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messrmoonyy · 11 months

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And she would rescue me

Tess Servopoulos x Fem!reader

Summary- Tess doesn’t know why she stopped to help you. She doesn’t know why she thought bringing into the QZ was a good idea either. But now you’re in her apartment and she’ll be damned if she’s about to let you die. Snippets of the days you spend with her

A/N- this came to me so randomly in the middle of getting extremely frustrated over a request I couldn’t get my mind to wrap around, and I smashed out a few thousand words and decided I loved it. I feel like there’s a lot of injured reader x Joel fics but not enough Tess ones. So here’s my spin on it.

Warnings- 18+ || light discussion of injuries, I think this is sliigghttllyyy ooc tess, tess realising she can actually let someone in, tess learning to trust tbh, smut towards the end( it isn’t as detailed as usual cause Lord this OS is long I had to chop things out ) : oral ( reader receiving ) , fingering ( tess receiving), tess gets a little panicked during one part of the smut but she’s totally okay, can I get a hell yeah for tess being vulnerable?!

Word count- 13k only proof read once

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Reblogs and comments are always appreciated/ encouraged <3

She didn’t really know why she’d done it. Why she hadn’t just… kept walking. Minded her own fucking business and gone home. But how could she? She still had some kind of humanity left in her, enough that meant she wouldn’t just walk past a girl dying.

Which, when she thought about it, was almost laughable. She’d left her fair share of people dying, most of them dying because of her own actions. So. Clearly her humanity liked to pick and choose its moments. And maybe if this scenario had happened 10 more years into the apocalypse, she would have left you there.

But it hadn’t. The world was still yet to rip the final shreds of humanity out of her.

You had been in a heap at the bottom of a slope, where the concrete of the road had been bombed and now created a jagged rocky mess. She’d thought you were dead at first. No one really ever survived outside the wall on their own, so it wasn’t wrong of her to assume. And if she was truly honest she thought that checking on you was worth it, even if you were dead because you might actually have something decent on you.

Well that’s what she’d told Joel anyway. Her and Joel were close, ridiculously close. They knew each other inside and out but she always noticed she had held onto a little more of her humanity of the years where as he seemed to have buried his deeply away. She was the one that still had a tiny candle flickering in her chest, a warmth that allowed her to hope and care. Even if some days she did feel like snuffing it out. No matter how twisted and dark her mind had become over the years, she still had some light trapped in there.

And so even with Joel’s complaints she had gone over to you. Using the excuse of simply hoping to pull something useful from the corpse. But no. You’d been alive. Barely it seemed. But alive.

Firstly she’d checked you over for any sign of a bite, carefully pushing at you and moving your clothes for any sign of fungus crawling through your veins. Last thing she wanted was another infected crawling around out there, as if their journeys out of the city weren’t difficult enough as it was. So she checked, ready to shoot you in the head if she found even a single sign of a mushroom. And when she’d found none… she’d stood up to leave. You had nothing on you. Even your clothes were fucked. Nothing worth her time. You’d be dead soon and just another body littering the streets. She should just go home and get out of the rain.

But she found herself unable to move. Even when Joel chastised her for wasting time when he just wanted to get back inside the wall and drink himself to sleep.

“ I am not taking some damn girl back inside the wall “ he hissed “ This isn’t you Tess “

“ she’s dying Joel “

“ and so let her die. People die every goddamn day. Including us if we get caught tryna smuggle some girl through the wall. And what’re you gonna do when you get back? What if she dies anyway huh? “

She’d looked down at you again, debating listening to him. If you did die on the way back she’d be stuck with the task of trying to dispose of a dead body. Which she had done plenty of times before but, if they found you without any records of ever being accepted into the QZ? That could cause some problems.

But you were still alive. Somehow. Somehow you had managed to survive out there, and from the flaking dried blood on your face you’d been there a while. You were strong. She liked that.

Joel was wrapped around her finger so even with his protesting it didn’t surprise her that she’d managed to talk him round.

The real surprise was that they’d managed to get back inside the wall, through the tunnels and into her apartment unnoticed. Joel unceremoniously dumping you down on her bed and leaving with muttered curses under his breath that he wasn’t gonna help if she got caught. Which was bullshit. Of course he would.

That had been 2 days ago.

You were still where Joel had left you, but she made you more comfortable. Changed you out of your filthy clothes and bandaged your ankle. From the bruising and the swelling she assumed you’d broken it. But there wasn’t much telling what exactly you’d done, X-rays weren’t exactly easy to go and get now.

She’d also cleaned the injury on your head, washing away the dried blood and stitching up the wound. It wasn’t exactly neat. But she didn’t think you’d mind. She’d saved your life after all. She sat you up every now and again to coax water into you, smashing up painkillers and dissolving them in some hope you weren’t in too much pain.

You’d barely woken up the entire time. Occasionally your eyes would open for a few seconds, gaze around the room in a way that made you look drunk, and then pass back out again. She was starting to get worried. Because you needed to eat sooner rather than later. Dosing you with water and pills was one thing but it would be useless if you didn’t eat anything.

She kept a close eye on you. Locking the doors whenever she went out for work assignments and hoping you wouldn’t wake up and freak out whilst she was gone. But you didn’t. She came home, gave you water and meds, and then went to bed.

She’d been sleeping on the couch. The bed was big enough for two. But she guessed you waking up not only in a strange place but with a strange person next to you might just kill you anyway from the shock.

It made her want to laugh sometimes when she lay there at night. Maybe she was getting soft. Running around like Florence fucking Nightingale looking after a stranger that was probably gonna die anyway. And for what? What solid reason did she have for it?

None. Absolutely none.

But she couldn’t help it. Continuously tending to you and keeping you clean, keeping your bandages fresh. Wiping at your face and wondering where you’d come from, how you’d ended up out there. She had so many questions.

She was getting soft.

You woke up properly a few days after she’d found you. She wasn’t entirely sure if your bouts of unconsciousness had been due to the head injury or the painkillers. Maybe it was both. Either way, your eyes were fully open now.

To her surprise you didn’t look afraid. She found it made that little candle in her chest burn a little brighter for a moment. She was so used to people being afraid. She liked it, of course she did. But the change was nice for a brief moment. To see kind eyes looking at her like she was… a person.

You were both silent. Neither of you seemingly knowing what to say in the moment. She hadn’t really thought that far ahead. And she was confused to find herself stuck for words. Unsure of what to do. She usually was ten steps ahead of everyone, could read a room in an instant and know exactly what her next move would be.

But not now. Not there with you looking at her like that. It was frustrating.

“ welcome to the world of the living sweetheart “ she finally said, crossing her arms over her chest and watching you closely “ or half living I suppose “

“ where am I? “ your voice was hoarse. Probably because you hadn’t used it for so long. It was curious though. Not afraid. No fear laced your words as you glanced around the room, landing back on her and tilting your head slightly to the side like an inquisitive animal.

“ Boston QZ “ Tess finally spoke, grabbing a chair from the kitchen table and pulling it to the end of the bed and sitting down. You watched her every move, eyes following her from the table to where she sat “ I found you outside the wall. What the fuck were you doing out there huh? “

You seemed to ponder on the question for a moment, flickers of confusion flashing across your face. You didn’t know. How hard had you hit your head?

“ I’m not- I’m not sure - how long have I been here? “

“ few days “ your eyes widened at that, eyebrows flying up in a way that clearly hurt the wound on your head. Your hand came up to touch it, gingerly patting the stitched up space in your hairline. You then pulled at the blankets to see your ankle neatly bandaged up.

“ I fell “

“ I guess so “ she said with a sarcastic tone seeping its way into her words. Of course you’d fallen. It didn’t take a genius to work that one out.

“ so you… brought me here? “

“ a thank you would be fuckin nice “

“ oh! Thank you. Yeah of course “ you said quickly, blush creeping across your cheeks. She surprised herself by immediately thinking how… cute… it looked.

“ you feel okay though? “ she asked, immediately trying to rid herself of her previous thought. You nodded and yours eyes fell back onto her, sheepishly avoiding her gaze for more than a few seconds.

“ kinda hungry though “ to her surprise that made her smile, exhaling shortly though her nose in a small laugh.

“ yeah I bet “ she felt your eyes on her the entire time she was pottering around in the kitchenette deciding what food to get you. A small part of her did think she should’ve been smarter than to turn her back on you, you could’ve gotten out of bed and found one of the numerous weapons littered around the place. Killed her and escaped thinking she’d kidnapped you or something.

It made her glance over her shoulder.

“ you’re not gonna hurt me are you “ you said suddenly. It came out as more of statement or a fact than a question though, like you were telling yourself out loud to confirm it. Not really asking her.

“ if I wanted to hurt you I would’ve done it by now. Fuck I wouldn’t have even risked my ass bringing you though the wall “ she made her way back over to you, placing down a couple of the rationed food bars she had in front of you “ they taste like shit. But apparently one bar equals a whole fuckin meal or whatever propaganda bullshit the Military wanna tell us. Just tryna make us eat less “

“ thank you “ your eyes suddenly seemed ravenous, grabbing at the bar and taking a large bite

“ fuck. Slow down. You haven’t eaten in a week you keep going like that you’ll puke the whole thing up in ten minutes “ your cheeks flushed and you nodded, taking smaller nibbles from the shitty food bar. Looking at them already made her crave the fresh food from Bills. It’d only been days and she’d do anything for a vegetable that actually crunched. And had taste “ you can stay here till your ankles fixed… just be quiet. Stay out of sight. Last thing I want is my neck hanging from a fuckin rope because i got caught with an unregistered citizen. Okay? “

“ thank you “ she moved back to the table then, not really knowing what else she was supposed to say to you, and made herself look busy by counting ration cards. As if she hadn’t already gotten the exact number already twice over.

She was mildly regretting bringing you back. What was she supposed to do with you now? At least when you were asleep she didn’t have to worry about you drawing attention to yourself. Now you were awake, what if someone saw you. Or you decided you were in fact scared of her and started screaming or something.

She was such a fuckin idiot. Always acting on impulse when she was tired. And she had been after that hike from Lincoln. She was usually quite rational, but that all went out the window with you clearly. She should’ve listened to Joel. She probably wouldn’t even remember you by now if she’d just left you there. And now? Now she was stuck with an unregistered citizen in her apartment for fuck knows how long.

Way to fuckin go Tess.

“ I didn’t think.. I didn’t think you’d actually hurt me you know? “ you said as she stacked the cards, her eyes flickered up to find you watching her “ I just. I don’t know why I asked really. I actually feel pretty safe here. That’s stupid isn’t it? “

“ a little bit stupid. Yeah “ she agreed.

“ No one’s kind anymore. But you are. You helped me “ was she kind? Was she? She used to be. She wasn’t so sure anymore “ and you’re a woman “

“ nice observation “

“ no I mean. Men were shitty before but now? We ran into this group on the way here… I can’t remember their names but. They just took girls because they could. Kept them like slaves. Infected aren’t the scariest thing out there “ she knew that was true. Not to say that some women weren’t just as shitty. But the men were having a field day with the apocalypse. All rules had gone out the window.

It was stupid of you to trust her so easily, woman or not. She could very much have been planning to hurt you. Or demand something in return for her good nature. She wasn’t going to of course. But most people would’ve done that. If they’d even bothered to stop to help you at all.

Maybe she was kind.

By your third night- well. Nights that you were aware of anyway- in her apartment she was starting to miss when you were passed out. You woke up screaming somewhere in the early hours each night, thrashing around in the sheets and sobbing about things you couldn’t seem to explain to her.

So much for not drawing any attention to yourself.

She knew you couldn’t help it. Not really. She knew first hand from Joel. From her own nightmares that liked to sneak their way into her dreams from time to time. But you needed to be quiet.

She wondered if you’d been trapped in an endless cycle of those dream when you were unconscious. If you had been watching them on a loop as she attempted to care for you, looking so peaceful but screaming on the inside.

“ you wanna talk about those dreams of yours? “ she asked on morning number four. Remembering some slight memory of her mother telling her that talking about bad dreams would make them go away when she was a kid. Something she probably would’ve then gone on to tell her own kids. One of those small twists of the truth that parents did to try and make their children feel better. Something little and mostly useless that they took into adulthood. Even knowing that it wasn’t entirely true. But it worked a little bit.

So it was worth a try. Wasn’t it. Just because she needed you to be quiet. Not that she really cared. Of course she didn’t care. Why would she.

She couldn’t. Caring was dangerous.

“ I’m sorry I know you said about the noi- “

“ yeah you’re waking up the whole fuckin block every night sweetheart you need to get that under control “ she watched your face flush slightly in a way she had noticed you did when she slipped in the pet name. But maybe it was a mixture of embarrassment too.

It didn’t make you special. It was almost… condescending. Her way of keeping herself that one step above on the ladder, she didn’t care.

She didn’t.

“ I’m sorry I’m trying “

“ try a little harder “ you sighed and dropped your head into your hands, shaking your head. Were you crying?

“ I’m sorry “ you were “ I just keep seeing… seeing all the people and the blood and the rain and- “ she walked over to you, observing you like a injured animal that wasn’t quite sure what to do with. The kind where she didn’t know if it was kinder to kill it and put it out of it’s misery or to attempt to console it and bring it back to health.

Though clearly she was already doing the latter.

“ I told you. Tell me about them “ that came out a little lighter than she had initially meant. But she didn’t linger on it “ get it out. Probably won’t make them stop but. Might help “

You seemed to debate it, wiping at the tears on your cheeks and sighing.

She had to admit she was curious to know what was tormenting you. In the world they lived in there was plenty of things it could’ve been. They were 10 years in now and she still saw flashes of outbreak day in her dreams sometimes. Still remembered the first person she had seen infected. The first she had killed.

Death no longer bothered her. She had become numb to it in every way. Paths she had had no choice but to take, that had lead to her ending up that way. She did what she had to do to survive. But you seemed to still be coming to terms with the world around you.

You shuffled to move next to her, hanging your legs over the side of the bed with a small wince as you moved the ankle that was bandaged up.

“ me and a group. 9 of us? We were heading for the QZ. There was more of us at the start but… Pittsburgh is falling apart. A group of us snook out before it could get any worse. If that place lasts another year I’ll be surprised “ she’d heard of QZs falling apart all over the country. Boston was one of the only ones that FEDRA still had a relatively tight grip on “ we made it to the outskirts of the city… these runners came from no where and- “

She sat down on the edge of the bed as you tried to compose yourself a little, surprised to find her chest hurting a little as she watched you. Maybe it was because you seemed so… vulnerable. Somehow avoiding the hardships of the last ten years and behaving like the outbreak had only just begun.

She couldn’t help but feel inclined to protect you.

“ and how’d you end up at the bottom of that slope? “

“ me and 2 others. We made it pretty deep into the city, one of them said we should cut through the buildings. The road was fucked so I agreed. We got separated. Runners. Clickers. I just ran. Last thing I remember is the rain and and tryna get around the mess on the roads… guess I fell. Then you found me”

You’d escaped runners and clickers, and outlasted your entire group. You were really stronger than she thought. Vulnerable, yes, but still strong.

“ and that’s what you keep seeing? In your dreams? “ you nodded and sighed.

“ the others being ripped apart. Clickers chasing me. It’s so stupid I’m sorry. I’ll try to be quiet… I just wish they’d stop“ you dropped your head against her shoulder with a small sigh. Tess didn’t really know what to do. The gentleness of the act was almost alien to her now.

No one had been gentle with her for 10 years. Not even Joel.

You were doing something to her. Had done from the moment she’d seen you lying half dead on the floor outside. The fact that she had stopped at all. That she had brought you back. That in the 3 days you had been awake, the near constant 72 hours in your company, you had declared feeling safe with her. That you trusted her. That you looked at her and believed she could be gentle.

And Tess didn’t know how to react to it. What to do with it. She didn’t have a snarky remark to give you, simply out of fear of hurting your feelings or upsetting you. Which was ridiculous. Since when did she care about people’s feelings?

“ I promise I’ll try control it. Maybe you’re right. Maybe talking about it helped “

“ yeah. Maybe “

She had the sudden urge to tell you it’ll be okay. That she had nightmares too. That she’d lost count of the amount times she woke up in a cold sweat, images of her husband in a pool of his own blood flashing behind her eyelids, the sounds of her son fighting to escape the basement she had locked him in ringing in her ears.

Nothing haunted her more than that day. Everyone had their ghosts.

She didn’t even tell Joel but there she was wanting to tell you. To relate. To console.

She stood up before she could. Clearing her throat and heading for the door. She needed to get out of that apartment.

“ where are you going? “ the look on your face was like that of a kicked puppy, eyes wide and sad. She really needed to get out of that apartment.

“ I have shit to do. Stay quiet. Don’t open the door. I’ll be back in a few hours “ she pulled on her boots as she spoke, grabbing her bag and heading out the door in a hurry.

She needed to get back out among people that feared her. People that knew how dangerous she could be. Just to remind herself she was feared. She was dangerous. She wasn’t soft.

She. Didn’t. Care.

The fourth night was the same. She woke up to the clock on the wall showing 3:30am, you screaming at the top of your lungs and begging for help.

She got up from her makeshift bed on the couch and headed for the kitchen to get you some water, in the way that was becoming routine now. Usually by the time she reached you you’d stopped, but not tonight. You were thrashing around in the sheets, eyes still clenched tightly closed as you sobbed and screamed.

She placed the water down, her brows furrowed and sat herself on the edge of the bed. She grabbed at your arms to stop your thrashing before you hurt yourself

“ hey! You’re okay, look at me come on. Sweetheart, look at me. Just a dream. C’mon now “ your eyes flung open, terror swirling in your dilated pupils “ that’s it. Look around. You’re awake. You’re safe. You’re safe “

Clearly talking about it hadn’t helped. If anything it had made it worse.

“ no! Please- no! “

“ you gotta be quiet. Look. At. Me! “ she grabbed at your face, forcing your wild eyes to focus on her instead “ that’s it. Look at me. You see me? Not a fuckin clicker. No mushrooms in sight. You were dreamin again “ you seemed to register her words, slowly calming down as you took in her face in front of you.

“ Tess “ you whispered it with such relief, like some kind of wish in a prayer had been granted.

“ yeah. That’s right. It’s me “ you leaned into her touch, apparently grounding yourself again against the feel of her hands against your cheek. She watched you intently, the way you had known her for such little time but so clearly found comfort in her. In her touch.

She wondered if you knew the things she were capable of… if you knew the things she had done. Would you be so willing to sit there with her like that?

She let go of you and stood up.

“ no “ you said suddenly, fingers wrapping around her wrist as she attempted to return to the couch “ sorry I- “ she looked down at your hand, the way you held onto her “ I mean- can you. Could you… would you… stay? Here. With me “ she didn’t quite know why the word ‘ yeah ‘ flew into her mouth before she could even think about what you’d said. But she stopped it before it could escape “ please Tess. I’m so scared… I’d feel better if you were here “

“ I’m just around the other side of the wall “

“ please. You make me feel safe “ that took her aback. She didn’t have a single idea how to respond to that. Safe. She made you feel safe.

People didn’t feel safe around her. They felt afraid. They felt submissive to her power, they begged for their life, they felt dependent on her for their pills. They didn’t feel… safe.

But hadn’t that been what she had been trying to achieve? Hadn’t she wanted to make you feel safe. That you could exist around her and not be scared she’d hurt you. And it felt different yes, but. It felt nice too.

“ okay “ it came out far less confident than she’d wanted it to and she cleared her throat, trying to shake off the clearly obvious confusion she was experiencing “ yeah. Yeah. I’ll stay if you want “ you closed your eyes in relief and gave her a small smile, letting go of her wrist.

She watched you pull back the covers beside her and she got in, keeping a nice distance between you both. She had to admit it felt nice to be back in her bed. It wasn’t the most comfortable of things but anything was better than the couch for another night.

It felt strange laying next to someone though. She hadn’t done that for a long. Long. Time. Even when she had made her way through her string of flings and one time things, she hardly ever brought them back to her apartment. And they never slept in her bed if she did bring anyone back. She never let anyone invade her space. That felt too personal.

And yet there you were. In her bed. In her clothes. Finding herself annoyingly thinking about how much better that T-shirt looked on you than it did on her. And trying to ignore how unbelievably normal it felt having you there now. Even more so how normal and comfortable she was having you sleeping beside her.

She turned on her side to look at you, see how at peace you now looked. Your face no longer screwed up in terror, or eyes flashing wildly around the room. The only evidence of your dream the dried tear marks along your cheeks.

She reached out before she could stop herself, wiping at them softly with her fingers. There was a small scar on your left cheek below your eye, she let her finger trace it and wondered how you’d gotten it. She had too many scars to count now. Her face littered with nicks and dotted with freckles from the sun. She wondered if the face she was looking at now had changed in 10 years. If the face you now owned had looked different before the world fell apart.

She instinctively tried to pull away when your hand suddenly moved, placing it over hers gently and holding it in place.

She waited for the embarrassment to come, to ramble some excuse and probably excuse herself back to the couch. But your eyes remained closed, maybe in fear of embarrassing her. Whatever it was. She was grateful. And she let you hold her there, her hand still cupping your face as she fell asleep herself.

“ alright. Come here come look at these “ Tess broke the comfortable silence that had settled over the apartment for the last few hours, drawing your attention away from the book she had given you. She watched as you hopped your way over to the kitchen table, grabbing onto things to keep your balance whilst keeping your injured ankle off the floor.

She’d been working on papers for you for most of the day. Some half cooked insurance policy that made it look like you were a registered citizen if FEDRA happened to come knocking.

Even if they didn’t work entirely they’d still give her enough of a window to get you out before they returned again. And something was better than nothing she supposed.

“ FEDRA do random door to door checks, checking for infection “ she explained when you slumped into the chair next to her “ When they can fuckin be bothered to do it anyway… but if they do there’s a chance they’ll question why you’re here. This apartments only assigned to me, but as long as they think you’re registered it won’t matter. So. Fake papers. According to FEDRA your name is now Christine Hurley “ she didn’t mention that the real Christine Hurley was in fact in a ditch in one of the back alleys of area 2.

That the real Christine Hurley had thought trying to scam her and Joel with fake ration cards was a good idea, and had gotten a bullet in the forehead for her troubles.

“ and these will work? “

“ yeah. I make fake papers all the time to get me and Joel in and out of different areas. Should’ve been a forger pre outbreak. I’d have been rich as fuck” you laughed at that and she almost hated the way it made her heart skip. You were making her too fuckin soft and it was annoying. It was frustrating. She’d known you barely two weeks now, some of which you’d been unconscious, and yet you were making her soft. You were making her feel. Which was ridiculous

“ won’t they still question why I’m here?”

“ yeah but. They won’t really care. As long as you have papers they don’t give a shit. Found me with a girl here before. Idiot didn’t carry her papers with her. Arrested and… well fuck knows where she is now “ your face seemed to change ever so slightly at that and she wondered why “ just keep them with you”

“ you’ve had girls here before? What make a habit of rescuing people do you? “ she scoffed at that. Did she seem like the type to go around rescuing people every day?

“ no. She was here for… she was perfectly healthy. No rescuing “ it seemed to take you a moment before your eyebrows arched and you gave a nervous laugh.

“ oh “ she wasn’t embarrassed, she never had been when it came to sex or her enjoyment of it. She wondered if anyone else would’ve been. Maybe because you didn’t seem uncomfortable at the thought, in fact you seemed quite pleased about it. Something mischievous almost flashing in your eyes. “ interesting “

“ interesting? “

“ yeah. It’s interesting “ Tess raised an eyebrow but you simply shrugged, a smile tugging at your lips that you were seemingly trying and failing to suppress.

It didn’t seem mocking. More… knowing.

She changed the subject.

“ well. There’s your papers. Keep em with you “ you nodded and scanned over them, learning the new information about yourself whilst you were inside Bostons walls. Tess packed her stuff away and stood up, taking it over to the kitchen counter to hide it away in the small stash behind the back of one of the cupboards.

“ was she your girlfriend? “ Tess froze for a moment as you spoke, glancing slightly behind her to look at you. You were still looking down at the papers, like it was a casual topic to simply make conversation.

“ who? “

“ the girl. The one who didn’t have her papers “ she quirked an eyebrow and turned around , folding her arms across her chest and leaning back against the counter

“ why’d you ask? “

“ is that a yes “

“ it’s not “ you hummed a response, flipping the first page over to look at the other which listed all of the work assignments Christine had completed “ she wasn’t my girlfriend. I don’t… I don’t do girlfriends. Or boyfriends for that matter “

“ ahh. You’re one of those people. Alright “ you said, smiling down at the paper and clearly no longer reading it

“ what’s that supposed to mean? “

“ nothing bad. I’m just observing “ you finally looked up, sitting back in the chair with amusement on your face. It was a nice change from the sadness that seemed to be settling over your face every now and again “ let me guess. You get bored. Or lonely. So you go out, find a find a girl. Or a guy. Fuck them. Then leave them. That right? “

It was right. And she hated that you’d read her so easily.

“ no “ you scoffed at that

“ sure. But lemme ask you. Do you really feel less lonely? When you’re with them? Or is it something else? “ she didn’t like where this conversation was going. At all. Or the fact that it genuinely made her think. No. Of course it didn’t make her feel less lonely. If anything it simply made it worse

“ I’m not lonely. I’m better on my own “

“ I don’t think that’s true “

“ yeah. Well you know nothing about me” her words were a little harsh. Defensive. She didn’t want people knowing about her, didn’t need someone trying to figure her out.

“ but I want to know “ you didn’t seem shocked by her tone, or her words.

“ you don’t “ she didn’t want to tell you. She didn’t want to tell you about herself or reveal things about her.

Because it would only scare you off. She knew it.

“ hmmm. I do “ you smiled as you said it and she couldnt help the way it eased the tension brewing in her muscles “ you don’t have to tell me bad stuff. Just. Tell me fun stuff. I’m so starved of like… girl talk “ Tess scoffed

“ there were no girls in your group? “

“ there was two. One was a kid. And the other liked to grab me when her boyfriend pissed her off. Then tell me after it was totally a ‘ one time thing and she was literally so straight ‘ “ you said with a laugh and bending your fingers into air quotes.

“ oh I’ve known a few like that “ Tess found she didn’t actually mind that topic of conversation. Because it was something she was comfortable with and something she could control. And didn’t directly reveal anything about herself. So she sat herself back at the table with you.

“ so was I right then? You just fucking your way through the QZ for the fun of it? “

“ I wouldn’t exactly put it like that “

“ so how would you put it “ you leant forward, chin on your hand and a cheeky smile plastered across your face. You were loving it. And Tess did have to admit talking to someone other than Joel was a decent change.

“ the worlds a pile of shit. I won’t deny myself small pleasures “ your grin grew at that

“ bet you have them lining up for you huh? That scary thing you do… yeah. I bet the guys don’t like that though, you whip them into shape too? “ you said and wiggled your eyebrows in a way she couldn’t help but laugh at. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d really laughed.

“ I prefer women. They’re more interesting to look at “

“ agreed “ even before the outbreak she’d preferred girls. It was true, they were far more interesting, softer, squishier, easier to navigate. Prettier. She couldn’t help the way her eyes wandered over you, mind suddenly running wild. And from the look in your eyes, so was yours.

Two evidently touch starved people in such close proximity, with that topic of conversation was never going to end well.

And so she distanced herself before she could put herself in a compromising situation.

“ I have to go do some work. But I’ll be back soon “ she said and stood up, heading for the door and grabbing her backpack “ don’t- “

“ open the door. Make any sound. Draw any attention to myself. Yes ma’am “ you said, that grin still stuck on your face “ oh and don’t go bringing anyone else back here. You might make me jealous “ you looked back down at your papers then, leaving Tess’ mind still reeling as she opened the door and headed out.

—————————————————————

The nightmares came again that night, seemingly worse than the previous, leaving you in floods of tears after you woke up. And to Tess’ surprise you fell into her arms, clutching at her tshirt as you sobbed and sniffled. She felt her previous annoyance at being woken up fizzle away in an instant, replaced with a deep ache in her chest. Pain at seeing you so upset when you had been so happy during the day.

It concerned her slightly how much she enjoyed your smile. The way your eyes lit up around her. And how much she hated the tears and the sadness now plaguing your features.

“ you’re okay sweetheart. I’ve got you “ she said softly, tucking your head under her chin in a way that surprised her as your sobs turned to hiccups and sniffles. You were gripping her tightly, fingers twisted into the material of her shirt as if you were afraid she was about to push you away and leave you there.

Maybe if you had done that on night one she would’ve. It was strange how much had changed in days. How being around you practically 24/7 had changed her thoughts. She didn’t know if she liked it. if she liked how you seemed to be wiggling your way through the cold exterior of her heart, like a worm trying to reach the core of an apple. Burrowing through until it could reach the centre and stay there.

That almost did make her let you go.

She couldn’t have that. She couldn’t have herself worrying about someone else. Caring about someone else. That was dangerous. And you didn’t care for her. You didn’t worry. So why should she? Why should she allow herself the stupidity of getting into something so clearly one sided. And something she so clearly didn’t have control over. It scared her.

She felt like she was in a car that had had its breaks cut, hurtling towards a brick wall and she had no way of bringing it to a stop.

She really was getting soft. Ridiculously so. There she was sat at her table flicking through a faded and damaged medical book she’d traded for on the black market the previous day, so she could try and figure out how to get you back on your feet again.

She was reluctantly letting it happen now. Just accepting that she was doomed. That for the short time you would be with her she would allow herself this pathetic softness. And the second you were gone she would have her control back. It was all your fault. Yours completely. Luring her in to believe she could feel. To believe she was allowed to feel. To believe that someone could possibly feel for her.

It was stupid. So. Fucking. Stupid.

“ so I’m pretty sure just a super fuckin bad sprain. Says here… two weeks it’ll normally start feeling better. But can take up to eight to fully heal “ she said, clearing her throat in some attempt to distract her thoughts.

“ it does feel better than when I first woke up. So two weeks is accurate “ she placed the book down and went over to where you had your ankle up resting on a couch cushion. She peeled away the bandages she’d wrapped tightly around it to give it some support, pressing and poking slightly at the fading bruises.

“ can you move it? Wiggle your toes and shit? “ you did just that and she shrugged. She was no doctor. But she patched herself and Joel up enough over the years “ alright. c’mon. Up “ she held out her hands and you took them, they looked so soft and delicate compared to hers. A scar here and there but somehow mostly clear. Nothing compared to the scratches and scrapes on hers. The scars on her knuckles from the numerous times she’d split them open.

Hands like that didn’t fit together. Didn’t meet. Hands like hers didn’t deserve the privilege of touching hands like yours. Hands like hers didn’t deserve to touch anyone in a gentle way. They were for business. For hurting. For pain. Yours weren’t. Yours were soft. Smooth. Yours were made for caressing and soothing, for receiving soft kisses on the back.

She was losing it.

She guided one of your arms around her shoulders and helped you get your balance.

“ don’t try walk. Just. Just try put your weight on it “

“ what if- “

“ don’t worry. I’ve got you. Just be careful yeah? “ she watched you carefully as you gently placed your foot down, eyebrows furrowing as you did and hissing in pain through your teeth “ I said carefully “ you sighed and put it flat on the floor but still heavily leaning against her “ feels okay? “

“ hurts “ Tess nodded and held you tighter around the waist

“ try not to lean on me so much. You won’t fall over. I’ve got a hold of you “

“ oh you’re gonna catch me? “ you said with a small laugh, eyes flickering up to hers briefly. The tone of your voice made her throat a little dry and she couldn’t figure out exactly why.

“ yeah. Yeah I got you “ your face screwed up slightly as she watched you out more of your weight onto it and get used to the feeling.

She held you there for a couple of minutes to regain your balance before slipping your arm off of her and holding your hands in hers.

“ now try walk. Hold onto me “

“ I don’t think I- “

“ just try. Look at me “ you watched her face carefully as she took small steps back, helping you to get used to the feeling of the ankle being used again.

She was glad Joel had work assignments that day. She didn’t think she’d ever live it down if he turned up at her apartment and saw that. Saw her holding you so carefully and helping you walk again like a child.

But she found in the hour or so that she did it, her cheeks began to hurt from smiling. For once in her life feeling like the world wasn’t on her shoulders, happy. Smiling. You smiling with her.

It was nice.

“ you got it! Nice work sweetheart “ she watched the utter joy on your face as you managed to keep your balance on your own and walk before falling into her arms.

“ fuck yeah “ you laughed seemingly now exhausted from the small amount of work. But she didn’t blame you after so long unable to do anything “ can we rest now? “

“ we can do whatever you want “ she said with a small laugh, arms wrapped around you to keep you up right.

“ anything? “ you asked quietly, smile fading slightly and looking up at her intently. Tess furrowed her brows, slightly confused at what exactly you were asking her.

It took her completely by surprise when you leant up and kissed her. Standing practically shell shocked as you pressed your lips to hers. It was only a few seconds and then you were pulling back, cheeks flaming red and closing your eyes with a shake of your head

“ god I’m so- Tess I’m sorry I don’t know why I- “

“ you need to rest “ she said and cleared her throat, not wanting to think about had just happened for even a second. Not prepared to deal with the spiral it would inevitably send her down.

All she knew. Was that she was fucked. well. And truly. Fucked.

“ just stay close to me. Try not to talk to anyone. And don’t touch anything“ Tess instructed as she pushed back a palette keeping one of the exits out of the tunnels covered

“ yes ma’am “ you said with a smile and a mock salute, following her through the gap and standing patiently as she dragged the palette back into place “ will there be officers? “

“ maybe. But the ones around here are just as bad as the smugglers. They’re some of our best customers for pills. Turns out sending people to the gallows everyday can fuck you up. Who’d have guessed? Just do as I say “ you stood ridiculously close to her, eventually wrapping your fingers around her wrist as you both entered the courtyard. She wasn’t in the mood to loiter and headed straight for the people she needed. Trading off cards for boots, a new jacket, some shirts and jeans.

Stuff you’d need. That she didn’t have a surplus of.

Ration cards were as precious as gold those days. And she was spending her hard earned ones on you. She definitely wouldn’t telling Joel about that.

She found she didn’t mind though. She wanted you to be prepared. Safe. And the boots she’d found you in barely had any soles left. You wouldn’t get far in those.

It had been a week since you’d kissed her and neither of you had mentioned it since. Falling back into that comfortable thing you’d been developing before. Where you could make her laugh and smile. And you would tease her for being too grumpy which would make you smile.

It was odd how normal it was starting to feel having you around. But she always ruined the moment by thinking about the future. About how empty her apartment would feel when you leave. She’d gotten used to you. And she almost didn’t want to let you go.

Maybe she could work something out, wrap some officers around to her thinking and get you some official papers. She could train you up to help her with her smuggling, show you the ropes and tell you who the best people to deal with were. And who to avoid like the plague.

It could be nice.

“ Tess. Haven’t seen you around for a few days. Where you been hiding? “ she felt you tense beside her as one of the FEDRA officers on her client list made his way towards her. He was a cocky son of a bitch, one who constantly tried to make her lower her prices and was notoriously known for being too heavy handed with the girls he paid for. And had been trying to get his way into her pants for months. Seemingly thinking offering her his dick was worth a half price deal on his pills.

“ don’t. Speak. Let me do the talking “ Tess said in a low voice close to your ear, looking like she was entirely too fascinated by the piles of clothes in front of her “ I’m not selling today Marcus. You know I don’t get shit until the end of the month “

“ I know. I know. Cant I be friendly and say hello? “ she rolled her eyes, hoping he’d just fuck off and leave her be now that he knew she didn’t have what he wanted “ who’s the new pet? Following you around like a little lost puppy? “ you shuffled closer to her if that was even possible, fingers tightly gripping at her wrist.

“ that’s none of your concern “

“ pretty thing “ he said with a smirk, craning his head to try and look at where you were attempting to hide behind her. She surprised herself for the millionth time since she’d found you, when she felt a burning jealousy in her chest. She didnt like the thought of anyone talking about you. Even looking at you. Thinking about you. Which was fuckin. Stupid. But she hated it “ maybe you come give me a visit when she’s done with you huh? “

“ I don’t think so “ her voice was bitter, unable to stop herself from appearing as jealous as she was

“ what? Cant she speak for herself? Come on Tess. It’s nice to share “

“ not this one “ she freed her wrist from your grasp and draped her arm around your shoulder instead, pulling you against her body. You sighed a slight sigh of relief at the contact, pressing yourself against her. She tossed down some more cards for the clothes and handed them to you “ put ‘em in your bag “ you did as you were told, the slightly worried expression that had been on you face still there. But a little less now she had a hold of you.

“ settling down? You’re not the type. You send her my way when you get bored. I’ll be waiting. I’ll even pay you double on my next batch “ Tess scoffed and turned to face him, trying to ignore the burning anger boiling away in her chest at the thought of him anywhere near you.

She saw the state he left some girls in, the thought of that happening to you was enough to make her want to put a bullet through his head in the middle of the courtyard.

“ you know that’s not my game “ he shrugged and raised his hands in mock surrender “ go talk to Robert he’ll point you in the right direction. But this one? She’s mine. So back the fuck off. And come find me at the end of the month for your shit. Okay? “ she enjoyed the way that even the officers listened when she commanded it, that the simple tone of voice and the reputation she was gaining was enough to make anyone do as she said.

“ alright alright. Stay out of trouble “ he said with another smirk, but not as smug as it previously had been “ and you “ he said, throwing a wink at you and walked away.

“ let’s get you home yeah? “ she said it loud enough that she hoped Marcus heard it. That you were going back with her. Not him. Never him.

“ yes please “ she could feel your eyes burning into her as you walked back, almost tripping up because you weren’t paying attention to where you were walking.

You seemed flustered. Frantic almost. She wondered if Marcus had shaken you up, overwhelmed you.

She couldn’t have been more wrong if she’d tried. Once you both got back into her apartment she realised what had gotten into you.

You grabbed at her arm when she closed the door, yanking at her with a confidence she hadn’t seen from you before. You pulled her close and to her surprise yet again, you kissed her. For the second time. It was a lot more confident than the first, more… desperate. Your lips pressing harder against hers than she’d expected.

She found herself kissing you back that time, turning you around and crowding you back against the door. She knew she shouldn’t haven given in, shouldn’t be letting her desire her in the way of what she knew was right and wrong.

But she couldn’t help herself.

Maybe it was the pent up jealousy and anger from down in the market, kissing you being the safest form of release for it. And the most enjoyable. Not that battering the fuck out of Marcus wouldn’t have been thoroughly enjoyable. But making out with you? It beat anything else by miles.

It made her regret not kissing you back the first time, when your lips felt like that against hers. Tasted like that. It felt cruel to have denied herself of it.

It was the feel of your fingers gently pushing at her shirt that snapped her back into reality, made her see some common sense again.

“ hey. Hey we can’t “ she said softly, hands soothing over your arms and closing her eyes for a moment. She sighed and looked at you, your cheeks flushed “ we can’t “ she didn’t explain herself. Couldn’t. Couldn’t tell you that she was getting far too attached. That sleeping with you could well and truly be the final nail in the coffin that she was burying herself in.

“ I’m sorry “ you said, clearly embarrassed. Tess couldn’t tear her eyes away from your lips. Parted and glossy with saliva. She wanted to kiss you again.

“ it’s okay. Don’t sweat it “ she looked away before she could.

“ just. The way you were out there. With that officer and and the way you spoke about me I- god “ she found a smile tugging at her lips as she watched your flustered attempt to explain, groaning and putting your head in your hands. She nudged her fingers under your chin to make you look at her, noticing the way your breath shuddered slightly. You were so easy to work up.

“ don’t be embarrassed “ she could practically see you melting under her gaze, the low tone of her voice and intense gaze making you look ready to drop to your knees. And wouldn’t that be a sight.

A sight she had to remind herself she did not need to see.

“ go empty your bag, take a shower or something i don’t know about you but that market makes me feel grimy as fuck. Then we won’t talk about it. Yeah?” You nodded your head and gave her a warm smile

“ yeah “ she stepped away from you, watching you head for the bathroom and close the door behind you. She ran a hand over her face, a deep sigh shuddering past her lips. What was she doing?

Usually she would’ve kept going. Would’ve happily fucked you and been fine about it. She was no stranger to doing just that and then moving on. But there was something about you. Something about the anger she had felt around Marcus, the jealousy and the possessiveness.

Even the fact that she was still sharing a bed with you. And most nights now she’d wake up to find you pressed against her. Cuddling like a couple as if it were the most normal thing. That she enjoyed waking up to your smile, your eyes. You.

What had you done to her?

“ I think you’re gonna have to go soon “ the realisation of the fact had hit her like a ton of bricks that morning. Or maybe it had been sooner than that and she had been forcing herself to ignore it.

Your lack of reaction told her you probably knew that.

Staying with her had never been a permanent thing. But she felt she was pushing her luck now, the fact you had managed to stay as long as you had was a miracle in itself.

“ they found a whole group of unregistered people in an apartment in area 3 the other day. FEDRAS upping their random checks and… look I’m good at fake papers but they can only do so much. If they find out you’re not a registered citizen they’ll have you up on the gallows before you can even tell them your real name “ she ran a hand over her face with a deep sigh “ and I can’t fuckin see that happen to you sweetheart I can’t “

You didn’t say anything right away, which she hated. It meant that her words hung there in the silence for a little too long. Gave her that minute too long to think about them and wish she could yank them back and shove them back down her throat.

Then your hand tentatively reached out for hers that was on the table, fingers ghosting over her knuckles before gently squeezing in what she assumed was your attempt at reassuring her.

“ I never thought I’d even make it into Boston and with your help I wouldn’t have. I thought you’d kick me out the moment I’d woken up. I never expected you to let me stay as long as you have and put yourself in a position… I’m trying to say thank you I guess. And that… I know… I know you wouldn’t tell me to go unless I really had to “

She glanced up at you and couldn’t quite read the expressions on your face. It annoyed her still. How she couldn’t get a grasp on you, couldn’t get into your head in the way she could with others. But that didn’t matter anymore did it. You were leaving.

“ I know this couple in a town not too far from here. That’s where I was coming from when I found you… Bill and Frank. I spoke to Frank last night on the radio and he said you can go there for a few days. They have more supplies than you can fuckin imagine they’ll give you what you need. Franks real good with the radio he’s gonna listen in, see what he can hear and find you a QZ that’s letting people in “ you nodded and gave her a small smile

“ how do I get there? “

“ I’ll take you “ there was never any question in that. You’d almost died on your way in. Never mind the way out. You nodded, processing the information.

Talking to Frank on the radio the previous night has been hard but now she was discussing with you it made it feel far too real. The stark realisation that you wouldn’t be in the room after tomorrow. You wouldn’t be in her bed, smiling at her when you woke up, loudly commenting on the book you were reading when a character did something you didn’t like. Just your presence .

“ c’mere for a second “ you rose to your feet instantly walking over to her and standing between her legs. She ran her hands gently along your legs and looked up at you, her gaze soft “ I’ll make sure you get there safe. I promise you Bill and Frank will help you out “

You straddled her thighs, looping your arms around her neck and pressing your forehead to hers. It felt too… romantic. Intimate. It felt exactly what she had been so terribly trying to avoid. but maybe she was stupid for ever thinking she could live with you and be around you so constantly and not end up in such a position. You were like a siren luring her in, filling her senses and overwhelming her with desire no matter how hard she attempted to fight it. No one would’ve been able to resist you. No one.

“ I’m gonna miss you “ you whispered, so close your lips brushed hers as you spoke “ I’m gonna miss your stupid face “ Tess chuckled at that.

“ stupid? “

“ mhm. So stupid “

“ so stupid you try kiss me any chance you fuckin get? “ it was the first time you’d both actually mentioned either of the kisses out loud. But she guessed it didn’t matter if it made things awkward now.

You were leaving. What did she have to lose.

“ I have a head injury I don’t think my thought process can be trusted “

“ it can’t “ you twisted a lock of her dark hair around your finger, another thing that felt casually intimate.

“ I guess I cant be blamed then. Cant be blamed for this either “ she refused to let her fears get the better of her that time. Taking the chance whilst she still had it, kissing you back with the same gentleness you were. It felt bittersweet. Nothing could be bad about kissing you, but the knowledge she might never get to kiss you again? That was painful.

“ I’m really gonna miss you “ you whispered once you pulled away, short breaths hitting Tess’ lips.

“ yeah sweetheart. I’ll miss you too “

Tess hadn’t anticipated the heavy feeling in chest on the last night with you in her apartment. Unable to sleep and simply staring up at the ceiling as you lay curled up beside her.

She reminisced on the weeks you’d spent with her. How much you’d managed to wiggle into her heart and make her feel things she thought she’d forgotten.

She felt stupid. But it was okay. You would be gone that time tomorrow, she would drink. She would forget. She would carry on. She would go back to normal. She tried to ignore the small voice in the back of her head telling her that wasn’t what she wanted now. But she had no choice.

She startled as your hand moved, sliding over her arm with a soft sigh

“ cant sleep either? “ she looked down to see your eyes wide awake and watching her. She’d miss the way you looked at her. Admired her. Never afraid.

“ no “ she turned onto her side, reaching out to tuck your hair away from your face “ it’s gonna be weird when you’re gone “ she confessed in a whisper, almost hoping it was too quiet for you to hear. It wasn’t of course.

“ yeah. I got used to looking at your grumpy face everyday “ she huffed a small laugh and rolled her eyes “ maybe I can write or something when I find a new QZ. Send radio messages. I don’t know. Something “

“ yeah. Maybe “ that would only hurt you both more she was certain of it. But she wouldn’t tell you that now. She’d let you hope and think of something good that the future may hold “ do you wanna try get some more sleep? “

“ No I can’t “ you said with a shake of your head and shuffled a little closer to her “ I can think of something to pass the time time though “ Tess smiled and slipped her hand around to the back of your neck

“ funny. So can I “ she pulled you towards her, capturing your lips with hers and pulling a soft sigh from you as she did. She regretted not kissing you more. Regretted not giving in to her thoughts whilst she’d had you, some half ditched attempt to protect herself. As if it still wouldn’t hurt.

You kissed different than anyone else she’d been with. Which sounded cheesy and she felt stupid for thinking it. But it was true. Girls that were being overly dramatic to try and get paid more or girls that were just like her. Lonely and looking for some form of human contact.

But you were… invested. Kissing her like you actually meant it. Tender and careful, soft moans into her mouth that were slowly working her up.

“ I thought of. Of something else. That. We could do. More than…kissing “ you whispered in between soft kisses “ if you want “ she didn’t need to second guess or even give it a single second of thought. You were leaving tomorrow whether she or you liked it or not. So what did she have to lose now? Nothing.

And who was she to deny herself of such pleasure in world full of a whole lot of pain. Especially now. Especially with you.

She pushed at you, placing her body on top of yours and caging your head between her arms, not giving you a second to even attempt to take control from her. Not that she thought she would really. Not when you had been so willing to do as exactly as you’d been told the entirety of your stay with her.

She felt ever so slightly out of practice. It wasn’t a lack of experience, Jesus if anything she had too much experience. Which she wasn’t entirely proud of but who the fuck cared? The world was ending. Had ended. She’d take any small ounce of pleasure she could seek out. You didn’t seem like the type for that. She couldn’t picture you slinking around in the less desirable areas picking up girls just because she wanted something- or rather someone- to do.

No. You seemed too… pure. For that. Tess wasn’t pure. Not at all. But she could pretend. She could pretend if that’s what you wanted. Though she wasn’t entirely sure it was. Not with the way your hands were grabbing at her, hands restless as they slipped under the hem of her shirt to touch her skin.

She kissed you until she had no choice but to pull away to breathe, immediately moving to your neck instead. Your skin was like a blank canvas and she was going to take great joy in marking it.

“ Tess “ you practically whimpered her name, pushing at her tshirt in some silent request to get it off. But she’d be damned if she was gonna let you get her naked first. Her fingers worked at the button up you’d gone to bed in, still working at your neck as she did. She hadn’t really liked the shirt on herself, so had happily let you take it when you’d picked it out. But on you? She almost didn’t want to take it off you completely. There was something about the thought of fucking you in her clothes…

She had to sit up to admire the view, reluctantly detaching her lips from your soft skin.

“ fuck “ she couldn’t help it, it left her mouth without her consent. The sight of you was enough to ruin her for life. Her shirt open and revealing your heaving chest, the blush creeping across your cheeks and the blossoming marks on your neck… oh she was fucked.

She reached out, grabbing at your tits and sighing heavily at how heavenly your body was. You’re back arching into her touch as she moulded the squishy flesh beneath her fingers, dropping her head down again to get her mouth on you too.

She was like a greyhound chasing a rabbit. Tunnel vision and a singular end goal, you the only thing in her sight. In her mind. Desperate to touch and taste and fill her senses with nothing other than you.

“ oh god “ you whined as she flattened her tongue, licking across your nipple and testing your reaction. She knew you’d be whiny. Knew you’d be someone she could work into a whimpering mess with ease.

She had a knack for knowing these things.

“ you’re fuckin beautiful “ she said as she rolled a nipple between her fingers, peppering kisses across your chest as she did “ so fuckin beautiful “ she was stupid to think she’d be able to forget you with a bottle of whiskey. How on earth would she ever get the image of you underneath her out of her mind.

You squirmed around beneath her, small sighs and whimpers escaping past your lips when she grazed her teeth against your skin. Your fingers lacing into her hair and scratching your blunt nails against her scalp.

She didn’t let herself get side tracked for too long, she had an end goal to reach that resulted in her head happily between your thighs. And with the sounds you were already making and the way you were squirming around, she got the picture you were more than ready for that.

She moved back up to be level with your face, kissing you again and letting her hands wander. Mapping out your body with her fingers so she could commit the thought to memory.

“ please Tess. I need you. God I need you just- please “ you whimpered into her mouth, raising your hips up against her in desperation. If you had been anyone else she’d have denied you. Made you beg and edged you until she was bored “ I waited weeks don’t make me wait any longer “

But she couldn’t do that to you. How could she possibly deny you of anything you wanted from her? When you were underneath her looking like that, making sounds like that.

“ weeks huh? “

“ yes “ that made her feel pretty fucking smug. But also made her feel slightly less stupid for… whatever it was she was feeling for you.

So she didn’t waste any time. Moving down your body after another kiss to your swollen lips.

She pulled your underwear down your legs soothing her hands over your thighs before pushing them apart. Making a point to leave the shirt on. Part of her felt like she shouldn’t be rushing. But she was desperate to taste you.

The noise that left your mouth when she parted you with her tongue was heavenly, she felt addicted in an instant. She wanted to hear it again. Over and over. She never wanted to hear a single other sound for the rest of her life. It paired with the look on your face had a small shuddering breath passing her own lips, in complete and utter awe of you.

She had wanted to draw it out, to have you writhing and whimpering and wreck you for anyone else. But the sounds you were making and the blissful look in your eyes… she was desperate to make you come. Desperate to see what you’d look like, what sounds that would draw out of you. Maybe it was a little selfish, but she didn’t care.

Your taste flooded her tongue and she was like a starving woman eating for the first time in days. She was feral.

Her arms looped around your thighs to keep you in place and she went to town. She wanted to feel you coming on her tongue, wanted to see the exact look on your face, know the taste.

She felt like she could stay there for hours. Days. Weeks. Trapped between the pillowy flesh of your thighs, senses flooded with you. Your taste on her tongue, your moans in her ears, soft skin beneath her fingers.

Your fingers pulled at her hair, whining her name in a way that made a smug smile creep its way onto her face.

“ you know it’s… it’s been a while so- “ you attempted to form a sentence, gasping and arching your back in between your words “ I don’t think I’ll last- fuck Tess “ that was practically music to her ears. And a lively boost to the ego that she had you on edge already.

“ that’s okay sweetheart, you wanna come for me? Yeah? “ you eyes were screwed shut and you nodded quickly, pushing her face closer to your cunt again which made her smile “ I got you”

It was only another minute or so until you were pulling almost painfully at her hair, holding on for dear life as you came on her tongue. You were stronger than she’d expected, managing to trap her head with your thighs even with her holding them, keeping her in place until your body went slack and she she came up gasping for air. With the biggest fucking smug grin on her face.

She looked up at you from her spot between your legs, admiring the blissful look on your face, the droplets of sweat along your sternum, her shirt still hanging open on you.

She made her way back up to your lips with a trail of kisses. Wet, soft, open mouthed kisses that made goosebumps rise on your skin.

“ you good? “ she asked, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips

“ good doesn’t even cut it “ she laughed as you beamed a smile, open your eyes to look up at her “ I wanted you to do that after the market “

“ I know you did “ she’d wanted to do it too. But she’d stopped herself like the idiot she clearly was. She moved to lay beside you, still watching you closely. She wanted to remember every detail of you. No matter how painful it would be. She wanted to remember.

“ you know what else I wanna do? “ you said, shuffling closer and trailing your hand along her waist and across the front of her. She grabbed at your hand before you could move it any closer, effectively stopping you in your tracks

“ please let me “ you whispered, eyes wide and glassy looking up at her like she was the last woman on earth. She wasn’t used to being looked at like that. Even with you. Even with you who had never looked at her with anything but some seemingly deep rooted adoration and affection. Never fear.

“ you don’t have to “ it was rare she let anyone reciprocate. She didn’t like the way it made her feel so… exposed. Vulnerable. Like some baby animal being lured into a lions den ready to be mauled to death.

You reached up with your other hand, gently brushing her dark hair away from her face and behind her ear. She didn’t entirely know how to react. She didn’t now what to do with such tenderness. It made her brain flash with an error code like some janky 90s PC. Her mind coming up blank when confronted with such care and compassion.

“ I know I don’t have to. But I want to. Please “ she was used to people wanting to please her. She could have any fucker running doing whatever she asked if she dangled a bag of pills in front of them, like donkeys working for carrots. But someone wanting to please her like that? To give simply because they felt like that, to not expect a single thing in return.

She didn’t know how to respond. Simply looked at you in silence. You seemed to see the cogs coming to a grinding halt in her head, eyes flickering over her face.

“ you’ll let me Tess? “ she still didn’t really now what to say. And it was starting to piss her off. She always knew what to say. She always knew what to do. But not with you.

You pushed lightly at her shoulder, urging her to lay on her back. And to her own surprise she found herself doing it, head falling against the pillow and your face re appearing above hers. That alone felt a little wrong. She never let anyone on top. Ever. Never sacrificed that power to anyone.

“ after all you’ve done for me “ you whispered against her lips, nudging your nose to hers “ you deserve something in return. Let me make you feel as good as you made me feel “ she could feel small tendrils of panic starting to wind their way up into her chest, twisting around her ribs and tightening. So she took back some control, hand slipping to the back of your neck and pulling you down to kiss her as hard as she could manage.

She knew you weren’t about to do anything bad. But it was simply the act of letting someone have her so vulnerable to them. It terrified her.

“ trust me “ you whispered in between kisses “ you trust me don’t you? “

“ yeah “ she surprised herself with how quickly she said it, how unbelievably certain she was of the fact. That she did trust you. In the weeks since you’d woken up she’d grown to trust you as much as she’d trust Joel. Maybe she was stupid for that.

She took a sharp intake of breath as your hand pushed past her underwear, fingers dipping into the wetness between her folds and softly circling her clit.

“ see, you’re wet. Pretty proud of myself for that “ you were trying to lighten the mood and it helped a little. A small smile trying to creep its way onto her face.

She was used to her own fingers and only her fingers. But yours were something else. Those soft gentle hands that she had felt looked so out of place in an apocalypse, felt like velvet. You watched her face intently and she almost felt embarrassed, it was odd for her. To be so exposed and so closely observed.

You slipped your fingers inside of her with ease, her eyes falling closed as she attempted to steady her breathing from the intrusion. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d let someone do that, she’d forgotten how it felt. It was nothing like how it felt to do it herself.

You were reaching places she never could, breathy sounds escaping her even when she tried to stop them.

“ I wish you could see what you looked like right now “ your voice was almost awe filled, like you were simply amazed the sight of her. Maybe you were

“ shut up “ she said, breathless, pulling you down to kiss her again in some attempt to change the subject. Not wanting the attention on herself, sinking her teeth into your bottom lip to make you whimper into her mouth again.

She figured she’d be done just as fast as you had been, especially when you seemed to know exactly where to touch. You hit some place devastating, the tight knot in her belly growing and growing

“ fuck. Stay right fuckin there “ she gasped, fingers gripping your wrist as you did as she’d asked. Focussing on the same spot over and over again. She kept her eyes on you. Kneeling over her, in her shirt, the sight alone was enough to finish her off.

She pulled you down to her mouth again, scared she’d do something embarrassing like make noise, kissing you as she came on your fingers. Holding you firmly in place as her walls convulsed around you and her body rushed with heat, every muscle tensing before going limp and leaving her feeling like a rag doll.

She was breathless as she let you go, her skin on fire and prickling with heat.

“ well fuck me “ she mumbled. Throwing an arm over her eyes for a moment and to her surprise, laughing. You giggled beside her laying down and slinging a leg over hers, both your skins slippery with sweat. But she didn’t care.

“ I just did didn’t I? “ you said in the most innocent tone, simply making her laugh again. You both settled into a comfortable silence then, lazily kissing until you dropped your head.

As you both lay there, your head resting on her chest and hand over her heart, she almost wanted to cry. Which was fucking stupid. She didn’t cry. That wasn’t her.

“ you know you’re still gonna have to leave “ she whispered “ it’s not safe for you to stay here “ she felt your breathing stutter slightly and she knew you were crying. But she didn’t mention it. Didn’t want to embarrass you or risk making herself cry too by acknowledging it “ you know you still have to go “You gave a small nod. You knew. You knew this was always going to be the outcome, both of you did.

“ yeah. I know “ she was silent for a few minutes before gently pushing at your body, urging you to turn on your side. She pressed herself against your back, her arms sliding gently over your waist and her nose nudging lightly at the back of your neck.

“ couple more hours “ she whispered against your skin “ couple more hours. Then I’ll take you to the wall… couple more “ you rested your hand over hers and nodded again, tears welling in her eyes as you did. She refused to let them fall. She wasn’t that pathetic.

“ couple more hours “ you echoed softly, voice barely above a whisper in some attempt to hide the evident crack in your tone as you seemingly failed at keeping the tears in “ just a couple more “

#this took ridiculousy long to transfer but here you go #tess servopoulos x reader #tess servopoulos #tess tlou #the last of us #tlou #the last of us fanfic #x you #smut #fluff #Anna torv #other characters for exposure:#Joel miller #Ellie Williams #Tommy miller

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joelsmorality · 1 year

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EYES WIDE OPEN [1]

Pairing: Joel Miller x Fem!Reader, platonic bonding with Ellie. Summary: Somehow, you managed to find Joel and Ellie ending their journey just as you were beginning your own. After being captured in David’s resort and witnessing the horrors within, Ellie manages to save your life as she escapes and you end up staying with them for the time being at Ellie’s offer. Yet, things aren’t as they seem, and you’re also not sure if her gruff guardian won’t murder you in your sleep. Warnings: Gore, death, mentions of cannibalism, fire, angst. Please read at your own risk. Note: I’ve had this idea kicking around in my head for a while, though I can’t say for certain it hasn’t been done before. Still, I thought I’d write it up and see if anybody is interested in it! If you want to be added to a tag list, please let me know!

Perhaps you should have been relieved that the attention had been shifted off you.

Yet, you just felt more dread.

Your whole world had shifted over the last day or so. Again. It had been bad enough when the initial outbreak began, yet you had foolishly assumed that the biggest threat out there was the infected. Humans could be just as cruel, if not moreso. You were paying for that oversight in the current moment, your stomach twisting each time when you would think deep enough to realize just how horrible of a situation you found yourself in. It had been enough to make you forget the exhaustion and hunger that had built up over the last day.

Hunger had been the issue that started all of this.

David–your deeply devout, fair, and kind leader–was a sick son of a bitch. You had seen his bad side a couple times over the years–asking too many questions, showing too much doubt, witnessing him laying a hand on people who spoke too far out of turn. Your opinion hadn’t always been the highest of him, but this was beyond anything you could have imagined him doing. Which was probably one of the many mistakes you had made.

You had come across his group as a loner–your family was either gone or missing, and you knew it was impossible to seek out anybody at this point. It had been nice in the beginning–you had shelter, food, people. You hadn’t been the most social, but it was better than trying to survive on your own. That was, until the hunger had set in. Tensions were high, you wanted to help and eventually you had found yourself digging into something you really shouldn’t have.

You were a loner, which made you easier to disappear.

The image of the bodies hanging in the dark with a nauseating similarity to a slaughterhouse sat at the edge of your mind, knowing that a similar fate awaited you.

Until Ellie.

At least, that was what you had heard her shout when she had broken David’s finger–she had a fight in her, which gave you some hope. Yet, you saw the spark in David, which was what had your stomach turning at his fascination toward her. You didn’t have any children of your own, nor any younger family that you had looked after, but witnessing the way he spoke to her made you wish you hadn’t been separated in two different cages so you could help her. Animals awaiting slaughter.

Yet, Ellie had that fight in her–something that had left you long before you found yourself in the situation you were. Yet, you knew patience would wear thin and there was only so much she could do until they got sick of her.

Given that you had been in there longer than her, you had only hoped that they’d take you out first. Give her the time and chance to escape. Her arrival had delayed your death, anyway.

Yet, you should have known that David would be playing by his own rules.

Sleep had escaped you since you had been captured, yet during the momentary quiet moments you had found yourself nodding off despite your efforts otherwise. You knew you wanted to be alert at all times, watching for ways to escape. Yet, you couldn’t focus. It felt like you had exhausted all your resources–you had kicked at the gate to your cage almost endlessly during the first day, hoping against hope that the lock would just break off and you’d be able to run. Yet, that went nowhere and just exhausted you further.

You refused to eat, too–knowing what they had been serving to the community, thinking it was deer or whatever meat they could hunt…despite your hunger, it only made you sick to think about.

Still, you knew, despite the lack of energy, that you would be up at any disturbance. At least, you had hoped.

In reality, your head had snapped up at Ellie’s yelling without knowing how long she had been doing so. You managed to sit up and crawl toward your own cell door as you watched David and James hoist her up onto the table. Given the blood you had seen on it, it didn’t take long for its use to click in your brain.

“Hey!” you shouted, finally finding your own voice, “She’s just a kid! Let her go! Let her go!”

It was useless, given Ellie’s own shouts and struggles. They carried on as if you weren’t in the room, as much as that realization didn’t really settle in you as you tried to throw your shoulder against the cage door in a feeble attempt to try to help her.

They were going to cut her up, and you would have to sit there and watch it. You were useless to help, as much as you didn’t want to believe that at the moment. Still, that was as clear as day as David finally raised his cleaver up. Yet, Ellie’s voice cut through the momentary silence in that action, her words making everybody in the room pause. Including you.

It took you a few moments to process that–infected? You had plenty of run-ins with infected on the road before you wound up where you were, and she certainly didn’t look and act like someone about to turn. From what you could see on the faces of David and James, you could see that same line of thought.

“Roll up my sleeve–look at it. Look at it!” Ellie insisted, you watching on with wide eyes.

After a few moments, David swung the knife down quickly. You heard it hit the table, the action and sound making you flinch as a sound caught in your throat. Yet, from Ellie still moving on the table, you could tell that he hadn’t killed her. Or hit her, given the silence. David pulled her sleeve up, pausing at what he saw that you couldn’t see from where you were on the floor across the room.

From the look on both his and James’ faces, you could tell whatever was on her arm was pretty convincing.

“What did you say?” Ellie said after a moment, you almost being unable to hear her. “Everything happens for a reason, right?”

“David…” James started, equally as quiet and disbelieving.

“No…” David said after another pause, shaking his head in denial. “No, she would’ve turned by now. This isn’t real.”

“That looks pretty fuckin’ real to me…”

The next several seconds seemed to pass in a blur for you. In their confusion and disbelief, Ellie took advantage of their hesitation to pull the knife by her head out of the table and swung it into the side of James’ neck. Ellie took off with David pulling out a pistol and shooting at her, firing off shots until you could hear the click, click of an empty chamber. He paused for a moment, looking around the room for a moment before he met your gaze.

He almost seemed to look through you, but you could see the darkness in his expression. You weren’t surprised when he pulled the knife from James’ neck and followed her out into the main area of the building.

And you were still in the damn cage.

With a grunt, you threw yourself against the door again–a sense of panic and urgency driving you to ignore the aches and bruises the force of that was going to give you. You did so over and over again, letting out short yells and what may have been sobs. As much as you were definitely hitting it with some force, the door still wouldn’t open. You had to break the lock, and as you were unarmed, you knew it wasn’t possible in your current situation.

Still, you didn’t want to give up. You continued to slam against the bars, not exactly knowing what was happening outside the room as you couldn’t really hear anything. You were focused on your attempts to escape, yet you could feel your legs starting to give out as that familiar exhaustion started to make itself known. After a few more slams with your shoulder, your knees buckled that had you grasping onto the bars to keep yourself from falling to the floor.

At that moment, you were suddenly aware of the smell of smoke. It had been lingering in your nostrils, yet at the moment you could really smell it. You could almost taste it. Whatever had happened outside that room, someone had set the building on fire.

And you were still locked in the damn cage.

You continued your struggles, pulling yourself upright again and started to shake and slam yourself against the door. Your eyes were starting to burn–from the smoke or unshed tears, you weren’t sure. Yet, you had to stop again after a short while as you coughed, the smoke significant enough to shake reality into you for a few moments.

Gripping the bars on the cage door, you shook it hard with a yell that burned your throat. Fear, anger, and disbelief swirling in your gut as you continue to yell.

“Help me!” you screamed, “Please! I–I don’t…I don’t want to die like this…”

Your voice had faltered at the end, realizing how smoking the room had gotten. It was…unsettlingly quiet, aside from your shaky breathing and the coughs that would force their way out of your lungs as you struggled against the smoke that burned at the back of your throat. The fight was starting to leave you, ripping an angry sob from you as you kicked uselessly against the door before backing against the wall.

Another cough hit you, mixing with the sobs that you were already letting out. If you didn’t burn to death first, the smoke would suffocate you. You didn’t know which was worse.

Seconds seemed to drag by, the hopelessness of the situation almost making you collapse onto the floor. Yet, you heard the door to the room open. You glanced up to see someone step in, making their way toward your cage. You stilled, recognition taking a moment to settle before you realized the person in front of you was Ellie.

She looked rough–hair a mess, a haunted look on her face, and she was covered in blood. You had no idea what happened when she left the room, and you didn’t really have the words to say anything. The fact that she was still standing told enough of a story at the moment. She set about releasing the lock from the door to your cage, knowing where she got the keys from but you didn’t want to say anything. Didn’t need to.

Considering the look Ellie gave you before giving you a wordless nod, it seemed you both were in agreement to just get the hell out.

You followed after her, realizing that the building really was on fire as the smoke in the main area nearly choked you. Letting out a heavy cough, you covered your mouth with your arm as you weaved through the booths and tables toward the doors. Your eyes stung, the smoke you had already inhaled making it a struggle to breathe in the thicker air. Still, you were almost out.

You noticed a flash of white, daylight through the haze of smoke ahead of you. Mindlessly, you followed that, even after the door shut behind Ellie. Finally, you reached it and pushed it open.

The cold, winter air hit you as you stepped out. You stumbled a few steps in the snow before a series of coughs hit you, making you double over as your lungs struggled to get in fresh air. Dizziness wrapped around you for a few moments, though Ellie’s shouting pulled you out of it after a few moments.

Someone was holding onto her as she screamed for them to let her go, which made you stagger forward a couple steps until she stopped. Ellie let the man pull her into an embrace, which made your steps slow before you stopped a safe distance from them.

If you weren’t still struggling to wrap your head around the last hour, you would have probably felt awkward lingering in the background of a private moment.

The resort was oddly quiet, outside of the wind and the faint creaking of the building that was currently burning down. The group wasn’t huge, but you figured there would be people rushing about to stop that. Something had happened, something you weren’t around to witness, but you realized that your time there was done. In that moment, you let out another dry cough, finally starting to feel like you could breathe a little easier.

The sound pulled Ellie and the man out of their moment, however, the look on the man’s face gave you pause. Clearing your throat, you raised your free hand up in a quiet show of peace. For some reason, you hadn’t found your voice again after the shouting you had done.

Everything was happening so quickly…

“It’s–It’s okay, Joel. She was with me when…” Ellie said after a few moments, still holding onto the arm of the man–Joel–as he stared you down. From the look on his face, you had a feeling that if you made a wrong move, he’d charge.

Given everything that happened, you couldn’t blame him. Still, you remained where you were, watching him carefully.

Finally, your gaze shifted toward Ellie as you cleared your throat.

“Thank you…” you said slowly, voice rough, “For saving me. I have…nothing to repay you, but…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ellie said, sounding almost as reluctant to speak as you were.

You knew you should just nod and move on. Gather some supplies and head out again–yet, you were exhausted and had nowhere to go. Had no idea where to even start. Still, you said your thanks and you knew you should just leave before you press your luck. You had more than enough.

You remained, however, Ellie and Joel watching you in silence for a few moments as you did the same. Your legs were rooted to the spot, a heavy feeling in your gut. You were scared–more so than you had been in years. Just turn around and…

“You have nowhere else to go, do you?” Ellie asked, pulling you out of your head.

“...I definitely can’t stay here,” you replied–she was right, though, even if you didn’t want to admit it. This had been your group. Until…well.

“Come with us,” Ellie offered, making your brow furrow somewhat.

“Ellie,” Joel hissed, the warning clear in his tone.

You had an idea on what Ellie could do, but you didn’t know what to make of him. For now, you wanted to avoid pissing him off. You had enough abuse over the last couple of days.

“Just until you can find a place,” Ellie continued, meeting your gaze despite Joel’s protest. “Right?”

“I…I won’t overstay my welcome, if I can,” you said, finally relenting to the silent plea of help that you weren’t even aware you were making, “Until I find people. I would…be really grateful for that. You’ve done more than enough already.”

Ellie and Joel shared a quiet moment, something silent there but it seemed like he relented. With much reluctance, given his body language. Still, he wrapped an arm around Ellie to help lead her forward, the girl casting you a look over her shoulder with a tight grin. There was a pain in her eyes that you could easily read. It pulled at the feeling in you over this whole situation, but you had no idea what happened between her and David. Outside from the fact that he was dead.

Still, you supposed that was your queue to follow. It took a few moments before you managed to follow after them with unsteady steps.

You didn’t know how this would play out, but at the moment you were just relieved to leave.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #my writing.#series: eyes wide open.

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hypnotisedfireflies · 9 months

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William seems to be one of the few parts of Tess’ past that she doesn’t mind looking back on, she always remembers him fondly. But whatever became of dear William? We know that he eventually dies?? but do you have any behind the scenes ideas about his fate? What did the time after outbreak look like for him?

In a different timeline, what would a William and Tess reunion look like post outbreak/Jackson times? How would their friendship change? What would William think of Joel? (I know we get some idea of this in Blood Orange when Tess is bantering with him in her head. (I love that scene)) I’m imagining a lot of teasing and embarrassing stories that make Rachel’s look down right tame.

I hope this ask isn’t too niche btw, I just love all the details you add into your stories and would love to know more.

Oh, what a cool ask! Thank you anon, we don’t talk about William Szulc much so this is nice to explore.

Driftersverse canon, William is definitely gone. Tess imagines in that Blood Orange banter that cause of death was waffles, which is her way of hoping that he went quickly and didn’t suffer through everything that happened. She tells herself that he was one of the first directly infected and was put down that first night.

The truth isn’t too dissimilar from that. William didn’t make it very far. He was never infected, though. He was killed in the chaos of that first weekend - Tess will never know it, but he was caught up in one of the explosions she saw from her home.

Had he lived, William would have been a pretty cunning survivor, not unlike Tess. They got along so well because they recognised a certain callousness in one another, I guess? Not the nicest thing, but they knew how to care for someone who held the world at a distance. They had an extremely low-maintenance friendship. They could be fucking horrible to one another and it was just water off a duck’s back; they could go without speaking because life was busy for months and pick up right where they left off; they had one another’s backs especially when the other person was in the wrong. But they didn’t necessarily hold one another accountable or dig too deep below the surface. Their friendship was close, but it was indulgent. All about the good times – which is kind of why Tess can’t call him in Snowqueen. I think we all have some friendships like that. There's nothing wrong with them, it's just the way some relationships are.

Had he lived and made it to Jackson it would have been a very different dynamic. They wouldn’t have been just able to pick up like they used to. Too much had happened, and I think William probably went Full Villain in those years. I mean, Tess and Joel aren’t really the good guys either, but I can imagine William going around with a title like The Commodore and living a very long-term raider/hunter existence. The kind of survivor group with FEDRA tanks and equipment, cutting FEDRA supply lines and also being a total menace to the Fireflies, too.

So I can see if William had showed up in Jackson – all that left behind for one reason or another – that it would be a kind of strange and heartbreaking time rather than joyous. Our guys would have their Spidey senses tingling that something is not right with this guy, and Joel and Lachie would come to an agreement that Tess is not to be left alone with him. So you know, Tess is trying to hang out with William and Lachie is doing a Sam Gamgee outside the window, trimming the verge.

Lachie and William, btw, on paper should be the best of friends. Both strangers in a strange land, and Australians and Brits tend to gravitate together abroad. But they have taken very different paths of survival and have different outcomes. They’d start a cricket team and teaching Jacksonites how to play, but then end up arguing about the Ashes and batting averages and spin bowling. Lachie would call him a pom, William would call him a convict, Lachie would argue that he’s only second gen on his dad’s side and third on his mum’s so he’s not a convict, blah blah blah.

Over time, William would start to get better, but I think he would be one of those people who would always be a bit unstable. But he would have a plethora of stories to tell Joel, anon! You are very right about that. Rachel was positively PG compared to what William could tell Joel. In fact, Joel probably doesn’t really want to know some of the stuff William can tell him. And here also is a person who could give Joel a more unbiased opinion of Tess and Mike’s relationship – but Joel actually doesn’t care about that anymore at this point in time. 🥹 So he never asks.

In return, William would be very mistrustful of Joel to begin with. Not really Joel’s fault; William doesn’t trust anyone (not even Tess) by this juncture. Plus, he's very obviously watching him. But over time he would start to respect him, especially given how long he has been in Tess’s life and helped keep her alive.

Ouch, that got dark. I hope that’s not a downer, anon.

Not all reunions are happy ones.

#driftersverse #asks

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shion-yu · 8 months

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Day 30 - Coma

It gets more than Elliot can handle at home (part 3). Part one here and part two here. Whumptober 2023! I’m using the @ailesswhumptober's prompt list. This story is about my OC Cliff - here’s his profile if you’re so inclined: https://toyhou.se/23741453.cliff. This one’s a multiparter, this is the third and final part (I think).

TW/CWs: Major chronic illness, hospitalization

The ICU was much quieter than the emergency room. For some reason that was worse - maybe because it forced Elliot to think about something other than the chaos around him. Cliff lay on bleached white sheets pale as a ghost. Elliot couldn't bring himself to look directly at him. Perhaps the sound of the ventilator pumping in and out should have been comforting because it meant Cliff was still alive, but it wasn’t. It really wasn’t.

Moira called him sobbing. The hospital had notified Cliff’s father, who had then notified her. She was on the first plane there but it wouldn't arrive until later that afternoon. Elliot just told her it was fine. Cliff was stable, at least as stable as someone who couldn't breathe on their own could be. Cliff’s father made a short appearance but said little, focusing his efforts on working with Cliff’s doctors on diagnosis and plan of care. Elliot didn’t even have the energy to glare at him properly.

Upon arriving, Moira hugged Elliot right away. Elliot tried to comfort her but his attempts were half-hearted when he could find little to comfort himself with. He had called his own mom and had a full breakdown on the phone earlier. While she was of course supportive and worried for Elliot, she hadn’t offered to come by the hospital either. Elliot understood, but secretly he wondered if part of that was influenced by resentment, too. He'd been so broken the first time they'd split up and he knew she was still worried Cliff could just be using him as someone to take care of him now that he was sick. It wasn't true, but it was a fact that ate away at Elliot's consciousness. It was similar with Milo - he could call his best friend, but the guy would only be there for Elliot’s sake, not Cliff’s. His followers online definitely weren’t the right place for this. Ultimately, he felt alone.

Several differential diagnoses were thrown around over the next few days, but none of them stuck. The doctor explained that they'd taken several samples of blood, CSF, lung tissue and sputum to test and they were waiting to see what grew. However they were sure that at the least it was a very bad infection, most likely an opportunistic one from long term steroid use; Cliff's immune system was destroyed by the very medication that had been keeping him alive. There was talk about brain surgery too if nothing grew on the cultures which sounded beyond terrifying, but thankfully on the fourth day after arriving Dr. Barrows told Elliot and Moira they'd identified a bacteria - nocardia. It was something that was usually harmless in most people, but in this case it was severe and Cliff's chances of survival were extremely poor considering it had already reached his brain. The most intensive of antibiotics were all they could hope for. Elliot googled nocardia and then quickly wished he didn't, because it said the chances of survival for disseminated nocardiosis in immune suppressed people was only about 15%. That number throbbed in his mind. 15% sounded painfully low.

Despite this number, Cliff did respond to the antibiotics. His numbers were apparently getting better, even though to someone like Elliot he seemed the same. A week in, the ventilator was removed and sedation weaned. Cliff was breathing on his own with just oxygen, but he wasn’t waking up. There was nothing else to do but wait at that point and hope that Cliff’s body allowed him to wake up again. There was a possibility that there would be lasting brain damage. There was a possibility that he’d never wake up at all. The idea of either thing happening was almost too much for Elliot to handle. The stress caused him to feel the tug of old habits, but he ignored them for Cliff’s sake and Cliff’s sake only.

Elliot couldn’t help but blame himself though. Cliff had been getting progressively weaker for a while, but they’d assumed it was just part of his flare up. The doctor said that there was no way of knowing - Cliff’s immune system was so poor that he likely hadn’t been showing signs of the growing infection until it was so severe. Still, Elliot kept thinking, maybe if he had just paid a bit more attention...

It had been ten days since they’d come to the hospital. Elliot had rarely left the building this entire time and he was exhausted. This evening, Moira had convinced him to go home to shower and to take a nap; Elliot had resisted, but once he’d given in he didn’t even remember getting home before he passed out for the entire night, dead to the world. He was woken up the next morning by Milo knocking on his door - apparently zombie-Elliot from last night had texted him to come wake him up in the morning if he didn’t wake up himself. He hadn’t, after twelve long hours of sleep.

Milo gave Elliot a tight hug before coming in and immediately providing Elliot with much needed coffee and breakfast that he’d brought. “You look terrible,” Milo pointed out. “Have you eaten anything at all?”

“Thanks a lot... And yes. Cliff’s sister force feeds me every so often,” Elliot mumbled around a hot cup of coffee. He closed his eyes and felt like if he let himself, he’d sleep for another twelve hours. He was so tired, so worried. “What if he never wakes up, Milo?”

“He’ll wake up. He’s pretty stubborn,” Milo pointed out. It was a testament to how serious things were that he didn’t take the opportunity to tell Elliot he’d be better off without Cliff. “But he needs you alive, too. You need to take care of yourself.”

“I’m trying. I’m here, aren’t I?” Elliot snapped. Then he sighed, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...”

Milo nodded. “It’s okay, I know. You love him.”

Elliot looked up at Milo in surprise. “Really?” His best friend had always disapproved of his relationship with Cliff, something that had pulled them apart before.

“Yeah,” Milo said. “You need him too. So he’s going to wake up.”

They fell quiet, Elliot nursing his coffee and willing himself the energy to go back to the hospital. He showered and was convincing himself to return to that painful waiting game when his phone began to ring on full volume. Immediately panicked, Elliot grabbed it and saw that it was Moira. Please don’t be bad news. “Hello?!”

“He’s waking up,” Cliff’s sister answered. She sounded like she was crying. “Come back, okay?”

She didn’t have to tell him twice. Milo drove Elliot back to the hospital in record time and Elliot sprinted up to Cliff’s room. He couldn’t believe it until he saw for himself, but there Cliff was, eyes half lidded but open. The head of the bed was elevated and Moira was there holding his hand, talking softly to him. When Elliot showed up she smiled and pointed at him. “There he is,” she said.

Elliot burst into tears. He hugged Cliff as tight as he dared what with how fragile Cliff surely was, trying not to get caught in all the wires. When he pulled back, Cliff’s eyes were looking at him. Elliot let out a relieved sob. “You’re awake.”

“He’s not talking yet,” Moira informed Elliot gently. “I don’t think he really knows what’s going on.”

"That’s okay. That’s okay, baby, you’re awake, that’s what matters,” Elliot said. Cliff’s lips trembled slightly as if he were trying to say something, but nothing came out. Elliot wondered just how extensive that possible brain damage could be. But then he felt Cliff’s fingers twitch in his hand and he felt it form a very loose shape. He looked down and recognized it: sign language for I love you. And Elliot knew Cliff was going to be alright. Maybe not right away, but eventually, and that was what mattered.

#ShionWrites #oc: Cliff #ailesswhumptober2023 #ailesswhumptoberday30 #ailesswhumptober #day 30 #whump #sickfic #sick whump #medical whump #hospital setting #illness whump #chronic illness #coma #male whump #hurt comfort #angst #chronic illness whump #hospital whump

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libraryofneith · 11 months

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Out of Mind - Chapter 6 (Joel Miller x Female Reader)

@hiroikegawa @evyiione If anyone else want to be added to the taglist so you know the minute this is updated, let me know. Otherwise please show your appreciation via likes, comments and reblogs : D

Sorry it’s been sooo long since I updated :’( FYI I'll be working and travelling a lot over the Summer so won't be updating very frequently. I haven't abandoned the work, I love writing this, but unfortunately life gets in the way. Especially when you're singing your way through the Scottish highlands.

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

Summary: You finally meet the infamous Bill and Frank.

Warnings/tags: [18+ minors DNI], honestly this is a very tame chapter, just some chill Bill and Frank goodness, hints at queer Tess, Joel sees reader in a dress for first time and exe. stops working.

He wants to tell her that she looks pretty, that she always looks pretty, that for a brief second when he saw her he wasn't in the middle of an apocalypse anymore...

You

You fucking love Bill and Frank. And Frank fucking loves you, Bill is wary but as you're informed, that's not necessarily a bad sign. He's suspicious of anyone new which is fine - you're already used to that from Joel. In fact, Bill seems to be an older and, if possible, scruffier version of Joel: both hard-wired to survive no matter what, both with impenatrable emotional walls and both fiercely protective of the few people who have managed to scale those walls. Unfortunately you have not yet succeeded in scaling either of theirs, so thank god for Frank.

He's completely unlike anyone you've met since the world ended. The complete and utter devastation doesn't seem to have darkened his warmth and kindness. In fact, if anything, it's made it shine all the brighter. He's not naïve or foolish as you know some people would dismiss him, he's well aware of the relentless cruelty of the world beyond the gates of the home he shares with Bill and he's determined to fight it; not with guns and brutality but by creating a space of joy; somewhere people can live instead of merely surviving. It's a rare thing and it's something you didn't realise you were craving until you found it.

You and Frank connect the moment you lay eyes on each other.

"She's cute. Did you adopt her at a shelter?"

"Actually they fed me and I followed them home." "Excuse you," Tess interjects, "I think you'll find she stole from us."

"Right, then I followed you home."

"Oh this is rich! You gotta tell me the whole story," Frank gushes as he links his arm through yours and leads you away from a disconcerted Joel, Tess and Bill. From that point on you two are practically inseperable. You leave Joel and Tess to haggle with Bill while you paint, garden and explore the town with Frank.

"So I gotta ask..." Frank ventures as he gives you a tour of the small abandoned village, preserved as a shrine to those who were taken from it and the life they led, "what exactly is the relationship between you guys?"

"Us guys being?"

"You, Tess and Joel."

"Well, in theory the arrangement was that I'd come work for them, put my skills to use and they'd put a roof over my head and give me some measure of protection."

"And in practice?"

"This is the first time that they've let me anywhere near a job, though Joel did take me for shooting practice and I saved him from an infected, so that was cool." Frank gapes at you.

"You saved Joel?"

"Ummm... he kinda had to save me straight after, but I saved him first." "

Right, but what I mean is..."

"They don't hurt me if that's what you're worried about." Frank jerks to a stop.

"I... I didn't mean... Ok that's good."

"Look, if you're about to give me the whole you don't know what you're getting into with them speech, don't bother. I know what they are and what they do. I know because I've done it too. I'm not some innocent flower who needs protecting from the big bad world. However bad those two are, I've seen worse. And at the end of the day I'd rather have them on my side than face the worse alone."

There's a somewhat awkward pause as Frank mulls over your little speech and you give him time to figure out what to say.

"Ok then," he eventually lets out. "I'm glad you're looking out for yourself. Sorry, didn't mean to pry."

"That's alright, you weren't"

"It's just... look, I love Tess and Joel, they're like family - yes, even Joel - but I know they're not always - what I mean is, they have to do a lot to survive." You nod slowly.

"We all have."

"But it's good we've all found people."

"Well, I'm not sure if I'd classify Joel and Tess as my people just yet. Tess is nice but I feel like I'm still on probation with Joel."

"No, Joel likes you."

"What?" "He's a grumpy son-of-a-bitch but he likes you underneath all that- you know..." and he does a more than passable imitation of Joel's scowl.

"I don't- how do you- why are you saying this?" He gives you a sympathetic look.

"I think you know why."

"Oh god!" You cringe, covering your now crimson face from his view.

"It's ok, I get it. For all his emotional constipation, Joel's really got that sexy smouldering thing going on."

"I don't- ugh- I know nothing will come of it. It's just a crush. I'll get over it." An inscrutable expression passes over Frank's face at that moment.

"I'm sure you will. You know there's a boutique on this street."

"Boutique... like... for clothes?"

"Handmade too. You wanna check them-" but you're already dashing up the street in the direction of the hand-made with love fashion sign.

---

Joel

"So... you picked up a stray?" Joel can feel his face flush as he busies himself setting plates on the dining table.

"This ain't a free ride. She works for us."

"Doing what exactly? Goofing off with Frank?"

"She gotta learn first before we let her in on our business."

"Interesting response to someone stealing from you: letting her into your home."

"Weren't my idea. Tess was the one who took a shine to her."

"And you just tolerate her right?"

"Right." It's only when he says it out loud that it sounds unnecessarily cold. "I mean... look, she's a nice girl I just... I'm not sure if we can rely on her."

"That's all?"

"Well what else would it be?" Bill gives him that can't pull the wool over my eyes look.

"She's pretty." He gives Bill a look of his own.

"I know I'm not exactly the best judge but she's not exactly an eye sore."

"I don't think Tess was too worried about that."

"How would you know?" There's a smile in Bill's eyes - as much of a smile as he's capable of. Does he know something about Tess I don't?

"It ain't like that alright?"

"Whatever you say."

"Shut up." The sound of the door closing thankfully prevents Bill from offering any retort.

"We're back." Frank calls out.

"Great, just in time to not help out with any-" Joel stops short when he sees her: the low evening sun shining behind her, creating a glowing outline almost like a halo, dress wrapped loosely around her body, swishing about her legs with each movement. Her hair has been pulled out of its normal messy high ponytail and braided into a loose plait, a soft frame around her smiling face.

"Well shit." Tess emerges with a smile on her face. "Look at you."

"You like it? I found it at that clothing boutique."

"I love it."

"Joel." Frank snaps him out of his trance. "What do you think? Doesn't she look pretty?" He can suddenly feel everyone's eyes on him. He can't bring himself to look her in the eye, shit, he's grasping helplessly for something to say.

"You can't wear that on the hike back." Everyone's eyes roll.

"No shit Sherlock I wasn't planning on it."

He wants to tell her that she looks pretty, that she always looks pretty, that for a brief second when he saw her he wasn't in the middle of an apocalypse anymore, he felt like a kid at the first sign of Summer; but she's already gone, and you're both spared what would inevitably be a very shameful outburst.

He's still watching you all the way through dinner as you grin and whisper in Frank's ear - whatever you say prompting a snort of laughter and a disconcerting glance in his direction. You even manage to coax a smile out of Bill, telling him this risotto is the best you've ever had, assuring him you're not put off by the inclusion of mushrooms. You allow him to lecture you about the wine he's paired it with - how the sharp undertones compliment the tanginess of the parmesan. Honestly it all tastes like wine and cheese to Joel. You catch his eyes in a subtle smile, indicating that the same is very much true for you, but it's nice that Bill is warming up to you.

After dinner, Frank drags everyone to the piano and despite Bill's protests that he will absolutely NOT be playing, he is forced to interfere when Frank plays so badly it hurts everyone's ears.

"Works everytime" Frank whispers to you triumphantly as Bill rifles through his collection of songbooks. After discarding almost every book in the pile, Bill picks up a 'Best of Elton John' collection to a chorus oohs and that one that one from you, Tess and Frank. With a heavy sigh he flips open the pages and launches into the opening bars of 'Your Song'.

"It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside..." Frank and Tess start crooning as Bill cringes. Joel remains silent. With enough liqour down him he might join in, and before he's completely fucked out of his mind he might be persuaded to grab their dusty old guitar out of the attic, but he's nowhere near that drunk yet, so he hangs back and listens as they launch into the chorus:

"I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind that I put down in words how wonderful life is now you're in the world." Joel can hear something else now above Tess and Frank's out-of-tune wails, someone singing a sweet soft melody; a voice that if he heard it on the radio in another life, he would've cranked up the volume and danced to around his kitchen.

"I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss, well a few of the verses they've got me quite cross." Tess and Frank gradually taper off as everyone realises that the beautiful sound is coming from you.

"But the sun's been quite kind while I wrote this song, it's for people like you that keep it turned on..." your voice fades as you realise you're singing on your own. "Sorry, did I do something wrong?"

"No sweetheart." Frank and Tess are grinning brilliantly. "Keep going."

"So excuse me forgetting, but these things i do. You see I've forgotten if they're green or blue." Joel can feel that tugging feeling in his chest again and suddenly he wishes he had his guitar with him right now. He knows the chord progression, it's not hard, and he wants to hear how your voice would sound over his playing.

"Anyway the thing is what I really mean, yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen." Frank and Tess come in for the last chorus and everyone is dewy-eyed by the time they finished. Frank pulls you in for a hug as Bill asks:

"Where the hell did you learn to do that?" You're blushing, unable to make eye contact with anyone.

"You're not the only Elton John fans left y'know."

"No, I mean how did you learn to sing like that?"

"Don't know, I've always been able to really." Bill turns to him and Tess.

"You two could get her to busk - you'd make more money than you ever do smuggling."

"I'd rather be eaten by infected" you butt in quickly, earning a laugh from Tess.

"I think we're more suited as smugglers than roadies."

"Joel?" Frank is giving him yet another piercing stare. "Wasn't she great?" That familiar feeling of panic is clutching him again: the sense of everyone's eyes on him, the feeling that his heart has been ripped out of his chest and splayed across his face, but he resists the urge to grunt or say something non-commital. He forces himself to look at you when he says:

"You sang great."

He wishes his chest didn't burn when he sees you smile.

---

Here’s what I imagine the dress would look like.

#the last of us #the last of us hbo #hbo the last of us #joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller x female oc #bill and frank

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ohnocreativity · 2 months

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Not a love story.

Dystopias aren’t a dating ground for the main characters, unlike what Hollywood thinks.

Dystopian environments should make the main character and reader question everything and everyone. Would they tell me to the government? Would they leave me behind as we run away from infected people? Should I trust them?

Hollywood focuses too much on love to notice that the economy is collapsing and trust is a difficult and complicated thing while living in a dystopia.

In this essay I will be comparing The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner and between the books and the movies.

In the Hunger Games Trilogy, the books written by Suzanne Collins), there are plenty of instances when the main character, Katniss Everdeen makes it plainly clear that she doesn’t want to have a relationship with either Gale (her childhood best friend) and Peeta (the boy who saved her life when they were young.)

She only wants to save her younger sister, Primrose, and their mother. Anyone else is just a bonus. However, playing the star-crossed-lovers is what managed to save her and Peeta from the first games, because the Capitol (like America and Hollywood) wants to see a love story. After 74 years of having every other type of victory story, romance is perfect for them. “Haymitch is right. Star crossed lovers, they eat that stuff up in the Capitol.”

Katniss Everdeen fully believes in the “eye for an eye” motive. She cannot let go of the fact that Peeta saved her life when they were young, which proves to be a good motivation to destroy the Capital and its ideals of using child slaughter as entertainment.

Even though everyone in the Capital, as well as real life fans who only watch the movies, believe that Katniss and Peeta’s love for each other is what sparked the rebellion that led to the revolution, that is incorrect.

It was the murder of a 12 year old girl in the first games and Katniss’s grief that made the other Districts realise that they are done watching their children be placed in the awful situation where humans are pitted against each other and are forced to fight for the entertainment of others.

If Peeta wasn’t in the Hunger Games, it would still have a powerful message and Katniss Everdeen would still not be with Gale.

Although, in the prequel of the Hunger Games, we learn that before the 11th Game the Capital people didn’t enjoy watching the Hunger Games, not while contrasting their reactions in the 74th. For them it was as much punishment as it was for the District people.

In the end of the books, it is even shown that Katniss left Peeta. She left both of her love options so she can just live by herself and do what she wanted back in District 12.

Peeta, like always, came to her.

Survival takes precedence over romance within the books of The Maze Runner. We see it numerous times.

In the Scorch Trials, when Teresa betrayed Thomas and still believed that W.I.C.K.E.D was good, that was the answer.

In the movies of The Death Cure, Teressa choses W.I.C.K.E.D again and decides to stay, even so. The romance still clouded Thomas’ decision, he was hesitant to trust Teresa but less so than the others.

In the movies Teresa betrays Thomas on an almost daily basis, it was starting to get very tiring. She kept getting into contact with W.I.C.K.E.D (Although it is spelled WCKD for some reason), ignoring the fact that they have failed so many times at so many things. They were meant to keep the Gladers(or subjects as they referred to them) under control, and failed. They were meant to find a cure for the Flare, but failed. They were meant to save humanity and yet again they failed.

In the movies, Teresa’s faith in WCKD was conflicting with her love for Thomas, but near the end of the books Teresa thought she was saving Thomas.

In both The Maze Runner and The Hunger Games (the movies), people’s main focus is romance. As such the screenwriters must have decided to use that to their advantage and focus on it as well. Perhaps because the real meaning of the books were too dark for Americans to take seriously and probably because when someone goes to see a movie they want to be entertained, they want to be moved by something that is seen in regular life. Cranks and murdered children are often evasive from the day-to-day life of people.

So, what is the real meaning of the books?

With The Hunger Games, I believe its main focus is how easily humans can be distracted by positive media, sparkly dresses and good food. As long as things are disguised by something pretty and something that releases endorphins, it’s ok. The Capital uses bureaucracy, politicians, social, culture and media control, that is what makes it dystopian.

With The Maze Runner, the main focus is how easily humans betray one another for “the greater good.” It is easy to be lied to, especially when they want to be lied to.

W.I.C.K.E.D lied to themselves. They believed they could play God with children. There were alternatives that they could have taken, but they were less entertaining to do. W.I.C.K.E.D used bureaucracy control like the Capital, but there wasn’t much media to control over, so they got creative. They used psychology to confuse the main characters, making them doubt everything. Their names, their whereabouts. The Gladers were physically confined into the Glade.

Bureaucracy, psychology, resources, physical and information control.

Dystopian is described as an unfair society… Like ours.

#writeblr #trying my hand at essay wrting #A bit dramatic #but I have a feeling I'm missung something #essay writing #academics #dystophian #dystopia #the hunger games #maze runner #tmr #thg series #tmr books #tmr movies #wrting

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veone · 10 months

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🫡okay idea around this gameplay is to explore a different setting and get back into enjoying the gameplay. I also want to play in an apocalypse and have some stakes to degree and tell story a bit.

So the storyline I am picturing for these three people is that they were originally captives for a nearly over a two year or so in a community they originally entered with the hope of safety. It didn’t work like that. They were put away from the rest of the population in fear they might spread something and were being observed to see if they would integrated in well. While there they were subjected to abuse and forced to work back breaking labor to get little to nothing to eat. Constantly being told it was a act of kindness to give them anything at all. This group leaders was very paranoid about other community possible attacking them. Times were desperate, the weathers been dry, crops were failing, so live stalks were dropping. This wasn’t just one year either it was going on two of little rain most of the year, and a brutally cold winter. I picture Alti coming across this community at a desperate time, he was traveling with his father. Alti was sick, he’d gotten injured, slashed open his calf and it got infected. Alti father didn’t make it very long im those conditions and for the longest time it didn’t seem like Alti was going to make it either. I don’t think he was very aware when his dad died. It took him weaks to learn of this face. When he did get better. Got clear headed he was depressed and angry. His time in this community got significantly harder because oh his apathy towards everything and very self destructive behavior.

Payton was in a similar situation but she was traveling alone. Starving and confused. I think she got separated from her group during a hoard, they were nomadic but a small group, maybe five people at most. They got separated in a town a few miles away from the group and she ended up having to take refuge in a car and few hours passed and it began to snow. I like to think they did look for her but came to the conclusion she was dead when they found her bag torn and a half eaten corpse that looked to wearing the same boots she was wearing. Mind you these people were starving and exhausted and looking for someone in a blizzard.

The group of people that they were around in this off section of this community were in similar situations and unfortunately very hungry and desperate to be accepted into the community. Some people got in if they did well enough. Worked hard, respected their masters. Bribed some guards, rat each other out. So the living conditions weren’t the greatest. Payton was getting pretty close to one of the guards. I like to think on his end and her it could’ve been something genuine but it wasn’t. It was for survival for her. He got her little things like food and medicines which she shared with the others in the cover of night. This relationship was done quietly it wasn’t uncommon unfortunately. Another way people got in the community was through these types of relationships. Payton got pregnant and things started to get a little difficult. The guard was very adamant about her coming to stay with him have a family. She didn’t want this, this was something unfathomable but she didn't have a choice. She continue on this relationship and had Dali. Towards the end of her pregnancy she got a chance to be in the community and had her child as comfortably as it was possible.

Dali was relatively healthy and a beautiful baby girl. She cried a lot though but she’s a baby. Something shifted in her parents relationship, or really Payton dropped the act. Postpartum depression can do that. I think if she didn’t think about it much she would’ve left Dali with him if she could but she couldn’t. To stubborn when a constant threat said was that she never see her daughter again if he felt like it and as much as she didn’t want Dali and was afraid for herself she couldn’t just let this piece of her go. She carried this kid for nearly nine months and it was hell but getting to hold this part of her, this person she made covered in muck and screaming there was no fucking way she was gonna just leave her baby.

Times were getting desperate in the community, or was it? Its never been very clear. They kept letting in people and had a decent garden but slowly the group of captives noticed that if one of them died they never really noticed where the body went, and every once in a while one of them would go missing in the night. This little rumor among the captives caused a uprising. I could go into more details but I'm gonna save this for later. This caused alot of damage and because Payton was still sneaking them extra food and pain killers when she could she, Dali and Alti escaped together in the chaos of that scene.

#😶 as I was writing this I will explore this further I just gotta find a lowes a cosco something #will elaborate later i have a build to find a gang of people to make.#whats left behind:gameplay #got elevated to a passion project #dis if for me now lol

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vtforpedro · 1 year

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personal/med update

My brain is fried mush right now. I survived my disability hearing on Tuesday. It was definitely informal, a little intimidating, but I feel I got through it well enough. My attorney said it’s a toss up because this judge is extremely professional and won’t give any indication and he sure didn’t. The vocational expert narrowed me down to like 3 jobs, then 2, then 1, then 0. I felt that was a good thing? Like am I not disabled if I can’t do any jobs? Either way, my age is working against me so we shall see. It’s very strange that you can be completely disabled and unable to work, but not by US law so they won’t provide aid. Blegh. Gotta wait another 1-3 months for his written decision. ._. Last Thursday, I noticed I had a ‘spot.’ I call them spots b/c I have eczema but I also had a bad ringworm infection in 2015 and called them spots then. Red spots that turn into rings. Anyway thought it was gonna be eczema but by Friday I was covered in many more. Cue me having multiple meltdowns about it interfering with my hearing if it got too bad lmao It didn’t, but it is bad! I had 49 ringworm spots as of last night and they grow in number by day. So, I went to see an NP b/c my dr couldn’t fit me in. Went as well as every other medical professional interaction has, which was terribly, and left me in tears and feeling beat down yet again by the medical field. She wants disabled me, who was bedbound for eight months and currently in PT to recover, to put cream on 49 spots and counting. With IIH and nerve damage that limits my movement and ability to stand for longer than 10-15 min. But she kept interrupting me and wouldn’t let me explain any of this. Her notes said ‘she is not usually terribly active’ so I guess being bedbound translates to that somehow??? She also said I had 3-4 spots on my breasts which is not what she was told by me or what her MA wrote down. lmao so guess who had to message her pcp again!!!!!!!! A completely healthy person can’t be expected to put cream on 49 spots 2x a day. For me, this involves washing my skin since I am unable to shower every day cause of the whole disabled thing. She said a lot more bullshit about my swollen feet and fatigue, so basically I got zero help. It was barely a 10min appt. Fucking hate them, I swear. She refused to give me the oral anti-fungal cause of my other meds, but my mom asked the pharmacist today and she said I’d be fine to take it. The pharmacist asked, unprompted, if an NP, urgent care or ER doctor said no to the oral pill and my mom was like YES! And she said they don’t understand it and won’t give it despite it being used every day even for yeast infections and athlete’s foot. She said her friend went through this shit too trying to get the oral pill. Back in 2015, I suffered this infection for 5mos while applying for health insurance/getting approved/waiting for a pcp because no NP, UC or ER doctor would give me the oral med lmao I saw my new pcp finally and he was like uhhhh no here’s a prescription for it you have way too many spots to worry about putting cream all over your body. Y’all I had been washing my sheets, towels, clothes, taking apple cider vinegar baths, soaking my spots in ACV, then applying one of five or six otc and prescription creams EVERY DAY. I spent two hours twice a day in my bathroom. Ringworm was what I did every day all day for five fucking months. I cannot fathom doing that again. It’s insanity. I was close to a mental breakdown and I only had MH issues back then, none of the physical stuff. I hate it here man Also why do I keep having shit happen every time I turn around. No idea why my feet are swelling, no idea why I have this abnormal fatigue that makes me teary because I sit here and stare at my screen unable to think of anything else but how tired I am. Like for long periods of time. She said to talk to my psychiatrist about it HOOOOOOOO. I woke up this morning and immediately started crying. It’s triggering being treated this way after three years of it. I should’ve waited to see my pcp and used otc in the meantime or something, but my pcp wanted me in asap for my swollen feet so I could get lab orders. Which, according to this NP, ‘there are no labs for swollen feet.’ Where did they get this lady She’s like WHAT ABOUT YOUR LEUKEMIA DID THEY CURE IT? I’m like my chronic, lifelong leukemia? No, it is in remission lmao chronic is right there in the name ma’am. It’s the first word. HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I’m gonna go cry again sorry for ranting I am so so so fucking sick of medical professionals and I cannot wait for it to slow down but my february is completely booked and march is halfway there. Chronic pain life baby!!!!

#vtforpedro personal #vtforpedro medical #long post #rant #we hates them precious #why is this neverending #i could use like a five minute break for christs sake #i have to miss pt until I'm on treatment we know is working too so that's a setback #hhhhhhh

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cherrywoodmaeg · 9 months

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Shortcut Pt. 14

Successfully survived exams, and then I had a holiday in the Netherlands. Yay, inspiration!

Also shoutout to my nurse-turned-med-student partner for fact checking <3

An appointment

For the entirety of the next hours walking, Niphka preoccupied herself with holding Jon as steady as possible. Instead of sitting on her extended hand, he was now leaning against her leather chestpiece while she held him upright. That way, she couldn’t balance out as many bumps in her movement, but Jon had reassured her that he’d been tossed around much worse on the HMS Triumph. Instead, he preferred to stay close to her, as to not be as exposed in mid-air.

She knew that the cause of all her complicated thoughts was her friendship to him. Still, she was drawn closer. She wanted to understand the way he thought, since he seemed to be so good at finding the right words to calm down her racing mind.

It’s been a long, long time since someone did that.

As the sun began to set, her mind wandered to the dawning night. Granted, it felt like the rift between the two of them was closing. But perhaps that was precisely why she was concerned it might rip open again.

Didn’t he ask me to trust him?

“You look like there’s something on your mind,” she heard Jon remark. Niphka paused to look down.

“I’m just thinking about tonight. I don’t want you to wake up like last time.”

He squeezed her index finger.

“What happened- it’s not going to happen again.”

“You cannot know that.”

“Stop worrying about me,” he groaned. “What about you? You haven’t gotten much sleep either, have you?”

“No,” she admitted. “I guess both of us need some recovering. Speaking of which, how is your leg doing?”

He sucked in the air through his teeth. It took a moment before he answered.

“Not good, to be honest. It’s looking better, the bruises and all, but it still hurts a lot. If I didn’t have you, I honestly wouldn’t know how to get from A to B.”

“Can I take another look? Before it’s too dark?

He nodded, and Niphka sat on her knees, after which she put him down. When she let go, however, he stumbled and nearly fell before she could catch him with her left hand.

“Careful!”

Without saying anything, Jon held onto her finger as she slowly helped him into a seating position. He pulled up his pant leg.

Niphka knew better than to touch him. Once again, she cursed her eyes for not allowing her to see. But by how Jon was moving alone, she could tell that something was wrong. He needed help.

“Absolutely not.”

“Alright, I’ll stay here, then. But have to get someone to treat that.”

Jon couldn’t believe it. Only half an hour after their last break, Niphka had stopped again – in a place uncomfortably close to the nightlights of civilization. And now, she wanted to interrupt their mission!

“I don’t want you to stay very long. But you’re helping no one by dying from an infection!”

“We don’t know if it’s infected!” Jon protested, although he knew she was right. Before Niphka could continue to lecture him, he admitted defeat.

“But if I’m going, I’m going by myself!” he stated, and that was that. She helped him to find a fitting stick to use as a crutch. He allowed her to bring him to the nearest road leading into town, under the condition that right after, she would stay hidden until he returned. Jon didn’t have to be a mind reader to know how little she liked that.

They said goodbye and he started to hike. The sun had fully set when he arrived on the streets. There was no one to see outside, and Jon was relieved by that. He wasn’t keen on drawing too much attention, with the rough condition of his clothes (and himself).

Behind one of the doors, he heard loud voices. Above the dirty windows of the run-down two-story house, the wooden letters RED TULIP - TAVERN marked this place to be just what he was looking for. Jon entered.

He was greeted by a surprisingly tidy room full of tables. Some of them were occupied by a wide range of different people. Most of them seemed friendly, a few workers enjoying their aftershift beer. Other guests seemed more reserved and eyed Jon sceptically. Behind the counter, a man in his sixties restocked the shelves with bottles of liquor. Floor to wall to ceiling, the warm wooden panelling was illuminated by the centerpiece of the room: a large brick fireplace.

“Blackberry cider, coming up,” the bartender announced. “And what can I get you, young man?”

Jon had chosen the outer left barstool.

“I’ll have the same.”

He looked around. Most of the other people had lost their interest in him almost immediately and returned to their private conversations. Two of them, a man and a woman sitting near the fireplace, kept looking at him. Against the light, he couldn’t make out much more.

“There you go!” The white-haired man placed a brown, rectangular glass filled with a dark purple liquid in front of him. Jon suddenly remembered something.

“Oh, by the way, do you take this currency?”

He handed over one of the coins that Ida had given him. The man’s eyes widened.

“Young man, for that, I can get you a little more than a glass of cider!”

Good to know.

“I’d be more than happy to leave some of that here, but I need it to pay a doctor. Can you tell me where I can find one? One that is... uncomplicated?”

“Well, I don’t know if ‘uncomplicated’ is the right word, but if you don’t want any trouble, I’d send you to Dr. van Zijl. He works downtown, but he lives a few houses down the street. Hideous yellow door, you can’t miss it.”

“Thank you. Keep that,” Jon added when the man wanted to return the coin.

He emptied his glass. The warmth of the room felt good after the cool outside air. However, he hoped that he could speak to the physician that same evening, so didn’t allow himself to waste more time.

The yellow door was indeed impossible to look past. It was the house’s only distinctive feature in a row of traditional brick houses, and it seemed to be enough of an identifying feature – there was neither a house number nor a name plate anywhere to be seen. A large iron-cast doorbell was the only decorative piece of the front porch. Jon rang.

The door immediately opened.

“Yes?”

A man, almost as wide as he was tall, stood behind the frame. He had black curly hair and a short stubbly, greying beard. He must’ve entered not long before and still carried his white coat over one arm.

“Yes, hello, my name is Jonathan Williams. Dr. van Zijl?”

“The same. How can I help you?”

Jon nodded towards his leg. “I know you’re not at work right now, but the bartender at the Red Tulip told me I could see you tonight. I’m afraid I don’t have too much time.”

“Who among us does?” Van Zijl sighed, but to a step back to let Jon enter. He continued to talk as he led him into a large living room. Contrary to the simplistic outside appearance of the house, the inside was lavishly decorated with all kinds of paraphernalia from all over the world. Most of it was hidden between countless plants, each pot more colourful than the other.

“Bram sent you?” Jon noticed the doctor’s coastal accent. “You know, he does this to mess with me. Trying to keep me busy so I don’t notice that he stays in for work long.”

He pushed aside two empty ceramic vases, both of them painted in swirly shapes, and invited Jon to take seat on a dark green ottoman. Van Zijl himself sat down on a rocking chair.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened to you, son?”

“That’s- …a long story. Long and complicated, and pretty unbelievable, if you ask me, so…” He trailed off as the doctor raised an eyebrow.

“I thought it was just a sprained ankle, but it’s not getting better.”

“Let me see. When did it happen?”

“Four days ago, I think.” Jon replied as he showed the doctor his leg.

“You think? What have you been doing?”

“Travelling.”

“Alone?”

“With a friend.”

“Good. It’s not safe to travel alone right now. Does it hurt when I push here?”

Jon winced. “Yeah. What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing specific. Just people talking. Now, Jon, it seems that your fibula got cracked.” Van Zijl finished his examination.

“Okay?”

“I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is, it has healed quite well. No infections.”

“And the bad news?”

“It healed in the wrong place. Part of the bone is pressing on your nerve, which causes the pain.”

“Oh. Can you do anything about that?”

“Oh yes, I can.”

“More good news, then?”

The doctor gave him a sympathetic smile. Jon didn’t like that at all.

“Not for you, I’m afraid.”

Part 13 < Part 14

#g/t #g/t writing #giant/tiny #g/t story #original characters #shortcut g/t #sfw g/t #size difference #Jon's going on a solo adventure in this one

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artwithoutblood · 10 months

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I’m having some Kayn thoughts. No, not that kind.

The cave system house works well and mimics the underground burrows or hives of insects, so this might be how his people traditionally live?

But I seem to remember something about ruins, and disease, and Kayn hiding his identity. The ruins may be from his civilisation that fell to the plague (?) and someone so bent on survival wouldn’t stick around just to sicken and die. Maybe he moved to safer digs.

Did he flee and put himself into quarantine?? You said his drinking water is sweet and filtered by rock but also something about hot springs. Hot water is hygiene and especially if it’s sulphurous.

However I don’t know if a prince would abandon his people unless he was forced to. So perhaps they were already all dead or missing, and he’s doing the rounds looking for anyone left. Or someone tried to do something to him/end him and he had no choice but to live to fight another day. He is hiding his face and being constantly on guard.

Was it his dad, the old king? Cadeus? Is he being controlled by the disease and wanting to infect everyone else? Is this like an evil cordyceps/death cult/zombie kinda deal?

Edit: Never mind. Chaurus live in the lightless caves and chasms beneath Skyrim. And a cave system does seem more suited to communal living. So that cave system is neither quarantine or bolthole. It’s more likely his old home.

He also may not be hiding from someone who knows him if he’s still living in a permanent or accustomed place.

It might just be good sense for princes to hide their identity while alone to not invite ransom or attack.

Cool theories though. I’m now wondering if they didn’t belong to Kayn’s people, then who lived in those ruins? Were they an extension of the colony, or were they once inhabited by humans?

The cave system house works well and mimics the underground burrows or hives of insects, so this might be how his people traditionally live?

correct. it's also difficult to build above-ground shelter where he is. the systems span through the vast. what you build on the surface may erode away.

kayn does not know the full story of what happened to his civilization. it is inferred that either disease, an attack, or a combination of the two wiped out most of the population or moved them. when kayn was born, it was only him and his mother, who stayed with him until he was about 23 in human years. he does not know where she went. draumur knew not where to go.

who would think to go to the ruins?

it is customary for the royalty in the caves to wear the masks. his father does too. his mother did not need to, but she was forced to cover herself due to injury.

part of it is to look for anyone left, but there is no one at this point. it is more a claim to birthright for which kayn stays.

Was it his dad, the old king? Cadeus? Is he being controlled by the disease and wanting to infect everyone else? Is this like an evil cordyceps/death cult/zombie kinda deal?

perhaps.

while kayn's people inhabited the caves, there was something there before them. kayn will not discuss that it was.

#kayn ask #ifa ask

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patriotismforstetriol · 2 years

Text

Most mysterious character in the series probably goes to Talon. Who is she? Where did she come from?

You thought the answers didn’t exist. You thought she’d remain mysterious. But this is not the case! Today we will pull back the curtains and reveal the truth!

Here it is:

In the war, Talon was a secret agent -- probably a spy within Greencloak ranks.

Evidence #1: "’If it's the Greencloaks who find us,' Talon said, ‘tell them you never met me. Tell them you were captured separately. It will go easier for you that way.’"

Talon is afraid of being seen by Greencloaks. The Greencloaks don't have a list of every ex-Conqueror, let alone know them well enough to recognise their faces. Therefore, Talon was either high-ranking enough (unlikely, as nobody matching her description is described in earlier books) or closely involved with some task that would have brought her into close contact with them.

Evidence #2: Talon can recognise significant Greencloaks by sight.

"That's the Keeper," Talon said, pointing at a young figure resplendent in tellunum armor. ... "And over there--that one is Keith." A Greencloak had cornered Raisha and had an arrow nocked on his bow, pointed at Raisha's heart. "Looks like he finally learned how to fight."

Talon even knows enough about Keith to make a wry comment about his fighting ability. Further evidence that she was deeply involved with Greencloaks.

Evidence #3: Talon is older than our protagonist age range of 11-13.

Anuqi always refers to Talon as a "young woman", never a girl. However, Talon has no interaction with other teenager/adult characters: she’s a friend of Grif, Anuqi, and Worthy, and has one scene in which she interacts with Shane and Abeke (Yumaris is in the room too, but only acknowledges Abeke, and Talon, for her part, ignores Yumaris too). Every single one of these characters is in our protagonist age range. Wouldn't it have made sense/been easier to make her that age too? I propose that she is older in order to imply that she is more skillful/advanced than your average 13-year-old.

Evidence #4: Talon is multi-skilled, perhaps more than any other character in the series. - "'Hold it up to the light,' Talon instructed, peering through the bars. 'It looks like Zhongese blast powder!'" - "Don't let Talon hear you say that. She's a master with a crossbow." - "She took aim and shot her bolt straight through the heart of an approaching tern, which veered off course and slammed into the opposite wall." - "He didn't know how they all worked, and the main set of gears had remained stubbornly in place even when his best tinkerer, a girl named Talon, had tried to release them."

Like most of our characters, Talon clearly has a favoured weapon (the crossbow) but the books make a point of how skilled she is with it (unlike, say, Shane or Conor, who are good fighters and have preferred weapons, but aren’t ever described as masters with their weapons). We're also shown the breadth of her general knowledge in her ability to identify the blast powder by sight, and she's also referenced as a tinkerer. There's another scene in which she convinces a robin to move a bag for her, but considering the fact the robin was a spirit animal (and therefore more intelligent than a normal animal) and Talon's own ... supernatural/unnatural existence, it's hard to say how much of that is prior bird-whispering skill.

Evidence #5: In the tunnels of Sadre.

The arc 2 game quest leads the player and Worthy through the caverns, dispatching numerous bosses and infected animals, culminating in a boss fight with Maddox (who, similar to Zerif, seems to retain more capacity for independent thought than most of the infected, but that's another topic), in order to catch up with and then rescue Talon.

Talon survives down there, alone, (we assume) being chased by Maddox for ... wait, how long?

I thought there was more of a concrete measure of time named, but I can't find anything, so I’ll just piece together the parts that made me think this wasn’t a quick journey:

"A similar figure appeared here at Greenhaven not long ago, but his mask had the face of an animal carved in it. ... They left together and haven't returned." (Olvan in Broken Ground) -> "not long ago" here implies Worthy and the Keeper have been gone... let’s say more than a couple of days.

There's at least one meal on the course of the journey (see: Worthy sliding food under his mask). Possibly exactly one, possibly more.

In the final quest, Worthy and Talon share/let slip some information that probably would have been mentioned to Olvan when the Keeper got back. However, Olvan does not inform our book protagonists that the Redcloaks are ex-Conquerors trying to make up for their mistakes, and so we assume our heroes left Greenhaven (or Greenhaven fell) before that news reached him. The First Fleet took ~8 months from England to Australia. A modern powered ship takes 20-40 days, according to a quick internet search. With Greenhaven's whale-powered ships and assuming Erdas is of a similar scale to Earth, it probably took them somewhere between the two. At a optimistic estimate of 2 months after the “not long ago” quote for our aboveground protagonists to get to Stetriol, + 1 day spent in Stetriol before they lost contact with Greenhaven, that's a fair chunk of time the Keeper and co. spent underground.

If you trust the assumptions above, Talon survived 2+ months underground, in tunnels Xanthe thinks you can't learn how to navigate. She survived the regular underground fauna, the Wyrm-corrupted fauna that you as the player have to fight through, while being pursued by Maddox probably.

To add on to that, take a look at the dialogue avatars of the two Redcloaks in the game. Worthy is fair-skinned, so you can tell he has every inch of skin covered and wrapped, presumably as an extra layer of protection against the parasites.

Talon doesn't even wear a full-face mask.

That's bold. I rest my case.

#only mostly joking #spirit animals books #SA spoiler #proclamation #Talon

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malviral · 5 months

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Wesker's implied suicide mission.

Anyway, throwing this out there before I try sleep for a bit longer but I bring up this a lot in discord discussions and it is a headcanon of mine, can’t remember if I detailed it anywhere previously but in a nutshell I think a lot of Wesker’s end goals in RE5 are misinterpreted as him wanting to rule over everyone else as a god when actually I don’t think Wesker personally saw himself as being part of the “new world” he thought he was destined and chosen to create. I think when he relates himself to god he does so in a creator type way and not so much a ruler type way.

IMO my real evidence for this lies in Wesker’s relationship with Excella and some of the finer details of the Uroboros project. Excella was in charge of producing and administering a special type of serum to Wesker to basically keep him alive/stable. Without it Wesker supposedly deteriorates. Wesker trusted Excella to such an extent he gives her full charge over it and like all things with Wesker I do believe this was a carefully crafted manipulation tactic on his behalf.

I think while Wesker obviously liked Excella and considered her a close, genuine ally his “betrayal” of her isn’t intended to show any personal slight against her on his behalf but rather as an unfortunate but unavoidable part of the plan they both agreed to carry out. Rather I don’t think Wesker "”intended”” to betray her and more he probably thought allowing her to be infected with Uroborus was a mercy because if she was “”worthy”” she would be just fine and there was no escaping it anyway.

BUT ANYWAY, if Wesker’s goal was to live into the “”new world”” and rule over it, its a little odd that he didn’t seem to think he needed a greater supply of the serum that kept him functioning. In fact he only seems to think he needs a small supply of it. Certainly not enough to live on for however long he would need to oversee “restoration” of the world and the new “superior” race that would inherit the planet. Literally, by the time Excella is out of the picture he doesn’t seem to think he needs it at all.

Furthermore, when Chris and Sheva find Wesker’s stealth bomber they realise its loaded with Uroboros and Wesker intends to fly it around, get shot down with the destruction of the stealth bomber unleashing Uroboros. Wesker would be the sole pilot and occupant of an aircraft that was planned to be completely destroyed on its voyage with him supposedly in it.

I mean we could say he was arrogant enough to assume he would survive and hey maybe he would, but that feels to be quite the gamble and taking into account that again he doesn’t seem to think hes gonna need any of his medicine shit ever again. Which yeah, even if he survived the destruction of the stealth bomber it doesn’t seem like he's giving himself a long life expectancy or has any plans to keep going. SO IMO I feel that's all evidence that Wesker’s Uroboros plan was every bit as suicidal as it was genocidal.

Which could stem either from the fact the virus in his body had become unstable and was wrecking him anyway and he just decided fuck it, or the fact that being what he was and learning everything he did about his life / existence from Spencer had tipped him over the edge of the flimsy metal stability he seemed to have, especially since losing his humanity to the virus in the first place.

#⊰ ° ‧: ｡* ∞ 🕶️ ━◞ Headcanons ⊱#⊰ ° ‧: ｡* ∞ 🕶️ ━◞ From The Mun ⊱#Headcanons

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kayayeteae · 11 months

Note

If you got to write re4-part 2, what would you do?

This might get long so u get a read more lol

To preface—I’ve never played RE beyond playing bits of RE4 and then watching my brother beat it (I am a jumpy person with anxiety leave me be 😩). I don’t even consider myself an RE fan, I am in the most basic sense, an RE4 fan. So everything I say will likely get subverted because of some canon event I’m unaware of. ANYWAY.

I love RE4R because it’s overall a better narrative that lines up with current canon (I’m aware of some RE lore lol). It’s also just a better told story than RE4 in so many ways. So whatever I say will relate to remake.

Let’s say anything after the events of 4 have yet to happen, here’s the possible routes I’d take

The obvious—get plaga in different hands that’s not umbrella

The cliche—have Leon relapse with plaga

Not so cliche but pushing suspension of disbelief—have someone who is a carrier of plaga/asymptomatic carrier of plaga leave the island

Lastly, because I’m insufferable—Luis survives (some fucking how) and has a duplicate superior plaga with him (some fucking how)

Leon relapsing can be the most emotionally driven narrative if RE was no longer an action game. Like RE4, I imagine he’s struggling to control himself and it would be a race against time once again. Without the machinery that helped him cure it the first time, he’d kinda be be shit outta luck and it would be up to…idk Claire because she’s cool…or Ada because…it’s Ada lol to help Leon before he turns. Essentially, ur controlling anyone but Leon to solve it. But part of the gameplay is Leon surviving and being controlled and it gets slowly harder and harder but if u give into plaga controlling Leon gets easier. Then boom ur back in Spain, u learn that umbrella europe team left paper trails. Another branch is still researching plaga blah blah big bad is trying raise another cult bc cults are interesting. Marketing for this game would be painting Leon as an enemy like they did with Dante in DMC4 LOL.

Having another carrier is easy. Idk u learn that someone survived the village and is roaming some city as a refugee. Like idk maybe this person has plaga version 2.0 that can idk self breed and spread by contact. It’s pretty straight forward. Plot twist is that patient 0 didn’t know they were infected and no else did either. God that’s so cliche, you’d have to make a really good story for that to work. Either way they should end it by having a choice to kill the carrier/patient 0.

NOW IMAGINE IF LUIS SURVIVED (I do this everyday because I am unwell)—this would be very emotionally driven knowing damn well that Luis was involved with plaga (I think he’s involved with RE3 too which is cool). Idk he has another version of plaga because idk he was researching 2 different strains, and like it’s almost a war between two variants because Ada gave hers to someone. So like whatever Leon is fighting and shit and they’re like, the only way to beat this is with a stronger strain (and science). AND THEN, someone keeps dropping hints (it’s Ada cuz she be doing shit like that) like a trail to follow and then they’re like chasing this trail, but whomever is at the end realizes they’re being followed, so theyre hard to catch. Anyway like 3/4 into the game they catch them and it’s no one other than LUIS. And then drama ensues like “bitch I thought I were dead, wtf ur working on a different strain still??” and like u learn he’s still trying to make amends and has a new name and identity given by idk the US government because that’s just the kinda environment they’re in lol. Also Luis deserves to be petty, he should try and kill Ada. I would lol. She got the fuckin plaga anyway, sure I know it was not thru Luis but it’s SO UNFAIR he died and she got what she needed.

I stand by what I say about Luis that THEY CERTAINLY GAVE HIM A PHENOMENAL BACKGROUND FOR A SIDE CHARACTER. Idk his death was that more gratifying but also painful—that’s another essay I can write about

I’m not a writer so my ideas are really flat. But part of RE4s charm was its simplicity and stellar gameplay.

#chev ur DMC question is so much easier given I’ve actually thought about it before lol

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nicad13 · 1 year

Text

Crossroads: Chapter 11

The Orbit

Summary: The clan heads to Maz Kanata for advice.

Din’s coming apart at the seams and Maz sees right through him.

“And here we see the primary difference between you. Mandalorians die for Mandalore. The Jedi die for everyone else.”

It… also might be someone's birthday…

Notes: Canon-compliant through Season 1, alt version of Season 2. Posting some old fic before the sequel, which will hopefully be complete by the end of Season 3. Start now so you're ready! AO3 link in the Source at the bottom.

Tags/Warnings: family conflict, alcohol abuse, sex, PTSD

Rating: Mature

They are one person They are two alone They are three together They are for each other

Crosby, Stills, & Nash, Helplessly Hoping

---

They prepared to leave for Takodana the next day, Maz Kanata’s establishment appearing to be the best lead to Yadier’s people that didn’t point directly to Skywalker.

Zavin motioned for Rayne to join him on the balcony. “Thanks for coming back for a few days.”

“Thanks for having us. Sorry we were… more disruptive than we anticipated.”

Zavin shrugged as if he’d expected all of it. He was married to a spy. He was used to crazy. “Should I put your Mando on retainer to make sure you come back?”

Rayne considered his words. “My Mando?”

“You call him something else?”

“His name. When it’s just us.”

Zavin quirked an eyebrow. “So you know what it is. That’s big.”

“Normally, yeah. But Gideon knows it too, so we’re surprised that it hasn’t gotten around yet.”

“Hm. He know yours?”

“No.” She knew what he meant. Her real name. “What’s this all about?”

“I asked him what you were to him. He couldn’t give me a straight answer. I want to see if that goes both ways.”

“You want to make sure I’m not making the same mistake with him that I made with you.”

“Maybe.”

“Definitely.”

Zavin shrugged again. “So. Are you?”

“I’m… not getting ahead of myself.”

“Look. I understand about the kid, but… do you even like this guy?”

“I do.” She sounded surprised, even to herself. “Despite everything, he’s trying to do the right thing. He gave up everything for Yadier. There’s a lot to be said for that.”

“Does he make you happy?”

She paused. They’d had more than their fair share of curveballs thrown at them and survived. When they weren’t dodging those, her time with Din thus far had been… on balance… pretty good. “Yeah. He does, actually.”

Zavin dipped his chin. “He’s no Hayes.”

Rayne shook her head. “No one is.”

Zavin couldn’t help but wonder what his old friend would think of all of this, were it at all possible for the dead to look back on the ones they had left behind. He would want Rayne to be happy, in whatever form that took. For all of his social awkwardness, Hayes had been a happy guy, and had always managed to infect others with his mood. Silly, sometimes to the point of absurdity. He had been exactly what Rayne needed in those days. Warm. Trustworthy. The only person Zavin knew who could pry the open armor of her soul and, depending on the day, depending on what she needed, either draw her out or slide in there with her.

What would he think of Mando?

On the surface, the two men could not be any more different.

Hayes had been short and stocky, lousy with a gun, had never been in so much as a fistfight, and quick with a joke; an open book who had made you just want to hug him no matter how tough or stoic you thought you were.

Mando was… the exact opposite of those things.

And yet.

Perhaps their similarities were more important. The way the Mandalorian tracked Rayne’s movement into or out of a room. The way he brushed the back of his hand along the back of hers. The gentle tone of his voice. The very distinct impression that he would lay down his life for her.

Just as Hayes had done.

---

Reesha stepped up the Razor Crest’s rear ramp for the first time in four years, Yadier’s old crate in her hands, filled with his clothes, toys, and blankets. She was casting her gaze over the carbonite unit when Din slid down from the flight deck and thumped to the floor. He turned and saw her there, her hands full of his son’s belongings instead of the binders he’d put her in those years ago.

How so much had changed.

He dipped his chin, unsure of what to say.

Reesha smiled. “Whaddya say? Toss me in there and freeze me in a block for old time’s sake?”

Her tone was light and had the desired effect as Din blew out an approximation of a laugh and reached for the crate to relieve her of it. “Zavin and Rayne wouldn’t see the humor in it.”

She followed him in, looking around, reacquainting herself with the ship. “Was it always so small in here?”

He shrugged, not one for rhetorical questions.

“I’m surprised Rayne can stand it.”

This time he did pause to respond. “She makes it work.” He remained still for a moment, not facing Reesha, but looking toward the bunk instead. “How bad was it?”

“She had a panic attack right before her third sortie. Climbed into an X-wing, put the helmet on, froze up, took the helmet off, climbed back out. Made the lateral move to the tech side. She was fine for test flights, but she couldn’t hold it together for combat. It’s too bad. She was the best pilot on that carrier.”

Din turned to stow Yadier’s things. “Best pilot on the ‘Crest, too.”

“I was right about you, Mando.”

He gave only a brief look in her direction as he worked.

“You’re not half the asshole you try to make yourself out to be.”

He turned away to stow the empty crate. “I’ll have to try harder, then.”

She shook her head, hearing the smile in his voice.

---

Hyperspace enveloped the ship once more.

Din sat back, staring at the navicomp. Staring at the date. Wondering how it had snuck up on him like this.

Today was his forty-fifth birthday.

He’d survived forty-five orbits of Coruscant around its sun.

Big fucking deal.

Birthdays had been solitary occasions for him since leaving his childhood covert. Not that Mandalorian birthday celebrations were actually much of a thing. They served only as a Coming of Age for one rite or another. He’d told Alaria of how his parents celebrated their birthdays and his when he was little – a picnic lunch in the park, situated in a small oasis, the only green area in his village. She’d laughed at first, like she thought it was silly. He’d avoided her for weeks after that. Realizing her mistake, she’d apologized profusely. From that point forward, every year for his birthday, they skipped class together and she brought him lunch to share in his room. Even after swearing the Creed, they sat back-to-back, helmets at their sides, and shared a meal once a year.

Until he was eighteen. That was the last one he’d shared with her.

With anyone.

After that, he’d been on his own. Out in the world. Finding a lack of any reason to celebrate or anyone he wanted to celebrate with, he lived the day as he normally would, and at night, locked himself in his room, wherever he happened to be, and drank until he felt like stopping. The volume depended on how horrible that year happened to be or how tired he was at the moment. He was a lightweight and he knew it, so it wasn’t a terrible amount in the grand scheme of things. The one exception was when he turned thirty-eight.

Until that point, he’d marked off the milestones his parents had made by his own years. His parents had met when they were twenty-five. He was sleeping with a woman who had a blood fetish and scared him half to death. His parents married when they were twenty-seven. He had just half-stolen/half-bought the Razor Crest and escaped Ran’s crew, out on his own. His parents had brought him into the world when they were thirty. He had just joined the Guild, still living his day-to-day life alone.

His parents were both thirty-seven when they died.

So, yeah, thirty-eight was a big one. Given the kind of life he lived, he’d bet himself even odds of outliving his parents, and somehow, he’d managed it.

He’d spent a couple days at the covert he was based out of at the time, dropping off bounties with his Guild contact, getting paid, dropping the money off at the covert, re-supplying. He’d had the good fortune to cross paths with someone who he’d spent time with before, a foundling herself, and spent the next sixteen hours getting laid. It had been a while for both of them, would likely be a while before the next opportunity, so that’s generally how those things went. She was good. She was friendly. They treated each other well enough. And when they’d finally wrung everything they could out of each other, they parted ways.

Two days later happened to be Number Thirty-Eight.

Finding himself alone once again, possibly-maybe-probably experiencing withdrawal after spending time with someone he actually liked, realizing he’d outlived his parents, realizing he was still on his own with little to show for it at the age when his parents had been married for ten years, birthed and raised him for seven of those years, and then lost their lives, he drank himself to oblivion.

Tucked into the corner of his bunk on this very ship, slipping through hyperspace somewhere on the edge of the galaxy, maybe hoping that he wouldn’t wake up from it.

He came-to the next day on the floor in the fresher, telling himself he was never going to drink again.

Representing finger number three of the four he’d held up when Rayne asked him how many times he’d told himself that.

The sound of Rayne sighing in the starboard jump-seat behind him brought him back. He swiveled around to see her gaze fixed out through the windscreen, watching hyperspace ripple by, and saw that her eyes were wet.

Shit.

He kept forgetting that she could sense his moods in close quarters.

She held their son in her lap, dozing off already, opening one eye to regard his father with a sleepy gaze, then closing it once more.

Din slid to the edge of his seat, elbows on his knees, and edged one of his feet next to one of hers. “Hey…” he said, pitching his voice low so as not to disturb Yadier. Rayne turned to face him. “I’m sorry…”

A look of confusion crossed her face as she wiped at her eyes. “No, it’s… hard for me to leave Coruscant.” She turned back to the windscreen. “I’ll be fine.”

Woops.

Din let his head hang from his shoulders, realizing he’d been piling onto Rayne’s own crappy mood. He debated the wisdom of telling her that what she was feeling wasn’t all hers, not sure he wanted to get into it. Instead, he decided on a different course of action altogether. “Wanna take the helm for a while?”

She turned back to him. “Sure…”

Din stood up and took Yadier so Rayne could switch seats.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“New project,” was all he said as he took the ladder down one-handed.

---

Din worked through the afternoon, hauling crates of gear from behind the galley and lowering them down into the hold. Rayne asked if he wanted help twice and received a curt “Nope” both times. She had the sneaking suspicion that he already had Yadier on it, Force-lowering the crates down the gap, judging from the giggles and quiet mutters of “Good job” down below. Once the crates were down, there was some banging and shuffling behind the galley, then the sound of other things being shoved up the ladder.

At long last, the racket subsided and Din stepped back onto the flight deck. “All done.” His tone was expectant, so Rayne got up and followed him out to observe the fruits of his labors.

The space behind the galley wasn’t quite high enough to stand up in, but it was wide – the full width of the interior of the ship, minus half a meter on each side for the access hatches to the sublight engines. Din had previously been using it for storage, but now, it was empty save for the thin mattress from the bunk below with a spare one next to it, plus the accompanying bedding.

About as good an approximation of a bedroom for two people that could be had on a gunship this size.

Rayne’s eyes went wide. “Din… oh… oh wow… you didn’t… you didn’t have to…”

He shrugged. “Thought you might want better access to the engine hatches so I cleared all my crap out of the way and-”

He cut off as Rayne shoved him hard enough to pitch him forward onto the mattress, but not before he could spin, grab her by her belt, and pull her along with him.

She rolled onto her back, spread-eagled, and took a deep sigh as Yadier crawled in after them, babbling “Buir, buir, buir,” as he did when they were all in the same space and it mattered not which parent he eventually wound up with.

“Thank you,” she said, rolling her head to see Din still on his side, T-visor tilted in her direction. He threaded his fingers through the fingers of her outstretched hand. Rayne’s eyes narrowed. “Where’d you put all the gear?”

“The old bunk closet.”

“How much does all that weigh?”

“Few hundred kilos… Oh, shit.” He belatedly remembered that he’d put it all up here in the first place to keep the ship balanced. Now it was all on the starboard bow corner.

She smiled. “I’ll re-calibrate the sublights before we drop out of hyperspace to compensate for it.”

He tightened his hold on her hand.

She looked into the visor for a few more moments, taking the time to appreciate his efforts and what it must have meant for him to rearrange his own personal space for her in such a way. Fully acknowledging that he would be sharing his space with her on his ship for the long haul. Giving up the protection of the tighter space offered by his previous arrangement.

Good god, this man.

For his part, Din thought maybe he could answer Zavin’s question with “roommate.” Rayne is my roommate. That good enough, you prying fucker? He snorted to himself. He liked Zavin. He would mean it in the nicest possible way.

Even if he knew the answer still wasn’t good enough, at least now it was true.

Rayne rolled to her side and looked at him for a few more moments. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

He released his hold on her hand, rolled over to watch her go, and stifled a laugh as she banged her head on the low ceiling on her way out. “Bet you wish you had a helmet now…”

“Fuck you…” she laughed as she went down the ladder. She came back up a minute later with a box wrapped in silver foil, careful to duck her head on the way back in. Yadier burbled and clapped his hands, always happy to see shiny things.

Din sat up as she placed the box in front of him. “What’s this?”

“Celebrating the fact that I get to say you’re older than me for the next few months.”

He breathed out a long sigh. “How…?”

“Your Date of Birth was listed on the record you showed us.”

His shoulders dropped. “I don’t… you shouldn’t…”

Rayne poked him in the thigh with her foot. “Oooopen iiiit. It’s for all of us. Kinda goes with the homemaking theme you started today.”

He sighed and picked at the wrapping, then huffed out a laugh when he realized what it was, overwhelmed by the recent memory of his first shared meal in decades made possible by this kind of appliance. “When did you have time to get a blender?”

“I had Reesha pick it up while we were out walking. Open the box.”

He continued, handing the silver foil to Yadier to the baby’s great delight. When he freed it from the packaging, he saw that a meiloorun fruit had found its way into the pitcher. He sighed again and shook his head. “This… it’s… too much…”

Rayne lifted an eyebrow and opened her mouth to remind him of the fact that he had escorted the ridiculous amount of money that she had made across town just a few days ago so that a kitchen appliance and a piece of fruit were not, in fact, too much when she stopped short. She felt the wave of sadness roll off of him, the notion of feeling undeserving, the difficulty in switching gears from how he had normally observed this day on his own. So instead, she got up on her knees to pull herself in front of him, took one of his hands in hers, and brought the other to the side of his helmet, careful to keep whatever pressure she put on it in the downward direction. “Hey… it’s ok. It’s not too much. It’s fine, ok?”

“It’s… you’re… very thoughtful.”

She sat back and cast a deliberate gaze over the new space they were in that he had worked on all afternoon. “And so are you. These things are allowed to go both ways.”

He nodded his head. “You’re right. Thank you.”

She smiled. “See how easy that was? Smoothies for dinner tonight. You’re eating with us.”

Yadier squealed with happiness and let out a string of nonsense.

“One condition,” Din said.

“What’s that?”

“We do not put frogs in the blender. Ever.”

“Agreed.”

---

It turned out that the new sleeping accommodations were easily blacked out.

Still, Din closed his eyes in the darkness as he caught his breath, committing the feel of Rayne’s fingers through his hair to memory.

He hadn’t gotten laid on his birthday since he was eighteen. Twenty seven years since Alaria had shared this moment with him.

He couldn’t figure out why Alaria had invaded his thoughts so often, lately. He could only guess that it was something about Rayne that reminded him of her, but he couldn’t place it. Alaria had been Mandalorian to the core, her clan under House Vizsla as far back as the recorded histories went, both parents and all grandparents born on either Mandalore or Concordia, steeped in the Resol’nare since birth. Rayne… was a Jedi orphan who made her own way as she went. The way Alaria swam up through his thoughts normally wasn’t an issue, but this was the first time so close on the heels of being with Rayne in this way and it felt unfair to her. The way he’d compared and contrasted her to Alaria, Omera, hell, even Xi’an when he’d first met her. It wasn’t fair. When she’d done so much to help him and his son. When she’d shared herself with him so willingly.

That’s it, he realized. The reasons Rayne reminded him of Alaria. They were the only two who had provided him crucial help at crucial points in his life and whom he’d been intimate with. True partners in his life, and yet partner still wasn’t the right word. He did at least have the right one for Alaria. His Sol’yc. His First.

The counterpart to that, of course, was Kyr’yc.

Last.

But that was a qualitatively different thing, wasn’t it? With its own word.

But not one that he would allow into his thoughts. Not when so much stood in the way. The matter of his lost soul. The matter of Death Watch.

Focus on the present, then. Make the most of what he had. He let out a sigh and focused on the woman he was with right now.

Focused on the way her hands roamed his face, catching her fingers with his teeth whenever she gave him the chance. Focused on the taste of her lips. The feel of her ribs under his hand as she breathed.

Forty-five turned out not to be so bad after all.

He had found a son. He had found a mother for his son. He had found a clan. It was ok that they weren’t Mandalorian. It was ok that they were both enemy sorcerers. They were his enemy sorcerers. He was their Mandalorian.

Rayne grunted as she pulled a finger out of his teeth. “Easy there, Old Man. Too hard.”

“Mmn. Sorry. How long you gonna call me that?”

“Three months.”

“Fuck you…” his tone was light as he said it, mirroring her response from earlier in the day.

He felt her sigh against his cheek. “You just did.”

“Yeah?” He reached for her knee and pulled her leg up over his hip. “I’ll do it again.”

“Feeling spry, huh?”

“Want a demonstration?”

“Come and get it.”

He growled and did just that.

---

They arrived on Takodana at Maz Kanata’s establishment in the middle of the afternoon.

“Establishment” was really the wrong word. The place was a castle. A full-on castle. With towers and spires and a courtyard, nestled in a lush forest next to a sparkling lake, and all manner of things that overwhelmed two of its newcomers.

Din and Rayne walked side-by-side up through the courtyard, Yadier floating along between them in his new pod. They came to the towering statue of Maz herself, surrounded by flags of all nations and creeds. Din paused as his eye caught a Mandalorian war banner at the front of the statue, one flag down from its foot, emblazoned with the Mythosaur icon. Rayne saw the Rebel Alliance flag bearing the same Starbird that was inked into her shoulder. Even a flag with the winged symbol of the Jedi order drifted in the breeze.

“Remember,” Rayne reminded. “No fighting.”

“Then why are you carrying your lightsaber for the first time since we met?”

“For Maz.” She had it clipped to the back of her belt, concealed under her shirt. “I’m not sure how much I have to prove, here.”

Din wasn’t sure he liked what that implied. Lacking any other options, he pressed forward. They walked up the steps to the door and could hear the raucous commotion from the other side.

“Ready?” Rayne asked.

Din tipped his head. Sure.

Rayne pushed the door open and they stepped through.

A Mandalorian, a Jedi, and a baby walked into a bar.

Everyone fell silent, staring at the Mandalorian.

Rayne stepped closer to Din. “Put your arm around me.”

“What?”

“We’re a family. Let’s look like one. Make it clear you’re not here for a fight.”

His hand fell to her shoulder and he pulled her into an awkward side-hug as she patted the top of Yadier’s pod and smiled.

Maz Kanata cast an eye to the newcomers and waved them in. Following her lead, the patrons fell back to their conversations. Serving the pints of beer she had in her grasp at their destination, she approached the trio. “You’re new to this family thing, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Rayne answered. “We’d like a room for a few days, along with… um… some advice.” She lifted the covering from Yadier’s head just enough for Maz, and only Maz, to see what he really was.

If Maz was startled, she hid it well, though she did take a moment to lean in for a close peer and adjusted her goggles. “I see,” she said. She then looked up to Rayne. “Ah, yes, I see you as well.” She turned to Din, looked him up and down, and produced a dismissive “Hm.” She turned and headed to the back of the bar. “Follow me! I’ll show you to your room.”

It had been a while since either of them had seen such an eclectic – and dense – mix of patrons in any one place. Rayne had seen a few over various shore leaves during her war years; Din had seen a couple during his time with Ran’s crew. Rayne saw exciting opportunities to witness and learn new things. Din saw exciting opportunities to defeat new threats. They exited the bar and headed down a long corridor, lit by torches every ten meters or so. They ascended a stairwell and continued down another hall and stopped before a door. Maz turned to face them.

“You seek Skywalker.”

“Actually, no,” Rayne said. “Pretty much anyone other than him.”

Maz tilted her head. “And why is that?”

“Because I watched his dad slaughter a dozen Younglings.”

“And you hold the sins of the father against the son?”

“Yep.”

Maz looked again to Din. “Would you have the sins of your son’s father held against him?”

Rayne could only clench her jaw shut.

Maz continued to look at Din. “Would you give your life for your son?”

“Yes.” His response was immediate, even if he had no idea where this was going.

“Would you give your life for his mother?”

“Yes.” Again, immediate.

“Would you give your life for the New Republic?”

“No.” His tone switched from confident to incredulous with the same immediacy.

“Would you sacrifice their lives for the New Republic?”

Uh oh…

Din drew back as if Maz had slapped him. “No. I die for him. I die for her. Everyone else can fuck off.”

Rayne could only close her eyes and bow her head as Maz chuckled and turned her attention to her. Her heart sank, knowing what would come next. “And you, my dear. Would you give your life for your son?”

“Yes.”

“Would you give your life for his father?”

“Yes.”

“Would you give your life for the New Republic?”

“Yes.” Here it comes…

“Would you sacrifice their lives for the New Republic?”

Silence.

Oh, god, she couldn’t voice the answer, couldn’t put the words to it. Because it wasn’t ‘no.’

Rayne’s head remained bowed, but she could hear the clink of beskar as Din took a step back and craned the helmet down at her silence. Could feel the rising tide of his rage at the absence of her answer, at a response that was anything other than a hard ‘no.’

Maz chuckled again. “And here we see the primary difference between you. Mandalorians die for Mandalore. The Jedi die for everyone else.” She pressed one key for the room into Din’s hand, another into Rayne’s. “I will speak with you all tomorrow.”

Din waited for her to descend the stairs before shoving his way through the door.

The room was cozy but comfortable. A decent-sized bed near the window facing the sea, a crib along a wall, a small table with a couple of chairs. Din slung his bag onto the bed while Rayne set hers on the floor and got Yadier settled in the crib.

“Outside. Now.” His voice was hard through the modulator.

Yadier looked up to his mother, a concerned frown pulling down at the corners of his mouth, ears flat against his shoulders. Rayne knelt before him, running a finger along one ear. “It’ll be ok, buddy. Don’t worry. We’ll be right back. We love you.”

Din held the door open for her, gaze lingering on their son, before he followed her out. He pulled the door closed, listened for the lock to engage, then strode down the hall, cloak billowing out behind him.

Rayne followed.

He rounded on her when he reached the end of the hall, fists balled at his sides. “It’s one thing to throw me under the bus for the Republic. I get it. But the answer to the question of whether you will ever sacrifice our son is always ‘No.’” Now his voice was a scorching growl.

Goddammit. Of course, the one time he demonstrates what would otherwise be a normal response, it’s the wrong one. After he had changed so much about himself to become a father, after he had made room in his ship, in his life, in his heart, to give himself over to be a father, she realized that he had no idea what it meant to be the father of a Jedi. That even if they were able to keep their son, truly raise him as their own for however much of his youth they survived, the fact remained that given his strength, Yadier would be raised as some kind of Jedi, though preferably not the same flavor of her early upbringing. And for a Jedi to dedicate themselves to any one person or family was impossible, for Jedi belonged to the galaxy. With the power they were given came responsibilities that were unfathomable to others. Responsibilities that, not uncommonly, lead to life-and-death decisions, choices between their own lives and the lives of others.

No one had lately been in the position to make those choices, as a Jedi parent, for their own Jedi child. Perhaps, millennia ago, they had and things had gone horribly wrong, leading to the prohibitions against family that she had been raised with. Then it simply shifted to Masters making those choices for their Padowans. And was that really any different? Never having had a Master, she would never know.

“Even if trillions of lives hang in the balance?” She asked.

“The answer. Is still. No.” He loomed over her, the visor a menacing T in the darkness, his chest rising and falling with every breath.

“The entire galaxy?”

“What part of don’t ever sacrifice our son don’t you understand? We are a clan.” He reached out and wrapped his hand around the beskar casing at her throat, the symbol of their parenthood. For a brief moment, he considered yanking it away, taking it back. Thinking better of it, he let it go and dropped his hand back to his side as a fist. “We are loyal to each other. What part of that don’t you get?”

“It’s not about loyalty-”

“The fuck it isn’t-”

“It’s about duty.”

“To who?”

“Everyone.”

“Fuck. Everyone. Else.”

“You really think you have the moral high ground here?”

“Yeah. I do.”

She looked him dead in the eye, knowing exactly where he was in there, and tapped a knuckle against the center of his chestplate. “Fuck. You.”

He recoiled back, her meaning clear.

The man who had sold his son for a bucket of beskar was in no position to argue this particular point.

His rage shattered as it blew out in all directions. “This is why the Jedi didn’t do attachments.”

“Yes,” Rayne conceded. “Because the things we do are bigger than ourselves. The Jedi spent their whole lives training to make those kinds of decisions. I never made it that far. I only got as far as learning that someday I would probably have to die to save others. But I know enough to know that whatever happens with Yadier, it’s bigger than you and me. That’s the point of all this. Only somewhere along the line, we decided to try and keep these attachments. To try to manage them.” Her voice was shaking, now. “And we are doing a terrible job of it.”

Din was trembling, angry at Rayne for throwing quite possibly the worst decision he had ever made in his life back in his face, angry at himself because he knew he deserved it.

Dar’manda. Dar’manda.

It pounded in his head.

“Do you need to take a walk?” Rayne asked.

“Yes.”

“I do too. May I take Yadier?”

“That would be better. Yes.”

“Back here in an hour?”

“Yes.”

---

Yadier dozed in his pod, hovering next to his mother as she kneeled by the lake and failed at all attempts to meditate.

He knew his parents loved him. Of that, he had no doubt.

Their love for him took various forms. From his father, it was Keep you safe. From his mother, it was Make you strong. Keep you in the Light. It wasn’t until today that those forms had come into conflict.

He knew his parents loved him. Of that, he had no doubt.

Of their feelings for each other, he was far less sure.

Open conflict was rare, and this afternoon had been the worst of it. Tension between them waxed and waned; sometimes it was a happy tension, sometimes it was an anxious tension. Sometimes they were completely relaxed. He had not figured out the pattern, there.

In the beginning, they had viewed each other as means to an end. Not in a bad way. Their ends were the same: his safety and well-being. The link between them was a vague partnership based on that mutual understanding. That they were more effective together. That link had strengthened during their time on Methuselah as they came to discover their compatibility, discovered that they enjoyed being in each other’s company, and then, finally, when they became a family. The link was tested on Coruscant when something… powerful had happened to his father. He still didn’t quite understand it. All he knew was that something fundamental about his father, some cornerstone, had shattered. He knew his mother had protected him from the violence of the moment itself, distracted him with the happier moments of Methuselah, and he had been happy to allow that distraction, happy to retreat. But, later on, he’d gotten a better look at the aftermath while his father huddled with him in the close confines of the closet one night. He saw that his father had broken into three pieces. One that wanted to love. One that wanted to destroy. One that wanted to run away. Only the first of those pieces was connected to him and his mother. Those links had held, grown stronger in the forge of the discovery of the cruelties his father had endured. But the other pieces of his father had been sent on their separate courses, threatening to escape the orbits that his parents had established around him.

He knew his father was inspecting the link that joined his parents, has tried and failed to put a name to it, well aware of the strain his other two pieces placed on it. His mother had given the link between her and his father far less scrutiny. Afraid that too close of an examination would reveal cracks, afraid that if she prodded too hard, his father would sever it entirely, afraid that she would once again find herself alone. She sensed his father coming apart, sensed the forces that held one piece of him in and pushed the others away.

She didn’t know what to do about it.

Yadier was unsure of what to make of this bond/rift between his parents. They were so afraid to give to each other what they gave so freely to him. Old fears of loss, new fears of rejection, getting in the way. Old wounds that hadn’t properly healed. Lives lived hard, broken and lonely. Their orbits around him were elliptical, drawing close only to pass each other and grow distant once again, cycle and repeat.

He retreated from the uncertainty, closed his eyes against it, wishing very much that his parents would just get over themselves and realize that, at least in part, they both wanted the same things.

---

Din walked through the forest, feeling himself come apart at the seams, unsure if he cared anymore.

Maz’s words were a dagger through his heart. Mandalorians die for Mandalore. The Jedi die for everyone else. Just a day ago, he had thought of Rayne and Yadier as his enemy sorcerers. Now, he realized there could be no such thing as his Jedi. Rayne was set on their son receiving some sort of formal Jedi training. She would likely follow inasmuch as she would be allowed at this point in her life. He would lose them to the galaxy that they belonged to and there would be no place for him in their lives.

He was their Mandalorian, but they would have no need for him. Wherever they went, he wouldn’t belong there. Their focus would be on the grand schemes that bound the galactic systems together, fighting for noble causes that no one really cared about, that would do little to reach anyone truly in need, representing a centralized Republic that had never done a damn thing for him or the people he’d ever cared about. In the mean time, the best he would be able to manage would be to bring down a Mandalorian terrorist group. A group that, as far as he could tell, may well be the only thing of Mandalore that had survived. And what would be left?

For all his cynicism, for all of his hopelessness, he’d never felt as nihilistic as he did right at this moment.

What did it all fucking mean?

---

Din found them by the edge of the lake.

Yadier was asleep in his pod at Rayne’s side. Rayne was kneeling, the way she typically sat when meditating, but her posture was stiff.

Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes.

He knelt before her, made possible only by the soft ground being so forgiving to his knees. He took her hands in his and she gripped his fingers. Hard.

“What’s happening to us?” He asked, voice quiet but rough.

“The Force is strong here,” Rayne said, eyes still closed. “It demands honesty.”

“It’s tearing me apart.”

She opened her eyes, knowing what it meant for him to admit such vulnerability. “It does that.”

“Give me your word that you’ll protect our son. As much as you possibly can.”

Her eyes met his though the visor, beskar blue against the afternoon sky. “I swear I will protect him.” She closed her eyes, then opened them again to take it further. “I swear I will do everything I can so that he will make the right choices when the time comes.”

“I don’t… I’m not sure how I fit with all this.”

“We can make it work. But you have to want it.”

Din breathed a long sigh.

“Do you want it?” Rayne asked.

“Part of me does.”

“We’ll start with that.”

---

The light from the torches outside filtered in through their window that night, thin curtains doing little to block their dim illumination. Still, she felt his breath along the back of her neck, trusting her not to turn over.

A blindfold lay folded on the windowsill.

She felt the storm of his thoughts even as his hand lay still on her hip, palm open and fingers spread wide. Assured that one part of him, at least, wanted very much to keep this, to reciprocate her desire to remain a family.

The other parts of him lurked not far away, threatening.

But quiet, for now.

---

The next morning, Rayne, Din, and Yadier sat with Maz on the floor in a circle in a small room in the bowels of the castle. Mats covered the floor and the room was lit by several torches at regular intervals along the walls.

Their shadows flickered on the floor.

Rayne’s lightsaber lay on the floor before her.

Maz smiled. “I’m glad you elected to stay the night despite yesterday’s disagreement. Has the Mandalorian come to understand what it means to have a family with those who seek to become Jedi?”

Din sat with his ankles crossed and knees pulled up to rest inside of his elbows as he laced his fingers together. He tipped his head at Maz’s question. “Starting to.”

“We’re not looking for the old Jedi order,” Rayne clarified.

“I understand,” Maz replied, peering at her. “You were raised at the temple on Coruscant. You survived Order 66 and the Purge thereafter.”

“Yes.”

Maz reached for the lightsaber, picked it up, and held it in her hands. She adjusted her goggles, inspecting the weapon, turning it every which way. “How old were you when you found your kyber crystal?”

“Ten.” Old.

“And when you completed construction of your saber?”

“Eighteen.” Very old.

“Did you receive any instruction on how to build it?”

“No.” Like most everything else, she’d just figured it out herself.

Maz activated the blade, and once more, Din was captivated by the powerful hum it emitted. Yadier gazed, transfixed, its yellow light shining in his eyes. Maz swung it for a few passes, testing its weight and balance, then deactivated it. “Sentinel.”

“Yes.”

Maz smiled. “Only a Sentinel could build such a flawless weapon with no guidance. The balance-point of the Jedi. The balance point of your family as well. Your son will likely become a Consular.”

“Yes.”

“And his father walks the path of the Guardians.”

Rayne lifted her gaze to Din, a small smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “Yes.” I told you we can make this work.

“And you,” Maz turned to look at Din. “The Night of A Thousand Tears was just days before Order 66. You survived that and the Mandalorian Purge as well.”

Din lowered his head. “My covert was still on Concordia. We were preparing to deploy to Mandalore, but evacuated instead when the Siege started. Half of the covert’s ships were destroyed.” Of all the flashbacks that plagued him, this was the least persistent. Ten years old, not yet sworn to the Creed, crammed into the belly of a gunship not much bigger than the Razor Crest with the other Fighting Corps kids. He remembered being curled up on the floor, arms over his head, the lights in the hold flickering as the engines roared and the guns unleashed round after round. Wondering if Alaria and her family were ok on their ship, separated from them for days as they skipped through the hyperspace lanes until finally arriving on another Outer Rim planet.

At that moment, he realized that Rayne had been huddled in an air shaft, listening and watching everyone around her get murdered, beginning her escape at the very moments he was ending his own.

Maz nodded in acknowledgement, then turned to Yadier. “And you. With your Mandalorian father and Jedi orphan mother. Where do you come from and where will you go?”

“He is wanted by Moff Gideon. An Imperial remnant. Preferably alive, but they’ll take him dead, too. I don’t know what for,” Din said.

“Mm,” Maz responded. She turned back to Rayne. “Have you asked him where he comes from? Searched his memories?”

Rayne shook her head. “No. It… didn’t seem right to snoop. I don’t know how to ask him so he’d understand what I was doing.”

“I think,” Maz said, “he understands more than you suspect.” She turned her gaze back to Yadier, smiling once more. He met her gaze, his face a study in trust and warmth. “Why don’t you give it a try?”

Rayne shifted from her kneeling position to a cross-legged one and motioned for Yadier to come sit in her lap. He waddled over, chirping, familiar with the routine from times when he was squirmy and needed calming. He settled down, looking up at his mother as she leaned over him, her eyes searching his. “May I come in?” she asked. “May I take a look?”

He reached up and brushed her nose with a tiny hand, letting out a soft coo. She took that as a ‘yes.’

She closed her eyes and he followed suit. She decided to start with something easy. Can you show me breakfast from today? He did, his memory of her and Din sitting at the table up in the cantina with him, his joy as he gulped down the bacon on his plate. Bacon was so good. Almost as good as frogs. Rayne decided to go further back. Can you show me Methuselah? Swimming in the lake with her. Sitting in Din’s lap as he read to him. Watching the meteors streak across the sky from his crate on the flight deck of the Razor Crest. The delight in his heart at all of these things. Show me your favorite place before you met me. Sorgan. Or what she thought was Sorgan, given the children he was playing with and the surrounding ponds, ringed by the forest. The one little girl in particular, Winta, the one who Din said had taken to Yadier so quickly. Show me something from before Din-buir found you. Yadier’s joy vanished in an instant, and everything went dark. Rayne mistook it as a refusal, not recognizing the darkness of the inside of the enclosed pod that was Yadier’s prison. Her confusion was resolved when the darkness split down the middle, spilling dim light and sliding open to reveal Din wearing battered Durasteel, an IG unit standing next to him, Yadier’s fear turning to hope. Her gut twisted as the IG unit raised its weapon in his face, then released as Din shot it in the head, not even bothering to look at it. She felt Yadier’s hope overwhelm her as Din stood there, frozen for several moments, little more than an immobile T visor, then brought his hand up, index finger a loose point of offering, and Yadier reached out to him. Can you show me something before that? Before you were taken? Yadier’s hope faded once more and images blurred together. Fear descended over him. A brief vision of fire and flash of heat. Another shift followed by streaking lights and screams. Yadi let out a low groan of sadness and pain, a sound she had never heard come out of him before, and it broke her heart. It’s ok. We’re right here. You’re ok. You’re safe. Can you show me your home? Your parents before us? Another groan, a whirlwind of flashes, a stab of pain in his head.

Rayne snapped her eyes open and gave her head a hard shake, glad to see Yadier do the same. “You ok, buddy?”

His tiny lungs filled and emptied in a bigger sigh than one would expect from a body his size. Relieved, but ears still flat against his shoulders.

“You did well, verd’ika.” Little warrior. She smoothed a hand along one of his ears and raised her head. “Nope, not going there.” She looked back down and ran a thumb along the top of his head. “I think he was injured.”

Maz nodded. “I think you’re right. It was good that you stopped when you did. You’re instincts are true.” The Pirate Queen took a moment to gather her thoughts, then directed her first words to Rayne. “Your Force resistance is remarkable.”

Rayne lifted an eyebrow. “What have you been trying?”

Now Maz leaned back and laughed, hard and full. “You keep a shield up all the time, don’t you? Oh, my. I’ve been trying to get you to scratch your ear all morning and you haven’t so much as twitched a finger. Small stuff like that is usually easy to sneak through. No one thinks anything of it. Most impressive. You must pass this on to your son.”

“We’ve been working on it.”

Maz took a breath and turned to Din. “And what do you make of all this?”

His shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t belong here.”

“No? Where do you belong, then?”

Silence. Stillness.

“Don’t you belong with your family?”

“I’m different from them.”

“How so?”

“They are enem- I… don’t share their gifts.”

“You have your own.”

Din tipped his head in a silent question.

“Much of your Creed is built on opposing the Jedi. Where the Jedi rejected family, you crave it. You’ve pulled one together from scratch. Where the Jedi dispensed with emotion, you channel it. You use it to drive your actions. Where the Jedi resided in the mystical, you ground yourself in reality. You allow yourself pragmaticism.”

“The Creed includes raising my son as a Mandalorian…” He trailed off, knowing that was exactly what Rayne didn’t want, unsure if he truly wanted it, either.

“And what exactly is so incompatible? A Jedi can wear armor. A Jedi can speak Mando’a. A Jedi can defend themselves and their family. Can contribute to their clan. Can rally to the call of a Mand’alor. Can recycle it all back and raise a Mandalorian child. Tarre Vizsla did it. He was both Mandalorian and Jedi. Why not your son?”

Rayne’s stomach turned, and Maz turned back to her. “Much like you wish a different kind of Jedi training for your son than what you grew up with, his father wishes a different kind of Mandalorian training for your son than what he grew up with. Why not both? You’re both making up your own rules now; you may as well go all in. There’s no reason to make it any harder than it has to be. Religions evolve all the time. Pick what works for you. You’re both intelligent people. You’re both good people. Trust yourselves. Trust each other. Trust your son. You can make it work.”

Rayne’s shoulders dropped, relaxing a little. “The fact remains that I don’t know what I’m doing. Not really. He needs formal training that I can’t give him. He also needs kids his age… his level. It’s not fair to raise him in a spaceship with no friends.”

Maz nodded. “In this you are correct. I do know of a place. It is not the home world of his people, but I believe some of his people may still be there. The Force is strong there. Many Force-sensitives are drawn to it, as I once was long ago. I believe they possess the expertise, flexibility, and friends you seek.”

Rayne looked to Din, another silent question. He dipped his head in an affirmative.

“Very well,” Maz said. “I will give you the coordinates tomorrow morning. You will store them in a safe place. You will not register them in a navigational computer. You will not commit them to memory lest you be interrogated. They are to be hidden. Is that understood?”

Din and Rayne nodded.

They knew all about hiding.

---

The clan of Rollins-Djarin gathered once more by the lake. Yadier splashed in the water, once again chasing tadpoles. His parents sat cross-legged on the bank and watched him.

Din was… somewhat mended. Still fractured, but no longer flying apart.

So. Progress.

He decided to allow himself a small shred of hope. Maybe it could work. He un-crossed his ankles and slid his foot next to Rayne’s. The mother of his son. Maybe she could… He saw her turn her head towards him from the corner of his eye and his breath caught in his throat.

“You ok in there?”

“Yes.”

She lifted an eyebrow. She wasn’t buying it.

He opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come, and once again, he was thankful for the helmet.

She turned her face back to the lake. “Zavin said something interesting a few days ago.”

“I bet he did.”

Rayne shot him a smile at his dry tone. “He referred to you as my Mando.”

Din tilted his head.

She pressed her foot against his. “What do you think? Too possessive?”

“No.” Din followed her gaze to where their feet met, unsure of how he felt about Zavin’s thoughts so closely mirroring his own. “Would it be inappropriate for you to be my Jedi?”

“I’m not really a Jedi.”

“Semantics.”

“Okay, fine. Technically, I’m the rank of Jedi Youngling. At the age of forty-four. Way younger than you.”

He huffed out a laugh. “Sounds creepy when you say it like that.”

She smiled. “You’re right. It does, actually.”

“What are my other options?”

He watched as her face stilled, considering, maybe running through the same options he’d gone over in his head a hundred times over with no success. Finally, she shrugged. “Your Jedi is as good as anything, I guess.”

“Not too possessive?”

“No. Just…” she paused, gathering her thoughts. “Remember what it all means.”

He dipped his chin, returning the press of his foot against hers. “You ok with Yadier being both?”

She paused again. “If we do it right. I don’t want him locked in a helmet.” She kept her gaze averted.

“I don’t, either.”

“Assuming he wants… any of this. We have to give him enough to protect himself, enough so he can make an informed decision when the time comes. But it has to be his choice. A real choice. We can’t force it on him when he’s twelve, or whatever the hell age he’ll be.”

Din let out a long sigh. “We might not make it that long.”

She nodded. There was a good chance they wouldn’t. Even if she and Din managed to survive the violence of their lives, old age could very well claim them before Yaider reached adulthood. In choosing to remain his parents, they would condemn him to their loss at an early age. The only handle Rayne had on that kind of loss was her observation of how deep the scars of it ran in Din. He carried them around with him every day. Writ large in the red paint that coated his armor. She cast her gaze out at their son, their giggling, chirping, burbling, frog-eating, starship-lifting, alien-baby son, splashing in the shallow water, once more reflecting on the potential he housed, once more wondering if they could help him tap that potential without ruining his sweetness, without smothering his curiosity, without destroying his happiness. If they could help him develop what he was without undermining who he was. Before they left him during what would likely be his adolescence, even if they were lucky. “We have a lot of work to do.”

“Yes,” Din said, sliding his hand next to hers, hooking his little finger around hers. “We do.”

#the mandalorian #din djarin #grogu #maz kanata

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s-brant · 3 years

Text

The Endless Summer (2/?)

(gif: @beccs) (PART ONE) (SERIES MASTERLIST)

Summary: A day out on the water goes awry and puts JJ, John B, and Y/N in danger. With tensions rising and the stakes higher than ever, JJ finds it difficult to control his feelings.

Word Count: 9.1k

Warnings: Angst, implied sexual content, strong language, graphic violence, and JJ being an emotionally confused asshat.

A/N: Welcome back! Thanks for the love on this series, I’m so glad you guys like it and I hope this part is just as good. Things get a little heated in this chapter, so buckle up. Let me know if you enjoyed this. Have fun!

JJ isn't sure why she did it.

He wasn't sure then and he isn't sure now, but he knows one thing for certain: there isn't any going back to how things once were now that the barrier between them came crashing down.

Sweat drips off of his skin from the relentless heat of the Caribbean that has made their recent lives hell with the painful tinge of sunburn atop their tans and heat exhaustion they must be careful to avoid at all costs. They were educated on both topics by Pope, their godsend of a survival encyclopedia in human form, who advised them to spend most of their day outside of necessary tasks like fishing and constructing stable shelter under the shady cover of the treetops.

The sole reason he and John B aren't hiding in the safety of the shade is that it's their day to fish, but he's not thinking about the sun. In fact, neither of them is. They're both wondering where their third fishing buddy is.

It took roughly ten minutes of spearfishing with him in comfortable silence for JJ to finally break and spill his guts about what happened last night. Though there was an unspoken agreement to never tell anyone that their hatred has turned into desire, he couldn't help it. He was going mad trying to unravel it in his head.

After all, he already had a conversation with JB about the recent shift in their behavior with each other by the ocean last night, so it seems fitting to pick up where they left off with the calm and clear blue water in front of them again.

He walks on the jagged outcropping of rock that serves as their perch to observe the fish without disturbing the pattern of the current they swim through with John B closely behind.

"One second she's pissed at me, the next she's all over me. It makes no sense. Then, she didn’t say anything to me after it happened," JJ says with his face hardened into a look of concentration at the fish he squints against the sun to aim at, "Not even "Fuck you, Maybank" or one of her weirdly creative threats. She just sat there all night and talked to everyone but me."

His gaze slips away from the water as his chosen fish disappears from sight before he can bother to throw the spear, eyeing up his friend's reaction to the news.

John B doesn't seem that surprised by it, because who else, aside from everyone else in Kildare who knows of their "hatred" for one another, could've seen it coming as much as he did? He considers it for a second, then props his arm up on the handle side of the spear he digs into the rock to lean against.

"I'm pretty sure that means she likes you."

JJ retorts, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard you say."

Why would anyone ignore a person they like? It makes no sense to him. Every time he wanted a person, he'd simply walk over and make it happen. It's never been difficult for him to pursue the people he finds himself attracted to...Well, except for her. For a guy that also ignored her for the rest of the night and pretended their moment in the woods didn't happen, he has some balls of steel to be chastising her for the same things he did.

John B shrugs and says, "I'm being serious, dude. Sarah wouldn't even acknowledge my existence when I worked on the Druthers, and I thought it was some stuck-up rich person thing but it wasn't."

They shouldn't be talking at all right now as to not scare away the fish, but they do it anyway. They both know he won't let it go until it's out of his system for good. He wouldn't allow himself to forget it if he wanted to, so its better to talk it out than turn stir crazy from ruminating over it 24/7.

Though it's, as he worded it yesterday, hot as balls out, being by the sea lessens the feeling of it by a landslide.

The breeze they crave whenever they work on their huts or forage through the forest for wild berries, coconuts, or potential building supplies blows on them without pause for the time they spend here, which almost makes it more dangerous. They stand under the direct harm of the UV rays frying them without truly feeling it burn yet, and he dreads the next few days in anticipation of the returning sunburn he just peeled off of his shoulders the other day.

JJ walks down the side to get a better view of the water, balancing precariously on the sharpened edge with the spear clenched tightly in one hand. The breeze is strong enough to threaten his balance, but he holds firm and digs his toes into the sedimentary rock for traction. His body sways in the midday sun with the struggle for stability, or, at least he suspects its midday.

Since being stranded here, time is a foreign concept to them. With no phones, clocks, or any guide to go off of other that the position of the sun above to display the hours that pass, they've lost complete track of what day it is, let alone how long minutes or hours truly are in comparison to the endless summer they live within. They suspect it's been a month since they were left here, but, in all honesty, it could be two. None of them had the sense to mark the days in a tally until it was too late.

He says, lifting his arm to throw the spear, "Well, she is a stuck up rich person, so maybe it's just—"

"You know I'm right here, don't you?"

The sound of her voice from a few feet behind them startles JJ into turning around to look at her right when he lets go of the spear.

Unfortunately for him, the jerking movement throws off his carefully distributed weight and skews his balance, making the feet placed on the edge slip from underneath him and send him slipping down into the water. His calf is the first body part to hit the rocks, and the groan of pain he lets out at the feeling of the jagged rock slicing through his skin could make her heart stop mid-beat. But what truly scares her is seeing the back of his head hit the ground too.

Before he can slide the rest of the way into the water, two pairs of hands are grabbing onto his arms and heaving him up with all of their strength. She and John B grit their teeth with the effort it takes to pull him back up, their muscles burning from the strain, and once his feet are over the ledge, he pushes off the rock to help them the rest of the way. Drops of his blood disperse into the water off the edge from where he cut himself, dripping until there's hardly any left.

Once he's safely laid back down a few feet from where he slipped, Y/N is kneeling in front of him in a matter of seconds. The rock beneath her knees opens small cuts into her skin, but she doesn't pay it any heed. She sits on her heels to lessen the minor pain and lean forward to inspect the damage he took with nothing on her mind other than worry.

Soon enough, John B joins her to kneel at his feet as he sits up and watches them eye up his injury as though it’s some sort of ghastly, life threatening thing instead of a gash that won't need stitches. He watches them against the glittering ocean, waves washing up on the rocks around them to sting his wound with saltwater.

"It's a scratch, not an amputation," JJ says.

She ignores him with a frown lining her pretty features and twists his leg by the ankle to get a better view of the wound in the sunlight. It extends up the entire length of his calf, almost from ankle to knee, and dribbles fresh blood onto her hands as well as the ground beneath them. From what he can tell, it doesn't look all too severe. No muscle or bone can be seen, so it's a simple, superficial scratch.

When he doesn't get a response from either her or John B while they're too busy checking out his leg, he says again, "Guys, I'm serious, it's fine."

This time, she doesn't hesitate to answer.

"Yeah, well you may not need stitches but you still have infection to worry about. This wilderness isn't exactly the cleanliest place," she says retorts with as much snark as usual, and he quietly rejoices in the fact that she's finally acting normal after what happened last night, "Not to mention, you hit your head pretty hard. There's no need to act all tough."

He shrugs.

"It's not an act, it really doesn't hurt that bad."

John B stands and smears the blood on his hands off on the front of his shorts.

"I'll be right back, guys, I'm gonna go get stuff to patch him up."

Just like that, they are left plunging into silence as he is running away down the peninsula back to the beach they've claimed as their own.

Silence has always been her least favorite thing to share with JJ. She'd rather anything over it—screaming, fighting, joking, friendly conversation, or even what they did together yesterday night. Anything is preferable over the tense and insufferable feeling of silence when they're alone together with none of their friends, or their playful hatred, between them as a barrier between them.

Instead of seeing the same pestering jerk she always used to when she looks at him, she sees the memory of how he looked at her in the woods. He didn't look at her like she was the worst person to ever walk the planet, or like she was his least favorite Kook "Princess", he looked at her like she meant something to him.

They sit together in uncomfortable silence in the time it takes John B to rush to the beach and back, careful not to slip on the rocks the way JJ did, with the supplies from the dinghy in his arms. It isn't much to work with, but at least it's something to keep the nasty wound on his leg protected from dirt and germs. She's sure he'd leave it uncovered and up to fate if he had it his way.

Before he can set them down on the wet rocks, thus ruining the gauze and bandages in craters filled with ocean water, she gestures at JJ with a stern command, "Take off your shirt."

His brows raise.

"Shit, Princess, take me out to dinner first."

She groans in frustration, "Can you be quiet for a second and actually listen to me for once?"

He catches John B's gaze with wide eyes, but complies nonetheless, reaching down to tug the tank off of his torso by the frayed hem until it's balled up in his closed fist to hand off to her. Her eyes only linger on his body for a quick second on accident before snatching it from him.

Her bloodstained palms lay the shirt out on the flattest stretch of rock she can find to act as a barrier from the small puddles of water to protect the supplies. One nod at John B has him setting them down atop the navy fabric as she glances up at JJ with a smug smile.

"Believe it or not," she taunts, unscrewing the cap to the disinfectant, "I didn't ask for it so you could sit there and look pretty."

The words throw him back in time to their conversation on the beach while they thatched the roof to their hut, and he wonders how long she's been waiting to throw that back in his face since he first said it.

He grins at her as he asks, "You think I'm pretty?" but before he can say more, she's pouring a generous amount of the hydrogen peroxide along the length of his cut without a warning for him to prepare himself. His leg jerks away on instinct to save himself from the burning sensation, but she grips his ankle tightly enough to force him to stay still.

His nose scrunches up with the urge to groan in pain, and he does a little. Through grinding teeth, he winces in response to the peroxide slipping into every cell of open skin and bubbling up like the white water of the waves as it kills the bacteria lingering in the gash.

"Does it hurt now?" Y/N asks.

She's looking up at him through her lashes with her lips curled into a smirk as she packs gauze onto the wound until it's covered to her satisfaction. And it should be the last thing he's thinking about right now after cutting up his leg and hitting his head hard enough to worry her about concussions, but he can't help it. Looking down at her like this, it's impossible for him to not think about the unfinished business they have.

Everything is the same as it was yesterday—the tattered white top, the red panties in place of a bikini, sunburnt cheeks, and a taunting look that he'll never get tired of seeing. But that's precisely why he's reminded of it. She's wearing the same clothes and looking at him the way she did on the beach before any of last night's antics occurred, and he can't keep himself from wondering if it'll happen again.

"Yeah," he finally responds.

Her smirk grows for a second before she gets back to work.

"Good."

JJ subtly eyes her up from where she shifts on her knees to set the open gauze wrappers under the peroxide bottle in exchange for the bandage wrap, but he isn't as subtle as he thinks. She can feel his stare no matter how sneaky he attempts to be. He may be able to evade John B's attention, since he dove into the ocean to retrieve the wooden spear that began to float out in the tide, but she never misses a thing. Not when it comes to him.

When he looks at her, he finds memories.

Her legs folded up beneath her bring him back to how smooth they felt on his palms when he lifted them up around his hips. Her rosy lips pressing into a line in concentration bring him back to the coconut flavor he tasted on them. Her nipples poking against the fabric of her shirt bring him back to when he lifted it up over her breasts to suck at the sensitive skin until he got a moan from her—There isn't a place he can stare without going back to last night.

Part of him hates that.

He can't stand that a girl who he spent the last five years hating has found a way into his daydreams. Why couldn't it have been anyone else? Why did she have to lure him into her trap? He supposes there's nothing he can do about it now, though. After hours of stewing over it, he's reached the conclusion that it was likely a one-time thing, a mistake made in the heat of the moment that she won't make again, and he should get the idea of it out of his head.

When she has to adjust her grip to hold the gauze in place while she wraps the bandage around his leg, he sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth and jerks away again. She glances up at him with her best, "Are you kidding me?" face. Didn't he say he was tough?

"I'm starting to think you're a sadist, 'cause it's like you're trying to make it hurt," he says.

She gasps, feigning offense.

"Me? Enjoying this? It's not like we've hated each other for years or anything."

And though he may not realize it, this is her way of distracting him from the pain of having her apply added pressure to his cut while she wraps the bandage into place. It has to be tight enough to keep water and sand out, but not so tight that it cuts off circulation, and while it may have been tolerable without her touching it, the contact is enough to make it worse for him.

He asks, "Uh, speaking of, why are you the one doing this? Isn't it some kind of HIPAA thing to treat patients you've threatened to violate with tree branches before?"

The sound of her laughter makes his stomach flutter with butterflies, and he wonders what the hell is wrong with him.

"That's not what HIPAA is, genius"—her eyes crinkle at the sides with her wide smile while she wraps his leg—"and I'm the one doing this because I know way more medical shit than the rest of you."

Even Pope.

"Ohhh right, I forgot. Your dad is this hotshot surgeon and that makes you think you know everything," he taunts.

The casual mention of her father makes her chest ache with something not many of the Pogues, excluding Pope, have felt since being stranded on this island. With their parents either disowning them, absent, abusive, or dead, they have no reason to resist the allure of living here for the months or years it may take to be rescued, but she does.

She misses him.

For the longest time since her mom died, it was her and her dad versus the world. In everything they did, they did it together, and before she met Sarah, he was the closest she had to a best friend. Since they had no other family to help watch her as a child, she grew up in the hospital with him, drawing with crayons on his office’s printer paper with her babysitter and picking up small things along the way from watching him for so long.

He could've chosen to leave her at home, sure, but he didn't want to miss out on seeing her more than he already did, so she spent the majority of her childhood in offices, waiting rooms, and the indoor playground of the PEDs wing.

She takes a deep breath to steady herself after the sucker punch of being reminded of her dad and says, "Well, I know enough and, thankfully for you, I'm the one doing this instead of John B."

From far away, twenty or so feet offshore where their friend is paddling through the water with the lost spear held in one hand, they hear John B shouting an offended, "I heard that!" back at her. It draws a soft chuckle from them both, and she silently thanks him for distracting JJ one last time as she finishes and secures the bandage so it won't unravel.

She wipes her hands off on her water-soaked thighs one more time to get as much of his blood off of her fingers as possible before she reaches out with both arms extended to offer him help to stand. He takes them with a murmured, "Thanks," as they both try not to show how affected they are by the casual touch.

It makes them feel pathetic that something as small as holding each other's hands makes them remember what they did and desperately wish to continue it. Her throat bobs with how she must swallow the lump in her throat at their close proximity, barely breathing now that he's standing close to her with less than a few inches between them.

For a second, they don't move away. They stay face to face, and all she can think of is how badly she wants to kiss him again. But she can't do anything yet, not when she hears someone screaming from the water.

"There's a shark!" John B screams as he paddles back faster than he's ever swam in his life, already close enough to the peninsula that they can see the terror in his eyes when they turn to look.

Surely enough, there a tip of a fin too pointed to pass off as a dolphin cutting through the surface of the water to alert them of the fish's presence, but if that weren't enough, the water is clear enough for them to see its outline.

Thankfully for him, it isn't huge. It looks about as long as he is tall, but that doesn't change the degree of danger. Just because it isn't as big as other sharks doesn't make a bite any less lethal, especially when their only form of medical attention rests on her knowledgeable yet inexperienced shoulders.

For once in his life, JJ is frozen with no clue of what to do.

He's always the man with the plan, the one who jumps into action when others choke up and sit on the sidelines, but this makes him falter. What can he do to help other than stand here and pray John B can out-swim a shark? He's helpless, and now that he's faced with the prospect of losing his best friend for a second time, he doesn't know what to do.

It was his blood in the water that must have attracted the shark, and he was so caught up in his own drama with her and the pain of his cut that he didn't consider the danger of John B jumping in to retrieve the spear he dropped. It's his fault. His best friend is about to be eaten by a shark and it's his fault—

The blurred image of her rushing past in his peripheral vision rips him from his stormy thoughts, and right when he thought it couldn't get worse, it does. Water splashes up around her body and swallows her under the surface after she leaps off the edge of the rock with the aluminum spear from the dinghy raised in her dominant arm.

"Y/N!"

Before he even realizes what he's doing, JJ is screaming out her name, screaming it like he cares, and damns the consequences to dive in after her.

While he was frozen, she sprung into action without thinking of her own life first. She knew he was close to the rock, but not close enough to swim faster than a predator designed for the conditions of the ocean. It took one glance at the spear resting to the side for her to lean down, scoop it up, and get a running start to jump out as far as humanly possible. Various joints and muscles ached from how she strained to push herself far off the rock, taking flight with nothing but their survival in mind.

She sucks in a heaving breath upon breaking the surface, but she doesn't take a second to pause with John B paddling up to her so soon.

"Go back!"

The only answer she gives him is, "Use your spear!" before she brings hers out of the water in anticipation of the grey figure bolting straight for them.

It's a stupid plan, but it's the only one she has, and if one of them is in danger, they'd all risk everything they have to protect them. After all, they're already trapped here with the threat of death every day. Is there anything more worthy of dying for than your friends?

Neither of them is necessarily trying to kill it yet either, they're trying to keep it at a safe distance or hurt it enough so it swims away from them, but she puts all of her strength into spearing the fish between the eyes anyway. Her legs kick tirelessly to keep her afloat while she and John B stab as accurately as they can, choking down a mouthful of salty ocean water from how her head sinks at the surface without the help of her arms to keep her up.

Blood stains the water with a crimson hue spreading out around their bodies—whether it's theirs or the shark's, she doesn't know—and she must keep her lips clamped shut to prevent it from spilling into her mouth, breathing solely through her nose. She can tell her legs are soon to give out on her, but then a pair of hands latch onto her body. Call her irrational or stupid, but even with the clear distinction of human hands on her waist, her mind reacts in instinctual fear.

The touch makes her jolt mid-stab and sobers her feral mind back to reality for a moment until she realizes it's a human touching her, not the shark.

It's JJ.

His arms wrap around her thighs and hoist her up out of the water as much as he can while still swimming, effectively pushing himself underwater with one last gasp for air.

The sudden shift in view has her gaze shifting around to take in the new sights with a gush of red water rushing off of her onto the splashing surface: a light grey tail whips around in the chaos, the shark's head oozes blood from the multiple puncture wounds that didn't push quite deep enough, and its jaws snap right where John B's arm is before he yanks it back.

After a fraction of a second, it clicks with her that there's no time to waste watching her friend almost get his arm chomped off while she takes in the unbelievable sight. Her slippery grip on the handle remains as firm as possible, and she raises the spear over her head with an improved accuracy she never could've had from where she previously aimed it before. All of their shots landed well enough, but with the height advantage, she won't allow herself to fuck it up this time with her friend's life hanging in the balance.

She hardly recognizes her own frantic voice shouting at him, "Spear it in the gills!"

Her hands bring the razor-sharp tip of the spear down into its head repeatedly, and she isn't sure whether it's the splashing water or tears wetting her face when she buries the weapon down into it for a final time right when John B lodges his wooden spear in its gills.

Whatever she did, it must've hit its brain, because the animal halts its thrashing. Its teeth no longer snap at her friend, nor does its tail whip around in the water as violently as it did a moment ago.

As quickly as it started, it drops off into a sickening calm that leaves the white bubbles dissolving into a puddle of bloody water surrounding the trio and the fish that dies with no small amount of guilt on her part. There was no choice but to kill it. It makes her ache on the inside, but how could she regret it if she knows it saved them? The guilt might ravage her for the upcoming days, but she can't bring herself to regret jumping in after him.

She hardly has the chance to process it before she's being pulled away by both of the boys, her view of the scene shifting drastically once more with the abrupt drop of JJ letting her down in favor of guiding her through the gentle waves. His calloused hand squeezes her arm enough to cut circulation off on their journey back.

Time rushes past her in the next thirty seconds or so it takes them to reach the peninsula again in a paranoid sprint away from where the dead fish floats. One of them, John B she thinks, tosses the aluminum spear he dislodged from the shark's head up onto the rocks and clambers his way back up on his own. The waves closer to land grow rougher than the tender current out where they killed the shark, and she grunts in pain as one sends her and JJ straight into the rocks. His body hits her back with a solid ‘thump’ and forces her to wheeze with the wind getting knocked from her lungs upon impact, nails cracking on the black rock from the desperate grip she uses in an attempt to lift herself.

Meanwhile, JJ can't seem to catch his breath either, nor can he think of anything other than her once he sees that John B isn’t injured.

As soon as he sees his friend is unmarked from the teeth of the shark after he's out of the water, he positions himself behind Y/N to help her out first. He places his hands on her backside to push her up as quickly as he can. Knowing that the carcass in the water will soon attract more sharks in the surrounding area into a feeding frenzy, he'd rather it be him than her. It's a thought that shoots by too fast for him to fully acknowledge the meaning or weight of it at a time like this.

Somehow within his adrenaline-crazed mind, he is careful not to push her onto the jagged edge that sliced his leg open earlier, then climbs after her with little space left between them.

She's coughing up saltwater onto the rocks as he scrambles over to her, eyes wild with the petrifying worry of anything bad happening to her. They scan over her arms, legs, stomach, and back, and he doesn't even realize his hands are reaching out to inspect her as frantically as she had with him when he got hurt.

His hands cup her face, petting over her dripping hair and forcing her to look up so he can see if she somehow got hit in the face. Never has his mind been so void of rational thought, and, knowing him and his impulsive tendencies, that's saying a lot. The confusion of his contradictory feelings for her muddle his mind. Worry and hatred, attraction and anger—they battle it out, but only two manage to reach him externally.

Worry and anger it is. Worry for obvious reasons. Anger because—

"What the fuck were you thinking?"

She has never heard him sound so vicious since the start of whatever odd relationship/friendship/enemy-ship they have. With his worried expression and how he checked her entire body for injury after helping her out of the water, the last thing she would've anticipated from him was anger. Especially not after she saved his best friend's life. Considering what she just did for him, she thinks he should be thanking her, not chastising her.

Behind her back, she can hear a collection of yelling voices and splashing footsteps over the water dripping from them. It can only be the rest of their friends racing up the peninsula to them, but she can't turn around.

She stares at him with utter confusion flooding her at his unexpected outburst. Speechless.

"What was I thinking?" she asks incredulously with her face still cradled between his hands, "I was saving John B's life!"

Their emotional distance and disagreement are made up for in abundance by how physically entangled they've become. It wasn't intentional. It was a result of him needing to get close enough to scour her exposed skin for any bites, but now that they're sitting so near to each other, they forget to back away.

John B is too busy to engage with them.

He's doubled over on the ground with the compulsion to vomit the contents of his stomach into the ocean, but he doesn't dare get close to the edge again after what they went through. Instead, he positions himself away from them and their approaching friends until the half-digested food is forced back through his mouth. The acidic bile scorches his throat and nostrils on the way out.

JJ doesn't have the opportunity to retort back something about her being stupid, because Pope is the first person to reach them and ask, "What the hell happened?"

The rest of the group isn't far behind. It's Kie who asks the next question, then Sarah, then Cleo. They all pop off in rapid succession before either of the three of them can answer.

"Are any of you hurt?"

"Why is he throwing up?"

"Is that a shark?"

The last question draws everyone's attention over to the half-sunken mass of fish bobbing up and down on the breaths of the sea with a wooden spear sticking straight out of its gills. Though it isn't the biggest, most intimidating shark to roam the ocean, its presence doesn't fail to make everyone who looks at it shudder with the realization of what must have happened.

John B wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and points over at her with his trembling arm outstretched.

"She killed it."

The four of them whip their heads in her direction, jaws nearly falling off their faces in disbelief, but she doesn't say anything yet. Because as soon as they feel the eyes of their friends burning into them, she and JJ realize, as though they're returning to reality from the hazy layers of a dreamscape, that they're still holding each other.

She's slumped halfway onto him from when he hauled her body closer to inspect her, so she's essentially sitting on top of him at this point. Her legs, bruised and scratched up from when the waves crested to send them crashing into the rocks, are entangled around his enough that they look back and forth between them and where his hands cup her face in surprise.

JJ doesn't know what came over him.

Now that he snaps out of it at the same time as her, both of them separating and nudging each other away until their bodies are no longer entwined, he feels his cheeks flush in embarrassment.

When he saw her leaping past him to jump into the water, his mind shut off. He wasn't thinking about himself, or the possibility of getting killed, or anything at all. He was only thinking of the danger she put herself in, then he dove in and the rest of his conscious mind faded away into pure survival instinct. Yet, even after he knew the immediate danger was gone, the adrenaline kept him on edge, desperate to get her back to land and pray none of them were hurt.

"It was trying to attack him," she rasps. Her throat is raw from the saltwater she choked on, and every word burns. "But we did it together."

She pushes herself off the ground with an exhausted sigh.

Muscles spent from the struggle in the water, her legs wobble beneath the weight of her upper body as she takes a few steps to help John B up from his position on his hands and knees. From what she heard, he has thrown up all he has left in his stomach and hasn't gagged again in a minute or so, so attempting to stand again shouldn't be too strenuous for him.

His hand is cold in her grasp from the water soaking their bodies, but it holds firmly enough for her to help him into his feet without their palms slipping apart. No patches of blood are visible on his shorts, nor are there any puncture wounds on him from the sharp teeth that snapped at his arm in the quick but vigorous fight.

They were very, very fortunate to have made it out alive, and when he looks down at her face, he feels nothing but gratitude for the girl he previously saw as nothing more than his girlfriend's best friend. They went into the water as casual acquaintances, companions of convenience and the happenstance of being forced onto this island together, but they've come out of it differently. Now, they're friends.

Now, she's a Pogue.

He smiles at her, glancing up at their friends as their questions die down at the sight of his crazy grin, and says, "That was some real Pogue shit right there, Y/N." His eyes come back to meet hers. "I think it's about time we officially make you one of us. What do you think?"

She's opening her mouth to respond when Kiara cuts her off. The rest of them are staring at the trio as if they have ten heads sprouting from their bodies for not immediately surrendering more details of their near-death encounter other than saying she killed it.

"I'm sorry, can we please rewind to the part where you got attacked by a shark first?"

"Ladies and gentlemen, can I get a drumroll please for..."

The campfire is roaring with the abundance of sticks, leaves, and branches thrown onto the pile to fuel it as she feels a strong pair of arms looping around her thighs to lift her into the expansive, star-flecked sky.

In a flash of haunting memory, she relives the moment where JJ dove into the water after her and lifted her body above the surface to give her the high ground over the shark. She relives its thrashing hunger, the water splashing on her, and the cloudy hue of blood around them that she hoped wasn't either of the boys. For a second, as the world grows taller with her new perspective, she is brought back to the sudden shift she felt then and feels her stomach drop in panic, anticipating the danger.

But then the sound of her friends laughing, as well as the surging fire and crashing waves, comes back to her and forces the frightful flashback away. Her hip fits perfectly in the curve of John B's shoulder, and she lets her head fall back in giggling laughter at how he hoists her up in the air as though she's a holy figure of worship for the Pogues to kneel to.

His voice can likely be heard across the entire island when he shouts, "The Shark Conqueror!"

The group erupts into a triumphant mixture of cheers and laughter that fills the beach, everyone celebrating in their narrow escape earlier today...everyone except JJ.

After John B divulged the gory details of what happened, from JJ's fall to her picking up the spear and jumping in to save him from the shark, they made their way back with enough conversation to last the month. They all asked questions and took peeks back at where it happened in morbid curiosity, wondering how on earth they managed to come out of the situation without a scratch.

The rest of the afternoon continued on with the same buzzing energy that can only be created from the thrill of being alive. She's felt it many times since joining Sarah's group of friends that seem to find trouble wherever they go, but she has never felt it as vehemently as she does tonight. It's a mixture of euphoria, shock, and soul-crushing guilt for having to hurt another living creature, even one that was intending to make a meal of her friend.

No matter how much she grows up or discovers more about herself as a person, feelings never stop being as frustrating as they were to her as a child. You can get better at processing and hindering explosive reactions to them, but they never simplify. She doesn't know why she feels so much at once. She doesn't know why she feels simultaneously on top of the world and thrown off the edge of a cliff, but she thinks it has to do with him.

Since they walked back to the beach and talked about what happened until the day withered into night, which led them here to the “official” ceremony of her being named a Pogue for life, JJ hasn't spoken to her once.

Suddenly, the shoe is on the other foot.

Much like how she avoided him all night last night leading into this morning, he doesn't talk to her. He tries not to look at her too from where he sits on the log of driftwood across the fire, but it's somewhat inevitable with the spectacle John B is making of her at the moment.

Painted in the warm tones of the firelight like a goddess in her own right, Y/N is impossible to look away from, and it makes him angrier than he already is. A handwoven circlet crafted from the hibiscus and hippeastrum flowers growing in the forest around their camp sits atop her head. It doesn't fall to the ground with the movement of her throwing her head back in laughter. It stays in its rightful place against the rule of gravity until her face comes back into view for him to quickly look away from.

It dampers her laughter to see him avoiding her gaze so adamantly, taking a swig of water from one of the small cups they carved from wood and turning to talk to Kie to keep himself busy. The distinct sensation of being on top of the world slips away with the feeling of his cold avoidance and John B lowering her back to the ground until her bare feet sink into the soft sand.

Before she can start sulking about it for the foreseeable future, Sarah steps up beside her.

The familiar touch of a hand on her shoulder brings her comfort amidst her confusion and hurt over the way JJ is acting, and when she turns to see a pretty face looking fondly at her, a warm smile finds her lips.

"Pogue for life?" Sarah asks.

The three words bring make her smile grow the same way it had when she was talking to JJ on the peninsula. It crinkles the skin around her eyes with its unrestrained happiness to hear them because, as much as she pretends to let JJ's comments roll off of her, tonight marks one of the first times she's felt at home with them.

That's not to say they haven't made her feel welcome in the past, they did, but this isn’t the same. This is closer, this is the type of bond that's forged in situations like these where people have no choice but to rely on each other or let their worlds collectively fall apart, and she thinks, for the first time, that she could live here with them forever if she must.

None of them know how much time has passed since they arrived here, least of all her, but it sure as hell feels like an eternity. At first, she could barely withstand the idea of living here for months with the intention of being rescued as soon as possible, but now...

She brings Sarah into an embrace tight enough to force the air from their lungs.

"Pogue for life," she echoes back with her face buried into the salt-scented tresses of dirty blonde hair cascading over her tan shoulders.

Would it be crazy of her to think that this is where they're meant to be? That they're her family and this place she has fantasized about escaping is now their home?

After all, the lush island provides everything they need to sustain themselves with the rationing, scavenging, and hunting routines they adhere themselves to. Freshwater runs down the land in a stream from a water source uphill, plenty of different edible plants grow in the forest, and there's so much left of the expansive land to explore; it's perfect. Everything here is perfect for them, calling out to them to make it their home, but there's one little problem as of right now, and he's sitting across the fire behind her back.

Sarah's arms squeeze around her shoulders once to bring her in even closer.

"Thank you for saving him," her voice is so hushed, Y/N can hardly hear it with her lips brushing the shell of her ear to whisper into it, "I'm not gonna get all mushy with you right now, but I don't know what I would've done if"—Sarah's breath hitches in her throat, and she shakes her head—"I just wanted to thank you."

When they pull apart, Y/N is looking back at her with a knowing expression, one that says everything she can't in the presence of the others, and Sarah can't help but mirror it.

It isn't long before the blonde-haired beauty is whisked away by her boyfriend to help him cook the crabs they caught closer to shore after their encounter with the shark. Not wanting to swim out or risk slipping off the rocks again with the dead fish promising to lure more predators to their area for the next week or so, they settled for hunting for shellfish and making good use of the fruits they find growing in wild abundance in the forest.

The night ticks away in swiftly passing minutes thanks to the humorous company of the people around her.

She nearly chokes on a mouthful of banana as Cleo tells a story from before she met them, when she used to live in Nassau and work jobs with Terence and Stubbs on ships. For such new additions to the group, they both fit surprisingly well with the lifelong childhood friends that sit around and banter with such ease together.

They talk, laugh, dance, and eat together, and there are moments when she feels happier than ever. There are moments exactly like when John B lifted her up and made her giggle at how their friends cheered on her behalf in indulgence of the silly "ceremony" they did, half out of boredom and half out of gratitude for what she did. But then she is reminded of the man sitting on the outskirts of the group with his features hardened into an expression of contemplation she wishes she could decode.

The night breeze feels heavenly on her perpetually overexposed skin. It blows into the fire and allows it to swell from the oxygen supply, crackling and popping embers out every so often like the spark of the zippo lighter JJ fidgets with in his restless hands. The movement attracts her wandering eyes while they should be focused on Cleo and Kie dancing around the fire with boisterous laughter while Sarah and Pope sing for them.

She keeps herself honed in on the opening and closing of the lighter under the guidance of his ring-clad fingers for the next minute or so.

They may have been pitting themselves against each other since they met, but that doesn't mean she doesn't know him well. If anything, the keen attention that her old hatred for him forced her to keep on him made her memorize everything there is to know. And she surely has picked up on the nervous habit of him playing with the lighter whenever he's thinking, whenever there's something crawling under his skin that he can't piece together.

He sits with his back to her, facing out toward the ocean so all she can see is the hand he uses to flick the lighter open and shut with. With a quick glance at the rest of their friends to see if any of them are watching or wanting to speak with her, she pushes herself up from the log and dusts her sandy palms on her shirt.

The tracks of her footsteps lead around the corner of the driftwood he rests against until her feet appear, sunken into the sand in front of him. It takes a lot of control to not allow himself to follow up the length of her body, panning up along her legs until he sees that infuriatingly tenderhearted set of eyes looking down at him.

However, he doesn't have a choice in looking when her hand outstretches in a silent invitation. His first glimpse of her in the last half-hour shows her jerking her chin in the direction of the beach curving around the bend of the island.

This morning, he probably would've taken her up on the offer. He would've done anything to get a few minutes alone with her, but now he can't see past his anger and doesn't know why. He doesn't know why it hasn't calmed yet, but, in truth, it has more to do with him than it does her idiotic yet brave decision to fight off a shark today. Trust him, it still has a lot to do with the idiotic shark thing, but the rest is lost in translation for him.

"Not in the mood," he dismisses her.

Her brows furrow and form a crease between them as she tries to find something to say but comes up with nothing. At least not until it clicks with her what he thought she was trying to do by inviting him to walk with her.

The last time they went off on their own together, it ended in an explosive encounter they have yet to erase from their minds. It's what greets them whenever they close their eyes for a second too long, existing in their wildest daydreams and fantasies whenever they have a spare moment to themselves. Hell, he can't stop thinking about it even when he's already occupied. It was the reason why he didn't catch any fish this morning before the incident that made him pissed at her in the first place. He couldn't stop thinking of her.

"Oh," she murmurs and starts to kneel down until her knees are sinking into the sand the same way she did when patching up his leg. Her eyes peek over his shoulder to ensure the others didn't hear them—"That wasn't what I meant...I was just wondering if you wanted to talk about today. It must have been a lot to process, since he's your best friend and all, and—"

JJ snaps, unable to tolerate it anymore, and stands up from his spot on the sand to move away from her.

"You don't need act all therapist with me, okay? I'm fine, and I don't need you to fix me if that's what you wanted. Today was fine. Everything's fine, so let it go."

Her mouth opens and closes like a fish with a loss for words. For the second time in the span of a minute, she is grasping blindly for something to say in the wake of him shocking her to silence. He's starting to walk past her but she doesn't let him. Her hand shoots out to stop him and holds onto his arm to turn him back despite his rudeness.

Underneath it all, her concern touches him deeply. It shouldn't trigger a reaction like this in him, so why does it? What about today set him off? He hasn't been this genuinely angry with her since before the hunt for the gold began, before she started to blend into their friend group and establish herself as one of them.

"Woah, woah, woah," she says, "I never said that. I thought that you needed someone to talk to. You know, as a friend."

Their friends start to notice their interaction tensing up now. Before, they didn't pick up on her stepping away for a second to check on him. Now, it's impossible to ignore what unfolds hardly six steps from where they watch as slyly as they can. The two of them haven't had a conversation as cold as this one in months, and what he says next takes it to a place that freezes over the connection they made last night and shatters the warm place it held in her heart.

He scoffs.

"We're not friends. If you think you gotta act different 'cause you threw yourself at me last night, don't bother. You hate me and I hate you. That's how it is."

No nicknames, jokes, or anything to act as a buffer, just cruelty. Rejection.

Though they truly were trying to pretend like they weren't paying attention, every single one of their friends stops and stares. A chorus of hushed reactions sound off from across the fire, and the faint sound of Kie muttering, "Oh shit," is the first thing to reach their ears. It's needless to say that none of them could've expected something so callous to come from him, not after what they saw when they ran up to them on the peninsula this morning.

With the way he was holding her then, doting on her and cradling her face between his hands even in the midst of his anger at what she did, they sooner expected the pair to admit they're dating than have a blowout like this.

In the delayed seconds it takes for her to realize what the fuck he just said to her, he watches her face shift from a look of concern to sadness, to flush-faced embarrassment, then finally to anger. Her teeth grind together, nostrils flaring on her inhale, and in one quick moment, she comes to a conclusion within herself.

She reaches up to rip the handmade crown of vibrant flowers off her head with flames to match the camp fire flaring up in her eyes for him. Before she can do anything, he already knows he crossed a line, if not multiple lines. It's evident in everything he sees, from the hurt look on her face to the force with which she shoves the crown into the center of his chest to send him stumbling back a few steps. Just like yesterday, except it couldn't be any more different.

"Fuck. You." She spits the words as though they're venomous, and he almost shrinks away under the intensity of her stare, “Go find somewhere else to sleep tonight, 'cause it sure as hell isn't gonna be with me."

Petals flutter out upon impact against his solid chest and float peacefully to the sand around his feet as he watches her turn on her heels and storm off toward their hut. Though, after what he did and what she said to him as a goodbye, it isn't really theirs anymore, is it? At least not for tonight, tomorrow, or the next day until he finds a way to make her hear him out for an apology.

He stands there, frozen, the entire time he watches her leave. Nothing can move him from the spot, not even Sarah knocking her shoulder against his with a pointed glare on her way past to follow her into the moonlit darkness.

He doesn't even resist the disappointed looks he gets, or the shoulder check from Sarah. This time, he deserves it. He deserves every ounce of their judgment. All she was trying to do was make sure he was okay and he was too consumed in his unreleased frustration from today to see it. And, in a way, he's still frustrated over it, but it's greatly overshadowed by the guilt seeping through him.

The shadowy shapes of the two girls disappear into the small hut further down the beach, and JJ is left with nothing to do but look down at the flower crown clutched to his chest in regret.

Tag List: @gabiatthedisco, @fangirlvoice, @black-syren, @apparrio, @particularcth, @planetdemon, @idk-ijustworkhere, @krisphann, @astrydis, @k-k0129, @zarahsloves, and @stilesflannels.

#jj maybank #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank smut #outer banks #obx #fanfiction #obx2 #this fic is so over the top and silly but I love it 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

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