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millerscoffee · 10 months

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dancing is a dangerous game | part three

"the only thing i'll ever ask of you, you've gotta promise not to stop when i say when," she sang.

6.8k | joel miller x f!reader

this is part 3 of the "dancing is a dangerous game" series | other parts below:

part one | part two | part three | masterlist

rating: 18+ MDNI

warnings (for this chapter): post-outbreak au. no ellie. no clickers. mentions of consensual non-con (spoiler: it's more that reader is nervous and is scared things will fuck up, so she tells joel not to stop if that tension in her rises). survivalist!joel, age gap (joel is 56, reader is late 20s or early 30s), soft!dom joel, introduction of safe word, oral (f receiving), fingering, piv (unprotected), cum eating (whoops), biting, crying, fluff, angst, READER RIDES A HORSE! no use of y/n.

summary: within your second week at joel's, there are things you are forced to look within yourself. joel helps you through it.

A/N: i really appreciate all of the notes and comments for this series! i didn't know where it would lead when i wrote that first chapter, but it's all overwhelming and sweet! i know the last chapter was more plot, but i feel progression with these twooooo 👀

"I don't think it's trust." "Then. What. Is. It?" Joel moves over to you at the bed's edge, taking your chin in his warm hands. It's as if the breath got knocked out of you. Like he's doing what you asked without you realising it. "I can't–" you feel undeniably small. Tears fall easily when you look down at your laps side by side until your vision gets blurry. His booming stirs in you. Not fear, but not necessarily happiness. He's compelling you to look at patterns within yourself, it makes you want to break down. Panic threatening to tap at the door of your sternum. Just when Joel's index finger, large and calloused, curls under your chin. It gently coaxes you to lock eyes and your lip wavers. "You're doing so good," when he says it, voice like honey in comparison to the rough-textured grip he has on your face, your heart races.

When Joel back turns around, his eyes are dark. Like he’s thirsty, but would only drink if you let him. He’s deliberate in brushing past you on his way up to the loft, his presence lingering just at the end of the stairs. “Come to bed.” It’s simple, and what you come to learn, is Joel’s way of asking. He don’t. But he gives you room to make the choice. You don’t recall your eyes even scanning the living room. They only land on the broad frame in front of you, and you follow it like a beacon of light. Beginning your second week, you don’t sleep on the couch anymore.

You're skittish when reach the top of the loft.

What if he expected something from you? What if it was more than what you were willing to give?

What did you want to give?

"It's nice up here," an attempt to purchase to any sort of gravity. Anything to make sense of just how you ended up in the situation in the first place. The feeling of Joel's lips still very much present on your own.

But your eyes stay at the ground, more in your own head than you are able to look at the man you're in front of. Joel tilts his head to catch your gaze.

"You sayin' that to me, or y'erself?"

"Oh... uh... to you. To you." You flash a crooked, but distant smile.

"Hey," Joel hushes, walks over to you, his frame seeming somehow even larger in the petite space. "If this is too much, we can get you back down there. Y'know. Extra blankets."

"No–" you object so quickly you have to clear your throat. "I mean... no. I want to stay. Just..."

"Hadn't shared a bed with someone?"

"Not in a long time." You think of your past lover. The warmth the two of you made together under makeshift tents and old buildings with shitty furniture. Taking turns sleeping while keeping an eye out for danger. This was different, and so were the circumstances.

Joel walks over to what you presume is at least the start of his side of the bed before his inevitable migration to the centre of it at night, and gets undressed until he's left in his boxers. Unlike when the two of you had sex and he wasn't wearing anything under his jeans. It was like he didn't know you were gonna be up there with him tonight.

"We'll take it slow, if that's what you want." Climbing into bed, Joel opens the opposing side of the blankets for you. His hair slick back from your fingers combing through it downstairs. Orbs seeking to learn your quiet demeanor. He looks sweet. Patient, even.

How could you say no to that? Not when he's being so compassionate. And certainly not when he's giving you the choice.

The temptation to be vulnerable could kill you. Could be dangerous.

Then again, the situations you continuously put yourself in before you met Joel had more consequences than getting in this man's bed. A man who was shifting your perspective. He didn't seem like any other person that entered your life only to leave it.

You choose to ignore the expiration date in a few short weeks.

So you abandon your jeans. Neatly fold them in a chair tucked away in the corner of the room. Everything in slow motion to quell the reality of your emotions towards the man you currently have your back to. The man who made you feel melted and was being uncharacteristically open with you long before whiskey was involved.

Not that the whiskey mattered, you weren't really feeling its effects anymore anyway. This experience had you both to a sober, cognitive state. You had control of yourself considering how out of control you felt on the inside.

In your underwear you stand with a blue cotton t-shirt that just grazed the crease of your bottom and your exhales are shakier than you'd like to admit.

Because if you admit it, then it's true.

If you admit it, he could have a lot more control over you than you knew what to do with.

"Joel," you sound faraway when you break the silence. Back still to him, you tilt your chin at your shoulder before closing your eyes and inhaling deeply. You can't believe what you're about to say.

"If I tell you to stop, I don't want you to listen," Tears wick at your eyes, blinking them away rapidly before turning to face Joel directly. You can't bring yourself to look at him, yet.

And he's silent.

"Because if we start this... it–it's not gonna be easy for me," you your hands, shaking them off as if the energy could ease by doing it. Pleased when it kind of works. "I'm not gonna be easy, and I don't mean sexually...," you laugh pitifully, "My impulses may make me want to stop. From what I've... god I sound so pathetic, from what I've been through." Teeth grit, tears fall, "It could be too much. And, too–," sentences chop, "I want this. If we start this I don't think I could stop. Which sounds counterintuitive, but... yeah."

You want to fucking vomit from exposing yourself this way. Your mind swirling from the brain break you just gave yourself. Did any of it make sense? Did you come all the way up the ladder just to ruin any chance of being close to him? Why did you want to be close to him? You feel like an idiot, to put it crassly. A credulous girl making hasty decisions only to retrieve back into complacency.

These thoughts flood your mind and you're sure the storm is evident as it crosses your brow. So caught up in forbidding your heart to find resolution that you can't see what's in front of you.

What's been in front of you, if only you'd pluck it.

When you finally land on him, he looks concerned. Like he's taking in every word you say and committing it to memory. He doesn't move from his spot, but he does sit up straighter. Body language letting you know he is open, but not withdrawing.

"You want... this," he repeats you, but in his voice it sounds more seductive. Did you say it this seductively? "And you want me to keep going if you say no...,"

"Sounds kinda worse when you say it out loud." You mumble.

"You trust me."

That makes your face screw up. Shoulders creep towards your ears, the bridge of your nose collides on itself.

"Trust. I don't... I don't do that."

"Well, what else would y'call this request?"

Climbing on the edge of the bed, you sit on it in contemplation. What else could this be? Surveying the room, you come back to him in your line of sight and the furrow of his brow – soft, but covetous – makes you swallow hard.

You have two choices: hit the wall you put up. The one you'd been hitting every day for a week, or you could push through it.

"I don't think it's trust."

"Then. What. Is. It?" Joel moves over to you at the bed's edge, taking your chin in his warm hands. It's as if the breath got knocked out of you. Like he's doing what you asked without you realising it.

"I can't–" you feel undeniably small. Tears fall easily when you look down at your laps side by side until your vision gets blurry. His booming stirs in you. Not fear, but not necessarily happiness. He's compelling you to look at patterns within yourself, it makes you want to break down. Panic threatening to tap at the door of your sternum.

Just when Joel's index finger, large and calloused, curls under your chin. It gently coaxes you to lock eyes and your lip wavers. "You're doing so good," when he says it, voice like honey in comparison to the rough-textured grip he has on your face, your heart races.

This simple act triggers your fight or flight, but you choose to stay and confront this. It helped that any of your other thoughts were ripped from you. All there ever could be was the thumping hum of him in your hippocampus, burning your memories alive. Joel.

"Taking all this in, so well, angel. I know it's for a reason, but I need you to say it. And I need you to mean it. If you want this as bad as you do," his nose brushes against the tip of yours, "you can do it."

It's definitely not the magic of him that clouds your mind. It's more of the fact that this human in front of you, someone who could have killed you, could have just run you off after fucking you – is showing devotion in making sure you find this. That you use your voice. Like he's dangling a key right in front of you, and all you have to do is tell him the truth.

A key to your paradise.

Staring at his lips, you tempt forward, but he pulls away just a centimetre. Not so fast, not until you give me what I want.

You exhale through your nose in reflection. Close your eyes like you're about to jump, and maybe you are.

Jumping off into nothing.

Worse, jumping into something.

His hand moves to the side of your neck, and that causes your own hand to move over his. As small as you feel in his grasp, you try to hold him, too.

"I don't know how this happened," you mutter like you're cursing yourself, but your eyes open. Melting into Joel's touch. "I don't know how you did it, but I... I trust you."

It doesn't register immediately that you are holding your breath as soon as you say it. Half expecting the world to explode, or eight thousand clickers eat at your flesh. Something bad because any time you let someone in, something bad happened. Your superstitions getting the best of you.

But there is no earthquake. No slew of cordyceps-infested human shells scurrying up the stairs– well, ladder.

It's softer. It's solid. It's Joel wrapping you up in his arms, making light work in picking you up to land you gently on the bed that you soon realise is more comfortable than it looks.

Joel's face is a mix of admiration and determination. You can see by the flare of his nostrils that he's proud of you. And you don't know why, but basking under his pride brings a sense of peace you'd long forgotten. It wasn't that you needed his stare to appreciate yourself, but there was no mistaking the safety it gave you.

Your worry doesn't simply melt, though. You meant what you said in that you weren't sure you could do this. Legs spread wide to accommodate the width of his frame, and your breath hitches when he takes the pillow from behind you and guides your head down onto it. Treating you like a delicate thing makes you wonder what it would be like if you did soften. If you did allow yourself to become malleable beneath the grasp of someone so new, but had such hold on you. Not for him, but for yourself. What would it be like to trust? Fully. Under conditions that were so harsh outside the two of you in this moment. Could it be done?

The chatter in your mind stops at the drop of a hat when Joel leans down to kiss you. Even more curious than downstairs, your bodies find it easy to meld together.

You're grateful for Joel's lips to dim the thoughts reeling of what could or couldn't happen. He fills your senses, facial hair brushing against your features, and you're amazed at how that pout of his sends prickles to your skin. How skilled he is in wielding your mind to quiet, and your core to pay attention. All of the blood rushing downward in your haze.

Joel's tongue is the first to tempt in. It brushes into the tangle of your kiss. It's cliche to say it feels like heaven, but you imagine that's what it is like if you had to guess. Like a quiet white, nothing else but the feeling of him and your breaths taking up space as you give yourself permission to move your hands. Fingers snake up his hair, the backs of your knuckles brushing over the old scar at his left cheek down to his jaw. You feel him shudder above you, and wrap his large paw around your wrists to stop you. It makes your heart skip to feel how tender is he knowing you have felt his strength.

It's a secret shared between the two of you that he can be this disarming. And you keep it tight to your chest.

You focus on the heat emitting from his skin. Like he's burning the candle at both ends and his stomach creates all this centralised heat. Your bare legs brush against each other and the sensation from this and his weight brings you direct, but silent communication that this feels good to him, too. That he needs this as much as you do, and wants you. You yet to decipher if it's merely physical.

You don't realise it right away, that your hips are squirming beneath the weight that is the man kissing you like his life depends on it. This makes him pull away from the kiss, and right when you let out a whimper you can feel how damp the fabric clings to your folds.

"Can you hold still?" He's asking you, but it's out of genuine curiosity than a scold. And now that you think about it, now that you're an inch apart you can feel the heat of you radiate from your cheeks, lips, neck, chest. Splotched and muddy, you wonder what you must look like. You manage a weak nod, he nods back, going in for your neck.

"Joel," you gasp, hands moving against his wrists that tighten the tiniest amount against the pressure. His teeth graze over your heartbeat, littering open kisses over the skin and you moan at the same time as him when he sucks. Taking the skin of your neck between his lips and turning marks out of it. Urging you to slip completely under. Your body feels pliable to him, your moans turn to quiet whimpers as he pulls back again. Admiring his work, he rolls his thumbs over the insides of your wrists individually.

"Look at you," he suspires and it's in contrast from when he said it with your ass in the air for him a week ago. It makes you feel adored, whether he did or not. You are stronger than to let tears come up, and you don't. But you know you could if you thought about it long enough. "Gorgeous."

You blush, a full smile tugging your mouth and he pauses, tilting his head. Like he's learning what you like, and taking you in at the same time. "You're being a good girl. You know that, dontchu?"

Oh.

You nod, but it's hard not to bite your lip at that and you're aching now. Your need for him too strong than succumb to your need to guard. Your gesture makes Joel smirk, the tips of his fingers at the base of your shirt and he peels it up to your chest, just at the underside of your breasts and his eyes shift from a golden brown to black in the endeavours of his own hunger. You aren't alarmed that he isn't saying anything, and really it's nice to not verbalise your desires. It was already so difficult for you.

He knows.

And he finds it as no surprise, the keen noises you make when Joel's teeth sink into your flank right under your ribs, but it doesn't tickle surprisingly. Instead it feels good, like an itch you've been wanting to scratch. Like your sides have this constraint from your holding that he's chewing out. His mouth travels up, nosing past the fabric to kiss and suck over the shape of your breasts before cupping his lips around one of your nipples, keeping the other preoccupied under his thumb.

You let out a heady sigh, his whiskers prodding into your skin in the best possible way. His eyes slip shut, and you take in the way his eyelashes splay across his cheeks. It would be innocent if the work he's doing on the peaked bit of your flesh wasn't sending a direct signal to your clit. "Joel, I–"

He pops his mouth off of you instantly. Like your words break a spell, gaze soft and round when they look up at you. "This okay?" You bite down a groan when you hear just how fucked he sounds. Fucked like you sounded when he all but caught you cumming on his couch.

You nod, but he's not so lenient this time. "Words, darlin'."

"This is okay."

"Just okay?"

That seemed to be more of a challenge than a question or disappointment. As if he could do better, go deeper as he explored what you liked.

But you want his mouth back on you, to feel him and not just to quiet your mind. To genuinely feel him take you, and you let out a whine in response. "Joel, you know."

"I can't know unless you tell me, baby."

The slip of this pet name knocks your breath out. Half naked on his bed, your nipples glistening from his spit. Your hand smooths over the side of his neck and you tilt your head down to look at him better. He's being brave, and so should you.

"It feels good. It makes me want more." You're blushing now. To admit that, to tell him you want more – out loud with your words rather than the bucking of your hips leaves you feeling more naked despite being exposed.

But it's the green light Joel needs from you. To know you want him like this as opposed to the first time the two of you got stripped down. It was just you who was naked, then. It was him who was calling the shots. You blink in awareness that he's giving you the reigns in the way he knows how.

Giving you the reigns in light grasp while he takes the rest of the lead, tight in his palms.

He is background hum. He is thunder loud and present – you never see it, but you feel the humidity, and when he grows closer, the wind that moves your hair.

This is what it's like to hand over control to him. He knows what to do with it and he doesn't make you guilty for holding it. You're learning that of him, just as he's learning you.

Affection drips when his brushes his nose against the inside of your tits, lips trailing down your stomach until he grows increasingly aware of the ache between your legs. The pool of wetness slicking over the fabric of your underwear.

This makes him drone, low and hungry, and you blink up at the ceiling because fuck what if he didn't like it? Now wasn't the time for your self-consciousness to invade your thoughts, but it sat with you when you licked your lips – just before sitting on your elbows to get a better look at him.

You didn't do this last time. What if he wasn't into you?

"Fuck," he curses under his breath. Nope, definitely not. He's into you. While his lips press and teeth nip at the insides of your thighs, your breath hitches in the process. "Wet for me?" His question rhetorical, he thumbs over the blotch in your panties and that is enough to make you whine. For your hips to raise.

He pauses then with a serious look about him.

"Say red if it's too much. Understood?" You nod and he pulls his head away, producing a mewl from you. Desperate for contact. "Repeat it." Your eyes roll back all on their own and it feels like sandpaper to swallow from your dry throat.

"If it is too much I will let you know by saying red." Though the words felt formal, the delicious growl coming from Joel's throat lets you know it was exactly the correct way to form the words.

Because he's peeling your undies off completely, giving him a good view of what's in store. "I missed this," he admits and you blush deeper than you did when he was being corporeal. The exhales cool your dampened skin as he gets closer. Wraps his hands around your hips while keeping your legs secure underneath his flexed arms.

His eyes dance between yours and your cunt. Like he's watching what gets you twitching for him, and he's found that it's a mixture between his words and the way he stares at you like you're his last meal. Hard not to, to be fair.

It starts with his tongue at your entrance, like you're letting yourself pour over his tongue and he likes that. His grunts flush your clit, a buzz of him under your skin when he finally presses his tongue inside you. You both let out a sigh of relief by this. And you would run your fingers through his hair if he'd let you, but while he's wrapped his hands around your hips, your arms are on either side of those strong arms. He's subconsciously saying to you: you're not going anywhere, you're going to take it.

And that sends your head to spin. Your chest rises and falls irregularly to the feeling of him ghosting his pouty mouth over your folds until your clit is on fire just to be touched. "J-Joel," it's faint, like you can barely get it out.

"Mm?" He's busy.

"I... I need–"

"What is it, angel?" He asked a lot of rhetorical questions, his breath warm against your sex. "You want this?" His tongue ghosts over your clit and he has to use force to keep your hips in place in order for you to not buck his teeth out.

"Joel!" The sight of your hardened nipples makes him mutter under his breath again, his teeth lightly grazing over the sensitive nub.

You choke a whine, curling your fingers into themselves.

"Is that it?"

"P-please. Please!"

"Manners. Such a sweet little thing." His tongue flicks his tease against the hood of your clit and you practically howl in response. "Taste just as sweet, too."

To say your core is sticky is an understatement, your thighs pull apart slightly every now and then and it feels like effort to pull them apart from just how wet you are. Joel's mouth, Joel's fucking mouth, makes a meal of you then. Tongue rolling and flicking over the glistening skin until he finds sucking is what takes you there above all else.

His plush lips press around the nub of nerves, pulling it into his mouth with such a rush it makes you a whimpering mess far to quickly than you want to be. Thighs trembling involuntarily.

You'd only thought about this from the first day he fucked you. What his mouth would feel like right where it is, and it doesn't disappoint.

You're reduced to a slack jaw, his tongue skilled at the repetitious movements that send you to your climax.

"Cou-could I – fingers?" You quite literally can't get another word out of yourself. You're close, but he obliges – perfectly timed as his middle finger presses inside; working tandem with his tongue. He seems to like the way you feel by the noises he makes, the spongy spot inside you easy to find when you're like this. But that's just Joel, you knew that now. Nothing was hidden when he was in charge of your pleasure.

Although just one, his finger feels thick inside you. Way bigger than yours, and the steady push/pull of his while his mouth sucks on your clit is just too much not to submit to.

So it's volcanic, the eruption within you.

Seriously, it's like one moment you're not cumming and the next your pelvis and thighs are shifting like tectonic plates beneath him. Writhing and igniting with every axon that starts from the core of you and traverses your limbs. You're a mess, physically and mentally. No real words coming out, just a slew of curses and Joel's name as if it is a profanity in itself.

And with the way he's keeping his mouth tightened on you until you've reached it, you aren't too sure his name isn't a blasphemous word that should be left from your lips every second of the day.

On the comedown, your body spasms. Small noises leave your throat until it's a bounded release of giggles, your arm slung over your eyes. "What the fuck have you done?" Fucking giggles. You're giggling for the first time in... god knows how long.

Your sentence is slurred and sloppy, rubbing your eyes as if you're taking your time before you must face him. His soft eyes, mindful kisses along the insides of your thighs – each one sending a signal to your brain to jolt a little each time. Then you feel it, or well, you don't feel it anymore. His finger leaving you empty, an ache you want back.

"Is it such a bad thing?" When he speaks, you notice how hooded his eyes look like this. He's thoroughly enjoying himself, his tongue laps at your folds one last time for the night, mindful to miss the central core of you.

"I don't think so." An honest revelation.

When he comes up, his middle finger tempts your lips from where he was and you aren't shy when you wrap your lips around his finger, cleaning yourself off of him. You reach down when you pop your lips off of him, your hand eager to find his length that's straining beneath the fabric.

But Joel swats your hand away when you tempt it near him, "You’re not doin' that. Not right now." You can see the outline of it, like what's between his legs is begging a different story. Joel, however, has his arm draped around you so heavy that the weight of him won't let you do much else other than drift off to sleep.

"I'll get you back," you warn, yawning into the air. Face greeting the crease of his neck.

"We'll see, darlin'."

You drift off. Your top on, him in his boxers. In bed with a man who was making you understand trust could be on the table without transaction.

---

You wake before sunrise.

It's just the sound of your lungs sharing oxygen in the same space, you shift your body to face his. His back is to you, but you can make out the way his shoulders slope in the dark.

You like this Joel. Not because he's asleep, but because there was no holding between the two of you. Both easy to contract, but seeing him as pliable as you were last night tugs you.

Any pretense disappears until you are both left with your wanting; lying in wait.

And that drives a fire within you. You move forward, your breasts pressing against the broad scope of his back. It's warm, the scent behind his neck lulls you deeper into relaxation until you close your eyes. But Joel's a light sleeper, and the slightest movement towards him wakes him up. He's cautious not to stir right away.

Joel turns then. Fluid in its motion, he faces you. Arms wrap around you, flex and strengthen against the soft frame of your body. Rolling on top of you, your legs come apart naturally and he is warm from the bed. This version of him isn't much changed from last night, but he's more involved in his own taking than accounting for yourself – a grown woman who can make her own resolutions. You choose to stay under him, and he picks up on that.

Your mouths collide in the dark, touching and searching each other and you're slick from its gathering of your night's sleep. Right at the core, he presses his hips down and you respond in your own wave up to meet his. It's easy to slip off your shirt, leaving it abandoned somewhere in the sheets.

His boxers come down enough, then, to feel his cock thump against your folds and you inhale sharply – needing him more and more. He's hard, dripping, white hot against your skin. You clench around nothing before his hand guides himself through the slick of you, tempting over your clit before going back down. "I need you, too," thick with sleep, you groan at the sound of him and the sound of your slick being slipped against.

He's slow, only holding the tip at your entrance and you wriggle – becoming wide awake now with the width of him at your ache. "Please," you whisper, and he indulges. Doesn't make a fuss. Because he wants this, too. Wants you. Said it himself.

"You feel so damn good, swallowin' my tip like that." His face buries into your neck, lazy and sleepy when you wrap your legs around his waist. Fingernails engage his skin when he pushes, stretching you wider and deeper. It feels different from last night. More complete with this involved, too. Your lips brush against his neck while you shiver and experience. In the break of dawn with sleep lines still on both of your skins. It starts off gentle, at least.

Keeping it together is arduous, like you're both bursting at the seams to... let it all go. You have the opportunity to say it, to tell him you want this. It's everything you were explaining last night. How you want this, but it could be difficult to express. And if you were wriggling away from it, you didn't want him to stop.

One minor detail, though. You weren't wriggling away.

Physically, your legs spread further apart, your hand reaching down to touch him. Inviting the tips of your fingers to graze the bed of coarse hairs that resided just above his cock. His breath hitches then, and you both roll your hips; up and down respectively. Allowing him to go deeper, and he is deeper.

"You feel that?" His grip now on the side of your neck, keeping your eyes poured into his – even in the indigo of dawn – and your moans are turned to nothing but choking mewls when you nod. "S-so big," not that he needed his ego stroked, it's the only thing you can think about.

He's blocking any other sense having you like this. You feel every twitch, the rush of his cock growing harder inside you, if that were even possible. Your eyes flutter back in your skull for a moment in time.

"That's what you do to me, baby." His hips are merciless in the way they recoil against yours over and over. The sounds of your skin slapping mesh with the squelching of your cunt. Your hands moving to his head, fingers in his hair and you share the same breath – his exhales, your inhales and the other way around. Leaving you both dizzy and on the precipice.

Your hair sticks to the sides of your neck that he's abandoned to rest his forearms on either side of your head, fingers lost just above your head as he holds you together like this. His eye contact isn't as intimidating as it was before, and this time you crave it. The sun's coming up and it's seeping through the window that he built with the same fucking hands that are tugging your hair to look at him. His cock pulling all the way out to thrust all the way in, and he repeats the process. Tits bouncing, claws finding purchase on the sheets, on anything while he fucks you like this. A wonder fleets of how he can even keep up like this for his age, but it's washed away as soon as it comes. Your toes curling, a guttural scream of his name coming from you when your release is found. Cream coating his cock, you think you're there, but that's when you hear him.

"Easy, baby. That's it. That's fuckin' it, don't you dare fuckin' stop for me. Cum all over this cock. You can take it, that's it." His words send stars to your eyes, mouth lax just like last night but you don't remember. You don't remember anything other than the feeling of him pounding you into his mattress that is rattling and squeaking because fuck, it feels like it could break at any moment. "Joel!" You mean to say more, you really do, but it's too much to. Not while he's fucking and talking you through it, not while his own orgasm hits him when he feels the twitching of your clenched cunt around his cock. Tightening and releasing repeatedly through your bliss.

"Shit, darlin' – fuck!" Joel leaves you as late as he can, and it still feel too soon. He palms his cock a couple of strokes before spilling his hot cum over your stomach and that was sexy enough, but the sounds he's making. The animalistic grunts found through the structure of his nose has you blinking up at him like he's the most magnificent thing you've ever seen.

Maybe he is.

And you wonder then, what it would feel like to have his seed buried inside you, but you don't ask for it.

It's not the right time.

Sun cascades itself through the sky, leaving the room lilac and blue. You're both panting, his body half on you, half on the bed.

"Y'good? Y'okay?" You hear him, but it's muffled from his arm that's over your shoulder, his face plastered into the side of your bruised neck from last night.

"Mmn," you respond, but make an annoyed sound when he's soon to sit up. He looks worried over your body.

"Shit– gotta clean y'up. Sorry 'bout that."

But you smirk instead, thumbing over the pool at your stomach. You bring it up to your mouth with your eyes round and wet when they gaze into his, sucking it clean. "I got it."

Joel blinks with a look of arousal and a grin spread across his face as if to say, what am I going to do with you? "Dirty girl."

"You like it."

"Not wrong."

---

Midway through your second week, it's early when you both start off your chores for the day. You try to pacify the idea of you two being some sort of post-apocalyptic cowboys on a homestead that barely has the proper tools to sustain it half the time. It works for the both of you.

Outside the air is thick, but sky clear as you walk towards the stables. And there's Joel, exactly where you knew he would be. Bent down on his knees, working on the same project you were last week on the stables.

Security and routine close cousins to abandonment and disappointment – this plays in the background of your thoughts. You intentionally swallow it down as you approach him.

"Could I ride her?" You come into his line of vision, and you see him make a sweet face of happy to see you and did I hear you correctly?

"You can ride?" His question has amusement in it, and you scoff – grin tugging at your face. Ignoring the blatant double entendre that he probably didn't even mean to slip out, anyway. But Joel is pleased when you pick up on it because he did in fact say it on purpose.

Of course he did.

"I have a few tricks up my sleeve yet, Miller."

Joel grunts on his way up onto his feet, bowing graciously. "Go right ahead, ma'am."

She's set up to ride when you approach her and you reach out to scratch behind her ear before saddling up on top of her.

"Hey, girl," you smile, petting over the coarse hair of her back. She's gentle, but not exactly willing to go straight away. It makes you laugh, and the ease of tension makes it easier for her to trot. "Same here, sister." You snicker to yourself, and the horse takes you out of the stables. You mostly let her do the leading, but she's easy to work with as you take her around the land Joel has claimed for himself.

There's a freedom you haven't experienced in so long while you're riding her. You remember being a kid on the back of your dad's horse, the wind against your skin like this. The prospect of new. You slow her down in your approach back to the stables after a few minutes.

When you come back, you're welcomed by Joel's clapping hands a toothy smile across his face that hurts in the best way. His pride and entertainment.

Joel basking in this side of you as you open up to him.

"Damn, maybe you could give me some lessons, darlin'. You teach yourself that?"

You appreciate him not assuming someone taught you how to do this, but the truth is you were. "My dad, actually. He taught me how to ride a horse, how to shoot a gun–"

"Not well on that last one," he jabs, motioning towards his leg you purposefully missed.

"You don't know what you don't know."

For a moment, you forget. All that burned to the ground in your previous life. Your father dying in your arms. All of it.

"She and I had a talk," you start, climbing out of the stirrups.

"Oh, did you?" Joel lifts his brow, urging you to go on.

"Her name is Bandit."

"Like you?"

"Like me."

"Figures."

---

You're both asleep up in the loft. Each morning, you were beginning to notice that Joel's night terrors were becoming less and less frequent. Subsequently, so were your own.

That was until one night you were awoken by the sound of your own sobbing, and Joel's arms tight around you. He knew not to wake you up, but he was too concerned not to try to settle you down.

"W-what?" Your voice is groggy, palpitations in your chest high. Confusion suffuses you.

"Shh, s'okay. Close y'er eyes."

Joel feels bad for waking you up, he didn't mean to. He thought he was doing the right thing. Yet even though it takes takes you awhile to fall back asleep, you do fall asleep and stay asleep.

His arm stuck around you. His protection like a blanket.

Joel's eyes stay open until they cannot and slumber creeps up for him.

All in the pursuit of your safety. He doesn't mention it, doesn't ask questions or bring it up.

---

It feels pleasant with Joel. The two of you have a routine of working on your individual duties in the day, but you always come back to each other in the evening. He's rough around the edges, there's still things that he's keeping to himself. But you don't mind because you are too, and there's no rush.

The leisure of this is what takes you by surprise the most. Not Joel being kind, or slow, or even sweet to you.

It's the fact that in the middle of chaos, you have found a pocket of serenity. The stillness between breaths.

Towards the end of your second week at Joel's, you find it brave to drape your calves over his lap while you both read worn books that have been well-loved and repeatedly grazed. In the living room you've chosen poetry tonight. Audre Lorde. Because it's there and it feels appropriate to go for poetry.

You hum to yourself when you read something striking, and now Joel is curious.

"Let's hear it," he calls, not moving his eyes from his own pages and his free palm curls over your shin.

"You want me to perform for you?"

"Quit bein' weird and just read it."

You laugh, licking over your lips before theatrically clearing your throat.

"Kinda liked it better when you were shy," Joel adds, but you know he doesn't mean it.

"You'll get used to it. Okay. Let's see... 'Always / in the middle of our bloodiest battles / you lay down your arms / like flowering mines / to conqueror me home.'"

There's a long pause between the two of you.

"I don't get it."

"You're a bad liar."

"Flowerin' mines don't even exist."

"Joel–" you huff, but that's what he wanted out of you. A response, a reaction, a rise. He puts down his book to look over to you and he's at mercy to your gaze.

"I know what you mean."

It's supported, this comfortable silence. The underbelly of what was the start of a bloodied battle. Unwillingness metamorphosing into a budding bouquet of trust.

You both go back to your books.

No need to say what is right in front of you.

He knew what you meant. Understanding.

It was all you wanted.

taglist: @cool-iguana - comment to be added!

#joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller smut #tlou fic #tlou smut #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller fanfiction #tlou fanfiction #tlou hbo #soft!dom joel #softdom!joel #joel miller fluff #joel miller angst #by bee #dancing is a dangerous game

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hyperfixatedoncrimminalminds · 6 months

Text

So I accidentally deleted this request but I have written it so sorry to whoever wrote it.

Request : Okok, Teen!Male!reader x Spencer Ried (platonic obvs) when reader ends up getting mixed up a crime/murder in the drug scene. They aren't the unsub but they struggle with addiction and has an ally cat type attitude so it makes it difficult to get any information out of him. Spencer is like a father figure and they start to get close, helping reader through out the case/ recovery.

I love this idea

Third person pov...

Spencer Reid and Derek Morgan arrive on scene, there is a serial killer runnng around kidnapping upstanding people then killing people by overdosing them on different drugs.

The latest victim was a mother with two children under the ages of 10, with no history of drug use she is currently the 5th victim, where they found her was in a dumpster in ohio.

"Looks like the rest of the victims" Says Derek as he kneels next to the body of Samantha Doyle. Spencer nods and looks around the scene. "As well as the dump site, he threw her away like trash." He says, as he looks he notices a boy looking no older then 15 being talked to by the police.

Confused Spence leaves Morgan and walks over to one of the police officers. "Hey excuse me, whats he doing here?" He asks nodding over at the boy and officer.

The office next to him looks over. "Oh yeah him, he's been hanging around sayin' he saw something. Don't bother with 'im he's an addict got loads of them here" he tells the agent, Spencer thanks the man but doesn't take his eyes of the teen.

The officer just sighs and leaves the boy, he was watching with intense curiosity. The boy had messy hair and dark circles under his eyes, giving the impression of a troubled soul.

Spencer's mind immediately went into profiling mode, trying to figure out the boy's story, he walked over to the boy and introduced himself, "Hi, I'm Dr. Spencer Reid. And you are?"

The young man shrugged his shoulders tapping his hand nervously. "Y/N" he says bearly over a mumble but Spencer hears him. "Well Y/N, did you see anything here?" He asked.

The young detective immediately noticed the troubled look in (Y/n)'s eyes, and he could see the fear and guilt written all over his face.

Spencer's empathetic nature kicked in, and he knew that there was more to this young man than meets the eye.

(Y/n) was like a wounded alley cat, always on edge and unwilling to trust anyone. The 15 year old didn't say anything. "How about you come to the station to talk" Says the genius.

Y/N thinks before nodding, either way they were going to make him talk might as well get it over with, soon the boy is sat in the back of thr SUV with two Agents.

They try and talk to him more but only get a few words out bef they take him to the interrogation room to talk, as Y/N sits and waits he thinks over his life.

He's been hooked on drugs since he was 12 when he was 10 his Mother died leaving him with his abusive Father, he would kick little Y/N around all day until the boy finally turned to drugs to dull the pain.

It's worked all those years and he's hooked, finally when he was 14 he ran away and had beeb living on the streets, pick pocketing people who walk past him.

He met many different people throughout the last year, not many of them were nice most were arsehole and criminals, but last night traumatised him.

He was in his usual place counting the money he managed to pick pocket of some people, when he heard something. He saw a guy dressed in dark clothes throughing something in the dumpster.

Y/N didn't bother with it, but he got curious and stuck behind a dumpster and got a pretty good look at what was happening, his E/C eyes widened in shock.

It was a body, the man was throwing her into the dumpster, Y/N ducks into the darkness when the guy turns around, he gets a good look at his face before he leaves in a truck.

It was to dark to see the number plate, Y/N walks closer to the body, her lifeless eyes stare into his dark tired ones, she looked alot like his Mother.

Shivering he closed her eyes and left to go back to his place where he sleeps and tried to forget what he saw.

The door to the room opens bringing the teen back into the real world, Spencer had told everyone to stay there thay he would handle it.

He closed the door and sat in the chair oppos the boy, Y/N wasnt ha dcuffed and coukd ove but didn't he kept sat down.

Spencer decis to take a different approach, he reaches into his pocket and takes out a pack of cards.

"Mind if I play a game of solitaire?" Spencer asked, trying to lighten the mood To his surprise, the young man slowly reached out and took the cards. As they played, Spencer asked more questions, trying to get some information about the crime and the drug scene in the area.

As he played Y/N became a little more reaced but was still on guard and keeping Spencer at arms lengt.

Y/N still didn't reveal much, but Spencer could tell he was holding back. He also noticed the subtle tremors in Y/Ns hands and the needle marks on his arm.

He soon realized that Y/N was not the unsub, but rather a lost soul struggling with addiction and trauma, this brought him back to when he was addicted to delaudid.

After a few games Y/N began opening up about what he sawast night, he told him everything he remembered, this helped the team alot tk catch the bastard.

Throughout the case Without judgment, Spencer offered to help Y/N get clean and get out of the dangerous world of drugs. With the help of Y/N the team manages to catch the killer sooner than they had hoped.

As the case progressed, Spencer and the H/C teen grew closer. They spent long nights talking and playing cards, and Spencer could see the potential in the young man. He was intelligent and quick-witted, but his addiction was holding him back.

Y/N was also hesitant to trust anyone, but he slowly opened up to Spencer, after having an awful relationship with his bio father seeing him Spencer as a father figure scared him, Spence became more invested in the teens recovery and helping him turn his life around.

With the help of the team, they were able to track down the murder suspect, Y/N even played a crucial role in gathering information, using his 'alley cat attitude' to his advantage.

As the case came to a close, Spencer and Y/N celebrated with a game of cards and a heartfelt conversation. Y/N thanked Spencer for his help and guidance, and Spencer promised to always be there for him.

From that day on, Y/N focused on his recovery with the support of his new family at the BAU. He still had his struggles, but with Spencer by his side, he knew he could overcome them.

Spencer, on the other hand, learned a valuable lesson about not judging a book by its cover. Y/N may have been mixed up in the drug scene, but he was more than just an addict. He was a survivor.

The end!

Hope you liked this oneshot, slowly getting through these requests. Sorry for any spelling or grammar mistakes.

Request are open!

Word count: 1312

#criminal minds #fanfic #behavioural analysis unit #x child reader #fluff and comfort #oneshot #light angst #x teen!reader #family problems #abusive dad #tw drugs #addiction #spencer reid x child!reader #spencer reid x teen!reader #spencer reid #x male teen reader #father figure #lota of angst

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coconoct · 9 months

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certified delulu post about nocti

a.n. this'll be a compilation of thoughts from my initial reactions to sands of wrath to his voicelines to literally everything about him. THIS WILL HEAVILY BE A NOCTI X SKK!READER KIND OF THING because i'm all in for a lil self insert to feed my delulu visions. also as a heads up i did read the story using google translate so if i quote anything it's basically what google translate told me but i edited it to make some grammatical sense. and yes there will be spoilers

a lot of context will be left out so if you don't wanna be confused by names check out this lore doc that gives a summary of er-5 or pgr lore in general, this post just talks about er-5 lol

EXHIBIT A: TRIGUN AU

have you seen trigun (ESPECIALLY trimax) cause if you have this makes so much more sense

noctis is vash and nigel is knives

both are brothers and have almost opposite ideologies

i did think of wolfwood and livio as another option but nigel does fit a bit closer to resembling knives

VASHWOOD (where nocti is vash and skk is ww (or the other way round, honestly either still works)

nocti: but you must promise me that you won’t die before i come back! no…. you’re not allowed to die even after i come back! i will definitely find a way to save you!

skk: of course, partner…..

this had me in TEARS I WAS NOT READY

nocti fist bumping you just made me think of this scene with vash and meryl

HE ALSO CALLS YOU PARTNER AS HE FIST BUMPS YOU the way i had this realization so late into writing all this

sands of wrath setting literally looks like a place you’d find in no man’s land

nocti’s voiceline telling you to smile more, similar to ww telling vash to smile more (and i mean their genuine smile, not the fake one they use in front of people)

EXHIBIT B: NOCTI AND SKK ARE MARRIED

they are married and own a bar together hear me out—

you two enter a town in which neither of you are welcome because you’re both from babylonia, the mayor decides to put you two in a hotel room till the harvest festival is over

you two are in separate beds, but neither of you can sleep, so you two do what any pair of roommates would do—

—have a 6 hr "light conversation" :D

first actual convo with nocti, you both take turns to ask questions about why they’re here, what’s going on, etc

nocti asks why you trust him so easily, you respond with “it’s intuition” which is a response nocti seemed to like

you also state how you hope he returns to cerberus and fall asleep. nocti in a way states he also wishes to go back to cerberus and sleeps as well

at some point nocti leaves the hotel room to find demont, who is the reason you two ended up working together in the first place, but there was an attack by hetero creatures and nocti swiftly got rid of them

after talking to the mayor, max, about wanting to be just a resident in town, he takes you to a bar, in which that’s where you find nocti

ya know he could’ve talked about ANYTHING and his drunk ass decided to talk about HOW HE PROTECTED YOU??? COINCIDENCE??? I THINK NOT

you find nocti and he offers his hand out to you to dance with him, you reluctantly agreed and you two end up break dancing together

this was him proposing to you i’m just sayin—

the night passes and you two begin living your lives as residents of new oakley

when he first calls you partner, it was originally solely because temporarily they’re no longer considered members of babylonia, and so to fit in with the whole wild west type style, nocti refers to you as “partner” and you agree to do the same to him

first time it’s used outside your interaction with him was when nocti has small talk with vann

vann: you’ll only obey orders from that commandant, right? these are the rules of the sky garden

nocti: i don’t listen to anyone’s orders, but if it’s a request from my partner, that’s a different matter

NOCTI WHY ARE YOU SAYING THAT LIKE WE’RE ROMANTICALLY PARTNERS?????

this isn’t the first time he does something like that he’s very consistent about it

truly a devoted man

also “MY partner” ????? he also pretty much refers to you as his partner throughout the whole story i got whiplashed when we were back to being called skk in his affection story

after you and nocti find demont there’s a small good cop bad cop scene (which i found hilarious), but at the end demont couldn’t reveal much vital information due to dying from poison

nocti realizes this poison is something only nigel can control, and stormed out into the center of town in a fit of rage trying to find nigel

calming him down and telling him to retreat to not make a big scene was practically impossible, that is till you shout “trust me— partner!!” and nocti finally calms down and retreats

HELLO??? CALLING HIS NAME HE DIDN'T BAT AN EYE BUT BEING CALLED PARTNER MADE HIM ACTUALLY LISTEN??

i'm absolutely speechless

you two cook up a plan to find out what’s really going on +bonus hand holding at the end

your part was to just do your job as a bartender while nocti handles the investigating, and eventually nigel shows up

nigel asks what’s the difference between a human and a construct, you respond in a way a bartender would explain it, but nigel wants an answer from you as a commandant rather than a bartender

he ends up poisoning you and leaves, nocti arrives a little while later after discovering what the plan is for this town in the next few days

i remembered that before we split up i told him not to be reckless, but in the end i was the one that was careless and ended up in this miserable condition. i no longer had the strength to stand, so i could only slide down to the edge of the bar. at the beginning, i said big words that would make nocti return to cerberus in an honored manner… i didn’t expect to be the one to make him sad for his companions

skk: i'm sorry…. nocti….

nocti: HEY! don’t say such depressing things to me so quickly

nocti then enters a panicked state of not knowing what to do cause skk is poisoned and there's no known cure for it

nocti gritted his teeth. he didn't even know how to give first aid. he regretted not learning more about first aid from vera before

GOT ME SOBBING, EMOTIONALLY DAMAGED, SHATTERED INTO PIECES

you tell nocti to go help the mayor cause if the mayor dies the town will fall

nocti is in pure disbelief that at a time like this you're more worried about someone else and he refused to leave you here

after some reassuring nocti goes ahead and takes care of what's going on in town and immediately after checks if you’re still ok

he hears a painful scream in his communication device and he SPRINTS back to where you are and finds both vera and 21 there attempting to take care of you

21 comments on how nocti is a lot more powerful ITS BECAUSE HIS LOVER IS DYING RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM AND HE WANTS TO SAVE THEM BUT DOESN'T KNOW HOW

there’s an encounter with the purifying force, wanting nocti dead since they believe he’s the cause of their aircraft crashing

you tell them that it isn’t his fault and after essentially a stare down between the purifying force and cerberus, the purifying force leaves you all alone since they trust you (thank the overlords for you working with them before and gaining a good work relationship)

you, cerberus, max, and vann think of a plan on what to do next now that you all know where nigel might be located

nocti will go and fight nigel alone since it’s the reason he even came here in the first place while the rest defend the town

you establish a m.i.n.d. connection with nocti, which in turn gives him the poison as well since you’re basically almost a walking corpse at this point

the fact that nocti, with NO hesitation, established a connection with you makes it LOUD AND CLEAR that he will stick with you no matter what even if it leads to his death

cue another hand holding scene, and nocti leaves

vera and 21 get very VERY concerned over your health, yet you’re still adamant about keeping the connection with nocti

21: they want to keep a deep m.i.n.d connection w nocti

vera: DO YOU WANT TO DIE?! if you're deeply connected, your consciousness will be completely bound to him…. if he dies, you also die

skk: he… needs….. me…..

this is LITERALLY a moment where one cares more about their partner THAN THEIR OWN WELL-BEING ㅠㅠㅠㅠ

transitioning over to nocti’s side, he finally confronts nigel

nigel mentions that in order to cure the commandant he needs to be killed, but just HEARING that name come out of his mouth made nocti more full of rage than he’s ever had

this part alone SCREAMED nocti being like "you do NOT have the right to say my partner's name after what you did to them, i am no longer doing this for myself, i'm doing this FOR THEM"

so anyways nocti gets his ass beat 💀💀, nigel lecturing him that he’s still confused and is only driven by anger

the cutscene if you wanna watch it

"commandant… you must be disappointed with me…. damn it… are you mad at me? haha.. me too…. leave everything to me from now on. let’s make that bastard taste our true wrath, partner..."

“i can’t die here yet…. my partner is still waiting for me to come back.”

similar to 21's comment earlier, nigel notices how nocti's steps aren't noisy and chaotic anymore, but steady, firm, and powerful now BECAUSE HIS PARTNER IS ROOTING FOR HIM TO WIN AND HE NEEDED THAT BOOST OF ENCOURAGEMENT... THAT'S WHY YOU WERE SO ADAMANT WITH KEEPING A M.I.N.D. CONNECTION WITH NOCTI

this whole fight scene had me SCREAMING

“my partner and i will use all our strength… to beat you to pieces”

if you still haven’t gotten it DO YOU SEE IT NOW??? HIS MAN IS FULLY DRIVEN TO HIS FULL POTENTIAL BECAUSE HE LOVES YOU AND WANTS TO.. NO... NEEDS TO COME BACK TO YOU

nocti wins and nigel essentially retreats but with a new found respect for his brother

but before he retreats he asks nocti the same question he asked you: what’s the difference between humans and constructs

he gives his own answer and guesses yours (since he was rather confident enough with knowing a lot on how you think) and it boils down to them having the same answer but different font

the place nocti and nigel were fighting in collapses, forcing nocti to leave and never see nigel again

you and nocti are back in the hotel room recovering, and a few locals come in to beg nocti to stay and not go back to babylonia

“but i made a promise with my partner, i want to return to cerberus in a dignified manner…”

after more silly banter everyone leaves you and nocti alone to rest, but neither of you can sleep

nocti brings up the question nigel asked him, and you gave him your actual answer, which is pretty close to what he guessed

nocti: haha… just as i thought, i know you better

skk: but maybe i know you better. for example, what you look like when you’re drunk

nocti: WHAT?! DID I DO ANYTHING WEIRD WHEN I WAS DRUNK???

skk: forget it, stop talking, i’m sleepy

nocti: HEY!! TELL ME NOW!!!!

he’s a literal blushing mess after you told him you saw him drunk

your honor this is literally a newly wed couple

gotta of course mention his affection story so read here for a summary of that as well

the way he ONLY uses the best quality and probably most expensive ingredients to make your food

nocti giving a damn about this whole pancake thing only because YOU care

LIKE HE'S PUTTING HIS PREFERENCES ASIDE TO MAKE YOU HAPPY

MORE HAND HOLDINGGG this time in the form of you helping him mold the pancake shape +bonus nocti blushing

both literally wanting to do the whole working at a bar thing together again in the future that is like PEAK ENDGAME for their marriage

+bonus boss being supportive and naming the new drink and dish that was made after you and nocti

the whole affection story just very clearly and vividly plays out nocti and skk working together flawlessly at the bar like their chemistry was SO GOOD !!!!

very sorry for any grammar errors i'm very hyperfixated on him rn and i needed to scream about it somewhere

anyways thank you for coming to my ted talk i will now think of nocti in a wedding dress /hj

#fbj rambles #punishing gray raven #pgr noctis #pgr commandant #pgr noctis x reader #i was NOT expecting to write this much omg #im very sane abt him can you tell #this was like 2k words wtf #most sane nocti simp LOL

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autisticempathydaemon · 3 months

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A friend of mine's been tryna get me into Redacted and shit and told me bout your matchups so Imma give it a go

DO 4 LOVE by Snoh Alegra. Specifically the part "And in my world, only you / Make me do for love, what I would not do"

Had to look up what you were talkin bout, my friend said Id be a 2? So Imma take their word and go with that

I don't really watch things unless someone else is showing me?? But I'm pretty sure I saw this one vid about the best cocktail and fresh herb pairings which was pretty fucking cool

Is that a thing people have...? I guess I didn't have one really?? Friends were kinda hard to keep when I was younger

I don't really sleep if I can help it. If I do, it's usually cuz I'm around the right people y'know? And usually cuz I'm bout to pass out or some shit

My name isn't changed across the board or anything but I chose my other name cuz I wanted something that felt like it represented what I wanna be. I like being a guide in a weird way, and there was something bout my name that just feels right now. I dunno, it's kinda weird cuz I still vibe with my first name too

Had to pull it up again so I didn't fuck up the title but "Baking A Cake With Your Incubus Boyfriend" for sure. I pretty much learned how to cook cuz someone else taught me and the audio reminds of one of my friends. Plus I crack myself up thinkin bout how badly another friend fucked up a cake this one time

I don't really fuck with Sam honestly? Don't really like Vincent either but that's more of a dislike kinda situation. Sam's real hard headed bout certain things and it's exhausting sometimes. He's not bad when he quits actin like he ain't holdin onto the same shit he scolds other people for, but as a whole I don't see what other people do in him

Sat next to a friend reading Circe out loud and then borrowed it from them the next day. They let me keep it after I asked to re-read it for the 5th time

If I had to pick? Vega or Brachium. Both of them remind me a lot of a old friend of mine so I fuck with most of their audios. I think they'd be cool to kick it with if they didn't have a bunch of plot shit goin on

Don't really have a go-to cuz I like tryin new shit. I tend to let someone else pick for me and roll with it. Last time I got something they gave me strawberry lemonade and hard pretzels. Was pretty good ngl

Been really into disco music lately! I think it's disco. That's what they called it, I dunno, it's fun to jam to. Really into Night To Remember as of late

Uh I dunno, maybe cooking shows? I don't really get what they're sayin half the time but it looks good on the screen

Hmmm, Type Twos are characterized as a giving, open- hearted sort of people, leaning towards those who are similarly inclined. With that in mind, I’d pick Camelopardalis for you.

Another reason I like him for you is because of what you said about sleep. Sleeping in the presence of another person is so vulnerable and trusting so I wanted to pair you with the most trustworthy Redacted man I could think of. Also, I think Cam would be the most appreciative of the trust and love that that gesture would wordlessly express, you know? Also, I like what you said about “being a guide”; like, I feel Cam would hear that and resonate with that.

Overall, you’d have such a peaceful, serene life, and I love that for y’all. Cam would be so well fed in more ways than one, because I can see him being such a supportive, helpful sous chef once he gets the idea. I can clearly imagine you introducing him to cooking and disco, music playing while he watches you dance around the kitchen while also watching whatever’s in the pot on the stove. (I’m so sure the daemon powers and speed will be so helpful in the kitchen.) (Also, I think he was totally old enough to be around for disco, but he was more of a classical/jazz guy. This would make it even more fun to show him the genre he missed.)

Song:

Give me the simple life/ Some find it pleasant dining on pheasant/ Those things roll off my knife/ Just serve me tomatoes and mashed potatoes/ Give me the simple life/ A cottage small is all I'm after

Like I said, Cam’s a classics and jazz kind of guy in my head. I think he’d have a wonderful time showing you the music he likes, the kind that brings him serenity. This song, specifically the Ella Fitzgerald version is deffo an example. I can see this playing in the morning as he gets ready for work in the morning making you breakfast since you always cook for him.

Runner-ups:

Morgan is a good runner-up for you because he also strikes me as a guiding, helpful figure, just not as much as Cam, ya know? David is a runner-up because I think it’d be really cute for y’all to cook with each other~

Note: I totally agree with you about Sam you’re so real for that~

Read this post and send me an ask if you’d like a match-up of your own! 💌

#redactedasmr #redactedverse #redacted asmr #redactedaudio #redacted audio #redacted #busybee matches

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boygiwrites · 10 months

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Harley D. Dixon 17

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Author's Note. I'm so sorry for not updating for so long!! 😣 Please enjoy!

Warning for mentions of suicide in this chapter.

"You promised me we were safe here."

Rick's raisin' his voice again. That's how I know things are bad.

"You promised me our children were safe here. Our son. Daryl's daughter. Where are these walkers comin' from?"

My Dad drags me up the porch steps, his boots going stomp, stomp, stomp against the planks as he beelines for the back door.

Dale hurries after us, hissing under his breath that we can't go confronting 'em on this, not right now, but my Dad don't listen to him.

"My girl almost got ate just now." He scolds Dale, before shoving past the rickety door. "These people gon' answer for it."

Another haven ruined. Seems everywhere we go, there's one more disaster waiting to sink its teeth into us, and here it is again. Thinking we're safe and knowing we ain't is a cycle I'm coming to live with. I'm not sure there's anywhere left in the world for me to feel safe, except maybe in my Dad's arms, but even those are bloodied. As we enter the house, the argument ricochets loudly from down the hall. There's Rick, standing next to Shane as he groans and grunts under the point of a suture needle, brows taut; knuckles white. Patricia and Jacqui, fussing over him with cotton pads and disinfectant. Herschel, frowning hard. And blood. Always, always blood.

"I am sorry," Herschel booms, "That this has happened, but as I've said from the very beginning, this is my property. My home."

There are aspects to this that I can't and won't discuss.

Aspects, meaning dead people in the barn. Dead, and rotten, and not-themselves people. I can't understand why they'd do such a thing.

"Daddy, why're they keepin' those people in the barn?" Nervously chewing on my thumb, I try to keep up with my Dad as he storms toward the crowded dining room, but his strides are real angry-like, and I can't hardly keep up. Keepin' dead people in a barn, li— like pets. "Why?"

"We're gonna find out."

"And these are my people." Rick's volume startles even Lori. "I'm responsible for their safety. I'm the one who trusted your word on this."

"What about your word, Rick? That your group would abide by my rules? There was almost a murder here tonight."

"I swear on everything, I had no intentions of that happenin'."

I hate shouting. Boy, do I hate, hate, hate shouting.

"Hey, Greene." As soon as we pass through the archway, my Dad interrupts everyone. "You got sum' you might wanna tell us 'boutcher barn?"

All heads snap in our direction.

"I think you've done enough for tonight, young man." Herschel warns. "All of you... have done more than enough."

But Rick wants to hear what he has to say. "Hang on. Whatchu sayin', Daryl?"

"You wanna know where all these walkers been comin' from, right?" He announces to the room, "Well, they're keeping 'em in the barn."

Shock runs through our group.

Lori exclaims, "What?"

Herschel's gaze falls to the floor, as if ashamed, or angry, or maybe even both. It's usually both.

"There's a break in the side panelling. We found it just now. They been sneakin' out; fallin' into wells," He gestures to me passionately, "And tearin' up kids. We're sleepin' next to a damn horror house and we ain't even realize it, 'cause these people ain't said a damn word about it."

"You were only supposed to be here a few days." Maggie gets defensive. "We don't owe you an explanation for anythin'."

He scoffs, "And what if Harley got bit just now? 'Cause'a your lil' walker friends? Would you owe me one then?"

Dale takes a step forward, hands placatingly held up in front of him. "Hey, now. I'm sure you've had your reasons for keeping this a secret, and I didn't want to say anything, but... truthfully, this is something that concerns us, whether this is our property or not. We have children with us."

"You're right, it's not your property." I can see Herschel's scowl even under all his moustache hair. "And it's not your decision, either."

Dad raises his brows. "To keep a bunch of feral animals near yer house?"

"They are not feral animals." Slam! His hand comes down on the table, making me jump. "My wife and stepson are in there. They are people!"

I've never seen Herschel this upset before. I didn't even know he could get upset.

"People?" Shane bares his blood-smeared teeth. "You think those crazy things out there are people?"

"A paranoid schizophrenic is crazy, but we don't shoot sick people." Herschel insists. "We help them. We rehabilitate them."

He shakes his head. "This ain't right. This ain't even remotely right."

There's a heavy pause.

I know walkers ain't sick, 'cause I seen 'em come back, again and again, with no heart, one lung, half a head, a missing leg, jaw, eye, spine.

I know that dead means dead.

But Herschel thinks he can treat them, like someone with a cold.

"With all due respect," Dale sighs, approaching this topic with caution. "You're cut off from the outside world here. If you watched the same broadcasts we did... If you saw the things we've seen—" Amy, dead. Morales, dead. Blood, and bullets, and a bite mark on a friend's arm, followed by a bang on a warm afternoon. Destruction, over and over. "—Your opinion would change. Those things out there, they kill."

"Hell, look what just happened." Shane butts in. "They almost tore into a little girl; would'a chewed her to the bone. That ain't sick, that's feral."

Patricia frowns, "Watch your tone."

"You're talking about this like your safety is at jeopardy, here, but you're free to leave at any time." Herschel raises his head, and I can tell just by the look on his face that he's an old dog that refuses to learn a new trick, and that makes me worry. "In fact, I think it's best you do."

Oh, no. He don't mean that, do he?

"We're not leaving." Rick suddenly intervenes, expression hard as stone. "That's not possible."

"You told me to reconsider. This is me doing exactly that." He purses his thin lips, and spits, "You are no longer welcome on my farm."

Oh. He does.

Dad's hand tightens around mine.

His words are like a hard punch to the guts for all of us.

"Everything that's happened tonight has only reminded me why I was so hesitant to let you stay in the first place. A knife was pulled; a man almost killed. It's clear your group has issues I don't want my family to suffer the consequences of. So you either all leave at first light, or you choose one of these two men to leave on their own, instead, and hope nothing like this happens again. Either way, I want a decision made right now."

An ultimatum. That's when people threaten each other but nobody can't do nothin' about it.

When I look at Rick, his mouth is open as if to speak, but there's nothin' he can say to justify tonight, so he shuts it with a stressed sigh.

Leave? Tomorrow? No, no, no. I don't want this. We need to stay. We need to find Sophia. I don't want to give up jam and eggs and soft, linen blankets, or the swing hanging from the old oak tree, or how it's so quiet out here that you can hear the sound of crickets chirping in the grass. If this were a couple months ago, Dad might've just volunteered to be the one to leave, but things have changed. These people are our people, now.

If I had to choose between everyone leaving, Dad and me leaving, and Shane leaving, I know who I'd pick.

I picked days ago.

"We can't all leave." Carol distresses, fiddling with her necklace. "We can't. My daughter is still out there."

"That's why we're gonna have to think about this." Rick explains, eyes locked with Shane. He's picked, too. "Something has to be done."

More glances thrown around; more worrying.

It's either Dad or Shane, then. It's always either Dad or Shane.

"We decide together on this." Dale assures everyone, glancing at Rick, who we all know will get final say. "This is a democracy, here."

I don't know what a duh-maw-crah-see is, but I do know that it won't save us from the terrible argument that's about to happen.

"You wanna kick anybody out, make it Daryl." Shane nods in our direction, nostrils flared angrily like a bull that's seeing red. "He's the one that pulled that knife on me, not even one day after gettin' back on his feet. We all saw it. He can't help himself. He's an animal, and a threat."

"I go, Harley goes wit' me." Dad retorts. "You wanna send a kid to her death just 'cause you ain't right in the head?"

He shrugs, "Maybe she'll just have to stay here, then."

"Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"That's out of the question." Rick shuts down the idea. "Harley and Daryl, they stay together. They're family. We need to think rationally about this."

"If 'rational' means throwin' me out instead'a Daryl, then I don't accept that."

Rick's frustration starts to show again. "It doesn't matter what you accept, Shane. This is what's best for the group. The greater good. They taught us that in training, day one. You know that. Save as many people as possible with as little casualties as possible. That's my rationality."

"That's all I am to you? A casualty?"

"If it's between kicking a father and his child to the curb, and you, after what you've done," Rick says, "Then I think you know the answer."

What you've done.

"This is nuts." He chuckles emptily. "I didn't do anythin'. I was attacked. I got two, four, six witnesses here that'll tell you the same thing."

Rick gives him a look similar to watching a baby bird try to fly with a broken wing, and says plainly, "I'm not talking about tonight, Shane."

He's talking about shooting Dad.

This is it. We're kicking Shane out. We're really doing it.

"You need to re-think this." Shane flat-out refuses. "'Cause I know for a fact, Rick, you ain't as dumb as all that. You wanna kick out your best friend of fifteen years, the man — the brother — who's stood by your side since the day we met, over this— this goddamn redneck piece o—"

"Watcher mouth!" Dad barks.

"Piece of shit?" He doubles down, a cornered, angry dog. "Him? Look at my shoulder and tell me that's a good idea! You tell me!"

"Look at his stomach!" Glenn retorts incredulously, his voice shrill as he points across the room at Dad. "You shot him!"

Lori startles, pulling Carl's head into her chest, covering his ears.

Shane roars, "And you think I did that for no reason, huh? Think I'm just some kinda psycho?"

Maggie chides, "Lower your voice!"

"We don't shoot one of our own!"

"For Christ's sake—"

I can tell in this next moment that everything is about to come apart. I wanna stop it, but I can't.

"He beats her, people!" There it is. Oh, God. Shane shoots up from his chair; grabs the edge of the table, shakes it a little, making the dishes rattle. Small gasps fill the room. Glances cut the air. I take a step back, a step behind my Dad, 'cause the only person I'm afraid of right now is Shane. "I saw it. Back at the CDC, night things went to Hell. Y'all wanna act like I'm the problem, do you? He's standin' right there! Right in front'a y'all!"

All I can think about as I watch the vein in Shane's neck pulse angrily is that I don't recognise this man at all.

"I shot him! And you know what? I say that with pride!" He tells everyone, unashamed, standing tall, outta his mind. "'Cause I did somethin'!"

What would happen if you told me the whole secret?

Something even worse would happen.

"I bet your brother was doin' the same thing, weren't he, Daryl?" Shane snides, before he scoffs. "Birds of a feather."

I watch in real time as the faces of our friends morph from shocked to confused to betrayed, until the whole room feels like an open bear trap.

Rick pins Dad with a— with a look. I ain't never seen a look like that. It's the strangest look in the world, like he wants to speak, but can't; won't.

Glenn stands there, his jaw slack; a kicked puppy dog.

I know Dad prolly wants to bolt. He prolly feels like he's been flayed open. It's none'a your business. I've heard that throughout my whole life, directed at concerned people at parks, teachers, neighbours, even Moms in the grocery store, whenever Merle would hit me for actin' up, or when Dad accidently chose a shirt for me that showed the bruise Grandpappy Dixon left there the night before. He prolly wants to deny it all once more, but he's stronger than that, now — stronger than Shane — so that's not what he does. Instead, he says, a little quietly, "That's not happenin', anymore. Things've changed. I've changed."

Shane finds that very funny. "Bullshit, you have. People like you Dixons never change."

People like you.

I never quite know what that means when people say that to us, but every time I hear it, I do know it's meant to hurt.

At least to Dad, I'm just me. That's all I wanna be.

He struggles to find anything to say to that, because deep down, I think he believes it. He will never be anythin' but a good for nothin' Dixon.

Just like Merle.

Just like my Grandpappy.

Just like every other piece of sorry trash that never made it out our trailer park. It took the apocalypse for us to make it out that place.

Carol braves the silence with her timid, shaking voice. "Is it true, Daryl?"

After a while, all he does is nod, 'cause what else is there?

She seems to crack at that, breaking down into little sobs that sound a hundred times louder than they really are. I think she's thinkin' of her husband. He was a little like Daddy. Sophia told me he was mean, sometimes, too, but back then I didn't know what that meant. Lori puts an arm around her shoulders, a deeply disappointed look on her face. Glenn has to sit down. Dale, he's revolted. And Rick, he just looks so, so tired.

Even though dinner was almost unbearable, and the food's gone stone cold by now, I still wish I was in that moment again.

"It wasn't Otis?" Patricia eventually utters. "He didn't shoot him?"

Oh, right. The dead man that took all the blame. I almost forgot about that.

Shane looks around the room, sees he's past the point of lying, and admits easily, "It was me." Then, he just can't help himself, 'cause he's always been that way, and he continues, "I shot Daryl, and I shot Otis, too." My stomach drops. What? He nods, feeling the way the confession sinks in like a drug. "That night at the college, I popped him in the kneecap, and I watched as the dead ones came down on him as I ran. He was holding the supplies. We brought those back, Daryl would'a had a good chance at survivin' surgery, and that wasn't an option for me. I see a threat, I eliminate it. That's the difference between me and y'all. I do what needs to be done and I don't feel a shred of guilt for it, neither, 'cause I did it for Harley. You wanna call me a murderer, that's fine with me. I know what I did. I know who I am."

He killed Otis? Watched him die? For what? For me?

I take in the appalled faces of the Greenes, like poor Maggie, eyes wide, and Herschel, being helped by Beth into his seat as he teeters lightheadedly, feeling like I somehow caused all of this. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't've said anythin' about Momma, and then I wouldn't have gotten beat, and Shane wouldn't've walked in on it or gotten mad or tried to be my friend, and Dad wouldn't be shot, and Otis would be alive.

But you can't go back in time, even if you really, really want to, because it just don't work like that.

Herschel slowly looks up at Shane, shaking with anger. "Rick, get this man off my farm at once."

It's Shane, then. That's the decision.

He tried to save me, but all he's done is doom a bunch of others, and doom himself.

He looks sidelong at his best friend of fifteen years, muttering uselessly, "Rick. You can't do this, brother."

But, yes, Rick can.

He tears his gaze away from Shane and gestures to Jacqui, ordering, "Finish sewin' him up, but nothin' more. He's gone tomorrow morning."

"Rick." He repeats desperately, brushing Jacqui off when she tries to make him sit down. "This is not the right choice."

"He gets his gun, with no bullets, and—"

"Rick."

"A small bag of provisions. That's it."

"Rick."

"He sleeps here tonight and takes his tent with him in the morning." He turns to his brother and spits, "I don't ever wanna see your face again."

I watch, my skin cold and tingling at the same time, as they stare at each other wordlessly, hostile but also hurt, knowing this is the end for them, and then I look up at my Dad. He watches on with an unreadable expression, even to me. My Dad's been found out, now, but Shane is also leaving. If this is what needed to happen for him to get kicked out, then I don't care. The greater good. Shane's leaving for the greater good.

"It doesn't have to be this way." Shane murmurs to Rick.

"I know that." He says. "But it's the way I want it."

I feel Dad stiffen as Shane turns his gaze on him.

"You don't deserve her." He chuckles defeatedly under his breath, squinting judgementally. "I'll always believe that."

Jacqui guides him back down again, and this time, he cooperates. As she pokes the needle under his skin, he looks directly at me.

If he could talk to me right now, I think he'd tell me somethin' like, I didn't want this. Because I know what he wants. He wanted Carl and Lori, and after that didn't work out, he wanted me. Only, it was impossible right from the start. My Dad would rather die than let him take me, and that's almost what happened. I look at him now and I still see the man who helped me catch that slippery frog on that sunny day, but I also see the blood. It's everywhere. His jaw, his neck, his chest, his arms, hands, thighs. Blood ruins everything. Only this time, it's his that got spilled.

He's leaving tomorrow.

I guess this is what duh-maw-crah-see means.

"We'll deal with you later." Rick utters to my Dad, before Herschel demands that everyone leave the house this instant.

This is exactly what I wanted, but for some reason, it don't feel as good as I thought it would.

Under the stars, again.

At least I'm in a change of clothes now, ones with no blood on them.

I rest in my Dad's lap in front of our crackling, burning fire, absentmindedly nibbling on my leftovers that Maggie packed into a tupperware container for me when we were forced out the house. She didn't give Dad any of his dinner, though. His plate of scrambled eggs got scraped into the trash right in front of him. He told me he didn't mind when I asked, I don't gotta give him any of mine. He ain't hungry, anyway. I believed him, and as I carried on eating, he cocked the pistol in his lap again, subtly scanning the dark skyline for any movement he ain't like the look of.

In the distance, the rest of our group starts putting out their fires and filing into their tents.

We got that barn to worry about, now.

I don't think any more walkers are gettin' out tonight, 'cause Rick and Glenn went over there about ten minutes ago and blocked the broken panel with some spare crates, but one thing my Dad's always been is prepared.

The barn's too far and too dark to see, but that somehow makes it worse. I imagine all those trapped, hungry bodies and quickly look away.

"Herschel thinks they're sick." I quietly recall, picking at my cold grilled cheese. "He wants to help 'em."

My wife and stepson are in there.

His wife and stepson are dead.

"Yeah, he does." Dad murmurs as a log in the fire crumbles. "But we know better, don't we?"

I nod. "Dead means dead."

"Dead means dead." He repeats. "So, don't go pokin' around there, again, a'right? You're smarter than that."

"I won't. S'just..."

He patiently waits for me to continue, but after I don't, he prompts, "What?"

Feeling a little silly, I admit, "I thought I saw Sophia."

He pauses at that. I stare into the grass, not wanting to meet his eyes, even as he reaches up to gently smooth out some of my fly-away hairs. Intently frowning up at me, he mutters, "Harley, I know you're worried, baby, but we're gonna find her. Girl like her can't'a gone far."

I mumble, "I guess I was just hopin' we was lucky."

"Luck don't exist." He reminds me. "Only strong people. And we're strong, ain't we?"

"Yeah." I agree, looking at him, now. "So, you think we're really gonna find her?"

He nods. "I think there's a good chance."

Content with that answer, I resume eating my food, but there's one thing I can't stop thinking about. "You think Shane's gonna die out there?"

His hand twitches around the gun. "Doesn't matter. Only thing that matters is he ain't gonna be around here, no more."

"I... I kinda hope he don't. Herschel says sick people can get better, and I think... I think Shane's like that, Dad. I think he's sick."

He frowns. "Why you think that?"

"He weren't always like this." I say, thinking back on times where he felt less like a stranger. "I'm still angry at him, but... I think I'm sad, too."

"You're allowed to feel that way." Dad reasons, holding back his own opinions, "Long as you know he deserves this, 'cause he does."

Rick and Glenn, even though they're angry with Dad right now, they were let in. My Dad accepted them, eventually, and now they get to look after me when he's busy with somethin' else, and help me out with things, kinda like my real Uncles used to do. The women, too. Lori and Jacqui and Carol, they lend me things and laugh with me like Aunties do. Shane could'a had that. But I know nothin' ever works out the way ya want it to.

I'm thinkin' about Momma again. It happens before I can even stop it. She was sick in the head, too. Kinda like Shane.

I think Dad can tell where my mind's wandered, 'cause he says to me, "Nobody can help him, Harley."

I just don't know.

Before I even realize it, my chin crumples and my lip starts wobbling. I hate thinkin' about things like this.

"C'mere." He frowns, pulling my head down under his chin. "You're too good for this bullshit. Too young. Just eatcher food, baby."

"I don't think I'm hungry anymore." I whimper, wiping my nose.

"I don't care." He picks up my grilled cheese and rips some small chunks off. "Three bites."

I hesitate. "How 'bout just one?"

"Two, then. Come on." He hands me a piece. I take it reluctantly and push it past my lips. "You don't got nothin' to worry about. That's my job."

I pretend that's true for a moment and just focus on biting and chewing and swallowing; how hard it is to mess up. As a twinkling bundle of green-yellow fireflies dance over the distant long-grass, looking like tiny stars in their own right, I hear Dad check the gun again. A heavy, metal click. Violence and peace, always there. It reminds me of a night we had in the very beginning of all this, where I was trying to go to sleep in the truck, but the sounds of the bombs hitting the city were overpowering the lullaby Dad was singing, and all I could do was force myself to get used to it.

Adapt or die. Merle said that, once.

I hate Shane. I really do. He shot my Dad. He tricked me. But he don't see it that way. Sick people never do.

After both pieces are gone, my Dad takes me to bed. He sits on the tent floor and tucks me in with a few blankets and also Matilda, and then lays down next to me to read me to sleep. I close my eyes and try to forget about everything except the sound of his quiet, raspy voice.

Even after I drift off to sleep, I still hear him checking the gun all night.

The swing. It teeters in the warm night breeze.

I don't know why I'm out here. It's late. My Dad would never let me leave camp at this hour, especially not alone. Maybe I needed to pee. I can't remember, but this is what's happening, now, I guess, so I don't try to turn back. I'm walking to the swing. Again, I don't know why. There's this feeling of confusion deep in the pits of my furthest parts that I can't quite place, but I just keep on padding through the grass, toward the tree.

Fireflies follow after me, but there's something about them that's not right. I think they're too big, but I just can't be sure.

Maybe Carl's out here. He wants to play, or something. I round the thick trunk, expecting him to be standing there, but the body I run into isn't his. It's larger, taller, and not touching the ground. I step back, dwarfed by the sheer size of the person, until I the whole picture becomes clear.

It's Shane, hanging from the tree like a boneless dummy, his neck snapped the wrong way in a knotty coil of rope.

I can't scream. I can't. There's something caught in my throat; something big, like a peach pit.

Shane's eyes snap open as I stumble onto my back, as if he doesn't know he's supposed to be dead. He looks sad, but not panicked, not like I am, and he calmly tells me, an unbothered pout on his lips, "I didn't mean it, Harley. Your Daddy, he's wrong. I'm not crazy. I swear it."

In my head, I'm screaming, but I know nobody can hear me.

That's my Momma's voice.

That's what she said to me the last time I ever saw her, in the family-court parking lot while it rained.

"I love you, Harley." Shane — but also my Momma — says. "I love you so much it's gonna kill me."

Suddenly, my Dad's gun is in his hand — W-When did that happen? — And he checks it, click, before levelling it with his temple, and—

Bang.

The gun drops into the grass.

I wake up screaming.

My sleeping bag is so tight and hot around me that my first instinct is to kick and thrash it off, a cold sweat prickled all the way down by spine. I hear the tent unzipping, and then the white, blinding sunlight comes flooding in, and my Dad is moving the blankets off me and shushing me and holding my wet face in his big hands. Momma's words echo around my skull, and so does the image of Shane's pale mouth speaking them.

"Baby. Hey, look at me." Dad orders, his concerned face blurred by my tears. "It's okay. You're okay. Look at me, Harley."

I blubber miserably, "It was Sh— Sha— Sh—"

"No. C'mon, breathe." He takes a deep, calming breath, and I find myself copying him. "There you go... and out. Again."

We do this five more times until my heartbeat slows, and I adjust to the sounds of the small birds in the trees, and the quiet of the farm.

"It was just a bad dream." Dad reassures me, using the bottom of my shirt to dry off my cheeks. "You're fine."

"I was so scared." I tell him. "Thought it was real."

Last time I had a nightmare that bad was the night I got scratched. I'd forgotten how they make your skin feel like cold rubber, and your ears ring.

"Now you know it weren't. S'just yer brain makin' stuff up." He wipes the last of my tears away. "You wanna talk about it, or forget about it?"

Shuddering, I quickly mutter, "Forget."

"Okay, then. I got breakfast cookin' out there, anyway. Rick's here, too."

Rick walked all the way over here this early in the morning?

"What? Why?"

"He just wanted to talk." Dad says, helping me stand. He gestures to my backpack before ducking out the door. "Get dressed."

Shaking off the nightmare as best I can, I dress myself in a yellow long-sleeve shirt, a white tank-top, and dirty, scuffed blue jeans before pulling on my socks and boots, grabbing Matilda, and stepping outside into the cool breeze. First thing I spot is Rick, of course, 'cause he's in me and my Daddy's camp, sitting on the log we use to chop wood. Then I smell food sizzling over the fire, and I'm enticed forward by the yummy smell.

"Mornin', Harley." Rick greets, a pair of purple-ish bags under his eyes. He chooses not to mention my nightmare, 'cause he's nice like that.

"Mornin'." I parrot, somewhat cautiously. I still can't tell if he hates us or not. Sure seemed like he did, last night.

"Here, baby." Dad scrapes the browned meat and mushrooms into a mug for me and hands me a fork. "Caught it just before. Go sit down."

I do as he says, taking up my small, green camping chair. I bring my knees up in front of me and watch Rick accept a mug and fork of his own.

"Thanks." He nods. "Smells good."

Dad grunts in reply, standing and sitting back in his chair, not looking up from his fork. I think he's nervous.

I'm nervous, too. This feels like a meeting with the principle after you done somethin' wrong.

We spend a short while just sitting there together, eating quietly, until Rick sets his mug down in his lap and decides to speak up. "Shane's packing his things." He says, trying his best not to sound too dispirited. "He'll be gone within the hour. Me and T-Dog are drivin' him into town and leavin' him there. Whether he goes without a fuss, I don't know. I'm hopin' so. It's the least he can do, after... after everything."

"You gonna miss him?" I wonder, knowin' that no matter how much he shouted last night, that's still his brother he's losing today.

"I don't know." He attempts a smile, but it falls flat. "My old memories of him, maybe, but I'll always have those."

"I bet Carl and Lori are sad he's goin'."

"They'll get over it. We all will." Rick says. "Always do."

It's true. Whatever new horror gets thrown at us, we always get over it, 'cause we gotta. Can't live, otherwise.

My gaze wonders over to the barn again, sitting tiny and brown on the other side of the farm. I know now that there's more to it than just wood and paint. It's still so strange to think of all those people in there, just shuffling, and groaning, and waiting. They're dead, but somethin' about it all makes me feel sorry for 'em. At least when we run into walkers, we put 'em out their misery. These ones are made to suffer longer, and for what?

Over by the oak tree where Otis's empty grave lays, I can make out a couple of the Greenes dragging long, white bundles into deep holes. A funeral. For them ones that got killed last night, I reckon. An awful feeling nestles into my stomach. Some reason, feels like I'm a murderer.

Rick notices what I'm staring at. "I talked to them this morning. They don't blame you, Harley."

I got nothin' to say to that. It still don't make it right.

He sighs at my silence, sensing it's better to just address the elephant in the room. "Daryl, you know why I'm here."

I tense, 'cause I don't know why he's here. Could be he's decided to throw us out, too.

Dad finally meets his eyes.

"What Shane said last night was... unexpected, to say the least." He clears his throat. "I want you to know I don't take things like this lightly."

He nods, accepting the admonishment. "You're a father, too. I get that."

"And man to man, I need you to tell me something." His frown deepens as he says gravely, "You said you've changed. Is that true?"

People like you Dixons never change.

It takes everything in him to answer, but he manages. "I want like Hell to."

"How can I trust you on that?"

"Only good thing my ol' man ever taught me was to be a man of my word. Taught me everything that don't make a man. Taught me who I don't wanna be. I lost sight'a that for a while... I ain't proud of it, neither. But that's how it is." He looks at me when he mutters, "And I'm sorry."

Hearing those words from him feels like a bandage on a wound I ain't even know was there.

"Took gettin' shot by a maniac to realize it, but... For what all this bullshit's been worth, at least there's that."

Rick needles, "You know I could've thrown you out last night, don't you?"

Dad nods. He knows.

After considering all this, and seeming to more or less approve of it, Rick warns, "I better not hear of this happening again."

"You won't."

Something in Dad's tone must convince him, 'cause he eventually decides with a nod, "Alright, then."

Weird, how this whole journey just boils down to Rick sayin' those two simple words. Alright, then. The type of acceptance only families give out.

"Word of advice, though. You might wanna share all this with the others. Folk'll wanna hear it, Carol especially. For peace of mind."

That's a fair deal. "Yeah. I can do that."

"I'll let you sort that out in your own time, then." He says, setting his mug down as he stands from the stump. Dad follows suit, so I do, too, and in a strangely wholesome moment I wouldn't've even bothered picturing in my wildest dreams a year ago, he reaches out to shake his hand. Rick, the cop's, hand. He takes it firmly, and they do that thing again where they talk without speaking. Pulling back, Rick nods, "Thanks for breakfast."

"No problem." Dad grunts, wiping his palms on his muddy jeans. "Nigh time you tried some good squirrel."

"Yeah, well now I know where to go if I've ever got the hankerin'." He jokes easily. "You both enjoy your morning. I'll see ya later, once we get back."

"You don't need a second pair'a hands, do ya?"

"No. No, I reckon it's best you don't even breathe in Shane's direction today. He's... Well, there's gonna be an element of jealousy, there."

I guess, "'Cause we get to stay, and he don't?"

"Exactly." He smiles at me, before giving Dad a glance. "Among other things."

Dad just gives a look of grim understanding.

For how different they are, at least they got that one, weird thing in common. A man named Shane Walsh tried to steal their kid away from 'em.

With that, Rick gives Dad a smack on the shoulder, ruffles my hair a little more gently, and then turns back in the direction of the farm.

When he's a good distance away, Dad grabs his flannel off the back of his chair and throws it on.

"Come on." He nods me over. "I wanna show you somethin'."

Leaves crunching underfoot, Dad makes his way through the forest, crossbow slung over one shoulder, me slung over his back.

As he steps over a fallen log, he hums, "What about Hemlock?"

"Poisonous."

"Foxglove?"

Another easy one. "Poisonous."

"Buckthorn?"

Dang it, I always forget that one. They look so similar to blueberries that my mind always goes to, "Edible?"

He shakes his head, amused. "Yeah, right. Buckthorn'll make ya heart give out."

"Guess I got that one, wrong, then." I pout, annoyed at myself.

"Got all the others right, though."

We've been playing this game for about ten minutes, now, and he still ain't given me one clue as to where we're goin'.

"I got another one for ya." He suggests, hiking me up further when my knees dip past his waist. "Cherokee rose. What do they mean?"

I grip on tighter around his neck, humming. "Uh... Somethin' about Native American people, durin' the war?"

He encourages, "Yeah, you got it."

"They say when the missin' children's Mommas cried, the tears made 'em grow." I recall the tale he told me, once. "Meant good luck. Right?"

"Yeah, that's right." He praises me. "Made 'em feel less like the world was against 'em all the time. Gave 'em hope."

I smile to myself. "I like that story."

"Me, too."

"You wanna tell me where we're goin', now?"

"Don't gotta." I perk up as he comes to a stop, helping me slide onto the ground with a grunt. "This is it."

We're here?

A grin splits my face at the sight of it all. A big, shimmering lake, wreathed in grass, flowers, reeds; ducks gliding along the glassy surface, enjoying the sun. I follow him down the hill and onto the old wooden dock, where the tiniest teardrop shaped fish dart around underneath.

Crouching down at the end of the dock, I giggle as I spot a big knot of green frogs sleeping on the protruding rock in the middle of the water.

"It's so pretty." I exclaim, sitting back with a smile. Dad takes a seat next to me on the sun-warmed planks. "How'd you know this was here?"

"Passed it when I went hunting this morning."

"Kinda looks like the lake that was near our house." I muse happily to myself. "Even got the same smell. Pollen and dirt."

I don't quite catch it, but Dad smiles fondly at me. "Yeah, I thought you'd like it."

"Why'd we come here?"

"Sh. Just enjoy it."

The sounds of quacking; the gentle ripples bobbing out from around the line of ducks. It's enough to make me wanna stay here forever. I love the privilege of doin' nothin'. There's nobody out here except us and the earth. "Remember when Hunter pushed me in at Aunt Mandy's birthday?"

Dad and Uncle Kyle had to jump in and save me, 'cause I couldn't swim, but at least it was funny, after.

"Always was a little shit, weren't he, that boy." Dad scoffs, shaking his head. "Be thankful you're stayin' dry, this time. Least you can swim, now."

"Huh?" I giggle, confused. He don't seem to get what I mean, so I tell him, like it's obvious, "Daddy, I can't swim."

He gives me a baffled look. "Yeah, ya can. Merle told me he taught ya."

"Nuh-uh. He was meant to, while you was gone, but he never did. I think he ended up goin' to the bar, that day. After that, I guess he forgot."

Sometimes I feel like there's an invisible Merle Fuck Up list, and it keeps gettin' longer every day, even when he ain't even alive to add to it, no more. Like the time he told me to wait outside the liquor store and told me if I was a good girl, I'd get a sucker, but I wound up sittin' there on the curb until after nightfall, 'cause he forgot he left me there. The time he accidently fed me super spicy takeaway. The time he didn't feed me, at all.

Reminded of all those famous Merle Fuck Ups, my Dad rolls his eyes, officially fed up with his dead older brother. "Damned idiot."

"Makes ya feel any better, he made sure I could hold my breath good, at least. Held my head under the bathtub 'till I went purple."

He glances at me, distraught. "No, it don't make me feel better. Hell he do that for?"

I shrug. "In case Hunter ever pushed me in again."

"Trust me, that would'a been the least of his problems."

I drop my gaze, then, absentmindedly picking at the chipped wood. "He did lots of stuff like that while you was gone."

The years my Dad was in prison were the worst years of my life. I've always felt that way, but now I can pin-point why. It was Merle. I guess I was just lucky that by that time, Grandpappy Dixon had already left the state, otherwise I would'a gotten it twice as bad. When Dad was home, he could rip Merle's door off its hinges, break his phone, or his bong, or make him sleep outside on the patio, and he'd lay offa me for a little while. A whole day, if I was lucky. But I was on my own for those four years. Sure, our neighbour Patty would check up on me once every couple weeks, 'cause I think she always felt a little sorry for me, but for the most part, I was alone with a monster in my house. I realize that, now.

People like you Dixons never change. I know Merle didn't. Right up until the day he died, he was the eldest, toughest, meanest Dixon.

Things would be a lot different if he was still around. Worse, probably.

"Never gonna say I regret killin' that piece'a shit, Fletcher, but," He sighs, staring out onto the water. "I'on know. I should'a been there."

I used to wish every day that the police would change their minds and send my Daddy home. Of course, that never happened.

"It ain't your fault." I tell him.

"Nah, I could'a done better, chicken." He mumbles, before clearing his throat. "You know, I brought you out here to tell you somethin'."

"You did?"

"What I said this mornin', I meant it. I wanna change. I wanna be... I wanna be someone better than just a shitty Dixon. I wanna be a good Dad. I see Rick with Carl, and I just think about how the only person who ever taught me how to do this shit was your Uncle Merle, and before that, our Dad. Sometimes, I think I should'a just shot him, that night. I ask myself why the Hell I ever let my own brother lay his hands on my kid, and I... I just got nothin'." He takes a deep breath to steady himself. "Anyway, my point is that I'm tryin'. And I'm gonna... I'm gonna start with this."

I watch in anticipation as he shuffles, reaching back into his pocket, and settles back down again. In his hands, is his—?

"Your wallet?" I frown, at a loss for words. "Didn't it—?"

Didn't it burn up with everything else we left in he CDC?

"I kept it in the glovebox." He explains, flipping it open. There's the picture of me as a newborn, again, tucked behind the plastic sleeve. "I was gonna give it to you while we were on the road, but things got crazy after that, and I guess I put it on the back burner for a while."

"Why were you gonna give it to me?"

He gently caresses his thumb over my photo-self, before forcing himself to hold the wallet out to me. "S'yours, now. Look at the last photo."

I take it, a little sceptical, and lay it in my lap, gazing down at the first photo — Dad, holding me at the hospital right after I was born. I've seen this before. I look up at him. He gives me a nod, as if to say, go on, so I trust him, and I flip over to the next one. I've seen this one, too. Me, Dad, and some of his old friends, visiting the elephants at the Atlanta Zoo. They had really good ice cream there. I remember eating so much of the strawberry flavour that my chin was pink for days. Then the third one. School photo. Not as interesting as the rest, but still nice.

"Keep goin'." He tells me. "I never showed the last one to you. I wasn't ready. Still ain't, but... Just look."

"Dad, you're bein' weird." I laugh, feeling lost.

He encourages me, "Turn the damn page, girl."

"Okay, okay."

I do as he says, expecting another family photo.

My heart jumps up into my throat.

"Momma?"

It's really her. I bring the photo closer to my face, as if it's made of ash and'll blow away at any moment. There she is. My Momma. Tears fill my eyes all at once, and I gotta smack 'em away to see her properly. She's close to the camera, grinning up at the person holding it. A cigarette in her slim fingers, nail polish cracked and messy. She's sitting on a park swing, I think, bare shoulders lightly sunburnt. She's... She's happy.

"I took that the day she agreed to be my girlfriend." Dad says quietly, not looking at the photo, but at me. "Thought you might wanna have it."

I never knew a picture like this could exist of her. A picture this happy, this carefree.

'Cause I meant it when I said my Daddy killed my Momma.

It was a week after that day in the court parking lot, and a month after Momma's final meltdown. It was around the time my Dad stopped letting me see her as often as I used to. I'd begged him, please, please, please can we just see her for one hour, Daddy, please. We even stopped at a gas station on the way to buy her her favourite candy bar. Snickers, two dollars and ninety-nine cents. I'll always remember that. The man at the counter was so nice to us. I wore my best summer dress and sang songs on the car ride there. It was gonna be the best day, ever.

But when we got there, she was talking about the spiders again, the ones in her brain. She said she didn't know who I was, and that if Dad didn't get me out her house right then, she was gonna kill me for confusing her. I promised her I wasn't, not on purpose. It was me. Harley.

But as usual, she didn't listen, and as usual, Dad was right. We shouldn't've gone to visit.

I threw the candy bar in the bin when we got home.

After that, they went to court and something happened that meant I was never allowed to see her again. He wanted full custody, and he got it.

I love you, Harley, She cried to me outside the courthouse. That was one of the days she remembered me. I love you so much it's gonna kill me.

Meemaw said Momma was going away for a while, somewhere confused people go, but all she did was leap off a bridge at midnight a week later.

I had no Momma, after that.

Heart hammering in my chest, I look up at my Dad, then, hiccupping, "Why'd you keep this?"

As the sun catches the wetness in his eyes, he admits, "Because I loved her, baby."

"But you— you never wanted to see her." I frown. "You took me away from her."

"I know I did." He says. "I loved you more. I couldn't let you see her like that. It weren't good for you."

I hold the wallet close to my chest, spitting at him, "But at least, then she would'a still been alive."

"It's not as simple as that." He almost begs me to understand, "Your Momma was a beautiful woman, but she was sick, baby. Me an' your Meemaw did everything we could for her, but sometimes, there's people who just don't want your help. It was never gonna end well, Harley."

The sobs wrack my body harder at that, 'cause I wish it could've. I wish it could've ended well for us.

"And I'm sorry it didn't. I never told you that, but I should've."

I collapse into him, then, and he scoops me up into his arms as easily as he's always done, and we just sit there at the end of the dock, and we mourn together. It feels like letting out a flood I'd been holding in for years. Dad's never liked talking about Momma, not even when she was alive. I used to roll around on the living room floor, screaming on the top of my lungs, where's my Momma, where's Momma, and without saying a single word the whole time, he'd pick me up by my armpits, force-feed me dinner, bathe me, dress me, and shut me in my room for the night.

But sometimes, like that night at the CDC, I'd just get beat, instead.

Now, he's cradling me. He's shushing me, rocking me, crying with me, and that's enough for me to know that Dixons really can change.

"I miss her." I moan into his neck. "I miss her so much, all the time."

I miss her when I look at Lori, and I miss her when I go to sleep, and I miss her when all I want in the world is to hug my Momma one last time.

"I know you do, baby." What I would'a gave to hear him say that every day until forever. "I know. That's alright. I miss her, too."

I miss her so much it's chronic, but knowin' my Dad feels that way, too, makes the pain a little more bearable.

After what feels like the longest hug in the world, I'm finally ready to pull back. He takes in my raw, blotchy face, and uses the sleeve of his flannel to wipe away all my tears as I gaze out at the lake, trying to catch my breath. Once I feel like I ain't dyin' anymore, I turn to face him again.

"Thanks, Dad." I sniffle. "I'm gonna take real good care'a the wallet. Of Momma."

He smiles, for some reason looking like he's really proud of me in this moment. "I know ya will."

"I love you."

"I love you, too, my darlin' girl. So, so much."

Feeling just how sore my face is from crying, I grump, "I feel like my face is gonna fall off."

He chuckles at that. "You wanna wash off in the lake? Go for a lil' swim?"

"I can't." Did he forget what I said about not bein' able to swim? Or is he jokin'? "And we're wearing clothes!"

"Don't tell me you're scared, little chicken."

"Wh—?! No! I ain't scared!"

He starts making little chicken noises, which is even more annoying.

"Dad!" I'm gigglin', now. I give him a hard shove on the chest. "Stop!"

"Come on. I'll teach ya."

That's all he says before he scoots forward onto the edge of the dock, and much to my complete and total horror, jumps right in. Splash! The fish all scurry away under the ripples in all different directions, as he wades further out, ignoring me when I laugh uncontrollably to him that his clothes are all soaked, now. He don't care. The water's nice, apparently. He opens his arms out for me and says I should jump. I almost hesitate, but then I think to myself, Who cares if my clothes get wet, and soon enough, I'm doing my first ever cannonball into a lake in the middle of nowhere.

Even when it feels like every corner is made up of misery, there's always one little place in the world that's still filled with goodness.

On the bank of the lake is a bush of Cherokee roses. White, like angels.

Author's Note.

Guys, I write sooo slowly. I could sit at my laptop for an hour and have one paragraph to show for it. It's a curse.

Please enjoy this wholesome ( ? ) chapter. Daryl and Harley FINALLY talk about her Mom. I'm so happy that I got to write that scene. It's been a long time coming. He really wants to be the best he can for Harley, and that was the first step in doing that.

What do you think, has he changed? Or was Shane right?

In my opinion, I don't think he was ever the villain that Shane thinks he was. At heart, Daryl's always known that the way he's been treating Harley is wrong. He was doing what he's been taught to do, which is the simplest thing anyone CAN do, which is cover up everything with anger. I think this is him discovering who he's truly been the whole time. Of course, it's totally up to interpretation.

I hope you enjoyed reading! Again, sorry for the wait. Sending love :)

#the walking dead #twd fanfiction #twd #daryl dixon twd #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl dixon daughter #daryl dixon #daddy issues #rick grimes #shane walsh #parent daryl dixon #fanfic #angst #reader

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sadkois · 1 year

Text

nishiki thonkin tonight

spoilers for kiwami. some rggo stories. but maybe not accurate spoilers cause i feel my brain meltin. also warning for complete nonsense... and blood? anyways.

thinkin about how nishiki was like. so competent at what he did?? mans knew everythin about how the yakuza worked back in the 80s... U COULD TELL HE WAS WELL INFORMED OF EVERYTHING. he knew about the ugly parts. he knew about majima. and he was the one explaining to kiryu everything asgdhj like lets say. the consequences in their line of work.

fUNNY how it was cause of kiryu that he got into the yakuza in the first place. he totally just followed kiryu into it and said "ok well sOMEONE needs to know what we are doing" cause yea kiryu was just followin kazama like a lil puppy (and nishiki followin kiryu, tho he's more like a cat i think. maybe. nishikitty..........)

bUT ANYWAYS what i was getting at is. he's very competent. so. him snapping and getting to be one of the BIG patriarchs (GET TO THE TOP!) isn't really a surprise. OF COURSE that brings me to the other point...

HERES THE THING. in kiwami we don't really see much of this competence do we? (ignorin the writing of the first game for a second ok, wORKIN WITH WHAT WE HAVE OK)

first it's like hes barely there, then you have his subordinates just. making HUGE mistakes, not actually achievin -doin- anything or even just. NOT listening to him at all. like when they killed yumis "sister" or the whole. reina and shinji.

OK SO. everyones got their onions 🧅 on rggo stories. FOR THIS THONK IM ASSUMIN MOST OF THEM DID HAPPEN. so in rggo we have that one story about what happened with reina and nishki when she tried to shoot him. and its like. nishiki didnt actually order for either of their deaths??? basically we had reina pulling a 'y0 nishikigun' on nishiki. and then well....

god i really gotta talk about reina and nishiki sometime cause i been thinkin about em a lot too. like reina liked him a LOT and i think nishki liked her too as a... sort of distant friend? does that make sense? idk what its called exactly. but yea i cant recall if they have ever interacted outside serena. (except from when they first met, another rggo story.. but that was like. a few minutes and then they were in serena lmao) it feels like a. 'i only interact with u when i come to this place' kinda deal. of course, goin there used to be constant until... not. nishiki totally distanced himself even more after the whole ordeal happened. and trust issues. (@ others? @ himself? yea)

crap. what was i talkin about. sEE THIS IS WHY I DONT AHSDJKL. what i was sayin is that, in that rggo story with reina, it just looks like nishiki's subordinates do NOT listen to him. at all. shooting at her when he keeps sayin "DON TSHOOT HER" "DONT KILL HER" "BRING HER BACK ALIVE"

SO BETWEEN THIS AND THE YUMI SISTER THING. WHY DOES NO ONE LISTEN TO HIM??? AND WELL. ok listen if im statinn the obvious im sorry, again. just writin down what im thinkin cause im tired.

but yea i think the most logical thing is that, the way he's been managing things for the last 10 years has been very different to what we see in kiwami. why else would his men resort to shoot first questions later. it's almos like that was the norm before... as if that's how things worked in the nishikiyama family all this time.

so anyways. nishikis been tryina be cool about it. so so cool about it. but the moment kiryu got out of jail messed him up SO BAD man. i always say this but, mans was just 100% avoiding kiryu as soon as he stepped out, and i bet ya he started acting different to what his fam is used to, too.

like imagine u work for this boss at idk. mcdonals. you are familiar with the routine and what they expect of u. ur boss specifically wants you to always make fries a certain way, at a certain time, he himself showed u how. this is routine. one day as you are makin the fries, its suddenly WRONG and boss is upset and kills u and u dont know wtf is going on. (u r dead) because thats what we usually do?? why is it wrong all of a sudden?

tHATS THE KINDA VIBE I GET FROM HE IN KIWAMI

aight imma be honest i cant recall if he already had this whole plan before kiryu got out. like, did he take kiryu into consideration or not. cause he either. 1. did not take into account kiryu would be here 2. did not think kiryu being here would mess up his plans THIS bad (and when i say this i mean mess HIM up so bad he cant go thru his original plan) 3. everything was actually supposedly part of his plan (HA, I DOUBT THIS. MAYBE HED SAY THAT BUT WE KNOW IT AINT TRU NISHIKI OK) im leanin to 2

you know that part when nishki's like "i was shaking when i shot kazama". like, that was only cause he knew kiryu would hate him if he actually killed him, right?? right???? LISTEN I KNOW ITS LIKE A THING OR JOKE THAT HES BAD WITH GUNS OR SOMEHTING BUT i actually like to think he got good with those? i prob read it in a fic but i really like that headcanon asgdhj, i feel like itd make sense too. and him missin the shot cause of shakin hands, is because of KIRYU and kIRYU ALONE. where his hands even shakin actually?? didnt he just say that?? nishikis just got that unreliable narrator vibe. NAH HES THE WHOLE UNRELIABILITY. AND WHATSMORE. HE HAD TO COME CLEAN TO KIRYU THAT IT WAS HIM THAT SHOT KAZAMA. HUH? WAS IT EATING YOU UP BOI??? did you need confirmation that indeed, kiryu would hate you for it??? "hES NOT DEAD YET" yea??????? yeaaaa?????????????

LIKE LOOK. the few rggo stories we have of the era between 1996 n 2005 show that he IS indeed very competent! and he has very good control of his fam! and we have the proof of it in kiwami as well, even if its more tell than show? kind of? BUT THE MOEMNT KIRYU IS OUT THIS ALL GOES OUT THE DRAIN. WE KNOW HOW EMOTIONAL NISHIKI IS. WE KNOW IT LEADS HIM TO TAKE NOT SO RATIONAL DECISIONS. (Y0 FOREST NISHIKIGUN FLASHBACK) and god he tried so hard didnt he.

like ok ill admit u got good at repressin ur emotions boi. or turnin them into anger. or keepin a poker face. closing urself off or really just, started seein everyhing as hopeless in a 'whats the point anymore' kind of way. a combo of everything?

in a way nishiki did end up killin himself along with matsushige, but i dont think he did completely. but that's what he convinced himself of. yea? does that make sense? DAMMIT U ARE SO COMPLEX I LOVE IT

thonks. U KNOW its not like anything went right back when he was more... emotional in a way?. i mean, he always did kinda hide his emotions huh? just in a different way.... i mean, when we are first introduced to him in y0, i dont think anyone expected anything like the forest scene from him. i remember being speechless. like oh my god. and i have to say i am BAD at understandin stuff. like i usually understand plots/etc when im watchin reactors play the game asfdghj. BUT MAN did that scene leave me stunned asgdhjk.

but yea with how gOOD everyone around him was at displayin emotions, it makes sense how he ended up :) ... that was sarcasm, im sayin eveyrone around him freakin sUCKS at emotin asgdh, and in fact he was like, looked down at for it. MAN HE DIDNT EVEN CRY THAT MUCH. I MEAN, HE WAS GOIN THRU THE WORST CRAP EVER ??? WHAT DID THEY WANT HIM TO BE A ROCK ASDJKL TO BE KIRYU i guess the two most role figures he had were always very :/ but man this is why i keep sayin he needed an ichiban in his life. it would have been so good for him... an emotionally mature guy, who isnt afraid to cry and show his love for others.

GOD NISHIKI LOVED SO MUCH. IT HURTS ME SO BAD AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

the way nish is just like. tryina become what he knows yakuza are supposed to be like.... what they are like..... his big man suit.... agh

idk where this thonk went. it started as a yes nishiki is very competent and he only had L after L in kiwami because kiryu being back threw him off so bad. so so bad it ended up the way it did :( if they had just talked, like really talked..................

man idk if anyones readin this, asdhgjasd kinda embarassin. hello hi. u are cool. uhh here have this drawin i did months ago that i havent posted anywhere (IT WAS BEFORE THE NEW YEAR RGGO CARD. not like it isnt just a combo of his two hairstyles but i was still like GASP)

hohooo with my attempt at a post kiwami nish :) did u know i also have a vampire au from months ago. would anyone like to read about that. its incredibly self indulgent. yea sayin this at the end of this nonsense cause im a coward agsfdyhgiog

#anyways there's not really a point to this im just. thinkin about nishiki to stop myself from explodin from stress saghdjsakd #help #no but seriously its like each paragrpah is a different thought #fhdjsfkogfhgh

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gl00mystarz · 2 years

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Ah, that's superb! Well then, I would like to request a Sean with a Male!Reader who learns about the Readers chest scars (you know, because he's trans :0) but if you don't feel like you are able to do that, then a Male!Rrader who has cheesy one-liners, is getting flirt back by Sean and Reader is learning on that day that they are very easily getting flustered by a silly scottish accent :]

Yes!! I myself as a trans man love writing trans readers!!

Plus I love Sean, Sean is amazing and the love of my life <3

CW; swearing, mentions of scars and transphobia (not from Sean<3), injury, Micah (/hj)

WC; too tired <3

Battle Scars, sorta ya know?

See, Sean was a rather nosy fellow, at least that's what he'd often say about himself. So of course, he had heard many stories about some scars you kept hidden on your chest, and no one knew the real reason they were there. So he was a little curious, taking it upon himself one late night at the camp, while you were off by yourself fixing up your latest wound. He asked you "Oi, how'd ya get those scars if ye don't mind me askin'?" you of course sighed, a little too caught up in your injury to want to answer, but of course, your little crush on the Irishman got in the way, so you figured why not. You knew he'd blab to the whole camp, but you didn't care. You knew the gang would love and accept you anyhow. It was just Sean you wanted to still love you.

Despite everything, and how the Irishman may act, you loved him dearly, Sean made you feel whole in a way you couldn't quite understand, but nonetheless, you trusted him. So you turned your attention to him, looking at him skeptically before sighing "They're crude top surgery scars, Sean, I wasn't ya know.." you began to trail off, unsure of how to word the next part in a way you were sure the; probably drunk, Irishman could understand. "I wasn't born a man Sean, I'm just as much a man as you.. or Arthur, just born different." At this Sean seemed to think for a moment, only to open his mouth and be cut off by Micah. "What she's sayin' ya drunk bastard is she's a fake man."

You had chosen to ignore Micah's crude commentary and went back to tending your wound, becoming completely turned off from the conversation. You expect Sean to laugh, but instead, he seemed to get.. angry? "Whatcha talkin' bout man? He's jus as much a man as you or me. 'Fact, thinkin' he's more a man than you, ya dirty rat." Giving Micah his normal smile he spoke once more "Why dontcha scram now fore I bust ya ugly fuckin' face in, yeah?" You could see the look of shock on Micah's face, and it made you laugh a bit as the aforementioned man skulked off to somewhere else in the camp, probably to bother another poor soul. Though your heart beat wildly in your chest; giving Sean an appreciative smile "Thanks Sean, means a lot to me."

Sean looked at you almost bewildered "Why wouldn't I protect ya? You means a lot to me ya know. Wouldn't want that nasty ol' bastard to ruin how you're feeling." He looked around a bit before a cheeky smile popped up on his face "Does that mean ya have the lady bits like the other girls in camp? or would they be your man bits?" Of course, Sean had to end it off with you laughing, shaking your head, and almost wincing at the pain shooting through you from your injury, but you're glad he always knew how to keep your mood light. If anything, you wouldn't trade your spunky Irishman for anyone in the whole world, you were glad it was him you ended up falling in love with, and you always would be.

#sean rdr2 #sean x male reader rdr2 #rdr2 x male reader #rdr2 x reader #rdr2 sean #sean mcguire #x male reader #male reader #rdr2 fluff

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dwobbitfromtheshire · 2 years

Text

Eddie Munson but with Dean Winchester's dialogue

Eddie: Well hell, you know I'm in.

Eddie to Jason: Oh god, we’re not going to have to hug or anything, are we?

Eddie: Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole.

Eddie to everyone: I think I'm adorable.

Eddie to Wayne: Our family is not cursed. We just... had our dark spots.

Eddie: OK, look. I want a big funeral. All right? I'm talking epic. OK? Open bar, choir, Sabbath cover band. . .

Eddie: Well, no, but I would just like to have the odds in our favor as much as possible.

Eddie: Dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days... from this day to that... for one chance...

Eddie: Hey. You know who wears sunglasses inside? Blind people. And douchebags.

Eddie: 'Course, there's nothing more dangerous than some a-hole who thinks he's on a holy mission.

Eddie: Well the problem with the snake is that it has a thousand heads. Evil bitches just keep piling out of the Volkswagen.

Jason: What makes you so special?

Eddie to Jason: We going to fight or make out, 'cause I'm getting some real mixed signals here.

Steve: So you're sayin' we're both a couple of dumbasses?

Eddie: I like to think it's because of my perky nipples.

Eddie: You're either laughing because you're scared or you're laughing because you're stupid.

Eddie: I prefer the word 'trusting.' Less dumb. Less ass.

Eddie: My name is Eddie Munson. I'm an Aquarius. I enjoy sunsets, long walks on the beach, and frisky people. And I did not kill anyone.

Eddie: See, deep down, I'm just jealous. You got friends. You could have a life. Me? I know I'm a freak. And sooner or later, everybody's gonna leave me.

Eddie: If this is my last day on earth, I do not want it to be socially awkward.

Eddie: Leave your name, number and nightmare at the tone.

Eddie: Hey, I don't mean to double-dip in your crazy sauce.

Eddie: I don't usually endorse suicide, but, man, what stopped you?

Eddie: I feel like this whole place is bad-touching me.

Eddie to Chrissy: A wise man once told me, 'family don't end in blood.' But it doesn't start there either. Family cares about you, not what you can do for them family's there; for the good, bad, all of it. They got your back, even when it hurts. That's family. That sound like your mother?

Eddie: Maybe we should know what we’re walking into before we actually walk into it.

Eddie: I’m not looking at you like anything. Though I gotta say, you do look like crap.

Eddie: I mean, accidents just don’t happen accidentally.

#stranger things #eddie munson #joseph quinn #stranger things s4 #eddie stranger things #eddie munson lives #stranger things fanart #fanart #steve harrington #jason carver #wayne munson #dean winchester #jensen ackles #supernatural #supernatural things

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ibarap · 5 months

Text

[Event] A Match on the Sugoroku Board / The Die is Cast 2

Natsume: ...

Hinata: He~ya, Rinne-senpai!

I never thought we'd get to work together at CosPro! I'm looking forward to the match between agencies. ♪

Rinne: Well, if it ain't Hina. Yer on your own today.

I woulda thought you'd come here with yer twin, sayin', "2wink are two people workin' as one!", nah?

Hinata: Me and Yuuta-kun aren't joined at hip like we used to~. We're doing a thing where we can take turns showing up, so it's just me this time around.

Ah, and thanks for the hard work, Vice Pres~. Salute~. ☆

Ibara: Whatever. Salute.

Hinata: Ehh, you're so mean! Vice Pres~, you're no fun, you know?

Ibara: It's annoying if you pull the same joke over and over again. It's enough that variety shows are always seeking a reaction from me as is.

Anyways, Switch are the only ones not here yet.

They're a running little later than scheduled. Mikejima-shi, Narukami-shi, would you happen to know why?

Madara: I don't have a clue about what goes on at the agency.

I do take on odd jobs around there and all, but I try not to poke my nose into anything related to the units or idols.

Arashi: Me neither. Lately, whenever I see Aoba-senpai, it's like he's always at the office. Maybe Natsume-chan is stopping him, thinking he should to take a break...?

Ibara: Hm. I tried to call someone from each of your units to let my ever-busy Eden rest.

But as a result, it's not hard to imagine that they're fighting over who should be the one to come represent Switch.

Well, shall we proceed with the people we have here?

I ask that someone from NewDi will tell Switch about what we'll be discussing today. With that out of the way—

Natsume: ...

Hinata: Ah, it's Sakasaki-senpai! Everyone was worried, wondering if you'd come to the meeting or not, you know~?

Natsume: ... (Ignores him.)

Hinata: He's super mad?! What happened?!

Natsume: Nothing 'happened'. Does everyone here know about NETV?!

Arashi: What do you mean...?

Natsume: That venomous snake offered all of us a job, but something felt off, so I conducted an independent investigation.

And wouldn't you know it — I was right. Did you know the director of A Match on the Sugoroku Board was blacklisted in the entertainment industry for committing an act of violence?

Madara: Huh, that's the first I've heard of it.

Natsume: Well, he was going by a different stage name at the time, so it's impossible to find that out from his name alone, but I took the liberty of gathering evidence using connections I have in the industry.

Don't play dumb. You knew, and yet you dragged NewDi into it, didn't you?

Ibara: Ahaha! As expected of your information network~, I'm in awe!

I can't help but admire the fact you never trusted a word I said to that extent. What you said is true.

But don't you think getting mad over that is a bit much?

Natsume: ? What are you saying?

Ibara: The director already regrets what he had done and even paid his fines. The legal process is over — moreover, the victim had settled with him out of court.

For him, who has since reformed, this program might be his chance to make a comeback.

Don't you think it's a waste for him to get held down by his past and even lose his job because of it?

Natsume: The problem here is that you were hiding that fact from us.

Ibara: Are you upset I was 'hiding' the fact I was considerate enough to not make you waste your time by looking into this~?

Or are you saying our individual freedom should be decided by the powers that be?

For you, Natsume-kun, to have won over a man who had lost his way and yet hold that kind of opinion... It seems I've judged you incorrectly as well... ♪

Natsume: ...

Rinne: You two're bickerin' before things even start. Y'all're gettin' so heated, it's like I can see fireworks between y'all.

I'm with ya on that — don'tcha think he made up for the crime he did back then?

Us Crazy:B folks gotta give him respect for that.

Hinata: Rinne-senpai's right~. As for me, I'm fine with it as long as it's interesting.

The project proposal was done properly, so all that's left is deciding to go onto the film set. Doesn't that sound good?

Madara: Rather, if he were still committing crimes, maybe we could even help prevent a future crime before it happens.

I also want to get shown around NETV this one time.

Natsume: ...I understand. I was the one being close-minded here, we'll go with that.

But there won't be a repeat of this. My doubt has grown stronger than before because of your sneak attack.

Senpai also wants to participate in the project, but I took the liberty to confirm things myself.

Ibara: Yes, yes, thank you for doing that!

If you were to ask me, I felt nothing but sympathy for him, knowing his choices for the future became narrower due to the circumstances of his past.

In the event something comes up with A Match on the Sugoroku Board, I'll be there to get all of CosPro's idols out the second it does!

Well then, let me explain what A Match on the Sugoroku Board is! Everyone, please pay attention... ☆

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#◎ translation #notice: unproofed #era: !!#type: event #hinata aoi #rinne amagi #ibara saegusa #madara mikejima #arashi narukami #natsume sakasaki

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pesterloglog · 5 months

Text

Vriska Serket, Meenah Peixes

Act 6, page 7790-7797

(VRISKA): Meenah........?

(VRISKA): What's wrong?

(VRISKA): Come on!

MEENAH: yeah uh

MEENAH: vriska

MEENAH: um

MEENAH: listen

(VRISKA): ...

(VRISKA): What?

MEENAH: iiiiii uh

MEENAH: ...

MEENAH: aw fuck

MEENAH: dunno how to say this

(VRISKA): What is it??

MEENAH: i think i might go actually

(VRISKA): ?!?!?!?!

MEENAH: with

MEENAH: vriska

MEENAH: i mean

MEENAH: that one

(VRISKA): No!

(VRISKA): No, please, Meenah...

(VRISKA): You can't!

MEENAH: i just

MEENAH: i dunno if

MEENAH: this

MEENAH: this whole thing is...

MEENAH: (fuck!)

(VRISKA): Meenah, no...

MEENAH: im not like

MEENAH: AGR-E-EIN with her

MEENAH: on a lotta that stuff

MEENAH: i just

MEENAH: im bored 38(

(VRISKA): 8ut...

(VRISKA): I thought...

(VRISKA): You liked...?

MEENAH: i did

MEENAH: i mean i do

MEENAH: im just sick of sittin around

MEENAH: not being a part of anything

MEENAH: i want to see some action ya know?

MEENAH: wanna go kill a BAD GUY

(VRISKA): Ok! Yeah! I get that!

(VRISKA): Hey, me too! Look, see?

(VRISKA): I do too! Forget what I said, we can go fight him together!

(VRISKA): Just, not with her, ok? I couldn't handle that. It can just 8e you and me!

MEENAH: yeah seaaa

MEENAH: i dont

MEENAH: i dunno about that

MEENAH: the thing is

MEENAH: i think what im sayin here is

MEENAH: as great as its been

MEENAH: like R-E-ELY great

MEENAH: i think this has gotta...

MEENAH: be...

MEENAH: it

(VRISKA): It??

MEENAH: 38(

(VRISKA): No...

(VRISKA): No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no...

(VRISKA): Why?!

(VRISKA): Meenah, please! Don't do this!

VRISKA: You heard the lady.

VRISKA: She's made up her mind.

(VRISKA): STAY OUT OF THIS!!!!!!!!

(VRISKA): *Sniff...*

(VRISKA): Meenah, you have to stay!

(VRISKA): I don't know what I'll do if you're gone!

(VRISKA): I...

(VRISKA): I don't have anyone else out here.

(VRISKA): I'll 8e all alone in this fucked up place.

(VRISKA): I never told you this, 8ut... it's terrifying here.

(VRISKA): It's terrifying 8eing dead, and having to live through memories forever, and dealing with the fact that nothing really means anything.

(VRISKA): It's infinite, and dark, and it's all 8eing ripped apart...

(VRISKA): And you're the only one who ever made me feel good a8out 8eing here.

(VRISKA): You're the only one who made me feel good a8out 8eing ANYWHERE.

(VRISKA): Please, don't...

(VRISKA): Meenah.

(VRISKA): *So8!*

MEENAH: euurrrgh

MEENAH: vriska

MEENAH: dam!!!

MEENAH: why...

MEENAH: whys this shit so hard?

MEENAH: not even lyin this is like the hardest shit i ever did

MEENAH: i cant even fully explain

MEENAH: its just how i think its grotto be

(VRISKA): 8ut it doesn't!

(VRISKA): You don't have to do this!

MEENAH: yeah

MEENAH: i think

MEENAH: on that point

MEENAH: we just gonna have to algae to disalgae

(VRISKA): ...

(VRISKA): I cannot...

(VRISKA): 8ELIEVE

(VRISKA): You are doing the fish pun thing while you're 8r8king up with me.

MEENAH: sorry serk

MEENAH: tis the way of my peeps

MEENAH: heres the thing

MEENAH: i dont think

MEENAH: any of that shade just thrown at ya was true

MEENAH: i like you a lot an all

MEENAH: but like

MEENAH: she has a point on one thing

MEENAH: which is

MEENAH: you changed a lot

MEENAH: not better or worse or anyfin

MEENAH: i aint squallified to make that call

MEENAH: just different

MEENAH: from the way you were when we met

MEENAH: happier i guess??

MEENAH: dunno man if you say so then yeah

MEENAH: what i see though is

MEENAH: somebody who gradually turned like

MEENAH: vulnerable as S)(-ELL

MEENAH: and that

MEENAH: is

MEENAH: scary to me

MEENAH: because

MEENAH: of

MEENAH: the way i am

MEENAH: i dont think im reely...

MEENAH: the sorta person

MEENAH: to be...

MEENAH: trusted with those kinds a feelings?

MEENAH: sea the prob is

MEENAH: you dont actually know me very well

MEENAH: nobody does

MEENAH: and the main thing about me is

MEENAH: um

MEENAH: that you gotta account for

MEENAH: or i guess

MEENAH: *i* gotta account for

MEENAH: on behalf of the feelings

MEENAH: of people i dont wanna see get hurt

MEENAH: is

MEENAH: uh

MEENAH: how do i say this

MEENAH: what you need to know is

MEENAH: like

MEENAH: ...

MEENAH: im

MEENAH: bad

#homestuck #vriska serket #meenah peixes #homestuck act 6 #page 7790 #page 7791 #page 7792 #page 7793 #page 7794 #page 7795 #page 7796 #page 7797 #homestuck act 6 act 6 #homestuck act 6 act 6 intermission 5

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ghouligancentral · 2 years

Text

The Bandit- Chapter 1

Arthur Morgan X reader

Summary- The reader is the daughter of two notorious outlaws who used to be a part of the Van der Linde gang. She grew up with the gang but had to leave when tragedy struck. Now that life comes back to find her in the form of an outlaw named Arthur Morgan. After accepting a job from the gang the reader wonders if she will face the same fate as her parents. Will she be the one to pay for there past sins? Or will she end up gaining more that she ever thought she could?

A/N- Feedback is greatly appreciated. Please ignore any spelling mistakes, I wrote and posted this within 2 hours. There will be a little bit of spice coming later, but there will be warnings on any chapters that have it. The tags will be updated.

Chapter warnings: Language, mature themes

Crossposted on A03

Arthur watches the red dust swirl as it is kicked up by the horses and ignores the ramblings of Sean as they ride. His mind is far too occupied by the mission that Hosea had sent them on.

—- A little under a week ago Hosea waved Arthur over as he was sitting by the fire.

“Arthur! Come here. I’ve been wanting to talk to ya about something.” Arthur signed as he walked over. “ This better not be about that game of cards last week,” he thought to himself.

As soon as Arther had taken a seat by Hosea, he noticed Hosea took a quick glance around them as if he was avoiding someone. “Listen, you know this train job we got coming up? Well I think we are gonna need some help” Hosea explained. “Dutch don't think we do,” he signs, “ but it’s getting harder these days. Between the law, the Pinkertons, and the O’Driscolls, we are barely hanging on as it is.”

Arthur nods in agreement as he turns his eyes to watch the fire as it crackles. “Well this man I used to know, Raymond Winters, has this kid. Best shot I’d ever seen, even at 14 the kid could hit a crow 6 miles off, not to mention has the quickest hands this side of the Mississippi. Could steal ya blind without even known’ they was in the room.” Hosea smiled as he recalled the kid.

“So,” Hosea continued,”I need you to bring the kid, well suppose they ain’t no kid anymore seeing that was 9 years back. Just get the kid back here for the job. We really need a good gun on this and we can’t risk getting caught.”

“So where am I supposed to find this kid?”

“ Last I heard Raymond and the kids was in Valentine. If the man is anything like I remember, I’d bet you’d find him hanging out at Kate’s cathouse. Just go askin’ for Winters and you’re bound to find em. Tell em’ Hosea sent ya.” Hosea replied, “ Oh and take Sean with ya. He needs something to do other than bother me.”

“So what you’re sayin’ is that you want me to go find the kid of some bastard you used to run with?” Arthur asked as cocked his head to the side.

“Raymond may be a bastard, but he is the best theiven’ bastard there is. He taught his kid well. Plus if the kid is anything like her father she should be able to keep quiet about this,” Hosea responded.

“She?” Arthur questioned,”I ain’t got nothin’ against a woman working this job with us, but are you sure about this?”

“Arthur you gotta trust me on this,” Hosea stated as he patted Arthur’s shoulder. “Now don’t you go tellin’ Dutch nothin’ about this. He doesn’t need to know till later.”

Arthur nodded in agreement. He’d leave first thing in the morning. As Arthur walked away, Hosea called out once more,” Oh and if she’s anything like I remember, you’re about to have a firecracker on your hands.”

—---

“Clara! Where’s that whiskey? We have customers out here waiting for their drinks.” You hear Kate call from the bar. “Hold your horses! I’m coming!” You shout back.

You worked for Kate for around nine years now. She was stern looking middle-aged women who stood no taller than 5 feet tall. Her favorite retort was always,” If God had wanted me to be the bigger person, he would have made me taller.”

Her cold gaze could clear a room faster than any fire or hail of bullets could, but under her seemingly hard shell, there was a woman with a heart of gold. Once your mother had died, your father had taken to drinking and spending most of time gambling and whoring here at Kate’s place. She had taken you in and treated you like her own daughter.

She never expected you to become one of her working girls. From the moment she met you she knew she’d have an easier time putting a girdle on a cat than keeping you from punching half her customers in the gut. It's not that you thought poorly of the girls who used their bodies as their means of work. You just couldn’t stand the thought of men like your father having their way with you.

So you worked around the place, doing things such as cleaning, tending the bar and a few other odd jobs here and there.

“Clara! Get out here now!” Katy hollers. You rush out of the back carrying a new bottle of whiskey.

“The little bastard was hiding from me,” you exclaim as you handed the bottle to Kate.

“They always are my dear,” Kate replies with a smile. She pours two glasses and turns to hand them to men standing beside the bar. One, a handsome blonde and the other a red head. You take a closer look at the blonde, you feel like you know his face from somewhere. His face was rough but no less handsome. His shoulders were broad and he appeared to be in decent shape, indicating his work consisted of some form of physical labor. If he was endowed with anything remotely proportional to the rest of his large form, one of the girls was gonna really be earning her money today.

While working here you’d taken to trying to guess little things about the customers who came in, and you had gotten quite good at reading people. Rosie, your best friend here at Kate’s, keeps insisting you have a gift. You could tell the bankers from the shop owners just by the way they walked into the place. You’d even began to guess the more “intimint” characteristics of the men. You could tell which men would spend in the first three minutes and which ones would be pounding into the poor girl for the entirety of their stay, always confirming your suspicion by talking to the girls afterwards. This man, you thought, looking upon the blonde was the latter of the two options.

The red headed one was already flirting with Rosie. You chuckled as you turned to face the alcohol bottles lining the back shelf and begin to clean some glasses. Your attention was taken away from drying mugs when you heard the blonde one speaking to Kate.

“ I’m lookin’ for a Winters. You happen to know of anyone around here with that name?” the man asked while looking down at his whisky.

Both Kate and you stiffen at the mention of the name.

“ Why ya lookin’ for this Winters? ” Kate inquired as she squinted her eyes at the man.

But before the man can respond Kate continues, “ But it don’t matter none. You’re too late anyway. The bugger up and died of consumption three winters back.”

“Well I’m actually for his kid.”

This causes Kate to grip the whiskey bottle even tighter. “You never answered my question. Why ya lookin’ for em?” Kate interrogates. . “Hosea Matthews sent me to find em’ for a job”

“Well I don’t know nothin’ ab—” Kate began to reply.

“It’s okay. I trust Hosea.” You interject as you turn to face the man.

“ I’m Clara Winters, my dad was Raymond Winters. And who might you be?” you asked.

Arthur feels a flutter as he meets your gaze. When Hosea sent him to find you, he was expecting to come across some gangly teen, not a beautiful woman such as yourself.

“ I’m Arthur Morgan ma’am,” Arthur replied as he tipped his hat, trying to hide the blush that was creeping up on his face,”and that there is Sean MacGuire” Arthur says as he points to the redhead whose lap Rosie is sitting in.

“So what did Hosea tell you about me?” You ask leaning over the bar getting closer to the man.

“ Only that you were the best shot he’d ever seen. And that you could steal just about anything as a child”

“ Oh he did?” you laugh,” Well he ain’t wrong. And I’m assuming that you need my skills in this “job” of yours?”

“Well yes,” Arthur nods.

“ When’s this job goin’ down?”

“You really trust Hosea enough to just leave with two strangers who just mentioned his name?” Arthur asks with a puzzled face.

“Well Mister Morgan, you and your friend are certainly strange I’ll give you that,” you say with a wink making the man blush,”but when Hosea was working with my father I got to know him pretty well. And sending two men to whisk me away for some mystery job sounds a lot like something he’d do.”

Arthur nods in understanding. “It’s a four days ride from here to where we meet up with Hosea and the rest of the gang. From there it will only be another week or so,” Arthur explains.

“I’ll get my things together and we will head out in the morning. There’s a hotel across the street where you can stay the night,” you said motioning towards the building,”oh and just to let you know, the girl in your friend’s lap has probably stolen most of his money by now.”

Arthur looks over at Sean, who now has his tongue in the mouth of the girl as his hands begin to roam under her dress.

“Well she’s earned it, if she had to kiss that face.” Arthur replies with a smile.

And with that he stands and hands Kate the money for their drinks. He grabs Sean by the arm as he leaves causing Rosie to hop off his lap. After the two men had gone through the door Rosie saunters up to you with a sly grin.

“Look what I got.” she says in a sing-song voice as she holds up a wad of cash, ”and I didn’t even have to take off my clothes for this.”

“ You know you’re just awful,” you tease with a smile.

“ Oh honey you’re one to talk, given that you taught me that little trick.” Rosie teased back.

The smile fell from Rosie’s face as she took a serious tone, “Are you sure you can trust those two? And Hosea for that matter. Now you know that is the Arthur Morgan? The one from the posters in the sheriff's office.”

That’s it! That’s where you know his face from. You took Rosie’s hands and looked her in the eyes as you replied, “I’ll be fine Rosie. You of all people should know that I can take care of myself. Both my parents had their own wanted posters hangin’ up in the sheriff’s office back in the day.”

With this Rosie relaxed and said, “You know, I think that the big guy has taken a liken’ to you. A grown man don’t blush like that if he ain’t taken a liken’ to a woman.”

You blushed in response, “Rosie stop. You’re just makin’ things up now.” You turn to walk up the stairs to your room above the bar.

That night you can’t stop thinking about this mystery job Hosea has asked you to be a part of. How much would it pay? Would it be enough for you to finally get out of this town, and maybe even take Rosie with you. And you can’t stop thinking about Arthur and what Rosie had said.

“Was that blush really because of you?” you thought to yourself.

But little did you know that across the street Arthur was thinking about you.

-------------------

Go to chapter 2

#arthur morgan #Arthur morgan x reader #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 fanfic

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