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macfrog · 8 months

Text

ghost

when i wrote jet, she was always a two-parter to me. two characters, two horses, two stories. equal and distinct. you guys loved the first part so much that i figured i'd leave it as it was, but recently i hit 2k and thought this could be a cool way to mark it. think of this as jet's sister story. walks right alongside her; same universe, same joel - but still very much a standalone. she can be read with or without her predecessor. thank you a million times over for all the love y'all show me on the daily. writing for you guys is so much fun. love you all the most. 🤎🖤 dedicated to @hellishjoel whose love for this pair inspires me daily

pairing: joel miller x fem!reader

summary: your loyalty to joel - and your ability in yourself - are tested in st. louis. the reward might just be worth the risk

warnings: 18+ (minors dni!!!) post-outbreak!joel, graphic violence, moderate threat, a horse is shot and killed (though i don't think i made this too graphic, more gutwrenching), reader and joel are separated, badass stealthy reader, near-SA (more intended than attempted), very protective & very violent joel, unprotected piv sex, like...bloodplay i guess? lil bit of consensual choking and spitting, creampie, possessive!joel, dom!joel but also softdom!joel, big fluff at the end, age gap (late 20s reader, late 40s joel), strong language. this fic is not sponsored by nike. lol.

word count: 10.1k

main masterlist

It’s been weeks. Weeks of just the two of you, shoulders brushing together, hips moving in stride. Horses parallel to one another, heads nodding in unison. The time you’ve spent without Joel since leaving the QZ amounts to a grand total of about ten minutes. What if something goes wrong? If he doesn’t cover himself properly? If you clear the building, come back, and you’re not only a horse down, but a partner, too? You’re standing by the hole in the wall, trying to convince yourself to duck under the bare brick when Joel’s urgent voice does it for you. “Go now. Now!” And you do.

St. Louis is quiet, still, but fruitless.

It’s been two long days of wandering around and you’ve found one building safe enough to camp in. One. The rest have either been inaccessible – boarded up, broken down, or otherwise already inhabited by infected – or Joel’s deemed them too close to the middle of town, too open, not safe enough.

Not safe enough in a world overrun by a brain-rotting fungal infection? you’d asked.

He shut you up with a sharp expression which you understood simply as: Enough.

It meant that you were wasting days, though. The night you arrived, Joel quickly combed the area surrounding the barber shop you were holed up in for supplies, and found none. He woke you at the crack of dawn next morning to set off, saying he didn’t like the fact nothing was around here. Meant someone had been through before you guys and taken it all.

Meant company, is what he was saying.

So you’d ridden around for – what, maybe three hours? You and Jet, following Joel and Ghost down cracked roads, under rusted street signs. Listening to the wind circle the buildings overhead, nudging traffic lights gently until they sang in distorted, off-key creaks to you. Always keeping your eye on the Gateway Arch between buildings, using it as some kind of north star – not for any reason other than you’d never seen it before up close, but when you mentioned this to Joel, his brows furrowed and he chewed on the inside of his cheek.

Which meant that no, you wouldn’t be paying it a visit anytime soon.

It was mid-afternoon when Joel pulled on Ghost’s reins, brought her to a halt, and held his hand out to you. Jet huffed to a stop, and you swear you felt her cock her hip angrily at him.

“Turn back,” he muttered.

“What?”

“I said, turn back. Ain’t nothin’ out this way.”

“Turn back ‘n go where?”

He jerked his head back in the direction you’d come, swerved the reins sideways and then clicked to the black-coated horse to set off. She nodded obediently, like she knew what he was thinking and she figured he was right, and began the long walk back to the barbers.

You muttered an expletive and Joel coughed a Ha, hearing you loud and clear. So you turned to silently praying for a rainstorm, for a horde of infected, for anything you could sling an I told you so in and whip it at Joel.

You followed him, though, deliberately a good few paces behind, knowing he’d keep twisting around to check on you, and letting him fucking do it. Asshole.

When you finally arrived back at your spot, the red sun low behind the buildings and bleeding skyward into twilight, you slept with your back to him.

He didn’t seem to mind. He never seems to mind when you’re distant. You wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t even notice. He knows you’ll come back when you need something from him – want his words in your ear, want his body on yours, want…him.

The splintered sunlight through the boarded-up windows of the shop stirs you from your sleep. It wasn’t much of a sleep, despite Joel’s promise late last night that he’d let you lie for a little longer; knew you had a long day ahead if you were to get out of St. Louis, and he’d already drained your energy with the travelling yesterday.

You’d woven in and out of unconsciousness all night, dreaming of creaky farmhouses with clicking children inside, their skin torn and swollen and sprouting in swirls of pale white, singed with raw red and rotten green. And you dreamt of Joel’s shotgun blowing their moldy maws apart, blood and bone splattering across the floral wallpaper behind them.

You’re lying on your stomach, flat out on the floor with nothing but a worn comforter separating your fatigued body from the dusty tile. Joel’s out front feeding the horses on the street. You push yourself up, stretching your back, and a red-hot pain licks around your wrists.

“Motherf–”

You wince, falling onto your elbows, and your fingers link lightly around the red skin. The marks from Joel’s belt two nights ago still haven’t eased, haven’t cooled down so much as a degree. They’re still glowing, still burning, still painful.

Joel’s rugged face appears through a busted window. “Y’alright?”

“’m fine,” you mumble, turning over and examining the sores in the sunlight. The sting as your fingertips trace over the skin draws sharp tears to your eyes.

He feeds Jet the last handful of the hay you’d stocked up on and steps in from the golden morning to the dim light of the shop, dusting his hands on his jeans.

“You want more water on ‘em? Cold flannel?” he asks, avoiding the sight of your pained hands.

You shake your head. “Don’t think it’s helping.”

Eyebrows close, crease between them deep, he lowers himself with an achy groan and says, “We’ll find somewhere. You ready to go?”

You nod, tight lips blocking any words you think you’d probably regret later.

Joel helps you up, hands you a bag of beef jerky from his back pocket, and tells you to go get settled on Jet. He’ll pack up.

As you walk by him, he runs a hand from the crown of your head down to the nape of your neck. Gentle as air. And you almost fucking turn back. Almost catch his hand as it leaves your hair, almost wind your body into his. Almost.

Almost.

You follow at Ghost’s tail for another two hours, this time west instead of north. Joel turns to check on you more than he did yesterday; asks a couple times if you need more water, if you want any food. Even asks once if you need a break.

Each time, you reply with a flat, No. It seems to come from your throat more than your lips, more a grunt than an actual rounded word. Teeth locked tight around it, barely separating to let the sound through.

And each time, Joel turns back wordlessly. A mutual understanding; an unspoken agreement – as most of them are – to not talk any more than absolutely fucking necessary.

You spend most of the ride hunched over, your palms pushing heavily against the horn of Jet’s saddle. The sleeves of your jacket rolled up to stop them from brushing against your wrists.

The horse whinnies softly, and you reply to her as though she’s actually speaking. As though you can understand her thoughts, your forehead pressed lightly to the crest of her neck. You tell her you’re fine; tell her she’s doing a great job. You notice Joel’s jaw turn whenever you speak to her.

And then he whispers, “Hey,” and you lift your head, following the flick of his head to a tiny, lone pharmacy up ahead. You could fall off Jet’s back in equal parts shock and relief.

Joel winds Ghost along the road towards the building, stops by the curb outside it.

Its windows are smashed, broken glass decorating the sidewalk in front. There’s dried blood painting the white stone exterior, and empty shell casings dotted along the paved ground. You draw your eyes from the sight to look at Joel, and he’s already noticed them. He’s staring around the street, eyes darting from building to building, looking them all up and down.

The back wall inside the pharmacy is blocked, rubble and rafters hanging loose from a huge hole in the ceiling. Dusty insulation hangs between beams, and through the tears in the candy floss material, you can see the metal grate of the dispensing area. Joel sees it, too; notes it with a grumble and a click of his teeth.

“You stay here,” he tells you, dismounting Ghost.

“’n what if you get stuck in there?”

“Stuck in front of the collapsed ceiling? I ain’t gettin’ anywhere close to bein’ stuck. Stay put.”

You slide to the side, rubber-toed sneaker angling toward the ground to jump off of Jet. Joel swings back around and shoots you a look like fire on your skin.

“You got a death wish, or som’?”

“You just said you won’t get stuck. The hell’s gonna kill me in there?”

“Me, if you don’t listen to my damn instructions. Get back on the horse.”

“I ain’t off it,” you snap, a little louder than you intended. Sure, you want him to comfort you sometimes, but fuck, he pisses you off.

Joel stalks off without another word, head low between his shoulders. You hook your foot back into the stirrup and shake your head, averting your gaze to the other side of the street where the sight of an ill-tempered man-child won’t piss you off more.

The street is lined with stores and cafes, a bar on the corner with torn-up leather seats spilling out of the door like someone’s barricaded it. Your eye travels further down, where faded, moldy bunting ruffles in the wind, hooked around a traffic light.

There’s a red-brick building directly across from you, a truck with green tarpaulin parked out front. The doors to the building creak as they swing back and forth in the wind. The windows are still intact – surprising for this deep in the city. Other than that, the place looks pretty damn abandoned.

Ghost shakes her head, ears flicking. A heavy, shuddered breath jolts from her flared nostrils in the form of two white clouds, lit golden in the sunlight. She moves from foot to foot. You pat Jet gently, distracting yourself with the feel of her long, ginger mane.

You hum quietly, filling an eerie silence. Something to the beat of your heart, quickening with each second. Trying to calm the horses, calm yourself. Joel’s still wandering around inside.

You read an article once before the outbreak that said horses can smell fear on humans. It was for a school project. Said it affected their nervous system, like, made their heartrate pick up, though they never concluded whether it made the horses more afraid themselves or not.

Feeling Jet’s body weight shift from side to side as you swerve around atop her, analyzing every movement, every sound, every change in direction of the wind on this street, you figure you know the answer now.

Yeah. She feels edgy.

The wind picks up, carrying leaves across the broken road, fluttering by burnt-out cars. There’s a scuff from the store and your head shoots back to find Joel emerging from the shadows.

“Nothin’,” he mumbles, giving the street a sideways look as he walks back over to Ghost.

“Nothing I need, or nothing at all?”

He lifts his hands to take hold of her. “Nothin’ at all. Place is ransacked. Whole damn city’s –”

It all happens in the blink of an eye. One minute you’re looking at Joel, watching his lips form the words, his fingertips coming to land on the leather strap of Ghost’s bridle, and barely a heartbeat later, there’s a deafening crack from across the street.

Ghost’s body falls to the earth like she’s nothing but an inanimate sack. Her front legs buckle first, her chest crashes down towards the smooth stone, and then she’s rolling onto her left side. She’s dead before she hits the ground.

Dust and dirt are thrown skyward as she slams down, head falling heavy and still on the sidewalk.

“Ghost!” you shriek, and then you feel Joel’s hands on the sleeve of your jacket – rough. Painfully squeezing, canvas burning against your wrists.

He’s gripping the material, hauling you down to him, only you won’t let go of Jet’s reins. You’re being tossed to-and-fro atop the now-panicking horse. Ghost is bleeding from her head; thick, dark blood spilling out like tar and dripping down the curb.

You scream at Joel, fighting his grip off, eyes never leaving the black horse. But then another shot fires, ricocheting off of the ground by the pharmacy window, missing his head by less than a foot, and you fall limp.

You let him drag you off of Jet’s back and hurl you inside the pharmacy, shoving you out of view and into the dingy shadows. When you turn, you realize she’s still out there, a chestnut-colored blur as she rears and spins, fleeing from the noise. You scream her name but Joel whips around and plants his palm flat against your mouth, smothering your cry into a muffled whimper against the curve of his calloused skin.

“Shut up,” he whispers, free hand reaching into his holster for his own gun.

You drag his hand from your face, dropping it. “Jet’s still out –”

“They ain’t aimin’ for Jet,” he replies, switching the handgun into his right. “They’re aimin’ for us, and they’re gonna be down here soon. I need you to listen to me.”

“But Ghost –”

“Baby,” he says, laced with frustration and desperation and panic. Your sentence falls flat on your tongue. “Listen – to – me. Now.”

You nod, tears forming in your eyes. The horse is still lying out front; you can see her past Joel’s shoulder. You think back to your agreement: Do as you say. He’s shaking you by the shoulders, forcing you to look him in the eye, repeating those words to you. Listen to him. Focus on him. Stay alive. You don’t survive this if you don’t wake the fuck up right now.

And then he has his hands either side of your face, shaking you back to reality. “Hear me?”

“What? No, I didn’t hear. I didn’t fucking hear!”

He wastes no time chastising you. Just says it again. Calm, clear. Every word its own sharpened shape.

“I need you to move, need you to get out of here. They’re across the street, in that red building. There’s probably a gang of ‘em, right? So we gotta take ‘em out.”

“Take ‘em out? We gotta fuckin’ run, Joel! We don’t even know how many –”

“You,” his voice sounds like he’s about to break, “are gonna head out of there.”

He points past you, behind an upturned shelving unit, where there’s a small hole blown in the side of the pharmacy. Unnoticeable from outside, though if the perps across the street have ransacked this place, they’ll know it exists.

“You’re gonna make your way around the street, head low, quiet, ‘n get in the back of that building. You got it?”

“What the fuck are you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna distract ‘em. I’ll cover you, alright? Just do it.”

Just do it. Just fucking do it. I tell you what to do, and you just do it, because it’s me. Because you trust me, because we’ve kept each other alive this long.

Just do it. Because right now, what the fuck else are you going to do?

Your head’s still spinning. Pulse throbbing in your ears. Lungs hammering against your chest wall for breath. You can barely think straight.

“What do I do once I’m in?”

He’s kneeling down, swinging his backpack off of his shoulders. “Take – them – out. You’ve done it before, you know what you’re doin’.”

“Real noble of you, Joel,” you hiss, taking the spare gun he offers and slipping it under the back of your jeans, “sendin’ me in alone to kill who the hell knows how many fuckin’ guys.”

You pull the switchblade he picked up from that farm in Nebraska and flick it once, letting it glint fiercely in the light from out front, then close it and place it back in your pocket, ready to hand if – and when – you need it.

Joel’s loading his rifle, unable to meet your eye. He sniffs. “Do it quiet, you hear me? Sneak up on ‘em.”

You shake your head in disbelief, feet starting to carry you over to the side of the room. Powered by adrenaline only, letting go of any emotion that might keep you inside this stupid pharmacy. Forgetting anything in you that might convince you to stay glued to Joel’s side.

Yeah, you can fucking do it. You’re not a kid. You’ve been doing this long enough.

This was life before the QZ. You were in a group then, a collective of survivors whose only interest was staying alive. At all costs. And you got good at it. You’ve told Joel about it before – you were the first wave. Whenever you came across another group – no matter if it was hunters, smugglers, fucking FEDRA – they’d send you in, alongside Mila. The two of you lightest on your feet, best with a knife in your hands.

You started to find it fun, after a while. Thrill of the chase and all that. Creeping up behind them, dragging the blade along their throat, dropping them to their knees as they choked and gargled and bled out. The two of you could clear an entire building in ten minutes, not a single bullet fired.

Mila preferred puncturing them. She’d lift her arm and bring the knife down with the weight of her entire body, sinking it into their necks, under their jaws, sometimes through their fucking temples. You’d seen that girl do some pretty fucked-up stuff.

You’d seen yourself do some pretty fucked-up stuff. Stuff that’d have you avoiding mirrors for weeks.

And none of it scared Joel away. None of it made him think twice about setting off with you.

Certainly never made him think twice about sending you on what can only be described as a suicide mission, just to rid St. Louis of a few bandits.

Doing it isn’t the problem, though, is it? You haven’t had to do it in a while, sure. Joel takes care of you well enough that you barely have to look twice at a threat before there’s a bullet, a blade, or an arrow through it. And you’re not scared, either. Not of those guys across the street.

No. You’re scared of leaving him. Parting with him.

You’re standing by the hole in the wall, trying to convince yourself to duck under the bare brick when Joel’s urgent voice does it for you.

“Go now. Now!”

And you do.

You emerge into an alleyway, concealed from the street by a rusty blue dumpster. Overgrown weeds at your feet, you stay crouched and still until you’re sure there are no eyes on you from the windows overhead.

I mean, you’d be dead by now if there were. So that’s hopeful.

You slink around the jagged metal, slow, silent. More gunshots sound from across the street, and you know Joel’s tossed them a bone. Maybe he’s shown himself – a flash of his jacket or scuff of his heel as he settles to fire back. Maybe they’ve already killed him. Who fucking knows?

At the end of the alleyway sits a black gate, bent and contorted into an archway which separates you from the street. Still covered by knee-high weeds, you kneel down onto your stomach and peer between the wiry green plant to get your first scope of the street ahead.

There’s a long-abandoned nail bar on the right, a few doors down from that bunting you spotted earlier. And right outside it, cast in shadow from the awning: a chestnut horse, saddle hanging lopsided on her back. Waiting, patiently, watching the shootout before her.

You breathe a sigh of relief. Stay there. Stay right there.

Joel’s on his knees outside the pharmacy, crouched behind a Jersey barrier. He lifts his head every thirty seconds, fires one heavy shot at the windows on the top floor of the red-bricked building, and then ducks for cover when they send a burst of erratic bullets back down to him, pelting against the concrete.

You watch for a minute, studying the pattern, and then slip back between the weeds like a lion hiding in the bushes. When Joel fires at the window, you push yourself up and make a swift run for it.

There’s a truck in the middle of the street. Black paint scraped, shot, and sun-burnt off. You take three good strides, kneeling once you’re at the tailgate. You peer around the rear of the truck, huge tires flat and melted into the broken tarmac. You spot your opening.

A gray fence faded by the sun, a few slats missing from the bottom half, guarding an overgrown yard, and, sitting wide open: the backdoor to the building.

Bingo.

It’s an easy enough route. Looks almost like someone’s laid it out for you this way, a perfect path. You wait for your signal – Joel’s gunfire – and sprint over to the fence, back flush against the rotting wood.

You pull the revolver from your jeans and open the chamber. Five bullets. Not bad. You snap it back and adjust your grip on it, finger ghosting the trigger. And then you hear them.

“The girl’s still inside,” a voice grunts from over the fence. Your blood runs cold.

“He’s gotta run out sometime. What the fuck’s Nico doing wasting bullets?”

“How often do strays come through? Let him have his fun.”

Strays. Like a little pet name. Like it’s sport for them. It pisses you off, your adrenaline channeling into rage, white hot across the nape of your neck, growing into determination to put your knife through every single one of them.

So, you return the gun, favoring your switchblade.

Old dog, new tricks. Yadda yadda.

You bend down, peering through the gap like a dog searching for scraps.

It’s just the two of them. One, standing by the door; looks about six feet tall by six feet wide, buzzcut atop a puffy face, tattooed arms hanging loose by his side. The other, pacing around the yard; when his worn jeans pass the opening in the fence, you scan up the tall figure and notice dirty blond hair, scraped back from a gaunt face into a greasy ponytail.

“And if anything hears him? Runners? Fuckin’…we ain’t ready for that.”

Neither of them seem to have a gun. Scrawny doesn’t, anyway, and if Buzzcut does, it’s not in his hands. Which gives you a few seconds’ advantage.

Once Scrawny turns away, you slip through and hook your arm around his neck, holding your knife to the spongey skin under the ridge of his jaw. Buzzcut steps forward, hands reach into his waistband. Fuck.

“Make a sound, I’ll cut him.”

It’s not hard for your voice to fall back to that pitch, that same old tone. Muscle memory. Hushed, so no one inside hears; serious, flat, not a hint of fear. Even though this guy can probably feel your heart hammering into his back.

There’s still shooting on the street. Buzzcut steps forward, pistol between his fingers, silver reflecting the sun into your eyes. He’s unsure if he should lift it or not. Unsure if he should do anything or not. There’s panic painted across his face the color of crimson. He’s not built for this stuff, and he knows it. His free hand comes up, palm forward. Half of a surrender.

Not good enough.

“Put the gun down.”

“Fucking bitch,” Scrawny mutters, wrestling around, long legs bent awkwardly as he leans into your smaller frame.

Fucking idiot, you think. He doesn’t know that this is the fun part. This is why you chose the knife, and not the gun. Blade over bullets. It’d be too easy to rip his brain apart with the squeeze of a trigger. Too quick. Nah, you want to hear him. Want to feel him writhe against you.

You let the blade sink into his whiskered neck. Ever so slightly. He hisses and settles.

“Put – the fucking gun – down.”

“Patrick,” your hostage spits, “just do it.”

Just do it.

Patrick glances down briefly and then nods, eyes flitting back to you. Your eyes stay locked on him, your grip tightens around the knife, but you deafen to the heaving of the chest under your elbow.

Just do it.

Where’s Joel? Is he alive? His voice is ringing in your ears.

Just do it.

There’s a pause between the bullets across the street. Have they hit him?

Just do it.

Patrick’s gun hits the ground with a blunt thud.

Just do it.

And then you feel it.

Searing pain, hot as fire in your upper thigh. A sharp scratch just below your hip, teeth cutting through denim and flesh, then a rutting feeling, twisting and digging and fucking burning as the knife is pushed further and further. You let an angry groan pass your lips and dig your own blade deep into his throat.

His skin bursts open like a bag of water. You pull on him, letting him sink to his knees flush against your chest. Before he’s even on the ground, you’re lurching forward, retrieving the pistol and swiping your knife at Patrick’s outstretched hand. He gasps, clutching his split palm, and then backs away a couple steps.

This time, he lifts both hands. That’s better, fucker.

“Don’t – don’t gotta –”

“Shut the fuck up,” you cut back, staring him down while his buddy writhes at your feet, taking his last few gulps of air. Fresh, warm blood seeps into the grass. Your thigh is on fire.

You edge closer to Patrick, and Patrick edges further away. Until his back is pressed against the wall, his knuckles scratching against the brick; his own blood streaming down his wrist.

“How many are in there?” you ask, head nodding to the doorway, barrel of the gun pressed into his cheek.

He gulps.

“How many?”

“Th-three. Please.”

“Where?”

“One in the h-hall. Two upstairs. Please,” he says again, and you drop the gun, leaving a white ring in his skin.

Mila would sink it in deep, right into his neck. The trapezius. Her favorite spot. She’d just plunge the knife in, push until he collapsed, and then leave him to bleed out. But this is a big guy. He’s gonna need more than that to floor him.

“Alright,” you concede, stepping forward. “Since you asked so nicely.”

You pull your arm down to your hip, knuckles white around the handle and take a fistful of his shirt with the other. Draw him in real close, and angle the blade to the sky, shoving it up under his chin. Nice ‘n snug.

It glides through his skin like it’s butter, and you catch the butt of the knife in your palm, pushing further up. You watch as his eyes widen, his pupils focus on yours long enough to take the memory of your face with him – and then they relax, roll back to check out the metal intrusion behind them.

Patrick gargles, chokes on blood and blade, then gasps as you haul it back out, bright red gushing down his front.

His body folds, both hands come up to cup his torn jaw, and with one kick which cracks into his knees, he’s flat on his face, breathing in dirt and grass and…the blood of his buddy.

“You’re welcome, Patrick,” you breathe, limping over him to enter the building.

Shots are firing again upstairs. It’s dark, your eyes take a few seconds to adjust, but you’re in a derelict store. Place is empty, probably looted by these assholes.

Patrick told you there was one guy in the hall, which you assume is through the door sat ajar on your left. Patrick, however, was most likely a liar. And even if he was telling the truth, you don’t know what this place looks like. You have no idea when or where you’ll come across this one guy.

The only things you have on you are your gun and your knife. So you open the revolver again, your trembling fingers fish one bullet out, and you toss it, aiming for the sliver of light between the door and its frame.

It rattles through, rolling over the solid floor.

“Patrick?” a voice calls, and footsteps begin to approach. “Tucker?”

You duck behind a battered, empty shelf.

A third guy, long brown hair tangled across his shoulders, thick beard patchy with white and gray, pushes the door open and sidles in.

“Pat–”

You’re on him before he can finish his pal’s name, same way you jumped Scrawny – now Tucker, out there. Your blade glides across his throat and he buckles, much quicker than his predecessor outside did. You settle him face down on the tile floor, nodding to him as some twisted form of a thank-you, and slip out of the room, swinging down to collect your bullet as you go.

Patrick, as it turns out, was not a liar. The bottom floor of the house is empty. You’re in a long, narrow hallway. A bloodstained runner at your feet. There are muffled voices upstairs – roaring, cursing. The sunlight streaming in through the arch-shaped window on the front door draws you nearer.

Your breathing is labored, with stress, exhaustion, and pain. Your thigh throbs under your jeans, pain shooting like lightning from the wound anytime you put weight on it. You drag yourself to the bottom of the stairs.

More shots. You swear they’ve only been coming from this building for the last five minutes. Where the fuck is Joel?

You lift your foot hesitantly, hovering over the first step. Don’t fuck this up now. You line it up, applying your weight bit by bit until you’re pushing up off the floor with a whimper, balancing on one leg, bracing for the inevitable creak of the wood.

Nothing.

You’re about to step onto the second, when the door behind you bursts open. Light screams into the hallway, shining on you like a spotlight, and three huge figures stumble in the doorway.

“Wh–? That’s the bitch on the horse!”

You throw yourself up the stairs desperately, taking them two – three at a time, but a pair of fists are in your hair, dragging you back down to the man they belong to. You cry out, swinging around, and catch him square on the nose with your elbow. He swears, retreating only momentarily, before looking you dead in the eye, blood pouring down his lips.

“Fucking – cunt,” he seethes, arms darting out to reach up for you.

His attempt is short-lived, for a number of reasons.

First: you kick his chest before he can grab you, sending him hurtling back down where he came from.

Second: one of the two Patrick said would be up here is at the top of the stairs now, taking you by the shoulders and hauling you up.

And third: Joel just opened fire downstairs.

The bullets pelt around the hallway, coming from the side you just snuck in through. He must’ve followed you across the street.

The last thing you see as you’re dragged off into another room is the three of them ducking for cover, and then you’re being flung onto a cold, dusty floor, knocking the wind out of your lungs and the revolver from your waistband. You roll over and groan, staring up at two men standing over you.

One of them – the one whose vice grip dragged you in here – is big and bulky. Like a brick wall. You realize you’ve no chance of getting by him. His fists are clenched, face reddened, black beady eyes boring into yours. Then he lurches forward, steals the gun from the floor beside you, and points it at you. The safety’s still fucking on.

The other looks younger, but still built. Toned. His shoulders swell in the green canvas jacket he’s wearing, patches on the sleeves. Short, black hair, face sculpted and smooth, chin hairless. Lips pursed as he surveys you, tosses over what to do.

“Cute little game you were playin’, down there,” he muses. “Took out half my guys.”

“Wasn’t that hard,” you pant in reply, “you’re all fucking idiots.”

You can hear Joel fighting off the rest of them, grunts and growls of pain echoing up the stairs. You don’t know which are him and which are them, and it sends fleets of panic through your chest, tightening your breath.

“Sounds like your man’s losing.”

You laugh, masking your fear with a roll of your eyes, head leaning back. “I don’t think so.”

The two men look at each other. The black-haired one nods down to you, then turns on his heel. “Do what you want to her,” he tells Brick Wall, bored, and begins walking away.

A repulsive smile pulls on the man’s lips as he glares down at you. Putrid pink cheeks swell, eyes disappear. Your heels dig against the floorboards, beginning to push yourself in a dizzy haze backwards as his huge, beefy hand reaches down for your waistband.

Something of a scream, warped by the way your body so quickly jumps away from him, escapes your throat, but it only makes him laugh. Your hand slips up inside your sleeve, fingers clutch the cold metal handle of your blade. It flicks open under the fabric, and, just as the noise draws the attention of the man now fumbling with the button of your jeans, you take one good swipe and cut through his forearm. One clean slice, separating skin and soaking the tip of your knife in his blood.

He hisses, stumbles backwards two steps, clutching his arm. You throw yourself to your feet, backing into the corner opposite.

“Nico!” Brick Wall cries out, and the canvas jacket spins to face you.

You clutch your knife, hunched, panting. The room slowly tilts, resetting every time you blink, then begins rotating again.

Nico laughs, pulling a gun of his own and aiming it straight at your face. It’s a nightmare – two on one, both of them armed. But it’s better than what was about to fucking happen.

“Fucking – bitch,” Nico snarls.

“Y’all keep saying that,” you utter, eyes never leaving the barrel of the gun, “I don’t get it. I’m goin’ easy on you here.”

“You’re gonna fuckin’ get it,” Nico spits, apparently not paying enough attention.

The building’s silent. The fighting’s stopped downstairs. And there are no loud footsteps making their way up here, which means one thing.

There’s a quieter, deadlier threat on his way up.

A brutal shot fires from the hallway, taking your breath with it, and Brick Wall’s body flops to the floor. Bullet hole in his temple. Spray of blood across the wall. Only three beating hearts left in the building.

Nico seems to gasp, whether from fright or the way he lunges toward you, wrapping a tight, choking arm around your neck and holding the gun to your temple, both of you waiting for Joel to materialize for two very different reasons.

His figure creeps around the doorway, footsteps slow and soft. His eyes flit over yours, shoulders hunched, rifle aimed ahead. Your breath lets go in one huge, shaky gasp, feeling your muscles relax.

“I’ll do it,” Nico hisses, panic strung through his voice tighter than the bow of a violin. “One wrong move and she’s dead, asshole.”

Joel shrugs. “Do it.”

Nico doesn’t move. He shakes your body, pushes the gun harder into your skin.

Joel looks you dead in the eye. “Do – it.”

Your fingers run over the handle of your knife, lowering it until you have a good enough grip to lock your fist and tilt the blade, lifting your right arm and hammering it backwards, stabbing deep into Nico’s side.

Your head leans to the right as he screams out; he falls to the left. And Joel takes his shot.

Nico’s hand bursts open, blood spraying everywhere. The revolver is thrown from his grip, rattling against the floor as your fist takes one good swing across his jaw and then you fall apart from one another – you, rocking into the steady weight of Joel’s body, and Nico, collapsing against a desk.

Joel catches you in his arms and straightens you up, shifting you to aim his gun back at the threat – though there’s not much about him that warrants such a name anymore. He’s slumped against the dark wood, dark stain seeping through his shirt, head rolled back and groaning. One hand cupping what’s left of the other, blood snaking through his fingers and down his hand like vines on a tree trunk. He looks…pathetic.

Joel fires another shot at him without fucking looking; it lands in Nico’s thigh, and he screams. Mouth full of blood and loose teeth, it’s a gargled, drowned howl of pain.

“They try somethin’?” the fierce drawl asks you, brows low, eyes dark. You know what he’s talking about. The button of your jeans is undone.

You want to say, It’s fine, I’m fine. You want to tell Joel to leave Nico to bleed out. He’s the last one, he’ll be dead inside of ten minutes. You want to go, want to climb onto Jet’s back and let her carry your weak, limp body as far from here as her legs will gallop, and then, once she’s rested, further.

But Joel won’t hear any of that, you know it. Won’t leave this little son of a bitch to slip into a half-conscious drowse, the dripping of his own blood ticking down the seconds he has left while the sound of Jet’s hooves fading into the distance lulls him to hell.

He knows you. Joel. He can read lies on your lips like they’re words scrawled into your skin, so that’s a waste of time, too.

You nod. Joel’s jaw locks. And his eyes flood black like ink.

He hands you the rifle, pulls his arms out of his backpack, and paces over to Nico. The bloody, injured figure begins to back up, push himself further away from Joel, who’s reaching down for something.

“Look, man,” Nico heaves, “you gotta see it from our point of v-view. You guys came walkin’ into our territory, you – you…”

There’s the sound of metal dragging across the bare floorboards, vibration strong enough that it rattles your entire body. You turn away, figuring you don’t need to see him pummel a man to death with a broken pipe.

You hear it, though. Every grunt from Joel, every cry from his victim. Every time the pipe bludgeons into him, the wet squelch of warm flesh and blood meeting cold, rusting metal. You wander off to the other side of the room, closing your eyes.

It’s like a pattern – like the shooting from earlier. Joel sucks in breath as he lifts the pipe above his head, groans as he hurtles it down. There’s the blunt sound, a ding almost of the metal whacking against Nico’s skull, the splatter of blood bursting. And repeat. Deep breath as the pipe winds back – groan as it uppercuts through the dusty air, crack of bone breaking when it makes contact.

Finally, he stops. Takes three deep breaths. Drops his weapon. You turn.

The limp body lies at his feet, a dent the size of Texas in the globe of his skull. Olive skin now splattered red, face unrecognizable. Blood pouring out of somewhere – everywhere in his head, circling his body in a thin, fast-moving pool.

Joel’s staring at you when your eyes lift. Sweat glistening on his forehead, lips apart. Shoulders tight. You’re standing face to face, both of your breathing heavy and labored. Exhausted. And yet…you fucking need him.

You take one step forward and suddenly Joel’s advancing, too, hands out to meet you when you collide into him. Your fingers scram for his collar, ripping his jacket from his shoulders while he messily tears apart the waist of your jeans.

His weight bears down on top of you and he pushes you to the floor, following you down. The floorboards are dirty, coated in a thick layer of dust disturbed by the scuffle you just had, and glazed by the blood of those who lost. You sit up only long enough to remove your jacket before Joel’s pinning you down, unbuckling his own jeans and taking a grip of yours.

You flinch when he tugs on the waistband, and he pauses. Looks up, watches your expression twist. Then follows your eyeline, down to your thigh, where the fresh stab wound oozes thick, dark blood.

Joel slowly peels your jeans down your legs and over the gash. When they pool loose around your knees, you bend them, angling your broken skin in the sunlight. It’s swollen, the cut, reddened and raw. Flesh dragged back and forth, torn and ripped around the edges. You can’t even feel the pain of it anymore, only a prickling heat leading up to the ridges of your broken skin.

And so, when Joel’s fingers run through the air directly above it, and he mutters something about cleanin’ you up, you grunt. Straighten your legs. Pull him by the shoulders back down to you. Reply with a rushed whisper, a Hurry the fuck up.

And he listens; he unbuckles his own jeans, sags them low on his hips, and bends your knees at his shoulders. His cock is already stiff, bead of precum at his wide tip, which he dips between your folds to collect your slick, and then fists himself slowly.

Hurryhurryhurry “– the fuck up,” you groan, watching your wet glisten off the smooth skin of his shaft.

He smirks, then pushes straight in.

Your head hits the floor, eyes rolling with it as he fills you up. His face buries between your breasts, voice muffled by the material of the fabric when he lets out an open-mouthed moan. You both adjust to the feeling – the stretch and the tightness – and then, with a couple more shallow thrusts, Joel begins really fucking you.

He drags his forehead up to yours, sweat mixing where your skin touches. Your jaw clenched; you’re hissing every time he hits that sweet spot inside of you. Holding onto him by the shoulders as he rocks his hips forward, pushing you closer and closer to your first release.

Joel lifts his hand, placing it flat on the floor above your head to steady himself. Then, he quickly glances up at it, an unusual look on his face. You crane your neck and follow his eyeline to find his hand gleaming wet with blood. Bright red. Fresh.

It’s the guy he shot. Bullet wound peering out from the other side of the desk you’re lying next to; his blood has travelled across the uneven flooring.

Joel studies his palm intently, thrusts slowing down some. His face looks…puzzled? As if he’s never had to physically encounter the result of him and his bullets. As if he doesn’t know where to put his hand, now that it’s covered in that result.

You do, though. You know exactly where you want him to put it.

You take his wrist in both hands and draw his gaze down to you. The blood drips from his almost trembling palm down your fingers.

His expression changes – softens, when he sees you looking up at him, watching him from under hooded lids. And then it darkens, when you pull his palm flat against your neck, and the red fluid stains your throat.

You can feel the warm wet between Joel’s skin and yours – the same warmth on the back of your head, creeping through your hair as it seeps further across the floorboards. You’re both covered in blood and dirt, anyway. Joel seems to consider the same, and his grip tightens.

His thumb and forefinger pinch, cutting into your windpipe. Your vision falters for a second, Joel blinks out of focus, and a tiny wave of euphoria crashes over your body. A sick grin pulls across your lips, mirrored in Joel’s.

He releases you and you gasp, oxygen surging through your throat like a burst of water in a dried-up pipe. You let go of his wrists to run your blood-soaked fingers across his face, through his hair. He’s still fucking you hard, and you need something to ground you as white-hot heat pools rapidly between your legs, and a knot begins to tighten.

“You like that?” Joel grunts, driving his hips harder.

“Mhm,” you reply, mouth falling open in a silent gasp when his tip punches into your cervix. The edges of the world start to whiten.

“You’re mine, you hear?” he says through gritted teeth. “Belong to me.”

You’re nodding, throat tossing out an, Uhuh.

“Ain’t no one gets this but me, h-uh?”

Joel’s hand is back around your neck, this time taking either side of your jaw between his fingers, keeping your eyes trained on his. Whatever the fuck makes you do it – the look in his eye, silently commanding, or maybe your own fucking desperation – you’re not sure. But you open your mouth wider, rest your tongue on your bottom lip, and plead with your eyes for him to do it.

So, he does.

His jaw slackens and a bead of spit falls from his mouth into yours. He watches as it lands on your tongue and you run it along your lips, coating yourself in him, before swallowing it.

Joel groans, lets a staggered, “F-fuck, baby,” pass his lips.

You smile in return, filthy, but needy, and beginning to crash hard as your orgasm bursts through you.

He fucks you through it, pace never faltering, still stringing wet saliva between your lips as he kisses you. You pull away when it becomes too much, burying your head in his shoulder and biting down on his shirt.

“Yeah,” he coaxes you, “that’s it. Fuck. Nice ‘n tight, baby.”

As soon as the room starts to return to your vision, the feeling back in your body, you’re rolling him over. Ignoring the burn of the wound in your thigh, you push him back down and straddle him, his cock still deep inside.

You roll your hips lazily, fingers coming down to toy with your clit as Joel stretches you even more from this angle. He groans, hands finding home tight on your hips, head rolling back. He bucks his hips and your free hand steadies yourself on his chest.

“Faster, baby,” he says, trying to move you with his hands.

“No,” you hum, “we go slow. I want to go slow.”

He grunts, pissed off. Good. Keep him that way.

You begin to slowly bounce, pads of your fingers drawing circles over your swollen clit, almost hurting with overstimulation.

“Tell me what you did downstairs,” you whisper, eyes falling shut.

“Downstairs?” Joel asks in a broken voice.

“Mhm. What did you do to ‘em?”

He catches on. “Shot one of ‘em under the jaw.”

You shake your head. “Next.”

“Ch-choked one of them out.”

“No. Not him.”

You want blood. You want Joel’s fists wrapped around someone’s vital organs. You want the sound of your screams in his ears, whether they were really there or not, driving him to commit acts so heinous he won’t look you in the eye when he confesses them.

That’s what you want: him to confess them.

“One of ‘em had a Bowie…” he breathes, knowing what you’re looking for.

You fall forward with a deep moan. “That’s it. Him.”

“…hangin’ from his belt. Shot his leg, right above his knee –”

You moan again, sighing as you sink down on his cock and that feeling creeps over you again.

“– then took the knife.”

“He on the floor?”

“He got up. He – fuck – he stood up, ‘n I put it between his shoulders.”

“Fuck, yeah?”

“Yeah. Ripped ‘im apart, baby.”

You cry out in pleasure, bouncing up and down faster and faster the more the image replays in your head. You’re leaning forward, hovering over Joel as your skin slaps against his every time his hard length fills you. Fucking him to the thought of him slaughtering anyone who posed any threat to you. Those guys didn’t make it upstairs, you’re not even sure they got a good look at you before you were hauled away. But Joel tore them limb from limb at just the possibility.

“Did he – did he scream?”

“Yeah, he fuckin’ screamed.”

Your head drops between your shoulders, hands splayed on either side of Joel’s head, and his fingers knot in your hair. He pulls your forehead against his again, whispering into your mouth.

“Begged me not to do it,” he hums, and you’re thrown over the edge for the second time.

Your hips stop moving to allow space for your high; a second blinding, screaming orgasm ripples through you. You’re gasping now, fingers clutching for Joel, but he’s already moving again.

He slips out from underneath you and lets you down gently on your front, taking your hips and pulling them up to him as he positions himself behind you. And then, without a second’s hesitation, he’s back inside you, chasing his own high. Your back arches as he fucks you, chest flat against the floor.

There’s blood fucking everywhere. On your clothes, in your hair, on the floor beneath you, streaming down your thigh. The entire room smells of it – that suffocating, sickly sweet bite of iron. The bitterness so thick that it coats your lungs with every desperate pant of breath.

And finally, fucking – finally, all the adrenaline and momentum is brought to a climax when Joel releases deep inside you, and you feel yourself contract around him as a third orgasm pulses through you. Your cunt swollen, aching, you almost don’t feel it, but for the way your legs give as soon as he stills inside you.

He’s groaning, borderline fucking whining, before he draws out of you and slumps down beside you on the floor. You’re both staring at one another, almost afraid to touch each other – as if you’re made of glass. Fragile. Breakable.

Yeah. You’re his. And he fucks you like you’re his, like your only purpose is to relieve his stress, tire out his anger, but then…then he looks at you like this, the sunlight twinkling in his warm eyes, dust falling over him like snow. Then he shifts the hair from your face so he can take a proper look at you, study every detail on your face – the cracks in your lips, the curve of your nose. And you know you’re so much more than that to him.

Always have been. Always will be.

You lean over and run your fingers across his cheek, dried blood the color of wine all over your hands. Joel lies still, places a soft kiss to the pad of your thumb when it touches his lips. Your nails sift through his beard. His eyes close over, laying in the comfortable stillness as you trace his face, delicately drawing from his dark brows down to the patches of skin between the graying hair on his jawline.

He doesn’t move when you push yourself up and roll over onto his chest. Doesn’t flinch when you press your mouth to his neck, running from the bottom of his ear up to the tip of his chin.

And when you bring your lips up to meet his, he kisses you back.

His hand sneaks through your hair to the crown of your head and he sits up, rolling you onto your back and caging you underneath him, teeth grazing along your bottom lip, asking it to part. His tongue slips inside, wet and warm and comforting against yours. Your fingers lace at the back of his head, your own cradled in his hands on the hardwood.

It’s like he’s starving. Like he’s been holding off on doing this, for whatever reason. And now that you’ve been the one to open the floodgates – fucking, destroy them – everything comes rushing to the surface. Every time he wanted to, and didn’t. Every time he was buried inside you, and purposefully held his jaw apart from yours. Every minute he’s spent since he met you, without his lips on yours. It all comes rocketing up.

And before it gets too heated, before he begins winding that coil again, he’s pulling away. Lips leaving yours, noses bumping together as they part. You smile, and Joel breathes a laugh for the first time in what feels like weeks.

“Hey,” he whispers.

“Hey.”

You glance down at his flannel: stained with dirt, with sweat, with blood. It brings you down a little from your sun-kissed, golden-rayed eutopia. You suck in a deep breath, and his finger hooks under your chin to lift your face to his.

“Should get that leg covered.”

You nod, and he pulls up off of you, letting you sit up. He wanders around the room, checking the backpacks of Nico and his guys, and pulls some gauze and a bottle of alcohol from a side pocket.

He kneels slowly by your side, offers you the white pad. You shake your head. He has to do it. You don’t know why, don’t know what’s stopping you from wrapping your own wound – something you’ve done hundreds of times by now. But it has to be Joel.

He tips the bottle over the dressing, dousing it in alcohol, and settles it carefully on the floor by your hip. You look at one another, a Ready? and a No, but do it anyway pass across your gaze.

The clear fluid seeps from the pad down his hands, thinning the bloodstains and dragging them in light orange streaks down to his wrist. And when your eyes are distracted, watching the stream of blood and alcohol, he presses the gauze to your thigh.

“Fuck – you,” you stammer, eyes screwing tight enough that you see stars.

“I know,” Joel breathes, and pushes the gauze down harder. Firmer. It shoots heat up your leg, flashes the image of that plank of wood named Tucker who stabbed you across your mind. Your teeth grit, the tendons in your neck leap.

Still holding the pad to your skin, Joel winds a dressing around your thigh. He knots it, gives it a little tug, and then sits back on his heels.

“Okay?”

You tilt your head, lift your eyebrows in form of a Yeah. A half-truth – it feels better to have it covered, but fuck is it stinging. You lift a roll of spare bandage and wrap your wrists.

Joel nods, and then passes you your jeans.

“We should go,” he tells you. Then, softer, kinder, “Gotta go back to the pharmacy. Still supplies in the…”

You push yourself to your feet, unable to listen to the end of his sentence. Ghost was carrying most of your food. The map is still in her saddlebag. Ammo, too. The thought of seeing her again turns your stomach, and Joel seems to figure.

“Why don’t you head out back, go get Jet? I’ll grab everything.”

You stare down at him. Your head shakes before words filter through it. You don’t want to be apart from him again. Not today, at least.

He seems to figure that, too. He nods once, then stands with a low grunt. He fixes his jeans, shrugs his jacket back over his shoulders, and his hand finds the nape of your neck again. He pulls you nearer him, your lips brush against the shoulder of his jacket, and then you split, grabbing your supplies and searching the room for any that these assholes might’ve left to you.

When your pockets are full, you limp at Joel’s heels down the stairs and outside, glancing down the street. The silhouette of a horse slowly meanders back over to you, head bobbing, hooves clicking across the asphalt. Show’s over.

Joel stops and waits for her to approach, lets you bury your face into her strong body when she reaches you.

You squeeze your eyes shut against her muzzle, your forehead between her glossy eyes, and hope the message finds a way through flesh and bone – strong enough and sincere enough to push its way through your skull to hers. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Joel’s hand leaves your back and he walks slowly over to the pharmacy.

Your hands run over Jet’s soft mane, combing her gently, reassuring her as if she’s the one covered in blood, bruised and pained. You hook a finger around her bridle and follow Joel.

As you slowly approach, he’s emerging from the shadows of the pharmacy, a backpack in each hand. He reaches the same curb you were stood on less than an hour ago, and looks up to check on you. Your stomach lurches, glancing down to his boots.

There she is. Black coat shining, chest not moving. Legs splayed out on the road. Pool of blood around her velvety soft ears. She seemed so lean, so fit and graceful when she was on all fours. Now, lying in a heap in the shade of some barren street, she looks huge and clumsy. It makes your eyes swell with tears.

You shift with Jet, turning her to avert her gaze. It’s stupid; she’s a horse. How would she know what’s going on? But then, the way she’s breathing – soft, quiet. It’s like – it’s like she fucking knows.

Joel does it gently – kneels beside Ghost, searches in each pocket for your belongings. He knows your eyes are on him. He pulls a box of bullets and the folded-up map from the bag, slips them into his jacket pocket. Collects the tins of soup and canned fruit in one hand, standing to roll them into Jet’s bag.

He turns to you. “You got your switchblade?”

You nod, and he holds his hand out. You drop the heavy knife into his palm, and he bends back down to Ghost’s side.

He uses your blade to cut the bridle by the corner of her mouth, slicing through the leather running from the bit up to the headpiece. Then pulls it apart, a single strap with a tiny buckle still attached, a silver hoop at one end.

He reaches for your backpack, drags it across the rough ground, and knots one of the canvas ties through the silver hoop of Ghost’s bridle. Triple knots it, to make sure it won’t budge. And then he leans back, surveys his handiwork, and turns to gain your approval.

You can’t do much more than nod, tears dappling down your raw cheeks.

When he’s sure he’s got everything, Joel passes you your backpack, slings his on, and then kneels by her side one last time. He places a gentle palm on her head, runs his hand down her muzzle. Sniffs.

A thank-you, you think. A Farewell, brave girl.

He stands again, turns back to you. Waits for you to decide it’s time to move on.

“I can’t do it…” you whisper, and Joel nods, taking a step closer. “I don’t want to leave her.”

And then you’re sobbing, and he’s taking hold of your shoulders and pulling you into his arms, and your cries are muffled by the soft fabric of his shirt. You wrap yourself close around him, bury deeper into his chest, and Joel tightens his grip. The steady beat of his heart pulls you back down, grounds you. You match your breathing with his and pull away.

You approach Ghost shakily, then crouch, fix her mane out of her eyes, scratch her silky ears one last time, and let her go.

Joel’s face is tight when you turn back. Eyebrows low. You bite the inside of your cheek as you pass him, and then hoist yourself up onto the brown horse’s back.

He pulls himself up in front and leans back into you, head cocked to wait for your signal. You snake your arms around his waist and feel a delicate hand rest on top of yours, interlaced on his belt buckle. His thumb traces your knuckles, and when you lean your ear between his shoulder blades, he clicks to Jet.

The horse swerves off, beginning your long journey out of the city.

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yumeka-sxf · 5 months

Text

A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 19

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

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The episode where Bond assists Twilight with his mission at the laboratory may not seem like a significant story, but it's actually the first time Twilight has spent a considerable amount of time alone with someone (Bond) with whom he doesn't have to put on any airs – not as Loid Forger, nor as an aloof spy. He has no reason to hide anything from Bond, someone who can't talk or judge. So who is the man revealed in such a rare situation? While at first he's annoyed that Bond's presence could hinder his mission, his annoyance soon turns to empathy. With an uncharacteristically concerned look on his face, he asks Bond if he came to get revenge on the scientists who hurt him and his friends.

We saw in the doggy crisis arc that Twilight has compassion for dogs when he refused to harm the German shepherd that attacked him, and when he gave sincere thanks to Bond for saving Anya. But this episode shows further proof that Twilight sees Bond as more than just "a dog." Not only does he show empathy for what Bond had to suffer through in the past, but he's projecting the very human notion of vengeance onto a dog. He also chooses to trust Bond's instincts rather than send him away…and as a result, his mission is a success! As we'll see in later episodes, his bond with Bond (no pun intended) will only continue to grow.

Unfortunately the same can't be said for Bond's bond with Yor (though it's a totally one-sided thing). We as the audience know that Yor would never act violently towards Bond, but thanks to his misinterpretation of his vision of blackness (which Endo confirms in the fanbook did not mean death), he thinks her food will indeed kill him.

As @piracytheorist pointed out, Bond may not understand that Yor's toxic food is completely unintentional. Since he was traumatized by his time at the lab, where they fed him rancid food, he may equate being fed bad food to some kind of punishment. Plus, being a dog, he may not understand that humans' actions don't necessarily reflect their true intent (misinterpreting the actions of others is such a common theme in Spy x Family, I can even tie it back to Bond!) Doesn't help that Anya put the idea in his head that Yor will kill him if he disobeys her.

It's unfortunate, but at least Yor is oblivious to the fact that Bond thinks this way about her. I know she would feel awful if she knew he was scared of her!

After the "Pastry of Knowledge" incident at Eden, Twilight is again faced with more failing test grades from Anya. But this time, he's more composed about it, even noting that she would have done well on the classical language part had she not made so many spelling mistakes.

@sophiamarieispinkbunny-chan brings up a good point in this post that it's unusual for the ever-suspicious Twilight to dismiss the fact that Anya is knowledgeable about an archaic language of all things. But as we've seen time and time again, he's more likely to turn a blind eye to anything suspicious about Yor, Anya, and Bond compared to anyone else.

This suggests that, though he won't admit it, he could possibly be afraid…afraid that if he digs too deep, he'll learn things about them that could lead to them having to separate. The only exception to this so far has been when he investigated Yor after Yuri's first visit, which is understandable since having an SSS officer so close to him could be disastrous (and of course, he felt guilty about it after).

But in Anya's case here, he not only decides that's it not worth thinking about, he even cooks her favorite dinner that night (hamburger steak) without any complaints. Compared to the very first time he was confronted with her poor school skills, he's definitely learning to be a more understanding father (and a less meticulous spy).

Some time later, Yor meets up with Franky to help him rescue a lost cat. This is probably the first time the two of them have been alone together without Loid present, so Yor feels a bit uneasy about this unexpected social interaction. In typical Yor fashion, she expresses concern for the cat and is eager to help, but also thinks she may be more of a bother to Franky. She also hesitates when referring to Loid as her husband. As I've mentioned in previous posts, at this point in the series, I believe she has a crush on Loid but is clueless about those feelings, so she gets flustered whenever their relationship is brought up.

I find it funny how Yor with all her crazy strength and assassin skills is totally powerless against cats clinging to her! Obviously her power is strictly reserved for the "bad guys" she's sent to eliminate on her jobs (or anyone who threatens her loved ones). Innocent animals are safe, even if they scratch her face bit!

As Franky comes up with ways to catch Kopi, Yor gives him her full supportive side by continuously praising him for his inventions. However, she has no hesitation about sacrificing said inventions to prevent Kopi from running into traffic.

It not only makes sense that she'd be ignorant about how much work goes into building such a machine, but it also makes sense that she holds nothing back when trying to save someone who's in trouble, even if all notions of acting "normal" go out the window – whether it's this cat, the Eden cow, or confronting SSS officers that threatened her family.

As a side note, another example of Yor's wholesome, humbling personality that's only present in the Japanese version, is that she gives the honorific "-san," which denotes respect, usually translated as "Mister" or "Miss," to everyone (besides Yuri, but that's normal for an older sibling). Not just children like Anya, but even animals. She calls Bond "Bond-san," and in this episode, she calls Kopi "Kopi-san." She even called the terrorists from the doggy crisis arc "terrorist-san."

In fact, Yor uses keigo (the polite form of Japanese speech) excessively, almost to an abnormal amount. This could be a reflection of many things about her character, such as her low self-esteem, eagerness to put those around her at ease, and the possibility that Garden instilled the idea in her that she's just a "soldier" for her country, so she never gave a thought about fulfilling her own identity. However, as I'll discuss later, there are some rare and telling moments where she drops this filter and lets her raw feelings out.

When Yor returns to work later, we see that being "normal" is something she's still hung up about, since she gets very excited when Sharon suggests that she may have finally become "somewhat" so. This scene also shows how good she feels after helping someone out, which carries over to her meeting with Shopkeeper soon after.

Speaking of which, we once again see Yor's naivety about her assassin job that I discussed in Part 13: she thinks of it as just getting rid of "evildoers." But despite her strong desire for this, I never got the impression that she likes being an assassin, as in, she enjoys the act of killing people. Compared to a typical view one would have of someone who willingly kills for a living, she doesn't relish in her murders, taunt her opponents, or display any kind of pleasure from their pain. As we'll see throughout the cruise arc, she's very professional about it, being indiscriminate and earnest with her targets. She kills solely for the sake of others, whether it's to help her family or her country. What she desires is the result of the work – eliminating "bad guys," not the actual act of elimination.

The scene where Shopkeeper launches a surprise attack at Yor, only for her to easily dodge it, reminds me of the fact that Yor is sometimes described as "clumsy," but she's definitely not clumsy on the physical side.

Usually characters in anime/manga who are shown to have traits similar to Yor, like exaggerated naivety and a low sense of self-worth, are also shown to be clumsy in the typical sense of dropping things, tripping, and making messes. But, while Yor has tasks she's not good at, like cooking and sewing, and she occasionally has trouble controlling her incredible strength, she's definitely not clumsy. I'm really glad that Endo didn't give her the "clumsy" trait to go along with her social awkwardness, as it would make no sense for a highly skilled assassin to not be anything but perfectly coordinated with their body. We see many examples of this with Yor, not just in how she overpowers every opponent she encounters, but smaller things, like in her introduction episode where she catches the tray with her foot, and how she swiftly leaps and clings to the ceiling at the pet adoption fair without anyone noticing.

Continue to Part 20 ->

<- Return to Part 18

#spy family #spy x family #sxf #twiyor #spyxfamily #loid forger #yor forger #sxf analysis #sxf meta #loidyor #loid x yor

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wishuroses · 1 year

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.⠀ ݁ ⸜⸜ 𓂃 𓇼 make a wish, spider soccoro.

✶ pairings: spider x sully!reader

✶ warnings: fluff, lovesick fools, confessions, reader is a cutiepie and spider agrees wholeheartedly, you fell first he fell harder type deal, uppercase intended!

✶ word count: 854

✶ na’vi glossary: tawtute – human.

✶ a/n: i remember seeing a post asking for more spider fics, so i thought why not feed all my spider lovers out there? i’ve also been breathing down jack champions neck a lot recently (he is so fine) happy reading! :-)

“C’mon Spi, keep up!”

“Ugh. I’m trying, your legs are too long!”

The forest glowed beautifully beneath your feet with every step you took, pointed ears fluttering from the echoed sounds of chittering flora and fauna. You and Spider had fallen into the steady, yet risky rhythm of sneaking out past eclipse; disregarding the fact that your mother would skin him and then knot your tail right after if she ever caught both of you out, alone for that matter. Yet you–stubborn and hardheaded– never listened to what your mother had to say, easily blocking out her irritated hisses of frustration when you openly expressed your interest in the little tawtute.

Little did you know, that little tawtute also took interest in you. Much more than you did him, for that matter.

You giggled at his exasperated comment, looking over your shoulder and flicking your eyes downward to find that he is, indeed, struggling to catch up with you. Spider was, for a fact, small compared to your lithe 7ft frame, but if you plopped him next to the rest of the sky people, he beats at least a handful of them in the height department.

“Want me to carry you?” You asked genuinely, coming to a complete halt as you watched him trail beside you carefully. Spider scoffed at your silly question, not missing the way his heart rattled in his chest at the fact that you cared for him, looking up at you with mirth and adoration shining in his eyes. “No need for that, not yet at least. We’re here anyway.”

At his words, you craned your neck to look around, beads thudding together in a chorus at the sudden movement, a smile blooming on your face as quick as it came. The familiar stream of crystal clear water and shroud of colorful flora confirming that you both were here. Your secret spot.

“Look Spider, look!” You stretched your arm and pointed a strong finger towards the darkened sky, tracing over the rushing streak of light that ran across the horizon. “Make a wish!”

He turned his full attention to you with a furrowed brow, tilting his head. “Make a what?” Like a moth to a flame, he leaned into you, happily taking in your presence.

“A wish! It’s just.. something you really want that you don’t already have. Something you long for. Dad said it was a tawtute tradition! Make one, quickly!” Spider hummed in understanding, watching you with a lovesick expression etched on his face. His eyes traced over your wide eyes filled with astonishment, twinkling stars reflecting off adored pools of honey.

“Well..” Spider paused and licked his chapped lips, “What if it’s.. someone I long for?” His palpating heart only increased violently when you locked eyes with him, the pretty smile on your face only widening further, gasping softly at his bashful confession.

You shuffled closer to the boy, warm thighs pressed against each other. “Spider,” You cooed, proud of him for finding a person to give his heart to, “You like someone? Who, who!” You wrapped your four-fingered hand around his forearm, tugging at it with excitement. “You must tell me!” He flushed strawberry pink, dipping his chin down to shy away from the intensity of your gaze–making a pout form on your face.

“C’mon, I won’t tell! Swear it!”

Spider then looked at you with a playful grin, heart soaring like a multitude of shooting stars when you quickly reciprocated his grin. He exhaled, and with a random surge of confidence, he intertwined his hand with yours, the obvious difference in size making it quite tricky–but he made it work.

You wonder how much he needed to hype himself up to go through with going so far as to hold your hand–he’s never been this bold, up until now, at least.

You looked at your entangled hands with raised eyebrows, wide, curious eyes flickering back to stare into his softened brown ones. Spider nodded briskly, answering your wordless question with a nervous look on his face. In your eyes, he looked slightly constipated–like he was worried about what your reaction would be– and if you two weren’t tangled up in each other, you would’ve laughed at him.

But realistically, in your eyes, he was the prettiest he could ever be. You smiled, eyes forming crescent moons.

As if you two hadn’t already popped your personal space bubbles, you scooted even closer, leaning your forehead over the sleek glass of his exopack. Spider never wanted to kiss you more than he did now–to press his lips against your face, trailing down to your neck, and onto the expanse of your striped tummy, all while thumbing gentle circles into the jut of your hips. He found you so beautiful, no words could ever suffice.

“My wish..” Spider started breathlessly after a long beat of silence. Your ears flicked forward to selfishly take in his next words, watching as his pupils dilate the more he took in your appearance, eyes already so brown that if you didn’t have such good eyesight–you would’ve missed it.

“My wish is you.”

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californiaboytoybilly · 14 days

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Chasing Shadows (in the grocery line)

This is my contribution to the Harringrove Relay Race! (@harringrove-relay-race)✨

I was passed the baton by the lovely @imsodishy, and I'm honored to close out the relay race with this piece. I've loved seeing all the beautiful creations coming out of this event and I'm blushing at even being considered alongside creators like these. summary:

What had he done to deserve this?

Billy's chest grew cold and achy as he stared at a tousled blonde head of hair, looking at his mother for the first time in years. Except she wasn’t his mother. Just a woman who could be her long-lost twin, if not for the color of her eyes — a cold gray compared to his mother’s ocean blues. tags: pre-relationship, post s2, panic attacks, implied/referenced child abuse, billy sees a woman who looks like his mother and doesn't handle it well, steve harrington is a sweetheart, emotional hurt/comfort, billy hargrove needs a hug word count: 3.4k

Read on AO3 or below the cut!

Hawkins Indiana had been personally designed to be Billy’s own realm of hell, he was sure of it.

It had been one thing to shoulder the previous levels of misery this town had to offer. The simpering girls with jelly spines in their pastel sweater sets and Indiana’s hilly, woodsy stretches of land with not a drop of saltwater in sight. Did it matter that every single house looked like it had been popped out of one of three molds? He only had to tolerate this place until the day he turned eighteen, at which point he intended to jump in his car and drive until he got back to California.

It wasn’t worth bothering to ask why he would have earned such a punishment. He was at least self-aware enough to know he wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of kindness and social grace- he was sure plenty of people had quietly wished him to fall into the flames on more than one occasion.

But this… what had he done to deserve this?

His chest grew cold and achy as he stared at a tousled blonde head of hair, looking at his mother for the first time in years.

Except she wasn’t his mother.

Just a woman who could be her long-lost twin, if not for the color of her eyes — a cold gray compared to his mother’s ocean blues.

His breath caught in his throat, bile lingering on the back of his tongue, but he couldn’t look away. It was like the supermarket tiles had grown vines, wrapped around his legs until he couldn’t have moved even if he’d been on fire.

The woman was around the same age his mother had been the last time he’d seen her, too. Her face was youthful, untouched by age or stress or misery. Features soft in a way only reminiscent of the version of Dianna Hargrove that came out when Neil was away.

The pounding of his heart was making him dizzy, the woman he couldn’t tear his gaze from utterly oblivious to the damage she was doing to him on a molecular level by simply existing here, in this place, at the same time as him.

Panic was creeping up his throat- or maybe he was going to be sick. That was also a strong possibility. His vision was starting to pulse at the edges. He needed to get out of here; he needed to—

A hand clasped down on his shoulder, warm and firm, and Billy couldn’t control the violent flinch it earned from him. The hand moved immediately at the jolt, lifting in a gesture of surrender.

Wild blue eyes followed the arm attached to the hand towards its owner. He took in spattered moles that itched at his brain but couldn’t quite connect why through the wash of panic until he turned his gaze up the rest of the way.

Steve Harrington stared at him with eyes that were too soft, too big and concerned. He wasn’t used to seeing that expression on Harrington’s face and the perceived pity made him bristle.

“Don’t fucking touch me.” He muttered, but it lacked the bite that may usually have been present. Billy hated the way his voice trembled like a scared little kid, keeping his gaze as far away from the dairy aisle as he could now.

Harrington paused, brows furrowing in the middle, and he let out a little sigh in response to Billy’s order. Less irritated by his attitude than normal, more resigned, like a toddler had poured juice on his shoe. He wiggled his fingers as though in reminder that they were nowhere near Billy now, which made the blonde grit his teeth together.

Then- in a voice a little too gentle- he spoke up. “Sorry if I made you jump. Just ah… looked like you were going to barf. Thought I’d make sure that you were–”

“I’m fine.” Billy interrupted, but the last syllable was weak, to say the least. “I’m fine, I have to go.” He dropped his full basket on a nearby shelf, ducking past Steve as his cheeks started to burn red with humiliation.

He’d be lucky if Neil didn’t kick his ass for not getting the groceries like he was instructed, but he couldn’t stay in this store even one minute longer if he wanted to preserve even a shred of his pride. Bruises would heal, they always did.

At the door, in his hurry to get out, he almost smacked right into one of Susan’s friends. Cindy, if he wasn’t mistaken, was a brunette with hair bigger than a minivan and a gossiping tendency to match.

“Well hello there, Billy.” She said in a sickeningly sweet voice, unknowingly just barely avoiding being told to fuck off. He had to remind himself that if he did, she’d run home and tell Susan and then he’d have a lot more problems than a panic attack and a few bruises to deal with today.

He greeted her kind of flatly in response, but tried to smooth his face into something less shaken and more charming when she raised an eyebrow at his tone. “How’s the husband?” He tried again, even if his lungs still felt like they were in a vice grip.

She sighed dramatically with an eye-roll. “Probably sleeping in his recliner, as usual. Pretty sure he’d rot in that thing if he didn’t have to get up to eat.”

Billy regretted asking immediately but nodded sympathetically, internally begging her to just fuck off and go do her shopping already. “Can’t live with him, can’t live without him, huh?”

Cindy scoffed and twirled her hair, eyeing him a moment too long. “Oh, I’d do just fine without him. Unfortunately, the house is in his name.”

Billy inched towards the door, just barely shuffling his feet an inch at a time to put more space in between them. Just when he was trying to think of an excuse to leave without having to pretend he cared about her shitty marriage, another shrill voice called out her name and she spun to find them.

Sandy, not Cindy. At least he didn’t actually call her by the wrong name out loud.

Using her distraction, Billy all but threw himself through the glass doors and walked as fast as he could towards the alleyway between the store and the hair salon next door. An employee in a red store vest was smoking a cigarette against the wall, but Billy’s fracturing grip on his emotions must’ve resulted in a slightly terrifying expression on his face.

Dropping his cigarette to the ground and stomping it out, the teen- who Billy thought he vaguely recognized from school- faux casually booked it out of the other side of the alley before Billy had to yell at him to do so.

Finally alone, Billy dropped down to sit on the red metal bench they’d thrown back here to rust away and put his head in his hands. It was barely three seconds before a strangled sound, not entirely unlike a sob, dragged itself painfully out of his throat, his shoulders curling into a hunch.

With his eyes closed, he saw the woman again. The way the fluorescent lighting had sat so harshly on her corn-silk hair, the glint of silver rings on slender fingers. A shudder rolled down Billy’s spine as the version of her in his mind's eye turned to face him, eyes blue now instead of gray.

“Billy, baby? Is that you?” She said so softly, voice lilting in surprise. She reached out a hand towards him, her own basket dropping to the too-white tiles as the eyes she shared with him welled up with tears and–

“Hey!” She spoke again, but her voice was lower. Too deep, not her voice at all. It wasn’t until the third repetition that the illusion shattered, careful footsteps on the concrete snapping him free. Billy’s head shot up immediately, pulse picking up speed, only to see Steve Harrington once again.

“Don’t you have anywhere better to be?!” Billy snapped, his bitter attitude flaring up to protect the oozing, throbbing hole that had been torn straight through his abdomen. “Or are you so fucking obsessed with me that you’ve decided to follow me around and be a pain in my–”

“Damn it, Hargrove. Just… take a breath. I’m not going to fight you.” Steve sighed and moved closer, like he wasn’t even a little afraid of Billy’s temper. As though Billy hadn’t left him a bloody, bruised mess in a fit of anger barely six months prior.

“What do you want, Harrington? I’m not in the mood.” He said finally, all the fury draining from his voice. He just didn’t have the energy to fight right now.

He was tired and sad, his chest felt empty, and he missed his fucking mom.

“I know you said you were fine, but you’re clearly not.” Steve said, hovering around the edge of the bench. He shifted back on his heels, heavy-looking plastic bags dangling from his fingers. The tears he’d shed embarrassed Billy. He could feel them clinging to his cheeks, but he couldn’t stop them from falling even now and it was too late to hide them.

“Why do you care?” Billy muttered bitterly. “I’m an asshole to you. You hate me, I… I hate you.” That last one was a lie, and he knew it, but he wasn’t willing to acknowledge that to himself right now. “Shouldn’t you find this funny?”

Steve set the bags down, using his knee to nudge Billy out of the way before sitting down on the bench like he belonged there. Billy eyed him warily, lip hauled between his teeth now.

“Who said I hate you?” Steve said, tone still soft but with an edge like a teacher asking him for the date in history that the Old White Man of the Week had died. Billy felt any answer he may have so much as considered die in his throat.

“And even if I did hate you- which I don’t- I still wouldn’t find you being miserable funny.” Billy wanted to protest the description of his mood, but it was more accurate than he wanted it to be.

Eventually he managed a half-reply, “Didn’t mean you had to follow me.”

Steve shrugged and settled further into the bench, leg just barely pressing against the blonde’s own. “Yeah well. Like you said before, I had nothing better to do.” There was a small smile audible in his voice, and when Billy peeked back over at him, he figured out that Steve was trying to lighten the mood.

He didn’t exactly know that Billy was bleeding out beside him in slow-motion, so he had no way of knowing a joke wouldn’t patch it up. But the attempt was… oddly nice, even if Billy was still struggling to accept his presence as genuine at all.

“Just having a shitty day. It doesn’t matter.” Billy breathed, turning his gaze towards the gravel-strewn alley ground once more. A soggy flyer was balled up by his feet, which he aimed a kick at to get some of his tension out. It bounced off the rim of a rusted coffee can full of cigarette butts and then rolled off down the alley.

Beside him, Steve made a buzzer sound under his breath and even as his chest gave another dull throb, Billy found himself snorting a quiet laugh.

“I can still kick your ass on the court, missed shot or not.” Billy said defiantly, but his voice conveyed an attempt at reciprocated humor, even if it sounded a little flat. Steve just shrugged again.

“Eh, you’ve got me there.” The brunette acquiesced instead of even playfully fighting him and damn it all, why the hell did that have heat flooding back into Billy’s cheeks?

He knew why, but again, now was not the time.

“Can’t believe Steve Harrington spends time buying his own groceries. What, give the staff a day off?” Billy said before Steve could inadvertently compliment him again, picking at the skin of his palm as a tactile distraction.

“These aren’t mine actually, and believe it or not, I clean my own house, too. I know, shocking.” Steve drawled in a dry, light tone. Had he shifted closer? Billy could swear that he could feel more of Steve’s leg against his own than he had a minute ago.

“You do grocery shopping for other people?” Billy cocked his head. That was an even more bizarre concept, for some reason.

Steve shook his head, but his answer was no less cryptic. “Not often, just… sometimes I make an exception.”

“Ooookay.”

They both trailed off, silence creeping into the alleyway once again. Billy wasn’t sure when he stopped crying, but when he lifted a hand to wipe at his eyes, his face was dry.

Maybe Steve wasn’t a horrible distraction.

Billy opened his mouth to speak, anything to fill the silence. He’d always liked silence; silence was the opposite of everything home was. But for some reason, he hated it right now.

The problem was simple- what did he even say? He was still residually embarrassed and worn out. They’d never had a genuinely friendly conversation before- and Billy doubted this one counted as that either, at least not at the beginning- and he was genuinely grasping at mental straws trying to find a topic.

Hey man, while we’re having a somewhat normal conversation, mind telling me what was in that syringe my shitbird sister stabbed me with?

Also, I just casually hallucinated my mother in the grocery store because hey, if there’s a God, he loves taking his morning shit in my cereal.

Yeah, he was sure that would go over super well.

Billy’s hand lifted to rub over the spot on his neck that the needle had gone into, a slight shiver running down his back. That had been a weird fucking night.

Steve seemed to notice his movement, because he turned his body towards Billy a little more. Billy suddenly felt very observed, and he shifted in place before digging into his pocket for a cigarette.

As he inhaled a deep drag, he felt a little of the rigidness leave his posture. Even with the blonde woman still faintly burned into the edge of his vision, it was helping considerably.

“Hey uh…” Steve started, then trailed off. He clearly also didn’t know how to break the silence between them. “Are you going to Jennifer’s party?” He said finally.

Billy couldn’t help but smile at the obvious grasp of a topic, letting smoke curl out between his teeth. “Nah. I have to babysit.”

The displeasure in his voice was obvious. Even if he and Max were still in a weird, post-syringe purgatory phase of their hot and cold relationship, he didn’t exactly enjoy sitting at home and doing fuck all nothing but trying to keep her from sneaking out again.

“Max?” Steve probed, but it barely sounded like a question.

Billy raised an eyebrow at him. “You think I’d willingly watch any other snot-nosed kid in this town? If I needed money that badly, I think I’d be happier scrubbing out public toilets with a toothbrush.”

Steve choked on a laugh, hazel eyes crinkling at the corners. Billy may be a little into the way he looked when he was angry, but he was unfairly attractive when he smiled like that. Fuck. It made Billy want to piss him off just so his brain stopped turning all useless and fuzzy.

“Mm, yeah, that’s fair. Can’t really imagine you playing tea party.”

Billy made a disgusted sound, forcing himself to look away from that smile. “Yeah, I’m good. No thanks.”

Steve rubbed his palms on his jeans, tongue flicking out to wet his lips. “I should… get going.” He said apologetically, getting to his feet. “I have to get to… uh. Well, a job interview. At that new mall that just opened up.” He scrunched his face, looking disinterested in the concept as a whole.

Clearly, this job interview wasn’t his idea.

Billy attempted to conceal his disappointment with the loss of body heat at his side, already sensing a small amount of the calm that had settled into his chest fading away. He cleared his throat. “Alright..”

Steve looked at him for a moment longer, then glanced over his shoulder towards the opening to the alley. Was Billy imagining things, or did he look as disappointed as Billy felt?

Though trying to get the words out felt like dragging a sandbag through four feet of water, Billy eventually managed to get out a quiet- “Thanks… for ah- coming out here.” He said slowly, not looking anywhere close to Steve while he did so. He heard a quiet hum in response.

Steve was smiling again when he looked back up and Billy felt that damn fuzziness start creeping back into place. Fucking Harrington and his stupid, pretty smile.

“Not a problem…” Steve said, sounding genuine. “For… what it’s worth, I hope your day gets a little better.” Billy had to bite his tongue not to laugh sarcastically at the sentiment. He knew deep down it would only get worse.

But he’d long since gotten used to evading the truth when it came to stuff like this.

“I’m sure it will.” He lied, fingernails biting into the palm of his hand.

Steve didn’t look convinced, the corners of his lips twitching downwards. If he did know Billy was lying, he chose not to call him out. Billy appreciated it. He’d already been far more vulnerable in the last half an hour than he liked.

“I’ll… see you around, Billy.”

Billy. Not Hargrove or an insulting name. He was Billy now. It made his nerves skitter sparks, fingers twitching.

Steve started to walk away, slipping his hands into his pockets. It was that movement that made Billy realize something. “Hey, Steve–”

The brunette turned to look back at him, waiting.

Billy gestured lamely to the grocery bags on the ground. “You forgot your bags.”

Steve looked a little red in the face, but he simply shrugged. “Like I said… they aren’t my groceries.” Then, like he hadn’t just thoroughly confused Billy, he left the alley entirely and vanished around the corner.

Regardless of whether they were his or not, he was sure whoever Steve had been shopping for would’ve liked to actually get their groceries. He was surprised he had even managed to get all this. Wasn’t his basket basically empty when he’d approached Billy in the store...?

Billy blinked, eyes snapping to the bags on the ground with a new level of focus. Steve’s basket had had nothing but a jar of sauce in it. He was sure of that now. There were far too many bags sitting around his feet for Steve to have had time to get all of it and go through the checkout in the time Billy had been held up by Sandy at the doors.

He hesitantly reached down to the one nearest his foot, pulling it open. As he scanned the contents, Susan’s grocery list flashed through his mind. By the second bag, his mouth was hanging open a little, and he abruptly realized what Steve had done all at once.

“What the fuck?” He muttered, a little breathless.

Steve had bought his groceries for him. He’d grabbed Billy’s full basket off the shelf, and he’d gone and fucking–

Billy’s face pinched into something conflicted as he tried to battle back the wash of confusing emotions now flooding through his body, fingers shaking slightly on the handle of the bag. Relief, gratitude, confusion, and something soft and warm and terrifying.

Without even knowing the punishment that would’ve awaited him when he came home empty-handed, Steve had waltzed right in and somehow saved him from it.

He looked back towards the opening of the alley, even though he knew Steve was long gone now, with a dangerous fluttering taking over his chest. There was no coming back from this moment in time, that wave of warmth now far too strong to battle back even with his carefully honed talent of repression.

Steve Harrington had a terrible habit of messing up Billy’s plans- and brain- but this was a whole new level. This time, he’d gone straight for the heart.

Oh, Billy was so fucked.

#billy hargrove #steve harrington #harringrove #billy x steve #hargrovecentral #harringrove relay race #harringrove fanfiction

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kerubimcrepin · 1 month

Text

Live-Read: "Dofus Manga" - part 3

+ A big Atcham Analysis

I'll only briefly point out that he has an ear ring, or that Ancestral Z draws him with hair tufts for cuteness' sake. We have to keep moving towards the point where I analyse him.

Atcham seems to be quite famous, — to the point Dodge is chastised for not knowing him, despite being an ecaflip, — and one of his nicknames is "the killer of killers". Very, very interesting...

"You're the one who made a huge mistake, Katar, by stealing the sword I had taken to repair... It belonged to my family for generations."

Obsessed with all the implications this has. You have no idea just how obsessed I am. To Atcham, swords aren't just weapons, — they're objects of sentimental value, a way to protect himself, a tool.

And it turns out that Katar threw his, and I quote Katar, "piece of shit sword" to the moon.

We've discussed Atcham and Kerubim's dead family, lack of support system, and young age when they lost everything plenty here. Same for their irrational hatred for one another.

No need to tell you how awful this must feel for him. Imagine someone throwing your dead father's picture into the river. For fun.

"And the smith was a good friend of mine." Man :(

(He's either not that good at telling that someone is scared of him, which is sad, — or the smith that Katar killed was joking, when he said that he was afraid of Atcham.)

What follows is the most important scene I have for characterizing Atcham:

"The... the six Dofus. You have reunited the six Dofus! And what are you planning to do with them? Do you have an idea already?" "They intend to defeat Cornu Mollu."

If I speak on Cornu Mollu, this post will devolve into a 5-hour lecture on how much I hate the Twelve gods, — how Oropo "Did Nothing Wrong", — and how Sadida, Iop, and Ecaflip in particular need to be [VIOLENT LANGUAGE OMITTED] for the things they have done. Let's just say that he's a demon guy who rules Brakmar at the time of manga, ok?

"You guys are comedians. PHAHAHA! The guy is stronger than a god... And your Dofus can't change that! And his armies have only continued to expand — they're invincible."

Atcham laughs them out of town like clowns for thinking they can defeat Cornu Mollu. Which is more than understandable. But it is interesting, how he speaks of Brakmar here... Not very patriotic, he.

"I wish you courage in your collective suicide. As for me, I'm going to find myself a little island, hoping to escape all this!"

The thing about Atcham, is that mostly, he just cares about himself, and the things he likes.

He doesn't care about the city he's in, — outside the fact that his brother is on the opposing side. He doesn't care about the world, or saving it, — because the world certainly hasn't cared about him!

And he WILL flee, if it saves his skin from any unnecessary pain or danger.

What he cares about is his own damn self, because nobody else is going to.

For this reason, his personal moral compass is entirely dependent on saving his own skin, because he has only ever had himself to rely upon. He tries not to be too cruel, — yet, if the mood strikes him, he becomes hyperviolent just for the sake of fun.

But the thing about him is that he will leave, if things aren't going well. He won't stay.

This includes fleeing Brakmar at the first sight of trouble. And chances are, it also has, multiple times, included Joris and Kerubim after the movie.

While I will go more in detail on this later, sometime after Leorictus's nightmare reign and Joris's huppermage horror beyond our comprehension, Atcham has left Kerubim and Joris to return to Brakmar's side.

As far as I am aware, it is not because of some deep falling out, — they still seem to love one another. Kerubim has an instance of mentioning Atcham, in a pretty teasing manner, — and in the quest that involves catching him for his crimes, Kerubim comes to bail him out with a defense attorney speech at the ready to explain away why the atrocities are both a misunderstanding and completely justified, — but the thing is that Atcham left them, and began doing weird stuff, like crimes. In Kerubim's own Ecaflipus temple.

My personal thought is that Atcham keeps leaving because he's scared.

He cares a lot, — because they're the first people to ever care about him, and it drives him crazy how little they care for themselves. It hurts seeing them in pain.

Leorictus's reign probably was hard, emotionally speaking, — Joris wasn't even legally allowed to live in Bonta, or anywhere else, as a huppermage, — and yet, in Dofus MMO, judging from NPC dialogue about how Kerubim only moved back to Astrub somewhat recently,

— and Joris's presence in the game before the implementation of Huppermages as a class (I.E. their return from Rok Island), all signs point to the fact that this whole time, as Huppermages fled to Rok Island, — The Trio stayed in Bonta despite the danger, for some insane fucking reason. Probably heroism. Probably trying to save people. (people who have read my fic Fragile will uhh. Recognize this premise. Yeah. I think a lot about this all. To the point of writing a fic about this insane era of their lives.)

I think Atcham hates how responsible he feels for them, and the batshit insane things, — heroism? saving the world?! helping other people?!? self-sacrifice!?!? — they make him want to believe in, and how afraid he is of losing them. It is for him, to agree to do things he would never do before, for them, — and it's scary, just as scary as how dependent he is now, despite being ok with loneliness before them.

And sometimes, it's just too much, and too fast. So, he leaves, again, and again.

But on a positive note, I want to believe he is mostly over leaving them whenever he gets too stressed out, by Wakfu times. Maybe it's the maturity that comes with age, — or realizing how much they need him after Ogrest's Chaos, but I want to believe that he now expresses his frustration in other, more productive ways: herding these two idiots away from danger.

Ranging from: subtly insisting that Joris doesn't go on insane suicide missions all alone just to protect them (Just like Atcham, Joris's anxiety for his family makes him very irrational at times.), and trying to get Kerubim to always be ready for battles, while protecting him because he isn't,

To just plain having the willpower to tell the world's most stupidly self-sacrificial man "Did you consider that the floating eyes in the sky aren't any of our business? :)"

Which is pretty funny.

Anyway, yeah, Joris is not surviving the things Kerubim and Atcham will do to him, after he tells them that he went to something called "The Necroworld", almost got trapped there, and then almost died 20 times.

#ro liveblogs dofus #dofus #wakfu #krosmoz #dofusmanga #atcham crepin #atcham crepin the leaver of unfortunate situations....

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thethirdromana · 5 months

Text

In honour of Doctor Who's 60th birthday, here are 60* things that I like about less popular** Doctor Who stories.

(*in multiple posts because I'm falling foul of the character limit)

(**IMDB rating of less than 7/10)

1. Susan is great in The Sensorites. She's at her absolute best in stories like this where she gets to be genuinely a bit alien and a bit weird.

2. "So," said someone at the BBC, "we're going to produce an allegory for different political systems, using insects. Choreographed by a mime artist. On a budget of about £2.50." The Web Planet might not entirely have succeeded, but my god, you have to love that they tried.

3. They introduced Jamie, the best companion, in The Highlanders! How is does this have less than a 7/10 rating, what is wrong with you people. It's Jamie.

4. I applaud the utter bonkersness of The Underwater Menace, and Patrick Troughton really gives it socks.

5. The Wheel in Space is proper 60s sci-fi: Servo-Robots, x-ray lasers, radio beams! I can practically smell Penguin mass-market paperbacks thinking about it. And with the introduction of Zoe, it completes my all-time favourite TARDIS team.

6. The Dominators contains the Quarks, who are adorable. They weren't supposed to be, but it doesn't matter.

7. Zoe is still relatively new to the TARDIS, but she has heaps to do in The Krotons. Nice having a female companion who's written as smart and capable.

8. We have entered the 70s, so with Colony in Space, we get Social Issues. Especially an Evil Mining Corporation, which are always fun.

9. More Social Issues in The Mutants, but this time they're paired with big sci-fi ideas. Ancient tablets! Strange life cycles! Love how much is going on here.

10. The Time Monster is like the Eurovision of Doctor Who. Deeply silly, but what would Doctor Who be without silliness? I'm sorry about Jo's coccyx too.

11. I love that they returned to Peladon in The Monster of Peladon, especially with the 50-year time jump. I'd like to see that kind of follow-up more often.

12. Is it not cool to love K9 any more? Well, I like my Doctor Who with a dose of silliness, and The Invisible Enemy delivered that. Every time traveller needs a robot dog.

13. The design of the Seers in Underworld is excellent, I love a brass dome.

14. Doctor Who doesn't have enough giant squidmonsters looming on the horizons. I'm glad the The Power of Kroll does something to address the deficit.

15. The Creature from the Pit gave us the line "a teaspoon and an open mind", and I appreciate it for that at least.

16. Romana wears one of her best of many splendid outfits in The Horns of Nimon.

17. I liked all the arch dialogue between the Doctor, Enlightenment and Persuasion in Four to Doomsday.

18. Heathrow airport is an underrated setting. I also appreciate how Time-Flight prominently features Concorde, making it far more 80s than they could ever have planned.

19. I don't intend this to be damning with faint praise (even though it probably sounds like it) but my favourite thing about Arc of Infinity is that we get a little jaunt through 80s Amsterdam. I do love a tram.

20. Babyfaced Martin Clunes doing his spoiled princeling thing in Snakedance is enjoyably disconcerting.

21. Terminus is tense and scary and bleak. Another one that I'd expected to be more highly rated.

22. Warriors of the Deep gives us a very solid base under siege. Silurians + Cold War is a winning combination.

23. Landing in a modern village doing a historical re-enactment in The Awakening is a witty touch.

24. I can’t say I enjoyed the idea of the Doctor’s violent moods in The Twin Dilemma, but I have to commend it as a punchy way to introduce the new regeneration.

25. The Mark of the Rani should surely get some love just for introducing the Rani: camp, delightful, iconic.

26. Herbert turning out to be HG Wells in Timelash is a lovely twist and handled well.

27. The Trial of a Time Lord is so grand and ambitious. If the show hadn't been struggling in general at this point, it would be among the all-time greats.

28. With its colour-coded gangs and faux-urban slang, Paradise Towers is gloriously of its time in a way that currently feels quite naff, but that I suspect will be fascinating to revisit in about 30 years.

29. Delta and the Bannermen is action-packed and has one of the best titles in 80s Who.

30. Possibly the most terrifying moment in all of Doctor Who is Kane's face melting in Dragonfire. This series is nothing if it doesn't send children running for safety behind the sofa.

31. Got to love it when Who gets aggressively anti-Thatcher, and they never did it more than in The Happiness Patrol.

#doctor who #doctor who 60th anniversary #dw 60th #long post

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atinylittlepain · 1 year

Text

Of Saints and Sinners - Chapter 9

Joel Miller x f!oc

series masterlist

Decisions are made for family and the future.

warnings | 18+ angst, descriptions of violence

a/n | the last entry in this series. thank you to all who read the very first thing i posted to this blog <3

...............................

Joel knew that there were a handful of kids that lived at the childcare center. It was usually only temporary, a couple in Jackson taking them in soon after they found themselves in need of a home. But there were some who couldn’t get placed somewhere new. Kids who had seen something they shouldn’t have, the world taking an early toll on them and leaving them damaged in one way or another. Maria had told him about it. Kids who would lash out like soldiers back from serving, flashes of their past dragged into the present rendering them reactive and violent. There were others who just wouldn’t speak, mute ghosts that needed looking after.

He thinks about that conversation as he sits outside the childcare center, wringing his hands in his lap. She had left him on a bench on the playground and told him she’d be right back out. With Will. The little boy he saw her with all those months ago. He had never seen her like that before or after that time, the clear love that she had wrapped around the kid. It made him nervous. He knows this is more than important to her. It’s another wall coming down. Maybe one of the last ones.

His breath catches in his throat when the door to the building opens. She comes out first, but he can see that she’s holding a very small hand next to her hip. The boy stays close behind her legs as she walks over to him. Joel’s not sure if he should stand or stay seated, but they’re on him before he can really decide so he stays on the bench, pressing his palms into his thighs. She’s smiling, drawing Will to stand by her side even though he buries his face into her hip. Joel’s eyes are darting between her face and the mop of dark hair that’s pressed against her jeans. She brings a palm to the boy’s back, rubbing gently.

“Joel, this is Will. Will, this is who I was telling you about.” Joel clears his throat, realizing all too late that he hasn’t had a whole lot of recent experience talking to kids. His voice comes out a lot gruffer than he intended.

“Hi, Will.” He feels like a dope, but she offers him another reassuring smile before carding her fingers through the boy’s hair, encouraging him to finally look at Joel. He holds Joel’s gaze for a heartbeat, eyes quickly going to his pigeon-toed sneakers. The boy’s voice is small but clear.

“Hello.” She crouches down next to the boy, keeping an arm wrapped around his waist as she glances back at Joel. He feels like his heart is beating out of his chest.

“Do you remember what I told you about Joel, bud? How I ride horses with him?” The boy nods, glancing at Joel again. She smiles before looking back up at Joel.

“Will really wants to ride horses. He thinks they’re the coolest, don’t you?” Will nods again, the suggestion of a smile on his face. Joel can’t help a similar grin turning the corners of his mouth. He leans onto his elbows, dipping his head to try to catch the boy’s gaze. He’s trying to remember how to talk to a kid, really.

“You like horses, kid?” Not his best effort, but Will still nods, finally meeting Joel’s gaze.

“I read books about them, a-and I’ve seen pitchers of them.” Joel’s heart squeezes at his words.

“You ever seen one up close?” Will becomes a bit more animated at his question, his eyes widening.

“Only a long time ago.” Joel glances her way but she’s looking at the boy with a hopeful smile. He’s not sure if it’s even allowed, but Joel’s already saying it.

“How’d you like to see some horses today?” The boy lets out a bright gasp that makes Joel laugh. Suddenly, his chest feels a lot lighter than it has in a long time. Will’s eyes dart to her, seeming to silently ask her if Joel’s for real. She offers him a grin and a nod.

“We can go see the horses, bud. I’ll just have to check with Laura, ok?” Will nods his head whip-fast, already trying to wriggle out of her arms. She fixes the boy with a firm but kind look.

“I need you to stay here with Joel while I go let Laura know, alright?” Joel’s stomach drops at her words. Sure, he was starting to do ok with the kid, but with her there as well. He did not feel ready to be solely responsible for him, even if it was for a few minutes. But she’s already walking back towards the building while Will hops up on the bench next to him. Joel tentatively rests one arm over the back of the bench, turning slightly towards the boy. He’s surprised when Will speaks first.

“Who are you?” Joel’s already at a loss. He opens his mouth to speak a few times, but only to shut it again when he can’t find a good answer. Will cuts off his floundering.

“Are you trying to take me?” Joel furrows his brow.

“What makes you ask that, kid?” The boy shrugs.

“People tried to take me before. But I won’t go without her.” Joel is still confused by the boy’s words. Had there been families in Jackson who had tried to adopt him? He clears his throat.

“Well, I’m not gonna take you, kid. I just wanted to meet you, she’s told me alot about you.” It’s a lie, but Will seems to accept that answer, looking down at his sneakers as he kicks them in the air.

“Do you shoot guns?” For a moment, Joel asks whatever mercy there is left in the world to give him a break, but then he answers.

“Sometimes.” Will hums at that.

“I saw her shoot guns once. It was loud.” There’s no time for Joel to respond to that, as he sees her walking back over to them. The relief is instant.

“Alright, bud. Let’s go see some horses.”

…

They walk through the town toward the stables. She’s holding the boy’s hand, and Joel is on his other side. He can see people looking a little longer at their strange trio and then, he nearly chokes on an inhale when a small hand takes his. He glances down at Will, who doesn’t even look at Joel, like holding his hand was the most natural thing in the world. Joel’s trying hard to not imagine what they look like. Like a family.

There are several foals in the grazing pen when they get to the stables, successful spring births that are now growing into the summer. Will lets go of both their hands to press up against the fence, his eyes wide as he watches the animals. Watching Will, Joel is reminded of the first time he saw horses as a boy, and he’s startled by how quickly he’s growing to like this kid. He squeezes her shoulder as she sidles up next to the boy.

“I’ll be right back.” She gives him a questioning look, but nods, becoming distracted by a peel of laughter that Will lets out when one of the foals tosses its mane back in a whinny.

Joel heads over to the main barn and quickly finds the bucket of grain he was looking for. When he returns to them, he tentatively rests his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Will looks up at him, his face still lined with awe.

“Do you wanna see them a little closer, kid?” He knows he didn’t really have to ask, but seeing the excitement in the boy’s face is worth it. He glances at her.

“You coming?” She shakes her head, biting her lip to pin down a grin.

“You guys go on, I’ll watch.” Joel steers the boy with a palm on his back over to the gate of the pen. When they step inside the pen, Will takes Joel’s hand that isn’t holding onto the bucket, stepping back behind Joel’s legs. Noticing the intrusion, the foals are already meandering over to the pair. The closer they get, the more Will shrinks behind Joel’s hip. Joel sets the bucket down, turning and kneeling with a groan to get on the now very shy boy’s level.

“You alright, kid?” The boy shrugs. Joel brings his hand to his shoulder, giving a light squeeze.

“They’re all friendly, I promise. Just a little hungry. Here, watch.” Joel takes a handful of grain out of the bucket and holds it out in his flat palm for the closest horse. The animal lazily sidles up, nuzzling the food out of his hand. Will is watching, completely enrapt, as a smile slowly spreads across his face. The grain gone, Joel wipes his hand on his thigh before looking back at the boy.

“You wanna try?” He nods, shuffling over to the bucket and taking a handful of grain out. Joel lets the boy stand in front of him, and he brings his palm to rest under the boy’s up-turned hand as he holds out his arm for the foals. As one of the horses approaches, Will starts to back into Joel, but he puts his other hand on the boy’s shoulder, a reassurance. The giggle that Will lets out when the horse begins to eat from his palm makes Joel dizzy. He didn’t know there was joy left in this world, but he reckons that if there is, this is it. He glances over his shoulder to see her, elbows resting along the top of the fence and her chin in one of her palms. He’s not seen that kind of smile from her before.

…

They feed the horses for a while, and Will continues to come out of his shell. By the end of their time at the stable, Joel has him stroking the foals’ manes and talking sweetly to the animals, a natural farmhand if Joel ever saw one. But as they’re walking back to the childcare center, and Will so easily holds his hand, Joel is once again startled by how quickly he slipped into this role. He’s not entirely sure if he’s comfortable with it. Sure, he looked after Ellie, but she was practically grown by the time he knew her. This is different, and it scares him. He also doesn’t understand why Will is staying at the childcare center in the first place. He’s perfect, brilliant even, if not a little shy. But then he remembers what the boy said, that he wasn’t going anywhere without her, and a whole new set of questions lights up his mind. It’s clear how much this boy means to her, and how much he loves her. But Joel knows there’s no blood relation and he’s left with no clue as to why the pair are so close.

When they get back to the childcare center, they pause for a moment at the door and Joel’s not sure what he’s supposed to do. Will lets go of his hand, choosing instead to wrap his arms around her legs. She rubs his back. Joel can hear the boy’s murmurs though they’re muffled into her jeans.

“You’re gonna come tomorrow?” She untangles him from her legs, crouching down and holding both his hands.

“I always do, bud.” The boy huffs.

“Not always.” Joel sees the wince flash across her face, but she’s quick to hide it with a tight smile.

“Remember I told you that was just because I was in a little trouble. But I’m not gonna get in any more trouble, I promise.” Joel’s mouth gets dry, realizing exactly what “trouble” she’s referencing, but she keeps talking.

“You know, Will. It was Joel who helped me get out of that trouble.” The boy’s head whips around to look at Joel.

“You helped?” Joel swallows hard, sharing a quick look with her over the boy’s head. Her eyes are soft. He nods.

“I guess I did, yeah.” Will looks at him for just a beat longer before turning back to her.

“When are you coming tomorrow?” She laughs.

“In the afternoon, alright?” He nods, wrapping his arms around her neck for another hug before pulling away to let her stand. What Joel wasn’t expecting was for the boy to turn and wrap his arms around his legs, a hug that’s over as soon as it started.

“Thank you for showing me the horses, Joel.” The sentence comes out a bit shaky, but it still makes Joel’s heart catch. He has to clear his throat harshly before he speaks, resting his hand on Will’s shoulder again.

“You’re welcome, kid. It’s good to meet you.” With that, she takes Will’s hand and leads him inside, Joel hanging back. He’s not sure what just happened, his brain reeling in questions. He leans back against the wall of the building, scrubbing a hand down his face. He hopes she’ll have some answers. He’s startled out of his thoughts when she comes back out. He thinks she looks a bit nervous as she looks at him.

“Well, I think Will may have a new favorite.” Joel snorts at that, pressing off the wall to walk with her back to his house.

“That’s impossible, darlin. That kid is stuck to you like glue.” He catches the way her face falls at that only slightly. She clears her throat.

“I know you probably have a ton of questions. And I’d like to try to answer them, that ok with you?” He stops in his tracks to look at her, the way she’s biting her lip. He nods.

“Let’s get back to the house. You can tell me everything.”

…

They sit down at the dining table. Joel rests his elbows on the table, trying to organize his thoughts into coherent questions.

“Why– how did– what–” He takes a deep breath, trying to start over. She looks nervous. Joel clears his throat.

“From the beginning. Tell me from the beginning.” She sighs, leaning back in her chair.

“Alright, well I guess it was about two years ago now. I– we– um–” Joel is quick to take her hand in his across the table, a squeeze of reassurance. Her face softens.

“Alex and Steve and I were going on weekly raids at the time, running out and seeing what we could find. We had come across gamers before–” Joel’s brow furrows in confusion at that word and she catches it.

“You know, people who lay out bait? Someone old or injured, and then the rest of them jump you.” He nods, knowing all too well the sort of people she’s referring to.

“Well, when we saw a fucking kid in the middle of the road, we knew what we were getting ourselves into. But– I don’t know– I guess that’s my weakness– especially when they look so much like– like–” Her breath catches and Joel already knows the word, the name she’s trying to get out. He squeezes her hand again and she continues.

“Anyways, Steve and Alex stayed in the van, I got out, walked right up to him. He must’ve only been four or five? But he told me his name was Will and that he was lost. A script his adults probably told him– but I was gone, you know? This perfect little boy had me wrapped around his finger from the get-go.” She sighs, a crumpled smile across her face.

“And then, his folks appeared out of the woods on the side of the road, guns ablazing. The guys were still in the van, but I knew they had my back. I was trying to just talk to them. Told them we could work something out. Before they could even get a word in, a whole herd of infected came sprinting out of the trees. It was a fucking blur.” She pauses, taking a sharp inhale.

“His mom went down fast, god– the scream he let out– shook me to my knees. He tried to run to her but I grabbed him, hoisted him onto my back, told him to close his eyes. Steve and Alex came barreling out, took out a bunch of them, but it wasn’t enough. His dad got taken down too– there were just too many of them.”

“It was a struggle just to get back in the van. We got knocked down by one– I was trying to hold onto him and fight this fucking thing off of us– total clusterfuck– but we made it, somehow– hauled ass out of there.”

“He was sobbing so hard, I thought he’d pop a lung or something. Screaming for his mom– I just held him, it was all I could think to do as we drove.” She sighs, and Joel thinks he knows where this is going.

“He was bit, wasn’t he?” She presses her lips into a firm line, nodding.

“Fucker got him on his side– pfft, Steve and Alex wanted to drop him right then and there. But I– I couldn’t, Joel. Not when he– he looked so much like– god I wish I could show you a photo because it’s scary, really.” The first tears fall silently as she looks at him.

“I told them to give it a day, just give me one day to see. I sat in the van with him all night and all day while Steve and Alex camped outside. And I prayed– for the first time, I prayed– and the next day, Will still hadn’t turned.” She lets out a humorless laugh.

“I told him I would take care of him from then on, and I– I brought him home.” Joel’s trying to picture it, her stepping out of a van with a crying child in her arms for all of Jackson to see, and it finally makes sense.

“That’s why people call you the saint? What you did, when you came back? Isn’t it?” She offers him a small smile, but shakes her head.

“Not after Will. He was the first, but he wasn’t the last.” Joel’s eyebrows shoot up. She huffs.

“There was a string of kids afterwards, all the same situation. Gamer bait. Everytime I came back with another, people’s voices got a little more hushed around me, a little more reverent. That’s how that name stuck to me.” She pinches the bridge of her nose, eyes scrunching shut.

“But Will was different?” She sighs again, squeezing Joel’s hand.

“Will was different, is different. Those other kids all got adopted. But Will– he’s mine, Joel.” He lets go of her hand, leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs.

“So then– why doesn’t he– why don’t you–”

“Why don’t I keep him with me?” Joel nods. She frowns deeply, looking down at her hands now clasped on the table.

“It’s better this way. As you know I’m, uh, prone to trouble. I’ve tried to get him to go with other families, but he’s stubborn, just flat out refuses.” She shakes her head. Joel lets out a gruff exhale.

“He should be with you.” “Joel.”

“No. I know it’s not my place–”

“It’s really not.” “But, Christ, I’ve only met him once and I can tell you that you’re it for him.”

“So I should just have him shack up with me and Alex and Steve then?”

“No, he would stay with us, here.” Joel is saying it before he even knows what he’s doing. Her eyes widen at that. He knows it’s presumptuous as hell, not even sure if he’s ready to take something on like that. But, he figures, for her he’d get ready. She stays silent and he lets out another huff.

“Family should be together, that’s what I think.” She sighs at that, dragging a hand through her hair. Joel swallows thickly before continuing.

“I know you don’t like me saying this, but there’s no need for you to be– prone to trouble– like you say.” She scoffs at his words.

“Joel.” He brings his palms flat down on the table, standing his ground.

“No. You– you’re not disposable, darlin. And you’re not somebody’s science experiment, seeing how many times you can take it and get back up. Goddamnit, there are people here who– who need you.” He gulps an inhale after finishing speaking. It’s the truth, and it frightens him. Her eyes are still wide, not leaving his. He sighs and continues.

“Look, you’re gonna do what you want to, lord knows. But– family should be together– s’what I believe.” He seems to have left her speechless, her eyes searching his face. She finally clears her throat, rubbing her palms down her thighs before standing. She shuffles over to stand between his legs, bringing her hands to rest on his shoulders. He lets his palms drop heavily on her hips.

“That’s a lot to take in, Miller.” He huffs, looking up at her.

“Wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it, darlin.” She smiles faintly dipping down to press a chaste kiss to his lips, but when she stands back up Joel can see the worried crease between her brows.

“I’ll think about what you said, really. Thank you for letting me, um, share him with you.” Joel smiles broadly at that, nodding and squeezing her hips.

“Can I ask who else knows? About Will being like you?” She lets out a long exhale.

“Just the guys, and Maria. She thought I was crazy when I brought him back, but she helped me keep it secret, keep him safe. And now I guess you know as well.” Joel nods, slowly standing and sliding his hands up to cup her jaw, laying a kiss on her lips.

“I’m on your team, darlin. That means I’m on his too.” She smiles, leaning in for another kiss before pulling back and rubbing her palms up his chest.

“I’m really glad I’ve got you, Joel Miller.”

…

“Alright, kid. You ready?” Ellie nods to Alex who gives a few experimental buzzes of his makeshift tattoo gun before dipping it down to her forearm and getting to work. Joel can’t believe he’s letting her do this. When she had asked - more like told - him about getting a tattoo over the scars on her arm, Joel had balked immediately, a firm no on the tip of his tongue. Just as they started to argue about it at the dining table, she had come in, his woman, bandage gone from her arm where she had been bitten and a fresh design scrawled over it, a hare mid-leap across the length of her forearm. With some backup, Ellie had won that argument, but with the stipulation that Joel needed to be there when it happened. He wasn’t sure why that made him feel better, maybe a false sense of control. But now, watching Alex get to work, Joel finds himself getting a bit queasy at the sight.

It’s clear to him that Ellie is trying to look tough, biting her lip and furrowing her brow as she looks anywhere but at Alex’s work. Joel leans forward from his chair at their kitchen table and squeezes her knee, doing his best to offer her a small smile and firm nod that it’s alright. Both of their attention is drawn away from the ever-buzzing gun as someone clears their throat, their heads whipping around to see her leaning up against the doorframe.

“How’s it coming along, kid?” Before Ellie can respond to her question, Alex is chiming in, eyes still focused on his work.

“Sitting like a champ. A lot less squirmy than you are.” She scoffs, pressing up off the doorframe to step closer, bending over a bit to get a better look at Alex’s work as she rests her hand on Joel’s shoulder. Meanwhile, Ellie has a proud grin spread wide across her face. She smiles back at the girl.

“It looks great, Ellie. Gonna look even cooler than me.” That makes Ellie laugh, effectively distracting her from Alex’s continued needling. Watching them interact, Joel swears his heart swells at the sight, how easily she seems to be able to talk with Elliel, and how clear Ellie’s admiration for his woman is.

Joel is jolted out of his fond musings when she gives his shoulder a squeeze.

“Is it alright if I steal him for a second?” Ellie snorts, nodding lightly.

“Uh, yeah. He’s the one making me all nervous.” Joel huffs at that, grumbling at the kid’s smug expression as he gets up. Before he follows her out, he thinks better of it, turning around and clearing his throat to get Alex’s attention.

“Forearm only. I don’t want her coming home with any other ink, understand?” Ellie rolls her eyes, but Alex nods.

“Heard, Miller. No wandering tattoo gun.” Satisfied with his response, Joel turns back to his woman, following her to what had been her room in the house she shared with Alex and Steve.

He still remembers the day they spoke in here, after he found out about her immunity. It looks a bit different now. Most of her books have been moved back over to his place, along with her clothes. There’s hardly anything in the room now, just a lamp and a mattress on the floor with no sheets on it. His heart kicks up at the thought that this isn’t her home anymore, not really. Her home is with him.

She sits down on the edge of the mattress and Joel joins her with a groan, leaning back on his hands as he studies her.

“What’s going on?” She rests her cheek on her shoulder, turning to look at him.

“I thought some more about what we talked about. About Will.” Joel nods, but stays silent. That conversation happened two weeks ago now, but this is the first time she brings it up again. He knew better than to press her about it, that she’d come to him when she was ready to talk more. He knows her now. Knows when to speak, and when to stay silent. When to press, and when to let her come to it in her own time.

She lets out a long sigh before continuing.

“I think you’re right, Joel. I want Will with me– with us.” He feels his eyebrows shoot straight up his forehead at her words. Truthfully, he hadn’t expected her to so easily agree with him. It’s not like she ever had before. But he doesn’t voice that particular thought, instead leaning forward to wrap his arm around her shoulder and lay a kiss at her temple.

“Think that’s a good idea, darlin. How does this all work then? How do we get him?” She leans a little further into his side, head resting on his bicep.

“Usually, when folks– adopt, I guess– there’s a trial period. The kid might spend a few nights with the family, make sure the situation will work out. I guess that’s our next step.” Joel’s mind gets stuck on the word family, repeating it until it’s flooding his whole system. She takes his other hand in both of hers, keeping her eyes trained there as she runs her fingers over his knuckles.

“I asked Maria to start rotating me into shifts at the stables. Gonna be doing less patrol work. Less trouble, you know?” Hearing this is when Joel knows that she really means what she’s telling him, that she really wants this, wants them, and wants Will. He pulls back slightly, coaxing her to look up at him.

“Less trouble is good. It’ll be good for him too. To have you closer to home.” He takes a breath, and then says something else before he can really think about it.

“Think Ellie will like having a little brother.” It’s presumptuous as hell, and he worries that he’s crossed a line by saying it, but the bright smile she offers him is quick to calm his nerves.

“I think so too.” She squeezes his hand in hers, and he squeezes back.

“I just hope I can be good for him.” It’s the sweetest, simplest thing he’s ever heard her say and he can’t help but dip down to press a kiss to her lips.

“You will be. We will be. Together.”

#joel miller angst #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller au #joel miller series #tlou fanfiction #the last of us #tlou

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writing-for-life · 8 months

Note

So, you mentioned something about Thessaly in a 90s context in one of your responses to another post, and I was wondering if you could expand on that. Because yeah, I have no problem with her *existing* as a character, because obviously she has a role in the narrative, but I highly suspect that her perceived role has changed a LOT in the intervening years since the initial writing.

As someone who first read Sandman in 2022, I figured that her character role was to get us to question what we think we know about Morpheus. Can we really trust that he's changed or improved, or that he's even all that likeable, if he's literally jumping into bed with this thoroughly unpleasant woman who likes violent murder *way* too much and also seems to be transphobic to boot?

At the same time, though, I got the uncomfortable sense that we were supposed to *like* Thessaly. In a sort of, "You go girl, be a #girlboss, let's show these boys we can be JUST as good at killing as them!" sort of way. Which I rationalized as "well, that probably was progressive in the 90s, but the idea of cold blooded violence and emphasis on the possession of a womb being feminist ideals has aged poorly."

So, yeah, I'm wondering if that is anywhere close to how she seemed in the "intended" context.

[As always: Send me asks about everything Sandman-related!]

This is such a good ask, and I feel there are a lot of bases to cover here. Not sure if I’ll do it justice, but here goes…

Disclaimer straightaway: I absolutely detest Thessaly and everything she’s done narratively, and I’m neither a Thessaly-apologist, nor someone who loves her as a character. But I think we need to discuss her with a bit more nuance than I see in lot of fandom spaces.

I think first of all, we need to look at:

Thessaly as a fictional character

As you already pointed out, she naturally has a role in the narrative. I also think parts of her role in said narrative are sometimes a bit misunderstood. One prime example would be the idea she never loved Morpheus. And yes, she absolutely always put herself and her own interests first, so from that angle, she loved herself more than she loved him. That doesn’t mean she never loved him at any point though. Many people quote her saying that she never did as proof that she didn’t. But what people say doesn’t always align with what they feel or do: She says at his wake she swore she’ll never cry over him again—and cries while she’s saying it. That tells us two things: She *did* cry because of him before. And she *does* cry now.

Again, she is a selfish, utterly horrid bitch, but she loved him at some point, and she was mad at him for neglecting her and not paying her enough attention. That’s when it turned sour (and we know how absolutely shit at communicating with women Morpheus is, so they’re both as bad as each other in that regard).

I see her as someone who is totally disconnected/dissociated from her emotions, to the extent that she probably really believes what she says, out of some deep-rooted fear of any kind of vulnerability. Why that is—we can only speculate, because Neil never went into it, hence nothing we assume will ever be canon.

What can be considered canon, however, is that Neil has confirmed the fact that she *did* love him at some point—most notably in the Sandman Companion:

Hy Bender: […] Of course, she’s lying when she says she never loved the Sandman.

Neil Gaiman: Of course; I think that’s made explicit by the final panel, where she says, `I swore I would never shed another tear for him’ while crying. But after he’s won her and then returned to his duties, he wasn’t enough for her anymore. She wanted attention; and when she wasn’t getting it, she said, “Right. We’re done,” and walked out on him.”

I’d also like to point out that the most trans-exclusionary prick in the whole of AGoY is actually George, just that he’s not a woman, and hence, no one ever seems to mention it (he’s actually the one egging Wanda on, not Thessaly). Plus, walking the moon road is maiden, mother and crone to a T, and consciously so. Foxglove is the maiden, Hazel is pregnant, and Thessaly is ancient. So Thessaly’s choice was also based on that, and the only one who Wanda really could have *potentially* replaced would have been Foxglove; she presumably never had penetrative sex, unlike Hazel (in the archaic definition of what penetration means, so we don’t need to argue about lesbian sex practices now). We don’t know that about Wanda, no matter if someone sees her as a man or a woman. I didn’t mean to get that explicit about maiden status, but I guess it *is* important in this context (although yes, of course Thessaly said Wanda is a man, and I’m not arguing that either, but I still think it was grounded in her belief how moon magic works).

Which brings me to a very important point: Thessaly is ancient. Culturally, we can’t compare her to someone who grew up in the 20th century, also with regard to her violent inclinations. She is thousands of years old. She’s seen it all. She has a fierce sense of self-preservation, maybe even rooted in some fears or trauma of her own. All not very nice character traits, no, but that’s not the yardstick, and probably was never supposed to be. I also remember Neil saying he consciously wanted to oppose neopaganism and the watered down, new wave witchcraft of the time (late 1980s/early 1990s, and that, I really remember), which was all about the “divine feminine”, female empowerment, tarot cards and incense sticks. I’m being a bit flippant now, but it isn’t far off. It was more of a trend than anything. He wanted to consciously oppose it with someone who would still act according to ancient, rather violent codes and rules. And Morpheus will have known those, and probably found them less surprising than we do (doesn’t necessarily mean he’d condone them either).

The fact whether Thessaly should make us question Morpheus in the comics is a tricky one. What she definitely *should* make us question is: Morpheus could have quite easily broken some rules in the Kindly Ones when Thessaly had set up the protection circle for Lyta, and the consequences probably would have been less disastrous than playing by said rules. And we can safely presume he knew. We are also supposed to question the same when he lets Nuala call in her boon and doesn’t just say: “This isn’t really a good time, can we do this later?” (and he absolutely COULD have done that), but actually follows through with going ,“Well, what gives, I basically grant you your boon now and leave the Dreaming, even though I know the potential consequences.” So yes, Thessaly is supposed to make us question Dream’s choices, but probably not the way we think. And for that, we perhaps should look deeper into…

Thessaly the TERF and Feminism in the late 1980s/early 1990s

This might get a bit longwinded, and I am showing my age here. I grew up at the intersection of second wave and third wave feminism, and as a bisexual woman, I made a lot of experiences during the early 90s that feel wholly aligned with the plot of AGoY (which was written during that time). I don’t want to write a whole essay about feminism here, but second wave feminism was on its way out in the late 80s. A lot of the bad associations some people have with feminism today stem from that time (not always justified, because a lot of good was achieved during that period. But parts of it in specific sub-communities—definitely problematic). Equality vs equity discussions within the feminist movement were dominating everything, and the divide between radfems and libfems was getting deeper. People like Audre Lorde IMHO rightly criticised that failing to understand that not all women start on equal footing, that not all women are the same, is problematic (so you could easily see how this is incorporated into the narrative of AGoY).

Second wave feminism wasn’t just about making sure women had rights. It was very much about “all of us can do everything men do, and we want the same a man gets”. It was all about the workspace (so often very white, CIS, middle class), not being at home with the kids etc (of course there were also other topics, but this one was really quite dominant). You could even see it fashion (massive shoulder pads etc). All the while, actually *being* a man was vilified (again, just in certain quarters).

So I feel you’re on to something with your #girlboss comment, only that I don’t think it was intentionally set up to like her, but rather as a criticism of what certain quarters of the feminist movement were like at the time.

Personal anecdote: I got that type of schtick from WITHIN the LGBT community at the time. Bi-erasure was big. And there were radfem lesbians that would actually tell you that being bi doesn’t exist, that you are basically a traitor to your “sisters” and just a lesbian who isn’t fully out. The same shite they used to criticise about men who would say you’re only a lesbian because you haven’t found the right guy yet. And here they went, telling you that you can’t be attracted to men if you’re also attracted to women.

Third wave feminism has a much stronger focus on the individual woman and what it means to be a woman to HER. This also included trans women, much more than during the second wave. Judith Butler’s work is actually exemplary for this (in essence, there is no such woman as “the” woman—we’re all different despite sharing common traits and problems. Trying to make us all the same will only harm us in the long run).

And with AGoY and Thessaly, we are exactly at the moment in time (in the comics) where that shift happens. I think Neil got it right for the time, and understood a lot of what was going on. Many people in queer communities felt really understood and seen, myself included. I absolutely see how that translates differently today. But it always saddens me when the historical context gets completely stripped away, and people don’t take the time a work of fiction was written into consideration and only measure it from today’s viewpoint. We can, and absolutely have to be critical if the TV shows fails to address these points and just translates everything 1-2-1. Which I am fairly certain won’t happen, because Thessaly has already been stripped off a lot of her obvious TERFiness in the Audible. I’m not even sure if we’ll get her in the show—we’ll hopefully find out.

Phew, that was long, I’m gonna lie down 😂

#sandman meta #sandman #the sandman #thessaly #sandman and feminism #agoy #a game of you #Wanda #the wake

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meetmyevilways · 2 years

Text

Finish it

Darkling x Reader

The prompts are taken from the-purity-pen's List.

Kinktober Masterlist

Prompt: 14. Temperature Play || Bath/Shower || Swallowing

Plot: You are the Darkling’s personal healer but you’ve both come to care more about the other than intended and he doesn’t handle the best way when he sees you hurt…

Warnings: at the end, so not to spoil the fun, you can search for it with ctrl/cmd+f or scroll down at the bottom of the post

***

Another attempt on his life.

Since the Darkling took over as the king many had tried to kill him in various ways. All had failed, they had no chance to begin with, but they could do some bothersome damage that made him need a healer.

You were chosen many months ago, tested for your power and loyalty before your place solidified by his side. You were there to heal him but he witnessed your talents in battle too. At that time he was impressed, now he was radiating nothing but anger.

Aleksander insisted you get your wounds taken care of before you could tend to him. He was so angry with you for putting yourself in danger that he could barely look at you.

When you entered his chambers, he was sitting in the tub, the water black from his cursed blood.

He didn’t speak as you cleaned his wounds but you could see his reaction to your soft touches as you slowly made all injuries disappear.

When you were done he was still glaring ahead, not sparing a glance at you so you thought it best to leave but he had other plans.

Just as you were standing, half turned to leave, he pulled you into the tub. The scene becoming a mockery of a cherished memory from the beginning of your relationship as you hear his demand.

“Finish it!” He almost growls as he pulls your hips flush to his own, and for the first time since you’ve met him, you feel fear in his presence.

With trembling hands, you find his hardened cock beneath you and pull your gown up to your middle, out of the way. A shaky breath leaves you when the tip nudges at your entrance, followed by a sharp intake and a silent scream as he impales you on his lenght.

You cry out as he takes out his anger on you, he wants it to hurt, you can feel the dark intent to punish you for disobeying his order.

His grip is bruising on your hip as he holds you in place for the painful snaps, hammering his way too big cock into your unprepared body until the pain bleeds into pleasure. His other hand holding you by your nape, his burning stare fixated on you, daring you to look away but soon enough your eyes become unseeing as your orgasm hits you.

The Darkling doesn’t stop at your weak whimpers or even after the next time you convulse around him. His unrelenting pace gets you to come three times after the first and most painful one. Every snap of his hips feels like a stab in your womb, your walls raw and your body plaint because of him but he doesn’t stop.

He drags out the last one, it feels like he’s been fucking you for hours, and maybe he has, although he doesn’t show any signs of tiredness. The water is cold around you and at least half of it landed on the floor by the way he moved your bodies as he kept using you.

He starts to quicken the pace and then lose the rhythm you know he’s close so you silently beg that this would sate him now as you are not sure you could take any more of this. When he began he was holding you to guide your movements, now he has to hold you up because you had no strenght left to do it yourself. Oddly, you still feel safe with him to let go like that.

You don’t have time to wonder over that because a few, precise, hard thrusts has him coming deep inside you, triggering your own high that makes your body tense and has your eyes rolling back while you helplessly take every drop of his cum that he not only pumps into you but pushes in with a few more punishing push of his still hard length. That triggers another, violent orgasm that leaves him impossibly more wet as your body rewards him for what was intended as punishment.

When you come down from your high, exhausted and hurting all over, he is still inside you and for a moment you tense, afraid he is not done but he holds you gently soothing you with gentle words that almost sound like an apology.

You sit there like that for a while, trying to get over what just happened when he speaks.

“I loved another, a long time ago. She was so much like you. I can't lose you too.” His words were meant to reassure you but they cause more pain than his earlier treatment ever could. He could tell though, the track of thoughts that led you to believe that you were only a replacement for him.

Aleksander guided your gaze to him by your chin, holding your face in his palms, caressing lightly as he let you see his darkest and most vulnerable state for the second time since you have known him.

It should have scared you, especially after what just happened but you loved your king too much to care about the dangers. It was rather silly, that the thought of his affection turning out to be insincere scares you more than anything this powerful, dark saint could inflict on you.

“You misunderstood me, milaya. You know I lived many lifetimes before I met you.” It wasn’t phrased as a question but he waited for your nod before continuing. “I loved very few before you,” he planted a light kiss on your lips with a sad smile that did not reflect any emotion in his eyes “a part of me died each time I lost one of them.”

Another long silence as his well-practised mask slips back into place for a moment, then a struggle to open up to you again. “I love you with all my heart, and that’s something you should fear rather than cherish but I’m too selfish to let you go…”

“I’m here.” You interrupt him with a strained voice. For the first time, you return his caress, more confident in your feelings than ever. “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.”

He gives you another sad smile, this time his dark eyes shine with love and grief for you.

Aleksander is attentive in the next few days, keeping you close through the day and even closer during the nights. This attention only gets more intense after he makes you his queen.

Some people still call your king a monster but you know the man beneath all that darkness and you accepted all of him, knowing your life will be difficult sometimes but trusting that that passionate and probably little twisted love of yours would be just as eternal as your Darkling.

***

Warnings: dubcon, um… well… not really healthy relationship, blood, injuries, rough sex, angry sex, unprotected PiV, self-doubt, unexpected dark fluff (that's a thing, I just made it so) and happy ending?

#kinktober #kinktober 2021 #the darkling #the darkling x reader #aleksander morozova #aleksander morozova x reader #general kirigan #general kirigan x reader #dark fic

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the-obnoxious-sibling · 5 months

Note

I don’t care about his haters I want to hear about buggy’s qualities 😭😭😭

i let this one sit in my inbox for a while because your phrasing kept making me laugh. i hope you don’t mind the delayed response.

buggy’s qualities! (note i did not specify good qualities or bad qualities.) let’s get into them.

already established in that post:

greedy (obviously)

selfish (obviously)

two-faced (very obviously)

loyal (limited applications)

self-preserving (a strong instinct)

untrustworthy (almost comically obviously so)

trusting (to the point of naïveté)

an interesting, contradictory lineup. what else is there to buggy?

he has very romantic notions of piracy.

despite saying the only thing that matters to him is treasure & the acquisition thereof, the way he acts says otherwise. he parties at the drop of a hat (improving crew morale). when his crew, thinking he’s dead, has moved on, even going so far as to adopt a new captain and flag (after… how long have they been apart, exactly? weeks? days?), he rescues them, no questions asked. he weeps to hear how badly he was missed after his arrest, how proud his crew was to hear of his involvement at the paramount war, and he returns both sentiments instantly. the captain-crew bond means something to him. (small wonder why.)

he turns up his nose at crocodile’s deeply unromantic “piracy is a business” mindset—buggy doesn’t care about building capital, he wants to find the one piece! who needs a five-year plan when you can just find the biggest, best treasure that ever existed right now?!

oh, hey, related to that:

he’s impulsive.

why make a plan when you can just do things?! who needs to learn anything from these soft-hearted pirates—buggy’s got a treasure map and a devil fruit worth more money than he’s ever seen in his life! he’s gonna head out on his own ASAP! that should be no problem at all… for this pre-teen… on the grand line. mm hm.

he wants to get back on the grand line and find the one piece—or captain john’s treasure—or any other treasure he finds a map for, really. how? well, he’ll follow the map, obviously! …and when that leads him into danger?

he can be inattentive.

more specifically, he gets fixated on his goal—treasure, killing luffy, silently panicking, yelling at shanks, whatever—to the point that he somehow misses everything else going on around him. does not notice shanks walking up behind him—twice. does not notice smoker or his officers surrounding his men until it’s too late. walks into a cave that’s actively being mined because he thinks treasure might be there. walks into a well-appointed navy garrison because he thinks treasure might be there!

he doesn’t notice he’s standing next to whitebeard—you know, the nearly twenty-two foot tall man—until he hears the guy call him by an insulting name.

buggy makes rash decisions and has a short temper—a dangerous combination.

he hears insults where none are intended, and lashes out violently—maybe lethally?—and sometimes when insults are intended, he doesn’t bother to wonder who’s offered the insult until after he’s fired one back. at which point he may wilt like a daisy, if the person he’s insulted turns out to be, say, whitebeard.

(why yes, i do think that moment is hysterical. not least because i suspect whitebeard cannot remember buggy’s name, and calls him red-nose because that’s all he does remember about him.)

but even at his most weak-kneed, fawn response, pathetic little guy, we have to keep in mind:

he’s charismatic and inspirational.

and i’m not just talking about the impel down guys! his original crew were just as impressed by him—though maybe impressed and terrified in equal measure?—at the start of the orange town arc. they were confident in his victory over these three weirdos to the point of cockiness, just laughing when zoro cut buggy down. they’re really shaken when luffy, after a few minutes of devil fruit v devil fruit combat, totally curb-stomps buggy. they prefer to believe he’s just not taking the fight seriously yet.

they’re fully convinced of his strength, cleverness, and power!

…now i’m not saying their impression of him is based in reality.

buggy’s an excellent bullshitter.

but it’s not enough to just tell a good lie, you also have to be convincing about it. (usopp, early on, is more entertaining than convincing—a good liar of a different flavor. storyteller, not self-promoter.) and while there are plenty of characters who can see through buggy’s act (to name a few: alvida, galdino, luffy (sometimes), most of luffy’s crew, most of the named characters who broke out of impel down…), there are plenty who can’t.

buggy’s “who am i?!”/“captain buggy!” chanting with his crew is not super original, maybe, but it sure gets his men pumped up. his “let’s go after the one piece!” rant in ch 1082 doesn’t impress crocodile or mihawk, but when he airs it to cross guild as a whole it sets things in motion such that the two of them can’t do shit to stop it.

…and that’s buggy as i see him, more or less! let me know if you think i’ve forgotten something! i certainly may have, or i may have lumped the trait you’re thinking of in under one of these other headings, but you won’t know unless you ask.

#asked and answered #one piece #buggy #*buggy’s insecurities

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tickled-2-death · 3 months

Note

I saw your post about tma tickle requests and I have literally never thought about lonelyeyes tickles, but now I need to see Elias brought down a peg or six by his ex-ex-ex husband(soon to add another ex) who's probably at least semi-transparent and covered in fog. Bonus points for all the sass!

Attitude Adjustment

Content warnings: unhealthy relationship, dubious consent(?), tickle torture, begging, feet content specifically, not necessarily sexual but sexual acts are mentioned.

This is a tickle fic.

“Peter, I have told you this several times before, and I will only repeat myself this once. I am not going anywhere near that pathetic boat.”

Elias just can’t seem to catch a fucking break today. First it was some shipment issue at the Archives, namely involving those two identical circus freaks with some mysterious box. Then, once they finally convinced him to sign off on it (he’ll just replace whoever dies in artifact storage, no big deal), there was some petty little catfight in the archives itself. One that he, despite all the paperwork that needed to be sorted, had to go downstairs and tell Jonathan off about. That’s not to mention that his coffee was cold by the time he got back, and-

“Darling, my love, my light. You’re thinking too hard.”

… and his husband, one Mr. Peter “just fuck off out to sea and forget it all” Lukas, simply will not shut up.

Elias pinches the bridge of his nose, propped up in their lavish bed in his silk pajamas, by all means in a position to relax that he intends not to spoil.

“I can’t stand the smell”, he begins to explain, “I cant stand the Lonely, and honestly the thought of being trapped on a giant metal hunk of rubbish with you for several months on end makes me want to disappear already.”

Peter, despite his patron and what you’d expect as a result of it, nearly never stops smiling. It’s a smug little shit sort of smile, mind you, but it hardly ever leaves his face. As of now, it droops into a frown.

“Elias, if we’re going to beat our record of staying married for four months-“

“Five months. Five months is the record.”

The captain sighs.

“If we’re going to make this work for more than five months, we’ve got to accept one another’s help! I’m just trying to think of a way to cheer you up, to get some of that tension out of you, in the only way I know how!”

Elias considers this, and ultimately decides that his husband is right. He’s a snarky bastard, even worse than Elias himself at times, but he’s trying to do the right thing. It’s the thought that counts? Right???

It doesn’t really matter. 200 years and counting, and he’s never been interested in admitting his own faults. Why start now? Especially for Peter goddamn Lukas.

So the shrewish little Beholder pulls out his bitchiest of bitch voices, and simply replies; “Well, you’d hardly like it if I recommended you to take someone’s statement, or delve into someone’s personal life for an ounce of fear, now would you?”, before rolling over and turning off his bedside lamp.

Something within Peter snaps just then. Not genuine anger, or at least not the violent sort. No, it’s simply the sudden and undeniable urge to teach someone a lesson. Elias’ eyes go wide, having Known what was about to happen, but it’s too late.

Peter roughly digs his fingers into his husband’s ribs, and vibrates them between the bones with all his might.

“OH FUCK-“ is all the poor, helpless man can manage before descending into mad cackles against his will. His dignity would never allow such a boisterous display of emotion, but there’s hardly a chance to suppress it in this position.

Instinctively, he rolls onto his stomach to escape the horrific sensation at his side. However, this proves to be the worst thing he could’ve possibly done, because Peter takes the opportunity to straddle his ass and get both sides at once.

“PEHEHETER! YOU- STOHAHAP THIS AT OHAHANCE! NOW!” Elias demands through several squeals, drumming his bare feet against the mattress behind them. Hands desperately grabbing for purchase or perhaps Peter’s dastardly wrists.

He doesn’t let up, of course, and that smile is back with a vengeance.

“Hmm- what was that kinky sex term you told me about? Where you punish someone for talking back?” Peter asks, tone jovial and unclear as to whether the question is genuine or rhetorical.

Elias, in turn, accidentally projects the answer into his mind. Mouth otherwise occupied with screams of ticklish agony.

“Brat taming, that’s right! Are you going to stop being a brat, Elias? Or is your significantly larger, stronger husband going to have to tickle you until you cry? We both know I’m well trained in regards to tying knots, so you’d better keep that in mind.”

Deciding to give the ribs a bit of a break, lest he accidentally bruise them, Peter jams his fingers into Elias’ sensitive underarms. It’s absolutely delightful, the way he screams even louder and clamps his arms to his sides. As if that will help, now that the offending digits are trapped exactly where they shouldn’t be.

“NOW! YOUHOHOHOL STOP RIHIGHT NOW! I DEHEHEE- DEMAHAHAND IT!!!” Elias tries to compel, but the concentration required to do so simply isn’t there.

Peter continues to burrow his fingertips into Elias’ armpits, wiggling and scritching across the ultra sensitive skin like worms trying to dig into the earth. He flails as much as humanly possible, twisting and snorting up a storm all the while, but Peter’s legs hold firm to his hips. He’s stuck, and completely at the other avatar’s mercy.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to keep on like this, love. That is, until you apologize, and whatever comes out of your mouth even now can and will be held against you. So let’s fix that attitude, yeah?”

Elias’ laugh goes silent, eyes screwed shut rendering his powers completely useless. Not that they weren’t already, but now he can’t even read Peter’s thoughts.

Mercifully, the tickling comes to a stop after about five straight minutes of torture. Elias takes the opportunity to breath, and to pout, while Peter continues to ramble on.

“Not going to say anything, then? That’s alright, I’ve got another place in mind. Remember that one time you asked for a foot massage, and every time I pressed too light you’d kick and tell me to do better? Well, if you can’t handle a massage I’d hate to see how you’ll handle ten fingers intentionally tickling you.”

Elias uses what little of his strength he’s got left to buck his hips. Nothing happens, so he begins to thrash any way he can, kicking and babbling out a mantra of “nononono”-

But Peter is quick, and built tough like the boat that stared this whole argument. It takes about two seconds for him to turn around, placing all his weight on the trapped ankles of his smart-mouthed partner. He cracks his knuckles, gives a quick wink in Elias’ direction, and scribbles his fingers up two shaking soles.

Elias cries out, pounding his fists against the mattress. “NNOOHOHO! PETERPETERPETER- GEHEET OOHOFF- I CAHANT!”

“Are you pleading with me?” He responds, otherwise uncaring and unwavering in his assault. He wiggles his nails against the soles of one foot, and digs in between the toes of the other.

Even now, there is the slightest hesitation. But when he adjusts his position so that he can rub his beard against Elias’ trapped feet, all remaining pride goes out the window and into the endless Vast.

“PLEHEHASEPLEASEPLEASE- SOHAHA- SORRY! DAHARLINGPLEASE-“

“Trying to appeal to my humanity, darling? I should be offended you’d use such language just to get away from me and my glorious facial hair”.

Tears stream down Elias’ face. The scruffy hairs rubbing against his soles is just too much to handle. So he does the unthinkable and gives up.

“PEHEHEETEERRRR-“ is all he can manage, all he can think in the midst of this hell, and somehow it’s enough for him to get the message.

“Alright, alright. Calm down, love, let me help.” Peter soothes, giggling at the little twitches he evokes by firmly rubbing Elias’ feet of residual tingles.

Elias, on the other hand, is utterly spent. He feels heavy as a sack of bricks, completely limp and hiccuping like a maniac. Once his awful, evil husband has decided that his feet can be left alone, he starts to rub his back.

“Poor, mean little thing you are. So sensitive for such a powerful man.” Peter coos, and despite himself Elias falls asleep to the sound of his voice and comforting feel of his hands.

#tma tickles #tma tickle fic #ticklish Elias bouchard #ler Peter lukas #lee Elias bouchard #Elias bouchard tickles #Peter lukas tickles

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frostiifae · 2 months

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So, I dunno, thoughts about Witch from Mercury (including spoilers under readmore, so, y'know), because it seems like it's a cool thing to do, i guess. Maybe made more or less interesting because this is the first Gundam series I've actually paid full attention to.

In short, it's good! It's very good. But, I dunno, can't give it top marks as an alltime favorite. There are lots of superficial problems that probably mattered much more to me than they would to the average viewer, and like, you could argue that they just aren't even problems, I guess.

The biggest thing I can criticize without spoiling much of anything is that it dangles a lot over your head and then waits a long time to resolve almost any of it. It's tough for people who get anxiety, like me : ). No, that's not why I'm writing this post. This isn't a coping mechanism. Fuck off.

To reiterate, though, on the whole: good. Good show. Good stuff. Don't click "keep reading" unless you want to read a fucking novel, OK?

I have to say I think the strongest character of the show bar none is Prospera, but at the same time, she showcases the recurring problems I have with the show: firstly, that they spend way too long making Prospera sound sinister without you understanding at all why, and secondly, that it's a real shame we didn't get to learn more about her feelings and why (and how?) she'd gone to all of this trouble. I understand her goal in the abstract is to "create a world where Eri can exist", but it's not clear how exactly she intends to do that, and maybe it's just me, but those practical details can be really important in selling me on an idea.

Even so, I adore her. I adore the way she possesses so much influence over the plot despite having very little economic or political power herself - she just understands people, she understands what's at stake, and she understands how to manipulate things to get what she wants. I was so delighted to learn about her true motivation, imagine a girl kicking her feet and squealing as Prospera taunts Miorine about hearing the voices of her past that are urging her to seek vengeance. I wish she could have done more. I also wish she looked better. That helmet fucking sucked, dudes. C'mon.

I really want to say kind things about Suletta and Miorine, too - they had lovely character arcs in both seasons, Miorine in particular was a joy to have on screen at all times - but, ultimately, I also found them both very frustrating. The most engaging members of the cast by and large were side characters, my personal favorites being Chuchu, Nika, and Norea. (I guess Guel turned out pretty okay too.) It was a joy watching Norea go off the fucking deep end, even if her portrayal was a little shallow until it was a smidge too late; her final fight was beautiful and touching, especially the part where she went on a massive rampage and killed a lot of innocent people. I love me a hot girl who's a violent mass murderer.

Jokes aside; I found both of the main characters frustrating, but for different reasons. Suletta was the less frustrating of the two. Throughout season 1 I kept cringing at her total powerlessness within the narrative, which I know is kind of the point, but that doesn't mean I have to like it; at least in season 2 she develops a thin veneer of agency, and more to the point, the writers demonstrate that her lack of actual agency is in fact horrifying and not some kind of endearing country-bumpkin quirk, but it feels like it takes a long time before she can finally actually engage in the world she lives in.

To be clear, I don't just mean "she can decide for herself what she wants to do", that's her final arc, I know, I get it; more what I mean is, it feels like Suletta exists in a totally different show, an entirely different setting, for 75% of the show's runtime. She's not just clueless about all of the business politics and Earth vs Space racism; she's immune to it, it simply doesn't affect her, even when it badly hurts people she cares about, because she's unable to comprehend it, and can abstract away any threat behind Aerial's cockpit and duel herself to safety without ever understanding what was even at stake.

It's like Ender's Game but Ender himself never actually participates in any of the school politics, he just kinda is a prodigy in his own corner while the real story happens around him. If you're going to create a character who is powerless in the narrative, don't then shield her in the cockpit of a Gundam for the entire show, you know? If you're going to threaten me with her inability to understand what is going on, make good on that threat!! It just felt wasteful. She spent 16 episodes being a joke that we keep hoping will make Miorine smile, 2 episodes being depressed, and then the last 6 episodes being an actual character, and the tragedy is that I really liked that character and wish she'd been around for longer.

Miorine was much more fun, but also, much more frustrating. I wasn't especially into her character early in season 1, but she was at least a bitch in a fun (and highly sympathetic) way, and unlike Suletta she grew into a real character very fast, and got to spend the whole show actually having a meaningful impact on events around her. It was great! I have a few very small gripes about things she does - like the way she chooses to cut Suletta loose. I understand she's doing it for Suletta's safety, and I understand she's doing it because she believes Suletta won't be able to comprehend that reasoning - after all, their whole arc in season 1 was about depending on each other, and Miorine is being pressured into going back on her promise.

On the one hand, though, I feel like it was weird of her not even to try. At least try to explain to Suletta, listen, things are getting worse, you are going to get hurt, I don't want that, I need you to stop being Holder for your sake. You could even twist the knife further by having Suletta react with heartbreak but willingly agree when Prospera doubles down and tells her to do as Miorine says - imagine how betrayed and disgusted with herself Miorine would feel! For them to leave her completely in the dark, for her to fully betray Suletta with no warning and no attempted justification at all - and especially for Suletta to not question that - it just felt weird.

On the other hand, though, I'm really shocked and disappointed that Miorine didn't express more guilt over that decision. Given that her arc in season 1 revolves around recognizing that relying on Suletta is what makes Suletta happy, and she cares enough about Suletta to give her that kind of trust, you can't tell me that - even if she really believes it's necessary - she can just turn around and betray Suletta like she does and feel no remorse over it.

Overall this is a larger problem I have with Miorine; we don't get enough time with her feelings, so when everything finally collapses and she has a meltdown, it doesn't sell very well. I wanna be clear: I'll open the door myself is one of my favorite moments in the whole show, and that's why I'm sad. It could have been so much more, if we had had more time to see Miorine's heartache over what she did to her best friend, not to mention how tense and uncertain she must have been handing her full trust to Prospera, or leading a negotiation to Earth with the weight of Gundam's history resting squarely on her shoulders. I love cool, calm, reserved characters who can handle tense interpersonal conflict with a stern decisiveness. Miorine should be a slam dunk for me. But the best part about those characters is seeing behind the mask, even if only for little bits at a time, and there's just not enough.

Honestly, though, it's hard for me to hold anything against season 2 especially, because I think most of what frustrates me comes down to there not being enough time, and holy fuck, does that season go hard. I'm very ready to believe that there was all kinds of stuff cut from S2 because the sheer volume of things happening was so much. It's a shame to think that it's let down by its own density, that there was just too much happening to fit all of it into 12 episodes without a few things being left behind. There wasn't time for Miorine to introspect, there wasn't time for Miorine and Suletta to develop their relationship, there wasn't time for Prospera to get even more unhinged and weird, there wasn't time to examine how we could actually improve the world and its troubles, we just had too much to do. It's an unenviable position to be in, and I think it's fair to say the show does a great job with what it has.

Umm. Is there anything else? I could talk about the dudes. I could gush about Norea and Sophie, I guess, but I doubt I have anything particularly interesting to add there, I'm sure the takes "Norea is hot" and "I wish they could have been more toxic yuri on screen" are lukewarm at best. I could talk about Eri, I suppose, but I don't feel really strongly about her - I think she's weird, her presence as a character is very strange, the fact that she was a protagonist is weird, and just like with everything else, I think it comes down to a lack of time to be able to really get into understanding her. I can't say it's a mistake, really, so that'll just stay a mystery, and it's one I don't especially care to solve anyway. She can stay a weirdo for all I care.

Uh, I think that's kinda all? Oh, what, robot designs? Uh, Aerial over Calibarn, don't @ me. They're both sick tho.

#gundam #mobile suit gundam #witch from mercury #it's really funny how ellie couldn't wait like ONE day to reblog that srw wfm theories post. like really honey #it's okay though with full context yeah that's all pretty accurate #and like. realistically. what was spoiled even. like she said; the big space laser had to show up eventually #OH shit there was one other thing! Uhh I think it's a fucking crime everyone wants to make Suletta kinda masc coded.#Hyperfemme Suletta from the ED animation was a fucking goddess. I love her #Suletta and Miorine should both wear dresses to prom. Mio wears enough suits for work

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crimeronan · 7 months

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I’m new here and seeing a lot of your princess Luz AU, but idk what it’s about really or what’s going on. Is there a master post somewhere?

oh hi!!

i don't have a tumblr master post but i do have an ao3 series, four complete fics so far (56k words total). i'm talking about that universe. keep in mind that the fics are horror-based and much more serious than a lot of the shitposts here.

but this is a good time to put all the important bits of AU canon in one place! so consider this a quick exposition masterpost.

the premise:

luz wandered into the isles when she was four or five years old. she was subsequently caught and taken to belos, who decided to raise her as his heir bc, yknow. god must have brought this human to him. eyeroll emoji

a variety of horrific events unfold, which eventually lead to luz killing belos & taking the throne herself when she's nearly 17. with the intention of eventually dismantling the empire. all of this is pretty awful and traumatic for her, it's.... not a fun time. i CAN write a summary of the horrors if you want but it would have to be a whole separate post

other characters' roles:

hunter - hunter has the biggest role storywise besides luz and belos themselves. he's the captain of luz's guard and has been tasked with protecting her by belos. his relationship with belos is dark in ways that luz does not know about for a long time; he's intensely neurotic about keeping her from knowing anything. also he and luz are like Holy Shit codependent and it is Messyyy.

amity - amity is the youngest member of the emperor's coven and being mentored by lilith with the expectation that eventually she'll lead the coven herself. she and hunter have an intense, vicious, and occasionally violent rivalry (based in various jealousy issues & them both being neurotic). amity is very afraid of catching luz's attention bc of the power imbalance between them. but she also knows that luz killed belos.

lilith - largely unchanged from early canon lilith. she's the head of the emperor's -- now empress's -- coven, and intends to ask luz for help with healing eda's curse.

raine - raine is luz's music teacher, the head of the bard coven, and a secret rebel. they care Very Very Very Much about luz. after trespassing in her mind (fic #4 on ao3), they have a much better understanding of why luz has become so much more closed-off and cold and anxious. they've taken on a kind of protective parental role for luz that parallels eda's in canon.

darius - darius is also his secret rebel self, canon backstory intact. he has however gotten along with hunter for much longer in this AU than in the canon, for reasons such as: hunter is less focused on being a cop, hunter so transparently cares about luz that it's hard Not to care about him, n hunter is A Mess. so darius is constantly worried for hunter's wellbeing. similarly he's mentoring amity as a fuck-you to alador, he's pretty much the only adult she trusts besides lilith.

other characters - there are other characters that have yet to show up in any of the ao3 fics. willow as terra snapdragon's apprentice; gus as a wild witch who's still managed to make adrian hate him; vee having escaped to the human world and quickly blown her cover by turning into a toddler-aged luz; camila, after meeting vee and finding out the truth, trying to get to the isles to find the daughter who vanished well over a decade ago. these are all concepts that deserve their own stories, i just haven't written 'em yet.

#replies #princess luz au #princess luz au masterpost #<-so it's searchable. yay #toh #feel free to reblog if u guys want. this is hopefully a decent reference. if im contradicting or forgetting anything then sorry #long post

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generic-whumperz · 2 months

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The Aid: Chapter 7- Sicko Fantasies and Haunting Memories (NSFW)

(Buckle the fuck up, you are now aboard the Hot Mess Express🚂)

CWs & TWs (not in order): graphic & violent non-con flashback (end of chapter and between the red *****—not to be confused with the black *****—you can read around it without missing any vital details!) including use of a knife and gun and gross details of bodily fluids (it’s a bad time, skip over it if your sensitive to nastiness, don’t say I didn’t warn you—like for real it’s gross), explicit language, insults & name calling*, Whumpee called “boy” even though he’s 24, talk of bodily functions (pee habits and general grooming after months of being deprived of toiletries and self care), suicidal ideation and past suicide attempts/details of past self harm practices (asphyxiation), recollection of being forcibly restrained to bed to prevent further self harm, illicit drug use (❄️&🧊) mixed with alcohol (Whumper), Whumpee wishing gruesome death upon Whumper (but like, good for him, Whumper deserves it), aftermath of starvation and prolonged isolation, undressing and inspecting wounds, prescription drug dependency (Whumpee), depressing self reflections, literal Caretaker turned Whumpee, asshole/bully/sadistic/taunting/creepy/intimate/alcoholic/mentally and physically abusive Whumper (Wyatt Sullivan is his own TW, he’s literally the worst), long-term captivity, slavefic/ institutionalized slavery AU, within the post-apocalyptic(ish) setting AU—mentions of: ongoing war & mass death, evacuations, terrorism and treason, cannibalism, infectious diseases (specifically cannibals with infectious diseases), war factions, extremist Regime, forced labor camps, food scarcity, class division, looting, and hostile takeovers

*We are starting strong with insults here, if this is a sensitive topic or squick for you, you’ll have a horrible time & this ain’t for you dawg, respectfully.

You’ve been adequately warned, proceed with caution :)

Word count: 5,669

<-Previous | Masterlist | Next->

Hey you, yeah YOU!

If you’re still here after that novel of CWs, hi hello :) Holy shit this chapter took on a mind of its own and is a little all over the place! Besides the lengthy list of warnings, there’s also some more world building in here—like a lot more. You probably didn’t have questions, but don’t worry, I gave you the answers you didn’t know you needed anyway! I hope it fits and makes sense, idk what I’m doing, I think my brain is actively rotting out of my skull at this point. If you like insane bullshit, this is for you, and if you don’t, sorry buddy! I'm still sitting on a fatass chapter that comes after this one, but I need to give myself a break after this steamy mess right here. Expect the usual processing time of a month and a half.

Xoxo, Gen

Fuck ass. Shithead. Cock warmer—of all the overused insults his Master chucked at him, The Aid kept a particular fondness for pampered pet.

An offense it was intended to be, yes, but instead of bitter resentment, the gibe strangely restored a sense of lost dignity and sounded comparatively childish against the others. Although, truth be told, most of the snarky nicknames fell flat and lost their zest at this point, and he would’ve appreciated some effort from Sullivan to come up with more creative insults to hurl at him.

His Master made a special sport of provoking him; ergo, he figured the man would at least flaunt some star players now and again.

Nothing got older quicker than a joke worn thin.

But wait, what did the brute call him earlier—lopsie lip? He usually threw up his mental defenses and rolled his eyes when someone made cheap one-liners about his mouth (what could be said that he hadn’t heard a hundred times over?) Still, somehow, Wyatt Sullivan had a real knack for mocking his appearances (his height was another frequently abused topic) and a crafty way of singling out his assumed insecurity. The mockeries weren’t knee-slappers by any stretch of the imagination and came across as equally lame and insensitive Boomer jokes; even so, he’d gladly take these low-hanging digs with open arms over the other vile, squirm-worthy remarks Sullivan berated him with any day—or worse.

Better a poor shit taking the brunt of crude taunts than a poor shit taking the brunt of a boot to the ribs.

Pampered pet—it’s fitting, goes well with his staple stand-in name, Mutt, and even has a certain ring to it, and certainly nicer than cum bucket —yuck (he hated that one).

Pampered was right; he couldn’t stand being dirty and unkempt; indeed, his Madame never condoned sloppy looks and anything less than perfect. She’d be rolling in her grave right now if she saw the sunken state of affairs and how piss poor of a job her son was doing as appointed keeper of her precious house boy.

But oh, how far the mighty have fallen.

Long were the days of his dedication to hours a week of meticulous primping and preening and how he missed those sacred moments.

Since he awoke above ground, he didn’t have the energy or sheer willpower to accomplish anything more than a couple of weak passes with a toothbrush and a few splashes of lukewarm water on his face and called it a day. But now—poor hygiene be damned—a garden of Earthly man-made delights beckoned him.

He studied his previously revoked collection of personal care products next to the first aid caddy on the bathroom counter before him. Here sat everything his Master denied him for months; he bereaved their absences like a lost loved one—no, scratch that, he never missed a person more than a good hand cream and microdermabrasion exfoliant.

In another life, he was always a star patient when it came to oral hygiene—he sported the Colgate smile—so being deprived of his one true love, his toothbrush, during his solitary confinement was arguably worse than having to shit in a litter box next to his bed.

He didn’t know what disturbed him more, the fact that he looked like a freshly dead Jack Skellington or that he now had plaque buildup, a few missing teeth (curtsey of Sullivan’s fists), and probably a couple of cavities.

A new toothbrush, tube of toothpaste, and floss picks were no dentist or oral surgeon, but they were a good start toward redemption.

This is as good as he’d get; best make do with what he got and ignore the rest. Maybe he can’t fill a cavity but can scrub off filth. He commonly recited, ‘It’s better to focus on easily fixable things. There’s an irreplaceable level of satisfaction in having attainable goals.’

He scanned the other objects in front of him, taking special note of the lip scrub and lip balm he hoped would mend his cracked and chapped lips, the tub of extra-extra hydrating hyaluronic acid body lotion tasked with soothing his bone-dry, itchy skin, comb and tweezers to tame invasive hairs, cotton swabs to clean out all the gunk in his ears (he was sure he had more than enough ear wax to fill a tea light candle); blemish control face wash, acne cream, toner, and light-weight moisturizer to get his breakout under control; and nail clippers and file to declaw himself.

He glanced at his fingers and toes.

They weren’t as bad as expected—well, despite his calluses, hang nails, and overgrown cuticles that is. At least he didn't have Althetes' foot or start sprouting weird basement mold between the toes.

Sweet Christ Almighty, the filthy and ungodly things he’d do for a good mani-pedi and facial right now.

If Sullivan weren’t such a fucking sadist with a raging hard-on for making him bleed and scream, he’d consider proposing an exchange of sex acts for a full-package spa day. The sex—he told himself—he could grit his teeth through and forcibly tolerate with minimal tears; it was the rest that canceled out any ounce of enjoyment or relaxation he’d potentially get.

No facial was that good.

His former (glorious) self was never a nail-biter or finger-picker, but his time in isolation lent a hand towards picking up some bad habits to occupy his mind in hopes of preventing him from going mad with boredom (spoiler: it didn’t work).

He picked and picked, and sometimes even nibbled, around his hang nails until he drew blood. He didn’t delight in chewing bits of dead skin peeled off in strings around his fingers, but the motion of eating something—even if deduced to bits of himself—helped drown out the hunger pains and sounds of his empty belly gurgling. He secretly wished Sullivan would catch him in the act of self-cannibalizing himself, realize just how far pushed to insanity he was, and take enough pity on him to release him of his sentence.

It was all nothing more than a stupid fool’s hope; the evil sonovabitch never even felt a glint of remorse.

His eyes scanned the razor and shaving cream, almost suspicious of their presence. Shaving himself was daunting and ostensibly impossible with one shaky hand.

But hey, at least Wyatt trusted with a sharp object; this was a step up.

How long had it been since he properly cleaned himself up and given himself a good shave? Months?

The razor looked new. Sullivan must have given him a fresh one. And if his Master went through the backbreaking effort of changing a razor head, that meant he wanted—no, was practically ordering—him to revive what parts he could that resembled his ci-devant good looks…good looks—was he ever even good looking before all this? He couldn’t tell; he was horrible with those types of things. He knew he wasn’t ugly but also wasn’t a looker, probably landed smack-dab in the middle. Perhaps his attraction level wasn’t for him to decide. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder or some shit. Or was that just some junk passed around by those unfortunate souls not blessed with Holly Wood looks?

But now he knew he looked like hell, and the amount of work he needed to do on himself was overwhelming.

It was too much.

How well he’d be able to groom himself with one hand would no doubt leave much to be desired and undoubtedly felt like a set-up for sure failure, but the thought of Sullivan having to pick up where he left off and lather him up in lotion and clip his toenails made his blood run cold and more nervous than a puffer fish in a room full of balloons.

He couldn’t let those big, rough, creepy-ass hands that caused nothing but pain touch him any more than they already had. It felt like he and Sullivan would be breaking an unspoken rule if they made any skin-to-skin contact outside of anything besides the ogre inflicting harm on him. His Master’s hands were torture devices of their own; feeling them on him in any other capacity felt wrong, like a breach of contract.

As much as he refused to believe it, he knew deep down he was touch-starved, and part of him was screaming for any ounce of physical affection. He already leaned a little too far into Dr. Paul’s touch and was damn near smitten from the warm spark of soothing comfort that came from a gentle cup of his cheek; if he did the same with Sullivan, he’d never forgive himself, and his Master definitely wouldn’t let it happen without comment.

He already heard him now—“Yeah, ya like that, don’t ya, boy? Look at ya melting into me like the little needy slut ya are. I got somethin’ else real special for ya that’ll get ya howlin’ an’ really tickle up ya’r insides.”

Even an innocent touch would lead to something more; of course, it would; this was Wyatt fucking Sullivan he was thinking about.

He shivered.

Suddenly, he was all too aware of his very full bladder.

He sighed, then hobbled over to the toilet.

These days he had to piss sitting down; circumstance didn’t grant much flexibility there. The stand-up method was unsuitable for those with one functioning leg and one usable arm; if he dared test his limits, it would likely result in him missing the bowl entirely or ungracefully falling over midstream. He told himself that he didn’t mind popping a squat; it erased the worry of not shaking his pee-pole enough and leaking drops on the rim, or worse—in his underwear. (‘Pay no mind to the very real fear of your peen accidentally sliding against the cold inside of the toilet bowl; no, we don’t have room for such worries.’) Wringing his dick out like a washcloth was far more undignifying than just shoving it between his legs and taking his time anyway—that’s what he told himself, what he made himself believe.

But he deserved that, didn’t he—small comforting lies in whatever form he found them?

Thankfully, the post-catheter sting Dr. Paul warned him of went away after the first day, but his urine persisted in being a dark brownish orange (‘light umber, I think that’s called’) that reeked a pungent odor, evoking him to scrunch his nose in sour disgust every time. He drank more than enough liquids now, so it couldn’t be from dehydration—could it? That left him to conclude it must be yet another unpleasant side-effect from his cocktail of pharmaceuticals.

Pharmaceuticals—thank the marvels of modern science for those. However, what he really craved was a fat joint of Blueberry Kush.

How long ago did he pop that palmful of pills? He contemplated with a sense of impatience, ‘couldn’t be more than 30 minutes ago…’

The Klonopin typically took about an hour and a half to two to kick in. And once it did, he was down for the count, blissfully obliterated until evening, when he would pop an Ambien to sail him through the night.

Rinse and repeat day after day, after day until—well, he didn’t know yet.

And he preferred to remain deliriously unaware.

It was better this way.

Hell, it was the only thing that made his life at all bearable—to be drugged out of his mind, not to be awake, not to think, not to feel his body, to play dead until one fateful day, his Master would finally strike a killing blow.

The matter of if Sullivan could wasn’t in question—they both knew the older man could kill him as effortlessly as a house fly stuck buzzing against a windowsill—it was more of a matter of when.

The Aid tried to carry out the deed of snuffing himself out a few times—okay, more than a few times. He lost count of his botched suicide attempts, but that’s all they were, half-assed “attempts”—a courteous word his actions didn’t quite live up to. What he carried out fell more in line with ideation.

In the basement torture den, he’d wrap the chain around his neck with minimal pressure, just enough to feel a light constriction—nothing more, nothing less—and let the fantasy of floating away into nihility mollify him as he mewled and cried himself to sleep like a squalling infant. Sullivan caught him in this self-soothing ritualistic act once before and had the audacity to act scandalized by what he witnessed as if he didn’t knowingly single-handedly push The Aid to the brink of suicide. After the initial surprise of what he walked in on wore off, Sullivan proceeded to laugh at the miserable little thing at his feet and hurl some colorful beratement at him (finally a personalized insult with a bit more spice, although the timing couldn’t be worse) as the boy bawled his eyes out and crumpled into a shaky ball.

The Aid received an extra beating for his lack of self-respect and composure; Sullivan took offense to The Aid’s actions and informed him that he wasn’t allowed to off himself.

After his Master scolded him, he made him swear he wouldn’t “pull any more weakling shit ever again” and ordered him to abstain from any method of self-harm—Wyatt liked being the only one permitted to hurt him.

The ogre’s cruelties were boundless, but at least the monster finally pitied him enough to find it in his cold, dead heart to allow him the privilege of washing himself up and gave him a change of clothes and a hot meal afterward—sometimes being a mess and pushed to your edge bought rewards.

After all was said and done, he was restrained, his limbs tied to the four corners of the blood-stained mattress so he couldn’t move—for a week—until Sullivan deemed him no longer a threat to himself (the irony of it all did not escape him).

That was the last time he meddled with ending it all. He couldn’t do it, not really—not entirely, no matter how much he wished he could. The only thing that scared him more than Wyatt Sullivan was the great unknown of the other side and being devoured by eternal darkness.

A healthy fear of death was the only thing keeping him alive at this point.

*****

He absently gazed out the window, taking in his perfect view from the side of the house that butted against rolling tan desert foothills.

They were the last house down a long winding street lined with multi-million dollar estate homes, each with a moneyshot view overlooking the Palm Springs valley. He knew better than to indulge in the crackpot fantasy of climbing over that brick retaining wall separating him and the rest of the world to scamper his way through the open desert that went on and on for miles.

He already tried that once.

He didn’t get far—‘Stupid stunt to pull when you have trackers embedded in your neck and spinal column.’

But what was out there?

His mind went wild.

Were there clans of Renegados, the lost people, those who didn’t belong to either cause or fell under contested jurisdictions, hiding deep in the rocky valleys or camping in the Little San Bernardino Mountains? There couldn’t be much of a food source besides snakes and scorpions with the occasional desert hare—not to mention the scarcity of a water source. He surmised Renegados were unlikely in this geography, but what about gangs of marauders? No, that was equally unlikely, as scavenger types preferred abandoned dense urban areas or heavily traveled routes, and they wouldn’t pay much mind to small desert towns or off-grid compounds. There wasn’t much left to plunder in visible sight, especially after the first couple of waves of looting from the mass exodus of some odd four million Los Angelenos alone fleeing the initial outbreaks.

The only people batshit crazy enough to tough it out in such a ragged landscape and unforgiving climate were bands of rebel freedom fighters, the Frondeurs, who opposed what was left of the U.S. Government and fought the rivaling extremist Regime which now controlled nearly half of the 50 states, all the meanwhile also culling the growing numbers of afflicted. It would either be the Frondeurs themselves or hordes of aforementioned afflicted—ravenous cannibals, anthrophages*, devouring their way through the rural areas in search of larger populations to gorge on. “People-eater Pox,” or PEP, was the name quickly given to the incurable disease because “idiopathic anthropophagite contagion” was too clinical and hard to pronounce.

Of course, edge lord teens, horror fanatics, and the everyday 4chan user clung to the pipe dream of a zombie invasion, but these fuckers were far from dead, which somehow made it all that much worse. Sure, they looked dead, but that’s where the physical similarities started and ended.

The afflicted broke out in rotten-smelling, oozing open sore rashes that turned into hardened tree bark-like patches, their skin dulled to a cadaverous blue-gray while the whites of their eyes turned red, and many lost their hair. The cherry on top was their maddening appetite for human flesh and heightened sense of smell and hearing. They were fast, hard to kill, and more animal than human—so he heard.

The Aid never saw an afflicted, not in real life, and he hoped he never would. If you saw one up close, you were two steps closer to being eaten alive or, worse—turning into one of them.

Or maybe instead of bands of rebel forces or diseased cannibals hiding in the desert, there were platoons of those rumored so-called “Envoys” deployed by the Regime—the Republic of Arcadia—to hunt down runaways, defectors, and Frondeurs since they needed every last body they could get. Envoys—he didn’t even know if they were real; he’d never seen one of those either. They were about as real as Santa Claus to him, but luckily, these didn’t look like something out of a Rob Zombie movie and want to eat his face off.

Would Envoys even be out this far west?

Not likely, not unless they now joined the hordes of afflicted. The Republic of Arcadia wouldn’t—couldn’t—needlessly sacrifice any Envoys coming this deep into U.S. territory, not after 11 years in a now stalemated war, not unless they were planning a final invasion.

If that were the case, they were fucked.

If the Envoys were close, that likely indicated the remainder of the U.S. was losing even more territory. Or maybe the government agreed to give up a parcel of idyllic Southern California and a couple of Pacific coast port cities in exchange for a plot of fertile land, unsoiled crop seeds, and healthy bodies to work the fields in a pedantic trade agreement. Lord knows there wasn’t much opportunity for farmland out here in the desert, and good, fertile land these days was worth more than gold, especially after the blights wiped out most of the agriculture industry, which subsequently led to PEP. He didn’t know much about the state of things anymore, and he knew fuck all when it came to the intricacies of a diseased-ravaged and war-torn world hanging on by an unraveling thread. The tidings of war constantly changed, and how anyone could keep up with the insanity of it all was beyond him.

Were they still safe here?

If they had to relocate, what would his Master do with him?

What if they ran out of food?

Would Wyatt eat him if it came down to it?

There was no way he’d let that happen (as if he had a say or any control if it came down to it); not like there was much left of him to eat. You’d get better “meat” off a wild prickly pear cactus than his bony ass. Cannibalism wasn’t just for the afflicted anymore; it wasn’t as uncommon as it used to be. Hard times called for drastic measures in certain parts of the world; not everyone still had access to unsullied food.

But a Sullivan couldn’t stoop so low, not even the worst one out of the bunch, not when the Sullivans were one of the only families left who still owned healthy livestock farms on the West Coast and supplied most of the edible meat and quickly rose to prominence and fortune because of it. Still, being left with the tender mercies of Wyatt didn’t feel promising in any capacity.

He knew he was “lucky” to be owned by the Sullivans and he should be thankful to live in a pocket of the country that remained relatively untouched from the chaos, that he was tucked away from the “real harm” and lived amongst members of high society who remained undeterred by the current state of things. He was a victim of conformity, forcibly resigned to a life he couldn’t get free from. Yet it became increasingly difficult to pretend life was a-okay when the reality of everything sunk in. Eleanor Sullivan was dead. He had five wonderful years with her, but now he suffered under the brutal hand of Wyatt. His life would have been much different if he wasn’t born with abilities. Rather than blossoming into the resident house pet and making his debut by playing mind games with the family matriarch, he’d likely be a plebeian surviving off rations and forced to work in labor camps in a resource sector. He didn’t know which life was worse—people’s minds weren’t made to deal with problems and what-if scenarios this large.

All he could do was accept it and keep trudging along.

This was the world he lived in now—a fucked up, disease-ridden world with only one-third of the population left. A world with a falling, corrupt government that re-institutionalized slavery in an attempt to fill in the labor gaps and keep the corporate overlords happy while the afflicted, marauders, Renegados, Frondeurs, and Envoys wreaked havoc below.

Despite it all and how real and terrible it was, he could only bring himself to worry about the immediate danger in front of him—Wyatt Sullivan.

Out of all his imagined scenarios of who or what was lurking deep in the desert, he hoped Envoys were staking out in these hills and eagerly waiting for the green light to launch an attack. He hoped they would rain down hell and raze this fucking house—tanks, missiles, gunfire and all. He hoped the afflicted would hear the emergency evacuation sirens go off, and every goddamn one of them in a 20+ mile radius would come running like someone rang the dinner bell. He hoped he got to witness them taking one look at Wyatt Sullivan, see the towering beast of a man he was, and look at him like an all-you-can-eat buffet and devour every last bloody fucking inch of him.

Escape.

He could do it then.

For real this time.

That would be the perfect chance to do it, during an emergency evacuation, get lost in the frenzy of it all as his devil incarnate Master got ripped to shreds by anthrophages—

He was getting ahead of himself.

A pipe dream, that’s all it was—a sicko fantasy of diseased cannibals and those terrorist-soldier Envoys and escaping Wyatt Sullivan once and for all. Who knew if he would even be able to ride the tide of freedom instead of being pulled under and drowned by it?

He didn’t finish his breakfast; he blamed the runaway people-eating scenarios on that.

He blinked a few times to shake himself out of his trance, then turned his attention back to himself.

*****

He cautiously unwrapped his shoulder and inspected the stab wound for the first time—appropriately disposing of the soiled bandages in a waste bin, of course (he wasn’t a slob-kabob).

The wound looked better than he expected, not that he doubted Dr. Paul’s work; it’d just been so long since he saw a non-infected wound and received proper medical care.

Five stitches held his skin together. Upon closer inspection, he noticed the skin fusing with a nice crusty scab filled between the gaps of flesh. To his surprise, the swelling mostly subsided and was hardly more than a bump.

He continued undressing his wounds, inspecting each one, surprised by the level of visible healing each time—he usually healed slowly and lacked the gift of quick recovery. Even his splinted wrist with screws tacking the bones together looked better than he imagined it would. The stitch line was smaller than expected, hardly longer than the one on his shoulder.

His eyes blurred over the revealed three-inch scar on his palm and the back of his right hand as he let his gaze maunder to the shower across from him. He couldn’t bring himself to look at this old scar. Unlike the other marks, the memory of this one haunted him with agonizing detail. He went to great lengths to conceal this one, mostly from himself, typically covering it up with a strip of old ace bandage to seal away the constant remainder of Wyatt Sullivan’s unending barbarity.

It was a strange and horrible memory, one he constantly pushed back into a lockbox buried deep in the recesses of his mind, a memory that came in heightened, broken fragments like cutout frames of sun burnt film. It didn't feel real; it seemed like a planted evocation from someone else, more similar to a blurb he would see in a premonition than an echo of his past. Instead of his mind, his body predominantly cataloged this event and all similar events thereafter; he disassociated through most of them in an act of atavistic self-preservation.

Most of his life became staticky blurs alongside indistinct garbles and muddied out-of-body experiences since.

*****

It was the first time.

The monster was hopped up on grade-A Bolivian coke cut with street crystal, riding extraordinarily high, and very drunk, on a weekend bender.

After chasing him around the property with a knife and gun in hand for what felt like hours, the monster cornered him in the home office located in the back of the house.

With that knife, the monster stabbed his hand into the wooden desk, pinning him bent over.

He scremed, hot tears flowed from his eyes, the pain shot through him like a lighting bolt.

The pain stunned him, he stood watching, unable to process what the monster did.

This couldn’t be happening, no, not to him.

Blood, so much of it.

It spurted out in matching pulses to his quickening heartbeat, the red liquid pooled on the desk and painted his arm in crimson.

The monster grabbed at his waist.

He yelled, thrashed, and fought with everything he had, buying as much time as possible and refusing the inevitable, but he didn’t have much steam after hours of running from and fighting off the lumbering beast.

The monster took his other hand and wrenched it behind his back so he couldn't move.

It felt like the monster was seconds away from snapping his arm. He shrieked.

The monster’s fingers hooked around his waistband and pulled down. Still, he fought—he threatened, he begged, he screamed—he screamed so fucking loud.

This couldn’t be happening, no, not to him.

The monster groped his bare ass, pinned his legs open, spread him apart, and forced something inside him.

He couldn't see, but by the feel, he knew it must be one of the monster’s fingers.

It didn’t hurt, but it felt wrong, out of place, intrusive.

He screamed more and pleaded for the beast to stop.

This couldn’t be happening, no, not to him. Not to him. Not to him.

The monster spoke, but he couldn’t hear the words.

The monster wasn't stopping.

The monster added another finger and wriggled it around, stretching him out.

He wailed and told the beast he’d do anything to make it stop.

This couldn’t be happening, no, not to him. Not to him. Not to him.

He pounded his head on the desk; that hurt, too, but he didn’t care.

He wanted it to stop; it had to stop.

He couldn’t take it.

He’d never done this before.

He never wanted to do this, not with the monster, not with anyone.

He kept headbutting the table until his vision was covered in red like his hand.

The monster grabbed his hair and pulled his head up, yelling more words he couldn’t hear.

The monster’s fingers crammed deeper inside him, his body froze.

He begged with everything he had for the beast to stop.

This couldn’t be happening, no, not to him. Not to him. Not to him.

Everything got fuzzy.

His mind went blank.

Something else was pushing inside him now.

Something bigger.

This wasn’t the monster’s fingers.

He wanted to scream, but his body seized, and he held his breath.

This time, it hurt; this time, it hurt really bad, more than any other kind of hurt he ever felt before.

This couldn’t be happening, no, not to him. Not to him. Not to him.

His mind went blank again.

He came back around.

The monster violently pushed into him, slamming his hips into the corner of the desk.

The monster sunk deep into him, deeper than he thought any monster part could possibly go.

He made noises he had never heard himself make before, noises he didn't recognize as his own.

The squealing and yawping coming from him sounded like a faraway dying animal.

He thought he knew what this was, but at the same time, he didn’t.

He couldn’t accept it.

This couldn’t be happening, no, not to him. Not to him. Not to him.

The monster moved around inside him, still pushing into him, still hurting him.

He weakly squirmed, still trying to plead with the monster.

The monster pushed down on his back to hold him still and plowed into him, making gross monster noises.

He knew what this was called.

But this wasn’t supposed to happen to him.

No, not him.

It couldn't be. But it was.

The beast liked hurting him, and the beast was good at it.

He screamed and cried, begging so loud his vocal cords gave out until his voice pruned to a dusty croak.

No. No. No. This wasn't supposed to happen to him.

Why was this happening to him?

What did he do to deserve this?

He breathed so fast, but it wasn't enough; he couldn't get enough air.

He thought he was dying.

Everything went dark.

He didn’t exist anymore, and the monster was gone.

But he came back.

He still felt the splitting intrusion inside him—the monster still jackhammering away without the faintest concern for the internal damage dealt.

He felt his insides ripping, it hurt so fucking bad, it felt like he was on fire.

He tried to scream, but his throat stung. So he wailed out broken sobs even though that still hurt, too.

The monster laughed, then spoke more words he couldn’t hear, and he knew it was good that he couldn’t make them out. He wasn’t a monster, so he didn’t speak monster. That made sense.

He wept.

The monster stuck something in his mouth. An object. The gun.

No. Please not him. Not him. Not him.

The beast spoke more monster words and sounded mad and happy at the same time. He couldn’t feel the monster's feelings because he turned off his monster-reading senses.

Why was the monster doing this to him?

He drooled around the gun and tried to bite down on it to quiet his screams, but it hurt his teeth.

He was terrified.

All he could hear was his heartbeat thudding in his ears.

He felt sick.

He thought he was going to die.

He felt wetness.

He realized he pissed himself.

The monster didn't notice.

The air smelt like a gross gas station bathroom mixed with copper.

He felt more wetness, a different wetness spilling from where the monster was.

Blood and monster cum leaked out of him.

He felt the mix of wetness slicking between his thighs and drip down his legs, only stopping when his socks soaked up all the fluids. After some unknown amount of time, it settled in his shoes. It felt like he had stepped in a puddle, a smelly, rotten puddle.

This couldn’t be happening, no, not to him. Not to him. Not to him.

He felt nauseous and dizzy.

The monster grunted and huffed on top of him; he could smell the alcohol, the beer, and chewing tobacco on the monster’s breath.

He smelt his blood and some other gut-churning smell he assumed was sweaty, unprepared, raw sex.

He hated sex. He never wanted to do it. But the monster didn't care what he wanted.

He cried until his eyes swelled, and he couldn’t see anymore.

His whole body ached.

He was tired, so tired. He wanted to go to sleep. He wanted this to be nothing but a bad dream.

This couldn’t be happening, no, not to him. Not to him. Not to him.

But it did happen. It happened. To him.

*****

He surmised whatever deal Sullivan made with the Doctor’s experimental drugs was paying off, at least for now.

As relieved as he was with the healing of his noticeable injuries, his main concern sided with the non-visible wounds, what lay beneath his skin—the injuries Sullivan deliberately exploited because he knew better than to dig his trigger-happy fingers into freshly fused flesh and meat and consequently be stuck with the Doctor’s wrathful hospital bill.

His sprained ankle and cracked rib still pulsed with a dull ache.

He hoped by the next check-up, whatever damage his Master dealt would remit, and the memory of this incident would evanesce like the rest of his forgotten scars.

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Footnotes:

*Anthrophage: a person with PEP (People-eater Pox), medical diagnosis “idiopathic anthropophagite contagion.” This is just a fancy name for a diseased cannibal who has PEP that exists within this AU. Anthrophage is not a “real word,” but it’s a play off of the word—anthropophagite.

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