#like i was planning on posting the first part to my apocalypse au but i read it back and nearly threw my computer on my fire

[http-paprika]

what's left / simon "ghost" riley

part two

zombie-apocalypse!au / pairing simon "ghost riley x female reader / wc 2186 / warnings brief gore, illusions to violence, typical end of the world angst, swearing.

summery ghost is tasked with escorting y/n to edinburgh to help with creating the cure for the zombie outbreak. it wasn't in the plan for him to fall along.

note y'all liked my post about writing something for this, so hopefully you'll enjoy this story. um, not actually heavy in terms of zombie appearances, but i have plans for another part to this story if ya'll end up enjoying this.

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Ghost stayed seated, back flat against the wall as he watched Y/N sleep and breathe slowly, her chest rising and falling steadily. He couldn’t imagine that the small cot was comfortable, or even very warm, but she seemed to be at peace. The only look of relief he’d seen on her face since their first unfortunate meeting. The painful memory of sirens blaring, people screaming in confusion, and the gut-wrenching, squelching noise of rotting flesh moving through the compound. 

A shiver ran down Ghost’s back at the memory, he stiffened, hardening his clutch around his gun, but the night stayed enjoyably silent. It was quiet in a way he didn’t know, lacking the noise cities and towns used to have, the area around him was drenched in an inky black, and the only light provided was from the moon and stars above that cut through the cracks in the window. 

She shifts in her sleep next to him, twitching involuntarily, a bad dream he supposed. Without a thought, Ghost reached down with a gloved hand, brushing it against her cheek, down her neck. The touch stills her, Y/N’s body easing again from the gesture. 

“Fucking hell.” He quietly mutters to himself, in the dim light, he moves the blanket to check the wound on her leg. His fingers graze the stained gauze bandaging, wincing knowing how much worse it could’ve been. How much worse Ghost had seen.

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“We’ve got reports of outbreaks in all major cities across the United Kingdom and the world.” The news was completely ignored as the military compound was in disarray, chaos sweeping through as soldiers moved out. Everything was pure chaos, the streets were filled with blood and bones, corpses piling up as the flesh-craving, rabid creatures spread like wildfire. The consequence of biological warfare and the weapons it made. Man had played god and met its destruction when they decided to use their own as a tool. 

Ghost’s body was tired, threatening to give out under him as he gunned down more of the creatures. Maggots was the name Soap had decided to call them as they fought back, killing those who’d once been fellow soldiers. But if he stopped now, he’d be swarmed by the infected, and if not ripped apart limb-by-limb, he’d receive a fate worse than death. 

“We’ve got medical personnel barricaded in the infirmary, we need to get them out of there and moved to the QZ.” Price barked at Ghost over the comms, he was closet to the infirmary, near the outer hall that led to the medical wing. He groaned loudly, fearing what would happen if he tried to move, but the orders stood firm, and while the government was falling apart, he still acted as a soldier for his country. 

“Moving there now.” 

It was in that dark infirmary, where he could hear the Maggots beating against the outside walls that he first saw her. Gun clutched in her hands, blood splattered across her clothes and skin, and a grave of personnel who’d been turned in the infirmary as he dragged her out of the closet. Y/N kicked and screamed, scarred that he was dragging her to her death, but she went limp once he’d thrown her over his shoulder, his arm securing her in place as he moved her to the cleared tarmac. Past the growing swarms of flies that flocked to dead humans and Maggots alike. 

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“Ghost?” Her quiet voice echoed through the dark room, he gazed at her bruised face. Frowning, Simon wiped some of the grime from the journey off. 

“Right here, Y/N.” Ghost sighed, she opened her mouth to speak but closed it again. “How do you feel?” 

“Probably just as bad as you.” Y/N brought her leg up, closing it to her chest so she could tug at the bandaging. “Need to change to gauze.” 

“Let me do that, Y/N. No need to stress yourself, you need to rest.” He tells her, reaching over to her backpack, reaching inside, and finding her small kit of supplies. The container was beginning to run low, he didn’t like to think about what would happen if they didn’t get to Edinburgh soon. What had been planned, had gone astray. 

“Ghost, you need to rest too. I’m not going to be falling back asleep.” She forces the gauze and antiseptic wipes out of his hands and into hers. “You need to rest, otherwise you’ll just be a bag of bones.” 

Wiping his face with his hand and letting out a low groan, Ghost knew she was right. He’d had little rest the past few days and knew how it would delay his reaction time and ability to keep her safe. “Are you sure? I don’t want you-”

“I’ll be fine, and if I have even the slightest suspicion that something is wrong, I’ll wake you up. I promise.” Y/N assures him. Ghost reluctantly agrees, his body grateful at the idea of rest, even if it was for just a brief moment. 

“Swear it.” 

“I swear I’ll wake you up. Please, sleep.” She promises, shifting into a seating position. Ghost stayed seated, but let his head rest against the walls and allowed his eyes to droop. Exhaustion won the battle against his willpower as he drifted off. 

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“We need to get her to Edinburgh, they have the tools, the chance to get a cure made. And she’s got the knowledge they need.” Price more often than not, was raising his voice at people. Even with the QZ safely established, and the initial surge dying down, there was too much uncertainty and too much loss for him to act rationally. Ghost knew this, he acted the same, snapping too quickly nowadays at already terrified soldiers under him. Sometimes he felt as mindless and flesh-eating as the Maggots, sniffing out fear like the infected sniffed out their next victim. 

It seemed selfish to fight against the order he’d be given, foolish and self-centered. But what real chance did they have at creating a cure to stop the virus and its continued spread? Rumors had circulated that the Americans had been in the early stages of developing a counteract to the outbreak, but England had lost contact with all allies months ago. They could only rely on themselves, and even that seemed a stretch. 

“Why don’t you get someone else?” Someone disposable, Ghost thought, as he knew the chances of successfully getting someone across the wasteland of England up to Edinburgh were almost impossible. Vehicles, cars, or helis were out of the question, fuel was strictly saved for powering and keeping the QZ warm. Which left him with no other option but to walk, for three weeks through towns, cities, and country filled with Maggots. A certain death. 

“Because you’re the only one I trust to get her there.” 

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The sun poured into the room, Ghost’s eyes flickered open before he jolted himself fully awake. His heart slammed in his chest, panic seeping through his veins. How long had he been asleep? Next to him, Y/N lay turned into his side, pressed into the side of his ribs. Ghost found the gun still propped against the wall next to him, he brought it back into his grip and surveyed the room around. All was quiet, all was at ease. Almost as if the outbreak hadn’t happened, destroying mankind in its wake. 

Ghost wished Y/N had woken him up the moment she’d grown tired, but he didn’t have it in himself to be mad. For a high-achieving doctor, who always strove to be efficient, Ghost was a bit annoyed by her lack of responsibility. But she looked so beautiful in the early morning light, under the layer of dirt and grime that clung to her skin, Ghost’s eyes lingered on her rosy cheeks and soft lips.

He hated to break the silence or drag her awake, but they needed to move. Their location would only stay safe for so long. “Y/N. We need to get going.” 

The woman grumbled at his words, trying to bury herself closer to Ghost’s side. He smirks at her action, prying her hands off of his body. His fingers grazed the veins and took comfort in the steady flow of blood in her body. 

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Dry grass crunched under his feet as he carried her to the abandoned farmhouse. Set away from the road and society, no Rotten would wander this far from a horde. They’d be safe, safer than they’d been in the town where they’d been attacked by raiders. Y/N let out a whimper as he set her down on the ground, needing his hands to pry open the heavy wooden door. Her hand moved down to the poorly bandaged leg, where the large gash lay from where she’d been struck during the attack. 

The hinges of the door creak as it opens, Ghost steps in, pistol raised and ready to survey the room. The farm, much like everything else around them, was abandoned. He didn’t care to think what had happened to those who’d lived there before, death had lost its sting for Ghost long ago. 

Pulling Y/N back into his arms, Ghost moved back into the house, setting her down on the sagging settee in the living room. He moved down to the wounded leg, and as he began to unwrap the gauze, she winced, cringing as the cold, stale air greeted her wound. Y/N’s body shook uneasily, and her breathing was swallowed. 

“Sorry.” Ghost apologizes, pulling open her medical kit. But his stomach churned uncomfortably at the wound, it was still oozing. 

“S’gonna need stitches.” Y/N groans, dropping her head back down against the arm of the settee after evaluating the wound and its condition. “I can do it myself, but I’ll need you to find needle and thread.” 

“I’ll find it, and I’ll do it myself. You’re in no condition to attempt to stitch yourself up.” He grunts, standing back up and beginning to search the room they were in for the needed materials. 

“But-”

“No buts, Y/N. I’ve done this before, I can do it again.” Ghost states, opening a closet that was still stocked with sewing supplies. Plenty of needles, and a variety of colorful threads. He chose the one that was closest to medical thread, placing it and the small plastic container of needles down on the coffee table. 

As he began to sew the wound closed, Y/N’s eyes began to water, and she gripped the fabric of the settee grinding her teeth. Ghost felt the need to keep apologizing to her, over and over again until he’d tightly secured the stitching with a knot. She let out a strained sob as he wiped the skin clean of dried blood with a cloth and some water from his canteen. 

“I’m sorry, it’s done now.” He promised her, yanking his dirty gloves off and dropping them on the coffee table next to his discarded backpack and the harder outer layer of his mask. “You’re okay, I promise.” Ghost assures her, taking Y/N’s face in his calloused hands. She nods, her lips still trembling.

There wasn’t a thought in his mind as he pressed a kiss on the side of her cheek. He brought her body close to his, breathing in the smell of her skin, the blood, sweat, and tears. They stayed like that for a while, he allowed her to cry into his neck, his hands running through her knotted hair. 

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His gaze falls on her as she fights the knots out of her hair, trying to manage just a bit before they set out again. While Ghost wouldn’t admit it, his body was painfully numb from all the walking they’d done the past weeks, wishing they’d made it to Edinburgh already. But he feared what would happen when they did arrive. The quiet moments he’d come to enjoy with Y/N would disappear. She’d return to her duty, struggling to make a cure. And what purpose would he have? The idea of attempting to return to London alone was a dangerous one. He assumed the military up there would put him to work. But would he ever get to spend any more cold nights, keeping her warm? 

“I’m ready.” Y/N finally announces to him, pulling her backpack over her shoulders.

“‘Bout damn time.” Ghost huffs, offering her his hand to steady herself with. She wobbles a bit, unsure of how much weight she can put on her leg without it giving out underneath her. “Alright?”

“Yeah.” She nods but Ghost drops his arm down around her waist, adding extra support. “Ghost-”

“Let me help you.” He asks, leaning down and kissing her face. The rough material of the mask brushed against her raw skin. Y/N grasps at the mask, trying to remove the barrier between them. With reluctance, he breaks away from her lips, knowing his action is dangerous with consequences that could hurt. “Another time, Y/N. Need to save our breath.” 

note so, i'll admit, i left the worst of the angst out of this. but- i may decide to deliver the rest if ya'll are curious about how gut-wrenching my writing can actually get.

#call of duty #simon ghost riley #call of duty mw2 #ghost #simon ghost riley x reader #cod mw22 #ghost mw2 #fanfic #y/n #zombie apocalypse #call of duty zombies #zombies!au #ghost x reader #ghost x y/n #female reader #angst fanfic #i may have also been thinking about pedro pascal as joel miller #dont judge

[ohbo-ohno]

I'm gripping the bars of my cage desperately, I'm chewing at the bars, begging, pleading for more zombie ghoap x reader au.

zombie ghoap x reader au coming right up chef 🫡

btw this is super similar to charliemwrites' jaw dropping ghoap x reader "the (scottish) cabin in the woods" so you need to go read that immediately (and leave a nice comment because charlie rocks)

cw for noncon puppyplay below the cut

i was talking to ceilidh a tiny bit about this earlier, and i think that johnny and reader met in like a cannibal cult kinda thing. very much so like that episode of TLOU, yknow? they both think they've found a little commune safe haven, but it very quickly becomes clear that that's not the case.

anyways, they end up trying to get out together when they realize what's going on, and have to kill a few of the cult members :/ they've been "stuck together" ever since

they threaten to leave the other for dead (or kill them in the middle of the night) constantly. it hasn't happened yet, obviously, but boy oh boy do both of them bring it up nonstop. they act like they hate each other, but honestly they just need to fuck

but they're sorta stuck together now. you're better off paired up with someone than on your own, that's something they both learned pre-cult fiasco. and, really, they don't dislike each other nearly as much as you might think based on the way they gripe

enter ghost. he spots these two survivors wandering through the forest, one injured and both filthy, and basically thinks to himself "hm. could be good in home entertainment"

(here's the deal with puppyplay like this - it's absurd, and we're just going with it. alright??? just WORK with me here)

if you didn't see, i put in the tags of the original post "#btw - he takes you home then chains you both up outside and says something like “this is where dogs stay” :/#dont worry you're perfectly safe (he has a high fence keeping zombies out) but he likes to hear how scared you get when you're out there all#you're both quite well behaved when he lets you in for dinner the next night <3#he only has to scold you once when you both complain about being made to eat while kneeling on the floor next to him"

you're probably both "behaving" because you don't want him to. you know. fucking KILL YOU. but this is also a zombie apocalypse au, so you're both totally feral too. and this is an apocalypse ghost too, which means he's probably way harsher and way rougher around the edges than he even is in canon

anyways i think soap and reader here are more likely to be like "lets wait this out and try to escape when he's not expecting it" except they're like... really bad at trying to play along

ANYWAYS!!!! ghost takes you two back to his compound, ties the both of you up outside for the night. he wraps soap's ankle first, gives him a stern command to stay off of it, and goes back inside like everything is normal. he watches you two over the camera while planning out how he'll build some outdoor kennels for the two of you

you're both cold and tired and hungry and scared the next morning, so it doesn't take much coaxing on his part to get you inside. it takes a lot more coaxing to keep you two on your knees :/

honestly johnny's ankle is so fucked that it's almost a relief to keep pressure off of it (even if it means crawling around on the floor like an animal) but you care a hell of a lot more. ghost threatens to break your ankles before you finally listen :/

he ties the leashes to your wrists, to keep you both out of trouble as much as he can. it's not like either of you are eager to go very far - his house is warm and you're both chilled to the bone from your night outisde

anyways. that's all i've got like, linearly. but i can offer some random little tidbits about their lives after

ghost makes you both eat from the floor. he gives you plates (no silverware) at first and lets you use your hands, and gradually works the two of you up to eating from bowls with just your mouths

you and johnny bicker constantly and simon frequently makes the two of you kiss to make up :( forces you to make out with each other while he smokes a cigarette and enjoys the show. no matter how mad you are, you both end up needy and humping the air when he finally lets you stop

he tries to have you two sleep in the same crate, but it does not go well. ghost very quickly realizes that you two will try to tear each other's throats out if forced that closely together for an entire night

sometimes one of you will try to get the other in trouble. there's one particular night where you trick johnny into misbehaving and he's stuck in the outside kennel all night - but it rains. and every time you glance out the window you see how sad and cold he looks :((( ghost lets you love on him the next morning, and soap is more than eager for a bit of comfort after such a miserable night

#sometimes i giggle putting a cw for noncon puppyplay cause like. why are you following me if you DONT like that lmao #but then i remember this stuff pops up in people's recommended. and i tag it properly #asks and answers #ghoap x reader #zombie apocalypse ghoap x reader

[heesdreamer]

SILENCED (1)

MASTERLIST

GENRE ➩ enhypen zombie apocalypse au!

SUMMARY ➩ navigating life 1 year post end of the world was already difficult as you avoided rotting corpses with hefty appetites and groups with various bad intentions. things get harder when you run into a group of survivors, 7 boys who make it impossible to run away.

WC ➩ 10.7k

WARNINGS ➩ all things that zombies bring like gore and death lol, sexual content, main character death etc

AUTHORS NOTE ➩ this was originally a one shot story but under request from people that read my stories before i post it’s going to be a multiple part series! hope you enjoy the first installment as it builds up the world and characters plz let me know your thoughts and guesses (NOT PROOFREAD)

Whenever you pictured the apocalypse, the end of the world that people often talked about over drunken hypotheticals or PG-13 level horror, you pictured it loud.

Thunderous even, a deafening mixture of screams and cries behind the roar of fire and destruction.

You imagined utter chaos and it was never quiet in your head when you did so, a clear built scenario that you never paid too much mind to, considering the absolute fantasy of it all.

So now that you were almost a year deep into the official end of humanity, you were a bit thrown off by how different it was from your previous assumptions. Sure, there had been fire and screams and it definitely wasn’t lacking chaos, but most days you found yourself in complete ear ringing silence.

The soundtrack of your day to day life rarely extended past birds chirping, the crunch of leaves and loose sticks under your boots as you attempted your way through forest filled terrain.

It’d taken you a while to leave Seoul, first being held back by fear and panic and then not wanting to leave the comfort of your known surroundings.

It was easy to figure out how to survive there after a while, knowing when it was safe to leave your apartment and scavenge the nearby stores and when it was time to draw the blinds and let’s hoards pass by undetected.

You’d sit with bated breath as you listened to soft groans and bodies bumping against your front door as they mindlessly made their way down the hallway and eventually off to find something that had made a noise or distracted them.

When you imagined the apocalypse before you hadn’t really considered the different types that could occur. You suppose chemical outbreak or maybe even a world war could’ve been possible, far fetched but possible nonetheless. Maybe even multiple waves of natural disasters, wiping out cities and land masses in its wake.

Somehow, the dead rising hadn’t crossed your mind.

The creatures that had lingered outside your door all those months ago weren’t like anything you could’ve possibly dreamed up in your anxious mind, defying science and all rationality with their mere existence and hunger based drive.

It didn’t bother you as much now, having spent weeks frustrated over the mechanics of their mobility, the reasoning for their immortality.

Now you felt somewhat close to them, these days hunger being your main reason for existence and almost your entire train of thought from the moment you woke up to the second you fell asleep. This was the same thing that had finally driven you from the city, the stores running dry eventually and leaving you no choice but to turn to nature for nutrients.

You thought about this comparison now as you came to a slow stop, lowering yourself down into a crouch as you listened to the branches snapping off in the distance.

The knife in your hand felt heavier than normal, eyes darting around the forest as you took in your surroundings and made a quick escape plan in case it was more than one undead, in case you needed to run and run fast. You didn’t want to leave just yet, having followed a deer into the woods a few hours ago and you were in desperate need of an actual meal.

Shifting your weight onto your heels, you listened to the sounds come closer and then stop when they reached a bush a few yards ahead of you.

Your head was cocking in confusion, grip tightening around the leather of your knifes handle as you waited for it to continue its approach. The bush rattled a few times, keeping your attention tightly locked on it as you held your breath.

“Put it down.” A low voice was sounding behind you and you froze, feeling the cold metal pressed against the back of your head before you even registered the fact that somebody was speaking.

It’d been weeks since you’d heard something so real, something so human other than your own voice and you felt a sudden wave of dizziness at the fact you were clearly stuck.

For a brief moment you considered spinning in place and attempting to disarm him, relying on your own swiftness taking him off guard and beating his reactionary speed that would cause him to pull the trigger before you even saw what he looked like.

This plan was put to rest quicker than you could think it through, the bush rattling again as another figured pushed its way through the thick leaves. You watched his face pull into a wince when he saw you and you furrowed your eyebrows.

“Hyung.” He muttered and you heard a sigh from behind you, their plan clearly not entailing this interruption. “She doesn’t have anything on her.”

The one behind you didn’t say anything about this, still not taking his gun off you considering the fact you’d made absolutely no move to lower your own weapon like he had originally instructed you. You remained still despite a wave of fear washing over you at the realization you had nothing of value for them to take other than yourself, a sudden reminder that the apocalypse was scary but being a woman was scarier.

“Go.” He was speaking again, still in that low timbre and the boy from the bush winced again, shaking his head like he wanted to deny the order but also taking an instinctive step forward like he was accustomed to taking them.

You couldn’t get a grasp on their dynamic or what they exactly wanted from you, the boy stood in front of you looked nervous like he had a thin idea of what would happen and he didn’t agree with it. You considered for a second if this was a situation worth trying to talk your way out of, eventually deciding to just let things take their course with your limited options.

“You don’t need to kill her, let’s just leave her here and go back.” He was taking another step forward and he continued to look over your shoulder, eyes only darting down to yours for a second in a silent plea for your cooperation. “She doesn’t know which way we’ll go”

“She was tracking.” The boy behind you was immediately noting and you almost cursed under your breath at the fact he was right. If you wanted to follow them you could, their tracks in the dirt obvious to you now that you’d spent months learning the skill.

“Then we tie her up and leave her, but we don’t need to kill.” He was shaking his head in exasperation and you could hear the boy behind you let out a frustrated sigh.

You had no doubt in your mind that if he was alone he would’ve killed you without a second thought, swift and silent in the way he had approached you from behind and keeping his gun firmly pressed against your skull. Despite your confusion you were silently thankful for the others boys resolve, although it came off as weak to you.

“If you’re going to tie me up in the woods you might as well kill me yourselves.” You were speaking for the first time and both boys reacted immediately.

The one behind you was shifting on his feet to stand firmer, pressing his metal into you while the other in front was giving you a helpless look, clearly upset you had immediately undone any progress he was making for your release.

It was silent for a few moments after that as they looked at each other and you wondered what conclusion they were coming to with just their glances. You hadn’t done yourself any favors in your statement but it was true, leaning you defenseless this close to dark was more of a death sentence than a bullet in your brain.

“We can take her back with us.” The boy from the bush was eventually whispering in a last attempt at keeping you alive, hands coming forward in a plea. “Not as a guest just as a prisoner for now, until we figure out what to do with her.”

You almost laughed at him but decided against it although figuring there was no possible way that would be allowed considering two seconds ago they were about to kill you. However the silence, and lack of immediate rejection, from behind you made you second guess.

You were being pulled to your feet before you even could process him moving again. “You’re explaining it to him, I’m not taking the heat for this.”

His tone was harsh but tired and you were startled at the fact he was actually taking you with, even more fear sinking in as you realized the ‘him’ he was referring to meant they weren’t out here alone. For some reason you hadn’t considered them being with a larger group.

The other boy didn’t say anything but you imagined he gave some form of silent acceptance considering the fact you were suddenly being moved forward harshly with your hands held behind your back.

You hadn’t seen the second boy yet but you were unnerved considering he was able to hold both your wrist together with a single hand, still keeping his gun pressed between your shoulder blades as you moved clumsily through the woods.

From their dynamic you had assumed they were alone, your first mistake, and that he was the leader out of the two of them. Hearing his words about explanation you realized the hierarchy wasn’t that simple and there was clearly somebody they both answered to outside of each other.

“Are your hands okay?” You looked to your left to see the kinder boy following you as you walked, staying at your side with his gun tight in his hands now.

The boy behind you sighed at his question and you weren’t sure exactly how to answer. They were hurting and if you saw any way out of this you would’ve complained, made a sarcastic comment that could potentially get your ass kicked if they weren’t feeling up for jokes at the moment.

Instead you offered him a small nod and turned back to face forward so you didn’t trip.

Your options now were to die here and now, act out and become more of a hinderance than their willing to deal with. Or go along with them and most likely end up being killed eventually anyways, maybe after at least one more night of sleep. You kept your mouth shut for the time being and kept walking.

“We should’ve blindfolded her.” The boy behind you was muttering after an hour or two went by and you vaguely heard the sounds of chatter and fire crackling off in the distance now. “He’s going to lose his shit.”

“Maybe we have Jake talk to him first.” The other one was whispering from beside you as the three of you slowed to a stop, accessing the situation before approaching with a stranger in toe.

It was clear to you now that this group was far larger than you had anticipated. They continued to whisper new names and you listened to the overlapping conversations off in the distance, your heart beating so fast it hurt as you skimmed through the different scenarios this could end in.

While they were distracted you were taking your chance, throwing your shoulder backwards to hit the first boy and taking off in a sprint back the way they had taken you from. You ignored his cry of shock and the others frantic plea for you to stop and come back as you whipped through the trees.

The sun was setting now so any tracking skills you had was completely useless, relying on nothing but your feet and the surrounding terrain as you attempted to put as much distance between you and the others as possible.

You could hear the two who had brought you back with them starting to yell out for help and despite cursing under your breath in frustration, you didn’t blame them and saw it coming before you even ran. You were a stranger and now you knew exactly where they were located, going from a hostage to a threat in seconds.

It had only been 20 minutes of running before you had exhausted yourself from lack of pacing, slamming against a tree and bending over with your elbows to your knees to try and catch your breath.

You could hear shouts in the forest behind you along with groans that brought on the harsh reminder you had more than one enemy in the woods. Their yells and loud feet over leaves and sticks were going to continue to bring more of the dead down on you and you were starting to panic completely.

Before you could think about it anymore or start running again, something heavy was slamming into your side and you were hitting the ground hard.

You flew across the leaves and mud before flipping over onto your back with a shout and scrambling away from whatever had rammed you before you even registered what it was. Another boy, not the one from the bush, was bouncing back to his feet considering he’d also hit the ground after he tackled you and was approaching you swiftly.

He looked furious but you couldn’t tell what type of weapons he had in the dark, kicking you feet out as he gained on you and hitting him in the knee.

A groan fell from his lips and he bent to grab his leg as you pulled yourself off the ground and instinctively reached down towards your thigh for your knife, finding the holster empty and immediately remembering it’d been taken from you hours ago.

He chuckled at your obvious dilemma although it lacked humor, an annoyed expression on his face like you were wasting his time. He was suddenly lunging at you again and although you were fast, he was definitely bigger and you let out a scream as he pinned you back down onto the floor.

Your stomach was pressed tightly against the dirt and you felt his knee land on your back, holding your arms tightly so you couldn’t break free from his hold again.

“Stop fucking moving already.” He was grunting from above you as you continued to thrash and attempt to kick at him despite slowly coming to the realization there was no getting free.

“Hyung.” Another voice was screaming out, obviously following the sounds of your cries and screams to find you. You twisted your head against the dirt to see the boy from the bush approaching you with a few others behind him.

“Sunoo go, you’ve done enough.” Your attacker was spitting from above you and you saw a flash of hurt over the others face, immediately taking a step back towards the rest of the boys who were watching the scene with varying expression.

Sunoo, the one who had brought you here in the first place, was clearly experiencing guilt as he looked down at you but you weren’t sure if it was for you or for causing an issue for his group. One of the boys behind him was reaching a hand up to grab his arm, pulling him backwards softly so he didn’t have to watch.

“Heeseung it wasn’t his fault.” You didn’t recognize the boy who was speaking now, approaching from the side, but you immediately could tell from his low timbre that he was the one who had held you at gunpoint. “I fucked up, we didn’t know what to do.”

“You kill her.” Heeseung was forcing the words out through gritted teeth and you were squirming again underneath his knee, the pain in your back excruciating as you started to find it difficult to breathe. “Or you leave her to the rotters, but under no circumstances do you bring her back to camp.”

Sunoo was glancing at the boy who had said something with a furthering expression of guilt and upset considering the fact those ideas had both been rejected by him. You thought about saying something, about pleading for your life or negotiating a deal where they could bring you far away and leave you somewhere you couldn’t find your way back.

You quickly decided against it considering how serious the boy above you was speaking, also piecing together this was clearly who was in charge and was being discussed in the woods previously.

The others boys were watching in the distance and you were trying to count them to see how outnumbered you were, eventually giving up considering how dark it was and how dizzy you were getting from being pinned against the floor. It was definitely more than you could handle and there was clearly no use in trying to out run them again considering how silently and quickly Heeseung had caught up to you the first time.

You hadn’t even heard him before he came out of the trees and it’d only taken him a second to bounce back onto his feet despite the tackle almost completely knocking the wind out of you.

He had you beat in all aspects and you didn’t feel like poking the bear would be the best move if you wanted to survive the night. That might not be up to either of you however considering the low groans that were starting to fill the forest.

Between the darkness and the almost echoing night air you couldn’t quite tell which direction it was coming from and judging by the way the group of boys starting to look around with their weapons raised, they couldn’t either.

You were being pulled up off the floor before you could think for another second and you sucked in a big breath now that your lungs were no longer restricted, immediately faltering when you were aggressively yanked around as Heeseung started to move towards the boys.

He was flinging you around like a rag doll and you heard him give out a low whistle, the others immediately forming a semi circle defense while everyone started to move in sync through the forest back towards where their camp was. It was a practiced routine and you would’ve been impressed if you weren’t technically their opponent right now.

“Pick your damn feet up.” He was speaking lowly into your ear with irritation and you let out a grunt as he continued to drag you.

“If you gave me a fucking second maybe I could.” You were spitting back and thrashing your torso forward slightly so his grip on your arms would loosen, he didn’t say anything about this and just glared at you as he let you get your balance so you could travel back to the base faster. “Thanks.”

He scoffed but didn’t reply to your sarcastic comment, traveling swiftly in silence on guard in case more than one dead came out from the dark woods.

By the time you got back to the camp, the fires were put out and nobody else was around. You weren’t sure if that’s because it was late or because everybody who lived here was apart of the group trailing behind you.

The camp was mainly made up of tents, some smaller like they were only fit for a pair and some large with big wooden stakes to hold them up. There was a few RV’s you could see from where you were standing and some trucks that could possibly run but for the most part they were large rust buckets littered with blood and dirt residue like the rest of the worlds vehicles.

You were being pulled into the largest tent before you could finish your observation and sat down in a chair furtherest away from the opening. You almost made a comment about them thinking you’d run again but you decided it wasn’t the best idea.

Only two of the boys followed you inside after Heeseung, the one from earlier who had attempted to take the blame off Sunoo and another you didn’t recognize.

“So what’s the plan then?” He was the one who spoke first and you glanced at him from under your messy hair, shifting uncomfortably as Heeseung tied your hands behind the chair tightly.

“First this idiot needs to tell me why he brought her back in the first place.” After he was finished and confident his ties were strong he was circling back around and approaching the familiar one, you couldn’t see his face anymore but his back was tense and straight. “What were you thinking?”

He cocked his head slightly but he didn’t seem deterred or intimidated by Heeseung’s demeanor, only breaking eye contact to spare you a quick glance.

You wondered if he was worried you’d give up the fact it was Sunoo who had practically insisted they bring you back. It was interesting that despite telling him he had to be the one to take the heat originally, he had immediately stepped up for the blame once he realized Heeseung was truly angry.

“She’s a tracker.” He brought his gaze back to the other boy as he spoke calmly. “She would’ve found us if we just left her and I saw no other option.”

The boy you didn’t recognize was looking at you now with a curious expression and you turned your head to look at him for a second, not able to get a good read on what he was thinking or what side of this argument he would be on. You wondered if this was the one mentioned earlier, Jake.

“You should’ve killed her Jay.” He was holding your gaze as he said it and you were taken back by his comment, not expecting him to be so blunt and cold.

Jay, despite being the one to originally put a gun to your head, also looked thrown off by this and faltered in his calm expression for a second and he looked at him. “Are you serious?”

“Jake’s right.” Heeseung shook his head, confirming your previous suspicious and Jay let out a small laugh of disbelief, taking a step away from the two boys back towards the entrance.

“I’m just supposed to blow her brains out right in front of Sunoo, just because there’s a slight chance she’d follow us?” He was holding his hands up in frustration and you shifted uncomfortably in the seat again, causing their heads to turn towards you.

Heeseung was approaching you swiftly and you watched him as he took large steps, gasping when his hand was reaching up to grab a solid chunk of your hair in his tight grip. He pulled slightly to make you look at up him, bending slightly so he could hold eye contact with you.

“How many people are in your group?” He was speaking steadily and low but you could feel the warning in his tone.

You were shaking your head in denial and confusion but stopped when he tightened his grip and repeated himself louder and more agitated. “How many?”

“I don’t have a group, it’s just me.” You were wincing and trying to hold his gaze, failing miserably due to the pain and intensity. Your eyes went over his shoulder to look at Jay and you gave him a desperate look. “Tell him it was just me.”

He didn’t say anything and you didn’t expect him to, only asking out of pure panic and as a last ditch attempt to plead your case. You weren’t afraid to die but if you could help it, it wouldn’t be in some random groups tent just because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Heeseung was loosening his grip on your hair as he looked at you but keeping his hand on the back of your head, a silent warning in case you decided to act out in any sort of way. You watched him with your breath held as you waited for him to say something or react in any sort of way. He was just studying your expression like he was attempting to seek out some trace of a lie on your face.

“You can track.” He was stating suddenly but you took it as a question and nodded repeatedly as best as you could with how close he was to your face. “Can you hunt?”

You were nodding again but slower this time, not quite understanding where this was going. He was looking over his shoulder back at the other boys and Jake gave him an incredulous look that only confused you further before you slightly pieced together what he could he implying.

“You’re not serious.” He was laughing but it was devoid of humor, glancing at Jay who was stony faced as he looked at you. “Heeseung, you can’t be serious right now. Let her stay?”

You felt a wave of sickness pass by as he confirmed what you were thinking and you hoped you didn’t look too appalled visibly. You didn’t like this idea anymore than the thought of them killing you, never being in a group by choice. You didn’t necessarily play well with others and certainly not after they held you hostage and tackled you in the woods.

“She hunts.” He said it like it was obvious and you couldn’t deny the fact it was a valuable asset nowadays as human-made resources slowly died out. You’d noticed it yourself back at your apartment, having to venture out further and further every time you went for a run.

“Riki hunts.” Jake was quickly shutting him down and your interest piqued.

“Riki is learning to hunt but it’s not enough.” Jay was adding into the conversation now, still looking at you as he spoke like he had been since he entered the tent. “It’s almost winter and we can’t keep taking these day long trips every time we’re low…. and we’re always low.”

It was silent for a few moments while they looked at each other in frustration and you once again tried to understand the hierarchy and dynamics at play here, falling short every time. Eventually Jake was scoffing and exiting the tent, slamming the flap down as he left in anger.

Heeseung swiped a hand at Jay, dismissing him too and you didn’t miss the small nod he gave you before turning on his heel and following after the other boy.

That left you and Heeseung alone in the tent and he was taking a step away from you finally, watching you curiously as you took a breath finally and held his gaze tight in yours. You felt a dull ache in your back from his knee and your wrist were screaming for release from your constraints.

“Think of it as a trial.” He was turning away from you for a second as he started to talk and you stared daggers into the back of his head. “I don’t kill you now and in return, you don’t do something stupid.”

You watched him as he started to face you again with a stern look on his face, a hint of youth underneath the hardened exterior, and his eyes shot down to your feet and then back to hold your gaze. “Don’t give me a reason to kill you.”

——

You hadn’t spoken to him again but he didn’t seem too bothered by your silence, only muttering small commands as he dragged you out of the tent and towards one of the RV’s.

You were being left there for the night and you tried not to move much after he cut your restraints with a warning full glance, not wanting him to mistake your movements for another attempt at an escape. Despite not wanting to be there any longer than you had to, your chances were slim out in the woods by yourself.

You figured it wouldn’t hurt to stay a few nights, slipping out whenever you had gained their trust and didn’t need to sleep in a guarded metal bucket.

He’d left you with one of the boys you recognized from earlier in the woods, the one who had gently pulled Sunoo back after he started to get scolded. He looked the opposite of gentle now as he glared at you from the foldable table on the other side of the RV, gun hanging loosely on his lap and he watched you.

“Is there something on my face?” You were eventually muttering, not able to stop yourself as irritation bubbled to the surface.

You hadn’t asked to be brought back here, not even remotely putting yourself in this situation, yet everybody was acting like you were purposely causing issues or trying to harm them.

“You shouldn’t be here.” He was shaking his head and the deep tone of his voice threw you off slightly considering how young he looked.

Despite his youthful features, you could tell he was just as weathered and worn by this new world as everybody else was, you included. His eyebrows were pulled tight and his skin was darker in random sections like he had permanent dirt stains.

He was watching you as you observed him quietly, fidgeting slightly the longer you scanned his features and frame.

He was tall, a lot taller than you and even the other boys you’d encountered long enough to get a good sizing up done. You tried not to focus in on the tears in his clothing or the blood stains surrounding his knees and hands, not wanting to make him more uncomfortable than you already were.

“If you don’t want me here, why not just let me go?” You were shrugging like it was a nonchalant thing to ask, feigning ignorance that he clearly didn’t buy judging by his scoff and annoyed expression.

“And get in trouble for no good reason? Are you stupid or do you think I am?” He was letting his gun lean against the table, deciding you were more of a bother than an actual threat.

You shrugged but didn’t talk to him again for a minute of offer him a response to his question, knowing it would just further upset him. Considering the two of you were clearly stuck with each other for the night you didn’t see the point. “I’m Y/N.”

He was sighing as you spoke again, your voice softer than before as you shifted on the uncomfortable half bed Heeseung had sat you down on. You watched him watch you for a few seconds before he finally responded.

“Riki.”

——

You weren’t sure when you had managed to fall asleep, at some point just laying flat on your back and listening to the sounds of the forest off in the distance as they mixed with Riki’s soft breaths on the other side of the RV.

Apparently you had considering the fact you were being shook awake aggressively, jumping up with a start and reflexively striking the person who had woken you.

“Dude what the fuck.” Jake was standing near your bed and shielding his face from any further assault, a pained look on his face. You gave him an incredulous stare at his reaction, not quite sure how he expected you to react to being vibrated awake by a stranger who had encouraged your death last night. “Make yourself useful.”

He was turning and leaving after that quick statement and you groaned, flopping backwards onto the uncomfortable mattress for a second before kicking up and out of the bed, following him outside before he got too far away and you were lost in the camp.

“You’re going out with Heeseung today.” He was explaining as you jogged to catch up with him, trying to ignore the stares and whispers from the other boys as you passed.

“Does that mean I get my knife back?” You were asking him despite already knowing the answer and he shot you a quick glance at the sound of your voice, looking away as you furrowed your eyebrows.

“First piece of advice, don’t ask stupid questions.” He was stepping forward towards a different tent than last night, holding the flap open with a raised arm until you got the hint and ducked underneath it with a muttered word of thanks. He followed behind you and you saw Heeseung and two other boys sat around the tent, gearing up.

Sunoo was there and he faltered for a second when he saw you, another look of guilt washing over his face as his shoulders tensed. You gave him a small nod but it didn’t seem to appease him in anyway.

The other boy wasn’t looking at you, instead focusing on the disassembled gun in his lap as he meticulously cleaned it and cleared his throat. His hands were fast and swift, no hesitation or question in his expression.

“They’re going on a run too.” Heeseung was speaking and you looked up at him to see who he was talking to, surprised to see him already watching you. “We are heading off in the other direction.”

You were nodding and fidgeting in place, not quite sure how to respond to him in a way that didn’t immediately showcase your frustration. You weren’t thrilled about going out into the world with no weapons and no clue if this guy had good intentions, maybe this was his way of killing you as quietly as possible. He obviously wasn’t expecting you to hunt with your bare hands so you weren’t sure why he was bringing you along.

Still, you didn’t bother arguing with him and after a few more minutes of prep you were following him into one of the trucks off away from the main camp.

“There’s a town about an hour away.” He was muttering eventually as he drove, the heavy rumble of the old engine almost putting you to sleep if it wasn’t for the aggressive way the truck jerked every time he amateurly changed gears. “We cleared it for food but at the time we weren’t thinking about other types of supplies.”

You were watching the side of his face as he spoke and he spared you a glance at your silence. “You think there’s still stuff left now?”

“Possibly but it’s worth a shot. There’s a reason you’re out here and not in Seoul just like us, a lower populated town means maybe less survivors passed by when everything went to shit.” He was sighing as he spoke but seemed hopeful as he tried to convince you.

He wasn’t wrong for the most part, you had traveled to a more rural area in hopes for less of the dead and more towns left undiscovered. You figured if this didn’t end soon then there would be no place left that wasn’t completely cleared out.

Heeseung was large and sturdy but you didn’t miss his sunken in cheeks and darkened eyes, clearly lacking vital nutrients and a healthy lifestyle. It wasn’t that jarring considering you hadn’t met anybody who was doing particularly well but being in a group with larger numbers certainly made things a bit more uneasy.

You took a second to study him as he drove, trailing your gaze from his black long sleeve down to his matching cargo pants. His weapon holster was tightly pulled around his thigh similarly to how yours normally sat and you were suddenly reminded how defenseless you currently were.

“How do you know I’m from Seoul.” You didn’t necessarily feel like talking to him anymore than you had to but if you were going to be stuck with him in charge of your life, maybe some small talk wouldn’t hurt.

“Riki.” He spoke bluntly but it answered your question considering the fact you’d spent most of the night talking to the younger boy after the tension between you had calmed down. “Nice to hear you actually talk occasionally.”

“Maybe I’m more inclined to speak with people who haven’t tried to kill me.” You were quipping back and he let out a small chuckle at your sudden change in tone, not taking any actual offense.

You understood why he had done what he did and he knew you understood but that didn’t mean you were happy about the way things had went down and were continuing to go. You didn’t want to be with them and that much was clear but at some point he had figured if you had somewhere to go, you would’ve put up more of a fight.

The truck jerked particularly hard around another turn onto a dirt road and he swore under his breath, yanking at the shift knob until it slightly smoothed out again.

He gave you an awkward glance out of the side of his eyes and you tried not to chuckle at his terrible manual driving skills. You figured eventually everybody would adapt to things they hadn’t needed to before but it was slightly amusing to know most of the world was desperately trying to adjust to things you’d always had available to you.

You didn’t bother telling Heeseung you could drive a stick shift better than anything else, having been taught in one back in high school. He didn’t need to know how good you were at setting camouflaged rabbit traps or that you weren’t half bad with a bow. Your skill set was better kept a secret until you could get as far away from this group as possible.

By the time you were finally pulling up to a small town, if you could even call it that considering it was just a few old wooden buildings and shops in a U shape, Heeseung seemed to have relaxed a bit.

“We’ll be in and out.” He was carefully instructing as you got out of the car and you nodded although you were feeling frustrated about having no weapon. “Stay close by in case you run into an issue okay?”

Despite your upset and undeniable feeling of vulnerability, the run was going smoothly for the most part. You were quick to enter buildings behind Heeseung as he checked for undead and you had actually managed to get a bag full of supplies that could help the group through the winter.

Your guard was lowering slightly considering you’d come across little corpses, the small town seemingly sheltered from the horror the rest of the world had been subjected to.

Neither of you talked much, the mission being at the front of your minds and you were thankful for the lack of distraction.

It wasn’t until you were on your fourth building, some old auto shop with a connecting garage, that you realized how mistaken you had been. Heeseung was still outside the front door, fidgeting with something old and rusty that you couldn’t quite place.

Whatever it was, he seemed determined to unearthed it from the weeds that had grown around it and you impatiently shoved past him into the store. He offered a small scoff as you pushed through but didn’t bother chasing after you or demanding you wait, also making the mistake of being relaxed.

The second you entered the shop and the door closed behind you, a small gap left open considering the door was also subjected to the growing nature that almost converted the entire building, you smelt it.

Throughout the many months you’d been getting accustomed to the apocalypse and all it’s trials and faults, you still hadn’t adjusted to the overwhelming stench that came along with awaken corpses. It was especially murderous when they moved in masses or were left rotting since the start.

“Heeseung.” You were calling out in a hushed voice, slowing down your steps and looking around the store with confusion. You ignored the fact it was the first time you’d said the boys name and how casually it slipped out, listening in to his small hum of acknowledgment from outside. “Do you smell that?”

You could hear him setting down the metal thing he was obsessing over and pushing the door open swiftly, looking at you with a worried expression.

Before he could speak or confirm your senses, you were hitting the floor with a shriek.

It took you a second to realize why you had fallen but the moment you started to think straight again you could feel the tight bony hand wrapped around your ankle, having dragged you down onto the dust covered floor. You sucked in a sharp breath and scrambled back the best you could, kicking at the walker who had gripped your pant leg.

You could see it now, halfway stuck underneath one of the fallen shelves and desperate in the way it’s jaws snapped around nothing.

You were still kicking it when you realized the groans suddenly starting up were far too loud to be coming from the single walker in front of you, understanding with a wave of panic that your shriek had clearly awaken whatever amount of dead it was that was causing such an odor.

“Fuck.” Heeseung was entering the store swiftly and rushing over to you, immediately stomping the rotted skull of the dead that was holding you with his boot.

Ignoring the amount of blood and brain matter that sprayed out on your face at his action, you accepted his hand and let him pull you up and off the floor.

There was no time to dust yourself off as you both heard crashing and groans coming from the connected auto garage, clearly full of dead that had been starving for far too long. They were pouring out in pairs from the small doorway and you and Heeseung stood frozen as you tried to think of a way out of this.

They were coming from both sides of the aisle, filling up the only exit route back to the open door and sufficiently trapping you in the store.

Your fingers were twitching and reaching down to your empty holster, cursing once you remember you had no weapons on you and turning your head to glare at Heeseung who was already watching you with a panicked expression.

His eyes shot behind your head and you almost jumped out of the way, expecting something dead and hungry behind you, before he was reaching a hand out to grip your arm and pull you with him.

You didn’t object despite your confusion and you followed him swiftly, groaning loudly when you understood he was leading you towards the back of the shop where a small maintenance closet was hidden behind some tool carts and brooms.

“Hurry up, help me.” He was shouting back at you as he started to throw things out of the way and you unfroze, helping him clear the way to the door.

You were spinning around once finished to see the hoard closing in on you, a flustered shout pushing past your lips. “Heeseung.”

“I’m trying.” He groaned, his leg propped up against the wall as he kept trying to pry open the old rusted door with all his weight.

Finally, he was stumbling back in your direction and you grabbed his arm to stop him from falling into the awaiting arms of the dead that were now only a few feet from being able to grab onto you. He was immediately catching his footing and ushering you into the closet before closing it tightly behind the two of you.

You sat with bated breath and you waited to see if it would hold, the bodies of the corpses smacking against it as they clawed and practically shrieked with hunger.

Heeseung was holding the doorknob tightly so it wouldn’t spring back open and although it was dark, flashes of light that managed to break past the dozens of shoes outside the door, revealed to you his fearful expression that didn’t help calm your nerves.

You opened your mouth to speak and ask him about what you were supposed to do but his eyes were shooting to your in a glare, his free hand coming up to cover your mouth as he shushed you.

Your eyes widened at the fact he was suddenly touching you, looking down at the hand over your face and then back up at him as he swiftly ripped it away and shook his head, gesturing to the door like you were stupid for trying to make any noise.

He didn’t look at you again as you furrowed your eyebrows in annoyance but nodded in understanding, realizing he wanted to wait until they had settled before showing any sign of life. They could definitely smell you and had no reason to give up, only driven by hunger, but you figured eventually something would come by and distract them.

Which gave you some hope that you could get out of here safe, not wanting to die stuck in a smelly auto shop closet with Heeseung, but you also let out a small sigh knowing you’d be waiting here for a long time.

For the first time since you’d been rushed inside the small space, you took a second to look around. It was tiny, so small that if Heeseung was standing straight and not bending slightly to keep the door held shut, his shoulder would be touching the other wall.

To make matters worse the opposite width wasn’t any bigger, the toes of your boots smushed against his with no room to scoot backwards or make less contact.

Eventually he was slowly letting go of the metal door knob, moving barely an inch every ten seconds as you both waited to see if they were going to suddenly rip the door open and devour you whole. It was clear after a few minutes that it was sturdy enough to keep you hidden behind it for now, you’re not sure you could say the same about the next few hours however.

Heeseung sucked in a much needed breath and leaned backwards against his side of the closet, his knees pointing out towards you in result.

He was watching you with a curious expression and you glared at him in silence, not sure if you were allowed to talk yet or if it would result in his large hand over your mouth again.

“In and out.” He was whispering it so quietly it almost looked like he mouthed it. You could still barely see him but you could hear the smile in his voice as he joked about your failed plan, the light catching his eyes as he peered down at you. “You good?”

You were nodding but shifting uncomfortably, suddenly remembering how close of a call you’d had now that things were calmed down enough for you to think properly.

“It really had me for a second.” You whispered back to him and shook your head, avoiding his gaze as you looked at the vibrating door. “I shouldn’t have let my guard down like that, it was stupid.”

“Then we’re both stupid.” He was muttering back and you tried not to be too curious why he was being so nice to you despite his harsh leadership within the group. “At least you weren’t alone.”

You were scoffing and shaking your head, his boot scooting forward towards yours in a warning to keep your noises at a low volume. He couldn’t exactly make out your expression considering you were placed lower than him and getting less light on your face but he could practically feel the death stare you were sending his way.

“It’s easier to be alone.” You were countering in a stern tone. “If I’m stupid alone I’m just dead but if I’m stupid in a group then I’m guilty. It’s on my hands.”

“It would’ve been on mine if you’d gotten bit back there.” He was cutting you off and you stopped abruptly, looking at him with parted lips. “But the same thing goes for if I die out here, if I don’t get back to camp, back to my family then that’s on me too. Not trying just because you’re alone isn’t an excuse.”

His tone was heavy now and you felt bad for getting him so frustrated considering how carefree he’d been for most of the day, possibly enjoying not having to direct orders and commands for a few hours. You imagine that if he was able to he would’ve stormed off and left you with his heavy statement.

Instead the two of you sat in the silence of what he had said and listened to the groans only a few inches away from your heads.

You were shifting suddenly and he looked back at you in question when you accidentally bumped against his stomach, not having room to move your arms anywhere.

“Is that why you lead them then?” You tried to keep your voice soft and questioning, not wanting him to mistake you for accusatory.

You didn’t want to fight with him again especially since he had saved your life not too long ago, potentially twice with his quick thinking to get the two of you into the closet.

“It just happened.” He was whispering back and his tone was slightly guarded. “We knew each other before and when.. everything went to shit they came to me one by one.”

“I was scared shitless, I mean sure I’ve chauffeured them around for a few years and I’d handle calling in our takeout orders but now I’m supposed to keep them alive?” He sounded flustered and you listened to him quietly, letting him talk.

For some reason it hadn’t occurred to you to wonder how long they’d known each other. They seemed comfortable and they worked fast and efficiently like they had experience with it but you’d seen similar things in groups who met only at the beginning of all this, being forced to learn how each other works to survive.

You briefly remembered Riki saying something about high school and Jay but you didn’t fully make the connection, maybe you just didn’t want to.

But listening to Heeseung so earnestly talk about the responsibility he carried as the leader and the eldest you felt a wave of understanding, immediately followed by the desire to run far far away from the inevitable care that comes along with a group this tightly knit.

“We left Seoul the first week in Jungwon’s old van.” He was continuing on and when you raised an eyebrow in question he was nodding in realization. “That’s the one who was cleaning the gun, he’s out with Sunoo right now.”

“How many more of you is there?” You hoped he didn’t think you were asking him in an attempt to get information on the group that would assist you in your escape, although you halfway were.

“Just Sunghoon, I don’t think you met him.” He was mumbling and you thought for a second before shaking your head.

That made a total of seven and a wave of fear washed over you at the thought. As of now you were leaving no matter what and as of now they weren’t going to let you just go easy, meaning in some form this was your opponent. Seven men who were capable and seemingly willing to kill you if necessary with the exception of one or two.

Heeseung’s silence made you think he knew what you were thinking and he shifted so he was standing again, no longer leaning against the wall.

This put him even closer to you and you held your breath at the proximity, only letting it out in a moment of shock when his hand was coming up suddenly and touching your face like it had earlier.

You were jumping backwards, at least as far as you could in the tight space and he was shushing you with furrowed eyebrows and a finger to his lips, glancing at the door in worry and then back to you as he continued what he was originally doing.

It took you a few seconds to remember the walker he had stomped on, to remember the blood and rotted skin that had splattered all over you.

Heeseung was gently wiping your face off with his hands, using his sleeves at times for the areas that were particularly covered. You felt your cheeks flush in embarrassment, his large hands stiffening for a second when he realized how awkward this situation was.

He was taking his hands away swiftly and clearing his throat, shuffling backwards again and avoiding looking at you. It was silent for a few minutes and you felt suffocated by it.

“You didn’t lose anybody.” You broke the thick air by speaking again and he flinched before looking down at you. “Since Seoul, did you lose anybody?”

His eyes flashed with something heavy and sad and you imagined he was thinking about his family, slightly curious why he had left without them and what had happened before the other boys showed up alone at his doorstep. Then he was shaking his head to answer your question.

“Then maybe you’re more fit to lead than you thought.”

——

“Was he scared?” Riki’s voice was ringing in your ear again and you groaned softly, leaning back on your pillow and trying your hardest to ignore his constant questions. “I mean, I’ve never seen Heeseung scared. What was it like? Did he cry a little bit?”

After a few more hours had passed in the closet, your suspicion was correct and eventually something passed by that caught a few of the undeads attention. The stragglers had wondered outside the auto shop and the rest immediately followed the noise and movement.

Heeseung and you had waited another half an hour just to be sure before slipping out finally, backs aching from standing straight and rigid for so long.

You’d gotten in the truck with the supplies you found earlier in the day and headed back to the camp, not wanting to risk your luck any further and needing to beat the night as the sun slowly set.

The boys had affectionately greeted the two of you when you arrived, or more so Heeseung as you hovered awkwardly behind and watched them all. You saw a boy you didn’t recognize and figured he was Sunghoon, finally having faces to all the names.

They all carried different expressions of worry and upset and you watched them scan his skin for injuries or scratches, eyes crinkling with relief when they saw he was safe and returned to them. Your heart felt heavy and your stomach turned as you watched the display of care and love towards each other.

You’d caught Jake’s eye for a second and he narrowed his at you, causing you to swiftly give him a nod and slink back into the RV you’d been assigned to.

The same RV that you were now groaning in as you listening to the young boy, the youngest boy as you had found out yesterday, talk your ear off with questions about what it was like to be stuck in a closest with his hyung.

“He cried like a baby.” You were muttering and he laughed softly before shaking his head, able to tell you were lying to him. “I’m serious, my shoulder was soaking wet by the time we got out of there.”

“You know you’re funny when you’re not glaring at me.” He was remarking and you scoffed softly. “The others don’t joke around anymore so I don’t either.”

He sounded younger than he looked when he said it, voice steady like he didn’t even process the weight and sadness of what he was saying. Maybe he’d already started to forget what it was like to be a teenager with no responsibilities.

For a second you zoned out picturing him before the apocalypse, a younger Riki wearing a school uniform and excitedly chatting with the older boys. Maybe he was shy or maybe he was just as talkative and mischievous as he seemed to get the few times you’ve talked to him.

You were abruptly broken out of your daydreams when you heard shouts coming from outside the RV, immediately sitting straight up in the bed and locking eyes with Riki as his widened in fear and concern.

As far as you knew, everybody had turned in for bed. Heeseung didn’t like any one leaving their tents after dark, a heavily suggested curfew seeming to be followed religiously and you couldn’t think of good a reason for the boys to be disobeying this.

You were standing up swiftly and making your way towards the small door, being stopped by a hand wrapped around your arm.

Riki was shaking his head with a panicked expression, pushing you back into the RV. “What are you doing? You can’t go out there.” His voice was urgent and he took a step between you and the door.

His protective expression was making you feel sick and your expression turned stony, moving to push past him but stopping as the door was flung open without either of you touching it.

Sunghoon was stood panting, looking up at you guys from the surface level. He took a step up the RV’s metal steps and glanced behind him with a hard look on his face. Now that the door was open you could hear the shouts louder and also the groans that accompanied them.

“We have to go.” He was rushing out and your mouth parted slightly, looking between him and back to Riki who Sunghoon had been watching since he opened the door.

The younger boy was shaking his head as his shoulders dropped and you felt a wave of upset and guilt for him wash over you, knowing this had been his only home for the past year considering the fact he wasn’t permitted to runs as often as the older boys.

“I’m sorry Rik, there’s too many we don’t have any choice.” Sunghoon was shaking his head sternly but his eyes were soft as he looked at his friend. “You need to pack and we have to go, both of you.”

His eyes moved over to you hesitantly and he lost the affection in his gaze, you didn’t take any offense to it and nodded your head as he turned to rush back to help the others buy some time. You touched the younger boys arm and he jumped slightly before looking down at you with a heavy expression.

“Let’s pack your stuff okay?” You whispered and your unusually gentle tone just made him feel worse, curling in on himself slightly as he nodded and started to grab what little belongings he had scattered around the RV in an attempt to make it feel more like a home.

He was done quickly and you were getting ready to exit the vehicle and join the others when he was grabbing your arm again to stop you.

You almost turned to scold him for wasting time and not letting you go but stopped in your tracks when you realized he was holding a gun out in between your bodies, gesturing for you to take the weapon.

You considered saying no for a few seconds, knowing Heeseung and the other boys wouldn’t be happy with you for accepting and most likely would also scold Riki for giving it to you in the first place. The need to survive overtook this and you took the gun from him, nodding in appreciation.

The second you stepped outside you understood why the only option was to abandon the camp. The dead were pouring in from every side of the forest, their groans mixing together and attracting more and more every minute that passed.

Your eyes were darting around try and spot the other boys but you couldn’t see them in the chaos, feeling frustrated and panicked as you heard Riki’s breathing getting more strained from beside you.

Eventually you spotted Sunoo at the same moment he saw the two of you as well as he was rushing over to you with a serious expression, eyes bouncing around to check if it was safe to stop and talk.

“They’re out past the river.” He was explaining swiftly and you nodded despite having no idea how to get there. It seemed to make sense to the two boys however because they were quickly turning on their heels and disappearing into the woods, looking back a few times to make sure you were following behind them.

Sunoo was running ahead of both of you and your heart clenched watching him take out a few stragglers that were making their way towards the over run camp, his knife effortlessly going into their rotted skulls as he kept rushing through the woods.

Eventually the groans got quieter and you could hear the light splash of a stream, catching sight of the other boys huddled together before the saw you.

“They’re here.” Jake was announcing when he picked his head up and saw the three of you approaching. He stood up and rushed to meet you halfway, checking Sunoo and Riki for injuries before his eyes landed on you.

His gaze trailed down to the gun clenched in your hands and for a second you thought he’d take it from you, demand you leave or maybe try to kill you here and now so they didn’t have another thing to worry about. Instead he took a step closer and briefly scanned over your body, similar to the way he was doing to the others.

“I’m okay.” You breathed out and you weren’t sure why you said it, just wanting to get his concerned look off of your frame as soon as possible. He nodded his head but lingered on your for a second before turning and walking back over to the others.

You followed behind him to see what the boys were surrounding, watching as they all pointed at a crinkled map and spoke in hushed voices. They carried bags on their shoulders and you vaguely noted that Jungwon’s was full of the guns he was always taking such intense care of.

“We’ve been that way man.” Jay was sighing and shaking his head and he pushed Jake’s finger away and moved it further down the map. “From here to here it’s not clear, dead ends or there’s just nothing left.”

“Well we can’t go north.” Sunghoon was countering and you could see a large red X over the area he was referring to. You wonder how long they’d been planning an escape plan with no luck.

You listened to them talk for awhile with a sick feeling in your stomach, wondering if you should help and throw out the idea that was brewing in your mind. On one hand this was your chance to escape considering they had no home to even protect anymore, you could sneak out or hold the gun in your hands to one of their heads until you were far enough away that they wouldn’t follow.

This could be your only opportunity to be back on your own, not owing any sort of debt to a group that was dealing with their own conflict.

Riki was looking back at you suddenly with a worried expression and that thought was immediately out the window as you let out a small sigh, upset at yourself for what you were about to do, before stepping up towards the boys.

“I know a place.” You were rushing out and they all turned to look at you. Heeseung’s eyes were softening at your sudden want to help and you nodded at him. “It’s a few hours south but I stayed there for a few weeks before I kept moving away from that area.”

“You think it’s still there?” Jungwon was asking, his first time speaking to you directly since you’d arrived to their group. His voice wasn’t as harsh as his glare though and he seemed genuinely curious, not suspicious of your motives.

“It was gated.” You shrugged and bent down, bumping into Heeseung’s side and causing him to sway in his crouched position. You were touching the map and felt relieved to see the area you were referring to wasn’t crossed out or circled. “It might not be but it’s worth a shot. Plus we don’t have many options.”

“We?” Heeseung’s voice was soft from beside you and you turned your head to look at him, flushing slightly when you realized how close to each others faces you were.

“Yeah.. we.”

——

#enhypen #enhypen drabbles #enhypen fanfiction #heeseung #jake enhypen #heeseung drabbles #heeseung x reader #jake x reader #sunghoon enhypen #heeseung smut #jake fluff #jake drabbles #jake smut #sunghoon x reader #heeseung au #jake au #kim sunoo #jay enhypen #jay drabbles #sunghoon #niki enhypen #nishimura riki #enhypen au #zombie apocalypse #zombie apocolypse au

[stayxlix]

off the deep end. (01)

~(part 1) the sun and his moon~

pairing: rebel!felix x reader (f)

genre: non-idol au, post-apocalypse/dystopian au. wc: 8.2k

series rating: 18+ **minors do not interact**

chapter warnings: violent mature themes, mentions of murder/execution, death, oppressive government, fighting, gunfire, angst, suggestive content, brief mention of parent death, parental neglect, language, mentions of hunger/starvation, please lmk if i missed any!

a/n: this is my first time posting any of my work, so any thoughts/feedback are very much appreciated and welcome!! i’ve had the idea for this in my head ever since the maxident trailer came out so everyones vibe in this is based on that (with some inspiration for the whole setting/theme from the scars and miroh mvs because i love them both so much). i really want my work to be a kind of escape, and i have big plans for this one :) i hope you enjoy ♡

~series masterlist~

“there's an old story of the sun and the moon. the sun, who loved the moon so much he died every night to let her breathe. the moon, that sacrificed herself every night so that the sun could rise. maybe we were too much like the sun and the moon. deeply in love but too different to exist side by side.”

It had been a long time since he felt the sun against his skin like this. It was comforting, like an old friend, as the warmth fell against him through a break in the heavy fog above.

"Felix!" Chan came up behind him, breaking the silence. "I've been looking for you man. I think we've got something this time. Something big, but it'll take all of us and it wont be easy."

Felix stayed facing the sun. He closed his eyes and lifted his head toward it, resting his hands on the rough surface of the rooftop beneath him. Tuning out the older boy, just another moment was all he needed. Just a few more breaths, a few more beats of his heart. The wind pushed the hair out of his eyes. His freckles becoming darker with every second. Sometimes, on days underneath the sun like this, he wished he would melt away in it. On darker days he wished for the fog to consume him. He wished and he wondered. Was there anything more to this life? Would there ever be?

Felix breathed in deeply once more, letting it out slowly. His eyes were still closed but he could feel Chan beside him now when he spoke.

"I'll do it."

The world you knew today was very different from the one that you read about in books. You read them over and over again until you memorized the pages. Books filled with stories of nuclear wars and the unforgiving nuclear winter that followed, destroying nearly everyone and everything that had existed before. You read handwritten journals that described buildings so tall they were blanketed by the clouds above. They told tales of clear skies and green forests with creatures like aliens, moving pictures on tiny boxes meant solely for entertainment, and something called the internet that held the answers to any question you could ever imagine. All of that was gone now, kept alive by the images created in your head when you read those books. Sometimes you wondered if any of it had ever existed at all.

After the wars, the remainder of the world was condensed and split into 9 districts. As far as anyone knew, the only thing left outside of the 9 districts was barren land that held nothing but stories, carried by ghosts of the past. The 9 districts had been run by your ancestors for generations, currently under rule of your father. They were shaped in large rings, with District 9 at the center, also known as the "Inner Circle". The Inner Circle was where your father's palace, army, and the most wealthy members of society were located. The other 8 districts surrounded the Inner circle and each other, stretching miles upon miles until District 1. At the edge of District 1 stood a wall rumored to be a thousand feet high. It encompassed all 9 districts and therefore everything that was left of the world. Nobody knew what was beyond the wall and nobody dared to find out.

Ever since you were old enough to understand what it meant, you had hated being the daughter of the most powerful man in the world. The horrible things you had seen your father do kept you awake at night. The people he had executed, suspected of conspiring rebellions against him, lived on in your mind. Some of them barely older than you, some younger. He was all you could remember, your mother having died before you were old enough to know her.

For your entire life your father had told you that he did the things he did because he had to. He was only protecting you and the people he was responsible for, so he said. Another way he "protected" you was by keeping you hidden from the world outside. You grew up without any idea of what lie beyond the walls of the palace in District 9. To everyone outside, your existence was nothing more than just a myth.

As you got older, your father started to teach you things like how to fight, lead, maintain order, and hold a position of power through fear. Most importantly, he taught you that love was weakness, which is probably why he never showed any toward you. In a world like yours there was no time or opportunity for friends and certainly not for love. It wasn't like you were completely inexperienced though..There had been nights spent under the protection of darkness in hidden corners of the palace that involved racing heartbeats and forbidden touches. They were nights shared with guards in training or kitchen hands that you barely knew and none of them ever stayed. You didn't let them, for fear of what your father might do to them if he found out. Love was weakness, so you vowed never to let it get that far.

You did everything that was asked of you because you had no reason not to trust your father. Because you had no reason to question the things he told you about how the world works. Because blood is supposed to be able to trust blood, right? And he was all you had ever known, so you followed him blindly. You let him mold and shape you into a carbon copy of himself, until you couldn't ignore it anymore. A sinking feeling deep within you that what you understood about the way the world works was very wrong.

Lately, something had changed within you. You started to crave the truth. You needed real answers to your questions about the surrounding districts and it became clear that you weren't going to find them inside the palace walls. It was then that you decided you would do whatever it took to get them for yourself.

You knew the walls of the palace like the back of your own hand, including the labyrinth of underground tunnels beneath it. You had played in the tunnels as a child and were later taught to use them in an emergency in case a rebellion against your father were to succeed, not that he would let that happen. He was a busy man and spent the majority of his time locked away in secrecy behind closed doors, in the company of his most trusted military generals or advisors. Although he kept a close eye on you, he couldn't be with you all hours of the day and neither could his guards. With all of the training you had received, you were quite good at hiding from them when you didn't want to be found. When you have to be hidden from the world, you get used to blending in with the shadows. You become good at it.

As a result, over the past few weeks you made it a habit of sneaking out at night through the tunnels, beyond the palace and the Inner Circle. Under the protection of darkness and your hidden identity. In doing so, you were finally able to uncover some answers, although you had a feeling you had just barely begun to scratch the surface of the truth.

From the moment you stepped foot onto the cracked streets of the surrounding districts, it became very clear that the things you had always thought to be normal were a luxury beyond District 9. Despite having been kept hidden for your entire life, you knew that you had been born lucky. You just hadn't realized how lucky.

Wherever you went, light from burning fires flickered through the darkness in between broken walls, keeping people who huddled inside them warm. The guilt reached through you to your bones when you met dirty faces and sunken, tired eyes in the shadows of the night.

You hadn't expected the deep rooted hatred that the people had for your father in the surrounding districts, but you quickly came to understand it. You learned that the majority of the resources produced by the other districts and the little that was farmed from the desolate land was collected and kept for District 9. It was distributed among it's incredibly selfish inhabitants, which also happened to include yourself, although you didn't know it until now. They were considered the most "important" members of society, while those beyond were left to survive off of the bare minimum.

The people blamed your father and the generations of your family before him. They blamed the fortunate society members of District 9, and if they tried to rebel they would be labeled as traitors and publicly executed under the order of your father. They had a right to be angry. You were angry for them. You had no idea that this is how things were and you probably wouldn't have believed it until you saw it for yourself. The colorful picture your father had painted of a loving people who looked to him to protect them, take care of them, and keep them safe turned black in your mind.

The farthest out you could make it on foot in one night was District 7. Much beyond that and you wouldn't be able to get back to the palace in time before daybreak. You were also hesitant to go any further because of the possibility of what, or who, lie waiting in the districts beyond. You heard enough from rumors in passing about dangerous clans and bands of thieves who roamed the more remote districts. They wouldn't hesitate to cut the throat of an innocent for a piece of bread, a pair of shoes, or just because they felt like it.

Of course, Districts 8 and 7 didn't compare to the Inner Circle by any means, but at least some skeleton of a society lingered there. Many of the buildings still stood, although their walls were weathered and broken down. Thick grass wove in between cracks like stitches holding them up. Some buildings housed small "shops" where families would trade or sell anything they could scavenge the material to make, just trying to earn enough coins for scraps of food or a blanket to keep warm. There were "schools" held in large dirt fields where children used sticks to draw in the mud. There was a tavern that you liked to visit in District 7 that was almost always empty, but the beer was…drinkable and the bartender was kind.

There was no running water so it had to be collected on foot. No electricity. No rent to pay because nobody owned homes, they just settled where they could. Trading coins between each other for whatever goods they could get their hands on. The roads were so weathered and broken that it didn’t really matter that there were no cars, aside from the occasional military vehicle that passed through the landscape carrying your fathers guards. Always patrolling, always watching. You had a few close encounters with them on your outings, although you had managed to remain unseen thanks to the shadows cast by the moon.

Many of the people from the outer districts spent their days in fields, growing whatever they could from the desolate land. They were paid sparingly by your fathers guards when they came in military vehicles to collect the produce. Many of them didn't work at all, trying to survive and live off of the land themselves. Some travelled on foot between the districts to scavenge for anything to keep their loved ones alive. But it came with a price, the further out you went the more dangerous and less civilized things became. The less life there was, no matter how many humans you ran into. At the edge of it all lie District 1, mostly made up of prisons that held those lucky enough to be left alive by your father. Although, you had a feeling that if you asked them they wouldn't consider themselves very lucky at all.

Tonight, you made your way out through the tunnels wearing clothes borrowed from your only friend Jisoo, a palace maid that you had grown up with. As soon as you stepped off of the palace grounds, your ears were met with only the sounds of your heavy breathing and your feet as they hit the earth. You were a good runner and welcomed the fresh air as it burned your lungs. You ran miles until you found yourself somewhere in District 7 once again. It was a little further out than you usually went, in an area where you probably shouldn't have been.

You stopped at a quiet candlelit tavern with a hanging sign that displayed scribbled writing promising "fresh" water and beer to those that could spare a few coins. The only other person in the small space aside from the bartender was an older man with a gray beard and tattered clothes, slumped over across from you at the other end of the bar.

You stayed a while before tossing the bartender a handful of extra coins to pay for the man’s drink, and a very generous tip. Before he could inquire further about how a young girl like you had come to possess so many coins, you got up and exited the building through the missing doorway. The moonlight welcomed you and the gentle breeze felt good against your skin, sticky from air that was always humid and thick. It was rare to feel a breeze at all so you dropped your hood, closing your eyes. You put your head up to let it settle against you. The light from the moon shined so bright through the clouds that you could almost feel it on your skin, reaching out to envelop you.

After a moment you continued on, leaving your hood down, it’s not like anyone would recognize you anyway. You turned the corner and found yourself at the entrance of a quiet alley where the gravel crunched beneath your feet. Thoughts ran back and forth through your mind as you desperately tried to come up with any way that you could use your position to help the people outside of the Inner Circle. It seemed impossible. You could try to reason with your father but as soon as you revealed what you knew and how you came to know it, he would probably lock you up forever. After all, there were very few people that knew of your existence and you doubted that anyone except for Jisoo would miss you…

“Shit..” you mumbled to yourself after realizing that you had gotten so lost in thought you hadn't been paying attention to the time as it passed. You were definitely going to have to sprint now to make it back to the palace in time before the sun began to rise and someone noticed your absence. After stretching your already tired legs, you turned to start the long journey back but before you could take another step, a dark figure came running around the corner into the alley at full speed.

When he saw you he stopped in his tracks, sliding on the gravel. Underneath a yellow hanging lantern and the light from the moon you could make out the surprise on his face. He obviously hadn’t expected to cross paths with some girl alone in the middle of the night on the way to wherever he was going so quickly. His entrance was so abrupt and brought so much tension to the air that you froze in place, staring back at him with your mouth open slightly.

The boy was wearing a hood, his face partially hidden in the dim glow of the lantern. Despite that, he seemed to be around your age and even in the shadows his features were undeniably attractive. He had dark hair with long strands that fell loosely into piercing brown eyes. You noticed a black bandana wrapped tightly around one of his arms, however you couldn't bother to take your eyes from his to get a better look at it.

You stood facing each other, both unsure of your next move, when a group of voices echoed from somewhere in the distance. The voices were followed by muffled footsteps drawing near. Shifting uncomfortably, the boy in front of you quickly untied the banana wrapped around his arm and put it into pocket of his black hoodie. The pounding footsteps and harsh voices behind him turned into shouts that grew louder with every second.

With swift movement he turned to look behind him and then back to you. As if something gave him an idea, he began to walk toward you. Your eyes widened further with every step he took, until there was less than an arm's length left between you. You didn't even have time to reach for the knife hidden in your waistband before he took his hood down and grabbed your shoulders. His touch was surprisingly gentle as you let him push you slowly into the wall behind you. Still breathing heavily from the chase and even closer now, his breath fell hot against your lips. Trapping you underneath his gaze, he kept his eyes on yours for a moment as if he was searching for something in them, before lowering his head. Without warning, he crashed his lips onto yours.

Your first instinct was to shove him off of you but the way that his soft lips moved against your own, the way they tasted, had something inside of you craving more.

You had been kissed before but never like this.

The men who had been chasing him finally made their way to the entrance of the alley where they stopped. His back was to them but you could see them well enough through half lidded eyes to spot your family crest on their uniforms. They were your fathers soldiers with large guns held in their arms. You wondered what they could possibly be doing out here in District 7 so late at night, chasing after the boy who currently had his lips pressed tightly to yours. Whatever it was, it didn't look like they were planning to let him live once they caught him.

Before they had time to recognize you, or the boy they had been chasing, you put your fingers in his hair and pulled him closer. He followed your lead and moved his hands to your waist, deepening the kiss and completely blocking their view. Cold rings on his fingers pressed into bare skin where your shirt had lifted up slightly. His tongue ran across your bottom lip and you tightened your fingers in his hair. A deep sound from somewhere within his chest escaped his lips when you pulled on the roots.

The kiss had absolutely consumed you. It was captivating, magnetic. So much so that you had forgotten your surroundings entirely, until you heard movement at the front of the alley. The guards must have decided that you were just two drunk lovers who had stumbled out of the nearby tavern moments before, because after one of them shouted something that you couldn't quite comprehend over the pounding of your heart in your ears, they began to move again. Raising their weapons and storming off, leaving you alone with the boy in the alley.

The kiss lasted a little longer than it needed to before you pulled away, pushing him off of you, taking note of the way his toned muscles tensed underneath your hands. You just hoped it was dark enough that he couldn't see the way your cheeks flushed.

He seemed a bit surprised and you were sure it was because he probably hadn't expected you to kiss him back, especially not the way that you did. After turning to make sure that the soldiers had gone, he looked back to you. Your faces were still only a few inches apart despite you breaking the kiss, and his appeared as though it had been hand carved by some higher power above. It was the first time you had looked at his features well enough to appreciate the freckles that decorated the soft skin underneath his eyes. Eyes that held a sort of intensity that you couldn’t even begin to describe.

There was something in them that pierced all the way through you to your soul. A kind of familiarity almost, that you couldn’t quite discern, but god did the way he was looking at you right now make you certain you would have done anything for him in that moment. No matter the cost. He hesitantly brought his thumb up to run it over your bottom lip, wiping his own saliva and the kiss off with it. You thought briefly that he might lean down to kiss you again and you probably would have let him, although you'd never admit it.

Instead, he spoke.

"Thanks." His voice came out barely above a whisper but it shattered the silence.

It was much deeper than you had expected, sending chills up your spine. You also detected the faintest hint of an accent, leading you to believe that he wasn't from anywhere around here at all. Accents varied the further out you went from the Inner Circle and his was noticeable with just the one word.

He lingered for a moment there with his thumb on your lips before stepping back, pulling his hood up. Without another word or giving you the chance to respond, he turned to go.

His pace picked up into a jog as he made his way around the corner, out of the alley, and back the way he came. You stood there staring into the darkness until the sound of his footsteps faded into the night, trying to make sense of what the hell just happened.

Only his taste on your tongue to remember him by, along with a sinking feeling that your world would never be the same.

It had been exactly 2 weeks since you crossed paths with the boy in the alley and it had been exactly 2 weeks that you hadn't stopped thinking about him. The unfamiliar sense of safety that you felt underneath his piercing gaze. His freckles that you took note of only after your faces were just inches apart. His plush lips and the way they felt against your own. His voice. You traced your fingertips along your lips, moving them down to where he had gently gripped your shoulders before leaning down to kiss you. When you closed your eyes you could feel his touch, permanently burned into your skin.

You hadn't gone outside of the palace grounds since that night for fear that you'd see him again. Or maybe you were afraid to admit that you hoped you would. Why had he been running from your fathers guards? They wouldn't have been there unless it was serious as they only became involved in something when it was directly related to your father and his orders.

Did you do the right thing in helping him to hide from them? Right and wrong were so muddled in your head at this point that you weren’t sure if it even mattered anymore. You weren't even sure if you were capable of doing the right thing considering the blood that ran through your veins.

One thing you were sure about is that in that moment something was pulling at you to keep him safe. Something bigger than right and wrong.

Sighing, you got out of bed, the sky was still dark in the morning hour, the palace ground cold under your feet. Today wasn't just any day, it was one you had been dreading. It was the day that your father had planned to throw a grand ball at the palace where he was going to finally reveal you to his most trusted advisors and the rich society members of the Inner Circle. Up until now, the only people who knew of your existence were within the palace walls. The staff, your father's army, guards, your trainers and tutors, all sworn to secrecy. Up until now, you were a ghost in the palace, regardless of your position as his daughter. But that was about to change.

Your father had decided that it was time for you to have a larger part in ruling the 9 districts beside him, and to do so you would need to be officially introduced to the world.

Was he finally going to tell you the truth? That he wasn't the righteous leader that he claimed to be, but a ruthless monster who stole resources and left innocent people to fend for themselves beyond District 9. Would he tell you the price he continuously paid to destroy anyone and anything that threatened his authority?

No, he wouldn't. As long as he lived, he wouldn't.

Even though he wanted you to stand beside him now, you knew that it was just for show. Even after your face was revealed, your influence in how things were run would remain nonexistent.

You had accepted it. You accepted the fact that all you could do for now was play along until you could come up with some way to use your position to help the people outside, but you didn't even know where to start. Sure, becoming leader of the 9 districts some day after your father was gone would allow you to change things, but you didn't have time to wait that long. They couldn't wait that long.

Letting out a frustrated groan you rubbed your temples, feeling a headache already coming on. You just had to focus on tonight and get through the ball despite the fact that the thought of so many eyes on you, permanently associating you with your father and his regime, made your skin crawl.

You stepped into the corridor outside of your bedroom after freshening up and gave a small wave to Jisoo who looked even more stressed than usual as she buzzed by you. Her arms were full of lavish decor to set up for the festivities. As you moved through the palace, staff hustled around you making their way to the grand hall where they were setting out desserts alongside rarities including fresh cuts of meat, cheeses, and drinks with real fruit in them. It made you sick to think that nearly everything being used to set up for tonight had been taken from the surrounding districts. You wished you could give it all back to them. To the starving families. To the old bartender who had been kind to you in District 7. To the boy with the freckled face that you kissed in the alley outside of it.

You wondered what life was like for him. Was he hungry? Did he have somewhere safe to sleep at night? A family to protect? You shook your head as if the action would help you to physically push him out of your thoughts.

But he was persistent.

The day passed quickly and before you knew it you were being poked and prodded into an extravagant red gown with a tight corset that made it difficult to breathe.

"I dont understand why we need to make such a big deal of this..” You complained to Jisoo as she put the finishing touches on your hair after the others had left.

"You know...I bet your father is going to keep an eye out for potential suitors…" she trailed off, giving you a soft smile.

“What do you mean?" you inquired, eyes wide. And Jisoo laughed.

"For marriage! He's going to want to pick someone for you who will be an asset to your family in the future. To help you keep the districts in order after he's gone. I hear there's plenty of matches lined up and just wait until they see you."

She was right, you did feel pretty in the dress despite how incredibly uncomfortable it was. But how could you even pretend to care about any of this right now, let alone marriage to some stranger who, for all you knew, could be even worse than your father. If that was even possible.

"Before tonight my existence was just a rumor..How can any of them want to marry me!?" you asserted.

"When your father is…." she trailed off again clearly trying to come up with the right words to use. "-when your father is who he is, do you think it really matters to them who you are?"

One thing about Jisoo is that she was never afraid to tell you what she thought. Unlike the rest of the staff in the palace, who walked on eggshells around you because of their fear of your father.

You fell silent after that, contemplating her words. After putting the finishing touches on your hair she gave you a tight hug and left to allow you a moment to yourself before the ball. You wondered what your life would be like if you were married and your goal of finding some way to help the people outside felt even further away.

Somehow the boy from the alley made his way back into your mind. A life with him certainly wouldn't involve tight corsets and suffocating lies. But then again, you didn't even know him. He was just a fleeting moment. A glimpse of something beyond the life you had always known, and while your lingering thoughts of him were a welcome escape from reality, they would fade with time.

He had probably already forgotten about you.

Later that evening you stepped out atop the grand staircase overlooking the great hall. Although the space had always been one of your favorites, it was exceptionally breathtaking tonight. The hall was like a breezeway, connecting two main parts of the castle. It was made entirely of glass, including a glass ceiling that you could see the night sky through. The warm golden lighting and massive chandelier added to the beauty of the space underneath. You noted the higher than usual number of armed guards on duty as they lined the hall, dressed in black with large guns rested in their arms.

At the start of the event your father had joined you at the top of the staircase above the growing crowd below. He was as stoic as ever in a sleek black suit and it was the first time you had seen him in a few days. He was always so busy that it wasn’t rare for a week or two to go by without speaking to him at all. Lately he seemed even more distracted.

Shortly after he joined you he began to speak to the crowd below, thanking them for their presence tonight at this monumental occasion. Voice commanding, expression devoid of all genuine emotion. Although tonight may have looked like a celebration on the outside, it was all business to him, all everything ever was. You looked out over the citizens of District 9 gathered below in their flashy outfits and eccentric hairstyles. Some of them wearing the only jewels and diamonds left in the world. You cringed when they clapped and cheered for you, the future leader of the 9 districts.

It was going to be a long night.

After the speech ended (and the exaggerated applause died down) you reluctantly made your way down the stairs. You maintained composure just as your father had instructed and he tightened his grip on your shoulder if you spoke too much to the eager guests. You were to come off as refined and elegant but authoritative and commanding, like him. It was of the utmost importance that you portrayed that tonight as it was the first time that you were meeting with anyone from the public and you needed to earn their respect, not that you actually cared what they thought of you. You would never be allowed to show the side of yourself to them that you showed to Jisoo. You rolled your eyes to her across the room behind your fathers back throughout the night, sharing silent laughter, as she made sure that the guests glasses stayed full of wine. Jisoo was your only friend and the only one who really knew who you were, but even she didn't know everything.

As the hours dragged on you were paraded around and introduced to all of the most important faces and names in District 9. You thought your wrist might actually fall off if you had to grab onto one more sweaty hand of a boy your age far too eager to touch you and personally introduce himself to your father.

Just as you decided that you physically couldn't take it any more and were going to need to find a moment to slip away before you actually lost your mind, the lights flickered.

They flashed on and off for a moment before going out completely.

The hall fell dark for no more than 10 seconds, illuminated only by the moon and the candles dispersed throughout. Haunting silence flooded the space.

When the lights returned whispers began to spread through the hall like wildfire. Your fathers guards shifted uncomfortably, hands falling to their weapons. You noticed a few of them make it a point to pick you out of the crowd, locking their eyes on you. Your father was across the hall where he had been engrossed in a conversation with a short man sporting a leopard print coat that touched the floor. You watched him scowl and excuse himself from the man, moving with urgency toward a small group of guards nearest to him, not bothering to look for you.

Before you had a chance to process what happened next, a deafening sound spread across the hall like thunder. The vibration was so strong that it shook the floor beneath your feet, shattering a pane of glass from the ceiling above. It was as if time had stopped with all eyes trained on the falling glass and then, like turning on a switch, the pieces shattered against ground and chaos ensued.

The next thing you registered was what sounded like muffled gunfire, followed by the glass walls of the hall shattering to pieces around you. Smoke began to fill the room from cans that were thrown in from the darkness outside, through broken spaces in the glass.

Shortly after the smoke began to collect, six..seven..maybe eight figures dressed in all black with bandanas covering the lower halves of their faces appeared. They rushed in through the broken glass walls, as if they had materialized from the night itself. The intruders moved swiftly, yelling to each other although their voices were barely audible over the screaming civilians.

You fixed your eyes on the bandanas they wore. Why did they look so familiar? Who were they? Where had they come from and how had they even gotten onto the palace grounds, let alone inside it??

Thoughts spiraled inside your head, too stunned by the scene before you to let you move. You caught sight of large guns held by two of the eight boys, one with a stocky muscular build and one that appeared to be leading the group. It was even more surprising when you observed a group of your father's guards run up and make contact with the boys, tossing a couple of them their own guns. You blinked rapidly but it did nothing to erase the scene that played out in front of you. The palace was easily the most heavily guarded place in all 9 Districts, but it had never occurred to you that any of the guards would dare double-cross your father.

Maybe not everyone was as afraid of him as you had thought.

Had they been the ones to help the boys gain access tonight?

The smoke flowed in waves around you, growing heavier as more cans were dropped into the hall from backpacks that a couple of the younger looking boys wore. Civilians screamed and cowered under tables in fear while you stood with your eyes trained on one of the boys in black whose figure looked a little too familiar.

You had to give it to them, the smoke was a smart cover on their part. Visibility in the hall had become so low that your father's men were holding back from shooting at the boys, for fear of striking a civilian.

You kept your eyes trained on the eight as they rushed toward the grand staircase, turning over tables and shooting occasionally at expensive looking objects and the glass around you with their borrowed weapons. They weren't aiming at people and didn't seem to be trying to hurt anyone. It was almost as if they just wanted to spread fear, feeding the chaos. Fights broke out between your fathers guards and it was incredibly confusing because you couldn't be sure which side any of them were on at this point.

Between the smoke, fighting between guards, occasional gunfire, and scrambling civilians, the boys succeeded in making their way to the top of the staircase. When they did, you witnessed two of them break from the group, the apparent leader and his well-built counterpart from earlier. As if it had been carefully scripted, the two quickly left and broke into a run heading deeper into the palace.

The guards below remained focused on each other, your father nowhere to be seen. The six boys left at the top of the staircase turned and pulled out objects from their backpacks. The objects they withdrew looked like tubes that they opened to slide out large banners. Each banner was dropped over the staircase landing, and together they displayed a message. The words painted in red.

TURN EVERYTHING UPSIDE DOWN

THERE IS NO PLACE FOR YOU HERE ANYMORE

THIS IS OUR DISTRICT NOW

Your eyes widened and you turned to look for your father, a guard, anyone, to see some kind of reaction but at this point the air was so thick that you could barely make out the writing on banners that had been dropped. The only reason you could see them through the smoke was because you were so close to the bottom of the stairs. It was obvious that the banners were meant to remain to be seen when the smoke cleared. It was a message to your father and the citizens of District 9, a message to you.

Just as quickly as they had dropped the banners, the remaining boys were joined by the other two, returning from wherever they had gone within the palace. They shared a quick word between themselves and with a command from their apparent leader, they began to urgently make their way back down the staircase.

Civilians continued to scramble and claw their way around you in panic. Emerging from the smoke, a large burly man covered in purple silk robes ran into you while trying to make his own escape. He crashed forcefully into your shoulder without looking back, causing you to stumble on your dress. Unable to regain your balance, you fell into the person running by you on the other side. They caught you before you hit the ground, letting out a deep grunt when you collided. When you looked up to meet their eyes your mouth dropped.

The air was ripped from your lungs when you made eye contact with the boy who had kissed you in the alley two weeks ago. He was dressed in all black like the others, with a bandana covering the lower half of his face and a heavy weapon strapped to his back. Even with half of his face hidden, you would have recognized the look in his eyes anywhere. He quite literally hadn't left your mind since that night, and here you were in his arms now.

He was one of the eight.

Still in disbelief, you moved quickly out of his hold, standing up to get a better look at him. He didn't seem to recognize you at first but when he pulled down the bandana to take a breath you saw his expression change from confusion to realization.

You held his eye contact wearing the same dumbfounded expression on your face and you knew. You knew. There was no doubt in your mind that it was him. His freckles had been revealed when he pulled down the bandana, the same one he had been wearing around his arm that night you first met. The dark brown hair that fell down into his eyes was pulled up at the back. When his gaze fell to your family crest on the necklace you wore, realization that he hadn't just kissed some random girl that night but the daughter of the most powerful man in all 9 districts spread over his face. You swear you saw the faintest hint of a smirk make its way across his lips when he looked up at you.

His eyes held a different sort of intensity compared to when you first met. There was something dangerous within them now and although you had been confident that he wouldn't hurt you that night in the alley, you weren't so sure that was the case anymore.

For a moment he looked as if he was going to say something to you. Hip lips parted slightly but before he could speak, one of your fathers guards came up behind you and grabbed your arm tightly, pulling you with such force that you jerked back. The guard pushed your head down and began to drag you with him. You struggled in his grasp to turn your head, watching as the boy from the alley stepped forward. He seemed to briefly contemplate following you, but again before he had the chance to move any further, another one of the eight emerged from the smoke. They began shaking his shoulder to gain his attention.

"FELIX! Can't you hear me?! What are you doing?! They're everywhere man we need to go NOW"

Felix.

Snapping back to reality, he quickly replaced the bandana over his face and tore his eyes from yours. They turned to make their way back to join the others when the boy, that you now knew to be named Felix, narrowly dodged a bullet as it whipped by his head. You moved to see where it came from and yelled at the guard who had hold of your arm moments before, his gun now raised beside you.

"Are you crazy?! You could hurt a civilian!"

Of course, you didn't actually care much about the civilians scrambling around you. It was just that you swore you felt your heart stop when the bullet barely missed Felix's head.

The guard ignored your words and went to aim at the boys again but before you even had time to think about what you were doing, you moved and stepped in front of him. The cool barrel of the gun pressed against your skin. You turned around where Felix met your gaze again. His eyebrows arched in surprise, obviously taking note of you putting yourself between him and the gun. To anyone on the outside it would have looked like you were protecting him.

Were you protecting him?

You mouthed "go" and if you had blinked you would have missed the nod he gave you in return. Without wasting another second to risk being shot at again, he spun around, following his comrade into the smoke. They moved quickly out of sight with a herd of your fathers men running after them. Many of the guards from earlier that appeared to have been working with the boys lay motionless on the ground now.

The guard beside you dropped his gun and replaced his death grip on your arm, dragging you with him once again. He was furious that you had ruined his shot, however he still had the chance to do something worth being recognized by your father if he was the one to get you to safety.

You looked back at the hall in the hopes of catching one last glimpse of Felix, but he and the others were already long gone. They would have escaped back the way they came, through the shattered glass walls, with your fathers men close on their heels. They were probably being hunted right now in the darkness outside.

Please. Please just let them make it out.

You begged with your thoughts to whatever higher power might be listening in. You couldn't explain it but you needed them to make it out alive. For some reason, the thought of a lifeless Felix joining the other bodies that lay motionless on the ground made your stomach churn.

The thought of him being dragged back alive for your father to deal with made it worse.

The guard turned a corner with your arm still in his grasp and the sounds from the hall faded with every step you took. He made his way down the corridor before throwing you into a room at the end, locking the door behind him. You shook the knob but it was no use. Sliding your back down the door you sat crumpled against it, your red dress spread out around you.

None of it made sense. Why would the boys risk their lives to send a message? Then again maybe it wasn't about the message at all. You remembered when two of them left the group after making it to the top of the stairs, heading briefly into the palace. Had the banners and the chaos they created actually been meant to act as a distraction? If that was the case, why had they really been here tonight? How had they even come into contact with your fathers guards outside of the palace and how had they convinced some of them to betray him?

Why was he with them?

Felix.

His name rolled off of your tongue. He was the enemy. You knew that. You should know that. But something made you step in front of a loaded gun to keep him safe tonight.

Maybe you weren’t on opposing sides. After all, you didn't really have a side anymore anyway…Not that he would know that. As far as he knew, you were just like the rest of them.

After what felt like hours of sitting on the floor with your head in your hands, you were about to doze off when the lock opened with a swift click behind you. You stood immediately, backing away when the door opened and you were met with the same guard from earlier who had locked you in the small room.

“Its over. I’ve been instructed to take you to your quarters until further notice. The palace is on lockdown.” He motioned for you to come out, clearly irritated that he had been the one sent to collect you.

“My father-“

“-is alive” he cut you off. “And no, I didn’t tell him what you did getting in front of my shot like that. Stupid girl. It would have been worth the civilian risk to get at least one of those bastards,” he huffed.

Did his words mean that they made it out alive? You made a point to mask any trace of concern in your voice when you spoke.

“They got away?” you paused before adding “all of them?”

“Yes all of them. All eight. They had a vehicle waiting just outside of the palace gates and they were gone before we could get to any of ours. How the hell they got access to one of our vehicles and convinced some of our own men to double cross your father nobody knows. At least the traitors got what they deserved.”

You shuddered looking away. The men that had betrayed your father must have known their fate was inevitable, and yet they thought whoever those eight boys were and what they stood for was worth sacrificing their lives.

You turned back to the guard as he spoke again, putting on your best attempt at masking the relief that washed over you when you heard the boys had made it out safely. All of them.

“As for the eight rebels we will find them. Under order of your father we will find every single one of them and I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes when he gets his hands on ‘em. Now come on, I said let’s go.”

The tone in his voice told you that you weren’t going to get anything else out of him right now, he wasn’t exactly your biggest fan to begin with, so you stepped out through the doorway. Your footsteps were the only sound, echoing throughout the eerily silent corridors while the two of you made your way through the palace. Up stone steps, you walked deeper in the direction of your bedroom.

Only one thing remained on your mind as you replayed the events of tonight over and over in your head.

Him.

Felix.

You couldn’t ignore that from the moment he disappeared tonight, part of you desperately hoped you would see him again. You were afraid the same part of you would be willing to do whatever it took to make sure that you did, and that terrified you more than anything in this world ever had.

Part 2

#lee felix #lee felix x reader #felix x reader #stray kids fanfic #stray kids au #lee felix au #stray kids fanfiction #skz angst #stray kids angst #lee felix angst #stray kids x reader

[hothammies]

just wanted to say I'm really liking this au so far, mike's character breakdown is so fun and I just wanted to thank you for a part of it! when I first read that he wasn't good with guns I deflated a little because I thought oh, it's another incompetent mike and macho will situation 😞 but the fact he's not good with guns because that's a NERF, and he's otherwise actually competent, respectable, intelligent, commanding, just - mike wheeler himself - made me really happy! that's a fun take, and I appreciated the effort in how you used the dnd charts etc too it's so cool!

it makes me look forward to the other character intros, and I already loved how sweet will looked in the party line up art even while holding a gun 😂 idk if you plan to have him only embrace the skill because it's necessary and not entirely what he likes, or something else, but I just liked that kinda contrast in the art regardless it made me giggle

oh also: "would never hesitate to do something deplorable to protect the party: family first" <- iconic. I can see the ruthlessness already I love you mike that's our leader, kind badass boy

this ask made me squeal and kick my feet like five times so thank you for that LMAO

i'm so happy that you (and others) have been enjoying the mike characterization i've put out for this au :"D i put a ton of thought into all of them and i'm having a lot of fun! mike in canon seems to be one of the most intelligent characters in the show, closely rivaled to dustin in making plans and having them go right, so him being incompetent is like an oxymoron.

there's a reason he's the leader of the group, and when people paint him as incompetent and / or babygirlified (in the "damsel, innocent, weak, must protect" sense) because he's played by finn or because he has terrible physical capabilities, it kinda makes me annoyed. so what if he's weak physically? he's still the one who actively squares up to people even when he knows he's about to get his ass beat :P he is the one who puts everything into action. his intuition and plans are correct most, if not all the time, and it pisses me off when people undermine that to try to fit him into someone who needs to be saved.

of course, in this au, his weaknesses more lie in his emotional incapabilities rather than survival. he isn't the best physically either, but that doesn't mean he can't do anything (its the apocalypse - he had to have learned something at some point).

the pressure that bears down on him in this au isn't based on society, and more related to the fact that he sees himself as the sole "caretaker" for the group. being put in charge of the lives of five other people followed by your own is scary as hell, and he doesn't really have an outlet for the pressure he faces until he enters that fwb relationship with will. that's an entirely different can of worms though so i'll stop with that for now!

i'm actually so happy that you mentioned how sweet i drew will in his design <3 will's character sheet will be posted tmrw so hopefully it will make sense why i drew him the way i did. i hope that my explanation regarding the rifle makes sense and does his character justice! him being good with guns was also a way for him to bond with lucas and explore his character a bit - it'll be explained later :O

and abt that last line regarding his ruthlessness... in all of the group's backstories, they all had people outside of the party that very much helped shape their identity and how they act. all i'll say is that mike is very much influenced by nancy in the moral compass department >:)

#and thank you for this ask again anon it made me smile very hard #byler #ask #st apoc au #sammi's brain was used #<- using this tag just bc it has a bit of canon char analysis in it

[kylekirkwoods]

‘If you have questions the asks are open’ you know what I’m about to ask about o7, beautiful woman and her man who has never combed his hair. Or tbh any of your other wips I like hearing people talk about their wips :3c

(I was half tempted to just dm you but you said asks so ask it is >:))

erika, you've given me the amazing opportunity to rant about my wips/fics so i am going to utilize it. i'll tell you about the beautiful woman and her man who has never combed his hair first, and everything else below the cut (for context, here is that wip summary poll). :DDDDDD

beautiful woman and her man who has never combed his hair this is my wag au for the fest!!!! i have talked to many a friend (including you) about this wip, and everyone seems to be very excited which i am happy about :)) basically, it's loscar with trans girl logan as the wag. they're very sweet and in love and it is simultaneously annoying and adorable to all of their friends. the main cast also includes max fewtrell (my beloved) as oscar's teammate at mclaren, lando norris as logan's bestie and max's wag, fred vesti as the most amazing supportive friend anyone could ask for, and a few other things that i am still working out (lawnsonoda is a very real thing that may or may not be included in this fic). i plan for it to be a semi linear narrative, by having the 2023 f1 season as the main thing but with flashbacks, social media, and other things sprinkled throughout. you have seen some of my outrageous planning and this will be a behemoth when i am done. i'm so excited!!!!!

gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss, george russell <3 imagine with me: george russell was born georgiana russell. so she's like if irl george was 50 times more neurotic and worried about what people thought of her. it will also be secret relationship gax (gasp... tuser gaxpodium writing gax... crazy...) and overprotective girl dad toto.

can the ghost of enzo ferrari fix my relationship? catholicism and being italian go hand in hand, so we're translating that religious fervor into f1. teams have a patron god (usually someone important to that brand or team) and surprise surprise, enzo ferrari is the patron god of the scuderia ferrari f1 team. your fealty and worship to your patron god will greatly impact your race results. this is angst central, with deeply heavy lore, so it will take me a while. and it focuses mainly on sewis and charlos (and how they deal with the whole "ferrari chewed me up and spit me out and you're still worshiping him" thing)

first a fan, then a teammate, then things got really mushy anyone else deeply impacted by leaf's dando video edit to "love of my life" by harry styles? no, only me? but i'm serious, this is entirely based on my visceral and life-changing reaction to that video. it changed me as a person...

uptight british bitch versus kind-of-rude dutch dickhead actually the first bit of rpf i ever wrote. it started as an assignment for my fiction 1 class (crazy...) and will probably be pretty short when i actually post it (no more than 10k words probably). it's a two part canon compliant gax fic, one part from george's perspective and one from max's. there's not much to say about this one since there's very little planning for it lol

what if three guys were in love but they were all stupid about it? it's geochalex. i feel like this should be obvious for me, but the three guys who are stupid and in love? geochalex. my notes rn for this fic mainly consist of the words "geochalex miscommunication!!!!!!!" so like yeah, that's the stupid right there

there are a few other wips/ideas that i forgot about when making the poll including a chalex apocalypse au that is inspired by the last of us (and also written for my fiction 1 class)

#*g.ask #alpinelogy #erika💖 #rpf #hehehe read my writing ideas >:)))))

[xyziiix]

Pairings: Daryl Dixon x Fem!Reader , future! Joel Miller x Fem!Reader. (mention of a one sided!Negan x Fem’Reader)

TWD AU w/ slight TLOU crossover.

Summary: your family is in the middle of war with the saviours. After beating two of your beloved friends to death Negan took an attraction towards you at the line up - being even more intrigued when he saw the evident relationship you had with the rugged archer. His life being spared in return for you to join Negan’s polygamy of ‘wives’. And after two weeks of mental torture, you had ensured Daryl had escaped the sanctuary, with the help of Negan’s other wives - a group of miserable women who’d been blackmailed by him for various different reasons - before you managed to flee the cataclysmic fortress and merely escaped the gluttonous hands of Negan.

But choices have consequences - the monster would quote more than once.

You proudly stand beside your group, your family, your lover, and the other communities that had befallen Negan’s wrath. But soon the dark thoughts cloud over, the things you had to experience with your ‘husband’ tainting your mind, making you question your morals as you thought of how far you’d go to eliminate every last one of the ‘saviours’ - including Negan.

Warnings for this series: death, gore, suicidal thoughts, morally-grey reader, SMUT, angst, violence, language, mentions of !SA/dub-con!, reader is described as a woman, cheating - some of this shit is dark m’kay..

MINORS OR PEOPLE SENSITIVE TO ANY OF THESE LISTED TOPICS DNI!!

Important

A/N: hi guys new series yippeee!!! Daryl Dixon is my first love so I absa-fuckin-loutely needed to write a series about him, tho I am abit fucked up so I could not let myself write it as all sparkly and magic and happy… this may look familiar to some of you when I released about three chapters of a story called ‘Just us’ with basically the same plot. But I’d like to think my writing has evolved since then so I scrapped it and am starting again, the reason I couldn’t continue it was because I felt like I’d started the story in an awkward place and if I carried on It’d just be such a drag until we got to the good bits. So it’s basically the same story but starting from a different position and with much more grammatically correct writing lol.

As for the Joel Miller part of the story, he is my 2nd apocalypse husband and the way I’ve planned this series is going to involve him and Ellie perfectly I reckon.

And I know it’s such a cliche to have Negan be attracted to reader, I’m not trying to make her as his very desirable character who everyone wants to fuck. But it’s all for the plot OK.

This Masterlist is going to be tagged under all the characters mentioned (Joel and Ellie) but they won’t be coming in until much later on in the series so for any chapters being released will obviously be under the ‘Daryl Dixon’ tags. - until they’re involved and they will have they’re appropriate categorising - I just don’t wanna post like 20 chapters of Daryl Dixon under the ‘Joel miller x reader’ tag haha.

I WILL STILL BE WRITING MY ARTHUR MORGAN SERIES DO NOT FRET!!!

chapters:

[1] (W.I.P) 👷

#daryl dixon #daryl dixon x reader #the walking dead #negan smith #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller #the last of us

[kayas-kosmos]

Ko-Fi Challenge - 2024, the Year of Solarpunk!

[This post is intended for the Ko-Fi January 2024 challenge. However, I receive an error message every time I try to post this blog on Ko-Fi so I am uploading it here instead. I therefore don't know if I will quality for the challenge since I cannot get my posts to work, but it's worth a shot].

Hello everyone, I hope you are all having a great start to the year!

I have decided to dip my toes into the Ko-Fi January challenge and let everyone know about my plans for this year. Really, I only have one plan – Do something small every day to make the world a better place. But I plan to go about doing this in a big way.

The last several years have been extremely troubling with a lot of catastrophic Global crises happening on a daily basis. It's all around us and it feels inescapable. People are tired of the constant flood of bad news, they're tired of doomscrolling and they're tired of the deluge of films that portray some different flavour of the apocalypse. Even us artists can't escape into our art for comfort anymore because of the constant spectre of AI technology threatening to make our work obsolete. The future looks very grim and a lot of people are not looking forward to the year ahead.

That's where "Solarpunk" comes in.

Solarpunk offers an alternative to all of the doom and gloom and presents the idea of a bright future in the face of cataclysm. It is a movement both political and artistic designed to reignite our souls and excite imaginations with ideas rooted in science and observation of the world around us. Even if it is utopian, it's a utopia grounded in what is realistically achievable and the current tools we have at our disposal to succeed.

Here is a short video that gives a great summary of what Solarpunk is all about.

Now you know what Solarpunk is, here is where my art comes into all of this and what I am planning for the year ahead.

Flowerpunk.

The first and most important project I want to launch this year is Flowerpunk.

Flowerpunk is my webcomic that I have been developing since 2020. Taking place in a universe where magic has been reduced to nothing more than a commodity, the magic itself is starting to decay, causing the soul of the world itself to become sick. It is up to a group of punks and outcasts to take back the magic and heal the world of this rot.

For those who haven't seen it yet, I put up a trailer for the webcomic on Webtoon, Tapas and GlobalComix. Please check it out!

These first 9 chapters follow two main characters, Kimi and Ludwig. Kimi is a gentle soul who has a thing for pastel colours and Ludwig is a rebel with a burning spirit and big hopes.

They both have a pretty terrible taste in music as well!

A lot of work has already gone into this project. I have most of the world-building done, there's a whole myriad of magical creatures featuring in this universe and the first part of chapter 1 is only 11 panels away from completion.

Furthermore, Flowerpunk is an IP under a CC BY-NC licence, meaning that you can legally use my characters and creature designs for anything that is not monetised provided that credit is given.

"This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. Credit must be given to the creator. Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted."

To give some examples of what you can do:

~ Make derivative versions of my work (writing, art, AUs, etc...).

~ Make OCs from my species, or use them for your own stories removed from the original universe as long as the work remains non-commercial.

~ Use my creatures or character likeness for RP characters or in DnD/tabletop campaigns.

~ Using my work for any educational purposes (such as copying a drawing for an art study).

I want this project not just to tell a story of radical hope, but to also encourage the creativity of others and their own storytelling projects based in this universe.

But that's not all! Once Flowerpunk launches, this will lead me onto the next part of my plan which is...

Merch.

I would love to launch some new merch to help support Flowerpunk's development, including stickers, pins and most importantly, motivational posters. This image below is the kind of thing I am aiming for:

These posters will also be used on social media to help inspire people to take action and fight for a better world. And speaking of social media...

Social Media, TikTok and Twitch.

I plan to start Twitch streaming my process later in the year and I may even consider inviting guests to do chats and interviews with. This is inspired by the time I appeared on a LumiRue Twitch stream back in March of 2022 and the extremely productive conversation we had about art and activism. I also have shorter videos planned for my TikTok discussing a variety of topics, including Solarpunk (obviously), my webcomic universe, autism and disability and much more!

Recently, I created a Solarpunk feed for Bluesky and I plan to continue contributing more positive news and ideas to this feed. The feed consists of art, videos, book recommendation, games, real-world projects (such as re-wilding projects) and much, much more! The feed has seen a great success so far and I want to continue using it to spread positivity. I may even start inviting people to add their own contributions to the feed!

In Conclusion.

Despite the challenges we face this year, I feel like it's going to be a good one moving forward. There is a lot to look forward to and a lot of cool stuff on the way!

Also, I wanted to take a moment to thank all of the people who have supported me here on Ko-Fi over the years, it really means a lot to me and has helped so much. Even small donations make a huge difference, especially in times like these when things have become so precarious for artists.

Hope you're all excited!

#artists on tumblr #fantasy artist #Solarpunk #Solarpunk Artist #fantasy art #digital art #autistic artist #creature design #character design #Flowerpunk #Flowerpunk Webcomic #Webcomic #Indie comics #Youtube #Ko Fi #Ko Fi Challenge

[catgirlneomatrix]

WIP Game!

Thank you @sugarberryandtea for tagging me in this!

WIP challenge

Go to your current work(s) in progress and share the following.

Time to look at my single long Google doc of half-finished Danger Days fics I wrote months ago (I’m never gonna finish them)

The first line of the work

OC Fic

She was cramped in the corner of the backseat of a car going way too fast through the desert, gear on her lap. The crew in the car were loudly singing along to some Mad Gear song blaring through the radio.

Summer Camp AU

It was the morning of the first day of session 7 of Camp Killjoy, the finest sleep-away summer camp in all the zones, and The fab four were sitting around a table, planning. Party Poison, the UL (or Unit Leader for those of you who have not worked at a Girl Scout camp) was looking at the binder for Apocalypse Adventurers, an apocalypse survival-themed program for middle schoolers. This was the first week The Fab Four got to work together as a group since week one, and they were all stoked.

The last line you wrote

OC Fic

She’d been staying in the diner for a couple of days now.

Summer Camp AU

 “And when your actions lead to a fistfight between 11-year-olds, I will not be the one writing up that incident report.” said Jet

A line for a chapter/part you haven’t written yet.

OC Fic

I haven’t thought that far plot-wise (Why I stopped writing it)

Summer Camp Au

They slowly realize they've just growled a child.  They begin apologizing profusely, but their fellow counselors don’t let them forget it.

Tag at least 3 people whose work you want to see, and if you make a separate post for it, please link back to the original.

I would like to see @princessg3rard, @mothwithpronouns, and I can't think of a third so if you wanna participate then pretend this is u

#danger days #I might post the summer camp au eventually #but i feel like i want more camp experience to pull from before that

[japanifornication]

20 fic questions

i was tagged by @mutxnts thank you ash!!

1. how many works do you have on Ao3?

21, ayyy, one less than ash!!

2. what's your total ao3 word count?

189,718. this does not surprise me.

3. what fandoms do you write for?

ace attorney and very rarely ff7 and the last of us.

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

late night (257 kudos), tasting (121 kudos), finality (114 kudos), alive (91 kudos), distance (88 kudos) all of these are ace attorney, three of them are part of a series lol.

if we want to include my art that i've posted to ao3, holding would actually be in second place, with 218 kudos.

theoretically another fic should be in the top five instead but i left it out because i just don't like it and don't plan to update it again/will prob remove it at some point (it was my first in the fandom, was trying to do a case fic before realizing i am bad at them).

5. do you respond to comments?

i try to always respond but sometimes i just don't know what to say! that being said i am always open to chatting about my fics. please. please talk to me oh my god i want to talk about ace attorney.

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

oughhhh....... i guess no one told me it would be beautiful? it's one of my shortest fics and part of just a short series of a post-apocalypse au. it's not exactly the angstiest ending, i have another series in mind for that, but the whole fic has an undertone of angst, and series will too. i just write it in spurts when i feel the need to write something that isn't one of my WIPs.

7. what’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

i think most of my fics end on a sort of higher note! my fics have strong undertones of angst but with lighter endings, but i think the winner would go to status :) because it's the happy ending to the long angsty series! and also it just makes me happy, i feel like i really stuck the landing, we get to see the boys laugh over the most absurd situation and it makes me laugh too.

8. do you get hate on fics?

i've never gotten hate on a fic but shortly after i posted fic that met this description in the tags once, someone i follow made a post making fun of the idea that edgeworth would ever be a sexy dom. listen we are all playing in our own sandboxes.

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

we all know me, come on now. i write trans phoenix getting railed in all configurations smut. every e-rated fic has at least one creampie. we know this.

10. do you write crossovers? what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

i don't, but i do have one in mind. i've been planning a severance ace attorney fic for a long time.

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

no

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

no

13. have you ever co-written a fic before?

kind of? tybalt wrote a fic in the universe of one of my series! which kind of counts? idk! but he didn't feel like posting it so i did lol (he's co-author on it). but i do RP a lot, just none is published yet. maybe some day.

14. what’s your all time favorite ship?

of all time??????? tifa/cloud/aerith probably

15. what’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

ohhh god maybe my vampire fic, wait for the morning. i'm trying. i'm trying for the homosexuals.

16. what are your writing strengths?

i think i'm best at writing dialogue honestly, that is what i love to write the most, especially arguments. otherwise in the Real World i am very good at writing passive-aggressive but still somehow polite and professional emails to get shit done.

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

i have a lot of problems with just repetitive vocab.

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

i have a lot of feelings on this i can't exactly elucidate well. i only speak english fluently. i have a very beginner's knowledge in french. i'm also indigenous, but i don't speak the language of my people, which despite being one of the largest indigenous speech communities in the US, still only has around 2,000 native speakers.

so... i have a lot of feelings about language that take up a lot of space in my chest. but i just am kind of stuck writing in english. if i need to write dialogue in another language, i try to source from friends who speak the language first, then elsewhere on the internet if i don't know anyone directly who speaks it (e.g. asking in a public discord or reddit or somewhere), and use online translation tools as a last resort.

19. first fandom you wrote for?

theoretically it was accidentally tomb raider when i was in 3rd grade but i didn't know that's what i was doing at the time. intentionally, the first fic i ever wrote fanfic for was ff7.

20. favorite fic you’ve written?

i really and truly cannot choose here. it's like picking your favorite child. for the writing skills alone i have to pick wait for the morning (unfinished, i'm sorry). clarity is another one i think shows off some writing skills, idk, i just like it! for the characterization, something about decadence really floats my boat. and for the one that really earns its e-rating, it's tasting (especially chapter 3), my magnum opus of smut.

i am tagging.... who am i tagging. i hate tagging ppl bc i get sooooo anxious that ppl will be annoyed but i am going to tag @sandboxer @m-aximumjoy @samioli if you want to do it, and i have forgotten everyone else's tumblr urls in this exact moment it's like the men in black just memory-wiped me

[tanis-drawings-2point0]

(id on alt)

The Actors (that never go hungry): Annabelle and Martin, Martin and Annabelle, and all their respective roles throughout The Play

(<previous part) [apocalypse blues tag] (next, technically>) + annotations and bonus under the cut

you know the episode where annabelle tells martin about the hole in hilltop road and before that she does this funny thing of telling him that the og plan was to fill him w/ spiders? their roles in the au is kinda like that... by which i mean: you have two options, the supposed "first option" being so terrible it makes the second, the only real, "option", seem much better in contrast

in this case its a little more abstract. you have the two, contrasting figures of Annabelle, the so called spider lady, this menacing presence at the edge of everybody's consciousness for two seasons... and then you have Martin, the sad friend who lost nearly everything and almost drowned in the lonely. The more intimidating the concept of Annabelle is, the more she's in the spotlight as a villain, the less they notice the occasional incongruity in Martin's story. the more dissimilar they seem, the more illogical it would be for them to be in cahoots... you catch my drift

in this au martin is the one who brings the idea of hilltop road, omitting a few key details, and bc its him they dont have any reason to distrust it

at least at first, but thats a story for another post, bc boy it gets ugly

Anyway... i touched some of their characterization here but basically this dual narrative serves for their peace of mind as well. Martin can forget that he's manipulating the people he loves (and that he helped end the world) if Annabelle is The Villain, while Annabelle can sidestep her own tragedy if Martin is the most miserable fucking guy around

(But some of their roles are exchangeable baby! dont you ever forget it!!!)

also this doesnt stop annabelle from egging him to be baddies together from time to time for funzies or for martin (who still has some minor traces of the lonely) to say some hurtful things bc really, her story is pretty sad, but they quickly shake the other off

ie part of last point:

#the magnus archives #annabelle cane #martin blackwood #blackwoodow #tma au #apocalypse blues au #what if martin and annabelle had a symbiotic relationship huh? have you've ever thought of that? #this is only the tip of the iceberg tho. in my heard they've got the full ♠♦♥ oscillation

[purplefangirl42]

Clonetober 2023 Masterlist

Prompt list AO3 Link Taglist

I will be trying my best to write for as many of the days as I can. Many of these will likely be for my clone OCs, but I will maybe throw in a few canon ones as well if I feel that they fit the prompt.

“There’s only us.” /armor paint/pirate AU

“Nobody warned you about me?”/weapon swap/zombie apocalypse AU

“Check that again. Are you sure?”/first date/Death Note AU

“It’ll be fun. Trust me.”/Sith artifact/bodyswap AU

“I can’t come back.”/role reversal/dark side AU

“I admit it. You were right.”/huddling for warmth/de-aged AU

“Patience . . . is not something I’m known for.”/time loop/bodyguard AU

“Some people have no imagination.”/fake marriage/Regency AU

“This is it, isn’t it?”/batchmates/Wing AU

“Whadda we have here? Looks like a fresh batch of shinies.”/rituals/Separatist clones AU

“No! Come back!”/comfort after a nightmare/no order 66 AU

“Where are your survival instincts?”/clone culture/bounty hunter AU

“We’ll patch you up soon, don’t worry.”/wounds/scars/firefighter AU

“I’m not saying I told you so, but . . .”/Force-sensitive clones/Labyrinth AU

“It’s so quiet.”/clone commanders/post order 66/Imperial AU

“I don’t know what that thing is, but I wouldn’t qualify it as a little guy.”/cryptids/Tremors AU

“Don’t put that in your mouth!”/accidental child/shiny acquisition/Mandalorian AU

“I’ve got your back.”/first date/fairytale AU

“The things I do for you.”/cooking/Host Club AU

“This wasn’t part of the plan.”/tattoos/road trip AU

#clonetober2023 #star wars: the clone wars #star wars fanfiction #star wars #clone troopers #clone trooper oc #original characters #the clone wars #the clones

[spacemimz]

Well I won my round 1 of the AU summit so, as promised, I present ye with some lore regarding the first years of the apocalypse.

The year is 2020, the turtles had just lost the key. Much like how the movie starts, except there is no Casey Jr to help out. The fight between Raph and Leo still happens and they don't quite know where to look for the artifact.

About 4 hours after the key is stolen a bright light erupts in New York and the heavens are ripped apart with the technodrome descending and looming over central Manhattan. By the time the team notices and swarms out the midtown area is already infected with kraang-goop and several people and objects have been kraangified and become hostile.

Leo is terrified at this, mentally making note that the timely manner of the events makes it likely for them to be connected. He seeks help in Raph and Raph falls back into his old role as leader. He makes a plan to first get as many people out of the epicenter of this monstrosity and then regroup and think. Most people however aren't fond of getting rescued by mutants and instead run away from the turtles.

The turtles use this however to direct people to the outer parts of Manhattan where it's safer for them. After evacuating civilialns they move on to gather the remaining members of their family: Draxum, the O'Neil family and Cassandra. They also head down to the Hidden City to warn the Council of Heads that something very bad is happen topside and that they should take precau to protect their people. Leo is very zoned out during all this, mentally locked in a spiral of guilt as the weeks pass by with no plan to defeat whatever it is that came out of the sky. It doesn't help that any military sent to defend New York is destroyed before they even manage to fire their weapons.

It takes Donnie a while to figure out what the thing in the sky is and who mans it. After figuring out what the enemy is they make a plan for an attack and split the team into factions to make the attack effective. Their plan however fails, as the Kraang are far stronger than they could've anticipated and Raph gets injured on his left shoulder with his plastron taking damage resulting in a crack in it.

Seeing how their attack failed miserably Leo calls for retreat and they use Donnie's escape pods to make it out alive. Back at the lair they immediately start treating Raph's wounds as he sustained the most damage in the short fight. The team lies dormant while they all heal, still making efforts to help people evacuate.

It has been 2 months post invasion and Leo is more zoned out than ever. So much so that Splinter notices and takes his son to the side for a private talk. There Splinter asks Leo what is bothering him so much and for the first time since his failure, Leo cries. He cries and whails and sobs and apologizes for getting Raph hurt and the world doomed. Splinter assures his son that while he has failed to a degree it isn't too late to save the world. They saved everyone from the Shredder when the odds were against them so they can do it again. Leo finds hope in his father's words, he clings to them like a mantra to chant when his intrusive thoughts return.

The Kraang keep expanding their infection, the air starts to become even poorer quality than regular NYC air, the rain starts to be more acidic. People are starting to let go of their stigma against mutants if it means that they have a chance at safety. Some people have no where to go and a will to fight for their home. In a spurr of the moment type of act Leo decides to take the willing humans back to the lair and train them to fight. Leo argues that with more hands and more eyes, they can observe their enemy better and hit them where it hurts. This marks the beginning of the resistance. It is now 6 months post invasion.

As the Hamato family trains humans and the resistance grows they connect more old sewers and subway stations for a grid of bases. They regularly go on food and material hunts to sustain the growing amount of people that need care. All the while there is still something bothering Leo: that horrid smile Kraang Prime had on his ugly face when he noticed that the Hamatos are no match.

That image has burned itself into Leo's head, tormenting him much like his intrusive thoughts of guilt. Leo is 16 and the weight of the world rests on his shoulders for his hubris being the catalyst to the end.

I'll give you more lore the more rounds in the summit I win sooooo vote for FaA on the next poll

#mike talks #FaA lore #Flowers amongst ashes lore #flowers amongst ashes au #rottmntflowersamongstashes #rottmnt #rottmnt donatello #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt fanart #rottmnt leo #rottmnt michelangelo #rottmnt april #rottmnt au #rottmnt casey jones #rottmnt casey jr #text post #FaA miscellaneous

[inklingofadream]

Your latest chapter of the cult au made me think of a question - if Gerry wasn't around to explain the fears when Jon woke up at the beginning, what would Elias have told him?

So I actually had this planned out, because I didn't know for a bit whether I was going to go with it, whether Jonah was going to get a chapter in that chunk of the fic, etc. But then I decided I hate writing lengthy exposition that's already happened in canon (and can't be easily broken up). Also this got SO long.

Jonah, given his druthers, would've combined the approach we see in canon and the approach he tries to backfill after Jon is caught post-escape. The Eye would not have been positioned as equivalent to the Web- most people in the cult don't think of it that way, either, but Gerry does for obvious reasons. Jon would've been given a view of things that positioned the Eye as above the Web, as a protective force against the Web, and a positive thing to have in his life. The Institute would've been pitched in the way that it's pitched to non-cult academics, and a bit in canon. More the kind of place that has some self-imposed responsibility to gather and neutralize the threat of Leitners, as in the complaints in MAG 4 that he thought they had mopped up all the loose Leitners.

Obviously this... wouldn't quite have worked. Assuming Gerry was kept from spilling the beans, there are some significant flaws in the approach, flaws that became part of the equation the second Jonah decided that kidnapping was the way to go. You can say that the Eye is Good and Helpful, but the first fact in Jon's head is going to be "the Eye is why they kidnapped me." I don't think Jonah would've been so ready to add the love stuff to the mix. He would've eased Jon into it with an approach borrowing more than he'd admit from fantasy stories with Chosen Ones. Jon had to be kidnapped because he's Important; the whys and hows can wait until he's adjusted a bit, or if Jonah's really lucky bought in.*

*This was literally never going to happen. University student Jon? Might've bought in in the more conventional recruitment sense. Kidnapped Jon? Is going to opt for "crazy", not "hey they have a point." And the odds are never better than 50/50, "this is weird and reminds me of my Traumatic Backstory" is just too powerful a motivator.

You may have noticed I'm only talking about the Eye and the Web. That's because the Web is only part of the conversation because Jon has past experience with it. The Eye is Special and Unique and Good. Hypothetical non-traumatized Jon is just reacting due to cultural conditioning, the same way people moralize against ugly, weird, and gross animals. It's not based in actual fact. (kidnapping is, Jon probably yells at this version of Jonah at some point, a definite Fact!) If it was up to Jonah, other Entities probably wouldn't enter the conversation until Jon's significantly bought in (or given up on arguing with him). That says the case to the point that the exception would be something like Annabelle taking Jon for a walk regardless, something unpleasant, frightening, and categorically Not Jonah's Fault. (at least as far as Jon can tell)

The eventual goal is to get Jon to comply by threat of force... just not from Jonah. The groundwork would all be based on Jon's experience with the Web. The Web is evil. The Eye is good. They both think Jon is special- if that kind of experience were common, wouldn't he have heard about it? Wouldn't there be public health campaigns about checking your child's books for bookplates? It wasn't the random chance of an uncaring universe, and it wasn't setting Jon up for a canon-style harbinger of the apocalypse. By the time he plans on Jon knowing anything like real statistics on Leitner prevalence, on how common genuine encounters of any type are, he's bought in. It's because Jon is Special. The Eye is good. The Eye wants to nurture him, because he's so Special. The Web is bad. It wanted to kill him because he's so Special. Subsequent Entities are vague "evil of all types" and properly introduced via this framing, particularly when they've had an avatar as a guest, or when things from Artefact Storage are "accidentally" where Jon will come across them.

I think it works, in so far as it makes Jon afraid. The cult kidnapped him, but besides that, they haven't really hurt him. And there's a LOT of lovebombing going on. And everyone else Jon meets agrees with Jonah's framing without reservation. I think Jon accepts the idea that this isn't good, isn't nice, but it is safe. The cult put in such hard work to keep [insert encounter here] from happening. It's just that now that Jon knows he's Special, evil forces are trying harder to hurt him. If the cult did nothing things like that would be happening almost every day. They happen once a month or so because they work SO hard to keep Jon safe.

This is what most of the cult members more or less believe, anyway. Not scaring Jon with talk of other Entities is easy to justify, and they're all appropriately horrified when he ends up having encounters anyway. They back up all the outside=danger talk because they've all either joined up in a passion, never been there, or been there after living inside the Institute for their whole life. If you throw someone that isolated and inexperienced into London, they are more likely than not to come back with "It sucked! It's so dirty! It's loud! It's dangerous! I almost got hit by a car!" etc.

The exceptions are Jonah, Gertrude, Gerry, and a little bit Michael. Michael is less agoraphobic than most of the rest, and doesn't have much experience with danger either spooky or otherwise, but isn't prone to questioning the cult without significant motivation. Gerry isn't allowed around Jon unless he can keep it to himself, and Jon isn't necessarily motivated to seek him out without Jonah getting so angry he's afraid Gerry's dead. The other two obviously keep their mouths shut, and have the ability to go into Artefact Storage when everyone's asleep and work on orchestrating their next Bad Time for Jon.

Jon doesn't entirely buy into the Eye = good no matter how long he's there, though. His own experiences are just too compelling, and he's smart enough to see how little difference there is between it and the rest. But I think he does become too fearful to try to escape eventually. He slips out and Sasha brings him back, but while he's gone the open door provides an opportunity for something terrifying but not damaging to sneak in. Suggestible witnesses swear up and down that Jonah and Gertrude weren't responsible. Do that once, and it's an obvious lie. Do it a dozen times, with just as much evidence against the truth, and it's harder to tell. Add in an unusually high rate of Web artifacts, and Jon stops caring about the truth. Either he really is in that much danger, or Jonah isn't above subtly punishing him with his worst fear. And then he's Bound and can't leave anyway. Humans will believe all kinds of weird, illogical, harmful things if they're constantly in survival mode.

#cult au #writing #feedback #asks #ink post #tma

[softpine]

is this the closest we’ve gotten to seeing brandi’s ideas for a post-apocalyptic story/au? my ass will happily wait for this treat and take these crumbs yes, please, and thank you 🍞🐜 (only if ur comfortable with sharing more!!)

aww no i'm sorry it's not the apocalypse au 😭 however that's always in the back of my mind and i have a document i keep adding ideas to whenever i think of things. i still plan on doing a mini story for that someday!! the thing i'm working on right now is just a silly one-off. but since you were so excited and nice i'll give you some spoilers hehe

edit: the fact i said "some" spoilers and then proceeded to basically share my whole outline for the first two chapters is such a brandi move. sorry i'm like this

i'm going the last of us route by not having typical back-from-the-dead zombies and instead they're infected humans, but in this case it's going to be something similar to mad cow disease in that it originates in livestock and can be transmitted to humans (i'm using allllllll of these words colloquially for brevity, just know this is a massive oversimplification), where it stays dormant until it's far too late to be treated because the brain has already been compromised. the first symptoms are confusion, then problems with emotional regulation, dementia, and finally violence & insatiable hunger. however, these people don't possess inhuman strength or speed, though it may seem that way because they're working with unlimited adrenaline, so they're not slowed down by pain or fear. but you have a fighting chance! and any way that you can kill a normal human, you can also kill an infected person. it just might take longer. essentially i want it to be grounded in reality, mimicking the way a real disease spreads and mutates rather than going fully into video game-y horror (i love that stuff too, but it's not the story i feel like telling in a post-covid world lol. i'm much more interested in seeing how humans can survive and rebuild in the face of unimaginable chaos and tragedy!). the other important thing to note is that the disease doesn't have a 100% transmission rate. it's the same as if you had the flu and coughed in 100 people's faces, only a fraction of them would actually get sick. so if you get bitten by someone with the disease, it's not 100% certain you will be infected. so there is no singular special immune person, it's just a matter of chance & your immune system.

in the early days, this mysterious illness is only happening in remote areas with low human populations. meat that's been properly cooked & pasteurized dairy can't transmit the disease, so people in cities are generally safe, but improper handling of food, poor working conditions, factory farm employees, traveling, etc. all contribute to the spread of disease. though the illness can't be treated, it's easy to contain in the beginning. patients are restrained/sedated when they become violent and eventually they die (once the brain is completely taken by infection, the body dies too). however as the number of infected people grows, it becomes harder to hold everyone in basic hospitals. sanatoriums start popping up to study the disease and keep it quarantined. this is around the time where the story actually starts.

mikaela was a pediatric nurse at the hospital, but she was moved to one of these sanatoriums a few months ago. however, she's 20 weeks pregnant (with sadie) and she's nervous about continuing to work in a high risk environment. she asks to be moved back, but the hospital denies her request. that's how she knows shit is really hitting the fan. she warns everyone she cares about that something big is happening, but that's not how the disease is being reported on by the media, so no one really takes her seriously. and then the big outbreak happens.

there's a whole backstory to that but i'll skip it for now fjskjds the relevant part is that mikaela escapes unharmed and returns home to gather her family up. danny, casper (home from college for thanksgiving break), and asa (spent the weekend with his dad) are already there. mikaela is scared to stay there because it's a farm; they have cows, chickens, pigs, etc. and they still don't know exactly how the disease is transmitted. so she loads everyone into casper's truck (there's less space, but it's better for off-roading). on the way out, asa opens all the gates so the animals can have a chance at living even though he knows it's probably not a good idea. they desperately try to get a hold of caroline and beth, but the phone lines are dead, so they leave a note saying they've gone to their shared vacation cabin up north.

ummm and this is extremely long already but we haven't even gotten to the interesting part yet so.... they make it half way to the cabin before night falls. they don't want to run out of gas at night (and it's late fall, so pretty cold). so they stop in an area that's completely free of people. asa says he knows how to make a fire so they won't waste gas running the car for heat. casper goes with him for protection (he's buff college casper, not scrawny teenage casper fjksjd) to find wood. danny doesn't think they have anything to worry about because asa spends his days in the wilderness already, and he assumes mikaela is just being overly cautious because she's pregnant. so he lets them go.

okay so casper and asa stumble upon a small, seemingly unoccupied hunting cabin. they think this will be perfect to stay in for the night. but when they open the door, they see a horrifying sight: a man sitting in complete darkness, chewing on a freshly dead deer. the man lunges at them, managing to grab asa and bite his thumb clean off along with a chunk of his palm, before casper tackles him to the ground. he manages to immobilize him, but he's badly bitten on the neck in the process. it takes all his strength to just hold the man down, let alone fight back, so asa knows he has to do something. he finds a rifle in a bag that the man must've been carrying earlier, before the sickness set in, and he tries to shoot him in the head with it, but since he's never even held a gun before, he misses and it grazes casper's arm. he has to shoot two more times before he hits his target and the man stops moving. buuuut the sound of all the gunshots has attracted many others; they can hear them approaching in the distance. casper is in no state to move, already starting to bleed out from the wound on his neck (the accidental gunshot certainly didn't help), so asa does the only thing he can do; he leaves the gun with casper and starts yelling to attract the hoard's attention while he runs away from the cabin. he hopes danny and mikaela have heard the gunshots too and will find casper. he leads the infected further into the woods. on instinct, he tries to climb a tree to escape, but his right hand is effectively useless and he's in way too much pain to attempt it. he thinks he'll most likely die here, until he hears a distinctly human, non-infected voice shouting at him to follow his voice .... and that's where i'll leave it :D

#anonymous #asks #nonsims #brandi answers

[at-thestillpoint]

If Top Gun 3 is a go and Hangman and Phoenix return, how would you see their story going from the end of TGM into the new movie? (Obviously resulting in them ending up together after the battle of wills and 🌶️ 🔥 times)

I love how you write them and I’m wondering how you’d plan out the plot if you were in charge 🤩?

Oh my god, this ask! I'll preface this with a caveat that I don't think I could plot out a full Top Gun movie. I don't have the storytelling skill or creativity! But in terms of their relationship setup, there are so many directions this could go:

We could go with a continuation of the wild and unruly universe where they're together and there's all the angst of one or both of them potentially dying in this next impossible mission. Imagine: Banging for dear life. A redux of the Rooster being too slow argument, only this time Natasha is the one picking the fight, because Hangman is surprisingly laissez-faire about it all and she is terrified. They part with fear-fueled angry words right before the mission, which they're both obviously going on because "conflict of interest" does not exist in Maverick's vocabulary, and then in the inevitable dogfight, he tells her to break right, she breaks right, and he goes left right in front of a missile. (I'm 99% certain I stole this from @goddesspharo's apocalypse AU.) OR she tells him to break right, he breaks left, and she goes right, right into that missile. Something something they make it back alive and everyone lives happily ever after.

Or the post-TG:M friendship has fizzled out into something friendly but distant, so they haven't seen each other in a bit, but they're brought together to basically be Maverick and train a new group of baby aviators. It's exhausting, they're spending more time together than they ever have, and hey—he's not that bad! He's actually...sweet? And smart? And there's a realization of feelings, maybe a tentative kiss, right before they realize they have to go on the mission to make it work. So all of this potential is hanging in the balance while they have to go save the world. One of them goes down, the other does not, and it's angst city until Cyclone sends in search and rescue. The person on the boat demands to go, even though that's definitely against eleven different protocols. There's a desperate kiss in enemy territory before they're making like gangbusters out of there so they can go on a first date.

Or the Dagger Squadron is a standing squadron in the Navy, so we're dropped in medias res of their shenanigans, by which I mean banging each other in secret. They continue to keep it a secret during training, but then shit gets real during the mission, and did Hangman just crash land his plane after Phoenix and Bob were shot out of the sky??? This version of Top Gun might end up being more a wilderness survival movie than a planes go fast movie? Bob is confused and really wishes he had earplugs. They eventually find a commercial-ish plane with seats for a pilot and co-pilot that neither of them knows how to fly. Bob gets them in touch with someone who can walk them through it. They fight over who gets to be lead, make it home, make it official, etc.

This is a chaotic answer, and I am not sure any of it is what you were looking for, anon, but I had a lot of fun with this. Thank you for the ask! I now want to write all of these.

#come talk to me!