#if i had to choose between that kind of suffering/loss | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sl-ut · 3 months

Text

like real people do

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA

pairing: abby anderson x fem!reader

description: abby is one hundred percent, totally, and completely straight. that is, until she meets y/n.

warnings: UNEDITED, swearing, slight hints of nsfw, alcohol consumption, a hint of homophobia? (not really but just in case)

words: 5.9K

date posted: 08/02/24

The years had not been kind to Abby. By the time that she and her friends were celebrating her twenty-first birthday, the woman had suffered many losses; the death of her mother at a young age, her father’s murder a few years back, and most recently, her breakup with Owen. She was quick to discover that the universe was not exactly on her side.

From her perspective, Owen was not just a boyfriend. Of course, he was hardly even that at most times, but he also represented the time in her life where everything was good; Salt Lake City, spending time in the woods with him and her dad, playing stupid little games to pass the time with him, Manny, and Mel…he reminded her of when everything was easier. She sometimes felt guilty for this, considering that she sometimes couldn’t tell whether her emotional attachment to him was because of how much she cared for him or for the impossible standards she’s always held him to.

Seattle represented a new beginning for her and her friends. They were able to find a new community, stay together, and live a semi-normal life that even the Fireflies were unable to offer them. Things were good there, people generally liked her, and she was quickly making her way up the ranks as one of the top WLF soldiers, though there were certainly some downsides. At the WLF compound, she began to see things in a new light; She was able to focus on herself for once, do the things that she wanted and branch out more than before. She was no longer limited to the small world of the few Fireflies who actually made it out of Salt Lake City.

It’s for this reason that she holds herself at least somewhat accountable for how things ended with Owen. Of course, she didn’t blame herself for his infidelity, nor for him choosing to do so with one of her closest friends, but she knew that it was her distance that caused the rift to form between them. She felt betrayed by them, obviously, but as time passed, it seemed clear to her that she was more hurt by the fact that it was her two closest confidants who had caused the pain, not the fact that Owen and Mel had been sleeping together for months before she and Owen called it quits.

Her saving grace during this period of her life came in the form of someone she would later consider her best friend, despite how offended Manny gets each time she calls her that. Her first interaction with Y/n was the moment that she knew she needed to have her in her life, one way or another.

She hadn’t noticed her right away, but who would? Amidst the thunderous crowd of the cafeteria just before lunch, it would be nearly impossible to notice anyone who she wasn’t directly looking for, which in a way, is how Abby noticed her to begin with. Manny was actually the one to sniff her out first, as he so often did with pretty girls, his midnight black hair standing out against the white fluorescent lighting. She beelined for him, an annoyed expression crossing her features as she figured out the reason why he’d been late for patrol.

“Manny!” She barked, “How many times do I have to drag your ass to the gate before you actually show up on ti–”

Her attention was immediately caught by the figure sitting across the table from him, eyes falling on a young woman with a look of shock on her face, clearly concerned by the large woman who’d nearly pulled Manny out of his seat with only one hand.

“Abby!” He greeted, doing his best to brush it off, “I was just on my way to meet you when I got distracted by this one,” He winked at the girl with a laugh, “Don’t blame me, it’s entirely her fault. Cierto, hermosa?”

Every engorged muscle in Abby’s body had to hold her back from physically gagging at his obnoxious charm, but she was a bit relieved to see that the girl did not seem to be falling for it so easily.

“Whatever,” the blonde shook her head, trying to suppress any of the nerves that seemed to have wormed their way into her bloodstream under the girl’s stare, “We’re late, and I’m not taking anymore shit from Isaac over you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” He shrugged, slinging his backpack over his shoulder as he began to head towards the door, offering a short goodbye to the girl before jogging to catch up with the blonde, who’d sped off in an attempt to get herself away from the girl.

“Cute, right?” He asked, a knowing smirk on his lips.

She shrugged, “Yeah, your standards seem to be on the rise, finally. What ever happened to the medic–what was her name again? Ginger?”

“Me and Y/n? In my dreams, sure,” He stared at her with a raised brow, “I’m not exactly…her type.”

Something clicked in her mind, and made the twisting feeling in her gut worsen. Goosebumps prickled at her skin as she thought back on the roaming stare of the girl in the cafeteria–Y/n, as Manny had called her. Had she been checking Abby out? And why did that idea excite her so much?

“Oh,” she hummed.

“You, however… you definitely were. Did you see the way she was looking at you? Like she wanted you to–”

“Shut up, would you?” She sneered, “I’m not–that’s not–”

“I know,” he sighed, though a knowing look crossed his features, “I know.”

A few days had passed before Abby had run into Y/n again, only this time, it was a much more pleasant interaction. Abby had been spending a lot of time in the library, especially since her breakup with Owen and even ended up sleeping there some nights when Manny took the liberty of reserving the room for himself and whatever girl he was dating at the time. She found some peace there, burying her nose into random books from before the outbreak and pretending that, for just a few minutes, she isn’t just the top scar killer in the WLF. There was hardly ever anyone else there, which was a definite plus; She still had a long way to go before she’d be used to all the attention she gets around the arena. This day in particular. though, someone else occupied her usual seat in the furthest corner, by the window.

She jumped in surprise at the sight of another person in her place, holding her palm to her chest to hold in any noise that may have emitted from her throat. The girl raised her head to look over the thick spine of the hardcover book she was reading, surprise evident on her own face as well.

“Sorry,” Abby choked out, “I just wasn’t expecting…I’m usually the only one here.”

“Oh,” Y/n sat up straighter, laying her book page-down on the table in front of her, “Yeah, I usually take the book back to my room, but my roommate is a little…busy at the moment.”

Abby snorted, “I get what you mean. Mine too.”

There was a beat of silence before Y/n chimed in again, “What are you reading?”

Abby glanced down at the book in her hand, eyes scanning over the faded words on the cover. She actually hadn’t known what book she’d taken off the shelf, just slowly making her way through every book in the library, “Uh, Jane Air–Eyre. First one I grabbed.”

“That’s a good one,” Y/n nodded, “One of the classics, I think they used to call them.”

“Oh, that’s good,” Abby mentally kicked herself, of course she would completely blank in front of the girl she’d been thinking about all week (but she was still, totally not into her). “Uh, what about you?”

Y/n smiled, “A Complete History of the Western World. Call me nostalgic, but I like learning about how things were before.”

“Me too,” Abby smiles, “In a way, it’s kinda comforting to see that this isn’t how things always were, you know?”

Y/n grinned, which quickly turned into a frown, “Sorry, I didn’t even…I’m Y/n.”

Abby smiled tightly, cheeks burning red as she reached forward to accept the hand offered to her, “I’m–”

“Abby,” Y/n smiled bashfully, “I know. You’re Manny’s friend, and sort of a big deal around here.”

Abby shrugged, the red of her cheeks now stretching to reach the tips of her ears, “Yeah, that’s what everyone seems to say. Not sure if I really live up to that expectation, though.”

Y/n chuckled before glancing down at her cracked wrist watch, a wrinkle appearing between her eyebrows as she closed her book and stood up from her seat, “Sorry, not trying to run away from you or anything, just lost track of time. Talk to you later, Abby.”

The next few weeks passed with several more interactions between the pair, and Abby would actually consider Y/n to be a friend. They could often be found in the library together, or grabbing a bite to eat with one another and sometimes a few others. Manny often grumbled about Abby swooping in and stealing his friends, but he always seemed to be more than happy to see the two of them together. That strange feeling did not disappear, though, like Abby thought it would. In fact, it got considerably worse.

Instead of having a little bit of nerves around her, Abby was struggling to keep herself from constantly pulling her into her lap, or reaching out to hold her hand across the table, or to tell her how deeply in love with her she wa–except Abby is straight. She likes guys. She dated Owen, and she was deeply hurt by his betrayal, right?

That’s what she told herself. Each longing to touch Y/n was just her own loneliness talking, every time she wanted to be held, it was her basic human need for affection, not because she was romantically or sexually interested in another woman. In fact, she had a little bit of a crush on one of the guys she went on patrol with the other day, or so she told Y/n. She made an effort to make it abundantly clear to the girl that there would be no romantic relationship between them, and was relieved when Y/n didn’t seem to put off by it. She continued to hang out with her, and to invite her to different social events around the arena.

This one was different, though. Abby went, fully intending to spend the night by Y/n’s side, people watching and making fun of Manny as he struck out time and time again. She had arrived to the party with Nora, a bit of pep in her step as she slid into the common area, face falling as she immediately took notice of Y/n on the couch across the room, a soft smile on her face as she listened intently to whatever the girl next to her was saying, her arm curled loosely around Y/n’s shoulders.

Abby felt sick, almost giving in to the instinct to turn and run, and she is positive that if it hadn’t been for Nora being right behind her, she probably would have. She hesitantly stepped further into the room, glancing around awkwardly in hopes of finding someone to hide her from Y/n before she could catch her attention, though it only took a moment’s glance for Y/n to turn her head and shout, waving both Abby and Nora over to where she and the other girl were sitting.

The girl’s name was Samyah, and Abby decided on the spot that she hated her. She hated the way that she talked, the way she dressed, they way she smelled, the way that Y/n looked at her, and most of all, she hated the way that she held Y/n’s hand as she led her out of the common room, hooded eyes making it clear what was about to happen. But it didn’t really matter, because Abby is straight and this wasn’t going to last anymore than one night.

Except it did. Weeks later, Samyah was still very present in Y/n’s life. Abby cringed every time she had to witness them kiss, or touch each other in any way beyond what could be considered platonic. She prayed every night that something would happen, that Samyah would cheat or die out on patrol, anything to have her away from Y/n for more than a few hours at a time, but when it really happened, she couldn’t help but fear that she may have willed it into existence–Abby wasn’t a religious person, but this seemed to be a bit too on the nose for it to not have been divine intervention.

Y/n and Samyah had been hooking up for a few weeks when Y/n turned up at Abby’s room, cheeks glossy with tear stains and eyes burning red. Abby was quick to take her into her arms, ignoring the selfish part of her that was singing at the mere contact. She held her tightly, sitting her down on the edge of her bed and stroking the back of her head soothingly, waiting for her to tell her what had happened.

“Let me know when you’re ready to talk,” She had whispered into her hair before pressing a firm kiss there.

It was less than a moment later when a sharp sniff could be heard and Y/n’s watery voice began to retell what had taken place earlier that evening.

“Samyah has a boyfriend, apparently,” She wept, “She told me she isn’t gay, she just wanted to see what it was like.”

Abby’s entire body burned hot with anger, and then with embarrassment. What would Y/n think if she were to tell her that she’d been wondering the same thing? How would she be able to move forward knowing fully-well that she was no different from Samyah, someone who she had been condemning over the way that she treated Y/n?

But was it the same? Was it really? Since she had met Y/n, she hadn’t even glanced twice at Owen, let alone any other man. She was all she could think about, day and night, and yet she still couldn’t seem to come to terms with the fact her feelings for her might have been more than platonic. It wasn’t as if she were too ashamed or was actually against the idea of her dating another woman, she was just confused as to why these feelings hadn’t come up before. Sure, there were times where she thought Mel was the prettiest girl she’d ever seen, but that was back when there weren’t many other girls around (and she wasn’t screwing her Abby’s boyfriend), and there was once where she’d had a rather promiscuous dream about Nora, but nothing had ever evolved further than that.

These thoughts started to keep her up at night. She liked Y/n, she really did, but was it worth risking her friendship only for Abby to decide that she wasn’t gay at all? What if she was just curious? It was normal for people her age to be interested in exploring these things, only she was sort of stuck in a situation where she was unable to. She couldn’t go to Y/n for help with this, that much was blatantly obvious, but what about someone else? She tried to think of other girls she could go to for help, but there was no one who she could immediately think of that she could go to without also risking her friendship with Y/n; she’d been insistent early on in their friendship that she was not interested in women at all, especially when Y/n made it clear that she most certainly was, and more precisely, in Abby, so what would she think if she found out that Abby had slept with another woman after insisting that she wasn’t interested? That might be more dangerous than going to her for help.

It was getting harder to ignore, as well. Y/n was increasingly dependant on Abby for comfort for weeks after she ended things with Samyah, not that Abby minded, but it was growing more difficult not to hold her to her chest as they share a pillow every night, to not reach out and take her hand every time they walk side-by side, to not push her onto the bed every time she undresses in front of her, to pin her down and–

Then Y/n moved on. She was still quite upset, but she had decided that she wasn’t going to spend any more time dwelling on someone who obviously did not care about her, so she met Reagan. Abby didn’t hate Reagan the same way that she had with Samyah, she clearly liked Y/n and treated her as well as she could, considering that they were in the middle of the apocalypse. She was funny, and she fit in with the rest of their friends better than Abby would have liked; she wanted to hate her so much, but the only reason she could think of was purely out of selfishness, that being the fact that Y/n spending time with Reagan meant that she was not spending time with Abby, and after a few weeks of near constant contact with one another, Abby was sure she was going through withdrawals.

It all came to a head when Manny demanded that she take some time off of patrol. With Reagan always around, she had taken it upon herself to start accepting extra duties to avoid having to spend time with the group, and more specifically, Y/n. He’d made some arrangements and assigned someone else to her shift without even telling her, and all but dragged her down the hall and into the rec room. Y/n and Reagan had yet to arrive, but Abby knew that, if she was going to be forced to sit and watch Reagan practically hang off of the girl that she was probably in love with, she was gonna need a drink.

Abby wasn’t normally a big drinker. In her early days in the WLF, there had been a few times where she’d had more than she probably needed, but it also meant that she didn’t necessarily have the highest tolerance, especially with Manny being the one mixing her drinks. He’d been more than excited when Abby went for her second drink, and decided that they needed to go drink for drink with one another. Needless to say, by the time Y/n arrived, Abby was drunk.

“Abs!” The voice sounded excited as they curled their arms around Abby’s neck from behind, leaning over the back of the sofa she was sitting on to hug her warmly, “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”

It almost felt like time had stopped the moment her eyes landed on Y/n, admiring the glint of the dim lights on her clean skin. Her hair was still damp, she’d just showered before coming to the party, and Abby couldn’t help but wish she’d also done so by the pooling of sweat on her forehead and palms. She leaned her head back against her shoulder, turning to glide her nose against her neck in a much more affectionate manner than she would have if she had been sober.

“Hi,” She mumbled, “You smell good.”

“It’s the lotion we found on patrol a few weeks ago,” Y/n laughed, “And you’re drunk.”

Abby shrugged, “No, just a little tipsy.”

Nora scoffed out a laugh as she plopped down on the armchair next to her, “Tipsy? Please, she’s been letting Manny mix her drinks all night.”

Y/n pulled away, leaving Abby to let out a small whine of defeat, “Uh oh. Something must be wrong to have you drinking Manny’s concoctions.”

“Hey!” The latino appeared seemingly out of thin air, “You’ve just lost yourself drink privileges.”

She raised her hands in surrender, “Not the threat you think it is, pendejo.”

Y/n threw herself onto the couch next to Abby, settling close enough for their arms to press against one another and sending Abby into what she assumed could only be early heart failure.

“Seriously though, where’ve you been?”

The blonde shrugged once more, “Busy, I guess. Lots of patrols needed to be covered.”

“So you covered…all of them?”

Abby was quiet for a moment, then quickly changed the subject, “Where’s Reagan? Aren’t you two basically attached at the hip or something?”

The smile on Y/n’s face flickered for a beat, and Abby immediately felt a pang of guilt squeeze at her stomach and regret filled her for hurling such a harsh tone at her.

“Something came up,” Y/n turned her gaze to her interlocked fingers in her lap, “She’s not gonna make it.”

Abby recognized a familiar sadness in her voice, one that she had hoped to never hear again, so she dropped the topic and instead found herself falling into a conversation similar to one they would have had before Reagan came into the picture. Things felt right again, especially as Y/n’s hand grasped onto her thick bicep everytime she laughed, and she didn’t push her hand away when she reached over and rested it on her knee–that had to mean something, right?

After Abby finished her fifth drink, things began to get too fuzzy for her to handle, her head dropping back onto the back of the couch with a grunt, her eyes squinting shut in a weak attempt to refocus herself. Y/n glanced up at her, concern painting her features as she reached a hand up to stroke Abby’s flushed cheek.

“You feeling okay?”

Abby grunted in response, leaning her cheek even further into her hand.

Y/n chuckled at her, pulling herself away to stand up and taking hold of Abby’s hand. The blonde’s eyes popped open at the contact, staring up at the girl with hooded eyes as she attempted to pull her to her feet. Abby pushed herself up, forcing her entire body weight into Y/n’s figure faster than she could have anticipated, almost knocking them both to the floor.

“Woah, steady girl,” Y/n laughed, slinging one of her arms over her shoulder, “I think it’s time to get you to bed, don’t you think?”

Abby nodded sleepily, allowing her to pull her along down the hallway, thankfully not having to climb any stairs to Abby’s room with the girl who was 95% muscle on her back. She was able to get her into the room and seated on her mattress with very little trouble–Abby was very compliant with every order that came out of her mouth.

She sat back, allowing her to wipe a wet cloth over her face gently, her eyes struggling to stay open even though she was eager to see her face up close and personal once more.

“Can I ask you something?” She murmured quietly, using every ounce of her strength to keep herself from moaning under Y/n’s touch.

“Of course.”

She paused for a moment, almost like she was thinking it over, though she had no control over the words that spilled out of her mouth, “Do you think I’m pretty?”

Y/n stopped her movements, causing Abby’s eyes to shoot open and fall on the grinning face before her. She laughed softly, then louder until her laughter filled the room and bounced off of the walls.

“Sorry, sorry,” she lifted a hand to cover her mouth to contain her giggles, “That’s just not what I was expecting. But,” Y/n reached around and tugged the elastic out of Abby’s blonde hair, carefully untwisting the braid until her long hair settled around her shoulders, “I think you are very pretty.”

She smiled, mumbling out a quiet thank you.

“I have another question.”

“I think it’s only fair that I get to ask you one first.”

Abby raised her eyebrows, but was quick to nod in agreement.

Y/n leaned back against the footboard of Abby’s bed, setting the cloth aside, “Why’ve you been ignoring me lately?”

“I’m not–” the blonde argued, pausing to compose herself, “I’m not ignoring you. I’m talking to you right now, aren’t I?”

“Abby.”

The blonde girl winced at her stern tone, wary of meeting her gaze, “Look, it’s not like I don’t wanna be around you, it’s just…”

Don’t say it, her very sober subconscious was pleading with her, please.

Her drunk mouth didn’t listen, “Reagan.”

“Reagan?” Y/n frowned, “What about her?”

A small smile appeared on Abby’s lips, “Nuh-uh, it’s my turn.”

Y/n scoffed, rolling her eyes in annoyance, but urging her to ask nonetheless.

“Do you love her?”

“Do I–Abby, why are you asking me this?”

Her bashful eyes fell to her lap, “I think you know why.”

“No, Abby I don’t–”

Her words were silenced, a hum of shock vibrating through her throat as Abby lurched forward, lips pressing sloppily against her own. Y/n froze, neither pulling away nor reciprocating, just remaining in place until Abby pulled away for air.

Abby smiled, resting her forehead against Y/n’s softly. She was drunk, yes, but she had never felt more sober and in-tune with her own feelings as she was then, just after kissing the girl she was so hopelessly in love with for the very first time.

The spell she was under broke the moment her eyelids fluttered open, allowing her to spot the hooded stare and tear-stained cheeks of the girl in front of her.

“Y/n? What’s–”

“You’re drunk, Abby,” she scowled, pushing herself away, “You should go to bed.”

“What? I just–No, please don’t go.”

Y/n turned to face her sharply, “Why? So you can use me for your own pleasure and then kick me to the curb?”

“What?”

“I mean–Jesus, Abby. You were there after Samyah. You were the one who told me she was such a bitch, that I deserved better, but you’re doing the same goddamn thing. Worst of all, you know how I feel about you, but you made it very clear to me that you didn’t feel the same, so I backed off.”

“I love you,” She stammered out, “I-I’m in love with you.”

Y/n laughed bitterly, shaking her head.

“Please,” Abby, fell to the floor as she tried to push her body off of the bed, “I’m telling you the truth. I-I didn’t know before, but I do now.”

Y/n sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of her nose to collect herself, turning to face her once more before fleeing the room, “Go to bed, Abby. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Except they didn’t talk the next day. Or the one after that. Abby basically avoided Y/n like the plague after doing what she did. How could she? Everything that Y/n had said to her was true, she’d known it for weeks. Hell, it was the exact reason why she hadn’t made a move on her sooner.

She knew she couldn’t escape her forever, though. The WLF stadium was pretty big, but they would both be living there for the rest of their (hopefully long) lives and would be bound to run into each other at some point in that time. She was also already in a fairly deep state of depression because of what had happened between the two of them, but also because of how much she just missed having her around.

Which is why she found herself outside Y/n’s bedroom door after returning from a particularly risky patrol that had ended in only four of them returning from a group of seven. Abby was shaky as she made her way back inside the compound, her muscles screaming with every step and her body begging her for a shower and a long sleep, but her feet mindlessly carried her in the opposite direction of her own room. Her fist rapped against the thin wood before she could even process it, but she couldn’t run away now, not when she’d been pinned under a scar only an hour ago with a knife to her throat.

Y/n looked a bit dishevelled as she opened the door, and Abby immediately thought the worst; had she really just shown up at her door at night? What if Reagan was in there? What had Y/n been doing in there when she knocked? Had Abby really interrupted her having sex with someone else?

But the lazy yawn that escaped her puffy lips forced Abby to realise that, no, she hadn’t interrupted her with someone else, she’d woken her up, which somehow made her feel worse.

“Abby?”

“Sorry, uh, is this a bad time?” She shifted her weight back and forth nervously.

“No, I was just–no, it’s not,” Y/n crossed her arms over her chest, “You’ve been avoiding me. Again.”

“I know,” Abby frowned, “I’m sorry. For everything. You have every right to be mad at me–fuck, you have every right to never wanna talk to me again, but I just have to let you know how sorry I am and how much you mean to me.”

Y/n shifted her gaze to the floor for a moment before nodding, glancing back up at Abby and stepping back to open the door wider, “Wanna come in?”

Abby nodded eagerly, stepping inside with caution. She glanced around, taking in the small changes that had been made since she’d last been here. Y/n bedroom was, well, hardly even a bedroom. It was about the size of a large broom closet, just enough room to jam two twin beds and two small dressers inside, though she and her roommate had taken the initiative to make it somewhat cosy inside. Thankfully, the second bed was empty that night, meaning that she didn’t have to hold back.

“Wanna sit?” Y/n motioned to the foot of her bed as she took a seat near the headboard.

“Uh,” Abby glanced down at her dirty attire, “I shouldn't. Sorry, I didn’t even change before I came here–fuck, I’m so sorry.”

Y/n shook her head, “Hey, it’s okay, Abs. We can sit on the floor?”

The blonde’s shoulders loosened at the use of that nickname, almost like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders as she lowered herself to sit directly across from Y/n on the carpeted floor.

It was quiet for a beat, both of the girls sitting in silence as they watched, both anxiously waiting to see who would speak first.

“Did you mean it?” Y/n was the first to crack.

“Did I mean…”

“You know what I’m talking about. You were drunk, but you avoided me like a clicker, Abby, so please don’t play dumb and just talk to me.”

Abby cleared her throat, “Yes. I meant it.”

Y/n let out a heavy breath, and Abby couldn’t tell if she was relieved or even more upset with her answer, “Okay, so you meant it. But why couldn’t you just tell me that? You knew how I felt about you when we first met, but you told me you weren’t interested so that was that.”

Abby shook her head, “It wasn’t like that. When we first met, I was…still dealing with how things ended with Owen. I was angry and hurt, and I really thought I would never get over it. But then, after a little while, I started to realise that I wasn’t heartbroken over him, I was angry that he and Mel didn’t have the decency to talk to me before they started fucking behind my back.”

“Okay,” Y/n nodded, “But after that? Is it some kind of internalised homophobic shit going on? If it is, you could’ve talked to me about it, I could’ve helped you.”

“It’s not that. It wasn’t that I was scared or ashamed of myself, it was that I didn’t even really think about it, I guess. Then, when I finally did, you were with Samyah, and then that ended and you were so upset, and that got me thinking that…I don’t know, what if I was the same as her? What if I was just wanting to experiment? I didn’t wanna talk to you about it because I didn’t wanna lose you, and I didn’t want you to think that I was the same as her,” Abby could feel her eyes stinging from the sudden onset of tears, “And then by the time I realised that that wasn’t the case, you were already with Reagan.”

Y/n opened her mouth to speak, but Abby cut her off.

“I know, you’re with her, and if that’s what you want, then that’s fine. I want you to be happy. But I can’t leave here knowing that I didn’t tell you that I am in love with you, so much that I don’t even know what to do with myself.”

Y/n didn’t answer, not verbally. Instead, she threw herself across the room, clambering into Abby’s lap and messily pressing her lips against hers. Abby was quick to reciprocate, her lips moving against hers steadily and conforming the once sloppy movements into a more slow and rhythmic embrace. Her arms moved to wrap around her waist, palms sliding up and down her back greedily as Y/n gently took Abby’s flushed cheeks into her own hands.

When they finally pulled away, they both broke into wide grins, leaning in to peck each other once more.

“Reagan and I aren’t together. I guess I was just on the rebound and she was looking for a fling, but it’s over.” Y/n whispered, “ I love you too, so much that I do know what to do with myself.”

Abby laughed, eyes trailing down her body and finally settling on the dirt and mud and blood that had transferred from her own dirty clothes to Y/n’s.

“Shit, sorry, got you kinda dirty.”

Y/n glanced down at herself, then shrugged with a sly glint in her eye, “It’s okay. It just means that we’re both gonna have to go shower before bed, right?”

Abby stared at her in awe for a moment, brain finally catching up to her words as she jumped to her feet, hauling Y/n up into her arms as she began a quick march in the direction of the women’s showers, the otherwise quiet hallway being disturbed by Y/n’s squeal of surprise and laughter as the tall blonde carried her.

Though the laughter was certainly more bearable to the surrounding rooms than the sounds that echoed from the showers over the next hour, though Abby couldn’t find a single ounce of concern for the others in the moment, just glad that she was finally able to hold and touch and kiss Y/n, just like real people do.

#reader insert #x reader #imagines #lesbian #abby anderson #abby anderson imagine #abby anderson x reader #abby tlou #abby anderson x you

470 notes · View notes

jiangwanyinscatmom · 1 month

Text

Mo Dao Zu Shi and Self-Yearning For Reconciliation

There is an overarching lesson within the writing of MXTX that forgiveness and moving on doesn't entail non-verbal consent for a relationship to be salvaged once more or reclaimed as it used to be.

Within SVSSS, we are given the character of Yue Qingyuan desperately seeking the friendship and brotherhood he had with Shen Jiu. Only for that relationship to be provided by another way of Shen Yuan who finalizes he is not the man Yue Qingyuan needed closure from, but is the only one able to give it for the man to find peace with his own choices.

To a lesser extent this is also shown with the relationship between Xie Lian, Mu Qing and Feng Xin at the end of TGCF. This time though, despite Xie Lian associating with them with no ill will, he does not let either man make choices for him and resoundingly makes his own boundaries aware within the reclamation of their friendship.

MDZS does not offer this reclamation of a friendship or the start of one previously lost with another. Unlike the previous two who did yearn for friendship what was between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian had been a stipulation of burden and assumption that started with Jiang Fengmian. Jiang Cheng was to see Wei Wuxian as a servant made friend when brought in, and Wei Wuxian was protector over friend. There was already a set imbalance due to neither naturally being able to choose the roles within their lives for the other and extending parties stating who and what they were to each other.

Jiang Cheng in his already tenuous esteem with himself and resentment of being told he was already viewed as less from his mother, took Wei Wuxian's existence in his life as a displacement of his own claims within life. His sacrifice of his dogs was the precursor for the beginning of their relationship on the allusion of debts between them.

Jiang Cheng gives up the loyalty of a literal pet, for the loyalty of an eventual man. In other words, I will shelter and protect you in exchange. Jiang Cheng does keep to this as children, with the expense of mocking Wei Wuxian's fears as he is want. His stipulations for this begun to escalate over the years and as such the giving of shelter and safety cannot be made up for Jiang Cheng, forever loyalty is now not enough, but why must Wei Wuxian also be adept at cultivation, why is he to be praised for his deeds more so, why must Wei Wuxian be a bright mind of the war.

If he is to be that, it at least would be overshadowed that he is still only under Jiang Cheng's rule. Otherwise every other action against this, is to demean Jiang Cheng, to oppose him, to cause trouble with ingratitude. It is also why, despite Wen Qing and Wen Ning having sheltered him and Wei Wuxian as well as collected his parents and provided their ashes, Jiang Cheng is able to disregard his obligation to help them. If not for Wei Wuxian's supposed insubordination, Jiang Cheng would not have suffered his own losses. Even when he did protect Wei Wuxian, the loss of it was too much, as with the dogs he had given up as a child, he did not get an active said promise of more dedication made up tenfold for the minimum kindness exhibited by Jiang Cheng. As said by Fang Mengcheng, "Atonement? You cannot actually be feeling grateful to him!”

To want to be good and to protect others, must come with selfish want for exemption of guilt for the harm you have caused. Wen Ning and Wen Qing owed it to Jiang Cheng for the deaths of his parents for carrying the surname of Wen, as such he did not need to repay them. Wei Wuxian sat at the table of the Jiangs and was given a living others would envy, as such he owed his life to Jiang Cheng. Wei Wuxian taking on the burden of protecter of another, was a betrayal of all that Jiang Cheng's lineage had gave him. To do the impossible because it is right, is not worth the self emulation and ridicule of the many. And while he may resent that kindness in Wei Wuxian, for it to be given to others as well, is a lack of loyalty of the ideals of Jiang Cheng. Jiang Cheng's growing resentment of Wei Wuxian's choice of kindness over safety, is a a mirrored resentment that Jiang Cheng holds within himself and his lack of respect for his own Clan ideals. A servant under the lord of the house embodies what Jiang Cheng was born to be.

As he throws abuse upon Wei Wuxian at their penultimate clash, while he does say sorry, he is still unable to view it without the veil of debt owed between each other. As Wei Wuxian could not tell him he gave him his core out of pity for his ego to keep him from shattering, Jiang Cheng could not say he protected Wei Wuxian out of a moment of kindness without care for the consequences until it expounded as his reality.

There is a self soothing mechanism, that opening up to truths will eventually mean a mending of what had been, or the beginning of something better. Yet this is only true when both are open to stand together as equals. Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng began with obligation and ended with obligation. The obligation to give for doing, the obligation of sorry for redemption.The obligation of servitude for sacrifice.

To rebuild and start again is meant to be the closure of ill will and the understanding of boundaries that cannot be crossed now. Jiang Cheng can only do one but not the other. He chooses hate for his continued nature, even while he is adamantly protecting Jin Ling by the end. While Wei Wuxian knows that resentment is not something that will create true happiness and nurturing growth that people strive for.

Reconciliation is to come to terms with that which you lacked, and to be more, to be better. Jiang Cheng accepts his core nature of resentment which would not last next to the altruism that Wei Wuxian chooses more than once. Kindness and Resentment cannot coexist at the same time. To resent is to be cruel, to be happy is to be kind. Both men are too tired to understand the other, and why they choose to part as a peace offering, an understanding that they will never thrive with the other.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wei wuxian #jiang cheng

144 notes · View notes

and-come-to-dust · 2 years

Text

Absolutely obsessed with that exchange between Adar and Arondir in ep. 6 when the orcs break into the “keep.” Even besides the sheer BDE of Arondir’s “I will consider it” (what an icon), I can’t stop thinking about the fact that by all evidence he was fully going to let Adar kill everyone in that room, Bronwyn included, rather than give up the sword hilt. What a fascinating character beat! I mean, we see characters presented with that same choice all the time, in all kinds of stories: give the bad guy what he wants, or someone you love dies. And every. Single. Goddamn. Time. The hero picks the person they love. It drives me crazy! Because it’s always presented like that was the right thing to do, but it’s not! It’s the trolley problem, right? Do you save one person or ten? Of course you should save ten, even if the one person is the love of your life, because the grief you would feel for their loss doesn’t outweigh the moral imperative to save as many people as you possibly can. But that’s never what the hero does, and someone always suffers for it. But that’s not what happens here: Adar is about to have Bronwyn killed and Arondir doesn’t stop him. He chooses Middle Earth over the woman he loves (and those are the stakes we’re talking about here: we just saw the creation of Mordor for fucks sake. Obviously we’re all glad that Bronwyn survived, but I don’t think anyone would argue that the world wouldn’t be better off if Mount Doom never erupted). I love that that was Arondir’s choice, because it’s so heartbreakingly pragmatic and almost shockingly unselfish. If Arondir had been the only one who knew where that sword hilt was, Bronwyn would be dead and Adar’s plans would have failed because he was expecting the typical hero’s choice of love over everything and everyone else. It never even occurred to him that Arondir might save the world at the expense of someone he loved, but that’s what Arondir would have done. And I fucking love that.

#rings of power #the rings of power #trop #rop #arondir #bronwyn #adar

720 notes · View notes

the-sieve · 7 months

Text

main gameplay wise, yes Quantum Break is lacking, with them introducing powers or ways to get around obstacles that are either a. never used again or b. can be ignored/forgotten completely by the player aka me because they aren't essential to beating the game, even on the highest difficulty. by the time Control came out they had polished and refined a lot of the combat mechanics seen previously in QB, making the flow of combat smoother, more intuitive and fun, and cutting most of the fat from the bone.

QB also suffers from something I personally love these games for, the collecting of notes, diaries, recordings, music and videos that are hidden throughout the levels and add to the lore, and gives additional insights into characters and the world. QB however goes to the limit of this however, making these extras so integral to understanding the plot that you have to find them or risk missing out on key details. And some of these "extras" are so well hidden is such obscure places that even if you're the kind of player that explores behind every waterfall, in every crevice, you're bound to miss a good amount on you're first playthrough. and if you do find most, you'll be doing a lot of reading. a lot. or just standing around and listening.

again, Control does this much better, another improvement. You'll still be doing a fair amount of reading, and standing around and listening or watching something occur in the environment, but most of it feels additional, a reward for exploring and playing in the space instead of just necessitating important exposition dumps. also, Control doesn't have a counter telling you how many notes you missed, thank the light for that. and since you can go back and explore most of the game world at anytime, even if you miss something you can backtrack and find it later at your own leisure, unlike in QB where unless you want to play through an entire part again you are kind of just left accepting the loss and moving onward with the story and hoping that whatever you missed wasn't the key to understanding a characters motives.

but the reason you play QB, and the main line Remedy games, is for the story and those characters. And QB is as much a game as it is a movie, where what you do in game and the choices you make will reflect and change what happens in the show between acts. To an extent. But that all plays into the themes of fate, control (or the lack there of) over destiny, the inability to escape ones actions, being your own worst enemy, and so on.

if you like very meta stories about time travel and being doomed by the narrative but choosing to fight because fuck going gentle into that good night, and don't mind clunky combat and spending a majority of the game reading emails, then please play QB.

then go play Alan Wake. and Control. I am very normal about these games. Trust me. And you too can also be very normal about them as well. also the music is good. anyone remember Poets of The Fall?

#the sieve talks #quantum break #alan wake #control remedy #i didn't mean to write a review and endorsement #but with Alan Wake 2 just around the corner I'm replaying through the RCU

41 notes · View notes

f4nd0m-fun · 1 year

Text

Another bout of Uncle Jon Angst

So, in this AU, a strong enough ghost will have wings of its own, showing the fact that it is powerful, akin to how some animals have different marks to showcase danger. Clockwork switches between a Pygmy owl as a child, barn as an adult, and snowy as an elder. Pariah is crow through and through. After Danny became Pariah's Heir, he was gifted a cloak made of Clockwork's feathers, constantly shifting, with Pariah's mixed in as well, since they technically ghost-adopted him. This makes the cloak not only even more comforting beyond its weight to Danny, but a very powerful artifact in its own right. Pariah has also had most of his abilities sealed by Clockwork so someone can directly watch the ghostling that is Danny. So he's stuck in a crow form sticking with Danny (thank you @hallowsden for the Crow AU!) and protecting him. I HC Pariah as having a shadow core, which means he can vaguely form in dark areas, but it's kind of like Johnny's shadow beast. Another detail, I have written that only Halfas can become Ghost Kings/Queens, which means Pariah was one once. By sealing him and sending him with Danny, Clockwork hopes to restore some of his humanity. (Why do you think the Observants were so quick to want to kill Dan? They had seen it before in Pariah). Thankfully, it does work, though slowly.

Final note, Crane wasn't going to let him skip school, and Johan Welch is an asshole literature teacher at Gotham High (not the Academy). He also wasn't going to use his last name so the Bats could track the poor boy, so he used an old name the family dropped ages ago to enroll him. Anyway, actual thing is longer than the others and I've already said so much that... boom, an actual Read More! Also, it's midnight when I'm posting. 😅 Finally, Trigger Warning

It describes some of Danny's accident, including the loss of his wings, and shows a panic attack.

Danny was no stranger to bullies, whether it be lunch money, tests, or a punching bag they were after. He was also used to teachers who pushed their rules, who played favorites and sneered at those they thought of as less. At least he had his cloak, a secure weight upon his shoulders, much lighter than the crown he would day wear.

Mr. Welch seemed to zero in on his sour mood. "Nightingale?"

A sigh escaped his lips. "Yes, sir?"

"Tell me, in the Silmarillion, what is the moral behind the oath of Fëanor?"

He stared at the board a bit before glancing at the book in front of him. "I'm not certain, I think it’s that you shouldn’t promise something if you can’t actually do it?"

The teacher sighed. “No, Nightingale.”

There was a snicker behind him, Danny ignored it.

“Yes, Atkins? Can you answer?”

“Choosing violence in the heat of the moment will almost always end with suffering.”

“Good job.” He looked at Danny. “Now, was that so hard?”

“But-”

“You got it wrong, Nightingale.”

Danny hadn’t realized how close the teacher was until the cloak was yanked off his shoulders, feathers scattering. “No! Give that back!”

“You can have it after class is over.”

The laughter that had been bouncing through the room suddenly stopped at that; all the students knew better than to take another’s prized possession. Some money, maybe their homework, or even a jacket? All fair game. But anything that was clearly precious? You never knew how the kid would lash out.

Danny watched as the teacher walked away, but he did not take stock of the room itself. His wings, they were gone, seared away again. And he shook, like the shocks that wracked his form, mouth aiming to scream the silent terror that took over as his vocal cords were fried and healed time and time again until he had made his way out, wings in tatters, the scent of burning meat hovering over his f-

“Ghostling, you are not experiencing that anymore...” The tone was deep and stern, the barest hint of kindness underneath the ancient voice, mingling with a soft sorrow..

Danny continued to shake, but leaned into the cold warmth of armor and shadow. He had no idea where he was or how he’d arrived, but he was glad his p̸a̴t̷r̵o̸ was here for him.

“I guided you to a dark space as well as I could, it is hard for me to show after all.”

Danny didn’t pay too much heed to the words, merely listening to the soothing tones and trying to calm himself.

Pariah was determined to get that cloak back quickly, It was an important gift to his heir, and was too powerful to be left in the wrong hands. But, right now? All his focus was on the ghostling. “You can see the glow of my eyes, yes?”

Danny slowly looked up at his face and nodded weakly.

“What else?” Pariah mused as he waited for a response.

“The... light under the door...”

“Good. Again.” Perhaps it was a good think Tik had trapped them together in a loop until Pariah learned how to help the ghostling.

“Uh... there’s shelves in here.”

“Can you find anything else?” Thankfully, ghosts could see well in darkness, though Shadow Cores like himself did even better.

“I think I see a mop? P̸a̷t̵r̴o̷, are we in a closet?”

“Are you feeling better? Can you name something you can feel?” He hoped he didn’t forget anything until Danny was fully calmed.

“A... bit.”

He felt a smaller hand grab the figment of his own.

“I... can feel you, sorta. Your armor, your... essence..?”

He nodded. “What else?”

“The... floor. It’s solid.”

“Good. Give me ano-” Before he could finish, Pariah’s connection to the shadows was lost as the door opened. His form lasted not even a second in the light, but his hearing caught the reaction of both his heir and the intruder. Suddenly, the door was slammed and he felt the connection grow again, sighing softly as he returned. “Call your uncle,” he hesitantly began, hugging the ghostling again. “I don’t think you should stay here the rest of the day.”

“But your- my-”

“The cloak will be returned, I assure you, and whoever picks you up will make certain it is returned.”

Danny sighed heavily, and clung to Pariah as he fished his phone out of his pocket.

#winged uncle scarecrow au #winged uncle jonathan au #uncle scarecrow wings au #uncle scarecrow au #jonathan crane #dark ages #clockwork #pariah #oc #crow pariah au #winged ghosts au

106 notes · View notes

exquisiteserotonin · 7 months

Text

Footsteps to Follow

Part 3: Something Between Us

Series Summary: The loss of a loved one lasts forever and every person finds different ways to heal.

Pairing: Alice York x Foodtruck owner! Joel Miller

Warnings: MATURE, this chapter is mature simply for the use of expletives. As always this series is strictly for adults and will feature violence, sex, and other mature themes. If you are UNDER 18, please DNI. MDNI!!! AU Joel Miller where there is NO outbreak. Also there is roughly a 15 year gap between Joel (42-43) and Alice (27-ish)

Word Count: ~2.3K

A/N: My little Dave York adjacent universe/Alice York's Wonderland (TM) is growing. So much character and relationship building. This is part is pure romance and fluff, mixed in with the tiniest bit of angst. Thank you for everyone who is encouraging me on this series.

So much love to the Collective. 🧃💜

@youandmeand5bucks @magpiepills @pink-whiskey-woman @legendary-pink-dot @arcanefox207 @sparklefarts38 @redhotkitchen @imalrightllama

Taglist: @drewharrisonwriter

Also if you would like to be added to the taglist for updates on this one, please let me know!

The morning sun began to take her respite as the moon began to rise gloriously to the sky. The last beams of sun danced with each wave of the river, their lights shimmering against the dusky sky. City lights zoomed past Alice’s window, becoming colorful neon streamers as she drove. The muffled rumbling of her car’s engine along with the zooms and swooshes of the traffic were the soundtrack to the backdrop of the city skyline. In one place or another along the Eastern seaboard, people were winding down from long workdays, some sitting down to dinner alone, some with significant others, and some with families. Still others were coming alive, freed from the shackles of their 9 to 5 grind, indulging in conversation, drinks, and overnight rendezvous.

Alice was awake and alive by biological standards, well-rested enough from her “excursion” to France to confidently meet her duties at her “day job” as a nurse at one of the biggest hospitals in the city. As far as jobs were concerned, it was the perfect cover for her “contract” work. She was at the hospital less days than she was at home during the week. Her medical knowledge came in handy for any injuries she might suffer in the field. The sharp and painful memories where she had to stitch her own injuries were sparse but unforgettable. She had even worked out that in the unthinkable event she got stuck after finishing a job, she could easily pass herself as a passerby with first responder medical knowledge.

After arriving in the parking garage, Alice walked in through automatic sliding glass doors. Her sneakers squeaked against the clean, beige colored floors of the hospital. The bright lights, tall windows, and light-colored walls stood in contrast to the darkening sky. She made her way to the women’s locker room of her department, tossing her purse and backpack in her locker before making her way to the nurses’ station.

“Hey Alice,” greeted Joanna, a pretty, blonde co-worker with kind blue eyes. “How was your visit with your family?”

“It was…brief,” she answered, carefully choosing the word to describe her time with them.

“That bad, huh?” Joanna grimaced.

“Well, family isn’t always blood, is it?” Alice mused as she rubbed her thumb along the pen in her right-hand pocket. “Anyway, any interesting patients I should be on the lookout for?”

“Nothing terribly interesting,” Joanna replied, but her eyes quickly transformed and glimmered with excitement. “There’s one patient in 512 with a head injury from a bar fight; he’s kinda cute.”

“A head injury from a bar fight?” Alice asked, raising her left brow. “Sounds like a real winner.”

“Ok, Miss Judgey!” Joanna teased. “No wonder you’re single.”

“It’s a valid lifestyle choice,” she shrugged her shoulders with nonchalance. “I’m going to start my rounds.”

A lightness lived within Alice whenever she worked at the hospital. It carried her along to each patient in her care. It often perplexed her how she could so easily flip from one side of a coin to another. Trying to reconcile her violent acts with her duty to treat, save, and comfort patients, some who were even facing death, was a heavy process. The tight feeling of anxiety squeezed at her shoulders and chest, in response she took a few cooling and cleansing breaths in and out through her nose as she walked in and out of patient rooms.

Like her contract work, Alice never knew what one shift would be like from one day to the next. There were days that were more intense than others. Keeping a needle sized focus on treating her patients was the easy part. The sea of emotions that ebbed and flowed, sometimes crashing like in a storm, was the most challenging. There were days when patients wailed out in pain while family members cried, and still others took out their frustrations on her and the other nurses with anger, anxiety, and fear. And then there were the doctors and older nurses, who somehow believed that by mere virtue of their years of experience and so-called ‘seniority’ that they had the right to bark out orders and belittle her. Yet it was the quiet moments that filled her: the simple touch of a patient’s hand as she held it for as long as they needed, the desperate hug a family member fell into when they had no words for their despair or relief, or when she and her coworkers quite literally had to lean each other because the stress was just too much. Truthfully, she’d take this stress any day over her contract work.

Alice tucked her pocket-sized notebook back into the deep, front pocket of her wine-colored scrubs and moved onto the next room, 512. The patient folder was tucked safely into the wall-mounted box just outside the door. The patient’s name was clearly printed on a label on the outside of the file: Miller, T.

Alice read the notes inside his medical record, noting he had been transported to the hospital due to injuries from a bar fight. The scribbled, but legible notes indicated trauma to the head, ribs, and back. The inner monologue in her brain took note of things that she needed to look out for, but walked in with the knowledge that she needed to make sure that the patient was recovering well from his concussion.

The room was mostly dark as she stepped in save for the lights of the monitor her patient was connected to and a dim light behind the bed. Hearing some light snoring, she stepped quietly inside, calling to her new patient from the door.

“Mr. Miller?” she called, “Mr. Miller, are you awake?”

She stepped fully inside, looking behind her as she closed the heavy room door. As she turned around, she heard shuffling and noticed the barely illuminated form of someone in the reclining chair next to the bed. A family member, significant other, or friend she surmised.

“Hi, don’t mind me, Mr. Miller I’m just doing r—rounds and---” Alice’s voice vacillated when she saw a man turn towards her, “oh my goodness---Joel? It’s Joel, right?”

He stopped himself in his tracks, hands smoothing down the back of jeans. His eyes squinted at her in recognition while his mouth dropped open in pleasant surprise.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting,” she stammered. “I’m Alice; do you remember---?”

“‘Course I remember you,” Joel nodded as he stepped towards her. “You’ve got that kinda face---sorta hard to forget.”

Alice looked up at him with half intrigue, half suspicion. She moved past him and quietly approached her patient’s bed, “I’m assuming this is your---”

“Brother,” he answered quickly, with a cough to clear his throat, “Tommy’s my brother.”

The temptation to focus on Joel dangled before her like bait hanging from a hook. Much like her activities in Paris, she dodged it deftly as she lightly pressed the pads of her fingers to Tommy’s wrist to count his pulse. On his face, his injuries weren’t so bad except for a black eye and a lumpy bruise on his forehead. She examined him with gentle touches, brushing a wisp of his black curls from his forehead. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled a temporal thermometer and held it just above the center of his forehead until it beeped.

“No fever,” she related to Joel. “That’s a good sign.”

She looked at the vitals on his health monitor, scribbling in her pocket notebook as Joel watched her intently from the other side of the bed. His hands gripped the handles of the bed so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

“How has he been?” Alice inquired, her voice remaining even and professional, leaving Joel noticeably flustered. “Is his head doing OK? Any lingering complaints about headaches or nausea?”

“Uh--um, no ma’am,” he continued politely, “so far, so good.”

“Obviously, concussion is our biggest concern,” she informed. “I was reading the notes, looks like the injury was from a fight?”

“Yeah---it wasn’t his fault, for a change,” he replied, a twinge of frustration rattling his voice. “Some guy took a swing at this waitress. Tommy, dumbass that he is, stepped in and got the worst of it: a punch, a chair to the head. Coulda been worse, somehow me and another fella were able to break it up.”

“It’s a good thing you were there,” Alice stated as she moved in closer to look at him through the stubble on his rugged and handsome face. “Somehow, you managed to get out relatively unscathed. I hope you don’t mind.”

Alice pointed to his cheek bone, and he nodded in acquiescence to her request. She stepped closer and brought the same gentle hand that had just touched his brother’s face to the bruise that colored the left side of his own. The touch she gave him was so soothing that Joel found himself instinctually closing his eyes. Through the quiet examination, she could hear the deep, constant inhales and exhales that came from him as he breathed. It reminded her of evening waves at the beach rolling in and receding. For a moment, their eyes were compelled to meet.

“Is he gonna be alright?” Joel asked as he opened his eyes, wide and almost pleading.

“It’s a good sign that he hasn’t complained much, and he has no fever,” she answered with an informative but comforting tone. “We just have to keep monitoring him, wake him up maybe every two hours to check on him.”

Joel placed his hands at his hips, breathing out a sigh composed of equal parts hope and fear. His eyes moved to his brother becoming glassy with the inevitable onset of tears. With a long deep inhale through his nose, he fought to stifle their arrival. Alice looked carefully into his eyes, sensing a sudden familiar feeling within her. His eyes glimmered with the familiar memory of loss. She walked towards the foot of the bed as she reached into her pocket to retrieve a tissue for him. As she handed it to him, her fingers brushed lightly against the palm of his hand in understanding.

“You’re a good brother, some of us aren’t so lucky.” Alice declared, looking up at him through her lashes. “I’m on this shift until the morning; so, if Tommy, or you, need anything just buzz me.”

“I really, really appreciate it, Alice,” he said with a deep and grateful nod.

She stood in front of him, her feet moving to the side a few centimeters as they both looked at each other in an awkward silence. It was the kind of silence where the words from two people fought to fill the space between them, instead they flitted around like two birds chasing each other. A low, rumbling groan filled the space where their words wouldn’t.

“I swear to God, Joel.”

It was Tommy, speaking with exhaustion roughing up his voice,

“If you don’t fucking ask this girl to go with you for a coffee during her break, I will personally kick yer ass.”

“Mr. Miller,” Alice smiled at his interjection nearly jumping as she parted from the closeness of Joel. “You’re awake! I’m Alice, one of the nurses. How are you feeling?”

“Well, his mouth ain’t broken that’s for sure,” Joel grumbled, but at a volume loud enough to hear.

“Don’t you listen to a thing he says about me, ma’am,” Tommy sighed, grogginess still overtaking him, “it’s all a lie.”

She met Joel’s eyes with a smile and then looked back at Tommy, letting the warmth of their banter fill the air.

“Is he always this charming?” Alice asked Joel, her laugh ringing out like a melody.

“Well, that’s a helluva way to put it,” Joel replied as he rubbed his forehead.

“This conversation is a good sign,” she affirmed with a comforting nod of her head, “Mr. Miller, I already told J---I mean, your brother, that if you need anything that you can buzz me.”

“Just give him your number so he can do that, all right?” Tommy added as a grin formed on his sleepy face.

Alice laughed with a scrunch of her nose as she tucked the blanket tightly at Tommy’s sides, looking back to see Joel rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. After ensuring Tommy had everything he needed, she quietly made her way towards the door, Joel following behind her. A polite, southern sort of thing to do, she assumed. He opened the door for her, both lingering for a moment.

“So, um, coffee---,” Joel started and then squeezed his eyes closed, “shit, I’m no good at this sorta thing.”

“Ethically, I really shouldn’t,” she spoke, almost laughing at the ridiculous juxtaposition this request posed against her life itself.

No distractions, no distractions, no distractions. She heard her own voice trying to remind her, to convince her to protect herself.

“Since your brother is a patient,” she added, “some people might say I have a conflicting interest.”

“Well, my brother ain’t asking you out,” he added with a charming smile revealing itself to her, “and technically we knew each other before this; that’s gotta count for something, don’t it?”

“Ok, well, there is that loophole,” Alice entertained his thoughts with her words.

With a tenderhearted sigh, Alice reached into her pocket for her notebook and opened it to a blank page. She looked to her left and right, assuring herself that no one was observing them. The last thing she needed was a nosy nurse or doctor writing her up for an ethics violation. Quickly, she wrote her cell phone number inside along with her name before tearing it out and pressing it to Joel’s chest.

“Don’t lose this, Joel Miller,” she teased, her smile soft, refreshing, and authentic.

He watched her walk down the hall as he leaned against the doorway, “I swear on my life, I won’t, Alice York.”

#juice collective #pedro pascal character fanfiction #dave york #equalizer 2 #joel miller fanfiction #pedro pascal fandom #joel miller fic #joel miller tlou #alice york's wonderland #alice york #murder daughter

30 notes · View notes

lurkingshan · 10 months

Text

La Pluie Breaks the Soulmate Bond

I gotta start this post with a little light self-congratulation. Because y’all, I have been saying for weeks that La Pluie has been inviting us to interrogate the soulmate lore from the start, that the show is intentionally subverting the soulmate trope, and that the show has been meticulously layering in big and small challenges to the soulmate myth to continually reinforce that the choices character make and the work they put into their relationships is what matters most.

As always, I gotta also credit @bengiyo @ginnymoonbeam @wen-kexing-apologist @kyr-kun-chan who have been my La Pluie squad from the start and teasing out these ideas with me along the way. We have been clowning correctly on this one from the beginning, friends.

Despite all the above that the show has set up from the very start, heading into episode 10 there was still a bit of uncertainty hanging around the show’s perspective on soulmates, because Patts and Tai were still deciding to be together, and they have other connections between them that could be read as fate. My take on that has been that the show is ultimately agnostic about whether destiny and fate are real, and the intent of the narrative has been to guide us over and over again to choice being the crucial factor in relationships. We saw Lomfon suddenly develop a hearing loss connection to Patts and Tai at a moment when he was desperate to find his role with Tai and in the midst of their relationship. And then in episode 10, Tai definitively rejected the soulmate bond, and the universe answered his call.

gif by @liyazaki

And with that, the hearing loss connection between all three of them is gone, because Tai willed it so. He earnestly doesn’t want this soulmate bond with Patts and Lomfon anymore, and so he is able to free himself from it. The entire arc with Lomfon suddenly developing hearing loss has been underscoring once again that the people in this universe don’t really understand this phenomenon at all and any meaning they have ascribed to it is based in their own biases (@shortpplfedup). Tai initially wanted to reject the soulmate bond because his faith was shaken by his parents’ divorce. Lomfon suddenly wants to believe in it because he is invested in having a special connection to Tai to justify his fixation on him. And Patts is the character who has always embodied the show’s own perspective on the bond: some kind of fate or destiny might be at work to give them opportunities to connect, but ultimately they have to choose each other.

gif by @liyazaki

At this point in the story, it makes sense for Tai to choose to be done with the hearing loss connection entirely. It has caused him nothing but anxiety and confusion and turmoil. Before he even met Patts, just the fact that he had a hearing loss connection reactivated his trauma around his parents and caused him to retreat into his avoidant coping mechanisms. After he met Patts, their relationship only progressed when they got away from the hearing loss connection. And now that he had finally made his peace with a kind of agnosticism toward the connection and committed to Patts regardless of its meaning, the hearing loss connection is back to fuck with him again by bringing Lomfon into his orbit and forcing him to deal with another person who thinks they have a fate. Is it any wonder that Tai is sick of this shit?

There are so many implications of Tai inadvertently breaking the soulmate bond through his force of will. It tells us that choice has always been at the heart of the conception of fate in this universe. That the hearing loss connection provides an opportunity to open up a line of communication, but that communication line can be severed. That a hearing loss sufferer can choose to be with someone other than the person they hear when it rains. That a couple like Tai’s parents can choose to split up and live separate lives and not be constrained by the fate that has been placed upon them. That in the case of someone like Lomfon, a hearing loss connection can be forged in the first place by a sincere desire to connect with someone you already believe you have a fate with, but that the other person does not have to accept the connection you crave.

And now that the soulmate bond between these characters is gone, we come to the final arc, where the show gets to make its ultimate point. The crutch of a fated destiny is gone. Tai can no longer count on the hearing loss connection to lead Patts back to him when he runs. He has isolated himself completely and dealt serious damage to their relationship. He cannot wait passively for the universe to deliver him the love he wants - if he is going to get his life in order he will need to take action. He will need to finally deal with his hang ups about his parents. He will need to take the initiative to make amends and reconnect with Patts. He will have to stop withholding parts of himself and learn to communicate honestly with his partner. And he will have to choose to do all of that on his own.

#la pluie #thai bl #shan shouts into the void

53 notes · View notes

dingleshartbeaufoy · 3 months

Text

— 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐭 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐬

[masterlist]

henri clément x augustin lambert, gen

tags - suicidal ideation, whump, character study

rated m - 1.7k words

warnings - suicide, major character death

— henri’s life over the course of eleven years.

(Pls rb + read on ao3 🫀)

[banner by reveriesources]

Henri didn’t mean to do it.

He was only dallying with the notion of it. Having read about it in books, having heard it weaved in hushed murmurs, having seen it in tired glances, he had become obsessed with the idea of how drawing your final breath must feel, had become obsessed with the sensation of rabid teeth against a pliant throat— obsessed with his solitude, so much so that he lamented its loss.

He was twelve and visiting the library in Annecy, a block past Centre Hospitalie where his mother worked, because she couldn’t find a job in Paris. Tucked away behind a myriad of old novels was a book detailing the infinitely many ways in which a person could die. War was one of them, of course, and then all kinds of sicknesses, and then suicide, before ‘suspicious death’ and after ‘stroke’. Henri went to sleep every night considering how it would feel, but never wanting it, never not fearing it any less than he had the day before.

Then he was fourteen and his mother took him to work with her because he couldn’t be trusted alone at home. She was a hospice nurse, but she never cited her vocation as one of compassion. His father thought her selfish, trying to get used to death before it claimed her too, and Henri agrees, remembering his one visit to the hospital, but he doesn’t blame her. He looked so much like his mother back then, long face and droopy eyes and an old man— Moreau, his name was— badgered him about his motivations for pursuing this line of work. Moreau had been a line cook before he suffered a severe bout of seizures and was paralyzed.

“Nurse Clément,” Moreau greeted as Henri took a seat beside the bed, in a worn wicker chair. Henri wanted to correct him, but was startled silent by Moreau’s ill, limp body, loose lips and open eyes fixated at the ceiling. “Why did you choose this life, Nurse Clément?”

Henri is silent, as if he felt shame after being reprimanded, but he hadn’t been. “Did you do it for them, or for yourself? Did you think you could grow more accustomed to me?”

Henri doesn’t like this. Moreau’s brows are furrowed in an angry scowl, and he squeezes his eyes shut, pushing out tears. He rubs his thumb over his palm, both hands in his lap, trying to comfort himself. Dementia is a hell of an affliction, Henri tells himself, and ignores the pang of melancholic fear at his gut.

“Have you conquered me?” The old man rasps, voice nearly a whisper. It seems to disappear among the sounds of hospital equipment and nurses shoes clicking against tile floors. “Am I less daunting to you now?”

A door opens behind him and his mother’s hands are at his shoulders, gripping them tightly and frantically ushering him away. She wipes away his tears with her thumb and whispers comforting words to him as he’s taken away. One last time, Henri looks over his shoulder, and the man is looking back at him, smiling a toothless smile that looks more like a frown due to his downturned mouth.

“I will be there,” he mouths. There is no sound but Henri hears him anyway. “I will be waiting.”

Then, Henri is fifteen, and his father hangs himself in his study. Nobody expected it and yet nobody was surprised. It was in the closet and it took them three days for Henri and his mother to find him, and for those three days the house stunk of death. He inherits his father’s Webley, and the night after his death he scrapes the rust off of the barrel, and feels its weight, heavy and palpable in his hands. His mother is in the study, too, wailing as if it will bring him back. Shes knelt by the closet, scratching at the door.

As if he isn’t in control of himself, Henri places the barrel against the middle of his forehead, between his eyes. Is his father a coward? Did he not want to leave a mess behind? During his final moments, was he afraid?

He’s sixteen when his mother is diagnosed with heart failure and sixteen still when she passes on. He feels nothing. He misses nobody. He takes up work in a coal mine in the French countryside until his lungs fill up with mucus and he’s eighteen when he’s sent back home to his parent’s house. It’s dusty and all doors are ajar except for the door to the study, which is closed as though it had never been open. It reeks of death and hospitals.

His mother’s room is in shambles. All blankets, sheets, and pillows had been torn off the bed and she slept on a bare mattress, even in the winter when Henri could hear her teeth chattering from the other side of the wall. She said she wanted to know how death felt before it took her, and had no explanation for why. Humans will find comfort in anything they can. It’s for that same reason Henri kept his father’s revolver all those years, well after he had been inducted into the army.

He cleans out his father’s study. He dusts his tchotchkes from his time in Romania. He opens the shutters and waves at civilians walking by. He doesn’t untie the noose from the closet and he never closes the doors. When he has company he seals the study shut. He moves his bed inside, positioning it under the window and he sleeps facing away from the closet so that he can feel that cold chill creep up his spine. I will be there, he thinks. I will be waiting.

One night, Henri has too much to drink. He rolls onto his back in his sleep and vomits. And then he chokes on it. Camille, a young intern who worked with his mother, finds him and carries him to the hospital. She had intended to retrieve something to remember Nurse Clément by, as they had been close, but found her son instead. The bed he sleeps in is familiar and in the chair across from him, where Camille sits, a young boy materializes in her place, holding his hands in his lap, crying. Henri laughs until he pukes again.

He’s nineteen when things more or less go back to normal. He moves in with Camille. He fucks Camille, who’s eleven years older than him and holds him when he cries. Camille moves away to work in Bordeaux and he pays to refurbish his childhood home except for the study. He keeps his mother’s old bed adorned with an extravagant bedspread at all times. Nobody is allowed to enter the two locked rooms in Henri’s house on Champs-Élysées.

He’s only twenty-one when tensions begin to rise in Europe. Countries mobilizing troops for a conflict they can’t be sure will happen. The Balkan simmering pot teetering on the edge of a boiling point. Henri makes a routine out of pressing the cold barrel of the revolver against his forehead, and pulling the faulty trigger, and being met with a rusty creak rather than darkness, and he comforts himself with believing that, somehow, he has cheated death.

He’s twenty-four when he’s conscripted. He’s thrilled about it. France has always been his heart and his home. He’s twenty-four when he meets Augustin Lambert and his wife at the train station. Augustin’s son is small and holds his hands shyly in his lap. There is a foreboding sense of familiarity surrounding him. He is twenty-four when he’s stationed in the bunker along the Western Front. He’s twenty-five when they open up the Roman tunnels for excavation. His birthday passed in that cesspit and he and Augustin celebrated, just the two of them. Augustin is his best friend. He kisses him, and Augustin kisses him back.

Don’t ask, don’t tell, 1916. It was an unspoken agreement between soldiers. When they were either conscripted or voluntarily enlisted into this bloodbath, they left their human conceptions of morality at the door. They weren’t here to be human, or even just good. They all understood that equally well, even if it went unsaid. A great many things went unsaid between them. A great many more did they not understand.

He is twenty five and Augustin is twenty four and four months and three weeks and short brown hair and round blue eyes when Henri tells him about his father and then his mother. Augustin hums forlornly and shakes his head. Nobody else has ever been so sympathetic. It’s as sympathetic as men like them know how to be. Henri makes a self-deprecating joke and Augustin’s laugh sounds like church bells and trumpets and he’s kissing him again. Then he’s crying, and Augustin holds him through the night. They never speak of it again.

He’s twenty five when he tricks Augustin into going on patrol instead of him. When Augustin comes back, the two are gonna laugh and laugh about it. Trotting off to his barracks, he hears a commotion. The other soldiers are in the mess hall betting on rats. He sits down on his firm mattress like a plank of wood. Henri is tired and cannot distinguish from his father’s revolver and his own standard issue Modèle 1892. He puts the barrel of one of them, not knowing which, against his forehead. It clicks and everything stays the same.

The next night, Augustin does not return. Nobody cares. Somehow, nobody cares. How could nobody care? Augustin is the best of all of them. He has a wife, a son, a life outside of this petty war. Henri bangs his head against the wall until a smattering of blood stains it. That night, he is as tired as he was the last. He places the barrel of a revolver against his forehead, and everything stays the same. The world still spins and the trees still sway in the wind, and the war doesn’t stop, not for anybody. He has no family to mourn him. Only Augustin, who he hopes will come back and give him that funeral that he had dreamed of more than his wedding. Augustin and Camille, the nurse from Paris.

For a moment or several he sees that old man, and they’re standing across from each other in his father’s study, and outside is the muddy trenches of France and Belgium, all a mash. And he reaches his hand out to Henri, who doesn’t feel so lonely anymore.

#amnesia game #amnesia the bunker #augustin lambert #henri clement #annewrites

10 notes · View notes

flintism · 1 year

Text

the thing about royal assassin and fool’s fate having the same narrative structure is that they’re both built upon a very simple dilemma which is: fitz has to choose between duty & love. in royal assassin fitz’s duty is to serve the king/verity/being the king’s man whereas molly symbolizes love. the dilemma is made very obvious at the beginning of the book when fitz has a conversation with patience about why molly has come to be in buckkeep & patience tells him the infamous “one horse cannot bear two saddles” burrich adage. and RA is so well constructed as a book because you can see how being torn between those two things, those two aspects of his life is tearing fitz apart until, of course, molly decides to leave him. in RA duty wins and even later, if AQ, when fitz finds out that molly was pregnant and tries to go to her he can’t because his duty has literally been engraved in his brain with the skill & verity’s “come to me”.

now in fool’s fate we have the basic same structure, fitz has to choose between his loyalty to the farseer line, here mostly embodied by chade and to as lesser extent by dutiful, and his loyalty (love) to the fool. obviously things are different in fool’s fate, fitz is older, isn’t trying to get the permission to marry the fool & isn’t in the same position toward the crown as he used to be when he was a teenager and not officially dead. but still, it’s the same idea: fitz is torn between two sides of his life and has to choose one of them. interestingly, here duty to the crown doesn’t win but, by doing what he thinks is right & accomplishing the fool’s vision, fitz still suffers a terrible personal loss. by choosing the fool he loses the fool. & i don’t only mean because the fool dies but also because after fitz brought him back the fool chooses to abide by the future he foresaw for fitz and to let him go back to molly (even though no one has asked molly what she wants ahem). it’s interesting that in both cases, no matter what he chooses, fitz loses his love. that the fool & molly make similar decisions and that those decisions entail leaving fitz. they both had their reasons i’m not really trying to discuss the rightness or wrongness of what they did here, just point out that they basically do the same thing.

i also think that, in both books, there’s a third element, a third option which is: what does it mean to be true to yourself? in RA this third element is embodied by nighteyes who presents an alternative to both duty and the traditional form of love symbolized by molly. fitz spends a good part of the book fighting against bonding with nighteyes, against “what he was born to be” as nighteyes puts it. he does end up bonding with nighteyes and, for a while, living as one with him but we all know how that ends. fitz goes back to being human & to having a king but he never quite recovers from the experience of being free from it all. from being who he was born to be. in fool’s fate it’s a bit more complicated because nighteyes is dead but i think that this alternative of being “true to oneself” is presented when fitz suggests to the fool that he might go with him in commitments. the fools explicitly compares himself to nighteyes in that chapter but to discourage fitz from coming with him: he thinks that he is to fitz what fitz was to nighteyes & that it would cost fitz too much to leave with him. i think that the comparison with RA allows us to see it in a different way: by following the fool, fitz would find the kind of freedom he had during his days as a wolf at the end of RA, but that would, indeed, cost him all his other “human” links & maybe even his human sense of self if we want to push the comparison that far. so the fool goes away & fitz goes back to molly but there is always something missing as we see very clearly in FA. i think it’s really interesting that fitz brings back the infamous “a horse cannot wear two saddles” phrase at the very end of fool’s fate and that what was first used to describe the impossibility of making duty & love cohabit in RA is used to describe the impossibility of making two kinds of love cohabit at the end of FF.

to go back to the love/duty dilemma it’s a typical cornelian dilemma: no matter what fitz ends up choosing there is no real good option & i think that thats what makes RA & FF the two most tragic (in the classical sense) books in the entire series & why, personally, those two endings are the ones that affect me the most.

#sorry this is messy & there's probably more to be said/added but i wanted to get it off my chest #robin hobb #the original gay hell #im truly like #if the fool is not fitz's love interest then why does he occupy the same narrative place in FF as molly does in RA

67 notes · View notes

copiousloverofcopia · 9 months

Text

Ok Primo lovers! The next installment of Potpourri is LIVE!!!!

Thank you all for once again being patient with me as I work on things and juggle my IRL responsibilities as well. I appreciate you all so much.

Please if you like my work, share it!

Potpourri

During his retirement, Papa Primo Emeritus falls in love with a new Sister of Sin who has suffered a tragic loss. While the new sister settles into the Abbey, Primo can't help but grow more infatuated with her. Promising to give her everything she desires, but can he win her affections when she still can't let go of the past?

Chapter 6: Potpourri

Also available HERE on AO3! Haven’t started yet, start from the beginning HERE!

Read below the cut

The night of the new sibling initiation had come and gone. Days passing as gently as the spring breeze and the Abbey returning back to normal routine. Only the memory and the new titles of newcomers remained. That was for all except what happened between Primo and Gwen.

The Abbey was practically buzzing with it. The normally composed and eldest Emeritus son had been spotted ravishing one of the new siblings during initiation, a truth that had been on all the mouths of those who dwelled in the Abbey. Both ghouls and siblings alike were intrigued by it. Though carnal interactions with siblings were commonplace for his younger brothers, this kind of conduct wasn’t at all what the Abbey inhabitants had come to expect from Primo.

All of them, smiling and whispering whenever they saw Papa and the new sister together. It took all Fiona had not to spill the small juicy details she had acquired of her friend's affair. Though what she and everyone else had been conjuring up was far more salacious than reality. While they had crossed a definite line during the ritual, every night since had been a slow, chaste passing.

Both of them, choosing to get to know one another before anything else—maybe even become friends. Gwen was still so fragile and Primo wasn’t about to be the one to break her. He knew that it was meant to be and that if he was right, eventually, she would come around. Her wounded heart only needed the time to heal before they might be something more. He had, however, begun to grow impatient.

Primo tried his best to push away the thoughts, but more often than not he found himself needing to release. To relieve his built-up sexual tension with his own hand. The thoughts of Gwen constantly on his mind. The way she felt as he slipped his fingers inside her. The sound of her moaning in his ear. He wanted desperately to know what she’d feel like while he pounded into her. Feeling her all around him as he spilled himself inside her—so that he might give her the child he knew she so badly wanted.

Even though it had been weeks since their night together, Gwen hadn’t made any hint of wanting anything more than Primo's companionship. They were becoming closer, at least that's what he told himself. He had even begun to teach her about conjugation and spell casting. Choosing to focus on simple things like inanimatum manifestationem and charm spells. Gwen, however, was most interested in communing with the spirit realm.

It was in the quiet times between them that Gwen shared with him too. Not about anything so magical as Primo, but about her life leading up to the arrival at the Abbey. A little more revealed of herself as each moment came. The most recent story being that of the day she lost her child. It was then that Primo had felt the full weight of it.

As the words left her, he could feel the constant ache that afflicted her. The wound of the soul that Gwen thought might never heal. She had also told him about her failings in love. Lamenting that things had always been very one sided, though it took her some time to realize it.

The subject of love had come up again whilst Gwen and Primo worked to prepare the chapel for the evening's Black Mass. Gathering up the spent incense and emptying the vases of the old dried out arrangements. Primo followed Gwen back into the sacristy determined to have her see that things would get better. “You know they were wrong to overlook you cara mia.” Primo said as he placed his hand over hers.

“If you say so Papa…maybe…” she sighed, still clutching the dead, dried flowers, “I feel as though I am nothing. Like these dead plants. Just a shell of what I once was.”

“No...”

“I’m sorry?” Gwen asked as she went to toss the bouquets into the trash. Primo gently grabbed her wrist before she could release them. Both of them, locking eyes as Primo began to speak.

“The life in these flowers is gone, but they can still be a part of something beautiful.” Primo explained.

“You’re kidding, right?” she asked him, looking more than a bit confused. Primo’s face was now more serious than ever. A look that made Gwen swallow back a bit as he took the flowers from her. Pulling the dried buds from their stem and placing them gently in a small basket in the center of the table.

“They can be an offering—or even made into potpourri…they are not the same as they once were, that is true, but these blossoms can still be something beautiful.”

“I see.” she replied knowing that he was most certainly alluding to her. Primo was in love with her and Gwen very much felt it. It was getting harder for her too to deny the feelings she had for him. Worried that she’d regret acting on them. And she already had too many regrets to speak of.

A moment however had reached them. Gwen could sense it—something about the way he looked at her. The sweet charm of his romantic, but cliche, speech and the soft smile on his face that made her guard fall. Primo must have sensed it too because he reached down to take Gwen’s face in his hand. Slowly bending down to kiss her fully on her lips.

She didn’t pull back, instead leaning into him. The taste of his mouth like the sweet nectar of fruit. The gentle touch of silk that was his lips. This was the first kiss she had truly wanted. Not some pity and haze-induced endeavor, fueled by outside forces. No—this was only them.

Gwen brought her arms around Primo’s neck, kissing him harder. Tears streamed down her face as they continued. Primo, taking the leap of faith as he brought his tongue into her mouth. Slow and sensual, not the lustful and rushed way he had before. They melted into one another.

When Gwen finally, and reluctantly, did pull back she smiled. Both of them, a bit breathless and flushed. This was all she could do for now and there were responsibilities she had to tend to. Primo seemed to understand, even without her saying it. Helping her adjust her veil before fixing his own cassock. Hoping that the swell in his pants was hidden well enough to not ruin the sweet moment between them.

“I must be going Papa…thank you for…um…everything.” Gwen smiled more.

“Of course, amore." He told her. Gwen turned to leave and Primo knew he couldn't just leave it at that, "...would you? Would you sit beside me in the pews tonight? I would very much appreciate your company.” Primo asked, watching with joy as Gwen nodded. Progress—Primo was thrilled. Watching with hopefulness in his heart as Gwen took her leave from the sacristy.

Hours had passed since their kiss and Primo still couldn’t get it off his mind. The whole night spent in blissful merriment, especially with her seated next to him in the pews. He had managed to hold her hand throughout the sermon. Gently gliding his thumb over the top as Terzo went off on one of his rants about pridefulness.

The two of them, glancing at one another endlessly. Looking as if they wished to sneak off together. Gwen had even allowed Primo to walk her back to her dorm. The two of them, finding Fiona waiting up for her friend—along with a whole row of little eavesdroppers. All spilling of their rooms from their doorways as Papa left her there. Another gentle kiss on the lips before the door closed and Primo would return to his chambers.

When midnight struck, he was still tossing and turning in his bed. Thinking about Gwen's sweet face. Primo was finally beginning to drift when he startled. The phone, ringing loudly and echoing in the vast openness of the room. Primo rushed out from his sheets towards the old rotary that sat near his favorite armchair. Lifting up the receiver and bringing it to his ear.

"What could you possibly want at this hour?" He chided, unsure of exactly who was on the other line. Thankfully it was Secondo and the revelation allowed Primo renewed justification in his ire.

"Oh, calmati, vecchio sciocco." Secondo scoffed, practically able to see the way Primo's face contorted on the other end.

"What do you want fratellino?" Primo asked him, clearing his throat and trying to keep his patience.

"The prodigal son returns tonight. Thought we may indulge in a game or two. Stay up until his return…that is if you can manage it?"

"Pfft…I'll be down soon." Primo replied, already knowing exactly where to go.

Primo made his way down from his chambers to the main hall. Feeling the wear of the day and his lack of sleep upon him as he found this path in the dark. When he reached his destination he was met with Terzo, Secondo, and Saltarian staring him down. The three of them, sitting in the clergy break room as Primo stood in the doorway, all awaiting Copia return.

The hours were now steadily creeping into the early morning and the normal show of fanfare would be held off until morning broke. Just the way Copia liked it. The fourth Papa, preferring to get adjusted to being home before all the “hullabaloo” commenced.

“Were the fuck have you been? We’ve been waiting for over an hour.” Secondo scoffed.

“It's late fratello. Give…what did you call me before? An OLD man a moment…I am here now. Deal me in.” Primo responded. Their youngest brother’s arrival seemed the perfect excuse to play cards and, for Primo’s brothers, an opportunity to grill him. Now along with Saltarian’s help they could find out just what his intentions were with his mysterious and melancholic sister.

“And what shall we play…Uno?” Mr. Saltarian laughed, trying to inject some humor back into the conversation. Running his fingers over the packs of cards that lined the cabinet until he found the Uno cards.

“I will only play that if Primo will agree to answer my questions…since he cheats.” Secondo replied. Primo nodded to Saltarian to grab them, his friend handing them over to Secondo who began to shuffle. Secondo reluctantly began tossing them out across the round table, the rest of the men collecting their hands before Secondo placed the first card down in the center.

“Sono offeso.” Primo scoffed, “I do not cheat…you are just a sore loser.”

“Ok then…go ahead and pretend that you do not, in fact, enchant the cards stronzo and that it is pure coincidence that you always win when we play this damn game.” he sniped. Both Mr. Saltarian and Terzo rolling their eyes at them when Primo finally took his seat.

“What is it you want to know so badly then?” Primo asked him. Terzo adjusted himself in the chair, popping the cork out from his wine bottle and taking a swig—not even bothering to gather himself a glass. Preferring to drink straight from the bottle on game nights such as this.

“Yeah Sec..what's got your panties all in a bunch?” he smirked. The table got quiet for a moment, all of them looking up from their cards at Secondo who was staring daggers at Primo.

“Sister Guinevere…”

“Ah si, il mio fiore delicato. What about her?” Primo responded.

“You two seem to be getting very close as of late…well that is, if some of the rumors floating amongst the siblings and ghouls are to be believed. What they’ve told me...” Secondo hummed, taking the first turn and setting down his red number 2 card to start.

“Just what have they reported back fratellino? Are you having them spy on me now?” Primo chuckled. Smirking as he forced Secondo to draw 4. Delighting in the grimace on Secondo's face as he added the cards to his hand.

“No…it’s just I worry. You’ve already bound yourself to her and she's a bit of a wild card.”

“Speaking of.” Terzo laughed as he placed his wild card down on top. “I mean Primo, she did only just a few weeks ago try to…” Terzo chose to continue before Saltarian tapped his arm. “We don’t want to see you hurt either.”

“I can make her happy and I will.” Primo smiled, Saltarian smiling back at him. The two of them, having an unspoken understanding. He too had been watching them. Seeing Gwen open up to Primo as days passed. Primo’s plan to win her heart was simple to him as the planting of seeds and Saltarian could see that things were already beginning to blossom between them.

“Oh, and just how are you planning on doing that?” Secondo asked his tone snide and smug, as always as he laid down his next card.

“I’m going to give her what she wants.” he explained, shuffling his deck for his next card. Both Secondo and Terzo, waiting for him to continue.

“...and that is what exactly?” Secondo groaned, frustrated with Primo’s drawn out exposition.

“Vita eterna.” he smiled, placing down his card on the stack.

“What? You can't be serious…” Secondo inquired; certain he knew what Primo was getting at.

“I’m going to give her a child. My child.” Primo responded, Terzo immediately began choking on his wine as Secondo sat back stunned in his chair. Both brothers, dead silent and completely taken back by his intentions.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me? Knocking her up is not the ans—" Secondo hissed before Primo rushed at him. The two of them, ready to brawl. Thankfully Saltarian was surprisingly quicker. Holding both men back from doing anything stupid in the heat of the moment.

"Am…I…ah interrupting something?" Copia said, dropping down his bags as he entered the break room.

"Copia! Fratellino!" Terzo called out as he went to stand beside him. "Glad you came when you did. Otherwise, you might have 2 less fratelli." He explained, covering his mouth so Secondo and Primo might not hear him.

"Seems there's a disagreement about a relationship between Papa and his new Sister of sin." Saltarian explained. Copia went to give Saltarian a fist bump, for which he was not amused. Copia immediately withdrew his hand, a bit embarrassed but continued on. Looking straight at Secondo before he continued, clearly assuming he was the offending Papa.

"So…ah…Secondo…who is the lucky girl?" Copia asked with a smile, taking the empty seat at the table.

"It's me Copia…not Secondo." Primo explained as the rest of the men all sat back down. Secondo grumbling under his breath.

"You? Now that's a surprise." Copia laughed nervously, scratching the back of his salt and peppered head.

"Oh just you wait." Terzo chuckled, giving him a slap to the back. Copia's face turned paler than usual.

"Che cosa significa in tutte le cose empie?" He asked. Primo let out a sigh, surely Copia would be more supportive.

"I'm going to have a child with her." He said plainly. His voice, soft but firm. Copia swallowed back, already life back at the Abbey was becoming more interesting.

"Lei è incinta?" Copia asked him.

"No…no…but hopefully soon." Primo responded.

"I think it's a wonderful idea. Good for you wanting to be a Papa…well…heh...a father. I can't wait to be a zio." Copia laughed nervously. Secondo huffing before resigning himself to silence at the table.

"Me too." Terzo chimed in, "I want you to be happy Primo. Obviously, you better get on it soon Lucifer knows you aren't getting any younger."

"Thank you." Primo smiled, clearly however annoyed at Terzo jab. Saltarian lifted up his wine glass to toast Primo.

"Possiate entrambi essere fecondi e moltiplicarvi." Saltarian said.

"Cin cin" said Terzo, lifting up his wine bottle. Secondo waving them on.

"Si…well since Copia is home, I say we make a new start." Secondo explained, the faintest of thinly pressed smiles on his lips. Primo placed his hand on Copia's shoulder and looked Secondo in the eye.

"Sounds good to me."

Notes:

Oh, calmati, vecchio sciocco. -Oh quiet yourself, you old fool.

Sono offeso- I am offended

il mio fiore delicato- my delicate blossom

vita eterna- Life eternal

Che cosa significa in tutte le cose empie- What in all things unholy does that mean?

Lei è incinta?- she's pregnant?

Zio- uncle

Cin cin- cheers

#Potpourri #Primo x gwen #primo x oc gwen #primo x sister of sin #Primo x Guinevere #Primo #papa i #papa emeritus i #ren writes #ghost #the band ghost #ghost fic #ghost fanfic #ghost fanfics #ghost fanfiction #the band ghost fic #the band ghost fanfic #the band ghost fanfiction

27 notes · View notes