#dizzy mosquito

[pizzano-the-paisano-and-pizzelle]

1. Prologue...

(ft @raygirlramblings, @lunatheartist22446, @nightskylerstuff, and @raptorbricks) (TW: Swearing)

Phew! FINALLY finished this whole thing. The Sugary Spire drawings took me AGES to finish (ranging from about an hour to almost 4 hours, lemme tell you that)

Alright let's get into the gum of the jawbreaker here: currently the only two people you can ask are Pizzano and Pizzelle. Other things to note though:

Yes, you can ask them to do dares.

Yes (and no), Zellezano is a thing in this blog (I'd consider it at least platonic/queer-platonic)

No, you can't just throw a pipebomb or a cinder block at them. Yes I know that it's happened. But... seriously. Just... don't.

Yes, you can ask about Pizzano and Pizzelle about their lives before they became Pizzano and Pizzelle (although Pizzelle knows a bit more about that than Pizzano, but even then she's bound to get uncomfortable if you push her too far)

And that's everything I can tell you right now, see ya!

Next ->

#pizzano the paisano and pizzelle #sugary spire #pizzano #sugary spire pizzano #pizzelle #sugary spire pizzelle #pizza tower #peppino spaghetti #the noise #before the sugar and spice #lunatheartist22446 #raygirlramblings #dizzy mosquito #raptorbricks #nightskylerstuff #sugary spire stinky #gumbob #prologue

[eelslippers]

Not looking forward to mosquito season when I have to explain to people that yes, I'm actually allergic to mosquitos and no, not everyone is allergic to mosquitos but I am and it can give me anaphylaxis (for some reason people don't believe me when I say I'm allergic??)

#eelslippers #like....ive had to almost go to the hospital numerous times #my airways close up and i swell up and break out in full body hives #if i get bitten too many times my tongue goes numb and i get dizzy #it's AWFUL. PLUS theres so many mosquitos here in the north

[boydykewannabe]

my name is inigo montoya. youve bitten every single part of my body and woken me up. prepare to die

#IF I COULD ONLY FIND THIS FUCKING MOSQUITO #I WOKE UP FROM THE PAIN OF SCRATCHING THE BITES IN MY SLEEP #IT EVEN CAME HALF ALIVE AND DIZZY TO BITE ME ONE LAST TIME #it even went and bit me on my stretch marka #its almost 5am what do you WANT FROM ME. HOW MUCH BLOOD CAN A SINGLE MOSQUITO INTAKE

[skywitchmaja]

i just took the most batshit collection of blood pressure readings actually i think this cuff thing is just broken

#88 bpm sitting down -> 78 as i’m standing -> 129?!!?! moments later -> 134 to double check -> 85?? the MOMENT i sit down -> 97 ten minutes #later and that’s not even getting into blood pressure which was usually in the #which was uuuuusually in the 115/70 range (pretty normal) got as high as 129/108 and as low as 64/46?????? so there’s no way all these are #accurate #delete later #i don’t come on tumblr to talk about my blood issues but i am just a bit confounded #lol who am i kidding? in the past… week- right? i’ve blogged about a) trying to give blood b) mosquitoes taking my blood #c) my stupid hummingbird heart and d) getting dizzy when i stand up this blog has more blood content than i realized… 🫣

[thirteenducks]

rest for the weary

(neuvillette x fem!reader) [sfw]

༻❁༺ content: fem!reader (reader is referred to as 'girl'), no established relationship

༻❁༺ word count: ~1.9k

༻❁༺ tags: sickfic? sort of?, mild hurt/comfort, gentle and tender Neuvillette, being overworked, fainting, neuvillette is sexy in a paramedic kind of way, crimes against gloves, almost-crimes against pastries, "you will be taken care of So Help Me" neuvillette, very self indulgent, can you tell i'm a college student

༻❁༺ author’s note: blame my mutuals for putting talk about neuvillette being gentlemanly and kind on my twitter feed. this is their fault and also the four glasses of sangria i drank before i wrote this

Neuvillette would like to believe he understands human behavior quite well by now. What he does not understand is their tendency to be self-sacrificial to the point of exhaustion. When your stress reaches a fever pitch, he steps in.

You don’t remember if it was the fatigue or the hunger that you noticed first. Both have been on the fringes of your consciousness since you left your bed early this morning. Right now, they’re kept at bay only by a lingering headache that worsens as you step out into the clear day.

The beautiful azure of the morning sky above. The flocks of pigeons that dapple the steps of the Palais Mermonia like sunlight through leaves. The hum of the Court of Fontaine as coffee sales begin for the morning. All are lost on you as you forge ahead, feet barely clearing the cobblestone below them.

The papers on your desk, stacked high and demanding attention, are all that your bleary eyes register at the moment. Anything else is secondary.

As much as your conscience would contend it, your current predicament isn’t entirely your fault. Sure, you had procrastinated a bit when the pile of records was first assigned to you, and maybe hadn’t chipped away at it the way you could’ve if you planned ahead. 

For a gestionnaire, though, it’s also just that time of year when the clouds pour rain daily and the opera house sees a never-ending rotation of cases.

So if that means some sacrifices on your side are required, you’re willing to make them for the good of the Court. You’re certainly not the only one, either. The circles under the Chief Justice’s eyes always grow darker during the rainy season; you hope he’s taking better care of himself than you are.

Once you’ve gotten rid of this batch of paperwork, you’ll be free to rest for a while, you tell yourself. You can take a break. Maybe you could walk to that cafe down the street with the nice cashier and get yourself breakfast, if the rain isn't too bad by midmorning.

Your knees waver under you as you carry the precarious stack of records to the threshold of your office. On second thought, maybe you should ask if they offer delivery.

The low murmur of a familiar voice, a pleasant bass melody, reaches you as you step out into the plush carpet of the hallway. It floats through your dizzy head like syrup.

Good. You won’t have to walk far to give these to Neuvillette, then. You’re not sure your feet would carry you all the way to his office anyway, and you’d rather not field any uncomfortable questions about your health from such an esteemed man. 

Assuming what you hope is a pleasant expression, you approach the Iudex and Sedene as he bends at the waist to inspect a bump on her antler. 

There’s a very becoming look of concern on his face, you notice. It must be nice to be the focus of such care.

The unfazed voice of a Melusine comes from somewhere below you: “I promise it’s just a mosquito bite, Monsieur. I must’ve stood around the docks for too long this morning.” 

“Even so... I would administer some anti-inflammatory soon, Sedene. Please don’t neglect your health,” he chides as he pats her head affectionately.

Neuvillette rises again to his full height, catching your eye as you draw near to him.

A fetching smile upturns the corners of his mouth. He greets you with a stately nod, holding out his right hand for your stack of records. Your gaze flits to his other hand, currently engaged by an apple turnover.

Ah. A gift from a Melusine, no doubt. You hope he enjoys it, even if a part of your brain wants you to snatch it for yourself.

If Neuvillette catches the way your eyes linger on his breakfast, he doesn’t mention it. What he does is quirk his head to the left in a silent question as he continues to stand with his hand outstretched.

Oh, archons. How long have you been standing in front of him with a blank look on your face? Too long to be appropriate, certainly.

Clearing your throat and forcing a smile, you take a step forward to hand off your pile of papers to him. Only, instead of making contact with the floor of the hallway, your shoe falls into thin air as your other knee buckles and your back falls towards the carpet.

As your consciousness slips, you feel a cool hand snake around your waist.

Your head goes limp, bouncing a bit with the impact until the pastry drops to the carpet and Neuvillette’s other gloved hand comes to cradle the back of your neck.

He’s caught you. He wishes you were awake to instruct him what to do next.

He lowers you to the ground softly, brow creased with worry. Sedene stands next to him with a similar expression, holding the turnover she saved as it fell. 

“Sedene. Bring me a pillow from the sofa in my office, please. Quickly.”

The Melusine salutes and she darts off. His eyes never leave your face as he kneels, large frame bent over you protectively.

Releasing your waist, he brings a hand up to his teeth and tugs off the glove in a smooth motion before resting his bare fingers against your forehead. A curse in a tongue unknown to all but him breaks the quiet air and his brows knit together. Humans and their damned self-sacrificial nature.

Sedene returns holding a cushion. He eases it under your head with care, ensuring your neck is supported before he retracts the hand underneath.

There in the Palais hallway, the Iudex of Fontaine strips himself of his judge’s coat, uncaring of decorum at the moment. Gentle hands graze your bare skin as he wraps the garment around your shoulders. Were you conscious, you would feel the softness of the silk lining against your cheek and the scent of the ocean it carries with it.

He knows from his extensive observations of human behavior that you’ve probably only collapsed from fatigue, not sickness. And yet… and yet he cannot keep himself from stroking your forehead, cool fingertips resting there as he meditates.

Another moment passes before he makes up his mind. Your body rises from the carpeted hallway floor into strong arms, seldom-seen muscles flexing under his white undershirt. 

The change in altitude brings you halfway out of your daze. Through hazy vision, you catch the sight of pale skin moving above you. His slit eyes meet yours and you don't manage more than a small sound of confusion before you’re pulled back under by sleep.

With a brief nod to Sedene, Neuvillette carries you to his office in a few quick strides. The door slides shut behind him.

Your hands unconsciously tug on his lapels and you curl your body closer to the warmth of his chest, making his ears burn.

Every time he thinks he understands your species, something like this happens. 

He had certainly noticed your energy waning over the last few days, but he worried about the propriety of mentioning such a thing to you. Would you resent him for asking about something so personal? Should he send someone closer to you to step in before you hurt yourself?

In the end, he had settled for bringing you breakfast from a nearby cafe. He glances at the turnover, now sitting innocently on his coffee table courtesy of Sedene. It taunts him.

The silence in his office is deafening as Neuvillette lays you carefully on the sofa next to his desk. He runs through the list of human vitals in his head.

You’re breathing quite deeply. Your pulse is healthy and strong as his fingers press against the side of your throat. The color in your face is returning to its normal shade. Surely all you lack is a good meal, which he can certainly provide, and some rest. 

Then why do his hands shake as he pours tea into a cup on the table before you?

Why can he not keep his eyes from you as you sleep, chest rising and falling in a gentle rhythm? 

Why does he find it impossible to return to the paperwork that calls his name just a few feet away?

A clap of thunder shakes the building.

He doesn’t realize how long his eyes have been trained on yours until you’re staring back at him through lowered lids, awakened by the noise.

It takes about a half second for you to remember the circumstances of a few minutes prior and gasp, sitting up with a speed that makes Neuvillette reach towards you in concern. His coat falls from where it was draped across you and you stare at it, unblinking. 

Your gaze flits to Neuvillette, bare to the wrist. He watches silently as you register the sofa you’re laid upon and the lavish office around you.

The Chief Justice makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat when you rush to stand up, face burning. Your head spins - whether from fatigue or embarrassment, you’re not sure. A million apologies threaten to spill from your mouth at once.

With your head bowed and your feet unsteady below you, you don’t see the hand rising to your face until a cool sensation spreads over your flushed forehead. The surprise of it shuts you up immediately. When you do dare to raise your eyes, you hardly trust what you see in front of you.

There is no anger in the face of the Iudex, in the downturned curve of his mouth or the crease of his brow. Only tender concern presents itself as he addresses you.

“You appear to be feverish. Please, sit back down. I won’t have you fainting again if I can help it.” He removes his hand from your skin, leaving behind a burning sensation that you can't attribute to a fever.

“Mon- Monsieur?”

He tuts, raising the cup of tea to your hand and folding it into your grasp. “Drink, please,” he murmurs, face etched with care. 

You blink a few times, sipping the drink as if compelled by magic. It's sweeter than you’re expecting.

“Good girl.” 

You nearly choke on it.

If possible, Neuvillette looks even more distressed by your sudden coughing fit. “You’re far redder than when you awoke. The fever reducer in this blend should help with that, but in the meantime, please take some of this…”

The minutes pass quietly. Periodically, Neuvillette instructs you in a gentle tone to drink your tea or eat a bit of pastry. He absolutely forbids you to stand after the second time you attempt to excuse yourself.

When he's been assured that you're comfortable, he speaks again.

“May I ask why you believe those papers you were attempting to bring me were worth working yourself to exhaustion over?” 

His words are authoritative, but his voice carries such softness that you can’t help but be honest with him.

“I’m so very sorry, Monsieur. It won’t happen again. I’ve just had a lot on my plate this week.”

Neuvillette's violet eyes are melancholy as they meet yours. “Of course. It’s a busy time of year for us all,” he says, shifting his gaze to the steady rain outside. “I do hope you know, however, that I would far rather your work be late than your health to fail on my account.”

You duck your head. “...I understand, Monsieur.”

The man’s stately expression fades into something unreadable at that.

“...Please, call me Neuvillette.”

You were unaware that his voice, so commanding in the courtroom, could sound so tender directed at you.

Your gaze darts up from the floor. The Iudex is not meeting your eyes. His are fixed instead on the light drizzle pattering the windowpane. A faint swathe of color decorates his lofty cheekbones.

As you smile and nod your head, pronouncing his name with a few words of thanks, the morning sun streams into the room behind you.

It’s getting to be quite the lovely day outside.

#genshin impact #genshin x reader #neuvillette #neuvillette x reader #neuvillette x fem!reader #fem!reader #:3c #this was fun to write and even more fun to see my beta readers react to #shout out to tender and honey btw love you guys #have i mentioned how much i love gentle men recently #if i haven't here's 2k words to remind you

[catcrumb]

CATCRUMB FIELD NOTE 3

(Note 1:)

going out to the grave oak grove today for sediment collection + trap check

arrived at Grave Oak Grove with little incident

sediment churn +2% in shaded grove areas. inhabitants have been raising carrion again

lumch break 12:13

LEAVING EARLY DUE TO ATTEMPTED BURYING. BY NEW BEAST. SKETCH:

[hasty black ink sketch of a dark silhouette of a furred creature with tall ears and a long tail, leaping across the note with paws in front of it]

digging claws, tufted ears, long bushy tail

back in van. can hear it trying to get under hood. car isn't starting

(Note 2:)

It's in

I'm out of the dirt. Night now. Feeling weaker. Tree above me heavy with acorns. Took some for sample. Scratches all over me. Grave dirt everywhere. No sign of the creature but some tracks. [sketch of a paw with visible claw marks]

(Note 3:)

Back at base. Took a nap. Feel a bit better. Can't stand up for long w/o feeling dizzy. Going to spend day analyzing acorns + soil.

Calls aren't connecting. Judging by scratches, might be same beast. Cool cool cool good

Better sketch: [a sketch of the same creature with much more definition, a small oval head and a sloping back, with a curled proboscis under its snout]

Features:

needle proboscis, like an over grown mosquito

muscled powerful forelimbs with massive sharp claws.

hind legs more for jumping.

BIG.

(Note 4:)

Holing up in the attic - figured it'd be better to get away from the ground. Found these notes in the desk up here. Worrying

(Note 5:)

[a blank ink sketch of the same creature but by a different artist this time. it looks similar to the other sketches but there is more definition to it: more fur, more coherency to the way it is shaped. it looks like a creature that can dig and attack. it is labeled "fig 1." a closeup of a curled proboscis is in the corner, labeled "fig 2."]

(Note 6, written in a different hand than the other notes:)

A Tumulus Lynx (Fig 1) bound to the nearby Grave Oak Grove has been stalking the station for the last 6 days. It already made an attempt to bury me beneath the central Grave Oak. I managed to fight it off, but have not gone out since. I'm going to make a break for my jeep at daybreak. Leaving these notes for any future researchers in case I cannot get this station abandoned, whether through the guild's stubbornness or my death. If you see this animal, VACATE ASAP. It will only grow bolder after its first taste of marrow. -- M. Shadow

(Note 7, back to the original hand:)

Going to try and leave at dawn. Can't do much else - don't have any water left. Leaving these with the other notes. -- C. Crumb

#crumb #thanks to my beloved friend (the real M. Shadow) for helping me out :~) #i don't know how/if i should tag this. #unreality #horror #???

[royallyprincesslilly]

Cautionary Tale on Carbon Monoxide

So, for the last 2 weeks or so my smoke alarm/carbon monoxide alarm has been beeping sporadically. I paid it no mind because there was no smoke, nothing was burning and I did not think it could be anything else. I assumed the alarm or batteries were going bad because they had been here forever ago.

So, we changed the batteries and bought a new alarm, and installed them through the house a week ago. The beeping stopped. However, a few days ago while I was cooking the beeping came back. Again, no smoke in the home and nothing was burning. We are searching trying to figure out why it keeps going off.

I constantly have my essential oil diffuser plugged in and running so some searches came back saying certain essential oils might set off the alarm if strong enough and my 16-year-old has been fear rubbing herself with Citronella essential oils(repellent for mosquitoes) because whenever the door opened these new breed mosquitos fly in and she is terrified if her face and body looking like a swollen pepperoni pizza🙄😂. (The concerns of a 16-year-old who was looking out for her upcoming first day of school face card status lmao)

Finally, after some YT videos and Google searches, we began to suspect it was beeping because of carbon monoxide. So we hurry and get out of the house, food still on the stove half cooked, and wait for the gas/electric company to come to investigate and fix the problem.

When the tech comes he walks inside the house and instantly the machine he carried to check the PPM set off a reading of 41. This level is highly dangerous and prolonged exposure can result in health risks and possibly death.😳

He continued to walk through the house and found pockets in the house where the PPM was 38-41(still dangerous). He goes into the kitchen and instantly says, I see your problem. He goes to the stove and points to my favorite, can't live without have used almost every time I cook 11" Copper Chef casserole pot and says this is the culprit.

Apparently, the size of the pot covers my entire burner so there is no ventilation happening under the pot which is bad. He then points to another favorite pot on the back burner and says this one is also bad because of the size of the pot. He turned on the fire under the Copper Chef pot and instantly his machine went up to 144 PPM😳.

I was appalled. He asked about how we all were feeling and asked who the cook in the house was and of course it was me✋🏽. I felt fine. I usually always have headaches and feel tired, he said I could be suffering from long-term carbon monoxide exposure and should go to the hospital to be sure.

To make this longer story just plain ol' long, I say all of this to caution you guys on pot sizes for your gas stove burners and to say it could be the things/ways you least expect.

Tips from the gas/electric company tech

-Make sure your pot is not bigger/wider than your burner flames.

-Turn on your overhead vent or open your kitchen windows when cooking for either or both of these: 1) If your pots are bigger than the burner flames or 2) To take an extra level of safety.

-If you are using bigger pots try to open closet doors throughout your home because the carbon monoxide can creep into the closed closet and remain there for hours.

-In your gas using ovens do not have any liners or protectors(the ones you put down to prevent spills or drips as you bake) on the bottom of the oven if they come anywhere near the two ventilation slits in the oven(where the flames/heat rises).

-If you have done all of the above and constantly feel lightheaded, dizzy, persistent headaches, fatigue, sleepiness, be safe and just get it checked out in the ER or Urgent Care.

Be safe out there y'all. Carbon Monoxide is known as a silent killer.

#PSA #carbon monoxide #cautionary tale #the more you know #Psa: carbon monoxide

[rise-my-angel]

Perilous Companions

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Length: 24.7k

Warnings: Depictions of violence, mention of suicide, non graphic torture, hostage situations, heavy angst, angst/hurt comfort, trama related flashbacks, smut, oral (m and f receiving), p in v, canon divergence

Notes: This ones a big boy with some big things happening. Not everything will make sense yet as its part of a bigger unfolding narrative, and certain moments are intentionally skipped over for the same reason. Knowledge of the 2nd game not needed as its not canon. A lot of nerves went into making and posting this one, so I hope it doesn't disappoint you. Sequel to Melancholy Interlude, part of the Confused Warmth series.

It was a cruel joke that you were this ill. If you had to trace it back, you think you may have been bitten by a mosquito at some point. Of all the things you could catch, you were falling apart from something as small as a bug bite. You were always scared of being bitten by any sort of insect as a kid after your neighbour had come home from school talking about how you could get sick and die from one bite.

Your only saving grace being that a cordyceps infection didn’t incubate for this long, and as far as you were aware, didn’t result in how bloodshot and feverish you were nor did it result in vomiting a liquid disgustingly close to black. You had guessed for a while that in the old world the man in front of you had either was a scientist or worked somewhere in that field. 

Whatever research your current companion had done though clearly didn’t encompass all illnesses, but at least you finally were sick long enough he wasn’t constantly terrified you’d turn. Neither you or the rambling man pacing above you had any clue what to do about it, but he somehow seemed more worried then you. Looking at the map in his hands as he ran his mouth non stop. 

You had insisted you were fine until about ten minutes ago when you felt dizzy and would have completely collapsed onto the ground if Seth wasn’t there to fail to catch you in time, at least before you hit your head. Travelling with someone wasn’t what you wanted, you had been alone for months but you felt awful when a bumbling, older, tearful man came across you asking for help getting to his wife near Salem. Only to have him confess when you got sick that he was just lonely and wanted company. 

Now you were just too exhausted to get angry. Letting him travel with you as he desperately tried to make you like him despite your very purposeful choice to stay away from any people. Briefly you had wondered if he was a plant, tricking you to walk you into a trap right back to the place you were running from. Part of you still wondered that, but now you were too sick to do anything about it. 

“We’d have to go to every clinic just to see whose there, but that’s way too big to check.” Seth’s messy hair was flopping around with every spin in place he did, the rhythmic movement distracting your already fuzzy brain. “You said no to everything else I suggested, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” 

Your head smacking back against the tree you were currently sat up against shook your spinning vision even more. Squeezing your eyes shut you let out a shaky breathe that burned your esophagus as it flowed upwards.  There was an extremely expired pack of gum a few kilometres back when you were sifting through an old abandoned store front. The bile still coating your mouth had you hating yourself for passing that up now. 

“You sure we can’t go to Boston?” One eye blinked open, a kaleidoscope of orbs floating in your vision as Seth’s figure stood right in the suns path. He was standing with the map crinkling in his hold as he looked hopeful at you. “They have doctors, it’s an actual city they’ll have medicine won’t they? We can get you a bed and everything. We’re practically right there, you can see the walls from the top of one of those hills for god sakes.”

Your fingertips tapped against the grass beneath you as your jaw clenched. Forcing yourself up, the tree worked as a main support for your legs that trembled from the exertion. The man seemingly perked up at your slowly approaching self. He stared at you, your name coming out as a question when you got within a few feet. “Is that a-” 

Jumping back, Seth gasped as you ripped the map out of his hands. Your face flat as your eyes shifted to the side to stop yourself from glaring. “A no...I’m guessing it’s still a no.” 

Your legs wobbled as your vision spun trying to read it. Kneeling down you rested it over a bent knee as your finger followed a path you already were dabbling in planning out. “You ever been in a QZ before?” 

Looking up at him, Seth had a shifting and sheepish face akin to something like guilt. “I spent some time in one for a while, a little bit in Boston.” Your heart skipped a beat, forcing your gaze down to the destination you had in mind willing away the swirling anxiety. “That’s why we need to go though. I have friends there, they can help you- wait where are you going?” 

The beating of your heart pounded erratically. You wanted to be alone for this very reason, you had no idea what kind of friends were waiting for him, or you, in Boston of all places. There was no one you knew anywhere near such an area, so you walked away. In the opposite direction of his suggestion. 

Seth called you again, “I thought you needed to rest.” 

Pace picking up you pulled the other strap of your bag on both your shoulders properly. “I’m going west.” Pairing up with this man was foolish, heading in the complete opposite direction of where you were headed was even more foolish. 

His voice was getting more and more grating. “We just came that way, didn’t we go to Massachusetts for a reason?” 

Heading down a slight hill full of ragged dirt clumps and drop offs only bang around the blurring migraine in your head more. It wasn’t killing you yet, so you just didn’t bother stopping for it. “No, you wanted to go to Salem, I wanted to be alone.” 

Sputtering, Seth wailed his arms as he slipped and tripped over his feet down the hill with a grace that only assured you that he’s likely spent his entire life in and out of some halfway sizable apartment Fedra probably threw his way. “I was just trying to help.” 

Your mind was already made up. You’ve been trying to get out of this state for months and everything kept pulling you back in. But their unwillingness to let you go spoke a different story, the people you’ve encountered since that have tried to trick or lead back to that room you ran from. 

Seth was saying something, but you tried to tune it out until he was too loud. The sun was setting in a gold that shined off of the decay around you. Travelling the outskirts was longer, a much longer path but if you were being honest with yourself? Just because you were more scared of what other people were capable of, doesn’t mean the shrieks didn’t haunt you every time they echoed through the emptiness. 

It didn’t take long for Seth to overtake your strides. Longer legs and too much energy compared to your muscles begging to sit once more. You so desperately wanted to believe it wasn’t true, that maybe just once since that day you could meet one person who you didn’t have to leave your guard up for. But you couldn’t. 

You were the only of your kind they ever seen, and it didn’t matter who told them what. He had his sights set on you and so did everyone else. Were they hoping to pull you back because they were too stubborn to give up? Or were they truly so delusional that they just didn’t care. The arguments you spied on seemed to tell you something divided them greatly but at this point you didn’t have anything to go off of. 

You had enough scuffles with them to know they were willing to be violent to get you. You knew why they wanted you and it was a fate that terrified you. You saw the remnants of what they had before you, and now? It was a fate you knew would be worse. Their willingness to beat the air out of your lungs had you supposing that having you in one piece wasn’t required.

It was only months ago when a few men came across you as you realized that it wasn’t just a small group that were involved. Somewhere along the lines, three men in the fireflies approached you and when you refused to even hear them out? That’s when they left you with a fair few more scratches then you gifted to them. 

Bruised and covered in mud from being kicked down a steep forest hill, you could hear the small group of men on a radio, but their words overpowered in your head from noise. The only words made out from what you could hear past the ringing the fall had smashed into your head. “....I don’t care, just tell say it’s Owen...” 

More static noise blasting out as you sunk your nails into the muddy hillside pulling you upwards onto your knees at least. Biting your lip so forcefully it had cracked and drawn blood by the next morning, you held the cries of pain back as your muscles strained to drag your body behind a tree. 

Tears streaming down your cheeks, you cradled your side now dripping blood from the ripped open fabric once covering you. The other occupied with gripping your shoulder tight as each twitch of your body shot a current of pain through what might be a strain.

Finally a response over their radio rung out, your jaw tensed as you breathed deeply in and out your nose. “..can make it in a few days...yes ma’am....Gran-” Was it the distance cutting his voice off, or was it your own heavy breathing invading your senses? You didn’t know. It was hard to focus. 

You didn’t know if you wanted to go back for real answers, or if a part of you still clung to seeing the man who had his hired thugs strap you to a chair as soon as they got their hands on you. He barley even looked at you like his own, and neither did his partner look at you anything but a specimen. 

You being this sick wasn’t the plan, and you knew making it wherever they were headed in one piece wouldn’t be easy. Not even sure if any of them would be there anymore by the time you got there. They had working cars afterall, and you only had two feet. Already your head was dizzy, but it felt wrong to turn away, leave it alone. You could just run from them, head far North until you reach the border and forget all of this. 

But you couldn't. They should have gotten what they wanted, so why wasn’t it enough? 

Now though, in the early hours of the morning, it was impossible ignore what you had heard the next few subsequent nights. Listening to this man ramble on what was no doubt some kind of radio. Foolish enough to think that you’d feel comfortable sleeping anywhere near him now he assumed he wouldn’t be heard or caught. Sprinkling hints of a deception that became harder to push away. Someone far more collected and confident then the bumbling coward presented to you. It chewed and gnawed in your mind throughout that night. 

He didn’t see you coming, knelt down faced away before having his body grabbed by the back of his shirt and tossed a few feet to the ground. Flipping onto his back, he stood up slowly to see you feet away from him. Exhausted and pushed to an edge. He tried placating it but only got as far as your name before you cut him off. 

“Why do you want me to go to Boston so badly?” You pulled from something attached to your belt, a thick yellow rope long and flopped down to the side. 

Seth’s face slowly melting off it’s aloof bravado. Something deeper inside brewing that you only felt your body tense at. “I don’t know what-” 

The voice waver made you a lot less brave but the force which you shoved it out masked it. “You led me there even after I told you no. What’s in Boston you’re so eager to get to?” 

There was an entirely new man in front of you, someone more poised with sunken eyes. As if whatever this facade was became too useless to keep up. This wasn’t a stumbling fool, but someone hiding too much. “We don’t need to do things this way-” 

You weren’t buying it though. Wrapping both ends of the rope around your hands, but kept low enough to give him hope to talk first. “Don’t make me ask you again, Seth.” 

His voice grew softer, as if to entice the part of you that wanted to grant sympathy. “It’s about you.” His gaze on your covered arm, and your heart beat harder. “I knew your Jerry and your father from the old days. They discovered a problem during testing, but you already had gotten out before he could look into it for himself.” 

You didn’t even need to ask about ‘they’. He knew them, and apparently your guess of some kind of scientist was correct. Both of them treated you like cattle once they had found you. The ghosts hovering over your life. “What problem?” 

“He never told me, and when your father died I didn’t think it mattered anymore. Left Jerry to pick up the pieces without his expertise. He’s replicated the work as much as he can, but the only thing your father told him only made him that much more desperate to find you. He’s a doctor not a scientist.” 

Maybe you should have been angry, upset. Dropping that on you as if you should already have known, but on the other hand it might be for the better. Jerry was cold, and uncaring. Your father was entirely too emotional, perhaps closer to disturbed than anything. “I gave them everything they wanted, what’s he desperate for?” 

The lack of blinking put you on edge even further. A look as if trying to figure out the very thing he was describing. “That I don’t know. Research has been kept under very tight watch, especially now.”

“And my father, what did he say?”

Seth’s eyes glazed with a troubled conflict, and a sorrow in his voice that told you he knew far more then he was telling you. Flashes in his eyes that spoke of a truth that sat unsettled within him. 

“He said this is the end. He said that we are all finished, and he took his own life.” 

The trickery, the trouble in his eyes, how this all kept relating back to that day. Your father taking his own life though? Something inside of you shifted unsettlingly, and not quite a loss for family. If you had even a modicum of faith in your father, you had none in his partner. “What I still don’t get is what you were planning to do with me. I mean what use would someone like me be to a lying con like you?” 

A debate flourished in his head, saying no words as he almost looked through you. The now calmness in the air, quiet and dulcet tones between you echoed eerily in your voice. You needed him to speak, you needed to know. “What do you think your last breath will feel like, Seth?” 

Eyes shutting for the briefest of moments, he let something echo in his veins. Words slipping from him in a level of defeat. “There’s a woman. A firefly-” 

“I’m already running from the fireflies-” Nothing but a bunch of make shift mercenaries playing at a war they’ve never even started to win. 

Seth shook his head, “Not this one. She’s a leader, has real goals she wants We can trust her, she can help.” You instinctively gnawed at your bottom lip, unwilling to believe in him. “Now if you come with me to Boston, I can get you to her.” 

Shaking your head, you bled distrust from every pore. “What’s her name?” 

His shoulders sagged as he sighed. “Please don’t make me tell you that,” the tightening of the rope between your hands squeezed as his eyes flickered from you to it and back again. “Marlene. Her name’s Marlene. She’s a good woman, your father trusted her.”

More then a few seconds passed. The wind flowing through the luscious trees nearby, and the grass grazing along the empty land. The peace nowhere near the small bubble you stood. “Why wouldn’t they have just told you what the problem was. If you worked with them, I mean. Bit odd.” 

Seth’s head tilted, a softness pleading with you as your name murmured from his mouth, “I’m on your side. I’m one of the-” 

Something snapped inside of you. Almost a scream inside your heart shouting at your survival and it consumed your vision within seconds. He wasn’t a fighter, you wrapped the rope around his neck with little defence. 

Within a second you kicked him to the ground, a struggle tumbling in the quiet grass as you flipped onto your back. The pull burning your wrists and your own legs trying to keep him down. His struggles and groans eating away at your hearing. 

You could only look down at your hold for seconds, nothing close to a fight back from a man who didn’t know how seek out for a real fight. Your breathe was forcibly rhythmic, in and out deeply as your head tilted back as you pulled. Breathing the sounds of struggle away as your eyes fell upon the nature.  

The leaves blowing on a tree, large and flourishing in the emptiness that ravaged around it standing tall and bright. The wind flowing like a calm around it like it was wishing to entrance you. Your breathing desperate to keep a deep even as your mind pushed away the burning pull on your wrists. The sight of the trees colours striking against the rest of the field hiding the groans below. 

You took your mind elsewhere, you weren’t strong enough to keep yourself in the moment. A life on the outside didn’t make you capable. It just made the struggling figures on an open ground dragging the life out of a man who knew more then you’d ever know, feel like a kind of memory you couldn’t live with if the trees didn’t exist.

Nothing like that existed here and now though. The barrel sights down to a man who helped play his part in many fights that these people didn’t deserve to be a part of. 

Once someone too sure of his own bravado, now faced you wide eyed and swallowing panic. His hands at first positioned in front of his torso as Joel approached you both, his knuckles turning white from how tightly he was pulling and twisting the coarse rope in his hands. You wanted to see the trees in that rope but you only saw the purple imprints on your wrists that had stayed with you for days. 

But it wasn’t someone tricking you to your death at the other end. It was people you wrapped a new life around, and the only ones who cared about you in return. Owen pleaded. “Come on, please. I’m not going to do anything, do you really need all this?” 

Your hands hesitated, grip on the shotgun so harsh for so long it your arms had started to shake. “I’ll behave, let’s all be reasonable here.” Barrel only lowering enough that it’s aim left the eye line of Owens head. Low enough that he had the gall to leap towards you as if having any chance. Before you could even register how startled you jumped, Joel had grabbed him by the shoulders and tossed him face first into the bar counter beside you. 

Owen’s head up enough to growl in anger, “Fuck you-” only to be slammed down into the wood with a crack of a bone splintering in the air. 

Yanking his arms behind his back, Joel tightened the mans own ropes around his wrists, leaving him just enough room before his circulation, or lacktherof, would turn his hands blue. The mans head yanked back with blood dripping from his nose and smeared down his face and painted the dark surface. Your fingers twitching on the shotgun aimed uselessly to the ground as your shaking breathe vibrated into your very chest as Joel hissed into his ear. “You try anything like that again, I’ll break a lot more then your nose.” 

Owen groaned but said no more. Shoving him towards Tommy, Joel only looked a his bloody face for a second longer before taking four strides over and all but shoving the chair out the mans reach. Stumbling onto his knees, grumbling unintelligible swearing as Joel burned a deep anger into his face and slinking it up to Tommy in unspoken words. 

Tommy himself seemed more hesitant. Taken back by something he had no way of seeing coming. You didn’t know how much of the other week Joel had even told him about. He at the least didn’t particularly care enough for the strangers well being to let him sit anywhere but the cold floor. He was more on the edge of confused, Joel saw you trying and failing to mask the shaking feeling of silent fear and that look washing over your eyes only had his blood run hot. 

Tilting his face to the side, Joel caught your gaze the hard set steel of his expression still peeking a deep concern for you behind it. His brown eyes gestured downwards to the shotgun in your grip, covering one of your hands with his own, the way it overtook your small ones with such warmth had you wanted to flip your palm to hold onto it, but you just let him slide the gun into his own possession. Holding it upright around the short cut barrel. 

Ever the vocal one, Ellie spoke up first. “Who are you?” She was stood still, arms crossed over her chest with a stare that could sear a hole in the floor. Her body now against the table, blocking any view of the towns layout from the strangers prying eyes. Tommy stood to his side, back to the wall and eyes to the door while Joel stepped away from your side. 

Watching him crouch down in front of the man, you yearned for the grace of someone more worthy. A gun to a mans surprised back peering right through whatever facade he would spit out were you not there. You had felt brave until he turned to face you. Owen’s face painted with fearful shock but yours only seethed with undiscovered ire. Whatever in your body that didn’t shake, a tingling flooded where ever nerves were attached. 

Owen’s stare towards Ellie was suspicious. Dots connecting in his head, he raised an eyebrow as he returned her stare. “How about you go first, then I have my turn?” 

“Hey,” Joel’s voice rumbled out tight and controlled, just like his unwavering posture. “You look at me, not her. Got it?” Owen didn’t answer quick enough, meaning not instantly, which only got him grabbed by the jaw, Joel’s fingers squishing parts of his cheeks in like a blooded up fish. “I said got it?” 

Owens brows furrowed in a grumble but he nodded. “Good. Now answer the question.” His kept his promise, he didn’t look back at Ellie. Just you. Empty eyes with a smile that had been smeared onto his skin like a goo. 

“Or you could just tell them, you already know my name afterall.” 

Your nails dug into the skin of your palms, scratching and clawing to keep them from shaking. In a world where you knew how to stand your ground, maybe the words would come up out of your mouth. Only they didn’t and you weren’t standing your ground, you weren’t sure your heart would calm enough to give that chance. 

Joel yanked his head back over to face him, face even sterner then before. “I asked you.” 

No one was impressed with the eye roll. A childish act for a tied up man, “Owen. Like she said.” When Joel didn’t let go of him, only gripped tighter did he remember to act like a grown up. “We used to know each other, had a couple run ins didn’t we?” 

You couldn’t see Joels eyes flit back as if he could see you behind him, but that yearning never left his heart. You were supposed to be at his side, not trapped in place by whatever memory this man dragged into town with him. “This is not-”

“He’s a firefly, or was.” Part of you was happy Owen hadn’t seen you in over a year, missing the slight waver in your voice as you forced it to come out in one go. All three of them had completely different reactions. 

Ellie was confused. A group in her life held a complicated relationship with her, one that she suspected wasn’t wholey truthful with her, but never had the chance to put her finger on it. Tommy was braced for either side of things. His eyes never straying from the sight in front of him but one foot of his stood out towards Ellie, as if to intervene. 

You didn’t need to see Joel’s face to know what he was feeling. Crouched down, his shoulders and back were set and so tense you could see it through his jacket. His hand dropped to his thigh with a thud curled into a fist. Those brown eyes washing over to a black as his nostrils flared as he kept a wild within him. 

No doubt lost in what you have found yourself in many times, flashes of light passing your eyes as images that keep you up at night taunt you. You found yourself pacing towards him, hand reaching out to him, but hovering in place at the prospect of sneaking up on him. But just like you felt with him, Joel didn’t need to hear or see to know you were near him. 

He just felt you already, taking a deep breathe as his back stretched back, giving your hand the chance to simply push forward and grasp onto the back of his collar like he knew you would. “What’s a firefly doing in our town, sneaking up on my own.” Joel was seconds away from bearing his teeth, if he remained just a strange intruder that was one thing. But none of you had any delusions about what having someone like this here could mean. 

“Just looking for a friend is all. Big state you know? Gotta check all the corners.” Joels fist curled in more as you curled your fingers into his collar. The two men eyed one another before Joel made to stand back upright. Letting go to give him space, it was only snatched back by Joel’s empty hand. Keeping it tucked to his chest, to turned so both your sides leaned against the bar. His warm breathe heating the skin of you face still doused from the cold outside. 

Eyebrows raised, you could read the question unsaid. Nodding yes, you bit the inside of your cheek. “Don.” Your eyes on his chest, Joel turned his body partway to gesture Ellie to take the shotgun from him. Sometime later, Joel would feel pride of how confidently she took it into her hold and held it to Owen. Perfect form like he taught her. But now that wasn’t anywhere near his mind. 

His now free grasp held onto your hip and pulled you at an angle, hiding your gazes from the man flickering his eyes around the room. Fingers stretching from under his, you wrapped them into the top of his shirt peeking through. Unable to decide if you could handle being the subject of this kind of intensity from Joel. “Don mentioned travelling with them for a while, I didn’t know he stayed with them after..” 

Joel cupped the side of your cheek, turning you up to his face. He meant to say something, meant to comfort or suggest but your own genuine unease pressed against the heart under his chest. A vulnerability that he spent weeks trying to coax from you from the quiet safety of your room together, but now on display for someone that Joel felt the growing urge to slam face first into a wall, leaving a mark he wouldn’t come back from. 

For only a moment you let yourself feel it. Shutting you eyes, Joels hand warm and soothing in your heart as you let the uncertainty flow over. Letting it drip from you head to your toes, melting off as it reaches the floor. Finally you flickered your eyes up to Joels. “I’ll talk to her.” Joels head whipped around, eyes blazing at the mans suggestion. “I’m not gonna kneel here and spill my guts to all you bozos-” 

The other two pairs of feet in the room both shifted a foot forward. A “Watch yourself” sounding from Tommy at the same time as Ellie’s far less decorum of “Shut the fuck up.” 

Shuffling in place, you could tell Joel was grappling with the idea. A deep protective instinct that threatened to overtake him should anything happen to you. “I’m not leaving you alone in a room with one of them.” 

Your cheek pinched between your teeth just a tad to sharp, your mind salvaging for any hint you have a plan in mind. But you don’t, and Joel knows you don’t. Because he doesn’t have one either. Your eyes drifted to Owens tied up frame, gesturing your chin over in debate, Joel doubled down.

“They’re better talkers then they are fighters out here. I’m not worried what he’s going to do, I’ll chain him to the wall if I have to. It’s what comes out of his mouth I don’t trust.” Something within you sensed something coming. Like the polarizing fear sweeping through you when Don had walked into town was a child’s bad dream compared to what your anxiety begun to brace for. But you agreed. 

That part of you which could no longer pretend as if you felt anything but racing nerves in your veins wouldn’t admit it, but you were eternally relieved to have Joel. You faced people like Owen, the fireflies always them versus you. Always running, stealing and sabotaging behind their backs it would weigh less on your chest to have someone in your corner, helping you up onto equal landing. 

Jaw clenching, Joel’s eyes pleaded a different story. One of a man dreaming of finding a small life with you and Ellie, and having to shove down the urge to burn everything to the ground just to keep you three in that harmony. But the fireflies played a different game. One that burned into Joel’s core, and one that froze yours over. 

Sending a shiver down the length of your spine as his thumb gently rubbed over your bottom lip, he was holding himself back from kissing you. Brown eyes flickering to your lips as his fingertips flexed where they sat on your body as if resisting pulling you into him. 

Sarah echoed in his head. Holding you in his arms on the porch as you told him unequivocally that she would be proud of who he is, but he didn’t feel proud now. Joel felt like control was slipping away from him and the last time that happened it ended in a bloodbath. 

You didn’t like this look on Joel. His handsome features warped by a painful conflict behind, firm and set as if nothing he was preparing to let nothing to get past the stone walls. You wanted him relaxed, soft. The kind of look he gave you that very morning. A smile that you’re not sure you’d ever seen yet. A soft one, a sleepy glaze in his eye and that very thumb rubbing over your bottom lip only then he moved it to help pull you out of sleep with his own lips. 

Anxiety shocking your limbs, jolting them like electricity while Joel was reliving the nightmares the people just like Owen brought on him. That quiet bubble of lips and skin against each other under the sheets Joel wanted you to call your own? That morning seems to not exist anymore. 

One of your hands drifted around, trailing on the inside of his jacket along the thin layer of his shirt, nails tracing towards his stomach as both of your eyes begged for even one kiss. Something to keep you both here and grounded. You weren’t going to give the satisfaction to Owen though. 

So you let yourself out of Joel’s hold. His hand sliding from your waist only until you were to far to stretch out to. Owen’s eyes were far less confident as you approached him. His laboured breathing the only thing in the air as you crouched in front of him. 

“You talk to both of us. Or no deal.” If you were someone else, you would have sounded firm. Sure of your conviction and unafraid of the coward in front of you. Not the weaker almost out of breathe hesitancy it came off as. 

Owen narrowed his eyes at you. “And if I say no?” 

Joel was what you tried to sound like. Deep and threatening, no room for doubt or barter as he came up behind you. “I dump you outside of town face first, hog tied in the snow.” 

Warm large hands pulled you up with one of them now refusing to leave your side. Owen conceded just as Tommy called Joel. Gesturing over to the sight of people beginning to mill about like nothing ever occurred inside the building. The man wasting no time as he hauled Owen up uncaring of the stumble he felt from the aggressive jostle. 

Owen stood crookedly against the bar, as Tommy circled his finger for him to turn around. “Ellie.” Joel beckoned her, a hand out for her to hand the shotgun over. Glancing between it and you, her face fell flat as she rolled her eyes giving it to a tiny smirking Joel at her petulance. 

No sense of personal space as he dove right into the small bag at your side for the ammo he assumed was in there. Loading it for you, he draped the strap over your shoulder. “Me and Tommy’ll handle getting him out of here. You two head back to the house, it’ll take us a while to move him.” 

Owen’s wrists rubbing together at the redness already scratching into them, Tommy added “I got a feeling he’s not against making a scene if we walk him through the middle of the street.” 

Neither you or Ellie were keen on leaving the two of them to handle it on their own, but you gently pushed her forward to grab her jacket. Joel turning you to face him as he cupped your cheek once more. There was something at the tip of his tongue, but it wouldn’t let itself out. A disruption you both felt in your bones just when he was finally putting a life together. 

Gently grasping his wrist, you turned his hand, pressing a kiss to his palm and watching him stiffen and breathe force itself from his lungs harder. A rage inside him that you knew he didn’t want to relive, or even expose you too. You couldn’t form the words, you knew what you felt but your tongue wouldn’t take them in. You just wanted him to know that it was alright.

The disgusting turmoil you brought upon his family hadn’t made him turn you away. His own would never do the same to you. There wasn’t anything Joel could do that would destroy what you were trying to pretend wasn’t a stem of blossoms flourishing into unconstrained winding petals.

But now? Watching Joel share muted words with an agitated Ellie, both struggling to let the other walk away? Wondering if it was mere coincidence that it was Owen who was here, or if you dragged them to your doorstep. 

Your mind far off, preoccupied in the possibilities going unconfessed. If this was your fault, if you brought this on them, then Joel should hate you. You deserved it. No reason could form in your head as to why he should support you, he’d done enough. 

You didn’t know what to bring to this relationship, and now all you have started bringing is burden upon burdens. Nothing to go on, all you could assume was that love wasn’t supposed to be sharing the brunt of the others problems. 

You were selfish for letting him bring you home that day, and he was stupid for going after you in the first place. The gruesome mark on your side should have stayed there. Ripped open and bleed out until you wouldn’t get back up from that blood soaked room anymore. 

Fed up, Ellie grabbed your arm with a shout of your name. Turning you towards her, eyes narrowed in exasperation. “Where are we going? Joel said-” 

Mouth opening then closing, your peeked at the people around you some glancing at the Ellie’s sudden outburst. It didn’t even dawn on you until now how far into town the pair of you had gotten. You couldn’t do this here, not in front of all these people. You couldn’t breathe around a crowd closing in on you. Swallowing the swarming cloud threatening to engulf you. “I need to get something, okay?” You grabbed her hand on your arm, squeezing it for a moment. “It’s important.” 

She didn’t say much as you both walked into the now mostly empty house. You wasted no time, making a bee line to your bedroom as Ellie paced around. Taking in the lack of any feeling home. You had brought hardly anything over. A bag or two at most. Neither she or Joel had much when they arrived, but they finally had started to feel like a home, like a place in the world once long forgotten. You arrived with nothing, and you still had next to nothing. 

Ellie couldn’t help but wonder. Is that what life on the outside was like for you? To truly have nothing to find joy in? The clang of wood caught her attention, dragging her over to your old bedroom. Your body knelt on the ground tearing out part of the floor only to reach in and rag out a small box. “So what are we doing back here?” 

Hands pausing mid movement what would you even say? What Joel was keeping from here was nowhere near the kind of lie you were keeping from both of them. The lie you tried to throw away the day you set foot in this town. Fingers slowly wrapping around loose drawings scattered at the bottom, you shuffled them together, throat tight as you tired to find careful words. 

“Something he might be after.” Head lifting up you saw the question form on her tongue. “It’s complicated. I’m not- I don’t know how to explain it.” Right now at least. 

“You could try. I mean I’m complicated.” Your head dropped again but in a breathy laugh, Ellie always managing to let that bemused attitude slip through no matter what. 

Tilting your head to the side a smirk played on your lips. “Yeah, we seem to be a house full of that.” Slipping the drawings into part of the journal, you sucked in a breathe with your eyes blinking shut for as long as you exhaled. Chucking the box back into the hole you lazily threw the wood down. Nothing left in there to hide under hammer and nails. 

Ellie’s face was stuck in hesitation when you stood back up. Her eyes looking to the journal you pressed tight to your chest then back to your own face trying to appear neutral. “Is that what he wants?” 

Lungs constricted and coiled more in your chest. Best case scenario likely being this was all he travelled here for. “Stay in your room, when we get back.” Your head shaking just once as your face tightened and scrunched up. “I’m not asking Ellie. You’re not going anywhere near him.” 

Her arms waved in the air, voice raising just like outside. “I’m not just gonna hide in my room like a-” 

“You don’t think Joel’s going to tell you the exact same thing?” Inside hoping you weren’t coming across as harsh. But you didn’t know what Owen was going to say, or what was going to happen to get him to say it. Ellie deserved a normal life, and none of this was apart of that. 

The house was silent when you both got back. Not a creak or muffle as Ellie charged in first. An annoyed attitude to match such a flat expression unwilling to even keep the door mostly open. Your grip on the journal adjusting and reajusuting multiple times as if letting for a fleeting moment would sweep it out of your possession. 

Opening the door the rest of the way, you were silent as you watched Ellie stand in the middle of the room. Her body turned towards the only closed door, eyes wider and sunken in with a deeper hesitation then before. You could see Joel leaning back against the counter, arms crossed with eyes harsh and narrow at the same direction. 

“He’s in there?” Half her torso twisting to watch Joel nod once. “Is he-” 

“Still tied up. He’s not going anywhere.” An edge cut through his voice, restraining an emotional you knew was a battle to bury back down. “As long as he’s here you’re going to-” 

Head dropping as did her eyes. “Stay in my room. I know.” She didn’t bother taking her jacket off out here, just step by step towards the hallway there wasn’t even a blink. Suddenly the prospect of staying as far away from him as possible didn’t sound like a punishment. Stopping in front of the door, she looked back to Joel with her teeth gritting in an anxiousness. “What are we going to do with him?” 

There was no response. Joel’s shoulders squared as he exhaled through his nose harshly. Brown eyes just glued between her and the door as his head brewed with thoughts you couldn’t possibly imagine. 

Neither of them said anymore. Ellie turned to open her door before taking one last peek at the shut one not far from her own. Keeping her in the dark wouldn’t last, but right now wasn’t time. Not for Joel, not for you. 

The quiet air didn’t dissipate with her departure. An uncertainty floating between you and Joel, his eyes now following the way yours stared at the door. Unlike Ellie though, your own blazed with a knowing fear. Murmuring your name, Joel gestured for you to come over to him. 

You didn’t reach out for him the way his hand did for your waist. Pulling you closer, Joel stood up straight with a deep breathe. Eyes flickering to the door and back, brows narrowed still. “The hell does he want with you that he tracked you all the way here for?” 

It felt like a blame, even if it wasn’t one. What did you to do drag something else into his life? Your grip on the journal in your hand didn’t go amiss. Nor did your casual shrug fool him. “If he’s still a firefly he either only wants me..” 

“Or that?” Joel raised an eyebrow towards your hands as his own pulled your retreating body back into him. “Hey. I’m not prying, but if you’re in danger I need to know about it. Now.” The sternness in Joel’s voice carved something deep inside you as did the fierceness in his bright eyes.

Your jaw clenched as the defeat just piled up. His eyes followed as your hands dropped to your sides before you tossed the journal aggressively onto the counter behind him, but your arms returned to cross your chest protectively. “They know about me. Like-” 

His large hand squeezing just above where the mark sat on your side. His eyes squinted in confusion at what was in your hands. “What does a book have to do with it?” Heart lurching in your chest, you pried yourself from his hand but found yourself unable to move entirely from his warmth. One palm pressing into your forehead as the other sat on your hip. 

“It belongs to them.” Your chin cutting over to it. Jackson was supposed to heal over those memories, but that wasn’t the plan of whoever watched your life over. “I stole it from them, Owen took it back from me, I stole it from him so on.” Head raising into the air to push the sting in your eyes down even when your shaky breathe gave it away just as much. “Either they only got their hands on the book, or lucky enough to try and drag me to Boston because Marlene just can’t give anything up.” 

“Marlene?” Joel leaned into you, pulling your face to look at him by your chin. Your own lost ones stark against his heating fire as he said your name. “She was the one looking for you?” 

You stammered, watching Joel run a hand over his face. Dots connecting in your mind, your mouth fell open slightly as a tangle of disjointed words tumbled out. “Yeah she wanted me.... and you were in Boston. With Ellie.” A story you knew the details to but didn’t stop to wonder how deeply intertwined it’s words were.

This time it was Joel who fidgeted his body back and forth, jaw so clenched it might snap as both his hands found his hips. “Ellie grew up in there, and that’s where I lived when Marlene got me to take her, or forced my hand was more like it. She was adamant someone needed to get her to one of their stations out west when she couldn’t.”

Joel’s head snapped to you as you started putting it together. “I’m assuming she didn’t specify west meant a hospital in Salt Lake?” 

Running his hand down his face again, Joel finally leaned back against the counter. “I didn’t know the extend of where I was taking her until Ellie mentioned a cure. By the time I got her there, it was almost to late when I found out what the fuck they were about to do.” 

Blood racing in your veins you hated where this was going more and more. “Because she knew you’d never do otherwise. She seem desperate?” 

All you needed was his nod of yes. You felt incredibly stupid. The details Joel had already shared, what Don told you, what had happened what was in the journal itself. That’s why they left you alone after all that time. She found Ellie, and dumped her off with people who couldn’t possibly know what Marlene was handing her off for. 

You weren’t sure how long you had been silent, but Joel cupped the side of your neck urging you to come back to him. You were quicker on the draw then he was. “We need to find out what he’s doing here. Now.” 

Soothing you, his breathe grazed your face as he leaned his forehead onto yours. “I can do this alone, you don’t need to see this.” 

Sliding your fingers up to hold his wrist gently, your eyes as soft as your touch felt opposite of how much Joel’s nerves sat in his fingertips. “You said we’re in this together. So we do this, together.” He took one last moment to hold you against him still with a hand at the back of your head. 

Pulling back he grabbed something you couldn’t quite see from behind him, sliding it into pocket inside his jacket before you could make it out. His hand stayed in the middle of your lower back as you both approached the door. The journal left alone on the counter the reasons to keep it in the shadows leaving you moment by moment. 

It should have satisfied you to see fresh blood now on his face. Two distinct cuts clotting over on his cheek, drifting down to see his frame tied to a chair looped with more then one restraint. Hands bound to the arms of the seat, a redness that too was blood on his fists. You wanted to feel smug at how rough he looked, but it did nothing to soothe the racing of your heart. 

Owen barley looked your way when he saw Joel follow in. The harsh shut of the door behind him making the bound man jump. A rag drenched in droplets of blood and sweat tied around his mouth explained the no noise as you walked in. A sprinkle of suspicion that his newfound red paint was a result of putting far more of a struggle up then he could handle the consequences too. 

The air around the three was charged with such a heavy weight you felt as if it could crush you flat. Your vision as it turning white flashed, the slamming pain skyrocketing from your body to your head as it rattled against the cliff side. The blood on your face felt as if it had never been washed off as you looked at the still red stained ones on Owen. 

Yours weren’t bound to the arms of the chair. No yours were wrapped behind you, phantom sensations of the metal digging into your skin as it gave way to a snapping bone. Memories you’ve never spoken of,  ones you wanted to bury deep. 

Joel had spoken, and you didn’t even catch it. Muffled voices quiet and rumbling as your brain forced itself into the present. You had barley moved from just feet inside the room. Joel stood tall over him with the rag now dragged down from his mouth spitting as the words came out. “What? I can’t just pop by to visit a friend? See an old pal? Isn’t that right? Good ole Don?” 

Snatching his jaw, Owens cheeks smushed together as Joel forced it to lurch forward to his knelt over figure. “Hey, you’re not talking to her. Just me.” His voice was even, but unseen to your place behind him, Joel’s features stood sharp, a dark in his eyes that worked it’s way into his bones from weeks of torment on the people he loves. “Start with what Don was here for.” 

Joel’s hand dropped as he stayed at his eye level Keeping the mans only view of him. The condescension in Owen’s voice circulating Joel’s bloodstream in an angering trail. “Small town living.” 

He gave him no response. A stone walled stare leaving the pure nothingness in the air force someone to fill it, only neither you or Joel would do so. 

“He’s an idiot, who knows what he was doing here. I just haven’t heard from him is all, a guy can’t worry for his friend apparently.” You knew Owen wasn’t stupid enough to believe that. Part of you wondered if he just didn’t realize why Don was nowhere to be found, or if he was dumb at playing dumb. 

Joel’s hand flexed as he turned his head. Barley enough to even look beside him until moving back trying to not shift focus to you. Keeping Owens focus or Joels focus away he wasn’t quite sure of. “This can end right now. But if you keep bullshitting me, I promise you’ll wish it did.” 

Owen opened his mouth and closed it more than once. He was a footman. Strong, not pragmatic. A fear not unlike one you’ve felt countless times in your own eyes doubting himself as Joel stared at him. Only letting a few more seconds pass before Joel’s face twisted in anger. Bracing his palms on his thighs Joel pushed back upright. 

Stepping uncomfortably close into his space, Joel tugged the gag back over his mouth, but was nowhere near done. You couldn’t tell what Joel had pulled from his jacket until rusting pliers braced themselves onto the nail of Owens index finger. 

Tilting his head with an eyebrow raised, Joel was giving him a warning that Owen didn’t take. Just shaking his head with a muffled string of what sounded like petulant swearing. Joel held it to him, breathing heavy as whatever conflict in his head won out, forcing himself to act on that conclusion before a softer part of his subconscious wanted to talk him out of. 

A few years into the outbreak you had watched a number of members from your group screaming not dissimilar to the muffled ones before you. You had been pressed inside the back of a desk. Your only sight the dilapitating square of wall in front of you, but the wood surrounding you felt as it it made it echo. Warped, distorted screams as it was followed by a cracking. One by one the cracks followed screams that rasped into sobs. 

It was a sound and sight that for a while, was the scariest thing you’d ever seen. A body unconscious from either shock or blood loss as scattered puddles of blood and teeth lay strung about. You didn’t dare look how many were left. There were enough teeth on the ground to know not enough to matter. 

You had thought to yourself, never again did you want to be anywhere near something like this. But that was before you were tormented with screams, screeches and searing rips into your skin and clicks that stabbed into your brain until you felt numb to the fear. 

Owen didn’t sound quite like any of it. More like a strained groan trying to push down the agony. Your nails digging into your palm with each silence between Joel’s growling voice. Blood asking to drip down from the nails you still had, unlike the man who took his only chance to speak with his gag off, to try and spit at Joel. Much more swearing came from that rip then whatever your nails scratched into your palm. 

The red made it look worse then it did. Comparing to what the world outside proved it was capable of, Owen would live. Live without having to change who he was entirely. Your side told you not to feel bad and it was a hard voice to ignore. Your forearm throbbing in rhythm. Neither of those were a fate anyone should feel, but you had. And so did she. Those were far worse.

Owen wasn’t just connected to Don, it didn’t just trace back to you, and Joel had enough of keeping that thought out of it. “Look at me. Hey-” He yelled more this time, nostrils flared as he grabbed Owen by the throat to force him to look. 

Owen looked dazed, swallowing hard as his eyes fluttered in and out of pain. “You this embarrassed someone got the jump on you in front of your girl?” 

A roaring current zapped through Joels nerves, his hand tightening his hold on the mans throat. “Fine, you’re in my position. Someone breaking into your home? Rope in his hands, sneaking up on you and your daughter behind your backs?” His voice snarling at the edge of breaking into something Joel could lose control over. 

But you didn’t give either of them a chance. Your footsteps banged into the floor, heart pounding but unwilling to break eyes with Owens attention, now on you as he heaved in pain. Joel didn’t move, forcing his snarling heaves back down.

Hand curling into a fist around the pliers. It didn’t matter what Owen’s plan was. Joel covered all of Ellie’s sides, and so you would cover his back. You didn’t bend down to their place near the ground. You wanted Owen to strain up in the pain to look at you. “You read the journal, right?” 

Joel’s heart tempered down, but didn’t have the willingness to look anywhere but the man bleeding in front of him. Nothing had happened, but the threat was enough. Men like this, people like them? Joel would make sure they had no right to even look at Ellie. They get to keep their lives, their families and there was no comprehension in Joel’s mind to ever appease that they tried to tear apart his for their own gain. Tear his family back to shreds, keep their own when they had no heart or soul as they tried to do it to his. 

Unlike him, you didn’t bother with the intimidation, it was never a word given to you anyways. Letting it your hand brush the wrist attached to where Joel’s was, brushing your thumb over the vein you could reach, Joel finally let the mans airway free. Desperate to keep himself here, it only switched places. You felt his hand, large and close to bruising as he held part of your calf. 

Owen heaved and you let him. He wasn’t a solider, he had no obligation to withstand this, and both you and Joel knew that. You let Joel push Owen to the edge as long as you held him back from the cliff when Joel himself got to close to falling alongside. Broken at the bottom, splayed on jagged rocks you spoke softly to him. 

“Owen. I asked you a question.” He glanced from Joel to you, but finally kept it mostly on you when Joel didn’t move a muscle. “How much of the journal did you read?”

And there it was, his bloodshot eyes jumping to your forearm. In another world, maybe you’d smile, smirk, enjoy the torment. But neither you or Joel did. This was his family, and he was protecting it regardless of the cost. 

Nodding, you didn’t really even register doing, but your eyes sat wide. “It didn’t say anything about this,  I imagine.” One hand slip the side of your shirt up. 

Forearms heal better then the sides of a torso, and yours still looked like a horror. The colour, the scarring still healing with skin bitten and torn into and no disillusion as to what it was from. “Do you think you’re bite will look like this? Or rot to something else entirely.”

Would you do it? No. Humans deserved the fate of other humans. No one deserved what you and Ellie had barley survived. It was more then teeth, it was a blood curling terror like a radiation poured into your body along with it. But Owen didn’t know that, all he knew is someone in the fireflies inflated your reputation to dangerous. And that certainly wasn’t the image of hope Marlene tried to frame it in, no only one other person would have given Owen that idea. 

You wanted to crouch to look him properly in the eye, but you dared not interrupt the iron grip Joel had on your calf. So your fingers curled into the side of his jacket collar, one the front of his shirts were familiar with on quiet, peaceful nights. “Don could have told you if his own bite didn’t tear into his neck. Bring you to him if you don’t believe me.” 

“No, n-no,” There was the crack Joel had broken in. 

“Then tell us the truth. If you’re here for the journal, we can talk about that. But of you’re here for me then that’s a new problem.” 

You could feel Joel’s hand slid up your calf, less desperate and tight but now more all encompassing. A need to feel you there without risking his attention elsewhere. But that didn’t matter. The attention wasn’t about you at all. Owen looked defeated at you before sliding his eyes to the thing you feared putting at risk the most.   

“We weren’t looking for you. We were sent to look for him.” Your fingers curled into his jacket more as your heart beat so fast you felt it in your throat. A penetrating cold shivering from your heart and outward. “Fuck, no one even knew where you were until now I guess. A few of us have been scouting different nowhere towns looking for a Joel Miller. Just a wild fucking coincidence I guess.” 

Joel’s voice was controlled, forcing words out slowly and clearly. Low almost like a whisper. His eyes the opposite as they fell dark and falling down a hole of realization. “Whose us?” 

Owen gnawed at his lip before relenting. “Anderson,” Joel tilted his head needing him to elaborate, but you knew. You knew it was a divine force that kept you from falling back. “You know the doctor, the fucking hospital? We’re not with the fucking fireflies anymore, just got a few of us together when she finally learned your name. You killed her dad, so? Fair’s fair.” 

Joel stood up, the room silent as your head spun it’s contents. Turning to you, his face was lost in an overwhelming blast of emotions. Yours was flushed, a shiver running your entire body as you looked at him.  This wasn’t even about you, and that scared you even more. You couldn’t just walk away to get rid of this for them.

Joel grabbed your wrist on his jacket, holding to keep you close. He seemed to grapple with something before turning to shove the gag back in Owens protesting mouth and dragging you out of the room. 

He pulled you closer to the main room cupping the sides of your face urgently, pulling you into his space as you tried to rationalize it. “She can’t, you..I won’t let her.” 

Joel muttering your name almost commandingly as he almost smoothed over your skin to quell the panic. “Hey, hey- it’s okay eyes on me.” Your nails almost dug into his chest as you shook in his hold with a skin prickling combination of distraught and a back blowing whoosh of determinating protectiveness. “Nothing is going to happen. Nothing’s going to happen to me, not me, not any of us.” 

Your soul felt like screaming on the inside. “I’m not going to lose you, not for this. I won’t leave anyone to-” 

Joel pulled your lips into his, a harsh and rough collision that took not just your breathe out of your lungs but his. His own brushing against yours aggressively, pulling back only enough to have you hear him.

“Together. Anything we do, we’re doing it together. You don’t want to leave me? Good ‘cus I’m certainly not leaving you or her. I didn’t do what I did, only to get ripped away from her as soon as we finally started becoming something.” 

Joel kissed you another time, telling you to stay out here. Just for a minute before turning on the spot and slamming the door back behind him. A sharp anger on his face that you decided wasn��t worth holding him back from. 

Your back pressed against the wall, palms shoving pressure onto your forehead as you realized just who was looking for Joel. If it was her, then she’d come looking for Owen. If Joel didn’t hesitate to go find you the day you took off, then she would come looking for Owen the second it was too late for him to reasonably not come back. 

At some point you had slid onto the floor right next to Ellie’s door. This was it. She needed to know about that day. But it wasn’t what Joel did that was the lie going to hurt, it was the truth you had to come to terms with too. The truth all Joel did, was save her from and the pain he thought he was keeping from her was nothing. 

You could see the journal still sat on the counter at the other end of the room. He’d tell her, then you’d tell them. Somewhere in the back of your head you registered a thud, but it was too faint to drag you back into the light. 

The quiet creak of Ellie’s door however, was just that. She had heard enough to know what was happening in that room, but none of you were disturbed by it. Ellie had been through more then what Joel had done in those last ten minutes with Joel himself. Her eyes were tensely trained on the door when she almost jumped at the sight of you. 

“Fuck, make a sound or something next time.” Laugh, smile give her something but you couldn’t. Everything was about to be laid out on the table, and your nerves were crippled with the nightmare of losing Joel, losing her, for it all. “What happened?” 

Both of your heads shot up as Joel finally came back out. A redness on his hands that you knew were smears of the mans already dripping blood inside, it didn’t look bruised so at least it wasn’t that. You could only see inside the room enough to see the chair awkwardly moved over with Owen muttering to himself along with it as the door shut. 

All three of you looked at one another before Joel looked at Ellie with a seeping guilt in his eyes, “We need to talk.” Ellie’s eyebrows raised in worry but nodded. 

“Not just you. I mean, she needs to know.” Ellie’s face darting between you both now confused, “But you both need to know something else. You talk to her first though.” 

Ellie looked lost and anxious, “What the fuck is going on?” 

Joel’s hand smoothed over the side of Ellie’s head, his heart melting at how instinctively now she leaned into his embrace without realizing. Any of you losing this would be catastrophic. “Give us a minute,” his head gesturing to you. “Then we’ll talk.” Looking between you both, she finally conceded. Joel unable to take his eyes off of her until the door shut completely once more. 

Holding his hand out, he pulled you up onto your feet and gestured to the main room before either of you said a word. Wavering looks swimming in both of your eyes and hearts beating just as loudly as the other. “She-” Joel cut himself off with a sigh, handing his head with his hands on his hips. “I wanted to find the right words first. Not spring it on her like it doesn’t matter how I say it.” A strain in his voice you wanted to honey over.

Though you weren’t sure he was really telling you, not past your nerves. Running a hand down the length of his face as his eyes stayed shut. You were in the same boat, how were you supposed to tell the only family you had how much of a lie they were both sold on. How would they feel knowing you were a sliver of that story? 

Maybe you shouldn’t have unpacked that bag, your old empty house feeling more and more like the isolation you belonged in, but Joel didn’t deserve this feeling. He’d been through enough, he’s done enough. Softly muttering his name, he dropped his hand back to his hip but still was trapped behind his eyes.

This time whispering his name, hands very gently reaching out to cup the side of his face, thumb tracing against the coarse facial hair. His larger hand circled your wrist. “Give me your worst case scenario.” His eyes darting up in narrowing, an incredulous look but you kept your hand softly on him. “What would be the worst reaction she could have?” 

It was clear he’d thought too much of just that, because his answer was instantaneous. “She hates me. I lied to her about all of it, and she resents me for what I did, and for lying to her.” A part of your heart cried at hints of agony his eyes looked at you. “I don’t know if I could handle that. Not now.” 

Joel deserved to hear one thing, but right now you think he needed something else more. It was surprisingly easy to pull such a tall giant man to lean down into you. His hands both squeezing you waist as his forehead rested on your shoulder. Winding one arm past his neck you kept him there as you raked your hands through his hair as the other ran your palm shallowly against his torso down closer to his stomach. His deep breaths the only thing in your ear as you let him feel the worry for just a moment. 

Let him process what’s being forced onto him so suddenly. You didn’t let go of him as you softly spoke into his ear minutes later as his breathing steadied against your skin. “Do you know why that will never happen?” Hands gripped you tighter, you were starting to speak his silence. “That kid loves you. You’re her whole goddamn world even if you can’t see it. She was sold on a lie that got sold onto you. You were the only person who did the right thing, probably one of the only people who ever put her well being before someone else.” 

Joel found enough of a calm to lift his head, steady movements in his chest as he rested his head against yours. Face still twisted and tearing apart with nerves. “I still lied to her.” 

When you first met him, you’d never have said anything close to what came out of your mouth in the firm meaning you spoke. “You lied to yourself, Joel.” His eyes widening, a hurt treading on them that needed to be satiated fast. “When you think about that day, do you see what you did or why you did it- no don’t try to tell me otherwise. Because that’s exactly what I see.” 

Your hands sliding down to his own waist, “There’s not a single time I’ve heard Ellie talk about everything that happened that doesn’t end in her finding a way to tie it back to something you did for her. Marlene wanted to dump her life off on lies, and you kept her from it because you love her. What lie do you think’s going to hurt more? The one you couldn’t even admit to yourself, or the one people like them just for a chance to get her into a slaughterhouse.”  

Pulling your arms away from him, you gave Joel the chance to stand on two feet. The thoughts clearly mixing and repelling against one another as he followed your lead. Giving his body a chance to breathe on his own, his eyes on nothing while the mind behind brewed and boiled. Slowly you stepped away, the time it took getting to where the journal had been tossed feeling like a lifetime. 

Your hand paused as you slid it towards you. Eyes flying over the well used pages stuffed with fresher notes in your own once manic scratchings. Heart felt beating in your chest, you had to do it, but it wasn’t your place to say it. You had to let them be together. They could call you whatever they wanted, but you were still just on your own. Joel was her father now, and that’s the love she’s going to desperately need the most. 

Biting the inside of your cheek, you quickly moved things. Putting your own notes in one pile and storing it right at the front. It had to be done before regret slipped in. Snatching it off the table you didn’t hide it on your person this time. It hung in the hand at your side, as you looked at his face once more. 

No lies between you. Even if it sacrificed the adoration he watched you with. Both of you moved slowly as you handed it over to him, grateful he didn’t open it right away. “There’s nothing I could say that isn’t already in there.” 

Joel’s head tilted as he looked at you with doubt. “Neither of us is trying to exclude you.” 

Nerves burning on fire, you shrugged. “It’s still your life before me. Don’t open it until after. She needs you first, not this.” Watching his eyes bounce between the journal and you, the defeat crawling over sitting heavy in Joel’s stomach. “I think I pretty much summed it up, my notes in the front.” You pointed to the obvious white sheets contrasted against the stained darker ones. “But it’s still all in there.” 

Neither you nor Joel said the words. The grief of losing it before becoming real a fear you needed to steel yourself with once more against as Joel stood before you. Himself holding it back from spilling out of his mouth, especially with that dissonant look in your eyes. 

Selfishly, you have yourself what could be a final indulgence of his warmth. Your hands pressing flat onto his chest wishing those warm brown colour of his eyes would stay with you forever. “You’re not a bad person, Joel. Ellie knows that, so stop thinking that she will.” 

His eyes skipped down to your lips, choosing to pull you in with his fingers under your chin. Small and chaste with the taste of restraint from losing yourself in the other. Pulling back only enough to give you air, “Didn’t realize this is what it would take to get this much out of you.” 

Your heart leaping into a breathy laugh as he too lightly laughed into another kiss. Everyone always had something to say the second you ran your mouth for more than a few minutes didn’t they? 

Control slipping, you had to gently push him back before he let go of it entirely. You didn’t watch as he walked away, didn’t watch as he went into her room. The click of the door was a trigger. The air in the room heavy and constricting, as the walls surrounded you. You couldn’t be in here, you couldn’t listen to whatever would happen it was suffocating you. You didn’t deserve to be anywhere near them, not now, not for this. 

Not sure if either of them heard the front door shut, you walked out into the now significantly darker sky. Lungs filling with air you could stand as if the house was drowning in water. You didn’t get too far, just far enough to throw your back against a brick wall, sliding down as you lifted your head into the late winter sky.

It was a strange thought that passed through you, wondering what she’s heard about you since. If she was still with the fireflies then she knows all to well the man power wasted at trying to get you back.

Like the faces that followed you with every stabbing pain, she no doubt remembers your face perfectly. One of the hands now resting on your knees twitching as it relived a pain. 

The blood dripping down your bottom lip from how hard you bit into it, holding back your voice as the bones in your hand snapped, slipping from the metal handcuffs forcing your arms behind the chair. The chain clanging together as you retched them in front of you, barley making it off the chair as your upper body leaned in on itself, shaking as you snapped the bone back barley staving off a cry.

The darker the sky grew the further down the dilapidated, dripping hall your memory travelled. You had caught her coming around the corner, nearly jumping as she turned to see you. It was easy to see the blood on you was your own, but it was even easier to see what sat on the forearm with the fractured hand. Red skin and stiff hanging at your torso, you had it unknowingly tilted where the ripples of an infection she couldn’t possibly guess was long past it’s prime. 

You didn’t know if all of them here knew, a pathetic excuse of a firefly mid stop with too much empty space for them to even think of how to use it. Hell, at the time, you didn’t know a single of them were fireflies. You just knew him, your father, and now her. Judging by her face, wide eyes stepping back as an urgency fell over her face, she didn’t know the person here was you. The familiarity between you didn’t mean anything close to it’s beginning.

It all took no more than a few seconds. One of her hands reached behind her for what you had seen from the side was a gun as she begun to shout out someone’s name that you didn’t give her a chance to spell out. You had done it before you even heard it, arm stretched as the sound of the shot hit your ears after it already casted blood into her stomach. Something inside you wanted to stay, by the time someone else reached her it could already be too late. 

But that would’ve been your fate if you didn’t leave. You fell into their laps by accident, but wasted no time in trying to find a use for you that didn’t involve keeping you around. It was the first time you stole the only resources they had, you. And the first time having you get away, ate at Marlene’s desperation to force you back from that day onward. You didn’t even know Marlene’s name until that day in the field, but you new who she was all too well now.

Front door slowly shutting was followed by the slight thud of boots against the wood of the porch. Head snapping up you saw Joel looking out with a squint, his shoulders looking less risen and tense then he had all day. You however, shot up so quickly your feet almost stumbled you back over if not for your hand braced against the brick beside you. 

It was too far to see his expression, but it wasn’t always the best way to determine what was going on inside Joel’s head. Let him come to you, you told yourself. Constantly going to him, invading his life, disturbing their privacy was all you provided. 

He had on a different shirt then before, this one looking much warmer then what was on you. Part of you wondered just how long you had been out here alone. If the sky had anything to say about it, it might have been far longer then you knew. 

Now though, being out in the snow? A lack of anything substantial for winter weather having Joel’s eyes look at you, not knowing if in simple concern or judgment. Standing a foot or two away from you, Joel answered the question he saw you open your mouth to ask. 

“You were right.” Your back sagged against the brick, this time though your legs finding the strength to hold you up. “Turns out having your whole life upended hurts a whole lot more then being lied to about getting her out of it.” His voice was shoved out in a gruff kind of pain, his eyes fared no better.  Bright but not in a shine you yearned for, a pain, an upset that sat heavy in his heart. Just because it didn’t devastate their relationship, doesn’t mean it wasn’t devastating in every other sense. 

You swallowed harshly as you nodded. Nothing even in your throat to say, scared to look to long at him, missing the needing stare he gave you that shined in the growing moonlight. Your voice just weak and cracked, “And you?” 

The sigh he let out was loud. Arms crossing his chest he paced to put rest his back against a close by tree. The increased distance between you growing larger, you didn’t know how intentional it was. “I said something when she first told me what Marlene wanted with her. They’ve talked about cures all the time and none of them worked. Everyone wanted me to believe in it, in her so badly.” 

Clenching his jaw you could see the frustration build and build. Making you feel like you understood without any idea of how to comfort it in a meaningful way. “But she’s a kid, not an answer.” 

You yearned to reach out to him, his eyes glazing somewhat as he looked from the night sky, to the ground and back to you as a darker tone resurfaced in his voice. “She didn’t deserve to be treated like some miracle. She needed someone, anyone, to give a shit enough to protect her. Even from them.” 

For once you stood still like a stature while Joel kept shifting his stance or his shoulders. “I don’t know if I even believed it when I went back for her. All I knew is it didn’t matter what they wanted, she didn’t deserve that and I couldn’t live with it.”

Your fingernails chipped away at the brick behind you, “Sometimes desperation makes you dumb. Doing bad things because they deluded themselves into thinking as long as they accomplish something then they can keep feeling as if they’re winning.” Sighing out raspily you hoped he couldn’t hear it. “Couldn’t get me anymore, so the second she found a new one? Getting her on that table was all they a cared about.”

“Even though they knew it wouldn’t work.” Joel pushed up from the tree, letting his hands fall to his belt loops trying to close the distance. “Didn’t matter what the truth was, everyone wanted her to be the one to set all of this right. All I could see was a girl who wanted to have a life. Didn’t matter to me what anyone else wanted, I’m not sure it ever did when it came to Ellie.” 

Silence fell between you, that feeling in your throat coming back up like it wasn’t able to stop. Your heart falling over at the pain filling his features. “I’m sorry.” 

Joel scrunched his face at you. “You’re sorry? For what?” 

Throwing your hands out, you for once found yourself starting any kind of argument. “What do you mean what? How about everything I do somehow keeps coming back to fuck you and Ellie’s lives up.” 

Joel’s own voice started to match in a frustration level. “Wait- you haven’t done anything.” 

Rolling your eyes to the side you struggled to understand what he was even trying to do. “Right, because you’re lives have been so much more peaceful since I showed up and for some reason you just let me hang around no matter what I’ve done.” 

Joel tried to come towards you but you just pushed off the wall and circled around to stay away. “I-”

At least it was growing dark enough that Joel couldn’t see the redness in your eyes. “He came looking for Don, Joel. Don never checked in because I killed him, he never even mentioned them. If he was here looking for you, he stopped giving a shit about you the second he saw me. Maybe if I just let him-” 

Joel’s anger wasn’t at you but it sat visibly steaming on his face as he tried stepping towards you, but you just stepped away again. “No. I’m not even going to fucking entertain that idea-” 

Your head pounded, every modicum of sound screaming as it flowed into your ears. “Well I am, so maybe you should for once, Joel.”

Running a hand over his mouth, you knew he was either going to yell or going to try and come closer, but at the moment you couldn’t tell which one you wanted less. “What do you want from me? Blame you for everything that ever goes wrong? Pretend I don’t want you in my life?” 

If he was growing angry, you deflated it by turning to face him. Not quite yelling, but certainly not quiet either. “No, you’re just supposed to not want me in general.”

His volume grew with yours, as did the sharp features on his face grew twisted and stiff. “Well I’m sorry, sweetheart. You don’t get to just stand there and tell me I’m not allowed to love you just because that’s what you expect out of me.” 

He didn’t realize what he had just said. And neither did you. The only ones who realized what Joel had just said, were the half awake birds on the treetops and the single pair of ears quietly listening from a far off window. 

You pressed your palm to your forehead, trying to will the headache away with the pressure. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Joel. I just-” 

Joel tried to come closer. His heart was turned up tonight, and between earlier, sitting on a way too low to the ground bed for his frame, running his hand soothingly over his what loose strands of hair splayed out from their ponytail as his little girl finally let that insufferably stubborn wall of hers fall down for once and cried into his lap. That everything that had finally brought them together was all based on a horrific lie that duped them both. Neither he nor her having any idea what to feel about it. 

It was too much for him, but nothing compared to the endless turmoil spinning behind Ellie’s eyes as they were laid out what this all truly was. Ellie had been through a lot, too much with him, but for once she let herself react the way she needed. She didn’t do anything, she shouldn’t be brave about it. 

Now he’s standing out in his front yard, watching you float around too many emotions for you to figure out what you even felt. Your voice wavering and how you kept stepping away if he came forward. To Joel, it was his own actions that brought this down on them, yet here you stood trying to force him to put every blame on you for just existing. 

“Can you just listen to me?” 

You wanted everything to stop, your lungs yelling at you and your vision feeling like it wanted to start spinning. “No, Joel-” 

His hands gestured uselessly in the air, “Why not?” hoping he didn’t sound angry, but sometimes he wasn’t quite aware enough to know how he was coming off to people. Especially if airing on the side of losing his temper. 

You told yourself not to cry, feeling a vile embarrassment if you cried in front of him right now. But your throat felt choked up, and barley managed to spit it out. “Because I don’t get it, Joel.” Everything in his face paused, taken back by what was about to spill out of your heart. 

“I don’t understand why you care. I’ve never understood it. I’ve done nothing but get in the way, and you keep just bringing me back when we both know your life would be a hell of a lot easier without me in it. I don’t understand why you keep me around or why you even like me. I just...I don’t get you.” 

Pressure build behind your eyes while the rest of you burned with humiliation. Being with Joel exposed parts of your soul that you never even thought to share with another, but the undeniable shake in your voice as you trailed off was twister of panic and tears that you tried to push down. Pretending it was anger. 

In anyone else, Joel would have taken it in a worse light. But the silence in him as he grappled with just how little you could see how he felt didn’t sit right inside him. He knew part of this between you both was somewhat new to you. What he didn’t know, is that in fact all of it was new to you. 

He was new in every way and now it all swirled on terrifying, your eyes staring at each other until you turned to go back in the house. In your frazzled mind, you hoped maybe Joel wouldn’t yell at you if you were inside. It felt different once you got there though. Countless houses you’ve walked into, abandoned, dilapidated, some in surprisingly good condition. Even your own small one in this very town. But something about being in Joel’s house felt different. Like a warmth spreading through your bones as you walked into the front door. 

Your palms sat flat against the back of the couch, trying to count how long your inhales were and focusing on the exhales. Slowly your heart tapered down, the walls around you stopped shrinking in as you hoped when your eyes opened once more the world would stop feeling like it was tumbling around you. 

Just seconds ago you felt like if Joel came anywhere close to you, that the weight of your emotions would implode on you. Yet as you heard Joel quietly following you into the house, you couldn’t help but follow where he was by the sounds he made as he walked in. 

It all just hit you too fast. Giving yourself no time to process so you chose the worst possible way to react. Too much of your lives were converging together and it kept brewing a storm that you once only had to deal with alone. Now there were actual people in your life who leaving would tear parts of you across the distances between them. The only life that had been in danger since you arrived was your own. Having the forces from yours come down to Joel wasn’t fair. He had no stake in this fight. 

He only did the one thing none of those people had the heart or the guts to do for another. And people like her had no right seeking out revenge for someone who wasn’t anywhere near close to what was toted around. Truly thinking about it, there was another person in this house who you know has his back too. 

Eyes opening you looked over to her closed door, this time at least knowing she asleep. Only time would heal what you finally had to expose her too. 

It was hypocritical of you, how the second two strong arms caged you in against the back of the couch, you leaned back into what you knew was Joel’s warm torso. He stepped in to press you closer to the couch so he could cover your hands with his, fingers linked as much as he could manage in this position. 

His chin rests on your shoulder as you both stand with the other against you, a quiet that is far more familiar and soothing then any kind of arguing. Joel must have been watching you, because as soon as you opened your eyes to speak, he leaned his mouth closer to your ear. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry again.” 

Letting you go, Joel pressed himself more into your back as his hands decide to rest more comfortably on your hips. His nose pressed to your hair you nod in agreement. “Guess I’ve scared you enough, only a matter of time until it was my turn to get it.” 

Your fingers dug into the couch more, but you still leaned into his touch head tilting back at his every move, even though he always found his way back. “I’m not going to bother telling you not to be. We both know listening to me isn’t exactly your forte.” Joel smirking against the side of your head at your face instantly falling in a playful offence. “I need you to listen to me this time, though.” 

One arm slid across your stomach, almost as if he knew your hands were itching to hold onto him in some way. His hold pressing you against him further at the feeling of your nails scratching along his arm slightly. Your nod not enough for him, “Out loud.” 

His heartbeat was so much calmer then yours, clearly having taken his jacket off while your back was turned the single thin layers between you meant you could feel him with every breathe. “I’m listening.” 

Joel’s own eyes were off in the distance, staring at the table he could see through the door frame. The kind of nerves he saw on you felt like an echo of that night. So wrapped up in how sure he felt, that he forgot how unused to all this you were. Not used to the feelings that came with finding yourself so close to someone you didn’t expect too. 

He knew all to well what that was like. The girl he felt in his heart like a father to, laying everything out on the line for. Ellie could look back on that day and joke about it. Trying to make a scene over how mistreated she was anytime he made her do a chore she’d turn back with a hand over her head lambasting the time he so callously threw her entire body into a wall. “Like a piece of meat,” she’d go on like.

Being told she’s nothing but cargo to him, not knowing the pure terror the day he could have truly lost her in more vile ways then he wanted to ever imagine. How it wasn’t the only day either.  A small name he only ever felt pain even thinking about slipping from his lips as he looked at Ellie, unable to deny what they had become and just how deeply both of them wanted to hold onto the other.

It was different for you, but he knew whatever family you had wasn’t even present enough for you to care to share. Spending a lifetime outside any kind of walls or city with any form of order, not until you walked into town that day. You were still getting used to him, just as he had to do with Ellie. 

“Maybe in another life, this might go down differently. Ellie decides she doesn’t trust me, I get caught off guard, or by some miracle that doctor even had a fucking clue what he was doing.” Both his arm around you and hand on your hip squeezed tighter. “But that’s not going to happen. We have each other, sweetheart. All three of us. You don’t deserve to be dragged back into this shit. And I’m sure as hell not leaving this world for that son of a bitch thinking he had any right to cut her open for some cure that doesn’t fucking exist. Who didn’t give a second thought about murdering the one other kid in my life who has ever felt like a daughter to me.” 

You could feel the tensity in his muscles, wanting to turn around you tried to twist but Joel kept you in place. Pressing his lips to the back of your head. “He deserved exactly what you gave him, Joel.” Pausing your minds were both torn between two growing factions, one of which had to be dealt with before the other. “She’ll try to get the jump on us. Think I accidentally taught her the advantage of actually sneaking up on people.” 

Joel’s voice was such a deep and bassy rumble in your ear that you couldn’t help your eyes flutter at the sensation. “Then she tries sneaking up on us. You with me?” Nodding in his hold, he muttered “Good girl.” 

Oh he did that on purpose. As soon as your thighs tensed, Joel smirked into your hair. “Joel, we’re supposed to be making a plan- this isn’t fair.” 

His chuckle was closer to your neck as he traced his nose down your cheek and jaw. “You saying I can’t do both?” The hand around your stomach started tracing over you, the way you’d run your hands through his air he traced over your front. When you didn’t respond right away, Joel’s lips pressed one more kiss right under your ear before nudging you with his nose. “We don’t have to do anything, sweetheart. It’s hasn’t been an easy day. I just want to pull you out of that head of yours.” 

This time as you went to turn in his grip he let you. Your hands finding a home on his waist as he kept his back on your hips. His hair somehow just as light and fluffy now as it was when you woke up that morning. Coaxing you awake with his kiss as your hands found his still messy sleeping hair. 

It was just as lovely now, the yellow tinged lights making the greys highlight the rest of the colour that suited him so beautifully. His eyes treading on a darker lust, but instead of a greedy tinge there sat almost a need. Something softer that not even a year ago he thought he’d never even consider wanting anymore. “What is it you want, Joel?” 

Just like he didn’t expect this to be something he ever would want, he almost would never have guessed how easily you got him to open up to you. He’s not sure he’s ever been like this with a woman, even in his old life. 

But you held nothing but an innocent generosity in your eyes, and Joel wasn’t about to part ways with that either. “Call me needy,” leaning to your face his nose trailed along yours as your eyes slid shut. “But what I want, is to feel how warm and tight you are for a little while.” 

Joel read your body like a book, could feel in the smallest actions, the certain pitch of a tiny gasp or the way your body seemed to tense up and shiver at the same time. You always struggled to tell him what you wanted, but he was working you through that. Joel was perfectly happy to take care of you, typically because what he needed matched what you needed perfectly. 

And talking wasn’t always the easiest way to get either of you out of your heads. Joel trying to lull you into his touch when you still hadn’t let go yet. “But if she-” 

One hand tilting you up to his eyes again,”How many does she have with her, if you were to guess?”

If this was about Ellie, there was no way she’d be involved. She wasn’t apart of the group, and there weren’t many people who would follow her on a revenge quest for the father instead of towards the girl they thought they finally had in their possession. “Maybe one or two others, besides him.” Your head nodded in the general direction. “Probably looked at a few different areas. Couple other smaller communities in the state that they would have looked at first. Likely didn’t realize anything was wrong until Owen didn’t check back in. Maybe a day away from here or so.” 

Joel looked through you as he went over something in his head, you guess you still weren’t that good at reading him. Not knowing what plan he was going over. His eyes met yours finally, dipping down to your lips before slowly dragging them back up. “We’re bigger, means she’s got to be more careful. In other words, you can afford to let me have you for a couple hours. Dead man’s final request and all.” 

Your face fell flat along with a weight settling back down in your stomach. “That’s not funny.” 

He shrugged one shoulder, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Is it?” The unamused look on your face still tinged in anxiety had Joel switch gears again. He didn’t find anything funny in joking about you or Ellie that way, so maybe it was fair you didn’t find jokes about him funny either. “Hey, I already told you. I’m not going anywhere. None of us are.” 

Biting the inside of your cheek you shifted your eyes off to the side before nodding. Feeling Joel press another kiss to the side of your head as he shoved you towards the hall. “Go, I’ll be right there.” 

In his room and in the hall you both lingered on something. Your fingertips trailing over the almost insignificant things on his dresser. Tiny pieces of Joel that if he were gone, wouldn’t really belong there anymore. A thought making you sick to your stomach. You’d rather she come for you, at least they could go back to their regular lives. 

Joels own fingers flipping through the pages. Knelt down he quietly had pulled the journal from where it sat close on Ellie’s bed. He let her discover it, he already knew what it would say, just in details that actually mattered. 

She went through most of the reactions she could, denial, anger, lashing out before she exhausted herself leaving tears the only energy she had left in her. It tore his chest right open exposing his heart to the cold air. They were the monsters and not only did they want to kill him all for a man who tried to take his own girl’s life but now the delusional lies they told themselves left her feeling betrayed and used. 

But it wasn’t just her was it? By some miracle some higher power gave Joel not one, but two things in this nightmare to hold onto. Sometimes it was frustrating, watching you unable to believe what he wanted to give you, but then again he wasn’t much different with Ellie was he? 

Ellie pulled him out of a darkness, and Joel had no intention of not doing the same to you. And he knew damn well Ellie felt the same. 

Standing in his room, it occurred to you that maybe you should try to be sexy, allure Joel to you or anything like that. You felt stupid though even thinking about where to start or if he would just roll his eyes at you for trying.

The door closing knocked a sense into you, realizing maybe he wanted you to be ready by now you almost flinched back before starting to pull your shirt up. Two large hands however covered yours as he pressed himself behind you. “Doing my job for me.” 

Your arms went willingly Joel stopped to pull your bra up over you along with the shirt, dropping it down into a messy pile. He wasted no time in filling his hands up with your breasts, almost kneading the plush skin as your back arched into his chest with a breathless gasp. He didn’t want you like this though, he wanted all of you. 

Using his thumb and index finger he tugged slightly at both your nipples letting you choke a moan back as he moved onto the rest of you. His taller figure leaned over you, the once presumed glare narrowing his features now rung in your head as an introspective train of thought, determined in whatever task even with his arms wrapped around your front skillfully undoing the button on your pants. 

A shiver ran down your spine as his mouth bent to press a feather light kiss to your neck so he could reach lower, dragging the zipper down and grasp the waistline. Your shivering from the winters cold air still floating through the room, you felt your limbs tingle as he mumbled into your neck, “Be good for me.” 

Slowly starting to pull both your pants and underwear down, Joel couldn’t help his greed, pausing to squeeze fistfuls of your ass almost too roughly before continuing to pull them off of you. Before he could do anything else, once you stood bare in front of him, you turned in his hold quickly. 

Sudden movement catching him by surprise, it gave you enough time to already start undoing his belt and zipper. Joel’s own plans caught in his mouth at just how easily you made him so unbearably hard just at your small careful hands trying to pull out his cock before he even has properly touched you yet. 

He didn’t let you get as far as the faint beginning of you moving your fingers to grasp at his own pants before snatching your hands. Your eyes wide as he held them in the air, his eyes dark with a mocking disapproval. “Now what did I say about being good for me?” 

That tingle in your limbs spreading through your heart out into your veins as you bit slightly at your bottom lip at his tone. Your hands fell loose in his grip causing him to switch to approval. Maneuvering you so he now was the one with his back to the bed, he held you at your hips walking you over to the bed. 

“Now, are you going to let me do something for you? Something new?” Your eyebrows raised in question, unsure to what he meant. You thought at this point you had done mostly everything or at least knew everything. 

Living outside of the walls didn’t exactly foster an environment eager to share or teach the fun side of sex, or you know, it in general in your case. “I-yeah.” Boy, how enthusiastic of you. 

Joel only smiled softly though, pulling your chin in to press a soft kiss before pulling you onto the bed with him. Joel the one laying with his back on the sheets, he guided you so your core sat pressed right against the bumpiness that blocked his cock under the open belt. Large warm hands running over and squeezing the plush skin he could grab at watching you slip your fingers to smooth over his stomach under his shirt. 

“Come up here, sweetheart.” 

You both had two different intentions. One being you assuming he means for a kiss, the other using his strong arms to pull your hips off his clothed cock and up his body. Suddenly your soft touch against his skin turned into a much more urgent press against his chest, “Wait, wait-” Joel kept you in place, but his eyes narrowed in concern at your tone. Your question confusing him somewhat. “What are you doing?” 

His tone slow and clear as he worry turned to a bit of confusion. “I’m just trying to taste you, sweetheart. Just like always,” 

Your fingers pressed into him more, causing him to sit up slightly as you looked hesitant and even somewhat embarrassed. “But why would I-” Your eyes casted down at anywhere but his face as you put the not so complicated clues together. “Why would you want it that way? Instead of you know, like we usually...” Christ you couldn’t possibly feel less attractive currently.

Joel raised an eyebrow, letting your hips back down without moving you away, his hands now smoothing over your thighs. “Because I really want my mouth on this pussy, sweetheart.” 

Your body tensed which he didn’t like at all. “Why would you, I mean wouldn’t you find that...” You hesitated on saying gross, having a feeling that wouldn’t be a word to go over well. “...uncomfortable?”

Joel’s hands squeezed your thighs as his head flopped back down onto the pillow. Unable to stop wondering what kind of encounters you had out there. You genuinely just didn’t know what he was trying to do, looking at him in the most confused innocent way he’s ever seen on you. “Jesus fucking christ, you’re going to kill me.” Barely mumbling under his breathe. Sitting up properly, he maneuvered you into his lap. “We don’t have to do it, but I really fucking want to.” 

Your hands tapping at his shoulders, you seemed to drop some of the embarrassment leaving just an uncertainty. “I just don’t get why you’d want to..can’t I just suck your cock?” 

Joel’s head dropping down onto your shoulder as he mumbled even more. Sliding his hand between your bodies, he felt a trace of your wetness, using what he could touch to slide up and rub into your clit. “We can do that if you want. Or we can do both at the same time.” 

This time you smiled, pulling back with a laugh as he joined keeping you from going too far off in his hold. “Okay that sounds even worse for you.” 

He let you get away with it this time. Joel pulled you into his lips, sighing as you let his tongue tease and slide into your mouth as he kissed you. The push and pull of his tongue against yours sending shock waves between your legs adding to what you already knew was making a mess. His kiss and his tongue always making you so lightheaded. 

Taking advantage of how lost you got in his kiss, Joel suddenly lurched forward, sending your back to fall against the rest of the bed as he crawled over top of you. Your hands finding their way to rake through his hair as he kissed you more. 

Joels hands unable to choose a spot to touch you, from your hips to thighs and back to to teasing your nipples, he tucked his head into your neck once more as he kissed the skin there. 

One hand of your leaving his hair, trailing down his broad back to his narrower lower side before sliding under to gently take his cock into your hand. His hands gripping his preexisting hold on your nipples tighter as he groaned. Joel covering your body so much made the angle not easy, but you ran your thumb over hips tip already leaking onto your hand. 

In a move that actually caused Joel’s body to jump, you suddenly smoothed your palm all over the tip of his cock, smearing the precum over it before sliding it down the length you could reach. Enough precum on you to fill the air with the slick sounds of his skin with each stroke. Joel moaned into your neck before trying to smother it with biting a mark into it. He was too long and too thick to cover enough even half of his cock, but your grip was tight and strokes fast but steady. 

Yanking your head to angle for his mouth, you gripped him tighter in pleasure at how his hold on your hair was so commanding.  Biting against your lips this time until you whined in need of a breathe. The feeling of his lips sliding across your cheek to right against your ear. “I want this pussy, not your hand.” 

Sliding own he pushed your thighs out to spread enough for his size. Giving you no warning for how quickly he moved his mouth over your clit. His hands never letting go of your spread legs with a bruising strength, his was shameless in how sloppy he was. Licking at your clit only to almost kiss it as he would your actual lips. The same soaked licks moving down to tease at your entrance, to your clit and back. 

One hand roughly shoved its way to your mound, pressing the heel of his calm into your clit soaked with you and his own saliva and rubbed short quick strokes. As one knee bent with your gasp, Joel used his free hand to greedily hold the soft skin of your waist before licking into you feverishly. 

Your back arched off the bed as a shock stabbed through you, sending a fiery pleasure into every stretch of your nerves. He licked into you with no cohesive pattern or approach, just drinking from you like a man starved for only one need. His rubbing into your clit lost in your wetness form how little he moved away from it, but deep in Joel he knew the slight burn of drier friction on your clit yanked cries from you. 

Your orgasm suddenly hit you with a force, “Oh fuck, Joel-” A white hot train flowing from your clit and soaked right into Joel who only added to the feeling as he moaned into your pussy. His grip already so tight he’d be able to see bruises once he was done with you. 

He never let up, “Fuck, baby.” Mumbling to himself as he licked more inside of you, letting his hand slide down to gather more from your core he realized just how unbelievably soaked you were. His tongue grazing up against a sensitive wall inside of you, he gave you zero time to calm down. 

The wet rubs of two fingers against your clit, harsh pushing and tight strokes the wet sounds filling the air alongside how relentless he tasted you. Your hands tightly grasping the sheets just above your head as your whole lower half arched closer to his mouth. 

Your heart beat widely out of your chest as the pleasure coiled inside of you without ever letting you recover from the sudden burst of your first orgasm. Your legs shook as he kept them bent by the knee, feet flat on the sheets as they were spread as far as he could manage. 

You didn’t even realize when one hand left your hip, his grip so tight it held a phantom sting in its departure. Joel’s own hips lifting up enough to start shoving his jeans down as far as he could manage without leaving your cunt. 

The groan vibrating through your body as he finally was free down to his knees and pressed his cock into the sheets adding to whatever mess he was pulling from you. You didn’t have words this time, just high pitched gasps and desperate attempts at his name that were interrupted by sharp jolts of pleasure almost bordering on pain. 

The flying burn of your orgasm this time felt like a flood passing the bloodstream. A needing warmth engulfing you as the white noise in your ears turned out whatever was passing by Joel’s lips. You missed it the first time, and now the second time. 

Joel didn’t realize it either. He knew exactly the feeling and why it made him take you with such a lack of control but neither of you were in the state of mind that night to hear it. 

You had just barley felt the final shocks of pleasure as Joel pulled from you. His face twisted close to a snarl as he impatiently pulled his jeans off the rest of the way. Grabbing the back of his shirts collar and throwing it beyond sight. 

His chest leading to such a soft stomach made his thick cock stand out between his legs. You touched the skin over his chest near his heart, but Joel couldn’t handle such a soft touch. Not right now. He couldn’t lay there and let himself feel your gentleness without something in his heart snapping. Instead, Joel yanked up your hips and sunk his cock into your folds. 

Your name moaned from his mouth, “Fuck, don’t- oh fuck.” You hadn’t come down yet, aftershocks of your orgasm overwhelmed your system as you felt his thick cock sliding into you. Clenching around him without trying to tease, you were still soaking his cock from your orgasms. 

Joel buried his face into your neck. One hand fisted into the sheets beside your head as he closed his eyes. Your arms wrapped around his neck, you paused mid motion as your rang your hands through the ends of his hair as one arm wrapped around your waist to keep himself tucked inside you but strong enough to keep you from moving. 

It actually took a bit before Joel tempered whatever aggression was overwhelming him. He wanted to do this for you, but now your touch, your cunt, your soft lips always speaking and pressing so sweetly against his? It tugged at his heart just as much as he took over all of your senses. 

The grip on your hair tempered down to cupping the back of your head. Joel moving to consume you in a less rough kiss, but the damage was already done to your swollen bitten lips. The plumpness just like his own without the greedy teeth markings. 

Your heart slowing down, but somehow still hard enough to feel in your chest at his touch. Joel pulled away, tracing his nose along yours. “Turn around for me, sweet girl.” 

Joel gently shushing comfortingly at you at your whine when he pulled out. But you complied. Joel’s mouth was open, panting as his hands clenched beside him watching you go willingly move to your hands and knees. But that’s not the closeness either of you truly needed. 

You sighed at how much more gentle his touch was, moving you up to kneel your back against his chest just like earlier. His cock slid between your thighs, already soaked as it teased between your folds. “Just like that, I’ve got you.” 

One of your arms reaching behind to find a tender home in his now messy hair, while the other laid flat against the arm wrapping around your stomach. “Please,” You leaned your head against his shoulder as Joel rubbed your stomach and hip with his free hand. His brown eyes bright and so much less of a dark lust, replaced with a soft almost desperateness. “I want to feel you. Please? I can still take it, I just want you inside of me.” 

You felt so one note in your brain, but Joel dealt the killing blow when he pressed his lips to yours. Not rough, or commanding, just soft kisses that he struggled to part from. Finally moving to grip his cock, he pulled away and turned your head to look down. 

Joel slid his cock inside of you, not spending a moment to stop and let you adjust to his size. Just one smooth stroke that didn’t thrust into you too fast until you were sat totally full of his cock. “Always slide so well into you,” 

Your eyes squeezing shut at the sight, his cock was so thick watching it slide deep inside you was too much to handle. Your head leaned back against him, lungs stuttering at how drastic he was handling you now compared to mere minutes ago. 

Joel held you tightly against him, burying his face into your neck and shoulder as he started to finally slide his cock almost out of you. Your whimper at the prospect of him leaving you empty poking at something distressing in your mind. 

You weren’t sure he ever kept up a pace this slow. Your pussy so tight and wet around his cock, making the sounds of him pulling and pushing his cock in and out so much louder. How much you’ve already cum so much more obvious as he moaned into your shoulder. 

You couldn’t tell anyone how long you were there. Knelt back against his chest as his cock fucked into you, not even hard enough to call it thrusting. Your chest felt so constricted yet filed with a warmth that would be cozy if his cock wasn’t sliding right up against such a sensitive wall inside of you. 

Inside of you this time the coil was just a slow and calm. But the addition of how tight he already pushed your orgasm too had this build up flutter around you. It just slipped from your lips, the brave face you tried to fake in front of him, in front of everyone crumbled with his squeezing hands and slow slide of his cock inside of you. Something deep in your heart plead. “Stay with me, please. God, Joel- stay with me.” 

Your eyes were shut and Joels arms held you tighter. His jaw clenching, teeth gritted as his breaths came out in rasping pants. He pressed his lips into your neck and whatever part of your jaw he couch reach. “Always, sweet girl. I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere. “

Even as his cock throbbed inside of you as your walls clenched around him, as the burning orgasm threatened to overtake you once more, it all mixed together as you just whispered his name. The drag of his cock along the sensitive walls of your cunt pushed tears from your eyes. 

Gasps and breathless pleas let go of the stinging tears behind your eyes and cried down your cheeks as one final loud and wet push of his cock inside of you had whatever hold you had on him dig your nails into his skin. 

Your orgasm pulling a gasping sob from you. Just one, but loud enough in Joel’s ears to cover your mouth as your pleasure sung into his hand. Joel couldn’t take it any longer. His cock so desperate to burst, he moaned into your neck and finally came.

Your pussy fluttering around him, as his cum spilled inside of you. Thick and to both of you, never ending. He came inside of you more then he could remember, filling you with warm cum that didn’t stop the tears of your need. 

By the time you both came down, you had dropped more then Joel had thought. Your eyes barley open, as your struggled to catch your breathe. Weak nods to his questions, asking if you were with him, what you needed, weak thank yous to him just saying how perfect you fit him. 

He shushed in your ear when he pulled out, never letting both hands off of you and his lips somewhere close to yours. You both laid in bed for a while, both your bare, sweat covered bodies, your lower half a little more wet with cum then what he didn’t bother cleaning from his cock. He held you with his nose pressed into your hair waiting for you to come down before he even thought of getting up to clean you off. 

Your mind was fuzzy and your face felt the aftermath of tears but none of it had any regret. Your eyes were closed, fine with coming down in his arms as you faced one another. Slowly ready to peel your eyes open, you noticed he wasn’t at your eye level, his face in your hair. His breathing enough confirmation he hadn’t fallen asleep. 

You burned between your legs, the mix of rough and soft kept the memory of his thick throbbing cock inside of you. You knew you were covered in cum between your thighs but you didn’t have any reason to want to get rid of it anytime soon. 

You did however ask to do something Joel ignored. Smirking, you suddenly left his gentle pressed arms, down his body. He flipped onto his back reflexively to see what you were doing, before hissing out. 

Licking the tip of his cock before sinking down around the rest. His cock now soft but it still was coated in your orgasm and his cum. Joels moans were stuttering and needy as he cupped the back of your head, still bobbing up and down his length sucking him until his chest was ready to explode. He called your name in warning along with more strings of swearing through hissed teeth, “Jesus fucking christ, baby”, but you already were slowing down the second it bordered too overwhelming for him. 

Your mouth sliding down to press your nose into the coarse dark hair around his cock, before very slowly sliding back, making sure his cock didn’t leave you until you had sucked him clean. Only fair he gets even the slightest idea of how overstimulated he so greedily made you.

Sliding him gently out of your mouth you went to come back up to his level. Your hand cupped his soft length now resting between his legs before your palm moving to his stomach. Chest, and the cupping the side of his face as you rubbed your thumb along his facial hair.

Joel chuckled deeply in his chest, pulling your face to his with fingers pulling your chin as he kissed you. Pushing you back into the sheets with half his body over you as you shared a gentle kiss. “You are such a goddamn brat.” 

You smiled back, letting his tongue tease yours as you tried to find breathes into between the kiss. “Maybe. Just for you though.” 

He nuzzled his nose against yours then pressed a kiss to it. He didn’t say it, he so badly wanted to say it but so much of his emotions came out in times like this. He wanted to tell you in quiet peace, make sure you understand your heart belongs to him for the rest of his life. Telling you now, he didn’t want to risk you thinking it was just to keep you calm or not upset. 

Neither of you realizing he’s already said it twice this very evening. 

Only one of those times did it reach someones brain, but to their dismay, it was neither of you who even heard what came out of his own mouth. 

You spoke quietly into the night. Joel on his back as he kept his arms around you to rest on his chest. Sometimes you sat up enough to look at him properly, ensuring you both understood the plans, backup plans, and what might be the safest option. At least for in his home, in a town of innocent people. 

You needed Joel, but Joel needed you like he never even wanted from anyone else before. The concept of a deep need in his heart to keep a woman like you close in his arms like a lifeline would have been foreign not long ago. But then again, meeting Ellie changed a lot about what was going on in Joel’s head and heart. 

You took your time joining the two of them that morning. Still balancing intruding on what was no doubt an emotional time between those two, and wondering exactly what Ellie would even see you as. 

Joel for his part was as normal as possible, with an underlying closeness both he and Ellie stuck to each other with with a different kind of silent intensity. You did tell him your news would be the actually hurtful one. Ellie stopped moving her fork the second you turned the corner, a stare that almost felt judging but the slightest softening as she sniffed and forced her face impassive. 

Sensing Joel watching her carefully, Ellie glanced up at his flat expression with one eyebrow raised. Her own face falling just as flat. “What? I already used my crying quota for the week. And I’m not getting it all over my eggs either.” 

It wasn’t enough to jostle her, but Joel nudging the side of her head lightly before sharing a more serious glance with you. His eyes nodded over to a drawer in the counter, watching you for as long as he could follow. Neither of you wanting to make a scene about it in front of Ellie. 

Watching the their backs as you silently wrapped the your knife sheath around your waist, quickly covering it purposely with one of Joel’s jackets that sat just blow it on your thigh. He had taken it upon himself to sharpen your usual knife for you, not before stopping of course to comment on how shit it looked. Words of praise towards your equipment he was full of. 

You had found yourself alone with Owen when Joel was distracted. Ellie prompted out of the house from a Maria that gave Joel a knowing look. He had stopped by earlier to talk to them, and she agreed to keep Ellie out with her, purposely around a decent amount of people. 

A spark of need inside your heart telling you that he at least deserved water. He didn’t say much, but his eyes spoke for him. A surprise at being given any hospitality. 

Almost ending up giving him an entire bottle, you watched him with one hand hovering somewhat near his face. Looking between the water and his face, you tilted your head as you considered if you were willing to ignore the part of you that people like him tried to deprive you of. “If I take that off of you,” using your free hand to gesture to his gag, “Are you going to stay quiet?” 

Owen seemed exhausted, nodding his head almost lazily as your chest raised in a deep breathe. “You make any noise, this time I’m just going to stuff it right into your mouth.” There wasn’t much in the way of conviction in your voice, but as you slowly untied the gag he made no sound aside from catching his breath. 

Flipping the bottle against the cloth, you let it soak for a while on the cleanest side where it sat at the back of his head. 

Silence, Joel was used too. He lived in it, too much of it for a long time even. Even through the turmoil in his head, the quiet still helped him stay clear. Listening to any hint of a sound and knowing how to react to it. 

Probably why he didn’t search for you when he found himself seemingly alone in the house. If he had one distraction it was you, and an unshakable need to make sure he could hear or see your every step. The past few weeks had really set that tendency in motion. But he needed silence. And he heard it break. 

Getting the jump on him outside in the world was one thing, but this was his territory. Somewhere he could sense the slightest thing out of place. Joel just raised two hands slightly in the air. He knew it could be a variety of possibilities behind him, so he played ball. For now. “You really think I can’t tell when someone’s in my own home?”  

“Just turn around. Slowly.” 

Joel expected something not quite what he saw. Dark eyes and angry, willing to do anything for that ravaging vengeance inside. But no. The woman behind him wasn’t quite that. As if it was what she wanted to put on but there was an uncertainty in her eyes that made him narrow his. Her face was tense, looking over him with her arm outstretched as much as she could. Either keeping the gun as close to him as possible, or wanting to keep as much distance from him. 

“You live here?” 

Joel’s eyes darkened more at the woman. “You sure don’t.” 

“Just answer the question, you live here right? With a girl? Fucking, what’s her name, Ellie?” 

Sometimes anger worked in favour of the advantage, but not against him. Joel mastered the art of anger as motivation and there wasn’t a single second ever again did he want any of her kind of people saying that girls name. His face steeled at her, hands up almost just for show at this point. “Keep her name out of this. I think we both know who you’re looking for.” 

A realization dawned on her, and it only pissed her off that much more that he was having no reaction of fear. “You’re him right?” Joel cocked an eyebrow but nothing more. “The hospital, that was you right? You’ve got the girl, after everything you’ve done I can’t imagine you’d dump her off somewhere. People usually don’t ditch people they’ve murdered innocent people for.” 

Her own teeth started to grit as she spat her words out with eyes no doubt growing red. “You in the habit of cutting open a fucking child and calling yourself a good person for it?” 

Shaking her head, Joel could hear how hard she was trying to keep her breathing under control, her fingers on the gun twitching slightly and not from any kind of trigger fingers. “No right, you had no fucking right he was a goddamn person-” 

Joel’s hands started to lower, and yet it didn’t make her any more confident. The twitch turned into what looked like her hand shaking. “And she’s my daughter.” 

She shook her head, eyes falling in darkness to something much more complicated. “So what you get your daughter and I have to loose my own father for it? Fucking..people like you...” 

No doubt this was a plan much more confident in theory, because Joel risked a step forward as his face twisted more into something of anger she took a step back. Readjusting her aim with an unsteady arm. 

“Put your hands back up,” 

They remained just barley by his sides, “You think I’m gonna reach for something? ‘Cus trust me you even think about pulling that trigger and I’ll make sure you regret it.” 

Whatever laugh she let out was weak, but the tense look one could mistaken for crazed told a thousand different emotions. “I’m not stupid, I know you don’t have a fucking weapon on you.” 

The one he thought was in the room wasn’t. Getting caught off guard by her after getting caught off guard by it’s lack of presence. Ellie didn’t always put things in the right place after she tries to sneak them away. His voice was low, even, and absolute that it made her hair stand on end. “You really think I need a gun to kill you?” 

You don’t remember Grady being particularly smart. Loyal, good at following orders but missing the basic function of checking a corner. Crouching as he snuck into the room, he could see Owen knelt on the floor, blood on his face, chest, hands and a swollen eye as even his gag was blood soaked. What he didn’t see was you. 

One arm suddenly wrapped around his face, the fabric of it’s jacket shoved to muffle his voice as the other hand pressed a cold metal to the bottom of his head right at his chin. Unlike the shaky arm holding a similar gun at Joel, you had the advantage of having yours at least pressed right against the mans head. Grady didn’t feel the shake in your bones behind the straining muscle. 

Moving him closer to the open door, your heart pounded so harshly that you could throw up from the shaking pressure it put on you. You could hear her yelling, and a dangerously low cadence from Joel, but she was getting louder and angrier. 

And while you had this one and a knife strapped to your side, Joel’s gun sat tucked behind your back only realizing whoever touched it last, didn’t put it where Joel had clearly expected to grab it before being snuck up on. 

He was bigger, stronger then her. But if she shot first then it didn’t matter how much Joel could overpower her. She was yelling more, and so did your limbs shake. You were supposed to help have this under control, but she was looking for blood and Joel’s own gun wasn’t in his hand. 

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t shoot you dead right now you fucking bastard-” Joel must have said something in response, “Her dad for my dad it’s only fair,” 

You couldn’t stand there, you couldn’t let him deal with her on his own. You push an already aggressive dog to the edge, then she’s just going to go for the throat because she can. Plan B it was. Despite not knowing what that entailed. 

A hallway door was kicked open, and following right out was a man Joel didn’t recognize but by the confused anger on her face, she did. Deep down Joel wished the voice was Tommy. There was no hesitation the man could handle himself, and didn’t make Joel feel cold and petrified at having to involve you in this more. 

But you rang a warning shot at a higher part of the wall that had the woman jump in startle. What followed though, was a reaction that in a way reminded him of you. Likely an ironic association, because all that it took was you yell out who you were. Her eyes widened as the hand pointed right at Joel trembled. A washing devastation that surpassed mere surprise, something she didn’t expect and neither had Owen.

The man on the floor pressed himself up against the wall in fear as did a new unsettling emotion come over the woman in front of Joel. But you piled onto something that just dug deeper, 

Your voice almost a shout that shook in what Joel felt in his heart a terrified urgency. “You know who I am Abby, and what I’ll do to Owen and Grady if you don’t bring Joel to me.”

Whatever intimidation she felt from a man she considered a monster, Abby’s entire being shook. Her gun was on Joel but she could barley keep her eyes on him or on Grady just looking at her desperately for help. This wasn’t a normal fear, almost one that was like seeing a ghost she could only hear.

Her yell back was a rasping screech as she morphed her features into too much to keep up with. “You do anything, and I swear to god-” She’d what? Shoot the man in front of her and set you lose on her? 

You needed to scare her. Swallow the dizzying sickness in your head and the bile from eating at your chest. You couldn’t take the chance of her first instinct to act at Joel before you did hers. 

You shook as you pointed the gun at Grady, but you were hidden behind the wall from her sight, and the sting in your eyes couldn’t be used against you. Blood splattered all over the wall behind Grady's head, the booming shot and painted red had Abby flinch back. 

Joel didn’t move. A deep seeded anger at who his life was at the expense of burned his soul, but he didn’t dare risk letting it happen. If Abby was going to shoot, it sure as hell wouldn’t be at him or his own.

In barley a second, you holstered the gun so quick it could have missed and dropped to the floor. The knife at your side flew into your hand, gripping tight as you hauled Owen over in front of you, your knife pressed so much to his throat he made the most inaudible squawks of protest at the sharpness. 

Hauling him up partially on his feet, you pressed with better leverage. “Your boys next Abby- give him to me,” Your voice yelled, so loud it scratched your throat at the strain. It was violent and angry, and you only wished it made you feel it too. Instead you stood, braced against the wall with a knife keeping Owens battered self in your threat as your soul kept shaking and holding back the sting in your eyes. 

Abby’s jaw clenched as she swore, her yell echoing down the halls. “Fuck- okay.” 

It was the only choice for you and her. She wanted Owen back, and you needed Joel. A conflict in her eyes as she looked between the man now slumped over in the hall, and the darkness in a pair of eyes she never truly prepared herself to face properly. 

Abby’s eyes peeled off the sightless body to the open air between it and the door. “We make a trade. I bring him to you, I get Owen back and we leave. Got it?”

You looked to the side, knowing nothing was out the view you could see out the door anyways. “You touch him in anyway and I slit this throat. Got it?” 

One request was shouted back. “Toss the gun.” 

It wasn’t even a second later the gun banged far out on the wooden floor. You it turned out, weren’t the only one with a shaking fear of losing their companion. There wasn’t a soul in that house didn’t radiate that very perilous fear. Joel looked at Abby with his features sharp and penetrating. Her other hand having to rise up and join her hold on the gun just to keep it aimed at him. “This isn’t over you understand me?” 

Abby didn’t appear to know what scared her more. The threat of death you held at Owens throat, or just how terrifyingly cold Joel’s unblinking expression didn’t move from. This was supposed to be easy, kill some guy who shot her father for no reason. But standing here, motioning for him to walk slowly towards the hall? It was made clear that you and Joel weren’t regular people, and this was exposing itself to be something she didn’t remotely prepare for.

It felt like agony standing there, each creak of the floorboard screaming in the terse silence the only indication of life. Owen’s blood was seeping into your clothes and staining your skin at this point and there was next to nothing holding back the pressure behind your eyes. 

You wanted to be someone else. Someone brave, a person others would look at and say is some kind of fighter, someone a kid like Ellie would amusingly call a bad ass. But you stood holding a man at knife point trading his life for the man you love didn’t make you feel brave. Just scared. Scared beyond whatever danger you had been alone in the past, and sick to your stomach that it took up until now for you to feel brave enough to even think that word. 

They were outside the door, but you shook. Grip on the knife so tight you might have started hurting your own palm with the tight grip as you were hurting Owen’s neck with the blade. The bravery wasn’t even in your voice. “Joel first.” 

“Show me him. Let me see him.” 

You were done paying any kind of hero or savior. Instead just tearing the knife away and shoving Owen enough that he stumbled onto the ground. Hands behind his back still too bound to steady him. 

Joel was handed over first. Whatever passed between them unknown to you until a tidal wave hit your heart as you both reached for the other the second he came in view. Joel’s own expression harsh, nostrils flared as his rage was barley contained in his bones. His warm hands gripping your forearms as he looked at a watering overflow of something grander then fear pass your face as you looked him over for anything hurt. 

He cupped one of your cheeks as you took a deep breathe. Joel’s eyes narrowed in question, and you nodded. Hoping the shaking breathe you let you was only audible to one. His hand keeping your touch as it wasn’t leaving one of your wrists, almost keeping your mind back at his side as you turned the corner. 

Neither of you looked like the visage of bravery your actions spoke. Neither of you even tried. Abby’s eyes widened with a taken back sort of shock as she looked at you. A name she kept hearing and denying, but your face that of what she long remembered as a memory. A bite sharp on your arm before watching your gun raise as she fell back to the ground. 

She lived, and kept trying to deny that you could have either. But you both looked at each other, as she held her own gun to you. Resting one side against the door frame just to keep it steady, while your own hand kept the knife painfully tight. 

Joel stood behind you, and you felt him pull up your jacket slightly, resting the fabric to expose what you had hidden away behind you. Abby was staring at you and you back, she didn’t even see Joel’s hands moving near your back. 

Her words slurred together, teeth bordering on gritting from the force. “Give him to me.” 

Joel squeezed your arm holding the knife. Don’t move was his touch. Abby’s gaze continued to plaster all over you, and yours taking her person in, in a capacity she couldn’t possibly even guess now. Blood ringing in your ears hearing the shuffling behind you. Abby kept it on you now, a woman much more a fighter unable to tear her attention away from how entangled your lives became. 

Your own eyes stung. Unable to move or blink, looking at the very thing that confused you. Was her being here what scared you, or how very real losing the one thing that brought you to a purpose was becoming? 

As soon as Joel slightly pushed Owen, Abby snatched him with one arm and yanked him to her side, Owen barley keeping himself up despite his hands now free. Joel having undone them bringing him over. But as soon as he was out of his hand, he reached for your back once more. His arm smoothly pulling the gun, and now aiming it at Abby. She didn’t just try to kill him, now she had her gun pointing at you and it was pushing Joel to an edge he was close to forcing you to let him fall off. 

His instincts were quicker then hers, and he dared her to end it the smarter way, as opposed to joining the mess on the walls behind her. 

Her eyes flickered between the two of you, mind racing with questions not even she could understand at that moment. You weren’t supposed to be here, this wasn’t even about you. Blind to what kind of people she walked in on, she just looked at you and Joel unable to land on what to do. 

You could feel something vile rising in your throat, just as unable to grasp what was unfolding in front of you. Abby had no right to make this about Joel. Either she knew the truth and lost herself beyond the capacity of her own humanity, or she was left in the dark and didn’t care to turn the lights on herself. A fact you couldn’t feel okay with. Your voice was mostly just a whisper once you found the strength to push something forward. “This is really just about your father?” 

You didn’t need to hear the answer to that. You already knew by a confused pain in her eyes. Not understanding what else this could possibly be over. To her it was almost a taunt, her failure she was able to see through, but to you? A memory that no longer felt pushed away. A truth that was fighting tooth and crawl to attack you at your door. 

Owen leaned against her exhausted and bloody. Lowering her gun she glanced down to your arm, it was covered and there was nothing to see though. Remaining you a ghost. 

Her gaze flicked to Joel’s own aim, no shake or tremble to be found. Don described nothing more then some guy had done it, but the inflamed emotions boiling behind Joel’s eyes wasn’t the story she had been sold on. So they ran. Slamming open a back door you not to long ago ran out of just as harshly, also running from these very people but for drastically different reasons. 

 You didn’t register Tommy or Maria coming in, you only had the capacity to feel Joel pull you into his chest. One arm wrapped tightly around your stomach as you finally leaned back into him. Your eyes squeezing shut, you felt Joel gently take your knife from your fingers and put it back in it’s sheath as he spoke to Tommy. 

You grabbed the wrist that wasn’t around you, holding it just as he did when he first came back to you still needing him to ground you to the floor. These weren’t two worlds ever meant to mix. This was supposed to be a solace for him and a breather for you, but you combined your lives and now stood a mess painted with the looming of blood.

Was this your fault? And if not why couldn’t you have done something to actually end this? 

You thought back to the night you and Joel opened up to each other. How the worst emotion you felt was finding out how Tommy blabbed about your feelings for him by the very man you had the such a humiliating crush on. How letting him in was so scary to you back then. 

Would all of this have happened anyways? Or was letting him kiss you that night, pull you into his arms and he yours forever entangling your hearts in ways new to both of you the catalyst? 

If this was all your fault, would Joel end up despising you for not fixing this? 

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller imagine #joel miller fic #joel miller fanfic #joel miller fanfiction #the last of us imagine

[jebiwonutty]

It was not a mosquito bite

Note : This is a smut part to this work. But not having read it does not have an influence on this.

Synopsis: The beginning of a good night of fun with boyfriend!Jiwoong

Contents : playing with food, unprotected sex, f!receiving, hickeys, foreplay

This is not for minors.

“Finally”

Your boyfriend was resting his head on the crook of your shoulders. He just had drove back home Yujin and Gyuvin for their pyjama party. All one by one the members and friends of your boyfriend had left their dorm. Leaving you both alone.

You both had a chill night planned : a nice dinner, maybe a board game and finally a movie before falling asleep in each others arm.

You were currently cooking up some dinner with ingredients you just had bought. Slowly mixing it before putting a little bit of the soup on your finger you gave it to jiwoong so he could have a taste

“Delicious.”

Looking at you with hungry eyes you wondered what exactly he was talking about : you or the food. Naturally you asked him before he slowly murmured in your ear “both”

Repositioning himself in front of you, your boyfriend slowly engulfed you in a passionate kiss. Enjoying every bit of your taste and the taste of the food you had made. Quick enough his hands went to naturally place themselves on your ass. You started to feel yourself quivering. Jiwoong knew exactly how to turn you on. His hands on your ass and his lips on yours was enough to make you want more. And that's exactly what he wanted. Making you want more from him.

Pushing you against the counter, Jiwoong passionately kissed you, now completely having his tongue in your mouth and occasionally biting your lips.

The man started to go down on your neck. Leaving some wet marks all over it. You could feel one of his hands leaving your body for a few seconds before starting to lift your shirt up, tracing on your skin with his fingers.

Slowly separating yourself from him you questioned him "Babe, please, we have a dinner and if you do that I won't be able to.." before you even had the time to finish your sentence your boyfriend lifted you up on the counter, pushing aside the few ingredients that were left.

"How about both"

Without even understanding the situation, your boyfriend started to take his own shirt off, wanting you to see him. Than he lifted up your shirt, before admiring you a few seconds. Engulfing you against him, he was making you feel good all over, kissing your ears, your neck and finally your neckline.

Naturally his hands went to your back as he took off your bra. Just as he took it off, his lips went straightly to your nipples starting to suck them off. Making you a whimpering mess.

With one hand he want to fetch a bit of soup that had cooled down and made it fall by drops on your neckline, your boobs, your stomach.

Giving it a perfect excuse to now fully suck you. He started off by licking on the soup that was on your upper neck, before with his expert mouth to fully suck multiple emplacements on your neckline, fully on groaning, Jwoong was making you feel good. Leaving countless marks on you, sucking your neck and your boobs and then your neck again. All while tracing on your skin with his hands. The man was making you dizzy with pleasure.

You wanted to reciprocate the feeling and slowly your hands made their way in his pants, taking off his belt. You only had started the enterprise but the man already started to moan as well against your skin. You could feel under your hands how hard he was.

"Don't." You suddenly stopped in your tracks. "Tonight I'm the one making you feel good, you are too good not to eat up whole"

Your boyfriend was left with his pants on the level of his knees and quickly he tossed them aside. Before lifting you up and taking both your pants and underwear off in a hurry. Jiwoong was making you crazy, but you were making him crazier. He needed more of you, he needed to hear you moan his name against his ear.

With one hand he started to make his way down your clit. Which he started to play around with. His other hand resting on your hips. And his mouth sucking the skin of your stomach.

You were now a blushing, whimpering, moaning mess. The man knew how to make you feel good. Arousing all of your senses at the same time.

His finger found his way quickly close to your entrance. Totally enjoying and playing with the wetness in between your legs.

He started to put his fingers inside you, playing inside your walls. Your legs had spams all over and you were only moaning his name begging for more.

Jiwoong loved the way you looked for him. All his. On the counter, moaning his name, your hands resting on his hips wanting to bring him closer, your rolled eyes. You were too good for him, too good at reacting to his touch.

He could feel you were starting to get closer to coming, but he wanted you to come on him. Abruptly he took his fingers off you, making you whimper for his touch.

Quickly he lifted you up the counter and put you on the floor. He quickly took off his own boxers, revealing his dick that was now fully erected. Precum starting to drip off it.

Looking at it, you knew you were about to have a good time.

He quickly placed himself before your entrance, quickly entering you, making you let out a scream due to how big he was. He quickly kissed you up with his lips to shut you up.

The man was now inside you, his hands resting on the counter, thrusting violently into you, with each of his thrust your back was hitting the counter.

You were now full on sobbing both of pleasure and pain. Jiwoong's thrust kept on coming on stronger, you were fulling aggriping yourself onto him.

"I'm coming jiwoong please"

Hearing those sweet little words from you his thrust got faster before making you cum, leaving all your juices on him. Jiwoong quickly followed you with his cumming, pulling himself off you.

Slowly he went to kiss your naked shoulder and putting your hair off your face. He loved the way you were looking for him. All sweaty, all marked up by him.

Panting you told him “that..was...so good” Loving your reaction the man quickly came onto you and kissed you. Pulling your two names bodies once against each other

With his two hands, he grabbed your entire body, pulling you closer to his and whispering in your ear "and that's just the beginning"

.....going back to the fic

#i hope y’all liked it #zb1 hard hour #zerobaseone hard hour #kim jiwoong smut #kim jiwoong hard hour #zb1 smut #zerobaseone smut

[eksvaized]

Part Twenty One [ Previous 〡 Next ] ︱AO3 ︱Wattpad ︱ taglist: @kingsprettyangel, @simonsslvt, @herwristsarehercanvas, @the-faceless-bride, @ghostieslove, @bbypionaa if you want to be added - let me know!

Gently, you slide your fingertip across the cold, smooth rim of the glass that is cradled in your hand. A wave of dizziness washes over you, making your head feel like it’s filled with cotton, and every time you dare to look around, the room seems to sway and spin in a disorienting dance. The film playing in the background has long been forgotten, although it continues to flicker on the screen, casting shadows and bathing the room in a pale yellow glow; the only other source of light is the warm, soft glow of the bedside lamp that Simon had switched on earlier.

When you summon the courage to shift your gaze towards Simon, you find his eyes already tethered to your form, his eyes seemingly glued to your hunched frame.

“What?” You blurt out, your words slurred slightly as you tilt your head, your eyes narrowing in an attempt to focus on him and push away the dizzying sensation clouding your thoughts.

“Nothing,” he replies, his voice an inaudible murmur in the quiet room, as his tongue glides subtly over his bottom lip in a gesture that seems almost unconscious.

You roll your eyes and Simon looks away, shifting his attention back to the screen. Yet, you can’t shake off the feeling that he isn’t really paying attention to the film at all, his mind seemingly elsewhere.

As you lay there, you feel your body sinking into the mattress like a stone in a pond, molding into the grooves of the mattress beneath you. A long, weary sigh escapes your lips. Slowly, your eyelids grow heavy. Inside your mind, tucked away in some obscure corner, there’s a persistent, nagging voice. It’s barely a whisper, but it’s there, incessantly buzzing like a tiny mosquito. Yet, you make a conscious effort to ignore it. You try not to listen to its repeated warnings, telling you that you shouldn’t be letting your guard down, that you should stop drinking, that you should inch closer to the edge of the bed and put as much distance as you possibly can between you and Simon. However, when your fingers venture out and lightly brush across the landscape of his arm and he doesn’t flinch or pull away, you continue tracing invisible lines over his warm skin.

The glass cradled in your hand begins to feel like a leaden weight, and so, with a muted sigh, you place it on your belly. Your fingertips trace up Simon’s forearm, feeling the firm muscles. When you reach the peak of his biceps, your fingers start fiddling absently with the hem of his shirt. The fabric is black. You wonder why he never wears colour. The question keeps circling your mind like a vulture over a deserted field, but you never say it loud. Even in your current drunken stupor, some sober part of your brain, buried deep inside, realizes that no matter how much you want to verbalize your thoughts, it would be wise to keep your lips sealed. Especially after your last outburst when you launched into a rant about how Simon was falling asleep on you, accusing him of being incredibly rude because he was the one who wanted to drink and spend the evening with you.

He still would look handsome in dark blue, you think.

Your head slumps to the side and your cheeks get squished on your shoulder. A moment passes before your eyes close and you fall asleep. But you don’t realise that or that you are snoring lightly, your lips parted. Your hand, still loosely holding onto a half-empty glass of liquor, hangs limply by your side. It isn’t until an unfamiliar touch tries to pry the glass away that you stir from your slumber. Your body reacts instinctively, jerking upwards in surprise, causing the remaining amber liquid to slosh out of the glass. The potent scent of the alcohol permeates the air as it stains your shirt, creating a dark, wet spot that rapidly grows in size. A groan of irritation escapes your lips as you glance down at the mess on your shirt.

Slowly lifting your gaze, your eyes meet Simon’s, finding his face shockingly close to yours. His unexpected proximity startles you, causing you to recoil involuntarily. You move back until your back hits the sturdy headboard.

“You need to change,” he says and you nod, the thought of sleeping in a dirty, alcohol-soaked shirt making you nauseous.

With a quick movement, Simon places the now-empty glass on the bedside table. Rising from his spot, he moves towards the wardrobe, his steps slow but steady. He rummages around inside, moving hangers and rustling fabric until he finds what he’s looking for. He pulls out a fresh shirt, the fabric soft and clean, and tosses it in your direction. Your reflexes are slow, dulled by the alcohol and fatigue, and the shirt lands beside you, almost as if mocking your current state.

When you attempt to grab it, your body wobbles unsteadily in the bed. The room spins around you, causing you to tumble onto your side. A defeated sigh escapes your lips as you roll onto your back, frustration washing over you like a wave.

“I can’t,” you say, your words muffled by the impending sleep that threatens to claim you. The very thought of changing your shirt seems like an insurmountable task. Your body and limbs refuse to cooperate. It feels as if your head is spinning ceaselessly, and the world around you is a blur.

Without missing a beat, Simon says, “I’ll help.” Before you have a chance to protest or insist that he leaves you alone - all you want to do is lay down and close your eyes - he gently takes your hands and pulls you into a sitting position. His actions are considerate, slow and careful, as if he’s handling something fragile, as if you were made of glass.

You dare to open the eyes. Thankfully, your bedroom is barely lit. Standing by your side, Simon remains idle for a moment before pulling the shirt over your head and tossing it on the ground. The warm air hits your bare skin. Usually, you would immediately wrap your arms around your chest, or try to turn around to limit how much Simon’s prying eyes are allowed to see, even though there is nothing left to hide. However, since you are drunk, you just sit calmly, your heavy-lidded eyes meeting his.

His touch feels nice, and you find yourself leaning into it, craving more of the warmth it brings. “Sit still,” Simon mumbles, his voice breaking the silence as you unconsciously continue swaying from side to side, not allowing him to dress you up.

“I am sitting still!” You retort, the words slipping out of your mouth in a slurred speech. You roll your eyes in faux annoyance, which only makes him shake his head and sigh. Despite his apparent exasperation, there’s a hint of amusement in his reaction as a soft chuckle rumbles in his chest and slips past his parted lips.

After numerous attempts, he finally succeeds in pulling the shirt over your head. The moment he manages to do so, he gently nudges you—it’s a silent command for you to lie down. You comply, allowing him to pull the covers up and over your body. As he does so, he takes the time to gently push the loose strands of hair that had fallen into your eyes, tucking them behind your ear.

A smile forms on your lips. It causes Simon to freeze where he stands. He knows you are drunk, and that you are really not acting like yourself. But he can’t ignore the fact that you’ve never smiled at him in that way before. More than that, the way you’re looking at him now is completely different: your eyes are filled with warmth and genuine a fondness, that he’s never seen before. The sight of you just looking at him and smiling leaves him momentarily breathless, as though he’s been plunged into the deep end of a pool..

“What’s wrong?” You can’t help but let a small pout form on your lips when Simon continues his silence. You wait for his reply, but even after your question, he doesn’t utter a single word.

His gaze, intense and unreadable, remains locked onto yours. The moment seems to stretch on forever, the silence only broken by the soft breathing of both of you. The lingering eye contact stirs a palpable tension in the room, creating an electric charge that crackles in the air. Then, shattering the quiet like a dropped glass, Simon leans down and presses a light, fleeting kiss on your forehead. The action is so subtle, so gentle, that you think you may have imagined it.

He murmurs, “Goodnight.”

As Simon attempts to pull away, you make a split-second decision. You reach out, your fingers wrapping around the collar of his black shirt. Before he can create any distance, you tug him back towards you. Taken by surprise, he almost topples on top of you. But his reflexes are quick. Just before you get squished beneath his weight, he plants his hands on either side of your frame, effectively suspending himself above you.

However, even in this precarious situation, you refuse to let him go. Your fingers clutch the fabric tightly, as if it’s your only lifeline. Then, slowly, almost in slow motion, you raise your head, closing the small distance between you two. Your heart beats wildly in your chest as your lips meet his in a soft kiss.

You and Simon have never kissed. You refused to allow him to do that because he has taken so much from you already without ever asking for permission. But now, things are different. As he slowly lowers himself onto you, his body weight gently pressing into you, you find yourself unconsciously tilting your head to the side. His lips, when they finally meet yours, are surprisingly soft. The scent of his perfume, deeply soaked into his shirt, fills your senses, intoxicating you more than the kiss itself.

His hands, tentative at first, begin to explore, trailing down your sides until they find a resting place on your hips. He gives them a light squeeze—a simple action that sends a jolt of electricity down your spine. You draw back for a second, inhaling deeply to steady your racing heart.

Maybe it’s the alcohol coursing through your veins, making your heart pound faster and your head spin. Or maybe it’s just been so long since you genuinely wanted to kiss someone that the sensation feels both foreign and exciting. But whatever the reason, you give in to the moment, surrendering to the gentle touch of Simon’s lips as they trail a tantalizing path from the corner of your mouth, across your jawline, and all the way down the curve of your neck.

The kiss would have continued, had you not made the inadvertent mistake of opening your eyes and breaking the moment. An intense wave of dizziness washes over you, completely overwhelming and overpowering your senses. The room, a swirling vortex of formless shapes and colors, spins with the disorienting speed, like a carousel out of control. You can feel the acrid, bitter taste of bile rising up your throat.

In panic, you press your hands against Simon’s firm chest, shoving him to the side. He falls onto the mattress beside you. A look of surprise and concern is etched on his face. You scramble out of the bed in haste, clasping a hand over your mouth to suppress the strong feeling of impending sickness. Without bothering to turn on any lights, you race out of the bedroom, your frantic footsteps echoing down the hallway.

Barely making it to the bathroom, you collapse on your knees. The impact against the cold, hard tiles makes you wince in pain.

The night ends with you hunched over the toilet, vomiting your guts out.

Simon eventually finds his way to you, but you are so lost in your own discomfort that you don’t even notice his arrival until he gently scoops up your hair and holds it out of the way for you.

When you eventually find the strength to return to the bedroom, you look ghostly pale and utterly exhausted. Simon offers you a tablet and a glass of cold water before tucking you into the bed.

As he’s about to turn off the bedside lamp, casting the room into darkness, you muster the strength to weakly raise your arm. Your fingers wrap around his wrist in a silent plea. He looks down at you, his eyes filled with concern and a hint of a question. Your voice is barely above a whisper and roughened by fatigue when you say, “Stay.”

#simon ghost riley #writing #simon riley x you #ghost x y/n #simon riley x reader #ghost x you #call of duty #cod #ghost x reader #ghost cod #cod ghost #ghost call of duty #cod x reader #cod fanfic #fem!reader

[edosianorchids901]

Sundae Morning

@flashfictionfridayofficial prompt - "critical ice cream

Cw: blood and injury

Crowley glanced out the window. No Aziraphale yet, but he should be here any minute. And if Crowley wanted to make a really terrific impression for their first official “date”, it was critical to get everything ready.

He plopped another ice cube in the soda, or tried to. But he glanced out the window at the same time, and the ice plopped to the floor and skidded off.

“Shit. I’ll get that later.” He got another ice cube, then took the tray back to the freezer. Oh right, he needed to get the cheese platter out, too.

Grabbing that, he sidestepped the ice cube on the floor—should really pick that up—and set the cheese platter on the counter.

He and Aziraphale weren’t doing anything too fancy, just a late morning snack and a film at Crowley’s flat, then lunch. But still, it needed to be perfect.

“What am I forgetting? Oh, right. Ice cream.”

Crowley stepped back to the fridge and grabbed the tub of vanilla ice cream, then headed for the counter. Was that it? Or did he have everything he—

He slipped on the melting ice cube.

The world went into a brief spin as he toppled forward, yelping. His arms pinwheeled, and the ice cream splatted on the rug.

His forehead struck the edge of the counter, and the world went briefly, painfully dark.

He moaned at the brightness when it came back. He was sprawled on the floor, one arm twisted under him. Groaning, he disentangled himself and sat up.

His ears rang, a steady whine like mosquitos were dipping in and out of each. His pulse pounded all through his head, especially his brow. Something wet and sticky ran down his face.

“Uh-no,” he mumbled, touching his brow. His hand came away wet and sticky too. “My ice cream…”

Dizzy, Crowley squinted down at his hand. There was red on his fingers.

Funny. Hadn’t it been vanilla ice cream? Had he bought strawberry or cherry or something by mistake?

Wow, his head hurt. Had he hit it? He should put ice on it, if he had.

The ice cream tub sat on the rug beside him, for some reason. Ice cream was like ice, wasn’t it? It was cold, anyway.

Weirdly uncoordinated, Crowley grabbed the tub and held it to his forehead. He yelped at the sudden bite of cold. But cold was good. It would make his headache better.

Hopefully it would make his headache better fast. He was pretty sure he had something important to do. Something he’d been looking forward too.

He just couldn’t remember what it was.

---

Humming, Aziraphale shifted his bouquet of roses into one hand and tugged at his bow tie. He was oddly nervous today, his hands trembling even.

It wasn’t as if this was his first time to Crowley’s flat. For goodness sake, he’d just stayed here overnight last week!

But it was his first time here since he and Crowley had decided to try “dating”. Neither of them were especially sure what “dating” entailed since they seemed to lack much of the attraction humans often shared.

Still, they loved each other in their own way, and “dating” sounded fun. Terrifying, but fun.

Aziraphale knocked on Crowley’s door. He rang the bell. He knocked again.

“Crowley? Are you here?” Aziraphale called. Crowley had to be here. They were supposed to be having a date. “May I come in?”

When Crowley didn’t respond, Aziraphale let himself in. He peeked around, half expecting Crowley to jump out and surprise him.

When there was still nothing, he headed to the kitchen. They’d talked about snacks, so that seemed a likely place to check.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale called. “Are you in here, dear boy? Have you selected this afternoon’s entertainment?”

He stepped into the kitchen, inhaled sharply, and froze.

Crowley was on the floor, slumped against the kitchen counter holding something to his head. Blood streamed down his face, so much blood, dripping to his arm, his clothes, puddling on the floor…

“Oh, good Lord!” Gasping, Aziraphale rushed across the room. The roses fell from his trembling hand and splashed into the puddle of blood. “Crowley? Crowley?”

“Hhng?” Crowley lifted his head. He blinked at Aziraphale a few times, his eyes unfocused. “Angel? S’ you?”

“It’s me.” Shaking, Aziraphale touched his cheek. His skin was cold to the touch, and so was the blood. “Oh my goodness, what happened to you? Were you attacked?”

“Er. I don’t… think so.” Crowley frowned, then winced. “S’ really bright. I, uh… we were supposed to be doing something cool. You and me. Weren’t we?”

“Let’s worry about that later, hmm?” Aziraphale reached for whatever Crowley was holding to his head. “Here, let me take this.”

“Nuh, I gotta hold it there.” Crowley pulled away. “My head really hurts. I needed ice.”

“Crowley, you are a serpent. Ice isn’t good for you.” Aziraphale tugged the box out of his grip. He looked at it. “Is… this ice cream?”

“Maybe? I was gonna get you ice cream. It’s supposed to be a special day.” Quite suddenly, Crowley’s lip trembled. “Angel, my head hurts really bad.”

“Yes, I rather imagine it does. I-I think you… whacked it on the counter.” There was a blood smear there, at least.

“Oh, yeah. I think I slipped.”

“It does look that way.” Aziraphale studied the ice cream tub. It was melting. “Oh. Oh. Oh, I don’t think you’re bleeding quite as badly as I first assumed.”

He miracled a towel and gently dabbed at Crowley’s face. Rather a lot of the red liquid was blood, yes. But the rest was bloodstained melted ice cream.

“We were supposed to be having a date,” Crowley mumbled, then winced as Aziraphale wiped under the nasty gash on his forehead. “Right?”

“I think we shall have a redo,” Aziraphale said gently.

Yes, they would need a redo. But it seemed that Crowley would be okay, and that was what mattered.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #queerplatonic Aziraphale/Crowley

[arminsgffr]

Smoking by the window

Armin x reader

Disclaimer: reader smokes, actually don’t know if vaping is considered smoking, but you get what I mean. modern au, idk

I wanted to portrait how Armin doesn’t want people to kind of idealize him as this pure boy, who is not able to even kill a mosquito. Who doesn’t ever do bad things on purpose. And how he wants to be abke to be the protector and not the protected.

This is my first post. English is not my first language, so I apologize in advance if there’s any misspelling. Hope you enjoy!

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

The universe is so big. We’re basically nothing. Little stupid things. Minuscule. It’s kind of a triggering thought, to know you don’t really matter, and that it doesn’t really matter what you do in this world. But then, you can use it as an excuse to do whatever you want, right?

Smoking by the window is a thing now. A thing that I do when I’m overwhelmed, or numb, or bored, or… existing. Even now, that Armin is asleep beside me, I couldn’t help the desire of taking out my vape and use it. It’s two in the morning, the perfect hour. That feeling of nothingness emerged so suddenly, I’m starting to like it at this point. The vapor coming out of my lips is pretty. I look down my side, Armin’s prettier. He looks so peaceful, relaxed. I can’t believe he ended up with someone like me. Someone with a lost future, when he has such a bright one. I inhale, again and again, till getting a little dizzy. I actually have grown really fond of the feeling.

— Honey…? — I hear Armin say, sleepy. He’s trying to open his eyes. — What time is it? —

He sited on the bed, with his beautiful eyes not fully open, tired back, looking at me with a confused face, trying to figure out what was happening. He looked really cute.

— Oh, shit, sorry. Did I wake you up? — I said in a low voice.

— Not exactly… — He made a pause. — What are you doing? —

—Just vaping a little bit, I was about to go back to sleep, anyway. —

He giggled, more awake. — We both know that’s not true. — he said, with that expression he made when he was saying something ‘obvious’. I just smiled at him. — Can I try? —

— What? — I said a little shoked.

He let out a little, soft laugh. — Can I try? — He repeat it, slowly, pointing at the vape in my hands.

— Are you sure? I don’t really want you to, I got to be honest. What if you like it? — I said with a worried tone.

— What if I like it? — He thought there was really nothing totally wrong. Well, maybe he did, I can’t speak for him.

— I don’t want you to like it. —

He didn’t reply, he just left silence. I could tell he was thinking. I get why he would want to try, but no. He can’t go down that path.

— You treat me like I’m a fragile… pure thing. I’m not. I’m a person. — The golden like hair boy said.

— Yeah, and as a person, I don’t want to fuck up yourself. You know I’m not the best influence. —

— Fine. But really, don’t treat me like I don’t do anything wrong, and like you’re gonna spoil me. —

— But, what if I do? — I really resented having such a screwed life.

— Honey…— He got closer to me, taking me in he’s arms. — You won’t, I promise. I love you. —

— I love you more. — I said, looking at him.

We just stayed like that a little longer. I was falling asleep, when he realized and laid my head down, still hugging me. He took the vape from my hands and put it in the nightstand. He was so warm and comfortable to hug. He moved me closer to him, while resting his head, softly, on top of mine. He was holding me like a porcelain doll, with al the caring and welcomeness of the world. Like I was he’s most precious treasure, but still a person to care about.

— You are the one who deserves to be treated like a fragile, not thing. I want to be the one that looks after you and protects you. Please let me. — He said, softly and loving. I just hugged him tighter and, indeed, let him. And for a moment. For that moment, everything stopped feeling so meaningless. Instead of knowing we were all stupid nothings, I genuinely believed that it was just Armin and me in all universe. And that I wasn’t that meaningless either. I was something in Armin’s life, apparently. So I’m gonna make sure I’m a good something for him.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

A really short thingy, but I guess is not that bad for being the first one shot. Anyway, hope you liked it :)

#aot #aot fluff #armin arlert #armin aot #armin x reader #fanfic #fandom #armin fluff #armin x reader fluff #snk #snk armin #snk fluff #one shot #aot oneshots #armin x you #armin imagine #armin x y/n

[scorpiomother]

IN LUST WE TRUST (pt. one)

･ﾟ★ . this is some visionary shit. been tryna film pleasure with my eyes wide shut, but it keeps on moving

summary: they don’t know one thing about each other, but they do know that they want each other. bad. little do they know, they are at the mercy of an influx of hormones caused by a radioactive spider.

pairing: mcu!peter parker x f!silk reader

word count: 9.7k

warnings: explicit content. minors dni (+18) mentions of weed and anxiety. partaking in alcohol. copious amount of sexual pining (maybe too much oops xx). taking peter’s virginity. unprotected public sex w/ a stranger. not sex pollen but basically.

curated vibes: novacane. pyramid. stargirl interlude. 

masterlist 𓆩♡𓆪 read on ao3 𓆩♡𓆪  kofi 𓆩♡𓆪 series mlist

HAVE MERCY

Peter wanted his first time to be with a girl he loved. Special like first times are supposed to be.

He didn’t know what had come over him, but he couldn’t stop himself. Before he knew it, she was bruising his neck and all he could do was crumble into her. Inhale her intoxicating scent and bury his face into her chest. Give her the same marks she gave him…

 It felt almost inevitable, somewhat of a mysterious plan orchestrated by the stars. It was like two meteorites colliding, something you can’t see until it’s too late. A lust-filled collision leaving no casualties. At least that was the only sensible way to explain how he could fuck someone he just met. 

Though to his credit, this was the second time he ran into her. Unfortunately, it still didn’t excuse the fact that she was still a stranger.

It must’ve been the universe throwing him a bone— this fate led entanglement. Not the burning tingle in his hands, nor the sensory overload throwing Peter into a haziness that he was going to regret later. He desperately needed to think that he was a victim in all of this to live with himself.

All he wanted was some weed. How was he supposed to know he was going to lose his virginity in the bathroom of a hole-in-the-wall bar?

It started three days ago. The encounter wasn’t supposed to be as unnerving as it was, but the way his mouth got dry being in the same vicinity as her was enough to make him feel weird. If he was being completely honest, he felt like a creep taking advantage of the situation.

Taking the subway was a rare circumstance that Peter had ditched years ago, finding it way faster and more convenient to use his spider abilities. But the night before, Peter had been slaving away to finish his biochem lab and was too tired to put on the suit and use every strain of muscle in him to swing across the city for class. The last time he was sleep deprived and navigating his way through the skyscrapers, he knocked into a billboard like a mosquito on the freeway. So it was easier to walk to the relatively close subway and sit his exhausted ass on the bench until he reached his stop.

But God, was he out of touch with reality. Everyone had come off of work, the afternoon brimming with traffic. Rather than slouching on a seat, he held onto the silvery pole amongst the other hands and tried to take up the least space possible. There was an elbow jammed into his back and a foot on his Converses. The swarm of released students and dull businessmen and grandma’s on a grocery trip had been all too much. The humidity that came from the crowd was quick to reach Peter. He was already uncomfortable and regretting his poor choice.

And then, something he can only describe as his spider senses revved up his already overstimulated mind. Vacuously, his nose twitched. The air around him abruptly became heavy and light all at the same time. The atmosphere claustrophobically nauseating and sticky.

At first, it was dizzying in all the right ways. A soothing kiss on his skin. He began to sigh, his cluster fuck of a brain easing up on him. It was like he was holding his breath and he could finally release it. A sizable weight released off of his shoulders. And then he inhaled— a terrible mistake.

It was like the humidity dissipated within moments until the kiss turned into teeth sinking in his flesh. It bit down hard, canines and all. Utterly piercing. Every particle in him was burning like the air was exchanged for cyanide. 

God, was it incredibly hot. Scalding, really. It took everything in him to not fall to his knees. To not rip off his shirt like a savage caveman searching for the cool air to storm his bare chest. 

All he could think was that he must have been having a panic attack, and somehow, he was supposed to act like he wasn’t feeling everything all at once.

I’m fucking dying. What’s happening to me? Ican’tfuckingbreath.

There was nothing but his heartbeat striking at his eardrums and sweat drenching his skin. It felt like the day he got bit. A pain that felt infinite, tormenting him.

And then everything went silent. The suffocating air was bearable. The iron prick on his skin was less than molten. He came to his awareness, realizing for a nanosecond that there had been a small hand wrapped around his hand instead of the pole. It was the most relief he had felt in what seemed like hours. He didn’t know how she got here, but he was thankful for the slice of grounding she gave him.

“I’m sorry,” her shaky, yet dulcet voice apologized.

“I- um. It’s okay,” he rasped out. 

Her body occupied the space in front of him, her aroma perforating the air around him. The mixture of cinnamon tea and muted roses and an intoxicating other thing made his head spin. She was a breath of roses soaked in spices, a temporary balm to his lungs. 

The whirl of chaos that ensued made his sight obscured by tunnel vision. Somehow it was a small blessing that past the havoc and anxiety, he was able to drink her in. 

She might’ve been the prettiest thing he had seen since MJ.

Her glossy lips and dilated pupils that screamed yearning was stirring his chest into an explosive device, just waiting to detonate. He wanted to look at her until there was nothing to look at anymore. Till there was nothing more to memorize.

It was beginning to feel something close to love at first sight until his cock twitched.

Peter immediately felt a great sense of mortification. He was ashamed. He adjusted his hand on the pole, attempting to make the slightest of room for her to grab so that she didn’t have to touch a creep. But when she removed her hand from his, he could feel the poison leaking into the air again. He was without her and it was painful.

Her hand clasped onto the pole right below Peter’s, the end of his fist slightly rubbing against her thumb and index finger. Her touch was feather light and he quickly regretted making space for her. His twisted mind wanted to take up as much possible space so that she had no choice but to drape over him. 

Peter was biting the bottom of his lip, a scream of agony swelling in his throat. He was in pain and he wanted her to fix it, though he didn’t know exactly how a stranger could fix this sudden fever.

As if the world could see through Peter, the train came to an abrupt stop causing a slight commotion in the train. There were slight murmurs and shifting of the feet. The displeased groans and the rough noise of metal scrapping and squeaking. But Peter could hardly pay attention to his surroundings. It was all white noise compared to the soft oh that left her velvet lips. On the other hand, fuck was on the precipice of his tongue, the profanity almost being forced out by the sudden contact with her. Her weak grasp on the pole had transcended her stance, causing her to fall into Peter.

Regardless of his discombobulated state, Peter’s spider senses had granted him a hasty reaction. His hand had found her waist in one fast motion as if her body was a sixth sense of his. The understanding of her space and being was a secret language that he was never aware of till now, and he had mastered it in minutes. Maybe it was his heightened sense from the spider bite, but her breath was strained and her heart was in tandem with Peter’s- their pulses far too fast for him to even count. He felt like they were one and the same at that moment. They were two people in an anxious state (if he could call it that) in the same place, at the same time. 

She gasped as her back became flush with Peter’s chest. “Sorry… Again” 

She could have taken it as him helping her regain her balance or to keep her from invading his personal space further, but really he was trying to steer her away from his member. 

“No, I’m sorry.” He said, removing his hand from her. “Didn’t mean to grab you like that.”

Didn’t mean to pop a tent in public is what he really wanted to say. Yes, he didn’t mean to grab her, but he wasn’t actually sorry. He felt no remorse when she felt like that. 

She shook her head, roses further perfuming Peter’s air. 

“It’s not our fault…” She muttered. 

She adjusted herself, attempting to give Peter distance, but failed as the train was at full capacity. He could feel her try to shrink, to remove her ass from his thigh, but she had nowhere else to go. He wanted to repossess her waist and tell her it’s okay. His hand was close to pulling her back in until she was sinking into him completely.

He felt a flurry of emotions, this strange sense of need clawing at his chest for her. His instincts blurred his sensibility and logic. His thoughts weren’t in his possession. They were intrusive and deafening and out of his reach.

He took one sharp inhale to get air, an attempt to be submerged in her field of roses, and the hairs on his neck stood up. He could smell her cunt from this distance and if Peter wasn’t mistaken, she was just as aroused as he was. This felt so sinful to Peter.

Close proximity wasn’t enough. He needed to be in her. 

No. That was wrong. So fucking wrong. He just met her. No, that wasn’t right either. He didn’t meet her. They were just two passengers on a commute home that had no personal interaction. It was just accidents transpiring. An accident to run into her. A mistake to touch her. All a misfortune to his psyche.

But when he looked at her lips, he could swear he could almost taste it. He imagined her cherry-flavored lips adorning his neck, smearing mahogany along his body till he was red all over. Till her lips were wrapped around his…

No, this was so wrong.

And yet she felt so good against him. 

His mind was overflowing with obscenities like water breaking through a dam, something completely out of his control.

She wanted this just as much as he does. How could he explain the arousal dripping between her thighs? If only he could just get closer…

Peter’s head started to hang low. His control was slipping. He felt drunk, acting off of impulse. It was a losing battle of tug-of-war with a horny, roid-raging demi-god cracked out of his goddamn mind at one end and innocent Peter at the other.

His lips felt a magnetic force drawing him to her, the innate desire to drag them along her body consuming him whole. 

Perhaps, she could feel it too, because her gaze had shifted from her feet to Peter, her doe eyes interlocking with his gawking stare. He was drawn to the flutter of her eyelashes and the curious twinkle in her iris. Her pretty little eyes were just tainting his weak mind.

She felt so far away even like this. Inches away and it still wasn’t enough for him. In Peter's mind, her stare was calling out to him like a siren. It’s okay. Touch me. Feel me, she conveyed with her innocent blinks.

There’s something wrong with me, he finalized. 

As she took a hold of his stare, she licked her lips.

It’s the taunting maneuver of the tongue that makes him want to submit to all of the obscene thoughts, but her innocent words that came next shackle him down.

“Are you okay?” She asked, her concern clear on her face.

No, I’m not okay. My heart is going hundreds of miles per minute and I want to fuck you.

God, was this all just so wrong and he knew it.

Beneath his feet, he could feel the brakes rumble beneath the train and prepared to make a break for it before he did something to this innocent woman. He had to force himself out, taking the next stop even if it wasn’t his to take. 

“This is my stop,” he blurted out.

“Oh,” she said, her eyes penetrating through him. 

As her touch detached itself from him, he could feel the ache prickle back up. Fuck.

His focus was collapsing, turning his eyesight into complete mush. His vision blurred just trying to take her in one last time. All of his senses were bursting at the seams and finally gave up, it appeared. It felt like he was malfunctioning. Breaking.

“See ya,” he said absentmindedly, blinking back the fog in a poor attempt to will his vision back to him.

He doesn’t know how he managed to get out, but he does. Instead of her perfume, there’s New York’s signature scent of sewer and trash invading his senses. He can finally breathe, but it doesn’t feel like it as his hands shake and sweat trickles down his face.

There’s a sense of heartbreak when he walks away and he doesn’t know why he yearns for this girl he has no name for. But with the very little control he has, he uses it to propel his feet forward, one after another and didn’t bare to look back. He didn’t know what he would do if he looked back and saw those glassy eyes of hers.

∗ ࣪ ˖༺ 𓆩☆𓆪 ༻˖ ࣪ ∗

After power walking through the city for twenty minutes, he finally reached his dingy apartment. He was profusely sweating and it wasn’t from the trek.

In his own confinement, he immediately wrapped his hand around his aching bulge and tried to find relief, but even after cumming he was left with a guilty conscious and a stubborn hard-on. The worst part was that it didn’t end there.

For the past few days, his intrusive thoughts made him agoraphobic. He didn’t think it was possible for his cock to be the reason for him becoming a complete shut-in, but he also didn’t think it was possible to gain superhero abilities from a spider bite. An ugly rash, maybe, but super strength? Somehow the world kept him on his toes, though unwillingly.

He skipped out on patrol and started using the drop-off option for groceries while he locked himself up in his apartment like a feral animal. It wasn’t right to walk around the city with a raging boner and he wasn’t going to have his mugshot on the Daily Bugle captioned New York’s Newest Perv. He went two full days without leaving, but by Thursday his life as a student had caught up to him. The semester had just started and biochem wasn’t something he could skip out on. Not unless he wanted to go from a hard-earned A to a disappointing B.

During the lecture, he tried really hard to pay attention, but her succulent lips haunted him. 

He was entertaining his dream from last night, a salacious fantasy that kept replaying in his mind. His hands were tied up against the headboard, leaving him completely helpless. No matter how much he pleaded her to stop, she continued to approach him. He shut his eyes until he felt her tongue lap up his precum. By the time he opened them back up, she was bobbing her head up and down on his poor cock for what seemed like hours. When he woke up he was left with cum stained boxers and a pounding heart.

Just imagining it made him hard.

Luckily, his uniform for the time being was an oversized hoodie and sweatpants to hide his looming member. He was past feeling guilty towards the public. If anything this was a medical incident that he couldn’t stop if he tried. His guilt was saved for her.

He attempted to focus on what the professor was saying, but a conversation behind him took the forefront of his hearing. A feminine voice attempted to be discreet, but whispers never got past Peter.

“How much for a couple of ounces?” 

“Jesus, who told you I sell?” Peter recognized the other voice as CJ, someone he had previous classes with, but never talked to.

“Who cares? I got the money,” she said.

CJ scoffed at her pompous remark. “What are you, a narc?” 

“I have a party on Saturday and I promised weed galore.” 

Overhearing the conversation about weed gave him a bright idea that nearly knocked the perma-boner right off of him. Not only was Peter a virgin, but he was also substance free. In spite of that, the prospect of weed sounded exceptional when the excruciating blue balls that he had dealt with for the last seventy-two hours were still going strong.

After class, he shamelessly went up to CJ.

“I heard that you have stuff?” Peter whispered.

“Fuck, you heard that?” CJ laughed.

“Sorry, she was kind of loud,” Peter said modestly. “Can I buy from you?”

“I didn’t know you liked stuff, Peter.”

It was a quick interaction, but it was efficient. They exchanged contacts and scheduled their meet-up for later tonight, being that Peter couldn’t succumb to his cock any longer.

It felt like forever as Peter sank into his bed, waiting for the time to pass by.

Was it possible to crave another person? Every time he closed his eyes, he thought of her. Every time he slept, he dreamt of her. It was a painstaking burden for Peter to have. She changed his whole brain chemistry, igniting this visceral need within him. It was like his body just had to have her. 

He hoped that whatever CJ provided would take his troubles away.

∗ ࣪ ˖༺ 𓆩☆𓆪 ༻˖ ࣪ ∗

“Trying to black out?” The bartender had asked when she requested a long island iced tea.

She shook her head as she handed him the cash she was supposed to use for dinner. She almost didn’t give him the tip after his comment, but her pent-up aggression was out on the world for making her sexually frustrated, not him. Maybe she was trying to black out with the most notorious drink on the menu! Or it was more like she didn’t know what else to order, being that this wasn’t her scene and completely out of her comfort zone.

She sat in the far corner of the space, nursing her potent drink and observing the crowd. Normally people watching was something that she enjoyed and did with ease, but she couldn’t help but wonder what was going on with her. She stopped feeling like herself. She felt mentally out of balance like her consciousness was slipping past her fingers like granules of sand and the fact that she was here was all the verification she needed.

She had never gone to places like this. Bars, clubs, parties. Ever since the whole spider thing, that crowd overstimulated her out of her mind. Hurt too much. Sometimes she even imagined getting out of New York to somewhere quieter.

But there was something pulling her into Pyramid, a flashy bar at first glance, but through the window, she was able to see the lack of young adults. Perhaps, it was that eerie name that made people her age steer clear because it made her want to steer clear from the illuminati-esque name. Yet the irresistible feeling to step in there was present and it wasn’t exactly due to the sign glowing in red that said, GIRLS DRINK FREE ON THU. It flashed brightly, temporarily staining her lids. It didn’t matter what was on the sign. It could have said, SENIORS BINGO NIGHT or ORGY IN PROCESS and she would’ve entered. All that she cared about was that it was an interruption to her sex-crazed mental state, the ruby neon blinding the memory of his large hands on her waist. And for that, they deserved her “service.”

Maybe she did need a drink after the past couple of days. She felt like a puppy in heat. Her skin felt itchy and in the middle of the night, her hand would teleport to the inside of her underwear. She was obsessing over some boy on the train so intensely that it transcended her consciousness, him making a feature in her tantalizing dreams. 

Thinking about the train situation made a chill run up her spine. Just the thought of the throbbing ache from that day brought physical discomfort. 

It was the first time she had left her apartment in days, the overwhelming sense of anxiety and arousal weighing heavy on her chest, and she was spending it at a bar. Initially, she was on a mission to pick up tteokbokki from a neighboring restaurant after realizing she couldn’t DoorDash for a third time today but got distracted by the flashing lights that promised free drinks. She was truly desperate to feel anything other than dread.

Luckily, the atmosphere wasn’t as eerie as its name, but it did feel like she was a part of a secret club with the older crowd fanned out along the tables. It was like only a small set of people in New York knew about this place and that brought it some validity. It was special and it was here, whether she came or not. 

She gulped a couple of ounces down, before placing her cheek in her palm and let her anxiety-ridden knee run free. She felt the alcohol simmer in her body along with the thoughts of the boy on the train that circulated in her mind for the hundredth time today.

∗ ࣪ ˖༺ 𓆩☆𓆪 ༻˖ ࣪ ∗

“Jesus man, you really haven’t gotten any sleep, huh?”

Peter knew he looked bad, but he didn’t think he looked that bad. He was hoping he had that sexy Pete Davidson exhaustion rather than whatever he looked like now, but he was sure Pete Davidson wasn’t governed by his dick like he was.

“Basically,” Peter said before handing CJ the cash. 

The September air was a punch in the stomach, promising a harsh winter in a few months. The back alley where they were doing the exchange was in the perfect position to allow the brisk wind to come and go as it pleased. Peter was glad that the weather had turned from a blistering humidity to a nippy chill, making his thick apparel more than appropriate. Before leaving his apartment, all he could think of was that he should have worn a trench coat to tie the whole sleaze-bag aesthetic together.

“Wanna come in? I can make you a drink, my treat,” CJ smiled warmly, throwing a thumb back to the door that said EMPLOYEES ONLY.

“Ahh you don’t have to do that, I already got everything I wanted,” Peter said, shoving the plastic baggy in his jeans. He felt bad barging on CJ at his place of work, but CJ had been the one to urge Peter over and get his fix. And now that Peter got what he asked for, he just wanted to go home and figure out how to deal with his perma-boner.

“Come on. Best in his class, Peter Parker, spacing out and getting the wrong answers? You sound like you need a drink.” 

“What are you? My dad?” Peter laughed nervously because he didn’t know what else to do with himself. Was it that bad? That his classmate whom he only started talking to for drugs realized his absentmindedness?

He was in no shape to be at a bar right now when he was prone to random boners and heat flashes like a middle-aged woman going through menopause. But when CJ nodded his head to the door and told Peter, come on, his feet followed CJ through the back door.

“Thank you,” Peter said.

“Don’t thank me. Just know that I’m blowing up your phone for biochem questions,” CJ laughed.

Peter didn’t know how to feel about getting scammed into being his weed dealer’s personal google, but at least it didn’t give him a boner. That was a win for Peter.

CJ worked at a small-scale bar, but for a Thursday night, it had a handful of people. It was mostly middle-aged women and senior men, but business was business.

When Peter sat down on the stool to watch CJ he realized that this was his first time in a bar. When you were Peter Parker and Spider-Man on the side, you didn’t have time to enjoy being legal or even a normal young adult. He didn’t know whether to soak it in or shrug his shoulders with nonchalance, but he couldn’t even confront the topic. The air turned hot, impeding his ability to think.

The longer he stayed in the bar, the more he perspired and felt like he was subjugated to poison ivy. It arrived like goosebumps, a faint and chilling sensation, and then the impending irritation to his skin started to flare. He ran his nails across his neck and nearly, yelped at the sensitivity.

He held in an aggravated sigh, feigning normalcy as he could feel a fever forcing its way into him. He wished he had the words to explain what was happening. Was this like a second puberty? Did spiders even experience puberty?

He tried to focus on the various bottles that were behind CJ in hopes of suppressing all of the emerging pain. Bacardi. Pink Whitney. Tito’s. Jack Daniels. Just looking at them made him feel uneasy, despite never having liquor before. It was like mentally reciting the brands was a spell that made him inebriated. Grey Goose. Patron. Hennessey. In Peter’s peripherals, he noticed CJ’s mouth moving.

“Huh?” He said, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

“I said, she’s kinda cute. Don’t you think?”

When Peter looked back to the place where CJ’s eyes lingered, his spike in temperature and overall delirium made sense.

In the back of the bar, there she sat alone. The girl who held his accusations and grief. The girl who fired up the appetite in his loins. His heart was a lost puppy reuniting with its owner. He could feel the pulse in his throat as if his heart was ready to evacuate from its cell. His chest was ready to tear, letting the poor heart of his ravage her.

She looked better than she did in his dreams. He was hardly surprised by the spike in his heartbeat and the twitching of his cock as he skimmed over the black mini skirt riding up her bare thigh. He feasted on the sight of her, perhaps for too long, but CJ didn’t seem to notice.

“Oh. That’s weird,” Peter finally said.

“What?”

“I think I know her…” When he said that, he realized that he was a liar. He didn’t know her. Not really. He knew of her face and of her searing touch that stemmed from his dreams. He knew her in a way that wasn’t good enough for him. He needed more. “I think I’m gonna say hi.”

“Before you do that… Shot of courage, and that drink I promised you,” CJ said, sliding the glasses across the countertop.

“Fuck. Thanks,” Peter gulped at the beckoning alcohol.

Peter looked at the shot glass of amber, then at her, and then at the shot again. Fuck it. He snatched the weighted glass and swallowed the liquid in one go. He felt cinnamon in his sinuses and the swell of tears in his eyes. If he focused too hard he could feel the liquid swish in his belly and the likelihood of him hurling became exponentially high.

“Why does it burn so much?” He said past the coughs. 

“You’ve never had Fireball?” 

Peter grabbed the other drink and pushed himself out of his seat while CJ chuckled. If CJ said anything else, Peter didn’t hear it. He was zoned in on the sting in his chest and the insatiable need to be near her.

Peter felt like his legs were of lead as he made his way to her. If not for the sweating glass in his hand, he would have sprinted to her, but it was filled to the brim and ready to spill. That’s how he felt— A sopping mess trying to keep the equilibrium from going out of wack. He was ready to overflow.

Was it possible to be drunk after one shot? And did being drunk mean he would feel like he was dying? He didn’t know how this worked with his super genes, but the excruciating pain in his groin was festering and a handful of thumbtacks were piercing into him like a cork board. He tried his best to control his breathing, but as the distance between them lessened, his heart frantically shook against his ribcage.

Once he was within reach of her, he swore he could feel the alcohol leaking out from his pores. A small piece of him was shaking, questioning, now what?

Now, you take her, said a divine intervention. She reached out for her half-filled cup, and his instincts overpowered him. He finally took in her wrist, relieving him but only partially. It was an ice cube to the palm while his whole body was covered in lava, leaving him charred and ready to turn into ash under her command.

It felt good until he realized she was real and palpable. Someone with personal space and boundaries. Someone that was a complete stranger to him. “Fuck, I’m sorry.” 

Her eyebrows knit under confusion until she recognized him. The short-lived fear was replaced with a sheen of wonder. “Oh, it’s you.”

“It’s me,” he said almost breathless.

Her wrist was lost in ownership. It was clearly connected to her and yet it felt like it belonged to him entirely. She felt like velvet. He wondered if her skin felt like this everywhere.

When he came back to his senses, he finally let go, but there was a piece of him that was yelling at him to take it back as if it really belonged to him. “I’m sorry for grabbing you,” he said as he watched her hand slink back into her possession. Just barely, he noticed the way that her other hand touched the spot he grabbed before placing them below the table. His throat felt dry as her eyes sank into him. 

“Again,” she deadpanned.

 “Again,” he repeated. The tips of his ears were warm with shame.“I swear I’m not following you-”

“I know,” she interrupted with a faint smile. “What’s that?” 

Peter looked at the drink in question. He hadn’t really looked at it before until now, being that all of his focus was on her. The liquid was a red-to-tangerine gradient with an orange wedge on the rim. In truth, he couldn’t even make an educated guess. “I don’t really know.”

“Can I?” 

He passed her the drink, grazing her hand in the process. The contact caused a rush of adrenaline to surge through him, the hairs on his neck rising and his throat left dry. 

His lips parted as he watched her take the straw between her lips. In his dreams, her lips were sangria stained, but now at this moment, her lips were more of a subtle rose and flesh. His jaw clenched at the sight.

“I also don’t know.” She smacked her lips before tilting her head in curiosity. “Not a big drinker.”

“Me neither.”

“Did you try it?” He shook his head no. "Chug it, so it’ll be gone faster. That’s what I do.”

“I don’t know if I can,” he laughed nervously.

“Here. I’ll do it with you,” she flashed a tender smile while reaching for her cup.

When she brought the rim to her lips, her eyes flicked open to glance at him, as if to say, well?

Before he knew it, his hands were wrapped around his cup and downing the liquid like he was under her control. 

He finished before her. It tasted like a tropical vacation with an electric punch. His body wanted to recoil at the prominent taste of alcohol. Not even the assumed pineapple could neutralize its potency, but when he saw her his spine went stiff. She swallowed her marigold-colored drink and a teaspoon trickled down from the corner of her mouth to her neck. The drop got lost in her midnight grey sweater, either soaked up by the knit or running down her skin. There was nothing more he wanted to be than that drop of liquid running down her body, pressing kisses from her jaw to her chest. 

She wiped her mouth with her thumb in a fist and her glazed-over stare sucked him in. Their eyes locked and it felt infinite.

Masochist had suddenly become a word to describe Peter. In amidst the inexplicable pain at the tip of his fingertips and torturous anxiety, there was her. And everything was clear. It felt like staring at the sun in the middle of July, basking in a sweltering heat with no care for his sight— the only importance was that he was to look at her no matter the cost. 

He wanted to peel her open like an orange, tasting the nectar from her flesh. The taste of her would revive him. He could feel it in his bones. She was the ambrosia he thirsted for, the remedy to all of his problems. The joint in his pocket was nothing compared to her. He knew then and there, he would devote himself to her if she let him. 

Peter found himself drawn to the golden pendant around her neck and meditated on the fluctuation in her chest and her fragmented breaths before his eyes wandered back to her pretty face.

He took in her brightness, the way she twinkled. The shimmer in her lips and the mischievousness in her stare. There were glistening remnants of the liquid on the corner of her mouth. It was like every part of her was teasing him with each glimmer and wink.

Cautiously, he slowly brought his hand up to her face, giving her the opportunity to slap his hand away or yell at him. Instead, her mouth became agape releasing a sigh when Peter swiped his thumb against the edge of her mouth.

He opened his mouth to say something witty or beg for forgiveness, whichever came first, but she pushed herself out of the chair and stood up before he could even try.

“I’ll be right back,” she blurted out and didn’t wait for a response. She headed for the hallway past the bar counter, her strides long and quick. Peter could hear a voice in his head scream at him to follow her, and after the past few days that he had to endure, Peter’s mental strength was little to nothing. He hurried after, the fear of her leaving him heavy on his stomach.

He went down the hall and watched as she disappeared into the bathroom. His knuckles tapped against the green door. “Hey? Are you okay?”

He waited for an answer. Nothing.

“I’m sorry, I grabbed you,” he professed as he chewed on his cheek. If she could she read his mind, then he was fucked. He was already fucked, but he would be even more so. Making her uncomfortable was the last thing he wanted, but he couldn’t stop the images of all the positions he wanted to fuck her in and the thought of how she would sound as he railed her to the brink of ascension. He really tried, but he couldn’t and that’s how he ended up here. To find the cure to his perpetual arousal. Not to make her uncomfortable. “I’ll just go, I’m really sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

As he was about to turn on his heels, the sounds of feet shuffling and a click of a lock paralyzed him. Amongst that, he could hear two heartbeats. One was heavily sedated, leisurely pumping blood like it was a hard thing. Skipping along his ribs. Running off of anticipation. Patiently waiting. In contrast, the other was untamed and wild. A beast trying to get out of its cage at all costs.

The strange thing was he couldn’t decipher which one was his as the empty air around him suffocated him.

When she opened the door, he felt like he was seeing her for the first time again.

Under the dim light, she looked glowing as if there was a radiance within her. The subtlety of the golden hue would make a normal person look sickly, but as it caressed her cheek and deemed her desirable, she looked like a star. A delight to Peter’s irregular heartbeats. 

“Now, you’re following me,” she said glaring past Peter like a ghost.

“I- Yeah. I wanted to make sure you were okay.” He admitted earnestly.

“I’m anything but.”

Peter’s worries were festering as he watched her body language express her clear hate for this situation he put her in. Her attention had found her feet and cemented itself there, and it took everything for him to not grab her face and beg to look at him. If her eyes weren’t on him, he wasn’t breathing, and if her hands weren’t on him, he wasn’t living. Being without her was painful. He knew that since the first day he saw her. “Did I do something?” 

“Not exactly,” she murmured.

As he observed the painful expression on her face, he noticed the quiver of her bottom lip. She fidgeted with trembling fingers and he swore she was about to cry. He felt like he was transported to that day on the train, watching her hands uncontrollably shake. He wanted to take them in his own shaking hands and kiss each fingertip till she felt better.

“I know you don't know me but you can tell me,” he practically begged. Peter needed her to tell him, then he would know whether she thought of him as a creep or not. He was ready to leave and never see her again if that was what she wished for, despite the yearning his body felt for her that he was yet to understand. He was prepared to undergo psychiatric treatment and go as far as requesting a lobotomy because he was sure there was no cure for his neurosis.

She couldn’t help but to laugh past the approaching tears. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.” She went to rub the rogue tear on her cheek, but Peter was taking a hold of her wrist again.

“What happened?” He said.

Her palms were blemished with indentations from her fingernails, so deep that the affected skin was a garnet hue. This was the fourth time he touched her like she was his property, and he was ready for terror or annoyance to appear on her face, but it never comes. Her eyes sparkled with tears and longing.

“I feel like I’m going insane,” she laughed, but her eyes begged for compassion. “I think I’m being burned from the inside out or something.”

Her words swam in his belly. The preciseness of it slicing through him. That’s all he had felt for days and that’s how he felt now. He released her wrist and placed his palm on her forehead, feeling the radiating heat. “You just might be.”

She shut her eyes, basking in his touch, her chest elevating and cascading. “I think I’m sick.”

“We should get you to a hospital,” he whispered.

“That’s not it...” She trailed off. “I just…”

“Tylenol? Nyquil? You name it and I’ll get it,” he said softly, afraid that if his voice was anything less than a whisper, she would run away like a frightened rabbit.

She studied him, her mind the battleground for whether she could disclose her truth to him or not. She licked her lips before speaking. “I’ve been wanting to fuck you since Monday. So bad, it hurts.” 

“Then, fuck me.”

The words hung in the air thick and harsh. Peter heard the words, but it never occurred to him that the words came from his mouth. 

For a moment, all they do is stand in the door frame with fervent eyes, waiting for the other to make a move. The static between them was sharp and beckoning. There was the same anxiety-ridden fever crawling on his back, extracting every liquid particle in him leaving him high and dry. Peter felt like he was drowning in fire, his body itching to move off of pure instinct and find relief.  He was hungry for her and she was giving him the green light, but he didn’t know if she knew what he would do to her. What he was capable of. His jaw clenched so hard he thought it would shatter at any second. 

But then he could feel her breath of sweet tea fan over his jawline as she looked up at him and within milliseconds he was like a shark, a single drop of blood enough to seize him. 

Peter’s body propelled him forward and took her lips into his. 

It consumed him— the way she tasted and felt against him. She was sweeter than he expected. More velvet than soft. Her body sank into him and he absorbed her, taking every piece of her that he could.

There’s a certain expression that came across his mind— the feeling you get when you kiss someone for the first time and sparks fly. Except Peter felt more than sparks. It was like his whole body was a human shield for a firecracker, firey shrapnel cutting into him all the while his body undergoes first-degree burns. It seemed that she felt the same way, her body jolting at his touch.

He thought it was just a saying, not this real, tangible ache in his skin and drunkenness weighing heavy on his chest. It was just a heady kiss, but it felt like his neurons were snapping into place, the taste of her perfecting his genetic alphabet. The excruciating pricks on his skin and the overall mental torture that he had experienced since Monday had muffled as he melted into her, and he then experienced a new pain. The pain of hunger and thirst.

“Close the door,” he rasped. 

They tore each other apart within a moment’s notice, staggering against each other to enter the single bathroom. Peter locked the door with a free hand as the other gripped her waist.

The hunger for her was clear since day one, but now that he had a taste, a switch in him flipped. He surpassed the ache of hunger and it evolved into starvation. He had this animalistic instinct to have her, something so ferocious that he couldn’t deny it any longer. There was nothing that could stop him from getting his fix.

They were stumbling to find their balance like they were both forces to be reckoned with, seeing who can touch the other more. Peter was completely enraptured with her, kissing until his lips were swollen and her throat bruised. He was forceful, slamming her back against the wall, a gasp being pushed out of her. 

Peter was wild and merciless as if he would never have this opportunity again. And as much as his brain begged him to take his time and explore her, his hands were relentless. He took a handful of her ass and ushered her body closer to him. Her flesh was like perfect dough in his hands, something he could knead and caress for hours.

His senses were overtaken by her. It was a symphony, everything perfectly orchestrated for Peter’s gratification. One palm held her steady at the small arch of her back while the other gripped onto the back of her thigh, opening herself to his grinding bulge. The whimpers and the wetness of her kisses crawled into his ears and made a home in his brain, as he sucked the salt off her neck. He breathed her in, hungry eyes observing his sweet lamb.

Her lips abruptly abandoned him, drawing him awake from his drunken state. His hazy eyes followed her, waiting for their lips to interlock again. Instead, her lips attached to the soft part of his neck, coaxing a rough groan from his mouth. She pressed chaste kisses against his neck, each peck a bucket of water to a wildfire.

He closed his eyes, relishing the feeling of her tongue swirling against the nape of his neck. His head hung back in pleasure as she nipped at his earlobe and a fuck left his mouth from the maneuver. His hands squeezed at her waist, seeking any piece of relief for his fractured breaths.

He brought her face to his again, finally lapping that syrupy taste of hers. He inhaled her, devoured her. She was all he dreamt of and now he was sticking his tongue in her mouth and caressing her thighs.

“Touch me, please,” she mewled helplessly, guiding his hand to her underwear.

As he felt the damp fabric, his heart twisted with awe. ‘Fuck…” He dragged his thumb along her covered bud and anticipated her body language. Her hips buckled at his ministrations, giving him the confidence to go farther. Peter pulled her panties to the side with his pinky and trailed his middle finger along her slit, the pool of slick at her entrance saturating his fingertip. Inch by inch he slowly buried his longest finger in. 

It was his first time touching a girl like this, he didn’t know whether to be delicate or rough. His fingers moved gingerly in her, reaching for the antidote in her. She was sighing profanities like an incantation, her breath like magic coursing into him, making the neediness swell.  He could feel her pulse around his finger, the warm slickness glazing his knuckles. 

Touching her was like touching heaven. A sliver of mercy.

Peter pressed his forehead against hers, intensely watching her move under his command. He slipped another finger in. A line formed between her eyebrows and her mouth hung slightly, her face contorting from the rapture as he stretched her needy cunt. She sucked him in, all the way to his knuckles, and he began to pump them in and out. Each withdrawal of his fingers awarded him with desperate whimpers and each insertion gave him a sigh of relief.

“I want to try something,” she whispered, flirtatiously licking her lips. She took the hand that was fucking her and guided it back to her face, taking his coated fingers into her mouth. Her tongue swirled around his fingers, sweeping them clean.

Peter’s eyes stalked her in anticipation, and when she got on her knees and started tugging at his waistband, he thought he was going to die. “God, you’re not really going to do that, are you?” 

“You don’t want me to?” She purred.

She pulled out his dick that was tucked behind his waistband, a trail of precum shining under the low light. She began to palm his sensitive cock, her lazy grip enough to make him groan. Her thumb dragged along his tip, rubbing his precum around the head.

“Oh, it’s more than I want, but you don’t have to- Oh, fuck.” 

She eagerly took his whole cock into her mouth without any warning. Her head bobbed enthusiastically, her nose grazing his lower abdomen each time she pushed his cock to the hilt of her throat. It was a sensation Peter had never felt before, and he was addicted. She really was going to be the death of him.

The impulse to kneel and praise her was as strong as his hunger to ruin her. He took a handful of her hair and held it to the base of her head to ground him, to keep him strong. To keep him from not falling to his knees and profess a misplaced love for her. He couldn’t thank God for this, it was all her. 

Before he knew it, his mouth was hanging open and his ejaculation was overflowing in her mouth. She swallowed his load enthusiastically, pulling a guttural moan from him while she kept sucking. 

When he couldn’t handle the overwhelming work of her tongue, he pulled her back with her hair causing her to release his cock with a pop and whimper to follow. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cum so quick,” he said panting.

She dragged her tongue along her bottom lip to remove the sheen of white. “You can make it up to me by fucking me.” 

Peter pulled off his sweatshirt and placed it onto the plastic bench that was directly across from the sink and mirror, coincidentally the perfect spot to watch her take his virginity. “Condom in my wallet,” he said, reaching for the leather wallet in his sweats.

“We don’t have time for that,” she muttered as she nudged his chest for him to sit down.“I want you, now.”

He pulled his cock out and rubbed his length, feeling her saliva along the base. “Are you sure?” 

She saddled up on him, her hands resting on his shoulder. “I’m on the pill and if you don’t put your cock in me right now, I swear- Fuck!” Her voice had shattered along with her brattiness by the head of his dick.

“What were you saying?” He groaned at the feeling of her soft spongy walls.

She sighed as she slowly sank onto his thick member. “Nothing…” 

Peter was immobilized, letting her use him as she saw fit. Once he was balls deep she steadily shifted her weight, beginning to move her hips.

It didn’t take much time until she was riding him to her heart's content, and the sight was so terribly obscene. He held her skirt up with his hands glued to her waist and watched as his cock would repeatedly disappear as her hips buckled. He nuzzled into her shoulder, eyes mesmerized by the view in the mirror. 

Peter heard it felt good and knew it looked good but he didn’t know sex was going to feel this electric. It felt better than he imagined. He had a harder time keeping his focus on the mirror than he thought he would, the rhythmic moving of her hips stirring him distracted. She gyrated her hips, ensuring that Peter had marked every wall and every flesh of her pussy. The pleasure sutured his eyes shut tight. It felt like he was dreaming. He must have been dreaming, that was the only way he could explain this.

Peter gripped onto the soft flesh on her hips, holding on like it was a lifeline. He gritted his teeth, drawing blood from the inside of his cheek in the process. Peter couldn’t move in fear that once he started rocking into her, he couldn’t stop. He feared he wouldn’t be able to control his strength. He let her use his cock, milking it with her tight hole.

She leaned back, giving Peter a better view of her wet cunt, and she started to rub her clit as she moved up and down on him. “Fuck, you’re beautiful,” Peter groaned, his hands rolling her sweater up to reveal her bare chest. He watched as her breast recoiled before taking them into his hands and guiding them into his mouth. He marked her with hickeys along the inner side of her breast as she used him for her self-gratification.

“Harder,” she whimpered, the sound traveling down his throat like cough syrup.

“I-I can’t,” he stuttered. He was in agony. He really wanted to, but he knew himself well enough to know that he could tear her apart. He ground his teeth together, the muscles of his jaw straining at the tiring tension. “Don’t want to hurt you.”

“I like it rough,” she whispered with a pleading voice.

At that moment he evaporated into the core of man. He encased her waist in the constraints of his muscular arms and held her down as he began to ram himself into her. If she liked it rough, she was going to get it rough, whether she could handle it or not. He warned her.

The particles of Peter Parker and Spider-man had simmered into the air becoming one big nothing and all he was, was a pair of hands and a devouring tongue. His primal instincts that begged for authority had finally swallowed the grip of judgment. This wasn’t his first time and this wasn’t a stranger. This was another meal that caused no interrogation. It was the most normal thing for Peter to drill her full of his cock, going balls deep.

He couldn’t think about if he was adequate enough for her or how this was his first time. And it never crossed his mind that he was losing his virginity in the bathroom of the first bar he ever went to and he definitely couldn’t pay any mind to how conspicuous her moans were. He didn’t because he couldn’t. Nothing mattered when her lips were on him, stamping purple bruises on his neck.

“Just. Like. That,” she gasped between breaths. Her hand roamed around his back, nails digging deep. He thought that his back would end up looking like her palms, etched red with her distraught.

Her desperate cries and the rapid sound of fapping bounced off the walls, echoing through his body. His eyes were gaping, watching with such intensity as her folds enveloped him. It was like something out of a porno, this girl in heat just falling right into his corrupted hands. With her short skirt hiked up to her waist and her desperate rosy expression, she seemed like she was made for this. 

He was masochistic and a narcissist and perverted in all the worst ways and it was all her fault. She ruined him with her begging eyes and burning touch so he ruined her back, fucking her till she could see stars. Railed her till she couldn’t walk.

“Yes, fuck me dumb!” she cried at his brutal pace. 

He stood up with her legs still wrapped around him and let gravity force her down deeper onto his cock. “Fuck!” She slapped her hand over her mouth, stifling her incoherent babbles.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” He whispered with a smug grin. “Fuck you dumb?”

He used her like a slot that had no purpose but to be filled up, cruelly ramming himself in and out of her. Moments ago, he was aware of how frail she was under his hands, but now he was remorseless, unable to care if he broke her or not.

He fucked her like there was a knot in her belly, each pump to the hilt an attempt to loosen it. Each thrust a step closer to his climax.

Peter could feel the tears fall onto his back as she cried into her hand. Her stifled moans traveled through his marrow, vibrating within the depths of him. He savored her velvet walls and the way she opened up so well for him. She had him reduced to nothing but a man with innate needs. His want for her had burned in the back of his eyelids. His hands seared into her body to satiate his desires for her. 

The collision was a mess from the start, he should have seen this coming. The train incident was like seeing smoke diffusing in the sky amongst layers of mountains and he looked the other way, ignoring the omen. And now he was in the heart of the firestorm, a blistering pain that felt so good. It was a rebirth through the means of a flame, one that Peter didn’t run away from anymore.

Somehow he wanted to reach deeper, feel the parts of her that no one else had. He bottomed out and rolled himself into her, his groin putting pressure on her clit, and sucked on her neck.

“Oh, if you keep doing that…” She trailed off feverishly, buckling her hips before breaking out into a trembling fit.

He could feel her pussy convulse on his cock, her hips winding through the coil. He didn’t think he could wrap his arms around her any tighter, but he does, squeezing the orgasm and air out of her. Peter could feel his own heatwave roll into him. 

“I’m cumming,” he groaned, mercilessly winding himself into her. As he shut his eyes and he could see stars much like the ones in her eyes. He buried his face into her shoulder, attempting to have more of her. His second orgasm surged through him like a flash of lightning, fast and sharp. He could feel his milk fill her up, saturating her walls.

As he stood there with her in his arms, trying to catch his breath, he could hear their hearts racing in tandem and her soft pants. He could hear the way her lungs filled and collapsed. He wondered if her lungs were filled with him like he was with her. His lungs were overfilled with the roses on her wrist and the salt on her skin and all of her breaths since that first day on the train. He was like a generator running off of this girl that he strangely, yet desperately needed. 

The flame slowly dwindled down, his pace slowing down until it was nothing. The smoke had let up and the fog fully dispersed through his body, and that’s when he could feel it. The visceral realization of the gravity of this beautiful little thing in his arms. It was clear and frightening all at once. The way the needles in the air disappeared and the sudden clarity in his mind. She fixed him and yet he felt it in his chest that he wasn’t done with her. She had burned herself into him, a permanent tattoo on his chest with her handprints seared onto the flesh of his ribs.

With his eyes closed there were flashes of a picnic amongst a rose garden and the tender waves of the sea and a timid bonfire at dusk. When he opened them, the vivid images were still there, but with another image of her now weary, yet ever so twinkling eyes.

For the first time he hoped he would dream of them.

want more? here’s my most recent one shot: moon river (tasm! bf peter)

a/n: planned for this to be a one shot, but we’ll probably see peter and silk again if this does well heheh xoxoxo as always, thank you for the support! keeps me motivated to keep writing! <3 mommy

reblog and comment for more xx

#peter parker x reader #peter parker smut #peter parker imagine #peter parker oneshot #peter parker x you #mcu peter parker

[paperbackribs]

I AM HERE FOR THE WIP THINGY FOR “Timetravel Steddie”!!!! ♥️

he he he so timetravel steddie in my wip folder is Copper Boy, but I like not having a proper name for it as I work on it, I suppose? if it’s less official then I’m more likely to write because I’m less intimidated. But I’m having such a blast with this fic that I have to thank you, Finn, for asking, because I. am. desperate. to share more. 😂

Warning: not exactly spoilers of Copper Boy since we know the endgame is steddie, but the snippet is from a chapter still weeks away from posting.

“This is nice,” he admits.

It's peaceful amongst the maple and birch trees with the dappled light rippling playfully across the forest floor. Steve points to a puddle at the base of a bare blackberry bush; a small blue jay dips its head in and out of the water, vigorously shaking with spray erupting from around its body. It’s adorable and Eddie smiles.

Steve squeezes his hand and leads him onwards, “I always wanted to share it with you.” He pauses, “That sounds weird, doesn’t it? Like this is my woods, even though it’s your backyard.”

“No,” Eddie shakes his head gently, “My closest connection to nature is the bench I deal at. I like the idea of it all in theory, but I usually end up with my pants full of ants and bitten to all hell by mosquitoes. I’ve also been known to trip on air, so a woodland ground littered with sticks and rocks is bound to take me down eventually.”

Steve laughs, pulling a vibrant green leaf off a birch tree to fiddle with it in his free hand. “Like the time you rammed nose first into the gym wall?”

Eddie gapes. “You saw that? No one saw that.”

“It was a bit hard to miss, Eddie,” Steve says wryly. “You had bright red blood streaming down your face. To be honest, I was going to offer to take you to the nurse’s office, but you ran out so fast that I left you to it.

A blush of embarrassment spreads across his face, “So everyone saw that.”

Steve draws Eddie to a stop, brushing a knuckle down his hot cheeks, “No, I’m pretty sure that I was the only one looking.”

Eddie searches Steve’s eyes, finding affection and a touch of heat that causes the back of his neck to prickle. “Yeah, like something you see?”

Steve steps forward, which makes Eddie inexplicably feel the need to move back. He retreats a fraction and Steve’s eyes narrow. “Eddie,” he says prowling closer and Eddie backs away with a larger movement.

“Yeah, Steve?” Eddie asks breathlessly, feeling his body tense, muscles almost quivering with the tension filling them.

“You have ten seconds,” Steve says deeply, his words a rumble Eddie can almost feel in his chest. Electric tension crackles in the air, sparking the pounding of Eddie’s heartbeat, each thud growing louder, faster, and more insistent. He stands frozen in the mounting pressure until Steve starts to count.

“Nine, eight…”

The dam breaks and Eddie darts away, the tall trees that surround them blurring as a surge of adrenalin propels his legs across the ground with reckless speed. He can’t hear anything over the pulse pounding in his head, but he imagines the heavy tread of Steve’s steps behind him, a powerful thumping that matches the heat in his blood.

Steve’s breath pants into Eddie’s hair making Eddies fingers and toes curl, “Got you.”

The thrill of pursuit fizzes through him, filling Eddie with a radiant exultation, laughter breathlessly spilling from his open mouth. His flight is dizzying anticipation and playful freedom.

Just as Eddie giddily thinks that perhaps he is too fast, even for Steve, he is tackled from behind; Steve wrapping a quick arm around his middle, the strong band redirecting his flight forward to spin him around in mid-air and back down onto the ground again.

Eddie wiggles like he’s trying to get away, causing Steve to laugh breathlessly. “None of that,” he commands, spinning Eddie to back him up against a broad tree trunk. Strands of Steve’s bronze hair has fallen over his face, his cheeks ruddy with exertion, and excitement high in his expression. Eddie wants to lick him all over.

“You still trying to get away from me, huh?” Steve says, voice dropping to gravel as he runs his eyes over Eddie’s panting mouth and heaving chest.

“Why? Worried you can’t catch me?” Eddie lightly taunts.

Steve’s eyes turn dark, the hint of heat in his gaze flickering higher, reaching the heights of wildfire. Eddie shivers in the thrill of prey tempting predator that crackles through his body. The tension only twists tighter as Steve leans in with slow deliberation, he draws the tip of his strong nose firmly across Eddie’s cheek, his breath hot in Eddie’s ear, “I think I’d always be able to find you, Eddie. No matter where you are.”

#steve likes control and eddie likes to hand it over to him #steddie #a tarnished copper boy #eddie munson #steve harrington #stranger things

[i-bring-crack]

*pulls put the fanfic idea list*

y/n, who can heal people with their blood when they drink it, like a reverse vampire or something,,, also faces health risks due to the increase in blood cells, which can lead to strokes or tissue and organ damage. symptoms include fatigue, weakness, headaches, dizziness, shortness of breath, visual disturbances, nosebleeds, bleeding gums, and bruising. to manage this, y/n often needs to let their blood into a bag or slice their arm.

do you think Jinwoo would just let one of the ants gnaw on y/n's arm when thwy run out of bloodbags? because i'd honestly be too lazy to clean up the blood on the floor-- let the ants drink my blood instead

Girl i think your Y/N has become a reverse mosquito.

A flashy reverse mosquito. woul the blood have properties that attract others? Does the bloood taste good or is it like,bad cough medicine. wait no that actually tastes sweet for me. like rust blood then. (idk why or i anyone else has expirienced this but like when I get scratched and i tried to lick my blood it tastes quite normal. is it like a reaction thing and would that work the same on Y/N like if someone is hurt the blood ould just taste normalerrrr.

Are mosquitos ants with wings?

haha YN loking like a deprived victorian.

also I think we invented faster ways to drain blood than just slicing your arm. Like. Needles

[bambiraptorx]

Since today's the anniversary of Minor Interference, I thought it would be fun to post the prologue that I wrote for it. It's not actually super connected to the fic itself, which is why I ended up cutting it, but it's still the first thing I wrote for Rise. So it's kinda fun.

content warning: alcohol mention

---

Draxum needs a drink.  

Preferably something strong enough to make him forget the bruises all over his body, the raging headache– although that should probably discourage him from drinking– and the distinct lack of a laboratory around him.

He takes a look around, thoroughly exhausted from digging himself out of the wreckage of what used to be his ceiling.  Yep, the lab is still in ruins.  The walls are partially caved in around him, his equipment destroyed, the cave roof visible above him since his actual roof has collapsed.  Another decade’s worth of work destroyed in a matter of minutes, this time by five completely untrained fighters.  

Draxum sits in the devastation.  

He looks at his hands, covered in scratches and nails blunted from scraping at the stone that had pinned him to the ground.  He wonders if whiskey would be strong enough.  It's been a few decades since he's had alcohol.

He squints in the darkness.  Where are his gargoyles?  Also, where are his mosquitoes?  There were thousands of them, surely they can't all have been destroyed.  There has to be something left this time—he can't be so unlucky as to have lost everything again.  A second time is too much.

There's a flapping sound in the darkness.  He can't tell exactly where it's coming from, his ears are ringing too much.  He doesn't remember when they started ringing.

Whump!

...Something just hit him in the face.  His headache grows exponentially in a matter of seconds, now feeling like one of his seeds is growing in his skull and trying its best to break out.  The headache had just begun to recede too.  He groans, leaning forward and putting his head in his scraped-up hands, suddenly desperate to relieve the pressure behind his eyes.

"Wha- boss?  Boss!  Huginn, he's over here!"

"Quiet," Draxum hisses, more in response to the pain the noise causes than as an actual order.  Muninn appears to understand more than Draxum says, immediately going silent and settling on Draxum's shoulder.  The uneven weight grounds him somewhat.  He takes a breath, inhaling dust and the acrid scent of mutagen.  His head rings, a spell of dizziness washing over him.  He may not be entirely lucid at the moment.  That would explain a lot.

"Boss, finally!" Huginn speaks somewhere between a shout and a shriek, once again aggravating Draxum's headache.  He winces and closes his eyes, as if trying retroactively to shut out the noise.

"Shush, man! He's concussed!" whispers Muninn.  Draxum hadn't considered that possibility, but it would also explain a lot.  He probably can't get that whiskey then.  Alcohol is bad for concussions.  Not only is his lab destroyed, himself injured, and his life’s work once again completely demolished, but he can't even down a beer to deal with it.  Embarrassingly, moisture gathers in his eyes.

It's fine, really.  He's never even liked alcoholic drinks.  He'd just been looking forward to that drink.

It was the only thing he'd had left to look forward to.

Huginn settles down on Draxum's unoccupied shoulder, curling up into a ball and awkwardly pressing his head against the Baron's neck.  It's meant to be comforting, Draxum realizes.  After a moment, Muninn does the same on the other side.

The three of them sit for a while like that.

After a few minutes, Muninn stretches.  "It's too bad the turtles got away," he remarks.

Draxum starts.  The turtles.  How could he have forgotten about them?  He moves his hands to his sides, bracing himself to stand.

"Uh, boss, are you sure that's a good idea—"

Draxum gets to his feet, wobbling slightly.  Pain shoots up his left ankle.  Apparently having a ceiling fall on him has caused more than one injury.  Unimportant.  If the turtles have not only survived, but escaped, perhaps his mosquitoes did as well.

He limps towards his control panel, the gargoyles lifting off his shoulders and hovering after his first three steps.  Silently, he hopes for a force greater than himself and prays that it would allow his panel to be intact.  Its screen is cracked.  He presses the power button, and it turns on.  Small mercies.

He opens the program that visualizes the tracking spell he placed on the mosquitoes, and stares.  There, the rounded shape filled with blues and purples, shows a topographical map of the hidden city.  The miniscule red dots representing his mosquitoes are spread out over an area much larger than that, well past the walls of the city caverns.  That's only possible if the insects are on the surface.

He snorts in disbelief.  The snort gives way to a full-blown laugh, which quickly cuts itself off as Draxum discovers his bruised ribs.  He wheezes painfully, gazing with wonder at the dots on his screen.

"It worked.  It actually worked."

His people are closer to freedom now than they have been in thousands of years.  His decades of work haven't been wasted after all.  His plan might just succeed.

He collapses to the floor as his ankle suddenly gives out underneath him.  The goyles swarm around him in concern.  Draxum sighs.

"I should probably get to a hospital."

#bambi's rambling #rottmnt #rottmnt au #rottmnt baron draxum #rottmnt huginn #rottmnt muninn #huginn and muninn #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt fanfiction #my writing #alcohol mention #there's something really funny about my first rise fic being about draxum wanting a drink after his lab blows up lol #also it feels really weird sharing this because like. its not bad. but its also definitely not how i would write this now