Mine."

Seokmin's hips swirl at a slow pace. Rather than thrust, he massages the sensitive glands at the base of his cock with the soft flesh of your ass. His length seems to shrink and grow and writhe with a mind of its own, filling and teasing you nonstop. Leaving no surface of your inner walls untouched or untended to for too long.

"Yours."

You shudder in blissed-out delirium and Seokmin lights up — literally.

Fluorescent lines glow in distinct patterns across skin, brightening the more he starts to pant and build up your shared pleasure. Sharp canines prick into the skin of your unmarked shoulder as he wraps his prosthesis under your stomach to raise your hips, the new position driving you faster to that rapidly approaching edge. You cry out with a lurch, blurrily making out his glowing form that shudders above.

Though the view in the mirror gets hidden by black wings stroking your entire body. Teasing the underside of your tits and tenderly brushing away the stings of his teeth marks.

"I-I love you," Seokmin rasps.

"Love…" You manage to enunciate the words, mind emptying and drool wetting the bed as your second peak approaches. "Love you too."

Pain and pleasure draw forth an onslaught of your apparent arousal that lecherously mixes with the frothy mess dribbling from his cock. Claws appear on Seokmin's right hand, another addition to the bestial Plant features emerging in the throes of passion. He's not completely lost to the primal thrall though, able to resist from breaking skin.

Delicately scratching your waist without drawing blood, then using the finely pointed tips to pluck and tease effortlessly at your clit. You cry out, body shaking as waves of euphoria crash against the shoreline of imminent pleasure.

Seokmin helps ride out your peak with a couple of speedy thrusts. The feeling of his hips slamming into you has you seeing more stars than Gunsmoke's galaxy contains. And just as you're overcome with too much stimulation, he lets go with a particularly strong bite into the top of your shoulder.

His cock softens and its heavy weight like a blanket along with the continual pump of his warm, soothing release. The feeling of it leaving none of your inner walls untouched feels as sweet as it tasted on your tongue and helps ease the ache inside your cunt. Still joined together and slick with stickiness, he collapses onto his side and gently assists you with rolling over so you can face him.

"Hey, you."

"Hello there yourself, lovely mayfly."

Your nose wrinkles but gets smoothed out by feather tips playing with the ends of your hair. Seokmin smiles as you snuggle closer into his chest so two of his wings can cocoon around you as the heated fervor from prior activities cools.

"Did that help?"

"… Yes," he says though his tone wavers with hesitance.

You raise your chin and see the electric blue luster hasn't faded yet from his gaze. Sheepishly, the corner of his mouth raises and you shiver, feeling the swell of his cock stretch out your pussy. The bulge it creates brushes against Seokmin's abdomen and he twitches.

"Sorry, it's… I'm gonna be kinda insatiable now that I've had a taste…" He trails off, wings snapping behind him. Slowly, he pulls his hips away and you both hiss as his cock is dragged out.

"What are you —"

You're cut off by the animalistic glimmer in his gaze, catching the feral smirk that he attempts to hide by licking his palm. Quick as lightning, Seokmin fleetingly swipes the outer lips of your cunt and brings his fingers, tonguing at them. Body set aflame again, neither of your break eye contact as he moans headily.

"But not of this," he rasps.

Before you know it, you're staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stickers on his ceiling with your mate between your legs. His wings trail along your calves, their flexible ends curling near your inner thighs, encouraging them to spread and stay open, pinning them in place.

"Oh, aren't you a beauty?"

He moans shamelessly at the sight of your messy, glistening pussy. You squirm at the ticklish sensation of his feathers and that smoldering, ravenous look. If only he knew what it was like to see him devour you with his mouth.

Delicious.

Just like the feeling of his tongue working its way inside and licking up the shared essence of your releases.

Your fingers weave between strands of hair as black as night, tugging lightly and accidentally snagging one of his ear feathers. He moans eagerly, and the vibration has you shuddering, already quickly nearing another mind-shattering orgasm. But you don't let him carry you there too fast, smooth brain muscles trying to form a question.

"How… long… how long do these cycles last?"

Seokmin presses a loving kiss to your twitching clit and blows, entranced by how you clench around nothing. Then he smirks, elongated teeth shining in the darkness like a predatory warning though you have nothing to fear.

"As much as you can handle but… we're really only just getting started, mayfly."

The motion light kicks on as Seungcheol shifts his boots in the direction of the unlit kitchen area. Junhui and Minghao's entrance awaken the rest of the lights and they frown at the makeshift bunker set up.

"What are you three doing in here?"

Seungkwan sleepily mumbles a curse word and next to him, Mingyu blearily rubs his eyes. A scattering of empty pudding cups and bottles lie around them as well as a disorganized array of poker cards.

"We're afraid to venture out of here."

Junhui shares a secretive look with his closest friend at Seungkwan's cryptic words. "Ah, so that's happened. Or happening."

"'Bout time y'all came 'round. Time for ya to pay up!"

"Pay up for what?"

"Compensation. 'M the one who got the closest to bein' right knowin' they'd fuck after confessin'."

"If anyone needs compensation, it's me for the mental damage of having to make one of my lovelies into an enhanced sex toy."

Seungcheol guffaws. "Ya didn't! Ya lil cheatin', schemin' scientist!"

Meanwhile, Mingyu looks mighty concerned. "Does that mean Seokmin has a dildo for an arm?!"

Minghao crosses his arms with a steely glare. "No."

"Oh good. I don't think I could look at him the same."

"I don't think any of us will ever look at him the same again."

Junhui eagerly rocks back and forth on his heels, hands stuffed in the deep pockets of his lab coat. "Do you think they discovered all the functions and benefits of it yet?"

"Should be our next bettin' round."

"No more bets. I don't care if it's half a double dollar to go in, I refuse to go through this again."

Mingyu elbows his raven-haired companion. "C'mon, your heart's warmed by this!"

"Warmed and consumed by the rage and fury of hellfire, yes."

Giggling, the tall man smiles widely and holds his hand out. "Alright, I win then!"

"Win what? Thought you didn't remember your bet."

Mingyu purses his lips. "Only because none of you took me seriously and joked with a bunch of gross innuendos when I said they'd find their home in one another!" He then sighs dreamily. "But if I'm right, we'll know by tomorrow morning."

"Who says it'll be tomorrow mornin'. Might take weeks. Months even, I reckon'."

"I'll kick you all out before it comes to that," Minghao threatens and runs a hand through the few strands of hair without a bead. He tosses a wad of money in front of Mingyu. "Never involve me in this again."

Despite all the grumbling, everyone has a sense of lightness in their hearts at the thought of their dear friends finally getting together. And the happiest of them all is Mingyu, who cheerily gathers his prized double dollars, dreaming of all the pudding he can buy.

A lone figure stands on the edge of the valley of the Melca Border. The Sea of Sand, aptly named, can change tide and turn vicious at any second. Their cloak billows in the sandy winds that whip around them, though even the steadfast hood can't hide the satisfied smile on their face.

"You did well," they commend and the name that falls from their lips is one some might consider lost to the sands of time.

"Saintess." Another figure materializes out of the sand gusts in response to the praise. "It is to be done as you said."

"Very well. Shall we go now?"

Whether it's the mysterious sands that swirl around and whisk them away or the lost technology cube that transports them, no one will ever know for no one ever saw them. Like ghosts, they disappear and find themselves outside the real ghost town — where it all began.

A toma croaks in the distance. Brave travelers dare cross the ruined wasteland and the saintess meditating atop one of the largest rocks hidden in the shadows opens her gray eyes tinted by lilac in the glow of the moons to observe. Despite all of her traveling, the white robes wrapped around her body remain in pristine condition.

She turns behind to look at the man standing over a scattering of stones, staring intently at one of them. With poise and purpose, she dusts off her clothes and strides over to him.

"Chan."

Brown eyes tear away from his own name carved into the headstone in front of him to look at the one who's said it aloud.

"Yes, Saintess?"

"Do you regret it?"

"No. Never."

"Good," she states, satisfied with his response. With a grand sweep of her hood to cover short, dark hair, she gestures to the east. "We will set up camp one more night before returning to the Saint in the morning before he speaks with our Master."

Chan mutely nods, following the saintess back into the desert where she confidently leads him to a cave that will shield them from the unpredictable nature of Gunsmoke's wastelands. He thinks of you, the girl he must keep safe and two brothers. One with wings as pure white despite his continual revelry with hate-filled darkness, the other bearing ones the complete opposite color of his twin — a wild card.

He reminisces over the Blessed and Holy Sisterhood of Little Ivywood, the convent and all the orphans that lived there. Pondering Sister Meryl's role, who stands before him now as the revered Saintess, leader for the Eye of Joshua and second only to the Bishop of the cult named after himself. She moves curious little statues back and forth across the surface of a large flat rock and the young man can't help but ask her a question in the unnerving silence.

"Do you think this will work?"

Meryl smiles elusively, as always. She picks up the smallest one with a deliberate flourish, placing it on a blackened space close to the last row of alternating squares carved into the stone's surface.

"Have you ever played chess before?"

"No, what is it?"

"An Earthern board game. It is quite complicated." Gesturing to the piece she just moved, she continues. "This is a pawn, the weakest of all chess pieces."

Chan bristles. "But strength comes in numbers, no? There are eight of each color, surely the right side can find a way to win."

Unfazed by his agitation, the saintess nods placatingly. "With the right strategy, even a pawn may become a queen — the most powerful. Unpredictable." She points to a white figurine with a cross on top of it. "Enough to checkmate a king."

Entranced, Chan watches as she rearranges and repositions various pieces across the faux chessboard. Soon, the pawn that took on the mantle of a Black Queen captures the White King. His eyes roam what's left on the battlefield at the end of the match, pointing to one that looks like a tower.

"What's that one?"

"A rook. It best supports an allied pawn towards promotion from behind the scenes." Her eyes sparkle mischievously. "It's most powerful during the end of the game, as you can see."

Chan gulps, holding his breath for a moment, and clears his throat. "Then I'm ready."

"Wonderful," Meryl nods, "we'll depart for Master Dokyeom's stronghold in the morning. I'm sure Joshua, our dear Saint, will be… pleased upon our return."

"To the glory of the Black King's rise."

"And to the glory of our so-called queen."

Keep him safe, Chan thinks to himself as he settles on the ground. And yourself. One day we'll reunite in the most joyous of occasions…

He pulls out a faded wanted poster with the infamous outlaw worth sixty billion double dollars, donning a wishful smile before closing his eyes and murmuring, "I'd even bet this impossible amount on it."

#ez.creates #svthub #svt.smut #dokyeom smut #dk smut #seokmin smut #lee seokmin smut #svt smut #seventeen smut #kpop smut #trigun au #svt au #seventeen au

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luthwhore · 4 months

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a while back i made a recommended reading list for lex luthor, and originally didn't plan to make a superman one, since it's a lot easier to find reading lists for him, but a lot of the reading lists i see either tend to be very short and have the same 5-10 books on them, or feel way too expansive and overwhelming, so i wanted to make a list of some of my personal picks!

this list is designed to help relatively new readers get to know the character, so i've tried to focus mostly on things that are accessible to people with only minimal knowledge of the character/world (with one single exception).

i also have not included any pre-crisis stories because i don't feel like i've read enough pre-crisis content to confidently recommend any specific comics, but i might one day come back and add a section for pre-crisis comics later!

❤️ = Personal favorite

Origin Story

Superman: Birthright, by Mark Waid ❤️

Superman: Birthright is what I would consider to be the definitive modern Superman origin story, featuring modernized versions of many Silver and Bronze age concepts. Mark Waid is, imo, one of the best modern day Superman writers in the sense of really understanding the core of his character, so I would highly suggest starting here for an understanding of who Clark is and what makes him tick. Optional: If you like "Birthright", the presently incomplete "Last Days of Lex Luthor" is a direct follow up to it, also written by Mark Waid, and delves deeper into the complicated relationship between Superman and Lex Luthor.

Superman: Secret Origin, by Geoff Johns

Written a few years after Birthrigh, "Secret Origin" technically supplanted Birthright as the official canon. Like "Birthright", it attempts to modernize many Silver/Bronze Age concepts, though it takes a different route than the aforementioned "Birthright."

Post-Crisis

Superman: Up, Up, and Away, by Geoff Johns & Kurt Busiek

Set after the events of the DC events Infinite Crisis and One Year Later, though it's not necessary to read either to follow this arc. After a year long break from being Superman, Clark returns to the cape. Since Infinite Crisis served as one of many soft-resets for the pre-Flashpoint DCU, it's a solid arc to start with.

Superman: Last Son, by Geoff Johns

Clark learns of another Kryptonian child on Earth and decides to take him in and introduces the character of "Chris Kent." Follows "Up, Up, and Away". This arc technically ran concurrently with the "Camelot Falls" arc, with "Last Son" being the Action Comics storyline and "Camelot Falls" being the "Superman" storyline. (I would recommend reading "Last Son" first, since otherwise you might be confused by Chris's presence in "Camelot Falls".)

Superman: Camelot Falls, by Kurt Busiek ❤️

One of my personal favorite post-Crisis Superman stories. Clark is told that the only way to avert an apocalyptic future is to give up being Superman. One of many, many stories that asks the philosophical question "Do heroes actually make things worse?" but has a very fresh and uplifting take on the premise.

New 52

Action Comics (2011), by Grant Morrison

Grant Morrison's Action Comics is a very sharp departure from the pre-Flashpoint version of Superman, instead choosing to do with the Golden Age what Mark Waid's "Birthright" did with the Silver Age. Morrison's Superman here is significantly more hotheaded and aggressive than the previous decade's version of him, but he's by far the closest to Siegel and Shuster's original vision for the character, so it's worth a read.

Superman: Unchained, by Scott Snyder

A Superman vs the US military story, with art by the legendary Jim Lee. It's a little dark in tone (and in color scheme) for Superman, but pretty in-line with the tone of most n52 books.

Rebirth and Beyond

Superman: Up in the Sky, by Tom King

A story that shows the lengths Superman is willing to go to in order to save one person. Has some very cute interactions between Clark children, and in general really gets the heart of Superman as a character.

The Warworld Saga, by Phillip Kennedy Johnson ❤️

A massive story following Superman to Warworld, where he works to free a group of Kryptonians being kept as gladiatorial slaves. Leans heavily into the idea of Superman as a Moses allegory, with the Authority as supporting cast. Over all a really beautiful story, both in terms of the plot and the art. Imo, the best Superman story from the last decade. Optional: If you like "Warworld" make sure to read the rest of PKJ's Action Comics run. His last issue of Action Comics just dropped recently, so you could absolutely sit down and binge the whole three-year run straight through.

Batman/Superman: World's Finest (2021 - ongoing), by Mark Waid

Set during the early years, featuring Superman, Batman, Robin (Dick Grayson), and occasionally Supergirl. In true Mark Waid fashion, it pulls heavily from the Silver Age, and manages to balance Silver Age campiness with more modern storytelling. (If you're a Superbat fan and you're somehow not reading this already, you should be.)

Superman (2023 - ongoing), by Joshua Williamson ❤️

The current running Superman arc. Another soft-reset for the Superman canon, meant to serve as an easy starting place for new readers. Beautiful art, hopeful and uplifting, and features my personal favorite take on the Lex in the comics, which should really tell you something. Optional: Action Comics issue #1050 sets up some things for this comic, but you won't lose much by skipping it.

Self-Contained Stories

Superman Smashes the Klan, by Gene Luen Yang ❤️

A YA graphic novel based on an old radio show. Set during the 1940s during Superman's early years, and really takes Superman back to his roots as a champion of the oppressed. If you read no other book on this list, please read this one. It's a quick and easy read and gets right to the heart of who and what Superman is.

Superman: For All Seasons, by Jeph Loeb

A story spanning four stages of Clark's life, with gorgeous artwork by the incomparable Tim Sale. Delves into Clark's relationships with most of the important people in his life, including his parents, Lois, and Lex.

Superman: Secret Identity, by Kurt Busiek

A meta twist on the Superman story with a boy in the real world develops Superman-like powers and has to grapple with what that means for him and what to do with those powers. A really excellent deconstruction of Superman.

All-Star Superman, by Grant Morrison

Superman, upon being told he has only a few days to live, chooses how to spend the rest of days. Widely regarded as one of the greatest Superman stories of all time, but features a lot of deep cut lore and will resonate more if you're more familiar with the characters. This is the one book I would not recommend starting with. Also leans heavily on the Silver Age canon.

#clark kent #superman #dc comics #comic recs #reading list #i will go back in and add pre-crisis recs at some point too

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b7ngt4n · 4 months

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The Last Remaining | Part 05

-> South Korea was left abandoned after a 'zombie' virus sweeps the nation. Left to save themselves, Y/N and a group of seven men, who she's found safety in, rely on each other to stay alive as they travel to the south side of the country on the hunt for a rumoured 'z-free' haven. But nothing is ever easy. Especially when they find it's not only just zombies they need to watch their backs for.

-> A female reader x BTS zombie apocalypse AU

-> Genre: Post-apocalyptic, action

-> Warnings for Part 5: swearing, violence, gore

-> Word count: 5,357 words

-> Interactions are greatly appreciated xoxo 💖

Part 05: Code Purple 🧟

The sky was painted a pretty ombré of yellow, orange, dark blue and purple. If it weren’t for the circumstances you were in, you would’ve definitely taken a photo and stayed to watch the sun set. But the sun setting was your number one problem at the moment as you hadn’t found shelter yet. Who knows what kinds of things could go wrong at night. Or what could kill you. Eat you.

Suwon was your average zombie-town. Not a single living thing lurking around apart from zombies. But there was something off about them.

They were more slower and less aggressive. Compared to Seoul Z’s, Suwon Z’s were angels. They were a breeze to get rid of, which was very fortunate for you guys as the only weapons on you were yours and Yoongi’s pocket knives. Other than that, it was up to everyone to go old school with their good ol’ fists.

But you noticed something very odd about these zombies. Something that couldn’t just be a weird coincidence.

“Namjoon,” you stopped the person closest to you. He was confused, about to ask why you stopped him in his tracks as you both fell to the back of the group. But he noticed the slight frown on your face, and that you weren’t looking at him but something behind him.

He followed your gaze, finding himself looking down a narrow and dim alleyway. He didn’t see it at first but when he saw it, he finally understood why it had your attention.

There on the ground was the upper body of an alive zombie crawling your way with one arm. There was no lower body. It had been cut off from the hip down, leaving its pelvic bone horrifically exposed. It was using its hand to drag itself across the pavement. But it was very gradual. Like it was trying so hard to get to where it wanted to go but was on the verge of giving up. There was just something so miserable about watching it struggle.

But the pity party wasn't the problem. Ever since you arrived, every zombie you’ve come across had some parts of it missing. It could be something small like an ear or an eye or something larger like two arms or a foot.

“Tell me you’ve noticed it too, how all these zombies are missing body parts,” you remarked, glancing at him.

“Yeah I noticed,” he sighed heavily, crossing his arms as he watched the hopeless half of a zombie slowly crawl its way to you, centimetre at a time.

“It can’t just be a coincidence, right?” you speculated, sharing your thoughts with him. He agreed with you, but it was difficult to find a reasonable explanation to this.

“Maybe they started eating each other? Ran out of humans?” he suggested, shrugging his shoulders. But you weren’t convinced.

“There’s no way,” you denied, pointing at the legless and single-armed zombie as you inspected it closer, “that doesn’t look like a bite mark to me.”

Namjoon had to admit you were right. The cut was too clean to have been bitten off, which completely crosses off his assumption. Could it have been a bear? A rabid mutated bear that feeds off of zombies? Or a gigantic mother zombie who is much more ruthless compared to normal ones? Many questions were raised that he honestly didn’t want to know the answer to.

“It’s suspicious, yes,” he admitted, “but let’s not focus too much on it. We still need to find a place to spend the night. Not to mention, food, water, and weapons. These guys are somehow the least of our problems right now,” he referred to the crawling zombie who was still somehow nowhere close to you. It barely made any progress.

“Okay, yeah, you’re right, let’s go,” you sighed, agreeing with him that you did have more important things to worry about. He patted you on the shoulder as you both rejoined the group further down the street. But your suspicions still weighed in your mind.

“Joon, we found a supermarket with food, water, torches, bandages, pain-killers, and other useful supplies like that. It was unlocked but we checked and it doesn’t seem like anyone’s inside,” Hoseok informed Namjoon as soon as he arrived. He nodded, observing the supermarket’s store front before giving it the all clear.

“Good job guys. Let’s stay here for tonight and make a move tomorrow morning,” Namjoon instructed, giving Jin and Hoseok beside him a pat on the back.

Everyone settled in very easily. You tried to as well, but the odd feeling in your gut made it difficult. It just wouldn’t go away. You felt uncomfortable in this city, like something was off about this place. You didn’t know if it was because of the zombies or something else about the town was bothering you. But it was strong enough that it affected you and the way you acted. And enough for the boys to notice too.

“You’ve been quiet,” Jungkook spoke from behind you as you were mindlessly browsing the crisps aisle. You jumped, glancing back to find Jungkook’s familiar face as you held your chest in an effort to calm your racing heart. He noticed you were badly shaken by his sudden appearance, something he did not intend to do.

“Hey,” Jungkook murmured in a gentle voice, placing his hands on your shoulders to turn you around, “it’s just me.”

You made eye contact with him. His frantic eyes and pinched eyebrows made you realise just how much this zombie mess was getting to your head.

“Sorry,” you apologised, embarrassed he had to see you like that, “I’m going crazy,” you shook your head, burying your face into your hands.

Jungkook breathed out, chuckling to himself, “We all are Y/N. It’s what the apocalypse does to you.”

You lifted your head up to see a small grin had appeared on his face. He grabbed a large packet of Doritos from the shelf behind you (your favourite flavour too), ripped it open, and settled down on the floor, “so I’m guessing this is somehow connected to whatever Namjoon and you were talking about earlier.”

You joined him on the floor, sitting opposite him as you both shared the packet of chips, “Yeah, but it’s kinda stupid now that I think about it,” you reflected your honest thoughts out loud to him.

“Nothing you think or say is stupid,” Jungkook replied, staring at you.

A shy smile appeared on your face as you looked away, unable to hold eye contact as you felt your cheeks heating up.

"Come on, let me know what's going on in that pretty head of yours," he said with handsome and intriguing eyes you just couldn't say no to.

You giggled at his smooth words and the cheeky smirk he had on his face, "I just thought it was weird how every zombie here was missing body parts, that's all."

He didn't say anything, just stared at you. A sour smile appeared on your face, "I told you it was stupid."

"No, I noticed it too," he admitted, you glanced at him, "and I think it's weird too. It doesn't seem like a coincidence to me."

You sighed in content, "right? I just know there's something more to it. Just have no idea what," you quietly trailed off, eyebrows furrowing together as you still couldn't think of a reasonable explanation to your theories.

"And I'm sure we'll find out when the time's right," Jungkook assured you, reaching out to cup your hand between his, "but you will not put yourself in harms way, I won't let you."

You frowned at him but continued to listen to him as he spoke, "I know we just met, but I really like you alive Y/N. I just want you to be safe. Whatever happened to those zombies, I don't want happening to you."

Your heart may have skipped a beat or two. Did he just confess he liked you? It was like a scene from a romance movie you would watch on TV. You just never knew how much butterflies it could give you in real life.

"Okay," you nodded, frown instantly melting away as a soft smile appeared on your lips, "I understand."

"Your hands are cold. Come here," he whispered tenderly, arms outstretching towards you. You didn't really need to move as Jungkook used his muscles to bring you himself. He turned you around, pulling you close so you rested nicely on his chest. He wrapped an arm around you to keep you warm and close.

"I heard skin on skin contact can help raise body temperature," he muttered an excuse against your head, you could feel his lips touching your hair.

Just as you were about to look up at him and say something, he stopped you, "Don't move or it won't work."

It was no use arguing with Jungkook when he was like a big fluffy bunny that had wrapped you up into his own personal pillow- burrito. Not that you were against it anyways. You were so close to him that you could hear his heart pounding against his hard chest. It was beating fast, like he'd just gone for a run even though you guys have been sitting here for the past 10 minutes. You nearly burst out laughing right then and there at his cuteness. Jeon Jungkook, you're not slick.

You woke up to chatter between Namjoon and what sounded like a woman. You were in a different spot from where you last remembered, which was against Jungkook's chest. Your head was resting on towels, ones you previously saw on the shelf, and a thin blanket had been placed on top of you. The sky was no longer a pitch black but the sun shine was up and shining from the east, indicating it was the next morning.

"Yes Dr Baek, your hospitality is much appreciated but we're just about to head off-" you heard Namjoon say before being abruptly cut off.

"-Nonsense. We have showers, fresh clothes, and I will cook up a fresh soup for you all," she interrupted him, insisting him to take up her offers.

You looked around to find everyone mostly awake. You nudged the closest person next to you, Hoseok, and whispered discreetly to him, "what's going on?"

"Not that sure, I woke up to Namjoon talking to her too," he informed you, nodding toward the short, hunched-back black-and-grey-haired woman when he said 'her', "she's been telling him she and the remaining survivors of Suwon are in the city hall. And has been asking Namjoon and us to have a rest there."

You liked the sound of having a rest despite having a 5 hour sleep (which was the most you'd ever get in the apocalypse), "sounds nice. I could use a shower right now," you admitted, disliking how you've been sitting in your own dirt for a couple days now.

"Yeah, me too," Hoseok agreed quietly.

"Okay Doctor, we will stay until the afternoon. After that we will be on our way," Namjoon suggested a compromise to her. The Doctor's saggy cheeks and wrinkle lines lifted as she grinned, showing off what looked like dentures.

"Oh, everyone back at the hall will be so happy to have guests over," she gleamed, wrapping a hand around Namjoon's arm to help guide her out, taking him with her.

"Follow me, chop chop, this way!" she called behind her as Namjoon beckoned Jin to follow behind him closely. Jin was out the door as soon as he signalled for Hoseok to pack things up quickly and join them. Everything moved so fast and it didn't feel like any one of you had a choice. It was only when you counted five other heads, you noticed there were two missing.

"Jimin," you two were the last in the supermarket as Hoseok and Taehyung had already left with your bag freshly packed of supplies, "where's Jungkook and Yoongi?"

Jimin glanced behind him, as if to check there wasn't anybody around to listen, "they left earlier in the morning to see if they could find any weapons."

You nodded, unsure as to why that would be much of a secret, "okay, well we have to go find them to tell them we're going to the city hall." But Jimin gave you a 'not so sure that's going to happen' look.

"I think it's best they join us later," he told you, an evident frown appearing on your face that he cannot ignore, "let's check the hall out first. And if it's safe, we'll go get them."

You crossed your arms and sighed, "we can't just leave them," your disappointment doesn't go unnoticed by him.

He placed an arm on your shoulder to assure you, looking you dead in the eyes, "trust me I'd never leave my brothers behind," he promised you.

"Look," he revealed a permanent marker hiding in his hands. You watched as he wrote the letters 'CP' on the wall next to the door. It was small enough to not attract attention but big enough to see if you looked from the right angle.

"What does that mean?" you questioned, staring at it and thinking of all the possible meanings behind it. But Jimin shook his head with a smile as he dragged you out the store to quickly catch up with the others.

But not before he quietly whispered into your ear, "it stands for 'Code Purple'. It means trust."

Jungkook and Yoongi were happy to have successfully found handguns and rifles at the local police station. They were lucky to find all the goods in there: loaded magazines, radios, walkie talkies, and a paper map. Just about all you guys needed to get back on your feet, literally. But Jungkook's smile immediately faded when he came back to an empty supermarket.

He couldn't help but think and worry about you first before his best friends who are like family to him. Was it selfish? Probably. Did he betray bro code? Probably. He felt like shit not thinking of his bros first. Like he was betraying his family for a girl he just met. He didn't want to feel this way towards his brothers, but there was no avoiding the way his heart felt about you.

The moment he first saw you wasn't even when he first met you. No. Jimin and him had been watching you since Kang very loudly pulled up to the gas station. The two of them were just about to scavenge it out for supplies when you made a very grand and unique entrance. Jimin insisted on waiting for you all to leave to check out the gas station like planned, but Jungkook had forgotten all about the plan the moment he laid eyes on you. He thought you looked so beautiful and so graceful. But what boiled his blood was when he saw the way Kang treated you. He saw your hands tied up and him pushing you around like you were a rag doll. He was so pissed off that he was just getting away with this in broad daylight because it was the fucking apocalypse. He took his opportunity to save you when he saw Kang running towards the back of the store. He knew you were trying to make an escape. He couldn't just stand by and let you lose an unfair battle. He was up and moving before he realised it, giving Jimin no choice but to follow and help out the youngest one save you.

"Where the fuck did they go?" Jungkook exclaimed, quickly browsing down the aisles only to find it was only him and Yoongi there. He was panicking, losing his mind, while Yoongi quietly stood there examining the store.

"Relax Jungkook, they're fine," Yoongi tried to calm him while Jungkook paced around. He turned to glare at him, flames of rage in his eyes that Yoongi had never seen before in him.

"You don't know that," he said harshly, clenching his jaw as he leaned against the shelf to try and think more clearer. Yoongi knew the reason he was so worked up was because of you. Jungkook was anxious for you. He noticed Jungkook picking at the skin of his finger, a habit of his when he's anxious.

"But I do," Yoongi replied, pointing at the wall before Jungkook could ask questions. Jungkook had to pause, squint, and look closer to notice the letters 'CP' written in permanent marker. He glanced at Yoongi, unsure what happened while he was gone but knowing he just had to trust you all. But one thing's for sure, they knew they had to find you guys.

"Look," Yoongi pointed outside through the window to a street pole across the supermarket. Jungkook listened, looking closely to see the letters 'CP' written again in marker.

Yoongi heard the sound of Jungkook's boots clunking against the floor before hearing him say, "let's go."

Jimin's words had been repeating in your head ever since you left the supermarket. Trust. Trust was such a powerful thing. So powerful it could make or break something or someone. In times of uncertainty, trust was the most valuable thing a person could have. It all just came down to whether that person chooses it, or not.

Along the way, Dr Baek told you guys all about life in the city hall since the apocalypse. The communal system she had set up, led by herself, seemed to work very well for her and those living in the hall. They had assigned each other different roles, each proving its own use to their way of life. Watch guards who kept the building perimeter secure of zombies, gardeners who produced fresh greenery in their own makeshift indoor garden, radio comms who had goals of repairing their battered radio signal, the maids who assisted Dr Baek with every task she gave, and Dr Baek being the only chef of the house who prepped everyone's meals. You had to admit it was very impressive what the Dr had set up.

As soon as you had arrived, the Dr ordered the maids to take you to get cleaned up. You enjoyed a cold but refreshing shower. The feeling of water and soap running down your hair and body was all you had been yearning for. They also gave you a plain t-shirt and skinny jeans while they took your clothes for washing, which you never consented to but thanked them for anyway.

The maids took you to the entrance of the main meeting hall when you finished. You found the others to already be waiting for you, all freshly showered and newly dressed too. Nobody seemed to understand what was happening as the maids quietly gathered you all. Once you were all there, they opened the doors to the hall. Inside revealed Dr Baek who stood on the small stage, in front of a podium, and every other survivor was seated in the front row chairs facing her. Everyone's attention turned to you all, the strangers on their door step.

"Here they come now everyone," Dr Baek announced as the maids ushered the group of you down the aisle. You all listened, awkwardly making eye contact with all the survivors as you walked past them. You swiftly counted about twelve heads, thirteen if you included Dr Baek. They watched you with blank faces and black pupils that never left you for a second. You were unsure whether they were happy, scared, sad, or angry. One thing's for sure their stares made you feel uncomfortable.

"Give a round of applause for our newcomers," Dr Baek shared excitedly into the microphone as you all stood in front of her, facing the crowd. The survivors began to clap all at once, and managed to stop all at once too, something that kind of creeped you out.

"They will be staying in the east wing-" the Dr began her speech, but Namjoon stopped her.

"Um, we aren't staying," he clarified to her, glancing at the very unwelcoming crowd, "we're just passing by, like I told you before," he gently reminded the old woman.

Dr Baek tilted her head, silently thinking to herself before she let out a chuckle, "silly me, how could I forget?"

There was something suspiciously fake sounding about her voice, like she was lying straight to your faces. Even Jimin had the same odd feeling as you caught his gaze from the corner of your eye.

"Well, everyone, it's quite sad our new friends cannot stay with us for long. Hence why we shall hold a special lunch in the dining hall now to send our beloved friends off," she declared to everyone. It was silent as the crowd blankly stared at you all as usual. You all exchanged glances between each other.

"You wouldn't leave with an empty stomache now, would you dear?" Dr Baek asked Namjoon in a way that he felt like he didn't have a choice.

He mustered a smile, "of course not Dr Baek," he glanced at you all, "we'd love to have lunch with you." You could see the message in his eyes: we're leaving straight after this.

"Brilliant," she smiled with her fake teeth, "everyone please make your way to the dining hall. Maids, please escort our friends," she ordered, before disappearing into another room with the assistance of two maids.

Her maids silently took you all to the dining hall before everyone else left. They took you around the east side of the building. You glanced outside the windows, finding the sun well above your heads. It was already midday, and you all were still stuck here. Jungkook and Yoongi crossed your mind in that instant. You wondered if they were okay, if they got Jimin's message, and if you'd ever see them again. Especially Jungkook.

Speaking of Jungkook, the duo had followed the clever trail of CP's left behind. They easily recognised it to be Jimin's handwriting. When the trail stopped, they found themselves looking at Suwon City Hall. Both men were confused. Why the city hall?

That was until they spotted movement from inside through the windows. Yoongi used binoculars he found at the police station to get a closer look. And just as he had hoped, he saw you all. Namjoon, Jin, Jimin, Taehyung, Hoseok, and you. He confirmed it to Jungkook who practically snatched the binoculars out his hands to catch a glimpse of you before you disappeared again. You appeared calm, not afraid, but you were surrounded by unfamiliar people, people dressed in the same maid's uniform. There had to be about four leading the six of you. They didn't look like they've caused trouble. But the two also knew they would've been searched for to make a move all together. Obviously, they were left out the picture for a good reason. And both of them knew the reason.

They explored the perimeter from a distance, conducting their safest bet at sneaking in was through the back door. Jungkook and Yoongi were not exactly sure what they were doing. All they knew was that you all were heading to the east side of the building and right now the pair were at the south-west side.

They agreed to move to the east, mostly because Jungkook persisted and Yoongi wasn't one to say no to him. Jungkook needed his eyes on you. He had to make sure you were okay and not hurt.

They snuck between hallways, checking every corner they turned at to make sure the coast was clear. They would provide no help to you guys if they got caught. They didn't know how dangerous these people were. They had to assume the worst.

After entering and exiting out of similar hallways, Yoongi and Jungkook found themselves in what seemed like an industrial kitchen. But the first thing they both noticed was the horrid stench hitting their noses.

"What the fuck is that smell?" Jungkook cursed under his breath to Yoongi as he plugged his nose and glanced back at his older brother.

"No idea," Yoongi whispered back, his face scrunching in disapproval. Just as Jungkook saw the exit and was going to make a beeline for it, Yoongi tugged on his shirt sleeve.

"What?" he asked, turning back to find Yoongi staring in horror at the kitchen bench. Jungkook followed his gaze, and nearly threw up the instant noodles he ate before.

There on the metal table was the body of a zombie that had been violently mangled and sliced. The eyes rested on a plate, its limbs were crushed and put inside a bowl, and its legs were brutally cut up into slices and chunks.

Jungkook felt the noodles coming up, finding the nearest pot to let it out, only to find a mutated zombie boiling in water. And he swore the pupils on its eyes looked up at him. He ended up vomiting in the corner.

"We need to find them now," Yoongi told him after he finished, drawing out his gun from its holster.

Somehow, when you made it into the dining hall everybody was already seated. You noticed seating was separated by gender, boys sitting on the left side and girls sitting on the right side. The dining hall consisted of a long rectangular table facing vertically in the middle of the room. It was decorated in a classic gold table cloth with candlesticks lined down the middle. The maids sat you down in a velvet cushioned chair. You hated every awkward second that passed.

The main doors opened to reveal Dr Baek. Followed behind her was a maid pushing a tray cart filled with bowls of what appeared to be soup. A wicked stench hit your nose as the cart passed by, causing your face to scrunch up as the maid served everyone's bowls. Glancing across at the boys, they seemed to have smelt the stench too. And by glancing at everyone else and judging by their blank faces, this might just be weirdly normal to them.

Dr Baek sat at the head of the table. Unfortunately, you had the blessing of having the seat right next to her. She gave you a wide smile, showing off her dentures. You forced a smile back before looking down at your food, uninterested in making small talk. You inspected it and it did not smell or look appetizing whatsoever. The soup juice was a transparent dark green colour while there were small chunks of what looked like brown beef. You wanted to be grateful for having food during the apocalypse, but you would rather starve than eat whatever was in that bowl. No offence to the Dr but you literally felt like throwing up.

"You may all eat," the old woman announced. At that moment, all the survivors dug into their bowls, slurping up the entire thing like it was their last meal. On the other hand, you and the boys were struggling to even breathe near the food.

The old woman glanced at you, sensing how tense you were, "I made this soup myself. It's a beef soup. It's not the best but I'm just using whatever I have," she sighed, making you feel a bit bad.

Jin poked at the beef with his spoon, "and where'd you get the beef from?"

She glanced at him, hesitating before she answered, "from a can."

"This," you frowned, holding up a chunk of beef in your spoon to eye level, "is from a can?" you asked in disbelief, eyebrows raised. It looked like it had been expired, eaten, thrown up, run over, and then put into your bowl.

"Yes, it's very delicious and good for health my dear. I think you should have a bite," the Dr insisted you, "it would make me very happy. And then you're free to leave."

You fought everything inside you to not roll your eyes. Fine, you thought, if it means we finally get to leave.

But just as you were about to suck it up and take a spoonful in your mouth, the main doors burst open.

"Jungkook? Yoongi?" you exclaimed in disbelief at the two men reappearance. They stood in the doorway, pointing guns at everyone.

"Don't eat the food!" he yelled at the same time as you spoke, pointing his gun at the unfamiliar faces, unsure who his target should be, "it's made of zombies!"

You pushed the bowl away in disgust, nearly hurling right then and there. The boys did the same, quickly getting out their seats. This was your cue to leave. The survivors all crawled underneath the table, shaking in fear from Yoongi pointing a gun at them. This was your first time seeing their faces move a muscle.

Just as you were about to get up, an old flabby arm wrapped around your neck, pulling you back into Dr Baek's chest. She had you in a headlock, but you couldn't fight back when you felt the tip of a sharp knife pressed against your cheek.

"I'll rip this girls face off and make a soup out of it!" she screamed, bursting your eardrums as you flailed about in her arm. She was surprisingly strong for someone her age.

"No!" you cried, fingers trying to make room between your neck and her arm. She was going to strangle you to death before she peeled your face off.

"Get the fuck away from her!" Jungkook demanded her, aiming his gun straight at her. But there was no way he could get a clean shot without risking hitting you. And the Dr knew that.

"You seem to care about this girl a lot, young man," she noticed, her voice hiding sinister intentions you would've never expected from a small elderly woman like her, "eat my soup and I'll let your doll run free."

Jungkook glanced between the crazy woman, the soup, and you. He knew he'd reached another level of insanity when he genuinely started considering her offer. He would do anything for you and he meant it. And if that meant eating zombie chow to make sure you were safe, he'd do it.

"Okay," he muttered, lowering his gun as he stared at a bowl full of zombie soup. He felt round two of vomit coming up. But he had to do this. He had to. For you.

"No! Don't!" you yelled at him. You bit down with your teeth as hard as you could on Dr Baek's flabby wrinkly arms. Luckily it did not take much for her to pull away shrieking. At that moment you heard a gun shot. It rung in your ears. You dived to the floor, unsure where that shot hit, but the adrenaline pumping through you had you quickly crawling away.

Chaos erupted in the dining hall again as the survivors quivered in fear from the gunshot while Dr Baek screamed in agonizing pain. You found Jungkook kneel down in front of you, the same sight you saw when you first met him, giving you a sense of deja vu. He pulled you up to your feet, instructing you that you needed to go. But you were so happy to see him. You started tearing up as you pulled him into a hug. You inhaled his soft scent of cologne and men's deodorant, something that would only remind you of him. He hugged you back only tighter. But it was only a couple seconds long before you both pulled back. Jungkook's hand found yours as he quickly led you out.

You spared a quick glance back to find Dr Baek slumped over unconscious in her chair. Her entire upper body was covered in crimson red and you noticed a small bullet-shaped hole in her shirt. But what creeped you out the most was the way the survivors had crowded around her in a circle. Their creepy black pupils stared at her, not in grief or sorrow, but in hunger. The last thing you saw was the circle slowly closing in before they sunk their teeth into her raw flesh.

(a/n: well 😀 so that’s that! BAHAHA this part took a few days hope you guys didn’t mind too much 💙 but i’m so incredibly happy and proud i finally get to share this part w my beautiful readers 🫶🏽 hope it wasn’t too gross n u managed to get thru it 😭 n honestly didn’t expect the story to take such a romantic turn w y/n & jk so fast 😭😭 really it js happened n i liked the flavour it bought to the story so yeah their relationship changed a bit too fast for my liking but i think it’s cute yk hope yous like it 😊👍

and wow i js want to say props to those writers who b writing a whole as 15k wc chapter like how tf. 2000+ is good for me but WOW 5000+ took me out like i srsly thought i wrote double what i wrote 😭 IDK HOW PPL MANAGE TO WRITE SO MUCH BUT SHOUTOUTS TO YOUS 😀👍 anyways love u all so much thank u so much for the love on this series xoxo 😘)

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